ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue iv guest editor’s note: mythologies of migrants in the informal sector on a recent visit to washington dc, i had an animated discussion with a taxi driver who was an avid supporter of donald trump. the driver was not the stereotypical white, middle-aged, small-town, working-class, non-collegeeducated, angry voter who put trump in the white house. rather, he was a former television producer and poet from india who had immigrated to the us in the 1990s, and was adamant that trump would stop the “flood of illegal aliens” into the country. his vigorous defence of trump was a surprise, as was his buy-in to trump’s anti-immigrant discourse of threat. there are few issues in the contemporary world that generate so much uninformed debate and misinformation as immigration (blinder, 2015; de haas, 2008; hellwig and sinno, 2017; valentino et al., 2013). in a recent three-volume study on the mythologies of migration, arcarazo and wiesbrock (2015) argue that there are three foundational and intertwined myths structuring citizen reactions and government responses to established and new migration flows. the first myth is that sovereign territories and local labour markets are being “swamped” by migrants to the detriment of citizens. the second is that all migration is driven by poverty in countries of origin. and the third is that migration is economically negative for receiving countries. these myths, and variants thereof, are present in public and policy responses to migrants running informal-sector businesses in south africa (crush and ramachandran, 2015). the swamping myth is particularly evident in the numbers game popular with south african politicians, government officials and the media. in a briefing to an ad hoc parliamentary committee on the work of the inter-ministerial committee on migration (imc) in 2015, for example, minister jeff radebe observed that “a heavy influx of foreign nationals has led to migration laws not being adhered to due to border management laxity.” as a result, “it was very clear [to the minister at least] that in townships and in villages foreign nationals were dominating” (pmg, 2015). here, in just a few words, he performed the common linguistic trick of juxtaposing migration, unlawful entry, and the disadvantaging of south africans. as if to emphasise that there could be no other outcome from migration, he also asserted that there were 5-6 million migrants in the country, representing 10% of the population (na, 2015: 5.4). a local current affairs television programme, carte blanche, later claimed that there were as many as 6 million malawians in south africa, representing one-third of that country’s population (africa check, 2017). others have implausibly claimed that there are 800,000 nigerians in south ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue v africa. statistics south africa (ssa) is thus currently trying to work out why census 2011 recorded a total of 2,188,872 foreign-born people in the country while the 2016 community survey recorded only 1,578,541 (ssa, 2016:25). the implication that the foreign-born population might conceivably be declining does not, as the ssa admits, “conform to expected outcomes” (ssa, 2016). similar hyperbole has clouded the issue of the number of asylum-seekers in the country. the unhcr (2016: 44) controversially claimed in 2015 that the number of asylum-seekers in south africa at the end of 2014 was 1,057,600. south africa, according to the unhcr, therefore hosted more asylum-seekers than any other country in the world, and more than double the number in germany in second place (unhcr, 2016: 44). in its next annual report on forced displacement, however, the unhcr (2017: 45) noted that there had been a “sharp reduction” from 1.1 million to 218,300 asylum-seekers at the end of 2016. it would have much more helpful to admit that the 2015 figure was a mistake and that south africa was never, in fact, host to the largest number of asylum-seekers (stupart, 2016). regrettably, the claim and the numbers became part of government’s case for abandoning the rights-based post-apartheid model of refugee protection and its replacement with the draconian proposals of the recent refugees amendment act (cape times, 2016). the white paper on international migration admits that the number is actually less than 100,000 but still goes on to endorse and justify the new exclusionary approach. the damage has been done, with fake numbers and the authority of the unhcr used to support the myth of swamping with extremely detrimental implications for refugee protection. the second foundational myth is that poverty is the root cause of all migration. this is the myth that collapses the many complex and varied causes of migration into one and homogenises all migrants into a single impoverished category. this myth expresses itself in various ways in south african policy discourse. for example, politicians regularly claim that south africa is a destination for migrants from poverty-stricken africa, conveniently overlooking that many countries are growing much faster economically than south africa and that the south african economy and job creation in the country are major beneficiaries of investment in africa. the motives of migrants coming to south africa from the rest of africa are extremely diverse and, in general, it is not the poorest who migrate. even if we grant that poverty is a root cause of some migration from neighbouring countries like zimbabwe, mozambique and lesotho, it does not follow that migrants are desperate and ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue vi faceless victims. they are, in the main, highly motivated individuals with extraordinary degrees of ingenuity, tenacity and resilience. the homogenising and (mis)naming of migrants is a regular south african pastime. there are the derogatory epithets that are used on the streets and in communities to insult non-south africans to their faces. as one zimbabwean cited in a paper in this special issue commented: “the children learn it from their parents. they call us makwerekwere. do you know even small kids can call you makwerekwere? is that not xenophobic?” however, there are other, only slightly more sanitised, homogenising labels that erase diversity and emphasise exclusion in policy discussion. in the 1990s, the apartheid-era term “aliens” was used by politicians and the media to describe all migrants. this term was replaced in the 2002 immigration act, but by an equally alienating term: the “foreigner.” the terms “foreigner” and “illegal foreigner” are now common currency, courtesy of the act, and are used incessantly to draw a sharp distinction between those who belong in south africa and all those (non-south african-born) who supposedly do not. government also frequently divides migrants into just two categories: economic migrants (said to constitute 90% of the population) and refugees (the other 10%). an associated claim repeated in the white paper, for which there is also no proof, is that 90% of refugees are really economic migrants. the third foundational myth relates to the supposed negative economic impacts of migrants on receiving countries. this myth has consistently been undermined by research evidence that points to the positive impacts of migration and migrant entrepreneurship on host economies (kloosterman and rath, 2003; fairlie and lofstrom, 2015). in the south african case, this mythology takes on a particular inflection: that is, that migrants are “stealing our jobs”; a claim with superficial plausibility given the high rates of unemployment in the country. however, past surveys have shown that the proportion of south africans who have actually lost a job to a migrant is relatively low. and the calculus fails to take into account the economic advantages to south africans from hiring migrants and, by extension, the benefits to the state in increased tax revenues. the negative economic impacts argument has crystallised in recent years around opposition to the activities of asylum-seekers and refugees in the informal sector, whose right to establish and operate businesses in the informal economy has nevertheless been upheld by the courts (crush et al., 2015; rogerson, 2016). the imc, for example, maintains that migrants are “dominating trade in certain sectors such as consumable goods in informal settlements which has had a negative ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue vii impact on unemployed and low skilled south africans” (na, 2015). the imc ignores the positive economic impacts of refugee and migrant informal entrepreneurship including job creation for south africans, profits for local retailers and wholesalers, licensing fees paid to municipalities, cheaper goods for poor consumers, and rent paid to south african property owners (basardien et al., 2014; jinnah, 2010; peberdy, 2016, 2017; radipere, 2012; tawodzera et al., 2015). indeed, south africans have been publicly condemned by government ministers for renting their properties to refugee and migrant entrepreneurs (na, 2015: 7.17). the papers in this special issue on migrant entrepreneurship (and the projects on which they are based) test all three foundational migration myths. first, they examine claims that south africa and, by extension, the south african informal sector is being “swamped” by “foreigners.” gauteng is generally reckoned to be the province with the largest number of migrants. ssa (2016) calculates that the province had 801,308 non-south african-born residents in 2016 or 6% of the total population. in most other provinces, the proportion is 1-3%. a survey of the gauteng informal sector found that over 80% of small businesses in the informal sector were still owned by south africans (peberdy, 2015). certainly, there are more migrants in the informal sector in 2017 than there were in 2000 or 2010 and there are more migrant than south african entrepreneurs in parts of some cities (and vice-versa in other areas). because refugees, asylum-seekers and other migrants are shut out of sectors of the formal labour market (as they have been in the security industry, or because employers will not accept section 22 and 24 permits as bona fide legal entitlements to work), the numbers working informally have inevitably swelled. working in the tough and unrelenting environment of the informal sector is not necessarily the first choice of the many migrants and refugees who are more than qualified for formal employment. second, these papers provide a more nuanced and humanised picture of socalled foreigners and their activities in the informal sector than is suggested by the notion that they are all desperate survivalists fleeing poverty and strife in other african countries. while a significant number of refugees say that they work in the informal sector because they cannot get formal-sector jobs, many also exhibit strong entrepreneurial characteristics, orientation and ambition. this emerges both in their attitudinal profile of suitability for running their own businesses and in the innovative business strategies that they have developed. perhaps most surprisingly, given the blanketing clouds of myth, refugees are far more likely than their south african counterparts to want to ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue viii contribute to the development of south africa through running an informal business. as the two papers in this collection focused on informal crossborder traders clearly show, there is also significant entrepreneurial orientation amongst these primarily female informal sector participants. like their less mobile counterparts, cross-border traders working the transportation corridors between harare, maputo and johannesburg are dedicated and enterprising individuals with high levels of motivation. third, the papers in this collection take issue with the predominantly negative stereotyping of migrant entrepreneurs to justify and promote harsher sanctions against them. national, provincial and local level campaigns by the police and army – with telling names such as operation fiela (‘sweep’ in english), hardstick and clean sweep – aim to create city environments swept of informal entrepreneurship by migrants and refugees. however, in case such “operations” are viewed (as they were by the courts) as cynical and unconstitutional, it also seems necessary to target informal entrepreneurs with the most negative language possible. the imc, for example, asserts that the impact of foreign national domination “is compounded by business models used by migrants to discourage competition such as forming monopolies, evading taxes, avoiding customs and selling illegal and expired goods” (na, 2015). or again, the previous minister of home affairs pointed to the seriousness of “the dynamics of migration, crime, drugs, prostitution, fraud and unfair labour practices” (gigaba, 2017). the most efficient, and misleading, way to highlight the supposedly negative impact of migrant and refugee entrepreneurship is to directly associate it with criminality. the papers in this collection instead show that crime is a very real business challenge for refugee and migrant entrepreneurs. their many positive economic contributions are made despite, not because of, crime. in addition to replicating the foundational mythology of migration, south africa has several of its own homegrown myths about migrant entrepreneurs in the informal sector. first, there is the myth, articulated by the minister of small business development, that refugees enjoy a competitive advantage over south africans because trading and vending is ingrained and instinctual. she claimed in an interview that foreign spaza shop owners are “better at running shops than the local owners – they have a great network system. and also that’s how they live. from the moment they are born, they are introduced to trade. their mothers, uncles – everyone trades. they start at an early age…how are they able to make it when our people can’t? it is because they know business. it is in their blood” (zwane, 2014). only a small proportion of ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue ix the refugees and other migrant business owners interviewed for these studies had experience running an informal sector enterprise before they came to south africa, however. the success of refugees and migrants in the informal economy is not because entrepreneurship is innate, as the minister claimed, but rather a function of hard work, innovation and competitive business strategies. the tools of the trade were acquired on site. the second homegrown myth is that south africans are bad informal entrepreneurs unable to compete with the “foreigner.” many south africans have decided to opt out of the spaza business because it requires less work and is more remunerative to rent their property to refugees and other migrants. that said, there is still stiff competition in the informal economy between south africans and non-south africans, as there is between south africans and other south africans and between non-south africans of one nationality and another (piper and charman, 2016). there is also evidence that antagonism towards refugee business owners is stoked by south african trader associations who would rather not compete openly and fairly. however, as the papers in this collection demonstrate, south africans are certainly not incompetent or incapable of competing. they, too, have their own competitive strategies and carve out market niches, especially within the informal food economy, where they operate with success. third, there is the myth that the post-2008 upsurge in violent attacks against migrant-owned businesses in the informal sector is purely the work of fringe criminal elements. according to the imc, “the main causes of the violent attacks (are) criminal actions that started with stealing of goods from foreign owned spaza shops by south african criminals who are often drug addicts” (na, 2015). this is certainly called into question by the large crowds, including many parents and children, that surround refugee and migrantowned shops during episodes of collective looting. whenever there is a particularly vicious flare-up, or after a spate of looting and murder, government ministers and cabinet are quick to proclaim that crime, not xenophobia, is the driver (misago, 2016). indeed, there has been a persistent strain of xenophobia denialism ever since former president thabo mbeki proclaimed in 2008 that south africans were not xenophobic. most recently, the imc has vigorously denied the existence of xenophobia in the country: “south africans (are) not xenophobic; no evidence was found to indicate that south africans were xenophobic” (na, 2015). the imc has clearly not acquainted itself with the large body of attitudinal research that proves precisely the opposite (crush et al., 2013; gordon, 2016, 2017). as the paper ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue x in this collection on zimbabweans in the informal sector suggests, migrants themselves have no hesitation in naming xenophobia for what it is. they say south africans are the owners of xenophobia, refer to violence against their small businesses as “the xenophobia”, and recount numerous harrowing incidents that are either triggered by xenophobia or, as in the case of service delivery protests against government, quickly turn xenophobic. finally, there is the argument that xenophobia is not a factor because violence and vulnerability to crime comes equally to all who work in the informal sector. the suggestion here is that south africans and non-south africans are equally vulnerable and to single out violence against the latter is to ignore the identical plight faced by south africans. some statistical evidence on relative vulnerability has been advanced in support of this argument (piper and charman, 2016). the paper in this collection on business risk presents alternative evidence. while it is true that south africans in the informal sector are not immune from crimes such as robbery and looting, the prevalence is significantly higher amongst refugees and in different parts of the country. many refugees in towns in limpopo had started businesses in large cities but moved to what they assumed would be a safer operating environment after the levels of violence and xenophobia became overwhelming. it is safer, but it is certainly not safe. south africa is the process of a major overhaul of its migration and refugee protection systems. in the case of migration for work, there are some grounds for optimism in the recognition that south africa is integrated into, and benefits from, a regional sadc economy. the white paper on international migration contains proposals for a streamlined skills-based immigration policy and a system of work and trading permits for sadc citizens. in the case of cross-border traders, the proposed system seems unnecessarily bureaucratic unless the intention is to try to control numbers through quotas. this is unworkable and it would be far simpler to allow visitors to the country to both buy and sell goods. whether proposals to issue quota-based permits to migrants from other sadc countries will ever see the light of day is questionable given the current upsurge in public complaints, now supported by the unions, that migrants are taking jobs from south africans. however, it is the proposals for restructuring south africa’s post-apartheid refugee protection regime that are likely to have the most far-reaching impact on livelihoods in the informal economy. as the first paper in this special issue argues, the intention is to make south africa undesirable by moving from an urban integration towards a border encampment model, denying asylum ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue xi seekers their current right to pursue a livelihood while waiting for a hearing, and ensuring that no refugee ever qualifies for permanent residence, no matter how long they have been in the country. the proposed changes rest on the shaky foundation of myth. this issue is a contribution to the ongoing task of testing anti-migration mythologies with fact. it comprises a selection of papers from three projects implemented by the southern african migration programme (samp) (see also www.samponline.org): (a) the growing informal cities project, an idrcfunded partnership between the african centre for cities (acc), the gauteng city regional observatory (gcro), eduardo mondlane university and queen’s university; (b) the migrants in countries in crisis (micic) project between the university of the western cape, the university of limpopo, the balsillie school of international affairs, the international centre for migration policy development and the international migration institute at oxford university; and (c) the unhcr-funded refugee economic impacts project, a partnership between researchers at the universities of cape town, limpopo and western cape and the international migration research centre. prof jonathan crush* cigi chair in global migration and development, international migration research center balsillie school of international affairs waterloo, canada jcrush@balsillieschool.ca * a recipient of numerous academic awards and honours, professor crush founded the southern african migration programme (a consortium of canadian and african researchers) in 1997. in 2005, he co-founded the african food security urban network; a network of canadian and african universities, ngos and municipal governments. in 2014, he established the hungry cities partnership; a research, policy and capacity-building network with partners in canada, mexico, jamaica, south africa, mozambique, kenya, india and china. he also works with the african centre for cities at the university of cape town, where he holds an honorary professorship. he has authored or edited 14 books, over 150 journal articles and book chapters and numerous published reports for governments, international agencies, and civil society organizations. mailto:jcrush@balsillieschool.ca ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue xii acknowledgements the contributors to this special issue wish to thank the following for their support: the international migration research centre, the international development research centre, the european union and the unhcr geneva. references africa check (2017). “how many foreigners really live in south africa?” business tech, 14 january 2017. arcarazo, d. a., & wiesbrock, a. (eds.). (2015). global migration: old assumptions, new dynamics [3 volumes]. abc-clio. basardien, f., parker, h., bayat, m., friedrich, c. and sulaiman, a. (2014). entrepreneurial orientation of spaza shop entrepreneurs: evidence from a study of south african and somali-owned spaza shop entrepreneurs in khayelitsha. singaporean journal of business economics and management studies, 2: 45-61. blinder, s. 2015. imagined immigration: the impact of different meanings of ‘immigrants’ in public opinion and policy debates in britain. political studies, 63(1): 80–100. cape times (2016). gigaba looking to lighten asylum burden cape times 22 june 2016. crush, j. and ramachandran, s. (2015). “migration myths and extreme xenophobia in south africa” in d. acosta and a. wiesbrock (eds.), global migration: myths and realities vol. 3 (santa barbara: praeger, 2015), pp. 7196. crush, j., chikanda, a. and skinner, c. (eds.). 2015. mean streets: migration, xenophobia and informality in south africa. ottawa: idrc. crush, j., ramachandran, s. and pendleton, w. 2013. soft targets: xenophobia, public violence and changing attitudes to migrants in south africa after may 2008. samp migration policy series no. 64, cape town. de haas, h. 2008. the myth of invasion: the inconvenient realities of african migration to europe. third world quarterly, 29: 1305-1322. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue xiii fairlie, r. and lofstrom, m. 2015. immigration and entrepreneurship. cesifo working paper series no. 5298. available at http://bit.ly/2wx3y27. gigaba, m. 2017. media statement by minister gigaba on tensions between citizens and foreign nationals. from at: http://bit.ly/2v8rn4y. gordon, s. 2016. welcoming refugees in the rainbow nation: contemporary attitudes towards refugees in south africa, african geographical review, 35: 1-17. gordon, s. 2017. a desire for isolation? mass public attitudes in south africa toward immigration levels. journal of immigrant & refugee studies, 17: 1835. kloosterman, r. and rath, j. 2003. immigrant entrepreneurs: venturing abroad in the age of globalization. new york: university of new york press. hellwig, t. and sinno, a. 2017. different groups, different threats: public attitudes towards immigrants, journal of ethnic and migration studies, 43(3): 339-358. jinnah, z. 2010. making home in a hostile land: understanding somali identity, integration, livelihood and risks in johannesburg. journal of sociology and social anthropology, 1(1-2): 91-99. misago, j-p. 2016. responding to xenophobic violence in post-apartheid south africa: barking up the wrong tree? african human mobility review, 2(2): 443-467. national assembly (na). 2015. report of the ad hoc joint committee on probing violence against foreign nationals. dated 19 november 2015. cape town: national assembly and national council of provinces. peberdy, s. 2015. informal sector enterprise and employment in gauteng. gcro data brief no. 6, johannesburg. peberdy, s. 2016. international migrants in johannesburg’s informal economy, samp migration policy series no. 71, cape town. peberdy, s. 2017. competition or cooperation? south african and migrant entrepreneurs in johannesburg. samp migration policy series no. 75, cape town. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue xiv piper, l. and charman, a. 2016. xenophobia, price competition and violence in the spaza sector in south africa. african human mobility review, 2(1): 332361. parliamentary monitoring group (pmg). 2015. inter-ministerial committee briefing. at http://bit.ly/2v7mfmg. rogerson, c. 2016. south africa’s informal economy: reframing debates in national policy. local economy, 31: 172-86. radipere, n. 2012. an analysis of local and immigrant entrepreneurship in the south african small enterprise sector (gauteng province). phd thesis, pretoria: university of south africa. stupart, r. 2016. is south africa home to more than a million asylum seekers? the numbers don’t add up. africa check 15 august 2016. statistics south africa (ssa). 2016. community survey 2016. pretoria: statistics south africa. tawodzera, g., chikanda, a., crush, j. and tengeh, r. 2015. international migrants and refugees in cape town’s informal economy. samp migration policy series no. 70, cape town. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2016. unhcr global trends: forced displacement in 2015. geneva: unhcr. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2017. unhcr global trends: forced displacement in 2016. geneva: unhcr. valentino, n., brader, t. and jardina, a. 2013. “immigration opposition among u.s. whites: general ethnocentrism or media priming of attitudes about latinos? political psychology, 34 (2): 149–166. zwane, t. 2014. spazas: talking shop is good for business. mail & guardian, 6 november 2014. 78 the impact of remittance on poverty: evidence from the south african national income dynamics study (nids) seyfe wurku & joyce marangu  abstract the study uses two approaches to assess the impact of remittance on poverty in south africa. the first approach compares the level of poverty between remittance receiving households and non-receiving households using the fgt index. the second approach uses the logit regression model to estimate how remittance determines the probability of falling into a state of poverty. the findings show that remittance non-receiving households have a higher head count ratio compared to remittance receiving households. the probability of remittance non-receiving households being in a state of poverty is also higher than remittance receiving households. whereas the poverty gap is higher for remittance receiving households compared to remittance non-receiving households, both groups of households have the same poverty severity level. keywords: migration, foster-greer-thorbecke, logistic regression, upper bound poverty line. introduction remittances from migrants have grown into an important source of foreign currency for developing countries across the globe. official estimates place the remittances for developing countries at us$ 334 billion (world bank, 2010). unrecorded remittances are assumed to amount to more than 50 percent of the official records. overwhelming evidence indicates that remittances reduce poverty. this paper makes use of the south african national income dynamics study, 2012 to determine the impact of remittances on poverty in south africa. the next section reviews the  development studies researchers, institute for social development, faculty of economic & management science, university of the western cape (uwc), south africa. correspondence address: seyfud22@gmail.com  development studies researchers, institute for social development, faculty of economic & management science, university of the western cape (uwc), south africa. mailto:seyfud22@gmail.com 79 existing literature on remittances and poverty. this is followed by an explanation of the methodology and findings of the study. finally, the policy implications of the research are discussed. literature review poverty and migration patterns in south africa migration and poverty are two important development issues globally. to date not much literature has focused on the link between these two issues. the human development report 1990 (undp, 1990) estimated that 3.1 percent of the 7 billion world population was living and working away from their birth country in 2008 and that this number is rising. recent trends indicate that 41 percent of the migrants are based in developing countries and that from the total number of migrants, 47 percent were moving from one developing country to another developing country (united nations, 2011). this trend in global migration is attributed to regional income inequalities, and the rise in demand for both skilled and unskilled labour. the southern africa region has for a long time had steady cross-border migration patterns for labour purposes. in south africa, several factors are considered to be responsible for the changes in mobility patterns that are currently being experienced in the 21st century. one of the key reasons is the end of apartheid, a system which curtailed the mobility of people within the country and limited the migration of foreigners into south africa (crush et al. 2005). south africa is a major source of skilled labour in the southern african development community (sadc) region and a major labour exporter into countries such as botswana with estimates indicating that there are more south africans working in botswana than the reverse (crush et al., 2005). the most common form of human mobility in south africa as in the rest of the sadc region has been rural-urban migration (crush et al. 2005). this is thought to have a direct impact on rural livelihoods through remittances. rural or peri-urban households, particularly among the black african population, are highly likely to have one, and sometimes more, migrants who send money back from urban workplaces to the remaining household members (kok and collinson, 2006). the main reasons for migration within the country are education and employment. the poverty level in the sub-saharan region is one of the highest in the world. the world bank estimates that at least 314 million people in the 80 region live below the international poverty line of us$ 1.25 per day. this is a clear indication that far too many people lack access to adequate food, healthcare, education facilities, and other basic human necessities. although south africa has experienced a slight fall in poverty levels recently, poverty rates in the country are still very high with nearly half of the population (48 percent) living in poverty. the eastern cape and limpopo are two of the poorest provinces both having poverty rates of 64 percent, while the western cape and gauteng provinces have the lowest poverty rates at 23 percent and 30 percent, respectively. rural areas are the worst affected with poverty levels as high as 77 percent (leibbrandt et al., 2010). moreover, in racial terms, the black population is more poverty stricken than the other races with an estimated 56 percent living below the international poverty line. trends in remittances for developing countries the term “remittance” describes the flow of money or goods from a migrant to their place of origin, it is estimated that between 2004 and 2008 remittances grew by an of average 17.7 percent with the highest increase being in europe and central asia at 32.5 percent. in sub-saharan africa the increase in remittances has been estimated to be 29.3 percent (united nations, 2011). total remittance inflows in developing countries across the globe amounted to us$ 338 billion, with sub-saharan africa receiving the lowest percentage of this amount. an estimated half a billion people, or nearly 8 percent of the world’s population, were said to be the beneficiaries of remittances in the year 2005. between 2002 and 2007, a 107 percent increase in remittances was experienced in the developing countries, and mostly the low and middle income ones. in south africa, the remittance amounted to us $0.7 billion and was much lower compared to nigeria, the highest earner at us $3.3 billion (vargas-lundius et al., 2008). estimates on remittances are generally considered to be inaccurate, and under-reported, because they include only amounts sent through official channels such as banks and money transfer services; they fail to include remittances through unofficial channels, such as money sent home with returning migrants, which are estimated to constitute an additional 50 percent (gupta et al. 2007). the cost of sending remittances is very high, with the sub-saharan region having the highest rates. based on the world 81 bank’s 2011 estimates, the average cost of sending $200 in the region amounted to us$24. 8 which is double the cost in south asia where it costs only us$ 12.3 (ratha, 2012). currently there is no officially recognised framework for determining in kind remittances including goods. remittances, have become the second most important source of external funding after foreign direct investment (fdi) in developing countries (world bank, 2004). most of the remittances go to rural households and are mainly related to intra-regional migration, especially in western and southern africa (vargas-lundius et al., 2008). this indicates that migrant workers have a major impact on the economies of developing countries, particularly african countries where remittances as a proportion of the gdp were estimated to constitute a 0.9 percent gdp increase between 1995 and 2009. studies based on household data in various sub-saharan african countries have found that the majority of remittances go towards meeting basic consumption needs. a survey of migrants indicates that 69.7 percent of migrants send remittances to their home countries to meet essential household needs (united nations, 2011). remittances are mainly personal transactions to relatives and friends, and they make a significant contribution to the welfare and of the recipient households. it has also been found that remittances have a multiplier effect due to an increase in household expenditure and welfare (gupta et al., 2007). impact of remittances on poverty remittances play an important role in reducing poverty. they do not, however, appear to have a similar effect on inequality since it is argued that migrants, particularly international migrants, do not come from the poorest households (vargas-lundius et al., 2008). nevertheless, recent studies in the pacific region suggest that the negative impact of remittances on income inequality is only short term as the formation of networks helps reduce migration related costs making it affordable for poor people (brown, 2008). remittances are expected to lessen poverty since they can be received directly by the poor. evidence suggests that remittance-receiving households generally have higher incomes and greater expenditure, as well as a lower likelihood of suffering extreme poverty, compared to households that do not receive remittances (ratha, 2013). the impact of remittances 82 on the reduction of poverty can be understood from both the micro and macro perspectives (united nations, 2011). while poverty may be a motivating factor in migration and subsequent incoming remittances, the relationship between remittances and poverty does not appear to be unidirectional. in senegal, for instance, poor households pool resources to cover the migration costs for skilled members who in turn remit their income, creating a steady flow of income to supplement the poor household (gupta et al. 2007). other research on the dynamics of poverty and migration suggests that economic conditions such as the gnp per capita and the distribution of income play important roles in international migration. in an empirical analysis using 233 poverty surveys from 76 developing countries, 24 of which are in sub-saharan africa, it was found that a 10 percent increase in remittances as a percentage of gdp is related to slightly more than a 1 percent decline in the poverty headcount and poverty gap which measures how far below the poverty line one’s income lies (gupta et al. 2007). evidence from the philippines reveals that wealthier households derive a larger share of their income from international remittances. data from the family income and expenditure survey 2000 (fies) indicate that high income households have a higher amount of income from international remittances as a proportion of the total household income (bargess and haksar, 2005). however, the fies includes both remittances and income from investments and therefore may be an indication of the share of capital income from migrants. a study conducted on 1000 households in three villages in egypt found that the number of poor households in rural egypt was reduced by 9.8 percent where household incomes include remittances. in addition, it was found that 14.7 per cent of the total income of poor households came from remittances (adams, 1991:73-74). more recently, during the arab spring remittances in egypt grew exponentially from us $7.15 billion to us $14.32 billion between 2009 and 2011, giving a clear example of how remittances can act as a lifeline to poor households (ratha, 2013). in a study to determine whether international migration and remittances reduce poverty in developing countries, richard et al. (2005) constructed and analysed a set of data on international migration, remittances, poverty and inequality from 71 developing countries. the study looks at income levels, income inequality and the geographical setting. results indicate that migration and remittances lead to a significant decline in the level, depth 83 (amount by which the average expenditures (income) of the poor fall short of the poverty line) and severity of poverty in developing countries. “after instrumenting for the possible endogeneity of international remittances, a 10% increase in per capita official international remittances will lead to a 3.5% decline in the share of people living in poverty.” another study uses survey data from 7680 households between 1986 and 1987 to determine the impact that remittances have on poverty and welfare in lesotho’s rural and urban population (gustaffson and makonnen 1993). results show that 35 percent of the total household income is from remittances. the study further shows that if the households received no remittance at all, there would be a 32 percent fall in consumption levels as well as a 26 percent rise in poverty head count. there would also be a 52 percent rise in the poverty gap index (measure in percentage terms of how far the average expenditures/income of the poor falls below the poverty line). similarly, taylor et al. (2005) using data from 1782 households from a 2003 survey of a rural population in mexico show that both the poverty headcount and poverty gap reduced by 77 and 53 percent, respectively with a 10 percent increase in remittances. household surveys carried out in burkina faso in the period 1994-5 were used to determine the impact of remittances on income inequality and poverty. the study, which considered remittance income as a potential substitute for household earnings, showed that in rural households the percentage of people living below the poverty line declined by 7.2 percent owing to international remittances (lachaud, 1999). in another study, chukwuone et al. (2012) use data from the nigerian national living standard survey, 2004 to analyse the impact of remittances on poverty in nigeria. nigeria is an important remittance-receiving country, having the highest remittance in the sub-saharan region. using a logit model and introducing instrumental variables and the propensity score matching method they estimate that internal remittances reduce the number of people living below the poverty line by 11.14 percent. they also lead to a 9.7 percent drop in the country’s poverty gap. in south africa, previous research has found remittances to be particularly important in poverty alleviation especially in rural areas. woolard and klasen (2004) for instance, found that from 1993 through 1998, the change in income from remittance was responsible for 10 percent of the household 84 poverty transitions in kwazulu-natal. a few studies have concluded that remittances have no significant impact on poverty. for instance, knowles and anker (1981) showed that urban-to-rural remittances in kenya do not have a significant effect on the overall income distribution. internal remittances might even have a negative impact on income inequality, widening the gap between the rich and the poor, as has been found in some studies. for instance, comparing the gini coefficients of households with and without remittance income in the punjab in india, oberai and singh (1980) found that urban-to-rural remittances deepen the inequality gap in rural areas. however, the overwhelming empirical evidence indicates that remittances from migrants do alleviate poverty. data this study used the third round of the south africa national income dynamics study (nids) (wave iii). nids is a national panel dataset covering all of south africa. the first wave (wave i) was conducted in 2008, while the second round (wave ii) was carried out in 2010 and third round (wave iii) was collected in 2012. the dataset includes different socio-economic information of a nationally representative sample of over 28,000 individuals in 7,300 households selected from 400 primary sampling units across the country. empirical methodology two different approaches were followed to assess the impact of remittance on poverty in south africa. the first was to compare the level of poverty between remittance receiving households and non-receiving households using the fgt index and the second was the estimation of the logit model to see how access to remittance determines the probability of falling in a state of poverty. a) foster-greer-thorbecke (fgt) measurement of poverty fgt measurements of poverty were used to measure the impact of remittance on poverty. according to foster et al. (1984) the fgt measurement of poverty is grounded on calculations of poverty measures taking income shortfalls of the poor as weights. for the purposes of this study fgt is used to analyse the impacts of remittance on the incidence, 85 depth and severity of poverty. in our analysis we use the national upperbound poverty line (r620). the foster-greer-thorbecke formula is expressed as: 𝑷𝒂𝒊 = 𝟏 𝒏 ∑ ( 𝒚𝒊 − 𝒛 𝒛 ) 𝒂 𝒒 𝒊=𝟏 … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … [𝟏] b) logistic regression model the logistic regression model is a binary regression model in which the dependent variable takes the binary value (0 and 1). for the purpose of this study, households were classified as poor and non-poor. poor households are households whose per capita expenditure is less than the poverty threshold and non-poor households are those whose incomes are above the poverty threshold. the logistic model for the purpose of this study is stated as follows: pr (yi=1) = 𝛼 + 𝛽1𝑅𝐷𝑖 + 𝛽2𝑋𝑖 + є𝑖 … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … . . [2] where,  yi is the probability that the household will be classified as poor  𝑅𝐷𝑖 is a remittance dummy which represents 1 for households that receive monthly remittance and 0 for households that do not receive monthly remittance.  𝑋𝑖 represents different household characteristics which include: household size, per capita income (in rand), geographical type (urban or rural) and characteristics of household head; gender (male or female), population group (black, coloured, indians/asians, white), age (years), education status (years). results in this section we present the results of the analysis. it will begin with a presentation of descriptive statistics on household demography and 86 characteristics, followed by an fgt index analysis of poverty and logist regression, and give interpretations thereof. a) households and remittance income this study uses the third wave of the nids survey. the third wave was released in 2012. it includes 10,236 households and 31,994 individuals in urban and rural areas in all the nine provinces of south africa. from the total of 10,236 households 11% of the households received some kind of remittance from relatives or non-relatives that live in south africa or abroad. the remaining 89% of the households do not receive any kind of remittance income. figure 1 shows the distribution of households by monthly remittance income. 87 figure 1: distribution of households by monthly remittance income source: own calculation using nids wave 3 survey the total household income of remittance receiving households was divided into four quartiles. this indicates the proportion of remittances to household income. the result in table 1 show that the poorest households receive more than half of their income from remittances (56.8%). low income countries generate 36.45% of their income from remittance. the middle income and richest households derive 28.6% and 21.2% of their income from remittances, respectively. on average low income households remit more than high income households. table 1: proportion of remittance income to total income by different income group 4 quantiles of household monthly income summary of monthly total income per remittance mean std. dev. freq. poorest 0.568 0.283 349 88 low income 0.364 0.234 284 middle income 0.286 0.247 260 richest 0.212 0.256 226 total 0.379 0.291 1119 source: own calculation using nids wave 3 survey the average remittances by different household income groups were compared. households with lower total household income derive a larger proportion of that income from remittances, however, they receive lower average amount of remittance compared to higher income households (see table-2). table 2: average monthly remittance income by different income group 4 quantiles of household monthly income summary of monthly total income per remittance mean std. dev. freq. poorest 663.1 440.8 349 low income 954.2 625.5 284 middle income 1336.3 1197.5 260 richest 3026.7 6606.8 226 total 1370.8 3167.2 1119 source: own calculation using nids wave 3 survey the average remittance income by different household size was analysed. table 3 shows that households with from 6 to 10 members receive a higher amount of average remittance income per month, followed by households with from 1 to 5 members. households with higher members of between 21 and 39 receive lower average remittance income. this shows a negative relationship between monthly household remittances and household size. 89 table 3: average monthly remittance income by household population size household size summary of monthly total income per remittance mean std. dev. freq. 1-5 1372.8 2654.2 806 6-10 1403.3 4441.6 278 11-20 1095.7 1526.2 33 21-39 558 780.6 2 total 1370.8 3167.2 1119 source: own calculation using nids wave 3 survey remittances to households in urban and rural areas were considered. households in rural areas on average receive r614 monthly remittance which is higher than urban households that receive on average r505. the result strengthen the argument that rural households receives higher remittance income compared to urban households. the difference in average income between rural and urban households is statistically significant at 95% confidence interval (see table 4). table 4: average monthly income by geographic type household geographic type t-value urban rural total monthly remittance income 614 505 1119 3.3261 source: own calculation using nids wave 3 survey remittances to households in the different provinces were analysed. households in gauteng and the northern cape receive higher average monthly remittance income. households in the western cape receives a lower amount of monthly average remittance income. table 5 below shows the monthly average remittance income by province (see table 5). 90 table 5: average monthly remittance income by province province mean std. dev. freq. western cape 908.4 1623 107 eastern cape 1391.1 4131 158 northern cape 1638.5 1721 37 free state 1287.7 2165 98 kwazulu-natal 1390.2 4447 288 north west 1305.7 1597 100 gauteng 1793.8 3221 126 mpumalanga 1388.1 1995 47 limpopo 1315.8 1215 158 western cape 908.4 1623 107 source: own calculation using nids wave 3 survey b) households head characteristics and remittance income the different characteristic of household heads for remittance receiving households were analysed. comparison of the average remittance received by different population group and gender. table 6 shows africans, asian/indian and white population groups. on average male headed households received higher monthly remittance income than female headed households. for the coloured population group on average female headed households received higher government grants than male headed households. the average difference between female and male headed households among all population groups is statistically insignificant at 99% confidence interval. table 6: average monthly remittance income by population group and gender of the household head africans coloured indian/asian white mal femal mal femal male femal mal femal 91 e e e e e e e average monthly remittanc e 143 1 1390 610 929 1050 0 2580 567 0 3411 t-value 0.1427 1.1123 1.4951 0.6500 source: own calculation using nids wave 3 survey employment status was coded into two categories, employed and unemployed. unemployed includes unemployed (strict definition), unemployed (broad definition) and not economically active. it was found that households with household head unemployed received the highest amount of monthly remittance income compared to employed household head. the difference in average monthly income between employed an unemployed household head is statistically insignificant at 90%, 95% and 99% confidence interval (see table 7) table 7: average monthly remittance income by household head employment status household head employment status t-value employed non employed total monthly remittance income 420 170 590 0.7135 source: own calculation using nids wave 3 survey table 8 shows the distribution of average monthly remittance income by household head education status. households where the household head has college education and above received a higher remittance than other education statuses, followed by high school diploma. households with a household head education level of no school received the lowest remittance compared to other education statuses. 92 table 8: average monthly remittance income by household head education status household head education status summary of monthly income from remittance mean std. dev. freq. no school 894.9 1429.6 73 1 to 5 years 998.4 1294.4 67 6 to 11 years 1233.4 1989 294 high school 2193.7 5095.9 139 college degree 2323.3 2412.9 15 total 1419.4 2982 588 source: own calculation using nids wave 3 survey before analysing the impact of remittance on poverty, the relationship between household expenditure and monthly remittance was tested. the result in table 9 shows there is a linear positive, but weak relationship between monthly household expenditure and household monthly remittance. table 9: pearson correlation between household monthly expenditure and monthly remittance received total monthly expenditure total monthly expenditure total monthly expenditure 1.0000 monthly remittance 0.1926 1.0000 source: own calculation using nids wave 3 survey c) the fgt measurement of poverty 93 the upper-bound national poverty line (ubpl) of r620 is used to determine the head count, depth and severity of poverty among households. dasp (2.3) software is used to analyse the fgt index. table 10: fgt index results poverty measures remittance non-receiving household remittance receiving household total national upper bound poverty line (r620) head count (p0) 52% 49.3% 49.7% poverty gap (p1) 22.6% 23.2% 22.7% poverty severity (p2) 12.9% 12.9% 12.9% source: own calculation using nids wave 3 survey as can be inferred from table 10, the headcount index for the entire survey is found to be 49.7%. this means that out of the total households, 49.7% of the households live below the ubpl. the poverty gap index was found to be 22.7%. this shows that on average the income/consumption needed to eliminate poverty in the country should increase by 22.7%. the poverty severity of the households is 12.9%. the breakdown of the poverty indices by access to remittance illustrates that remittance non-receiving households have the highest percentage of poor people compared to remittance receiving households. the fgt analysis shows that 49% of remittance receiving households are under the ubpl, while 52% of remittance non-receiving households live below the ubpl. however, the poverty gap is higher among the remittance receiving households compared to non-remittance receiving households. for remittance receiving households the cost of eliminating poverty is 23.2% of the poverty line. for non-remittance receiving households the cost reduces to 22.6%. the poverty severity index, on the other hand, is widely used to 94 compare poverty rankings between two groups. the higher the severity index, the greater the inequality of the distribution among the poor and the severity of poverty. table 10 shows that both groups have the same amount of poverty severity. d) logistic regression a binomial logit regression model was used to see if remittance determines the probability that households will fall into the state of poverty or not. the study uses the national upper bound poverty line of r620 to classify the poor and non-poor. table 11 shows the stata output of the logistic regression. 95 table 11: logistic regression results variable coefficien t robus t std. err. odds ratio margina l effect p>|z| robus t std. err. remittanc e grant dummy -0.011 0.125 0.98 8 -0.002 0.000* -0.011 household monthly per capita income -0.101 0.046 0.36 1 -0.241 0.000 -0.101 household size 1.62 0.078 5.09 1 0.387 0.000 1.62 gender of the household head 0.098 0.098 1.10 3 0.023 0.316* * 0.098 coloured dummy -0.516 0.133 0.59 6 -0.116 0.000 -0.516 age of the household head -0.029 0.003 0.97 0 0.007 0.000 -0.029 household education -0.127 0.014 0.88 0 -0.030 0.000 -0.127 geographi c type -0.387 0.095 0.67 8 -0.92 0.000 -0.387 constant 7.19 0.391 0.000 7.19 number of observations= 4,064 lr chi2 (8)= 2505.59 prob>chi2=0.0000 pseudo r2=0.4500 source: own calculation using nids wave 3 survey 96 in order to check if the model adequately fits the data, the hosmerlemeshow goodness-of fit statistic is used. the result shows that the model fits the data very well as the hosmer-lemeshow goodness-of-fit statistic was insignificant (prob > chi2 = 0.1651) (refer appendix i). the remittance dummy is statistically significant at the 90% confidence level. the result of the odds ratio also shows remittance reduces the probability of being in a state of poverty by 98.8%. the sign of the coefficient also shows that remittance reduces the probability of being in a state of poverty. hence, based on the above analysis it is possible to conclude that while remittance reduces the probability to be in a state of poverty other variables remain the same. an increase in household monthly per capita income reduces the probity of households being poor. the result of the odds ratio and marginal effect shows that household monthly per capita income significantly reduces the probability of households being poor. in addition, the analysis also shows that living in urban areas reduces the probability of being poor, as opposed to living in rural areas. the result shows households with a high number of household members have high probability of being in a state of poverty. other variables remain the same and an increase in one household member increases the probability of households being in state of poverty by 38.7%. the result is significant at 99% level. gender of the household head is another important characteristic of households that has a positive relationship with the probability of a households being in a state of poverty. however, the result is insignificant at 90% confidence level. the age and education status of the household head have negative and significant impact on the household probability of being in state of poverty. moreover, the marginal effect of education shows a contribution of 3% in reducing the probability of being poor, whereas the marginal effects of age are very low (less than 1%). regarding the race dummy variable, coloured households have less probability of being poor compared to african households and the result is significant at the 1% level. asian/indian and white dummy variables are illuminated in the backward stepwise regression. 97 conclusion this paper, using the third round national income dynamism study of south africa, attempts to critically evaluate the impact of remittance on poverty. it uses two different approaches to evaluate the impact of poverty on headcount, depth, severity and also the probability of households being poor, comparing remittance receiving and non-receiving households. the first approach using the fgt indices shows that remittance receiving households have a lower headcount ratio compared to remittance nonreceiving households. on the other hand, the poverty gap is higher among remittance receiving households compared to non-receiving households. both groups of households have the same poverty severity level. this study has also provided empirical evidence that remittance reduces the probability to be in a state of poverty. using a multivariate logit model, the empirical finding confirms that remittance reduces the probability to be in the state of poverty by 98.8%, other potential determinants of poverty remained constant. in addition to remittance, household per capita income, education of the household head, age of the household head and living in urban areas compared to rural areas also reduces the probability of a household being in the state of poverty. recommendations future research 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on poverty in developing countries. new york and geneva: united nations. united nations development programme (undp). 1990. human development report 1990. new york (ny): oxford university press. vargas-lundius, r. lanly, g. villarreal, m. & osoio, m. 2008. international migration, remittance and rural development. international fund for agricultural development (ifad) woolard, i. & klasen, s. 2004. “determinants of income mobility and household poverty dynamics in south africa” in institute for the study of labour (iza) discussion paper, bonn. world bank. 2004. global development finance. washington, dc: world bank. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 383 francophone transnational students, social exclusion and the challenges of adaptation at a south african university of technology ernest a. pineteh  and thecla n. mulu abstract this article emerges out of qualitative data gleaned through semi-structured interviews with fifteen gabonese and congolese students at the cape peninsula university of technology (cput) in cape town. it draws on theoretical conceptions such as transnationalism, social exclusion and migrant adaptation, to interrogate the social experiences of francophone students and their tactics for dealing with exclusionary practices from peers and staff. using selected excerpts from the data, this article attempts to analyse characteristics of transnational student life, patterns of social exclusion and the challenges of adaptation experienced by the francophone community in this teaching and learning space. against this backdrop, the article seeks to make sense of their learning experiences and the implications for the broader challenges of studying in a post-apartheid higher education institution. keywords sub-saharan africa, adaptation, social exclusion, transnational students, francophones, post-apartheid south africa. introduction and contextual background one hallmark of global human mobility is the increasing number of africans studying in universities around the world. this increase is often attributed to wider conceptions such as neo-liberal transformation of higher education, internationalisation and transnationalization of education (madge et al. 2014; giroux 2014; kim 2011). in south africa, the urgency to transform and indigenise universities has become even more imperative, especially after the demise of apartheid (mouton et al. 2013; tshotsho et al. 2015; kwaramba 2012; sehoole 2006). this has widened access to higher education for black  faculty of informatics and design cape peninsula university of technology, cape town. email: pinetehe@cput.ac.zac  doctoral candidate, african centre for citizenship and democracy, school of government, university of the western cape, cape town. email: teklamuluh@yahoo.com mailto:pinetehe@cput.ac.zac mailto:teklamuluh@yahoo.com ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 384 students and it has changed core curricula and pedagogical approaches. consequently, new patterns of african migration into post-apartheid south africa include the influx of transnational students, particularly from francophone sub-saharan african countries like cameroon, gabon, chad, republic of congo, central african republic, democratic republic of congo (drc) and so on. for this category of migrants, south african universities do not only offer a cheaper alternative to acquire internationally recognised qualifications, but also provide a unique opportunity to study in predominantly english-medium institutions, especially given the international status of english. for south african universities, international students are not only a source of revenue for universities, but they also symbolise modern universities’ envisions for intercultural education and internationalisation (sam 2001; andrade 2006; ryan & viete 2009). for example, transnational students bring with them a repertoire of skills that contribute significantly to the scholarship of research, teaching and learning. they also bring unique learning, social and cultural experiences which add value to the rich and unique diversity of south africa (mubembe 2012; maharaj et al. 2011). however, because migration into south africa has been shaped by violent forms of social exclusion such as xenophobia, afrophobia and racism, african student experiences in south african universities include dealing with extraordinary conditions of marginalisation, rejection, psychological and physical victimisation as well as language challenges (landau 2011; mubembe 2012; maharaj et al. 2011). given that the majority of these students have always spoken english as an additional language, “their discourse knowledge is seen as deficient and their learning is expected to conform to seemingly immutable and often implicit norms laid down by the local academy” (ryan & viete 2009: 303). in this article, we use qualitative data gleaned through semistructured interviews with fifteen gabonese and congolese students at the cape peninsula university of technology (cput) in cape town. it draws on theoretical conceptions such as transnationalism, social exclusion and migrant adaptation, to interrogate the social experiences of francophone students and their tactics for dealing with exclusionary practices from peers and staff. using selected excerpts from the data, this article attempts to analyse characteristics of transnational student life, patterns of social exclusion and the challenges of adaptation experienced by the francophone community in this teaching and learning space. against this backdrop, the article seeks to make sense of their ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 385 learning experiences and the implications for the broader challenges of studying in a post-apartheid higher education institution. description of case study to understand the unique characteristics of francophone students at cput and the reasons for focusing on gabonese and congolese students, we provide a brief description of the university. geographically, cput is located in the peninsula of cape town in the western cape province of south africa and it is the largest of the four universities in this province, in terms of student enrolment. according to statistical data from cput’s management information system (mis), the current student enrolment is approximately 34 176 of which approximately 2355 are african students mostly from sub-saharan africa (pineteh & ralarala 2014; mis 2016). the university has six faculties: business and management sciences, engineering, health and wellness sciences, informatics and design, applied sciences and education and these faculties are spread over six campuses (mis 2016). of the total number of african students, almost 50% are from francophone sub-saharan africa. this is evident from the following statistics: drc-706; zimbabwe-370; angola-358; namibia-329; gabon-192; nigeria-116; republic of congo-110; cameroon-85; rwanda-45 and lesotho-44 (mis 2014 & 2016). in addition, the statistics show that the majority of cput’s francophone students are from drc and gabon, justifying the choice of participants for this article. moreover, although cput’s language of teaching and learning is english, this university remains an attractive choice for francophone students because of affordability, the type of qualifications and the industry-oriented pedagogies. for instance, the majority of these students are undergraduates, enrolled for business, information technology, sciences and engineering qualifications and cput’s tuition fees for these qualifications are generally more affordable if compared with the other provincial universities like the university of cape and stellenbosch (pineteh & ralarala 2014). however, the findings of pineteh & ralarala’s (2014) study on international students at cput revealed that francophone students encounter similar academic and sociocultural challenges regardless of the country of origin. therefore, for this project we selected gabonese and congolese students from two faculties: informatics and design, and business and management sciences, for the simple reason that we had unfettered access to the students. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 386 literature review and theoretical framework the challenges of international students globally have been researched extensively from a myriad of perspectives. in fact, the expansive corpus of knowledge on the institutionalisation of higher education globally speaks explicitly to the upsurge of international students in modern universities (habib et al. 2013; yim 2011; lee & rice 2007). this body of knowledge alludes to international student mobility, pedagogical changes and spatial transformation at universities influenced by the presence of transnational students. there is also a burgeoning scholarly interest in international student academic experiences away from home and associated psychosocial and cultural discomforts such as cultural shock, social exclusion and adaptation (menzies & baron 2014; scharter 2015; bayaga 2011). the changes in what madge et al. (2014) refer to as the global eduscape suggest that international students do not only contribute to research, teaching and learning, they “increase the diversity of student populations, add new perspectives to classroom conversations and […] increase our awareness and appreciation of other countries and cultures” (lee & rice 2007: 381). therefore, we should begin to interrogate international student mobility not simply as a transfusion of social capital in a new space but something that has strong implications for higher education pedagogy. this is essential to our understanding of transnational studentship because experiences of international students are often nested in several challenges associated with cross-border human mobility such as social exclusion, cultural adaption, feelings of isolation, homesickness, prejudices and so on (yim 2010; swami et al. 2010). as modern universities transform to accommodate their diverse student communities, these learning spaces have equally become enclaves of new patterns of social exclusion (kim 2011; lee & rice 2007). in the south african context, the often-neglected language difficulties of particularly francophone students tend to play a significant role in their higher education experiences. here, one of the key determinants of successful sociocultural and academic adjustment of international students is being proficient in the hegemonic language of the institution (barratt & huba 1994: 429; yeh 2003: 23; bartram 2008: 666). given the contributions of international students to change the global eduscape, transnational migration still evokes feelings of “restlessness, movement, constantly being unsettled, and [is] unsettling to others” with host institutions doing very little “to identify ways of meeting the special needs of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 387 international students” (madge et al. 2015; lee & rice 2007: 386). the host institutions are expected to play a more critical role in socialising international students into the new learning environments, but very often, they are isolated and left alone to deal with physical and emotional burdens of dislocation from their families. to find new ways to adapt, they resort to forging multiple and contested identities “positioning these identities within broader contexts of social, cultural, and economic formations…” (arthur 2010: xiii). here, a twoway process of adaption, which is supposed to involve the hosts and the migrants, is reduced to a one-way process (chhetri 1980; sonn 2002; pineteh 2015). for transnational students, it is therefore imperative to maintain ties with homeland either physically or virtually, find solace and companionship in friendship and international student associations (menzies & baron 2014). for example, in their study of international students’ perceptions of discrimination, lee and rice (2007) argue that the challenges associated with language and cultural adaption increase the psychological and sociocultural distress of international students. these predictors have strong implications for the quality of their social lives and academic performance (swami et al. 2010: 57). in a university like cput where english is the language of tuition, the socialisation of non-english speaking international students into a higher education space depends on their ability to interact with peers and staff. the ability to communicate in english is indeed a useful tactic to handle and mitigate discrimination, and/or negotiate new social relations with local students. as argued in the literature, students who are fluent in english are likely to experience lower levels of acculturative distress such as isolation and low self-esteem (karuppan & barari 2011: 78; swami et al. 2010; yeh 2003: 23). the quality of life of those with a paucity of english skills tends to fluctuate rapidly as they struggle to adapt in a foreign land. their higher education experience is reduced to clustering with other students from the same linguistics and cultural background, constantly imagining a return to the homeland after graduation (pineteh 2015; brown 2008). to understand the experiences of francophone students and their challenges of studying in a post-apartheid higher education institution like cput, we frame this article around three theoretical conceptions, namely transnationalism, social exclusion and migrant adaptation. for example, transnationalism has become a conceptual frame and social praxis for understanding the asymmetries of global human mobility (van hear 1998; portes et al. 1999; lazar 2011). the epistemological strength of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 388 transnationalism is that migration is essentially a process of ‘living’ and ‘there’ through a seamlessly socioeconomic and political interconnectedness with the migrants’ countries of origin (pineteh 2015; vertovec 2001). it is a process whereby “members of the group are bound by retained memory of the homeland, partial alienation from the host country [and] an aspiration to return to the homeland” (van hear 1998: 5). although transnational migrants, including students, construct new identities as a strategy to adapt, “these identities are reconfigured and given new meanings in transnational spaces and contexts by merging old identities with the new ones they establish abroad” (arthur 2010: 55). along these contours, transnational students are always emotionally and/or physically attached to their roots/kinships and they tend to express these feelings through virtual interactions, sending of remittances, regular home visits and so on. this emotional and physical attachment with home is often exacerbated by feelings of social exclusion experienced in the host countries. social exclusion is used here as the “lack or denial of resources, rights, goods and services and the inability to participate in the normal relationships and activities, available to the majority of people in a society, whether in economic, social, cultural or political arenas [which] affects both the quality of life of individuals and the equity and cohesion of society as a whole” (levitas et al. 2007: 9; eccv policy discussion paper 2009; saith 2001; sen 2000). in the case of post-apartheid south africa, the social exclusion of transnational migrants like francophone students has been expressed through increasing xenophobic fervours, draconian immigration policies, isolation and discrimination in public spaces such as schools, hospitals and universities (pineteh 2015; bayaga 2011; landau 2011). however, since migration is transitional and often involves a temporary severance of social networks and relationship with friends and families, there is always the need to adapt or assimilate (sonn 2002; berry 1997). in the case of francophone students at cput, adaptation is imperative to enable them to complete their studies and for hopeful futures. as a conceptual lens, adaptation in the sphere of cross-border human mobility is premised on the presupposition that “migrations are not isolated events and generally associated with some kind of economic, social and cultural change to which people make an adjustment” (chhetri 1980: 49). this adjustment process could entail the formation of support systems, cultural integration, and the construction of new acceptable identities and new patterns of social ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 389 interaction. therefore, as people migrate, there is always the expectation to adapt or adjust although the process is always challenging (jakubowicz 2012; sonn 2002; saith 2001). these theoretical conceptions have provided a discursive space to analyse the experiences of francophone students at cput. research methodology and methods of data collection this article is based on qualitative interviews conducted with 15 francophone students from drc and gabon in the faculty of informatics and design as well as business and management sciences at cput, cape town campus. the students were selected using a snowballing technique and they were comprised of 9 males and 6 females as well as 8 congolese and 7 gabonese, mostly first year students. we decided to focus on first year students because, as newcomers, their experiences are usually more excruciating than those who have been at cput for longer. the interviews were conducted in the office of one of the researchers and they lasted for a maximum of 30 minutes. they were semi-structured, which gave the researchers the opportunity to probe emergent issues (babbie et al. 2001; de vos et al. 2005). each interview was preceded by an explanation of the purpose of the project and the interviewee signed a consent form in which the researcher agreed not to disclose any information that could reveal the participant’s identity. as such, the participants are cited in this article as participant 1 up to 15. this approach was used to generate responses that can be categorised, analysed and discussed under specific themes (babbie et al. 2001; maree 2007). in addition, the interviews gave the researchers an opportunity to probe social experiences such as class discrimination, relationship with locals, cput learning environment and other learning challenges. the analysis of the data tried to connect emerging themes to the focus of this article, namely patterns of transnational student life, social exclusion and the challenges of adaptation. analysis and discussion of key findings modern universities in a neo-liberal dispensation are changing radically from spaces for social change to those with “a dominance of a form of a powerful and ruthless, if not destructive market driven notion of governance, teaching, learning, freedom, agency and responsibility” (giroux 2014: 87). the transformation of modern universities into corporatelike institutions has reduced students into clients and it has taken away their erstwhile core values as agents of social transformation. critical aspects such as inclusive education, social cohesion and racial/cultural tolerance as well as the development of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 390 students into critical thinkers are becoming more and more peripheral (giroux 2014; pineteh 2014). although, transformation and social cohesion are the buzzwords at cput, the university has done very little to promote the quality of social inclusivity which can respond to its richly linguistic and culturally diverse student population (hlatshwayo & siziba 2013; rawjee & reddy 2012). it has somehow failed to embrace the idea that “the phenomenon of international students in universities is an opportunity for cultural and indigenous knowledge exchange between people of different nationalities and continents” (mda 2011: 13). in the following sections, we discuss the experiences of francophone students in three interrelated sections: francophone transnational life, social exclusion, the challenges of adaption and strategies for survival. cput francophone students as transnational students migration is always a burdensome experience, which involves spatial dislocation from kinship and familiar spaces. when people migrate they struggle in different ways to deal with the emotional and physical disconnect from families while at the same time trying to adapt to new unfamiliar spaces (pineteh 2015; brown 2008). in the context of south africa, african students including francophones are becoming more and more transnational migrants, especially given the host country’s culture of gratuitous violence against foreigners triggered by its own social challenges, xenophobia fervours and the politics of belonging and citizenship (landau 2011; hassim et al. 2008). with the francophone transnational students that we interviewed, transnationalism meant regular travels back and forth and reconnections with family networks through virtual communication as well as regularly remitting money back home. for example, gabonese students, chatted about memories of home, holiday visits and the dreams of an eventual return: i came here just to study and after my degree i am going home. the way this south african people treat us, i can’t stay here even during holidays; i want to be with my family. i only call or whatsapp them during school time and before the university closes, i already buy air-ticket to travel home and i am always going home…i know it is expensive but my parents understand because they see the xenophobia on tv and the know we are not safe here (participant 10). although technological advancement has facilitated the way diasporic communities reconnect with families and friends back home, in the case of this gabonese student transnationalism is about “regular physical presence […] in ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 391 both the country of origin and settlement” (mamattah n.d: 4; vertovec 2001). this transnational pattern, especially amongst gabonese students, exudes an impassioned attachment to home and excavates memories of homelessness while in exile. for them, migration is about living here and there, illuminating the contested notion of integration and disintegration associated with transnational migration. this often propels exclusionary tendencies because gabonese students tend to see themselves or areseen by local students as the outsiders. escaping and finding solace in regular home visits, exemplifies “rejecting aspirations of or claims to membership [… and] distancing themselves from the citizenry” (landau 2008: 107). by contrast to gabonese students who prefer going home during holidays, congolese transnational students see migrations as a long-term process which could result in permanency despite the perceived discrimination from fellow local students. for instance: i don’t go home a lot because a flight ticket is expensive. besides family really only need you to send them money rather than coming home. although it is difficult staying here because of the way we are treated in and outside, you have try fit to in and not run to your parents every time south african treat you badly. there is no need to go home because i can email, whatsapp and even skype my family. what i try to do is work during holidays, make some money and send it home to support my family. they are always happy with me when i send them money (participant 8). this interviewee is a congolese student originally from drc, who has lived in south africa for more than 10 years. for him, the diasporic predilection of living here and there should deviate from the essentialist notion that transnationalism entails the “physical presence of the transmigrant on the territory of the country of origin” (riccio 2001: 597). despite south african’s nativism, which privileges violent exclusion over tactical inclusion, to succeed as a student in post-apartheid in this case means greater interactions with local students and communities (furnham & bochner 1986; zhou et al. 2008: 63). here, migrant remittance is not simply a source of economic livelihood for migrant families, but a chain of reconnection between exile and home. this perspective of a transnational student is enforced in the following quote: yes, but i think my culture is the same as them, i don’t have to separate myself from them, it is not like i have to use my particular culture here. because when i come to a place as a foreigner, i have to respect that place and i have to deal ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 392 with that situation but if i have something new, people will learn from me and i will also learn from them, it’s not conflict but it’s culture that people in drc don’t have. we must improve each other (participant 4). here, the notion of transnationalism in a multicultural learning environment like cput is about embracing cultural difference. for them, being moored to native cultural beliefs and values that connect migrants with the country of origin is as important as finding new ways to adapt and tap into the resources of local students. to this, zhou et al. (2008: 70) argue that “through connections with their compatriots in the host country [francophone students] might learn a series of culturally relevant skills to facilitate their academic success.” this transnational trajectory has clear implications for the way francophone students deal with exclusionary tendencies at cput. patterns of social exclusion in the case of francophone students at cput generally, higher education exerts enormous pressure on transnational students because they are expected to socialise into a new academic environment and cope with equally new learning demands and expectations. in the case of cput-based francophone students, this pressure is worsened by exclusionary tendencies from both their peers and lecturers. the interviews with the participants pointed to three intertwined forms of social exclusion namely language, academic and cultural differences (talebloo & baki 2013). because they are primarily french speaking, interviewees claimed they often experience exclusion because of their inadequate english language skills especially since english is the main medium of teaching and learning at cput. one participant commented: i was now thinking that i am stupid. they do not understand that i don’t speak english properly because i am from another country. they were saying that i am stupid and i make many mistakes when i am speaking, for instance during presentations they were laughing because of my accent. i wanted to quit but the counsellor told me that if i pass all my subjects i will prove them wrong. and the entire gabonese students, all foreigners passed all their subjects. (participant 3). in this testimony, the lack of adequate english language to engage in academic activities and local students’ responses to this challenge resulted in the student’s experience of alienation. here her intellectual aptitude is compromised because of the inability to communicate in the university’s medium of instruction, resulting in a form of rejection. although local students ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 393 who are not first language english speakers encounter similar linguistic challenges, the experience of transnational students is more agonizing because they “are separated from their social and cultural comfort zone” (menzies & baron 2014: 84). instead of embracing diversity and encouraging a culture of collective peer support, local students see their francophone counterpart as the other, equating their accent and lack of english proficiency to academic incompetence (errey 1994; felix & lawson 1994). in this sense, the attitudes of local students psychologically affect the self-esteem of francophone students and their desires to interact socially in this learning environment. the learning space intimidates and breeds fear in francophone students, fears that are not only socially exclusionary but may force them to shelve or isolate themselves from participating in enriching academic activities (saith 2001; eccv policy discussion paper 2009). using language proficiency to prevent francophone students from active classroom participation pushes them into a ‘silent mode’ perpetuating the misconception at cput that francophone students are “deficient in academic skills such as critical thinking and [are] unwilling participate in class discussions” (ryan & viete 2009: 304). this has a direct negative impact on the way their oral and written projects are assessed by academic staff. this socially intimidating and exclusionary learning space, does not “take into account both the multiple and contested nature of literacy learning in multicultural classrooms and intercultural innovations in meaning and identity making” (ryan & viete 2009: 305). interestingly, this dysfunctional space is not only created by local students but also by local staff. the interviews revealed a general lack of willingness from staff to provide a supportive learning environment to francophone students. in the following quotation, one participant shares their experience: there are some lecturers when you go to them when you want to know more about the subject or the brief they gave you, they will say no and tell you to go read the brief or you have to ask your friends because they do not have time now. but while i was leaving one of these lecturers’ office, one of our class students (a south african) went to the same lecturer and she helped her. when i got my assignment from the lecturer, i failed and she said i did not understand the assignment and my language was bad. they are not supposed to say that to a student. if a student goes to a lecturer it means that he/she does not understand. the lecturer has to freely explain what the brief is talking ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 394 about. i think the lecturer does not like us coming from other countries especially us who cannot speak english well… (participant 3). from the quotation above, this student is denied access to out of classroom learning support from their lecturer simply because of their foreignness. although the university expects lecturers to provide regular one-to-one consultation with students, this student is academically excluded from this enriching learning experience because of the lecturer’s attitude towards francophone students (tati 2010; maharaj et al. 2011; menzies & barons 2014). this example shows clearly how “english language proficiency often influences the ways international students are assessed and afforded rights of participation” (ryan & viete 2009: 304). moreover, by tactically blaming the student for their own academic failure, the lecturer does not uphold the responsibility of mentoring and providing an inclusive learning space to “students from diverse cultural backgrounds” (maharaj et al. 2011: 211) as expected in a richly diverse university like cput. furthermore, the lecturer’s actions marginalise, oppress and silence, making the process of academic socialisation more burdensome to this francophone student (watson 2013). these classroom experiences expose not only the linguistic but also the cultural differences that shape the learning journeys of francophone students at cput. during the interviews students highlighted specific aspects of cultural difference that tend to enforce social exclusion in this academic environment (ward 1997; viete & peeler 2007; viete & phan 2007). they mentioned aspects such as showing respect, learning attitudes, social behaviours and so on. for example: the way we treat lecturers is different here at cput. students call lecturers by their names instead of sir, madam or doctor. i think this is not showing respect because the lecturer is an elder and has studied more than the student, and in my country we respect elders. also, they are very close to lecturer and these lecturers treat students like their friends, so they disturb in class and even answer their phones during class. for me it is very difficult to make friends with people who do not show respect. that is why you always see me with other foreigners because we are similar (participant 12). although this mode of student/lecturer relationship is very common with the current generation of university students, for this student, it is a marker of cultural difference in terms of the expression of respect. here an inclusive learning environment is hindered by francophone students’ cultural values ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 395 and belief systems, which consider lecturers as “founts of all wisdom” (ryan & viete 2009: 304). in the quotation, there is a feeling of culture shock and the interviewee represents local students’ behaviours, beliefs and values as unacceptable and should be avoided (li & gasser 2005; thomson et al. 2006). this promotes a culture of clustering amongst international students, mitigating opportunities for “developing an understanding of and adaptation to the new culture” (thomson et al. 2006: 3). by trying not to socialise with local students because of their social behaviours, the process of adaptation becomes more challenging and stressful. local students’ social behaviours recurred prominently during the interviews, as having visible implication for their attitudes to learning. for francophone students, it was difficult to develop a sense of collective identity because of the values that south african’s attach to education and also because of their perceptions about other africans. they alluded to the culture of xenophobic violence and increasing racialised classroom behaviours as a barrier to social inclusion (hassim et al. 2008; neocosmos 2010; landau 2011). the feeling of a racialised classroom is expressed in the following quotes: no, it is not the same. there is still discrimination. it means that apartheid is not finished yet. white people sit with white people, coloured people with coloured people and foreigners with foreigners. we are not very open to each other (participant 15). when the lecturers give group work, south african students do not want to work with us. when we ask them they will say it is because the want to talk their local language and we are not going to understand. but i think it is because south africans don’t like foreigners […] they think we are going to take their jobs when we finish studying. like they are always asking us when are we going back home? are you going back home after you finish? you can see that they don’t like us here. we also don’t want to work with them because they are lazy; they always have excuses like work, trains, buses, funerals etc. so any group works, we foreigners prefer to work together (participant 6). in the above quotation, the learning environment at cput is mediated by racial and xenophobic tendencies associated with post-apartheid south africa. the fear of the foreigner is not only a street level intimation but also a common discourse in an academic space like cput where local students perceive this multicultural space as an “exclusively south african domain” (hassim et al. 2008: 114). in the same token, labelling local students as ‘lazy’ and ‘full of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 396 excuses’ reinforces the practice of insulation from south african citizenry perpetuated by migrants who “claim rights to be in south africa but not part of it” (landau 2008: 107). the challenges of adaptation in a new learning environment from the different characteristics of transnational student life and exclusionary constellations expressed above, it is expected that francophone students would face many challenges adapting to a new learning environment in post-apartheid south africa. in the interviews, they blamed the challenges of adaptation on the post-apartheid pathologies such as crime, poverty and violence as well as on cultural and linguistic differences. while this blame game featured prominently, francophone students’ perceptions about local students have also contributed significantly to the challenges of adaptation (chhetri 1980; zhou et al. 2008; tati 2010; lazar 2011). as chhetri (1980) has argued, a process of adaptation is in fact a two-way process which involves migrants and host nationals. scholarship on transnational migration speaks to spaces of flow, which require movements, adjustments, acculturation, integration and assimilation (lazar 2011; sonn 2002; chhetri 1980). these symmetries of migration by no means suggest that uprootedness and adaptation in an unfamiliar space is less challenging. in the case of the francophone community at cput, the challenges of adaptation were linked to length of stay, ethnocentricity, memories of home and the feeling of loss, familiar prejudices about foreigners and local students’ attitudes to learning. nostalgia is real and yes it happened to me. i remember in my first year calling my father and telling him that i wanted to come back home. my family and friends encouraged me and told me that this bad feeling will go away (participant 10). when i just arrived south africa, it was difficult for me because i missed my family and friends in gabon. i didn’t have any friends, so i spent hours in my room thinking about my parents and some days i would even cry (participant 5). this excerpt reinforces the notion that transnational migration in south african is characterised by culture shock and a feeling loss and in the early days in exile, migrants want “to meet social and psychological needs for belonging and relatedness” (sonn 2002: 10). the culture shock and need for belonging often translates into homesickness and memories of loss, affecting their social relationship with local citizens. these competing forces impeded ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 397 francophone students’ eagerness to adapt because instead of negotiating new ways of belonging and searching for an “opportunity for developing an understanding of and adaptation to the new culture,” they decided to insulate themselves from local students (thomson et al. 2006: 3). by insulating themselves, they tend to experience cultural and social distress and, as articulated above, resort to reconnection with home and family as a coping mechanism. the feeling of discomfort, dislocation and distress experienced by francophone students exacerbates the challenges of adaptation in that these lived experiences further alienate them from the host community. in addition to homesickness and memories of home, francophone students at cput also alluded to academic discrimination, social boundaries and prejudices as challenges to adaptation in this learning environment. one interviewee commented: i have learnt that even outside the university people do not interact with each other. something i realised and what i am still seeing up to now is that people do not get together at the university. coloured people are with coloured, white people with white and black people with black. foreigners are acting the same between themselves (participant 4). i have noticed that south african people do not get used to foreigners. they are in their corners. in my country, we are different because we are welcoming people and making them feel at home. however, in south africa, foreigners only chat with fellow foreigners. as foreigners, we usually feel that we are not welcome (participant 6). in the above quotations, the classroom dynamics show that student relationships are still fractured along racial, ethnic and cultural lines, constellations “of negative psychosocial consequences for international students which may seriously interfere with their adaptation in the host country and [with] their capacity to achieve optimally in the university setting” (thomson et al. 2006: 7). the clustering of students along identical racial or nationalistic sentiments prohibit integration and cross-cultural interactions between students, which are “essential for international students to become full members of the learning community” (ryan & viete 2009: 305). the experiences of this community of francophone students show that student relationships in this learning space tended to promote even deeper feelings of exclusion and isolation, which reminded them that they do not belong there. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 398 to survive at cput and succeed academically, francophone students are expected to circumvent social boundaries and deal with the different forms discrimination on a regular basis. for them, an immediate response to the painful experiences was to establish new social networks with other foreign students in their learning space (schartner 2015; warner & miller 2015). these new social formations were expressed in transnational friendships, study partners, or membership in international students associations on campus because “greater co-national interaction is [often] linked with stronger cultural identity” (zhou et al. 2008: 70). however, these coping strategies do not only create an imaginary sense of belonging, they further complicate the process of adaptation. as i said earlier, south african students do not like foreigners, even the lecturers but when you are here, you have to look for ways to survive. in my first year, things were really difficult because i was new, and did not have any friends but now i have friends from other countries like cameroon; nigerian because they are like us, so we hang out together. in class i work with other foreigners and it does not worry me anymore that south africans do want to work with us …i am also a member of the international student association in cape town. when you go there, you meet other foreign students and you feels good (participant 13). francophone students’ adaptation in the cput learning environment requires sustained academic and social interaction with local south africa students. these interactions are mutually beneficial because they reduce stress levels and enhance psychological adjustment (warner & miller 2015; zhou et al. 2008). however, because of perceived discrimination and social exclusionary tendencies of local students as well as foreign students’ sense of loss and attempts to stay connected to home, successful adaptation in this case has been extremely discomforting. by turning to other foreigners for friendship, comfort and support, francophone students become more resilient to adaptation because the new social networks provide an alternative support system, which help them to cope with discrimination and rejection from local students. they also provided a renewed sense of community and an imaginary sense of belonging (schartner 2015, ward & kennedy 1999; berry 1997). conclusion despite the increasing number of transnational students from francophone sub-saharan africa, living and studying in post-apartheid south africa is still a ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 399 socially and culturally stressful experience for many of these students (maharaj et al. 2011; tati 2010). these students’ belief systems, memories of home and the maintenance of family ties while in exile as well as social exclusionary fervours of local students make the adjustment process more challenging than expected. in south africa, universities have become transnational migratory localities with different academic and sociocultural tensions, which reflect the consciousness of local and international students. these tensions force transnational students to forge new identities which reflect “their multiple and complex cultural heritages, their work ethic [and] commitment to education” (arthur 2010: 22). in this article, we have discussed patterns of transnational student life, social exclusion and the challenges of adaptation in the case of francophone students at cape peninsula university of technology. references andrade, m.s. 2006. international students in english speaking universities: adjustment factors. journal of research in international education, 5(2): 131154. arthur, j.a. 2010. african diaspora identities: negotiating culture in transnational migration. new york: lexington books. babbie, e, mouton, j. vorster, p. prozesky, b. 2001. the practice of social science research. cape town: oxford university press. barratt, mf. & huba, me. 1994. factors related to international undergraduate student adjustment in an american community. college student journal, 28(4): 422-436. bartram, b. 2008. supporting international students in higher education: constructions, cultures and clashes. teaching in higher education, 13(6): 657668. bayaga, a. 2011. xenophobia and racism-elements defining collegiality: case of a south african university students. the journal of international social research, 4: 534-545. berry, j.w. 1997. immigration, acculturation, and adaptation. applied psychology: an international review, 46: 5-68. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 400 brown, l. 2008. the adjustment journey of international postgraduate students at a university in england. phd thesis (unpublished). bournemouth: bournemouth university. chhetri, r.b. 1980. immigrant thakalis of pokhara: an exercise in urban ethnography. ma thesis (unpublished). india: university of pune. de vos, as., strydom, h., fouche, cb. & delport, csl. 2005. research at grass roots for the social sciences and human service professions, 3rd edition. pretoria: van schaik. eccv policy discussion paper. 2009. statewide resources centre. social inclusion for migrants and refugees. carlton: victoria. errey, l. 1994. cultural diversity: or who’s who in the university. in: rust, c. & pye, j. 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additional language. higher education research and development, 34: 420-435. watson, j. 2013. combining international student social and academic transition online. international student experience journal, 1. yeh, c.j. & inose, m. 2003. international students’ reported english fluency, social support satisfaction, and social connectedness as predictors of acculturative stress. counselling psychology quarterly, 16: 15-28. zhou, y., jindal-snape, d., topping, k. & todman, j. 2008. theoretical models of culture shock and adaptation in international students in higher education. studies in higher education, 33: 63-75. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 489 models for migrant leadership: the cape town women’s platform leah mundell* and emma carone** abstract since 2011, south africa has increasingly moved toward an immigration system of enforcement and exclusion, seeking to discourage immigration through punitive policies that make daily life for migrants difficult to bear. the closing of refugee reception offices in urban centers and restriction of job offers to south african id holders have caused many asylum seekers to become undocumented migrants and prevented them from working in the formal economy. in this context, some services that refugee organisations traditionally offer, such as job training and placement, become less useful for migrants who are undocumented and/or unable to work. this paper explores a new initiative of a cape town refugee organisation designed to support grassroots organising and to foment new networks of support and entrepreneurship for migrant women. members of eleven nationality groups currently participate in the scalabrini centre women’s platform, coming together across differences in migration status, religion, socioeconomic class and language to fight the isolation often caused by migration and to support business and personal development. our research uses interviews and participant observation to explore the role of mediating institutions in facilitating migrant leadership and organising. we suggest that efforts such as the women’s platform are setting the groundwork for long-term leadership development among migrants and refugees. nonetheless, the restrictions of the political and economic climate of south africa, as well as the professionalised expectations of mediating institutions, make this a slow process that may favor individual advancement over collective action for systemic change. keywords migration, development, gender, organising, solidarity. * department of anthropology, northern arizona university, arizona, usa 86011, visiting scholar 2014-2015, centre for social science research, university of cape town, cape town, western cape, south africa 7701, email: leah.mundell@nau.edu ** women’s platform manager, scalabrini centre of cape town, cape town, western cape, south africa, 8001, email: emma@scalabrini.org.za mailto:leah.mundell@nau.edu mailto:emma@scalabrini.org.za ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 490 introduction this paper examines one approach to the challenge of migrant integration in the face of xenophobia and restrictive immigration policies and practices. researchers have argued that migrant associations in south africa are typically fragile and transient. the women’s platform seeks to increase the longevity and efficacy of such associations by building a cross-nationality network supported by an established ngo that can provide access to resources. what is gained and what is lost through such an approach? this early assessment of the women’s platform suggests that this structure is setting the groundwork for long-term leadership development among migrants and refugees. nonetheless, the restrictions of the political and economic climate of south africa, as well as the professionalised expectations of mediating institutions, make this a slow process that may favour individual advancement over systemic change. background/context in the context of the current, high-profile surge of north african and middle eastern migration to europe, the fact that most african migration remains within the continent is relatively undiscussed (shimeles 2010). after the 1994 transition to democracy, south africa’s relatively strong economy and liberal asylum policy made it a welcome destination for migrants from across the continent. from 2006-2012, it is estimated that south africa received more applications for asylum than any other country in the world (wellman & landau 2015). asylum applications have dropped in recent years, primarily because of a new, limited visa category for zimbabweans fleeing the country’s economic and political crisis, but also because new immigration policies and practices have made it so difficult for migrants to apply for asylum (carciotto & mavura 2016; pugh 2014). until 2011, those seeking refugee status could apply for asylum at a refugee reception center in any one of the major cities in the country and then, with their asylum-seeker documents, were entitled to (though not always granted) basic services. soon after changing procedures to require asylum seekers to apply within five days of arriving in the country, the department of home affairs closed their refugee reception offices in johannesburg (closed in 2011), port elizabeth (closed in 2011) and cape town (closed in 2012). now refugees must go to pretoria, durban or back to the zimbabwean border at musina to file and renew their paperwork every three to six months (ngwato 2013). for migrants living in cape town, the time and expense of this long-distance travel precludes their maintaining asylum ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 491 seeker paperwork, even for those who would likely eventually be granted refugee status (johnson 2015). as a result, more and more migrants are living in south africa without valid immigration documents. at the same time, even those with valid asylumseeker documents or even approved refugee status, report that basic eligibility requirements for most employers include a south african identification card. an asylum seeker from the drc explained one way that employers screen out applicants without south african citizenship or permanent residency: the hotel will tell you that they’re not allowed to take cvs, that you must go to the agency. then they send you to agencies and the agencies will ask you if you are south african […] they will tell you, bring id. imagine, i am in south africa for nine years, but i only have the paper [that requires] renewal every six months… you will see in that paper, it is written “work and study,” but this [work and study] is for south africans, this is not for foreigners (interview 25 february, 2015). thus, while it is becoming increasingly difficult for migrants to obtain valid documents, those documents are worth less and less in terms of access to employment opportunities. our research explores whether this reality is beginning to erode the strict boundaries among asylum seekers, refugees and migrants – and between those who are viewed as deserving or undeserving – that have been carefully maintained by the state and by the civil society institutions that support refugees and migrants (newton 2008; sales 2002). does this context open up new opportunities for solidarity across these migration categories and is it spurring migrant support agencies to reconsider the services they provide? the scalabrini centre of cape town is a refugee services organisation founded in 1994 “with the commitment to alleviating poverty and promoting development in the western cape while fostering integration between migrants, refugees and south africans” (internal document). their mission also includes “promoting and protecting the human rights of highly vulnerable refugees, asylum seekers, displaced people and the poorest of the poor south africans as well as fostering democracy, non-discrimination, equality, participation and inclusion” (internal document). in recent years, their work has expanded to include an english school, a welfare desk to provide referrals for basic resources, an employment access program, school-based tolerance ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 492 education programs, an lgbti rights and awareness program and an advocacy department providing individual legal counseling and policy-level advocacy. the scalabrini centre is a professionally run organisation with both local and international staff members. the centre relies on the volunteer support of long-term interns, primarily from europe and the united states. it receives funding from european and american foundations and government aid organisations, private donations and income from its on-site guest house. in general, its programming priorities are set by staff and approved by its volunteer board, with clear program objectives and measurable goals. the women’s platform was new for scalabrini in several ways. the idea grew out of a proposal brought to the director by a zimbabwean staff member who had helped to found a zimbabwean women’s support group and informal business incubator. the staff member hoped that scalabrini might be willing to provide training and other capacity-building support to her group. in response, the director proposed that scalabrini launch a new initiative that would build and expand upon the model of the zimbabwean group to provide mutual support, training and networking opportunities. at the outset, the model for the women’s platform was to support existing, self-organised, nationality-based groups as well as to incubate new groups of this type. the women’s platform would then become a cross-national support network giving participants access to skills training, personal development workshops and small business development. in the early conceptualisation of the women’s platform, both the scalabrini director and the program manager (carone) expressed their excitement about the platform as a project designed and led by the participants themselves, unlike most other professionally-led scalabrini services. a collaborating researcher (mundell) worked with scalabrini staff, using surveys, small group meetings and interviews, to assess needs and interests and to help identify indigenous leadership. the idea was not to replace the successful nationalitybased groups but to give their members access to a wider network of both migrant and south african female leaders. the early participants in the platform included groups representing the rwandan, congolese, somali, angolan, zimbabwean, malawian, nigerian and south african communities. demographically, the group was extraordinarily diverse. while some had not completed high school (less than 20%), others had professional training but had not been able to find jobs in their fields ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 493 because of their immigration status and/or lack of english language skills or south african certification. in terms of immigration status, 39% had been granted refugee status, 23% carried an asylum-seeker permit, and the remainder carried other work permits, were undocumented or declined to reveal their status. about a third of participants were working, either in the formal or informal sector, while two-thirds had been unsuccessful in finding work or were caring for their childreni. at first, the women’s platform worked primarily to engage participants in services the scalabrini centre already offered, such as computer literacy classes, health education programs and immigrant rights workshops. but because of the increasing lack of access to documentation and restrictions on foreigners’ rights to work, the centre’s traditional employment access program was becoming less and less relevant for migrants who were excluded from traditional employment or financial structures. the women’s platform staff considered how entrepreneurship training and micro-finance might provide alternate sources of income for participants. within the first six months, scalabrini staff had applied for international foundation and government funding, receiving grant support from the u.s. bureau of population, refugees, and migration. in their report on the first quarter of grant funding, scalabrini staff explained that members of the women’s platform are encouraged to participate in both the personal development and financial sustainability areas of the platform. personal development includes leadership, health education and human rights workshops, as well as trainings on work-readiness skills needed in specific industry sectors. from the women’s platform’s inception, staff spoke about their desire to utilise a “multipliers model, with trainings aimed at developing women’s leadership skills to enable them to bring this information back to their communities and become local resources themselves” (internal document). women’s platform participants are also beginning to lead workshops themselves, as part of the platform’s peer-to-peer training initiative. the financial sustainability component seeks to build on existing skills of women in the platform. currently, the sectors identified are beauty, childcare, crafting and food, all traditionally feminine areas of experience that can be utilised outside of formal employment structures. scalabrini staff have expressed their concern about gender niching, pushing women into marginalised skill areas, and so they have been careful to voice their support ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 494 for women who are seeking different areas of employment. however, the approach is also intensely practical. as carone (interview 10 may, 2016) explained in an interview, yes [it is gender niching], but it’s also market niching. those industries are available to women. these are industries that have a high turnover rate that women are able to find work in […] if you want to learn how to be an accountant, we still want to work with you, but our sector development is peer-to-peer. if you want to be an accountant, i can work with you, but right now we’re looking at what is the broad knowledge we all share. the question is whether these marginalised economic niches will give women the financial stability they seek. ideally, the women’s platform will be able to give them the business savvy, workplace experience and start-up capital they need to make it in these familiar but difficult sectors. theoretical framework in the wake of south africa’s violent xenophobic attacks in 2008, social scientists searched for a cause. explanations for the violence ranged from structural inequality (worby et al. 2008; gelb 2008; pillay 2008) to negrophobia (gqola 2008) to failures of local leadership (misago et al. 2009) to inadequacy of immigration policy (crush 2008) to a history of “violent entrepreneurship” in the townships (charman & piper 2012)ii. social scientists went on to critique the public outrage that followed the attacks, arguing that horrified liberal whites were really expressing their own worst fears that, in a context of lawlessness and wealth redistribution, they might be the next targets (landau 2008). similarly, the state’s characterisation of the attacks as the work of common criminals masked the historical antecedents of the crisis, development policies that divide township residents into undeserving outsiders and insiders with access to services (nieftagodien 2008). bekker (2015) notes that a week after violence flared again in 2015, the state sought again to link immigrants with criminality by creating a new program initially carried out by the south african national defence force called operation fiela-reclaim. the operation targeted illegal weapons, drugs, prostitution “and other illegal activities;” undocumented immigrants were also regularly caught up in its sweeps. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 495 these social analyses are critical to understanding the context for migrant lives, but in few of these works are the voices of migrants themselves foregrounded (mcdonald 2000b). in fact, migrant voices are missing not only from scholarship but also from public debate. landau argues that this is strategic, a kind of “tactical cosmopolitanism” utilised by migrants who “organize themselves to avoid the ethics of obligation to other migrant groups and their home communities” (landau & freemantle 2010: 381; landau 2006). our research among cape town migrant women shows that while migrants are hesitant to engage in collective action for policy change, they are in fact becoming highly organised around exactly their ethics of obligation to their own and other migrant groups. as evidence of this “tactical cosmopolitanism,” landau cites the “fragility and fragmentation of migrant associations,” (landau & freemantle 2010: 376) among the johannesburg groups he studied. others have pointed to the ways that migrant civil society organisations have been ignored and excluded from more established civil society and non-governmental organisations (everatt 2011; polzer & segatti 2011). yet we have very little research that actually examines the activities of such migrant organisations, whether they are government-supported agencies, traditional ngos or unions, church groups or mutual aid societies. this project seeks to examine the role such institutions play in mediating the experiences of migrants as they make their way in this often hostile environment. south african migrants are often analysed in terms of their social and economic needs, as victims of violence (in their home countries and then again in south africa), bigotry and poverty. in this way, despite research showing that migrants are critical to south africa’s economic development, migrants are popularly understood as recipients of social welfare and in need of government response (crush & williams 2003; crush & williams 2010; polzer 2008). this may be especially true for women migrants, who are often portrayed as victims in the migration process (agustin 2005). as kihato (2007) and others have pointed out, a focus on women migrants, not as merely victims of forced migration but also as agents in their own migration choices and experiences, may help to broaden often narrowly economistic explanations for migration (dodson 1998; harzig 2001). today, women represent almost half of all migrants worldwide and 45.9% of migrants in africa (oecd-undisa 2013). this research makes an ethnographic intervention into questions of how women migrants themselves are ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 496 organising, with south african mediating institutions, for their right to live peacefully in their host country. methodology research for this project began soon after the first meetings of the women’s platform in november 2014. as a visiting scholar at the university of cape town, leah mundell entered into a collaborative research agreement with the scalabrini centre to conduct ongoing qualitative research as a volunteer staff member of the women’s platform. emma carone, program manager for the women’s platform, collected demographic information, conducted informal observations and collaborated on data analysis. we conducted twenty semi-structured interviews with participants and staff of the women’s platform in 2015, focusing on their life experiences leading them to engage in the platform. interviews were conducted in english, with only one participant requesting a translator, so it should be noted that participants may have felt somewhat limited in their self-expression. additional qualitative research included focus group discussions with the original seven participating nationality groups to develop priorities for the platform. we have also undertaken ongoing participant observations of women’s platform meetings, staff planning meetings and workshops as well as conducted observations at women’s platform member project sites and group meetings. interview participants were selected based on their high level of participation in the women’s platform and in their own nationality-based groups, primarily between january and june 2015. many of these original women’s platform leaders, as noted below, are no longer as active in the program, and leadership has begun to shift to a group of women who see the women’s platform itself as their primary group affiliation. the initial 20 interviews cited here provided a well-rounded picture of the experiences and concerns of staff and participants during the formation of the women’s platform. a second round of interviews with newer, emerging leaders (planned for junejuly of 2017) will help evaluate the platform’s ongoing potential for leadership development, psycho-social support and economic stability. we also collected basic demographic information for 111 participants in the platform between november 2014 and june 2016 (data collection is ongoing), including age, nationality, educational attainment and employment status. of ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 497 this participant sample, nine nationalities were represented, with 54% from congo/drc. only five participants reported having less than a grade 10 education and 33 participants (30%) reported having at least some university or postsecondary education. at the time of data collection, 38% of participants reported being at least partially employed and 59% of participants reported not working at all. the participants were generally in their prime working and child-raising years; ages ranged from 16 to 56 years old, with 68% between the ages of 29 and 41 at the time of data collection. as a collaborative research team, we regularly shared observations and key themes from interviews with one another, other scalabrini staff and participant leaders of the women’s platform. our interview consent form included a checkbox asking whether information from the interview could be shared with scalabrini staff in order to improve services. mundell also reminded women’s platform participants that, in addition to helping to facilitate the platform, she was conducting ongoing research. engaged social science research seeks to address the power hierarchies that often characterise the relationship between researcher and research subjects, whether those subjects are individuals or organisations (low & merry 2010; lassiter & cook 2010). through our collaborative research design, we developed a research project and process that can provide ongoing benefit to the research partners and participants. regular discussion of the themes and concerns raised through this research have helped to shape the direction of the women’s platform and to make it more inclusive and responsive to participants’ needs. this paper provides an opportunity to share some of the tensions and considerations that have arisen in the context of this collaborative work. the women’s platform: lessons for migrant organising as the women’s platform is still only in its second year of existence, it is too early to draw decisive conclusions about its effectiveness or the unintended side effects of this approach. nonetheless, there are several important areas of tension the women’s platform experiences that are productive for considering migrant organising models. a. possibilities for cross-national solidarity because the women’s platform was initiated as a way to build on the success of one nationality-based women’s group, it was a logical approach to develop ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 498 nationality-based, locally led groups as the member units for the platform. similar, institution-based approaches to building social capital have proved effective in a wide range of organising efforts (stout 2010; warren 2011; wood 2002). nonetheless, the approach had some clear disadvantages in this context. giulia sinatti and cindy horst (2015), in their research on diaspora engagement discourse among european development agencies, highlight agencies’ problematic assumptions about migrants’ implicit connection to their territories of origin. nina glick schiller (2009), meanwhile, has shown that a focus on the nation-state as the relevant geographic region of relationship for migrants conceals the ways that different localities benefit differently from remittances. our own work developing the women’s platform helped reveal our early assumptions about the coherence and importance of nationality-based groups. several of the key leaders involved in the platform identified strongly as members of nationality-based groups, such as the somali association of south africa and kwesu, a congolese women’s group. but for others, nation-states were not relevant communities of origin. one participant had found the women’s platform through her infrequent attendance at a church where several members were attempting to start a rwandan women’s group. but her family connections spanned rwanda, burundi and congo, and she did not feel a connection with the rwandan group. a leader of this fledgling rwandan group spoke about the flagrant lack of trust that survivors of the rwandan genocide felt in interacting with other rwandan immigrants: you see, our community has a big problem, a big problem. sometimes you can come here all as refugees, but sometimes i can come here and find someone who killed my whole family. so, it is not easy to talk to that one and to give all my ideas, no. your mind closed, and she, her mind is closed. maybe she’s not the one, but is the member of a family who killed my family. it is a big issue for us. some of us are born in exile, too. they are born as a refugee. so, some are born in kenya, in burundi, in tanzania, in the congo, so our country has a big problem in how people must come and join as one community. as the women’s platform evolved, it was clear that this one-size-fits-all nationality group model was only really relevant for a few more established and coherent immigrant groups. what had once seemed a useful way to build ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 499 local capacity started to seem more like a gatekeeping mechanism that was preventing the participation of women who did not identify or affiliate with a nationality-based group. as women have begun joining the platform as individuals rather than institutional members, the group has diversified, including migrants from a broader range of countries of origin. changing the model in this way may also have opened up even greater opportunities for cross-national and cross-cultural education and solidarity. from the beginning of the women’s platform, participants spoke of the powerful impact of learning about the successes of migrants from other parts of africa. educated congolese christians were excited to learn more about the experiences of muslim somali women who were seeking out educational opportunities they did not have in their home communities. during a recent videoconference with women’s platform leaders, a congolese participant firmly but politely corrected a zimbabwean leader who had erroneously claimed that somali immigrants receive financial support from the somali government. the short interaction highlighted the important role that personal, cross-national interactions play in dispelling stereotypes within the migrant community. even those participants who are also members of active nationality-based groups see the women’s platform as playing a vital role in cultivating crosscultural interaction and innovation. as one platform leader explained, most of the people in kwesu are from drc, coming from the same background. when you come to women’s platform, it’s another thing. you’re meeting with women from a different background, different religion, different culture, you know. so that … changes our way of seeing things. so, it’s very, very inspiring meeting other women. so for kwesu to be in the women’s platform, it’s very, very, very significant for me. in the early months of the women’s platform, we also observed that participants rarely made distinctions among refugees, asylum-seekers and economic migrants. for example, at one women’s platform meeting, a malawian member pointed out that their group members were not able to take advantage of some of the opportunities being offered through the platform, because they did not have documents. the others responded sympathetically; no one attempted to assert that the malawians were less deserving of opportunities because they are not officially refugees. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 500 the question is whether the original intent of the institution-based structure of the platform, to cultivate and support local leadership, can be maintained through this new structure. in some ways, the individual membership-based model encourages a focus on individual uplift rather than systemic change. it also may be increasing dependence on scalabrini as a mediator, placing more of the leadership onus on professional staff rather than migrant women themselves, an issue that will be discussed in more detail below. b. micro-credit and expectations of sociality from the inception of the women’s platform, the established groups involved were engaged in small business development, though the financial models varied substantially. the original zimbabwean group used an accumulating savings and credit association (asca) model to incubate new businesses among its membersiii. the congolese group appeared to have relied primarily on financial support from its key leader, who had slowly accumulated sewing machines to start a sewing training center that generated a small income to help pay instructor salaries and rent. the somali group was affiliated with an ngo, the somali association of south africa that provided space and other inkind support. the possibility of raising and receiving financial support for small business development was a prospect that loomed over most early discussions of the women’s platform, among both staff and participants. many of the less developed groups’ capital investment needs were small: a new oven for a baking business, an ice cream machine for a street vender. but scalabrini staff were concerned that even with support for these investments, these businesses would fail because of the groups’ lack of business experience and preparation. women’s microfinance programs generally are designed to allow poor participants to substitute social collateral for the financial collateral they lack. caroline schuster, who has studied microfinance programs (including microcredit) in paraguay, usefully summarises anthropological critiques of microfinance programs, that they are “extractive, in that they commoditize women’s social ties, and coercive, in that they fundamentally alter social relations in extracting financial value from them” (schuster 2015b). shuster herself points out that both proponents and critics of microfinance rely on a characterisation of women as hyper-social creatures. her work encourages us ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 501 to explore how that sociality itself is constructed, that is, how women make themselves good microfinance participants. both staff and participants of the women’s platform have raised concerns that echo these critiques of the extractive and coercive nature of microfinance. they see the women’s platform as primarily a set of social supports based on relationships of trust and respect, with the possibility of business collaboration and funding growing out of those existing relationships. when new women arrive at the group with expectations of immediate financial assistance, both staff and longtime participants balk at what is seen as purely self-interested behavior. the ethos of the women’s platform is to build a broader understanding of self-interest that includes community responsibility. a women’s platform staff member who is also a member of the congolese women’s group, kwesu, explained: the big challenge for me, it’s with my experience i have with kwesu and the women’s platform – it’s like all the women when they are coming to the meeting, they are expecting something. others are like, if i go there, maybe i will get money to start my business, which is not possible. and others are expecting if i’m there maybe i can just easily get the job i want, maybe in one month. they don’t think about the future, what we are creating [with] each other. what you have you can also give to other women for them to benefit. initially, participants from established women’s groups such as kwesu seemed more socialised to these expectations than those who arrived at the women’s platform without strong existing ties. as another kwesu member reflected, you see, it’s just in our group, the ladies understand the meaning of ‘group.’ they know even when we don’t get today, but tomorrow we’ll get something. you understand? that’s our vision. we are coming, we are coming [to the group], we don’t know tomorrow. maybe something good can come from here. several of the original members of the women’s platform described the tangible and intangible benefits that they derived from participating in a group without clear expected outcomes. the kwesu member quoted above had a particularly poignant story of coming to cape town as a widowed mother of four, knowing no one until she attended a kwesu meeting and found that it ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 502 was being led by a dear childhood friend. her long lost “sister” not only revived her spirits but also helped her find a stable job and assisted her financially. what a blessing! that was a blessing i’m telling you, because since i found my sister, my life changed. i know today if i have a problem i know where i can go. if she needs me she comes to me, if i need her i go to her. she is my family now. she is my family here. now i say, i’m not alone. i have a sister. yet schuster’s caution about the way that microfinance programs help construct and propagate notions of women’s sociality is relevant here. not all women migrants in cape town are looking for the type of relationships that the women’s platform seems to require. perhaps those who are most resistant to this model are those who are most desperate for immediate financial support. for those who can manage the train fare and the time, the women’s platform can provide psycho-social relief from loneliness and the stress of managing life and family as an unwelcome immigrant. but for others, the social requirements of the group can feel like just one more bureaucratic hurdle to receiving the financial support they need to survive. c. local leadership and measures of success scalabrini’s funding from the u.s. bureau of population, refugees and migration will support (among many other programs) small business development grants for five businesses initially. unlike traditional microcredit programs offering solidarity loans, the money will not need to be paid back and therefore does not require the social collateral that can be so disruptive of existing social relationships. but because of this arrangement, scalabrini ultimately retains control over how the funds are spent. for example, an early experiment was to seed a catering business run by women’s platform members from zimbabwe using the scalabrini centre’s kitchen. despite the prime location in the central business district, the business was losing money and wasting food. several participants in the business stopped showing up regularly for work, forcing the one most committed worker to seek out other zimbabwean immigrants to help at the last minute. scalabrini centre staff felt they had to intervene, and ended up restructuring the business with strict requirements that participants work at least three days a week, without children in tow. the staff selected new participants (congolese and zimbabwean women who sometimes have trouble reconciling their language and culinary differences) and set up new systems for managing ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 503 inventory and pricing. the system has become much more efficient, and the participants are seeing an immediate financial output, but it will be many months before the migrant leaders have completed the required financial and business management trainings to regain control of the business. similarly, with other businesses that have received financial support from the women’s platform, scalabrini staff have stepped in to make management suggestions or advise on financial decisions. the project highlights the inherent tensions among the needs for immediate financial gains, long-term capacity building and ongoing leadership and agency of women’s platform members. one strategy that holds great promise for the development of participant leadership for the women’s platform is the peer-to-peer mentoring program, through which platform members train other members in particular skills of personal or financial development. importantly, mentors are paid for their services, though not as much as a professional facilitator would be paid iv . women’s platform participants have expressed how impactful it is to learn from the successes of other migrants with whom they can relate and speak freely. peer mentoring is also at the heart of a new internship program that places platform members in workplaces to gain resume-building experience, some in business run by members of the platform themselves. the women’s platform supports these arrangements by providing transport costs for the intern and a placement fee to the mentor. many of the women who took initial leadership roles in the women’s platform are no longer active on a regular basis. some have been able to find full-time jobs, others are going to school or working on their own businesses, and a few have left the cape town area. these original leaders were identified as having strong networks of people they could connect to the platform, and many of them saw themselves not in need of support but rather as conduits for information and resources. platform staff describe current participants as being more “in need” of the support of the network. but this also means that they may be less well-positioned to take on leadership roles and can easily come to be seen as recipients of scalabrini’s services rather than active collaborators in the development of the women’s platformv. nonetheless, the women’s platform is working on new leadership models that do not require the kinds of institutional or national group-based connections needed initially. the most active members of the platform have been invited to join a leadership group that plans and leads monthly platform meetings, receives ongoing leadership training and provides direction for the platform ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 504 as a whole. these leaders, like the initial nationality-group leaders of the platform, have been selected by the women’s platform’s paid staff team, which has grown to include a full-time project manager, an assistant manager, an intern and part-time support from another staff member. the tension between professionalisation and participant leadership is one that has been present since the inception of the platform. as an early leader explained, when it’s in the community, it’s comfortable. it gives a sense of freedom and control. when we call a meeting here in scalabrini, people feel they must be professional. they don’t want to share their real problems. people don’t open up. they wear one or two masks. the mostly white professional staff for the platform often express their sense that their presence can inhibit free discussion and easy exchange of ideas. however they have not yet hired an african immigrant (or black south african) as a primary staff member for the platform. this will be a key transition moving forward, to ensure that the platform does not become yet another development project whose primary beneficiaries are white staff members (ferguson 1994). d. individual leadership versus collective action the women’s platform has developed social norms that reward model participants who see themselves as responsible to other women, both inside and outside the group. within this strong commitment to community, the approach to advocacy and social change is individual rather than collective. while the members of the platform lament the policy changes that have made south africa more restrictive in integrating migrants, they do not generally see themselves in a position to advocate collectively for policy change. their tenuous position in south african society has left most women feeling too vulnerable to participate in social protest. and because many of them come from countries where political dissidence has resulted in violence, sometimes to their own families, they are highly aware of the risks of such activism. instead, both staff and participants see the women’s platform as giving them access to information and resources that can arm them to fight for the rights to which they are entitled but which often are violated. when parents are turned away trying to register their children at a government school, for example, they may know that education is a universal right in south africa, but they feel they have no recourse. the women’s platform provides both the ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 505 knowledge of legal rights, the social support to advocate for oneself and, in some cases, legal resources to fight one’s case. south african scholars have pointed out that, in the wake of the violence of 2008, migrant organisations have not mobilised strategic claims to "minority" status or cultural citizenship as have such movements in other parts of the world, including movements for cultural citizenship in the united states. (polzer & segatti 2011; galvez 2010; rosaldo 1997; de genova 2002; de genova 2005). yet south africa's constitutional and discursive claims as a "rainbow nation," notwithstanding recent moves to restrict migration to the country, seem to invite the use of such strategies (griffin 2011). as the women’s platform moves forward, it remains to be seen whether the platform’s focus on individual responsibility to the community presages eventual collective action for fundamental human rights. conclusion the challenges and opportunities of migrant integration that south africa is currently experiencing are not unique. however, the context of post-apartheid democratic transition, attempted transformation of racial hierarchies and ongoing economic struggles, creates particular pressure for the country to integrate migrants in a way that advances social goals. as south africa wrestles with ongoing political and economic challenges, immigration may play a key role in shaping the broader politics of the nation (mcdonald 2000a; nyamnjoh 2006). the scalabrini centre women’s platform is a promising model for building multi-national migrant leadership not only for individual advancement but also potentially for systemic change. however, it will continue to require careful attention to the role of the mediating institution in constructing and maintaining gendered norms of sociality, racialised hierarchies of professional versus volunteer leadership, and expected outcomes of individual uplift and responsibility to community. there are inherent tensions in this work between migrants’ immediate financial and social needs and the potential for long-term capacity building and leadership. if the women’s platform can successfully manage these tensions, it may ultimately be a force in developing a powerful migrant constituency for human rights in south africa. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 506 acknowledgements many thanks to the members and staff of the scalabrini centre women’s platform for their willingness to participate in this research and for their insights. in particular, we are grateful for the leadership and support of miranda madikane, director of the scalabrini centre of cape town. thanks also to the centre for social science research at the university of cape town for hosting leah mundell as a visiting scholar during 2014-2015. notes 1 scalabrini staff attempt to collect demographic information from all participants in women’s platform meetings, trainings or events. as of june 2016, 111 individuals had shared this information. all data are self-reported, though staff assists participants in filling out the form when necessary. 2 bekker (2010) summarises these explanations differently, dividing them into the following categories: “(i) external structural causes, (ii) factors directly related to specific outbursts, (iii) factors relating to diffusion of outbursts, and (iv) perceptions concerning policing.” 3 the group used the general south african term “stokvel” to describe its financial approach. in this case, participants contributed regularly to a fund that was then distributed to members based on their business proposals to the group. 4 scalabrini staff negotiated the fee with members of the women’s platform and agreed on an amount that is about 60% of what professional facilitators are paid. new facilitators will be paid less and work up to this amount. again, this raises concerns about parity between the paid, full-time staff of the platform and the volunteer or part-time paid participants. 5 nonetheless, the staff feel that the current leaders may have more freedom to develop leadership across networks that transcend nationality. one staff member who is also a refugee herself commented, “when they meet together you can see that they’re all leaders. the women’s platform leaders are taking over the platform, because now they are suggesting what kind of workshops they want, and they always give feedback when we need their thoughts.” ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 507 references agustin, l.m. 2005. migrants in the mistress’s house: other voices in the ‘‘trafficking’’ debate. social politics: international studies in gender, state and society, 12(1): 96-117. bekker, s. 2015. violent xenophobic episodes in south africa, 2008 and 2015. african human mobility review, 1(3): 230-253. bekker, s. 2010. explaining violence against foreigners and strangers in urban south africa: outbursts during may and june 2008. in: yusuf, a.a. 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(eds.). 2008. go home or die here: violence, xenophobia, and the reinvention of difference in south africa. johannesburg: wits university press. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 423 no future for our children: challenges faced by foreign minors living in south africa ncumisa willie & popo mfubu abstract the intensification of international migration and continued conflicts in africa have resulted in growing numbers of child migrants. children are increasingly becoming mobile and crossing international borders unaccompanied. the movement of unaccompanied or separated minors triggers international obligations on all states that are party to the convention of the rights of a child to take all available measures to ensure that children’s rights are respected, protected and fulfilled. south africa has arguably the most progressive child protection mechanisms in africa. those mechanisms are conferred and extended to foreign minor children within its borders. however, due to a lack of coordination between the various state departments entrusted with matters concerning foreign minors, the state has failed to fulfil its duties as required by national and international law. this paper highlights the difficulties faced by foreign minors and how the gaps in law leave them undocumented, vulnerable and unable to access social services. this paper also discusses how south africa’s approach to accompanied and unaccompanied foreign minor children provides no durable long term solutions for these children, effectively leaving them in a legal lacuna once they reach the age of majority. drawing on our experience as refugee attorneys, we demonstrate that there are disparities between the law and the implementation of the law. we conclude with recommendations on possible policy and legislative reforms that can be implemented in order to ensure that south africa develops a comprehensive and meaningful long-term approach for migrant children living in south africa. keywords separated foreign children, durable solutions, refugees, foreigners, asylum seekers, non-refoulement.  refugee rights unit, university of cape town, south africa: email: pwmfubu@gmail.com  refugee rights unit, university of cape town, south africa: email: ncumisa.willie@uct.ac.za mailto:pwmfubu@gmail.com mailto:ncumisa.willie@uct.ac.za ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 424 introduction up until the early 1990’s migration was largely perceived as an act primarily undertaken by adult males. children were commonly viewed as migrating within family units. recent studies into independent child migration reveal that a large number of children migrate independently either unaccompanied or separated from their families. it is estimated that there are 250 million child migrants globally (unhcr 2015). save the children, a non-government organisation, estimates that 25% of all migrants are children (victoria 2015). this high number of child migrants necessitates the need to formulate laws and policies that comprehensively protect children in receiving countries. south africa is the third largest economy on the continent and is absorbing a substantial number of unaccompanied child migrants (kpmg south africa 2016). as a result of the protracted conflicts in parts of the continent (gouden 2002) and growing economic instability in neighbouring countries such as zimbabwe, south africa will continue receiving accompanied and unaccompanied minors (palmary 2009). the south african government therefore needs a comprehensive approach to child migrants; an approach informed by its international legal obligations and with the principles of the constitution of south africa which states that the “best interests of the child are paramount.” this paper analyses how south africa gives effect to its national and international obligations towards child migrants. although south africa has passed laws which provide child migrants with legal protection, the implementation of these laws reveal a lack of coordination between the various relevant departments in dealing with migrant children. this results in a failure to fulfil their respective mandates and duties as required by the convention of the rights of a child (1989) as well as the south african children’s act (2005). in this paper we discuss the various legal barriers to documentation faced by migrant children in south africa and argue that the gaps in law have left many migrant children without documentation, vulnerable and unable to access social services. furthermore, we contend that south africa’s approach to foreign children provides no durable long term solutions for minors, a situation that leaves them in a legal lacuna once they reach the age of majority. the paper is organised as follows: we begin with a broad outline of the legal instruments pertaining to children in south africa. we then analyse the departmental procedures used in assisting unaccompanied and separated foreign children. thirdly, we place foreign child ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 425 migrants into four legal categories; unaccompanied foreign children with refugee claims, separated foreign children with refugee claims, unaccompanied and separated foreign children with no refugee claims and accompanied refugee children with refugee claims. we critically examine the legal protection afforded to these categories. we conclude with recommendations in an effort to fill the legislative gaps within south africa’s foreign child protection framework. child protection in south africa: the legal framework the convention of the rights of a child (1989) lays the foundation for international child protection law. this convention places a duty on states to ensure, through the passing and implementation of national laws, that the best interests of a child are always paramount. south africa gives effect to this international obligation through a number of national legal instruments; firstly the rights of a child are enshrined in the south african constitution (1996), which is the supreme law of the land. section 28 of the constitution places a duty on the state to respect, protect, fulfil and promote the rights of a child. secondly, the children’s act (2005) gives meaning and effect to the rights set out in the constitution and both the constitution and the children’s act make no distinction between children based on nationality; care and protection is afforded to all children in south africa regardless of nationality. the only act that contains particular provisions which apply to certain categories of children is the refugees act (1998) which seeks to protect children who are or may be refugees. in addition to these laws, the department of social services/development (dsd) has standard operating procedures (sops) designed to aid in the practical implementation of the rights set out in the constitution and the children’s act. according to the united nations high commission for refugees (unhcr 1996) “an unaccompanied child (also referred to as an unaccompanied minor) is a child who has been separated from both parents and other relatives and is not being cared for by an adult who, by law or custom, is responsible for doing so.” whereas a separated child is a child who has been separated from both parents, or from his or her previous legal or customary primary care-giver, but not necessarily from other relatives (separated children in europe programme 2009). conceptually, a separated child is slightly different from an unaccompanied minor in that the separated child may not be in need of care and protection as he or she might be cared for by an accompanying adult such ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 426 as an aunt or uncle. this is often the case with refugee children who are forced to flee due to conflict. as stated above, child migrants fall into various legal categories, however it is clear that once it is established that a child is unaccompanied or separated from his or her parent, care-givers or guardian, an inquiry has to be conducted to ascertain whether the child is in need of care and/or protection as is required by the children’s act. unaccompanied and separated children are therefore assisted by various government departments; generally speaking all unaccompanied or separated children who are suspected of being in need of care and protection should be referred to the dsd. the dsd is the main governmental department entrusted with giving effect to the rights of the child as provided in the children’s act. unaccompanied and separated children may also fall within the ambit of the south african police services (saps) particularly where such children have been abused, smuggled, neglected or trafficked. the department of home affairs (dha) usually encounters children at the initial undocumented stage. brief overview of the child protection process in south africa what follows is a broad overview of the processes that should be taken by government departments when assisting unaccompanied or separated children. these guidelines are set out in the children’s act and have been translated into standard operating procedures by the dsd. these guidelines for care and protection entails a five step process, namely: identification; assessment and documentation; family tracing; durable solutions; and repatriation. assessment and statutory intervention given that unaccompanied and separated children are often vulnerable to social pathologies, they are always presumed to be in need of care and protection. with regards to child protection, the same procedures govern unaccompanied children and separated children. the sops (2013) for the tracing, reunification or alternative care placements of unaccompanied and separated children in south africa state that: “upon becoming aware of an unaccompanied or separated minor child at risk, dsd, saps or the designated child protection organization (cpo) are obligated to take steps to ensure the immediate safety and well-being of the child.” the dsd’s sop states that the procedure laid out in section 110(5) of children’s act should be followed. where the child faces immediate danger, the dsd may remove the child ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 427 without a court order to a temporary safe care facility pursuant to section 152 of the children’s act, for a duration not exceeding six (6) months. once the child has been removed and placed in a temporary safe care facility, without a court order, the case must be reported to the children’s court by no later than the following court day. if the child is not in immediate danger, he/she may remain where he/she is as a temporary safe care placement, pending investigations. the investigation should be completed and a report compiled for the court within 90 days. where the child is undocumented, section 48(2) of the children’s act stipulates that the children’s court can estimate the age of the child, aided by the written motivation of a designated social worker, an investigation into the circumstances of the child, including any abuse, neglect or exploitation must be conducted and recorded and the findings together with a recommendation presented to the court. the dsd or the designated cpo should assess whether the child is seeking asylum and if so, assist the child to seek asylum through the refugee reception officers in dha. once the investigation has been completed the social worker should present the findings and make recommendations to the court regarding the most suitable solution for the minor child. the children’s court is to determine whether the child is in need of care and protection. if in need of care, the court must make an order to ensure that the child is officially placed in terms of either sections 156 or 157 of the children’s act. section 156 pertains to orders made when a child is found to be in need of care and protection, it provides five options for the type of order that the court can make in respect of a child with no parent or caregiver: to be placed in foster care, cluster foster care, to be taken to a temporary safe care pending the finalisation of an application for adoption of the child, shared care with different care-givers at different times or periods or placement at a child and youth care centre. the main objective of section 157 is the securing of stability in a child’s life. family tracing once the temporary safety of the child has been secured, the social worker has to establish why the child has left home and why she is alone. the cpo or social workers need to determine if there are any parents, caregivers or extended families of the unaccompanied or separated minor, their current living circumstances and whether they are in a position to care for and protect the ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 428 child. in doing so the social worker may elicit the assistance of other social workers in the child’s country of origin if and when it is appropriate. once family members have been traced, the social worker may request an assessment of the family and its circumstances through their national international social services (iss) office. an inter-country report will be provided through the national iss and made available to the local social worker responsible for the case. the cross border assessment may also be done by non-government organisations such as the unhcr, the international red cross or international organization for migration. the dsd can also approach the respective embassy of the child’s country of origin to obtain information such as birth certificates or travel documents provided that such a child is not an asylum seeker. if the child was born in south africa, the dha should have a record of the child’s birth because all children born to foreign parents in south africa are provided with a notice of birth by the hospital where they were born which allows them to apply for a birth certificate at the dha or in their country of origin upon their return. the birth certificate issued to foreign children is merely to document the birth. thus, the foreign child is not listed in the south african population registry. reunification or placement if the information gathered from the country of origin is favourable in terms of the family’s ability to take care of the child and it is perceived to be in the child’s best interests to be returned to the family, the child may be reunited with her family. there is a procedure to be followed when returning such children. the dsd’s sops provide that the return of a child to her country of origin should be considered on a case by case basis. however, the following needs to be taken into account: the repatriation should be in the best interests of the child and arrangements must be made to ensure the safety of the child. in practice, a social worker is usually appointed to accompany the child to the border where the child is subsequently handed over to their family or the relevant authorities and the person receiving the child signs a receipt acknowledging receipt of the child. travel documents are arranged with the relevant embassies and the dsd in principle should take cautionary measures in handing the child over so as to avoid trafficking and exploitation. a statutory document discharging the child from south africa’s statutory system is produced and handed over to the agency receiving the child. the individual receiving the child has to be pre-identified and verified by the person accompanying the child to the country of origin. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 429 alternative care placements some children cannot be reunified with their families either because their families cannot be traced or because it is not in the best interests of the child to be reunified with them. an alternative care arrangement which is suitable for the child needs to be recommended to the presiding officer of the children’s court. the relevant considerations to be made are again highlighted in the sops. unaccompanied foreign minors with refugee claims one of the biggest hurdles faced by unaccompanied and separated foreign children is access to documentation that regulates their continued stay in south africa. these documents can be obtained either through the immigration act or the refugees act. the laws governing the right to seek asylum in south africa are contained in the refugees act. section 3 of the act defines what or who a refugee is and provides three categories of people who qualify for refugee status. a refugee is a person who is compelled to leave her country of origin, owing to a wellfounded fear of persecution on a number of listed grounds and whose country is either unable or unwilling to protect her. a refugee can also be someone who fled her country of origin owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing or disrupting public order or someone who is a dependent of such a person. the act specifically provides for unaccompanied children seeking asylum but is silent on separated children. therefore, we will analyse the rights of unaccompanied foreign children within the ambit refugees act. section 32(1) of the refugees act provides that: any child who appears to qualify for refugee status in terms of section 3, and who is found under circumstances which clearly indicate that he or she is a child in need of care as contemplated in the child care act, must forthwith be brought before the children’s court for the district in which he or she was found. […] the children’s court may order that a child contemplated in subsection (1) be assisted in applying for asylum in terms of this act. while subsection 2 provides that a children’s court may order that a child who appears to qualify for refugee status be assisted in applying for asylum in terms of the act, the reality is that documentation for unaccompanied children in the asylum process remains a major barrier. this is irrespective of the fact that refugee law allows children with refugee claims to be documented under ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 430 the act. a large number of these children remain undocumented because the relevant authorities refuse to grant them access to the asylum process without the assistance of a parent or guardian. bhabha (2003) notes that “all unaccompanied children face legal impediments and legal limitations as the law mainly recognises them as objects of the law and not as subjects of the law).” this is mainly because children under the age of eighteen are normaly considered by south african law, in general, as lacking full legal capacity and therefore can only interact with the law when duly assisted by a parent or guardian. this is the case even in instances where children are legally permitted to engage directly with the law. this legal approach to children places child migrants who are seeking asylum in a vulnerable position as refugee status determination officers are unwilling to allow them to lodge independent asylum claims. it is presumed that children can only be dealt with under the procedures directed at families – the refugee status determination officers only view children as dependents of an adult and therefore only grant them asylum under section 3(c) of the refugees act (bhabha 2003). where the child is not accompanied by a parent, she is simply refused assistance on the grounds of being a minor. irrespective of whether the child has an independent refugee claim or not, this approach fails to take cognisance of child-specific claims and fails to see that children can be persecuted and that any of the grounds for asylum in section 3 can be applicable to children (bhabha 2003). in particular, children often have child-specific claims such as forced conscription as child soldiers or forced marriage as child brides who are often forced into marriages by their own parents. thus, there is a need to provide for child specific refugee protection as there is no minimum age limit to the international right to seek asylum. this is evident from articles 32 and 33 of the convention relating to the status of refugees (1951: article 29) and paragraphs 213-219 of the uhncr’s handbook on procedures and criteria for determining refugee status under the 1951 convention and the 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees (2011: 41). both provide guidelines on how unaccompanied minors may be assisted when applying for asylum. they state that where an unaccompanied minor seeks to apply for asylum, the relevant authorities need to ensure that the interests of the child are fully safeguarded (2011: 50). furthermore, the south african refugees act states that children must be assisted in applying for asylum. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 431 the children’s act provides a legal mechanism that could potentially be used in enforcing children’s right to seek asylum. but as bhabha (2003) argues, children are often only viewed as victims of malfunctioning family networks and not as victims of persecution. many cpo and social workers dedicate themselves to removing children from harmful environments and placing them in spaces of care and safety, however, once they obtain a court order from the children’s court and secure the child’s safety, they seem to believe that their work is complete (bhabha 2003). they are often unaware of the need for obtaining documentation for these children and where they are and they often lack the knowledge necessary to assist the child in obtaining the documents. as a result, unaccompanied children with refugee claims are placed in places of care and protection without legal documentation and once they reach the age of majority are removed from these places of safety because they fall outside the protection and ambit of the children’s act and are rendered vulnerable to arrest, detention and deportation as they are factually illegal migrants. in this way, social workers and cpo are only concerned with the temporary care of these minor children and they give little or no consideration to long term durable solutions for when these children attain majority. while police officers, immigration officers and refugee status determination officers only consider legal status and fail to consider the social welfare of the child. in addition social workers, family advocates, presiding officers and refugee status determination officers are not abreast with children’s rights in terms of the refugees act. this is also indicative of the current discourse which only seeks to engage with children in a welfare and humanitarian manner as opposed to a legal approach. separated foreign children with refugee claims separated children with refugee claims are slightly complex because the refugees act makes no mention of them. prior to the mubake and others v minister of home affairs and others zagpphc 1037 judgement, south african refugee law was silent as to how separated refugee children with refugee claims should be treated. in this case, the court was called upon to determine when separated children should be documented. the applicants in mubake argued that a child should automatically be regarded as a dependent of the accompanying adult and therefore documented with the adult. the respondents argued that separated children should only be documented once a children’s court inquiry has been conducted and the court has lawfully placed the children in the care of the accompanying adults. the court agreed ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 432 with the applicants’ interpretation of the law and argued that it cannot be in the best interests of the child to leave them undocumented pending the inquiry and thus vulnerable to arrest and detention. the court thus found that children should be documented with the accompanying adult and need not wait for the conclusion of the children’s court inquiry. this case clarified that when dealing with children who are separated from their biological parents and who appear to qualify for asylum, the dha needs to issue the children with at least an asylum permit pending the dsd investigation as to whether the children are in need of care and protection. the court stated that this is essential because leaving the children undocumented renders them susceptible to various social ills. the court highlighted that pending the dsd investigation, if left undocumented the children are rendered invisible to immigration officials, untraceable and left in an uncertain and precarious position. the court drew a distinction between the inquiry conducted by the dsd and the inquiry conducted by dha by stating that the former pertains to the social welfare of the child while the latter pertains to the legal status of the child in terms of human rights law. given that these two processes are not mutually exclusive, the judge saw no compelling reason why they cannot occur concurrently. the judge reasoned that the outcome of the one does not necessarily influence the other. the children’s court inquiry can find that the adult asylum seeker is fit and proper and may continue to care for the child while the asylum inquiry may determine that the child and/or the adult cannot be issued with refugee statuses as they do not meet the requirements of the act. in this situation they would both have to depart from the country. this case set the precedent that every separated child should be documented as soon as possible and that the dha need not wait for the conclusion of the children’s court before assisting the child with making the application. however, in our experience we have found that the dha continues to leave many children undocumented pending the children’s court inquiry. unaccompanied and separated foreign children without refugee claims refugee protection is only applicable to people who have a refugee claim, in terms of the refugees act. consequently, those who do not have prima facie refugee claims are dealt with in terms of the immigration act. unaccompanied children who do not fall within the ambit of the refugees act have limited mechanisms for obtaining legal status as the immigration act of south africa does not provide any concrete mechanism for these children. the permits provided for in the immigration act require passports and birth certificates ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 433 which, as stated earlier, many foreign children do not have. moreover, the immigration act bears no reference to children as independent migrants; children are only envisioned as travelling within a family unit where they are dependent on an adult. they do not have the capacity to apply for any of the permits under this act without the assistance of a legal guardian. children who fall under this category are afforded temporary protection while they are legal minors as the law provides that foreign minors should not be arrested for lacking legal documents. though there is contemporary case law reflecting this, foreign minors are still subjected to arrest and detention. the centre for child law and another v minister of home affairs and others 2005 (6) sa 50 (t) is a prime example of the lack of knowledge and application of children’s rights to foreign children. in this case, over a hundred foreign children were arrested and detained at the lindela repatriation centre which is south africa’s main deportation and repatriation holding facility. it was reported that some of the children were even housed in cells with adult inmates in clear violation of section 27(1)(a) of the child justice act which specifically provides that children should be detained separately from adults. an urgent application was brought by the centre for child law asking for the immediate release of the children, the application was granted. the court declared the arrest of the minors unlawful and furthermore stated that the respondents' behaviour constituted a serious infringement of the children's fundamental rights. the court confirmed the unlawfulness of arresting undocumented foreign minors. nonetheless, once a child reaches the age of majority they too face the danger of being arrested, detained and deported. there are no durable long term solutions for such children. as stated before, social workers and presiding officers view it as sufficient to obtain a court order placing children in a place of care, hardly going beyond catering to the legal documentation needs of the children. consequently, a children’s court inquiry does not guarantee any document to legalise a foreign child’s stay in south africa. this is particularly so when the child is not a refugee. it can be argued that these children could be dealt with and documented in terms of section 31(2)(b) of the immigration act which grants the minister of home affairs special powers to grant a foreigner the rights of permanent residence for a specified or unspecified period when special circumstances exist which justify such a decision without them having to satisfy the requirements of the immigration act. this is what we commonly refer to as a ministerial exemption; it is an application which is made to the minister of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 434 home affairs. the minister has discretionary powers to grant or deny the application. to avoid leaving foreign children who do not have refugee claims undocumented we propose that once the children’s court concludes that the child is in need of care and protection and it is clear that the child does not fall within the ambit of the refugees act or that his or her application for asylum has been rejected, it (the children’s court) should also order the child’s legal representative or appointed social worker to make an application for documentation for the child in terms of section 31(2) of the immigration act. this should ensure that every unaccompanied foreign child is provided with temporary legal documentation. this is a suitable solution as the child may be granted temporary residence due to the special circumstances of being in need of care and protection. should these circumstances change, or should the child’s parents be located, the minister has the power to withdraw the exemption. in this way, the exemption will only be used for children who are in need of care and protection. accompanied foreign children with refugee claims accompanied foreign children are also denied the opportunity to apply for asylum in their own names; they are automatically placed into their parents’ files as dependents pursuant to section 3(c) of the refugees act. this section of the act recognises the right to family unity and allows those married to refugees or dependent on them to be permitted to remain in the country by obtaining derivative refugee status by virtue of being spouses or dependants of a recognised refugee. the spouse or dependent is required only to prove that he or she is a dependant or spouse of a recognised refugee. once the dependency or spousal relationship is established, the person is granted a derivative status. the regulations of the refugees act define a dependant as an applicant's spouse, unmarried dependent child under the age of 18 years, or any destitute, aged or infirmed member of the principal applicant's family. the act therefore envisioned a person dependant on a recognised refugee in south africa who does not have an individual claim in terms of section 3(a) or (b) of the refugees act. in order to allow such a person to lawfully reside in the country and thereby maintain family unity, the law provided for derivative refugee statuses. therefore, the legislation is meant to give protection to family members of a recognised refugee who may not have a claim without the principal applicant but also flee with the principal applicant in order to ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 435 maintain their family nucleus. however, this provision has been interpreted by officials to mean that whenever an adult is accompanied by a minor child, the minor child must be dealt with in terms of section 3(c). in this way, refugee children are perceived as dependents that are only eligible to apply for derivative status. this is unlawful and prejudicial to the minor. it is unlawful because it is an unjustifiable limitation of foreign children’s rights to have their asylum applications heard. it is also procedurally unfair and often results in the child being severely prejudiced. this is particularly so where the child has a strong independent refugee claim stemming from his or her status and the parent has a particularly weak refugee claim, an example would be young boys who are usually forced to become child soldiers in times of conflict and war or young girls who are often forced into sex slavery or child marriage. the child is thus left to the mercy of the outcome of the adult’s claim. this could result in the violation of the principle of non-refoulement which prohibits the return or expulsion of a person to a territory where his/her life or physical liberty would be threatened (un convention relating to the status of refugees 1951: article 33(1)). secondly, denying the minor child an opportunity to have his or her own asylum application adjudicated is procedurally unfair and prejudicial because it only affords the child temporary legal protection. this is because once the child attains the age of majority, which is 18 years of age, she ceases to be a dependant as defined in the refugees act. according to section 33(2) and (3) of the act and section 16(6) of the regulations of the act, a person who obtains majority and thereby ceases to be a dependant may remain in the country if the person has a valid asylum permit and will be given an opportunity to apply for asylum pursuant to section 3(a) and/or (b) of the refugees act. in reality this means that a minor who had a prima facie refugee claim when she entered south africa but was not given the opportunity to apply for her own status in terms of section 3(a) or (b) and was erroneously documented in terms of section 3(c), will lose her derivative status upon attaining the age of majority. she will then be required to make a new asylum application based on a claim she had when they first arrived in the country. the reality for most of these children is that by the time they reach majority age, their claims have elapsed and they can no longer rely on them. some of their claims are agebased claims and as young adults they can no longer rely on them. others left their home countries at a tender age and cannot be reasonably expected to ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 436 accurately remember the events that occurred when they were young. moreover, the dha also withdraws refugee permits of abandoned children. this is because when the abandoned children attempt to extend their expired permits, they are required to attend the refugee reception office with the principal applicant, where the child is unable to produce the principle applicant, the dha refuses to extend the permit. in essence, by refusing to extend, the dha is withdrawing their refugee status which is unlawful. only the standing committee for refugees established in terms of section 9 to 11 of the refugees act is empowered to withdraw the status of a refugee. this is also the case for children with deceased parents. the “aging-out” practice adopted by the department and the resultant unlawful withdrawal of derivative status of children who reach the age of majority is prejudicial to these children as it denies them the opportunity to obtain long term durable solutions. it also denies the right to family unity to accompanied minor children who at the age of majority find themselves with the undesirable legal status of being an illegal foreigner. the withdrawal of the refugee status of a person who has ceased to be a minor is problematic in two ways; firstly, some minors initially attempt to make independent claims when they first arrive in south africa but are prohibited by dha officials with a flawed and unlawful interpretation of the asylum laws. they are then issued with derivative status and their own claims are allowed to lapse or become irrelevant. therefore, it is unduly harsh, procedurally unfair and prejudicial to expect someone to recall events that caused her to flee their home country as a child when the person has now obtained majority years later. moreover, the withdrawal of the derivative status upon reaching majority is equally prejudicial to accompanied minors who entered south africa in pursuit of family reunification and were either subsequently abandoned or lost their parents after documentation. in this scenario where the child did not have an independent claim when they first arrived, they surely will not have a claim after attaining the age of majority. it is cruel and inhumane to allow a child to reside in a country for many years, get accustomed to the culture and language, and then expect her to return to a country of origin where she does not know anyone nor have any social ties. the law needs to guard against this by considering what is in the best interests of the child with a more forwardlooking approach. providing short-term solutions is not in the best interests of the child. the best interests of the child approach should not only be looking ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 437 at the present but should be forward-looking, thereby securing stability in the child’s life not only presently but in a long term, durable sense. policy reform and recommendations we have highlighted the trend of focusing on only social welfare as being prevalent in dealing with foreign minor children in south africa. the dangers of this practice are that undocumented children are often denied access to social services such as health care, education and other public services and they are rendered vulnerable to arrest and deportation. moreover, the tendency to focus only on social welfare without considering documentation when dealing with unaccompanied minors is exacerbated by the fact that the children’s act makes no specific reference or mention of foreign children. the children’s act does not recognise specific vulnerabilities of certain categories of foreign children such as unaccompanied foreign minors and separated refugee children. though the children’s act seeks to protect all children irrespective of nationality, foreign children are not afforded the full extent of the state’s child protection system on the basis of their nationality. this is because many presiding officers, social workers and other officials do not know that foreign children should be given equal protection. this lack of knowledge of children’s rights was displayed by various government officials in the centre for child law case where a magistrate in the children’s court refused to conduct inquiries in respect of foreign unaccompanied minors on the basis that the foreign children fall outside the ambit of the child care act. this crass display of methodological nationalism is commonly seen in matters where foreign children are denied basic socio-economic rights on the basis of their nationality. to combat this, the refugee rights unit has always advocated for the amendment of the definition of a child in the children’s act to include the words: “irrespective of nationality” (machingambi & ralekwa 2015). the definition would therefore read as follows: “‘child’ means any person under the age of 18, irrespective of nationality.” the act should also make explicit mention of unaccompanied foreign and separated children and should define the terms expressly stating the different legal categories that such children fall into and how they should be dealt with taking into account their specific needs. it is thus crucial for the dsd, when identifying whether a child is in need of care and protection, to also determine whether the child is a separated or unaccompanied foreign child, as this triggers the need to inquire as to whether the child needs legal documents to reside lawfully in the country. this will also ensure that those dealing with children do not only focus on the social welfare ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 438 issues faced by all children but that they are aware of the nuanced needs of foreign children that render them vulnerable to exploitation and unlawful detention as a result of not being properly documented. the dha needs to fulfil its role by identifying foreign unaccompanied and separated children at the refugee reception offices and ports of entry. when dealing with children, refugee reception offices should, as a matter of practice, ascertain first and foremost if a child has an independent refugee claim and should document the child and provide them with an asylum or refugee status document. it is also important for the dha to note the difference between a separated foreign child and an unaccompanied foreign child. this is because some children become separated from their parents after entering the country. for example, children whose parents have died or resettled in a third country without the child may turn an accompanied child into a separated child. as such, it is crucial that the dha establishes proper mechanisms that will enable officials to properly identify separated children from unaccompanied children. so that where a child is accompanied by an adult, it becomes necessary to establish the nature of the relationship between the child and the adult in order to establish whether or not the adult is in fact the child’s primary caregiver. this will assist the state in combating child trafficking. the children’s court should play a greater role in determining whether the child is in need of care and protection, the court should decide with the assistance of a legal opinion of an expert refugee attorney or unhcr whether the child appears to have a refugee claim. if the child appears to qualify for refugee status, the court should order that the child be assisted in making the application for asylum and accordingly be documented as an asylum seeker or refugee. there is, thus, a need for a provision in the refugees act and its regulations that develops a clear delineated role for dha, dsd, saps, border control and the children’s court, when dealing with unaccompanied foreign children in order to ensure that such children are properly dealt with and are not left legal undocumented. this would require that refugee status determination officers be adequately trained in determining the refugee status of unaccompanied children. furthermore, the refugees act and its regulations should clearly set out the procedure for referring unaccompanied or separated foreign children by the dha to the dsd. the referral system should invariably include a mechanism ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 439 for the recording by the dha of each child referred indicating a note on the circumstances under which the child was found, the dsd official to whom the child was referred and the name of the dha official who made the referral. there needs to be a more coordinated policy between the various government departments working with unaccompanied and separated foreign children. thus, the gap between child-protection and welfare departments and migration departments needs to be breached as children often fall through the bureaucratic cracks. the fact that a different department determines the immigration status of children and an entirely separate one deals with the overall responsibility for welfare and access to rights poses a significant inconsistency between how separated children’s cases are comprehensively considered. the lack of one central department in facilitating greater coherence and a greater focus on the best interests of children also presents a barrier to the development of a durable solution. there should be synergy between section 32(2) of the refugees act and the chapter 9 of the children’s act. section 32 of the refugee’s act provides for the referral of unaccompanied refugee children to the children’s court through the children’s act. the children’s act needs to reflect this provision by empowering the magistrate with the powers to make such an order. identification and documentation of the child should be a priority after the child has been removed from any immediate danger. where the department of home affairs is the first department to encounter a child who appears to qualify for refugee status and seems to be in need of care and protection, the child must be documented without delay and should not have to wait for the conclusion of a children’s court inquiry as contemplated by section 32(2) of the refugees act. this is because section 32(2) of the refugees act when directing refugee reception officers to first refer a child who falls within the ambit of the refugees act and who appears to be in need of care and protection fails to take into consideration sections 150(2) and 155(2) of the children’s act which states that before opening a children’s court inquiry a social worker must investigate the matter and within ninety (90) days compile a report on whether the child is in need of care and protection. during this investigation period which may last up to ninety days, the child will be undocumented, vulnerable to arrest, detention and possible deportation. furthermore, it becomes easier for trafficked children to slip back into the hands of traffickers and without documentation they are unable to access social services and are at risk of exploitation. the initial documentation of the child renders the child legally ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 440 visible and easier to track and trace. consequently, the precedent set in the mubake judgement stating that separated minors should be documented as soon as possible should be extended to unaccompanied children. the centre for child law case clearly outlined how foreign unaccompanied minor children should be dealt with. the court recognised the crucial role that the children’s court should play in these matters and noted that there is a legal duty on the various government departments in south africa to draft a policy framework which lays down the processes and procedures of dealing with unaccompanied foreign children. furthermore, the court laid the precedent which requires the court to play a central role in determining the child’s legal status. when assessing the best interests of the child, authorities need to appreciate the fact that the best interests of a child and the durable solution assessment are inextricably linked. the best interests of a child are the avenue through which a durable solution is made and should not be discarded. children should be provided with a secure, stable life throughout their childhood and beyond. we are of the view that the south african government only deems repatriation as the only durable solution after a child attains majority. the local integration and naturalisation of the child is not pursued to its full extent because if it was, it would entail considerations as to how to secure a child’s permanent legal stay in the country. by neglecting to ensure the legal documentation of foreign minors, authorities fail to understand that the ultimate goal of safeguarding the rights and protection of foreign children is the implementation of a durable solution. in most cases, this can only mean integration into the local society. social workers and presiding officers when determining what is in the best interest of a child should include considerations for long term durable solutions, particularly for children who cannot be reunited with their parents. these long term solutions will centre on the securing of permanent stay in the country. a framework of legal permanence that provides children with a sense of security, continuity and identity is consequently called for. furthermore, the dha should incorporate the best interests of the child whenever they deal with minors. they should always conduct extensive status determination interviews to determine whether a child has a refugee claim or not. a child’s age should never be seen as a deterring factor. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 441 conclusion from the above, we can conclude that despite south africa having a welldeveloped legal and policy framework for securing the rights of foreign children, a number of protection gaps, especially in terms of implementation of these frameworks, still exist. a consistent theme in this paper has been the lack of sufficient legal paths for the documentation of foreign minors. where they do exist, children face exclusion because those entrusted with assisting them do not know the full extent of their obligations or how to fulfil these obligations. furthermore, the bifurcation of competencies and the lack of a jointed approach to the needs of foreign migrant children exacerbates the problem. where children are documented, they are often provided with temporary legal status that expires at the age of majority leaving the children with no real long term durable solutions. documentation is essential in south africa and forms a significant part of the protection of foreign children. true child protection can only be achieved by considering the best interests of the child from childhood and beyond. an approach which fails to take a child’s future into account, fails to meet the best interests of the child. we therefore call upon the children’s court to play an active role in determining the best interests of a child and consider long term solutions for children who cannot be repatriated. references primary 1951 un convention relating to the status of refugees. 1989 convention on the rights of the child. centre for child law and another v minister of home affairs and others 2005 (6) sa 50 (t). child justice act 74 of 2008. children’s act 38 of 2005. department of social development, 2013. standard operating procedures for the tracing, reunification or alternative care placements of unaccompanied and separated children in south africa. immigration act 13 of 2002. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 442 machingambi, n. & ralekwa, r.s. 2015. uct refugee rights unit submission on the children’s bill. mubake and others v minister of home affairs and others. refugees act 130 of 1998. the constitution of the republic of south africa act 108 of 1996. unhcr. 1996. note on policies and procedures in dealing with unaccompanied children seeking asylum, geneva. unhcr. 1992. handbook on procedures and criteria for determining refugee status under the 1951 convention and the 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees. secondary bhabha, j. 2003. more than their share of sorrows: international migration law and the rights of children. saint louis university public law review, 22: 301322. from < http://bit.ly/2aeam6p> (retrieved may 6, 2016). gouden, v. 2002. managing and resolving african conflicts: a critical review. from <http://bit.ly/2aipgei> (retrieved july 7, 2016). kpmg south africa. 2016. south african economy not the second largest in africa anymore. from <http://bit.ly/2aipgei> (retrieved july 6, 2016). palmary, i. 2009. for better implementation of migrant children’s rights in south africa. report for unicef, forced migration studies. separated children in europe programme. 2009. statement of good practice, revised 4th edition. from <http://bit.ly/29wurex> (retrieved may 9, 2016). victoria, j. 2015. experts weigh in on child migration. mail and guardian, august 28, 2015. from <http://mg.co.za/article/2015-08-28-00-expertsweigh-in-on-child-migration> (retrieved may 15, 2016). ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 332 xenophobia, price competition and violence in the spaza sector in south africa laurence piper and andrew charman abstract the last decade has seen growing awareness of violent attacks against foreigners in south africa. this includes attacks against foreign traders in the townships where they are portrayed as ‘taking over’ by out-competing south african traders on price. central to township trade are neighbourhood grocery or convenience stores colloquially known ‘spaza’ shops. drawing on evidence from surveys with over 1000 spaza shopkeepers from south africa’s three main cities, this article makes the case that business competitiveness does not correspond simply with being foreign or south african. while bangladeshi and somali shops were, on average, cheaper than south african shops, zimbabwean and mozambican shops were actually more expensive. further, there is also no easy correspondence between being foreign or south african and the experience of violent crime. some nationalities report levels lower than south africans, and some higher. however, there does seem to be a correlation between reported levels of violent crime and economic competitiveness: the nationalities whose shops are more expensive reported lower levels of violent crime, while those whose shops are cheaper reported higher levels. this suggests that the chance of being violently targeted is less about nationality, and more about whether you keep prices low and (presumably) profits high. however, the reality is more complicated as the nature of the crime experienced by the more successful shopkeepers differs by nationality. hence, somali shopkeepers endure much more violent crime than bangladeshi shopkeepers. not only do these findings challenge the myth that all foreign spaza shops are more competitive than south african shops, but also the assumption that all foreign shopkeepers experience the same levels and, especially, forms of violence. * department of political studies, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa, 7535. email: lpiper@uwc.ac.za ** sustainable livelihoods foundation, cape town, south africa, 7800. email: andrew.charman@livelihoods.org.za mailto:lpiper@uwc.ac.za mailto:andrew.charman@livelihoods.org.za ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 333 keywords informal economy, retail business competition, migration, nationality, xenophobia. introduction the last ten years has seen growing public awareness of violent attacks against foreign shopkeepers in south africa, especially those who run spaza shops. notably, most xenophobic attacks have occurred in poor, black urban settlements called townships that were created as dormitories for cheap labour under apartheid (fauvelle-aymar & segatti 2011), and which remain the first point of settlement for most migrants into the city, including those from the rest of africa. as the most densely populated and often poorest areas in the country, townships have high levels of unemployment and significant levels of informal economic activity. central to the informal economy of the township is the spaza shop, or neighbourhood grocery or convenience store, which is the second most common form of informal micro-enterprise in south african townships after alcohol retail establishments known as ‘shebeens’ (charman et al. 2013). in the last ten years, the spaza sector has witnessed the rise of foreign ownership, principally by migrants from the rest of africa, but also by bangladeshi and other south asian migrants (charman et al. 2012). this change of ownership has impacted on township life in several ways, and is often cited as one reason behind the xenophobic attitudes and attacks evident in south africa, especially since 2008. hence, popular explanations of violence against foreigners include allegations that foreign migrants are taking jobs, women, state grants and other social opportunities that rightly belong to south africans only. after the large-scale attacks on more than 100 small businesses in port elizabeth in 2013, the global post reported that ‘many people accuse “foreigners” of taking their jobs, or of putting south african shopkeepers out of business by undercutting their prices’ (conway-smith 2013). similarly, in 2012, the somaliland press reported that mobs tell somalis to leave south africa, in part because they ‘fear that they will take their jobs, townships, businesses and eventually their country’ (hussein 2012). claims that foreigners are illegitimate competitors for scarce resources are made frequently around the world. this is currently evident in the uk, from ukip (uk independence party) and the reaction by the conservative party on the immigration issue. other examples abound, from countries including ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 334 belgium (zagefka et al. 2007), israel (pedahzur & yishai 1999; semyonov et al. 2002), germany (wimmer 1997), turkey (zagefka et al. 2007), the united states (citrin et al. 1997) and south africa (crush 2008 & everett 2011). notably, although often dismissed as not the real or main reason behind xenophobic attacks both internationally (wimmer 1997) and in south africa (hickey 2014), there is evidence that foreign traders have impacted on the local informal economy of the urban township and informal settlements. this impact is manifest both in the increasing number of foreign-run shops, but also by competition with south african shopkeepers on price (africa unite 2007; department of the premier 2007). hence, a number of studies (charman et al 2012 & gastrow & amit 2013) have identified competition on price as a central reason for the rise of the somali spaza owners and the decline of south africanrun shops. this development is important economically as competition on price is not a practice historically embraced by south african township traders (charman & petersen 2007), whose motivations for trading are not necessarily ‘reducible to the idea of “maximisation of profit”’ (neves & du toit 2012: 131). in addition, this development is important politically in that it forms a point of potential social conflict that can be used to justify xenophobic attacks. for example, in a recent article in the star on 13 june 2014, landau and freemantle (2014) describe how xenophobic attacks are motivated by a discourse that blames a group for an individual’s alleged crimes. they cite the case of ‘marauding groups’ making their way through mamelodi, and forcing foreigners, especially foreign shopkeepers, to leave the township ‘largely unencumbered by resistance from the police or residents.’ landau and freemantle (2014) point out that these mobs often escalate out of banal conflicts between individuals, a practice they liken to ‘sippenhaft’, a term popularised during the nazi regime that literally means ‘kin liability’, and holds a whole group of people responsible for an individual’s purported crime. the point is that the increase in foreign-owned spaza shops, ostensibly at the expense of south african shopkeepers, can form an issue on which this kind of xenophobic discourse can fixate, and around which mobilisation and violence can occur (hickel 2014). notably, landau and freemantle ( 2 0 1 4 ) point out that the possibility of this kind of xenophobic mobilisation exists due to institutional failure on the part of the state, not least around formal policing. further, this institutional failure is exacerbated by the reluctance of the police to take the ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 335 problem of xenophobia and xenophobic attacks seriously. writing on politicsweb on 19 june 2014, peter fabricius argues that the ‘south african government mostly dismisses xenophobic violence as “ordinary criminality.” perhaps that explains why it now seems to be becoming routine in south africa – almost accepted as an inevitable part of the south african way of life, like other violent crimes.’ consequently, what follows in this article takes great care to interrogate carefully, systematically, and in ways well supported by evidence, claims about price competition and violent crime in the spaza sector and their relationships with nationality. what emerges is a picture very different from popular discourse in at least two respects. first, the notion that the ‘foreign’ shopkeeper out-competes the south african shopkeeper is largely inaccurate. if one compares spaza shops on price then south africans are actually slightly cheaper on average than mozambicans and zimbabweans, although more expensive than bangladeshi and somali shopkeepers. further variation is evident by area and by product. second, the idea that foreign shopkeepers bear the greatest burden of violent crime is also not sustained by the evidence. once again we found that reported levels of violent crime f o r s h o p k e e p e r s varied by nationality where south africans reported higher levels of crime than mozambicans and zimbabweans, but less than somalis and bangladeshis. again, more variety is introduced by area and form of violence. lastly, where there is a correlation between price and violent crime, the nature of the crime differs significantly by nationality, suggesting that variables other than price also matter. methodology the data used in this article comes from surveys conducted with over 1050 spaza shopkeepers nationwide. more specifically, the data comes from eleven local-area censuses conducted in townships and informal settlements in cape town, gauteng and durban by the sustainable livelihoods foundation (slf) from 2011-20131. in each of the eleven sites, a team geolocated each identifiable business on each street, and conducted semistructured surveys with all the traders from each of the main business types, including spaza shops. the surveys were conducted by the slf team in english, or in the language of the respondent where possible (the team included isixhosa, afrikaans, isizulu and somali speakers). across the whole 1 see http://livelihoods.org.za/informality/micro-enterprises/ ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 336 sample, the survey revealed shopkeepers from the following countries: angola, bangladesh, burundi, drc, egypt, ethiopia, lesotho, mozambique, namibia, pakistan, rwanda, south africa, tanzania and zimbabwe. figure 1 is an example of the entire census for one area, ivory park, in gauteng. the spaza shops are highlighted in figure 2. the areas and number of spaza shops by nationality are described in table 1 below. if one examines table 1, it is clear that ivory park accounts for the highest share of the overall sample (20.7%), followed by delft south (17.1%) and phillipi (16.0%). vrygrond accounts for the lowest share (0.2%), followed by overcome heights (2.1%) and seawinds (3.1%). looking at the south africans only, it is interesting that ivory park no longer accounts for the largest share, but it is rather kwamashu (22.0%), followed by phillipi (20.4%) and delft south (17.8%). in contrast, looking at the foreigners only, the ivory park share is the highest (27.0%), followed by delft south (16.5%) and tembisa (15.3%). in terms of row, it is notable that the south african share is clearly dominant in kwamashu (88.9%), sweet home farm (79.1%) and phillipi (61.9%). however, the foreigners’ share is more dominant in vrygrond (100.0%, note that there are only two respondents), imizamo yethu (88.3%), capricorn (79.1%) and ivory park (67.0%). table 1: distribution of spaza shops in the sample 2 number row total column total south african foreign total south african foreign total south african foreign total delft south, cct 91 89 180 50.6% 49.4% 100.0% 17.8% 16.5% 17.1% imizamo yethu, cct 7 53 60 11.7% 88.3% 100.0% 1.4% 9.8% 5.7% ivory park, jhb 72 146 218 33.0% 67.0% 100.0% 14.1% 27.0% 20.7% 2 the price tables 1 to 4 were generated by dr yu or economics at uwc as part of our drafting an article on spaza prices and nationality, forthcoming as piper & yu. 2016. deconstructing ‘the foreign’: the limits of citizenship for explaining price competition in south african spazas. development southern africa. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 337 kwamashu, dbn 112 14 126 88.9% 11.1% 100.0% 22.0% 2.6% 12.0% overcome heights, cct 9 13 22 40.9% 59.1% 100.0% 1.8% 2.4% 2.1% phillipi, cct 104 64 168 61.9% 38.1% 100.0% 20.4% 11.8% 16.0% seawinds, cct 18 15 33 54.5% 45.5% 100.0% 3.5% 2.8% 3.1% sweet home farm, cct 34 9 43 79.1% 20.9% 100.0% 6.7% 1.7% 4.1% tembisa, ekurhuleni 49 83 132 37.1% 62.9% 100.0% 9.6% 15.3% 12.6% vrygrond, cct 0 2 2 0.0% 100.0% 100.0% 0.0% 0.4% 0.2% capricorn, cct 14 53 67 20.9% 79.1% 100.0% 2.7% 9.8% 6.4% 510 541 1051 48.5% 51.5% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% source: authors notably, while the data for each site is slf census data, and therefore is representative of the site, the collation across the eleven sites does not constitute a representative national sample. thus, while the sheer size and spatial spread of the sample is suggestive, as are the recurring spatial patterns in respect of business types (for example spaza shops are always evenly spread across a settlement), it is not a basis from which to generalise statistically to the rest of the country. hence, while we can have near absolute levels of confidence in the claims in respect of each site, we cannot have the same confidence when speaking of the country as a whole. the key data used in this article is not spatial data but rather the data collected from surveys with over 1050 shopkeepers across the eleven sites. this data is linked to two main variables: prices of key products and experiences of violent crime. in terms of prices we asked each shopkeeper the price of their 12 most common products, namely: 1 litre milk, 6 eggs, a loaf of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 338 white bread, a half loaf of white bread, 250g sugar, 500g sugar, 340ml coke, 1.5 litre coke, jive, double o, premium cigarettes and economy cigarettes. these items form the basis of a price comparison across site and by nationality that allow us to interrogate the claim that foreign shopkeepers are more price competitive than south africans. in terms of violent crime, we asked each shopkeeper to list each incident of the following for the previous five years: murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, theft, assault, arson and harassment. this data forms the basis of analysis of levels of violent crime across the sample and by nationality too. three key assumptions inform the subsequent analysis. the first assumption is that foreign shop keepers are first generation migrants. while we did not ask this in the surveys, we are confident that this is overwhelmingly the case both from our experience in the field, but also from the fact that, due to the racist policies of the apartheid era, migration into south africa’s townships from the rest of africa only began on any scale in the late 1990s. the second assumption is that shops with cheaper prices will not only outcompete more expensive rivals in terms of attracting more customers, but also be more profitable due to higher turnover. indeed there is strong qualitative evidence to this effect from both somali and south african shop keepers in a previous study (charman et al. 2012: 66-7). the third assumption is that reporting on experiences of crime is the same across all types of respondents. while there are problems with this, as some foreign shop keepers may feel more vulnerable than locals and thus be less likely to report issues, we attempted to counter this by using somali surveyors for somali respondents, and by verifying mull reports of crime with the neighbours of the shopkeepers. unpacking spaza competitiveness in what follows the article unpacks the sample of shopkeepers spatially and by nationality, demonstrating both that south africans constitute the single largest nationality in the sample, and that very different nationalities are found in each of the three cities. this is the first way in which the ‘foreign’ can be disassembled in terms of spaza shops in south africa. second, the article examines the amount of stock found in spazas by nationality, demonstrating that some nationalities (zimbabweans and mozambicans) hold less stock than south africans, suggesting fewer resources, while others hold more. further, the article compares the average price of products, demonstrating that for a basket of the top 12 goods somali and bangladeshi shopkeepers are the cheapest, but that zimbabweans and mozambicans are more ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 339 expensive than south africans. both these insights further disassemble the foreign/south african distinction. indeed, the only products on which all foreigners out-compete south africans on average price are 6 eggs and economy cigarettes. notably, against the mainstream view, south africans out-compete most foreigners on prices of 1l milk and the loaf of white bread. a. nationality and spatiality to begin with the nationality of shopkeepers, figure 3 demonstrates that 510 of the 1051 (48.5%) respondents are south africans, and the remaining 541 (51.5%) are foreigners. taken as a whole then, the sample is divided roughly 50:50, south african to foreign, but actually there are more than double the number of south africans shopkeepers than the 236 somali shopkeepers, who constitute the second most common nationality. furthermore, as revealed in figure 4, when unpacked spatially, the distribution of nationalities varies tremendously by city where 220 of the 236 (93%) somali shopkeepers are found in cape town, 103 of 149 (70%) ethiopian shopkeepers are in gauteng, as were 38 of 46 (83%) of bangladeshi shopkeepers. therefore, the identity of ‘foreign’ shopkeepers differs quite profoundly from area to area, and is of little use in identifying the actual nationalities involved in any city. thus, ‘foreign’ shopkeepers in johannebsurg are very different nationalities from ‘foreign’ shopkeepers in cape town. b. spaza stock while spaza shops stock a wide variety of goods, we identified the 12 most common products from our survey. moreover, if one analyses the extent to which shopkeepers have these 12 items in their shops, and break this down by nationality as in table 2 and in figure 5, then once again the south african versus foreign contrast quickly breaks down. instead, we find that south africans are more likely to have a half loaf of white bread on their shelves than most other nationalities. conversely, somalis and ethiopians are more likely to stock sugar than most other nationalities, and mozambicans and bangladeshis almost always have eggs in their stores. further, if one treats the 12 products as a basket of goods, then south africans generally have more stock than zimbabwean and mozambican shopkeepers but less than other nationalities. also notable, the somali and bangladeshi – and perhaps the ethiopian – shopkeepers have significantly more on the shelves than other nationalities. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 340 table 2: number and proportion of shopkeepers reporting stock by nationality and product south african (n=510 ) foreign ethiopia n (n=149) somalia n (n=236) mozambica n (n=48) banglades hi (n=46) zimbabwea n (n=28) other (n=34 ) foreign total (n=541 ) 1 litre milk 284 55.7% 90 60.4% 208 88.1% 12 25.0% 32 69.6% 9 32.1% 20 58.8% 371 68.6% 6 eggs 426 83.5% 140 94.0% 222 94.1% 47 97.9% 45 97.8% 25 89.3% 23 67.6% 502 92.8% half loaf of white bread 260 51.0% 44 29.5% 169 71.6% 19 39.6% 19 41.3% 7 25.0% 18 52.9% 276 51.0% full loaf of white bread 62 12.2% 60 40.3% 58 24.6% 19 39.6% 27 58.7% 17 60.7% 12 35.3% 193 35.7% 250g sugar 338 66.3% 134 89.9% 197 83.5% 44 91.7% 42 91.3% 23 82.1% 22 64.7% 462 85.4% 500g sugar 408 80.0% 137 91.9% 217 91.9% 47 97.9% 44 95.7% 26 92.9% 25 73.5% 496 91.7% ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 341 340 ml coke 220 43.1% 94 63.1% 134 56.8% 9 18.8% 43 93.5% 6 21.4% 13 38.2% 299 55.3% 1.5l coke 233 45.7% 37 24.8% 203 86.0% 5 10.4% 8 17.4% 4 14.3% 22 64.7% 279 51.6% jive 81 15.9% 31 20.8% 122 51.7% 2 4.2% 7 15.2% 3 10.7% 14 41.2% 179 33.1% double o 80 15.7% 13 8.7% 106 44.9% 4 8.3% 6 13.0% 2 7.1% 12 35.3% 143 26.4% premiu m cigarett e 419 82.2% 139 93.3% 210 89.0% 43 89.6% 44 95.7% 25 89.3% 24 70.6% 485 89.6% econom ic cigarett e 166 32.5% 65 43.6% 148 62.7% 27 56.3% 21 45.7% 14 50.0% 9 26.5% 284 52.5% average 48.7% 55.0% 70.4% 48.3% 61.2% 47.9% 52.4% 61.1% source: authors c. pricing at the centre of the claim that foreign shopkeepers out-compete south africans is the idea of price competition, specifically the claim that foreign shopkeepers have lower prices than south africans. this appears to be confirmed by figure 6, where foreign prices are slightly cheaper than south african, with the exception of coke. however, once one disaggregates this by product and nationality, the contrast breaks down. hence, as can be seen from table 3, only on eggs and economy cigarettes are all foreign traders cheaper on mean price than south africans, but south africans are cheaper on 1l milk and a loaf of white bread than almost all other nationalities. perhaps more tellingly though, on 24 of a total of 72 prices, south africans are cheaper than all others, suggesting that the real difference on average prices is not large. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 342 this claim is confirmed by figure 7 which compares the mean price per product between south african shopkeepers and those of other nationalities. here the difference in mean price on a basket of goods is significant, with somalis being the cheapest by over r4. critically however, south africans are mid-table, with only somali, bangladeshi and other smaller nationalities being cheaper. somewhat remarkably, given the common discourse, ethiopian spaza shopkeepers are more expensive across a basket of goods, with mozambicans and zimbabweans at the bottom of the list at over r1 more per basket. table 3: difference between mean foreign price and mean south african price (in cents) ethiopian somalian mozambican bangladeshi zimbabwean other 1 litre milk 183.89* -153.76* 176.95 196.22* 211.67 -109.72 6 eggs -83.46* -83.69* -86.98* -89.32* -73.72* -86.28* ½ loaf of white bread 15.79 -25.61* 67.84* 26.79 65.14 -40.02* loaf of white bread -23.55 28.68 -82.60* -55.79 -60.15 34.95 250g sugar -5.30 -25.04* 18.97 -28.62* 2.85 -18.99 500g sugar -45.78* -69.94* 12.78 -31.24* 30.23 -45.69* 340ml coke -14.85 -42.73* 75.08 8.49 -33.25 -23.63 1.5l coke 37.67* 3.76 -2.60 -32.60 -32.60 10.59 jive 24.17 -2.96 -20.99* -35.27 12.35 -10.27 double o -16.25 -12.00 -16.25* 0.42 -16.25* -28.75 premium cigarette -10.24* -25.70* 11.92* -4.24 19.47* -15.38* economic cigarette -12.35* -15.59* -17.15* -15.03* -17.89 -19.00* total 49.74 -424.58 136.97 -60.19 107.85 -352.19 source: authors * the mean price difference is statistically significant at α = 5%. this picture is confirmed by a comparison of the difference between south african and other nationalities on median price per product, as in table 4. the key point here is that there is no difference on median price by nationality for 40 of the 72 possible prices, or 56% of all price comparisons. indeed, if one removes milk and bread, the remaining median price differences are less than 50c. in sum, price differences are generally small, and those that do exist, do not follow the south african/foreign divide. hence south africans sell the cheapest milk and bangladeshi’s sell the cheapest coke. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 343 table 4: difference between median foreign price and median south african price (in cents) ethiopian somalian mozambican bangladeshi zimbabwean other 1 litre milk 350 -50 300 425 450 -50 6 eggs 0 0 0 0 0 0 half loaf of white bread 0 0 100 50 100 -25 full loaf of white bread -100 50 -100 -100 -100 50 250g sugar 0 0 50 0 0 0 500g sugar -50 -50 0 0 0 -50 340ml coke 0 -50 50 0 -25 0 1.5l coke 0 0 0 -50 -50 0 jive 0 0 0 0 0 0 double o 0 0 0 0 0 0 premium cigarette -10 -10 40 -10 40 -10 economic cigarette 0 0 0 0 0 0 source: authors note: it is only possible to test whether the foreign price is statistically significant from the south african price at the mean (see tables 5 & 6), but not at the median. in conclusion, our analysis suggests that somalis and bangladeshis have the most stock, and are cheaper on average than others, whereas zimbabweans and mozambicans have the least stock and are more expensive on average. overall though, price differences are small as suggested by the convergence on median prices. the one partial exception to this may be somalis who are relatively more competitive than mozambicans and zimbabweans. so there is an asymmetry in the data that may be worth further exploration – especially given the findings of the following section. unpacking violent crime in this section the article unpacks the reported levels of violent crime against spaza shopkeepers in the last five years. it is critical to note that most shopkeepers had not been in the shop for a l l o f the preceding five years, so actual levels of crime will be underreported rather than overreported. nevertheless the levels of crime reported across our seven categories (theft, armed robbery, assault, arson, attempted murder, murder and harassment) were high. hence, some 747 of a possible 1054 spaza shops, or 71%, had experienced at least one incident of crime in the preceding five years. furthermore, of our seven types of crime, only theft can be argued not to ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 344 involve the exercise of violence or the threat of violence. hence, some 470 of 1054 or 45% of shops reported a violent crime in the preceding five years. this distinction will become important when considering the difference between somali and bangladeshi shopkeepers below. when unpacking all these incidents as per figure 8 it is clear that theft is the most common crime, affecting over 25% of all shops, with armed robbery affecting nearly another quarter. in short, robbery, armed or not, constitutes nearly the majority of reported crimes from spaza shops, and is thus the greatest single risk that spaza shopkeepers face. d. spatiality and violent crime aside from these generalisations, the experience of crime by spaza shopkeepers varies dramatically by area and nationality. thus, as revealed in table 5 and figure 9, there is a significant difference in the extent of crime across our eleven sites, with sweet home farm reporting 49 incidents at 43 spaza shops in the last five years (114%) and seawinds coming in as the safest with just 24%. further, this difference does not seem to correspond to settlement type as overcome heights is also a smaller informal settlement like sweet home farm and had the second lowest crime rate at 41%. perhaps there is some convergence in the larger townships, with ivory park, kwamashu, phillipi and tembisa close to the 70% mark. lastly, it seems clear that theft and robbery make the most important difference to these overall figures, as the top three sites of sweet home farm, imizamo yethu and kwamashu report combined theft/robbery figures of 67.5%, 63.3% and 62.7%, and the bottom three of capricorn, overcome heights and seawinds report combined figures of 31.3%, 36.4% and 18.2%. table 5: any incident of crime in previous five years by location delft south imizamo yethu ivory park kwama shu overco me heights phillip i seawin ds sweet home farm tembis a vrygro nd capri corn total yes 116 53 152 105 9 130 8 49 90 3 32 747 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 345 % 64.40 88.30 69.70 83.30 40.90 77.40 24.20 114.00 68.20 75.00 47.80 70.90 total shops 180 60 218 126 22 168 33 43 132 4 67 1053 source: authors e. nationality and violent crime in addition to these spatial differences, figure 10 reveals similarly divergent experiences of crime by nationality. thus, in descending order, bangladeshi, somali and ethiopian shopkeepers reported rates of 111%, 92% and 74% respectively, whereas the lowest affected groups were zimbabwean, mozambican and other foreign at 54%, 46% and 44%. south africans are right in the middle at 62%. immediately there is an obvious and suggestive correlation with the rank order of violent crime and the rank order of price competitiveness. first however, it is important to unpack more of the differences between bangladeshi and somali experiences of violent crime. table 6: any incident of crime in previous five years by nationality south african somalian ethiopian mozambican bangladeshi zimbabwean other total incidents 315 401 309 140 28 66 20 23 % 61.8 171.4 207.4 291.7 60.9 235.7 51.3 2.2 shops 510 234 149 48 46 28 39 1054 source: authors bangladeshi shopkeepers reported higher crime levels than all other nationalities in the categories of theft, armed robbery, arson and harassment. thus 37% of bangladeshi shopkeepers report theft (south africans are the next highest at 28%), 41% report armed robbery (somalis are the next highest at 33%), 7% report arson (ethiopians are the next highest at 2%) and 20% report harassment (zimbabweans are the next highest at 18%). in contrast, somalis are first in the categories of assault at 9% (ethiopians are ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 346 second at 5%), attempted murder at 11% (ethiopians are second at 5%) and murder at 4% (south africans are second at 1%). hence, as confirmed in figure 11, the nature of the violent crime experienced by the two most vulnerable groups, somali and bangladeshi, is quite different, with somalis being exposed to significantly more extreme forms of violence. indeed, as illustrated by figure 12 which compares global murder rates per 100 000 (6.2), to the country (33.2), to all spaza shopkeepers in our sample (1518), to somali shopkeepers (3913), it is clear that running a spaza shop is dangerous. the risk of murder increases to 46 times the national average, and for somali shopkeepers to over 100 times higher than the national average. in sum, the risk of violent crime does not subscribe to the south african/foreign divide often invoked in popular discourse, but varies by area, nationality and type of crime. the analysis suggests that cheaper, and presumably more profitable, shops are more likely to experience crime than more expensive profitable shops. however, this needs further research, given the significant difference in types of crime experienced by the more successful bangladeshi and somali shopkeepers. other factors clearly impact on this relationship. conclusion the main conclusion of this article is that speaking of spaza shops a s foreign conceals more than it reveals, both in terms of business competition and in terms of violent crime. it simply is not true that foreign shops are outcompeting south african shops, and conversely, that south african shopkeepers experience less violent crime than foreign shopkeepers. to make the point another way, accurate claims can only be made when they refer to some combination of nationality, area and product/form of violent crime. further, it is notable that the cheaper shops do tend to report more crime than the expensive shops, suggesting an economic motive for most violent crime experienced by spaza shops. however, this correlation needs further exploration as the nature of the crimes experienced by somali and bangladeshi shop keepers differs significantly, with somali shopkeepers enduring higher levels of violence. perhaps this has something to do with business practice and violent entrepreneurship (charman & piper 2012; liedeman 2013), o r the spatial location of businesses, or perhaps with other ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 347 factors like social integration (gastrow & amit 2012; gastrow 2013). we simply do not know. lastly, and very importantly, the claim of a correlation between spaza price and violent crime is not a causal claim. in fact, it is not even a proper correlation as it is yet to be tested statistically. at best it is suggestive of a line of further research – albeit one that makes intuitive sense as one would expect shops perceived to have more money to be more targeted by criminals. even more importantly, the claim of a correlation between spaza prices and violent crime is not to be confused with the claim that xenophobic attacks are motivated by economic reasons. our unit of analysis in this study was the spaza shop not the xenophobic attack, and so we have not explored the latter at all, and hence are not claiming any relationship between xenophobic attacks and economic interests. this is a crucial distinction often lost in the discourse around spaza shops, xenophobia and xenophobic attacks, both on the side of the state and on the side of refugee rights groups. rather, as noted in the introduction, the concern of this article is the way in which mundane daily conflicts 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migration; rights; statelessness mailto:ajwang.warria%40wits.ac.za?subject= 7 introduction mixed migration is on the rise globally and in africa. the presence of many undocumented migrants crossing different international borders is straining immigration, child protection and citizenship legislation and policies, and a sense of balance is required between inclusion and exclusion (van waas, 2007: 437). statelessness is when a person is not recognized by any country as a citizen, and they cannot call any country their own. according to art. 1 of the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons, a stateless person is an individual “who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law.” south africa is reported to have many undocumented migrants, who are either stateless or vulnerable to becoming stateless. a part of this population includes children and young people under the age of 18. due to lack of country affiliation and subsequent protection, stateless persons have been referred to as “outcasts from the global political system of states” (unhcr, 2001) and as “legal ghosts” (unhcr, 2004). stateless adults and children experience challenges when they try to access fundamental rights and services and they are at risk of marginalization, discrimination and insecurity (van waas, 2007: 439). the worldwide growth in the number of children who are migrants and stateless and the associated risks are increasing concerns among scholars and practitioners (bhabha, 2009, 2011; lynch, 2010). empirical research in this area is scant and there is a call to increase the voices of local actors to help fill the gaps to further understand statelessness and responses to it (ball et al., 2014). in addition, sustainable development goal (sdg) 16.9 requires “providing legal identity for all, including birth registration, by 2030” – a key factor in preventing statelessness. childhood statelessness in south africa is reported to be an increasing phenomenon, which, though preventable, is often overlooked (lhr and isi, 2016). the lawyers for human rights (lhr) have been instrumental in providing assistance to stateless persons in south africa. however, the lack of a social work response to childhood statelessness means that its guiding ethics and principles are not being fully exercised (edwards and mika, 2017). despite social work being a global profession that is committed to social change and social justice, little attention has been devoted to this challenge in the social work discourse in south africa. the paucity of attention in social work to the issue of childhood statelessness is concerning in light of the opportunities for social work engagement and support. indeed, several reports have singled out and suggested that social workers can play a critical role in addressing this issue. however, information relevant to helping social workers to address this challenge in south africa is largely absent. the goal of this paper is to help social work practitioners assist stateless migrant children and migrant children at risk of becoming stateless. the expressions irregular migrant, undocumented or non-documented migrant refer to the same basic situation, i.e. when a non-national in south africa is in contravention of south african immigration laws. these terms also include people who entered the country stateless transnational migrant children in south africa 8 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 illegally and legally but subsequently broke or dishonored the conditions of their stay. this paper reviews the literature on childhood statelessness and identifies the role that social workers in south africa can play. firstly, it presents an overview of the methodology used, followed by a discussion of the nature of statelessness. next, it introduces the general pathways to statelessness, and discusses the nexus between statelessness and transnational migration. the author then presents an overview of childhood statelessness in general, highlighting statelessness in south africa. lastly, the paper identifies implications for social work practice and suggests avenues for future research. methodology this paper is based on a desk-study of the available literature on statelessness. the reference period was june to november 2018. the initial search for material used keywords such as ‘statelessness*’, ‘statelessness migrant children*’, ‘statelessness south africa*’ and ‘statelessness and social work’. a further search was conducted in march 2020 with a specific focus on south africa and southern africa. the researcher also conducted a grey literature search. the databases that were used included social work abstracts, psychinfo, and social services abstracts (ssa). the selection criteria required the journal articles to be under 15 years old, peer-reviewed, and written in english. in addition, reports commissioned by international organizations such as the united nations children’s fund (unicef), the institute on statelessness and inclusion (isi), and the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) were included and key websites and online resource libraries including google scholar were searched. a manual search in different documents led to the identification of additional articles and reports which were included. despite efforts to reduce bias in this review, methodological limitations exist. for example, the articles which were included were reviewed by one person, i.e. the author of the article. in addition, the review did not include articles which were written in languages other than in english and available online. defining statelessness and scope a stateless person is an individual who does not have a nationality. such persons cannot enjoy the protection of any country, and although they might identify with a certain country, they cannot call any country their own. according to ball et al. (2014: 3), stateless people lack a legal bond of nationality with any country. in other circumstances, they may have a valid claim to citizenship, but they cannot prove citizenship, or governments have refused to grant them citizenship. children who are undocumented because of lack of registration at birth end up subsequently not being recognized as citizens. indeed, statelessness also affect children born in south africa. according to foster and lambert (2016), careful analysis is crucial of a country’s application of domestic laws to individual cases to determine who is awarded 9 nationality. the position under national law is what is relevant and applicable as it is based on principles of sovereignty and self-determination. statelessness can be caused by various complex, multi-dimensional and multi-systemic factors. according to menz (2016: 505), statelessness can be “caused by expressed or implied discriminatory nationality laws, mass displacement from conflicts, or ineffective or non-existent birth registration systems, which makes it an unfortunate by-product of citizenship gaps”. this is echoed in an earlier paper by fokala and chenwi (2014), analyzing the decision by the african committee of experts in the rights and welfare of the child (acerwc) on nubian children, in addition to conflict in and failure to implement nationality laws, and a lack of effective naturalization procedures by african countries. in as much as both publications conflict on the cause of statelessness, it should be noted that it is an indirect cause, and protracted displacement is what places a person at-risk of statelessness. although a country has the freedom to regulate its conferring of nationality to children born in its territory, it is unfortunate that children are often excluded by the discriminatory application of laws or policies on birth registration and immigration. manby (2016: 2) reports that dual nationality regulations can be misinterpreted and can be “used to deny a child born to one citizen parent the right to nationality in the country of their birth, even when in principle the child is eligible for that nationality.” denationalization is when countries continuously deny recognition to certain persons within their borders or strip them of their right to citizenship despite legal reforms, personal ties to the country, economic benefits or diplomatic interventions. for example, when world war ii ended, germany stripped jewish survivors of the holocaust of their citizenship and recent incidents of denationalization are tied to security threats as counterterrorism responses (pillai and williams, 2017). the number of people who are stateless worldwide is unknown. nahmias (2020) reports that although unhcr has data for 3.9 million stateless people, there are millions of additional people who are stateless. the 2020 world statelessness report (isi, 2020) indicates that the isi continues to use the 15 million global statelessness estimates based on existing statistical information. the varied statistics indicate the difficulty in estimating the actual number since only few countries report these statistics – even if there are known stateless populations in their countries (mbiyozo, 2019). according to the unhcr (2015: 8) report, 1,021,418 people are considered to be stateless in just six african countries, and “at least 70,000 stateless children are born each year in the countries hosting the 20 largest statelessness situations.” though south africa is considered to have a significant number of stateless persons, the figures are unknown because they are simply not counted. this lack of acknowledgment increases the risks of marginalization and discrimination (menz, 2016; thompson, 2017) and protection of rights (bhabha, 2009; goris et al., 2009; manby, 2011, 2016; van waas, 2014). menz (2016: 505) argues that the figures provided of stateless persons are “speculative, because stateless persons are by definition outside of any legal regime stateless transnational migrant children in south africa 10 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 and must live in the shadows on the outermost margins of society.” this supports earlier assertions by ball et al. (2014) that estimates of stateless persons vary because of heterogeneity, the situations that led to them being stateless and challenges involved in calculating people who are legally excluded. this paucity of information has been attributed to the lack of serious attention it has been accorded. in addition, stateless people are “often undocumented…ignored by authorities and not counted in national administrative registries and databases or in population censuses” (foster and lambert, 2016: 568). a further challenge in collecting information on stateless people is their unwillingness to be identified because of their immigration status and their unconscious vulnerability. overview of general pathways to statelessness according to ball et al. (2014), there are different pathways to statelessness, and therefore varied approaches and interventions are required to address the issue. the following are some wide-ranging pathways to statelessness: (i) political change; (ii) expulsion from territory; (iii) discrimination; (iv) descent-based nationality; (v) withdrawal of nationality; and (vi) laws on birth registration. these pathways may vary from country to country. being undocumented can act “as a possible protection against state surveillance, control and persecution” (ball et al., 2014: 6). this can be so especially in areas or countries where there have been incidents of discrimination and massacres based on ethnic and/or religious affiliations. in addition, lack of documentation may benefit working children, who due to family circumstances are able to work and contribute to family resources and income because their status cannot be confirmed, and their age cannot be proven by labor inspectors. on the other hand, this also opens up the prospects of exploitation and trafficking (warria, 2017b). there are also different pathways to child statelessness. some include: (i) inability to register a child’s birth even though they might be entitled to citizenship; (ii) when children are born in one country and they travel with their parents to live in another country without documentation; (iii) unaccompanied or separated children in country of resettlement without documentation; (iv) trafficked children; (v) fondlings, i.e. abandoned children whose parents cannot be identified; (vi) unregistered children or children without birth records who are left under the care of relatives; and (vii) children born in countries where discriminatory provisions exist in nationality laws based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, etc. whichever way one looks at it, “understanding determinants and consequences of birth registration is critical to gaining insight into how migration can affect child protection” and their rights (ball et al., 2017: 310). however, it should be noted that not all unregistered children at birth become stateless. lack of registration merely increases their risk of being unable to claim nationality at a later stage. 11 transnational migration and statelessness previously, young men were the ones who often migrated. this has changed and women, children and the elderly now form part of recent migration trends. notably, the feminization of migration has been on the increase. in addition, due to pre-migration situations in their home countries, migrants show a willingness to take “the unpopular 3d jobs – dirty, difficult and dangerous…though a valuable asset to the national economy, it also means that the number of irregular migrants will continue to grow, remain un-deportable and states continue to concede to the demand for 3i labor – inexpensive, imported and irregular” (van waas, 2007: 442-443). as time progresses, the child migrants grow up, and adult male and female irregular migrants find partners (either fellow migrants or local nationals) and get married. this results in the inevitable expansion of the family. given that states are signatories to international human rights conventions, these migrants remain in a state of irregularity and cannot be returned due to humanitarian reasons, i.e. non-refoulement. on the other hand, though controversial and no country will readily admit this, countries turn a blind eye and do not return migrants due to the economic benefits that the country derives from migrant labor – legal or illegal. this is partly what bourdieu (1998 in ball et al. 2014: 7) referred to as “flexploitation” – flexible exploitation of vulnerabilities in varying forms including low pay and unsafe working conditions. furthermore, several studies have noted that undocumented migrants often remain invisible to authorities in their country of settlement either by choosing to do so or simply out of necessity (van waas, 2007). without legal identity documents that enable children of undocumented migrants access to entitlements associated with citizenship, their options are fewer, their futures are bleak, (lynch, 2010) they end up as products of inter-generational statelessness and they may follow in their parents’ footsteps of doing low-skilled exploitative wage work (ball et al., 2017). even in death, stateless people are invisible people (lynch and teff, 2009). statelessness and undocumented migration are on the increase (ball et al., 2014). stateless people sometimes find that their predicaments in their own home countries are untenable and they resort to migration as their only option (foster and lambert, 2016; menz, 2016). migration itself can also cause statelessness such as when migrants lose their documentation during the journey. depending on their circumstances especially as linked to loss of all identity records and evidence of nationality, the migrants are unable to establish citizenship with a particular country and prove their nationality. migration can also create confusion in cases where one cannot tell if the individuals are stateless or if they simply have challenges proving their nationality. therefore, it is crucial to ensure the protection of stateless people within the migration framework. as such, the abidjan declaration as adopted in 2015 by the economic community of west african states (ecowas) member states, on the eradication of statelessness in west africa, encouraged countries to tackle migration as a factor that leads to statelessness. effectively identifying and addressing the issue of statelessness within a mixed migration context has been largely ignored and warstateless transnational migrant children in south africa 12 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 rants more attention in future studies. childhood statelessness statelessness is a major concern for countries “with mandates to reinforce national borders, promote national security and prevent ‘aliens’ from making claims on citizen services including social protection, education and healthcare” (ball et al. 2014: 2). a high risk of childhood statelessness has been observed in relation to (i) children of cross-border migrants without official documents; (ii) children who are in a country without legal status; (iii) unaccompanied and separated children; (iv) children born in another country that is not their parent’s country of origin; (v) children left in the care of relatives when parents migrate or in residential care facilities; and (iv) children fending for themselves when parents leave their country of origin to become (economic) migrants. lack of birth registration by irregular migrants can also contribute to their children’s state of statelessness. in light of this, the un human rights council (unhrc) acknowledged the right to nationality as a fundamental right and that all children must be registered at birth irrespective of their parent’s immigration status, nationality, statelessness, disability or gender status. despite this, the obstacles to birth registration by irregular immigrants include the lack of knowledge and understanding of the relevant legislation and policies by and attitudes of officials; ignorance of migrants regarding knowledge on the necessary requirements and processes; lack of vital resources, such as time, money (transport, time off work etc.); lack of consideration for future benefits vs current or immediate costs; fear of consequences emanating from irregular immigration status, such as arrest, deportation, family separation; and physical location and restrictions of movement (ball et al., 2014; van waas, 2007). a further study by bhabha (2011) report that the main challenges associated with birth registration are “timely, affordable, friendly, linguistically appropriate access to birth registration process”. ball et al. (2014) agree that the challenges transcend the mere awareness of benefits and reasonable access to facilities. if parents are not residing in their country of origin during the birth of the child, it is less likely that the child would be registered, thus increasing the child’s vulnerability (ball et al., 2017). in their respective research studies, van waas (2007) and ball et al. (2014) found that the perks that come with citizenship might rank lower on the priority list of undocumented transnational migrants. maslow’s hierarchy of needs indicates that they would first try to meet a child’s basic needs in order to ensure the child’s survival, including psychosocial security and social protection. however, this debate is more complex than it seems, and more insights and research are needed in this area. it is crucial to consider the consequences of statelessness through a human rights lens. this is because statelessness has been linked to discrimination in relation to accessing basic rights and it could render the individual vulnerable to other human rights violations (foster and lambert, 2016). children whose births go un13 registered are at increased risk of identity fraud (ball et al., 2017) and gender-based violence (menz, 2016) and are vulnerable to being trafficked and exploited (warria and chikadzi, 2018). statelessness can be linked to criminal activities, for example, in the fraudulent use of another’s documents such as when (undocumented) parents borrow identity documents to access healthcare. the individual insecurity of disempowered, voiceless, stateless people can also be a destabilizing factor leading to collective/international insecurity especially when individuals feel unjustly targeted and singled out (van waas, 2007; warria, 2016). according to the recently released stateless report (isi, 2020: 12), “the securitisation and instrumentalisation of citizenship policy has led to a wider resurgence of denationalisation, with national security or counter-terrorism arguments” as reasons. according to paulussen and scheinin (2020: 226), “…revoking the citizenship of individuals is not conducive to the public good…it is a measure that is problematic from both an international law and (thus also) a security perspective and may sometimes even turn out to be a condition conducive to terrorism.” links between statelessness and early or forced marriages have often been overlooked (ball et al., 2014; menz, 2016; warria, 2017a). parents have been found to lie about their daughter’s age in order to meet the minimum marriage age requirements. moreover, many young girls themselves seek marriage in order to address the instability brought about by statelessness in countries like jordan, nepal and malaysia. statelessness can thus perpetuate child marriages and vice versa and attempts to fight one implicates the other (menz, 2016). challenges linked to statelessness include lack of contact with healthcare and social practitioners and legal protection (ball et al., 2014). in addition, stateless people have poor prospects – they often lack access to education, do not have a national identity, and are subjected to social stigma and discrimination, violence and harassment (bhabha, 2017; lynch and teff, 2009; unhcr, 2015). adults have poor job prospects, often face labor rights violations and rarely have the opportunity to own property (ball et al., 2014). statelessness can result in dysfunctional home environments and family separation – both key child development factors (lynch and teff, 2009). both children and adults have been known to be subjected to travel restrictions (ball et al. 2014). the unhcr’s study in 2015 is the first study to seek the views of 250 children on what it is like to be stateless. the study was conducted in côte d’ivoire, the dominican republic, italy, malaysia, jordan, thailand and georgia. children’s testimonies show that statelessness can impair children’s development, create insurmountable barriers and psychological distress impacting the child, their family and the community as well. childhood statelessness affects children’s self-esteem and future prospects as they are growing up, even if they eventually acquire nationality in adulthood. in the nubian children v kenya case, the african committee of experts on the rights and welfare of the child (acerwc) found the practice of waiting for children to be 18 years old before they can apply for and acquire nationality to be discriminatory. this is because childhood statelessness denies children their right stateless transnational migrant children in south africa 14 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 to be a child, and it threatens their freedom to play and freedom to feel secure. furthermore, stateless children tend to grow up too soon, resulting in working from an early age or getting married, having troubled relationships with law enforcement, falling prey to exploitation and abuse, and being harassed for documents. after attaining citizenship upon turning 18, one young person in the study remarked: “being stateless stays inside you – like a permanent mark”. nothing can compensate for the rights, care and protection these children would have had if they had a nationality. while children do not have and are not entitled to some rights, such as the right to vote, it does not negate the importance of nationality (bhabha, 2017). in this light, it is crucial to understand the relational benefits for children which are linked to safe childhoods. childhood development impacts on well-being and functioning in adulthood and thus childhood stages should be taken seriously. statelessness also has consequences for a child’s sense of belonging (bhabha, 2017). lack of a sense of belonging to a place affects psychological well-being (kohli and mather, 2003). a sense of belonging to a community often comes with being a member of a nation. it is crucial to note that although nationality on its own does not guarantee well-being, its absence is correlated with rights violations and pain for children (bhabha, 2017). statelessness in south africa south africa has ratified major international human rights instruments containing birth registration as a universal right. this means that south african laws and regulations should be compatible with these international obligations. however, south africa is not a signatory to the two statelessness conventions, i.e. the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons and the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness, which are key international conventions specifically tackling statelessness. according to the south african births and deaths registrations act (bdra) (88 of 1995), all children born alive in the country must be registered within 30 days of their birth, regardless of their parents’ status in the country. although either of the child’s parents can register the birth, guardians and caregivers are not allowed to do so unless both biological parents are dead. according to sec. 12 of the bdra, only the mother is allowed to register the birth of a child born out of wedlock. however, an unmarried father is also allowed to register the birth of his child but only if the child’s mother has made a statutory declaration acknowledging him as the father of the child, or if he brings along a parental responsibility agreement or a court order. the biometrics of the person registering the birth are also captured and the child’s parents are required to produce a valid identity document or passport with a valid permit in order to register a child’s birth. this is often not possible for many migrants who lost their documents during their journey to south africa. proof of (national) identity, usually a birth certificate, links the person to a country and they are then able to access rights, protection, services and other opportunities (ball et al., 2017; unhcr, 2016). 15 in cases of children not born in recognized marriages, the bdra allows children’s mothers to register the births of these children in situations only when the child’s father is documented. this, therefore, means that the children born of all undocumented mothers are undocumented and vulnerable to statelessness. fathers need to acknowledge paternity and get the mother’s consent in order to be recorded as the father of the child and to pass on his nationality to the child where the child is born outside of wedlock. according to van waas (2007: 446), children do not gain individual citizenship, but rather they inherit their parents’ immigration status which results in them being referred to as ‘irregular migrants’ despite being born in south africa. this is the case in countries such as australia, where permanent illegality is facilitated from generation to generation. “an illegal person cannot produce a legal person”, was what manuel e. polanco said on the citizenship of haitian children born in the dominican republic (cited in bhabha, 2011:12) communities in south africa construct meanings of nationality, citizenship and rights. children born to non-nationals at home are required to produce an affidavit from a south african citizen who witnessed the birth of the baby in order to get a birth certificate. most non-nationals live in migrant communities and it may not always be possible to get a south african citizen to witness the birth. a further complicating factor is the sporadic xenophobic violence in various south african townships where some migrants live. due to the sense of distrust for each other, migrant mothers giving birth at home might not call a south african to witness the birth. the bdra requires the registration of children who are abandoned or orphaned and have not been registered before. given the process that is required when recording an adoption in the south african birth register, it becomes a challenge for a child in south africa without a birth certificate to be adopted. the bdra also does not make specific provision for the re-registration of foreign adopted children, even though the children’s act requires it. in south africa, in relation to foreign children, citizenship is acquired: i) by birth – if one of the child’s parents is a south african citizen, even in circumstances where the child is born outside of south africa (sec. 2(1)(b) of rsa citizenship act 88 of 1995) (rsa, 1995); if the child is born and registered in south africa and would otherwise be stateless; or if the child’s parents are permanent residents (sec. 2(3) of rsa citizenship act). the last is not automatic: an application is required, and it is nondiscretionary. in 2016, the judgment in the south african supreme court of appeal, in dglr and another v minister of home affairs and others, affirmed the right of a stateless child born in south africa to acquire nationality. ii) by descent through one’s parents – if the child is adopted by a south african citizen and their birth was registered (sec. 3 of rsa citizenship act) (rsa, 1995). iii) by declaration – through birth registration and/or declaration of loyalty, stateless transnational migrant children in south africa 16 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 for example, children born out of wedlock to south african mothers who are unmarried. iv) by naturalization or upon application (discretionary) – after a long-term legal residence, children with refugee status can apply for citizenship, based on the refugee act. sec. 4(3) of the rsa citizenship act (rsa, 1995), which allows a child born in south africa to parents with no citizenship or permanent status to apply for south african citizenship when they turn 18, but only if their birth was registered. children can apply for naturalization after permanent residency. implications and opportunities for social work intervention according to edwards and mika (2017: 695), “the profession of social work has a mandate to serve vulnerable populations, effect positive social change, and strive for justice on a local, national and global level.” it is within this area that social work and statelessness intersect. there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ social work intervention guide for individual stateless children (and their families), although similarities may exist in cases. however, “effective interventions to reduce children’s risks of becoming stateless, must take into account the social, cultural, economic, historical and political contexts involved in transnational migration” (ball et al., 2014: 2). an understanding of these contexts can provide greater insights into factors influencing statelessness. children in south africa can get nationality only under the conditions set out in the various pieces of legislation. in addition, they must also be able to demonstrate their entitlement (van waas, 2007: 447). documentary evidence showing birthplace or parentage is required for birth registration in south africa. other forms of evidence such as dna and hospital records can be used in place of the birth certificate, but these can be problematic, expensive or impossible to get and government officials can always challenge them and their process of acquisition. in certain instances, stateless, stateless-migrant and migrant children are looked at through the ‘human security’ lens and not the human/child rights lens. thus, “social workers need to be informed of the discourses that shape the issue in policy and practice” (edwards and mika, 2017: 696). this calls for social workers to reframe the language of human rights so that stateless people, including children, can join this debate with policymakers and implementers and can be heard (ife, 2008). this social work voice is needed during policy development, as social workers bear witness to the stateless child in the oppressive system. the actualization of human rights for migrant stateless children must be at the core of policy development. the practice knowledge shared by social workers can subsequently be translated into effective policy, and the separation between micro and macro work is lessened (cox and pawar, 2013; perdue et al., 2012; warria and chikadzi, 2018). according to ball et al. (2014), parents’ own life trajectories can influence birth registration as they relate to child birth circumstances. these trajectories include, the child being born in or out of marriage, the child’s father being the mother’s partner, 17 the wife status of the child’s mother, the child born at home or in a health facility, the presence of a midwife during birth, the child’s conception through rape or other violence, and other complexities intersecting with other issues, traditions, codes of conduct and relationships. ball’s (2009) study in canada on family and community influence on the accuracy of indigenous children’s birth records points out to cultural determinants of decision-making in birth registration. therefore, from a sociocultural perspective, this impacts the positioning of the parent(s) and children in relation to the greater hierarchical or collective systems. social work with stateless children (and their families) must include a recognition of both present and historical cultural patterns and determinants within the given (migratory or resettlement) context and not premised on stability (ball and moselle 2016). social workers can help parents by facilitating birth registration for children who are eligible for registration under south african national laws such as those born into statelessness because of parents’ arrogance, inadequate information and lack of time or money. an example includes the provision of mobile registration teams in rural areas or in areas where many migrant families live and by combining birth registration with other crucial issues where benefits and risks will not support non-registration. social workers can also advocate for statelessness or lack of birth registration not preventing children from accessing crucial childhood-related services such as immunization and early childhood education. sec. 2(2) of the rsa citizenship act (rsa, 1995) provides citizenship to children who are born stateless in south africa. however, it is impossible for stateless children to make citizenship applications using this provision because there is no regulation for the provision of forms to complete. in addition, there are no guiding principles in the act, defining who a stateless child is. this is an oppressive structure that subsequently leads to the denial of rights of stateless children. a policy implication of this review is the need for the development of a minimum quality of care and protection standard in south africa where this is non-existent. social workers in partnership with legal experts should, therefore, include multidimensional analyses of structural drawbacks and lobby for the regulation to be formulated and forms to be made available at the relevant offices. according to blitz and otero-iglesias (2011: 661), “support organizations can work to mitigate the effects of social exclusion and deprivation by forming social bridges especially in situations where they have restrictive policy development.” given that this role is being abandoned because organizations are struggling to survive in hostile policy environments, it is in children’s best interest and that of the country to address statelessness at birth or soon thereafter (unhcr, 2015). the recognition and promotion of every child’s right to a nationality is critical and is emphasized in the recent 2020 world statelessness report (isi, 2020). this must, therefore, be prioritized by both the human rights and development sectors, including psychosocial practitioners such as social workers who work in these sectors. this report calls for further urgent measures to address intergenerational statestateless transnational migrant children in south africa 18 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 lessness, which would then ensure access to opportunities to the children who would have been born stateless (isi, 2020). these are aspects that social workers can intervene in as they fight towards social justice and human rights for everyone. the pseudo-statelessness of children is precarious, as exclusion often happens when they turn 18 and are no longer covered and protected by the child protection system (blitz and otero-iglesias, 2011). sec. 4(3) of the rsa citizenship act (rsa, 1995) means that such a child will remain stateless until (s)he is an adult, and, even then, the application can be approved only by the minister of home affairs. application of this section is currently interpreted to be limited to children born after the enactment of the provision in 2013 (read: ali and others v the minister of home affairs). a social worker can help these children make sense of their situation, identify and make use of their capabilities and give support as they navigate the system as young adults and make application for citizenship. psychosocial support from social workers that is practical, nurturing and informative and weaves the children back into the context can sustain and generate a sense of belonging. stateless children experience life with great fragility. like refugee children, they seem to have strengths similar to those of older children, but the vulnerability of younger children. they have a bleak sense of the future that makes it challenging for them to plan (kohli and mather, 2003: 203). it is crucial that social workers recognize that they are children first, who have needs and capabilities that all vulnerable children harbor; that they are children in need of care and protection and not just as stateless children. social workers should assist them to balance resilience with vulnerability and guide them towards the achievement of psychological well-being. despite the relative powerlessness of children in many societies, social work rightsbased work with children is powerful because space is created for their agency and voice (cpc learning network, 2018). future social work research could focus on how to amplify the voices of young migrant children identified and who have been classified as stateless in south africa. the children’s parents might be left traumatized by their own state of statelessness and therefore the children feel the need and responsibility to represent themselves and apply for citizen status. once they obtain this status, the young adult might still harbor worries about the stateless members of his or her family, experiencing guilt at achieving sanctuary or being the one to carry the hopes of the family. this dual sense of honor-punishment pressure is complex, and a social worker can help the young person navigate this situation by reweaving of narrative threads, thus giving rise to opportunities that see them thrive. social workers can also help build agency and assist them manage distressing experiences. this involves helping the children feel they can make active choices to help shift helplessness. these young people can also be trained by social workers to act as peer-helpers by assisting others in similar situations. this has been known to contribute to the sense of well-being derived from doing valuable acts for others (kohli and mather, 2003). children do not choose to be stateless. in addition, being stateless does not 19 stop any of them from establishing ties and contributing to their societies of resettlement. therefore, social workers should not rescue stateless children, but should learn to be therapeutic witnesses, by holding, containing and bearing witness. this requires them to be still, unafraid, and emotionally strong to bear the pain of listening to stateless children’s real, heartfelt and complex stories as they emerge, rather than hastening to be action-oriented. this stillness provides space to the children to be agents of their own recovery. however, this does not release the social worker from the obligation of engaging with practical work and support. it also means that social workers need to intervene and document these interventions towards building an evidence base for practice with stateless children and their families (muraya and fry, 2015). children’s agency in birth registration should also be considered as a possible intervention. children decide to migrate with or without documentation. children are often assumed to be passive, although recent studies indicate that children can be proactive and have a sense of agency in matters affecting them. approaches that focus on children’s sense of agency give recognition to their capacity to participate and make decisions. when social workers, researchers and other practitioners solicit children’s views, this can optimize their capacity to understand what is going on and to be dynamic contributors to decision-making. research by huijsmans (2011) reports that unregistered children tried to facilitate their individual birth registration as they inched closer to adulthood and when they faced certain glitches, such as the inability to travel or get employment. social workers can assist with this process of birth registration. in relation to birth registration after turning 18 years, future studies from a socio-legal perspective could explore how stateless children understand their statelessness, as children and as adults living in south africa. conclusion this study considered the causes of and circumstances leading to statelessness among migrant children in south africa, noting that these are linked to the following factors: (i) the challenges related to birth registration; (ii) children born to stateless or undocumented parents; (iii) unfair laws; and (iv) children not knowing their nationality. the review further highlighted the gaps in policy, social services and research addressing social aspects of childhood statelessness. the value of this study is its contribution to the literature and debates on childhood statelessness and its identification of the possible role of social workers in addressing this crucial phenomenon. it showed how transnational migration and national legislation can lead to statelessness and put children at risk. this is the first study on statelessness in south africa from a social work perspective. a stateless child’s access to social services and support can lead to better psychosocial outcomes, and social workers can contribute immensely in this area. they can also draw upon the basic social work practice skills which they are already familiar with as a starting point for thinking through possible responses (cox and pawar, 2013). stateless transnational migrant children in south africa 20 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 as social workers expand their services to include stateless children and children at risk of statelessness, and conduct research on this challenge, the profession will be better positioned to be champions of human rights, enhancing the voices of the silenced, and building a foundation of empowerment. it is not an easy road that lies ahead. there are numerous questions, 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http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/chso.12178/epdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/chso.12178/epdf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.06.024 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.06.024 african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1205 policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers fatima khan and megan lee abstract over the past few years, the protection space for asylum seekers in south africa has steadily shrunk. the south african government has shifted its policies and attitude to exclude rather than accept refugees, and there is a clear move towards confining refugees to the borders of the country. these policy shifts have resulted in an expansive population of hidden and undocumented refugees and asylum seekers in south africa. this article will analyse recent south african court cases, concerning access to the asylum process, in order to identify and understand the policy shifts adopted by the department of home affairs, as well as the consequences that these policy shifts have had for the undocumented refugees and asylum seekers themselves. this article posits that the south african government, through its restrictive and exclusionary policies, has contributed to the creation of a mass population of hidden or undocumented refugees and asylum seekers, forcing many with prima facie refugee claims to remain in the country unprotected. through a set of interviews with refugees and asylum seekers in cape town, this article presents a first-hand account of the obstacles faced by refugees and asylum seekers in south africa, including those that force them to remain undocumented in the country. keywords refugee, policy shifts, documentation, irregular migration. introduction in 1991, south africa signed a basic mandate with the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), which permitted the presence of unhcr field officers in the country to assist with the repatriation of south african exiles who wished to return home following the negotiations to dismantle apartheid. however, it was only in 1993 that the south african government and the unhcr reached an agreement allowing unhcr presence for the mozambican refugees, who had been flowing into south africa since the outbreak of the civil war in the 1970s (zieck, 1997). in december 1995, south africa proceeded to ratify the 1969 organisation of african unity convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa  university of cape town, law faculty, refugee rights unit. email: fatima.khan@uct.ac.za  university of cape town, law faculty, refugee rights unit. email: megan.lee@uct.ac.za policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1206 (1969 oau convention), and in january 1996, south africa became a signatory state to the 1951 united nations refugee convention relating to the status of refugees (1951 un convention) and its 1967 protocol. following the ratification of the international conventions, the south african government embarked on a legislative drafting process that culminated in the passing of the refugees act 130 of 1998 (the refugees act), which gave effect to south africa’s international obligations and came into force in april 2000, along with the refugee regulations (forms and procedure) of 2000 (regulations). taking guidance from the international conventions and the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996 (the constitution), the south african refugees act is based fundamentally on human rights principles and has been described by the unhcr (2007) as “one of the most advanced and progressive systems of protection in the world today”. however, over the past decade, noticeable shifts by the south african government, in both attitude and policy, have resulted in a severe restriction of access to the asylum process, giving rise to a large population of hidden and undocumented refugees and asylum seekers who have consequently become increasingly vulnerable. an examination of these policy shifts illuminates that the department of home affairs (the department), as the department charged with controlling and managing migration, vehemently believes that the asylum system is being used in bad faith by economic migrants and therefore appears to be deliberately ensuring that all migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, remain undocumented in an attempt to facilitate their classification as illegal immigrants and subsequent removal from south africa. when examining migration policies in general, it is undeniable that states, in the course of exercising sovereignty over their territory, determine what does and does not constitute regular migration. subsequently, politics and law set the conditions under which people migrate, and it is only once states issue legislation declaring certain categories of people to be illegal immigrants, and introduce technologies, administrations and enforcement procedures to support this legislation, that previously regular migration becomes irregular. thus, irregular migration is not an independent social phenomenon, but exists in relation to state policies and is a social, political and legal construct. as a form of migration, persons seeking asylum in a country are affected by such migration policies and, when refugees and asylum seekers are undocumented, this places them within the framework of irregular migration. there are two approaches to understanding irregular migration or the reasons behind policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1207 migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, remaining undocumented within a country. first, agency is ascribed to the individual migrant and imputes blame on the individual for violating the law and purposefully remaining undocumented. second, is the approach adopted in this article, which views governments as the blameworthy party, despite conceding that migrants have various levels of agency and can decide, within reasonable limits, when and where to move. this article will assess and evaluate the policy shifts in the asylum process introduced by the south african government, and how these shifts have led to an increasingly diminished protection space for refugees and asylum seekers. it will then analyse the case law that has developed as a reaction to these policy shifts, as well as the personal experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in their struggle to access the asylum process in south africa. the article will focus on four major decisions made by the department over the years, which clearly reflect this changing policy, namely 1) the denial of access to refugee reception offices (rros); 2) the closure of certain rros; 3) the refusal to process asylum applications at a different rro from the one at which the application was first made; and 4) the refusal to recognise the right to family unity of refugees and asylum seekers. research methodology this article opted to use a combination of literature and policy analysis, engagement with the south african jurisprudence surrounding refugee law and insight gained through semi-structured interviews with both refugees and asylum seekers, as well as with service providers who assist refugees and asylum seekers within the western cape. the sample of persons selected for the interviews was divided into three different groups, including 1) a group comprised of undocumented refugees and asylum seekers; 2) a group comprised of refugees and asylum seekers who had initially applied for asylum at an rro outside of cape town, and thus whose permits had been issued by an rro other than the cape town rro; and 3) a group comprised of members of service providers assisting refugees and asylum seekers in the western cape. in total, the first two groups had a combined total of forty-four participants and the third group comprised of four different service providers. refugees and asylum seekers were invited to participate in the research by attending either the uct refugee rights clinic (the clinic) or the offices of the service providers participating in the research. the clinic was easily able to identify appropriate participants for the research, policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1208 as they assist and provide legal services to refugees and asylum seekers experiencing these barriers to the asylum system on a daily basis. during the interviews, the asylum seekers and refugees were asked about their experiences and the prejudices that they have suffered as a result of the department’s policy shifts. policy shifts in the south african asylum process upon implementing the international conventions relating to refugee protection, the south african government opted for a non-encampment policy, which allows asylum seekers to search for employment while they await the adjudication of their asylum application. to facilitate this policy, the refugees act made provision for the establishment of as many rros across the country as is deemed necessary by the director-general, in order to give effect to the refugees act. in essence, this guaranteed refugees and asylum seekers the right to freedom of movement which, along with the non-penalisation of illegal entry, succeeded in creating a liberal and progressive refugee protection mechanism. however, throughout the past decade there has been increasing discord between the rights legally granted to refugees and asylum seekers in south africa and the practical implementation and realisation of such rights. according to landau and amit (2014), the asylum process appears to be plagued by a “bureaucratic autonomy in which certain departments are actively working to shape the implementation and understanding of policies in ways that are not formally recorded and may violate both domestic and international legislation”. the 2012 african national congress’s (anc) peace and stability: policy discussion document (anc policy document) alarmingly declares that over 95% of asylum applicants are not genuine asylum seekers but rather, economic migrants that have come to south africa in search of employment and better business opportunities. such a statement provides overwhelming evidence that the attitudes of those involved in policy and legal development have shifted from a place of inclusion and protection to a desire for mass exclusion. the anc policy document specifically proposes that, while maintaining the overall policy of non-encampment, high-risk asylum seekers should be “accommodated” (in other words, detained) in secure facilities and that the department’s suggestion to relocate all rros closer to the borders should be supported. following the establishment of an ad hoc joint committee on probing violence against foreign nationals (joint committee) in 2015, whose findings policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1209 appeared to reflect the rhetoric that most asylum seekers are in south africa for economic reasons, the department undertook to develop the policy on international migration. according to the department this policy required development in order to reflect the changes within south africa, the region and the world. as a result, within the subsequent two years, the department drafted a green paper and a white paper on international migration (the green and white papers), published in 2016 and 2017, respectively. the green and white papers both continue to espouse the belief that the majority of applicants within the asylum system are economic migrants, resulting in over 90 percent of all applications being rejected. this is despite the department’s assurance that the principle of “inclusion over exclusion” is applied to the adjudication of asylum applications. the green and white papers also focused on the advantages of moving the rros, or asylum seeker processing centres (processing centres), closer to the borders, with the first of these being envisaged in lebombo, a town near the border of south africa and mozambique. in the last few years, south africa has also witnessed the proposal and initial drafting of the refugees amendment act 11 of 2017 (the refugees amendment act), which was signed by the president in december 2017, but at the time of writing had not yet come into force. the draft refugees regulations of 2018 (the draft regulations) have been proposed concurrently with the refugees amendment act, but these too have yet to come into force. a reading of both the refugees amendment act and the draft regulations make it clear that the department, together with the south african government, are taking major steps to restrict the protection space for refugees and asylum seekers. litigation surrounding policy shifts in the south african asylum process despite the fact that the law and policy surrounding refugee protection in south africa has undergone many attempts at amendment, the original refugees act and its regulations adopted in 1998 continue to remain in effect. however, the department continues to implement practices that show an increasingly narrow reading of the refugees act, or that indicate an implementation of the amended, more restrictive policies that have yet to be signed into law. in addition, severe maladministration, poor infrastructure, inadequate resource allocation and corruption have caused the south african refugee system to become utterly unequipped to assist the applicants that it was designed to protect, resulting in an increased need to resort to litigation policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1210 to ensure the effective protection of refugees and asylum seekers. while the litigation in this sector has been characterised by a case-by-case, reactive response to the challenges faced by asylum seekers and refugees, there is a clear common denominator between the cases, in that the department deliberately implements practices that limit access to the asylum system. the litigation surrounding access to the asylum process can be categorised as those cases relating first, to the denial of access to rros; secondly, to the closure of rros; thirdly, to the refusal to process asylum applications at a rro that is different from the rro where the application was first made; and lastly, to the refusal to recognise the right to family unity of refugees and asylum seekers. denial of access to the refugee reception offices in terms of the refugees act, all processes required to be performed during an application for asylum, including permit renewal and refugee status determinations (rsd), are carried out at an rro by the various functionaries designed to adjudicate such applications. as such, rros are the primary entry point to the refugee system and are essential to the functioning of the system and for accessing the protection it affords. thus, any restriction of access to the rros ultimately leads to a restriction of access to the entire asylum process. roughly a decade after the south african government ratified both the 1951 un convention and the 1969 oau convention, access to the rros had reached such an untenable position that it became necessary to institute legal proceedings against the department, both to prevent unlawful practices and to mandate the department to take further steps to improve the asylum process. in kiliko and others v the minister of home affairs and others (2739/05) [2008] zawchc 124 (4 march 2008), the applicants chronicled their numerous unsuccessful attempts at gaining access to the cape town rro in order to apply for asylum. their attempts were futile, despite a number of them sleeping outside the rro on multiple occasions or arriving there in the early hours of the morning. the applicants observed that only a limited number of individuals could enter the building of the cape town rro per day. those who were unsuccessful in their efforts to gain access remained undocumented. the applicants asserted that the department, by restricting access to the rro, had unreasonably and unlawfully failed to provide them with the necessary facilities and proper opportunities to submit applications to obtain refugee status in south africa. it was argued that this was a breach of policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1211 the duties imposed by the refugees act and, furthermore, was in conflict with the constitution and the canons of international law. judge dennis van reenen very appropriately stated that: […] until an asylum seeker obtains an asylum-seeker permit in terms of […] the refugees act, he or she remains an illegal foreigner and, as such [this] impact[s] upon […] his or her human dignity and the freedom and security of his or her person. documentation of asylum seekers is a critical element of the refugee system, as the documents are the vehicle by which the individual is able to access all other rights that flow from that status. for this reason, the unhcr has acknowledged that in almost all countries, foreigners are required to prove their lawful presence in the country, failing which, the individual may be subject to detention and sometimes even to summary expulsion. the unhcr notes that this situation is particularly serious for a refugee, who could be at risk of being returned to his or her country of origin. in that context, judge van reenen held that the availability of adequate facilities to receive asylum seekers, expeditiously consider applications and issue asylum seeker permits was mandated by south africa’s international obligations, the refugees act and the constitution. as a result, the department’s failure to introduce adequate and effective measures to address the gradually worsening situation of lack of access to rros, despite the refugees act having been enacted six years prior to the case, resulted in the violation of the fundamental rights of the applicants. the court ordered the department to put measures into place to ensure access to the cape town rro and to report to the court on the progress thereof. furthermore, the case of tafira and others v ngozwane and others (12960/06) [2006] zagphc 136 (12 december 2006) also exposed and criticised policy shifts and new processes implemented by the department. faced with high numbers of applications for asylum, both the rros in pretoria and johannesburg devised two new procedures that they believed would regulate the process and prevent long queues from forming and, ultimately, reduce the number of asylum seekers. the first procedure was an appointment system, whereby an asylum seeker approaching the rro for the first time was not seen by an official, but rather given an appointment slip and allocated a date on which he or she had to return to the office for a consultation. the evidence before the court suggested that such appointments, allocated to asylum seekers, could be anywhere from six months to a year away. the second policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1212 procedure introduced was the so-called “pre-screening process”, in terms of which the department sought to filter applicants before the individual even had an opportunity to apply for asylum. judge rabie found that the appointment slips did not provide sufficient legal protection to asylum seekers and therefore determined this procedure to be unlawful and unconstitutional. in reaching this conclusion, judge rabie was unconvinced by the department’s argument that staff shortages justified the use of the restrictive policies and accordingly agreed with the finding in kiliko, that the south african government has an obligation to provide proper facilities for applications for asylum. turning to the ‘pre-screening’ procedure, judge rabie found that, in principle, pre-screening was not unlawful if the aim was to genuinely assist asylum seekers with making their asylum applications, but that the department could not use it as a means to decide whether it would be better for a person to seek another type of permit. therefore, in light of all the evidence, the ‘pre-screening’ procedure was found to impede the asylum application process and was held to constitute a violation of the constitutional rights of the applicants. the common thread that emerged from these access cases was that any barrier to accessing the rros, which effectively impedes applications for asylum, constitutes an unlawful measure and cannot be justified by the argument that the administrative burden placed on the department in catering for asylum seekers requires restrictive procedures. denying asylum seekers entry into the rros, and consequently barring access to the asylum process, pushes people to enter and remain in the country without documentation, which falls afoul of the duty of the south african government to provide adequate facilities to receive asylum seekers and process their claims for asylum. closure of refugee reception offices after the refugees act came into force in 2000, rros were established in johannesburg, pretoria, cape town, durban and port elizabeth. furthermore, after witnessing an increase in applications, the department opened an additional rro in musina in 2009 and an interim office in tshwane in 2010 (ngwato, 2013). however, between 2011 and 2012, the department implemented decisions to close the rro in johannesburg and re-categorise the rros in cape town and port elizabeth as “wind-down” facilities, meaning that they would continue to process existing cases but would not accept any new applications for asylum. subsequently, the department also made the decision to close the interim rro in tshwane, which left, to date, only three fullypolicy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1213 functional rros in south africa. this conduct by the department marked the dramatic shift in policy regarding the administration of the asylum regime in south africa. the closure of three rros across the country indicated the wish by the department to reduce the overall asylum population in south africa and to move all refugee services to the borders, an approach which was later confirmed and supported by the 2012 anc policy document. however, it is a point of concern that the “closure of urban rros constitutes the implementation of policy before the completion of policy formulation” (ngwato, 2013). given the centrality of the rros to the asylum process, the decision to close three rros has significant consequences for refugees and asylum seekers, such as increased difficulty in travelling to an open rro and limited access to open rros that become overburdened as a result of the closures. legal challenges were brought against all the department’s decisions to close the rros and, in all three cases, the department lost due to their failure to substantively consult with the standing committee for refugee affairs (standing committee), as required by the refugees act, as well as on the grounds of procedural unfairness. in all three of these cases, the various high courts ordered the department to reopen the rros. while further engagement surrounding the johannesburg rro took place out of court, the closure of the rros in cape town and port elizabeth remained subject to legal challenge for the next few years. in the case of minister of home affairs and others v somali association of south africa eastern cape (sasa ec) and another (831/2013) [2015] zasca 35; 2015 (3) sa 545 (sca); [2015] 2 all sa 294 (sca) (25 march 2015), the supreme court of appeal (sca) ordered that the rro in port elizabeth be restored by 1 july 2015, including the processing of new application for asylum, on the grounds that the department’s failure to consult with the relevant stakeholders on the decision to close the rro was arbitrary and unlawful. despite the order by the sca, the department has only recently made strides in this regard and has, at the time of writing, stated that the rro in port elizabeth shall be reopened on 22 october 2018. in the case of scalabrini centre, cape town and others v minister of home affairs and others (1107/2016) [2017] zasca 126; [2017] 4 all sa 686 (sca); [2018] 4 sa 125 (sca) (29 september 2017), the sca once again ordered the department to reopen the rro in cape town on the grounds that the decision by the department was unreasonable and unlawful. however, at the time of writing, policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1214 the rro in cape town still had not been reopened for processing of new applications for asylum. additionally, the department has indicated that it is unlikely that the office will be opened in 2018 and that progress may only be made by april 2019. ‘other offices’ closely linked to the closure of various rros was the decision taken by the department requiring asylum applicants to complete their entire application process at the rro at which they first applied for asylum. this practice has surfaced on numerous occasions over the years and, in each instance, has attracted legal challenge. in essence, this policy shift results in a refusal to assist asylum applicants at an rro other than the rro of first application. with reference to the cape town rro, where this practice has been particularly prevalent, the department argued that this approach would assist the office in becoming a “wind-down” facility, in that any backlogs could be addressed and the rro would not be burdened by either new or secondary applications. in addition to restricting the right to freedom of movement, this practice also placed an enormous financial, economic and social burden on refugees and asylum seekers who were now expected to travel for thousands of kilometres to continue to access their asylum application, including renewing their permits. over the years, a number of court applications have been launched in the western cape high court to enforce the rights of asylum seekers to freedom of movement as well as the right to an asylum seeker permit in terms of section 22 of the refugees act. colloquially referred to as ‘other offices’ cases, the first of these was aden and others v the minister of home affairs and another (2000), in which the department was ordered to renew all permits at any rro, depending on where the refugees or asylum seekers were living. in 2008, when the practice resurfaced, the matter of hirsi and others v the minister of home affairs and others (2008) was launched to enforce compliance with the aden order. in this matter, an agreement between the applicants and the department was reached and it was declared that the refusal to renew asylum seeker permits granted at other offices was an unlawful practice. as in aden, the department was required to immediately renew all asylum seeker permits, irrespective of the rro by which they were first issued. in 2009, it was once again necessary to approach the court in the matter of thomasso v the minister of home affairs (2009), which also resulted in a settlement agreement to resume services for all asylum seekers in accordance with the policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1215 hirsi order. when the policy again reared its head in 2012, the matter of zihalirwa and others v the minister of home affairs and others (2012) was launched, seeking an order declaring the department to be in contempt of the hirsi order. this time, however, the department amended its practice slightly by renewing the permits of applicants who were initially documented at other offices but with the proviso that the applicant returned to the office of original application. the department argued that this practice was not in contravention of the hirsi, aden or thomasso orders. the court, constrained by the rule to accept the respondent’s version when disputes of fact arise in motion proceedings, as set out by the case of plascon-evans paints ltd. v van riebeeck paints (pty) ltd. 1984 (3) sa 623 (a), dismissed the application. following on very quickly from the zihalirwa case was the launching of abdulaahi and 205 others v the director general of home affairs and others 7705/2013. what started out as 206 applicants grew into 1232 by the time judgement was handed down in february 2015. the relief in this instance was an urgent interim interdict directing the department to extend the permits of the listed applicants and not to deny extending the permits at the cape town rro until such time as the legal dispute challenging the closure of the cape town rro had finally been resolved. the applicants submitted that if the interdict was not granted, they would suffer irreparable harm as they would need to abandon their lives in cape town and relocate to places closer to the operational rros. the department opposed the relief sought by the applicants by focusing on the administrative burden that would result if an applicant did not visit the rro at which their file was kept. the department vigorously argued that, by moving to cape town, the applicants were attempting to abuse the refugee system in that they were trying to evade the processing of their asylum applications, an argument that clearly indicates an attitude and mindset of the department at this point in time. judge steyn noted that it would be more convenient, cost effective and practical for the files to be transferred to the place where the asylum seeker resides rather than for the asylum seeker to travel repeatedly to the original rro where his or her file is kept. the department, however, indicated that the cape town rro would only consider application for the transfer of a file in exceptional circumstances and on a case-by-case basis. the department argued that the court could not competently order the transfer of all files, as this would have an impact on the allocation of public funds, thereby infringing the doctrine of the separation of powers. ultimately, judge steyn found that: policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1216 […] the effect of the closure decision of the cape town refugee reception office is that the applicants/asylum seekers will be compelled to leave the cape town area where they have established their homes. this result impacts on their right to dignity and to property and to just administrative action, in terms of the provisions of the constitution. it is irrational, unjustifiable and inequitable that the department grant [asylum seeker] permits to [cape town] asylum seekers but not to non-[cape town] asylum seekers. it would be inhumane to force them to leave cape town, prior to finality being reached on the closure decision. ultimately, the court held that the applicants must be able to access services at the cape town rro but limited the right of access to services only to the applicants listed in the case. therefore, this necessitated the launching of nbaya and others v director general of home affairs and others 6534/15 in the western cape high court, which dealt with the same legal challenge as the abdulaahi matter but extended the relief to the entire class of persons in this situation. infringement of the right to family unity and reunification south african law recognises the right to family unity and allows those who are married to, or dependent on, refugees to remain in the country by obtaining derivative refugee status in terms of section 3(c) of the refugees act. in the past, the department has given effect to this law by employing a policy referred to as “family joining”. recognised refugees were able to “join” their dependents and/or spouses to their files, and the dependents or spouses would acquire derivative refugee status by virtue of that relationship. the spouse or dependent was required only to prove that he or she was a dependant or spouse of a recognised refugee and once this was established the person would be granted derivative refugee status. however, in 2014, officials in the department indicated informally that a new policy concerning family joining had been adopted and that, as a result, derivative refugee status would only be granted to spouses if they were married to the refugee before either of them arrived in south africa, and provided that the refugee declared the marriage at the first stage of the asylum application. this policy is based on a fundamental misconception of the law, particularly section 3(c) of the refugees act, and its application to refugee families. the department interprets section 3(c) of the refugees act to apply only to families that preexisted the refugee-producing event. this policy represents a narrow interpretation of refugee law and the right to family unity and succeeds in policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1217 excluding undeclared families formed before refuge was sought in south africa, families formed in south africa and families formed remotely, or by ‘proxy’, in terms of customary or traditional law. families formed before seeking refuge in south africa should have the full benefit of the 1983 unhcr guidelines on the reunification of refugee families (the reunification guidelines), which support the reunification of “nuclear” families, including husbands, wives, dependent unmarried children and other dependent family members including parents and/or relatives who were living within the family unit in the country of origin. the reunification guidelines also provide that the absence of documentary evidence, for example marriage and/or birth certificates, “should not per se be considered as an impediment”. furthermore, within its definition of a ‘dependent’, the refugees act does not require that the dependency existed before a refugee sought asylum in south africa and, therefore, there appears to be no proper legal foundation for the department’s interpretation. while in south africa, some refugees prefer to enter into marriages remotely, or ‘by proxy’, in terms of their customary or traditional laws. these marriages take place after the refugee has been granted refugee status in south africa and, negotiations are conducted between the families in the country of origin, after which the ‘proxy spouse’ travels to south africa to join the refugee. the reunification guidelines expressly recognise customary marriages and even polygamous marriages “validly contracted in the country of origin”. south african law emphasises respect for customary and traditional law and, as such, such marriages must accordingly be recognised. if the proxy spouse is dependent on the refugee, they fulfil the section 3(c) refugee definition, and policies refusing to recognise their status as a refugee are in conflict with the clear provisions of the refugees act. even if the refugees act were to be interpreted so as to restrict the definition of ‘dependant’ to persons dependent on the refugee before he or she sought asylum, deporting a failed asylum seeker who is married to a refugee breaks up the family, thus infringing its members’ constitutional right to dignity, which encompass the right to form a family and to cohabit with one’s spouse, as enshrined in the case of dawood and another v minister of home affairs 2000 (3) sa 936 (cc). the department’s new policy on refugee families has resulted in thousands of refugee families remaining undocumented. many family members now live in the country without proper documentation, fearing policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1218 arrest, detention and possible deportation. these are individuals with a prima facie refugee claim who ought to be documented in terms of the refugees act. in scalabrini v minister of home affairs and others 2016 (wcd) unreported case no. 5242/16, the court held that families should be joined irrespective of whether the recognised refugee declared their existence when making the application for refugee status and regardless of when they were married. the court further ordered the department to draft a standard operating procedure that can facilitate the ‘family joining’ process. the department adopted a standard operating procedure that includes, amongst others, the requirement that all applicants for family joining must undergo dna-testing, which essentially excludes those who cannot afford this expensive procedure. the standard operating procedure also failed to create a procedure for providing dependants with interim protection while applications for family joining are being processed, thereby making it wholly inadequate. due to the department’s failure to implement a satisfactory standard operating procedure, the applicants have been forced to approach the court for further relief. this matter has been set down for december 2018. research findings and analysis through a set of interviews with refugees and asylum seekers, as well as various human rights service providers, we determined that the south african government’s refugee policy shifts are contributing to the large number of undocumented and unprotected refugees and asylum seekers in south africa. by restricting access to the asylum process and placing undue obstacles before individuals wishing to apply for asylum, or even regularise their existing permits, the department is attempting to deter applicants from the asylum system and often leaves them with no choice but to ‘go underground’ and remain in south africa undocumented and hidden from authorities. the first policy shift detailed how physically inaccessible the asylum process in south africa can be for both new applicants and existing asylum seekers and refugees. despite the fact that human rights lawyers have successfully litigated in this matter, there has been little to no real change in practice. asylum seekers still detail stories about being turned away from the rros without assistance. the participants in this article revealed that these access problems are a nationwide problem. some of the participants stated that they are currently undocumented because, after having tried to extend their expired permits on numerous occasions but being turned away without being assisted, they were left with no choice but to give up and return home without a valid policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1219 permit. new asylum seekers explained that they had attempted to obtain asylum seeker permits from rros in musina or durban but that they could not gain entry to the building; participants stated that they slept outside the office on numerous occasions in order to be the first clients serviced at the rro. they stated that, after sleeping outside the rro and waiting in the queue for hours, the security guard at the entrance of the building refused to allow them to enter the building. some stated that they waited more than a week before finally giving up. new applicants stated that they waited days and sometimes months before receiving their asylum seeker permits. the lack of access to rros for asylum seekers and new applicants means that people are forced to live for protracted periods of time without valid asylum permits. the access cases demonstrate that the department has failed in providing adequate facilities, systems and processes to receive and issue asylum seeker permits. this failure is compounded by poor queue management, corruption and general maladministration. the closure of the cape town rro and the refusal to assist new arrivals or persons who obtained their asylum documents from offices outside of cape town resulted in a number of our participants being undocumented or in possession of expired permits. this is because up until the 2012 closure of the cape town rro, asylum seekers who applied at offices other than the cape town rro were able to extend, process and have their files transferred to cape town. similarly, new applications for asylum were also received in cape town prior to the closure. even after the closure of the cape town rro, there were periods of time when asylum seekers who obtained their permits at offices other than the cape town rro were able to obtain extensions, due to the numerous legal challenges that were brought against the department. this created a legitimate expectation for newcomers applying for asylum and asylum seekers who applied at offices other than the cape town rro that they could obtain and extend their permits in cape town. furthermore, south africa has a non-encampment policy, which allows for the freedom of movement. as such, asylum seekers and newcomers seeking asylum are permitted to reside anywhere in south africa, including in cape town. asylum seekers in south africa are issued with an asylum seeker permit on arrival. the permits can be valid for a period of anywhere between one and six months, depending on what stage of the application the asylum seeker is in. these timeframes were created when the drafters of the legislature envisioned that the application process would finally be adjudicated within policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1220 180 days of the application being made. however, in reality, the finalisation of asylum applications often takes more than ten years, during which period the applicant is expected to renew their permit every one to six months. for applicants who initially obtained their asylum seeker permits outside of cape town, this means that they are expected to travel at least twice a year to an rro that is over 1400 kilometres away from cape town. applicants often spend over r 1,500 on transportation and, due to corruption and maladministration, are often not assisted or are unable to gain access to the rro on the date of arrival. when access is eventually granted, there is no guarantee that an asylum seeker will be assisted on the same day and they are often informed to return on another day or given an appointment for a date that is weeks after the expiration date of the permit. this results in the need to acquire accommodation and thereby incurs more financial costs. the need to travel also has harsh implications on an asylum seeker’s employment prospects and opportunities. most asylum seekers are either unemployed or precariously employed in the informal sector. thus, they are subjected to various exploitative labour practices and experience a lack of job security. some of our participants indicated that they could not travel to their office of application because the journey is too long and would result in them being absent from work for an extended period of time, which will likely lead to a dismissal. other participants stated that even if they are not dismissed, missing a day of work means that they will not be paid their entire salary and will not be able to fund the trip to the office of application. therefore, some asylum seekers are confronted with the difficult obstacle of having to choose between their livelihoods and regularising their stay in south africa. those who are self-employed as vendors or small-scale entrepreneurs also experience financial difficulties in that they are forced to close their businesses while travelling. other applicants reported that they lost their employment once their permit expired and were unable to travel over 1400 kilometres to their office of application. furthermore, once an asylum seeker’s permit has expired, their bank accounts are closed, preventing them from accessing what little funds they may have had. families face even greater obstacles as all family members have to travel to the office of application in order to renew their permits. children and scholars lose out on schooling time during this period and families who are unable to afford the travel and accommodation costs face the possibility of having their children ejected from school due to lack of documentation. female-headed policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1221 households experience even greater financial and other burdens, as the single parent has to find financial means to travel with her children to the office of application. female applicants reported having slept outside the rro with their children for days, waiting to be assisted as they could not afford private accommodation. furthermore, most of these women work as entrepreneurs, selling fruits and vegetables in stalls or hairdressing near taxi ranks, and they only earn money if they are at work. this means that they lose their income for all of the days that they are not working. female-headed households also voiced concerns about safety and, in particular, xenophobic related attacks. other participants voiced that, even if they finally raise the money to travel to their office of application to renew their permit, often by the time they reach the rro their permit has lapsed. in terms of section 37 of refugees act, allowing your permit to lapse without just cause is a punishable offence and asylum seekers are first referred to a police station where a charge is laid against them. an asylum seeker is then required to appear in the magistrates court to provide evidence and justification for why their asylum seeker permit has expired and often face being found guilty of an offence and being sentenced to a fine of between r500 and r5000, ultimately resulting in a criminal record. participants cited this as an additional issue that prevented them from attempting to regularise their stay even after they had collected the means to travel to their office of application. the requirement to travel over 1400 kilometres to their office of application, often with an already expired permit, compounded the fear that refugees and asylum seekers had of being arrested and, possibly, deported back to a country where they faced potential persecution. this fear results in thousands of asylum seekers remaining in cape town without valid asylum permits. in the abdulaahi case alone, over 1000 applicants came forward indicating that they were unable to extend their permits as they could not travel to their office of application. cases such as this depict a situation in which asylum seekers are seeking to regularise their stay in south africa but are prevented from doing so by government policies that place extraneous socio-economic hurdles on them. by making it difficult for asylum seekers to access the asylum process and by placing so many procedural and bureaucratic hurdles on them, the department creates a situation in which a number of asylum seekers are forced to remain undocumented. new asylum seekers entering south africa travel to cape town for various reasons and do so without knowing that they cannot make new applications policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1222 at the cape town rro. often these individuals do not have the financial means or knowledge of how to travel to other provinces. one of the service providers interviewed stated that the number of undocumented persons seeking their services grew from 2% in 2012 to 17% in 2013 and 19% in 2014. in may 2015, the scalabrini centre, a human rights organisation, conducted an advocacy programme in which it contacted 857 newcomers by short message service (sms) to come to the scalabrini centre for an update on the court case. in total, 223 new asylum seekers reported to the scalabrini centre and were given updates on the court case as well as information on the open rros around the country. during the sessions, 156 individuals completed questionnaires regarding their experiences in cape town as undocumented asylum seekers and future plans regarding their asylum applications. the results indicated that financial problems are the main obstacles to applying for asylum at other rros and that roughly only 29% are planning to apply for asylum at an rro outside of cape town. when asked why they have not applied for asylum at another rro, 84 participants stated financial constraints as the reason for remaining undocumented and 50 individuals, out of the 156, stated that they would rather wait for the cape town rro to be opened. another 2 stated travel issues as the main obstacle and a further 2 stated that health issues hindered them from travelling. when asked if they planned on travelling to other rros in order to apply for asylum, 109 participants stated they did not, while only 44 of the 156 were willing to travel. the service providers interviewed expressed that they are frequently approached by rejected asylum-seekers whose family lives are threatened by their imminent deportation. in such cases they have written to the department, asking that families not be separated, and pointing out that south african and international law recognises the family as “the fundamental unit of society”, that the unhcr policy promotes the reunification of refugee families and that south africa’s refugees act includes the recognition of a dependent of a recognised refugee. the result of this policy shift in ‘family joining’ cases is that large numbers of refugee spouses or dependent children remain undocumented. rather than return to their countries of origin, most of these applicants opt to join the cohort of undocumented migrants, rather than abandon their families. they, therefore, live in south africa as undocumented migrants. the department also refuses to document children born from these parents. many participants stated that their spouses’ asylum applications were rejected despite being married to recognised refugees. after attempting to correct this error, the policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1223 families simply gave up and continued to live without documentation. additionality, if the undocumented spouses, who are women, give birth to children in south africa, the department refuses to document these children because one of the parents is undocumented. this is despite the fact that the child is born in south africa to a refugee parent. therefore, it is clear to see how the department’s policy shifts create the preconditions for refugees and asylum seekers to become undocumented and fall into a state of irregular migration. in all of the cases discussed above, the south african government promulgated policies designed to restrict certain kinds of migration and to confine asylum seekers to the borders of the country. in attempting to achieve these goals it has made access to the asylum process almost impossible for those living in cape town, forcing them to remain undocumented. all of the applicants attempted to regularise their stay in south africa, but it was the policies and practices of the department, making it impossible for both new and existing refugees and asylum seekers to access the rros, which drove them to become undocumented. conclusion south africa has undertaken to receive refugees and to act as a host state, obligations that stem from the 1951 un convention and the 1969 aou convention. however, the narrow reading of the refugees act, which is designed to give effect to refugee protection, and the various policy shifts that we have witnessed over the last few years, shows an aversion to the obligations that the government undertook to honour. the cases outlined above clearly show the successive policy shifts the department has undertaken in relation to the implementation of their international obligations. the department has implemented policies and practices at rros throughout south africa that have been aimed at limiting access to the asylum regime. despite the courts finding, on numerous occasions, that the department has a duty to provide an effective asylum system for the processing of applications, the department has continued to make decisions that refuse to uphold these duties. the cape town rro has been closed for new applications for asylum since 30 june 2012 and, despite successful litigation that continued for over five years, the office remains wilfully closed. simultaneously the drive by the department to force applicants to return to “their office of application” and to re-characterise existing rros as “winddown” temporary facilities, has further decreased the protection space for refugees and asylum seekers in south africa. policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1224 by restricting access to the asylum process and placing greater obstacles on refugees and asylum seekers, the south african government has driven refugees and asylum seekers to remain undocumented. furthermore, the restrictive policy shifts have had the consequences of forcing individuals who ought to be documented as refugees to remain undocumented. it is clear, however, that this type of irregular migration could be avoided through the implementation of laws and policies that protect refugees and uphold international human rights. therefore, we call on the south african government to improve its political discourse, laws and the implementation thereof, so that at least the irregularity of asylum seekers and refugees can be avoided by addressing the shortcomings, inefficiencies and irrationalities in the asylum seeker process. references abdulaahi and 205 others v the director-general of the department of home affairs and others, unreported, case no. 7705/2013 (western cape high court). ad hoc joint committee on probing violence against foreign nationals. 2015. report of the ad hoc joint committee on probing violence against foreign nationals. from <https://bit.ly/2nxdg77> aden and others v the minister of home affairs and another, unreported, case no. 9179/00 (western cape high court). african national congress. 2012. peace and stability: policy discussion document. from <https://bit.ly/2sewsrp > (retrieved october 12, 2018). dawood and another v minister of home affairs, 2000 (3) sa 936 (cc). department of home affairs, green paper on international migration (pretoria: 21 june 2016); department of home affairs, white paper on international migration for south africa (pretoria, july 2017). draft refugees regulations, 2018 and draft rules of the standing committee for refugee affairs, government gazette no 644, (29 june 2018), draft regulation 11(4). hirsi and others v the minister of home affairs and others, unreported, case no. 16863/08 (western cape high court). kiliko and others v the minister of home affairs and others, 2006 (4) sa 114 (c). policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1225 landau, l.b. and amit, r. 2014. wither policy? southern african perspectives on understanding law, ‘refugee’ policy and protection. journal of refugee studies, 27. minister of home affairs and others v somali association of south africa eastern cape (sasa ec) and another, 2015 (3) sa 545 (sca). nbaya and others v director general of home affairs and others 6534/15. ngwato, t.p. 2013. policy shifts in the south african asylum system: evidence and implications. african centre for migration and society (acms) and lawyers for human rights (lhr). plascon-evans paints ltd. v van riebeeck paints (pty) ltd., 1984 (3) sa 623 (a). scalabrini centre, cape town and others v minister of home affairs and others, 2018 (4) sa 125 (sca). scalabrini v minister of home affairs and others, 2016 (wcd), unreported, case no. 5242/16. tafira and others v ngozwane and others, 12 december 2006, unreported, case no. 12960/06. thomasso and others v the minister of home affairs and others, unreported, case no. 10598/09 (western cape high court). unhcr. 2007. unhcr chief commends pretoria’s refugee policy, pledges cooperation. from <https://bit.ly/2yrt0kt> (retrieved september 28, 2015). zieck, marjoleine. 1997. unhcr and voluntary repatriation of refugees: a legal analysis. martinus nijhoff publishers. zihalirwa and others v the minister of home affairs and others, unreported, case no. 20988/12 (western cape high court). 130 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants in south africa: what does this say about an “afrophobic” post-apartheid state? pineteh e. angu* and thecla ngwi mulu** * university of pretoria, south africa corresponding author. email: pineteh.angu@up.ac.za ** rhodes university, south africa email: n.mulu@ru.ac.za violent attacks on african migrants have produced a richer body of knowledge on african transnational migration, xenophobia/afrophobia, and their intersections with questions of citizenship and autochthony, especially in a country that historically has always been a home for african migrants. constellations of narratives now vilify south africa as a demonic state whose hatred of africans and fixation on exorcising them have short-circuited the process of nation-building. the vilification of south africa also tells us that many researchers, scholars, and even migrants are unaware of the ways that the country has transformed the lives of its increasing african migrant population. this article reflects on the changing material conditions of cameroonians in south africa to understand why this “afrophobic” state is still a key migration destination for cameroonians. drawing on personal exilic experiences, observations, and relevant literature, we argue that despite the victimization of africans, including cameroonians, this constitutional democracy has opened up political, economic and sociocultural opportunities for many cameroonians residing permanently in the country. in forging this argument, the article interrogates the political landscape in cameroon and examines key economic and sociocultural moments/activities in south africa as well as accomplishments in this migrant community, to elicit how access to different opportunities in south africa has significantly transformed the lives of cameroonians. keywords: cameroonians; afrophobia; post-apartheid; south africa; africa migration 131 introduction is it possible to assess the physical and psychological effects of the attacks on african migrants from other african countries without equally examining their quality of life in south africa? can we simply condemn south africa as a demonic state by applying conventional scholarly theories and research methodologies? as south africans and africans from other african countries continue to compete over resources, perhaps one way of understanding the exilic experiences of cameroonian migrants and writing about the attacks on africans in south africa is to examine the quality of their lives since migrating to south africa. using this approach to analyze the lives of south african-based cameroonian migrants was necessitated by claims of invasion of south africa by africans and locals’ impassioned attempts to exorcise these invaders (landau, 2011; amusan and mchunu, 2017; pineteh, 2017). the destruction and looting of african-owned businesses as well as the brutal attacks and killing of african migrants in cities and townships across south africa have therefore been written as expressions of afrophobia. although these forms of attack are common in many postcolonial african states, the gruesome nature of south african cases has managed to fracture diplomatic relationships between south africa and african states (hassim et al., 2008; zondi, 2008; landau, 2011; isike and isike, 2012; pineteh, 2018). recent studies on african migrants in south africa have, on one level, focused on this violent display of imagined afrophobic tendencies and its implications for questions of citizenship and/or autochthonous belonging, especially in a country that historically has always been a home for african migrants (zondi, 2008; isike and isike, 2012; angu, 2019). these studies have tended to vilify south africa as a demonic state whose hatred of africans from other countries and fixation on exorcising them “has short-circuited the process of nation-building since transitioning into a democratic dispensation” (zondi, 2008: 33). here, many researchers have consistently represented post-apartheid south africa as one of the most xenophobic, negrophobic, or afrophobic countries, not only in africa, but in the world (see murray, 2003; neocosmos, 2010; amusan and mchunu, 2017; pineteh, 2017, 2018). this raises key questions, which this article seeks to address: (a) why is it that despite the horrific attacks on african migrants, we have not seen a significant decline in the numbers of cameroonians attempting to emigrate to south africa or an exodus of cameroonians from south africa? (b) what does the increasing immigration into south africa tell us about statecraft in postcolonial states like cameroon? (c) put differently, why are many researchers obsessed with the inhumane treatment of africans in south africa without equally examining the improving quality of their lives? writing this article as insiders – cameroonian migrants – we have decided not to frame it around any conventional theoretical/methodological protocol. also, we do not intend to replicate familiar narratives that denigrate the new south africa or the findings of numerous studies that have investigated and documented the existential struggles of african migrants in south africa. neither do we intend to 132 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 dismiss the existence of xenophobes/afrophobes/negrophobes in south africa nor to condone the attacks on other africans or any non-citizens (see landau, 2011; angu, 2019). rather, this article is an auto-ethnography which draws on existing studies, personal experiences and observations of the changing material conditions of many cameroonians in south africa to understand why this “afrophobic state” is still an attractive migration destination for cameroonians. as south african-based cameroonian migrants, we attempt to espouse and argue in this article that despite the victimization of other africans, including cameroonians, this constitutional democracy has opened up political, economic and sociocultural opportunities for many african diasporic communities (pineteh, 2017, 2018). the article is therefore not claiming that cameroonian migrants have not experienced different forms of alienation, marginalization or victimization in south africa. in fact, they have had their share of struggles or challenges like other african migrants. for example, many of them have struggled to obtain legal documents to reside in south africa permanently (pineteh and mulu, 2016; pineteh, 2018). also, not all cameroonian migrants have been economically successful. however, as argued in the following sections, many studies on this diasporic community have failed to tell the stories of cameroonians who have accessed opportunities in this erstwhile apartheid state and used them to transform their lives. it is therefore against this backdrop that we decided to write this article. to support the argument above, we interrogate cameroon’s political landscape and we examine selected political, economic and sociocultural moments/activities in south africa as well as accomplishments in the cameroonian migrant community. then, we explain how these patterns of social existence and exilic experiences have contributed to transform the lives of cameroonians residing in south africa. south african government’s responses to an imaginary african migrant invasion to understand south africans’ attacks on africans and cameroonians’ resistance to these attacks, we start by examining south africa’s strategies to mitigate the in-flow of africans and to “exorcise” those already residing in south africa. as south africa grapples with an ailing economy, the government has prioritized tourism as one of its key strategies to regenerate economic growth. prioritizing tourism over other political and social challenges draws on studies that have highlighted the contribution of international tourism to economic growth (see rogerson, 2012, 2013; moyo and ziramba, 2013). to boost tourism, the south african president has repeatedly spoken about the urgent need to relax visa requirements for selected countries, increase the number of visa-free countries and institute a visa-on-arrival system. however, the same government, its citizens, and its diplomatic representatives have employed different strategies to trigger an “exodus” of africans and curb attempts to immigrate into south africa. these strategies have implications not only for africans resident in south africa, but also for the president’s ambitious plans to revive the economy 133 through tourism. some of these strategies include tightening and securitizing borders, scapegoating africans as architects of south africa’s social and economic problems and therefore inciting afrophobic/xenophobic violence and unlawfully forcing legal migrants to become illegal migrants (see nyamnjoh, 2006; hassim et al., 2008; landau, 2011; pineteh, 2017, 2018). using these multi-pronged strategies to exclude africans from south africa raises critical questions about “black consciousness of blackness” and how fixations on autochthonous citizenship influence and disrupt africans’ relationships with africans (geschiere, 2009; mbembe, 2019: 30). claims to this form of citizenship explain why the right to eliminate africans from south africa has been tied recently to the power of borders, with autochthons criticizing the government for leading a “borderless” post-apartheid south africa. today, we listen to politicians ranting in very dystopian language about the dangers of a borderless state to the sovereignty of south africa. here, they attempt to use the concept of risk management to control human mobility because they see the movements of foreign nationals, particularly africans, in and out of south africa “as sources of danger and risk” (mbembe, 2019: 24). put simply, there can be no peaceful and safe south africa without securitized and militarized borders. for comaroff and comaroff (2001: 650), focusing on borders to curb migration reminds us about the paradoxes of globalization such as “the rights of the autochthon versus the rights of the stranger; the politics of protectionism and exclusion versus the borderless economy; the construction of the immigrant as parasite or benefactor; and the ideology of universal inclusion versus the limits of provisioning commonwealth”. these discrepant idioms help us to understand the prospects and pitfalls of globalization and south african citizens’ “growing distrust of immigrants” and the urgency to regain spatial control (geschiere, 2009: 23). however, the increasing attacks on african migrants tell us that “when state institutions evidently failed to deliver on their promises to protect and promote a politically entitled but materially deprived citizenry, the population (or parts of it) [takes] on the obligation to alienate and exclude those standing in its way” (landau, 2011: 3). in principle, the use of border security to constrain human mobility is nothing short of a contradiction, when the ideology of globalization preaches free movement of people, goods, and services. in fact, comaroff and comaroff (2001) point us to one of the many criticisms of globalization – the privileging of free movement of goods, technology, and financial capital at the expense of human mobility (nyamnjoh, 2006; pineteh, 2017). however, securitizing borders can never stop human beings from migrating because journeys to exile have shown us that migrants can endure and overcome some of the most adverse challenges associated with migration (de haas, 2008; pineteh, 2017, 2018). this is because “the body is made first and foremost to move, to walk, which is why every subject is a wandering subject” (mbembe, 2019: 144). in fact, research evidence has shown that border control has “had a series of unintended, often counter-productive effects” in africa, america and europe (de haas, 2008: 1310). south africa is no exception, and frankly, it is very unlikely the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants in south africa 134 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 that tighter borders will curb african immigration into south africa. firstly, since south africa is still a very attractive migration destination on the african continent, africans will always find new and innovative ways to circumvent border security. secondly, attempts to outsmart border control have resulted in a lucrative business syndicate at borders, which involves smugglers, border security officials and migrants (nyamnjoh, 2006; de haas, 2008; landau, 2011; pineteh, 2018). as citizens continue to blame other africans for their miseries, the south african government has done very little to change the narrative. although it has argued that the attacks on other africans and their businesses are sordid incidents of criminality, to date there is hardly any evidence that a south african citizen has been tried and sentenced for these “crimes” (landau, 2011; pineteh, 2017). instead, the government has contributed to entrench populist narratives from citizens and right-wing politicians who seem to believe that migration is a serious threat to south africa’s sovereignty. so, while south africans are calling for stringent border control, they are also using different internal tactics to express their anti-african sentiments and incite attacks on african migrants (murray, 2003; amusan and mchunu, 2017; pineteh, 2017). one such tactic is to construct pejorative narratives that blame african migrants in particular for crime, joblessness, poor service delivery, collapsing state institutions, and poverty. south africans use these narratives to justify unlawful attacks on vulnerable african migrants from other countries on the continent and different forms of thuggery that happen during these attacks. however, these attacks are not necessarily driven by afrophobic tendencies, but rather by citizens’ fears, uncertainties, anxieties, and hopelessness as the south african economy declines and unemployment increases. given that the attacks are unlawful, perpetrators justify their actions by claiming that they are cleansing south africa of illegal immigrants, undocumented migrants, or african drug lords and criminals, although victims are both illegal and legal african migrants. challenged by several social pathologies such as employment, poverty, and crime, politicians now use the scapegoat ideology as a political strategy to mobilize voters and/or deflect attention from their political and economic blunders that have contributed to worsening the material conditions of ordinary south africans (harris, 2002; pineteh, 2017). here, south african media reportage, political oratories, social debates, and township street-level conversations are fraught with anecdotes blaming the influx of “illegal african migrants” into south africa for all the evils of the new south africa (landau, 2011; pineteh, 2017; nyamnjoh, 2006). today, behind every bad deed in south africa, there is a nigerian, cameroonian, zimbabwean, or somali, and this fixation on an imagined influx of illegal migration is intended to force an exodus of africans from south africa. these incendiary narratives have also created opportunities for the state police to conduct systemic raids in immigrant ghettoes, alleging that these spaces are crime hotspots and hideouts for illegal migrants. however, the recurrence of these attacks since the maiden incident in 2008 suggests that this strategy has failed to produce the intended results. the police raids as well as the maiming, looting, burning, and killing by 135 locals have simply resulted in an unethical display of power by the authorities, and resistance from african migrants, many of whom are ready to die in south africa rather than return home (pineteh, 2017, 2018; angu, 2019). the multi-pronged approaches to force africans out of south africa or curb immigration into south africa also include unlawfully complicating, rejecting, or simply delaying the processing of africans’ applications for temporary visa renewals or permanent residence to force legal migrants to become illegal (pineteh, 2017, 2018). the intention is to ensure that applicants’ current permits expire while they wait endlessly for the outcome of renewal application. the department of home affairs (dha) officials who deliberately delay the processing of african applications naively think that their actions can actually force african migrants to leave the country or expose them to unlawful arrest by the police. this strategy is intended to fortify the previous strategies because, for south africans, “unauthorised immigrants were overrunning south africa’s cities…” (murray, 2003: 448). again, the strategy is unlawful because it contravenes south african immigration laws pertaining to the renewal of temporary permits or granting of permanent residence to migrants. here, dha officials explore the perception that many african migrants are not very familiar with their south african immigration laws or lack the financial resources to secure the services of immigration lawyers. for example, it is unlawful to arrest an immigrant with an expired temporary permit if such person is in possession of a valid proof of submission from the dha, or from a dha-accredited agency such as visa facilitating services (vfs). conversely, this strategy has also yielded unintended results. firstly, it has led to high-level bribery and corruption in the dha, involving top-ranking officials, agents, and migrants, with those in legal limbo ready to pay thousands of south african rands to regularize their stay in south africa, even though they are simply victims of unlawful administrative practices. secondly, it has worsened the undocumented migrant crisis, with illegal african migrants devising innovative strategies to escape police arrest and potential deportation. but why are cameroonian migrants determined to stay in a country that has been repeatedly represented as an afrophobic state? to respond to this question, we examine the political situation in cameroon and the political, economic, and sociocultural benefits of residing in south africa. the cameroonian community in south africa since this article is based primarily on personal experiences and observations as well as on existing studies on african migrants, and not on empirically gleaned primary data, there is no separate methodology section. however, a general brief description of this diasporic community can enhance readers’ understanding of the claims made in the article. for instance, since the transition from apartheid to democracy, the number of cameroonian migrants in south africa has increased exponentially (pineteh, 2015; pineteh and mulu, 2016). this can be attributed to the worsening economic and political challenges in cameroon and the promises of south africa’s the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants in south africa 136 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 fledgling democracy. this growing migrant community is made up of francophones and anglophones, with an almost equal gender representation. although cameroonians are scattered all over south africa, the majority of them live in major cities like johannesburg, pretoria, cape town and durban. they are mainly business owners, petty traders and professionals in different sectors of the south african economy such as health, higher education, non-governmental organizations (ngos), banking and so on. they reside in south africa on different permits – asylum, refugee, study, work or permanent residence permits. there is also a significant number of cameroonian migrants who have obtained south african citizenship. finally, this community has managed to build strong networks through its sociocultural activities and associational lifestyle (pineteh, 2008, 2015; nyamnjoh, 2018). cameroon’s political landscape and the benefits of living in a constitutional democracy like south africa since 1982, cameroon has been led by paul biya, a predatory dictator and his authoritarian rule has been one of the main drivers of emigration from cameroon (takougang and amin, 2018). to rule cameroon for more than three decades, this octogenarian has employed the fallacy of advanced democracy, the spectacle of divide and rule, and extreme repression to silence any threats to his statecraft (lawyer, 2017; mbembe, 2019) despite the ushering in of multiparty politics in the 1990s, cameroon is one of many exemplars of postcolonial african states where dissent is construed as extremism and where marginalization, repression of human rights, and press and speech censorship are the essential political orders. it is a symbol of an african democracy without the preservation of human rights (effiom, 2013; mbembe, 2019). for 38 years, biya’s political tactics have also been about “centralization and personalization of power”, while using his political patronage networks to infiltrate and dismantle opposition parties (dicklitch, 2002: 166). although lawyer (2017) argues that cameroon’s turbulent political landscape has escaped a full-blown civil war since the cameroonian civil war, the country remains a politically fractured state, evidenced in the collapse of key political, economic and social institutions (kombi, 2015; lawyer, 2017; takougang and amin, 2018). for years, tension has simmered and cameroonians have expressed their discontent and frustration with biya’s repressive leadership through civil disobedience, pro-democracy demonstrations and social protests. such collective actions have always been met with more repressive reactions resulting in illegal arrests, torture and incarcerations, often with the complicity of key judicial institutions, which are supposed to protect the rights of citizens (effiom, 2013; agbor, 2015; seemndze, 2016). in cameroon today, “common life has been reduced to the satisfaction of greed for money, power and material well-being” at the expense of basic human right principles such as justice, dignity and respect (seemndze, 2016: 169). here, the ideals of liberal/constitutional democracy, which allow for different freedoms, are propagated, while “at the same time promoting the struggles for 137 recognition and representation of the various cultural, ethnic and sectarian groups...” (nyamnjoh, 2005: 3). for example, biya’s administration has promoted a beti hegemony, francophone domination and the subordination of the anglophone minority (anyefru, 2008, 2010; koning and nyamnjoh, 2019). in 2016, the tension that had been simmering in cameroon for decades exploded in the anglophone regions of north west and south west. cameroonians from these regions mobilized in cameroon and the diaspora to resuscitate their longstanding pursuit of selfdetermination and the establishment of an independent state, or simply a return to the two-state federation established after independence (konings and nyamnjoh, 2019). from 2016, this struggle for self-determination degenerated into an armed conflict between secessionist forces and biya’s militia, resulting in several deaths and internal and cross-border migration (gwaibi, 2016; de vries et al., 2019). significantly, this struggle also has led to an upsurge in the number of cameroonians attempting to enter south africa as forced migrants. in light of the current political fragility and ensuing economic stagnation in the anglophone regions, we argue that this part of the country has become a very unsafe space with an uncertain future for anglophone cameroonians, both at home and in south africa. this is because “it is unlikely that the anglophone movements’ call for an independent southern cameroon state will receive any support from the francophone leadership and the international community” (konings and nyamnjoh, 2019: 84). in addition, the number of deaths recorded between 2016 and 2020 suggests that anglophone cameroonians in south africa are more likely to survive any attacks on african migrants than secessionist and militia forces in the anglophone regions of cameroon. the sporadic attacks of africans with mainly knives, pangas, stones and sticks are a lesser threat to the lives of cameroonians in south africa than a full-fledged armed insurgent that has plunged the entire cameroon into a restless and fragile state. here, normal patterns of life have been disrupted, human lives have become worthless as human rights violations increase, and the economy of the anglophone regions is on a downward trajectory. for anglophone cameroonians in south africa, the risks of returning or simply visiting home are significantly high as the armed conflict in the regions worsens. although this is a localized conflict, the political atmosphere in cameroon has been fragile for years because paul biya’s administration has employed the same dictatorial tactics to deal with francophone dissidents. today, there is an equally large population of disgruntled francophones as anglophone cameroonians in south africa, suggesting that the quality of life in many francophone provinces has also declined (see agbor, 2015; takougang and amin, 2018). since multiparty politics, democracy in cameroon has been short-circuited by biya’s authoritarianism and “unequal access to wealth and power”, positioning south africa as a relatively safer home for many cameroonian migrants (nyamnjoh, 2005: 2). although collier (2009) argues that political violence is a curse, in the case of a postcolonial sub-saharan african state like cameroon, it is also a blessing for its citizens residing in south africa. despite south africa’s multiple socioeconomic and the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants in south africa 138 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 political challenges (see mangcu, 2008; gumede, 2012), the country still outperforms many francophone sub-saharan african countries, including cameroon, in terms of the protection of human rights and freedoms (nyamnjoh, 2005; cheeseman, 2015). the watchdogs of south africa’s democracy, such as chapter 9 institutions, ensure that even non-citizens like cameroonians benefit from its preservation of human rights, judicial independence and the other freedoms that underpin any democracy. although south africa has been represented as a “demonic society” (landau, 2011: 213) because of its xenophobic tendencies, african migrants in south africa still enjoy far better political, sociocultural and economic rights enshrined in south africa’s bill of rights and constitution (rsa, 1996; kende, 2003). the country’s political and socioeconomic obligations to its citizens create a safer environment for african migrants from predatory dictatorships, where they are able to exercise their rights and enjoy their freedoms as human beings. furthermore, south africa’s political landscape has created a unique space for political education and consciousness for young political aspirants in the cameroonian migrant community. for example, the critical role played by the african national congress (anc) youth league in influencing south africa’s political transformation, or the emergence of the economic freedom front (eff), led by the relatively young charismatic julius malema, or broader civil society activism, offer useful political lessons for cameroonian political and/or social activists residing permanently in south africa. these political benefits have not featured prominently in research because south africa’s treatment of migrants is often not compared with that of other african countries, but with european countries and america (see neocosmos, 2010; landau, 2011; pineteh, 2018). by not pitting south africa against other african countries, many studies have tended to neglect the factors driving the influx of migrants into south africa and the political benefits of living in a constitutional democracy for africans fleeing from autocratic regimes. since cameroon is a quasidemocracy/dictatorship, it is expected to have comparably high cases of human rights abuses. but a constitutional democracy like south africa, with unrestricted freedom of speech, media, movement and association, supported by an active citizenship, has provided a unique space for political education for cameroonian political aspirants. cameroonians’ political expediency in south africa is evidenced in the formation of diaspora chapters of cameroon’s ruling party, the cameroon people’s democratic movement (cpdm), and the main opposition party, the social democratic front (sdf). through the formation of these diasporic political spaces, cameroonians have been able to freely mobilize and protest against biya’s repressive regime and the marginalization of the anglophone minority from south africa (takougang and amin, 2018; konings and nyamnjoh, 2019). it is no surprise that the anglophone community in south africa has been singled out as one of the most vibrant diaspora communities supporting the anglophone struggle for an independent southern cameroon state (see konings and nyamnjoh, 2019). it is therefore disingenuous to downplay how south africa’s constitutional democracy 139 has shaped cameroonians’ political thoughts even in the midst of the violence against african migrants. the emergence and growth to prominence of the south african chapter of the struggle for self-determination in the anglophone regions of cameroon exemplifies the extent to which cameroonians have benefited from a democratic space that allows people to exercise their rights as long as it is done within the realms of the law. through different forms of political mobilization – from public rallies, university seminars, and community discussion forums, to non-violent protests at different diplomatic missions in south africa – cameroonians have contributed remarkably to sensitizing international communities about the marginalization of the anglophone minority. we are not claiming that social activism or political protests do not happen in cameroon. rather, we are opining that cameroon’s political space, with its repressive laws, stifles political agency and active citizenship. as such, studies that condemn and label south africa as an afrophobic state should also investigate the political gains of residing in south africa, particularly for cameroonian migrants who are continually forced to flee their ancestral home because of complex ethnic conflicts and a deeply rooted repressive regime, which uses different “levers of power to control and accommodate the many demands of cameroonians” (takougang and amin, 2018: 43). south africa as a country of economic opportunities for cameroonian migrants attacks on african migrants are triggered partly by the economic successes of migrant communities, with citizens claiming that africans are reaping the fruits of years of struggle against the apartheid government (see nyamnjoh, 2006; neocosmos, 2010; landau, 2011; pineteh, 2018). studies on immigrant entrepreneurship have argued explicitly that the exponential increase in african-owned businesses in major south african cities can be attributed to immigrants’ exceptional business acumen, resilience and migrant networks. they have also attributed this increase to the failures of the south african government to mitigate the rising unemployment rate (moyo, 2014; tengeh and nkem, 2017). the findings of these studies repeatedly foreground the contributions of african businesses in boosting the south african economy, often neglecting how these businesses have transformed the lives of african migrants. this suggests, rather erroneously, that south africans should be eternally grateful to african businesses for contributing to curbing unemployment. the contributions of african businesses in south africa are not in question here because there is substantial research evidence on the impact of immigrant entrepreneurship on the south african economy (see tengeh, 2016; pineteh, 2018). but what are some of the equally important factors that have contributed to the successes of migrant businesses, besides migrant networks, business acumen and resilience? how has the success of african businesses in south africa transformed the lives of africans, such that they are ready to risk their lives to stay in south africa? writing about cameroonian and other immigrant businesses in south africa, the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants in south africa 140 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 pineteh and mulu (2016), tengeh (2016), and pineteh (2018) have focused on their business skills, social capital and migrant resilience as the main predictors of their economic successes. for example, tengeh (2016) and tengeh and nkem (2017) argue that the success of cameroonian and somali businesses is a consequence of their entrepreneurial strategies, financial assistance from social networks and immigrant associations, and their resilience in the face of adverse situations such as xenophobic attacks. for them, any migrants with these sets of skills and attributes, with startup capital, can achieve immeasurable economic success anywhere and at any time in south africa. although these factors have played a critical role in the economic growth of cameroonian businesses in south africa, these studies ignore the importance of a relatively stable and enabling south african political and economic environment, which has liberalized and removed “corporatist rigidity in inner of johannesburg” and other major cities (moyo, 2014: 261). this enabling business environment creates avenues for cameroonians “without experience in immigrant entrepreneurship [to be] as successful as those with a wealth of experience…” (moyo, 2014: 261–262). unlike in cameroon, where an autocratic government uses repressive business laws to control and regulate its business environment, south africa’s free market economy increases the chances of operating a successful business. economic policies in south africa promote the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (smes) through tax incentives. the policies also give markets the freedom to self-regulate, allowing business owners to set their own prices and influence market trends. for example, the profit margins of cameroonian-owned grocery shops in south africa are significantly higher than similar businesses in cameroon. unlike in south africa, cameroon’s rigid business regulations and corrupt taxation system have stifled the expansion of the sme and informal business sector. it is important to note that many cameroonian migrants who are successful business owners in south africa today started their business ventures in cameroon, and some had no previous business experience before migrating to south africa. however, many of these businesses were not profitable, even with the same business skills and tactics outlined above (moyo, 2014; tengeh, 2016; tengeh and nkem, 2017). contrary to studies by hassim et al. (2008), landau (2011), and pineteh (2017), which continue to portray south africa as an anti-african migrant state, this article contends that the country has exposed cameroonian migrants to economic opportunities that have changed their material conditions. the cameroonian community, particularly in johannesburg, durban, and cape town, now has a new class of “nouveau riche” who were inconspicuous petty informal traders in cameroon. members of this class of “nouveau riche” own several businesses, multiple luxury cars, and some have become property moguls in their own rights. the display of economic successes is very noticeable because in cameroonian communities, success in general is measured in terms of material consumption or accumulation. here, the number and size of individual cars and houses, or the display of riches during social gatherings/events, are indicators of human achievements (pineteh, 2008; nyamnjoh, 141 2018). furthermore, the increasing amounts of immigrant remittances from south africa to, and investments in, cameroon symbolize the economic successes of cameroonian migrants. these remittances and investments have been used to support families, revive ailing family businesses, and they have also contributed to reducing unemployment in cameroon (tiemoko, 2004; maposa, 2007). in a climate of increasing attacks on africans in south africa, remittances from south africa and business investments by south african-based cameroonians create an image of south africa as a land of opportunities, and therefore a desirable migration destination. to claim that african migrants’ business growth is mainly because of survival strategies such as resilience, social capital, associational lifestyle, hard work and entrepreneurism, is in fact a one-sided story, which undermines south africa’s participation in the economic transformation of non-citizens. for us, south africa’s enabling business environment and the buying power of diaspora communities and citizens have contributed as much to the flourishing of immigrant businesses. despite south africa’s myriad socioeconomic and political challenges, cameroonian economic experiences and successes tell us that south africa has always been hospitable to africans regardless of nationality (zondi, 2008; isike and isike, 2012). while amusan and mchunu (2017: 13) can afford to argue that “south africa’s image and reputation has been dealt a major blow by the recent xenophobic attacks”, the economic lives of cameroonians suggest that there is still a strong sense of “ubuntu” in south africa, shown in decades of hospitality towards other africans. to aptly capture the exilic experiences of cameroonian migrants, researchers should not only represent cameroonians as victims of a demonic south african state but also as people who have benefited from many political and economic opportunities in south africa. for example, many cameroonian professionals with permanent residency and south african citizenship have been able to access several opportunities in universities, the health and banking sectors. despite these success stories, the recurring narrative of victimhood seems to suggest that cameroonians’ quality of life has been on a downward trajectory since the day they entered south africa. this narrative breeds an unhealthy fixation on the ills of south africa, neglecting the economic transformations in african migrant communities including the cameroonian community. sociocultural benefits of residing in democratic south africa one of the many social formations of african diasporic communities is the repertoire of sociocultural activities and performances. showing a close affinity with its ancestral roots, the cameroonian community in south africa has experienced an exponential growth in cultural associations, cameroonian food outlets, traditional fashion businesses and cuisines (see pineteh, 2005, 2008; nyamnjoh, 2018). in african diaspora communities globally, these social practices are used as strategies to cope with the physical and psychological burdens of displacement. the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants in south africa 142 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 in the case of cameroonian migrants, these markers of cultural identity compete with their adaptation strategies, such as intermarriages, affinity for south african music, linguistic slang and dress codes. here, we see a unique display of cultural fusion designed to implant cameroonians into south africa, while at the same time emphasizing the value of ancestral attachment (pineteh, 2005, 2008; nyamnjoh, 2018). although new migrants often experience difficulties in coping with a new food culture or culture shock in host countries, transnational cultural choices/ activities are not only tropes of memory – they have also been seen to influence and/ or transform migrant lives as they struggle to adapt (terragni et al., 2014; nyamnjoh, 2018). changing cultural patterns and associated sociocultural activities in the cameroonian community have opened spaces for very lucrative business enterprises in major south african cities that cater for these changing lifestyles. for example, the cameroonian food and fashion sectors in johannesburg and cape town have become a very profitable source of livelihood, catering for different food choices and fashion trends of both cameroonians and south africans with african spouses (pineteh, 2008, 2015; nyamnjoh, 2018). here, food and fashion acculturation and south africa’s flexible market environment have transformed this business sector into a multi-million-rand industry involving a network of importers, wholesalers and retailers not only in south africa, but also in ghana, nigeria, and southern africa (maposa, 2007; nyamnjoh, 2018). the expansion and profitability of this sector, together with the previously outlined political and economic benefits of residing permanently in south africa, have entrenched in cameroonians a determination to die in south africa rather than return home. besides the financial gains associated with these sociocultural repertoires, there is an upsurge in cameroonian social and cultural activities across south africa because of the political instability and armed struggle in the anglophone regions of cameroon (pineteh, 2015; nyamnjoh, 2018). sociocultural festivities that have always influenced particularly anglophone cameroonians’ decisions to visit cameroon annually are now performed in south africa because of political insecurity. since 2016, the cameroonian community has seen a surge in traditional and social activities such as marriages, cultural rituals, funerals, death celebrations and so on, performed freely in the vicinity of “afrophobic” south africans. although some of these gatherings happen even during incidents of xenophobic violence, there have not been major incidents during these events driven purely by “afrophobic” attitudes – only familiar sporadic and opportunistic crimes. this is very telling about south africa’s sense of hospitality, which has been affected unintentionally by psychological and physical effects of an “incomplete liberation” and unfulfilled political promises (murray, 2003; gibson, 2012: 5). furthermore, in the global knowledge economy that we live in, “the global structure of knowledge production and distribution” is critically important (arowosegbe, 2016: 324). to meet the demands of a global knowledge economy, 143 universities are expected to teach and produce research that is innovative, transformative, and relevant to 21st-century economies (jowi, 2012; altbach, 2013; arowosegbe, 2016). african universities therefore have an essential role to play in ensuring that africa joins “the global knowledge society and…compete effectively in the sophisticated knowledge economies of the twenty-first century” (altbach, 2013: 316). global university rankings show that many south african universities are now competing favourably with other developing and middle-income countries in the brics (brazil, russia, india, china, and south africa) block, and to some extent with european countries (jowi, 2012; altbach, 2013). however, knowledge production in many african countries has been hampered and sometimes “halted by the challenges of africa’s political economy, including the rise and consolidation of autocratic rule across the continent…” (arowosegbe, 2016: 326). what does this mean to cameroonian migrants in south africa? over the more than 20 years that many cameroonians have lived in south africa, we have witnessed a rapid development of intellectual capital in the cameroonian community, a new generation of scholars and researchers. despite increasing incidents of violence that have threatened the social existence of african migrants, cameroonian migrants, like many other african nationals, have obtained undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications from elite south african universities (pineteh and mulu, 2016). many of these migrants have studied on full scholarships provided by south african universities, private and even government departments. moreover, intellectual mobility into south africa has increased significantly, partly because of former president thabo mbeki’s vision of an african renaissance. besides cameroonians who studied in south africa and are now employed in public and private universities, as well as in the corporate sector, we have also seen an exponential increase in cameroonian academics and professionals migrating to south africa. they are attracted by favourable employment conditions, quality and efficient social services, and relatively high remuneration (malan, 2010). if the ranking of south african universities in africa and the world is an indicator of academic and research excellence, it is clear that south africa, with its multiple challenges, has given cameroonians access to quality education and highly remunerated jobs that are not easily accessible in cameroon without a strong patronage network. like many universities in francophone sub-saharan africa, cameroonian universities still suffer from a crisis of quality and relevance of knowledge because of a lack of modern infrastructure, outdated curriculum and persistent political meddling (nyamnjoh and jua, 2002). in this part of africa, “repressive states have perpetuated and capitalized on this [predicaments] by manipulating desperate academics into compliance and complicity with mediocrity” (nyamnjoh and jua, 2002: 1). for example, in cameroon, academic freedom is still hamstrung by “overt government interference [and] exclusion of certain groups of people from tertiary” education, with far-reaching epistemological consequences. the increasing number of cameroonian doctorates from south african universities tells us that despite the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants in south africa 144 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 the country’s socioeconomic challenges, its institutions of higher learning have opened up a new world of opportunities for the diaspora community. today, the cameroonian community takes pride in the number of high-ranking researchers and academics participating in knowledge production in south africa. while in south africa, academic tenures, research rankings and fellowships, and promotions are mostly based on the lure of meritocracy, the situation in cameroon is exactly the opposite. what we often experience is a “political commodification of knowledge” in the way academic appointments and promotions are managed, resulting in intellectuals being “subjugated by party political affiliation” despite earning miserable salaries (nyamnjoh and jua, 2002: 3–4). finally, south african-based cameroonian migrants have been beneficiaries of quality social services such as primary healthcare and healthcare facilities, as well as other quality social amenities. for instance, section 27(1) of south africa’s constitution states that “everyone has the right to have access to health care services, including reproductive health care…[and] basic health care services for children” (rsa, 1996; phillips, 2004: 10). although this provision is to preserve the healthcare rights of its citizens, it has allowed many cameroonian migrants and their children to access quality healthcare in south african public hospitals for free or at very affordable prices (phillips, 2004; moyakhe, 2014). those for whom it is financially feasible now choose to access the same high-quality healthcare through private healthcare providers. many cameroonians in this category now bring their sick family members to south africa for medical examinations and treatments. this tells us that cameroonians are unlikely to return home, where quality healthcare is not only a privilege, but the public health system has collapsed and citizens are dying of easily treated diseases such as diabetes, malaria, prostate cancer and so on. conclusion although there are many cameroonian migrants who are still confronted by several economic challenges or who cannot access economic opportunities because of lack of legal documents, the lifestyles of most permanent residents and those who have obtained south african citizenship, tell a different story. given the changing material conditions of this category of south african-based cameroonian migrants, it would be deceptive and somewhat hypocritical to write about cameroonian exilic experiences only through the lenses of hegemonic and generalized narratives that vilify south africa as an anti-african state (mosselson, 2010; neocosmos, 2010; pineteh, 2018). these narratives often paint a “stereotypical image of african misery” with the worst cases of forced and economic migration because of predatory dictatorships, regional and ethnic conflicts, whose victims now find themselves in similar deplorable human conditions in exile (de haas, 2008: 1305). these narratives are intellectually meaningful if we closely examine the social conditions in many of the postcolonial african states. however, they entrench a narrative of victimhood, which cameroonian migrants have used for years to attract sympathy/pity from 145 researchers, human rights organizations and mainstream south african media. it is not surprising to read statements such as that xenophobia/afrophobia is “a problem which is particularly shocking given the massive international support for the struggle against apartheid, particularly during the 1980s” (neocosmos, 2010: 1). this statement portrays south africa as a demonic state unwilling to reciprocate the spirit of humanity shown to the country during its darkest days. these dominant narratives suggest that the material conditions of african migrants have either not changed or have worsened since the day that they entered south africa (murray, 2003; landau, 2011; pineteh, 2018). one of the reasons such narratives persist is that many studies on african migrant communities have failed to track the lives of african migrants from the time they entered south africa. alternatively, they have relied on empirical evidence from the same migrants who have been psychologically conditioned to imagine themselves as victims in an afrophobic/xenophobic state. this article recognizes the challenges associated with global human mobility and the implications for south africa, with its own socioeconomic and political challenges. moreover, it is humanly insensible to condone the horrors of blackon-black violence, not only in south africa, but also in several other postcolonial african states (pineteh, 2017; mbembe, 2019). black-on-black violence in africa is, in fact, what fanon explained as “a permanent see-saw between african unity, which fades quicker and quicker into the mists of oblivion, and a heart-breaking return to chauvinism in its most bitter and detestable form” (fanon, 1990: 126). with this in mind, this article sought to understand why incessant violent attacks on african migrants have not managed to influence cameroonians’ perceptions of south africa as an enticing migration destination. in addition, it attempted to determine why these horrific attacks have not triggered an exodus of cameroonians to their motherland or to other countries. finally, it wanted to find out how cameroonians have implanted themselves firmly in south africa in the midst of the country’s many internal socioeconomic and political challenges, which continue to spark off xenophobic/afrophobic attacks. using personal experiences and the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants, the article has analyzed the political landscape in cameroon and how economic and sociocultural benefits/opportunities in south africa have transformed the lives of cameroonians resident in this erstwhile apartheid state. in light of the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants, the article holds strongly that south africa has always been an attractive migration destination, particularly hospitable to african migrants, but whose sense of ‘ubuntu’ has been deferred by a political transition, which “has not seen a radical transfer of wealth or the creation of social programs based on human needs” (gibson, 2012: 53). the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants in south africa 146 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 references agbor, a. 2015. the role of the judiciary in the promotion of democracy and human rights in cameroon. african journal of legal studies, 8: 145–173. altbach, p.g. 2013. advancing the national and global knowledge economy: the role of research universities in developing countries. studies in higher education, 38(3): 316–330. amusan, l. and mchunu, s. 2017. an assessment of xenophobic attacks in south africa (2008–2015): whither batho pele and ubuntu principles? south african review of sociology, 48(8): 1–18. angu, p. 2019. 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26–35. the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants in south africa https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act108of1996s.pdf https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act108of1996s.pdf ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 596 migration and hiv/aids in rural south africa: a dualphase intergenerational, gendered chain migration alexandra plowright*, gillian hundt** and maria stuttaford*** abstract migration is a complex process that is fundamental in understanding the complexity of societies across the world. in south africa, there are high levels of migration associated with hiv and aids, and the process is intrinsically linked with issues associated with population health. research conducted in kwazulunatal province, and in the wider country, has reported on a circular migratory flow of women to and from the province. however, this paper presents findings suggesting that the gendered migration occurring in this area is actually an intergenerational process of chain migration that involves women of different generations moving to south africa from households in other southern african countries. younger women are initially motivated to move by various push and pull factors, such as economic or environmental instability. despite enthusiasm to move and motivation to succeed in south africa, their experiences of migration to south africa are mostly characterised by negativity. often exposed to unsafe conditions coupled with a lack of opportunities for meaningful work, many are left vulnerable to hiv contraction. older women then migrate to follow their daughters in response to requests for support, forming the second phase of this process of intergenerational chain migration. as a result of this process, which is strongly influenced by hiv, there are emerging communities of younger women who require access to services for hiv, and older women who are in need of primary care services associated with ageing while they are providing assistance to their kin and new host communities. keywords migration, hiv, aids, south africa, health, gender, women, southern africa. * research fellow, university of warwick’s medical school, centre for applied health research and delivery. email: a.s.plowright@warwick.ac.uk. ** emeritus professor, warwick medical school, university of warwick. email: gillian.hundt@warwick.ac.uk. *** honorary research fellow, cardiff law school, university of cardiff. email: stuttafordm@cardiff.ac.uk. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 597 background and review of literature migration refers to the flow of people between and within regions and countries that takes place globally (haour-knipe, 2009). migration can occur between as well as within regions and countries, as people from different backgrounds, generations and origins migrate in response to a range of push and pull factors. these factors can include forced displacement owing to conflict or famine, physical or economic insecurity and historical migration patterns. however, this paper is concerned with an emerging pattern of interregional migration. interregional migration refers to the movement of people between countries, but within a geographical region. in this case, the region is sub-saharan africa. interregional migrants often hold the view, and the hope, that the new host country will provide improved living conditions, such as security, migrant community engagement and opportunities for employment (kok, 2006). migration is particularly evident throughout south africa (camlin et al, 2014) and has been influenced by the socio-political context of the apartheid era. during apartheid, historically disadvantaged, black south african men were systematically located to areas where labour was needed in order to reinforce the historically advantaged position of white south africans (posel, 2010). during this period, government policy sought to prevent the movement of black south african women away from rural areas (ngcobo, 1990). this containment of women in rural areas sought to reinforce the control the apartheid government had over the movement of black south africans. despite these movement restrictions, women have been successfully migrating to, from and within south africa since the early 19th century, mostly as migratory leaders, in search of income-generating opportunities (iom, 2010). furthermore, neves and du toit (2008) understand that the current structure and dynamics of households in south africa can be attributed to these historical-political migratory movements. the gendered nature of south african migration is increasingly being recognised and a number of studies have identified that migration in south africa is disproportionately becoming feminised: it is a process that women participate in. muhwava and colleagues (2010) reported increasing numbers of women participating in migration in kwazulu-natal province (kzn), whilst collinson et al (2006) identified that women aged 15-25 years are the most mobile population category in the country. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 598 the migration dynamics within kzn, particularly, are a pertinent issue that have the potential to impact social cohesion, service provision and demography in the province. kzn is easily accessible for african regional migrants as it is located in close proximity to international borders with mozambique and swaziland. the province also has a number of large scale farming areas and popular tourist destinations that are perceived to offer employment opportunities. these factors, when combined with the lifting of restrictions on the movement of black africans since the end of apartheid in 1994, have meant that large numbers of economically active people of working age and ability have migrated to rural farming areas in kzn in search of employment in agriculture and tourism. migration in kwazulu-natal province has been described as increasingly gendered (camlin et al, 2014), and has been reported as such in research from the northern coastal region of kwazulu-natal province (camlin et al, 2014; bennett et al, 2014). using data from the africa centre demographic surveillance site (dss), camlin and colleagues (2014) report that 50.4% of women, as opposed to 35.3% of men, participated in migration to rural areas between 2001 and 2006. similarly, bennett and colleagues (2014) identified increasing mobility of women, particularly parents. research from the africa centre dss that documents the “extraordinarily high levels of mobility” of adults on the north coast of kwazulu-natal, also claims that these high levels and increasingly gendered migratory patterns are cyclical or circular, consisting mainly of local, rural-to-rural migratory movements of predominantly black south african women (camlin et al, 2014). the authors found in 2001 that participants in migration of this sort were predominantly female (108 per 1000 female, as opposed to 86 per 1000 male) aged 2-24 years, with black south african women seen as participating more than men in a local short-term circulatory migratory flow, and predominating in a ruralto-rural flow of people. in contrast, the findings presented in this paper suggest that the gendered migration occurring in these northern, coastal rural areas of kwazulu-natal involves a more complex flow of women. women participate in an intergenerational process of chain migration, whereby older women move as migratory followers of younger women from their original households. these households of origin are most likely located in other southern african countries, meaning that migration is interregional. the women leave in response to push and pull factors. one of these is hiv, which has been long ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 599 identified as being a major source of household instability, particularly in northern kwazulu-natal (hosegood, 2009). hiv has for three generations been the major public health challenge faced by south africa. there are an estimated 7,000,000 people living with hiv in south africa (unaids, 2015), with the most vulnerable demographic sector being young women and girls aged 10-24 (unaids and the african union 2015). kwazulu-natal province is disproportionally affected by the hiv pandemic, and has the highest proportion of people living with hiv in the country (28% of all adults) (hsrc, 2014). as such, it is not surprising that hiv has been identified as an agent promoting the movement of household members to and from kwazulu-natal province, especially women and children (hosegood et al, 2004; hosegood et al, 2007). however, the movement of people discussed in the studies above relates mainly to vulnerable, black south african women of reproductive age and not, as argued in this paper, different generations of migrant women originating from the same households from across the southern african region. this paper presents findings from fieldwork conducted in 2011 and 2012 in a rural location in kwazulu-natal province that describe the migratory flow of women to this northern coastal area of the province. the findings indicate that there is a newly emerging intergenerational movement of women, which is different from previously identified patterns of migration. it is argued that the findings are relevant to the development of policy related to the provision of primary health services for women in rural areas of south africa. methodology data collection took place in 2011 and 2012 in one large community comprising four village areas on the north coast of kwazulu-natal province. the community, villages and participants are all anonymised. the research methods used during the ethnographic fieldwork were: non-participant observation and semi-structured interviews with younger women (30 years and younger) and older women (31 years and older). a basic community mapping exercise was also incorporated into the fieldwork. through non-participant observation, the researcher was able to become familiar with the different places and spaces, and was able to meet members of different social and community groups, as well as potential host organisations for accessing large numbers of the population of the villages. the researcher spent time observing popular places within the community, ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 600 talking to local people and making notes. initially the researcher was based at a crèche and community project, which was selected as it was located in the centre of the commercial area and was easily accessible. however, as informal discussion with participants identified additional hubs less visible to an outsider, these were included in the sampled sites for non-participation observation too. these hubs included a central trading store that sold alcohol and groceries, where hawkers and informal traders gathered at month-end to sell home-grown vegetables and second hand clothing. the researcher was also directed to an ‘uwashe’ which is an easily accessible area of the river, where women meet to wash clothes and chat, as well as other crèches located around the village areas. these crèches were mostly run by older women, gogos (grandmothers). some time was also spent in shebeens (taverns without liquor licenses), talking to men and learning about gender relations in the community areas. this non-participant observation facilitated the development of not only an understanding of the local socio-cultural context, but also the extent of the complex socio-spatial relationships between ethnicity, origin, migratory status and location, as people who originated from different countries in southern africa and other south african regions generally lived in different village. meeting people, women in particular, and engaging in informal conversation led to the identification of participants for the semi-structured interviews. additional participants were identified using a snowball sampling method, which led to the final interview sample size of 64 women and 8 men. men were included in some family group interviews, but not interviewed individually. all participants were provided with information sheets in the predominant local language, isizulu, and gave their verbal informed consent before participation in the study. whilst all participants were given the option to refuse to participate or to withdraw at any point without penalty, there were no refusals. dr alexandra plowright conducted semi-structured interviews about women’s experiences of migration, or migrants living in their communities. some participants were interviewed not only individually, but also with their peers or families in natural group interviews. women of all ages were included in the sample, with the only selection criteria being their willingness to participate. men were not excluded from the sample, but were not actively sought. therefore, the only men included in the sample were those who were present at the time of interviews with (a) female participant(s), where they chose to contribute to the discussion. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 601 the interviews were conducted in a combination of isizulu, siswati, english and uchope, depending on the language of the participant, and all interviews took place in a location of the participants’ choosing. interview participants discussed their own experiences of migration, which were strongly rooted in their backgrounds: older migrant women spoke in depth about their own experiences and, their understandings of the experiences of others. local, south african women of all ages were enthusiastic and eager to talk about their lives and experiences. during individual interviews women divulged personal information, and discussed sensitive topics, such as their views on the hiv pandemic, attitudes of others and sometimes their own hiv status. group interviews were usually conducted later, either in peer or family groups. peer groups provided a platform whereby women of similar ages could discuss issues pertinent to their generation, whereas family groups sometimes included men and, as such, provided insight into the gender dynamics within the household as well as socio-cultural norms within the village. selected women from different generations were invited to participate in a basic, modified participatory mapping exercise. participants involved in this were those whose interviews referred to and relied heavily on visual representations of their village. the mapping exercise involved the participant and the researcher walking together through the village with a very basic map, containing a diagram of the river, the two main roads and a cross that indicated the starting location (usually the woman’s home). as the journey progressed, the participant identified the places of interest to them and marked them on the map. this methodology lead to the telling of detailed, complex stories about their lives in the local area, their experiences, their feelings and their personal history and links with the community and the village where they lived. data were analysed thematically by dr alexandra plowright using nvivo 9 software. the analysis was inductive, and data from different sources were triangulated to ensure rigour. results and discussion results from this research have demonstrated that migration to the study area located on the north coast of kwazulu-natal province has led to the gradual development of a visually segregated space, divided into village areas that are distinguished according to the migratory origin of residents. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 602 at first glance, the area seemed to be a generic, typically south african, isizuluspeaking community that was small in size. however, the true extent of diversity was revealed through both observation and interviews with residents from different backgrounds: the larger community area was segregated and segmented. specific spaces had developed for non-migrants and others for migrants. the latter included south african internal migrants and international migrants who were mostly from mozambique, zimbabwe and swaziland. the wider area was clearly divided into four highly distinct sections, with characteristics that set them apart as separate villages. these different village areas are referred to as villages a, b, c and d. village a comprised of low-cost housing built as part of the government’s reconstruction and development programme (rdp) which focuses on providing housing and infrastructure for previously disadvantaged, low income, identification-holding south africans (tangri, 2008). these houses were relatively well constructed, using concrete blocks and tiled roofs, and had communal water supplies. in contrast, village b consisted of homes made of natural materials – mainly rocks, sticks and branches – and all had tin roofs. these houses were informally constructed and appeared unstable. residents from village b were mostly south africans who were unregistered; they did not have an identification book, which is needed to apply for rdp housing. village c was the final area inhabited by south african residents and houses were built in the style of modern western style bungalows, and were large in size. each had a garden and most had an indoor bathroom with running water. an emerging middle class of black south africans lived here. village d consisted of overcrowded, poor quality houses, many of which were owned by sugarcane farmers and, historically, had been used to house migrant farm labourers. empty buildings were occupied by unemployed migrants and all dwellings were overcrowded, of poor quality and without access to sanitation and water supplies. these four village areas looked very different as they were each characterised by a different style of building. they represented an underlying disparity in income as well as a poor quality of life that is often associated with spaces occupied by many migrants and non-migrants. women and men of different ages, backgrounds and migratory origins lived in each of the four village areas. some lived with their families, some alone, and ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 603 some in shared rooms utilising communal facilities. both younger and older women shared their experiences of migration. younger women younger participants in this study indicated that they had most commonly been the first family member to move to south africa. many had been inspired to move by the experience of friends or neighbours from their home community, as well as their own perception that migrating provided access to wealth, better living conditions, modern clothing and commercial items. other younger women described feelings of disillusionment with their circumstances, opportunities and prospects in their home communities. in particular, participants from zimbabwe associated these feelings with political or environmental instability and described how these feelings and experiences pushed them to migrate. most indicated that they had incurred negative experiences of both the journey and their arrival in rural kwazulu-natal. these had resulted in the younger women migrants often adopting high-risk livelihood strategies in order to ensure their survival. these strategies often posed a risk to their own health and their children’s health that was sometimes further heightened by reluctance to access primary care services. the possibility of earning salaries in south african rands (zar) and sending money back to their homes were both major pull factors that inspired the migration of younger migrant women. some described how they had observed neighbours in their home communities receiving remittances from family members who had previously moved to south africa and seen the effect the extra income had on the material circumstances of neighbours and returning migrants. one participant explained how this affected the dynamic in her home community: i used to see women buying the newest stuff for their kids, new clothes from the expensive shops. neighbours used to try and do better than each other… build bigger and better, with brighter colours, that sort of thing… every month, this one family used to go to town and buy cows or a tractor. then the next month their neighbours would come back with a plough, some goats or a new bicycle, just to prove who had more money (precious, 22, mozambique). the situation described by precious, above, and the access to sought-after material items appeared to motivate young, female migrants to move to south africa. as menenhle explained: ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 604 me, i wanted nice things. i could only get that if i moved away (menenhle, 18, mozambique). other younger women explained that they had become disillusioned with life in their home communities. princess described how a lack of income made her want to move away: i didn’t like my home because we were poor…i was cold, hungry and by myself much of the time (princess, 24, zimbabwe). often, younger women wanted to move in order to experience more of life as there were few opportunities for personal growth and no prospects in their home communities: i moved because i wanted to see this, to have more of an experience of life that is not just my small village, where there is nothing you can do (thabsile, 33, swaziland). some women reminisced about how they felt unhappy with their position as women in what were regularly described as strongly patriarchal, gendered home communities. for some younger participants, like princess, this was a major factor in their decisions to move to south africa: i was living at home and had to do all the jobs, i was expected to be married to someone horrible because his family had money and my family had none. i had no choice… i knew i was having to get away (princess, 24, zimbabwe). a number of younger participants, like princess, originated from zimbabwe. they moved from unstable home environments where they felt unsafe and lived in fear of hunger, drought, civil war or political unrest. they lived without income and were worried for their survival. the women saw their migration to south africa, not as a luxury or a long awaited goal in their life trajectory, but as a necessary move to ensure more secure futures for themselves and their children if they had any. as thembeka explained: south africa, at least it was better than sitting at home dying slowly like we did in zim…no food, so much stress about the children, the life there, where are we going to live, our houses…i don’t know how to stay there; the problems with the politics and it is all making it impossible to eat (thembeka, 24, zimbabwe). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 605 some younger migrant women indicated that they had often made choices before their move that focused on facilitating their future migration. some, like dinance, decided to delay being in a relationship or having children: i didn’t want a boyfriend, didn’t want to get pregnant and have to stay behind. i wanted to move to south africa for a new start. i didn’t want the stress of getting in a relationship and then leaving (dinance, 30, mozambique). others explained how they lessened their emotional ties to their home communities and households as they were focusing on their impending move to south africa, which they wanted to be as emotionally easy as possible. princess said: [she] didn’t want to have a boyfriend, have a family in that place or make friends, because there was no point, [she] was moving away… (princess, 24, zimbabwe). many younger generation migrant women wanted to move to south africa for a safer, improved life. yet they often described negative experiences of their eventual journeys to south africa that were characterised by extreme vulnerability: i didn’t know where i was, i had no knowledge about the safety of the area. i would put my money and my cell phone in my bra, and wrap myself up in layers of clothing. i would sleep very lightly and wake up at the smallest sound… i was also worried about malaria… usually you are sleeping inside at night, you are safe… i was very, very scared (menenhle, 18, mozambique). some, like thembeka, described experiencing rape or abuse: a drunk man fell over me and put his face next to mine, he was breathing all over me, it was disgusting, then a sex worker took a customer to the table next to mine, and there were people taking drugs all over the place, walking around with that funny look… i felt so scared, and worried they would rape me or steal from me (thembeka, 24, zimbabwe). yet most, like zinhle, were afraid of being alone: ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 606 i was so alone. i missed my family, my sisters, my friends. i had no job… i didn’t even know how i would find a job in the morning. i wished i could have gone back home (zinhle, 22, swaziland). the reality of what was available to them as migrant women was often far from the perceived improved economic and social life they had hoped for. jobs were described as being hard to find and poorly paid. accommodation was either expensive or associated with exacting manual labour on sugar or banana farms. tilly explained: i looked for a job for many days, then got one but it was hard work… [i] had sores on [my] arms, legs, feet, burns from chemicals on [my] legs… [i] was exhausted, and worked sixteen hour days… [i] only got paid r30 per day. it was the only work [i] could get, and if [i] left [i] would lose [my] room (tilly, 23, mozambique). often the income earned was a small amount of money, so women found that they were unable to afford to provide for their basic needs let alone send money home. many resorted to multiple livelihood strategies in order to improve their living conditions and increase their income. however, these strategies were often high risk and made the women vulnerable to abuse and hiv. livelihood strategies identified by participants included transactional sex, pregnancy for the child support grant through the use of ‘grantmakers’ who are informal, illegal brokers. alternatively, they turned to ‘sugar daddies,’ older boyfriends who often gave valuable gifts like mobile phone airtime, food or cash. princess described how she resorted to additional income generation methods in order to survive: i couldn’t afford to live, i needed to send money home, so i started having sex [with an older man] for airtime, mealie meal, clothes. it meant i could send money back home… i got pregnant and i used a grantmaker for the [child support] grant payment (princess, 24, zimbabwe). as a result of relying on livelihood strategies of this kind, many younger migrant women reported health problems associated with pregnancy, tuberculosis, hiv, untreated reproductive health conditions, skin complaints and sexually transmitted infections, that often were untreated. thabsile described how her actions and choices resulted in her concerns about her health: ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 607 i am in a relationship with a man, he is not like i thought he would be. he drinks, he smokes, and he smokes dagga [marijuana] every day. he doesn’t work, but he expects me to. at the end of the month he steals my money and uses it on sex, so i worry all the time about my health. he refuses to use condoms when he sleeps with me, and we already have three children… it makes me stressed that the children are from this horrible man (thabsile, 33, swaziland). younger women who had children after their migration to kwazulu-natal revealed how their own decisions and choices also negatively impacted on the health of their children through hiv-related complications. these complications were mostly the result of not having access to post mother to child transmission therapy (pmtct) whilst pregnant, thembi explained: i didn’t take the medicine when i was pregnant, now i am sick, i have hiv. i have children who are sick, they have hiv. i have a boyfriend who is sick, he has hiv. we are all sick… when you have hiv and you do not have the medicine, then you get more sick, you can’t breathe, you throw up, you can’t work, you can’t get food, you eat badly, you throw up more (thembi, 22, swaziland). it appears that these health problems were exacerbated due to the difficulties experienced and the reluctance felt by these younger, migrant women in accessing primary healthcare services. in thabsile’s opinion, she was not alone in her concern over accessing state-run primary care services: there is a church person who can give me medicine, but they don’t give me the hiv medicine… i don’t go to the clinic, i am scared that they will take my children away. i don’t take my children to the clinic, because they might send them away… there is no medicine. we all feel this way (thabsile, 33, swaziland). as a direct result of their experiences of migration to south africa, coupled with concerns and barriers to accessing primary care facilities, it was not uncommon for younger, female participants in this research to describe how gradually, over a number of years, their health deteriorated and many eventually felt unable to care for their children. some, like thabsile, described being made homeless, as she became unable to work and had to move into overcrowded, expensive, poor quality accommodation. i felt sick… i couldn’t move… i thought i was dying and then i was told to get out of my room. i had nowhere to go, so i had to pay to live in a ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 608 shared room, with other sick people… it is bad, really bad (thabsile, 33, swaziland). many younger women, like pretty, described feeling despair, sorrow and sadness at their situations and described complex emotions about their situations: some days, i wake up and i just want to give up. i can’t go home, i can’t stay here. i have nothing… my children have nothing… what is there left? (pretty, south africa). in response to their experiences of poverty, vulnerability, poor housing, chronic disease, deteriorating health and food insecurity, a number of younger women described how they called for help from their mothers. this call for help acted as a pull factor for the older generation of women, working in combination with previously existing push factors such as poverty, instability, environmental or political insecurity and poor living conditions. in combination, these factors acted as triggers for the migration of older women to south africa. as a result, there is now an emerging group of older women who are secondary migrants – migratory followers of their daughters – who have moved to rural kwazulu-natal ostensibly to help the younger generation of women from their families, but also in response to negative conditions in their home communities. this flow of older women to rural kwazulu-natal forms the second phase of this intergenerational dual phase migratory process. older women older women were mainly migratory followers of their daughters. they were generally willing and eager to tell their stories. they described their home communities, experiences of their journeys to kwazulu-natal, their experiences of arrival in the area and their shock and disappointment when they realised the conditions that their daughters, and in some cases grandchildren, were exposed to. they described feelings of sadness and despair at the progressive degeneration of the health of their daughters after their arrival. in contrast with the younger women, older female migrants tended to share stories of their home communities that were associated with positive experiences and memories. rebecca reminisced at length about her home community in mozambique: ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 609 home…the green coconut trees, and the sparkling ocean… there it is beautiful (rebecca, 60, mozambique). nancy, a migrant also from mozambique, often discussed her home country and her community. she compared it to how she perceived south africa: mozambique is a country full of sunshine, colour and beauty. south africa? south africa to me is a dull colour, maybe one time it was a bright yellow, but today it has dulled to brown. there is no joy in this place, no happiness. not even the white man who i see with all his money and his huge farms, they have no happiness in their soul, they are full of sadness, greed and the anger. anger is in all south africans. tell me, how can a country be rebuilt on a foundation of anger? (nancy, 60, mozambique). women like rebecca and nancy often expressed longing and sadness when speaking about their previous lives. they regularly described scenes of husbands, friends and children; living in extended family homesteads; growing food in ‘mashamba’ (vegetable gardens) and enjoying the abundance of fresh fish: we had a large family, we would all work together, grow our food, the men would catch fish. nobody was hungry and nobody was sick, it was a beautiful home (rebecca, 60, mozambique). many women, however, also admitted to experiencing negative factors, such as insecure living and poor quality infrastructure and services including inadequate healthcare provision. in addition, they spoke of challenging environmental factors that included monsoon rains and drought at different times of year. we had the civil war… i remember not having food, having people get sick a bit with cholera… sometimes there were landmines (rebecca, 60, mozambique). these experiences, when combined with the pull of their daughters’ need for help, resulted in the migration of older women to rural kwazulu-natal. similar to the women from younger generations, older migrant women also described uncomfortable and unsafe journeys from their home communities to south africa. duma’s journey to south africa from zimbabwe, highlighted the dangers of women travelling on their own: ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 610 i was travelling in the dark and i had to cross the border at limpopo. it is dangerous, there are men with guns and a lot of people shouting at us… there are a lot of migrants… i managed to get the last place on a taxi, but it was crowded and someone stole food from me (duma, 40, zimbabwe). even for those already living in south africa, the arrival in kwazulu-natal after a long journey was also unsafe. zodwa described her experience: i arrived very late, and there was no one around really, just a shebeen [unlicensed bar]. i was lucky though, because i found a place where i could rent a room for a night. it was expensive but it is not safe to just sit around. any tsotsi [criminal] can hurt you (zodwa, around 50, trust, south africa). however, and perhaps due to the respect that is present in southern african contexts for older women and men, older migrant women did not discuss experiencing any form of abuse when travelling to south africa. rather, their main source of negativity was caused by the emotional trauma of seeing their family members living in poverty. zodwa described her experience and her feelings: eventually, after three days, i found [my family]. they were living in a room made out of plastic. horrible bad place, right near by the sugar cane. i had to ask a lot of people to find them… their house wasn’t a house. they had moved from a beautiful house at home, made of bricks, even with a proper, indoor bathroom… this was horrible… this wasn’t a real house. i sat and cried before i had the courage to enter (zodwa, around 50, trust, south africa). some older women had been expecting to find their daughters living in perhaps cramped conditions, or maybe without enough clothes or space for their children. however, many described being extremely shocked by the reality of the conditions they found their family members living in: i knew there was a problem, because [they] wouldn’t have called otherwise… i thought maybe there was no money, i thought maybe there was no food sometimes… [but] there was a big, big, big problem, it was a bad situation, very bad…[they] were all so sick, there was nothing… it was terrible (nelly, 45, mozambique). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 611 most alarming for many older women was the noticeable and gradual degeneration of the health of their daughters. whilst many had travelled to south africa fully expecting that their daughters would need a substantial amount of help, none had quite imagined the extent to which they were unwell, often incapable of looking after their children and themselves. this was experienced by one participant, ember, who travelled from zimbabwe to south africa, where her daughter and her children were living: i came here to look after them, but when i got here… my daughter… she couldn’t do anything, then she died…my grandchildren, the one, he is dying... it is my job to try and care for them, to make the one better (ember, 55, zimbabwe). in response to the situations in which they found their daughters and themselves living, alongside their shock and grief, older women drew on great strength. they demonstrated resilience and resourcefulness, and they developed friendship groups for support. elise explained how her friends helped her make a new life in south africa: i am better now, i have my friends, and we have a small income that comes in, which means that we can help the children [grandchildren]… we live close to each other and we help each other… it is not like when i first got here and i knew nobody. then it was very difficult… too hard (elise, 40, mozambique). through their friendship groups, the older migrant women joined together to help each other. subsequently, support networks were formed that consisted of women from similar backgrounds who were experiencing similar situations. older women also tended to adopt positive livelihood strategies informed by their life experiences in order to address problems and resolve issues found in their new lives, such as vegetable gardening, working in crèches, looking after children and others, caring and informal trading. jabu described how she came about starting a vegetable garden: i didn’t have money to buy food, but i had my skills, so i looked for a chance to use them and found one [making a vegetable garden]. now we have food for our whole house, and money when there is extra to sell (jabu, 42, mozambique). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 612 in many circumstances, the daughters of these older women eventually passed away, dying from complications associated with their hiv status or the later stages of aids. when this happened, the older women described being left to care for their extended families, or others from their community, which often included young grandchildren or children of other women. for example, dudu started an informal crèche looking after the children of sick women in the community. she described her feelings: i can’t help myself, so i need, now, to help others… my daughter, i came here for her and then she died… many, many have died and left poor children behind. i can’t go home, i don’t have the money and i will not have the money – now i definitely will not have the money, because i have so many children – and so rather than sitting here in this place, i need to help the people that need it. those people are children. i am committed now, to dying in this place… my friends are committed now to dying in this place. we are needed here to help (dudu, 45, swaziland). a community of older, proactive female migrants, therefore, has been formed in a rural area on the north coast of kwazulu-natal. the community is a source of support, help and friendship to members, and many share or trade food, clothing and school uniform or medicines for themselves or their grandchildren. most of these older migrant women feel that rather than being absorbed by negativity in their new-found situations, it was important to concentrate on the positive. most were prepared to stay, living positively in kwazulu-natal, mostly for the benefit of their grandchildren. as jabu explained: i was sad, yes, when i first came, but as i made friends and created a job for myself, things got better. now i have good friends, an income and i have my grandchildren… my grandchildren need me here, not in mozambique. i am not unhappy that i will stay here forever… yes, i sometimes miss home, but there are also things that i am glad to be away from (jabu, 45, mozambique). the majority of these older generation women portrayed a positive attitude towards both their own and their grandchildren’s health, unlike their daughters before them who had experienced concern about accessing state healthcare and other facilities. duma described her experiences asking for help at the local clinic: ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 613 i am old, i do not care what people think of me, i go and ask for medicine if my child is sick, they must give me… it is their job. i do not care what they think of me, coming from zimbabwe when my child needs medicine (duma, 40, zimbabwe). as a result of the attitude of grandmothers like duma towards the health of their grandchildren, many children are now attending school as well as receiving health care. despite the proactive nature of the older women in terms of their grandchildren’s health requirements, it should still be acknowledged that there are complex primary care requirements specific to this growing community of ageing migrant women in relatively good health. as jabu explained: i go all the time to the clinic for my grandchildren… i am selling the vegetables to get the money to travel with them on the taxi… the [grandchildren] then do not have to walk to get their medicine… i think they get everything they need… when i go to the clinic with [my grandchildren] i also ask for myself, sometimes i am feeling dizzy, sometimes i am getting [bashes her chest where her heart is] and a bit of pain here, i find it difficult to walk sometimes and breathe but there is nothing they can do to me, just send me to some hospital (jabu, 45, mozambique). whilst older migrant women like jabu experienced positive care at primary healthcare clinics for their grandchildren, the services provided were related to hiv and basic primary care. however, there is a clear difficulty in accessing primary care services that catered for their own health needs, which were concerned with women’s health requirements in later stages of life. conclusions and recommendations this study identified a shift in migratory patterns in a rural area of northern, coastal kwazulu-natal province in south africa. the data demonstrate that there is gendered dual phase intergenerational migration, in which younger women migrate and are then followed by related older women. these older women are generally their mothers. the pattern of migration identified here is single direction, and interregional. previous research from the africa centre dss identified that migration to this area is a cyclical process associated with women from younger generations, from different areas of south africa, who move for labour purposes and then return home regularly for visits out of season (camlin et al, 2014; bennett et al, 2014). however, this study identified ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 614 that, rather, there is a dual phase, interregional and intergenerational process of migration that affects both younger and older women. younger women were likely to move to the rural, farming area from neighbouring southern african countries in order to find work and improve their own lives. these women can be described as migratory leaders. however, the women’s experienced reality of their participation in this gendered migratory flow was not always as they had hoped and expected. in order to cope with negative experiences, younger women resorted to the adoption of multiple and risky livelihood strategies in order to stay alive and make a small income. however, these livelihood strategies often made them vulnerable to hiv infection and, as a result, many contracted hiv and were often unable to care for their children. as a direct result, their older mothers moved to the area and, in turn, adopted positive strategies to survive and demonstrated resilience when coping with their new-found life circumstances. these older women can be described as migratory followers. it can also be ascertained that the construction and development of households in this area of kwazulu-natal province can be directly attributed to this pattern of migration. this finding is not dissimilar to that identified in the eastern cape by neves and du toit (2008). however, neves and du toit understand that historical-political nuances in south africa impact household construction, whereas this is an emerging migratory pattern rather than one that is historically and socio-politically grounded. as a direct result of this shift in migratory patterns, there is an expanding group of older, migrant women who are affected by the repercussions of the hiv status of their family members. these older women are living in the rural areas of kwazulu-natal province. these women require assistance in terms of financial support, primary care for degenerative disease, as well as recognition for the support they provide to their kin and members of their communities. further research could explore the extent to which this is or can be provided by rural, primary healthcare clinics and what improvements could be made in this respect. we would further argue that this gendered intergenerational international dual phased process of chain migration might not be specific to the study location or even, the kwazulu-natal province. this trend may be occurring more widely in other areas of urban and rural south africa. inclusion of a relevant question in national level household surveys such as the demographic and health survey (dhs) or the human sciences research ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 615 council (hsrc) household survey detailing migratory origin and behaviour of respondents could extend understandings of the generalisability of these findings. these findings raise further issues concerning health care provision and support for both younger and older women. acknowledgements with thanks to the africa centre for population health for assisting with affiliation and supporting the ethical approval process and the university of warwick for facilitating access to funding for the phd research on which this paper is based. references bennett, r., hosegood, v., newell, m.l. and mcgrath, n. 2014. an approach to measuring dispersed families with a particular focus on children ‘left behind’ by migrant parents: findings from rural south africa. population, space and place, 21(4): 322-334. camlin, cs., snow, r.c. and hosegood, v. 2014. gendered patterns of migration in rural south africa. population, space and place, 20: 528-551. collinson, m., tollman, s., kahn, k., clark, s. and garenne, m. 2006. highly prevalent circular migration: households, mobility and economic status in rural south africa. in: tined, m., findley, s., tillman, s. and preston-whyte, e. (eds.). africa on the move: african migration and urbanization in comparative perspective. johannesburg: wits university press, 194-216. haour-knipe, m. 2009. families, migration and aids care: psychological and socio-medical aspects of hiv. aids care, 21(51): 43-48. hosegood, v. 2009. the demographic impact of hiv and aids across the family and household life-cycle: implications for efforts to strengthen families in subsaharan africa. aids care, 21(s1): 13-21. hosegood, v., mcgrath, n., herbst, k. and timaeus, i.m. 2004. the impact of adult mortality on household dissolution and migration in rural south africa. aids education prevention, 17: 39-48. hosegood, v., preston-whyte, e., busza, j., moitse, s. and timaeus, i.m. 2007. revealing the full extent of households’ experiences of hiv and aids in rural south africa. social science and medicine, 6: 1249-1259. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 616 hsrc. 2014. south african national hiv prevalence, incidence and behaviour survey 2012. pretoria: hsrc. iom. 2010. migration and health in south africa. bulletin of the institute of migration. kok, p. 2006. migration in south and southern africa: dynamics and determinants. johannesburg: hsrc press. muhwava, w., hosegood, v., nyirenda, m., herbst, k. and newell, m. 2010. levels and determinants of migration in rural kwazulu-natal, south africa. african population studies, 24: 259-280. neves, d. and du toit, a. 2008. the dynamics of household formation and composition in the rural eastern cape. cape town: centre for social sciences research. ngcobo, l. 1990. and they didn’t die. pietermaritzburg: ukzn press. posel, d. 2010. households and labour migration in post-apartheid south africa. journal of studies in economics and econometrics, 34: 129-141. tangri, r. 2008. the politics of black economic empowerment in south africa. journal of southern african studies, 34(3): 699-716. unaids. 2015. hiv and aids estimates. from <http://bit.ly/2abf6j5> (retrieved november 04, 2016). unaids and the african union. 2015. empower young women and adolescent girls: fast tracking the end of the aids epidemic in africa. working paper for the joint united nations programme on hiv/aids (unaids). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 229 violent xenophobic episodes in south africa, 2008 and 2015 simon bekker* abstract a comparison between the 2015 and 2008 violent xenophobic episodes in south africa is made, identifying both similarities and differences. since government and other commentators, in both 2015 and 2008, differ considerably in deciding whether these episodes ought to be considered as essentially xenophobic in character, a number of prominent interpretations employed by these commentators will be identified and discussed. the perpetrators mobilised during these events are drawn from the same pool as the protesters mobilised during current country-wide violent service delivery protests. accordingly, this article concludes by suggesting that an insightful interpretation covering both categories of actors belonging to south africa’s urban working and under-class may be made. the violent collective behaviour that is becoming widespread country-wide stems, to a significant extent, not from their deep-seated xenophobic attitudes, but rather from the unfulfilled expectations of what they believe should be their just entitlements. keywords: south africa, violent xenophobic events, service delivery protests, comparisons of series of events. introduction before the main theme of this article is identified, an anecdote that plays the role of preamble is recounted. it foregrounds a number of issues directly relevant to the main theme. in june 2015, during a visit to cameroon in west africa, i was travelling south of yaoundé, the capital city, with a doctoral student and his brother to visit the two men’s parents. since cameroon is one of the countries confronted with the boko haram threat, there were several roadblocks in the rural forested region *emeritus professor of sociology in the sociology and social anthropology department, stellenbosch university, south africa. e mail: sb3@sun.ac.za mailto:sb3@sun.ac.za ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 230 through which we were travelling. at each, i was requested, as a foreigner, to step out of the car and show my passport to the uniformed gendarme responsible for passing cars and their passengers. “you are a south african, monsieur?” asked one such gendarme and when i replied in the affirmative, he continued by telling me that he and his fellow security officers treated foreign visitors to cameroon with courtesy. “do you in south africa do the same thing, for foreigners from africa?” he then asked with perhaps a touch of scepticism. i had no ready and credible reply to this. on the 18th of april 2015, emmanuel sithole, a cigarette and sweet hawker and mozambique national living and working in alexandra township in johannesburg, was attacked and stabbed in the heart by four young male residents. he later died after journalists rushed him to hospital. it is probable that the cameroonian gendarme knew of south africa’s less than courteous treatment of foreigners through emmanuel sithole’s sad story. a south african photojournalist’s sequence of remarkable photographs of the build-up to the murder, some of which appeared on the front pages of south african newspapers, were also broadcast globally through social media. this deadly incident that took place during the series of closely-knit violent attacks on the persons and property of foreigners at that time, in the words of a south african journalist, gave “a face, a name, a life and a personality” to one of the targets of this violence, thus providing “humanising elements that have been absent in much of the (media’s) coverage” (harber 2015). they also led to criticisms by senior government members that wide-reaching broadcasting of such material damages south africa’s international reputation. that south africa’s image as a safe refuge for african asylum-seekers and as a hospitable territory for economic migrants from the developing world has been further diminished in 2015 is common cause. this article will compare the 2015 series of closely-knit violent events to that of 2008 when a similar series took place. the comparison between what hereafter will be referred to as the 2015 and 2008 xenophobic episodes, will identify both similarities as well as differences. the focus of the comparison will be on the geography and chronology of the events, on both civilian perpetrators as well as civilian victims, and on government reaction to the continuing outbursts. in the second place, since government and other commentators, in both 2015 and 2008, differ considerably in deciding whether these episodes ought to be considered ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 231 as essentially xenophobic in character, a number of prominent interpretations employed by these commentators will be identified and discussed. the perpetrators mobilised during these events are drawn from the same pool as the protesters mobilised during current country-wide violent service delivery protests. accordingly, this article will conclude by suggesting that an insightful interpretation covering both categories of actors belonging to south africa’s urban working and under-class may be made. it will be argued that the violent collective behaviour that is becoming widespread country-wide stems, to a significant extent, not from their deep-seated xenophobic attitudes, but rather from the unfulfilled expectations of what they believe should be their just entitlements. conceptual framework and methodology the rise of xenophobic attitudes in south africa is not a new topic of research (nyamjoh 2006). the 2008 series of violent events in urban south africa shifted the research focus toward analyses of violent collective action and the various causes of such action. this in turn required a wider conceptual framework, in particular to include analyses of cross-border migration streams, state migration policies, and the attitudes and actions of the members of the south african police service (hassim et al. 2008, hsrc 2008, misago et al. 2009). it also required an approach to analyse violent collective action itself, leading to debates regarding the utility of relative deprivation and resource mobilization approaches (bekker 2010). in the analysis below, particular attention is given to the approach employed by donald horowitz (2001) in which social psychological as well as sociological concepts are employed and the roles of both precipitating factors and of rumours are foregrounded. the methodology employed during these analyses begins with a comparison between the 2015 and 2008 xenophobic episodes where each episode comprises a series of closely-knit violent events identified in the print media. the validity of such event data sets may be taken to be acceptable whilst acknowledging that missing data may be the most serious form of description bias (earl et al. 2004). subsequently, a comparison is drawn between primary stakeholders’ interpretations of the causes and nature of these 2015 and 2008 episodes. these interpretations are identified both in publications by members of the research community as well as in the print media. in the third place, a preliminary analysis of a recently constructed event data set of service ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 232 delivery protests in south africa (powell n.d.) is made with the aim of revealing resemblances between this analysis and those undertaken earlier. outbursts in kwazulu-natal and gauteng, march and april 2015 on monday the 30th of march, the 2015 violent xenophobic episode began in isipingo, an industrial and residential area in the ethekwini metro south of durban’s cbd. the probable precipitating factor was the rumour that local businesses were hiring foreigners to replace local workers involved in industrial action and wage disputes. after a series of attacks on individuals in the area, some 240 displaced foreigners reported to the local police station and were subsequently moved to a tented transit camp. this first outburst was followed by a series of others in the metro, particularly in the northern township of kwamashu and in the inner city residential area of verulam – more specifically, in its informal residential neighbourhoods – where foreigners’ shops were looted and burnt down and foreigners themselves attacked. this onslaught continued for two weeks and included large crowds of locals marching on a number of occasions, with the ostensible purpose of driving migrants out of durban. in response, local foreign migrants organised a demonstration in the metro’s cbd during which clashes took place between the demonstrators and the south african police. temporary shelters to accommodate the displaced foreign nationals were established in isipingo, chatsworth and greenwood park (located in durban north). “the municipality has supplied tents, electricity, showers, ablution facilities and primary health care in the form of mobile clinics where the displaced foreign nationals have been accommodated,” an ethekwini spokesperson said (sosibo 2015). with seven people killed at the height of the violence, it was reported that many foreign nationals still feared for their lives. the temporary shelters were replaced by four camps in the province – in chatsworth, phoenix, isipingo beach and pietermaritzburg – which together accommodated about 5 000 people. the camps were situated on grounds that were not intended for habitation and, as a result, sanitation was a problem (sosibo 2015). some two weeks after the commencement of these outbursts in kwazulunatal, in anticipation of a similar wave in gauteng, foreign shop owners in the cbd of johannesburg closed their doors in a bid to protect their stock amid ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 233 rumours circulating on social networks that attacks were imminent. this was three days before the murderous attack on emmanuel sithole in alexandra township. the anticipated assaults soon materialised with foreign-owned businesses in the inner city areas of jeppestown and cleveland, and later in the east rand, being attacked and looted. simultaneously, as was the case earlier in durban, locals blocked roads with rocks and burning tyres, purportedly to drive foreigners out of south africa. the violence was reported to have claimed the lives of seven people, three of them south african. simultaneously, camps for foreign nationals fleeing the violence were established close to the cbd and in germiston on the east rand. the south african police were called upon, in both durban and johannesburg, to contain the violence. much scepticism about police effectiveness and neutrality was expressed both in the media and by many on the ground (sosibo et al. 2015, news24 2015). eventually, during the third week of april, the south african national defence force was deployed to “volatile areas” to prevent attacks on foreigners, as stated by defence minister mapisa-nqakula. she was reported to have said that the army was intervening because an "emergency" had developed (bbc news, 2015). the first deployments were to alexandra, the poor township north of johannesburg where emmanuel had been hawking his wares. build-up and immediate outcomes of the 2015 episode though numerous violent outbursts have taken place during the past seven years, these have not been as intense and as closely-knit as the two episodes during april 2015 and may 2008 that are compared here. however, seemingly isolated outbursts ought not to be seen as once-off and unrelated to earlier and later events as a local history of violence against strangers, mixed with social and mass media coverage of such recent violence elsewhere may become a potent combination. such an event took place in soweto, johannesburg’s largest township, in january 2015. what was described as a looting frenzy of foreign-owned shops in soweto broke out and later spread to other townships in gauteng. it left six dead and large numbers of bengalis, pakistanis, ethiopians and somalis displaced (sosibo et al. 2015). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 234 gauteng provincial politicians put these attacks down to economic reasons: “the recent attacks are because township entrepreneurs feel demoralised, frustrated, and they feel they cannot thrive as business owners in their own communities,” gauteng’s economic development mec said a week after the outbursts (sosibo et al. 2015). national small business development minister lindiwe zulu added, “you cannot run away from the fact that there are underlying issues and that our people are being squeezed out by these foreign shop owners” (sosibo et al. 2015). on monday 16 march, some two weeks before the start of the outbursts in kwazulu-natal, a public announcement by the zulu king called for foreigners to “take their bags and go” (ndou 2015). while addressing the rural pongolo community in isizulu during a moral regeneration event, king zwelithini was reported to have accused government of failing to protect locals from the “influx of foreign nationals”. “most government leaders do not want to speak out on this matter because they are scared of losing votes. as the king of the zulu nation, i cannot tolerate a situation where we are being led by leaders with no views whatsoever” (ndou 2015). the dissemination of credible rumours, whether these reflect the precise statements of influential public figures or not, can prove to be a potent form of contagion (horowitz 2001: 74f): once a violent event has taken place, violence may spread to another place where precipitants at the subsequent location are less significant than they were at the first. violence does not occur in isolation; it derives intellectual impetus from events regarded as comparable elsewhere (bekker 2010: 144). the interpretations at local community level made of minister zulu’s statement in gauteng and the zulu king’s speech among the predominantly isizulu population of ethekwini are probably cases in point. two developments in the aftermath of the 2015 episode will be identified. they have been chosen since comparable outcomes did not take place after the 2008 episode. they have also been chosen since they may be seen as different sides of the same coin: from foreign african governments’ points of view, the south african government’s response to the 2015 episode has been visibly unapologetic. conversely, the south african government condemned the nigerian government for the withdrawal of its envoys and established a special body to search out criminals (both foreign and south african) for extradition and prosecution. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 235 first, there was a wide-ranging and deeply critical reaction to these events by a number of sub-saharan african governments, some of which went as far as threatening reprisals through the deportation of south african nationals and their businesses from their territories. political leaders from malawi, mozambique and zimbabwe publicly condemned the attacks, with both malawi and zimbabwe sending buses to repatriate citizens following the violence. mozambiquan workers at south african gas companies downed tools in protest. nigeria’s acting high commissioner in south africa and its consulgeneral were called home to brief the nigerian parliament about the welfare of nigerian citizens in south africa following what was called “the antiimmigrant violence” in durban and johannesburg (visser 2015). second, one week after the termination of the 2015 episode, there was the establishment of a national government programme aimed at ridding “our country of illegal weapons, drug dens, prostitution rings and other illegal activities” (hunter 2015). named operation fiela-reclaim and initially carried out by the south african national defence force, it was launched by a national inter-ministerial committee on migration. during its first week of operation, 265 suspects had been arrested and charged in relation to 150 cases of public violence around the country, according to minister radebe. simultaneously, he announced that government was working hard to ensure that 1 507 documented foreign nationals awaiting repatriation would be sent home as soon as possible and stated: “we have thus far repatriated a total of 1 997 undocumented migrants from both kwazulu-natal and gauteng temporary shelters” (hunter 2015. the south african national defence force (sandf), as mentioned above, was first mobilized about a month after the 2015 episode began. it was subsequently requested to launch operation fiela. in 2008, during the violent xenophobic episode of that year, the sandf was also called upon to intervene toward the end of the episode. however, no subsequent operation was launched. we now turn our attention to 2008. outbursts in gauteng and the western cape, may and june 2008 during the second half of may 2008 (and continuing through the first week of june), a series of short violent outbursts took place in neighbourhoods of numerous south african cities and towns. the violence during these outbursts was committed by civilians and was inflicted on the property and the person ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 236 of civilians. the perpetrators were largely young and middle-aged poor black south african men; the targets were largely the property and businesses of foreign african nationals as well as these civilians themselves; and the locations were predominantly urban informal settlements, townships and hostels. the series of outbursts began in gauteng and, about a week after the first serious event, spread to other urban areas of the country, cape town and the western cape in particular. initial state reaction was evasive, essentially denying the scope and seriousness of these events. subsequently, as the series of events spread across the country, the state sought explanations in criminal and mob behaviour. this geographic spread of outbursts was accompanied by widespread coverage in the mass media – television, radio and newspapers – of these events and their possible causes. since the reaction of many of the victims was flight from their residential areas, a number of temporary refugee camps were established (in gauteng and cape town, in particular). during the aftermath of these outbursts, more than 20 000 refugees were accommodated in this way, numerous african foreign nationals were reported to have left the country, and government urged refugees in camps to return to the residential areas from which they had fled since these were said to have calmed down (bekker et al. 2008; bekker 2010). in order to distinguish the violent events that took place during the first week from those that occurred subsequently in may and early june, news articles on the 2008 episode captured from the print media were filed under an event name (typically the locality where the outburst took place) and a standardized set of event data was assembled for each. these data included date, duration, type of settlement, nature of violence, reported precipitants and rumours and the nature of police intervention. in tables 1-4 below, events have been classified in terms of the province in which they occurred, the date on which they took place, whether they were major or minor in intensity and whether they included violence against persons or solely against property. the first three tables depict events that took place in the periods 10 to 20 may, 21 to 31 may, and during june 2008, respectively. the fourth table aggregates these results for the entire period. as is clear from table 1 (first phase), the majority of outbursts during the first phase took place in gauteng. in addition, all major outbursts were situated in gauteng and comprise more than a third of all events in that province. in fact, the most reported deaths during the three-phase period under scrutiny took ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 237 place in this province during the first phase. four events were reported to have had identifiable precipitants, alexandra – a black township in johannesburg – being the most detailed. significantly more reports identified rumours that were claimed to have fuelled the violent outbursts. a minority of reports on these events indicated police presence and police intervention, most often detailed as attempts to disperse crowds. during the middle phase, comprising ten days (see table 2), the print media reported a total of sixty-three events. thirty-two of these events took place in the western cape, thirteen in kwazulu-natal, seven in gauteng, and eleven in other provinces. from the media reports, it appears that xenophobic violence in this phase was not as violent as during the first phase. the majority of events were classified as minor events on property alone. police intervention was reported in a number of cases, most often involving the arrest of perpetrators. these events appear to involve opportunistic behaviour more often than in the earlier phase since media coverage and rumours involving earlier events led many foreigners to depart from their residences and abandon their property. this anticipation of possible attacks created a context in which locals could vandalize and loot homes and shops belonging to those who had fled. in the final phase (see table 3), ten of the eleven reported events were minor with half involving assault on persons. this final phase – effectively comprising of the first half of the month of june – reflects a diminishment in the frequency of events in all four classes as well as a (late) diffusion to new provinces. this phase may be seen, at least in terms of print media coverage, as the petering out of the series of outbursts country-wide. in the aggregated data of outbursts in table 4, it is worth noting that most major events took place in gauteng during the first phase, and that most outbursts during the whole period under scrutiny were minor events involving vandalizing of property and looting rather than assault on persons. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 238 table 1 first phase first phase major involving assault/de ath major on property only minor involving assault/dea th minor on property only total gauteng 14 4 11 21 50 western cape 0 0 0 2 2 others 0 0 3 6 9 total 14 4 14 29 61 table 2 middle phase middle phase major involving assault/de ath major on property only minor involving assault/dea th minor on property only total gauteng 2 1 1 3 7 western cape 2 4 4 22 32 kzn 2 0 4 7 13 others 1 0 3 7 11 total 7 5 12 39 63 table 3 final phase final phase major involving assault/deat h major on property only minor involving assault/dea th minor on property only total gauteng 0 0 2 1 3 western cape 0 0 0 0 0 others 1 0 3 4 8 total 1 0 5 5 11 ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 239 table 4 summary of all events summary of all events major involvin g assault /death major on property only minor involving assault/deat h minor on property only total gauteng 16 5 14 25 60 western cape 2 4 4 24 34 others 4 0 13 24 41 total 22 9 31 73 135 the 2008 and 2015 episodes: similarities and differences there are a number of striking similarities between the 2015 and 2008 series of violent events. to begin with the geography and chronology of the two episodes, the outbursts were principally confined to urban townships, inner city residential areas and informal settlements of south africa’s metros. it is worth noting that local perpetrators also employed the cbds of durban and johannesburg in the 2015 episode. the location of these events are often at a substantial distance from one another, implying that communication regarding justifications for violent action by word-of mouth would have been well-nigh impossible. in both episodes, chronologically, outbursts began and, in large measure, spread rapidly within one metro for some ten days before shifting into a second metro. in both cases, after two to three weeks, the series of closely-knit outbursts petered out at approximately the same time, as the state decided to mobilize the south african defence force to deal with what they belatedly called an emergency. the second striking set of similarities is found in the rapid diffusion of information across neighbourhoods of metros as well as between metros themselves. rumour, justifications for violent actions, and shared belief in immunity from punishment were communicated within the mass media – newsprint, television and radio (in various languages) – as well as via social media. the latter probably played a more important role in 2015 than in 2008 since more residents were capable of using social media tools during this later episode (worldwideworx n.d.). in both cape town in 2008 and johannesburg ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 240 in 2015 (the second metros to be affected in each respective episode) foreigners who had been informed via such media of outbursts elsewhere anticipated attacks a day or two before they began. however, the impact of these outbursts in cape town, where most events were opportunistic since foreign residents and shop-owners had fled their homes and shops before the attacks began, differed from the impact in johannesburg where events appear to have been as violent as in durban. similarities regarding the content of information being diffused before as well as during the outbursts are also striking. rumours form an essential part of the process leading up to an outburst, horowitz (2001: 74-75) argues they mobilize ordinary people to do what they would not ordinarily do. they shift the balance in a crowd toward those proposing the most extreme action [… but] a rumour will not take hold unless there is a market for it […] what is remarkable is not that an interested agitator starts a rumour but that the rumour is spread, believed, and acted upon. in 2008, research identified “(s)hared rumours in different sites […] regarding the ‘stealing’ of jobs and ‘unfair’ business competition,” issues clearly identified during the 2015 episode in durban as well as in johannesburg (bekker 2010: 139). it would appear that the frustrations of many urban dwellers regarding access to housing, municipal services, jobs and the like, access to what they as south africans regard as their entitlements, have persisted and enabled rumours spread in 2008 to be, once again, believed in and acted upon in 2015. likewise, the widespread criticism of south africa’s state police during 2008 was repeated in 2015. criticisms ranged from incompetence and lack of resources to tacit complicity in the violence. however, criticisms of this nature appear to be insufficient in explaining the widely reported perceptions of immunity from punishment and incrimination that perpetrators across urban south africa revealed during both episodes. the claim of insufficient penetration of state police presence into the informal settlements, inner city neighbourhoods and townships of urban south africa is at issue here. if policing is defined as “any organized activity, whether by the state or civil groups, that seeks to ensure the maintenance of communal order, security and peace,” and if security is considered from the point of view of the resident “rather than from the governance perspective of the political authorities,”, ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 241 then the resident may be thought of as having a choice of police services, beyond that provided by the state police (baker 2008: 22, 27). the difficulty arises when the state no longer has the capacity to bring non-state policing – such as vigilante groups, civics, traditional authorities, informal security groups and so on – under effective accountability while community or local political organizations endorse intolerance of outsiders and associated violence. this appears to have taken place during a number of outbursts in both 2008 and 2015. in short, the issue is not solely that of perceptions regarding state police but, probably more importantly, local residents’ perceptions regarding the role and legitimacy of bodies such as vigilante groups, civics, traditional authorities and informal security groups, bodies that promise some form of communal order to local residents. there are, however, clear differences that emerge from this analysis of the two episodes. the first difference regards the manipulation of xenophobic attitudes by influential public figures. the zulu king’s speech two weeks before the outbreak of the 2015 episode was publicly supported soon afterwards by the son of the south african president who was reported to have “come out in full support of king goodwill zwelithini's controversial call to deport foreigners from south africa” (khoza 2015). earlier, after the january 2015 looting of foreign-owned shops in soweto, the national small business development minister stated that foreign-business owners in south africa’s townships could not expect to co-exist peacefully with local business owners unless they shared their trade secrets. she was quoted as saying: “foreigners need to understand that they are here as a courtesy and our priority is to the people of this country first and foremost” (mail & guardian 2015). three weeks into the 2015 episode, in mid-april, both the minister and the king called for an end to the outbursts, the king claiming that he had been misinterpreted. in sharp contrast, before and during the 2008 episode, such manipulation ‘from above’ of xenophobic attitudes was absent. in the words of a south african political scientist, the country’s leaders may bear indirect responsibility through policy failure and acts of commission, but i see no evidence that the marauding crowds are taking their cue from government immigration policy or from corrupt cops […] we do not have the active antixenophobic leadership we need, but at least […] we do not have leading ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 242 politicians manipulating anti-foreigner sentiment as they have recently done, with calamitous consequences, in the democratic republic of the congo and ivory coast (glazer 2008: 54). a second major difference concerns what was earlier termed the two faces of the same coin: foreign sub-saharan african governments’ angry response to authorities’ handling of the 2015 episode, on the one side, and the south african government’s rejoinder by establishing a national ‘operation’ aimed at ridding the country of criminals and illegal immigrants, on the other. there were no such accusations and ripostes after the 2008 episode. some reasons for this difference include the greater visibility, in 2015, of south africa on the african continent. this visibility was not only in terms of trade, but also within the african union where a south african is the african union commission chair, as well as militarily through south african participation in peace missions. simultaneously, however, the image of south africa as a regional hegemon has shrunk: nigeria has now been crowned as africa’s largest economy and it is generally known that president zuma is struggling to maintain a positive reputation during his second term, in contradistinction to the robust and sometimes controversial image that former president mbeki enjoyed on the african continent in 2008. the third difference to be noted here is the change in the initial and subsequent metropolitan epicentres of the two episodes. in 2008, greater cape town proved to be particularly vulnerable after the series of outbursts in gauteng. in 2015, in cape town, there were no visible outbursts classified as xenophobic. on the other hand, in the case of the predominantly zulu-speaking metro of ethekwini and its later migration to johannesburg, the series of events making up the 2015 episode may be put down, at least in part, to shared frustrations converted into group aggression, to the manipulation of antiforeigner sentiment, as well as a less than effective state police reaction to looting in soweto and neighbouring urban places. however, what did take place before and during 2015 in the western cape (as well as in gauteng and durban) were continued violent outbursts related to service delivery issues. these will be discussed in more detail below. the point to be made here is that, while disregarding the rumours and justifications for violent actions against foreigners that flooded the mass and social media in 2015, residents in the cape town metro mobilised often in a violent fashion, by venting their frustrations on municipal targets instead. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 243 prominent interpretations of the 2015 and 2008 episodes upon his return from an official international visit in june 2008, president mbeki was clear in his interpretation of the 2008 events as well as in reprimanding how this episode was being reported: the dark days of may which have brought us here today were visited on our country by people who acted with criminal intent. what happened during these days was not inspired by a perverse nationalism […] resulting in our communities violently expressing the hitherto unknown sentiment of mass and mindless hatred of foreigners – xenophobia – and this i must also say – none in our society has any right to encourage or incite xenophobia by trying to explain naked criminal activity by cloaking it in the garb of xenophobia (hassim et al 2008: 4). government officials at the time also argued that much of the violence was well-coordinated and, accordingly, probably organised. the minister for intelligence services was quoted as stating that “we cannot ignore […] that there were reportedly meetings held in hostels, that this prairie fire of hate seemed to move fast as if planned, and that there were printed pamphlets” (bekker 2010: 132). this suspected underground organisation – an imagined third force – was never identified. this official response to the 2008 episode – emphasising criminal rather than anti-foreigner intentions behind the violence – remained state orthodoxy throughout the next seven years. in addition, this orthodoxy stood firm despite fractures caused by various public statements from government officials and politicians at public events that proved difficult officially to place within a criminality framework. the statement by the minister of small business development and the speech by the zulu king, as examples, are difficult to locate within such a framework. in april 2015, police minister nhleko said he found it hard to view the attacks as just xenophobia. he was reported to have said that “in a sense, what we are witnessing are afrophobic kinds of activities and attacks, resembling elements of self-hate among africans. the evidence shows the attacks are mainly against the congolese, zimbabweans, malawians, somalis and some south african nationals as well” (gqirana 2015). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 244 strict orthodoxy appears to be returning: according to the joint ad-hoc committee set up to investigate the 2015 xenophobic attacks, police in alexandra told the committee that they have no evidence suggesting that the violence between foreigners and locals in april was xenophobic. in a reprimand reminiscent of mbeki’s 2008 speech, committee chair ruth mbengu was reported to have said “it’s not only wrong but extremely irresponsible of the media to incorrectly label the attacks on foreign nationals in april as xenophobic” (eye witness news 2015). as of september 2015, the committee had yet to table its final report. few commentators beyond the south african state endorse interpretations within such a criminality framework. equally, few endorse a framework within which xenophobia emerges as the primary and dominant determinant for violent outbursts. a recent samp publication that distinguishes between xenophobia denialism, xenophobia minimalism and xenophobia realism and opts for the third interpretation is an exception (crush & ramachandran 2014). rather, most commentators recognise the importance of xenophobic attitudes during the outbursts without placing this at the heart of the interpretation. there appears to be agreement among these commentators on the well-researched nature and breadth of xenophobic attitudes among south africans (adam & moodley 2013) as well as on the deprivation – unemployment, poverty, inadequate shelter and basic services – facing south africa’s urban poor (simkins 2011). where disagreement surfaces is in the interpretation of the intentions underpinning the behaviour of members of this urban poor when that behaviour turns violent and targets persons and property in their neighbourhoods. two influential interpretations – both focusing on rational elements of behaviour – will be summarised. the first is the relative deprivation interpretation: poor black urban residents are experiencing competition regarding jobs, inadequate provision of housing and service delivery in their informal settlements, little effective government communication regarding these issues in their residential areas and corruption from government officials and the police. the relative deprivation they experience then comprises the frustrations they develop as a result of their expectations in these regards not being realized. these sentiments that combine to generate shared generalised anger, are converted into violent aggression against those they perceive as competitors and as the immediate cause of their frustrations, http://ewn.co.za/2015/06/04/ad-hoc-committee-investigating-xenophobia-beefed-up ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 245 partially since they appear to be better off than themselves. their targets accordingly are the ‘foreigner’ and the ‘stranger’ in their neighbourhoods (hsrc 2008). the second interpretation is that of resource mobilisation, where the focus shifts from attitudes and frustrations to the political economy in the immediate neighbourhoods of the urban poor. for instance, collective action before and during an outburst targeting foreigners and their property is considered to be a strategy employed to extract benefits. local leaders who may lack institutional access to either the local economy or to the political process aim to acquire material and/ or political resources by mobilizing local residents. for example, such resources could comprise local trading and job opportunities, or access to municipal and local council positions. such an interpretation focuses attention on local leadership institutions; on how violence is organised and why locals participate (tarrow 1994, misago et al. 2009). in both interpretations, it is clear that while the violent targeting of foreigners becomes a destructive instrument used against innocent civilians, it is not necessarily the primary goal – aggression may well be redirected (toward the local municipality, as an example) and local leaders’ attempts to extract benefits from those who control or own resources may be pursued by means other than attacking foreigners and their property. the last alternative interpretation identified here shifts the analysis from rational to emotionally-suffused behaviour. perpetrators, horowitz (2001) argues, mix calculation with passion during their uninhibited violent behaviour. the insight that the discharge of aggression is a satisfying experience leads to the question of what violent xenophobic behaviour offers young urban south africans who suffer deprivation and are keenly aware of unfulfilled promises of entitlement made in post-apartheid south africa. at least in part, such behaviour, which often appears to offer pleasure to perpetrators, enables the reversal of humiliation. horowitz (2001: 536) notes: […] the violence that aims to thwart domination […] is suffused with affect born of humiliation. much of the pleasure that violence brings springs from the mastery that reverses dishonour […] ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 246 in summary, interpretations of the 2015 and 2008 violent episodes range from an investigative spotlight illuminating the xenophobia of many south africans to the state’s insistence that the spotlight ought rather to be focused on criminal behaviour. in both cases, it is probably true that this terminology that refers in singular fashion to ‘xenophobia’ or to ‘criminality’ conceals as much as it reveals. accordingly, it is fitting to remark here that the perpetrators mobilised during these events are drawn from the same pool as the protesters mobilised during the rising number of violent service delivery protests across the country. both are members of south africa’s urban working and underclass. service delivery protests that turn violent in order to broaden our events-based analysis of violent collective behaviour in urban south africa, a profile of the growing number of violent service delivery protests in the country will be developed here. a research project named the civic protests monitor (cpm) has such events-based data covering the eight year period from 2007 to 2014. civic protest is defined as “referring to organised protest action within a local area which directly targets municipal government or targets municipal government as a proxy to express grievances against the state more widely” (powell n.d.: 5). these protests, more generally known in the popular discourse as service delivery protests, generally involve urban residents from poor neighbourhoods of both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan municipal areas. three of the general trends over this period are highlighted in the cpm (powell n.d.: 3):  the number of protests in 2014 reached an all-time-high of 218. the previous maximum was 204 in 2009.  in the three year period of 2012 – 2014, gauteng experienced more protests than any other province. since 2007, gauteng's share of protests has been rising more rapidly than in other provinces. cape town was the most protest-prone municipality with 84 protests, followed by johannesburg, ethekwini, tshwane and ekurhuleni. between them these five metro municipalities accounted for half of all the protests recorded.  the prevalence of violence associated with protests has continued to increase. the number of violent protests reached a record high in 2014. in 2007, just less than half the protests were associated with some ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 247 violence. in 2014, almost 80% of protests involved violence on the part of the participants or the authorities. violent protests have been defined in this study “as those protests where some or all of the participants have engaged in actions that create a clear and imminent threat of, or actually result in, harm to persons or damage to property” and the research reveals that the number of violent protests has risen at a faster rate than the total number of protests. in 2007, the total number of violent protests was 44. seven years later this number had increased more than fourfold to 181. five forms of violence are distinguished in the event data set: intimidation, personal attacks, arson, damage to property and looting. intimidation was the most frequently cited form of violence (376 protests) associated with protest in the 2012 – 2014 period. physical attacks on individuals were less prominent (315 protests). the destruction of property (including arson) was recorded more often than attacks on individuals (a combined total of 372 protests). thus, two thirds of the types of violence recorded at protests went beyond “mere” intimidation and involved the destruction of property, assault, looting and even death (powell n.d.: 9). what emerges from these trends is a continuing series of violent events across urban south africa during which residents mobilise and target municipal officials, local councillors and municipal property, in a phrase, elements of the local state. the demands made by protesters captured in the database comprise improved municipal services (such as housing, electricity and water), improved non-municipal services (such as education and policing) as well as demands for employment opportunities. a relative deprivation interpretation of this rising number of violent events would root residents’ frustration in the same structural conditions as in the case of violent xenophobic events. however, the aggression, as it shifts from generalised anger toward the identification of targets blamed for the causes of this frustration, is directed at elements of the local state rather than at foreigners and strangers and their property. in equal measure, a resource mobilisation interpretation would have it that local leaders, with the aim to acquire material and political resources, exploit the frustrations of local residents by promoting violent action against the local state rather than against foreigners and strangers and their property. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 248 conclusion a profile of south africa’s urban poor has been sketched that depicts them as both deprived and frustrated. one way to conceptualise their common state of mind is to attribute to them a shared generalised anger. this generalised anger may be seen through the lens of unfulfilled expectations: entitlement promises made by the african national congress during the continuing struggle for transformation and liberation, promises made to the newly urbanised, to the urban poor and to those against whom apartheid discriminated. the frustrations that surface through the inability of many urban dwellers to realise or receive their fair share of entitlements – housing, municipal services, jobs and the like – are easily converted into aggression that is directed at those held responsible for these failures. in the case of the recent xenophobic outbursts, this aggression appears to have been directed against those who, according to widespread rumours and widely broadcast elite discourse, appeared to be largely responsible for much of this failure. these small foreign groupings also appeared to be both isolated as well as unprotected. aggression against superiors is converted into aggression against unranked groups in the immediate neighbourhood, with little fear of retribution. in the case of violent service delivery protests, this aggression was directed against local municipal officials and councillors and, often, against their municipal offices and town halls. these local elites are often perceived to be significantly more privileged than most residents in their local community as well as incompetent, corrupt or both. here too, local protesters have little fear of retribution, particularly after the marikana wildcat strike that turned into a massacre with more than 40 miners killed by the south african police. this has given the police pause in the presence of protest incidents. in addition, the simultaneous emergence of a new political party – the economic freedom fighters – that supports many service delivery protests adds a measure of legitimacy to such actions. the generalised anger may also be seen through the lens of resource mobilisation where a focus on attitudes moves to a focus on the political economy of violence. in both cases, xenophobic as well as service delivery events, it is local leaders (both informal and formal) who are considered to be at the heart of the mobilization of perpetrators and protesters during the ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 249 outbursts. they do this by playing to the frustrations of local residents with the aim of extracting benefits from those who control or own resources – be they local shopkeepers and artisans or officials and elected councillors. this shift identifies an overlap much debated recently by senior officials in the south african government between outburst, protest and criminal activity. the looting during outbursts and protests indicates that one dimension of this collective behaviour is undoubtedly criminal, probably significantly more of a petty rather than of a hardened and professional nature. these two lenses focus our attention on a south african urban poor who reveal less of a deep hostility to the foreigner and stranger than a generalised shared sentiment of exclusion, sometimes approaching hopelessness regarding their current urban lives. the lenses also reveal an urban working and under-class that is frustrated by the failure over the past two decades of what they have been led to believe are their just entitlements. simultaneously, as they become more aware of the growing inequalities between themselves and the new local as well as national elites, this frustration is converted either into aggression against those deemed to be responsible for their current state or into mobilisation in pursuit of some of these privileged entitlements. lastly, this analysis reveals a new form of agency that the south african urban poor are developing. this agency emerges from rational as well as emotional motives, from aggression against those seen to be responsible for limitations on entitlements as well as ways to convert long-standing humiliation into mastery through violent behaviour, particularly gratuitous violence. moreover, over the past few years, access to new forms of social media has facilitated the broadening of this agency. the 2015 violent xenophobic episode has revealed that it is not only south african groupings that possess agency in the country: foreign african immigrants in both durban and johannesburg organised and expressed their anxiety and displeasure in public and the voices of foreign african governments after the episode were public and forceful in south africa, on the african continent and internationally. south africa may well remain chiefly a limited access order (north et al. 2013) in which elites take most of the national decisions that affect south africans’ lives, but both the urban poor as well as foreign actors are demonstrating, through their agency, that these elites do not have it all their own way. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 250 references adam, h. and moodley, k. 2013. imagined liberation. xenophobia, citizenship and identity in south africa, germany and canada. stellenbosch: sun press. baker, b. 2008. multi-choice policing in africa. nordiska afrikainstituut: sweden. bekker, s. 2010. ‘explaining violence against foreigners and strangers in urban south africa: outbursts during may and june 2008.’ the african yearbook of international law (16) 125-140. bbc news ‘south african army to tackle xenophobic attacks.’ 21 april 2015 (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32396532) (retrieved 27 october 2015) bekker, s. eigelaar-meets, i. eva, g. and poole, c. 2008. xenophobia and violence in south africa: a desktop study of the trends and a scan of explanations offered. university of stellenbosch. <www.simonbekker.com> (retrieved 27 october 2015). crush, j. and ramachandran, s. 2014. southern african migration programme (samp): ‘xenophobic violence in south africa: denialism, minimalism, realism’. migration policy series no. 66. cape town: university of cape town. earl, j. martin, a. mccarthy, jd. and soule, sa. 2004. ‘the use of newspaper data in the study of collective action’. annual review of sociology (30) 65-80. eye witness news ‘xenophobia: if we can make them look bad, our problem will look better.’ 4 june 2015 (johannesburg) glazer, d. 2008 ‘(dis) connections: elite and popular “common sense” and the matter of “foreigners”’. in hassim, s. kupe, t. and worby, e. (eds). go home or die here: violence, xenophobia and the reinvention of difference in south africa. johannesburg: witwatersrand university press. 53-59. gqirana t. ‘police minister: kzn attacks are not just xenophobic.’ mail & guardian 14 april 2015. (johannesburg) harber a. ‘publish and be damned in name of patriotism’ business day 23 april 2015 (johannesburg) ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 251 hassim,s. kupe, t. and worby, e. (eds). 2008. go home or die here: violence, xenophobia and the reinvention of difference in south africa. johannesburg: witwatersrand university press. horowitz, dl 2001. the deadly ethnic riot. berkeley: university of california press. human sciences research council (hsrc). 2008. citizenship, violence and xenophobia in south africa: perceptions from south african communities. pretoria: hsrc press. hunter q. ‘govt moves to restore order after xenophobic attacks.’ mail & guardian 28 april 2015. (johannesburg) khoza a. ‘zuma's son wants foreigners out of the country.’ news 24 1 april 2015 (johannesburg) mail & guardian ‘da: business minister’s xenophobic comments “fuelled the wedge”.’ 3 february 2015 (johannesburg) misago, jp. landau l. and monson, t. 2009. towards tolerance, law and dignity: addressing violence against foreign nationals in south africa. pretoria: international organization for migration. news 24 ‘thousands mob kwamashu police as xenophobic attacks continue.’ 13 april 2015 (johannesburg) ndou c. ‘foreigners must go home – king zwelithini.’ the citizen 23 march 2015 (johannesburg) north, d. wallis, jj. and weingast, br. 2013. violence and social orders: a conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history. cambridge: cambridge university press. nyamnjoh, f. 2006. insiders and outsiders: citizenship and xenophobia in southern africa. london: zed books. powell, dm. o’donovan, m. de visser, j. n.d. cpm civic protests barometer 2007-2014. cape town: mlgi. <www.mlgi.org.za> (retrieved 26 october 2015). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 252 simkins, c. 2011. ‘south african disparities’. journal of democracy 22(3): 105– 119 sosibo k. ‘xenophobia: what did we learn from 2008?’ mail & guardian 24 april 2015. (johannesburg) sosibo k. et al. ‘township politics fuel the attacks on “outsiders”.’ mail & guardian 30 january 2015. (johannesburg) tarrow, s. 1994. power in movement: collective action, social movements and politics. cambridge: cambridge university press. visser a. ‘machel vs mugabe: what would happen if countries opened their borders?’ news 24 3 may 2015 (johannesburg). worldwideworx. n.d. south african social media landscape 2015 executive summary <www.worldwideworx.com> (retrieved 20 october 2015). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 645 harnessing economic impacts of migrant remittances for development in sub-saharan africa: a critical review of the literature themba nyasulu* abstract the recent rise in migrant remittances across sub-saharan africa is one of the important issues currently dominating economic policy discourse in the region. given the large volume of remittance flows, it is obvious that they have important positive and negative economic effects on the individual families and economies that receive them. therefore, this paper critically examines channels through which remittance transfers affect microeconomic and macroeconomic activity, and suggests policy options available to sub-saharan african countries in terms of harnessing their development potential. the paper affirms that prospects for remittances to facilitate economic development remain high provided that recipient countries put in place institutional frameworks capable of mitigating the malign effects and enhancing the benign effects of remittances. keywords migrant remittances, microeconomic impacts, economic development, sub-saharan africa. introduction remittances, referring to money sent by migrants to their countries of origin, are among the important topics currently dominating economic policy discussions across the globe. in line with the reality that more than 3.4 percent (i.e. more than 247 million people) of the world population lives outside their countries of birth, remittances have also been expanding rapidly in recent times. the world bank (2016) observes that as of 2015, global remittance flows exceeded us$601 billion. a similar pattern has prevailed in sub-saharan africa where remittances have meteorically risen so much so that they now, together with foreign direct investment and aid, constitute one of the three most important forms of capital inflows in the region (imf, 2016). *fellow in international development, institute for development research and development policy (iee), ruhr-university bochum, germany. email: themba.nyasulu@ruhr-uni-bochum.de ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 646 from both an empirical and a theoretical point of view, migrant remittances are reputed to generate important economic impacts, which in turn profoundly influence development. in particular, these economic impacts are normally felt in terms of consumption, gross domestic product (gdp), foreign exchange reserves, exchange rates, exports and imports, and the country’s creditworthiness, among others. moreover, remittance flows also have important impacts on human development through their influences on poverty reduction, education and health outcomes (chami et al., 2008; chami & fullenkamp, 2013; dinbabo & carciotto, 2015). for sub-saharan africa, which is the least developed region in the world and also home to over twothirds of world’s poorest people, the above remittance-induced economic impacts, whether positive or negative, have a significant bearing on the development prospects of the region. this also suggests that there are multiple paths through which remittances affect both macroeconomic and microeconomic activity in recipient countries in this part of the world. as such, both the benign and malign economic impacts of migrant remittance inflows on development in sub-saharan african countries cannot simply be presumed but deserve critical empirical investigation. therefore, the purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to analytically assess microeconomic and macroeconomic economic effects of remittances on development, and secondly, to suggest ways through which sub-saharan african countries can effectively utilise remittance receipts in order to maximise their development impact. in undertaking these tasks, the discussion critically reviews available theoretical and empirical literature on the subject from both sub-saharan africa and other developing regions of the world. the paper is organised as follows: the economic motivations for remitting are analysed at the beginning of the discussion. after this, the paper examines the impacts of remittances on recipient households (i.e. micro-level) and the economies of sub-saharan africa (i.e. macro-level). furthermore, the discussion suggests some policy recommendations for leveraging the economic impacts of remittances for development. finally, concluding remarks on the subject in question are presented in the epilogue. economic motivations for migrant remittances among the important drivers of remittance flows are both the ability of migrants to generate and save income and their determination to remit savings back to their countries of origin (i.e. source/home countries). it must also be pointed out that the willingness to send remittances may also be driven ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 647 by the length of time migrants plan to stay abroad either on a permanent or temporary basis. for others, their family status (i.e. single or married) and social networks may play an important role in their decisions to remit. this indicates that there are several ways of analysing determinants of remittance flows, one of which is examining the motivations of migrants to remit. a careful survey of the literature reveals that there are four major economic motives for remitting, namely: altruism, self-interest, informal agreements with family members and portfolio management decisions. but this notwithstanding, there is no general theory that explains remittances (rapoport & docquier, 2005; oecd, 2006). instead, what are available are empirical studies trying to describe the occurrence of remittances, even though their explanations are partial and often specific to certain geographical, socio-cultural and temporal contexts. the table below summarises the four major economic motives for remitting. motivation for remitting rationale 1. altruism  migrants may remit money simply because they are concerned about the welfare of their relatives they have left behind in the origin country.  the altruistic hypothesis suggests that migrants derive utility from the welfare of their relatives. in the source country.  the amount of money remitted should vary with changes in the migrant’s level of income.  the volume of remittances should decrease not only as the household income of the migrant’s family declines but also when migrant’s social bonds with his/her family in the sourcecountry weaken. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 648  the level of remittances should gradually subside as the migrant settles in the destination country and brings over his/her relatives. 2. self-interest  the self-interest model argues that migrants may send remittances to their parents because of the aspiration to inherit increased bequests from their parents.  migrants owning assets in their countries of origin are more likely to remit to their relatives left behind in order to take care of the assets. 3. implicit family agreements: (i) co-insurance and loans  the decision to remit is taken as a family arrangement whereby remittances are considered as endogenous to the migration process. households seek to find a pareto-optimal allocation solution where certain family members are designated as migrants and remittances obtained are used as a redistributive tool for the acquired gains.  firstly, migrants adopt the role of insurees while their dependents in the home country play the role of the insurers. but once migrants get employed, earning income and ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 649 (ii) the migrant’s saving target holding positive expectations about further income accumulation, they become insurers. finally, in anticipation of a return home, migrants increase their remittances by investing their accumulated savings at home.  the desire to return home with a certain amount of savings is an important motivation for remitting. this ‘savings target’ motive is a direct result of a bargaining duel between a migrant and his/her family.  the migrant’s ability to remit is classified as the supply side while the family’s claim in the home country is the demand side of the remittance function.  the migrant is interested in not only minimising the leakage of his/her income (i.e. remittances and consumption expenditure) but also maximising the savings target. in contrast, the family’s main goal is assumed to be the accumulation of income and remittances above that of its neighbours. 4. portfolio management decisions  macroeconomic variables such as real rates of interest in both the source and destination countries ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 650 may significantly drive the decisions to remit and hence the volume of the total remittances.  savings which are not required for household consumption can be remitted because of their profitability (i.e. high rates of return) in both the source and destination countries.  portfolio management choice theory argues that savings may have an exogenous character which is intrinsically linked to the migration regime and are therefore dependent on macroeconomic factors such as exchange rates, rates of returns of real and financial assets, and real interest rates. source: adapted from rapoport & docquier (2005) and oecd (2006). economic impacts of remittances the discussion classifies economic impacts of remittances on development into macroeconomic and microeconomic categories. macroeconomic impacts a careful review of the literature in developing countries clearly shows that the impact of remittances is felt on the macroeconomic level mainly through access to finance and economic growth in the recipient country. the following section outlines the remittance-effects on the macro economy through three important channels: economic growth and financial development, economic stability and international finance. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 651 remittances as a macroeconomic stabiliser available empirical and theoretical evidence indicates that remittances behave in a counter-cyclical manner, meaning that their changes are inversely related to macroeconomic fluctuations. the main implication of this is that remittances insulate recipient households in home countries from the vagaries brought about by macroeconomic fluctuations (chami et al., 2009). for instance, ratha (2007) observes that money sent by migrants to their home countries rose significantly during the financial crisis of the 1990s in mexico as well as during the 1997 asian financial crisis, especially in countries such as thailand and indonesia. during this time, other private flows such as fdi and equity flows were at an all-time low. apart from the surges experienced during financial crises, remittances have also shown a tendency to increase counter-cyclically in times of natural disasters and socio-political upheaval in the developing world (clarke & wallsten, 2004; yang & choi, 2007; mohapatra et al., 2009; sithole & dinbabo, 2016). with this, therefore, ratha (2003) and frankel (2011) argue that remittances have different characteristics relative to most other private flows such as fdi, foreign aid or portfolio equity. this is so because remittances primarily consist of transactions made by households in destination countries. as such, they are less influenced by profit-maximising motives that are commonly associated with private resource flows. on the same note, sayan (2006) observes that remittances show pro-cyclical patterns when they are sent in order to accomplish investment purposes in home countries. these patterns are more pronounced in middle-income developing countries than in low-income ones (lueth & ruiz-arranz, 2008). evidence from several sub-saharan african countries indicates that remittances show more stability in times of economic crises relative to other private capital flows such as private debt and equity flows and fdi (dinbabo & carciotto, 2015; gupta et al., 2009). remittances as a source of external finance and guarantor for creditworthiness it is now widely recognised in international finance that remittance inflows have a significant potential to boost global sovereign creditworthiness primarily by increasing the volume and stability of foreign exchange received by countries. large remittance receipts have enabled many african countries to reduce their trade imbalances and hence lower their current account deficits (avendaño et al., 2009). according to chami et al. (2008), remittances have also enabled these countries to stabilise their current account ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 652 fluctuations by steadying the overall flow of capital. similarly, bugamelli and patemo (2009) have argued that, as a rule of thumb, remittances significantly reduce current account deficits when they exceed 3 percent of the total national income. these examples give a clear indication of the importance of remittance flows to source countries as far as external financing is concerned. it is an open secret that effective accounting of remittances can go a long way in improving the evaluation of credit worthiness and debt sustainability of many african source countries. ratha et al. (2011) argue that the foreign debtto-exports ratio for many african source countries would be significantly lower if remittances were included in the analysis as a denominator. the importance of remittances in debt sustainability analysis is now recognised by multilateral agencies such as imf and the world bank. in recent times, remittances have formed important variables necessary for sovereign assessments and debt sustainability analyses in middle-income and lowincome countries, respectively (imf, 2016). however, despite the importance of the above, very few remittance-receiving african economies have managed to have their creditworthiness appraised by major sovereign rating agencies. remittances as collateral for development financing remittances provide collateral for mobilising financing for economic development in international capital markets. the success in this endeavor of countries such as brazil, el salvador, turkey and kazakhstan suggests that sub-saharan african countries that often face severe capital constraints can also use future remittances as an important tool for mobilising development finance (ratha, 2005; ketkar & ratha, 2009). indeed, securitising future remittance receipts can help countries in the sub-saharan african region to mobilise not only cheaper but also long-term financial resources for development. ratha et al. (2011) argue that since remittances in most cases are denominated in hard currencies, international banks can use them as collateral to obtain loan injections, provided their ability to settle domestic transactions in local currencies is not impeded. so, by securitising future remittance flows, migrant source countries are able to not only obtain higher sovereign credit ratings, but also attract a large number of potential foreign investors who can spur economic development. in a similar vein, a number of banks in the aforementioned countries have utilised remittance securitisation to obtain lower cost international financing and maturities. undeniably, with the support of the african export-import bank (afreximbank), many countries throughout the region have used the ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 653 securitisation of future remittances to acquire significant medium-term development loans (afreximbank, 2005; rutten & oramah, 2006; ratha et al., 2011). ghana, nigeria and ethiopia are some of the economies in the region that have used the remittance-backed syndicated facilities to obtain external financing for their development projects in sectors such as agriculture and infrastructure investment (afreximbank, 2005). ratha et al. (2011) argue that african countries can leverage a small fraction of their future remittance receipts to issue bonds. but, of course, the quantity of bonds issued would very much depend on the level of collateral possible for banks to secure. available estimates project that the potential for securitisation of future remittance flows in africa stood in excess of us$35 billion as of 2009 (ratha et al., 2009). however, it is worth noting that at present, securitisation of remittance flows faces significant challenges in many low-income african countries. among the major bottlenecks identified in the literature include: underdeveloped domestic financial systems, limited integration of domestic banks into the global financial system, and exorbitant fixed costs incurred when acquiring legal, credit rating and investment banking services (ketkar & ratha, 2009). it must also be pointed out in passing that remittance-backed bonds may, however, pose a risk to issuers, especially if there is a currency mismatch that often accompanies foreign currency debt. ratha et al. (2011) contend that developing countries need to put in place prudent risk management mechanisms before obtaining additional debt. additionally, the existence of political instability may expose african economies to volatility in remittance flows as well as disruption of social networks between migrants and their countries of origin. what is more, increased foreign currency inflows resulting from the issuing of remittance-backed bonds may trigger currency appreciation in african countries with fragile macroeconomic structures. remittances as a driver of economic growth, financial development and competitiveness remittance flows are also known to positively affect economic growth, competiveness and financial development in many migrant source countries. the positive effect of remittances on growth and development is mainly transmitted through the following channels: consumption and investment increases, productivity enhancing social spending, and both macroeconomic and microeconomic stability of consumption and production (chami et al., 2009; dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015; mohapatra et al., 2009; sithole & dinbabo, ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 654 2016). the above benefits in turn boost investment supply by spurring the demand for financial intermediation. this is what ultimately conveys the positive impacts of remittance flows on economic growth in developing countries. literature on the subject is awash with empirical examples from sub-saharan african countries confirming the above scenario (rajan & zingales, 1998; gupta et al., 2009; akinlo & egbetunde, 2010). apart from the positive effects, remittances can also negatively affect growth. indeed, several theoretical reasons have been advanced as to why remittances may reduce the level of economic growth. to begin with, researchers argue that a large inflow of remittances may trigger an appreciation in the value of the domestic currency, which in the end can curtail growth through reduction of tradable production and other scale economies and externalities. this negative exchange rate effect on growth is what is commonly known as the ‘dutch disease’ (world bank, 2006; acosta et al., 2010 gupta et al., 2009). however, rajan and subramaniam (2005) find no empirical evidence suggesting that remittance-induced exchange rate surges have negatively affected growth in developing countries across the globe. a second channel through which remittances may depress growth is the reduction of labour supply. in theory, since migration takes away some of the most productive individuals, it therefore deprives the home country of an important growth driver, labour supply (lucas, 1987; azam & gubert, 2006; bussolo & medvedev, 2007; chami et al., 2008). however, there is very little empirical evidence supporting the above argument. in fact, in many developing countries that are characterised by high unemployment and underemployment levels, the loss of one laborer can easily (and cheaply) be replaced by another. as such, the remittance-induced labour supplyreductions will likely have a very limited negative effect on economic growth. on another note, some economic commentators suggest that additional income emanating from remittance receipts eases pressure on migrant destination countries to improve the quality of social service delivery, since with the help of remittances the recipient households can afford to access alternative private services (abdih et al., 2008; sithole & dinbabo, 2016). the above researchers also find evidence suggesting that remittances greatly boost home countries’ foreign exchange position and hence ease balance of payment bottlenecks and fiscal deficits that characterise many developing countries. in contrast, catrinescu et al. (2006 observe that the impact of remittances on growth is only positive in countries that already possess high ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 655 quality political and economic institutions. for these economists, many developing countries in sub-saharan africa are unlikely to harvest the growth dividends from remittance inflows because they lack the necessary policy and institutional frameworks. remittances have also been touted as an important mechanism for alleviating liquidity and credit constraints in many developing economies. therefore, they play an active role in generating capital for microenterprises and, thus, act as an important alternative for financial development. giuliano and ruizarranz (2009) examine the contribution of remittances to economic growth and financial development in developing countries. these economists find robust econometric evidence suggesting that remittances have the strongest positive impact on economic growth only when the level of financial development in the country is low. the above findings firmly resonate with the experience of many sub-saharan african economies that contain undeveloped financial systems and face severe liquidity and credit constraints. microeconomic impacts of remittances apart from having developmental impacts on the macro-level, remittances can also influence microeconomic development fundamentals such as poverty reduction, household consumption and investment decisions, as well as access to social services such as health and education. it is the aim of the following section to review available empirical literature on the microeconomic development impacts of migrant remittances on recipient regions of the developing world, including sub-saharan africa. remittances as a driver of household capital investment and entrepreneurship to begin with, the fungibility of money and the unreliability of migration data in developing countries make it difficult to calculate the proportion of remittances allocated to physical capital investment and entrepreneurship in source countries. nevertheless, ample empirical evidence still exists suggesting that recipient households devote a significant chunk of remittance receipts to investment in housing and the acquisition of land, especially in regions where there are no credible alternative stores of value for money. on the same note, empirical studies by taylor and wyatt (1996) reveal that in many developing home nations, the shadow value of remittances necessary for offsetting risk and liquidity bottlenecks is vital for low and middle-income recipient households that usually face challenges to obtain credit from formal ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 656 financial institutions. concurring with this assertion, adams and cuecuecha (2010) find that remittance-receiving families in guatemala allocate very minimal amounts of the remittances to housing expenditure. however, the positive micro-effects of remittances are not limited to urban areas of developing regions. for instance, adams (1998) finds that migrant remittances significantly boost investment in agricultural land in rural areas of pakistan. despite the abundance of empirical evidence in latin america and asia, studies assessing the utilisation of remittances for investment and entrepreneurial purposes in africa appear to be scarce. among the few available studies are those done by mccormick and wahba (2001), which find that remittances from return migrants greatly enhance the prospects of entrepreneurship and investment in egypt. in addition, osili (2004) found that not only do remittances from united states-based migrants boost investment expenditure on housing in nigeria, but also that the investment is very responsive to macroeconomic fluctuations in exchange rate, inflation and political climate. ratha et al. (2011) observe that the majority of studies on africa conducted under the auspices of the africa migration project (amp) reveal that a significant proportion of the remittances are spent on housing infrastructure, land acquisition, establishment of small-scale businesses and farming activities. there is strong empirical evidence on the above tendencies gathered from household surveys conducted in burkina faso, kenya, uganda, nigeria and senegal. remittances as an enabler for recipient households to attain high quality education migrant remittances boost expenditure on education by contributing to funding of school activities in many migrants’ home countries. the increased education financing reduces the need for child labour in these countries. there is ample empirical evidence in african countries suggesting that migrant remittances can contribute to increasing school enrolment and attendance levels. but despite these positive education spinoffs, migration may sometimes negatively affect children’s performance in schools since the absence of parents/guardians at home as a result of migration increases the burden for kids to perform household chores (ratha et al., 2011). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 657 even though there is scarcity of empirical household surveys analysing the remittance-education nexus in sub-saharan africa, in some countries such as egypt, remittances are known to increase university enrollment rates and reduce domestic chores for school-going children (elbadawi & roushy, 2009). on the same note, adams & page (2005) found that in ghana, households that received remittances from abroad invested more in education than families with no remittance receipts. this suggests that remittances may be a potent tool for financing education in africa. remittances as a financier of household health expenditure money sent by migrants can also enable home countries to achieve their health outcomes by, among others, empowering families in rural areas to acquire more food and healthcare services and improving their access to information on modern health practices. in support of the above hypothesis, drabo and ebeke (2010) found in a survey of 56 developing countries that remittances not only increased access to private treatment for communicable diseases such as malaria and diarrhea, but also augmented foreign aid in financing health outcomes. in a similar vein, an empirical study covering 84 countries by chauvet et al. (2009) found that an increase in the level of remittances significantly reduced infant mortality, even though the reduction was higher for richer recipient households over those that were poorer. going further into the above analysis, guzmán et al. (2007) found that femaleheaded households in ghana spend more of their remittances on healthcare than those headed by men, irrespective of whether the remittances came from outside or within africa. earlier studies done in mali by birdsall and chuhan (1986) also found that remittances triggered not only a rise in healthcare demand but also modern health facilities. in south africa, nagarajan (2009) found that between 1993 and 2004, increased migrant remittances enabled poor households in kwazulu-natal province to spend more on healthcare and food items and improved access to better medical facilities. remittances as a form insurance against adverse socio-economic and climatic shocks there is now growing recognition among economists that migration can contribute positively to diversifying household income sources and thereby minimise their risk exposure to adversities such as famine, drought and other vagaries of nature. for example, calero et al. (2009) observe that remittances were vital in keeping ecuadorian children in school at a time when their ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 658 households faced adverse shocks. moreover, weiss-fagan (2006) and ratha (2010) empirically demonstrate that remittances from relatives and wellwishers in the united states enabled recipient-households to ably cope with several cyclone and earthquake crises that affected haiti in 2004 and 2010, respectively. remittances are also reputed to have accelerated the recovery of indonesian households affected by the 2004 tsunami disaster. on the same note, wu (2006) observes that remittance-receiving families showed evidence of a quicker recovery than those with no access to money from migrants. a similar episode was also reported in pakistan where remittances enabled the recovery and reconstruction of household livelihoods after a ravaging earthquake (suleri & savage, 2006). it is a well-known fact that in many disaster-prone regions of africa, migration and remittances play a vital role in enabling recipient households to cope with the resultant shocks and thereby smooth their consumption patterns (block & webb, 2001; dinbabo & carciotto, 2015). lucas and stark (1985) buttress the above point by empirically showing that families facing drought in botswana were able to avert income shocks by utilising their increased remittance receipts to purchase livestock and food for sustenance. in a similar study, mohapatra et al. (2009) unearth a somewhat startling result that during droughts, remittance-receiving families in ethiopia are less likely to pawn their product assets such cattle for food as a way of consumption-smoothing. however, a study by quartey and blankson (2004) reveals that migrant remittances are the major source of consumption-smoothing for ghanaian small-holder farmers in rural areas. furthermore, there is empirical evidence emanating from rural mali suggesting that remittances are an effective tool for dealing with various types of household income shocks (gubert, 2002). apart from cushioning households from income shocks, remittances were also found to be an important risk-diversification tool for malian and senegalese farming households in times of adverse climatic conditions (azam & gubert, 2005 and 2006). besides, money from migrants abroad can enable their relatives in home countries to construct durable and more resilient housing. in concurrence with this view, mohapatra et al. (2009) found that in burkina faso and ghana, remittances enabled recipient households to construct more concrete and iron-roofed houses than non-remittance receiving families. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 659 remittances as a potent tool for poverty and inequality reduction in the literature, it is a well-established fact that remittances have the ability to reduce the level of household poverty. this is so because, among others, remittances supplement the incomes of poor recipient families and boost aggregate demand levels and, in turn, create employment opportunities and wage earnings of the poor (ratha et al., 2011). seminal studies by adams and page (2003 and 2005) strongly support the above theoretical assertions by illustrating that increased inflows of remittances in migrant source countries greatly diminish the share of poor people in the country. there is a plethora of econometric studies suggesting that remittances play an important role in poverty reduction in africa. ajayi et al. (2009) and anyanwu and erhijakpor (2010) find evidence that suggests that official international remittances as a percentage of the gdp have a significant positive effect on poverty reduction in 33 african countries. likewise, gupta et al. (2009) find that the remittance-induced poverty reduction in africa is much higher when compared to other developing regions of the world. similarly, numerous case study analyses in burkina faso, ghana, lesotho, morocco and nigeria, among others, firmly endorse the poverty-reducing effect of remittances in rural regions (lachaud, 1999; quartey & blankson, 2004; adams & page, 2005; sorensen, 2004; odozia et al., 2010). these studies further suggest that remittances not only reduce the overall number of people living in poverty but also reduce the severity and depth of the deprivation. despite the availability of numerous studies analysing the relationship between remittances and poverty, the same cannot be said about the remittance-inequality nexus. the world bank (2006) and ratha and mohapatra (2007) argue that the ambiguity of the impact of remittances on income inequality is largely a result of the unavailability of counterfactuals, i.e. how inequality levels in the source countries would be in the absence of remittance inflows. nevertheless, the influence of income inequality on the decision to emigrate and actual flows of remittances is quite clear. as a matter of fact, households receiving remittances from outside africa may need a certain income threshold for them to ably sponsor a family member to emigrate in the first place. remittance-receiving families may also have higher incomes than those households with no access to remittances. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 660 some policy options for leveraging remittance impacts for economic development in sub-saharan africa the positive role that remittances play in poverty reduction, growth enhancement and social transformation has been explored at length in this paper. both theoretical and empirical studies broadly agree that remittances contribute to socio-economic development in source countries by meeting the basic needs of recipients such as housing, education and health. this is in addition to the facilitation role that remittances play in transferring skills and knowledge from returning migrants and the diaspora. the above merits suggest a strong case for sub-sahara african countries to integrate remittance inflows into their overarching migration and national development strategies. the discussion has indicated a reasonable degree of consensus that exists among migration economists on the potential that remittances have to positively contribute to economic development in recipient countries. however, for these positive development spinoffs to be maximised there is need for proactive and targeted policies to be implemented. for instance, remittance recipient countries should improve the levels of financial literacy and financial inclusion for both their emigrants and the beneficiaries of remittances. this would ensure that the remittance funds are channelled into productive sectors. apart from this, both migrant source and destination countries can cooperate in providing technical training on money transfers and financial services to both the remitters and the recipients. training programs can also take the form of migrant entrepreneurship and sme (small and medium scale enterprise) development sessions. moreover, the securitisation of remittances through initiatives such as diaspora bonds can also greatly improve the remittance-impact on socio-economic development. even though sub-saharan african countries must keep in mind that remittances are private flows, their economic effects can still be harnessed for development. one of the important ways of maximising the development impact of remittances is by formalising their flows. furthermore, remittances can have a maximum impact on development if sub-saharan african governments make deliberate efforts to put in place enabling and competitive environments that allow these funds to flow into productive sectors. another important solution is for the recipient countries to upgrade and increase coverage of their underdeveloped financial systems. improved access to financial services facilitates the linkages between remittances and other ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 661 financial products, such as savings, insurance, mortgages and credit, which in the end foster economic development (mashayekhi, 2013). recipient countries in sub-saharan africa should also consider reducing transaction costs for growth-enhancing remittance flows to be effective. allowing non-bank financial institutions such as microfinance organisations to undertake distribution and proper supervision can go a long way in reducing remittance transaction costs (ratha & riedberg, 2005). on the same note, the removal of taxation remittances can not only lower transaction costs, but can also encourage formal transfers and increase the available fiscal revenue (chami et al., 2008; world bank, 2011). it would be advisable for remittancereceiving sub-saharan african countries to implement consumption-based taxation in order to reduce the deleterious effects on economic growth. such a taxation system would also help these countries to greatly reduce distortions induced by macroeconomic stabilisation policies, and also reap the remittance benefits emanating from tax-driven investments. more importantly, perhaps, it would be prudent for remittance-receiving subsaharan african countries to channel their remittance inflows into activities that promote economic development in the long-term, and preserve poverty alleviation efforts in the short-term. this so because there is lack of empirical clarity on whether the two main development objectives of remittances: growth enhancement and poverty reduction are compatible (ratha, 2013). this being the case, the above governments should strive to strike a delicate balance in allocating remittance receipts between competing growthpromoting activities and poverty alleviating measures. the increased fiscal space generated by remittance inflows certainly allows for this undertaking. international financial institutions can also play a crucial role in assisting recipient sub-saharan african countries to leverage the economic impacts of remittances for development. through engagement and dialogue, these financial organisations can encourage governments to not only implement but also to accelerate the necessary reforms pertaining to remittance inflows. instead of imposing one-size-fits-all reform prescriptions, international financial institutions should encourage country-specific strategies that are driven by the remittance inflow characteristics of each sub-saharan african nation. this may assist these countries to boost the development potential of remittance receipts. all in all, international cooperation between sub-saharan african countries and the international community could also be a key to enhancing the ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 662 economic development impact of remittances. this international cooperation agenda should primarily focus on making remittances cheaper, safer and more productive for both migrant source countries and destination countries. concluding remarks in conclusion this paper observes that even though remittances have a significant potential to contribute to economic development, many subsaharan african recipient economies have not been able to maximise the developmental benefits from their economic impacts. therefore, this calls for a better understanding of the realities concerning the remittance-effects on economic development. without doubt, policy makers intending to channel remittance receipts into economic development need to appreciate that these inflows can have both positive and harmful consequences on the economy. coupled with this is the fact that remittances do not automatically gravitate towards economic development-enhancing activities, but may sometimes flow into development-inhibiting activities, mainly because of the moral hazards that are associated with them. against this background, sub-saharan african countries that desire to reap the positive economic benefits of remittances need to establish enabling institutional and infrastructural frameworks capable of channeling these inflows into development-enhancing activities through the financial system and private sector. furthermore, recipient governments need to muster political will in order to efficiently utilise the fiscal revenue generated by remittances in order to judiciously invest only in those public goods and infrastructure that yield the highest returns. to this end, this paper strongly advocates for the development of well-functioning domestic institutions as an important driver for harnessing the positive economic benefits of remittances for development. it is beyond doubt that remittances have a significant potential to facilitate economic transformation, but to translate this possibility into reality, sub-saharan african countries need to develop and strengthen their economic 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sending countries in sub-saharan africa in 2014 remittance sending countries gross value of remittances sent (us$ billion) angola south africa liberia uganda mozambique mauritania kenya rwanda tanzania zambia 1.3 1.1 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 source: world bank (2016) ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 670 annex 3: recent trends in international financial flows and economic growth in sub-saharan africa 2004-08 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016p real gdp growth (percentage change) remittances (us$ billions) fdi inflows (us$ billions) foreign aid inflows (us$ billions) 6.6 3.9 7.0 5.0 4.3 5.2 5.1 3.4 1.4 36.7 44.9 52.5 57.0 61.9 61.2 63.8 64.6 66.4 42.8 55.1 46.0 49.8 49.7 54.2 49.4 57.5 66.3 39.0 48.0 47.7 51.5 51.1 56.7 54.2 56.4 58.7 source: international monetary fund-imf (2016), p is projection. benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa jonathan crush*, caroline skinner** and manal stulgaitis*** abstract to fully comprehend the disabling policy environment in which refugees in south africa attempt to carve out a livelihood, it is important to analyse two largely independent but overlapping streams of policy-making. this paper first examines the post-apartheid refugee protection regime and traces how and why a generous right-based approach has been progressively comprised by growing restrictionism, exclusion and bureaucratic ineptitude. the 2017 refugees amendment act and white paper on international migration represent the culmination of this process. while both are probably unimplementable and will be the subject of numerous court challenges, they can be seen as a major retreat and an increasing failure to protect. the second part of the paper traces the history of national and municipal informal sector governance since the early 1990s. since so many refugees are forced or choose to work informally, the uncertainty and confusion this history has produced is of particular relevance. refugee entrepreneurs have regularly been the victims of general and targeted informal sector eradication campaigns. therefore, there is a fundamental contradiction between a refugee protection policy that demands self-reliance from refugees and informal sector policies that undermine self-reliance at every turn. keywords refugee protection, refugees act, detention centres, informal sector, home affairs. * international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l 6c2 email: jcrush@balsillieschool.ca ** african centre for cities, university of cape town, cape town, south africa *** independent consultant, cape town benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa 752 introduction the past decade has seen south africa’s apparently generous asylum and refugee system flounder, characterised by ever-growing wait times for status decisions, increased barriers for application and renewal of permits, and growing disregard for refugee law and court orders (amit, 2011, 2012, 2015; johnson, 2015; polzer ngwato, 2013). the south african government has increasingly taken the position that the country’s post-apartheid refugee protection legislation is far too generous and needs to be revised in the direction of more restrictions and fewer rights. this has resulted in major changes to the seminal 1998 refugees act in the form of the 2017 refugees amendment act, and the promise of a new approach to migration and refugee protection in the green paper and white papers on international migration in south africa. these developments seek to align south africa with the more exclusionary and restrictive treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees in many other countries (fiddian-qasmiyeh et al., 2014). in the absence of material support from the government or the united nations high commission for refugees (unhcr), one of the primary livelihood strategies of asylum-seekers and refugees has been to create work for themselves in the informal sector. the policy environment in which refugee entrepreneurs run informal businesses on the streets and in residential areas is framed by policy and legislation at national, provincial and local levels. those working in the informal sector face an ambiguous policy environment that has occasionally supported but largely ignored – and at times actively destroyed – informal sector livelihoods and those of migrant and refugee businesses in particular. to fully understand the disabling policy environment within which migrants and refugees establish and operate their enterprises in the south african informal sector, we need to bring together these two streams of analysis. therefore, this paper begins with a discussion of south africa’s changing refugee policies and practices and traces the erosion of the protective and progressive refugee policy approach that characterised the immediate postapartheid period (handmaker et al., 2011). in the context of the refugee jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 753 livelihoods which are central to the country’s local integration approach, it is vital to have effective and efficient recognition of refugee status and an accompanying basket of rights to support survival through employment or entrepreneurship (jacobsen, 2005). the paper then reviews post-apartheid informal sector policy and practice. while the informal sector largely fell through policy gaps in the first ten years of democracy, the analysis suggests that increasing attention has been paid to this issue in recent years. while there have been longstanding tensions between foreign and south african informal sector operators, from 2012 an overtly anti-foreign migrant sentiment has been expressed in official policy and practice. the paper underlines the need for both a rights-based asylum system and more progressive policy towards the informal sector. refugee entrepreneurs and service providers agree that obtaining refugee status is key to enabling refugee entrepreneurship and sustainable livelihoods. despite the obstacles put in their way, refugee business owners appear to be succeeding, at least on par with their south african counterparts. this suggests that secure status and the associated basket of rights are serving refugee entrepreneurs in the context of sustainable livelihoods. while these arguments should mark a road map to successful local integration, the south african government continues to pile on administrative and logistical barriers to the asylum process and prospective refugees. these measures add to the ambiguity around migration management in the country and complicate the prospects for refugees to provide for themselves in a safe and sustainable manner. the paper is based on a review of media and official government sources, published and grey literature, and extended interviews with key informants in cape town, limpopo and gauteng during 2015. a total of 30 in-depth interviews were conducted including with sector researchers, refugee and diaspora associations, refugee rights ngos, law enforcement, the city of cape town and western cape governments and international organisations (such as the iom and unhcr). interviews were also conducted with national government departments including home affairs, labour and small business development. benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa 754 refugee policy and practice south africa is a signatory to the 1951 united nations convention on the status of refugees and the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa. since the end of apartheid, it has built a reputation as a protective and progressive refugee receiving country. south africa’s 1998 refugees act integrated international refugee protections into domestic law and exceeded international standards in important respects. the act made generous allowances for freedom of movement, access to health and education services, some social protection and the right to work. most notably, the act embraced local integration over encampment, which was a progressive choice in africa at the time (handmaker, 2001). underpinning the act was a political and ideological approach which posited that refugees were permitted and fully expected to temporarily integrate into the host country and benefit from all attendant protections and rights granted to citizens by the constitution. refugees who had been in the country for five years and were still unable to return were entitled to apply for permanent residence. in return for these progressive policies, both government and the unhcr incurred minimal costs in providing material support for asylum-seekers and refugees in the country. in the years since these somewhat idealistic beginnings, south africa has seen a distinct deterioration in the rights-based approach to refugee protection (amit, 2011, 2015; handmaker et al., 2011; igglesden & schreier, 2011; landau, 2006). international praise for south africa’s liberal approach has been eroded by chronic processing delays, poor and ill-informed adjudication and the corruption and mismanagement which has become endemic to the asylum process. south africa has one of the longest asylum adjudication periods in the world, in some cases it lasts many years. after 2007, economic free fall in zimbabwe imposed significant pressure on the asylum system as migrants from zimbabwe moved in significant numbers to south africa (crush & tevera, 2010; crush et al., 2015). arguably, south africa’s failure to anticipate and account for the entry of zimbabweans en masse created a situation whereby the asylum system became contorted into something of a ‘catch all’ for generalised migration into south africa. it is worth noting, jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 755 however, that part of the reason for the dramatic increase in asylum-seeking from zimbabwe was the establishment of a refugee reception office in musina, close to zimbabwe, specifically to speed up the issue of asylum-seeker permits. those close to the process argue that the demand for a place in south africa’s asylum queue, with its attendant right to work, rendered the system ineffectual at conducting legitimate asylum adjudication. in government discourse, this has translated into a strident denunciation of “bogus” claimants and “abuse of the system” by economic migrants (mabuza, 2016). the official position is that 90% of asylum-seekers are economic migrants, a figure apparently based on the rate of acceptance of refugee claims (dha, 2016: 29). however, this conclusion is a non-sequitur, given the well-documented delays in adjudication, the arbitrariness of many decisions, and the practice of adjudicating claims by country or origin and not the personal experiences of the individual claimant (amit, 2012). the reasons for this shift from rights and protections towards exclusion and control are seen by some as the inevitable consequence of life in a country where the majority still struggle to meet basic needs and there is competition for scarce public resources such as education, health care and shelter, as well as employment and other livelihood opportunities (hassim et al., 2008). in this zero sum game, every advantage that a refugee or asylum-seeker enjoys necessarily disadvantages a south african. however, gordon (2016) shows that south africans do not oppose refugee protection for reasons of economic self-interest. rather, their opposition, and that of many policy-makers, is further evidence of the deeply xenophobic character of south african society, with its attendant failure to acknowledge the positive economic, social and cultural contribution that refugees and asylum-seekers make to the country (crush et al., 2015). as gordon (2016: 1) argues, “public animosity towards refugees in south africa has motivated anti-immigrant riots, violence, and prejudice which has negatively impacted on refugee protection.” landau and duponchel (2011: 19) further suggest that “a protection strategy dedicated to maximizing refugees’ freedom and integration may prove politically untenable in an era of pronounced anti-immigrant hostilities.” benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa 756 government argues that the breakdown of the asylum system in south africa, and the need for a new approach, is because it has been overwhelmed by economic migrants. for a while, it argued that there were a million unprocessed asylum-seekers in the country, a figure that was uncritically reproduced by the unhcr and the media. the fact that the system itself was badly under-resourced, staffed by small numbers of poorly-trained officers and riddled with corruption was less-often acknowledged. the green paper now admits that this figure was erroneous and that in mid-2015, south africa had only 78,339 active asylum-seekers (section 22 permit holders) and had issued 119,600 refugee (section 24) permits since 2002 of which only 96,971 were still active. having previously claimed that the country was one of the largest refugee destinations in the world, this admission represented a considerable climb-down by the department of home affairs (dha) (stupart, 2016). therefore, rather than being motivated by a need to address an overrun system, the recent developments are better interpreted as a response to the desire of south africans to make the country an undesirable destination for asylum-seekers by narrowing refugee rights and imposing additional limitations on the ability of refugees to find safety and security in south africa. within government, four inter-connected strategies have been developed to achieve these ends. all are embodied in recent administrative decisions including the 2016 refugees amendment act (which passed parliament in march 2017 and currently awaits cabinet approval before becoming law) and the green paper and white papers on international migration in south africa (dha, 2017). the first strategy has been to move away from an integration towards an encampment model of protection. the dha has now publicly declared its intention of establishing what it calls asylum-seeker processing centres away from the country’s urban areas (which is widely and correctly seen by critics as a euphemism for encampment) (dha, 2016). plans have apparently been drawn up for the location and physical infrastructure of detention centres close to the zimbabwe and mozambique borders (mah & rivers, 2016) and, according to one source, construction has begun on a detention centre at lebombo. the white paper notes that these detention jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 757 centres will accommodate all asylum-seekers during their status determination process (dha, 2016: 65). following from the proposal that asylum-seekers should be kept in secure facilities while their claims are adjudicated, freedom of movement and integration into local communities (as at present) would be halted. so-called “low risk” asylum-seekers might be released into the care of national or international organisations and family or community members. however, asylum-seekers would not have the automatic right to work or study “since their basic needs will be catered for in the processing centres” (dha, 2016: 68). to try and pre-empt the inevitable, and justifiable, criticism towards south africa’s introduction of a policy of encampment, the green paper awkwardly asserts that “these centres should not be considered as contrary to the policy of non-encampment but as centres for mitigating security risks posed by irregular migration. only refugees and not asylum seekers will be allowed to integrate into communities” (dha, 2016: 66). the protestation that this somehow represents a continuation of the country’s non-encampment policy is disingenuous in the extreme. under this policy, asylum-seekers will be sequestered in detention centres for the duration of the adjudication process, which is unrealistically envisioned to be a 60 to 90 day process. whether that process takes place within the proposed period or not, during that time asylum-seekers will be fully dependent on government or the unhcr for food, shelter, health care, education and other basic needs. refugee service providers overwhelmingly agree that this is a no-win situation: if services to refugees are better than services available to south africans, south africans will cry foul and poor south africans may even present as refugees in order to access direly needed services. on the other hand, if services in the detention centres are worse, south africa will suffer the criticism of the international community for failing in its duty to respect the rights of refugees within its borders. the cost of constructing and maintaining camps for large numbers of asylum-seekers will be massive and the unhcr has indicated that it will not underwrite detention costs despite appeals from the south african government (which has previously constrained the unhcr from offering material assistance to asylum-seekers.) if south africa faced an benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa 758 influx of asylum-seekers in the future akin to the over 200,000 zimbabweans between 2006 and 2009, it is hard to see how these centres would even begin to cope. the second major strategy is to steadily put in place procedural, administrative and logistical hurdles that complicate refugees’ already tenuous status and sustainability in the belief that this will act as a disincentive to asylum-seekers coming to the country and make life extremely difficult for them if they do come. the most obvious example is the dha cutting the number of refugee reception offices in the country in half, closing busy offices at crown mines (johannesburg), cape town and port elizabeth refugee reception offices (rro). only three rro’s remained open: in musina, durban and pretoria. the closure was “not merely a technical, operational decision, but one which impacts on the basic principles of the asylum system, namely access (for initial applications, renewals, status determination interviews and appeals) and administrative efficiency and fairness” (polzer ngwato, 2013). legal challenges have produced contradictory outcomes. the supreme court of appeal (sca) ordered the re-opening of the port elizabeth rro, a judgment which the department has been very slow to implement. in contrast, the cape town high court decided that the cape town rro could remain closed. the 2016 refugees amendment act gives the director general of home affairs the power to “dis-establish” any rro and to force a whole category of asylumseeker (defined in terms of country of origin or “a particular gender, religion, nationality, political opinion or social group”) to report at a designated rro. second, and partly as a result, the administrative requirement that asylumseekers should renew their permits every one to six months at one of the rros (rather than an ordinary home affairs office) imposes considerable financial and other hardship. the period granted on renewal appears to be entirely arbitrary and, according to some refugees, depends on how much they are willing to pay under the table. individuals and families who have found safety, shelter, kin, communities, work or school in other parts of the country are forced to travel to one of the rros to ensure that they remain in status. furthermore, wait-times for receiving or renewing a permit can be jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 759 considerable. the scene outside the marabastad (pretoria) rro was described by one organisation as follows: they go to home affairs to marabastad to get their asylum permit. so they come to pretoria, there are queues and queues, never-ending queues. and then each country has a day. so now you have come to the home affairs office and it’s not your turn, your turn only comes after 4 days. and then you are told that if you have zar 2,000, these officials walk around and if you have money, you give them the money and go to the front of the queue. if you don’t have money, then you are right at the back. and then you have to come back the following week on the day of your country. in a situation where asylum-seekers are almost exclusively self-supporting, without the assistance of government or the international community, they sacrifice valuable time and money, risk jeopardising employment, and travel with or leave small children behind when they do so. under the 2016 act, failure to renew an asylum-seeker permit within one month of expiry now leads to automatic revocation of status, forfeiture of the right to renewal and treatment as an “illegal foreigner” under the immigration act (that is, arrest and deportation). asylum-seekers whose claims are refused are also to be treated as “illegal foreigners.” an asylum-seeker with an expired permit is also guilty of an offence and liable to a fine and imprisonment of up to five years or both. any individual or group of asylum-seekers or refugees can now be arrested and deported on the vaguely-worded grounds of “national interest, national interest or public order.” these provisions would seem draconian even if the system was efficient and transparent, a description that certainly does not apply here. the third strategy is to undercut court judgements that have affirmed the right of asylum-seekers and refugees to employment and self-employment, the essence of the post-apartheid model of refugee integration. the 2016 act explicitly seeks to overturn a judgment that permitted asylum-seekers to work in south africa while awaiting adjudication of their claim. prior to the future holding of asylum-seekers in detention centres (as envisaged by the green paper), the onus will now be on “family and friends” to support the asylumseeker for their first four months in the country. if such support is not benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa 760 available, the unhcr and ngos are permitted to provide “shelter and basic necessities.” in both situations, the asylum-seeker is prohibited from working, while government assumes no responsibility for their care and protection. the standing committee on refugee affairs is also now empowered to unilaterally decide under what conditions asylum-seekers may work or study. if they are permitted to do so, they are required to provide a letter from the employer or institution within fourteen days from the date of employment or enrolment. the employer or institution can be fined zar 20,000 if they fail to provide the documentation in the prescribed period. the right to work can also be revoked by the director general. the act says nothing about the right to access informal work or self-employment, a key component of earlier court judgments. the fourth strategy which will directly affect those with refugee status is to try and ensure that protection is ever only temporary by making it extremely difficult for refugees to progress to permanent residence and eventual citizenship. the 1998 act stated that refugees were entitled to apply for permanent residence after five years of continuous residence in south africa and refugees “of good and sound character” could be issued with permanent residence permits irrespective of the length of sojourn in the country. this is clearly one reason why the maximum length of a refugee permit was set at four years. it is unclear how many long-term refugees have tried to access or been granted permanent residence. dha (2016: 29) notes that there were 1,175 applications between mid-2014 and early 2016, but does not say how many were successful. in 2013, the dha stripped all refugees from angola of their refugee status irrespective of length of residence and then issued them with two-year nonrenewable temporary residence permits (called angolan cessation permits or acps) (carciotto, 2016). in 2016, after extensive negotiations with the dha, it was agreed that former angolan refugees could apply for permanent residence. the western cape high court then issued an order by which all former angolan refugees with expired acps could apply for permanent residence. in february 2017, the scalabrini centre of cape town submitted 1,757 applications on behalf of angolan refugees to the dha. the successful jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 761 court action not only prevents the summary deportation of former angolan refugees but potentially provides an important precedent for future cases of cessation. however, the 2016 act gives the minister of home affairs new powers to issue an order which ceases recognition of an individual refugee or group of refugees or to revoke refugee status, without the obligation to provide any justification for such an action. the right of a refugee to apply for permanent residence has also been extended from five to ten years. a final policy issue of relevance to this paper is asylum-seeker and refugee access to financial services. as other papers in this special issue show, refugee entrepreneurs have very limited access to start-up capital and other loans from formal banking institutions. prior to 2010, the financial intelligence centre act (fica) also prohibited refugees and asylum-seekers from opening bank accounts in south africa. that policy was later eased but among fica’s anti-money laundering provisions is a requirement for banks to verify the identity of persons wishing to open a bank account. banks are given wide discretion as to how they implement the requirements, with the result that many refuse to open bank accounts for refugees and asylum-seekers based on the fear that they will not be able to correctly validate refugee identity documents. in response to legal action, the dha and fica reached an agreement for the former to provide banks with means to verify the authenticity of refugee and asylum permits issued by the dha. in practice, opening a bank account remains a challenge for refugees and asylum-seekers, with banks remaining distrustful of the various types of documentation issued by home affairs, viewing it as less formal or secure than a south african national identity card. at those institutions where it is possible for a refugee to open a bank account, there have been instances of refugees and asylum-seekers having their assets frozen when identity documents have not been renewed on time, when identity documents change, or when the dha has failed to respond to verification enquiries in a timely manner. service providers report that ongoing challenges around the banking sector present a very real risk to families struggling to meet basic survival needs. a frozen bank account raises grave protection concerns, threatening the ability to pay rent, buy food, care for children and even cover costs for long distance travel for the benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa 762 purposes of renewing status documentation (washinyira, 2012). the end result, noted by several interviewees, is that in the townships and informal settlements where many refugees own and operate their businesses, shops and homes offer a ready target for criminals who are well aware that cash is likely stored on the premises. this dynamic puts refugee families and livelihoods at risk not only of loss of profits and other assets, but also of violence and trauma when break-ins and robberies occur. informal sector policy and practice as noted in the introduction to the paper, due to the lack of formal job opportunities, international migrants have little choice but to work in the informal sector, suggesting that informal sector policy and practice shapes livelihood opportunities. this section critically analyses this policy arena in the post-apartheid period at national and provincial level and in the three largest metropoles. the apartheid state was particularly averse to informal sector activities. lund (1998: 6) reminds us that apartheid policies controlled where black south africans could live, what they could own and, through job reservation policies, what work they could do. black south africans were forbidden by law from engaging in manufacturing businesses and access to business premises was strictly regulated to prevent them from operating businesses in ‘white’ areas (manning & mashigo, 1994). in the mid-1980s, influx control laws became increasingly unenforceable and were abolished in 1986. in 1987, the national white paper on privatisation and deregulation introduced a more tolerant approach to black small business as part of a broader new economic philosophy informed by the reagan-thatcher era of deregulation. the change of attitude culminated in the businesses act 71 of 1991 (which repealed numerous restrictive laws and secured a more liberal approach to business licensing, premises and hours for both formal and informal businesses). this legislation was a key measure for removing barriers to the operation of informal activities and was, in effect, a complete reversal of the apartheid approach. this piece of legislation is still in place today. jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 763 subsequent to the passing of the act, informal-sector activities increased in all cities and towns. local authorities, however, complained that they were unable to cope, particularly with trading in public spaces. this led in 1993 to the businesses amendment act 186 of 1993 (rsa, 1993). the act gave provinces the discretion to develop their own legislation and allowed local authorities to formulate street-trading bylaws, outline what was allowed and declare restricted and prohibited trade zones. since then, local authorities across the country have promulgated such bylaws, evidently near mirrorimages of each other. in all of the major metropoles, for example, the sanction in the case of violation was inappropriately criminalised – either a fine or imprisonment, suggesting a punitive approach to street-trader management. at a national level, the 1995 white paper on the development and promotion of small businesses was one of the first economic policy initiatives of the postapartheid government. the white paper and the legislation that stemmed from it – the national small business act of 1996 – both acknowledge survivalist and micro-enterprises as components of small business, thus making them, on paper, beneficiaries of government support. however, both documents are silent on the specific needs of these smaller players, suggesting the role played by this group in the small business/informal sector was not seen as a critical issue. neither refer to foreign migrants or refugees. to implement this new approach the department of trade and industry (dti) set up the ntsika enterprise promotion agency as a facilitation and promotion body for small businesses and khula finance to secure small-business access to financial services. they supported the establishment of a country-wide network of local business development centres (lbdcs) to provide nonfinancial support to smmes. in 2004, a comprehensive review of the impact of the post-apartheid government’s small, medium and micro enterprise (smme) programmes concluded that “existing government smme programmes largely have been biased towards the groups of small and medium-sized enterprises and to a large extent have by-passed micro-enterprises and the informal economy” (rogerson 2004: 765). devey et al. (2003; 2008) evaluated the national-government skills-development system, concluding similarly that those working in the informal-sector had “fallen into the gap” between small businesses and the unemployed. these findings were echoed in budlender et benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa 764 al.’s (2004) informal sector budget analysis and confirmed by survey data conducted with informal sector operators in johannesburg and durban (chandra & rajaratnam, 2001; skinner, 2005). in 2003, president mbeki publicly advocated for the idea of the ‘second economy’ in an address to the national council of provinces. mbeki’s (2003) second economy was characterised by “underdevelopment, contributes little to gdp, contains a large percentage of our population, incorporates the poorest of our rural and urban poor, is structurally disconnected from both the first and the global economy, and is incapable of self-generated growth and development.” according to mbeki (2003), cabinet had resolved that the development of the second economy required “the infusion of capital and other resources by the democratic state to ensure the integration of this economy within the developed sector.” this would be achieved in a number of ways, including the development of smmes and cooperatives, the expansion of micro-credit and skills development. although the concept was not new, its application to south africa was a watershed moment for national informal sector policy. for the first time since the end of apartheid, the informal sector was given a policy profile. the whole idea of the second economy elicited a flurry of criticism (devey et al., 2006; du toit and neves, 2007). according to devey et al. (2006: 242), second economy arguments were based on the premise that “the mainstream of the economy is working rather well, and government action is needed to enhance the linkages between the first and second economy and where appropriate to provide relief, such as public works programmes, to those locked into the informal economy.” while the critics pointed to the conceptual flaw of seeing the formal and informal as structurally disconnected, subsequent policy pronouncements suggested that the informal sector should be eradicated altogether. for example, the next major statement on economic policy imperatives, the accelerated shared growth initiative of south africa (or asgisa), called for the “elimination” of the second economy (rsa, 2006: 11). in 2008, the presidency initiated the second economy strategy project which proposed the progressive incorporation of the second into the first economy (philip, 2009; philip & hassen, 2008). the final strategic framework and headline strategies jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 765 were approved by cabinet in january 2009 (after mbeki’s recall as president by the anc). while the community works programme (cwp) was implemented, the rest of these headline strategies were not translated into the activities at national, provincial and local government levels. since 2012, increasing attention has been paid to the informal sector at national level – although in somewhat haphazard and uncoordinated fashion. different initiatives represent simultaneous neglect, support and suppression. the national development plan (ndp), for example, assigns a large role to small businesses in its employment scenarios and plans. the ndp’s ideal scenario projects that 11 million jobs will be created by 2030, suggesting that 90% of these new jobs will be created by small and growing enterprises. depending on the scenario, the plan projects that the informal sector (and domestic work) will create 1.2 million to 2.1 million jobs (npc, 2012: 121). however, the ndp chapter on the economy says nothing about strategies for the informal sector as such, or how existing operators in the informal sector will be supported, or how barriers to entry will be addressed to help generate new jobs. meanwhile, also in 2012, the dti established a new directorate for informal business and chamber support. rogerson (2016a: 175) notes that this was an initial recognition by the department of the role of the informal sector in broadening economic participation. by november 2012, the directorate had established a reference group charged with developing a national informal business development strategic framework. under the guidance of the reference group, the dti staff conducted consultations with stakeholders in the informal sector, formal business and local government officials over a few months, reporting back to the reference group in february 2013. this would lead to the launch of the national informal business upliftment strategy (nibus) in 2014. in the same period, unbeknown to the reference group, another section of the dti was working on new legislation to replace the businesses amendment act of 1993. in march 2013, the dti released the draft business licensing bill (dti, 2013). the draft bill’s stated aim was “to provide for a simple and enabling framework for procedures for application of business licences by setting benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa 766 norms and standards [providing] a framework for co-operative governance” (dti, 2013: 5). the dti minister, rob davies, publicly claimed that the bill was put in place to deal with illegal traders and semi-illegal practices in south africa, citing illegal imports, sub-standard goods, counterfeit goods and drug and illegal liquor trading. in fact, such issues are already adequately dealt with through other laws like the customs and excise act of 1964, the foodstuffs, cosmetics, and disinfectants act of 1972, the counterfeit goods act of 1997, the drug and drug trafficking act of 1992 and a draft of provincial level legislation aimed at regulating (through the issuing of licences) informal liquor outlets or shebeens. the draft bill specified that anyone involved in business activities – no matter how small – would need a licence. foreign migrants would only be licensed if they had business permits (which, according to the 2002 immigration act, have to be applied for in the country of origin and are only granted if the applicant can demonstrate having zar 2.5 million to invest in south africa). the bill suggested wide ranging discretionary powers be given to both the licensing authority and inspectors, far greater than those granted by the 1993 business amendment act. section 5.1a of that act mandates an upper limit on fines of zar 1,000 or imprisonment not exceeding three months. the draft bill proposed no upper limits on the fines charged; those found guilty of contravening the act could be imprisoned for up to ten years. the draft bill elicited a flurry of criticism, with many organisations pointing out that the proposals were largely punitive and would result in large-scale criminalising of the informal sector. a submission from streetnet international, on behalf of street trader organisations from all nine provinces, was particularly vociferous: what the [1991] businesses act added to the new south africa was a developmental approach […] instead of the old abolitionist approach which characterised the apartheid era. we believe that the repeal of the businesses act and replacement with this bill […] would take us back to the era of forced removals (horn, 2013: 2). jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 767 tensions between foreign and south african informal sector operators have characterised the informal sector since the mid-1990s (peberdy & rogerson, 2002). in trying to understand the motivation behind the draft bill, analysts pointed to an upsurge of anti-foreign sentiment not only in the informal sector itself but now from within government. crush and ramachandran (2015: 49) cite the following examples: a senior official in the department of home affairs […] is reported to have informed south african mps that “if you go to alexandra, you go to sunnyside, you go everywhere, spaza shops, hair salons, everything has been taken over by foreign nationals […] they displace south africans by making them not competitive.” at an official meeting, then national police commissioner bheki cele characterized immigrants and refugees as “people who jump borders,” were flooding into the country and destroying the livelihoods of south african informal traders. he continued: “our people have been economically displaced. all these spaza shops [in the townships] are not run by locals […] one day our people will revolt, and we’ve appealed to the department of trade and industry to do something about it. the onerous conditions imposed on foreign migrants for accessing a licence contained in the bill would mean that few migrant informal operators would qualify and would therefore be criminalised. indeed, it has been argued that the bill was introduced to regulate foreign migrants in the interests of their south african counterparts (crush et al., 2015: 15-17). according to rogerson (personal communication), by may 2013, dti officials conceded the bill was ‘too blunt’ and in need of re-drafting. at the time of writing (april 2017), no revised draft has been gazetted. in part stemming from the work of the informal-business reference group, the dti released the national informal business upliftment strategy (nibus) in early 2014 (rogerson, 2016a). this is the first post-apartheid and nationallycoordinated policy approach to the informal sector. nibus has two key delivery arms – the shared economic infrastructure facility (seif) and the informal business upliftment facility (ibuf) – tackling infrastructure and skills deficits respectively. seif provides funding for new infrastructure and upgrading or maintaining existing infrastructure shared by informal benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa 768 businesses. up to zar 2-million financing is available to municipalities on a 50:50 cost-sharing grant basis. ibuf focuses on skills development, promotional material, product improvement, technology support, equipment and help with registration. part of the ibuf pilot involved training 1,000 informal traders in a partnership with the wholesale and retail sector education and training authority. this was the first time that the dti had explicitly focused on the informal sector through a strategy to tackle two critical needs, infrastructure and skills development. the policy approach was also characterised by implicit and explicit anti-migrant sentiment. it identifies a supposed “foreign trader challenge” in the informal sector, noting that “there is evidence of violence and unhappiness of local communities with regard to the takeover of local business by foreign nationals” [our emphasis] (dti, 2014: 10, 22). there are numerous suggestions to strengthen specifically south african informal sector businesses. the proposed solution to reduce the “xenophobia associated with foreign national traders” is to “influence the type of businesses that foreign nationals should run and the demarcated areas where these businesses should be active” (dti, 2014: 57). nibus cites the precedent of the ghana investment promotion centre act, which has reserved the sale of any goods in a market, petty trading and hawking, and the operation of metered taxis, car hire services, beauty salons and barber shops to nationals only, as well as india and malaysia’s restrictions on foreign economic participation (dti, 2014: 22-3). much critical reference is made to the policies of the dha with the dti noting incorrectly there are “no regulatory restrictions in controlling the influx of foreigners” (dti, 2014: 22). rogerson (2016a: 184) concludes that “nibus is a pro-development approach for south african informal entrepreneurs which is allied to an anti-developmental agenda towards migrant entrepreneurs.” anti-foreign sentiment reinforces a generally punitive approach to the informal sector that focuses on regulation and control. the november 2015 report of the ad hoc parliamentary committee investigating the 2015 xenophobic attacks on migrants and refugees working in the informal sector, recommended the regulation of their township businesses. the report states, for example, that municipal governments should improve systems for jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 769 providing and monitoring business permits, noting a “tendency of issuing too many licenses” to businesses operating out of residential dwellings, many of which do not comply with municipal by-laws (parliament of south africa, 2015: 38-39). there are also reports that disarray around licensing creates a situation where refugee business owners are applying for licences they do not need and paying fines for violating licences they are not required to have. this punitive approach runs counter to good practice in management and support of the informal economy both in south africa and globally (chen, 2012). ironically, increased regulation of township business would be destructive for south african and migrant informal operators alike. the focus on curtailing migrant entrepreneurship diverts attention from what crush and ramachandran (2015: 53) identify as “the real, urgent need to support and enhance opportunities for all small entrepreneurs.” provinces are also mandated to play a role in regulating and supporting the informal sector, but have been slow in addressing the issue. while the 1993 amendment to the businesses act empowered provinces to develop dedicated provincial business acts, to date no provinces have done that. for example, in kwazulu-natal (kzn) an informal economy policy process was initiated in 2003. this resulted, after an eight-year process – in the kzn informal economy policy of 2011 – but it still has not been developed into a white paper, the precursor to new legislation. such foot dragging suggests that it is not a priority. in other provinces, reference is made to the informal sector in local economic development strategies (as in limpopo) as well as township development strategies. the western cape promulgated its first dedicated informal sector framework (western cape province, 2014) and gauteng recently released the gauteng informal business development strategy (gauteng province, 2015). both focus on aligning the relevant departments’ work with nibus. all of the documents echo the need for financial and nonfinancial support to informal businesses (especially through small-business development centres), supporting informal trading in townships, improved access to business-related infrastructure facilities and reviewing regulations and bylaws to support the informal business sector (gauteng province, 2015: 47-59). on paper, all of these recommendations seem to be uncontroversial and important steps forward. benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa 770 however, a clear anti-foreign sentiment is also reflected at provincial level. the gauteng strategy, for example, states: the existing competition for trading permits among local and foreign nationals is evident. unfortunately, there are no regulatory restrictions in controlling the influx of foreign nationals. the departments of trade and industry and home affairs should assist the province in devising strategies and policies to control foreign business activities (gauteng province, 2015: 45). similar sentiments are expressed in the western cape document (western cape province, 2014: 46). in kzn, the provincial government’s thrust has been to form and fund the kzn provincial association of traders, and fund traders’ training academies in various districts. the purpose of this initiative, as outlined at its launch, is to “bring back our general dealer stores that used to be seen in our townships and villages” adding that these “stores […] have been sold to foreign nationals” (news 24, 2015). statements like this suggest that the provincial government aims to ‘level the playing field,’ favouring south africans over migrant and refugee operators. the provincial government in limpopo province has perhaps the most overtly hostile approach to migrants and refugees working in the informal sector. in 2012, it launched operation hardstick, an aggressive military-style campaign that targeted small informal businesses run by migrants and refugees. the somali association of south africa supported by lawyers for human rights contested the action in the courts. court documents show that despite being labelled a crime-fighting initiative, operation hardstick was selectively enforced, affecting only migrant entrepreneurs and not south african businesses in the same locations. police shuttered over 600 businesses, detained owners, confiscated stock, imposed fines for trading without permits and verbally abused the owners. affected business owners were informed that “foreigners” were not allowed to operate in south africa, that their asylumseeker and refugee permits did not entitle them to run a business and that they should leave the area. thirty displaced migrants from ethiopia were forced to jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 771 flee when the house they had taken refuge in was fire-bombed (supreme court, 2014). the court noted that police actions “tell a story of the most naked form of xenophobic discrimination and of the utter desperation experienced by the victims of that discrimination” (supreme court, 2014:6-7). the judgment observed that “one is left with the uneasy feeling that the stance adopted by the authorities in relation to the licensing of spaza shops and tuck-shops was in order to induce foreign nationals who were destitute to leave our shores” (supreme court, 2014:25). the court ruled in favour the somali association and effectively established the right to self-employment for all asylum-seekers and refugees. opposing the appeal were all three tiers of government – national, provincial and municipal – including the limpopo member of the executive council (mec) for safety, security and liaison; the provincial commissioner of police; the national police commissioner; the standing committee on refugee affairs; the ministers of police, labour and home affairs; and two municipalities. at local government level, there is a preoccupation with the most visible element of the informal sector – street vendors – who operate in public spaces over which there are often competing interests. however, a scan of policy statements on street trading or the informal sector shows that, on paper, the positive contribution of the informal sector is often recognised. for example, in its street trading policy, the city of johannesburg (2009: 3) states that “informal trading is a positive development in the micro business sector as it contributes to the creation of jobs and alleviation of poverty and has the potential to expand further the city’s economic base.” the city of cape town’s (2013: 8) policy advocates a “thriving informal trading sector that is valued and integrated into the economic life, urban landscape and social activities within the city of cape town.” the ethekwini informal economy policy (2001:1) states that the “informal economy makes an important contribution to the economic and social life of durban.” despite the positive rhetoric, city-level actions reveal an ambivalent, if not actively hostile, approach to street traders. wafer (2011) provides details of the aggressive approach to street trading in johannesburg over the postbenign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa 772 apartheid period. in late 2013, this culminated in a draconian action when the johannesburg city council violently removed and confiscated the inventory of about 6,000 inner-city street traders, many of them migrants (zack, 2015; rogerson, 2016a; rogerson 2016b). a group of traders took the city to court and the constitutional court ruled in their favour. acting chief justice moseneke stated that operation clean sweep was an act of “humiliation and degradation” and that the city’s attitude “may well border on the cynical” (constitutional court, 2014). street traders have returned to the streets but in more limited numbers with the city declaring large innercity areas to be restricted and prohibited trade zones. an analysis of cape town’s approach to street traders indicates systematic exclusion in the inner-city, exemplified by the allocation of only 410 streettrading bays in the whole inner city (bukasa, 2014). township trading is characterised by long-term neglect. zulu (2016) shows that in khayelitsha, the city council had invested very little in infrastructure for street traders and had devolved the management of street trading to a small group of traders, with negative consequences for many. crush et al. (2015: 15) argue that, although the policy environment in cape town varies across parts of the city and between segments of the informal economy, “the modernist vision of a ‘worldclass city’ with its associated antipathy to informality dominates, and informal space and activity is pathologized.” foreign migrants face an additional set of challenges. in an interview for this study, the cape town department of economic development claimed that “the city, in terms of its policy around trading, doesn’t differentiate and we don’t discriminate. there’s set criteria in terms of who qualifies (for a trading bay and permit) and how that person qualifies. we don’t look at what nationality the person is.” but, as the interviewed official admitted, the city is forced to discriminate in practice because refugees have to produce documentation that south africans do not. in particular, the renewal of asylum and refugee permits is extremely unpredictable (in terms of wait times and length granted) and became much more difficult once the dha declared that renewal had to be effected at the office of application, which could be thousands of kilometres away in johannesburg or even musina. one common way around this jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 773 challenge is for south africans to obtain the permit and then rent the space to refugees at a profit. gastrow and amit (2015) detail the regulation of somali-owned spaza shops in cape town townships and show how mediation efforts led by the police and non-governmental organisations have culminated in agreements prohibiting the opening of new somali shops in certain areas. they outline various formal regulatory attempts to control and curtail the operations of somali businesses including fines, drafting new by-laws, issuing policy statements about foreign shops and proposing laws tightening the regulation of the spaza market (gastrow & amit 2015). they also note that both formal and informal measures skirt the law, are applied in a discriminatory manner and stifle free competition. the city thus appears to be protecting the interests of south african spaza shop owners over their foreign counterparts. with respect to the informal sector more generally, the modernist vision of the ‘world-class city’ with its associated antipathy towards informality and the pathologising of informal space and activity, predominates. durban was once hailed for its relatively liberal stance on the informal sector (lund & skinner, 2004; dobson & skinner, 2009). a progressive informal sector policy was unanimously accepted by the city council in 2001 and remains official policy today. the council’s actions reflect a more ambivalent approach, however. for example, a council-approved shopping mall development at the inner-city warwick junction transport node threatened 6,000 traders operating there, and was only halted by a legal challenge (skinner, 2010). in 2013, traders in both the inner city and outlying areas identified harassment by the police as their key business challenge (dube et al., 2013). in 2015, traders won a legal case challenging the constitutionality of confiscating their goods, forcing the city to redraft the street trader by-laws. again, court action proved to be the only way to secure relief. conclusion distinct from many other refugee receiving countries, south africa’s rightsbased refugee legislation has historically allowed for refugees and asylumseekers to access a broad array of rights from health services to education and employment. south africa has never hosted a dedicated refugee camp or benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa 774 detention centre. in this environment, refugees and asylum-seekers have independently found their way into south africa’s social and economic fabric, sending their children to south african schools, finding employment in south african businesses and households and establishing their own formal and informal businesses. the 2017 amendment act and white paper are clear evidence of a new and less generous policy direction which is intended to shrink asylum space and further constrain the rights and protections afforded to refugees and asylum-seekers. cumulatively, the changes documented in this paper illustrate a significant shift in south africa’s long held policy for the local integration of refugee populations. by removing the right to work and confining asylum-seekers to detention centres, it is assumed that the practice of asylum-seeking by economic migrants will cease. this, of course, completely ignores evidence of the positive economic contribution of refugees and asylum-seekers who, under existing law, are permitted to pursue economic livelihoods. the ongoing move away from a rights-based approach to refugee protection is seen most clearly in the 2017 refugees amendment act and the proposals in the 2017 white paper on international migration. international trends which increasingly stress the positive development impacts of refugee populations are being completed ignored (unhcr, 2014; world bank, 2016). rather, the emphasis is on the ‘exceptionalism’ of forced migrants and the need to craft a coercive, non-developmental approach to dealing with refugees. this represents a profound shift in the country’s approach to refugee rights, protections and associated international obligations, moving away from an integration approach towards a containment approach. while the new approach may appear to be a local response to intemperate local demands, it is part of a more global trend which seeks to inhibit access to the physical territory and refugee protection systems of those countries by erecting physical, economic and social barriers (mountz, 2013; mountz et al., 2013). if the proposed south african refugee policy is ever operationalised in the face of the inevitable court and constitutional challenges, it may deter non-refugee migrants from further afield, but it is unlikely to act as a deterrent to economic migrants from neighbouring jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 775 countries. they will simply find other ways to come, live and work in south africa, a fact which seems to be acknowledged in the white paper’s proposals to make sadc-specific work, traders’ and micro-enterprise permits available to migrants. while there may be a belief that detention centres will reduce the flow of genuine asylum-seekers to south africa, there remains a whole set of unanswered questions about whether there will be new policies that directly affect those who have refugee status. here the white paper is almost silent, although it does assert that under the existing system refugees are allowed to apply for permanent residence “even though their status is inherently temporary.” the amendment act extends the period of qualification to 10 years while the white paper recommends abolishing this right altogether. there is no indication of whether those with refugee status will be denied the right to work, to self-employment, to freedom of movement and to access health and educational services. on the other hand, they will not be given any additional resources and will be expected to pursue their own livelihoods, as at present. to understand the challenges and obstacles that refugees face in securing these livelihoods, it is important to examine the policy and regulatory environment within which those in the informal sector try to survive. refugees and asylum-seekers confront a formidable set of challenges in operating their informal enterprises in south african cities (crush et al., 2015). at best tolerated, and at worst hounded out of communities by xenophobic mobs and violent entrepreneurship, south africa is certainly not a safe haven for those fleeing violence and persecution at home. however, as this paper argues, xenophobic violence and police inaction are certainly not the only difficulties they face. south african city managers oscillate between benign neglect and active destruction of the vibrant and economically-productive informal sector. migrants and refugees who operate informal enterprises have been the main targets in a series of national, provincial and local-level “operations” designed to inhibit or eradicate their businesses from urban space. thus, there is a fundamental contradiction between a refugee protection policy that demands benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa 776 self-reliance from refugees and informal sector policies that undermine selfreliance at every turn. a comparison of the 2015 draft refugees amendment bill and the final 2016 act suggests that the petitions and representations of human rights groups and refugee and migrant associations had little or no impact in softening the legislation, so litigation in the courts is the most likely way to roll back these draconian provisions. the courts have clearly played an increasingly important role in securing the livelihoods of informal sector operators in general, and migrant entrepreneurs in particular, in post-apartheid south africa. litigation has been one of the key sources of support to migrant entrepreneurs, highlighting the core contradiction between the rights enshrined in the south african constitution and south africa’s relatively progressive refugee protection regime, on the one hand, and the policies and actions of key government departments and officials, on the other. protecting unalienable rights relies on a cohort of legal human rights non-governmental organisations prioritising migrant livelihood rights and being willing and able to pursue time-consuming and costly litigation on their behalf. acknowledgements we wish to thank the unhcr geneva for funding the refugee economic impacts samp research project. our thanks also go to vanya gastrow and sujata ramachandran for their assistance. references amit, r. 2011. no refuge: flawed status determination and the failures of south africa’s refugee system to provide protection. international journal of refugee law, 23: 458-488. amit. r. 2012. no way in: barriers to access, service and administrative justice at south africa’s refugee reception offices. acms report, johannesburg: acms. amit, r. 2015. queue here for corruption: measuring irregularities in south africa’s asylum system. report by lawyers for human rights and african centre for migration and society. johannesburg: lhr and acms. jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 777 budlender, d., skinner c. and valodia, i. 2004. budgets and the informal economy: an analysis of the impact of the budget on informal workers in south africa. school of development studies research report, durban: university of kwazulu-natal. bukasa, a. 2014. securing sustainable livelihoods: a critical assessment of the city of cape town’s approach to inner city street trading. ma thesis, university of cape town, cape town. carciotto, s. 2016. angolan refugees in south africa: alternatives to permanent repatriation? 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(eds.). mean streets: migration, xenophobia and informality in south africa. ottawa: idrc. zulu, t. 2015. interchange for the informal market? an investigation of the nature of the nolungile station upgrades in khayelitsha, cape town and their implications for informal traders. ma thesis, university of cape town. 100 the migration-development nexus in somaliland: critical voices from the somali diaspora monica fagioli-ndlovu abstract international development agencies have recently started to mobilise the somali diaspora for state-building programmes. somali diaspora experts and government officials are critical of state-building programmes run by un agencies. by relaying critical voices from somali diaspora experts involved in state-building programmes in somaliland, this article looks at the emergence of the idea of migration for development. after reviewing recent critical works by transnational migration scholars, this article also draws on the work of african diaspora scholars. the latter have critiqued the mobilisation of the african diaspora as a way to serve only the millenium development’s goals, yet failing to empower the african state (clark, 2010; zeleza, 2010). the article discusses how somali diaspora experts are mobilised by international organisations in development and state-building programmes in somaliland, and yet excluded from decisionmaking processes involved in those programmes. despite the exclusion of somali government officials and diaspora experts from the design of programmes run by un agencies, the somali diaspora and some local officials have been particularly active in creating the economic and political foundations that have enabled a re-emergence of the state in somaliland and somalia. keywords: decision-making, diaspora expert, migrant, quests-mida. introduction since the beginning of the 2000s, the somali diaspora is increasingly described by international actors and scholars of development as a potential instrument of “institution-building,” “peace-keeping,” “postconflict reconstruction,” and “economic development” (gundel, 2002; sorensen-nyberg, 2004; lindley, 2009).  researcher, the new school, new york. 101 although numbers are not certain, the united nation development programme (undp) reported that there are over one million somalis living in diaspora (undp, 2009), constituting about 14 percent of the overall somali population. the largest diasporic population resides in the horn of africa and yemen, followed by the gulf states, western europe, and north america. more recently, malaysia and australia have also become increasingly popular destinations for this diaspora. somalis living outside somalia have been described as an “active element in the equation of state-building and the restructuring of the political system” in somaliland (undp, 2009). to confirm this, in 2011-2012, ten out of twenty-nine of somaliland’s government ministers were returnees from the diaspora, many of whom have dual citizenship and continue to maintain transnational connections or even live in two countries. similar patterns have long been noted in puntland and are becoming increasingly apparent within the government in mogadishu. the somali diaspora has also been particularly involved in development and service delivery, as well as in the creation of business networks with neighbouring countries and the gulf countries. international development reports stress that the main contributions of the diaspora in somalia are remittances and financial resources. in fact, as much as 80 percent of total investments funding new small and medium sized enterprises within the country come from the diaspora (undp, 2009). it is therefore important to understand the key role played by diasporic somalis, together with local somalis, in relation to the ongoing processes of state-building and national development in somalia. recently, somali diaspora experts have been recruited by international development agencies, such as undp and the international organization for migration (iom) to participate in capacity-building programmes within state institutions in somaliland (a self-declared independent state, not recognised by the un, since 1991, in the northwestern region of former somalia), puntland (a federal state since 1998, in the north east region of former somalia), and south somalia. this article presents some interviews with somali diaspora experts who participated in a programme called migration for development in africa (mida) in hargeysa, somaliland. the programme is managed by iom across different african states and supports different development programmes sponsoring the direct involvement of the african diaspora in their home country. in somalia, iom deployed mida in partnerships with different other international organisations, local and foreign governments and 102 diaspora associations. in partnership with undp, iom developed a programme called qualified expatriate somali technical support (quests)-mida1, designed to employ experts with a somali background to support capacity-building programmes in somali institutions. over the last twenty years, policy analyses and reports have featured and identified migration and diaspora populations as a seemingly unlimited resource for national development. this enthusiasm about the beneficial impact of migration for development policies, which has been ongoing since the 1990s, has been put into perspective and critically examined by scholars of transnational migration, human geography and the african diaspora. this article follows anthropologist and african diaspora scholar kamari clarke’s suggestion to understand new forms of exclusion in the african world that are embedded in the current humanitarian mobilisation of the african diaspora in development projects. it presents some critical voices of somali diaspora experts recruited by questsmida and discusses how they were mobilised by international organisations, but excluded from political and decision-making processes. despite being excluded from the design of programmes run by un agencies, the somali diaspora and some local officials have been particularly active in creating the economic and political foundations that have enabled a re-emergence of the state in somaliland. the ultimate migration-development nexus and its recent criticisms this interest in the somali diaspora is part of a current, dominant view in international development policy that sees migrants and diaspora as agents of and contributors to development. yet, it is only recently that migration and diaspora have been perceived as resources for national development in migrants’ countries of origin. according to some analyses, a shift in international development policy can be traced to the early 1990s with the ascensio report that identified migrants as a resource for creating national development in their home countries, and marked a critical turning point in the discursive field of international migration policy (nyberg-sorensen et al., 2002). more recently, scholarly works have historicized the relation between development and migration in three different phases since the 1950s and 1960s, and consider the shift that occurred in the 1990s as not really representing a new interest. 1 see the programme official website at www.quests-mida.org 103 according to these scholars, the ongoing re-emergence of the migrationdevelopment nexus is the third re-articulation of similar policy discourses of the past (gamlen, 2014; faist, kivisto & fauser, 2011). the idea that migration had a positive impact on development first emerged with modernist theories in the 1950s and1960s. after the economic crisis and contestations in the 1970s, dependency theories criticised modernist theories and their optimistic view of migration for development. in the 1990s, thanks to neoclassical economic theories, the perception of migration as a resource for development circulated with renewed enthusiasm. more recently, this enthusiasm has encountered the cautionary skepticism and critiques of transnational migration, international development and human geography scholars. studying the implications of the migration-development nexus, some scholars have looked into the history of the analytical concepts of migration and development as two separate categories. each category has its complex trajectory and, precisely because of the many theories and approaches within the history of each concept, they come to the conclusion that “there are several reasons why international migration will not automatically lead to development” (van naerssen, spaan & zoomers, 2008:2). in other words, the problem with the nexus between migration and development is precisely the way in which the nexus is taken for granted, instead of being analysed as a result of two distinct phenomena that have been drawn together only under specific historical conditions. similarly, scholars of transnational studies have approached the study of the migration-development nexus as a policy and theoretical construct, which reflects the paradigm shifts occurring in dominant development theories (faist, kivisto & fauser, 2011:5). unlike other critical analyses of the migration-development nexus, human geography scholars take for granted the link between human mobility and development since its first theorizations in the 19th century, estimating its impact in both pessimistic and optimistic terms. as gamlen (2014) writes: “there has long been agreement that development and migration are fundamentally linked, and these links have been important to geographers since the early days of the discipline. the idea that economic development drives emigration dates at least back to the 19th century geographer ernst ravenstein 104 (1885, 1889), and the relationship between migration and resource distribution was also salient to the political geography of his younger contemporary, friedrich ratzel (see glick schiller, 2009). geographers have thus been integral to debates about human mobility and development since their inception.” (gamlen, 2014:582) recently, the description of migration and diaspora as an opportunity for economic growth in home countries has grown into the first un high level dialogue on migration and development organised in 2006. the un high level dialogue brought about the creation of the global forum on migration and development (gfmd) with its first meeting in 2007 in brussels (piper, 2009:94). moreover, undp recently reinforced the view that migration can play a positive role in national development in the 2009 human development report (gamlen, 2010). in the last twenty years, the “migration-development nexus” has also been re-articulated in both policy papers (ghosh, 2006; nyberg-sorensen, 2004) and scholarly works (adepoju, van naersessen & zoomers, 2008; brinkerhoff, 2008; piper, 2009; castles & delgado wise, 2008; faist, kivisto & faurer 2011; bakewell, 2012). in contrast to the enthusiasm about the positive impact of migration on development expressed by the undp, the world bank and other international agencies, many scholars from different perspectives raise cautionary doubts or even radical criticism of migration-development policies, as well as their implications and impact. some scholars of transnational migration (glick schiller and faist, 2009) have criticised the belief held by many international agencies that consider migration a solution to problems of underdevelopment (undp, 2009). at the heart of some of these critiques is the accusation that international agencies, as well as scholars in migration studies who practice the migrationdevelopment “mantra”, have lost sight of the asymmetries in the discourse on migration and development that relegates nation-states in the global south to a marginal role. to address these asymmetries, nina glick schiller has proposed an alternative global framework of analysis that must exceed the “methodological nationalism” still prevalent in migration studies. this perspective, focused on the nation-state, neglects the study of particular localities in relation to ongoing processes of global restructuring of financial markets (glick schiller & faist, 2009). an alternative view based on “a global perspective on migration” instead 105 allows for an analysis that addresses the asymmetries and exposes the paradox inherently formulated in migration policies that perceive migrants as simultaneously agents of national development, and threats to nation-states’ frontiers (glick schiller & faist, 2009). other scholars of migration share a similar criticism of the migration-development nexus by bringing attention to the social issues within the debate (piper, 2009). they call for a more central role for migrants in this debate, extending beyond the dominant discussions in the field, which focus on the economic and structural impact of migrants’ participation in national development primarily as economic actors through their remittances. scholars of transnational migration also criticise the nexus because of its emphasis on development, a vague concept with implications of linear progress and growth. the valorization of development discourse serves to conceal the ongoing processes of border securitization and the restrictions of migrants’ mobility rights, dynamics that are not peripheral, but central to, the problem of migration and diaspora (glick schiller & faist, 2009). the term “transnational” appeared in migration studies at the beginning of the 1990s, and helped to see migration as a phenomenon not only resulting from economic and rational reasons (or the idea that migrants are all acting rationally according to the model of the homo economicus), but also as the simultaneous outcome of different factors, such as nationalism and racism. this approach allowed for the inclusion of both countries of origin and destination in the same analytical framework (isolato, 2009). although scholars who pioneered transnational migration studies intended to bypass “methodological nationalism” and to expose capitalist processes of restructuring labour resources globally (glick schiller et al., 1994; glick schiller, 2009; coutin, 2007), the transnational approach was also re-appropriated later to support “neoliberal political purposes” in support of the promotion of international development and security policies that prevent the mobility of many migrant workers (isolato, 2009). in other words, processes of developmentalization and securitization of migrants and refugees’ mobility are simultaneous and coeval. projects of national development, which focus on the participation of migrants in their home countries, are also meant to serve security concerns around national borders raised by destination countries (isolato, 2009). 106 more recently, studies on the migration-development nexus from a transnational perspective have raised further criticism by addressing the assumptions that characterised the last hype about the nexus. by placing the migration-development nexus against the backdrop of ongoing socioeconomic, cultural and political, structural transformations, they question the optimism surrounding the positive impact of remittances for development (faist, kivisto & faurer, 2011). in fact, there are no concluding research data about the efficacy of migrants’ remittances on origin countries. moreover, because migration cannot be proved to be the formula that can fix all problems of underdevelopment, social welfare and democratic governance, it follows that the basic assumption in policies that promote migration for development is simply unsubstantiated. human geographers have expressed similar pessimism about the latest optimistic migration-development “mantra” (kapoor, 2004; gamlen, 2014). their critiques challenge the nexus because it is not really new, because it is “driven by hidden political and economic agendas”, and because it is characterised by “simplifications and exaggerations” (gamlen, 2014:581). this article also questions the ongoing optimistic views that continue to sustain and deploy programmes such as quests-mida in somalia. indeed, the enthusiasm that international agencies and policy makers invest in the migration-development nexus often conceals other concerns about security of north european and north american national borders and about citizenship rights and integration in migrants’ host countries (faist, kivisto & faurer, 2011). most importantly, the migrationdevelopment nexus is often invoked by international policy actors as a solution to problems of underdevelopment in migrants’ sending countries, but never used to address problems of labour exploitation or the concerns of racial, social, and economic discrimination, that migrants and diaspora experience in host countries. interestingly, international agencies and ngos use the term ‘diaspora’ to refer to africans (including somalis) in the diaspora interchangeably with the term ‘migration’. in the literature that sees migration as a resource for development, the terms ‘diaspora’ and ‘migration’ often overlap and are used interchangeably. by keeping these two terms as separate expressions of diverse theoretical contributions, this article argues that to talk about diaspora instead of migration allows for critical understanding 107 of the implications of the migration-development nexus. in particular, by choosing to focus on the narratives of somali diaspora experts, this article intends to shift the ongoing scholarly criticism against the migrationdevelopment nexus to frame the problems observed in somalia from a different perspective. the aim of this article is to move beyond a criticism focused on the migration-development nexus, and to redirect the analysis to the relationship between the somali government and its emigrant population, drawing on an african diaspora perspective. the politics of african diaspora: mobilisation and exclusion african diaspora scholars have strongly emphasised the political difference between the terms african ‘migrants’ and ‘diaspora’. the concept of ‘african diaspora’2 pays homage to the important historical experiences of africans in the diaspora. these scholars attest that the concept of african diaspora works against the often impersonalized depiction of african migrants, allowing africans’ voices and experiences of slavery and economic migration to be more conspicuous and relevant. building on an african diaspora perspective, this article highlights the use of the term “african diaspora”, taking into account the historical dimensions of slavery, discrimination and racialization, which are invoked and implied in such a term. recently, african governments as well as african activists, ngos, ios, humanitarian associations and donors, are supporting the invocation of the african diaspora by formulating new claims or what clarke (2010:49) calls “new ontologies of diaspora”. these new claims diverge from black atlantic ontologies that were formulated around the centrality of slavery. state-building projects, such as the programme described below (quests-mida in somalia), also support the idea of african diaspora as a resource for national development. clarke defines these new claims to diaspora as “diasporic humanitarianism,” which serves as a tool for what she defines as “neoliberal governance.” by “diasporic humanitarianism,” clarke (2010:49) means to describe the emergence of new movements or 2 as brent hayes edwards observes, while many black artists and intellectuals have been practicing and discussing international links and relationships among people of african descent since the 19th century, it was only in the 1950s that the word diaspora began to emerge out “of the growing scholarly interest in the panafrican movement in particular, and in black internationalism in general” (edwards 2001:45; harris 2001). 108 collaborations (i.e. the darfurian diaspora and the save darfur movement) between “those of the global south with institutions of international power whose mission is tied to the protection of human rights, the eradication of poverty, and the related protection of victims”. working within this claim, clarke underlines the rhetorical and institutional power of diasporic humanitarianism, which also serves to recognise the historical parallels between the ways in which humanitarianism has been mobilised in the past, to end slavery, for instance, but which actually works to reproduce new forms of inequalities. for clarke (2010:49), these new claims of diaspora, which are cloaked in humanitarian terms and language, serve to conceal the problematic “workings of the nation-state and the politics of race and development”. diasporic humanitarianism is the result of a convergence of international institutions, new global nodes of economic interests, and trade regulations. the un promotes “capacity-building” programmes in africa (as well as in other parts of the global south) in partnerships with donors, policy makers and governments of the global north (i.e. the g8 state leaders). the digital diaspora networks in africa, the caribbean, and latin america, are examples of the un’s information and communication technologies programmes. its aim is to create connections between african professionals in the diaspora and african entrepreneurs as a means of addressing the issue of separation among refugee family members. clarke argues that while the use of the un’s language of humanitarianism actually mobilised african diasporic elites, these kinds of interventions propose only external solutions to african problems. clarke’s appeal to reconsider the history of the category of african diaspora helps to clarify the political aspirations, black political formations across atlantic linkages and beyond the nation-state, which the term diaspora has traditionally claimed. it also provides an argument to start unsettling the goals that the millennium development agenda3 sets through international agencies in africa and across the third world. her concern echoes some of the critiques of the millennium-development nexus voiced by transnational migration scholars glick schiller et al. (2009), piper (2009) and faist et al. (2011), international development 3the millennium development goals established by the un are eight. those are: to eradicate poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat hiv/aid, ensure environmental sustainability, and develop global partnership for development. 109 scholars bakewell (2008, 2012) and davies (2012) and other scholars of the african diaspora zeleza (2010) and davies (2007). however, scholars of transnationalism are not concerned about the effects of the mobilisation of the concept of african diaspora on development processes. their work is more concerned with defining and constructing “transnational migration” as a distinct analytical approach (levitt & khagram, 2008; levitt-jaworsky, 2007; vertovec, 2003; faist et al., 2011). in contrast, clarke’s argument is significant because it provides an analytical framework that connects the history of slavery, which placed racial exclusion at the foundation of the modern nation-state, to “contemporary exclusions in the african world” (clarke, 2010:51). by contemporary forms of exclusion, she also means to refer to the dynamics of “brokerage” of postcolonial african states, whose “decisions are brokered outside the country with international donors and institutions” and fail to protect the rights of african citizens (clarke, 2010:49). although clarke raises many important questions and concerns, she has not been exempted from criticism (zeleza, 2010; rahier, 2010). while summarising the debate sparked by clarke’s intervention is beyond the scope of this article, the discussion she prompted around the new appropriations and mobilisations of the african diaspora as a cultural, economic, social, and political category, highlights the importance of reinserting the historical problems of race and slavery into the ongoing discussions on migration, diaspora and development in africa. the contribution of historians and anthropologists to african diaspora is a critical reminder of the history of slavery in its present manifestations. these works offer a poignant political dimension to the idea of african diaspora, which, unfortunately, is so often missing in debates by policy makers and academic studies on the migration-development nexus. including such perspective is crucial precisely because it re-inscribes in contemporary processes of state and nation building africans’ experiences and accounts of exploitation, exclusion and racialization that are often erased or neglected in policy and academic discussions of governance and state-building in africa. somali diaspora experts are also excluded from decision-making processes in programmes of migration for development. somali ministries and government officials do not have the last say in how and when funding for these programmes can be disbursed, because undp has direct and exclusive liaison with international sponsors, such as the 110 european commission or representatives of european governments. state-building is brokered outside the government in somaliland and somalia, thanks to interventionist development policies that have characterised much of the development world across africa so far (bakewell, 2008). despite its rhetoric on participation and somali ownership of the process, quests-mida’s priorities of intervention are set by the undp and foreign donors. quests-mida and sidp quests-mida is a project created from the collaboration between undp and iom to develop governance skills in former somalia. it operates through agreements with the governments of somaliland, puntland and mogadishu in the south somalia region. the iom component of the project, mida4, is part of a larger reconfiguration of global migration policies, whereas quests was a former project of undp somalia. quests-mida priorities are designed by the somali institution development project (sidp), a programme within undp somalia, and in consultation with somali institutions. the institutions in which somali experts are to contribute with their skills and knowledge are selected according to undp’s pre-existing work of capacity-building. sidp was created in early 2009, was re-designed by mid-2011 and 2012, and is expected to end in 20155. the re-design of sipd, which included the project quests-mida, coincided with the time that the author was conducting research between hargeysa (somaliland), garowe (puntland) and nairobi (kenya)6. sidp’s task is about “supporting the [somali] government to better serve the somali people.” its priorities are to develop policy and legislative systems and processes, to develop human 4 mida is a programme that “aims to build partnerships between host countries and countries of origin of migrants, and encourage the return of african professionals on temporary assignments” (black 2006:10). 5 see the current official description of sidp on undp somalia’s official website at: http://www.so.undp.org/content/somalia/en/home/operations/projects/envir onment_and_energy/somali_institution_development_project.html 6 when doing research in nairobi, it was not easy to get hold of sidp’s managers, and after many unanswered emails, the author gave up. undp field officers, somali diaspora experts, civil servants and ministers of the somaliland and puntland governments were more available for interviews than undp officers and managers based in nairobi. 111 resources; to implement a public finance management (pfm) system and public accountability; and to develop physical infrastructure and operational support. before joining iom’s mida programme, undp had modeled quests after an earlier programme called transfer of knowledge through expatriate nationals (tokten), a programme to channel back home expertise acquired by migrants abroad, first implemented in turkey in 1977 and now run by the united nations volunteers (unv) programme7. in 2010, iom took over the implementation of quests-mida, while undp deals with the work of consultation with somali institutions and ministers to establish the priorities of the programmes, collect their needs, draft letters of agreement (loa), design a terms of reference (tor) matching the needs in the field, and paying salaries to the experts. iom deals with the logistics of the programme, the recruitment process in north america and europe, and takes care of local arrangements to support somali diaspora experts’ first day in the field and follows the participants’ daily activities with regular meetings every month. between april 2010 and july 2011, quests-mida recruited seventeen experts from the somali diaspora to work in hargeysa in several institutions. six more experts were to be recruited in the following months while the programme was being redesigned. according to undp and iom officers, the programme was about to be completed in 2012 or 2013 because there was no further funding. the programme was supposed to hire sixty somali diaspora experts, twenty in each somali region (puntland, somaliland, and south central). started in 2006 as quests, the programme was combined with the mida component in 20098. a thorough process of redesign of sidp began in 2011, after a new sidp manager was hired and the programme was still active. 7 an account of the official history of tokten can be found on the official website of tokten lebanon at: http://www.toktenlebanon.org/about/about.php. the programme was created by undp in 1977, and came under the umbrella of the united nations volunteers (unv) programme in 1994. a current official description of the programme is on unv’s website at: http://www.unv.org/en/what-we-do/countries/viet-nam/doc/tokten-channelsglobal-expertise.html 8 an official flyer written by iom and available online provides some basic facts about quests-mida (iom, march 2014). the programme was extended to december 2013 and it had three phases. in the first two phases forty-two experts http://www.toktenlebanon.org/about/about.php http://www.unv.org/en/what-we-do/countries/viet-nam/doc/tokten-channels-global-expertise.html http://www.unv.org/en/what-we-do/countries/viet-nam/doc/tokten-channels-global-expertise.html 112 critical voices from the somali diaspora quests-mida recruits somalis in the diaspora with the following profiles: professional experts in human resources management, public administration reform, ict policy development, tax law and revenue reform, counselling psychologist, educational planning, strategic planning, and natural resources environmentalists/engineers. the role of these experts is to work in collaboration with what undp and iom have identified as target institutions in somaliland, such as the ministries of planning, finance, family affairs, labour, and public works, the auditor and accountant general’s offices, as well as the central bank. in order to understand how knowledge, skills, ideas, assets, and practices about state-building are transferred from somali diaspora expatriates to people in institutions in somaliland, while staying in hargeysa the author conducted a 16 months fieldwork project between the us, uk, kenya and somaliland. between october and november 2011, and then again between march and may 2012, the author conducted participant observations and semi-structured interviews with eleven of the seventeen somali quests-mida experts that worked in somaliland9. this was possible thanks to a list of somali quests-mida experts obtained from iom field officers in hargeysa, and undp officers in nairobi. the city of nairobi in kenya not only hosts the undp headquarters (from which quests-mida is also administered), but also all the main headquarters and regional offices of international development agencies working in the horn of africa and east africa. hargeysa, the bureaucratic capital of somaliland, is a central hub where international development programmes, often planned in nairobi, are implemented. quests-mida primarily targets state institutions and the public sector in the city of hargeysa. were placed in the three somali regions (somaliland, puntland and south somalia). the third phase planned to place other 20 experts across the three regions. http://www.iom.int/files/live/sites/iom/files/country/docs/iom-somaliaquests-mida-qualified-expatriate-somalia-technical-support.pdf 9 the remaining six somali experts on that list had either terminated their one year contract with quests-mida, or were not available for an interview while the author was in hargeysa. 113 overall, the interviews with somali diaspora experts reveal a disparity between the design and actual enactment of the programme in which they were involved. in the field, they could not practically attend to all the tasks and prescribed duties as drafted in their work plans. after the first round of discussions with them, it was clear that in their daily routines they had encountered many unexpected challenges. in the following excerpts of interviews, four major themes of challenges emerge. first, they complained about lack of material resources. second, they questioned the very sustainability of the programme. third, they were surprised at the lack of capacity assessment of their hosting institutions. (undp is supposed to evaluate the institutional capacity of hosting institutions and assess their needs according to the suggestions of somali institution officials). lastly, and most importantly, they pointed out the intrinsic problem of the programme: quests-mida does not allow for somali diaspora experts and somali officials’ participation in decision-making processes. final decisions on how and when to intervene with capacitybuilding programmes depend on undp. all these challenges were largely unanticipated in their terms of reference, a document that described their job tasks and was prepared by undp in consultation with the hosting somali institution. a somali diaspora macroeconomics expert recruited from norway, hired to work at the ministry of planning and national development in hargeysa, described the gaps between the work he was supposed to do and the actual reality he faced after he started his job: “i was supposed to create a framework for the gdp in somaliland, but it was difficult because there are no data available in the country. so, i started with a review of the fiscal policy, but there is no central bank act in somaliland at the moment. what we have here is rather a treasury, and there is no monetary policy analysis available either. to estimate a gdp you need to find data about agriculture and livestock economy as well as other sectors of the economy, and once you have these data, you can know a country’s gdp’s in three or five years. … you can only create a gdp that is comparable with the world standards, but you need a lot more resources than just one person like me. 114 i looked at the united nations system of national accounts as a model, which was released by the un in 200810.” (interview, hargeysa, october 2011) the theme of scarce resources, either material or human resources, to conduct and implement their work tasks, reappeared in many interviews. many had to wait a few weeks, or months, for office space. a somali, who lived in sweden for twenty years, a training and curriculum development expert at the civil service institute in hargeysa, was frustrated about the lack of financial support from undp both to purchase necessary materials and to conduct the activities he planned: “there was no single book about curriculum development. undp could not support the cost of the material. in my reports, i asked for it, i need to buy books, i said. my problem was how to work with undp, because without the books i can’t develop anything. i have no budget to buy books, nor to visit other institutes in south africa (public management institute), turkey, or kenya ... we wrote the budget for these visits, but undp rejected it.” (hargeysa, interview, october 2011) a tax law and revenue expert, originally from mogadishu, who lived in the netherlands before taking on his one-year position at the ministry of finance in hargeysa, talks about similar challenges: “i do not have funds, i didn’t have a computer, nor a table, it was hard to get one when i started to work. i did not have an office either.” (hargeysa, interview, october 2011) on the same issue of the limited allocated budget for trainings and trainees, a somali with a background in electronic engineering and management from the us and uk, who worked for one year as a spectrum management consultant at the ministry of posts and telecommunication in hargeysa reported: 10 international standards for national accounting are defined by the united nations system of national accounts (usna). the most recent version was published in 2008 and the integral text is available online on un statistics official pages: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/nationalaccount/docs/sna2008.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/united_nations_system_of_national_accounts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/united_nations_system_of_national_accounts http://unstats.un.org/unsd/nationalaccount/docs/sna2008.pdf 115 “the challenge to work here was the lack of equipment (jamming and scamming equipment), but also the lack of funding to provide training to take the staff to kenya (where there is an independent committee to monitor the law enforcement process, the kenya communication commission). the funding was promised but iom didn’t fulfill their promises. otherwise, quests mida is a good programme, but there is nothing in place before you come, which i did not realise from my tor. that said, the idea of speaking to somali experts is good.” (hargeysa, interview october 2011) a few months later, when the author met him again after the completion of his work with quests-mida, he reiterated his point about the lack of support and resources needed to be able to attend to his planned tasks: “…the transfer of skills was not as successful as i wished it to be, it could have been better if we had equipment. i wrote a letter on behalf of the minister stating that we need equipment, like jamming and frequency scanning equipment, but undp said they didn’t have the budget for this. i didn’t have the tools to work here.” (hargeysa, interview april 2012) many of the somali diaspora experts and local representatives interviewed found that the programme’s one-year length was too short. one year was not enough to attend to all their tasks. a somali financial consultant from sweden, former lecturer in macroeconomics in tanzania, and consultant in the late 1990s with the ministry of finance and the central bank in somaliland, was hired as macroeconomics expert through quests-mida. in one of our interviews, he addressed the issues of “time” and “sustainability” of the programme: “i came back here with quests-mida. we report to iom. my contract ends in may. not sure if they are going to extend it, probably not. they might re-advertise the post. the problem here is the short time, and when you start, it is not enough. sustainability is important, and the redesign [of quests-mida within sidp] stopped many things. this 116 programme needs continuity, if you start something, you have to know where you are reaching, then you can redesign, otherwise you do not know what you redesign. this can create disturbance, lack of motivation. even if i am going to leave, but the programme continues, the person who might replace me should be meeting with us, and continue. this could be better than leaving and starting from zero again.” (hargeysa, interview, march 2012) a majority of somali diaspora experts described quests-mida as lacking continuity and sustainability and they were frustrated about the short timeframe to develop their work. because of a lack of material resources, they often started attending to their tasks only a few months after their arrival. this left very little time to accomplish their tasks in the remaining part of the year. things can take a long time, also because many of them needed time to settle in and become familiar with a new social and working environment after their european or north american experiences. many of them were not familiar with hargeysa, because their family connections were not from there, although they could still relate to the somali context. here a different notion of sustainability and continuity was at stake. the programme was not designed to fit the temporal expectations of somali diaspora experts and local institutions. another shared concern among somali diaspora experts and government officials was the frustrating experience of exclusion from decision-making processes. most of their criticism was directed at undp’s management. a somali from the us diaspora, who had a background on public administration and expertise on gender based violence programme planning with unhcr, was recruited by quests-mida as a gender technical advisor at the ministry of labour and social affairs (molsa): “the previous minister requested an expert for my position, the letter of agreement (loa) between the minister and undp was signed in a different political moment, and nobody went to the current minister now to ask if having an expert like me at molsa was also her priority. when i arrived here she just told me "you find something to do," so i looked at the national policy, and the mechanisms of its implementation, but there were none 117 of these mechanisms in place, so i created them, and a lot of donors came to fund this.” (hargeysa, interview, march 2012) by the time this us-based somali expert started working as a gender technical advisor at molsa in november 2010, the minister had changed. after somaliland’s election took place in june 2010, another minister was elected. the relationship between her and the new minister was challenging because, as she describes above, the minister was not involved in the decision-making process of the design and recruitment of an expert advisor on gender. her priority could have been different, but undp having committed to a previous agreement, proceeded in its programme, leaving the somali expert to work on her own in a hostile environment. when the author returned to hargeysa (march–may, 2012), during follow-up interviews and conversations with some of the same somali diaspora experts met a few months earlier, interviewees would often comment on the redesign of quests-mida and sidp. generally the redesign was described as an imposed and disruptive process that did not leave much room for participation, but created a difficult situation and a feeling of uncertainty and impotence among somali government officials, diaspora experts, and public servant trainees alike. many of those diaspora experts hired by undp to work at the ministry of planning and national development in hargeysa were either upset or worried about their situation. they felt as if they were living in limbo, while the programme was re-designed in nairobi. during the re-design of sidp programmes, which included quests-mida, undp suddenly cut their salaries without consulting them on how the re-design could be approached. it was clear from the interviews that the diaspora expatriates were excluded from decision-making processes which were exclusively led by undp. moreover, quests-mida does not have a long-term and comprehensive vision beyond the two or three year budget plans allocated for institution building under sidp. the current minister of planning describes undp officers as those who are only giving instructions and neglect the importance of consulting and listening to the needs of those in charge of somaliland’s institutions11. a somali diaspora 11 interview, hargeysa, april 2012. 118 expert pointed out that undp officers often interact with somali ministers, acting like donors and giving them instructions on how to proceed. they are simple intermediaries or implementing agencies that act on behalf of donors. some somali experts complained that most of the decision-making process happens in nairobi, or in new york city. in somaliland, experts recruited from the somali diaspora are supposed to bring knowledge and transfer technical skills, but donors and development agencies do not consider those skills and knowledge to be part of the political process. yet, this process of reconfiguration of state institutions is also obviously political. international agencies are uniquely concerned with designing programmes that are described as a technical transfer of governance skills. however, in the process of designing capacity-building programmes, setting priorities and creating new civil servants, international agencies, such as undp, often neglect somali institutional representatives. their political legitimacy and decisionmaking power is almost entirely suspended. projects like quests-mida are imported into somaliland as programmes of technical expertise, and kept separate from the formal political process of state-making. rather than promoting capacity building, quests-mida often achieves the opposite objective. by recruiting somali experts from the diaspora (via undp and iom), this programme reinforces the idea that somali administrative structures are weak, thereby creating more legitimacy for external expertise and intervention, rather than setting the basis for political autonomy. yet, the somali diaspora has been involved in the socio-political and economic process of state-making since the 1980s. (gundel, 2002; osman et al., 2007; kleist, 2007; horst et al., 2010; pirkkalainen, 2013). moreover, somalis from the diaspora are currently engaging their home government independently, despite the negligence and discrimination experienced with international development actors. recently, the ministry of foreign affairs (mfa) in somaliland officially recognised the somaliland diaspora agency (sda). following a few years of lobbying and independent initiatives of engagements with the somaliland government, the sda has now become an agency of the mfa. the sda also recently drafted a policy that should help with coordinating and creating a database of the somaliland diaspora’s investments and initiatives in somaliland. 119 “diaspora strategies” are not new but are a constant and inherent transformation of the nation-state that appeals to its emigrant population (gamlen, 2011:21). a deeper understanding of diaspora and development should begin by considering diaspora policies and diaspora initiatives, engaging with the state as part of a longue durée of relationships between the two (iskander, 2010). international relations scholar francesco ragazzi articulates this point further, saying that “the evolution of emigration policies, the increasing transnationalization of state practices and the proliferation of the diasporic discourse” are “modifications of the state itself” (ragazzi, 2009:379). thus, ragazzi suggests that the mobilisation of diaporas is actually occurring in a variety of ways. diasporas are being mobilised by their states of origin, by the states that host them, and by international organisations. at the same time, diasporas reach out to their countries, to their host countries, as well as to international agencies (such as iom) in order to lobby their specific cases. “in brief,” ragazzi concludes, “the proliferation of state-led diaspora policies must be understood as a process, as the result of the unequal, heterogeneous, yet increasing spread of ‘neoliberal governmentality’ as a modular deterritorialized rationality and practice of power; and, the discourse of ‘diaspora’ has been an effective performative discourse in the legitimation of this shift”12 (ragazzi, 2009:10-11). following ragazzi’s argument, this article posits that the relationship between somaliland and its diaspora is better understood as a reconfiguration of the “art of government” under changing historical conditions (foucault, 1978). within this theoretical framework, the migration-development nexus can be understood both as an instrument for global governance, and the ongoing restructuring of state power in a given historical moment. one of the manifestations of this reconfiguration of state power is its transnationalization through the mobilisation of diaspora discourses. state power in somalia, and in other african countries, has been reconfigured through the work of outsourced governance by international agencies and somali diaspora’s 12 “while in the two previous moments the nation-state model remained the referent despite transnational governmental practices, in the neo-liberal moment the diasporic condition is legitimized and normalized. dispersion is considered as an economic and political resource: economically through the constant flow of remittances, and politically through the claim of channeling political lobbying.” (ragazzi 2009) 120 developmental initiatives. in other words, the “art of government” has been exercised beyond the legal rational state, with the involvement of transnational actors, including diaspora groups and international agencies. if this is only a result of “neo-liberal governance” as ragazzi concludes in his study, it is to be explored further as far as somalia is concerned. the unique trajectory of the somali state, as an african state, needs to be understood in its own terms, beyond the buzzwords “neoliberal governance”. conclusion: the somali diaspora and its government while building on the critique of the migration-development nexus from a transnational perspective (faist et al., 2011), this article draws on the contribution of african diaspora scholars (clarke, 2010) to highlight the processes of exclusion underlying programmes of state-building in somaliland. the quests-mida programme is premised on a view of somalia and somaliland as weak and fragile states. in general, this view serves only to create more technical capacity-building programmes, brokered outside those states. this understanding is effective in creating the need for the design and funding of yet more migration-development programmes for state-building. yet, the main effect of such programmes is to disempower and weaken somaliland and somalia’s autonomous political capacity. despite this dominant un view and new forms of exclusions embedded in it, what emerges from somaliland might be compared to ongoing processes also observed in other contexts. tiger economies such as south korea and malaysia have pursued “post-developmental state strategies,”13 which delegate technical projects to global enterprises while maintaining control over resources, populations, and sovereignty (ong, 1999). more recently, anthropologist biao xiang has described transnational migration in asia as the result of a substantial and constitutive relationship between processes of transnational migrations, return and nation building (xiang, 2013). in asia, initiatives for return migration are part of the nation-state agenda. 13 “transnationality induced by accelerated flows of capital, people, cultures, and knowledge does not simply reduce state power, as many have claimed, but also stimulates a new, more flexible and complex relationship between capital and governments” (ong, 1999:21). 121 similarly, transnational business initiatives undertaken by the somali diaspora, and official policy strategies currently pursued in somaliland, (the diaspora policy draft, and the institutionalization of the somaliland diaspora 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lee, 1926). the decision to emigrate depends on a combination of factors, such as lack of social security and justice, political instability, a low level of confidence in the state, as well as better opportunities for work abroad (kurunova, 2013). however, these flows generate socio-economic and political challenges in migrant destination countries and have thus raised complex questions for policy makers and researchers. in this response, researchers (castles, 2010; hatton, 1995; lee, 1926; mayda 2003; mayda, 2010; nwajiuba, 2005; rodrick 1995; stark, 1984; taylor, 1999) have developed a wide range of theoretical and conceptual frameworks (both econometric and mathematical) aimed at analysing international migration. for example kurunova (2013) indicates that each theory of international migration focuses on a separate aspect of the migration relationship such as factors that ‘push’ or ‘pull’ migrants, globalisation factors of migration, migration networks, migration implications for the labour market in host countries or the countries of origin, and the impact of migration on income distribution in a given region. the aim of this research is to provide an empirical investigation into the macroeconomic determinants of ‘pull’ factors of international migration in south africa, using the neoclassical economic model of international migration. however, in order to make a case for an empirical analysis, the presence of reliable statistical data is very important, although at the same time the research is limited by it. in this particular research, apart from focusing on registered migration because only official statistics is readily available, selected ‘pull’ factors such as gdp per capita, inflation rate, real interest rate, employment rate, public health expenditure and education expenditure are also included. ordinary least square (ols) regression was run on time-series data for the period 1990-2012 collected from the world bank data base and the south african department of home affairs. results of the study show that gdp per capita, inflation rate, real interest rate, employment rate and public health expenditure are important migration ‘pull’ factors. the paper is organised as follows. section 1 gives a general introduction to international migration. section 2 presents a background to past and recent 29 trends in international migration in south africa. section 3 reviews literature on the subject and generates a theoretical framework for the study. section 4 presents the econometric techniques used. section 5 shows and discusses the empirical results. section 6 presents the conclusions and policy recommendations. background the issue of international immigration into south africa has a long history spanning several centuries. cross (2000) observes that its beginnings can certainly be traced to 19th century white settlement and the consequent establishment of colonial rule, when hundreds of thousands of europeans permanently immigrated to the country. thereafter, the opening up of large sugar cane fields in natal also attracted large flows of immigrants especially from india, as did the establishment of diamond and gold mines in kimberly and on the witwatersrand in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which brought in large numbers of labourers from several neighbouring countries such mozambique, lesotho and zimbabwe. from the beginning of the early 20th century south africa’s population contained a sizeable foreign migrant stock. the 1911 census for example, revealed that foreign migrants from neighboring countries made up 6 percent of south africa’s total population. the foreign migrant stock reached a total of 836, 000 in 1961 (peberdy, 1997). ayala et al. (2013) observe that even though there is no reliable data on the exact immigrant numbers, especially during the pre-apartheid period, there are at least four international immigration routes that are known in the country’s history. these include: contract labourers on the mines, informal immigrants to work in the construction and service sectors, refugees from the mozambican conflict; and white ‘asylum seekers’ from neighbouring countries. the imposition of a white-supremacist form of government (apartheid) in 1948 had a profound effect on south africa’s migration policy (peberdy and crush, 2000). successive apartheid governments pursued a raciallyoriented policy favouring white immigration while at the same time restricting black/african and later on jewish inflows into the country. even though successive apartheid governments recognised the need for cheap foreign labour to work on the mines and farms, they only encouraged clandestine immigration from neighbouring countries and also blocked foreign immigrants from acquiring temporary or permanent south african residency. in contrast, white immigrants escaping from political 30 uncertainty in newly-independent african countries such as zambia, kenya, and zimbabwe were offered citizenship between 1960 and 1980 in order to boost the white population in south africa (peberdy, 1997; peberdy & crush, 1998). the above authors observe that some of the significant colonial and apartheid-era restrictive migration laws were passed in the years 1913, 1930, 1937 and 1991. with the end of apartheid and the consequent ushering in of the democratic era in the country in 1994, the african national congress-led government has continued pursuing a more restrictive migration policy in the post-apartheid era (crush & peberdy, 2003). apart from giving out a few amnesties to political asylum-seekers and refugees from some subsahara african countries, the south african government has generally shown little appetite for immigration. for example, legal labour migration to the country has been on the decline since the early 1990s, as the more restrictive policies put in place have made it difficult for employers to obtain work permits for foreign contract workers (crush & mcdonald, 2003). despite these restrictive migration policies, international migration into south africa has continued to surge. the majority of migrants have come from sub-saharan african countries mainly in search of employment and other economic opportunities in this regional economic super-power (adepoju, 1998). the increase in economic immigrants primarily from neighbouring countries has occasionally been met with hostility from the generally poor and unemployed sections of south african society who view foreign migrants as direct competitors for jobs in the primary sectors of the economy. this hostility erupted into violent xenophobic attacks in may, 2008 when several small-scale businesses mainly owned by zimbabwean, mozambican, and malawian immigrants were destroyed by groups of south africans across several cities (friebel, gallego & mendola; 2013). klotz (2000) notes that each year hundreds of thousands migrants from all over the world come to south africa legally and illegally in search of socioeconomic and political opportunities. kok et al. (2006) categorise these migration inflows into three groups, namely labour mobility, refugees, and permanent migrants. at present it is estimated that the total foreign population in south africa ranges between seven and eight million. this constitutes approximately 5.7 percent of the country’s total population of 51 million (stats sa, 2012). although there is significant dispute with regard to the exact number of illegal immigrants, the same cannot be said about the statistics of foreign people living in the country legally. statistics 31 south africa (stats sa) shows that a total of 142,833 temporary residence permits (trps) and permanent residence permits (prps) were issued to foreign nationals by the department of home affairs in 2012. in fact, 45.6 percent of the trps were issued to nationals from overseas countries (mainly india, china, pakistan, and britain), while 54.4 percent were issued to people from the african continent (mainly zimbabwe, nigeria, democratic republic of the congo, and lesotho). on the other hand, people from the overseas countries accounted for 46.8 percent of prps while those originating from the african continent constituted 53.2 percent of the total prps issued in 2012 (stat sa; 2013). from the above description and other available literature, there seems to be considerable agreement among researchers that economic factors are the main driver of immigration to south africa. for example the united nations development programme (undp) observes that the majority of african migrants who go to south africa do so simply because conditions in their countries of origin have plummeted to a point below their tolerance threshold. . a prime example is the high number of zimbabwean immigrants currently residing in the south africa. the organisation further points out that the main driving force is the ‘pull’ of opportunity in the destination country, as well as the ‘push’ of abject poverty in their places of origin (crush & frayne, 2007). adepoju (2000) observes that socioeconomic insecurity, abject poverty and extreme unemployment in some rural areas of africa have transformed what could otherwise have been internal migration to urban centres into international emigration to neighbouring, more prosperous nations such as south africa. but despite this consensus on economic forces that drive migrants out of their countries of origin, very little is known about the macroeconomic factors that attract (‘pull’) people to south africa. the majority of studies (lucas, 1987; bhorat et al., 2002; wocke and klein, 2002; bhorat, 2004; waller, 2006; lindau and segatti, 2009; crush and williams, 2010; friebel et al., 2013; mayda et al., 2013) that have been conducted so far on the subject in the country seem to focus mainly on migration trends and migration effects on the labour market, but not on its macroeconomic determinants. against this background therefore; it is evident that there is a major knowledge gap in the key macroeconomic determinants of international migration in south africa and how these ‘pull’ factors have affected the foreign migrant inflows into the country in the post-apartheid era. this study aims, therefore, not only to fill this gap but also to come up 32 with relevant policy recommendations that can help the country maximise the benefits of this human inflow. furthermore, the aim of this paper is to provide macroeconomic suggestions that could help stem the rising tide of xenophobic feelings against foreigners which are held mainly by the impoverished and unemployed section of the south african population which perceives immigrants as a direct opponents vying for their jobs and other economic opportunities. literature review there is a great deal of literature (castles, 2010; hatton, 1995; lee, 1926; mayda 2003; mayda, 2010; nwajiuba, 2005; rodrick 1995; stark, 1984; taylor, 1999) on international migration both in developed and developing countries. the majority of these migration theories seek to explain the causes and effects of the movement of people across a specified boundary for the purpose of establishing a new or semi-permanent residence. two of the major migration theories include ravenstein’s theory of migration, and the ‘pull-push’ theory of migration. the following section analyses the key understanding of these major theories, and traces their main principles and practical applications. ravenstein theory of migration. ernst georg ravenstein (1834-1913) developed a theory of human migration which today is still considered the backbone of the modern migration theory. using a combination of individual rational choice theory, newtonian physics, and other ruralurban and developmental perspectives he came up with empirical generalisations on the flow of human beings between places. these empirical generalisations which have come to be called ‘ravenstein’s laws of migration’ were mainly developed from british and other european census data in the 1800s (ravenstein; 1885). de haas (2009) gives a summary of these seven laws as follows: (1) most migration occurs within a short distance; (2) the majority of migration movements are from agricultural to industrial regions; (3) expansion of most bigger town centres is as a result of migration rather than natural growth; (4) migration develops in tandem with industrial, commercial and transportation expansion; (5) every migration flow produces a counter-flow; (6) most women undertake short distance migration while the majority of men indulge in international migration; (7) economic causes are at the centre of most migration flows. 33 ‘pull-push’ theory of migration. this theory largely builds on ravenstein ‘laws of migration’. according to king (2012) the ‘pull-push’ migration theory argues that migration comes about because of economic and sociopolitical factors present in both the source and destination migration countries. factors such as poverty, unemployment, political repression, poverty etc. drive out (‘push’) people out of their home (source) countries. on the other hand, there also factors present in the destination countries which pull or attract migrants; these include better income and employment prospects, better social welfare services, political freedom etc. lee (1966) adds that for the ‘pull and push’ factors to effectively influence migration there are several intervening obstacles that must be overcome. these obstacles can be physical (e.g. distance), economic (e.g. financial cost of migration), political (international borders), and cultural barriers (e.g. language problems). he further observes that personal factors also play a vital role in migration since people’s response to the ‘pull and push’ stimuli will vary depending of their socio-economic and cultural orientation. from the above theoretical background several models explaining migration have been developed, and these are normally classified in two categories: (1) theoretical models that describe the initiation process of migration; and (2) models that explain the continuation process of migration. models explaining the initiation and process of international migration the literature identifies a variety of theoretical models (massey et al., 1993, 1998; schoorl, 1995) that can be used to model the effects of migration. in the early 1950s, in particular, there was a large body of literature produced on migration. this research does not propose to review all of this literature, nor all of the models available. it surveys some of the main models explaining the initiation and process of international migration. a brief description of models explaining the initiation and process of international migration is given below in table 1. 34 table 1: models explaining the initiation and process of international migration models explaining the initiation of international migration theories brief description theories neoclassical economic theory the theory argues that real wage differences between countries drive people from lower to higher wage regions. this trend continues until wages in all regions equalize and migration stops (massey et al., 1993, 1998; borjas, 1989). dual labour market theory the dual labour market states that international migration is determined by ‘push’ (supply) and ‘pull’ (demand) factors in migrant sending and receiving countries respectively. demand pressures generated in primary sectors of labour markets of more developed countries stimulate the supply of international labour migration from less developed countries (piore, 1979). new economics of labour migration theory this theory states that migration flows and patterns cannot be explained solely at the level of individual workers and their economic incentives, but that wider social entities must be considered as well. remittances, and more importantly the possibility of achieving an uninterrupted flow of household income, are the main drivers of international migration (stark & bloom, 1985; taylor, 1999) relative deprivation theory the theory indicates that awareness among individuals of the existence of income/wage differentials between migrantsending countries and migrant-receiving nations is the main incentive for international migration (stark & taylor, 1993). world systems theory the basic argument of the theory is that the reliance on the international market has led to richer countries (core countries) dominating transitional capital at the expense of poor countries (semi-peripheral and core countries). the unequal exchange results in migration from poorer to richer countries (wallerstein, 1983; amankwaa, 1995). models explaining the process of international migration network theory the theory argues that international flows of people between countries generate networks of migrants and other person-toperson linkages between the migrant sending countries and the receiving countries which serve to perpetuate more migration (esveldt et al., 1995). institutional theory the theory shows that the international outflow and inflow of migrants attracts and generates both legal and illegal profit and charity organisations which help in perpetuating this tendency by offering financial, material, legal, and logistical support to immigrants (massey et al., 1993). 35 in synthesizing all the above theories it is clear that economic factors have played a very crucial role in the development of international migration theory. even though at first glance network and institutional theories do not seem to place significant emphasis on economic variables, a close examination of the two theories reveals that their vital aspects can be rendered important drivers of migration. as clearly argued by jenissen (2004), the presence of a large migrant network will not only reduce the costs of migration but will also increase the chances of migrants obtaining jobs in the receiving country. a similar situation avails where institutions created because of migration flows also reduce the cost of migration. empirical studies targeting the macroeconomic determinants several empirical studies (e.g. bach, 2003; jerome, 1926; kelley, 1965; lichfield and waddington, 2003; mcdonald and crush, 2002; nwajiuba, 2005; tsegai and plotnikova, 2004; wentzel and bosman, 2001; wentzel and viljoen, 2006; wouterse and van den berg, 2004) have been undertaken by researchers across the globe specifically targeting the macroeconomic determinants of migration. for example, jerome (1926) was one of the first to study this issue. he examined united states (us) immigration from europe over a hundred year period prior to the imposition of u.s. immigration quotas in the 1920s and concluded that economic conditions in the united states were primarily responsible for short-cycle movements in european emigration to the u.s. on a similar note, kelley (1965), in agreement with jerome’s findings, also observed that economic factors, mainly employment opportunities, were the main reason for the rising emigration of people from britain to australia between 1865 and 1935. all the different migration models employed in his analysis confirmed the above findings. several similar studies have also been undertaken in africa. in one such study aimed at establishing the main reason for migration from nigeria to other countries, nwajiuba (2005) found that economic factors account for 80 percent of the reasons people are attracted to foreign nations, while educational factors take up only 18 percent of the ‘pull’ factors. in burkina faso, wouterse and van den berg (2004) found that employment opportunities and the possibility of earning higher income lure the country’s poor households into migrating to other african countries. on the other hand, richer burkinabe households are attracted to 36 overseas countries by the perceived wealth accumulation prospects present in those countries. in a cross-border migration study targeting the causes of migration by mozambicans and zimbabweans into south africa, wentzel and bosman (2001) found that macroeconomic variables were the main determinant. indeed the two authors found that nationals of the above countries were compelled to emigrate because south africa offered these people better employment prospects, higher wages, lower average prices of goods, and a more stable currency value relative to their home countries. this study also found that non-economic factors had a very insignificant ‘pull’ effect on cross-border migration to south africa. mcdonald and crush (2002) conducted several studies to determine the factors that attract international immigrants to south africa and botswana. among all the considered variables, the study found that the economic attraction of the above economies is the main ‘pull’ factor that lures international migrants. in a similar vein, the 2001-02 hrsc international migration survey conducted by brown university also found that more than two-thirds of all international skilled migrants come to south africa because of the lure of finding not only ‘suitable’ employment opportunities but also increasing their income earnings (wentzel & viljoen, 2006). despite the dominance of economic factors in the international migration literature, some surveys show that non-economic factors are the main determinants of migration flows between countries. researchers such as lichfield and waddington (2003), and tsegai and plotnikova (2004) found that in ghana more-qualified citizens are more likely to migrate than lessqualified citizens. they therefore conclude that the likelihood of migration increases with education. similarly, bach (2003) found that emigration of south african nurses to britain has largely been driven by nurses associations and other networks of the south african diaspora present in the destination country. with the above contradiction in the empirical literature it is therefore necessary to conduct empirical research to determine whether or not economic (macroeconomic) factors are the main ‘pull’ factors for migration to south africa. econometric techniques used todaro and smith (2009) note that models play a major role in econometric studies, whether theoretical or applied. according to them, a model is a simplified representation of an actual phenomenon. the actual phenomenon is represented by the model in order to explain it, to predict it, 37 and to control it, goals corresponding to the three purposes of econometrics, namely structural analysis, forecasting, and policy evaluation. in order to analyse the macroeconomic determinants of immigration into south africa the study employed a theoretical framework largely based on the neoclassical economic theory of migration. essentially this theory which was founded by todaro (1969) and todaro and harris (1970), views migration as emanating from differences in endowments of labour relative to capital. the resultant wage differentials drive workers to vacate lowwage, labour-surplus regions in favour of high-wage, labour-scarce regions. simply put, migration is an economically rational process in which people move from their places of origin to new areas when their net present value income calculation in the new area is greater than the average income in their place of origin (todaro & smith, 2009). it is clear therefore that the theory looks at economic factors such as utility maximization, wage and other factor-price differentials, and ease of labour movement and substitution as the main determinants that drive out and attract people in the process of migration. according to massey et al. (1998) these economic factors operate at both the micro and macro levels of the economy. the above researchers argue that migration occurs at the macroeconomic level as a result of uneven distribution of labour in relation to other production factors. on the micro level, it is argued that migration occurs on the household and individual level because people use the information available and make rational choices on whether or not to migrate based on informed cost-benefit analyses. to this end researchers such as sjaastad (1962) and borjas (1989) derived calculus migration models depicting how individuals come up with decisions to migrate both to areas within and outside their countries, taking into account the costs and benefits of the process. an illustration of this concept is given by massey et al. (1993) who incorporate computations of probability of escaping deportation from the receiving country, the probability of securing employment in both the country of destination and country of origin and a time component (t). this is specified in the model below as follows: er (0) = ʃ0t [p1 (t) p2 (t) yd (t) p3 (t) y0 (t)] e-rt dt – c (0) er (0): expected net return to migration just before departure at time 0 38 p1 (t): probability of avoiding deportation from the area of destination p2 (t): probability of finding work in the destination country p3 (t): probability of finding work in the country of origin yd (t): total earnings if employed in the country of destination y0 (t): total earnings if employed in the country of origin r: rate of discount c (0): total of the cost of migrating from the above formulation, massey et al. (1993) observe that if the expected net return to migration has a value greater than zero, rationality demands that the individual migrate. on the other hand, if the value is negative then a rational individual stays in his/her home country. suffice to say that when an individual is faced with a positive net return on migration for several countries, rationality will drive him/her to the country with the greatest value. borjas (1989) therefore indicates that the neo-classical theory emphasises the importance of taking into account labour market structures, human capital and income distribution both in the country of origin and the country of destination in explaining the individuals’ choice of where to migrate. even though the theory was initially designed to explain rural-urban migration, it has of late been extensively applied to analysing the determinants of international migration. in this regard, malmberg (1999) points out that some of the advantages of neoclassical model of migration are that it forms the basis of most of the migration models. in addition, malmberg (1999) argues that the model has a clear logic and simple economic explanation of the causes of both internal and international migration. de haas (2009) observes that the strength of the neoclassical theory of migration is its dynamism in explaining and forecasting the initial conditions in which it took place. the author further observes that the theory perceives migration as a mode of optimally allocating factors of production. holding other things constant, migration influences labour to become scarcer in the sending than in the origin region. the opposite occurs with the capital factor of production. schiff (1997) states that this leads to equalisation of factors of production as wages converge in both the migration source and the destination countries. with this convergence of wages and factor prices, the above researcher argues that migration stops as wage differentials and cost of migration equalise in the long-run. 39 despite the above strengths the neoclassical theory of migration is criticised for its minor emphasis on structure and agency which are important notions in social relations (castles, 2010). the crux of the critique is that since the theory emphasises perfect information and human behaviour as aggregated, it reduces individuals to ‘automatons’ who passively respond to macro-level ‘pull-push’ migration determinants. its critics argue, therefore, that the theory has limited power to explain migration transformations and social relation patterns (de haas, 2010). formulation of the empirical model and measurement as already alluded to, a considerable amount of empirical literature is available on international migration econometric modelling including authoritative empirical surveys conducted by borjas (1989, 1994, 1999); ghatak et al., (1996);, and mitchel and pain (2002. these studies have suggested that it is not only macroeconomic factors but also socio-political conditions in receiving countries that attract emigrants. however, since this study contains a small dataset of 22 observations, it is not possible to incorporate all the macroeconomic determinants suggested by some of the above authoritative studies. instead this study attempts to build an econometric model based on the theoretical foundation set by the neoclassical economic model of migration as expounded by researchers such as ahmad et al., 2008; brucker et al., 2003; and mitchell and pain, 2003. the above models look at international migration as a function of various macroeconomic variables. mathematically this is depicted by the formulation below. im = f (ui, ...,un) where im represents international migration into south africa, and u gives a set of macroeconomic variables that attract foreign migrants to the country. following the neoclassical theoretical framework and the majority of empirical studies carried out on the subject, the model considered the following macroeconomic variables: employment rate (er); per capita gross domestic product (gdppc); inflation rate (inflr); government spending on health and educators (pubexph and pubexpedu); and employment rate (empr). therefore the relationship between 40 international migration and the above macroeconomic variables is given in the mathematical formulations below. im = f (gdppc, inflr, rintr, empr, pubexph, pubexpedu) the above function is then reduced into the following linear regression equation im =α0 + α1 gdppc + α2 inflr + α3 rintr + α4 empr+ α5 pubexph + α6 pubexpedu + µ where αi represents regression coefficients, andµ represents the random/stochastic error term. following the tradition used in many international migration studies, this research operationalises the above macroeconomic determinants as follows: international migration is approximated by total migrant stock i.e. the percentage of foreign nationals in the total population of south africa. this is a more practical and feasible way of measuring the total number of foreign migrants considering the unreliability and unavailability of data on this topic. annual per capita gross domestic product was used to approximate the standard of living in south africa which shows the average distribution of national income to each individual residing in the country. additionally, the study used annual employment rate as the number of job opportunities available in the country per year. furthermore, the country’s cost of living and the stability of the economy approximated by the annual inflation rate are also used. annual government expenditure on education and health as a percentage of the gdp was used to approximate state provision of social services and welfare. similarly, the value of the annual real interest rate was used to measure the stability of business and the investment climate in south africa. the model also incorporated the random error term to approximate other unobservable macroeconomic factors that affect international migration to south africa but they have not been captured in the model. data used in the study. it must be stated that data on immigration inflows into south africa are poor and unreliable, just as in other sub-saharan 41 african countries. this is mainly due to weaknesses in immigration data collection agencies, and the laxity of border control regulations in the country which sometimes makes it easy for illegal migrants to evade border controls (shaw, 2007). in order to address these concerns the study used secondary annual data from the world bank and annual reports’ of the department of home affairs from 1990 to 2012. diagnostic tests for ordinary least-squares (ols) regression: before ols regression could be conducted on the time series, several regression diagnostic tests had to be performed in order to come up with accurate, efficient, and unbiased results. however, the reliability of the above ols regression estimation technique is guaranteed only if the assumptions of the blue (best linear unbiased estimates) hold. violation of these properties leads to spurious regression and hence incorrect conclusions (gujarati & porter, 2010). therefore to ensure the adherence to the blue properties the following diagnostic tests were conducted on the time series: augmented dickey-fuller test, multicollinearity test, breuschgodfrey test, ramsey reset test, and shapiro-wilk test. research findings and interpretation the ols regression diagnostic results showed no evidence of nonstationarity, multicollinearity, autocorrelation, model misspecification, and abnormally distributed residuals. this therefore gave research license to perform ols regression, the results of which are summarised in the table below. table 2: ols regression results explanatory variables (regressors) variable coefficient standard error.t prob>t prob> f rsquared number of observations gdp per capita .0011725 .0002295 0.000 0.000 0.8723 22 years inflation rate -.0889871 .0975325 0.376 real interest rate -.0282949 .1188547 0.815 employment rate .0271968 .03098 0.394 public health expenditure .5068833 .22313 0.038 public education expenditure -.0009993 .1267186 0.994 constant .0288834 2.58864 0.991 source: authors’ secondary data analysis using stata 42 from the above results it can be seen that gdp per capita has a positive effect on immigration flows into south africa. indeed, a one percent increase in the country’s standard of living results in a 0.0011725 increase in the level of foreign migration. being africa’s leading economy and a middle-income country, south africa boasts a higher standard of living relative to most of her sub-saharan counterparts. its annual gdp per capita of approximately $3000 u.s. is a major source of attraction to the majority of immigrants from impoverished developing countries both from the african continent and beyond (adepoju, 2003). a study by facchini et al. (2013) on foreign labour migrants mainly from zimbabwe and mozambique also concurs with the above assertion by concluding that the prospect of a higher living standard relative to that present in their countries of origin drives thousands of immigrants into south africa. table 2 also reveals that in south africa there is an inverse relationship between inflation rate (cost of living) and the flow of foreign immigrants. in other words, a unit decrease in south africa’s cost of living increases the volume of immigration by 0.0889871 percent. this is not surprising given the fact that south africa’s economy has generally been stable relative to the majority of the source countries that the immigrants originate from, e.g. the sub-saharan african countries. with the average annual inflation rate (cost of living) averaging below 10 percent since the early 1990s, foreign migrants have found the country attractive for settlement. studies by macdonald and crush (2004) also confirm the fact that cost of living is one of the macroeconomic ‘pull’ factors for migration into south africa. a rise in the level of real rate of interest reduces the movement of foreign citizens into south africa. from the above results, it is clear that a percentage expansion in the annual value of real interest rate reduces immigration into the country by a factor of 0.0282949 percent. this is not surprising considering that south africa is one of the most stable economies, and hence foreign-investor friendly, countries in africa. this is evident in the consistency of interest rates which have remained below 6 percent since the 1980s. confirmation of the positive impact of this on international migration inflows may be inferred from 2013 documented migration statistics which showed that 1.1 percent of temporary residence permits were issued for business/investment purposes (stat sa, 2013). south africa’s employment rate is another factor that attracts foreign migrants. from the above table, a unit increase in the employment level 43 generates a corresponding 0.0271968 percent increase in total immigration into the country each year. despite the current high unemployment level in south africa, it is slightly lower when compared to that of most of its neighbouring countries, such as zimbabwe. additionally, cross (2006) observes that south africa’s economy has the biggest absorption capacity for urban labour migration in relation to any other african economy. the country is widely viewed by most sub-sahara african economic migrants as an attractive employment destination. the main ‘pull’ factors for skilled foreign workers in south africa’s labour market include better salary and retirement packages, opportunity to gain international work experience and increased career choices (du plessis, 2009; rogerson & rogerson, 2000). in addition; some researchers such as sibanda and zuberi (2004) even claim that some south african employers prefer recruiting immigrants to locals because of the former’s willingness to accept lower wages and other poorer employment conditions. in a similar vein, an increase in the level south african government expenditure on health services results in a 0.5068833 percent expansion in the number of foreign nationals attracted to the country. this shows that well-funded public health facilities are a ‘pull’ factor for immigrants. gushulak and macpherson (2001) observe that international migration benefits the health status of migrants by offering them a chance of treatment for pre-existing illnesses and/or reduces their probability of contracting new illnesses in the destination country. therefore increased government spending on health services will more likely attract immigrants to south africa since the country will be able to provide better public medical facilities than the countries that migrants originate from. however, the study’s results also indicate that improved education facilities are not a ‘pull’ factor for migrants into south africa. this is shown by the table 2 which states that a 1 percent increase in government spending on education reduces migration level by a factor of 0.0009993 percent. the negative relationship between education and immigration can perhaps be explained by the deteriorating public education system which paradoxically is one of the main reasons fuelling emigration of skilled professionals, such as health personnel from the country (williams & shaw, 2006; bezuidenhout et al., 2009). it is a known fact that south africa’s education standards are deteriorating quite rapidly in relation to other middle-income countries and even some poorer sub-saharan african countries. the public education system is now characterised, among other 44 things, by: low education quality; declining pass rates at all levels; underqualified teachers; poor teacher morale; and weak management (sacsis, 2009). this may help to explain why the education standards do not have a significant impact on foreign migration into the country as the regression results in table 2 show. conclusion and recommendations conclusion from the foregoing discussion it is clear that south africa today faces an unprecedented inflow of migrants from all over the globe, the majority of whom have the potential to positively contribute to the country’s development efforts. several macroeconomic factors inside the country have been identified as fuelling this international migration. in relation to those of the origin countries these macroeconomic ‘pull factors’ include south africa’s higher standard of living, lower cost of living, stable economy, attractive investment climate and better state funding of social services such as health and education. afolayan (2001) notes that if the government and other relevant stakeholders do not critically analyse these ‘factors of attraction’ the country’s socio-economic development agenda will not be able to maximise the positive benefits from this human inflow but will suffer the full brunt of its negative consequences. recommendations from the study it is clearly evident that the south african government has to holistically address some macroeconomic constraints that prevent it from maximising the positive contribution that international migrants make to the country, and hence achieve sustainable socio-economic prosperity for all its population. this could greatly diminish the fears and resentment that the local population generally harbour against foreign migrants. some of the major macroeconomic reforms the government can implement are given below.  the country needs to significantly increase its annual gdp growth rate so that it surpasses is demographic expansion rate. this can be done by undertaking structural macroeconomic reforms using monetary and fiscal instruments aimed at stimulating aggregate demand, while at the same time controlling its population growth 45 rate through family planning and civic education programmes. in the long run this will increase its standard of living as per capita gdp growth rates rise, thereby attracting more skilled foreign migrants and appeasing the majority of its poor citizens.  the government and the south african reserve bank also need to control annual inflation rates by balancing the levels of aggregate demand and supply in the economy. this will reduce and eventually stabilise the cost of living as the country’s aggregate price indices come down. the cost of living is a very important macroeconomic variable determining migration in south africa as shown in the study by rogerson and rogerson (2003) which showed that high inflation rates cause 71 percent of all emigration of skilled south african medical workers to rich western countries such as britain, australia, canada and the united states of america.  monetary authorities in the country also need to implement policies that optimize the bank rate and exchange rate values in order to attract foreign investment. a lower bank rate and a stable value of the south african rand will boost investor confidence and as the economy expands will attract not only direct foreign investment but also skilled foreign workers. ;.  the high unemployment situation in the country also needs to be addressed urgently. the oecd (2013) observes that south africa’s unemployment rate, which is currently in excess of 35 percent, can be addressed by, among other things, relaxing state regulation in product markets, encouraging competitive interaction between product and labour markets, and increasing the gdp growth. these reforms in the labour and product markets will generate employment opportunities both qualitatively and quantitatively and help to entice skilled immigrants into the country. at the same time such reforms would ease xenophobic sentiments of the largely unemployed native population.  the government also needs to employ appropriate fiscal policies, such as increased funding of social services, in order to improve the quality of its education and health sectors. deteriorating public education standards due to poor government funding, among other things, has been blamed for the sluggish performance of the 46 economy and the emigration of skilled south african workers to the west, respectively (oecd, 2013; 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(eds.), migration in south and southern africa: dynamics and determinants, cape town: hsrc press. pp. 171-204. wocke, a. and klein, s., (2002). the implications of south africa’s skills migration policy for country competitiveness’, development southern africa, vol. 19(4), pp. 441-454. wouterse, f. and van den berg, m., (2004). migration for survival or accumulation: evidence from burkina faso. wageningen university and research center, mansholt graduate school of social sciences. wozniak, a., (2010). are college graduates more responsive to distant labor market opportunities?’ journal of human resources, vol. 45, pp. 944–970. ahmr volume 6 number 1 jan-apr 2020.indd 116 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 in pursuit of being and belonging: migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare mushonga rufaro hamish* and dzingirai vupenyu** * centre for applied social sciences (cass), university of zimbabwe, harare, zimbabwe corresponding author. email: rufarohamish@gmail.com ** centre for applied social sciences (cass), university of zimbabwe, harare, zimbabwe the main thrust of this article is to analyze how a migrant association, particularly the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz), facilitates being, belonging and integration of migrants in the host society. grounded on ethnography as a method of inquiry and transactional theory as an analytical framework, the article attempts to answer two questions: i) how does the association help to bond and enrich the lives of migrants; and ii) how does the association facilitate the bridging of social connections with the ‘other’ with the ultimate goal of burying differences, which in essence helps them to continue staying and accumulating in the diaspora. the article illustrates how the association facilitates newcomers’ integration, through a range of activities, purportedly, to enrich the lives of migrants in ‘strange’ downtown environs. as increased contact with the indigenes ensues, the article also shows that the association shifts focus and starts to lessen the social differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ through various activities. the article concludes that migrant associations act as a buffer for migrants as well as a bridging mediator vis-à-vis the host society. with these observations, the article recommends that there is a need for nation-states to leverage on migrant associations for effective migration management as their roles need to be incorporated into migration policies. additionally, establishing a line of communication with migrant associations is vital. migrant associations and the nation-state need to find more spaces of communication and interaction to bridge the divide that separates ‘us’ and ‘them’. keywords: ethnography, identity, integration, migrants, migration, transactionalism 117 introduction migrations, with all incidental collision, conflicts and fusions of peoples and culture which they occasion, have been documented among the decisive forces in human history (park 1928). in recent years, one consequence of increased mobility which is evidential in mobility discourse is migrants’ disposition to form migrant associations in host nations. however, despite the overwhelming evidence on intra-african mobility, research has mainly focused on the global north (layton-henry 1990; putnam 1993; owusu 2000; moya 2005; sardinha 2009). african migrants in other african countries have rarely been the subject of serious study, and hence very little is known about migrant associations in african settings. the overbearing angle of this article is to look closely at the roles attributed to migrant associations when it comes to migrants’ being, belonging, and integration in host societies amidst ethno-cultural and social differences. in practice, nigerian migrant entrepreneurs have organized themselves internally often belonging to an association – the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz). the article also shows that beyond the entrepreneurship, the association also helps them to forge relationships with the ‘other’, namely the local community to which they are strangers and must fit in. in addition, the article shows how they use this association to win favours among the authorities and the local people who constitute their neighbours. accompanying ethnographically-based observations, this article sets itself within the theoretical outlook that being, belonging and integration are not only socially constructed but mutually constructed by migrants and the host society they are settling in. within this context, the article supports the assertion that being, belonging and integration are migrants’ objectives to be achieved within multicultural/intercultural environs. literature review – contextualization the current era is one in which varied forms of human mobility, across cities, nations and geopolitical frontiers are redefining the meaning of ‘home’, ‘community’ and ‘belonging’ (landau and bakewell 2018). migration is not a new phenomenon in the history of africa. according to migration scholars, migration had its own functions for different groups and societies, which included the pursuit of sheer survival, search for better opportunities and improved conditions, and of course, the consolidation of advantages and benefits (adepoju 1995; baker and aina 1995). some observers have amply described africa as a ‘continent perpetually on the move’ (flahaux and de haas 2016). in africa, the dominant theme has been movement to the global north (adepoju 2005; obi 2010). however, there is evidence which points to internal mobility within the continent even if this is intended to prepare for final migration to the global north (whitehouse 2012; antwi-bosiakoh 2009). despite the apparently distinct phases of african history (the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial eras), migration assumes a considerable measure of both migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 118 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 diversity and continuity in its causes, magnitude and effects on african cities and economies (mbembe and nuttall 2004). as the african city increasingly becomes metropolitan (mbembe and nuttall 2008; simone 2001), new scents are smelt, new tastes savoured, new sounds heard and above all, new faces seen (simone 2004). the city is reproducing the uneasy convergence of seemingly different needs and practices among migrants as new arrivals are moving in, seeking profit, passage and protection (landau and bakewell 2018). through migrants’ mobility into, within and out of cities, urban spaces which had tenuous connections between subjects for many years, have now become nodes in diasporic networks of social and economic exchange (mbembe and nuttall 2004; landau 2014). migrants not only leave their homelands and find ways into new spaces, rather they reshape themselves along with relations, values and institutions in the host country (landau and freemantle 2016). they create and recreate relations with their compatriots who moved with them or before (schrover and vermeulen 2005). in the host country they are subject to different laws and regulations; they take on new customs; they have different neighbours and they learn new skills and reshape their own history (owusu 2000; whitehouse 2012). these novel and peculiar laws and regulations, as alluded by landau and bakewell (2018), create possibilities of migrants organizing themselves and creating symbiotically organized associations in order to navigate the strangeness and quandaries that characterize the new urban milieu (waldinger and fitzgerald 2004). these associations are formed to create solidarities in the host countries to protect mutual interests and mobilize support on issues of concern (layton-henry 1990). casual observers and scholars alike have called attention to migrants’ disposition to form associations or communities abroad (moya 2005; vertovec 2004). de haas (2006) defines a migrant association as a voluntary grouping of migrants based on reciprocity, solidarity and collectivism, which wields resources and power to forge collective benefits. bell (1975) defines a migrant association as an effective tie with a common interest formed to preserve the identity and culture of migrants as well as playing a role in the settlement processes through to pathways of integration. these associations provide migrants with social capital, either bonding or bridging (putnam 2000). bonding capital connects migrants internally to sustain in-group reciprocity. thus, integration is maintained through interdependence, exchange and reciprocity (sardinha 2009). on the other hand, bridging capital connects migrants and the hosts and helps to bring consensus between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (putnam 1993) and integration is achieved through forging of relationships with the hosts, which can lead to cooperation, transactions, and exchange of resources (cheater 1989). the review above is suggestive that migrants often develop social and close relations with each other. this might involve subjugating themselves to a membership or voluntary association. whatever the case, migrants are able to adapt to the new environment using these institutions. but there is another set of literature which suggests that migrants also forge relationships with outsiders using these associa119 tions (sardinha 2009; cheater 1989). they may provide gifts, information or provide social responsibility. the range of what they do is unlimited. these sets of relationships, it would appear, are capable of making the new migrants better understand, and more importantly exploit the resources at destination. this article deals with this matter, using the case of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs who have migrated to harare since the 1990s. mangezvo (2018) observed that nigerian migrants represent the largest proportion of foreign entrepreneurs operating informal businesses in harare. data provided by the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz) shows that there are between 1500–2000 nigerian entrepreneurs, broken down to fluid ethnic groups which include yoruba, edo, igbo, hausa and ogoni. these ethnic identities are de-emphasized, and the common identity as ‘nigerian’ is the one that is preferred. these migrants chiefly come for business opportunities which they say are endless in zimbabwe. even those who view zimbabwe as a transit point to other destinations end up attracted by these opportunities. in harare, nigerians have taken over the downtown area, putting up shops retailing goods and services ranging from motor spares, electricals, cell phones, clothing, cosmetics and internet cafes. however, in this same locale, migrants are often regarded as ‘aliens and unwanted intruders’ who have come to grab opportunities from the autochthons, and this further compounds their precarity. thus, to navigate this seemingly chaotic and rough terrain imbued in their everyday struggles over ‘politics of space’ (certoma et al.2002), they enact being and belonging through forming associations. this article employs a transactional lens to show how migrant associations facilitate migrants’ integration into the host society. barth (1963, 1966, and 1969) and bailey (1970) propose the importance of association in enhancing group solidarity. additionally, these scholars also observe that reciprocity and exchange between diverse actors is the basis for bridging social relations. in recent years, a new concept of conviviality has emerged (nyamnjoh 2017; overing and passes 2000; gilroy 2004), emphasizing how migrants create associations to enrich themselves or to use these associations to create convivial relations with the ‘other’ thereby forging belonging in particular contested spaces. this article argues that this is still the essence of transactionalism, which both frederick bailey and fredrik barth – two leading transactionalists – saw as being at the centre of all societies, including urban cities. methodology data for this article was generated from ethnographic fieldwork carried out in harare’s popular downtown boulevards, located in the fringes of the city centre. this is a locale where migrants, nigerians included, have arrived in various migratory rhythms seeking opportunities in the thriving informal sector. in line with ferguson’s assertion that, “ethnography is like fishing; all you need is a net to swing; and you will be sure of catching something” (1999:17), ethnography allowed for the acute exploration of the associational lives and experiences of participants. since there was no existing sampling frame and participants exemplified a migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 120 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 hard-to-reach population (atkinson and flint 2001), snowball sampling was the main vehicle through which participants were selected. as suggested by akanle (2013), this method consists of identifying and contacting participants recommended by others. for example, the researcher identified the association’s president and one local entrepreneur operating in downtown harare, who then referred the researcher to other participants. this technique was useful because many potential participants were sceptical of the researcher’s intentions. thus, initial participants and contacts were relied upon to recommend other participants. in keeping with denscombe (2010), the aim of this study was to emphasize the depth and detail of everyday associational lives and experiences rather than the breadth of associational lives and experiences of migrants. the number of participants was thus limited to 45. by its nature, ethnography may not yield depth if not narrowed to a few cases. geertz rightly points out that “small facts speak to large issues” (1973:23). participant observations and in-depth interviews were the primary avenues of approach to gather the required data from a broad swathe of participants, who included: 20 nigerian entrepreneurs, 8 association leaders, 3 commuters, 10 local traders, 2 immigration officials and 2 zimbabwe republic police (zrp) officials. in other instances, the researcher made use of informal discussions, some spontaneous and some orchestrated to capture the lived realities of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs. secondary sources, particularly the local newspapers and the associations’ facebook pages were also used to triangulate data obtained from in-depth interviews and participant observations. results and discussion motives for formation of the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz) according to its president, mr obodo, the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz) was formed in 1994 to cater for the welfare of nigerians in the country. the association has a clear organizational structure which consists of the president, vicepresident, secretary, vice-secretary, treasurer, welfare officer, assistant welfare officer, spokesperson and the provost/coordinator. these leaders ‘give face’ to the association and work as active members, defining rules and modes of action, emitting their opinions and exercizing their influence on the association’s members. this resonates well with the observations of cheater (1989) and albuquerque et al. (2000) that social relations and agreed rules govern migrant associations. additionally, the ncz leaders have been in zimbabwe for a period of 15–20 years, and have extensive knowledge about the host country. this coincides with the popular belief that migrant associations are governed ‘from above’ by migrants who have been in the host country for considerable periods of time (antwi-bosiakoh 2010; obeng 2010). ncz leaders are chosen on a rotational basis, after every two years. mr osuofa, vice-president of the ncz and household electricals shop owner, succinctly captured the various prerequisites for eligibility to serve on the leadership 121 structure: ncz is the powerhouse welfare organization of nigerians in the country and leaders are chosen on a rotational basis. each of the leaders has his or her own roles and responsibilities. we vote for each leader based on merit. we check whether the individual is brave enough and with ‘big heart’ because no one is paid and it is time consuming. we try to involve every tribe in these leadership positions based on ethnicity, although in zimbabwe there are more igbos than any other tribe (18 december 2018, harare street). thus, based on the above narrative, being a leader of the association is contingent upon the personal qualities and abilities required to qualify for various leadership positions. these can be academic qualifications, knowledge of the host country, and credibility they may possess in the eyes of nigerian migrants. as argued by labelle et al. (1994), as association leaders, these individuals are vital in carrying out the responsibilities of group representation, partly because of their positioning and visibility as intermediaries. the association’s members meet once every two months to discuss planned activities. at these meetings new migrants are introduced to the association and members also vote for their respective leaders. non-members may also attend the meetings but they do not have the right to vote. moreover, all association members are obliged to pay a monthly subscription fee of $5 (usd) and those who default are relieved of their privileges as active members of the association. adaptive and integrative functions of the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz) one thing that is clear about migrants is that they find their initial phases of settling bewildering because they lack the requisite information about the host nation. the ncz plays a pivotal role in providing information about the host nation to migrants. it functions as an intermediary in offering first-hand experience of the host country to the prospective migrants. this came out clearly from the association’s spokesperson, who runs a business specializing in motor spares. he said: you can’t migrate without prior information of where you are going. you have to join the association together with people you know and as nigerians, we help each other with information about the host nation, we are brothers and we love each other (23 december 2018, kaguvi street). similarly, the ncz coordinator claimed: we inform nigerians who would want to migrate what is required in zimbabwe before they come here. this involves information about visas, permits, either spousal permit or investors’ permit. we also tell those who want to travel that if they are not married, they should marry here in the country and get a spousal permit (5 january 2019, bank street). additionally, the association informs members about investment opportunities in the country as some migrants end up running illicit businesses that tarnish the image of all nigerians in the country. this was expressed clearly by the welfare officer migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 122 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 of the association who poignantly expressed the following: i came here in 2005 and i found out that there was ncz in the country. ncz was formed to bring all nigerians in zimbabwe together. in ncz we ask a lot of questions: what are your reasons for coming here? what are you doing? some of our fellow brothers bring a bad name which the host country doesn’t like. if you want to specialize in minerals, we warn members to never go near the mineral sector as it is highly political (8 january 2019, kaguvi street). likewise, obi, a 40-year-old from enugu state is exemplary to the sentiments made by the ncz welfare officer. obi came to zimbabwe in 2006, a period when diamonds were discovered in the eastern parts of the country. obi had a goal to ‘flourish in exile’ as he wanted to trade in these precious gems. that was possible for him because the diamond fields were characterized by impunity and lawlessness, an indication of the desperation and chaos that pervaded the country at that time (katsaura 2010). upon arrival in the country, he registered with the association and was warned not to do that business as it was going to tarnish the image of nigerians in the country. to avoid swimming in troubled waters, obi then invested in the motor spares business and today he is a proud owner of two motor spares businesses, one in harare and another one in lagos. the laconic narratives above clearly show the importance of the ncz in conveying pertinent information to migrants. these results concur with scholars. for instance, crisp (2000) states that migrant associations provide invaluable information to prospective and new migrants. according to caglar (2006), migrants are often secluded in host communities and migrant associations help migrants by providing critical information for their survival in host communities. advocacy roles generally, when migrants move to new territories they are regarded as aliens; and they become scapegoats when nation-states confront economic, political and social problems. they become targets of hostility from the autochthons and blamed for all the social, economic and political problems in the host nation. zimbabwean bureaucrats suspect migrants of being drug dealers, thieves, fraudsters, and con artists (mangezvo 2018). this means that nigerian migrants have to devise new strategies of surviving such a toxic environment. nigerian migrant entrepreneurs have learnt that the only resolution to disputes with their hosts is through forming an association, which plays a critical judicial function in advocating for their rights. despite the documents they have to legitimize their stay, they remain subject to multiple forms of exactions from various rent-seeking individuals, maltreatment and unlawful arrests. rather that exercizing the ‘politics of invisibility’, which characterizes most migrants in a foreign land (whitehouse 2012), they have opted for the ‘politics of recognition’ (taylor 1994; englund and nyamnjoh 2004) through the association, to defend their interests en masse – by collectively refusing to put up with abuse, being cheated and paying bribes. to illustrate its advocacy roles, the association’s president reiterated that there 123 was a time when nigerian entrepreneurs were continually maltreated by the zimbabwean authorities. they were unlawfully arrested and detained and pressured to pay huge sums for legal representation or bribes. however, the association helped by representing them in the courts of justice. ozeze, a 33-year-old specializing in cosmetics was once arrested. he expressed the following: i was once arrested and unlawfully detained by the immigration, compliance department. our ncz lawyers represented me in the courts and i was later released (15 january 2019, gulf complex). however, taking such a grand stand of ‘politics of recognition’ does not go down well with some zimbabweans, who think that this is a breach of their tacit agreement not to ‘rock the boat’ in the host country. this was evident from kenny, the compliance officer at the immigration department who was reported by the ncz to the zimbabwe anti-corruption commission (zacc) for soliciting bribes from some nigerian traders. he frantically noted: it’s a very difficult position for foreigners to advocate for their rights in this country. they should not do what they want and they should know they have limits. last time i was called by the zimbabwe anti-corruption commission (zacc) to respond to allegations of soliciting bribes from foreigners including nigerians. this led to my immediate suspension but i was later reassigned. it didn’t go well with me and my superiors (5 january 2019, department of immigration). this narrative concurs with whitehouse’s (2012) observations that strangers in a foreign land should have a stranger’s code that obliges them to desist from any activity that might disturb the tenuous relationships between them and the hosts. this includes desisting from drawing unwanted scrutiny to the locals in exchange for permission for ‘belonging’ in the host country. by this, whitehouse (2012) argues that strangers should remain quiet and keep their heads down, as exile knows no dignity. moreover, at an individual level, the association has also performed the judicial function of solving disputes among nigerians, that would otherwise end up as police or court cases. such disputes are normally arbitrated by the leaders of the association who use appropriate nigerian social practices as the basis for settling the disputes. death and bereavement generally, people of african descent desire to be buried in their native lands. the ncz also ensures that its members are buried in their native land. in the event of the death of a member, their kin or relatives in the host country, the association offers a monetary contribution to the grieving family and assists in repatriating the body back home. this was stated clearly by both the association’s treasurer and the spokesperson, respectively: ncz helps members during good times and bad moments. for example, if death befalls our members, we contribute towards repatriation and burial (3 march 2019, harare street). migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 124 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 sometimes the ncz helps in times of need. for example, when my wife died, the association took over the whole repatriation process to imo state for her burial (3 march 2019, kaguvi street). however, it appears that those nigerians who are not part of the association do not get any help from the association when misfortune befalls them. this was expressed by the association’s spokesperson: we love each other as nigerians, but there are those who go astray and ncz punishes them. ncz helps to repatriate the dead back to nigeria unless you don’t associate with us. someone died 2 years ago who wasn’t registered with us and he was buried here (7 may 2019, robert mugabe street). these narratives reflect that in the event of the death of a member, the association helps financially to repatriate the body back home. moreover, in the case of migrants whose family members in nigeria pass away, the association also contributes financially to assist them. these contributions attest not only to the social and economic importance of migrant associations, but also to the cultural importance attached to death in their homeland (owusu 2000). according to nwala (1985), the nigerian customary belief in an eternal existence in the assumed next life, often leads to burial rites that embrace a variety of functions and rituals, mediated by kinsmen, sons and secret societies, to mention but a few. where burials are well-planned, they comprise of many rituals, separating the dead from the living, as well as re-arranging spiritual communion and relationships with the ancestors (nwala 1985). from this discussion of the roles of the association, it is clear that these activities help to bond, enrich and facilitate the adaptation of nigerian migrants in the host nation. the next section discusses how nigerian migrant entrepreneurs, through the ncz, mount activities and forge relations with the locals, thus facilitating their continued living and accumulation in the host community. recognition of incompleteness leads to conviviality with the ‘other’ when a migrant community encounters adaptation and integration challenges, the activities of a migrant association take a new direction. this section discusses the efforts of the migrant community at cementing relationships between ‘us’ and ‘them’ with the ultimate goal of bridging social connections and burying differences (albuquerque et al. 2000). this bridging of social connections, where nigerian traders come closer to the indigenes in various contact zones, allows for the forging of conviviality, where differences between outsiders and insiders recede and become somewhat inconspicuous (overing and passes 2000). nyamnjoh (2017) asserts that conviviality is the recognition of being incomplete, as humans, on the part of both migrants and indigenes. it is this incompleteness that allows migrants to be open minded in their claims and articulations of identities, belonging and being. “conviviality encourages (both ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’) to reach out, encounter and explore ways of enhancing or complementing themselves with the added possibilities of potency brought their way by the incompleteness of 125 others, never as a ploy to becoming complete, but to make them more efficacious in their relationships and sociality” (nyamnjoh 2017: 1). one of the activities where this much-needed conviviality is experienced in abundance, is end-of-year parties, where all nigerians gather to celebrate their achievements of the year. two of the participants expressed the following: this is the time that we gather as ncz and our families. we invite zimbabweans happening to be our in-laws as well as other well-wishers to celebrate ourselves after a hectic year. this is just a way of cementing our relations (3 january 2019, kaguvi street). every year we hold end-of-year parties for our families, where we also involve locals. sometimes we even invite the local ministers. we are all africans and it’s a moment for togetherness with zimbabweans as one people. in africa there are no borders, like in europe (8 january 2019, copa cabana). it is also at these end-of-year parties that relations with the officialdom are also consolidated, as a few officials, especially from the department of immigration, the city council and zimbabwe republic police are tactically invited. by forming alliances with these high-ranking officials, they are fashioning a new form of ‘tactical cosmopolitanism’ (landau and freemantle 2010) to navigate real or imaginary intricacies characterizing the host community. one might say that they are playing by the rules, which although largely unspoken and unwritten, are known by the actors. this concurs with milandou (1997) who argues that laws and regulations are only for the anonymous; everything is a matter of relationships. thus, conviviality can be explored as a process of interaction embedded in social practice, sometimes free from tensions and racism (wessendorf 2014; wise and velayutham 2014; gilroy 2004). as putnam (2000) argues, networks forged in these contact zones, like the end-of-year parties, facilitate the integration of newcomers into the host nation, and they also potentially open up more social and economic opportunities. for locals, this is also an opportunity to know and integrate with the ‘aliens’ better and also to pursue their own interests. this was expressed by a zimbabwean entrepreneur who operates a clothing shop in downtown harare: nigerians have their own association here in zimbabwe called ncz. this association serves a lot of purposes for them. every year they hold end-of-year parties where we are also invited. i have been invited to their parties several times where we celebrated together and i befriended most nigerians who later helped me (27 march 2019, gulf complex). however, it is not only migrants who invite the locals to their celebrations. locals also extend the ‘olive branch’ and invite migrants as a symbol of oneness. this was well captured by kedha, a local entrepreneur who shares a cosmetic shop with ozeze, a nigerian entrepreneur: i have managed to invite a couple of ncz members to our celebrations like weddings, parties and other cultural ceremonies and rites in my rural area. this is just to show that we are one and to cement our relations even more (16 migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 126 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 january 2019, gulf complex). moreover, besides the ordinary zimbabweans inviting nigerian migrants to their celebrations, the officialdom is not left out. this was expressed by a senior immigration officer who articulated the following: every year we send formal invitations to all foreigners in the country, including the nigerians to attend our independence celebrations, heroes day celebrations as well as the annual harare carnival, to come and showcase their cultural talents. this is a gesture to show our cordial relations with nigeria from time immemorial (3 july 2019, department of immigration). from the narrative above, it is clear that the ncz is fashioning new forms of belonging where convivial relations are continually created and recreated. it is at these parties, celebrations and gatherings where accommodation of differences between ‘them’ and ‘us’ and where reciprocity and exchange have become the norm (hinchliffe and whatmore 2006). the demonstration of conviviality above bears testimony to the ways in which migrants employ celebrations and rituals to win the support of a potentially hostile community, narrowing the gap between ‘us’ and ‘them’. financial assistance sometimes migrants get start-up capital to start their businesses from the association because they do not have, as a result of their unresolved citizenship status, the requisite documentation to access funding from formal institutions like banks and credit institutions. the association offers direct financial assistance to its members in the form of soft loans, with low interest rates and flexible repayment terms. one of the respondents, ngozie, who owns two cosmetic shops at the popular gulf complex, delightedly expressed the following: when i came to zimbabwe, i didn’t have enough capital. ncz helped me with start-up capital amounting to $3000 usd which i repaid after a year (3 june 2019, kaguvi street). besides financial assistance, the association also assists newcomers to stock their new businesses, if they do not have enough. this was the case of victor, who was given motor spares to stock his shop and he said: at first when i came here it wasn’t easy because i didn’t have enough capital for a business. one of my brothers, who is also one of the members of the association, advised me to join the association which then helped me with the motor spares stock (26 june 2019, harare street). these results confirm putnam’s (2000) observations that migrant associations foster social ties, which facilitate entrepreneurship among migrants. norris (1975) also pointed out that migrant associations provide newcomers with a basis of familiar and viable interactions and relationships on which they start to build their new lives ‘elsewhere’. however, besides borrowing from the association, some have also borrowed from their zimbabwean counterparts. for instance, stany borrowed about us$ 5000 127 from his zimbabwean business partner to expand his business. at the same time, one zimbabwean automotive entrepreneur based in norton, about 40km north west of harare who has close ties with the association members noted that, in order for him to start his motor spares business, he borrowed from association members. this two-way reciprocity qualifies migrant associations as ‘communities of itinerancy’ in which debts, gifts and finances are exchanged whilst fostering a sense of collective consciousness among migrants and indigenes who did not know each other previously (alioua 2011). social responsibility the nigerian community in zimbabwe seldom limits its integrative activities to one specific activity. rather, it has a range of activities to facilitate integration of nigerian entrepreneurs into the socio-economic environs of the host country, as the scope of its activities involve, most often, forging relationships with the indigenes. of late, the association has donated to the less privileged, the zimbabwe republic police, the harare city council and the victims of cyclone idai that ravaged parts of eastern zimbabwe. the following narratives by nigerians support this assertion: we have donated towards cyclone idai victims. we do it with our hearts. sometime in 2015, we bought bicycles for the zimbabwe republic police and sometime, we bought refuse bins for the harare city council. this country is also our country, so we need the zimbabweans to welcome us as fellow africans (30 april 2019, bank street). typically, nigerians are the most travelled people in africa, but when we travel, we take with us beliefs that, whatever place we live in is our second home and problems faced in that country we also regard them as our problems. we are committed to serving this country with all our hearts (8 may 2019, robert mugabe street). the expression, ‘this country is also our country, so we need zimbabweans to welcome us as fellow africans’ can be conceived as a narrative to claim space and belonging, where new-comers try to portray an image that there is no difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (landau and freemantle 2010). moreover, the nigerian foreign minister, mr onyeama, was invited by the association to zimbabwe in the aftermath of cyclone idai in 2018. he was accompanied by the ncz president to the state house to meet the zimbabwean president. as cited by the local newspaper, the herald, the foreign minister candidly expressed the following in light of the special visit: it is a manifestation of the fraternity and solidarity between our people and our two countries (interview with foreign minister onyeama at state house). more so, the zimbabwean president was overwhelmed by nigeria’s gesture, reiterating that it was demonstrative of the cordial relations between the two countries which date back to the liberation struggle (munyoro 2019). the president expressed the following: the people of nigeria and its leadership have realized that our brothers and sisters here were visited by cyclone idai and in their compassion have sent us a migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 128 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 plane-load of aid to give to people in that area, who have suffered a devastating event (interview with zimbabwe’s president at state house). by virtue of these activities and initiatives, the association can be conceived as allowing newcomers to be ‘at home away from home’. the association contributes to ‘home-making abroad’ (antwi-bosiakoh 2009), as it is strategically encouraging its members to be responsible citizens at points of destination. members are encouraged to exhibit a high level of civic spirit to facilitate cohesion and integration. as suggested by landau and duponchel (2011), this could offer newcomers protection from exploitation, as these activities and initiatives seem to grease the corridors of bureaucracy. as one nigerian internet café owner clarified: at first, the police and the immigration officials were so suspicious about us, so they couldn’t take our matters seriously, but now when we can’t solve our matters on our own, we now engage the police and immigration officials as we now have a cordial relationship, particularly because of what they have seen us doing in the country. enhancing networks through cultural exchanges in reaction to the swelling ‘politics of non-belonging’ on the continent, african scholars have stood up to challenge the rhetoric of nativism and autochthony (whitehouse 2012). achille mbembe has been at the forefront of this crusade, as well as ghanaian philosopher kwame anthony appiah. appiah (2006) argues that cultural purity is an oxymoron. endeavours to fix human identity in space and place, he argues, rests on a fundamental error: cultural hybridization and migration are not exceptions but are indeed its very essence. it is possible, thus, to imagine a future in which openness to outside influence is celebrated as a virtue. appiah (1997) argues that the cultural differences that we bring to the table, make it rewarding to interact after all. owusu (2000) argues that one element that defines the identity of migrants is the ability to exercize their sense of belonging through symbolic and material practices. as argued by giberovitch (1994), migrant associations help to fulfil the cultural needs of their members for the perpetuation of their particular language, tradition or culture. this is done through cultural expression, preservation, exchange and promotion. chineze and ajoki expressed the following, respectively: as an association we also observe our cultural holidays, for example the new yam festival, which is for igbos. we invite even our zimbabwean friends to celebrate our culture together. this is just to facilitate oneness, just like shonas and ndebeles here in zimbabwe (3 august 2019, chinhoyi street). every year we celebrate new yam festival and it’s a time for all igbos in the host country to come together wearing our attire to thank the gods for the harvest and protection (3 august 2019, cameroon street). the new yam festival also offers an opportunity for cultural mixing between the igbos and other nigerian tribes. as noted by the association’s president, who is himself an igbo, the new yam festival is the most glamorous and most important festival of 129 the igboland in the southeast of nigeria. it is celebrated between august and october each year to thank the gods for a bumper harvest. it also heralds the time of harvest as well as providing an opportunity for social integration of the various tribes in nigeria or in the diaspora. the festival creates a sense of oneness and solidarity between migrants and helps to forge belonging in host communities. it is also at these festivals where nigerians invite the local people for cultural exchanges. this was expressed by mama amaka, a local woman married to a nigerian igbo king: we celebrate new yam festival each year where we also invite zimbabweans for cultural exchange. zimbabwean music is played and we dance to it and nigerian music is played and the local people also dance to it. different nigerian and local cuisine is also served at the festival (8 september 2019, mbuya nehanda street). a local zimbabwean friend of a nigerian who was invited for the 2018 new yam festival expressed the following: i used to think that nigerian food is unpalatable. however, thanks to my friend who invited me to their festival, i really enjoyed their food as they do too, our own food here. we look forward for more of these festivals as they help us to meet and exchange our cultures with our nigerian brothers. i have also invited a couple of nigerians to our rural home for various celebrations and they really enjoyed it. they now feel home away from home with the reception we give them here in zimbabwe (8 september 2019, kaguvi street). although a cultural exchange denotes bridging of social capital, it is not integration itself (landau and duponchel 2011). what emerges from these cultural exchange arenas is what bhabha (1994) refers to as a ‘third space’ of belonging, a space that fuses multiple identities and practices. this is where resources, rights and belongings are constantly negotiated, with the result that migrant associations become multiethnic and multinational (sardinha 2009; marquez 2001). conclusion and recommendations the main thrust of this article was to analyze how a migrant association, particularly the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz), facilitates being, belonging and integration of migrants in the host society. the article attempted to answer two questions: i) how does the association help to bond and enrich the lives of migrants; and ii) how does the association facilitate the bridging of social connections with the ‘other’ with the ultimate goal of burying differences, which in essence helps them to continue staying and accumulating in the diaspora? as revealed in this study, migrant associations function to minimize the challenges of initial settlement caused by mobility, becoming spaces of solidarity and reciprocity (putnam 1993; alioua 2011). at the initial stage of migration, the association facilitates the adaptation among migrants. additionally, the association functions to preserve the migrant community’s values and heritage. it is these shared values and heritage, together with the cultural identity shared by migrants, which become fundamental for a positive association migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 130 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 (nwala 1985; owusu 2000). however, migrants’ associative actions are reliant upon the host society’s attitudes towards the migrant community, and this is vital for their integration. as increased contact with the indigenes ensues, the association shifts attention and starts to mount activities to bridge social relations, thereby lessening the social differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (nyamnjoh 2017; overing and passes 2000; gilroy 2004). what conclusions can be drawn from this case study? contrary to the prevailing idea that african mobility and cities are characterized as chaotic and competitive, it turns out that these places are centres of conviviality and encounters between migrants and hosts. diverse cities are thus transformed into places and spaces of interrelationships, interconnections, collaboration, interdependence, compassion and coproduction where migrants and hosts are converging and producing new forms of values, practices and beliefs in potentially hostile and toxic environments. this seems to be a more useful way of theorizing about urban cities, than the dominant perspective which describes them as chaotic and doomed. the authors perceive being, belonging and integration as mutable processes, ever-changing in space and time. these processes are not conclusive, but rather it is the making of headway and progression towards achieving the acceptance of difference within diverse spaces that makes migrant associations momentous. migrant associations advocate the right to negotiate difference and identity, in turn allowing migrants to actively belong and participate under the flagship of plurality. within this context, the authors recommend that in calling for attention to place migrant associations in migration policy-making discourse, there remains an urgent need for nation-states to leverage on migrant associations for effective migration management in zimbabwe and beyond. the roles that migrant associations play should be incorporated into migration policies such that migration associations should be viewed positively, and if possible encouraged by nation-states. finally, establishing a line of communication with migrant associations is 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countries, especially within the sub-saharan african region. however, zambia faces the daunting challenge of sustaining interregional, interethnic and interracial harmony among its own indigenous groups and those identified as foreign immigrants. the april 2016 xenophobic looting of shops belonging to other african nationals by residents of lusaka highlighted the intensification of ethnic and racial conflict in the country. amid these identity conflicts, some commentators from different intellectual and other persuasions have tried to explain ethnic and racial identity problems in relation to primordial, constructive and instrumental theoretical underpinnings. this article goes further to draw a relationship between economic downturn and identity and xenophobic violence. the article draws arguments from a review of existing literature and empirical data. keywords migration, identity, ethnicity, racism, regionalism, xenophobia. introduction this article attempts to interrogate the deepening ethnic and racial divide in zambia. until recently, most scholarly works on zambia have exclusively focused on ethnic conflicts among the country’s major tribal groups. however, the occasion of the april xenophobic attacks by zambians, mainly involving the looting of shops belonging to rwandan and congolese immigrants, necessitated this article. from the onset, one must state that international law obliges zambia to provide shelter to refugees and other people of concern who are forcibly displaced from their home countries. the major pieces of international law that require zambia to fulfil this obligation include the 1991 united nations convention, the 1967 united nations protocol and the 1979 organisation of african unity conversion (unhcr, 1991:4). forcibly displaced * department of political and administrative studies, school of humanities and social sciences, the university of zambia. email: pbbaala@gmail.com. ** lecturer at the university of zambia. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 618 people, although usually referred to as ‘refugees,’ can be further classified in accordance with their specific migration status and the nature of help they are seeking in the host country. according to the unhcr (2009), these include asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons (idps), returned refugees and returned internally displaced persons, among others. collectively, all forcibly displaced people who require help of one kind or another in other countries are collectively referred to as people or populations of concern. in order to proceed systematically, after this introduction this paper attempts to theorise and historicise the challenges of migration, identity and xenophobic violence in zambia. while the background section highlights some of the elicit moments in the fomentation of ethnic and racial hatred in the country, the section on theoretical review evaluates the efficacy of some of the key conceptual arguments in explaining the causes of growing ethnic violence and xenophobia in zambia. thereafter, a synoptic trend of the migration situation in sub-saharan africa in general and zambia in particular is given. this is followed by a discussion of zambia’s identity conflict within the country’s political economy. within this, an account of the april 2016 xenophobic violence is given. the article discusses the political economy of identity in zambia with the argument that the heightening ethnic and racial hatred in the country is a result of deliberate politicisation and economisation of construed social differentiation by a small but powerful rent-seeking politico-economic elite class. then, the article concludes and recommends measures for fostering ethnic and racial harmony in zambia. migration has occurred throughout human history as people move from one place to another in search of a better life. a migrant is a person who changes his usual place of residence by crossing an administrative boundary and residing or intending to stay in a new area for a period of not less than six months (cso, 2013: 1). the movements of people internally and externally have been influenced by a number of factors some of which are presented here in no order of their importance. firstly, individuals are sometimes driven out of their countries because of high costs of living and poor or declining economies that prevent them from living a decent life. in such a situation, the migrant targets a country that they perceive will provide an improved quality of life for themselves and/or their families. secondly, people may be forced out of their countries for political reasons. experiences of political violence or any related threats may influence some people to flee their countries for their own safety and/or that of their family members. thirdly, others may be forced to flee their countries on religious grounds. today, religious conflict has led to ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 619 some people being attacked or killed, thereby triggering the movement of the oppressed to regions or countries in which they feel they will be able to freely practice their religion without any or much victimisation. fourthly, ethnic divisions have in many occasions throughout the world led to some people migrating to safe havens. this has occurred when one group dominates the other(s) in some aspects of life (i.e. political, economic or social), thus leading to the exclusion of the dominated group, which consequently triggers identity conflict. another related concept discussed in this paper is identity. identity is the mechanism through which we locate ourselves in relation to the social world. identity links the self with its social context. identity exists in many forms, that is, cultural, national and ethnic, among others. following stuart hall, baldacchino (2011) considers identity as an impossibility born out of the psychic and discursive suturing processes of identification. ethnicity, as a category of identity, cannot be viewed as existing in any sense, or as a substitute of culture for that matter. ethnicity is composed of an interaction between the self and the other, intra-psychically just as much as intersubjectivity. this paper, therefore, is an effort towards a plausible explanation of how political, economic and social rent-seeking in the destination country could adversely affect the safety of immigrants. it presents widely drawn examples while focusing on zambia background the republic of zambia, born on 24 october 1964 when it gained independence from britain, has gone through many politico-economic and social junctures. most noticeable among these was the period prior to the arrival of the british south africa (bsa) company and the one leading up to independence. before cecil rhodes’ commercial interests pushed the bsa company into mineral exploration ventures deep in the interior of the territory north of the zambezi river (now called zambia), there existed human communities defined and organised largely around their biological, tribal, language and other associations of blood and soil. most importantly, nearly all of the tribal groups that inhibited the territory were either immigrants escaping from other hostile groups or wanderers into new territories in search of new opportunities that nature could offer. for this reason, most of zambia’s major ethnic groups that include the lozi, nyanja, bemba and tonga, are immigrants. for instance, the lozi and bemba came from the luba-lunda ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 620 kingdom, while the nyanja group escaped shaka zulu’s wars of dispersal in modern day south africa. although the lozi and tonga, and the ngoni (a part of the nyanja group) and bemba once fought during their migration between the 17th and 19th centuries, these groups eventually established their own ethnic nations existing side by side in relative peace. in fact, the former nemeses later introduced a system of inter-ethnic cousinship in which they jokingly tease one other without taking offense. this type of cousinship exits between the lozi and tonga, and nyanja and bemba groups (bbaala and momba, 2015:2). notwithstanding the fact that inter-ethnic cousinship has catalysed interethnic harmony among former ethnic rivals, it has, itself, become a new source of identity conflicts as groups that play ethnic cousinship have tended to identify more with each other than with other ethnic groups. over the years, zambia has witnessed the clustering together of those of similar language and culture, and the emergence of ethnic stereotypes (gluckman, 1960:55-70; mitchell, 1956 cited in dresang, 1974:1605-1617). as argued later in this article, cleavages of identity that are xenophobic in nature have evolved over a very long period spanning from the pre-colonial era to the postindependence era, and they affect social and political participation (bates, 1970:546-561). although ethnic cleavage and conflict existed in the pre-colonial zambian society, xenophobic identity and conflict are mainly associated with the penetration of white settlers into the territory. the entry of the europeans into the territory north of the zambezi, as was the case in most other african lands, was met with resistance by the local people. dehumanising practices emanating from slave trade, colonialism and the proclamation of white supremacy over africans led to the resistance of the europeans’ penetration into the territory. the failure by the white settlers to appreciate the indigenous political, social and economic institutions, and their imposition of european institutions they regarded as superior, stirred racial identity and conflict. for instance, the livingstone mail, the first colonial newspaper ever published north of the zambezi, was on many occasions, as observed by kasoma (1986:21), used to spearhead hate against the indigenous blacks. the paper once carried a story that read: “the races can never mix, they are divided as east is from the west,” and that blacks were dirty people from whom the whites were to keep away (livingstone mail, 1949 cited in kasoma, 1986:21). even those africans who had eventually begun to adopt the european way of life were not spared from racial segregation. in livingstone, one of the earliest ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 621 growing urban centres that also served as the headquarters of north-western rhodesia, some africans had started working as shop-keepers. however, the introduction of an industrial colour bar by the white settlers ensured that africans were relegated to those jobs that the whites disliked for being dirty, hard or dangerous (gann, 1958:60-62). there were many other legal and structural mechanisms in which the white settlers segregated against the africans, including the operation of a social, economic and political system orchestrated to promote white dominance over other races. the treatment of people according to the colour of their skin was an institutionalised public policy under white rule. consequently, different rhodesian racial groups such as the africans (or the bantu as referred to by gann), the minority indians, arabs and coloureds (or as they were otherwise called, the half-caste), were treated differently under the obtaining public policy and regulations at the time. as gann (1958:175-191) points out, this social stratification system was dehumanising, especially to the africans, and was designed to serve the interests of the minority white settlers in northern rhodesia. particularly, as argued by rodney (1976:250), colonial powers sometimes saw the value of stimulating tribal [and other identity] jealousies so as to keep the colonised from dealing with their principal contradiction with the european overloads. it is also worth noting that the colonialists did not only create social strata based on the major racial groups found in northern rhodesia. they also stratified the major local indigenous groups based on certain stereotypes. additionally, they treated each regional-ethnic group according to the stereotype they had given it. for example, the nyanja were viewed as methodical and clerical, the tonga as rural and conservative, the bemba as tough and hardworking, and the lozi as proud and intelligent (dresang, 1974:1605-1617). although such identity tags were beneficial to the colonialists, they effectively sowed the seed of ethnic and racial hatred, the repercussions of which were to transcend the colonial period. with increased political awakening owing to the activities of the african liberation movement in northern rhodesia – which was initially led solely by the african national congress (anc), and later jointly with the united national independence party (unip) – europeans started conceding some rights to africans. for instance, some constitutional amendments between 1948 and 1958 brought in a clause that ostensibly stipulated that the interest of one race of the community could not be subordinated to those of any other race (mulenga, 2011:4). notwithstanding this, inter alia, some isolated incidents of violence against the white minority were recorded in some parts of northern ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 622 rhodesia, especially during what mulenga terms “the violent sixties.” specifically, he refers to three important events in the period of 1960-1961. one of these events was the violent attack and murder of mrs. lily burton by a group of drunken unip youths returning from a party meeting outside ndola. details were that the car in which mrs. burton and her two daughters were travelling was attacked using a petrol bomb. mrs. burton managed to save her children but not herself and died from her wounds days later (mulenga, 2011: 6). however, the period leading up to independence unequivocally revealed that as much as colonial rule remained the common enemy, the african was his own enemy given the emerging tribal identity conflicts among leaders in the african nationalist movement. disagreements within the africans nationalist movement, the anc, led to a split among the nationalist leaders that culminated in the formation of another big nationalist party, the zambia african national congress (zanc), in october 1958. the zanc was later renamed the unip. this followed consultations among the young radicals of the party who felt that the anc leader, harry mwaanga nkumbula, was not determined enough to fight for independence (sardanis, 2014:89). however, much of the literature on this subject fails to mention that this split of the nationalist movement was actually an act of ethnic repositioning among the nationalist leaders. this argument is supported by the fact that most of those who went to found or join the unip, including kenneth david kaunda, could easily be identified with the bemba ethnic group and the north-eastern region, while those who remained in the anc, including nkumbula, were mainly associated with the tonga ethnic group and the north-western region. ironically, as evidenced by most of the major elections before and after independence, ethno-regional identity, as an electoral factor, has seemingly taken precedence over more important characteristics in choosing national leaders. undoubtedly, this has been detrimental to the development of the country, especially in the post-independence period. each of the key african political parties has tended to perform well in regions associated with the ethnicity of its key leaders and has recorded poor results in regions dominated by other ethnic groups. specific incidents of ethnic-based identity and conflict are discussed later. theoretical review of identity and xenophobia although ethnicity as an academic subject has received deserved attention global scholarship over the decades, it remains of growing interest owing to ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 623 the new twists that it keeps assuming in changing political environments in different countries. in a nutshell, one can say that ethnicity is like a tree with many roots and branches, where the roots are the multiple causes and forms of ethnicity while the branches are the ethnic identities (or cleavages) as reflected by different ethnic groups. when theorising ethnicity, one should underscore the primacy of ‘identity.’ all ethnicity problems are identity problems. consequently, any good investigation into ethnicity tries to analyse the variables that define it. but what is identity? an individual’s referent group, region, language, tribe, race, colour, religion, profession, lifestyle, inter alia, constitute his or her identity. osaghae and suberu (2005), view identity as any group attribute that provides recognition or definition, reference, affinity, coherence and meaning for individual members of the group, acting individually or collectively. by the same token, ethnic identity becomes a basis of ethnic hatred and xenophobia against those with whom one does not identify. any study of ethnicity requires an in-depth analysis of its various patterns, precipitants and purposes. at this point, the paper examines the various patterns of ethnic identity and xenophobia. some scholars like norris and mattes (2003:8) view ethnicity as an enveloping term for many different forms of identity. in their view, ethnicity is an encompassing concept that one cannot define by any single demographic variable in a society. they contend that in some societies, ethnic identity may signify blood relations among members of an extended family or kinship based in a particular region. in other societies, ethnic identity may be an expression of common soil, faith, community affiliation or ancestry. thus, individuals hailing from the same sub-territory of the country may identify themselves with a particular ethno-regional-lingual group. joireman (2003:9), defines ethnicity by outlining features characteristic of an ethnic group, namely: i) proper name, ii) myth, true or false, of a common ancestry, iii) shared historical memories, iv) common culture defined by language, customs or religion, v) link to a geographical homeland and vi) sense of solidarity toward fellow members of the group. the preceding definitions clearly depict regionalism as a subset or a pattern of ethnicity. as stated in the preceding arguments, regional solidarity may also exist among members of different tribal groups who share a geographical homeland. in debating ethnicity, other scholars such as edward shils, cliford geertz, harold isaacs and walker connor have presented arguments based on a ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 624 theory called primordialism. geertz (1963) cited in bacova (1998:29-43), credited as founder of the theory, defines primordial attachment [or identity] as stemming from the “givens” or, more precisely, the assumed “givens” of social existence of humans. geertz (1963) cited in bacova (1998:29-43) further argues that: ‘givenness’ is immediate contiguity and kin connection but also being born into a particular community, religion, culture, then it is the mother tongue, and sharing the same social practices. [he] states that the congruities of blood, speech, beliefs, attitudes [and] customs are perceived by people as inexpressible and at the same time overpowering per se. one is bound to one’s kinship, one’s neighbour, one’s fellow believer, ipso facto, as the result not only of personal affection, practical necessity, common interest, or obligation, but in great part by virtue of some absolute importance attributed to the very tie itself. these natural and deep characteristics that imbue primordial identity entail an intense bondage between a member and their ethnic group. cleavage to the group values and shared interests is thus likely to be as strong as the need to stand against external dilution. it also means that members of a given ethnic group are naturally divided from those belonging to other groups, meaning that interethnic group conflict is a naturally occurring phenomenon, especially since a person usually does not choose their blood relations and the other key ethnic neighbourhood elements at birth. critics of the primordial theory have often looked elsewhere for plausible explanations for the nature and causes of ethnic conflicts in countries. consequently, other theories thought to underpin and explain ethnic conflicts have been espoused. the most important of these are the theories of constructivism and instrumentalism. although the use of constructivist methods can be traced back to the works of philosopher socrates, it is the swiss psychologist, jean piaget (1896-1980) who is accredited with the invention of this theory in his attempt to explain how people know what they know. other scholars who have been popularly identified as constructivist include michael hechter, charles tily, ernest gellner, donald horowitz, and for some unknown reasons, most feminist authors on ethnicity. under the constructivist interpretation of ethnic identity, an individuals’ cleavages or identities are constructed (and reconstructed), flexible, mutable and a product of society (yang, 2000:39-60 cited in boon, 2015:8). a constructivist sees social reality as a product of human socialisation, or at times, compromise. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 625 social institutions such as the media, churches, mosques, traditional initiation ceremonies, formal educational institutions, political parties, inter alia and opinion leaders play an important role in the construction of what one believes as social reality. for this reason, samuels (2013:153 cited in boon, 2015:8) and other scholars believe that political [or ethnic] identities are acquired and variable. wendt (1994:72) believes that an individual’s identity and reality are constituted by the ideational or cognitive structures that humans as social actors are exposed to, meaning that certain characteristics exhibited by individuals would be absent in the void of these institutions. ethnic identity or behaviour is, therefore, a product of the structures within or to which an individual is socialised. based on this perspective, it could be said that primordial characteristics are typical of a primitive society in which its members have little or no interaction with an external world or languish in cognitive deprivation and backwardness. this means that with time and more exposure to new external social constructs of reality, a person is bound to learn new ideals and shift their beliefs about reality and identity. another theory that has been used to contextualise and explain ethnicity is instrumentalism. unlike in the primordial and constructivist paradigms where ethnic identity is natural and constructed, respectively, instrumentalists argue that an individual’s social identity and conflict is a result of struggle for power by some elite elements in society. power is sought not as an end in itself but as an effective means to material ends. bacova (1998:29-43) rightly observes that, in instrumental attachments, individuals’ affiliations are stimulated by their desire to gain advantages (mostly economic and political). an important argument by the instrumentalists is the rejection of the primordial assertion that variations in ethnic attributes are the root causes of ethnic identity and conflict in society. to them, the cause of ethnic identity and conflict is rather the question of who gets what, when and how? societies experiencing a higher incidence of inequality are, therefore, more prone to an instrumental type of ethnic identity and conflict than those considered more egalitarian. this view is shared by stein (2011) who further acknowledges that although identities such as religion [or ethnicity] can play a part in violent conflict, they are merely “opium of the warriors” – a tool used by self-interested elites to mobilise support and fighting power for conflict. stein sees instrumentalism as an agent-principal based approach in which power-seeking elites pursuing economic and political ambitions instrumentalise identity, [through ethnic ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 626 consciousness], to manipulate and mobilise the masses in order to enhance the chances of attaining or defending class advantages. review of identity and xenophobia trends over the years, the world has continued to witness increased displacement of people from the places they call home. by the end of 2015, 65.3 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide due to persecution, conflict, generalised violence and human rights violations. this reflects an increase in absolute terms of 5.8 million people over 2014, and represents the greatest level of forced displacement ever recorded (iom, 2016: 5-20) by the end of 2013, more than 232 million people globally were estimated to be migrants, of which 19 million were estimated to be in africa. at the same time, some 42.5 million people worldwide were considered as displaced due to conflicts (36% refugees, 62% internally displaced persons (idps) and around 2% of individuals whose asylum applications remain to be adjudicated). of these, nearly 2.7 million refugees were in africa, constituting roughly 25% of the world’s refugee population (unhcr, 2016). indeed, africa remains a continent with complex migration dynamics. the continent is generally characterised by dynamic migratory patterns and has a long history of intra-regional as well as inter-regional migration flows. conflict, income inequalities and environmental change can result in very low levels of human security that act as push factors for migration (iom, 2014: 6-7). the southern african region experiences all types of movements including mixed and irregular migration, labour migration and displacement due to conflict and natural disasters. by virtue of its relative stability and economic opportunities, southern africa experiences a high volume of migration due to work opportunities in the mining, manufacturing and agricultural industries. the industrial development in some countries in the region – especially in south africa, botswana and zambia – and the oil wealth of angola, have been magnets for both skilled and unskilled labour migrants from within the region and elsewhere, notably from the horn of africa and west africa. southern africa is also a springboard often used as the staging ground for regular and irregular migration to europe and the americas (iom, 2014: 6-7). in 2013, the southern african region recorded over four million migrants, excluding irregular migrants, of which 44% were female and 20% were under 19 years of age. by far, the largest number of migrants is found in south africa (2.4 million, including some 1.5 million from zimbabwe) followed by the democratic republic of congo (drc) (447,000). among the 4 million migrants ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 627 are approximately 200,000 registered refugees primarily in the drc and south africa (iom, 2014: 6-7). in may 2008, a wave of xenophobic attacks spread all over south africa. more than 60 people, mainly citizens of somalia, mozambique and zimbabwe, were killed by mob violence. despite a subsequent solidarity campaign, the image of the south african rainbow nation was profoundly damaged and made the world, once again, aware of the growing inner-african sentiments against so-called foreigners (kersting, 2009: 1). in his seminal work, horowitz (2001 as cited by kersting, 2009) analyses hundreds of lethal ethnic riots and related forms of xenophobia. he distinguishes between four reasons for such outbursts: firstly, an "ethnic" or "national" antagonism; secondly, a "reasonable" justification of violence; thirdly, a response to a certain event; and fourthly, aggression in a situation where the mob does not face any, or faces only a small risk of punishment. a new dimension of globalisation has emerged with regards to migration. as a result of globalisation, the nation-state is said to be of diminishing relevance today. the global economic order, with its new information and communication technologies as well as its new transport systems, has greatly enhanced the mobility of capital and labour. peter vale, as cited by desai (2008), has argued how in post-apartheid south africa people’s movement across borders has mutated “from local issue, to international and then, to security threat.” the response from political leaders in response to allegations regarding xenophobia has often been denialism. this has triggered international migration on an unprecedented scale. on the other hand, national identities and local cultures are being reinvigorated. strong nationalism may enhance in-group solidarity, but under certain conditions, it may also strengthen out-group hostility. nationalism in sub-saharan africa was often regarded as another form of anti-colonial protest. territorial nationalism, however, was often considered inauthentic because african states were delimited along ‘artificial’ (meaning: colonially imposed) boundaries, which fenced in multiple ethnic groups, and created territorial entities characterised by strong cultural heterogeneity. jackson, as cited in kersting (2009:6), points out that in the last couple of decades, the laws regulating citizenship and nationality have become more restrictive in african countries. migrants have more frequently become victims of national campaigns and xenophobia and these "travellers in permanent transit" were demonised in cameroon, mozambique and ghana as ‘zombies’ (nyamnjoh, 2006 cited in kersting, 2009). in fact, most of the xenophobia in africa is afrophobia. although minorities, such as chinese and indians, face some forms of ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 628 xenophobic discrimination such as the use derogatory terms such as “chocholis” and “bamwenye”, respectively, most of the victims of xenophobia have been fellow africans, particularly migrants from east african countries. migration situation in zambia: a synoptic account human mobility has always been a matter of global, regional and national interest. migration, both in happy and sad moments, has social-cultural, political and economic consequences in both the departure and host countries. it is for this reason that most countries use their population policies as development tools. however, a country’s population policy is prone to unplanned human mobility caused by unforeseen events within that country or other countries. such occurrences as wars, persecution, social and economic crises, inter alia, are important catapults of human mobility in the world. the united nations high commission for refugees (unhcr, 2015) reports that at the end of 2014, there were 59.5 million forcibly displaced people in the world. of these, 10 million were stateless while the rest were either refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons (idps), returned refugees, returned internally displaced persons or those classified as ‘others.’ the unhcr (2015) further states that 42,500 people are forced to flee their homes every day because of conflict and persecution. the unhcr statistics also show that 53% of the global refugee population comes from three countries namely somalia (1.11 million), afghanistan (2.59 million) and syria (3.88 million). the leading refugee host countries in the world are turkey (1.59 million) and pakistan (1.51 million). in southern africa, zambia is one of the countries with a big refugee population. no sooner than it obtained independence did zambia became host to the first influx of refugees. the united states (us) department of state (2014) shows that as early as 1966, zambia had started hosting angolan refugees fleeing the armed conflict between the popular liberation movement of angola (mpla) and the national union for the total independence of angola (unita). in 2010, the unhcr put the number of persons of concern in zambia at 51,856. these are distributed as follows: refugees (25,578), asylum-seekers (2,186), returnees (1,640) and others (22,452) (unhcr, 2016). in order to cater for the population of forced immigrants, zambia, with the help of the unhcr, operates six major camps and settlements. each of these was strategically established to cater for the refugees originating from specific hot spots. for instance, ukwimi in eastern province, established between 1987 and 1989 (unhcr, 1991: 5), was a reaction to the influx of refugees escaping ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 629 the bloody clashes between the rival fighters belonging to the liberation front of mozambique (frelimo) and mozambican national resistance (renamo). maheba, situated in north-western zambia overlooks angola, which has witnessed one of the longest armed conflicts in the region. other camps and centres are the mayukwayukwa and nangweshi in the western province, kala in luapula province and mwange in the northern province. both kala and mwange have mainly serviced refugee inflows from the drc. in its five decades of existence as an independent country, zambia is one of the very few southern african countries that has maintained peace internally among its more than seventy-two tribes and externally with its eight neighbouring countries, most of which are epicentres of armed conflicts. consequently, zambia has been home to a refugee population from neighbouring countries. some of zambia’s neighbours that have witnessed armed conflicts are angola, the democratic republic of congo (drc) and mozambique. other countries such as rwanda, burundi and somalia, which are geographically in east africa, have been among the leading contributors to the refugee population in zambia over the last two decades or so. migration statistics show that over the last two decades, the population of refugees in zambia has been considerably reducing from 45,632 in the period 1996-2000 to 25,578 in the period 2011-2015. this reduction is mainly due to the return of relative peace in some of the countries such as angola, rwanda and the drc. table 1 below shows zambia’s refugee population between 1996 and 2015. table 1. refugee population in zambia, 1996-2015 period no. of refugees change 1996-2000 45,632 2001-2005 25,653 -19,979 2006-2010 23,594 -2,059 2011-2015 25,578 1,984 source: drawn based on world bank development indicators. the changes in the stock of refugees over the years could be attributed to the repatriation exercises that the zambian government and the unhcr have conducted over the period under review, following improvements in security situations of some of the refugees’ home countries as earlier observed. for ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 630 instance, in 2009, the unhcr assisted a total of 19,200 refugees to be repatriated to either their countries of origin or to a third country where they had chosen to live. through this exercise, 17,000 congolese (from the drc) and 2,200 angolans were among those repatriated to their countries of origin. in the same year, 137 refugees were helped to resettle in third countries of their choice. the unhcr also conducted a verification exercise to establish the number of refugees from the drc who were living in zambian communities outside of refugee camps, specifically in luapula province. a total of 6,535 refugees of congolese origin were found to live in these communities (unhcr, 2009: 89). according to the unhcr (2009), the population of persons of concern in zambia by country of origin is as shown in table 2 below. table 2persons of concern distribution by country of origin country of origin total angola 25,300 drc 22,000 rwanda 5,100 burundi 3,014 somalia 1,900 various 330 source: drawn based on data from the unhcr global report (2009) migration and the political economy of identity in zambia over the last couple of years, zambia has witnessed a flaring up of hate and rejection based on identity. although, as shown in the background section, zambia has witnessed isolated incidents of inter-racial hatred and conflict in the period before independence, the most expressed form of hatred has been that based on one’s language or tribe. however, events in the recent past seem to suggest an increase in the complexity of ethnic hatred in zambia. another dimension to the new form of ethnic hatred is the role of national politics in heightening ethnic consciousness in the population. the anti-chinese rhetoric that formed the opposition leader, michael chilufya sata’s populist ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 631 mobilisation in the 2006, 2008 and 2011 elections psyched most of the urban youths into believing that that socio-economic woes were a direct result of foreigners living in the country. as a result, from the standpoint of the authors, the constructivist-instrumentalist theoretical framework seems to explain the problem of ethnicity and violence in zambia. the chinese investors, on their part, have not done much to help their own situation given the number of reports relating to abuse of zambian workers in chinese owned firms and construction projects. for instance, the 2005 explosion at a munitions factory serving chambishi, which killed 46 zambian workers (alden, 2007: 74), reinforced the conspiracy theories including the claim that the chinese ‘bosses’ had deliberately trapped the zambian workers, a claim inflamed by the fact that not a single chinese worker was harmed in the accident. in his paper presented to the harvard university committee on human rights studies, sata (2007) accused the zambian government of failure to attract genuine investors and of favouring “rogue chinese investors” that had no regard for the welfare of those that were unfortunate enough to work for them. he also accused china of seeking relations with africa in order to, inter alia, perpetuate its abuses of the ethnic minorities in tibet and taiwan. unsurprisingly, the ascendance to power by michael sata and the patriotic front in september 2011 was greeted by frequent protests by zambian workers in chinese owned firms and construction projects. one of these protests occurred at the chinese collum coal mine (ccm) in southern zambia, where the chinese reacted by shooting 13 of the protesting miners (sautman and hairong, 2014: 1073-1092). although there were generally no reports of fatal incidents connected to ethnic or racial hatred until much recently, an official statement by the evangelical fellowship of zambia, council of churches and the zambia episcopal conference to commemorate the world refugee day on 20 june 2005 warned of rising xenophobia in zambia: one does not have to look far for evidence of the fact that refugees are increasingly unwelcome in zambia. we have seen a disturbing rise in the verbal abuse, harassment, arbitrary detention, and physical violence that refugees suffer in zambia. the church regrets the fact that people with genuine protection concerns have been forcibly returned from zambia to countries where their lives or freedom are in jeopardy. needless to say, this practice violates the human rights of refugees and does not reflect well on zambia’s international image (darwin, 2009:6). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 632 april 2016 xenophobic riots on april 7, 2016 riots broke out in zingalume, a slum area of zambia’s capital city, lusaka, after a dead body was discovered early that morning. the people accused the police of not doing anything to protect them at night. they also argued that they were not happy with the (ritual) killings that were happening in the area (nkonde, 2016:4). the riots, which were xenophobic in nature, targeted shops owned by foreigners over allegations that they were the ones behind the string of ritual killings that had occurred in lusaka. the riots were, however, quenched by the police. later, on april 18, 2016 residents of zingalume township ran amok and looted some shops run by rwandans after word went around that suspected ritual murderers had been cornered in possession of human body parts (mwenya & mwale, 2016:1-3). by this time at least seven people were discovered murdered in george, lilanda and zingalume townships, with body parts such as ears, hearts and sexual organs (now widely known as ‘sets’) removed (zimba, 2016:2-4). all of the victims were male. it was alleged that the killings were committed by a named rwandan national whose shop was later looted for groceries and fridges. the rioters later moved on to another shop owned by a rwandan in zingalume, where they escaped with various merchandise, such as plasma television sets, generator sets and radio players, before regrouping again around other shops run by rwandans in other townships. the riots then spread to the neighbouring chunga township (mwenya & mwale, 2016:1-3). by the following day, april 19, 2016, the riots and looting had spread to other townships in lusaka such as george, garden, chawama, kuku, bauleni, mtendere, garden house, matero and kanyama. during the riots, two local people, wrongly suspected of being rwandan nationals were burnt to death and more than 60 shops and houses owned by foreign nationals were looted with rioters taking cash, food, drinks, refrigerators and other electrical appliances (dawood, 2016). in the garden house area, all shops belonging to burundian and rwandan nationals were broken into and looted, with fridges that were pulled from the shops lying in the nearby vicinity (mukuka, 2016:4). in reaction to the riots, the minister of home affairs, davies mwila, assured foreigners that the government was ready to integrate most foreign nationals who originally came in as refugees as soon as they got their passports from their countries of origin (mvula, 2016:1-3). it was not clarified as to how foreigners who ran away from being killed in their own countries would go back and get passports. as a result of these riots, two foreign nationals, whose nationalities have not been confirmed, were burnt to death ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 633 on 18 april, 2016. the zambia police service fought running battles with residents and later removed merchandise from foreign owned shops for safekeeping. some residents that were interviewed called on president edgar lungu to speak out against the xenophobic attacks that were also affecting local businesses. one resident argued: we want president edgar lungu to come out from wherever he is hiding. he is the president, his word is more powerful than what his ministers can say. let him speak out against these evil happenings, let him condemn the attacks on the foreigners and give the country proper direction (mukuka, 2016:4). later, on april 21, 2016, president edgar lungu assured internally displaced rwandans and other foreigners that his administration would not abandon them but would protect them against persecution by criminals. he said this when he visited over 400 rwandans who sought refuge at kalemba hall at st. ignatius catholic church in lusaka’s rhodes park area, a low-density township (chulu, 2016:1). a number of reasons can be advanced in trying to identify, explain and understand the root causes of the xenophobic riots of april 2016 in lusaka. as noted above, kersting (2009), citing horowitz (2001), analyses hundreds of lethal ethnic riots and related forms of xenophobia and identifies four reasons for such outbursts. to recap, these are: firstly; ‘ethnic’ or ‘national’ antagonism; secondly, a ‘reasonable’ justification of violence; thirdly, a response to a certain event; and fourthly, aggression in a situation where the mob does not face any, or only a small, risk of punishment. these can be used to explain the “xenophobic” attacks that took place in april 2016 in lusaka, zambia. firstly, the april 2016 xenophobic riots might have been indirectly psyched by the competing political elite who have been increasingly electioneering on ethnic lines after the general election of 2001. all the major elections that have taken place in zambia since 2001 have expressed the country’s ethnic divide more than anything else. this is evidenced by the trend where the country’s political parties have tended to garner more votes from regions with which their key leaders identify. in the process, two ‘hostile’ ethno-political blocs have emerged, the north-western and north-eastern regions. results of the 2001, 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2015 elections clearly support this argument (ecz results sheets, 2001, 2006, 2008, 2011 & 2015). additionally, the periods preceding the 2015 presidential by-election, and leading up to the 2016 ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 634 general elections have witnessed several hate speeches by some politicians, some of which have resulted in bloody conflicts. an example is the mulobezi constituency parliamentary by-election where two supporters of the opposition united party for national development (upnd), mbangu mbangu and sakubita namushi, and one supporter of the governing patriotic front (pf) by the name of simanga siboli, were allegedly shot (mwale, 2015: 1 & 2) during a political fracas that ensued following an ethnically provocative statement by pf’s secretary general, davis chama. chama stated that the southern province of the country would never produce a head of state in one hundred years unless their men used their polygamous nature to bear more children. ironically, reports alleged that the gun used in the shooting belonged to chama. after widespread condemnation, chama said that … he would not apologise for his remarks that tonga should use their polygamous traits to have more children to stand a chance of producing a president in 100 years’ time because it was a fact (the post, 2015). such statements, and the impunity with which they are made, have arguably contributed to the rising ethnic tensions in zambia in the recent past. his refusal to apologise and the support he received from the other leaders in his party did not show any state resolve to embrace multi-ethnicity and racial harmony in the country and could have only added to the ethnocentric psyching of the population. with regard to national antagonism, it is positive to note that, generally, zambians have lived in harmony with many nationals from foreign countries since independence in 1964. in fact, zambia helped liberate a number of southern african countries, such as zimbabwe, namibia and south africa, by hosting freedom fighters during the liberation movements of the 1970s and 1980s. however, as shown earlier in this article, michael sata’s nationalistpopulist campaigns based on anti-chinese, anti-indians and anti-lebanese traders should surely have sown a seed of racial consciousness in the zambian population, especially among the poor and those who live in squalor in the country’s major slums in lusaka. most of the poor urban dwellers seem to associate their poverty with foreigners who they accuse of taking away some of their business lines. alden (2007: 49), citing dobler (2008) brings this into perspective when he cites the former trade minister of zambia, dipak patel, who once said: “does zambia need chinese investors who sell shoes, clothes, food, and chickens in our markets when the indigenous people can?” the looting of shops owned by africans hailing from neighbouring countries ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 635 during the april 2016 xenophobic violence seemed premised on this argument. secondly, one can argue that the april 2016 riots were caused by some zambians who were reasonably justified in their violence. the residents of the affected townships (zingalume, george, kanyama and matero) in lusaka justified their violence based on the assumption that the police had failed to prevent the ritual killings and had not arrested any suspects following the spate of murders within a short period of time. the locals also believed that some of the ritual killers were foreigners, especially rwandan businessmen and women, who lived in the same townships and used charms from body parts of murdered victims to enhance their businesses. these assumptions seem to have contributed to the violent riots and looting of foreign owned shops. the fact that zambian police later apprehended and charged four zambians for the ritual killings may, however, discount these assumptions because no foreign or rwandan shop owner had been arrested or charged with ritual murder at the time of this publication. thirdly, residents in the affected townships rioted and attacked foreigners and looted their shops as a response to the ritual killings that had taken place. the feelings of helplessness with little or no protection from the police against the murderers may have fuelled the violence. in addition, it can be argued that the riots and looting may have been influenced by other factors such as the high cost of living and harsh economic situations that zambians were facing. zambian’s economic outlook has deteriorated ever since the pf took over power from the movement for multi-party democracy (mmd) in 2011. the economist intelligence unit (eiu) argued that the xenophobic attacks in lusaka reflected how the challenges of an economic backdrop could fuel social tensions and weaken security. the eiu posited that high inflation and a subdued economic outlook would further heighten the social tension and escalate the unrest. according to the economist intelligence unit (eiu), in 2015, zambia was ranked among the hungriest countries on the global hunger index (ghi), with the ‘most hungry’ being the central african republic and chad. although the 2016 riots appeared to have been triggered by the suspected ritual killings, socio-economic factors such as high youth unemployment and the rapidly rising cost of living have increased frustration and tension among many zambians, especially the youths. many foreign nationals were running thriving businesses around lusaka while the majority of the citizens were not, thereby increasing the hostility towards foreigners (eiu, 2016). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 636 further, according to the world bank (2016): zambia’s economy grew at an average annual rate of 7 percent between 2010 and 2014. however, global headwinds and domestic pressures have strained the zambian economy. consequently, growth in 2015 fell to an estimated 3 percent (compared to 4.9 per cent in 2014) following a six-year low in copper prices, increasing power outages, and el nino-related poor harvests. growth is expected to remain around 3 percent in 2016, subject to the 2016 harvest, the mining industry’s reaction to softer copper prices, and stabilisation of the power situation. the benefits of gross domestic product (gdp) growth have accrued mainly to the richer segments of the population in urban areas. zambia has a very unequal income distribution (gini coefficient = 55.6). the falling copper prices, exports and foreign direct investment (fdi) have weakened the economy. copper prices declined by almost a third from their peak in february 2011 to $4,595/ton in february 2016 (lme) and are forecast to remain soft until 2018 as global supply currently exceeds demand. the mine closures in 2015 led to the loss of over 7,700 jobs. sixty percent of the population lives below the poverty line and 42 percent are considered to be in extreme poverty. moreover, the absolute number of poor has increased from about six million in 1991 to 7.9 million in 2010, primarily due to a rapidly growing population. the kwacha has depreciated considerably (the kwacha tends to depreciate as the copper price falls and appreciate as it rises). however, during this same period, global headwinds have combined with domestic pressures and ebbing confidence in the economy, resulting in huge shifts and market turbulence. while the strength of the us dollar, fused with worsening current account and fiscal imbalances, has propagated depreciation in most resource dependent currencies, the kwacha’s decline stands out. there have been three distinct phases to the kwacha to us dollar exchange rate between january and november 2015. there was the gradual depreciation between january and mid-august, where the kwacha depreciated by 21% over 30 weeks, moving from zmw 6.4 to zmw 7.9 per us$. what followed next was huge volatility and a steep decline in the exchange rate. in the 10 weeks to end-october, the kwacha depreciated by 69% to zmw 12.5 per us$. by november 11, 2015, the exchange rate reached zmw 14.2 per us$, but by the end of that month had recovered to zmw 10.3 per us$, an appreciation of 27% in 19 days. the net effect is that the kwacha depreciated by 61% over the 11 months to endnovember, 2015. put differently, the kwacha lost 38% of its value (world bank, 2015). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 637 furthermore, between january 2012 and september 2015, inflation remained stable at an average rate of 7.2%. low inflation was attributed to low oil prices, a stable currency, and prudent monetary policy by the bank of zambia (boz). in 2015, inflation fell consecutively during the first and second quarters. however, since mid-2015, inflationary pressures began building up due to the depreciating kwacha. however, october inflation (year-on-year) jumped to 14.3% and november inflation to 19.5%, a shift driven by food inflation that increased to 16.2% in october and 23.4% in november, from 8.1% in august 2015. the basket of food measured includes both domestically produced foods, where price is largely dependent on the quality of the harvest, and imported foods where prices are impacted by the depreciation of the kwacha. non-food inflation also rose to 15.5% in november from just 7.3% in september, on the back of increased transport costs as vehicles and car parts became more costly to import (world bank, 2015). the april 2016 riots may be similar to the 1991 situation when people could not contend with the rising economic problems any longer, resulting in food riots across the country and the death of 30 people. however, due to the fact that the economy was mainly state controlled in 1991, rioters mostly looted state owned shops. in addition, there was an attempted coup d’état. the kaunda government arrested union leaders, among them fredrick chiluba. eventually, due to mounting domestic pressure, kaunda was forced to reintroduce multiparty politics and/democracy, which was abandoned in 1972. thus, on 31st october 1991, elections were held and kaunda was defeated by 80% to 20% by frederick chiluba of the mmd. by the time the mmd was defeated by pf in september 2011, inflation was at 8.8% and it has now risen to 21.8% as of april 2016 (cso, 2011; cso, 2016). in addition, the price of the staple commodity, mealie-meal, which was at 35 kwacha in 2011 has sky rocketed to an average of 100 kwacha in most places in lusaka. though the 1991 riots were caused by the harsh economic environment that created food shortages, the april 2016 riots could have been similarly caused by high prices of food (i.e. mealie-meal) and other essentials, which were available but unaffordable. fourthly, aggression against foreigners in april 2016 may have been caused by the mobs’, rioters’ or looters’ perception that they would face no or little risk of punishment; hence they looted and attacked foreigners with impunity. forthwith, the police moved in but failed to quench the riots that quickly ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 638 spread throughout lusaka. could it be that the police supported the riots and looting of foreigners, as claimed by some circles? furthermore, the spontaneous riots of april 2016 appeared to be a reaction to the police’s failure to publicise the identities of the suspected ritual killers who were in custody for possession of human body organs and parts. most people in the high density residential areas of lusaka strongly believed that the ritual killers were all foreigners. thus, foreigners, mostly from rwanda, were targeted, especially when a rumour spread that body parts were found in a deep freezer at a shop owned by a rwandan national in one area of lusaka. many of the rwandan nationals, who have lived undisturbed in zambia as refugees after escaping the 1994 rwandan genocide, were once again under threat of being lynched by rioters and looters and had to seek refuge at police stations. within two days, the riots spread quickly to several other densely populated residential areas in lusaka. the rioters not only destroyed property belonging to foreigners worth thousands of kwacha, but they also looted their shops and houses, and burnt a police station. to curb the situation, the government deployed police officers in the affected areas who subsequently failed to control the situation. therefore, the government had no option but to call upon the zambia army to move in and stop the riots and looting which were almost engulfing the whole of lusaka (nkonde, 2016: 1-4). consequently, the 400 military personnel deployed managed to quell the riots and looting and continued patrols in the high density areas of lusaka for about two weeks thereafter. later, the military was withdrawn and a special paramilitary police unit took over the patrols and was still doing so as of 30 may 2016. for 22 years, some 6,000 rwandans have lived in zambia without being harassed. they lived freely in many townships in lusaka like zingalume, george, kanyama and matero, which are by no means up-market addresses, and set up little shops to trade and survive. the locals, however, lived in abject poverty in a harsh economic environment. they had no jobs and owned nothing compared to the rwandans. as a result of the riots and looting, about 700 rwandans were internally displaced in lusaka and found themselves seeking shelter in police stations and churches. the government moved in to protect them and transported some to a refugee camp in the western part of the country where they expressed concerns about security and lack of basic sanitary conditions. the lives of the rwandans who sort refuge in zambia after the 1994 rwandan genocide are once more under threat. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 639 conclusion the arguments raised in this article generally show that as much as identity and xenophobic conflicts can be psyched by rent-seekers, they can also arise from declining socioeconomic situations and be cemented by a feeling that migrants are economic competitors. the deteriorating state of the zambian economy has been linked to the poor people’s increased dislike of the foreigners, especially those who are seen as conducting businesses traditionally thought to be reserved for the indigenous zambians. this could explain why it is the immigrants from eastern and southern african regions who are increasingly coming under threat. an attempt has also been made to show that the country’s identity consciousness is not only historical, but a result of various episodes and events that have tended to create both ethnic cleavage and hatred. the country’s political leaders have been highlighted as among those who have been responsible for fuelling hate based on tribal or racial identity as a strategy for mass mobilisation. further, the failure by the zambian authorities to punish those who commit crimes relating ethnic hatred has been identified as a guarantee of impunity for the perpetrators of such offences. recommendations notwithstanding the penetrating nature of ethnic consciousness once it is absorbed, the zambian authorities can nevertheless promulgate and enforce laws that criminalise the expression of hate in any form by a zambian or foreigner living in zambia. further, there is clearly a need to promote the creation of new socialisation institutions that should promote a sense of ‘ubuntu’ (humanity) among africans. the african union can take a leading role in promoting ethnic harmony among africans within and beyond their countries. new school curricula can be developed to include the teaching and learning of african languages in the same way that many africans are currently learning other major languages such as french, english, chinese, inter alia. deliberate educational exchange programmes among african universities ought to be promoted in order to encourage cultural exchange among the african people. african cultural institutions on the model of the confucius institute, alliance françoise and the british council, could be established by african countries to serve as conduits of cultural exchange and appreciation. african governments could also do well to economically empower themselves with capital and technical know-how so as to foster the growth of successful african entrepreneurs able to compete and survive in a growing global village. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 640 references darwin, c. 2009. report on the situation of refugees in zambia. cairo: africa and middle east refugee assistance (amera). alden, c. 2007. china in africa: african 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no 1, jan-apr 2020 intersection of migration and local governance: lessons on methods and research design caitlin blaser mapitsa* *school of governance, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa email: caitlin.mapitsa@wits.ac.za a recent study interrogating the ways in which municipal authorities in south africa are governing their mobile communities demonstrated that there is potential for both conceptual innovation and methodological rigor when integrating the cross-cutting systems of migration and local governance. however, this integration also posed a number of challenges that were apparent both during the data collection phase, as well as when the diagnostic tool was designed. the process of implementing this research raised methodological and conceptual questions about how these two areas of work intersect. this paper aims to reflect not on the results of the study itself, but on the methodological process issues that can lay a foundation for a better understanding of how to study the intersection of two interdisciplinary fields. this research took place in five south african municipalities in limpopo, gauteng, and mpumalanga, selected because they reflect a broad spectrum of migration dynamics and demographic patterns. an institutional ethnography approach was drawn on, which included mixed methods fieldwork with document review, key stakeholder interviews, focus groups, and community mapping took place in all five municipalities, taking an inductive approach to developing a diagnostic tool, which was applied retrospectively based on the data gathered. this paper found that resolving a number of divergent conceptual issues is important to effectively interpret results around the intersection of the cross-cutting fields of governance and migration. this methodological reflection is important on its own, but it will also help ensure that future initiatives around strengthening local governance, or making systems more responsive to the needs of migrants, are on solid conceptual, methodological, and practical ground. keywords: migration, governance, research methods, urbanization 51 introduction the governance of municipalities and migration are both critical forces in reconfiguring processes of democracy and development both globally, and in south africa. megacities have long been recognized as spaces of global innovation, economic growth and creativity, but this lens has rarely been extended to south africa’s secondary cities. while these are the metropoles that are statistically receiving the highest percentage of migrants, they remain on the periphery of scholarship and policymaking (mberu et al., 2017). they have a high degree of autonomy in development planning, but the competencies required to plan proactively towards the demographic changes posed by migration vary significantly. this research found that the ability of local governments to respond effectively to a mobile population varied considerably on the basis of a wide range of factors. it also emerged from the research process that preconceptions held by both municipal officials and migrants about the nature of the community, the service delivery needs of migrants, and the processes of municipal planning have meant that municipalities are missing an opportunity for more effective and efficient service delivery, and migrants are unable to access the participatory channels that do exist. this paper does not primarily engage with the content of the findings of the study, which have been published elsewhere (blaser and landau, 2014). while these results are important for municipal planning and local government capacity building, the focus of this paper is on the conceptual and methodological lessons that were learned through the process of implementing the research. studying the local governance of mobility, two cross-cutting topics that are hotly contested, requires methodological tools that allow the researcher to take respondents beyond their instrumental understanding of either topic. through a focus on the research process, this paper provides lessons for a wide range of stakeholders, academics, and practitioners who are working with cross-cutting governance or migration initiatives. this paper highlights key lessons for how both areas of focus are conceptualized and translated into research methods and tools. illustrating how research methods hinge on these intersecting topics, is an important way of understanding how local government can be more responsive to migration dynamics in the future. context of local governance and migration local governance, and particularly municipal level governance play a central role in discussions on migration, and the management of mobile populations (ahouga, 2018). the united nations (un) sustainable development goals (sdgs) have a strong focus on localization, looking at global issues through a lens of local management structures. goal 11 focuses explicitly on sustainable cities, and urban planners and municipal managers are now engaging with a range of global processes that are actively seeking to understand what role local governance, and the governance of intersection of migration and local governance 52 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 cities in particular, play in key global issues such as inequality and climate change (kanuri et al., 2016; communitas coalition, 2016). this interest in local governance is juxtaposed with a similarly strong interest in migration. migration has often been part of a wider debate on development and identity, but a rise of populism globally is reigniting debates about the definition, identity and rights of migrants (okyerefo and setrana, 2018). inspired in part by brexit, the process of defining nation states and the populations they govern is part of a global conversation contemplating how these different definitional approaches connect to public sector bureaucracies, and what it means for migrants (somerville, 2016). furthermore, spatial mobility in africa has long been defined by poorly defined borders between international and internal migration, due to colonial national boundaries that cut across shared culture and language (adepoju, 2006). these two cross-cutting trends are the localization of analyses of global governance, and the importance of migration in understanding how places develop spatial definitions and cohesive communities. in spite of the simultaneous importance of both areas of study, there is no consensus around how to understand local government’s responsiveness to migration, let alone what good practice could look like in this regard (zapata-barrero et al., 2017). this research therefore required the development of a tool and method that could bring people together around common core concepts, and specify an approach that would allow the research team to understand how these concepts were operationalized by respondents, and analyze trends and areas of divergence. through this experience, a range of important lessons were learned, and this paper aims to distill a few of the most salient points that have emerged from this process. in doing so, this paper first explains the design of a diagnostic tool designed to categorize municipal responses to mobility, and considers the practical, conceptual, and contextual challenges of applying this tool across several different municipalities. it concludes with lessons for scholars who are studying the intersection of cross-cutting fields. among the many scholars of governance in south africa, greffrath and van der waldt (2016) posit that, “transformation of the local sphere of government has probably been the largest undertaking within the entire governance adjustment process since democratization in 1994”. however, tremendous work remains for municipalities to be functional, let alone developmental entities. in the 2015-2016 financial year, only 49 out of 263 municipalities received a clean audit, and none of them were from limpopo, where much of this fieldwork was conducted (agsa, 2016). a wide range of capacity development initiatives are targeting municipalities in the hope of improving local service delivery, with an increasing focus on intervention by national and provincial structures (reddy, 2014; greffrath and van der waldt, 2016). however, without a widely held consensus of what the composite components of planning capacity are, efforts are likely to remain incomplete. 53 development of a migration responsive diagnostic tool it was evident from the outset that building a diagnostic tool that would reflect the migration responsiveness of local government would be an important step in providing participants from different perspectives with a common reference point on a complex topic. however, it was also clear that the tool had to be informed by an iterative process of data collection, and could not be developed without first understanding the conceptual boundaries of the respondents. it has already been acknowledged that the way dimensions of local governance are conceptualized is a driving force in management research (roiseland, 2011). a collaboration between the migrating out of poverty programme (moop), the african centre for migration and society (acms) at the university of witwatersrand, and the south african local government association (salga) made it possible to spearhead iterative fieldwork to better understand the ways in which local government in south africa is responding to migration in five south african municipalities. municipalities first self-selected into the project, based on their identification of a need to build capacity in their response to mobility, and among the municipalities volunteering to participate, a selection of secondary cities was chosen. secondary cities were targeted because they experience the highest rates of migration and are relatively under-studied (awumbila, 2017). selection was based on identifying the widest range of demographic and migration dynamics from the municipalities available, to allow for lessons that could be relevant across various contexts. this research was part of a longer-term, phased research project which aims to better understand how migration is reshaping communities, and what potential it holds for poverty reduction. the overall methodological design of the research was based on principles of institutional ethnography. fieldwork for this research was conducted in iterative steps guided by an inductive approach, with two visits to each site. due to data privacy concerns, the specific municipalities involved cannot be named. the duration of the first visit was a week, and included a community mapping exercise, as well as interviews to get a sense of both the migration and governance dynamics within the community (gioia et al., 2013). the second visit took place over a month and included key stakeholder interviews and focus groups. the tool emerged from these key stakeholder interviews rather than informing them. it was based on a conceptual framework of ecological systems developed by bronfenbrenner (1979) and previously used by the author in a gender diagnostic study (jansen van rensburg and blaser mapitsa, 2017). this model includes the macro levels of social cohesion and participation, meso levels of accountability and participation, and micro levels of data collection and budgeting. this approach was adopted keeping in mind a systems approach to governance, which acknowledges the administrative and social dynamics therein. while the diagnostic tool is deliberately reductionist to allow for comparability across a range of contexts, it did not replace a more exploratory, inductive approach, which was a hallmark of the research project. without bringing together intersection of migration and local governance 54 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 both approaches, such detailed substantive and methodological reflections would not have been possible. the research team tried to balance issues of comparability across different administrative and institutional contexts, and held that a framework which simplified these issues was helpful provided that it was not at the exclusion of more exploratory work. however, the structured tool still created difficulty in reaching consensus among the various stakeholders around the scope of measurement, particularly with regards to which components of governance would be captured. scope of the tool six dimensions emerged, which covered the widest span of key competencies municipalities needed to demonstrate in order to be responsive to mobility. the dimensions included: budgeting, data collection and use, participation, accountability, perceptions, and social cohesion. a deliberate decision was made to include a full spectrum of competencies, ranging from technical, to strategic. moreover, the purpose of the tool was to be broadly indicative, so while each step of the five-point scale was generally defined (blaser and landau, 2014), a decision was made not to be prescriptive in the scoring process, because the value of the tool was to identify relative strengths and gaps. several criteria were identified within each dimension, to interrogate the degree to which mobility was found in the various dimensions. the criteria began with a score of 0, as entirely absent or even problematic to responding to mobility. the scale increased to a score of five, which was a robust and proactive response to a mobile population and the needs of migrant communities. the measurements were a deliberately imprecise process, with the numerical values being broadly indicative. that was to allow for a schematic comparison across contexts from which rich qualitative data had been gathered, rather than applying a specific quantitative scale. applying the migration responsive diagnostic tool once the tool was fully developed, it was applied retrospectively to the municipalities of bushbuckridge, lephalale, and hammanskraal on the basis of data which had already been collected, and from which the diagnostic tool emerged. sources of information for the assessment included integrated development plans (idps), a review of documents from the municipalities, key stakeholder interviews and focus groups, and participant observation notes from a range of municipal public participation initiatives. departments responsible for local economic development, planning, and service provision were explicitly targeted for interviews as well as observation, in addition to civil society organizations, and community-based organizations serving migrants within the community. data was collected through an iterative process described above. once fieldwork was complete, data was analyzed, and the tool was developed on the basis of points of convergence and divergence across the municipalities studied. the tool was 55 then applied retrospectively on the basis of available data. the results were then discussed with the municipalities in a verification workshop. had time and resources allowed, having an additional step of fieldwork to apply the tool collaboratively with stakeholders may have both resulted in less schematic findings and more refined criteria, but also strengthened buy-in and ownership. however, applying the tool retrospectively was a useful way of triangulating the consistency of data gathered across municipalities, and confirming areas of consistency and divergence in the findings. conceptual challenges in a comparative case study approach in developing the migrant responsive diagnostic tool, a key concern was to have some level of comparability across each municipality, and to the extent possible, to maintain comparability across different dimensions of the diagnostic. a first phase of research conducted at acms carried out detailed case studies within several municipalities, but the focus in this later stage was to target the potential for capacity building initiatives, and as such, while contextualizing the data was important, being able to compare and generalize was a central aim (vearey et al., 2014). each municipality demonstrated key differences. some will be discussed later in the paper, while others are illustrated in detail in publications addressing the content of thematic findings of the research (blaser and landau, 2014). these differences ranged from contextual differences around the dynamics of mobility within the municipality, to institutional differences in the structures of governance and political incentives. sometimes, these institutional differences presented a challenge in defining concepts around both migration, and governance (zapata-barrero et al., 2017). consistently applying these concepts in different institutional concepts was a constant struggle for the research team. this was made even more challenging due to the fact that a range of responsibilities were required to respond effectively to mobility, including planning, data management, etc. each municipality defined and delegated these responsibilities differently across different offices, with some functions located strongly in departments of economic development, while others were performed by service delivery departments. finally, others conducted these functions through institutional partnerships with other bodies (vearey et al., 2014). since no municipality had specific, defined outcomes around migration, understanding what these different capacities looked like, and where they were located within the municipal administration was a crucial part of the diagnostic study. furthermore, each municipality had varied migration dynamics, which interfaced with mechanisms of governance in different ways. in some communities, migrant workers remitted a significant portion of the economy, and represented a powerful political force. in other municipalities, international migrants were closely aligned to the ruling political party, and were again a powerful political force. in yet other municipalities, the ruling party was actively involved in perpetuating xenophobic violence to build its electoral support (blaser mapitsa, 2018). these differences in context between the various municipalities had a tremendous influence on the way intersection of migration and local governance 56 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 the diagnostic tool was applied, and the way the results were interpreted. due to this, it is particularly important to have stronger tools, applied more broadly, for understanding municipal institutions and their role in responding to a mobile population. reflecting on the methodology of developing and applying the diagnostic tool from a comparative perspective is important because the results of the diagnostic tool will only translate into learning if the context from the municipalities is reflected. further studies about municipal planning capacity can only be appropriately contextualized if the methodological approach, as well as the study’s results, have sufficient reflection and interrogation. overview of research findings while this paper primarily deals with the study’s conceptual framework and research methods, rather than its explicit findings, a summary of the key results helps to contextualize this methodological discussion. the most central finding of the study is that both migrants and local government officials are co-creating the community through a dynamic process of governance and contestation around how communities are defined and served. municipal policy is developed in a way that largely ignores both the specific service delivery requirements of migrants, but also that does not take into account the ways through which migration is shaping the community (blaser and landau, 2014). with the introduction of the spatial planning and land use management act (spluma), which gives municipalities widespread powers linked to land use, strengthening municipal capacity to spatialize planning processes is becoming increasingly vital. there are other key powers in the municipal domain that are critical for migrant well-being, such as the management of nodes of transport, and shaping social cohesion, where municipal authorities play a central role in shaping migrant experiences in south africa. this paper synthesizes the results of a research project that entailed fieldwork in five south african municipalities in 2013-2014, exploring how secondary cities in the region are responding to mobile populations. what emerged were three themes, that, when seen in aggregate, point to a need for a conceptual shift to be shared by migrants and local government officials if mobility is to achieve its potential of enabling development. the first is that migration is seen overwhelmingly as a problem, by both municipal authorities, and sometimes even by migrants themselves. while there are some nuances within this, most local authorities within municipalities are certainly not embracing migration as an opportunity. blaser and landau (2014) previously explored the various capacities required for local government officials to respond effectively to mobility at a municipal level. however, none of these dimensions will work effectively if municipal officials are not, first and foremost, willing to view the opportunities migration presents. the second theme that emerged as particularly important for the way municipal responses to mobility should be designed, is that state practice is experienced 57 locally. while both municipal authorities and migrants have a discourse that speaks to a belief in a rationalized bureaucracy that is uniform at least at a national level, in fact, the evaluation of governance and people’s experiences of management happen on a very localized scale, and this needs to be understood in planning. while scholarship on local governance in africa acknowledges that the state has varied manifestations at a local level (fukuyama, 2017; börzel and risse, 2016), it is critical to explore this in more granularity for issues which are often not considered a local competency. finally, migrants are currently seen as being in limbo, in a bureaucratic, social, and political ‘no man’s land’ in terms of state governance. claimed by neither their communities of origin nor their hosts, there is no clarity of mandate in terms of either what is needed to govern migrant communities, nor where that competency and responsibility should reside. the result is an oscillation between a policy vacuum, and a cacophony. as one scholar summarizes, “where policy instruments have, explicitly or implicitly, addressed issues of migration, there have been contradictory and confusing messages” (atkinson and marais, 2006). the confluence of these three things means that both the migrant experience is made far more difficult, but also that municipal authorities are missing a tremendous opportunity for more efficient service delivery and accelerated economic development. methodological reflection this paper considers reflections that came from all researchers who were part of the project, as well as the data gathered in the findings. it specifically assesses three different aspects of the research process. the first area is of practical considerations, such as differences in language and migrant status of the research team, preparation of the research project, and the data collection itself. the second section reflects on the conceptual challenges in applying the tool, and the institutional differences in the municipalities. the third and main area of reflection looks at the intersection of and fragmentation between governance and migration. it is through this third area that it becomes apparent how both fields need to be reconceptualized to better articulate areas of intersection. it also points to areas where capacity building may gain traction at the municipal level. practical challenges in transecting two interdisciplinary areas working multi-locally was a timeand resource-intensive process. even with significant time allocated to the fieldwork process, multiple trips needed to be taken to each site, for an iterative approach to data collection. with a small team of researchers all at the behest of municipal officials’ schedules, a significant travel budget and generous time were both requirements to ensure coherence in data collection approaches. additionally, since the research began as inductive, as the diagnostic tool was forming, the research team needed to be in constant communication about the findings emerging from each site, and developed a tightly coordinated approach to intersection of migration and local governance 58 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 data collection. that was particularly important with the most critical stakeholders, with whom the interview instruments were open-ended, to allow for maximum benefit from an inductive approach. however, it also meant that results were reliant on skilled interviewers who were in close communication with each other, to build the data collection in a common direction across sites. one decision was taken to aggregate the technical capacities of the municipality across all departments and entities. in fact, there was significant variation across different departments and entities, around everything from accountability and participation, to data collection and use. that was true in some places due to individual competency, but also in other places due to the location of a function within the municipal administration. while the diagnostic tool could be adapted to be applied to a smaller unit of analysis, keeping it at the municipal level was an important decision in order to maintain the possibility for researchers to compare across municipal contexts. departmental levels were too varied and localized for the purposes of the research. additionally, defining both the concepts of migration and governance in a way that resonated across all the municipalities was difficult. while there were administrative definitions in place, these were not always accurate reflections of the way the concepts were practiced. furthermore, the same terminology, both around migration and around governance, was often used to represent very different concepts. for example, governance in some places looked at the exercise of the audit function, while in other places it referred to ethnolinguistic dimensions of the ruling political party. it emerged through the course of fieldwork that there was a very evident practical challenge linked to existing stereotypes of migration. while international migrants were particularly targeted with xenophobic beliefs, the negative sentiments were not restricted to migrants who had to cross international borders. negative associations with migrants and migration are reasonably well documented in the literature on migration and governance (vertovec, 2015). however, governance is also subject to a range of stereotypes, particularly at a local government level, where municipal capacity and political violence dramatically impact individual attitudes and perceptions (benit-gbaffou, 2014). conceptual difficulties applying the tool an immediate struggle in developing the tool and applying it effectively is because migration was often a politically charged topic at the municipal level, prompting officials to respond in a certain way. however, these influences were not the same across municipal contexts. as a result, it was difficult to know that respondents were engaging with the concept of migration in the same way. for example, in some places ‘migration’ immediately triggered discussions of foreign-born spaza shop-owners. in other places, ‘migration’ spoke nearly exclusively to migrant mineworkers. both migrant communities existed in all these municipalities, but due to the local social and political dynamics, one particular migrant community was a reference point, and 59 certainly informed the approach of municipal officials to the research. related to this problem was the challenge that many municipal officials had not thought in great detail about the various ways in which migrants shape communities, and as a result, questions that were articulated around migration specifically, either led to officials saying that migration is a national competency and does not have anything to do with their work, or spoke only to issues of service delivery towards international migrants, which was of interest, but a very limited component of the research. while this did come out in the pilot phase and was mitigated by the introduction of a range of questions related to planning and demographic change and less explicitly about migration, it remained a key conceptual issue as the research unfolded. it is evident that due to a lack of consensus about the importance and competencies to respond to a mobile population, different municipalities located these functions in different places (parnell et al., 2002; harrison and todes, 2015). while exploring these functions in more detail may have been interesting, pragmatically, it meant that entry points into municipalities varied, and that understanding how these functions were expressed was inconsistent and often difficult. it also made it more complex to go through a process of obtaining buy-in and support for the research process, as it was not immediately evident who the most important stakeholders were. the fact that this hurdle was encountered in every single municipality, demonstrates that there is a definite lack of consensus around how municipalities should best respond to migration. contextualizing and comparing results the previous sections have already agreed that analyzing the results of the diagnostic study required returning to a large amount of inductive data on how municipalities understand migration, and how communities understand governance, to look for points of intersection and divergence. a diagnostic tool then summarized the most salient features, to allow for comparability across a range of municipal contexts. this is important to allow each municipality to plan for coordinated capacity development responses. a further challenge to comparing municipal responses to mobility across different municipalities is that it is difficult to contextualize each site’s demographic variations, as well as the political dynamics these imply for migration. both are socially and historically embedded, constantly changing, and require a high level of contextual knowledge about each community. in future studies, methods around these intersections might introduce respondent coding to address some of these contextual variations, but it was not possible to introduce such approaches for this particular study. finally, the research encountered a simple shortage of contextual information in all the municipalities that would have made it easier to draw stronger comparisons. as discussed earlier, the municipalities were specifically chosen due to their intersection of migration and local governance 60 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 relative exclusion from migration-related research. while this is a strength in terms of the study’s contribution to literature in the field, it is a weakness from the perspective of contextualization and comparability. understanding the richness of the social dynamics in each municipality was part of the strength of the research, but for purposes of future research, a more nuanced comparative analysis would be possible if these contextual diversities had a stronger basis in research. intersecting migration and local governance mainstreaming migration across local governance in south africa faces a wide range of challenges. both include divergent technical and political concepts that different stakeholders understand and practice in different ways. the mandates and practice within local government for responding to mobility are complex and at times, unclear. while both fields have been widely recognized as priorities, given the economic development trajectory and the sdgs, activities are unlikely to increase as long as there are not commonly held definitions, or widespread capacity. without consensus on core conceptual tenets of migration and local governance, it was a difficult task to pull together a diagnostic tool that will gauge their intersection, particularly one that could then be compared across a range of municipal contexts. however, that was precisely why the research team found the development of the diagnostic tool so valuable. this iterative process of sharpening the scope and focus of the tool helped uncover the core competencies that municipalities need to respond effectively to migration, and to see how these looked across different municipal contexts. the research process was an important part of defining the problem, which may be a theme in better understanding how cross-cutting fields intersect. one important aspect that emerged, is that a wide range of roles and responsibilities are involved in making municipalities more responsive to migration. however, for this to happen effectively, it is important to separate out each role and mandate within each administrative body, and strengthen cross functional coordination. this has not traditionally been a strength of local government (rogerson, 2014), and points to an area that may require capacity building if a mobility citizenry is to be responded to effectively. finally, complexities in this research, and the development of the diagnostic tool, highlighted that each municipal context had a distinct political, social, and administrative structure. it is within each of these contexts that migration and local governance processes of planning and participation are contested, conceptualized, and operationalized. this points to considerable variations in how migrations are conceptualized and received by municipal institutions. for example, in some communities, international migrants shared a common linguistic heritage to the community, and were considered more ‘local’ to the municipal authorities than migrants from other provinces of south africa. while the diagnostic tool development was one step towards teasing out some of the points of contestation, and making these divergent views more explicit, more work is still needed to translate this into a process 61 of building capacity and encouraging consensus. lessons learned in integrating cross-cutting topics over all, this study highlighted several lessons for integrating mobility and local governance, both of which are cross-cutting fields with multiple points of intersection. any effort at understanding municipal capacity, or planning capacity development interventions, will only be successful with an in-depth engagement of the intersection between local governance and mobility, to ensure that planning processes effectively accommodate demographic change. there are clearly multiple factors ranging from technical skills around data and use, to the structure and implementation of participation practices, and more contextual components of social inclusion. municipal officials would benefit from clear guidelines around how they can better respond to migration in the community, and these materials would be best developed with engagement from a wide range of stakeholders, using the diagnostic tool as a basis for discussion and consensus building. it is important that the capacity to respond to a migrant populace does not lie with specific individuals responsible for service delivery or participation processes, but that the complexity is owned across the municipality, and that a range of functions can be drawn on to ensure responsive planning and implementation. sometimes, a resistance to engaging with migrants or issues of migration can be a helpful starting point for understanding how best to transform municipal practice. finally, it was evident that a municipality’s capacity to respond to migration was interwoven with its capacity to engage with a large range of other issues, from planning to service delivery. as such, this diagnostic tool should not stand in isolation of other tools to gauge and support municipal effectiveness, ranging from the local government management improvement mechanism (lgmim) to audit functions (reddy, 2014; sanderson, 2001). however, using the lens of a cross-cutting issue, migration in this case (though other population indicators like gender, could provide a different and equally interesting analysis), can occasionally uncover intersectional linkages that other approaches to understanding capacity might miss. in this case, what came out most clearly were the interlinkages between technical and institutional capacities within the municipality, as well as the way in which political authority within municipalities is historically and socially embedded. while this is not a surprise to those working on issues of local governance, capacity development approaches may not always integrate this reality. conclusion the results of a preliminary application of the diagnostic tool in three municipalities, lephalale, bushbuckridge, and hammanskraal, offer a significant opportunity to identify strengths and gaps in municipal capacity to manage a mobile community. technical challenges were identified, such as data availability and management, as intersection of migration and local governance 62 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 well as the existence of forums for coordination and mechanisms for participation. there are also political and social factors which range from the ownership of spaza shops to historical economic ties across migrant communities. despite the unique localized landscape of mobility and governance, there are many common threads in municipal response capacity. municipalities and migrants are both engaged in a dynamic process of creating a common community. however, expectations and perceptions held by both migrants and municipal officials are limiting robust participation and effective service delivery. one step towards overcoming this will be developing a shared understanding of what municipal responses to mobility could look like. given the level of autonomy municipal authorities have in south africa, empowering municipal officials to translate the lofty goals held nationally in the constitution and the national development plan (ndp) requires equipping officials with appropriate tools to understand migration-responsive budgeting, participation mechanisms, and accountability. an important foundational step to facilitate this is to build recognition for the fact that municipal policy-making has an impact on migrants. there is a widespread perception that migrants can only be governed by national government, and this ignores the realities that governance is experienced locally, and local policies and practices are crucial frontline links between migrants and governance. one of the results of implementing the study is that it revealed the extent to which definitions and concepts linked to migration and local governance are divergent, and dependent on the specificities of the municipality and its unique social and political dynamics. this was unexpected; it made a strong case for the importance of the diagnostic tool, given the difficulties of comparing the empirical data across different contexts. at the same time, it generated additional results. the diagnostic tool helped identify and draw attention to areas of contestation that otherwise may have been overlooked. if these discussions are continued and deepened, there is a possibility to build consensus among stakeholders who have an important role to play in municipal responsiveness to a mobile population. additionally, such results will help all 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badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh cape peninsula university of technology, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delagdo wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, basel, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print) copyright © 2015 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 465 6433 email: editor@sihma.org.za webpage: www.sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za http://www.sihma.org.za/ 2 ahmr ___________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-august 2020 contents 3 editorial mulugeta f. dinbabo 6 stateless transnational migrant children in south africa: implications and opportunities for social work intervention ajwang’ warria 25 the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market outcomes in two developed provinces in south africa joseph kleinhans and derek yu 58 experiences of female migrants in the informal sector businesses in the cape coast metropolis: is target 8.8 of the sdg 8 achievable in ghana? fabian sebastian achana and augustine tanle 81 is voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? the view of refugees in south africa fatima khan 103 the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes achille dargaud fofack and joel nkeng akendung 131 the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants in south africa: what does this say about an “afrophobic” post-apartheid state? pineteh e. angu and thecla ngwi mulu 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za this issue consists of six articles. the first article by ajwang’ warria entitled “stateless transnational migrant children in south africa: implications and opportunities for social work intervention”, examines statelessness in south african migrant children and conducts a literature review to clarify the phenomenon. this research assesses the causes and circumstances that lead to statelessness among south african migrant children. the findings indicate that a large number of migrant children are at risk of statelessness in south africa. this research contributes to the literature and debates on statelessness in childhood and highlights the potential role of social workers in addressing this important phenomenon. in general, this is south africa's first research on statelessness from a social work perspective and shows how transnational migration and national legislation can contribute to statelessness and put children at risk. the second article by derek yu and joseph kleinhans is entitled “the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market outcomes in two developed provinces in south africa”. the study used a multivariate econometric analysis with probit regressions on labor force participation likelihood, and heckprobit regressions on employment likelihood (conditional on labor force participation). the econometric analysis found that, other controlling for other differences in personaland household-level characteristics, the inter-provincial migrants were about 5% more likely to enter the labor market to seek work and 3% more likely to find work, compared with the permanent residents. according to this analysis both results were statistically significant. the empirical results also suggested that not all the inter-provincial migrants eventually found work in gauteng and the western cape. the third article is by fatima khan and is entitled “is voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? the view of refugees in south africa”. the study interrogates voluntary repatriation as a possible permanent solution for refugees living in an urban environment, considering the reasons that refugees themselves gave for choosing to return home. the research also incorporates a study which reveals that refugees choosing to repatriate from south africa are indeed very small in number, despite the vigorous attempts of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) at promoting voluntary repatriation. it further reveals that this can be partly attributed to the fact that in an urban setting such as south africa with a rights-based framework, refugees are often able to better integrate into their host society without the direct assistance of the unhcr as they would do in a camp-based setting. the fourth article by fabian sebastian achana and augustine tanle is entitled 4 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 “experiences of female migrants in the informal sector businesses: is target 8.8 of the sdg 8 achievable in ghana?” this research examines female migrants in the businesses of the informal sector, and analyzes their interactions with regard to remuneration, basic human rights and health risks, as they navigate their obvious weak and insecure portfolios, attempting to achieve their set aspirations. the study found that most participants intimated that they were often deprived of their health and economic rights, and that they suffered verbal assault, physical harm, sexual harassment and were forced to work even when sick. the study recommends an integrated approach for addressing vulnerable female migrants’ health concerns and social needs. this should include the enforcement of the ghana labour act of 2003 (act 651), operationalization of the legal advocacy for women in africa, ghana chapter (lawa, ghana) and collaboration among all stakeholders. the study encourages migrants to join unions with leadership structures in this sector for easy reach and engagement. the fifth article by achille dargaud fofack and joel nkeng akendung is entitled “the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes”. the aim of this paper is to assess the root causes of international migration in sub-saharan africa using extreme bounds analysis (eba). this econometric method, used to check each variable's sensitivity and robustness, helped researchers to determine the most important causes of foreign migration in sub-saharan africa. this article focuses on the extensive literature on international migration and based on data availability, 27 potential root causes of migration were selected to cover 30 sub-saharan countries for the period between 2002 and 2016. the result of this study reveals that a large number of determinants and root causes of migration in sub-saharan africa. the final article, presented by pineteh e. angu and thecla ngwi mulu is entitled “the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants in south africa: what does this say about an ‘afrophobic’ post-apartheid state?” this article reflects on the changing material conditions of cameroonians in south africa to understand why this “afrophobic” state is still a key migration destination for cameroonians. based on the researcher’s personal exile experiences, observations, and related literature, the study concludes that while many cameroonian migrants still face many economic challenges or are unable to access economic opportunities due to lack of legal documentation, the lifestyles of most permanent residents and those who have obtained south africa citizenship tell a different story. in light of cameroonian migrants' changing material conditions, the article strongly argues that south africa, as a constitutional democracy, has always been an attractive migration destination. i firmly believe that these topics offer researchers, practitioners and students invaluable knowledge. the articles also present insightful suggestions for policymakers to make informed decisions on migration strategies, initiatives and projects by providing highly credible research evidence from the continent. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 253 preventing xenophobia in africa: what must the african union do? romola adeola abstract the issue of xenophobia has, for many years, been one of the pressing challenges in africa. while south africa currently appears as a poster-child of this problem in africa, the issue of xenophobia is not solely a south african problem. traces of these attacks have long existed since the 1960s with countries such as ghana and nigeria raising agitations against each other and occasioning displacements of millions of people. similar to the south african narrative, the agitations were borne out of a need to create an economic haven, the realisation of which was impeded by the influx of foreign populations. in recent years, the issue of xenophobia has equally resonated in the treatment of somalis in kenya following the attacks by the somali-dominated insurgency group and in the treatment of rwandan refugees in western districts of uganda. while the discourse on xenophobia has focused on the obligation of states to protect non-nationals within their territory, the roles of supranational institutions beyond the state are rarely discussed. specifically, the role of the african union as a continental institution saddled with the mandate of promoting human rights, fostering african unity, furthering development and ensuring peace and security on the continent is not often central to the discussion on durable solutions to the problem. this paper considers what relevant institutions within the african union can do in addressing the issue of xenophobia in africa. keywords: migration, african regional institutions, mass expulsion, foreign population. *centre for human rights, faculty of law, university of pretoria, hatfield, pretoria, south africa, e-mail: aderomola@gmail.com mailto:aderomola@gmail.com ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 254 introduction in recent years, the issue of xenophobia has become a paradoxical result of globalisation’s ideal of free trade and global human rights commitments (njamnjoh 2006: 1). while governments often pledge openly to ideals of common humanity and commit to fostering free movements of goods and services, national immigration laws speak differently in response to the local communities’ insecurities about foreign population influx and the consequences of such influx on access to social security and welfare. in europe, the treatment of migrants crossing the mediterranean sea from africa, the middle east and eastern europe, as well as the constant writhe by western european states over the strasbourg court’s immigration policy decisions, evince this paradox and demonstrate the distant reality between international commitment and national implementation. in africa, this paradox is equally evident. colonially imposed borders have become testaments of identity since the independence of many african states. the narrative of the ‘foreign-other’ which was not an essential component of pre-colonial societal orderings (arthur 2000: 19) has become a powerful rhetoric for determining access to social security and welfare. in immigration policies, social classifications and behavioural patterns, this narrative has resonated. while south africa has emerged in recent years as the poster-child of the narrative of the ‘foreign-other’, it has not been alone in this identity crisis. since the 1950s, occurrences in several african states have perpetuated this narrative. while much focus has been granted to the obligations of individual states in respecting human rights within its borders, little attention has been paid to the role of supranational institutions that can address the problem of xenophobia on the continent. it is within this gap that the argument of this paper is located. this paper considers what the african union (au) can do in addressing the issue of xenophobia in africa. before advancing a discourse on the role of the au, it is significant to analyse the manifestations of xenophobia across several african countries in order to vindicat the need for an african-wide response at the level of the au. manifestation of xenophobia in africa xenophobia is the perceived fear, hatred or dislike of a non-native or foreigner in a particular country (centre for human rights 2009). the word ‘xenophobia’ derives from two greek words xénos’ and phóbos which translates into ‘fear of a foreigner’ (bordeau 2010: 4). the united nations ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 255 special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance (rapporteur) defines xenophobia as ‘a rejection of outsiders’ (united nations general assembly 1994: para 29). according to the rapporteur, [x]enophobia is currently fed by such theories and movements as "national preference", "ethnic cleansing", by exclusions and by a desire on the part of communities to turn inward and reserve society’s benefits in order to share them with people of the same culture or the same level of development. while the notion of xenophobia bears close links to concepts like racism and ethnic intolerance, its semantic distinctiveness lies in the fact that it is rooted in national identity, citizenship and a rejection of foreigners belonging to other borders, states or nations (commission of the european communities 1993: 14). some manifestations of xenophobia include prejudices, attitudinal orientations, and behaviours against a foreigner (international labour organisation 2001: 2). such prejudices, attitudinal orientations and behaviours can be triggered by political incitements, declining economic conditions or concerns relating to national security, particularly in the current era of terror attacks. while foreigners are generally affected, refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants are often the central targets in xenophobic situations. in africa, some of the evident manifestations of xenophobia have been the expulsion of foreign nationals, threats of expulsion and, in other instances, violent attacks. these manifestations date as far back as the 1960s. in november 1969, forty-nine days after becoming ghana’s prime minister, kofi busia introduced the aliens compliance order (the aliens order) which sought to expel undocumented aliens. ‘the aliens order required aliens who lacked work permit [to] get them within a period of two weeks or leave the country’ (gocking 2005: 156). prior to this time, a general perception of foreigners as the cause of ‘large-scale unemployment that had befallen ghana’ had begun to emerge in the country (aremu and ajayi 2014: 176). most of the foreign population were from other west african countries such as nigeria, burkina faso, togo and côte d’ivoire. in 1931, nigerians constituted the majority of foreigners in ghana. their success in running businesses in ghana led to an influx of other nigerians to the country. tensions began to rise in ghana with the increasing entry of foreigners and the dire socio-economic conditions of ghanaians. in response to increased ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 256 pressure from ghanian citizens, certain measures were initiated including the aliens order and the ghanaian business promotion (gbp). the gbp sought to reserve certain businesses for ghanaians (asamoah 2014: 187). according to asamoah (2014: 187), ‘[t]o facilitate ghanaian business promotion, aliens would be allowed to engage in certain economic activity only if they put in capital of determined amounts.’ oppong (2002: 26) notes that the aliens order ‘led to the mass exodus of between 900,000 to 1,200,000 individuals from ghana.’ ghanaians praised the order as a nationalistic initiative to ensure jobs for ghanaians (aremu and ajayi 2014: 176). in 1972, uganda expelled thousands of asians from the country in the face of worsening economic conditions (escribà-folch and wright 2015: 145). news reports (bbc 1972) confirm hansen’s (2000: 198) recount that ‘all asians from britain, india, pakistan, kenya, tanzania and zambia were told they had three months to leave uganda.’ following the expulsions, the businesses owned by these foreigners were expropriated, however, the economic downturn of the country was not salvaged (stokes 2009: 187). in 1978, gabon took a decision to expel all beninese from the country (henckaerts 1995: 16). the decision was premised on an alleged aspersion on president bongo and the people of gabon by president kérékou of benin in july 1978 (gray 1998: 396). fifteen months before this time, in may 1977, kérékou had accused officials of gabon of a foiled mercenary coup that sought to oust him from power and told african leaders that he would consider anyone who attended the regional summit in libreville a traitor (gray 1998: 396). in reaction, gabon banned beninese from coming into the country. gray (1998: 396) notes that ‘the person of bongo and the image of the state were […] merged in the minds of many gabonese citizens.’ in july 1978, when president kérékou restated his accusation before bongo at the summit of the organisation of african unity (oau) in sudan, president bongo became enraged (gray 1998: 396). in communication with the chairman of the oau, president bongo stated that ‘the anger of an entire people, which has been controlled for a whole year, literally exploded after the verbal vulgarities and insanities uttered at the oau’ (gray 1998: 396). subsequently, about 9 000 beninese were expelled from the country (henckaerts 1995: 16). according to henckaerts, ‘the sole factor of being a benin national triggered the expulsion decisions without an examination of individual behaviour’ (henckaerts 1995: 17). gray (1998: 397) notes that ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 257 although the expulsion had implications on the economy and on the education system of gabon, ‘the gabonese state was able to avert more serious political unrest through an exercise in “citizenship promotion”.’ due to declining economic conditions in the early 1980s following a period of economic boom in the 1970s, nigeria expelled over 2 million foreigners from the country in 1983 (aremu 2013: 340). more than a million of these foreigners were from ghana (otoghile and obakhedo 2011: 139). in addition to the decline in economic conditions, another key reason given for the expulsion of foreigners from the country was the involvement of foreigners in crime in the country (aremu 2013: 341). in 1985, another wave of expulsion was carried out in which 300 000 ghanaians were expelled from the country (otoghile and obakhedo 2011: 139-140). as with the first wave of expulsions, the worsening economic conditions constituted the basis for this expulsion (otoghile and obakhedo 2011: 139). in response to the declining economic situation in côte d’ivoire in the 1990s, former president bédié propagated the idea of ivoirité which sought to weave ivoirian identity into political and economic access (kimou 2013: 1819; wiafe-amoako 2015: 82-83). the institutionalisation of ivoirian identity fuelled resentments against foreigners and divided the ivorian society. in 1999, between 8000 and 12000 nationals of burkina faso were expelled following tensions between ivoirians and burkinabe farmers (human rights watch 2001: 4). in 2004, an attempted coup against the president of equatorial guinea, allegedly led by a mercenary, spurred a clamp-down on foreigners in the country (shirbon 2004). foreigners from several african countries were detained, intimidated and some were expelled. government officials raised suspicions against foreigners and equatorial guineans were called upon to be ‘vigilant with foreigners, regardless of colour, because [their] target […was] the wealth of equatorial guinea, the oil’ (roberts 2009: 192-193). an estimate of about 1 000 foreigners from other african countries, mostly from cameroon, were expelled from the country (human rights watch 2009: 81). equatorial guineans who did not belong to the law enforcement agency of the state were permitted to arbitrarily arrest those suspected to be illegal foreigners (human rights watch 2009: 81). in 2007, the government banned other west african nationals from ‘owning grocery stores’ in the country, and such stores were either taken over by the government or closed (irin news 2008). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 258 the rhetoric that citizens of the democratic republic of congo (congo kinshasa) were stealing natural resources that belonged to angola was at the root of several recent mass expulsions of congolese from angola. in 2004, the angolan government expelled an estimated 100 000 congolese from angola (siegel 2009: 23). over 160 000 congolese were expelled between december 2008 and december 2009 (adebajo 2011: 91). perpetuating the rhetoric in question, the angolan foreign minister stated that angola ‘will never give up its right to protect its natural resources and its right to repatriate citizens who are acting in a way which do not benefit the country’ (reliefweb 2009). in 2009, the government of congo kinshasa expelled 50 000 angolans in retaliative response to the mass expulsion of congolese from angola. this was done ‘amid a rising wave of popular anger over the humiliating treatment of those expelled [by angola]’ (human rights watch 2012: 11). the history of the xenophobic violence in south africa, although arguably rooted in the legacies of apartheid and the failure of the post-apartheid government in effectively accommodating foreigners (hanekom and webster 2009/2010: 105; adam and moodley 2013: 37), dates back to 2008 with the waves of attacks against foreigners seen in various locations across south africa (duponchel 2013: 5). the first known attack was on 11 may 2008 in the alexandria settlement in johannesburg. by the end of may, over 60 people had been killed and tens of thousands were displaced (tafira 2011: 114; hankela 2014: 75). in 2015, a new wave of attacks against foreigners were incited by the zulu king and followed the death of a south african teenager at the hands of a somali. the rhetoric that underscored the 2008 attacks – that foreigners were stealing jobs and committing crimes – resonated in the new wave of attacks (mwakikagile 2008: 335) that resulted in the loss of properties owned by foreigners, the death of about 7 people and the displacement of thousands of foreigners (essa 2015). in 2009, burundi expelled between 800 and 1 200 foreigners from the country (jeune afrique 2009). these foreigners were mostly from rwanda and congo kinshasa, however others from tanzania, uganda and senegal were equally affected. the expulsion was premised on the need to address crime in the state. a police representative argued that it was a routine exercise aimed at expelling irregular migrants who were largely responsible for crimes in the state (jeune afrique 2009). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 259 in 2013, the government of tanzania expelled close to 11 000 undocumented foreigners in an effort to rid the country of criminal elements (ghosh 2013). prior to the expulsion, the president of tanzania had given a two-week ultimatum to undocumented foreigners to leave the country. the decision was informed on two grounds. first, on the complaint ‘from villagers over acts of armed robbery, bus attacks and kidnaps attributed to illegal immigrants in the area [of kagera]’ (naluyaga 2013) and, second, on the ground that undocumented foreigners ‘overstretched government’s ability to offer services to its people’ (naluyaga 2013). of those expelled were 300 from uganda, 4 100 from burundi and 6 400 from rwanda (ghosh 2013). with the recent wave of terrorist attacks in kenya by the somali al-shabaab group, negative reactions against somalis have arisen in the country (harper 2010; wambua-soi 2012; hatcher 2015). following the 2013 westgate attacks, kenyan government authorities threatened to close down the dadaab camp which housed about half a million somali refugees. in 2014, approximately 4 000 somalis were arrested in operation usalama watch initiated by the government with the view to counter terrorism and address security concerns in the state (boru-halakhe 2014). buchanan-clarke and lekalake (2015) observe that ‘[i]n kenya’s attempts to address the threat of violent extremism, the somali kenyan community is often stigmatized.’ the republic of congo (congo brazzaville) in many respects shares close ties with congo kinshasa. aside from the name, the congo river and language, the countries share ethnic and cultural bonds. however, this has not assuaged ‘foreign-fears’ premised a distinct border. in 2014, congo brazzaville initiated an operation dubbed operation mbala ya bakolo, literally translating to ‘slap of the elders’ (amnesty international 2015: 9). the essence of this operation was to rid the country of criminal elements and, although it was regarded as a ‘general operation’ (amnesty international, 2015, 14), over 50 000 citizens of the democratic of republic of congo were expelled (reuters 2015). while acknowledging the repatriations, a government spokesperson emphasised that ‘the operation continues’ as not all that should be repatriated has been found (amnesty international 2015: 17). in june 2015, suicide bomb attacks in n’djamena by boko haram resulted in the death of 27 people and left approximately 100 others injured (channels television 2015). in response to these attacks, one of the measures ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 260 implemented by the chadian government was the expulsion of foreigners. in the month of june, the chadian military expelled 200 to 300 cameroonians from the country in a ‘clean up campaign against undocumented foreigners’ (ernest 2015). in july 2015, over 2 000 undocumented nigerians were also expelled from kousseri in chad (telegraph 2015). in the case of ghana, nigeria, angola, uganda and south africa xenophobic reactions were spurred by economic considerations. in chad and kenya, xenophobic prejudices were informed by the war on terror. in cote d’ivoire, gabon and equatorial guinea, politics as well as economic considerations triggered xenophobic expulsions. in tanzania, burundi and congo brazzaville, xenophobic actions were largely spurred by the rhetoric that foreigners were committing crime. in congo kinshasa, the expulsion of angolans was political. while various reasons underpin xenophobic reactions in these countries, a central theme which resonates is that the issue of xenophobia is not a new phenomenon in africa. as a problem that is not country-specific, the role of the au as an institution saddled with the mandate of fostering cohesion among african states and promoting peace and security, is imperative. in light of this fact, the next section considers the role that various institutions within the au can play in addressing the issue of xenophobia. the role of the african union as the regional institution mandated to advance cooperation among african states and between africa and the international community, the au has the capacity to be a significant actor in addressing xenophobia. under the au constitutive act, the au is mandated to promote human rights, sanctity of life, and peaceful co-existence and cooperation between african states, as well as position the continent at an advantage within the international community. in the past, the au has, through norms and institutions, made significant strides in fostering these goals. the au has taken significant initiatives in relation to peace and security, economic development, international cooperation, institutionalisation of democracy and promotion of human rights in africa. in 2013, the african union developed a policy agenda for the continent premised upon the need to build an integrated africa and to rightly position africa in global governance (makinda et al 2016: 183). in the solemn declaration, au member states committed to ‘continue the global struggle against all forms of racism and discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances’ (african union 2013: art h(i)). this ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 261 commitment was further emphasised in the 2015 policy document created by the au to foster this solemn declaration (african union commission 2015). however, while the solemn declaration and the policy document iterate the need for states to combat xenophobia by ensuring that africa takes in global governance, the roles of relevant institutions within the african union in fostering this goal are not specifically mentioned. this paper discusses the roles which relevant institutions within the au can perform in addressing the issue of xenophobia on the continent. the assembly of heads of states and governments the assembly of heads of states and governments (the assembly) is the highest political organ of the au and is saddled with the mandate of advancing the goals of the au. in line with the constitutive act, the assembly is granted the responsibility of making policies and decisions, determining the au’s budget, establishing and directing other organs, appointing key authorities of the au commission (auc) and the african court of justice, delegating its functions where appropriate and monitoring compliance with its decisions (constitutive act of the au 2000: art 9). significantly, the au has adopted numerous treaties within the african human rights system. while still named the organisation of african unity (oau) in 1981, it adopted the african charter on human and peoples’ rights (the african charter), which is still the main regional human rights instrument. in commemoration of the 50th year of african integration, the assembly adopted the solemn declaration. the declaration served as a springboard for the development of the agenda 2063 policy document, which highlights the aspirations of the african union over the next 50 years from 2013. one of the aspirations emphasised in the policy document is the need to combat the issue of xenophobia. while the assembly has taken steps in developing norms for the prevention of xenophobia, this paper argues that in view of its broad mandate, the assembly can do much more. for example, one significant role it could play is to cooperate with key organs on the continent with exclusive mandates on human rights protection, peace and security by fostering compliance of member states with their decisions. such institutions include: the african union commission (auc), african commission on human and peoples’ rights (achpr), the pan-african parliament (pap), the economic, social and cultural council (ecosocc) and the african peace and security architecture (apsa). in addition, the assembly can adopt a common position on xenophobic violence on the ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 262 continent in which it should emphasise non-cooperation with states that fail to effectively address xenophobia. the african union commission as the secretariat of the au, the auc is the nerve centre of the au. headed by a chairperson, the auc has nine departments included among which is the department of political affairs (dpa). within the dpa, the humanitarian affairs, refugees and displaced persons division (hardpa) is particularly relevant as the unit with a mandate over issues of migration. one significant role which the auc can play is in facilitating regional dialogues on the issue of xenophobia. these dialogues should be aimed at raising awareness on the issue, promoting traditional african values such as ubuntu, sharing practices on how the issue of xenophobia can be addressed and drawing the attention of states and relevant stakeholders to xenophobic hotspots, orientations and attitudes. the auc should also develop advocacy pamphlets to foster regional sensitisation on african shared values of humanity and on the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. in collaboration with the achpr, the hardpa should develop a model for states to utilise in developing national policies on the issue of xenophobia. this model policy should highlight the ways through which xenophobia manifests, emphasise respect for human rights obligations and incorporate a rights-based approach to migration. moreover, the hardpa should disseminate information on xenophobic attacks through the use of news media and recommend urgent measures that states should adopt in addressing the issue in places around the continent where xenophobia arises. the african commission on human and peoples’ rights  the african union assembly has initiated common positions in the past in relation to issues such as climate change and child marriage. in 2009, it initiated a common position on non-cooperation with the international criminal court. see decision on the meeting of african state parties to the rome statute of the international criminal court (icc), adopted by the 13th ordinary session of the assembly in sirte, libya, assembly/au/dec 245(xiii) (3 july 2009), rev. 1 (tladi 2009: 57).  the concept of ubuntu embodies the idea that the humanness of a person is premised on that of others. according to cornell and van marle, ubuntu embodies “the notion that one’s humanness can be diminished by the violent actions of others, including the violent actions of the state” (cornell and van marle 2005: 207). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 263 constituted in 1987, the achpr is the primary regional organ, the mandate of which is to promote and protect human rights in africa. in 1996, the achpr decided on a communication against zambia following the country’s decision to expel illegal foreigners resulting in the exile of 517 west african nationals from the country (rencontre africaine pour la défense des droits de l'homme v zambia 2000). in its decision, the achpr emphasised that ‘mass deportation of the individuals in question here, including their arbitrary detention and deprivation of the right to have their cause heard, constitutes a flagrant violation of the charter’ (rencontre africaine pour la défense des droits de l'homme v zambia 1996: para 31). following the xenophobic violence in south africa, the achpr adopted a resolution against this violence (resolution condemning the xenophobic attacks in the republic of south africa 2015). in the may resolution, the achpr requested that the south african government ensure that mechanisms are put in place to prevent xenophobia from reoccurring. the achpr further stressed the need for investigation and urged the state to respect its obligations under the african charter. as a pivotal institution in the promotion of human rights in africa, the achpr has an essential role to play in addressing issue of xenophobia in africa. this paper argues that one of the ways through which the achpr can bring an end to the issue of xenophobia is through standard-setting. the decisions, resolutions and comments of the achpr have, over time, become useful resources for civil society advocacy and for state action plans. the achpr can leverage on this fact in developing a report on a rights-based approach to immigration laws and policies in africa. in this study, the achpr should assess national laws and provide recommendations on how these laws could be aligned with international human rights standards. the achpr should also develop a general comment on the issue of xenophobia. this general comment can be made with reference to the provision of article 19 of the african charter which emphasises the rights of ‘all peoples’ to ‘enjoy the same respect and […] have the same rights’ (african charter 1981: art 19). the achpr should also undertake promotional visits to states where xenophobic tendencies and attitudes are observed in order to sensitise  in 2014, the african commission approved a study undertaken by one of its special mechanisms on the right to nationality. (african commission on human and peoples’ rights 2014). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 264 authorities on viable measures to ensure that foreign nationals are adequately protected. the economic, social and cultural council as a platform through which various ‘social and professional groups’ (constitutive act of the au 2000: art 22(1)) can engage in the activities of the au (viljoen 2012: 206-208), the ecosocc has the capacity to be a significant actor in addressing the issue of xenophobia in africa. the ecosocc is designed as an ‘advisory organ’ of the au (constitutive act of the au 2000: art 22(1). in this position, the ecosocc is involved in realising the au objectives, conducting studies required by au institutions, making recommendations, promoting human rights and democracy, fostering popular participation and advancing collaboration between the au and civil society organisations (statute of the economic social and cultural council of the african union 2004: art 7(1-8)). considering its function, one of the roles that the ecosocc can perform in addressing the issue of xenophobia is to host sessional meetings in which relevant stakeholders, including states and the civil society, meaningfully engage in effective dialogue on combatting xenophobia nationally and regionally. the pan-african parliament although initially created to foster economic integration on the continent, the pap has assumed a broader function over time (pap protocol 2001; dinokopila 2013: 303-304). the pap protocol which sets out the scope of pap’s competence emphasises that pap developed from a need to ‘provide a common platform for african peoples and their grass-roots organizations to be more involved in discussions [on] challenges facing the continent’ (pap protocol 2001: preamble). some of the functions of the pap are to foster economic integration, promote human rights, democracy and good governance and serve as a focal point for engagement with regional economic communities (recs) and their parliaments (constitutive act of the au 2000: art 3). in view of its mandate, one of the roles which pap can perform in addressing the issue of xenophobia is to engage with recs on legislative, administrative and other measures that can be adopted in combatting xenophobia in states within the sub-regions. as these recs, such as ecowas, eac and sadc, have a strong presence in the au, the pap should engage them in actualising regional strategies for tackling the issue. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 265 the african peer review mechanism as a ‘peer pressure’ platform that allows african leaders to assess their commitment to governance, democracy and development, the african peer review mechanism (aprm) has a relevant role to perform in addressing xenophobia in africa. the aprm is a voluntary self-assessment mechanism that is conducted under the aegis of the au (killander 2008: 41). member states of the au voluntarily accede to the process. the aprm is constituted by three institutions: the committee of participating heads of state and government (aprf), the panel of eminent persons (pep), the aprm secretariat and the country review mission team (crmt) (africa peer review mechanisms: base document 2003). while the crmt conducts country visits and produces reports on the progress made by states in line with its commitments on governance, democracy and development, the pep oversees the review process, considers recommendations of the crmt and makes recommendations to the aprf. the aprf is the forum for political discussion in which states under review are urged to act in line with the recommendations gleaned from the review process. while the crmt and pep are essential in addressing the xenophobia, this paper argues that the aprf is particularly significant as it serves as a platform for constructive dialoguing between heads of states and governments (turianskyi, 2013). the african peace and security architecture the apsa is the main institution responsible for the protection of peace and security on the continent and is mandated to manage and resolve conflicts. within apsa, there are five main pillars, these are: the peace and security council (psc), the continental early warning system (cews), the panel of the wise (panel), the african standby force and the special fund (psc protocol 2002). two of its pillars relevant to addressing the issue of xenophobia in africa are the cews and the panel. the cews is a system designed to prevent situations of conflict by flagging potential conflict hotspots. in relation to xenophobia, the cews should monitor xenophobic orientations that may degenerate into conflict if not given proper attention. the cews should give detailed reports of such situations to the psc for further actions. the significance of the panel resonates from the motivation for its establishment (jegede 2009: 416). rooted in african traditions of  states are assessed on compliance with the values agreed upon in the new partnership for africa development declaration (nepad declaration). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 266 deference to elders (viljoen, 2012, 193), the panel is required to give advice to the psc and auc on matters bothering on peace and security on the continent (psc protocol, 2002, art 11(3). an important role which the panel can perform in addressing the issue of xenophobia is to advise the psc and states on how xenophobic-related conflicts can be prevented. conclusion the issue of xenophobia is a pressing challenge that cuts across human rights, governance, development and democracy in africa. as it is not specific to one african state, an africa-wide response is essential. within this context, the role of the au is primary. this paper elaborates on the role of seven institutions within the au that are relevant to addressing the issue of xenophobia in africa. with regards to the assembly, this paper argues that the assembly can develop a common position on xenophobic violence on the continent, in which it should emphasise non-cooperation with states that fail to effectively address xenophobia. the assembly should also cooperate with the decisions and recommendations from other au institutions, such as the achpr, in respect to its own decisions and recommendations. with respect to the auc, this paper argues that it can facilitate regional dialogues on the issue. this paper also argues that the auc should develop advocacy pamphlets for regional sensitisation on the issue of xenophobia. in addition, the auc should develop a model policy for states to utilise in developing national policies on the issue of xenophobia. with regards to the achpr, this paper argues that the achpr should develop a report on a rights-based approach to immigration laws and policies in africa and also develop a general comment on the issue of xenophobia. in relation to ecosocc this paper argues that ecosocc should host sessional meetings with relevant stakeholders for effective dialoguing on measures to combat xenophobia nationally and regionally. with respect to the pap, this paper argues that the pap should engage with recs leveraging on their strong sub-regional presence in addressing the issue of xenophobia. with regards to aprm, this paper argues that while the crmt and the pep are important, the aprf is particularly important in light of its ability to exert ‘influence’ or ‘peer pressure’. in relation to apsa, this paper argues that the psc and cews have significant roles to perform, arguing that the cews should monitor xenophobic orientations that may degenerate into conflicts if not given the ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 267 needed attention. this paper argues that the panel should advise the psc and states on the prevention of xenophobic-related conflicts. references adam, h and moodley, k. 2013. imagined liberation: xenophobia, citizenship and identity in south africa, 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also prevented low-skilled workers from applying for permanent residency, irrespective of their length of time in the country. these policies beg the question whether it is morally acceptable for a liberal democracy to deny a pathway to permanent residency based on skill level. the paper draws on joseph h. carens’ theory of citizenship and the principle that “the longer one stays in a society, the stronger one’s claim to remain.” it uses the example of the dispensation for zimbabwean project, a large regularization programme for temporary workers introduced in south africa in 2010 to argue that temporary status should not be “permanent,” but should lead to permanent residency after a period of time. keywords permanent residence, temporary migration, dispensation for zimbabwean project, ethics. introduction in his article titled “back to the future? can europe meet its labor needs through temporary, migration?” stephen castles inquires whether temporary worker schemes introduced in europe in the 2000s would resemble past guest worker programs which were abolished in 1974. such programmes provided employers with young unskilled workers who were unmarried or had left their families at home and worked on a “rotation basis” (rotationsprinzip) in agriculture, construction, mining, and manufacturing (jurgens, 2010:348). his answer to the question is no. however, he argues that “some current *associate director at the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma). email: director@sihma.org.za mailto:director@sihma.org.za the regularization of zimbabwean migrants: a case of permanent temporariness 1102 approaches do share important common features with past guest worker programs, especially through discriminatory rules that deny rights to migrant workers” (castles, 2006:1). castles further observes that unlike older guest worker programs, immigration policies and temporary migration schemes in europe target highly skilled migrants, while restricting entry for less qualified workers and limiting their rights. with regard to working conditions, castle writes, “lower-skilled workers experience highly restrictive conditions, with limitations on duration of stay and the right to change jobs” (castles and ozkul, 2014:30). they face exploitation and abuses, “have a time-limited right to residence and employment in the host country and time spent in employment as a guest worker usually does not count or help them to earn permanent residence rights” (ruhs and martin, 2008:250). temporary migrant workers, particularly low-skilled migrants, are treated as “second-class citizens” at risk of becoming part of a new model of “indentured servitude” (de genova as cited in castles, 2014:41). temporary forms of migration raise a normative question about the socioeconomic rights of those who are neither citizens nor long-term residents. they also pose the question of whether the number of years spent in a country should be considered a legitimate and morally acceptable criteria to access permanent residency. if the answer to this question is no, as some argue, temporary workers should not be able to qualify for permanent residency, irrespective of how long they have been in the host country. the term “temporary migrant” refers here to migrant workers employed in low-skilled jobs and excludes other categories of temporary migrants such as asylum seekers, highly skilled workers, foreign investors and international students, to whom many countries offer a fast-track from temporary to permanent residency and full socio-economic rights. temporary workers and rights as noted by ruhs (2012:1288) “the question about rights involves questions about the rights migrants should receive after admission and whether and how these rights should change over time.” he further argues that the legal rights of migrants depend on their immigration status in the host country and that selective immigration policies are used to “tightly regulate migrants” access to citizenship status and to specific citizenship rights’ (ibid:1288). some theorists (ruhs and martin, 2008) argue that denying temporary low-skilled workers equal rights is justified by economic needs. they maintain that there sergio carciotto 1103 is, in fact, a “trade-off, i.e. an inverse relationship between the number of migrants employed in low-skilled jobs in high-income countries, and the rights afforded these migrants. the primary reason for this trade-off is that employer demand for labor is negatively sloped with respect to labor costs, and that more rights for migrants typically means higher costs.” (ibid: 251). in this kind of situation, both employers and migrant workers have something to gain: the former benefits from a reduction in labor costs or to meet a labor shortage, while the latter has an opportunity to migrate safely and legally. according to the “number-rights/trade-off principle” described above, granting more employment rights to migrant workers would simply reduce employers’ demand and, therefore, the number of low-skilled migrants legally employed. others (bell, 2006) have argued that a system of unequal rights, as in the case of east asia, is tolerable because migrant workers accept terms and conditions of employment before they go abroad. this raises the question whether temporary migrants “are better off because they are more likely to be employed or less well off because they endure poorer working conditions” (fauvelle-aymar, 2015:14). this paper argues that temporary workers should enjoy the same employment rights that citizens and permanent residents possess. a contractual approach to temporary migration might, in fact, be convenient from the point of view of practical politics, but it cannot be justified on moral grounds as it tolerates a system of “second class” residents with fewer rights. but nonetheless, if those migrants who enter into this kind of working agreement do so voluntarily and, therefore, are willing to receive less rights, this should only be temporary and limited to short term non-renewable visas. an exploitative system where migrant workers’ rights are restricted ad infinitum would not be acceptable and should not be justified even when migrants are willing to accept fewer rights. the question about what rights migrants should receive after their admission and how these rights should change over time remains a highly contentious issue. political theorist joseph h. carens (2008a; 2008b; 2008c; 2013) provides an answer to this ethical dilemma. he notes that democratic states can admit migrants for a limited period of time and restrict their access to public assistance programs but other restrictions are morally problematic. his argument is based on the assumption that the claim to be a member of a political community grows as time spent in a country increases, irrespective of the condition of sojourn or immigration status. moreover, democratic legitimacy “lies upon the inclusion of the entire settled population, including the regularization of zimbabwean migrants: a case of permanent temporariness 1104 those migrants who have spent numerous years in a society and deserve to be included in the citizenry” (carens, 2008b:22). membership acquired over an extended period of time spent in a society explains why prolonged temporary status ought to lead automatically to permanent residency first and to citizenship (naturalization) afterwards: [i]f people admitted to work on a temporary visa have no other moral claim to residence than their presence in the state, it is normally reasonable to expect people who have only been present for a year or two to leave when their visa expires. on the other hand, if a temporary visa of this sort is renewed, it ought at some point to be converted into a right of permanent residence. that is also the implication of the principle that the longer the stay, the stronger the claim to remain. (carens, 2008a:422). the importance of continuous residency leading to permanent residency is echoed by mares (2017:20) who notes that “the starting point for a consistent liberal response to temporary migration must be a pathway to permanent residence that is, after a certain period of time, unconditional.” it therefore follows that, according to carens’ point of view, temporary workers must not be allowed “to morph into a permanent underclass” (un general assembly, 2017:10) and should enjoy the same universal legal rights as native workers. he argues that after a given time (five to ten years) the moral claim of temporary workers for permanent residency and citizenship can be considered legitimate. carens’ theory of citizenship, labeled social membership, is based on the principle that “the longer a person stays, the stronger is his or her claim to remain” (carens, 2008a; 2008b; 2008c). still the main question remains. is it legitimate for temporary migrants to acquire, after a set number of years, the legal rights afforded to citizens and long-term residents? let me try to answer this question with a concrete example: the dispensation of zimbabweans project approved by the cabinet in south africa in 2009. the regularization of zimbabwean migrants from 2008 to 2011, south africa received the highest number of individual asylum applications globally, with a peak of over 300,000 applications in 2009 (table 1) making it the world’s largest recipient of asylum seekers that year. this fact caused delays in adjudication times and allowed economic migrants without a legitimate asylum claim to reside and work legally in the country. the increase in asylum claims led the department of home affairs “to implement restrictive practices and policies, stemming both physical access at sergio carciotto 1105 the border and at the refugee reception offices (rros), as well as access to protection in adjudication procedures” (johnson and carciotto, 2016:169). table 1: number of asylum applications filed annually in south africa, 2008-2011 year asylum seekers 2008 207,206 2009 341,609 2010 124,336 2011 106,904 2012 85,058 2013 70,010 2014 71,914 2015 62,159 2016 35,377 source: adapted from department of home affairs, annual asylum statistics in response to this crisis, one policy adopted to ease the pressure on the asylum system was the implementation of a large regularization program for zimbabwean nationals in south africa. in 2009, the cabinet approved the dispensation of zimbabweans project – or ‘dzp’ – allowing zimbabwean holders of this special permit to work, conduct business and study in south africa. at the launch of the dzp in 2010, the department of home affairs (dha) estimated that there were approximately 1.5 million undocumented zimbabweans in south africa (bimha, 2017). the regularization of zimbabwean migrants: a case of permanent temporariness 1106 the dzp relaxed the normal requirements for work, study, or business permits. applicants were required to submit a valid zimbabwean passport, evidence of employment in the case of a work permit, evidence of business in the case of an application for a business permit, and an admission letter from a recognized learning institution in the case of a study permit (amit 2011). the objectives of the ‘dzp’ then were to: a) regularize zimbabweans residing in south africa illegally; b) curb the deportation of zimbabweans who were in south africa illegally; c) reduce pressure on the asylum seeker and refugee regime, and d) provide amnesty to zimbabweans who obtained south african documents fraudulently. just over 245,000 non-renewable temporary permits were issued with a validity of four years. in august 2014, four months before the expiration date of the zimbabwean special permits (31 december 2014), the minister of home affairs announced the launch of a new zimbabwean special dispensation permit (zsp) targeting dzp permit-holders who wished to remain in south africa after the expiry of their permits. the zsp allowed permit-holders to live, work, conduct business and study in south africa for an additional three years until 31 december, 2017. despite having announced in 2016 that the zsp would be terminated at the end of 2017, the dha later announced the availability of the new zimbabwean exemption permit (zep) which allowed zsp holders to work, study and conduct business for an additional period of four years until 31 december 2021. the then minister of home affairs, hlengiwe mkhize, remarked that the zep was in line with the white paper on international migration policy, approved by the cabinet in 2017, and was part of a larger effort to address the inflows of low-skilled labor migrants from neighboring south african development community (sadc) countries. this is not the first time that south african government has attempted to address the issue of irregular migration within the region: between 1995 and 2000 three regularization projects for contract and undocumented migrant workers from sadc countries were implemented. however, unlike the three previous regularizations which “were designed to give target populations permanent residence status in south africa” (peberdy, 2001:20), the dzp, zsp and zep programmes did not allow permit-holders to apply for permanent residence despite their long, continuous tenure in the country. this exclusionary practice raises numerous concerns. given the fact that “the eligibility criterion for accessing most social assistance benefits is south african citizenship or sergio carciotto 1107 permanent residence” (deacon, et al., 2014) the lack of a pathway to permanent residency restricts migrants’ access to social benefits. in south africa, all temporary workers are excluded from accessing social assistance, are not entitled to claim unemployment funds and are excluded from accessing unemployment insurance if they are ill or on maternity or adoption leave (ibid, 2014:24). access to housing and basic education for temporary workers is also restricted by the government (see table 2). moreover, low-skilled temporary workers are much more likely to occupy low-wage, precarious jobs than south africans (acms, 2017). in addition, temporary workers are tied to a specific kind of work and are not allowed to change employers. such restrictions can make migrant workers vulnerable, as recounted by a zimbabwean national who was granted a permit to work as a gardener under the dzp dispensation and later secured a job in the construction industry: i worked for a month at the construction site because it paid better than working as a gardener. after the first month we were taken to kimberley to do some work for a few weeks. however, when we got there we encountered people from home affairs who were checking for papers [legal documentation]. i was immediately arrested because i was doing a job that was not mentioned in my permit. it was a nightmare. i was told that i would be deported but it took long for me to be deported. i spent one and a half months at a holding centre in kimberley. they keep you there for some time till they have arrested enough people to fill a truck. (deacon, et al., 2014:50). the constitution of south africa guarantees equality before the law and the right to equal protection and does not justify discrimination based purely on residency. yet temporary low-skilled workers are vulnerable to exploitation and are not afforded equal protection. regularization programmes such as the zdp, the zsp and the zep address permanent labor shortages and fill permanent jobs with temporary workers. such workers should not be denied a path to permanent residency. the regularization of zimbabwean migrants: a case of permanent temporariness 1108 source: adapted and updated from mpedi (2011) the 2017 white paper on international migration the immigration act of 2002 provides for various types of temporary visas with worker rights, and makes holders of work visas eligible for permanent residency after a period of five consecutive years. section 31(2)(b) of the act allows the minister of home affairs “to grant, under specific terms and conditions, a foreigner or a category of foreigners the rights of permanent residence for a specified or unspecified period when special circumstances exist which should justify such a decision.” (south africa, 2002). provided certain conditions are met, this system “effectively creates automatic qualification for permanent residency and subsequently for citizenship. thus one of the main criteria used to qualify for permanent residency is the period of stay in the country, irrespective of the type of temporary residence visa initially issued, or purpose of entry” (dha, 2017:41). however, the 2017 white paper on international migration seeks to modify this approach so that the guiding principle to grant permanent residency and naturalization would be the type of residence visa rather than the number of years spent in the country. this policy framework -which restricts citizenship rights for temporary lowskilled migrants-is morally questionable and contravenes the principle that “the longer the stay, the stronger the claim to full membership in society and to the enjoyment of the same rights as citizens.” the white paper was approved by the cabinet in march 2017 with the aim of providing a policy framework to guide the review of immigration and related table 2. access to social services and benefits in south africa for different categories of residents social assistance pensions unemployment benefit health care public housing public school citizen yes yes yes yes yes yes permanent resident yes yes yes yes yes yes temporary resident no yes no yes no no sergio carciotto 1109 legislation. according to the south african government, the rationale for an overhaul of migration legislation is the economic, social and legislative changes that have occurred in south africa during the past eighteen years. the white paper attempts to respond to the needs of a country that has become a major destination for economic migrants, refugees, students, cross-border traders and entrepreneurs from africa and the rest of the world. it recommends strategic interventions in eight policy areas: management of admission and departure; management of residency and naturalization; management of international migrants with skills and capital; management of ties with south african expatriates; management of international migration within the african context; management of asylum seekers and refugees; management of the international process for international migrants, and; management of enforcement. the white paper argues that the current system fails to address the challenges posed by mixed migration flows from neighboring countries “with regard to semi-skilled and unskilled economic migrants, who have been largely unable to obtain visas and permits through the mainstream immigration regime” (ibid:52). this system has had some negative consequences, including a national asylum system overwhelmed and abused by economic migrants, the exploitation of african workers by some south african employers, corruption by police and immigration officials, and costly and ineffective deportation measures. in line with the national development plan (ndp) the new migration policy seeks to attract, acquire, and retain the necessary skills by recruiting migrants in a more strategic way in order to achieve national priorities and economic growth. it attempts to align south africa’s international migration policy with its african-centered foreign policy to better address economic migration of low-skilled and unskilled migrants from the sadc region. to address the growth of undocumented migration and the existing gaps in legislation, the white paper suggests three strategic initiatives to improve the management of low-skilled economic migrants by expanding the current visa regime (ibid: 56). first, a new sadc visa would be tied to a programme to regularize existing undocumented sadc migrants residing in south africa along the same lines as the zsp and other amnesties that south africa has conducted over the years. second, the white paper would expand the visa regime to address economic migration from neighboring countries. at least three types of visas are the regularization of zimbabwean migrants: a case of permanent temporariness 1110 recommended for piloting. the sadc special work visa would allow the holder to work in south africa in a specific sector for a prescribed period of time. it would be based on a quota-regime implemented through bilateral agreements. the number of visas would be based on labor market dynamics like employment levels and the share of jobs held by foreign nationals. the sadc traders’ visa would be a long-term, multiple-entry visa for cross border traders who frequently enter and exit the republic. the sadc small medium enterprise (sme) visa would be available for the self-employed and for small business owners. third, the white paper provides for stronger enforcement of immigration and labor laws. it seeks to strengthen the enforcement of labor and migration laws in order to ensure fair employment practices and that unscrupulous employers do not pay lower wages to migrants. one of the most significant features of these new temporary schemes for lowskilled migrants is the absence of pathways to permanent legal status. at present, the immigration act of 2002 allows holders of certain temporary residence visas under specific conditions to apply for a permanent residence permit and subsequently for citizenship. thus, access to permanent residency is based on the number of years spent in the country, irrespective of the type of temporary visa initially issued. in the government’s view, this approach “does not allow the granting of residency and naturalization to be used strategically” (ibid:42) and in the best interest of national priorities. hence, there should not be any automatic progression from residency to citizenship, in order to “dispel a misconception that immigrants have a constitutional right to progress towards citizenship status on the basis of a number of years spent in the country” (ibid:42). in the future, long-term visas may replace permanent permits and be granted only to those migrants who possess high levels of human and financial capital. this new policy will mean that highly skilled workers, investors and international students graduating in critical skill occupations will receive preferential admission conditions and easy access to permanent residency, while temporary low-skilled migrants will not. thus, the white paper would negatively impact the rights and social conditions of temporary low-skilled african migrants, who will no longer have the right to settle permanently. the granting of permanent residency based on highly selective criteria is, in fact, a tool to control and restrict access to civic, political and social rights, including the substantive rights of citizenship. sergio carciotto 1111 the planned measures to introduce a new visa regime for low-skilled temporary workers acknowledge the demand for low-skilled workers in specific economic sectors, as well as the existence of prevailing colonial circular movements and migration patterns to south africa. however, this policy plan falls short in addressing issues of “employee portability rights” for temporary contract workers and gives the impression of replicating circular and temporary schemes “which tie migrant workers to certain sectors and employers for a pre-defined period of time, limiting the duration of stay and the right to change job” (castles, 2014:41). furthermore, the idea presented in the white paper of delinking permanent residency from the duration of stay is problematic and morally questionable. this policy runs afoul of human rights and the common good, which demand policies that benefit all members of a given community. in this regard, “longterm settlement does carry moral weight and eventually even grounds a moral right to stay that ought to be recognized in law” (carens, 2008b:36). conclusion in south africa, temporary and exploitative forms of migration date back to colonial times when migrant workers were considered a source of cheap labor for white-owned farms and mines, thus setting the foundation for separate development and the apartheid regime. since the inception of democracy in 1994 and particularly over the past two decades, south africa has undergone a protracted process of developing policy and legislation on migration. one of the key policy documents issued by the south african government is the white paper on international migration, which supports the enlargement of the current visa regime through the implementation of regularization programmes to accommodate temporary low-skilled workers and reduce the influx of undocumented migrants from neighbouring countries. examples of these interventions are the dispensation for zimbabwean project, the zimbabwean special dispensation and the zimbabwean exemption permit to regularize migrant workers in south africa. originally meant to last only for a period of four years, these programmes, which allow temporary migrants to be employed in different areas such as the hospitality and construction industries, are, at the time of writing, in their eighth year of implementation. such programmes do not intend to address short term labor shortages in south africa, as the nature of the work that permit-holders conduct is not temporary. yet permit holders will be excluded from a pathway to permanent residency. the regularization of zimbabwean migrants: a case of permanent temporariness 1112 the fact that after a long period of time zimbabweans are not allowed to graduate to a permanent legal status under the law indicates how recent policy interventions in south africa aim to weaken the nexus between the continuous period of residence in the country and permanent residency. this contravenes carens’ ethical principle that “the longer people stay in a society, the stronger they are morally entitled to the same civil, economic, and social rights as citizens, whether they acquire formal citizenship status or not” (carens, 2013: 89). according to carens’ theory of social membership, the claim to membership grows over time and it is the length of residence, not the legal status that is the key moral variable. moreover, democratic legitimacy rests upon the meaningful participation in civic life of the entire population, including temporary workers who have spent a large part of their lives in the country. temporary schemes such as the dzp, the zsp and the zep do not resemble european guest worker programmes aimed at filling the demand for cheap labor which were abolished in the late 1970s. however, they introduce limitations on the right to change jobs and to access some work-related social programs. the limitation of certain legal rights (e.g., right to vote or to hold high public office) is justifiable when temporary migrants are only permitted to remain for a limited time but not when temporary visas are renewed numerous times for multiple consecutive years. in this case, at some point, temporary visa holders should be converted into permanent residence and temporariness should come to an end. non-access to permanent residency, in fact, makes migrant workers more vulnerable and their “temporary status” creates barriers to a meaningful assertion to work-related and social rights. recommendations temporary labor schemes represent one of the most controversial topics addressed by the zero draft of the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration, which was released by the united nations on 5 february 2018. the following recommendations on these programs are drawn from the ten acts document drafted by civil society and the 20 action points prepared by the vatican dicastery for promoting integral human development’s section on migrants and refugees. 1. ensure that all migrants are protected by their countries of destination, in order to prevent exploitation, forced labor and human trafficking. this can be achieved by prohibiting employers from sergio carciotto 1113 withholding employees’ documents; by ensuring access to justice for all migrants, independently of their legal status and without negative repercussions on their right to remain; by ensuring that all immigrants can open a personal bank account; by establishing a minimum wage applicable to all workers; and by ensuring that wages are paid at least once a month. 2. the integrity and well-being of the family should always be protected and promoted, independently of legal status. this can be achieved by embracing broader family reunification (grandparents, grandchildren and siblings) independent of financial requirements; allowing reunified family members to work; undertaking the search for lost family members; combating the exploitation of minors; and ensuring that, if employed, minors’ work does not adversely affect their health or their right to education 3. strengthen the role of the international labour organization (ilo), in cooperation with other international agencies, to ensure public availability, transparency, accountability, and human rights norms and standards in bilateral, regional and international agreements on labor mobility, rights and decent work; ensure the implementation of these agreements; and ratify, implement and cooperate transnationally on the international convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families, as well as other human and labor rights conventions. 4. ensure that all recruitment-related fees are borne by the employer, not the migrant worker; operationalize international standards and cooperation to regulate and monitor migrant labor recruitment and employment; and eliminate abuses of migrant workers and the use of forced labor in supply chains. 5. enact national policies that provide foreign residents with access to justice, regardless of their migratory status, allowing them to report human rights abuses and violence without fear of reprisal, including abuses suffered in detention and deportation. 6. access to welfare should be assured to all migrants, respecting their right to health and basic healthcare independent of legal status, and ensuring access to national pension schemes and the transferability of benefits in case of moving to another country. the regularization of zimbabwean migrants: a case of permanent temporariness 1114 7. implement the sadc protocol on the facilitation of the free movement of persons, the draft protocol on employment and labour, and the sadc portability of social security benefits framework. 8. include provisions for low-skilled workers in regional labor mobility protocols and assure that labor migration programs guarantee full labor rights and protections for migrants. 9. ensure that anyone who is allowed to remain in the country for more than a specific time is allowed to graduate to a permanent legal status. on this topic, the zero draft of the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration falls short as it does not encourage the adoption of a pathway to permanent residency for all migrant workers. 10. as indicated by the zero draft of the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration, temporary migrants should be allowed to change employers. 11. adopt laws which allow for the regularization of status for long term residents of the host country. references african centre for migration & society (acms). 2017. fact sheet on foreign workers in south africa. unpublished report. johannesburg: university of the witwatersrand. amit, r. 2011. the zimbabwean documentation process: lessons learned. african centre for migration and society. bell, d. a. 2006. beyond liberal democracy: political thinking for an east asian context. princeton: university press. bimha, p. z. j. 2017. legalising the illegal: an assessment of the dispensation of zimbabweans project (dzp) and 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(eds.). states, the law and access to refugee protection: fortresses and fairness. bloomsbury, 167-179. jurgens, j. 2010. the legacies of labor recruitment: the guest worker and green card programs in the federal republic of germany. policy and society 29 (4): 345-355. peberdy, s. (2001). imagining immigration: inclusive identities and exclusive policies in post-1994 south africa. africa today 48 (3), 15-32. ruhs, m. and philip m. 2008. numbers vs. rights: trade‐offs and guest worker programs. international migration review 42 (1): 249-265. the regularization of zimbabwean migrants: a case of permanent temporariness 1116 ruhs, m. 2012. the human rights of migrant workers: why do so few countries care? american behavioral scientist 56 (9): 1277-1293. south africa. immigration act 13 of 2002. from <https://bit.ly/2vm5lbc> (retrieved april 17, 2018). un general assembly, 2017. report of the special representative of the secretary general on migration. from <http://bit.ly/2q6mrrk> (retrieved april 17, 2018). https://bit.ly/2vm5lbc http://bit.ly/2q6mrrk ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor dr mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh university of pretoria, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delagdo wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, basel, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print) copyright © 2016 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 465 6433 email: editor@sihma.org.za webpage: www.sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za http://www.sihma.org.za/ iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ volume 2 number 2 may – august 2016 articles 443 responding to xenophobic violence in post-apartheid south africa: barking up the wrong tree? jean pierre misago 468 territorial control and cross border movement in eastern ethiopia: the case of togochale border namhla t. matshanda 489 models for migrant leadership: the cape town women’s platform leah mundell and emma carone 512 exploring youth migration and the food security nexus: zimbabwean youths in cape town, south africa sean t. sithole and mulugeta f. dinbabo african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1310 eritrea’s youth migration challenge: the role of aspirations and opportunity dabesaki mac-ikemenjima and helen gebregiorgis abstract over the last decade, eritrea has received significant analyses from the mainstream media and some scholars, due to the mass international migration of its citizens, estimated at 5,000 individuals monthly, especially youth. the aim of this paper is to explore factors that explain the mass migration of eritrean youth, with a focus on the potential roles of aspirations and opportunities. much of the literature suggests that young eritreans are emigrating due to their country’s national service program. we analyse the literature on the factors driving eritrean youth migration vis-à-vis push factors for migration from subsaharan africa. based on our analysis of various bodies of work related to eritrean migration and aspirations, we conclude that three main factors explain youth migration from eritrea: 1) tensions between individual and national aspirations; 2) limited opportunities for transition from education to employment; and 3) limited rights and freedoms. keywords capability, national service, national aspirations, transitions. introduction eritrea is a small sovereign state in the horn of africa comprised of an estimated five million citizens (tessema & ng’oma, 2009). despite its small population, in recent years, eritrea has gained wide global attention for being one of the largest sources of international migrants to countries in europe through mediterranean routes (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). most of these migrants are youth, particularly young men (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). many studies suggest that eritrea’s compulsory national service is the main driver of mass migration from the country (hirt & mohammad, 2018; international crisis group, 2014; kibreab, 2014, 2017). yet, others argue that the absence of a general sense of religious, economic and political freedom, the lack of economic opportunities and a sense of hopelessness are drivers of mass migration (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017; tessema & ng’oma, 2009)  ford foundation, dabesaki mac-ikemenjima, ford foundation, banana island, lagos, nigeria. email:d.mac-ikemenjima@uea.ac.uk/ dabesaki@gmail.com  chicago, illinois, united states of america, 60626, gebrhelen@gmail.com african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1311 some context is relevant here. eritrea became an independent country in 1991 following a protracted three-decade period of conflict with ethiopia (international crisis group, 2010). during its early post-independence years, the country seemed to be moving along an economically strong developmental trajectory, particularly with its post-war reconstruction and development program that partly focused on self-sufficiency (tesfagiorgis, 1993). in the referendum that resulted in the country’s separation from ethiopia, citizens voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence, and the outcome inspired an era of hope (international crisis group, 2010). this hope also defined the citizens’ aspirations for themselves and their country. the hope was expressed by the eritrean diaspora, some of whom returned, while others invested in the country with the intention of contributing to its advancement (hirt, 2014, 2015). this hope, which was translated into solidarity and support, continued even in the years following the suspension of the constitutional process, the renewed war with ethiopia and the post-war era, through the diaspora tax system instituted by the state (hirt, 2014). perhaps due to these factors, eritrea’s economy boomed in the first decade following independence with an average annual economic growth rate of 4.5%. however, the renewed conflict with ethiopia and the state’s response to it, contributed to a period of destabilisation with negative consequences for the economy (lopez & venkataraman, 2006). following the conflict, eritrea’s economy experienced a short period of decline after the mid-2000s, and then improved, with an increase in gdp growth from 2.2% in 2010 to 8.2% in 2011. in the following years, the economy was in decline for a sustained period, with a reported gdp growth of 0.3% in 2015 (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). the most recent gdp growth, in 2017, was 3.4% and is projected to be 3.7% in 2018 (african development bank, 2018). while the government has prioritised investments in infrastructure, such as communication facilities, water supply, energy and agriculture, the impact of these have been severely dwarfed by higher investments in security (afdb group, oecd & undp, 2016). eritrea’s economic prospects have also been negatively affected by un sanctions and an unstable macroeconomic environment. the world bank (2017) speculates that poverty in eritrea may be as high as 65% to 80% in rural areas. a significant portion of employment opportunity in eritrea is in ‘rain-fed’ agriculture, which contributes only a small portion of the gdp (african development bank, 2018). although the youth unemployment rate is relatively low at 13%, when compared to other african countries, such as south africa (over 50%), this is masked by the large number of people who are working poor, earning less than us$2 a day african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1312 (research and evidence facility, 2017). youth constitute around 30% of the overall eritrean population and they are relatively well educated, with an overall literacy rate of 90%, which makes them an important group to study. the last two decades have witnessed a mass exodus of eritreans migrating to neighbouring countries, mainly sudan and ethiopia, as well as far-off countries in europe. by some estimates (horwood & hopper, 2017; international crisis group, 2014), at least 5,000 eritreans leave the country monthly, and they constitute the second largest number of migrants from sub-saharan africa in europe. more than 500,000 people were estimated to have left the country as of 2013, and around a 250,000 refugees from eritrea are scattered globally (connell, 2013). there were 48,400 asylum applications from eritreans in europe in 2014, more than doubling the 22,300 recorded in 2013. this made eritrea the fifth largest producer of asylum seekers (un ohchr, 2015). in the uk alone, there were over 3,700 eritrean asylum seekers in 2013. although the eritrean situation has recently gained attention in the context of the current migration crisis in europe, one question that requires more exploration is why young people are emigrating en-masse from the country. the aim of this paper is to explore the factors that drive youth migration from eritrea. different push and pull factors explain migration. some of the factors identified in the literature include: economic migration, migration for family reasons and environmental conditions, including policies and conflict (cummings et al., 2015; european communities, 2000; flahaux & de haas, 2016). much of the literature suggests that young eritreans are migrating due to the country’s national service program (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). in this paper, we analyse the literature on the factors driving eritrean youth migration using a lens of opportunities and aspirations. we review bodies of work related to aspirations, economic opportunity and factors that drive migration, both specifically related to eritrea and beyond. using combinations of search terms – such as ‘youth and migration and eritrea or africa’, ‘youth and migration and eritrea and push factors’ and ‘youth and migration and eritrea and push forced migration’, among others – we searched major databases, such as ebscohost and google scholar, and identified various studies that have analysed the challenge of migration from eritrea. in this paper, we critically review these studies, and discuss their conclusions for why youth migrate. while not a systematic review, we apply the critical angle offered by the systematic review methodology by attempting to answer the research question: why do youth migrate or seek to migrate from eritrea? like most studies of eritrean migration, our paper faces limitations of internal african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1313 validity due to the lack of primary data and a review of studies that are mainly based on data collected from outside of eritrea (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). this paper is divided into five sections. following this brief introduction, we elaborate on a conceptual framework that draws on the concepts of aspirations and opportunity. in this section, we discuss amartya sen’s (1993, 1999) capability approach as an underlying framework to explain the push factors that drive youth migration from eritrea. in the third section, we discuss the distinction between national aspirations and individual aspirations. we opine that national aspirations are often couched in terms of state aspirations, and that these can be inconsistent with the aspirations of citizens. in the fourth section, we discuss the main findings of the review, outlining three key factors that explain youth migration from eritrea: tension between individual and national aspirations, limited opportunities to transition from education to employment and limited rights and freedoms of citizens. in the, fifth section, we discuss these factors and their relationship with the wider literature on migration from sub-saharan african contexts. furthermore, we consider the policy relevance of the main conclusions drawn for eritrea. conceptual framework: capability, aspirations and opportunity push and pull factors that drive african migration are often linked to economic and environmental factors (cummings et al., 2015; european communities, 2000). although the literature has focused more extensively on international migration, the bulk of african migration occurs within the region (adepoju, 2000; flahaux & de haas, 2016). however, whether movement occurs within the region or internationally, economic factors are central drivers of voluntary and involuntary or forced migration (awumbila, 2017). the factors that drive forced migration and increasing rates of displacement in africa have been the subject of several studies (dejesus, 2018; erdal & oeppen, 2018; rwamatwara, 2005). however, an aspect of migration in the region that requires further exploration, and which this paper aims to address, is the intersection of factors that drive forced migration and those that drive voluntary migration. scholars have noted this as an important area of study that does not entirely fit the binaries of forced versus voluntary migration, and the nuances of its dimensions require closer consideration (erdal & oeppen, 2018). by ‘looking deeper’, the contribution of aspirations and opportunity, whether in the context of forced or voluntary migration, become clearer (carling & collins, 2018). we attempt to develop a conceptual framework that analyses the factors that drive eritrean youth migration using the capability approach, and african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1314 the concepts of aspirations and opportunity, to develop a deeper understanding of mass youth migration from post-independence eritrea. the capability approach the capability approach (ca) is a framework for analysis that elucidates understandings of individual potential for achievement, social arrangements and their contributions and effects on people’s lives (robeyns, 2005). this framework is valuable to the design of effective policies that could promote and enhance social change in society (robeyns, 2005). at the core of the ca is the view that analyses of policies and people’s lives should focus on both the possibilities that they have (the things that they have the potential to be and do) and those that they are actually able to achieve (sen, 1993). sen describes the ca in terms of human freedoms, the possibility to be and do the things that contribute to the achievement of a good life (sen, 1999). central to the ca are agency and freedom, both of which advance the notion that a person’s ability to pursue the life that he or she desires unhindered by institutional structures and social arrangements is crucial for human development and the advancement of a society (sen, 1993). scholars have argued that commodities and material possessions are means to a good life (clark, 2005). people’s ability to achieve the ends they desire, and ultimately live a good life, is dependent on the kinds of societies in which they live, their personal situations and the resources that are available to enable them to achieve their desired ends. scholars have long debated the role of social and cultural environments on people’s ability to aspire to certain achievements (appadurai, 2004; bourdieu, 1986). sen’s conception of the ca has given rise to several analyses of both human development and wellbeing, and it has been instrumental to providing a social justice frame when exploring aspects of human rights and justice in several development topics, such as education (tikly, 2013). in taking the approach forward, nussbaum (2005) argues for a set of central capabilities that should form the basis of national constitutions and statutes. nussbaum’s (2005) list of central capabilities is comprised of ten areas of human life, namely: life, health, bodily integrity, sense, imagination and thought, emotions, practical reasons, affiliations, relationship to the world of nature and control over environment. the list illustrates many aspects that people consider to constitute a good life, and which are central to their aspirations. in a study using a ca framework in south africa, clark (2003) found issues such as jobs, happiness, a good family, living a christian (religious) life, among african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1315 others, to be central to how participants defined the good life. sen (1985) also gives examples of capabilities, such as the ability to be well nourished, to appear in public without shame and to live a long and healthy life. underlying the ca is the understanding of human dignity and a life that is free to flourish. the united nations development program has produced a human development report since 1990 as a major indicator of human progress, in which it presents a composite measure comprised of life expectancy, income and literacy, based in part on the capability approach. if capabilities are by any means universal, as nussbaum (2005) seems to suggest, then it could be argued that the failure to achieve the things that matter the most to people, or their inability to achieve these due to structural constraints, could have an impact on their perception of life in that society and affect their decision to migrate. aspirations and opportunity as explained earlier, the potential of eritrean youth, like those in other subsaharan african countries, to achieve their aspirations, and the sense of hope derived from the freedom to both aspire and pursue their aspirations, could be important elements for an understanding of youth migration (mains, 2013). aspirations provide an interesting lens for understanding the link between migration and young people’s sense of the possibilities they have for their lives (kleist, 2017). as mains (2013) suggests in his analysis of ethiopian youth aspirations, when “hope is cut” international migration tends to be one of the options that young men choose, given their perception of the possibilities that they could have abroad, which is largely fed by the media and the version of a better life portrayed by returnees. the possibilities that young people aspire to range from acquiring commodities such as money and other material possessions, to the desire for higher education or long-term personal relationships, such as being happily married (clark, 2003). an aspiration is defined as “the perceived importance or necessity of goals” (copestake & camfield, 2010: 618). it is a set of desired end-states that an individual seeks to achieve (kruglanski & kopetz, 2009). aspirations are cognitive and do not always match a person’s realities. this dissonance often contributes to individuals acting in different ways to enhance the potential of achieving their aspirations. the desired states that youth work towards achieving are important determinants of the ways in which they plan and live their lives. in eritrea, studies and project reports have shown that young people aim to attain the good life through quality education, vocational training and entrepreneurship african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1316 (müller, 2004; riggan, 2016). however, their abilities to achieve these goals are often impeded by the lack of proper institutional arrangements to advance or enable the attainment of these aspirations and limited opportunities for employment. the lack of such institutional arrangements and structures constitute both a disincentive to their aspirations and a major impediment to their capacity to pursue a better life. as such, many youth are compelled to either align with the limited opportunities that exist or seek other opportunities abroad by emigrating (riggan, 2016). as a case in point, the eritrean education system is highly restrictive in terms of the options that youth seeking to enter higher education, particularly universities, are able to pursue, as these are determined by the states’ pre-determined human capacity needs rather than by the interests of the youth themselves (müller, 2004, 2015). an area of interest is the effect that restricted opportunities for eritrean youth to choose what they value could have on their decision to migrate internationally. riggan’s (2016) research based on classroom debates on migration highlights the effects of limited opportunities on aspirations in eritrea. while some students participating in the debate highlight the need to stay to rebuild their country, others note that, given the structural weaknesses, the lack of opportunities to receive good quality education and the desire to have a livelihood, emigration was a more viable option. not all of riggan’s participants were in favour of emigrating. some of the participants highlighted the value of patriotism and national development as important reasons to stay in the country (riggan, 2016). the above is consistent with an analysis by rosberg and tronovoll (2017) in which 88% of the respondents strongly or somewhat agreed that improving their standard of living was an important driver of their decision to migrate. the same study cites the economy of eritrea as one of the external factors that drive migration from the country. cummings et al. (2015) highlight that the absence of economic opportunities in a country and perception of opportunities in other countries are important determinants of the decision to emigrate. in analysing the mass migration of youth from eritrea, it is crucial to understand what youth have reason to value, the impact of social arrangements on the things that they can aspire to and achieve, how policies affect their potential for achieving the things that they value and what types of changes in eritrean society and political life are necessary (carling & collins, 2018). an important factor that implicitly informs analyses on the quality of people’s lives in eritrea is the extent to which citizens have the freedom to african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1317 pursue the things that they value (kibreab, 2014). this informs extensive critiques of the national service program, given that it is perceived as an infringement on people’s ability to pursue the kind of life they value (kibreab, 2017). the notions of freedom and agency as advanced by ca are not only useful for understanding what other possibilities or opportunities youth have within eritrea itself, but also how the perception of local opportunities compared to those outside drive mass youth movement. we are interested in potential explanations offered by perceived opportunities or the lack thereof for the mass migration of eritrean youth. an important aspect of this relates to the ways in which the aspirations of eritrean youth interact with those of the state. thus, the question of national versus individual aspirations is briefly discussed in the following section. individual versus national aspirations national aspirations reflect the vision of the state, as represented by its political leadership, for a country’s future. the perception of the future could be in terms of human development (education and health), security, welfare, infrastructure or other such areas that are of interest to a given country as perceived by the leadership. in the case of eritrea, these priorities were set at the post-independence conference (tesfagiorgis, 1993). national aspirations are sometimes driven by the ideological leaning of a country’s political leadership, as well as other factors, such as the culture of a country and the extent to which citizens’ perspectives are integrated into policies. national aspirations are often reflected in national constitutions, legislations, policies, development plans and programmes instituted by the government of a country. for instance, in the case of access to education and courses, the system in eritrea is designed to train manpower for the country’s workforce under its self-reliance programme and based on what the state prioritises (ministry of education, 2008; müller, 2015). national aspirations are useful for countries as they are important determinants of growth, development and prosperity. yet, they could either enhance the attainment of personal aspirations or hinder them. although there are instances in which they are aligned, in many cases national aspirations may differ from those of the generality of citizens, which can establish a clear distinction between state aspirations and collective or group aspirations (shapiro, 1999). often national aspirations are cast in the form of acts of patriotism on the part of citizens, or simply developed as requirements for transition from one phase of life to another. for example, following nigeria’s protracted civil war of the 1960s–70, a new national youth service program was established that african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1318 required all young citizens to undertake a year-long engagement on national duty, in a state other than their own and in a different part of nigeria to that in which they studied (obadare, 2005, 2011). while the service is designed as a reflection of the state to achieve cohesion, and prevent future conflict, this may not reflect the aspirations of young graduates, some of whom may prefer to directly transition into full-time waged work or self-employment. in the context of eritrea, the national aspiration of producing manpower for the state-sanctioned sectors may constitute a similar challenge (kibreab, 2014, 2017). school to work transition in eritrea is an important aspect of the intersection between aspirations and opportunity because for most young people who attain higher education, they will be one of a handful of people who make it to that educational level (müller, 2004). this is because there are limited opportunities for entry into higher education in eritrea, and the system is largely controlled by the state. despite the tight control of the higher education system, at least 13% of the youth remain unemployed. given the weak economy, the prospects of graduates to enter decent waged employment is highly limited, despite this being a stated objective of the government’s higher education policy (ministry of education, 2008). school to work transition studies underscore the need to remove barriers to young people’s access to post-study opportunities for personal development and livelihood (fares et al., 2005). often, young people’s development, aspirations and attainment are affected by false starts and limited opportunities for achievement of their goals (locke & telintelo, 2012). while individual achievement is a critical aspect of development, the role of structural factors in shaping people’s life outcomes cannot be overstated. in analysing eritrea’s higher education system, müller (2015) highlights what was pointed out earlier in this article: that institutional arrangements hinder students’ higher education aspirations. another representation of national aspiration in eritrea is the country’s national service program. the eritrean national service programme was first proclaimed by the provisional government of eritrea in 1991 following the eviction of ethiopian forces by the eplf (kibreab, 2017). the program was envisaged as part of efforts to enhance national unity, cohesion and enhancement of eritrea’s self-reliance policy (kibreab, 2017). beyond that, the program could be viewed as a strategy to enhance youth employability and, thus, the productivity of the eritrean economy. under the programme, young eritreans completing high school were required to complete one year of paramilitary training, and were posted to government ministries and african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1319 businesses to undertake internship-like assignments (kibreab, 2017). although the national service was originally designed to last a period of eighteen months, following which individuals could pursue their preferred life trajectories, it is now claimed by various sources that this has been extended and could last for up to ten years or indefinitely (kibreab, 2014, 2017). national service conscripts are assigned to fulfil a broad set of tasks, going beyond core military functions to include work in the development, construction and maintenance of public infrastructure, agriculture and in the fledgling industrial and mining sectors (un ohchr, 2015). from the perspective of the state, the national service program is designed to help meet certain national aspirations: to protect state sovereignty, facilitate cohesion and prepare youth for future employment. however, given the resistance to the program as seen in the number of deserters and those seeking to emigrate to escape participation (hirt, 2010), it appears that the state’s objective or aspiration and those of the young people, at best, are misaligned and, at worst, are clashing. why are young eritreans migrating? in this section, we discuss our findings on the factors that influence youth migration from eritrea, based on our review of the literature. we opine that youth migration from eritrea is intricately linked to young eritreans’ aspirations and factors that enable or impede them. contrary to the dominant narrative presented in the literature that youth migration is primarily a result of the national service (connell, 2012; kibreab, 2013), we suggest that a complex mix of factors encapsulated by the absence of opportunities contribute to migration. tensions between national (state) and individual aspirations it is sad, but true, to say that eritrea has no economy today, devastated as it is by the thirty years of war and deliberate scorched-earth policy. in addition to the war, the manpower and economic resources of the country have been depleted by recurrent drought and other natural calamities. as there is virtually nothing, the first priority of the task is to formulate and lay the foundations for an initial economic framework (isaias afewerki quoted in tesfagiorgis, 1993: xxii). immediately after the de facto independence of eritrea, a development conference was held in asmara, the capital city, in june 1991. the aim of the conference was to begin a dialogue to draw out national goals towards the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1320 development of the economy (tesfagiorgis, 1993). as mentioned in the quote above by eritrea’s president issaias afewerki, the country’s economy was weak in the aftermath of the war and this made the conference imperative. the conference focused on several themes perceived to hold the potential to galvanise the ailing economy, including agriculture, health, human resource development and gender, and covered seven sectors including economic development, the macroeconomic framework, human resource development, agriculture and environment, finance and banking, trade and industry, natural resource development and construction (tesfagiorgis, 1993). a popular recommendation from the conference, due to its significance during wartime, was the need to utilise a self-reliance strategy in pursuit of national development goals. a self-reliance strategy is one that is introspective, depending on local human and material resources for economic, social and political advancement (tesfagiorgis, 1993). this implied the possibility for eritrea to grow its own food and provide education and healthcare systems without external aid (habtom, 2016). in the context of international aid, and given that much of the developing world was still grappling with the aftermath of the world bank/imf structural adjustment programs at the time, the selfreliance stance was understandable. however, although noble in its objective, this strategy is not without criticism. for example, it has been suggested that the strategy has contributed to the isolation of eritrea from the rest of the world due to the country’s rejection of most international aid (international crisis group, 2014). overall, the economic and social goals that were defined for the young country during the 1991 conference included developing the education system and health infrastructure, building a strong army, humane treatment of prisoners, maintaining an independent self-reliant and planned national economy, ensuring equality among nationalities and establishing a democratic state (tesfagiorgis, 1993). there appeared to be a sense of urgency for development and an interest in empowering citizens. the initial national aspirations and strategy stressed the importance of the human capital in eritrea. investing in human capital, particularly in education, would have elevated not only the status of individuals but that of the state. however, these aspirations were truncated by the border war with ethiopia, resulting in a halt in implementation and, in some instances, a discontinuation or regression. as pointed out earlier, the national service program was an important component of eritrea’s post-independence national aspirations. the national service appears to be a key apparatus for the advancement of its self-reliance african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1321 strategy and is a key piece of its effort towards human development as outlined in the president’s remarks cited earlier. the service is conceived as a way of preserving war-time values, safeguarding the territorial integrity of eritrea, and developing man-power for the state’s prioritised sectors (kibreab, 2013). while the national service is the prerogative of the state, as similar programs have been established in africa and elsewhere, the main critique has been the approach to the program which, as some authors suggest, has now become indefinite (kibreab, 2014). as pointed out earlier, young citizens are said to resist the programs, applying various forms of agency. male and female youth devise various strategies to avoid the program, including deserting, emigrating or, on the part of females, getting pregnant as a means to secure exclusion (amnesty international, 2015; hirt, 2010). we deduce from our review that there exists a tension between eritrea’s national development aspirations and the aspirations of its individual citizens both in relation to its post-war development strategy as it relates to its operationalisation of the self-reliance strategy, and the national service program (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). although eritrea had grand national aspirations, which are hinged on a vision of self-sufficiency, these national aspirations were not always consistent with those of citizens. for example, while eritrea sees its national service program as part of a wider process of achieving self-sufficiency, this appears not to be in sync with young people’s aspirations. this misalignment is also illustrated by the high number of conscripts who desert and has resulted in migration in some instances to escape the service (kibreab, 2017). based on her research on women in university education, müller (2004) suggests that the country’s aspirations in the area of human development appears to have mainly focused on the needs of the state and not the individuals, suggesting that this led to people resisting the country’s national aspirations by leaving the country. we suggest that the inadequate focus on individual aspirations is a major contributor to individuals leaving the country, as they do not see their futures reflected in the state’s aspirations and therefore do not align with them. limited opportunities for transition from education to employment as highlighted above, a human capital development strategy was put in place to build human capital and the most fundamental approach to this was education. the human capital strategy did not permit enough room for young people to develop themselves in the ways that they considered important for their lives, as opportunities for study, particularly at higher education level, and work were controlled to a large extent by the state (dorman. 2005; müller, african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1322 2004). while access to higher education improved overall over the years, there remained fewer options for study in higher education institutions. education was mentioned as the most important ingredient for economic development in both the initial post-independence development strategy mentioned earlier and subsequent national development policies (ministry of education, 2008; tesfagiorgis, 1993). however, due to constraints, which include a lack of resources, eritrea has been unable to develop an inclusive higher education system (müller, 2004; rena, 2006). moreover, the agency and voices of students have been proscribed through a policy that essentially restricts student activism within campuses, which led to the closure of the university of asmara (hirt, 2017). the goal of eritrea’s national strategies is to provide accessible and free quality education to prepare its youth to contribute to national development, and while overall literacy levels are high, skill levels are substantially lower (ministry of education, 2008; research and evidence facility, 2017). in the immediate post-independence era, there was a sense of satisfaction among the general public about the state’s prioritisation of education (tessema & ng’oma, 2009). however, as the approach to education and human development in general began to be perceived as impeding individual rights and focusing more on the needs the government, this strategy began to receive less and less support. in addition to concerns over the erosion of human rights was a concern that the education provided, despite being positioned as addressing the employment demand in the country, did not adequately prepare youth for these opportunities (research and evidence facility, 2017). in a study on education in eritrea, müller (2004) found that some of the participants felt that their education and training did not match their future goals, because after the year 2000, employment opportunities became fewer and they were expected to work mainly in construction. one participant expressed how service to the country could have been “better” utilised instead of doing construction work. the eritrean government expresses the value of the nation’s human resource, more specifically the young people and that it is highly important that all eritrean people are equipped with necessary skills and knowledge to protect and develop the nation (riggan, 2016). despite the focus on developing manpower, the absorptive capacity of the ethiopian economy and labour market remains limited. as mentioned earlier, the eritrean economy has experienced serious ebbs and flows, peaking at 8.2% gdp growth in 2011, a steep decline to 0.3% in 2015, and a projected incline to 3.7% in 2018 (african development bank, 2018; african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1323 rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). the main economic activities in eritrea are centred around agriculture, construction and mining (african development bank, 2018). however, the market has limited absorptive capacity. hence, the majority of the national service participants serve in government departments and government businesses. in specific reference to women’s employment, scholars have raised concerns regarding access to employment opportunities as well as the relatively low incomes on average (rena, 2007). the lack of a clear pathway to employment, limited incomes and an overall suppressed economy affects the hope that young people have for the future and forces young people to make decisions to migrate, which the perceive as having the potential to provide better opportunities in the future (hirt, 2010). we suggest that a major factor influencing mass migration from eritrea since 2000 is the lack of opportunities for skilled labour to match individual aspirations (horwood & hopper, 2017; rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). in their analysis, horwood and hopper (2017: 4) conclude that “the main drivers [of migration from eritrea] are endemic poverty, lack of livelihoods and limited political freedoms.” eritrea’s national education strategy appears not to prepare youth for the labour market. however, when they are trained, there is often limited opportunity for transition as the market has relatively weak absorptive capacity, leaving many of the youth unemployment. human rights and individual freedom one of the most recurrent challenges highlighted in the studies we reviewed was the issue of human rights, and in this regard, reference is often made to the national service program (amnesty international, 2015; connell, 2012). generally, while the national service, has the intention of infusing national consciousness and preparing youth for employment, the unintended consequence of the program appears to be that it has developed into a major impediment to the freedom of young eritreans to choose the life they want, or at least has raised young people’s perception of uncertainty (kibreab, 2017). this is particularly the case as far as conscription is concerned. as much of the analyses suggest, many youth are compelled to participate in the service and when in the service, it is suggested that there are no guarantees as to when they will leave the program (kibreab, 2017). this creates a disincentive for youth who may ordinarily be willing to participate in the program. further to this, there is a general sense of eritrea being a police state (international crisis group, 2014). in part, this was triggered by the 1998 border war, which ended with the famous no war no peace proclamation, and the state of alertness on the part of eritrean authorities. there is also the challenge associated with the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1324 suspension of the constitution, which disenfranchises and excludes most eritreans from being a part of decision-making on issues affecting their lives (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). many of the studies reviewed concluded that the national service program was the main cause of migration from eritrea (research and evidence facility, 2017; rosberg and tronvoll, 2017). as mentioned earlier, the program was instituted in 1991 with the goal of nation building and post-conflict economic development, as well as fostering and transferring eritrea’s national values to the younger generation (kibreab, 2009). the national service was designed as one of the strategies through which the government of eritrea was to pursue its self-reliance approach to development through the participation of youth in state-sanctioned work. however, the approach has proved to be controversial as both local and international scholars have described it as a form of forced labour and, consequently, contested its legitimacy (kibreab, 2009). this has resulted in the depletion of the country’s human capital, comparable in ways to the immediate post-war levels. some scholars suggest that the national service has remained an open-ended program since the renewed eritrean-ethiopian border conflict (kibreab, 2017). while the youth participate in the service, there seems to be a lack of consideration for their aspirations, and most youth who participate in the program do so because they have no choice (kibreab, 2014). according to kibreab (2014), if a young person does not have academic, professional or vocational qualifications, they are expected to serve in the army. if the conscription is open-ended as claimed, this means those young people assigned to the military could become soldiers for the rest of their lives and against their deliberate choice. another issue is that many youth resisted the notion of becoming teachers but, nevertheless, were assigned to teaching positions (müller, 2004). müller (2004: 225) summarises the effects of state policies in eritrea on personal freedoms as follows: personal freedom is the main issue in these minority statements and resistance to restrictions of that freedom might become more important in the future, if the eritrean government fails to offer to its people the opportunities they desire. the ultimate resistance for a university student to the government’s plan, and with it, a rejection of showing social solidarity, is exercised in leaving the country and depriving it from the benefits the investment in a student’s education should have brought. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1325 we conclude from the literature that a restrictive environment that infringes on people’s rights and freedoms to make important life choices is an important contribution to mass migration of youth from eritrea. the extension of the national service infringes on the rights of young people to choose the lives that they value, as outlined in the capability approach (sen, 1993). as was noted earlier, it is important for people to have the ability to choose the life they value. where this is absent, even well intended national development policies and programs could become major barriers to people’s lives and wellbeing, leading to choices that negatively affect the country. discussions and policy recommendations when we started this article, our interest was to explore the factors that contribute to large scale eritrean youth migration. our analysis suggests that, rather than being attributed solely to the national service, eritrean youth migration can also be attributed to the absence of opportunities for transition from education to employment, the tension between individual and national aspirations and limited freedoms. therefore, we conclude that a complex mix of factors, including the national service, contribute to mass youth migration. our conclusions are supported by the studies, reviews and reports cited throughout the paper. with reference to tensions between eritrea’s national aspirations and those of its citizens, this is supported by many of the analyses on eritrea, particularly those focused on education and the national service program (kibreab, 2017; müller, 2004; rena, 2006). essentially, the authors of these studies suggest that the state’s attempts to control access to courses in higher education and mandate youth to undertake the national service are not aligned with the expectations of the youth for their lives (dorman, 2005). furthermore, eritrea’s economy has faced many challenges over the last three decades. overall, the economy has been unable to develop the necessary absorptive capacity for new entrants into the market. while overall unemployment and youth unemployment rates are relatively low, compared to other african countries, these may be a function of the unreliable statistics emanating from the country and may be further masked by the high proportion of youth who are underemployed (african development bank, 2018). as pointed out above, the highly controlled state of affairs in eritrea, reflected in many facets of national life, including the institution of the national service, is a major contributor to mass youth migration. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1326 drawing on the above, we deduce key policy recommendations that we believe could inform a more nuanced discourse and contribute to changes in eritrea. firstly, we recommend a more robust education strategy that offers young people a wide-range of options. this may require considering both their aspirations and the demands of the labour market and not necessarily the priorities of the state. such a strategy will be effective if it accounts for not only skills that are necessary for work within eritrea itself but also those necessary for opportunities elsewhere in the horn of africa. secondly, we recommend a review of the national service program to include a fixed duration after which all participants could exit (kibreab, 2017). in other countries, such as nigeria, this is an option that has been built into the national youth service (obadare, 2011) and could be a useful model for eritrea. thirdly, to create more economic opportunities, the eritrean government needs to open-up the economy and create a more conducive environment for investments. this will, in turn, create more opportunities for youth, provide incentives for the youth to remain in the country, and offer development in a wider range of sectors in which youth can aspire to pursue studies, gain future employment and make their own contribution to the development of the country. references adepoju, a. 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oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delgado wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof simon bekker university of stellenbosch, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, basel, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). webpage: www.sihma.org.za copyright © 2016 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 461 4741, email: editor@sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ volume 2 number 3 september – december 2016 538 from the director: a reflection on south africa’s migration policy sergio carciotto articles 542 responsibility sharing: towards a unified refugee protection framework in africa ncumisa willie and popo mfubu 567 internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts: a case study in dormaa municipality, ghana collins yeboah 596 migration and hiv/aids in rural south africa: a dual-phase intergenerational, gendered chain migration alexandra plowright, gillian hundt and maria stuttaford 617 nowhere to run: a review of the political economy of migration, identity and xenophobic violence in zambia phineas bbaala and njekwa mate 1 upholding refugee rights: cessation, transnationalism and law’s limitations in the rwandan case laura parker abstract the cessation clause epitomises the 1951 refugee convention’s internal barriers to the full achievement of refugees’ rights. by examining the controversial application of this provision in the case of rwandan refugees, this paper demonstrates the resultant infringements on refugees’ human rights, and signals a key obstacle in understanding refugee experiences: institutional insistence on subjugating refugee perspectives and knowledge. this top-heavy ‘knowing what’s best’ for refugees must cede to alternative conceptualisations of refugee rights, especially in the well-worn durable solutions debate. a rights-based approach would see transnational mobility as a solution to challenges endured by camp-based refugees in particular. the rwandan case study is grounded in theories of today’s membership-based nation-state paradigm, and questions whether re-inscribing refugees as primary agents of their own repatriation (with or without return) can bridge the divide inherent in the exclusionary citizenship-centric logic which ultimately structures the refugee rights system, and can adequately address problems rooted in complex identity politics. keywords: cessation clause, refugees, repatriation, rights, rwanda, unhcr. introduction protection space for the displaced is increasingly beleaguered, globally. upholding refugee rights in the era of ‘fortress europe,’ post-9/11 islamophobia and multiplying, interconnected armed conflicts, is a sisyphean pursuit. against such a backdrop, this article focuses on a particular challenge found within the international legal regime governing refugee protection: the ‘ceased circumstances’ cessation clauses. this article discusses the global treaty enshrining specific refugee rights, the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees and its 1967 protocol independent researcher, presently unaffiliated. much of this research was undertaken while an ma candidate in 2013 at school of oriental and african studies, university of london. p.o. box 77539, dar es salaam, tanzania. e-mail: lauracparker@hotmail.com mailto:lauracparker@hotmail.com 2 (hereafter referred to as the ‘refugee convention’), in whose first article the cessation clauses feature. here the understanding of ‘refugee rights,’ however, is more expansive: the term encompasses ‘human rights.’ that the universal declaration of human rights (udhr) is referenced in the refugee convention’s preamble underscores this aspiration, whilst the major international human rights instruments drafted afterwards also confer protections and freedoms on refugees. various limitations to refugee rights are inherent in the refugee convention; not in itself unusual, since most human rights are qualified. to conceptualise such limitations as internal challenges to refugee rights is no exaggeration: the lived experiences of those subject to such limitations often amount to rights violations. ‘challenge’ is invoked to cover encroachments upon rights, practical impediments to exercising rights, and more outright breaches. fundamental to the refugee rights regime is protection against refoulement, however the refugee convention wavers this for those merely suspected of having committed certain serious crimes (article 1[f]), in contrast to the inviolability of non-refoulement in human rights treaties. additionally, the convention ‘excludes all mention of civil and political rights once a person has attained refugee status’ (harris rimmer, 2010, p. 1), again restricting protection standards beyond those of human rights regimes. indeed the refugee convention’s less than generous language (‘burden,’ the ‘problem of refugees’) characterises an entire system that circumscribes our understanding of refugees as primarily individuals and rights-bearers, rather than aid recipients requiring logistical management. the ‘ceased circumstances’ cessation clauses, articles 1(c)(5) and (6), epitomise the refugee convention’s internal barriers to the full achievement of refugees’ rights. they assert that a refugee (or person of no nationality) ‘can no longer, because the circumstances with which he has been recognised as a refugee have ceased to exist, continue to refuse to avail himself of the protection of the country of his nationality’ (or former habitual residence). by examining the controversial application of this provision in the case of rwandan refugees, the resultant infringements on refugees’ human rights are demonstrated, and signal a key obstacle in understanding refugee experiences: institutional insistence on subjugating the perspectives and knowledge of refugees themselves. this top-heavy ‘knowing what’s best’ for refugees must cede to alternative conceptualisations of refugee rights, especially in the well-worn durable 3 solutions debate: a rights-based approach could see transnational mobility as a solution to challenges endured by camp-based refugees in particular. after analysing the cessation clauses and their application to rwandans, the more systemic challenges to the human rights of refugees are considered, grounding this case study in theories of today’s membershipbased nation-state paradigm. the study examines this system’s attendant rights challenges in the context of repatriation, and evaluates the search for solutions that uphold rights and re-inscribe refugees as primary agents in such responses. it is debatable whether this can bridge the divide inherent in the global refugee regime, between the heroic imaginary of the international community and humanitarian laws, and an abstract refugee other, ‘subjected to the law but… not law’s subjects’ (douzinas, 2000, p. 104). however, recognition invites understanding: therefore such power hierarchies are critiqued throughout. cessation: on paper and in practice the cessation clause (the articles are popularly conflated thus) is almost as divisive amongst scholars as it is for refugees. it is deemed a contravention of the freedom of choice, based on ‘the outrageous proposition that “international law… requires that exile should not… be perpetuated forever particularly without a good cause”’ (unhcr inter-office memorandum on cessation for pre-1991 ethiopian refugees, cited in verdirame & harrellbond, 2005, p. 112), and through which refugees’ supposed ‘protector’ agency ‘call[s] on states to do less’ (verdirame & harrell-bond, 2005, p. 113). alternatively, it is promoted for solving protracted displacement, enabling ‘a right not to be a refugee’ (aleinikoff & poellot, 2012, p. 9), or even dismissed as an administrative formality which ‘may not have any direct impact on the life of the individual(s) concerned’ (feller et al., 2003, p. 546). its instrumentalisation as a means of limiting asylum applications by ‘designat[ing] a country of origin as generally “safe” in the context of refugee status determination’ (feller et al., 2003, p. 546), also encourages violations of the right to seek asylum. subsequent discussion of cessation in the rwandan context eschews an overly legalistic approach, favouring socio-historical analysis, indispensable, for meaningful response to the rights challenges these refugees face. one questions whether legal rights frameworks can adequately address problems rooted in complex identity politics, particularly in the great lakes, where transnational ethnic 4 identities interact, often violently, with nationally-delineated citizenship, whose exclusionary logic ultimately structures the refugee rights system. countries of asylum may revoke refugee status following fundamental changes in the country of origin that end the circumstances which caused the status to be granted. this terminates those rights accompanying refugee status: refugees’ rights hinge upon states’ sovereign right to control access to the political community. beyond ascertaining the change in circumstances (a resource-intensive exercise, readily compromised), and abiding by the refoulement prohibition (through individual status determination of those continuing to allege fear of persecution), the asylum state wishing to mandate repatriation has no further obligations. therefore, unhcr interprets this provision liberally, with a view to minimising violations of refugees’ rights. nonetheless, unhcr’s interpretation, albeit authoritative, does not bind states. various guidelines on cessation have been issued since 1991, although this interest only arose once repatriation became northern states’ preferred durable solution, suggesting that global power hierarchies, rather than refugees’ needs, set protection priorities (siddiqui, 2011, p. 7). these guidelines emphasise that change must be fundamental, durable, and establish effective protection in the ‘home’ country (unhcr, 1999). timescales are proposed for assessing durability of change, and examining a country’s human rights record is advised, particularly following a violent regime overthrow. the threshold for mandated repatriation is thus relatively high, in contrast to that required for voluntary repatriation (the only kind unhcr may promote or facilitate, as per its statute). when refugees opt to return, unhcr can assist them without ascertaining whether fundamental change has occurred (indeed voluntary repatriation frequently happens soon after hostilities wane) before reconstruction or reconciliation processes; here the emphasis is on refugees’ consent and agency. this adds to the conflation of the rules binding unhcr and those binding states: the latter may invoke the fact that unhcr assists return to insecure locations as justification for mandating repatriation to places perceived as safer. the complementary 1969 convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa (oau convention) increases potential for confusion in african contexts: despite affirming ‘the essentially voluntary character of repatriation [to be] …respected in all cases’ (article 5[1]), its own ‘cessation clauses’ (articles 1[4][f] and [g]) ‘functionally impose expulsion, because they apply without regard to the 5 cessation of the risks of persecution or violence in the state of origin’ (fitzpatrick and bonoan, 2003, pp. 529-530). additionally, given the oau convention’s recognition of refugees prima facie, on grounds of generalised violence, ‘an end to hostilities has typically been used as a key indicator that repatriation can take place’ (hovil, 2010, p. 2). this ignores the way war ‘may profoundly reshape a polity and, in the process, create new threats to particular individuals who may continue to require protection as refugees’ (hovil, 2010, p. 2), signalling the need to foreground rights-based protection and ‘durable solutions,’ rather than perpetuating state-centric preferences for return. unhcr insists that the exemptions permitted to group status cessation under articles 1(c)(5) and (6) of the refugee convention, which affirm that cessation shall not apply to a statutory refugee ‘able to invoke compelling reasons arising out of previous persecution for refusing to return to the country of his former habitual residence,’ are also applicable to convention refugees (those forced to flee post-1951). whilst literal interpretation is possible, state practice upholds the view that allowing exemptions to the cessation clause has become an international norm reflecting ‘a general humanitarian principle that is now well-grounded’ (unhcr, 2003, para. 21). james hathaway continues to denounce the extension of this provision, stating that ‘unhcr has regrettably invoked an unwieldy claim of customary international law’ (hathaway, 2005, p. 942), a view inferred from the decision not to formally extend exemption when drafters of the 1967 protocol were considering the original refugee convention’s temporal scope, and backed up with restrictive judgments in australian and german litigation of cessation clause exemptions. this reiterates the malleability of treaty law, again hinting that rights-based legal regimes contingent on interpretation by states can themselves exacerbate refugees’ problems. there is less consensus around guidelines elaborating the ‘compelling reasons’ for exemption. although reasons such as persistent trauma, especially in the context of genocide, are widely accepted, it is improbable that in the rwandan case, ‘every person who feared the genocide or acts/threats of severe violence be exempted’ (cliche-rivard, 2012). unhcr also suggests that strong family or economic ties to host countries are justified under this provision. state practice, exemplified in the rwandan situation, contradicts this, allowing third-generation refugees to be returned, despite cultivating land or running businesses in uganda. this may violate numerous socio-economic rights, and also constitute a potentially traumatic second upheaval; additionally, if large numbers of 6 returnees are visited upon post-conflict societies with weak economies, there is a risk of reigniting conflict due to resource disputes. all the aforementioned guidelines insist on the value of objective country of origin information from multiple sources being provided by unhcr to states assessing whether conditions are ripe for a cessation declaration. this epitomises the marginalisation of refugees’ own knowledge and understanding of the circumstances affecting the continuation of their exile. the objective and subjective components comprising the ‘wellfounded fear’ from which refugee status stems, are theoretically given equal weight in status determination processes. declarations of group cessation undermine the subjective element that constitutes refugeehood, through the homogenisation of individual experience and fears into an assumed group dynamic, deemed interpretable, or knowable by foreign states. unhcr further assuages individual subjectivities in the rwandan context, referring to ‘reluctance’ and ‘apprehension’ rather than ‘fear’ (unhcr, 2011b, para. 2). this dilution of the refugee subjective opens up space for the subjectivities of the state; political and economic motives can easily displace individuals’ personal concerns in the decision-making frame. the ‘objectivistic interpretation of the cessation clause’ belies an apparent legalistic neutrality, constructing an image of refugees as ‘rational actors when they decide to return but moved by extraneous motives if they decide to stay’ (chimni, 2004, p. 62). rwandan government comments that ‘rwandan refugees must not hide behind illogical arguments,’ epitomise this rhetoric (réunion tripartite, 2013b). deconstructing such representations is vital to understanding the disenfranchisement of refugees within the very regime designed to protect their rights. rwandan reactions according disproportionate weight to international institutional ‘knowledge’ of the political dynamics of displacement may backfire, as has historically been exemplified in the rwandan context. after the 1994 genocide, unhcr misjudged rwandan refugees’ fears and motivations, and encountered great difficulties managing camps in eastern democratic republic of congo (drc), resulting in their effective appropriation by génocidaires in exile. the agency distributed hyperbolic repatriation propaganda (pottier, 1999), and did not facilitate communication between the camps and returnees, cementing perceptions that ‘unhcr was aligning itself with kigali’ (pottier, 1996, p. 420). consequently, it was discredited 7 by rwandans across the region, despite greater commitment to unmediated information through ‘come-and-see, go-and-tell’ visits and through sharing statistics on returnee integration with counterparts in host countries. unhcr’s recommendation in 2009 that asylum states apply the cessation clause to this population has thus sparked vociferous campaigns by refugees and advocacy groups. many perceive unhcr to be prematurely acquiescing to rwanda’s persistent lobbying for cessation, casting further doubts on its impartiality. almost two decades on, the allegation that ‘at no point has the international community sufficiently understood camp conditions and political processes to feel confident that it understood “the pulse” of the refugee mass’ (pottier, 1996, pp. 428-9) arguably remains valid. the rwandan government has also mistrusted unhcr given the génocidaire screening debacle in drc. it is conceivable that willingness to regain governmental cooperation has driven the agency’s support for cessation, and dissuaded it from addressing other tensions that instil fear in rwandan refugees abroad, namely the widespread belief that kigali orchestrated the m23 forces in congo. after multiple postponements, contravening the principle that ‘refugees should not be subjected to constant review of their… status’ (unhcr, 1999, para. 2), the clause came into effect on 30 june 2013 in malawi, zambia, zimbabwe and the republic of congo for rwandans displaced between 1959 and 31st december 1998. other countries refrained from declaring cessation, citing legal and logistical considerations, amongst others (irin, 2013). the government of rwanda, however, has frequently used broad brush strokes to cloud over legal nuance, resulting in misinformation in the kigali-aligned press. references to unhcr itself ‘implementing’ or ‘declaring’ the cessation clause (rather than ‘recommending’ that it be invoked by states, the only entities with the capacity to do so), and unwieldy claims that this clause is now ‘invoked’ or ‘declared’ internationally, rather than on a country-by-country basis, pepper official discourse (midimar, 2011). affirmations such as ‘rwandans who fled the country between 1959 and 1998 have lost their refugee status across the world’ (government of rwanda, 2013), coupled with suggestions that nonimplementing countries would be ‘in flagrant violation of international rules for this status’ (new times, 2014a), and warnings to refugees themselves (‘you never know what will happen on the day they will lose the status; what if their property is vandalized by nationals in host countries,’ and ‘help these people return when they can actually carry their belongings other [sic] than wait for a night raid where they may be thrown 8 on trucks and deported promptly’ [mukantabana, 2013]), illustrate how ‘the deployment of international refugee law – in particular the concept of cessation – has become one framework for… manipulation: it has been used as a threat rather than a mechanism for generating protection… political manoeuvring with refugees caught somewhere in the middle’ (hovil, 2013). this diverse demographic for which cessation has been invoked or recommended encompasses predominantly tutsis who fled rwanda around independence and under hutu majority rule; those who fled during the 1994 genocide, and mostly hutus who fled the invading forces that ended the genocide and remain in power. the inclusion of a cut-off point, implying persecution of a different nature persists, hints that change in rwanda is not yet fundamental. while prospering economically, and visibly at peace, rwanda curtails freedom of expression and opposition politics through discriminatory application of ‘divisionism’ laws banning ‘genocide ideology,’ and its human rights record attracts criticism. dissidents continue to seek asylum abroad, in small numbers, where they have been pursued by government agents (bbc, 2010, 2011 and 2014). the gacaca community-courts which tried vast numbers of suspected génocidaires concluded mid-2012, removing what the international community deemed a significant cause of fear for refugees remaining abroad. however, the collective guilt they helped construct around hutus persists; reconciliation is arguably cosmetic; suspicions run deep and assumptions prevail that those who fear return must be genocide perpetrators (straus & waldorf, 2011). indeed the initial failure to distinguish génocidaires from rwandan civilian refugees in drc cemented this tarred-by-association perception early on. returnees in recent years continued to receive assistance from unhcr and its partners more than a year after their date of return, implying that sustainable livelihoods (and the host of economic and social rights these anchor) are not guaranteed, particularly in rural areas (cwik, 2011). these ‘push factors’ have led many rwandan refugees to fear violations of their rights were they to return under the cessation clause. however, the choice of alternatives formally triggered by the cessation clause is problematic in practice. resettlement prospects are negligible, and unhcr admits the dearth of local integration opportunities regionally (unhcr, 2011b). ngos and refugees have reported aggressive official acts which appear to further preclude this option. rwandans in eastern drc are 9 subject to discrimination and targeted violence amid sporadic unrest which mobilises ethnic divisions. rwandans encamped in uganda have seen their plots reallocated to congolese refugees (hovil, 2010 p. 1), and some suffered forcible return to rwanda by ugandan authorities; others died in the process (unhcr, 2010). mass deportations of rwandans also took place from tanzania in 1996, and burundi in 2009. by november 2013, only 26 rwandan refugees in the republic of congo had requested to return voluntarily to rwanda, and only 19 requests for local integration (remaining in the republic of congo but as a rwandan immigrant, with a rwandan passport) had been received, compared to 4026 requests for exemption from cessation (réunion tripartite, p. 6). many other rwandans see no point in pursuing the final option of seeking exemption and retaining refugee status through individualised status determination (rsd). indeed following the declaration of cessation in certain states in june 2013, it was noted that ‘no proper system has been created for those with “compelling reasons” to be exempted’ (cacharani & cliche-rivard, 2013), and the potential for substandard mechanisms is real. ngos reported in 2013 that ‘liberian refugees in gambia applying for exemption from cessation, which came into force in june 2012, have not received documents verifying their request for exemption; they find themselves without valid documentation’ (fahamu, 2013). in uganda, rejection under some form of rsd aiming to allow exemption from the cessation clause, could be seen as a foregone conclusion. in 2010, 98% of asylum applications by rwandans had reportedly been denied (cwik, 2011), while in 2011, 95.5% were denied (unhcr, 2011c), suggesting a climate in which the ‘rebuttable presumption’ that refugees no longer have well-founded fears of persecution is in fact unchallengeable (unhcr, 1999, para. 32). whilst recognition rates of rwandans undergoing rsd by the ugandan government rose to 41% in 2013 (unhcr, 2013), this is a new development whose durability cannot yet be assessed; continued mistrust on the part of rwandan refugees in uganda is understandable. similarly, in malawi, the only country which did invoke the cessation clause for which unhcr publishes recognition statistics of rwandan refugees, acceptance rates decreased significantly, in the period just prior to cessation, from 46.5% in 2011 to 20.4% in 2012 (unhcr, 2011 and 2012). this potentially fosters refugees’ doubts about the ‘rebuttable presumption’ and the value of individualised exemption processes in this context too. however, the recognition rate of rwandan refugees by the malawian government, as reported by unhcr, leaps to 100% in 2013, although the caseload statistics 10 upon which this is based are not published (unhcr, 2013). nonetheless, this high rate, whether it comprises new arrivals or individualised exemption proceedings for those subject to cessation, strongly signals the persistence of persecution in today’s rwanda, undermining the notion that change here is fundamental and durable. given that the population subject to cessation includes individuals who fled in 1994, it is important to note that unhcr’s guidelines on exemption procedures specify genocide as a distinct act of persecution, a ‘compelling’ enough reason to trigger an exemption to status cessation (unhcr, 2011, para. 27). paragraph 28(b) of these guidelines also identifies ‘development of a deep-seated distrust of the country [of origin], even if it may at times seem irrational’ as a plausible response to severe persecution. that they were issued while the agency was advocating the cessation for a large group of refugees who experienced genocide further delegitimises unhcr as incoherent and uncomprehending in the eyes of rwandan refugees, fomenting resistance to its policies. these concerns are well known to unhcr, through direct consultations and external advocacy (hovil, 2010, p. 3). refugees’ perspectives have been knowingly side-lined, rather than merely overlooked unawares. the survival strategising that this disingenuous attitude and the climate of mistrust and uncertainty necessitate, such as ‘disappearing from the official radar and pretending to be ugandan or congolese’, amounts to the denial of ‘not just effective national protection, but also most of the rights concomitant with refugee status, the international protective “citizenship” that is triggered in the absence of national capacity’ (hovil, 2010, p. 4). rights violations induced by cessation can take place both if the refugee remains in the country of refuge, as well as when they are returned. if an individual is not granted exemption to the cessation of their status, yet they have no intention of returning, unless an alternative migration status is accessible to them, they effectively remain undocumented, or even stateless, in the former country of asylum. precarious migration status commonly exposes people to exploitative working conditions and attendant infringements of rights to dignity and security, located in the preamble and article (9) of the international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr), as well as to detention and deportation, which may amount in some cases to refoulement. the question of non-returning, non-exempted rwandese refugees remains unresolved for countries such as the republic of congo, which nonetheless intends to pursue cessation regardless 11 (réunion tripartite, 2013a and 2013b). potential rights violations abound also for those whose return is carried out under the application of the cessation clause. a rwandese exile of the anti-tutsi pogroms of the 1970s, who has built up a successful livelihood in kampala would see many of their economic (and potentially property) rights violated if forced to repatriate under the cessation clause. a refugee child of the 1990s from rwanda living in zambia would have their ties to the only country they have really known cut when obliged to return, spelling clear infringements of social and cultural rights. a francophone refugee schooled in the republic of congo could face discrimination at school, or when job-hunting back in rwanda given the now-influential anglophone communities who returned from their own, earlier exile after the genocide ended (longman, 2011). the right to non-discrimination, enshrined in its many guises in almost all international human rights treaties, most notably in iccpr articles (2), (3), (4)(1), and (26), may prove unevenly upheld in a context where some harbour beliefs about the background of those who only return twenty years after the genocide’s conclusion. although a collection of imputed characteristics and actions (i.e. assumptions that a returnee participated in the genocide) may not lead to outright persecution in the vast majority of cases, this should not preclude acknowledgement of rights violations, of non-discrimination and economic rights in particular, in a place where diverse groups of returnees, following profound social and demographic upheaval, compete for scarce resources. indeed the existence of a small number of serious rights violations, such as the persecution of a returnee on account of anti-government activism, should not diminish the significance of widespread incidences of less egregious socio-economic rights violations, which can affect large groups of ‘cessation returnees.’ the potential for human rights violations, both for ‘cessation returnees’ and those who defy its invocation to stay in countries of asylum, is high. declarations of cessation must be taken with the utmost caution. rights-speak it is debatable whether refugee rights differ from, or are supplementary to, the regular array of human rights that states agree to respect and protect. the refugee convention rights, rather than an additional protective layer, are more like stop-gap protections, directly complementing the human rights rendered most unattainable in situations of displacement. they form 12 a safety net, special protections that neither enhance existing rights regimes, nor are remedial, legally speaking. the refugee convention has no complaints mechanism by which to procure redress for violations of its provisions, unlike major human rights treaties such as the convention against torture or the international covenant on civil and political rights. practically, however, the formal response mechanisms these instruments prescribe are out of refugees’ reach and forced displacement and its concurrent injustices are rarely addressed in national and international courts. lofty ideals of ‘access to justice’ discourses are downscaled; in a forced migration context this is generally understood as relating to ‘access to asylum’ through legal aid in (often) northern states. whether this difficulty in securing legal rights amounts to the disenfranchisement of refugees is debatable. if refugees cannot exercise their human rights, do they still possess them? what does formal possession of rights mean in practice, if rights are not upheld? and does such a challenge to the very concept of ‘refugee rights’ even matter, when advocating for a less exclusively legalistic approach to rights in general? the prevalence of ‘human rights’ as a buzzword through which claims of unjust treatment, or community ideals, are expressed has arguably devalued the concept of human rights in the popular imagination. it is suggested that while ‘rights-speak’ is a useful idiom and advocacy tool uniting societies globally, it also crowds out other ways of voicing experiences of persecution and flight and requesting tolerance, respect and humane treatment. adherence to legalistic methods of interpreting refugees’ problems is risky, for ‘law and rights… nominate what exists and condemn the rest to invisibility and marginality’ (douzinas, 2013, p. 66). to assert a claim to a right can distract from the foundations of that right, the moral justifications based on contested notions of what is right or wrong that both law and humanitarian actors shy away from in an attempt to assert neutrality. the inclusive exclusion giorgio agamben diagnoses at the heart of the refugee rights paradigm, rights attached to membership as citizens, not deriving from bare humanity (agamben, 1998), could thus be rendered a bypassable obstacle, affecting only one sphere of engagement (the legal). to activate alternative strategies for the protection of refugees’ safety and dignity at all stages of flight would overcome his almost paralytically pessimistic critique that ‘precisely the figure that should have incarnated the rights of man par excellence, the refugee, constitutes instead the radical 13 crisis of this concept’ (agamben, 1995, p. 116). this would render extralegal, non-rights-based educational or collaborative economic ventures a potential response to what are traditionally expressed as rights violations. far from utopian, unhcr’s ‘imagine co-existence’ programmes following conflict in the balkans illustrate these methods and ideals, as do initiatives targeting host communities more generally. a fresh conceptualisation of refugees’ ordeals outside a rights-framework may also help address their restricted freedoms in countries where rights discourses are especially politicised and manipulated by right-wing governments du jour to exclude foreigners. one does not seek to dismiss rights frameworks as a means of understanding the challenges refugees face. while political, historical and social complexities do get simplified into rights formulae, this is understandable, for human rights movements aim to place checks and balances on the exercise of political power. however, the flipside is also true, and to understand how ‘rights have also become the main tool of identity politics’ (douzinas, 2009), it is necessary to examine how power and politics shape rights themselves. the distinction between citizen and alien is central to nation-building projects. citizens are accorded certain rights; their collective identity is constituted in contradistinction to the other. the refugee, by bursting into the nation-state space and claiming rights purely on account of their humanity, disrupts this fictional division: ‘breaking up the identity between man and citizen, between nativity and nationality, the refugee throws into crisis the original fiction of sovereignty’ (agamben, 1995, p. 117). the refugee thus threatens the constitutive fabric of the nation, and in asking for recognition, reminds citizens of the other within. the limitations of legal responses are self-evident: ‘the law divides inside from outside and is then asked to heal the scar or bandage it by offering limited protection to its own creations’ (douzinas, 2000, p. 358). the ‘right’ direction: going back or moving forwards? in order to invigorate the sometimes dead-end discussions of durable solutions for rwandan refugees, it may be helpful to re-examine concepts of repatriation and return. if exercising rights depends on officially ‘belonging’ to a state, the three idealised durable solutions essentially enact a ‘right to have rights’ (hannah arendt, cited in long, 2010, para. 17). repatriating involuntarily, however, under the cessation clause, is unlikely to re-construct the ruptured bond between state and citizen required for 14 national protection to have meaningful effect. reducing repatriation to a physical act of border-crossing fails to capture the political nature of this process, and refugees’ agency therein. to gain membership of a protective polity engenders some measure of influence towards shaping that community, generally through voting rights; political agency is central to protection (long, 2011a). this reinstatement of rights and membership may well occur away from the ‘home’ state, separating citizenship from residency. katy long argues that ‘return is not synonymous with repatriation: movement is not the cause of displacement but a symptom, and may in fact provide an important remedy to some refugees’ needs’ (long, 2010, para. 238). conversely, the international system’s fixation with sending refugees ‘home’ idealises pre-flight conditions, which may be unwarranted, or even nonsensical in the case of refugee children born abroad. one answer would therefore be to leverage, rather than restrict, as per current tendencies, the very mobility that characterises refugees’ lives. also termed ‘transnationalism’ (van hear, 2006), this strategy offers clear advantages, at least on paper. facilitating refugees’ continued stay in the country of asylum, without requiring their naturalisation, can be achieved by issuing country of origin passports, and activating alternative channels to regularise their presence as migrants. this is viable only for those who agree to be seen as voluntarily re-availing themselves of the ‘home’ country’s protection through the acquisition of the national passport and use of the consular authorities. it implies the re-forging of the previously broken link with the country of origin, repatriation decoupled from physical return. this option respects multifaceted, internationalised identities, and is more realistic than waiting for other highly improbable ‘traditional’ durable solutions, such as third country resettlement or integration through naturalisation. even if full naturalisation were on offer, which is rare, refugees may not wish to acquire the citizenship of the asylum state as it can preclude any eventual option of return, however unrealistic in the present, particularly as many states do not allow for dual citizenship. by relinquishing citizenship of the country of origin, refugees may risk a period of undocumented ‘statelessness’ in the not-unprecedented event that delays in issuing the ‘new’ citizenship arise. foregoing one’s original citizenship may also annul claims to land or property owned before flight, or bar participation in transitional justice initiatives, such as accessing reparations. 15 more immediately, transnationalism facilitates access to certain rights potentially compromised by return, especially if involuntary, as can be the case under the cessation clause. the right to freedom of movement, already inherently violated under encampment, a default experience for many refugee populations in africa, would be protected, and the compromised autonomy that is so central to forced displacement would be restored. sustainable livelihoods, particularly through cross-border trade, often offlimits to refugees, could be pursued, anchoring economic rights. this also permits refugees’ gradual re-establishment in countries of origin, as to travel there at will, and for intermittent periods, avoids straining fragile post-conflict economies where community relations may be fraught, exiles resented by ‘stayees,’ and land disputes a risk. transnational refugees may channel diaspora wealth, enriching countries of origin. transnationalism loosens institutional frameworks predicated on simplistic, linear migration trajectories (flight, exile, home), corresponding more realistically to refugees’ multi-directional displacement and travel histories. it may decongest resettlement routes, maximising their protective potential for those in need. blending ‘de facto local integration with de jure repatriation’ (long, 2010, para. 146) creatively restructures the parameters of traditional humanitarian thinking and the citizenship-rights paradigm. this innovative approach helps re-examine ‘the idea that the political connections that exist between nation and state, or the cultural connections that associate people and place, are “natural” rather than constructed’ (long, 2010, para. 27). to enable rwandan refugees in this way, as proven generally successful with sierra leonean and liberian refugees in ecowas countries (economic community of west african states), seems recommendable, particularly in the case of rwandan refugees in uganda, burundi and some countries of asylum that have formally invoked cessation already. the experience of the ecowas regional integration bloc, comprising 15 states in west africa, is a positive example of the transnationalism model. refugees, including large populations of sierra leoneans and liberians, who fled during the 1990s, are explicitly entitled to make use of the bloc’s freedom of movement, residence, settlement and employment instruments, much like other migrants travelling within the region (ecowas, 2007). host countries nigeria and the gambia worked with unhcr, sierra leone and liberia to re-issue national passports and workers’ visas to refugees from the latter two countries, allowing them to locally integrate, exercise their right to work and access regional labour markets (adepoju et al., 16 2007). ‘repatriating in situ’ bypassed the struggle for lengthy and costly naturalisation procedures or resettlement, as individuals transitioned from refugees to migrant workers. defining ‘transnationalism’ as ‘regional citizenship’ (a term gaining currency in discussions of the ecowas example [long, 2011b, p. 35]) arguably does more to instil a sense of cooperation among member states than it does to accurately capture refugees’ realities. indeed the citizenship that transnationalism envisages conferred on refugees is merely the formal restoration of the national citizenship once enjoyed in the country of origin, through a passport and a migrant visa. no such theories are without complications, however, and transnationalism’s applicability in the rwanda-drc context in particular should be studied, since movement of rwandans to and from eastern drc is highly politicised. many congolese fear rwandan colonisation of eastern drc (partly for mineral wealth), an opinion ‘so deeply rooted that even normal cross-border movements are from time to time portrayed as “infiltration” or even planned large-scale migration of rwandans to eastern drc’ (lange, 2010, p. 49). similarly, the rejection of rwandan passports by refugees in zambia (chawe, 2013), citing fears of surveillance, illustrates that promoting transnationalism, or repatriation without return, would still be highly complex in this particular context. the mere 19 passports requested by rwandan refugees in the republic of congo suggest a similar dynamic there. independent investigation into individuals’ amenability to acquiring passports (and the measure of citizenship this can be understood to confer) whilst remaining abroad is therefore highly recommended in other rwandan refugee diasporas, both in the region and in europe and north america. on a more general scale, while supporting mobility as a route forward for protecting refugee rights, particularly in response to cessation clauseinduced status loss, there is a fear that it is utopian against a backdrop of increasing border securitisation and anti-migration rhetoric. one disagrees with james hathaway’s critique that ‘emphasis on solutions “pathologizes” refugees and may be used to undercut enforcement of rights’ through rushing to ‘de-refugee’ people, reducing them to ‘persons to be managed’ (james hathaway, cited in aleinikoff & poellot, 2012, p. 20). the opposite is true, that by paving another path refugees have another opportunity to ‘manage’ themselves in their chosen manner. it is precisely this transfer of autonomy that states seek, directly or indirectly, to resist: the borders are 17 where state sovereignty is most readily challenged. therefore unhcr deputy high commissioner alexander aleinikoff’s attempt to couch a response to states’ resistance in the discourse of human rights misfires. hyperinflated rights speak, as discussed, does not speak to the deep-seated political motivations behind governments’ and voters’ aversion to refugees. ironically, his project of constructing a ‘moral fulcrum’ to stimulate the protection of rights, contains no morality-based justifications, but is rather a legally positivist endeavour that rests exclusively on pinning down rights on paper. alexander aleinikoff and stephen poellot posit that ‘refugees have a right to a solution’ (2012, p. 6) under international human rights law, deriving from the right to a nationality found in udhr article 15. this relies on acceptance of udhr as customary international law (a widespread, but not universal, viewpoint), and is somewhat convoluted. they submit that since membership in a national community is vital for the effective protection of human rights, and since refugees by definition lack membership, states’ legally binding commitment to human rights must necessitate that refugees be provided membership (aleinikoff & poellot, 2012, p. 8). they further this by marrying article 35 of the refugee convention (states’ duty to cooperate with unhcr) with article 1 of the unhcr statute (‘seeking permanent solutions for the problem of refugees’), constructing a state duty to help solve protracted refugee situations. states, however, are unlikely to bow to inferred rights and duties in a legal framework they readily violate on other occasions. although the limits of rights-speak are recognised and the proposal is thus extricated from a strictly legal framework and spun politically as a ‘responsibility to solve,’ in an attempt to piggy-back the popular evolving ‘responsibility to protect’ concept, one remains wary of this effort to cajole states into addressing protection challenges. the r2p discourse should not be conflated with refugee protection, given its many flaws (and in particular its privileging of powerful northern states whose refugee response efforts are frequently minimal or in bad faith), which are beyond the scope of this article. inclusive understanding reconceptualising the ways in which the international community can support refugees in upholding their own rights is therefore more necessary than ever, and at times even promising. such thinking need not be radical: mobility-as-protection suggestions hark back to the nansen passport era. 18 this identity document’s aim was precisely to facilitate refugees’ search for employment by travel across international borders (long, 2010). responses must have refugees’ intensely political, persecution-generated subjectivities at their core; legal and institutional humility are needed. human rights claims presented in alienating ‘legalese’ without concurrent efforts to speak to the prejudices and desires motivating harmful actions and policies on their own terms are unlikely to solve the challenges facing refugees. a focus on agency, not agencies is needed, and strategies prioritised by refugees themselves must be taken on board by un and other institutions. to excise refugees from their own management, particularly when rights violations arise from within the systems deployed for their protection, in well-meaning attempts to serve this diverse population group’s best interests risks rendering them a ‘transparent object of knowledge… abandoned to the discretions of public benevolence or private charity’ (douzinas, 2000, p. 361). the desire to comprehend refugees’ perspectives by ‘domesticating’ such other experiences into understandable frames of reference ‘has catastrophic results for the knowing subject…. by refuting the exteriority of the absolute other,’ douzinas argues, they are rendered ‘non-subjects, [with] …no rights or entitlements’ (douzinas, 2000, p. 362). this by no means implies that human rights are a superfluous explanatory framework for ordering and narrating traumatic personal experiences of dislocation; it merely requires that refugees be involved in shaping the discourse, and this is what troubles the gatekeepers of the international refugee governance regime. to enable a forced migrant to ‘represent the avant-garde of their people [and] …be considered for what he is… a border concept that radically calls into question the principles of the nation-state and, at the same time, helps clear the field for a no-longer-delayable renewal of categories’ (agamben, 1995, p. 117), would entail a drastic reshuffle of the international monopoly on knowledge and a reassessment of ‘objective’ received wisdom and its relation to refugees’ subjective understanding of their own problems. it is doubtful that un power hierarchies would loosen their grip on the hegemonic, international perspective that ultimately balances community sentiments (where researched) with operational and political factors, and translates the resulting compromise into actionable policies. ‘we refugees,’ the article in which agamben espouses this need for a reshuffle, remains too radically inclusive a prospect to effectively democratise the mainstream. alternatively, failure to acknowledge refugees’ views on how best to protect their rights may simply stem from 19 operational inexpertise or indeed, as in eastern drc, a reluctance to engage with complex political sensitivities. whether down to inertia or constraints imposed by maintaining a façade of impartial neutrality, this ‘creates an environment in which widely expressed popular fears tend to become understood as established facts’ (lange, 2010, p. 49). ‘well-founded fear’ does not lend itself as easily to objective interpretation as is often assumed. even admitting refugee voices into academic analysis of rights paradigms is hindered by the institutional need for credibility as demonstrated through peer-reviewed journals or ingo research. consequently only mediated (and translated) refugee voices, with some few exceptions, enter the realm of refugee rights theorising. to ascribe discussions of repatriation without return through ecowas-style mobility solutions to non-traditional sources, such as callixte kanani’s report on unhcr consultations with rwandan refugee organisations,1 featured on the highly partial campaign website ‘rwandan dialogue for truth and justice,’ necessitates a plethora of caveats regarding bias, and the representational issues around bodies claiming to speak on behalf of ‘civil society.’ however, to view communications issues and the misunderstandings of refugees they engender, as the root of challenges to refugee rights is disingenuous. as the controversy surrounding the application of the cessation clause to rwandan refugees illustrates, institutional actors may be well aware of these challenges, but find themselves politically (or economically) constrained in responding. such multifaceted pressures hamper conceptualisation of refugees as rights-holders, even within an entity born of a convention establishing refugee rights. to expose these ‘unsettling examples of [how] …an institution created to supervise and promote compliance with refugee law [is] prepared to distort that law in order to promote its own… priorities’ (verdirame & harrell-bond, 2005, p. 113) underscores a more general tension; rights, as legal constructs, harbour their toughest challenges within. interpretation of refugee rights laws is therefore crucial in order to engender policies that deliver effective protection. recommending the invocation of the ceased circumstances cessation clauses for rwandan 1 ‘…la solution qui sera proposée aux réfugiés intégrés est de solliciter un permis de séjour permanent qui suppose des démarches auprès des autorités de kigali car un passeport rwandais est indispensable’ (kanani, 2011, p. 2). 20 refugees is an example of the opposite. agencies must first acknowledge, and then address, institutional biases against refugees’ own perspectives and knowledge of their situation. questioning received wisdom is therefore paramount, whether this is the accepted narrative of refugees’ desires to ‘go home,’ or the comfortable inclination towards well-worn ‘durable solutions’ to the exclusion of mobility-centric innovations. in the rwandan cessation debate it is not too late to reinvigorate such discussions, and push for an outcome that is more rights-centric. where it might take us depends entirely on the views of those refugees affected; meaningfully admitting their voices into academic and other spheres can be considered but an overdue starting point. references primary 1948 universal declaration of human rights 1950 statute of the office of the united nations high commissioner for refugees 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees 1966 international covenant on civil and political rights 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees 1969 convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa (oau convention) secondary adepoju, a., boulton, a. and levin m. 2007. promoting integration through mobility: free movement and the ecowas protocol. new issues in refugee research. research paper no. 150. from < http://www.unhcr.org/476650ae2.pdf > 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humanitarianism. new york: berghahn books. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/4f33a1642.pdf http://www.unhcr.org/4fd9e6266.html http://www.acnur.org/t3/fileadmin/documentos/estadisticas/2013/%20global_trends_2012_annexes.pdf?view=1 http://www.acnur.org/t3/fileadmin/documentos/estadisticas/2013/%20global_trends_2012_annexes.pdf?view=1 http://unhcr.org/trends2013/ 102 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes achille dargaud fofack* and joel nkeng akendung** * rauf denktaş university, turkey. corresponding author. email: achille.fofack@rdu.edu.tr / adfofack.irlaem@gmail.com ** cyprus international university, turkey email: joelnkeng@gmail.com in recent years, irregular migration from sub-saharan africa has been under the spotlight. western media and politicians often use doomsday scenarios to describe the supposedly millions of desperate people knocking at the gates of the european eldorado to escape poverty and warfare at home. such a stereotypical conception of sub-saharan african migration is not only overlooking its root causes, but it is also far from its real dynamics. thus, inspired by the extensive literature on international migration and based on data availability, 27 potential root causes of migration were selected to cover 30 sub-saharan countries for the period between 2002 and 2016. the sensitivity and robustness of each potential determinant of both net migration and refugee population is tested using the two approaches of extreme bounds analysis proposed by leamer and leonard, and sala-i-martin. the results reveal that gross domestic product per capita, domestic credit, trade, foreign direct investment inflows, external debt, youth unemployment, natural resources rents, international tourism, military expenditure, health expenditure, undernourishment, food production, life expectancy, hiv prevalence, population growth, corruption, voice and accountability, rule of law, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and common law are the root causes of migration in sub-saharan africa. keywords: international migration; refugee; sub-saharan africa; extreme bounds analysis 103 introduction in recent years, irregular migration from sub-saharan africa has been under the spotlight. western media and politicians often use doomsday scenarios to describe the supposedly millions of desperate people knocking at the gates of the european eldorado to escape poverty and warfare at home. such a stereotypical conception of sub-saharan african migration is not only overlooking its root causes, but it is also far from its real dynamics (de haas, 2008; flahaux and de haas, 2016; magri, 2017). the united nations (2017) revealed that the number of international migrants worldwide had increased steadily between 2000 and 2017. indeed, the number of international migrants had risen from 173 million in 2000, to 220 million in 2010, and about 258 million in 2017. the un report also revealed that the additional migrants recorded between 2000 and 2017 primarily came from asia (40.7 million), africa (14.7 million), latin america and the caribbean (12.9 million), europe (11.6 million), northern america (1.2 million) and oceania (700,000). furthermore, the report revealed that despite the increasing number of african migrants, migration is still a marginal phenomenon on the continent as only 2% of africans were migrants in 2017. this figure is superior to the 1.8% recorded in 2000 but it is still inferior to the world average (2.8% and 3.4% in 2000 and 2017 respectively). the relative size of african migration can also be put into perspective by taking into account the total number of international migrants. in that vein, the un (2017) revealed that of the 258 million of international migrants recorded worldwide in 2017, 41% were born in asia, 23.7% in europe, 14.6% in latin america and the caribbean and only 14.1% in africa. contrary to western doomsday scenarios, the size and destinations of african migration are not just far from being exceptional, but they are also quite similar to global patterns (magri, 2017). however, african migration has been under the spotlight because of the substantial number of migrants who lose their lives every year in the sahara desert or the mediterranean sea, the enslavement and human trafficking associated with migrants’ journeys, and the guilty fears of ‘fortress europe’. historically, the roots of contemporary migration across the sahara desert could be traced back to the ancient trans-saharan trade. however, the phenomenon as we observe it today really began in the 1970s and 1980s when construction sites and oil fields in algeria and libya started attracting the nomads and traders operating in the region. in the aftermath of the air and arms embargo imposed on libya by the un security council between 1992 and 2000, muammar al-qaddafi opened the doors of libya to sub-saharan african workers and thereby magnified transsaharan migration (de haas, 2008). the arab spring of 2010 and the collapse of al-qaddafi’s regime in 2011 led to a significant fall in economic opportunities for migrants, a surge in human trafficking across the sahara, and increased migratory pressures at the doors of europe. thus, the number of migrants crossing the mediterranean to enter europe increased from 22,500 in 2012 to 219,000 in 2014 (unhcr, 2015). european policy-makers responded to the migratory pressures with restricthe root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes 104 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 tive and externalized border controls that ultimately led to the professionalization of smuggling services and the diversification of trans-saharan migration routes and trans-mediterranean crossing points (de haas, 2008; cummings et al., 2015). the humanitarian crisis resulting from the abovementioned developments has placed african migration on the agenda of international meetings. migration is widely viewed as a complex phenomenon resulting from multiple, overlapping and sometimes shifting drivers (carbone, 2017). nevertheless, an in-depth knowledge of its causes is the cornerstone upon which any effective and durable policy response ought to be built (cummings et al., 2015). thus, this paper aims at assessing the root causes of international migration in sub-saharan africa using extreme bounds analysis (eba). inspired by an extensive literature (massey et al., 1993, 1994; black et al., 2006; docquier, 2007; faini, 2007; kohnert, 2007; bossard, 2008; bredeloup, 2013; duwicquet et al., 2014; efionayi and piguet, 2014; cummings et al., 2015; carbone, 2017; press, 2017; akanbi, 2017) and based on data availability, 27 potential root causes of migration were selected from the world bank’s world development indicators and worldwide governance indicators. the data set covers 30 sub-saharan countries for the period between 2002 and 2016. the robustness of each determinant of both net migration and refugee population is tested using the two different eba approaches proposed by leamer and leonard (1983) and sala-imartin (1997). the remainder of this paper is organized as follows: international migration theories are reviewed in the next section; the methodology and the main findings of the paper are presented in section 3 and section 4 respectively; those findings are discussed in section 5 and the paper is concluded in section 6. related literature massey et al. (1993) argue that there is no single theory of international migration but rather a set of theories built upon different concepts, assumptions, and frames of reference. they distinguish the theories related to the initiation of international migration from those related to its perpetuation and thoroughly review the main modern theories of international migration. massey et al. (1993) add that the initiation of international migration can be explained by neoclassical economics, the new economics of migration, dual or segmented labor market, and world systems theory. as for the perpetuation of international migration, it can be explained using network theory, institutional theory, cumulative causation, and migration systems theory. initiation of international migration neoclassical economics at the macroeconomic level, the neoclassical theory of international migration was initially developed to explain the labor migration induced by economic development, while at the microeconomic level, it is built upon the theory of individual choice. 105 neoclassical economics postulates that migration is an individual decision driven by the differences in wages and employment between countries (massey et al., 1993, 1994). that is, people are incited to migrate when they realize that the employment opportunities and/or higher wages available abroad are worth the cost and risks associated with migration. thus, the mismatch between the economic expectations of sub-saharan africans in terms of employment and wages and the reality of the labor market in their home countries is often cited as a driver of migration, especially for the youth (kohnert, 2007; carbone, 2017). neoclassical economics focuses exclusively on labor market dynamics and postulates that in the long-run, migration itself will lead to the elimination of the initial differences in wages and employment between countries and bring about equilibrium in the global labor market. thereafter, there will be no more incentive for people to migrate because labor market characteristics would have become similar in all countries. the new economics of migration according to the new economics of migration, the decision to migrate is not an individual decision but rather a collective one made at the level of a household or a family. moreover, migration is not only driven by an income maximization strategy induced by international disequilibria in labor markets, but it is rather a risk minimization strategy induced by a wide range of market failures apart from those existing in labor markets. indeed, contrary to neoclassical economics, migration is now viewed as resulting from the absence, imperfection or inaccessibility of certain markets (massey et al., 1993, 1994). thus, households or families send members abroad to minimize the risks and/or loosen the constraints associated with those market failures. furthermore, the aim of migration is not just to reduce the household’s deprivation in absolute terms, but also to improve its situation compared with some reference groups such as other local households. in line with the new economics of migration, the inefficiency characterizing healthcare (absence of health insurance, epidemic/endemic prevalence of hiv/ aids, ebola and malaria), credit markets (high interest rates, absence of stock market), agriculture and food supply (food crises, absence of crop insurance) as well as utilities (limited access to electricity and drinking water) in sub-saharan africa is often cited (massey et al., 1993, 1994; bossard, 2008; carbone, 2017; mago, 2018) as a root cause of migration. this is particularly true when the remittances sent home help improve the health status of family members, increase land productivity and provide access to capital and utilities. dual labor market according to this theory, international migration does not really stem from a rational decision made at the individual or collective level in response to some market forces the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes 106 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 as argued in neoclassical economics and in the new economics of migration. instead, international migration is driven by the everlasting demand for immigrant labor that is consubstantial with the economic structure of developed countries (massey et al., 1993, 1994). thus, de haas (2008) argues that the structural demand for cheap migrant labor is one of the factors explaining the surge in african migration to europe. he adds that sub-saharan migrants are attracted to north africa and europe by the structural demand for cheap labor in agriculture, construction, fishery, petty trade, and the informal service sector. world systems theory world systems theory views international migration as a natural corollary of global capitalism. indeed, as capitalism spreads from core economies in europe and north america to peripheral economies in the developing world, it disrupts pre-existing patterns of economic, social, and cultural organization and creates an uprooted population prone to migrate (massey et al., 1993, 1994). in the case of sub-saharan africa, colonization and neoliberal capitalism have brought about financial liberalization, free trade, privatization of state-owned companies, atrophy of welfare policies, adoption of western religions and educational systems, and the ineluctable tyranny of foreign aid, debt, and investments. combined with the unfair subsidies, non-tariff barriers, and dumping prices implemented by core capitalist countries (kohnert, 2007), those artifacts have altered the core identity of africans and created masses prone to migrate. globalization of the market economy does not only fuel a structural demand for cheap migrant labor in construction and agriculture, but also a structural demand for highly qualified migrants in electronics, finance, law, and science (massey et al., 1994). this second demand leads to a substantial brain drain (black et al., 2006; docquier, 2007; faini, 2007; bourgain et al., 2010) and some additional disruptions as it delays the development of a middle class as well as that of a sustainable civil society (kohnert, 2007). highly qualified workers traditionally migrate to former colonial powers even though recent data shows a growing diversification of migration destinations. some core capitalist economies such as the united states of america (usa) and canada even implement attractive migration policies for qualified migrants (flahaux and de haas, 2016). perpetuation of international migration network theory according to network theory, migration is perpetuated through the creation of interpersonal ties – friendship, kinship, and common community origin – linking former migrants, migrants and, non-migrants in both origin and destination countries. the network thus created increases the benefits and reduces the costs and risks of migration (massey et al., 1993, 1994). internet-based technology and social media 107 have greatly facilitated the creation and improved the performance of contemporary migration networks (cummings et al., 2015) as they expose non-migrants to the seemingly better lifestyle of migrants in destination countries. they are also used to inform, guide, and coordinate the actions of migrants and aspiring migrants. institutional theory massey et al. (1993) argue that because of the creation and sophistication of for-profit organizations supporting, sustaining, and promoting migration, migratory flows have become more institutionalized and less dependent on the factors that initially caused them. such a pattern ultimately leads to a feedback loop in which migration is perpetuated. these for-profit organizations range from multinationals such as accès canada, providing legal assistance to those africans longing for a permanent residence in canada, to the smugglers helping migrants to cross the mediterranean on makeshift boats. cumulative causation according to cumulative causation, migration perpetuates itself over time independently of its initial causes as every new migrant alters the social environment in which next migration decisions will be made (massey et al., 1993, 1994). indeed, each act of migration reduces the costs and risks of migration for friends, family members or compatriots and could therefore induce subsequent acts of migration. furthermore, remittances do not only alter the distribution of income, land, and other assets in home community, but they also alter social statuses and create additional incentive for subsequent migration. migration systems theory inspired by the cumulative causation, institutional theory, network theory, and world systems theory, it can be argued that migration acquires some momentum over time and space and leads to the formation of what can be called international migration systems. those migration systems are characterized by unusually large flows of migrants moving from peripheral countries to core countries (massey et al., 1993). the case of former colonial powers and their former colonies is particularly relevant in sub-saharan africa. thus, france tends to be the primary destination for cameroonian, ivorian, gabonese, malian or senegalese students who can afford studies in europe. after reviewing international migration theories as presented by massey et al. (1993), it appears that those theories fail to fully grasp the multidimensional complexity of contemporary migration dynamics (mago, 2018). for instance, it is well documented that modern-day african migration is also driven by factors such as political instability and conflicts, droughts and other environmental issues (flahaux and de haas, 2016; vigil, 2017; carbone, 2017) but the abovementioned theories do the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes 108 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 not pay attention, either to institutions or to climate change. new approaches of international migration the role of institutions the destiny of nations often depends on their institutions. a sound institutional framework protects human and property rights, sustains democracy and social justice, and constitutes the foundation upon which everything else is built. thus, institutions do have an impact on international migration: by providing government officials with the prerogatives necessary for repression and marginalization, they create refugees; by allowing privatization, delocalization, and poor welfare policies, they create economic migrants; by tolerating the loopholes inciting police officers to be corrupt by smugglers, they promote illegal migration. focusing on africa, it is evident that the eritrean autocracy is leading to substantial population outflows. indeed, in its 2015 risk analysis, the european border and coast guard agency (frontex) revealed that about 34,500 eritreans were caught trying to cross european borders illegally. this 200 percent increase from the previous year (11,300 eritreans caught) places the autocracy as the second largest sending country after war-torn syria. the figures are all the more impressive because eritrea has fewer than 6 million inhabitants. hirt (2017) even argues that the eritreans caught on european shores represent only a small percentage of those who have left the country since the introduction of an open-ended military service in 2002. elsewhere on the continent, on the one hand the unhcr (2018) revealed that political instability and conflict in neighboring countries have brought to uganda the third largest refugee population in the world (1.4 million in 2017) behind turkey (3.5 million) and pakistan (1.4 million). on the other hand, cummings et al. (2015) argue that the institutional instability associated with the arab spring has led to an increase in illegal migration to europe. the role of climate change vigil (2017) argues that taking into consideration the pre-existing economic, social, and political problems as well as the geographical vulnerability to natural disasters and rapid demographic expansion, african populations are most affected by climate change and environmental issues. she adds that the causal relationship between climate change and migration is complex and polymorphs with climate change, altering or amplifying pre-existing migration dynamics rather than really causing them. paying attention to its almost endemic poverty and conflicts, its fast-growing population and its high climate oscillation, vigil (2017:53) describes the sahel region as “ground zero for climate change”. it is therefore no accident that press (2017) describes the sahelian city of agadez, niger as one of the most important hubs for african migrants going to europe through the central mediterranean route. furthermore, frontex (2018) data reveals that out of the 204,718 migrants caught trying to 109 cross european borders illegally in 2017, 118,962 (58.11%) came through that central mediterranean route. in fine, after reviewing studies and theories related to international migration, it appears that no previous paper has attempted to assess the determinants of migration using econometric models. this paper intends to fill that gap in the literature. methodology the aim of this paper is to assess the root causes of international migration in subsaharan africa using extreme bounds analysis (eba). this econometric tool used to test the sensitivity and the robustness of each variable, allows us to highlight the most significant causes of international migration in sub-saharan africa. data inspired by an extensive literature (massey et al., 1993, 1994; black et al., 2006; docquier, 2007; faini, 2007; kohnert, 2007; bossard, 2008; bredeloup, 2013; duwicquet et al., 2014; efionayi and piguet, 2014; cummings et al., 2015; carbone, 2017; press, 2017; akanbi, 2017) and based on data availability, 27 potential determinants of migration were selected from the world bank’s world development indicators and worldwide governance indicators. the data set covers 30 sub-saharan countries for the period between 2002 and 2016. these determinants of migration are: access_electricity: percentage of the population having access to electricity. drinking_water: percentage of the population using drinking water services. energy_imports: energy imports expressed as percentage of energy used in the country. health_expenditure: domestic general government health expenditure expressed as percentage of gross domestic product (gdp). oop_expenditure: amount spent on health issues out of the pocket of individuals expressed as percentage of current health expenditure. this variable captures the extent to which people are covered by health insurance. life_expectancy: life expectancy at birth expressed in years. hiv_prevalence: percentage of the population aged between 15 and 49 years, living with hiv/aids. fdi_inflows: net inflows of foreign direct investments (fdis) expressed as percentage of gdp. gdp_per_capita: annual growth rate of the gdp per capita. trade: imports plus exports expressed as percentage of gdp. external_debt: external debt stock expressed as percentage of gdp. current_account: current account balance or budget deficit expressed as percentage of gdp. the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes 110 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 youth_unemployment: unemployment rate in the population aged between 15-24 years. domestic_credit: domestic credit provided by the country’s financial sector expressed as percentage of gdp. international_tourism: receipts from international tourism expressed as percentage of total exports. population_growth: annual growth rate of the population. undernourishment: depth of the food deficit expressed in kilocalorie per person and per day. food_production: food production index. military_expenditure: government military expenditure expressed as percentage of gdp. natural_resources_rents: total rents received from the exploitation of oil, natural gas, forests and minerals. this variable accounts for the suspicions related to resource curse. political_stability: this accounts for political stability and the absence of conflict and terrorism. rule_law: rule of law accounts for the extent to which contracts, rules, and laws are binding. voice_accountability: voice and accountability account for the extent to which elections are free and fair and the extent to which the fundamental rights of citizens are respected. government_eff: government effectiveness accounts for the quality of public services, policies and actions. regulatory_qlty: regulatory quality accounts for the quality of government regulations. corruption: control of corruption accounts for the extent to which public prerogatives are used for private interests. common_law: la porta et al. (2008) argue that the legal origin (common law or civil law) of a country’s institutions has a significant impact on its economic performances. this is a dummy variable equal to 1 for common law countries and 0 for the others. the robustness of these determinants is tested on both net migration (economic migrants) and refugees (asylum-seekers). cummings et al. (2015) argue that those categories are too rigid to reflect reality because the drivers of migration are too numerous and dynamic. they add that refugees for instance, are not only seeking safety because safety is not the only thing they lost. however, the availability of data allows us to make such a distinction. 111 refugee_intensity: refugee population by country of origin expressed as percentage of the country’s total population. migration_intensity: difference between immigrants and emigrants expressed as percentage of the country’s total population. extreme bounds analysis leamer (1983, 1985) criticizes the tendency of traditional econometrics to lead to fragile inference because small changes in the list of explanatory variables could lead to fundamentally different results. as a result, leamer and leonard (1983) propose a procedure to assess the robustness and sensitivity of the explanatory variables included in econometric models. the procedure, called extreme bounds analysis, is a relatively neutral procedure through which variables can be selected for an empirical model when the theoretical determinants of a phenomenon are ambiguous or conflicting (chanegriha et al., 2014), like in the case of international migration. let us assume that international migration can be explained by the following model: mt = α0 + α1xt + α2it + α3dt + εt (1) where t represents the years and m stands for the number of economic migrants or refugees; x is a matrix containing variables that have an undeniable effect on migration: political stability for instance, has an undeniable effect on the number of refugees; i is the variable of interest; that is, the determinant for which we want to test robustness and sensitivity; d∈d is a matrix containing a limited number of other doubtful determinants of international migration taken from the pool d of n available determinants. finally, ε is the error term and αi (i=1,2,3) are parameters to be estimated. the model is estimated for all the possible combinations of d∈d. for each regression, an estimate of α2 and its corresponding standard error σ2 are reported. the lower extreme bound is equal to α2 – 2σ2 and the upper extreme bound is equal to α2+2σ2. the decision rule for the variable of interest goes like this: if the lower extreme bound is negative and the upper extreme bound is positive, then the variable of interest is not a robust determinant of migration. sala-i-martin (1997) argues that such a robustness test is too restrictive because it takes only one regression (out of many) for which α2 is insignificant or has another sign to conclude that the variable of interest is not robust. sala-i-martin (1997) then proposes an alternative form of eba in which a particular attention is paid to the entire distribution of α2. in this alternative approach, the robustness of a variable is based on the fraction of the density function lying on the left and on the right of zero. thus, if at least 95 percent of the cumulative distribution function (cdf) of α2 lies in either side of zero, it is concluded that the variable of interest is robust. eba has been used to assess the determinants of economic growth (levine and renelt, 1992) and foreign direct investments (moosa and cardak, 2006; chanethe root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes 112 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 griha et al., 2014). young et al. (2007) and ghosh and yamarik (2004) have used it respectively to find out if the effect of the black population on economic growth is robust and if the effect of regional trade arrangement on trade creation is robust. in spite of its appealing characteristics, eba is not a flawless procedure as it can lead to multicollinearity and the inflation of standard errors (levine and renelt, 1992). besides, eba is also criticized for replacing discretionary model selection with discretionary variable segmentation (mcaleer et al., 1985). in order to address those issues, some restrictions are imposed upon the eba used in this paper. following levine and renelt (1992), the list of variables included in x and allowed in all regressions has been reduced. thus, only one explanatory variable (political stability) is included in all the models dealing with refugee populations and no variable is considered to have an undeniable effect on net migration. furthermore, for each variable of interest i, the pool of variables from which d can be selected is restricted by excluding all the variables that, in theory, might point to the same phenomenon or be highly correlated. so, health expenditure and out-ofpocket health expenditure are not allowed in the same model. this is also the case for budget deficit (current account) and external debt, and for undernourishment and food production. following hlavac (2016), the variance inflation factor (vif) is not allowed to exceed 7 in order to address multicollinearity. moreover, in order to give more importance to estimation results from models with a better fit, each regression is weighted by its own likelihood ratio index (lri). main findings the robustness of each of the above determinants of migration is tested using ordinary least squares estimates of the two eba approaches proposed by leamer and leonard (1983) and sala-i-martin (1997). overall, 19,878 and 17,001 models were estimated with net migration and refugee population as dependent variables respectively. a summary of the eba reported in table 1 and table 5 shows the number of regressions and the average coefficient associated with each variable. those tables also report the average standard errors of the coefficients and the percentage of regressions in which each variable is significant. figure 1 and figure 2 show the overall distribution function of each variable with the corresponding kernel density curves superimposed on the histogram. those curves are non-parametric approximations of the shape of each variable’s distribution. net migration focusing on the eba proposed by leamer and leonard (1983), table 2 shows that none of the 27 variables is a robust determinant of net migration because the lower and the upper extreme bounds do not have the same sign. as argued by sala-i-martin (1997), the eba proposed by leamer and leonard (1983) is too restrictive because it takes only one regression for which the coefficient is insignificant or has another sign 113 to conclude that the variable of interest is fragile. table 3 reports the eba proposed by sala-i-martin (1997) in which it is assumed that the coefficients follow a normal distribution. the results show that domestic credit, health expenditure, natural resources rents, youth unemployment, population growth, hiv prevalence, trade, and voice and accountability are robust determinants of net migration. table 1: summary output (net migration) note: nb. regressions stands for number of regressions; w.m. beta stands for the weighted mean of beta; w.m. std error stands for the weighted mean of the standard error of beta and % significance stands for the proportion of regressions in which each variable is significant. variable nb. regressions w.m. beta w.m. std error % significance intercept 19878 -2.391 1.977 33.087 political_stability 2877 0.115 0.605 7.925 corruption 2877 -0.724 1.124 10.845 current_account 2578 -0.021 0.045 0.155 domestic_credit 2877 0.028 0.013 23.740 health_expenditure 2578 -0.743 0.436 58.650 external_debt 2578 0.019 0.012 17.067 fdi_inflows 2877 -0.015 0.026 0.070 gdp_per_capita 2877 0.088 0.096 0.174 international_tourism 2877 0.063 0.043 21.168 life_expectancy 2877 0.096 0.076 6.396 oop_expenditure 2578 0.033 0.024 40.109 population_growth 2877 2.590 0.671 90.059 hiv_prevalence 2877 -0.270 0.062 97.254 undernourishment 2578 0.036 0.039 5.198 nat_res_rents 2877 0.103 0.040 61.453 trade 2877 -0.056 0.016 90.233 access_electricity 2877 0.037 0.022 20.438 energy_imports 2877 -0.003 0.002 18.074 drinking_water 2877 0.051 0.031 17.657 food_production 2578 0.002 0.015 0.543 youth_unemployment 2877 -0.058 0.032 57.212 military_expenditure 2877 0.189 0.314 1.043 rule_law 2877 0.465 1.115 19.472 voice_accountability 2877 2.949 0.795 97.497 government_eff 2877 1.566 1.204 26.217 regulatory_qlty 2877 -0.502 1.071 11.679 common_law 2877 -0.795 0.964 13.625 the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes 114 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 table 2: leamer eba (net migration) note: leb and ueb stand for lower extreme bound and upper extreme bound respectively. variable type leb ueb decision intercept free -34.574 15.856 fragile political_stability focus -3.138 2.797 fragile corruption focus -7.926 4.658 fragile current_account focus -0.194 0.124 fragile domestic_credit focus -0.035 0.080 fragile health_expenditure focus -2.527 1.246 fragile external_debt focus -0.020 0.065 fragile fdi_inflows focus -0.110 0.085 fragile gdp_per_capita focus -0.208 0.398 fragile international_tourism focus -0.116 0.259 fragile life_expectancy focus -0.237 0.401 fragile oop_expenditure focus -0.079 0.132 fragile population_growth focus -1.632 6.446 fragile hiv_prevalence focus -0.552 0.088 fragile undernourishment focus -0.114 0.270 fragile nat_res_rents focus -0.113 0.323 fragile trade focus -0.144 0.020 fragile access_electricity focus -0.111 0.193 fragile energy_imports focus -0.012 0.009 fragile drinking_water focus -0.146 0.233 fragile food_production focus -0.060 0.073 fragile youth_unemployment focus -0.201 0.103 fragile military_expenditure focus -0.955 1.436 fragile rule_law focus -9.495 7.349 fragile voice_accountability focus -0.255 7.658 fragile government_eff focus -8.288 9.948 fragile regulatory_qlty focus -7.451 5.040 fragile common_law focus -4.802 3.172 fragile 115 table 3: sala-i-martin eba (net migration) normal model: beta coefficients are assumed to be distributed normally across models note: cdf (beta ≤ 0) and cdf (beta > 0) stand for fraction of the cumulative density function lying on the left and the right of zero respectively. variable type cdf (beta ≤ 0) cdf (beta > 0) decision intercept free 85.138 14.862 fragile political_stability focus 42.536 57.464 fragile corruption focus 73.466 26.534 fragile current_account focus 68.272 31.728 fragile domestic_credit focus 1.432 98.568 robust health_expenditure focus 95.514 4.486 robust external_debt focus 5.047 94.953 fragile fdi_inflows focus 71.844 28.156 fragile gdp_per_capita focus 18.019 81.981 fragile international_tourism focus 7.019 92.981 fragile life_expectancy focus 10.550 89.450 fragile oop_expenditure focus 7.927 92.073 fragile population_growth focus 0.006 99.994 robust hiv_prevalence focus 99.999 0.001 robust undernourishment focus 17.778 82.222 fragile nat_res_rents focus 0.517 99.483 robust trade focus 99.972 0.028 robust access_electricity focus 5.074 94.926 fragile energy_imports focus 93.160 6.840 fragile drinking_water focus 5.229 94.771 fragile food_production focus 45.140 54.860 fragile youth_unemployment focus 96.361 3.639 robust military_expenditure focus 27.473 72.527 fragile rule_law focus 34.498 65.502 fragile voice_accountability focus 0.014 99.986 robust government_eff focus 10.497 89.503 fragile regulatory_qlty focus 67.498 32.502 fragile common_law focus 79.489 20.511 fragile the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes 116 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 table 4: sala-i-martin eba (net migration) generic model: no assumption about the distribution of beta coefficients across models note: cdf (beta ≤ 0) and cdf (beta > 0) stand for fraction of the cumulative density function lying on the left and the right of zero respectively. variable type cdf (beta ≤ 0) cdf (beta > 0) decision intercept free 58.775 41.225 fragile political_stability focus 41.601 58.399 fragile corruption focus 59.232 40.768 fragile current_account focus 66.141 33.859 fragile domestic_credit focus 7.801 92.199 fragile health_expenditure focus 88.821 11.179 fragile external_debt focus 6.720 93.280 fragile fdi_inflows focus 69.229 30.771 fragile gdp_per_capita focus 19.735 80.265 fragile international_tourism focus 11.431 88.569 fragile life_expectancy focus 14.237 85.763 fragile oop_expenditure focus 14.645 85.355 fragile population_growth focus 1.911 98.089 robust hiv_prevalence focus 99.731 0.269 robust undernourishment focus 25.861 74.139 fragile nat_res_rents focus 5.299 94.701 fragile trade focus 99.051 0.949 robust access_electricity focus 15.341 84.659 fragile energy_imports focus 88.093 11.907 fragile drinking_water focus 16.527 83.473 fragile food_production focus 46.570 53.430 fragile youth_unemployment focus 88.760 11.240 fragile military_expenditure focus 30.578 69.422 fragile rule_law focus 32.533 67.467 fragile voice_accountability focus 0.158 99.842 robust government_eff focus 22.283 77.717 fragile regulatory_qlty focus 50.831 49.169 fragile common_law focus 71.590 28.410 fragile 117 figure 1: the determinants of net migration as for the alternative results reported in table 4, there are coming from a generic model in which coefficients are not assumed to follow a particular distribution. the table shows that net migration is robustly influenced by population growth, hiv prevalence, trade, and voice and accountability. refugee population table 6 reports the eba proposed by leamer and leonard (1983). it shows that fdi inflows, military expenditure, gdp per capita, and voice and accountability are robust determinants of refugee populations. table 7 and table 8 report the eba proposed by sala-i-martin (1997) for the normal and generic distributions, respectively. on the one hand, assuming that the coefficients follow a normal distribution, it is found that political stability, fdi inflows, international tourism, hiv prevalence, corruption, gdp per capita, undernourishment, food production, military expenditure, voice and accountability, domestic credit, natural resources rents, youth unemployment, rule of law, government effectiveness, common law, external debt, life expectancy, and regulatory quality have a robust impact on refugee populations. on the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes 118 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 the other hand, the generic model reveals that political stability, fdi inflows, international tourism, hiv prevalence, corruption, gdp per capita, undernourishment, food production, military expenditure, voice and accountability, and external debt are robust determinants of refugee populations. discussion the empirical findings derived from both of the eba approaches call for some discussions. net migration the eba reveals that domestic credit has a robust positive impact on net migration. this contradicts the new economics of migration according to which market failures such as limited domestic credit should induce migration. however, in line with de haas (2008), such a finding could be due to the fact that the availability of credit increases the capabilities to migrate. the results also reveal that both health expenditure and hiv prevalence negatively affect migration. indeed, it can be inferred that a government allocating a substantial portion of its budget to healthcare improves the health outcomes of its citizens and reduces their aspiration to migrate for health purposes. as for the effect of hiv/aids, it can be argued that people suffering from the disease are not in a good health condition to migrate. 119 table 5: summary output (refugee population) note: nb. regressions stands for number of regressions; w.m. beta stands for the weighted mean of beta; w.m. std error stands for the weighted mean of the standard error of beta and % significance stands for the proportion of regressions in which each variable is significant. variable nb. regressions w.m. beta w.m. std error % significance intercept 17001 -0.015 0.086 47.397 political_stability 17001 -0.146 0.027 96.977 corruption 2554 0.209 0.053 73.923 current_account 2279 0.001 0.002 12.418 domestic_credit 2554 -0.001 0.001 49.413 health_expenditure 2279 0.008 0.019 24.177 external_debt 2279 0.002 0.001 93.111 fdi_inflows 2554 0.012 0.001 100.000 gdp_per_capita 2554 0.018 0.004 100.000 international_tourism 2554 0.006 0.002 84.691 life_expectancy 2554 0.009 0.003 84.299 oop_expenditure 2279 0.001 0.001 19.877 population_growth 2554 0.014 0.029 27.095 hiv_prevalence 2554 -0.013 0.003 98.395 undernourishment 2279 0.007 0.002 97.718 nat_res_rents 2554 0.004 0.002 64.409 trade 2554 0.000 0.001 7.948 access_electricity 2554 -0.001 0.001 30.266 energy_imports 2554 0.000 0.000 12.060 drinking_water 2554 0.001 0.001 13.743 food_production 2279 -0.004 0.001 94.471 youth_unemployment 2554 0.004 0.001 75.059 military_expenditure 2554 0.108 0.014 100.000 rule_law 2186 -0.119 0.054 53.111 voice_accountability 2554 -0.200 0.037 100.000 government_eff 2554 -0.113 0.056 46.166 regulatory_qlty 2554 -0.092 0.051 48.473 common_law 2554 0.087 0.040 61.355 the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes 120 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 table 6: leamer eba (refugee population) note: leb and ueb stand for lower extreme bound and upper extreme bound respectively. variable type leb ueb decision intercept free -1.806 1.464 fragile political_stability free -0.359 0.069 fragile corruption focus -0.132 0.759 fragile current_account focus -0.009 0.011 fragile domestic_credit focus -0.005 0.003 fragile health_expenditure focus -0.119 0.124 fragile external_debt focus -0.001 0.004 fragile fdi_inflows focus 0.007 0.016 robust gdp_per_capita focus 0.003 0.034 robust international_tourism focus -0.005 0.018 fragile life_expectancy focus -0.014 0.031 fragile oop_expenditure focus -0.005 0.009 fragile population_growth focus -0.275 0.202 fragile hiv_prevalence focus -0.044 0.003 fragile undernourishment focus -0.002 0.020 fragile nat_res_rents focus -0.009 0.015 fragile trade focus -0.004 0.005 fragile access_electricity focus -0.010 0.007 fragile energy_imports focus -0.001 0.001 fragile drinking_water focus -0.007 0.012 fragile food_production focus -0.006 0.001 fragile youth_unemployment focus -0.005 0.016 fragile military_expenditure focus 0.002 0.174 robust rule_law focus -0.806 0.313 fragile voice_accountability focus -0.401 -0.032 robust government_eff focus -0.772 0.339 fragile regulatory_qlty focus -0.498 0.279 fragile common_law focus -0.138 0.362 fragile 121 table 7: sala-i-martin eba (refugee population) normal model: beta coefficients are assumed to be distributed normally across models note: cdf (beta ≤ 0) and cdf (beta > 0) stand for fraction of the cumulative density function lying on the left and the right of zero respectively. variable type cdf (beta ≤ 0) cdf (beta > 0) decision intercept free 56.021 43.979 fragile political_stability free 100.000 0.000 robust corruption focus 0.005 99.995 robust current_account focus 31.599 68.401 fragile domestic_credit focus 96.964 3.036 robust health_expenditure focus 32.459 67.541 fragile external_debt focus 0.011 99.989 robust fdi_inflows focus 0.000 100.000 robust gdp_per_capita focus 0.001 99.999 robust international_tourism focus 0.029 99.971 robust life_expectancy focus 0.201 99.799 robust oop_expenditure focus 18.245 81.755 fragile population_growth focus 32.100 67.900 fragile hiv_prevalence focus 100.000 0.000 robust undernourishment focus 0.001 99.999 robust nat_res_rents focus 0.718 99.282 robust trade focus 39.977 60.023 fragile access_electricity focus 85.959 14.041 fragile energy_imports focus 81.346 18.654 fragile drinking_water focus 30.336 69.664 fragile food_production focus 100.000 0.000 robust youth_unemployment focus 0.123 99.877 fragile military_expenditure focus 0.000 100.000 robust rule_law focus 98.379 1.621 robust voice_accountability focus 100.000 0.000 robust government_eff focus 97.481 2.51 robust regulatory_qlty focus 96.104 3.896 robust common_law focus 1.484 98.516 robust the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes 122 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 table 8: sala-i-martin eba (refugee population) generic model: no assumption about the distribution of beta coefficients across models note: cdf (beta ≤ 0) and cdf (beta > 0) stand for fraction of the cumulative density function lying on the left and the right of zero respectively. variable type cdf (beta ≤ 0) cdf (beta > 0) decision intercept free 51.526 48.474 fragile political_stability free 99.331 0.669 robust corruption focus 3.251 96.749 robust current_account focus 43.305 56.695 fragile domestic_credit focus 90.303 9.697 fragile health_expenditure focus 40.325 59.675 fragile external_debt focus 0.737 99.263 robust fdi_inflows focus 0.000 100.000 robust gdp_per_capita focus 0.004 99.996 robust international_tourism focus 1.526 98.474 robust life_expectancy focus 10.140 89.860 fragile oop_expenditure focus 29.568 70.432 fragile population_growth focus 34.564 65.436 fragile hiv_prevalence focus 99.859 0.141 robust undernourishment focus 0.305 99.695 robust nat_res_rents focus 5.320 94.680 fragile trade focus 43.466 56.534 fragile access_electricity focus 76.883 23.117 fragile energy_imports focus 76.289 23.711 fragile drinking_water focus 42.168 57.832 fragile food_production focus 99.068 0.932 robust youth_unemployment focus 10.682 89.318 fragile military_expenditure focus 0.006 99.994 robust rule_law focus 83.158 16.842 fragile voice_accountability focus 99.999 0.001 robust government_eff focus 81.133 18.867 fragile regulatory_qlty focus 82.264 17.736 fragile common_law focus 11.287 88.713 fragile 123 figure 2: the determinants of refugee populations trade was found to have a robust negative impact on migration. the finding contradicts world systems theory according to which capitalism creates an uprooted population prone to migrate. this could be due to the fact that international trade is often associated with job creation in africa. indeed, a substantial fraction of the workforce is employed in the production of cash crops such as cocoa, coffee, tobacco, tea or banana destined for international markets, while a new set of jobs related to imported electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers is spreading across the continent. these jobs range from importers (wholesalers) and small traders (retailers) to petty repairers. the results also show that population growth has a robust positive effect on net migration. such a finding is in line with carbone (2017) who cites the massive expansion of african populations as a root cause of migration. he reveals that the population of sub-saharan africa has doubled between 1990 (493 million) and 2015 (1 billion) and is still expected to double by 2050 (2.2 billion) and again by 2100 (4 billion). carbone (2017) then argues that such a demographic pressure will have a substantial effect on global populations and migration dynamics. the eba also reveals that youth unemployment and voice and accountability both have a robust negative impact on net migration. the effect of youth unemployment contradicts neoclassical economics as unemployment is supposed to fuel migration. the finding could be explained by the fact that people between 15 and 25 the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes 124 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 years old often lack the financial means necessary for migration. besides, at that age, most africans are still busy acquiring academic and professional qualifications. as for the effect of voice and accountability, it is in line with a priori expectations that countries in which fundamental human rights are respected, free and fair elections are organized, tend to be better off in terms of governance and general wellbeing, thus mitigating the aspirations to move. finally, the results reveal that natural resources rents have a robust positive effect on migration. such an effect could be explained by the fact that in african economies, an important share of the gdp comes from natural resources rents. an increase in those rents could induce an increase in income for the population and consequently, an increase in their capabilities to migrate. besides, this finding is in line with the resource curse hypothesis as resource-rich african countries are often associated with corrupt and repressive states (braas, 2008). the policies of those poorly-governed states often fuel economic and social inequalities, environmental disasters, armed conflicts, and international migration. refugee populations the results show that institutional variables (political stability, voice and accountability, rule of law, regulatory quality, government effectiveness, and corruption) have a robust negative effect on refugee populations. this is in line with a priori expectations that a sound institutional framework protects human and property rights, sustains democracy and social justice, and constitutes the foundation upon which everything else is built. good institutions help prevent the political and socioeconomic circumstances leading people to become refugees. the results also reveal that more refugees tend to come from common law countries. this contradicts the idea that common law countries often have better institutions (la porta et al., 2008) and should therefore be associated with fewer refugees. nevertheless, such a finding could be due to the fact that the knowledge of the english language facilitates international movements. in line with the new economics of migration, the results reveal that domestic credit is negatively associated with refugee populations. indeed, as argued above, market failures such as the limited access to credit incite people to migrate. it is also found that foreign direct investments, external debt, and international tourism have a robust positive impact on refugee populations. this is in line with world systems theory according to which capitalism creates an uprooted population prone to migrate. paying attention to undernourishment and food production, the eba reveals that the availability of food is negatively associated with refugee populations. this is corroborated by empirical observations, as areas affected by droughts and other climatic hazards often experience large population outflows. supporting the resource curse hypothesis, it is found that natural resources rents and military expenditure have a robust positive effect on refugee populations as those two variables are often associated with armed conflicts. given that good health 125 is needed for migration, life expectancy and hiv/aids prevalence are found to have a positive and a negative impact on refugee populations respectively. finally, gdp per capita and youth unemployment are found to have a positive impact on refugee populations. de haas (2008) argues that increases in income (gdp) improves the capabilities to migrate while kohnert (2007) and carbone (2017) argue that the mismatch between the economic expectations of young africans in terms of employment and wages and the reality of the labor market in their home countries are drivers of migration. conclusion and recommendations inspired by an extensive literature (massey et al., 1993, 1994; black et al., 2006; docquier, 2007; faini, 2007; kohnert, 2007; bossard, 2008; bredeloup, 2013; duwicquet et al., 2014; efionayi and piguet, 2014; cummings et al., 2015; carbone, 2017; press, 2017; akanbi, 2017) and based on data availability, 27 potential root causes of international migration were selected to cover 30 sub-saharan countries for the period between 2002 and 2016. the sensitivity and robustness of each determinant of both net migration and refugee population was tested using the eba approaches proposed by leamer and leonard (1983) and sala-i-martin (1997). the results reveal that domestic credit, health expenditure, natural resources rents, youth unemployment, population growth, hiv prevalence, trade, and voice and accountability are robust determinants of net migration while fdi inflows, international tourism, hiv prevalence, corruption, gdp per capita, undernourishment, food production, military expenditure, voice and accountability, domestic credit, natural resources rents, youth unemployment, rule of law, government effectiveness, common law, external debt, life expectancy, and regulatory quality are robust determinants of refugee populations. these findings call out not only african but also western policy-makers in several respects. firstly, in line with world systems theory, it is found that the neoliberal capitalism (fdi inflows, international tourism, and external debt) imposed in africa by western colonial powers tends to fuel international migration. even though trade was found to have a negative impact on migration, one can still argue that the terms of international trade are in disfavor of african producers. for instance, kohnert (2007) revealed that west african cotton producers would make an additional 250 million u.s. dollars every year if the usa, china, and the eu stopped their unfair subsidies. furthermore, the acceptance of the resource curse hypothesis reminds us that western governments often support corrupt and repressive african regimes to have privileged access to some strategic natural resources such as crude oil. secondly, talking about corrupt and repressive african regimes, the findings of this paper once more highlight, if need be, the importance of a sound institutional framework. these results are just echoing what us president obama said before the ghanaian parliament in 2009: “africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions”. african citizens and policy-makers should therefore pay more attention, the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes 126 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 put more efforts and allocate more resources to the erection and the consolidation of sound institutions. thirdly, paying attention to health-related variables, one cannot overlook the fact that healthcare systems in africa are particularly affected by the structural demand for nurses and doctors in western countries. this brain drain and its direct adverse effects on public health are well documented (black et al., 2006; docquier, 2007; faini, 2007; bourgain et al., 2010). african authorities should therefore implement policies to limit this outflow of qualified workers. for instance, they could legislate for a compulsory minimum serving period during which accredited health professionals will not be allowed to work abroad. furthermore, similar measures should be implemented in some other strategic sectors such as higher education or justice because the brain drain is associated with additional disruptions delaying the development of a middle class as well as that of a sustainable civil society in africa (kohnert, 2007). in fine, one should keep in mind that the analyses developed in this paper are essentially built upon macro-level and meso-level variables while there are microlevel determinants of international migration. indeed, as revealed by carbone (2017), migration is not only a passive human response to external pull and push factors, but it is also a 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geneva: unhcr. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2018. global trends: forced displacement in 2017. geneva: unhcr. vigil, s. 2017. climate change and migration. in: out of africa: why people migrate, edited by g. carbone. milan: ispi, pp. 51-72. young, a., higgins, m., and levy, d. 2007. black populations and economic growth: an extreme bounds analysis of mississippi county-level data. munich personal repec archive paper no. 1646. the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mul?n.2005.07.00 https://doi.org/10.2979/africatoday.64.1.01 https://doi.org/10.2979/africatoday.64.1.01 ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor dr mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh cape peninsula university of technology, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delagdo wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, basel, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. copyright © 2015 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 465 6433 email: editor@sihma.org.za webpage: www.sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za http://www.sihma.org.za/ ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 538 from the director:* a reflection on south africa’s migration policy albeit geographically distant, europe and south africa have a great deal of similarities in their management of migratory flows. as many countries in europe, south africa is a migration hub attracting numerous migrants, including refugees, seasonal workers, students, cross-border traders and entrepreneurs from both the rest of africa and asia. south africa is also considered, like european states, a country with a generous welfare system, where over 10 million people are living below the poverty threshold and are relying on social grants as a main source of income. moreover, because of its strong social and economic contradictions, south africa is not immune to divisive populist politics and xenophobic reactions. although up to now no nationalist anti-immigration party has emerged in the political arena, immigrant workers (amakwerekwere1) are often accused of stealing jobs and being a burden on the country’s economy. on many occasions, the discontent of poor and disenfranchised black communities has raised tensions and led to violent clashes between locals and foreign nationals. since 1994, the post-apartheid government has implemented, on one side, a benevolent policy towards african refugees fleeing conflicts and persecutions and, on the other side, approved overly restrictive immigration policies. this is evidenced by a variety of procedures and measures across the social, political and legislative frameworks. such restrictive measures in the immigration regime, coupled with the lack of legal avenues for unskilled and semi-skilled migrants from the sadc region to enter the local job-market, have resulted in large numbers of migrants turning to the country’s asylum system as a means to temporarily regularise their stay. this fact has contributed to a toxic culture of suspicion amongst politicians and bureaucrats who perceive the liberal refugee framework as a ‘loophole’ that undocumented and unskilled migrants exploit to legalise their stay. during a portfolio committee *sergio carciotto director of the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) email: director@sihma.org.za. 1 this is a term used by black south africa to refer to foreign africans. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 539 meeting held on 11 october 20162, the deputy minister of home affairs went even further stating that that “the country could not allow undocumented or bogus asylum-seekers to have rights. for them to claim rights, asylum-seekers ought to possess, at least, immigration visa and immigration visa could not be applied for while staying in the country.” in this regard, i emphasise that irregular migrants possess the same basic human rights (e.g. the right to fair trial, the right to security and the right to receive medical health care) possessed by all individuals including citizens, legal residents, tourists and temporary visitors. furthermore, some of the negative attitudes and preconceptions towards asylum seekers are reflected in the proposed 2015 refugee amendment bill which seeks to restrict, as a deterrent measure, the possibility for asylum seekers to work while in south africa. this proposal raises several concerns with regards to its actual implementation, due to the many administrative challenges and rampant corruption within the department of home affairs, and it is my view that the deprivation of the freedom to work may threaten to degrade asylum seekers in south africa. the limitation of the right to work might, in fact, deprive asylum seekers of the only means to support themselves while their applications for asylum are pending and represents a violation of the constitutional right to dignity. beside the refugee amendment bill and other piece-meal legislative amendments, in june 2016, the south african government released a green paper on international migration initiating a process that is going to lead to comprehensive overhaul of legislation. the green paper focuses on several areas (e.g. the management of residency and naturalisation; the management of international migrants with critical skills and capital and the management of international migration in the african context, amongst others) but despite presenting some commendable proposals, it was disappointing in terms of certain expectations. for instance, it has raised numerous concerns regarding 2 government printing works & iec audit outcomes: agsa briefing; refugees amendment bill: deputy minister & department briefing, 11 october 2016. available at: http://bit.ly/2fh8s35. http://bit.ly/2fh8s35 ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 540 the intention of delinking permanent residency from the length of stay in the country by not allowing long-term temporary residents, including recognised refugees, to apply for permanent residency. i believe this proposal to be morally unjust as it contravenes the ethical principle that “the longer people stay in a society, the stronger they are morally entitled to the same civil, economic, and social rights as citizens, whether they acquire formal citizenship status or not.”3 temporary workers, both skilled and unskilled, who have spent at least five years in the country participating in the domestic market and civil society, develop a moral claim to membership through their participation in the receiving society’s market and are not a threat to the collective. i argue that, for such immigrants, the claim to membership is an inalienable right and should not be restricted. i further believe that the length of stay in the country should be the guiding moral principle and the cornerstone of a full socio-economic integration and promotion of social cohesion. in this regard, the green paper is silent on how robust and effective integration policies should be enforced. if it is, on one side, the responsibility of immigrants to integrate themselves in the local communities, receiving states need to ensure that they can offer immigrants concrete opportunities to learn the national language and the country’s basic social and civic norms. as stated by the european commission, “the integration of migrants is a two-way process involving adaptation on the part of both the immigrant and of the host society 4 .” the commission has further called on receiving states to: fight discrimination and xenophobia; integrate immigrants into the labour market; grant civic and political rights to longer-term immigrant residents; and to establish a civic citizenship; measures directed at women and families from immigrant backgrounds; a welcoming society (the responsibility of national political leaders); specific integration programmes at national, regional and local levels; and long-term, comprehensive integration programmes 3 see, joseph h. carens, “the ethics of immigration” (oxford university press, 2013), pp. 89. 4 see, “integration of third-country migrants”, background paper, european foundation for the improvement of living and working conditions, (2007), available at: http://bit.ly/2dygbfb. http://bit.ly/2dygbfb ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 541 developed through partnerships involving national, regional and local authorities and civil society. none of these issues have been sufficiently addressed by the green paper and integration still remains a great challenge to the governance of migration. i concur that human mobility in south africa is largely characterised by temporary circular migration by individuals who are not in search of permanent integration, but the country is also home to tens of thousands of asylum seekers and refugees who do not want, or simply are unable, to return to their countries of origin. my concern is that the new migration policy intends to facilitate forms of temporary labour migration that might resemble exploitative and old fashion gastarbeiter systems of immigration, depriving undesirable migrants such as low-skilled/unskilled workers, refugees and their families from the right to reside permanently. sergio carciotto scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) cape town 1117 exploring the relationship between hutu refugees’ protracted situation and insecurity in the great lakes region callixte kavuro abstract this paper reflects on the complex dynamics of the relationship between forced repatriation of hutu refugees with protracted refugee situations and insecurity prevailing in the great lakes region, in particular, the democratic republic of the congo (drc). it critiques misconceived and misguided regional and international responses to the influx of hutu refugees. the refugees were initially stereotyped as fleeing from prosecution and their influx was seen as a source of friction between rwanda and its neighbouring countries and as burden to host countries’ social and economic progress. viewing them as fugitives and as an economic burden, host countries forced hutu refugees to return. this was done in cooperation with the rwandan government (i.e. the persecutor) under auspices of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). the purpose of this paper is to illustrate that the forced repatriation resulted not only in the resistance of the hutu refugees, but also in turning the territory of the drc into a fully-fledged battlefield for the hutus and tutsis. further, it is argued that this hutu-tutsi conflict gave rise to the recurring cycle of violence in the eastern drc. keywords ethnic conflict, genocide, mass murder, hutu refugees, cessation clause, mass repatriation, armed resistance, regional insecurity. introduction the eastern drc has been characterised by recurring and persistent armed violence since 1996, when the rwandan defence force (rdf) crossed the border to repatriate hutu refugees that were viewed as a threat to the newly established government of the former tutsi-dominated rebel movement, the rwandan patriotic front (rpf)-inkotanyi. at the time, the international community supported the rdf invasion of the drc as the rdf was, ironically, applauded for putting an end to genocide in rwanda when, in fact, they triggered it (erlinder, 2013; rever, 2018). the invasion was not viewed as a  doctoral candidate, department of public law, stellenbosch university, south africa. email: callixtekav@gmail.com exploring the relationship between hutu refugees’ protracted situation and insecurity in the great lakes region 1118 violation of international law, but rather as a noble cause to pursue and forcefully repatriate hutu refugees who were believed to have fled from criminal accountability. millions of hutu refugees were viewed not only as genocidaires but also as a burden to host countries (whitaker, 2002). viewing hutu refugees as a burden and as fugitives led countries of the great lakes region to expel the refugees from their territories in 1996, which resulted in hutu refugees taking up arms to resist their expulsion. today, hutu refugees are symptomatic of the tragedy of ongoing armed conflicts and political violence prevailing in the great lakes region, specifically the drc. the nature of the instability of the drc is both regional and international since it affects regional peace and stability, thereby involving regional countries as well as the international community. as a result, african states are committed to restoring peace and stability and encouraging development under the peace, security and cooperation framework for the drc and the region. this document was signed in addis ababa on 24 february 2013 under the auspices of its guarantors, the secretary-general of the united nations (un), the chairperson of the african union (au) commission, the chairperson of the southern african development community (sadc) and the chairperson of the international conference on the great lakes region (icglr). in light of this context, this paper seeks to explore rwanda’s invasion of the drc for the purpose of forcing hutu refugees to repatriate, as well as the nexus between regional insecurity and this forced repatriation. from a theoretical point of view, the paper works under the presupposition that, today, the great lakes region is marred with violence and armed conflict. the volatile situation – which negatively impacts the regional economic stability – has attracted regional and international interventions to restore peace. for instance, the un deployed a peace-keeping mission, known as the un organisation stabilisation mission in the democratic republic of congo (monusco), and the sadc deployed troops from malawi, tanzania and south africa under the force intervention brigade (fib). both of these efforts had a mandate to neutralise and disarm congolese and foreign armed groups. accordingly, this paper focuses primarily on the driving factors causing hutu refugees to engage in armed resistance and the implications of such armed resistance on regional peace and stability. methodologically, the paper draws on literature to demonstrate that the hutu refugees’ protracted situation was created by consistent and repeated attempts by rwanda to encourage the unhcr to invoke article 1c(5)-(6) of the 1951 convention relating to the callixte kavuro 1119 status of refugees and its 1967 protocol (the 1951 refugee convention), so as to ensure that hutus are criminally held accountable upon return. in light of this, the paper explores the relationship between the rpf’s obsession with controlling all hutus, resulting in the furtherance of armed violence. in addition, a critical analysis of the causes and rationale for armed violence is approached from the standpoint of illuminating the marginalisation and objectification of hutu refugees on the basis of collective guilt of genocide, coupled with their lack of political muscle to voice their views. more fundamentally, the armed violence is critically analysed through the lens of the deep-seated rwandan ethnic conflict. rwandan political turmoil from a historical perspective historical hutu-tutsi conflicts during the pre-colonial era, the hutu majority was marginalised and subjugated by the tutsi minority (14% of the population). the germans and belgians – who held colonial rule – socially and politically intensified this marginalisation when they positioned tutsis as superior to hutus (85% of the population) and twas (1% of the population) (white, 2009: 474). this fragmentation of society engendered ethnic conflict, which manifested itself in the form of mono-ethnic governance replete with inhumane and discriminatory practices that continued to subject hutus and twas to illtreatment (kintu, 2005: 2). prior to independence, hutus and twas were treated as secondary citizens and were socially positioned as slaves to their superiors, the tutsis (ibid.). this was reflected in the letters and memorandums sent to the un visiting mission (the mission) in the 1950s. when hutus submitted a memorandum, known as the “bahutu manifesto”, to the mission, which contained their moral and political views on how the iniquities of the time could be redressed in order to achieve a just and equal society, the tutsis wrote letters dated 17th may 1958 addressed to the same mission. in the letters, they emphatically stressed that hutu and tutsi were not related and could never, in any way whatsoever, act in the spirit of brotherhood (oppenheim & van der wolf, 2000: 31). these letters stated that hutu and tutsi do not share the same ancestors, but only share a slave-master relationship. the letters had the following implications. firstly, they were a true reflection of the institutionalised racism inherent in the assumption that tutsis were superior to hutus because of their non-african roots as per the colonial master’s view (white, 2009: 474). secondly, they set out the course of future rwandan politics in that they contributed immensely to the 1959 social revolution that ultimately culminated in deposing the tutsi monarchy and exploring the relationship between hutu refugees’ protracted situation and insecurity in the great lakes region 1120 installing the hutu majority regime as a republic on 28 january 1961 (ibid: 475; twagilimana, 2015: 130). consequently, when hutus ascended to power, two historical events occurred. firstly, tutsi fled the country to defy being governed by their servants, the hutus. secondly, they used every means necessary to depose the hutu majority government. they formed a rebel movement known as inyenzi, an acronym for “ingangurarugo ziyemeje kuba ingenzi,” literally meaning “those who attack first and who have vowed to be the best” (kaarsholm, 2006: 84; thompson, 2007: 84; twagilimana, 2015: 114). inyenzi instigated sporadic insurgencies between 1961 and 1967, waged for the purpose of restoring tutsi supremacy in rwanda (banton, 1995: 5). fearing tutsi oppression and subjugation, hutus retaliated mercilessly to any incursion. each tutsi incursion was followed by outbursts of reprisal killings against tutsi civilians, which, in turn, uprooted them to seek asylum in neighbouring countries (white, 2009: 475). the combination of governmental military operations and civilian retaliatory attacks brought the inyenzi’s insurgencies to an end in 1967 (ibid.). the acts of aggression were, however, revived on 1 october 1990 under the banner of the rpf-inkotanyi. this was after the tutsi refugees’ objection to a voluntary repatriation programme, initiated and encouraged by the hutu regime. rather, they opted to return through military actions, which later resulted in instability first in uganda, then rwanda, and now the drc. regional instability is rooted in the tutsian understanding that leadership belongs to them and that every means necessary should be used to protect their leadership. the instability is exacerbated by hutu refugees who are not willing to accept defeat and surrender themselves to tutsis, as this would imply that tutsis are superior to them. put briefly, the current political struggle and armed conflict is embedded in two contrasting beliefs: one belief holds that hutus should be under control of tutsian authoritarian leadership, while the other belief holds that there should be a hutu majority rule through democratic processes. roots and causes of hutu refugees the fall of president obote of uganda can be said to be the root cause of hutu becoming refugees. although it may sound unusual to make such an assertion, the reality is that tutsi refugees engaged in museveni’s armed rebellion that ousted the obote government in 1986. despite their major role in establishing callixte kavuro 1121 the museveni regime, it did not sit well with ugandans to see tutsi refugees assuming powerful positions and ranks in the newly established government. this led museveni “to support their return to rwanda by force of arms” (erlinder, 2013: 65). on 1 october 1990, tutsi refugees invaded rwanda under the rpf movement. as a result, rwanda experienced armed violence, massacres and atrocities that uprooted a large percentage of the population during the course of the civil war (ndagijimana, 2009). the rpf army is wholly to blame for initiating and carrying out a systematic genocide of hutus as part of a campaign of cleansing intended to clear certain areas for tutsi habitation or, more clearly, to establish tutsiland (deme, 2010: 157; erlinder, 2013: 42). the rpf’s military tactics were centred on causing terror in the mind of the hutus in that the rpf army deliberately targeted hutu civilians. it is reported that, between 1990 and 1998, shell and mortar were deliberately fired into densely populated villages, centres and towns, as well as in camps housing internally displaced people (idp), killing many hutu civilians (un security council, s/1994/1157, para 31). in addition, the rpf, prior to the fall of the kigali capital, managed to carry out assassinations of hutu elites countrywide through infiltration of the hutu regime. assassinations included the hutu presidents juvenal habyarimana of rwanda and cyprien ntaryamira of burundi. their deaths remain at the centre of conflict today. these facts are still unknown to many because the official narrative of the victors, the tutsis, disregards them. this official narrative blames hutus for planning and carrying out the genocide of tutsis. the alternative narrative, however, recognises that both warring parties engaged in wanton killings and thus defined the tragedy, which hit the country as from 1990 as the rwandan genocide. the alternative narratives take into account three theoretical assertions. the first assertion considers that there was the “genocide against the tutsis”, implying that there was a genocidal mass killing of tutsis by hutus. the second assertion acknowledges that there was a “counter genocide against hutus”, implying that the rpf’s troops were responsible for a litany of atrocities and massacres against hutus, especially after the tutsi genocide ended (pean, 2005; davenport & stam, 2009; collier & strain, 2014: 72; wells & fellows, 2016: 61). the third assertion considers that the rpf systematically murdered thousands of people – overwhelmingly hutus, along with tutsi, twa and others – as it advanced across the country in 1994, thousands more in gruesome massacres and summary executions after coming into power, and tens of thousands during the 1996 military campaign to destroy hutu refugee camps and neutralise the defeated forces armée rwandaise (far) combatants (longman, 2009: 309). exploring the relationship between hutu refugees’ protracted situation and insecurity in the great lakes region 1122 when the tutsis retained control of the country on 4 july 1994, many hutus defied governance by tutsis. due to the vivid memories of the preindependence tutsi autocracy, coupled with the rpf’s campaign of terror, hutus fled rwanda to neighbouring countries en mass. in response to this, the rpf troops immediately initiated “the hot pursuit operation”, aimed at forcing hutu refugees to return. in 1995, this operation launched an unprovoked military assault on civilian refugees at kibeho idps camp, who had been fearful of returning home due to the rpf’s terror (khan, 2000: 106; binet, 2016: 107). military assault resulted in the killing of tens of thousands of hutus. the assault was morally justified on the basis of reprisal attacks, as hutus were collectively accused of committing genocide and fleeing from prosecution (msf, 1995). these atrocities followed the june 1994 mass killings of gakurazo, in which roman catholic archbishops, bishops, priests, brothers and sisters (of hutu backgrounds) perished along with their congregations (reyntjens, 2013: 57). the gruesome assassination of hutu preachers served as a strong message to hutus that the rpf government would spare no one. it was also compelling evidence of the intent to instigate fear in the minds of the hutu community. throughout the occurrence of these events, there was a deafening silence from the unhcr and international community. this silence marked the start of the rpf government’s campaign to force hutu refugees to return en mass. forced repatriation started at home and gradually extended to include hutu refugees who sought asylum in neighbouring countries. the rpf pursued them not only to ensure their return but also to destroy them (un mapping report, 2010: paras 191-193, 495). it is this hot pursuit of hutu refugees in the deep forests of the drc that created instability and the collapse of the country, as the invading army left destruction and insecurity in their wake, thereby further weakening the sovereignty of the drc. consequently, the fervent pursuit of hutu refugees resulted in the overthrow of the mobutu regime and the establishment of laurent kabila’s regime. despite their efforts to escape from the rpf attacks, a large number of hutu refugees had no alternative but to return. when they did, hutu elites were selected from returnees and were either killed or jailed (erlinder, 2013; rever, 2018). callixte kavuro 1123 regional responses and their contribution to the conflict massive expulsion the first regional response to the influx of hutu refugees was expulsion. the rpf’s invasion of the drc in 1996 triggered the wave of expulsion or forced repatriation of hutu refugees. fear of being invaded by the rpf led the government of tanzania to unleash its heavily armed troops to repatriate hutu refugees by force under a military operation dubbed “operesheni rudisha wakimpizi”, in english “operation return refugees” (whitaker, 2002: 330). the ugandan and burundian governments used similar force. this mass expulsion angered the hutu refugees and thus motivated them to take up arms and defend themselves against the injustice, vindictiveness, cruelty and repression. when hutu refugees took up arms to defend themselves, rwanda and its neighbouring countries initiated joint military operations – dubbed umoja wetu, amani leo, kimya i and kimya ii – aimed at compelling hutu refugees to return under the façade of combatting, neutralising and eliminating hutu militia elements (trefon, 2011: 64; levine, 2013: 260, 266). forced repatriation practically and fundamentally impairs and undermines the human dignity of refugees. the use of force or duress to induce refugees’ return is not only contrary to international refugee law, but also deprives refugees of their humanity, as they are treated like objects. this objectification deprives them of their human dignity, individual autonomy and freedom of choice. what pained hutu refugees, and still pains them, is that this objectification spurred the unhcr to surrender them to their oppressor, the rpf. objectification of hutu refugees is one of the reasons that hutu refugees resisted their oppression through violence in the drc. in turn, the violence fuelled insecurity in the region as the resistance levelled up. contribution to criminal justice from the outset, hutus who took flight from the rpf’s litany of atrocities and massacres were not viewed as refugees but as outcasts due to the perceived belief that they had committed genocide in rwanda, with an estimated 800,000 tutsi and hutu civilians dying in the space of 100 days. in the eyes of the unhcr and host communities, they were seen as cold-hearted fugitives undeserving of the right to seek and obtain refuge, not to mention unworthy of being treated with dignity. they are not what they portrayed to be. however, as fugitives, they were not afforded refugee and human rights protection as no country was prepared to be a hub for criminals. as alleged criminals, they were deprived of liberties to participate in decision-making, exploring the relationship between hutu refugees’ protracted situation and insecurity in the great lakes region 1124 including voicing their views, deciding their destinies and making moral choices about their futures. the societies of the great lakes region that should have provided them with a safe haven instead reacted by expelling them en mass back to rwanda to account for their alleged crimes. proceeding from this premise, forced repatriation was employed as a strategy to ensure that hutu refugees, as genocidaires, were returned home to receive punishment for fictitious crimes. it was believed that they should not evade justice. however, nothing was done to separate suspects from genuine refugees. this purposeful absence of separating the bad elements from the good elements ensured that the burden of protecting the refugees as a collective group was lessened. as such, the forced repatriation was based on the premise of collective guilt, which consolidated and fuelled hutu-tutsi conflict that turned the territory of the drc into a zone of fully-fledged armed conflict. abandoning refugees to their own fate viewing hutu refugees as criminals, the unhcr turned its back on them. this resulted in their exposure to serious violations of international humanitarian law, including murder, torture, beatings, rape and other forms of ill-treatment, such as the denial of medication, food and water. the rpf committed these crimes against humanity in an effort to force hutu refugees to return. surprisingly, during forced repatriation processes, the unhcr offered financial, technical and logistical assistance to the rpf and host countries. nevertheless, all refugees did not return. today, there are approximately 245 000 hutu refugees in the forests of the drc, who do not receive any humanitarian relief or assistance from the unhcr or any other humanitarian organisation. forced repatriation was characterised by the criminal and vengeful spirit of the rpf troops as president kagame himself affirmed. at the swearing-in ceremony of his army officers on 13 april 2010, president kagame stated: “we have done all we promised […] those who preferred repatriation were safely brought into the country, but those who chose otherwise were shot. that is what we did” (rwandainfo, 2010). therefore, it comes as no surprise that the findings of the 2010 un mapping report (2010: paras 22-33) demonstrate that the vast majority of the 617 most serious incidents committed in the territory of the drc by the rpf and its allies included war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against hutu refugees and congolese people. callixte kavuro 1125 in particular, the 2010 un mapping report notes with concern that there were crimes of genocide committed against the hutu population. the report states that hutus – congolese citizens and refugees alike – were targeted by the rpf as an ethnic group under multiple attacks. it further indicates that in the first congo war (july 1996 july 1998), laurent-désiré kabila’s alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du congo-zaire (afdl) campaign to oust the regime of mobutu with the support of the rpf troops was characterised by the rpf troops’ relentless pursuit of hutu refugees across the entire congolese territory (ibid: paras 191-193). after the destruction of their refugee camps, hutus began their long trek across the country from the eastern drc westward towards angola, congo-brazaville and the central african republic (car). in this desperate journey, they were rounded up and either shot or bombed by the rpf troops. accordingly, there were widespread incidents of planned and systematic massacres and killings, which targeted hutu refugees, resulting in the death of men, women, children, the sick and the elderly. the un mapping report (2010: para 515) notes that “if they were proven before a competent court, [these actions] could be classified as crimes of genocide.” apart from what happened in the congolese territory, it is reported that forced repatriation, especially in uganda, tanzania and burundi, included serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. these violations manifested in the form of arbitrary arrests, detentions, abductions and deportations of hutu refugees, in addition to the refusal to distribute food parcels to them as a means of encouraging them to return (rever, 2013). by its very nature, involuntary mass repatriation constitutes a crime against humanity and is at odds with the principle of peace and security (kamanga, 2008: 168-169). the campaign to repatriate hutu refugees using force did not only negatively affect the regime of mobutu, which was deposed in the process, but also engendered an unending spree of violence in the drc that continues to this day. the violence has cost the lives of more than 6 million people and left millions more as either idps or refugees (bellamy & dunne, 2016: 734). the nexus between forced repatriation and on-going regional violence impulse to defend the 1959 legacy as noted, the 1959 social revolution emanated from the radical need to oppose the institutionalised discrimination and degradation of the hutu population by the tutsis. social denigration and discrimination are an invasion of an individual or targeted group’s human dignity as they intrinsically inflict emotional and psychological harm in the form of trauma, humiliation and debasement. these social pathologies are sustained through physical violence. exploring the relationship between hutu refugees’ protracted situation and insecurity in the great lakes region 1126 physical violence, in turn, maims people and, in cases, deprives them of their lives. the physical violence perpetrated against the hutu population prior to the 1959 social revolution was again perpetrated against them beginning in 1990. armed violence, which involved the intentional use of physical force to cause greater damage and deaths to hutus as a group, was employed as a mechanism to repatriate hutu idps and refugees. considering the devastating effects of prolonged and intensive violence against hutu refugees as well as unhindered killings and massacres, coupled with continual humiliation and debasement, hutu refugees were compelled to find ways to defend and preserve themselves, as their fathers did in 1959. there was a radical need to show resistance. the resistance started with counter-attacks perpetrated by the far combatants through military infiltration of rwanda between 1995 and 1998 (unhcr, 2011: para 26). in 2000, hutu elites (including far combatants) who were still in the forests of the drc, established a hutu resistance movement, the forces démocratiques de libération du rwanda (fdlr) that combined armed struggle and political aspirations. the fdlr employs protectionist measures that ensure that hutu refugees are free from the rpf’s retaliation attacks. it is at the forefront of fighting against forced repatriation, advocating for the plight of hutu refugees, and calling for political transformation in rwanda that will allow for dignified voluntary return (fdlr, 2000). viewing the armed and political struggle of the fdlr as a hope of restoration of dignity, some hutus fled rwanda to join the fdlr. those who were forced to return and later reescaped rwanda to seek asylum in the drc, also joined the fdlr. given that the rpf government pursues repressive policies and applies state sponsored persecutions to gain control over the hutu majority populations and to silence real or perceived opponents regardless of their ethnic backgrounds, rwandans flee the country and feel urged to join the resistance movement. the rpf governance, characterised by autocracy, despotism and totalitarianism, drives not only hutu refugees but also tutsi refugees to seek ways to oust the rpf regime. the return of tutsi totalitarianism gradually urges hutus to resist the neo-oppression and to defend the legacy of the 1959 social revolution. the move of hutu refugees to self-defend through physical violence has been a constant source of insecurity and instability in the eastern part of the drc. the insecurity is, firstly, caused by the desire of the rpf government to suppress the fdlr forces. however, the fdlr appear to be strong as it has not callixte kavuro 1127 been neutralised or eliminated by the joint military operations, mentioned earlier. secondly, the listing of the fdlr as a terrorist group by the un has caused insecurity and instability, as the monusco and the fib were jointly deployed to dismantle the fdlr and other armed groups (levine, 2013: 267). thirdly, the birth of the fdlr has led many national and foreign opportunistic groups to capitalise on it in forming their own armed groups in the eastern drc, escalating the war that attracted various african and western countries to intervene and resulting in the so-called “scramble for congo” (turner, 2007) or africa’s world war. fourthly, some of these congolese groups have been cooperating with the rpf government to facilitate the pursuit of its economic objectives, including looting the drc’s natural resources. it follows that rwanda used the fdlr as a scapegoat to create further proxies to legitimise the renewed political conflict. the rpf government is in fact a hawkish state that has become the epicentre of successive invasions and economic crises in the region, the last being the creation and support of the m23, which drove the economic sanctions that some western countries have taken against rwanda (un security council, s/2014/42). moral justifications of return by armed force there is a moral force behind refugees preparing to wage a war against their home country for their rights and freedoms rather than live in a country where their hosts constantly remind them that they have no place. the desire of refugees to fight to find their way back home and to topple the government from which they had fled can be morally linked to the host country’s refusal to treat refugees with dignity. their desire to return home by any means necessary is motivated by the fact that they are reduced to the scum of the earth, especially when they are forced to return or dumped in camps where they are viewed as human waste with no useful role to play in the host country’s economy. there is no intention on the part of the host community to integrate them into the social and economic order and, as such, for refugees living in the camps there is no hope of return (pinson et. al., 2010: 9). hutu refugees were left to their own miserable fate and ultimately forgotten in the dense forest of the drc. likewise, hutu refugees who live in urban cities find it difficult to gain access to basic public services, given that they are – like other refugees – excluded from the socio-economic order. as a result, they live in intolerable conditions. when refugees are both impoverished and experiencing the ills of the host country, they are persuaded to return. to hutu refugees, return through military campaign is the only option since the rwandan government has opted to hunt them down. they are pursued by the rpf army and spies in their respective host countries where, in addition to exploring the relationship between hutu refugees’ protracted situation and insecurity in the great lakes region 1128 living under protracted refugee situations, they are killed, abducted and abandoned to their own fate by the international community. furthermore, hutu refugees’ moral desire to return by means of force is strengthened by the fact that (i) the rpf have re-installed apartheid policies in rwanda that exclude the hutu majority from socio-economic designs and political participation, (ii) the rpf government has objected to any political dialogue or negotiations that would lead to voluntary and dignified repatriation and (iii) hutu refugees see no future in the host countries. it has now been more than 20 years since the onset of the rwandan crisis, and the hutu refugee situation remains unresolved even though host countries have and continue to periodically apply forced repatriation under the auspices of the unhcr. today, it is estimated that there are more than 300 000 rwandan refugees around the world. a combination of the these difficulties motivates hutu refugees not only to fight for their survival, respect and dignity in their host countries but also to establish an armed rebellion against the draconian regime instated in rwanda by the rpf. from their point of view, the military campaign for repatriation is seen as a viable solution to their never-ending misery and suffering. proceeding from this premise, armed violence is viewed as a mechanism to limit the power of the rpf government in various ways: by coercing the rpf to enter into political negotiations with hutu refugees, abandon its apartheid policies in order to open a political space, compromise its political ideologies and stance on the nature of genocide and encourage it to make concessions. historically, the use of armed violence is a political strategy that has been employed by refugees to induce a fundamental change in their home countries. for example, the same methodology has been successfully used by the tutsi refugees from rwanda and hutu refugees from burundi (ndarishikanye, 1998: 140-56; pontzeele, 2004: 19-21). similarly, it was employed by south african refugees during the liberation struggle against the apartheid regime that oppressed black people in south africa and forced them to flee (yousuf, 1985: 65-66). it follows that it is morally and legally just for individuals or groups who are victim(s) of physical attacks or violence to resort to force to mitigate or repel such violence. this moral understanding is recognised under article 20 of the 1981 african charter on human and peoples’ rights. article 20 clearly states that “colonised or oppressed peoples shall have the right to free themselves from the bonds of the domination by resorting to any means recognised by callixte kavuro 1129 international community.” furthermore, it states that nothing justifies domination of one by another. in this context, hutu refugees resort to armed resistance so as to exercise their right to self-determination, which includes free participation in democratic processes and the pursuit of economic and social development. that said, in a country such as rwanda, where power is not derived from the people or from the consent of the governed, or in a country where people are oppressed and subjugated, people will indeed resort to violence to voice their dissatisfaction and to bring about the desired socio-political change. the oppressed will use violence to remind the rulers that the powers they possess derive from the people, and to compel an authoritarian regime to accept the conditions put forward by leaders of the liberation. an armed liberation struggle is a mechanism used to depose the despotic regime or to bring it to the negotiation table (shaw, 2009: 97). in resorting to armed struggles, hutu refugees are exercising their right to self-determination, and through it, they claim the human dignity afforded to others. they seek to make the regional and international communities hear their voices and sympathise with their suffering, and they aim to compel the rpf government to accept their conditions relating to their peaceful return and participation in rwandan affairs. the hutu refugee survivors created the fdlr in line with the spirit of fighting against the bonds of tutsi domination and oppression and for the realisation of several components of the concept of self-determination. the moral intent of the rpf to carry out a campaign to combat and eliminate all hutu refugees is substantive enough to justify the moral demand and appeal for the hutu to resort to any means necessary to fight for equal rights and freedoms. the onus rests on them to liberate themselves from unfair geopolitics that result in their oppression, subjugation and humiliation. the statements of president kagame, holding that refugees are human waste, useless species, criminals and terrorists sheltered by host countries, are provocative enough to induce and entice hutus to wage a war against such denigration and debasement (salemnews, 2011). what is apparent from the president’s description of hutu refugees is a radical need for hutus to restore their pride, glory and dignity through resistance and armed struggle. the impact of the unhcr declarations of cessation clause on regional insecurity as from 1996, the unhcr has been cooperating with persecutors to assist them in locating their victims. in this respect, the unhcr employed a exploring the relationship between hutu refugees’ protracted situation and insecurity in the great lakes region 1130 mechanism referred to as the declaration of the cessation clause. in september 2012, the unhcr declared rwanda a safe country, which enabled distant host countries to turn hutu refugees away. the declaration was intended to ensure that the rpf gained control over them or otherwise silenced their dissenting voices in an attempt to strengthen and enhance the rpf’s exclusive power. the declaration led to negotiations and tripartite agreements between the unhcr, rwanda and a number of african countries hosting rwandan refugees. these countries included car, burundi and tanzania in 2002; then zambia, congo-brazzaville, uganda, malawi, namibia, mozambique and zimbabwe in 2003; and south africa in 2004 (amnesty international, 2004: 2). implementing these tripartite agreements was incorporated under the 2004 dialogue on voluntary repatriation and sustainable reintegration in africa, which focused on massive repatriation of refugees in nine african countries: angola, burundi, the drc, rwanda, eritrea, somalia, sudan, liberia and sierra leone. however, the date of return for rwandan refugees was initially and officially set to commence on 31 december 2011 and all aspects of the cessation of refugee status for hutu refugees were to be implemented throughout 2012 so as to enable their status to cease by latest 30 june 2013. the date on which refugee status would cease was later set for 31 december 2017. these declarations have severe implications on the recognition of hutu refugees as people genuinely seeking asylum in distant host countries. the unhcr declarations are, accordingly, regarded among hutu refugee communities as the international community’s final betrayal, whereby they have sided with the perpetrator when the victims have not been consulted as stakeholders or given a platform to voice their concerns. within this understanding, recommendations by the unhcr to host countries to apply the cessation clause have led many hutu refugees in countries implementing it – in african countries in particular– to prepare to flee anew. some have targeted the great lakes region, especially the drc, as a point de rappel in the hopes of losing themselves in the chaos there. others, especially the youth, have given up on the peaceful resolution of the protracted uncertainty of their future and have opted to join the fdlr resistance movement to fight for their cause so that they can one day go home in peace and dignity. still others have chosen to press forward and aim for europe and america in an effort to find lasting peace in a sanctuary that is perhaps better than their previous one. whatever choice hutu refugees make, it will undoubtedly contribute to the already existing protracted insecurity and instability in the great lakes region. callixte kavuro 1131 hutu refugees’ asylum has never been secure and this uncertainty is mainly caused by the unhcr. for that reason, refugees lament about the unhcr’s chosen methods in trying to end their asylum, which has deleteriously affected their lives and impaired their dignity. they have never enjoyed peace, freedom and justice in exile. although the rwandan refugee communities and independent international institutions and organisations have voiced much criticism and concern regarding the declarations of the unhcr, the unhcr, in cooperation with some african countries, was undeterred and proceeded to implement the cessation clause for rwandan refugees, rendering them informal and illegal refugees in africa. so far, zambia, uganda and malawi have responded to the cessation clause by indicating that they will consider other legal status as an alternative to repatriation for the purpose of ending the protracted limbo and uncertainty of hutu refugees. the european union also took the decision to not abide by the unhcr’s recommendation to invoke the cessation clause (harrell-bond & cliché-rivard, 2012). other countries cannot, therefore, justify the implementation of the cessation clause which implicitly targets hutu refugees who fled rwanda between 1994 and 1998. the cessation clause is discriminatory by its very nature because it does not apply to the tutsi refugees who fell out of the kagame regime as from 2000. the message is very clear: the cessation clause actually targets hutu refugees as those tutsi who fled rwanda prior to 1994 have retained ruling power in rwanda. from this perspective, one cannot hesitate to point out that the unhcr contributes to regional insecurity when it takes a biased decision aimed at suppressing hutu refugees. impact of partial transitional justice on regional instability the official narrative of the rpf on genocide holds that all hutus are responsible for the 1994 rwandan calamity and that hutus from all walks of life should be prosecuted. they were prosecuted by either the gacaca courts or the international criminal tribunal for rwanda (ictr). the ictr had prosecuted almost a hundred former hutu leaders, and not a single tutsi. likewise, the gacaca courts have prosecuted more than 1.2 million hutu elements without calling any tutsis to account (un, 2014). the absence of justice for hutu victims is another important factor that logically and morally legitimises the belief that the hutu need to rise up and claim criminal justice for themselves and their rightful place in rwanda. undoubtedly, it has always been the duty of the living to seek justice for the dead. if hutus remain without voice in post-genocide rwanda, the impunity will prevail on the side of tutsi counterparts and their oppression will never end. exploring the relationship between hutu refugees’ protracted situation and insecurity in the great lakes region 1132 the 1994 tragedy remains elusive and difficult to define because the voices and narratives of hutus on the genocide are missing. it remains debatable whether the tragedy should be recognised as rwandan genocide as to accommodate all victims – that is hutus, tutsis and twas – or whether it should be recognised as tutsi genocide so as to restrict it to tutsi victims only. social and political injustice are embedded in the establishment of the rpf regime around the political rhetoric of the collective guilt of hutus without distinguishing between the guilty and the innocent. the rpf’s insistence on collective guilt is to entrench and consolidate an exclusive power in its hands and, in that respect, justice is used as an instrument of repression to achieve a political goal. any aspiring hutu politician is thus silenced through accusation of having a genocide political philosophy. genocide has become a political weapon used by the tutsian governance to reduce hutu majority to secondclass citizens, blocking the avenues of reconciling a divided and fragmented society. a great deal has been written on the genocide, particularly illustrating its genesis, discrediting the hutus’ collective guilt and expounding the reasons behind the international community’s reluctance to hold the tutsis to account (ndagijimana, 2009; erlinder, 2013). for example, kintu (2005), a un researcher, dismisses the argument holding that hutus have an extensive plan to eliminate tutsi civilians. this argument holds that if they had such a plan, they would not have been defeated by the tutsi minority. his view was confirmed by the findings of the ictr, in prosecutor v bagosora and others, case no. ictr-98-41-t of 18 december 2008 (paras 1996, 2258); bagosora and another v the prosecutor, case no. ictr-98-41-a of 14 december 2011 (paras 730, 740); ndindliyimana and others v the prosecutor, case no. ictr-00-56-a of 11 february 2014 (paras 253, 278, 322, 388); and karemera and another v the prosecutor, case no. ictr-98-44-a of 29 september 2014 (para 643), which stated that there was no evidence to support the contention that hutu leaders were involved in any plan or conspiracy to destroy tutsi civilians given that the ictr prosecutorial team failed to discharge the onus to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt. testimonies provided by senior leaders of the rpf – who fell out of the rpf regime – attest that the rpf planned and executed the shooting down of the former president habyarimana’s plane, which triggered hutus’ reprisal attacks against tutsi (ruzibiza, 2005; erlinder, 2013: 25-6). the tutsi elites’ testimonies and confessions state that the rpf, after assassinating the president, immediately launched attacks in which mass killings and ethnic callixte kavuro 1133 cleansing were perpetrated. the ictr describes this situation as the hutu and tutsi civilians being caught up in war-time violence. despite such recognition, international justice has done nothing to call tutsis to account. judges bruguiere of france and merelles of spain have made an attempt to indict and issue arrest warrants for the rpf leaders, including president kagame, for crimes committed by the rpf (erlinder, 2013: 152). in this regard, the oneside justice has become a major problem that contributes to the reluctance of hutu refugees to return home. politically, the hutu refugees’ refusal to return is used to judge and condemn them without regard for their victimisation by the rpf. relying on the justice system to exclude and silence hutus does not appease the anger caused by the 1990s invasion of rwanda and the crimes of the rpf against the hutu community; rather, it augments such anger and strengthens the desire to fight back. what actually saddens and pains the hutus is that evidence clearly indicates that a higher number of hutus than tutsis perished in the horrendous events of 1990-1994. the number of genocide victims during the 1994 genocide is often stated as 800 000 tutsi and moderate hutus by the un reports, and is often stated as more than one million tutsi by the rpf government (turner, 2013: 300). this narrative is contested by many researchers who have developed a counter narrative asserting that if the total number of the tutsi victims ranged from 800 000 to one million people, “the majority of the victims must have been hutu and twa rwandans, because there were not enough tutsi in rwanda in 1994 to yield victim numbers of this magnitude” (erlinder, 2013: 63; wells & fellows, 2016: 61). this implies that most of those accused and brought before gacaca courts were in fact victims of rpf atrocities, whom the rpf was able to silence through criminalising any claim, narrative, view or opinion holding that hutus were the majority victims of the genocide. any person who challenges the official genocide narrative is charged with the crime of minimising or denying the tutsi genocide. according to human rights watch (2011: 32), the genocide law creates criminal tools such as “revisionism,” “negationism,” “genocide denial” and “gross minimisation of genocide” that are used to quash debate on the responsibility of the rpf in rwanda. suppressing debate and invoking collective guilt are, as kintu (2005: 18) puts it, intended to protect the true designers of mass murder and ethnic cleansing. the fight of hutus also includes a struggle to expose the true culprit behind the rwandan tragedy. in other words, the twisting of facts and truth, which degrades and humiliates hutu, strengthens their conviction to emancipate themselves from institutionalised moral degeneration. exploring the relationship between hutu refugees’ protracted situation and insecurity in the great lakes region 1134 conclusion and recommendations the regional instability cannot be separated from the tutsi’s struggle for political domination and supremacy and hutu’s defiance against being governed by the tutsi minority in rwanda. to ensure that the hutus are subjugated and controlled, they were collectively blamed for committing genocide and the collective blame has been used as a weapon to unleash reprisal attacks against them. the rpf government has been invoking the collective blame to call upon host countries to deny or deprive hutu refugees of asylum or to cross the borders to attack them in their shelters. whilst the international community has abandoned hutu refugees to their own despondent, it has been supporting the rpf to attack hutus at home and abroad with impunity. killing hutus with impunity angers and pains hutus. they have been killed from 1990 to this day. in an attempt to defend themselves, hutus – especially refugees – have taken up arms. as hutu refugees are forced to return through military means and as attacks on hutu refugees continued unabated, the hutu resistance blossomed into an armed rebel movement. as the hutu citizens are subjugated, and as the armed resistance gains wide support among the hutu population, the territory of the drc is becoming a fully-fledged battlefield for hutus and tutsis. it has been demonstrated that the hutu-tutsi conflict is historically deeprooted and has led both hutus and tutsis to engage in wanton killings during different periods. the tutsis desire to destroy hutus in order to maintain exclusive power and the battle has been transferred to the drc. what this tells us is that, in finding durable solutions to armed violence in the drc, regional and international actors should grasp the inherent hutu-tutsi conflict and thus find ways of reconciling them. durable solutions should be devised with regard to the significance of the legacy of the 1959 hutu emancipation from tutsi oppression and enslavement; the rpf’s invasion of rwanda in 1990 and the rationale behind it; the litany of atrocities committed by the rpf since 1990; and the rpf’s shooting down of the presidential plane that triggered the reprisal attacks against tutsi civilians. considering the 1959 legacy is key to any durable solution of the rwandan ethnic tension. the rwandan republic is constituted on the 1959 legacy, including the recognition of democratic governance based on the will of the people. callixte kavuro 1135 because hutus constitute the majority, discussions of power-sharing as well as watchdog institutions are crucial to safeguard any proposed power-sharing. restoring democratic governance is possible through negotiated political settlement, which will introduce the compromised leadership whereby hutus and tutsis will have equal political voice and participation. compromised leadership will protect the interests of every citizen regardless of his or her ethnic background. it follows that peace and stability in the region will ensue if the regional and international actors have the willpower necessary to consider the killings of the hutus by the rpf soldiers and to investigate the assassination of president habyarimana and prosecute the perpetrators. finding an effective solution to armed conflict in the drc is a political question that requires political response by addressing the rwandan ethnic conflict. first of all, the unhcr and other regional and international actors need to inform themselves of the politics of rwanda to grasp the political problems that have uprooted the hutu refugees, which resulted in the hutus’ resistance to return unless their desired political changes are met. in finding viable solutions, the unhcr must treat refugees as autonomous individuals able to choose their own destinies, make independent moral choices, shape their identity and participate in the decisions that may adversely affect their lives. both the unhcr and host countries must desist from viewing all hutu refugees as criminals, and rather see them as human beings whose inherent dignity and equal worth must be respected at all times. in respecting their human dignity, authorities must adhere to the fairness and justice principles, including the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. refugee status cannot diminish these principles. therefore, the unhcr should meaningfully engage with all stakeholders with a particular focus on the protection of hutu refugees who are the victims of the rpf’s persecutions. it is unfair to return individuals to their persecutors without evidence that they are criminals. as a un agency mandated to protect refugees, the unhcr must use its power to influence regional countries to initiate an inclusive dialogue between hutu refugees and the rpf government in an effort to establish peace, security, harmony and tolerance. it has been shown that unilateral, non-democratic, and non-transparent decisions to force hutu refugees to repatriate will, for example, breed further internal and external violence as such decisions will simply work to intensify the need to repatriate by force of arms. regional countries should also be at the forefront of initiating and mediating an inclusive dialogue to discuss the alleviation of ethnic hutu-tutsi conflict before it spills beyond the region under the pretext of hunting down hutu genocidaires. international community intervention is needed to put an end to exploring the relationship between hutu refugees’ protracted situation and insecurity in the great lakes region 1136 the collective guilt card that the rpf uses to violate the territorial integrity of other nations. violence is the only weapon that can be used by hutu refugees to express their dissatisfaction or to compel or induce the totalitarian regime to accept some of the conditions put forward by the oppressed. if there is to be enduring peace in the great lakes region, refugee voices and actors must be included in the determination of their fate. failure to do this will result in protracted conflict and insecurity for the unforeseeable future, or worse, a spread of violence in the region as other state actors are drawn in. references african charter on human and peoples’ rights ("banjul charter"), 27 june 1981, cab/leg/67/3 rev. 5, 21 i.l.m. 58. amnesty international. 2004. protecting their rights: 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changing priorities in refugee protection: the rwandan repatriation from tanzania. refugee survey quarterly, 21: 328-344. ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor dr mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh cape peninsula university of technology, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delagdo wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, basel, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print) copyright © 2015 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 465 6433 email: editor@sihma.org.za webpage: www.sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za http://www.sihma.org.za/ 58 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 experiences of female migrants in the informal sector businesses in the cape coast metropolis: is target 8.8 of the sdg 8 achievable in ghana? fabian sebastian achana* and augustine tanle** *university of cape coast, ghana corresponding author. email: fsachana@gmail.com **university of cape coast, ghana email: atanle@ucc.edu.gh situated within the neoclassical micro-economic and migration networks theories, this study used in-depth interviews to explore the circumstances, lived experiences, risk and vulnerabilities of female migrants in selected informal sector businesses in the cape coast metropolis of ghana. the data was processed and analyzed thematically using the qsr nvivo qualitative software version 11. participants reported varied and complex lived experiences. poverty, the search for employment, parental irresponsibility and marital instability were the dominant explanations for their decisions to migrate. most participants intimated that their health and economic rights were often violated, that they endured verbal abuse, physical injury, sexual harassment, and were compelled to work even when sick. their daily or monthly earnings were at the mercy of their employers, and their work, living and sleeping environments were unsafe. considering that these findings reflect what generally prevails in other parts of the country, ghana is unlikely to achieve target 8.8 of the sustainable development goal 8. there is therefore an urgent need to enforce the relevant laws and policies to protect the fundamental human rights, safety, health and well-being of females in these and similar livelihood activities in ghana. keywords: female migrants; informal sector; vulnerabilities; sustainable development goals 59 introduction globally, migration is driven mainly by disparities in income and wealth, job opportunities, human security, demographic trends, and social networks (un, 2013; 2015). globally, there are nearly 272 million migrants of whom 47.9% are females (undesa, 2019). the highest share of female migrants is in northern america (51.8%) and europe (51.4%), and the lowest is in sub-saharan africa (47.5%), and northern africa and western asia (35.5%). sub-saharan africa, northern africa and western asia are regions with the fastest growing migrant populations (ilo, 2018). in sub-saharan africa, including ghana, the informal sector is a key source of livelihood and income generation for migrant workers, especially in the urban areas (world bank, 2011), a situation partly attributed to the failure of formal structures to create formal job opportunities (anyidoho and steel, 2016). the sector is fraught with many challenges, including the absence of regulations, thereby exposing vulnerable actors in the sector to exploitation, physical and sexual abuse, accidents, low financial remuneration and other health risks (osei-boateng and ampratwum, 2011; dogbe and annan, 2015). drawing on the principles of grounded theory in the context of international and national legal frameworks, this study documents the circumstances, motivations, lived experiences and future aspirations of female migrants engaged in informal sector businesses in the cape coast metropolis of the central region of ghana. it contributes to current debates on migration, health and sustainable livelihoods. adanu (2004) estimated that over 80% of employment is informal with 88% of street traders being women (budlender, 2011). according to the ghanaian 2010 population census (government of ghana, 2012), 42.5% of the total population in the central region are migrants. it has also been noted that more than seven out of ten people who engage in informal sector businesses in the cape coast metropolis, are migrants (tanle, 2018). the high number of migrants in the metropolis is attributed to its unique historical, social and economic characteristics which attract migrants from within and outside the region. in particular, commerce, trade and the hospitality industries are major sources of employment to both migrants and non-migrants in the metropolis. it is estimated that about 32.5% of people who are employed in the metropolis are engaged as service and sales workers (government of ghana, 2014). some female migrants are engaged as domestic servants, auxiliary workers of pubs (drinking bars), and local restaurants also known locally as ‘chop bars’. considering the increasing number of female migrants involved in the sector, it is imperative that measures are taken to mitigate against the associated vulnerabilities, socio-economic and health risks. this could contribute towards the attainment of the sustainable development goals (sdgs) in ghana, especially target 8.8 of goal 8. goal 8 seeks to “promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all” whilst target 8.8 seeks to “protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all including female migrant workers, and those engaged in high risk jobs” (who, 2016). it is in this intriguing context that we pose a number of questions: (a) what attracts female migrants into experiences of female migrants in the informal sector businesses 60 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 the informal sector businesses in the cape coast metropolis? (b) what has been the lived experiences of female migrants with respect to remuneration, basic human rights and health risks? (c) how do female migrants navigate their apparent poor and vulnerable portfolios into achieving their set aspirations? this study illuminates an understanding of these important research questions. conceptual, theoretical and legal framework migration has been defined as a spatial movement that involves temporary or permanent change of one’s usual place of residence from one defined geographical area to the other at any given time (baubock, 2013; tanle, 2018; tsapenko, 2018). this study focuses on autonomous internal migrant women mostly from nearby districts of the central region who are engaged in some informal sector businesses in the cape coast metropolis. the study is guided by the neoclassical micro-economic theory developed by todaro (1969) and borjas (1989); and the migration networks theory proposed by massey et al. (1993). the neoclassical micro-economic theory explains how individuals make decisions in migration. the individual, being rational, is expected to make a comparative analysis of the cost and benefits associated with pre-migration arrangements. the hallmark of the theory is the existence of differences in economic opportunities between places which tend to motivate people to migrate (de haas, 2010; tanle, 2010). in ghana, studies have shown that young adults of both sexes often migrate from rural agricultural areas with limited socio-economic opportunities to the towns and cities, for all kinds of employment (van der geest, 2010; kwankye et al., 2007; abdulkorah, 2011; awumbila, 2015). although the theory provides information on the structural differences between places of origin (rural areas) and destination (urban centers) which could induce female migration from the surrounding communities or districts within the central region to the cape coast metropolis, it is not certain that migrants actually do a cost-benefit analysis before migrating (mcdowell and de haan, 1997; de haas, 2010; tanle, 2010). the migration networks theory stipulates that migration is a set of interpersonal links or connections in which migrants interact with their families, friends or compatriots at the places of origin through the exchange of information and provision of diverse support mechanisms. these interactions facilitate the migration process of potential migrants as it reduces costs and inherent risks associated with migration (taylor, 1999; tanle, 2010; 2018). in sub-saharan africa, through migration networks, some migrants (including females) from rural areas have been able to join their counterparts already in the informal sector businesses in the towns and cities (elkan et al., 1982; synnove, 1999; van der geest, 2010; tanle and awusabo-asare, 2007; adepoju, 2010; abdul-korah, 2011; awumbila et al., 2017). through migration networks, female migrants from neighboring communities and districts within the central region could be assisted in various ways by their friends or compatriots to migrate to the cape coast metropolis to engage in informal sector businesses. it 61 is, however, instructive to note that migration networks cannot continue unabated due to socio-economic, political or some structural changes which could make a hitherto popular migrants’ destination area no longer attractive to migrants (tanle, 2010; arongo, 2018). there is no consensus on the definition of the informal sector or economy but this paper adopts the definition by khotkina (2007), as any legal income-generating activity resulting in the production of goods and services by workers who are outside the organized workforce which may or may not include any violation of legal laws (tanle, 2018). in most developing countries, there are no specific legal regulations guiding the informal sector (adei and kunfaa, 2007; burton, 2010; monney et al., 2014). in ghana, it has been noted that the sector is characterized by poor environmental health and safety conditions, lack of protection by institutions mandated to ensure occupational health and safety at the workplace, and no recognition by the labor laws regarding the peculiar conditions of informal sector work (burton, 2010; osei-boateng and ampratwum, 2011). based on these factors, this study draws on regulations of the international labour organization (ilo), the united nations convention, and the 2003 ghana labour act (government of ghana, 2003), to reflect on the work and living circumstances of female migrant workers in the cape coast metropolis. these instruments are anchored on principles codified in the universal declaration of human rights. these include the ilo migration for employment convention, 1949 (no. 97), the ilo migrant workers (supplementary provisions) convention, 1975 (no. 143), and the 1990 un international convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families. for instance, ilo convention 97 requires non-discrimination between nationals and migrants in job recruitments, contract and working conditions, access to justice, tax and social security regulations (ilo, 2015). in ghana, studies on female migrants engaged in various activities in the informal sector have been widely documented (tanle and awusabo-asare, 2007; awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf, 2008; awumbila, 2015; awumbila et al., 2017a; awumbila et al., 2017b). some of these studies have noted the autonomous migration of young women and girls from rural agricultural communities in the north to urban centers in the south, where they work as head load porters (popularly known as kaya yei in ghana), attendants in local restaurants, domestic workers or petty traders with no regulations or any social protection (tanle and awusabo-asare, 2007; awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf, 2008; awumbila, 2015). another study by awumbila et al. (2017b) reported the mediating role of brokers in facilitating the recruitment, negotiation for better terms and conditions of employment of rural female migrants from poor rural agricultural communities into domestic work in accra. other studies (awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf, 2008; abdul-korah, 2011; briones, 2013; awumbila et al., 2014; awumbila et al., 2017a) have found that both male and female migrants are mostly engaged in the informal sector in low-paid, insecure occupations, have little or no control over their employment conditions, work longer hours experiences of female migrants in the informal sector businesses 62 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 in a day, but the females compared to their male counterparts are more vulnerable and often exploited by their employers. this paper focuses on sustainable development goal (sdg) 8, target 8.8. goal 8 seeks to “promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all”, whilst target 8.8 seeks to “protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all including female migrant workers, and those engaged in high risk jobs” (who, 2016). in 2015, the united nations (un) proposed the concept of sustainable development goals, central to its development agenda to guide the global community in its development programs. the sdgs comprised 17 goals and 169 targets, and member countries are expected to adopt/adapt these goals and targets and use them as benchmarks to assess their own levels of development, by 2030. in this regard, target 8.8 serves as a framework for addressing the lived experiences of female migrants in the informal sector businesses in the cape coast metropolis and others in similar situations across the country. there is therefore the need for research on these female migrants, to better inform policies and programs meant to address their plight, as proposed in sdg 8 and target 8.8. the perspectives presented in this section provide the context for discussing the experiences of female migrants engaged in informal sector businesses in the cape coast metropolis. study area, design and methodology the cape coast metropolis is bounded on the south by the gulf of guinea, on the west by the komenda-edina-eguafo-abrem municipality, on the east by the aburaasebu kwamankese district and on the north by the twifu hemang-lower denkyira district (figure 1). the metropolis is the smallest in the country and covers an area of 122 square kilometers. the capital, cape coast, is also the capital of the central region, and the first national capital of the former gold coast, now ghana. the cape coast metropolis has a population of 169,894, comprising 48.7% males and 51.3% females (government of ghana, 2012). the metropolis is 77.0% urbanized and has a 90.0% literacy rate, which is higher than the national average of 74.1% (government of ghana, 2012). the metropolis is endowed with historical, traditional and cultural resources which serve as a tourist attraction in ghana. the metropolis has a large daily market and some satellite markets, a wide range of banking, hospitality, and health facilities. the large population, brisk commercial activities and tourist attractions attract migrants to the metropolis to engage in all kinds of informal sector businesses. in ghana, gender roles are prescribed for males and females and this is extended to informal sector businesses (tanle, 2018; government of ghana, 2014; porter et al., 2011). 63 figure 1: map of the cape coast metropolis showing the study sites source: geographic information system (gis) and cartographic unit of the department of geography and regional planning, university of cape coast (ucc), cape coast. the study is a cross-sectional qualitative assessment of migrant female hawkers and those who work as sales assistants in provision shops or serve in drinking bars and local restaurants in the cape coast metropolis. given the nature of these enterprises, we adopted a flexible, convenient and more engaging approach to data collection. we used a semi-structured interview guide to conduct in-depth interviews (idis) with the respondents, which covered the nature, terms and conditions of their work, physical and health risks and future aspirations. to ensure wide dispersion, the interviews were conducted in the daily and satellite markets and suburbs of the metropolis. the interviews with hawkers and sales assistants in provisions shops were conducted at the abura, kotokoraba, kingsway and tantri markets while female migrants serving in bars and local restaurants were contacted at pedu, adisadel and bakaano, all in the cape coast metropolis. because of the nature of the activities of hawkers, we visited and positioned ourselves at different locations of the markets and also along the main streets. female hawkers selling along the streets were then purposively targeted, conveniently experiences of female migrants in the informal sector businesses 64 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 approached and invited to participate in the study. the objectives of the study, study procedures, potential risks and benefits were explained to the potential participants. participation in the study was voluntary and participants had the right to accept or refuse participation in the study without suffering any denial of their fundamental human rights. to ensure anonymity, the real names or any information that can reveal the identity of the participants were not used in the study report or publication of its findings. in this paper, we used only pseudonyms in the excerpts from the transcripts. individuals who consented to participate in the study were invited to suitable locations to ensure their privacy. this arrangement also ensured that the interviews were done devoid of interruptions. there were no payments for participation in the study. however, at the end of each interview, participants were given a token in appreciation of their participation. prior to data collection, we thoroughly reviewed the interview guide and carried out mock interviews to ensure its appropriateness and suitability. the interviews were conducted in the preferred local languages of the respondents (fante/twi), tape recorded, transcribed verbatim into english and edited for analysis. the tape recorders and transcripts were locked in a cabinet to which only the study investigators had access. similarly, all transcripts were saved, passworded and accessible only to the study investigators. after the edited and final versions of transcripts were submitted to the investigators, all files including those in the recycle bin on the laptops of the interview moderators were deleted. because of our interest in the vulnerabilities and coping strategies of the participants and the policy implications for them, of the 40 in-depth interviews conducted, this paper is limited to 34 of the interviews with participants who were employed by other people. the qsr nvivo qualitative software version 11, was used to process the data for thematic analysis. the software permits data to be coded in major and sub-themes and this helps in relating and contrasting within and between cases. this approach enabled us to build a holistic picture of the perceptions, lived experiences and future aspirations of the female migrants in the metropolis. we paid attention to views that differed from the dominant themes and extracted texts from the various aligning and contrasting views of participants to build the findings. results background characteristics of participants a total of 34 female migrants working in four main informal settings (hawkers, sales attendants in provisions shops, waitresses in drinking bars and local restaurants) were interviewed. eight of the study participants were hawkers, 20 of them worked as waitresses in local restaurants and drinking bars while six were sales assistants in provisions shops. the hawkers were involved in different trading activities such as the sale of second-hand clothing, sachet water, fruits and local beverages (bisap/sobolo). a few of them were involved in the sale of multiple items, depending on trends in 65 sales and the season of the year, especially with regards to the sale of seasonal perishable products such as fruits and vegetables. those serving in drinking bars and ‘chop bars’/restaurants were either waitresses or cooks, or both. most of the participants were in their twenties. twenty-two of the participants had no children at the time of the study and the rest had between one and three children. the study participants migrated to the metropolis mainly from the eastern, volta, greater accra, ashanti, and northern regions and, surrounding districts in the central region of ghana. in terms of education, four of the participants said they dropped out of school but did not indicate the specific stage. fifteen others dropped out at the primary school level. twelve of them completed junior high secondary (jhs) while five dropped out of school at the senior high school (shs) level. participants intimated that marital instability (divorce) of their parents, lack of parental support and poverty were the main reasons for dropping out of school. six of the migrants dropped out of school because of unintended pregnancies. nature, duration and context of work we gauged participants’ views about the nature of their work. in the migrants’ views, the nature of the work depends on the specific activity or role one is engaged in. for hawkers, this may concern the goods being sold, the terms and conditions agreed with the owner of the business, on the season of the year, and general sales trends. unlike the formal sector, hawkers and female migrants in the hospitality industry work for comparatively longer hours. some of the migrants interviewed indicated that they start their day as early as possible first by doing household chores such as sweeping, washing of clothes and dishes, bathing and preparing children for school before they go hawking. these children may be their own children or the children of their employers. on good days, they make profits but on other days, they make losses, especially if dealing in perishable products such as tomatoes, bananas or bisap/sobolo (a local beverage). commencement and duration of their daily work depend on the specific activity involved, as indicated in the excerpts below. actually, i assist a woman who sells in the market from morning till 3pm and start hawking my own bananas from that time and close when my things get finished around 6pm. i work every day including sundays (a 22-year-old banana seller). i normally start hawking at 9am and close at 3pm. when i have [goods] left over, i store them in the fridge for the next day but when it goes bad, i throw it away. so, there are days i make a profit and days i run at a loss (a 20-year-old bisap/sobolo seller). migrants working in restaurants and drinking bars typically start their working day as early as about 4am and close at about 10pm. similarly, the daily routine of waitexperiences of female migrants in the informal sector businesses 66 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 resses or cooks includes, cleaning of cooking utensils, sweeping and setting up seats for customers. during weekends or festive periods and special occasions, such as weddings, funerals and festivals, female migrants who work in drinking bars, could close from work as late as 12 midnight or even later. in some instances, the waitresses are permitted to close only if there are no more customers to be served. waitresses and cooks work a minimum of six days a week and in some cases, they are given only a few hours of rest on sundays. however, even on such days, the migrants exceed the legally acceptable maximum working hours of 8 hours a day for five working days a week, as enshrined in ghana’s labour law (government of ghana, 2003). yet, for some of the migrants, especially those working in bars and restaurants, routine tasks unattended to during their rest, such as washing of bowls and cooking utensils and loading of the fridge with drinks, await them the next day as explained in the following narrative: i work the whole week, from monday to saturday. i start work at 4am and close at 10pm but on sunday i come here at 6am and close at 4 pm. when i get here in the morning, i first clean up the place, fetch water in all the containers, and then wash the napkins and other cloths and also the utensils that were not washed the previous day. in the evening around 9:30 pm, i sweep the kitchen and wash utensils (bowls and plates) (a 22-year-old waitress at a local restaurant). most of the hawkers interviewed said they operate mainly in the vicinity of the abura market. occasionally however, they move to other communities, including public institutions, to promote their wares. in these circumstances, hawkers may face resistance or backlash from members of those new territories that they try to explore. resistance by community members may be a strategy to avoid competition and to reinforce their territorial dominance. according to one respondent: i hawk around and go to ucc campus at times but now they (the ucc security and store owners who have monopolized the satellite markets as their territory) don’t even allow us there (a 28-year-old second-hand clothes seller). motivations and aspirations for engaging in informal sector business activities generally, certain factors and conditions serve to attract people into specific industries or occupations. these may include availability of job opportunities, work environment, including location and security of the job, remuneration, welfare policies such as paid annual and sick leave, health insurance and social security policies. the presence or absence of these factors may serve to attract or discourage people from desiring employment in those sectors. in this study, we explored female migrants’ motivations, aspirations and circumstances that informed their migration to the metropolis and engagement in the various informal business activities. participants intimated that poverty and the lack of better job opportunities and family-related factors compelled them to migrate, in search of livelihood opportunities. some participants indicated that they had no one to cater for them at 67 home, hence their consideration of their current jobs as a chance to earn a living. other participants who had children said the inability of their male partners to take care of the family pushed them into such activities. however, the narratives of some of the participants show that regardless of their circumstances, they aspire to become independent entrepreneurs, owners of their own businesses such as dressmaking and hairdressing, as illustrated below: oh, i will not be doing this work forever. if i get another work which is less risky and the pay is better, i will stop this one and go there. i want to open my own shop and do hairdressing. before i came to my auntie, i learnt some hairdressing in my hometown. so, i will learn more and open my own shop (a 32-year-old female in a local restaurant). i came here because i was at home and had no job. i would quit if i get a better job but for now, i have to do it to take care of the kids. i have plans of learning dressmaking. after i completed jhs, i could not continue because there was no ‘home at home’ (life was difficult) so i had to start working for my upkeep (a 24-year-old second-hand clothes dealer). with regards to decision-making, most of the migrants indicated that it was their personal decision to migrate, and to engage in their current jobs. this is consistent with the findings of tanle and awusabo-asare (2007), in a study on the kaya-yei business – female porters carrying loads on the head, for a fee – that the decision to migrate is often made by the individual migrant or his/her household members. they explained that the lack of or little education they attained did not give them a competitive edge for formal jobs. some participants were of the view that if one is not ‘well connected’ (having relations or access to people in higher positions who can influence a decision in one’s favor), it is difficult to secure employment in the formal sector. in their circumstances, they felt engaging in their present jobs was better than being unemployed. others however, mentioned that it was through their friends, relatives and other personal networks that they became aware of and were encouraged to get involved in their present business activities. the following excerpts illuminate the circumstances that motivated the decisions to engage in these activities: i was brought here by a woman from my hometown to come and assist her. the woman normally brings the drinks for me to sell (a 19-year-old female mineral water seller). i wanted to come but i didn’t have the lorry fare, so a family friend agreed to pay for me to come to cape coast. so, i have to work to pay the transport cost and other expenses. (a 15-year-old female waitress in a local restaurant). earnings and work environment remuneration for work done is an important motivation for hard work and job satisfaction. on the whole, workers who are well paid are usually motivated to work experiences of female migrants in the informal sector businesses 68 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 harder to achieve set targets. poorly paid workers are prone to low output and productivity. in this study, we explored participants’ views about their earnings. the monthly earnings of participants ranged from gh¢50.00 to gh¢200.00 (about $11 to $45). some participants intimated that they invest their earnings as savings in the form of susu (an informal savings arrangement between a customer and the operator), as explained by this respondent: i normally do susu savings daily and get about gh¢100.00 a month when the market is good but on bad months, i make about gh¢70.00 (a 20-year-old bisap/sobolo seller). participants who indicated that they earn daily wages, reported that their daily wage ranges from gh¢5.00 to gh¢30.00. most of those who receive daily wages earn below the daily minimum wage of gh¢10.65 in 2018 (ofori-atta, 2017). according to the labour act 651 (government of ghana, 2003), every worker in ghana is entitled to be paid his or her remuneration for public holidays and for overtime work. overtime work refers to any extra work done beyond the hours of work, fixed by the rules of that work. exceptions are in circumstances including, accidents threatening human lives or the very existence of the undertaking. in addition, every worker is entitled to no less than fifteen working days’ leave with full pay in any calendar year of continuous service. given their low earnings, one of the women who deals in the sale of water has devised her own savings whereby on a daily basis, she drops a specific amount of money into a personal savings box. while this strategy seems innovative and appealing for the informal sector, it is prone to risk of theft, given that most of them live in shared and unsecured facilities. two participants shared their experience: i normally save gh¢5.00 a day in my money box (a 17-year-old sachet water seller). i make gh¢30.00 when the sale is good but gh¢20.00 daily when things are not so good (a 32-year-old tomatoes seller). working environment, challenges, personal experiences and perceptions of risk participants were encouraged to talk about their work environment, what they perceive as challenges or risks and to share their lived or perceived risk experiences encountered in the course of their work. we probed for details where such personal, sensitive incidents were admitted. those who serve in bars and restaurants admitted and bemoaned the hazardous nature of their work environment and encounters with abusive clients, co-workers and even employers. they indicated that the poor and filthy surroundings of their workplaces exposed them to mosquito bites, injuries from broken bottles, kitchen knives, fish and tomato cans, and burns from naked fires and exposure to thick smoke in the kitchens. they also complained of stress at work which causes bodily pains and fatigue. in some instances, when they get injured, the cost of their treatment may be deducted from their meagre monthly earnings. these reported experiences are vividly captured in the following excerpts: 69 i was sweeping the bar one day and had a big cut from a broken bottle. my madam told me to continue to work even though i was in much pain. i had no choice, so i had to work with the pains like that. she bought some medicine and dressed the wound but later deducted the cost of the medicine from my pay (a 24-year-old female in local food and drinks restaurant). due to the stressful nature of the work, i feel pains all over my body every day after work. because of my duties here, i usually get cuts from knives and cans when opening canned fish and tomatoes. also, i usually get fire burns. the heat from the cooking also makes my eyes to hurt sometimes (a 27-year-old female in a local restaurant). sometimes people smoke around here, which affects us but you can’t do anything about it. if you complain, some of them become annoyed and talk nonsense to you (a 17-year-old female working in a drinking bar). some participants also complained of frequent verbal abuse and insults from clients, co-workers and their employers, especially when they made mistakes. in some instances, they were sexually harassed by clients, as narrated by one respondent: the work is stressful. there are mosquitoes during the night and sometimes some customers talk to us anyhow and even sometimes our madam too, they don’t respect us. some customers even harass us and try to touch our private parts (a 22-year-old migrant working in a bar). some hawkers complained of having to carry heavy loads of wares and walking several hours to sell, which make them tired and yet, some clients would insist on buying on credit. the women’s accounts of carrying heavy loads and walking long distances for several hours are consistent with tanle and awusabo's (2007) findings, based on a study on the kaya yei phenomenon in the kumasi and accra metropolis areas in ghana. chasing after clients to redeem their debts is challenging, and hawkers occasionally get verbally abused, and may suffer physical injury in trying to retrieve their money. traders of perishable goods, such as tomatoes, bemoaned how the sector gets crowded when the crop is in season, resulting in losses owing to lack of storage facilities. the hawkers’ narratives below shed more light on the lived and perceived risks suffered in the hawking industry: the work is tiring and most people buy on credit and ask you to come for the money later, but some even end up denying owing you and quarrel with you (a 19-year-old sachet water seller). the challenge is that when tomatoes are in season, most people hawk in it, so the competition is high. there are times when i am not able to sell all, so by the next morning it rots. when this happens, my madam will make a loss and blame me for it. because of that she will not pay me or give me something less than my normal pay (a 27-year-old tomatoes seller). experiences of female migrants in the informal sector businesses 70 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 some respondents, especially hawkers and sales assistants, said they had not experienced any serious sensitive incidents. they were generally content with their working environments and described them as “not bad”, except when it rains, and the weather becomes unfavorable. one participant said she was content with her job and also had a good relationship with her employer, while another complained of her clients being overly demanding, i will like to keep doing this work because i don’t want to spoil the relationship i have with my madam. but i will leave this job if my husband wants us to relocate to another place. i will go and start my own ‘chop bar’ (a 27-year-old female in a local restaurant). there are days i come, and no one buys my goods. some customers too trouble us with their specifications. on rainy days, the market is bad because of the weather (a 22-year-old second-hand clothes seller). living and sleeping arrangements the living and sleeping arrangements expose the migrants to some amount of risk including, weather vagaries, theft, physical abuse and even rape. as such, we explored the views of the participants about their perceived safety. generally, the living environment of the participants is deplorable. most of the participants live in rented, single rooms with or without their children or share the room with other colleagues. some of them sleep in rooms with poor ventilation, which they attributed to their being exposed to frequent infections, for instance, skin rashes. others intimated that they live in wooden sheds whilst others sleep in the very stores where they work. a few of the migrants are able to afford mattresses to sleep on. most of them sleep on floor mats, a situation one participant described as being very uncomfortable. a 14-year-old young woman lamented her poor living conditions, which exposed her to illnesses: the room is not good and there are always a lot of mosquitoes which bite us and we always become sick of malaria (a 14-year-old migrant in a local restaurant). my children and i sleep in the same room. i am having issues with my husband, so, i am alone with the kids in a single room and sleep on a mattress on the floor, which is very uncomfortable (a 22-year-old sachet water seller). i am sharing the same room with other hawkers. they are all grownups and the youngest among us is 14 years old. five of us share a single room and there is too much heat in the room, which always makes us get skin rashes (a 22-year-old oyster seller). 71 discussion this study assessed the circumstances that induce female migrants to engage in selected informal livelihood activities, their lived experiences, risk exposures and vulnerabilities in the cape coast metropolis of ghana. we found that the motivations for female migration and dynamics involved in informal sector businesses in the metropolis are multiple and complex. generally, the study participants were young, had little or no formal education, and migrated mainly from other regions and surrounding districts of the central region. our findings are consistent with those of owusu and abrokwah (2014) who found that the majority of their study participants (72.0%) were between the ages of 18-39 years. our results are not surprising because the nature of their livelihood activities requires considerable strength and energy. iyenda (2005) observed for instance, that street hawkers require resilience and toughness to persist in such a conflict-ridden activity and that the physical energy required means that hawkers in their active adult ages are capable of engaging in successful hawking (owusu and abrokwah, 2014). given that most of the study participants had little or no formal education, their chances of securing formal employment were very minimal. this is consistent with owusu and abrokwah's (2014) study among street hawkers in accra which revealed that the sector is dominated by people with no or low educational status and who lack appropriate skills required for formal jobs. a world bank report on six african countries (kenya, côte d’ivoire, ghana, zimbabwe, uganda, and south africa) indicated that women dominate street vending because they lack formal education and relevant skills required for formal employment and other economic opportunities (mitullah, 2003). in addition, the role of attendants in local restaurants and drinking bars is apparently the preserve of women. this may be attributed to the pervasive gendered structure of the ghanaian society (arnot et al., 2012), which prescribes serving customers and cooking as women’s work. our research results reflect the general features of hawking, which depends on the type of goods, ownership of the business, the season of the year and general sales trends. hawkers may be classified into two categories: those who own their businesses and those who are employed by others. hawkers work for comparatively longer hours if the businesses are owned by someone else; and they also do additional unpaid household chores, such as sweeping, washing of clothes and dishes, bathing and preparing children for school. this category of hawkers is more vulnerable to exploitation by their employers. in contrast, hawkers who own their businesses are less stressed but they bear additional costs of accommodation and rental space for their wares. both categories of hawkers, however, regard hawking as a temporary business activity to raise capital needed to secure more stable or lucrative jobs, as observed in earlier studies (tanle, 2018; elkan et al., 1982). geographical proximity appears to explain why most of the study participants were migrants from nearby districts of the central region. also, within the context experiences of female migrants in the informal sector businesses 72 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 of the neoclassical micro-economic theory, the female migrants might have been attracted to the cape coast metropolis because of the varied economic opportunities and the possibilities of seeking jobs in the informal sector in particular. in this study, we found that poverty, the desire for better livelihoods and marital instability or irresponsibility on the part of their spouses were the dominant factors that informed females’ decisions to migrate to the cape coast metropolis to engage in their respective livelihood activities. our findings are consistent with the observations of greenwood and mcdowell (1986) and todaro (1989), as cited in ilo (2016). the accounts of participants in this study clearly show that the context of their migration and their engagement in the various livelihood activities were purely personal, voluntary as well as structural and driven by gendered inequalities and economic motivations as espoused by the neoclassical micro-economic theory of migration (mitullah, 2003). in their own explanations, engaging in these livelihood activities was better than “idling” (being unemployed). the specific processes involved in the migration of women in this study can be situated within the context of the migration networks theory. some of the migrants explained that it was through their friends, relatives and other personal networks that they became aware of, were encouraged and supported to get involved in their chosen livelihood activities. according to guilmoto and sandron ( 2001), migration networks are associated with lower cost of travel and mitigates risk with regards to choice of destination and period of departure, sharing travel costs, social and professional integration in the destination community and developing links with the place of origin. some of the female migrants in this study revealed that they could not afford the cost of transportation and their relatives consequently paid their fares with the understanding that the beneficiaries would reimburse them later when they settled and started making their own money. others admitted that they lived in a shared room since the cost of accommodation was far beyond their individual reach. while benefiting from these potential social capital synergies, living in shared and overcrowded conditions expose migrants to risk of contagious diseases, such as skin and respiratory infections. the livelihood activities in this study have been shown to be associated with physical, psychological and health risks (tanle, 2018; tanle and awusabo-asare, 2007; asiedu and agyei-mensah, 2008; awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf, 2008). for instance, hawking along major streets poses risk to both buyers and sellers. the accounts of participants in this study with respect to their perceptions of risk were at variance with their personal experiences. on the one hand, some participants claimed that there were no serious risks involved in their business. on the other hand, their personal experiences pointed to the fact that some of them, especially hawkers and waitresses of drinking bars and local restaurants experienced significant risks. for instance, some participants complained of suffering verbal abuse from both their employers and clients. others sustained injuries through cuts from broken bottles and kitchen knives, sexual harassment, exposure to smoke and kitchen fires, fatigue, 73 losses in sales of perishable goods, such as tomatoes, owing to the lack of storage facilities. indeed, a hawker who sold sachet water, shared a horrifying experience of how she collapsed on one occasion while working, due to ill health. apparently, most of the study participants were more concerned about what they earned from their livelihood activities than their personal health. it appears that the fear of losing a job, clouds migrants’ perceptions of risk and this undermines their well-being. in ghana, as in most developing countries, there are no formal laws and regulations governing the informal sector. in fact, hawking along the streets of accra in ghana infringes on the by-laws governing the use of city-space (asiedu and agyeimensah, 2008). yet, attempts to evict hawkers at unauthorized locations, especially in the capital city of accra, have yielded limited results (owusu and abrokwah, 2014). owusu and abrokwah (2014), in their study, concluded that hawkers (be they migrants or non-migrants) have consistently and will continue to resist evictions from the streets because their survival and that of an average of four dependants rest solely on daily incomes made from hawking. this study did not however, focus on issues regarding permissible space for hawking in the cape coast metropolis. a key interest in this study was to explore the migrants’ lived experiences including the nature and form of working relationships with their employers. we found that all 34 female migrants had an informal and verbal working agreement with their employers. this exposes them to some degree of vulnerability and exploitation. since all the participants in this study are ghanaians, the constitution of ghana and in particular, laws codified in the ghana labour act (government of ghana, 2003), may be relied upon for the protection of actors in the informal sector including, female migrants who engage in hawking and services in the hospitality industry for a living. the ghana labour act (2003) recognizes and upholds the right of all ghanaians to employment and equal treatment in recruitment procedures, the right to safe working conditions, access to justice, tax and social security regulations, the right to formal contract procedures (non-verbal) and the right to join and participate in labor unions, among many others. a potential challenge concerns the fact that most informal sector workers are not members of recognized trade or labor unions, they have little or no education, are poor and vulnerable and therefore, not well positioned to assert their rights or may not even be aware of their rights. based on these challenges, the plight of female migrants, including other vulnerable groups in the informal business sector, provides the context for addressing sustainable development goal (sdg) 8, especially target 8.8, which seeks to “protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all including female migrant workers, and those engaged in high risk jobs” (who, 2016). the import of the sdg 8 and target 8.8 therefore provides a framework for addressing the lived experiences of females engaged in diverse informal sector businesses in the cape coast metropolis of ghana. experiences of female migrants in the informal sector businesses 74 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 conclusions and policy implications in conclusion, the accounts of female migrants in these informal sector businesses in the cape coast metropolis show that the sector is highly unstructured and unregulated. female migrants are vulnerable and often exploited and abused by clients, as well as employers. although the motives for migration are mainly economic, as espoused by the micro-economic theory of migration, their daily or monthly earnings are at the mercy of their employers, and their work, living and sleeping environments are unsafe. considering that the findings of this study reflect what generally prevails in other parts of the country, ghana is unlikely to achieve target 8.8 of the sdg 8. given the growing importance of female migrants to the growth of the informal sector, and the fact that these migrants are often not members of recognized trade or labor unions, there is a critical need for the government of ghana to enforce the relevant policies and programs that protect the fundamental human rights, safety, health and well-being of migrants in these and similar informal livelihood activities. we also recommend an integrated approach for addressing vulnerable female migrants’ health concerns and social needs. this should include the enforcement of the ghana labour act of 2003 (act 651), operationalization of the legal advocacy for women in africa, ghana chapter (lawa, ghana) and collaboration among nongovernmental organizations (ngos), civil society groups, and religious bodies to address the structural, as well as personal challenges of migrants in these and similar informal economic activities. migrants in this sector should be encouraged to form unions with leadership structures for easy reach and engagement. since these migrants tend to prioritize their earnings over their personal health, the package of support services to them should include free voluntary health counselling, screening and treatments, contraceptives and legal aid where necessary. acknowledgment we wish to acknowledge and appreciate the study participants for making time out of their busy schedules to participate in the study and for their honest and sincere responses to questions asked, which contributed greatly to the quality of the data. we equally acknowledge the contribution of the interview moderators for their invaluable contribution to the study, especially during the training, data collection and transcription of the interviews. finally, we appreciate the management of the department of population and health, and the faculty of social sciences of the university of cape coast, for the use of their facilities. 75 references abdul-korah, g.b. 2011. “now if you have only sons you are dead”: migration, gender, and family economy in twentieth century north-western ghana. journal of asian and african studies, 46(4): 390-403. https://doi. org/10.1177/0021909611400016 adanu, 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migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis dick ranga abstract focusing on unskilled zimbabweans, this paper assesses the influence of the prolonged zimbabwean crisis (2000–2016) on age differences in migration to south africa. it is based on a questionnaire survey conducted among 166 households in 4 south-eastern districts in 2016/2017. three-fifths of the households had migrant members in south africa driven by the lack of jobs, poverty or food shortages at home. labour migration to south africa was maledominated and involved younger people (below 30) than older people. most of the migrants aged 30 or older moved during the peak of the crisis (2006–2010), most likely under the pressure of finding a means of survival for their families left behind. young men who have a pre-crisis history in this migration predominated again after the crisis peak (after 2010). most of this labour migration was clandestine and involved people with low levels of education. hence, most of these migrants worked as ‘general hands’ earning zar 1,500 or less per month in south africa. in this paper, it is argued that the zimbabwean government should control such risky youth migration by creating jobs or income-generating projects in zimbabwe and educating youth about unsafe migration. keywords selectivity, migration, youth, majoni-joni, zimbabwean crisis. introduction recently, there has been a renewed interest in migration selectivity, that is, the tendency among migrants to “self-select according to specific characteristics” (kanbur & rapoport, 2003: 4). this is due to increased international migration resulting from globalisation. some scholars have argued that in africa women are increasingly involved in economic migration rather than merely accompanying their male partners (adepoju, 2005). however, this paper argues that this change may not have dawned everywhere in africa, even in west africa, the region about which the author writes. for instance, the british broadcasting corporation news (bbc) (2015) documented the case of a small town in burkina faso where women formed the majority of the population  faculty of applied social sciences, zimbabwe open university. email: rangadic@yahoo.com age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1256 because most men migrated to italy for waged labour. although the bbc news highlighted some economic benefits associated with this migration, it also noted that these unaware young girls are trapped into celibacy as their newly wedded husbands stay for prolonged periods in the diaspora and only visit home for short periods. this is because with the meagre salaries they earn on italian farms they cannot afford airfares to frequently travel between italy and burkina faso. the plight of these young women is similar to that of their counterparts in southern zimbabwe, where most young men migrate to south africa in search of better wages or employment opportunities, leaving their wives in the ‘custody’ of their parents or other relatives (manamere, 2014). muzondidya (2008: 6) reported that it was in the late 1980s and 1990s that young single men from drought-prone southern zimbabwe (masvingo, midlands and matebeleland provinces) started migrating in search of “better-paying jobs in south africa, botswana and namibia […]”. known as injiva in the matebeleland region and majoni joni in south-eastern zimbabwe, these young men usually visit home during the christmas holidays and are popular among young girls who regard them as better suitors than local men (manamere, 2014). after marrying these girls and leaving them with their parents, these young men return to south africa for prolonged periods. manamere (2014) cited other scholars who observe the tendency among young men from chiredzi district in south-eastern zimbabwe and neighbouring mozambique to migrate in search of jobs in south africa. for these young men, labour migration has become a ‘rite of passage’ into adulthood since it is often meant to raise money for lobola (payment made to one’s in-laws), as best described by manamere (2014: 92): from the late nineteenth century, many young rural men in southern mozambique and zimbabwe came to see their movement across the border as a necessary ‘rite of passage’, and step to marriage and social adulthood (harries 1994; van onselen 1980). as native commissioners observed in relation to chiredzi’s shangaan labour migrants, for a male shangaan youth to become a ‘man’ he must have “rubbed shoulders with workers in south africa”, braving the dangers of the journey and the hardships of migrant life in the township compounds. the study informing this paper assessed whether the prolonged zimbabwean crisis (2000–2016) led to any changes in labour migration from south-eastern age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1257 zimbabwe to south africa, especially in terms of selectivity by age and other characteristics such as gender and marital status. politically, the zimbabwean crisis was characterised by corruption involving some members of the ruling party (zanu-pf), unilateral decisions meant to strengthen the ruling party or benefit a few within the party, the use of violence during the ‘fast track’ land reform programme and towards elections and disputed election results. this led to hyperinflation of the local currency, a shortage of basic commodities, closure and relocation of many companies and increasing unemployment and poverty. all this led to a mass exodus of zimbabweans by those from all walks of life in search of employment, particularly in neighbouring countries such as south africa, botswana, mozambique and zambia. south africa was the major host of these migrants with an estimated 3–4 million zimbabweans having relocated there. according to muzondidya (2008), the migration of zimbabweans to south africa that took place during the peak of the crisis in the 2000s was less selective as it involved both the young and old, married and single, southerners and northerners, skilled and unskilled. a combination of both the young and old could be discerned in some of the studies conducted among zimbabwean migrants in south africa during the peak of the crisis in the 2000s. for instance, mosala (2008) found that most of the zimbabwean migrants were between 21 and 40 years of age (mosala, 2008). studies conducted by rutherford (2010) among zimbabweans who worked on south african farms close to the zimbabwe border found that most of them were married men who migrated because they were heads of their households and were responsible for caring for their families in zimbabwe. these studies suggested the increased migration of zimbabwean men who were older, married and motivated by the need to provide for their families affected by the crisis at home. studies conducted in the early 2010s, especially from traditional migrant sending districts in south-eastern zimbabwe, are silent about the potential impact of the crisis in terms of increasing the migration of both the old and young. instead, they continued to emphasize the migration of young men, which was also associated with challenges. for instance, the zimbabwe youth council (zyc) (2014: xi) reported that the migration of young men was associated with illegal migration to south africa “upon completing grade seven (7) [...] in search of jobs in south africa”. this organisation reported that young women were also increasingly involved in illegal migration, with some of them being subjected to rape on transit to south africa (zyc, 2014). these young age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1258 men and women would do jobs considered unappealing by many south africans, such as domestic and farm work. elsewhere, kanbur and rapoport (2003) argue that on average immigrants are less skilled than natives of the united states (us). nevertheless, these scholars refer to us statistics, which show that few immigrants migrated with no more than primary education. they found that migrants to the us tended to have better education than average persons in their home countries. this is relevant for zimbabweans who have migrated to south africa, since most of them have secondary education (mosala, 2008). ray, marlar and esipova (2010) argue that everywhere in the world, young people are more likely than older people to express the intention to relocate to another country, irrespective of their current occupation. this suggests that older people are likely to migrate only when the pressure to do so is strong, such as in the case of an economic crisis. even under such circumstances, migrants are unlikely to be older than non-migrants. in the case of zimbabwe, studies have found that most of the zimbabwean immigrants in south africa were below 40 years of age (tevera & chikanda, 2009) or between 21 and 40 years (mosala, 2008: 11), which are the peak years of work and family life. classical micro-economic theory of migration explains why both younger and older people migrate. it propounds that migration is performed by rational actors who, after a cost-benefit analysis, decide to migrate in expectation of a positive net return, which is usually monetary (massey et al., 1993). young men who migrate from zimbabwe to south africa often believe that there are better opportunities for employment or earning higher wages than those paid in zimbabwe. this argument has become more relevant recently given the early deindustrialisation, which increased unemployment in zimbabwe. in keeping with this argument, a village head interviewed by manamere (2014) in rural chiredzi suggested that young majoni-joni were ‘forced’ to migrate to south africa by the economic situation in zimbabwe. in other cases, the migrant does not come up with this decision alone but a larger unit, such as the household, may be involved in making the decision to migrate, as argued in the household decision-making model or new economics of migration by lucas and stark (1985). this is usually meant to minimize risks to the household, such as imperfect markets, crop failures and unemployment. this is also a relevant explanation for the migration of young single men and adult married men from south-eastern zimbabwe, a region that is largely age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1259 drought prone. furthermore, the lack of jobs due to early deindustrialisation in zimbabwe was likely to make survival increasingly uncertain for households in this region. the possibility of networking cannot be ruled out in this migration since some migrants were likely to connect with migrants who migrated earlier, including kin, friends and those with shared community origins (massey et al., 1993). having a family member abroad increases the chances that information might flow to those who had stayed behind, lessening the costs of migrating for other family members (fischer et al., 1997). achievements made by those who migrated earlier such as higher incomes, improved quality of life, ability to purchase land or improved agricultural productivity may also lure others into migration, as they may experience feelings deprivation relative to those who migrated. the migration of young men from the sending communities in south-eastern zimbabwe has been associated with several challenges. for instance, some of these young men are undocumented immigrants in south africa, as they migrate clandestinely through informal routes. a headman interviewed by manamere (2014: 96) in rural chiredzi suggested that this was “[…] because they do not have the necessary travel documents so they ‘jump’ the border with the help of their friends”. although the zyc (2014) suggested that young women are increasingly involved in clandestine migration, probably due to the crisis, the risks involved are likely to explain why more young men than women migrate to south africa. in addition, young women risk being raped by their male accomplices along these informal routes to south africa. clandestine migration is also likely to account for age differences in migration to south africa, since some older men are unlikely to take the risks involved or have worked and raised money to obtain the necessary travel documents. perhaps a challenge that is more related to age is that youth migration occurs “upon completing grade seven (7)” (zyc, 2014: xi). manamere (2014) argues that young men prefer crossing the border over completing their schooling. at the same time, their education helps shape “the type of work they have been able to secure in south africa” (manamere, 2014: 93). while young majoni joni drop out of school in search of jobs in south africa, young girls also have high drop-out rates in these communities as they “enter into early marriages with these men whom they believe to be better off than unemployed young men at age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1260 home” (manamere, 2014: 94). manamere (2014) discusses some of the challenges facing the young girls who get married to majoni joni in detail. as previously mentioned, in many instances, majoni-joni enter into relationships with young girls and leave their new wives under the care of their parents, often returning home at very infrequent intervals. a range of problems have ensued from the subsequent misunderstandings and infidelity, including escalating divorce rates, an apparent rise in wife-battering as well as the spread of hiv-aids. rural elders see young male border crossers as violent immoral criminals, people who break marriages, spread hiv/aids (returning having contracted the disease) and abandon their wives and children, creating diaspora orphans. the fact that some young men enter south africa clandestinely may exacerbate these challenges. having ‘jumped’ the border, these young migrants are unlikely to visit home more frequently. south africa has tried to reduce clandestine migration by formalising immigration through the issuing of work permits in the 2011 dispensation for zimbabweans. furthermore, most of these young men migrate at ages during which they are sexually active, which increases their risk of being trapped in the pleasures of the host country. according to muzondidya (2008: 15), young migrants are less likely to remit home due to “the excitement of being away from home and the excitement of the ‘bright lights’ of egoli”. the objectives of this study are to (1) determine the ages at which the labour migrants left south-eastern zimbabwe for south africa during the crisis; (2) analyse age differences in the period during which the labour migrants left for south africa during the crisis; (3) assess for association between age at migration and migrating clandestinely; (4) explore the contribution of other personal characteristics of the migrants to age differences in labour migration to south africa and (5) investigate the role played by household and districtlevel factors in age differences in labour migration to south africa. methodology the study mainly adopted the quantitative research approach, whereby household heads, with assistance from other household members to crosscheck the accuracy of the information, responded to a household questionnaire. the sampling strategy involved the purposive selection of four districts in south-eastern zimbabwe including zaka, bikita, chipinge and age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1261 chimanimani districts. these districts have a tradition of labour migration to south africa and, therefore, would best show any changes that occurred in age selectivity as a result of the crisis. parts of them are also drought prone such that livelihoods based on rain-fed peasant agriculture cannot be sustained. in each of the four selected districts, two wards were purposively selected. this was meant to reduce travelling costs as those wards in close proximity to each other were selected. efforts were also made to include wards in urban and rural areas. this is because the crisis was likely to influence labour migration to south africa from both urban and rural setups. snowball sampling (also known as referral sampling) was used to select both households with labour migrants in south africa and those without, for the sake of comparison. the researcher or assistant first identified an initial household with a migrant who once moved to south africa for labour reasons. he or she was then referred to other households with similar migrant members. although it is a non-probability sampling technique, snowball sampling allows the researcher to reach populations that are difficult to sample when using other sampling methods (creswell, 2011). more so, the process is cheap, simple and cost-efficient. while the desired number of households was 200, 50 from each of the 4 districts, the actual number enumerated was 166 households, indicating a response rate of 83%. this included 49 households from bikita, 48 zaka, 39 chipinge and 30 from chimanimani district. in one of the districts with the lowest response rates (chipinge), some migrant households were reluctant to participate in the study, fearing that their members who were clandestine migrants in south africa would be deported. others mistook the research assistants for donors and were afraid they would not get aid if it was known that they had members in the diaspora. results and findings level of labour migration from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa 100 out of 166 (approximately 60%) of the studied households had at least one migrant member (result not shown). among the migrant households, 87 out of 100 (87%) had international migrants. 85 of the international migrants were in south africa, one was in another african country and yet another was overseas (table 1). the remainder (13%) of the migrant households had internal migrants, most of whom migrated to cities or towns in zimbabwe. age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1262 most of the labour migrants from south-eastern zimbabwe migrated to south africa. this can be explained by the fact that this region is located close to the south african border and parts of this region are arid such that their rural economies “[…] cannot provide stable livelihoods based on small-scale rain-fed agriculture” (manamere, 2014: 91). the prolonged crisis is likely to have worsened migrants’ prospects of ever finding wage employment at home. consistently, half (42 out of 84) of the household heads confirmed that their members migrated to south africa because of the lack of jobs in zimbabwe (table 1). other reasons mentioned by relatively large proportions of the heads included poverty or need to escape poverty (15.5%), better wages in south africa (11.9%), perennial food shortages (10.7%) and following other young men (9.5%) (table 1). in other words, most of the members of these households were ‘pushed’ into migrating to south africa by the lack of jobs in zimbabwe and poverty, which was related to perennial food shortages given that some parts of this region are arid and cannot support livelihoods based on rain-fed agriculture. those attracted to south africa by better wages were fewer than those ‘pushed’ by the challenges at home. only one was ‘pushed’ into migrating to south africa by political violence and another by the need to conduct further education, which confirmed the predominance of economic over political reasons for migration. table 1: aspects of labour migration from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa aspect no. % destination of migrant town in zimbabwe 13 13.0 south africa 85 85.0 other country 2 2.0 reasons for migrating to south africa age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1263 lack of jobs in zimbabwe 42 50.0 poverty/escape poverty 13 15.5 better wages in south africa 10 11.9 perennial food shortages 9 10.7 follow other young men 8 9.5 escape political violence 1 1.2 education 1 1.2 occupation on arrival unemployed/student 10 12.0 vendor/run tuckshop/illegal miner 21 25.3 general hand 33 39.8 domestic worker 12 14.5 skilled/professional 7 8.4 wage earned on arrival $1–200 48 60.0 $201–400 20 25.0 more than $400 12 15.0 source: survey results age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1264 upon arrival in south africa, nearly two-fifths of the migrant members were employed as general hands (table 1). some of these immigrants were employed on a temporary basis to do odd jobs, such as assistant mechanics, farm-workers, etc. other studies have confirmed the presence of many unskilled and semi-skilled zimbabweans who work on south african farms, especially in limpopo province (muzondidya, 2008; manamere, 2014). in most cases, these immigrants are paid wages that are lower than the minimum wage, less than zar885 per month (muzondidya, 2008). this was followed by enterprising immigrants who operated as vendors, owners of spaza shops (or tuckshops) and illegal miners, especially in the abandoned gold mines of the gauteng province of south africa. although these activities helped them earn quick money, some of them were risky. for instance, south african newspapers have often reported stories of zimbabweans who have lost their lives when the mines collapsed or were mugged by other illegal miners. three-fifths of the migrant members in south africa earned incomes of up to usd200 (zar1,500) per month, which were small amounts. other studies found that zimbabwean migrant households in selected urban areas of south africa earned zar1,433 per month on average (crush & tawodzera, 2016). according to these scholars, about half of them earned up to zar1,000, which was insufficient to meet many urban expenses. nevertheless, this was better than being in zimbabwe where there were no jobs. effects of the crisis on age differences in labour migration to south africa the study assessed for association between the ages of migrants and when they migrated to south africa in order to analyse the effects of the crisis on age differences in labour migration to south africa. regarding the ages of the migrants, most of them (34 out of 84, or 38.1%) were young people in their twenties (20–29), followed by those aged 30–39 (29.8%). this indicated that most of the labour migrants from this region to south africa were aged 20–39, their prime active ages (figure 1). this confirmed other studies conducted in the host country, which found that most of the zimbabwean migrants in south africa were aged 21–40 years old and in the middle of their work and family life (mosala, 2008). the crisis also contributed to the migration of people aged 40 years or over (15.5%) since they were also under pressure to provide for their families. under normal circumstances such people are less likely to migrate than their younger counterparts. the remainder (13.1%) constituted age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1265 members who migrated in their teens. this indicates a serious problem since most of them had barely completed secondary school at the time of migration. figure 1: age at migration to south africa source: survey results the age variable was then reclassified in order to separate young migrants (below 30 years of age) from their older counterparts (aged 30 years or over). the proportions of younger and older migrants were almost equal (50.7% and 49.3%, respectively) (table 1). although this suggested that both the young and old were involved in this labour migration, results discussed so far have already indicated that these two age groups predominated in this migration at different stages of the crisis, with older men aged 30 or over more likely to have migrated during the peak of the crisis (2006–2010). out of the forty-three young migrants, 44% were single and 56% were married (results not shown). regarding the period of migration, the study identified three major peaks during which most of the migration occurred (figure 2). the first peak, though small, occurred at the dawn of the new millennium in 2000 and 2002, which was around the same time the crisis started. the second and more significant peak was associated with the peak of the crisis in 2007–2008. like for the rest of the country, labour migration from this region to south africa also reached 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 10-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50/above % age at migration (years) age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1266 its highest level during the crisis peak (2007–2008). in other words, most of the migrant members left the country between 2007 and 2008, obviously as a strategy to survive the crisis. thereafter, the level of labour migration to south africa started to decline as a result of the stabilisation brought to the economy by the country’s official adoption of multiple currencies dominated by the united states dollar (usd) in 2009. foodstuffs returned to the shelves of zimbabwean supermarkets after having been absent during the peak of the crisis. in the social sector, service delivery improved given the availability of foreign currency to import the necessary equipment and machinery. most workers starting with civil servants were paid their salaries in foreign currencies. this positive change should have discouraged fresh emigrations and encourage return migration. figure 2: date of migration to south africa source: survey results the third peak, which was unexpected and more difficult to explain, occurred between 2013 and 2015. during this period, the companies that had remained operational further retrenched workers in order to remain viable in the shrinking economy (southern eye, 2015). this further shattered whatever hopes citizens still had of finding employment locally. at the same time, the country, especially the south-eastern region, was severely affected by consecutive droughts associated with the el nino effect (world food programme, 2016). 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 4 1 9 9 7 1 9 9 8 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 3 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 5 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 7 2 0 0 8 2 0 0 9 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 3 2 0 1 4 2 0 1 5 2 0 1 6 % age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1267 when the periods during which migration occurred were categorised according to the decade, the period 2000–2009 and 2010–2016 had the same proportions of migrants who left for south africa (47.5% each). in other words, labour migration from this region to south africa continued unabated from 2010 onwards (table 2). the migration periods were then categorised based on the crisis peak including the period before the crisis peak (before 2006), the crisis peak (2006–2010) and after the peak (after 2010). slightly more members migrated to south africa after 2010 than during the peak of the crisis (41.9% compared with 37.6%) (table 1). in other words, slightly more members of these households migrated to south africa after the crisis peak (2006–2010) than during it, probably due to the factors already cited. table 2: ages of migrants and when migration to south africa occurred age / when migrated to south africa occurred no. % age at migration (years) 10–29 (youth) 43 51.2 30 or older (adults) 41 48.8 when migration occurred (based on the decade) before 2000 4 5.0 2000–2009 38 47.5 2010 and after 38 47.5 when migration occurred (based on the crisis peak) before the crisis peak (before 2006) 17 21.3 age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1268 during the crisis peak (2006– 2010) 30 37.5 after the crisis peak (after 2010) 33 41.3 source: survey results a test of association between the ages of the migrants and the period migrated revealed a significant result [pearson chi-square value 6.124, asymptotic significance (2-sided) 0.047] (figure 3). while the majority (53.7%) of young migrants aged below 30 relocated to south africa after 2010, the largest proportion (47.4%) of older migrants aged 30 years or over migrated during the peak of the crisis (2006–2010). in other words, the crisis peak was more associated with the migration of older migrants aged 30 years or over than younger migrants aged below 30. this suggested that the migration of older married migrants increased during the crisis peak, signifying change from the previous dominance in this migration stream by young single men. this is because they were responsible for taking care of their families whose survival was at stake during the peak of the crisis. after the crisis peak, young men both married and single predominated in labour migration to south africa. muzondidya (2008) missed the point that older men were more likely to migrate to south africa during the crisis peak as it was their responsibility to take care of families left ack home. age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1269 figure 3: period migrated by age of the migrant source: survey results age of the migrant and whether they migrated clandestinely young men have been associated with illegal migration to south africa due to their inability to afford official documents such as zimbabwean passports (manamere, 2014). the study assessed for association between age at migration and migrating clandestinely. this would show which of the two age groups, younger and older people, was more desperate to leave the country during the crisis. more than half (48 out of 83, or 57.8%) of the migrants relocated to south africa without passports (result not shown). although there was no significant association between age at migration and whether migrants migrated without a passport, some patterns could be discerned in the distribution. two-thirds (67.7%) of young migrants aged below 30 and half of those aged 30 years or older (52.5%) migrated to south africa without official documents (table 3). in other words, young migrants were slightly more likely to migrate to south africa clandestinely than their older counterparts. this was probably because they were less positioned to have raised enough money to secure official travelling documents, especially zimbabwean passports. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 before 2006 2006-2010 after 2010 % below 30 years 30 years or older age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1270 table 3: age of the migrant by whether they migrated with a passport whether migrated with passport age (years) below 30 years 30 years or older chi-square=3,076; asymp. sig. 0.079 yes 33.3 52.5 no 67.7 47.5 source: survey results * significant at 5% level (p<0.05); ** significant at 1% level (p<0.01) this confirmed other studies that found that young men from this region often migrate clandestinely to south africa (zyc, 2014; manamere, 2014). for instance, manamere (2014: 96) interviewed a headman in rural chiredzi who said young men migrate from this area to south africa clandestinely “[…] because they do not have the necessary travel documents, so they jump the border with the help of their friends”. results not displayed here revealed that the majority (29 out 48, or 60.4%) used informal routes through the forest, followed by those who were helped to cross the border by middlemen (35.4%) and those who bribed officials (4.2%). crossing the border through forests is risky, which explains why it mainly involved men. furthermore, clandestine migration was associated with the migrants’ level of education; those having tertiary education (certificates, diplomas or degrees) were least likely to have migrated to south africa without an official passport (table 4). although those migrants with primary or no education constituted the second majority among both the illegal and legal migrants, their proportion was higher among the illegal than the legal migrants. this suggested that clandestine migration was associated with low levels of education. this is probably because the educated are more likely to calculate the risks of migrating clandestinely than their uneducated counterparts. besides increasing one’s level of awareness of the age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1271 dangers of clandestine migration, education also increases one’s chances of being employed or having accessed enough money to secure the necessary travel documents before. this is different from someone who migrates soon after completing grade 7. this also explains why clandestine migration involved children of the household head rather than the spouse or the male head of the household. this implies that the parents of some of the young men who migrated clandestinely could not afford or did not prioritise securing travelling documents for them; hence, the young men would connive with others to migrate clandestinely. migrating clandestinely was also more associated with migrants from bikita and chipinge districts than those from chimanimani and zaka. table 4: selected factors affecting clandestine migration variable/factor whether migrated with passport yes no highest education level at migration (chisquare=5.081; asym. sig. 0.079) not educated/primary education 17.6 36.2 secondary education 67.6 59.6 tertiary (certificate/diploma/degree) 14.7 4.3 marital status at migration single 15.6 33.3 married 71.9 59.5 disrupted (widowed/separated/divorced) 12.5 7.1 relationship of migrant to household head spouse/head 58.1 43.9 age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1272 own child 19.4 39.0 other (sibling, parent, grandchild) 22.6 17.1 district of enumeration (chi-square=8,434; asymp. sig. 0.038)* zaka 8.6 16.7 bikita 20.0 37.5 chipinge 34.3 33.3 chimanimani 37.1 22.9 source: survey results * significant at 5% level (p<0.05); ** significant at 1% level (p<0.01) further analysis of the issue of illegal migration revealed that the proportion of the migrant members who were legal immigrants in south africa was higher at the time of the survey in 2016/2017 (71.8%) than at the time of migration (42.2%). this was probably due to the efforts made by the south african government to legalise this migration by issuing zimbabweans with work permits during the 2011 zimbabwean dispensation. however, some labour migrants remained in sa, working illegally, despite these efforts. contribution of other personal characteristics to age differences in labour migration an overwhelming majority (78 out of 85, or 91.8%) of the migrant members was male, which indicates that labour migration from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa remains male dominated (table 5). this means that there was no change in the gender composition of labour migrants from these districts in south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa. this was contrary to the study by the zyc (2014) and others, which suggested increased feminisation of labour migration in africa. instead, the current study confirmed the tradition among males to migrate alone, leaving women and children behind. this confirmed the bbc’s (2015) documentary on the ‘city of women’ in burkina faso where most young men migrate to italy. this is likely to be age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1273 associated with negative consequences for women who, besides being denied of their conjugal rights for prolonged periods, raise families alone. table 5: other personal characteristics of the migrants characteristic no. % sex male 78 91.8 female 7 8.2 marital status at migration single 20 26.3 married 49 64.5 disrupted (widowed/separated/divorced) 7 9.2 highest education level at migration not educated / primary education 24 28.9 secondary education 52 62.7 tertiary (certificate/diploma/degree) 7 8.4 source: survey results the majority (49 out of 76, or 64.5%) of the migrants were married at the time of migration. those who were single constituted slightly more than a quarter (26.3%) of the migrants. the rest (9.2%) had disrupted marriages (table 5). this was similar to studies conducted among professionals, such as teachers (ranga, 2015), where an overwhelming majority of the migrants were married men looking for means to help their families left back home to survive the crisis. the proportion (26.3%) of single men was, however, far higher among the current sample of unskilled zimbabweans than that of teachers. this is because professionals go through many years of schooling and are required to age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1274 have enough working experience before being recruited outside the country, unlike unskilled migrants, some of whom migrated after completing grade 7. the largest proportion (52 out of 83, or 62.7%) of the migrants had some secondary education (table 5). this confirmed other studies that found that zimbabwean immigrants in south africa were more educated relative to nationals of other african countries (mosala, 2008). this is because of zimbabwe’s emphasis on secondary education since independence in 1980. this was followed by those with primary or no education, who constituted more than a quarter (28.9%) of the migrants. lastly, very few (7 out of 83, or 8.4%) had post-secondary or professional qualifications. this confirmed other studies which have argued that labour migrants leave for south africa with low levels of education, such as after completing grade 7 (zyc, 2014). although this involved only a quarter of the migrants, this explained why most of them worked as general hands earning low wages while in south africa. some of the migrants might not see the importance of completing secondary schooling given the low chances of finding employment at home in zimbabwe. table 6: other personal characteristics by age of the migrant determinant age (years) below 30 years 30 years or older sex of migrant male 88.4 95.1 female 11.6 4.9 marital status at migration (chisquare=13.158; asymp. sig. 0.001)** single 44.7 8.1 married 50.0 78.4 age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1275 disrupted (widowed/separated/divorced) 5.3 13.1 highest education level at migration not educated/ primary education 30.2 25.6 secondary 62.8 64.1 tertiary (certificate/diploma/degree) 7.0 10.3 source: survey results * significant at 5% level (p<0.05); ** significant at 1% level (p<0.01) age selectivity did not vary together with most of the other personal characteristics except marital status (table 6). there was a highly significant association between age at migration and marital status. the majorities of both older migrants aged 30 or over and young migrants below 30 were married. but, the proportion for older migrants was significantly higher than that of their younger counterparts (78.3% and 50.0%, respectively) (table 6). in other words, older migrants, most of whom migrated to south africa during the peak of the crisis (2006–2010), were also married. on the other hand, young migrants aged below 30 included both married and single individuals. the peak of the crisis did not only increase the migration of older men, but also those who were married and sought a means of surviving the crisis for their families left back home. the result for sex of the migrant was insignificant, probably because of the skewed distribution in favour of males. as for the insignificant result for education of the migrant, there was no difference between the ages as both the younger and older migrants were equally likely to migrate with low levels of education. effects of household and district-level characteristics on age differences in migration age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1276 nearly half (48.6%) of the migrant members, the majority, were husbands of the female heads of households who participated in the study (table 7). in other words, they were absent household heads. this supported the argument by yabiku, agadjanian and sevoyan (2010) that in several southern african countries, including botswana, lesotho, zimbabwe and mozambique, men use labour migration to south africa as a way of coping with droughts and the cash economy since they cannot earn enough income at home given the lack of jobs. in this case, adult men from south-eastern zimbabwe also used labour migration to south africa as a way of coping with the zimbabwean crisis. the second majority (31.1%) of the migrant members were children of the household head. as already found, this included both young men who were married and those who were single. the rest (20.3%) were siblings, parents or grandchildren of the household head. slightly more than half of the migrant members (52.1%) came from large households made up of six or more members. the average household size was six members. this was typical of rural areas in zimbabwe where the total fertility rate (tfr) is six children per woman on average. large households were likely to be poor and experience food shortages, making them likely to send one of their members into migration to south africa. as found already, poverty and food shortages were the reasons for migration for the second and fourth largest proportions of the migrants in south africa (table 1). southeastern zimbabwe is vulnerable to droughts since most of it belongs to agroecological regions iv and v, which receive low rainfall of below 500mm per annum. this region was not spared during the drought that hit the country during the 2015/2016 farming season. for instance, the standard (2016) reported that chipinge district in south-eastern zimbabwe was one of the most affected areas. consistent with the effects of this drought, the majority (61.2%) of the households reported that they ate fewer meals than usual in the past year (table 7). this should have contributed to the large proportions of members of these households that migrated to south africa during 2013– 2015. age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1277 table 7: household and district-level characteristics of the migrants in south africa characteristic no. % relationship of migrant to household head spouse 36 48.6 own child 23 31.1 other (sibling, parent, grandchild) 15 20.3 household size 1–5 members 35 47.9 more than 5 members 38 52.1 mean=6.02, median=6, mode=5 whether ate less than the normal number of meals per day in past year (2015/2016) yes 52 61.2 no 33 38.8 materials used to build main house hut: mud/brick wall and thatch roof 23 27.1 modern: brick and iron/asbestos sheets 62 72.9 whether own cattle or plough own cattle, plough or both 45 54.2 neither own cattle nor plough 38 45.8 age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1278 district of enumeration zaka 49 28.9 bikita 48 29.5 chipinge 39 23.5 chimanimani 30 18.1 source: survey results household socio-economic status was further assessed through the materials used to build the main house and ownership of cattle or a plough. the main houses of the majority (72.9%) of the households with migrants to south africa were ‘modern’ as they were built of brick walls and iron or asbestos sheets (table 7). the remainder (27.1%) of the households had a traditional hut as their main house. in other words, slightly more than a quarter of the households with labour migrants in south africa were poor, as they lived in traditional huts. the proportion living in poverty increased when ownership of cattle or a plough was used as the criterion. 38 out of 83 (45.8%) of the households with labour migrants in south africa neither possessed cattle nor a plough. field notes revealed that for some of these households, especially those in chipinge district, this was because they had just lost their cattle during the 2015/2016 drought. a significant result (p<0.05) indicted that the majority (72.1%) of young migrants aged below 30 and about half (51.4%) of older migrants aged 30 or over came from households that ate fewer meals than normal per day in the past year (table 7). in other words, the households of young migrants were more associated with food insecurity during the 2015/2016 drought than their older counterparts. this probably explained why most of the young migrants migrated after 2010, especially during 2013–2015. this further confirmed the arguments made by the standard (2016) that households in south-eastern zimbabwe use the migration of young men to south africa to cope with droughts. table 8: age of the migrant and household and district level characteristics age (years) age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1279 determinants below 30 years (%) 30 years or older (%) relationship of migrant to household head head 37.8 61.1 child 40.5 22.2 other (sibling, parent, grandchild) 21.6 16.7 household size 1–5 members 40.5 57.1 6 or more 59.5 42.9 whether household had fewer no. of meals than usual in past year (chisquare=3,878; asymp. sig. 0.049)* yes 72.1 51.2 no 27.9 48.8 materials used to build main house hut: mud/brick wall and thatch roof 30.2 24.4 modern: brick and iron/asbestos sheets 69.8 75.6 whether own cattle or plough own cattle, plough or both 59.5 50.0 neither own cattle nor plough 40.5 50.0 district of enumeration (chisquare=11,753; asymp. sig. 0.008)** zaka 23.3 2.4 bikita 25.6 39.0 chipinge 37.2 26.8 age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1280 chimanimani 14.0 31.7 source: survey results * significant at 5% level (p<0.05); ** significant at 1% level (p<0.01) this weekly newspaper reported that in chipinge, one of the areas hardest hit by successive droughts in recent years, many families resorted to having one meal a day while thousands of livestock, particularly cattle, died due to lack of pastures and water (the standard, 2016). it went on to argue that households in this district have coped with successive droughts through the migration of young men to south africa and food relief from non-governmental organisations. a highly significant result (p<0.01) indicated that the majority (37.2%) of young migrants aged below 30 came from chipinge district, while the largest proportion (39.0%) of older migrants aged 30 or over came from bikita district (table 8). this further confirmed the standard (2016), which argued that the migration of young men to south africa, especially in chipinge district, is a strategy used by their households to cope with successive droughts. on the other hand, bikita district does not have a history of young men who migrate to south africa but household heads in this district should have been ‘pushed’ by the crisis peak into looking for means of survival in south africa given the lack of employment at home. although the result for household size was insignificant, the majority (59.5%) of young migrants aged below 30 came from large households with more than 5 members. in other words, the young migrants did not only come from households that were food insecure during the 2015/2016 drought but also large households, which further increased the risk of food insecurity. on the other hand, the largest proportion (57.1%) of older migrants aged 30 years or over came from smaller households (1–5 members), which suggested that they were the sole breadwinners of their young families. in the other insignificant results for materials used to build the main house and ownership of cattle or a plough, there were no differences among the classes. for instance, both young and older migrants were equally likely to come from households with a modern main house made of brick walls and a roof of iron sheets/asbestos/tiles and households that owned cattle or did not own cattle, a plough or both (table 8). conclusion age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1281 there was a high level of labour migration from these districts in southeastern zimbabwe to south africa since about three-fifths of the households had at least a migrant in south africa. the main reason for migration was the lack of jobs at home followed by poverty, better wages in south africa, food shortages and the need to follow other men. most of the migrants were men, aged 20–39, married and with some secondary education. however, about a quarter had primary or no education at all. this confirmed that labour migration from this region to south africa remains a men’s affair. this is probably because most of it, especially that involving young men, was clandestine. once in south africa, most of them worked as ‘general hands’ earning wages as low as usd200 (zar1,500) or less per month. this was mainly because most of them were not professionally qualified and some of them had primary or no education at all. although generally low, these incomes were ‘something’ compared to the lack of jobs at home. almost equal proportions of the migrants left for south africa during the crisis peak (2006–2010) and after 2010. most of those who migrated during the crisis peak were older men aged 30 or over. the year 2010 was included in the crisis peak period since it still witnessed high numbers of fresh emigrations although they had declined after having reached a peak in 2007–2008. hence, muzondidya (2008) missed the point when he argued that both the young and old migrated during the crisis in the 2000s. instead, the current study showed that older men who were also married heads of households were more likely than younger men to migrate to south africa during the crisis peak, as it was their responsibility to take care of families left back home. as muzondidya (2008) indicates, young men tend to easily forget their responsibility of remitting to the household of origin. in other words, the crisis in zimbabwe ‘pushed’ adult men with family responsibilities into migrating to south africa in search of survival for families left behind. this number was more than young single men, who predominated in migration from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa before the crisis. on the other hand, most of those who migrated after 2010, especially during 2013–2015 when the country was affected by consecutive droughts related to the el nino effect, were young men below 30 years of age. most of them came from households in the chipinge district that ate fewer than their usual number of meals in the previous year (2015/2016). this suggested that the 2015/2016 drought contributed to their migration to south africa. this further confirmed the arguments made in the standard (2016) that age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1282 households in chipinge, an area most affected by the 2015/16 drought, use the migration of young men to south africa as a way of coping with droughts. finally, this indicated that labour migration from these districts returned to its pre-crisis trends of predominance by young men (muzondidya, 2008) after 2010, having been dominated by older men during the crisis peak (2006– 2010). based on these findings, the following recommendations are proposed: 1. the government of zimbabwe and its development partners should create jobs or income-generating projects to benefit the youth in south-east zimbabwe in order to control their migration to south africa. 2. the government, non-governmental organisations (ngos), local leaders, school teachers, parents and peers should educate the youth against migrating to south africa before completing secondary or post-secondary education. 3. they should also educate the youth, especially those about to complete grade 7, regarding the dangers of migrating clandestinely to south africa, such as being apprehended and deported or being prey to wild animals when crossing the border through forests. 4. they should find diverse ways to help households in south-eastern zimbabwe to cope with droughts and desist from using the migration of young men to south africa as the main coping strategy. 5. there is need for further research to verify whether clandestine migration to south africa is more associated with young migrants than older migrants and to compare traditional migrant sending districts with other zimbabwean districts on the feminisation of labour migration to south africa. references adepoju, a. 2005. migration in west africa. a paper prepared for the policy analysis and research programme of the global commission on international migration. from < https://bit.ly/2r7imhr > (retrieved october 4, 2018). age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1283 british broadcasting corporation (bbc) news. 2015. the town of women. bbc news, december 2, 2015. from 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zimbabwean teachers to south africa. east african social science research review, xxx1 (1): 43-61 ray, j., marlar, j. and esipova, n. 2010. employed or not, many young people desire to migrate. from <https://bit.ly/2yxyxiv> (retrieved december 15, 2014). rutherford, b. 2010. zimbabwean farm workers in limpopo province, south africa. in: mcgregor, j. and primorac, r (eds.). zimbabwe’s new diaspora: displacement and cultural politics of survival. new york: berghahn books, pp. 59–76. southern eye. 2015. companies retrench over 200,000 workers. southern eye, 6 may 2015. from < https://bit.ly/2jbr07b> (retrieved march 3, 2018). tevera, d. and chikanda, a. 2009. migrant remittances and household survival in zimbabwe. southern african migration project: migration policy series, cape town: idasa. the standard. 2016. severe drought ravages chipinge villagers’ livestock. the standard, 17 january 2016. from <https://www.thestandard.co.zw/2016/01/17/severe-drought-ravageschipinge-villagers-livestock/> (retrieved july 20, 2017). world food programme. 2016. el nino: faces of the drought in zimbabwe. from <https://bit.ly/2ppgkxc> (retrieved october 4, 2018). yabiku, s.t., agadjanian,v. and sevoyan, a. 2010. husbands’ labour migration and wives’ autonomy. population studies 64(3): 293–306. zimbabwe youth council (zyc). 2014. harmful cultural and social practices affecting children: our collective responsibility. from < https://uni.cf/2ao83qb > (retrieved july 25, 2017). 53 local integration and congolese forced migrants in dar es salaam, tanzania christian pangilinan abstract thousands of unregistered congolese forced migrants live in dar es salaam, tanzania. some of them have lived in the city for years but their long-term futures remain undecided. although many originally arrived for asylumrelated reasons, the vast majority are not recognised as refugees or have only temporary legal status. in the context of discussions over possible legal solutions or residency for such people, this paper relies on interviews, focus groups and a survey of congolese forced migrants in dar es salaam to ascertain their views on local integration as a possible option; local integration being a traditional permanent solution to the search for refuge. results indicate that many congolese forced migrants are locally integrated to a significant extent, although many continue to face significant challenges in terms of discrimination, economic self-sufficiency, safety and education. the paper concludes that, in light of their preferences and their degree of integration, there should be a variety of policy options for congolese forced migrants. some congolese forced migrants indicate that asylum is a desired solution, some prefer naturalisation, or temporary legal residence, and some even consider assistance towards repatriation to be acceptable. keywords: citizenship, naturalisation, refugee, tanzania. introduction the presence of unregistered forced migrants from the democratic republic of the congo in dar es salaam, tanzania has been documented since at least 2003 (willems, 2003). as yet, permanent solutions for such unregistered migrants have not been developed. this paper presents results from interviews and discussions with congolese forced migrants peking university school of transnational law, building b, peking university, shenzhen graduate school, university town, nanshan district, shenzhen, china 518055. christiandpangilinan@gmail.com mailto:christian@stl.pku.edu.cn 54 and others on local integration in dar es salaam. it aims to address whether congolese forced migrants in the city consider local integration an acceptable durable solution and the extent to which such forced migrants are in fact already locally integrated. many congolese forced migrants have negotiated safe legal and cultural spaces for themselves in tanzania outside the official asylum system, but continue to face stigmatisation as ‘refugees.’ this, in turn, limits the willingness of many to consider official asylum procedures or permanent local integration. those who decide against applying for asylum and who do not have other legal documentation are often left in hiding. however, many congolese forced migrants consider temporary residence to be acceptable, and some are willing to consider naturalisation in tanzania as an option. responsive policy options for congolese forced migrants in dar es salaam may therefore involve a variety of approaches: local integration including a path to citizenship for long-term migrants who have established new lives in dar es salaam; legal residence permits for migrants who have resided in the city for some time but who are not willing or ready to commit to naturalisation; support for repatriation for migrants who are effectively stranded but wish to return; and safe access to asylum procedures for forced migrants who wish to apply for refugee status. background although tanzania has a history of generosity towards refugees, the arrival of large numbers of refugees in the 1990s from the great lakes region eventually led to increased restrictions on refugees’ freedom of movement and to less support for refugees’ self-sufficiency (veney, 2006). by 1998, new refugee legislation imposed heightened restrictions on refugees (unhcr & danida, 2010). the 2003 national refugee policy reaffirmed what had evolved into a policy of refugee containment (mha, 2003). refugee encampment remains government policy, but urban areas like dar es salaam and kigoma town in kigoma region continued to host populations from refugee-producing countries as well as others colloquially known as refugees or who may have refugee claims. this population includes refugees who had been recognised as refugees and left camps or settlements without authorisation (sommers, 1999). as a result 55 of their unauthorised residence outside camps, these refugees risk the loss of their refugee status and penalisation for their presence or work outside settlements (sommers, 1999; jacobsen, 2005). persons from refugee-producing countries who had arrived without seeking or obtaining refugee status are also present in dar es salaam (mann 2002). reasons for unauthorised departure from camps include a desire to escape camp conditions, personal safety, family reunification and self-realisation (sommers, 1999; willems, 2003). some have reported that they fear registration with the ministry of home affairs’ refugee services department or of approaching unhcr (asylum access, 2011). the ministry of home affairs acknowledges the existence of these populations (ussd, 2012). a major national human rights organisation refers to the same population as stateless persons (lhrc, 2012). the government has indicated that it may allow more refugees to live outside refugee camps, but it is unclear whether a revised policy on refugees will include currently unrecognised urban refugees (pesa times, 24 june 2013). other aspects of a possible policy on urban refugees, such as who would be permitted to reside in urban areas, have also yet to be unveiled (pangilinan, 2012). as reported by unhcr (2014), tanzania’s total recorded congolese refugee population as of december 2013 is slightly more than 60,000. this number does not include unrecognised congolese forced migrants or asylum seekers. the size of this population has been subject to differing estimates. masabo estimates the number of urban refugees, including registered and unregistered refugees, in dar es salaam to be around 3,000 (masabo, 2006). the ministry of home affairs has provided an estimate of 10,000, although the exact basis of the estimate is unknown (ussd, 2012). willems asserts the number to be in the tens of thousands (willems, 2003). participants in this project varied in their estimates of the congolese refugee population in dar es salaam, but tended to provide estimates in the lower range. conceptual framework a. definitional questions throughout this paper, the term ‘forced migrant’ is used rather than ‘refugee’ even though the persons described here may most commonly be 56 referred to as refugees or, in swahili, wakimbizi. whether the persons described are refugees, even if the initial reason for their departure from the drc appears related to asylum, may be contentious because the tanzanian government or unhcr does not recognise the majority of the people interviewed as refugees. refugees are defined by both the 1951 and 1969 conventions. under the 1951 convention, refugees are those who are outside their country of nationality owing to a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion and are unable or unwilling to return to their country (1951 refugee convention art. 1(a)(2)). the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa also recognises as refugees persons who are compelled to leave their place of habitual residence to seek refuge in another country owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order (1969 oau refugee convention art. 1(2)). under the 1951 convention refugees are not ‘constituted’ as refugees by national refugee status determination (kälin, caroni & heim, 2011, pp. 1327-1396). rather, such systems only ‘declare’ a person to be a refugee. by contrast, the 1969 convention specifically declares that contracting states of asylum determine who has refugee status (1969 oau refugee convention art. 1(6)). regardless of whether official recognition as a refugee is necessary for a person to be a refugee, most of the consequences of having refugee status are generally only enjoyed upon actually receiving such status either from a national government or from unhcr (goodwin-gill & mcadam, 2007). as a consequence, status determination is crucial for individuals to obtain legal protection and humanitarian assistance. more problematic are individuals who might qualify for refugee status but do not have official recognition from unhcr or from a national government. in east africa this tended to include individuals who settled without authorisation in urban areas (landau, 2008, pp. 103-124). some studies and scholars consider such ‘illegal’ refugees or forced migrants to be ‘urban refugees’ for some purposes (church world service, 2013; hovil, 2007). however, landau suggests that approaches to urban refugees that include unrecognised forced migrants raise ethical concerns: first, illegal settlement can lead to adverse reactions by states towards all 57 refugees; and second, illegal settlement ‘undermines[s] the value of legal action as a form of protection’ (landau, 2008, pp. 116-117). nonetheless, some ‘illegally settled’ refugees or forced migrants may be eligible to apply for asylum under the refugee definitions provided under either the 1951 or 1969 refugee conventions. consequently, ‘illegally settled’ refugees who wish to apply for asylum may still be persons of concern to humanitarian or other organisations that work with refugees, with the caveat that they may conceivable be subject to penalties for not having immediately declared themselves as asylum seekers (hathaway, 2005). second, as will be discussed in the next section, such persons may maintain refugee identities or continue to be identified as refugees in their communities despite their lack of status. b. identifying durable solutions this paper addresses local integration for congolese forced migrants. definitions of local integration vary, although there is consensus that local integration entails cultural and social integration, economic self-sufficiency, and legal integration (crisp, 2004; jacobsen, 2001; meyer, 2008). harrellbond (1986) suggests that integration reflects a situation in which host and refugee communities are able to co-exist, sharing the same resources, both economic and social, ‘with no greater mutual conflict than that which exists within the host community’. kuhlman (1991) adds that local integration requires that refugees undergo ‘socio-cultural change [that]… permits them to maintain an identity of their own and to adjust psychologically to their new situation’. he rejects the view that integration requires assimilation. other measures of local integration, suggested by banki, include refugees’ economic freedom, liberty of movement, land ownership, self-sufficiency, dispersal, and access to public services such as education and health (banki 2004). at present, tanzania and other east african states usually refer to voluntary repatriation as the preferred outcome for refugees (mha 2003). advocates and scholars have re-emphasised the value of local integration as a durable solution when large-scale return to the country of origin is not possible (dryden-peterson & hovil, 2003; fielden, 2008). given the low likelihood of resettlement for the vast majority of refugees and renewed instability in the drc, de jure local integration warrants examination as a possible solution for congolese forced migrants (unhcr, 2012). 58 methodology primary research took place from january to april 2013. before and during this period, the author worked for asylum access tanzania, a legal services ngo based in dar es salaam. research was conducted in collaboration with asylum access tanzania, but research materials, questionnaires and surveys were developed independently. the principal aim of the research was to assess the extent to which congolese nationals considered by asylum access to be urban refugees were already de facto integrated in dar es salaam along legal, social and economic lines, refugees’ long-term intentions and desired outcomes including whether they intended or desired to remain in tanzania. semi-structured interviews were carried out with key informants within the congolese community. these included a total of ten forced migrants and church leaders. six persons from ngos that work with the same population or work on relevant issues and from academia were also interviewed. finally, feedback from 14 ngo representatives from other legal aid organisations was also considered through presentations on the population concerned. of the 30 people participating in interviews and feedback sessions, 15 were women and 15 were men. feedback from interviews and material from the literature review was used to develop a structured survey questionnaire to be administered to congolese forced migrant participants. the questionnaire collected demographic information, information on housing, safety and freedom of movement, communications with the country of origin, relationships with host communities, employment/subsistence, access to services, longterm plans, as well as any other comments made by participants. the questionnaire was translated into french and administered by a registered refugee research assistant in kiswahili or french. a total of 51 congolese forced migrants participated in the survey of whom 28 were women and 23 were men. the majority of participants were congolese clients of asylum access whom asylum access had previously identified to have arrived in tanzania for refuge. each participant was, however, asked during the survey for his or her reason for coming to tanzania and to dar es salaam. purposive sampling was used to identify participants. to focus on local integration, only congolese forced migrants 59 who had resided in dar es salaam for at least one year were invited to participate in the survey. five focus groups were held with congolese forced migrants reaching a total of 25 participants. participants were selected through opportunity sampling and divided into male and female groups. limited participant observation was also conducted with three forced migrants. a concluding community meeting was held towards the end of the primary research period with forced migrants and others to present ideas and collect feedback on the possible implementation of an urban refugee policy in tanzania. finally, five focus groups were organised with tanzanian residents of neighbourhoods in dar es salaam in which congolese forced migrants also lived. these focus groups solicited views on refugees in dar es salaam, congolese refugees in particular, and on attitudes towards integration options towards congolese refugees. fifteen men and twenty seven women participated in the focus groups, which were organised in collaboration with three dar es salaam-based community services and legal services ngos. result participant demographics and self-identification congolese participants generally distinguished between refugees (whether registered or not) and non-refugees or economic migrants. this indicates that participants did not assume that all congolese in dar es salaam were refugees. as participants describe, refugees constitute a large portion of dar es salaam’s congolese population, but that population also consists of individuals whose primary purpose for coming to tanzania was businessrelated. some participants also suggested the presence in dar es salaam of congolese refugees or migrants who have integrated into tanzanian society in a way that makes it difficult to apply terms like ‘migrant’ or ‘refugee’ to them. one participant described the presence of congolese ‘refugees’ who have ‘lived here for a long time and have stayed here for a long time. they say they are of congolese origin, but have already changed their nationality.’ such persons may not have legally changed their nationality, and few 60 participants were able to identify congolese who had legally naturaliased, but have effectively ceased presenting themselves as congolese or even interacting with other congolese residents. one survey participant described himself as sometimes not accepting congolese at his home for fear that they would speak lingala and expose his congolese origin. such persons may therefore represent a category of what polzer describes as ‘invisible’ refugees or forced migrants who have locally integrated outside the asylum system (polzer, 2008). the inclusion or exclusion of these invisibly integrated refugees/forced migrants might affect estimates of the size of the congolese urban refugee population. in addition, while the amount of time a person has resided in one place can indicate a loss of identification as a refugee, it is not dispositive. for example, in one interview the author asked a congolese resident of dar es salaam who came to tanzania in 1993 and never obtained refugee status whether he thought of himself as a refugee. he replied that he still thought of himself as a refugee: ‘in terms of the conditions i’m in and because i cannot return to the drc.’ some long-term dar es salaam residents also described being identified by neighbours as refugees. results suggest that many congolese urban refugees in dar es salaam are long-term residents. of 51 survey participants, a large majority had resided in dar es salaam for more than ten years. many indicated that they arrived in the latter half of the 1990s, although a few survey and unstructured interview participants indicated earlier arrival dates. a smaller percentage of survey participants indicated that they had resided in dar es salaam for more than ten years. legal status and access to asylum the legal component of local integration sees refugees ‘granted a progressively wider range of rights and entitlements by the host state’, including rights to employment, to engagement in income-generating activities, to ‘enjoy freedom of movement and to have access to public services such as education’ (crisp, 2004). this legal process can culminate in citizenship or permanent residence (crisp, 2004). the number of congolese urban refugees who had accessed formal asylum systems was low and few participants indicated that they had either applied for asylum or been previously recognised as a refugee or asylum 61 seeker. only six of the survey participants stated that they had applied for asylum. urban refugees who were previously resident in a refugee camp and then left without authorisation have likely ‘lost’ their status by falling out of the refugee system. registered refugees who are not present in the refugee camp during a census may have their ration cards ‘inactivated,’ which is effectively identical to the loss of refugee status. until the issuance of national identification cards for refugees, ration cards are refugees’ primary identification as refugees. refugees without valid ration cards may not be able to obtain refugee identification (nida, n.d.). they would be unable to do so regardless of whether or not their status has been formally ceased. other participants stated various reasons for not having applied for asylum. these included a lack of knowledge about the application process, fear of, or unwillingness to be sent to, a refugee camp or fear of the government generally, and the decision not to apply having been made by a parent or guardian. six survey participants also reported that they had sought to apply for asylum, but that their applications were not considered. another participant described an experience that she and another woman had of feeling detained when they had gone to the ministry of home affairs’ refugee services department to request asylum. they described being transferred from the ministry’s refugee services department to its immigration department, an event that suggested they could be deported. these results suggest that asylum is a desired option for some congolese forced migrants in dar es salaam, regardless of whether the result is encampment. as a matter of course, this means that some individuals who may qualify for refugee status are willing to forego seeking local integration as an option. however, the results also suggest that some potential asylum applicants are rebuffed, and that some are deterred by the prospect of encampment. certainly, survey results indicate that a large majority of participants would be interested in applying for asylum if asylum seekers or refugees were permitted to remain in dar es salaam. some forced migrants may also forego applying for asylum under current conditions if they can otherwise obtain legal status in tanzania. this is not to say that congolese urban forced migrants lack access to any options for legal residence besides asylum. in fact, about 75 percent of survey participants report possessing a ‘peasant permit.’ peasant permits 62 are less expensive residence permits for foreign nationals that were made available to ‘irregular settlers’ (pangilinan, 2012). in late 2012, these permits were available for ten thousand shillings or about $6 u.s. (pangilinan 2012), and were previously available for $50 u.s. once generously made available in dar es salaam, many congolese migrants and forced migrants took advantage of the opportunity to obtain legal status through the peasant permits, some with the assistance of congolese community groups or asylum access. not all congolese participants had obtained such a permit. some explained that the permit’s original cost of fifty dollars was too high for them to afford. one participant, who arrived in tanzania at the age of eight, described being detained at the immigration department for nine hours after he was unable to produce a congolese passport. others may have avoided obtaining permits for fear of what would happen to them should they obtain one and then not be able to afford to pay for its renewal, or should their request for renewal be denied. permits have since become more difficult to obtain even though the immigration department lowered the applicable fees. some participants also reported difficulties attaching to the permit application process itself, with some indicating that they had undergone the application process but had not yet been given the actual residence permit. these participants use receipts acknowledging that the immigration department has received their payment for a permit to verify their legal status. a few participants described using tanzanian electoral identification cards to verify their legal status. the use of tanzanian identification documents reflects a strategy to avoid detection and reporting to authorities. no survey participants reported that they had any current asylum seeker or refugee identification. twelve reported having no documentation whatsoever. impact of legal status legal status can play an important role in congolese forced migrants’ ability to express congolese identity. according to several participants, possession of a residence permit allows the public disclosure of congolese identity. not all participants, however, explained that the possession of a permit enabled them to present themselves as congolese in all situations. some described continuing to present themselves as tanzanian despite 63 having legal status in order to avoid discrimination, maintain continuity between the tanzanian identity they previously presented, or as a precaution in case they are unable to renew their permits. possession of a permit was associated with safety from authorities and with employment and engaging in income-generating activities. participants generally stated, however, that legal status did not address preferences in employment for tanzanian nationals. the impact of not having any legal status or documentation includes loss of access to employment, vulnerability to arrest and feelings of insecurity and anxiety. close to one-third of the survey participants indicated that they had experienced problems with immigration officials. the majority of these reported that they had been detained or arrested by the authorities. reasons reported for arrest include being reported to immigration officials by landlords and debtors and being arrested while working after being reported to authorities for working without permits. some participants also described having been reported to authorities by neighbours. a few participants reported that they or their immediate family members were employed, but lost their positions when employers requested evidence of their legal status or after their lack of legal status was exposed. frequently, but not always, undocumented congolese who are detained pay bribes to authorities or have bribes paid on their behalf for their release. sums paid ranged from shs. 25,000 to 300,000. immigration authorities were reported by one participant to have released her when she explained that she was a refugee, albeit without documentation. citizenship and birth certificates of all congolese participants, only one described knowing of congolese obtaining tanzanian citizenship. given the cost involved in applying for and obtaining citizenship (even when a foreign national is legally married to a tanzanian), this is not surprising. according to the immigration department, applying for naturalisation involves fees of at least 1,500 u.s. dollars (immigration services department, n.d.). this does not include all other fees required. the high cost of citizenship may drive some forced migrants who seek it to obtain citizenship by illegal means. one participant described some 64 congolese who had been arrested after attempting to register as tanzanians to obtain national identification cards. children born in tanzania to non-nationals do not automatically have the option of acquiring tanzanian citizenship. rather, citizenship by birth in tanzania is limited to those with a tanzanian parent. children born to congolese forced migrants in tanzania, therefore, are also congolese nationals. for these children, participants report difficulties obtaining birth certificates. one woman described being told that a child has no right to a birth certificate if she could not present the child’s tanzanian father. arrival and survival strategies given the importance of support systems to forced migrants, participants in this project were also asked about the conditions around their arrival in dar es salaam and the means by which refugees survive after their arrival. for several forced migrants, support was available among family members, including parents and spouses. this was especially the case for congolese forced migrants who arrived in tanzania as accompanied minors. of 27 survey participants who arrived in tanzania as minors, 12 explained that they survived in dar es salaam with support from a relative, most often a parent or spouse. for participants who did not report being supported by relatives when they arrived, paradigmatic accounts involved arrival, a search for congolese residents in dar es salaam, temporary support from other congolese and then the launch of small scale income-generating activities. some forced migrants arrive in dar es salaam with small amounts of money or capital. others rely on networks to provide them with housing or employment in areas like tailoring, housekeeping or selling food. a few report being brought from kigoma to dar es salaam specifically for employment by either other congolese or tanzanian nationals. those without existing social networks typically sought assistance by approaching other congolese or approaching churches and community organisations for assistance. in such cases, newly arrived forced migrants may be assisted for a short time until they are able to find their own accommodation. forced migrants whose savings run out or who do not have savings with them will likely face significant hardship. 65 no participants described formal structures of support for forced migrants in dar es salaam. although congolese community groups do exist, their level of support for newly arrived forced migrants is limited. with the exception of one congolese pastor who described educating newly arrived congolese on living in tanzania, no participants describe formal systems that assisted them to acculturate in tanzania. newly arrived forced migrants who do not obtain documentation from unhcr or from the ministry of home affairs adopt strategies to avoid detection or arrest. a principal strategy involves the adoption of tanzanian ethnic identities that can explain differences in speech or accent. this can be difficult or impossible for some forced migrants. some explain that identification as congolese can become permanent as soon as it is done, which can then lead to ongoing public disputes about their nationality. others selectively conceal their nationality. not all participants, it should be noted, indicated that they had presented themselves as tanzanian at one point, pointing to the availability of survival strategies that do not involve adopting a tanzanian identity. safety, housing, mobility and transnational networks in dar es salaam forced migrants’ sense of personal safety, stability and type of housing, and their degree of mobility all reflect the degree and success of integration. safety encompasses both security in terms of legal residence and freedom from arrest or harassment by authorities, as well as safety within communities of residence and access to authorities for protection (landau & duponchel, 2011). stability of housing reflects self-sufficiency and protection from housing discrimination (landau & duponchel, 2011). types of housing can also reflect economic wellbeing. mobility indicates forced migrants’ ability to move freely within their host country, another indicator of integration. safety while congolese forced migrants in dar es salaam report incidents of harassment by authorities, only a minority of participants report arrest or detention. primarily, these relate to participants’ legal status. none reported egregious conduct such as physical abuse by police or immigration authorities. offensive conduct by immigration authorities is largely limited to requests for or acceptance of bribes for releasing people 66 who are reported to them on suspicion of being in tanzania illegally. no systematic raids of neighbourhoods to capture congolese migrants were reported. a few participants reported conduct that could eventually lead to refoulement such as detention when presenting themselves to authorities for recognition as asylum seekers or the prolonged refusal to process asylum claims. this can place forced migrants with refugee claims in danger or can require them to obtain other government documentation that does not recognise them as refugees, such as ordinary residence permits. while permits do grant legal status and are credited by many participants with providing them with a sense of safety, permits might not provide adequate protection since they are valid for only two years and their renewal is not guaranteed. possessing a permit also does not protect congolese forced migrants from being reported to immigration authorities as illegal immigrants. indeed, 58 percent of survey participants with residence permits stated that they still fear arrest or detention. the possibility of arrest is likely related to forced migrants’ stated reluctance or distrust to access police services. distrust of police was not absolute, but the sense that recourse to authorities is not available can contribute to insecurity. the few participants who described reporting crimes to the police said that they were required to demonstrate their legal status or appear to be tanzanian. lacking documentation or legal status does not always lead to feeling unsafe. a few participants without legal status still stated that they generally felt safe in dar es salaam, mainly crediting positive relationships with neighbours for their sense of security. nonetheless, some accounts from participants do indicate that forced migrants without documentation are occasionally in real danger of deportation when arrested. lack of legal status could therefore subject some congolese urban forced migrants to the danger of refoulement. housing and security of tenure with respect to the quality of housing and security of tenure, most participants reported staying in rented rooms or houses. participants were scattered across dar es salaam, with the largest concentrations living in 67 poorer neighbourhoods like buguruni, ilala district and mbagala, temeke district. while most participants were renting their own accommodation, slightly less than 20 percent of survey participants were categorised as having no permanent residence. these were primarily participants who were staying with a non-relative. to evaluate security of tenure, participants were asked if they had changed domicile within the preceding 12 months. those who did were asked for the reason for the change. , one third of the survey participants indicated that they had changed residence. the most cited reason for the change was an increase in rent or an inability to meet rent payments. a few changed residence on their own initiative. some moved at the request of the landlord for reasons that appeared non-discriminatory, such as the repurposing of the residence for the landlord’s family. in just a few cases, participants cited maltreatment or discrimination by the landlord as a reason for their change of residence. the few instances where participants cited discrimination as reasons for changing residence may indicate stability of tenure after a room or house is rented. but this may not reflect what participants perceive as discrimination when searching for housing or in terms of rent. a few participants described landlords refusing to rent rooms to foreigners. one group of women stated that congolese are charged more than nationals for renting the same accommodation. other difficulties associated with rent appear similar to those faced by nonmigrants. these include the frequent requirement to pay one year’s rent in advance, living conditions in poor neighbourhoods and the effects of inflation on rent. livelihoods economic self-sufficiency is a key feature of local integration. economic integration here is considered to consist of the following:  refugees engage in income generating activities, employment or otherwise support their basic needs. basic needs include housing, food, health and education services;  refugees safely engage in economic activities; 68  refugees engage in activities commensurate with their education or other qualifications;  refugees participate in the local economy without fear of exploitation and discrimination on the basis of refugee status or nationality. the inclusion of housing, food, health and education services as basic needs is in line with what forced migrants, asked here about challenges in dar es salaam, describe as particularly significant. whether forced migrants can meet these basic needs and how they do so reflects their participation in the local economy and their direction towards self-sufficiency. because accounts of urban refugees elsewhere have identified discrimination as a major barrier and because participants here raise discrimination and exploitation as significant, these are also incorporated as criteria for economic integration. also included is the criterion that refugees are able to engage in economic activities in safety to account for whether forced migrants are able or not able to work in conditions that are culturally acceptable and commensurate with acceptable levels of risk. income generating activities, employment and basic needs forced migrants in urban areas necessarily move towards self-sufficiency because of low levels of humanitarian aid and because of a lack of family support systems (hovil, 2007). in dar es salaam, unhcr assistance to refugees in urban areas is available only to a small group of recognised refugees, leaving the vast majority of forced migrants to fend for themselves without humanitarian support from international organisations or the tanzanian government (willems, 2003). as expected, the majority of survey participants were engaged in economic activities. about 17 percent indicated that they were supported by another person such as a spouse or parent. of those engaged in economic activities, the majority of activities were in small-scale business such as street vending, hairdressing, music and carving, and casual labour. income from street vending can be irregular and can be insufficient to provide for basic needs such as education for children. street vending itself is physically taxing, requiring vendors to work long 69 hours in the elements for uncertain return. street vending, however, requires relatively small amounts of capital. with no need to purchase equipment, street vendors serve as agents selling other peoples’ products, and receiving commission per item sold. this is consonant with what a few participants describe as the result of arriving in dar es salaam with ‘nothing.’ vending and activities such as hairdressing, working in restaurants, loading goods, or working as domestic help are all activities that require little start-up capital, and were cited as types of economic activities forced migrants engaged in soon after their arrival in dar es salaam. while a few participants reported having come to dar es salaam with arrangements for work, most participants had no such arrangement. some participants reported being engaged in more ‘professional’ activities such as teaching, working as a pastor, or formal employment, but the number was small. engaging in ‘professional’ activities or in more formal businesses requires legalisation in the form of work permits or small traders’ permits. income generating activities commensurate with experience and education a majority of survey participants had achieved some form of secondary education, with a few advancing to post-secondary education. for those with post-secondary or postgraduate degrees or who had worked as professionals in the drc, finding employment commensurate with their training and experience is difficult. one participant who had worked as a nurse in the drc attributed her inability to find employment to her nationality. for some, recognition of their qualifications from the drc was also problematic. one participant with a postgraduate degree from a drc university spoke of having left her country with no evidence of her education. access to health and education health services many refugees described health services as relatively accessible, although affected by considerations of cost and the possibility of discrimination. purchasing medicine from a pharmacy was generally seen as 70 straightforward, although new arrivals might find themselves being overcharged for medication. similarly, treatment at a private clinic generally requires few personal identification documents. when in need of more extensive services, some participants considered it advisable for forced migrants to present themselves as tanzanians to avoid the possibility of discrimination. some accounts of discrimination in accessing health services were very serious, including accounts of doctors neglecting refugee patients or requesting considerably higher fees than would apply to nationals. reproductive health services for forced migrant women, access to reproductive health followed a similar pattern to access to health services generally, with cost and the possibility of discrimination playing major roles. for some women, access to reproductive health services was contingent only on having sufficient funds to pay for services and, possibly, to pay health service providers such as nurses a small additional sum to ensure that they are attended to. there is no indication that women who are survivors of sexual and gender-based violence during their flight from the drc have received appropriate health services since their arrival in dar es salaam. education access to education for children remained a key issue for many participants. private schools are too expensive for most participants. and, unlike health services, public education requires evidence of tanzanian nationality. since the majority of participants’ children are congolese, enrolment is difficult. in order to enrol their children, some forced migrants resort to asking tanzanian friends or neighbours to enrol their children for them. some are unable to enrol their children at all. at school, forced migrant children report experiencing mild discrimination in the form of name-calling as congolese or as refugees. social integration following crisp and jacobsen, social integration is defined here as referring, among other things, to refugees’ participation in the social life of the host community (crisp, 2004; jacobsen, 2001). to jacobsen, indicia such as the frequency of intermarriage and common attendance at events like 71 weddings and funerals can indicate the degree of refugees’ de facto integration (jacobsen 2001). for participants in this project, social interaction with members of the host community is certainly inescapable, but friendship and social inclusion appear to be more difficult to attain. for many participants, social interaction with tanzanians is restricted by the need to conceal their nationality. churches, however, provide a forum in which many participants felt that freer social interaction, including identification as a refugee, was possible. for those who explained where their predominant social sites of interaction were, churches were the most frequently cited forum. as one woman put it, ‘at the church we are all equal and belong to god. discrimination is there but in a very low way, not like on the street.’ a pastor from a mixed refugee and tanzanian church also described free social mixing within his church. another site of social mixing was the business context. mourning, an event that involves gathering at the deceased’s home, was also considered to be a site of social interaction. other events such as festivities can frequently involve more social exclusion. friction between nationals and forced migrant women may be higher than that experienced by forced migrant men. compared to congolese men, women may appear to be more integrated in the sense that they have more frequent interactions with their neighbours. but these interactions can also lead to arguments. a few women described disagreements, in particular between their children and their neighbours’ children, as a source of conflict between them and their neighbours. forced migrants’ attitudes towards integration forced migrants’ attitudes toward local integration as an option were mixed. while the vast majority of participants were understandably opposed to the prospect of repatriation to the drc as an option either at present or in future, many participants were also reluctant to consider permanent settlement in tanzania as an option. several participants argued for a need for their resettlement to a third country while others seemed prepared to accept residence in tanzania for the foreseeable future but without acquiring tanzanian citizenship. that forced migrants do not consider pursuing naturalisation as an option to be desirable suggests that policy interventions need to be broader than pursuing naturalisation for long-term forced migrants. 72 several participants described their long-term future as uncertain. while their lives in dar es salaam were restricted, repatriation was not an attractive option. to return to the drc after so many years, said one woman, would render her a ‘foreigner in her own country.’ others emphasised the recurrence of instability and violence in the drc as precluding any return. indeed, many forced migrants expressed their unwillingness to pursue refugee status if that meant that they might eventually be requested to repatriate in the future. however, many participants were also dissatisfied with conditions in tanzania. to some, remaining in tanzania represented the absence of freedom and no opportunity to further develop. for these participants, travelling onward to a third country or resettlement were preferable. the sentiment against permanent settlement in tanzania was reflected in the majority of participants’ rejection of naturalisation as a durable solution, especially if naturalisation would require giving up their congolese nationality. some raised discrimination as a factor that made them unwilling to consider naturalisation. fear of being required to assimilate or of having no option but to remain in tanzania was also a factor for some. rejection of naturalisation as an option was not unanimous. for several participants, naturalisation presented the possibility of making their residence in tanzania more ‘peaceful’ or that naturalisation would allow them to continue to enjoy tanzania’s peace, compared to ongoing turmoil in the drc. some added that they had already resided in tanzania for a long period and were accustomed to its way of life. for these participants, extended or even permanent residence in tanzania could be a possible acceptable option. finally, repatriation is a possible option for some participants. of survey participants, about one quarter indicated that they would wish to repatriate to the drc either now or at some point in the future. those who wished to already repatriate but had not done so indicated that the cost of travel was what prevented their repatriation. factors that weighed in favour of repatriation included reunification with family member, and the possibility of further pursuing economic interests in the drc. conclusions and recommendations largely through their own struggle, congolese forced migrants in dar es salaam have achieved a notable level of local integration. they have 73 navigated a challenging environment to be able to become mostly economically self-sufficient, though many continue to face stigmatisation and struggle to access key services such as education for their children. fear of deportation and arrest also continues to arise for some forced migrants. considering local integration as a durable solution for congolese forced migrants will require finding a way to address these concerns. regularisation of status is particularly important. without legal status, congolese forced migrants in dar es salaam are unlikely to be able to pursue safe and adequate employment or at least safely engage in selfemployment. but such regularisation should not require naturalisation, especially given the hesitation shown by many participants to accept permanent settlement in tanzania. other temporary residence options or access to asylum procedures should be made available to other forced migrants as these options will be less likely to discourage them from seeking to formalise their status in tanzania. with legal residence, forced migrants will be able to become self-sufficient and will be able to reside in dar es salaam much more safely. legal status is also key to ensuring that forced migrants have access to health care and education. lack of legal status prevents forced migrants from educating their children. policy reform, such as the extension of recognition of refugees to include refugees in urban areas, may also be key to ensuring access to education and, in addition, of providing critical medical treatment to forced migrants such as those who have not received treatment despite surviving sgbv during their flight. however, naturalisation should be considered for forced migrants who have settled and acculturated to life in tanzania and who have no desire to return to the drc. for those with no wish to remain or who wish to return to the drc, consideration should be given to supporting their repatriation. working towards policy reform and access to legal status, however, may not be sufficient to respond to the pervasive low-level discrimination that forced migrants describe. peaceful integration and co-existence between forced migrants and citizens would seem to require some initiative to foster improved mutual understanding, perhaps through efforts to educate citizens about forced migration and refugees, and efforts to prepare forced migrants to live in tanzania. forced migrants arrive in dar es salaam without access to family networks and without means to begin new lives. 74 cultural support and support for new livelihoods should be made available as well. acknowledgement i thank asylum access tanzania for participating in this research project, the international peace research association for their support for this research and participants at the multiple truths of asylum workshop hosted by the african centre for migration & society at the university of the witwatersrand in july 2013 for their comments on an early draft of this paper. references asylum 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media in this way effectively play roles of mobilizing and (re)constructing national identities and solidarities in ways that citizens regularly enter into violent confrontations with foreign nationals, often stereotyped as threats to the prosperity of citizens. in some african countries, executive orders have been given by heads of government that saw the vicious expulsion of millions of foreign nationals. with the advent of distance-andtime-shrinking information and communication technologies, social media platforms such as facebook‚ twitter‚ youtube and whatsapp are relied upon in rousing support for national interests and in-group solidarity. through a systematic review of national immigration policies and content analysis of facebook newsfeeds in selected countries of east/central, west and southern africa (zimbabwe, ethiopia, the democratic republic of the congo (drc), nigeria, somalia, ghana, uganda, and south africa), this paper examines how social media strengthen in-group solidarities with the attendant consequences of loss of lives, properties, and inter-state diplomatic relations in postcolonial africa. the paper concludes that while encouraging freedom of expression within the continent, social media also bolster freedom to hate as both citizens and foreign nationals become more distrustful of one another, thereby exacerbating competition, rivalry and xenophobia. as citizens exercise their right to voice their opinions, they also actively dehumanize foreign nationals. the paper recommends that kin and friendship networks should become the sphere within which interventions for antixenophobia campaigns occur in post-colonial africa, as these hold the social capital to bridge the divide between citizens and foreign nationals in attempts to achieve peaceful co-existence. keywords: social cohesion, xenophobia, social capital, coloniality, social media, nationalism 67 introduction this paper examines how social media leverage on the social structures of post-independence africa to fuel nationalistic sentiments in ways that unremittingly affect visions of pan-africanism and the united nations (un) sustainable development goals (sdgs). in recent times, social media platforms such as facebook‚ twitter‚ blackberry messenger, youtube and whatsapp, have become powerful platforms to broadcast messages, photos and video clips to a global audience (gillespie, 2010). aker and mbiti (2010) and the african union (au, 2015) argue that both nationals and foreign nationals of african countries engage with social media to disseminate misleading narratives that generate negative perceptions of themselves. landau (2010) show that this is generating an aggressive and restless consciousness among nationals and foreign nationals, frequently leading to conflict and confrontation – including the use of violence against themselves – as foreign nationals are often seen as threats to the prosperity of nationals. in nigeria for instance, during the president shehu shagari administration in 1983, an executive order was given for undocumented foreign nationals and those with improper documents to leave the country within two weeks (17 to 31 january 1983). almost all of those foreign nationals were west africans, of whom over a million were ghanaians, and the remaining one million were a mix of other west african countries (aremu and ajayi, 2014). during that period, foreign nationals had been attracted to nigeria because of the oil boom of the 1970s, when the nigerian economy thrived (eker, 1981). however, in 1983 when the ‘ghana must go’ revolution began, the nigerian economy had become weak and was fast falling apart (umaru and zubairu, 2012). about two decades earlier, in 1969, the ghanaian government had banished nigerians and other immigrants in an expulsion order, commonly known as the ‘alien’s compliance order’ (aremu and ajayi, 2014:176). this order saw the expulsion of a large number of african migrants from ghana. the order required all foreign nationals in ghana to be in possession of a residence permit within two weeks. it earned ghana the displeasure of most west african governments, especially nigeria, togo, benin, niger, mali, ivory coast, and burkina faso whose nationals were affected (aremu and ajayi, 2014). in the same fashion, in 1981 president mobutu of the democratic republic of the congo (which he had renamed zaire in 1971) repealed his 1971 presidential decree granting citizenship to rwandan and burundian immigrants in reaction to national resentment against foreign nationals. likewise, immigrants from the democratic republic of the congo (drc) were brutally expelled and chased away by the angolan state agencies in 2008 (betts, 2010). kersting (2009) documents the september 1977 decision of the drc government to deport about 6,000 west africans, whose shops and businesses were confiscated and distributed to congolese. these west africans were described by congolese as ndingari, which refers to a “tick sucking blood from a cow to which it is attached” (kersting, 2009:14). the west africans were also stereotyped as being corrupt, liars, violent, criminal and unclean (kersting, 2009). in a similar vein, the social media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 68 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 drc government in a 2005 national legislation completely barred foreign nationals from owning small transport businesses, side walk stalls, and bakeries. these are all disquieting accounts of how africans have been dehumanizing each other. in recent times, mostly public individuals and institutions in africa tend to take advantage of social media to continue the dehumanization of fellow africans by spreading and promoting ideologies that find scapegoats in foreign nationals, who are often blamed for underdevelopment and poor social services, thereby winning and retaining the trust of nationals for non-performance (landau, 2010). adopting the social capital theory, this paper discusses the origin of xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa, which is traced to the strong bonding in-group social capital or social ties among nationals of african countries. this strong-bonding social capital among nationals results in weak ties with foreign nationals who are often considered as ‘out-group’ members. the paper engages pierre bourdieu’s (2011) social capital theory to explain the role of kin and friendship networks in maintaining strong bonding in-group social capital among nationals and foreign nationals. in explaining social capital, kelly and lusis (2006) support bourdieu (2011), arguing that although social capital may be typically acquired through immersion in kin networks, to them, state interventions for peaceful co-existence between nationals and foreign nationals do not often take into consideration the pivotal role of kin and friendship networks. they argue that immigrants or foreign nationals who maintain strong ties exclusively with their kin men and women or people with whom they share the same nationality, may be socially and economically disadvantaged, as these strong ties may prevent them from accessing material, informational, instrumental and emotional support from wider networks. putnam (2007:143) also reaffirms the relationship between bonding and bridging social capital by illustrating how people who have many friends with whom they share the same kinship or ethnicity, also tend not to have many friends who do not share the same kinship or ethnicity. in explaining why some foreign nationals and nationals remain strongly bonded to their kin or nationalistic ties, bourdieu (2008) provides a useful analysis. rather than taking networks for granted, bourdieu argues that networking requires effort and the investment of time and resources. thus, depending on the available time and resources, people have different opportunities to access and participate in networks. he identifies three forms of capital that individuals may possess: economic, cultural and social. economic capital refers to material assets and income, while cultural capital refers to the symbolic assets that a person possesses, such as language and behavior – this can also be institutionalized in the form of educational qualifications. social capital refers to the size and type of social networks a person can access and draw upon (bourdieu, 2008). in this era of digital technologies where social media reign, the ability of both nationals and foreign nationals to mobilize social capital and successfully engage in bridging with kin and friendship networks outside their nationality is mostly dependent on the cultural capital (which include language, social 69 media skills and educational qualifications) at their disposal. morris (2003) argues that in post-colonial africa, this ability is further conditioned by wider social processes such as national immigration policies. the new pan-africanist initiative envisions a united, integrated, prosperous and peaceful africa driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the international arena (au, 2015:11). by this aspiration, it therefore means that the global economic order with its new information and communication technologies as well as its new digital technologies greatly offer opportunities for the integration of the african continent in terms of ease of the mobility of labor and capital (kersting, 2009). to the contrary, opportunities of digital technologies have rather triggered transnational migration on an unprecedented scale within the continent and have also reinvigorated national identities and local cultures where there is a fort of nationalism that strives for in-group solidarity and out-group hostility (guarnizo and smith, 2017). this form of nationalism declares national boundaries sacrosanct, with the suppression of ethnic and cultural diversity (kersting, 2009). according to kersting (2009), citizens under this form of nationalism are made to incontestably accept the concept of state in ways that they develop a feeling of national solidarity and identity based on an imagined shared history and a common destiny. in this way, national symbols such as anthems, holidays, currency, passports, postage stamps, flags and football or ‘rugby’ teams are depended upon to foster nationalism. nationalism here only represents a doctrine in which the citizens’ culture, history, institutions, and religion are distinct and the aspiration for self-rule and politics is to preserve and protect their distinctiveness (kersting, 2009:8). in this way, nationalism is ethnocentric (mamdani, 2005; ihonvbere, 1994; yeros, 2016). in ethnocentric nationalism, the inclusion of foreign nationals into the destination society is based on criteria such as language, religion, or a myth of shared kinship (kersting, 2009:8). in the context of post-colonial africa, the new social media serve as important tools that nationals rely on to remind themselves daily of their place in the world of nations (guarnizo and smith, 2017). claude ake (1996) calls nationalism in africa ‘internal xenophobia’. to ake, the first wave of nationalism during colonial africa mobilized nationalistic solidarity against colonial powers, while post-colonial nationalism in the continent mobilizes solidarity among nationals against denizens (non-citizens) (kersting, 2009:8). in this nationalism, citizenship is key, it gives right to access social services, employment, land, and identity. hence, foreign nationals or ‘strangers’ are violently excluded even when they have been long-term denizens of a given country. they are excluded because they are not “sons of the soil” (kersting, 2009:11). in this way, migration is not recognized as a veritable cause that has the ability to contribute to inclusive growth and development at destination countries (de haas, 2010). instead, i argue in this paper that the accordances and offerings of social media have made it easier for xenophobia and xenophobic violence to be transmitted in post-colonial africa. misago (2016:446) has noted conceptual and empirical distinctions between ‘xenophobia’ and ‘xenophobic violence’. in his definitions, misago (2016:446) refers social media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 70 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 to ‘xenophobia’ as negative attitudes towards the ‘other’; while ‘xenophobic violence’ is a manifestation of xenophobia towards the ‘other’. according to misago (2016:447), the methodologies and interventions required to tackle xenophobia (attitudes) are different from those required for tackling xenophobic violence (behavior). in an attempt to understand how social media maintain social bonds among nationals and foreign nationals in manners that exacerbate xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa, this paper systematically reviews national immigration policies and facebook newsfeeds in selected countries of east/central, west and southern africa. these include zimbabwe, ethiopia, the drc, nigeria, somalia, ghana, uganda, and south africa. the paper consists of three sections. the first section provides a global overview of migration as a defining feature of the 21st century. this section stresses that people will continue to cross borders in search of a decent life. it also provides the origins of the term ‘xenophobia’, which emerged from the greek words xenos meaning a ‘stranger’ or a ‘foreigner’ and phobo meaning ‘phobia’, referring to an irrational fear of persons or groups regarded as ‘outsiders’ (kang’ethe and duma, 2013:157). discussions in this section coalesce to advocate that foreign nationals need to be entitled to the same universal human rights and fundamental freedoms which must be respected, protected and fulfilled at all times. the second section of the paper explains the methodological approach and underscores the emancipatory and oppressive power of social media, highlighting how social media influence xenophobia and xenophobic violence in africa. the paper concludes that as nationals feel stronger bonds to seek national development, there is a correlate heightening of opposing relations and interests against foreign nationals in the form of violent actions, including xenophobia. this frustrates efforts for an integrated african continent, politically united, based on ideals of pan-africanism and the vision of africa’s renaissance. the paper therefore recommends that kin and friendship networks – which broadly include extended family, biological relationships, genealogy, marriage, and other self-ascribed associations, beyond the nuclear family – have a critical role to play in catalyzing action and facilitating anti-xenophobic interventions in post-colonial africa. digital technologies, which include social media platforms, can serve to encourage pro-social behaviors that build bridging rather than only bonding social capital among nationals and foreign nationals of african countries. human mobility, xenophobia and state capability in post-colonial africa a key defining feature of the 21st century is believed to be human mobility characterized by the trends of fragility and mobility (betts, 2015). in this era, people will continue to move and cross national borders in search of a decent life (betts, 2015). with advances of globalization, opportunities to move have increased (castles et al., 2013; czaika and de haas, 2014). regrettably, most nation-states, especially within the african continent, are fragile with weak governance structures and capability that 71 complicate their ability and willingness to ensure the protection of the most fundamental human rights of citizens and immigrants. pointedly, the 2018 fragile states index for instance, placed both countries that are poor (such as zimbabwe, mali, congo, drc), and rich countries (such as the united kingdom, united states and qatar) towards the top of its list as the most-worsened countries (messner, 2018:1). this clearly demonstrates that the world has fewer answers to challenges of fragility and mobility. kaplan and schulhofer‐wohl (2017) and hanna (2017) argue that the world is witnessing the greatest human mobility throughout all human history as tens of millions of people are daily forced to cross national borders. according to betts (2015), there were 70 million international migrants worldwide in 1970. however, this number has risen to over 200 million international migrants across the world in 2018 (mella, 2018). according to the world migration report 2020, “current estimates are that there are 272 million international migrants globally (or 3.5% of the world’s population)” (iom, 2020). even though most nation-states are pursuing the politically expedient fiction that they can unilaterally assert sovereign control over immigration, the reality shows that control over immigration is becoming a more complex matter in the 21st century (mella, 2018). a common position has emerged that affirms the global migration crisis, even though there are debates whether it is either a ‘migrant’ or a ‘refugee’ crisis (geddes and scholten, 2016:85). specifically, most human migratory movements have been from refugee-producing countries (czaika and de haas, 2014; reuveny, 2007). feller (2005), koser (2010), zetter (2007) and morris (2003) differentiate between migrants and refugees. they are in consonance with anderson and blinder (2011:2), who assert that migrants are persons who make a conscious choice to leave their country to seek a better life elsewhere. on their part, the international federation of red cross and red crescent societies’ (ifrc) policy on migration describe migrants as people who leave or flee their places of habitual residence to go to a new place across international borders or within their own state, to seek better or safer prospects (moretti and bonzon, 2017:165). moretti and bonzon (2017) argue that before migrants decide to leave their home country, they usually seek information about their destination country, study the language and explore employment opportunities. this means that they have the time and privilege to plan their travel, take their belongings, and to say ‘goodbye’ to the important people in their lives (betts, 2015). they are also free to return home at any time if things do not work out as they had hoped, or if they get homesick or if they wish to visit family members and friends left behind (betts, 2015). on the other hand, refugees are forced to leave their home country because they are at risk, or because they experience persecution (moretti and bonzon, 2017:165). this therefore means that the basic concern for refugees is the protection of their human rights and safety. regrettably, betts (2015) argues that a significant proportion of foreign nationals across the world today fall into the category of survival migrants whose governments cannot support or provide some kind of remedy or reliefs to people affected by environmensocial media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 72 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 tal change, food insecurity, and generalized violence. on his part, ragaven (2008) reveals that cultural, genocidal and hegemonic racism and ethnicity remain primary social evils of our times globally. accordingly, these de-socialize and pathologize whole generations of foreign nationals, depriving them of fundamental human rights and fabricating them as ‘outcasts’ in countries of destination. this has resulted in the fragmentation of populations, thereby indelibly etching identities and solidarities that accentuate ‘otherness’ (christou and spyrou, 2012), with new forms of xenophobia, racial and ethnic segregation, prejudice and rationalities becoming the norm globally (mendelberg, 2017). xenophobia is used here in a more general sense to describe hostilities based on prejudice and stereotypes toward foreign nationals (harris, 2002; neocosmos, 2010). this therefore means that xenophobia constitutes stereotypical thinking or prejudiced attitudes toward groups and members of groups that can be distinguished on national or ethnic terms (crush and ramachandran, 2010). the term ‘xenophobia’, as indicated earlier in this paper, is believed to have originated from the greek word xenos which refers to a ‘stranger’ or a ‘foreigner’ and the greek word phobo which means ‘phobia’ – an irrational fear of persons or groups that are regarded as ‘outsiders’ (kang’ethe and duma, 2013:157). all through history, there are accounts of xenophobia occurring across different nations and peoples, as exemplified in the jewish holocaust that culminated in hate and an explosion of unimaginable brutality leading to the mass, industrialized murder of nearly six million jews, not killed in battle or war, but put to death in factories built expressly for murder (major, 1996). in europe, a study of social attitudes by harvard university established strong racial bias in several eastern european countries such as the czech republic, lithuania, belarus, ukraine, moldova, bulgaria, slovakia, as well as malta, italy, and portugal (greenwald and pettigrew, 2014; kinge, 2016). in the united states of america (usa), xenophobia has manifested in the form of anti-hispanic hate crimes (stacey et al., 2011). a 2016 survey from ‘the environics institute’, which was a follow-up to a study conducted ten years earlier, identified discriminating attitudes in the united states (kinge, 2016). in myanmar (former burma), an estimated 400,000 rohingya muslim refugees, out of a total of about one million living in myanmar, escaped a surge of xenophobic violence in myanmar’s rakhine state in 2017, into neighboring bangladesh, after at least 6,700 rohingya were killed by the myanmar army (persio, 2017). according to the british broadcasting corporation (bbc, 2020), the rohingya “risked everything to escape by sea or on foot, a military offensive which the united nations later described as a ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing’… (t)he massive numbers of refugees who fled to bangladesh in 2017 joined hundreds of thousands of rohingya who had fled myanmar in previous years.” according to human rights watch (hrw, 2019), “more than 730,000 rohingya have fled to neighboring bangladesh since the military campaign of ethnic cleansing began in august 2017.” in africa, nigeria and ghana have had records of hatred for foreign nationals ending up with xenophobia (campbell, 2003). for example, there have been xeno73 phobic reactions of leading politicians and intellectuals in ethiopia and eritrea towards each other and the contradictory tendency towards forced ‘unification’ have made a clear understanding of each other’s claims and identities difficult (smidt, 2012:116). in the beginning of the ethiopia-eritrea war in 1998, tens of thousands of eritreans and persons of eritrean origin were expelled from ethiopia within a few weeks. that was followed in 1999-2000 by the expulsions of ethiopians from eritrea (smidt, 2012). since then, both in ethiopia and eritrea, national discourses strongly claim that “the other” belonged to a “different race” (smidt, 2012:116). south africa has been experiencing xenophobia and xenophobic violence both during apartheid and after apartheid (giliomee, 2003). giliomee (2003) states that during apartheid in south africa, hostility between the british and the boers exacerbated during the second boer war, which led to a rebellion by poor afrikaners who looted british-owned shops. during this period, south africa passed several laws that ostracized foreign nationals, for example, the immigrants regulation act of 1913 was intended to exclude ‘undesirables’, a term that referred to foreign nationals (giliomee, 2003). this effectively halted the immigration of other foreign nationals to south africa. the township franchise ordinance of 1924 deprived foreign nationals of certain municipal privileges (giliomee, 2003). in 1994 and 1995, there were several demands by armed youths demanding that the police repatriate foreign nationals back to their home countries. homes of most foreign nationals were destroyed in johannesburg (giliomee, 2003). from 2008 to 2019, recurring spates of xenophobic violence took place in south africa, where tens of thousands of foreign nationals were displaced, and properties, businesses and homes were looted (misago, 2019; kinge, 2016). in their definition of xenophobia, delanty and o’mahony (2002) depict this phenomenon as a pathological condition that arises when the self is unable to cope with ‘otherness’ and is destructive of both self and others. in south africa, the term makwerekwere is widely used to refer to foreign nationals (kinge, 2016:14). interpretively, the term refers to “a people who speak strange languages coming from economically devastated countries in search of greener pastures” (kinge, 2016:14). kersting (2009) argues that, across the african continent, xenophobia and xenophobic violence have become a common feature in post-colonial africa, manifesting in different forms, ranging from everyday street-level abuse to discrimination and harassment by government officials, the police, and private organizations. nnoli (1998) concurs, positing that in post-colonial africa, it is no longer a question of excluding ‘out-group’ members from jobs and the enjoyment of various social services or repressing them, but the trend has become about ruthlessly and inhumanely eliminating them in violent actions including xenophobia and genocide. illuminating examples of xenophobic sentiments in post-colonial africa abound in the histories of rwanda, burundi, somalia, ghana, nigeria, liberia, sierra-leone, djibouti, and south africa (kersting, 2009). in his seminal work, horowitz (2001) analyzes forms of xenophobia and he adduces four reasons for xenophobia and xenophobic violence in human society. social media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 74 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 he identifies the first form of xenophobia as ‘ethnic’ or ‘national’ antagonism. this form involves conditions where there are outbursts against out-groups who differ in language, religion, or a myth of shared kinship. the second form of xenophobia occurs in cultures that have a ‘reasonable’ justification for violence, such as cultures that emphasize absolute obedience to religious texts with the aim of eliminating outsiders’ influences from every part of their culture. the third form of xenophobia has to do with retaliating with violence when confronted with a xenophobic event. the last form of xenophobia relates to the form that prevails in societies where there is little or no punishment for perpetrators of xenophobia. mark et al. (2014) note that with the increase of strong nationalism in postcolonial africa, citizens of most african countries are becoming strong supporters of affective and normative systems that are nationalistic in nature. the implication of this is that national identities and local cultures are reinvigorated, thereby consolidating strong nationalism and in-group solidarity at the expense of out-group hostility (kersting, 2009). these dispositions are heightened at unprecedented scales especially with the advent of new information and communication technologies (bennett, 2012). gijsberts and hagendoorn (2017) show that foreign nationals in most african countries are confronted on a daily basis, with barriers that prevent them from fully participating in the political, economic, and social life of host countries. these barriers rob them of dignity, security and the opportunity to lead a better life. other studies from the world bank (2010) and nurse (2018) illustrate that the exclusion of foreign nationals or minority groups from the political, economic and social life of a country, has damaging consequences for human capital development. this is because the majority of foreign nationals have been recognized as possessing the capacity of promoting inclusive growth and achieving the un’s sustainable development goals (sdgs) in both country of origin and country of destination (nurse, 2018). hence, the acknowledged developmental potential of foreign nationals, as captured in four goals and five targets of the sdgs, which established the prominence of labor mobility and remittances as development triggers, especially in developing countries (clemens and mckenzie, 2018). with the call, as provided in the global compact on migration (gcm), to create conditions for migrants and diasporas to fully contribute to sustainable development in all countries, social inclusion of foreign nationals is undoubtedly vital in achieving the world bank group’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity (gcm, 2018:3). the advocacy here is that foreign nationals need to be accorded the same universal human rights and fundamental freedoms which must be respected, protected and fulfilled at all times. the social inclusion of foreign nationals in this context implies the process of improving their ability, opportunity and dignity to take part in the political, economic and social life of their host country (ratha, 2016). consequently, social media have both the potential and responsibility to contribute towards continental and international efforts at unlocking the potential of foreign nationals in enriching the social, economic and 75 political life of both origin and destination countries. methodological note the research strategy wherein data for this paper emerged involves a close textual analysis of reviewed national immigration policies and facebook newsfeeds in east/ central, west and southern africa. the following top african countries of origin of migrants in south africa were purposively selected: zimbabwe (southern africa), ethiopia (east/central africa), the drc (east/central africa), nigeria (west africa), somalia (east/central africa), ghana (west africa), and uganda (east/central africa). the systematic review of national immigration policies and facebook newsfeeds was complemented with direct observation of nationals of zimbabwe, ethiopia, the drc, nigeria, somalia, ghana, uganda, and south africa, living, working and doing business in the city of tshwane (pretoria), south africa. throughout the period of the systematic review and observation from july 2018 to december 2019, the researcher lived in sunnyside, a part of the city of tshwane, where a significant number of the identified foreign nationals live, work and do business (segatti et al., 2012). events and behaviors relating to how social media reinvigorate national identities and local cultures among these foreign nationals were observed. systematic observations were directed at membership and attendance of churches and mosques, business partnerships and patronages, and sport groupings among foreign nationals. the data analysis took an inductive approach. this approach allows for the descriptive and detailed analysis of collections of stories, which enables the researcher to constitute a logical account based on a comparison of different accounts (ritchie et al., 2003). this recognizes inter-relationships between the interpreter and the interpretation. ethical approval for the study was obtained from the research ethics committee of the college of human sciences, university of south africa. social media as curator of xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa in its wider use, the term ‘social media’ connotes a generic term that refers to all forms of electronic communication and networking sites that allow users to follow and share content such as texts, pictures, videos and ideas within an online community (zeitzoff 2017:1970). in broad terms, social media have made it easy to maintain connections with close friends, relatives, as well as acquaintances, which also allow for new connections with other people (harari, 2018). in this way social media have demonstrated the ability to blur audience boundaries, where audiences are collapsed into one general space (sanchez abril et al., 2012). this is because social media offer public and private communication features in the form of tagging, liking or commenting and passive communication which involves the silent consumption of what is on the newsfeed (utz and muscanell, 2015). gerbaudo (2018) has highlighted how social media are taking away the mosocial media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 76 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 nopoly of traditional media sites and outlets that have been controlling information dissemination in human society. sunstein (2018) describes this take-over as the ‘facebook’ or ‘twitter’ revolution. according to him, this revolution has given enormous emancipatory powers to social media users in diverse ways. in many parts of the world, including post-colonial africa, social media have been relied upon to organize collective action against oppressive regimes. for example, social media played a critical role in both the ‘arab spring’ uprisings across the arab world from late 2010 until 2011, and in the 9-month protests in sudan that eventually led to the ousting of president omar al-bashir in april 2019. mccombs (2018) and valenzuela (2013) argue that the power of social media is in its ability to mobilize and get ordinary people on the streets to use its platforms as both content producers and content receivers to shape public opinion. in this way, social media allow ordinary people to be active in sharing instant information in news that go viral in a matter of seconds (lievrouw, 2009). on the contrary, lievrouw (2009) argues that as a result of instant sharing of sensitive information in seconds, african societies are becoming desensitized to violence, murder and death to a point where these do not affect citizens any longer, as images of gruesome deaths and torture of humans are circulated on social media with no trace of respect for the dead. with its far-reaching capacity, social media reaches out to a wide range of people, including the most isolated people, thereby posing both a threat and an opportunity for african societies (van dijck, 2013). digital transformation therefore has brought about a social condition whereby about half of the world’s population get their news from social media (allen, 2018:193). with the increasing penetration of news through social media in ethiopia and eritrea, nationalist discourses are continuously framed in manners that the existence of ‘otherness’ is no longer acknowledged. most of the news that exacerbated tension between ethiopia and eritrea in recent times was obtained from digital or social media (gagliardone and stremlau, 2011). this provoked xenophobia and xenophobic violence, especially among younger ethiopians who continue to use social media to uphold pan‐ethiopianism, by claiming that eritrea belongs to ethiopia and to express xenophobic rejections of eritrea as a nation-state. ethiopian nationalism in this way regards eritrea as an eternal trouble‐maker (smidt, 2012). even though the development and use of social media in ethiopia is similar to the path taken by other authoritarian regimes, there are, however, unique characteristics of social media in ethiopia (gagliardone and stremlau, 2011). the ethiopian government has a strong monopoly over social media platforms, in spite of pressure from the international community to liberalize the market. a high-ranking ethiopian technocrat confirmed that the monopoly of telecommunications and social media is crucial to the government. this is because social media have the capacity to penetrate every aspect of “our lives that we have to make sure that it is the state that is in charge of using and implementing them. hence, state-ordered internet shutdowns are on the verge of becoming the ‘new normal’ in ethiopia” (statement by an official of the ‘internet society’, 18 june 2019). in ethiopia social media is synonymous with facebook, which 77 accounts for about 84% of social media users (pettersson and solomon, 2019). other social media players are google’s youtube, facebook-owned instagram and whatsapp, and messaging service telegram. in a 2019 report by fojo media institute, social media in ethiopia is described as a dark horse that not only mobilizes people but is also a means of spreading rumors, hate speech and disinformation (pettersson and solomon, 2019:3). in somalia, statistics of social media users as at january 2020 from globalstats (2020) show the facebook dominance at about 63.23%, followed by youtube (15.56%), twitter (10.48%), pinterest (3.5%), and vkontakte (0.14%). in south africa, a study by the ‘citizen research centre’ analyzed public social media posts (comments and blog posts) across twitter, facebook, tumblr, instagram, forums, and chat rooms. in their report, social media contents represent the truest expression of the people’s views on xenophobia and xenophobic violence in south africa (khoza, 2017). the report reveals that between 2011 and 2015, twitter posts that demanded that ‘all foreigners’ must leave south africa, amounted to about 5.7 billion feeds (khoza, 2017:1). the report also affirms that on average, there are about 760 posts per day in social media calling for all foreign nationals to leave south africa (khoza, 2017). the report notes that social media played critical roles in two incidents involving xenophobic violence in south africa in april 2015 and in february 2017. in the april 2015 xenophobic violence incident, the zulu monarch, king goodwill zwelithini was reported to have commented on social media that “all foreigners should leave the country” (khoza, 2017:1). these comments were believed to have sparked the violence directed at foreign nationals in kwazulu-natal which rapidly spread to other parts of the country. during the periods of xenophobic violence in south africa, daily social media conversations around the subject of ‘xenophobia’ rose from 760 posts per day to 5,670 posts per day (khoza, 2017). misago et al. (2015) observe that even local business associations such as the greater gauteng business forum (ggbf) and the south african blacks association (saba) depended on social media to mobilize their members against foreign business owners in south africa. xenophobia as ‘politics’ by other means: social media and safe-orderly migration within continental and international frameworks, migration has been recognized as a source of prosperity, innovation and sustainable development (gcm, 2018:2). migration therefore affects countries, communities, families, and migrants in very unpredictable ways. hence, in order to effectively appropriate the development-dividend of migration, it is crucial that social media be engaged in ways that unite people and communities to make migration work for all, rather than divide and impoverish them. the potential of social media as the fastest channel of disseminating information means that social media can be engaged in ways that ensure that current and potential migrants are fully informed about their rights, obligations and options for safe, orderly and regular migration and are also informed of the risks of irregular social media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 78 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 migration (gcm, 2018). although different explanations have been given to account for xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa, misago et al. (2015) point out that most of these explanations are not based on empirical evidence. instead, they are merely based on normative assumptions, political rationales and ideological stances (misago et al., 2015:24). these explanations only trace xenophobia and xenophobic violence in africa to factors like poverty, unemployment, rising costs of living, poor service delivery, and poor border control (misago et al., 2015). these explanations name ‘nationality’ as the sole reason for xenophobia and xenophobic violence in africa without credence to other structural variables (misago et al., 2015). misago (2016) argues that while structural factors such as history and national immigration policies are important factors in explaining xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa, these factors are not given serious attention in xenophobia discourses. hence, there is a need to explain why there is pronounced xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa especially as most countries in latin america with similar socio-economic conditions have remained calm with peaceful co-existence between citizens and foreign nationals. misago et al. (2015) argue that a critical assessment of the nature and character of xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa shows that specific groups of foreign nationals are usually targeted during acts involving xenophobic violence and that these incidents occur at certain times and at certain locations. with these peculiarities, it is convenient to posit that there is a political dimension to xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa. according to misago et al., (2015), acts of xenophobia and xenophobic violence against foreign nationals in post-colonial africa are in most cases organized and led by local groups and individuals who are attempting to get and solidify their power bases for political and economic purposes. to these local groups and individuals, xenophobia is just ‘politics by other means’ (misago, 2016). in this sense, acts of xenophobia and xenophobic violence are products of coloniality rather than products of differences in national origins or cultural heritage. this is when post-colonial african politicians take advantage of social media to reinforce strong nationalistic bonds and solidarities to justify their non-performance by scapegoating foreign nationals as presenting threats to national prosperity and development. in defining xenophobia, an analysis of the hashtag ‘#xenophobia’ shows that 17,000 tweets were issued with this hashtag between 30 january 2017 and 26 february 2017. of all the ten top hashtags involved in the conversation, only one was aimed at an individual; the rest were targeted at groups. for instance, the south african minister of home affairs tweeted a denial of the existence of xenophobia, stating that: it is merely crime, drugs and prostitution that south africans are fixating on. in a tweet, ‘@johny_theblessd’ said: to me #xenophobia is: selling counterfeit goods, human trafficking of sa 79 women, selling drugs, kidnapping and prostituting young sa girls by nigerians, not paying your taxes, overcrowding sa schools and hospitals, smuggling of cigarettes by zim and 4x4 highjacks by moz and zim. however, along with related hashtags, there are words that are often used in conjunction with ‘#xenophobia’ – 7.7% of tweets with this hashtag included the word ‘fellow’, indicating that nationals acknowledge that foreign nationals ordinarily were supposed to be ‘fellow’ africans. review of african post-colonial migration policies building on the global interest in migration development, international immigration policies are recognizing key policy issues, debates, and consequences of international migration. a close analysis of africa’s post-colonial international migration policies identifies at least three areas where migration is influencing development in postcolonial africa. first, by offering options to africans affected by conflicts and crises, especially in countries with limited formal disaster management and social protection systems. second, by mitigating shortcomings and distortions in national and regional labor markets. third, by providing support to struggling rural economies and ever-expanding urban areas in the continent in terms of livelihoods and social capital transfers. in analyzing changes in contemporary official attitudes toward migration in south africa, segatti (2011) observes that despite changes in the economy and the adoption of constitutionally sound legislation, regulations governing low-skilled labor remain largely unchanged, and the mobility of skilled professionals has not been addressed. rather, policy developments in south africa reflect increasing engagement with research and advocacy groups on issues such as human rights, but these groups’ appeals have remained largely unheeded in terms of substantial changes in the management and implementation practice of international migration. three continuing challenges befall international policy in south africa. first, the fundamental disagreements between government, business, and unions on access to the south african labor market and the role of the state and the market in the control and management of international migration. second, the leadership deficiencies of the department of home affairs; and third, the absence of a functional platform of engagement between stakeholders, including migrants’ organizations, rights advocacy groups, research, business, unions, and different government departments (segatti 2011:31). within the southern african region, tevera and zinyama (2002) note that zimbabwe’s migration history is unusual. they argue that zimbabwe has always been in the unusual position of being both a recipient and sending country for international migrants. over the years, many zimbabweans migrate primarily to south africa to work. for example, almost a quarter of adult zimbabweans have parents and grandparents who have worked in south africa at some point in their lives (tevera and zinyama, 2002). on the other hand, zimbabwe was a recipient of international social media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 80 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 labor migrants from countries such as zambia, malawi and mozambique (tevera and zinyama, 2002:2). during the 1951 census, there were about 246,000 foreign africans in zimbabwe (40% of them from mozambique) (tevera and zinyama, 2002:2). zimbabwe has been a source, destination and a corridor country for international migrants. benyera (2018) identifies the preconditions that brought about xenophobia and xenophobic violence in zimbabwe: the construction and reinforcement of certain identities, contestation over land and land ownership and by extension, exclusion from land ownership, and human movement within states’ borders. in the past three decades, nigeria has witnessed a “reverse migration transition, transforming itself from a net immigration country to a net emigration country” (de haas 2008:162). within the african continent, nigerians increasingly emigrate to countries such as south africa, ghana, gabon, cameroon and botswana (adepoju, 2000). nonetheless, nigeria remains a migration destination for international migrants. despite the country’s economic decline since 1980, substantial communities of west african migrants remain in nigeria, especially togolese, nigeriens, beninoise and cameroonians. nigeria has largely pursued laissez faire international policies. in early february 2020, the federal government of nigeria announced the introduction of the issuance of a visa at the point of entry into nigeria to all persons holding passports of african countries. this is intended to encourage the free circulation and mobility of africans within the continent, especially as the african union (au) launched its operational phase of the africa continental free trade area (afcfta) in july 2019 (wef, 2019). in contrast to this aspiration of a free flow of trade with other africans, in late august 2019 and “until further notice” (president muhammadu buhari statement on 2 december 2019 when he received a delegation of katsina state elders forum in his country home in daura, katsina state). nigeria closed its international land borders with neighboring african countries that highly depend on the nigerian market. this could be interpreted as being driven by xenophobic sentiments, as the main explanation for closing the border, as given by the controller-general of the nigerian customs service: …is to ensure that we have total control over what comes in… (t)his time nigeria must survive first before we begin to ask for our rights (interview with the nigerian customs service boss during his appearance before the national assembly joint committee on finance on 2 october 2019). this no less reinforces national solidarity and xenophobia against nationals of neighboring african countries who are blamed for colluding with nigerians to bring into nigeria about: …95 per cent of arms and ammunition inflow to boko haram, kidnappers, killer herdsmen and bandits… (statement made by nigerian minister of information and culture on 26 november 2019). on 19 january 2020 ‘talljohn@johnfanimokun’ posted a tweet that said: president @mbuhari has again said that the nigeria’s border will remain closed. only a fraudulent soul will be displeased with what the president said. 81 there were 300 retweets and 685 likes of the tweet. all the retweets coalesce to represent these xenophobic sentiments. for example, ‘@oduobodumu’ replied to ‘@ johnfanimokun’: borders should be sealed. all noise about some west african countries doing better have gone. all depend on illegal businesses in nigeria. we can see that we have capacity to do many things on our own, that is how to grow an economy of about 200m persons. also, ‘@zheun85’ replied to ‘@oduobodumu’ and ‘@johnfanimokun’: throw the key into the lagos lagoon. who will believe that we can grow our own rice to this level? we only need a serious leader, walahi this country will be great. a further response – ‘@sethmola’ replying to ‘@zheun85’ and ‘@oduobodumu’: so many idiots and bots still so seriously believed that nigerian rice production is a fallacy still? meanwhile the facts are all there now, we are the best rice producer in whole of africa, from a position of best importer of same foreign rice. asides other nigeria farm produces. conclusion in post-colonial africa, foreign nationals are looked upon as competitors with nationals (citizens) for markets and social services. hence, kin or ethnic solidarity is vigorously pursued and mobilized through affordances and offerings of social media to reinforce in-group loyalty (solidarity) and out-group hostility against foreigners, particularly foreign nationals of other african countries. also, nationalist immigration policies in post-colonial africa strengthen and pressurize national governments to maintain structural injustices that encourage citizens to resort to xenophobia and xenophobic violence with little or no punishment. so far, the perception of foreign nationals by citizens of most african countries is intensely incongruent with the vision of pan-africanism as promoted by agenda 2063 that has a vision of perceiving africans as comrades who need to be supported by one another to achieve the vision of african renaissance and development. hence, there is a need to reinvigorate and strengthen kin and friendship networks within africa’s rural and urban spaces, as these networks have shown resilience to persist in terms of continued interaction among kinfolk of different generations, in spite of the impacts of globalization. kin and friendship networks are intensely characterized by strong affective ties among members that perform various services for one another. hence, kin and friendship networks should become the sphere wherein interventions and campaigns against xenophobia and xenophobic violence occur in post-colonial africa. this is because these social networks 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(ed.). 2016. ethnicity and nationalism in africa: constructivist reflections and contemporary politics. new york: springer. zeitzoff, t. 2017. how social media is changing conflict. journal of conflict resolution, 61(9): 1970-1991. zetter, r. 2007. more labels, fewer refugees: remaking the refugee label in an era of globalization. journal of refugee studies, 20(2): 172-192. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 177 impact of remittances on economic growth: evidence from selected west african countries (cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal) muriel animwaa adarkwa abstract remittances from abroad play a key role in the development of many west african countries. remittances tend to increase the income of recipients, reduce shortage of foreign exchange and help alleviate poverty. this research examines the impact of remittances on economic growth in four selected west african countries: cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. using developmentalist, structuralist and pluralist views on remittances, a linear regression was run on time series data from the world bank database for the period 2000–2010. after a critical analysis of the impact of remittances on economic growth in these four countries, it was found that inflow of remittances to senegal and nigeria has a positive effect on these countries’ gross domestic product whereas for cape verde and cameroon it had a negative effect. cameroon benefitted the least from remittances and nigeria benefitted the most within the period. one contribution of this study is the finding that remittance inflows need to be invested in productive sectors. even if remittances continue to increase, without investment in productive sectors they cannot have any meaningful impact on economic growth in these countries. keywords: cameroon, cape verde, gross domestic product, nigeria, remittance inflows, remittance outflows, senegal. introduction globally, there has been a steady rise in the number of migrants. the number of migrants increased rapidly between 2000 and 2010. according to the  candidate in ma development studies, institute for social development, faculty of economic & management science, university of the western cape (uwc), south africa. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 178 international migration report (2013), between 2000 and 2010 there were 4.6 million new migrants annually, compared with an average of 2 million per annum between 1990 and 2000 and 3.6 million per annum from 2010 to 2013. migration has positive and negative impacts on ‘home’ and ‘host’ countries, but one generally positive benefit of migration is financial remittances. over the past decade, remittances to developing countries from their nationals living abroad have grown steadily, reaching an estimated us$404 billion in 2013 and out-performing official development assistance (world bank, 2014). this figure excludes the money transferred through informal channels which cannot be captured and hence is not recorded. migrants’ remittances currently rank as the second largest source of external inflows to developing countries (world bank, 2014). this increase in remittances to developing countries can be attributed to the increase in the number of people settling abroad; and faster, easier and cheaper modes of transferring money around the world today (imai et al., 2012; world bank, 2014). previous research on the areas of outward migration has shown that countries with higher remittance inflows have higher growth rates and lower poverty indices (fajnzylber & lopez, 2007). this is because remittances tend to increase the income of recipients in the home country who in turn decide whether to invest or spend the money in the domestic economy. it further assists countries to reduce the problem of shortage of foreign exchange which is sometimes needed urgently by governments to fund import bills (siddique, 2010). in smaller developing countries, significant remittance inflows account for more than a quarter of their gross domestic product (gdp) (pop, 2011). with insights such as this, it becomes important to find out if indeed remittances have any impact on economic growth. this paper examines the impact of remittances on economic growth in the home countries of migrants, based on four selected countries in west africa: cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. the study uses data from the world bank for the period from 2000 to 2010. this period was chosen because, compared with the years before 2000 and after 2010, the number of people who emigrated from their home countries reached a peak of 4.6 million per annum during this period (international migration report, 2013). the next section gives a general introduction on the four selected countries. section 3 discusses the theoretical framework used and section 4 discusses ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 179 the result of the data analysis. the study then concludes and gives recommendations. background and contextualization in recent times, research on the role of remittances in development has surged due to increasing evidence of its positive impacts on the economies of developing countries. despite the fact that remittances to sub-saharan africa have been growing at a far slower pace than those of countries in other regions, research has shown that they contribute equally positive benefits to sub-saharan african countries. remittances are driven by migration. according to tolentino and peixoto (2011), sub-saharan africa has the most unstable migration flows compared with other regions in the world, although the west african sub-region has been the least volatile within the region, recording positive growth rates recorded in migrant numbers. there are many reasons why west africans emigrate. among them are: economic difficulties, political instability and conflicts, and increased poverty (nyamwange, 2013). in 2013, inflows of remittances to sub-saharan africa increased by 3.5% (world bank, 2014). the increase was not distributed evenly across the continent, however. east african countries experienced significant gains in remittance inflows while those in the west africa sub-region experienced only a marginal increase (world bank, 2014). despite this, organizationally, the economic community of west african states (ecowas) ranks second in terms of the collective value of remittances in-flows by member-states falling behind the southern african development community (sadc). research has shown that, despite the west african countries receiving relatively less in remittances, the impact of remittances on the economies of those countries has been positive (uneca, 2013). remittances have helped the region reduce poverty – its most pressing challenge –, supplemented household incomes, provided working capital and, above all, created multiplier effects within the economy through increased spending (uneca, 2013). nigeria is the recipient of the greatest volume of remittances in west africa and sub-saharan africa as a whole (maimbo & ratha, 2005; world bank, 2014). it receives between 30% and 60% of all the remittances to the west african sub-region and its remittances rank second as a foreign exchange earner after oil exports (orozco, 2003; world bank, 2014). cape verde and ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 180 senegal, like nigeria, in turn rank among the top recipients of remittances in west africa. as a small island nation, cape verde’s economy is heavily dependent on remittances and this can be seen in their contribution to the country’s gdp (pop, 2011). according to official estimates, about one-third of the population of cape verde live abroad, although some scholars place the figure well above that, arguing even that the number of emigrants exceeds the total resident population of cape verde (carling, 2002; pop, 2011). remittances to senegal more than trebled from 2002 to 2008, rising from us$ 344 million to us$ 1288 million within that period (cisse, 2011). this growth has seen senegal become the fourth largest recipient of remittances in sub-saharan africa. further to this success, studies show that remittances entering the country through informal channels could make the figures even higher. remittances play a key role in the economy of senegal, contributing between 6% and 11% to its gdp, sometimes surpassing other export products and certain sectors (cisse, 2011). in cameroon, international migration is known as ‘bush falling’ and this phenomenon is triggered by a number of factors including: falls in the price of primary goods in the 1980s and ‘90s, structural adjustment programmes and corruption (atekmangoh, 2011). these factors tend to serve as a motivation for cameroonians to travel outside their country in order to seek ‘greener pastures’. in cameroon, the total inflow of remittances has been relatively stable and despite this financial contribution to the economy over the years, the people who usually migrate are the educated and active populace and this can have negative repercussions on the economy (atekmangoh, 2011). theoretical framework from observation, although few people would disagree on the benefits of remittances to recipients in home countries, the extent to which remittances contribute to economic growth and development is another debate altogether. diverse theories have emerged to explain the impact of remittances on economic growth (development) of the countries of origin of migrants. among these are the developmentalist/neo-classical view, the structuralist/dependency view and the pluralist view (de haas, 2007). these three theories will be used to ascertain how remittances impact economic growth in cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 181 the developmentalist/neo-classical view (optimists) this view emerged in the 1950s and 1960s with the assumption that, through capital transfer, industrialization and the adoption of western values, developing countries would be able to accelerate their developmental process (so, 1990). during this period, underdevelopment was attributed to internal factors within developing countries and the notion was that, if developing countries wanted to develop, they needed to abandon their traditions, values and culture and adopt those of the west (coetzee, 2001). it was during this period that the developmentalist view emerged. some prominent scholars who hold this view include: kindleberger (1965), todaro (1969), beijer, (1970) and massey et al (1993). they argue that migration will result in the transfer of investment capital through remittances and expose traditional/primitive societies to more rational, democratic and liberal ideas that will aid in their development (de haas, 2007; 2010). labour migration is viewed as a core part of modernization and it is believed that the effects of migration on development can be seen through the inflow of capital (remittances) which could help increase productivity and incomes (massey et al., 1998). from this perspective, migrants’ remittances are deemed important since they bring about change in household incomes, promote investments and innovations, and thereby aid the larger economy of the migrants’ country of origin in its economic take-off (kindleberger (1965) and beijer (1970), as cited in de haas, 2007, p.3). structural and dependency views (pessimists) in contrast to the above, the dependency view argues that migration and remittances create underdevelopment in migrants’ countries of origin (oluwafemi & ayandibu, 2014). this view emerged in the 1970s and the 1980s; some scholars associated with this theory include rubenstein (1992) and binford (2003). they hold that remittances make receiving countries dependent on the sending countries as well as making receivers of remittances dependent on the senders (binford, 2003). they argue that migration drains the human capacities of communities and leads to development that is passive as well as making these communities remittance-dependent (de haas, 2007). rather than encouraging economic growth, remittances lead to inequalities in areas where there is a large inflow of remittances (lipton (1980), as cited in oluwafemi & ayandibu, 2014, p. 314). this is because when the remittances are sent to recipients in the home ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 182 countries, they tend not to use the money for any productive ventures but rather spend it on conspicuous consumption, such as cars, houses and clothing, which helps to deepen the income inequalities between households receiving remittances and those that do not receive any (de haas, 2007; 2010; oluwafemi & ayandibu, 2014). this can lead to inflation and the rise of prices in basic commodities in remittance receiving countries. for scholars of this tradition, remittances have a negative impact on the economies of receiving countries; they view remittances as indicators of developing countries relying on developed countries for their development (de haas, 2010). remittances lead to the “development of underdevelopment” (frank (1966), as cited in de haas, 2007, p.9). pluralist view (the new economics of labour migration) this view emerged in the 1980s and 1990s in the context of american research in reaction to the neo-classical and the structuralist views (oluwafemi & ayandibu, 2014). this view tries to link the two theories above and argues that remittances and migration have both positive and negative impacts (de haas, 2010). in this view, migration is seen as “a household response to income risk since migrants’ remittances serve as insurance for households of origin” (lucas & stark (1985), as cited in de haas, 2007, p. 12). this can be seen as explaining why people migrate despite not knowing about prospects of income in host countries. this view sees remittances as having the tendency to produce both positive and negative impacts on development depending on what recipients and home countries do with the remitted money. according to the pluralist view, migration plays a key role in the economy by providing capital through remittances which can be used for investments in developing countries that are mostly characterized by poor credit and high market risk such as fluctuating exchange rates that deters financial institutions from giving out credit frequently (taylor & wyatt, 1996). it also stresses the importance of human “agency” if remittances are to contribute significantly to the economies of migrants’ home countries (de haas, 2007; 2010). accordingly, remittances will impact economic growth positively if recipients of these remittances use them for productive purposes and negatively if recipients use them for unproductive purposes. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 183 techniques of data collection this study is a quantitative study. quantitative research emphasizes the testing of hypotheses and the measurements of variables by linking them to general causal explanations (neuman, 2000). in quantitative research, the language of variables, numbers, objectivity, hypothesis and causation are emphasized. this study used data sets from the world bank. convenience and purposive sampling techniques were used to select the countries and corresponding data under study. the sample consisted of four countries selected from the west african sub-region (cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal). the study period 2000–2010 was selected because it saw the average number of migrants per annum increase to 4.6 million compared with an average of 2 million per annum between 1990 and 2000 and 3.6 million per annum from 2010 to 2013 (international migration report, 2013). the data set includes remittance inflows, remittance outflows and gdp for the years from 2000 to 2010. it also contains the percentage of gdp made up of remittances in 2010 for the four countries involved in the study. stata (version 12) and microsoft excel were used to analyse the data. descriptive statistics of the relevant variables were reviewed. graphs were drawn to show the trend of remittance inflows and outflows for the 11-year period. linear regression analyses were used to examine the extent to which inflows of remittances predicted changes in gdp for the four countries. results and discussion in this section, i present the results of the analysis. i will begin by presenting the trend of remittance inflows and outflows for each of the four countries (cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal), followed by an analysis of the differences between remittance inflows and outflows between these countries. next, an analysis of a linear regression is performed to find out if there is a relationship between gdp and remittance inflow. lastly, the share of remittances as a percentage of the 2010 gdp for these countries is shown graphically as a pie chart. remittances inflows can be defined as financial resources sent into the home country of the migrant. on the other hand, remittances outflows are those financial resources leaving the host country of the migrant (world bank). figure 1 shows the trend of remittance inflows and outflows for cameroon from 2000 to 2010. it can be seen that the inflow of remittances into cameroon has been inconsistent over the 11-year period. it peaked in 2003 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 184 at us$ 76 million, rising from us$ 35 million in 2002. it then fell to us$ 10.3 million in 2004 and rose to its highest value within the 11-year period of around us$ 77 million in 2005. from there onwards, it was consistently low from 2006 to 2010, ranging from us$ 11.4 million to us$ 19.2 million. the inconsistency in remittance inflows to cameroon is associated with a generally falling trend in the amount of remittance inflows into the country. ngome and mpako (2009) also found that over the years remittances have been falling in cameroon. they identified a number of reasons for this: the high cost of money-transfer fees, the breakdown of trust in carriers of informal remittances, the belief that hard-earned money sent home by migrants is squandered by family members on luxury goods instead of being invested in productive activities and, lastly, the wide dispersal of cameroonians in the diaspora which makes it difficult for them to remit money through informal channels. on the other hand, remittance outflows from cameroon has been extremely inconsistent, varying widely from one year to the next, as shown in figure 1 below. figure 1: trend of remittance inflow and outflow for cameroon, 2000–2010. source: author’s computation with data from the world bank. figure 2 shows the trend of remittance inflows and outflows for cape verde from 2000 to 2010. it can be seen that the inflows of remittances into cape verde fell steadily over the 11-year period, from us$ 86 million in 2000 to 20 40 60 80 100 120 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 in fl o w in m ill io n s o f u s $ year inflow-cam outflowcam ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 185 around us$ 13.2 million in 2010. it should be noted that the amount of remittance inflows was stable at around us$ 14 million from 2005 to 2007. an explanation for this trend could be the restrictive immigration policies being adopted by cape verdeans’ traditional host countries in europe, such as portugal and the netherlands (see carling, 2002). however, remittance outflows have also been consistently low, ranging between less than us$ 1 million and us$ 10 million. figure 2: trend of remittance inflow and outflow for cape verde, 2000–2011. source: author’s computation with data from the world bank. figure 3 shows the trend of remittance inflows and outflows for nigeria from 2000 to 2010. it can be seen that the inflows of remittances into nigeria rose steadily, from us$ 1,167 million in 2001 to an all-time high of us$ 9,980 million in 2008. it then took a dip down to around us$ 958 million in 2009 due to the global financial crisis. however, it picked up in 2010, rising to us$ 1,005 million. this is consistent with the findings of ukeje and obiechina (2013) who argued that, despite the global financial crisis, remittance inflows to nigeria have remained resilient. on the other hand, remittance outflows from nigeria have been consistently low over the 11-year period, rising from less than us$ 1 million in 2000 to around us$ 21 million in 2004, and trebling to us$ 68 million in 2005; its highest in the period. remittance outflow then fell to us$ 10 million in 2007 and since then has ranged between us$ 47 million and us$ 58 million between 2007 and 2010. 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 inflowscpv outflowcpv ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 186 figure 3: trend of remittance inflow and outflow for nigeria, 2000–2011. source: author’s computation with data from the world bank. figure 4 shows the trend of remittance inflows and outflows for senegal from 2000 to 2010. it can be seen that the inflow of remittances into senegal has steadily risen. it rose from around us$ 3 million in 2001 to us$ 148 million in 2008, its all-time high for the period. however, the global financial crisis in 2009 had an effect on the inflow of remittances, causing it to fall to us$ 135 million in 2009. it maintained this value in 2010 after the crisis. the resilience of remittance inflows into senegal can be attributed to the constant inflows of money from migrants. it has been estimated that most remittancereceiving households receive between us$ 290 and us$300 per month from abroad (see orozco et al., 2010). on the other hand, remittance outflows from senegal were inconsistent over the period, rising and falling in various years. outflow rose from us$ 55 million in 2000 to us$ 98 million in 2005, its highest value for the period. it then fell to less than us$ 10 million in 2006, rose to us$ 14 million in 2007 through to 2008 and then continued its rise to us$ 17 million in 2009 and 2010 respectively. 2 000 4 000 6 000 8 000 10 000 12 000 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 inflownig outflownig ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 187 figure 4: trend of inflow and outflow for senegal, 2000–2010. source: author’s computation with data from the world bank figure 5 compares the remittance inflows of cameroon, cape verde and senegal. it can be observed that while remittance inflows into senegal from 2000 to 2010 rose steadily, remittance inflows into cape verde dropped steadily from 2003. on the other hand, remittance inflows to cameroon for that same period were inconsistent, rising in 2003 and falling the following year, only to rise again in 2005 and fall again in 2006. figure 5: trend of remittance inflow to cameroon, cape verde and senegal. source: author’s computation with data from the world bank. (20) 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 inflowsen outflowsen (50) 50 100 150 200 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015r e m it ta n ce s in fl o w (m ill io n s o f u s$ ) years inflow-cam inflowscpv inflowsen ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 188 figure 6 shows the trend of remittance inflows to nigeria in comparison with cameroon, cape verde and senegal combined. it can be observed that whereas the level of combined remittances for the three countries (cameroon, cape verde and senegal) was steady from 2000 to 2010 that of nigeria also rose steadily from 2000 to 2009 when it fell from us$ 9,980 million in 2008 to us$ 958 in 2009. it then picked up pace in 2010 rising to us$ 1,005 million. the sharp fall in nigeria’s inflow in 2009 can be attributed to the global financial crisis. although the crisis did affect the combined inflows of the other three countries, its impact on their economies was minimal in comparison to that of nigeria. figure 6 shows the trend of remittance inflows to nigeria in comparison with cameroon, cape verde and senegal combined. it can be observed that whereas the level of combined remittances for the three countries (cameroon, cape verde and senegal) was steady from 2000 to 2010 that of nigeria also rose steadily from 2000 to 2009 when it fell from us$ 9,980 million in 2008 to us$ 958 in 2009. it then picked up pace in 2010 rising to us$ 1,005 million. the sharp fall in nigeria’s inflow in 2009 can be attributed to the global financial crisis. although the crisis did affect the combined inflows of the other three countries, its impact on their economies was minimal in comparison to that of nigeria. figure 6: trend of remittance inflow of nigeria in comparison with cameroon, cape verde and senegal combined. source: author’s computation with data from the world bank. 2 000 4 000 6 000 8 000 10 000 12 000 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 r im it ta n ce s in fl o w (m il li o n s o f u s $ ) years inflownig inflow (cam cpv sen) ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 189 figure 7 shows the trend of remittance outflows for cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. it can be observed that remittance outflows for cape verde were consistently low for the 11-year period. on the other hand, for senegal, remittance outflows consistently rose from 2000 to 2004, and then steadily decreased from 2004 to 2010. remittance outflows for cameroon and nigeria were inconsistent for the 11-year period. figure 7: trend of remittance outflow of cameroon, cape verde. nigeria and senegal. source: author’s computation with data from the world bank. table 1 shows the differences between remittance inflows and remittance outflows for cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal for the 11-year period (2000–2010). it can be observed that remittance outflows from cameroon exceeded remittance inflows into the country. in most years (2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008 respectively), the country recorded negative values as the difference between inflows and outflows of remittances was computed. this means that, during those years, remittance outflows from cameroon exceeded inflows into the country. it should be noted, however, that since 2009 cameroon has recorded positive values meaning that, since 2009–2010, the inflows of remittances have increased while outflows have fallen. 20 40 60 80 100 120 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 r im m it ta n ce s o u tf lo w (m ill io n s u s$ ) years outflowcam outflowcpv outflownig outflowsen ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 190 from table 1 it can be observed that remittance inflows into cape verde exceed remittance outflows although this value is continuously falling. cape verde recorded positive values for the 11-year period, except in 2004 when it recorded a negative value (that is, in 2004, remittance outflows exceeded remittance inflows). it should be noted that although remittance inflows have always exceeded outflows, the figure has been positive but at a decreasing rate for the period. this means that the value of inflows is consistently falling although not falling to the extent that it is exceeded by outflows. this finding can be attributed to the huge disassociation between cape verdeans back at home and the second-generation emigrants in the host countries of migrants, which serves as a disincentive for them to send remittances (see carling, 2002). from table 1 it can be observed that nigeria always recorded positive values in the difference between remittance inflows and outflows for the 11-year period. this means that the value of remittance inflows always exceeded remittance outflows. the differences in outflows and inflows were positive and rose consistently from 2000 to 2008. however in 2009, inflows dropped due to the global financial crisis. despite this sharp drop in 2009, the inflow of remittances was still sufficient to exceed outflow for that same period and hence nigeria recorded a positive figure. from table 1 it can be observed that senegal has recorded both negative and positive values as the difference between remittance inflows and outflows for the 11-year period. the difference between inflows and outflows from 2000 to 2005 was negative. this means that the amount of remittance outflows from senegal was higher than remittance inflows. however, from 2006 to 2010, the differences between inflows and outflows were positive. that is, from 2006 to 2010, the amount of remittance inflows into senegal increased whereas the remittance outflows decreased, enabling the country to gain positive returns. from table 1 it can be observed that, among the four countries, cameroon benefitted the least from remittances. for the 11-year period its outflows exceeded inflows in six different years (2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008). on the other hand, nigeria benefitted the most within the period, consistently receiving more remittance inflow than outflow, thereby enabling it to record only positive values. cape verde benefitted from remittance inflows during this period too, albeit at a decreasing rate. this means that, although cape verde recorded positive returns year after year, the amount of ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 191 remittances entering the country kept on decreasing. this could be a cause of concern for the economy since it is heavily dependent on remittances (see; carling 2002; pop, 2011). lastly, senegal was able to turn around the trend of outflows exceeding inflows from 2006, with a steady rise in remittance inflows and a corresponding decrease in outflows. this enabled the country to gain positive returns from 2006 to 2010. table 1: differences between remittance inflows and outflows from 2000 to 2010 for cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. year inflow cam outflow cam diff cam inflow cpv outflow cpv diff cpv inflow nig outflow nig diff nig inflow sen outflow sen diff sen 2000 30 30 0 86 0 86 1,392 1 1,391 23 55 (32) 2001 20 42 (22) 80 0 80 1,167 1 1,166 3 51 (48) 2002 35 56 (21) 85 2 84 1,209 1 1,208 3 39 (36) 2003 76 57 19 11 7 4 1,063 12 1,051 51 57 (6) 2004 10 42 (32) 11 12 (1) 2,273 21 2,252 63 77 (14) 2005 77 6 71 14 5 9 3,329 68 3,261 79 98 (19) 2006 14 92 (78) 14 6 8 5,435 10 5,425 93 10 83 2007 17 90 (73) 14 6 8 9,221 54 9,167 119 14 105 2008 17 62 (45) 16 10 6 9,980 58 9,922 148 14 133 2009 19 14 6 14 1 13 958 47 911 135 17 118 2010 11 5 6 13 8 6 1,005 48 957 135 17 118 the descriptive statistics of the variables used in the regression analysis are presented in table 2. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 192 table 2: descriptive statistics of variables used in the regression analysis. mean standard deviation minimum maximum inflow of cameroon* 29.64545 24.32071 10.3 77 inflow of cape verde* 32.41818 32.97013 10.8 86 inflow of nigeria* 3366.391 3370.011 958.4 9980 inflow of senegal* 77.44545 53.26271 3 147.6 gdp of cameroon** 16.77236 5.485961 9.287368 23.62248 gdp of cape verde** 1.110979 0 .4795174 0.539227 1.789333 gdp of nigeria** 134.1709 95.67969 44.13801 369.0624 gdp of senegal** 8.566893 2.968586 4.679605 12.93243 *millions of us $; **billions of current us$ the result of regression between gdp and remittance inflow from 2000 to 2010 is presented in table 3 (see appendix for the regression of individual countries). remittance inflow in senegal has a positive relationship with the country’s gdp and is significant at 1%. the coefficient of determination (i.e. r-square) is 0.9105 which implies that 91% of the changes in the gdp in this model are explained by the remittance inflow. thus, the coefficient of senegal’s inflow implies that a dollar increase in remittance inflows to the country increases the gdp by 0.05 us dollars, all other things held constant. this result is consistent with the findings of orozco, burgess and massardier (2010) and un-instraw and undp (2010) whose research reveals that most households receive remittances on a monthly basis. further, various researches (see orozco et al., 2010; randazzo & piracha, 2014) have revealed that remittances do not necessarily change the household consumption of senegalese who receive them but rather those who are privileged to receive them spend the money on education and investments. there has also been engagement of migrant associations in philanthropic activities in senegal. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 193 these wide arrays of productive purposes for which remittance inflows are used can to a large extent explain the significant relationship between remittance inflows and gdp in senegal. this result is also consistent with the new economics of labour migration (nelm) which argues that the inflow of remittances in and of itself does not enhance or inhibit development but will be dependent on what recipients do with the money in home countries (de haas, 2007; 2010). the coefficient of nigeria’s inflow is positive but not significant. this means that as the inflow of remittances increases the gdp of nigeria also increases but there is no clear link between the two. increases in remittance inflows do not play a significant role in the rise in nigeria’s gdp over the period. this can be explained by the large differences between the values of gdp and remittance inflows. despite that fact that remittance inflow to nigeria is the second largest source of foreign exchange after oil exports (see orozco & mills, 2007), the lack of a direct relationship between remittance inflows and gdp in nigeria can be explained by the increase in exports over the same period (see ukeje & obiechina, 2013). this result is also consistent with the developmentalist theory which argues that labour migration is a core part of modernization and that the effects of migration on development can be seen through the inflow of capital (remittances) which could help increase productivity and incomes (massey et al., 1998). thus, although this theory argues that capital inflows do indeed increase incomes, as in the case of nigeria, it does not shows us the ways in which these incomes can be used to increase productivity (that is, perhaps despite the increase in the flow of remittances to nigeria, it does not have any significant relationship with its gdp). the coefficient of cape verde’s remittance inflow is significant at 1% but has a negative relationship with the gdp. this means that as remittance inflow to cape verde increases there is a corresponding decrease in its gdp. one possible explanation of this is that when remittances flow into the country they are either used for unproductive purposes or for activities that cannot be captured in the gdp. this finding can be explained with the decreasing role remittances play in the cape verdean economy now as compared with earlier years, in the 1960s (see ronci et al., 2008; akesson, 2010; watkins, 2010). further, research has also revealed that the inflow of remittance into cape verde is usually used to supplement household incomes, instead of being used for productive purposes, due to the increase in the cost of living ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 194 (see akesson, 2010). these explanations are rooted in the dependency/structuralist theory which argues that remittances make receiving countries and recipients dependent on senders and sending countries (binford, 2003). this theory holds that migration drains the human capacities of communities and leads to development that is passive as well as making these communities remittance dependent (de haas, 2007). this is evidenced in the present analysis where, despite increases in remittance inflows, their relationship with gdp is negative. this is because in cape verde recipients do not use the money they receive from remittances for productive purposes but rather they use it as a way of supplementing their incomes for consumption purposes. the coefficient of cameroon’s remittance inflow is not significant. there is no clear relationship between remittance inflows and gdp. this can be explained by the decreasing amount of remittance inflows into cameroon as well as the slow pace with which its gdp has been increasing over the years. one possible explanation for the decline in the amount of remittance inflows into cameroon is the lack of banking infrastructure and the belief that money sent back home is usually used by relatives for unproductive purposes and for indulging in luxurious lifestyles (ngome & mpako, 2009). this tends to discourage migrants from sending money back to cameroon. table 3: regression results. dependent variable: gross domestic product (gdp), 2000–2010 independent variable: remittances (inflow), 2000–2010 coefficient std. error t-value p > | t | r-square cameroon -.0754467 0.0438481 -1.72 0.119 0.1119 cape verde -0.010141 0.0021835 -4.64 0.001 0.4862 nigeria 0.0070372 0.0067744 1.04 0.326 0.0614 senegal 0.0531813 0.0061664 8.62 0.000*** 0.9105 *** significant at 1% figure 8 shows the remittance inflows as a percentage of gdp in 2010 for cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. this year was chosen because remittances are said to be counter-cyclical (see unescap, 2007), tending to ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 195 increase during times of crisis. thus, this figure displays the contribution of remittance inflows to gdp in 2010, one year after the global financial crisis. in 2010, the gdp of cameroon was us$ 23.7 billion and remittances made up 0.9% of this figure. this reinforces the analysis above, that there is virtually no relationship between remittance inflows and gdp in cameroon. the gdp of cape verde was us$ 1.7 billion and remittances formed 9.9% of this amount. although this is significant, studies by other researchers (see international monetary fund, 2008; ronci et al., 2008; akesson, 2010) have revealed that remittance inflows as a percentage of gdp have steadily declined over the years, falling from around 25% in the 1970s to barely 9% in the 2000s. the gdp of nigeria was us$ 369.1 billion and remittances formed 4.5% of this value. this percentage is relatively low considering nigeria ranks first as the recipient of the greatest amount of remittances in sub-saharan africa (see orozco, 2003; ukeje & obiechina, 2013). lastly, the gdp of senegal was us$ 13 billion and remittances formed 11% of this amount. this supports the literature that remittances to senegal are usually used for productive purposes (see orozco et al., 2010; randazzo & piracha, 2014). it can therefore be concluded that the percentage of remittance inflows contributed the most to gdp in senegal (11%) and remittance inflow as a share of gdp in 2010 was the lowest in cameroon (0.9%). ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 196 figure 8: remittance inflows as a percentage of gdp in 2010*. *calculations based on the gdp for each of the four countries as at 2010 and not as a percentage of their combined gdp source: author’s computation with data from the world bank. conclusion this paper, using data sets from the world bank, critically evaluated the impact of remittances on economic growth in cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. it used the developmentalist, dependency and pluralist views as the framework within which the analysis was conducted. using linear regression, analysis was made to ascertain the relationship between remittance inflows and gdp. the analysis reveals that there is a positive relationship between remittance inflows and gdp in senegal and nigeria. however, the relationship between remittance inflows and gdp was negative for both cameroon and cape verde. this study also provided evidence that it is not enough for remittances to increase within a country without them being used for productive activities as, without such practices, remittance inflows cannot contribute to development within receiving countries. recommendations focusing on the findings of this study, the following recommendations are made to improve the impact of remittances on economic growth in cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. first, remittance inflows need to 0.9% 9.9% 4.5% 11% cameroon cape verde nigeria senegal ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 197 be invested in productive sectors. this is because without such investments the inflows cannot play any significant role in the economy. second, governments will have to expand the financial sector and make the process of transfer of remittances to home countries much easier and less expensive. this will enable the economy to capture remittance inflows that come in through informal channels which are usually difficult to capture officially. lastly, countries will have to regulate their remittance outflows. this is essential for cameroon and cape verde. for cameroon, there have been periods when remittance outflows far exceeded remittance inflows and this does not augur well for economic growth. cape verde on the other hand has seen its remittance inflows steadily falling for the period. although the fall in inflows has not yet exceeded outflows, should this trend 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(eds.). 2005. remittances: development impact and future prospects. washington, d.c.: world bank. massey, s., arango, j., hugo, g., kouaouci, a., pellegrino, a., and edward, t. 1998. worlds in motion: understanding international migration at the end of the millennium. oxford: clarendon press. neuman, l.w. 2000. social research methods: qualitative and quantitative approaches. 4th edn. needham heights, ma: pearson education. ngome, i. and mpaka, j. 2009. cameroon: in-flow of remittances (online). from <http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?id=21792> [retrieved 4 june 2015]. nyamwange, m. 2013. contributions of remittances to africa’s development: a case study of kenya. middlestates geographer, 42: 12-18. http://62.189.42.51/dfidstage/pubs/files/sdd_migwp4.pdf http://www.ifad.org/operations/projects/regions/pi/paper/15.pdf http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?id=21792 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 199 oluwafemi, a. and ayandibu, a. 2014. impact of remittances on development in nigeria: challenges and prospects. journal of sociology and anthropology, 5(3): 311-318. orozco, m. 2003. remittances, markets and development in inter-american dialogue. research series. washington, d.c. orozco, m., burgess, e. and massardier, c. 2010. remittance transfers in senegal: preliminary findings, lessons, and recommendations on its marketplace and financial access opportunities. international migration paper no. 109, geneva: international labour office. from<http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/--protrav/---migrant/documents/publication/wcms_177453.pdf> [retrieved 10 may, 2015] orozco, m. and mills, b. 2007. remittances, opportunities and fair financial access opportunities in nigeria from http://www.thedialogue.org/publicationfiles/nigeriaamap%20fskg%20% 20nigeria%20remittances-%20final.pdf [retrieved 4 june 2015] pop, g. 2011. cape verde. in mohapatra, s & ratha, d (eds) remittances and the markets. washington d.c.: world bank. randazzo, t. and pirancha, m. 2014. remittances and household expenditure behavior in senegal (pdf). discussion paper iza no. 8106. from <http://ftp.iza.org/dp8106.pdf [retrieved 4 june 2015]. ronci, m., castro, e. and shanghavi, a. 2008. cape verde (pdf). imf country report. from <https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2008/cr08243.pdf> [retrieved 4 june 2015]. siddique, a. (2010). remittances and economic growth: empirical evidence from bangladesh, india and sri lanka. discussion paper (pdf) from <http://www.science.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/rtf_file/0010/1371952/1027-remittances-and-economic-growth.rtf> [retrieved on 10 may 2015]. so, a. 1990. social change and development. london: sage publications. taylor, j. and wyatt, t. 1996. the shadow value of migrant remittances, income and inequality in a household-farm economy. journal of development studies. 32(6): 899-912. http://ftp.iza.org/dp8106.pdf https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2008/cr08243.pdf ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 200 tolentino, n.c. and peixoto, j., 2011. migration, remittances and development in africa. the case of lusophone countries. background note. international organization for migration/acp observatory on migration (pdf). from www.acpmigration-obs.org/sites/default/files/en-bn03palop.pdf [retrieved 11 may 2015]. ukeje, e.u. and obiechina, m.e. 2013. workers’ remittances – economic growth nexus: evidence from nigeria using error correlation methodology. international journal of humanities and social science. 3(7): 212-227 (pdf) from <http://www.ijhssnet.com/journals/vol_3_no_7_april_2013/24.pdf> [retrieved 4 june 2015]. uneca, 2013. diaspora remittances and other financial flows in africa (pdf). from <http://www.uneca.org/sites/default/files/uploadeddocuments/aec/2013/aec_sent_29_july_2013.pdf> [retrieved 10 may 2015] united nations economic and social commission for asia and the pacific, 2007. workers’ remittances, economic growth and poverty in developing asia and the pacific countries. working paper 07/01. bangkok: united nations economic and social commission for asia and the pacific. un-instraw and undp. 2010. migration, remittances and gender. responsive development – case studies: albania, the dominican republic, lesotho, morocco, the philippians, and senegal (pdf). from <http://www.unwomen.org/~/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/ library/publications/2010/casestudy-executivesummary-migrationremittances-genderresponsivedevelopmemt-en.pdf> [retrieved 4 june 2015]. watkins, c. 2010. beyond remittances: sustainable diaspora contributions and development in cape verde, west africa. masters’ thesis. usa: cornell university. available at: <http://www.mdc.gov.cv/index.php/documentos/doc_download/9-tesecalliewatkins-beyond-remittances-susteinable-diasporacontributions-anddevelopment-in-capeverde> [retrieved 4 june 2015] world bank. 2014a. migration and development brief. issue 23. washington d.c.: world bank. world bank. 2014b. migration and development brief issue 22. washington d.c.: world bank. http://www.ijhssnet.com/journals/vol_3_no_7_april_2013/24.pdf http://www.unwomen.org/~/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2010/casestudy-executivesummary-migration-remittances-genderresponsivedevelopmemt-en.pdf http://www.unwomen.org/~/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2010/casestudy-executivesummary-migration-remittances-genderresponsivedevelopmemt-en.pdf http://www.unwomen.org/~/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2010/casestudy-executivesummary-migration-remittances-genderresponsivedevelopmemt-en.pdf http://www.mdc.gov.cv/index.php/documentos/doc_download/9-tese-calliewatkins-beyond-remittances-susteinable-diasporacontributions-and-development-in-capeverde http://www.mdc.gov.cv/index.php/documentos/doc_download/9-tese-calliewatkins-beyond-remittances-susteinable-diasporacontributions-and-development-in-capeverde http://www.mdc.gov.cv/index.php/documentos/doc_download/9-tese-calliewatkins-beyond-remittances-susteinable-diasporacontributions-and-development-in-capeverde ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 362 angolan refugees in south africa: alternatives to permanent repatriation? sergio carciotto abstract for almost twenty years, voluntary repatriation has been considered by the international community the preferable, durable and fitting solution to refugee situations. however, the numerous range of socio-economic and political factors which caused protracted refugee situations in the countries of asylum and the reluctance of refugees to return have raised doubts regarding the effectiveness of these programmes. the existing body of literature on return migration focuses on migrants’ decision-making processes to return and on the challenges encountered upon their return including post-return reintegration and identity crises, but a limited number of studies address the issue of refugees facing repatriation to post-conflict areas. this article seeks to contribute to the available literature on repatriation by examining the case study of angolan refugees in south africa, the implementation of the cessation of refugee status and its consequences on the decision-making process. findings revealed that the lack of options to acquire permanent residence in the country of asylum represented a major block to transnational mobility. the article addresses the urgent need to reshape the notion of return in the context of refugee repatriation towards more flexible forms of return involving periods of dual residence and back and forth movements. keywords angolan refugees in south africa, voluntary repatriation, temporary return, cessation of refugee status. introduction the article discusses the process of repatriation of angolan refugees from south africa to angola after the south african government’s declaration of cessation of refugee status for angolans in 2013. the purpose of the study is  director of the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa, cape town, south africa. email: director@sihma.org.za mailto:director@sihma.org.za ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 363 to understand the reasons why angolan refugees in south africa refused voluntary repatriation and the factors that influence decision-making. the life of a refugee can be divided according into the following stages: perception of threat, decision to flee, a period of extreme danger and flight; reaching safety; camp behaviour; repatriation, and settlement or resettlement (stein 1981: 320). the last three steps are considered ‘durable solutions’ to refugee problems. when compared to resettlement and local integration voluntary repatriation is presented as the most desirable of the three durable solutions for the refugees’ problems and defined as the return of refugees to their country of origin, based upon a free and informed decision, in and to conditions of safety and dignity, and with the full restoration of national protection united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr 1996). in the african continent massive voluntary repatriation movements between neighbouring countries have occurred during the 1990s. it is estimated that between 1992 and 2000 over 8 million refugees have repatriated, including 236,000 refugees who returned to liberia and 195,000 to sierra leone (unhcr 2002). during the same decade, due to the resolution of protracted armed civil conflicts, the acquisition of independent statehood and the successful transition to democracy, the cessation of refugee status for ceased circumstances1 was invoked five times for the following african countries: south africa (1995), namibia (1995), mozambique (1996), malawi (1996) and ethiopia (1999) leading to the return of more refugees (bonoan 2001). more recently, in 2012, the unhcr recommended countries to invoke the cessation clause for all angolan refugees2. return decisions are complex and influenced by a series of structural determinants including adverse socio-economic and political conditions both in the country of asylum and in the country of origin (rogge and akol 1989). structural factors such as the length of time spent in the host country, language barriers for refugee children born in exile, deteriorated living conditions, loss 1 article 1c(5) of the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees, paragraphs 6(a)(e) and (f) of the unhcr statute and article i(4)(e) of the 1969 organization of african unity refugee convention. the cessation of refugee status based on the ‘ceased circumstances’ provision was applied under unhcr mandate on 21 occasions between 1973 and 1999. 2 article 4 of the implementation of the comprehensive strategy for the angolan refugee situation, including unhcr’s recommendations on the applicability of the ceased circumstances cessation clause states that: ‘unhcr recommends that states continue to implement all aspects of the cessation of refugee status during the first half of 2012’. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 364 of income-generating activities and a politically hostile environment upon return can explain, on the one hand, why refugees are forced to remain in their country of asylum for a protracted period of time and, on the other, why they cannot return home as the causes of flight still persist. the body of literature on the determinants of repatriation decision-making processes and likelihood to return have grown over the past fifteen years. prior to that, very little was known about ‘why refugees return home’ as opposed to ‘why refugees do not want to go back’. in africa, a growing body of research on repatriation has emerged following the massive return of refugees to their home countries during the 1990s. the article is divided into four sections. the first section explains how structural forces and migrants’ agency can determine voluntary and involuntary movements and reviews the literature on refugee decisionmaking processes, the second section provides information on the case study, the third section explains the methodology used and the fourth section discusses the results and provides the conclusion. analytical frame: structure–agency impasse one of the many questions underlying the concepts of migration and return is why individuals and households decide to move and whether their decisions are the result of individuals’ rational choices or rather depend on the unavoidable constraints of social structures which disable agents’ decisions. for decades, the social sciences have been grappling to better understand the relationship between structure and agency posing to migration scholars the challenge of determining how the micro and macro level of analysis interact and can be integrated. the limitation of not having a theoretical framework able to reconcile structure and agency might, in fact, not only result in the expost application of migration theories to validate the findings of the empirical research, but also prevent the formulation of ‘robust concepts and hypotheses concerning the interaction of these concepts’ (bakewell 2010: 5). the challenge to recompose this fracture has been sharpened by the migration studies’ traditional dichotomy of voluntary (economic migrant) versus involuntary (refugee) movements which has placed in contrast migrants’ agency of taking informed decisions, on the one hand, and the structural constraints that force people to move, on the other. this separation is misleading because decisions to move are influenced by individuals’ choices as well as by external constraints. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 365 drawing from giddens’s (1984) structuration theory, richmond (1988, 1993) attempted to move beyond this dual dichotomy by introducing the notion of proactive migrants in contrast with reactive. the former are migrants whose decisions are made within a ‘rational choice framework’, the latter are those whose decisions are constrained by socio-economic, political and environmental events. as he pointed out in explaining the differences between proactive migrants and reactive behaviours: under certain conditions the decision to move may be made after due consideration of all relevant information, rationally calculated to maximise net advantage, including both material and symbolic rewards. at the other extreme, the decision to move may be made in a state of panic facing a crisis situation which leaves few alternatives but escape from intolerable threats. between these two extremes, many decisions made by both ‘economic’ and ‘political migrants’ are a response to diffuse anxiety generated by a failure of the social system to provide for the fundamental needs of individual, biological, economic and social (richmond 1988: 17). richmond’s approach enables blurring of the distinction between economic migrants and refugees by placing their decisions on a spatial continuum ranging from individuals’ choice behaviour and structural constraints, however, its limitation lies, on one hand, in the lack of ‘attempting to integrate it with a larger domain of migration theory’ (rosenblum and tichenor 2012: 40) and, on the other, on the fact that is not fully ‘capturing the interaction between agency and structure’ (bakewell 1996: 52). amongst the researchers who attempted to bridge the gap between refugee studies and broader migration theories, de haas (2010) proposed a convincing theoretical framework to solve the structure–agency impasse. his migration system, applicable to different forms of migration, both voluntary and involuntary, is based on the tension between structural forces (i.e. socioeconomic and political factors) and migration capabilities. the latter are defined as ‘the social, human and material capital individuals are able to mobilize in order to migrate’ (de haas 2010: 16) and together with migrants’ aspirations can determine how individuals make their choices. as he explained: if we conceive migration as a response to spatial opportunities rather than mere economic differentials, it is possible to achieve a more inclusion migration theory covering most forms of migration instead of contending with ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 366 the current state of migration characterized by a rather artificial distinction between voluntary (economic) and forced migration. rather than applying such dichotomous classification, it is more appropriate to conceive of a continuum running from low to high constraints, in which all migrants deal with structural constraints, although to highly varying degrees (de haas 2010: 18). by assuming that all individuals, including displaced people and refugees, need certain capabilities and access to ‘positive freedoms’ (de haas 2011: 19) in the form of social, human and material capital to be able to flee their countries, this analytical model questions the boundaries between voluntary and forced migration. in essence, all different forms of migratory movements, with the exception of slavery and deportation, involve structural constraints as well as the autonomy of the agency. it is beyond the scope of this article to critically review all theoretical approaches which have tried to mitigate the existing fracture between agency and structure. here the aim is rather twofold: firstly to present refugee repatriation as one form of return migration by overcoming the nuanced distinction between voluntary and involuntary movements and secondly, to ‘analyse refugees’ return decisions alongside other migratory decisions (harpviken 2014: 58). for the purpose of this article refugee repatriation is placed along the same side as other forms of return migration which are the result of both structural forces and individual choices and are subject to the theoretical scrutiny of migrations studies. from a conceptual perspective, blurring the dichotomy between voluntary and involuntary movements will allow the exploration of the implications of migration theories such as transnationalism to the case of refugees (al-ali et al. 2001: 616) making irrelevant the separation between refugee and migration studies. refugee repatriation and the decision-making process the concept of voluntary repatriation moves from the belief that all refugees intend to return to their home country, an externally conceived assumption ‘which has not been subjected to independent examination’ (harrell-bond 1989: 43). the belief that refugees will return home when conditions in their countries of origin have changed and the cause of flight is no longer in place is the core of the mantra of voluntary repatriation. as bakewell pointed out: repatriation is often seen as the optimum outcome for refugee situations as if by definition and the obvious thing for refugees to do. the fact of their wanting ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 367 to return is taken for granted so their motivation for repatriating does not necessarily arise as a question (1996: 15-16). scholars (harrell-bond 1989; rogge & akol 1989) have widely debated the principle of voluntary repatriation and in particular ‘the suggestion that refugees should be encouraged to go back to countries from which they were once forced to escape has inevitably aroused passionate disagreement and discussion’ (crisp 1986: 163). there are, in fact, circumstances when return is impossible and not desirable (long and crisp 2010: 56) and even when conditions are conducive for refugees to repatriate, problems might arise due to the challenges of reintegration in the country of origin (bascom 2005; cornish et al. 1999; omata 2013; setrana & tonah 2014). in this regard, harrell-bond (1989) argued that there are no empirical evidences to support the idea that reintegration into the sending countries would be more successful than into the host community. other studies (harrell-bond 1989; hathaway 2006; zieck 2004) pointed out how voluntary repatriation has been deliberately used by host governments and refugee agencies to terminate refugeehood situations by promoting repatriation when durable and fundamental changes of conditions in the country of origin have not occurred. stein (1997:4) referred to ‘premature repatriation’ as a particular form of return under duress and the resulting ‘lack of asylum which comes when both the country of origin and the refugees are not ready for the return’. a number of empirical studies (bascom 1994; koser 1997; rutinwa 1996) suggested that refugees repatriate spontaneously and without any assistance when conditions in their home countries improve, but also that self-repatriation movements might be caused by hostile socioeconomic and environmental conditions in the country of asylum (ighodaro 2006) and by deliberate pressure on refugees from ‘host governments, local communities, militia forces and other actors with the specific intention of inducing refugees to go back to their homeland’ (crisp 2000: 17). safety in the country of origin is also considered to be a pivotal determinant of the decision-making process as returnees are more likely to return to their country of origin when they perceive that safety and security are fully restored (kifleyesus 2010: 55). even when conditions in the country of origin have changed and peace is restored, refugees may still be reluctant to return. there are numerous reasons why return is not a desirable option for refugees including: the lack of access to reliable information on the conditions in the country of origin (koser 1997), the presence of social networks in the country ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 368 of asylum (karooma 2014), the notions of ‘home’ and ‘identity’ (chowdhory 2012; malkki 1995) which are subjected to a reconceptualization during exile and the lack of economic opportunities in the country of origin (kunz 1981). continued insecurity was mentioned by crisp amongst the main reasons for ugandan refugees resisting repatriation from sudan. as he analysed: given the various forms of violence and intimidation that returnees could expect in west nile, it was hardly surprising that few decided to go home. in fact, there is evidence to suggest that many of those who did choose to return had a false impression of the security they would enjoy (crisp 1986: 172). kibreab (2003) argued that what makes return an interesting option is not only the conditions in the country of origin but rather a combination of factors occurring both in the country of asylum and in the country of origin. his theory challenges the simplistic assumption that refugees should return to their actual homes and communities from which they were uprooted. while in exile, in fact, ‘refugees go through a process of transformation which enable them to create new social networks transcending ethnic and religious boundaries and weakening their attachment to the place of origin’ (kibreab 2003: 33). the geographical context also plays a pivotal role as refugees originating from the same country and living in different places react differently to repatriation. refugees who are hosted in the ‘global north’ can access a wide range of civil, social and economic rights and have the opportunity to conduct employment and self-employment activities and this has a strong influence on their decision to return. those who are living in less developed countries generally enjoy fewer socio-economic rights and are more inclined to repatriate. this leads to the conclusion that foremost are ‘the conditions in countries of asylum that influence the decision of refugees to stay put or return’ (kibreab 2003: 45). the angolan case angola was devastated by a long civil war which began in 1975 after the country’s declaration of independence in 1961 and was fought between two strongly opposed political factions; on one side the ruling popular movement for the liberation of angola (mpla) and, on the other side, a rebel movement known as the national union for the total independence of angola (unita3). 3 unita was a pro-western organization in angola formed in 1966 by jonas savimbi. together with holden roberto's national front for the liberation of angola (fnla), it opposed the popular movement for the liberation of angola (mpla) under agostinho neto in the angolan ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 369 the war ended after the killing of unita’s leader, jonas savimbi, when a peace agreement was signed in luena in april 2002. almost thirty years of brutal war destroyed most of the country’s infrastructures and left an estimated one million people dead and four million internally displaced (irin 2005). since the end of the civil war the un’s refugee agency has been involved in the repatriation of angolan refugees residing in neighbouring countries such as zambia and the democratic republic of congo (drc). during the first phase of repatriation, between 2002 and 2007, an estimated 400,000 refugees of a total of 600,000 have returned to their area of origin, as the majority of the 4 million displaced did (unhcr 2007). at present, angola is experiencing a period of peace and tranquillity after the suffering and destruction which was inflicted on the population during the civil war and the government has made efforts to rebuild the country through massive development projects. the gross domestic product (gdp) reached 4.1% in 2013 (world bank 2013) and political elections were held peacefully under the new constitution. despite the remarkable improvements, a large number of the 24 million inhabitants are still living in abject poverty (carciotto 2014). although the government of angola has expressed a desire and a strong commitment to support the return of all individuals in exile, research (kaun 2008) highlighted that the reintegration process which followed the first phase of repatriation was challenged by the lack of available resources, investment and commitment offered by government in addition to the valuable but insufficient efforts made by aid agencies and international donors. during the second phase of repatriation the angolan government’s made valuable efforts to provide returnees with bilhete de identidade (identity and birth registration documents) as well as passports for those who applied for local integration in the former asylum countries.4 civil war of the 1970s. south africa supported unita and the fnla by sending sadf* troops into angola in the hope of decreasing the danger of marxist infiltration into south africa and maintaining a hold over the administration of south west africa. but russian support of the mpla, including cuban troops and sophisticated weaponry, meant that south africa had to back off and the mpla took over the government of angola in 1975. thereafter the sadf continued its support of unita, launching a number of offensives against the mpla and swapo* on both sides of the angolan/namibian border in the 1980s until 1988 and the independence of namibia two years later http://bit.ly/1g2mqu1 accessed 20 march 2015. 4 a unhcr staff member (personal communication, 28 may 2015). http://bit.ly/1g2mqu1 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 370 since 2002, the unhcr has entered into tripartite agreements with representatives from a number of african states including the drc, congo brazzaville, zambia, namibia, botswana and south africa. this facilitated the process of repatriation which took place spontaneously and through programmes of assisted repatriation. nonetheless in 2011, according to the unhcr (2012), more than 100,000 angolans still remained in exile in several countries, including the drc (74,500), zambia (23,000), south africa (5700) and namibia (1700). following the declaration of the cessation5 of angolan refugees in 2012 more angolans have returned home. in 2013, 1,6666 former angolan refugees, of whom 35 7 from south africa, and the remaining from zambia (1,161), botswana (429) and namibia (40) were repatriated through voluntary repatriation programmes. 8 during the last phase of voluntary repatriation (volrep) which resumed in august 2014, 17,027 individuals were repatriated to angola. of these, 15,224 (4,719 households) from the drc, 1,620 (478 households) from zambia and 182 (79 households) from the republic of congo.9 in may 2013, following a cabinet decision, the south african government formally declared the cessation of refugee status for all angolan refugees;10 this announcement came in the wake of the 2011 unhcr declaration (unhcr 2012) that conditions in angola had improved and that it was safe for refugees to return and followed the political and economic stabilization of angola as well as improvements in peace and security in the country over the last few years. as declared by the south african minister of home affairs: angola is a country that has decisively put its past behind it and is notching up some impressive developmental statistics. it is one of the fastest growing economies on the continent. it is a country attracting a good deal of foreign investment. the human development index in regard to health, education and 5 article 1c(5) and (6) of the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees states that ‘refugee status may cease due to fundamental changes in the objective circumstances in the country of origin upon which refugee status was based’. 6 a unhcr staff member (personal communication, 17 april 2015). 7 the nationality of 1 of these 1,666 returnees in unknown. 8 in total 38 angolans decided to return voluntarily from south africa; 35 were repatriated in 2013 and 3 in 2014. p. msizi (personal communication, 26 may 2015). 9 a unhcr staff member (personal communication, 28 may 2015). 10 section 5(1)(e) of south africa’s refugee act no. 130 of 1998. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 371 income shows that angola has since 2006 performed above the regional average and, it is a rapidly growing tourist destination (pmg 2013a) the declaration of cabinet had two effects: ‘firstly, the south african government agreed with the unhcr recommendation that angola was no longer a country producing genuine refugees. secondly, this allows the department of home affairs to find durable solutions for those individuals whose refugee status could be reversed by the standing committee on refugee affairs’11 (pmg 2013b). the cessation was meant to be applicable only to angolans ‘who fled their country as a result of the war of independence and the civil war between 1961 and 2002’ (unhcr 2012: 1) and the south african government offered three options to angolan refugees: for those who wished to voluntary return to angola assistance was provided by the unhcr, the south african and the angolan governments; for those who wished to continue to stay in south africa a 2-year temporary visa12 was introduced upon obtaining a national passport from the angolan diplomatic authorities in south africa; and finally for those angolan refugees who wanted to retain their refugee status13 a provision was made to allow them to apply for an exemption14 from the cessation regime. those angolans who opted for repatriation of local integration had their refugee status withdrawn15. 11 section 36 of south africa’s refugee act no. 130 of 1998. 12 the cut-off date for the issuance of passports and visas was initially 31 august 2013 but because the angolan government was not able to issue passports at time the cut-off date was extended to 15 december 2013. 13 only six angolan refugees indicated their wish to remain under the international protection. a unhcr staff member (personal communication, 26 may 2015). 14 section 5(2) of south africa’s refugee act no. 130 of 1998 and para 5 of the unhcr, guidelines on exemption procedures in respect of cessation declaration (december 2011) states that: ‘the 1951 convention envisions two categories of refugees who should be exempted from cessation. these are (1) refugees who continue to have a well-founded fear of persecution, despite the general positive changes in the country of origin, and (2) refugees who due to compelling reasons arising out of previous persecution cannot be expected to return to their country of origin. 15 section 5(3) of south africa’s refugee act no. 130 of 1998 and regulation 17 provides that ‘when standing committee on refugee affairs (scra) intends withdrawing status from a refugee, it must give the refugee written notice of its intention to do so, including the reasons therefore, and must invite written representations within thirty days. if no representations are received or if the representations do not persuade the scra otherwise, it may withdraw the ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 372 according to the department of home affairs, 16 in 2012, 16,529 angolan nationals of whom 3,100 had refugee status, were living in south africa, mainly in the cape town metropolitan area (2,635). in the four centres17 established in durban, port elizabeth, cape town and the tshwane interim reception office, a total of 3,713 angolans were profiled; approximately 2,200 were integrated locally under the 2002 immigration act and received 2-year visas,18 while 38 were voluntary repatriated to angola. there were also seven angolan unaccompanied minors, of whom three were granted with permanent residency and four were issued with alternate permits,19 which were dealt with by durable solutions beyond the cut-off time of december 2013. methodology the data was collected applying a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. information was gathered using a structured questionnaire administered to 131 individuals over a period of three weeks in february 2015. due to the lack of reliable information about the total number of angolan households in south africa, a purposive non-probabilistic method, in which sample units shared similar characteristics, including language, nationality and socio-economic background was applied to the present study. statistical analysis was used to examine the connection, sequence and tendencies of various variables involved. the synopsis of the data was conducted using statistical software (stata) in order to quantify the details and figures gathered. descriptive statistics were applied to interpret, conceptualize and condense the data set. members of the angolan community (9) were selected and interviewed with the assistance of the scalabrini centre, a local non-governmental organization, using a snowball sampling technique which took into consideration their different socio-economic backgrounds. two focus group discussions were also conducted with twenty selected angolan nationals. in addition, semi refugee’s status. the scra bears the burden of proof in respect of the grounds upon which it seeks to withdraw refugee status’ (harvey 2012: 6). 16 information was released during a meeting held with the angolan community in cape town on 16 june, 2012. 17 on 29 may 2013 the south african department of home affairs established so-called ‘one stop’ services which were staffed by south african and angolan government officials and unhcr staff. 18 two-year temporary visas for study, work, business, elderly person or spousal/dependent were issued relaxing the conditions prescribed by the 2002 immigration act and its regulations; these visas will only be renewable as per regular conditions prescribed by the 2002 immigration act and its regulations 19a unhcr staff member (personal communication, 26 may 2015). ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 373 structures interviews with representatives from non-governmental organisations, members of international organizations and civil society were conducted in cape town between january and may 2015. although the small sample cannot be representative of the general population, the mix of both quantitative and qualitative methods of research allowed the development of some relevant considerations around the experience of angolan refugees in south africa and their attitude and response to repatriation. analysis of results a) reluctance to return in the case of angolans, repatriation from south africa did not produce the same numeric results of other voluntary repatriation programmes which took place in the region and a low number of individuals, only 38, opted for voluntary repatriation while the majority preferred to remain in south africa and were given 2-year temporary visas. before the declaration of the cessation, between 2004 and 2011, a small number of angolans (104) were repatriated from south africa20 with the assistance of the unhcr, while others were estimated to have returned spontaneously. the survey asked a series of questions to determine nationality and place of birth of the respondents. all the 131 respondents were of angolan nationality; 93 respondents (71%) were males and females (29%). the majority of respondents (49.6%) were married, 13% were living with partners, 3.1% were widows/ widowers, 7.6% were divorced or separated and 26.7% never married. in addition, the findings indicated that 46.6% of those interviewed fell within the 36-45 age category, 13.7% were between 26-35, 27.5% were between 46-55, and 9.2% and 3.1% fell in the 10-25 and over 56 age group respectively. a large number of respondents (30.5%) were born in luanda, while the rest were born in other provinces and outside angola. out of the total surveyed, 28.2% were born in uige, 1.5% were born in benguela, cabinda (3.1%), bie (1.5%), cuanza norte (1.5%), huambo (1.5%), huila (3.8%), malange (3.8%), bengo (0.8%), cuanza sul (0.8%), while 17.6% were born in the then zaire and 5.3% were born in other countries. 20 stakeholders’ meeting notes (held in cape town on 22 may 2012). ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 374 despite the lack of opportunity for many angolans to obtain permanent residence21 and to secure their legal status in south africa, of those who were interviewed, none expressed the intention to return permanently to angola. the reasons for their reluctance to return are complex and determined by a number of factors which refer both to the conditions in their home country as well as in the country of asylum. a large number of respondents have mentioned the lack of adequate healthcare structures and poor service provision amongst the reasons to refuse repatriation. other explanations that frequently recurred during the interviews were concerns about the lack of democracy, human rights and civil liberties in angola. these reasons were backed by several statements: ‘i was born there [in angola] but there are no opportunities in the country, hospitals are not good and education is expensive’ (p75).22 ‘with the current government in power i cannot return, they are dictators and infrastructures are poor’ (p77). ‘the main reason not to return is the healthcare system, the second is the education system. people don’t have sanitation and medication; they are not working and don’t have a house’ (p1). the study confirmed that decisions to return for refugees were determined by a comparison between conditions in the country of asylum and in the home country (koser 1997: 2) as reinforced by the statements of two respondents: ‘human rights and living conditions are not good; there is no one who can tell me that those conditions can be better than here [in south africa]’ (p7). ‘the idea of returning makes me feel bad because my family is here and conditions are bad compared to south africa’ (p114). b) life in south africa having lived in south africa for an average period of eighteen years, angolans have integrated into south african society. more than 50% of those interviewed were married, with 25% of them either married to or living with a south african spouse. a significant number of interviewees had their family members in the country of asylum and children enrolled in south african schools. for those angolans who are either married to south african spouses or have children in south african schools, the challenge of integration into 21 section 26(a) of the 2002 immigration act states that: ‘the department shall issue a permanent residence permit to a foreigner who has been the holder of a work permit […] in terms of this act for five years and has received an offer for permanent employment’. 22 all open-ended survey questions were coded; ‘p’ refers to participant. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 375 angolan society was much greater because of cultural and linguistic differences. as one of the respondents pointed out: ‘my kids are born here and they are receiving an education in south africa’ (p27). whereas the majority of interviewees still consider themselves as angolans, almost 25% of the respondents consider themselves as south africans and 13.7% view themselves as both south african and angolan. the adoption of a south african national identity was particularly strong amongst the younger generation of former angolan refugees, especially those who came to south africa young or were born in south africa. for all these reasons, and due to the presence of strong social networks in south africa, respondents have expressed a low interest in repatriation, in line with the affinity hypothesis which states that the higher the density of networks of friends, children and family members in the country of asylum, the lower the probability of repatriation (boyd 1989; gurak & caces 1992). as stated by one the respondents during a focus group discussion: i have got three kids that were born in south africa and this is what makes me stay here; they were born here and they are all in school and spent their life here. even myself i came in south africa when i was very young, i was 19, and i spent here more than 18 years. last year i even went to angola to see if we can get adapted but is very difficult to adapt in that country. my work is here and my children do not know how to write portuguese as they study in english. imagine if i take them to angola how are they going to adapt? especially to the education system which is very different from the one we have here in south africa. these are the things that have been keeping me in south africa for all these years, especially my kids’ education. (focus group interview, february 2015). c) is angola still ‘home’? a large majority of respondents (84%) declared to be in contact with a least one member of his immediate or extended family, while only 16% reported not having any family member left in angola. the research sought to determine the percentage of participants who have visited angola after their arrival in south africa. the frequency of travel to angola was low and the research data revealed that only 35% of the participants have since visited angola, whilst 65% never returned to angola. out of the 35% who have visited angola, 59 % have visited at least once and moreover, 31 respondents indicated that they were last in angola in 2014. this fact, was not only a confirmation that sourcing information on the socio-economic and political ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 376 conditions at home played a fundamental role in the decision-making process of repatriation (koser 1997) but also that some of the interviewed angolans returned to angola after the cessation was declared to assess whether permanent repatriation was a viable option and to validate information acquired in south africa through the media, relatives and friends. as reported by two of the respondents: yes, i went [to angola] to go and check by myself; i don’t want others to come and tell me this and that; that’s why i went there and i checked by myself and i saw what is better there and what is not better (personal interview, 15 march, 2015). i was in angola in june and again in december 2014 and because of the things i saw i wasn’t happy. most of the people were asking me: ‘are you coming back here for good?’ i told them: ‘no i’m not’. i can come here to visit but not to live (personal interview, 16 march, 2015). some of the respondents expressed their interest in returning to angola for a short period of time, both for work and to visit but without the intention to resettle, as confirmed by these statements: ‘i would consider working in angola but not staying there’ (p14). ‘i would only visit angola, cape town is my home’ (p11). questions to elicit respondents’ views on the presence of socio-economic opportunities for returnees in angola raised conflicting views. of all angolans surveyed, 63% did not believe that opportunities existed for them and their families in angola, 19% were positive about it, while 18% were uncertain. respondents reported that although some forms of economic opportunities were available due to favourable economic conditions in angola, there were also several impediments to their return including the lack of jobs for aged and uneducated individuals, language barriers for angolans who had lived abroad for many years, nepotism and corruption and the challenge of uprooting children from their social environment. these negative views were backed by the respondents’ statements: ‘there are opportunities in angola but not for me due to my age’ (p18). ‘because i have not studied it would be difficult for me to find work’ (p40). ‘i would feel happy to see my family again but there would be barriers for me in getting a job in terms of language’ (p41). amongst those who were positive about the presence of opportunities in angola the main barrier to return was represented by the social conditions in the country which made repatriation difficult, in particular for those with wives and ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 377 children in south africa. as one of the respondents declared: ‘opportunities may exist for the breadwinner but not for the family; social conditions are not good in angola’ (p17). d) legal status questions related to legal status and its uncertainty can increase anxiety amongst refugees, hinder transnational practices and reduce their propensity to return home (al-ali et al. 2001: 582). the survey asked a series of questions to establish the documentation status of the respondents and findings revealed that 96% of angolans regularised their stay in south africa during the time of the refugee cessation, between august and december 2013. data analysis showed that 89% of the respondents had refugee status permits (section 24) and 11% held asylum seeker temporary permits (section 22) prior to the declaration of cessation.23 the study also indicated that 72% of the respondents moved from section 22 and section 24 permits to temporary residency work visas, while 11% did not have valid documentation and therefore remained undocumented. although the majority of former angolan refugees received temporary residence visas, this did not give them any formal right to apply for permanent residence in south africa regardless of their long stay in the country as refugees.24 temporary visas under relaxed conditions were issued only for a period of two years leaving angolans in a state of frustration and uncertainty about their future. those angolans who are not be able to extend their visas after the initial period of two years will have no choice but to return to angola, or to remain undocumented in south africa facing the risk of deportation. conclusion the mantra of voluntary repatriation is based on the underlying assumption that refugees, regardless of the amount of time spent in exile, will return to 23 a section 22 permit is given to a person who has fled his or her country and is seeking recognition and protection in the republic of south africa, and whose application is still under consideration. refugee status is given to person who has been granted asylum status and protection in terms of section 24 of the refugee act no. 130 of 1998. 24 the refugee act no. 130 of 1998 section 27(c) allows a refugee to apply for permanent residence after he or she has been recognised as a refugee for five consecutive years, but permanent residence is only granted if a refugee is deemed a refugee ‘indefinitely.’ ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 378 their countries of origin once the cause of their flight has ceased. however, the case of angolan refugees in south africa showed that few individuals accepted voluntary repatriation while the large majority opted for local integration and were given temporary visas by the south african government. the angolans’ decision to return was influenced by a complexity of factors and entailed a cost-benefit analysis of socio-economic and political conditions in both the country of origin and asylum. for some angolans the information acquired through personal networks, the media, international organisations and government institutions was insufficient to make a final decision and ‘goand-see’ visits to angola were spontaneously taken to assess whether conditions at home were conducive for return. the presence of family and other social links, the length of time spent in exile and the possibility of accessing civil, social and economic rights in south africa have determined a low interest in repatriation amongst former angolan refugees. those who expressed an interest in visiting angola for a short period of time were in favour of flexible and non-permanent forms of return which would allow them to visit their families and to conduct some work but also retain the legal status acquired in the former country of asylum. the lack of an opportunity to be granted permanent residence or citizenship has hindered angolans’ decision to return and prevented their transnational mobility. securing a permanent legal status in south africa would have offered angolans a fall-back option – in case repatriation failed – and the opportunity for short visits and periods of dual residence. moreover, those angolans who will not meet the necessary requirements to extend their temporary visas will not be able to remain in south africa and will have to return to angola against their will. in conclusion, this paper underlined that policies which facilitate transnational mobility, encourage temporary forms of return and offer long-term refugees the possibility to access permanent residence and 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unemployment rate: 38%). keywords: migration, inter-provincial migration, labor market, western cape, gauteng the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 26 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 introduction migration is a necessity in the modern labor market of the 21st century, as it represents an essential and potentially beneficial component of all economies, regions and countries (kalitanyi and visser, 2010). as a result of globalization, the world is experiencing an increasing flow of labor and capital, both locally and internationally. the general flow of people is from developing to developed countries, and from rural to urban provinces. the main reasons for this are twofold; firstly, due to the disparity in the economic dispensation of developing and developed countries/areas, people find it more advantageous to migrate for the prospect of greater opportunities elsewhere. secondly, the recruitment policies implemented in developed regions appear to target high-skilled immigrants (chand and paldam, 2005). as far as international migration is concerned, an immigrant is an individual who migrated from another country, an emigrant is an individual who migrated to another country, whereas a native is someone who resides in the birth country (van rooyen, 2000; moses and yu, 2009). south africa is a country with a high international emigration rate, and this can be attributed to crime, inequality and unemployment in this country, which have plagued the nation since the advent of the country’s democracy (fauvelle-aymar, 2015). in contrast, the country is still one of the main destinations of immigration in africa, because compared to other african countries, immigrants in south africa enjoy one of the highest rates of employment (fauvelleaymar, 2014). with regard to inter-provincial migration, the western cape and gauteng account for most of the immigration within south africa. these two provinces contribute the most towards the economic success of the country, with the lowest provincial employment rate in the country (kollamparambil, 2017). these two provinces also account for a combined 49% of south africa’s gross domestic product (gdp) – 35% in gauteng and 14% in the western cape in 2018 (statssa, 2019). in the western cape and gauteng, 57% and 48% of inter-provincial migrants are employed respectively (statssa, 2014). hence, these two provinces remain attractive destinations for potential job seekers from other provinces. while there have been empirical studies on inter-provincial migration in south africa in recent years (reviewed here in section two), these studies have either been outdated, or did not thoroughly examine how the inter-provincial immigrants fared in these two popular destination provinces. a particular area of neglect has been the immigrants’ labor market outcomes compared to the natives who remained in their home provinces. given the persistently high unemployment rate (29.1% in the fourth quarter of 2019), one of the most pressing socio-economic problems of the country, and people seeking better employment opportunities elsewhere, these have emerged as prominent reasons for inter-provincial migration. this study aims to fill the existing research gap in the local empirical literature by providing an updated and detailed analysis of inter-provincial migration into gauteng and the western cape, to gain an understanding of how the migrants from other provinces fare in the labor 27 market of these two provinces. the general research objective of this study is to determine the effects of inter-provincial migration on the labor markets in the western cape and gauteng. additionally, the study aims to achieve the following specific research objectives: to determine the migration patterns in the western cape and gauteng; to identify the characteristics of inter-provincial migrants into these two provinces; and to examine whether the overall impact of inter-provincial migration in the western cape and gauteng is positive or detrimental to the local labor market and employment of the native population. literature review migration definition the term ‘migration’ can mean many things, depending on the context in which it is used. in the animal kingdom, migration is natural inherent behavior when animals move from one place to another. human behavior is thus patterned after this phenomenon in nature. goetz (1999) illustrates one of the many meanings of migration, citing the movement of people across state lines in the usa. clark (1986: 33) asserts that migration takes place when an individual moves residentially, with the distance between the two locations being “so large that it is no longer possible for the mover to commute to the old place of work”. furthermore, kok et al. (2006: 10) define migration as the “crossing of the boundary of a predefined spatial unit by persons involved in a change of residence”. one common thread that the above definitions have in common is that migration takes place when individuals change their geographical locations, either permanently or for a long duration. in this study, the focus is on inter-provincial migration, that is, migration from one province to another within the same country (moses and yu, 2009). these inter-provincial migrants have been classified into two groups, namely short-term and long-term migrants. while the empirical analysis compares the labor market outcomes of the inter-provincial migrants to those of the intra-provincial migrants – those who migrated from one place to another within the same province – the interprovincial migrants remain the focus group of individuals in this study. migration theories and models from a theoretical perspective, various factors initiate and perpetuate international migration (massey et al., 1993). the key theoretical models are discussed below, with specific reference to inter-provincial migration in the two designated provinces. initiation of migration according to the push-pull model, many native individuals left the country due to various economic and non-economic push and pull factors. push factors are those aspects in the country of origin that produce emigration, whereas pull factors depict the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 28 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 those aspects in the country of destination that induce migration (oteiza, 1968:126). when it comes to inter-provincial migration, the main push factors include the following in the province of origin: slow economic growth, high and growing unemployment (especially amongst the youth), poor access to services and facilities (e.g. water and electricity) and poor infrastructure (e.g. transport). on the contrary, the main pull factors include the following in the provinces of destination: more rapid economic growth, more abundant employment and professional development opportunities and higher remuneration, better quality of life, and family ties (van rooyen, 2000; moses and yu, 2009; rasool et al., 2012; pekane, 2018). in the neoclassical model, individuals are deemed to be rational decision-makers by conducting a cost-benefit analysis, before deciding to move if the expected net return of migration is positive. in particular, geographical wage differentials induce migration from low-wage provinces to high-wage provinces. once wage levels at the provinces of origin and destination converge, inter-provincial migration comes to an end (massey et al., 1993; de haas, 2010). in the dual labor market theory, migration is induced by an intrinsic demand for labor in the primary sector, characterized by a capital-intensive production method, higher remuneration and better working conditions. thus, individuals from the labor-intensive secondary sector, characterized by lower remuneration and poor working conditions, are induced to relocate to the primary sector (massey et al., 1993; moses and yu, 2009). according to the world systems theory, firms from capitalist, core and developed areas enter peripheral, developing areas to take advantage of low-wage labor by establishing assembly plants there. nonetheless, as new factory work is associated with demanding tasks and poor remuneration, factory workers work for a short duration only, before leaving to seek new and better opportunities in the more developed areas (massey et al., 1993). furthermore, according to the new household economics of migration, household members make migration decisions collectively, by not only maximizing expected income but also minimizing risks. the latter happens by assigning some members to remain in the province of origin, but sending other members to work in other provinces with higher wages and better employment conditions (massey et al., 1993; de haas, 2010). perpetuation of migration in the network theory, migrants establish relationships with former, current and potential migrants and non-migrants in both sending and receiving regions. these network connections constitute social capital to assist individuals to gain access to employment in other provinces and to adapt better in the destination province (massey et al., 1993; weeks, 1996). on the contrary, according to the institutional theory, many people would like to migrate to a capital-rich region with a limited number of immigration visas available. this leads to development of an underground black market in migration associated with conditions that are conducive to victimization and exploitation. hence, voluntary humanitarian organizations are in place to pro29 vide migration services and enforce the rights and treatment of migrants. as a result, migration flows become more institutionalized and less dependent on factors which originally induced them (massey et al., 1993). the cumulative causation theory assumes that each migration act affects the social environment in both home and host regions, typically in ways that induce additional movements. in particular, the success of migrants’ first moves encourages more people in the sending area(s) to move, thereby contributing to increases in migration volume. according to the migration systems theory, a migration system consists of a core, receiving region and numerous sending regions. this system, whilst being stable, may evolve over time in cognizance of international economic and political trends (or provincial trends, when it comes to inter-provincial migration). the countries (or provinces) may not be physically close as economic and political links between countries (or provinces) drive migration flows (massey et al., 1993). review of past empirical studies this section reviews the recent local empirical studies on inter-provincial migration. van der berg et al. (2002) analyzed the 1996 south african census data to investigate rural-urban migration. the authors specifically focused on the migration of africans from transkei (an apartheid-era bantustan in the eastern cape) to the western cape, finding that 90% of inter-provincial migrants to the western cape originated from the eastern cape. the empirical findings indicated that male individuals aged 19-50 years with secondary education were significantly more likely to move to the western cape. the study did not examine how these migrants fared in the western cape labor market. oosthuizen and naidoo (2004) used the data from the 2001 south african census and the september 2002 labor force survey (lfs), to examine inter-provincial migration into gauteng. the authors found that the majority of migrants into this province originated from limpopo, the northern cape and kwazulu-natal. these migrants were also relatively younger and less educated than the gauteng-born native population. the superior employment prospect was clearly the primary reason for migration, as the inter-provincial migrants enjoyed a lower unemployment rate in gauteng compared with those who remained in their birth provinces, with the exception of the western cape. nonetheless, the employed inter-provincial migrants were more likely to be involved in unskilled occupations (27% share) compared to the gauteng-born natives (15%), while the opposite happened in high-skilled employment, with inter-provincial migrants at 20% and gauteng-born natives at 31%. moses and yu (2009) conducted research on migration from the northern cape using south african census 1996 and 2001 datasets. the authors identified the western cape, north west and gauteng as the top three destination provinces. they subsequently examined four migration groups, namely permanent residents in the northern cape, permanent inter-provincial migrants from the northern cape to another province, recent inter-provincial migrants from the northern cape to another the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 30 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 province, and intra-provincial migrants within the northern cape. the empirical findings on the labor market analysis indicated that the two inter-provincial migrant groups fared the best, as they were associated with the lowest unemployment rate and highest probability of engaging in high-skilled occupations (if employed). moreover, the results of the multivariate econometric analysis indicated that, after controlling for differences in other characteristics, the recent inter-provincial migrants enjoyed a significantly greater likelihood of finding employment in the abovementioned top three destination provinces, compared to the reference category (permanent interprovincial migrants). jacobs (2014) identified inter-provincial migration patterns and characteristics of in-migrants to the western cape in 2001-2011 by using the south african census 2011 data (statssa, 2011). the author found that 52% and 22% of inter-provincial migrants into the western cape originated from the eastern cape and gauteng, respectively. this study also found that the eastern cape migrants were relatively less educated, with only 34% having completed matric or grade 12, while the gauteng migrants were much more educated, with 68% having completed matric, with half of them possessing post-matric qualifications. while both groups of inter-provincial migrants had similar labor force participation rates (lfprs) of slightly above 70%, the eastern cape migrants suffered a much higher unemployment rate of 33%, which was three times higher than that of the gauteng migrants (only 11%). one shortcoming of this study is that the work activities of the inter-provincial migrants in the western cape were not investigated. schiel (2014) examined inter-provincial migration by analyzing the first three waves of the national income dynamics study (nids) data (2008 to 2012). after examining the provinces of origin of inter-provincial migrants across all nine provinces, the author compared the personaland household-level characteristics of the migrants and non-migrants, with one notable finding being that the migrants were relatively more educated. the latter finding explained why a higher proportion of migrants, if employed, were involved in high-skilled occupations, at 30%, compared to the non-migrants, at 25%. the author also conducted a transition matrix on the migrants, and found that for those who were inactive, unemployed and employed in the first wave (2008), 19%, 27% and 64% respectively were employed at the time of the third wave (2012). buwembo (2015) used the south african census 2011 data (statssa, 2011) to specifically focus on comparing the inter-provincial migrants from limpopo to gauteng with those who remained in limpopo. this study found that the majority of these migrants resided in the tshwane municipality and the northern parts of ekurhuleni. it also found that the limpopo migrants to gauteng were 1.3 times more likely to be employed than non-migrants who remained in limpopo, after controlling differences in various personal characteristics. similar to the jacobs (2014) study, the buwembo (2015) study also excluded a detailed investigation of the work activities of the inter-provincial migrants, despite finding that the limpopo-to-gauteng 31 migrants were more likely to belong to higher-income groups, whereas those who remained in limpopo were more likely to fall under the lower-income groups. kollamparambil (2017) used the first, second, and fourth waves (2008 to 2014) of the nids data to examine the impact of internal in-migration on the labor markets of the receiving areas at district level. only individuals aged 18-59 years at the time of first wave (2008) and who took part in all three waves were included for analysis, with a final sample size of about 7 600 individuals. the empirical findings suggested that in-migration reduced the lfpr in destination locations of the migrants. the author also asserted that initial migration led to the expansion of formal sector employment, while a sustained increase in in-migration in turn led to the informalization of the labor market. the author also found that while the migrants initially suffered lower employment rates than the locals before migration taking place in the first two waves, at the time of the fourth wave (2014), these migrants enjoyed a higher rate of employment than the non-migrants. this study also excluded a comprehensive investigation of the work activities of the migrants. upon reviewing these past recent studies on inter-provincial migration in south africa, this research paper identified the following research gaps: first, the labor market activities of inter-provincial migrants were not investigated in detail, in most of these studies. secondly, the comparison between inter-provincial migrants and permanent residents was not precise. thirdly, not all studies clearly distinguished between shortand long-term migrants. lastly, not all studies specifically focused on inter-provincial migration into gauteng and the western cape, the two most popular destination provinces in south africa. methods and data methods to achieve the stated research objectives and fill the existing research gaps, this study used the south african census 2011 data (statssa, 2011) to identify the following eight groups of individuals aged 15-64 years at the time of the census: [1]: permanent residents of the western cape [2]: intra-provincial migrants in the western cape [3]: long-term migrants from other provinces to the western cape [4]: short-term migrants from other provinces to the western cape [5]: permanent residents of gauteng [6]: intra-provincial migrants in gauteng [7]: long-term migrants from other provinces to gauteng [8]: short-term migrants from other provinces to gauteng short-term and long-term migration are distinguished from each other based on the time periods before and after 2006. thus, in-migrants to gauteng and the western cape during 2001-2006 are considered long-term migrants, while those who moved to these two provinces during 2007-2011 are considered short-term mithe impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 32 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 grants. this serves to differentiate the groups [3] and [7] from groups [4] and [8], respectively. the stata software package was used to conduct descriptive and econometric analysis. with regard to the descriptive analysis, this study first compares the personaland household-level characteristics of these eight groups, ranging from gender, race, age cohort, educational attainment and marital status, to labor market status, work activities (if employed) and socio-economic status (ses). the primary focus is on investigating the individuals’ labor market outcomes. principal component analysis (pca) is used to derive the non-income welfare ses index using the various indicators as shown in table a1. pca is a data reduction method to re-express multivariate data with fewer dimensions (vyas and kumaranayake, 2006). the primary aim of this method is to re-orient the data so that a multitude of original variables can be summarized with relatively few ‘components’ that capture the maximum possible information (variation) from the original variables. each component is the weighted sum of the original variables (the non-income welfare indicators in this study, as shown in table a1), with the weighting of each variable being proportional to the share of total variance that it represents. the eigenvalue ratios, which represent the proportion of total variance that each principal component explains, are used to identify the number of components to be included in the ses index (van der berg et al., 2003). the first principal component explains the greatest possible proportion of variation in the original data, the second component explains additional but less variation than the first component, and so forth, but these components are completely uncorrelated with each other (vyas and kumaranayake, 2006). the econometric analysis employs a probit regression to examine the impact of various explanatory variables on labor force participation likelihood and employment likelihood of the working-age population in these two provinces. the particular focus is on how the inter-provincial migrants to the two provinces (that is, groups [3], [4], [7], and [8]) fare in the labor market, compared with the reference categories (that is, groups [1] and [5]). in a probit model, the dependent variable is binary with a value of either zero or one. the econometric model can be mathematically represented as follows (gujarati and porter, 2009; wooldridge, 2012): (y=1|x)=p(y=1|x_1,x_2¬,…,x_k ) where p(y=1|x) represents the probability that an individual migrant would participate in the labor force (in the probit model on labor force participation likelihood) or find work (in the heckprobit model on employment likelihood) in the western cape and gauteng. in addition, x_1,x_2¬,…,x_k are the various explanatory variables. the sample of individuals within the labor force is not random, as these individuals have already undergone a selection process through deciding whether or not to enter the labor force, the estimated results may suffer from sample selection bias. 33 to address this, the study employs the heckman two-step approach (oosthuizen, 2006: 53). first, to ascertain whether or not an individual is likely to participate in the labor force, the probit model is estimated, with dependent variable equaling to either one (labor force) or zero (inactive). this model enables the estimation of the inverse mills ratio, which is included in the next employment of the heckprobit model, that is estimated. thus, if an individual is likely to participate in the labor force, an employment probit is estimated to ascertain if the individual is likely to be employed based on the explanatory variables. the regress and variable therefore, equals one for employed and zero for unemployed. the employment probit is therefore conducted, conditional on labor force participation. in this study, the explanatory variables include the following: • gender (reference category: female) • race (reference category: african) • age cohort (reference category: 15-24 years) • years of education and years of education squared • marital status (reference category: not married or living with a partner) • migration status (reference category: permanent residents) • area type (reference category: rural) • number of children aged 0-14 years in the household • number of males aged 15-59 years in the household • number of females aged 15-59 years in the household • number of elderly aged at least 60 years in the household in both the probit and heckprobit models, the average marginal effects are derived by estimating the change in the dependent variable for a unit change in the independent variable, holding other variables constant. as most inter-provincial migrants to the western cape and gauteng came from the eastern cape and limpopo respectively, additional descriptive analysis is conducted on these groups: [i]: eastern cape permanent residents; [ii]: inter-provincial migrants from the eastern cape to the western cape (both short-term and long-term migrants are included); [iii] limpopo permanent residents; [iv]: interprovincial migrants from limpopo to gauteng (again, both short-term and longterm migrants are included). data south african census data, conducted by statistics south africa (statssa) was used in the study. three censuses have been conducted in south africa since apartheid, in the years 1996, 2001 and 2011. the primary aim of a national census is to capture the living conditions and non-income welfare of the population. in addition, there is a comprehensive section with numerous questions on the migration status of the individuals, ranging from the country of birth, province of birth, and year of migrating to the current place of residence, to province of usual residence and province of the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 34 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 previous residence. census 2011 data (statssa, 2011) was used instead of the census 2001 and community survey (cs) 2007 and 2016 data. the main reason is that census 2001, cs 2007 and cs 2016 captured provincial migration only within the last five years, whereas census 2011 (statssa, 2011) captured provincial migration data from the previous 10 years (i.e. since 2001). this allowed us to analyze both short and long-term migration. the key questions contained in the questionnaire of census 2011 (statssa, 2011) that are employed in this research study are, firstly question p-10a (province of usual residence), which determines whether or not the individual is a usual resident of the province. this question is used to determine the various permanent residents in each province. questions p-11 (since 2001) and p-11a (month and year moved) determine whether or not an individual has lived in a particular province since 2001 and are therefore used to determine whether or not an individual is a long-term or short-term migrant. in addition, question p-11b (province of previous residence) is used in order to populate the inter-provincial statistics between the various provinces as it identifies an individual’s province of origin. if an individual identifies the same province for questions p-11b and p-10a, but has recently moved according to questions p-11 and p-11a, then s/he is an intraprovincial migrant. however, if different provinces are identified for these two questions, then s/he is an inter-provincial migrant. as identified by questions p-11 and p-11a, individuals who migrated during 2001-2006 and 2007-2011 are regarded as long-term and short-term migrants, respectively. empirical findings descriptive statistics while not the focus of this study, the results of the pca are shown in table a2 and briefly discussed here. the first component accounts for 27.68% of the total variation across the 22 indicators (the corresponding proportions are 8.94% and 7.85% for the second and third components respectively, despite not being shown in the table). the second column shows the scoring factors of each indicator in the first component. note that a positive (negative) scoring factor is associated with a positive (negative) correlation with the first component, thereby increasing (decreasing) the ses index. the column shows that the scoring factors are the highest in the ‘piped water access: inside dwelling’ (0.2999) and ‘sanitation: flush or chemical toilet’ (0.2981) indicators; these results mean that access to these two facilities raises the ses index by the largest amount. in contrast, the scoring factors are the smallest in the ‘piped water access: on community stand’ (-0.2161) and ‘sanitation: pit toilet without ventilation’ (-0.1839) indicators; hence, these two indicators result in a lower ses index. next, tables a3 and a4 show that intra-provincial migrants accounted for the highest proportion of total migrants in all provinces. this is no exception in the western cape and gauteng (64.84% and 59.11% shares, respectively). international 35 immigrants from overseas also accounted for a considerable proportion of migrants – 12.81% in gauteng and 7.92% in the western cape. the various migration patterns observed into and within the western cape and gauteng are largely consistent with the literature. furthermore, the bottom of table a4 shows that the share of interprovincial migrants was the highest in the north west (33.43%), the northern cape (32.02%), and mpumalanga (32.00%). table 1 only includes inter-provincial migrants. while the research reviewed earlier, found that the majority of migrants into the western cape came from the eastern cape, the findings in table 1 show that in 2011, more than half (53.64%) of inter-provincial migrants into the western cape came from the eastern cape, followed by gauteng (20.95%) and kwazulu-natal (8.25%). in contrast, gauteng inmigrants were more evenly spread, with the top four provinces of previous residence being limpopo (30.92%), kwazulu-natal (19.30%), the eastern cape (14.22%), and mpumalanga (11.15%). table 1: previous province of residence versus current province of residence (%), if they are not the same as each other note: intra-provincial migrants and immigrants from overseas are excluded. profile of the eight groups of individuals in gauteng and the western cape table a5 provides the summary statistics of the gauteng and western cape individuals in the census 2011 data (statssa, 2011). moving on to table 2, it shows that the two short-term inter-provincial migrant groups ([4] and [8]) are associated with a younger mean age (about 30 years) and a higher proportion of youth aged 15-34 years (approximately 70% share). in addition, the male share was slightly more dominant in groups [3], [4], [7], and [8]. current province of residence wc ec nc fs kzn nw gau mpu lim pr ev io us p ro vi nc e o f r es id en ce wc n/a 29.47 16.17 5.82 5.64 2.91 5.17 2.85 3.49 ec 53.64 n/a 12.98 20.63 47.53 17.17 14.22 9.12 9.67 nc 5.36 2.81 n/a 7.97 2.41 5.59 1.63 1.95 1.71 fs 3.60 6.55 12.87 n/a 4.24 11.80 7.76 5.86 4.52 kzn 8.25 18.28 4.54 12.15 n/a 5.30 19.30 17.20 6.28 nw 2.34 3.94 29.75 10.18 3.18 n/a 9.84 5.23 11.46 gau 20.95 30.22 15.97 32.45 25.99 37.86 n/a 34.98 45.82 mpu 2.47 4.25 3.47 4.45 6.68 5.81 11.15 n/a 17.05 lim 3.39 4.48 4.24 6.35 4.34 13.57 30.92 22.80 n/a 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 36 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 table 2: personal-level and household-level characteristics of the eight groups of western cape and gauteng residents (% share unless stated otherwise) [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] age cohort 15-24 years 26.65 22.55 21.04 34.45 25.99 21.79 20.48 37.03 25-34 years 22.86 33.57 42.26 36.00 24.93 37.41 45.42 39.54 35-44 years 20.41 24.41 20.53 16.44 20.51 24.38 21.06 14.57 45-54 years 18.14 12.56 9.75 7.60 17.39 11.18 8.98 6.09 55-64 years 11.93 6.91 6.43 5.52 11.18 5.25 4.05 2.77 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 mean (years) 35.92 34.12 33.14 30.92 35.66 33.45 32.33 29.36 gender male 48.35 48.56 52.20 52.31 50.74 50.39 54.56 52.85 female 51.65 51.44 47.80 47.69 49.26 49.61 45.44 47.15 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 race african 30.49 31.40 68.89 60.61 79.99 68.66 81.28 80.08 coloured 55.91 37.70 6.87 8.03 3.80 3.10 1.94 2.18 indian 0.89 1.44 1.54 1.96 2.48 3.44 4.43 4.06 white 11.78 27.21 21.79 27.47 13.37 24.00 11.99 13.06 other 0.94 2.24 0.09 1.93 0.37 0.80 0.37 0.62 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 marital status married or lived together 47.35 57.74 51.27 45.43 43.59 56.91 49.88 41.96 never married 46.44 36.22 44.77 50.11 50.79 38.07 46.62 54.80 other 6.21 6.04 3.97 4.45 5.62 5.02 3.50 3.24 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 educational attainment none 2.61 1.41 1.64 1.64 3.53 1.83 2.19 1.74 incomplete primary 10.90 5.49 6.08 5.35 7.20 4.07 4.50 3.56 incomplete secondary 51.69 38.47 46.67 40.75 43.22 32.63 37.96 33.27 matric 25.54 32.08 28.99 31.22 33.40 34.59 36.04 39.84 matric + cert. / dip. 3.21 6.66 4.47 5.85 4.95 8.81 6.78 7.46 degree 5.74 15.28 11.71 14.74 7.33 17.44 12.15 13.69 other/unspecified 0.31 0.61 0.44 0.45 0.37 0.64 0.38 0.44 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 mean (years) 9.69 11.13 10.79 11.12 10.33 11.53 11.12 11.43 area type urban 90.87 93.95 95.11 90.45 97.01 97.74 97.24 97.02 rural 9.13 6.05 4.89 9.55 2.99 2.26 2.76 2.98 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 household size one person 4.40 8.53 16.32 16.72 8.15 13.21 18.91 21.34 two to three persons 26.90 40.76 41.35 46.53 30.01 43.89 40.35 46.62 four to five persons 36.59 34.70 30.37 25.57 33.02 31.00 27.81 22.36 more than 5 persons 32.11 16.00 11.95 11.17 28.81 11.88 12.94 9.67 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 mean household size 4.81 3.78 3.36 3.22 4.53 3.42 3.33 3.02 ses quintile quintile1 4.08 3.89 12.61 10.07 7.28 6.03 17.35 14.38 quintile2 7.64 6.48 16.78 14.70 7.30 6.49 9.78 11.00 quintile3 16.88 13.65 22.61 19.42 20.22 16.55 21.98 22.32 quintile4 35.22 28.49 18.54 19.53 34.37 27.87 22.74 24.09 quintile5 36.18 47.49 29.45 36.28 30.82 43.06 28.15 28.21 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 income quintile quintile1 14.29 12.87 18.85 16.75 18.92 13.23 16.71 18.34 quintile2 19.88 11.50 15.43 11.04 18.53 8.63 11.07 8.47 quintile3 28.21 19.17 22.72 21.52 22.28 15.93 20.79 20.62 quintile4 20.35 19.71 16.47 17.79 19.52 20.06 20.71 20.72 quintile5 17.26 36.75 26.53 32.91 20.75 42.15 30.72 31.86 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 mean (2019 dec prices) 54 277 110 509 86 173 106 047 65 320 138 963 100 822 105 646 37 in the western cape, the permanent residents (group [1]) and intra-provincial migrants (group [2]) were dominated by coloured individuals (56% and 38% respectively), whereas for both long-term and short-term inter-provincial migrants into this province, africans accounted for more than 60%. in gauteng, all four groups ([5] to [8]) were dominated by africans, even though the african share was relatively higher (slightly above 80%) in the two inter-provincial migrant groups. furthermore, the unmarried share was most dominant for the short-term migrant groups ([4] and [8]). as far as educational attainment is concerned, the two permanent resident groups ([1] and [5]) were least educated on average, but the opposite happened to the two intra-provincial migrant groups ([2] and [6]). short-term inter-provincial migrants were also slightly more educated than long-term migrants, on average. for the results derived at household level, table 2 shows that the mean household size was the smallest for the short-term migrants (just above 3) and long-term migrants (about 3.3 members). interestingly, for both short-term and long-term inter-provincial migrants, they enjoyed higher mean per capita income, compared to the permanent residents. nonetheless, the intra-provincial migrants remained the group associated with better non-income welfare (highest proportion of people belonging to most privileged ses quintile 5) and higher income (highest mean per capita income and greatest proportion of people falling under the richest income quintile 5). figure 1 despite not being shown in table 2, the majority of the migrants into the western cape resided in the city of cape town (group [3]: 75%, group [4]: 65%). moreover, [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] lfpr (%) 62,49 73,62 75,01 72,21 65,74 77,90 77,83 73,72 unemployment rate (%) 23,35 16,35 23,57 21,41 30,38 17,30 22,96 25,88 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 38 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 nearly 90% of migrants into gauteng settled in johannesburg, tshwane and ekurhuleni districts, with the respective shares being 39%, 26% and 24% in group [7], 33%, 30% and 26% in group [8]. regarding labor market status, figure 1 shows that the two intra-provincial migrant groups enjoyed the lowest unemployment rates. for both the short-term and long-term inter-provincial migrants, they enjoyed relatively higher lfprs and lower unemployment rates, compared with the permanent residents in the provinces. table 3 shows a more detailed breakdown of the lfprs and unemployment rates of the four inter-provincial migrant groups by province of origin and compare them with the respective provincial rates. the results show that the lfpr was higher but the unemployment rate was lower in these four groups, thereby confirming the argument that these south africans relocated to gauteng and the western cape primarily due to the better labor market prospects there. for example, in the eastern cape, the lfpr was 42.68% and the unemployment rate was 37.32%. however, for the eastern cape individuals who moved to the western cape, their lfpr was about 30 percentage points higher (75.73% in group [3] and 69.74% in group [4]) while the unemployment rate was five percentage points lower (group [3]: 32.03%; group [4]: 32.58%). on the other hand, it was previously shown in table 1 that the majority of migrants to gauteng came from the eastern cape, kwazulu-natal, mpumalanga and limpopo. the findings in table 3 show that these migrants had a high lfpr of above 70%, which was much higher than the provincial rate (as low as 42.68% in the eastern cape and as high as 55.45% in mpumalanga), while they also enjoyed a lower unemployment rate (e.g. 18.90% for group [7] migrants who came from kwazulunatal; 23.53% for group [7] migrants who originated from mpumalanga), which was lower than the provincial unemployment rates of above 30%. table 3: labor force participation rates and unemployment rates of interprovincial migrants to gauteng and western cape by province of origin wc ec nc fs kzn nw gau mpu lim labor force participation rate (%) all provincial residents 65.75 42.68 53.82 55.75 47.69 55.19 69.84 55.45 46.17 group [3] n/a 75.73 78.65 71.46 72.71 76.88 72.94 74.09 79.00 group [4] n/a 69.74 71.33 77.88 73.75 80.65 74.74 75.79 73.47 group [7] 81.65 76.66 81.42 75.78 79.06 74.84 n/a 75.83 79.05 group [8] 80.04 74.62 76.72 75.38 76.36 73.81 n/a 71.39 70.75 unemployment rate (%) all provincial residents 21.49 37.32 27.87 32.65 32.92 31.10 26.25 31.56 38.55 group [3] n/a 32.03 8.11 10.30 14.40 8.78 9.78 6.44 14.80 group [4] n/a 32.58 12.77 9.77 10.56 8.77 11.04 10.16 12.05 group [7] 9.49 27.09 21.52 19.44 18.90 21.08 n/a 23.53 26.79 group [8] 12.13 28.61 17.97 20.92 24.02 22.46 n/a 25.49 31.76 39 table 4 shows the breakdown of provincial shares of labor force, employed and unemployed in the four inter-provincial migrant groups. for groups [3] and [4], the eastern cape share was most dominant, as expected, given that the eastern cape people accounted for the majority of migrants into the western cape. on the contrary, for groups [7] and [8], migrants from limpopo were most dominant (more or less one-third in both labor force, employed and unemployed shares), followed by kwazulu-natal, eastern cape and mpumalanga (about 20%, 15% and 10% shares in all three labor status variables, respectively) table 4: provincial shares of labor force, employed and unemployed of interprovincial migrants to gauteng and western cape by province of origin table 5 shows the lfprs and unemployment rates of all eight groups by educational attainment. as expected, a higher educational attainment is associated with a greater likelihood of entering the labor market to seek work and lower unemployment probability, and it is no exception to the inter-provincial migrants to the western cape and gauteng provinces. wc ec nc fs kzn nw gau mpu lim labor force (%) all provincial residents 15.13 7.85 2.13 4.90 15.62 6.39 33.71 7.37 6.89 100.00 group [3] n/a 60.67 5.45 3.48 6.71 1.88 17.02 2.03 2.76 100.00 group [4] n/a 48.38 5.38 3.84 9.16 2.93 23.61 2.82 3.88 100.00 group [7] 4.77 14.27 1.60 7.48 19.19 9.67 n/a 10.55 32.47 100.00 group [8] 5.93 14.27 1.75 7.97 20.19 9.74 n/a 10.94 29.20 100.00 employed (%) all provincial residents 9.80 11.05 1.95 5.62 18.13 6.84 28.36 8.04 10.23 100.00 group [3] n/a 53.96 6.55 4.09 7.51 2.24 20.09 2.48 3.08 100.00 group [4] n/a 41.51 5.97 4.41 10.42 3.40 26.73 3.23 4.34 100.00 group [7] 5.60 13.51 1.63 7.82 20.20 9.91 n/a 10.48 30.85 100.00 group [8] 7.04 13.74 1.94 8.51 20.70 10.19 n/a 11.00 26.88 100.00 unemployed (%) all provincial residents 13.55 8.80 2.08 5.11 16.16 6.52 32.12 7.57 7.89 100.00 group [3] n/a 82.46 1.87 1.52 4.10 0.70 7.06 0.55 1.73 100.00 group [4] n/a 73.63 3.21 1.75 4.52 1.20 12.18 1.34 2.18 100.00 group [7] 1.97 16.84 1.50 6.33 15.79 8.88 n/a 10.81 37.87 100.00 group [8] 2.78 15.77 1.22 6.44 18.74 8.45 n/a 10.77 35.83 100.00 the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 40 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 table 5: labor force participation rates and unemployment rates of the eight groups of western cape and gauteng residents by educational attainment table 6 examines the lfprs and unemployment rates of the inter-provincial migrants in the popular destination districts in the two provinces concerned. groups [3] and [4] had slightly higher lfprs but also slightly higher unemployment rates in the city of cape town compared with the respective rates in the other districts in the province. therefore, the empirical findings suggest that even though the city of cape town is the most popular western cape district for the inter-provincial migrants to settle (about two-thirds as mentioned earlier), there is no guarantee these migrants enjoyed the lowest unemployment probability. on the other hand, the inter-provincial migrants to gauteng experienced the highest lfpr in johannesburg (79.54% for group [7] and 75.90% for group [8]), followed by ekurhuleni (77.46% and 75.18%) and tshwane (76.31% and 72.08%). however, it is interesting that these migrants enjoyed the lowest unemployment rate in tshwane (group [7]: 20.02%; group [8]: 22.71%). the respective rates for these migrants were one percentage point higher in johannesburg (21.30% and 23.62%), but the highest in ekurhuleni (27.51% and 32.06%). table 6: labor force participation rates and unemployment rates of the eight groups of western cape and gauteng residents in selected districts [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] labor force participation rate (%) without matric 56.42 63.75 71.25 67.58 58.00 67.93 70.64 69.23 matric 71.73 78.58 77.54 73.76 72.32 79.99 80.63 72.66 matric + cert. / dip. 78.95 85.54 78.82 79.26 79.22 88.14 87.44 78.87 degree 81.05 87.57 85.21 81.01 83.44 90.40 90.43 86.51 unemployment rate (%) without matric 28.84 27.03 32.88 30.53 37.47 27.34 31.19 33.90 matric 19.07 13.55 18.53 19.55 29.12 17.34 22.58 27.72 matric + cert. / dip. 9.28 6.39 8.04 9.55 18.25 10.36 14.50 18.19 degree 4.84 3.03 4.35 5.09 7.61 4.28 4.93 7.44 province: western cape city of cape town other districts in western cape [1] [2] [3] [4] [1] [2] [3] [4] lfpr (%) 62.80 74.86 75.96 72.96 62.00 70.26 73.76 71.09 unemployment rate (%) 26.61 17.13 25.41 22.85 18.37 14.12 20.61 19.20 province: gauteng johannesburg tshwane [5] [6] [7] [8] [5] [6] [7] [8] lfpr (%) 66.02 79.88 79.54 75.90 65.05 77.58 76.31 72.08 unemployment rate (%) 29.35 15.76 21.30 23.62 28.75 16.40 20.02 22.71 ekurhuleni other districts [5] [6] [7] [8] [5] [6] [7] [8] lfpr (%) 66.40 77.92 77.46 75.18 65.11 73.54 77.76 70.97 unemployment rate (%) 31.90 18.88 27.51 32.06 31.90 20.52 24.36 26.70 41 as far as the broad occupation categories of the employed are concerned, table 7 shows that altogether about 60% of the four groups of inter-provincial migrants under study were involved in the following occupations: clerks, service workers, craft and related workers, and elementary occupations. with regard to skills level of occupation, figure 2 shows that the proportion of workers involved in skilled occupations was the highest for the two intra-provincial migrant groups, whereas this share for both the short-term and long-term inter-provincial migrants was relatively larger, compared to the permanent residents. table 7: labor market characteristics of the eight groups of western cape and gauteng residents [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] occupation (if employed) senior legislators 9.61 12.78 9.77 11.51 9.19 11.85 9.74 10.33 professionals 6.56 9.71 7.32 9.46 7.90 11.46 9.04 10.11 technical associates 10.17 10.82 7.80 9.24 9.35 9.99 7.88 8.97 clerks 13.60 14.75 11.53 12.44 14.00 14.79 13.29 13.78 service workers 15.10 16.15 17.44 17.18 17.19 17.01 18.89 17.98 skilled agriculture 0.92 0.86 0.54 0.70 0.40 0.42 0.33 0.41 craft and related 11.44 10.21 11.98 10.21 12.10 10.37 12.17 11.28 plant and machinery 6.71 5.01 5.89 5.49 6.05 4.67 5.85 5.48 elementary occupation 17.44 13.12 18.97 17.00 13.68 10.79 12.91 12.38 domestic workers 8.42 6.56 8.74 6.74 10.11 8.62 9.87 9.24 other 0.02 0.03 0.02 0.05 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.03 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 skilled 26.35 33.32 24.89 30.22 26.45 33.31 26.67 29.42 semi-skilled 47.78 46.99 47.39 46.03 49.75 47.27 50.55 48.95 unskilled 25.87 19.69 27.72 23.75 23.80 19.42 22.79 21.63 industry (if employed) agriculture and hunting 5.40 3.98 4.71 5.44 1.49 1.40 1.64 1.66 mining and quarrying 0.31 0.31 0.33 0.46 1.31 1.18 1.18 1.58 manufacturing 11.27 10.44 10.16 9.57 10.92 9.49 10.63 10.31 electricity, water and gas 0.71 0.78 0.89 0.72 0.80 0.90 0.91 0.95 construction 7.90 6.83 9.99 8.65 7.72 7.31 8.58 8.17 wholesale and retail 19.23 19.37 19.40 19.08 18.23 17.22 17.72 16.93 transport and storage 6.48 6.79 5.89 6.08 7.23 7.14 7.39 7.10 financial intermediary 15.96 19.86 19.94 20.93 19.70 23.29 21.36 21.95 csp services 23.01 23.96 18.48 20.65 20.76 21.75 18.97 20.40 private household 9.68 7.64 10.17 8.36 11.79 10.19 11.52 10.86 other 0.04 0.05 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.11 0.09 0.10 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 primary sector 5.71 4.29 5.04 5.90 2.80 2.58 2.82 3.24 secondary sector 19.89 18.06 21.05 18.95 19.45 17.72 20.14 19.45 tertiary sector 74.40 77.65 73.91 75.15 77.75 79.69 77.04 77.31 sector (if employed) formal 78.45 79.20 76.11 77.24 77.90 77.13 76.21 75.85 informal 11.52 9.65 10.53 10.53 8.73 8.03 9.21 8.86 other/unspecified 10.03 11.15 13.35 12.23 13.37 14.84 14.57 15.29 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 number of other household members by labor market status mean number of other employed members 1.08 0.89 0.66 0.79 0.86 0.82 0.69 0.70 mean number of other unemployed members 0.37 0.22 0.25 0.20 0.47 0.21 0.25 0.22 mean number of other inactive members 0.98 0.55 0.46 0.41 0.86 0.41 0.42 0.35 the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 42 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 figure 2 table 7 also shows that about three-quarters of the inter-provincial migrants were involved in tertiary sector activities, in particular wholesale and retail, financial intermediary, as well as community, social and personal (csp) services (approximately 20% share in each broad industry category). these results are not much different when compared to the permanent residents and intra-provincial migrants. furthermore, slightly above three-quarters of all eight groups of individuals worked in the formal sector. the last few rows of table 7 show that the four inter-provincial migrant groups came from households with smaller mean numbers of other employed (0.7), other unemployed (0.2) and other inactive (0.4) members. these results are not surprising, given the findings in table 2 that household size was smaller on average for these inter-provincial migrants. profile of the eastern cape and limpopo residents and inter-provincial migrants table 8 shows that both groups [ii] and [iv] were relatively younger (29 years on average) than the two permanent resident groups (33-34 years of mean age), and the male share was slightly more dominant. in all four groups, the african share was the greatest (ranging between 85% and 95%), whereas the married share was the lowest for groups [ii] and [iv]. in addition, groups [ii] and [iv] were about two years more educated on average, compared to the corresponding permanent resident groups. furthermore, the share of urban residents was much higher (above 90%) for the two inter-provincial migrant groups. for the household-level variables, the table shows that the mean household size was smaller (about three members), and both income and non-income 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] skilled semi-skilled unskilled other 43 welfare was better for these two groups, compared with the permanent residents. table 8: personal-level and household-level characteristics of the four selected groups of individuals (%) [i] [ii] [iii] [iv] age cohort 15-24 years 33.86 35.94 36.17 35.38 25-34 years 21.86 43.35 24.63 44.53 35-44 years 17.66 13.55 17.23 13.50 45-54 years 15.37 4.84 13.13 4.74 55-64 years 11.24 2.32 8.84 1.84 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 mean age (years) 34.05 28.80 32.63 28.81 gender male 46.06 50.63 45.45 54.65 female 53.94 49.37 54.55 45.35 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 race african 84.69 89.00 95.76 94.07 coloured 9.15 3.67 0.30 0.41 indian 0.50 0.33 0.43 0.56 white 5.25 6.46 3.29 4.71 other 0.41 0.54 0.22 0.25 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 marital status married or lived together 36.10 39.87 37.38 42.91 never married 57.56 57.80 57.46 55.11 other 6.33 2.32 5.16 1.98 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 educational attainment none 6.59 1.82 9.21 1.69 incomplete primary 15.90 7.12 9.59 3.13 incomplete secondary 50.71 55.32 50.58 35.10 matric 19.09 27.51 21.91 43.49 matric + cert. /dip. 3.03 2.86 3.64 7.24 degree 4.46 5.09 4.84 9.00 other/unspecified 0.21 0.27 0.22 0.34 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 mean education years 8.81 10.20 9.11 11.29 area type urban 50.34 92.71 21.25 97.07 rural 49.66 7.29 78.75 2.93 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 household size one person 7.68 17.92 8.38 23.24 two to three persons 25.43 43.46 24.25 48.54 four to five persons 29.48 25.42 30.87 19.32 more than five persons 37.41 13.20 36.50 8.90 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 mean household size 5.02 3.32 4.91 2.90 ses quintile quintile1 32.72 17.59 27.53 22.10 quintile2 22.91 23.29 39.96 12.85 quintile3 16.10 28.04 16.36 26.19 quintile4 17.20 19.05 9.33 23.42 quintile5 11.07 12.04 6.82 15.44 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 income quintile quintile1 21.92 22.91 22.13 20.44 quintile2 36.39 18.46 35.96 9.57 quintile3 21.58 29.18 21.89 25.39 quintile4 10.42 16.94 10.90 24.14 quintile5 9.69 12.51 9.12 20.47 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 mean per capita income (2019 dec prices) 30 744 43 244 29 953 61 336 the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 44 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 regarding labor market status, it is interesting that the lfprs were much higher (above 70%) for groups [ii] and [iv], compared with the permanent resident groups of [i] and [iii] (only above 40%). groups [ii] and [iv] also enjoyed lower unemployment rates of about 30%, compared to approximately 38% in groups [i] and [iii]. these results can be seen in figure 3. figure 3 table 9 shows that the members of group [ii] were most likely to be involved in elementary work (22%) and service work (19%) occupations. these two broad occupation categories were also most dominant for the employed in group [iv] – 16% and 21% respectively. figure 4 shows the share of the employed involved in skilled occupations was higher in the two permanent resident groups (group [i]: 26%; group [iii]: 22%). in groups [ii] and [iv], about half were involved in semi-skilled occupations whereas only about 20% were engaged in skilled occupations. [i]: ec residents [ii]: migrants from ec to wc [iii]: lim residents [iv]: migrants from lim to gau lfpr (%) 42,68 72,10 46,17 73,50 unemployment rate (%) 37,32 32,34 38,55 29,98 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 45 table 9: labor market characteristics of the four selected groups of individuals (%) [i] [ii] [iii] [iv] occupation (if employed) senior legislators 6.58 6.96 5.23 6.84 professionals 7.00 5.35 7.12 6.12 technical associates 12.57 7.12 9.62 7.23 clerks 10.45 10.17 9.94 13.29 service workers 15.02 19.40 15.99 21.27 skilled agriculture 1.33 0.55 1.16 0.37 craft and related 10.64 12.30 13.03 13.24 plant and machinery 6.44 6.44 6.95 5.76 elementary occupation 20.24 22.31 20.39 15.58 domestic workers 9.73 9.37 10.58 10.26 other 0.01 0.03 0.01 0.04 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 skilled 26.15 19.44 21.97 20.20 semi-skilled 43.88 48.87 47.07 53.95 unskilled 29.97 31.69 30.97 25.85 industry (if employed) agriculture and hunting 7.29 4.80 9.13 1.90 mining and quarrying 0.52 0.31 6.15 0.92 manufacturing 8.20 10.58 6.55 10.53 electricity, water and gas 0.68 0.58 1.07 0.87 construction 8.13 10.32 8.94 9.22 wholesale and retail 17.35 19.70 15.31 18.75 transport and storage 4.98 5.60 4.18 7.40 financial intermediary 10.16 19.45 9.24 19.96 community, social and personal services 29.88 17.38 26.49 18.15 private household 12.80 11.23 12.92 12.20 other 0.02 0.05 0.02 0.10 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 primary sector 7.81 5.11 15.28 2.82 secondary sector 17.01 21.49 16.56 20.64 tertiary sector 75.18 73.40 68.15 76.54 sector (if employed) formal 71.76 75.26 66.96 72.96 informal 14.25 11.61 17.55 10.39 other/unspecified 13.98 13.13 15.48 16.65 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 mean number of other household members by labor market status mean number of other employed members 0.63 0.63 0.54 0.59 mean number of other unemployed members 0.35 0.30 0.37 0.24 mean number of other inactive members 1.29 0.43 1.21 0.35 the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 46 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 figure 4 reviewing other results in table 9, the majority of the two inter-provincial migrant groups (about three-quarters) worked in the tertiary sector activities – especially in the wholesale and retail, finance and csp services industries. a greater proportion of these two groups worked in the formal sector (also about three-quarters) compared to the corresponding shares in the two permanent resident groups. it is interesting that the mean number of other inactive household members was much smaller (0.4) in the two inter-provincial migrant groups. this result suggests that the eastern cape to the western cape migrants, as well as the limpopo to gauteng migrants actively looked for work in the destination provinces. econometric analysis this section conducts multivariate econometric analysis, by means of probit regressions on labor force participation likelihood and heckprobit regressions on employment likelihood (conditional on labor force participation), focusing on the individuals in the western cape and gauteng. the reference categories are as follows: gender: female; race: africans; age cohort: 15-24 years; migration status: permanent residents who did not migrate in the past 10 years. the probit regression on labor force participation likelihood (table 10) results indicate that, after controlling for differences in other personaland household-level characteristics, males were more than 10% significantly more likely to enter the labor market in both provinces. africans were significantly more likely to enter the labor force in the western cape, whereas this was the case with the white individuals in 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% [i]: ec residents [ii]: migrants from ec to wc [iii]: lim residents [iv]: migrants from lim to gau skilled semi-skilled unskilled other 47 gauteng, ceteris paribus. in both provinces, individuals from the four older age cohorts were associated with significantly greater labor force participation likelihood compared to the reference category (15-24 years), ceteris paribus. there was a positive but non-linear relationship between years of education and labor force participation likelihood. in addition, the presence of more children and elderly members in households led to significantly lower labor force participation probability. table 10: probit regressions on labor force participation likelihood in western cape and gauteng *** significant at 1% ** significant at 5% * significant at 10% base categories: gender: female race: african age cohort: 15-24 years migration status: permanent residents regarding the migration status dummy variables, compared to the permanent residents, intra-provincial migrants, as well as both long-term and short-term inter-provincial migrants were significantly more likely to be labor force participants in both western cape gauteng marginal effects gender: male 0.1306*** 0.1086*** race: coloured -0.0251*** -0.0003 race: indian -0.0942*** -0.0614*** race: white -0.0474*** 0.0059*** age: 25-34 years 0.2510*** 0.2422*** age: 35-44 years 0.2562*** 0.2527*** age: 45-54 years 0.1999*** 0.2207*** age: 55-64 years 0.0259*** 0.1057*** education year -0.0016*** -0.0089*** education year squared 0.0015*** 0.0017*** married or living with a partner 0.0570*** 0.0491*** migration status: intra-provincial 0.0422*** 0.0572*** migration status: long-term inter-provincial 0.0441*** 0.0570*** migration status: short-term inter-provincial 0.0377*** 0.0527*** migration status: international/others 0.0352*** 0.0664*** area type: urban -0.1165*** -0.0122*** number of children 0-14 years in the household -0.0096*** -0.0096*** number of males 15-59 years in the household -0.0195*** -0.0198*** number of females 15-59 years in the household 0.0006** -0.0051*** number of elderly 60+ years in the household -0.0595*** -0.0615*** number of observations (weighted) 3 685 517 8 222 914 prob > chi-squared 0.0000 0.0000 pseudo r-squared 0.1286 0.1336 the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 48 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 provinces, with marginal effects being approximately 4% in the western cape and 5.5% in gauteng, upon controlling for differences in other characteristics. the results of the heckprobit regressions on the respective employment probabilities of the two provinces, conditional on participation, are shown in table 11. first of all, the lambda was statistically significant in both regressions. the inverse mills ratio that lambda stands for serves as a measure to which a sample suffers from selection bias. it can thus be ascertained that the members of the labor force do in fact differ from their counterparts who chose not to participate in the labor force. hence, the use of the heckman two-step approach to conducting employment probits, is justified. table 11: heckprobit regressions on employment likelihood in western cape and gauteng, conditional on labor force participation *** significant at 1% ** significant at 5% * significant at 10% base categories: gender: female race: african age cohort: 15-24 years migration status: permanent residents the results indicate that, ceteris paribus, males were significantly more likely to be employed in the labor force; with regard to race; africans were least likely of all the western cape gauteng marginal effects gender: male 0.0116*** 0.0282*** race: coloured 0.1084*** 0.0545*** race: indian 0.1170*** 0.1626*** race: white 0.1552*** 0.1854*** age: 25-34 years 0.0198*** -0.0317*** age: 35-44 years 0.0616*** 0.0216*** age: 45-54 years 0.1008*** 0.0859*** age: 55-64 years 0.1519*** 0.1790*** education year -0.0209*** -0.0256*** education year squared 0.0019*** 0.0019*** married or living with a partner 0.0281*** 0.0148*** migration status: intra-provincial 0.0204*** 0.0533*** migration status: long-term inter-provincial 0.0201*** 0.0291*** migration status: short-term inter-provincial 0.0275*** 0.0259*** migration status: international/others 0.0795*** 0.0685*** area type: urban -0.1450*** -0.0309*** lambda -0.2244*** -0.4229*** number of observations 2 423 373 5 740 373 prob > chi-squared 0.0000 0.0000 pseudo r-squared 0.1552 0.1496 49 races to be employed in both provinces, and the marginal effect was the greatest for whites, followed by indians and coloureds, ceteris paribus. in addition, individuals aged 35-64 years were significantly more likely to be employed, with the marginal effect increasing across these three elderly age cohorts, after controlling for differences in other characteristics. higher educational attainment was associated with significantly greater employment likelihood but this positive relationship was not linear. compared with the reference migration status category (permanent residents), intra-provincial, shortterm inter-provincial and long-term inter-provincial migrants into the western cape and gauteng were significantly more likely to find work, with the marginal effect in all three above-mentioned migrant categories being greater in the gauteng regression, ceteris paribus. conclusion this study used the census 2011 (statssa, 2011) to investigate how the shortand long-term inter-provincial migrants fared in the labor markets of gauteng and the western cape, the two most developed and popular migration destination provinces in south africa. both short-term and long-term inter-provincial migrants into these two provinces were typically youth aged 15-34 years, unmarried african urban residents with 11-12 years of educational attainment on average, coming from households with about three members. the majority of migrants to the western cape came from the eastern cape (above 50%) and gauteng (21%), whereas about half of the migrants to gauteng had limpopo (31%) and kwazulu-natal (19%) as their home provinces. these inter-provincial migrants enjoyed lower unemployment rates and higher per capita income than the permanent residents but were still outperformed by intra-provincial migrants within these two provinces. in addition, the multivariate econometric analysis found that, other controlling for other differences in personal and household-level characteristics, the inter-provincial migrants were about 5% more likely to enter the labor market to seek work and 3% more likely to find work, compared with the permanent residents. both results were statistically significant. there were also brief descriptive statistics derived on the inter-provincial migrants from the eastern cape to the western cape as well as from limpopo to gauteng. it was found that, compared to those who remained in the eastern cape and limpopo, the two groups of migrants were relatively younger and more educated urban residents, who enjoyed higher lfprs, lower unemployment likelihoods, better non-income welfare and higher per capita income. job-seeking inter-provincial immigration into gauteng and the western cape will certainty continue as long as these two provinces are associated with better economic conditions and more abundant work opportunities, whereas the economic problems like unemployment and poverty persist in the home provinces (oosthuizen and naidoo, 2004; jacobs, 2014). in particular, based on the empirical findings, the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 50 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 these migrants are most likely to cluster in certain districts (city of cape town, ekurhuleni, johannesburg and tshwane). therefore, the gauteng and western cape provincial governments will continue to face important challenges in addressing the increased burden on basic service delivery, housing, health, education and social service systems as a result of the inter-provincial migration, and backlogs will most likely exist in the abovementioned districts (posel, 2010). in other words, the national government needs to take interprovincial migration into consideration when allocating the national budget to provinces, districts and municipalities. the empirical findings have also indicated that not all the inter-provincial migrants eventually found work in gauteng and the western cape. assuming they did not return to their home provinces, their presence would mean that the two receiving provinces need to deal with the increased unemployed population, when it comes to job creation and entrepreneurship development strategies. on the other hand, even though the migrants (assuming they settled and found work in gauteng and the western cape) maintain economic linkages with their home provinces through remittances, it is still undeniable that the emigration of younger and more educated individuals has resulted in an aging and less educated population in the home provinces. hence, more detailed research needs to be done on the push factors in the home provinces (especially the eastern cape and limpopo) for better policy and strategy development to improve the socio-economic conditions in these provinces, to better address the problems in these less developed provinces, before more private investment and entrepreneurial activities are attracted to retain the youth population there (gamede, 2017). otherwise, the provincial brain drain could deprive these provinces of receiving returns on their investment in their potential youth labor force, not forgetting that their departure imposes additional fiscal burden on the remaining residents. 51 references buwembo, p. 2015. impact of interprovincial migration on individual labor market status: the case of limpopo-gauteng migration flow. master’s dissertation (unpublished). stellenbosch: stellenbosch university. chand, s.k. and paldam, m. 2005. some economics of immigration from an ldc to a dc: stressing the case of a nordic welfare state. in labor mobility and the world economy, edited by f. foders and r. langhammer. berlin: heidelberg springer, pp. 145-173. clark, a. 1986. migration and colonisation in human microevolution. cambridge: cambridge university press. de haas, h. 2010. migration and development: a theoretical perspective. international migration review, 44(1): 227-264. fauvelle-aymar, c. 2014. migration and employment in south africa: an econometric analysis of domestic and international migrants. migrating for work research consortium (miworc) report no 6. johannesburg: african centre for migration and society, university of the witwatersrand. fauvelle-aymar, c. 2015. immigration and the south african labour market. migrating for work research consortium (miworc) working paper no 2. johannesburg: african centre for migration & society, university of the witwatersrand. gamede, n.w. 2017. human capital development in south africa: perspectives on education in the post-apartheid era. master’s dissertation (unpublished). pretoria: university of south africa. goetz, s.j. 1999. migration and local labor markets. pennsylvania: penn state university. gujarati, d.n. and porter, d.c. 2009. basic econometrics. 5th edition. boston: mcgraw-hill irwin. jacobs, w. 2014. migration patterns and migrant characteristics in the western cape through a differential urbanisation lens. master’s dissertation (unpublished). stellenbosch: stellenbosch university. kalitanyi, v. and visser, k. 2010. african immigrants in south africa: job takers or job creators? south african journal of economic and management science, 13(4): 376-390. kok, p., gelderblom, d., oucho, j.o. and van zyl, j. 2006. migration in south and southern africa: dynamics and determinants. cape town: hsrc publishers. kollamparambil, u. 2017. labor market impact of internal immigration: a district level analysis of south africa. ersa working paper 667. claremont: economic research southern africa. massey, d.s., arango, j., hugo, g., kouaouci, a., pellegrino, a. and taylor, j.e. 1993. the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 52 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, 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leibbrandt, m., mlatsheni, c. and burger, r. 2002. migration and the changing rural-urban interface in south africa: what can we learn from census and survey data? paper presented at the workshop on migration and poverty, stellenbosch, 4 march. van rooyen, j. 2000. the new great trek: the story of south africa’s white exodus. pretoria: unisa press. vyas, s. and kumaranayake, l. 2006. constructing socio-economic status indices: how to use principal components analysis. health policy and planning, 21(6): 53 459-468. weeks, j.r. 1996. population: an introduction to concepts and issues. 10th edition. new york: wadsworth publishing. wooldridge, j.m. 2012. introductory econometrics: a modern approach. 4th edition. mason, ohio: south-western cengage learning. the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 54 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 appendix table a1: non-income welfare indicators included for the ses index variable category dwelling [1]: formal house/flat [2]: single room or flatlet [3]: other piped water access [1]: piped water inside dwelling [2]: piped water inside the yard [3]: piped water on community stand [4]: no access to piped water sanitation [1]: flush or chemical toilet [2]: pit toilet with ventilation [3]: pit toilet without ventilation [4]: other fuel source for cooking [1]: electricity or solar [2]: gas [3]: other refuse removal frequency [1]: at least once a week [2]: other internet access [1]: from home or cell phone [2]: from elsewhere [3]: no access computer [1]: yes [2]: no landline telephone [1]: yes [2]: no cell phone [1]: yes [2]: no television [1]: yes [2]: no dvd player [1]: yes [2]: no refrigerator [1]: yes [2]: no washing machine [1]: yes [2]: no electric/gas stove [1]: yes [2]: no motorcar [1]: yes [2]: no 55 table a2: first principal components for deriving the ses index table a3: previous province of residence versus current province of residence (weighted numbers, 1 000s) dwelling: formal house/flat 0.2068 dwelling: single room or flatlet -0.0084 piped water access: inside dwelling 0.2999 piped water access: inside the yard -0.0707 piped water access: on community stand -0.2169 sanitation: flush or chemical toilet 0.2981 sanitation: pit toilet with ventilation -0.1124 sanitation: pit toilet without ventilation -0.1839 fuel source for cooking: electricity or solar 0.2538 fuel source for cooking: gas 0.0108 refuse removal frequency: at least once a week 0.2663 internet access: from home or cell phone 0.1555 internet access: from elsewhere 0.0771 computer ownership: yes 0.2367 landline telephone ownership: yes 0.2022 cell phone ownership: yes 0.1184 television ownership: yes 0.2579 dvd player ownership: yes 0.2345 refrigerator ownership: yes 0.2718 washing machine ownership: yes 0.2774 electric/gas stove ownership: yes 0.2622 motorcar ownership: yes 0.2496 proportion of variation explained by the first principal components 27.68% current province of residence wc ec nc fs kzn nw gau mpu lim overseas not specified pr ev io us p ro vi nc e o f r es id en ce wc 690 26 7 4 9 5 41 4 4 1 0 ec 142 432 6 15 72 28 113 13 10 1 0 nc 14 3 84 6 4 9 13 3 3 0 0 fs 9 6 6 167 6 19 62 8 5 0 0 kzn 22 16 2 9 698 9 154 24 7 1 0 nw 6 3 14 7 5 243 78 7 12 0 0 gau 55 27 7 23 39 61 1 805 49 49 2 1 mpu 7 4 2 3 10 9 89 225 18 0 0 lim 9 4 2 5 7 22 247 32 315 1 0 overseas 90 31 6 28 62 67 398 59 87 1 0 not specified 31 14 4 6 25 11 56 8 6 0 0 1 075 566 140 272 937 481 3 057 432 515 6 2 the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market 56 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 table a4: previous province of residence versus current province of residence (%) current province of residence wc ec nc fs kzn nw gau mpu lim pr ev io us p ro vi nc e o f re sid en ce wc 64.84 4.59 5.36 1.54 0.91 0.94 1.33 0.82 0.72 ec 13.23 76.41 4.13 5.50 7.41 6.00 3.77 3.03 1.96 nc 1.24 0.42 60.82 2.06 0.39 1.84 0.43 0.58 0.35 fs 0.86 1.02 4.03 61.06 0.68 3.84 2.03 1.84 0.94 kzn 2.00 2.86 1.45 3.22 74.85 1.79 5.06 5.52 1.28 nw 0.56 0.60 9.43 2.65 0.51 50.72 2.58 1.60 2.29 gau 5.06 4.74 5.14 8.58 4.24 12.56 59.11 10.90 9.56 mpu 0.60 0.61 1.14 1.18 1.08 1.95 2.91 52.49 3.60 lim 0.81 0.69 1.35 1.69 0.68 4.50 8.15 7.71 62.23 overseas 7.92 5.47 4.12 10.31 6.55 13.44 12.81 13.60 15.84 unspecified 2.88 2.58 3.04 2.21 2.70 2.41 1.83 1.91 1.26 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 intra-provincial 64.84 76.41 60.82 61.06 74.85 50.72 59.11 52.49 62.23 inter-provincial 24.36 15.54 32.02 26.42 15.90 33.43 26.25 32.00 20.67 overseas 7.92 5.47 4.12 10.31 6.55 13.44 12.81 13.60 15.84 unspecified 2.88 2.58 3.04 2.21 2.70 2.41 1.83 1.91 1.26 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 57 table a5: summary statistics of the western cape and gauteng residents western cape residents gauteng residents min max mean std dev min max mean std dev age 15 64 35.1509 13.1918 15 64 34.3236 12.5611 cohort 1 5 2.4937 1.2530 1 5 2.4937 1.2530 gender 1 2 1.4871 0.4998 1 2 1.4871 0.4998 race 1 5 1.5774 1.1414 1 5 1.5774 1.1414 marital status 1 6 2.2929 1.1122 1 6 2.2929 1.1122 educational attainment category 1 7 3.4835 1.1012 1 7 3.6559 1.1488 education year 0 17 10.0960 3.3287 0 17 10.6703 3.3409 number of children 0-14 years 0 16 1.0991 1.2721 0 16 0.9648 1.2399 number of male adults 15-59 years 0 19 1.4723 1.0865 0 19 1.3813 1.0545 number of female adults 15-59 years 0 12 1.5498 1.0827 0 12 1.4036 1.0969 number of elderly 60+ years 0 5 0.2525 0.5566 0 10 0.2016 0.4981 labor market status 1 3 1.8263 0.9102 1 3 1.7866 0.8782 dummy: labor force participation 0 1 0.6575 0.4745 0 1 0.6984 0.4590 dummy: employed 0 1 0.7851 0.4108 0 1 0.7375 0.4400 broad occupation category 1 99 5.5130 3.2504 1 99 5.4378 3.2082 broad industry category 1 11 6.7839 2.4633 1 11 7.0360 2.2723 sector 1 4 1.3491 0.7295 1 4 1.4021 0.7894 number of other employed members 0 18 0.9818 1.0413 0 25 0.8247 0.9878 number of other unemployed members 0 10 0.3247 0.7571 0 12 0.3770 0.8225 number of other inactive members 0 11 0.8441 1.1377 0 12 0.6861 1.0747 province of residence at the time of interview 1 9 1.0160 0.3017 1 9 6.9956 0.1717 province of usual residence 1 1 1.0000 0.0000 7 7 7.0000 0.0000 moved within the last 10 years 0 1 0.2903 0.4539 0 1 0.3700 0.4828 year of moving 2001 2011 2007 2.7533 2001 2011 2008 2.7646 province of previous residence 1 11 2.7478 3.1567 1 11 7.1834 1.9165 migration status category 2 6 5.0862 1.6000 2 6 4.9019 1.6827 area type 1 2 1.0836 0.2769 1 2 1.0282 0.1656 household size 1 29 4.4731 2.3877 1 30 4.0815 2.4114 ses index -5.1610 3.998 1.6444 1.8843 -5.2049 3.998 1.2693 2.1347 ses quintile 1 5 3.9173 1.1263 1 5 3.7254 1.2229 per capita income (2019 december prices) 0 4 074 731 68 948 159 673 0 4 074 731 85 194 192 585 per capita income quintile 1 5 3.1828 1.3414 1 5 3.2205 1.4362 the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 273 violent conflict and forced displacement in the horn of africa: government and donor policies and programs in search of durable solutions nat j. colletta abstract the horn of africa (hoa) is currently engulfed in entangling and shifting cross border conflict, resulting in at least four major forced displacement situations. these conflicts emanate mainly from the sudan, south sudan, somalia and eritrea and involve large numbers of refugees as well as internally displaced persons (idps). globally, there are an estimated 54.7 million displaced persons. more than a quarter (27%) of the globally displaced, are in sub-saharan africa, with about 8.7 million or over half (58%) of those in the hoa. on the one hand, forced displacement in the horn places additional stresses on already weak local and national institutions and marginalized, underserved host communities. services are often perceived to only benefit the displaced as opposed to receptor communities leading to envy and local conflict. on the other hand, displaced persons also have skills and assets that could be harnessed and utilized to benefit the local economy in pursuit of durable solutions. the complex cultural, social, and political nature of the region is compounded by an ongoing set of development challenges, including: demographic shifts; imbalanced service provision; the threat of pandemic diseases; and increasing contestation over scarce natural resources, especially water and grazing areas. this article examines the underlying drivers of violent conflict, the impact on both the displaced and the receptor host communities, and the effectiveness of government and donor policies and programs. the research methodology  dr colletta is an international expert on conflict, peace building and development. he was founding manager of the world bank’s post conflict unit where he played a leading role in pioneering and managing the bank’s policy assistance in war to peace transitions. he is currently advising several international agencies (including the world bank, asian development bank, inter-american development bank, the european investment bank, ifad, undp and unicef), governments and peace negotiators (most recently in the philippines, and yemen) on conflict prevention and post conflict reconstruction. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 274 included a literature review, field-based participant observations, and a series of in-depth key informant and focal group interviews in hoa refugee camps, host communities and major cities. the search for a new paradigm shift from care and maintenance to resilience and self-reliance is underway. given the now “protracted” nature of the displacement, the old encampment humanitarian approaches of care and maintenance are now giving way to a rethink from a development perspective by governments and donors alike. finally, from a prevention perspective, stemming forced migration at its source by improving security, governance, and livelihood opportunities in countries of origin are key to managing the displacement challenge. regional integrated area development can convert fragile border areas which now serve as shock absorbers for conflicts within these fragile states to prosperous change agents opening avenues of cross border trade and development. keywords: conflict, displacement, horn of africa, integration and migration. introduction the horn of africa (hoa) covers djibouti, eritrea, ethiopia, kenya, somalia, south sudan, sudan and uganda. it is richly endowed in human, social and natural capital. however, the region is plagued by a complex history of weak governance, insecurity, recurrent drought, increasing environmental degradation, entrenched poverty and endemic violence. the region is currently engulfed in entangled and shifting cross-border conflict resulting in at least four major forced displacement situations. these conflicts emanate mainly from sudan, south sudan, somalia and eritrea, involving large numbers of refugees as well as internally displaced persons (idps). five countries host over sixty percent of refugees in africa: kenya, ethiopia, south sudan, uganda and chad. this does not include the growing number hosted in the south sudan, where armed conflict is on the rise, or djibouti, an important transit point to yemen and the middle east.  while yemen is impacted by the hoa refugee crisis and discussed herein, it is not conventionally considered a part of the arabian peninsula. there are an estimated 280,000 somali refugees in yemen. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 275 globally, there are an estimated 54.7 million displaced persons, comprised of 38 million internally displaced and 16.7 million refugees in foreign countries. an estimated 14.9 million persons (11.4m idps and 3.5m refugees), or more than a quarter (27%) of the globally displaced, are in sub-saharan africa, with about 8.7 million or over half (58%) of whom are in the hoa (odi/hpg and idmc 2015; gpfd 2015). there are 1.9 million refugees in protracted situations with an average length approaching 20 years (loesher and milner 2011). stresses and impacts on host communities forced displacement in the hoa places additional stresses on weak local and national institutions, as well as marginalised, underserved host communities. on the one hand, there are increasingly negative development impacts on human and social capital, economic growth, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability (ccsd 2014). in addition, such displacement can become a breeding ground for further conflict and political instability. on the other hand, displaced persons also have skills and assets that could be harnessed and utilised to the benefit of the local economy and the pursuit of durable solutions. while there are increasing financial demands on host government budgets due to the influx of refugees and idps, humanitarian and development financing and technical assistance from the international community assists in addressing the needs of both the displaced and receptor communities. major development challenges the complex cultural, social and political nature of the region is compounded by an on-going set of major development challenges including: demographic shifts; imbalanced service provision; growing threat of pandemic diseases; and increasing contestation over scarce natural resources, especially water and grazing areas. despite the recent attention brought to the growing challenges of forced displacement across africa by the kampala convention in 2012 (gpfd and idmc 2012), there is, as of yet, no single comprehensive critical analysis connecting the sources and drivers of displacement, refugee and host community dynamics, and the range and effectiveness of donor and host government policies and practices in the pursuit of durable solutions to the growing displacement crisis in the hoa (rmms 2015). in seeking such ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 276 solutions, international agencies are facing a number of knowledge gaps. several key questions immediately emerge. are displaced persons or migrants in the hoa fleeing political oppression and violence, seeking economic opportunity and better lives, or some mix of drivers? why do current policies and operational approaches of the international community and host governments often result in protracted displacement and dependence rather than integration and self-reliance? how can the hierarchy and sequencing of displacement drivers and context specific durable solutions be better understood? policy and operational challenges and options these fundamental issues pose a range of policy and operational challenges to the international community and host countries. they may be summarised in the following key concerns. has the donor community failed to sufficiently understand and address the underlying structural causes of displacement? has the academic community missed a vital and growing global research problem, thus being complicit in its relative benign neglect? what are the political, economic and social factors shaping conventional government and international policies of encampment and exclusion rather than integration and inclusion? how does the modality of displacement and migration (e.g., smuggling, trafficking, labour market opportunities, etc.) shape the design of solutions? should one be looking beyond ‘country and sub-regional’ approaches and at ‘intra-regional’ integration possibilities? is a differentiated approach to the forced displacement and migration challenges of the hoa needed? in short, what are the political economy forces, knowledge, capacity and financial gaps facing donors and host governments in addressing the multiple causes and durable solutions to forced displacement in the hoa? in dealing with the above challenges, there is growing international recognition that development actors should engage earlier and adopt a longer-term approach, in collaboration with displacement affected governments, host communities and international humanitarian partners. in confronting conventional wisdom, alexander betts et al (2014) note that, “refugee communities engage in production, consumption, exchange, entrepreneurship, and the development of financial and capital markets. they have many of the core features of any other economic systems.” building on existing assets, it is important to shift the mind-set of donors, governments and ngos from seeing the displaced as victims with needs to survivors with capabilities; from dependency to self-reliance and resiliency. a paradigm shift ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 277 is also required that balances and links the humanitarian protection of the displaced with the need to also address the social and economic development impacts on host receptor communities in a ‘holistic’ manner. the options typically presented in seeking durable solutions to forced displacement are local integration, return and repatriation to the country of origin or resettlement in a third country. in the search for durable solutions, this paper examines the underlying drivers of violent conflict, examines the impact on both the displaced and the receptor host communities, and assesses the effectiveness of government and donor policies and programs. methodology this paper is based upon a literature review, field-based participant observations and a series of in-depth key informant and focal group interviews in hoa camps, host communities and major cities. over 50 individual interviews and 15 focal group discussions where held with a range of stakeholders including government officials, donor and non-governmental agency staff, host community leaders and displaced persons. three field visits were made to the hoa over the course of 12 months, ranging from one to three weeks on average. the field visits included the main hoa countries and most of the major refugee camps including dolo ado, amami and shire in ethiopia; kakuma and dadaab in kenya; ali addeh in djibouti; and kiryandango in uganda. interviews were also undertaken in the urban centres of kampala, addis ababa, djibouti-ville, juba, nairobi, cape town and stellenbosch. somalia was off bounds due to persistent security threats. sudan and south sudan were visited during the author’s earlier research on the demobilisation and reintegration of armed combatants within the framework of the comprehensive peace agreement under the auspices of the united nations. information was gathered during this work on all waraffected groups, including displaced persons. recent events in south africa, particularly affecting the relationship between somali refugees and host communities in durban, johannesburg, and cape town, have necessitated the inclusion of south africa as an impacted country in this work. the demography of forced displacement in 2014-15 there were an estimated 49.3-54.7 million displaced persons globally (boehler and pecanha 2015). about 61% or 30.2 million were in a ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 278 protracted state of displacement, meaning that they had been displaced from their communities of origin for at least three years. in a region with an estimated 140 million inhabitants, the hoa currently contains over 2.2 million refugees and more than 6.5 million idps (nrc & idmc 2015; unhcr 2015a). the bulk of the idps are distributed among four hoa countries: south sudan (1.5 million), somalia (1.1 million, and 370,000 in mogadishu alone), ethiopia (397,200) and kenya (309,200) (nrc & idmc 2015; unhcr 2015a). somalia is the largest hoa refugee originating country, with some 972,000 refugees. ethiopia is the largest refugee hosting country in africa with 682,761 refugees, while kenya hosts the second largest number of refugees on the continent, with 589,994 refugees (55,519 in nairobi alone) (rrms 2015). except for the recent crisis in south sudan, most of the region’s refugees and idps are currently in protracted displacement. sudan is host to over 300,000 refugees from neighbouring countries, including 150,000 from south sudan since december 2013. in 2014, a deepening conflict led to the displacement of about 557,000 new idps, including 430,000 new idps in darfur and 86,000 in south kordofan and blue nile (idmc 2015; unhcr 2015a; unocha 2015). it would be an oversight to discuss forced displacement in the hoa without reference to yemen. although most literature does not consider yemen to be a formal part of the hoa, it is now both a receiving point for refugees coming out of the hoa and, more recently, a departure point back in by those same refugees and others from yemen, given the intense fighting there. it is noted that some 300,000 persons are now in the displacement mix in yemen. with the recent saudi intervention and no clear end of the fighting there in sight, it is hard to say how this will evolve or predict its eventual impact on the region. saudi arabia has recently deported some 150,000 ethiopians. in general, it is difficult to accurately determine the exact scale of displacement given that many displaced migrate into urban areas and are not in camps as such (idmc 2015; nrc 2015 & idmc 2015; unhcr 2015a). political uncertainty, violence, drought and governance failures have led to  idmc reports that, “in 2014 there were people living in protracted displacement for ten years or more in nearly 90% of the 60 countries and territories monitored by the idmc” (nrc & idmc 2015). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 279 “cycles of displacement, return and subsequent displacement” for millions of refugees and idps in the hoa over the past 20 years (majidi n.d.). in fact, a ‘transitional phase’ of voluntary return often occurs with male refugees taking ‘look and see’ visits to communities of origin to assess the security situation, check on their properties and relatives left behind and scope out work prospects. this also often leads to a temporary break up of families, as women and children are left in the camps, placing an additional burden on the women (majidi n.d.). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 280 table 1 below summarises displacement in the hoa. country refugees origin ating from country* idps refugees hosted* percentage women** percentag e children under 18** djibouti 1,122 0 24,509 48% 41% eritrea 354,474 10,000 (2013) 2930 47.5% 56.5% ethiopia 124,952 397,200 (2014) 665,881 (jan 2015) 49% 58% kenya 10,822 412,000 (jan 2013) 569,772 51% 56% somalia 970,763 (mar 2015) 1,107,000 (2014) 12,239 (mar 2015) 50% 53% south sudan 638,402 (mar 2015) 1,474,500 (mar 2015) 257,673 (mar 2015) 51% 61% sudan 703,567 3,100,000 (jan 2015) 245,603 51% 39% uganda 11,069 29,800 (jan 2012) 433,595 (28 feb 2015) 51% (28 feb 2015) 61% (28 feb 2015) total*** 2,815,171 6,530,500 2,167,844 the underlying drivers of conflict and displacement as indicated above, the causes and drivers of hoa displacement are complex and entangled. resource or environmental scarcity, leading to violent contestation over scarce natural resources from land to water, is a dominant theme in the forced migration narrative in the hoa. combined with a prolonged drought in the region, these factors lead pastoralists into closer and closer contact and competition with their sedentary agricultural neighbours, eventually resulting in their relocation into urban shantytowns such as unhcr has recently undertaken a revalidation of the refugee population in djibouti and the preliminary findings of the exercise show that there are about 12,000 refugees in djibouti.  april 2015. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 281 djibouti-ville. the persistent poverty and weak institutional structures governing the allocation of scarce resources in these societies is a combustible formula for violence and conflict. an additional displacement driver in the hoa is flight from oppressive regimes, as is the case in eritrea and sudan today. the political economy of the region not only pits country against country in fragile, poorly marked and ungoverned borderlands (e.g. between south sudan, ethiopia, somalia and kenya), but also ethnic and clan groups against one another as is predominant in somalia. although the focus of this paper is on forced displacement due to violence and armed conflict, it should be acknowledged that a single cause such as armed conflict is rarely the only cause of forced displacement. it is also a region where pastoralism is the traditional mode of subsistence for a large portion of the population and natural and man made disasters have, in irregular intervals, affected populations and caused displacement. as noted earlier, there is often a complex set of circumstances, which drives displacement. for the hoa in particular, several key drivers of displacement can be identified as follows:  shifting pastoralism. pastoralism is a tradition among many communities in the hoa. in sudan, south sudan, djibouti, somalia and kenya, large parts of the populations are pastoralists and even more are agro-pastoralists. consequently, this means that they migrate according to seasonal patterns and climatic variations. grazing grounds have been reduced and movement has become more government regulated with the new administrative boundaries and individual property rights. these changes have resulted in increased resource-based ethnic conflict.  environmental degradation and food insecurity. effects of increasing environmental degradation including drought, floods, diminishing pasture for cattle and competition for water, firewood and other livelihood resources, contribute to displacement. the increased competition for these scarce resources also contributes to armed conflict, for instance, between pastoralists and sedentary communities.  for an elaboration on the impact of climate change on human migration in southern africa see ‘cross-border displacement in the context of disasters and climate change: ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 282  socio-ethnic conflict is a prominent feature in the region and often leads to violence and displacement. cattle rustling has displaced many communities in south sudan, northeast uganda (karamojo) and northern kenya (turkana), while clan differences have led to support for various ‘war-lords’ in somalia. for example, the nuer, dinka and madi have come into conflict in south sudan, uganda and ethiopia over farming and grazing rights.  loss of livelihoods and weakened social fabric in areas of origin have complemented insecurity as a main driver of migration and displacement. assets are lost, livelihood opportunities are diminished, and the social networks and fabric of communities are weakened due to armed conflict and forced displacement.  lack of economic opportunities, particularly for youth. according to the u.s. census bureau, in 2013 youth comprised approximately one third of the world’s current population. estimates for 2014 suggest that 10-35 year olds comprise 40.5% of the global population. in discussing increasing youth urbanisation, oyelaranoyeyika noted that, “there are more people under the age of 25 today than ever, totalling nearly three billion or half of humankind – of which 1.3 billion between ages 12 and 24. most live in urban areas” (oyelaran-oyeyinka 2014). a growing youth bulge in the hoa accounts for the bulk of the population in the region being under 25 years of age, contributing to increased competition for economic opportunities. such labour market competition is a major driver of displacement, leading to migration of young people – the majority of whom are male – to more economically prosperous regions of europe, saudi arabia, the gulf and south africa.  poor governance. corruption, inefficiencies and low technical and managerial capacity in government institutions limit the states’ abilities to provide security, law, order, and basic services such as education and health. lack of these services is a ‘push-factor’ for displacement not only in somalia, but also in eritrea, sudan and south a protection agenda’ – a draft for consultation, april 8, 2015; and ‘disasters, climate change and human mobility in southern africa: consultation on the draft protection agenda’. the nansen initiative-disaster induced cross-border displacement. june 45, 2015. stellenbosch: south africa. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 283 sudan. a specific feature in several countries is the tension between the centre and peripheral regions due to inequitable division of power and wealth and governments’ lack of respect for ethnic, religious and language differences.  violent conflict. violent conflict in the region is closely related to poor governance, but also to the other ‘drivers’ identified above. although it is possible to distinguish between the following types of armed conflict, it should also be noted that there are overlaps between them: o war between states (either directly, e.g. between eritrea and ethiopia, or through proxies, e.g. allegedly in the ‘three areas’ between south sudan and sudan) o civil war (e.g. presently in south sudan and at a lower scale in sudan and somalia) o ethnic based armed conflict (e.g. south central somalia between ‘war-lords’, and the violent political crisis in south sudan which takes on ethnic dimensions) o international linked terrorism (e.g. al shabab in somalia and kenya) in sum, the drivers of displacement are a complex mix of political oppression, violence, food insecurity, economic opportunism and governance failures. while not using the terminology of mixed migration in this paper to capture these multiple drivers (including political asylum seekers, trafficked persons, economic migrants and refugees), it is often closely related to forced displacement due to violent conflict as such. let us now examine some specific country cases. the interplay between the political topography and the ethnic demography an underlying thread that weaves through the degrees of cooperation and conflict among and within the hoa countries is the interplay between the political topography and the cultural demography of the region emanating from a long colonial heritage. this interplay also shapes the degree of local integration as opposed to the other standard options of repatriation and resettlement for the displaced. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 284 ethiopia: a tale of two displacements (shire and dollo ado) in ethiopia the contrast between the two major refugee situations in the northeast (shire) and southwest (dollo ado) of the country is truly a ‘tale of two displacements’. eritrean displaced are located in the northwest and oriented toward resettlement and integration in third countries. the somali are located in the southwest and are focused on return, repatriation and reintegration to somalia. during field visits and interviews in refugee camps and host communities in these two distinct areas, it was observed that the reception of eritrean refugees and host community eritrean ethiopians’ in the northeast as compared to that of somali refugees and somali ethiopian host communities in the southwest, highlight the different drivers and impacts shaping social and economic integration, return or resettlement. the eritrean refugees in shire are political and economic migrants fleeing forced military conscription and seeking economic opportunity, such as freedom from fear and want. they are generally receiving transitional assistance en-route to other countries of opportunity in europe and the middle east (e.g. italy, the nordic countries and israel). this is an understandable coping strategy serving as a bridge to possible resettlement, jobs, remittances and new citizen rights. it is basically a reaction to the political oppression and narrowing economic employment opportunities in eritrea. the eritrean refugees were mostly young males. in effect, displacement of an adult child abroad becomes an investment for the future for an eritrean family remaining behind. the eritrean refugees seem to be more readily integrated, or at least accepted, in local host communities with similar tigrinya cultural roots in northwest ethiopia. as reported in several interviews, this is evidenced by the increasing number of ‘out of camp’ refugees inter-marrying with ethnically related host community members and/or utilising host communities as transitory way stations in their onward economic migration to europe and other neighbouring countries. thus, the remarkably high numbers of unaccompanied minors (under 18) and single youth-headed households are reported in field visits as about 40% in the shire camps of hitsats, adi-harush and mai aini population (reported by regional unhcr office to be roughly 67,520 in all three camps). in reality, the cross border cultural affinity of eritreans living on both sides provides a ready way station for those seeking to travel on to europe through ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 285 sudan and libya, as well as an opportunity for integration through marriage and work in the local hosting area. the cultural connectivity (extant bonding social capital) with ethnic groups on relatively fluid borders, enable many refugees (especially youth) to migrate to informal sector employment either in the host urban centres or abroad to north africa, the middle east and europe. ironically, eritrean interviewees complained as to why they were not receiving the media attention that syrian refugees were getting, despite their plight. it was observed that donor governments tend to see their situation as a bilateral issue between eritrea and ethiopia. however more recently, boat sinking and loss of life in the mediterranean, has featured prominently in the news and many of the refugees involved are eritrean. in contrast, the somali refugees in dollo ado are primarily fleeing armed conflict, environmental scarcity and drought heightened food insecurity in their south central somalian region of origin. the complaints and demands mount in dollo ado camps, ranging from increased risk of malaria and the excessive pressures on basic services of health and education, to few recreational outlets for youth, no ambulance for emergency evacuation of pregnant women, insufficient feeding centres, shortage of firewood and no access to the national electric grid as an alternative energy source. clearly this is an extremely poor and marginalised region of ethiopia even without the additional burden of the somali refugees on the local environment and economy. on the one hand, it appears that environmental threats, primarily the cutting of trees for cooking (competition for scarce energy resources) and over grazing (livelihood contestation), are significant concerns of the dollo ado host community. on the other hand, the somali refugees are also welcomed by the local ethiopian somali community. this is demonstrated in the labour and trade exchange between the hosting community and the camp refugees. it was reported that the refugees often provide day labour to the riverine irrigated fields of the host community in exchange for cash and food to supplement their diet in a sharecropper arrangement. the host community values the market opportunities which refugees with cash present when buying local food and other basic needs. having noted the competition and cooperation between host communities and refugees above, refugees stated several times that life was better in the camps than in somalia where there was “nothing to go back to”, especially in terms of livelihood opportunities, security and basic services such as ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 286 education. in fact, it was reported that cash remittances apparently are actually flowing in the opposite direction from the refugee camps to points in somalia. in sum, the presence of refugees has had a mixed impact – some negative and some positive – on the local economies. while the local economies of the refugee hosting areas have been primed by refugee consumption and the spending of international and national agencies, the increased food and fuel prices and competition for firewood and water (i.e. market distortions) are negatively affecting the poorer members of the host communities. while, to some extent, members of the host communities are benefiting from basic services offered to refugees (e.g. health, education and water), there remains an enormous need to extend basic services in these very poor, underserved border areas of the host country. both areas (shire and dollo ado) have enormous service delivery needs and a clear potential for growth and development provided that investments are made to create livelihoods opportunities for the refugees and host communities in a dual targeting approach. while in gambela, the region of ethiopia hosting south sudanese refugees, it was reported that displacement is mainly caused by internal conflict created by the government program of ‘villagisation’, which is tantamount to a tactical land grabbing mechanism. the predominantly somali refugee camp in ali addeh, djibouti (about 14,000) is ‘prima face’ a semi-arid incubator of economic despair and social exclusion bordering ethiopia, djibouti and somalia. when interviewed, the camp youth requested skill training and credential verification to make them more attractive to the middle east labour market. they typically migrate through the ports of djibouti to yemen, the sinai and points beyond, assisted by an  for two interesting studies on cash transfers and vouchers in ethiopia see: jeanmartin bauer, aschalew feleke and kedir shemsu. 2013 ‘markets and cash transfers in ethiopia: insights from an initial assessment’. addis ababa: the world food program. it appears that markets can respond to cash and voucher transfers, although a mix of in kind food and cash-vouchers is advocated in the transitional near term. also see, ‘assessment of financial access in hilloween and kobe refugee camps in dollo ado area of southwest ethiopia’. 2013 icos consulting plc, funded by ilo. the latter study maps the informal and formal financial service providers in the refugee area of dolo ado as a prelude to enhancing access to micro credit, related to strengthening livelihood opportunities. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 287 informal industry of middlemen traffickers, brokers and boatmen. the cultural connectivity (extant bonding social capital) with ethnic groups on relatively fluid borders enables many refugees (especially youth) to migrate to informal sector employment either in the host urban centres and/or abroad to north africa, the middle east and europe. they leave behind the old and very young in a humanitarian industry protected welfare environment for the most part devoid of economic opportunity and consumptive power, short of a few small businesses serving the camp population and the remittances sent back to the camps by ‘overseas refugee workers’. it should be noted that with the growing conflict in yemen, there has now been a growing reverse flow of somalis back to djibouti. the refugee camps in shire (about 67,520) and ali addeh (about 14,000) are ‘de facto’ reserve labour pools for the middle east in particular. the eritrean and somali refugee camps may be ‘protracted’ wards of the un, but the people, particularly youth, are highly mobile in search of more open labour market opportunities. in short, while the camps have become the outward symbol of the ‘protection’ industry, their inhabitants, particularly in shire and ali addeh are on the move, relegating camps to ‘transit points’ for the young and able and un subsidised social safety nets for the old, infirm and very young left behind (humphris 2013; meknonnen and estfanos 2014). kenya: refugee camp or ‘de facto’ free trade zone (dadaab)? informal labour exchange and trade between displaced and host communities is a common phenomenon in the hoa as already noted above in the case of dollo ado, ethiopia. refugee camps, such as dadaab in kenya with a population of some 475,000 and dollo ado with over 205,000 refugees receiving remittances and wanting to supplement income and diet, represent market opportunities for surrounding host communities. there is growing informal trade in goods and services beyond the refugee and host communities in dadaab (kenya) as somali traders move goods from dubai through the port of kismayo (somalia) back and forth to the camp and its surrounding environment, ‘de facto’ relegating the camp to a tax free economic investment and free trade zone. it is common knowledge among kenyans that dadaab refugee camp is the best place to buy imported tax-free cars, scooters and electronic goods, among other commodities. the somali refugee trade links extend to turkana camps (there is even a thriving somali operated bus line between turkana and dadaab camps) spanning from the ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 288 northeast to the southwest kenya and into neighbouring county markets. does economics trump ethnicity or vice-versa? kenya in kenya, the kakuma (turkana) camp, of mainly south sudanese mixed with somali, there is an absence of cultural affinity with the hosting turkana community. tensions run high between the host community and the refugee camp, especially around grazing and water use in a resource scarce environment. this situation is unlike in dollo ado, where the cultural fit between the ethiopian somali host community and somali refugees helps to mediate the economic contestation over scarce resources. in addition to the contestation over scarce environment resources (water and firewood in particular), the cultural conflict between turkana peoples and south sudanese refugees does not encourage social cohesion between refugees and hosts. as reported in focal group interviews, the turkana feel the sudanese look down upon them. they find sudanese refugee graveyards and dumps amusing as they handle death, burial and waste differently. they see their very way of life threatened, especially among their youth who come into contact with the refugees. south africa in south africa, while not normally considered in discussions and analysis of the causes and impacts of forced displacement due to armed conflict in the hoa, one cannot but mention the recent events resulting from hoa displacement, particularly involving somali businessmen. the cape province, has had its own unique experience with displaced persons and host community conflict dynamics with somali, zimbabwean and other refugee populations. violent xenophobic responses to refugees in south africa due to competition for scarce jobs, wage distortion and rent inflation in the local economy are well documented (charman and piper 2012). recent surveys in south africa reported that over 45% of the respondents felt that “foreigners should not be allowed to live in south africa because they take jobs and benefits away from south africans” while 40% think that there should be strict restrictions placed on foreigners seeking entry into the country and 24% felt foreigners should be completely prohibited entry (maaure 2013). south africa once hosted the largest number of asylum seekers in the world. akin to uganda’s generous policy and legal framework, under the post ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 289 apartheid refugee and migrant legal reforms, groups such as the somalis are granted refugee status with freedom of movement, work permits and access to basic services. while successful somali entrepreneurs become symbols of envy and frustration among the south african poor in informal settlements, they remain relatively invisible to south african and migrant elites living in secure gated communities serviced by private security personnel that are now estimated to be double the size of south african’s police force (abdi 2013). more recently, the government has introduced a number of restrictive practices including closing down some refugee reception offices. overall the number of asylum seekers has decreased. in 2008, when similar xenophobic violence erupted against south african nonnationals resulting in some 62 deaths and 35,000 displaced persons, the then aids activist movement, treatment action campaign (tac), shifted from advocating for hiv victims’ rights to fighting for refugees’ rights, spanning multiple human rights issues, activist networks and constituencies. this movement evolved into the social justice coalition (sic) in the western cape, a community based civil society organisation addressing a broader range of human rights issues. then, even the terminology utilised by the state regarding refugees talked in terms of “temporary shelter” and not “refugee camps” per se. as robins noted, “refugees were increasingly depicted by government as illegal, criminal, troublesome, ungrateful and undeserving” (robins 2009). in durban, gauteng and cape town, south africa, both in 2008 and more recently in 2015, there have been violent attacks by south africans of zulu decent on migrants from somalia, ethiopia, mozambique and zimbabwe. the department of home affairs reports about 70,000 new asylum claims in 2013 from over 80 countries worldwide. among these, some 9,000 are from ethiopia and somalia alone (pugh 2014). the outward cry of local south africans in the townships accusing african “foreigners” of taking their jobs in an environment of high youth unemployment, has led to violent attacks and calls for them to return to their home countries. somalis and others in informal settlements with limited access to the formal labour market, manage small stores (spazas). their success becomes a symbol  the refugee act requires 180 days for the determination of status but, in fact, asylum seekers spend years waiting for a determination, finding it difficult to find stable work in the interim (passop 2013). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 290 and target of south africans they serve in these “no go zones” where crime, poverty and unemployment reign (abdi 2013). mistrust and resentment loom large as refugees are stigmatised as criminals and bearers of disease. local politicians such as zulu king ghatilensi have used them as a political mobilising pawn. as dr. roni amit from the university of witwatersrand has recently noted, “the department of home affairs (dha) in south africa has adopted a much expanded assumption of illegality. the dha often acts outside of the legal framework under the guise of security. migration has been framed as a security issue” (amit 2014). the impact of forced displacement on the host or receptor communities is complex and manifold. clearly the clash of cultures in natal, south africa and turkana, kenya discussed above can lead to violent conflict, but this is mostly a result and not a cause of violence emanating from the economic competition for scarce resources and the increasing class divisions among the poor themselves. in south africa, it may not be cultural or racial bias per se (although ethnicity has become a mobilising factor for recent violent attacks on somali traders) but rather the pooling of resources and sale of goods and services at lower prices and subsequent local competition, that is resented by some fellow africans in the south african townships in particular. the recent violence perpetrated by poor south africans upon the successful somali immigrant shop owners in marginalised townships and use of the term ‘afrophobia’ as opposed to ‘xenophobia’ in characterising events on the ground, are subtle but clear indicators that economics trumps ethnicity as the core motivator of violence. poor governance can also play a role. the weakening of the judiciary and dominance of the anc executive committee has led to conditions in “lindela” or transit camps for deportees as tolerable and a weigh station as they are now being rounded up and reported in “operation fiela” following recent clashes. it has also been further argued that post-apartheid xenophobia is a result of the merging of the politics of resistance and emerging state or nationalistic politics in the attempt to define citizenship and a new south african identity formation (neocosmos 2006).some neighbouring countries  neocosmos (2006) notes that post-independence africa may have been ‘deradicalised’ but not ‘democratised’ with the advent of ‘africanisation’, now called ‘affirmative action.’ this relationship has been further forged in state public-private ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 291 such as malawi have initiated repatriation programs with some 3,200 malawians having fled south africa in the wake of the violence. however it is reported that, given the few economic opportunities in their home country, there is now a steady stream of malawians returning to south africa despite their fears and risks (masina 2015). the impact of the interplay between economics and ethnicity market distortions the dominant impact in all these hoa settings is the creation of market distortions particularly in prices, wages and rents. host communities have seen the price of charcoal in dollo ado go up almost four-fold from 40 bir to 150 bir per bag and a sack of sugar from go up nearly three-fold from 300 bir to 800 bir. refugees are willing to work for a margin of what local wages had been beforehand, thus perceived to be taking away rightful or entitled jobs from host locals. the competition for limited social services (especially health and education) also becomes a point of contention. host community health centres become overcrowded and under served and schools suddenly have excessive enrolments with children often speaking a totally different language, thus challenging teachers and the systems to adjust. basic service overload refugees tend to attract additional social services such as health and education to previously underserved, marginalised border regions. however, the perception that services only benefit the displaced as in turkana, becomes reason for envy and local conflict. where governments such as uganda’s are attuned to this unintentional threat to local stability, they have been quick to enhance service provision to the local host community. ensuring some degree of basic services balance and social cohesion between camps and host partnerships of the more recent ‘black economic empowerment’ movement, culminating in the post-apartheid process of ‘national building’. this, in term, required ‘national unity’ which entailed a political process of common identity and legal rights, duties and benefits (access to credit, social services, etc.) embedded in social relationships that distinguished hosts or natives from strangers or foreigners. the establishment of bantustans was merely a mechanism for social and labour control and provided a ready labour reserve, particularly for white capital formation such as mining. also see m. mamdani. 1996. citizen and subject: contemporary africa and the legacy of late colonialism. london: james currey. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 292 communities is a major challenge in this situation. this is particularly important where new cultural groups such as dinka and newar are coming into madi and acholi areas. environmental degradation another major issue emerging in dollo ado, kakuma and other refugee camp areas in the hoa is environmental degradation due to energy production, particularly wood-source fuels. this was also an obvious outcome in turkana and dadaab. in many cases, an equilibrium or accommodation short of integration has been achieved, where the incentives to return diminish in the face of continued and unpredictable insecurity of places of origin.  weakened social networks and uneven access to information family and social networks have been weakened as a result of protracted displacement to a diversity of locations. this has resulted in poor information, particularly on conditions of return. it has been reported in one return survey of somali refugees in kenya, that “only an estimated 18% of refugees have contact with people in their area of origin” (iom and unhcr 2014). the volatile mix of economic contestation and ethnic mobilisation violent conflict in the hoa countries and beyond (having effects even in south africa) is a manifestation of social and economic grievances framed by exclusion and marginalisation associated with deep poverty, vulnerability, constrained socio-economic mobility and contestation over scarce resources including jobs. this contestation manifests itself in violent ethnic mobilisation. clearly economics trumps ethnicity as the deep structural cause of the violence. however, ethnicity is the major mobilising tool. the need to be cognizant of inadvertently enabling market distortions in prices and wages of local goods and services, creating perceived if not real social service imbalances, hastening environmental degradation and growing ethnic conflict, are major displacement issues. while economic contestation is at the root of conflict between the displaced and hosts, ethnicity is more often  while not discussed in depth here, providing mechanisms for dealing with trauma (particularly among unaccompanied minors) and dispute resolution between displaced and hosting communities are also important new development challenges. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 293 than not a mobilising feature for the perpetration of violence. in sum, for most refugee and host community encounters, the degree of ethnic or cultural fit between the displaced population and the host community is a key variable in shaping the degree of receptivity and non-violent accommodation. government legal and policy responses: acts of fear or necessity? the legal frameworks and policies of hosting countries regarding the displaced revolve around five main issues: (1) access to basic services; (2) the right to work; (3) the ease of mobility; (4) the ownership of property; and (5) a clear path to the choices of citizenship, return or resettlement. the degree to which host governments subscribe to international law and norms related to these issues is of critical importance to shaping durable solutions for the displaced. although governments are signatory to various conventions and acts effecting the hoa over the years (including the 1951 refugee convention and the 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees, the 1969 organization of african unity (oau) refugee convention, the 1998 un guiding principles on internal displacement, the 2006 refugee act, the 2009 kampala convention, and the 2012 uganda refugee regulations) they have not always been sufficiently translated into effective program implementation due often to a mix of political will and local capacity. uganda on the one extremity, uganda (now hosting over 350,000 displaced: 188,000 congolese in the south and midwest and 154,000 south sudanese in adjumani, arua and kiryandongo districts) has a progressive legal policy that provides gazette plots in settlements through which refugees can farm the land and enter into lease contracts (unhcr 2015a). this ‘out of camp’ approach has generally resulted in a vibrant trade and exchange between the hosting communities and the refugees, as discussed earlier. the government and the unhcr have been taking strategic steps to strengthen the resilience and self-reliance of the refugees and hosting areas since the 1999 self reliance strategy (srs) for refugee hosting areas, continuing with the 2006 development assistance for refugees (dar) and imbedding a refugee settlement transformative agenda (sta) in the national development plan ii (2015-2020). these steps have culminated in the refugee and host populations empowerment (rehope) program that aims to ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 294 bridge humanitarian and development assistance in self-reliant and resilience strengthening actions (unhcr 2015b). this innovative program and its limitations will be discussed further in an analysis of donor responses below. in addition to providing user land rights to refugees, such programs are included in national development plans, as uganda is now doing in the northern uganda development plan (ndp ii). this ensures attention to the issue of displacement as well as budget to support the design and implementation of plans and programs. kenya on the other extremity, despite developing a draft policy and refugee act in 2012, kenya has made little progress in moving the policy beyond a draft stage and implementing of the act itself. in effect, it has framed the displacement issue through a security lens. it has relied heavily on the conventional camp approach with large, tightly controlled encampments in dadaab (estimated to house about 350,000 refugees) and kakuma (housing an estimated 120,000 displaced). the dadaab camp is effectively the third largest city in kenya. work permits and freedom of mobility are out of reach. tensions between the camps and surrounding host communities are apparent with frequent incidents. one interviewee characterised the kenyan camps as “open prisons.” the security incidents at westgate mall and garissa school referred to above led to “operation watch”, a security sweep of urban areas throughout the country to round up somali displaced and either return them to the camps or repatriate them to somalia itself. in 2013, the kenyan high court ruled against such actions and a tripartite agreement establishing a legal framework for voluntary returns was signed between unhcr, and the kenyan and somali governments. this has placed kenya in the international limelight and under the scrutiny of various human rights groups. voluntary repatriation has been encouraged but there are few takers given the insecurity in areas of return in somalia. ethiopia ethiopia has traditionally sought a balance between managing tightly controlled camps on its borders with somalia and acknowledging large historical somali ghetto areas, especially in addis. it maintains an encampment policy that requires refugees to obtain permits to leave the camps. however, in august 2010 the government introduced a new policy permitting eritrean refugees to reside outside camps if self-sufficient or ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 295 supported. with a more “open camp” policy toward the eritrean situation, given the cultural fit between refugees and receptor communities, there are higher rates of inter-marriage and integration than usual. on the border areas, given the cultural consistency between somali ethiopians in the south, eritrean ethiopians in the northeast and sudanese ethiopians in the eastern gambela region, there is thriving labour exchange and trade in goods and services between the camps and neighbouring communities. the barbera corridor between ethiopia and somalia has become somewhat of a thriving trade route between the countries. south africa south africa’s legal and policy framework has increasingly come into conflict with its quest for democratisation. the ‘aliens control act’ of 1995 basically negated rights of immigrants, particularly the freedom to trade and work, treating them as illegal and criminal by confiscating their assets, harassing and deporting them. following on the heals of the 1998 refugee act, the draft ‘white paper on international migration’ of 1999 used rising unemployment as a means of discouraging immigration and enforcing the aliens control act. the only concession was to the mining sector when it became a bill in 2000. it was reported in a recent round table discussion on xenophobia in south africa that since the 2008 events there have been over 350 deaths and only a single prosecution of the perpetrators in afrophobic related incidents (amit et al. 2015). clearly failures of the rule of law, particularly evidenced in the slow pace and backlog of the judiciary and the late actions of the south african police force, serve as a de facto signal of impunity for such criminal acts. djibouti despite hosting a large camp in ali addeeh on its southern border and growing displaced shantytown areas in djiboutiville itself, djibouti does not have an explicit refugee law or policy. the general displacement trend is to use djibouti as more of a ‘transit point” than a “final destination”. of course, given its limited availability of arable land job opportunities, one would expect  see the 1998 human rights watch report on ‘xenophobia in south africa’, documenting the inkata movement and buthelezi’s inflammatory statement blaming crime, unemployment and spread of diseases on ‘foreigners’. hrp was later critised for prioritising illegal aliens over the then 50 percent of south africans living in poverty. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 296 this pattern. interviewed youth in ali addeeh described a situation whereby the elderly and very young in the camp are supported by the generous safety net of the international community while the young and able migrate back and forth to yemen and elsewhere to work and send back remittances to buttress consumption in the camps. here, economic opportunity, conflict induced insecurity and climate change merge to form a constellation of interrelated factors driving ‘mixed migration’. puntland, somaliland and somalia puntland adopted policy guidelines on idps in 2012, and somaliland developed a draft policy framework in 2014. however, the implementation is slow and the jury is out on whether the capacity and resources will enable effectiveness. somalia itself adopted a policy framework on displacement and an agency for refugees and idps in december 2014. the new deal compact, supported by the international community in 2014, presents an opportunity to address the issue of durable solutions. however, it is hobbled by a weak state that is critical to implementation. the “warehousing approach” to refugees, registering, feeding and protecting them, comes face to face with the desire to move and integrate elsewhere, be it in the hosting environment or beyond yemen and saudi arabia. the environmental and labour market limitations of djibouti typically require moving beyond to the gulf states. an interesting finding in djibouti was the desire for youth looking to migrate for jobs to have access to better labour market information as well as some kind of skill certification. here, perhaps a stronger vocational counselling element might be introduced especially for youth in the camps. international and regional policies and programs donors exhibit a range of responses to the crisis situation in the hoa. on the one hand, unhcr has moved considerably from a “camp management” approach to a more “open camp” approach as mentioned above, acknowledging that the care and maintenance in camps is neither a sustainable nor realistic solution given the numbers of displaced now already outside camps in peri-urban informal settlements or on the move through neighbouring host countries. the operative donor language is “building resilience and self-reliance” which translates into providing a basic safety net of transitional food, shelter and basic services while enabling skill ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 297 enhancement for onward labour market migration and employment elsewhere. as discussed above, in the uganda case, these steps have culminated in unhcr’s flagship initiativethe refugee and host populations empowerment (rehope) program that aims to bridge humanitarian and development assistance in self-reliance and resilience strengthening actions (unhcr 2015b). its focus is on integrated programming combining legal advice, service delivery, livelihood support and giving voice to refugees in the planning and programming process in a holistic manner. the approach differentiates between rural and urban livelihood support, combining access to land, technology and markets for the rural displaced with skill enhancement, entrepreneurship, business assistance and access to credit for urban livelihoods. this innovative and comprehensive approach acknowledges that the old “camp-based” approach of prolonged humanitarian assistance is not sustainable, especially under conditions of protracted displacement that have become the norm in the hoa. however, as mentioned earlier, the rehope program does have limitations, most important being that the insufficient amount of land allocated limits farming to subsistence agriculture and prevents any real transformation through mechanised agriculture and agroindustry in these areas. a second gap is the need for improved community policing and access to justice, perhaps by financing mobile courts and trained local mediators. finally, there remains the issue of balanced service delivery with regards to classroom and teacher disparities. some even argue that there is a need to go beyond primary education provision and offer more scholarships to refugee children for secondary education in order to promote social mobility and break the vicious cycle of displacement. unhcr’s support for scholarships for eritrean displaced is an interesting twist and a relevant development intervention. also in due to the large number of unaccompanied minors, the camps are forced to create “community kitchens” for feeding (estimated feeding of 1000 children per day) and unique walled shelter areas that fence in unaccompanied minors for joint supervision by so called “house mothers”. in effect, in the words of the  considering livelihood, fao has been studying areas of origin, travel routes and hosting areas of settlement, intervening to improve water and heard management, providing market information and restocking as a means of prevention. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 298 unhcr regional director, “the unhcr program here is creating communities not camps as such.” an interesting unspoken tension between host governments and the displaced is how to manage the subtle political balance between wanting refugees to be self-reliant, but not so progressive that they compete with and monopolise local community resources. indeed there is always the lurking issue of moral hazard, as successful pilot integration schemes such as rehope run the risk of attracting more refugees. in cooperation with regional economic communities (particularly inter governmental agency for development (igad) and the east african community (eca)), the african union (au) has established the african peace and security architecture (aspa) to deal with prevention, management and resolution of conflicts. in this context, it has set up a continental early warning system (cews) a standby security force (asf), a panel of wise men and a peace fund (pf) to support humanitarian assistance, peace-making and peace building efforts in the region. these organisations have focused on mediation and conflict resolution for the most part, bringing parties together to establish peace and assisting enforcement through peacekeeping missions such as the african union assistance mission to somalia (amisom) in somalia. the african union boarder program (aubp) has taken the additional step of developing cross-border services, such as health and customs control, to facilitate the movement of people, goods and services (economic exchanges). the underlying theme is to strengthen the governance capacity of these hereto-fore ungoverned and relatively ungovernable border areas. igad has also sought to facilitate dialogue on transport and export in the extractive industry, technical assistance for regional environmental standards, skills development as well as conflict mediation. its migration policy framework is an effort to harmonise various regional migration policies, strengthen intergovernmental coordination, build capacity and enhance community involvement. there have also been efforts to collaborate on regional integration with the african development bank (afdb) around infrastructure through the establishment of a multi-donor trust fund managed by igad. the world bank’s operational policy 8.10 for emergency lending and 2.30 for conflict and development are the key policy instruments enabling a quick and relevant response to displacement situations. the main regional approach in the hoa thus far has been to restructure or amend existing projects. the ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 299 primary example is the hoa regional pastoral livelihoods resilience project (rplrp). this operates cross border and is being implemented in collaboration with igad. it seeks to strengthen igad’s conflict early warning and response mechanism (cewarn) with additional resources, equipment and training (world bank 2014). on the analytical side, the world bank conducted an initial study on the impact of the dadaab refugee camp on the host community environment in kenya (drc 2010). a second similar study is underway for the impact of the kakuma refugee camp in northwest kenya on the surrounding turkana host community. the world bank’s third northern uganda social action project (nusap iii) currently under design will seek to address displacement challenges impacting refugee host areas. other relevant instruments such as the third peace and development plan can be targeted to include refugee-affected areas, with particular concern for women and children. it is a planning and finance framework with a clear programming stream through nusap iii and provides a framework for community monitoring results. it is innovative in that it includes community participatory appraisal processes, disaster or catastrophic risk insurance, micro credit and social accountability mechanisms. in addition, the world bank is exploring extending the government assisted conditional cash transfer program to displaced through the productive safety net program (psnp), shifting the emphasis from a dependency-producing provision of food toward increased self-reliance and return through livelihood and related skills development. it is clear that issues of environmental degradation can be addressed by providing alternative energy and fuel sources, such as wind farms, solar power, natural gas and surface water conservation. the world bank’s horn of africa study analyses the displacement issue within the larger development and reconstruction analysis of the hoa (world bank 2014b; world bank 2015b). in addition to the above key international actors, the islamic development bank (idb) has recently approved a project in southern ethiopia to assist areas where somali refugees are about to return. the danish international development agency (danida), and the danish and norwegian refugee  cewarn has an estimated annual budget of $1.5 million funded by member states, the usaid, giz and several scandinavian countries in a joint financial arrangement (jfa) facility. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 300 councils (drc and nrc, respectively) have also been actively analysing somalia context and piloting small recovery initiatives including provision of communal water points, skill enhancement and profiling needs assessment (bryld and kamau 2013).finally, the european commission has programs targeting both refugees and host communities with a security accent on access to justice, mobile courts and policing solutions. the search for a new paradigm: from care and maintenance to resilience and self-reliance given the now “protracted” nature of the displacement, the old encampment humanitarian policies of care and maintenance are now giving way to a rethink from a development perspective by governments and donors alike. identifying the “development deficits” or gaps (such as security, livelihood, conflict resolution and human trafficking) between the displaced and the host communities is an essential first step. targeting the most vulnerable among the displaced, integrating them into domestically provided social services rather than stand alone idp programs and extending the local social safety net where feasible, are priorities. enhancing “mental mobility” or a change in mind-set among the displaced is a necessary adjunct to social and economic access and mobility. the “dependency syndrome” engendered by old warehousing approaches is now being transformed. as betts et. al. (2014) have observed, refugee communities exhibit similar features of normal economic systems, that is, “they (refugee communities) engage in production, consumption, exchange, entrepreneurship, and the development of financial and capital markets” (betts et al 2014). what appears to be the determining factor in the success or failure of refugee selfinitiatives in the economic sphere, is the openness of government policies regarding property rights or user rights, the right to work and the freedom of movement. as mentioned above, uganda not only provides land for agriculture, but freedom of movement to trade between the camp in kyrangwali settlement, kampala, arua, gul, and even beyond uganda to tanzania and south sudan. while not without its limitations, uganda’s approach provides a tipping point to influence neighbouring country’s policies on displacement and migration. to the extent that livelihood programs and some form of user or property rights complement a transitional safety net of basic service provision, at minimum, a limited opening for some form of “transitional integration” within ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 301 local economies is possible. however, where refugees are seen as distorting the local economic wages, prices and rents and competing for meagre job opportunities with local communities, there has been pushback and resistance by hosting governments and communities’ members. the degree and intensity of such local pushback is only moderated by the cultural and ethnic fit between the refugees and the receptor communities, as in the case of eritreans in northeast ethiopia and earlier discussed somali ethiopians bordering southwest mandera triangle with somalia and kenya. to further illustrate the ethnic reach across refugee hosting environments, one needs only to see the transport links established by somali bus and minivan companies between kakuma and dadaab camps in kenya. again, ethnic and clan bonded social capital networks trump geopolitical borders. of course the flow of remittances, especially through the somali hahwala system of informal banking, helps to fuel production and trade wherever somali live and work. the formula of refugee business success is rounded out by access to satellite information and communication technology (ict) and internet connectivity of mobile phones, along with financial access and networked social capital, human capital skills and host government policy space. betts et al (2014) reported that over 66% of the displaced in kyrangali settlement and 96% of those in kampala have mobile phones. clearly, further investigation into a new paradigm that emphasises a more open public-private sector system of managing refugee flows is warranted. this is particularly evident when balanced against the risks of conventional methods that encourage conflict by painting the displaced into corners of insecurity and local competition. this brings one back to the trade-offs between the durable solutions of integration, resettlement and repatriation within the overall framework of open and closed camp mentality. addressing borderland push and pull factors addressing both push and pull factors in the camps and prospective areas of return in an integrated ‘holistic’ manner is key to achieving durable solutions. here, the link or bridge between humanitarian and development approaches is critical. the push factors entail skill and self-reliance development of refugees while in the camps, while the pull factors are security, basic service access and property rights in the areas of return. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 302 the unhcr, partnered with world bank, may wish to extend or shift its traditional safety net approach from a dependency-producing safety net (providing food, shelter and basic services), to a “transitional safety net”, emphasising livelihood interventions, mitigating the dependency mind-set and, thus, preparing the displaced with skills for strengthening self-reliance and positioning for eventual economic reintegration upon return. despite the de facto cross-border trade (human and capital mobility) among the displacement affected countries in the hoa, there remains an enormous need for economic and social infrastructure addressing environmental degradation, physical infrastructure and job creation in both receipt and return areas. a cross-border regional integrated area development approach would stimulate the development of the border areas in the three countries and facilitate regional trade, stability and return. merging stabilisation, security and development would provide the bridge linking humanitarian protection to building resilience and socio-economic development. it could be truly transformational, going beyond palliative transitional solutions or holding patterns for the extreme poor (refugees and idps) living in dire, uncertain conditions. the location of the camps, mainly in marginalised border areas, may ironically be a silver lining. they have shined a “spot light” on the unequal development in receptor countries and here-to-fore marginalised border areas. so much so that the camps may, in the long run, attract greater public investment and attendant state budgetary resources, particularly towards improving infrastructure and basic services, in areas that may otherwise may have continued to be neglected. in the ethiopia, kenya and somalia border area called the madera triangle, a cross-border regional integrated area development approach could address the refugee impact on host communities as well as the pull factors for refugees in a comprehensive manner, benefiting local communities in ethiopia, kenya and somalia. it also fits into the decentralisation and federalism thrust of all three countries. the displacement situation in dollop ado provides a great opportunity for such a regional cross-border displacement project. for the refugees in dollo ado, return to their areas of origin in south central region of somalia is the only feasible long-term solution. lack of security, poor access to basic services and limited livelihood opportunities, were identified in focus group interviews as the key constraints to their return. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 303 while uncertain security is a concern, contrary to conventional wisdom, the somali refugees have been willing to take risks and undertake itinerant farming, moving back and forth between refugee camps on one side of the border and farming and herding in communities of origin on the other side. as indicated above, studying and understanding these coping livelihood modalities would be critical to building on extant refugee capacity and ingenuity. such a development intervention could address both push and pull factors necessary for a durable regional solution to the protracted displacement crisis. partnering for peace the au supports inter-continental policy collaboration emanating from such forums and programs as the “kampala convention” and the “african union border program” (aubp). the objective of the aubp is to promote regional coordination and cooperation, build capacity and enhance community involvement. population movement is not a new phenomenon in the hoa. displacement due to violence does not occur in isolation from these seasonal migratory and climatic cycles and trends. with reference to pastoralists in particular, there is a need for a regional approach to facilitate and protect pastoralist livelihoods. infrastructure, basic service access, training, capacity building and microfinance are a key constellation of investments that, if done in an integrated area development manner in areas such as the madera triangle or the turkana area bordering south sudan, uganda and kenya, could form the critical mass necessary to transform the economies of these marginalised areas. this would promote regional development and refugee integration and reintegration in a single stroke. of course, this integrated area development approach could benefit from increased donor coordination perhaps through the formation of a joint displacement and development secretariat, a shared action plan and a special multi-donor displacement fund. harmonisation of country policies and programs such innovative institutional initiatives as discussed would have to be complemented by country policy and legal reforms that accent key elements:  there is a history of such successful integrated area development projects in the 1960s, such as the camilla project in pakistan to the mekong river development project in southeast asia. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 304 (i) some form or path of citizen rights short of outright citizenship (some form of legal recognition); (ii) property rights or long term land use rights; (iii) the freedom of movement; (iv) the right to work or work permits; (v) and skill verification. the african union border program (aubp) is one example of bringing together various actors in a coordinated integrated regional development and conflict prevention management initiative. another idea is to complement these efforts at coordination and local regional capacity building with development of special boarder area economic zones that can attract investment with favoured capital access and tax policies, along with infrastructure connectivity. in many ways, as presented earlier, the dadaab refugee camp has actually evolved into a de facto “free trade zone”. however, to enable such integrated cross border development to take place these areas, the displaced located in them need to be given voice and factored into national, regional and local planning and budgeting processes. in the case of somalia, one might envisage this in contrast to conventional top down, state-centric development, as the state is being rebuilt or reconstructed from the periphery to the centre in a loosely constructed federal system. working together, the undp, wfp, fao and unhcr have a somali initiative, “drought pdna assessment”, focusing on commercialisation of pastoralism, basic services and local capacity building. the overall program is multi-sector, focusing on livelihood development, community policing, food security through a mix of food and cash transfer to stimulate an agricultural supply response, alternative fuel sources, environmental protection and basic service delivery. analytical work is also underway on water reservoir and irrigation development. the overarching aim is the normalisation of refugee life. bilateral donors such as turkish international cooperation assistance (tica) continue to provide humanitarian relief, while usaid and dfid are taking cash based and market oriented approaches. here, the radical perspective of seeing dadaab as an economic powerhouse in that region of kenya, meshes nicely with treating it as a de facto free trade zone with well developed market reach into kenya, somalia and other countries. from shock absorbers to change agents: developing the borderlands as noted earlier, policies addressing forced displacement are based on a continuum in which the displaced are perceived as a threat or risk on the one hand, a burden somewhere in the middle, and an asset on the other end of the ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 305 continuum. from a prevention perspective, in the end, there is little doubt that stemming forced migration at its source by improving security, governance and livelihood opportunities in countries of origin is key to preventing and managing the displacement challenge. as discussed above, regional integrated development can convert fragile border areas, which now serve as shock absorbers for conflicts within these fragile states, to prosperous and open avenues of cross border trade and development. it is clear that policies in relatively authoritarian democratic regimes such as kenya and south africa can lead to extreme practices of state technocratic or managerial xenophobia and discrimination in programs that advocate rounding up refugees and deporting, incarcerating and/or returning them to camps such as ‘usalama watch’ and ‘operation fiela’. here the concept of state sovereignty comes face to face with the protection of human rights. unfortunately the recent experience of “afrophobia” in south africa is not a question of individual rights but one of national politics. guarding against this outcome would be necessary. next steps: the alignment of durable solutions in summary, the alignment of durable solutions to address both push and pull factors in a decentralised integrated local area development approach encompasses the following main actions: (a) harmonising country policy and legal frameworks to ensure that there is consistent and regulated freedom of movement, ability to work and clear identity documentation or papers. (b) including refugees in national and local development plans, as uganda is now doing in the northern uganda development plan (nudp iii), to not only grant attention to the issue of displacement but also budget to support the design and implementation of such plans and programs.  lebogang seale’s (2015) quotes anc secretary general gwede mantashe: “south africa can’t allow illegal migrants to roam around committing crime”. in defense of ‘operation fiela’, seale further quotes mantashe: “you can’t say the state must do nothing, must allow illegal immigrants, must allow undocumented people in society, it must leave unlicensed firearms in society… being dictated by ngos on crime fighting strategies puts south africa at risk of having a mini sate within a state.” ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 306 (c) creating livelihood opportunities through combing skill development, agriculture and sme investments and employment generation. (d) mitigating environmental deterioration by addressing the need for alternative cooking fuel and employment through labour intensive reforestation. (e) strengthening social infrastructure and addressing imbalances in access through the provision of schools, health centres, safe water and sanitation facilities (unicef-somali regional state of ethiopia, bureau of finance and economic development 2013). (f) promoting connectivity by enhancing basic transport, energy and telecommunications infrastructure in underserved, marginalised border areas. (g) providing conflict management, mediation and conflict resolution capacity through training community members and leaders. (h) addressing the social psychological and basic needs of the most vulnerable, particularly unaccompanied minors through specially targeted and customised programs. (i) ensuring donor and ngo coordination and financing to provide a critical mass of technical and financial support in order to enable the capacitation of local authorities and close the gaps between policy and implementation in addressing the needs of the displaced. finally, as one ethiopian minister interviewed astutely observed, “we don’t need another study, we need to mobilise resources for regional infrastructure and connectivity through social and economic development.” this will require political will as well as economic resources. acknowledgments the author would like to thank the generous assistance of the stellenbosch institute for advanced study (stias), 1900 jonkershoek road, stellenbosch 7600, south africa, for supporting his visiting fellowship. the views expressed in this paper are solely the responsibility of the author. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 307 references abdi, c. ‘xenophobia and its discontents in south africa’. aljazeera. 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fragility assessment’. washington, d.c. and nairobi: world bank. world bank. 2014b. ‘horn of africa regional study’. washington, d.c.: world bank. world bank, 2015. global program on forced displacement (gpfd): ‘report on forced displacement in the africa region’. washington, d.c.: world bank. world bank. 2015b. ‘northern uganda reconstruction project iii (nurp iii)’. washington, d.c.: world bank. ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor dr mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh cape peninsula university of technology, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delagdo wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, basel, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print) copyright © 2016 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 465 6433 email: editor@sihma.org.za webpage: www.sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za http://www.sihma.org.za/ ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 567 internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts: a case study in dormaa municipality, ghana collins yeboah* abstract though international migration and its related remittance flows have attracted considerable attention in recent years, internal migration has been the focus of academic and policy discourse for a much longer period. studies have shown that both internal and intra-regional migration are far more significant in terms of the numbers of people involved and the quantum of remittances involved than international migration. however, despite increasing internal migration with its associated remittances, their linkages with welfare impacts are complex and mixed. as such, the actual welfare impacts of this phenomenon have been a source of debate in the literature. using mixed methods, this paper examines the relationship between internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts in dormaa municipality in ghana. the study draws upon 202 migrant households on a sample of 358 households screened. the study investigates migration patterns and remittance flows, uses and impacts among migrant households in the municipality. the study suggests that many of the migrants moved to another town or village in ghana for workrelated reasons, notably job transfers, work or to seek work/better work. the study also shows that there have been substantial inflows of migrant remittances to households in dormaa municipality. these remittances have contributed significantly to improving migrant household’s access to health services and education, and have also become an important source of income for consumption smoothing. the study recommends that government should make efforts to monitor remittance flows in ghana and also increase awareness about the importance of remittances for both national and household economies. further, there is the need to scale up education on social attitudes and discourses about internal migration and policy initiatives in ghana. keywords internal migration, remittances, welfare, households, education, health, food. * centre for migration studies, university of ghana. email: collinsybh@yahoo.com. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 568 introduction globally, migration and remittance flows have attracted considerable attention of scholars in recent years. several studies (de haas, 2007; undp, 2009; european commission, 2012; world bank, 2014; randazzo and pirancha, 2014; dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015) indicate that developing countries generate a huge amount of remittances and have shown optimism in the contemporary development discourse regarding poverty reduction at the household level. migrant remittances are a source of income to most developing countries (european commission, 2012) and have the potential to increase economic development of migrants’ home countries (de haas, 2007). remittances are a crucial vehicle for poverty reduction in developing countries (world bank, 2013), an important source of disposable funds for families of migrants and a potential source by which to finance development (european commission, 2012: 8; de haas, 2007: 1). analysts indicate that remittances are twice the amount of the official development assistance (oda) and ten times more than the net private capital transfers to developing countries (kapur and mchale, 2003). though international migration and its related remittance flows have attracted considerable attention in recent years, internal migration has been the focus of academic and policy discourse for a much longer period (see lewis, 1954 and todaro, 1969). according to the united nations development program (undp, 2009), both internal and intra-regional migration are far more significant in terms of the numbers of people involved and the quantum of remittances involved. it is estimated that internal migrants outnumber international migrants by a ratio of roughly four to one (undp, 2009). despite increasing internal migration with its associated remittances, the linkages between internal migration and welfare impacts are complex and mixed (adepoju, 2005; awumbila et al, 2014). in ghana, internal migration and remittances have received significant scholarship (songsore, 2003; opare, 2003; awumbila, 2007; boakye-yiadom, 2008; ackah and medvedev, 2010; awumbila et al, 2014; awumbila et al, 2015). according to quartey (2006: 6), migrant remittances serve as a source of income smoothing and better welfare for migrant households in ghana. these remittances are used for both consumption and investment purposes that, in turn, have both direct and indirect effects on household welfare (quartey, 2006: 6). despite its significance, the relationship between internal migration and poverty outcomes has received little attention in both academic ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 569 and policy circles in terms of creating a national picture of the impacts of migrants’ remittances (dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015; twumasi-ankrah, 1995; srivastava, 2005). while some argue that this could be as a result of the paucity of data in the field (boakye-yaidom, 2008), others argue that the actual welfare impacts of migration are still unknown, which has been a source of debate in the literature (awumbila et al, 2014). to quartey (2006: 7), the relationship between migrant remittances and household welfare in ghana has not been empirically investigated. as such, the actual developmental and welfare impacts of remittances have been a source of debate in the migration literature (twumasi-ankrah, 1995; murrugarra et al, 2011). ghana’s population is characterised by high mobility with more than 43% of all households in 2005/06 having at least one migrant (ackah and medvedev, 2010). evidence from the ghana living standards survey 5 (glss 5) indicated that internal migration is the major form of migration in ghana. by 2010, the proportion of the population living in urban areas was 50.9%, an increase from 43.8% in 2000 (gss, 2012), and is projected to increase to 63% by 2025. also, the population census indicates that about 35% of the population in ghana are migrants or people living outside their places of birth. the recent glss 6 data notes that 48.6% of ghana’s population aged seven years and above were migrants (see gss, 2014). it is worth noting that in 2005/06, 51.6% of the corresponding population were migrants, with the shares of males and females who were migrants being 49.8% and 53.2%, respectively (gss, 2008). thus, in comparison with the data from 2005/06, there is a slight drop in the population’s share of migrants over the seven-year period from 2005/06 to 2012/13. caldwell (1968) explained that internal migration, especially to areas where opportunities exist has become a livelihood strategy for most ghanaians. according to awumbila et al. (2014), rural-urban migration is a livelihood strategy adopted by many to move out of poverty in ghana. migrants send home remittances to their families left behind, yet the actual impacts on their welfare are not known. this article examines the relationships between internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts using a case study in dormaa municipality, ghana. structurally, this article is divided into four sections. the first section explains the theoretical framework and conceptual discussions regarding internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts. the second section reviews the appropriate literature on internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts, describing and analysing the relevant views and models that have been put across and highlighting gaps in the literature. the third section presents the methodological approaches ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 570 employed in the study and the fourth section discusses the results and provides the conclusion. theoretical framework and conceptual discussions the push-pull theory the push-pull theory of migration was postulated by ravenstein (1889) in his work, ‘the laws of migration.’ the theory combined individual rational choice theory, newtonian physics and other rural-urban and developmental perspectives to draw empirical generalisations on the flow of human beings between places (dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015: 33). de haas (cited in dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015: 33) provides a summary of these seven laws as follows: “(1) most migration occurs within a short distance; (2) the majority of migration movements are from agricultural to industrial regions; (3) expansion of most bigger town centres is as a result of migration rather than natural growth; (4) migration develops in tandem with industrial, commercial and transportation expansion; (5) every migration flow produces a counterflow; (6) most women undertake short distance migration while the majority of men indulge in international migration; (7) economic causes are at the centre of most migration flows.” this theory has been applied to the study of migration based on what ‘pushes’ migrants from the place of origin and what attracts or ‘pulls’ them to their place of destination. this theory postulates that the decision to move results based on these two opposing forces. according to king, 2012 (cited in dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015: 33), economic and socio-political factors present in both the source and destination countries explain the push-pull migration theory. thus, factors such as “poverty, unemployment, political repression, poverty, etc… drive out (‘push’) people out of their home [source] countries”. as pointed out by awumbila et al. (2008: 20), “unfavourable conditions in one place ‘push’ people out and favourable conditions in an external location ‘pull’ them in.” critics of the theory argue that the push-pull theory is “barely a theory, it is more a grouping of factors affecting migration, without considering the exact causal mechanisms” (hagen-zanker, 2008: 9). samers (2010: 55-56) describes these factors as “economically deterministic,” “methodologically individualist” and “dreadfully antiquated.” in addition, they do more or less address internal migration rather than international migration. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 571 new economics of labour of migration theory (nelm) the nelm connotes two main perspectives. first is the recognition “that migration decisions (who goes, where to go, for how long, to do what, etc…) are not individual decisions but joint decisions taken within the ambit of the household, and for different members of the household.” thus, de haas (2010: 16) regards the “family or the household as the most appropriate decisionmaking unit.” the basic assumption here is that the households or the family members together with the individuals collectively make decisions regarding migration. according to massey et al. (1998: 21) the scale of the decisionmaking unit, sometimes, moves beyond the micro-environment into the meso scale of extended families and wider communal groups. the second part, according to king (2012: 23) is “that rational-choice decision-making is not only about wage and income maximisation but is also about income diversification and risk aversion.” taking the two perspectives into consideration, the theory brings in the new idea that remittances serve as a major motivating factor for migration. that is, the families and household members are in “an appropriate position to control risks to their economic well-being by diversifying their income-earning and livelihood resources into a ‘portfolio’ of different activities, spreading their labour resources over space and time” (king, 2012: 23). conceptualising migration, remittances and welfare migration, remittances and welfare are complex and context-specific. therefore, it is crucial to explain the relevant terms used in this study to give insight to the readers regarding the specific concepts discussed. it is also paramount that measurements of the three concepts are clearly defined to allow for the analysis of the study. migration migration may be defined as a change in the usual place of residence that entails the crossing of an administrative boundary. the study adopts awumbila et al.’s (2014: 8) definition of a migrant as “someone who has moved and settled in an area for at least six months.” remittances in the literature, remittances are variously defined. however, in this study, tewolde’s (2005 cited in oluwafemi and ayandibu, 2014: 312) definition is adopted, which states that “remittances are financial and non-financial ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 572 materials that migrants receive while working overseas and sent back to their households in their countries of origin.” measurement of welfare in this study, welfare is defined based on an individual’s subjective well-being, that is, the condition of faring or doing well (sumner, 1996). by this definition, welfare impacts of remittances will be measured by the subjective well-being of migrant households. thus, households’ subjective well-being due to remittance impacts will be analysed by finding out whether they have improved access to education, health and consumption (food) after the migration of a household member. when a household responds that based on the remittances they receive, they have an improved access to either education, health or consumption (food), then remittances are considered to have positive impacts on households, and vice versa. the following figure shows the proposed model for testing the aforementioned relationship. figure 1: hypothetical model: the relationship between migration, remittances and welfare. source: author’s own compilation from the above, it is assumed that migrants’ remittances sent to their household members left behind are used to care for the educational needs of their wards, to seek/pay for healthcare and to use for consumption purposes, particularly to purchase food. it is assumed that remittances used for these purposes will result in improved well-being. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 573 overview of existing literature on internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts migration and remittances though difficult to estimate as large amounts of remittances are channelled informally, migrant remittances represent the largest positive impact of migration on migrants’ sending communities (taylor, 1999: 67). micro-level studies indicate that informal transfers of remittances are substantial. however, empirical evidence of the impact of remittance on poverty/welfare seems inconclusive. although some studies have argued that remittances are used for consumption expenditure (adams, 2005; quartey, 2006), evidence from other studies suggests that remittances are used for human capital building (adams, 2006; world bank, 2013). also, remittance flows are crucial for both migrants and the household members left behind, as research has indicated that remittance flows are “part of familial inter temporal contracts between the migrant and the remittance receivers (see guzman et al, 2007: 126). this assertion is in line with the nelm theory that postulates that migration is a decision taken by both the migrant and the household and that migrant remittances are sent to families left behind. studies have found that migrants have different preferences with regards to how remittances are put to use. in mexico, de la cruz’s (1995) study found that the remittances of male migrants are geared towards personal investments in land, housing, agricultural production and cattle. in a similar study, the international organization for migration (iom, 2007), found that a substantial number of women in moldova remit funds to pay for education, health, furniture and loans whereas male migrants prefer to direct their remittances to investment in housing, cars and consumer durables. studies in mali have shown that remittances are used to cover basic food and cash needs and pay for irrigation in agriculture (findley and sow, 1993). households receiving remittances in ethiopia and sri lanka invest more heavily in child education than non-remittance receiving households (seife and susan, 2005). a cross-country comparison of six sub-saharan african nations shows a strong and positive correlation between the average number of household members with a secondary education and receipt of international remittances from outside of the continent (world bank, 2013). in senegal, randazzo and pirancha (2014) found productive use of remittances among those receiving international remittances. the study found ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 574 that those receiving international remittances spend, on average, less on food and more on durables goods, education and investments, signalling a productive use of remittances. in four selected west african countries – cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal – adarkwa (2015) found that inflow of remittances to senegal and nigeria impact positively on these countries’ gross domestic product, but impact negatively on the gdp of cape verde and cameroon. also, using data from 1980 to 2013 to analyse the determinants of remittances to nigeria, laniran and adeniyi (2015) found remittance flows to nigeria as pro-cyclical in nature rather than countercyclical. through the review of literature on international migration and remittances, adams (2011) observed that the impact of international migration on health and education in developing countries is mixed. he observed that while most studies find that international migration and remittances improve infant mortality and child health, by raising household incomes and increasing the health knowledge of mothers, others find the impact of migration and remittances on school enrolment and achievement to be more controversial. on the one hand, international remittances raise school retention rates. on the other hand, studies find that international migration has a negative effect on school attendance rates for teenage boys and girls because of the absence of parents due to migration. other reviews by siddique (2012) found that contrary to the popular belief that migrant families spend disproportionate amounts of remittances on daily consumption, findings show that education and health receive very high priority. for instance, various studies showed that remittances from international migration are disproportionately spent on education and health, rather than on everyday consumption. in ghana, remittances are spent on household consumption, education, debt repayment, financing of projects and investment in small-businesses (quartey and blankson, 2004). both quartey (2006) and owiafe’s (2008) respective studies on remittances and household welfare in ghana found that remittance flows are counter-cyclical in nature; in that they increase in times of economic distress and work as a consumption smoothing mechanism and an informal stabilisation fund. analysing remittance use using glss 4, guzman et al. (2007) found that female-headed households receiving remittances from within ghana have larger expenditure shares for health and education, while those receiving remittances from abroad have higher expenditure shares for health and spend significantly less on food and more on consumer and durable goods and housing. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 575 migration and welfare impacts the world over, migration is increasingly recognised as enhancing the wellbeing of migrants and their households. balbo and marconi (2005) explain that as a result of increasing economic and social inequalities, migrating is becoming an integral component of family and community strategies to improve the living conditions of those who migrate as well as those who remain. according to awumbila et al. (2014), parents encourage the migration of their sons and daughters to the cities in order to enhance the financial situation of the family at the origin through remittances. in this way, it can be said that the young migrants serve as insurers for their households (siddiqui, 2012). internal remittances received play a very crucial role in improving welfare and reducing poverty in ghana (castaldo et al, 2012). kwankye and anarfi (2011) also explain that the remittances sent home by migrants can help minimise the effects of economic shocks on household welfare. however, studies on internal migration are mixed in terms of welfare impacts in ghana. for example, beals et al (1976) and caldwell (1968), found a negative effect of origin locality’s income on rural urban migration but a positive effect of a household’s own income on the probability to migrate (see references in ackah and medvedev, 2010). litchfield and waddington (2003), also using glss rounds 3 and 4, found that migrant households have statistically significantly higher standards of living than non-migrant households in terms of consumption expenditure. however, in terms of nonmonetary welfare indicators, the difference was not statistically significant. in another study, ackah and medvedev (2010) found that internal migration turns out to only be beneficial for a subset of ghanaian households who send migrants to urban rather than rural areas. despite this, the study found evidence that households with migrants tend to be better off than similar households without migrants. ackah and medvedev’s (2010) study relied mostly on quantitative data without examining the subjective assessment by the migrants themselves. this study overcomes this shortfall by allowing for subjective assessment by the migrants themselves. in other situations, migration does not increase welfare gains when compared with non-migrant households. research by awumbila et al (2015) in five regions of ghana examining the relationships between internal/intraregional migration and poverty outcomes found no difference between the income or wealth status of non-migrant-sending households and migrant-sending households, which contradicts the general view that poor households are less ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 576 likely to migrate than wealthy households. however, the authors admitted in their work that the study results reflect a weakness in their data in capturing income and assets at the time of migration. research methodology the study employed mixed methods combining both qualitative and quantitative methods to gain deeper understanding of internal migration and remittances. the study predominantly targeted migrant households in the study area. the study adopted a two-staged stratified sampling technique. a screener survey was used to select households with and without migrants. in all, 358 households were screened. at the second stage, a random sampling technique was used to select 202 households that constituted the main respondents for the survey. household heads were interviewed using both a semi-structured questionnaire and in-depth interviews. the quantitative data was analysed using stata, whereas the qualitative data was recorded electronically, transcribed and uploaded onto nvivo for analysis. figure 2: map of dormaa municipality ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 577 source: centre for remote sensing and geographical information system, legon (2016). results and discussions factors determining migration in dormaa municipality the economic theories on migration posit that, generally, migration (aside from forced migration) is an economic phenomenon; that is wage differentials, economic disparities, and unemployment differentials (hannan, 1970; todaro, 1969; harris and todaro, 1970). others maintain that migration potential and migration decisions are dependent on push and pull factors. the rudimentary idea of the push-pull analysis is that “certain adverse factors (inherent in areas of origin) tend to ‘push’ people away, whilst other favourable factors (associated with areas of destination) tend to ‘pull’ potential migrants from their areas of origin to the destination regions” (boakye-yiadom, 2008: 77). in this regard, unemployment and lack of infrastructure, among other factors, are deemed unfavourable and push local dwellers from their communities. on the other hand, incentives for moving to the destination areas may be better employment opportunities, easier access to social services or adequate infrastructure (boakye-yiadom, 2008). the study findings show the relevance of push-pull factors in explaining migration. the survey results revealed that the main reason why people migrate is to seek work or better jobs (71.2%). that is, lack of jobs in the dormaa municipality ‘pushed’ the majority of the migrants to other areas. this is consistent with other studies (awumbila et al, 2014; dma, 2013; twumasi-ankrah, 1995) and explains the factors leading to out-migration. every three out of four male migrants travelled to look for a new or better job compared to about 65.1% of their female counterparts. about 18.3% of the migrants also travelled as a result of job transfer, whereas 10.4% travelled to further their education. relatively, many more female migrants travelled as a result of a job transfer (22.1%) or to pursue higher education (12.8%) compared to their male counterparts (15.5% and 8.6%, respectively). these findings show that the propensity to migrate in dormaa municipality, as in other areas, is a result of the search for perceived or real opportunities in the cities (ajaero and onokala, 2013). decision to migrate in dormaa municipality until recently, migration literature has traditionally treated migration as an individual decision that is motivated by mainly economic considerations. however, this unitary view has been consistently challenged. it is now ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 578 assumed that the decision to migrate is a collective decision taken by the entire household (boakye-yiadom, 2008: 78). migration has become a livelihood mechanism for diversifying income and to insure the entire household (including the migrants) against risks and uncertainty (awumbila et al, 2014; ackah and medvedev, 2010; boakye-yiadom, 2008). the study revealed that the migrants themselves were the main people who made the decisions to migrate (55%). respondents cite other people such as spouses (27.2%), parents and siblings (7.4% each), and guardians (3%) to have been involved in the migration decision-making process, lending support to the collective decision making within households. as expected, many more male migrants (57.8%) made decisions concerning their migration than female migrants (51.2%). this may be explained by patriarchal norms in traditional ghanaian societies that see men as superior to women (nukunya, 2003). on the other hand, husbands and parents influenced the migration decisions of female relatives more (30.2% and 10.5%) than their male relatives (25% and 5.2%) respectively. migrant destination communities migrants are rational economic agents moving to areas that maximise their incomes and overall well-being (harris and todaro, 1970). according to dma (2013), the main destination areas for out-migrants in the municipality are overseas, accra, kumasi, sunyani and the cocoa growing areas of sefwi. in order to know where these migrants move to other than overseas, the respondents were asked to indicate where their household members are. the respondents indicated that their household members (migrants) have moved to other regions including the brong ahafo region within ghana (46%), different districts within the brong ahafo region (41.1%) and other communities within the same district (12.9%). over half of the male migrants had a migration destination outside of their region of origin (52.6%), compared to 37.2% of the female migrants. the greatest proportion of the female migrants, on the other hand, moved to other districts within the same region (46.5%), compared to 37.1% of the male migrants (see figure 6). the survey results also show that young migrants tend to move more to other communities within the district – 20-29 years (28.6%), 30-39 years (9.9%), and 40-49 years (9.3%) – whilst none of those aged 50 years and above migrated to a different community within the same district. however, older migrants moved to other districts within the same region and other regions in ghana. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 579 figure 3: destination of migrants by gender source: author, fieldwork, 2015 migrants economic activities in destination areas migrants are engaged in a variety of activities in their destination areas, particularly in the informal sector. ratha et al (2011) explain that most poor internal and international migrants move to the urban centres to work in the informal sector. awumbila et al (2014) found that in ghana, migrants living in slum areas in accra are involved in income generating activities that are highly gendered. table 1: main economic activity of migrants at destination economic activity male female overall n % n % n % paid labour 19 16.4 10 11.6 29 14.4 service worker 13 11.2 12 14 25 12.4 own business 18 15.5 6 7 24 11.9 technician and professionals 13 11.2 10 11.6 23 11.4 sales worker 16 13.8 7 8.1 23 11.4 own farm worker 6 5.2 17 19.8 23 11.4 domestic worker 8 6.9 15 17.4 23 11.4 transport operator 16 13.8 3 3.5 19 9.4 skilled construction worker 2 1.7 5 5.8 7 3.5 ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 580 manager 5 4.3 1 1.2 6 3 total 116 100 86 100 202 100 source: author, fieldwork, 2015 thus, while women were mainly working as petty traders, food venders, catering (chop bar) assistants, shop assistants, hairdressers, head portage (kayayei) or plaiting hair, men were working as artisans, labourers in the construction sector, operators of motorbikes as taxis (okada) and other trades (awumbila et al, 2014: 23). as shown in table 1 above and in consonance with awumbila et al (2014), this study found that in general, each of the migrants had a gendered economic activity that he/she was performing. migration and remittance flow in dormaa municipality studies have found that a significant proportion of migrants, both internal and international, send remittances or transfers back to their families at their places of origin, either in the form of cash or goods (castaldo et al, 2012: 16). in studying remittances, both financial and non-financial remittances are important to the development of ghana (quartey, 2006). remittances are important in that they are associated with greater human development outcomes on health, education and gender equality (world bank, 2013) and contribute to poverty reduction in home countries because of heavy cash flows (un, 2002). remittances sent by migrants to their families and relatives in their originating communities are an important means to maintain ties with family members (akyeampong, 2000). the survey revealed that about 63.9% of the households received money from migrants. a slightly higher proportion of the female migrants (65.1%) sent money to their households than the male migrants (62.9%). this finding is not surprising as abdul-korah (2011) examined the gendered patterns of remitting by dagaaba migrants using an historical lens and found that female migrants send money home more regularly and for longer periods of time than male migrants. in terms of receiving remittances, the analysis revealed that many more male respondents (69.2%) received remittances in the form of cash than female respondents (58.2%). in the literature, issues of receiving remittances based on gender are mixed. whereas some studies found females perceived as more trustworthy to receive money, others see males as those to whom money should be entrusted for the purposes of effecting projects. when a male ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 581 respondent was asked why his sister always sends money to him but not to his other female siblings, this was his response: “for me, men can monitor projects. if you ask a woman to build a house, these masons will dupe them. but they dare not try this on men” (tp, 2015). the study further revealed that the minimum amount of money received through remittances was gh₵90 whereas the maximum was gh₵2,500. the mean amount received was gh₵631.86 with a standard deviation of 522.39. female migrants remitted higher amounts of money than male migrants: gh₵643.57 with a standard deviation of 482.60 and 622.88 with a standard deviation of gh₵554.10, respectively. most migrants remit money to households upon request (55.8%) whilst a significant proportion also remitted money to their households on a regular basis each month (36.4%). very few studies have paid attention to remittance flows from internal migrants. this, according to the world bank (2011), is a result of not being able to capture domestic transactions in the balance of payments by the central banks. also, it could be as a result of the informal channels used to send remittances, which make it difficult to capture them in official estimates. the study revealed that the dominant method migrants used to send money to their households was through mobile money (50.8%). other informal channels such as migrants bringing the money home themselves (21.9%), friends or other persons returning home with the money (14.1%) and informal money transfers (8.6%) were also prevalent. western union money transfer (4.7%) was also amongst the means migrants used to send money to their households. these findings indicate that despite the fact that most migrants send remittances, very few of them use formal channels. as such, internal remittance flows are difficult to capture in official government records. other forms of remittances in dormaa municipality as noted by quartey (2006), migrants send non-financial remittances such as food, clothing and mobile phones to their households in ghana. according to primavera (2005), non-financial remittances could come in the form of foodstuffs for consumption or items that can be sold or used by relations at the place of origin. in relation to this, the study found that apart from money transfers, other non-cash items were received by some of the households. nearly 63.4% received food and other goods from migrants. also, two-thirds of the female migrants sent food and other goods to their households ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 582 compared to about 61.2% of the male migrants. the main items that the households received from migrants in the last 12 months as indicated in figure 3 below are clothing (20.3%), mobile phones (12.5%), household utensils (10.9%), food (10.2%) and jewellery (9.4%). some differences were observed between items sent by male migrants and their female counterparts. clothing was the most dominant item sent by both sexes, male (22.5%) and female (17.5%). however, female migrants were much more likely to send mobile phones (15.8%) and food items (12.3%) to their households than the male migrants (9.9% and 8.5%, respectively). another interesting finding is that people who migrated farther away from their households were less likely to send food and other goods to the household than those who were nearer. about 69.2% of those who migrated to other communities within the same district sent food and other goods to the household, compared to 66.3% and 60.4% of people who migrated to other districts within the same region and other regions in ghana, respectively. this is not surprising, as perishable food items cannot be sent over a long distance. about 27.7% of all households in the survey did not receive either cash or noncash items. this finding could be the result of migrants being students. the households rather send money to the migrants as explained by one respondent when asked why they did not receive remittances from their migrants: “oh she is a student. you know students don’t work. she is there to study. we rather send her money and food every two months” (mk, 2015). however, the study found that nearly 55.9% received both cash and non-cash items as remittances. this is an indication that remittances are sent in both cash and goods in ghana (quartey, 2006). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 583 figure 4: items received by households from migrants by gender source: author, fieldwork, 2015 remittances and welfare impacts in dormaa municipality the positive association between migration and improvement in welfare has largely been conceived through the concept of remittances (awumbila et al, 2014: 29). it is generally assumed that remittances can contribute positively to poverty reduction by “providing migrant-sending households the resources to smoothen consumption and invest in productive ventures” (awumbila et al, 2014: 29). it is also crucial to avert future eventualities, particularly financial losses. as explained by hulme et al. (2001) cited in quartey and blankson (2004: 10), remittances when properly managed could serve as a form of premium payment for future risks to reduce vulnerability to financial shocks and to gain access to entitlements such as education and health that contribute to livelihood security and sustainability. remittances are put to various uses. according to quartey and blankson (2004), remittances are mostly invested ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 584 in consumption, health care, education and housing. this part of the analysis examines migrant households’ access to health, education and food as a result of having a migrant. remittances and access to health services remittances are crucial and can serve as an insurance policy against risks. as a form of insurance, the study revealed that overall about 57.5% of the households which received remittances indicated that they were much better able to afford to pay for health services. figure 5: households' improvement in ability to pay for health services after migration source: author, fieldwork, 2015 this is not surprising as studies have shown that migrant remittances can contribute to better health outcomes by allowing household members to access health care services and enabling them to increase information about health practices. as shown in figure 4 above, the analysis further observed a slight difference between male and female respondents with respect to improvement in their conditions regarding the affordability of health services (88.9% and 87.7%, respectively). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 585 at a significant level of 5%, a chi-square test shows that there is no statistically significant association between households’ improvement in ability to pay for health services after migration of household member by sex of the respondent (p = 0.924). that is, in general, the respondents, irrespective of their sexes, see improvement in their ability to pay for health services. though migrants’ remittances are critical for health care services, improved access to healthcare as indicated by the household could also be an indication of the importance respondents attach to the national health insurance scheme, a social intervention programme aimed at helping the poor and rich have equal access to quality health care in ghana (yeboah, 2013). remittances and access to consumption (food) the study revealed that every two out of three male respondents were much better regarding their ability to afford to buy food in their household after a household member migrated and sent remittances home. a relatively lower proportion of female respondents found their household in this situation (55.4%). however, overall, more households of female respondents had a general improvement in their ability to afford food after a household member migrated than households of male respondents (92.3% and 88.9%, respectively), as indicated in figure 5 below. furthermore, about 91.7% of households who had children of migrants living with them reported a general improvement in the affordability of food compared to 86.5% of households that had no child of the migrant living with them. this is an indication that migrants tend to send remittances for consumption purposes if they have children left behind with relatives. however, a chi-square test of significance indicates that there is no statistically significant difference in household improvement in ability to pay for food after migration according to the sex of the respondent (p=0.143). the findings above resonate with findings by quartey and blankson (2004), quartey (2006) and castaldo et al (2012) that remittances in ghana helped smooth the household consumption. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 586 figure 6: households' improvement in ability to pay for food after migration source: author, fieldwork, 2015 remittances and access to education while some studies have argued that remittances are used for consumption expenditure (adams, 2005; quartey, 2006), evidence from other studies suggests that remittances are used for human capital building (adams, 2006). thus, remittances may be used to finance schooling of children, which could lead to the reduction of child labour and school drop-outs. nevertheless, paucity of household survey data on remittances and educational outcome means little is known about the empirical evidence of the impact of remittances on educational outcomes in ghana and dormaa in particular. however, studies indicate that remittance-receiving households in ghana invest more in education than other households (quartey, 2008). the findings from this study, as indicated in figure 6 below, show that the proportion of households with female migrants (64.6%) who reported a much better improvement in their ability to pay for education outnumbered those with male migrants (55.6%). these findings give an idea about the gendered patterns of remittance use among migrant households in ghana. also, this is the only indicator where respondents noted a worse experience in their ability to pay for education. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 587 figure 7: households' improvement in ability to pay for education after migration source: author, fieldwork, 2015 despite the fact that more females reported improvement in their ability to pay for school than males, a chi-square test of significance did not reveal any statistically significant differences in one’s ability to pay for education than the other at a p-value of 0.722. only households who lived with children of migrants reported a worse position in their ability to pay for education (1.8%). in these cases, the reason for this is that the migrant rarely sends money home to pay for fees: “for 2 years now i haven’t heard from him. he doesn’t call, he doesn’t visit us neither does he sends money to us. i personally pay for his children’s school fees. in fact it’s becoming difficult for me” (tl, 2015). despite such cases, the general picture indicates positive associations between having a migrant and access to education in dormaa municipality. thus, remittances received by migrant households make a direct contribution to increasing household members’ abilities to pay for education. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 588 summary and conclusion the foremost contribution of the study to knowledge was ascertaining how remittances derived from internal migration could impact or improve welfare of the migrant households receiving remittances in dormaa municipality, ghana. using welfare indicators such as education, health and consumption (food), the study interrogated the impact of migrants’ remittances on their households’ welfare and also addressed their policy implications. the findings from the study indicate that migration is an enduring aspect of life in dormaa municipality. the propensity to migrate emanates from pushpull factors. thus, lack of jobs and unreliable agriculture, amongst other factors, push migrants away from the municipality to other areas. the availability of jobs and other life-enhancing activities pulls migrants into these areas. however, the decision to migrate is taken by the migrants and their immediate households as an ‘insurance’ received in the form of remittances. again, it is essential to emphasise that the results of both the quantitative and qualitative analysis indicate that remittances improve households’ access to health, consumption and education. the study findings are consistent with other studies that show that internal remittances do have a positive impact on receiving households in terms of repayment of debts, improved access to consumption, better education and investment in enterprise (afsar, 2003; dayal and karan, 2003; ellis, 2003). the analysis further elaborates on the fact that even if not reducing poverty, migration is an important coping strategy and remittances smooth incomes (mosse et al, 2002 cited in castaldo et al, 2012: 20). migrants’ remittances play a crucial role in improving the wellbeing of migrant households left behind. as king (2012: 2) points out and as found in the study, remittances from migrants are used to hedge against other activities failing, to cover the basic costs of everyday life (food, clothing, education and health), or to invest in some new project such as a house, land or small business. recommendations this study’s findings raise a number of policy issues related to internal migration, remittances and welfare in ghana. the need for policies to address challenges faced by internal migrants: first, the findings show that many of the people who move out of the municipality are driven by lack of jobs, which is a result of spatial inequalities in development in ghana (songsore, 2009). the implication of this is that current ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 589 policies and programs aimed at discouraging internal migration, particularly to the urban centres, are bound to fail unless spatial inequalities in development are addressed (awumbila et al, 2014). therefore, it is imperative for the government to look at the potential that internal migration presents for the majority of the rural migrants to move out of poverty and fashion out policies that will minimise the risks faced by these migrants. the need for migrants’ remittance management: the study findings also highlight the need for remittance management in ghana for national development. the development of migrant sending areas can generally be achieved through remittances and investments by migrants when remittances are properly managed. as ajaero and onokala (2013) argue, migrants’ remittances and the income multipliers they create are critical resources for the sustenance strategies of receiving households as well as agents of regional and national development. the study findings indicate that a greater share of remittances is sent through informal channels, which implies that people engaging in this practice evade taxes. it is imperative for ghana revenue authorities to devise strategies to check and formalise the operations of informal money transfer agents in order to be able to tax them so that dormaa municipality in particular and ghana as a whole will benefit fully from remittances. the need for remittances policy: the findings again highlight the need to initiate policies on remittance management in ghana through collaboration with banks and other private agencies. this could be achieved by introducing new schemes for migrant workers and family members by banks and other financial institutions, by building strong partnerships between money transfer operators/banks/micro-finance institutions on the sending side and the receiving side. this will create opportunities for both remitters/senders and receivers to be banked. this requires the establishment of a remittance management wing in different banks under the supervision and guidance of the bank of ghana. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 590 references abdul-korah, g.b. 2011. now if you have sons you are dead: migration, gender and family economy in twentieth century north-western ghana. journal of asian and african studies, 18(4): 390-403. ackah, c. and medvedev, d. 2010. internal migration in ghana: determinants and welfare impacts. world bank policy research working paper, wps5273, washington, dc: the world bank. adams, r.h. 2011. evaluating the economic impact of international remittances on developing countries using household surveys: a literature review. journal of development studies, 47(6): 809–828. adams, r.h. 2006. remittances and poverty in ghana. world bank policy research working paper no. 3838, washington dc: the world bank. adams, r.h. 2005. remittances, household expenditure and investment in guatemala. world bank policy research working paper series no. 3532, washington dc: the world bank. adarkwa, a. 2015. impact of remittances on economic growth: evidence from selected west african countries (cameroon, cape verde, nigeria & senegal). african human mobility review (ahmr), 1(2): 154-177. adepoju, a. 2005. patterns of migration in west africa. in: manuh, t. 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existence, reinforcing an image of victimhood, exploitation and vulnerability. in this paper, we seek to broaden the image of refugees and their economic impacts beyond a narrow focus on their marginal status and vulnerable position. they are viewed here as dynamic agents with skills and capabilities who can play an integral role in transforming local settings and contributing to economic development. this paper presents and discusses the results of a survey of over 1,000 refugee informal business-owners in cape town and small-town limpopo. as well as providing new insights into the nature, achievements and challenges of refugee entrepreneurship, the paper addresses the question of whether geographical location makes a difference to the nature of refugee entrepreneurial economies by contrasting the two groups of entrepreneurs. refugee entrepreneurs are more vulnerable to xenophobic violence in cape town and to police misconduct in limpopo. otherwise, there are remarkable similarities in the manner in which refugee entrepreneurs establish and grow their businesses in large cities and small provincial towns. keywords refugees, informal sector, entrepreneurial economies, xenophobia, cape town, limpopo. * international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb street w, waterloo, on, n2l 6c2. email: jcrush@balsillieschool.ca ** department of geography and environmental studies, university of limpopo, p. bag x1106, sovenga. *** balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb street w, waterloo, on, n2l 6c2. **** southern african migration programme, international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb st west, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l6c2. ***** faculty of informatics and design, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa. refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 784 introduction more than 60% of the world’s refugees now live in urban areas, according to the unhcr. therefore, the social and economic impacts of refugee movements are increasingly being felt in the towns and cities of host nations. in general, the presence of refugees among urban populations is more likely to be assessed in terms of perceived burdens rather than benefits (omata & weaver, 2015). only recently has interest emerged in what has been characterised by jacobsen (2005) as the positive “economic lives of refugees.” some researchers have adopted the notion of “refugee economies” to highlight the strong involvement of refugees in the many overlapping processes of production, consumption, exchange, entrepreneurship and development of financial and capital markets in host countries and beyond (betts et al., 2014). however, it would be a mistake to imagine that there are discrete spatially and economically isolated “refugee economies” in the urban environment. refugees may dominate particular economic and geographical niches in the urban economy but they continuously interact with and contribute to that economy in ways that are poorly understood. as refugees increasingly become the norm in the urbanising global south, more research on the specifically urban economic impacts of protracted refugee situations is therefore urgently needed (koizumi & hoffstaedter, 2015). this paper aims to contribute to recent literature that takes “refugee livelihoods” as its point of departure (buscher, 2011; jacobsen, 2006; omata & kaplan, 2013; de vriese, 2006). a livelihoods perspective underscores the need to adopt a rights-based approach to the economic activities of forced migrants; to identify their resources, assets and skills; and to understand how they respond to their situations and secure their livelihood needs. this perspective represents a move away from welfare-centred models of engagement focused on meeting basic needs, towards a capability approach which emphasises refugees’ agency, right to choose and ability to control their own environments (landau, 2008). identifying the economic advantages and benefits associated with the presence of refugees is a key precondition for making governments and local elites more responsive to refugee needs and removing the barriers they face (lyytinen & kullenberg, 2013). this objective jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 785 coheres with the unhcr’s (2014) global strategy for livelihoods, which underscores the need to enhance the economic capabilities of refugee populations and build on their own resilience. the sizable case-study literature on refugees and asylum-seekers in south africa is dominated by an overwhelming focus on the problems they face and their marginalised existence, reinforcing an image of victimhood, exploitation and vulnerability (crush & chikanda, 2014). in recent years, a more troubling image has emerged of refugees as unfair and underhand competitors who disadvantage poor south africans (desai, 2008; gordon, 2016). both characterisations suffer from obvious problems. the former treats them in a restricted manner as undifferentiated, homogeneous populations defined by their marginalised status as recipients of protection in the host country. the latter views them in a prejudicial manner through a warped understanding of the nature of economic competition and refugee rights. undue emphasis on their legal standing as ‘refugees’ tends to minimise their education, credentials and work experience in various fields. furthermore, it underestimates their creative energies, determination and ability to overcome some of these challenges and re-build their lives in south africa. post-apartheid south africa has relied on a “self-settlement” approach to refugees (handmaker et al., 2011). the country imposes no restrictions on freedom of movement and the geographical locations where refugees can reside. they are not confined to refugee camps or physically separated from citizens, which means they have direct interaction with south africans with the potential for both conflict and integration into local communities. however, the south african self-settlement model does emphasise selfsufficiency on the part of refugees in the process of resettlement, with little assistance from state authorities (polzer ngwato, 2013). existing studies suggest that many urban refugees are unable, for various reasons, to access formal employment in the cities and turn to the informal economy for their livelihoods (achiume, 2014; jacobsen, 2006; kavuro, 2015). employment or self-employment in the informal economy becomes a desirable option, if not a necessity. because urban informality is generally invisible to policy-makers, refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 786 scorned by politicians and seen as a site of desperation rather than opportunity, its economic significance is often overlooked (pavanello et al., 2015; williams, 2013). the primary aim of this paper is to examine what we call “refugee entrepreneurial economies” in urban south africa. the paper builds on casestudy evidence on the activities of refugees in the south african informal economy (greyling, 2015; jinnah, 2010; owen, 2015; smit & rugunanan, 2014; thompson, 2016; zack, 2015). within the informal sector, refugee economies have often been viewed as stagnant pools of desperation, providing narrow opportunities and limited scope for advancement. but this is a misleading characterisation. it is important to recognise the dynamism and growing complexity of south african refugee economies and to re-shape our ideas about the economic impacts of the informal sector (roever & skinner, 2016). the important question is whether all forms of refugee activity in the informal sector are associated with economic precariousness and social marginality, or whether possibilities for real economic advancement exist (crush et al., 2015a). in this paper, we seek to broaden the image of refugees and their economic impacts beyond a narrow focus on their marginal status and vulnerability. we view them as dynamic agents with skills and capabilities who can play an integral role in transforming local settings and contributing to economic development. this is not to undervalue the divergent ways through which refugees earn a living in south africa, nor to gloss over their struggles and the pervasive discrimination, hostility and xenophobic violence they regularly encounter, nor to exaggerate the significance of refugee entrepreneurship. however, there is a need to re-calibrate the narrow, partial and negative lens through which their economic potential is evaluated by politicians and policymakers. here, we also address the question of whether geographical location makes a difference to the nature of refugee entrepreneurial economies by contrasting refugee enterprise in a major south african city (cape town) with that in several smaller towns in a different part of the country (limpopo province). our aim is to ascertain whether geography matters in framing the activities, challenges and impacts of refugee entrepreneurial economies. jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 787 methodology most refugees are initially drawn to the major south african cities of johannesburg, durban, port elizabeth and cape town. in this study of refugee entrepreneurship, the city of cape town was chosen as one of two study sites because there is a significant concentration of refugees and a contextual literature on refugee entrepreneurship in the city (basardien et al., 2014; gastrow & amit, 2013, 2015; owen, 2015; tawodzera et al., 2015). in recent years, refugee entrepreneurs have also been establishing businesses in smaller urban areas around the country. in 2012, a police campaign called operation hardstick in limpopo province forcibly closed as many as 600 small businesses run by migrants and refugees, suggesting that this province had become a significant operating location for small-town entrepreneurs. in contrast to cape town, however, very little research exists on refugee livelihoods and entrepreneurship in limpopo, which was chosen as the second site for this study (idemudia et al., 2013; mothibi et al., 2015; ramathetje & mtapuri, 2014). the study focused only on informal sector business owners who hold refugee (section 24) permits under the refugees act. holders of asylum-seeker (section 22) permits were not included as many of these migrants are unlikely to be refugees, as conventionally defined. the south african government claims that 90% of asylum-seeker permit holders are “economic migrants” and not genuine refugees as defined by the refugee conventions. while this figure has been disputed by researchers, it is not possible to predict whether any particular asylum-seeker permit holder will make the transition to full refugee status. indeed, there is every likelihood that the majority will not (amit, 2011; amit & kriger, 2014). the number and geographical location of refugee enterprises in south africa is unknown, which means that there is no comprehensive database from which to draw a sample. therefore, this paper relied on “maximum variation sampling” (mvs) using the methodology suggested by williams and gurtoo (2010) in their study of the informal economy in bangalore, india. in cape town, the areas of the city in which the informal economy is known to operate refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 788 were first identified from the existing literature, personal knowledge and a scoping of the city. this allowed for the exclusion of significant areas of the city from the study, particularly high-income residential areas. second, five different types of area were identified – commercial, formal residential, informal residential, mixed formal and informal residential and industrial – and within each of these types contrasting and geographically separated areas were chosen. there were two commercial areas (the cbd and bellville), two industrial areas (maitland and parow), three formal residential areas (observatory, delft and nyanga), three informal settlements (khayelitsha, imizamo yethu and masiphumelele) and two mixed formal and informal residential areas (philippi and dunoon). in limpopo, the majority of migrant entrepreneurs live in urban centres. since many of these centres are relatively small, the primary criterion for the application of mvs in limpopo was variable urban size. the selected towns are scattered around the province and include polokwane (population of 130,000), thohoyandou (70,000), musina (43,000), louis trichardt (25,000), tzaneen (14,500) and burgersfort (6,000). sampling was conducted in each site using the mapped grid-pattern exhibited by streets. streets were sampled one after another in successive fashion moving from west to east. after identifying the first five enterprises on a street, and randomly selecting the first of the five for the sample, every third refugeeowned enterprise was selected for interview. where business owners were not available, field workers made three call backs to the enterprise, after which a substitution was made. in each of the two study areas, a total of 504 refugee entrepreneurs were interviewed. the survey instrument was administered using tablet technology and collected information on a wide variety of issues pertaining to business set-up, activities, operation, profitability, challenges and economic impacts. the enterprise survey was complemented with fifty indepth interviews with business-owners in each research location and three focus groups with refugees from the same country in each location. this paper presents some of the results of the survey supplemented with a selection of observations from the entrepreneurs about their experiences running businesses in south africa. jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 789 refugee profile this section of the paper compares refugee business owners in cape town with those in small town limpopo to ascertain if there are any significant differences in their respective socio-demographic and migration profiles. first, male refugee entrepreneurs clearly dominate in both areas, with only 20-25% of business owners being women (table 1). this is generally consistent with the predominantly male character of refugee migration to south africa. the entrepreneurs in both locations tend to be relatively young, with 80% in cape town and 77% in limpopo being under the age of 40. very few entrepreneurs in either location were over the age of 50. accepting the international labour organisation definition of “young people” in africa as anyone under the age of 35, this would mean that 54% of those in cape town and 57% of those in limpopo are young entrepreneurs (kew, 2015). there are no significant differences between the two groups of refugee entrepreneurs in terms of age profile. however, the difficulties and challenges facing youth entrepreneurs in south africa, and how these are addressed by refugee youth, warrant further investigation (fatoki & chindoga, 2011; gwija et al., 2014). despite the similarities in sex and age breakdown between the two samples, there are marked differences in the countries of origin of refugee entrepreneurs. in the cape town sample, the most numerous group was from somalia, which is consistent with other studies showing a significant somali presence in the informal economy of the city (basardien et al., 2014; gastrow & amit, 2013, 2015; tawodzera et al., 2015). while there are some somaliowned businesses in limpopo and ethiopian-owned businesses in cape town, the largest group in this sample of refugee entrepreneurs in limpopo towns was from ethiopia (28%). some national groups are well-represented in both places, including refugees from the democratic republic of the congo (drc) (17% in cape town and 11% in limpopo) and zimbabwe (7% in cape town and 11% in limpopo). refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 790 table 1: demographic profile of refugee entrepreneurs cape town % limpopo % sex male 75.2 80.0 female 24.8 20.0 age <21 0.0 0.2 21-25 8.5 10.8 26-30 20.1 23.4 31-35 25.2 22.2 36-40 26.6 21.0 41-45 12.2 11.4 46-50 4.3 6.8 >50 3.0 4.4 country of origin somalia 26.9 7.4 drc 16.9 11.0 cameroon 11.6 0.8 ethiopia 9.2 28.1 zimbabwe 7.2 11.1 congo brazzaville 3.0 0.6 burundi 1.4 0.6 angola 1.0 0.6 rwanda 0.8 0.2 jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 791 in both the cape town and limpopo samples, there are small numbers of refugees from the same countries, notably burundi, cameroon, congo brazzaville, eritrea, rwanda and sudan. in sum, both areas are dominated by refugees from one or two (albeit different) countries, but beyond that there is considerable diversity in the makeup of the refugee entrepreneurial population. the vast majority of sampled refugee business owners (over 90% in both research locations) arrived in south africa after 2000 (figure 1). limpopo has a slightly greater proportion of recent arrivals than cape town. for example, 71% of the refugees in limpopo migrated to south africa after 2005, compared to 61% of those in cape town. or again, 26% of those in limpopo arrived in south africa after 2010, compared to only 16% in cape town. this raises the possibility that more recent forced migrants may be avoiding the large cities and going straight to smaller urban centres. however, in limpopo there is a clear lag between year of migration to south africa and year of arrival in the province (figure 2). as many as 64% of the sampled refugee entrepreneurs in limpopo had first lived in another south african town or city (compared to only 27% in cape town) (table 2). in other words, cape town was the first destination for nearly three-quarters of the refugee entrepreneurs in that sample, while limpopo was the first destination for only 13% of the entrepreneurs sampled there. sudan 0.2 1.0 eritrea 0.2 4.6 other 21.6 34.4 refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 792 figure 1: year of arrival in south africa figure 2: migration of limpopo entrepreneurs 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 1991 1995 1996 2000 2001 2005 2006 2010 2011 2016 % year cape town refugees (n=501) limpopo refugees (n=502) 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 1991 1995 1996 2000 2001 2005 2006 2010 2011 2016 % year arrival in south africa (n=502) arrival in this city (n=502) jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 793 table 2: previous places of residence in south africa cape town refugees % limpopo refugees % major cities johannesburg 15.7 29.0 pretoria 4.2 12.9 durban 3.2 5.0 cape town n/a 4.6 port elizabeth 1.6 2.4 other urban centres other western cape 0.2 1.2 other limpopo 1.2 16.9 other gauteng 0.0 1.6 other kwazulu-natal 0.2 1.2 other eastern cape 0.2 0.2 free state 0.4 1.6 north west 0.2 1.6 northern cape 0.6 1.4 mpumalanga 0.4 6.7 note: multiple response question in the limpopo sample, previous places of residence were dominated by the large cities, particularly johannesburg (29%) and pretoria (13%), but also durban (5%) and even cape town, which is nearly 2,000km away (5%). the movement of refugees from limpopo to cape town was much more limited. as many as 17% of the limpopo refugees had lived in another town in the province, suggesting the existence of some intra-provincial mobility. this kind of movement was virtually absent in the case of cape town and the western cape province. in the cape town sample, the majority of the 28% who had lived in another urban area came from johannesburg, with much smaller numbers from cities such as pretoria and durban. refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 794 the major reason for relocation from large cities to small-town limpopo concerns the pattern of violence against non-south african informal businesses (crush et al., 2015b). nationwide xenophobic attacks on migrants and refugees in 2008 led to considerable loss of life, damage to property and internal displacement (hassim et al., 2008; landau, 2012). in 2015, widespread xenophobic violence again wracked the country. unlike the indiscriminate violence of 2008, these attacks mainly targeted small informal businesses run by migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees. drawing on an extensive database of media coverage of xenophobic incidents, crush and ramachandran (2015a) chronicle an escalating pattern of xenophobic violence directed at migrants and refugees between 2008 and 2015. refugeeowned businesses are regular targets of attacks and certain locations have witnessed collective violence in repeated cycles, including loss of store contents through looting and arson, damage to shop structure, forcible store closures, temporary or permanent displacement and loss of life (crush & ramachandran, 2015b). the impact of xenophobic violence is exacerbated by poor police response and follow-up. refugees have little faith in police protection or judicial reparation, and even see the police as perpetrators or instigators of violence (haile, 2012; okpechi, 2011). steinberg (2012) argues that it is the perceived failure of the authorities to control migration that has exacerbated retaliatory xenophobic mob violence. some studies have suggested that attacks on refugee-owned businesses are instigated or orchestrated by south african competitors, including various shadowy informal business associations (crush & ramachandran, 2015a). this phenomenon – dubbed “violent entrepreneurship” by charman and piper (2012) – involves the use of intimidatory violence as a business strategy to drive non-south african competitors out of an area. the most frequent and intense xenophobic attacks and instances of violent entrepreneurship have occurred in low-income neighbourhoods in large cities. the in-depth interviews with limpopo refugee entrepreneurs for this study confirmed that xenophobic violence was a major factor in relocation from cities of first refuge. one somali refugee recounted how he had arrived in johannesburg after a long and difficult journey through several countries; experiences consistent with those of other somali refugees (jinnah, 2010; sadouni, 2009). in johannesburg, jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 795 he lived with his brother and neighbours from the same village in somalia. his brother operated a business buying goods in the cbd and selling them at his shop in soweto. he worked for his brother for a while but found the experience unnerving: “i did not want to operate in soweto. the people there were nice but there were others who were just rough. i had seen two people being killed in broad daylight and they were all foreigners and their shops were robbed. so i wanted to go somewhere else.” with his brother’s assistance he bought a small spaza (informal shop) in orange farm south of johannesburg and ran it for a year: orange farm was a good area for business but it was not safe. as a foreigner you are always conscious of your security and you can feel that this place is not good. it is far from the johannesburg cbd and there are few police there. so even when there are robberies, the police come very late and sometimes they do not come at all. i was robbed seven times in the period that i stayed in orange farm. most of the time the robbers would come when it is at night and you are still operating. they pounce on you with sticks, spanners or iron bars and they hit you hard. so i was almost killed twice and i thought this is enough. let me leave this place. then i left and came here (interview with somali refugee, polokwane, 12 march 2016). experience of violent crime and fears over personal safety were recurrent motives for moving to limpopo. interviewees moved to escape being injured or murdered rather than specifically to set up a new business. one eritrean refugee, for example, had his spaza looted and burnt to the ground: “i came here because i was running for my life. i was not thinking of doing business, but of surviving. i was almost killed that night” (interview with eritrean refugee, 21 march 2016). piper and charman (2016) have argued that south african business owners are just as vulnerable to violent attacks and crime as their refugee counterparts and suggest that xenophobia is, therefore, not a factor. however, the interviewees in limpopo clearly saw the violence in johannesburg and other centres as motivated by xenophobia. as the former orange farm refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 796 business owner noted: “there were many spaza shops around me, but they kept stealing from me. is that not xenophobia? why not steal from the locals? the customers sometimes harass you because you are a foreigner. they take your goods and are a problem in paying. so, yes, i have been affected a lot by xenophobia.” the province of limpopo appears to be a safer haven and less inhospitable business environment than south africa’s large cities. as many as 45% of sampled cape town refugees said that xenophobia had affected their business operations to some extent (20%) or a great deal (25%). the equivalent figures in limpopo were 31% in total (19% to some extent and 12% not at all). refugees in cape town, for example, appear to be more vulnerable to theft and physical attack from south african citizens. for example, in the sample, 57% of refugees in cape town reported often or sometimes having their goods and stock stolen, compared to 39% of those in limpopo. similarly, 54% of refugees in cape town often or sometimes had money stolen, compared to 32% in limpopo. the incidents of prejudice and verbal and physical assault by citizens were similar in both places. but while relocation to limpopo may lessen the chance of victimisation, it certainly does not eliminate it. many of the refugees interviewed in limpopo told stories of being robbed and having their business premises destroyed. however, police misconduct also emerged as a greater problem for refugees in limpopo. alfaro-velcamp and shaw (2016) show that police disregard for the rights of refugees and migrants is a significant problem in cape town and other large cities. this survey found that police harassment, demands for bribes, confiscation of goods and physical violence were all more common in limpopo than in cape town (table 3). jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 797 table 3: challenges faced by refugee entrepreneurs in south africa cape town refugees (% often/ sometimes) limpopo refugees (% often/ sometimes) theft of goods/stock 56.7 38.7 theft of money/income 44.2 31.8 physical violence by south africans 23.5 19.2 confiscation of goods by police 10.2 19.1 harassment/demands for bribes by police 10.7 26.5 physical violence by police 6.8 8.8 verbal insults 32.6 35.7 prejudice against my nationality 48.0 47.9 business characteristics and strategies despite being located in very different parts of south africa, and nearly 2,000 km apart, the sampled cape town and limpopo refugee entrepreneurs engaged in a similarly wide range of economic activities. the vast majority in both locations is in the retail sector (75-79%), followed by services (25-28%) and manufacturing (4.4%-7.5%) (table 4). the kinds of goods being sold and services offered are very similar as well. among the sampled limpopo refugee entrepreneurs, the most common items sold are clothing/footwear, confectionary, soft drinks and toiletries/cosmetics. in cape town, the most common items sold are cigarettes, clothing/footwear, personal accessories and confectionary and beverages (table 5). comparing the two, the main difference lies in the greater numbers of refugees selling confectionary, household products, and toiletries and cosmetics in limpopo. refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 798 table 4: economic sector of refugee enterprises cape town refugees limpopo refugees no. % no. % retail, trade and wholesale 400 79.4 378 75.0 manufacturing 38 7.5 22 4.4 services 128 25.4 143 28.4 other 1 0.2 1 0.2 table 5: goods and services offered by refugee entrepreneurs cape town refugees % limpopo refugees % retail soft drinks (e.g. coke, fanta) 23.0 21.6 cigarettes 21.4 18.5 clothing and footwear 18.8 20.2 personal accessories (e.g. bags, sunglasses) 14.5 18.5 confectionary (sweets/candies and cakes) 13.7 20.2 fresh produce (fruits and vegetables) 11.3 15.5 toiletries and cosmetics 9.5 20.0 cooked food ready to eat 7.5 6.0 electronics 6.3 8.7 arts and crafts 5.0 0.2 books/newspapers 3.8 2.0 household products 3.6 15.1 hardware/tools 1.6 2.8 music/film cds/dvds 1.0 4.2 car parts 0.8 0.2 livestock (e.g. chickens) 0.2 0.2 alcohol 0.4 0.4 jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 799 other 9.9 18.5 services haircutting and braiding 10.9 19.2 it/internet 4.4 1.0 telephone 1.6 1.6 shoe repairs 1.2 0.2 traditional doctor 0.4 0.0 accommodation 0.2 0.2 car repairs 0.2 0.8 medicine (pharmacy) 0.2 0.0 transportation (taxi/passengers) 0.2 0.2 car wash 0.0 0.8 financial 0.0 0.2 rentals 0.0 0.2 transportation (goods) 0.0 0.2 construction 0.0 0.0 car parking/guarding 0.0 0.0 other 5.4 5.8 note: multiple response question the primary sources of business start-up capital in both areas were very similar, suggesting that being in a large city does not provide additional financing opportunities (table 6). approximately 85% of the sampled refugees in both cape town and limpopo used their personal savings to start their businesses. around 20% of both groups used loans from relatives, 1214% used loans from non-relatives and 12% used gifts from relatives. a small number in both areas used remittances from outside the country to establish their businesses. only a handful of refugees in both areas were able to access funding from banks, ngos or the unhcr. the only difference worth noting was that more entrepreneurs in limpopo were able to access goods on credit with which to start their businesses. refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 800 despite the similarities in sources of start-up capital, the amounts needed to establish a business did differ. in limpopo, the sampled refugee entrepreneurs seemed to be able to start businesses with less capital (figure 3). 34% percent had less than zar 5,000 compared to 21% of the cape town refugee entrepreneurs, and 63% had less than zar 10,000 compared to 52% of the cape town entrepreneurs. at the other end of the scale, 27% of the sampled cape town refugees had more than zar 50,000 in start-up capital compared to only 15% of those in limpopo. table 6: primary sources of start-up capital cape town refugees % limpopo refugees % personal savings 85.9 84.3 loan from relatives 19.8 20.2 gift from relatives 13.7 11.7 loan from non-relatives 12.1 14.3 loan from church 2.4 0.2 money from relatives in another country 2.4 2.4 loan from mosque 1.4 0.2 loan from informal financial institutions 1.2 1.4 bank loan 0.8 1.2 loan from government agency 0.2 0.0 goods on credit 0.0 9.1 loan or grant from ngo 0.0 1.4 loan or grant from unhcr 0.0 0.4 usurers/mashonisa (money lenders) 0.0 0.2 other source 2.2 6.9 note: multiple response question jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 801 figure 3: amount of start-up capital used by refugee entrepreneurs despite their lack of prior business experience, refugees in south africa have developed a range of strategies to maximise their returns. table 7 lists a variety of business strategies and shows how many sampled refugees employ them in the conduct of their business. the most common strategies include bulk purchasing, extended hours of operation, keeping business records, negotiating prices with suppliers, allowing customers to buy goods on credit and competitive prices. refugees consult other entrepreneurs, suppliers and the media for information about the price of goods. these are all commonsense business strategies and certainly do not fall into the category of 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 less than r5,000 r5,000 – r9,999 r10,000 – r19,999 r20,000 – r29,999 r30,000 – r49,999 r50,000 – r99,999 r100,000 – r199,999 r200,000 – r499,999 r500,000 – r999,999 r1,000,000 and above % s ta rt -u p a m o u n t (i n r a n d s) limpopo refugees (n=468) cape town refugees (n=462) refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 802 underhand or secret tactics that the south african minister of small business development accused them of employing. there was very little difference in the frequency of use of business strategies by the two groups of refugees. however, living in a large city seems to provide more opportunity for buying in bulk, negotiating with suppliers and getting information on prices from other entrepreneurs. almost one-third of the limpopo refugees travel to johannesburg to purchase supplies, while most cape town refugees obtain their goods in the city. this probably affords the latter greater opportunity for bulk buying, negotiation with suppliers and information-sharing. table 7: business strategies of refugee entrepreneurs cape town refugees % limpopo refugees % obtain price information from other entrepreneurs 75.6 57.9 purchase stock in bulk 69.7 56.3 extended hours of operation 69.5 65.5 negotiate prices with suppliers 67.7 59.8 keep business records 59.4 55.7 obtain price information by calling suppliers 57.2 61.2 negotiate prices with customers 47.8 60.5 offer credit to customers 42.0 44.8 sell goods more cheaply than competitors 42.0 38.6 charge different prices for different customers 37.1 30.3 give discounts to regular customers 34.9 39.1 obtain price information from media 31.9 28.1 partner with other businesses to distribute risk 28.1 34.2 engage in shareholding 10.3 25.9 purchase insurance 3.2 7.0 jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 803 entrepreneurial economies in this study, we used two measures of business success: (a) net monthly profit and (b) the difference between the current value of the enterprise and the initial capital outlay. with regards to the first indicator, net profit, it is clear that although refugees in limpopo are able to start a business with a smaller capital outlay than those in cape town, their enterprises are not as profitable. the sampled limpopo refugees earned less on average than their cape town counterparts: zar 7,246 per month compared to zar 11,315 in cape town (table 8). only one-third of the sampled cape town entrepreneurs made less than zar 5,000 per month compared to 58% of those in limpopo. or again, 70% of the limpopo entrepreneurs make less than zar 7,500 per month compared to only 49% of those in cape town. with regards to the second indicator of business success the difference between the amount of start-up capital and the current value of the enterprise in both cape town and limpopo there are clear indications of increased value. for example, 21% of the sampled entrepreneurs in cape town started with less than zar 5,000 but only 3% of the businesses were currently valued at less than zar 5,000 (table 9). in limpopo, the equivalent figures were 34% (start-up) and 14% (current value). in both locations, therefore, there was significant upward movement out of the lowest value category. a similar pattern can be observed with businesses that started with less than zar 20,000. in cape town, 51% fell into this start-up category but only 26% of businesses fell into this value category. the proportion of sampled businesses in the zar 50,000-plus category increased from 27% to 47% and in limpopo from 15% to 42%. this suggests that higher value businesses may actually be performing better in limpopo than they are in cape town. refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 804 table 8: net monthly profit of refugee entrepreneurs cape town refugees limpopo refugees % cumulative % % cumulative % <= zar2500 14.7 14.7 18.1 18.1 zar2,501-zar5,000 18.6 33.3 40.0 58.1 zar5,001-zar7,500 15.5 48.8 10.9 70.0 zar7,501-zar10,000 15.3 73.1 12.7 82.7 zar10,001-zar12,500 6.2 79.3 3.0 85.7 zar12,501-zar15,000 8.8 88.1 5.1 90.8 zar15,001-zar17,500 1.4 89.5 2.3 93.1 zar17,501-zar20,000 6.5 96.0 3.9 95.0 >zar20,000 4.0 100.0 5.0 100.0 jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 805 the establishment and growth of sampled refugee businesses has economic spin-offs for a variety of south african stakeholders. the first beneficiaries are formal sector suppliers including wholesalers, supermarkets, fresh produce markets, retailers and manufacturers. around two-thirds of the sampled refugees in both cape town and limpopo purchase supplies from wholesalers, who are easily the largest beneficiaries of their patronage (table 10). other beneficiaries vary in relative importance, reflecting the difference between operating in a large city and a small town. for example, refugees in cape town are more likely to patronise supermarkets and factories while those in limpopo are more likely to patronise small shops. the fact that more cape town refugees purchase directly from farms is primarily a reflection of the existence of a market gardening area (the philippi horticultural area) within the city limits (battersby-lennard & haysom, 2012). the average monthly spend at wholesalers was very similar in both cape town and limpopo. table 9: increase in value of refugee enterprises cape town refugees limpopo refugees start up % current value % start up % current value % <zar5,000 21.4 3.4 33.6 13.6 zar5,000-zar9,999 14.1 9.2 12.2 9.5 zar10,000-zar19,999 16.2 13.0 17.1 11.8 zar20,000-zar29,999 7.1 13.2 10.9 11.6 zar30,000-zar49,999 14.1 14.1 10.9 11.8 zar50,000-zar99,999 12.6 20.2 8.8 13.2 zar100,000zar199,999 10.4 15.2 4.7 15.2 zar200,000zar499,999 3.9 10.3 1.5 10.7 zar500,000zar999,999 0.2 0.9 0.2 1.8 >zar1,000,000 0.0 0.4 0.2 0.7 refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 806 otherwise, the amounts spent varied considerably but, in general, the more important the source, the greater the amount is spent. table 10: main suppliers used by refugee entrepreneurs cape town refugees % limpopo refugees %. cape town ave spend (zar/ month) limpopo ave spend (zar/ month) wholesaler 64.1 57.9 34,565 34,908 direct from factory 12.7 3.6 9,575 20,278 supermarkets 9.7 4.2 12,253 3,979 fresh produce markets 5.6 4.2 28,021 2,000 non-south african informal producers/retailers 4.8 8.5 9,121 15,549 small shops/retailers 4.2 17.9 3,738 6,876 south african informal sector producers/retailers 2.6 3.8 7,631 3,859 direct from farms 1.6 0.8 19,625 4,875 other sources 5.6 3.6 14,855 4,586 note: multiple response question the second major beneficiary of the activities of refugee entrepreneurs is the south african treasury. while most businesses operate in the informal sector and are too small to pay income tax, they do pay value-added tax (vat) on most goods purchased from formal sector suppliers. one ethiopian refugee in a limpopo focus group observed that they not only paid vat on goods but also were unable to claim rebates: there are many things we do to help the economy. we operate our businesses and we buy our stock from the wholesalers. we pay vat there jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 807 so our money is going into the economy. we pay a lot of money that way. some of our people go to buy goods that are worth zar 200,000 or even more. some buy every week and some buy every day. so imagine if you are paying zar 200,000 for goods and vat is 14% so that is more than zar 25,000 i am paying to the government. even after paying this large amount of vat we suffer because we cannot claim some of it because we do not have the documents. we are not registered. if we were registered at the end of the year we would claim some of the vat like south africans do. we are actually paying more and contributing more through vat than most south african small businesses (focus group participant, burgersfort, 1 april 2016). another participant claimed that business registration was impossible because “government does not want to register us.”1 third, as these refugees noted, they pay heavy rents to south african property owners: south africans are surviving on us because we pay them money to rent their shops. i pay zar 4,000 per month to my landlord to use the shop. that is a lot of money. how many local people can afford to pay that money? locals do not pay that kind of money when they rent. they will pay zar 1,000 or zar 1,500 only, not zar 4,000. we pay because we have no choice, we want to do business and survive.2 while over half of both groups of refugees paid rent to a private south african owner, this was more common in limpopo (almost 66%) (table 11). however, the average monthly rentals paid to landlords were very similar: zar 4,838 in cape town and zar 4,555 in limpopo. renting also provides refugees with a modicum of protection. as one noted, “if your landlord is respected or feared, then you are okay because the thugs will not come and break in.”3 the cape town refugee entrepreneurs were more likely to own their business premises 1 focus group participant, burgersfort, 1 april 2016. 2 ibid. 3 ibid. refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 808 although the numbers were small (7% compared to 2% in limpopo). fourth, the municipal government has a direct financial interest in its dealings with refugees. particularly in cape town, refugees pay into municipal coffers through rent for business sites. this amounted to 22% of the refugee entrepreneurs in cape town compared to only 4% in limpopo. these rents were higher in cape town, an average of zar 879 per month compared to only zar 311 per month in limpopo. additionally, as many as 28% of limpopobased refugees (and 21% of those in cape town) pay an annual license fee to the municipality. the cost of a business license is much higher in cape town at zar 1,959 per year compared to only zar 752 per year in limpopo. table 11: occupancy status of business premises cape town refugees % limpopo refugees % cape town rent (r/month) limpopo rent (r/month) pay rent to private owner who is a south african (company or individual) 53.6 65.9 7,541 4,838 pay rent to council/municipality 21.5 3.8 860 879 pay rent to private owner who is not a south african (company or individual) 9.4 8.8 2,800 3,180 owner or part-owner 7.4 2.2 rent-free, with permission 5.2 6.4 rent-free, without permission 1.2 10.6 share space/premises with others 0.0 0.4 other 1.6 1.8 jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 809 fifth, there is a growing consensus in the research literature that migrant businesses in the informal economy create jobs for south africans, and that this needs to be acknowledged by government. as one refugee observed: “the government does not want to accept that we are contributing. when they talk about us they make it look like we are only taking, taking and taking from the south africans.”4 another pointed out the mutual benefits of employing south africans: we employ a lot of south africans. if your business starts to grow, you employ, not only our people from ethiopia, but also locals. they help with customers and other things. they speak the language and understand quickly what the customer wants. even though i understand the language, there are words that i do not know and so it is better when you employ a south african, they will talk and agree and i will communicate with my employee. the locals need work and we also need workers, so it is a mutual benefit.5 some refugees also find that employing south africans is a form of security against theft, although it can be a double-edged sword: it is good security because they will know the local thugs and thieves and so they may tell them to leave you alone. if you have a bad employee, they may connive with the thieves and steal from you, so it is both ways. sometimes we employ locals that we know, when we know their parents and we talk to them so that they do not steal and run away. it is better to employ someone from around the area, someone in the community.6 around half (52%) of the cape town refugee entrepreneurs and just under half (45%) of the limpopo entrepreneurs employ people in their businesses (table 12). in terms of the pro file of employees, the cape town and limpopo entrepreneurs were equally likely to employ south africans (around 50% of 4 ibid. 5 ibid. 6 ibid. refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 810 the total number of jobs created). while the limpopo entrepreneurs favoured female employees (51% versus 45% of total employees), both groups preferred to hire south african women over men (with 65-70% of south african employees in both sites being female). what this suggests is that, in both large cities and small urban areas, refugee entrepreneurs may be providing jobs for more south african women than men and thereby contributing to lowering the female unemployment rate. table 12: employment generation by refugee enterprises cape town refugees limpopo refugees no. of employees % no. of employees % south african males 66 17.7 37 11.8 south african females 120 32.2 82 26.1 home country males 101 27.2 81 25.8 home country females 28 7.5 26 8.3 other country males 35 9.4 37 11.8 other country females 22 5.6 51 16.2 finally, it is clear from the accounts of refugees in both cape town and limpopo that one of the primary beneficiaries of their activities in the informal economy is the south african consumer who can access goods and services much more cheaply than from formal sector suppliers. these include necessities such as cheaper food for the food insecure, luxuries such as household and personal products and services such as panel-beating. for example, one group of five zimbabwean refugees in cape town (including a former teacher), operate a panel-beating and spray-painting business in an industrial area of the city. in a focus group, they discussed at length how and why they established the business, their business challenges and the nature of the service they offer to south africans: we are very good at this business. there are many people who come here because they cannot afford to repair their cars in these expensive garages, so we are offering them services otherwise they would not be jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 811 driving their cars. that is a good service we are offering. some of the customers actually go to the garages first and the charges there will make them come to us (focus group discussion, cape town, 22 february 2016). these refugees also argued, in a prescient manner, that their activities saved the south african government and the unhcr from having to support them. as one commented: “in europe the governments look after the refugees and every month they get paid like they are working. but here we are working for ourselves and are saving the government a lot of money.”7 conclusion this paper aims to contribute to the literature on urban refugee livelihoods in the global south and, in particular, to a small but growing body of work on urban refugee entrepreneurship in cities of refuge (campbell, 2005, 2006; gastrow & amit, 2013; omata, 2012; pavanello et al., 2015; thompson, 2016). the concept of ‘refugee economies’ is a valuable starting point for restoring agency, self-reliance and innovation to populations all too often represented as passive victims. one of the defining characteristics of many large cities in the rapidly urbanising south is the high degree of informality of shelter, services and economic livelihoods. as simone (2004) argues, this involves “highly mobile and provisional possibilities for how people live and make things, how they use the urban environment and collaborate with one another.” furthermore, these urban spaces provide for “upscaling a variety of entrepreneurial activities through the dense intersections of actors from different countries and situations.” it is these dynamic, shifting and dangerous informal urban spaces in which refugees often arrive, with few resources other than a will to survive, a few social contacts and a drive to support themselves in the absence of financial support from the host government and international agencies. south africa is sometimes hailed as having an extremely progressive refugee protection regime by the standards of the rest of africa. refugees enjoy 7 focus group discussion, cape town, 22 february 2016. refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa 812 freedoms denied in other countries, including the right to move and live anywhere and the right to work and be self-employed. many opt for employment and self-employment in the informal economy because they find it extremely difficult to access the formal labour market or to establish and operate a business in the formal economy. newly-arrived refugees, including those with advanced skills and professional qualifications, initially find themselves accepting menial work on construction sites or as dish-washers in restaurants. those with relatives or friends already in the country often work in their informal businesses until they have saved enough money to launch their own. they start small and, with extremely hard work, self-sacrifice and hardship, their businesses take off. thus, south africa provides an important example of refugee self-reliance, motivation and agency through informal entrepreneurship. at the same time, south africa is one of the most xenophobic countries in the world and migrants of any kind are extremely unwelcome. large-scale violence directed at migrants and refugees wracked the country in 2008 and again in 2015. in this span of time, extreme xenophobia, in the form of violent attacks on migrant and refugee-owned shops and small businesses, has escalated. the state refuses to acknowledge that xenophobia exists, much less that something should be done about it. attacks on foreign businesses are dismissed as general criminality, which might be an acceptable rhetorical position if there was evidence that the police provide adequate protection and justice for the victims. the evidence of human rights observers and previous studies, and confirmed here, is that policing is lackadaisical at best and certainly does very little to protect refugees from re-victimisation in their chosen country of refuge. the fact that informal businesses started and run by refugees have become a particular target means that the south african city has become a hazardous place for refugee entrepreneurs. refugee economic opportunity and entrepreneurial activity is likely to vary significantly between camp and urban environments. this paper has addressed the question of variability between urban environments within the same destination country by comparing refugee entrepreneurship in the large city of cape town with a population of over 3 million and several small towns jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tenge 813 in the predominantly rural province of limpopo, none with a population larger than 150,000. the research shows that refugee entrepreneurial activity in limpopo is a more recent phenomenon and is largely a function of refugees moving away from large cities such as johannesburg where their businesses and lives are in greater danger. while somali refugees predominate in cape town and ethiopian refugees in limpopo, the refugee populations in both areas are equally diverse and tend to be engaged in the same wide range of activities. less start-up capital is needed in limpopo but the refugees in both areas pursue similar business strategies and make similar contributions to the local economies. they face many of the same business challenges, including problems with documentation and the refusal of banks to offer credit, although small town policing appears to be harsher and more corrupt. while south african consumers clearly benefit from and appreciate their presence, migrant entrepreneurs are more vulnerable to xenophobic violence in cape town than limpopo. in short, different urban geographies do shape the local nature of refugee entrepreneurial economies, but there are also remarkable similarities in the manner in which unconnected refugee entrepreneurs establish and grow their businesses in large cities and small provincial towns. 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mauritania, 54%; mali and guinea, 51%; niger, 47%; and burkina faso 30%) (tanle, 2010). the relative statistic for ghana is 52%, showing little difference between it and the stated west african countries above. in light of this evidence showing the global dominance of internal migration over international migration, continentally and within the west african sub-region, an important aspect of the migration process that calls for research is the situation of migrants in their destination areas within countries. in ghana, a trend that calls for investigation into migrant problems in destination areas is the north-south migration. apart from its historical antecedent, this remains an enduring phenomenon. the colonial agenda promoted the movement of people from northern ghana to the south in order to serve as labourers in the mines and in cocoa growing areas (plange, 1979; songsore, 2003). during the independence era, migrations were dominated by independent individual motives. subsequently, the post-independence era has witnessed an increased number of females joining the migration stream to southern ghana (songsore, 1983; abdul-korah, 2008; tanle, 2010). some women migrate to southern ghana to serve as ‘kayayei’, female porters who carry goods on their heads for a negotiated fee. others work in ‘chop bars’ (local restaurants) as cleaners (awumbila, 2015). tanle (2003) also cited as a key factor in their north-south migration, the desire of certain women to save money in order to enter into large-scale trading at their places of origin. other women saved money to buy personal effects, such as clothes, shoes, jewels and kitchenware in preparation for marriage. samsu-deen (2015) has indicated in his study that north-south female migration in ghana is driven by the quest for razack jaha imoro 1075 wealth and the escape from poverty and the lack of social amenities in communities of origin. the gendered nature of the female north-south migration is also characterised by women working in low-skilled jobs in destination areas, in domestic and care work, hotel and catering services, the entertainment and sex industry, agriculture and on assembly lines (awumbila et al., 2015). additionally, these sectors are quite regularly characterised by poor working conditions, low pay, withheld wages, considerable insecurity and a high risk of sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse (akter, 2015). from colonial to post-independence times, the northern sector of ghana has kept this trend of out-migrations to the south, but the reasons for these migrations have changed over time (imoro, 2011; van der geest, 2011; kwankye, 2012a). for instance, socio-economic and climatic variables have induced north-south migrations (abdul-korah, 2008; anamzoya, 2010; van der geest, 2011; alenoma, 2013). additional important factors, such as unemployment, poverty, the desire to acquire life’s necessities, marital-related issues, the desire to invest and protracted conflicts, have been cited as reasons behind north-south migration streams in ghana (awumbila et al., 2011; participatory poverty and vulnerability assessment ghana, 2011). furthermore, an infrastructure deficit in the areas of transportation, housing, energy and education in the northern parts of ghana has contributed to northsouth migratory movement (awumbila & ardayfio, 2008; imoro, 2011). adaawen and owusu (2013) indicated that migrants strongly anticipate earning income that will enable them to remit funds to support and improve the well-being of family members back home, hence their north-south migration. the literature reviewed above on the north-south migration flow can be supported by the data from the ghana statistical service (2014), which indicate that three regions in the north of ghana are net migrant regions, as shown in table 1. north-south migration and problems of migrant traders in agbogbloshie table 1: migration statistics for the three regions in the north of ghana region inmigration out migration netmigration outmigration rate inmigration rate upper west 43,427 252,841 -209,414 31 4.5 upper east 61,298 328,990 -267,692 24 5.4 northern 100,524 433,121 -332,597 25 5.8 source: (ghana statistical service, 2014). all studies cited above have made important contributions to the literature on north-south migration in ghana. however, an area within this migration discourse that is little known is the nature of migrants’ livelihood strategies and their problems within their destination areas. migrants in these areas are confronted daily with survival necessities such as food, shelter, accommodation, health and security issues. these are woven into their livelihood activities, or the daily strategies of migrants, which implies that the ability of migrants to survive in destination areas is dependant on the livelihood survival mechanisms available and the migrants’ assets in the destination areas. such livelihood problems and activities are often glossed over by researchers. therefore, in this paper, investigation of the livelihood strategies and problems of migrants in a destination area is aimed at broadening the scope of literature in the field of migration in general, and in ghana in particular. the paper is also intended to contribute to a better understanding of migrant problems in destination areas and could serve as a significant information source for city authorities on problems of migrant traders in agbogbloshie, accra, ghana. it also offers a policy recommendation to the general problem of migrant adjustment to urban economic life. razack jaha imoro 1077 migration and sustainable livelihoods migrants’ in destination areas are generally confronted with livelihood problems. how they are able to overcome these problems shows their resilience and ability to improve their socio-economic existence. their conditions of work and the problems they face mirror the broader frame of a livelihood strategy. in the case of migrants, the sustainability of their livelihoods is dependent on the conditions and situations that confront them in destination areas and how they are able to navigate these situations. in order to grasp the livelihood activities of migrant traders in agbogbloshie in accra, a department for international development (dfid) version of a sustainable livelihood framework was used to understand the intricacies that surround and affect the livelihood outcomes of migrant traders. this dfid version of a livelihood framework addressed the key issues in this paper, including the vulnerability, livelihood assets, institutional constraints, livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes of these migrants, as shown in figure 1. figure 1: livelihood framework of labour migrants in destination areas. source: adapted from the dfid sustainable livelihood framework (2000). north-south migration and problems of migrant traders in agbogbloshie concept of sustainable livelihood the concept is popular both in development planning and urban studies and is applied here to help illuminate the discourse on migrant traders in urban destinations. the concept emerged in the early 1990s and has received different interpretations based on its applications in different disciplines; for instance, in development research, sociology, economics and agriculture (scoones, 2009). the broad term, ‘sustainable livelihood’, is used to explain and analyse how individuals, groups, localities and societies, in general, utilise their available resources in such a way so as to guarantee them continuous survival on a daily basis (scoones, 2009; chambers, 1983). therefore, just how sustainable livelihoods are depends on the context within which livelihoods operate. in the case of migrants, the sustainability of their livelihoods is dependent on the conditions and situations that confront them in destination areas, and how they are able to navigate within these situations. the simplest definition of ‘livelihood’ can be traced to chambers (1995), who defined the concept as the means of gaining a living, or as a combination of the resources used and the activities undertaken in order to live. but a more popular and workable definition postulated earlier by chambers and conway (1992) is worthy of note: a livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living; a livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, while not undermining the natural resource base. hence, a livelihood approach is a nuanced picture of a web of activities in which people engage in order to secure a means of living. this paper views a livelihood as the totality of activities, resources and networks that migrants in urban areas can access as a means of living. vulnerability context of migrant traders vulnerability is a concept that has emerged in the development literature to explain the situations or conditions that expose people to challenges in their daily lives. in the context of sustainable livelihood, vulnerability is influenced by the external environment, over which people have little or no control. the vulnerability contexts of people impose on them shocks and stresses that tend razack jaha imoro 1079 to influence their asset base, reduce their capabilities or restrict household activities (department for international development, 2000). to be in a vulnerable situation may stem from several sources. for instance, vulnerability in development discourse may refer to conditions of poverty, unemployment, inflation, weak governance structures and external debts. these may affect people differently. this further implies that vulnerability is the way and manner in which people exposed to risk factors tackle these risk factors, given their entire range of livelihood options (scoones, 1998). one of these livelihood options includes out-migration. in the context of this study, vulnerability meant poverty, conflicts, environmental factors and decline in agricultural activities. these factors influenced migrant traders to leave their communities of origin for their destination in accra. however, these factors were not mutually exclusive. people in these vulnerable contexts resort to other means to escape such conditions; one of these means is migration. vulnerability could also be explained as a lack of entitlements to things like food, security, sustainable livelihoods and social structures, owing to institutional, political, technological and other constraints (sen, 1984). livelihood assets and capital the idea of assets is central to the sustainable livelihoods approach. this is because people’s abilities to convert these assets into positive livelihood outcomes demonstrates their resilience to risk and shocks (ellis, 2000). therefore, the sustainable livelihood framework identifies five types of assets or capital upon which livelihoods are built. these five sets of assets include: human, social, physical, financial and natural capital (ellis, 2000). these assets are the stock of endowments that people possess in order to make a living. in the context of this paper, capital or assets form part of migrants’ stock of assets that can aid them in their survival in their destinations area. for example, social capital refers to the connections migrants have with individuals, family members, friends, networks and other associations available to them in both destination and origin areas. financial capital means savings, credit and debt (formal and informal), remittances, pensions and wages owed by migrants, while human assets or capital refer to the accumulated skills and knowledge of migrants. the term ‘capital’ also includes migrants’ health, nutrition, north-south migration and problems of migrant traders in agbogbloshie education, capacity to work and capacity to adapt to the environment. the natural assets refer to land and, space, while physical assets imply the energy and physical worth of migrants. these assets are all very important building blocks for livelihood strategies and outcomes. they are described as the stocks of capital, used either directly or indirectly, to generate a means of survival or growth (carney & ashley, 1999; department for international development, 2000). migrants move from north to south with some form of assets (social, financial, physical, natural and human capital). these assets are the building blocks upon which migrants are able to undertake productive activities in their destination areas (ellis, 2000; carney, 2002). the natural assets include the spaces or land available to migrants in destination areas and the physical assets include all items that migrants acquired in their destination areas or brought with them from their origin communities, which aided their livelihood activities in the destination area. based on those assets, and shaped by the vulnerability context and the transforming structures and processes or institutional constraints, migrants are able to undertake a range of livelihood strategies and choices that ultimately influence their livelihood outcomes (department for international development, 2000). institutional constraints livelihood strategies and outcomes are not just dependent on access to capital and assets, or constrained by the vulnerability context; they are also influenced by the institutions that operate within the given environment. these institutions effectively influence access to the various types of capitals and to livelihood strategies (department for international development, 2000). contextually, as migrants find their way to the city centre in agbogbloshie in the south industrial area of accra, specifically to trade, institutional structures and processes act on them, which either improve or worsen the livelihood outcomes of these migrants. city authorities, with a host of by-laws to regulate market activities, constitute the institutional structures and processes with which migrant traders have to contend as they engage in their livelihood activities at agbogbloshie. razack jaha imoro 1081 livelihood strategies livelihood strategies comprise the range and combination of activities and choices that people make, or undertake, in order to achieve their livelihood goals. they relate to the individual’s available and implemented options for pursuing livelihood goals (department for international development, 2000). livelihood strategies for these migrants emerge as a result of institutional structures and processes instituted by those in authority. these could include compliance, lobbying and establishing relationships with institutions to enable them engage in their livelihood activities without coercion (department for international development, 2000). therefore, migrant traders adopt different strategies in order to overcome these institutional constraints, in order to make a living in the destination area. for instance, petty trading is a strategy adopted by migrants in order to survive or sustain themselves in destination areas. the constant moving around market places, soliciting for prospective customers, by migrant traders is another strategy to keep these institutional constraints in check for them. livelihood strategies are directly dependent on assets, status and policies, institutions and processes. the main aim of livelihood strategies is to achieve full or partial livelihood outcomes. livelihood outcomes potential livelihood outcomes can include more income, increased well-being, reduced vulnerability, improved food security and more sustainable usage of the natural resource base (carney, 2002). livelihood outcomes are the achievements or outputs of livelihood strategies, such as more income, increased well-being and reduced vulnerability (department for international development, 2000). therefore, the livelihood outcomes of these migrant traders depends on the extent to which they are able to survive in the midst of the institutional constraints, and how they are able to maximise their assets. generally speaking, if people have better access to assets, they have more ability to influence structures and processes, so that these become more responsive to their needs (carney, 2002). north-south migration and problems of migrant traders in agbogbloshie methodology study area agbogbloshie, an urban suburb predominantly occupied by migrant traders, is the study area. the area covers approximately four acres and is situated on the banks of the korle lagoon, northeast of the central business district of accra, ghana (accra metropolitan assembly, 2015). it is estimated that about 79,684 ghanaians inhabit the area (accra metropolitan assembly, 2015). the area is mostly known for its trading activities, scrap dealers and e-waste dumping ground (afenah, 2010). it is one of the busiest informal suburbs in accra (afenah, 2010). the structures of the market are mostly made of wood. the area has been categorised into three zones: zone one includes the nzema market and the dagonba lane; zone two is the konkomba yam market and zone three comprises the cargo station (accra metropolitan assembly, 2015). below is a map of the study area. figure 2: a map showing the study area (agbogbloshie). source: gis, department of geography and regional planning, university of cape coast, ghana (2017). razack jaha imoro 1083 target population, sample and sampling techniques the target population for this particular study of the south industrial area in accra (agbogbloshie) constituted migrant traders from the three regions north of the country who were 18 years and older. this distribution of people from the three regions of the north, in accra, confirms the presence of migrant traders (northern region, 93,677; upper east region, 40,809 and upper west region, 16,489) (ghana statistical service, 2012). these people are engaged in all kinds of activities for their livelihoods in accra, including trading. it is also estimated that about 79,684 ghanaians inhabit the agbogbloshie area (accra metropolitan assembly, 2015). from these figures, it can be deduced that some inhabitants in the area (agbogbloshie) are from the three regions of the north. this is further supported by the existence of names like the dagomba lane and the konkomba yam market as trading zones in the area. accessing the total population of northern traders in the area was difficult, since such data did not exist in the population census; and even though associations exist for traders of various goods, it was difficult to identify which traders were from northern ghana. therefore, migrant traders were identified through non-probability sampling techniques. these included snowball, convenient and purposive sampling techniques. first, a snowball sampling technique was employed, where one migrant trader helped the researcher to identify other migrant traders. second, convenient sampling was employed to identify migrant traders. in using this method the researcher with his research assistant were stationed at certain vantage points in the market and seized the opportunity to interview migrant traders. this was done by using a common language (hausa) and enquiring as to the origin of traders, if they were of northern origin, and whether or not they were prepared to answer questions. this research was carried out through a research assistant; a man who was fluent in the hausa language and thus was able to interview the respondents. this method was both easy and inexpensive, and it helped to reduce the time that was spent collecting data. furthermore, through such purposive sampling, other migrant traders were similarly identified. this was particularly the case for the in-depth interviews with key participants. using these sampling techniques, a total of 100 respondents were sampled and interviewed. north-south migration and problems of migrant traders in agbogbloshie methods the paper adopted a mixed methods approach to data collection. both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. the use of mixed methods offered the opportunity to address all issues in the research without bias and to make up for the inherent weaknesses that one method may have had over the other. the two methods of data collection used were structured and indepth interviews. structured interviews were administered on a face-to-face basis using an interview schedule. the use of this method for data collection allowed for common language to be used; given that the literacy status of respondents was low. the common language employed was hausa since it is a common language spoken in the northern parts of ghana. therefore, the researcher, through the research assistant, conducted interviews that were recorded. this voice recording was later transcribed into english for analysis and interpretation. additionally, an in-depth interview technique was necessary to gain an in-depth knowledge about the problems of migrant traders at the south industrial area in accra. the in-depth interviews were targeted at six key participants who were purposefully selected and interviewed by means of this method. the quantitative data was analysed using the statistical product and service solutions (spss) version 21, where responses were entered and an analysis was generated. this included frequencies, percentages and a table. on the other hand, the qualitative data was analysed manually by transcribing recorded information and useful themes generated from the transcripts. these were used to support the quantitative data. direct quotations were also used to place emphasis where necessary. results and discussions introduction to help illuminate the subject matter of this paper, it is important to discuss migrants’ demographic variables of age, gender, marital status, religious affiliation and ethnic origin. this is followed by a discussion of the factors that influenced the migrants’ north-south migration. in addition, the nature of migrants’ livelihood activities or strategies is discussed in detail in this section. razack jaha imoro 1085 the section concludes with an explanation of the problems experienced by migrant traders. demographic characteristics of migrants migrant traders exhibited different characteristics in terms of age, gender, marital status, religious affiliation, ethnic origin, region of origin, number of years spent in the destination region and number of children or dependants. most of the migrant traders were youthful (18-27 years), with more than half of them being males (56%) and more than a quarter of them females (44%). 69% of them were between ages 18-27 years, with a 28-32year age group constituting 17% of the sample. the smallest age group among migrant traders consisted of those who were 40 years and above. they constituted 14% of the sample. additionally, more than half (59%) were married at the time of the research, with the rest either being single (17%), in consensual union (17%), widowed (4%) or divorced (3%). married migrants also confirmed that they had children, with the majority (76%) having 1-6 children and 7% of migrants having more than 7 children. in terms of the region of origin, it was observed that more than half (70%) of migrant traders were from the northern region, less than a quarter (23%) from the upper east region and only 7% from the upper west region. these migrants were primarily christians (54%) and muslims (43%), with 3% being traditionalist. migrants were dominated by three ethnic groups including the konkonbas (34%), dagombas (29%) and frafras (24%). other ethnic groups included gonjas (8%) and sisala (5%). their duration of stay was long enough, as three quarters of migrant traders had been in accra for 2-10 years. 17% had stayed longer than 10 years (11-15 years) and 3% had stayed in accra for just under a year. factors that influenced north-south migration migration from the north to the south of ghana could be due to several factors, however, with respect to this research. the key factors that induced migrant traders’ north-south migration included poverty, conflicts, unavailability of social amenities and the decline in agricultural productivity (table 2). north-south migration and problems of migrant traders in agbogbloshie table 2: factors influencing north-south migration factors frequency percentage poverty 78 36.8 conflicts 37 17.5 unavailability of social amenities 27 12.7 decline in agricultural productivity 20 9.4 pressure from family and friends 15 7.1 improvement in transportation 13 6.1 to live with family members 15 7.1 others 7 3.3 total 212 100 n=100; the total number of responses were more than the total number of respondents, due to multiple responses. source: (fieldwork, 2015). from the livelihood framework perspective, poverty put migrants in a vulnerability context. the three regions to the north of ghana over the past decades have been recognised as some of the poorest regions in the country (ghana statistical service, 2012; participatory poverty and vulnerability assessment ghana, 2011). poverty is also an indicator of underdevelopment, and the three regions of the north of ghana lag behind other regions in terms of development (world development report, 2006; kuu-ire, 2009; van der geest, 2011). in the face of poverty, sluggish development and declining agricultural productivity, many families in northern ghana see migration as an investment to recoup some income in the form of remittances (van der geest, 2011; kwankye, 2012b). the situation in the north, with its particular environment, colonial policies and lack of economic opportunities, partly explains the poor state of the region (songsore, 2003; kuu-ire, 2009; anamzoya, 2010; obeng-odoom, 2012). additionally, important factors such razack jaha imoro 1087 as unemployment, poverty, the need to acquire life’s necessities, maritalrelated issues, the desire to invest, and protracted conflicts have been cited as reasons behind north-south migration streams in ghana (awumbila et al., 2011; participatory poverty and vulnerability assessment ghana, 2011). the state of poverty is further explained from a cursory look at the poverty statistics for 2012/2013 shown in table 3. table 3: incidence of poverty for the three regions in northern ghana region poverty incidence percentage of poverty northern 22.8 50.4 upper east 21.3 44.4 upper west 45.1 70.7 source: ghana statistical service, 2014. besides poverty, a factor that exposed migrants to vulnerability was conflict. the northern sector of the country plays host to a number of violent conflicts that bring in their wake insecurity and general destruction. according to kendie et al. (2014), 105 ethnic related conflicts can be identified in ghana and it is argued that most of these conflicts occurred in the three regions in the north of ghana. in a compilation of violent conflicts in ghana, about 30 related intraand inter-ethnic conflicts were recorded in the country; and the three regions of the north were involved in a total of 15 out of the 30 conflicts (mahama, 2003; m’bowura, 2014). these conflicts negate prospects of peace and security in the area and this forces people to migrate to areas where there is relative peace; hence the migrant traders’ presence in accra. some migrant traders explained how conflict had orchestrated their migration to accra. this was what a 33 year old male trader had to say about conflict: i left bimbila to accra because of the persistent conflicts in bimbila; conflicts stalls many activities from progressing and a continuous stay in bimbila with my family will hinder my children’s dream of furthering north-south migration and problems of migrant traders in agbogbloshie their education hence my presence here in agbogbloshie, accra (33 year old male trader). persistent conflicts in northern ghana have compelled many families to abandon their home regions and move to urban centers like accra, where there is relative peace and tranquillity. van der geest (2011) has acknowledged the crucial role of ethnic conflict in the out-migration phenomenon from the northern to the southern parts of ghana. but more importantly, conflict exposes these migrants to risks and stress. therefore, within that vulnerability context, the route to a livelihood is to migrate to accra. a 45 year old male trader noted: i was a student back in the northern region (yendi) when the dagomba and konkomba war occurred in 1994. in the process our house was burnt down and other properties destroyed. this made me to move from yendi to accra where i thought i could do some business save money and continue my education. but due to several reasons ii could not continue my education and am still in this yam trading business (45 year old male trader interviewed). conflicts push people into vulnerable situations and thus compel many to migrate to areas where there is safety. the migrants’ exposure to vulnerability was enormous, as unavailability of social amenities further exacerbated their plight, occasioning their migration to accra. this was not surprising because north-south migration is also spurred by factors such as inadequate infrastructure, unemployment and inadequate social services (yeboah, 2008; alenoma, 2013). a 22 year old male trader epitomises the situation in this narrative: lack of social amenities in the nanumba north district has made me to move from there to accra. there are no amenities like schools, hospitals and recreational facilities. i chose accra because of the availability of social amenities (22 year old male trader interviewed). furthermore, 20% of respondents also revealed that decline in agricultural productivity in their home regions had made them leave their home destinations for accra. declining agricultural productivity compelled many razack jaha imoro 1089 families in northern ghana to accept out-migration to southern ghana, as an alternative means of reducing risk and vulnerability (van der geest, 2011; kwankye, 2012b). other factors that pushed people from the north to the south included pressure from family and friends to migrate to ‘greener pastures’ (7.1% percent), to seek improvement in transportation networks (6.1%) and the presence of relatives in accra (7.1%). some people migrated to towns and urban areas because they followed their spouses and relatives, while others migrated because of the presence of their relatives and friends in destination areas (owuor, 2006). a 35 year old male trader remarked the following in relation to the presence of relatives in destination areas prompting an out-migration: you know in my culture we have strong belief in extended family. most of my family members have stayed in accra since 1999 and i migrated to accra because of my family relatives especially my uncle who takes care of me (35 year old male trader). in sum, the factors that influenced the migration of traders to accra, within the livelihood framework, can be described as the vulnerability context in which migrants found themselves. this is because these factors were considered external to migrants, hence their inability to control them. these imposed shocks and stresses on them. therefore, migrants within this context opted for out-migration to agbogbloshie as a way to escape these risks and stresses over which they had little or no control. nonetheless, in their migration, they carried with them their assets or capital which could enable them to engage in a livelihood strategy for survival. hence, the livelihood strategies of migrants explain the ability of migrants to put into use their livelihoods assets. livelihood strategies of migrants at agbogbloshie in the south industrial area of accra a cardinal objective of this paper was to provide a vivid description of the livelihood activities or strategies of migrant traders at agbogbloshie, accra, within the framework of the sustainable livelihood approach. migrants’ presence in agbogbloshie was occasioned by their ‘vulnerability context’ in northern ghana, which can be attributed to poverty, conflicts and decline in north-south migration and problems of migrant traders in agbogbloshie agricultural and environmental factors. such factors caused migrants’ outmigration to accra (timalsina, 2000; anamzoya, 2010; awumbila et al., 2011; imoro, 2011). it was, therefore, worthwhile to explore the livelihood activities or strategies of migrants, since these were people who did not have predetermined jobs in the destination area before their in-migration; and given their low level of skills, it was expected that livelihood activities would be diverse and cut across various spectrums of life survival mechanisms. livelihood strategies comprise of the range and combination of activities and choices that people undertake in order to achieve their livelihood goals. this means that livelihood activities of migrant traders in destination areas embody a range of activities in which migrants are engaged for their survival (carney, 1998; scoones, 2009). migrants making use of their livelihood assets, such as their physical, human and financial resources, were mostly engaged in trading of consumable and non-consumable goods, such as yams, tomatoes, grains and used products such as bicycles and motorbikes. physical and human assets were vigorously utilised by migrant traders, as they were generally found around main roads, paths, kiosks, open spaces, bars and shops competing for prospective customers for their products. revenue from these activities was the primary source of income for migrants in destination areas. admittedly, the nature of the work in which these migrant traders were engaged required physical strength. essentially, traders operated as hawkers, carrying goods such as yams on their shoulders and moving around the market space seeking prospective buyers. some hawked in between cars on pavements and on the main roads, attracting prospective buyers in that way. trading activities among migrants at agbogbloshie can be described as solely the preserve of the strong, since most of the trading activities require some degree of energy. migrants would normally ‘hustle’ from one job to the other; in most cases the jobs involved exerting much physical energy in order to earn as much as possible in a day (adaawen & owosu, 2013). razack jaha imoro 1091 problems of migrant traders at agbobgloshie in the south industrial area of accra as migrants hustled in their day-to-day activities, trading all kinds of consumable and non-consumables, they were bound to face problems. some of these problems included inadequate market stalls and theft of wares (25.3%), lack of credit to expand their businesses (24.4%), harassment by city authorities (10.6%), discrimination against migrants (5.6%) and exploitation by market leaders (3.6%). these problems within the broader context of a livelihood framework also constitute institutional constraints that migrants face. these constraints determine the success, or failure, of migrants’ livelihood outcomes in destination areas. the struggle of migrant traders to maintain and sustain a livelihood strategy at agbogbloshie included an attempt to navigate institutional constraints within the livelihood framework. credit to migrants in destination areas is crucial for the running of businesses and livelihoods in general. therefore, where migrants cannot get credit to stimulate the growth of their businesses, it creates problems for their survival and livelihood outcomes (barr, 2004; okojie et al., 2010; eboreime, 2008). lack of collateral and the inability of migrants to provide banks with guarantors, as well as improper locations and identifications, make it difficult for migrants to access credit from formal institutions such as banks (awumbila et al., 2014). this is what a 35 year old male trader had to say: my problem as a trader is money. the money i have now is not enough to buy more mobile phones and because of that i cannot bring every phone here and people are asking for phones. my money is not enough to go and bring a lot of phones. i manage the little i have. interest rates from the banks are high and i have ever been to a bank and they said i should bring collateral. i need capital to enable me expand my business and bring more mobile phones (35 year old male trader). inadequate market stalls and theft of wares (25.3%) were other nagging problems that migrants faced. theft was a common phenomenon reported by migrant traders. given the nature of the market area where shops do not have north-south migration and problems of migrant traders in agbogbloshie proper security, as well as the open nature of the market, one cannot guarantee security of personal belongings; hence stealing becomes the order of the day. the goods and wares of these migrants were often heavy and could not be conveyed back home to their places of abode after close of work. thus, they were compelled to keep wares in places that lacked proper security; hence the persistent stealing. a 35 year old male trader explained his problem: i have lived in agbogbloshie for five years. i trade in yams for a living; as a trader i have encountered several problems like accommodation, inadequate funds and other personal problems, but the most serious problem i have faced as a yam trader is frequent stealing of yams and i incur losses (35 year old male trader). this situation is further exacerbated by the inadequate number of stalls available for traders, including migrant traders. admittedly, the area is not a well-constructed market with stalls and sheds in which traders can feel comfortable to go about their daily businesses. it is an open market where traders have to grapple with open spaces, having no shelves or stores to arrange their wares. therefore, the few market stalls that are available are often rented out at exorbitant prices, which migrant traders are often unable to afford. hence, it becomes daily drudgery for traders, as some have to contend with bare floors on which to display their wares, including consumables, for prospective buyers. the situation is lamented by a 25 year old male trader as follows: a serious problem that i face as a migrant trader here in agbogbloshie is the cost of rent for my shop. it is just too much for me to pay! so the little profit i get from the sale of mobile phones is being used for rent. this money should have been used to expand the business. i think when i work hard i can overcome some of these problems (25 year old male trader). their daily market activities are also regularly hampered by the harassment of city authorities. harassment by city authorities took the form of chasing, seizure of wares and instant charges imposed by city guards on traders in the market. due to the unstructured nature of activities in the market, the only razack jaha imoro 1093 way city authorities raised revenue was through the collection of tolls from these traders, and since the market was in an open space, which makes it difficult to regulate the entry and exit of both traders and the general public, city guards who collected tolls for the city authorities harass traders without toll receipts. this created problems for traders, particularly where traders may not have been issued with receipts. the inhumane manner in which city guards harassed traders, including migrant traders, called for concern. it could sometimes take the form of physically heckling traders out of the market, or even hitting traders with batons; leading to the use of a popular term among traders – ‘abaayefo’ – meaning, the people with sticks or canes. in other cases, traders’ wares were seized or destroyed in order to punish traders for non-compliance. this generally created uneasiness and discomfort among traders and migrant traders alike. this is a common phenomenon in most open markets places within the african setting; city guards in a bid to enforce bylaws by city authorities, turn to harassment and sometimes exploit traders (asiedu & agyei-mensah, 2008). migrant traders’ problems were further compounded by the exploitation that they undergo at the hands of their market leaders. loose market associations exist and leaders of these associations take advantage of their positions to exploit traders, including migrant traders. apart from the tolls that migrant traders pay to city authorities, they also pay fees to market associations such the yam traders association and the tomatoes sellers association, among others. hence, unscrupulous market leaders take advantage of this and exploit traders by charging them more money; particularly where traders defaulted in their payments for some days. in addition, these market leaders seized some products from traders, including migrant traders. the worst of these conditions was lamented by this 45 year old male yam trader. when a truck of yam comes to the market before the trucks enters the inner perimeter of the market to discharge the tubers of yam, each truck is charged 10 ghs as entry fee; after the yams have been discharged, counted, and packaged for sale by traders, market leaders take 2 ghana cedi each and one tuber of yam from every one hundred and ten (110) north-south migration and problems of migrant traders in agbogbloshie tubers of yam bundled for sale and this is pure exploitation we quarrel with them but what do we do (45 year old yam trader). exploitation of migrants in destination areas can take several forms and the experiences of these migrants constitute one way that migrants are exploited in their destinations. stella (2012) identified labour exploitation, physical abuse and personal illness, among others, as problems that confronted migrants in their destination areas. beyond the exploitation that migrants experienced in the destination area, discrimination was also inherently present in the discourse of problems faced by migrant traders. migrant traders at agbogbloshie were usually discriminated against, sometimes by city guards and other times by their market leaders. city guards treated them differently from other traders and called them names, such as ‘pepeni’ or ‘tarni’, among others. these are names used to refer to people mostly from the northern part of ghana. market leaders also offered preferential treatment to other traders, as compared to migrant traders. this was done by exempting other traders from paying fees and enforcing fees on migrant traders. the myriad of problems with which migrant traders are confronted test their abilities to devise successful livelihood outcomes. this is because livelihood outcomes depend on the success, or otherwise, of livelihood strategies, and in this situation the livelihood strategies of migrants are constantly being hampered by nagging problems. the extent to which migrants can sustain a livelihood outcome therefore diminishes with the persistence of these problems. however, migrants traders showed resilience and knew that their livelihood depended on how they were able to confront these problems. it was indicated by 79% of the migrants that their primary source of livelihood was dependent on the sale of consumable and non-consumable goods, while admitting that they do extra jobs (moonlighting) to supplement their daily activities in the marketplace at agbogbloshie. conclusion and recommendations it can be established that north-south migration still persists, particularly among the youth, given that the majority of migrant traders were between the ages of 18 and 27. key drivers of the north-south migration included poverty, conflicts and unavailability of social amenities. more importantly, destination razack jaha imoro 1095 areas presented a complex mix of livelihood survival strategies and mechanisms for migrants; 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africa human development report 2012. towards a food secure future. united nations publications: new york. north-south migration and problems of migrant traders in agbogbloshie united nations, department of economic and social affairs, population division 2016. international migration report 2015: highlights (st/esa/ser.a/375). united nations conference on sustainable development (2012) van der geest, k. 2011. north-south migration in ghana: what role for the environment? oxford uk: blackwell publishing ltd. world development report. 2009. equity and development: world development report 2006 background papers. from <http://bit.ly/2oa9rzo> [retrieved 27 december, 2017]. yeboah, m.a. 2008. gender and livelihoods: mapping the economic strategies of porters in accra ghana. unpublished doctor of philosophy thesis. west virginia university. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1285 reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions endale s. mekonnen  abstract much has been said on migration in current scholarly discourses within and multi-disciplinary debates. but no sufficient input has been generated towards the discourse from a religious perspective, albeit extremely needed insofar as people migrate with their religion. this inquiry examines the interplay between reciprocity and migration from a religious perspective using primary and secondary source analysis. it also suggests that cultivating religions’ cultural ideology of positive, responsible and balanced reciprocity in a societal relationship based on mutual benefits mediates a healthy co-existence between the native and the migrants despite their invariably differing and competing religions. such reciprocity could be spawned through the sacred texts of religions that espouse either general or positive balanced reciprocity. in the course of the analysis, the work brings the golden rule into focus as the best candidate for a test case. keywords: migration, reciprocity, ideology, and interface between religions. introduction without demur, international migration is a rapid and a non-stop growing phenomenon in our modern world according to international migration report 2015. the number of migrants reached 244 million in 2015 which was 222 million in 2010 and 173 million in 2000 (united nations 2016). of which 74 million live in europe, 75 million in asia, 54 million in north america, 21 million in africa, 9 million in the caribbean and 8 oceania. the majority of migrants worldwide originate from the middle income group and it has increased from 2000-2015 and reached 150 million in 2015. regarding country of origin, 104 million were born in asia, 62 million in europe, 37 million in caribbean and 34 million in africa (united nations 2016:1). the reason for such influx of migrants is ascribed to the interconnection of the world through diverse modern technology which has made all communication and transportation very easy.  research associate, stellenbosch university. email: esebsebe@yahoo.com mailto:esebsebe@yahoo.com reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1286 migration, however, entails its own pros and cons. countries of destination gain economic and knowledge benefits such as labour, an increase in taxes, entrepreneur and scientific inventions are some among the many contributions of the migrants. likewise, the sending country is receiving its own economic share through remittance. nonetheless, migrants are the most susceptible of the society to violence, abuse and loss of job. similarly, receiving countries might as well suffer from violence and terrorism as recently documented heinous and barbarous terrorist incidents in western countries. migration is a normal human phenomenon, and it is not confined only to economic needs, although most of the migrants were pushed out of their countries due to poverty, desire for a better life, conflict and war. particularly migrants not only come with their interest to sustain a better life, but also with their native values, cultures, religions and worldviews. such make things harder for peaceful co-existence between the native and the migrants. nevertheless, keeping the positive reciprocal benefits or advantages and curbing the disadvantages for both the native and the migrants demands an inclusive approach to the problem. such enterprise to the problem has already been underway for a while. consequently, several research projects on migration have been carried out in different disciplines via theories and methods fitting to address specific queries. it is also the interest of the present work to address “what contributes to building a peaceful co-existence between the natives of destination countries and migrants coming from varied religions and nations?” our method of inquiry would be analysing selected relevant texts from primary and secondary sources. the study, basing its assumption on golden rule, will argue that the ideology of responsible and balanced reciprocity is fundamentally important in constructing migration policy, positive social interaction, and peaceful coexistence at the secular as well as the religious level. accordingly, multidimensional approach to the problem of migration, differing views on the golden rule, the golden rule as a reciprocal ideology, and reciprocity and migration in the interface between religions will be discussed respectively. multidimensional approach migration theories are in the making. no single coherent international migration theory has ever been developed to date. contemporary endeavours to address current issues of migration from different disciplines evince that it reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1287 demands a multidimensional approach and state of research questions. each discipline undertakes a specific question and hypothesis. brettell & hollifield (2015:4) have listed eight disciplines’ questions; namely: anthropologists’ question, “how does migration effect cultural change and affect cultural identity?” demographers investigate, “to what extent do immigrant and native populations become more similar over time? it is an attempt to understand assimilation. economists inquire, “what explains the propensity to migrate and its effect? it is an inquiry into maximizing utility. geographers seek to understand “what explains the sociospatial patterns of migration? it is about incorporation, network and location. historians investigate “how a phenomenon has (e.g. causes, structures, processes, consequences of migration) or a relationship (e.g. gender and migration) changed or persisted over time? it is concerned about period. lawyers attempt to answer the question: “how does the law influence migration?” it is a concern for human right. political scientists ferret out the reasons “why do states have difficulty controlling migration? it is concerned about controlling migration. sociologist attempts to respond to the question “what explains incorporation and exclusion?” it investigates the issue of integration. although anthropologist and sociologist respond to the social and cultural dimension of migration, they do not look at it from a religious perspective. recently, a right-based approach to migration from a moral perspective related to development is espoused (dinbabo & carciotto 2015). such a valuable attempt with a focus on the leadership level and international law and policymaking needs a complementing theoretical base to achieve a full-fledged and comprehensive approach to address issues at the grassroots level not least the peaceful co-existence of migrants with the natives of the receiving country. it can be argued that crafting a religious theoretical and conceptual model is mandatory in order to respond to the question what contributes to the peaceful co-existence of the natives of the receiving country and migrants coming from varied religions and nations. the attempt in the present work is not to craft one, but to test a possible working concept that might contribute to the process, namely: general and balanced reciprocity in the formulation of the golden rule. the golden rule: differing perspectives what is the golden rule? according to the oxford dictionary of philosophy, the golden rule is defined as: reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1288 any form of the dictum: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. in some form this is found in almost all religions and ethical system. [blackburn, simon. "golden rule."] examples of such formulations are “treat others how you wish to be treated” or “do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you"(wattles 1996:56) or “whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them…” (matt 7:12). however, its meaning, application and usefulness are debated. for our present concern, the golden rule, albeit diverse in formulation, is understood as a positive and responsible reciprocal societal relationship. notwithstanding its popularity, the golden rule has been criticised by different fields of scholars. based on jeffrey wattles’ (1996:5–7 and 77–86) discussion of criticism against the golden rule, the objections can be subsumed under five reasons. one of the major objections is that it is too general to be a moral guide in the day-to-day relationship and embarrassing at the philosophical discourse and seriousness. objection exemplified "what if a sadomasochist goes forth to treat others as he wants to be treated?" second, it is based on the assumption that human beings are the same and does not do justice to the difference. in other words, the rule assumes that what we want is what others want. there is no differentiation of desire. third, it implies that what is good for ourselves is also good for everyone. if this is the case, the rule only applies to those who have similar beliefs and similar needs. four, the rule makes ordinary wants and desires as the criterion of morality, therefore it is too low a standard. for instance, a judge would not be in a position to sentence a criminal if the principle of the golden rule is enacted in the court. fifth, the rule also criticised in its artificial and abstractedness. six, it is connected to religion, but moral intuition and moral reason can operate without reference to any religious foundation. despite such serious criticism, the golden rule enjoyed a significant attention among scholars and practitioners to address a universal moral principle. some even claimed that it is sufficient for ethics and all duties may be inferred from it. others insisted that it is a necessary criterion for right action or an evaluative tool that tests actions (wattles 1996:5). for instance, its importance is well stated by marcus g. singer’s comment. it reads: the golden rule has been widely accepted, in word if not in deed, by vast numbers of greatly differing peoples; it is a basic device of moral education; and it can be found at the core of innumerable moral, religious, and social codes… the nearly universal acceptance of the reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1289 golden rule and its promulgation by persons of considerable intelligence, though otherwise of divergent outlooks, would …seem to provide some evidence for the claim that it is a fundamental ethical truth.” (marcus sing, 1967:365-367). deciding its meaning is also another baffling issue for scholars to ascribe to it a universal moral principle. wattle, however, argued that albeit meaning involves context, it does not negate commonality insofar as conceptual similarity could be experienced beyond cultural boundaries (wattles 1996:4). for wattle, concepts are cross-cultural and unbounded. yet, since the golden rule requires identification of the agent with the other its exercise needs a thoughtful practitioner. in the context of religious discourse, however, the context of golden rule is paramount before seeking harmony at the conceptual level. in the ensuing discussion, we will focus on three areas where the concept and text of the golden rule as reciprocal relationship have been discussed, namely: greco-roman world, matt 7:12 and hadith 13. studying greco-roman concept of reciprocity would serve as a conceptual and ideological framework for the discussion of mat 7:12 and hadith 13. the golden rule as reciprocity: ideology ideology, in the present work, is concerned with “conscious or unconscious enactment of presuppositions, dispositions, and values held in common with other people” (robbins 1996:98). it is “an integrated system of beliefs, assumptions, and values” reflecting “the needs and interest of a group or a class at a particular time in history” (davis 1975:14). our interest in this section is primarily limited to examining reciprocity as an ideology in grecoroman world with a brief comparison of modern concept of ideology in light of migration and reciprocity. greco-roman world studying greco-roman world’s reciprocal relationship would be an unrealistic ambition in such a brief undertaking; therefore, only selected sources related to the golden rule as reciprocity would be treated. but at the outset a semantic problem precludes us from directly delving into the discussion of the text. for one, none of the single greek or latin words we can use to express the contemporary concept of reciprocity can express univocally the english term “reciprocity.” secondly, the earliest closest words of greek and latin are used to convey economic exchange not ethical sense (berchman 2008:40). however, at the later stage, ethical sense of reciprocity began to appear in the reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1290 latin for instance cicero used amicitia (equal return in friendship). thirdly, there is no direct statement of the golden rule in archaic, classic and grecoroman sources. nevertheless, in nicomachean ethics (ne, 1166a1-b29) aristotle introduces the concept of reciprocity in its ethical sense by defining friend as another self (probably “another heracles.” cf. aristotle, eudemian ethics (ee, 1245a30). it should be noted that in ancient greece the golden rule/reciprocal ethics/ could not be found in its salient form instead doing good to friends and harming enemy was prevalent due to frequent war and clashes between cities and among individual. in such environment, doing good to friends and harming enemies was a tool for protecting oneself from danger. particularly, isocrates advocates the notion of helping friends and harming enemies in order to unite and stand against city enemies (wattles 1996:29). although homer, socrates and plato had discussed reciprocity, our discussion would focus on aristotle and others who came after him. but aristotle’s concept of ethics as a reciprocal obligation to the other is inherited from earlier sources such as homer, socrates, and plato who claimed that reciprocity entails moral, social as well as political obligation (berchman 2008:41). bercham adumbrates three natures of reciprocal obligation as an essential feature of the golden rule: (1) aims at the ethical and social, (2) independent in desire, aim, without partiality (preference of individuals), and (3) autonomous desire and feeling of the agent. reciprocity is about specific virtues and rationally taken actions considered to be good and admirable to benefit others not necessarily benefiting the agent. for aristotle, the beloved one or a friend is another self (ne 1166a1-b29; ee 1245a). the connection between aristotle loving another self and the golden rule is that in both an attitude one has for himself is reciprocally given to the other. aristotle argues that a human being is a social being and by nature designed to share his life (ne 9.9.1169b18-19). something is missing in the good of man if all the concern is self-interested (ne 1097a28-b21; aristotle, politics). this social nature of the human being is the basis of justice, which is good in itself (ne 1129b11-1130a5). justice embraces all the virtues, because it is practically towards the other. virtues people value the good of others for the sake of other people, in doing so, they seek virtuous action for their own sake. for aristotle, there are three kinds of relationship: character friendship (based on virtue/ goodness), friendship grounded in pleasure, and friendship grounded in utility (advantage) (ne 8.2.1155b17-8.3.1156b32; ee 7.1.1234b29-7.2.1237a36). reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1291 the latter two kinds of relationship are based on self-advancement, but the first one is concerned for the other just because of herself/himself and for her/his own sake. one has to love oneself before loving the self in another (politics 1106b36-1107a2; 1105b25-28). he argues that for the good of oneself requires concern for the good of another. but such relationship does not exist in the absence of reciprocation (ne 8.2.1155b17-1156a5). although aristotle does not speak of returning evil for harm, he argues restoring proper proportion of property wrongly taken or unjust distribution. and punishment should be administered because not one is an enemy, but because of violating proper action (wattles 1996:37). imperial rome’s social and political relationship is also an essentially reciprocal relationship. studying the relevant literatures of the time, saller (1982:37) argued that reciprocal relationship “permeated the roman society and there appears to be little justification for the hypothesis that the language can be dismissed as a “jargon of bureaucrats.” in the roman republic, reciprocity was enforced by the law and religious mores (saller 1982:5). whether such relationship was changed during the imperial rome is debated. scholars such as blok (blok 1969) argued for its discontinuity particularly because the increase of bureaucracy eliminated the exercise of patronage. however, a number of scholars have convincingly argued for its continuity. for example, badian (1958), gelzer (1968), wallace-hadrill (1989), saller (1982) and kalinowski (1996) insisted that patronage /reciprocal relationship was not just a central cultural experience and a vital conscious roman ideology but it continued until the late antiquity of the roman empire (wallace-hadrill 1989:65). granting such relationship in the imperial rome would raise the question of whether it was ideological (in the sense of an integrated system of beliefs, assumptions, and values) or political (in the sense of power, status, system of cohesion). a detailed discussion of the issue is beyond the purview of this work, but for our purpose, suffices it to discuss representative texts focusing on cicero, dionysius and seneca. according to dionysius of halicarnassus (4nt.rom. 1.4.2), rome dominated the world because of its institutions, established by romulus, of which patronage was par excellence. borrowing from stoic’s universal friendship, cicero also contended that the key to maintain civilization is mutual support among humans (cicerode officiis 1.7.22). reciprocity is epitomized by nature as giving to and receiving (skills, labour, and talent) from one another to unite the human society closer. reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1292 likewise, seneca maintains the same stance, arguing that the benefits are the chief means of bonding human society (seneca. de beneficiis 1-4.2). such instances adduce the fact that reciprocal social relationship is of ideological in imperial rome, i.e., it is concerned with moral duty, honour and identity than material things. cicero, for instance, views that the goal of generosity is to earn goodwill in return through gifts of service rather than money (cicero. de officiis 1.15.4748). seneca unequivocally expressed the same view writing, “a benefit cannot possibly be touched by the hand; its province is the mind... and so it is neither gold nor silver or any of the gifts which are held to be most valuable that constitutes a benefit, but merely the goodwill of him who bestows it (seneca de beneficiis. 1.5.2). for seneca, therefore, bestowing benefit is not so much about reaping a return as it is public display of virtue. however, he contends that the receiver of the benefit is obligated to return gratitude in the form of publishing the virtue of the benefactor everywhere (senecade beneficiis, 2.22.1). however, reciprocity entails material and political benefits. cicero is unequivocal in stating the relationship of reciprocity on political arena such as providing games, banquet and doles to groups would place an obligation upon the receiver groups to vote for the benefactor to civic office, although he defended that men of true talent like himself did not need to spend money for such purpose (cicero. de officiis 2.16.57-2.17, 58.). material benefit surrenders the receivers’ heart to the benefactor’s service (cicero. de officiis, 2.6.21) such as political loyalty (seneca. de beneficiis. 6.9. 1-2). seneca and dionysius (seneca, de beneficiis, 1.4.3 dionysius of halicarnassus ant. rom. 2.10.4) also attest competition among the patrons for winning client for political purpose. in post-augustinian proses, the terms patrons and client are infrequently used as they connote inferiority and degradation (saller 1982:9). unlike the patron and client, amnesty does not convey the concept of differential social status because amicus is an ambiguous concept that can accommodate a social relationship between equal and unequal. the relationship, particularly amicitia/friendship/ is based on virtues. according to seneca, amicus based on utility is temporal and falls in the time of hardship (ep. ad luc. 9.8 f.; 48.2-4; pliny, ep. 9.30.1). however, such a philosophical idea speaks of an ideal relationship that is based on common interest and selfless services. but in practical terms, amicitia carries a reciprocal relationship, particularly of reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1293 officium (saller 1982:15). saller understands officium in terms of “favour” but it can also be understood in the sense of utility as satisfaction from good and services in its current economic sense. cicero exhorts patrons “to become good calculators of duty, able by adding and subtracting to strike a balance correctly and find out just how much is due to each individual” (de off. 1.59 and also 1.47). such notion of calculating benefits has an economic sense, although one embraces the caveat of saller not to read it in an absolute literal sense. in fact, it is hard to calculate satisfaction, but in order that the reciprocal relationship to be maintained both parties must get satisfaction for the service they rendered. however, such calculation leaves the reciprocal benefits ambiguous in the sense that both parties feel under obligation to satisfy the other despite the imbalance return one gets from the other (saller 1982:17). whether the relationship is a binding moral obligation or not, it is based on benefit or utility from the relationship. reciprocity, therefore, is a foundational element in their societal relationship in the form of obligation or rules, although it was not exercised in a simple one to one exchange (saller 1982:15). the language of exchange permeated in major aspect of the social life to conceptualize the relationship of man to god, family and friendship (pliny, n.h. 12.1; quint., decl. 268; seneca, ep. ad luc. 8.3). particularly, reciprocal ideology was exercised between migrants and the natives. for instance, citizenship can be gained because of reciprocal obligation as in the case of pliny, who requested trajan to grant citizenship to his friend, arpocras, an egyptian migrant, who attended him while he was sick (ep.10.5). arpocras attainment of citizenship is not because of fulfilling some kind of legal requirements, but because of the service, he rendered to pliny. at the time, migrants flowed from different countries and occupations to the city of rome. for example, from asia minor slaves, professional and traders of various kind, from syria war-captives who were players of harp, and flute, actors, jester from the mimes, jugglers, differing law-class performer; and from egypt philosophers, astrologers, experts in divination, soothsayers, physicians, teachers, artists, actors, priest of isis, merchants, occults, mathematician and physicians (piana 1927:193). noy, based on seneca’s categories of motivation of migrants into rome, discusses four motivations: education, government and politics, and provision of good and services, family and religion (noy 2000:90–127). however, rome values morality, food security, peace and political stability. any foreign religious group or individual reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1294 philosopher must comply with the imperial values for reciprocal benefit and if such values are threatened expulsion would be the ultimate measure. hence, the attitude towards the migrants differs: positive, neutral, and negative (noy 2000:31–34). cicero and seneca, who were themselves migrants, expressed a neutral position i.e. migration is neither bad nor good. juvenal and lucan (who was also an immigrant from spain) hold a negative attitude to immigrants. the accusation against the migrants was that they brought corruptions, vices and ill practices with them, which lowered the standard of the roman life by infiltrating all activities and offices and classes and in the end the state would be taken over by such people who were one's slaves. in fact, after a few years the next generation of slaves and freedmen began to play a major role in the court of the emperor and in the government being given the right to vote. the despise came because the foreigners did not comply with the traditions of the roman "mores maiorum." their lack of ‘gravitas' as the obvious mark of congenital inferiority and the 'decorum' of the lofty roman race (piana 1927:228–230). however, noy (2000:37–45) argues that despite such negative attitude there were not that many expulsions from imperial rome except the very few that happened due to ideologically suspect group, immorality and scarcity of food. the expulsion related to religion is limited to certain religious categories such as astrologers, jews, worshipers of asian gods sabazus, and christians. expulsion took place because of allegedly immoral relationship with the elite, breach of security and political involvement. therefore, migrants in rome allowed to stay as long as they reciprocate by sharing and holding the values of rome. hence, one can safely conclude that reciprocal relationship in early imperial rome had both ideological and political nature that governs both the native and the migrants. such social and political interaction reciprocates the benefits. while the receiver enjoys favour, protection, and material benefits, the giver benefits increase status, goodwill of the receiver, acknowledge of public gratitude, loyalty, attracting the attention of the emperor, lasting memory in the society (kalinowski 1996:33–35). migrants serve as labour resource, entrepreneur, increase revenue and social capital while they benefit from the roman’s treasure such as education, peace, wealth and status. therefore, such an exchange involves both material and non-material benefit between unequal social status as well as equal status. it is a relationship based on utility/being useful/ within society. reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1295 but the problem of imprecision of the term “reciprocity” must be sorted out, not least because the ethical sense of the word is associated with friendship, at other with neighbourliness, and sometimes with imperial trade relationship. furthermore, geoffrey maccormack (as cited in kirk 2003:674) rightly signalled that generalized application of the term “reciprocity” obscures the differences. as a solution to the conundrum, marshal sahlins (1965:147) in his study of primitive exchange offers three genres of reciprocity: general, balanced and negative. general reciprocity is putatively altruistic and an intimate relationship, open-ended, generous sharing and obligation in the form of gratitude. it is not time bounded. but the material flow is maintained through social relationship. such reciprocity is found within a patron client relationship (unequal relationship). balanced reciprocity is an equivalent exchange (model of market exchange) with a defined obligation with a set of time, hence it is a distance relationship where self-interest and material concern take priority. social relationship is maintained through material flow. negative reciprocity is maximizing one’s benefit at the expense of the other. its most extreme mode is exploitation and retaliation (kirk 2003). such scheme of reciprocity offers theoretical and conceptual framework for understanding the interface between the native’s and migrant’s religion in a given country. but before moving to examining religious texts, it is necessary to examine whether there is connection between ideology and migration not least in our modern world. ideology and migration tuen a. van dijk (2000:93) employs a multidisciplinary approach analysis of ideology and defines ideology as “fairly general and abstract mental representations which govern the shared mental representations (knowledge and attitudes) of social groups.” van dijk lists thirteen criterion of ideology and contends that although ideology is belief systems, it is not any socially shared belief system because it must be found at the basic level. it is formed by the basic proposition of cultural values that represent what is bad and what is good. ideology controls perception (as a mental model), interaction and intragroup actions. it polarizes groups in terms of us and them. it presupposes competition, conflict, struggle, or differences of opinion and knowledge between groups (van dijk 2000:94–95). ideology, therefore, has direct bearings on the interplay between the natives and the migrants as a social group, especially at the leadership level. in our modern world, it plays important roles in creating migration policies. for reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1296 instance, in 1975, sweden constructed a migration policy based on multicultural ideology. the policy was based on three values: equality, freedom of choice and partnership (akesson 2011:218). although practically such policy did produce unsatisfactory result, the same ideology was used to create the 1997 integration policy which involves everyone in sweden for the success of integration. accordingly, multicultural ideology in integrating migrants was promoted among the citizen and therefore it assumed a prominent place at official debate as well as at the grass-root level (akesson 2011:220). van dijk presents two deferring positons in british parliament discourse held on march 5, 1997, as an example of how ideology controls discourses on the crafting of policies of asylum seekers. his analysis of the discourse evinces that those who rejected granting asylum-to-asylum seekers (from outside of europe) is based on a negative mental model that pictures asylum seekers as bogus and criminals therefore they cause problem and difficulties costing lots of money which could be spent on british elderly citizens. on the other hand, an opposing view in the same parliamentary discourse propagated a positive perspective based on humanitarian ideology. in such representation the plights of the migrant and the value of democracy, international law, and solidarity with the oppressed were highlighted (van dijk 2000:101–113). obviously, the conversation did not confine within the parliamentary discourse. it would disseminate through different media shaping the mode of populace at the grass-root level which would influence the manner of coexistence between the natives and the migrants. the above examples might indicate that ideology not only influences how and what kind of decision should be made and policies should be crafted but also its ramification affects the social relationship between migrants of different kinds and the natives within a given country. either it promotes conflict, polarization (us and them), and antagonism or it promotes shared value and peaceful coexistence among the migrants and the natives. religious ideologies are not different in their contribution towards the relationship between the migrants and the natives insofar as they are important aspect of cultural values of a society. religions exist as organized institutions to maintain and disseminate their values (in the form of ideology) with an engraved (either negative or positive attitude) model of the other. reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1297 therefore, the underlining question with regard to migration (as epitomized by the above examples) would be “what does the receiving country benefit from migrants?” the answer to this question constructs either a negative or a positive ideological stance. but ultimately, since migration is unavoidable phenomenon, the favourable underpinning ideology would be negotiation i.e. reciprocity. migrants are both threat and at the same time potential resource of various kind to the receiving country and are objects of exercising democratic values such as international human right. similarly, for the migrants the destination country is uncertainty, bewilderment, loneliness, misunderstanding, cultural shock and fear, but hope for safety, employment, and a better life. an intersection between the needs of the migrants and the natives can only be achieved through an ideology that promotes a responsible reciprocity of benefits that either of the parties offer. if this conceptual frame is granted, in the ensuing sections, i will examine two texts: one from the new testament (nt) and the other from the hadith in light of the ideology of reciprocity with respect to migration in order to examine reciprocity from a religious perspective. the texts represent the two largest world religions which affinity might be demonstrated. nt (matt 7:12) and bukahri book 1-volume 2: hadith 12 mathew 7:12 and hadith 12 are normally taken as the golden rule in the traditions of both religions. therefore, our discussion is limited to the concept of reciprocity and migration. first, matt 7:12 will be analysed within the context migration and then hadith 12. matt 7:12 the gospel was preached and practiced in the world of roman empire and, as it went away from jerusalem, it became a migrant religion. such imperial milieu ought to be taken into consideration while reading the gospels. matthew in particular introduces his gospel with a number of characters who had been migrants, albeit his intention is christological. abraham, isaac, jacob, and ruth were migrants in the genealogy (matt 1:1-6). this connects jesus as a descendent of strangers (campese 2012:22). especially, the story of jesus family and the infant jesus are the salient examples of forced migrants or refugees in egypt to save their lives (matt 2:13-23). god is involved as the initiator as well as guider of the migration. in fact, the story evokes israel’s migration to egypt (matt. 2:15). reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1298 evoking the story of israel in matthew 2:15 reminds the story of liberation from slavery in a foreign country and the awful life of migration. as a result of their experience in a foreign country, god reminds them to treat strangers or migrants as a neighbour not as an enemy who came to compete resources with them (lev. 18:10; deut 26:1, 12-13)(garcia 2007:5). the story of matthew begins with listing the linage of jesus and his migration to egypt with his family and ends with jesus commanding his disciples to go to the whole world (matt 28:16-20). in light of such a broader context, the discussion of matt 7:12, which is normally called the golden rule in the synoptic gospel, is limited to searching the reciprocal nature of the text with a special reference to migration or stranger. therefore, it would neither be a detail exegesis nor source and redaction criticism. the text reads: “so whatever you wish that men would do to you, do to them; for this is the law and the prophet” (matt 7:12) and in luke 6:31 it reads “and as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.” the sayings are placed in a different context: while matthew places it within the larger context of the sermon on the mount and a closer context of prayer, luke inserted it within the context of teaching of love. matthew’s context is intriguing because jesus used human father son relationship in order to describe disciples -god relationship in prayer. the father is a giver, while the son is the receiver, such context of receiving good from the father for matthew is an appropriate place to compose the golden rule. in such context, the golden rule would be the law and the prophet. perfect human relationship, however, is modelled after god’s relationship with human beings loving enemies. love among the same group (5:46) and love among same family (5:47) are not the standard, but god-like love makes one true son of god. father-son relationship is an implicit reciprocal relationship as the son is the receiver and returns with honour and obedience (mat.7:21-23) which could be categorized as a general reciprocity. for jesus, a balanced reciprocal relationship is not the standard: “if you love those who love you” or “if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others?” and he also dismissed negative reciprocal relationship such as retaliation (mat 5:38-39). the concept of general reciprocity immediately follows jesus’ love teaching in mt 6:1-2. but jesus rejects the act of piety intended return in the form of honour from the community of faith. piety is understood in terms of father-son relationship. the father rewards his reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1299 children because of doing good to someone else. such is the general reciprocal relationship between the disciples and god. although the golden rule is an expression of the law and the prophets, its formulation in the positive, instead of prohibiting from doing evil, demands proactively doing good. the good is assumed from the context because the context of prayer is to receive good things from the father. but the return is not clearly stated as it does not say “whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them so that you may gain a positive return.” but the absence of a lucid reciprocal goal does not mean that jesus is not teaching a reciprocal relationship. the command “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (mt. 6:44) in itself is a reciprocal language not least because it is a response of the disciples to persecution and hatred coming from other fellow persons. the reciprocal is materially different from what they are receiving from their persecutors i.e. reciprocal of dispensing positive benefit for a negative benefit as an imitation of god’s model. such reciprocity agrees with sahlin’s (1965:147) general reciprocity that states “failure to reciprocate does not cause the giver of the stuff to stop giving: the good move one way… for a long time.” such reciprocity differs from “principle of reciprocity and equivalence” which is important to justice (kirk 2003:669). the golden rule in light of general reciprocity unpacks the reciprocal nature of jesus’s golden rule “whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.” the disciples do not want to be persecuted or treated badly by their fellow persons (the first sentence). therefore, they should not repeat the wrong act of their persecutors instead they should do good to their persecutors (the second sentence) the good things they wish their persecutors could have done to them, however no explicit expectation of return is stated in jesus’s golden rule. whether the principle of reciprocity applies to god’s generosity towards the evil ones is debated because god gives disinterestedly. however, kirk (2003:638) argues that applying the cultural ideology of greco-roman reciprocity for the purpose of initiating gratitude and creating social bond applies to god as a supreme benefactor of human beings. for instance, in seneca the benefactor likens his action of generosity to the benevolence of gods in nature (ben. 1.1.9-13; 4.25.2). using the divine paradigm, ingratitude on the side of the receiver does not deter patrons from being generous. but seneca criticises those who fail to reciprocate to the benefactors (ben. 1.1.313). although god’s generosity is freely bestowed in matthew, the response to reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1300 his will is desired and encouraged. in fact, disobedience will result in rejecting from entering into his kingdom. “whatever you wish that men would do to you, do to them; for this is the law and the prophet” (matt 7:12) addresses a plural subject “you” referring to the jesus followers as a community who might be expecting persecution from unspecified outsiders to proactively and positively reciprocate in the situation. such injunction, although distinct in its formulation, attitude, and context, fairly fits into its cultural ideology of reciprocity in societal relationships of the imperial world of rome. but the reciprocity here is a general reciprocity expecting return from god as a father, if not from the social relations. such reciprocity of doing good without considering either the disposition or action of a person but on the bases of self as a standard for a positive action toward the other demands a mental representation of the other as another “i” (ne 1166a1-b29; ee 1245a). one’s own self is reciprocally given to the other. it is identifying oneself with the other. reciprocity in such sense is vicarious. it is considering the other neither as an enemy nor a threat but as a replica of oneself who has a similar need. even enemies should be treated not with retaliation but with actions that revers the chain of evil. such ideology of reciprocity of self creates a new paradigm of treating strangers in the gospel of matthew. jesus heals the daughter of the strangera canaanite woman and praised her faith (matt 15:22). for example, according to matthew 25:35-46, jesus identifies himself with the other: the poor, the stranger, the sick and the prisoners. the stranger /ξένος/ is a migrant who is a replica of oneself and should be treated as another self. matthew’s vicarious reciprocal ideology perceive migrants as fully human and neighbour who should be welcomed and treated as oneself or equal. the disciples of jesus were sent to take the gospel to the whole nation and make them disciples of jesus (matt 28:18-20) and jesus promised them to be with them. in so doing, jesus created a mental model of humanity as one community to be disciple in his teaching. such assignment requires a life of migrant or going out beyond the boundary of ones own nation and embracing the other as a neighbour and equal. the resurrected jesus also now crosses the boarder of the nation of israel once again to create a community of different nations. in such context, the golden rule as reciprocity functions as means of building social bonding between the migrant with a new religion and the native as a potential disciple. above all, the golden rule communicate an ideological of a responsible vicarious reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1301 reciprocity with a high valuation of the other which obligates to treat the migrant as another self. bukhari book 1-volum 2: hadith 121 islam came as religion in the six and seven century c.e in arabia. pre-islamic state, hospitality and generosity was highly regarded as an important value of the community. but the golden rule did not exist because in those days protecting tribe was one of the prominent things to do through retaliation and vengeance (homerin 2008:99). the motto was "in evil is salvation when goodness cannot save you." revenge protected the clan. although after the coming of prophet mohammed a new ideology of religious worldview was introduced, the lex talioni was still practiced for redressing murder and physical injuries inflicted upon a victim (q. 2.178; 4.92). however, the contexts of these texts show a concern for the believing community and exclude the unbeliever. quran emphasizes on individual responsibility for whatever deeds, bad or good, one does on earth will be judged on the day of judgment (q. 2.261-62; 273-74; q. 83.1-6). on that day, people will come forward separately to be shown their deeds, and, so, whoever did an atom’s weight of good will see it, and he who did anatom’s weight of evil will see it (q. 99.6-7). the concept of positive and negative reciprocity is reflected on divine-man relationship. correct doctrine and correct deeds bring a positive reward or reciprocal benefit from the divine. but the quran does not have an explicit golden rule statement as the gospels have it. some argue that qur’a¯n 83.1-6 is an implicit golden rule but a closer expression is found in hadith, which is second only to the quran. a most often cited hadith for golden rule reads: none of you believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself (bukhari book 1-volume 2: hadith 12) the religion of islam differentiates a muslim (one who submits to allah) from a believer (mu’min). the former refers to someone who profess to be a believer whereas the latter refers to one who believes in god and his revelation deep in the heart (homerin 2008:103). the text quoted above, therefore, might be 1 all the texts discussed under this submission are taken electronic source : namely, ebookuniversity of california msa site. reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1302 referring to the latter. however, the text explicitly sets goals for exercising positive reciprocity. it is a way of stepping on the ladder of faith from submission to a believer or growth in the faith of islam. reciprocity is not an expectation of return from a fellow brother, although such reciprocity might be associated with that of general reciprocity. however, as the text interpreted by muslim scholars it does not aim at reciprocity so much as humility. therefore, the text is about becoming or progression in the faith. but a contrasting statement of jesus to the haddith 12 is that it is not just enough loving a fellow brother who has possibly been among the same community, but one will be called sons of god by loving one’s enemy. quran, on the other hand, denies its adherents closer relationship with christians and jews or others who may wish to harm them (quran 2. 120, 5.51, 5.82). nonetheless, the basic general reciprocal concept and ideology cannot be avoided in both statements. the word “brother” is primarily understood not as referring to an outsider or as the whole humanity, albeit the universal intention is claimed by some muslim scholars (homerin 2008:106). in the sufi tradition, elimination of selfish desire by putting the needs of others before one’s own without expecting a return is encouraged (homerin 2008:106). after examining quran, hadith and muslim tradition, homerin (2008:113–114) concluded that this text “may be understood to apply all humanity, not only selected group” but his final conclusion states “muslims have interpreted and applied the golden rule in several contrasting ways.” multiple interpretation traditions of the golden rule based on theological stance evinces that it is understood in diverse manner including the current lex talionis of osama bin laden negative reciprocal ideology (bin laden 2005). with regard to migration, however, quran assumes many religious figures who are also found in the bible as migrants, namely: adam, abraham, noah, jonah, jacob and moses (saritoprak 2008). islamic tradition speaks of different migration due to religious persecutions. but our discussion will be limited to the first hijramigration of approximately 82 muslims converts into abyssinia (current-ethiopia) around 617ce (hussain 2014:173–175). according to the tradition, prophet mohammad commanded his persecuted followers to migrate to the land of a christian king whom he described as just and kind hearted. in accordance with the words of the prophet migrant went to ethiopia and enjoyed peace and security. having heard of a peaceful existence of the migrant in abyssinia, the qurayshites sent their emissaries with present to the reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1303 negus to instigate him against the migrant for extradition. however, having questioning the migrant about their religion and evaluating the difference between his christian faith on his terms and islam, he found that the difference was minor and therefore he vowed to protect the migrant granting them freedom to exercise their religion. as a result, in the hadith (37 battles (kitab al-malahim, hadith no 4288), prophet mohammed reciprocates by banning jihad against abyssinia. it reads “let the abyssinians alone as long as they let you alone…” the positive reciprocation is conditional as it says “as long as they let you alone.” but such a favour towards the abyssinians stemmed out of reciprocal ideology. but for islam reciprocation is not a flat positive one as it could either be positive or negative depending on the reaction and action of the other. however, the model of the abyssinian christian king is taken as a good example of just treatment of migrants which might serve in the muslim tradition as the golden rule in action and the interface between religions. the two traditions matt 7:12 and hadith 12 (plus hadith no 4288) convey that migrants should be treated as oneself with just and kindness. however, while for matthew it is a vicarious reciprocity, for the hadith it is conditional and evaluative, therefore, it could result in either in positive or negative relationship. hence, reciprocity is an ideology that creates responsible boding between the migrant and the natives for a peaceful co-existence despite their differing religious commitment. having said this, however, in the next section we need to analyse how such ideology of reciprocity contributes to a peaceful coexistence of the migrants and the native who have differing religions, values and mental models of each other. reciprocity, migration and the interface between religions religion serves as a point of positive interface between the migrant and the natives of the same religion in the destination countries, although language and race might be a bit of a challenge. the newly arrived migrant would be another ‘i’ of receiving community of the same religion. it serves as a home, especially if the community of the same religion is from country of the same origin. in such milieu, a general reciprocity is a religious normal practice. particularly the golden rule obligates such reciprocal relationship towards a community member despite country of origin. in addition to christianity and reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1304 islam discussed above, other religions have their own formulation of reciprocal propositions: hinduism: mahabaratha ch.5 – “this is the sum of duty; do not do unto others what you would not have them done unto you” judaism: hillel, talmud, shabbat 31a "what is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. this is the whole torah; all the rest is commentary.” buddhism: the buddha-udarra-varga-5:18 'treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." confucianism: confucius analects 15:23 "one word which sums up the basis of all good conduct... loving-kindness. do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself." taoism: lao tzu, t'ai shang kan ying,p'len, 213-218. "regard your neighbour's gain as your own gain and your neighbour’s loss as your own loss." baha'i faith: bahaullah. gleanings "lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon you, and desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself.” but as regards the interface between religions, conjoining seemingly conceptually similar texts of religious literature does not necessarily bring a positive result, particularly in the context of migration due to the complex nature of religion itself and migration. first, religions by nature bear distinctive traits (neusner 2008:55–56). according to neusner, “a proposition that is shared among several religious systems will not play a major role in the construction of any particular religious system.” in other words, common propositions among several different religious tradition does not fit with the particulars of any one of them (neusner 2008:56). second, in reciprocity, invariably, two incommensurable notions of value are at play: strict calculation and elusive moral value (right, fair, play and justice). these are both in tensions. reciprocity is strictly calculative (balanced reciprocity) and as the same time elusive moral values (general reciprocity). therefore, reciprocity involves a continuing struggle. third, the way we measure or perceive the world and the way we experience it in many ways are different. all these variables deter us from being optimistic about proposition as a bridge for the interface between religions in some form of human existence. nonetheless, reciprocal relationship is fundamental to human nature and the basis for social life and language because human nature is fundamentally interpersonal and relational. such notion of reciprocity is well attested by its reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1305 ubiquity across different religions, albeit application is different. however, the categories of reciprocity must be noted. general reciprocity serves as the bonding within the cultural homogeneous community as it functions without expectation of return. the difference between self and the other is blurred. there is a dependency, empathy and physical intimacy. an example would be the relationship between mother and child, a patriot and the motherland, and believer and his/or their religion. such reciprocity is not prevalent among the heterogeneous community. but balanced reciprocity is an interplay between intentions and actions in which a sense of justice as fairness is at work. in such relationship each party deems necessary for its very existence. balanced reciprocity might serve bridging across the social network of culturally distinct and differentiated migrant religion. the repercussion of not exercising either general or balanced reciprocity leads to the negative reciprocity where self and other are asunder, and polarized, i.e. the existence of one is the annihilation of the other where absolute antipathy and violence is a norm. assuming interdisciplinary theoretical endeavour, social exchange theory bases its assumption on economic theory arguing that human behaviour is an exchange of rewards between actors. their social interaction is characterized by reciprocal stimuli and an exchange of activity: tangible and intangible (zafirovski 2005:1–3). the theory also claims that individuals establish and maintain social relationship on the expectation of such relationship is mutually advantageous and benefits. in the course of reciprocal interaction, as an outcome, actors attempt to satisfy their needs by attending to the needs of the other (zafirovski 2005:3, 11).neurologist donald w. paff also perceived that human beings have the capacity for fair play and they are “wired for reciprocity” (as cited in green 2008:171). therefore, reciprocity is not just an ideology but it is the human behaviour. in the context of migration, the natives and migrants’ peaceful interaction and coexistence in the destination country cannot be achieved without it. reciprocity of benefits is fundamentally important for the peaceful co-existence of migrants with the natives of the country of destination for several reasons. among the many, suffice it to mention some here. first, reciprocity creates bond and trust among actors (zafirovski 2005:4). because of shared value and a two directional flow of benefits and advantages, the native and the migrants meet each other’s needs (tangible and intangible needs). second reciprocity creates confidence, belonging, participation and sense of value. in the reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1306 reciprocity, the natives value migrants because they would be perceived as contributors not as parasites or threats. such valuation also creates confidence in the migrant to see themselves not just as receivers, or strangers, but as positive contributors towards the advantage of the receiving country. third, reciprocity allows migrants and the natives to exercise control over each other’s actions and resources (zafirovski 2005:7). reciprocity is not without power but it is not domination. the power would be functional in a sense of one controlling the resource that the other needs. in such interaction, the resources can be reciprocated among themselves creating the power of negotiation. therefore, the migrant whether they are labour migrants or asylum seekers can be perceived as potential resources, of course, without denying they could be potential threat. however, social exchange theory argues that exchange relationship would be positive if they mutually reinforcing, and negative if they preclude one another (zafirovski 2005:9). fourth, reciprocity imposes responsibility based on obligation on the part of migrants and the natives in order to maintain conscience reciprocal relationship that produces a long-term benefit for both actors. likewise, the interface between religions reciprocity plays a major role in creating a peaceful co-existence. however, reciprocity that bridges the interface between religions of migrants and the natives in the country of arrival is the combination of general reciprocity (within the religious community) and balanced reciprocity (an interaction with the other). particularly the latter is mandatory for the peaceful co-existence of different religions at any place because religions, according to their ideology of reciprocity, assume a conscious responsibility for fostering a positive social relationship among human beings in general and between migrants and the native in particular. conclusion greco-roman world informed us that reciprocity is a natural phenomenon as a human being is a social being designed to reciprocate life. social exchange theory and neurologist has confirmed this. such reciprocity is also part of major world religion succinctly formulated in such a way that it can be memorized easily. concern for the good of oneself demands concern for the good of the others. hence, relationship does not exist in the absence of reciprocity. reciprocity is ideological. it is a system of exchange of both tangible and intangible benefit based on mutual honour, mutual moral duty, and shared values. ideology as a mental model influences migration policy reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1307 makers at the leadership level, the interaction of the native and migrant at the grassroots level. the ideology of reciprocity manifests itself in different categories: general, balanced or negative which also exists in the major religions of today’s world. such kind of reciprocity produces social bonding, trust, confidence, self-esteem, participation, positive obligation and power of negotiation between the native and the migrants both at the religious and 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"the golden rule". in encyclopedia of philosophy, ed. paul edwards. new york: macmillan. van dijk, teun a. 2000. ideologies, racism, discourse: debates on immigration and ethnic issues. comparative perspectives on racism 91–116. wallace-hadrill, a. 1989. patronage in roman society: from republic to empire. in a. . wallace-hadrill patronage in ancient society. london and new york: routledge, 63–87. wattles, jeffrey 1996. the golden rule. oxford university press. zafirovski, milan 2005. social exchange theory under scrutiny: a positive critique of its economic-behaviorist formulations. electronic journal of sociology 2, 2, 1–40. minaye&zeleke.1 ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 702 attitude, risk perception and readiness of ethiopian potential migrants and returnees towards unsafe migration abebaw minaye* and waganesh a. zeleke** abstract in ethiopia, where there is high prevalence of migration to the middle east and europe, a multitude of studies have focused on the relationships between the role of smugglers, push and pull factors, and illegal migration. however, only a fraction of studies have examined the context from the individual and collective mind-set perspective. the process of the decision to migrate may be influenced by individuals’ beliefs about illegal migration. this study examined the attitudes, levels of readiness and risk perceptions of potential and returnee migrants towards illegal migration to the middle east. survey data were collected from 1,726 ethiopian returnee (n=991) and potential migrants (n=735). results indicated that here was a significant difference between potential and returnee migrants in holding a positive attitude towards unsafe and illegal migration, t (1260) =-8.474, p=0.000. potential migrants favour illegal migration more so than returnees. the level of risk perception of returnee migrants and the level of readiness for migration to the middle east of both potential and returnee migrants was found to be below the expected mean score. gender differences in the level of risk perception and readiness were also observed. female participants tended to see the risks associated with unsafe migration less than male returnee migrants; female participants indicated a lower level of readiness than their male counterparts. results imply a need to work on the level of behaviour change communication and to focus on attitude and practice change rather than mere awareness-raising. the results also imply the need to create actual jobs that can keep people from choosing unsafe migration. keywords ethiopia, migrants, attitude, risk-perception, readiness. *assistant professor, school of psychology addis ababa university. **assistant professor, department of counselling, psychology and special needs education, duquesne university. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 703 introduction migration is a global occurrence, however, information on what shapes individuals’ decisions towards unsafe migration in developing countries such as ethiopia is scant. although it is well-documented that poverty, system failure (abebaw & waganesh, 2015; adams, 2011; dinbabo & carciotto, 2015; fernandez, 2013), actions of organised criminal groups like traffickers, smugglers and brokers (fernandez, 2013; friesender, 2007; gozdziak & macdonnel, 2007; unodc, 2010; us department of state, 2016), family and peer pressure (abebaw, 2013; biniam, 2012; marina, 2016), and other push forces (animaw, 2011) act as causes for the high prevalence of legal and illegal migration, a similar level of attention is needed to understand what shapes migrants’ decisions at the individual level. one evidence of the focus on organised crime groups is the billions of dollars invested by leading antitrafficking nations or regions, such as the usa and europe, in convicting traffickers and illegal migrants rather than supporting migrants. internal dynamics within the individual migrant, like attitude and risk-perception, seem to have received little attention. this lack of understanding might undermine the agency of migrants in the decision-making process, which in turn has implications for our understanding of the migration decision and shifts the target of intervention to external forces rather than the migrants themselves (gong et al., 2011; sharma, 2005). the literature regarding migrants’ attitudes and risk-perceptions of migration to the middle east and south africa in particular, is dearth. the middle east is becoming one of the biggest hubs for migrants (saudi arabia and the united arab emirates (uae) alone host 17 million migrants) from south east asia (mainly the philippines, sri lanka, india and bangladesh) and eastern africa and horn of africa (mainly ethiopia, somalia, kenya, uganda and tanzania). of the top ten countries with the highest migrant population relative to their ‘native’ population in the 2004 human development report, the first four are middle eastern countries (gmdac, 2015). for example, the uae, qatar, kuwait and bahrain have migrants that constitute more than 50% of their population (iom, 2014). south africa is also a top destination (2.2 million in a 2015 estimate) within africa for migrants from different regions of africa (west, east and south) (horwood, 2009) and other parts of the world (mainly south east asia, i.e.: india, china, pakistan, bangladesh and thailand) (statistics south africa, 2014). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 704 factors related to the influx of migrants to the middle east and south africa should be investigated in more detail, especially because there are many safety concerns identified in various studies (waganesh et al., 2015; meskerem, 2011) and reports by international aid and human rights agencies such as human rights watch, ilo and iom. there is a dire need for empirical evidence to better understand what contributes to the decisions people make to migrate to the middle east and south africa despite the potentially unsafe situations in these destinations. ethiopian context ethiopia is a source country for migration, smuggling and trafficking (fernandez, 2013; jureidini, 2011; unicef, 2005; us department of state, 2016). according to the ethiopian ministry of labour and social affairs (molsa, 2013), in 2011/12 alone, 198,667 ethiopian women legally (their migration processed by the ethiopian ministry of labour and social affairs) migrated to saudi arabia, the uae and kuwait for domestic work. on top of this, 60-70% of migrants migrate illegally, that is through smuggling or being trafficked (us department of state, 2016). in 2011/12, the illegal migration was estimated at 300,000-350,000, making the total sum close to 550,000. the regional mixed migration studies (2014) reported the smuggling of 334,000 ethiopians through yemen alone from 2006-2014. the issue was given attention as a major social, economic, political and national security problem following the 2013 deportation of over 163,000 ethiopian irregular migrants when the kingdom of saudi arabia (ksa) cracked down on irregular migration (iom, 2014). studies that address the ethiopian migration context emphasise factors such as push and pull forces (blagbrough, 2008; kangaspunta, 2007; yoseph et al., 2006)and the plight of migrants, such as sexual abuse, physical abuse, salary denial, labour exploitation, confinement and denial of access to health services (human rights watch, 2008; us state department, 2016;abebaw, 2013). the movement of populations has been associated with sexual health risks and increased transmission of hiv/aids (bastide, 2015; weine & kashuba, 2012; camlin, et al., 2010). there are also reports of the negative mental health consequences of unsafe migration on victims (anbesse et al., 2009; bhugra, 2004; mirsky, 2009; waganesh et al., 2015). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 705 unsafe and stressful migration affects migrants, their families and their governments in general. consequences of unsafe migration can have an impact on people physically, psychologically, socially and economically. for example, a qualitative study involving female ethiopian migrants who were employed in the middle east found themes of exploitation, enforced cultural isolation, undermining of cultural identity and thwarted expectations (anbesse et al., 2009). some women in this study alluded to being sexually assaulted and dehumanised. women shared their experiences; one noted: “they don’t see you as a human being.” another said: “there were times when i would take food from the wastebasket and eat” (anbesse et al., 2009: 560). the aforementioned themes revealed major concerns for the mental and physical health of ethiopian migrants in the middle east. anbesse et al. (2009) remarked that migrants initially left ethiopia hoping to work and improve their lives. but potential migrants may not have accurately evaluated the reality of potential risks related to migrating. in spite of this, how migrants perceive potential risks was not well studied, at least in the ethiopian context. another important issue related to better understanding the attitudes of migrants is the belief that some migrants espouse that their fate is in the hands of god, which may help them to overcome the fear and risks associated with migrating (bastide, 2015). this is a critical point to understand about the attitudes of some migrants, because if they believe that they must endure their hardships as part of their predestined lives, their conceptualisation of a “risk” may be less relevant to them (bastide, 2015). paradoxically, some migrants may view leaving their birth country as a way of challenging their destiny; they do not necessarily see themselves as passive recipients of a predetermined life (bastide, 2015). though these beliefs may vary by individual, region and religion, these conceptualisations are important to consider when working to understand how potential migrants evaluate risks and how migrating may affect their lives. as tenants of social judgment theory (sjt) and cognitive behavioural theory (cbt) show, cognitive processes are related to subsequent behaviour. so, if migrants believe that their fate is already predetermined, they may not be concerned about the decisions they make and the safety implications of those decisions. research on sudanese youth indicated that their attitudes towards international migration were influenced by their families, friends and current circumstances in their home country, often related to unemployment (yaseen, 2012). this study asserted that “the majority of youth had positive attitudes ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 706 towards migration” and believe it to be the “best solution to improve” their economic circumstances, specifically “unemployment and low incomes” (yaseen, 2012: 108). it seems that unfavorable current circumstances may lead potential migrants to overlook the dangers of migrating. in most ethiopian cases, the initial migration decision is made by the migrants’ own free will (abebaw & waganesh, 2015; addis ababa university, 2015; sharma, 2005). they are often given misinformation regarding the positions and circumstances awaiting them in the host countries by brokers, agencies, smugglers and traffickers (lansink, 2006; un, 2000; marina & medareshaw, 2015). misleading information by traffickers shapes the knowledge and beliefs of migrants. in spite of theoretical support regarding the role of an individual’s attitude in decision-making of any sort, studies on attitudes of migrants towards unsafe migration is missing. the only study which addresses attitudes of ethiopian migrants is the regional mixed migration study of 2014, entitled “blinded by hope: attitude, knowledge and practice of ethiopian migrants.” to reduce the impact of unsafe and illegal migration, we must improve attitudes and increase readiness of migrants for potential risks. this potential is substantiated by research that suggests that modifying attitudes also changes behaviours (sheeran et al., 2016). given the importance of individuals’ attitudes towards migration, it is necessary to examine factors that shape these attitudes. in this study, we proposed a conceptual framework for examining the factors that influence migrants’ and potential migrants’ attitudes. the framework includes both antecedents and consequences of migrant returnees and potential migrants’ attitudes. the antecedents can be grouped into personal factors (e.g. gender, age and religion), social factors (e.g. mass media, family influence and peer groups), previous exposure to migration, and other environmental factors (e.g. one’s level of education and economic independence). this model could help us understand how migrants’ and potential migrants’ attitudes towards migration are formed and maintained, which could assist in our efforts to shape those attitudes and prevent unsafe migration that may happen as a result of individuals’ attitudes and misguided perceptions of risks. perceptions of risks are sometimes overshadowed by potential migrants’ hopes for personal change for the better and a positive future for their families. this cognitive minimisation of risks might increase positive attitudes towards unsafe migration. in order to positively influence the attitudes of potential ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 707 migrants, it is necessary to first understand the level of attitude and risk perception, as well as the variables that influence these attitudes and perceptions. theoretical and conceptual frameworks attitude is a key component in judgment and subsequent courses of action. attitude can be understood as the internal psychological tendency one uses when evaluating an idea or potential action (eagly & chaiken, 1993). for instance, if a person is weighing whether to leave his or her birth country in hopes of obtaining better circumstances for his/her family, his/her attitude about that hope and the likely negative consequences associated with the migration (risk perception) are part of this individual’s processing of the decision alternatives. there are cognitive, affective and behavioural components to attitudes which relate to beliefs, feelings and actions, respectively (eagly & chaiken, 1993; garrett et al., 2003). sjt offers a paradigm to better understand how people’s attitudes contribute to their mindset and how attitudes can change. in their theory of reasoned action, aijen and fishben (1980 cited in southey, 2011) have indicated the link between attitude and behaviour and identified intermediaries that affect the strength of this link, like specificity and strength of the attitude. stemming from brunswik’s functionalist psychology (doherty & kurz, 1996), sjt posits that an individual’s attitudes are an integral part of the perception and evaluation of new ideas (sherif & hovland, 1980). attitudes are part of a person’s identity (sherif et al., 1965), which could be based on a person’s current state and past experiences, and they inform their decision-making process. therefore, it is important to take into account the context within which a migrant returnee or potential migrant functions, and the systems that affect him/her, when trying to better infer his/her attitudes and decisionmaking processes. another important piece of sjt is persuasiveness (sherif & sherif, 1968) and the study of the likelihood of someone to change his/her mind or attitude about something, which includes consideration of what contributes to that process. specifically, ego-involvement, or how personally affected by or involved someone is in a particular issue, is highly relevant to how likely someone is to change his/her attitude (sherif & sherif, 1968). cbt also offers useful information when attempting to decipher how people come to their decisions to make changes. cbt refers to the interconnectedness of cognitive processes, emotions and behaviours. this theory is based upon a model of cognition that entails the aforementioned components. beck’s (2006) ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 708 work in rational emotive behaviour therapy indicates that systematic bias may contribute to irrational thoughts. the application of cbt can be useful when attempting to better understand a person’s mindset. one can apply cbt to the migrant’s mindset and attitudes as part of cognitive processes as well as perceptions of risk. given the interrelatedness of cognitions and behaviours, it is worthwhile to examine the attitudes of migrants to understand their decision-making processes to leave their birth countries. attitudes create a potentially systematic bias that contributes to a migrant’s decision to leave their country and choice of where to go. although attitudes might be strong enough in informing the decisions of people, individuals may not be conscious of their attitudes. some migrants may not realise the inherent danger in some of the decisions they make. so it is worthwhile to better understand their attitudes and perceptions about migration and the risks associated with it. taken together, sjt and cbt offer some models to aid in understanding how people come to make judgments about their lives; however, more information is needed about the migrants’ mindset specifically, so they can be informed about potentially unsafe decisions they are making. sometimes because of having strong attitudes, migrants may not be fully aware of the conditions that await them after they migrate and the dangers associated with migrating to specific regions. this leads to an attitude not based on sound knowledge or on irrational belief. the present study examined the attitudes and risk perceptions of ethiopian returnees and potential migrants towards migration to the middle east and south africa. it examined various beliefs of the study participants that influenced their decision-making processes to commit to or consider unsafe or illegal migration. it reviewed variations in belief systems based on participants’ demographic characteristics. understanding the belief systems of ethiopian returnees or potential migrants can promote culturally and contextually relevant outreach and treatment (chang-muy & congress, 2009). specifically, the study addressed four research questions regarding returnee and potential migrants’ belief systems towards migration: 1)what is the level of readiness, risk perception, and attitude of ethiopian potential migrants and returnees towards migration to the middle east and south africa?2) is there a significant relationship between readiness, risk perception and attitude among returnee and potential migrants? 3) is there a significant difference in risk perception and attitude between returnees and potential migrants? and ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 709 4) what is the effect of readiness and risk perception on the attitudes of returnees and potential migrants towards migration? method a. site of the study this study was conducted in six regions identified as hotspots for migration from ethiopia to the middle east and south africa. the six regions consist of eight sites identified as hotspots for migration based on previous studies (animaw, 2011; abebaw, 2013), ethiopian media reports and consultation with the ethiopian ministry of labour and social affairs. the sites included two zones in oromia region, two zones from the southern nations and nationalities region, one zone in amhara region, one zone in tigray, and addis ababa and dire dawa city administrations. b. participants using a purposive sampling technique (convenient and snowball), study participants were individuals who either returned from the middle east and south africa or those who were preparing to migrate to the middle east or south africa illegally. data was collected from february-april2014. of the 1,771 participants, 60.5% (n=1036) were returnee migrants from the middle east or south africa and 39.5% (n=735) were potential migrants who planned to illegally migrate to the middle east or south africa. both returnees and potential migrants completed a survey questionnaire having demographic, readiness, attitude and risk perception items/scales. c. instrumentation at the time of this writing, there were no standardised or empirically validated scales that measure the constructs proposed in this study (readiness, attitude and risk perception of migrants to unsafe migration). also, there were no instruments available in amharic, the primary language of ethiopia. consequently, this survey was developed by a group of psychology and social work faculty members at addis ababa university. based on a comprehensive review of the risks and challenges associated with migration and a review of the literature on ethiopian and african migration, the researchers developed the survey instrument. the instrument was organised into five sections: (a) ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 710 demographic data, (b) antecedents, (c) readiness scale, (d) perception of risk scale and (e) attitude scale. demographic questions included sex, age, employment status, educational level, religion, region of residency and migration status of respondents. the antecedents section asked information about the role of social context like family, brokers, agencies, friends, relatives and mass media. it also asked about personal reasons and motivations that shaped decision-making. d. readiness measure this was a five items scale, which measured participants’ levels of readiness to work in the cultural context and understandings of the nature of the job circumstances in the destination countries. items included: how aware are/were you about the nature of the job in the destination? how familiar are/were you about the culture of the destination country? how aware are/were you about your rights and responsibilities in the destination country? how confident are/were you in your coping skills if you face challenges? how much do/did you know about the communication style in the middle east/south africa? scores were computed by taking the sum of the 5 items (each measured on a 1 to 4 likert scale), with 1 being “totally unaware” and 4 being “very aware.” scores for this variable ranged from 5 to 20. e. risks perception scale the perception of risk scale was a three point likert scale which measured participants’ perceptions of the risks involved in migrating to the middle east and south africa. the items included: level of fear of being cheated by broker or agency or employer; level of concern about facing difficult circumstances in the destination country; level of determination to go to the middle east or south africa even through illegal channels if the legal process doesn’t work; and level of concern about safety while traveling through the illegal migration route. the scale score is computed by taking the sum of the 4 items measuring the knowledge of risks, each measured on a 1 to 3 scale with 1 being ‘i know much,’ 2 being ‘i know some’ and 3 being ‘i don’t know.’ the scores for this variable range from 3 to 12, and the scores were reverse-coded so that high scores reflected more knowledge and low scores reflected little knowledge regarding risks. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 711 f. attitude scale the attitude scale was a six item scale developed to measure participants’ attitudes towards unsafe or illegal migration. the scale consisted of items such as: life is predetermined, not affected by whether you migrate or not; i prefer working low status jobs overseas than in ethiopia; i don’t believe working in ethiopia changes my own or my family’s life for the better; i believe media reports on the problems of illegal migration are exaggerated; i prefer to work overseas with no dignity than living under poverty in ethiopia; and i believe that ethiopian youth can change their own life and their family’s lives only by working overseas. the scale score was computed by taking the sum of the 6 items, each measured on a 1 to 4 likert scale, with 1 being ‘strongly disagree’ and 4 being ‘strongly agree. ’the scale score ranged from 6 to 24. since the items were negatively-worded, the scores were reverse-coded so that low scores reflected negative attitudes and high scores reflected positive attitudes towards unsafe migration to saudi arabia and south africa. the measures were developed and administered in amharic. internal consistency estimates (cronbach’s alpha) for each subscale were computed to confirm the reliability of the subscales used in this study. the reliability estimates for all the subscales were as follows: attitude (a=. 79), risk perception (a=.54) and readiness (a=.72). the reliabilities of the measures were, therefore, quite satisfactory (panayides, 2013) and indicate consistency. g. data collection procedures with approval from addis ababa university’s office of the vice president for research and technology transfer, 21 data collectors (three in each of the six zones and three more for addis ababa and dire dawa) and 7 supervisors (one for each of the six zones and one for addis ababa and dire dawa) were hired and given a day-long training in the data collection process. the data collectors included graduate students and faculty members at higher institutes in ethiopia from the fields of psychology, social work, law, economics and health. the supervisors were faculty members from addis ababa university. they were assigned to assist and monitor the data collection process. the data collectors explained the purpose of the study to the study participants before administering the questionnaire. participation in the study was voluntary. returnees and potential migrants who chose to participate completed a paper ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 712 and-pencil questionnaire. those who could not read were assisted by the data collectors in completing the questionnaire. h. data analysis descriptive statistics were conducted to report participants’ demographic characteristics and the associated factors involved in participants’ decisionmaking about migration. a factorial manova was conducted to evaluate the differences due to migration experience, gender, religion and education on the three dependent variables of readiness to work in destination context, attitude towards migration and perception of risk. pre-screening of data was conducted to identify outliers and missing data, and to collapse the response categories of the independent variables with small sample sizes in cases where it made conceptual sense. for example, for the variable education, the categories of ‘certificate/diploma’ and ‘first degree and above’ in the original data were combined into one category, ‘certificate/diploma and above.’ i. variables the main independent variables in this study were demographic variables (see table 2); migration experiences (returnee vs. potential), gender, religion and educational level. the dependent variables were readiness to adjust to the destination context, attitude towards migration and perception of risks (see table 1). table 1. dependent variables. minimum maximum expected mean readiness to adjust to destination context 5.00 20.00 12.50 attitude towards migration 6.00 24.00 15.00 ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 713 perception of risks 4.00 12.00 8.00 research findings and analysis demographic characteristics of participants the sample consisted of 1,726individuals of which 991 were returnee migrants from the middle east and south africa and 735 were potential migrants who were considering migrating to the middle east or south africa. a demographic profile of the sample is presented in table 2. returnee migrants the returnees were between the ages of 16 and 60 years (m=27.55; sd 6.34). approximately 55% (n=545) were female and 44.9 % (n=446) were male. over 82.96% (n=789) returned from the middle east, while 17.04% (n=162) returned from south africa. over half (51.2%) of the returnees resided in an urban setting (n=518) and 48.8% were from rural parts of ethiopia (n=498).in terms of participants’ education, 6.4% (n=66) did not have any formal education, 8% (n=88) could write and read, 8.8%(n=90) attained grade 1-4 levels of education, 25.9% (n=268) had grade 5-8 levels of education, 30.8%(n=316) completed grade 9-10, 12.9% (n=132) completed grade 11-12 and7.3% (n=74) had a certificate, diploma or above. the prior migration job profile of returnees indicated that 49% (n=464) did not have a specific job other than supporting their families. over half 51% (n=479) reported that they were employed as domestic workers, daily labourers, government employees or other types of low-class jobs. potential migrants the average age of potential migrant participants was 25.3 years. approximately, 57% were female (n=417) and 43.3% were male (n=325). over half (53.9%) of the participants resided in urban settings (n=398) and 46.1% were from rural parts of ethiopia (n=340). in terms of education, 5% (n=37) did not have any formal education, 5.4% (n=40) said they could read and write, 7.9%(n=59) attained a grade 1-4 level of education, 35.9% (n=268) had a grade 9-10 level of education, 27.7%(n=206) completed a grade 5-8 level of education, 9.8% (n=73) completed a grade 11-12 level of education and the ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 714 8.5% (n=63) had a certificate/diploma or above. in terms of employment, 63.6% (n=478) did not have a job at the time they planned to migrate, whereas 31.4% (n=236) had a job. table 2. demographic characteristics of participants. returnee migrants (n=991) potential migrants (n=735) n % n % sex male 446 45.00 325 43 female 545 55.00 417 57 religion orthodox 301 29.60 244 32 muslim 512 50.40 412 55 protestant 175 17.20 81 11 catholic 18 1.80 12 1.6 education no education 66 6.40 37 5.0 reading and writing 88 8.00 40 5.40 grade 1 to 4 90 8.80 59 8.00 grade 5 to 8 268 25.90 268 36.00 grade 9 to 10 316 30.80 206 28.00 grade 11 to 12 132 12.90 73 10.00 certificate/diploma or above 74 7.40 64 8.50 residence urban 518 52.20 395 53.70 rural 498 48.80 340 46.30 marital status married 449 44.80 226 32.00 single 507 50.00 457 64.70 divorced 43 4.30 23 3.30 employment status employed 479 51.00 236 31.40 not-employed 464 49.00 478 63.60 destination middle east 789 82.96 639 86.90 south africa 162 17.03 92 13.10 ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 715 *please note, due to missing data, sample size for some variables may not add up to 1036 for returnees, or 735 for potential migrants. associated factors that lead to migration or the decision to migrate the motivation for migration for 64.4% of returnees (n=646) and 66.4% of potential migrants (n=499) came from themselves, while 20% of returnees (n=201) and 13.4% of potential migrants (n=104) reported that their friends encouraged them to migrate. about 13.8% (n=138) of returnees and 14.8% (n=111) of potential migrants reported that families/relatives initiated the decision to migrate. less than 1.8% (n=20) of returnees and 5.4% (n=39) of potential migrants reported the initiative came from brokers and agencies. concerning source of information, 42.1% of returnees reported that they got the information on how to go to the middle east from brokers, 39.1% got it from friends, 14.3%indicated family as their source of information and 4.1% of returnees reported they received the information from the media. related to the major reasons for migrating, almost half, 49.7%, of returnees and 45.8% of potential migrants indicated poverty, while 38.5% of returnees and 31.5% of potential migrants indicated a lack of opportunity for employment in ethiopia and a desire to be economically independent. the data on source of information, reasons for migration and motivation for migration is presented in table 3. table 3. frequency and percentage of source of information, reasons and motivation for migration. returnee migrants potential migrants n % n % source of information broker 423 42.10 291 40.81 family 144 14.30 107 15.00 friend 397 39.50 286 40.12 media 41 4.10 29 4.07 reason to migrate poverty 502 49.70 344 45.80 others’ influence 110 10.90 63 8.40 economic influence 389 38.50 274 31.50 ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 716 who initiated migration self 46 64.40 499 66.40 friends 201 20.00 104 13.80 family/relatives 138 13.80 111 14.80 others 18 1.80 19 2.40 risk perception of unsafe migration the results show that the returnee migrants’ score (m=10.307, sd=1.81) was lower than the expected average (m=12.5). these results suggest that returnee migrants assumed lesser risk related to unsafe migration. the independent ttest indicated that there was a significant difference between male (m=10.57, sd=1.75) and female returnees (m=10.0984, sd=1.842) on their levels of risk perception, t (649) =3.43, p=0.001. this suggests that female returnee migrants tend to acknowledge the risks associated with unsafe migration less than male returnees. participants’ readiness both returnee (m=6.13) and potential migrants’ (m=7.04) scores were below the average (8.00) on the readiness scale. an independent sample t-test was conducted to compare the difference between returnee (m=6.1304, sd=1.80) and potential migrants (m=7.04, sd=1.80) in terms of their levels of readiness, t (1276) =-8.93, p=0.23. these results suggest that both returnee and potential migrants’ levels of readiness to migrate to the middle east and south africa are less than the expected mean. the independent t-test result revealed that there was a significant difference between male (m=6.87, ds=1.97) and female participants (m=6.37, sd=1.75) with regards to level of readiness, t (1263) =4.59, p=0.04. these results suggest that females were, or are, less prepared for illegal migration than their male counterparts. table 4. independent sample t-test: readiness. returnee migrants potential migrants t df readiness to migrate m 6.130 7.033 -8.930 1276 sd 1.806 1.801 gender ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 717 note * = p <0.05 attitude towards migration as table 5 shows, 49% of the returnees believe that life is pre-determined, showing an undermining tendency of vulnerability. over 60% prefer working a low-paying job abroad than doing the same job in ethiopia, indicating a favorable attitude towards migration. close to 55% of the returnees do not believe that working in ethiopia will help to change their own and their family’s life for the better, rather 65% of the returnees believe that ethiopian youth can change their life for the better by working abroad. over 53% of the returnees believe that reports by the media, specifically the ethiopian television, about the problems of illegal migration are exaggerated. all of this shows that almost half of the migrants had a positive attitude towards migration of any sort (legal or illegal). the general attitude scale result shows that 540 (57.1%) of the returnees have a positive attitude toward migration in any form. this reveals that despite their plight and expulsion by force and after facing several problems in the destination country, more than half of these returnees are in favor of migration. they added that if they got the chance they would be willing to remigrate even if it was risky (with the likelihood of being trafficked). the one sample statistic for returnees shows that there is no significant difference between the expected and obtained means, indicating that returnees are not significantly in favour of or against the expected unsafe migration despite what they have experienced. female male m 6.374 6.869 4.594* 1263 sd 1.759 1.972 ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 718 table5. frequency and percentage, n (%), of attitude of returnees towards migration. the independent t-test results indicated a significant difference between returnee migrants (m=15.318, sd=5.15) and potential migrants (m=17.39, attitudes strongly disagree moderately disagree moderately agree strongly agree life is predetermined, not affected by whether or not you migrate. 368(36.5) 146(14.5) 184(18.3) 309(30.7) i prefer working low status jobs overseas than in ethiopia. 252(24.9) 164(16.2) 251(24.8) 346(34.2) i don’t believe working in ethiopia improves my own or my family’s life. 292 (29.1) 164(16.3) 246(24.5) 303(30.1) i believe that ethiopian television reports on the problems of illegal migration are exaggerated. 336(33.7) 132(13.2) 282(28.3) 247(24.8) i prefer to work overseas with no dignity than living under poverty in ethiopia. 367 (36.7) 182 (18.2) 174(17.4) 278 (27.8) i believe that ethiopian youth can change their own and their families’ lives only by working oversees. 188 (18.7) 141(14.0) 242 (24.1) 435( 43.2) ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 719 sd=4.65) on the level of attitude towards illegal or unsafe migration, t (1260) =-8.47, p=0.000. these results suggest that potential migrants have a more favourable attitude towards unsafe migration than returnee migrants. the difference between female (m=16.21, sd=4.94) and male (m=16.124, sd=5.202) attitudes towards migration, t (1511) =-0.332, p=0.74, was found to be insignificant. table 6. independent sample t-test: readiness. returnee migrants potential migrants t df attitude towards migration m 15.3083 17.3929 8.474* 1260 sd 5.152 4.652 gender female male m 16.208 16.124 -0.332 1511 sd 4.943 5.202 note * = p<0.01 relationship between participants’ ages and the dependent variables age has a high negative correlation with attitude, showing that younger participants have more positive attitudes towards migration. readiness has a strong positive correlation to both risk perception and attitude (p < 0.01), showing that better readiness is associated with higher risk perception but positive attitude to migration. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 720 table 7: correlations among study variables. variables age readiness attitude risk perception age of the respondents 1 0.05 -0.71* readiness 1 0.26** 0.19** attitude 1 -0.07 risk perception 1 analysis of variance: education, attitude and readiness analysis of variance (anova) yielded significant differences between levels of education among participants and readiness, f(7,591)=4.62,p<0.001; level of education and attitude towards migration (f(7,692)=2.10, p<0.05); gender and awareness (f(3,1260)=7.58, p<0.000); and gender and attitude (f(3,1260)=3.40, p<0.001. these results suggest that participants’ with a higher level of education seem to have better readiness (m=8.57, sd=2.38) and less favorable attitudes (m=15.79, sd=0.492) towards migration to the middle east and south africa than participants with less education (m=6.03, sd=1.47) and lower levels of readiness (m=17.71, sd=5.055). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 721 table 8. test of anova in readiness and attitude based on educational background. variables groups sum of squares df mean square f sig. readiness between groups 134.37 3 19.20 7.58 .000 within groups 4252.40 1260 3.36 total 4386.78 1272 attitude toward migration between groups 601.35 3 85.91 3.40 .001 within groups 41132.386 1260 25.25 total 41733.740 1636 discussion overall, the current study indicated that both potential and returnee migrants have a positive attitude towards migration to the middle east and south africa. on the other hand, their levels of readiness and risk perception towards unsafe migration were found to be below the expected average. these findings are of particularly great concern because they indicate the lack of informed decisionmaking by participants about illegal or unsafe migration. more than the action of organised groups or the push forces, returnees’ and potential migrants’ decisions to migrate are a product of their attitudes and risk perception about migration. the results further indicated that, in general, the experience of migrating may influence risk perceptions and attitudes about migration, as returnees saw themselves as less prepared to re-migrate than potential migrants. the potential migrants had more favourable attitudes about migration than the returnees. this could be because the returnees had ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 722 witnessed the challenges of unsafe migration and were more likely to have an objective evaluation of the risks, whereas potential migrants could have been more optimistic as they had not directly experienced the challenges. in terms of readiness, the potential migrants and returnees significantly differed from each other. the potential migrants reported having greater readiness. this could also be associated with returnees’ emic experience of what is required during harsh travel and working in the destination. they knew their gaps better. they may have struggled to adjust to the work and social environment in the destination and in transit. whereas potential migrants might have been guided by their optimistic bias about what was actually demanded. many ethiopian domestic workers suffer in the middle east, partly because of their poor preparation for the work and lifestyle (waganesh, 2015). they assume that domestic work is similar in ethiopia and in the middle east. returnees perceiving themselves as less prepared for migration than potential migrants may speak with the clarity of hindsight about the reality of migration. returnees understand that they did not have much readiness for what the destination cultural, language and work-nature required. supporting this inference, it was found that the participants’ experiences related to migration had an effect on the level of his or her perception of risk and attitudes toward migration. the returnees indicated a higher level of risk perception and a less positive attitude towards migrating compared to potential migrants. this further indicates that the experiences of migrating have some influence on subsequent views on migration and possibly on willingness to migrate again as well as where to migrate. this, in particular, is in line with previous findings related to the potentially dehumanising and unfavorable situations ethiopian migrants found themselves in when they migrated to the middle east (anbesse et al., 2009). the results also suggest an association between socio-demographic characteristics such as age, sex and educational level, the perception that illegal migration is low risk, and an individual’s favorable attitude towards migration. this provides some support for the argument that public education and knowledge-building may be effective strategies in addressing illegal migration issues. it is not surprising that there was a direct positive association between education level and a relatively better readiness to migrate. education level is inversely associated with a favorable attitude to migration which makes sense in that the better the understanding level (education), the lesser an individual may favour unsafe migration. in terms of ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 723 sex, female participants were less ready to migrate. additionally, readiness and risk perception were significantly related such that increased readiness of an individual to migrate is associated with increased perceived risk related to unsafe migration. notably, attitude about migration was negatively correlated with readiness, age and risk perception, seeming to further indicate that as one gains experience, by aging or otherwise, his or her attitudes about migration seem to become less favorable. consistent with and building upon previous research on youth having positive attitudes toward international migration (yaseen, 2012), the current study found that younger individuals had more positive attitudes about migration than older individuals, possibly indicating that they would rather work low-paying jobs outside of ethiopia, even if their dignity was compromised, in pursuit of a better life. additionally, perhaps the older migrants have gained more experience with the hardships associated with migrating, which may account for the more negative attitudes of the older participants in this study. on top of this, there are more opportunities for work for young people as the demand is higher for young labour. previous studies have shown that trafficking and smuggling victims are largely children and women because of the growth of the service and sex industry (lutz, 2011) and because of their hard work, compliance and submissiveness, as well as the assumption that they can be easily misguided about opportunities (iom, 2006). the more favourable the attitude towards migration, the less perceived risk is associated with migrating. what is arguably one of the most important points of these results is the finding that many returnees still have a favourable view of migration, even if their experiences were negative. some indicated that they would re-migrate, even knowing that they could be trafficked. they were still in favour of migrating. what is notable about these findings is that even knowing the hardships associated with migration, many ethiopians are willing to consciously put themselves in potentially dangerous situations in order to leave ethiopia. such preferences may speak to broader concerns related to conditions in ethiopia. looking at the individual’s context and work culture in ethiopia may be of value when attempting to understand these results. one example is the tradition of ascribing a ‘brave son or daughter’ to youngsters who risk their lives for the well-being of their family. a second example is the long tradition of viewing offspring as property in which children are expected to work beginning from around age six to contribute to the family’s economic betterment, working within the household or in other households for a salary that goes to the family. referencing back to sjt and cbt, perhaps the returnees ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 724 are of the mindset that they would rather work abroad, even under similar poverty-stricken circumstances, than remain in ethiopia. thus, their behaviour could be in line with their surmised attitude that migration will not change their destiny, and it is better to leave ethiopia than to stay. another possible explanation is the one given by marina and medareshaw (2015), who propose that returnees may regret being deported before tasting the good side of migration and hence desire to try again. another seemingly contradictory finding is the higher the readiness, the less individuals favour migrating. this may be partly related to the relationship between readiness and education. migrants who have readiness and an understanding of the work and lifestyle of an illegal migrant may be more concerned about the possibility of abuse and, hence, they may be cautious in their attitudes. although there is no specific study on attitude, risk perception and readiness of migrants, the current study is consistent with one previous study by the regional mixed migration secretariat (2014) that documented ethiopian migrants being blinded by hope. in line with previous research, potential migrants often consider leaving their birth countries due to economic reasons, and they hope to have increased opportunities elsewhere (anbesse et al., 2009). the present study has some new information about the perspectives of migrants and potential migrants. a particularly salient point from the current study is that almost half of the participants believe that life is predetermined and that migrating will not ultimately affect their lives or destinies; this particular finding is consistent with some previous literature regarding some migrants’ beliefs of god as being in control (bastide, 2015). this mindset may lead some potential migrants to overlook risks and vulnerabilities associated with migrating, relating to the aforementioned systematic bias that can be associated with cognitive theory or cbt. when we reference systematic bias, we are not indicating that this “bias” is inherently a “bad” thing, rather, we are pointing out that a systematic bias, or basis from which they operate, namely believing their lives to be predetermined, likely permeates all areas of their lives and should be taken into account. conclusions the current study examined attitudes, risk perception and readiness to migrate to the middle east or south africa from ethiopia. the data was gathered from ethiopians who were either returnee migrants (n=1036) or considering migration to the middle east and south africa (n=735). to our ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 725 knowledge, this is the first time that attitudes toward illegal migration to the middle east have been studied in the ethiopian context. the main finding here is that the majority of respondents believe that migrating to the middle east by any means, including illegal migration, is better than living in ethiopia as there is little chance for a better life in ethiopia. the majority perceive the risks associated with illegally migrating to the middle east and south africa to be very low. the level of readiness, such as being aware of what kinds of job they could do or having some knowledge and experience of the language and lifestyle of the destination country, was found to be low. the study also explored other influences that potentially shape attitudes toward migration. this included characteristics such as age, gender and educational level. the results suggest that a mix of different influences shape the perception of migration among ethiopian returnees and potential migrants. migrants hold the key in the beginning of the migration decision in the form of initiating the migration, being driven by lowered risk perception and not being ready as a result of lower risk perception/optimistic bias. of course, their risk perception and more positive attitude may be shaped by external forces like family, peers and brokers. factors such as desire for economic independence, hearing of successes, desiring to support one’s family and the lack of job opportunities shape their attitudes. thus, a more practical action to reduce unsafe migration would be working on risk perception, readiness and attitudes of migrants. but there is also a need to work on what leads to the positive attitude and lowered risk perception, which may include issues of socialisation agents (family, peers, neighborhood/community, societal culture and media) and push forces for migration like the evaluation of opportunities in one’s own country and in a foreign country. therefore, future studies may further investigate the factors that shape migrants’ attitudes. hence, by first focusing on the inward, we move to the outward. looking inward helps researchers to understand the dynamics of migration decisions. for example, there is evidence that poverty may not necessarily drive the decision for unsafe migration. at times we may also wonder why people migrate under the likelihood of trafficking. part of the explanation is related to the attitudes and risk perceptions of migrants. so risk perception and attitudes are vital for judgment and decision. there is also a need to disentangle the mindset of migrants. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 726 a first key implication is that actors in preventing unsafe migration in ethiopia have to focus on the attitude/mindset of migrants to bring meaningful change. second, as findings suggest, some ethiopians are willing to put themselves in harm’s way. so, working to change their attitudes that contribute to these dangerous decisions is important. however, it is also imperative to respect a person’s culture while attempting to raise awareness. for example, if a person holds the belief that their life is in god’s hands 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outsiders as normal crime with no need for more specific or more targeted interventions. although wellintentioned, civil society efforts to foster peaceful cohabitation and tolerance through social dialogues and campaigns aimed at changing attitudes have also largely proven ineffective in reducing violence. there are many reasons why these interventions continue to fail. chief among these reasons is the fact that interventions are not evidence-based and are not informed by a clear understanding of the drivers of the violence. similarly, past and current responses and interventions are based on shaky foundations and untested theories of change. indeed, by focussing almost exclusively on public attitudes, interventions neglect factors and motivations that trigger violent behaviour; perhaps ignoring that attitudes are not always a good predictor of behaviour. without a clear understanding of the drivers of the violence and of what type of responses work or do not work, intervention strategies can only be ineffective at best, and counter-productive at worst. keywords xenophobia, violent exclusion, foreign nationals. * african centre for migration & society, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa, po box 67 wits 2050, tel: 011 7171 4093, email: jean.misago@wits.ac.za mailto:jean.misago@wits.ac.za ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 444 introduction xenophobic violence generally refers to any acts of collective violence (by local communities, groups or crowds) targeted at foreign nationals or ‘outsiders’ because of their being foreign or strangers. dodson (2010) reminds us that xenophobic violence is an explicit targeting of foreign nationals or outsiders for violent attacks despite other material, political, cultural or social forces that might be at play. its main characteristics include murder, assaults causing grievous bodily harm, looting, robbery, arson attacks (burning of people and property), displacement, intimidation and threats, harassment, eviction notices, etc. this type of violence has become a longstanding feature in postapartheid south africa (landau 2011). indeed, since 1994, tens of thousands of people have been harassed, attacked or killed because of their status as outsiders or foreign nationals. despite claims to the contrary, violence against foreign nationals in south africa did not end in june 2008 when the massive outbreak that started a month earlier subsided (misago 2011). hostility towards foreign nationals is still pervasive and continues to result in rising cases of murder, injuries, threats of mob violence, looting and the destruction of residential property and businesses, as well as mass displacement (unchr rosa 2015a). perhaps not surprisingly, the unprecedented nature of the may 2008 xenophobic violence triggered not only a frenzy of analyses and explanations as scholars, policy analysts and government officials attempted to make sense of what was happening in the multiracial ‘rainbow’ nation (fauvelle-aymar & segatti 2011; nieftagodien 2011), but also a wide range of government and civil society responses and interventions aimed at stopping on-going and/or preventing future violence. this paper offers critical reflections on the effectiveness of these interventions and argues that they have generally failed to prevent xenophobic violence in the country particularly because, by addressing the wrong sources of violence and using untested theories of changes, they have been barking up the wrong tree instead of muzzling dogs that bite. indeed, the paper shows that, in addition to the lack of government political will, impunity and lack of civil society muscle to hold government ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 445 accountable for its failure to protect all countries’ residents, interventions have failed particularly because of their critical ontological and etiological blind spots. more specifically, the paper argues that interventions have failed to address xenophobic violence in the country because i) they are not evidence-based and are not informed by a clear understanding of the drivers of the violence; and ii) they are based on shaky foundations and untested theories of change. indeed, by focussing almost exclusively on public attitudes, interventions neglect factors and motivations that trigger violent behaviour; perhaps ignoring that attitudes are not always an accurate predictor of behaviour. after a brief methodology outline, the remainder of the paper proceeds through three main sections. the first provides a brief overview of the history and nature of xenophobic violence in post-apartheid south africa. the second offers critical reflections on the effectiveness of responses and interventions by different actors including government, the police, civil society and communities. the third and concluding section summarises the paper’s main points and arguments. methods the paper draws on evaluation of past and current government and civil society responses to xenophobic violence in south africa. in addition to smaller-scale evaluations and observations, the paper draws more specifically on primary and secondary data collected by the african centre for migration in society (acms) at the university of the witwatersrand in 2014 as part of a systematic evaluation of four anti-xenophobia programmes by the united nations high commissioner for refugees regional office for southern africa (unhcr rosa 2014). the overall aim of unhcr rosa programmes and other interventions referred to in this paper was to stop on-going violent attacks on foreign nationals and to prevent the reoccurrence of such violence in the future. in order to assess the effectiveness and impact of unhcr rosa programmes to address xenophobic violence in south africa, as well as the reasons for their ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 446 relative success or failure, we (acms) simultaneously conducted two complementary types of evaluation: an impact evaluation and a process evaluation. the impact evaluation assessed the impact that programmes have had or are having in stopping and preventing xenophobic violence. the process evaluation assessed the programmes’ theories of change and logical frameworks, such as the relevance of programmes and activities in addressing the targeted problem; whether programmes and activities were implemented as planned; the challenges encountered during implementation and how these may have affected the achievement of the programmes’ goals and objectives. the combination of these two types of evaluation afforded us an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the entire programme process from its conceptualisation to its implementation and impact. to capture all the necessary information, the evaluation used a combination of a variety of sources of information and data including document reviews, individual interviews and focus group discussions. in particular, we conducted individual interviews with a wide range of relevant stakeholders including unhcr and implementing partner staff, key informants at national, provincial, municipal and research site levels, target populations and ordinary members of communities in selected sites. altogether, the evaluation comprised of a total of 105 individual interviews. in addition to individual interviews, the research team conducted two focus group discussions with members of target populations and communities in the selected sites. using the combination of these information sources allowed not only the acquisition of the necessary information but also quality control through triangulation of findings from those sources. we applied content analysis techniques to analyse the data collected. assessing the effectiveness of interventions to stop and prevent xenophobic violence requires a clear understanding of the conceptual and empirical distinctions between ‘xenophobia’ and xenophobic violence. there is indeed an epistemological necessity – and practical utility – to understand the conceptual differences between xenophobia and xenophobic violence. with the reminder that xenophobia denotes negative attitudes towards the ‘other’ ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 447 while xenophobic violence is just one of many forms of manifestation of those attitudes, there is a need to recognise that, while causally linked, xenophobia and xenophobic violence are two conceptually and empirically distinct concepts and phenomena. this conceptual distinction is epistemologically and practically important because understanding and addressing xenophobia (attitudes) requires methodological and intervention approaches that are different from those required for xenophobic violence (behaviour). indeed, interventions designed to address attitudinal challenges are not necessarily suitable for, nor should they be assumed capable of, effecting behavioural change, even if the behaviour in question is rooted in those attitudes (misago et al. 2015). in other words, interventions to change attitudes may and should be different from those aimed at stopping and preventing those attitudes from taking on violent forms of expression. indeed, as brubaker & laitin (1998: 426) remind us, “violence is not a quantitative degree of conflict but a qualitative form of conflict, with its own dynamics.” they argue, and i agree, that “even where violence is clearly rooted in pre-existing conflict, it should not be treated as a natural, self-explanatory outgrowth of such conflict, something that occurs automatically when the conflict reaches certain intensity, a certain temperature” (brubaker & laitin 1998: 426). unfortunately, as this paper shows, most interventions lack this conceptual clarity and are loaded with the unfounded assumption that programmes targeting xenophobic attitudes will eventually stop xenophobic violence. the paper offers critical reflections on the effectiveness of past and current interventions in stopping/preventing xenophobic violence and not in changing xenophobic attitudes. naturally, the paper also discusses the effect of this and other conceptual and methodological blind spots on the ineffectiveness of these interventions. history and morphology of xenophobic violence in post-apartheid south africa xenophobic violence has become a longstanding feature in post-apartheid south africa. since 1994, tens of thousands of people have been harassed, attacked or killed because of their status as outsiders or foreign nationals ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 448 (misago 2011). during this period, xenophobic violence has increased across townships and informal settlements (landau 2011) and the situation has become alarming to the degree that the african peer review mechanism’s country report on south africa warned that xenophobia against other africans was on the rise and needed to be nipped in the bud (johwa 2008). xenophobic violence was most intense and widely scrutinised in may 2008 when attacks across the country left at least 62 dead, 670 wounded, dozens raped and more than 100,000 displaced. millions of rands worth of property was also looted, destroyed and appropriated by local residents in just over two weeks (cormsa 2009). although the majority of those attacked were foreign migrants, a third of those killed were south african citizens “who had married foreigners, refused to participate in the violent orgy, or had the misfortune of belonging to groups that were evidently not south african enough to claim their patch of urban space” (landau 2011: 1). despite official claims that the government and south african society has “moved on” (black sash 2009), the violence did not end in june 2008 when the massive outbreak that had started a month earlier finally subsided. although the country has not since witnessed violence of the intensity seen in may 2008, the incidence of violence has not decreased. rather, there is a growing recognition, even among some government officials, that violent attacks on foreign nationals “have taken on disturbing proportions” (dac 2012). indeed, violence continued post may and the media reported at least 10 violent incidents during june 2008. in the following months and years, attacks on nonnationals continued, resulting in rising cases of murder, injuries, threats of mob violence, looting and the destruction of residential property and businesses, as well as mass displacement. in every individual year since 2008, violence has claimed more lives than it did during the may 2008 attacks. indeed, cormsa (2011) reports that in almost every month since mid‐2008, there has been at least one attack on groups of foreign nationals in the country; and that between mid-2009 and late 2010, there were at least 20 deaths, over 40 serious injuries, at least 200 foreign‐run shops looted and more than 4,000 persons displaced due to violence targeting foreign nationals. in 2011, ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 449 at least 120 foreign nationals were killed (five of them burnt alive), 100 were seriously injured, at least 1,000 displaced, and 120 shops/businesses permanently or temporarily closed through violence or selective enforcement of by-laws (unhcr rosa 2014). in 2012, the number of violence incidents increased: the unhcr rosa reported at least 250 incidents resulting in 140 deaths and 250 serious injuries. in 2013, unhcr rosa recorded an average of three major violent incidents per week, with attacks regularly reported in many areas across the country during 2014. there were an estimated 300 incidents of violence against foreign nationals, an estimated 200 shops looted and 900 persons displaced between january and march 2014 (unchr rosa 2014). the south african police service (saps) was overwhelmed by the increase in violence against foreigners and required support and assistance from all relevant government departments. in 2015, violence continued in many parts of gauteng, kwazulu-natal and limpopo provinces. information from the police indicates that 16 people (nine in gauteng and seven in kwazulu natal) were killed, more than 6,000 people displaced and hundreds of businesses looted and destroyed (unhcr rosa 2015b). in march 2016, xenophobic violence erupted in katlehong township in gauteng (mkhize, 2016) while violence once seemed concentrated in the townships around the country’s big cities, it is now increasingly spreading across the country’s nine provinces and into rural areas. the most affected provinces remain the western cape, gauteng, kwazulu-natal, free state, limpopo, mpumalanga and eastern cape, where some locations and sub places have become scenes of repeated violent attacks. in all provinces, this violence occurs mostly (but not exclusively) in poor and economically marginalised informal settlements where citizens (many of whom are themselves internal migrants) and immigrants meet amidst poor living conditions and a general scarcity of public services, employment and business opportunities. in sum, the above brief discussion shows that xenophobic violence in south africa is a reality that continues to threaten lives and livelihoods of many foreign nationals living in the country. as the next sections shows, continued ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 450 and increasing violence is clear evidence that no effective preventive mechanisms have been put in place. responses to xenophobic violence and their shortcomings as alluded to above, although it is impossible to say what would have happened in the absence of past and current initiatives, levels of continued (and in some areas repeated) xenophobic violence is clear evidence that responses and interventions designed to address the problem have largely been ineffective. national government and relevant local authorities have thus far either tended to ignore the problem or to categorise violence against foreign nationals and other forms of xenophobic behaviour as part of ‘normal’ crime with no need for additional targeted interventions. civil society efforts to foster peaceful coexistence and tolerance through social dialogues and awareness campaigns have also largely proven unsuccessful in changing attitudes and reducing violence and other forms of outsider exclusion. this section discusses the reasons behind these failures and shows that in some cases, despite their good intentions, interventions risk doing more harm than good. early efforts by the government included its commitment to uphold the ‘declaration’ adopted at the world conference against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance (wcar) held in durban in 2001. the conference recognised the urgent need to translate the objectives of the durban declaration into a practical and workable plan. unfortunately more than a decade later no such a plan exists although a ‘national action plan to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance’ spearheaded by the department of justice and constitutional development has been under discussion for many years. the first and most significant of civil society’s response to xenophobia in postapartheid africa was the roll back xenophobia (rbx) campaign. in a partnership between the south african human rights commission, the national consortium on refugee affairs and the united nations high commissioner for refugees, the rbx campaign was launched in december ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 451 1998 in response to the rising levels of xenophobia particularly targeted at african migrants and refugees in south africa. the campaign aimed to combat xenophobia through public education in the media, communities, schools and work places. its funding ended and it was formally terminated in 2002 with “the promise of the initiative […] never realised” (crush & ramachandran 2009: 84). whatever its potential benefits, it did little to prevent the most acute manifestation of xenophobia in south africa’s history, that was the unprecedented wave of xenophobic violence in may 2008. responses and interventions to counter xenophobia and its different manifestations proliferated after may 2008. indeed, following the outbreak of violence, numerous state and non-state actors at different levels of government and society got involved in various interventions to stop the violence, mitigate its effects and prevent future occurrences. post-may 2008 government response during the may 2008 violence, the government called on specialised units, created ad-hoc committees and designated task teams in parliament, ministries, the police and provincial and local governments. however, once the acute violence subsided, so too did government’s commitment to counter xenophobia. both before and after the 2008 attacks, it is fair to say that the overall government response to xenophobia and related violence in south africa has been characterised by denialism. in many cases, this denialism is rooted in a discourse which labels all xenophobic violence as ‘just crime and not xenophobia,’ a categorisation that demands few specific interventions or policy changes. as crush & ramachandran (2009: 19) note: despite the overwhelming research evidence of a powder-keg of xenophobic sentiment, the issue was largely ignored in public political discourse, until it was too late. even then, the response of those in government to may 2008 was largely denialist in character. several prominent politicians initially voiced surprise and concern and acknowledged that xenophobia was a significant problem. they were quickly silenced by an official ‘party line’ from the president‘s office. the attacks were criminal, not xenophobically motivated, ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 452 said president mbeki at an official day of mourning for the victims. south africans were not xenophobic and anyone who said so was themselves being xenophobic. similarly, in its 2011 report, the african peer review mechanism monitoring project gave south africa a ‘red rating’ for its failure to address, and indeed its denial of, xenophobia (saiia, cps & agma 2011). the denialism characterising government response in 2008 continues to date. such positions and the lack of sustained political will to address xenophobia led efforts initiated in 2008 to be abandoned or allowed to wither. task teams and units have been dissolved or are no longer functional and – somewhat ironically – ‘xenophobia’ has been almost entirely excised from the country’s ‘national action plan to combat racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance’. the unwillingness to recognise xenophobia coupled with a general weak judicial system has also led to an alarming culture of impunity and lack of accountability for perpetrators and mandated institutions: foreign nationals and others have been repeatedly attacked in south africa since 2004 but few perpetrators, some of them government representatives at local level, have been charged. even fewer have been convicted. in some instances, state agents have actively protected those accused of anti-foreigner violence (misago 2011). similarly, there have been no efforts to hold mandated institutions, such as the police and the intelligence, accountable for their failure to prevent and stop violence despite visible warning signs. in explaining government denialism in the face of overwhelming evidence, polzer & takabvirwa (2010: 7) argue that admitting the existence of a xenophobic citizenry is both “ideologically and politically uncomfortable” for the anc which “understands itself as heir to a long non-discriminatory, panafrican tradition.” admitting that various forms of violence against outsiders even within the black population remain a striking feature of the ‘rainbow nation’ is likely to be a similarly uncomfortable truth to acknowledge as it sits uneasily with long-standing anc visions of ‘unity in diversity’ and poses serious challenges to the state’s legitimacy and sovereignty. that said, it is worth noting that there are on-going small scale initiatives to counter ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 453 xenophobia and promote social cohesion within various departments. these include home affairs’ (dha) programme aimed at ‘strengthening communities of peace and diversity,’ the justice and constitutional development’s (doj) ‘national action plan to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,’ and the arts and culture’s (dac) ‘national strategy for developing an inclusive and a cohesive south african society.’ while the last two initiatives are still under discussion, the success of these strategies is uncertain given the consistent lack of coordination and complementarity among different government departments in addressing xenophobia and related violence since 2008. it should also be noted that some senior officials within the national and provincial governments acknowledge the problem’s severity and have appealed for tolerance. for example, in her keynote speech on world refugee day on 20 june 2013, the minister of home affairs publicly condemned xenophobia and acknowledged that much needs to be done to combat the violence and educate the community. similarly, the deputy president and gauteng premier recently spoke out against xenophobia and again stressed that more needs to be done to address it. in addressing a gauteng social cohesion summit in johannesburg in august 2014, the deputy president stated: as the province with the largest number of immigrants, gauteng must lead the way in combating xenophobia in all its manifestations. the people of this province must, through their actions, underscore the fact that foreign nationals pose no threat to our desire for social cohesion nor do they present any impediment to the achievement of a common south african nationhood (gabara 2015). similarly, the gauteng premier stated that “south africans should self-reflect before blaming all their problems on foreigners and urged the country to unite against xenophobia” (kubheka 2014). while these pronouncements (like the ones in the past) have not translated into concrete action, they contrast starkly with the national government’s populist turn over the last few years. a sign of this is a series of current policy proposals intended to restrict immigration and ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 454 the socio-economic rights of non-nationals in south africa. so while government has tentatively accepted the need to fight xenophobia, it has left this largely in the realm of rhetorical appeal while actively working to restrict immigration and opportunities for non-nationals in south africa. as landau & freemantle (2014: 1) note, it is somewhat ironic that efforts to promote social cohesion in the country are “premised on separating groups and denying some segments of the population rights guaranteed to others.” it is important to note that even this general acceptance of xenophobia again reinforces the position that this is fundamentally an issue of immigration and not one rooted in potentially violent divisions within south africa’s population. police responses to xenophobic violence in south africa although the police are charged with protecting all residents of south africa from physical harm, they have often expressed ambivalence towards the rights and welfare of outsiders or been actively hostile and complicit in violence against them (amnesty international 2014; landau & haithar 2007). in line with government reactions, rather than grapple with the issue as distinct from high levels of ‘ordinary’ crime, police officials have resisted pressure to approach xenophobic violence as anything rooted in attitudes, political instrumentalism or economic ambition. instead, they argue, the language of xenophobia is merely a cover for criminality or even a conscious effort to bring south africa’s reputation into disrepute. according to a police spokesperson quoted in bauer (2013): holistically speaking, south africans are not xenophobic and many cases are merely crime. […] we cannot conflate this issue and we commonly see this as afrophobia that is underpinned by criminality. when we see children looting shops and people robbing people of their goods it is to us a blatant sign of crime that is being excused as xenophobia. cormsa (2011) argues that because the “police are very quick to dismiss attacks on foreign nationals as simply ‘criminal’ rather than xenophobic,” they have limited ability to detect prejudice motives in criminal incidents. this has serious implications on their ability to counter violence: when the police arrest ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 455 or bring perpetrators to justice (which they rarely do), the focus is almost exclusively on those caught in the act rather than on instigators behind the scenes. while the instigators are often well known to the community, they have de facto impunity and may – as they have in many cases – act again. indeed, by eliminating economic competition, seizing housing or winning political favour through their actions, their incentives are further strengthened. in explaining their insufficient response, the police often point to lack of capacity and fear of victimisation at the hands of a hostile community. this may be true in many instances, but one must not overlook their own antiforeigner sentiments and support (or at least passive condoning) of the violence and their unwillingness to draw attention to a politically sensitive topic (misago et al. 2009). in the run up to the 2010 fifa world cup, the police minister labelled those raising concerns about overt threats of xenophobic violence as “prophets of doom” (tv footage showed interviews with township dwellers preparing to “finish the war” they started in may 2008). the ‘evacuation strategy’ has become a characteristic feature of police responses to xenophobic violence. in almost all cases, the police have limited their role to escorting victims to places of safety rather than protecting them and their property in situ. even where well-intentioned, such activities may inadvertently abet perpetrators trying to remove ‘unwanted’ foreigners from their midst. in some instances, the police have been accused of actively collaborating with such campaigns (landau & haithar 2007). while appreciating the police efforts to save their lives, some victims of the attacks believe that effort should also be made to protect their property. for them, saving livelihoods is as important as saving lives. a somali shop-owner in orange farm states: well, the problem... helpers, the police, they are coming. and they come to save our life, but not our property. they say “leave the shop; let us take you to the police station.” and they take us to the police station. tomorrow, how can we survive? yes, okay... they save my life... tomorrow, what can i...i eat and drink? ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 456 yes, they have to protect us with our property. even last time, they robbed our shops. now even i don’t have a shop. post may 2008 civil society response the widespread anti-outsider violence in may 2008 elicited a range of responses from local and international civil society and international organisations. many have been involved in providing humanitarian assistance to the victims of the violence. others have launched interventions aimed at preventing the reoccurrence of such a violent conflict by promoting social cohesion. these have had mixed effects. while some have undoubtedly provided needed succour and others have had little impact, some have risked exacerbating tensions by reinforcing notions that foreigners are a privileged group or promoting conflict resolution strategies that bolster inter-group boundaries. although characterised by much chaos due to a lack of coordination and communication among different stakeholders, the immediate humanitarian response to the may 2008 crisis was generally laudable: ngos (local and international), un agencies, faith-based organisations (fbos) and individuals proffered volumes of donated food, clothes and other goods and services to the displaced populations (polzer et al. 2009). beyond the humanitarian crisis, various civil society organisations initiated programmes aimed at preventing the occurrence of violence and promoting social cohesion. the nelson mandela foundation, for example, organised social cohesion community dialogues in violence affected communities across the country. the international organisation for migration (iom) initiated the ‘one’ movement, a social change campaign that seeks to reverse attitudes that result in discrimination, xenophobia, racism and tribalism. this was intended to use media campaigns, community conversations, youth mobilisation, curriculum interventions and human rights training with a wide range of civil society partners to promote a culture of tolerance, human dignity and unity in diversity across south and southern africa (iom 2009). ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 457 together with many other initiatives organised by interested parties and organisations, these interventions may have increased awareness of xenophobia as a social problem. they have, however, done little to address social and institutional xenophobia and its various manifestations. indeed, official and public xenophobic pronouncements and attitudes are as pervasive as ever and violence against foreign nationals is on the rise (misago et al. 2015). the following discussion highlights at least six reasons why these civil society interventions have failed or have not yielded desired outcomes. first, there is a lack of consistency and political muscle to hold government accountable for its failures to protect people’s fundamental rights or to influence strong and sustained official response to xenophobia and related violence. pugh (2014: 1) rightly notes that “much civil society response tended to be humanitarian in nature, rather than presenting any sustained political challenge that would address the underlying structural causes of such violence.” in trying to address xenophobia and its different manifestations in south africa, civil society has almost exclusively targeted affected communities with awareness campaigns and moral appeals for tolerance but has largely failed to mobilise government responses to address the institutional xenophobia that fuels anti-foreigner attitudes and behaviour among the public. it has also failed to generate official, policy level response aimed specifically at building a society inclusive of foreign nationals and other outsiders (or at least obtain government’s official support and sustained involvement in on-going initiatives). as pugh (2014: 232) further notes, there appears to be no, “space available for cso actors to effectively advocate for structural and political change in the management of migration, refugee, and asylum seeker issues, let alone for addressing the root causes of violence.” with a focus on communities, interventions often overlook the broader institutional structures that help reinforce perceptions and practices that disadvantage and threaten lives and livelihoods of many foreign nationals living in the country. as misago et al. (2015) note, the root causes of intolerance and discrimination in south africa are located in mutually reinforcing social and institutional configurations at local and national levels. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 458 indeed, reflecting on uhncr anti-xenophobia programmes, many civil society organisations acknowledged that one of their collective failures in addressing xenophobic violence in south africa has been their inability to secure a government buy-in. for example, a cormsa official observed “[…] one of the things which continue to be missing is the issue of getting government buy-in and commitment…. so for me i think one of the shortcomings would have been that relationship with government in terms of getting the buy-in of the programme.” the official believes that not having government on board is a major challenge to addressing xenophobia and related violence. in a similar vein, amnesty international (2014) stated that they “remain concerned that in the six years since the large-scale violence and displacements of 2008, the south african authorities have not put in place any systematic measures of prevention and protection.” second, civil society organisations often base their interventions on shaky foundations and untested theories of change. for one, they have focused almost exclusively on attitudes, neglecting factors and motivations that trigger violent behaviour towards foreigners. this shifts attention from factors critical to combatting the immediate effects of xenophobia (law enforcement, accountability and the like) to ones with (only potential) long-term consequences. although promoting tolerant attitudes is an important objective in any fragmented society, the psychological research is inconclusive regarding relationships between attitudes and behaviour. attitudes are not necessarily a good predictor of behaviour (ajzen & fishbein 1977). as research evidence shows, anti-foreign attitudes are consistently high across different sections of the country’s population, but manifestations of violence and acts of discrimination differ significantly across locations (crush 2008). people may value an inclusive society in general but are nonetheless willing and able to alienate particular, demonised sub-groups. hence, attitudes alone cannot explain why certain forms of violence tend to happen in certain types of communities and not in others. apart from questionable efficiency, the emphasis on attitudes overlooks the importance of political mobilisation of xenophobic discourses or institutional configurations – formal or informal – that help to differentiate and divide populations based on race, ethnicity, ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 459 nationality, legal status or any other factor that might become fulcra for xenophobic discrimination (landau 2011). political entrepreneurs and local leaders often deliberately capitalise on distrustful climates and make political or economic gains from discrimination against and violent exclusion of those deemed to be outsiders (misago 2011). by overlooking these instigators and their motivations, interventions are unlikely to succeed because they are ‘barking up the wrong tree.’ indeed, to be effective, the theories of change and other assumptions informing most of civil society’s xenophobia related programming need to be evidence-based and, particularly, be broadened beyond changing public opinions and attitudes and shift towards programmes and interventions targeting political and behavioural change. for example, apart from the militia/displaced and migrant persons support programme (militia/dmpsp) and, to an extent, the agency for refugee education, skills, training & advocacy (aresta) programme, the unhcr rosa programmes evaluated were oriented towards public attitudes, not xenophobic behaviour or practices, politics on the ground and national policy. for example, aresta identified poor service delivery, poverty, unemployment and political infighting as sources of violence but, nevertheless, designed a public awareness programme instead of programmes to address these sources of conflict. public awareness programmes have value as long as they are complemented by other approaches targeting the political and economic incentives and configurations driving violence and discrimination. third, civil society interventions and programmes are immigrant-orientated and run the risk of exacerbating rather than eliminating bias and violent exclusion. overt pro-migrant, pro-minority rights programmes may further isolate migrants or minorities by reinforcing existing boundaries and fuelling tensions. such programmes risk reinforcing the categories by (a) drawing attention to them; (b) requiring people to seek remedy as membership in said groups; and (c) bolstering popular conceptions that foreigners receive special aid and attention. by demonstrating that foreign nationals (or other minorities) have international allies (unhcr, ai, etc…), well-meaning agencies ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 460 and their interventions may unwittingly build resentment among the disadvantaged citizenry who feels forgotten and angry. some of this may be unavoidable, but campaigns organised around more transversal or universal themes like law enforcement, rule of law, administrative restructuring or the like may help diminish, rather than reinforce, difference. this may require a different set of partners and expertise beyond the normal human rights and migrant protection collaborators. such a ‘stealth’ approach may be more politically palatable and sustainable and less visibly pro-migrant/minority. one of the uhncr rosa initiatives (the militia/dmpsp) could serve as an example in this regard. called ‘promotion of social cohesion among refugees, asylum seekers and nationals’, the programme’s objective was to prevent and mitigate violent attacks on foreign nationals, particularly unhcr’s people of concern. although activities and implementation approach varies depending on the situation at hand, militia/dmpsp indicated that their general modus operandi consisted of i) intelligence gathering to have a clear understanding of the situation; ii) dispersing crowds of perpetrators using force and dogs when necessary (working with the police or on their own); iii) evacuating victims of attack to safe places; iv) searching for and retrieving stolen goods; v) arresting perpetrators and handing them over to the police; and vi) negotiating with communities and their leaders for reintegration of displaced foreign nationals (see more details on this programme in misago et al. 2015). visibly, while these activities may provide foreign nationals with short term relief, they may actually exacerbate their long term vulnerability. indeed, these are law enforcement duties which,h when performed by civil society organisations (like in this case), have questionable legality, to say the least, and create unsustainable parallel systems of protection or reinforce divisions between foreign nationals and other community members. interventions that create parallel systems of protection and/or prioritise the wellbeing of foreign nationals over the general welfare of other community members risk exacerbating tensions and resentment and may end up doing more harm than good in terms of protecting outsiders from violent exclusion. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 461 fourth, many civil society interventions target the wrong sources of conflict. for example, assumptions that events like community dialogues and cultural and sport festivals that bring different groups together will help achieve peaceful coexistence among groups, ignore the fact that these initiatives are unlikely to reach those behind the violence. while there is potential value in bringing people together who otherwise might not engage, they do little to address the political economy of violence within south african communities. indeed, ample research evidence indicates that the micro-politics and the political economy of violence are the key drivers of violent attacks on foreign nationals in affected areas (misago 2011). moreover, when managed poorly, even supposedly ‘non-political’ events such as soccer tournaments, intercultural dialogues or cultural events easily become politically charged and divisive. such events require very careful management and a clearly structured framework for establishing dialogue around issues of mutual concern to avoid the worsening of existing tensions. fifth and lastly, many civil society organisations use ‘one size fits all’ approaches that fail to recognise the specific sources of violence in particular sites. while there are commonalities across many sites, initiatives that fail to recognise the triggers, targets and forms of discrimination as practiced in a specific place are unlikely to succeed. thus, it is important that interventions are adapted to the specific dynamics of a locality, carefully considering which local institutions to target, which residents and actors to work with, and which specific tensions to address. community responses in the absence of effective government and civil society responses, foreign nationals and local communities and their leaders are forging new ways to deal with discrimination and violent exclusion. in a few instances, local communities have resisted violence mobilisation and have actively protected foreign nationals and other groups living in their midst (bbc 2011) however, much of this ‘protection’ or ‘welcoming’ of foreigners in the community is motivated by self-interest too, rather than a principled stance of tolerance and hospitality. in some places, foreign nationals and local communities have ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 462 resorted to unlawful compromises such as limiting the number of foreignowned business in a given locality and setting minimum prices on basic goods. segatti (2011: 3) notes that “these agreements are problematic because they set precedents akin to market division and price-fixing.” in other instances, foreign nationals pay protection fees to local leaders or gangsters or are forced to drop criminal charges against their assailants to appease communities or in response to threats of further attacks (misago et al. 2009). there are also growing concerns that foreign nationals are making efforts to acquire fire arms (even if illegally) for self-protection (amnesty international 2014), and there are already examples where this practice has led to more tensions and violence. for example the january 2015 violence in soweto started after a foreign shop owner shot and killed a local boy during an alleged robbery (sapa 2015) these community initiatives are evidently unsustainable coping mechanisms that are already causing more chaos, exacerbating existing tensions and leading to more violence. conclusion this paper argues that government and civil society responses and interventions to address xenophobic violence in south africa have largely been ineffective as evidenced by on-going and increasing levels of such violence. the paper further argues that, in addition to the lack of government political will, impunity and lack of civil society muscle to hold government accountable for its failure to protect all country’s residents, interventions have failed particularly because of their critical ontological and etiological blind spots. indeed, most of past and current interventions by civil society a) fail to address the presence of institutional roots of xenophobia and related violence and neglect the importance of political mobilisation of xenophobic discourses or institutional configurations, and b) are based on untested theories of change such as unfounded assumptions that changing attitudes, even if successful, will necessarily prevent violence. as such, interventions are not informed by a clear understanding of violence dynamics, motives and triggers. without a clear appreciation of the dynamics, instrumental motives and organisational triggers of the violence as well as of what type of responses ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 463 work or do not work, intervention strategies can only be ineffective at best, and counter-productive at worst. if nothing else, this paper demonstrates that addressing xenophobic violence or at least minimizing its effects requires more than moral appeals and awareness campaigns. rather it requires, (a) sustained, and coordinated and broad-based efforts; (b) greater support from public programmes and politicians; (c) a more nuanced understanding of the space specific drivers of violence; and (d) efforts to counter the culture of impunity, promote the rule of law and enhance community-based conflict resolution mechanisms that respect the constitutional principles of universal rights and due process. to reiterate the third point, this means shifting from one size fits all approaches towards strategies that consider 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development surfaced as essential discourses in contemporary development issues. consequently, this led to the birth of what is currently popularly coined as the migration-development nexus. in addition, there has been an evolution of the food security topic in various developmental discussions. nevertheless, little attention has been given to the relationship between international migration and food security in the context of development in the global south. moreover, missing in the literature is the conversation on migration and food security with particular attention to youths who constitute a vulnerable yet economically active group. furthermore, there has been an ongoing engaging debate on the impact of remittances, whether remittances for household use are developmental in nature or not. this study, in contributing to the above debates, explores the link between youth migration and food security, and is based on a quantitative empirical study on zimbabwean migrant youths in cape town, south africa. the research presents comprehensive perspectives on the complexities linked to the reasons for youth migration in connection to food security, the importance of remittances on food security in the place of origin and levels of food insecurity in the place of destination. results from this study can provide useful data for various stakeholders involved in both international migration and food security development agendas. keywords development, food security, migration, remittances and youth. introduction the dawn of the 21st century heralded the migration-development nexus discourse which resurfaced as an imperative subject in the development * phd candidate, faculty of arts, university of the western cape, south africa, email: seansithole88@gmail.com ** institute for social development, faculty of economic and management science, university of the western cape, south africa, email: mdinbabo@uwc.ac.za mailto:seansithole88@gmail.com mailto:mdinbabo@uwc.ac.za ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 513 agenda and has expanded remarkably since then. globally, the connection between migration and development has been an important yet controversial discourse which has led to an engaging academic contestation or scholarly debate and attention in the midst of policy makers, researchers and academics, among others stakeholders. various ideas and recommendations have been put forward in recent times on how best to approach the migrationdevelopment nexus (sørensen et al. 2002; united nations 2006; castles & wise 2008; bakewell 2008; skeldon 2008; piper 2009; wise & covarrubias 2009; glick schiller 2011; brønden 2012; sørensen 2012; de haas 2012; bastia 2013). this points to the fact that there is a vast expansion of interesting, yet greatly disparate literature on migration and development dialogue, showing its diversity and habitually ever-changing perspective. the focus of the above publications and discussions was on the progressive impact that migration could possibly perform in developmental issues globally, and in developing countries in particular. the above literature also shows continuity and paradox through paradigm shift from macro issues which exclusively viewed migration at an international and national level in the context of economic growth, and on the other hand, micro extreme perspectives where migration through remittances is seen as a livelihoods strategy which is beneficial to the migrant as well as family members left behind in the place of origin. a number of scholars (kapur 2005; de haas 2005; de haas 2007; crush & pendleton 2009; crush 2012) have skeptical attitudes towards the notion that the household or individual use of remittances for basic necessities and not for productivity or investments, in turn, causes hindrance to economic growth and development. this is a naïve and ideologically bankrupt view which is lagging behind contemporary development issues. this is so because migration benefits to households and their livelihoods are an important aspect of sustainable livelihoods, especially the availability of income and remittances to buy food and other basic commodities. as noted by de haan (1999: 31), remittances are not only used towards what many development professionals regard as productive investments, they are also a vital aspect of households’ strategic planning for survival. in addition, another key aspect of this argument is the disengagement between migration and food security which is noted by crush (2012), who argues that the major drawback of the discourse on migration-development nexus over the years has been the lack of methodological dialogues and limited attention on the linkages between human mobility and food security, especially in the ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 514 framework of south-south migration. crush (2012) makes interesting points by arguing convincingly that food insecurity is shockingly not considered as one of the main determinants of human mobility, the debate overlooks the fact that migrants cross borders in search of areas with better accessibility and availability of food sources, as well as migrating in order to meet the basic needs of people back in the place of origin. both migration and food security aspects are fundamental in the development agenda; consequently, in recent times, there has been a genesis of literature combining migration and food security. nevertheless, the key argument of this paper is that missing from the existing and emerging academic debates on the marriage between migration and food security are narratives on the phenomenon of youth mobility in search of income for food security. youths belong to a vulnerable group which faces challenges including high unemployment, social segregation, stigmatization, and low incomes and salaries, just to mention a few, which in turn lead to the phenomenon of youth migration. hence, youths should be involved in the migration-food security nexus debate. it is equally important to note that recently the international community has experienced a shocking rate of youth migration and food insecurity on one hand and a vast number of remittances sent to the places of origin on the other. in 2010, 27 million migrants globally in the 15-24 age category made up 12.4% of the 214 million international migrants, and when migrants in the 25-34 age category are included in the same year, migrant youths represented one-third of international migrants (undesa 2011: 12-13). in regards to food security, from 2011 to 2013, 842 million, or 1 in 8, people globally were suffering from continuous hunger and food shortages, indicating that the millennium development goal of eliminating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 continued to be illusive (fao et al. 2013: 4). furthermore, in 2013, the overall remittances totaled an astonishing $542 billion with $404 billion sent to developing countries and amounts expected to rise in the coming years (world bank 2014: 2). in the african context, remittances have contributed immensely to macro as well as micro level development, especially for poverty reduction and sustaining livelihoods. this study argues that a development agenda that does not consider connecting youth migration and food security would be out of date on current developmental issues. background and contextualisation the independence of zimbabwe in 1980 brought about immense joy, euphoria and jubilation, a new economic giant in africa was born and, for a decade ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 515 spanning from 1980 to 1990, the country was flourishing economically and socially. however, events in the 1990s signalled the beginning of the collapse of a promising economy1. from the start of the 21st century, hyperinflation, political and socio-economic crisis, led to mass exodus within and across the zimbabwean border. in addition, the economic meltdown in zimbabwe led to an increase in ‘brain drain,’ the emigration of skilled zimbabweans from the nation state, especially professionals in the health and education sectors, because of better opportunities in foreign destinations (tevera & crush 2003: 1). in 2009, the zimbabwean dollar’s reliability vanished through the dollarization of the economy, as it was replaced with the us dollar and other foreign currencies (noko 2011) that the country is still using today. however, the economy continues to shrink, zimbabwean youth are now hopeless because many university graduates have been turned into street vendors (masekesa & chibaya, 2014), zimbabwe’s unemployment levels are estimated to be 80%, with 68% of this percentage being vulnerable youths (mukuhlani 2014: 138). over the years, remittances from abroad have played a vital role for many in zimbabwe. a 2014 estimation indicated that $1.8 billion was sent to zimbabwe by zimbabweans in the diaspora (the africa report 2014). as such, in the context of the crisis in zimbabwe, remittances have saved the country from total collapse. prior to independence, zimbabwe was mainly a migrant-receiving nation and then became a migrant-sending nation after independence because of the economic crisis (tevera & zinyama 2002; bloch 2006; crush & tevera 2010). zimbabwe’s case has been viewed by crush and tevera (2010) as ‘crisisdriven’ migration, the socio-economic and political crisis has turned the once cherished breadbasket of africa into a basket case2. the zimbabwean case is a tragedy; the economy, health and education sectors, have been crippled, food insecurity and poverty are still major challenges, and millions of zimbabweans, youth included, have migrated to other countries, especially to south africa, for greener pastures. this exile includes food-insecure 1 these events included the economic structural adjustment programme (esap), draining of the government coffers through a bonus to liberation war veterans and the land reform programme, all of which had a negative impact on the economy. 2 the words ‘bread basket to basket case’ are mainly used in reference to zimbabwe, which used to produce a surplus of food and other resources for its people and other countries. however, in recent times with the food shortages and socio-economic crisis, the once full basket (zimbabwe) is now empty. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 516 zimbabweans from all walks of life who have been pushed out by the disastrous situation in the country. methodology the study was conducted at three locations in cape town, namely, bellville, rondebosch and observatory. cape town is a city located in the western province of south africa and is second to johannesburg as the most heavily populated metropolitan in the country (western cape government 2013). cape town is also the tenth most populous city in the african continent (morris 2014). it is also amongst the prominent multicultural cities in the globe which makes it very attractive to migrants (expat cape town 2014). bellville, rondebosch and observatory were selected because they are residence to a large number of zimbabwean youth, migrant students and workers. these areas also have a variety of food sources in an urban set up and represent two different suburbs, the northern and southern suburbs. this research adopted a quantitative method approach; 60 zimbabwean youths were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. respondents who participated in the quantitative structured questionnaires were selected using nonprobability sampling, to be specific, snowballing sampling was used. the research was systematically carried out, and managed to reach its objectives. nevertheless, the researchers were also mindful of some challenges in locating the target group under study, as migrants were reluctant to disclose their identity due to fear of discrimination, victimisation, xenophobia or prosecution because of lack of proper immigration documentation. fortunately, social networks used to locate respondents proved to be very helpful. literature review the literature on the link between migration and food security in the context of internal migration has paid much attention to rural communities; however, with food security recently being recognised as an urban challenge, the focus has shifted to rural-urban migration. this is shown by several publications (frayne 2007; crush et al. 2007; drimie 2008; kassie et al. 2008; frayne 2010; tawodzera 2013; pendleton et al. 2014; dinbabo & nyasulu 2015). the studies revealed that the social networks among rural and urban families are fundamental to survival strategies of the poor people in cities and that, to a lesser degree, urban agriculture contributes to sustainable livelihoods. urban dwellers that face food shortages are those with few or no social links with rural communities. on the contrary, those with strong rural-urban links have ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 517 the privilege of getting food from rural communities that counterbalance exposure to food insecurity. the mutual benefit is also seen through the fact that remittances and food transfers are not one-directional, there is a ruralurban as well as the urban-rural transfer of goods, commodities and money. the existence of reciprocal connections between rural and urban areas is vital to the sustainable living conditions of distraught urban dwellers. several empirical studies in india were conducted linking human mobility and nutrition issues, with a particular focus on malnutrition, food consumption and dietary matters (choudhary & parthasarathy 2009; bowen et al. 2011; tripathi & srivastava 2011). zezza et al. (2011) examined the connection between migration and nutrition issues in third-world countries using migration at a local, regional and international levels, which resulted in various outcomes. of great interest are the findings from the above research that indicated that child growth or improved dietary intake is linked to human mobility, especially in poverty struck and vulnerable communities, signalling the importance of remittances used to access nutritious and sufficient food. the most thought-provoking response to migration and food security and an essential publication in the migration-food security debate is crush’s (2012) examination of urbanism, internal and international migration in relation to food security in the african context. the article argues that food shortages and insecurity can surely be main causes for migration and a search for better income-earning prospects. crush (2012) also found that the main cause of urban food insecurity is not scarcities but deficiency in food accessibility, that is to say, lack of a consistent and dependable source of income for food consumption. the paper also compared migrant and non-migrant families. the results indicated that both categories face food insecurity challenges, however, in some cases migrant households proved to be more food insecure, with both rural-urban and international migration rising rapidly as well as migrants or combinations of migrants and locals occupying the most impoverished locations in urban areas. various scholars have endorsed migration as a strategic decision used by many households and vulnerable communities for poverty reduction and improved livelihoods (mcdowell & de haan 1997; scoones 1998; de haan 1999; skeldon 2002; kothari 2002; ellis 2003; dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015). on the other hand, remittances have been viewed as having positive developmental impact as well as being used as a source of income to reduce poverty and acquire basic needs especially during crisis years (maimbo & ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 518 ratha 2005; adams & page 2005; adams 2011). hence, remittances can be a form of social protection, enabling migrant families to have better ways to earn a living than non-migrant families (kapur 2003). various studies in southern africa indicated that in recent times remittances have been vital as a basis of income for many households and economies (pendleton et al. 2006; maphosa 2007; bracking & sachikonye 2010; crush et al. 2010). in the context of zimbabwe, research (maphosa 2007; tevera & chikanda 2009; bracking & sachikonye 2010) showed that money and goods transferred by migrants are vital to the families, individuals and economy of zimbabwe. their assessment also specified that in relation to the socioeconomic and political watershed in the country, the main use of remittances is for basic needs like food, education, home construction and health services, among other things, and that the transfer of financial resources and other commodities by migrants has served many people from the effects of poverty and shortages of goods. in connection with the above, this study argues that the new economics of labour migration (nelm) put into perspective the link between youth migration and food security of zimbabwean youths. the new economics of labour migration signifies a major progression in the population movement discourse. with the growing attention on people-centred development in the last quarter of the 20th century, the new economics of labour migration materialised with a critical view and expansion of the neoclassical theories which were viewed as passive in dealing with population movement and developmental issues (massey et al. 1993). the hypothesis of this theory is that households or families strategically migrate to capitalise on income earnings as well as to reduce vulnerability to various threats. hence, remittances offer a social protection, and the risk protection clarifies why human mobility can occur in situations where there are no differences in wages in the places of origin and destination (de haas 2010). the main perception of the new economics of labour migration is that when people decide to migrate, the choices are not reached by individuals; rather they are made at a broader level through collective elements such as strategic family or household decisions, in order to increase financial security and reduce vulnerability and challenges related to market let-downs or unexpected risks (stark & levhari 1982; stark & bloom 1985; taylor 1999: 74). remittances are seen as central to better livelihoods by providing financial security (stark 1980). as noted by taylor et al. (1996), previous work ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 519 by neoclassical theorists tended to be too pessimistic and fails to address the importance of remittances in supporting or sustaining families and societies. in other words, the importance of remittances is absent in the pessimist theories on migration. conversely, at the heart of the new economics of labour migration is the fundamental role that remittances play in sustaining livelihoods of many households which, in turn, becomes the main reason for migration decisions. the above literature did not take into account any investigation on vulnerable youths, in connection with migration and food security, with the main emphasis being on better livelihoods. furthermore, there is over-emphasis on internal migration and food security or livelihoods; most of the literature is silent about migration and food security or livelihoods across borders. taking into account the above-mentioned research gaps on the connection between migration and food security, this research presents an analytical framework and exploration of the link between youth migration and food security. empirical findings, data and analysis a) youth background and demographic information the survey made a background check to confirm the nationality of the respondents; all 60 interviewed were zimbabwean nationals. out of the 60 respondents, 60% were males and 40% were females. the age breakdown in the survey included 36.7% aged between 25 and 29; 31.7% between 30 and 34; 30% between 20 and 24; and 1.7% between 15 and 19. in this study, the majority, 71.7%, were single; 21.7% were married; 5% were divorced; and 1.7% did not specify marital status. the majority of the individuals, 71.67%, were breadwinners; 18.33% specified that their relatives such as brothers and sisters were breadwinners; and 10% stated that their husbands were breadwinners. the survey also illustrated that 38.3% had no dependents; 18.3% had three dependents; 18.3% had two dependents; 11.7% had one dependent; 6.7% had four dependents; and 6.7% had five dependents. the heritage of an educated and literate zimbabwean population was evident in the survey, with 60% having completed university level education; 30% having completed secondary education; 6.7% vocational; and 3.3% other categories. b) youth employment status in this survey, the majority, 76.7%, indicated that they were unemployed prior to coming to south africa, while only 23.3% were employed before coming to ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 520 south africa. in recent times unemployment in zimbabwe has become a massive national crisis, as stated by rusvingo (2015: 2), with the unemployment rate estimated to be 85%. this is in line with the claim that since 2000 the crisis and high unemployment in zimbabwe led to the emergence of informal dealings popularly known as ‘kukiya-kiya’ (jones 2010)3. however, the current situation in south africa was remarkably better, 83.3% of the respondents were currently employed and only 16.7% were out of employment. among the 50 employed respondents, 88% were employees and 12% were self-employed. in addition, out of these same 50 respondents, 74% were employed part-time and 26% were employed full-time. evident in this research is that zimbabwe’s economic meltdown has caused high unemployment in general and youth unemployment in particular, with south africa providing better employment opportunities. c) reasons for migrating to south africa in the context of this study, the respondents were allowed to give multiple answers in relation to the drivers of migration from zimbabwe to south africa. 65% confirmed that socio-economic crisis influenced their decision to migrate while 35% differed. only 22% indicated that political crisis influenced their decision to migrate while 78% opposed this opinion. 63% indicated that food shortages influenced their decision to migrate whereas 37% differed. 25% had other reasons to migrate such as coming to school (figure 1). to put this into perspective, migration is generally viewed as a response to poverty, vulnerability to various risks and poor access to basic needs, hence people move in search of greener pastures (skeldon 2002). within sub-saharan africa, cross-border migration is mainly a result of economic factors (dinbabo & carciotto 2015). 3 ‘kukiya-kiya’ is an informal strategy of doing any kind of business to earn a living (jones 2010). ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 521 figure 1: reasons for migrating to south africa source: field survey, 2015. in the case of zimbabwe, poverty is very much linked to the determinants of migration where people run away from poverty to other countries seeking better opportunities and improved livelihoods (dzingirai, et al. 2014). unsurprisingly, the findings of this research confirmed that the crippled and disjointed zimbabwean economy, as well as the chaotic social and political circumstances, have overwhelmed many zimbabweans and pushed many youth out of the country in search of improved access to food and better opportunities elsewhere. the high rate at which zimbabweans have migrated from zimbabwe because of the deteriorating economy has been termed “survival migration” (crush et al. 2012: 5). additionally, since 2000, political ferocity and economic crisis in zimbabwe has led to outwards migration at a high or unusual level (hammar et al. 2010: 263). 65% 22% 63% 25% 35% 78% 37% 75% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% reasons for migrating yes no ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 522 d) family or household influence on migration decision the family or household influence on migration decisions was evident in most of the interview responses as 70% of the respondents indicated that their household/family members influenced their decision to migrate, whereas only 30% differed. general responses here were that family/household members advised that in south africa there were “greener pastures,” “better opportunities,” “jobs” and that migration would help the upkeep of the family/household members. in addition, 63% of the respondents indicated that they migrated to south africa in order to meet the food needs of family/household members back in the country of origin, while 37% differed. this is linked to the new economics of labour migration (nelm) which states that migration is a strategic choice made at a household or family level, which is generally better than at an individual level and is primarily done in order to improve income and reduce or share the responsibility of possible risks (de haas 2010: 242-243). this is also in line with the livelihood approaches to migration, as argued by ellis (2003) that considers migration as vital to improving livelihoods of many communities. in addition, there was a statistically significant (p<0.001) link between (1) the influence of food shortages/food insecurity and (2) the influence of family/household members on the migration decision. furthermore, there was also a statistically significant (p<0.002) association between (1) the influence of food shortages/food insecurity on migration decision and (2) the migration decision in order to meet the food needs of the family/household members. without a doubt, it is clear in this study that family/household members played a huge part in the migration decision in order to reduce the risk or vulnerability to food insecurity of themselves and the migrant family/household member. e) youth migration, remittances, and food security the findings in this research reveal that most zimbabweans remit to their households, family or friends in zimbabwe, with the majority (75%) of the respondents noting that they send money to zimbabwe while only 25% do not send money. one of the main notions of the new economics of labour migration (nelm) is that human mobility and remittances sent back to the place of origin provide financial resources which help in reducing any potential risks (taylor 1999). to put it in another way, central to the new economics of labour migration (nelm) is that remittances sent back to the ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 523 place of origin play a crucial role in poverty reduction and improving the livelihoods of many households. the frequency of remitting money to zimbabwe was as follows: 42.2% every month; 26.7% whenever possible; 22.2% every three months; 4.4% once a year; and 4.4% twice a year. average money remitted each time to zimbabwe was: 55.6% between r801 and r1500; 22.2% between r0 and r800; 15.6% between r1501 and r3000; and 6.7% between r3000 and r8000 (table 1). unsurprisingly considering the backdrop of the decaying and crumbling zimbabwean economy where opportunities are scarce, remittances behaviour revealed in this study indicates that resources are remitted back to the place of origin on a regular basis. in the context of zimbabwe, a study by dzingirai et al. (2015) indicated that households with migrants have an improved standard of living or healthier livelihood than those without. this is due to remittances which play a crucial part in reducing poverty by providing a source of income to buy basic needs. table 1: frequency and average remittances sent to zimbabwe frequency of sending remittances category numb er percentage every month 19 42.2% every 3 months 10 22.2% twice a year 2 4.4% once a year 2 4.4% whenever possible 12 26.7% total = 45 average amount sent each time to zimbabwe 0 r800 10 22.2% r801 r1500 25 55.6% r1501 r3000 7 15.6% r3001 r8000 3 6.7% r8000+ 0 0% total = 45 source: field survey, 2015. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 524 in line with this, as part of the study, respondents were asked whether they send money to be used for food consumption. a huge majority 82.2% said yes while 17.8% said no. in addition, they were asked whether they believe that the money they send is used for food consumption. 91.1% of the respondents said yes while 8.9% said no. money remittances are important, however, this survey also asked respondents whether they also send any food items/groceries back to their place of origin: 10% of the respondents said they do send groceries while 90% said they do not. in line with this, migration can make an important contribution to the livelihoods of family or household members left behind in the place of origin through remittances which could increase the chances of consuming a variety of foods contributing to a balanced diet (karamba et al. 2011; zezza et al. 2011). ellis (2003) argues that if money remitted to the place of origin is used for food consumption it is logically mainly because of food shortages and, as such, plays a crucial role in establishing food security, especially in uncertain circumstances. in connection with this, there was a statistically significant (p<0.000) relationship between (1) the sending of remittances and (2) the sending of the remittances for it to be used for food consumption, as well as (1) the connection between sending remittances and (2) believing that the remittances are used for food consumption (p<0.000). moreover, there was also a statistically significant (p<0.000) linkage between (1) the sending of remittances for them to be used for food consumption and (2) the belief that the remittances are used for food consumption. furthermore, there is a statistically significant (p<0.049) relationship between (1) migration in order to meet the food needs of household/family members and (1) the sending of food back to the country of origin. evidently, the data shows that one of the main reasons for migrating is to get income to send back to the place of origin. the remittances are sent to be primarily used for food consumption and the migrants who send the remittances do believe that the money is essentially used to buy food. f) youth migrants and food security this section provides information and analysis on the food insecurity level of zimbabwean youth migrants in cape town. the measurement of food insecurity was done by means of the household food insecurity access scale (hfias), household food insecurity access prevalence indicator (hfiap), household dietary diversity scale (hdds), household food insecurity access ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 525 related conditions, household food insecurity access-related domains and the months of adequate household provisioning indicator (mahfp). the average hfias score for zimbabwean youth migrants in cape town was 0.13; the mean score of the hfais was 3.66; the median 2; and the mode 0. the hfiap scores had noteworthy variances: 36.7% food secure; 25% mildly food insecure; 26.7% moderately food insecure; and 11.7% severely food insecure. this shows that 63.3% of the respondents were food insecure, whereas only 36.7% were food secure. the hfias and the hfiap show low general levels of severe food insecurity amongst zimbabwean youth in cape town. in measuring the particular food insecurity conditions through the conduct and opinions of the participants, the household food insecurity accessrelated conditions showed that 36.7% were worried that they would not get enough food while 63.3% were not worried. the frequency was 20% for those who said rarely (once or twice in the past four weeks) and 16.3% said sometimes (three to ten times in the past four weeks). in terms of severe food insecurity conditions, only 6.7% indicated that there was no food to consume because of limited resources, while 93.3% differed. additionally, 8.3% indicated that they went to bed hungry because of insufficient food for consumption. moreover, a minority 1.7% point out that they went an entire 24 hours without consuming any food due to food scarcity. another important measure of food insecurity is the household food insecurity access-related domains which point to the fact that 47.2% had an insufficient quality of food and 52.8% had the desired adequate quality of food. in regards to the quantity of food, 30% indicated that they had food consumption deficient, whereas the majority, 70%, had sufficient food intake. this means, basically, that in terms of food insecurity conditions over half of the respondents were not extremely worried about their situations, especially when it came to the quality or quantity of food. on the other hand, the food access related domains were insightful and showed that the majority of the respondents had high or adequate food consumption. in the context of this research, the levels of food insecurity were also measured using the hdds which deals with the quality of the diet consumed by respondents. the mean score of the hdds was 6.56 of the potential maximum of 12 which specify that on average at least 6 different types of food categories were consumed by the respondents. on the other hand, the median and mode scores were 6 and 5 respectively, signifying that the respondents consumed at least or almost half of the food in the 12 food groups. the most consumed ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 526 categories were meat (96.7%), oil/fats (90%), sugar/honey (76.7%), cereals (73.3%), milk (73.3%) and vegetables (70%). on the other hand the least consumed foods groups were fish/seafood (6.7%), root/tubers (18.3%) and pulses/legumes/nuts (26.7%), as presented in table 2. the figures show that on average the respondents were consuming half of the 12 food categories, as well as high amounts of of meat, oil or fats, sugar or honey, cereals, milk and vegetables. this means, basically, that the zimbabwean youth migrants in cape town were consuming high quality or generally sufficient nutritious diets. table 2: food consumption by respondents food categories frequency percentage cereals 44 73.3% root/tubers 11 18.3% vegetables 42 70% fruits 29 28.3% meat/poultry/offal 58 96.7% eggs 30 50% fish/seafood 4 6.7% pulses/legumes/nuts 16 26.7% milk/milk products 44 73.3% oil/fats 54 90% sugar/honey 46 76.7% miscellaneous/any others 16 26.7% source: field survey, 2015. furthermore, the mahfp which measures whether the respondents managed to get a consistent supply of food for a period of 12 months was used to measure food insecurity. the results pointed out that 53.3% of the respondents experienced months when they did not have enough food to eat compared to 46.7% who had enough food to consume. the mean score for the mahfp of the respondents was 1.38, the median was 1 and the mode was 0. this shows that of the months of adequate food provisioning the respondents had at least one month during which they faced food shortages. in the context of the 12 months during which the months of adequate provisioning are measured (june 2014 – may 2015), january, as shown in figure 2, was the ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 527 month during which most of the respondents faced problems because of the lack of resources. figure 2: frequency of mahfp source: field survey, 2015. this can possibly be attributed to the festive season spending resulting in what is commonly known as ‘january disease.’ in other words, this situation is seasonal; many respondents noted that they spend more money during christmas and new year holidays through traveling, buying food and sending remittances, among other expenditures. as a result, when they come back to the place of destination in january they usually face financial constraints, which in turn leads to low expenditure on food thereby causing food shortages. exploring various factors and their impact on food insecurity according to the empirical findings in this research, food insecurity levels among zimbabwean youth in cape town seem to be very prevalent, 63.3% of the zimbabwean youth migrants were food insecure while only 36.7% were food secure. hence, it is important to understand the various factors or determinants of food insecurity. to begin with, in terms of income, the empirical findings of this research indicated that all those who earned r1500 or less were food insecure while 77.3% of the food secure participants earned an average of r3000 or more. using pearson chi-square cross tabulation, the research findings proved that the correlation between income and food security levels was statistically 5 7 3 9 22 1 5 5 5 7 7 7 0 5 10 15 20 25 frequency of mahfp ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 528 significant (p<0.039), representing the positive influence of income on access to food. secondly, in regards to gender, the findings indicated that 50% of the food secure respondents were males while the other 50% were females, showing that there is no positive link between gender and food insecurity. this was further statistically justified by a having no significance (p=0.229). this is so because access to food by both female and male migrant youths was mainly dependent upon the opportunity to get a better income to buy food, such as better paying job; this is not particularly affected by gender based factors. thirdly, the assumption is that those who are more educated are likely to earn more and get better jobs than the less educated. since the likelihood to earn more is related to having better access to food, those who earn more income are expected to have the financial resources to have improved access to food. however, the findings of this study show that even though some of the zimbabwean youth migrants were highly educated, had good jobs and decent salaries which resulted in better access to food, most of them were not guaranteed to have good and high paying jobs which would, in turn, give them financial power to have a healthier access to food. correspondingly, a pearson chi-square test on the association between education and food insecurity was not statistically significant (p = 0.093) indicating that the two variables were independent of each other. in addition, among those who completed university education, 66.7% were food insecure. this is so because even those who were well educated were desperate to the extent of being employed as waiters or bartenders because the local economy is harsh on foreigners. lastly, this research found out that 45% of the respondents faced food shortages due to price increases while 55% did not face any challenges. the common shortages of food were “meat and cooking oil.” the findings of this study also revealed that there is a relationship between high food prices and food insecurity, using pearson chi-square measure the result illustrated that there is a statistically significant (p = 0.000) association between the two variables. this study reinforces the assumption that price increases can lead to food insecurity of many vulnerable communities, and that high or increased food prices can lead to a decrease in the consumption of nutritious and varied food items. conclusion in exploring the relationship between zimbabwean youth migration and food security in cape town, the key empirical data from this research discovered ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 529 that there is a positive link between youth migration and food security. the basis of this hypothesis is summarised below: the findings confirmed that the main reasons for migration from zimbabwe to south africa were socio-economic crisis and, to some extent, political reasons. most notably, in assessing the role that food insecurity or food shortages play in migration decision, the results indicated without a doubt that food insecurity/shortages proved to be one of the main reasons for migration. in addition, family/household influence in the migration decision proved to be very common, that is to say, most households or family members took part in the migration decision of the youth migrants. interestingly, in relation to this point, a large number of the participants revealed that they left zimbabwe in order to help the family or household members back home with their food needs. through the exploration of the connection between remittances and use of remittances for food consumption, the findings demonstrated that the majority of zimbabwean youth migrants send remittances to zimbabwe in the form of money, mainly to be used for food consumption, and were certain that the remittances they send are used to access food. it is notable that a large majority of the respondents were not sending any food groceries to zimbabwe, as they preferred to send money. the assessment of food insecurity levels of zimbabwean youth in cape town indicated that the average hfias score was 0.13, mean 3.66, median 2 and mode 0, then the hfiap indicated that 63.3% of the participants were food insecure, and only 36.7% were food secure. the research also revealed that there is a major improvement in food security for the youth migrants in south africa compared to zimbabwe. the major factor for the improvement of food security or better food access for zimbabwe youth migrants, was earning income. most of the interviewed migrants managed to get some form of employment and income, which meant they had the financial resources to buy food. with regards to dietary issues, the research revealed that the mean score for the hdds was 6.56 out of 12, and the mode was 5, which signified that the respondents consumed about half of the 12 food categories used in this study. in line with the mahfp, which measured the months during which the participants had food shortages or problems with food access, the findings showed that 53.3% had months during which they did not have adequate food for consumption, and the other 46.7% had no challenges or insufficient food during any of the months. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 530 recommendations this paper establishes various challenges and shortcomings in giving a comprehensive account of the relationship between youth migration and food security. there is a need for collaboration, partnership, and action towards finding solutions, especially in the context of south-south migration. four focal points are recommended in the context of youth migration-food security nexus in the global south:  firstly, there is a need to promote job creation or better employment opportunities for youth migrants since the outcomes of this research indicated that access to food is a challenge for migrants in general, and migrant youth in particular, due to the limited resources or lack of dependable income. many youth migrants are students or employed as security guards, waiters and bartenders among other low-paying jobs, yet many zimbabwean youths are well educated enough to get high-paying jobs. promotion of employment opportunities or job creation for youth migrants by policy makers and local government departments through recruitment based on experience and qualifications would contribute to the host economy. such employment opportunities would provide a dependable source of income which would be used for food consumption and remittances, which would also benefit those left behind in the place of origin.  secondly, this study revealed that some of the migrant youths consumed less nutritious foods due to a lack of knowledge, shown by an over-reliance on fast-food outlets and supermarkets, which resulted in over consumption of meat. this shows poor food utilisation. hence, there is a need to address the challenge of unbalanced diet and consumption of limited nutritious foods. the governmental departments, non-governmental organisations like scalabrini centre, unhcr, refugee centre, iom and fao, must also introduce food programmes, within their various programmes for migrants that educate and train migrants on the best practice in food utilisation, particularly on consumption of healthy plants-based diets.  thirdly, in recent times, migration and food insecurity concerns have been affecting many communities, yet they are still treated as two separate ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 531 concerns. combining migration and food insecurity issues at local, regional and international levels is needed and policy making needs to be addressed. in the context of south africa, migrants have been subjected to draconian immigration policies, xenophobia and various forms of segregation, while their food insecurity concerns are invisible or unattended. the integration of migration and food insecurity issues can be addressed through local and national departments, as well as on an international level through cooperation between the general populace, governments and nongovernmental organisations such as unhcr, iom and fao that deal with migration and food insecurity issues. in addition, a rights-based approach to migration and food insecurity issues should be included in the post-2015 millennium development goals, especially with regards to migrant youths’ rights to food.  finally, this research showed that several studies have emerged that try to address migration and food insecurity matters, especially in the context of rural and urban connections. however, there are still many research gaps in the sense that little attention has been paid to migration and food security beyond borders or at the international level. therefore, there is a need for more research on migration and food insecurity issues. additionally, there is the need to contextualise youth in the research, discussions and debates on migration and food security. information on the complex opportunities and threats that are part of the migration-security nexus, in general, and youth migration-food security nexus, in particular, is crucial as a framework for policy makers and various organisations in their policies or approaches. references adams, r.h. 2011. evaluating the economic impact of international remittances on developing countries using household surveys: a literature review. journal of development studies, 47(6): 809-828. adams, r.h. and page, j. 2005. do international migration and remittances reduce poverty in developing countries? world development, 33(10): 16451669. ahmr, vol.2 no2, 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africa fatima khan 103 the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes achille dargaud fofack and joel nkeng akendung 131 the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants in south africa: what does this say about an “afrophobic” post-apartheid state? pineteh e. angu and thecla ngwi mulu 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za this issue consists of six articles. the first article by ajwang’ warria entitled “stateless transnational migrant children in south africa: implications and opportunities for social work intervention”, examines statelessness in south african migrant children and conducts a literature review to clarify the phenomenon. this research assesses the causes and circumstances that lead to statelessness among south african migrant children. the findings indicate that a large number of migrant children are at risk of statelessness in south africa. this research contributes to the literature and debates on statelessness in childhood and highlights the potential role of social workers in addressing this important phenomenon. in general, this is south africa's first research on statelessness from a social work perspective and shows how transnational migration and national legislation can contribute to statelessness and put children at risk. the second article by derek yu and joseph kleinhans is entitled “the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labor market outcomes in two developed provinces in south africa”. the study used a multivariate econometric analysis with probit regressions on labor force participation likelihood, and heckprobit regressions on employment likelihood (conditional on labor force participation). the econometric analysis found that, other controlling for other differences in personaland household-level characteristics, the inter-provincial migrants were about 5% more likely to enter the labor market to seek work and 3% more likely to find work, compared with the permanent residents. according to this analysis both results were statistically significant. the empirical results also suggested that not all the inter-provincial migrants eventually found work in gauteng and the western cape. the third article is by fatima khan and is entitled “is voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? the view of refugees in south africa”. the study interrogates voluntary repatriation as a possible permanent solution for refugees living in an urban environment, considering the reasons that refugees themselves gave for choosing to return home. the research also incorporates a study which reveals that refugees choosing to repatriate from south africa are indeed very small in number, despite the vigorous attempts of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) at promoting voluntary repatriation. it further reveals that this can be partly attributed to the fact that in an urban setting such as south africa with a rights-based framework, refugees are often able to better integrate into their host society without the direct assistance of the unhcr as they would do in a camp-based setting. the fourth article by fabian sebastian achana and augustine tanle is entitled 4 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 “experiences of female migrants in the informal sector businesses: is target 8.8 of the sdg 8 achievable in ghana?” this research examines female migrants in the businesses of the informal sector, and analyzes their interactions with regard to remuneration, basic human rights and health risks, as they navigate their obvious weak and insecure portfolios, attempting to achieve their set aspirations. the study found that most participants intimated that they were often deprived of their health and economic rights, and that they suffered verbal assault, physical harm, sexual harassment and were forced to work even when sick. the study recommends an integrated approach for addressing vulnerable female migrants’ health concerns and social needs. this should include the enforcement of the ghana labour act of 2003 (act 651), operationalization of the legal advocacy for women in africa, ghana chapter (lawa, ghana) and collaboration among all stakeholders. the study encourages migrants to join unions with leadership structures in this sector for easy reach and engagement. the fifth article by achille dargaud fofack and joel nkeng akendung is entitled “the root causes of migration: why africans leave their homes”. the aim of this paper is to assess the root causes of international migration in sub-saharan africa using extreme bounds analysis (eba). this econometric method, used to check each variable's sensitivity and robustness, helped researchers to determine the most important causes of foreign migration in sub-saharan africa. this article focuses on the extensive literature on international migration and based on data availability, 27 potential root causes of migration were selected to cover 30 sub-saharan countries for the period between 2002 and 2016. the result of this study reveals that a large number of determinants and root causes of migration in sub-saharan africa. the final article, presented by pineteh e. angu and thecla ngwi mulu is entitled “the changing material conditions of cameroonian migrants in south africa: what does this say about an ‘afrophobic’ post-apartheid state?” this article reflects on the changing material conditions of cameroonians in south africa to understand why this “afrophobic” state is still a key migration destination for cameroonians. based on the researcher’s personal exile experiences, observations, and related literature, the study concludes that while many cameroonian migrants still face many economic challenges or are unable to access economic opportunities due to lack of legal documentation, the lifestyles of most permanent residents and those who have obtained south africa citizenship tell a different story. in light of cameroonian migrants' changing material conditions, the article strongly argues that south africa, as a constitutional democracy, has always been an attractive migration destination. i firmly believe that these topics offer researchers, practitioners and students invaluable knowledge. the articles also present insightful suggestions for policymakers to make informed decisions on migration strategies, initiatives and projects by providing highly credible research evidence from the continent. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 542 responsibility sharing: towards a unified refugee protection framework in africa ncumisa willie* and popo mfubu** abstract in most african countries, refugees are not welcomed with the sense of regional solidarity that surrounded the promulgation of the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa. instead, african states have increasingly followed the lead of european states by closing their borders, deporting those who have made it into their territories or restricting them to camps. even in those countries where refugees are admitted, their treatment does not meet the convention’s standards and obligations. despite south africa having enacted legislation, the refugees act, which is hailed as one of the most liberal domestic refugee protection frameworks in africa, it has regressed in its refugee protection policy. continued conflict in the horn of africa, environmental disasters and struggling economies have resulted in a migratory flow of people to south africa. this paper will argue that due to the fragmented manner in which african states approach refugee protection, countries such as south africa, that have liberal and progressive refugee protection frameworks, will continue to experience higher migration flows and thus shoulder a greater responsibility. in response to this migratory pressure, this paper will demonstrate how the south african government has begun to intentionally and unlawfully violate the refugees act as well as regional obligations, and will demonstrate how south africa has adopted policies and practices aimed at hindering, discouraging and restricting access to asylum. this paper will propose that african states should adopt a unified regional approach to refugee protection in order to share the responsibility of refugee protection. * refugee rights unit, university of cape town, south africa. email: ncumisa.willie@uct.ac.za. ** refugee rights unit, university of cape town, south africa. email: popo.mfubu@uct.ac.za. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 543 keywords refugee protection, africa, coordinated approach, responsibility sharing, burden sharing. introduction at the end of 2014, the office of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr, 2015c: 4) reported that there were 59.5 million people globally who had been displaced by conflict, persecution, violations of human rights and generalised violence. of the fifteen conflicts throughout the world that have erupted or reignited, over fifty percent of them have taken place in africa, specifically in côte d'ivoire, the central african republic, libya, mali, the north eastern parts of nigeria, the democratic republic of congo, south sudan and more recently burundi (unhcr, 2015a). by mid-2015, the conflict in somalia resulted in 1.1 million people fleeing the country as refugees, the third highest number of people seeking refuge in africa. somalia is closely followed by south sudan (744,100), sudan (640,900), the democratic republic of congo (535,300) and the central african republic (470,600) (unhcr, 2015b: 6). sub-saharan africa alone accounts for more than 4.1 million refugees, which is the largest proportion of the world’s total refugees hosted by a single region, with more than half of the top ten refugee producing countries located in sub-saharan africa. the above figures reveal the magnitude of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in africa, particularly in sub-saharan africa, and with so many people in need of urgent protection, the next logical question is who must shoulder the responsibility of providing protection to the ever growing number of refugees in africa? importantly, given the inordinate pressure placed on some domestic states and not others, how must the responsibility be shared amongst african states in an equitable manner informed by a human rights approach in accordance with international refugee protection law? without a well-coordinated and uniform approach to refugee protection, many asylum seekers and refugees are left to the mercy of unilateral domestic refugee legislation and policies that are often restrictive and not in line with the principles, ethos and obligations of either the 1951 united nations convention and the subsequent protocol of 1967 relating to the status of refugees (herein after the “1951 un convention”) or the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa (herein after the “1969 oau refugee convention”). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 544 this paper will critically examine african states’ fragmented approach to refugee protection, with most adopting policies, legislation and other measures in response to the growing numbers of refugees in order to shirk or shift their international responsibility towards refugees, ultimately contributing to the uneven distribution of refugees on the continent. furthering this argument, we focus on south africa as one of the examples of a worrying trend throughout the region that indicates an absence of solidarity and responsibility sharing in relation to refugee protection. we conclude this paper with some recommendations on how african states need to approach the african refugee problem in a coherent and unified manner. methodology from a research methodology perspective, this paper will primarily draw on the authors’ own experiences as practising refugee law attorneys in south africa. the discussions will also stem from an analysis of international and regional refugee protection instruments, including domestic refugee legislation from various african states, reports and statistical data from refugee protection agencies such as the unhcr and secondary sources such as discussion papers and research papers from distinguished migration and refugee scholars. brief overview of international refugee protection instruments after the second world war, when the world witnessed some of the gravest human rights violations and atrocities in history, it became clear that international mechanisms to protect and uphold human rights were needed. in 1948, at a sitting in paris, the united nations general assembly adopted the universal declaration of human rights. apart from fostering domestic respect for human rights among member states, the universal declaration of human rights envisioned that there would be times, as history had proven, when people’s lives or human rights would be at risk and they would need to seek asylum in other countries. article 14(1) of the universal declaration of human rights provides that: “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries, asylum from persecution.” the right to seek asylum would later be echoed on a regional level by article 12(2) of the african charter on human and peoples rights (1981). in essence, article 14(1) of the universal declaration of human rights provided the foundation for later discussions that led to the formulation and adoption of the 1951 un convention which gave life and meaning to the right ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 545 to seek asylum in article 14(1) of the universal declaration of human rights. the 1951 un convention was initially aimed at affording protection to people who were forced to flee their countries as a result of the conflicts in europe at the end of the second world war. therefore, the 1951 un convention was initially limited in its application to those fleeing europe before 1 january 1951. however, the 1951 un convention was amended by the 1967 protocol which broadened the scope of its geographic limitation to include the rest of the world and to also include those who fled their countries before 1 january 1951. the 1951 un convention defines a refugee as a person who is outside of their country of origin and, due to a well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership to a particular social group, or political opinion, is unable and unwilling to return to their country of origin (1951 un convention, article 1(2)). this definition of a refugee focuses on the refugee as an individual and assesses the basis of their individual fears. the determination of refugee status is thus predicated on an adjudication of their claim on an individual basis. the 1951 un convention and its definition of a refugee did not adequately cater for refugees fleeing war or generalised violence, a phenomenon which has and continues to plague african states. the 1969 oau refugee convention was adopted in 1969 and formally came into force in 1974. the 1969 oau refugee convention was specifically adopted to fill the gaps in international refugee protection that were not covered by the 1951 un convention and the protocol of 1967 relating to the status of refugees (george okoth-obbo, 2001: 87). the 1969 oau refugee convention expanded the definition of a refugee and catered to refugee situations that were, at the time, unique to africa. the 1969 oau refugee convention was intended to provide mechanisms to protect and assist the masses of people displaced by ongoing conflict and to provide durable solutions to the refugee problem in africa. the definition introduced by the 1969 oau refugee convention, whilst incorporating the 1951 un convention, includes people who are forced to flee their countries of origin and seek refuge in another country due to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination and events seriously disturbing public order (1969 oau refugee convention, article i(2)). this expanded definition focused on the context in which refugees find themselves in their countries of origin. this definition was particularly cognisant of the need to cater for people who flee in large groups (mass influx) during conflicts, thus making it impractical to determine refugee status on an individual basis. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 546 the 1969 oau refugee convention promotes the recognition of prima facie refugee status, especially during times of mass influx precipitated by conflict. here, the reasons for seeking asylum are not directly linked to individual circumstances. this approach involves the recognition of refugee status based on objective evidence and information about events in the country of origin, all of which advance a finding that a group of people from a particular country or area qualify for refugee status on a prima facie basis (unhcr, 2005). for example, and as advanced in our daily work, somalis fleeing parts of mogadishu where the al-shabaab militia rebels have a stronghold are regarded as prima facie refugees because the conflict is recognised as pervasive and ongoing and because large numbers of people are fleeing ongoing violence caused by the civil war. the same can be said for parts of south sudan and the eastern part of the democratic republic of congo. the 1969 oau refugee convention was welcomed at the time, as an african solution to a largely african problem however, as will become clear in the next part of this paper, the implementation of the 1969 refugee convention has been largely disappointing throughout most of africa. the state of refugee protection in africa there has been a gradual but serious erosion of hospitality towards asylum seekers and refugees in africa. the increased emphasis among african states is one geared towards tightening borders or containing refugees as opposed to protecting them. this approach is influenced by political, economic and security considerations instead of the humanitarian approach articulated in the preamble of the 1969 oau refugee convention. these sentiments were also echoed by george okoth-obbo (2001), assistant high commissioner for operations at unhcr in 1999 who lamented: not surprisingly, there has been strong impetus in some african countries to emulate [the restrictive approach being pursued in other regions]. instances in which borders were closed in the face of refugees fleeing real danger have already been witnessed. mistreatment of refugees and asylum-seekers as deliberate state policy has also taken place. on the whole however, the negative creep has been relatively contained. the moral effect of the convention in africa itself has a lot to do with the restraint. the fact that the convention is so highly regarded particularly among its african stakeholders has definitely encouraged political adherence to its principles. indeed, had there been no oau convention in africa when the more restrictive tendencies ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 547 emerged the whole system of asylum and refugee protection would by now have collapsed. the adoption of the 1969 oau refugee convention came at a time of great african solidarity. many african countries, bound together in their mutual desire to be free and independent from colonial control, supported each other on a regional level in their struggle for autonomy. therefore, african states welcomed refugees with ‘open arms’ (rutinwa, 1999: 7). unfortunately, not long after many of these countries had finally attained independence from their colonial oppressors, many of them soon erupted in civil war which, as time has shown, has been difficult to quell. sudan is but one of the many examples of this. in 1956, sudan attained independence from colonial rule and shortly thereafter, in 1958 general ibrahim abboud led a military coup against the civilian government elected earlier in the year. by 1962, a full civil war besieged the south, led by the anya nya movement, a civil war that has taken on a different dimension today but still rages on (fahmi, 2013). in explaining these tragic events, douglas johnson (2003) explains that “sudanese independence was thrust upon the sudan by a colonial power eager to extricate itself from its residual responsibilities; it was not achieved by national consensus expressed through constitutional means.” this has been the destructive cocktail that has plagued most of africa; governance attained by liberation movements is by itself an illegitimate means to secure power. the disturbing trend has shown that not soon after independence is attained, this illegitimate attainment of power is challenged and is itself overthrown. although in some circumstances conflicts in africa have erupted as a result of external influences, many are a result of internal factors, the majority of which are ethnic and religious tensions and political differences. these civil wars have resulted in many people being internally displaced and those that flee remain in protracted refugee situations, such as those in refugee camps in kenya which have served somali populations for more than 20 years. the exodus of people feeling conflict situations within africa has largely not been met with an eagerness to receive them and to provide them with protection. in the 1990s, the democratic republic of congo (then, zaire) and tanzania closed their borders at a time when the rwandan patriotic front’s rebel soldiers had started a civil war that claimed many lives (d’orsi, 2008: 1062). with few alternative routes to escape, it is likely that many rwandans, prevented from crossing into the democratic republic of congo or tanzania, ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 548 were victims of the conflict and were therefore in desperate need of aid and assistance. many writers, though critical of the democratic republic of congo and tanzania’s decision to close their borders during a time of great humanitarian need, argued that it was an understandable and practical response to the seemingly unending flow of rwandans that sought refuge in the two countries. this could have been seen as a desperate act of frustration in the face of large numbers of refugees entering the countries. in march 1995, when the government of tanzania closed its borders with rwanda and burundi at the height of the genocide in rwanda, the then minister of foreign affairs, declared: “we are saying enough is enough. let us tell the refugees that the time has come for them to return home and no more should come” (the guardian, 1995; rutinwa, 1999: 295). the actions of the democratic republic of congo and tanzania in closing their borders in order to prevent asylum seekers from entering their territories and therefore preventing them from seeking asylum, was in direct violation of arguably the most important principle in refugee law contained in the1969 oau refugee convention (of which both the democratic republic of congo and tanzania were signatories and which both had ratified). this is the prohibition against the refusal to allow asylum seekers to enter a state territory or the expulsion of such an asylum seeker if they face risk of harm in their country of origin. this principle is referred to as non-refoulement and is considered the cornerstone of refugee protection. it is contained in article ii of the 1969 oau refugee convention which provides: no person shall be subjected by a member state to measures such as rejection at the frontier, return or expulsion, which would compel him to return to or remain in a territory where his life, physical integrity or liberty would be threatened for the reasons set out in article i, paragraphs 1 and 2. the prohibition against non-refoulement in the 1969 oau refugee convention is without qualification, a significant departure from the 1951 un convention. the 1951 un convention provides an exception to the prohibition of nonrefoulement and provides that non-refoulement will not apply in times where a refugee may be “[…] a danger to the security of the country in which he is, or who, having been convicted by a final judgement of a particularly serious crime, constitutes a danger to the community of that country. the above exception in the 1951 un convention has been invoked (arguably without merit and as a devious guise to avoid responsibility for refugees) by countries such as turkey and germany during the syrian refugee crisis. this is the ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 549 difficulty faced by countries that experience mass influxes of refugees. apart from the sometimes insufficient assistance they receive from unhcr, they are left to solely carry the ever growing responsibility of affording protection to refugees, protection that comes at a great cost to the national fiscus. in these difficult times, other african states do not respond with solidarity or assistance which further exacerbates the unwillingness of affected nation states to extend protection to those seeking refuge in their territories. in 2001, the namibian government ordered its national defence forces to ‘shoot to kill’ anyone trying to cross the kavango bank – these were angolan refugees trying to flee unitas soldiers. in 1999, zambia forcibly deported large numbers of refugees and nationals from the democratic republic of congo when they began to put a strain on zambia’s local economy (d’orsi, 2008). on july 14 and 15 2010, ugandan police rounded up more than 1,700 rwandans, including recognised refugees, in the nakivale and kyaka camps and forcibly sent them back to rwanda (human rights watch, 2010). in august 2015, cameroon forcibly returned over 15,000 refugees from nigeria who had fled the civil war waged by boko haram in the north, a war that is still ongoing. in 2000, close to 1000 sudanese refugees living in ugandan refugee camps were forced to return home even though at the time, sudan's seventeen-year civil war still raged on, with bombings of civilian targets and humanitarian aid projects by government planes, slave raids by pro-government militia, the collapse of a two-year ceasefire in a key province and a reluctant decision by eleven international aid agencies to stop their operations in southern sudan (reliefweb, 2000). media reports confirm that kenya will begin construction of a 700 kilometre-long security wall along the north-eastern border with somalia as part of a broader national security plan to curb cross-border terror attacks by somali terrorist group, al-shabaab, a move the unhcr has criticised as an attempt to curb the flow of somali refugees into kenya (allafrica, 2015). preventing asylum seekers and refugees from entering a country’s territory is not the only tactic employed by some african states. some neglect to provide sufficient assistance to refugees or asylum seekers who are within their territories, leaving them in such deplorable conditions that they opt to leave on their own. even in countries such as south africa that have liberal and progressive refugee protection legislation, the implementation of the legislation and the ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 550 asylum application process is, in our experience, arduous for asylum seekers. this is largely because the attitude and unspoken policy of the department of home affairs (dha) is to find ways to reject applications for asylum rather than to genuinely evaluate them on a case by case basis (amit, 2012). figure 1: monthly asylum approval rates for 2015. source: department of home affairs, 2016. the figure above indicates that in 2015, the rejection rate for asylum applications in south africa was over 95% (department of home affairs, 2016). mr mandla madumisa, acting chief director of asylum seeker management for the dha presented these figures in parliament before the portfolio committee of home affairs on 8 march 2016 with great pride as though rejecting applications for asylum is the main task of the dha. in our experience, even when the merits of an asylum application warrant the granting of refugee status in terms of section 3 of the refugees act, they are still rejected regardless. more than 90% of the clients we assist at the uct refugee rights clinic are asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected and, of those, 80% have genuine refugee claims. a policy of leaning towards the rejection of applications for asylum has resulted in many applications bottle-necking with the refugee appeal board, which is charged with adjudicating appeals from asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected as unfounded. the current backlog faced by the refugee appeal is, according to the dha, approximately 12,361 applications. applications also bottle-neck with the standing committee for refugee affairs, ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 551 which is charged with reviewing decisions to reject asylum applications as manifestly unfounded or those that the dha deems to be abusive or fraudulent. the current backlog faced by the standing committee for refugee affairs is 44,048 (department of home affairs, 2016). there is such a significant backlog of applications that some asylum seekers have been waiting for the resolution of their applications for more than 10 years. in our experience, the lines at refugee reception offices in south africa are often so long that asylum seekers have reported to us that it often takes several days, if not weeks, for an asylum seeker to finally make their way inside the refugee reception office in order for them to lodge an application for asylum. it has been the experience of the authors that asylum seekers often give up and remain undocumented. south africa has the largest number of pending and unresolved asylum applications in the word (unhcr, 2015b:13). undocumented asylum seekers are unable to access social services and are exposed to the risk of arrest and deportation. a study in september 2007 estimated that approximately 470 asylum seekers were being “turned away” every day at the five refugee reception offices (human rights watch, 2008). when these undocumented asylum seekers are eventually detained by the police or immigration officials they are often sent to the lindela repatriation centre, which is south africa’s main deportation and repatriation holding facility. some of those detained and awaiting deportation at the lindela repatriation centre are in fact asylum seekers, which is in clear violation of south africa’s refugees act and both the 1969 oau refugee convention and the 1951 un convention. a report by the south african human rights commission released in 2000 about the conditions at the lindela repatriation centre found that “[…] people at lindela who claimed that they were asylum seekers were not given the opportunity to apply for asylum, as was the policy.” detaining and deporting asylum seekers whose claims have not been adjudicated is in violation of both domestic and international refugee law and often leads to refoulement. it is almost chilling to imagine how accurately the office of the unhcr predicted the future state of refugee protection in africa (okoth-obbo, 2001: 87) when it stated that: […] in this relationship between african refugee law, policy and practice on the one hand, and global trends on the other lies the most serious likelihood of a further lowering of the thresholds of refugee protection in africa. as has often been remarked, with the end of the cold war, the political and ideological value attaching to refugees has waned. the attachment to upholding refugees’ rights which may have previously characterized the approach to asylum is in ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 552 fierce competition with tendencies towards the most restrictive and minimalist legal regimes, policies and practices... it is difficult to expect that these trends will not be observed in africa, where the underlying social and economic constraints are even more compelling. indeed, the tendency to emulate these trends is said by some already to be in evidence. the only solace to the poor implementation of south africa’s refugee legislation has been a strong and vigilant civil society that has largely been the gatekeeper of the rights of refugees and has on many occasions litigated against the state in order to vindicate the rights of refugees where the state has failed to implement legislation. however, the space for civil society to engage and challenge the government has begun to shrink and will continue to do so with the introduction of amendments to refugee legislation. the south african government is currently attempting to introduce the refugees amendment bill. our view is that that the changes proposed in the refugees amendment bill are by and large an attempt to narrow the scope of refugee protection in south africa and in some respects to limit the rights afforded to asylum seekers and refugees. the proposed amendments introduce additional administrative hurdles which may have the effect of causing further delays in processing applications for asylum. the asylum application system is already fraught with huge backlogs, a lack of human capacity and corruption, but regrettably the new proposed changes do not deal with any of these systemic issues. one of the more alarming amendments proposed by the refugees amendment bill is the removal of the right to seek and attain employment which is currently afforded to asylum seekers. in removing this right to seek and attain employment, the refugees amendment bill fails to deal with how asylum seekers will be able to obtain food, shelter, clothing and other basic necessities for themselves and for their families. both the right to engage in work and selfemployment have already been adjudicated by our courts and the courts have held that the freedom to engage in productive work is an important component of human dignity and our view is that the lacunae created by the refugees amendment bill will lead to the gross violation of human rights. an approach which aims to roll back on the progressive approach to refugee protection is also echoed in south africa’s green paper on international migration (herein after the “green paper”), which is a policy paper that seeks to overhaul the country’s migration and refugee protection policy. the green paper proposes the establishment of “asylum seeker processing centres” ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 553 which will aim to house asylum seekers and restrict their movement while their applications are being processed. this will be in conflict with south africa’s urban refugee policy which includes free movement. the green paper is silent on who will provide food and basic services to asylum seekers housed in these processing centres. the proposed removal of the right to work and the introduction of quasi camp like centres is an attempt to make south africa less of a desirable asylum destination and to curtail what the state refers to as “pull factors” that draw asylum seekers and especially migrants to south africa. additionally, the south african government is proposing a border management bill which is also in line with this worrying trend towards the securitisation of south africa’s borders. the border management bill proposes the establishment of a border management agency (bma). the new agency will assume full control of ports of entry and borderline functions and will, once it is operational, take over responsibility for all ports of entry into south africa. its purpose is to exercise border law enforcement functions, manage legitimate movement of persons and goods across borderlines and at ports of entry, co-ordinate with “other organs of state, through the principles of cooperative governance” (border management agency bill, 2015:13) the functions performed by them in border management and provide “an enabling environment to facilitate legitimate trade” (border management agency bill, 2015:13). the draft bill also envisages the creation of a border guard which ties in with a december 2014 statement by minister in the presidency, jeff radebe, that both a border and coast guard will come into being as part of the bma. there is currently no indication of whether the border guard will be staffed by soldiers currently in the south african national defence force or whether new recruits, who have to be trained and equipped, will be sought. in summary, south africa appears to have moved away from its national, regional and international obligations which require a humanitarian approach to refugee protection and towards an approach which holds securitisation and deportation as paramount considerations. as will be demonstrated in the latter part of this paper, this trend is unfortunately not unique to south africa. the above overview of the refugee situation in africa paints a grim and depressing picture of the manner in which many african states have fallen so far below the standards envisioned by the 1969 oau refugee convention or the 1951 un convention. a toxic combination of a lack of cooperation amongst african states and a focus on self-preservation and deliberate political isolation have largely led to this failure to provide protection to refugees in a ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 554 meaningful manner. as will be argued in the next section, establishing solidarity mechanisms during times of mass influxes of refugees is very much like an insurance scheme. if a state comes to the aid of another state which is experiencing an influx of a large number of refugees, certainly the affected state would reciprocate such aid. responsibility/burden sharing in africa it is worth noting that the term ‘responsibility sharing’ in relation to the protection of refugees is used in the title of this paper and is referred to in the introductory sections, as opposed to the term ‘burden sharing’ which is used in the 1969 oau refugee convention and the 1951 un convention on refugees. the term ‘responsibility sharing’ is preferred because it emphasises a commitment to the principle of human rights and solidarity which form the underlying premise for refugee protection. this differs from the potentially negative connotations that ‘burden’ may have on african countries’ understandings of their obligations towards the reception of asylum seekers and the protection of refugees. however, for completeness and to avoid confusion the term ‘burden sharing’ will be used. the concept of burden sharing only appears in the preamble of the 1951 convention on refugees: [...]considering that the grant of asylum may place unduly heavy burdens on certain countries, and that a satisfactory solution of a problem of which the united nations has recognized the international scope and nature cannot therefore be achieved without international co-operation. the 1951 convention contains no further provisions or direction as to how this “co-operation” is to take place or how it is meant to be implemented in practical terms. the 1951 convention creates no obligation on member states to cooperate or to share the burden of refugee protection but merely creates a context in which the convention should be interpreted. the 1969 oau convention refugee convention in article ii (4), though also unsatisfactory, goes a bit further and provides that: where a member state finds difficulty in continuing to grant asylum to refugees, such member state may appeal directly to other member states and through the oau, and such other member states shall in the spirit of african solidarity and international co-operation take appropriate measures to lighten the burden of the member state granting asylum. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 555 there has been no example in the history of refugee protection in africa since the adoption of the 1969 oau refugee convention where this provision has successfully been invoked and has resulted co-operation which has caused a ‘lightening of the burden’ on a host country. people who flee from their countries of origin on account of war or persecution often flee to neighbouring countries or to countries that appear politically stable and economically viable. african states that find themselves neighbours to refugee producing countries or those that appear to be prosperous in relative terms, tend to, due to their proximity, shoulder the greatest responsibility of refugees fleeing from neighbouring countries. the distribution of refugees is thus, as hathaway & neve (1997) put it, an “accident of geography.” of the 616,220 south sudanese refugees at the end of 2015, ethiopia hosted 275,400 of them followed by sudan which hosted 190,700 and uganda which hosted 179,600. these three countries, due to their proximity, host the largest populations of south sudanese refugees (unhcr, 2015b: 6). geographic proximity is an imbalanced way of sharing the responsibility of refugees on the continent. it is for this reason that many african countries who border refugee producing countries opt to restrict refugees to camps or find ways to prevent or discourage them from arriving in their territories. where refugees do manage to cross into neighbouring countries, they are soon returned or forced to return to their countries of origin. other african states that are not neighbours to refugee producing countries have become a preferable choice for asylum seekers due to the perceived liberal refugee protection mechanisms provided in those countries. when african asylum seekers or refugees decide where to seek asylum, they are generally faced with only two options: being restricted to a camp and spending years in deplorable conditions or being able to live in an urban setting and with the opportunity to seek employment. faced with these two options, the choice of where to seek asylum arguably becomes an easy one. in pursuit of a place of safety where they can live with some semblance of dignity and normality, asylum seekers will often travel across the continent of africa to seek asylum. therefore, african states with more liberal and progressive refugee protection laws and policies and better economic prospects see higher refugee numbers. one such example is south africa. south africa’s refugees act 180 of 1998, that includes an urban refugee framework and affords broad access to the same socio-economic rights as citizens, makes the country an attractive place of refuge. as of december 2015, south africa hosted 912,592 asylum seekers and ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 556 refugees (unhcr, 2015b: 6). even though south africa is in the southernmost point of africa, it draws asylum seekers from as far as the eastern and western parts of africa. in 2015 alone, south africa received 71,914 new asylum applications, 9,322 of which came from as far as ethiopia and 6,554 were from nigeria (department of home affairs, 2016). asylum seekers from these two countries skipped tanzania, zambia, namibia and botswana and opted to apply for asylum in south africa because it is perceived as an ideal place to seek protection. however, over the past 10 years there has been a decrease in the number of registered asylum seekers in south africa. in 2010, there were 222,324 asylum applications in south africa as compared to 71,914 applications in 2015 (department of home affairs, 2016). figure 2: cumulative registered asylum seekers, 2006-2015. source: department of home affairs, 2016. the decrease in new asylum applications is not as a result of more peaceful times in africa, in fact conflict has been on the increase; with the escalating violence being waged by armed forces such as boko haram in northern nigeria and mai mai rebels in the eastern parts of the democratic republic of congo who continue to force more people to flee from their countries. we postulate that the decrease in asylum applications in south africa is due to the implementation of new policies and amendments to legislation which south ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 557 africa has adopted to make the country a less desirable place to seek asylum. these include heightened border restrictions and security, an increased focus on deportation and, importantly, an effort to make the application process for asylum so laborious that it becomes discouraging. it is arguably no surprise that invoking the principle of burden sharing in africa has been unsuccessful because there is no clear or concrete administrative or enforcement mechanisms. as peter (1982: 280) argues “legal and administrative machineries for burden sharing must be constructed and implemented.” recommendation eight adopted at the recommendations from the panafrican conference on the situation of refugees in africa, arusha (tanzania) (1986), also advocates for this initiative, stating that it: recognizes that the effective implementation in africa of the principles relating to asylum will be further advanced by the strengthening and development of institutional arrangements for "burden sharing" adopted within the framework of african solidarity and international co-operation, defined in paragraph 8 of the preamble and article ii, paragraph 4 of the 1969 oau refugee convention. the solidarity and co-operation envisioned by the 1969 oau refugee convention remains but an elusive dream in the 21st century. in 1999, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa, addis ababa and geneva, dr ahmed salim, secretary-general of the oau, and mrs. sadako ogata, the united nations high commissioner for refugees, noted the following in a joint statement: [...] thirty years after the adoption of the oau convention, the continent is still afflicted by the plight of over four million refugees on the continent and several times that number of displaced people inside their countries caused by socioeconomic and political factors including, in particular, conflicts, political violence and instability. this situation is unhealthy and unacceptable. such a large number of refugees and internally displaced persons poses a heavy burden on oau member states already saddled with tremendous security, social and economic hardships. we are concerned with evident compassion fatigue within and outside the continent which is undermining the very principle which guided the founding fathers in framing the oau refugee convention (george okoth-obbo, 2001: 90). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 558 what has become increasingly clear is that not even europe has formulated an effective policy framework for burden sharing. the recent syrian refugee crisis has exposed the inherent weaknesses in the dublin system which is europe’s system of burden sharing. in theory it was meant to ensure that asylum claims are adjudicated expeditiously in the first european union country an asylum seeker enters. its key weakness is that it places the greatest burden on the country of first asylum as the primary actor responsible for refugee status determination. this is the first country that an asylum seeker enters. in relation to the syrian refugee crisis, the countries of first asylum in europe, due to geography, have been greece and italy. with a small stream of people seeking asylum the dublin system holds, but as soon as the numbers of people seeking asylum increase, as we have seen in the syrian refugee crisis, it completely collapses. the dublin system shelters countries that are furthest from refugee producing countries. in 2015 alone, 850,000 people entered greece with another 200,000 arriving in italy. without assistance, asylum determination at the rate required is nearly impossible. with little or no assistance from the rest of the european union, the syrian crisis started to turn into greece and italy’s sole problem. what greece and italy began doing was to simply allow syrian refugees to pass through their territories without processing them so that they became the problem of whichever country the eventually ended up in. this is often referred to as ‘burden shifting.’ one of the only relatively successful burden sharing frameworks was the comprehensive plan of action for indo-chinese refugees that was adopted in 1989 to respond to the many thousands of people fleeing vietnam and laos in the 1980s. the comprehensive action plan was established as a framework for international cooperation at a time when asylum in south-east asia was in crisis. it created a system of refugee status determination (screening) in the countries of first asylum that allowed those who met the criteria to be resettled, but those who did not qualify were swiftly returned to their countries of origin. while it restored asylum in the region, there were many problems with the comprehensive action plan that led to concerns that it was merely an example of political expediency (towle, 2006). the ‘every man for himself’ approach to refugee protection has neither worked in europe nor in africa. without a clear commitment to address the refugee problem in a coherent and coordinated manner that ensures that all states pitch in and contribute their collective resources regardless of geographic proximity, the refugee problem in both regions will continue to spiral out of control. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 559 towards a unified refugee protection and burden sharing framework in africa the following section provides broad recommendations on how african states should approach refugee protection in africa in a coordinated manner that is consistent with the notion of a humanitarian approach as envisioned by the 1969 oau refugee convention. 1. ratification and domestication of international and regional instruments the most obvious starting point is to encourage african states that have not already signed and ratified both the 1951 un convention and the 1969 oau refugee convention to do so urgently. this would provide, at the very least, a level of international and regional accountability. the next step would be to encourage african states to promulgate domestic legislation that gives effect to obligations in both the 1951 un convention and the 1969 oau refugee convention. the enactment of domestic legislation should however be coupled with the political will to implement the legislation fully. countries like south africa have progressive legislation but the implementation of that legislation falls short. countries must be willing to employ their resources in order to appropriately provide protection to refugees and asylum seekers in times of need. to this end, article i(1) of the 1969 oau refugee convention encourages states to “use their best endeavours consistent with their respective legislations to receive refugees and to secure the settlement of those refugees who, for well-founded reasons, are unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin or nationality.” this disjuncture between legislation and its implementation was also cited by unhcr as a challenge to refugee protection in africa in unhcr’s special issue of the international journal of refugee law (office of the unhcr; 1995: 69 70) when it noted: while the elaboration of legal standards is an important function in devising the framework for refugee protection, the optimal realization of these standards lies in essentially non-legal considerations of an institutional, resource-based, logistic and material nature. in other words, the elaboration of the appropriate legal regime for refugee protection must be underpinned by the consolidation of technical know-how and resources, logistic and other infrastructures and other material resources. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 560 domestic refugee legislation also provides recourse through domestic courts to asylum seekers and refugees in times where the state violates their rights or is in breach of its obligations. in this regard, civil society organisations in south africa has been very vigilant in times where the south african government has violated the rights of asylum seekers and has used domestic legislation to champion the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. but for this to be possible, the legal and institutional refugee protection apparatus must be available. 2. a uniform approach to accepting and processing refugees during times of mass influx the 1951 convention or the 1969 oau refugee convention do not provide a framework on how to receive and process refugees. in 2003, unhcr published procedural standards for refugee status determination which provides a guiding framework on how to receive and process asylum seekers. this is perhaps the most onerous aspect of refugee protection in africa, or anywhere in the world for that matter. how does a receiving state manage sometimes thousands of asylum seekers that have been displaced? african states have to date dealt with asylum seekers in times of mass influx on an ad hoc basis often with the assistance of the unhcr. there is no uniform approach in terms of how african states deal with large numbers of refugees. often when camps are set up it is with no involvement from the receiving government and the unhcr bears the responsibility of documenting refugees and providing them with assistance, as in the case of the of the nearly 330,000 somali refugees currently living in four refugee camps in kenya. it is often unclear as to where the unhcr’s responsibility begins and ends, and what involvement the host country has. in south africa for example, there are no camps due to south africa’s urban and integrated refugee policy, and asylum seekers and refugees enjoy access to basic services. the responsibility in this case rests with the south african government. there need to be clear and predictable standards and approaches to dealing with refugees during times of mass influx. this can be developed as protocol in the 1969 oau refugee convention and can take various regional forms to take into account conditions specific to that region. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 561 3. harmonisation of treatment and rights afforded to asylum seekers and refugees as it has been argued earlier in this paper, the unequal treatment of refugees throughout the continent manifests in an unequal distribution of refugees throughout the continent. the 1951 un convention sets out broad rights that should be afforded to asylum seekers and refugees such as access to wageearning employment and self-employment, housing, public education, identity documents and most importantly the right to choose their place of residence and to move freely. it is interesting to note that the right to free movement which is in article 26 of the 1951 convention has the most reservations by african countries. the reservations of the right to free movement indicate the preoccupation by african states with encampment. most camps provide a method for african states to shirk their responsibility of caring for refugees and places emphasis on donor or unhcr assistance. however, encampment creates dependency upon the state or the unhcr to provide constant assistance for all of the needs of a refugee. the 1969 oau refugee convention is completely silent on what fundamental core rights should be afforded to refugees. it missed an opportunity to address and codify questions around humanitarian standards for the treatment of refugees such as free movement versus encampment of refugees, access to social services, safety and access to food. it is recommended that at the very least african states should afford refugees with access to the same social welfare services that are afforded to citizens as is required by article 23 of the 1951 un convention which provides that “[…] contracting states shall accord to refugees lawfully staying in their territory the same treatment with respect to public relief and assistance as is accorded to their nationals.” the authors are, however, cognisant of the real financial challenge experienced by many african states which are themselves developing nations. many struggle to provide basic services for their own citizens especially in times of economic hardship brought on by floods and drought. however, with the combined assistance of the unhcr and other african states, it can be argued that they should at the very least provide assistance at a level equal to that of their citizens. there is also predominantly no freedom of movement afforded to refugees by many african states. namibia, swaziland and zimbabwe’s refugee legislations require refugees to reside in designated areas. as stated before, south africa ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 562 has an urban refugee framework but angola, lesotho and mozambique’s refugee legislations are silent in this regard. article 17 which affords refugees with the right to employment has the second most reservations entered by african states. south africa and mozambique afford refugees and even asylum seekers with the automatic right to employment. south africa is, however, reviewing the right for asylum seekers to work and plans to amend its refugees act to narrow this right through a bill. tanzania, zambia and botswana require refugees to obtain work permits before they can work. it is recommended that at a regional level african states determine minimum core standards for the treatment of refugees within domestic jurisdictions. a useful point of departure would be to revisit the recommendations of the final report on the legal, economic and social aspects of african refugee problems (1967) which provides a useful roadmap of minimum standards that should be afforded to refugees. it is unfortunate that these standards did not make it into the final 1969 oau refugee convention. 4. harmonisation of durable solutions to refugees local integration and naturalisation of refugees remains a thorny issue and a bone of contention amongst african states. many african states are reluctant to provide the right to naturalise to refugees. lesotho, mozambique and south africa create the possibility for a refugee to naturalise if certain conditions are met. in south africa, a refugee can apply for permanent residence if they have lived in south africa for a period of five years as a refugee and where it appears that they will remain refugees for the foreseeable future. malawi, botswana, tanzania, zambia and zimbabwe’s legislation is silent on the question of naturalisation. tanzania used to naturalise refugees as a matter of policy but no longer does so. it is recommended that african states develop common approaches that allow for the integration and naturalisation of refugees especially those that have been residing in host countries for many years with a particular focus on second and third generation refugees. 5. establishment of an institutional regional body to coordinate refugee protection the 1969 oau refugee convention only empowers the organisation for african unity (now the african union) to resolve disputes and to collect statistical data from member states and to compile reports. a regional body such as the african union together with the technical assistance of the unhcr ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 563 could provide an operational, coordinating, monitoring and supervisory role in relation to refugee protection in africa. the unhcr was instrumental as the coordinating body during the south-east asia refugee crisis. 6. contributions to a refugee protection fiscal fund or scheme hathaway and neve (1997) advocate for states to contribute to a burden sharing ‘insurance’ scheme of sorts. the reality of refugee protection is that it requires financial and other resources. hosting refugees not only comes at a social and political cost but has a fiscal strain on host countries in times of mass influx of refugees. often expenditures arise from the national budget that have not been planned or provisioned for. unless refugees are on a member state’s territory they do not regard themselves obligated to assist. the unhcr is often also unable to provide sufficient relief and aid for extended periods. in this regard, hathaway and neve (1997) note: [the] distribution of the responsibility […] is not offset by any mechanism to ensure adequate compensation to those governments that take on a disproportionate share of protective responsibilities. to the contrary, any fiscal assistance received from other countries or the unhcr is a matter of charity, not of obligation, and is not distributed solely on the basis of relative need. where a financial resource scheme exists, it minimises the fiscal risk or exposure of refugee hosting countries when the need arises. an equitable system could be developed to determine contributions from member states which is based on ability and capacity. a method could also be developed to determine how refugee hosting countries draw on the fund when the need arises. conclusion and recommendations as conflicts in africa continue to rage on with no apparent end in sight, african states have begun to retreat in their approach to refugee protection which has moved from what bonaventura rutinwa (1999: 30) described as the “open door” policy to one of self-interest and self-preservation. this has been caused by a lack of capacity to host refugees in the face of ever increasing flows and the impact of refugees on host countries, a lack of a coordinated approach and an unwillingness to share the responsibility for refugees. it is important to note that refugee protection and burden sharing in africa should always be complemented with efforts to address the situations in ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 564 countries of origin that force people to flee in the first place. the unhcr and many refugee law academics such as james hathaway have written extensively on the need to address what is typically referred to as the ‘root cause’ of refugees or the conditions in their countries of origin that compel people to flee. together with refugee protection, states must work to resolve the situations in home countries that force people to flee. the authors strongly agree with that argument and have not preoccupied themselves with that discussion in this paper because it has been dealt with at great lengths by other authors. the implementation of the 1969 oau refugee convention has been fragmented and inadequate amongst african states. this has been largely due to a lack of resources, capacity and a shortage of political will to do so. refugee protection is made more complex and difficult in the african context due to the fact that the majority of refugees often seek asylum in some of the world’s poorest countries who are struggling to cater for their own citizens. however, with greater coordination of efforts, harmonisation of domestic policies and legislation, africa can begin to share the financial and physical responsibility of refugee protection. references primary 1948 universal declaration of human rights. 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees. 1966 international covenant on civil and political rights. 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees. 1969 convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa. 1981 african charter on human and peoples rights. conference on the legal, economic and social aspects of african refugee problems. final report, addis ababa (ethiopia), october 9-18, 1967. recommendations from the pan-african conference on the situation of refugees in africa, arusha (tanzania), may 17, 1979. united nations high commissioner for refugees, procedural standards for refugee status determination under unhcr's mandate, november 20, 2003. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 565 secondary allafrica. 2015. kenya: anti-terror border wall sparks heated debate. from <http://bit.ly/1wvgqm6> (retrieved may 19, 2016). amit, r. 2012. no way in barriers to access, service and administrative justice at south africa’s refugee reception offices. acms research report, johannesburg: south africa. from <http://bit.ly/2gxpj3f > (retrieved may 20, 2016). department of home affairs. 2016. 2015 asylum statistics; analysis and trends – presentation to the portfolio committee of homes affairs. from <https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/22163/> (retrieved may 10, 2016). d’orsi, c. 2008. sub-saharan africa: is a new special regional refugee law regime emerging? heidelberg journal of international law (zaőrv), 68:10571081. from <http://bit.ly/2g9j2ih> (retrieved may 10, 2016). fahmi, m. 2013. is identity the root cause of sudan's civil wars? einternational relations. from <http://bit.ly/2g9feo6> (retrieved may 9, 2016). hathaway, jc. and neve, ra. 1997. making refugee law relevant again: a proposal for collectivized and solution-oriented protection. harvard human rights journal, 10: 115. from <http://bit.ly/2gxqzgg> (retrieved may 22, 2016). human rights watch. 2008. failings in the asylum and deportation systems leading to refoulement of zimbabweans. from <http://bit.ly/2gy8zvw> (retrieved may 10, 2016). human rights watch. 2010. uganda/rwanda: halt forced returns of refugees. from <http://bit.ly/2fhyi0c> (retrieved may 19, 2016). johnson, d. 2003. the root cause of sudan’s civil wars. indiana: indiana university press. noble, p. 1982. refugees, law and development in africa. michigan yearbook of international legal studies. michigan. clarke boardman and co, new york, 255 –287. okoth-obbo, g. 2001. thirty years on: a legal review of the 1969 oau refugee convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 566 refugee survey quarterly, 20(1). from <http://bit.ly/2gxqgbx> (retrieved may 19, 2016). reliefweb. 2000. mid-year 2000: sudan: war grinds on. from <http://bit.ly/2g9n1f3> (retrieved 19 may, 2016). rutinwa, b. 1999. the end of asylum? the changing nature of refugee policies in africa. new issues in refugee research, working paper no.5, oxford: united kingdom. from <http://bit.ly/2gn1cbs> (retrieved may 9, 2016). towle, r. 2006. processes and critiques of the indo-chinese comprehensive plan of action: an instrument of international burden-sharing? international journal of refugee law, 18(3-4): 537-570. united nations high commissioner for refugees. 2005. guidelines on international protection no. 11: prima facie recognition of refugee status. from <http://www.unhcr.org/558a62299.pdf> (retrieved may 8, 2016). united nations high commissioner for refugees. 2015a. world at war: unhcr global trends – forced displacement in 2014. from <http://bit.ly/1tkpnto> (retrieved may 10, 2016). united nations high commissioner for refugees. 2015b. mid-year trends 2015. from <http://www.unhcr.org/56701b969.pdf> (retrieved may 8, 2016). united nations high commissioner for refugees. 2015c. world at war. global trends. forced displacement in 2014. from <http://bit.ly/1tkpnto> (retrieved may 8, 2016). ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 153 international migration in sub-saharan africa: a call for a global research agenda mulugeta f. dinbabo and sergio carciotto  abstract research on international migration has brought about remarkable awareness within the global research community, stimulating some theorists and policymakers to talk about ‘international migration’ as a field for research. a number of research organizations have also adopted various methods of inquiry to examine and change their research agendas and practices. although much is known about international migration, there are still many unanswered questions. formulating a comprehensive agenda that is well informed by research can have a real influence on the lives of migrants throughout the world. it is also believed that the outcome of this research will help the ways in which concerned organizations think and act while dealing with the situation of international migrants. this research is aimed at drawing an inclusive research agenda that is better informed by distinguishable human rights requirements. the research agenda presented here is the result of the contribution of nearly 35 purposely selected researchers from various organizations working in the area of international migration in sub-saharan africa. the knowledge base that is produced from this study can yield data and information to governmental and non-governmental organizations that are dealing with international migration in sub-saharan africa. keywords: international migration, sub-saharan africa, policy makers, research agenda.  senior lecturer at the institute for social development, faculty of economic & management science, university of the western cape (uwc), south africa. he holds a phd in development studies from the university of the western cape, south africa.  director of the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa, phd candidate in political studies at the university of cape town. he holds an ma in development studies from the university of the western cape, south africa. this paper was presented at the human development and capability.association (hdca) 2015 conference capabilities on the move: mobility and aspirations. washington, d.c., usa september 10-13, 2015. http://hd-ca.org/conferences ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 154 introduction the ever increasing worldwide human movement, the growth and complexity of migratory practice and its effect on migrants, families and communities have all contributed to make international migration a major area for academics and researchers from various disciplines. international migration is an escalating practice of our times with millions of people flowing across geographical boundaries (hatton, 1995; lee, 1966; maddala & kajal, 2009). nevertheless, human mobility in sub-saharan africa (ssa) has a long history spanning several centuries. the region has a highly mobile population composed of nomads, frontier workers, highly skilled professionals, refugees and undocumented migrants (adepoju, 2000). the discourse around migration patterns in ssa is dominated by myths and false assumptions. first, the widespread perception that migrants from ssa countries are ready to flock onto the shores of europe is contradicted by official data from the world bank showing that migration in ssa is largely characterized by intra-regional movements which account for 65 per cent of the total population of migrants who move to other african countries (ratha et al., 2011). second, the impression that ssa countries are urbanizing at a fast pace with a massive influx of rural migrants is also deceptive. the rapid population growth of african towns and large cities due to a natural increase of the population in fact cannot be directly linked to migration. on average, the rate of urbanization in the ssa region is estimated to be 2 per cent with the exception of a few countries (burkina faso, ghana and cameroon) which are urbanizing faster and others (zambia, ivory coast, central african republic and mali) which have even faced a process of de-urbanization (unhabitat, 2014). a reduced contribution of net in-migration to urban growth it is not caused by less internal mobility though but rather by ‘significant rates of circular migration’ (potts, 2009). this means that migrants are no longer residing in urban areas for long periods of time as it has become more difficult for them to secure employment and a decent standard of living in a highly informalized urban economy. therefore, circular migration in the ssa represents an enduring mobility pattern and a family survival strategy for rural migrants. third, to dispel the myth that poverty reduction, economic growth and human development will halt migrants it is necessary to point out that development might lead to an increased level of migration. in 2014, the ssa region sustained a growth of 4.3 per cent (world bank, 2014) driven by an increase in the internal demand for goods and services, investment in ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 155 mining activities, infrastructure for transport and communication and improvement of agricultural productivity (imf, 2014). this widespread growth in the per capita gdp has also improved the human development index (hdi) of many countries in the region, meaning that more people had access to water, health care and education services. a higher level of human development will not only increase social, human and material capital but will also boost people’s aspirations to move, leading to more migration (de haas, 2010; 2011; flahaux & de haas, 2014). finally, ssa is largely depicted as a region where people are forced to flee because of conflicts and social unrest. despite the fact that four of the five countries with the highest number of refugees per usd of gdp per capita belong to the ssa region (ethiopia, kenya, chad and south sudan), refugees account only for 16 per cent of the total population of international migrants in africa (unhcr 2013). debunking myths around migration patterns in ssa allows us to reflect on the more realistic trends of this phenomenon. human mobility in ssa is characterized by sub-regional movements between neighbouring countries and is driven primarily by economic factors rather than by conflicts. forms of circular labour migration, complemented by ‘less structured forms of mobility’, both at domestic and international level, also reveal an increase in the percentage of migrant women as in the case of southern africa (acms, 2015, 4). as the vast majority of those who move are labour migrants, expectations were raised to achieve regional integration and remove restrictions to free movements in ssa. on the contrary, many african states have promoted restrictive immigration policies in the attempt to reduce the influx of undocumented migrants. these measures, driven by security concerns, have led to the exploitation of migrants and to the systematic violation of their basic rights. it is, therefore, necessary to reflect on a global research agenda for ssa informed by distinguishable human rights requirements and to identify the founding principles of an ethical paradigm of migration. in the following sections, this paper presents the methodological approach used (section 2), elaborates the theoretical and conceptual framework of a rights-based approach (rba) to international migration (section 3), and analyses the experience of researchers and development of a rights-based global agenda (section 4). the final section provides conclusions. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 156 research methodology the research methodology employed a mix of secondary data analysis and field data collection to understand the issues involved in international migration in ssa. according to bryman (2008), in the social sciences the mixed methods approach enables a thorough investigation of the phenomenon under study and therefore remains highly relevant in generating knowledge for policy making purposes. in general, a purposefully selected group of 35 researchers from fourteen ssa countries1 and 25 organizations in ssa were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. these included researchers and institutions involved in research on international migration, representatives of civil associations, and associations undertaking research on international migration. this empirical research helped to examine the different views, ideas; experiences and perspectives of the participants towards international migration in ssa: a call for a global research agenda. theoretical and conceptual framework a rights-based approach is a theoretical and conceptual model that helps to examine disparities which lie at the centre of social and economic development problems and entrench prejudiced practices impeding development progress (cornwall & nyamu-musembi, 2004; unhcr, 2002). it also strives to develop awareness among institutions, civil society organizations, governments and other pertinent stakeholders on how to fulfil their duties, to respect and protect human rights, and to empower individuals and communities to claim their rights (unicef, 2007). in a rba, the plans, policies and processes of development are attached in a system of rights and corresponding obligations established by international law. this helps promote equality among citizens and brings about sustainable development/empowerment, especially for the most marginalized groups of people, in order to take part in policy development, and also to hold accountable those who have a duty to act (cornwall & nyamu-musembi, 2004). this methodology warrants the participation of all stakeholders, transparency and accountability, and the awareness of the rights of the 1 angola, cameron, democratic republic of congo, ethiopia, ghana, kenya, malawi, nigeria, rwanda, somalia, south africa, tanzania, uganda and zimbabwe. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 157 historically excluded people. it strives to examine disparities which lie at the heart of development problems and discriminations that hinder growth (cornwall & nyamu-musembi, 2004). the rationale for a rba is usually a blend of two major points. first, the intrinsic rationale acknowledges that an rba is the right thing to do from a moral perspective. in this regard, baggio (2007) noted that although it is not possible to identify universally applicable methods for the governance of migration, it is feasible to identify some universal principles that constitute the basis for an ethical approach to migration policies and practices. he suggested five principles that firmly respond to moral obligations: (i) promotion of human rights and human dignity; (ii) superiority of the common good, summarized as the superiority of the common good over personal interests and individualism; (iii) universal destination of goods and solidarity which represents the moral duty of many religions to be supportive towards disadvantaged people and also refers to the principle of philanthropy and solidarity; (iv) global stewardship and co-responsibility, an ethical principle based on the collective duty of the proper use and development of natural and environmental resources. according to this principle, everyone is free to access resources where they are as there is a moral obligation on those who have more to share with those who have less; (v) global citizenship, a principle based on the concept of ‘global fraternity’ which strongly undermines contemporary immigration policies whose main pillars are national sovereignty and the security of nationals. underlying the paradoxes of a globalized world where goods and capital can move freely while human beings are often constrained, these principles constitute the backbone of an ethical paradigm to assess the contemporary scenario of human mobility. second, an active foundation identifies that a rba leads to better and more sustainable social and economic development outcomes (unhcr, 2002). in general, rba comprises the incorporation of rights, rules, values, and ethics in policy, identification, planning, implementation, and evaluation to help ensure that the programme respects rights, in every direction, and encourages their further awareness where possible. according to unicef (2007, cited in dinbabo (2013)), a human rights based approach is all about capacity building, and enabling people to claim their rights and enhancing the ability of individuals and institutions who are accountable for respecting, safeguarding and rewarding rights. dinbabo (2013) further indicates that providing people with the opportunities to ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 158 participate will ensure ownership and decision making that impacts on their human rights. as cholewinsky and taran (2010: 18) suggested, ‘a right-based approach to migration is placement of universal rights norms defined by the relevant international instruments as central premises of national migration legislation, policy, and practice founded on the rule of law’. in addition, how a rba is implemented appears to have more to do with the context and objectives of an agency or organisation than the definition of the approach. the office of the united nations high commissioner for human rights (ohchr) gives a definition of rights-based approach: a human rights-based approach to migration means that all migrants are right-holders, and therefore they are entitled to participate in the design and delivery of migration policies, to challenge abuse and human rights violations, and to demand accountability. ultimately, many migrants will remain on the periphery of development, literally and conceptually, unless they are enabled to participate equally in development. (ohchr, 2013: 8). the recognition by international organizations and civil society groups of the importance of promoting, protecting and upholding migrants’ fundamental rights has compelled them to urge states, in both sending and receiving countries, to adhere to international human and labour standards. in part, this major change has been the outcome of an increasing appreciation that needs-based or service-delivery methods have failed to significantly decrease the problem (ledogar, 1993; oestreich, 1998; woll, 2000; unicef, 2007; dinbabo, 2011) but is also motivated by the numerous human rights violations reported by media which often target vulnerable groups. the international labour organization (ilo) has identified several highly vulnerable categories including: women workers, especially those involved in domestic service, temporary and seasonal migrant workers, children, migrant workers in irregular status and victims of trafficking (ilo, 2010). it can be argued that the rba is not free from pitfalls; munch and hyland (2013) challenged the dominant paradigm, advocated by international organizations, of a rba to migration based on universalistic individual rights promoted by western countries. they suggested an alternative and transformative model which affirms the central role of regional integration and social movements, in particular trade unions, to legitimate labour rights for all migrants independently from the dominant human rights discourse. baggio (2015) criticized the fact that the rba is based only on the ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 159 enlightenment ideals of freedom and equality but not on ‘fraternity’ or ‘brotherhood’. he further noticed that the rba’s conceptual framework is limited to the prevention and punishment of human rights violations but does not express the duty of individuals, groups, societies and states to promote the welfare of every person, family and collectivity (ibid.). international legal frameworks/instruments the rba to migration is informed by a set of international standards found in international instruments and conventions that provide basic rights to all human beings and in some cases apply specifically to migrant workers. moreover, these sets of rights are applicable to all individuals regardless of their immigration status, documented or undocumented. for example, numerous studies (o’manique, 1990; ledogar, 1993; oestreich, 1998; woll, 2000; o’donnell, 2004; few, brown & tompkins, 2007; unicef, 2007; moeckli, 2012; dinbabo, 2013; dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015) show that the relationship between migration and human rights can be found at all stages in the migratory cycle: in the country of origin, during transit, and in the country of destination. when a migrant crosses a border, the act that defines international migration, international legal instruments intersecting migration and human rights become enforceable. three major intercontinental legal instruments, developed by the united nations, comprise the international bill of human rights namely: (i) the 1948 universal declaration of human rights; (ii) the 1966 international covenant of economic, social and cultural rights, and (iii) the 1996 international covenant on civil and political rights. article 13 of the universal declaration of human rights states that “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country”. this right guarantees the right of emigration covering not only immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, but also internally displaced persons, economic migrants or even students. dinbabo and nyasulu (2015) show that if a migrant entered a country or remained there without authorization that does not nullify the state’s duty under international law to protect his or her basic rights without any discrimination, for example, against torture, degrading treatment, or forced labour. a rba is characterized by seven fundamental principles (see figure 1) including the universality and inalienability of human rights and equality and non-discrimination of all individuals which underlie labour and human rights. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 160 according to moeckli (2012), equality and non-discrimination means that all human beings, regardless of colour, race, religion, etc. are equal as human beings and, by virtue of the intrinsic self-esteem of any individual, they are eligible to exercise their rights without discrimination. a rba requires a specific effort to target unfairness and discrimination; protections need to be included in all kinds of legal tools to protect the rights and well-being of neglected groups of people. ilo conventions and recommendations set labour standards and rights at work which aim to provide a ‘common framework to regulate the rights and duties of labour migrants’ (nshimbi & fioramonti, 2013: 10). the 1998 ilo declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work is based on eight conventions which make explicit the ‘human rights at work’ (ilo 2010:120) and is articulated in four different categories: (i) freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining2; (ii) the abolition of forced labour3; (iii) equality and non-discrimination in employment and occupation4; (iv) the elimination of child labour5 (ilo 2007: 1). two ilo conventions and their accompanying recommendations specifically deal with migrant workers. these are the migration for employment convention (revised), 1949 (no. 97) and the migrant workers (supplementary provisions) convention, 1975 (no. 143). these two international legal instruments provide the standard for giving a direction on what should constitute the basic elements of major labour migration policy, the safeguarding of workers, the establishment of their potentials in order to measure and facilitate as well as to control migration movements. furthermore, they aim to control the situations in which labour migration for employment occurs and labour trafficking, and try to control any kinds of illegal employment of migrants with the aim of preventing and eliminating abuses (ilo, 2007). a further useful tool developed by the ilo is the multilateral framework on labour migration: non-binding principles and guidelines for a rba to labour 2 freedom of association and protection of the right to organise convention, 1948 (no 87); right to organise and collective bargaining convention, 1949 (no 98). 3 forced labour convention, 1957 (no. 105); abolition of forced labour convention, 1957 (no. 105). 4 discrimination (employment and occupation) convention, 1958 (no. 111); equal remuneration convention, 1951 (no. 100). 5 minimum age convention, 1973 (no. 138); worst forms of child labour convention, 1999 (no. 182). ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 161 immigration which provides a ‘collection of principles, guidelines and best practices on labour migration policy, derived from relevant international instruments and a global review of labour migration policies and practices of ilo constituents’ (ilo, 2006: iv). in particular, principle 8 of the framework deals with the protection of migrant workers as a cornerstone of a rba to labour migration: the human rights of all migrant workers, regardless of their status, should be promoted and protected. in particular, all migrant workers should benefit from the principles and rights in the 1998 ilo declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work and its follow-up, which are reflected in the eight fundamental ilo conventions and the relevant united nations human rights convention. (ilo, 2006: 15). another relevant international instrument that deals with the protection of migrant workers’ rights is the 1990 international convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families (icrmw) which form, together with the two ilo conventions (no. 97 and no. 143) the international charter on migration (cholewinsky & turan, 2010: 20). other binding un instruments are the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination and the 2000 un convention against transnational organized crime and its two protocols, the protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children and the protocol against the smuggling of migrants by land, sea and air. in addition to the icrmw and the ilo conventions, the 1951 united nations convention relating to the status of refugees and its 1967 protocol protect the rights of refugees and all people in need of international protection. the convention is ‘both a status and rights-based instrument and is underpinned by a number of fundamental principles, most notably non-discrimination, non-penalization and non-refoulement’ (unhcr, 2010: 3). ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 162 universality and inalienability indivisibility interdependenc e and interrelatedness equality and nondiscrimination participation and inclusion empowerment accountability and respect for the rule of law figure 1. the seven principles of a rights-based approach. source: adopted from dinbabo (2013: 13) regional legal frameworks/instruments amongst the regional human rights instruments, the african charter on human and peoples’ rights6 adopted in 1981 by the organization of african unity (oau) aims at establishing a framework for the promotion and protection of human and people’s rights in the african continent. the charter lists a set of basic human rights applicable to all human beings of which some are particularly relevant to migrants. article 12(2) and article 15 respectively state that: ‘every individual shall have the right to leave any country including his own, and to return to his country’ and that ‘every individual shall have the right to work under equitable and satisfactory conditions, and shall receive equal pay for equal work.’ furthermore, the 6 http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/z1afchar.htm http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/z1afchar.htm ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 163 right of non-discrimination is enshrined in article 2, while the rights to access basic health care and education for all individuals are promoted respectively by articles 16 and 17 of the charter. a second regional pillar legal instrument for the rba to migration is the migration policy framework for africa (mpfa) which deals with nine key migration issues including migrants’ human and labour rights (au 2006: 1). the document invites states to ‘incorporate provisions from ilo conventions no 97 and no 143 and the international convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families into national legislation’, as well as ‘to promote respect for and protection of the rights of labour migrants including combating discrimination and xenophobia through inter alia civic education and awareness raising activities’ (au, 2006: 8). the mpfa enlists the upholding of the humanitarian principles of migration amongst states’ key priorities and clearly states that: ensuring the effective protection of the human rights of migrants is a fundamental component of a comprehensive and balanced migration management system […] safeguarding the human rights of migrants implies the effective application of norms enshrined in human rights instruments of general applicability as well as the ratification and enforcement of instruments specifically relevant to the treatment of migrants (au, 2006: 24). the mfpa, which is not legally binding, also recommends states should meet their humanitarian obligations to refugees by adopting adequate national policies and to strengthen mechanisms to protect internally displaced people and victims of trafficking. issues relating to the protection and nondiscrimination of refugees are also addressed by the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa. the economic community of west african states (ecowas): comprises 15 states7 and currently its regional policy framework on migration is regulated by the ecowas treaty and the 1979 ecowas protocol on free movement of persons, residence and establishment both of which protect the right to freedom of movement (right of entry), right of residence and right of establishment (atsenuwa & adepoju, 2010). the protocol had a 15-year, three-phase implementation process gradually to abolish visa requirements 7 benin, burkina faso, cape verde, cote d’ivoire, gambia, ghana, guinea, guinea bissau, liberia, mali, niger, nigeria, senegal, sierra leone and togo. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 164 for ecowas citizens, promote the right of residence and lastly the right of establishment and seek employment. the ecowas common approach to migration, adopted in 2008, is a regional programmatic document which reaffirms the applicability of basic human rights expressed in all adopted international legal instruments to migrants, including women and victims of trafficking, and refugees. amongst its objectives the ecowas common approach to migration seeks to: (i) formulate an active integration policy for migrants from ecowas member states; (ii) combat exclusion and xenophobia; (iii) encourage member states and their eu partners to ratify the un convention on the rights of migrants; (iv) put in place regional mechanism to monitor the un convention on the rights of migrants and (v) put in place mechanisms for granting rights of residence and establishment to refugees from ecowas countries (ecowas, 2008: 10). the east african community (eac): comprises five states of which kenya, tanzania and uganda were the founding members,8 joined in 1999 by burundi and rwanda. all member states signed the treaty for the establishment of the east african community9 committing themselves to strengthen their political and socio-cultural ties and to achieve full economic integration and sub-regional cooperation (eac, 2009a). the eac regional legislative framework also comprises the protocol on the establishment of the eac common market which came into force in 2010, upon ratification of all member states, and allowed free movement of goods, capital and labour among partner states (nshimbi & fioramonti, 2013). the protocol guarantees the rights of establishment and residence for all eac citizens and their families and reiterates the importance of non-discrimination as one of its underlying principles (eac, 2009b). in particular, article 3 and article 10(2) of the protocol call for the observation of the principle of nondiscrimination respectively for non-nationals, citizens and foreign workers in relation to remuneration and other conditions at work (ibid.). moreover, to reduce the constraints regarding the portability of social security benefits, an additional annex on social security was drafted with the ilo’s technical assistance (ilo, 2010). 9 the treaty was ratified by kenya, uganda and tanzania in 2000. burundi and rwanda acceded and became full members in 2007. http://www.eac.int/treaty/ http://www.eac.int/treaty/ ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 165 the southern african development community (sadc): comprises 15 member states.10 despite the declared objectives of the 1992 sadc treaty to promote regional cooperation and to reduce obstacles to the free movement of capital, goods, services and people (sadc 1992) very little has been achieved so far by member states. the 1995 draft protocol on the free movement of persons in the southern african development community, a three-phase process which envisioned the possibility for sadc citizens to ‘enter freely the territory of a member state for the purpose of seeking employment’ (sadc, 1996) encountered fierce resistance from botswana, namibia and, in particular, south africa. the implementation of the ‘free movement’ provision was, in fact, considered by the authorities to be detrimental for the socio-economic conditions and the social well-being of south african citizens (oucho & crush, 2001). in 2005, the free movement protocol was replaced by the protocol on the facilitation of movement of persons which established a visa-free system for sadc countries and aimed at harmonizing immigration practices (sadc, 2005). the protocol, which is a binding document, was signed by 13 member states11 but has not came into force yet because it requires a minimum of two-thirds to ratify it.12 the timid progress to eliminate obstacles to free movement and to draft a regional labour migration policy reveals that ‘migration is not a key priority of member states compared with more prominent issues such as border control and the fight against irregular migration’ (segatti, 2011: 29). empirical data presentation and analysis examining researchers’ experiences with a rba to research in international migration in the context of ssa is considered an important element in this study. in this regard, mcintyre, byrd and foxx (1996) argue that analysing researchers’ experiences is an important component in social science. garibaldi (1992) notes that most social science research projects have incorporated more and more experience analysis into their research programmes. field data analysis indicated that the majority of respondents 10 angola, botswana, democratic republic of congo (drc), lesotho, madagascar, malawi, mauritius, mozambique, namibia, seychelles, south africa, swaziland, tanzania, zambia and zimbabwe. 11 madagascar and seychelles did not sign the protocol 12 the document was ratified by south africa, botswana, mozambique, swaziland and zambia. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 166 were familiar with the rba framework. there was constant mention of rights-based research that the majority of the respondents had previously employed to advocate for socio-economic and political rights of international migrants and marginalized groups of people through their organizations. they also indicated that a rights-based research approach to international migration is very relevant in the context of ssa. however, participants in the research made it clear that the modalities of implementation of a rightsbased research approach to international migration are not clear. in this regard, the survey participants indicated that there is a need for increased awareness, collaboration and networking, amongst government and non-government offices, private service providers, community based organisations and churches in communities, and research organizations, in terms of effectively utilizing a rights-based research approach to international migration. based on information obtained, some of the respondents indicated that looking at research on international migrants through a ‘rights’ lens helped them in designing a new way of devising a research framework and in orienting themselves progressively towards addressing rights through advocacy and via strengthening of civil society. researchers also raised their concern about the general lack of a sound theoretical framework and strong empirical basis for a rights-based research approach to migration. some also raised their concern about the researchers’ expertise in rights-based research approach, methodology and scarcity of research findings and evaluation strategies. in sum, each of the respondents’ cases demonstrates that the rights-based research approach will need to develop its in-house capacity to assess, interpret, and synthesize information about the rights issues that underpin economic, social, political and cultural matters and to design programmes that seek to address them. in this regard, several respondents indicated their opinions, suggestions and views on the development of a human rights measurement framework. some respondents also suggested the need for understanding and building consensus within the international rights-based research approach strengths: several respondents stated that a rights-based research approach to migration helped in deepening the focus on disadvantaged and socially marginalized migrants as well as fostering respect and dignity and enhancing ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 167 the opportunities of neglected migrants. a large number of respondents also indicated that the presence of the basic rights contained in the two international covenants, i.e., the international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr) and the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (icescr) are important tools in terms of undertaking research on the rights of the migrants. an exclusive response received from a few of the researchers indicated that the strengths of the rights-based research approach is reinforced by important international legal instruments, as emerged from respondents’ observations: …the adoption of the universal declaration of human rights in 1948 was the first occasion on which the organized community of nations ... made a declaration of human rights and fundamental freedoms.... …it is conceived as “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations,” the universal declaration ... has become just that: a yardstick by which to measure the degree of respect for, and compliance with, international human rights standards... …it is one of the basic instruments of human rights....states a common understanding of the peoples of the world concerning the inalienable and inviolable rights of all members of the human family and constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community… ….the human rights declaration consists of 30 articles setting forth the civil and political, and economic, social and cultural rights to which all persons are entitled, without discrimination. this means international migrants are part of the beneficiaries of the human rights declaration… …characterizes these rights as indispensable for human dignity and the free development of personality, and indicates that they are to be realized “through national effort and international cooperation.” at the same time, it points out the limitations of realization, the extent of which depends on the resources of each state…. weaknesses: a number of respondents indicated that the main weakness is a very poor collaborative research network. respondents believed that a panafrican research network on rights-based research approach to international migration would bring a platform for sharing research outputs and experiences. respondents also believed that collaborative research networks are helpful in designing and developing the research capacity of smaller, emerging researchers and institutions in ssa. according to them, collaborative research networks encourage these institutions and researchers ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 168 to become familiar with a research system focussed on results by partnering with similar organizations in areas of common interest. respondents indicated that such kinds of partnership will benefit all of the stakeholders involved. opportunities: almost all the respondents agreed about the existence of various types of legislative and policy framework as an opportunity to undertake rights based research on international migration. in this regard, respondents indicated that, in fact, a significant number of ssa countries have either completed or are in the process of completing major law reforms on migrants. this, therefore, shows a great opportunity to work in the field and commitment for the furtherance of international migrants’ rights on the continent. for example, respondents pointed out that, continentally, the african union seeks to build an african economic community (aec) and regards eight african regional economic communities (recs) as crucial in realizing an aec. to achieve this, the abuja treaty (paragraph 2 (i) article 4) encourages member states eventually to do away with barriers “to the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital and the right of residence and establishment.” the abuja treaty’s article 6(e) even fleshes out four activities for establishing an african common market (acm). additionally, article 71(e) implores au members to adopt employment policies that enable people to move freely within africa. in order to achieve this, article 71(e) urges members to establish and strengthen labor exchanges that make possible the harnessing of available skilled labour of a member state in other au states where such labour is needed but is in short supply. the au’s hope is that africa will be an economic community by 2028. as an opportunity, respondents further indicated that the two migration policy frameworks in africa, namely, the african common position on migration and development (acpmd) and the migration policy framework for africa (mpfa), warrant some attention. the acpmd promotes prioritization of migration-related policy, recommendations and actions on national, continental and international levels. similarly, the mpfa underscores the significant role that migration plays in development and appeals to all african regional economic communities members to craft policies designed to boost continental development. unfortunately, the mpfa is but a reference document that is not legally binding from which au members and recs can borrow issues that they consider valuable and appropriate to their migration settings. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 169 however, some of the researchers also indicated that the degree to which these instruments and laws will improve international migrants’ lives depends greatly on how state parties implement them and adopt domestic measures to comply with their international obligations. a number of respondents commented that the list of adverse factors with which the implementation and enforcement of migration laws has to contend, especially in africa, is still very long. challenges: analyses of the feedback of numerous respondents indicated that despite the theoretical strength of this method, as was stated in the earlier section, some of the respondents indicated that the rba to international migration is not free from pitfalls. according to them, there are problems of operationalization and consensus about the rba among researchers, and its practical implementation in the context of africa. for example, some respondents indicated that although values of human rights notions such as non-discrimination and equality are not special values only for developed countries, it is assumed that human rights dialogue is not as operational in africa as in europe due to its origin in the west. some respondents also pointed out that a rba to international migration remains perceived in international law as rights enforceable only against the state or its agents. some respondents also indicated their feelings about the progressive breaches of human rights which are taking place in ssa because of the actions of non-state actors. in general, they believed that human rights violations occur at different levels. the above evidence suggests that there are opportunities and challenges for conducting a rights-based research approach to international migrants in ssa. however, the researchers stated that research should be aimed at strengthening the resilience of vulnerable migrants, which is particularly relevant if participatory approaches and tools are used. in general, a rightsbased research approach to international migration has to be linked with state agencies, ngos and the private sector to bring the voice of civil society to ssa forums. respondents also indicated that a rights-based research approach should influence the political agenda in ssa on a range of migrants’ rights issues. key priorities for a global research agenda respondents suggested that despite the numerous laws, legal instruments, and policy frameworks, to which most governments in ssa may have acceded, ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 170 the promotion of migrants’ rights issues for many countries still remains under-explored. in this regard, several researchers in ssa indicated that a global research agenda on migrants’ rights should be considered. according to them, the rights of international migrants globally and in the ssa context received thoughtful focus and attention after the 1948 universal declaration of human rights, the 1994 international convention on civil and political rights and the 1981 african charter on human and peoples’ rights. according to the respondents, these international and continental legal instruments establish that governments must ensure that all human rights should be protected. the result of the field data assessment demonstrates a great demand for urgent action on planning a rights-based global research agenda that responds to the present international migrants’ rights situation. in general, the research process identified two interrelated gaps that hinder the successful implementation of a rights-based research agenda. first, insufficient networking, communication and synergy between researchers, practitioners, government officials, funding agencies, research organizations and ngos. second, an inadequate understanding of the theoretical and conceptual framework of rights-based research exists among scholars in the field. within the framework of the aforementioned analysis, the study finally brings into focus major observations gained from the analysis and provides key priorities for a global research agenda in ssa. the following is a summary of a research agenda that has been suggested by most researchers in ssa countries.  analysis of legal and policy research agendas in the ssa context should be embedded in an approach which is informed by justice and restorative justice practices, as well as focused on especially vulnerable groups (unaccompanied minors, migrants deprived of their liberty, etc.).  assessing where opportunities and gaps exist for ensuring that the rights of migrants are included (migrants’ access to social services, e.g. health care and grants).  evaluating diversion and programming for migrants at risk or in conflict with the law. there is a great need for research into the regulation of issues of migrants at risk and prevailing conditions that ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 171 threaten them, which, it is suggested, is an area of weakness in the region as a whole.  identifying factors determining migration in ssa, social exclusion and xenophobia; and undertaking comparative analysis of policies and practices governing migration in ssa.  examining the integration of research on migrants’ rights in ssa as an integral part of mainstream african social science research and research on the possibility of developing a network of african researchers.  exploring migrants as victims of family violence, including: data collection on victims, particularly over time; family violence prevention and intervention measures.  assessing gender and migration. increasing feminization of migration is unveiling a potential risk (of abuses, exploitation and sexual harassment of women). conclusion this article seeks to provide a thoughtful understanding of a rights-based approach (rba) to international migration with a focus on sub-saharan africa (ssa). it also suggests the need for a research agenda predicated on the principle of human rights and intertwined with social and economic development. the findings reveal the necessity to address some of the asymmetries of international migration, such as the tension between sovereignty rights and human rights which often leads to the exclusion of non-citizens from social protection, labour rights and human rights. in this regard, the role of national and regional networking groups comprising researchers, ngos, practitioners, trade unions, civil society organizations and social movements can contribute to advancing migrants’ rights by exercising pressure from the bottom on both states and non-state actors to uphold and enforce international human rights law. moreover, there is an urgent need to identify universal and widely accepted principles able to inform national and regional migration policies. we suggest that such an ethical paradigm should be based on the following five principles: (i) promotion of human rights and human dignity; (ii) superiority of the common good; (iii) universal destination of goods and solidarity; (iv) global stewardship and co-responsibility and (v) global citizenship. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 172 building an effective 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4, no. 3, 2018 refugee integration between a rock and a hard place: challenges and possibilities of local integration as a durable solution for eritrean and somali refugees in ethiopia wogene berhanu mena abstract this study examines the challenges and possibilities of local integration for urban refugees by comparing two refugee groups (eritreans and somalis) in addis ababa. a qualitative research methodology was employed and semistructured interviews with refugees and host communities as well as key informant interviews with the administration of refugees and returnees affairs (arra) and local authorities were conducted. in addition, focus group discussions (fgds) with refugees and host communities of the study areas were held. the respondents for both interviews and fgds were purposively selected. the historical and ongoing relations between ethiopia and the refugee producing countries, a structural factor, impacted not only the country’s policy direction towards the refugees’ but also the refugees’ and hosts’ perceptions of local integration. the study revealed that somali refugees are more integrated in the host communities than eritrean refugees in the respective areas despite the cultural compatibility of the latter because of the interplay of structural, refugee and host community related factors. the prolonged settlement and engagement of somali refugees in both the formal and informal economy in the area reduced prior mutual mistrust and misperceptions and resulted in the refugees’ progressive integration in the host communities. however, the securitisation of somali refugees in the area by interlinking them with the insecurity and terrorism in their country obstructs the intensive integration by creating fear among both refugees and host communities. on the other hand, the eritrean refugees perceive the special treatment provided to them as politically motivated and temporary. low levels of migrant integration are caused by the  lecturer, department of political science and international relations, wolkite university, ethiopia. email: bwogene@yahoo.com wogene berhanu mena 1360 perception of ethiopia as country of transit and a lack of motivation on the side of host communities to facilitate integration. keywords: refugees, local integration, securitisation, politicisation, somalia, eritrea, ethiopia. introduction africa has been unrelenting in producing refugees since the 1960s. the horn of africa, one of the most conflict-ridden regions in the world, is known for its mass exodus of refugees. currently, the region is the biggest source of refugees worldwide next to the middle east. according to a 2017 united nations higher commission for refugee (unhcr) report, three of the top ten refugeeproducing countries in the world are from the horn of africa (somalia, south sudan and eritrea). on the other hand, ethiopia and kenya are among the biggest refugee hosting countries in the region (global trends forced displacement, 2017)). as a result of producing and hosting refugees simultaneously, the sub-region has been referred to as the ‘belt of refugeeproducing and receiving’. for the last two and half decades, ethiopia has been hosting refugees from the neighbouring countries of south sudan, somalia, eritrea, yemen and other countries from the great lake region. the absence of a central government in somalia since 1991, ongoing civil war in the youngest state of south sudan and political oppression and human rights violations in eritrea are the major push factors for refugees’ flight to ethiopia (assefaw, 2006; international crisis group, 2014). the unhcr identified three durable solutions for the problem of refugees: voluntary repatriation, local integration and resettlement. with protracted conflict and political repressions in the refugee-producing countries, voluntary repatriation is a distant possibility. similarly, because of perceived and real conditions of identifying refugees as a security threat and economic burden in developed countries (third countries of resettlement), the opportunity for resettlement is far from positive. in addition, immigration is becoming the major cause of rising populism in western countries. washington post columnist and host of cnn’s gps, fareed zakaria (2018), identified immigration as the central issue feeding populism around the globe. given the dwindling prospect of security in their homelands in the near future and the unlikelihood of smooth resettlement or secondary movement across the mediterranean sea, the remaining solution is the local integration of refugees in the host communities. however, local integration is a two-way wogene berhanu mena 1361 process impacted by both the refugees’ and the host communities’ perceptions towards local integration, in addition to the state’s policy praxis. like other african countries, the structure of refugee settlement in ethiopia is mainly confined to camps located in isolated rural areas due to the perceived economic burden and security concern of the state. although camps are considered to be impermanent settlement for refugees in a temporary state of emergency, most of the refugees in the country have been in camps for prolonged periods of time. few exceptions are made for refugees who desire urban settlement. however, self-settlement (significantly) and assisted settlement (insignificantly) of refugees in urban areas are increasing due to different pull and push factors. hence, refugees are found in different urban areas of the country, such as addis ababa, adama, jijiga, gambella, shire, mekelle, assosa and samara, among others. somali and eritrean refugees have settled in addis ababa for a long time (unhcr ethiopia, 2017). as per the ethiopian orthodox church development and inter-church aid commission (eoc-dicac) report of march 2017, the numbers of assisted refugees from eritrea and somalia who have settled in addis ababa for the purpose of specialised protection or medical care are 594 and 853, respectively. however, the number of self-settled refugees in both countries is far greater than the number of officially recognised and assisted refugees in addis ababa. jacobsen (2006) notes that “the government is incapable or chooses to turn a blind eye to the situation.” according to the joint report of the arra and the eoc-dicac, as of march 2017, approximately 192,000 refugees are settled in addis ababa on unpermitted and permitted grounds, as assisted urban refugees, out-ofcamp policy beneficiaries and unregistered asylum seekers. despite this significant presence of urban refugees, few studies have been carried out on the issue of urban refugees in general and on the issue of local integration in particular. therefore, this study compares the local integration of eritrean and somali refugees in addis ababa from the perspectives of both refugees and host communities, in order to analyse the challenges and possibilities for local integration. methodology a qualitative research methodology was employed and data for the study was collected from both primary and secondary sources. primary data were collected through in-depth interviews with refugees and host communities (twenty semi-structured interviews), and eight key informant interviews with arra and local authorities were conducted. additionally, four fgds with wogene berhanu mena 1362 refugees and host communities of the study areas were held. the respondents for both interviews and fgds were purposively selected. to substantiate the data incurred from primary sources and to develop a conceptual framework, secondary sources of data were consulted, such as books, journal articles, published and unpublished thesis, newspapers, governmental and nongovernmental organisations’ reports, newspapers and study reports. the data obtained from both primary and secondary sources were analysed using a qualitative method. among many refugee groups settled in addis ababa, the somali and eritrean refugees were selected based on their large presence for a relatively prolonged period of time. additionally, the historic attachment of somalis and eritreans with the host state and host community makes them comparable cases. major differences between the two groups include the variation in the level of integration with the host community in respective areas and impacting factors from refugees, the host community and policyrelated issues regarding local integration. the areas in addis ababa selected for study were gofa mebrat hail for eritrean refugees and bole michael for somali refugees. the benchmarks for sampling the areas were the number of the refugees in the area and their settlement in the area for a relatively long period of time. conceptual framework and literature review understanding the concept of local integration local integration is one of three durable solutions for the refugee problem (repatriation and resettlement are the other two). local integration is a multidimensional process that consists of economic, social, legal and political aspects. in the countries of resettlement, the level of refugee integration with the hosts is determined by the following variables: employment, education, health service and naturalisation (ager & strang, 2004). however, in developing countries in general, and africa in particular, host governments’ policy directions and practices discourage integration and prefer encampment and segregated rural settlements, with the exception of the republic of south africa and egypt (kibreab, 1989; malkki, 1995; karadawi, 1999). the concept of integration is chaotic and understood differently by different scholars. however, it has basic indicators for assessing the local integration of refugees in their host communities. according to crisp (2004), local integration is a process that consists of interrelated legal, economic and social dimensions. legally speaking, “refugees are granted a progressively wider wogene berhanu mena 1363 range of rights and entitlements by host states.” these rights and entitlements include the right to “seek employment, to engage in other income-generating activities, to own and dispose of property, to enjoy freedom of movement and to have access to public services such as education” (crisp, 2004). the progressive realisation of these rights may lead to migrants being granted citizenship, but this does not guarantee local integration. beyond this, refugees in the global south receive the legal recognition of citizenship and its related benefits in the host states not only through formal state institutions and policy directions but also through different informal manners that resist state control. the major pull factor for refugees’ migration to urban areas is the potential for invisibility that the environment provides. refugees’ invisibility and the fluidity of their status can prevent them from being captured by the state as illegal but also prevents them from participating in activities to which they are not legally entitled (polzer, 2009; landau, 2010; frischkorn, 2013). the fluidity of refugee status in african countries is largely influenced by a situation of people with common history, culture, ethnic group, religion and way of life that are artificially separated by colonial boundaries (mengisteab & bereketeab, 2012). this enables refugees to defy state control by being invisible and changing their identity as citizens of the host country. this level of fluidity is amplified by the limitation of state capacity. this creates alternative means for integration in an informal manner, despite the obstructing policy environment. negotiating with local authorities is another means by which urban refugees acquire the legal rights and entitlements to settle in urban areas and engage in different economic activities. unlike in western countries, refugees in african countries rarely have formal means to influence and negotiate state policy that negates their interests (polzer, 2007; polzer, 2009; frischkorn, 2013). by using corruption as a negotiating mechanism, refugees defy their status and acquire legal status, though the process is not trouble-free. this trend has been seen with mozambican refugees in south africa (polzer, 2007; polzer, 2009) and different refugee groups in lusaka (frischkorn, 2013) and kenya (campbell, 2005; campbell, 2006), among others. secondly, integration is a social and cultural process that enables “refugees to live among or alongside the host population, without fear of systematic discrimination, intimidation or exploitation by the authorities and peoples of the host population” (crisp, 2004: 1). jacobsen (2001) further defines sociocultural integration the process by which refugees develop social networks in the host community with little distinction between the standard of living of wogene berhanu mena 1364 refugees and that of the host community, and when refugees feel at home in the host country. finally, local integration as an economic process is mainly defined and measured in terms of achieving self-sufficiency and a standard of living for refugees that is comparable to the host community. in addition, the intensive economic engagement of refugees’ results in meaningful interaction that primarily contributes toward sociocultural integration by lessening various barriers (mekuria, 1998; jacobsen, 2001). refugees’ ability to pursue improved livelihoods has impacted the status of refugees in the host country in general and in urban areas in particular (jacobsen, 2001; crisp, 2004). thus, local integration is a multi-dimensional (legal, economic and socio-cultural) process that is fundamentally driven and impacted by both refugees and host communities, rather than stand-alone policy response. factors impacting refugee-host community integration local integration is a complex and multi-dimensional process impacted by refugees, host communities and policy-related factors. however, these factors are not mutually exclusive. rather, one factor can be an effect of or cause for another. hence, incorporating and understanding the impacting factors from refugees’ and host communities’ perspectives provides a comprehensive view of the issue. refugees are active and primary decision makers in establishing their home within their host community (jacobsen, 2001; griffiths, 2003; korac, 2009 as cited by frischkorn, 2013). firstly, the refugees’ plan to stay in the host country affects their level of integration with the host community. when refugees consider their first country of asylum as a transit country to resettle in developed countries (legally or illegally-by using smugglers), or to go to their homeland, they see no reason to invest in their lives in the host country (grabska, 2006). hence, the refugees’ intentions and aspirations for resettlement in the third country of asylum or repatriation impact their perceptions of local integration (ager & strang, 2010). secondly, the psychological compatibility or the social connections of refugees with the local community impact the refugees’ integration with locals. the social connection can be reflected in terms of language, culture, ethnic background and/or historical ties (fielden, 2008). ager and strang (2008) dubbed these elements as “facilitators” for integration. thus, the existing similarities of language, culture and social values between the host communities and the refugees on the one hand, and the refugees’ interest in wogene berhanu mena 1365 knowing and understanding the hosts on the other, are significant factors for local integration. the level of trust in the host state and its people based on past experience also impacts refugees’ perceptions of local integration. for example, based on their past experience in sudan with perceived and real arab domination, the south sudan refugees in cairo were mistrusting and suspicious of host communities with arab cultural roots (grabska, 2006). therefore, the plan of their stay, the level of shared identity and the trust towards local communities are refugee-related factors that impact local integration. in addition to socio-cultural (in)compatibility (campbell, 2006; grabska, 2006; fielden, 2008), the expectations of the host communities regarding the duration of migrants’ settlement and the desirability of repatriation or resettlement have an impact on their perceptions towards integration. during the initial phase of refugees’ arrival, host communities view refugees as guests and hosts’ actions are mainly welcoming and assistance-based (kibreab, 1989). however, this perception of temporariness obstructs hosts’ interests in integrating with refugees. on the contrary, the protracted situation may facilitate local integration as the long history of refugee movement develops the hosts’ perception of refugees as part of their community (jacobsen, 2001). similarly, extended stay has contribution for de facto integration by enabling linguistic and cultural adaptation (fielden, 2008). this is reflected in the case of angolan ‘refugees’ in zambia who were highly integrated and difficult to differentiate from locals (bakewell, 2000). the host communities’ perceptions of the economic implications of refugee settlement is another major factor that impacts local integration. integration is hindered when host communities perceive refugees as a burden on social goods and services (health, education and housing) and as competitors in the labour market (especially the unskilled labour market). in addition, when host communities perceive refugees as more economically privileged than them, discrimination and resentment become common (campbell, 2005; betts, 2008). on the other hand, when the host communities view refugees as sources of labour, consumers of goods and services and creators of new business opportunities and cross-border trade, integration is bolstered (campbell, 2006; grabska, 2006; codjoe et al. 2013). thus, buy-in from host communities has a significant impact on local integration. policy related issues also impact the local integration of refugees in host communities. in most african states, as the first country of asylum, urban wogene berhanu mena 1366 refugees technically do not or should not exist, as their existence is unrecognised or their settlement is illegal. the perception of refugees as security threats or economic burdens is a commonly propagated justification for opposing the presence of refugees in urban areas in developing countries. as result, these states have never developed clearly defined policies towards urban refugees, which places refugees in a state of legal limbo (campbell, 2006; fábos & kibreab, 2007). in addition to their liminal and marginalised position, the securitisation of refugee issues develops a sense of an “outsider” status among refugees and sense of “cultural othering” within the host communities (kibreab, 2000). securitisation also creates an unfavourable environment for the refugees by fostering xenophobia within the host communities (fábos & kibreab, 2007). even for those assisted refugees that are legally settled in urban areas, states reservations to provide for some rights granted under the international refugee regimes limit refugees’ access to education, employment and legal protection. limits on these rights negatively impact refugees’ perceptions towards local integration by making their livelihoods unstable (grabska, 2006). thus, policy inclusion or exclusion has a direct impact on the integration process as it creates the sense of marginalisation for refugees. literature review local integration is one of the unhcr’s three stated durable solutions for the problem of refugees (kobia & cranfield, 2009). it is common to find differences in the literature about urban refugees and the issue of integration in urban areas of the west (dryden-peterson, 2006; rai, 2015). in africa, extensive research has been done on refugees in camps and rural settlements. nevertheless, in developing countries in general, and in africa in particular, the study of urban refugees received attention in the late 1980s. thereafter, kibreab (1996) identified the issue of urban refugees as “what the eye refuses to see”. most of the scholarly works on this topic focus on refugees in cities such as cairo, johannesburg, nairobi, kampala, and khartoum (drydenpeterson, 2006). in the case of ethiopia, the issue of urban refugees in general, and their local integration with the hosts in particular, has received little scholarly attention. webster (2011) assessed the protection challenges that eritrean refugees encountered in ethiopia and only considered the issue of refugees in addis ababa from the refugees’ perspective. according to the researcher, the source of protection challenges emanates from eritrean state officials and ethiopian wogene berhanu mena 1367 administrators who act in pursuit of their political interests. thus, the analysis ignores the multidimensional sources of protection challenges as well as the perception of the host communities towards the eritrean refugees. conversely, kibrom (2016) assessed the socioeconomic impact of somali refugees on the host community in addis ababa from host communities’ perspective and recommended repatriation of refugees to their host country as a solution to minimise the burden on the host community, even though the somali refugees would be returning to a difficult situation in somalia. on the other hand, ali (2014) analysed the challenges of social integration for the refugee women of the great lake region (rwanda, burundi, uganda tanzania, democratic republic of congo) in addis ababa through the refugees’ lens. in his work, ali problematically referred to the refugees from those four countries as a homogenous group by understating their heterogeneity of language, culture and national identity. however, as a strength of the study, the researcher acknowledged refugees as active decision-makers and primary social actors in integrating with the host community. however, the study failed to include the perception of host communities of the refugees’ integration, though the researcher recognised integration as an interactive, two-way process in his conceptual framing of the study. therefore, the aforementioned studies about urban refugee integration with the host communities approach the issue of local integration as one-directional (only from refugees’ or hosts’ perspective). in reality, integration is multidirectional. thus, it is fair to identify the issue of local integration of urban refugees with the host community in addis ababa as an under-researched subject. moreover, the local integration of eritrean and somali refugees as the largest refugee groups in the city, has been neglected. this study examines the local integration of eritrean and somali refugees with local communities in addis ababa and compares the impacting factors from both refugees’ and host communities’ perspectives. research findings and presentations the fluidity of refugees’ status the ethiopian refuge proclamation no. 409/2004 defines refugee in an inclusive manner by incorporating both the united nations refugee convention of 1951 and the organization for african unity convention of 1969 (the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problem in africa) under article 4. according to the arra legal protection department, wogene berhanu mena 1368 refugees and asylum seekers can be categorised into four major groups: assisted urban refugees, unassisted urban refugees (eritrean refugees who are beneficiaries of the out-of-camp policy), non-permit holders (refugees from camps without permission to settle in urban areas), and unregistered asylum seekers (mainly somali refugees). the unhcr report of march 2017 indicates that 594 eritrean and 853 somali assisted urban refugees are settled in addis ababa to receive either special medical care or special security. these groups hold a legally authorised document from the arra that enables them to receive a monthly allowance from the dicac. in addition, the out-of-camp policy has provided the eritrean refugees who are self-sufficient to live with relatives outside the camp in their area of choice since 2010. these groups of refugees have special identity cards (ids) that identify them as outof-camp beneficiaries. refugees of all nationalities outside of these four categories (both non-permit holders and unregistered asylum seekers) are considered illegal but are not subjected to arbitrary detention. ethiopia has been praised for granting freedom from arbitrary detention for illegal entry or presence under article 13(6) of the refugee proclamation (webster, 2011). this legal and institutional commitment of the ethiopian government cannot be underestimated. however, most states in africa, and the horn states in particular, share not only borders but people with a common history, culture, ethnic group, religion and way of life. this enables refugees to defy state control and limits the states’ capacity to control their borders. the existence of this shared identity and limit in the state capacity paves the way for invisible and de jure integration of people across the border without regard for state policy directions (mengisteab & bereketeab, 2012: 102). the status of both eritrean and somali refugees in addis ababa is highly fluid. each refugee groups has strong commonalities with an ethnic group in ethiopia (i.e., the ethiopian somali ethnic group for somali refugees and the tigrean ethnic group that exists in both eritrea and ethiopia). this enables refugees to have ethiopian passports like ethiopian citizens regardless of the restrictive government policy. one of the somali refugee respondents revealed that he has three passports for three countries (ethiopia, somaliland, and djibouti) while he is considered to have refugee status by the ethiopian government. as means of resisting state authority, refugees negotiate the enforcement efforts through various mechanisms, including corruption. in explaining how the refugees get id cards in addis ababa or in the somali wogene berhanu mena 1369 regional state, one respondent said, “money can ease the challenge.” on the other hand, eritrean refugees informally obtain ethiopian id cards to have access to work that refugees do not have, rather than to obtain access to legal residence like somali refugees. in spite of ethiopia’s prohibition of refugees, by engaging in income generating activities and settling in urban areas with a few exceptions, the ethiopian refugees have subverted the legal constraints of the state through local informality (i.e., by negotiating with corrupt local officials) and through their co-ethnic groups in ethiopia. similarly, mozambican refugees in south africa (polzer, 2007; polzer, 2009), various refugee groups in lusaka (frischkorn, 2013) and somali refugees in kenya (campbell, 2005; campbell, 2006), among others, defied state control by hiding themselves within the co-ethnic groups in the hosting countries. thus, shared identity, lack of state capacity to control its border and right of residence with negotiating capacity of the refugees have facilitated the invisible integration of refugees in the host community and indicate the blurred boundary between refugees and citizens. the livelihood and economic integration of eritrean and somali refugees in addis ababa like urban refugees in other countries, several strategies of livelihood are evident for eritrean refugees in gofa mebrat hail. these include: receiving income from remittances, financial assistance from the unhcr, working as hired labour in informal and formal sectors and running small businesses. refugees’ participation in the local economy is the major indicator of local integration. those eritrean refugees that successfully negotiated and have ethiopian id cards or passports work in the formal economy as ethiopian citizens without losing their refugee status. the major business areas in which they work include shops, barber shops, beauty salons, wood and metal work centres, coffee houses, cafés, grocers, restaurants and pool houses. another means by which eritrean refugees engage in the formal economy is through business partnerships with ethiopians. however, the vast majority of eritrean refugees in gofa mebrat hail heavily rely on remittances, as their engagement in income-generating business activities is limited. with regard to access to social utilities, they have access to public education, health services and basic consumable goods such as food, oil, sugar and bread flour. this access is granted from local authorities through the refugees’ status card or ocp beneficiary special card. in terms of achieving self-sufficiency in comparison to their local counterparts, it is fair to say that wogene berhanu mena 1370 eritrean refugees in gofa-mebrta hail are not a burden to the local economy and are pursuing living standards that are equivalent to or better than locals. however, since active involvement in business (both formal and informal) is the major indicator of the integration of refugees in the host communities, it is fair to note that their economic integration as limited. on the other hand, somali refugees, like eritreans and other urban refugees, have both productive and reproductive livelihood strategies. productive livelihood strategies include using natural resources and financial and human capital to maintain and improve livelihoods. reproductive livelihood strategies mainly involve using social capital to improve livelihoods. somalis are among the most dispersed people in the world with 1–2 million people settled in more than 60 countries, comprising the diaspora (knerr, 2012; fagioli-ndlovu, 2015). this enables the vast majority of somali refugees in bole michael to pursue their livelihoods through overseas remittances as their major source of income. these remittances are transferred by an informal banking system called hawala or hawalaad. in addition to remittances, in bole michael, it is common to witness somali refugees running different businesses in both the informal and formal economies. currently, guesthouses, cloth shops, cafés and restaurants, chat (it’s a leaf that is a mild narcotic and its leaves are chewed for a stimulating effect), internet cafés, shops and mini-supermarkets are the major businesses in which somali refugees are engaged. most of the guesthouses in bole michael are owned by somali refugees. they rent the whole compound from the local people and then sublet it as guesthouses for those refugees that come to addis ababa from refugee camps in the somali regional state for medical reasons, to visit their family in the city or for business-related purposes. somali refugees have a strong transnational trade network with co-ethnic ties in their country of origin, the host country (ethiopia) and some countries in the middle east, such as the united arab emirates (uae). this can be seen from the type of materials that are sold in bole michael, such as somali clothes, other cloth items, mobile telephones, tablet computers, laptops and packed foods and beverages from dubai and the gulf states. most of this items are imported from those middle east countries via the ethiopia somali regional state. with frequent smuggling of goods from somalia to ethiopian somali regional state, ethiopian revenue and customs authority dubbed eastern part of the country particularly ethiopia-somalia border areas as a major contraband corridor that stretches to addis ababa with a significant damping-out share (habtamu and wubeshet, wogene berhanu mena 1371 2016). this transnational linkage as part of reproductive and productive livelihood strategy in combination facilitated somali refugees’ economic integration in bole michael. in addition, this study has revealed, in opposite to the official position and the popular local perception, that urban refugees are not an economic burden to the state or its citizens. on the contrary, somali refugees’ presence in bole michael positively contributes to the economy by creating job opportunities and new business prospects. thus, from the parameters of self-sufficiency, the majority of somali refugees in bole michael are self-reliant, using remittances, clan-based social networks and informal and formal business activities to pursue equivalent or higher living standards compared to the host community. in addition, the somali refugees’ active engagement in income generating activities in the host area paved the way for their de facto integration in the host community. refugees’ socio-cultural integration with the host communities socio-cultural integration, as a process, mainly starts with the establishment of contact between refugees and host communities. this interaction begins with interpersonal communication or ‘friendliness’ between the refugees and the host communities that extends to intensive social interaction. this interaction gradually eases barriers to integration and enables the refugees to live alongside the host community. this further develops to forming social networks through marriage and participation in different social institutions (mekuria, 1988; jacobsen, 2001; crisp, 2004). this aspect of integration as a process is impacted by different factors. among them are communication (language), cultural (in-) compatibility, the settlement pattern of refugees, mutual perceptions of one another and the level of economic interaction between refugees and host communities (mekuria, 1988; jacobsen, 2001; crisp, 2004). these factors are used as a prism to assess the socio-cultural integration of eritrean and somali refugees in their respective settlement areas. historically, ethiopians and eritreans used to have a common culture and people, but also a common country – ethiopia. italian colonial control in 1890 created the state of eritrea. after half a century under italian colonial rule and a decade-old british military administration, eritrea was federated with ethiopia in 1952. for around four decades, until eritrea got de facto statehood in 1991 and de jure in 1993, ethiopia and eritrea were the same country (pool, 1980; markakis, 1988; woldemikael, 2013). this historical unity enabled people of the two states to share many traits, including culture and religion. wogene berhanu mena 1372 ager and strang (2008) identified language and cultural knowledge as facilitators of integration. in this regard, eritrean refugees’ knowledge of affinity with ethiopian culture can be considered an essential factor in minimising barriers to integration. one of the respondents in an fgd noted the following: it’s not as such difficult for us (eritrean refugees) to communicate with the host community; because we share a lot of cultural elements in common… the way we dress, the food we eat, the manner we celebrate different social events and other issues. all in all, the cultural similarity between ethiopia and eritrea made our stay in addis ababa easy. interpersonal communication is a basis for integration. eritrean refugees, mainly those who had been in ethiopia before and deported to eritrea during the ethiopian-eritrean war of 1998–2000, speak amharic well with no discernible accent. this facilitated their probability of integration. other refugees also speak amharic, the main language of the host community, though they do so with an accent. however, understanding the host culture and language can facilitate the socio-cultural integration of refugees in the host community rather than spontaneously leading to it. refugees’ engagement in different economic activities, their settlement patterns and their interest in integration can impact to what extent their shared culture and language assists in socio-cultural integration. social integration starts with the establishment of contacts between refugees and their hosts. according to mekuria (1988: 174), “it is through social interaction that barriers are removed and attitudes change […] [c]ommon interests are recognised and accommodations made only if interactions take place.” economic integration is considered to be the first and the most important step toward this type of interaction between refugees and host communities (mekuria, 1988; ager & strang, 2008). as assessed in the preceding section, eritrean refugees’ engagement in different economic activities in gofa mebrat hail is limited, which has resulted in minimal social integration of eritrean refugees in the host community. this low interaction is further limited by their settlement pattern, which is confined only to their fellow refugees and co-ethnic groups in the area. this, in turn, results in limited interaction with the host communities. however, this does not refute the positive, supportive role of ethnic enclaves in preserving refugees’ identities and social capital at the initial stage of wogene berhanu mena 1373 settlement. heavy dependence on these enclaves, however, results in a fragile social bridge between the refugees and the host community that becomes a barrier for socio-cultural integration (hale, 2000 as cited in ager & strang, 2008). almost all of the interviews with both refugees and host communities reinforce that the refugees’ interaction is largely limited to themselves and the co-ethnic ethiopian tigreans’ in the area. this results in a weak social interaction between eritrean refugees and the host communities except for those host people from the tigrean ethnic group. in addition, some of the host community respondents have bad feelings toward the eritreans due to their overwhelming vote for the cessation of eritrea from ethiopia through referendum in 1993 and the bloody ethiopia-eritrea war that followed from 1998–2000. eritrean refugees have a kind of social contact with their host community that can be understood as a lack of conflict and sense of acceptance, or what ager and strang (2008: 180) refer to as a “sense of safety and security.” during a fgd, refugees expressed that the local people, including authorities, accepted them without systematic discrimination, with the exception of a few refugees who perceived of an unreasonably high house rental price. the refugees’ involvement with local people is occasional. thus, regardless of cultural compatibility and shared history between eritrean refugees and the host community, the refugees’ limited engagement in the local economy (formal or informal) and lack of interest in integration (refugee-related and policyrelated factors that will be discussed later) resulted in weak socio-cultural integration. on the other hand, the impact of the aforementioned factors works differently for somali refugees in the study area. historically, successive ethiopian regimes (imperial, derg and the ethiopian people revolutionary democratic front) considered the irredentist claim of somalian governments (since somalia became a state in 1960) as a threat to the territorial integrity of the country. while from adeb adde (aden abdulle osman daar, the first president of the somali republic in 1960) to siyad barrre, the somali government has considered ethiopia to be a ‘colonizer’ of their ‘lost territories’, without any significant departure from the irredentist policy of ‘greater somalia’. these contentious relations between the two countries resulted in two major wars in 1964 and 1977/78 (the ogaaden war), with several skirmishes between their borderlands (gebru, 2000; lewis, 2002; assefaw, 2006). wogene berhanu mena 1374 these disharmonious inter-state relations have impacted the people of the two respective countries. assefaw (2006) described the somali refugees’ decision to settle in ethiopia since 1988 (as a result of the acute condition in the country) as “unconsidered” because of the majority of somali refugees’ perception towards ethiopia as an enemy state. respondents expressed that their prior perception towards ethiopia was that the country was an enemy state. this perception has also been reflected among the host communities as a threat to the state. the respondents from the host communities reflected on the historical wounds of somalia’s conflict-based relations with ethiopia and on the ogaaden war in particular, as factors that contributed to their initial lack of interest in interacting with the refugees. one of the respondents that has been settled in bole michael since 1996 explained the challenges that somali refugees’ encountered from the local people as follows: in the first decade of our settlement, we (he and his family) faced a lot of challenges. the local people considered the somali refugees as historical enemies, aggressors, and those who do not pause from destructing the country. as result, it had been very difficult to interact with the host communities that [was] further worsened by our inability to speak amharic. this historical mistrust/misperception between refugees and host communities as a barrier to interaction has been widened by the language and cultural difference between the two. culture as a set of typical spiritual and material features of a social group and consists of the way of living, values and beliefs (unesco, 2002). irrespective of clan difference, culturally, somalis are relatively homogenous, with the vast majority following islam as their religion. as result, when somali refugees came to addis ababa, they were exposed to a different way of living (the way they dress, the food they consume, social networks) and different values, beliefs and religious practices. they faced great challenges in interpersonal interactions with ethiopians. in addition, they explained that interactions with the host communities had been discriminatory. in a fgd, one respondent noted that ‘even in business interaction, the host communities that increase the price of any goods and services, has a double standard (high price for somali refugees and normal price for habesha)’. on the other hand, the host communities’ respondents also confirmed the discrimination. one host community respondent stated that “when the business persons told us an exaggerated price for a given good, wogene berhanu mena 1375 we used to say them, ‘i am not somali; tell the price in amharic’, and they told us the revised price. but that trend has been changed.” as a coping mechanism for these challenges, somali refugees preferred to restrict their interaction to co-ethnic ethiopian somalis in bole michael. the initial plan of many refugees was to resettle in western countries or to repatriate to their homeland of somalia. however, when the prospects for both solutions became far from reach in the near future, the refugees started to engage in different business activities, mainly in the informal economy and later in the formal economy, by using their fluid status. jaji’s (2009) found that the residential settlement of somali refugees in eastleigh has reduced the refugees’ interaction with the host community. this is again reflected in this study of eritrean refugees. nevertheless, with protracted settlement in the area and refugees’ active involvement in different economic activities, the interaction between host people and somali refugees in bole michael has become intensive. many scholars in the area agree that economic interactions provide refugees and the host communities with the opportunity to build cultural understanding and develop language skills, thereby building trust through intensive social interaction (mekuria, 1988; jacobsen, 2001; ager & strang, 2008). somali refugees in bole michael explained the progressive betterment of their social interaction with the host communities. according to one of the respondents, “continuous interaction in business issues enabled us to understand the way of living, values, and beliefs of the host community and also to share our own. that is why many of us now can communicate in amharic with some discernible accent.” this sentiment was echoed by the majority of the respondents. some of the host community members, especially those who work with the refugees in a different area, have developed their somali language skills. some even work as translators (locally called toorjuman) from the somali language to amharic for refugees who have recently come to the area. in this regard, campbell’s (2006) finding shows that prior tenuous relations between somali refugees and host communities in eastleigh (nairobi) have become better in broader areas because of their constant economic exchange, though they are not perfect. this progressive and strong economic interaction between somali refugees and the host communities in bole michael resulted in what bress (2009: 164) dubbed “meaningful contact and intensive social interaction.” social wogene berhanu mena 1376 interactions have also spurred the development of social networks, such as through marriage between refugees and the host communities. during fgds, the respondents expressed that marriage between ethiopians and refugees is becoming common and is no longer an exception. one of the respondents has an ethiopian wife who follows ethiopian orthodox christianity while he is muslim. however, these progressive conditions about the interaction of refugees and host communities are not undisputable, and misperceptions and mistrust between the two groups are still evident. some refugees complain about the lingering host community’s misperception and ‘othering’ of somali refugees and culture. host community respondents complained about the “diluting effect” of somalis in bole michael because of their numerical advantage, communal lifestyle and capital to do business. these respondents expressed distaste for the demographic domination of somalis and their flourishing cafés, restaurants, mills and cloth shops. corresponding to this argument, bress (2009) found that some of thai hosts have feelings of being overwhelmed by the burmese refugee culture. this is significant because, as discussed in chapter two, integration is a two-way process and does not entail “inserting of one group amidst another” (ager & strang, 2008: 177). rather, it is the process of mutual accommodation. another issue in the process of socio-cultural integration is the treatment of refugees by the local authorities. in comparison to the host people, refugees complain about discriminatory treatment, especially by local authorities that request bribes. considering all of these challenges, both refugees and the host communities underlined the progressive change in their socio-cultural integration as a result of constant economic interaction and long-term settlement in the area. structural factors: politicisation of eritrean refugee protection vs. securitisation of somali refugees the policy response of the host state towards refugees can be positive, negative or non-existent (due to lack of capacity or willingness or the opinion that the issue of refugees is insignificant). according to jacobsen (1996), the policy choice among the above three depends on different factors. among them are interstate relations between the refugee-host state and refugeesending state, political motivation and national security considerations. policy response also varies for different refugee groups (jacobsen, 1996). local integration is a multidimensional and mutually inclusive process and these wogene berhanu mena 1377 policy structures have an impact on the perceptions of both refugees and host communities. to this end, it is important to analyse the structural factors that have impacted perceptions toward local integration in the respective areas. eritrean refugees are the only refugee group in ethiopia who have the right to choose their place of settlement, in either an urban or rural area, by proving self-sufficiency or by relying on other sources of support in ethiopia through the out-of-camp policy (un news centre, 2010). they also get special treatment from local authorities, which refugees interviewed in this study confirmed. furthermore, abebe (2016) identified the ethiopian government effort of treating eritrean refugee as part of building amicable relations between the people of eritrea and ethiopia. in spite of these favourable structural grounds for integration, eritrean refugees’ aspirations to integrate with the host community in gofa mebrat hail are low. this is mainly because the refugees’ consider the treatment they receive from ethiopia’s government as politically driven and subject to change rather than mere humanitarian protection. the first rationale that they provide for their mistrust of ethiopian protection commitment towards eritrean refugees is the interstate relations between the two countries. since the secession of the 1998–2000 war through the algiers agreement, the relations between the states have been defined by a ‘no peace no war’ stalemate. international and regional refugee legal instruments, such as the 1951 geneva convention relating to status of refugees and the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problem in africa, consider hosting refugees to be humanitarian and apolitical. but, when a country hosts refugees, tacitly or openly, it recognises and publicises the refugee-producing countries’ inability or lack of willingness to protect its people. according to alexander betts and gil loescher (2011), the issue of refugees, from the cause of flight to policy response, is an integral part of international politics and international relations. and when the relationship between the refugee-sending and receiving state is contentious, the host state treats the refugees generously, mainly to delegitimise the sending state as a foreign policy tool. this trend was mainly reflected during the cold-war period. in the usa, until the late 1980s, refugees from communist countries and the middle east received special treatment as part of the state’s foreign policy direction to delegitimise communist states as countries where people live in fear of persecution (teitelbaum, 1984; hathaway, 1990). wogene berhanu mena 1378 in line with this, the source of the ethiopian government’s generosity and commitment towards eritrean refugees in a specific manner cannot simply emanate from the country’s culture of hospitability. rather, it is part of ethiopian policy to delegitimise the government in asmara to gain reputation from the international community. the eritrean refugees’ responses in gofa mebrat hail show a similar perception. one respondent said, “we are grateful for a good treatment that we receive from the ethiopian government, but i am not sure whether it’s apolitical.” another respondent considers such treatment as more politically driven than merely humanitarian, though it does temporarily contribute to refugees’ protection. the prior experience of deportation from ethiopia is another source of fear and mistrust towards the current policy. after the 1998–2000 ethiopianeritrean war, both countries deported citizens of the other state from their territory as they were perceived as security threats. since the start of the conflict between ethiopia and eritrea in may 1998, nationals of both countries had to return to their places of origin. based on this experience and some of the eritrean refugees in gofa mebrat hail having living experience of deportation, they argue that there is no guarantee against this history repeating itself. it is the same government with similar officials to those who identified people of eritrean origin in ethiopia as aliens and a threat to national security during the war. the cloud of uncertainty is not only because of the poor relations that the two states have since the outbreak of the war of 1998–2000. the change of relations for good might also have contributed to the uncertainty. refugees may be treated poorly in order to maintain the positive relations with the refugee-producing country (sexton, 1985: 804). in this regard, the eritrean refugees’ sense of insecurity is not only related to the inharmonious relations between ethiopia and eritrea for the last fifteen years; but, the ongoing amicable relations also hold an uncertain future for them. their fear is based on prior occasions of eritrean refugees’ forceful return from friendly countries like sudan, gaddafi’s libya and egypt (human rights watch, 2006). therefore, regardless of special treatment provided for eritrean refugees in ethiopia, the structure has failed to positively affect the perception of the agents (refugees) towards local integration because of their prior experience and mistrust of the ethiopian government’s treatment as politically driven, temporary and uncertain. wogene berhanu mena 1379 on the other hand, securitisation of somali refugees in bole michael by associating them with national insecurity and terrorism in their homeland has negatively impacted the integration process. in relation to the securitisation measure, the somali refugees complain about the disappearance and forceful detention of their fellow refugees in the area by government forces. the securitisation also created fear among the host community towards the refugees as a potential source of the threat. the local officials also confirmed that the security issue in their woreda has taken special attention and they have been working on the issue with the addis ababa city administration, federal government, and the refugees in collaboration that associated mainly with the presence of somali refugees in their district at large. the woreda’s security officer specified the october 13, 2013 bomb blast in the district, that the ethiopian government alleged al-shabab for the action (al-shabab also claimed responsibility on its twitter account), as justification for high-security alertness. this created fear and mistrust on the side refugees that discouraged the refugees from building sustainable livelihoods in the area. although the refugees have been engaged in different business activities in the area, they refrain from investing in big businesses like hotels and big market centers, like eastleigh in nairobi, and other immovable properties (campbell, 2006). the securitisation also creates fear among the host community towards the refugees as a potential source of the threat. thus, the securitisation of somali refugees by the government is a structural factor among others that negatively affect both the somali refugees’ and the hosts’ perceptions of local integration in the area. conclusion like other african countries, the ethiopian government ruled-out local integration as a durable solution to the refugee issue. however, the refugees have a different level of interaction and integration. local integration as a multidimensional process is impacted by different factors related to refugees, the host community and the policy direction of ethiopia as the host state. among other factors, the refugees’ settlement time span, their plan to stay in ethiopia and their engagement in either formal or informal economic sectors significantly impacts refugee-host community integration. having a shared culture and history, the eritrean refugees have the advantage of psychological compatibility, which facilitates socio-cultural integration. however, the similarity in sociocultural elements have not automatically and spontaneously resulted in social integration. the findings of this study indicate that eritrean wogene berhanu mena 1380 refugees’ social interaction is very limited. the major cause of this is that eritrean refugees considered their stay in ethiopia, in general, and in addis ababa, in particular, as a temporary place of transit. they see no reason to invest socially or economically in gofa mebrat hail. similarly, the host communities also consider the eritrean refugees as guests in transit, which has contributed for their low level of interaction with refugees. hence, the eritrean refugees’ engagement in different economic activities, either formally or informally, is minimal or resulted in limited interaction with the host communities. furthermore, the eritrean refugees perceive the special treatment provided for them as politically motivated and temporary, which has obstructed integration by making their futures uncertain. on the other hand, variation in culture and historical accounts between somali refugees and the host communities in bole michael have negatively affected the process of socio-cultural integration. in addition, the securitisation of somali refugees that associates them with insecurity and terrorism in somalia has obstructed substantial integration by creating fear among refugees and host communities. however, the active engagement of somali refugees in 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violent conflict and forced displacement in the horn of africa: government and donor policies and programs in search of durable solutions development-induced displacement and its impacts on the livelihoods of poor urban households in bahir dar, north western ethiopia ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor dr mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh cape peninsula university of technology, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delagdo wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, basel, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print) copyright © 2015 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 465 6433 email: editor@sihma.org.za webpage: www.sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za http://www.sihma.org.za/ iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ volume 1 number 3 september – december, 2015special issue guest editor’s note iv-ix shimeles bonsa articles 229 violent xenophobic episodes in south africa, 2008 and 2015 simon bekker 253 preventing xenophobia in africa: what must the african union do? romola adeola 273 violent conflict and forced displacement in the horn of africa: government and donor policies and programs in search of durable solutions nat j. colletta 310 development-induced displacement and its impacts on the livelihoods of poor urban households in bahir dar, north western ethiopia getu ambaye and assefa abelieneh iv guest editor’s note shimeles bonsa gulema* the history of africa since independence in the 1960s has been defined, to a large extent, by the quest for modernization, development, and democracy. these issues are fundamental to the continent and the failure to achieve them over the last sixty or so years, a reality in a number of african countries, has wrought havoc and destruction. for instance, nation and state building in africa has been bedeviled by the failure to recognize and manage the continent’s cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity, not to mention the fact that the very model of the nation-state was never african but colonial in origin. post-colonial africa’s record on building the foundations of democracy, peace and security have, at best, been mixed with a significant number of countries finding themselves mired in cycles of dictatorship, war and violence. nevertheless, this picture of crises does not belie the seriousness of africa’s commitment or struggle to dismantle the colonial inheritance of authoritarianism, underdevelopment and fragile nations and institutions. there is no better example than africa’s decades-old search for development to demonstrate the scale of the challenges, but also the depth of investment made to break the shackles of poverty and inequality and build nations-states that are modern, viable and inclusive. since the 1960s, african governments made development their raison d’etre, followed different paradigms of development and embarked on massive projects ranging from building infrastructure to small-scale industrialization to providing basic social services. the ideology of developmentalism, which is now gaining momentum in some african countries such as ethiopia and rwanda, was in full swing. successes were evident everywhere, but were often short-lived, not inclusive or did not address the root causes of poverty. reforms * he is a professor of modern african history, politics, and development at stony brook university (suny), new york, usa.  goran hyden, african politics in comparative perspective, 2nd ed. (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2006). v proposed by the world bank and the imf, notably the 1980s structural adjustment programs worsened the conditions. contemporary state developmentalism (otherwise referred to as the developmental state model), which privileges the delivery of development over or, even, at the expense of democracy and civil liberties, has registered impressive growth trajectories, like the arguably high double-digit growth in ethiopia, and subsequently generated a sense of optimism that africa has finally found the key, a panacea, to a new world of african renaissance. at the same time, however, the paradigm of the developmental state, like those that preceded it, has so far failed to fundamentally alter the dependent nature of africa’s national economies or transform the lives of millions of africans. in the immediate, however, the human cost of this quest for development include the massive displacement, both in rural and urban africa, of people who often are located at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. dislocation is also caused by war and violence, which in large part is also a result of the lack of development. the central reasons for africa’s development crisis are complex, evolving and subject to different interpretations. if existing unequal international division of labor, whose roots go back to the eras of slavery, colonialism and imperialism, constitutes the external origin of the african crisis, weak institutions and the predatory and authoritarian nature of the african state then represent the domestic part, although both are (and have always been) deeply intertwined. the consequences have been negative, catastrophic in  world bank, accelerated development in sub-saharan africa (washington dc: world bank, 1981); thandika mkandawire and adebayo olukoshi, eds., between liberalisation and oppression: the politics of structural adjustment in africa (dakar, senegal: codesria book series, 1995).  reuters africa, “ethiopia’s economy to grow 10.5 percent in 2015/16: world bank,” may 22, 2015 (http://af.reuters.com/article/investingnews/idafkbn0o70lp20150522) ; dereje feyissa dori, ‘ethiopia’s african tiger’ leaps towards middle income,” the guardian, october 22, 2014 (http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/povertymatters/2014/oct/22/ethiopia-african-tiger-middle-income).  thabo mbeki, “the african renaissance, south africa, and the world,” a speech at the united nations university, april, 9, 1998 (http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/mbeki.html). http://af.reuters.com/article/investingnews/idafkbn0o70lp20150522) http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/oct/22/ethiopia-african-tiger-middle-income) http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/oct/22/ethiopia-african-tiger-middle-income) http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/mbeki.html) vi many cases. unmet social and political expectations, which have become the reason for disillusion and frustration with the vast majority of africans remaining no better off than their parents, have also tested the very legitimacy of the african state and its mandate to govern. this tension of the state and state-society relations manifests itself in ways that range from the rise of insurgencies and disengagement from the state to the informalisation of economies and politics. migration, both internal and transnational, represent an exit strategy for poor africans. it has now acquired a greater significance as large number of people, numbered in tens of millions, move across many countries and regions of the world. the migration of africans to europe and the middle east which is now eclipsed by the unprecedented exodus of syrians is only the latest in this saga of global human mobility. the twentieth century has in fact been called ‘the age of migration, a reference to the fact that there are more migrants in the world today than ever before – about 232 million international migrants in 2013. a major outcome of displacement and migration, twin processes linked by the dynamics of underdevelopment, poor governance, environmental crisis and conflict, is the state of being a refugee, a precarious condition especially when legal and political recognition and protection are not provided. somali or south sudanese refugees in kenya and ethiopia and those from the horn of africa in south africa often find themselves in a state of limbo or suspension, simultaneously ‘not being here (home) and not being there (host)’, and often harassed by states and at times subjected to communal violence and xenophobia. needless to say this is an intractable challenge and the question is how to address it in an enduring and meaningful way. the unbounded optimism that attended mbeki’s declaration of african renaissance appears to survive the frustration that followed, albeit modestly. the fact that some of the world’s fastest growing economies are in africa is testimony to the huge promise and  stephen castles and mark miller, the age of migration 4th ed. (basingstoke: palgrave macmillan, 2009).  united nations, trends in international migrant stoke: the 2013 revision – migrants by age and sex (un database, pop/db/mig/stock?rev.2013?age, 2013). vii possibilities for change in the continent. yet, change requires fundamental transformation in the organization of african politics and economies and the continent’s relations with the world and its place in the global economy. sustainable development and democratization, africa’s perennial pursuits, are once again at the heart of the solution. the papers the special issue is a novel undertaking by the journal of african human mobility review. it resulted from a discussion held between the editors in south africa and myself in new york. the idea germinated in the wake of an unprecedented wave of attacks against african immigrants in south africa, a development that was unusual, if not unique. what was striking then was the fact that it happened in the very country where the idea of african renaissance, which included ideals of solidarity and empathy among africans, was declared. we felt that this dark episode demanded some explanation and hence our decision to initiate some deep conversation on the political economy of development, migration, displacement, and xenophobia. the special issue is not as comprehensive and representative as one would expect. nevertheless, it brings together studies on a range of issues, all tied to the general theme of the special issue and each demonstrating the interconnections between poverty and underdevelopment, conflict, displacement, migration and xenophobia. the first two papers deal with the theme of xenophobia, one discussing the specific episodes of 2008 and 2015 in south africa and the other exploring ways to tackle the scourge, with the african union being in the forefront. simon bekker’s paper “entitlement demands and entitlement despair: reflections on the violent xenophobic episodes of 2015 and 2008” interrogates the validity of the term xenophobia in characterizing the violent collective behavior associated with south africa’s urban working class and underclass. for bekker, the violence against fellow african immigrants was a result of unmet social and economic expectations instead of any entrenched xenophobic attitudes. in her paper entitled “preventing xenophobia in africa: what the african union do?,” romola adeola, on the other hand, affirms the economic origins and continent-wide nature of xenophobia and makes a case for a lasting intervention by supranational institutions, principally the african union. viii after all, the au’s reason for existence or legitimation is the protection and furthering of human rights, unity, peace and security within and across member countries. the remaining two papers deal specifically with issues of displacement, one caused by conditions of war and violence and the other by state-led development. “violent conflict and forced displacement in the horn of africa: government and donor policies and programs in search of durable solutions, a paper by nat j. colleta, is a narrative of displacement, offering a critical discussion of its dynamics, roots, and its links with conflict and environmental crisis and those between what she calls political topography and ethnic demography. the paper draws attention to anti-immigrant sentiments, including the phenomenon of ‘afrophobia’, which, the argument goes, operate in the context of economic hardship and ethnic political mobilization. the author ends the paper with a call for a new displacement paradigm, one that is proactive and transformative. getu ambaye and assefa abelieneh’s paper, “development-induced displacement and its impacts on the livelihoods of poor urban households in bahir dar, north western ethiopia,” presents a discussion of the human cost of development, which is displacement, in a country where development/developmentalism forms the legitimating ideology of the state. at the same time, the paper problematizes the issue by arguing that urban development in bahir dar, as in many other urban centers in the country, has engendered both benefits and deficits, represented, for instance, by the cutting of existing social ties on the one hand and the ownership of improved houses on the other respectively. by way of conclusion a deeper exploration of issues of displacement, xenophobia, conflict, and migration, as the four contributions have made, serves to underscore larger, often global, processes including globalization and transnationalism but also inequality within and between countries and regions. likewise, there is a link between the crisis of the nation-state in africa, owing in part to the rise of non-state and supra-state actors, and the unravelling that is now evident in many parts of the continent. in addition, the papers offer a critique of existing assumptions, interpretations and practices, as in the case of the term ix xenophobia; call for a rethinking in a way that enables a deeper understanding of the issues at hand, and suggest measures to tackle existing challenges, including displacement and xenophobia, among others. if these papers have gone some distance in this endeavor, we will then have every reason to say we have met our objectives. however, this contribution, modest as it is, couldn’t claim to be exhaustive. it emphasizes, instead, the need for sustained research on the complex and evolving dynamic of human mobility in the continent. shimelis bonsa gulema, phd stony brook university (suny) new york ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 229 violent xenophobic episodes in south africa, 2008 and 2015 simon bekker* abstract a comparison between the 2015 and 2008 violent xenophobic episodes in south africa is made, identifying both similarities and differences. since government and other commentators, in both 2015 and 2008, differ considerably in deciding whether these episodes ought to be considered as essentially xenophobic in character, a number of prominent interpretations employed by these commentators will be identified and discussed. the perpetrators mobilised during these events are drawn from the same pool as the protesters mobilised during current country-wide violent service delivery protests. accordingly, this article concludes by suggesting that an insightful interpretation covering both categories of actors belonging to south africa’s urban working and under-class may be made. the violent collective behaviour that is becoming widespread country-wide stems, to a significant extent, not from their deep-seated xenophobic attitudes, but rather from the unfulfilled expectations of what they believe should be their just entitlements. keywords: south africa, violent xenophobic events, service delivery protests, comparisons of series of events. introduction before the main theme of this article is identified, an anecdote that plays the role of preamble is recounted. it foregrounds a number of issues directly relevant to the main theme. in june 2015, during a visit to cameroon in west africa, i was travelling south of yaoundé, the capital city, with a doctoral student and his brother to visit the two men’s parents. since cameroon is one of the countries confronted with the boko haram threat, there were several roadblocks in the rural *emeritus professor of sociology in the sociology and social anthropology department, stellenbosch university, south africa. e mail: sb3@sun.ac.za mailto:sb3@sun.ac.za ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 230 forested region through which we were travelling. at each, i was requested, as a foreigner, to step out of the car and show my passport to the uniformed gendarme responsible for passing cars and their passengers. “you are a south african, monsieur?” asked one such gendarme and when i replied in the affirmative, he continued by telling me that he and his fellow security officers treated foreign visitors to cameroon with courtesy. “do you in south africa do the same thing, for foreigners from africa?” he then asked with perhaps a touch of scepticism. i had no ready and credible reply to this. on the 18th of april 2015, emmanuel sithole, a cigarette and sweet hawker and mozambique national living and working in alexandra township in johannesburg, was attacked and stabbed in the heart by four young male residents. he later died after journalists rushed him to hospital. it is probable that the cameroonian gendarme knew of south africa’s less than courteous treatment of foreigners through emmanuel sithole’s sad story. a south african photojournalist’s sequence of remarkable photographs of the buildup to the murder, some of which appeared on the front pages of south african newspapers, were also broadcast globally through social media. this deadly incident that took place during the series of closely-knit violent attacks on the persons and property of foreigners at that time, in the words of a south african journalist, gave “a face, a name, a life and a personality” to one of the targets of this violence, thus providing “humanising elements that have been absent in much of the (media’s) coverage” (harber 2015). they also led to criticisms by senior government members that wide-reaching broadcasting of such material damages south africa’s international reputation. that south africa’s image as a safe refuge for african asylum-seekers and as a hospitable territory for economic migrants from the developing world has been further diminished in 2015 is common cause. this article will compare the 2015 series of closely-knit violent events to that of 2008 when a similar series took place. the comparison between what hereafter will be referred to as the 2015 and 2008 xenophobic episodes, will identify both similarities as well as differences. the focus of the comparison will be on the geography and chronology of the events, on both civilian perpetrators as well as civilian victims, and on government reaction to the continuing outbursts. in the second place, since government and other commentators, in both 2015 and 2008, differ considerably in deciding whether these episodes ought to be ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 231 considered as essentially xenophobic in character, a number of prominent interpretations employed by these commentators will be identified and discussed. the perpetrators mobilised during these events are drawn from the same pool as the protesters mobilised during current country-wide violent service delivery protests. accordingly, this article will conclude by suggesting that an insightful interpretation covering both categories of actors belonging to south africa’s urban working and under-class may be made. it will be argued that the violent collective behaviour that is becoming widespread countrywide stems, to a significant extent, not from their deep-seated xenophobic attitudes, but rather from the unfulfilled expectations of what they believe should be their just entitlements. conceptual framework and methodology the rise of xenophobic attitudes in south africa is not a new topic of research (nyamjoh 2006). the 2008 series of violent events in urban south africa shifted the research focus toward analyses of violent collective action and the various causes of such action. this in turn required a wider conceptual framework, in particular to include analyses of cross-border migration streams, state migration policies, and the attitudes and actions of the members of the south african police service (hassim et al. 2008, hsrc 2008, misago et al. 2009). it also required an approach to analyse violent collective action itself, leading to debates regarding the utility of relative deprivation and resource mobilization approaches (bekker 2010). in the analysis below, particular attention is given to the approach employed by donald horowitz (2001) in which social psychological as well as sociological concepts are employed and the roles of both precipitating factors and of rumours are foregrounded. the methodology employed during these analyses begins with a comparison between the 2015 and 2008 xenophobic episodes where each episode comprises a series of closely-knit violent events identified in the print media. the validity of such event data sets may be taken to be acceptable whilst acknowledging that missing data may be the most serious form of description bias (earl et al. 2004). subsequently, a comparison is drawn between primary stakeholders’ interpretations of the causes and nature of these 2015 and 2008 episodes. these interpretations are identified both in ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 232 publications by members of the research community as well as in the print media. in the third place, a preliminary analysis of a recently constructed event data set of service delivery protests in south africa (powell n.d.) is made with the aim of revealing resemblances between this analysis and those undertaken earlier. outbursts in kwazulu-natal and gauteng, march and april 2015 on monday the 30th of march, the 2015 violent xenophobic episode began in isipingo, an industrial and residential area in the ethekwini metro south of durban’s cbd. the probable precipitating factor was the rumour that local businesses were hiring foreigners to replace local workers involved in industrial action and wage disputes. after a series of attacks on individuals in the area, some 240 displaced foreigners reported to the local police station and were subsequently moved to a tented transit camp. this first outburst was followed by a series of others in the metro, particularly in the northern township of kwamashu and in the inner city residential area of verulam – more specifically, in its informal residential neighbourhoods – where foreigners’ shops were looted and burnt down and foreigners themselves attacked. this onslaught continued for two weeks and included large crowds of locals marching on a number of occasions, with the ostensible purpose of driving migrants out of durban. in response, local foreign migrants organised a demonstration in the metro’s cbd during which clashes took place between the demonstrators and the south african police. temporary shelters to accommodate the displaced foreign nationals were established in isipingo, chatsworth and greenwood park (located in durban north). “the municipality has supplied tents, electricity, showers, ablution facilities and primary health care in the form of mobile clinics where the displaced foreign nationals have been accommodated,” an ethekwini spokesperson said (sosibo 2015). with seven people killed at the height of the violence, it was reported that many foreign nationals still feared for their lives. the temporary shelters were replaced by four camps in the province – in chatsworth, phoenix, isipingo beach and pietermaritzburg – which together accommodated about 5 000 people. the camps were situated on grounds that were not intended for habitation and, as a result, sanitation was a problem (sosibo 2015). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 233 some two weeks after the commencement of these outbursts in kwazulunatal, in anticipation of a similar wave in gauteng, foreign shop owners in the cbd of johannesburg closed their doors in a bid to protect their stock amid rumours circulating on social networks that attacks were imminent. this was three days before the murderous attack on emmanuel sithole in alexandra township. the anticipated assaults soon materialised with foreign-owned businesses in the inner city areas of jeppestown and cleveland, and later in the east rand, being attacked and looted. simultaneously, as was the case earlier in durban, locals blocked roads with rocks and burning tyres, purportedly to drive foreigners out of south africa. the violence was reported to have claimed the lives of seven people, three of them south african. simultaneously, camps for foreign nationals fleeing the violence were established close to the cbd and in germiston on the east rand. the south african police were called upon, in both durban and johannesburg, to contain the violence. much scepticism about police effectiveness and neutrality was expressed both in the media and by many on the ground (sosibo et al. 2015, news24 2015). eventually, during the third week of april, the south african national defence force was deployed to “volatile areas” to prevent attacks on foreigners, as stated by defence minister mapisa-nqakula. she was reported to have said that the army was intervening because an "emergency" had developed (bbc news, 2015). the first deployments were to alexandra, the poor township north of johannesburg where emmanuel had been hawking his wares. build-up and immediate outcomes of the 2015 episode though numerous violent outbursts have taken place during the past seven years, these have not been as intense and as closely-knit as the two episodes during april 2015 and may 2008 that are compared here. however, seemingly isolated outbursts ought not to be seen as once-off and unrelated to earlier and later events as a local history of violence against strangers, mixed with social and mass media coverage of such recent violence elsewhere may become a potent combination. such an event took place in soweto, johannesburg’s largest township, in january 2015. what was described as a looting frenzy of foreign-owned shops in soweto broke out and later spread to other townships in gauteng. it left six dead and large ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 234 numbers of bengalis, pakistanis, ethiopians and somalis displaced (sosibo et al. 2015). gauteng provincial politicians put these attacks down to economic reasons: “the recent attacks are because township entrepreneurs feel demoralised, frustrated, and they feel they cannot thrive as business owners in their own communities,” gauteng’s economic development mec said a week after the outbursts (sosibo et al. 2015). national small business development minister lindiwe zulu added, “you cannot run away from the fact that there are underlying issues and that our people are being squeezed out by these foreign shop owners” (sosibo et al. 2015). on monday 16 march, some two weeks before the start of the outbursts in kwazulu-natal, a public announcement by the zulu king called for foreigners to “take their bags and go” (ndou 2015). while addressing the rural pongolo community in isizulu during a moral regeneration event, king zwelithini was reported to have accused government of failing to protect locals from the “influx of foreign nationals”. “most government leaders do not want to speak out on this matter because they are scared of losing votes. as the king of the zulu nation, i cannot tolerate a situation where we are being led by leaders with no views whatsoever” (ndou 2015). the dissemination of credible rumours, whether these reflect the precise statements of influential public figures or not, can prove to be a potent form of contagion (horowitz 2001: 74f): once a violent event has taken place, violence may spread to another place where precipitants at the subsequent location are less significant than they were at the first. violence does not occur in isolation; it derives intellectual impetus from events regarded as comparable elsewhere (bekker 2010: 144). the interpretations at local community level made of minister zulu’s statement in gauteng and the zulu king’s speech among the predominantly isizulu population of ethekwini are probably cases in point. two developments in the aftermath of the 2015 episode will be identified. they have been chosen since comparable outcomes did not take place after the 2008 episode. they have also been chosen since they may be seen as different sides of the same coin: from foreign african governments’ points of view, the south african government’s response to the 2015 episode has been visibly unapologetic. conversely, the south african government condemned the nigerian government for the withdrawal of its envoys and established a ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 235 special body to search out criminals (both foreign and south african) for extradition and prosecution. first, there was a wide-ranging and deeply critical reaction to these events by a number of sub-saharan african governments, some of which went as far as threatening reprisals through the deportation of south african nationals and their businesses from their territories. political leaders from malawi, mozambique and zimbabwe publicly condemned the attacks, with both malawi and zimbabwe sending buses to repatriate citizens following the violence. mozambiquan workers at south african gas companies downed tools in protest. nigeria’s acting high commissioner in south africa and its consul-general were called home to brief the nigerian parliament about the welfare of nigerian citizens in south africa following what was called “the anti-immigrant violence” in durban and johannesburg (visser 2015). second, one week after the termination of the 2015 episode, there was the establishment of a national government programme aimed at ridding “our country of illegal weapons, drug dens, prostitution rings and other illegal activities” (hunter 2015). named operation fiela-reclaim and initially carried out by the south african national defence force, it was launched by a national inter-ministerial committee on migration. during its first week of operation, 265 suspects had been arrested and charged in relation to 150 cases of public violence around the country, according to minister radebe. simultaneously, he announced that government was working hard to ensure that 1 507 documented foreign nationals awaiting repatriation would be sent home as soon as possible and stated: “we have thus far repatriated a total of 1 997 undocumented migrants from both kwazulu-natal and gauteng temporary shelters” (hunter 2015). the south african national defence force (sandf), as mentioned above, was first mobilized about a month after the 2015 episode began. it was subsequently requested to launch operation fiela. in 2008, during the violent xenophobic episode of that year, the sandf was also called upon to intervene toward the end of the episode. however, no subsequent operation was launched. we now turn our attention to 2008. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 236 outbursts in gauteng and the western cape, may and june 2008 during the second half of may 2008 (and continuing through the first week of june), a series of short violent outbursts took place in neighbourhoods of numerous south african cities and towns. the violence during these outbursts was committed by civilians and was inflicted on the property and the person of civilians. the perpetrators were largely young and middle-aged poor black south african men; the targets were largely the property and businesses of foreign african nationals as well as these civilians themselves; and the locations were predominantly urban informal settlements, townships and hostels. the series of outbursts began in gauteng and, about a week after the first serious event, spread to other urban areas of the country, cape town and the western cape in particular. initial state reaction was evasive, essentially denying the scope and seriousness of these events. subsequently, as the series of events spread across the country, the state sought explanations in criminal and mob behaviour. this geographic spread of outbursts was accompanied by widespread coverage in the mass media – television, radio and newspapers – of these events and their possible causes. since the reaction of many of the victims was flight from their residential areas, a number of temporary refugee camps were established (in gauteng and cape town, in particular). during the aftermath of these outbursts, more than 20 000 refugees were accommodated in this way, numerous african foreign nationals were reported to have left the country, and government urged refugees in camps to return to the residential areas from which they had fled since these were said to have calmed down (bekker et al. 2008; bekker 2010). in order to distinguish the violent events that took place during the first week from those that occurred subsequently in may and early june, news articles on the 2008 episode captured from the print media were filed under an event name (typically the locality where the outburst took place) and a standardized set of event data was assembled for each. these data included date, duration, type of settlement, nature of violence, reported precipitants and rumours and the nature of police intervention. in tables 1-4 below, events have been classified in terms of the province in which they occurred, the date on which they took place, whether they were major or minor in intensity and whether they included violence against persons or solely against property. the first three tables depict events that took place in the ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 237 periods 10 to 20 may, 21 to 31 may, and during june 2008, respectively. the fourth table aggregates these results for the entire period. as is clear from table 1 (first phase), the majority of outbursts during the first phase took place in gauteng. in addition, all major outbursts were situated in gauteng and comprise more than a third of all events in that province. in fact, the most reported deaths during the three-phase period under scrutiny took place in this province during the first phase. four events were reported to have had identifiable precipitants, alexandra – a black township in johannesburg – being the most detailed. significantly more reports identified rumours that were claimed to have fuelled the violent outbursts. a minority of reports on these events indicated police presence and police intervention, most often detailed as attempts to disperse crowds. during the middle phase, comprising ten days (see table 2), the print media reported a total of sixty-three events. thirty-two of these events took place in the western cape, thirteen in kwazulu-natal, seven in gauteng, and eleven in other provinces. from the media reports, it appears that xenophobic violence in this phase was not as violent as during the first phase. the majority of events were classified as minor events on property alone. police intervention was reported in a number of cases, most often involving the arrest of perpetrators. these events appear to involve opportunistic behaviour more often than in the earlier phase since media coverage and rumours involving earlier events led many foreigners to depart from their residences and abandon their property. this anticipation of possible attacks created a context in which locals could vandalize and loot homes and shops belonging to those who had fled. in the final phase (see table 3), ten of the eleven reported events were minor with half involving assault on persons. this final phase – effectively comprising of the first half of the month of june – reflects a diminishment in the frequency of events in all four classes as well as a (late) diffusion to new provinces. this phase may be seen, at least in terms of print media coverage, as the petering out of the series of outbursts country-wide. in the aggregated data of outbursts in table 4, it is worth noting that most major events took place in gauteng during the first phase, and that most outbursts during the whole period under scrutiny were minor events involving vandalizing of property and looting rather than assault on persons. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 238 table 1 first phase first phase major involving assault/de ath major on property only minor involving assault/dea th minor on property only total gauteng 14 4 11 21 50 western cape 0 0 0 2 2 others 0 0 3 6 9 total 14 4 14 29 61 table 2 middle phase middle phase major involving assault/de ath major on property only minor involving assault/dea th minor on property only total gauteng 2 1 1 3 7 western cape 2 4 4 22 32 kzn 2 0 4 7 13 others 1 0 3 7 11 total 7 5 12 39 63 table 3 final phase final phase major involving assault/deat h major on property only minor involving assault/dea th minor on property only total gauteng 0 0 2 1 3 western cape 0 0 0 0 0 others 1 0 3 4 8 total 1 0 5 5 11 ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 239 table 4 summary of all events summary of all events major involvin g assault /death major on property only minor involving assault/deat h minor on property only total gauteng 16 5 14 25 60 western cape 2 4 4 24 34 others 4 0 13 24 41 total 22 9 31 73 135 the 2008 and 2015 episodes: similarities and differences there are a number of striking similarities between the 2015 and 2008 series of violent events. to begin with the geography and chronology of the two episodes, the outbursts were principally confined to urban townships, inner city residential areas and informal settlements of south africa’s metros. it is worth noting that local perpetrators also employed the cbds of durban and johannesburg in the 2015 episode. the location of these events are often at a substantial distance from one another, implying that communication regarding justifications for violent action by word-of mouth would have been well-nigh impossible. in both episodes, chronologically, outbursts began and, in large measure, spread rapidly within one metro for some ten days before shifting into a second metro. in both cases, after two to three weeks, the series of closely-knit outbursts petered out at approximately the same time, as the state decided to mobilize the south african defence force to deal with what they belatedly called an emergency. the second striking set of similarities is found in the rapid diffusion of information across neighbourhoods of metros as well as between metros themselves. rumour, justifications for violent actions, and shared belief in immunity from punishment were communicated within the mass media – newsprint, television and radio (in various languages) – as well as via social media. the latter probably played a more important role in 2015 than in 2008 since more residents were capable of using social media tools during this later episode (worldwideworx n.d.). in both cape town in 2008 and ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 240 johannesburg in 2015 (the second metros to be affected in each respective episode) foreigners who had been informed via such media of outbursts elsewhere anticipated attacks a day or two before they began. however, the impact of these outbursts in cape town, where most events were opportunistic since foreign residents and shop-owners had fled their homes and shops before the attacks began, differed from the impact in johannesburg where events appear to have been as violent as in durban. similarities regarding the content of information being diffused before as well as during the outbursts are also striking. rumours form an essential part of the process leading up to an outburst, horowitz (2001: 74-75) argues they mobilize ordinary people to do what they would not ordinarily do. they shift the balance in a crowd toward those proposing the most extreme action [… but] a rumour will not take hold unless there is a market for it […] what is remarkable is not that an interested agitator starts a rumour but that the rumour is spread, believed, and acted upon. in 2008, research identified “(s)hared rumours in different sites […] regarding the ‘stealing’ of jobs and ‘unfair’ business competition,” issues clearly identified during the 2015 episode in durban as well as in johannesburg (bekker 2010: 139). it would appear that the frustrations of many urban dwellers regarding access to housing, municipal services, jobs and the like, access to what they as south africans regard as their entitlements, have persisted and enabled rumours spread in 2008 to be, once again, believed in and acted upon in 2015. likewise, the widespread criticism of south africa’s state police during 2008 was repeated in 2015. criticisms ranged from incompetence and lack of resources to tacit complicity in the violence. however, criticisms of this nature appear to be insufficient in explaining the widely reported perceptions of immunity from punishment and incrimination that perpetrators across urban south africa revealed during both episodes. the claim of insufficient penetration of state police presence into the informal settlements, inner city neighbourhoods and townships of urban south africa is at issue here. if policing is defined as “any organized activity, whether by the state or civil groups, that seeks to ensure the maintenance of communal order, security and peace,” and if security is considered from the point of ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 241 view of the resident “rather than from the governance perspective of the political authorities,”, then the resident may be thought of as having a choice of police services, beyond that provided by the state police (baker 2008: 22, 27). the difficulty arises when the state no longer has the capacity to bring non-state policing – such as vigilante groups, civics, traditional authorities, informal security groups and so on – under effective accountability while community or local political organizations endorse intolerance of outsiders and associated violence. this appears to have taken place during a number of outbursts in both 2008 and 2015. in short, the issue is not solely that of perceptions regarding state police but, probably more importantly, local residents’ perceptions regarding the role and legitimacy of bodies such as vigilante groups, civics, traditional authorities and informal security groups, bodies that promise some form of communal order to local residents. there are, however, clear differences that emerge from this analysis of the two episodes. the first difference regards the manipulation of xenophobic attitudes by influential public figures. the zulu king’s speech two weeks before the outbreak of the 2015 episode was publicly supported soon afterwards by the son of the south african president who was reported to have “come out in full support of king goodwill zwelithini's controversial call to deport foreigners from south africa” (khoza 2015). earlier, after the january 2015 looting of foreign-owned shops in soweto, the national small business development minister stated that foreign-business owners in south africa’s townships could not expect to co-exist peacefully with local business owners unless they shared their trade secrets. she was quoted as saying: “foreigners need to understand that they are here as a courtesy and our priority is to the people of this country first and foremost” (mail & guardian 2015). three weeks into the 2015 episode, in mid-april, both the minister and the king called for an end to the outbursts, the king claiming that he had been misinterpreted. in sharp contrast, before and during the 2008 episode, such manipulation ‘from above’ of xenophobic attitudes was absent. in the words of a south african political scientist, the country’s leaders may bear indirect responsibility through policy failure and acts of commission, but i see no evidence that the marauding crowds are taking their cue from government immigration policy or from corrupt cops […] we do not have the active anti ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 242 xenophobic leadership we need, but at least […] we do not have leading politicians manipulating anti-foreigner sentiment as they have recently done, with calamitous consequences, in the democratic republic of the congo and ivory coast (glazer 2008: 54). a second major difference concerns what was earlier termed the two faces of the same coin: foreign sub-saharan african governments’ angry response to authorities’ handling of the 2015 episode, on the one side, and the south african government’s rejoinder by establishing a national ‘operation’ aimed at ridding the country of criminals and illegal immigrants, on the other. there were no such accusations and ripostes after the 2008 episode. some reasons for this difference include the greater visibility, in 2015, of south africa on the african continent. this visibility was not only in terms of trade, but also within the african union where a south african is the african union commission chair, as well as militarily through south african participation in peace missions. simultaneously, however, the image of south africa as a regional hegemon has shrunk: nigeria has now been crowned as africa’s largest economy and it is generally known that president zuma is struggling to maintain a positive reputation during his second term, in contradistinction to the robust and sometimes controversial image that former president mbeki enjoyed on the african continent in 2008. the third difference to be noted here is the change in the initial and subsequent metropolitan epicentres of the two episodes. in 2008, greater cape town proved to be particularly vulnerable after the series of outbursts in gauteng. in 2015, in cape town, there were no visible outbursts classified as xenophobic. on the other hand, in the case of the predominantly zuluspeaking metro of ethekwini and its later migration to johannesburg, the series of events making up the 2015 episode may be put down, at least in part, to shared frustrations converted into group aggression, to the manipulation of anti-foreigner sentiment, as well as a less than effective state police reaction to looting in soweto and neighbouring urban places. however, what did take place before and during 2015 in the western cape (as well as in gauteng and durban) were continued violent outbursts related to service delivery issues. these will be discussed in more detail below. the point to be made here is that, while disregarding the rumours and justifications for violent actions against foreigners that flooded the mass and social media in ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 243 2015, residents in the cape town metro mobilised often in a violent fashion, by venting their frustrations on municipal targets instead. prominent interpretations of the 2015 and 2008 episodes upon his return from an official international visit in june 2008, president mbeki was clear in his interpretation of the 2008 events as well as in reprimanding how this episode was being reported: the dark days of may which have brought us here today were visited on our country by people who acted with criminal intent. what happened during these days was not inspired by a perverse nationalism […] resulting in our communities violently expressing the hitherto unknown sentiment of mass and mindless hatred of foreigners – xenophobia – and this i must also say – none in our society has any right to encourage or incite xenophobia by trying to explain naked criminal activity by cloaking it in the garb of xenophobia (hassim et al 2008: 4). government officials at the time also argued that much of the violence was well-coordinated and, accordingly, probably organised. the minister for intelligence services was quoted as stating that “we cannot ignore […] that there were reportedly meetings held in hostels, that this prairie fire of hate seemed to move fast as if planned, and that there were printed pamphlets” (bekker 2010: 132). this suspected underground organisation – an imagined third force – was never identified. this official response to the 2008 episode – emphasising criminal rather than anti-foreigner intentions behind the violence – remained state orthodoxy throughout the next seven years. in addition, this orthodoxy stood firm despite fractures caused by various public statements from government officials and politicians at public events that proved difficult officially to place within a criminality framework. the statement by the minister of small business development and the speech by the zulu king, as examples, are difficult to locate within such a framework. in april 2015, police minister nhleko said he found it hard to view the attacks as just xenophobia. he was reported to have said that “in a sense, what we are witnessing are afrophobic kinds of activities and attacks, resembling ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 244 elements of self-hate among africans. the evidence shows the attacks are mainly against the congolese, zimbabweans, malawians, somalis and some south african nationals as well” (gqirana 2015). strict orthodoxy appears to be returning: according to the joint ad-hoc committee set up to investigate the 2015 xenophobic attacks, police in alexandra told the committee that they have no evidence suggesting that the violence between foreigners and locals in april was xenophobic. in a reprimand reminiscent of mbeki’s 2008 speech, committee chair ruth mbengu was reported to have said “it’s not only wrong but extremely irresponsible of the media to incorrectly label the attacks on foreign nationals in april as xenophobic” (eye witness news 2015). as of september 2015, the committee had yet to table its final report. few commentators beyond the south african state endorse interpretations within such a criminality framework. equally, few endorse a framework within which xenophobia emerges as the primary and dominant determinant for violent outbursts. a recent samp publication that distinguishes between xenophobia denialism, xenophobia minimalism and xenophobia realism and opts for the third interpretation is an exception (crush & ramachandran 2014). rather, most commentators recognise the importance of xenophobic attitudes during the outbursts without placing this at the heart of the interpretation. there appears to be agreement among these commentators on the well-researched nature and breadth of xenophobic attitudes among south africans (adam & moodley 2013) as well as on the deprivation – unemployment, poverty, inadequate shelter and basic services – facing south africa’s urban poor (simkins 2011). where disagreement surfaces is in the interpretation of the intentions underpinning the behaviour of members of this urban poor when that behaviour turns violent and targets persons and property in their neighbourhoods. two influential interpretations – both focusing on rational elements of behaviour – will be summarised. the first is the relative deprivation interpretation: poor black urban residents are experiencing competition regarding jobs, inadequate provision of housing and service delivery in their informal settlements, little effective government communication regarding these issues in their residential areas and corruption from government officials and the police. the relative deprivation they experience then comprises the frustrations they develop as a result of their expectations in http://ewn.co.za/2015/06/04/ad-hoc-committee-investigating-xenophobia-beefed-up ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 245 these regards not being realized. these sentiments that combine to generate shared generalised anger, are converted into violent aggression against those they perceive as competitors and as the immediate cause of their frustrations, partially since they appear to be better off than themselves. their targets accordingly are the ‘foreigner’ and the ‘stranger’ in their neighbourhoods (hsrc 2008). the second interpretation is that of resource mobilisation, where the focus shifts from attitudes and frustrations to the political economy in the immediate neighbourhoods of the urban poor. for instance, collective action before and during an outburst targeting foreigners and their property is considered to be a strategy employed to extract benefits. local leaders who may lack institutional access to either the local economy or to the political process aim to acquire material and/ or political resources by mobilizing local residents. for example, such resources could comprise local trading and job opportunities, or access to municipal and local council positions. such an interpretation focuses attention on local leadership institutions; on how violence is organised and why locals participate (tarrow 1994, misago et al. 2009). in both interpretations, it is clear that while the violent targeting of foreigners becomes a destructive instrument used against innocent civilians, it is not necessarily the primary goal – aggression may well be redirected (toward the local municipality, as an example) and local leaders’ attempts to extract benefits from those who control or own resources may be pursued by means other than attacking foreigners and their property. the last alternative interpretation identified here shifts the analysis from rational to emotionally-suffused behaviour. perpetrators, horowitz (2001) argues, mix calculation with passion during their uninhibited violent behaviour. the insight that the discharge of aggression is a satisfying experience leads to the question of what violent xenophobic behaviour offers young urban south africans who suffer deprivation and are keenly aware of unfulfilled promises of entitlement made in post-apartheid south africa. at least in part, such behaviour, which often appears to offer pleasure to perpetrators, enables the reversal of humiliation. horowitz (2001: 536) notes: […] the violence that aims to thwart domination […] is suffused with affect born of humiliation. much of the pleasure ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 246 that violence brings springs from the mastery that reverses dishonour […] in summary, interpretations of the 2015 and 2008 violent episodes range from an investigative spotlight illuminating the xenophobia of many south africans to the state’s insistence that the spotlight ought rather to be focused on criminal behaviour. in both cases, it is probably true that this terminology that refers in singular fashion to ‘xenophobia’ or to ‘criminality’ conceals as much as it reveals. accordingly, it is fitting to remark here that the perpetrators mobilised during these events are drawn from the same pool as the protesters mobilised during the rising number of violent service delivery protests across the country. both are members of south africa’s urban working and under-class. service delivery protests that turn violent in order to broaden our events-based analysis of violent collective behaviour in urban south africa, a profile of the growing number of violent service delivery protests in the country will be developed here. a research project named the civic protests monitor (cpm) has such events-based data covering the eight year period from 2007 to 2014. civic protest is defined as “referring to organised protest action within a local area which directly targets municipal government or targets municipal government as a proxy to express grievances against the state more widely” (powell n.d.: 5). these protests, more generally known in the popular discourse as service delivery protests, generally involve urban residents from poor neighbourhoods of both metropolitan and non-metropolitan municipal areas. three of the general trends over this period are highlighted in the cpm (powell n.d.: 3):  the number of protests in 2014 reached an all-time-high of 218. the previous maximum was 204 in 2009.  in the three year period of 2012 – 2014, gauteng experienced more protests than any other province. since 2007, gauteng's share of protests has been rising more rapidly than in other provinces. cape town was the most protest-prone municipality with 84 protests, followed by johannesburg, ethekwini, tshwane and ekurhuleni. between them these five metro municipalities accounted for half of all the protests recorded. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 247  the prevalence of violence associated with protests has continued to increase. the number of violent protests reached a record high in 2014. in 2007, just less than half the protests were associated with some violence. in 2014, almost 80% of protests involved violence on the part of the participants or the authorities. violent protests have been defined in this study “as those protests where some or all of the participants have engaged in actions that create a clear and imminent threat of, or actually result in, harm to persons or damage to property” and the research reveals that the number of violent protests has risen at a faster rate than the total number of protests. in 2007, the total number of violent protests was 44. seven years later this number had increased more than fourfold to 181. five forms of violence are distinguished in the event data set: intimidation, personal attacks, arson, damage to property and looting. intimidation was the most frequently cited form of violence (376 protests) associated with protest in the 2012 – 2014 period. physical attacks on individuals were less prominent (315 protests). the destruction of property (including arson) was recorded more often than attacks on individuals (a combined total of 372 protests). thus, two thirds of the types of violence recorded at protests went beyond “mere” intimidation and involved the destruction of property, assault, looting and even death (powell n.d.: 9). what emerges from these trends is a continuing series of violent events across urban south africa during which residents mobilise and target municipal officials, local councillors and municipal property, in a phrase, elements of the local state. the demands made by protesters captured in the database comprise improved municipal services (such as housing, electricity and water), improved non-municipal services (such as education and policing) as well as demands for employment opportunities. a relative deprivation interpretation of this rising number of violent events would root residents’ frustration in the same structural conditions as in the case of violent xenophobic events. however, the aggression, as it shifts from generalised anger toward the identification of targets blamed for the causes of this frustration, is directed at elements of the local state rather than at foreigners and strangers and their property. in equal measure, a resource mobilisation interpretation would have it that local leaders, with the aim to ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 248 acquire material and political resources, exploit the frustrations of local residents by promoting violent action against the local state rather than against foreigners and strangers and their property. conclusion a profile of south africa’s urban poor has been sketched that depicts them as both deprived and frustrated. one way to conceptualise their common state of mind is to attribute to them a shared generalised anger. this generalised anger may be seen through the lens of unfulfilled expectations: entitlement promises made by the african national congress during the continuing struggle for transformation and liberation, promises made to the newly urbanised, to the urban poor and to those against whom apartheid discriminated. the frustrations that surface through the inability of many urban dwellers to realise or receive their fair share of entitlements – housing, municipal services, jobs and the like – are easily converted into aggression that is directed at those held responsible for these failures. in the case of the recent xenophobic outbursts, this aggression appears to have been directed against those who, according to widespread rumours and widely broadcast elite discourse, appeared to be largely responsible for much of this failure. these small foreign groupings also appeared to be both isolated as well as unprotected. aggression against superiors is converted into aggression against unranked groups in the immediate neighbourhood, with little fear of retribution. in the case of violent service delivery protests, this aggression was directed against local municipal officials and councillors and, often, against their municipal offices and town halls. these local elites are often perceived to be significantly more privileged than most residents in their local community as well as incompetent, corrupt or both. here too, local protesters have little fear of retribution, particularly after the marikana wildcat strike that turned into a massacre with more than 40 miners killed by the south african police. this has given the police pause in the presence of protest incidents. in addition, the simultaneous emergence of a new political party – the economic freedom fighters – that supports many service delivery protests adds a measure of legitimacy to such actions. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 249 the generalised anger may also be seen through the lens of resource mobilisation where a focus on attitudes moves to a focus on the political economy of violence. in both cases, xenophobic as well as service delivery events, it is local leaders (both informal and formal) who are considered to be at the heart of the mobilization of perpetrators and protesters during the outbursts. they do this by playing to the frustrations of local residents with the aim of extracting benefits from those who control or own resources – be they local shopkeepers and artisans or officials and elected councillors. this shift identifies an overlap much debated recently by senior officials in the south african government between outburst, protest and criminal activity. the looting during outbursts and protests indicates that one dimension of this collective behaviour is undoubtedly criminal, probably significantly more of a petty rather than of a hardened and professional nature. these two lenses focus our attention on a south african urban poor who reveal less of a deep hostility to the foreigner and stranger than a generalised shared sentiment of exclusion, sometimes approaching hopelessness regarding their current urban lives. the lenses also reveal an urban working and under-class that is frustrated by the failure over the past two decades of what they have been led to believe are their just entitlements. simultaneously, as they become more aware of the growing inequalities between themselves and the new local as well as national elites, this frustration is converted either into aggression against those deemed to be responsible for their current state or into mobilisation in pursuit of some of these privileged entitlements. lastly, this analysis reveals a new form of agency that the south african urban poor are developing. this agency emerges from rational as well as emotional motives, from aggression against those seen to be responsible for limitations on entitlements as well as ways to convert long-standing humiliation into mastery through violent behaviour, particularly gratuitous violence. moreover, over the past few years, access to new forms of social media has facilitated the broadening of this agency. the 2015 violent xenophobic episode has revealed that it is not only south african groupings that possess agency in the country: foreign african immigrants in both durban and johannesburg organised and expressed their anxiety and displeasure in public and the voices of foreign african governments after the episode were public and forceful in south africa, on the african continent and ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 250 internationally. south africa may well remain chiefly a limited access order (north et al. 2013) in which elites take most of the national decisions that affect south africans’ lives, but both the urban poor as well as foreign actors are demonstrating, through their agency, that these elites do not have it all their own way. references adam, h. and moodley, k. 2013. imagined liberation. xenophobia, citizenship and identity in south africa, germany and canada. stellenbosch: sun press. baker, b. 2008. multi-choice policing in africa. nordiska afrikainstituut: sweden. bekker, s. 2010. ‘explaining violence against foreigners and strangers in urban south africa: outbursts during may and june 2008.’ the african yearbook of international law (16) 125-140. bbc news ‘south african army to tackle xenophobic attacks.’ 21 april 2015 (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32396532) (retrieved 27 october 2015) bekker, s. eigelaar-meets, i. eva, g. and poole, c. 2008. xenophobia and violence in south africa: a desktop study of the trends and a scan of explanations offered. university of stellenbosch. <www.simonbekker.com> (retrieved 27 october 2015). crush, j. and ramachandran, s. 2014. southern african migration programme (samp): ‘xenophobic violence in south africa: denialism, minimalism, realism’. migration policy series no. 66. cape town: university of cape town. earl, j. martin, a. mccarthy, jd. and soule, sa. 2004. ‘the use of newspaper data in the study of collective action’. annual review of sociology (30) 65-80. eye witness news ‘xenophobia: if we can make them look bad, our problem will look better.’ 4 june 2015 (johannesburg) glazer, d. 2008 ‘(dis) connections: elite and popular “common sense” and the matter of “foreigners”’. in hassim, s. kupe, t. and worby, e. (eds). go ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 251 home or die here: violence, xenophobia and the reinvention of difference in south africa. johannesburg: witwatersrand university press. 53-59. gqirana t. ‘police minister: kzn attacks are not just xenophobic.’ mail & guardian 14 april 2015. (johannesburg) harber a. ‘publish and be damned in name of patriotism’ business day 23 april 2015 (johannesburg) hassim,s. kupe, t. and worby, e. (eds). 2008. go home or die here: violence, xenophobia and the reinvention of difference in south africa. johannesburg: witwatersrand university press. horowitz, dl 2001. the deadly ethnic riot. berkeley: university of california press. human sciences research council (hsrc). 2008. citizenship, violence and xenophobia in south africa: perceptions from south african communities. pretoria: hsrc press. hunter q. ‘govt moves to restore order after xenophobic attacks.’ mail & guardian 28 april 2015. (johannesburg) khoza a. ‘zuma's son wants foreigners out of the country.’ news 24 1 april 2015 (johannesburg) mail & guardian ‘da: business minister’s xenophobic comments “fuelled the wedge”.’ 3 february 2015 (johannesburg) misago, jp. landau l. and monson, t. 2009. towards tolerance, law and dignity: addressing violence against foreign nationals in south africa. pretoria: international organization for migration. news 24 ‘thousands mob kwamashu police as xenophobic attacks continue.’ 13 april 2015 (johannesburg) ndou c. ‘foreigners must go home – king zwelithini.’ the citizen 23 march 2015 (johannesburg) ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 252 north, d. wallis, jj. and weingast, br. 2013. violence and social orders: a conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history. cambridge: cambridge university press. nyamnjoh, f. 2006. insiders and outsiders: citizenship and xenophobia in southern africa. london: zed books. powell, dm. o’donovan, m. de visser, j. n.d. cpm civic protests barometer 2007-2014. cape town: mlgi. <www.mlgi.org.za> (retrieved 26 october 2015). simkins, c. 2011. ‘south african disparities’. journal of democracy 22(3): 105–119 sosibo k. ‘xenophobia: what did we learn from 2008?’ mail & guardian 24 april 2015. (johannesburg) sosibo k. et al. ‘township politics fuel the attacks on “outsiders”.’ mail & guardian 30 january 2015. (johannesburg) tarrow, s. 1994. power in movement: collective action, social movements and politics. cambridge: cambridge university press. visser a. ‘machel vs mugabe: what would happen if countries opened their borders?’ news 24 3 may 2015 (johannesburg). worldwideworx. n.d. south african social media landscape 2015 executive summary <www.worldwideworx.com> (retrieved 20 october 2015). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 253 preventing xenophobia in africa: what must the african union do? romola adeola abstract the issue of xenophobia has, for many years, been one of the pressing challenges in africa. while south africa currently appears as a poster-child of this problem in africa, the issue of xenophobia is not solely a south african problem. traces of these attacks have long existed since the 1960s with countries such as ghana and nigeria raising agitations against each other and occasioning displacements of millions of people. similar to the south african narrative, the agitations were borne out of a need to create an economic haven, the realisation of which was impeded by the influx of foreign populations. in recent years, the issue of xenophobia has equally resonated in the treatment of somalis in kenya following the attacks by the somali-dominated insurgency group and in the treatment of rwandan refugees in western districts of uganda. while the discourse on xenophobia has focused on the obligation of states to protect non-nationals within their territory, the roles of supranational institutions beyond the state are rarely discussed. specifically, the role of the african union as a continental institution saddled with the mandate of promoting human rights, fostering african unity, furthering development and ensuring peace and security on the continent is not often central to the discussion on durable solutions to the problem. this paper considers what relevant institutions within the african union can do in addressing the issue of xenophobia in africa. keywords: migration, african regional institutions, mass expulsion, foreign population. *centre for human rights, faculty of law, university of pretoria, hatfield, pretoria, south africa, e-mail: aderomola@gmail.com mailto:aderomola@gmail.com ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 254 introduction in recent years, the issue of xenophobia has become a paradoxical result of globalisation’s ideal of free trade and global human rights commitments (njamnjoh 2006: 1). while governments often pledge openly to ideals of common humanity and commit to fostering free movements of goods and services, national immigration laws speak differently in response to the local communities’ insecurities about foreign population influx and the consequences of such influx on access to social security and welfare. in europe, the treatment of migrants crossing the mediterranean sea from africa, the middle east and eastern europe, as well as the constant writhe by western european states over the strasbourg court’s immigration policy decisions, evince this paradox and demonstrate the distant reality between international commitment and national implementation. in africa, this paradox is equally evident. colonially imposed borders have become testaments of identity since the independence of many african states. the narrative of the ‘foreign-other’ which was not an essential component of pre-colonial societal orderings (arthur 2000: 19) has become a powerful rhetoric for determining access to social security and welfare. in immigration policies, social classifications and behavioural patterns, this narrative has resonated. while south africa has emerged in recent years as the posterchild of the narrative of the ‘foreign-other’, it has not been alone in this identity crisis. since the 1950s, occurrences in several african states have perpetuated this narrative. while much focus has been granted to the obligations of individual states in respecting human rights within its borders, little attention has been paid to the role of supranational institutions that can address the problem of xenophobia on the continent. it is within this gap that the argument of this paper is located. this paper considers what the african union (au) can do in addressing the issue of xenophobia in africa. before advancing a discourse on the role of the au, it is significant to analyse the manifestations of xenophobia across several african countries in order to vindicat the need for an african-wide response at the level of the au. manifestation of xenophobia in africa xenophobia is the perceived fear, hatred or dislike of a non-native or foreigner in a particular country (centre for human rights 2009). the word ‘xenophobia’ derives from two greek words xénos’ and phóbos which translates into ‘fear of a foreigner’ (bordeau 2010: 4). the united nations ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 255 special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance (rapporteur) defines xenophobia as ‘a rejection of outsiders’ (united nations general assembly 1994: para 29). according to the rapporteur, [x]enophobia is currently fed by such theories and movements as "national preference", "ethnic cleansing", by exclusions and by a desire on the part of communities to turn inward and reserve society’s benefits in order to share them with people of the same culture or the same level of development. while the notion of xenophobia bears close links to concepts like racism and ethnic intolerance, its semantic distinctiveness lies in the fact that it is rooted in national identity, citizenship and a rejection of foreigners belonging to other borders, states or nations (commission of the european communities 1993: 14). some manifestations of xenophobia include prejudices, attitudinal orientations, and behaviours against a foreigner (international labour organisation 2001: 2). such prejudices, attitudinal orientations and behaviours can be triggered by political incitements, declining economic conditions or concerns relating to national security, particularly in the current era of terror attacks. while foreigners are generally affected, refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants are often the central targets in xenophobic situations. in africa, some of the evident manifestations of xenophobia have been the expulsion of foreign nationals, threats of expulsion and, in other instances, violent attacks. these manifestations date as far back as the 1960s. in november 1969, forty-nine days after becoming ghana’s prime minister, kofi busia introduced the aliens compliance order (the aliens order) which sought to expel undocumented aliens. ‘the aliens order required aliens who lacked work permit [to] get them within a period of two weeks or leave the country’ (gocking 2005: 156). prior to this time, a general perception of foreigners as the cause of ‘large-scale unemployment that had befallen ghana’ had begun to emerge in the country (aremu and ajayi 2014: 176). most of the foreign population were from other west african countries such as nigeria, burkina faso, togo and côte d’ivoire. in 1931, nigerians constituted the majority of foreigners in ghana. their success in running businesses in ghana led to an influx of other nigerians to the country. tensions began to rise in ghana with the increasing entry of foreigners and the dire socioeconomic conditions of ghanaians. in response to increased pressure from ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 256 ghanian citizens, certain measures were initiated including the aliens order and the ghanaian business promotion (gbp). the gbp sought to reserve certain businesses for ghanaians (asamoah 2014: 187). according to asamoah (2014: 187), ‘[t]o facilitate ghanaian business promotion, aliens would be allowed to engage in certain economic activity only if they put in capital of determined amounts.’ oppong (2002: 26) notes that the aliens order ‘led to the mass exodus of between 900,000 to 1,200,000 individuals from ghana.’ ghanaians praised the order as a nationalistic initiative to ensure jobs for ghanaians (aremu and ajayi 2014: 176). in 1972, uganda expelled thousands of asians from the country in the face of worsening economic conditions (escribà-folch and wright 2015: 145). news reports (bbc 1972) confirm hansen’s (2000: 198) recount that ‘all asians from britain, india, pakistan, kenya, tanzania and zambia were told they had three months to leave uganda.’ following the expulsions, the businesses owned by these foreigners were expropriated, however, the economic downturn of the country was not salvaged (stokes 2009: 187). in 1978, gabon took a decision to expel all beninese from the country (henckaerts 1995: 16). the decision was premised on an alleged aspersion on president bongo and the people of gabon by president kérékou of benin in july 1978 (gray 1998: 396). fifteen months before this time, in may 1977, kérékou had accused officials of gabon of a foiled mercenary coup that sought to oust him from power and told african leaders that he would consider anyone who attended the regional summit in libreville a traitor (gray 1998: 396). in reaction, gabon banned beninese from coming into the country. gray (1998: 396) notes that ‘the person of bongo and the image of the state were […] merged in the minds of many gabonese citizens.’ in july 1978, when president kérékou restated his accusation before bongo at the summit of the organisation of african unity (oau) in sudan, president bongo became enraged (gray 1998: 396). in communication with the chairman of the oau, president bongo stated that ‘the anger of an entire people, which has been controlled for a whole year, literally exploded after the verbal vulgarities and insanities uttered at the oau’ (gray 1998: 396). subsequently, about 9 000 beninese were expelled from the country (henckaerts 1995: 16). according to henckaerts, ‘the sole factor of being a benin national triggered the expulsion decisions without an examination of individual behaviour’ (henckaerts 1995: 17). gray (1998: 397) notes that although the expulsion had implications on the economy and on the education system of gabon, ‘the ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 257 gabonese state was able to avert more serious political unrest through an exercise in “citizenship promotion”.’ due to declining economic conditions in the early 1980s following a period of economic boom in the 1970s, nigeria expelled over 2 million foreigners from the country in 1983 (aremu 2013: 340). more than a million of these foreigners were from ghana (otoghile and obakhedo 2011: 139). in addition to the decline in economic conditions, another key reason given for the expulsion of foreigners from the country was the involvement of foreigners in crime in the country (aremu 2013: 341). in 1985, another wave of expulsion was carried out in which 300 000 ghanaians were expelled from the country (otoghile and obakhedo 2011: 139-140). as with the first wave of expulsions, the worsening economic conditions constituted the basis for this expulsion (otoghile and obakhedo 2011: 139). in response to the declining economic situation in côte d’ivoire in the 1990s, former president bédié propagated the idea of ivoirité which sought to weave ivoirian identity into political and economic access (kimou 2013: 18-19; wiafe-amoako 2015: 82-83). the institutionalisation of ivoirian identity fuelled resentments against foreigners and divided the ivorian society. in 1999, between 8000 and 12000 nationals of burkina faso were expelled following tensions between ivoirians and burkinabe farmers (human rights watch 2001: 4). in 2004, an attempted coup against the president of equatorial guinea, allegedly led by a mercenary, spurred a clamp-down on foreigners in the country (shirbon 2004). foreigners from several african countries were detained, intimidated and some were expelled. government officials raised suspicions against foreigners and equatorial guineans were called upon to be ‘vigilant with foreigners, regardless of colour, because [their] target […was] the wealth of equatorial guinea, the oil’ (roberts 2009: 192-193). an estimate of about 1 000 foreigners from other african countries, mostly from cameroon, were expelled from the country (human rights watch 2009: 81). equatorial guineans who did not belong to the law enforcement agency of the state were permitted to arbitrarily arrest those suspected to be illegal foreigners (human rights watch 2009: 81). in 2007, the government banned other west african nationals from ‘owning grocery stores’ in the country, and such stores were either taken over by the government or closed (irin news 2008). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 258 the rhetoric that citizens of the democratic republic of congo (congo kinshasa) were stealing natural resources that belonged to angola was at the root of several recent mass expulsions of congolese from angola. in 2004, the angolan government expelled an estimated 100 000 congolese from angola (siegel 2009: 23). over 160 000 congolese were expelled between december 2008 and december 2009 (adebajo 2011: 91). perpetuating the rhetoric in question, the angolan foreign minister stated that angola ‘will never give up its right to protect its natural resources and its right to repatriate citizens who are acting in a way which do not benefit the country’ (reliefweb 2009). in 2009, the government of congo kinshasa expelled 50 000 angolans in retaliative response to the mass expulsion of congolese from angola. this was done ‘amid a rising wave of popular anger over the humiliating treatment of those expelled [by angola]’ (human rights watch 2012: 11). the history of the xenophobic violence in south africa, although arguably rooted in the legacies of apartheid and the failure of the post-apartheid government in effectively accommodating foreigners (hanekom and webster 2009/2010: 105; adam and moodley 2013: 37), dates back to 2008 with the waves of attacks against foreigners seen in various locations across south africa (duponchel 2013: 5). the first known attack was on 11 may 2008 in the alexandria settlement in johannesburg. by the end of may, over 60 people had been killed and tens of thousands were displaced (tafira 2011: 114; hankela 2014: 75). in 2015, a new wave of attacks against foreigners were incited by the zulu king and followed the death of a south african teenager at the hands of a somali. the rhetoric that underscored the 2008 attacks – that foreigners were stealing jobs and committing crimes – resonated in the new wave of attacks (mwakikagile 2008: 335) that resulted in the loss of properties owned by foreigners, the death of about 7 people and the displacement of thousands of foreigners (essa 2015). in 2009, burundi expelled between 800 and 1 200 foreigners from the country (jeune afrique 2009). these foreigners were mostly from rwanda and congo kinshasa, however others from tanzania, uganda and senegal were equally affected. the expulsion was premised on the need to address crime in the state. a police representative argued that it was a routine exercise aimed at expelling irregular migrants who were largely responsible for crimes in the state (jeune afrique 2009). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 259 in 2013, the government of tanzania expelled close to 11 000 undocumented foreigners in an effort to rid the country of criminal elements (ghosh 2013). prior to the expulsion, the president of tanzania had given a two-week ultimatum to undocumented foreigners to leave the country. the decision was informed on two grounds. first, on the complaint ‘from villagers over acts of armed robbery, bus attacks and kidnaps attributed to illegal immigrants in the area [of kagera]’ (naluyaga 2013) and, second, on the ground that undocumented foreigners ‘overstretched government’s ability to offer services to its people’ (naluyaga 2013). of those expelled were 300 from uganda, 4 100 from burundi and 6 400 from rwanda (ghosh 2013). with the recent wave of terrorist attacks in kenya by the somali al-shabaab group, negative reactions against somalis have arisen in the country (harper 2010; wambua-soi 2012; hatcher 2015). following the 2013 westgate attacks, kenyan government authorities threatened to close down the dadaab camp which housed about half a million somali refugees. in 2014, approximately 4 000 somalis were arrested in operation usalama watch initiated by the government with the view to counter terrorism and address security concerns in the state (boru-halakhe 2014). buchanan-clarke and lekalake (2015) observe that ‘[i]n kenya’s attempts to address the threat of violent extremism, the somali kenyan community is often stigmatized.’ the republic of congo (congo brazzaville) in many respects shares close ties with congo kinshasa. aside from the name, the congo river and language, the countries share ethnic and cultural bonds. however, this has not assuaged ‘foreign-fears’ premised a distinct border. in 2014, congo brazzaville initiated an operation dubbed operation mbala ya bakolo, literally translating to ‘slap of the elders’ (amnesty international 2015: 9). the essence of this operation was to rid the country of criminal elements and, although it was regarded as a ‘general operation’ (amnesty international, 2015, 14), over 50 000 citizens of the democratic of republic of congo were expelled (reuters 2015). while acknowledging the repatriations, a government spokesperson emphasised that ‘the operation continues’ as not all that should be repatriated has been found (amnesty international 2015: 17). in june 2015, suicide bomb attacks in n’djamena by boko haram resulted in the death of 27 people and left approximately 100 others injured (channels television 2015). in response to these attacks, one of the measures implemented by the chadian government was the expulsion of foreigners. in ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 260 the month of june, the chadian military expelled 200 to 300 cameroonians from the country in a ‘clean up campaign against undocumented foreigners’ (ernest 2015). in july 2015, over 2 000 undocumented nigerians were also expelled from kousseri in chad (telegraph 2015). in the case of ghana, nigeria, angola, uganda and south africa xenophobic reactions were spurred by economic considerations. in chad and kenya, xenophobic prejudices were informed by the war on terror. in cote d’ivoire, gabon and equatorial guinea, politics as well as economic considerations triggered xenophobic expulsions. in tanzania, burundi and congo brazzaville, xenophobic actions were largely spurred by the rhetoric that foreigners were committing crime. in congo kinshasa, the expulsion of angolans was political. while various reasons underpin xenophobic reactions in these countries, a central theme which resonates is that the issue of xenophobia is not a new phenomenon in africa. as a problem that is not country-specific, the role of the au as an institution saddled with the mandate of fostering cohesion among african states and promoting peace and security, is imperative. in light of this fact, the next section considers the role that various institutions within the au can play in addressing the issue of xenophobia. the role of the african union as the regional institution mandated to advance cooperation among african states and between africa and the international community, the au has the capacity to be a significant actor in addressing xenophobia. under the au constitutive act, the au is mandated to promote human rights, sanctity of life, and peaceful co-existence and cooperation between african states, as well as position the continent at an advantage within the international community. in the past, the au has, through norms and institutions, made significant strides in fostering these goals. the au has taken significant initiatives in relation to peace and security, economic development, international cooperation, institutionalisation of democracy and promotion of human rights in africa. in 2013, the african union developed a policy agenda for the continent premised upon the need to build an integrated africa and to rightly position africa in global governance (makinda et al 2016: 183). in the solemn declaration, au member states committed to ‘continue the global struggle against all forms of racism and discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances’ (african union 2013: art h(i)). this commitment was further emphasised in the 2015 policy document created by the au to foster this solemn declaration (african union commission 2015). however, while the ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 261 solemn declaration and the policy document iterate the need for states to combat xenophobia by ensuring that africa takes in global governance, the roles of relevant institutions within the african union in fostering this goal are not specifically mentioned. this paper discusses the roles which relevant institutions within the au can perform in addressing the issue of xenophobia on the continent. the assembly of heads of states and governments the assembly of heads of states and governments (the assembly) is the highest political organ of the au and is saddled with the mandate of advancing the goals of the au. in line with the constitutive act, the assembly is granted the responsibility of making policies and decisions, determining the au’s budget, establishing and directing other organs, appointing key authorities of the au commission (auc) and the african court of justice, delegating its functions where appropriate and monitoring compliance with its decisions (constitutive act of the au 2000: art 9). significantly, the au has adopted numerous treaties within the african human rights system. while still named the organisation of african unity (oau) in 1981, it adopted the african charter on human and peoples’ rights (the african charter), which is still the main regional human rights instrument. in commemoration of the 50th year of african integration, the assembly adopted the solemn declaration. the declaration served as a springboard for the development of the agenda 2063 policy document, which highlights the aspirations of the african union over the next 50 years from 2013. one of the aspirations emphasised in the policy document is the need to combat the issue of xenophobia. while the assembly has taken steps in developing norms for the prevention of xenophobia, this paper argues that in view of its broad mandate, the assembly can do much more. for example, one significant role it could play is to cooperate with key organs on the continent with exclusive mandates on human rights protection, peace and security by fostering compliance of member states with their decisions. such institutions include: the african union commission (auc), african commission on human and peoples’ rights (achpr), the pan-african parliament (pap), the economic, social and cultural council (ecosocc) and the african peace and security architecture (apsa). in addition, the assembly can adopt a common position ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 262 on xenophobic violence on the continent in which it should emphasise noncooperation with states that fail to effectively address xenophobia. the african union commission as the secretariat of the au, the auc is the nerve centre of the au. headed by a chairperson, the auc has nine departments included among which is the department of political affairs (dpa). within the dpa, the humanitarian affairs, refugees and displaced persons division (hardpa) is particularly relevant as the unit with a mandate over issues of migration. one significant role which the auc can play is in facilitating regional dialogues on the issue of xenophobia. these dialogues should be aimed at raising awareness on the issue, promoting traditional african values such as ubuntu, sharing practices on how the issue of xenophobia can be addressed and drawing the attention of states and relevant stakeholders to xenophobic hotspots, orientations and attitudes. the auc should also develop advocacy pamphlets to foster regional sensitisation on african shared values of humanity and on the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. in collaboration with the achpr, the hardpa should develop a model for states to utilise in developing national policies on the issue of xenophobia. this model policy should highlight the ways through which xenophobia manifests, emphasise respect for human rights obligations and incorporate a rights-based approach to migration. moreover, the hardpa should disseminate information on xenophobic attacks through the use of news media and recommend urgent measures that states should adopt in addressing the issue in places around the continent where xenophobia arises.  the african union assembly has initiated common positions in the past in relation to issues such as climate change and child marriage. in 2009, it initiated a common position on non-cooperation with the international criminal court. see decision on the meeting of african state parties to the rome statute of the international criminal court (icc), adopted by the 13th ordinary session of the assembly in sirte, libya, assembly/au/dec 245(xiii) (3 july 2009), rev. 1 (tladi 2009: 57).  the concept of ubuntu embodies the idea that the humanness of a person is premised on that of others. according to cornell and van marle, ubuntu embodies “the notion that one’s humanness can be diminished by the violent actions of others, including the violent actions of the state” (cornell and van marle 2005: 207). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 263 the african commission on human and peoples’ rights constituted in 1987, the achpr is the primary regional organ, the mandate of which is to promote and protect human rights in africa. in 1996, the achpr decided on a communication against zambia following the country’s decision to expel illegal foreigners resulting in the exile of 517 west african nationals from the country (rencontre africaine pour la défense des droits de l'homme v zambia 2000). in its decision, the achpr emphasised that ‘mass deportation of the individuals in question here, including their arbitrary detention and deprivation of the right to have their cause heard, constitutes a flagrant violation of the charter’ (rencontre africaine pour la défense des droits de l'homme v zambia 1996: para 31). following the xenophobic violence in south africa, the achpr adopted a resolution against this violence (resolution condemning the xenophobic attacks in the republic of south africa 2015). in the may resolution, the achpr requested that the south african government ensure that mechanisms are put in place to prevent xenophobia from reoccurring. the achpr further stressed the need for investigation and urged the state to respect its obligations under the african charter. as a pivotal institution in the promotion of human rights in africa, the achpr has an essential role to play in addressing issue of xenophobia in africa. this paper argues that one of the ways through which the achpr can bring an end to the issue of xenophobia is through standard-setting. the decisions, resolutions and comments of the achpr have, over time, become useful resources for civil society advocacy and for state action plans. the achpr can leverage on this fact in developing a report on a rights-based approach to immigration laws and policies in africa. in this study, the achpr should assess national laws and provide recommendations on how these laws could be aligned with international human rights standards. the achpr should also develop a general comment on the issue of xenophobia. this general comment can be made with reference to the provision of article 19 of the african charter which emphasises the rights of ‘all peoples’ to ‘enjoy the same respect and […] have the same rights’ (african charter 1981: art 19). the achpr should also undertake promotional visits to states where  in 2014, the african commission approved a study undertaken by one of its special mechanisms on the right to nationality. (african commission on human and peoples’ rights 2014). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 264 xenophobic tendencies and attitudes are observed in order to sensitise authorities on viable measures to ensure that foreign nationals are adequately protected. the economic, social and cultural council as a platform through which various ‘social and professional groups’ (constitutive act of the au 2000: art 22(1)) can engage in the activities of the au (viljoen 2012: 206-208), the ecosocc has the capacity to be a significant actor in addressing the issue of xenophobia in africa. the ecosocc is designed as an ‘advisory organ’ of the au (constitutive act of the au 2000: art 22(1). in this position, the ecosocc is involved in realising the au objectives, conducting studies required by au institutions, making recommendations, promoting human rights and democracy, fostering popular participation and advancing collaboration between the au and civil society organisations (statute of the economic social and cultural council of the african union 2004: art 7(1-8)). considering its function, one of the roles that the ecosocc can perform in addressing the issue of xenophobia is to host sessional meetings in which relevant stakeholders, including states and the civil society, meaningfully engage in effective dialogue on combatting xenophobia nationally and regionally. the pan-african parliament although initially created to foster economic integration on the continent, the pap has assumed a broader function over time (pap protocol 2001; dinokopila 2013: 303-304). the pap protocol which sets out the scope of pap’s competence emphasises that pap developed from a need to ‘provide a common platform for african peoples and their grass-roots organizations to be more involved in discussions [on] challenges facing the continent’ (pap protocol 2001: preamble). some of the functions of the pap are to foster economic integration, promote human rights, democracy and good governance and serve as a focal point for engagement with regional economic communities (recs) and their parliaments (constitutive act of the au 2000: art 3). in view of its mandate, one of the roles which pap can perform in addressing the issue of xenophobia is to engage with recs on legislative, administrative and other measures that can be adopted in combatting xenophobia in states within the sub-regions. as these recs, such as ecowas, eac and sadc, have a strong presence in the au, the pap should engage them in actualising regional strategies for tackling the issue. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 265 the african peer review mechanism as a ‘peer pressure’ platform that allows african leaders to assess their commitment to governance, democracy and development, the african peer review mechanism (aprm) has a relevant role to perform in addressing xenophobia in africa. the aprm is a voluntary self-assessment mechanism that is conducted under the aegis of the au (killander 2008: 41). member states of the au voluntarily accede to the process. the aprm is constituted by three institutions: the committee of participating heads of state and government (aprf), the panel of eminent persons (pep), the aprm secretariat and the country review mission team (crmt) (africa peer review mechanisms: base document 2003). while the crmt conducts country visits and produces reports on the progress made by states in line with its commitments on governance, democracy and development, the pep oversees the review process, considers recommendations of the crmt and makes recommendations to the aprf. the aprf is the forum for political discussion in which states under review are urged to act in line with the recommendations gleaned from the review process. while the crmt and pep are essential in addressing the xenophobia, this paper argues that the aprf is particularly significant as it serves as a platform for constructive dialoguing between heads of states and governments (turianskyi, 2013). the african peace and security architecture the apsa is the main institution responsible for the protection of peace and security on the continent and is mandated to manage and resolve conflicts. within apsa, there are five main pillars, these are: the peace and security council (psc), the continental early warning system (cews), the panel of the wise (panel), the african standby force and the special fund (psc protocol 2002). two of its pillars relevant to addressing the issue of xenophobia in africa are the cews and the panel. the cews is a system designed to prevent situations of conflict by flagging potential conflict hotspots. in relation to xenophobia, the cews should monitor xenophobic orientations that may degenerate into conflict if not given proper attention. the cews should give detailed reports of such situations to the psc for  states are assessed on compliance with the values agreed upon in the new partnership for africa development declaration (nepad declaration). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 266 further actions. the significance of the panel resonates from the motivation for its establishment (jegede 2009: 416). rooted in african traditions of deference to elders (viljoen, 2012, 193), the panel is required to give advice to the psc and auc on matters bothering on peace and security on the continent (psc protocol, 2002, art 11(3). an important role which the panel can perform in addressing the issue of xenophobia is to advise the psc and states on how xenophobic-related conflicts can be prevented. conclusion the issue of xenophobia is a pressing challenge that cuts across human rights, governance, development and democracy in africa. as it is not specific to one african state, an africa-wide response is essential. within this context, the role of the au is primary. this paper elaborates on the role of seven institutions within the au that are relevant to addressing the issue of xenophobia in africa. with regards to the assembly, this paper argues that the assembly can develop a common position on xenophobic violence on the continent, in which it should emphasise non-cooperation with states that fail to effectively address xenophobia. the assembly should also cooperate with the decisions and recommendations from other au institutions, such as the achpr, in respect to its own decisions and recommendations. with respect to the auc, this paper argues that it can facilitate regional dialogues on the issue. this paper also argues that the auc should develop advocacy pamphlets for regional sensitisation on the issue of xenophobia. in addition, the auc should develop a model policy for states to utilise in developing national policies on the issue of xenophobia. with regards to the achpr, this paper argues that the achpr should develop a report on a rights-based approach to immigration laws and policies in africa and also develop a general comment on the issue of xenophobia. in relation to ecosocc this paper argues that ecosocc should host sessional meetings with relevant stakeholders for effective dialoguing on measures to combat xenophobia nationally and regionally. with respect to the pap, this paper argues that the pap should engage with recs leveraging on their strong sub-regional presence in addressing the issue of xenophobia. with regards to aprm, this paper argues that while the crmt and the pep are important, the aprf is particularly important in light of its ability to exert ‘influence’ or ‘peer pressure’. in relation to apsa, this paper argues that the psc and cews have significant roles to perform, arguing that the cews should monitor xenophobic ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 267 orientations that may degenerate into conflicts if not given the needed attention. this paper argues that the panel should advise the psc and states on the prevention of xenophobic-related conflicts. references adam, h and moodley, k. 2013. imagined 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50,000 expelled angolans near dr congo border: minister’ reliefweb 27 october 2009. shirbon, e. equatorial guinea a risky magnet for migrants iol news 9 september 2004. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 272 wambua-soi, c. ‘rising xenophobia against somalis in kenya’ al jazeera 20 november 2012. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 273 violent conflict and forced displacement in the horn of africa: government and donor policies and programs in search of durable solutions nat j. colletta abstract the horn of africa (hoa) is currently engulfed in entangling and shifting cross border conflict, resulting in at least four major forced displacement situations. these conflicts emanate mainly from the sudan, south sudan, somalia and eritrea and involve large numbers of refugees as well as internally displaced persons (idps). globally, there are an estimated 54.7 million displaced persons. more than a quarter (27%) of the globally displaced, are in sub-saharan africa, with about 8.7 million or over half (58%) of those in the hoa. on the one hand, forced displacement in the horn places additional stresses on already weak local and national institutions and marginalized, underserved host communities. services are often perceived to only benefit the displaced as opposed to receptor communities leading to envy and local conflict. on the other hand, displaced persons also have skills and assets that could be harnessed and utilized to benefit the local economy in pursuit of durable solutions. the complex cultural, social, and political nature of the region is compounded by an ongoing set of development challenges, including: demographic shifts; imbalanced service provision; the threat of pandemic diseases; and increasing contestation over scarce natural resources, especially water and grazing areas. this article examines the underlying drivers of violent conflict, the impact on both the displaced and the receptor host communities, and the effectiveness of  dr colletta is an international expert on conflict, peace building and development. he was founding manager of the world bank’s post conflict unit where he played a leading role in pioneering and managing the bank’s policy assistance in war to peace transitions. he is currently advising several international agencies (including the world bank, asian development bank, inter-american development bank, the european investment bank, ifad, undp and unicef), governments and peace negotiators (most recently in the philippines, and yemen) on conflict prevention and post conflict reconstruction. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 274 government and donor policies and programs. the research methodology included a literature review, field-based participant observations, and a series of in-depth key informant and focal group interviews in hoa refugee camps, host communities and major cities. the search for a new paradigm shift from care and maintenance to resilience and self-reliance is underway. given the now “protracted” nature of the displacement, the old encampment humanitarian approaches of care and maintenance are now giving way to a rethink from a development perspective by governments and donors alike. finally, from a prevention perspective, stemming forced migration at its source by improving security, governance, and livelihood opportunities in countries of origin are key to managing the displacement challenge. regional integrated area development can convert fragile border areas which now serve as shock absorbers for conflicts within these fragile states to prosperous change agents opening avenues of cross border trade and development. keywords: conflict, displacement, horn of africa, integration and migration. introduction the horn of africa (hoa) covers djibouti, eritrea, ethiopia, kenya, somalia, south sudan, sudan and uganda. it is richly endowed in human, social and natural capital. however, the region is plagued by a complex history of weak governance, insecurity, recurrent drought, increasing environmental degradation, entrenched poverty and endemic violence. the region is currently engulfed in entangled and shifting cross-border conflict resulting in at least four major forced displacement situations. these conflicts emanate mainly from sudan, south sudan, somalia and eritrea, involving large numbers of refugees as well as internally displaced persons (idps). five countries host over sixty percent of refugees in africa: kenya, ethiopia, south sudan, uganda and chad. this does not include the growing number hosted in the south sudan, where armed conflict is on the rise, or djibouti, an important transit point to yemen and the middle east.  while yemen is impacted by the hoa refugee crisis and discussed herein, it is not conventionally considered a part of the arabian peninsula. there are an estimated 280,000 somali refugees in yemen. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 275 globally, there are an estimated 54.7 million displaced persons, comprised of 38 million internally displaced and 16.7 million refugees in foreign countries. an estimated 14.9 million persons (11.4m idps and 3.5m refugees), or more than a quarter (27%) of the globally displaced, are in sub-saharan africa, with about 8.7 million or over half (58%) of whom are in the hoa (odi/hpg and idmc 2015; gpfd 2015). there are 1.9 million refugees in protracted situations with an average length approaching 20 years (loesher and milner 2011). stresses and impacts on host communities forced displacement in the hoa places additional stresses on weak local and national institutions, as well as marginalised, underserved host communities. on the one hand, there are increasingly negative development impacts on human and social capital, economic growth, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability (ccsd 2014). in addition, such displacement can become a breeding ground for further conflict and political instability. on the other hand, displaced persons also have skills and assets that could be harnessed and utilised to the benefit of the local economy and the pursuit of durable solutions. while there are increasing financial demands on host government budgets due to the influx of refugees and idps, humanitarian and development financing and technical assistance from the international community assists in addressing the needs of both the displaced and receptor communities. major development challenges the complex cultural, social and political nature of the region is compounded by an on-going set of major development challenges including: demographic shifts; imbalanced service provision; growing threat of pandemic diseases; and increasing contestation over scarce natural resources, especially water and grazing areas. despite the recent attention brought to the growing challenges of forced displacement across africa by the kampala convention in 2012 (gpfd and idmc 2012), there is, as of yet, no single comprehensive critical analysis connecting the sources and drivers of displacement, refugee and host community dynamics, and the range and effectiveness of donor and host government policies and practices in the pursuit of durable solutions to the growing displacement crisis in the hoa (rmms 2015). in seeking such ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 276 solutions, international agencies are facing a number of knowledge gaps. several key questions immediately emerge. are displaced persons or migrants in the hoa fleeing political oppression and violence, seeking economic opportunity and better lives, or some mix of drivers? why do current policies and operational approaches of the international community and host governments often result in protracted displacement and dependence rather than integration and self-reliance? how can the hierarchy and sequencing of displacement drivers and context specific durable solutions be better understood? policy and operational challenges and options these fundamental issues pose a range of policy and operational challenges to the international community and host countries. they may be summarised in the following key concerns. has the donor community failed to sufficiently understand and address the underlying structural causes of displacement? has the academic community missed a vital and growing global research problem, thus being complicit in its relative benign neglect? what are the political, economic and social factors shaping conventional government and international policies of encampment and exclusion rather than integration and inclusion? how does the modality of displacement and migration (e.g., smuggling, trafficking, labour market opportunities, etc.) shape the design of solutions? should one be looking beyond ‘country and sub-regional’ approaches and at ‘intra-regional’ integration possibilities? is a differentiated approach to the forced displacement and migration challenges of the hoa needed? in short, what are the political economy forces, knowledge, capacity and financial gaps facing donors and host governments in addressing the multiple causes and durable solutions to forced displacement in the hoa? in dealing with the above challenges, there is growing international recognition that development actors should engage earlier and adopt a longer-term approach, in collaboration with displacement affected governments, host communities and international humanitarian partners. in confronting conventional wisdom, alexander betts et al (2014) note that, “refugee communities engage in production, consumption, exchange, entrepreneurship, and the development of financial and capital markets. they have many of the core features of any other economic systems.” building on existing assets, it is important to shift the mind-set of donors, governments and ngos from seeing the displaced as victims with needs to survivors with capabilities; from dependency to self-reliance and resiliency. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 277 a paradigm shift is also required that balances and links the humanitarian protection of the displaced with the need to also address the social and economic development impacts on host receptor communities in a ‘holistic’ manner. the options typically presented in seeking durable solutions to forced displacement are local integration, return and repatriation to the country of origin or resettlement in a third country. in the search for durable solutions, this paper examines the underlying drivers of violent conflict, examines the impact on both the displaced and the receptor host communities, and assesses the effectiveness of government and donor policies and programs. methodology this paper is based upon a literature review, field-based participant observations and a series of in-depth key informant and focal group interviews in hoa camps, host communities and major cities. over 50 individual interviews and 15 focal group discussions where held with a range of stakeholders including government officials, donor and non-governmental agency staff, host community leaders and displaced persons. three field visits were made to the hoa over the course of 12 months, ranging from one to three weeks on average. the field visits included the main hoa countries and most of the major refugee camps including dolo ado, amami and shire in ethiopia; kakuma and dadaab in kenya; ali addeh in djibouti; and kiryandango in uganda. interviews were also undertaken in the urban centres of kampala, addis ababa, djibouti-ville, juba, nairobi, cape town and stellenbosch. somalia was off bounds due to persistent security threats. sudan and south sudan were visited during the author’s earlier research on the demobilisation and reintegration of armed combatants within the framework of the comprehensive peace agreement under the auspices of the united nations. information was gathered during this work on all waraffected groups, including displaced persons. recent events in south africa, particularly affecting the relationship between somali refugees and host communities in durban, johannesburg, and cape town, have necessitated the inclusion of south africa as an impacted country in this work. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 278 the demography of forced displacement in 2014-15 there were an estimated 49.3-54.7 million displaced persons globally (boehler and pecanha 2015). about 61% or 30.2 million were in a protracted state of displacement, meaning that they had been displaced from their communities of origin for at least three years. in a region with an estimated 140 million inhabitants, the hoa currently contains over 2.2 million refugees and more than 6.5 million idps (nrc & idmc 2015; unhcr 2015a). the bulk of the idps are distributed among four hoa countries: south sudan (1.5 million), somalia (1.1 million, and 370,000 in mogadishu alone), ethiopia (397,200) and kenya (309,200) (nrc & idmc 2015; unhcr 2015a). somalia is the largest hoa refugee originating country, with some 972,000 refugees. ethiopia is the largest refugee hosting country in africa with 682,761 refugees, while kenya hosts the second largest number of refugees on the continent, with 589,994 refugees (55,519 in nairobi alone) (rrms 2015). except for the recent crisis in south sudan, most of the region’s refugees and idps are currently in protracted displacement. sudan is host to over 300,000 refugees from neighbouring countries, including 150,000 from south sudan since december 2013. in 2014, a deepening conflict led to the displacement of about 557,000 new idps, including 430,000 new idps in darfur and 86,000 in south kordofan and blue nile (idmc 2015; unhcr 2015a; unocha 2015). it would be an oversight to discuss forced displacement in the hoa without reference to yemen. although most literature does not consider yemen to be a formal part of the hoa, it is now both a receiving point for refugees coming out of the hoa and, more recently, a departure point back in by those same refugees and others from yemen, given the intense fighting there. it is noted that some 300,000 persons are now in the displacement mix in yemen. with the recent saudi intervention and no clear end of the fighting there in sight, it is hard to say how this will evolve or predict its eventual impact on the region. saudi arabia has recently deported some 150,000 ethiopians.  idmc reports that, “in 2014 there were people living in protracted displacement for ten years or more in nearly 90% of the 60 countries and territories monitored by the idmc” (nrc & idmc 2015). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 279 in general, it is difficult to accurately determine the exact scale of displacement given that many displaced migrate into urban areas and are not in camps as such (idmc 2015; nrc 2015 & idmc 2015; unhcr 2015a). political uncertainty, violence, drought and governance failures have led to “cycles of displacement, return and subsequent displacement” for millions of refugees and idps in the hoa over the past 20 years (majidi n.d.). in fact, a ‘transitional phase’ of voluntary return often occurs with male refugees taking ‘look and see’ visits to communities of origin to assess the security situation, check on their properties and relatives left behind and scope out work prospects. this also often leads to a temporary break up of families, as women and children are left in the camps, placing an additional burden on the women (majidi n.d.). table 1 below summarises displacement in the hoa. country refugees originating from country* idps refugees hosted* percentage women** percentage children under 18** djibouti 1,122 0 24,509 48% 41% eritrea 354,474 10,000 (2013) 2930 47.5% 56.5% ethiopia 124,952 397,200 (2014) 665,881 (jan 2015) 49% 58% kenya 10,822 412,000 (jan 2013) 569,772 51% 56% somalia 970,763 (mar 2015) 1,107,000 (2014) 12,239 (mar 2015) 50% 53% south sudan 638,402 (mar 2015) 1,474,500 (mar 2015) 257,673 (mar 2015) 51% 61% sudan 703,567 3,100,000 (jan 2015) 245,603 51% 39% uganda 11,069 29,800 (jan 2012) 433,595 (28 feb 2015) 51% (28 feb 2015) 61% (28 feb 2015) total*** 2,815,171 6,530,500 2,167,844 unhcr has recently undertaken a revalidation of the refugee population in djibouti and the preliminary findings of the exercise show that there are about 12,000 refugees in djibouti.  april 2015. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 280 the underlying drivers of conflict and displacement as indicated above, the causes and drivers of hoa displacement are complex and entangled. resource or environmental scarcity, leading to violent contestation over scarce natural resources from land to water, is a dominant theme in the forced migration narrative in the hoa. combined with a prolonged drought in the region, these factors lead pastoralists into closer and closer contact and competition with their sedentary agricultural neighbours, eventually resulting in their relocation into urban shantytowns such as djibouti-ville. the persistent poverty and weak institutional structures governing the allocation of scarce resources in these societies is a combustible formula for violence and conflict. an additional displacement driver in the hoa is flight from oppressive regimes, as is the case in eritrea and sudan today. the political economy of the region not only pits country against country in fragile, poorly marked and ungoverned borderlands (e.g. between south sudan, ethiopia, somalia and kenya), but also ethnic and clan groups against one another as is predominant in somalia. although the focus of this paper is on forced displacement due to violence and armed conflict, it should be acknowledged that a single cause such as armed conflict is rarely the only cause of forced displacement. it is also a region where pastoralism is the traditional mode of subsistence for a large portion of the population and natural and man made disasters have, in irregular intervals, affected populations and caused displacement. as noted earlier, there is often a complex set of circumstances, which drives displacement. for the hoa in particular, several key drivers of displacement can be identified as follows:  shifting pastoralism. pastoralism is a tradition among many communities in the hoa. in sudan, south sudan, djibouti, somalia and kenya, large parts of the populations are pastoralists and even more are agro-pastoralists. consequently, this means that they migrate according to seasonal patterns and climatic variations. grazing grounds have been reduced and movement has become more government regulated with the new administrative boundaries and individual property rights. these changes have resulted in increased resource-based ethnic conflict.  environmental degradation and food insecurity. effects of increasing environmental degradation including drought, floods, ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 281 diminishing pasture for cattle and competition for water, firewood and other livelihood resources, contribute to displacement. the increased competition for these scarce resources also contributes to armed conflict, for instance, between pastoralists and sedentary communities.  socio-ethnic conflict is a prominent feature in the region and often leads to violence and displacement. cattle rustling has displaced many communities in south sudan, northeast uganda (karamojo) and northern kenya (turkana), while clan differences have led to support for various ‘war-lords’ in somalia. for example, the nuer, dinka and madi have come into conflict in south sudan, uganda and ethiopia over farming and grazing rights.  loss of livelihoods and weakened social fabric in areas of origin have complemented insecurity as a main driver of migration and displacement. assets are lost, livelihood opportunities are diminished, and the social networks and fabric of communities are weakened due to armed conflict and forced displacement.  lack of economic opportunities, particularly for youth. according to the u.s. census bureau, in 2013 youth comprised approximately one third of the world’s current population. estimates for 2014 suggest that 10-35 year olds comprise 40.5% of the global population. in discussing increasing youth urbanisation, oyelaranoyeyika noted that, “there are more people under the age of 25 today than ever, totalling nearly three billion or half of humankind – of which 1.3 billion between ages 12 and 24. most live in urban areas” (oyelaran-oyeyinka 2014). a growing youth bulge in the hoa accounts for the bulk of the population in the region being under 25 years of age, contributing to increased competition for economic opportunities. such labour market competition is a major driver of displacement, leading to migration of young people – the majority of  for an elaboration on the impact of climate change on human migration in southern africa see ‘cross-border displacement in the context of disasters and climate change: a protection agenda’ – a draft for consultation, april 8, 2015; and ‘disasters, climate change and human mobility in southern africa: consultation on the draft protection agenda’. the nansen initiative-disaster induced cross-border displacement. june 4-5, 2015. stellenbosch: south africa. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 282 whom are male – to more economically prosperous regions of europe, saudi arabia, the gulf and south africa.  poor governance. corruption, inefficiencies and low technical and managerial capacity in government institutions limit the states’ abilities to provide security, law, order, and basic services such as education and health. lack of these services is a ‘push-factor’ for displacement not only in somalia, but also in eritrea, sudan and south sudan. a specific feature in several countries is the tension between the centre and peripheral regions due to inequitable division of power and wealth and governments’ lack of respect for ethnic, religious and language differences.  violent conflict. violent conflict in the region is closely related to poor governance, but also to the other ‘drivers’ identified above. although it is possible to distinguish between the following types of armed conflict, it should also be noted that there are overlaps between them: o war between states (either directly, e.g. between eritrea and ethiopia, or through proxies, e.g. allegedly in the ‘three areas’ between south sudan and sudan) o civil war (e.g. presently in south sudan and at a lower scale in sudan and somalia) o ethnic based armed conflict (e.g. south central somalia between ‘war-lords’, and the violent political crisis in south sudan which takes on ethnic dimensions) o international linked terrorism (e.g. al shabab in somalia and kenya) in sum, the drivers of displacement are a complex mix of political oppression, violence, food insecurity, economic opportunism and governance failures. while not using the terminology of mixed migration in this paper to capture these multiple drivers (including political asylum seekers, trafficked persons, economic migrants and refugees), it is often closely related to forced displacement due to violent conflict as such. let us now examine some specific country cases. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 283 the interplay between the political topography and the ethnic demography an underlying thread that weaves through the degrees of cooperation and conflict among and within the hoa countries is the interplay between the political topography and the cultural demography of the region emanating from a long colonial heritage. this interplay also shapes the degree of local integration as opposed to the other standard options of repatriation and resettlement for the displaced. ethiopia: a tale of two displacements (shire and dollo ado) in ethiopia the contrast between the two major refugee situations in the northeast (shire) and southwest (dollo ado) of the country is truly a ‘tale of two displacements’. eritrean displaced are located in the northwest and oriented toward resettlement and integration in third countries. the somali are located in the southwest and are focused on return, repatriation and reintegration to somalia. during field visits and interviews in refugee camps and host communities in these two distinct areas, it was observed that the reception of eritrean refugees and host community eritrean ethiopians’ in the northeast as compared to that of somali refugees and somali ethiopian host communities in the southwest, highlight the different drivers and impacts shaping social and economic integration, return or resettlement. the eritrean refugees in shire are political and economic migrants fleeing forced military conscription and seeking economic opportunity, such as freedom from fear and want. they are generally receiving transitional assistance en-route to other countries of opportunity in europe and the middle east (e.g. italy, the nordic countries and israel). this is an understandable coping strategy serving as a bridge to possible resettlement, jobs, remittances and new citizen rights. it is basically a reaction to the political oppression and narrowing economic employment opportunities in eritrea. the eritrean refugees were mostly young males. in effect, displacement of an adult child abroad becomes an investment for the future for an eritrean family remaining behind. the eritrean refugees seem to be more readily integrated, or at least accepted, in local host communities with similar tigrinya cultural roots in northwest ethiopia. as reported in several interviews, this is evidenced by the increasing number of ‘out of camp’ refugees inter-marrying with ethnically related host community members and/or utilising host ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 284 communities as transitory way stations in their onward economic migration to europe and other neighbouring countries. thus, the remarkably high numbers of unaccompanied minors (under 18) and single youth-headed households are reported in field visits as about 40% in the shire camps of hitsats, adi-harush and mai aini population (reported by regional unhcr office to be roughly 67,520 in all three camps). in reality, the cross border cultural affinity of eritreans living on both sides provides a ready way station for those seeking to travel on to europe through sudan and libya, as well as an opportunity for integration through marriage and work in the local hosting area. the cultural connectivity (extant bonding social capital) with ethnic groups on relatively fluid borders, enable many refugees (especially youth) to migrate to informal sector employment either in the host urban centres or abroad to north africa, the middle east and europe. ironically, eritrean interviewees complained as to why they were not receiving the media attention that syrian refugees were getting, despite their plight. it was observed that donor governments tend to see their situation as a bilateral issue between eritrea and ethiopia. however more recently, boat sinking and loss of life in the mediterranean, has featured prominently in the news and many of the refugees involved are eritrean. in contrast, the somali refugees in dollo ado are primarily fleeing armed conflict, environmental scarcity and drought heightened food insecurity in their south central somalian region of origin. the complaints and demands mount in dollo ado camps, ranging from increased risk of malaria and the excessive pressures on basic services of health and education, to few recreational outlets for youth, no ambulance for emergency evacuation of pregnant women, insufficient feeding centres, shortage of firewood and no access to the national electric grid as an alternative energy source. clearly this is an extremely poor and marginalised region of ethiopia even without the additional burden of the somali refugees on the local environment and economy. on the one hand, it appears that environmental threats, primarily the cutting of trees for cooking (competition for scarce energy resources) and over grazing (livelihood contestation), are significant concerns of the dollo ado host community. on the other hand, the somali refugees are also welcomed by the local ethiopian somali community. this is demonstrated in the labour and trade exchange between the hosting community and the camp refugees. it was reported that the refugees often provide day labour to the riverine ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 285 irrigated fields of the host community in exchange for cash and food to supplement their diet in a sharecropper arrangement. the host community values the market opportunities which refugees with cash present when buying local food and other basic needs. having noted the competition and cooperation between host communities and refugees above, refugees stated several times that life was better in the camps than in somalia where there was “nothing to go back to”, especially in terms of livelihood opportunities, security and basic services such as education. in fact, it was reported that cash remittances apparently are actually flowing in the opposite direction from the refugee camps to points in somalia. in sum, the presence of refugees has had a mixed impact – some negative and some positive – on the local economies. while the local economies of the refugee hosting areas have been primed by refugee consumption and the spending of international and national agencies, the increased food and fuel prices and competition for firewood and water (i.e. market distortions) are negatively affecting the poorer members of the host communities. while, to some extent, members of the host communities are benefiting from basic services offered to refugees (e.g. health, education and water), there remains an enormous need to extend basic services in these very poor, underserved border areas of the host country. both areas (shire and dollo ado) have enormous service delivery needs and a clear potential for growth and development provided that investments are made to create livelihoods opportunities for the refugees and host communities in a dual targeting approach. while in gambela, the region of ethiopia hosting south sudanese refugees, it was reported that displacement  for two interesting studies on cash transfers and vouchers in ethiopia see: jeanmartin bauer, aschalew feleke and kedir shemsu. 2013 ‘markets and cash transfers in ethiopia: insights from an initial assessment’. addis ababa: the world food program. it appears that markets can respond to cash and voucher transfers, although a mix of in kind food and cash-vouchers is advocated in the transitional near term. also see, ‘assessment of financial access in hilloween and kobe refugee camps in dollo ado area of southwest ethiopia’. 2013 icos consulting plc, funded by ilo. the latter study maps the informal and formal financial service providers in the refugee area of dolo ado as a prelude to enhancing access to micro credit, related to strengthening livelihood opportunities. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 286 is mainly caused by internal conflict created by the government program of ‘villagisation’, which is tantamount to a tactical land grabbing mechanism. the predominantly somali refugee camp in ali addeh, djibouti (about 14,000) is ‘prima face’ a semi-arid incubator of economic despair and social exclusion bordering ethiopia, djibouti and somalia. when interviewed, the camp youth requested skill training and credential verification to make them more attractive to the middle east labour market. they typically migrate through the ports of djibouti to yemen, the sinai and points beyond, assisted by an informal industry of middlemen traffickers, brokers and boatmen. the cultural connectivity (extant bonding social capital) with ethnic groups on relatively fluid borders enables many refugees (especially youth) to migrate to informal sector employment either in the host urban centres and/or abroad to north africa, the middle east and europe. they leave behind the old and very young in a humanitarian industry protected welfare environment for the most part devoid of economic opportunity and consumptive power, short of a few small businesses serving the camp population and the remittances sent back to the camps by ‘overseas refugee workers’. it should be noted that with the growing conflict in yemen, there has now been a growing reverse flow of somalis back to djibouti. the refugee camps in shire (about 67,520) and ali addeh (about 14,000) are ‘de facto’ reserve labour pools for the middle east in particular. the eritrean and somali refugee camps may be ‘protracted’ wards of the un, but the people, particularly youth, are highly mobile in search of more open labour market opportunities. in short, while the camps have become the outward symbol of the ‘protection’ industry, their inhabitants, particularly in shire and ali addeh are on the move, relegating camps to ‘transit points’ for the young and able and un subsidised social safety nets for the old, infirm and very young left behind (humphris 2013; meknonnen and estfanos 2014). kenya: refugee camp or ‘de facto’ free trade zone (dadaab)? informal labour exchange and trade between displaced and host communities is a common phenomenon in the hoa as already noted above in the case of dollo ado, ethiopia. refugee camps, such as dadaab in kenya with a population of some 475,000 and dollo ado with over 205,000 refugees receiving remittances and wanting to supplement income and diet, represent market opportunities for surrounding host communities. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 287 there is growing informal trade in goods and services beyond the refugee and host communities in dadaab (kenya) as somali traders move goods from dubai through the port of kismayo (somalia) back and forth to the camp and its surrounding environment, ‘de facto’ relegating the camp to a tax free economic investment and free trade zone. it is common knowledge among kenyans that dadaab refugee camp is the best place to buy imported tax-free cars, scooters and electronic goods, among other commodities. the somali refugee trade links extend to turkana camps (there is even a thriving somali operated bus line between turkana and dadaab camps) spanning from the northeast to the southwest kenya and into neighbouring county markets. does economics trump ethnicity or vice-versa? kenya in kenya, the kakuma (turkana) camp, of mainly south sudanese mixed with somali, there is an absence of cultural affinity with the hosting turkana community. tensions run high between the host community and the refugee camp, especially around grazing and water use in a resource scarce environment. this situation is unlike in dollo ado, where the cultural fit between the ethiopian somali host community and somali refugees helps to mediate the economic contestation over scarce resources. in addition to the contestation over scarce environment resources (water and firewood in particular), the cultural conflict between turkana peoples and south sudanese refugees does not encourage social cohesion between refugees and hosts. as reported in focal group interviews, the turkana feel the sudanese look down upon them. they find sudanese refugee graveyards and dumps amusing as they handle death, burial and waste differently. they see their very way of life threatened, especially among their youth who come into contact with the refugees. south africa in south africa, while not normally considered in discussions and analysis of the causes and impacts of forced displacement due to armed conflict in the hoa, one cannot but mention the recent events resulting from hoa displacement, particularly involving somali businessmen. the cape province, has had its own unique experience with displaced persons and host community conflict dynamics with somali, zimbabwean and other refugee populations. violent xenophobic responses to refugees in south africa due to ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 288 competition for scarce jobs, wage distortion and rent inflation in the local economy are well documented (charman and piper 2012). recent surveys in south africa reported that over 45% of the respondents felt that “foreigners should not be allowed to live in south africa because they take jobs and benefits away from south africans” while 40% think that there should be strict restrictions placed on foreigners seeking entry into the country and 24% felt foreigners should be completely prohibited entry (maaure 2013). south africa once hosted the largest number of asylum seekers in the world. akin to uganda’s generous policy and legal framework, under the postapartheid refugee and migrant legal reforms, groups such as the somalis are granted refugee status with freedom of movement, work permits and access to basic services. while successful somali entrepreneurs become symbols of envy and frustration among the south african poor in informal settlements, they remain relatively invisible to south african and migrant elites living in secure gated communities serviced by private security personnel that are now estimated to be double the size of south african’s police force (abdi 2013). more recently, the government has introduced a number of restrictive practices including closing down some refugee reception offices. overall the number of asylum seekers has decreased. in 2008, when similar xenophobic violence erupted against south african non-nationals resulting in some 62 deaths and 35,000 displaced persons, the then aids activist movement, treatment action campaign (tac), shifted from advocating for hiv victims’ rights to fighting for refugees’ rights, spanning multiple human rights issues, activist networks and constituencies. this movement evolved into the social justice coalition (sic) in the western cape, a community based civil society organisation addressing a broader range of human rights issues. then, even the terminology utilised by the state regarding refugees talked in terms of “temporary shelter” and not “refugee camps” per se. as robins noted, “refugees were increasingly depicted by government as illegal, criminal, troublesome, ungrateful and undeserving” (robins 2009). in durban, gauteng and cape town, south africa, both in 2008 and more recently in 2015, there have been violent attacks by south africans of zulu  the refugee act requires 180 days for the determination of status but, in fact, asylum seekers spend years waiting for a determination, finding it difficult to find stable work in the interim (passop 2013). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 289 decent on migrants from somalia, ethiopia, mozambique and zimbabwe. the department of home affairs reports about 70,000 new asylum claims in 2013 from over 80 countries worldwide. among these, some 9,000 are from ethiopia and somalia alone (pugh 2014). the outward cry of local south africans in the townships accusing african “foreigners” of taking their jobs in an environment of high youth unemployment, has led to violent attacks and calls for them to return to their home countries. somalis and others in informal settlements with limited access to the formal labour market, manage small stores (spazas). their success becomes a symbol and target of south africans they serve in these “no go zones” where crime, poverty and unemployment reign (abdi 2013). mistrust and resentment loom large as refugees are stigmatised as criminals and bearers of disease. local politicians such as zulu king ghatilensi have used them as a political mobilising pawn. as dr. roni amit from the university of witwatersrand has recently noted, “the department of home affairs (dha) in south africa has adopted a much expanded assumption of illegality. the dha often acts outside of the legal framework under the guise of security. migration has been framed as a security issue” (amit 2014). the impact of forced displacement on the host or receptor communities is complex and manifold. clearly the clash of cultures in natal, south africa and turkana, kenya discussed above can lead to violent conflict, but this is mostly a result and not a cause of violence emanating from the economic competition for scarce resources and the increasing class divisions among the poor themselves. in south africa, it may not be cultural or racial bias per se (although ethnicity has become a mobilising factor for recent violent attacks on somali traders) but rather the pooling of resources and sale of goods and services at lower prices and subsequent local competition, that is resented by some fellow africans in the south african townships in particular. the recent violence perpetrated by poor south africans upon the successful somali immigrant shop owners in marginalised townships and use of the term ‘afrophobia’ as opposed to ‘xenophobia’ in characterising events on the ground, are subtle but clear indicators that economics trumps ethnicity as the core motivator of violence. poor governance can also play a role. the weakening of the judiciary and dominance of the anc executive committee has led to conditions in “lindela” ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 290 or transit camps for deportees as tolerable and a weigh station as they are now being rounded up and reported in “operation fiela” following recent clashes. it has also been further argued that post-apartheid xenophobia is a result of the merging of the politics of resistance and emerging state or nationalistic politics in the attempt to define citizenship and a new south african identity formation (neocosmos 2006).some neighbouring countries such as malawi have initiated repatriation programs with some 3,200 malawians having fled south africa in the wake of the violence. however it is reported that, given the few economic opportunities in their home country, there is now a steady stream of malawians returning to south africa despite their fears and risks (masina 2015). the impact of the interplay between economics and ethnicity market distortions the dominant impact in all these hoa settings is the creation of market distortions particularly in prices, wages and rents. host communities have seen the price of charcoal in dollo ado go up almost four-fold from 40 bir to 150 bir per bag and a sack of sugar from go up nearly three-fold from 300 bir to 800 bir. refugees are willing to work for a margin of what local wages had been beforehand, thus perceived to be taking away rightful or entitled jobs from host locals. the competition for limited social services (especially health and education) also becomes a point of contention. host community health centres become overcrowded and under served and schools suddenly have excessive enrolments with children often speaking a totally different language, thus challenging teachers and the systems to adjust.  neocosmos (2006) notes that post-independence africa may have been ‘deradicalised’ but not ‘democratised’ with the advent of ‘africanisation’, now called ‘affirmative action.’ this relationship has been further forged in state public-private partnerships of the more recent ‘black economic empowerment’ movement, culminating in the post-apartheid process of ‘national building’. this, in term, required ‘national unity’ which entailed a political process of common identity and legal rights, duties and benefits (access to credit, social services, etc.) embedded in social relationships that distinguished hosts or natives from strangers or foreigners. the establishment of bantustans was merely a mechanism for social and labour control and provided a ready labour reserve, particularly for white capital formation such as mining. also see m. mamdani. 1996. citizen and subject: contemporary africa and the legacy of late colonialism. london: james currey. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 291 basic service overload refugees tend to attract additional social services such as health and education to previously underserved, marginalised border regions. however, the perception that services only benefit the displaced as in turkana, becomes reason for envy and local conflict. where governments such as uganda’s are attuned to this unintentional threat to local stability, they have been quick to enhance service provision to the local host community. ensuring some degree of basic services balance and social cohesion between camps and host communities is a major challenge in this situation. this is particularly important where new cultural groups such as dinka and newar are coming into madi and acholi areas. environmental degradation another major issue emerging in dollo ado, kakuma and other refugee camp areas in the hoa is environmental degradation due to energy production, particularly wood-source fuels. this was also an obvious outcome in turkana and dadaab. in many cases, an equilibrium or accommodation short of integration has been achieved, where the incentives to return diminish in the face of continued and unpredictable insecurity of places of origin.  weakened social networks and uneven access to information family and social networks have been weakened as a result of protracted displacement to a diversity of locations. this has resulted in poor information, particularly on conditions of return. it has been reported in one return survey of somali refugees in kenya, that “only an estimated 18% of refugees have contact with people in their area of origin” (iom and unhcr 2014). the volatile mix of economic contestation and ethnic mobilisation violent conflict in the hoa countries and beyond (having effects even in south africa) is a manifestation of social and economic grievances framed by exclusion and marginalisation associated with deep poverty, vulnerability,  while not discussed in depth here, providing mechanisms for dealing with trauma (particularly among unaccompanied minors) and dispute resolution between displaced and hosting communities are also important new development challenges. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 292 constrained socio-economic mobility and contestation over scarce resources including jobs. this contestation manifests itself in violent ethnic mobilisation. clearly economics trumps ethnicity as the deep structural cause of the violence. however, ethnicity is the major mobilising tool. the need to be cognizant of inadvertently enabling market distortions in prices and wages of local goods and services, creating perceived if not real social service imbalances, hastening environmental degradation and growing ethnic conflict, are major displacement issues. while economic contestation is at the root of conflict between the displaced and hosts, ethnicity is more often than not a mobilising feature for the perpetration of violence. in sum, for most refugee and host community encounters, the degree of ethnic or cultural fit between the displaced population and the host community is a key variable in shaping the degree of receptivity and non-violent accommodation. government legal and policy responses: acts of fear or necessity? the legal frameworks and policies of hosting countries regarding the displaced revolve around five main issues: (1) access to basic services; (2) the right to work; (3) the ease of mobility; (4) the ownership of property; and (5) a clear path to the choices of citizenship, return or resettlement. the degree to which host governments subscribe to international law and norms related to these issues is of critical importance to shaping durable solutions for the displaced. although governments are signatory to various conventions and acts effecting the hoa over the years (including the 1951 refugee convention and the 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees, the 1969 organization of african unity (oau) refugee convention, the 1998 un guiding principles on internal displacement, the 2006 refugee act, the 2009 kampala convention, and the 2012 uganda refugee regulations) they have not always been sufficiently translated into effective program implementation due often to a mix of political will and local capacity. uganda on the one extremity, uganda (now hosting over 350,000 displaced: 188,000 congolese in the south and midwest and 154,000 south sudanese in adjumani, arua and kiryandongo districts) has a progressive legal policy that provides gazette plots in settlements through which refugees can farm the ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 293 land and enter into lease contracts (unhcr 2015a). this ‘out of camp’ approach has generally resulted in a vibrant trade and exchange between the hosting communities and the refugees, as discussed earlier. the government and the unhcr have been taking strategic steps to strengthen the resilience and self-reliance of the refugees and hosting areas since the 1999 self reliance strategy (srs) for refugee hosting areas, continuing with the 2006 development assistance for refugees (dar) and imbedding a refugee settlement transformative agenda (sta) in the national development plan ii (2015-2020). these steps have culminated in the refugee and host populations empowerment (rehope) program that aims to bridge humanitarian and development assistance in self-reliant and resilience strengthening actions (unhcr 2015b). this innovative program and its limitations will be discussed further in an analysis of donor responses below. in addition to providing user land rights to refugees, such programs are included in national development plans, as uganda is now doing in the northern uganda development plan (ndp ii). this ensures attention to the issue of displacement as well as budget to support the design and implementation of plans and programs. kenya on the other extremity, despite developing a draft policy and refugee act in 2012, kenya has made little progress in moving the policy beyond a draft stage and implementing of the act itself. in effect, it has framed the displacement issue through a security lens. it has relied heavily on the conventional camp approach with large, tightly controlled encampments in dadaab (estimated to house about 350,000 refugees) and kakuma (housing an estimated 120,000 displaced). the dadaab camp is effectively the third largest city in kenya. work permits and freedom of mobility are out of reach. tensions between the camps and surrounding host communities are apparent with frequent incidents. one interviewee characterised the kenyan camps as “open prisons.” the security incidents at westgate mall and garissa school referred to above led to “operation watch”, a security sweep of urban areas throughout the country to round up somali displaced and either return them to the camps or repatriate them to somalia itself. in 2013, the kenyan high court ruled against such actions and a tripartite agreement establishing a legal framework for voluntary returns was signed between unhcr, and the ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 294 kenyan and somali governments. this has placed kenya in the international limelight and under the scrutiny of various human rights groups. voluntary repatriation has been encouraged but there are few takers given the insecurity in areas of return in somalia. ethiopia ethiopia has traditionally sought a balance between managing tightly controlled camps on its borders with somalia and acknowledging large historical somali ghetto areas, especially in addis. it maintains an encampment policy that requires refugees to obtain permits to leave the camps. however, in august 2010 the government introduced a new policy permitting eritrean refugees to reside outside camps if self-sufficient or supported. with a more “open camp” policy toward the eritrean situation, given the cultural fit between refugees and receptor communities, there are higher rates of inter-marriage and integration than usual. on the border areas, given the cultural consistency between somali ethiopians in the south, eritrean ethiopians in the northeast and sudanese ethiopians in the eastern gambela region, there is thriving labour exchange and trade in goods and services between the camps and neighbouring communities. the barbera corridor between ethiopia and somalia has become somewhat of a thriving trade route between the countries. south africa south africa’s legal and policy framework has increasingly come into conflict with its quest for democratisation. the ‘aliens control act’ of 1995 basically negated rights of immigrants, particularly the freedom to trade and work, treating them as illegal and criminal by confiscating their assets, harassing and deporting them. following on the heals of the 1998 refugee act, the draft ‘white paper on international migration’ of 1999 used rising unemployment as a means of discouraging immigration and enforcing the aliens control act. the only concession was to the mining sector when it became a bill in 2000. it was reported in a recent round table discussion on xenophobia in south  see the 1998 human rights watch report on ‘xenophobia in south africa’, documenting the inkata movement and buthelezi’s inflammatory statement blaming crime, unemployment and spread of diseases on ‘foreigners’. hrp was later critised for prioritising illegal aliens over the then 50 percent of south africans living in poverty. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 295 africa that since the 2008 events there have been over 350 deaths and only a single prosecution of the perpetrators in afrophobic related incidents (amit et al. 2015). clearly failures of the rule of law, particularly evidenced in the slow pace and backlog of the judiciary and the late actions of the south african police force, serve as a de facto signal of impunity for such criminal acts. djibouti despite hosting a large camp in ali addeeh on its southern border and growing displaced shantytown areas in djiboutiville itself, djibouti does not have an explicit refugee law or policy. the general displacement trend is to use djibouti as more of a ‘transit point” than a “final destination”. of course, given its limited availability of arable land job opportunities, one would expect this pattern. interviewed youth in ali addeeh described a situation whereby the elderly and very young in the camp are supported by the generous safety net of the international community while the young and able migrate back and forth to yemen and elsewhere to work and send back remittances to buttress consumption in the camps. here, economic opportunity, conflict induced insecurity and climate change merge to form a constellation of interrelated factors driving ‘mixed migration’. puntland, somaliland and somalia puntland adopted policy guidelines on idps in 2012, and somaliland developed a draft policy framework in 2014. however, the implementation is slow and the jury is out on whether the capacity and resources will enable effectiveness. somalia itself adopted a policy framework on displacement and an agency for refugees and idps in december 2014. the new deal compact, supported by the international community in 2014, presents an opportunity to address the issue of durable solutions. however, it is hobbled by a weak state that is critical to implementation. the “warehousing approach” to refugees, registering, feeding and protecting them, comes face to face with the desire to move and integrate elsewhere, be it in the hosting environment or beyond yemen and saudi arabia. the environmental and labour market limitations of djibouti typically require moving beyond to the gulf states. an interesting finding in djibouti was the desire for youth looking to migrate for jobs to have access to better labour market information as well as some kind of skill certification. here, ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 296 perhaps a stronger vocational counselling element might be introduced especially for youth in the camps. international and regional policies and programs donors exhibit a range of responses to the crisis situation in the hoa. on the one hand, unhcr has moved considerably from a “camp management” approach to a more “open camp” approach as mentioned above, acknowledging that the care and maintenance in camps is neither a sustainable nor realistic solution given the numbers of displaced now already outside camps in peri-urban informal settlements or on the move through neighbouring host countries. the operative donor language is “building resilience and self-reliance” which translates into providing a basic safety net of transitional food, shelter and basic services while enabling skill enhancement for onward labour market migration and employment elsewhere. as discussed above, in the uganda case, these steps have culminated in unhcr’s flagship initiativethe refugee and host populations empowerment (rehope) program that aims to bridge humanitarian and development assistance in self-reliance and resilience strengthening actions (unhcr 2015b). its focus is on integrated programming combining legal advice, service delivery, livelihood support and giving voice to refugees in the planning and programming process in a holistic manner. the approach differentiates between rural and urban livelihood support, combining access to land, technology and markets for the rural displaced with skill enhancement, entrepreneurship, business assistance and access to credit for urban livelihoods. this innovative and comprehensive approach acknowledges that the old “camp-based” approach of prolonged humanitarian assistance is not sustainable, especially under conditions of protracted displacement that have become the norm in the hoa. however, as mentioned earlier, the rehope program does have limitations, most important being that the insufficient amount of land allocated limits farming to subsistence agriculture and prevents any real transformation through mechanised agriculture and agro  considering livelihood, fao has been studying areas of origin, travel routes and hosting areas of settlement, intervening to improve water and heard management, providing market information and restocking as a means of prevention. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 297 industry in these areas. a second gap is the need for improved community policing and access to justice, perhaps by financing mobile courts and trained local mediators. finally, there remains the issue of balanced service delivery with regards to classroom and teacher disparities. some even argue that there is a need to go beyond primary education provision and offer more scholarships to refugee children for secondary education in order to promote social mobility and break the vicious cycle of displacement. unhcr’s support for scholarships for eritrean displaced is an interesting twist and a relevant development intervention. also in due to the large number of unaccompanied minors, the camps are forced to create “community kitchens” for feeding (estimated feeding of 1000 children per day) and unique walled shelter areas that fence in unaccompanied minors for joint supervision by so called “house mothers”. in effect, in the words of the unhcr regional director, “the unhcr program here is creating communities not camps as such.” an interesting unspoken tension between host governments and the displaced is how to manage the subtle political balance between wanting refugees to be self-reliant, but not so progressive that they compete with and monopolise local community resources. indeed there is always the lurking issue of moral hazard, as successful pilot integration schemes such as rehope run the risk of attracting more refugees. in cooperation with regional economic communities (particularly inter governmental agency for development (igad) and the east african community (eca)), the african union (au) has established the african peace and security architecture (aspa) to deal with prevention, management and resolution of conflicts. in this context, it has set up a continental early warning system (cews) a standby security force (asf), a panel of wise men and a peace fund (pf) to support humanitarian assistance, peace-making and peace building efforts in the region. these organisations have focused on mediation and conflict resolution for the most part, bringing parties together to establish peace and assisting enforcement through peacekeeping missions such as the african union assistance mission to somalia (amisom) in somalia. the african union boarder program (aubp) has taken the additional step of developing cross-border services, such as health and customs control, to facilitate the movement of people, goods and services (economic exchanges). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 298 the underlying theme is to strengthen the governance capacity of these hereto-fore ungoverned and relatively ungovernable border areas. igad has also sought to facilitate dialogue on transport and export in the extractive industry, technical assistance for regional environmental standards, skills development as well as conflict mediation. its migration policy framework is an effort to harmonise various regional migration policies, strengthen intergovernmental coordination, build capacity and enhance community involvement. there have also been efforts to collaborate on regional integration with the african development bank (afdb) around infrastructure through the establishment of a multi-donor trust fund managed by igad. the world bank’s operational policy 8.10 for emergency lending and 2.30 for conflict and development are the key policy instruments enabling a quick and relevant response to displacement situations. the main regional approach in the hoa thus far has been to restructure or amend existing projects. the primary example is the hoa regional pastoral livelihoods resilience project (rplrp). this operates cross border and is being implemented in collaboration with igad. it seeks to strengthen igad’s conflict early warning and response mechanism (cewarn) with additional resources, equipment and training (world bank 2014). on the analytical side, the world bank conducted an initial study on the impact of the dadaab refugee camp on the host community environment in kenya (drc 2010). a second similar study is underway for the impact of the kakuma refugee camp in northwest kenya on the surrounding turkana host community. the world bank’s third northern uganda social action project (nusap iii) currently under design will seek to address displacement challenges impacting refugee host areas. other relevant instruments such as the third peace and development plan can be targeted to include refugee-affected areas, with particular concern for women and children. it is a planning and finance framework with a clear programming stream through nusap iii and provides a framework for community monitoring results. it is innovative in that it includes community participatory appraisal processes, disaster or catastrophic risk insurance, micro credit and social accountability mechanisms. in addition, the world bank is exploring extending the  cewarn has an estimated annual budget of $1.5 million funded by member states, the usaid, giz and several scandinavian countries in a joint financial arrangement (jfa) facility. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 299 government assisted conditional cash transfer program to displaced through the productive safety net program (psnp), shifting the emphasis from a dependency-producing provision of food toward increased self-reliance and return through livelihood and related skills development. it is clear that issues of environmental degradation can be addressed by providing alternative energy and fuel sources, such as wind farms, solar power, natural gas and surface water conservation. the world bank’s horn of africa study analyses the displacement issue within the larger development and reconstruction analysis of the hoa (world bank 2014b; world bank 2015b). in addition to the above key international actors, the islamic development bank (idb) has recently approved a project in southern ethiopia to assist areas where somali refugees are about to return. the danish international development agency (danida), and the danish and norwegian refugee councils (drc and nrc, respectively) have also been actively analysing somalia context and piloting small recovery initiatives including provision of communal water points, skill enhancement and profiling needs assessment (bryld and kamau 2013).finally, the european commission has programs targeting both refugees and host communities with a security accent on access to justice, mobile courts and policing solutions. the search for a new paradigm: from care and maintenance to resilience and self-reliance given the now “protracted” nature of the displacement, the old encampment humanitarian policies of care and maintenance are now giving way to a rethink from a development perspective by governments and donors alike. identifying the “development deficits” or gaps (such as security, livelihood, conflict resolution and human trafficking) between the displaced and the host communities is an essential first step. targeting the most vulnerable among the displaced, integrating them into domestically provided social services rather than stand alone idp programs and extending the local social safety net where feasible, are priorities. enhancing “mental mobility” or a change in mind-set among the displaced is a necessary adjunct to social and economic access and mobility. the “dependency syndrome” engendered by old warehousing approaches is now being transformed. as betts et. al. (2014) have observed, refugee communities exhibit similar features of normal economic systems, that is, “they (refugee communities) ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 300 engage in production, consumption, exchange, entrepreneurship, and the development of financial and capital markets” (betts et al 2014). what appears to be the determining factor in the success or failure of refugee selfinitiatives in the economic sphere, is the openness of government policies regarding property rights or user rights, the right to work and the freedom of movement. as mentioned above, uganda not only provides land for agriculture, but freedom of movement to trade between the camp in kyrangwali settlement, kampala, arua, gul, and even beyond uganda to tanzania and south sudan. while not without its limitations, uganda’s approach provides a tipping point to influence neighbouring country’s policies on displacement and migration. to the extent that livelihood programs and some form of user or property rights complement a transitional safety net of basic service provision, at minimum, a limited opening for some form of “transitional integration” within local economies is possible. however, where refugees are seen as distorting the local economic wages, prices and rents and competing for meagre job opportunities with local communities, there has been pushback and resistance by hosting governments and communities’ members. the degree and intensity of such local pushback is only moderated by the cultural and ethnic fit between the refugees and the receptor communities, as in the case of eritreans in northeast ethiopia and earlier discussed somali ethiopians bordering southwest mandera triangle with somalia and kenya. to further illustrate the ethnic reach across refugee hosting environments, one needs only to see the transport links established by somali bus and minivan companies between kakuma and dadaab camps in kenya. again, ethnic and clan bonded social capital networks trump geopolitical borders. of course the flow of remittances, especially through the somali hahwala system of informal banking, helps to fuel production and trade wherever somali live and work. the formula of refugee business success is rounded out by access to satellite information and communication technology (ict) and internet connectivity of mobile phones, along with financial access and networked social capital, human capital skills and host government policy space. betts et al (2014) reported that over 66% of the displaced in kyrangali settlement and 96% of those in kampala have mobile phones. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 301 clearly, further investigation into a new paradigm that emphasises a more open public-private sector system of managing refugee flows is warranted. this is particularly evident when balanced against the risks of conventional methods that encourage conflict by painting the displaced into corners of insecurity and local competition. this brings one back to the trade-offs between the durable solutions of integration, resettlement and repatriation within the overall framework of open and closed camp mentality. addressing borderland push and pull factors addressing both push and pull factors in the camps and prospective areas of return in an integrated ‘holistic’ manner is key to achieving durable solutions. here, the link or bridge between humanitarian and development approaches is critical. the push factors entail skill and self-reliance development of refugees while in the camps, while the pull factors are security, basic service access and property rights in the areas of return. the unhcr, partnered with world bank, may wish to extend or shift its traditional safety net approach from a dependency-producing safety net (providing food, shelter and basic services), to a “transitional safety net”, emphasising livelihood interventions, mitigating the dependency mind-set and, thus, preparing the displaced with skills for strengthening self-reliance and positioning for eventual economic reintegration upon return. despite the de facto cross-border trade (human and capital mobility) among the displacement affected countries in the hoa, there remains an enormous need for economic and social infrastructure addressing environmental degradation, physical infrastructure and job creation in both receipt and return areas. a cross-border regional integrated area development approach would stimulate the development of the border areas in the three countries and facilitate regional trade, stability and return. merging stabilisation, security and development would provide the bridge linking humanitarian protection to building resilience and socio-economic development. it could be truly transformational, going beyond palliative transitional solutions or holding patterns for the extreme poor (refugees and idps) living in dire, uncertain conditions. the location of the camps, mainly in marginalised border areas, may ironically be a silver lining. they have shined a “spot light” on the unequal development in receptor countries and here-to-fore marginalised border ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 302 areas. so much so that the camps may, in the long run, attract greater public investment and attendant state budgetary resources, particularly towards improving infrastructure and basic services, in areas that may otherwise may have continued to be neglected. in the ethiopia, kenya and somalia border area called the madera triangle, a cross-border regional integrated area development approach could address the refugee impact on host communities as well as the pull factors for refugees in a comprehensive manner, benefiting local communities in ethiopia, kenya and somalia. it also fits into the decentralisation and federalism thrust of all three countries. the displacement situation in dollop ado provides a great opportunity for such a regional cross-border displacement project. for the refugees in dollo ado, return to their areas of origin in south central region of somalia is the only feasible long-term solution. lack of security, poor access to basic services and limited livelihood opportunities, were identified in focus group interviews as the key constraints to their return. while uncertain security is a concern, contrary to conventional wisdom, the somali refugees have been willing to take risks and undertake itinerant farming, moving back and forth between refugee camps on one side of the border and farming and herding in communities of origin on the other side. as indicated above, studying and understanding these coping livelihood modalities would be critical to building on extant refugee capacity and ingenuity. such a development intervention could address both push and pull factors necessary for a durable regional solution to the protracted displacement crisis. partnering for peace the au supports inter-continental policy collaboration emanating from such forums and programs as the “kampala convention” and the “african union border program” (aubp). the objective of the aubp is to promote regional coordination and cooperation, build capacity and enhance community involvement. population movement is not a new phenomenon in the hoa. displacement due to violence does not occur in isolation from these seasonal migratory and climatic cycles and trends. with reference to pastoralists in particular, there is a need for a regional approach to facilitate and protect pastoralist livelihoods. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 303 infrastructure, basic service access, training, capacity building and microfinance are a key constellation of investments that, if done in an integrated area development manner in areas such as the madera triangle or the turkana area bordering south sudan, uganda and kenya, could form the critical mass necessary to transform the economies of these marginalised areas. this would promote regional development and refugee integration and reintegration in a single stroke. of course, this integrated area development approach could benefit from increased donor coordination perhaps through the formation of a joint displacement and development secretariat, a shared action plan and a special multi-donor displacement fund. harmonisation of country policies and programs such innovative institutional initiatives as discussed would have to be complemented by country policy and legal reforms that accent key elements: (i) some form or path of citizen rights short of outright citizenship (some form of legal recognition); (ii) property rights or long term land use rights; (iii) the freedom of movement; (iv) the right to work or work permits; (v) and skill verification. the african union border program (aubp) is one example of bringing together various actors in a coordinated integrated regional development and conflict prevention management initiative. another idea is to complement these efforts at coordination and local regional capacity building with development of special boarder area economic zones that can attract investment with favoured capital access and tax policies, along with infrastructure connectivity. in many ways, as presented earlier, the dadaab refugee camp has actually evolved into a de facto “free trade zone”. however, to enable such integrated cross border development to take place these areas, the displaced located in them need to be given voice and factored into national, regional and local planning and budgeting processes. in the case of somalia, one might envisage this in contrast to conventional top down, statecentric development, as the state is being rebuilt or reconstructed from the periphery to the centre in a loosely constructed federal system.  there is a history of such successful integrated area development projects in the 1960s, such as the camilla project in pakistan to the mekong river development project in southeast asia. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 304 working together, the undp, wfp, fao and unhcr have a somali initiative, “drought pdna assessment”, focusing on commercialisation of pastoralism, basic services and local capacity building. the overall program is multi-sector, focusing on livelihood development, community policing, food security through a mix of food and cash transfer to stimulate an agricultural supply response, alternative fuel sources, environmental protection and basic service delivery. analytical work is also underway on water reservoir and irrigation development. the overarching aim is the normalisation of refugee life. bilateral donors such as turkish international cooperation assistance (tica) continue to provide humanitarian relief, while usaid and dfid are taking cash based and market oriented approaches. here, the radical perspective of seeing dadaab as an economic powerhouse in that region of kenya, meshes nicely with treating it as a de facto free trade zone with well developed market reach into kenya, somalia and other countries. from shock absorbers to change agents: developing the borderlands as noted earlier, policies addressing forced displacement are based on a continuum in which the displaced are perceived as a threat or risk on the one hand, a burden somewhere in the middle, and an asset on the other end of the continuum. from a prevention perspective, in the end, there is little doubt that stemming forced migration at its source by improving security, governance and livelihood opportunities in countries of origin is key to preventing and managing the displacement challenge. as discussed above, regional integrated development can convert fragile border areas, which now serve as shock absorbers for conflicts within these fragile states, to prosperous and open avenues of cross border trade and development. it is clear that policies in relatively authoritarian democratic regimes such as kenya and south africa can lead to extreme practices of state technocratic or managerial xenophobia and discrimination in programs that advocate rounding up refugees and deporting, incarcerating and/or returning them to camps such as ‘usalama watch’ and ‘operation fiela’. here the concept of  lebogang seale’s (2015) quotes anc secretary general gwede mantashe: “south africa can’t allow illegal migrants to roam around committing crime”. in defense of ‘operation fiela’, seale further quotes mantashe: “you can’t say the state must do nothing, must allow illegal immigrants, must allow undocumented people in society, ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 305 state sovereignty comes face to face with the protection of human rights. unfortunately the recent experience of “afrophobia” in south africa is not a question of individual rights but one of national politics. guarding against this outcome would be necessary. next steps: the alignment of durable solutions in summary, the alignment of durable solutions to address both push and pull factors in a decentralised integrated local area development approach encompasses the following main actions: (a) harmonising country policy and legal frameworks to ensure that there is consistent and regulated freedom of movement, ability to work and clear identity documentation or papers. (b) including refugees in national and local development plans, as uganda is now doing in the northern uganda development plan (nudp iii), to not only grant attention to the issue of displacement but also budget to support the design and implementation of such plans and programs. (c) creating livelihood opportunities through combing skill development, agriculture and sme investments and employment generation. (d) mitigating environmental deterioration by addressing the need for alternative cooking fuel and employment through labour intensive reforestation. (e) strengthening social infrastructure and addressing imbalances in access through the provision of schools, health centres, safe water and sanitation facilities (unicef-somali regional state of ethiopia, bureau of finance and economic development 2013). (f) promoting connectivity by enhancing basic transport, energy and telecommunications infrastructure in underserved, marginalised border areas. it must leave unlicensed firearms in society… being dictated by ngos on crime fighting strategies puts south africa at risk of having a mini sate within a state.” ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 306 (g) providing conflict management, mediation and conflict resolution capacity through training community members and leaders. (h) addressing the social psychological and basic needs of the most vulnerable, particularly unaccompanied minors through specially targeted and customised programs. (i) ensuring donor and ngo coordination and financing to provide a critical mass of technical and financial support in order to enable the capacitation of local authorities and close the gaps between policy and implementation in addressing the needs of the displaced. finally, as one ethiopian minister interviewed astutely observed, “we don’t need another study, we need to mobilise resources for regional infrastructure and connectivity through social and economic development.” this will require political will as well as economic resources. acknowledgments the author would like to thank the generous assistance of the stellenbosch institute for advanced study (stias), 1900 jonkershoek road, stellenbosch 7600, south africa, for supporting his visiting fellowship. the views expressed in this paper are solely the responsibility of the author. references abdi, c. ‘xenophobia and its discontents in south africa’. aljazeera. (doha, june 18 2013). amit, r. ‘expanding illegality: the limits of south africa’s migration management regime’. conference report from the international conference on migration in africa. cape town, 3 december 2014. amit, r. osman, m. and meskele, e. 2015. ‘tackling the scourge of xenophobia in south africa’. notes from panel discussion. center for conflict resolution, cape town, 25 may, 2015. betts, a. bloom, l. kaplan, j. & omata, n. 2014. ‘refugee economies: rethinking popular assumptions’. england: humanitarian innovation project university of oxford. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 307 boehler, p and pecanha, s. ‘the global struggle to respond to the worst refugee crisis in generations’. new york times (new york, june 8 2015). bryld e. and kamau, c. 2013. ‘the political economy of forced displacement in somalia’. washington, d. c.: gpfd, world bank. center for conflict, security and development (ccsd), 2014. ‘horn of africa regional fragility assessment’. nairobi: world bank. charman, a. and piper, l. 2012. ‘xenophobia, criminality and violent entrepreneurship: violence against somali shopkeepers in delft south, cape town, south africa’. south african review of sociology (43)2. danish refugee council (drc). 2010. ‘in search of protection and livelihoods: socio-economic and environmental impacts of dadaab refugee camps on host communities’. copenhagen: danish refugee council. global program for forced displacement (gpfd) and the internal displacement monitoring center (idmc). 2012. ‘internal displacement and the kampala convention: an opportunity for development actors’. washington and geneva: gpfd and idmc. humphris, r. 2013. new issues in refugee research: ‘refugees and rashaida: human smuggling and trafficking from eritrea to sudan and egypt’. research paper no. 254. geneva: unhcr. internal displacement monitoring center (idmc). 2015. < http://www.internal-displacement.org/> (retrieved 18 january 20156). international organisation of migration (iom) and unhcr. 2014. ‘joint return intention survey report’. nairobi: . loesher, g. and milner, j. 2011. ‘responding to protracted refugee situations: lessons from a decade of discussion’. forced migration policy briefing no. 6. england: refugee studies center. maaure, m. 2013. ‘citizens perception on migration in south africa’. afrobarometer briefing paper no. 112. south africa ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 308 majidi, n. n.d. draft mimeo: ‘expectations versus reality: spontaneous returns to somalia’. paris: ceri sciences. masina, l. ‘xenophobia—the aftermath: south africa’s grass is still greener’. the mail and guardian (johannesburg, 22 may 2015). meknonnen, d.r. and estfanos, m. 2014. ‘from sawa to the sinai desert: the eritrean tragedy of human trafficking’. draft discussion paper. galway: irish center for human rights. neocosmos, m. 2006. ‘from ‘foreign natives’ to ‘native foreigners’ explaining xenophobia in post-apartheid south africa’. monograph series. council for the development of social science research in africa (codesria): dakar. norwegian refugee council (nrc) and internal displacement monitoring centre (idmc), 2015. ‘global overview 2015: people internally displaced by conflict and violence’. geneva: nrc and idmc. odi/hpg and idmc, 2015. ‘study report on protracted displacement’. london and geneva: odi/hpg and idmc. oyelaran-oyeyinka, o. 2014. ‘state of the urban youth 2012/13’. nairobi: un habitat. people against suffering oppression and poverty (passop). 2013. ‘economic injustice: employment and housing discrimination against lgbti refugees and asylum seekers in south africa’. new york: leitner center for international law and justice at fordham law school and south africa: open society foundation for south africa. pugh, s. 2014. ‘human mobility in south africa’. in: baggio, f. (ed). africans on the move. cape town: the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma). regional migration monitoring system (rmms). 2015. ‘responses to mixed migration in the horn of africa and yemen: policies and assistance responses in a fast-changing context’. copenhagen: danish refugee council. robins, s. 2009. ‘humanitarian aid beyond bare survival, social movement responses to xenophobic violence in south africa’. american ethnologist (36)4 637-650. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 309 seale, l. cape times (cape town, 18 may, 2015) unicef-somali regional state of ethiopia, bureau of finance and economic development. 2013. joint assessment: ‘progress towards gtp and mdg targets: assessing development gaps in somali regional state of ethiopia’. jijiga, ethiopia. united nations high commissioner of refugees (unhcr). 2015a. < www.unhcr.org> (retrieved 19 january 2016). unhcr. 2015b. ‘assessment of uganda’s approach to refugees’. draft concept note. unhcr: kampala world bank, 2014. ‘horn of africa regional fragility assessment’. washington, d.c. and nairobi: world bank. world bank. 2014b. ‘horn of africa regional study’. washington, d.c.: world bank. world bank, 2015. global program on forced displacement (gpfd): ‘report on forced displacement in the africa region’. washington, d.c.: world bank. world bank. 2015b. ‘northern uganda reconstruction project iii (nurp iii)’. washington, d.c.: world bank. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 310 development-induced displacement and its impacts on the livelihoods of poor urban households in bahir dar, north western ethiopia getu ambaye  and assefa abeliene abstract this article attempts to explore urban relocation impacts on the livelihoods of poor households displaced by a development project in bahir dar city in northwestern ethiopia. qualitative methods were used to generate the necessary data. the findings identified that the urban relocation caused a variety of livelihood risks such as loss of home or shelter, lack of urban infrastructures such as road facilities, electricity, job opportunites, potable water services and cash compensation for rehousing, as well as landlessness and separation of small cohesive social groups (notably coffee members). though idps are exposed to various livelihood challenges because of a lack of addressing environmental impact assessment recommendations, those who received housing land are partly happy with owning legally recognised urban land. currently, idps are the owners of the land registered by the municipality. the study urges the need to assess and address the unmet needs of poor urban residents as well as the environmental impact of urban development projects. keywords: displacement, ethiopia, homelessness, landlessness and livelihoods. introduction displacement is broadly defined as the uprooting of people from their place of habitual residence (cernea 2005). population displacement has become a global problem, particularly since the end of the cold war (cernea 2009 cernea & mcdowell 2000). cernea and mcdowell (2000: 49), note that ‘displaced populations have been part and parcel of modern history and often people are being displaced in the name of progress.’ the literature * college of social science and humanities, university of gondar, ethiopia, email: getuambaye@yahoo.com ** college of agriculture and environmental sciences, bahir dar university, ethiopia, email: assefa2007@gmail.com ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 311 review outlines the major causes of internal displacement into three typologies, namely development-induced displacement, conflict-induceddisplacement and disaster-induced displacement (tesfaye 2007; getu 2005). there are also various terms that are used to describe a wide range of displaced populations, including ‘refugees’, ‘development displacees’, ‘environment and disaster displacees’, ‘internally displaced people or persons’ (idps), ‘forced resettlers’, ‘internal refugees’, ‘environmental refugees’, and ‘climate refugees’ (internal displacement monitoring center [idmc] 2010). this study is conducted among internally displaced persons (idps) by urban development project, bahir dar ethiopia. what is of primary importance in this study is the fact that development is the largest cause of global population displacement, a phenomenon commonly termed ‘developmentinduced displacement’ (did) in the literature (hussain 2008; cernea 2000). did is the process that takes place when people are forced to leave their homes as a result of development projects such as the construction of dams, roads, airports, as well as urban clearance initiatives, mining, deforestation and the introduction of conservation reserves (baviskar 2009; mathur 2006). the magnitude of urban development-induced displacement in ethiopia has been increasing (birhanu 2006; fitsum 2007; gebre 2008; nebiyou 2000). the recent urban development policy of ethiopia is designed to address various urban challenges through infrastructural projects such as slum clearance initiatives and housing projects (tebarek 2013). the magnitude of population displacement by development projects in developing countries has increased particularly since the 1960s and 1970s (dessaelgn 2003). ‘projects assisted by the world bank in the majority of developing countries in africa, asia and latin america, account for an ever increasing number of displaced populations globally (thomas 2002).the displaced people face a number of risks that damage their livelihood(mcdowell,2002). significant examples of such projects have been in malaysia (the felda project), sri lanka (the accelerated mahaweli project), indonesia (the transmigration project), colombia (caquetá), and brazil (polonoreste) (cernea & mcdowell 2000,mcdowell, 2002). recent research by cernea (2009: 290) indicates that in india alone during the period 1949-2000, development programs displaced over 6 million people; in china during a similar period (1950-2005), about 70 million people were displaced according to cernea (2009: xxvi): ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 312 […] every single year in the first decade of the twenty first century, development programs forcibly uproot and displace from their houses and fields cohort of populations conservatively estimated to total at least 15 million people, which is equivalent to between 150 and 200 million for the decade. the main objective of this study is, therefore, to explore the livelihood impacts of the urban development-induced displacement that involved the transfer of poor squatter settlers from the inner city to the outlying parts of bahir dar city. this is done with the aim to conceptualise how urban development-induced displacement relates to vulnerability, livelihood assets (capital), livelihood activities/strategies, policies, and institutions/associations and processes that determine people’s choices in shaping livelihoods and livelihood outcomes as the results of livelihood strategies (scoones 1998). as a result, the effects of urban displacement on relocatees’ livelihoods are assessed in terms of physical, natural and financial wellbeing, social solidarity and basic services, as well as, infrastructure assets, activities, processes and outcomes. generally, studies emphasise the inherent socio-economic risks of involuntary displacement (shami 1993; downing 1996). case-by-case studies across the world indicate how the displaced population experiences risks (pankhurst & piguet 2009). in this regard, displacement research has made remarkable achievements in documenting the livelihood risks people encounter due to involuntary displacement. in his multiple studies, cernea (2000; 2005; 2009) provides lists of the inherent livelihood risks faced by people forcibly displaced for various reasons. these risks include landlessness, homelessness, joblessness, marginalization, increased morbidity and mortality, food insecurity, loss of access to common property resources and social disintegration (cernea 2000). analysis of livelihood risks related to displacement has resulted in the identification of supplementary risks. one of which is the loss of access to community services, ranging from clinics to educational facilities, that may result in posttraumatic stress disorder (ptsd) among displaced people (aptekar & behailu 2009). another identified risk is the violation of human rights (andnet 2010); displacement from one’s habitual residence and loss of property without fair compensation is considered a violation of human rights (robinson 2003; abebe 2009). ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 313 in ethiopia, there are some evidences gathered from case studies on urban development-induced displacement particularly in addis ababa (birhanu 2006; dejene 2005; feleke 2009; fitsum 2007; gebre 2008; ashenafi 2001). the studies indicate that displaced poor households are exposed to various dimensions of livelihood risks. the process usually involves the transfer of poor residents from inner parts of cities and towns to peripheral areas, thereby inhibiting their access to basic social or public services (birhanu 2006; dejene 2005; feleke 2009; gebre 2008; ashenafi 2001). the process of relocating people from the inner city to the outskirts is argued to disrupt business ties with customers, fragment informal and social networks and lead to a loss of neighborhood-based organisations (tebarek 2013; gebre 2008; fitsum 2007). in addition, urban displacement results in the separation of work site from home site in female-headed households (habtamu 2014; etenesh 2007). as reviewed above, urban development-induced displacement affects the various aspects of livelihood assets and activities of poor households (habtamu 2014); some research focuses on the impacts on female-headed households (tebarek 2013; etenesh 2007); and some others consider the livelihood outcomes in terms of the coping and survival strategies of relocated residents in urban contexts (ephrem 1998; tesfu 2014; dinku 2004). most of the previous studies have been confined to addis ababa. with no prior study that attempts to investigate how urban relocation erodes a community`s access to all the elements needed for livelihood – physical, social and natural wellbeing and financial capital – this study attempts to explore the livelihood impacts of urban relocation with particular reference to bahir bar city located in northwestern ethiopia. description of the study area this particular study is conducted in bahir dar city, located in the northwestern parts of ethiopia. the research has been conducted by a single urban development project in bahir dar city’s kotatina resettlement neighborhood. the bahir dar hulegeb stadium project is a relatively largescale project covering 15.5 hectares of land that touches keble 14, 15 and 17 which are sub district in bahir dar city (bahir dar city service office 2000). the construction of the stadium has resulted in the displacement of 352 heads of households. the displaced households were required to resettle in the outskirts of the city. those displaced live in a new resettlement neighborhood popularly known as kotatina sefer or mender, located in the ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 314 southwestern peripheral area of bahir dar city. the place name of kotatina refers to the hill place and its surroundings that were identified and reserved by authorities for the settlements of idps in the outlying area of the city. methods of the study the study is based on qualitative methods that involved in-depth interviews with key informants, observations, two focus group discussions (fgds) (one with a male group and the other with a female group), and documentary assessments. one of the advantages of qualitative methods is the allowance for understanding participants’ experiences within context (creswell 2007). understanding the experience of internal displacement, therefore, required the careful selection of key informants who were representative of displaced households or communities living in the kotatina neighborhood. key informants were contacted by co-investigators who attended public gathering places in the community, such as churches, mosques, and community-based associational meetings. participants for interviews were informed of the purpose of the study through a written document and signed an agreement to participate in the study. local leaders or executive committee members of informal iddirs, ikub and other informal associations, were selected as the key informants, along with two experts from bahir dar city municipalities. the selection criteria sought out individual heads of households displaced by the bahir dar hulegeb stadium project, and given plots of land as compensation for rebuilding their homes. considering gender, six male and six female iddir leaders, and two male bahir dar city municipality experts were identified and interviewed. each interview was conducted using an interview guide, with questions followed by probes to elicit in depth information. the two fgds were also conducted by using a fgd guide. in order to maintain anonymity when analysing, organising, and presenting the major themes that emerged from the in-depth interviews, key informants are noted as a1, a2, a3, and so on to a14. the results of the study currently, the idps live in close proximity. resettlement involved transferring urban poor residents from their squatter settlement to kotatina, located on the periphery of bahir dar city. internal displacement and resettlement as experienced by the idps, involved a relatively short physical distance from kebele 15 to kebele 14 of the city administration. before the influx of idps, the kotatina site, a stretch of land in the outlying area the city ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 315 administration, was possessed by people engaged in agricultural activities. now, the new resettlement site is made to be part of kebele 14 of the city administration. the study explored the livelihood impacts of internal displacement, including the loss of home or shelter, concerns about the sustainability of life in the new resettlement neighborhood with no mainstream urban services such as roads, electricity and potable water, the inability to get cash compensation for rehousing and the separation from coffee members. the following subthemes outline and describe the controversial issues involved in livelihood risks such as a lack of cash compensation, basic housing services, job opportunities and transportation, as well as homelessness and social disintegration. some of the positive aspects of urban development-induced displacement are also noted. physical capital: homelessness one of the pressing problems or livelihood risks faced by individual households following the internal displacement was homelessness. the project planners and designers did not propose any cash compensation for displacement and resettlement. the study found that relocatees’ financial capacity had also worsened due to extra housing expenses during the transitional period of relocation. on the one hand, participants considered their displacement and resettlement without compensation as a wrong doing committed against their rights. they raised their grievances to municipal authorities. on the other hand, authorities and municipalities argued that, for idps who had been squatter settlers in the urban locality, the allocation of land should be viewed as compensation. an ad hoc committee comprising of community members was formed to work temporarily with the registration of household heads in order to identify which households were entitled to compensation. all informants openly reported compensation related issues, as well as how the lack of compensation was justified by concerned authorities. the sudden dislocation was traumatic and stressful for the displaced people. according to informants, with no prior warning, all residents were given a two week deadline to leave their housing. the situation of homelessness, particularly during the transition period, compelled all displaced households to live in rented houses for two to four months. this information was ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 316 confirmed in both of the fgds. one informant (a3) recalled his experiences, stating: i have passed through many challenges and problems since the date of my displacement in kotatina. it was in february 2008 that all residents in ketel sefer were told to leave the place required by the government for the purpose of building a big stadium in bahir dar. authorities passed orders suddenly to all of us to leave within a week time period by saying all of you go and ‘jefijifeh giba’, literally to mean ‘build your own temporarily family shelter using leafs or plastics in a places you are provided’. and, i was forced to stay in a temporary housing that i rented from local residents in kebele 14. for that house, i was paying 300 birr monthly. the other key informants from the bahir dar municipality argued that they share the inconvence that the idps suffer, however, the multiplier effect of the new project is greater than the idps suffering. they state that there is always some negative aspect when doing such projects and the main concern is to ensure that the benefits outweigh the negatives, in favour of majority of people’s wellbeing. for this reason, the municipality tooks action at the expense of the idps. in order to minimise homelessness, the municipality gave such lands for the majority of the idps except some of them which there residence period in kettle seffer is less than five years according to his explanation, why the criterion of restricting to five years for giving such land is some idps which are not well established residence in the area have not the right to cliam to have such lands for housing construction. because of that they come in this site with in short period of time by expecting such land grant distribution through municipality. they confirmed, if they can construct such home in ketel sefer thus the municipality will supply such lands for them. so in order to minimize such abuse and to address the more victims the municipality distribute lands for whose residence in ketel sefer is great or equal to five years (informant a14). lack of access to basic services another livelihood-related risk that kotiatina idps continue to face is a lack of access to basic housing services such as electricity, potable water and waste water management. though authorities discussed this issue with a ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 317 group of idps and promised to work to develop infrastructure, nothing was done. as informant a4 recounts: the place of kotatina was devoid of any basic services and very detrimental for my life and housing especially during the first two years. there was no water, electricity and even road services which has been still the main problem. being an idp especially during the first two years of my displacement and resettlement was the worst experience ever i experienced before. the existing services are very limited to satisfy both at individual and at household levl. both fgds and key informant respondents reported that a persisting lack of potable water requires them to buy daily drinking water. individuals who still do not have access to basic housing services are compelled to pay money to other persons who are getting access to the basic services in their newly built homes. the study participants reported that they were made to resettle outside of the mainstream infrastructure that provides services for urban population of bahir dar city. informant a1 describes the situation: i have experienced loss of housing that was accessible to the main road, direct electric services, and potable water supply. still, the serious problem of me is payments for one electric bulb. i am paying 25 ethiopian birr on a monthly basis that indirectly extended from another relocated person through negotiations and agreements. i am also suffering from regular or daily payments for buying potable water because of the shortage of water supply here in kotatina. for instance, for one ’jerika‘, which could contain ten liters of water, i am supposed to pay 40 cents through agreements and negotiation with local residents. the two key informants from bahir dar municipality responded to this problem by noting that the problem of inadequate service delivery proves challenging .it is not only evident in kotatina, but also in other new urban settelements. thus, they argue, the solutions to service delivery problems hinge on the overall development process, and it requires time (informants a13 and a14). lack of access to transportation a lack of physical mobility within and beyond their locality is a common characteristic of the economic life of displaced people. study participants ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 318 described distinct transportation problems, largely in connection with their livelihood strategies. according to the respondents (fgds’ and key informants), transportation is a major issue as residents strive to survive in the informal labor markets of the urban economy. internally displaced households or persons (idps) are obliged to commute between their home residences and places of work daily. in this regard, gebre (2008) found that because of a lack of adequate transportation services, some lose site-related advantages of both formal and informal employment or major livelihood assets and activities, some lose home-sites, and others lose both. a common statement highlighted by informants a3 and a6 is that ‘everybody here strive to survive by smaller activities.’ comprising the poorer segment of the wider socio-economic spectrum of the society, the economic survival strategies of idps is largely constituted by the informal economy. most idps are predominantly engaged in the informal labor markets such as gullet-gebeya, located near kebele 4, 14, 15, and 16, and comprising of informal and small-trade activities such as, hired day workers, construction workers and sellers of handicrafts, local drinks (such as arkie and tella), bread, tea and local coffee. in securing income, daily travel from kotatina to market places located in the inner parts of the city in kebele 4 and kebele 16 is necessary. as informant a6 stated, ‘if somebody comes into kotatina resettlement site early in the morning, every individual of both women and men of a household member are seen coming out from their home and travel for searching for informal activities on a daily basis.’ or as informant a4 put it, ‘if somebody comes to kotatina neighborhood in a day time; most houses are getting closed due to their engagement in daily informal works far from the place of their residences.’ individuals return from daily informal work at dusk to sleep and have no time for doing anything else. in other words, because their economic activities are far from their homes, idps do not undertake working and housing activities simultaneously, as was common practice before their displacement. another impediment to reliable transportation noted by residents, are the muddy areas located between kotatina and mainstream urban transport services, because of which, the neighborhood is cut off from taxi services. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 319 financial capital: compensation issues the redeeming effect of cash compensation was not considered during the relocation process. one of the most common subthemes that emerged from the research is the absence of compensation related to displacement. informants describes the process leading to their sudden eviction from ketel sefer and relocation to kotatina, noting that a few weeks before their immediate eviction, authorities called a sudden meeting for a discussion with the community. an ad hoc committee drawn from community members was formed to work temporarily with the registration of household heads, and identify households entitled to compensation. one of the complex problems of poor urban residents internally displaced by development projects is related to the legal statuses of their land and housing. the project planners and designers did not propose any cash compensation for displacement and resettlement except allocating 105 meter square plot of land for individuals in kotatina as compensation. as previously noted, some participants considered their displacement and resettlement without compensation as a wrongdoing committed against their rights and raised their grievances to municipal authorities. one key informant said, ‘i bought the land from the local inhabitants though the municipality didn’t give me legal document.’ however, some idps who had been squatter settlers in the urban locality viewed the allocation of land as compensation. all of the informants openly reported about the compensation related issues, particularly the justification of the lack of compensation by municipal authorities. informant a3 describes the responses provided by the authorities concerned in the following way: the concerned authorities justified that the compensation is offered in forms of land. your previous land was possessed not through the municipality system. thus you don’t have legal grounds to complain against the action of this development project. the project is built for the benefits of all people including you. they warned us not to raise the issues of cash compensation, that [we] may be at risk of losing the plots of land provided for housing reconstruction. the municipality key informants, a13 and a14, outlined this procedure of urban development. stating that somebody who has a home through the municipality and has a site conformation letter and structural maps of the house that are signed and approved by the municipal authority, has the right ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 320 to claim both land and finance for the construction of the home. however, somebody that has their own home but does not have an accreditation letter and structural maps of the house (including additional structures that border the house), does not have the right to claim finance for construction but may only be granted the land for building the house in defiance of this municipal protocol, a number of internally displaced households obtained their former housing land through informal arrangements. one informant noted that the formal means of obtaining urban land was unthinkable for poor urban settlers and, as such, informal land transactions constituted the most viable economic alternative. most participants admitted that their settlement was considered to be illegal. informant a8’s personal account exemplifies this type of illegal acquisition of housing land through informal arrangements: i came to bahir dar area in 1983. i bought the land of ketel sefer in the same year, 1983, informally from the local farming inhabitant and built a home and lived there until i was displaced in 2008. despite such informal transactions, money spent for the land and previous housing was overlooked by authorities and relocation was implemented without any compensation given to the poor households. participants reported that the absence of any compensation for their displacement was a critical problem. in addition to being traumatic and stressful, the absence of any compensation left heavy burdens on poor residents in rebuilding their new home place, as expressed by both fgds. key informant participants openly expressed their grievances against being displaced without compensation, as detail by informant a3: i didn’t get any compensation for all properties i lost. initially, authorities promised to give us compensation for the costs of the displacement and resettlement processes. later, that was not materialised. the situation exposed me to extra and unexpected expense. for instance, i paid 713 ethiopian birr for the plot of land to get the master planning paper done. besides, for the first two months in the immediate aftermath of the eviction, i paid 100 ethiopian birr for the rented house. a lot [of] expenses to buy ‘enchet’ (wood), tin for reconstruction of the home. i was also made to buy water for drinking and for construction purposes. thus displacement makes me to expend much money, to construct my house, ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 321 and weakened my financial capacity and makes the day to day lives difficult. natural capital: landlessness in this particular study, not all displaced households received housing land. the displacement and resettlement scenarios resulted in a crisis of housing land issues for some groups of idps. although the registration of all displaced households was conducted, approximately 65 displaced households were not given plots of land for housing .the land was given based on their lengths of residency in ketel sefer.their residency lenthen less than five years remain without giving such land for building their house.. the issue of landlessness is very complex to understand among idps, especially in relation to households that did not receive land. similarly, asmamaw (2011) confirms that the displacement and resettlement of squatter settlers further aggravates the risks of homelessness. although the authorities conducted their registrations, individuals reported that they remained landless: mine is a very unique case... i have faced the worst experience of being idp especially of being homelessness. i [had] been living for 25years in my ketel sefer residence. and i had my own house. as opposed to other idps, i have remained landless for the reason that i couldn’t know. currently, i am living in a rented small room shelter for which i am paying 70 ethiopian birr monthly in relation to landlessness, the size of the land is important. participants expressed their grievances regarding the size of the housing land allocated for displaced households in kotatina resettlement sites. the size of plot of land is estimated to be 105m2, which is much smaller than the plots of urban residences in bahir dar city and other similar nearby cities. this reduced size of housing land curtailed the home-based services and other related activities of households. as informant a11 reported, ‘we share a single toilet for three to four households. lack of maintenance makes it unclean. we could not make a private toilet due to the compactness of the land. (informant a11). based on observations, the landlessness and lack of sufficient space has resulted in idps currently living in crowded and, therefore unsafe, conditions in the new resettlement neighborhood. human capital: lack of educational and health services ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 322 similar to the above mentioned impacts on the other aspects of livelihood capital, the displacement also negatively affected what will be termed ‘human capital’, referring to those infrastructures such as education and health services that ensure individual wellbeing and development. because of kotatina’s newness, the transport, water, electric and telecommunication infrastructures were not in place before relocation began. as a result, the school, health post, health center and hygiene related developments are by far the most inadequate when compared to the other infrastructural developments observed in the neighborhood. it is noted that as a result inadequate educational facilities, some of the school-age children in kotatina remained in their houses rather than attending kindergarten or primary schools. similar infrastructural failures related to health and hygiene have resulted in the emergence and outbreak of malaria. there is no health service center accessible to the kotatina neighborhood and, as such, ill residents must take two to three taxes to reach the nearest health center. the situation is described by informant a8 as follows: i have four children’s all of them reach at school age but only the two have got the opportunity to attend school and the remaining are around their home because of one of them can’t walk long journey to reach the school and one of the children as is guarding the house during day time when both of us-mother and father are not around homestead in order to win the house livelihood. as i mentioned, we [husband and wife] regularly come back home at the day fall and are engaged to accomplish the remaining housing activities. one day when the smallest kid was ill due to malaria, we were not around our home and nobody was calling us about the situation and the child remained at home until we [came] back to our home. at that day, we were frustrated by the moment. after a lot of ups and downs, we were able to take him to one of the far-off health center and saved our child. most significantly, informant a8 explained that this type of problem is common to most relocated residents of kotatina as they suffer from a lack of access to adequate health services and facilities. social capital: social disintegration as briefly mentioned above, relocation caused changes in the social ties of idps. the disintegration of previous and long-lasting networks of ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 323 relationships was evident following the geographical separation of neighbors caused by the relocation. housing-based ties were not considered by concerned authorities in the process of household identification, registration and the provision of small plots of land. informant a12 describes how internal displacement affected his social ties: the displacement affected only parts of our social life in terms of the disintegration of groups of persons who attended the coffee ceremony together. my close persons of the coffee groups are now disintegrated. some live in the right corner of the new locality and the remaining is living in the left corner of the locality. it is rarely we are in contact with such coffee members. now, i have established a new coffee group here in the new place of residence. informants described the way in which each head of household was made to resettle in a new place of residence, in a method that disregarded social ties based on geographical proximity. from the registered individual or households, most were identified as eligible to receive plots of housing land. without consideration given to geographical or residential proximity, idps drew lots to have the opportunity to choose a parcel or their share of the plots identified for resettlement in kotatina. this haphazardly designed land provision led to the dispersion of pre-displacement neighbourly groups. informant a7 notes: right! “ke dero gorebetoch gar terarekenal” literally my long lasting and old neighbours are separated and i have lesser contact and relationships with them in ketel sefer. [we] are now made [to] resettle in very separate places of residences. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 324 positive aspects of urban development: displacement in context study participants were asked their views about the positive aspects of being displaced and resettled into their new neighborhood. the interviews identified some of the positive aspects of internal displacement and resettlement. one such aspect is that idps are now the legal owners of the land registered by the municipality. as such, though they are exposed to the various infrastructural problems noted above, they are partly happy with their ownership of urban land. informant a3 expresses this sentiment, stating: thanks to god after a lot of ups and downs, now my housing facilities are better than other idps in kotatina. now i could be able to get legal land for my housing though built of wood and mud. during our life in ketele sefer, we were repeatedly asked by governments to leave the public land. another positive aspect of internal displacement and resettlement is that the pre-existing informal, traditional and self-help associations have remained intact following relocation. traditional voluntary associations broaden the system of social relations among urban inhabitants. similarly, self-help associations such as iddir, ikub, and senbet-maheber are seen to establish stable patterns of relationships between individual members of the association. currently, the communities of idps are actively engaged in multiple forms of informal associations. according to informants, most of the informal associations were established prior to their displacement and, as such, the idps have had the experience of participating in informal associations such as iddr and ikub in both their old and new neighborhoods. informant a6 states: one of the strengths, i realised, is that attempts have been made by authorities to resettle all displaced communities in one locality that would help us protect the disruptions of the existing associations and relationships. this really helped us to maintain our long lasted iddir and ikub associations. for instance, i was and still am the cashier of the iddir since the last ten years even before the displacement of residents from neighborhood in the year 2008. discussion the development-induced displacement resulted in a number of undesirable consequences for the poor urban households. though some livelihood risks ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 325 play a more primary role in impoverishing poor urban residents, all of the risks may be understood as interconnected. one of the observable features of livelihood risks related to displacement is that the intensity of the individual elements or variables of livelihood risks vary at times (cernea 2000; cernea 2005). data across fgds indicated that one of the most common livelihood risks faced by individual head of households was the complete destruction or loss of their shelter temporarily without the offer of compensation packages. the situation during the transition period compelled each head of household to stay in rented houses as a survival strategy that varied in length from two to six months. this reality sits in stark contrast to the document reviewed from feasibility studies conducted by the municipality authority that assured that the stadium project would have significant positive socio economic impacts for the overall development of bahir dar city and its residents; including the poor, women, men, youth, tourists, merchants, etc… in addition to loss of homes, the relocation process also entailed the complete loss of access to basic public services. lack of infrastructure for basic services such as electricity, potable water and waste management, as well as educational and health services, are still critical problems in kotatina. cernea (2000; 2005) notes that patterns of livelihood risks spurred by internal displacement vary across affected communities and between groups. in the case of kotatina, the fgds in particular indicated that women, children and the elderly are more vulnerable to the livelihood risks faced by the projectaffected community. finally, but perhaps most importantly, researchers seem to take for granted that development-induced displacement leads to the disintegration of social networks in the form of family separation or neighborhood disintegration. the interview data as well as the fgds reveals the prevalence and significance of social networks, with consideration being given to the disruption of pre-displacement networks of individual persons and the formation of new networks post-displacement. parts of social networks of idps are changed, such as coffee groups that are formed based on the geographic proximity of neighbors. the change and continuity of networks of idps were also understood by referring to the retention of existing social networks. as proved by the respondents, the displacement initiative did not consider residents’ livelihood contexts and denied them agency over their rights to live and their opinions on local development. as such, it is seen that the development project resulted in a number of undesirable consequences ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 326 for the idps. however, after significant struggle (which still greatly affects the daily existence of the idps), some idps have been successful in overcoming some of these undesirable consequences by developing strategies to recover their lives to their pre-displacement states. conclusion and recommendations as it has been presented so far, urban development-induced displacement in kotatina resulted in numerous consequences on the livelihoods of poor urban residents. as is indicated by most of the literature, the findings of this investigation have shown that development-induced displacement results in further impoverishments and deteriorations to the livelihoods of residents, particularly vulnerable groups such as women, children and the poor. the implementation of the stadium project also failed to account for the loss of main assets of the idps, particularly the land and physical assets that would be important in generating other assets. though some idps received land compensation, it was perceived as inadequate compensation for the extensive loss as a result of the implementation of the project. the relocation also created a financial burden on idps by adding a number of additional expenses that were not manageable for poor households. in addition, lack of market services and accessibility also hampered idps income generating activities and options for self-employment. urban development-induced relocation partly resulted in the disintegration and loosening of idps social ties. additionally, it was found that lack of transportation and adequate education and health care facilities near residents neighborhoods, pose considerable risks to personal wellbeing and development. furthermore, women were found to be more affected by the undesirable consequences of relocation that men. despite these livelihood risks spurred by urban development-induced relocation, some displaced people seemed positive that households were able to secure small plot of housing land which is legally recognised by the municipality of the city administration. the stadium project is also argued to be important for the future development of bahir dar city and, as it was argued by municipal authority side key informants and a noted in the project feasibility study, constructing an international multi-purpose stadium in bahir dar city has the potential for direct and indirect positive future impacts for all residents in the city. however, this argument fails to acknowledge that ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 327 the environmental and social impact assessment was made for nominal rather real measures taken based on such recommendations. recommendations the study suggests that knowledge of the multifaceted problems and livelihood risks faced by idps is important to consider in the implementation of development programs. thus, the relocation process should be implemented, not only with project feasibility studies that show promising benefits for the overall urban development and most citizens in the city, but also with environmental and social impacts studies that consider the negative impacts of development-induced displacement on the physical, financial, natural, human and social capital of low-income households. based on such studies, municipalities should take the necessary measures for each negative impact based on the environmental management plan which is designed in the environmental impacts assessment process. the study also suggests that understanding the positive aspects of internal displacement is an important avenue for needsor problems-based development approaches and interventions, including rehabilitative measures and actions. there is a need to understand the interest and consent of individuals and communities experiencing development-induced internal displacement and resettlement. currently, the relocated communities in kotatina are demanding that the concerned authorities provide access to the same basic infrastructures available in the mainstream urban society of bahir dar city. based on this case study, the study advises that urban development plans need to more closely consider the implications of relocation on the lives and livelihood opportunities of poor households. references abebe, am. 2009. ‘legal and institutional dimensions of protecting and assisting internally displaced persons in africa’. journal of refugee studies 12 (2) 155-176. andnet, g. 2010. ‘development-induced displacement and impoverishment: the case of tekeze hydropower project and its impacts on the affected villages of wag hemera zone north western ethiopia. m thesis (unpublished) 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displacement: the world bank’s attempt to correct past failures’. population research and policy review. the netherlands: kluwer academic publishers. ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015special issue 332 comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector jonathan crush* and cameron mccordic** abstract comparisons between the informal business operations of south africans and international migrants are increasingly common. the conventional wisdom is that survivalist south africans are being displaced by entrepreneurial migrants with a long tradition of informal enterprise. this paper is the first attempt to explicitly compare the informal enterprises established by refugees and south african migrants in urban areas. the paper is based on a comparative analysis of over 2,000 refugee and south african informal enterprises. the stereotyping of refugees in public discourse as undermining and destroying south african competitors is far-removed from the reality. the idea that refugees have a competitive advantage as experienced entrepreneurs is also clearly fallacious. refugees are extremely motivated, hard-working and dedicated, and employ a number of legitimate business strategies to achieve success. to suggest, on the other hand, that south african migrants are poor business people is equally fallacious. while refugees seem able to access greater amounts of start-up capital (although neither they nor south africans can access formal bank loans), both groups are seemingly able to grow their businesses. thus, there is a need for much greater nuance in policy and academic discussions about the impact of refugee migration on the south african informal economy. keywords informal sector, business strategies, xenophobia, refugee entrepreneurs, south african migrant entrepreneurs. * international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb st west, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l6c2. email address: jcrush@balsillieschool.ca ** balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb st west, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l6c2. email address: cmccordic@balsillieschool.ca mailto:cmccordic@balsillieschool.ca comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 821 introduction in 2014, south africa’s minister of small business development, lindiwe zulu, publicly compared south african and migrant informal entrepreneurs. she suggested that south africans were largely inept business owners who should learn from the business practices of their foreign counterparts who were “better at running shops than the local owners” (zwane, 2014). at the same time, south africans were said to be at a natural disadvantage because they had no history of entrepreneurship. the reason for refugee success, she continued, is that business “is in their blood […] from the moment they are born, they are introduced to trade. their mothers, uncles, everyone trades.” as a result, they “operate in the same communities in which we fail” (zwane, 2014). such stereotypical comparisons of refugee and south african informal business are echoed in the research literature. there is a common idea in the business literature, for example, that poor black south africans lack entrepreneurial ambition and this, in turn, helps explain the relatively small size of the south african informal economy and the high rate of local informal business failure (hutchinson & de beer, 2013; iwu et al., 2016; ligthelm, 2011; preisendörfer et al., 2012a, 2012b, 2014a, 2014b). this paper sets out to examine and contest the contrasting stereotypes that surround both south african and refugee entrepreneurs. comparisons between the informal business operations of south africans and international migrants are increasingly common. the conventional wisdom is that “survivalist” south africans in the informal economy are being displaced by “entrepreneurial” migrants (charman et al., 2012). south africans supposedly display a “survivalist mentality and one dimensional [business] strategy,” leading to poorer performance than migrants (basardien et al., 2014: 57). comparing south african and somali spaza shop owners in cape town, basardien et al. (2014) found that the latter scored better on various indicators of entrepreneurial orientation, including achievement, innovation, personal initiative and autonomy. in addition, migrant businesses grew faster and created more jobs than south african businesses. by contrast, some have suggested that business failure is not inevitable and that south african survivalists can grow their enterprises and create jobs (choto et al., 2014; iwu jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 822 et al., 2016). other studies have suggested that the gap between south african and migrant entrepreneurs is not as great as is commonly supposed. one study of 500 retail enterprises in gauteng, for example, found that motivations to start a business did not differ significantly between south africans and immigrants (radipere, 2012; radipere & dhliwayo, 2014). callaghan and venter’s (2011) study of street traders in inner-city johannesburg concluded that south africans were actually more innovative than migrants, although they did not display the same levels of proactiveness and competitive aggression. while migrant traders had earned more than their south african counterparts in 2008 and 2010, in 2009 the south africans were the higher earners (callaghan, 2013). what is often overlooked in the public discourse and research literature about informal business competition between south africans and non-south africans is the fact that many south africans in the informal economy are themselves migrants. by consistently representing business and other competition as a conflict between ‘south africans’ and ‘foreigners,’ the fact that much of the supposed competition is between two groups of migrants is lost. therefore, this paper aims to systematically compare a group of south african and non-south african migrant entrepreneurs and to assess the similarities and differences between them. the two groups are (i) refugees (holders of section 24 permits) in cape town and limpopo and (ii) south african migrants operating businesses in the same localities. the survey drew a sample of 1,068 south african migrant entrepreneurs and 1,008 refugee entrepreneurs (split approximately equally across the two locations of cape town and urban limpopo). the maximum variation sampling methodology used to select the refugees for interview is explained in crush et al. (2015). exactly the same procedure was used to select the comparator group of south african informal business; that is, random selection of respondents within each area identified. for the purposes of this comparative analysis, we have combined the two sub-groups of refugees (in cape town and limpopo) into one group and have done the same with the south africans. comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 823 motivating entrepreneurship south africans and refugees appear to face very different livelihood prospects in the country’s urban areas. although south africa does not have refugee encampment policy and refugees are permitted by law to pursue employment, there is much evidence to suggest that they face considerable barriers in accessing the formal labour market (crea et al., 2016; jinnah, 2010; kavuro, 2015; rugunanan & smit, 2011). they have been shut out of the security industry (where many were initially employed) and they face considerable hurdles in getting employers to accept their documentation. south africans, on the other hand, should theoretically have none of these problems but they face other hurdles including limited skills and training, job competition, and high rates of unemployment (currently around 30% nationally and as high as 45% amongst urban youth) (graham & de lannoy, 2016; klasen & woolard, 2009). south african migrants to the cities often end up living in informal settlements far from formal job opportunities, and also have to compete in the job market with long-time residents of the city who have a significant geographical and networking advantage. for both sets of migrants, then, the informal economy can often be the only livelihood niche they can find. the general literature on informal entrepreneurship conventionally divides participants into survival (or necessity) entrepreneurs and opportunity entrepreneurs (williams, 2007, 2015; williams & gurtoo, 2012; williams & youseff, 2014). the former are driven to participate purely by the need to survive and because they have no other choice. the latter choose to work in the informal sector because they see greater opportunities for economic advancement, they prefer to work for themselves rather than for others or they feel that they have the right aptitude. distinguishing between these two types of entrepreneur and their likely differences in entrepreneurial motivation and orientation has generated a large body of empirical and methodological literature. in the south african context, studies of entrepreneurial motivation have sought to go beyond the idea of survivalism and demonstrate that many participants in the informal economy are not driven there out of desperation but are highly motivated entrepreneurs jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 824 (callaghan & venter, 2011; fatoki & patswawairi, 2012; khosa & kalitanyi, 2015; venter, 2012). one of the most common ways of deciding what lies behind personal decisions to establish an informal enterprise is to measure what is known as entrepreneurial motivation. this involves the development of possible reasons why the informal enterprise was started and then asking respondents to rank them on a likert scale from 1 (no importance) to 5 (extremely important). in this study, both refugees and south african migrants were presented with 24 different possibilities to rate. a mean score was calculated for each group on each statement (table 1). for ease of interpretation, we have grouped the 24 statements under 4 main themes (a) economic survival; (b) provision of employment or a service to others; (c) business experience and appeal and (d) entrepreneurial orientation. two things immediately stand out from a descriptive comparison of means. first, both refugees and migrants tend to assign the same relative importance to each of the 24 factors, which might suggest that they have a similar motivational profile, rating the same factors as relatively important and unimportant. the second notable finding is that almost across the board, even on statements that had a low mean score, refugees scored more highly than south african migrants. this could indicate a greater general degree of commitment to participation in the informal economy amongst refugees. comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 825 table 1: entrepreneurial motivation of refugees and south africans south africans (mean score) refugees (mean score) economic survival/financial support of dependants i needed more money just to survive 4.10 4.31 i wanted to give my family greater financial security 3.69 3.97 i was unemployed and unable to find a job 3.43 2.89 i wanted to make more money to send to my family in my home area/country 3.00 3.57 i had a job but it did not pay enough 2.29 2.24 i had a job but it did not suit my qualifications and experience 1.44 1.62 providing employment/product/service i wanted to provide a product/service to south africans 2.74 3.41 i wanted to contribute to the development of south africa 2.69 3.35 i wanted to provide a service/product to non-south africans/migrants and refugees 2.46 3.00 i wanted to provide employment for people from my home area/country 1.93 2.25 i wanted to provide employment for members of my family 2.19 2.27 jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 826 i wanted to provide employment for other south africans 2.10 2.29 business experience/appeal i wanted more control over my own time/to be my own boss 3.08 3.72 i have always wanted to run my own business 3.06 3.75 support and help in starting my business was available from other south africans/refugees 2.05 3.03 i decided to go into business in partnership with others 1.62 2.37 my family has always been involved in business 1.81 2.34 entrepreneurial orientation i have the right personality to run my own business 3.01 3.45 i wanted to do something new and challenging 2.83 3.34 i like to learn new skills 2.83 3.41 i enjoy taking risks 2.73 3.24 i like to challenge myself 2.84 3.37 i wanted to increase my status in the community 2.48 2.99 i wanted to compete with others and be the best 2.48 3.07 significantly, the only two reasons for entrepreneurship on which south africans scored higher than refugees were “i was unemployed and unable to find a job” and “i had a job but it did not pay enough.” this suggests that for south african migrants, informal sector participation is more closely tied to the absence of formal employment than it is for refugees. of the four groups of factors, economic survival motivations scored most highly for both groups, and providing an employment or service was the least important. the highest comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 827 single factor for both groups was the need for more money to survive (both with means over 4.0). also very important for both was the desire to provide family with greater financial security and the desire to make more money to remit to family at home. in other words, financial support of dependants is a strong motivating factor for informal sector entrepreneurship. neither group was highly motivated by a desire to provide employment for others, but refugees were ironically much more likely to be motivated by a desire to provide a service or product to south africans (3.41 versus 2.74) and to contribute to the development of south africa (3.35 versus 2.69). although both groups said that wanting to run their own business and be their own boss was important to them, the refugees scored significantly higher on both factors. one of the major differences between the two was the amount of help and support they could count on from others, with refugees scoring much higher than south africans (3.03 versus 2.05). refugees were also consistently more positive about their personal aptitude for running a business. this is clear in the grouping of entrepreneurial orientation factors where refugees scored above 3.0 on 6 of the 7 factors, compared to south africans who scored above 3.0 on only 1 of the 7 factors. while these frequency distributions tell an interesting story about the differences and similarities between south african migrant and refugee entrepreneurs, it is difficult to gauge their statistical significance. the main challenge is that the dependent variable for the comparison (the importance ranking for each variable) is at an ordinal level of measurement with varying distributions across each sampled group. this means that we need to use nonparametric tests of difference and bin the motivation factors into binary level indicators. each indicator was therefore assigned two values: not important (1 in the original scale) and important (2-5 in the original scale). a combination of odds ratio calculations and pearson’s chi-square test of independence were used to test for significance. the odds ratio calculations show how migrant status is associated with a change in the odds of ranking each motivation factor (where a value greater than 1 indicates increased odds and less than 1 indicates decreased odds). these calculations are supported by 95% confidence intervals and the p-values taken from a chi-square analysis (where jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 828 an alpha of 0.05 is used as a threshold for a statistically significant difference in the distribution of scores across the two groups) (table 2). table 2: odds ratio calculations of motivational factors entrepreneurial motivation factor odds ratio 95% confidence interval pearson chisquare df pvalue (2sided) lower upper i was unemployed and unable to find a job** 0.496 0.411 0.599 54.036 1 <.001 i had a job but it did not pay enough 1.012 0.851 1.204 .019 1 0.895 i had a job but it did not suit my qualifications and experience** 1.631 1.322 2.012 21.088 1 <.001 i wanted to provide employment for members of my family** 1.344 1.128 1.600 10.970 1 0.001 i wanted to provide employment for people from my home area/country** 1.840 1.540 2.198 45.499 1 <.001 i wanted to provide employment for 1.597 1.341 1.902 27.682 1 <.001 comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 829 other south africans** i needed more money just to survive** 1.770 1.275 2.457 11.880 1 0.001 i wanted to give my family greater financial security** 1.651 1.294 2.105 16.483 1 <.001 i wanted to make more money to send to my family in my home area/country** 2.942 2.393 3.618 109.114 1 <.001 i decided to go into business in partnership with others** 2.931 2.423 3.545 126.855 1 <.001 support and help in starting my business was available from other south africans/refugees ** 3.155 2.635 3.778 160.774 1 <.001 my family has always been involved in business** 2.149 1.793 2.575 69.422 1 <.001 i wanted to provide a service/product 2.085 1.741 2.496 64.788 1 <.001 jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 830 to non-south africans/migrant s and refugees** i wanted to provide a product/service to south africans** 2.550 2.103 3.093 92.934 1 <.001 i have always wanted to run my own business** 2.806 2.268 3.471 94.245 1 <.001 i have the right personality to run my own business** 2.176 1.787 2.650 61.018 1 <.001 i wanted to do something new and challenging** 2.289 1.890 2.772 73.209 1 <.001 i like to learn new skills** 2.590 2.128 3.153 92.620 1 <.001 i enjoy taking risks** 2.299 1.901 2.781 75.044 1 <.001 i like to challenge myself** 2.466 2.028 2.998 83.975 1 <.001 i wanted more control over my own time/to be my own boss** 2.887 2.331 3.574 98.785 1 <.001 i wanted to increase my 2.193 1.832 2.626 74.095 1 <.001 comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 831 status in the community** i wanted to compete with others and be the best** 2.581 2.151 3.096 106.434 1 <.001 i wanted to contribute to the development of south africa** 3.677 3.001 4.505 166.788 1 <.001 * p<.05 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test ** p<.01 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test note: odds ratios measure change in odds from refugee to south african entrepreneurs the major conclusions from the analysis are as follows: first, refugee entrepreneurs have about 50% lower odds of starting their business because of being unable to find a job. second, refugees had four times the odds of desiring to contribute to the development of south africa and three times the odds of stressing the importance of obtaining help from others in starting their business and going into partnership with others. third, refugees had nearly three times the odds of starting a business with the intention of remitting money to family at home. finally, refugees had two to three times the odds of assigning importance to the range of personal entrepreneurial orientation factors. contrasting business profiles the survey highlighted a number of similarities and differences in the informal business activities of refugee and south african migrant enterprises. firstly, more south africans had been in business for a longer period of time (table 3 and figure 1). for example, 19% of the south african businesses were established before 2000, compared to only 2% of the refugee businesses. however, the majority of all businesses were started in the last decade, with jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 832 61% of refugee businesses and 44% of south african businesses established after 2010. this finding is certainly consistent with the general perception that refugees have been entering the informal economy in growing numbers. table 3: year of business establishment year south africans refugees no. % no. % <= 1990 46 4.4 1 0.1 1991-1995 49 4.7 1 0.1 1996-2000 115 11.0 18 1.8 2001-2005 124 11.9 70 7.1 2006-2010 246 23.6 293 29.6 2011-2016 462 44.3 608 61.4 total 1,042 100.0 991 100.0 figure 1: year of business establishment 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 <= 1990 1991 – 1995 1996 – 2000 2001 – 2005 2006 – 2010 2011 – 2016 % year of business establishment south africans refugees comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 833 second, since both groups are migrants to the city, it is important to see if they go into business as soon as they arrive or if business start-up comes at a later time. only 32% of refugees and 21% of south africans started a business within the first year of arrival (table 4). this general pattern of a greater time lapse on the part of the south africans is further demonstrated by the fact that 41% of them started their business within two years of arrival, compared to 61% of the refugees. both groups have similar numbers who waited 3 to 10 years, but starting a business after 10 years or more was definitely a south african preserve (at 24% compared to 3% of refugees). the general time lapse in both groups indicates that immediate start-up is not an option for most. rather, both tend to work first in the formal or informal economy, often to raise the start-up capital to branch out on their own. table 4: time lapse between year of migration and business start-up south africans refugees years no. % no. % 0 213 21.4 304 32.0 1-2 196 19.7 277 29.2 3-5 173 17.4 201 21.2 6-10 172 17.3 140 14.7 >10 242 24.3 28 2.9 third, it is theoretically possible that the shorter time-lag between migration and start-up amongst refugees is also because they have prior business experience. this would certainly be consistent with the views of minister zulu summarised at the beginning of this paper (zwane, 2014). the respondents were all asked what their main occupation was prior to leaving their home country or area. only 9% of the south africans said they were operating their own informal sector business. the figure for refugees was higher, at 18%, but jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 834 this does not suggest a massive competitive advantage conferred by prior experience. in other words, over 80% of the refugee entrepreneurs were not operating an informal sector business prior to migrating to south africa. the stereotypical idea that refugees somehow have business “in their blood” is, therefore, not supported by the evidence of this survey. fourth, the survey found that the majority of enterprises of both refugees and south african migrants are located in the retail sector (table 5). a small number of businesses (9% of refugees and 6% of south africans) are involved in more than one sector; for example, a business that manufactured and sold arts and crafts would count as both a retail and manufacturing enterprise. or a business offering a service, such as a hair salon, may also be involved in retailing products. at this sectoral level of analysis, it appears that there is potential for significant intra-sectoral competition between the two groups. however, if the activity profile is disaggregated, the picture is more nuanced (table 6). table 5: sectors of informal business operation south africans refugees sector no. % no. % retail, trade and wholesale 828 77.5 778 77.2 services 262 24.5 271 26.9 manufacturing 41 3.8 60 6.0 other 4 0.4 2 0.2 note: multiple response question comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 835 table 6: main goods and services provided % of total enterprises owned by south africans % of total enterprises owned by refugees % of south africans selling product or service % of refugee s selling product or service retail food and beverages fruit and vegetables 27.1 13.4 68.2 31.8 cooked food (ready to eat) 18.4 6.7 74.3 25.7 confectionary 17.5 17.0 52.2 47.8 canned drinks 13.1 22.3 38.4 61.6 livestock (e.g. chickens) 1.7 0.2 90.0 10.0 alcohol 0.9 0.4 71.4 28.6 personal and household goods cigarettes 13.3 19.9 40.8 59.2 clothing and footwear 7.7 19.5 29.4 70.6 accessories (bags, sunglasses) 6.1 16.5 28.1 71.9 jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 836 toiletries and cosmetics 3.9 14.8 22.0 78.0 household products 3.4 9.3 27.7 72.3 electronics 1.8 7.5 20.0 80.0 cds/dvds 1.1 2.6 31.6 68.4 books/newspapers 0.7 2.9 19.4 80.6 other goods arts and crafts 1.1 2.6 31.6 68.4 hardware/tools 1.1 2.2 35.3 64.7 car parts 0.5 0.5 50.0 50.0 other 15.3 14.2 53.2 46.8 services haircutting and braiding 6.4 15.1 30.9 69.1 car washing 3.4 0.4 90.0 10.0 car parking/guarding 2.3 0.0 100.0 0.0 shoe repairs 2.0 0.7 75.0 25.0 car repairs 1.2 0.5 27.8 72.2 telephone 1.2 1.6 44.8 55.2 it/internet 0.9 2.7 27.0 73.0 transportation (taxi/passengers) 0.5 0.2 71.4 0.2 rentals 0.4 0.1 80.0 20.0 comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 837 financial (loans) 0.3 0.1 75.0 25.0 accommodation 0.2 0.2 50.0 50.0 construction (building) 0.2 0.0 100.0 0.0 traditional doctor 0.2 0.2 50.0 50.0 transportation (goods) 0.2 0.1 66.6 33.4 medicine (pharmacy) 0.1 0.1 50.0 50.0 other 5.3 5.6 50.4 49.6 manufacturing sewing/tailoring 1.7 2.0 47.4 52.6 arts and crafts 0.7 0.4 66.6 33.4 shoe repair 0.5 0.5 50.0 50.0 furniture making 0.4 0.6 40.0 60.0 security (gates and burglar bars) 0.1 0.4 20.0 80.0 waste recycling 0.0 0.1 0.0 100.0 other 0.6 1.9 24.0 76.0 table 6 shows that at least some south africans and refugees are involved in every activity. however, they also tend to occupy and dominate different niches. south africans are more strongly represented in food retail (the main exception being confectionary and the sale of canned drinks with roughly equal participation). around 70% of the entrepreneurs who were selling fresh produce and cooked food were south africans. on the other hand, over 70% of those selling most types of personal and household products were refugees. in jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 838 the service sector, refugees dominate hair cutting and braiding, as well as car repairs and it. south africans tend to dominate shoe repairs, transportation and car washing and guarding. in the manufacturing sector, there is less differentiation, although the overall numbers of participants are small compared with retail and services. fourth, there was a significant difference in the amount of start-capital used by the two groups (figure 2). almost 80% of the south africans started their businesses with less than zar 5,000, while the equivalent figure was only 27% for refugees. at the other end of the spectrum, only 6% of the south africans had start-up capital of more than zar 20,000, compared to 43% of the refugees. this certainly suggests that refugees have access to greater amounts of start-up capital but it may also be that the barriers to entry are much lower in the food sector (which is dominated by south africans) as the initial spend on stock is likely much lower than for businesses selling personal and household goods. it is significant that of the 28% of refugees who started with less than zar 5,000, most were food retailers. figure 2: amount of start-up capital 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 % startup capital amount south africans refugees comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 839 fifth, both groups had added value to their businesses since start-up (table 7). for example, while 78% of south africans started with less than zar 5,000, only 40% valued their enterprise as still less than zar 5,000 (a fall of 28%). similarly, with refugees the equivalent figures were 28% and 9% (a fall of 19%). the proportion of south african businesses with a current value of over zar 20,000 was 25% (compared to only 6% at start-up). in the case of refugees, the equivalent figures were 70% and 43%). in other words, 19% of south africans and 27% of refugees had moved up into the highest value bracket. table 7: current business value south africans refugees no. % no. % less than zar5,000 349 40.1 75 8.5 zar5,000-9,999 177 20.3 83 9.4 zar10,000-19,999 128 14.7 110 12.4 zar20,000-29,999 57 6.6 110 12.4 zar30,000-49,999 59 6.8 115 13.0 zar50,000-99,999 46 5.3 148 16.7 zar100,000-199,999 28 3.2 135 15.2 zar200,000-499,999 18 2.1 93 10.5 zar500,000-999,999 3 0.3 12 1.4 <=zar1,000,000 5 0.6 5 0.6 total 870 100.0 886 100.0 jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 840 to assess the statistical significance of these differences, key variable comparisons were drawn out from the frequency distributions and binned into binary-level variables. these included (a) year of establishment (<=2010 and > 2010); (b) start-up capital (<zar 5,000 and >zar 5,000); and (c) current business value (<zar 5,000 and >zar 5,000). the odds ratio calculations performed in table 8 provide convergent validity for the observed frequency distributions. independent of the influence of any other variables, the south african entrepreneurs had almost twice the odds of running a business established before 2011, almost ten times the odds of starting a business with less than zar 5,000 and almost seven times the odds of currently running a business valued at less than zar 5,000. all of these comparisons yielded pvalues less than the alpha of 0.01 on both the pearson’s chi-square test and the fisher’s exact test. table 8: odds ratio calculations of business characteristics 95% c.i. p-values variables odds ratio lower upper chisquare fisher's exact test established business before 2011** 1.993 1.67 2.379 <.001 <.001 less than r5,000 in startup amount** 9.579 7.772 11.807 <.001 <.001 less than r5,000 in current value ** 7.243 5.515 9.514 <.001 <.001 * p<.05 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test ** p<.01 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test note: odds ratios measure change in odds from refugee to south african entrepreneurs comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 841 business strategies given the official and business literature perception that non-south africans are much better at running businesses than their south african counterparts, it is important to see if the two groups pursue different business strategies and activities. the first point of comparison concerns where the two groups choose to locate their business operations. in the case of cape town, there are areas of the city where each group tends to dominate: refugee businesses are more common in the cbd and bellville, for instance, while south africans are more commonly located along transport routes in and out of the city (such as on streets and at taxi ranks and bus terminals). this difference is clear from table 9. half of the south africans operate stalls on roadsides and 21% operate at taxi ranks. this compares with only 31% and 2% of refugees, respectively. the other major difference is that half of the refugees operate from a fixed shop or workshop, compared to only 8% of the south africans. table 9: usual location of business activities south africans refugees business location no. % no. % temporary stall on the street/roadside 290 27.2 166 16.5 permanent stall on the street/roadside 246 23.0 147 14.6 taxi rank 221 20.7 22 2.2 in my home 102 9.6 34 3.4 no fixed location, mobile 87 8.1 26 2.6 workshop or shop 86 8.1 525 52.1 permanent stall in a market 87 8.1 106 10.5 bus terminal 52 4.9 9 0.9 railway station 21 2.0 1 0.1 vehicle (car, truck, motor bike, bike) 19 1.8 3 0.3 jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 842 in customer’s home 16 1.5 16 1.6 craft market 6 0.6 7 0.7 restaurant or hotel 2 0.2 8 0.8 other 37 3.5 38 3.8 note: multiple choice question in addition to the observed variations in business location, the reasons for locational decisions also varied between the two groups (table 10). when compared with the refugee entrepreneurs, the south african migrant entrepreneurs had greater odds of choosing a business location based on it having the greatest number of customers, the tradition of doing business in a location, the cheapness of land and a limited number of police in the area. the refugees had higher odds of choosing their business location based on the other locational factors, especially access to services, property rentals, safety concerns and distance from other competitors. table 10: odds ratio calculations of reasons for business location 95% c.i. for o.r. p-values reasons odds ratio lower upper chisquare fisher's exact test place with greatest number of customers** 2.231 1.707 2.915 <.001 <.001 access to services such as water/electricity** 0.341 0.284 0.409 <.001 <.001 have a permit to operate there** 0.746 0.624 0.893 .001 .001 rents are cheaper 0.969 0.807 1.163 0.732 0.744 safer than other locations** 0.673 0.564 0.803 <.001 <.001 comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 843 due to passing traffic 0.949 0.775 1.163 0.615 0.641 close to home 0.869 0.73 1.036 0.117 0.118 own/rent the land** 0.458 0.381 0.55 <.001 <.001 close to other enterprises* 0.825 0.692 0.984 0.032 0.035 distant from other competitors** 0.647 0.534 0.784 <.001 <.001 always done business there** 1.262 1.061 1.501 0.009 0.009 close to public transport 0.987 0.811 1.2 0.893 0.92 cheap land** 1.739 1.424 2.123 <.001 <.001 few or no police* 1.251 1.017 1.54 0.034 0.035 * p<.05 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test ** p<.01 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test note: odds ratios measure change in odds from refugee to south african entrepreneurs refugee entrepreneurs were much more likely than south africans to rent their business premises (table 11). almost 60% of them paid rent to a south african landlord. another 13% paid rent to the municipality (as did 10% of the south africans). nearly 50% of south africans operated their businesses rentfree (compared to only 5% of refugees). what this means, in effect, is that around three-quarters of south africans do not pay any rent for their premises, while over 80% of refugees do. the refugee entrepreneurs also pay a higher monthly rent, on average, than those south africans who do pay rent (zar 4,000 per month versus zar 2,820 per month). in effect, many south africans are able to augment their household income through renting business premises to refugees and therefore benefit from their presence. jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 844 table 11: occupancy/tenure status of business premises south africans refugees tenure status no. % no. % rent-free, with permission 276 26.1 58 5.8 i own it/am part owner 256 24.2 48 4.8 rent-free, without permission (squatting) 214 20.3 59 5.9 pay rent to private owner who is a south african (company or individual) 145 13.7 595 59.7 pay rent to council/municipality 104 9.8 126 12.7 share space/premises with others 28 2.7 2 0.2 pay rent to private owner who is not a south african (company or individual) 17 1.6 91 9.1 other 16 1.5 17 1.7 another area of business strategy comparison concerns where the two groups source their goods and whether they tend to patronise the same outlets (table 12). most of the respondent refugees buy their supplies at wholesalers while south africans patronise wholesalers and supermarkets in almost equal numbers. south african respondents also obtain goods from fresh produce markets and direct from farms in greater numbers. with the exception of factory purchase, refugees tend to spend more on average at all outlets. for example, while fewer refugees patronise supermarkets, their average monthly spend is zar 8,693 compared with only zar 3,219 by the south africans. in total, the south african respondents spend more than the refugees at supermarkets, fresh produce markets and buying direct from farms. refugees spend five times as much on average at wholesalers and a great deal more in total (zar 21 million compared to less than zar 2 million). comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 845 table 12: patronage of different suppliers south africans refugees source % of total using source mean monthly spend (zar) total annual spend (zar) % using source mean monthly spend (zar) total annual spend (zar) wholesaler 27.8 6,248 1,855,724 61.0 34,728 21,357,827 supermarkets 27.3 3,219 936,642 8.5 8,693 747,640 small shops/retailers 11.4 1,798 219,407 11.0 6,282 697,350 fresh produce markets 9.6 4,751 489,364 4.9 16,869 826,600 direct from farms 9.6 8,875 905,270 1.2 14,708 176,500 direct from factory 7.4 32,216 2,545,050 8.2 11,924 977,800 sa informal sector enterprises 5.5 1,956 115,391 3.2 5,391 172,520 non-sa informal sector enterprises 3.2 1,607 54,650 6.7 13,246 887,500 other sources 5.1 3,486 188,250 4.6 10,838 498,525 there is a common assumption that other strategies adopted by refugees give them a strong competitive advantage over south africans. in addition to greater business acumen and skills, they have been viewed, inter alia, as securing discounts through group purchasing, offering credit to consumers, jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 846 operating for longer hours and selling goods more cheaply. statistical comparison of these, and other, business strategies indicates their relative importance to each group (table 13). the refugees had lower odds of adjusting their operating hours to times of the day when there were most customers and purchasing insurance. south african migrant entrepreneurs had lower odds of operating for extended hours (0.743) and individual bulk purchasing (0.67). however, they were two to five times as likely to keep business records (0.475), sell goods more cheaply than competitors (0.395), purchase in bulk with others (0.244) and negotiate with suppliers (0.340). table 13: odds ratio calculations of business strategies 95% c.i. for o.r. p-values odds ratio lower upper chisquare fisher's exact test i open my business only during the periods of the day when i have the most customers* 1.213 1.020 1.443 0.029 0.030 i purchase insurance 1.078 0.732 1.587 0.703 0.768 i offer credit for customers 0.918 0.770 1.093 0.336 0.348 i extend my hours of operation** 0.743 0.620 0.890 .001 0.001 i purchase stock in bulk myself** 0.670 0.562 0.800 <.001 <.001 i change different prices for different customers** 0.660 0.545 0.799 <.001 <.001 comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 847 i look for the cheapest prices for goods by consulting the media** 0.656 0.538 0.800 <.001 <.001 i engage in shareholding** 0.562 0.437 0.722 <.001 <.001 i keep records of my business accounts** 0.475 0.398 0.566 <.001 <.001 i look for the cheapest prices for goods by asking other entrepreneurs** 0.439 0.367 0.525 <.001 <.001 i sell goods more cheaply than my competitors** 0.395 0.325 0.481 <.001 <.001 i purchase stock in bulk together with others** 0.344 0.278 0.424 <.001 <.001 i negotiate prices with my suppliers** 0.340 0.284 0.407 <.001 <.001 i look for cheapest prices for goods by calling suppliers** 0.230 0.191 0.278 <.001 <.001 * p<.05 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test ** p<.01 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test note: odds ratios measure change in odds from refugee to south african entrepreneurs the final point of business strategy comparison concerns the hiring practices of the two groups of entrepreneurs. almost half of the refugee entrepreneurs have paid employees compared to only 21% of the south africans. the jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 848 refugees in this sample provided three times as many jobs as the south africans. table 14 provides statistical confirmation of the greater employment-generating potential of refugees using odds ratio, chi-square and fisher’s exact test calculations. a breakdown of employees by sex and national origin shows some differences in the hiring patterns of the two groups. in total, 9% of refugees hire south african men full-time and 1% part-time. the equivalent figures for south african enterprises are 8% and 4%. refugees show a preference for hiring south african women over men, with 16% employing women full-time and 4% part-time (compared to 9% and 1% for men). in the sample as a whole, 30% are south africans employed by refugees and 28% are south africans employed by other south africans. table 14: odds ratio calculations for employment-generation 95% c.i. p-values variables odds ratio lower upper chisquare fisher's exact test currently have employees** 0.273 0.225 0.332 <.001 <.001 * p<.05 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test ** p<.01 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test this suggests that both refugee and south african enterprises create jobs for south africans in roughly equal numbers. the major difference is in the employment of non-south africans. less than 5% of the total number of employees are non-south africans employed by south africans, whereas 39% are non-south africans employed by refugees. conclusion this paper is the first attempt to explicitly compare the informal enterprises established by different categories of migrant in south african urban areas. comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 849 this comparative analysis of refugees and internal migrants suggests that there is a need for much greater nuance in policy and academic discussions about the impact of refugee migration on the south african informal economy. the stereotyping of refugees in public discourse as undermining and destroying south african competitors is clearly far-removed from the reality. while refugees seem able to access greater amounts of start-up capital (although neither they nor south africans can access formal bank loans), both groups are seemingly able to grow their businesses. this is partly because they tend to occupy different niches in the informal economy, with south africans focused more on the food sector and refugees focused more on services and retailing household goods. this may help explain another difference between the two, with refugees tending to patronise wholesalers for their supplies and south africans purchasing from supermarkets and fresh produce markets. the idea promulgated by the south african minister of small business development, that refugees have a competitive advantage as experienced or “in their blood” entrepreneurs, is clearly fallacious. south africa’s refugee legislation and restrictive employment policies mean that working for, and then establishing, an informal enterprise is virtually the only available livelihood option. but to argue that refugees come to south africa with a preexisting skill and business experience is misplaced. instead, refugees (like small business owners everywhere) are extremely motivated, hard-working and dedicated. they employ a number of business strategies to achieve monetary success, although business expansion is hampered by the fact that only a portion of business profits can be reinvested in the business as the rest go to support dependants in south africa and the home country. these strategies are not illegal or even underhand but are quite transparent and could be emulated. to suggest, on the other hand, that south african migrants are poor business people, as the minister also suggested, is just as fallacious. it is true that the odds of refugees pursuing a particular strategy (such as giving goods on credit) are generally higher than a south african doing so, but this does not mean that no south africans pursue the strategy, as many clearly do. instead of constantly pitting refugees against south africans as the official mind likes to do, it would be more productive to treat them in policy terms as jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 850 a single group attempting, often against considerable odds, to establish and grow a small business in a hostile or indifferent economic and political environment. acknowledgements we wish to thank the unhcr in geneva for funding the refugee economic impacts samp research project on which this paper is based. references basardien, f., parker, h., bayat, m., friedrich, c. and sulaiman, a. 2014. entrepreneurial orientation of spaza shop entrepreneurs: evidence from a study of south african and somali-owned 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industrial relations, 70: 741-765. comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector 853 williams, c. and gurtoo, a. 2012. evaluating competing theories of street entrepreneurship: some lessons from a study of street vendors in bangalore, india. international entrepreneurship and management journal, 8: 391-409. williams, c. and youssef, y. 2014. is informal sector entrepreneurship necessityor opportunity-driven? some lessons from urban brazil. business and management research, 3: 41-53. zwane, t. 2014. spazas: talking shop is good for business. mail & guardian, november 6, 2014. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1637 cross-cultural ties between ghana and egypt: the agency of the egyptian community in accra, ghana edmond akwasi agyeman and akwasi kwarteng amoako-gyampah abstract ghana is recognized as an important destination of international migrants. in spite of the socio-economic and political upheavals that the country experienced during the early post-independence era leading to the (forced) return of several of its migrant groups, some have still remained and formed permanent communities and integrated into the ghanaian society. this paper focuses on the egyptian diaspora in ghana. it examines: (1) the type of cross-border and transnational ties that egyptian migrants in ghana have established between ghana and egypt; (2) how these ties generate cross-cultural relations between ghana and egypt; and (3) the extent to which these ties provide a privileged economic and political position to the egyptian community in ghana. the work is based on the socio-cultural transnationalism theory. a socio-historical method was adopted for the research and apart from the analysis of historical data, eight key informants were interviewed. the paper shows that due to high-profile intermarriages between ghanaians and egyptians, coupled with the ‘nkrumah factor’, the egyptian community in ghana occupies a privileged economic and political position in ghana. keywords egyptian migrants in ghana, intermarriage, privilege, economic and political position. introduction the migration of persons, families and groups across the african continent has played a leading role not only in advancing the livelihood strategies of the different people who inhabit the continent, but also in the process of empirebuilding, state formation and the evolution of the present forms of nationstates (agyeman and setrana, 2014). migration was also key in promoting the interaction amongst the different tribes and ethnic groups. it facilitated the building of social, political and economic relationships across the african continent. such movements took different forms and occurred for varying reasons. these included large-scale movements owing to unfavourable  centre for african studies, university of education, winneba, ghana.  department of history education, university of education, winneba & research associate, department of history, university of johannesburg, south africa. akwasi agyeman, e. and akwasi kwarteng, a., g. climatic conditions; economically induced migrations such as people moving in search of new farmlands, hunting grounds, grazing land and for trade; as well as politically induced migration such as groups fleeing from wars or from tyrannical, wicked and atrocious leaders (boahen et al, 1986). whereas many of these movements and socio-economic dynamics took place in the period before the development of modern african states, colonialism and events leading to the independence of african states led to the construction of new ties and political alliances between states across the african continent. for example, during the ghanaian struggle for independence, kwame nkrumah, ghana’s first president, was strongly backed by a pan-african ideology which enabled him to develop inter-state relations that permeated the ethnic, religious, racial and territorial boundaries that existed on the continent. this led him to develop stronger ties with the maghreb countries which later constituted the casablanca group that supported the establishment of a single african state (badejo, 2008). it is within this context that this paper foregrounds the intersection between ghana and egypt, the pioneers in african independence. the shared political ideology between kwame nkrumah and the egyptian leader gamal abdel nasser set the grounds for the construction of political ties between the two states during the period of the african independence struggle and in subsequent periods on the continent. additionally, nkrumah’s marriage to madam fathia, an egyptian woman, during the late 1950s, and other high-profile marriages between ghanaians and egyptians contributed to solidifying these relations. this subsequently ignited migration movements between ghana and egypt, further intermarriages as well as trade and socio-cultural ties between the two countries. today egyptian migrants constitute one of the most significant north african communities in ghana and, over the years, they have contributed to establishing various degrees of linkages such as trade, political ties and religious networks between egypt and ghana. this paper focuses on the egyptian diaspora in ghana, examining, (1) the type of cross-border and transnational ties that egyptian migrants in ghana establish between ghana and egypt; (2) how these ties generate cross-cultural relations between ghana and egypt; and (3) the extent to which these ties provide a privileged economic and political position to the egyptian community in ghana. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1639 theoretical framework and method the work is situated within the framework of migration and socio-cultural transnationalism literature (see basch et al, 1994; levitt, 1998; portes et al, 1999). according to this line of thought, the activities of migrants across state borders create transnational kinship ties and identities that transcend national barriers. these ties vary from informal to formal ones, ranging from individual to collective linkages, including family, economic, political, religious and institutional connections. through these ties, migrants are able to transfer and exchange vital resources, including cultural goods, knowledge, human and financial capital that affect origin and host societies (basch et al, 1994; levitt, 1998; portes et al, 1999). this study adopted a socio-historical approach, which was premised on the thesis that a combination of history and sociology provides a sense of complexity and change, sensitizing researchers to strategies that were prevalent in the past, while pointing to contemporary correlates. beyond that, the sociological approach provides a theoretical lens for analyzing historical phenomena. data for the study was generated through interviews of key informants, who were identified through the snowball sampling technique. a total of five key informants were interviewed in accra between june and september, 2016. they included egyptian community leaders, embassy staff and entrepreneurs living in accra. participants felt free and at ease to discuss their lived experiences and activities in ghana. the study accessed archival materials housed at the public records and archives administration department (praad) in accra, as well as newspapers and secondary literature to gain in-depth knowledge about ghana-egypt relations. this information was useful in understanding and analyzing the diplomatic context that shaped the cross-border and transnational ties between egypt and ghana and the experiences of egyptian migrants in ghana. it was unfortunate that a key target group was not interviewed. these were the children from marriages between ghanaians and egyptians who hold key political positions in ghana. that was due to the interview period (2016) coinciding with an election year in ghana and raising sensitive issues could potentially affect the identity sentiments of participants and eventually impact adversely on the research. akwasi agyeman, e. and akwasi kwarteng, a., g. trans-saharan migration and relations between north and west africa in historical perspective the mention of trans-saharan relations evokes several images and feelings – some of which are historical constructs. in some instances, the sahara evokes the image of a desert – an arid land where human habitation and activity is less desirable. in other instances, it conjures the image of a vast sea of sand that separates the mediterranean north african region from tropical africa. yet, in another sense, and probably the most popular, it evokes the image of commerce – the trans-saharan trade that linked north africa to sub-saharan africa (austen, 2010). as a result of the trade relations between the northern part of africa and the rest of tropical africa, human mobility between states and across the sahara became a regular occurrence, over a very long period. indeed, historians date the beginning of the trans-saharan trade to the 3rd and 4th centuries. yet, its traffic became significant from the 7th century and reached its peak between the 14th and 17th centuries (boahen et al, 1986). these trade relations across the sahara provided sub-saharan africa with its earliest and most significant contact with the outside world before europeans arrived on the atlantic coast of west africa in the 15th century (see austen, 2010). falola (2000: 25) aptly observed that, “trade was, perhaps, the most important form of relations between pre-colonial african states”. the reason for the emergence of the trans-saharan trade have been extensively documented (boahen et al, 1986). one lesser-known fact is that merchants from north africa, in the initial stages of the trade, rarely made any contact nor built any relations beyond the cities south of the sahara. austen (2010) has argued that the perceived dangers associated with travel beyond the desert, the lack of a more sophisticated mode of transportation as well as the lack of cultural skills to traverse such new environments, hindered such enterprise. nonetheless, in later centuries, it seemed that with the involvement and active participation of the mande and dyula traders, who had acquired the cultural skills to mediate the cultural relations of both the north african traders and their neighbouring sub-saharan africans, the trans-saharan trade extended into the savannah and forest areas further south. thus, as austen (2010: 41) states, “the task of connecting the end points of the caravans with savannah and forest zone sources of export goods thus became the specialty of african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1641 indigenous sudanic traders.” these sudanic merchants would develop into professional entrepreneurs, developing unique communities close to commercial centres of the sahel and beyond and would eventually become not only exporters of tropical african products across the sahara to the north, but also the transmission belt of the culture of the northern africans to most people of sub-saharan africa. the vital role of trade is underscored by falola (2000: 26), who asserts that, “the requirements of trade, such as currencies, languages of communication, trade routes, markets and professional traders served to promote interactions among states.” migrants, mostly merchants, formed communities in ancient ghana, gao, mali, djenne, bona and timbuctu and these migrant communities which were often referred to as ‘stranger communities’ integrated well into their host communities. skinner (1963) notes that migrants, predominantly merchants, actively involved themselves in both local and foreign trade and they became the economic force that ensured that almost the entire west african subregion was linked together as a common economic unit. he further notes that, because of their wide exposure and their ability to understand and speak more than one language, their host communities relied on them to act as interpreters to visitors as well as travellers to and from the host community. additionally, because of their vast exposure to other cultures they became cultural bearers, introducing their host communities to new cultural traits. historians have established the impact of the trans-saharan trade on the development of african kingdoms. the trade provided the impetus for the rise and development of ancient kingdoms such as ghana, mali and songhay. these kingdoms primarily benefited from the trans-saharan trade to rise into prominence. the trade was also essential for the spread of ideas, goods and institutions among african kingdoms. the spread of languages such as hausa and swahili across the continent as well as the spread of the arabic civilisation to most parts of africa was essentially the result of the trans-atlantic trade. with the arrival of europeans on the west coast of africa, the direction of the trans-saharan trade shifted towards the atlantic ocean, so that by the 18th century, the trans-saharan trade had declined considerably. as european colonisation made inroads on the african continent, the migration pattern of africans was also reconfigured (skinner, 1963). it similarly altered the nature of relationships that existed between migrants and their host communities. as new urban centres emerged and as europeans established plantations and commercial ventures along the west african coast, new opportunities were created and the number of immigrants to these new entrepôts increased akwasi agyeman, e. and akwasi kwarteng, a., g. substantially. as skinner (1963) observed: “african migrants who were later to settle as strangers flocked to these centres from far and wide, drawn and pushed by forces introduced by europeans. for example, yoruba, togolese, ewe, dahomeyans, mossi, and songhay migrated to the former gold coast and the ivory coast…” (skinner, 1963: 309). these new migrants followed preeuropean migrant traditions and established their own permanent quarters under their elected chiefs and headsmen. this pattern of migration across subsahara africa, encouraged by the colonial political economy, continued throughout the colonial period, so that by the time colonial rule ended, several permanent migrant communities in most west african cities had been established. these migrants were politically and economically integrated into their host communities and served as the bridge between their host communities and their original nations. yet, relations between migrants and their host communities were not always cordial (skinner, 1963). economic pressures often pitched migrants against local populations as migrants were often accused by local populations of helping to perpetuate the exploitative tendencies of europeans by accepting low wages and serving as middlemen between the europeans and the locals (akyeampong, 2006). also, the migrants’ involvement in local politics, particularly, during the struggle for independence, often created tensions between migrant communities and nationalist leaders, resulting in some migrants being deported soon after independence. a clear case was the deportation of several migrants in ghana in the 1950s and also in the ivory coast in more recent times (agyeman and setrana, 2014). as most african countries gained independence in the 20th century, new dynamics emerged not only in the pattern of migration in sub-sahara africa, but also in the relationship between migrants, migrant communities and their host communities. the egyptian diaspora community in ghana the egyptian community in ghana, along with the lebanese, constitute what is generally referred to as ghana’s arab community. this group of nearly one million migrants in ghana, occupies a central position in ghana’s economic and political structure. whereas the egyptian migration to ghana started during the 1950s, that of the lebanese started a century earlier (akyeampong, 2006). the earliest egyptian settlers in ghana were mainly diplomatic administrative staff. however, from the late 1950s egyptian women who were married to african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1643 ghanaian men, settled in ghana. those women included rouby sinare, wife of the late army general, alhaji said senare, megwa cata, the wife of another army general and most notably fathia nkrumah, the wife of ghana’s first president, kwame nkrumah. there were, indeed, curious amorous relationships between ghanaian military professionals and egyptian women and between ghanaian political elite and egyptians. that was, in part, due to the training programmes and educational opportunities offered to ghanaians by the egyptian government, as well as the prevailing pan-african political ideology of the time (cct5).1 in subsequent years, other egyptian migrants arrived in ghana to establish their businesses. the current egyptian community in ghana remains very small, numbering between 200 and 800. they have settled mainly in accra and kumasi. in spite of its small size, the egyptian community in ghana, like the lebanese, controls large-scale family businesses and constitutes what akyeampong describes as “a formidable entrepreneurial class” (akyeampong, 2006: 308). some notable companies controlled by egyptian migrants include rafi aluminium, elsewedy electric which is the lead supplier of electrometers and cables in ghana as well as mantrac which is the sole company authorized to supply cat caterpillars (construction equipment) and spare parts to ghana. in addition, children of the egyptian migrants and some of the migrants themselves have become formidable political leaders in ghana. three prominent cases include samia nkrumah, daughter of kwame nkrumah who was leader of her father’s convention people’s party and member of parliament for the jomoro constituency between 2012 and 2016; alhaji said senare, the second vice-chairman of the national democratic congress, who also served as ghana’s ambassador to egypt and later to saudi arabia; and dr medhat khalil, chairman of rafi aluminium and patron of the egyptian community in ghana; dr khalil is also the malawian ambassador to ghana. during the study, it was evident that the egyptian community in ghana constitutes a privileged group and unlike other immigrant groups, the level of interaction between them and members of the ghanaian community is quite intense. the study deduced that this is largely the result of the (high-profile) 1 cct5: cct was the coding technique that was adopted in order to protect the anonymity of our informants. cct1, cct2, cct3, cct4 and cct5, thus, refers to the first, second, third, fourth and fifth informant respectively. akwasi agyeman, e. and akwasi kwarteng, a., g. intermarriages that have occurred between ghanaians and egyptians since the 1950s. intermarriage and cross-cultural and kinship ties between ghanaians and egyptians among the non-west african migrants in ghana, egyptians have increasingly developed conjugal ties with ghanaians. akyeampong (2006) observed that lebanese migrants who have lived in ghana for more than a century have managed to keep their cultural heritage and ethnic/racial identity intact by strictly prohibiting mixed marriages between members of their group and those of the host society. research on some west african migrants in ghana also report a similar practice. a case in point pertains to the gao and zabrama people from mali and niger who observe a similar exogamous marriage prohibition rule between ghanaians and members of their community (gamado, 2016). this practice has succeeded in creating some degree of distance between these groups and members of the host society, across generations. however, unlike the lebanese, gao and zabrama, the egyptian diaspora in ghana has developed strong cross-cultural ties with ghanaians. this is manifested in intermarriages and the resultant development of kinship relations, the establishment of the coptic orthodox churches and islamic centres in ghana led by egyptian scholars, the development of egyptian businesses, and the popularity of the egyptian smock, even among nonghanaian muslims in ghana. these practices were also confirmed during the interviews with the key informants. one of them said: “there are no borders between egyptians and ghanaians; there are no short ways in the interrelations” (cct1).2 intermarriage between ghanaians and egyptians has been a prominent feature since the 1950s. this practice appears to be the key behind the establishment of close ties between members of the two communities. in 1957 when kwame nkrumah married his egyptian wife, this relationship lent itself to several interpretations. recently, ray (2015) argued that nkrumah’s marriage to madam fathia created panic among western leaders who viewed it as grounds for a political alliance between ghana and egypt. in fact, western 2 cct1: informant 1. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1645 scholars, such as scott thompson (1969: 49), viewed it as a politically motivated ‘bizarre’ marriage: in december 1957, nkrumah married an egyptian coptic woman, one of the more bizarre alliances caused by his foreign policy […] the marriage was to be a continuous embarrassment to nkrumah, and to his colleagues. he seldom paid any attention to her. at the time of writing, it was reported she was suing nkrumah for divorce. in fact, while the political circumstances at the time opened the window for intensive interaction between leaders and citizens of ghana and egypt who combined roles to help african counties to gain independence, evidence from this study further shows that the affective relationships that developed at the time might have triggered the close political ties between nkrumah and nasser after the 1950s and not the vice versa. the role of ghanaian students studying in egypt was key in this process of affective interaction. over the years, egypt has served as one of the principal destinations of ghanaian overseas students. a good number of ghanaian islamic scholars attained university education in egypt and it was during the period of their schooling in that country that some of them met their egyptian partners. this practice was confirmed during this researcher’s interaction with leaders of the egyptian community in accra. according to their patron, it was alhaji said senare who had advised his friend, kwame nkrumah, to marry madam fathia after senare had forged an affective relationship with an egyptian woman while studying in egypt: while senare was studying in egypt at hazard university, he met his egyptian wife. senare married the egyptian (woman) and introduced fathia to nkrumah (cct5).3 as mentioned earlier, both senare and nkrumah relocated their wives to ghana and these high-profile marriages set the precedent for further marriages and intensive kinship ties between ghanaians and egyptians. another key informant observed: the effect of nkrumah’s marriage with madam fathia is that many ghanaians and egyptians started having mixed marriages. some ghanaian students returned from egypt with wives, diplomatic representatives and other egyptians came to ghana and started having 3 cct5: informant 5. akwasi agyeman, e. and akwasi kwarteng, a., g. ghanaian wives. they did so not just to imitate nkrumah, but due to intensive relations (cct2).4 this social phenomenon was not the preserve of ghanaian males who went to egypt to seek wives. egyptians in ghana also sought ghanaian wives. moreover, there are many intermarriages between ghanaians and egyptians within the muslim community in ghana. some of the egyptian community leaders interviewed for this study, are also married to ghanaians. a striking case is the patron of the community, who had been living in ghana for 33 years, at the time of the interview and is married to a ghanaian woman and they have children. he is the owner of one of the largest aluminium firms in west africa and is also the current ambassador of the republic of malawi to ghana. this man represents a perfect example of instances where the lives of ghanaians and egyptians intersect. during the interview, it was evident that he used part of the premises of his company building as the embassy of malawi. apart from being an entrepreneur and ambassador, he is also a professor and a lawyer who holds a doctoral degree. he asserted that he had achieved everything he had aspired to, after migrating to ghana. although the circumstances leading to his appointment as malawian ambassador to ghana were not discussed during the interview, this study surmises that ghana’s ties with egypt and malawi during the african independence struggle in the 1950s and the role of nkrumah opened such an opportunity for him. malawi’s first president, hastings kamuzu banda, who studied and practiced medicine in the united kingdom, settled and practiced his medical profession in ghana after he left europe. during the time he was in ghana (then the gold coast) he was active in ghana’s independence movement before he finally moved to his home country malawi to lead his people to achieve independence. the ghanaian concept of kinship is very broad and when two people marry, it is perceived as entire families, communities and ethnic groups marrying. as a result, egyptian migrants in ghana are perceived in many circles as kinsmen rather than foreigners. the appointment in 2012 of alhaji said senare, whose mother is an egyptian, as ghana’s ambassador to egypt symbolically represents this relationship. in doing so, ghana was in fact sending her son to represent her in his mother’s land. the choice of samia nkrumah as leader of her father’s political party also demonstrates the level of acceptance that she has gained within the ghanaian society. as a matrilineal society, the akan 4 cct2: informant 2. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1647 which constitutes, by far, the largest ethnic group in ghana, and to which nkrumah belonged, children do not normally inherit from their father’s lineage. . the cross-cultural exchanges between ghanaians and egyptians are evident in several other practices, including culinary practices, tastes and the manner of dressing. ghanaian local dishes such as fufu, kenkey and banku have also become staple foods for many egyptians living in ghana. this was confirmed in the following interview: the egyptians that came here managed to live the way ghanaians live, even though they kept their identity (cct2)5. the adoption of ghanaian local dishes by the egyptians migrants could also be attributed to the intermarriages. however, this does not mean that the egyptians have abandoned their ways. the lifestyle of the egyptian migrants and their children born with ghanaian spouses manifests a close knit between ghanaian and egyptian cultures. this is evident in name-giving, way of dressing, religious practices and social relations. for example, during a number of public appearances, alhaji said senare sometimes wears the egyptian smock to showcase this cross-cultural identity. conclusion this paper examined the transnational ties between ghana and egypt which have been forged due to migration. in tracing the instances where north and west africa intersect, the paper examined the kinship, political and economic ties that have developed between ghana and egypt since the 1950s. while the political circumstances at the time dictated the instances leading to such relationships, these connections have been perpetuated by the egyptian community living in ghana. in an attempt to situate where transnational kinship ties connect ghana and egypt, this study found that the impact of highprofile intermarriages between ghanaians and egyptians were at the bedrock of such relationships. whereas the existing literature on migrants’ transnationalism is largely drawn from research based on migration experiences between the united states and south america or asia (iredale et al, 2003; portes et al, 1999) and between europe and africa (mazzucato, 2010) this paper shows that there is a strong 5 cct2: informant 2. akwasi agyeman, e. and akwasi kwarteng, a., g. transnational tie between north and west africa as a result of the activity of migrants. ghana has been able to maintain long-term political, trade, cultural and social relations with egypt because the egyptian citizens who settled in ghana many years ago have developed and used several forms of transnational networks to connect the two countries. the egyptian migrants in ghana are able run their businesses and trade through the transnational networks they have established between their host and origin countries. this practice has proven to be common elsewhere, as the case among bangladeshi migrants in japan illustrated (rahman and lian, 2010). the high rate of intermarriage between the egyptians and ghanaians has given the former the leverage in developing a degree of economic and political power in ghana. the informal and formal family and kinship ties (husband, wife, son, daughter, in-laws, parents, grandparents) which have developed between ghanaians and egyptians have had a rippling effect on the way members of the two communities and nations perceive one another. as kinsmen, these ties constitute an important resource to leverage political relationships. more so, these ties are buried in lasting relationships (the burial of madam fathia in ghana symbolically represents this) and they have become important elements for the formation of a mnemonic community, that is, a community with memory of a common history, which continues to influence a great deal of ghana-egypt relations. this study recommends that any discourse on migrant integration in ghana should not overlook the complexity of transnational relations, kinship and socio-cultural ties that develop between migrants and the host society, which nurture and perpetuate long-term coexistence. the literature would be enriched by future studies that drill down more deeply to explore the construction of the ghanaian-egyptian identity among the second generation, that is, the children from these mixed marriages. references agyeman, e.a. and setrana, m.b. 2014. human mobility in ghana. in baggio, f. (ed). africans on the move: human mobility in ghana, nigeria, angola and south africa. cape town: sihma, pp. 13-69. akyeampong, e.k. 2006. race, identity and citizenship in black africa: the case of lebanese in ghana. africa, 76(3): 297-323. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1649 austen, r. 2010. trans-saharan africa in world history. oxford: oxford university press. badejo, l.d. 2008. the african union. new york: infobase publishing. basch, l., schiller, n.g. and blanc, c.s. 1994. nations unbound: transnational projects, postcolonial predicaments, and deterritorialized nation-states. langhorne, pa: gordon and breach science publishers. boahen, a., ade ajayi, j.f. and tidy, m. 1986. topics in west african history (2nd ed), england: longman limited. falola, t. (ed). 2000. africa, vol. ii: african cultures and societies before 1885. durham, north carolina: carolina academic press. gamado, v. 2016. ethnic transformation among the gao people of zabrama line, accra. mphil thesis, department of sociology, university of ghana, accra. iredale, r., guo, f. and rozario, s. 2003. return migration in the asia pacific. cheltenham: edward elgar. levitt, p. 1998. social remittances: migration driven local-level forms of cultural diffusion. international migration review, 32(4): 926-948. mazzucato, v. 2010. operationalising transnational migrant networks through a simultaneous matched sample methodology. in bauböck, r. and faist, t., diaspora and transnationalism: concepts, theories and methods. amsterdam: amsterdam university press. rahman, m. and lian, k.f. 2010. the development of migrant entrepreneurship in japan: the case of bangladeshis. international migration and integration, 12(3): 253-274. portes, a., guarnizo, l.e. and landolt, p. 1999. the study of transnationalism: pitfalls and promise of an emerging research field. ethnic and racial studies, 22(2): 217-237. ray, c.e. 2015. crossing the color line: race, sex and the contested politics of colonialism in ghana. athens: ohio university press. scott thompson, w. 1969. ghana’s foreign policy: diplomacy ideology in a new state. princeton: princeton university press. skinner, e.p. 1963. strangers in west african societies. africa, 33(4): 307-320. akwasi agyeman, e. and akwasi kwarteng, a., g. 910 linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship godfrey tawodzera* and abel chikanda** abstract zimbabwe has witnessed a rapid expansion of informal cross border trading (icbt) with neighbouring countries over the past two and a half decades. that expansion has largely been due to a persistent decline in the economy since the introduction of the economic structural adjustment programme (esap) in the 1990s, which led to the closure of many industries, increased unemployment and forced many people into the informal sector. this 2014 study sought to provide a current picture of icbt in zimbabwe by interviewing 514 informal entrepreneurs involved in icbt between harare (zimbabwe) and johannesburg (south africa). the sample profile revealed that icbt in zimbabwe is dominated by females and young adults and that traders are fairly educated. the study results demonstrate the important role played by icbt in the survival of households in the country. the traders make important contributions to the zimbabwean economy through business establishment, providing goods that are unavailable in the country, availing goods cheaper than the formal retail sector and benefiting the fiscus through import duties. in south africa, icbt benefits wholesalers from whom traders purchase their goods and supports the south african transport and hospitality industries. the report concludes that icbt in zimbabwe has become more than a survivalist strategy. it is contributing to the economy by generating jobs and reducing unemployment. therefore, there is a need for policies that encourage rather than restrict the operation of informal trade. keywords cross-border traders, informal economy, international trade, harare, johannesburg. * department of geography & environmental studies, university of limpopo, p. bag x1106, sovenga ** department of geography & atmospheric science and african & african-american studies, university of kansas, lawrence, kansas state, usa 66045. godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 911 introduction across the southern african development community (sadc) region, informal cross-border trade (icbt) is a well-established entrepreneurial activity accounting for 30-40% of intra-regional trade (makombe, 2011; mijere, 2009; peberdy et al., 2015). for zimbabwe, icbt not only expands the market for zimbabwean goods (such as handicrafts) but also imports a wide variety of perishables and non-perishables for the zimbabwean consumers. icbt is not a new phenomenon in zimbabwe, dating back to the 1990s when the country started experiencing serious economic hardships (gaidzanwa, 1998; kurebwa, 2015). the first decade after zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 was a period of relative growth and stability: the real gdp growth rate averaged 7% per annum, average annual inflation was in the single digits, budget deficit as a percentage of gdp was generally around 5% per annum and export growth averaged around 15% per year (malaba, 2006). however, government expenditure rose dramatically over the same period to over 50% of gdp by 1990, largely due to increased spending on health, social services and infrastructure (brown, 2000). consequently, there was relatively less spending on capital projects to grow the economy. the result was increasing unemployment, which reached 26% by 1990, up from just 8% at independence (robinson, 1991). national government debt reached 71% of gdp in 1989 (munjoma, 1999) and by 1997, per capita incomes were lower than in 1990 (mupedziswa & gumbo, 2001). a decade after the country’s independence, and against this backdrop of a contracting economy, the government of zimbabwe launched a series of economic reforms. the first phase, launched in 1990, was the international monetary fund (imf) and the world bank-funded economic structural adjustment programme (esap) (mupedziswa & gumbo, 2001). this was succeeded by the zimbabwe programme for economic and social transformation (zimprest) in 1997 (government of zimbabwe, 1997). the austerity measures imposed on the economy by these reforms (such as the removal of subsidies on food and agricultural inputs, the removal of controls on prices, labour and wages and the operation of social services at cost recovery levels) led to a host of negative impacts that included the closure of linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship many factories, massive retrenchments, declining real wages and skyrocketing consumer prices. the resultant decline in the formal economy led to a growth in the informal sector (kamete, 2017; tibaijuka, 2005). icbt as a household livelihood strategy also began to escalate, as thousands of jobless workers had no choice but to enter the informal economy. despite south africa imposing tough visa restrictions on zimbabweans after 1995, cross-border trading continued to be an important source of livelihood for many zimbabweans. just as south africa removed visa restrictions in 2005, the government of zimbabwe launched an assault on all forms of urban informality through operation murambatsvina (chirisa, 2007; potts, 2006; tibaijuka, 2005). though this operation temporarily interrupted the trade, ictb quickly reestablished itself as informal entrepreneurs had few viable alternatives. in 2007, at the height of zimbabwe’s economic crisis, samp conducted a border monitoring study of informal traders at four major border posts and found that the trade was not only increasing and diversifying, but more men were also becoming involved (tevera & tawodzera, 2007). as zimbabwe’s shops emptied and the purchasing power of the zimbabwean dollar evaporated during the economic meltdown of 2008, icbt traders played a critical role in ensuring that essential supplies, such as foodstuffs, remained accessible to many households. the volume of informal trade at the zimbabwean borders with south africa and botswana reached record proportions during the crisis (ama et al., 2013; campbell & crush, 2014; kachere, 2011). in 2009, the zimbabwean economy stabilised after the inauguration of the government of national unity. stabilisation was short-lived as the country’s economic situation has deteriorated once again. however, the period of economic stability following the crisis of 2007-8 does raise the question of whether and what impact it had on icbt. on the one hand, many goods that were formerly unavailable in the country returned to the shops. on the other, formal sector unemployment remained stubbornly high and many households continued to rely on the informal economy for their livelihoods (tawodzera, 2014). in june 2016, the government of zimbabwe, through statutory instrument 64 of 2016, banned the importation of a wide variety of goods, including various processed and tinned foods, bottled water, dairy products, godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 913 household furniture, fertilizer, cotton fabric and some building materials. according to the minister of industry and commerce, the move was designed “to support our local industry […] buying locally manufactured goods; whether it involves purchasing machinery worth millions or even just a t-shirt; begins a cycle in which you re-invest money into the local economy, instead of spending it on an imported product and sending the money outbound” (pindula news, 2016). the announcement triggered widespread protests by informal cross-border traders in harare and at the beitbridge border post between zimbabwe and south africa. the ostensible reason was that the livelihoods of many in the informal economy, who made a living importing goods from south africa and botswana, were under threat by the state (kalaba, 2016; scoones, 2016). a recent study has estimated that there are as many as 3.5 million micro small and medium (msme) enterprises in zimbabwe (finmark trust, 2014). of these, 2 million (or 71%) are individual entrepreneurs, 800,000 have employees and nearly half reported that the business was their only source of income (finmark trust, 2014). additionally, 85% of these businesses were not registered and therefore operated in the informal economy, hence underscoring the importance of the informal sector to the livelihoods and sustenance of many zimbabweans. against this backdrop, the growing informal cities project set out to examine the nature and role of contemporary icbt between zimbabwe and south africa by interviewing a sample of icbt entrepreneurs in harare in 2014. in this paper, we discuss the findings of this survey and demonstrate that despite many challenges and obstacles, icbt continues to thrive. research methodology the research on which this paper is based employed both qualitative and quantitative techniques to obtain a profile of zimbabwean cross-border traders and insights into their motivation, operations, challenges and opportunities. a questionnaire was administered to a total of 534 icbt traders in harare (table 1). only traders who were trading in the informal sector (not registered for tax purposes); had been in operation for at least a year to allow for a retrospective analysis of the start-up, problems and opportunities; and linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship were conducting business primarily between harare and johannesburg were interviewed. because it is impossible to draw a representative sample of crossborder traders, the study adopted a snowball sampling strategy. this involved identifying a small group of cross-border traders in multiple locations across harare. these traders were then used as initial sampling units and were asked to identify other traders to be included in the sample. each interviewed crossborder trader was asked to identify at least three other traders, from which one was randomly selected for interview. the process was repeated until the desired sample size was achieved. table 1: sampled areas of harare no. % harare cbd 263 49.6 mbare and mupedzanhamo 110 20.6 chitungwiza, makoni and st mary’s 36 6.7 highfield and machipisa 33 6.1 avondale 20 3.7 kuwadzana 17 3.2 warren park 1 15 2.8 epworth 12 2.2 glen view 3, 7 and 8 12 2.2 mabvuku – tafara 12 2.2 other 4 0.7 total 534 100.0 in addition to the questionnaire survey, 24 in-depth interviews were conducted with selected cross-border traders in harare using a semi godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 915 structured interview schedule. the interviews allowed for further probing on the origins and contemporary context of icbt as well as other key issues surrounding the trade. two focus group discussions were also held in harare and focused on understanding the nature of the trade, relationships with local authorities and the police and the challenges faced in the traders’ everyday lives. three in-depth interviews were also conducted with traders’ organisations in the city that were able to supply information relevant to cross-border trading, particularly issues relating to space, licensing and how traders organise. because of the complexity of icbt, it is possible that some trading activities were not captured in the survey. those operating homebased businesses, and those selling to middlemen, may be under-represented, for example. these limitations notwithstanding, the size of the sample from across the city is likely to give a generally accurate picture of harare’s crossborder trade. profile of icbt entrepreneurs icbt from zimbabwe has traditionally been dominated by female traders with limited involvement of males (muzvidziwa, 2001, 2015). in southern africa as a whole, women make up an estimated 70-80% of informal cross-border traders (unifem, 2010). the majority of traders interviewed in this study were females (68%) with males constituting only 32%. the sample was also relatively young, with a mean age of 33 years. the dominance of young people in cross-border trading between zimbabwe and south africa is explained by the arduous nature of the trade, which involves a great deal of travelling and spending considerable time waiting at border posts and the places where goods are sourced. cross-border trade in the 1990s was associated with the less educated and unskilled (muzvidziwa, 2015). however, this harare sample was better educated with only 1% of the sample having not completed primary school, while two-thirds had a high school diploma, 17% had some secondary level education, 11% had a college certificate and 3% had at least an undergraduate degree. the entry of better-educated people into icbt is certainly a result of continuing high unemployment levels in zimbabwe. in terms of marital status, linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship 17% of this sample had never been married, 66% were married and 16% were divorced, separated or widowed. the largest number of traders were living in nuclear households (43%), while 28% were from extended households (table 2). a significant minority (17%) were from female-centred households while only 5% were male-centred. what this suggests is that female icbt traders came from a variety of different household structures, which would have meant different domestic roles and responsibilities and different abilities to trade full-time. in general, the array of people involved in icbt indicates that it is no longer the preserve of a few. an economic activity once completely dominated by low-income households and a relatively uneducated population has become a viable livelihood alternative for others reeling under economic pressure. although still dominated by women, male traders are involved in increasing numbers as icbt has increasingly become a business for all. table 2: household structure of icbt traders no. % female-centred 97 18.3 male-centred 26 4.9 nuclear 228 42.9 extended 145 27.3 single person household 35 6.6 total 531 100.0 only 1% of the icbt businesses surveyed were established before 1990. this is primarily because the economy of the country was still strong and most workers were being absorbed in the formal sector. around 11% were established in the 1990s, the decade of the economic structural adjustment programme (esap), while another 15% started cross-border trading between 2000 and 2005. by far the largest proportion of icbt traders began operations godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 917 during and after the economic crisis of 2008, with nearly three-quarters starting up between 2006 and 2014. the rate of start-up seems to have fallen slightly after 2010, most probably as a result of the stabilisation of the economy after the establishment of the gnu as well as the more stable political environment. because most food became available in the country through formal sector imports, the incentive to continue icbt, especially involving food, was no longer as compelling. because high rates of unemployment are thought to be one of the main reasons pushing people into the informal economy and icbt, the survey sought to find out what occupation the traders were engaged in before starting their enterprises. around one-third were unemployed (table 3). another 22% were already working in the informal economy either running a business that did not involve icbt or being employed by someone else (6%). this suggests that the majority of traders went straight into icbt, rather than expanding into icbt from an existing enterprise. another 36% of the traders were employed in a formal sector job immediately prior to establishing an icbt business. table 3: occupation before starting icbt business no. % unemployed unemployed/job seeker 178 33.4 informal economy operated own informal sector business in zimbabwe only 89 16.7 employed by someone in the informal economy 32 6.0 employed office worker 40 7.5 manual worker (skilled) 35 6.6 manual worker (unskilled) 35 6.6 linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship professional (e.g. lawyer, doctor, academic, engineer) 15 2.8 teacher 10 1.9 health worker 9 1.7 employer/manager 6 1.1 police/military/security 4 0.8 domestic worker 3 0.6 agricultural worker 2 0.4 other occupation 32 6.0 other businessman/woman formal sector (self-employed) 7 1.3 scholar/student 36 6.8 total 533 100.0 around 30% of the sample indicated that they had additional sources of income while 70% survived solely on the icbt business. the majority of those with alternative income-generating sources indicated that they were involved in non-icbt businesses (55%), while 11% were deriving income from parttime or casual work (table 4). according to one trader, having more than one business was a necessity given the unpredictable nature of the informal trade: i sell clothes and shoes, but i also have another income from selling foodstuffs. clothes do not sell faster than food so when i am in need of faster cash i know that i will always get some from trading food. however, the profit from food is not much so it just takes care of my immediate needs. when i am looking for serious money, i know i will get it from clothes and shoes even if they are bought less frequently (interview no. 4, harare, 27 september 2014). godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 919 table 4: other income generating activities no. % another non-icbt business 85 55.9 part-time/casual work 17 11.2 another icbt business 14 9.2 formal employment in the private sector 7 4.6 formal employment in the public sector 3 2.0 rentals 3 2.0 other work 23 15.1 total 152 100.0 entrepreneurial motivation there is a general assumption in the literature on the informal economy in zimbabwe that people participate because they have no choice. this would imply that most participants in icbt are necessity-driven entrepreneurs, pushed to participate by the need to survive. however, icbt is not the easiest or most obvious form of informal activity and may attract those with different, more opportunity-driven entrepreneurial motivations. therefore, the study examined the reasons why traders started an icbt business. respondents were asked to rate 27 factors as motivations for starting their icbt business on a scale from 1 (no importance) to 5 (extremely important). the responses confirm the importance of financial survival in pushing people into crossborder trading (table 5). easily the most important factors were the need to make more money just to survive (a mean score of 4.9) and the need to give their families greater financial security (4.6). this suggests that icbt is largely a necessity-driven survival strategy to generate income. employment-related factors, including unemployment and having an undesirable job, were significantly less important. linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship table 5: entrepreneurial motivation of icbt entrepreneurs mean score survivalist factors i needed more money just to survive 4.9 i wanted to give my family greater financial security 4.6 i was unemployed and unable to find a job 3.0 i had a job but it did not pay enough 2.6 i wanted to provide employment for members of my family 2.3 i had a job but it did not suit my qualifications and experience 1.2 entrepreneurial orientation i have always wanted to run my own business 4.2 i wanted more control over my own time/to be my own boss 3.9 i like to challenge myself 2.9 i wanted to do something new and challenging 2.7 i have the right personality to be involved in cross-border trade 2.6 i wanted to compete with others and be the best 2.5 i like to learn new skills 2.5 i enjoy taking risks 2.4 market opportunities i wanted to expand my business 3.2 i had a good idea for a product to sell to people in zimbabwe 3.1 i started cross-border trading to grow my business 3.1 godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 921 there were shortages of certain goods in my home country 3.0 i had a good idea for a product to sell in south africa 1.2 i had a good idea for a product to sell to people from my home country 1.2 building and utilising social capital i wanted to increase my status in the community 3.2 i wanted to contribute to the development of my home country 2.7 support and help in starting my business was available from family members 2.5 i wanted to provide employment for other people 2.1 my family members have always been involved in cross-border trade 2.1 support and help in starting my business was available from other traders 1.9 i decided to go into business in partnership with others 1.5 the second set of factors relates more to self-assessment of personality traits usually associated with entrepreneurship. a desire to own one’s own business did rate relatively highly (at 4.2), as did the related desire to be one’s own boss (3.9). however, the other personality-related factors had low ratings, which suggest that the traders did not see themselves as natural entrepreneurs. they were generally more alert to the market opportunities provided by participation in icbt, with a number of factors scoring around 3.0 on average including awareness of shortages in zimbabwe, having a good idea for a product to sell, and wanting to expand an existing business. financing icbt the amount of start-up capital required to engage in icbt has been a deterrent for low-income individuals and households in the past (muzvidziwa, 2007). in linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship this survey, almost three-quarters of the sample had minimal start-up capital of zar 5,000 or less, which suggests that the entry threshold may have declined (figure 1). only 8% had started their business with a capital outlay of more than zar 10,000. according to some respondents, a basic icbt business can be established with as little as zar 2,000. as one commented: cross-border business does not need a lot of money to start. you only need to be clever and buy things that sell faster and are wanted by the people. then you can increase your stock as time goes on. i started my business with zar 1,500 buying and selling rice when the country was in dire need of food. i would buy rice from musina and sell in harare and do two trips a week. i used trucks which are cheaper and did not sleep in south africa, so i reduced my costs (interview no. 9, harare, 28 september 2014). most of the traders acquired their start-up capital from multiple personal sources. about 58% used their personal savings, 38% borrowed money from relatives, while 2% borrowed from non-relatives and 1% from informal money lenders. very few (1.2%) started their icbt business with money from formal sources such as banks and micro-finance institutions. while start-up capital is important for the business to take off, most businesses require a constant injection of cash during their life-span, especially in the initial stages (abdulsaleh & worthington, 2013). in this survey, almost one-third (27%) of the traders reported borrowing additional money for their business in the year prior to the study (table 6). godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 923 figure 1: capital used to start an icbt business table 6: sources of operating loans no. % loan from relatives 77 53.2 micro-finance institution 21 15.0 bank 17 12.0 informal financial institution 9 6.3 money lenders 9 6.3 loan from other business owners 6 4.2 business credit (goods on terms) 1 0.7 other sources 9 6.3 total 144 100.0 linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship the majority reported that they had borrowed from relatives. according to the traders, relatives are the best source of loans because they do not place stringent conditions on the borrower and are likely to be understanding should they default on the loan or delay the repayment: of course i have borrowed a number of times to finance my business, but i only borrow from my close relatives. they are very understanding when you can’t pay them back or delay the repayment. if you borrow from other people, they give you all sorts of problems in that they can even come and take your goods as surety, or even sell your goods (interview no. 10, harare, 29 september 2014). a small number of traders had obtained additional loans from micro-finance institutions (15%) and banks (12%). with the introduction of the us dollar (usd) as one of the trading currencies in the country in 2009, a number of micro-finance institutions were established in harare. these organisations lend money on a short-term basis, ranging from days to months, but rarely for periods exceeding a year. their interest rates are generally higher than those offered by the banks but they are less stringent on surety requirements, accepting such assets as cars, fridges, stoves, tvs and washing machines as surety. banks, on the other hand, generally prefer immovable properties such as houses. in the absence of such property, a borrower is expected to show evidence of employment and ability to repay through submitting pay-slips. one trader compared the two in this way: i borrow many times when my stocks are low and i need to boost my business. i usually borrow from micro-finance houses where i can just leave the registration book of my car and get it when i repay them. banks require many documents which i do not have. i also do not own a house for surety. so i prefer the microfinances as they are simple. i can apply in the morning and get the money before the end of the day (interview no. 7, harare, 28 september 2014). other sources of loans include informal financial institutions and money lenders. stokvels (money clubs) lend money to members at reasonable rates godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 925 and the repayment period is usually mutually agreed upon with the borrower who is also a member. money lenders, however, tend to lend at punitive rates and can use brutal coercive methods to enforce repayment in case of a default. as a result, most icbt traders avoid doing business with them. a few traders (4%) said they preferred to borrow from each other before going to banks and money lenders. this is because the terms of repayment from fellow traders are very favourable and there is a mutual understanding of the challenges of the trade. how much do the traders borrow from these various sources? loans from fellow traders were zar 16,667 on average, compared to zar 12,187 from banks, zar 11,214 from micro-finance institutions, zar 7,444 from informal financial institutions, zar 6,335 from relatives and zar 3,527 from moneylenders. a key determinant of where money is borrowed is the interest charged on the loan. the highest interest rates are charged by money lenders (averaging 23%), followed by stokvels (18%), micro-finance institutions (17%) and banks (12%). almost all traders (95%) said they use loans to purchase goods for resale, while others use the funds to meet transportation costs (57%) and for rental of the market stalls (10%). in harare, some traders have no stalls of their own and rent from others on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. most icbt traders use public transport (buses and haulage trucks) to ferry their goods from south africa and incur significant costs. traders who take arts and curio products to south africa to sell use the money to transport their goods as far afield as cape town and port elizabeth. what is clear is that loans are used for basic business expenses and not for other household needs. many traders (51%) indicated that the borrowed money significantly increased the volume of their sales (figure 2). others reported an increase in the profitability and competitiveness of their business (23%), and diversification of the products they traded (8%). however, not all traders had positive experiences. as one recounted: i borrowed zar 20,000 from a micro-finance in march so that i could buy more stock. however, that loan has caused me more problems than any real benefits because from that time everything has been linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship going downhill. the interest rate was such that i was expected to pay back the zar 20,000 plus zar 5,000 interest in two months. when i bought more stock from johannesburg, i paid too much duty at the border and when i resold the goods in harare, i failed to raise the initial zar 20,000. the micro-finance then took my car and gave me seven days to pay, which i failed to do and my car was sold (interview no. 3, harare, 27 september 2014). figure 2: impact of loans on icbt business activity less than 20% of the icbt traders had applied for a bank loan to finance their business at start-up or for ongoing operations. when asked about the reasons for low patronage of banks, around one-quarter indicated that they had no interest in getting a bank loan, 14% that banks asked for too much collateral, while 13% were dissuaded by the high interest rates, and 12% said the application process was too complicated for them to understand (table 7). only half of those who did apply for a bank loan were successful. most were rejected because they had insufficient collateral. according to a trader whose application had been rejected, the documentation required by the bank was also especially onerous: godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 927 i have applied for a loan and every time my application is rejected i am given a different reason. the first time i was told that i did not have sufficient collateral even though i had submitted title deeds for a plot. the second time i was told that the amount of money i needed was too much and could not be covered by the plot. i eventually just gave up. but it is frustrating after having wasted so much time and money looking for documents and printing, and travelling to and from the bank (interview no. 5, harare, 28 september 2014). table 7: main reasons for not applying for a bank loan no. % not interested in getting a loan 101 24.5 guarantee/collateral asked for is too much 59 14.3 interest rates are too high 54 13.1 application procedures too complicated 49 11.9 did not think it would be approved 47 11.4 don't have a bank account 46 11.2 no need for a loan – had sufficient capital 33 8.0 other reason 23 5.6 total 412 100.0 buying in johannesburg, selling in harare icbt traders from harare are highly mobile, spending only 1.79 days in south africa on average per visit, although a few stay for several weeks, particularly if they are taking goods to sell. the traders travel relatively frequently to south africa, with 67% making at least one trip per month and 82% travelling more than four times per year. the vast majority do not have their own means of transport to south africa and rely on bus services (99%), trucks (3.9%), their own vehicles (1.1%) and taxis (0.6%). only a few traders (0.2%) travel by linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship plane. some icbt traders use their services of informal transporters (omalayisha) as it saves them the trouble of having to transport their own goods through the border. the omalayisha are well-known to the customs officials on both sides of the border, which enables them to carry goods without paying customs duties (thebe, 2015). chinese malls in johannesburg are an important source of goods for traders (laribee, 2008). in johannesburg, the majority of zimbabwean icbt traders purchase their goods at outlets such as china mall (26%), other chinese-run malls (25%) and oriental plaza (5%) (figure 3). some buy from wholesalers (14%) while others patronise independent small shops/retailers (13%) or small shops/retailers in malls (8%). a much smaller number purchase goods from factories, supermarkets, the informal sector and direct from farmers. figure 3: source of goods in johannesburg the kinds of goods purchased in south africa in 2015 for resale in zimbabwe varied widely (table 8). by far the most common items were new clothing and footwear, with 88% of all traders buying these items. other goods included accessories such as bags and suitcases (bought by 27%), bedding materials (20%), electronics (12%) and household products (8%). foodstuffs, which godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 929 were carried by three-quarters of icbt traders in 2008, were not at all popular any longer in 2015 (peberdy et al., 2015). this is a reflection of post-2009 developments in zimbabwe that led to a more abundant supply of food products in the country (tawodzera, 2014). on a typical trip, the traders spend an average of zar 8,328 on a variety of products for resale, with a minimum spend of zar 1,000 and a maximum of zar 150,000. only a small number of the traders take products from zimbabwe to sell in south africa. these include arts and crafts, fabrics, bedding, household products and new clothing and footwear. table 8: goods purchased in south africa no. % new clothing and footwear 467 87.6 accessories (bags, sunglasses, etc.) 141 26.4 bedding 104 19.5 electronics 64 12.0 household products 41 7.7 hardware/tools 31 5.8 toiletries and cosmetics 30 5.6 cell phones/accessories 24 4.5 cds/dvds 15 3.5 cooking oil 11 2.1 pre-owned clothing and footwear 9 1.7 furniture 5 0.9 stationery 5 0.9 rice and pasta 4 0.8 tea/coffee 4 0.8 linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship sugar 4 0.8 beds and mattresses 4 0.8 milk (fresh/sour) 3 0.6 spare parts and raw materials 2 0.4 eggs 2 0.4 snacks 2 0.4 car parts 2 0.4 confectionary 1 0.2 mealie meal 1 0.2 bread 1 0.2 tinned/canned fruits and vegetables 1 0.2 plastic goods 1 0.2 toys, sports equipment 1 0.2 note: multiple response question although the overwhelming majority of the traders sell their goods in the country’s capital, where the survey was conducted, more than 10% also sell goods in other major cities such as bulawayo and masvingo, and in smaller urban centres such as gokwe and mutoko. as many as 86% sell their products in their own stall in an informal market while 24% sell through friends, family and other personal networks, 16% from their houses, 10% from their own shop in the informal sector, 9% on the street, 7% door-to-door and 2.5% in offices and other workplaces. economic contributions an important objective of this research was to assess the importance of icbt trade to the economies of both zimbabwe and south africa. this is particularly godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 931 important in the case of zimbabwe where the informal economy is viewed as a problem by government and a hindrance to the success of formal businesses (ngundu, 2010; rogerson, 2016). first, it is clear from the wide variety of goods imported by the icbt traders that there is a ready market in zimbabwe for their products. this means, in turn, that they are servicing the needs of zimbabwean consumers either by providing goods that are unavailable in the country or at a cheaper rate than supplied by local producers and the formal retail sector. given high rates of unemployment and the fact that many households are cash-strapped, the icbt traders play a critical role in servicing the basic consumer needs of zimbabweans. second, the icbt enterprises contribute to the economy through business establishment, growth and the strategic deployment of their profits. on average, the surveyed traders were recording total sales worth zar 12,000 per month. sales ranged from as low as zar 1,000 per month for the small traders to as high as zar 130,000 per month for those dealing in large quantities of goods, especially those trading in hardware and building materials. the reported profits averaged zar 4,765 per month but were also highly variable, ranging from a minimum of zar 200 per month to a maximum of zar 45,000 per month. traders with high sales turnover generally reported higher monthly profits. the size of these profits indicates that icbt is not just a survivalist enterprise, but rather a viable business operation. more than half (59%) of the icbt operators reported that their income had increased since embarking on icbt while a further 24% reported that their income was variable, sometimes increasing and at other times decreasing. only 15% indicated that their income had decreased since starting an icbt business, buttressing the important role that icbt plays in the livelihoods of many zimbabweans. third, given that the income of the majority of the traders had improved significantly through icbt, it is important to know whether or not they use their profits for the businesses or themselves. over 90% reported spending their profits on family needs, including paying rent for accommodation, buying food for the family and other obligatory family expenses (table 9). nearly linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship three-quarters said that they reinvest their profits in the business, presumably to buy more stock. table 9: use of business profits no. % spent on family needs in zimbabwe 489 91.6 re-investment in business 391 73.2 education 230 43.1 spent on self 210 39.3 personal savings 152 28.5 spent on family needs outside zimbabwe 3 0.6 retirement fund 3 0.6 re-investment in business outside zimbabwe 4 0.7 note: multiple response question fourth, as well as stimulating the economy through the reinvestment of profits inside and outside the business, icbt traders contribute to zimbabwe’s economy through job creation. most traders personally procure goods in south africa and hire people to sell them in harare. a total of 37% of the traders employ people in their businesses. of the 308 people employed in the enterprises surveyed, 236 (or 77%) were in paid positions. even when members of the family are involved in the business, they tend to be compensated for their time. of the 128 family members employed, 71% were in paid positions. as many as 61% of the paid jobs went to non-family members. in sum, employment generated by the icbt traders is shared fairly evenly between family and non-family members and there is a general preference for female labour in the business hires. godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 933 finally, other beneficiaries include the zimbabwean bus companies and the general zimbabwean fiscus, which benefits from duties levied at the border on returning traders bringing in products whose value is above the duty free limit. on their last trip to south africa, the icbt traders paid zar 431 on average in import customs duties, which amounts to zar 228,529 levied on these traders alone. given that this sample is only a small proportion of the total number of icbt traders and that each trader crosses several times a year, the total duties levied undoubtedly run into zar millions. in terms of contributions to the south african economy, the icbt traders contribute, firstly, through expenditures while in the country. the largest beneficiaries are south african wholesalers and others from whom the traders purchase their goods. the traders also support the south african transport and hospitality industries. overall, traders spent an average of zar 8,039 on their last trip to south africa. the spending on particular items included zar 6,737 on goods (or zar 3.5 million in total), zar 683 on transportation (zar 361,000), zar 42 (zar 22,000) on accommodation and zar 141 on other costs (figure 4). figure 4: amounts spent on last trip to south africa. linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship second, south africa benefits from the value added tax (vat) paid by the traders. visitors to south africa who buy goods for use in their home country are eligible to apply for a vat refund when they exit the country. visitors are supposed to request a tax invoice when they buy the goods in south africa and present it at the border for vat refund. however, only 22% of the cross-border traders said they claim vat back at the border. over one-third (37%) did not even know that they could do so. another third said that the process of claiming vat at the border wasted too much time. the delays are exacerbated by the fact that ownership levels of motor vehicles is very low and reliance on public transport high, which means that they only have limited time to wait. nearly 10% noted that the receipts which they get from south african retailers are invalid for the purpose of claiming vat. receipts from chinese-owned shops, in particular, generally do not meet the requirements for claiming vat. others do not claim vat simply because they do not want to declare their goods and feel that claiming exposes their goods to customs scrutiny. there is clearly a serious lack of information on the procedures for claiming vat refunds at the border. unclaimed or unreimbursed vat benefits the south african revenue services (sars). business problems and challenges cross-border traders confront numerous challenges in the course of their business activities. these are of two main types: (a) those related to customs and immigration at the border and (b) those related to their daily business operations in both south africa and zimbabwe. by far the most common customs and immigration problems relate to the queues and delays at the border. almost all of the traders indicated that they often experienced delays (table 10). icbt has become a way of life for a significant number of zimbabweans and this has put pressure on immigration officials operating at the beitbridge and musina border posts. another common problem experienced by the traders relates to the high duties levied at the border (86% said they experience this problem). in his mid-term fiscal policy review statement in september 2014, zimbabwean finance minister patrick chinamasa increased duty on various finished godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 935 products including meat and dairy products, beverages, vegetables, soap and furniture. he also removed foodstuffs, beverages and washing preparations from the duty free facility. while the stated rationale for these measures was to ‘protect local industry’ the local companies that once produced these goods closed down at the height of the economic crisis in 2007-8. consequently, imposing higher duties does not deter traders from bringing these goods into the country but simply burdens the general population that relies on these goods. table 10: problems experienced by zimbabwean traders at border yes (%) no (%) long queues/congestion/delays at border post 96.4 3.6 duties paid are too high 85.5 14.5 restrictions on import/export of goods (type & volume) 77.6 22.4 transport problems/poor road networks/transport prices high 72.1 27.9 too much corruption at border post 66.8 33.2 days allowed in south africa are too few 42.0 58.0 unwarranted confiscation/detention of goods 41.6 58.4 verbal harassment by south african police, army, border officials 36.3 63.7 verbal harassment by zimbabwean police, army, border officials 18.9 81.1 physical harassment/assault by south african police, army, border officials 18.0 82.0 physical harassment/assault by other people 16.8 83.2 linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship physical harassment/assault by zimbabwean police, army, border officials 9.6 90.4 other problems cited by a significant number of traders included restrictions on the import or export of goods (78%) and corruption at the border (67%). the problem of corruption has also been highlighted elsewhere (fitzmaurice, 2009; kwanisai et al., 2014). the delays at the border have created an opportunity for touts who know that the traders want to cross the border quickly and will pay a small fee for officials to speed up the clearing processes for them. some traders have also lost money to bogus agents masquerading as immigration and customs officials. harassment, both verbal and physical, was highlighted as a problem by a small number of traders. for instance, verbal and physical harassment/assault by south african police, army and border officials is experienced by 36% and 18% respectively. in zimbabwe, the incidence of this is lower at 19% and 10%. perhaps the biggest business challenge confronting icbts is competition from other traders (experienced by 84%) (table 11). another significant problem is competition from large retailers or supermarkets (experienced by 60%). these outlets enjoy economies of scale as they buy goods in bulk from suppliers at low prices and are able to price their goods competitively. however, even the large supermarkets cannot outcompete the informal sector traders. for instance, beverages, foodstuffs and detergents are sold on pavements in harare at cheaper prices than those charged by retail supermarkets. given the evidence of pervasive animosity of south african informal entrepreneurs towards foreign-owned enterprises, it is notable that few of the icbt traders from zimbabwe experience serious problems: only 8% experience harassment by south african competitors (crush & ramachandran, 2015). harassment by the south african municipal authorities is marginally more common (13%), however, as many as 39% had experienced harassment in harare. other significant problems experienced by the traders in their daily operations include confiscation of goods and godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 937 difficulty getting merchandise back thereafter, and discrimination based on nationality. table 11: problems related to operating icbt business yes % no % business competition competition from other traders 84.0 16.0 competition from large retailers or supermarkets 60.0 40.0 difficulty negotiating with other traders/conflicts among traders 49.6 50.4 harassment by south african traders 8.4 91.6 operational challenges theft of money or goods 46.9 53.1 no relevant training in accounting, marketing, other business skills 30.5 69.5 problems securing a selling site in zimbabwe 29.3 70.7 policy environment harassment by authorities in zimbabwe 39.4 60.6 confiscation of goods/difficulty getting confiscated goods back 25.1 74.9 harassment by authorities in south africa 22.8 87.2 discrimination prejudice against my nationality 36.6 63.4 prejudice against my gender 16.5 83.5 a related dimension of discrimination is the potential challenge posed by xenophobia in south africa. as many as 78% said they had not been affected linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship by xenophobia at all in their business operations. this suggests that zimbabwean entrepreneurs on short-term visits are able to avoid the worst excesses of xenophobic violence, unlike their resident compatriots. robbery is a more serious problem with 30% having been robbed in zimbabwe and 28% in south africa. this suggests that icbt traders are at risk of victimisation in both zimbabwe and south africa, primarily because their business is cashbased. in june 2016, for example, a spate of robberies targeting buses carrying cross-border traders from zimbabwe was reported in south africa, bringing to the fore the dangers that traders face in their business (the chronicle, 2016; the herald, 2016). conclusion international cross-border trade has become a widespread, entrenched and crucial component of the zimbabwean economy and livelihoods in generals. its importance has risen significantly amidst a prolonged decline in the formal economy. this paper has provided detailed insights into contemporary icbt activities between harare and johannesburg, showing that zimbabwean traders travel regularly to south africa, with three-quarters of the sample reporting that they visit johannesburg for business at least once per month. they reported making monthly profits of more than zar 4,000 per month, far exceeding the salaries of most people in formal employment in the country. this is despite the small initial capital outlay involved, averaging around zar 5,000. icbt traders have been able to grow their businesses to such an extent that they are able to hire non-family members. icbt has therefore become more than a survivalist strategy and should be seen as an important pillar of the zimbabwean economy. the contribution of the informal economy in generating jobs and reducing unemployment needs to be acknowledged by policies that encourage rather than restrict the operation of informal trade. traders make important contributions through business establishment, providing goods that are unavailable in the country, availing goods cheaper than the formal retail sector and benefiting the fiscus through import duties. in south africa, icbt benefits wholesalers and other outlets from which godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 939 traders purchase their goods, south african transport and hospitality industries and the south african treasury through unclaimed vat. official denunciation of the supposed damage done to south africa by the non-south african informal sector enterprises rarely mentions icbt; perhaps this is because the evidence of their benefit to the country is so overwhelming. acknowledgements we would like to acknowledge the international development research centre (idrc) for its support of the samp growing informal cities project. references abdulsaleh, a. and worthington, a. 2013. small and medium sized enterprises financing: a review of literature. international journal of business and management, 8: 36-54. ama, n., mangadi, k., okurut, f. and ama, h. 2013. profitability of the informal cross-border trade: a case study of four selected 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(eds.). mean streets: migration, xenophobia and informality in south africa. ottawa and cape town: idrc and samp. tibaijuka, a. 2005. scope and impact of ‘operation murambatsvina’ in zimbabwe. report of fact-finding mission, new york: un-habitat special envoy on human settlements. unifem, 2010. women in informal cross border trade in southern africa. johannesburg: unifem. 855 security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector sujata ramachandran*, jonathan crush** and godfrey tawodzera*** abstract whenever there are violent attacks on refugee and migrant businesses in south africa’s informal sector, politicians, officials and commissions of enquiry deny that xenophobia is a driving force or indeed exists at all in the county. a new strain of nativist research in south africa does not deny the existence of xenophobia but argues that it is an insignificant factor in the violence. it is argued that because south african and non-south african enterprises are equally at risk, the reasons for the violence are internal to the sector itself. this paper critiques this position on the basis of the results of a survey of over 2,000 enterprises in the contrasting geographical sites of cape town and small town limpopo. the survey results reported in this paper focus on security risks and the experience of victimisation and the experience of the two groups of enterprise operator are systematically compared. the findings show that while both cohorts experience many of the same security risks, refugee operators are significantly more exposed to most threats including verbal abuse, theft, unprovoked attacks and harassment by law enforcement agencies. far from being irrelevant, xenophobia is an important additional risk for refugee entrepreneurs, as they themselves clearly recognise. keywords security risks, informal sector, xenophobia, refugee entrepreneurs, south african entrepreneurs. * southern african migration programme, international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb st west, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l6c2. ** international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb st west, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l6c2. email address: jcrush@balsillieschool.ca *** department of geography and environmental studies, university of limpopo, p. bag x1106, sovenga. security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector 856 introduction in early 2015, south africa experienced a new wave of violent attacks on migrants, the culmination of several years of more localised but escalating collective violence targeting migrant-owned businesses in the country (crush & ramachandran, 2015a). after may 2008, when south africa had witnessed a previous round of large-scale violence against migrants, a decisive shift had occurred in state discourses and management of xenophobia. the government’s stance towards xenophobia had moved from a lack of acknowledgement of its presence and policy neglect to public rejection and denial of its very existence in the country (crush & ramachandran, 2014). this shift framed the way in which government interpreted and responded to renewed violence in 2015. this response had three key elements: first, denial of the existence of xenophobia and as an explanation for the violence; second, blaming migrants for their own victimisation; and third, attributing ongoing violence against migrant-owned businesses as the work of criminal elements (bekker, 2015; crush & ramachandran, 2015a; misago, 2016). the major formal government response to the international and broader african outrage over the violence was the establishment of an inter-ministerial committee on migration (imc) housed in the presidency. as many as fifteen government ministers sat on the imc, which was expanded in march 2017 to include all provincial premiers and the south african local government association (salga). the stated brief of the imc was to address “all the underlying causes of the tensions between communities and the foreign nationals” (williams, 2015), which appeared to indicate that the problem of xenophobia was finally being taken seriously at the highest levels of government. the reality proved to be very different. in april 2015, the imc launched operation fiela (“sweep” in sesotho), which was officially described as “a multidisciplinary interdepartmental operation aimed at eliminating criminality and general lawlessness from our communities […] so that the people of south africa can be and feel safe” (gov.za, 2015). as a response to xenophobic violence, the actions of the imc seemed grossly inappropriate and were roundly condemned by international and local human rights organisations. lawyers for human rights, for example, characterised operation fiela as “state-sponsored xenophobia” and “institutional sujata ramachandran, jonathan crush and godfrey tawodzera xenophobia” that blurred stark differences between “criminals” and migrants, while deepening the divide between citizens and foreigners by bolstering negative perceptions, instead of correcting them” (jordaan, 2015; lhr, 2015). a central component of operation fiela was a massive police and army drive to harass migrants and migrant-owned businesses (nicolson, 2015a). the imc made its conclusions about the 2015 anti-migrant violence known in parliament. according to the chair, minister jeff radebe, the primary cause was uncontrolled migration and “increased competition arising from the socio-economic circumstances in south africa.” foreign nationals were placing a strain on government services and “dominating trade in certain sectors such as consumable goods in informal settlements which has had a negative impact on unemployed and low skilled south africans.” these unsubstantiated findings – essentially blaming the violence on migrants and the poor enforcement of migration controls – were compounded by the chair’s observation at a press conference that “as the inter-ministerial committee, we’ve concluded that south africans are not xenophobic” (davis, 2015). the parliamentary ad hoc committee constituted to investigate the 2015 violence reached the same conclusions. in the course of deliberations to finalise their report, members of the committee made highly pejorative statements about migrants (pmg, 2015). they indicated that the competitive advantage enjoyed by foreign-owned businesses was achieved through the use of “unfair, competitive trading practices.” they emphasised that the violence and looting directed at migrant businesses and properties was the direct result of “competition for trading spaces” and “overcrowded trading spaces” and said there was no “credible evidence” that migrant-run businesses created employment. at public consultations, the committee chair chastised the media for using the term ‘xenophobia’ to describe episodes of violence targeting migrant-operated businesses (masinga, 2015). she reportedly characterised the violence as “criminals […] targeting shops to get food and had nothing to do with foreign nationals.” the committee’s final report reached the conclusion that xenophobia did not exist, explaining the violence as the actions of criminals “who are often drug addicts” (pjc, 2015: 35; nicolson, 2015b). http://ewn.co.za/searchresultspage?search=xenophobia security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector 858 xenophobia denialism was also evident in the report of the kwazulu-natal special reference group (srg), an independent commission of enquiry appointed by the provincial government and headed by judge navi pillay (formerly the un high commissioner for human rights) (srg, 2015). the spg argued that the immediate cause of the outbreak of violence was “deliberate efforts of select individuals, some of whom had interests in the informal trading sector, to drive away competition by foreign national-owned businesses […] these deliberate efforts sparked the outbreak of widespread incidents of criminality, violence and looting of properties owned by foreign nationals” (srg, 2015: 9-10). furthermore, “many of the perceptions of foreign national traders, although largely unfounded, contributed to heightened tensions” (srg, 2015: x). the srg studiously avoided labelling the violence as xenophobic or seeing xenophobia as a contributing or even motivating factor. at most, it conceded that “the violent attacks against foreign nationals were, in some measure, fuelled by dominant and negative perceptions that exist amongst locals and foreign nationals about one another” (srg, 2015). however, it is hard to see how the attitudes of foreign nationals could be responsible for their own violent victimisation and none of the mob violence was perpetrated by migrants on south africans. this entrenched and contradictory tendency – denying the existence of xenophobia while simultaneously blaming migrants in ways that border on the xenophobic – has been a defining characteristic of official responses to the escalating attacks nationwide on migrant and refugee-owned informal businesses (crush & ramachandran, 2015a). if mere criminality is the source of the plague of chronic violence against non-south african entrepreneurs, we might expect south africans operating in the same areas to be equally affected. some researchers have claimed that this is, in fact, the case (charman & piper, 2012; charman et al., 2012; piper & charman, 2016). they argue that the attacks on informal businesses in south africa are structural in nature, shaped by competition and other localised factors other than nationality or xenophobia. in a study of delft in cape town, charman and piper (2012: 81) maintain that “despite a recent history of intense economic competition in the spaza market in which foreign shopkeepers have come to dominate, levels of violent crime against foreign shopkeepers […] are not significantly higher than sujata ramachandran, jonathan crush and godfrey tawodzera against south african shopkeepers.” they conclude, as a consequence, that there is no need to invoke xenophobia to explain violence against non-south african informal enterprises, a conclusion that ironically echoes that of government officials and the commissions of enquiry. rather, “some combination of criminality and economic competition seems to explain the violence” (charman & piper, 2012: 89). in a larger study, piper and charman (2016: 332) examine patterns of violence in three cities and conclude that “it simply is not true that […] south african shopkeepers experience less violent crime than foreign shopkeepers” and therefore that “the chance of being violently targeted is less about nationality, and more about whether you keep prices low and (presumably) profits high.” in this paper, we provide alternate evidence that contradicts the conclusion about the unimportance of nationality in explaining citizen and police violence in the informal sector. the paper draws on a study of over 2,000 informal sector businesses in cape town and limpopo province, half owned by refugees and half owned by south africans. the methodology is described in crush et al (2015). security risks and vulnerabilities the sustainability of informal enterprises is shaped by the challenges they encounter and the manner in which they are able to effectively manage business risks. a sizeable body of research has shown that small enterprises in the south african informal economy face significant business obstacles, preventing them from maximising their potential (abor & quartey, 2010; crush et al., 2015; grant, 2013; thompson, 2016; willemse, 2011). these business risks include limited trading spaces; lack of access to loans from formal financial institutions; few technical, financial and business-related skills; excessive licensing or regulatory restrictions on business operations; lack of a well-defined policy framework for such operators; intense competition with other similar businesses; and lack of infrastructure such as adequate storage facilities (callaghan & venter, 2011; gastrow & amit, 2015; ligthelm, 2011; rogerson, 2016a, 2016b; venter, 2012). in south africa, business risks are compounded by security risks because of the extremely unpredictable and often dangerous operating environment. security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector 860 these security risks are of several main types. in many cities, the informal economy is regarded with suspicion and even outright hostility by municipalities, and is seen as a reservoir of crime and illegality (rogerson, 2016a). the resulting oppressive regulatory environment is enforced by the south african police services (saps) and by municipal police who make regular raids, issue fines and confiscate goods (rogerson, 2016b; skinner, 2008). harassment by police and enforcement officials is compounded by police conduct including demand for bribes and illegal confiscation of business inventory/stock. informal businesses are regular targets of national (operation fiela), provincial (operation hardstick in limpopo) and city-wide (operation clean sweep in johannesburg) police purges of the streets and large-scale seizure of stock. the courts have generally concluded that these operations are largely targeted at the foreign-owned businesses. a 2014 supreme court (2014: 25) judgment striking down operation hardstick in limpopo, for example, left the court with “the uneasy feeling that the stance adopted by the authorities in relation to the licensing of spaza shops and tuckshops was in order to induce foreign nationals who were destitute to leave our shores.” the obverse of police misconduct is a failure to provide consistent protection when businesses are under threat or are victims of crime and other violence. many informal businesses service the basic needs of low-income, crime-ridden communities. this means that, by definition, they are vulnerable to opportunistic and often violent crime in the form of theft, robbery and assault. there is also a clear pattern of escalating group or mob violence in many parts of the country that is increasingly directed at informal businesses (crush & ramachandran, 2015a). nationwide mob violence and looting in may 2008 and early 2015 were the most high-profile examples but in the years in between and since there have been numerous more localised attacks. these assaults generally involve widespread looting, destruction and burning of property and physical assault and murder. there is considerable evidence that this form of violence is targeted almost exclusively at foreign-owned businesses and, therefore, cannot be as easily dismissed as non-xenophobic. the question to be addressed is whether these security risks – government purges, police misconduct, opportunistic crime and mob violence – affect sujata ramachandran, jonathan crush and godfrey tawodzera south african and non-south african informal businesses with equal intensity. if we accept the argument of charman and piper (2012) that xenophobia is not a factor, then we would expect there to be no difference between the frequency and severity with which the two groups are affected by these risks. if, however, there is systematic evidence that these risks are felt or experienced more severely by non-south african migrant informal business owners, then xenophobia needs to be reintroduced as an explanatory factor. as part of the 2016 survey of 2,000 informal businesses in cape town and limpopo, respondents were asked a series of questions about the frequency with which they had experienced various security-related risks. we rely here on self-reporting since police crime statistics are unavailable and unreliable (particularly since many incidents go unreported or unprosecuted when they are reported). in addition, we accept the argument of charman and piper (2012) that risk may be under-reported since many informal businesses are comparatively new and may not yet have been exposed to these risks. at the same time, it is important to note that under-reporting is less likely amongst south africans since they have a longer history of business operations in cape town and limpopo. table 1 presents the aggregated results of the security risks question for the two groups of entrepreneurs. first, it is clear from the table that not every south african and refugee respondent has been affected by the stated risks. indeed, the majority of both groups have not been affected to date. this is an important initial finding because it does suggest that most informal entrepreneurs are able to run their businesses without any significant threat or interference. this may be because of where they are located or the measures and precautions they take to protect themselves. second, it is clear that south africans are not completely immune from any of these risks. nearly one-third had been affected by robbery of their stock and nearly 20% had had income stolen. the degree of vulnerability to other security risks was much lower but not non-existent. to this extent, therefore, piper and charman (2016) are correct that south africans in the informal sector are also victims of crime. but there is no support for their contention that south africans and non-south africans are equally at risk or victimised. security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector 862 table 1: security risks facing refugee and south african entrepreneurs refugees % affected south africans % affected prejudice against my nationality 48.0 2.2 crime/theft of goods/stock 47.8 30.9 crime/theft of money/income 38.1 18.5 verbal insults against my business 34.2 7.9 conflict with south african entrepreneurs 32.7 21.1 conflict with refugee entrepreneurs 27.1 19.0 physical attacks/assaults by south africans 21.4 3.5 harassment/demand of bribes by police 18.7 5.5 confiscation of goods by police 14.7 6.4 arrest/detention of entrepreneur/employees 8.5 1.4 physical attacks/assaults by police 7.9 1.1 prejudice against my gender 6.5 5.0 on every single count, the proportion of refugees who had been affected was higher, sometimes significantly so. for example, 47% of refugees cited prejudice against their nationality as a risk to their business (compared to only 2% of south africans). or again, 34% of refugees were affected by related verbal insults against their business, compared to only 8% of south africans. 48% of refugees, compared with 31% of south africans, had been affected by theft of their goods and stock. similarly, 38% of refugees, compared with 19% of south africans, had been affected by theft of their income. refugees reported higher levels of conflict with south african competitors (33%) than south africans did with refugees (19%) and with other south africans (21%). sujata ramachandran, jonathan crush and godfrey tawodzera interestingly, refugees also reported higher levels of conflict with other refugee businesses (27%). the precise details and outcomes of such conflicts need further research, but suggest that we cannot assume that refugees are a homogenous group with identical interests. table 2 statistically validates the descriptive comparisons that suggest that refugees are more likely than south africans to be affected by the various security risks. the difference in the frequency distributions is statistically significant at an alpha of 0.01 according the pearson’s chi-square (x2(2048)=490.678, df=3, p<.001) and the fisher’s exact test (531.104, p<.001). south african entrepreneurs had lower odds of experiencing every potential risk on the list. refugees were nearly three times as likely to be victims of theft of income and five times as likely to be subject to demands for bribes by police. the odds of a refugee entrepreneur being physically assaulted, experiencing prejudice and being arrested and detained were over five times higher than for south africans. security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector 864 table 2: odds ratio calculations for business problems 95% confidence interval odds ratio lower upper pearso n chisquare df p-value (2sided) n prejudice against my gender 0.782 0.539 1.136 1.671 1 0.196 2051 conflict with refugee entrepreneurs** 0.644 0.524 0.792 17.489 1 <.001 2056 conflict with south african entrepreneurs** 0.552 0.453 0.673 34.938 1 <.001 2054 crime/theft of goods/stock** 0.492 0.411 0.589 60.363 1 <.001 2052 crime/theft of money/income* * 0.373 0.305 0.456 95.509 1 <.001 2050 harassment/de mands for bribes by police** 0.241 0.176 0.330 88.722 1 <.001 2046 confiscation of goods by police** 0.403 0.298 0.545 36.629 1 <.001 2047 arrest/detention of yourself/employ ees** 0.179 0.105 0.303 50.513 1 <.001 2045 sujata ramachandran, jonathan crush and godfrey tawodzera verbal insults against your business** 0.167 0.129 0.216 214.406 1 <.001 2050 physical attacks/assaults by police** 0.158 0.089 0.282 50.517 1 <.001 2052 physical attacks/assaults by other south africans** 0.137 0.096 0.196 150.979 1 <.001 2047 prejudice against my nationality** 0.025 0.017 0.039 577.723 1 <.001 2049 *p<.05 **p<.01 in theory, we might expect to see higher degrees of informal business security risks for both groups in large cities such as cape town compared to the much smaller towns of limpopo (table 3). in the case of refugees, and with the exception of prejudice and verbal insults and treatment by police, limpopo was indeed safer than cape town. for south africans, cape town was also a more dangerous place to run a business. for example, 56% of refugees and 31% of south africans had experienced theft of goods in cape town. in limpopo, the equivalent figures were 38% and 30%, a much lower spread than in cape town. in both locations, however, the risks are significantly higher for refugees than south africans. indeed, refugees in limpopo were less secure than south africans in both limpopo and cape town. theft of goods had affected 38% of refugees in limpopo, compared with around 30% of south africans in both limpopo and cape town. or again, 31% of refugees in limpopo had experienced theft of money, compared with 12% of south africans in limpopo and 26% in cape town. some 19% of limpopo refugees had experienced physical assault or attack, compared with 2% of south africans in limpopo and 7% in cape town. security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector 866 table 3: security risks facing refugee and south african entrepreneurs by location cape town limpopo refugees % affected south africans % affected refugees % affected south africans % affected prejudice against my nationality 47.2 3.6 47.6 1.1 crime/theft of goods/stock 56.2 30.9 38.3 30.4 crime/theft of money/income 43.8 25.7 31.3 11.8 verbal insults against my business 32.1 9.0 35.3 6.9 conflict with south african entrepreneurs 34.5 20.3 30.2 21.4 conflict with refugee entrepreneurs 27.9 15.7 25.6 22.1 physical attacks/assaults by south africans 23.0 5.8 19.0 1.6 harassment/demand of bribes by police 10.5 6.6 26.2 3.9 confiscation of goods by police 10.1 8.0 18.8 4.9 arrest/detention of entrepreneur/employees 7.5 2.0 9.1 1.2 physical attacks/assaults by police 6.7 1.6 8.7 1.1 prejudice against my gender 5.8 6.8 6.9 3.5 sujata ramachandran, jonathan crush and godfrey tawodzera another common belief is that security risks are higher in informal settlements than in other parts of the city, particularly as many of the reports of violence against informal businesses come from the latter areas and general crime levels are also much higher. to test this hypothesis, we focused only on cape town and divided refugees and south africans into two groups according to their operation in either an informal or formal part of the city (table 4). in the case of both refugees and south africans, the risks are higher in informal settlements across almost all indicators. however, the difference in the degree of risk between refugees and south africans is significantly greater in informal settlements than it is in formal areas of the city. the only indicator where formal areas are riskier for both is the chance of having goods confiscated by the police. since the police barely venture into large swathes of informal settlements, this is not surprising. refugees are slightly more likely to experience theft of goods in the formal versus informal areas (57% versus 54%), but the difference is small and indicates that this is a major risk for the majority of businesses irrespective of location. unsurprisingly, refugees were far more likely than south africans to say that their business operations had been negatively affected by xenophobia: 38% versus 5% (table 5). there are two possible reasons for south africans being affected: first, when collective violence occurs at a particular localised settlement, it is possible that in the general chaos and mayhem, south africanowned businesses may also be caught up in the looting and vandalism. as one south african owner noted “when these attacks start, it becomes difficult for us to move and every business becomes a target. xenophobia does not only affect foreigners, it affects everyone” (interview, 3 march 2016). a second explanation is that there are cascading, spill-over effects on those south african small businesses with cooperative, dependent relationships and linkages with affected migrant-operated businesses (peberdy, 2017). security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector 868 table 4: security risks facing refugee and south african entrepreneurs in cape town formal areas informal areas refugees % affected south africans % affected refugees % affected south africans % affected prejudice against my nationality 44.9 1.7 53.8 6.2 crime/theft of goods/stock 57.0 26.7 53.8 36.7 crime/theft of money/income 41.4 19.5 50.8 34.3 verbal insults against my business 30.1 6.8 37.9 11.9 conflict with south african entrepreneurs 29.6 20.9 48.5 19.5 conflict with refugee entrepreneurs 25.5 18.5 34.8 11.9 physical attacks/assaults by south africans 21.2 3.8 28.0 8.6 harassment/demand of bribes by police 8.9 8.6 15.2 3.8 confiscation of goods by police 10.2 8.9 9.8 6.7 arrest/detention of entrepreneur/employees 5.1 1.7 14.4 2.4 physical attacks/assaults by police 4.8 0.7 12.1 2.9 sujata ramachandran, jonathan crush and godfrey tawodzera prejudice against my gender 5.6 4.1 6.1 10.5 table 5: impact of xenophobia on business operations refugees % south africans % a great deal 18.3 1.4 to some extent 19.3 3.5 not very much 18.4 5.7 not at all 43.9 89.4 strategies of self-protection the dangerous and unpredictable environment in which informal entrepreneurs ply their trade in south african cities presents serious security challenges. it is clear from the previous section that while both groups are affected, refugees are much more vulnerable than south africans to a range of risks. there is no a priori reason why this might be the case, other than the fact that refugees are targeted because their presence, which is viewed by citizens and officials as unwelcome and even illegitimate. this was certainly the view of most of the refugees interviewed for this study who consistently identified the manifestations of xenophobia as the major security problem they faced: some [customers] swear at me, my customers sometimes steal from me and when you catch them, they tell [you] harshly that you are a foreigner. and that you need to go back to your country. you are always faced with difficulties when you are a foreigner and as such you need to be patient and know how to deal with different kinds of people. there is too much disrespect here from south africans because even someone who is way younger than you, they can swear and say nasty things to you if you are a foreigner. and they tell straight that south africa is their country (interview with somali refugee, 12 march 2016). security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector 870 if you are a foreigner, you are always affected by xenophobia. there is no way that you can live here and not be affected. xenophobia starts from your customer. some customers are very rude and if you respond, they will talk to you in their own language and scold you and then tell you to go back [to your country]. they have bad words for foreigners. many times, my business was robbed when i was in johannesburg. it was because i was a foreigner because they rarely stole from locals. sometimes criminals would come to you and ask you to give them money and they would just ask you the foreigner. why not the local people? that is xenophobia (interview with ethiopian refugee, 19 march 2016). xenophobia affect[s] us all. we know who we are. we are foreigners and that doesn’t change. nothing changes the reality. we live under alert anytime no matter the set up in which we are operating in. we always know that the same people we are dealing with can anytime become a danger to us. it is difficult to trust any person in south africa. the person who is with you here today, when there is a protest and foreigners are being attacked, he will be the first to attack you. there is no safety. i have not been attacked but i have seen other people being attacked and it is serious. it kills your business and it can also kill you (interview with congolese refugee, 25 february 2016). xenophobia is the most critical problem. i have been directly affected and have been caught up in the troubles. people have harassed me a lot, just talking like they want to kill you or to burn you or other such things. but that was when i was in durban. here [cape town] i have not been harassed. but there are many people who have been victims. they have been harassed and their goods destroyed, especially when there are strikes. the people just target anything that they can get. they are very cruel and they do not care what the owner will do to survive (interview with congolese refugee, 19 february 2016). xenophobia affects everyone who is a foreigner. when people loot your shop is that not xenophobia? when they chase you away from operating in an area because you are a foreigner that is xenophobia. there is xenophobia here, everywhere in this country. i have friends in other parts sujata ramachandran, jonathan crush and godfrey tawodzera of the country, it is xenophobia where they live. i think south africa is the only country with such xenophobia. i have been affected many times. when i was in gugulethu, we were robbed. that was xenophobia because they were robbing foreign-owned shops. here i have been affected once during a strike and they took some things from the shop. so, xenophobia is everywhere here. the community leaders do not protect us during the strikes. some of the leaders are at the forefront of looting when strikes occur, so how can they help? the government must protect us from xenophobia and crime. the police need to do their work better because right now they are not (interview with somali refugee, 7 march 2016). inadequate police protection and failure to respond when refugee businesses are under attack deepens exposure to security risks. a congolese refugee said that the only recourse available was to “run away” as the “police here in such instances, they don’t protect us, but instead abuse us” (interview with congolese refugee, cape town, 5 march 2016). others displayed similar distrust of the police because of perceptions of bias: the police are not very helpful. if you have a case against a south african, they will always side with the south african. so, it’s a waste of time to report a case against a south african (interview with congolese refugee, 24 february 2016). how accurate are these perceptions of south african hostility towards refugee businesses and business-owners? a 2010 samp national survey of south african citizens found that only 20% were in favour of making it easier for migrants to establish small businesses and for migrant traders to buy and sell. only 25% felt that refugees should be allowed to work in south africa. a similar proportion said they would take part in actions to prevent migrants from operating a business in their neighbourhood, 15% said they would combine with others to force migrants to leave and 11% said they were prepared to use violence against them. over 55% agreed with the proposition that the reason why migrants were victims of violence was because they did not belong in south africa. only 36% said that refugees should always enjoy police protection and 25% that they should never enjoy protection (crush et al., 2013: 32-38). security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector 872 a number of studies have suggested that to lower the risks of victimisation, migrants adopt various measures to protect themselves and their employees (gastrow, 2013; hikam, 2011; gastrow & amit, 2015; smit & rugunanan, 2014). this survey sought to establish how common some of these strategies actually are and whether they are also adopted by south africans (table 6). one of the most common strategies is risk-sharing by partnering with other businesses. nearly one-third of refugees and 17% of south africans adopt risksharing through partnership. sleeping on business premises (often a modified container) is a strategy pursued by both groups but, again, by more refugees (19% versus 9% of south africans). there have been several high-profile shootings of robbers by refugees under attack but this survey found that only 6% keep weapons for self-protection. other strategies (pursued by less than 10% of refugees and 5% of south africans) include paying security guards and paying protection money to the police or community leaders. around 5% of both groups purchase insurance. table 7 analyses if the differences between the refugees and south africans are statistically significant. with the exception of paying for insurance, refugees were far more likely than south africans to adopt strategies of self-protection. refugees were five times as likely to pay for protection and twice as likely to sleep on their business premises and to partner with others to distribute risk. table 6: protection strategies used by informal sector entrepreneurs refugees % south africans % i partner with other businesses to distribute risks 31.0 17.4 i sleep on my business premises 18.8 8.7 i pay for security guards 7.3 1.9 i keep weapons for self-protection 5.8 4.0 i pay the police for protection 5.5 1.0 sujata ramachandran, jonathan crush and godfrey tawodzera i purchase insurance 5.1 5.5 i pay community leaders for protection 2.5 0.6 various other strategies emerged in the course of the in-depth interviews although it is not known how common these are. for example, some refugees said that they like to hire south africans to assist in communication with customers and also because it reduces their vulnerability to violence. in addition to paying protection money to police and community leaders, refugees in one part of cape town pay regular protection money to the local taxi association. the taxi association then uses this reality to extort money from south africans in the area as well. others make sure that they do not keep all their stock on the business premises out of fear that they will be cleaned out during looting or confiscation of goods by the police. still others are only open for business when they know that the police are no longer patrolling. table 7: odds ratio calculations of business strategies 95% c.i. for o.r. p-values odds ratio lower upper chisquare fisher's exact test i purchase insurance 1.078 0.732 1.587 0.703 0.768 i keep weapons for selfprotection* 0.648 0.430 0.976 0.037 0.039 i partner with other businesses to distribute risks** 0.470 0.382 0.579 <.001 <.001 i sleep on my business premises** 0.411 0.315 0.537 <.001 <.001 security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector 874 i pay for security guards** 0.245 0.148 0.405 <.001 <.001 i pay community leaders for protection** 0.222 0.091 0.543 <.001 <.001 i pay the police for protection** 0.180 0.094 0.347 <.001 <.001 conclusion in this paper, we have undertaken a comparative risks assessment and vulnerabilities analysis for refugee and south african entrepreneurs operating small business ventures in the informal economies of cape town city and various towns of limpopo province. our results show that while both groups are exposed to several risks concurrently, refugee enterprises are far more vulnerable and overexposed. the social and structural insecurity experienced by refugee entrepreneurs is unambiguous from several key findings. despite operating in the same localised environment and under similar conditions, this group encounters a more challenging set of hurdles and on a more frequent basis. the general act of operating small businesses in the informal economic sector does make business owners of all kinds vulnerable, but this alone cannot explain the greater vulnerabilities of the refugee cohort. instead, xenophobia and refugee business owners’ status as ‘outsiders’ adds another layer of risk for these operators. limited access to police protection and mistreatment by them only exacerbates this insecurity. what is also evident from our research and other recent studies is that the majority of refugee operators have not, to date, been affected by a range of potential risks. in part, this may be because of the mitigation strategies they adopt. as refugee and migrant communities grow in south africa, the emergence of some individuals who are successfully able to mitigate common risks and build their enterprises is to be expected. however, rather than treating these achievements with suspicion and negativity, as the official mind tends to do, greater attempts need to be made to harness these productive capacities for the growth of local informal, entrepreneurial economies. these sujata ramachandran, jonathan crush and godfrey tawodzera abilities are not an abnormal development nor are they driven largely or entirely by unfair advantages or the use of illicit practices. ultimately, comprehensive national and localised strategies are required to develop and support informal entrepreneurship and small business growth in south africa. in this process, both citizen-operated and refugee enterprises must be crucial stakeholders, and not written-off as insignificant, unequal or illegal. acknowledgements we wish to thank the unhcr geneva for funding the refugee economic impacts samp research project on which this paper is based. references abor, j. and quartey, p. 2010. issues in sme development in ghana and south africa. international research journal of finance and economics, 39: 218-228. bekker, s. 2015. violent xenophobic episodes in south africa, 2008 and 2015. african human mobility review, 1: 229-252. callaghan, c. and venter, r. 2011. an investigation of the entrepreneurial orientation, context and entrepreneurial performance of inner-city johannesburg street 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report of the special reference group on migration and community integration in kwazulu-natal. pietermaritzburg: provincial government of kwazulu-natal. from <http://bit.ly/2uvtl7g>. supreme court. 2014. somali association of south africa v limpopo department of economic development, environment and tourism (48/2014). zasca 143 (september 26, 2014). thompson, d. 2016. risky business and geography of refugee capitalism in the somali migrant economy of gauteng, south africa. journal of ethnic and migration studies, 42: 120-35. willemse, l. 2011. opportunities and constraints facing informal traders: evidence from four south african cities. town and regional planning, 59: 8-16. williams, p. 2015. ‘minister jeff radebe: inter-ministerial committee on migration. from http://bit.ly/2ux1vbb. venter, r. 2012. entrepreneurial values, hybridity and entrepreneurial capital: insights from johannesburg's informal sector. development southern africa, 29: 225-239. 975 unaccompanied and separated children in south africa: is return the only option? marilize ackermann* abstract despite recent legislative amendments aimed at stricter border control, migration by undocumented migrants, including unaccompanied and separated children, continues to occur. once in south africa, no mechanism exists for the identification or registration of undocumented migrant children. due to statutory restrictions, the births of children born to undocumented foreign parents in south africa are not recorded. therefore, the presence of unaccompanied and separated children in the republic goes mostly unnoticed. under the migration framework, documentation to regularise a foreign child’s stay is either derived from a parent, or requires significant financial support, and/or legal intervention, to obtain. the article finds that unaccompanied and separated children struggle to meet the requirements set to regularise their stay once in the republic. in a society where the ability to exercise basic human rights is intrinsically linked to identification documentation, the few options available to unaccompanied and separated children make this group highly vulnerable to exploitation, destitution, abuse, neglect, statelessness and under-development, due to restricted access to education and essential services. the cases studied here show that unaccompanied and separated children do not reach social workers systematically, which means that no or little consideration is given to finding durable solutions relevant to the particular child. the article finds that a combination of legislative gaps on one hand and stringent requirements on the other, result in unaccompanied and separated children struggling to access education, child protection services, the asylum system, birth registration and the right to a name and nationality. the article concludes by making a few pertinent recommendations that address the main concerns raised. keywords documentation, migration, child protection, birth registration, asylum, refugee, statelessness. * advocacy officer at the scalabrini centre of cape town. email: marilize@scalabrini.org.za mailto:marilize@scalabrini.org.za unaccompanied and separated children in south africa: is return the only option? 976 methodology the methodology comprises of a desktop review of the available literature, a critical analysis of the applicable law and policy and an analysis of qualitative data collected from 109 case studies. the cases were collected at the scalabrini centre of cape town (scct), a nonprofit organisation based in cape town, south africa, that provides multiple services to migrants, aims to alleviate poverty and promotes development in the western cape, while fostering integration between migrants, refugees and south africans.1 the advocacy programme of scct functions as a walk-in paralegal office and, as such, receives persons who have problems with access to basic rights connected to documentation, including issues pertaining to foreign children. from may 2015 to may 2017, interviews were conducted with 87 caregivers of 109 unaccompanied and separated children, all of whom sought advice at scct. the cases studied included migrant children and children born to foreign parents within the south african territory. data was collected through semi-structured interviews with the adult caregivers. over the course of two years, scct was able to track and document the evolution of the individual cases. from an ethical point of view, all cases encountered were referred to the department of social development (dsd) for assessment by a statutory social worker. all children and their caregivers resided in the cape town metropolitan area. shifting definitions – unaccompanied and separated children general comment no. 6 (2005) to the un convention on the rights of the child defines ‘unaccompanied children’ as “children who have been separated from both parents and other relatives and are not being cared for by an adult who, by law or custom, is responsible for doing so.” it goes on to define ‘separated children’ as “children who have been separated from both parents, or from their previous legal or customary primary care-giver, but not necessarily from other relatives.” these may therefore include children accompanied by adult family members other than parents. 1 the center is registered with the south african department of social development as a nonprofit organisation, as a youth and child care center and as a public benefit organisation with the south african revenue services and is governed by a trust. marilize ackermann 977 the relevance of defining a child as unaccompanied or separated pertains to child protection and immigration control (unhcr, 1997). in the south african context, being categorised as an ‘unaccompanied minor’ has bearing on a foreign child’s admission to the republic and the ability to legalise immigration status subsequent to entry. in the context of border control, the regulations to the immigration act (no.11, 2002) narrowly define an unaccompanied child as “a child under the age of 18 years who travels alone.” with regard to child protection, dsd assumes greater vulnerability of unaccompanied children and this distinction therefore impacts upon the child’s ability to access child protection services (dsd, 2009). the international definition has broader application insofar as it is concerned with the continued circumstances of the child beyond admission to the country. birth in south africa does not automatically confer nationality. a child born to two foreign residents is considered, upon birth, as a non-citizen and retains the nationality of the parent(s) (manby, 2011: 14). such children are obliged to regularise their stay in south africa in the same manner as foreign migrant children. of the 109 cases studied, 12 children were born in south africa to foreign parents and 97 of the children had migrated to south africa. of the 97, 24 children were in the care of a relative when they crossed the border, and therefore could be described as ‘separated’; 54 were ‘unaccompanied’; and 19 were accompanied by one or both parents. it was observed that the definitions ‘separated’ and ‘unaccompanied’ refer to fixed points in time. once the migrant child or family settles in south africa, their circumstances change to the extent that the definition describing their situation of care changes. after some time in the country, 92 children could be defined as ‘separated’ as they were now in the care of a relative, while 17 were still considered ‘unaccompanied’ as they are in the care of persons unrelated to them and previously unknown to them. this illustrates the fluidity of the definitions of ‘unaccompanied’ or ‘separated’ in the context of migration. customary care is widely practiced in the south african and the broader african context. in brief, customary care refers to family-based care within the child’s extended family, or with close friends of the family known to the child, whether formal or informal in nature (un general assembly, 2010). the terms ‘customary care’ or ‘kinship care’ are not formally defined in south african law and there are no particular mechanisms through which parental duties of care are transferred to the customary caregiver. the customary duty of care is determined by social or cultural norms and, often, a highly subjective sense of unaccompanied and separated children in south africa: is return the only option? 978 responsibility that an individual caregiver attaches to a child. the evidence suggests that the customary duty of care may be fluid and shift between relatives of the child, depending on domestic, social, financial or other circumstances. in order for care relation to be formalised through foster care placement, “a need for care and protection” is required by the children’s act (no. 38, 2005). in the context of migration, it must be noted that a customary duty of care does not confer immigration status or nationality. therefore, references to duties of care do not have bearing on the documentation status of the child, and are uniquely concerned with the well-being or protection of the child. all of the children concerned originated from african nations. set out below is an indication of the children’s countries of birth in the first column, and the countries of nationality of their parents (or mothers in the case of mixed parentage) in the second. the second column incorporates the countries of origin of the parents of 12 children born in south africa. table 1: the documentation of unaccompanied and separated children country of birth nationality of parent(s) angola 3 4 burundi 12 12 drc 58 68 malawi 1 rwanda 4 5 south africa 12 0 somalia 13 13 tanzania 3 0 uganda 1 1 zimbabwe 3 4 zambia 1 total 109 109 marilize ackermann 979 all but one of the 97 migrant children entered south africa through land borders. only three of the migrant children had entered south africa regularly, using a passport and visitor’s visa to gain entry. the remaining 94 children were undocumented upon admission. fifty-four children were unaccompanied upon entry. the rules around travelling with children through ports of entry were significantly tightened by regulations to the immigration act that entered into force on 1 june 2015. as described in an advisory by the department of home affairs (dha) (2015), the intention with the most recent amendment is to “establish the principle that all minors require the consent of their parents when travelling into or out of the republic.” regulations 12(c) and (d) require unaccompanied minors and persons travelling with a child, who is not his or her biological child, to produce a number of certified identity documents and consent forms from parents. these persons must produce the contact details of the parents or legal guardian of the child. parents travelling with their biological children are also required to produce birth certificates and consent letters or court orders from absent parents. of the 97 migrant children, 32 had entered south africa after the immigration regulations came into force, 28 of whom were unaccompanied at entry. none of the unaccompanied children were referred to dsd upon entry to south africa and appear to have crossed the borders with relative ease. it is concluded, therefore, that the application of the immigration act and regulations as it pertains to unaccompanied minors is inconsistent at land border posts. yet, the main point of concern here is not the fact of entry, but the absence of a mechanism of protection. the reasons for the migration of unaccompanied and separated children are varied. some of the main trends amongst the cases were identified as follows: conflict related (44%); death of the primary caregiver in the country of origin (21%); socio-economic reasons (22%) and abandonment in the country of origin (4%). migration motivated by socio-economic reasons included children in search of better education opportunities, those whose caregivers could no longer care for them due to poverty or poor circumstances in the country of origin, or duties of parental care diverted to relatives following the separation of parents. the separated children typically migrated to south africa to join a caregiver who was already residing in the republic. the children’s duration of stay in south africa at the time of the interview varied from one week to 16 years, with 23 children having spent more than eight years in the republic. the duration of stay had no impact on the child’s ability unaccompanied and separated children in south africa: is return the only option? 980 to secure documentation. all children had entered south africa only once, indicating that migration by this group was not circular. conflict related reasons were the most common factor motivating migration amongst the children. out of 43 cases, 23 of the children accompanied an adult asylum seeker (including parents or relatives) to south africa. accordingly, 15 children derived asylum (7) or refugee status (8) from a parent (11) or another caregiver (4), subsequent to their entry to south africa. twenty children were unaccompanied upon entry to south africa and had migrated in the context of conflict. in theory, these children should have access to the asylum system to undergo refugee status determination. section 32 of the refugees act (no. 130, 1998) deals with unaccompanied refugee children insofar as any child who appears to qualify for refugee status, and is found under circumstances that clearly indicate that he or she is a child in need of care, as contemplated under the children’s act, should be brought before the children’s court of the district in which he or she was found. hereupon, the children’s court may order that the child be assisted in applying for asylum. according to the data collected, only four of the unaccompanied children who migrated in the context of conflict were issued asylum seeker permits and were duly advised by an official at a refugee reception office (rro) to return with a children’s court order. none of the children had returned with the required order and all four permits lapsed. at the time of their first contact with scct, none of the unaccompanied refugee children had been referred to a social worker. it is argued that section 32 falls short of providing adequate protection to unaccompanied refugee children for three main reasons. firstly, the refugees act presumes that the unaccompanied refugee child is in need of care and protection, as understood in the context of the children’s act, and it does not envisage assisted asylum claims by separated children who are adequately cared for by relatives.2 secondly, it presumes that there is a designated office, or person, tasked with identifying the unaccompanied refugee child and ensuring that he or she is brought before the children’s court. lastly, only three rros across south africa were receiving new asylum applications at the 2 section 150 of the children’s act lists the circumstances under which a child is deemed in need of care and protection. these include abandoned or orphaned children without visible means of support; street children; children with uncontrollable behavioural issues or drug-abuse issues; abused, exploited or deliberately neglected children; or children exposed to other types of harm, amongst other things. marilize ackermann 981 time of writing. these are located in durban, musina and pretoria. were a child to be brought before the children’s court in the western cape province, in the absence of a legal guardian, the social worker assigned to the case would have to accompany the child to a rro in gauteng or pretoria. practically, the capacity and resources required to achieve this are simply not in place. the limited number of points of access to the service of home affairs spread over a large geographical area restricts the unaccompanied or separated refugee child’s ability to gain access to the asylum system. table 2: main reasons for migration death of primary caregiver 21 abandoned in country of origin 4 accompanied asylum seeker 23 conflict related 20 imprisonment of primary caregiver 1 mental illness of primary caregiver 2 old age of primary caregiver 1 socio-economic 22 relocation of primary caregiver to third country 1 suspected abduction 1 accompanied parent for medical care 1 total 97 not all foreign children are refugee children and asylum is not appropriate in the cases of children who migrated for reasons other than those set out under section 3 of the refugees act. following their entry to south africa, only two of the children had secured documentation under the immigration act. one had obtained permanent residency through an exemption process envisioned under section 31(2), which allows the minister of home affairs to grant permanent residency to a foreigner on “special grounds.” the intervention of the high court was required to achieve this result. the second child secured a unaccompanied and separated children in south africa: is return the only option? 982 passport and a study visa by a family member travelling to the country of origin for this purpose. it was found that the unaccompanied and separated children whose cases formed part of the survey did not meet the requirements to obtain documentation to regularise their stays. in addition to documentation proving legal stay under the migration framework, the majority of the children lacked any form of identification documentation. in total, 55% of the children did not have birth certificates. birth registration is a prerequisite to accessing citizenship (lawyers for human rights, 2014: 10-11). the lack of proof of birth or parentage is a factor that contributes to the risk of statelessness. the lack of documentation impacts the unaccompanied and separated child’s ability to exercise basic rights, as discussed below. the right to a name and nationality and the risk of statelessness the right to a name and nationality is the most basic of human rights. internationally and regionally, it is set out under article 7(1) of the un convention on the rights of the child, article 6(3) of the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child, as well as the international covenant on civil and political rights. south africa has signed and ratified these treaties and is therefore bound by these obligations. reflecting international obligations, section 28(1)(a) of the bill of rights sets this out clearly by stating that “[e]very child has the right to a name and a nationality from birth.” in the same vein, the right to birth registration is enshrined in article 7(1) of the uncrc and the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child in article 6(1). birth registration in south africa is governed by the births and deaths registration act (no. 51, 1992) (bdra) and accompanying regulations. the ability to register the birth of a child born to foreign parents in south africa is directly linked to the documentation status of the parent(s). regulations 3, 4 and 5 to bdra require a child’s parents to have a valid immigration status to register a birth. these requirements exclude birth registration by those without any form of identity documentation or legal status to sojourn in the republic, those with expired asylum seeker and refugee permits and those with expired visas in a passport. the inability of the undocumented parent to register the child’s birth effectively functions as a form of migration control or punitive measure towards the parent, but essentially has profound prejudicial impact on the child. as mentioned earlier, 12 of the children were born in south africa. marilize ackermann 983 out of the 12, four did not have birth certificates issued by the dha. the reasons for not having a birth certificate were cited as follows: the mother passed away shortly after birth (2); the mother gave birth on a farm, thereafter abandoning the child with no documentary proof of birth (1) and the mother was undocumented at the time of the child’s birth (1). without birth registration documentation, the foreign child is excluded from accessing identification documentation. without strong links to parentage or the country of origin, the child will not be able to claim the nationality of the parent. undocumented children who turn 18 are unable to marry or register the births of their children in returning to their countries of origin, thereby perpetuating the cycle of illegality. while four is a comparatively small number, it represents a sample of individuals who are likely to face insurmountable difficulties to prove their identities and regularise their presence in south africa. it is important to note that not all undocumented persons are stateless. whether a person is at risk of statelessness is determined by a number of risk factors (lawyers for human rights, 2014: 7-8). the main indicators of statelessness include one or more of the following circumstances (lawyers for human rights, 2014: 8): birth outside of one’s parent’s country of nationality death or desertion by one or both parents irregular migration across borders mixed nationality parentage inability to produce any form of identity documents or records proving links to parentage or place of birth the operation of nationality laws section 1 of the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons defines a stateless person as someone who is not considered a national by any state under the operation of its law. south africa is not a signatory to the treaty and, therefore, the mechanisms to prevent and respond to statelessness under domestic law are mostly lacking. of the cases studied, 45 of the children had no document to enable a claim to citizenship. of the 45 children who had no documentary link to any particular state, 13 were orphaned and ten had been abandoned by both parents for at least four years. as there is no single test in unaccompanied and separated children in south africa: is return the only option? 984 place to determine whether a person is stateless, a combination of factors may indicate a risk of statelessness. based on the lack of enabling documentation and tenuous or no links to parentage or other family members, it was concluded that at least 23 of the children in this study were at high risk of statelessness. the right to basic education another major concern is the undocumented child’s inability to access basic education. the laws governing access to education by foreign children in south africa are contradictory. section 29(1)(a) of the bill of rights extends the right to basic education to “everyone” and section 3(1) of the south african schools act (no. 84, 1996) makes it compulsory for every child to attend school from age seven until the learner reaches age 15, or the 9th grade, whichever occurs first. national policy around the admission of non-citizen learners asks of school principals to help the parents to obtain the necessary documentation on behalf of children, where this is not available. in such cases, the child must be admitted to the school while the parent obtains the required documents (admission of learners to public schools, 2001). it states further that “the child must be admitted to the school conditionally while the parent obtains the needed documentation. when the required documentation is not available within three months of the child having been conditionally admitted to the school, the school governing body in consultation with the district officials must attend to the matter by liaising with the relevant authorities and parents” (admission of learners to public schools, 2001). contrary hereto, section 39(1) of the immigration act renders instruction by a learning institution to an “illegal foreigner” an offence for which the school and principal may incur criminal liability. additionally, the national education policy act (no. 27, 1996) requires persons classified as illegal aliens, when they apply for admission for their children or for themselves, to show evidence that they have applied to the dha to legalise their stay in the country in terms of the aliens control act (no. 96, 1991).3 reflecting this confusing position, which is no doubt difficult for school administrators to interpret, 63 of the children whose cases were studied were attending school, while 44 (40%) of the children were not attending school. the caregivers of 21 of the children indicated that non-attendance was a direct result of the child not having a document. of the children not attending school, 14 were under the age of 15 3 repealed and replaced by the immigration act no. 13 of 2002. marilize ackermann 985 years. other reasons for non-attendance included the inability to afford the costs associated with schooling (6) and language barriers (5). two children were indicated as not going to school because they were working. both were 17 year old males. two children were not attending school for medical reasons. five of the children were able to enrol for school through legal intervention on their behalf. access to the child protection system section 28(1)(b) of the constitution states that “[e]very child has the right to family care or parental care, or to appropriate alternative care when removed from the family environment.” section 28(2) further states that “the best interests of the child are of paramount importance in every matter concerning the child.” in line herewith, the children’s act does not distinguish between ‘citizens’ and ‘non-citizens’. supplementing the children’s act, dsd guidelines of 2009 provide some guidance to social workers as to their approach to foreign children and specifically stipulate that unaccompanied foreign children should be assumed to be children “in need of care and protection.” the evidence suggests, however, that the unaccompanied and separated child’s documentation status has an impact on his or her ability to access the child protection system. relations between children and caregivers, other than parents, can be formalised through foster care, guardianship or adoption. the caregiver’s ability to formalise the relation of care, however, is determined by his or her documentation status. with regard to non-citizens, only recognised refugees and permanent residents are eligible foster parents. following the judgments in khosa v minister of social development, mahuale v minister of social development and minister for welfare and population development v fitzpatrick, these categories qualify for the foster care grant. five of the children were placed in the foster care of their refugee caregivers, although 47, in total, were cared for by caregivers with refugee status. asylum seekers are not considered eligible foster parents, given the temporary nature of asylum seeker status. twenty-two children were cared for by primary caregivers with asylum seeker status. undocumented caregivers are also not eligible to formally care for children. it is argued that excluding children from the foster care system, purely based on the documentation status of the caregiver, is not consistent with the best interest principle. placement with an asylum seeker may, in some cases, be in the best interest of a particular child and formal care could be feasible, especially in light of the lengthy asylum unaccompanied and separated children in south africa: is return the only option? 986 process. it has been documented that asylum seekers may wait up to 18 years for the administration of their claims (amit, 2015: 25). it is submitted that, if deemed to be in the best interest of the child to be placed in the foster care of a person who might leave the republic, the child should be allowed to leave with the caregiver, with the necessary consent of the children’s court. it was further documented that in the cases of 47 children, caregivers had approached dsd or a designated child protection agency (cpa) in an attempt to formalise the care relation. indeed, 14 of the children were placed in foster care, eight of whom were placed in the care of unrelated south african citizens and six were placed with relatives holding either refugee status or permanent residency. the cases of 62 unaccompanied or separated children did not reach a social worker at all. when asked about the status of their cases with the social services provider, 15 caregivers indicated that their case was taken by an intake social worker, but had not yet produced any result. access to child protection services was expressly denied in six cases. reasons given for refusal include the fact that the child did not have a birth certificate (1) and the fact that the child was illegal (5). in one case, the social worker did not want to place the child in foster care as she feared the placement order would “make an illegal child legal.” needless to say, a foster care placement order does not function as immigration status and is purely concerned with the protection of the child. six children’s cases were finalised in the form of a social worker’s report, but did not result in placement as the children were not found to be in need of care and protection as defined under the children’s act.4 the number of cases that did not reach dsd or cpa for an assessment is somewhat concerning from a child protection point of view and it is clear that this failure is due to a combination of reasons, notably, limited knowledge on the part of caregivers, the absence of a clear system of referral and procedures to follow in the cases of foreign children and the lack of clarity around eligibility to access foster care. guardianship is dealt with under section 24 of the children’s act, where it is stated that any person having an interest in the care, well-being and 4 section 155(4)(a) of the children’s act, read with regulation 55, determines that after investigation, if a social worker finds that the child is not in need of care and protection, the reasons for this finding must be indicated in a report, which must be submitted to the children’s court for review. according to 150(3) and 155(4)(b) of the children’s act, the report should indicate recommendations to the family/caregiver and measures must be taken to assist the child through counseling or other relevant services available and relevant to the case. marilize ackermann 987 development of a child may apply to the high court for an order granting guardianship of the child. section 25 goes on to treat guardianship applications by non-south african citizens as inter-country adoptions under the hague convention on the civil aspects of international child abduction or hague abduction convention (the hague convention). while this article will not provide an in-depth analysis on the possibility of inter-country adoption, as it applies to the cases surveyed, it suffices to say that inter-country adoptions are challenging for a number of reasons. firstly, the adoption of refugee children is exceptional and refugee children are generally considered not-adoptable (unhcr, 1995).5 secondly, the process for adopting a child with no documentation (especially those without birth certificates) is extremely challenging, as administrative requirements for adoption are unfulfilled. signatory states to the hague convention agree to establish a competent authority that functions as the service provider to children and prospective adoptive parents. whilst south africa is a member state, a number of african nations are not signatories to the hague convention, including the drc, zimbabwe and somalia. this means that there is no functioning counterpart to the south african competent authority in such states and, as such, these adoptions are classified as non-convention adoptions. non-convention adoptions are dealt with by the international social services (iss) (dsd, n.d.: 21-22). the success of such adoptions depends on whether iss is operational in the country of origin of the child. thus, it follows that guardianship over children by refugees and asylum seekers is not easily accessible and, in fact, it is misleading to say that guardianship applications are available to non-citizens. the evidence confirms this finding. amongst the cases studied, none of the caregivers, whether citizens or non-citizens, were court appointed legal guardians, nor were any of the children being considered for adoption. given the difficulties related to accessing the formal child protection system, it may be useful to explore administrative measures to address these cases, but at the time of writing, such alternatives were not in place and thus this forms part of the recommendations. 5 the unhcr and hague convention favour family reunification and temporary, alternative care pending such reunification over adoption, when dealing with refugee children. particularly, the unhcr policy is that “children in an emergency context are not available for adoption.” unaccompanied and separated children in south africa: is return the only option? 988 the right to basic healthcare section 27 of the bill of rights entitles “everyone” to the right to healthcare services and explicitly states that no one may be denied emergency treatment. however, an individual’s ability to access healthcare services is determined by his or her documentation status and the applicable fees are determined by a sliding scale used to calculate eligibility for subsidised care. a 2017 study on migrants’ rights to healthcare in the western cape province found that undocumented persons were mostly able to access emergency healthcare services, but outside the context of emergency care, hospital administrators routinely required valid documentation for care to be administered (alfarovelcamp, 2017). of the cases studied, 30 children had needed healthcare services at some point during their stay in south africa. of the 30, three children were reportedly denied medical treatment (including dental treatment (1)) due to their inability to produce a valid document. two caregivers reported to have been too afraid to take the undocumented child to a healthcare facility on the assumption that the undocumented children would be denied services. four caregivers were able to access healthcare services either through paying for private consultation (1) or agreeing to pay maximum fees for public healthcare services (4). it is concluded therefore that the children were generally able to access the right to healthcare; however, the number of individuals who needed healthcare was small and possibly not representative of the larger population group. a reflection on durable solutions in the words of the uncrc general comment no. 6, “the ultimate aim in addressing the fate of unaccompanied or separated children is to identify a durable solution that addresses all their protection needs, takes into account the child’s view and, wherever possible, leads to overcoming the situation of a child being unaccompanied or separated.” the search for a durable solution commences with analysing the possibility of family reunification (uncrc, general comment no. 6, par. 79). practically, family reunification starts with family tracing (if the whereabouts of the family are not known). according to paragraphs 81 and 82 of general comment no. 6, all efforts should be made to return an unaccompanied or separated child to marilize ackermann 989 his or her parents, except where further separation is necessary in the best interests of the child. circumstances involving abuse or neglect of the child by the parents may prohibit eventual reunification, as may a “reasonable risk” that such a return would lead to a violation of the fundamental human rights of the child, with particular reference to the principle of non-refoulement. in 13 of the cases in this study, children did not know whether their mother was still alive; and in ten cases, the child knew the mother was still alive, but had lost contact with her. this finding indicates a clear need for family tracing. unfortunately, iss counterparts are not operational in a number of african states, meaning that referrals would not necessarily achieve any results (southern hemisphere consulting, 2016). return to the country of origin should not take place without advance secure and concrete arrangements of care and custodial responsibilities upon return (uncrc, general comment no. 6, par. 84). alternatively, a government agency or child-care agency should have agreed, and should be able, to provide immediate protection and care for the child upon arrival (unhcr, 1994). in none of the cases relevant to this research did social workers consider placement in alternative care in the country of origin to be an option. instruments of international law, as well as the dsd guidelines, mention placement in alternative care in the country of origin as a durable solution, but this option does not appear to be exercised in south africa. a desktop search revealed that there is no literature available that explores alternative care in the country of origin as a durable solution in southern africa. presumably, this is due to a lack of infrastructure, resources and information. in cases where return to the country of origin is not possible, local integration is the primary solution. it is crucial that integration be based on secure legal status, including residence status (uncrc, general comment no. 6, par. 88). finding durable solutions for foreign children is an aspect of the statutory social workers’ mandate that is underdeveloped. conclusion it is believed that the numbers of unaccompanied and separated children are not overwhelming, yet the individual consequences are significant enough to merit attention and a search for solutions. the main conclusion of this study is that the absence of documentation options available to unaccompanied and separated children restricts adequate child protection and is at the core of the challenges faced by unaccompanied and separated children. the prevalence of unaccompanied and separated children in south africa: is return the only option? 990 derivative documentation options under the legal framework, and the exclusion of caregivers from guardianship, adoption and foster placements, due to their documentation status, suggest restricted application of the bestinterest principle. a lack of documentation, and thus the inability to access essential services, renders local integration by unaccompanied and separated children effectively impossible. despite the challenges to obtaining documentation, cross-border family reunification is not systematically pursued as a durable solution in such cases. the concerning and very real result is that unaccompanied or separated children remain mostly undetected in south africa, and at high risk of abuse, neglect and statelessness. this situation is clearly not conducive to economic growth in south africa and the broader region. in light of these realities, unaccompanied and separated children are basically faced with the choice of either leading a life outside the realms of formal societal structures, or eventual return to the country of origin. recommendations the following recommendations are made based on the findings in this article: a) it is important that a mechanism be established to register the presence of unaccompanied and separated minors within the republic. the reasons to maintain such a register would be: o to enable authorities to keep track of the size of this group, so as to identify the needs and extent of the state’s duties towards such children; o to enable the issuance of a document to a child, registered as unaccompanied or separated, which would enable access to basic rights whilst in south africa pending the active consideration of appropriate solutions in his or her case; o to enable access to the right to a name and a nationality, whether south african or the nationality of the parent(s); o to enable authorities to make appropriate referrals to ensure children are adequately protected; o to assist the state in effective prevention and combating of trafficking, smuggling and abduction; and marilize ackermann 991 o to position the state with regard to finding regional solutions to irregular migration by unaccompanied and separated children. b) it is recommended that a link be established between dha and dsd to liaise over matters concerning unaccompanied or separated children. the refugees act and the bdra are administered by dha, however, these acts also create statutory duties for other departments, particularly dsd. it is recommended that a liaison office be established to address cross-cutting issues. it is recommended that a designated office or officer be appointed to be available to social workers, to respond to queries, to provide technical support and to prioritise individual cases that may warrant urgent intervention. c) with regard to refugee children, it is recommended that the dha facilitate simpler access to the asylum system for unaccompanied and separated children who appear eligible under the act. to improve access to this highly vulnerable group, it is recommended that at least one satellite office within each province should receive asylum applications by unaccompanied and separated minors. it is recommended that unaccompanied and separated refugee children’s cases be prioritised and treated with the necessary attention. the consideration of an unaccompanied or separated child’s application for asylum, should not be dependent on the need for care and protection. d) to give effect to local integration as a durable solution, it is recommended that a designated officer be appointed to assist the minister of home affairs in the timeous and attentive consideration of exemption applications brought in terms of section 31(2) on behalf of unaccompanied or separated minors. this recommendation would not require any legislative change, but would require reinforcement of administrative measures already provided for within the legal framework. e) with regard to birth registration, it is recommended that the relevant sub-sections of regulations 3, 4 and 5 to the bdra be reviewed to ensure that every child, regardless of the legal status of his or her parent(s), can access a nationality from birth, as well as other socio unaccompanied and separated children in south africa: is return the only option? 992 economic rights conferred through the constitution that require documentation. f) it is recommended that the inconsistencies between laws and policy around access to education by unaccompanied and separated children be reviewed. section 39 of the immigration act, in particular, should not bar the child’s basic right to education, as this is in contradiction with the sa schools act and section 29 of the bill of rights. g) it is recommended that section 24 and 25 of the children’s act be amended to allow guardianship applications by non-citizens, in principle, and to grant jurisdiction to the children’s court to deal with such applications. h) it is recommended that investment in family tracing and reunification services be considered; particularly for the drc, from whence the largest number of unaccompanied children come. awareness-raising to social workers around existing services and networks in this area of expertise is also needed. i) alternative care placements in the country of origin should be studied. acknowledgements thank you to miranda madikane of the scalabrini centre of cape town for making the study possible. thank you to everyone who participated to the study through sharing their stories. references primary 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons. 1966 international covenant on civil and political rights. 1989 convention on the rights of the child. 1990 african charter on the rights and welfare of the child. department of social development. n.d. practice guideline to international adoption. marilize ackermann 993 department of social development (dsd). 2009. guidelines on separated and unaccompanied children outside their country of origin in south africa. republic of south africa. 1991. aliens control act (no. 96). republic of south africa. 1992. births and deaths registration act (no. 51). republic of south africa. 1996. constitution of the republic of south africa (no. 108) as amended. republic of south africa. 1996. national education policy act (no. 27). republic of south africa. 1996. south african schools act (no. 84). republic of south africa. 1998. refugees act (no. 130) as amended. republic of south africa. 2001. admission of learners to public schools (general notice no. 4138). republic of south africa. 2002. immigration act (no. 11) as amended. republic of south africa. 2005. children’s act (no. 38) as amended. united nations committee on the rights of the child (uncrc). 2005. general comment no. 6. treatment of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin. united nations general assembly. 2010. guidelines for the alternative care of children: resolution/adopted by the general assembly, 24 february 2010, a/res/64/142. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 1997. guidelines on policies and procedures in dealing with unaccompanied children seeking asylum. secondary alfaro-velcamp, t. 2017. “don’t send your sick here to be treated, our own people need it more”: immigrants’ access to healthcare in south africa. international journal of migration, health and social care, 13(1): 53–68. amit, r. 2015. queue here for corruption – measuring irregularities in south africa’s asylum system. lawyers for human rights and the african centre for migration & society research report. from <http://bit.ly/2hj4jyk> [retrieved june 20, 2017). unaccompanied and separated children in south africa: is return the only option? 994 department of home affairs (dha). 2015. advisory: new requirements for children travelling through south african ports of entry effective 1 june 2015. from <http://bit.ly/1jd1hti > [retrieved june 6, 2017]. khosa v minister of social development, mahuale v minister of social development 2004 (6) sa 505 (cc). lawyers for human rights. 2014. promoting citizenship and preventing statelessness in south africa: a practitioner’s guide. manby, b. 2011. statelessness in southern africa, briefing paper for unhcr regional conference on statelessness in southern africa. minister for welfare and population development v fitzpatrick [2002] 7 bclr 713 (cc). southern hemisphere consulting. 2016. draft report for system mapping of the protection of unaccompanied and separated migrant children in south africa (unpublished). united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 1995. unhcr policy on adoption of refugee children. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 1994. refugee children: guidelines on protection and care. ahmr volume 6 number 1 jan-apr 2020.indd 6 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa: review of contemporary studies mary muyonga*, george odipo** and alfred o. agwanda*** * population studies and research institute, university of nairobi, kenya corresponding author. email: mmuyonga@students.uonbi.ac.ke ** population studies and research institute, university of nairobi, kenya *** population studies and research institute, university of nairobi, kenya in recent times, migration and inequality have become topical issues of global attention. in the sustainable development goals (sdgs), goal 10 focuses on tackling inequality with indicator 10.7, which pertains to the facilitation of safe, orderly, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people. few studies show that migration and inequality are interlinked; yet, others show that migration is an outcome of inequality. to the contrary, others argue that migration triggers inequality in the sending areas, due to increased flows of remittances sent by migrants to their areas of origin. the differential conclusions are attributed to varied methodological approaches used and the dimension of inequality investigated. this paper seeks to contribute to this knowledge gap by highlighting the scholarly work on migration and inequality in africa, challenges encountered, as well as presenting the key findings. the study comprised a desk review of published studies on migration and inequality in africa. the review found that most studies in africa relied on census and survey data and mostly focused on the nexus between economic inequality and migration, thus ignoring other social inequalities. few studies used population registers. none of the studies considered the drivers of internal and international migration and how these impact on inequality. the study recommends an investigation of the nexus between non-income inequalities and migration as well as the unpacking of the contextual factors behind inequality and migration using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. additionally, the study strongly encourages the use of specialist migration surveys to improve the body of knowledge on this subject. keywords: migration, inequality, migration survey, kenya, africa 7 introduction migration and inequality are twin issues that have occupied global governance and humanitarian discourse in the recent years with the western countries focusing on the governance of migration, and large programs put in place to improve coordination and policy response (see for example the global knowledge partnership on migration and development1 (knomad). the sustainable development goals (sdgs) reflect the shifting global concerns on unsustainable development and rising inequality, with goal 10 dealing with the reduction of inequality within and between countries. tracking progress on sdg goal 10 requires an assessment of the interface between migration and inequalities in the world. conceptually, there is no standard definition of inequality although different scholars agree that it has to do with differences in access to opportunities and outcomes in each population. mckay (2002:1) describes inequality as ‘concerning variations in living standards across a whole population’. inequality is a multidimensional concept but there is vast literature on economic inequality compared to any other dimensions of inequality. economists define economic inequality as ‘the fundamental disparity that permits one individual certain material choices, while denying another individual those very same choices’ (ray, 1998:170). spatial inequality, defined as inequality in economic and social indicators of wellbeing across geographical units within a country, is also more common in the literature (kanbur and venables, 2005). globally, studies on migration and inequality rely on longitudinal data that compare prevailing circumstances before and after migration, looking critically at how household livelihood patterns change after migration. the studies vary methodologically, with some conceptualizing remittances as an exogenous source of income, and thus, measure how inequality in sending areas arises between households which have migrants and those that do not have migrants. others simulate a counterfactual argument, where a society is compared with the contribution of income from remittances and compared with a different scenario where remittances do not exist. fewer studies feature the effect of other dimensions of inequality on migration including spatial and horizontal inequalities. studies on the impact of migration on inequality have yielded stronger results from international migration than internal migration. most of the global scholarly discourse feature the us-mexico migration, china, and global north to south pathways, but fewer studies have been done in africa which boasts large intra-continental migratory flows. this paper reviews the existing literature of studies on the linkages between migration and inequality in africa, interrogating the design, methodologies employed, as well as key findings on the linkages between migration and inequality in africa. the paper is organized as follows: the next two sections provide the rationale and methodology. section 4 highlights the theoretical perspectives of migration and inequality. section 5 features the sources of data and methodological issues in study1 see www.knomad.org interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 8 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 ing migration and inequality. section 6 focuses on the empirical studies in africa and their key findings on the relationship between migration and inequality. section 7 provides a synthesis of the emerging issues from the earlier sections, while the last section provides conclusions and recommendations on studying migration and inequality in africa. rationale the choice of reviewing african-based studies separately from the western and other regions is aimed at highlighting the uniqueness of the inequality structure, discourse, policy response and methodological issues that may face researchers based in africa due to its geopolitical state. as the world moves towards monitoring trends on the sdg goals, there is a need to show evidence of the impact of migration on inequality in the global south, using case studies from the continent to inform the policy discourse and programmatic interventions as necessary. methodology the review uses secondary data sources based on published articles investigating migration and inequality in africa. the review was not a systematic review but an online search for scholarly articles on migration and inequality in africa. the methodology adopted included the use of the keywords, ‘inequality’, ‘migration’, and ‘africa’ as well as the use of the phrase ‘migration and inequality in africa’. no time frames were indicated, to enable a higher number of articles to be traced. google scholar was used as it is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. the interface of google makes it easier to do academic research than is possible through the standard google interface. once the articles were identified by google scholar, they were categorized by country and year of publication. all identified articles were considered in the review while those articles that did not consider migration and inequality were left out of the review. several limitations arise from using online searches including the fact that not all articles are published through such platforms, prompting some researchers to conclude that there is inequality of global academic knowledge production (wight, 2008; mouton, 2010; collyer, 2018; medie and kang, 2018). google scholar uses automatic indexing systems resulting in the accidental indexing of non-scholarly sources. the search engine also limits each search to a maximum of 1,000 results, which are too voluminous to explore, and hence require additional effective ways of locating the relevant articles. theoretical perspectives on migration and inequality nexus migration and inequality are both multidimensional concepts that have been studied over the years and theoretical formulations have been made to better understand 9 these phenomena. migration is founded on various theoretical dispensations that describe the patterns, motivations, choices and outcomes of human mobility. inequality on the other hand is a concept that has been associated with human welfare as economic development occurs, therefore focusing on how resources are shared and distributed within and between societies. few studies have theorized the direct link between migration and inequality. demographic theories have an impact on the understanding of the migration and inequality nexus, and these include the seminal work by the american demographer, frank notestein who postulated the demographic transition theory (notestein, 1945). however, his work does not address outmigration in this formulation. the theory, based on data from the western world, describes the relationship between economic development and demographic changes, with a focus on the changing dynamics of mortality and fertility as society grows. a criticism of the theory is that it is based on experiences of the western world, which are different from those in developing countries, including africa (mabogunje, 1970). additionally, it ignores the impact of migration transitions as societies develop over time. the theory does not facilitate the understanding of migration and inequality but provides a basis for understanding how population dynamics change over time. zelinsky (1971) offers an alternative theory, the migration transition model that links migration to notestein’s demographic transition theory. while still using data from western countries, zelinsky shows that migration typologies depend on a country’s stage of development, concluding that the more developed a country, the more complex the migration systems. zelinsky has been criticized for ignoring the effects of spatio-temporal changes that occur in societies and which may impact migratory behavior, especially the improvements in transport and communications infrastructure (skeldon, 1990; de haas, 2007). while the demographic transition theory does not help in explaining the migration and inequality nexus, the modified zelinksy (1971) migration transition model is useful as it shows how complex migration typologies are formed as a society develops. the theory expounds on the migration hump showing high migration at the low levels of development, and after a critical threshold, migration begins to decline (stark and taylor, 1991; faini and venturini, 1993; vogler and rotte, 2000). the inverse relationship between migration and development has been observed in studies looking at migration and income inequality, noting that during the early stages of migration, inequality is low, but as migration rises, inequality also rises leading to a threshold where no further rise in inequality occurs with increased migration (kuznets, 1955). several theories elaborate on the drivers of migration and mechanisms through which migration is sustained. migrant selectivity is expounded on in the human capital theory (lee, 1966) which posits that international migration depends on the individual attributes of migrants including age, sex, educational level and skills, competencies, marital status, previous experience as well as risk-taking spirit. this theory interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 10 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 has been particularly useful in the migration and inequality nexus, as it shows the selectivity of migration; hence, the inequality of opportunities between nations leads to an increase in international migration. a similar observation is made in the push and pull model, as articulated by ravenstein (1885), that people move from their origin areas due to ‘push factors’ that drive them away and move to their destination areas due to ‘pull factors’ that attract them. ultimately, the main flows are fueled by wage differentials between nations, which perpetuate migration. the migration systems theory pioneered by mabogunje (1970) identifies a migration system as comprising of places linked by flows and counterflows of people, goods, and information, which increases the likelihood of migration between such systems. this theory is based on the observations of rural to urban migration in africa and posits that the macro environment influences the individual migrants’ decisions. factors that influence migration decision-making, are the social welfare system including education and health, economic conditions including wages, prices, consumer preferences and degree of industrial development, as well as technological development including transport and communication networks. this theory argues that the transition of migrants from rural to urban subsystems results in a complete transformation of their social and other attributes. the theory recognizes the importance of a feedback mechanism between sending and receiving areas that promotes the continuous flow of people, goods and information between them. the self-sustaining nature of migration is expounded by the cumulative causation theory postulated by myrdal (1957) and later modified by massey (massey, 1990; massey et al, 1994; massey and zenteno, 1999), with the proponents arguing that migration motivations are different and each migration experience alters the social contexts in which each occurred. the neoclassical theory of migration (harris and todaro, 1970) argues that migrants move from regions with low wages to those of higher wages by considering the cost-benefit of migrating. the theory argues that when wage differentials between regions in a country are reduced, then migration levels also reduce, thus migration is seen as an equalizing factor for rural-urban migration. critics have pointed out that migration seems to continue even when there are no economic benefits or job opportunities available in the urban areas. thus, they argue that it is not only economic considerations that make individuals move. the theory is useful in understanding the structural factors influencing migration, including spatial inequalities and wage inequalities. the dual market economy theory (piore, 1979), corroborates this view, adding that the capitalism of international migration maintained by two coexisting economic models, the capital-intensive primary sectors which offer well-paying jobs and high wages, and the labor-intensive sectors which have low wages and unskilled labor. migrants therefore move to the regions with higher skills and higher wages, prompting the migration of educated and skilled members of the society compared to the immobility of their uneducated counterparts. 11 the new economics of migration theory (taylor, 1999) shifts the focus from individual migrant decisions to migrant households or families, where migration is seen as a household survival strategy. migrants, both local and international, are seen to move based on the strategic decisions their households make when faced with economic shocks such as poor harvests, and harsh weather conditions. the theory helps in explaining the household decision-making mechanism, which results in either a positive or a negative impact of migration on inequality. while these models argue that wage differentials between nations fuel migration, this view has been criticized as it ignores the counter flows between nations with shared history, who have a mutually dependent series of flows and counterflows, as expounded in the world systems theory (fawcett and arnold,1987). this theory conceptualizes the world as a capitalist system that perpetuates international migration, noting that colonialism shifted the global relations between the colonizers and the colonized countries, resulting in the continued flows of populations between the two regions owing to the differences in economic development between them. capitalist firms from rich countries move to poorer peripheral countries in search of land, raw materials and markets for their products. thus, proponents of this theory argue that migration systems are context specific and are linked by people who share historical, cultural, colonial and technological linkages. this perspective enriches the conceptualization of migration and inequality nexus, as it considers the role of macro factors, including the historical and sociocultural background of the migration system. the review of the different theories shows that few of them distinctively look at migration and inequality, although they interrogate the possible consequences of migration and development. most of the theories describe the development and mobility patterns of the western nations, but there is a need to have theories that are grounded in the social contexts and structural realities of different countries (brown and sanders, 1981). while the world systems theory expounds how colonial history influences inequalities between nations and perpetuates migration flows across the regions, the push and pull theory and the human capital theory elaborate on how the flows are sustained. the structured relations between origin and destination areas have also been well articulated in the works of zelinsky (1971) and skeldon (1990) who note the linkage between the demographic processes and the resultant typologies of migration. the theories under review only focus on international migration and not internal migration, although one could expect that they could also apply to the domestic migration contexts. brown and sanders (1981) criticize them as inadequate in explaining scenarios in developing countries, including the role of ‘pull factors’ including the importance of the informal sector to rural-urban migrants, the role of social networks in origin and destination areas, the impacts of circular and seasonal migration strategies as well as structural issues, including class and status of migrants. the review of the literature shows that migration, unlike the other populainterlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 12 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 tion dynamics of fertility and mortality, is a system that affects and is affected by development (skeldon, 1997; de haas, 2010). migration is an endogenous factor in development, or part of that change but the development impacts on migration are heterogeneous. de haas (2007) reformulated the mobility transition in a more integrated format which can simply be referred to as migration transition. in this reformulation and underscoring the work of skeldon (1997), it is impossible to envisage development without migration, as migration is part of development. through this framework, de haas (2007) provides three perspectives about the migration-development nexus. first, development is generally associated with higher overall levels of migration and mobility which arises because of increasing capabilities by loosening constraints on movement, increasing aspirations and increasing occupational specialization. secondly, the relation between migration and broader development processes is fundamentally non-linear as development goes with the shifting patterns of the spatial opportunity differential. thirdly, societies tend to go through a sequence of internal and international migration transitions. de haas (2010) reiterated that other factors, particularly those rooted in the political economy of countries, geographical location and historical contingencies explain why countries with roughly similar levels of development show divergent migration patterns. he summarizes the two emerging dilemmas about migration and inequality. on the one hand, migration is linked to increased inequality because migrants tend to come from better off households. on the other hand, as more migration occurs, the sending areas lose out on the human capital as development gains, leading to increased spatial inequalities between the sending and receiving areas. empirical evidence has shown that migration does have positive effects on sending areas, and that it does not always lead to increased inequalities. owing to the contradiction inherent in some of the findings, he proposes the need to conceptualize the role of structural factors including the political, institutional, economic, social and cultural contexts within which migration occurs, as well as the role of agency, the real capacity of humans to overcome constraints and potentially reshape structure (de haas, 2010:241). similar views have been articulated by other scholars such as massey et al (1999) and morawska (2007) who criticize theories that ignore human agency and how this interacts with state and other social structures to influence migration and inequality. inequalities both reflect and amplify a constrained opportunity structure (melamed and samman, 2013). black et al (2006) argue that across different geographical, economic and social environments, the relationship between institutions of migration and inequality is governed by access – who gets to migrate where – and the different opportunities that different types of migration streams offer. the complexity of the theorizing of migration has been captured in the works of de haas (2014) where he notes that, ‘there is no central body of conceptual frameworks or theories on migration that can guide and be informed by empirical work’ (de haas, 2014:6). he outlines some of the challenges faced in applying the theory 13 by the different ‘modes of inquiry’ adopted by scholars, such as focus on international versus internal migration as an example. the resultant complexity of migration confirms that the phenomenon ‘has many parts in elaborate, multi-layered arrangements’ (ibid). in the next section, the paper reviews the findings on the established linkages between migration and inequality. interlinkages of migration and inequality migration and inequality are interlinked through the development process, with studies showing that economic development results in unequal spatial development and therefore unequal wages and incomes between urban and rural areas, resulting in an inverse relationship between migration and development. with increased development, the rising incomes in the urban areas lead to urban-rural disparities in wages and result in the increase in migration between urban and rural areas. simon kuznets postulated this in his seminal paper on economic development and inequality, noting that during the early stages of economic development, inequality increases with rising incomes, but as the level of per capita income increases, inequality reduces, leading to an inverted u-shape relationship between income inequality and economic development (kuznets, 1955). this assertion has been criticized for focusing on the developed countries rather than being aligned to the realities of the developing world. an alternative mechanism is proposed by lipton (1980), noting that inequalities within the origin area pushes out migration, hence individuals living in unequal settings tend to move out. as a result of the outmigration, remittances sent from migrants from rich households have a negative effect on the rural income distribution as it increases income inequality between migrant and non-migrant households. in the longer term, as migration increases between rural and urban areas, this leads to a neutralizing effect on intrahousehold inequality in sending areas. this perspective shows the linkage between inequalities in sending areas and the increased migration intensities, as migrants move to regions with better prospects. the effects of migration on inequality can be direct or indirect. the direct effects of migration on inequality are associated with remittances sent to migrant households thereby changing their patterns of household expenditure and investments. the indirect effect is through the ‘multiplier effects’ of such investments and changes in the labor market in sending communities (mendola, 2012). barham and boucher (1998) found that migration increases income inequality when comparing households with migrants to those without migrants, in their nicaraguan study. similar findings were observed in pakistan (oberai and singh, 1980) and in kenya (knowles and anker, 1981). other studies did not find the same results when they decomposed incomes based on their sources. those studies, conducted in mexico, thus concluded that the effect of remittances on income inequality depends on the length of the migration history of the community, the ranking of the migrant houseinterlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 14 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 holds within the origin communities as well as the role that remittances play in comparison to other income sources for the receiving households (stark et al, 1986). while some studies focus on the mechanism through which migration effects inequality, scholars such as stark and taylor (1991) caution that the net effect of remittances on inequality depends on the relative deprivation of rural households before migration occurs. they conclude that societies with a longer migration history report a neutralizing effect on the income inequalities in the longer term. ebeke and le goff (2011) add that the impact that migration is likely to have on inequality will depend on the cost of migration, level of development and human capital in origin communities. the effect of remittances has been found to spill over to the wider community (massey et al, 1994). communities also benefit from migrant networks which help to reduce the costs associated with migration, as they share information and resources that make migration less risky. they note that the effect of remittances on inequality is dependent on the position of the migrant household within the income distribution of the sending community. the interlinkages of migration and inequality differ based on the type of migration, as differential effects have been found when comparing international and internal migration. black et al (2006) conclude that although the migration-inequality relationship varies across space and time, there is a need to specify the type of migration and dimension of inequality as different types of migration may have different effects on different types of inequality. other linkages identified by scholars focus on the pessimistic or positivist views on the effects of migration on equality and vice versa. for the pessimists, migration results in increasing inequalities between regions reinforcing spatial and interpersonal disparities in development in low income sending communities, as seen in empirical studies in india (zachariah et al, 2001); in mexico (binford, 2003; mckenzie and rapoport, 2006); in bangladesh (rahman, 2000); and a comparative study of global data (solimano, 2001). additionally, there are scholars who believe that outmigration leads to the so-called ‘brain drain’ in rural areas, as the more educated members are more likely to migrate. a counter narrative argues that migration has the positive effect of reducing inequalities between regions, by leading to ‘brain gain’, as migrants acquire new skills which make them more competitive, and the remittances they send back are used to improve livelihoods. adams et al (2008) outline the two key methodological issues that arise when studying the impact of remittances on income inequality. the first approach considers remittances as an exogenous transfer from migrants, while the second approach considers remittances as an extra source of income that the migrant would earn if they had not moved out. each of these cases requires a different determination. for the first case of remittances as exogenous income, the key task is to determine how such remittances affect the overall distribution of income in the origin area (gustafsson and makonnen, 1993). for the second case, the task will be to compute the changes in inequality in a counterfactual scenario where there is no migration and 15 no remittance and compare that with scenarios where there is migration and remittance with an input of the expected income that migrants would have earned if they had stayed at home (adams and page, 2005; adams et al, 2008). indeed, barham and boucher (1998) concur that these differential findings arise due to the empirical contexts of the study areas as well as methodological rigor, with studies that consider remittances as an exogenous transfer of income or as a substitute to home earnings getting conflicting findings on the inequality and migration nexus. de haas (2010:241) proposes the need to conceptualize the role of structural factors, including the political, institutional, economic, social and cultural contexts within which migration occurs, as well as the role of agency, the capacity of humans to overcome constraints and potentially reshape structure. similar views have been articulated by other scholars such as massey et al (1999) and morawska (2007) who criticize theories that ignore human agency and how this interacts with state and other social structures to influence migration and inequality. review of studies in africa this section reviews the contemporary studies in africa and highlights the conceptualization of the subject, data sources, and mechanisms through which migration and inequality are interrelated. conceptualization of migration and inequality in africa the conceptualization of a migrant has differed in various studies conducted in africa with those based on census data defining a migrant as a person who has changed the ‘usual place of residence’ at least once during the migration interval, which is one year before the census. for the normal census a migrant is considered a person who lived in the household for at least one year. in others, such as the world bank african migration project, a migrant is defined as a person who used to the live in a household in the country, for at least six months, to live abroad (international migrant) or in another village or urban area within the country (internal migrant). this definition of a migrant could influence the outcome of analysis, with those making moves within a shorter period likely to inflate the number of migrants. while migration is easy to measure, inequality presents a different conceptual challenge. inequality is defined as the difference in social status, wealth or opportunity between people or groups.2 distinction is often made between inequality of outcomes and inequality of opportunity. inequality of outcomes is concerned with differences in overall living economic conditions including income, wealth, education and nutrition. inequality of opportunity is concerned with differential access to opportunities by people living in the same community, and therefore the circumstances surrounding their place of birth, their parental background, ethnicity and gender determine their access to opportunities, including where they go to school, 2 https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/inequality interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 16 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 what jobs they get and how economically successful they become. the studies reviewed have not delved into the interlinkages within and between group inequalities and migration, and this is an area for future exploration. globally, studies looking at migration and inequality have used the gini coefficient generated from the lorenz curve (morgan, 1962). this requires the availability of consumption data from households which is not captured in the census questionnaires. thus, most african countries have used the small area estimation technique to generate values for subnational estimates (ngugi, kipruto and samoei, 2013). an improvement in measuring inequality when income and expenditure data is unavailable in surveys or census was proposed by mckenzie (2005), where the relative measure of ‘inequality in living standards’ (i), is derived using asset indicators. the method has been used widely in studies of migration and inequality, including latin american migration surveys3 where questions are asked about household assets. mckay (2002) proposes that inequality studies should explore other dimensions apart form income, including the inequality of opportunities and outcomes, within-group and between-group inequalities such as considering households within communities, as well as exploring the temporal variations of inequality. few studies have considered all these suggestions but there has been a greater focus on income inequality by economists in most studies including those in africa, as will be outlined in the next section. data sources and study design in africa like most global studies, the scholarly work in africa has relied on the three main data sources namely, censuses, surveys including specialist surveys, and ethnographic studies. while studies in the developed nations use population registers as a major source of data for migration studies, in africa, due to poor civil registration systems, this is limited. survey data has been widely used to analyze the interlinkages between migration and inequality. the world bank living standards survey4 provides useful data on a wide range of issues including migration and migrant welfare. the surveys have been conducted in nigeria, ghana, tanzania, burkina faso, kenya, senegal, south africa and uganda. a disadvantage of survey data is that it is not standardized and comparable as noted in a review of 70 household surveys conducted between 1990 and 2006 (plaza et al, 2011). for example, the review found that migration modules are different and incomparable across many african countries, with most surveys collecting information on migration history of all household members above 15 years of age, while others collected information only from the head of the household. 3 this includes the mexican migration project (mmp) and subsequent latin american migration project (mckenzie, 2005:2). 4 the living standards measurement study (lsms) is a household survey program housed within the survey unit of the world bank’s development data group that provides technical assistance to national statistical offices (nsos) in the design and implementation of multi-topic household surveys. 17 additionally, sections capturing migration data in these surveys are located differently, with some surveys putting this in a stand-alone, or incorporating it into the other modules (ibid). challenges identified in obtaining survey information include the difficulty in sampling of households. researchers therefore rely on the use of national sampling frames to identify such households or the use of remittance transfer data from mobile phones (bang et al, 2016). a critical look at the gender dynamics of studies based on sample surveys, shows that some studies featured only male migrants, especially those dealing with international migration. for example, in the study of migration and inequality in egypt which sampled only male migrants, adams (1989:47) notes that in rural egypt, social tradition denied women in rural areas to work ‘outside the home’ by describing this as ‘shameful’. there would thus have been fewer women in the study owing to such socio-cultural factors. census data has also been a source of data for research on migration and inequality. the census data captures two types of data, namely the migration event where information is collected about the migrants, capturing all the moves they make across time and space; and the migration transition where information is collected about who moved, when and where to – the kind of information collected in the national census. an obvious weakness of migration transition measure is that it fails to capture repeat moves, returns or even deaths during the interphase. migration data captured in the census relates to the place of current residence, how long an individual has lived in such residence, any previous migration, place of birth and place of current remuneration, while reasons and motivations for migration are largely uncaptured. migration history can be easily captured through a trend analysis of a series of census datasets (see arouri and nguyen, 2018) while inequality data can be derived from comparing household living conditions. increasingly popular are the specialist migration surveys that provide unique and rich data on the migration experience and migrant attributes which can be used to analyze migration trends, including effect of remittances on household economies (stark and lucas, 1988). in the early 90s, only botswana and burkina faso had conducted such surveys, as observed by oucho and gould (1993). presently, more countries in africa have conducted specialist migration surveys, including egypt which carried out the egypt household international migration survey (egypt-hims) in 2013, that provides detailed information on why, when, where and how migration has occurred. the ethiopian rural household survey (erhs) also provides longitudinal data. the remittances surveys conducted by the world bank also add to the pool of these resources, although they covered a few countries in africa. comparatively, the use of specialist surveys has provided a wealth of knowledge about the us-mexico border migration streams where data from the mexico national rural household survey (encuesta nacional a hogares rurales de mexico, or enhrum) provides detailed data on assets, sociodemographic characteristics, production, income sources and migration from a nationally representative sample interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 18 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 of rural households. the other major source of data has been the mexican migration project which employs ethnographic survey methodology to provide both qualitative and quantitative data; the latin american migration project (lamp) and later the migrations between africa and europe (mafe) project which collected data at individual, family and national level to provide longitudinal data for analysis. in asia, china has institutionalized the use of household registration systems (hakou) to capture and monitor migration. the studies in africa have progressively used data from specialist surveys to track the interlinkage between migration and inequality over time. while the surveys cannot be representative of the entire population, they complement the data on the drivers and impacts of migration. use of population registers could provide updated data on migration and household characteristics. major findings on linkages between migration and inequality in studies in africa migration and income inequality linkages the studies reviewed were largely testing the association between migration and income inequality, thus testing lipton’s hypothesis of an inverted u-shaped relationship between the two phenomena. while some studies confirm that remittances lead to higher inequality in origin areas by increasing inequality between migrant and non-migrant households, others show that remittances reduce such inequality. in kenya, knowles and anker (1981) found a weak effect when they studied the link between urban-rural remittances and income inequality, noting that remittances are highly related to the level of education and income, urban residence and migrant status as well as ownership of a house in the home areas and number of dependants living in a different residence from the migrant. other studies confirm higher income inequality in rural migrant households than non-migrant households (hoddinott, 1992, 1994; oyvat and wa githinji, 2017). bang et al (2016) used data from the kenya migration household survey (2009)5 and found that existing differentials in propensity to migrate influence the distributional effects of remittances, thus while remittances increase household expenditure across all households in kenya, they have a huger impact on poorer households. several other studies confirm that households receiving remittances from internal migrants have higher expenditure and improved social status, thus concluding that migration increases inequalities in sending areas. this has been confirmed in nigeria (chiwuzulum et al, 2010; fonta et al, 2011); in botswana (lucas and stark, 1985); in somaliland (lindley, 2007); in egypt (adams, 1989); and in ghana (quartey, 2006). international remittances have higher impact on inequality than rural remit5 the dataset is publicly available for download at the world bank’s microdata library website at: http://microdata. worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/94. 19 tances as shown in findings from several countries. wouterse (2010) found that, although remittances from within africa reduced inequality for communities in burkina faso, intercontinental remittances increased inequality. in nigeria, olowa et al (2013) found that remittances, both domestic (within nigeria) and foreign (other countries outside nigeria and africa), reduced poverty and inequality in rural households. in egypt, mccormick and wahba (2003) attribute rising rural-urban inequalities to returnee international migrants who are more likely to settle and invest in urban areas than rural areas of egypt, while arouri and nguyen (2018) found that migrants in rural egypt were more likely to move to areas of high-asset and high-income inequality. comparatively, in ghana, adams et al (2008) confirmed that international remittances increased income inequalities more than domestic remittances, although rural households were more likely to access domestic remittances than international remittances. in some cases, studies within one country yielded conflicting results on the interlinkage between migration and inequality. in ethiopia, de brauw et al (2013) measured the impact of migration on household welfare by comparing migrant and non-migrant households and the findings showed that consumption per capita increased for migrants, implying there was improved wellbeing, using data from the ethiopian rural household survey,6 which was matched by a panel survey,7 tracking the employed migrants. beyene (2014) used data from a 2004 survey8 and found no significant impact on inequality from remittances for ethiopia when comparing actual and counterfactual scenarios with remittances. in contrast, andersson (2014) found a considerable positive impact of remittances to rural household welfare when he considered the impact of remittances on household welfare in ethiopia, using the data pertaining to household subjective economic wellbeing. elsewhere, anyanwu (2011) assessed the impact of migrant remittances on income inequality in african countries using data for the period 1960-2006 and established that remittances had a significant positive impact on income inequality in african countries, although remittances to the north african regions fueled higher income inequality while the reverse was true for sub-saharan africa. from these studies, the findings validated lipton’s hypothesis of an inverse relationship between migration and income inequality. depending on the methodology used, some studies found a strong negative correlation between migration and income inequality while others found a weak relationship. this is similar to other global studies, such as in china (ha et al, 2016); in mexico, where migration remittances were found to increase inequalities, with migrants being better off than their non-migrant peers even within the same social class background (stark et al, 1986; 6 the erhs is a unique, longitudinal household dataset collected by addis ababa university, the university of oxford, and the international food policy research institute. it follows households from fifteen villages from 1994 to 2009. three additional villages were added to the 2004 round (and were surveyed in 2005). the 2009 round then included all eighteen villages. 7 the focus of the migrant tracking study was to learn about migration and remittance behavior in ethiopia. 8 ethiopian urban socio-economic survey (euss), collected by addis ababa university in collaboration with gothenburg university. interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 20 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 mines and massey, 1985; durand and massey, 1992). in egypt and pakistan, remittances were found to affect the rural income distribution in poor villages (adams 1989; adams and mahmood, 1992), with remittances benefitting mainly the migrant households. non-income inequalities and migration linkages a few studies have reviewed the impact of spatial inequalities on migration and found that migration increased when spatial inequalities were high. in egypt, arouri and nguyen (2018) found that migrants moved to regions with high income and asset inequality while mccormick and wahba (2003) attributed rising rural-urban inequalities to returnee international migrants who were more likely to settle and invest in the urban areas than in the rural areas of egypt. in ogun state of nigeria, a study found that the unequal distribution of higher educational facilities biased to urban areas resulted in increased migration between urban and rural nigeria, leading to loss of human capital in rural regions okhankhuele and opafunso, 2013). discussion this paper presented a summary of key studies on migration and inequality in africa, citing various empirical studies done in the region. the review shows that a higher number of studies considered the impact of income inequalities on migration compared to interlinkages between non-income inequalities and migration. the majority of the studies featured an econometric analysis of the effect of remittances on inequality, without illuminating the contextual factors behind the household welfare changes. a limited number of studies used census data, as surveys were the more popular option. the limitation of census data, such as the unavailability of household welfare indicators to complement the migrant data collected in such censuses and surveys, results in the use of specialist surveys to fill the gap. this observation reinforces the notion that migration studies are not accompanied by data that induces perspectives of measuring inequality. the adoption of multiple data sources would therefore be highly recommended for such studies. fewer studies looked at nonincome inequalities and their interlinkages with migration. several studies have investigated the impact of remittances on inequalities using the world bank sponsored migration and remittances survey, although this survey did not cover many countries in africa. this database, which is now outdated, needs to be expanded to include other countries, especially in northern and southern africa. local surveys such as the ethiopian urban socio-economic survey (euss) need to be scaled and replicated to improve the data sources on migration and inequality. most of the studies focused on understanding the impact of international remittances on inequalities in developing countries, but fewer considered internal mi21 gration and the effect of domestic remittances on inequality. the findings show that international migration has a positive effect on inequality compared to internal migration, attributing to the higher income received through international remittances compared to domestic remittances. however, domestic remittances have a higher impact on poorer households whose welfare changed due to remittances, according to most of the findings from the studies reviewed. what does not emerge from the studies conducted so far, is how the drivers of internal and international migration impact on inequality. the major gap identified in most of the studies is the lack of examination of the role of human agency in understanding the effects of migration on inequality, a criticism offered by massey et al (1999), morawska (2007) and de haas (2010). there is a need to expand the conceptualization of studies on migration and inequality to consider the impact of different migration patterns and their drivers. while aiyar and ebeke (2019) considered this for some developing countries, the focus was only on international migration and not internal migration. conclusion and recommendations most studies relied on quantitative data sources from surveys. however, these are limited as they do not capture the qualitative aspects of migration. although the mexican studies used the ethnographic survey methodology in their migration surveys, they have limited coverage of countries in africa. the use of specialist surveys in africa to complement data on migration is a research necessity and more countries need to embrace it. this literature review offers recommendations to address the shortcomings identified above. first, there is a need to update and increase the database of migration and remittances studies to incorporate more countries for comparative analysis, and to increase such analysis to non-income inequalities, including intergenerational, gender and spatial analysis. further, there is a need to unpack the contextual factors behind inequality and migration by adopting qualitative techniques to understand how inequality affects those who migrate and those who do not migrate. the role of human agency should also be considered in future studies. the policy implications of these findings include the need to improve the collection of longitudinal data on migration to inform the cross-sectional analysis of the impacts of migration. while the sdgs target the reduction of inequalities between and within countries, most of the african countries need to improve in their measurement and monitoring of internal and interregional migration, which are the most popular typologies in africa. additionally, there should be a deliberate effort to conduct specialist migration surveys periodically across most of the african countries to allow for comparative analysis. interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 22 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 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(2001). impact of migration on kerala’s economy and society. international migration, 39(1): 63-87. zelinsky, w. 1971. the hypothesis of the mobility transition. geographical review, 61(2): 219-249. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1226 african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa jonas nzabamwita * abstract south africa experienced an increase in the number of mixed categories of migrants from the african continent. central to these migrants is the issue of their remittances. using remittance motives in a prospect theoretical framing, this paper presents the findings of a study that explored remittance patterns and behaviour along a range of migrants’ characteristics. the data are premised on questionnaires, interviews and focus groups with migrants from the democratic republic of congo (drc), rwanda, somalia and zimbabwe who live in cape town, south africa. the results show that economic migrants remit cash and goods more frequently, while forced migrants remit more both socially and in terms of the value of cash and goods. in addition, income, education and family size are significantly associated with remittance behaviour in respect to the amount of cash remitted as well as value of goods. furthermore, there is a strong correlation between the type of remittance channels and income, education and immigration status. keywords african migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, migration, remittances, south africa. introduction south africa has witnessed the greatest recorded rate of increase in various categories of migrants from the african continent. the flow of these migrants into south africa has always been intrinsically linked to several distinct periods. for instance, in the pre-colonial period, the discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1886 by the apartheid regime lured low wage and low skilled labour migrants from lesotho, malawi, mozambique, zimbabwe, zambia and tanzania into south africa’s rich mining centres (tsietsi, 1998; adepoju, 2003b; makhema, 2009; dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015). in addition to the use of inexpensive migrant labour in the mining industry, the south african go * phd candidate in development studies, institute for social development, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of the western cape, south africa. email: nzabajonas@gmail.com african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1227 vernment recruited african migrants for domestic service, work on commercial farms and factories and the transportation and construction sectors (crush et al., 2006; kok et al., 2006). towards the colonial period, foreign labour migration became not only keystone for government policies, but also pivotal for upholding south africa’s industrial revolution, which bolstered the economy and development, thereby attracting a massive influx of white migrants escaping political uncertainty and hostility in newlyindependent african countries (breyetenbach, 1979; adepoju, 2000b; peberdy, 2009). for much of the colonial period, the apartheid regime adopted protectionist and nationalistic migration policies with a particular emphasis on tight border control and restrictions on africans who were considered undesirable (segatti & landau, 2011). when apartheid was officially abolished in 1994, south africa re-entered a global economic and political sphere, and the new government led by the african national congress (anc) felt obliged to repay a political debt to other countries for their role in the liberation struggle (anderson, 2006; crush et al., 2006). subsequently, south africa opened up its borders, which sparked a large-scale flow of refugees and asylum seekers running away from the deepening political crisis in countries such as the democratic republic of congo (drc), somalia, rwanda, burundi, angola, nigeria, the central african republic (car), ethiopia and others further afield (adepojo, 2000b; adepojo 2003b; dinbabo & carciotto, 2015). likewise, the fall of apartheid encouraged increased clandestine cross-border movement of economic migrants from as far as egypt, libya, tunisia, cameroon, uganda, ghana, senegal, mali, kenya, algeria, morocco and elsewhere in search of a better life and opportunities in south africa (mukasa, 2012). by the end of the 20th century, restrictive immigration policies were still in place; however, the post-apartheid government slowly dismantled border control policies (kok et al., 2006; segatti & landau, 2011). the number of migrants from sub-saharan africa in south africa dramatically surged as a result of a booming economy coupled with amnesties to political refugees and asylum seekers (crush, 2000; crush et al., 2005). along with the influx of short-term contract miners, long-term white migrants and migrants forced to flee persecution in their home countries, in 2000, south africa recorded other categories of voluntary migrants that included skilled migrants (i.e. professionals, semi-professional, managerial and technical migrants), documented migrants (i.e. temporary residents in possession of tourism, african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1228 study or medicine or those holding work permits) and undocumented or clandestine migrants (wentzel et al., 2006; wentzel & tlabela, 2006). while south africa has a range of migrant categories, determining a precise figure of african migrants has proven to be extremely difficult. in addition, a number of sources have challenged the accuracy of data provided by the south african government (stupart, 2016; africa check, 2017). nonetheless, using the stream of contract and voluntary economic migrants, as well as forced refugees and asylum seekers, the 2011 census placed the total number of international migrants in south africa at 2,173,409. this was approximately 4.2% of the country’s total population at that time, and 73.5% of these migrants originated from african countries (world bank, 2018: 3). this figure is unlikely to include all illegal migrants, however, the projections from the international organization for migration (iom) (2016) and international labour organization (ilo) (2017) show that the stock of migrants, particularly those from african countries, will continue to steadily and considerably rise, largely due to on-going protracted political instability and persistent economic collapse and deprivation. the rising population of african migrants in south africa brings to the fore the issue of remittances. in practice, remittances are a proportion of a migrant’s income in his or her domiciled country that is sent to the country of origin (van doorn, 2002; ratha et al., 2009). in the past, global financial institutions often confined remittances to financial transfers. however, this restriction underestimates and ignores the main essence of remittances, as the world bank (2014) and suliman, et al. (2014) estimate that a substantial share of overall remittance outflows to developing countries is in fact in-kind transfers. in a broader sense, beyond economic transfers of cash, migrants also buy consumable commodities that they send to their dependents in their home countries (tavera & chikanda, 2009; chisasa, 2014). by the same token, international migrants establish social and political networks in their countries of residence through which they acquire a wealth of information, values, technology, intellectual capacity and social capital (knowledge, experience and expertise) as well as other tools that are transmitted to their respective countries in the form of social remittances (levit, 1988; goldring 2002; goldring, 2004; mohamoud & fréchaut, 2006; levitt & lamba-nieves, 2011). from this vantage point, migrants’ remittances can potentially be defined as one part of a system of strong transnational connections that link people across distances and diverse cultural practices (cohen & rodriquez, african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1229 2005; paerregaard, 2008). for that reason, cash, goods and social remittances are an essential and enduring linkage between migrant and home country at family and community levels, as well as local government and national levels (taylor, 2000; styan, 2007). in relation to migrants’ resource flows, remittances can further be classified either as formal or informal. the transfer of remittances is formal when sent using registered channels. informal remittances, on the other hand, as the name suggests, are remittances sent through informal channels and, by definition, this type of remittance is not registered (buencamino & gurbonov, 2002; world bank, 2012). in remittance markets, the transfers of cash primarily take place formally in the commercial banks, post offices, money transfer operators (such as western union and moneygram), telecommunication companies, retails outlets and authorised dealers with limited authority (orozco, 2006; bester et al., 2010). they may also be transferred informally by the migrants when they visit the home country, or by family, friends, networks of transfer agencies, unregistered travel agencies, taxis, buses, call shops and ethnic stores (truen et al., 2005; truen & chisadza, 2012; world bank, 2014). remittances in the form of money or goods may be sent by migrants using a broad array of informal and formal channels, ranging from hand deliveries by migrants themselves or third parties to less regulated conduits of delivering goods (truen et al., 2005; truen & chisadza, 2012; chisasa, 2014). social remittances, on the other hand, are intangible assets. as such, the potential pathways along which they are transmitted are cross-linking modalities such as letters, telephone calls, emails, online chats, videos, face-to-face conversations and meetings with key political figures from migrants’ homelands (levitt, 1998; levitt & joworsky, 2007). different types of remittances and varieties of channels have made it extremely difficult to establish the total size of the remittance market. similarly, ensuring that all remittance outflows are accurately and consistently reported has always been challenging in south africa. given this complexity, being the largest economy of the region and the only middle-income country in sub-saharan africa, south africa is among the continent’s largest remittance markets (bakewell, 2011: 35). the remittance outflows account for about 0.4% of south africa’s total gross domestic product (gdp), and the african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1230 approximate size of the total remittance market from south africa to other african countries is $2 billion per annum (technoserve, 2015: 4). while migrant remittances from south africa to other african countries continue to grow, and despite a plethora of literature, there has been a knowledge gap as to how and in what respect remittances might differ among migrants. the continued deficiency in the understanding of the fundamental aspects of remittances requires answering questions such as: who remits? what is remitted? how much is remitted? why and how? as a contribution to these academic debates, this paper sets out to explore the link between african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour. the next section of this paper presents the theoretical literature. section 3 presents the methodology and a summary of the main variables used in the analysis. section 4 presents and discusses empirical findings and the last section presents a conclusion. theoretical and conceptual framework a substantial number of theories have been advanced to analyse what motivates a rational migrant to send remittances (e.g. lucas & stark, 1985; stark & lucas, 1988; poirine, 1997). since the decision to remit funds and other resources is underpinned in the behavioural approach, a combination of remittance motives and prospect theory would provide better insights into remittance behaviours. the original prospect theory was developed by kahnerman and tversky (1979) and was later revised and improved by other authors (i.e., kahnerman & tversky, 1991; tversky & kahnerman, 1992; wakker & tversky, 1993; kahnerman & tversky, 2000; wakker & zank, 2002) to explain the decision-making process. this descriptive theory departs from the normal utility approach to include the psychological and economic principle of decision making under conditions of risk, uncertainty and ambiguity (wakker & zank, 2002). using the utility approach, opong (2012) and barberis (2013) argue that when faced with decisions, the behavioural patterns of all decision makers will seek to maximize their utility, by first weighing each possible outcome with the probability of occurrence and summing this up over all possible outcomes, and then selecting the strategy that guarantees the highest possible returns or payoffs. in a prospect theoretical perspective, individual decisions are anchored around a reference point and a decision maker evaluates the outcomes in terms of loss and gains relative to the selection of choices. what influence a decision maker the most and thereby act as carriers of value or utility are african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1231 circumstances, rather than the final asset position that includes current wealth (kahnerman & tversky, 1991; carmerer, 2005). in a similar view, opong (2012) reasons that, much like all theoretic prospect decision makers, the frame of reference of most migrants guides their decision making, and their reference points are deep seated in the prevailing conditions in their home countries. this reference point is affected by and interlinked with the migrants’ social-economic conditions in the country of destination, which in turn shapes migrants’ perceptions of the current situation in their home countries. according to stark and lucas (1988) and rapoport and docquier (2006), the reality of conditions in migrants’ home countries influence their behavioural patterns and judgment, and in the long run determine how money is sent home, how often, how much is sent and to whom. prospect theory contains many remarkable insights that link with the social and economic milieu of migrants, and in incorporating remittance motives opong (2012) maintains that remittance behaviour depends on both migrants’ abilities (i.e. their income and savings) and their motives to remit. from this perspective, remittance decision making and behaviour is a function of a migrant’s characteristics, willingness and ability to remit (lucas & stark 1985, rapoport & docquier, 2006). based on this notion, the willingness and motivation of the prospective remitter has been hypothesized as related to altruism and self-interest (lucas & stark, 1985; taylor, 1999) as well as tempered or enlightened motives (poirine, 1997; lillard & willis, 1997). the self-enlightened motive of remittances was expanded by hagen-zanker and siegel (2007) to include contractual arrangements, such as co-insurance, loan repayment and exchange between migrant and household members in the country of origin. under an altruistic model, the intuitive motive to remit is the migrants’ concern about relatives left behind in the home country. in a nutshell, a migrant may derive satisfaction from ensuring the welfare of his or her relatives (lucas & stark, 1988; stark, 1991; solimano, 2003). in a behavioural sense, altruism implies a utility function in which the migrant cares about the consumption needs of the family members left behind (banerjee, 1984; lillard & willis, 1997; agarwal & horowitz, 2002). further to altruistic assumptions, migrants with higher earning potential tend to remit more money and goods, and remittances tend to increase if the migrant is married and the spouse and/or children are in the country of origin (frankhouser, 1995; von burgsdorff, 2010; von burgsdorff, 2012; chisasa, 2014). however, in a postafrican migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1232 hoc strategy that follows migration, when the families join migrants, the ties and links with the home country become weaker and the amount of remittances decrease and are sent less frequently (sana & massey, 2005; kosse & vermeulen, 2014). in addition, intentions to return are positively correlated with the tendency to remit more (konica & filer, 2005; lindley, 2007; lindley, 2008), and the amount that a migrant sends to relatives in the home country is negatively correlated with the number of migrants from the same household. furthermore, the time profile of remittances as propounded in the remittance decay hypothesis (that remittances decline as the length of residence increases) depends on the profile of migrants, i.e. migrants who stay longer abroad tend to remit at a decreasing rate (stark, 1978; agunias, 2006; amuedo-dorantes & pozo, 2006; vargas-silva, 2006; makina & massenge, 2014; echazarram, 2011). likewise, remittances are positively correlated with income, while the number of dependents in the host country affects remittances adversely (frankhouser, 1995; holst & schrooten, 2006). in a similar view to the above, migrants who perceive the business environment in their countries of origin to be favorable will remit more money and goods in the form of investments (lucas & stark, 1985), and migrants who regularly visit their home countries are more likely to send remittances (lindley, 2007; lindley, 2009; lindley, 2010). much like the altruistic hypothesis, in the self-interest motive, migrants who maintain links with home countries are more likely to remit, especially when they are willing to return to their countries of origin (hoddinott, 1994; cox et al., 1998; de la briere et al., 2002; agunias, 2006). in a pure self-interest motive, migrants driven by the prospect of inheritance send remittances to maintain family income and financial stability. under this hypothesis, remitters are expected to have a higher chance to inherit assets, whereas the higher the value of assets to be inherited is likely to be associated with the higher remittances. for example, osili (2007 and hoddinott (1994) found that migrants remit more in wealthier areas. likewise, schrieder and knerr (2000), garip (2006) and holst and schrooten (2006) affirmed that with an inheritance seeking motive, male emigrants remit significantly more compared to female emigrants. however, according to cracium (2006), the exceptions are that women remit a substantially larger proportion of their wages than men. african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1233 in reaction to pure altruism and pure self-interest motives, stark and lucas (1988) used an eclectic model termed “tempered altruism” and “enlightened self-interest” to explain contractual arrangements of co-insurance, exchange motives and loan repayment in driving remittances. a number of sources stress that in the eclectic model, remittances are utilized as a familial strategy to maximize an income and to insure against future shocks (stark, 1991; poirine, 1997; brown & ahlburh, 1999; solimano, 2003). the family enters into an implicit pre-determined agreement in which they either invest in the education of the remitter or finance the cost of migration, while the remittances they receive are used to repay the loan that financed the cost of migration and education. under this assumption, scholars report that educated migrants are likely to remit more (hoddinott, 1994; ilahi & jffarey, 1999). from the behaviour and motivation theoretical synthetic models, it is evident that the complex mixture of altruism, self-interest and self-enlightenment best describes the theoretical aspect of remittances. however, when combined with micro-variables representing migrants’ characteristics, remittance behaviours are difficult to predict. therefore, to ascertain whether there is a link between migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour, the researcher developed the function consisting of principal independent variables. these variables have been prominently linked to remittances in the literature. remittance behaviour (rb) = n + a + ge + ms + el + irsa + dtisa + ri + dssa + il + absa + fhv + a variable description: • nationality = n • age = a • gender = ge • marital status = ms • educational level = el • immigration reasons to south africa = irsa • document types in south africa = dtsa african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1234 • return intentions = ri • duration of stay in south africa = dssa • income level = il • access to banks in south africa = absa • frequency of home visits = fhv • associations = a methodology the study used both quantitative and qualitative methods. the information was collected using structured survey questionnaires administered to 83 migrants. additionally, interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with 12 migrants from the drc, rwanda, somalia and zimbabwe who live in cape town, south africa. cape town is of interest as it is a cosmopolitan city that receives migrants from the african continent and has a history of migrant settlement (lefko-everett, 2008). similarly, from the researcher’s observations, cape town’s largest inner-city sections account for a high number of migrants from the case study. the sample was selected by means of non-probabilistic method, where the researcher applied the purposive approach to select the sample of migrants as an entry point based on his knowledge and the nature of the research aims. the sample was then extended by means of snowballing to reach more participants by referral. to mitigate the risks of bias and errors associated with the non-probability sampling method, a considerable effort was made to include migrants of varied demographics in terms of age, gender, occupation, nationality and legal status. in addition, the non-probability sampling approach enabled the researcher to overcome the difficulty of locating undocumented migrants. in a similar view, combining purposive and snowballing sampling methods enabled the researcher to choose the respondents included in the study and increase subjects’ variability, thus minimizing the challenges of finding the representative sample (babbie & mouton, 2001; mertens & gisenberg, 2009). on the one hand, variables representing characteristics of migrants were categorised according to demographic information, such as nationality, age, gender, education, marital status, duration of stay in south africa, income african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1235 level, migration history, family context (i.e., migration status, reason for immigration and return intention), family size in both south africa and the home country, level of social capital and access to financial institutions and banking facilities. on the other hand, remittance patterns and behaviourspecific variables were disaggregated to include remittance type (i.e., cash, goods and social remittances) propensity to remit, value and amount of remittances, frequency of remittances, as well as channels used to send remittances. the data analysis was based on a combination of both primary and secondary data, and the goal was to link remittance behaviour with migrants’ characteristics. to do so, a statistical analysis was performed on the data collected from the survey questionnaires using stata software. in order to describe, explain, interpret and summarise the characteristics of the migrants and their remittances, descriptive statistics in the form of mathematical quantities were used, while inferential statistics were employed to ascertain whether remittance behaviour differs depending upon migration characteristics. the qualitative data were analysed using thematic content analysis. this involved breaking data from the interviews into more manageable themes, triangulating them with those from the focus group and comparing the findings with information from the literature review. disaggregating remittances into many types posed a challenge and incorporating and analysing the aspects of social remittances created incoherence in this paper. this was due to the fact that these kinds of remittances are intangible in nature and difficult to measure compared to financial transfers (mohamoud & fréchaut, 2006: 34). similarly, the quantitative approach did not provide detailed or nuanced narratives from migrants’ responses. nonetheless, these methodological shortcomings were offset by the qualitative method employed. a quantitative method provides data that may be effectively used to predict and measure relationships and phenomena (babbie & mouton, 2001; mertens & gisenberg, 2009). as such, the quantitative method was selected for this research as it proved to be more affordable and faster than the qualitative method, especially when testing hypotheses. african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1236 results and discussions demographic characteristics out of a sample of 83 respondents, 20 participants (24%) are from zimbabwe, 20 (24%) are from rwanda, 20 (24%) are from somalia, and the remaining 23 (28%) are from the drc. there is no considerable difference in terms of educational background across nationalities, apart from the rwandese, of whom half attained university degrees. otherwise, many of the pooled sample (31%) indicated they had completed secondary school, 17% had attained primary school, 23% had achieved a college qualification, 28% had completed tertiary education and 1% had obtained another type of education. the average monthly income of 34% of respondents falls between r4000–8000, 22% receive r1500–4000, 26% receive r8000–15000 and 18% receive r15000 or more. relating to migration context and family history of migrants, 63% of the respondents belong to an association or diaspora organisation, compared to the remaining 37% who do not. a relatively high number of migrants have access to banking institutions in both south africa and their countries of origin, and 64% of the respondents indicated they have bank accounts in south africa, compared to 36% who do not. 58% of the respondents indicated that their relatives have access to financial and banking institutions in their home countries. with regard to returning home, in this study, 61% of participants reported that they intended to return home permanently at some point in time, while 39% said that they did not have such intentions. out of those who intend to return to and settle permanently in their countries of origin, the majority (65%) are planning to do so in a period of four years or more. concerning a visit to their home countries, more than half of the pooled sample (51%) stated they had not visited their home country, 18% indicated that they have travelled home once, 12% indicated that they visit every few years, 11% visit once a year, 6% twice a year and the remaining 2% visit their home country every three months. in addition, the majority of the respondents (not including zimbabweans) are holders of refugee status (33%) and asylum seeker permits (17%). other types of documents held are as follows: work permit (12%), partnership permits (4%), permanent residence permit (14%), study permit (6%), business permit (2%), other permits (1%). the remaining 11% are undocumented. african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1237 zimbabweans’ frequency of home visits is high and the intention to return permanently is common, while on average the majority of respondents from rwanda, somalia and the drc do not visit their respective countries very often. the low incidence of return intentions among migrants from these countries could be linked to the fact that their countries experienced insecurity and civil wars in the past. according to united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) (2010), somalia is still characterised by insurgency. similarly, their low frequency of home visits is linked to the type of documents the migrants hold and their motives of migration. according to lawyers for human rights watch (lhrw) (2009) and the unhcr (2010), the south african department of home affairs revokes the residence permits of asylum seekers and refugees who travel to their native countries. in terms of their motivation for coming to south africa, 51% of the surveyed respondents cited political instability in their respective countries, 7% cited study reasons, 18% cited economic reasons, 13% cited family reunification, 10% cited business opportunity and 1% cited other reasons. when disaggregated across nationality, many respondents from zimbabwe cited perceived economic and business opportunities as the motive for coming to south africa, as opposed to those from the drc, rwanda and somalia, who indicated political instability. to sum up, the majority of the zimbabwean participants’ movement to south africa was voluntary. according to the lhrw (2009) and unhcr (2010), a person who leaves his or her home country for fear of persecution can apply for asylum and, if accepted, will be called a ‘refugee’. using a combination of the reason for migration, type of documentation, frequency of home visits and return intentions, one can conclude that the majority of zimbabweans are economic migrants (voluntary), as opposed to rwandese, congolese and somalis, whose movement to south africa is forced and who thus qualify as ‘refugees’ or ‘forced migrants’. remittance patterns and behaviour of african immigrants all respondents agreed that they send some kind of remittances home. the types of remittances identified were cash, goods or commodities and social remittances. 80% of the respondents transmit social remittances, 53% remit cash and goods simultaneously, 41% remit cash only and 6% remit goods only. when disaggregated according to nationality, the remittance patterns do not vary considerably. however, somalis remit slightly more socially. this finding african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1238 was reinforced by the information gleaned from qualitative data, as explained by a participant from somalia: south africa is technologically advanced with modernized learning and strong democratic institutions that can help our countries to develop. we have learnt a lot in terms of skills and democratic practices, next time when we go home, we will ensure accountability and transparency in the public sector. the study also revealed that zimbabweans tend to remit more than any other nationality in terms of cash and goods, while goods only predominate among those from the drc and somalia. the high transfers among zimbabweans corresponds with other studies (e.g. makina, 2007; maphosa, 2007; von burgsdorff, 2010), which found that remittances to zimbabwe have increased because of its rapidly declining economic conditions that have been accentuated by severe drought. the prominence of social remittances among migrants from somalia is undoubtedly associated with the fact that they belong to the somali association of south africa (sasa), with one of its missions being to facilitate somali migrants’ learning and integration in south africa. nevertheless, for the study cohort as a whole, further investigations divulged that apart from skills, technology and democratic values, some social and cultural practices that are perceived to be negative (participants referred to these aspects as negative social remittances) are also transmitted to the countries of origin, as highlighted by a female rwandan participant from the focus group: south africa is a country where everything is tolerated and accepted. in our countries, homosexuality and lesbianism are taboo, this western like culture has been adopted and promoted by the south african constitution and passed to us and our children and when they go back home, they take it with. in terms of remittances in the form of goods, a relatively high level of transfers of goods among congolese (the majority of whom are refugees) is likely linked to the availability of channels. this is described by a male congolese participant in the excerpt below: […] nowadays, we don’t struggle to send something home; it is just the matter of waiting for the bus to arrive from lubumbashi, and then send something home through the passengers. african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1239 these findings on the sending of remittances by congolese refugees give testament to other studies (e.g. akuei, 2005; jacobsen, 2005; loschmann & siegel, 2014), which found that temporary forced migrants hoping to return home in non-distant future are likely to remit. this is not surprising, as under an altruistic motive, refugee remittances constitute an important mechanism that provides support to family members through periods of famine, conflict and war (lindley, 2007; lindley, 2008; lindley, 2009). they also provide real and substantial bulwarks to protect family members’ human rights (cockayne & shetret, 2012). this study found that 30% of the respondents remit to support their families. the remaining 20% of the respondents remit to repay their families, 13% remit to save and invest in their countries, 11% remit to inject cash in their businesses, 23% remit to respect their families and the remaining 2% remit for other reasons. these findings again substantiate all aspects of the prospect hypotheses that remittances are determined by altruism (lucas & stark, 1988; stark, 1991; solimano, 2003), self-interest (hoddinott, 1994; cox, et al., 1998; de la briere, et al., 2002; agunias, 2006), enlightened self-interests, which include familial arrangements of co-insurance, loan repayment and inheritance motives (lucas & stark, 1985; stark, 1991; hoddinott, 1994; poirine, 1997; brown & ahlburh, 1999; taylor, 1999; osili, 2004). a deeper analysis of table 1 reveals that many zimbabweans remit to invest and save in their home countries, while somalis and rwandese remit for family-related reasons. again, this is not surprising as the study found the majority of zimbabweans to be economic migrants, and rwandese, congolese and somalis to be refugees. according to phyillis and kathrin (2008), refugees mainly remit to help family members left behind escape human rights violations. the implication of this is that economic migrants’ remittances are driven by pure selfinterest, while forced migrants’ remittances are based on altruistic motives. this is in line with cockyane and shetret’s (2012) report that refugees mainly remit to help family members left behind. african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1240 table 1: remittance motives motive support the family repay the family invest and save run business respect the family other motives total nationality zimbabwe 20% 5% 35% 20% 15% 5% 100% drc 17% 22% 13% 18% 26% 4% 100% rwanda 45% 30% 5% 20% 0% 0% 100% somalia 40% 25% 5% 30% 0% 0% 100% source: nzabamwita (2015) with regards to the values of remittances, out of 78 respondents who indicated that they send cash, the majority (39%) noted that they send r1000–r2500, and the rest of the remittance transactions vary as follows: 9% remit r500– r1000, 32% remit r2500–r5000, and the remaining 19% remit r5000 and above. as indicated in table 2, the amount of cash remitted does not follow a specific pattern based on nationality, however, zimbabweans tend to remit the highest amounts, followed by congolese. this confirms other studies that found that economic migrants remit more than refugees (phyillis & kathrin, 2008). a possible explanation is that conflict-induced migration happens to save migrants’ lives rather than diversifying income (lindley, 2008; lindley, 2009) and forced migrants are not likely to have enough resources in the initial period of their arrival compared to voluntary migrants, so they only tend to remit long after full integration into the host country (ghosh, 2006). table 2: amount of money remitted each time amount < r500 r500– r1000 r1000– r1500 r1500– r2500 r2500 – r5000 > r5000 total african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1241 nationality zimbabwe 10% 10% 15% 25% 5% 35% 100% drc 0% 9% 27% 46% 0% 18% 100% rwanda 0% 15% 55% 5% 15% 10% 100% somalia 0% 0% 6% 12% 69% 13% 100% source: nzabamwita (2015) regarding the value of goods, the majority of the respondents (66%) indicated that they send goods worth r500–r3000 each time goods are sent, 12% remit goods to the value of less than r500, 8% remit goods worth r5000–r8000 and the remaining 8% remit goods worth r5000 or more. table 3 indicates that the congolese and zimbabweans remit relatively high values of goods compared to the rest of the group. goods remittances to zimbabwe are perhaps related to production that dwindled after the implementation of land reform policies (see kerzner, 2006; kerzner, 2009; polzer, 2010). another potential explanation is the close proximity between south africa and zimbabwe (makina, 2007; makina, 2010; chisasa, 2014) coupled with a shortage of currency as acknowledged by two zimbabwean participants during an interview: let me tell you something, every time i sent money to my son for school fees, he travels from the village to town to get it, he is always told to come back the following day, because the bank does not have money (p1: participant from zimbabwe). with the lack of american dollars in the zimbabwean banks, i prefer to buy stuff in south africa, so that i can get cash when i re-sell them in harare (p2: participant from zimbabwe). table 3: value of goods remitted each time amount <r500 r500– r1500 r1500– r3000 r3000– r5000 r5000– r8000 <r8000 total nationality zimbabwe 15% 31% 23% 0% 15% 16% 100% african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1242 drc 0% 6% 46% 26% 7% 15% 100% rwanda 34% 9% 33% 16% 8% 0% 100% somalia 0% 12% 55% 33% 0% 0% 100% source: nzabamwita (2015) when asked about the kinds of goods that are most commonly remitted, electronics are the most preferred goods at 43%, cosmetic products at 18%, clothing items at 4%, furniture at 16% and other items such as motor spare parts, medicine and stationery at 18%. this is a true reflection of the assumptions of prospect theory that remittances are anchored in the needs and conditions arising in the migrants’ countries of origin. the rwandese have the highest percentage in sending electronics (67%), while the zimbabweans lead in furniture. this is not a coincidence. the geographical proximity of zimbabwe and south africa facilitates the remittance of non-durable goods (von burgsdorff, 2012; chisasa, 2014; makina & masenge, 2014), while tax exemption concessions on information computer technology (ict) items provided by the rwandan revenue services (harrison, 2005) could encourage rwandese migrants to remit electronic goods. furthermore, migrants tend to remit irregularly; 12% do so every three months, 10% twice a year, 8% once a year, 17% every few years, 17% remitted only once, and the remaining 36% remit whenever it is possible. table 4 notes that zimbabweans tend to remit more frequently and somalis less frequently; this is consistent with the view that economic migrants remit more often than forced migrants (briant, 2005). table 4: frequency of remittance frequency after 3 months twice a year yearly only once whenever possible after a few years total nationality zimbabwe 35% 10% 5% 10% 40% 0% 100% drc 8% 16% 4% 17% 38% 17% 100% rwanda 5% 10% 0% 20% 45% 20% 100% somalia 0% 0% 25% 20% 20% 35% 100% african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1243 relationships between the characteristics of african migrants and remittance patterns/behaviour to ascertain whether a relationship exists between migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour, inferential statistics were used along with a nonparametric technique and the pearson’s chi-square test. the non-parametric technique involved cross-tabulation of remittance behaviour and patterns with the characteristics of migrants. in carrying out the test, a significant level of 0.05 (5%) was used for the test of 1 degree of freedom. the decision rule is that the significance level of 0.05 is allowed, and a pearson chi-square value or p-value higher than the significance level indicates that the difference between the groups is not significant (pallant, 2005: 286). the chi-square test provided mixed results. this section only reports on the variables representing migrants’ characteristics that are statistically associated with remittance behaviour. the full chi-square test results are indicated in appendix 1. the test revealed that there is a significant relationship between nationality and type of remittances (x2=14.31, p=0.026), amount of cash remitted (x2=46.83, p=0.000), type of goods remitted (x2=23.33, p=0.025), remittance frequency (x2=34.88, p=0.003), goods remittance channels (x2=47.74, p=0.000), and cash remittances channels (x2=62.896, p=0.000). remittance patterns by nationality show that zimbabweans more frequently remit goods of high value using informal channels, compared to immigrants from other countries in this study. this is not surprising as zimbabweans are mainly economic migrants and phyillis and kathrin (2008) note that economic migrants remit more than refugees. with regard to education, the test results show a significant relationship between education and the amount of cash remitted (x2=33.14, p=0.032), channels for cash remittances (x2=36.17, p=0.050) and channels for social remittances (x2=40.73, p=0.004). in this study, the finding indicates that more educated migrants are likely to send more in terms of goods and cash through formal channels. in a similar view, highly educated african migrants are more likely to remit socially upon their return home. this finding on social remittances corresponds with perez-armendariz and crow’s (2009) idea that education influences social remittance. the results on material remittances contradict the original claim of evtimova and koekoek (2010) that educated migrants remit less and invest more in host countries. this, however, african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1244 substantiates and supports the view of orozco (2006) that educated migrants remit more formally. in addition, the income level is significantly related to social remittances (x2=7.42, p=0.060), amount of cash remitted (x2=76.31, p=0.000) and the value of goods remitted (x2=52.35, p=0.000). the current study revealed that migrants earning a high income remit more in the form of cash and goods and are also more likely to remit socially. these results are not surprising, as they corroborate the findings of other authors who have suggested that there is a positive relationship between income and remittance (de haas & plague, 2006; dma, 2011). for other variables, the reason for coming to south africa is significantly related to the cash remittance channels (x2=58.77, p=0.001), as well as goods remittance channels (x2=48.57, p=0.003). in a similar view to the above, there is a significant relationship between immigration status and cash remittance channels (x2=67.95, p=0.030). additionally, the intention to return home is significantly related to the frequency of remittances (x2=32.69, p=0.005), as well as the cash remittance channels (x2=25.13, p=0.048). access to banks or financial institutions in south africa is significantly related to cash remittance channels (x2=17.84, p=0.007). furthermore, the frequency of visits to the home country is significantly related to the value of goods remitted (x2=41.63, p=0.020), cash remittance channels (x2=46.33, p=0.029) and goods remittance channels (x2=38.67, p=0.040). lastly, the level of association in south africa is significantly related to social remittances. for details, please see appendix 1. although, variables of age, gender, marital status and duration of stay in south africa are not factors influencing remittance behaviour among african migrants in south africa, a thorough examination of the chi-square test results in appendix 1 demonstrates that more than half of variables representing migrants’ characteristics (10 variables out of 15) are significantly associated with remittance behaviour. therefore, one can conclude that, overall, the characteristics of migrants are linked to remittance patterns and behaviour. african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) pg. 1245 conclusion the aim of the study reported in this paper was to link the characteristics of african migrants with their remittance behaviour. this paper has shown that the decisions to migrate and remit are inherently interlinked. the fact that migrants from somalia, rwanda and the drc hold refugee status and asylum seeker permits and migrated because of political insecurity make them forced migrants. zimbabweans, on the other hand, are voluntary migrants whose motive for immigration to south africa is economic. with regards to remittance behaviour, this study found that african migrants send all types of remittances (i.e., cash, goods and social remittances) to their respective countries, and their nature and characteristics have a significant impact on what types of remittances are sent, how they sent, how often they are sent and to whom. in this regard, economic migrants remit to invest and save in their home countries, while refugees remit to support their family members. regarding migrants’ characteristics, this study further revealed that the nationality of migrants determines type of remittances, the amount of cash remitted, the type of goods remitted, the frequency of remittances, the channels used to remit cash, as well as the channels used to remit goods. education and income determine the value of remittances as well as the channels used to remit. among migrants who remit, zimbabweans tend to remit cash and goods 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displacement and its impacts on the livelihoods of poor urban households in bahir dar, north western ethiopia getu ambaye  and assefa abeliene abstract this article attempts to explore urban relocation impacts on the livelihoods of poor households displaced by a development project in bahir dar city in northwestern ethiopia. qualitative methods were used to generate the necessary data. the findings identified that the urban relocation caused a variety of livelihood risks such as loss of home or shelter, lack of urban infrastructures such as road facilities, electricity, job opportunites, potable water services and cash compensation for rehousing, as well as landlessness and separation of small cohesive social groups (notably coffee members). though idps are exposed to various livelihood challenges because of a lack of addressing environmental impact assessment recommendations, those who received housing land are partly happy with owning legally recognised urban land. currently, idps are the owners of the land registered by the municipality. the study urges the need to assess and address the unmet needs of poor urban residents as well as the environmental impact of urban development projects. keywords: displacement, ethiopia, homelessness, landlessness and livelihoods. introduction displacement is broadly defined as the uprooting of people from their place of habitual residence (cernea 2005). population displacement has become a global problem, particularly since the end of the cold war (cernea 2009 cernea & mcdowell 2000). cernea and mcdowell (2000: 49), note that ‘displaced populations have been part and parcel of modern history and * college of social science and humanities, university of gondar, ethiopia, email: getuambaye@yahoo.com ** college of agriculture and environmental sciences, bahir dar university, ethiopia, email: assefa2007@gmail.com ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 311 often people are being displaced in the name of progress.’ the literature review outlines the major causes of internal displacement into three typologies, namely development-induced displacement, conflict-induceddisplacement and disaster-induced displacement (tesfaye 2007; getu 2005). there are also various terms that are used to describe a wide range of displaced populations, including ‘refugees’, ‘development displacees’, ‘environment and disaster displacees’, ‘internally displaced people or persons’ (idps), ‘forced resettlers’, ‘internal refugees’, ‘environmental refugees’, and ‘climate refugees’ (internal displacement monitoring center [idmc] 2010). this study is conducted among internally displaced persons (idps) by urban development project, bahir dar ethiopia. what is of primary importance in this study is the fact that development is the largest cause of global population displacement, a phenomenon commonly termed ‘developmentinduced displacement’ (did) in the literature (hussain 2008; cernea 2000). did is the process that takes place when people are forced to leave their homes as a result of development projects such as the construction of dams, roads, airports, as well as urban clearance initiatives, mining, deforestation and the introduction of conservation reserves (baviskar 2009; mathur 2006). the magnitude of urban development-induced displacement in ethiopia has been increasing (birhanu 2006; fitsum 2007; gebre 2008; nebiyou 2000). the recent urban development policy of ethiopia is designed to address various urban challenges through infrastructural projects such as slum clearance initiatives and housing projects (tebarek 2013). the magnitude of population displacement by development projects in developing countries has increased particularly since the 1960s and 1970s (dessaelgn 2003). ‘projects assisted by the world bank in the majority of developing countries in africa, asia and latin america, account for an ever increasing number of displaced populations globally (thomas 2002).the displaced people face a number of risks that damage their livelihood(mcdowell,2002). significant examples of such projects have been in malaysia (the felda project), sri lanka (the accelerated mahaweli project), indonesia (the transmigration project), colombia (caquetá), and brazil (polonoreste) (cernea & mcdowell 2000,mcdowell, 2002). recent research by cernea (2009: 290) indicates that in india alone during the period 1949-2000, development programs displaced over 6 million people; ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 312 in china during a similar period (1950-2005), about 70 million people were displaced according to cernea (2009: xxvi): […] every single year in the first decade of the twenty first century, development programs forcibly uproot and displace from their houses and fields cohort of populations conservatively estimated to total at least 15 million people, which is equivalent to between 150 and 200 million for the decade. the main objective of this study is, therefore, to explore the livelihood impacts of the urban development-induced displacement that involved the transfer of poor squatter settlers from the inner city to the outlying parts of bahir dar city. this is done with the aim to conceptualise how urban development-induced displacement relates to vulnerability, livelihood assets (capital), livelihood activities/strategies, policies, and institutions/associations and processes that determine people’s choices in shaping livelihoods and livelihood outcomes as the results of livelihood strategies (scoones 1998). as a result, the effects of urban displacement on relocatees’ livelihoods are assessed in terms of physical, natural and financial wellbeing, social solidarity and basic services, as well as, infrastructure assets, activities, processes and outcomes. generally, studies emphasise the inherent socio-economic risks of involuntary displacement (shami 1993; downing 1996). case-by-case studies across the world indicate how the displaced population experiences risks (pankhurst & piguet 2009). in this regard, displacement research has made remarkable achievements in documenting the livelihood risks people encounter due to involuntary displacement. in his multiple studies, cernea (2000; 2005; 2009) provides lists of the inherent livelihood risks faced by people forcibly displaced for various reasons. these risks include landlessness, homelessness, joblessness, marginalization, increased morbidity and mortality, food insecurity, loss of access to common property resources and social disintegration (cernea 2000). analysis of livelihood risks related to displacement has resulted in the identification of supplementary risks. one of which is the loss of access to community services, ranging from clinics to educational facilities, that may result in posttraumatic stress disorder (ptsd) among displaced people (aptekar & behailu 2009). another identified risk is the violation of human rights (andnet 2010); displacement from one’s habitual residence and loss of ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 313 property without fair compensation is considered a violation of human rights (robinson 2003; abebe 2009). in ethiopia, there are some evidences gathered from case studies on urban development-induced displacement particularly in addis ababa (birhanu 2006; dejene 2005; feleke 2009; fitsum 2007; gebre 2008; ashenafi 2001). the studies indicate that displaced poor households are exposed to various dimensions of livelihood risks. the process usually involves the transfer of poor residents from inner parts of cities and towns to peripheral areas, thereby inhibiting their access to basic social or public services (birhanu 2006; dejene 2005; feleke 2009; gebre 2008; ashenafi 2001). the process of relocating people from the inner city to the outskirts is argued to disrupt business ties with customers, fragment informal and social networks and lead to a loss of neighborhood-based organisations (tebarek 2013; gebre 2008; fitsum 2007). in addition, urban displacement results in the separation of work site from home site in female-headed households (habtamu 2014; etenesh 2007). as reviewed above, urban development-induced displacement affects the various aspects of livelihood assets and activities of poor households (habtamu 2014); some research focuses on the impacts on female-headed households (tebarek 2013; etenesh 2007); and some others consider the livelihood outcomes in terms of the coping and survival strategies of relocated residents in urban contexts (ephrem 1998; tesfu 2014; dinku 2004). most of the previous studies have been confined to addis ababa. with no prior study that attempts to investigate how urban relocation erodes a community`s access to all the elements needed for livelihood – physical, social and natural wellbeing and financial capital – this study attempts to explore the livelihood impacts of urban relocation with particular reference to bahir bar city located in northwestern ethiopia. description of the study area this particular study is conducted in bahir dar city, located in the northwestern parts of ethiopia. the research has been conducted by a single urban development project in bahir dar city’s kotatina resettlement neighborhood. the bahir dar hulegeb stadium project is a relatively largescale project covering 15.5 hectares of land that touches keble 14, 15 and 17 which are sub district in bahir dar city (bahir dar city service office 2000). the construction of the stadium has resulted in the displacement of 352 ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 314 heads of households. the displaced households were required to resettle in the outskirts of the city. those displaced live in a new resettlement neighborhood popularly known as kotatina sefer or mender, located in the southwestern peripheral area of bahir dar city. the place name of kotatina refers to the hill place and its surroundings that were identified and reserved by authorities for the settlements of idps in the outlying area of the city. methods of the study the study is based on qualitative methods that involved in-depth interviews with key informants, observations, two focus group discussions (fgds) (one with a male group and the other with a female group), and documentary assessments. one of the advantages of qualitative methods is the allowance for understanding participants’ experiences within context (creswell 2007). understanding the experience of internal displacement, therefore, required the careful selection of key informants who were representative of displaced households or communities living in the kotatina neighborhood. key informants were contacted by co-investigators who attended public gathering places in the community, such as churches, mosques, and community-based associational meetings. participants for interviews were informed of the purpose of the study through a written document and signed an agreement to participate in the study. local leaders or executive committee members of informal iddirs, ikub and other informal associations, were selected as the key informants, along with two experts from bahir dar city municipalities. the selection criteria sought out individual heads of households displaced by the bahir dar hulegeb stadium project, and given plots of land as compensation for rebuilding their homes. considering gender, six male and six female iddir leaders, and two male bahir dar city municipality experts were identified and interviewed. each interview was conducted using an interview guide, with questions followed by probes to elicit in depth information. the two fgds were also conducted by using a fgd guide. in order to maintain anonymity when analysing, organising, and presenting the major themes that emerged from the in-depth interviews, key informants are noted as a1, a2, a3, and so on to a14. the results of the study currently, the idps live in close proximity. resettlement involved transferring urban poor residents from their squatter settlement to kotatina, located on the periphery of bahir dar city. internal displacement and ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 315 resettlement as experienced by the idps, involved a relatively short physical distance from kebele 15 to kebele 14 of the city administration. before the influx of idps, the kotatina site, a stretch of land in the outlying area the city administration, was possessed by people engaged in agricultural activities. now, the new resettlement site is made to be part of kebele 14 of the city administration. the study explored the livelihood impacts of internal displacement, including the loss of home or shelter, concerns about the sustainability of life in the new resettlement neighborhood with no mainstream urban services such as roads, electricity and potable water, the inability to get cash compensation for rehousing and the separation from coffee members. the following subthemes outline and describe the controversial issues involved in livelihood risks such as a lack of cash compensation, basic housing services, job opportunities and transportation, as well as homelessness and social disintegration. some of the positive aspects of urban development-induced displacement are also noted. physical capital: homelessness one of the pressing problems or livelihood risks faced by individual households following the internal displacement was homelessness. the project planners and designers did not propose any cash compensation for displacement and resettlement. the study found that relocatees’ financial capacity had also worsened due to extra housing expenses during the transitional period of relocation. on the one hand, participants considered their displacement and resettlement without compensation as a wrong doing committed against their rights. they raised their grievances to municipal authorities. on the other hand, authorities and municipalities argued that, for idps who had been squatter settlers in the urban locality, the allocation of land should be viewed as compensation. an ad hoc committee comprising of community members was formed to work temporarily with the registration of household heads in order to identify which households were entitled to compensation. all informants openly reported compensation related issues, as well as how the lack of compensation was justified by concerned authorities. the sudden dislocation was traumatic and stressful for the displaced people. according to informants, with no prior warning, all residents were given a two week deadline to leave their housing. the situation of homelessness, ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 316 particularly during the transition period, compelled all displaced households to live in rented houses for two to four months. this information was confirmed in both of the fgds. one informant (a3) recalled his experiences, stating: i have passed through many challenges and problems since the date of my displacement in kotatina. it was in february 2008 that all residents in ketel sefer were told to leave the place required by the government for the purpose of building a big stadium in bahir dar. authorities passed orders suddenly to all of us to leave within a week time period by saying all of you go and ‘jefijifeh giba’, literally to mean ‘build your own temporarily family shelter using leafs or plastics in a places you are provided’. and, i was forced to stay in a temporary housing that i rented from local residents in kebele 14. for that house, i was paying 300 birr monthly. the other key informants from the bahir dar municipality argued that they share the inconvence that the idps suffer, however, the multiplier effect of the new project is greater than the idps suffering. they state that there is always some negative aspect when doing such projects and the main concern is to ensure that the benefits outweigh the negatives, in favour of majority of people’s wellbeing. for this reason, the municipality tooks action at the expense of the idps. in order to minimise homelessness, the municipality gave such lands for the majority of the idps except some of them which there residence period in kettle seffer is less than five years according to his explanation, why the criterion of restricting to five years for giving such land is some idps which are not well established residence in the area have not the right to cliam to have such lands for housing construction. because of that they come in this site with in short period of time by expecting such land grant distribution through municipality. they confirmed, if they can construct such home in ketel sefer thus the municipality will supply such lands for them. so in order to minimize such abuse and to address the more victims the municipality distribute lands for whose residence in ketel sefer is great or equal to five years (informant a14). lack of access to basic services another livelihood-related risk that kotiatina idps continue to face is a lack of access to basic housing services such as electricity, potable water and ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 317 waste water management. though authorities discussed this issue with a group of idps and promised to work to develop infrastructure, nothing was done. as informant a4 recounts: the place of kotatina was devoid of any basic services and very detrimental for my life and housing especially during the first two years. there was no water, electricity and even road services which has been still the main problem. being an idp especially during the first two years of my displacement and resettlement was the worst experience ever i experienced before. the existing services are very limited to satisfy both at individual and at household levl. both fgds and key informant respondents reported that a persisting lack of potable water requires them to buy daily drinking water. individuals who still do not have access to basic housing services are compelled to pay money to other persons who are getting access to the basic services in their newly built homes. the study participants reported that they were made to resettle outside of the mainstream infrastructure that provides services for urban population of bahir dar city. informant a1 describes the situation: i have experienced loss of housing that was accessible to the main road, direct electric services, and potable water supply. still, the serious problem of me is payments for one electric bulb. i am paying 25 ethiopian birr on a monthly basis that indirectly extended from another relocated person through negotiations and agreements. i am also suffering from regular or daily payments for buying potable water because of the shortage of water supply here in kotatina. for instance, for one ’jerika‘, which could contain ten liters of water, i am supposed to pay 40 cents through agreements and negotiation with local residents. the two key informants from bahir dar municipality responded to this problem by noting that the problem of inadequate service delivery proves challenging .it is not only evident in kotatina, but also in other new urban settelements. thus, they argue, the solutions to service delivery problems hinge on the overall development process, and it requires time (informants a13 and a14). lack of access to transportation ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 318 a lack of physical mobility within and beyond their locality is a common characteristic of the economic life of displaced people. study participants described distinct transportation problems, largely in connection with their livelihood strategies. according to the respondents (fgds’ and key informants), transportation is a major issue as residents strive to survive in the informal labor markets of the urban economy. internally displaced households or persons (idps) are obliged to commute between their home residences and places of work daily. in this regard, gebre (2008) found that because of a lack of adequate transportation services, some lose site-related advantages of both formal and informal employment or major livelihood assets and activities, some lose home-sites, and others lose both. a common statement highlighted by informants a3 and a6 is that ‘everybody here strive to survive by smaller activities.’ comprising the poorer segment of the wider socio-economic spectrum of the society, the economic survival strategies of idps is largely constituted by the informal economy. most idps are predominantly engaged in the informal labor markets such as gullet-gebeya, located near kebele 4, 14, 15, and 16, and comprising of informal and small-trade activities such as, hired day workers, construction workers and sellers of handicrafts, local drinks (such as arkie and tella), bread, tea and local coffee. in securing income, daily travel from kotatina to market places located in the inner parts of the city in kebele 4 and kebele 16 is necessary. as informant a6 stated, ‘if somebody comes into kotatina resettlement site early in the morning, every individual of both women and men of a household member are seen coming out from their home and travel for searching for informal activities on a daily basis.’ or as informant a4 put it, ‘if somebody comes to kotatina neighborhood in a day time; most houses are getting closed due to their engagement in daily informal works far from the place of their residences.’ individuals return from daily informal work at dusk to sleep and have no time for doing anything else. in other words, because their economic activities are far from their homes, idps do not undertake working and housing activities simultaneously, as was common practice before their displacement. another impediment to reliable transportation noted by residents, are the muddy areas located between kotatina and mainstream urban transport services, because of which, the neighborhood is cut off from taxi services. financial capital: compensation issues ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 319 the redeeming effect of cash compensation was not considered during the relocation process. one of the most common subthemes that emerged from the research is the absence of compensation related to displacement. informants describes the process leading to their sudden eviction from ketel sefer and relocation to kotatina, noting that a few weeks before their immediate eviction, authorities called a sudden meeting for a discussion with the community. an ad hoc committee drawn from community members was formed to work temporarily with the registration of household heads, and identify households entitled to compensation. one of the complex problems of poor urban residents internally displaced by development projects is related to the legal statuses of their land and housing. the project planners and designers did not propose any cash compensation for displacement and resettlement except allocating 105 meter square plot of land for individuals in kotatina as compensation. as previously noted, some participants considered their displacement and resettlement without compensation as a wrongdoing committed against their rights and raised their grievances to municipal authorities. one key informant said, ‘i bought the land from the local inhabitants though the municipality didn’t give me legal document.’ however, some idps who had been squatter settlers in the urban locality viewed the allocation of land as compensation. all of the informants openly reported about the compensation related issues, particularly the justification of the lack of compensation by municipal authorities. informant a3 describes the responses provided by the authorities concerned in the following way: the concerned authorities justified that the compensation is offered in forms of land. your previous land was possessed not through the municipality system. thus you don’t have legal grounds to complain against the action of this development project. the project is built for the benefits of all people including you. they warned us not to raise the issues of cash compensation, that [we] may be at risk of losing the plots of land provided for housing reconstruction. the municipality key informants, a13 and a14, outlined this procedure of urban development. stating that somebody who has a home through the municipality and has a site conformation letter and structural maps of the house that are signed and approved by the municipal authority, has the right to claim both land and finance for the construction of the home. however, somebody that has their own home but does not have an accreditation letter ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 320 and structural maps of the house (including additional structures that border the house), does not have the right to claim finance for construction but may only be granted the land for building the house in defiance of this municipal protocol, a number of internally displaced households obtained their former housing land through informal arrangements. one informant noted that the formal means of obtaining urban land was unthinkable for poor urban settlers and, as such, informal land transactions constituted the most viable economic alternative. most participants admitted that their settlement was considered to be illegal. informant a8’s personal account exemplifies this type of illegal acquisition of housing land through informal arrangements: i came to bahir dar area in 1983. i bought the land of ketel sefer in the same year, 1983, informally from the local farming inhabitant and built a home and lived there until i was displaced in 2008. despite such informal transactions, money spent for the land and previous housing was overlooked by authorities and relocation was implemented without any compensation given to the poor households. participants reported that the absence of any compensation for their displacement was a critical problem. in addition to being traumatic and stressful, the absence of any compensation left heavy burdens on poor residents in rebuilding their new home place, as expressed by both fgds. key informant participants openly expressed their grievances against being displaced without compensation, as detail by informant a3: i didn’t get any compensation for all properties i lost. initially, authorities promised to give us compensation for the costs of the displacement and resettlement processes. later, that was not materialised. the situation exposed me to extra and unexpected expense. for instance, i paid 713 ethiopian birr for the plot of land to get the master planning paper done. besides, for the first two months in the immediate aftermath of the eviction, i paid 100 ethiopian birr for the rented house. a lot [of] expenses to buy ‘enchet’ (wood), tin for reconstruction of the home. i was also made to buy water for drinking and for construction purposes. thus displacement makes me to expend much money, to construct my house, and weakened my financial capacity and makes the day to day lives difficult. natural capital: landlessness ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 321 in this particular study, not all displaced households received housing land. the displacement and resettlement scenarios resulted in a crisis of housing land issues for some groups of idps. although the registration of all displaced households was conducted, approximately 65 displaced households were not given plots of land for housing .the land was given based on their lengths of residency in ketel sefer.their residency lenthen less than five years remain without giving such land for building their house.. the issue of landlessness is very complex to understand among idps, especially in relation to households that did not receive land. similarly, asmamaw (2011) confirms that the displacement and resettlement of squatter settlers further aggravates the risks of homelessness. although the authorities conducted their registrations, individuals reported that they remained landless: mine is a very unique case... i have faced the worst experience of being idp especially of being homelessness. i [had] been living for 25years in my ketel sefer residence. and i had my own house. as opposed to other idps, i have remained landless for the reason that i couldn’t know. currently, i am living in a rented small room shelter for which i am paying 70 ethiopian birr monthly in relation to landlessness, the size of the land is important. participants expressed their grievances regarding the size of the housing land allocated for displaced households in kotatina resettlement sites. the size of plot of land is estimated to be 105m2, which is much smaller than the plots of urban residences in bahir dar city and other similar nearby cities. this reduced size of housing land curtailed the home-based services and other related activities of households. as informant a11 reported, ‘we share a single toilet for three to four households. lack of maintenance makes it unclean. we could not make a private toilet due to the compactness of the land. (informant a11). based on observations, the landlessness and lack of sufficient space has resulted in idps currently living in crowded and, therefore unsafe, conditions in the new resettlement neighborhood. human capital: lack of educational and health services similar to the above mentioned impacts on the other aspects of livelihood capital, the displacement also negatively affected what will be termed ‘human capital’, referring to those infrastructures such as education and health services that ensure individual wellbeing and development. because of kotatina’s newness, the transport, water, electric and telecommunication ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 322 infrastructures were not in place before relocation began. as a result, the school, health post, health center and hygiene related developments are by far the most inadequate when compared to the other infrastructural developments observed in the neighborhood. it is noted that as a result inadequate educational facilities, some of the school-age children in kotatina remained in their houses rather than attending kindergarten or primary schools. similar infrastructural failures related to health and hygiene have resulted in the emergence and outbreak of malaria. there is no health service center accessible to the kotatina neighborhood and, as such, ill residents must take two to three taxes to reach the nearest health center. the situation is described by informant a8 as follows: i have four children’s all of them reach at school age but only the two have got the opportunity to attend school and the remaining are around their home because of one of them can’t walk long journey to reach the school and one of the children as is guarding the house during day time when both of us-mother and father are not around homestead in order to win the house livelihood. as i mentioned, we [husband and wife] regularly come back home at the day fall and are engaged to accomplish the remaining housing activities. one day when the smallest kid was ill due to malaria, we were not around our home and nobody was calling us about the situation and the child remained at home until we [came] back to our home. at that day, we were frustrated by the moment. after a lot of ups and downs, we were able to take him to one of the far-off health center and saved our child. most significantly, informant a8 explained that this type of problem is common to most relocated residents of kotatina as they suffer from a lack of access to adequate health services and facilities. social capital: social disintegration as briefly mentioned above, relocation caused changes in the social ties of idps. the disintegration of previous and long-lasting networks of relationships was evident following the geographical separation of neighbors caused by the relocation. housing-based ties were not considered by concerned authorities in the process of household identification, registration and the provision of small plots of land. informant a12 describes how internal displacement affected his social ties: ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 323 the displacement affected only parts of our social life in terms of the disintegration of groups of persons who attended the coffee ceremony together. my close persons of the coffee groups are now disintegrated. some live in the right corner of the new locality and the remaining is living in the left corner of the locality. it is rarely we are in contact with such coffee members. now, i have established a new coffee group here in the new place of residence. informants described the way in which each head of household was made to resettle in a new place of residence, in a method that disregarded social ties based on geographical proximity. from the registered individual or households, most were identified as eligible to receive plots of housing land. without consideration given to geographical or residential proximity, idps drew lots to have the opportunity to choose a parcel or their share of the plots identified for resettlement in kotatina. this haphazardly designed land provision led to the dispersion of pre-displacement neighbourly groups. informant a7 notes: right! “ke dero gorebetoch gar terarekenal” literally my long lasting and old neighbours are separated and i have lesser contact and relationships with them in ketel sefer. [we] are now made [to] resettle in very separate places of residences. positive aspects of urban development: displacement in context study participants were asked their views about the positive aspects of being displaced and resettled into their new neighborhood. the interviews identified some of the positive aspects of internal displacement and resettlement. one such aspect is that idps are now the legal owners of the land registered by the municipality. as such, though they are exposed to the various infrastructural problems noted above, they are partly happy with their ownership of urban land. informant a3 expresses this sentiment, stating: thanks to god after a lot of ups and downs, now my housing facilities are better than other idps in kotatina. now i could be able to get legal land for my housing though built of wood and mud. during our life in ketele sefer, we were repeatedly asked by governments to leave the public land. another positive aspect of internal displacement and resettlement is that the pre-existing informal, traditional and self-help associations have remained ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 324 intact following relocation. traditional voluntary associations broaden the system of social relations among urban inhabitants. similarly, self-help associations such as iddir, ikub, and senbet-maheber are seen to establish stable patterns of relationships between individual members of the association. currently, the communities of idps are actively engaged in multiple forms of informal associations. according to informants, most of the informal associations were established prior to their displacement and, as such, the idps have had the experience of participating in informal associations such as iddr and ikub in both their old and new neighborhoods. informant a6 states: one of the strengths, i realised, is that attempts have been made by authorities to resettle all displaced communities in one locality that would help us protect the disruptions of the existing associations and relationships. this really helped us to maintain our long lasted iddir and ikub associations. for instance, i was and still am the cashier of the iddir since the last ten years even before the displacement of residents from neighborhood in the year 2008. discussion the development-induced displacement resulted in a number of undesirable consequences for the poor urban households. though some livelihood risks play a more primary role in impoverishing poor urban residents, all of the risks may be understood as interconnected. one of the observable features of livelihood risks related to displacement is that the intensity of the individual elements or variables of livelihood risks vary at times (cernea 2000; cernea 2005). data across fgds indicated that one of the most common livelihood risks faced by individual head of households was the complete destruction or loss of their shelter temporarily without the offer of compensation packages. the situation during the transition period compelled each head of household to stay in rented houses as a survival strategy that varied in length from two to six months. this reality sits in stark contrast to the document reviewed from feasibility studies conducted by the municipality authority that assured that the stadium project would have significant positive socio economic impacts for the overall development of bahir dar city and its residents; including the poor, women, men, youth, tourists, merchants, etc… in addition to loss of homes, the relocation process also entailed the complete loss of access to basic public services. lack of infrastructure for basic services such as electricity, potable water and waste ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 325 management, as well as educational and health services, are still critical problems in kotatina. cernea (2000; 2005) notes that patterns of livelihood risks spurred by internal displacement vary across affected communities and between groups. in the case of kotatina, the fgds in particular indicated that women, children and the elderly are more vulnerable to the livelihood risks faced by the project-affected community. finally, but perhaps most importantly, researchers seem to take for granted that development-induced displacement leads to the disintegration of social networks in the form of family separation or neighborhood disintegration. the interview data as well as the fgds reveals the prevalence and significance of social networks, with consideration being given to the disruption of pre-displacement networks of individual persons and the formation of new networks post-displacement. parts of social networks of idps are changed, such as coffee groups that are formed based on the geographic proximity of neighbors. the change and continuity of networks of idps were also understood by referring to the retention of existing social networks. as proved by the respondents, the displacement initiative did not consider residents’ livelihood contexts and denied them agency over their rights to live and their opinions on local development. as such, it is seen that the development project resulted in a number of undesirable consequences for the idps. however, after significant struggle (which still greatly affects the daily existence of the idps), some idps have been successful in overcoming some of these undesirable consequences by developing strategies to recover their lives to their pre-displacement states. conclusion and recommendations as it has been presented so far, urban development-induced displacement in kotatina resulted in numerous consequences on the livelihoods of poor urban residents. as is indicated by most of the literature, the findings of this investigation have shown that development-induced displacement results in further impoverishments and deteriorations to the livelihoods of residents, particularly vulnerable groups such as women, children and the poor. the implementation of the stadium project also failed to account for the loss of main assets of the idps, particularly the land and physical assets that would be important in generating other assets. though some idps received land compensation, it was perceived as inadequate compensation for the extensive loss as a result of the implementation of the project. the relocation also created a financial burden on idps by adding a number of additional ahmr, vol.1 no3, septemberdecember, 2015 326 expenses that were not manageable for poor households. in addition, lack of market services and accessibility also hampered idps income generating activities and options for self-employment. urban development-induced relocation partly resulted in the disintegration and loosening of idps social ties. additionally, it was found that lack of transportation and adequate education and health care facilities near residents neighborhoods, pose considerable risks to personal wellbeing and development. furthermore, women were found to be more affected by the undesirable consequences of relocation that men. despite these livelihood risks spurred by urban development-induced relocation, some displaced people seemed positive that households were able to secure small plot of housing land which is legally recognised by the municipality of the city administration. the stadium project is also argued to be important for the future development of bahir dar city and, as it was argued by municipal authority side key informants and a noted in the project feasibility study, constructing an international multi-purpose stadium in bahir dar city has the potential for direct and indirect positive future impacts for all residents in the city. however, this argument fails to acknowledge that the environmental and social impact assessment was made for nominal rather real measures taken based on such recommendations. recommendations the study suggests that knowledge of the multifaceted problems and livelihood risks faced by idps is important to consider in the implementation of development programs. thus, the relocation process should be implemented, not only with project feasibility studies that show promising benefits for the overall urban development and most citizens in the city, but also with environmental and social impacts studies that consider the negative impacts of development-induced displacement on the physical, financial, natural, human and social capital of low-income households. based on such studies, municipalities should take the necessary measures for each negative impact based on the environmental management plan which is designed in the environmental impacts assessment process. the study also suggests that understanding the positive aspects of internal displacement is an important avenue for needsor problems-based development approaches and interventions, including rehabilitative measures and actions. there is a need to understand the interest and consent 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displacement: the world bank’s attempt to correct past failures’. population research and policy review. the netherlands: kluwer academic publishers. african human mobility review volume 2 number 2 may – august 2016 responding to xenophobic violence in post-apartheid south africa: barking up the wrong tree? jean pierre misago territorial control and cross border movement in eastern ethiopia: the case of togochale border namhla t. matshanda models for migrant leadership: the cape town women’s platform leah mundell and emma carone exploring youth migration and the food security nexus: zimbabwean youths in cape town, south africa sean t. sithole and mulugeta f. dinbabo ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor dr mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh university of pretoria, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delagdo wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, basel, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print) copyright © 2016 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 465 6433 email: editor@sihma.org.za webpage: www.sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za http://www.sihma.org.za/ iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ volume 2 number 2 may – august 2016 articles 443 responding to xenophobic violence in post-apartheid south africa: barking up the wrong tree? jean pierre misago 468 territorial control and cross border movement in eastern ethiopia: the case of togochale border namhla t. matshanda 489 models for migrant leadership: the cape town women’s platform leah mundell and emma carone 512 exploring youth migration and the food security nexus: zimbabwean youths in cape town, south africa sean t. sithole and mulugeta f. dinbabo ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 443 responding to xenophobic violence in post-apartheid south africa: barking up the wrong tree? jean pierre misago abstract this paper highlights the general failure to effectively respond to and prevent xenophobic violence in south africa and offers critical reflections on reasons thereof. drawing mainly on the evaluation of a number of anti-xenophobic programmes by government and civil society organisations, the paper argues that past and current interventions, instead of muzzling dogs that bite, have been rather barking up the wrong tree. national government and relevant local authorities have thus far either tended to ignore the problem or categorise violence against foreign nationals and other outsiders as normal crime with no need for more specific or more targeted interventions. although wellintentioned, civil society efforts to foster peaceful cohabitation and tolerance through social dialogues and campaigns aimed at changing attitudes have also largely proven ineffective in reducing violence. there are many reasons why these interventions continue to fail. chief among these reasons is the fact that interventions are not evidence-based and are not informed by a clear understanding of the drivers of the violence. similarly, past and current responses and interventions are based on shaky foundations and untested theories of change. indeed, by focussing almost exclusively on public attitudes, interventions neglect factors and motivations that trigger violent behaviour; perhaps ignoring that attitudes are not always a good predictor of behaviour. without a clear understanding of the drivers of the violence and of what type of responses work or do not work, intervention strategies can only be ineffective at best, and counter-productive at worst. keywords xenophobia, violent exclusion, foreign nationals. * african centre for migration & society, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa, po box 67 wits 2050, tel: 011 7171 4093, email: jean.misago@wits.ac.za mailto:jean.misago@wits.ac.za ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 444 introduction xenophobic violence generally refers to any acts of collective violence (by local communities, groups or crowds) targeted at foreign nationals or ‘outsiders’ because of their being foreign or strangers. dodson (2010) reminds us that xenophobic violence is an explicit targeting of foreign nationals or outsiders for violent attacks despite other material, political, cultural or social forces that might be at play. its main characteristics include murder, assaults causing grievous bodily harm, looting, robbery, arson attacks (burning of people and property), displacement, intimidation and threats, harassment, eviction notices, etc. this type of violence has become a longstanding feature in postapartheid south africa (landau 2011). indeed, since 1994, tens of thousands of people have been harassed, attacked or killed because of their status as outsiders or foreign nationals. despite claims to the contrary, violence against foreign nationals in south africa did not end in june 2008 when the massive outbreak that started a month earlier subsided (misago 2011). hostility towards foreign nationals is still pervasive and continues to result in rising cases of murder, injuries, threats of mob violence, looting and the destruction of residential property and businesses, as well as mass displacement (unchr rosa 2015a). perhaps not surprisingly, the unprecedented nature of the may 2008 xenophobic violence triggered not only a frenzy of analyses and explanations as scholars, policy analysts and government officials attempted to make sense of what was happening in the multiracial ‘rainbow’ nation (fauvelle-aymar & segatti 2011; nieftagodien 2011), but also a wide range of government and civil society responses and interventions aimed at stopping on-going and/or preventing future violence. this paper offers critical reflections on the effectiveness of these interventions and argues that they have generally failed to prevent xenophobic violence in the country particularly because, by addressing the wrong sources of violence and using untested theories of changes, they have been barking up the wrong tree instead of muzzling dogs that bite. indeed, the paper shows that, in addition to the lack of government political will, impunity and lack of civil society muscle to hold government ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 445 accountable for its failure to protect all countries’ residents, interventions have failed particularly because of their critical ontological and etiological blind spots. more specifically, the paper argues that interventions have failed to address xenophobic violence in the country because i) they are not evidence-based and are not informed by a clear understanding of the drivers of the violence; and ii) they are based on shaky foundations and untested theories of change. indeed, by focussing almost exclusively on public attitudes, interventions neglect factors and motivations that trigger violent behaviour; perhaps ignoring that attitudes are not always an accurate predictor of behaviour. after a brief methodology outline, the remainder of the paper proceeds through three main sections. the first provides a brief overview of the history and nature of xenophobic violence in post-apartheid south africa. the second offers critical reflections on the effectiveness of responses and interventions by different actors including government, the police, civil society and communities. the third and concluding section summarises the paper’s main points and arguments. methods the paper draws on evaluation of past and current government and civil society responses to xenophobic violence in south africa. in addition to smaller-scale evaluations and observations, the paper draws more specifically on primary and secondary data collected by the african centre for migration in society (acms) at the university of the witwatersrand in 2014 as part of a systematic evaluation of four anti-xenophobia programmes by the united nations high commissioner for refugees regional office for southern africa (unhcr rosa 2014). the overall aim of unhcr rosa programmes and other interventions referred to in this paper was to stop on-going violent attacks on foreign nationals and to prevent the reoccurrence of such violence in the future. in order to assess the effectiveness and impact of unhcr rosa programmes to address xenophobic violence in south africa, as well as the reasons for their ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 446 relative success or failure, we (acms) simultaneously conducted two complementary types of evaluation: an impact evaluation and a process evaluation. the impact evaluation assessed the impact that programmes have had or are having in stopping and preventing xenophobic violence. the process evaluation assessed the programmes’ theories of change and logical frameworks, such as the relevance of programmes and activities in addressing the targeted problem; whether programmes and activities were implemented as planned; the challenges encountered during implementation and how these may have affected the achievement of the programmes’ goals and objectives. the combination of these two types of evaluation afforded us an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the entire programme process from its conceptualisation to its implementation and impact. to capture all the necessary information, the evaluation used a combination of a variety of sources of information and data including document reviews, individual interviews and focus group discussions. in particular, we conducted individual interviews with a wide range of relevant stakeholders including unhcr and implementing partner staff, key informants at national, provincial, municipal and research site levels, target populations and ordinary members of communities in selected sites. altogether, the evaluation comprised of a total of 105 individual interviews. in addition to individual interviews, the research team conducted two focus group discussions with members of target populations and communities in the selected sites. using the combination of these information sources allowed not only the acquisition of the necessary information but also quality control through triangulation of findings from those sources. we applied content analysis techniques to analyse the data collected. assessing the effectiveness of interventions to stop and prevent xenophobic violence requires a clear understanding of the conceptual and empirical distinctions between ‘xenophobia’ and xenophobic violence. there is indeed an epistemological necessity – and practical utility – to understand the conceptual differences between xenophobia and xenophobic violence. with the reminder that xenophobia denotes negative attitudes towards the ‘other’ ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 447 while xenophobic violence is just one of many forms of manifestation of those attitudes, there is a need to recognise that, while causally linked, xenophobia and xenophobic violence are two conceptually and empirically distinct concepts and phenomena. this conceptual distinction is epistemologically and practically important because understanding and addressing xenophobia (attitudes) requires methodological and intervention approaches that are different from those required for xenophobic violence (behaviour). indeed, interventions designed to address attitudinal challenges are not necessarily suitable for, nor should they be assumed capable of, effecting behavioural change, even if the behaviour in question is rooted in those attitudes (misago et al. 2015). in other words, interventions to change attitudes may and should be different from those aimed at stopping and preventing those attitudes from taking on violent forms of expression. indeed, as brubaker & laitin (1998: 426) remind us, “violence is not a quantitative degree of conflict but a qualitative form of conflict, with its own dynamics.” they argue, and i agree, that “even where violence is clearly rooted in pre-existing conflict, it should not be treated as a natural, self-explanatory outgrowth of such conflict, something that occurs automatically when the conflict reaches certain intensity, a certain temperature” (brubaker & laitin 1998: 426). unfortunately, as this paper shows, most interventions lack this conceptual clarity and are loaded with the unfounded assumption that programmes targeting xenophobic attitudes will eventually stop xenophobic violence. the paper offers critical reflections on the effectiveness of past and current interventions in stopping/preventing xenophobic violence and not in changing xenophobic attitudes. naturally, the paper also discusses the effect of this and other conceptual and methodological blind spots on the ineffectiveness of these interventions. history and morphology of xenophobic violence in post-apartheid south africa xenophobic violence has become a longstanding feature in post-apartheid south africa. since 1994, tens of thousands of people have been harassed, attacked or killed because of their status as outsiders or foreign nationals ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 448 (misago 2011). during this period, xenophobic violence has increased across townships and informal settlements (landau 2011) and the situation has become alarming to the degree that the african peer review mechanism’s country report on south africa warned that xenophobia against other africans was on the rise and needed to be nipped in the bud (johwa 2008). xenophobic violence was most intense and widely scrutinised in may 2008 when attacks across the country left at least 62 dead, 670 wounded, dozens raped and more than 100,000 displaced. millions of rands worth of property was also looted, destroyed and appropriated by local residents in just over two weeks (cormsa 2009). although the majority of those attacked were foreign migrants, a third of those killed were south african citizens “who had married foreigners, refused to participate in the violent orgy, or had the misfortune of belonging to groups that were evidently not south african enough to claim their patch of urban space” (landau 2011: 1). despite official claims that the government and south african society has “moved on” (black sash 2009), the violence did not end in june 2008 when the massive outbreak that had started a month earlier finally subsided. although the country has not since witnessed violence of the intensity seen in may 2008, the incidence of violence has not decreased. rather, there is a growing recognition, even among some government officials, that violent attacks on foreign nationals “have taken on disturbing proportions” (dac 2012). indeed, violence continued post may and the media reported at least 10 violent incidents during june 2008. in the following months and years, attacks on nonnationals continued, resulting in rising cases of murder, injuries, threats of mob violence, looting and the destruction of residential property and businesses, as well as mass displacement. in every individual year since 2008, violence has claimed more lives than it did during the may 2008 attacks. indeed, cormsa (2011) reports that in almost every month since mid‐2008, there has been at least one attack on groups of foreign nationals in the country; and that between mid-2009 and late 2010, there were at least 20 deaths, over 40 serious injuries, at least 200 foreign‐run shops looted and more than 4,000 persons displaced due to violence targeting foreign nationals. in 2011, ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 449 at least 120 foreign nationals were killed (five of them burnt alive), 100 were seriously injured, at least 1,000 displaced, and 120 shops/businesses permanently or temporarily closed through violence or selective enforcement of by-laws (unhcr rosa 2014). in 2012, the number of violence incidents increased: the unhcr rosa reported at least 250 incidents resulting in 140 deaths and 250 serious injuries. in 2013, unhcr rosa recorded an average of three major violent incidents per week, with attacks regularly reported in many areas across the country during 2014. there were an estimated 300 incidents of violence against foreign nationals, an estimated 200 shops looted and 900 persons displaced between january and march 2014 (unchr rosa 2014). the south african police service (saps) was overwhelmed by the increase in violence against foreigners and required support and assistance from all relevant government departments. in 2015, violence continued in many parts of gauteng, kwazulu-natal and limpopo provinces. information from the police indicates that 16 people (nine in gauteng and seven in kwazulu natal) were killed, more than 6,000 people displaced and hundreds of businesses looted and destroyed (unhcr rosa 2015b). in march 2016, xenophobic violence erupted in katlehong township in gauteng (mkhize, 2016) while violence once seemed concentrated in the townships around the country’s big cities, it is now increasingly spreading across the country’s nine provinces and into rural areas. the most affected provinces remain the western cape, gauteng, kwazulu-natal, free state, limpopo, mpumalanga and eastern cape, where some locations and sub places have become scenes of repeated violent attacks. in all provinces, this violence occurs mostly (but not exclusively) in poor and economically marginalised informal settlements where citizens (many of whom are themselves internal migrants) and immigrants meet amidst poor living conditions and a general scarcity of public services, employment and business opportunities. in sum, the above brief discussion shows that xenophobic violence in south africa is a reality that continues to threaten lives and livelihoods of many foreign nationals living in the country. as the next sections shows, continued ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 450 and increasing violence is clear evidence that no effective preventive mechanisms have been put in place. responses to xenophobic violence and their shortcomings as alluded to above, although it is impossible to say what would have happened in the absence of past and current initiatives, levels of continued (and in some areas repeated) xenophobic violence is clear evidence that responses and interventions designed to address the problem have largely been ineffective. national government and relevant local authorities have thus far either tended to ignore the problem or to categorise violence against foreign nationals and other forms of xenophobic behaviour as part of ‘normal’ crime with no need for additional targeted interventions. civil society efforts to foster peaceful coexistence and tolerance through social dialogues and awareness campaigns have also largely proven unsuccessful in changing attitudes and reducing violence and other forms of outsider exclusion. this section discusses the reasons behind these failures and shows that in some cases, despite their good intentions, interventions risk doing more harm than good. early efforts by the government included its commitment to uphold the ‘declaration’ adopted at the world conference against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance (wcar) held in durban in 2001. the conference recognised the urgent need to translate the objectives of the durban declaration into a practical and workable plan. unfortunately more than a decade later no such a plan exists although a ‘national action plan to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance’ spearheaded by the department of justice and constitutional development has been under discussion for many years. the first and most significant of civil society’s response to xenophobia in postapartheid africa was the roll back xenophobia (rbx) campaign. in a partnership between the south african human rights commission, the national consortium on refugee affairs and the united nations high commissioner for refugees, the rbx campaign was launched in december ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 451 1998 in response to the rising levels of xenophobia particularly targeted at african migrants and refugees in south africa. the campaign aimed to combat xenophobia through public education in the media, communities, schools and work places. its funding ended and it was formally terminated in 2002 with “the promise of the initiative […] never realised” (crush & ramachandran 2009: 84). whatever its potential benefits, it did little to prevent the most acute manifestation of xenophobia in south africa’s history, that was the unprecedented wave of xenophobic violence in may 2008. responses and interventions to counter xenophobia and its different manifestations proliferated after may 2008. indeed, following the outbreak of violence, numerous state and non-state actors at different levels of government and society got involved in various interventions to stop the violence, mitigate its effects and prevent future occurrences. post-may 2008 government response during the may 2008 violence, the government called on specialised units, created ad-hoc committees and designated task teams in parliament, ministries, the police and provincial and local governments. however, once the acute violence subsided, so too did government’s commitment to counter xenophobia. both before and after the 2008 attacks, it is fair to say that the overall government response to xenophobia and related violence in south africa has been characterised by denialism. in many cases, this denialism is rooted in a discourse which labels all xenophobic violence as ‘just crime and not xenophobia,’ a categorisation that demands few specific interventions or policy changes. as crush & ramachandran (2009: 19) note: despite the overwhelming research evidence of a powder-keg of xenophobic sentiment, the issue was largely ignored in public political discourse, until it was too late. even then, the response of those in government to may 2008 was largely denialist in character. several prominent politicians initially voiced surprise and concern and acknowledged that xenophobia was a significant problem. they were quickly silenced by an official ‘party line’ from the president‘s office. the attacks were criminal, not xenophobically motivated, ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 452 said president mbeki at an official day of mourning for the victims. south africans were not xenophobic and anyone who said so was themselves being xenophobic. similarly, in its 2011 report, the african peer review mechanism monitoring project gave south africa a ‘red rating’ for its failure to address, and indeed its denial of, xenophobia (saiia, cps & agma 2011). the denialism characterising government response in 2008 continues to date. such positions and the lack of sustained political will to address xenophobia led efforts initiated in 2008 to be abandoned or allowed to wither. task teams and units have been dissolved or are no longer functional and – somewhat ironically – ‘xenophobia’ has been almost entirely excised from the country’s ‘national action plan to combat racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance’. the unwillingness to recognise xenophobia coupled with a general weak judicial system has also led to an alarming culture of impunity and lack of accountability for perpetrators and mandated institutions: foreign nationals and others have been repeatedly attacked in south africa since 2004 but few perpetrators, some of them government representatives at local level, have been charged. even fewer have been convicted. in some instances, state agents have actively protected those accused of anti-foreigner violence (misago 2011). similarly, there have been no efforts to hold mandated institutions, such as the police and the intelligence, accountable for their failure to prevent and stop violence despite visible warning signs. in explaining government denialism in the face of overwhelming evidence, polzer & takabvirwa (2010: 7) argue that admitting the existence of a xenophobic citizenry is both “ideologically and politically uncomfortable” for the anc which “understands itself as heir to a long non-discriminatory, panafrican tradition.” admitting that various forms of violence against outsiders even within the black population remain a striking feature of the ‘rainbow nation’ is likely to be a similarly uncomfortable truth to acknowledge as it sits uneasily with long-standing anc visions of ‘unity in diversity’ and poses serious challenges to the state’s legitimacy and sovereignty. that said, it is worth noting that there are on-going small scale initiatives to counter ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 453 xenophobia and promote social cohesion within various departments. these include home affairs’ (dha) programme aimed at ‘strengthening communities of peace and diversity,’ the justice and constitutional development’s (doj) ‘national action plan to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,’ and the arts and culture’s (dac) ‘national strategy for developing an inclusive and a cohesive south african society.’ while the last two initiatives are still under discussion, the success of these strategies is uncertain given the consistent lack of coordination and complementarity among different government departments in addressing xenophobia and related violence since 2008. it should also be noted that some senior officials within the national and provincial governments acknowledge the problem’s severity and have appealed for tolerance. for example, in her keynote speech on world refugee day on 20 june 2013, the minister of home affairs publicly condemned xenophobia and acknowledged that much needs to be done to combat the violence and educate the community. similarly, the deputy president and gauteng premier recently spoke out against xenophobia and again stressed that more needs to be done to address it. in addressing a gauteng social cohesion summit in johannesburg in august 2014, the deputy president stated: as the province with the largest number of immigrants, gauteng must lead the way in combating xenophobia in all its manifestations. the people of this province must, through their actions, underscore the fact that foreign nationals pose no threat to our desire for social cohesion nor do they present any impediment to the achievement of a common south african nationhood (gabara 2015). similarly, the gauteng premier stated that “south africans should self-reflect before blaming all their problems on foreigners and urged the country to unite against xenophobia” (kubheka 2014). while these pronouncements (like the ones in the past) have not translated into concrete action, they contrast starkly with the national government’s populist turn over the last few years. a sign of this is a series of current policy proposals intended to restrict immigration and ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 454 the socio-economic rights of non-nationals in south africa. so while government has tentatively accepted the need to fight xenophobia, it has left this largely in the realm of rhetorical appeal while actively working to restrict immigration and opportunities for non-nationals in south africa. as landau & freemantle (2014: 1) note, it is somewhat ironic that efforts to promote social cohesion in the country are “premised on separating groups and denying some segments of the population rights guaranteed to others.” it is important to note that even this general acceptance of xenophobia again reinforces the position that this is fundamentally an issue of immigration and not one rooted in potentially violent divisions within south africa’s population. police responses to xenophobic violence in south africa although the police are charged with protecting all residents of south africa from physical harm, they have often expressed ambivalence towards the rights and welfare of outsiders or been actively hostile and complicit in violence against them (amnesty international 2014; landau & haithar 2007). in line with government reactions, rather than grapple with the issue as distinct from high levels of ‘ordinary’ crime, police officials have resisted pressure to approach xenophobic violence as anything rooted in attitudes, political instrumentalism or economic ambition. instead, they argue, the language of xenophobia is merely a cover for criminality or even a conscious effort to bring south africa’s reputation into disrepute. according to a police spokesperson quoted in bauer (2013): holistically speaking, south africans are not xenophobic and many cases are merely crime. […] we cannot conflate this issue and we commonly see this as afrophobia that is underpinned by criminality. when we see children looting shops and people robbing people of their goods it is to us a blatant sign of crime that is being excused as xenophobia. cormsa (2011) argues that because the “police are very quick to dismiss attacks on foreign nationals as simply ‘criminal’ rather than xenophobic,” they have limited ability to detect prejudice motives in criminal incidents. this has serious implications on their ability to counter violence: when the police arrest ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 455 or bring perpetrators to justice (which they rarely do), the focus is almost exclusively on those caught in the act rather than on instigators behind the scenes. while the instigators are often well known to the community, they have de facto impunity and may – as they have in many cases – act again. indeed, by eliminating economic competition, seizing housing or winning political favour through their actions, their incentives are further strengthened. in explaining their insufficient response, the police often point to lack of capacity and fear of victimisation at the hands of a hostile community. this may be true in many instances, but one must not overlook their own antiforeigner sentiments and support (or at least passive condoning) of the violence and their unwillingness to draw attention to a politically sensitive topic (misago et al. 2009). in the run up to the 2010 fifa world cup, the police minister labelled those raising concerns about overt threats of xenophobic violence as “prophets of doom” (tv footage showed interviews with township dwellers preparing to “finish the war” they started in may 2008). the ‘evacuation strategy’ has become a characteristic feature of police responses to xenophobic violence. in almost all cases, the police have limited their role to escorting victims to places of safety rather than protecting them and their property in situ. even where well-intentioned, such activities may inadvertently abet perpetrators trying to remove ‘unwanted’ foreigners from their midst. in some instances, the police have been accused of actively collaborating with such campaigns (landau & haithar 2007). while appreciating the police efforts to save their lives, some victims of the attacks believe that effort should also be made to protect their property. for them, saving livelihoods is as important as saving lives. a somali shop-owner in orange farm states: well, the problem... helpers, the police, they are coming. and they come to save our life, but not our property. they say “leave the shop; let us take you to the police station.” and they take us to the police station. tomorrow, how can we survive? yes, okay... they save my life... tomorrow, what can i...i eat and drink? ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 456 yes, they have to protect us with our property. even last time, they robbed our shops. now even i don’t have a shop. post may 2008 civil society response the widespread anti-outsider violence in may 2008 elicited a range of responses from local and international civil society and international organisations. many have been involved in providing humanitarian assistance to the victims of the violence. others have launched interventions aimed at preventing the reoccurrence of such a violent conflict by promoting social cohesion. these have had mixed effects. while some have undoubtedly provided needed succour and others have had little impact, some have risked exacerbating tensions by reinforcing notions that foreigners are a privileged group or promoting conflict resolution strategies that bolster inter-group boundaries. although characterised by much chaos due to a lack of coordination and communication among different stakeholders, the immediate humanitarian response to the may 2008 crisis was generally laudable: ngos (local and international), un agencies, faith-based organisations (fbos) and individuals proffered volumes of donated food, clothes and other goods and services to the displaced populations (polzer et al. 2009). beyond the humanitarian crisis, various civil society organisations initiated programmes aimed at preventing the occurrence of violence and promoting social cohesion. the nelson mandela foundation, for example, organised social cohesion community dialogues in violence affected communities across the country. the international organisation for migration (iom) initiated the ‘one’ movement, a social change campaign that seeks to reverse attitudes that result in discrimination, xenophobia, racism and tribalism. this was intended to use media campaigns, community conversations, youth mobilisation, curriculum interventions and human rights training with a wide range of civil society partners to promote a culture of tolerance, human dignity and unity in diversity across south and southern africa (iom 2009). ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 457 together with many other initiatives organised by interested parties and organisations, these interventions may have increased awareness of xenophobia as a social problem. they have, however, done little to address social and institutional xenophobia and its various manifestations. indeed, official and public xenophobic pronouncements and attitudes are as pervasive as ever and violence against foreign nationals is on the rise (misago et al. 2015). the following discussion highlights at least six reasons why these civil society interventions have failed or have not yielded desired outcomes. first, there is a lack of consistency and political muscle to hold government accountable for its failures to protect people’s fundamental rights or to influence strong and sustained official response to xenophobia and related violence. pugh (2014: 1) rightly notes that “much civil society response tended to be humanitarian in nature, rather than presenting any sustained political challenge that would address the underlying structural causes of such violence.” in trying to address xenophobia and its different manifestations in south africa, civil society has almost exclusively targeted affected communities with awareness campaigns and moral appeals for tolerance but has largely failed to mobilise government responses to address the institutional xenophobia that fuels anti-foreigner attitudes and behaviour among the public. it has also failed to generate official, policy level response aimed specifically at building a society inclusive of foreign nationals and other outsiders (or at least obtain government’s official support and sustained involvement in on-going initiatives). as pugh (2014: 232) further notes, there appears to be no, “space available for cso actors to effectively advocate for structural and political change in the management of migration, refugee, and asylum seeker issues, let alone for addressing the root causes of violence.” with a focus on communities, interventions often overlook the broader institutional structures that help reinforce perceptions and practices that disadvantage and threaten lives and livelihoods of many foreign nationals living in the country. as misago et al. (2015) note, the root causes of intolerance and discrimination in south africa are located in mutually reinforcing social and institutional configurations at local and national levels. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 458 indeed, reflecting on uhncr anti-xenophobia programmes, many civil society organisations acknowledged that one of their collective failures in addressing xenophobic violence in south africa has been their inability to secure a government buy-in. for example, a cormsa official observed “[…] one of the things which continue to be missing is the issue of getting government buy-in and commitment…. so for me i think one of the shortcomings would have been that relationship with government in terms of getting the buy-in of the programme.” the official believes that not having government on board is a major challenge to addressing xenophobia and related violence. in a similar vein, amnesty international (2014) stated that they “remain concerned that in the six years since the large-scale violence and displacements of 2008, the south african authorities have not put in place any systematic measures of prevention and protection.” second, civil society organisations often base their interventions on shaky foundations and untested theories of change. for one, they have focused almost exclusively on attitudes, neglecting factors and motivations that trigger violent behaviour towards foreigners. this shifts attention from factors critical to combatting the immediate effects of xenophobia (law enforcement, accountability and the like) to ones with (only potential) long-term consequences. although promoting tolerant attitudes is an important objective in any fragmented society, the psychological research is inconclusive regarding relationships between attitudes and behaviour. attitudes are not necessarily a good predictor of behaviour (ajzen & fishbein 1977). as research evidence shows, anti-foreign attitudes are consistently high across different sections of the country’s population, but manifestations of violence and acts of discrimination differ significantly across locations (crush 2008). people may value an inclusive society in general but are nonetheless willing and able to alienate particular, demonised sub-groups. hence, attitudes alone cannot explain why certain forms of violence tend to happen in certain types of communities and not in others. apart from questionable efficiency, the emphasis on attitudes overlooks the importance of political mobilisation of xenophobic discourses or institutional configurations – formal or informal – that help to differentiate and divide populations based on race, ethnicity, ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 459 nationality, legal status or any other factor that might become fulcra for xenophobic discrimination (landau 2011). political entrepreneurs and local leaders often deliberately capitalise on distrustful climates and make political or economic gains from discrimination against and violent exclusion of those deemed to be outsiders (misago 2011). by overlooking these instigators and their motivations, interventions are unlikely to succeed because they are ‘barking up the wrong tree.’ indeed, to be effective, the theories of change and other assumptions informing most of civil society’s xenophobia related programming need to be evidence-based and, particularly, be broadened beyond changing public opinions and attitudes and shift towards programmes and interventions targeting political and behavioural change. for example, apart from the militia/displaced and migrant persons support programme (militia/dmpsp) and, to an extent, the agency for refugee education, skills, training & advocacy (aresta) programme, the unhcr rosa programmes evaluated were oriented towards public attitudes, not xenophobic behaviour or practices, politics on the ground and national policy. for example, aresta identified poor service delivery, poverty, unemployment and political infighting as sources of violence but, nevertheless, designed a public awareness programme instead of programmes to address these sources of conflict. public awareness programmes have value as long as they are complemented by other approaches targeting the political and economic incentives and configurations driving violence and discrimination. third, civil society interventions and programmes are immigrant-orientated and run the risk of exacerbating rather than eliminating bias and violent exclusion. overt pro-migrant, pro-minority rights programmes may further isolate migrants or minorities by reinforcing existing boundaries and fuelling tensions. such programmes risk reinforcing the categories by (a) drawing attention to them; (b) requiring people to seek remedy as membership in said groups; and (c) bolstering popular conceptions that foreigners receive special aid and attention. by demonstrating that foreign nationals (or other minorities) have international allies (unhcr, ai, etc…), well-meaning agencies ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 460 and their interventions may unwittingly build resentment among the disadvantaged citizenry who feels forgotten and angry. some of this may be unavoidable, but campaigns organised around more transversal or universal themes like law enforcement, rule of law, administrative restructuring or the like may help diminish, rather than reinforce, difference. this may require a different set of partners and expertise beyond the normal human rights and migrant protection collaborators. such a ‘stealth’ approach may be more politically palatable and sustainable and less visibly pro-migrant/minority. one of the uhncr rosa initiatives (the militia/dmpsp) could serve as an example in this regard. called ‘promotion of social cohesion among refugees, asylum seekers and nationals’, the programme’s objective was to prevent and mitigate violent attacks on foreign nationals, particularly unhcr’s people of concern. although activities and implementation approach varies depending on the situation at hand, militia/dmpsp indicated that their general modus operandi consisted of i) intelligence gathering to have a clear understanding of the situation; ii) dispersing crowds of perpetrators using force and dogs when necessary (working with the police or on their own); iii) evacuating victims of attack to safe places; iv) searching for and retrieving stolen goods; v) arresting perpetrators and handing them over to the police; and vi) negotiating with communities and their leaders for reintegration of displaced foreign nationals (see more details on this programme in misago et al. 2015). visibly, while these activities may provide foreign nationals with short term relief, they may actually exacerbate their long term vulnerability. indeed, these are law enforcement duties which,h when performed by civil society organisations (like in this case), have questionable legality, to say the least, and create unsustainable parallel systems of protection or reinforce divisions between foreign nationals and other community members. interventions that create parallel systems of protection and/or prioritise the wellbeing of foreign nationals over the general welfare of other community members risk exacerbating tensions and resentment and may end up doing more harm than good in terms of protecting outsiders from violent exclusion. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 461 fourth, many civil society interventions target the wrong sources of conflict. for example, assumptions that events like community dialogues and cultural and sport festivals that bring different groups together will help achieve peaceful coexistence among groups, ignore the fact that these initiatives are unlikely to reach those behind the violence. while there is potential value in bringing people together who otherwise might not engage, they do little to address the political economy of violence within south african communities. indeed, ample research evidence indicates that the micro-politics and the political economy of violence are the key drivers of violent attacks on foreign nationals in affected areas (misago 2011). moreover, when managed poorly, even supposedly ‘non-political’ events such as soccer tournaments, intercultural dialogues or cultural events easily become politically charged and divisive. such events require very careful management and a clearly structured framework for establishing dialogue around issues of mutual concern to avoid the worsening of existing tensions. fifth and lastly, many civil society organisations use ‘one size fits all’ approaches that fail to recognise the specific sources of violence in particular sites. while there are commonalities across many sites, initiatives that fail to recognise the triggers, targets and forms of discrimination as practiced in a specific place are unlikely to succeed. thus, it is important that interventions are adapted to the specific dynamics of a locality, carefully considering which local institutions to target, which residents and actors to work with, and which specific tensions to address. community responses in the absence of effective government and civil society responses, foreign nationals and local communities and their leaders are forging new ways to deal with discrimination and violent exclusion. in a few instances, local communities have resisted violence mobilisation and have actively protected foreign nationals and other groups living in their midst (bbc 2011) however, much of this ‘protection’ or ‘welcoming’ of foreigners in the community is motivated by self-interest too, rather than a principled stance of tolerance and hospitality. in some places, foreign nationals and local communities have ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 462 resorted to unlawful compromises such as limiting the number of foreignowned business in a given locality and setting minimum prices on basic goods. segatti (2011: 3) notes that “these agreements are problematic because they set precedents akin to market division and price-fixing.” in other instances, foreign nationals pay protection fees to local leaders or gangsters or are forced to drop criminal charges against their assailants to appease communities or in response to threats of further attacks (misago et al. 2009). there are also growing concerns that foreign nationals are making efforts to acquire fire arms (even if illegally) for self-protection (amnesty international 2014), and there are already examples where this practice has led to more tensions and violence. for example the january 2015 violence in soweto started after a foreign shop owner shot and killed a local boy during an alleged robbery (sapa 2015) these community initiatives are evidently unsustainable coping mechanisms that are already causing more chaos, exacerbating existing tensions and leading to more violence. conclusion this paper argues that government and civil society responses and interventions to address xenophobic violence in south africa have largely been ineffective as evidenced by on-going and increasing levels of such violence. the paper further argues that, in addition to the lack of government political will, impunity and lack of civil society muscle to hold government accountable for its failure to protect all country’s residents, interventions have failed particularly because of their critical ontological and etiological blind spots. indeed, most of past and current interventions by civil society a) fail to address the presence of institutional roots of xenophobia and related violence and neglect the importance of political mobilisation of xenophobic discourses or institutional configurations, and b) are based on untested theories of change such as unfounded assumptions that changing attitudes, even if successful, will necessarily prevent violence. as such, interventions are not informed by a clear understanding of violence dynamics, motives and triggers. without a clear appreciation of the dynamics, instrumental motives and organisational triggers of the violence as well as of what type of responses ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 463 work or do not work, intervention strategies can only be ineffective at best, and counter-productive at worst. if nothing else, this paper demonstrates that addressing xenophobic violence or at least minimizing its effects requires more than moral appeals and awareness campaigns. rather it requires, (a) sustained, and coordinated and broad-based efforts; (b) greater support from public programmes and politicians; (c) a more nuanced understanding of the space specific drivers of violence; and (d) efforts to counter the culture of impunity, promote the rule of law and enhance community-based conflict resolution mechanisms that respect the constitutional principles of universal rights and due process. to reiterate the third point, this means shifting from one size fits all approaches towards strategies that consider 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earning a living through gainful employment, engaging in crossborder trade or visiting their kin, is commonplace. however, the extent to which political power and authority permits this mobility is dependent on specific historical and political factors of each country. this paper traces and examines ethiopian state presence at the togochale border in the east of the country by examining patterns of cross-border movement – namely migration, refugee movement and cross-border trade – since the 1960s. using archival sources and secondary sources, the paper constructs a historical narrative of strong state presence in this border area. furthermore, the paper argues that the notable presence of the ethiopian state at this border is a consequence of how the ethiopian state conceptualises the notion of territorial statehood, which is shaped by the country’s history. popular understandings suggest that local populations hold much sway in african border areas, rather than the central state, which is often confined to the capital – miles away from the border. therefore, the presence of the ethiopian state at the togochale border appears to depart from the norm of limited state presence in african borderlands. keywords territoriality, statehood, borderlands, eastern ethiopia, togochale border. introduction this paper foregrounds the control of territory by the ethiopian state in the eastern periphery by constructing a historical narrative of strong state presence in this border area. it traces and examines ethiopian state presence at the togochale border by examining patterns of cross-border movement – namely migration, refugee movement and cross-border trade – since the 1960s. the focus of the paper is the manifestation of statehood in eastern  department of political studies, faculty of economic & management science, university of the western cape (uwc), south africa, email: nmatshanda@gmail.com mailto:nmatshanda@gmail.com ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 469 ethiopia. as such, the paper takes the border as an ideal representation of territorial statehood. the interplay between territorial control and crossborder movement thus reveals the conceptualisation of territorial statehood by the ethiopian state. in the mid-1950s, following the withdrawal of the british military administration (bma) from ethiopia, there emerged competing ideas of what the border means and represents to the ethiopian state. these notions related to the nature of the ethiopian state at the time and the thinking that characterised the country’s rulers. borders, therefore, can be seen as directly linked to the determination of the limits of the state and as markers of the limits of the intended exercise of power by the state. borderlands, on the other hand, raise a different set of dynamics vis-à-vis the state and the exercise of power. however, borderlands have similar characteristics, as spaces that owe much of their character to the nature of the border, regardless of whether they are in ethiopia or elsewhere in africa (asiwaju 1985). according to vandergeest and peluso (1995: 389), “experienced territory or space is not abstract and homogenous, but located, relative, and varied.” this suggests that the manner in which a state elects to establish territorial statehood varies and is dependent on a range of factors. indeed, sack (1986: 3), argues that “territoriality is a historically sensitive use of space.” most of the literature on the relationship between african states and their borders is informed by the colonial experience (kapil 1966; englebert & hummel 2005; englebert 2009). the majority of this literature does not take into account countries such as ethiopia, which have different experiences with colonialism. recent literature demonstrates that it has not been easy to assess africa’s recent past, which in many ways has departed from the colonial past. as nugent (2004: 1-2) suggests, although there has been much written about contemporary africa, “a lot of it is unreflective and does not seek to place the material in any kind of historical context.” this paper rejects this approach by contextualising and historicising the relationship between the ethiopian state and its borders in order to understand contemporary practices of territorial statehood. the paper begins by conceptualising african notions of territorial statehood. it traces current understandings of territoriality in africa and locates these in the post-independence consensus on african borders. the paper then moves on to a discussion of ethiopian understandings of territoriality. this section highlights the constitutive role of peripheries in ethiopian statehood. the ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 470 paper then discusses a period of rigid state borders in the post-bma period in ethiopia. the section examines how this period influenced the manner in which the state viewed the border. to provide context, this section explores internal political dynamics within the eastern periphery under imperial rule. next, the paper surveys the increased militarisation and further rigidification during the period of the dergue from 1974. finally, the chapter examines the nature of this border since 1991, a period that has experienced unprecedented levels of cross-border movement, most of which is underlined by cross-border trade. understanding territorial statehood in the african context there is a research gap in the literature on state formation in africa, in particular the relationship between african states and their borders. approaches to state formation in africa have been dominated by analyses that are rooted in weberian sociology of the state and its notions of statehood. this has led to the categorisation of all manifestations of statehood that do not conform to this model as instances of state failure, collapse or weakness (rotberg 20021982). this literature has struggled to make sense of political development outside the confines of state capitals, and has equally been unsuccessful in explaining inter-state relations in africa. since the end of the cold war, regionalism has emerged as a prime ordering principle on the continent, with many african countries organising and cooperating at the subregional level. this inevitably requires a rethinking of statehood. the inability of the literature to grasp rapid and often unconventional political development is problematic and requires further investigation. the inability of the literature and analysts to imagine african statehood beyond the confining category of the nation-state has been the main challenge. the preoccupation with internal state ‘disorder’ has meant that the legitimacy of african cases of secession, for instance, is questioned and met with contempt, as demonstrated by zartman’s (1996) assessment of somaliland. the fixation on internal ‘collapse’ or ‘disorder’ has led others to argue that there is, in fact, logic behind the seeming disorder that is found within african polities (chabal & daloz 1999). indeed, while chabal and daloz’s main claims are open to debate, their approach nevertheless demonstrates that, in africa political dynamics and practices exist that do not conform to ideal-type forms of political organisation. the contemporary african state system is based on the decisions reached by newly independent african countries in 1963 in addis ababa and in 1964 in ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 471 cairo – to retain the territorial boundaries inherited from colonial rule. consequently, there has been general agreement on the absence of inter-state conflict on the continent, regardless of the persistence of states that emerged from seemingly arbitrary boundaries – the paradox of african boundaries (herbst 1989). there is consensus on some of the reasons why this paradox has persisted. a number of commentators such as christopher clapham (1996) and jeffery herbst (2000) have noted that the nature of the international state system supports this paradox, particularly the popular idea of the nation-state. others, such as pierre englebert (2009), have gone a step further by attempting to demonstrate how the international system supports this paradox. the overall consensus is that african countries have largely remained viable and peaceful towards each other, regardless of internal turmoil, because the international system ‘rewards’ them for remaining intact. the conclusion, therefore, is that african norms of statehood find institutionalised legitimacy in the international system (young, 1991). however, the african territorial consensus and its popular understandings are challenged in the horn of africa. in most analyses, the horn is acknowledged for its exceptional nature, but the discussion tends to focus on the remarkable feat of peacefully retaining ‘artificial’ boundaries elsewhere on the continent. crawford young (1991) acknowledges that “ethiopia cries out for creative imagination and careful study” but does not offer ways to go about this. similarly, englebert (2009) and englebert and hummel (2005) do not adequately address why in the horn the seemingly low odds of international recognition for breakaway states does not seem to deter secessionist states from emerging. nor do they explain why, unlike elsewhere on the continent, as englebert has demonstrated, actors in the horn appear to be disinterested in the “domestic power of command” that is afforded by the legalities of the international system. although some of this literature has attempted to challenge the state weakness/failure discourse, it has not been able to provide the necessary analytical tools to take the analyses to a level that historically and contextually investigates the variegated forms of empirical statehood that continue to emerge in the horn of africa. to successfully challenge some of the assumptions that exist in the literature we must focus on history and context. this paper thus contributes to the current turn in the literature on african state formation, which rejects ahistorical analyses. this is highlighted by spears (2003), when he notes that the horn of africa, somaliland in particular, raises significant questions about africa’s territorial order. others have suggested other explanations for the ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 472 unusual expressions of statehood in the horn. for instance, kornprobst (2002) argues that “there is no consensus on who constitutes a colonial power in the horn,” unlike in other african sub-regions. kornprobst suggests that some states might perceive ethiopia as a colonial power in the horn. however, such an assertion needs to be interrogated. the formation of the contemporary ethiopian state in the late nineteenth century and the complexities of the decolonisation process in the twentieth century would need to be considered. this paper employs an interpretive approach and a qualitative methodology that combines historical and ethnographic research methods. as such, a constructivist inspired methodology should be inductive, interpretive and historical (pouliot 2007). indeed, a study of the state in ethiopia, as this paper demonstrates, is a study of the motives and practices of how the state has fashioned itself toward its peripheries. here, the task of the researcher is to contextualise and historicise this experience in order to arrive at a particular understanding of the relationship between the centre and the periphery. and most importantly for the purposes of this paper, the state’s relationship with its borders needs to be historicised and contextualised. territorial conceptions of statehood and the constitutive role of peripheries in ethiopia the formation of the contemporary ethiopian state in the late nineteenth century – the empire state – was shaped by the incorporation of territories located south, east and west of the political centre (donham & james 2002). subsequently, the peripheries shaped the evolution of state bureaucracy and the definition of the national territory. central to these processes was the extension of state power over a particular territory, which instituted the use of territory as a means of asserting imperial state power and authority. however, the territorialisation of state power in ethiopia was not an unambiguous process. the political and economic transformation of ethiopian society was delayed because of the organisation of state power under the imperial order. the traditional base of legitimate state power in ethiopia, initially for the christian groups and later for the ethiopian nation, ensured that a large section of the population within the ethiopian territory remained on the fringes (markakis & beyene 1967). the ‘fringe’ or lowland peripheries, where pastoralists were much harder to keep track of and to control, experienced the least amount of administration (donham 2002). in the period following the italian occupation, the state saw an increase in peripheral dissent. however, this change was less ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 473 about a periphery that became more belligerent, and more about structural changes that were taking place in the centre and in the wider region, specifically state centralisation and decolonization. the state became increasingly centralised, and for the first time, the territorial boundaries of the state became more defined than they were previously. territoriality became more salient in the post-1942 period in ethiopia. the geographic and political organisation of space found an immediate and direct expression in an increasingly centralised state. indeed, centralisation required an exact articulation of the territorial limits of the state. elsewhere on the continent, the post-colonial relationship between central state power and the national territory has been conceptualised in slightly different ways. to a large extent, the centre-periphery relationship was shaped by the colonial experience, and thus it was this experience that influenced the nature of the post-colonial state (herbst 2000). in most cases, the core-periphery relationship took the form of the urban-rural divide (bratton 1994). the postcolonial state sustained this dialectic and adapted it to suit its peculiar mode of power and control. callaghy (1987) describes the trend of increasing the power of central authority while simultaneously weakening local power structures in the periphery as the “coverover strategy.” this experience was widespread in the colonies and saw the colonial state transferring its most undesirable features to its post-independence successor (young 1994). although the practice of exercising control over the peripheries was similar to elsewhere on the continent, the motives and structures with which it was created and carried out was differed in ethiopia. unlike the post-colonial state in other places in africa, the state in ethiopia had been actively involved in the determination of its territorial boundaries. ethiopia participated in the drawing of boundaries in the horn of africa. indeed, the centre-periphery relationship in ethiopia is different because the demarcation of boundaries and incorporation of conquered territories into the state was actively pursued by ethiopian rulers even prior to the formal demarcation of boundaries. the period following liberation from the italian occupation was a key moment in ethiopia’s modern political history. this period was characterised by a determined effort by the state to: a) consolidate its territorial gains from before the occupation; and b) consolidate its political dominance, particularly in the peripheries. these two goals were essential for the survival of the imperial state following the five year italian occupation. the pursuit of these aims was accompanied by strong rhetoric on modernisation. this rhetoric was ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 474 rooted in a provincial administrative structure that sought to maintain the status quo of centre-periphery relations. the main goal of the provincial administration was to maintain the traditional role of the centre in the administration of the conquered territories and to preserve the territorial integrity of the state. this became the dominant theme in the articulation of ethiopian statehood, with subsequent state rulers adapting their ideologies in a way that they too could maintain the role of the state as an agent of control and authority. the aforementioned objectives of the state were given impetus by the presence of the bma in ethiopia from 1941. the military arrangement that ultimately threatened ethiopian territorial sovereignty began as an occupied enemy territory administration (oeta), and later, in 1942, became a full british military administration (rennell-rodd 1948). zewde (1991) notes that under the convenient cover of the continuation of the war, britain came to assume extensive control over ethiopia’s finances, administration and territorial integrity. the changes that occurred during the period of the bma are crucial as they brought to the fore the (in) ability of the ethiopian state to control its territory and assert its authority in the peripheries. during this period, ethiopian statehood shifted to an increasingly territorial conceptualisation, one that was not seen in the pre-italian occupation period. prior to the occupation, administration entailed the radiation of power from the centre to a vast and vaguely defined territory. however, the need for exact delimitation of the territory became increasingly urgent and significant after the occupation. during this period, the state sought to fashion itself as a modernising empire with a secure territory and a stable community. the preconditions for ‘modern’ statehood crystallised because the territorial foundations of the state came under threat during the period of the bma. the effects of this threat were most evident in the peripheries, which had hitherto been vaguely defined and loosely administered. attempting territorial control by militarising the eastern periphery the rationale for the uncompromising approach of the imperial state with regards to the border with the republic of somalia in the early 1960s can be found in the events of the preceding decade. the period of the bma presented a significant threat to the territorial integrity of the imperial state; this was mainly because the state was yet to consolidate its territory and political authority in the eastern regions. however, the official end of the bma in 1954 left residual territorial ambiguities, particularly in people’s minds. therefore, ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 475 the formation of the somali republic in 1960 added another dimension to the anxieties of the imperial state vis-à-vis its uncertain presence in the east. the 1960s began with a series of rebellions in the southern and eastern regions of ethiopia – in hararge and bale provinces. these revolts were staged by pastoralist sections of the population in response to increased state centralisation, particularly the introduction of livestock tax. the revised ethiopian constitution of 1955 was meant to signify a shift to a modern state and government. the supposed transformation entailed the introduction of new revenue collection measures, which implied a more centralised bureaucracy (gilkes 1975). many, particularly the pastoralists, found the increasingly centralised administration to be offensive as it curtailed some of their movements and freedoms. this led to a conflict that was ignited when a police force was deployed to collect taxes in bale province. on arrival, the police were immediately surrounded and overpowered by the local tax rebels, who until then were no more than a loose formation (gilkes 1975). the rebellion was exacerbated by the formation of a secessionist movement – the western somali liberation front (wslf) – in south-eastern ethiopia. according to gilkes (1975), there were similar movements against taxation and tax collection among pastoralists in the ogaden district of hararge province. however, he also states that “these are impossible to verify since most of the area is closed to outsiders.” this statement indicates the initial stages of the militarisation of the eastern periphery of ethiopia. the state insisted on tax collection as part of a comprehensive effort to assert its authority in these remote areas. the militarisation of the region also coincided with the commencement of oil and gas exploration in the late 1960s. what then developed was the state’s territorialisation of resource control (vandergeest & peluso 1995), where the state mobilised means of coercive enforcement in the bale and hararge provinces. gilkes (1975) notes that, by the early 1970s the ethiopian army’s third division was permanently based in the ogaden district, where it “spen[t] a substantial amount of time collecting tax.” the administrative ambiguities that were created by the bma in the eastern periphery led to suspicions by imperial state authorities regarding the loyalties of some of the borderland populations. thus, the presence of the imperial state in this periphery was first and foremost about making claims to the territory, but also increasingly to claim the population. the territorialisation of central state power and authority thus increased exponentially in the 1960s up to the 1970s and suggests an ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 476 increasingly territorial approach that reflects a range of possible objectives by the imperial state: rulers territorialized state power to achieve a variety of goals. foremost among these was the need to make claims on territory to protect access to people and income from taxes and natural resources, in a world in which only territorial claims were recognised as legitimate. second, territorialization enabled increased efficiency in the collection of regular taxes. a regular money income was necessary to finance permanent militaries, assess the viability of young men for a conscript military, and finance a growing bureaucracy as well as government investments that sustained local production in a context of global competition (vandergeest & peluso 1995). the foregoing was true in ethiopia where the imperial state deployed severe strategies in the administration of its peripheries in order to comply with its ideas of territorial statehood. the ‘modernisation’ of the state, which included an increase in revenue collection and establishing an elaborate bureaucracy, provided both the context and pretext for the militarisation of the eastern periphery. with modernisation as state rhetoric in the post-liberation period, there was much optimism about the transformation of ethiopian society. however, this optimism was thwarted when the apparent transformation failed to live up to expectations. the imperial state adopted a version of modernisation that was implemented within already established political structures of traditional hierarchy (clapham 1969). the focus on centralisation, often framed as modernisation, was underlined by a conceptualisation of territorial control as a key component of political power. there was, therefore, more continuity than transformation in the process of modernising the empire. huntington (1969) outlines what could have occurred in ethiopia as part of political change in a traditional polity, stating: to cope successfully with modernization, a political system must be able, first, to innovate policy, that is, to promote social and economic reform by state action. reform in this context usually means the changing of traditional values and behaviour patterns, the expansion of communications and education, the broadening of loyalties from family, village, and tribe to nation, the secularization of public life, the rationalization of authority structures, the promotion of functionally specific organizations, the substitution of ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 477 achievement criteria for ascriptive ones, and the furthering of a more equitable distribution of material and symbolic resources. this was not to be in ethiopia since the overriding concern was to maintain the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state. the making of territorial claims, protecting resources and collecting taxes, often through violent means, marked the beginning of the challenges that have affected the administration of this periphery since the bma period. the pastoralist populations who formed a majority and other ‘cross-border populations’ were the most affected, as the policies favoured a sedentary lifestyle. the imperial state favoured a sedentary existence particularly for the pastoralist communities whose loyalties the state could not guarantee. to a large extent, a sedentary way of life was achieved in the jijiga area up to the border at togochale where a number of pastoralists became ‘agropastoralists. post-bma patterns of cross-border migration the unstable political climate in hararge and bale provinces and the nationalist fervour that accompanied the formation of the somali republic led to the strengthening of rules that governed cross-border migration in ethiopia. policies on the use of the borders of the empire were decisive in their intention to determine who belonged and who did not. some of the most important decrees that were passed on the use of the border appeared in the negarit gazeta – the ethiopian government gazette. these included the immigration proclamation of 1943 (negarit gazeta vol.1). this was followed by the customs and export duties proclamation of 1943. the customs and duties proclamation also defined illegal activities, such as smuggling, and the penalties they carried. to confirm these proclamations, a former government employee who worked in hararge province in the 1960s and 1970s noted that there were customs posts at the border at togochale, as well as sixty five kilometres further inland at jijiga. elders interviewed by this author all confirmed that more rigid rules and regulations were introduced by the imperial state and, in particular, they noted the regulation of customs duties at the togochale border in the 1960s. customs duties were collected by state agents and went directly to the state and not to local leaders. in the jijigatogochale region, the state rarely used local ‘chiefs’ or balabbats. this is because the central state authority had directly administered this section of hararge province since its official incorporation into the state. therefore, it ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 478 was the northern military-settlers – the neftegna – who oversaw administration, including revenue collection, in the jijiga and togochale areas. interviewees in jijiga noted that imperial authorities were very strict about the use of passports at the border. the state became even firmer following somali independence. this change coincided with the beginning of the territorial claims of the republic on ethiopian territory. imperial rulers attempted to alter the movement of people on this border. however, those crossing the border often flouted these rules since they had always known and participated in unhindered cross-border movement. the conflict between ethiopia and the republic of somalia shaped the territorial (border) discourse for the next few decades. the ethiopian state became increasingly strict at the border by monitoring the movement of people. the start of a refugee problem in the 1960s and 1970s, refugees in sub-saharan africa were mainly a consequence of “explosive internal social and political situations” (milner 2009). in eastern ethiopia, in addition to internal conditions, the ethiopiasomalia conflict of 1964 produced the first wave of refugees across the togochale border. however, this movement was not massive and did not lead to the establishment of refugee camps. in the 1960s, the vast majority of refugees in africa lived in rural settlements located in the host countries (milner 2009). unfortunately there is little documentation on this particular movement of refugees. yet, we can assume that the refugees were, in one way or another, absorbed into the border villages of eastern ethiopia. the movement of large numbers of refugees across state borders has since become a defining characteristic of human migration in the horn of africa and, in the process, shaped the various states from below in quite significant ways. during the 1963-64 ethiopia-somalia conflict, one of the catalysts for the movement of people from eastern ethiopia was the “declaration of state of emergency in the region bordering the republic of somalia” order, (negarit gazeta vol. 3). this order brought the ethiopian army to the region and severely restricted the movement of people, causing many to flee across the border to the somali side. the entire region came under emergency laws as the imperial state struggled to distinguish between those who were fighting against taxation and those that were advocating for secession. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 479 in 1964 the somali republic initiated a ceasefire that remained until the close of the decade before the civilian government in mogadishu was overthrown by a military junta in 1969. the latter later re-visited the 1964 conflict and the unresolved issues thereof, and in the process plunged both ethiopia and the republic into a deadly war that generated the greatest number of refugees. limited cross-border trade there is no indication that the togochale border was involved in extensive cross-border trade during the imperial period. this is partly due to the limited available data on this area during this period. there is evidence, however, of trade in khat, to the british protectorate and beyond. the export taxes of this popular drug are reported to have been high – at two ethiopian dollars per kilo (foreign office 1954). it is likely that this was the only ethiopian export that passed through this border. following somali independence, all forms of cross-border trade were official and heavily regulated. khat remains one of the main ethiopian exports to pass through at togochale. as part of the process of modernisation and centralisation in the 1960s, cross-border trade was standardised and formalised according to strict customs rules and regulations. trade activities that take place outside official channels are perhaps the most common and rooted forms of cross-border trade at togochale. in conversations with people in jijiga, several people had personal stories of smuggling small quantities of goods and products across the border. regardless of strict rules at the border, local populations often managed to utilise the border for their own needs, where they deployed what can be termed as “practical norms” (blundo & de sardan 2006), based on personalised understandings of the meaning of the border. the populations were, overall, aware of the rules and regulations on cross-border trade, however, because of their familiarity with the landscape, they still managed to smuggle a limited number of goods. they were engaged in these activities because the goods were useful for daily consumption and for other more immediate needs. however, the changing official nature of the border had an impact on how the locals experienced it. the transformation of the border from a loosely defined concept during the bma to a more clearly defined entity after the bma, created a situation similar to what nugent (2002) sees as a “dual aspect,” where the border presents both constraint and opportunity. yet, from the perspective of central authorities, the strict measures and practices were a way of constituting a state (mitchell 1991). ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 480 radical centralisation, war and a refugee crisis in order to create and sustain the required levels of centralisation, the military regime that overthrew the ancien regime in 1974 needed to secure its territorial borders. unstable borders not only threatened the revolution, but also the territorially defined state, which was an integral component in the ongoing transformation of ethiopian society. by 1977, the ethiopian state was involved in a military confrontation with the eritreans in the north and at the same time faced increasing threats from somalia in the eastern front. these confrontations heightened the urgency to maintain the territorial integrity of the state. the resolve to maintain territorial control is evinced in a statement that was delivered by lt. col. mengistu haile-mariam to the 14th assembly of heads of state and government of the organisation of african unity (oau) in libreville, gabon, in july 1977: […] the frontiers between ethiopia and somalia are regulated by a series of international treaties. if somalia refuses to recognise these treatises, then somali itself which owes its very existence to a set of international agreements and decisions to which it was not a part must cease to exist. this fact may well be unpalatable to the somali leaders, but is a reality nonetheless. somalis are infiltrating with terrorists recruited, trained and financed by the government in mogadisho for sabotage and subversion in eastern ethiopia […] (ministry of foreign affairs 1977). the combination of internal upheaval in ethiopia and the war with somalia gave rise to the first major wave of refugees in the togochale border area. the current reasons for refugee flows in this region are not always political, but tend to be a combination of social, political and environmental factors. the human tragedy is often compounded by drought and famine. a refugee camp coordinator in jijiga aptly noted this, stating: environmental issues are additional, but it is political issues that are the major factors contributing to refugee inflows. if there was political stability, environmental issues like drought would not force people to flee and become refugees (mugoro 2011a; 2011b). the conciliatory spirit of the 1964 ceasefire between ethiopia and the republic of somalia was short lived. border skirmishes resumed when the dergue came to power in 1974. this was followed by reinforced security at the togochale border, as noted by an elder in jijiga. the elder recalled that after the dergue came to power she set out on a journey to hargeisa in northern ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 481 somalia but was detained at the togochale border. by her own admission, she was crossing the border illegally without the correct documentation. she spent a night in jail and was released the following day after her brother in hargeisa received news of her arrest and intervened. she noted that she was interrogated throughout the night, where she was shown photographs and asked to identify the people in the photos. it appears that the main objective of regulating cross-border movement was the apprehension of those that were deemed to be dissidents; under the new regime, the new role of the border was to contain and eliminate dissent. a recurring theme from the interviewees at jijiga is that everyone needed a passport to cross the border, but not everyone had one or could have one. from 1974 to 1978, immigration policies and practices were radicalised at the togochale border. the period after the war with somalia in 1978 saw the most significant changes in the usage of this border as internal political dynamics in the eastern periphery of ethiopia became radicalised. the militarisation of the region and the increasing tensions between ethiopia and the neighbouring republic of somalia led to stricter measures at the border. these measures were, indeed, a consequence of the radicalised conception of territorial statehood by the central state. this conceptualisation entailed the removal of perceived sources of discontent (clapham 2002), the origins of which the state was only too aware. the state’s security apparatus is reported to have routinely arrested people suspected of engaging in activities deemed hostile to the state, and generally terrorised anyone with contrary nationalist ambitions (hassen 2002). the economic revival of the togochale border the centuries-old objective of gaining access to the coast by successive ethiopian rulers has once again taken centre stage since 1991. the coming to power of the ethiopian people’s revolutionary democratic front (eprdf) ushered in an era of economic renewal in ethiopia, one not seen since the postwar period in the 1950s. changes in the domestic and regional political landscape called for a pragmatic approach on the part of the ethiopian state vis-à-vis its new neighbour, somaliland. in 1993, ethiopia became a landlocked country following eritrean independence, making it the most populous landlocked country in africa. ethiopia needed additional coastal outlets that, according to clapham (2006), can in principle be attained through any of its neighbours. however, political necessities are an ever-present reality in inter-state relations in this region. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 482 thus, in reality, ethiopia did not have many coastal options. in addition to the djibouti port (closest and overused) and mombasa (much further away), addis ababa was compelled to consider the opportunities presented by its new neighbour. however, by the somaliland authorities’ own admission, the berbera port lacks the adequate infrastructure to be a serious competitor to djibouti and mombasa. with very little to lose, somaliland has made several economic bilateral arrangements with ethiopia. however, its lack of international recognition makes formal arrangements with neighbouring countries a challenge. yet, ethiopia and somaliland have developed amicable relations, the political challenges notwithstanding. ethiopia was the first country to have permanent diplomatic representation in hargeisa, with ethiopian airlines one of the first to fly into the capital. yet, to the frustration of officials in hargeisa, ethiopia has not issued formal recognition. ethiopia’s reluctance to recognise somaliland is related to the unwillingness of authorities in addis to be seen to encourage secessionist states but it also has to do with the fact that “ethiopia rides several horses in the somali regional calculus […]” (jazhbay 2007). the extent of the cordial relations between ethiopia and somaliland is reflected at their mutual border at togochale and the surrounding ethiopian borderlands. the regulation of cross-border trade flows appears to be one of the main reasons for the presence of the ethiopian state at this border, to collect customs revenue. we can distinguish between unofficial and official trade. within these two categories, we will further differentiate between largescale and small-scale trade. in their 2002 cross-border trade study, tekan and azeze (2002) noted that, unofficial imports and exports abound in the border areas between eastern ethiopia and the neighbouring somali territories, and that the ethiopian government calls this trade ‘contraband.’ small and large-scale official and unofficial cross-border trade is present at togochale. this trade involves livestock, khat, some grains and cereals, coffee and second hand clothing. the unofficial trade of these goods is sometimes also referred to as informal cross-border trade, but is not always illegal. according to a united nations economic commission for africa (uneca) report, informal cross-border trade occurs when business activities cross borders based on supply and demand imperatives (uneca 2012). informal or unofficial trade at togochale is regulated by government import/export licenses, which are issued for fixed commodities to individual traders. some of ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 483 these licences were, at the time of research, capped at two thousand dollars a month for people who live in togochale and surrounding areas. the stimulant khat dominates both official and unofficial cross-border trade at togochale. the demand for khat is overwhelming on the somali side of the border and the supply appears endless on the ethiopian side. in january 2012, cross-border trade in khat was estimated at one million ethiopian birr a day, an amount approximately the equivalent of fifty thousand us dollars at the time. this was an official estimate, based on the trade that was accounted for. the illegal trade is said to be equally profitable. the economy of the hararjijiga-togochale area is dominated by khat. both largeand small-scale informal trade in khat is present in the border area, as well as in the nearby towns of jijiga and harar. next to khat, livestock trade features prominently in cross-border trade activities at togochale. sheep, cattle, goats and camels are the main types of livestock that are exported across the border. central to this trade are the extensive somali networks that control the trade. the trade is regulated by intricate systems that have been developed by various somali clans. indeed, large-scale livestock trade is dominant not only in the eastern ethiopian borderlands, but in the entire horn of africa sub-region. for the best way to witness the intricate trans-border trade in eastern ethiopia, one needs only to visit the babile camel and cattle market. babile market is the biggest in the eastern part of ethiopia and is strategically located on a major trade route. babile is located on what majid (2010) calls the “harar-jijiga-hargeisaberbera corridor.” this village-town is located on the main road between harar and jijiga, where the harar highlands give way to the jijiga plains. it is arguable that informal cross-border trade features high on the trade that takes place across the togochale border. the numbers have increased exponentially since the early 1990s. as mentioned previously, this has much to do with the political changes that have taken place in the region. the current ethiopian government has prioritised and accelerated economic development in the country, and this is reflected in the country’s economic statistics. it is also observable at the togochale border, which witnesses a high traffic volume. a number of borderland inhabitants are engaged in many sectors of informal cross-border trade on which they rely for their livelihood. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 484 conclusion this paper explored patterns of cross-border movement – namely migration, refugee movement and cross-border trade – since the 1960s in eastern ethiopia. the paper used archival material and secondary sources to construct a historical narrative of strong state presence at the togochale border of ethiopia. in doing this, the paper argued and demonstrated that the notable presence of the ethiopian state at this border is a consequence of how the ethiopian state conceptualises the notion of territorial statehood. the ethiopian state has a long history of statehood, which is much longer than most african countries. this is a result of the unique processes of state formation that unfolded beginning in the nineteenth century. from this experience, the peripheries became central to the conceptualisation of territorial statehood in ethiopia. even in the face of many challenges to ethiopian territory, successive rulers prioritised the maintenance of the territorial integrity of the state. this meant paying close attention to the country’s borders. this explains why the ethiopian states’ relationship with its territory, and borders in particular, appears to go against the african norm of limited state presence at the border. the paper problematised the lack of history and context in contemporary analyses of african statehood. in particular, the paper rejected the traditional approaches to statehood that are rooted in weberian sociology of the state. these approaches frown upon forms of statehood that depart from the weberian framework. to overcome this limitation, the paper employed an interpretive approach and a qualitative methodology that combines historical and ethnographic methods. and by using a constructivist inspired methodology that is inductive, interpretive and historical, the paper contributes to the body of knowledge that seeks to provide historical context for contemporary processes of state formation in africa. a blanket approach to understanding african territorial statehood does not get us far since it is often embedded in a singular colonial narrative, which then impedes our ability to understand atypical cases such as ethiopia. the paper has demonstrated that a country like ethiopia developed its own specific conception of territorial statehood, which led to the establishment of a unique relationship between the state and its borders. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 485 references asiwaju, a.i. 1985. partitioned culture areas: a checklist. in: asiwaju, a.i. 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(eds.). africa in the new international order, rethinking state sovereignty and regional security. boulder: lynne rienner publishers, pp. 56-68. zewde, b. 1991. a history of modern ethiopia, 1855-1974. athens: ohio university press. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 489 models for migrant leadership: the cape town women’s platform leah mundell* and emma carone** abstract since 2011, south africa has increasingly moved toward an immigration system of enforcement and exclusion, seeking to discourage immigration through punitive policies that make daily life for migrants difficult to bear. the closing of refugee reception offices in urban centers and restriction of job offers to south african id holders have caused many asylum seekers to become undocumented migrants and prevented them from working in the formal economy. in this context, some services that refugee organisations traditionally offer, such as job training and placement, become less useful for migrants who are undocumented and/or unable to work. this paper explores a new initiative of a cape town refugee organisation designed to support grassroots organising and to foment new networks of support and entrepreneurship for migrant women. members of eleven nationality groups currently participate in the scalabrini centre women’s platform, coming together across differences in migration status, religion, socioeconomic class and language to fight the isolation often caused by migration and to support business and personal development. our research uses interviews and participant observation to explore the role of mediating institutions in facilitating migrant leadership and organising. we suggest that efforts such as the women’s platform are setting the groundwork for long-term leadership development among migrants and refugees. nonetheless, the restrictions of the political and economic climate of south africa, as well as the professionalised expectations of mediating institutions, make this a slow process that may favor individual advancement over collective action for systemic change. keywords migration, development, gender, organising, solidarity. * department of anthropology, northern arizona university, arizona, usa 86011, visiting scholar 2014-2015, centre for social science research, university of cape town, cape town, western cape, south africa 7701, email: leah.mundell@nau.edu ** women’s platform manager, scalabrini centre of cape town, cape town, western cape, south africa, 8001, email: emma@scalabrini.org.za mailto:leah.mundell@nau.edu mailto:emma@scalabrini.org.za ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 490 introduction this paper examines one approach to the challenge of migrant integration in the face of xenophobia and restrictive immigration policies and practices. researchers have argued that migrant associations in south africa are typically fragile and transient. the women’s platform seeks to increase the longevity and efficacy of such associations by building a cross-nationality network supported by an established ngo that can provide access to resources. what is gained and what is lost through such an approach? this early assessment of the women’s platform suggests that this structure is setting the groundwork for long-term leadership development among migrants and refugees. nonetheless, the restrictions of the political and economic climate of south africa, as well as the professionalised expectations of mediating institutions, make this a slow process that may favour individual advancement over systemic change. background/context in the context of the current, high-profile surge of north african and middle eastern migration to europe, the fact that most african migration remains within the continent is relatively undiscussed (shimeles 2010). after the 1994 transition to democracy, south africa’s relatively strong economy and liberal asylum policy made it a welcome destination for migrants from across the continent. from 2006-2012, it is estimated that south africa received more applications for asylum than any other country in the world (wellman & landau 2015). asylum applications have dropped in recent years, primarily because of a new, limited visa category for zimbabweans fleeing the country’s economic and political crisis, but also because new immigration policies and practices have made it so difficult for migrants to apply for asylum (carciotto & mavura 2016; pugh 2014). until 2011, those seeking refugee status could apply for asylum at a refugee reception center in any one of the major cities in the country and then, with their asylum-seeker documents, were entitled to (though not always granted) basic services. soon after changing procedures to require asylum seekers to apply within five days of arriving in the country, the department of home affairs closed their refugee reception offices in johannesburg (closed in 2011), port elizabeth (closed in 2011) and cape town (closed in 2012). now refugees must go to pretoria, durban or back to the zimbabwean border at musina to file and renew their paperwork every three to six months (ngwato 2013). for migrants living in cape town, the time and expense of this long-distance travel precludes their maintaining asylum ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 491 seeker paperwork, even for those who would likely eventually be granted refugee status (johnson 2015). as a result, more and more migrants are living in south africa without valid immigration documents. at the same time, even those with valid asylumseeker documents or even approved refugee status, report that basic eligibility requirements for most employers include a south african identification card. an asylum seeker from the drc explained one way that employers screen out applicants without south african citizenship or permanent residency: the hotel will tell you that they’re not allowed to take cvs, that you must go to the agency. then they send you to agencies and the agencies will ask you if you are south african […] they will tell you, bring id. imagine, i am in south africa for nine years, but i only have the paper [that requires] renewal every six months… you will see in that paper, it is written “work and study,” but this [work and study] is for south africans, this is not for foreigners (interview 25 february, 2015). thus, while it is becoming increasingly difficult for migrants to obtain valid documents, those documents are worth less and less in terms of access to employment opportunities. our research explores whether this reality is beginning to erode the strict boundaries among asylum seekers, refugees and migrants – and between those who are viewed as deserving or undeserving – that have been carefully maintained by the state and by the civil society institutions that support refugees and migrants (newton 2008; sales 2002). does this context open up new opportunities for solidarity across these migration categories and is it spurring migrant support agencies to reconsider the services they provide? the scalabrini centre of cape town is a refugee services organisation founded in 1994 “with the commitment to alleviating poverty and promoting development in the western cape while fostering integration between migrants, refugees and south africans” (internal document). their mission also includes “promoting and protecting the human rights of highly vulnerable refugees, asylum seekers, displaced people and the poorest of the poor south africans as well as fostering democracy, non-discrimination, equality, participation and inclusion” (internal document). in recent years, their work has expanded to include an english school, a welfare desk to provide referrals for basic resources, an employment access program, school-based tolerance ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 492 education programs, an lgbti rights and awareness program and an advocacy department providing individual legal counseling and policy-level advocacy. the scalabrini centre is a professionally run organisation with both local and international staff members. the centre relies on the volunteer support of long-term interns, primarily from europe and the united states. it receives funding from european and american foundations and government aid organisations, private donations and income from its on-site guest house. in general, its programming priorities are set by staff and approved by its volunteer board, with clear program objectives and measurable goals. the women’s platform was new for scalabrini in several ways. the idea grew out of a proposal brought to the director by a zimbabwean staff member who had helped to found a zimbabwean women’s support group and informal business incubator. the staff member hoped that scalabrini might be willing to provide training and other capacity-building support to her group. in response, the director proposed that scalabrini launch a new initiative that would build and expand upon the model of the zimbabwean group to provide mutual support, training and networking opportunities. at the outset, the model for the women’s platform was to support existing, self-organised, nationality-based groups as well as to incubate new groups of this type. the women’s platform would then become a cross-national support network giving participants access to skills training, personal development workshops and small business development. in the early conceptualisation of the women’s platform, both the scalabrini director and the program manager (carone) expressed their excitement about the platform as a project designed and led by the participants themselves, unlike most other professionally-led scalabrini services. a collaborating researcher (mundell) worked with scalabrini staff, using surveys, small group meetings and interviews, to assess needs and interests and to help identify indigenous leadership. the idea was not to replace the successful nationalitybased groups but to give their members access to a wider network of both migrant and south african female leaders. the early participants in the platform included groups representing the rwandan, congolese, somali, angolan, zimbabwean, malawian, nigerian and south african communities. demographically, the group was extraordinarily diverse. while some had not completed high school (less than 20%), others had professional training but had not been able to find jobs in their fields because of their immigration status and/or lack of english language skills or ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 493 south african certification. in terms of immigration status, 39% had been granted refugee status, 23% carried an asylum-seeker permit, and the remainder carried other work permits, were undocumented or declined to reveal their status. about a third of participants were working, either in the formal or informal sector, while two-thirds had been unsuccessful in finding work or were caring for their children1. at first, the women’s platform worked primarily to engage participants in services the scalabrini centre already offered, such as computer literacy classes, health education programs and immigrant rights workshops. but because of the increasing lack of access to documentation and restrictions on foreigners’ rights to work, the centre’s traditional employment access program was becoming less and less relevant for migrants who were excluded from traditional employment or financial structures. the women’s platform staff considered how entrepreneurship training and micro-finance might provide alternate sources of income for participants. within the first six months, scalabrini staff had applied for international foundation and government funding, receiving grant support from the u.s. bureau of population, refugees, and migration. in their report on the first quarter of grant funding, scalabrini staff explained that members of the women’s platform are encouraged to participate in both the personal development and financial sustainability areas of the platform. personal development includes leadership, health education and human rights workshops, as well as trainings on work-readiness skills needed in specific industry sectors. from the women’s platform’s inception, staff spoke about their desire to utilise a “multipliers model, with trainings aimed at developing women’s leadership skills to enable them to bring this information back to their communities and become local resources themselves” (internal document). women’s platform participants are also beginning to lead workshops themselves, as part of the platform’s peer-to-peer training initiative. the financial sustainability component seeks to build on existing skills of women in the platform. currently, the sectors identified are beauty, childcare, crafting and food, all traditionally feminine areas of experience that can be utilised outside of formal employment structures. scalabrini staff have expressed their concern about gender niching, pushing women into ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 494 marginalised skill areas, and so they have been careful to voice their support for women who are seeking different areas of employment. however, the approach is also intensely practical. as carone (interview 10 may, 2016) explained in an interview, yes [it is gender niching], but it’s also market niching. those industries are available to women. these are industries that have a high turnover rate that women are able to find work in […] if you want to learn how to be an accountant, we still want to work with you, but our sector development is peer-to-peer. if you want to be an accountant, i can work with you, but right now we’re looking at what is the broad knowledge we all share. the question is whether these marginalised economic niches will give women the financial stability they seek. ideally, the women’s platform will be able to give them the business savvy, workplace experience and start-up capital they need to make it in these familiar but difficult sectors. theoretical framework in the wake of south africa’s violent xenophobic attacks in 2008, social scientists searched for a cause. explanations for the violence ranged from structural inequality (worby et al. 2008; gelb 2008; pillay 2008) to negrophobia (gqola 2008) to failures of local leadership (misago et al. 2009) to inadequacy of immigration policy (crush 2008) to a history of “violent entrepreneurship” in the townships (charman & piper 2012)2. social scientists went on to critique the public outrage that followed the attacks, arguing that horrified liberal whites were really expressing their own worst fears that, in a context of lawlessness and wealth redistribution, they might be the next targets (landau 2008). similarly, the state’s characterisation of the attacks as the work of common criminals masked the historical antecedents of the crisis, development policies that divide township residents into undeserving outsiders and insiders with access to services (nieftagodien 2008). bekker (2015) notes that a week after violence flared again in 2015, the state sought again to link immigrants with criminality by creating a new program initially carried out by the south african national defence force called operation fiela-reclaim. the operation targeted illegal weapons, drugs, ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 495 prostitution “and other illegal activities;” undocumented immigrants were also regularly caught up in its sweeps. these social analyses are critical to understanding the context for migrant lives, but in few of these works are the voices of migrants themselves foregrounded (mcdonald 2000b). in fact, migrant voices are missing not only from scholarship but also from public debate. landau argues that this is strategic, a kind of “tactical cosmopolitanism” utilised by migrants who “organize themselves to avoid the ethics of obligation to other migrant groups and their home communities” (landau & freemantle 2010: 381; landau 2006). our research among cape town migrant women shows that while migrants are hesitant to engage in collective action for policy change, they are in fact becoming highly organised around exactly their ethics of obligation to their own and other migrant groups. as evidence of this “tactical cosmopolitanism,” landau cites the “fragility and fragmentation of migrant associations,” (landau & freemantle 2010: 376) among the johannesburg groups he studied. others have pointed to the ways that migrant civil society organisations have been ignored and excluded from more established civil society and non-governmental organisations (everatt 2011; polzer & segatti 2011). yet we have very little research that actually examines the activities of such migrant organisations, whether they are government-supported agencies, traditional ngos or unions, church groups or mutual aid societies. this project seeks to examine the role such institutions play in mediating the experiences of migrants as they make their way in this often hostile environment. south african migrants are often analysed in terms of their social and economic needs, as victims of violence (in their home countries and then again in south africa), bigotry and poverty. in this way, despite research showing that migrants are critical to south africa’s economic development, migrants are popularly understood as recipients of social welfare and in need of government response (crush & williams 2003; crush & williams 2010; polzer 2008). this may be especially true for women migrants, who are often portrayed as victims in the migration process (agustin 2005). as kihato (2007) and others have pointed out, a focus on women migrants, not as merely victims of forced migration but also as agents in their own migration choices and experiences, may help to broaden often narrowly economistic explanations for migration (dodson 1998; harzig 2001). today, women represent almost half of all migrants worldwide and 45.9% of migrants in ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 496 africa (oecd-undisa 2013). this research makes an ethnographic intervention into questions of how women migrants themselves are organising, with south african mediating institutions, for their right to live peacefully in their host country. methodology research for this project began soon after the first meetings of the women’s platform in november 2014. as a visiting scholar at the university of cape town, leah mundell entered into a collaborative research agreement with the scalabrini centre to conduct ongoing qualitative research as a volunteer staff member of the women’s platform. emma carone, program manager for the women’s platform, collected demographic information, conducted informal observations and collaborated on data analysis. we conducted twenty semi-structured interviews with participants and staff of the women’s platform in 2015, focusing on their life experiences leading them to engage in the platform. interviews were conducted in english, with only one participant requesting a translator, so it should be noted that participants may have felt somewhat limited in their self-expression. additional qualitative research included focus group discussions with the original seven participating nationality groups to develop priorities for the platform. we have also undertaken ongoing participant observations of women’s platform meetings, staff planning meetings and workshops as well as conducted observations at women’s platform member project sites and group meetings. interview participants were selected based on their high level of participation in the women’s platform and in their own nationality-based groups, primarily between january and june 2015. many of these original women’s platform leaders, as noted below, are no longer as active in the program, and leadership has begun to shift to a group of women who see the women’s platform itself as their primary group affiliation. the initial 20 interviews cited here provided a well-rounded picture of the experiences and concerns of staff and participants during the formation of the women’s platform. a second round of interviews with newer, emerging leaders (planned for junejuly of 2017) will help evaluate the platform’s ongoing potential for leadership development, psycho-social support and economic stability. we also collected basic demographic information for 111 participants in the platform between november 2014 and june 2016 (data collection is ongoing), ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 497 including age, nationality, educational attainment and employment status. of this participant sample, nine nationalities were represented, with 54% from congo/drc. only five participants reported having less than a grade 10 education and 33 participants (30%) reported having at least some university or postsecondary education. at the time of data collection, 38% of participants reported being at least partially employed and 59% of participants reported not working at all. the participants were generally in their prime working and child-raising years; ages ranged from 16 to 56 years old, with 68% between the ages of 29 and 41 at the time of data collection. as a collaborative research team, we regularly shared observations and key themes from interviews with one another, other scalabrini staff and participant leaders of the women’s platform. our interview consent form included a checkbox asking whether information from the interview could be shared with scalabrini staff in order to improve services. mundell also reminded women’s platform participants that, in addition to helping to facilitate the platform, she was conducting ongoing research. engaged social science research seeks to address the power hierarchies that often characterise the relationship between researcher and research subjects, whether those subjects are individuals or organisations (low & merry 2010; lassiter & cook 2010). through our collaborative research design, we developed a research project and process that can provide ongoing benefit to the research partners and participants. regular discussion of the themes and concerns raised through this research have helped to shape the direction of the women’s platform and to make it more inclusive and responsive to participants’ needs. this paper provides an opportunity to share some of the tensions and considerations that have arisen in the context of this collaborative work. the women’s platform: lessons for migrant organising as the women’s platform is still only in its second year of existence, it is too early to draw decisive conclusions about its effectiveness or the unintended side effects of this approach. nonetheless, there are several important areas of tension the women’s platform experiences that are productive for considering migrant organising models. a. possibilities for cross-national solidarity because the women’s platform was initiated as a way to build on the success of one nationality-based women’s group, it was a logical approach to develop ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 498 nationality-based, locally led groups as the member units for the platform. similar, institution-based approaches to building social capital have proved effective in a wide range of organising efforts (stout 2010; warren 2011; wood 2002). nonetheless, the approach had some clear disadvantages in this context. giulia sinatti and cindy horst (2015), in their research on diaspora engagement discourse among european development agencies, highlight agencies’ problematic assumptions about migrants’ implicit connection to their territories of origin. nina glick schiller (2009), meanwhile, has shown that a focus on the nation-state as the relevant geographic region of relationship for migrants conceals the ways that different localities benefit differently from remittances. our own work developing the women’s platform helped reveal our early assumptions about the coherence and importance of nationality-based groups. several of the key leaders involved in the platform identified strongly as members of nationality-based groups, such as the somali association of south africa and kwesu, a congolese women’s group. but for others, nation-states were not relevant communities of origin. one participant had found the women’s platform through her infrequent attendance at a church where several members were attempting to start a rwandan women’s group. but her family connections spanned rwanda, burundi and congo, and she did not feel a connection with the rwandan group. a leader of this fledgling rwandan group spoke about the flagrant lack of trust that survivors of the rwandan genocide felt in interacting with other rwandan immigrants: you see, our community has a big problem, a big problem. sometimes you can come here all as refugees, but sometimes i can come here and find someone who killed my whole family. so, it is not easy to talk to that one and to give all my ideas, no. your mind closed, and she, her mind is closed. maybe she’s not the one, but is the member of a family who killed my family. it is a big issue for us. some of us are born in exile, too. they are born as a refugee. so, some are born in kenya, in burundi, in tanzania, in the congo, so our country has a big problem in how people must come and join as one community. as the women’s platform evolved, it was clear that this one-size-fits-all nationality group model was only really relevant for a few more established and coherent immigrant groups. what had once seemed a useful way to build ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 499 local capacity started to seem more like a gatekeeping mechanism that was preventing the participation of women who did not identify or affiliate with a nationality-based group. as women have begun joining the platform as individuals rather than institutional members, the group has diversified, including migrants from a broader range of countries of origin. changing the model in this way may also have opened up even greater opportunities for cross-national and cross-cultural education and solidarity. from the beginning of the women’s platform, participants spoke of the powerful impact of learning about the successes of migrants from other parts of africa. educated congolese christians were excited to learn more about the experiences of muslim somali women who were seeking out educational opportunities they did not have in their home communities. during a recent videoconference with women’s platform leaders, a congolese participant firmly but politely corrected a zimbabwean leader who had erroneously claimed that somali immigrants receive financial support from the somali government. the short interaction highlighted the important role that personal, cross-national interactions play in dispelling stereotypes within the migrant community. even those participants who are also members of active nationality-based groups see the women’s platform as playing a vital role in cultivating crosscultural interaction and innovation. as one platform leader explained, most of the people in kwesu are from drc, coming from the same background. when you come to women’s platform, it’s another thing. you’re meeting with women from a different background, different religion, different culture, you know. so that … changes our way of seeing things. so, it’s very, very inspiring meeting other women. so for kwesu to be in the women’s platform, it’s very, very, very significant for me. in the early months of the women’s platform, we also observed that participants rarely made distinctions among refugees, asylum-seekers and economic migrants. for example, at one women’s platform meeting, a malawian member pointed out that their group members were not able to take advantage of some of the opportunities being offered through the platform, because they did not have documents. the others responded sympathetically; no one attempted to assert that the malawians were less deserving of opportunities because they are not officially refugees. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 500 the question is whether the original intent of the institution-based structure of the platform, to cultivate and support local leadership, can be maintained through this new structure. in some ways, the individual membership-based model encourages a focus on individual uplift rather than systemic change. it also may be increasing dependence on scalabrini as a mediator, placing more of the leadership onus on professional staff rather than migrant women themselves, an issue that will be discussed in more detail below. b. micro-credit and expectations of sociality from the inception of the women’s platform, the established groups involved were engaged in small business development, though the financial models varied substantially. the original zimbabwean group used an accumulating savings and credit association (asca) model to incubate new businesses among its members3. the congolese group appeared to have relied primarily on financial support from its key leader, who had slowly accumulated sewing machines to start a sewing training center that generated a small income to help pay instructor salaries and rent. the somali group was affiliated with an ngo, the somali association of south africa that provided space and other inkind support. the possibility of raising and receiving financial support for small business development was a prospect that loomed over most early discussions of the women’s platform, among both staff and participants. many of the less developed groups’ capital investment needs were small: a new oven for a baking business, an ice cream machine for a street vender. but scalabrini staff were concerned that even with support for these investments, these businesses would fail because of the groups’ lack of business experience and preparation. women’s microfinance programs generally are designed to allow poor participants to substitute social collateral for the financial collateral they lack. caroline schuster, who has studied microfinance programs (including microcredit) in paraguay, usefully summarises anthropological critiques of microfinance programs, that they are “extractive, in that they commoditize women’s social ties, and coercive, in that they fundamentally alter social relations in extracting financial value from them” (schuster 2015b). shuster herself points out that both proponents and critics of microfinance rely on a ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 501 characterisation of women as hyper-social creatures. her work encourages us to explore how that sociality itself is constructed, that is, how women make themselves good microfinance participants. both staff and participants of the women’s platform have raised concerns that echo these critiques of the extractive and coercive nature of microfinance. they see the women’s platform as primarily a set of social supports based on relationships of trust and respect, with the possibility of business collaboration and funding growing out of those existing relationships. when new women arrive at the group with expectations of immediate financial assistance, both staff and longtime participants balk at what is seen as purely self-interested behavior. the ethos of the women’s platform is to build a broader understanding of self-interest that includes community responsibility. a women’s platform staff member who is also a member of the congolese women’s group, kwesu, explained: the big challenge for me, it’s with my experience i have with kwesu and the women’s platform – it’s like all the women when they are coming to the meeting, they are expecting something. others are like, if i go there, maybe i will get money to start my business, which is not possible. and others are expecting if i’m there maybe i can just easily get the job i want, maybe in one month. they don’t think about the future, what we are creating [with] each other. what you have you can also give to other women for them to benefit. initially, participants from established women’s groups such as kwesu seemed more socialised to these expectations than those who arrived at the women’s platform without strong existing ties. as another kwesu member reflected, you see, it’s just in our group, the ladies understand the meaning of ‘group.’ they know even when we don’t get today, but tomorrow we’ll get something. you understand? that’s our vision. we are coming, we are coming [to the group], we don’t know tomorrow. maybe something good can come from here. several of the original members of the women’s platform described the tangible and intangible benefits that they derived from participating in a group without clear expected outcomes. the kwesu member quoted above had a particularly poignant story of coming to cape town as a widowed mother of four, knowing no one until she attended a kwesu meeting and found that it ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 502 was being led by a dear childhood friend. her long lost “sister” not only revived her spirits but also helped her find a stable job and assisted her financially. what a blessing! that was a blessing i’m telling you, because since i found my sister, my life changed. i know today if i have a problem i know where i can go. if she needs me she comes to me, if i need her i go to her. she is my family now. she is my family here. now i say, i’m not alone. i have a sister. yet schuster’s caution about the way that microfinance programs help construct and propagate notions of women’s sociality is relevant here. not all women migrants in cape town are looking for the type of relationships that the women’s platform seems to require. perhaps those who are most resistant to this model are those who are most desperate for immediate financial support. for those who can manage the train fare and the time, the women’s platform can provide psycho-social relief from loneliness and the stress of managing life and family as an unwelcome immigrant. but for others, the social requirements of the group can feel like just one more bureaucratic hurdle to receiving the financial support they need to survive. c. local leadership and measures of success scalabrini’s funding from the u.s. bureau of population, refugees and migration will support (among many other programs) small business development grants for five businesses initially. unlike traditional microcredit programs offering solidarity loans, the money will not need to be paid back and therefore does not require the social collateral that can be so disruptive of existing social relationships. but because of this arrangement, scalabrini ultimately retains control over how the funds are spent. for example, an early experiment was to seed a catering business run by women’s platform members from zimbabwe using the scalabrini centre’s kitchen. despite the prime location in the central business district, the business was losing money and wasting food. several participants in the business stopped showing up regularly for work, forcing the one most committed worker to seek out other zimbabwean immigrants to help at the last minute. scalabrini centre staff felt they had to intervene, and ended up restructuring the business with strict requirements that participants work at least three days a week, without children in tow. the staff selected new participants (congolese and zimbabwean women who sometimes have trouble reconciling their language and culinary differences) and set up new systems for managing ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 503 inventory and pricing. the system has become much more efficient, and the participants are seeing an immediate financial output, but it will be many months before the migrant leaders have completed the required financial and business management trainings to regain control of the business. similarly, with other businesses that have received financial support from the women’s platform, scalabrini staff have stepped in to make management suggestions or advise on financial decisions. the project highlights the inherent tensions among the needs for immediate financial gains, long-term capacity building and ongoing leadership and agency of women’s platform members. one strategy that holds great promise for the development of participant leadership for the women’s platform is the peer-to-peer mentoring program, through which platform members train other members in particular skills of personal or financial development. importantly, mentors are paid for their services, though not as much as a professional facilitator would be paid 4 . women’s platform participants have expressed how impactful it is to learn from the successes of other migrants with whom they can relate and speak freely. peer mentoring is also at the heart of a new internship program that places platform members in workplaces to gain resume-building experience, some in business run by members of the platform themselves. the women’s platform supports these arrangements by providing transport costs for the intern and a placement fee to the mentor. many of the women who took initial leadership roles in the women’s platform are no longer active on a regular basis. some have been able to find full-time jobs, others are going to school or working on their own businesses, and a few have left the cape town area. these original leaders were identified as having strong networks of people they could connect to the platform, and many of them saw themselves not in need of support but rather as conduits for information and resources. platform staff describe current participants as being more “in need” of the support of the network. but this also means that they may be less well-positioned to take on leadership roles and can easily come to be seen as recipients of scalabrini’s services rather than active collaborators in the development of the women’s platform5. nonetheless, the women’s platform is working on new leadership models that do not require the kinds of institutional or national group-based connections ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 504 needed initially. the most active members of the platform have been invited to join a leadership group that plans and leads monthly platform meetings, receives ongoing leadership training and provides direction for the platform as a whole. these leaders, like the initial nationality-group leaders of the platform, have been selected by the women’s platform’s paid staff team, which has grown to include a full-time project manager, an assistant manager, an intern and part-time support from another staff member. the tension between professionalisation and participant leadership is one that has been present since the inception of the platform. as an early leader explained, when it’s in the community, it’s comfortable. it gives a sense of freedom and control. when we call a meeting here in scalabrini, people feel they must be professional. they don’t want to share their real problems. people don’t open up. they wear one or two masks. the mostly white professional staff for the platform often express their sense that their presence can inhibit free discussion and easy exchange of ideas. however they have not yet hired an african immigrant (or black south african) as a primary staff member for the platform. this will be a key transition moving forward, to ensure that the platform does not become yet another development project whose primary beneficiaries are white staff members (ferguson 1994). d. individual leadership versus collective action the women’s platform has developed social norms that reward model participants who see themselves as responsible to other women, both inside and outside the group. within this strong commitment to community, the approach to advocacy and social change is individual rather than collective. while the members of the platform lament the policy changes that have made south africa more restrictive in integrating migrants, they do not generally see themselves in a position to advocate collectively for policy change. their tenuous position in south african society has left most women feeling too vulnerable to participate in social protest. and because many of them come from countries where political dissidence has resulted in violence, sometimes to their own families, they are highly aware of the risks of such activism. instead, both staff and participants see the women’s platform as giving them access to information and resources that can arm them to fight for the rights to which they are entitled but which often are violated. when parents are ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 505 turned away trying to register their children at a government school, for example, they may know that education is a universal right in south africa, but they feel they have no recourse. the women’s platform provides both the knowledge of legal rights, the social support to advocate for oneself and, in some cases, legal resources to fight one’s case. south african scholars have pointed out that, in the wake of the violence of 2008, migrant organisations have not mobilised strategic claims to "minority" status or cultural citizenship as have such movements in other parts of the world, including movements for cultural citizenship in the united states. (polzer & segatti 2011; galvez 2010; rosaldo 1997; de genova 2002; de genova 2005). yet south africa's constitutional and discursive claims as a "rainbow nation," notwithstanding recent moves to restrict migration to the country, seem to invite the use of such strategies (griffin 2011). as the women’s platform moves forward, it remains to be seen whether the platform’s focus on individual responsibility to the community presages eventual collective action for fundamental human rights. conclusion the challenges and opportunities of migrant integration that south africa is currently experiencing are not unique. however, the context of post-apartheid democratic transition, attempted transformation of racial hierarchies and ongoing economic struggles, creates particular pressure for the country to integrate migrants in a way that advances social goals. as south africa wrestles with ongoing political and economic challenges, immigration may play a key role in shaping the broader politics of the nation (mcdonald 2000a; nyamnjoh 2006). the scalabrini centre women’s platform is a promising model for building multi-national migrant leadership not only for individual advancement but also potentially for systemic change. however, it will continue to require careful attention to the role of the mediating institution in constructing and maintaining gendered norms of sociality, racialised hierarchies of professional versus volunteer leadership, and expected outcomes of individual uplift and responsibility to community. there are inherent tensions in this work between migrants’ immediate financial and social needs and the potential for long-term capacity building and leadership. if the women’s platform can successfully manage these tensions, it may ultimately be a force in developing a powerful migrant constituency for human rights in south africa. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 506 acknowledgements many thanks to the members and staff of the scalabrini centre women’s platform for their willingness to participate in this research and for their insights. in particular, we are grateful for the leadership and support of miranda madikane, director of the scalabrini centre of cape town. thanks also to the centre for social science research at the university of cape town for hosting leah mundell as a visiting scholar during 2014-2015. notes 1 scalabrini staff attempt to collect demographic information from all participants in women’s platform meetings, trainings or events. as of june 2016, 111 individuals had shared this information. all data are self-reported, though staff assists participants in filling out the form when necessary. 2 bekker (2010) summarises these explanations differently, dividing them into the following categories: “(i) external structural causes, (ii) factors directly related to specific outbursts, (iii) factors relating to diffusion of outbursts, and (iv) perceptions concerning policing.” 3 the group used the general south african term “stokvel” to describe its financial approach. in this case, participants contributed regularly to a fund that was then distributed to members based on their business proposals to the group. 4 scalabrini staff negotiated the fee with members of the women’s platform and agreed on an amount that is about 60% of what professional facilitators are paid. new facilitators will be paid less and work up to this amount. again, this raises concerns about parity between the paid, full-time staff of the platform and the volunteer or part-time paid participants. 5 nonetheless, the staff feel that the current leaders may have more freedom to develop leadership across networks that transcend nationality. one staff member who is also a refugee herself commented, “when they meet together you can see that they’re all leaders. the women’s platform leaders are taking over the platform, because now they are suggesting what kind of workshops they want, and they always give feedback when we need their thoughts.” ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 507 references agustin, l.m. 2005. migrants in the mistress’s house: other voices in the ‘‘trafficking’’ debate. social politics: international studies in gender, state and society, 12(1): 96-117. bekker, s. 2015. violent xenophobic episodes in south africa, 2008 and 2015. african human mobility review, 1(3): 230-253. bekker, s. 2010. explaining violence against foreigners and strangers in urban south africa: outbursts during may and june 2008. in: yusuf, a.a. 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(eds.). 2008. go home or die here: violence, xenophobia, and the reinvention of difference in south africa. johannesburg: wits university press. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 512 exploring youth migration and the food security nexus: zimbabwean youths in cape town, south africa sean t. sithole* and mulugeta f. dinbabo** abstract in recent times, debates on the connection between migration and development surfaced as essential discourses in contemporary development issues. consequently, this led to the birth of what is currently popularly coined as the migration-development nexus. in addition, there has been an evolution of the food security topic in various developmental discussions. nevertheless, little attention has been given to the relationship between international migration and food security in the context of development in the global south. moreover, missing in the literature is the conversation on migration and food security with particular attention to youths who constitute a vulnerable yet economically active group. furthermore, there has been an ongoing engaging debate on the impact of remittances, whether remittances for household use are developmental in nature or not. this study, in contributing to the above debates, explores the link between youth migration and food security, and is based on a quantitative empirical study on zimbabwean migrant youths in cape town, south africa. the research presents comprehensive perspectives on the complexities linked to the reasons for youth migration in connection to food security, the importance of remittances on food security in the place of origin and levels of food insecurity in the place of destination. results from this study can provide useful data for various stakeholders involved in both international migration and food security development agendas. keywords development, food security, migration, remittances and youth. introduction the dawn of the 21st century heralded the migration-development nexus discourse which resurfaced as an imperative subject in the development * phd candidate, faculty of arts, university of the western cape, south africa, email: seansithole88@gmail.com ** institute for social development, faculty of economic and management science, university of the western cape, south africa, email: mdinbabo@uwc.ac.za mailto:seansithole88@gmail.com mailto:mdinbabo@uwc.ac.za ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 513 agenda and has expanded remarkably since then. globally, the connection between migration and development has been an important yet controversial discourse which has led to an engaging academic contestation or scholarly debate and attention in the midst of policy makers, researchers and academics, among others stakeholders. various ideas and recommendations have been put forward in recent times on how best to approach the migrationdevelopment nexus (sørensen et al. 2002; united nations 2006; castles & wise 2008; bakewell 2008; skeldon 2008; piper 2009; wise & covarrubias 2009; glick schiller 2011; brønden 2012; sørensen 2012; de haas 2012; bastia 2013). this points to the fact that there is a vast expansion of interesting, yet greatly disparate literature on migration and development dialogue, showing its diversity and habitually ever-changing perspective. the focus of the above publications and discussions was on the progressive impact that migration could possibly perform in developmental issues globally, and in developing countries in particular. the above literature also shows continuity and paradox through paradigm shift from macro issues which exclusively viewed migration at an international and national level in the context of economic growth, and on the other hand, micro extreme perspectives where migration through remittances is seen as a livelihoods strategy which is beneficial to the migrant as well as family members left behind in the place of origin. a number of scholars (kapur 2005; de haas 2005; de haas 2007; crush & pendleton 2009; crush 2012) have skeptical attitudes towards the notion that the household or individual use of remittances for basic necessities and not for productivity or investments, in turn, causes hindrance to economic growth and development. this is a naïve and ideologically bankrupt view which is lagging behind contemporary development issues. this is so because migration benefits to households and their livelihoods are an important aspect of sustainable livelihoods, especially the availability of income and remittances to buy food and other basic commodities. as noted by de haan (1999: 31), remittances are not only used towards what many development professionals regard as productive investments, they are also a vital aspect of households’ strategic planning for survival. in addition, another key aspect of this argument is the disengagement between migration and food security which is noted by crush (2012), who argues that the major drawback of the discourse on migration-development nexus over the years has been the lack of methodological dialogues and limited attention on the linkages between human mobility and food security, especially in the ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 514 framework of south-south migration. crush (2012) makes interesting points by arguing convincingly that food insecurity is shockingly not considered as one of the main determinants of human mobility, the debate overlooks the fact that migrants cross borders in search of areas with better accessibility and availability of food sources, as well as migrating in order to meet the basic needs of people back in the place of origin. both migration and food security aspects are fundamental in the development agenda; consequently, in recent times, there has been a genesis of literature combining migration and food security. nevertheless, the key argument of this paper is that missing from the existing and emerging academic debates on the marriage between migration and food security are narratives on the phenomenon of youth mobility in search of income for food security. youths belong to a vulnerable group which faces challenges including high unemployment, social segregation, stigmatization, and low incomes and salaries, just to mention a few, which in turn lead to the phenomenon of youth migration. hence, youths should be involved in the migration-food security nexus debate. it is equally important to note that recently the international community has experienced a shocking rate of youth migration and food insecurity on one hand and a vast number of remittances sent to the places of origin on the other. in 2010, 27 million migrants globally in the 15-24 age category made up 12.4% of the 214 million international migrants, and when migrants in the 25-34 age category are included in the same year, migrant youths represented one-third of international migrants (undesa 2011: 12-13). in regards to food security, from 2011 to 2013, 842 million, or 1 in 8, people globally were suffering from continuous hunger and food shortages, indicating that the millennium development goal of eliminating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 continued to be illusive (fao et al. 2013: 4). furthermore, in 2013, the overall remittances totaled an astonishing $542 billion with $404 billion sent to developing countries and amounts expected to rise in the coming years (world bank 2014: 2). in the african context, remittances have contributed immensely to macro as well as micro level development, especially for poverty reduction and sustaining livelihoods. this study argues that a development agenda that does not consider connecting youth migration and food security would be out of date on current developmental issues. background and contextualisation the independence of zimbabwe in 1980 brought about immense joy, euphoria and jubilation, a new economic giant in africa was born and, for a decade ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 515 spanning from 1980 to 1990, the country was flourishing economically and socially. however, events in the 1990s signalled the beginning of the collapse of a promising economy6. from the start of the 21st century, hyperinflation, political and socio-economic crisis, led to mass exodus within and across the zimbabwean border. in addition, the economic meltdown in zimbabwe led to an increase in ‘brain drain,’ the emigration of skilled zimbabweans from the nation state, especially professionals in the health and education sectors, because of better opportunities in foreign destinations (tevera & crush 2003: 1). in 2009, the zimbabwean dollar’s reliability vanished through the dollarization of the economy, as it was replaced with the us dollar and other foreign currencies (noko 2011) that the country is still using today. however, the economy continues to shrink, zimbabwean youth are now hopeless because many university graduates have been turned into street vendors (masekesa & chibaya, 2014), zimbabwe’s unemployment levels are estimated to be 80%, with 68% of this percentage being vulnerable youths (mukuhlani 2014: 138). over the years, remittances from abroad have played a vital role for many in zimbabwe. a 2014 estimation indicated that $1.8 billion was sent to zimbabwe by zimbabweans in the diaspora (the africa report 2014). as such, in the context of the crisis in zimbabwe, remittances have saved the country from total collapse. prior to independence, zimbabwe was mainly a migrant-receiving nation and then became a migrant-sending nation after independence because of the economic crisis (tevera & zinyama 2002; bloch 2006; crush & tevera 2010). zimbabwe’s case has been viewed by crush and tevera (2010) as ‘crisisdriven’ migration, the socio-economic and political crisis has turned the once cherished breadbasket of africa into a basket case7. the zimbabwean case is a tragedy; the economy, health and education sectors, have been crippled, food insecurity and poverty are still major challenges, and millions of zimbabweans, youth included, have migrated to other countries, especially to south africa, for greener pastures. this exile includes food-insecure 6 these events included the economic structural adjustment programme (esap), draining of the government coffers through a bonus to liberation war veterans and the land reform programme, all of which had a negative impact on the economy. 7 the words ‘bread basket to basket case’ are mainly used in reference to zimbabwe, which used to produce a surplus of food and other resources for its people and other countries. however, in recent times with the food shortages and socio-economic crisis, the once full basket (zimbabwe) is now empty. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 516 zimbabweans from all walks of life who have been pushed out by the disastrous situation in the country. methodology the study was conducted at three locations in cape town, namely, bellville, rondebosch and observatory. cape town is a city located in the western province of south africa and is second to johannesburg as the most heavily populated metropolitan in the country (western cape government 2013). cape town is also the tenth most populous city in the african continent (morris 2014). it is also amongst the prominent multicultural cities in the globe which makes it very attractive to migrants (expat cape town 2014). bellville, rondebosch and observatory were selected because they are residence to a large number of zimbabwean youth, migrant students and workers. these areas also have a variety of food sources in an urban set up and represent two different suburbs, the northern and southern suburbs. this research adopted a quantitative method approach; 60 zimbabwean youths were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. respondents who participated in the quantitative structured questionnaires were selected using nonprobability sampling, to be specific, snowballing sampling was used. the research was systematically carried out, and managed to reach its objectives. nevertheless, the researchers were also mindful of some challenges in locating the target group under study, as migrants were reluctant to disclose their identity due to fear of discrimination, victimisation, xenophobia or prosecution because of lack of proper immigration documentation. fortunately, social networks used to locate respondents proved to be very helpful. literature review the literature on the link between migration and food security in the context of internal migration has paid much attention to rural communities; however, with food security recently being recognised as an urban challenge, the focus has shifted to rural-urban migration. this is shown by several publications (frayne 2007; crush et al. 2007; drimie 2008; kassie et al. 2008; frayne 2010; tawodzera 2013; pendleton et al. 2014; dinbabo & nyasulu 2015). the studies revealed that the social networks among rural and urban families are fundamental to survival strategies of the poor people in cities and that, to a lesser degree, urban agriculture contributes to sustainable livelihoods. urban dwellers that face food shortages are those with few or no social links with rural communities. on the contrary, those with strong rural-urban links have ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 517 the privilege of getting food from rural communities that counterbalance exposure to food insecurity. the mutual benefit is also seen through the fact that remittances and food transfers are not one-directional, there is a ruralurban as well as the urban-rural transfer of goods, commodities and money. the existence of reciprocal connections between rural and urban areas is vital to the sustainable living conditions of distraught urban dwellers. several empirical studies in india were conducted linking human mobility and nutrition issues, with a particular focus on malnutrition, food consumption and dietary matters (choudhary & parthasarathy 2009; bowen et al. 2011; tripathi & srivastava 2011). zezza et al. (2011) examined the connection between migration and nutrition issues in third-world countries using migration at a local, regional and international levels, which resulted in various outcomes. of great interest are the findings from the above research that indicated that child growth or improved dietary intake is linked to human mobility, especially in poverty struck and vulnerable communities, signalling the importance of remittances used to access nutritious and sufficient food. the most thought-provoking response to migration and food security and an essential publication in the migration-food security debate is crush’s (2012) examination of urbanism, internal and international migration in relation to food security in the african context. the article argues that food shortages and insecurity can surely be main causes for migration and a search for better income-earning prospects. crush (2012) also found that the main cause of urban food insecurity is not scarcities but deficiency in food accessibility, that is to say, lack of a consistent and dependable source of income for food consumption. the paper also compared migrant and non-migrant families. the results indicated that both categories face food insecurity challenges, however, in some cases migrant households proved to be more food insecure, with both rural-urban and international migration rising rapidly as well as migrants or combinations of migrants and locals occupying the most impoverished locations in urban areas. various scholars have endorsed migration as a strategic decision used by many households and vulnerable communities for poverty reduction and improved livelihoods (mcdowell & de haan 1997; scoones 1998; de haan 1999; skeldon 2002; kothari 2002; ellis 2003; dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015). on the other hand, remittances have been viewed as having positive developmental impact as well as being used as a source of income to reduce poverty and acquire basic needs especially during crisis years (maimbo & ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 518 ratha 2005; adams & page 2005; adams 2011). hence, remittances can be a form of social protection, enabling migrant families to have better ways to earn a living than non-migrant families (kapur 2003). various studies in southern africa indicated that in recent times remittances have been vital as a basis of income for many households and economies (pendleton et al. 2006; maphosa 2007; bracking & sachikonye 2010; crush et al. 2010). in the context of zimbabwe, research (maphosa 2007; tevera & chikanda 2009; bracking & sachikonye 2010) showed that money and goods transferred by migrants are vital to the families, individuals and economy of zimbabwe. their assessment also specified that in relation to the socioeconomic and political watershed in the country, the main use of remittances is for basic needs like food, education, home construction and health services, among other things, and that the transfer of financial resources and other commodities by migrants has served many people from the effects of poverty and shortages of goods. in connection with the above, this study argues that the new economics of labour migration (nelm) put into perspective the link between youth migration and food security of zimbabwean youths. the new economics of labour migration signifies a major progression in the population movement discourse. with the growing attention on people-centred development in the last quarter of the 20th century, the new economics of labour migration materialised with a critical view and expansion of the neoclassical theories which were viewed as passive in dealing with population movement and developmental issues (massey et al. 1993). the hypothesis of this theory is that households or families strategically migrate to capitalise on income earnings as well as to reduce vulnerability to various threats. hence, remittances offer a social protection, and the risk protection clarifies why human mobility can occur in situations where there are no differences in wages in the places of origin and destination (de haas 2010). the main perception of the new economics of labour migration is that when people decide to migrate, the choices are not reached by individuals; rather they are made at a broader level through collective elements such as strategic family or household decisions, in order to increase financial security and reduce vulnerability and challenges related to market let-downs or unexpected risks (stark & levhari 1982; stark & bloom 1985; taylor 1999: 74). remittances are seen as central to better livelihoods by providing financial security (stark 1980). as noted by taylor et al. (1996), previous work ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 519 by neoclassical theorists tended to be too pessimistic and fails to address the importance of remittances in supporting or sustaining families and societies. in other words, the importance of remittances is absent in the pessimist theories on migration. conversely, at the heart of the new economics of labour migration is the fundamental role that remittances play in sustaining livelihoods of many households which, in turn, becomes the main reason for migration decisions. the above literature did not take into account any investigation on vulnerable youths, in connection with migration and food security, with the main emphasis being on better livelihoods. furthermore, there is over-emphasis on internal migration and food security or livelihoods; most of the literature is silent about migration and food security or livelihoods across borders. taking into account the above-mentioned research gaps on the connection between migration and food security, this research presents an analytical framework and exploration of the link between youth migration and food security. empirical findings, data and analysis a) youth background and demographic information the survey made a background check to confirm the nationality of the respondents; all 60 interviewed were zimbabwean nationals. out of the 60 respondents, 60% were males and 40% were females. the age breakdown in the survey included 36.7% aged between 25 and 29; 31.7% between 30 and 34; 30% between 20 and 24; and 1.7% between 15 and 19. in this study, the majority, 71.7%, were single; 21.7% were married; 5% were divorced; and 1.7% did not specify marital status. the majority of the individuals, 71.67%, were breadwinners; 18.33% specified that their relatives such as brothers and sisters were breadwinners; and 10% stated that their husbands were breadwinners. the survey also illustrated that 38.3% had no dependents; 18.3% had three dependents; 18.3% had two dependents; 11.7% had one dependent; 6.7% had four dependents; and 6.7% had five dependents. the heritage of an educated and literate zimbabwean population was evident in the survey, with 60% having completed university level education; 30% having completed secondary education; 6.7% vocational; and 3.3% other categories. b) youth employment status in this survey, the majority, 76.7%, indicated that they were unemployed prior to coming to south africa, while only 23.3% were employed before coming to ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 520 south africa. in recent times unemployment in zimbabwe has become a massive national crisis, as stated by rusvingo (2015: 2), with the unemployment rate estimated to be 85%. this is in line with the claim that since 2000 the crisis and high unemployment in zimbabwe led to the emergence of informal dealings popularly known as ‘kukiya-kiya’ (jones 2010)8. however, the current situation in south africa was remarkably better, 83.3% of the respondents were currently employed and only 16.7% were out of employment. among the 50 employed respondents, 88% were employees and 12% were self-employed. in addition, out of these same 50 respondents, 74% were employed part-time and 26% were employed full-time. evident in this research is that zimbabwe’s economic meltdown has caused high unemployment in general and youth unemployment in particular, with south africa providing better employment opportunities. c) reasons for migrating to south africa in the context of this study, the respondents were allowed to give multiple answers in relation to the drivers of migration from zimbabwe to south africa. 65% confirmed that socio-economic crisis influenced their decision to migrate while 35% differed. only 22% indicated that political crisis influenced their decision to migrate while 78% opposed this opinion. 63% indicated that food shortages influenced their decision to migrate whereas 37% differed. 25% had other reasons to migrate such as coming to school (figure 1). to put this into perspective, migration is generally viewed as a response to poverty, vulnerability to various risks and poor access to basic needs, hence people move in search of greener pastures (skeldon 2002). within sub-saharan africa, cross-border migration is mainly a result of economic factors (dinbabo & carciotto 2015). 8 ‘kukiya-kiya’ is an informal strategy of doing any kind of business to earn a living (jones 2010). ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 521 figure 1: reasons for migrating to south africa source: field survey, 2015. in the case of zimbabwe, poverty is very much linked to the determinants of migration where people run away from poverty to other countries seeking better opportunities and improved livelihoods (dzingirai, et al. 2014). unsurprisingly, the findings of this research confirmed that the crippled and disjointed zimbabwean economy, as well as the chaotic social and political circumstances, have overwhelmed many zimbabweans and pushed many youth out of the country in search of improved access to food and better opportunities elsewhere. the high rate at which zimbabweans have migrated from zimbabwe because of the deteriorating economy has been termed “survival migration” (crush et al. 2012: 5). additionally, since 2000, political ferocity and economic crisis in zimbabwe has led to outwards migration at a high or unusual level (hammar et al. 2010: 263). 65% 22% 63% 25% 35% 78% 37% 75% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% reasons for migrating yes no ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 522 d) family or household influence on migration decision the family or household influence on migration decisions was evident in most of the interview responses as 70% of the respondents indicated that their household/family members influenced their decision to migrate, whereas only 30% differed. general responses here were that family/household members advised that in south africa there were “greener pastures,” “better opportunities,” “jobs” and that migration would help the upkeep of the family/household members. in addition, 63% of the respondents indicated that they migrated to south africa in order to meet the food needs of family/household members back in the country of origin, while 37% differed. this is linked to the new economics of labour migration (nelm) which states that migration is a strategic choice made at a household or family level, which is generally better than at an individual level and is primarily done in order to improve income and reduce or share the responsibility of possible risks (de haas 2010: 242-243). this is also in line with the livelihood approaches to migration, as argued by ellis (2003) that considers migration as vital to improving livelihoods of many communities. in addition, there was a statistically significant (p<0.001) link between (1) the influence of food shortages/food insecurity and (2) the influence of family/household members on the migration decision. furthermore, there was also a statistically significant (p<0.002) association between (1) the influence of food shortages/food insecurity on migration decision and (2) the migration decision in order to meet the food needs of the family/household members. without a doubt, it is clear in this study that family/household members played a huge part in the migration decision in order to reduce the risk or vulnerability to food insecurity of themselves and the migrant family/household member. e) youth migration, remittances, and food security the findings in this research reveal that most zimbabweans remit to their households, family or friends in zimbabwe, with the majority (75%) of the respondents noting that they send money to zimbabwe while only 25% do not send money. one of the main notions of the new economics of labour migration (nelm) is that human mobility and remittances sent back to the place of origin provide financial resources which help in reducing any potential risks (taylor 1999). to put it in another way, central to the new economics of labour migration (nelm) is that remittances sent back to the ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 523 place of origin play a crucial role in poverty reduction and improving the livelihoods of many households. the frequency of remitting money to zimbabwe was as follows: 42.2% every month; 26.7% whenever possible; 22.2% every three months; 4.4% once a year; and 4.4% twice a year. average money remitted each time to zimbabwe was: 55.6% between r801 and r1500; 22.2% between r0 and r800; 15.6% between r1501 and r3000; and 6.7% between r3000 and r8000 (table 1). unsurprisingly considering the backdrop of the decaying and crumbling zimbabwean economy where opportunities are scarce, remittances behaviour revealed in this study indicates that resources are remitted back to the place of origin on a regular basis. in the context of zimbabwe, a study by dzingirai et al. (2015) indicated that households with migrants have an improved standard of living or healthier livelihood than those without. this is due to remittances which play a crucial part in reducing poverty by providing a source of income to buy basic needs. table 1: frequency and average remittances sent to zimbabwe frequency of sending remittances category numb er percentage every month 19 42.2% every 3 months 10 22.2% twice a year 2 4.4% once a year 2 4.4% whenever possible 12 26.7% total = 45 average amount sent each time to zimbabwe 0 r800 10 22.2% r801 r1500 25 55.6% r1501 r3000 7 15.6% r3001 r8000 3 6.7% r8000+ 0 0% total = 45 source: field survey, 2015. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 524 in line with this, as part of the study, respondents were asked whether they send money to be used for food consumption. a huge majority 82.2% said yes while 17.8% said no. in addition, they were asked whether they believe that the money they send is used for food consumption. 91.1% of the respondents said yes while 8.9% said no. money remittances are important, however, this survey also asked respondents whether they also send any food items/groceries back to their place of origin: 10% of the respondents said they do send groceries while 90% said they do not. in line with this, migration can make an important contribution to the livelihoods of family or household members left behind in the place of origin through remittances which could increase the chances of consuming a variety of foods contributing to a balanced diet (karamba et al. 2011; zezza et al. 2011). ellis (2003) argues that if money remitted to the place of origin is used for food consumption it is logically mainly because of food shortages and, as such, plays a crucial role in establishing food security, especially in uncertain circumstances. in connection with this, there was a statistically significant (p<0.000) relationship between (1) the sending of remittances and (2) the sending of the remittances for it to be used for food consumption, as well as (1) the connection between sending remittances and (2) believing that the remittances are used for food consumption (p<0.000). moreover, there was also a statistically significant (p<0.000) linkage between (1) the sending of remittances for them to be used for food consumption and (2) the belief that the remittances are used for food consumption. furthermore, there is a statistically significant (p<0.049) relationship between (1) migration in order to meet the food needs of household/family members and (1) the sending of food back to the country of origin. evidently, the data shows that one of the main reasons for migrating is to get income to send back to the place of origin. the remittances are sent to be primarily used for food consumption and the migrants who send the remittances do believe that the money is essentially used to buy food. f) youth migrants and food security this section provides information and analysis on the food insecurity level of zimbabwean youth migrants in cape town. the measurement of food insecurity was done by means of the household food insecurity access scale (hfias), household food insecurity access prevalence indicator (hfiap), household dietary diversity scale (hdds), household food insecurity access ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 525 related conditions, household food insecurity access-related domains and the months of adequate household provisioning indicator (mahfp). the average hfias score for zimbabwean youth migrants in cape town was 0.13; the mean score of the hfais was 3.66; the median 2; and the mode 0. the hfiap scores had noteworthy variances: 36.7% food secure; 25% mildly food insecure; 26.7% moderately food insecure; and 11.7% severely food insecure. this shows that 63.3% of the respondents were food insecure, whereas only 36.7% were food secure. the hfias and the hfiap show low general levels of severe food insecurity amongst zimbabwean youth in cape town. in measuring the particular food insecurity conditions through the conduct and opinions of the participants, the household food insecurity accessrelated conditions showed that 36.7% were worried that they would not get enough food while 63.3% were not worried. the frequency was 20% for those who said rarely (once or twice in the past four weeks) and 16.3% said sometimes (three to ten times in the past four weeks). in terms of severe food insecurity conditions, only 6.7% indicated that there was no food to consume because of limited resources, while 93.3% differed. additionally, 8.3% indicated that they went to bed hungry because of insufficient food for consumption. moreover, a minority 1.7% point out that they went an entire 24 hours without consuming any food due to food scarcity. another important measure of food insecurity is the household food insecurity access-related domains which point to the fact that 47.2% had an insufficient quality of food and 52.8% had the desired adequate quality of food. in regards to the quantity of food, 30% indicated that they had food consumption deficient, whereas the majority, 70%, had sufficient food intake. this means, basically, that in terms of food insecurity conditions over half of the respondents were not extremely worried about their situations, especially when it came to the quality or quantity of food. on the other hand, the food access related domains were insightful and showed that the majority of the respondents had high or adequate food consumption. in the context of this research, the levels of food insecurity were also measured using the hdds which deals with the quality of the diet consumed by respondents. the mean score of the hdds was 6.56 of the potential maximum of 12 which specify that on average at least 6 different types of food categories were consumed by the respondents. on the other hand, the median and mode scores were 6 and 5 respectively, signifying that the respondents consumed at least or almost half of the food in the 12 food groups. the most consumed ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 526 categories were meat (96.7%), oil/fats (90%), sugar/honey (76.7%), cereals (73.3%), milk (73.3%) and vegetables (70%). on the other hand the least consumed foods groups were fish/seafood (6.7%), root/tubers (18.3%) and pulses/legumes/nuts (26.7%), as presented in table 2. the figures show that on average the respondents were consuming half of the 12 food categories, as well as high amounts of of meat, oil or fats, sugar or honey, cereals, milk and vegetables. this means, basically, that the zimbabwean youth migrants in cape town were consuming high quality or generally sufficient nutritious diets. table 2: food consumption by respondents food categories frequency percentage cereals 44 73.3% root/tubers 11 18.3% vegetables 42 70% fruits 29 28.3% meat/poultry/offal 58 96.7% eggs 30 50% fish/seafood 4 6.7% pulses/legumes/nuts 16 26.7% milk/milk products 44 73.3% oil/fats 54 90% sugar/honey 46 76.7% miscellaneous/any others 16 26.7% source: field survey, 2015. furthermore, the mahfp which measures whether the respondents managed to get a consistent supply of food for a period of 12 months was used to measure food insecurity. the results pointed out that 53.3% of the respondents experienced months when they did not have enough food to eat compared to 46.7% who had enough food to consume. the mean score for the mahfp of the respondents was 1.38, the median was 1 and the mode was 0. this shows that of the months of adequate food provisioning the respondents had at least one month during which they faced food shortages. in the context of the 12 months during which the months of adequate provisioning are measured (june 2014 – may 2015), january, as shown in figure 2, was the ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 527 month during which most of the respondents faced problems because of the lack of resources. figure 2: frequency of mahfp source: field survey, 2015. this can possibly be attributed to the festive season spending resulting in what is commonly known as ‘january disease.’ in other words, this situation is seasonal; many respondents noted that they spend more money during christmas and new year holidays through traveling, buying food and sending remittances, among other expenditures. as a result, when they come back to the place of destination in january they usually face financial constraints, which in turn leads to low expenditure on food thereby causing food shortages. exploring various factors and their impact on food insecurity according to the empirical findings in this research, food insecurity levels among zimbabwean youth in cape town seem to be very prevalent, 63.3% of the zimbabwean youth migrants were food insecure while only 36.7% were food secure. hence, it is important to understand the various factors or determinants of food insecurity. to begin with, in terms of income, the empirical findings of this research indicated that all those who earned r1500 or less were food insecure while 77.3% of the food secure participants earned an average of r3000 or more. using pearson chi-square cross tabulation, the research findings proved that the correlation between income and food security levels was statistically 5 7 3 9 22 1 5 5 5 7 7 7 0 5 10 15 20 25 frequency of mahfp ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 528 significant (p<0.039), representing the positive influence of income on access to food. secondly, in regards to gender, the findings indicated that 50% of the food secure respondents were males while the other 50% were females, showing that there is no positive link between gender and food insecurity. this was further statistically justified by a having no significance (p=0.229). this is so because access to food by both female and male migrant youths was mainly dependent upon the opportunity to get a better income to buy food, such as better paying job; this is not particularly affected by gender based factors. thirdly, the assumption is that those who are more educated are likely to earn more and get better jobs than the less educated. since the likelihood to earn more is related to having better access to food, those who earn more income are expected to have the financial resources to have improved access to food. however, the findings of this study show that even though some of the zimbabwean youth migrants were highly educated, had good jobs and decent salaries which resulted in better access to food, most of them were not guaranteed to have good and high paying jobs which would, in turn, give them financial power to have a healthier access to food. correspondingly, a pearson chi-square test on the association between education and food insecurity was not statistically significant (p = 0.093) indicating that the two variables were independent of each other. in addition, among those who completed university education, 66.7% were food insecure. this is so because even those who were well educated were desperate to the extent of being employed as waiters or bartenders because the local economy is harsh on foreigners. lastly, this research found out that 45% of the respondents faced food shortages due to price increases while 55% did not face any challenges. the common shortages of food were “meat and cooking oil.” the findings of this study also revealed that there is a relationship between high food prices and food insecurity, using pearson chi-square measure the result illustrated that there is a statistically significant (p = 0.000) association between the two variables. this study reinforces the assumption that price increases can lead to food insecurity of many vulnerable communities, and that high or increased food prices can lead to a decrease in the consumption of nutritious and varied food items. conclusion in exploring the relationship between zimbabwean youth migration and food security in cape town, the key empirical data from this research discovered ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 529 that there is a positive link between youth migration and food security. the basis of this hypothesis is summarised below: the findings confirmed that the main reasons for migration from zimbabwe to south africa were socio-economic crisis and, to some extent, political reasons. most notably, in assessing the role that food insecurity or food shortages play in migration decision, the results indicated without a doubt that food insecurity/shortages proved to be one of the main reasons for migration. in addition, family/household influence in the migration decision proved to be very common, that is to say, most households or family members took part in the migration decision of the youth migrants. interestingly, in relation to this point, a large number of the participants revealed that they left zimbabwe in order to help the family or household members back home with their food needs. through the exploration of the connection between remittances and use of remittances for food consumption, the findings demonstrated that the majority of zimbabwean youth migrants send remittances to zimbabwe in the form of money, mainly to be used for food consumption, and were certain that the remittances they send are used to access food. it is notable that a large majority of the respondents were not sending any food groceries to zimbabwe, as they preferred to send money. the assessment of food insecurity levels of zimbabwean youth in cape town indicated that the average hfias score was 0.13, mean 3.66, median 2 and mode 0, then the hfiap indicated that 63.3% of the participants were food insecure, and only 36.7% were food secure. the research also revealed that there is a major improvement in food security for the youth migrants in south africa compared to zimbabwe. the major factor for the improvement of food security or better food access for zimbabwe youth migrants, was earning income. most of the interviewed migrants managed to get some form of employment and income, which meant they had the financial resources to buy food. with regards to dietary issues, the research revealed that the mean score for the hdds was 6.56 out of 12, and the mode was 5, which signified that the respondents consumed about half of the 12 food categories used in this study. in line with the mahfp, which measured the months during which the participants had food shortages or problems with food access, the findings showed that 53.3% had months during which they did not have adequate food for consumption, and the other 46.7% had no challenges or insufficient food during any of the months. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 530 recommendations this paper establishes various challenges and shortcomings in giving a comprehensive account of the relationship between youth migration and food security. there is a need for collaboration, partnership, and action towards finding solutions, especially in the context of south-south migration. four focal points are recommended in the context of youth migration-food security nexus in the global south:  firstly, there is a need to promote job creation or better employment opportunities for youth migrants since the outcomes of this research indicated that access to food is a challenge for migrants in general, and migrant youth in particular, due to the limited resources or lack of dependable income. many youth migrants are students or employed as security guards, waiters and bartenders among other low-paying jobs, yet many zimbabwean youths are well educated enough to get high-paying jobs. promotion of employment opportunities or job creation for youth migrants by policy makers and local government departments through recruitment based on experience and qualifications would contribute to the host economy. such employment opportunities would provide a dependable source of income which would be used for food consumption and remittances, which would also benefit those left behind in the place of origin.  secondly, this study revealed that some of the migrant youths consumed less nutritious foods due to a lack of knowledge, shown by an over-reliance on fast-food outlets and supermarkets, which resulted in over consumption of meat. this shows poor food utilisation. hence, there is a need to address the challenge of unbalanced diet and consumption of limited nutritious foods. the governmental departments, non-governmental organisations like scalabrini centre, unhcr, refugee centre, iom and fao, must also introduce food programmes, within their various programmes for migrants that educate and train migrants on the best practice in food utilisation, particularly on consumption of healthy plants-based diets.  thirdly, in recent times, migration and food insecurity concerns have been affecting many communities, yet they are still treated as two separate ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 531 concerns. combining migration and food insecurity issues at local, regional and international levels is needed and policy making needs to be addressed. in the context of south africa, migrants have been subjected to draconian immigration policies, xenophobia and various forms of segregation, while their food insecurity concerns are invisible or unattended. the integration of migration and food insecurity issues can be addressed through local and national departments, as well as on an international level through cooperation between the general populace, governments and nongovernmental organisations such as unhcr, iom and fao that deal with migration and food insecurity issues. in addition, a rights-based approach to migration and food insecurity issues should be included in the post-2015 millennium development goals, especially with regards to migrant youths’ rights to food.  finally, this research showed that several studies have emerged that try to address migration and food insecurity matters, especially in the context of rural and urban connections. however, there are still many research 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academic debates. both countries were selected as sites for this study given the high migrant populations. using a quantitative research methodology this study assessed and evaluated the system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states of america. structured questionnaires were administered to selected african immigrants in the two case study areas (cape town, south africa and columbia, missouri). the surveys provided data for a range of indicators that helped in evaluating the system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population. the result of this empirical study clearly indicates that non-inclusiveness and anti-immigrant feelings continue to militate against the well-being, emancipation, human rights and resilience of immigrant populations. this research recommends that avenues for intervention and investigation of service deliveries to the immigrant population should be designed to address current irregularities that range from the role institutionalized discrimination play in systems to actual and perceived service disparities.  associate professor of development studies at the institute for social development, university of the western cape.  professor at the school of government, university of the western cape.  assistant professor of public health and health sciences, university of missouri.  phd candidate at the institute for social development, university of the western cape.  phd candidate at the school of government, university of the western cape. evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states 1387 keywords development, evaluation, international, legislation, migration, rights, social service and welfare introduction in recent times, migration issues have become a very sensitive debate in national and international developmental discourse (dinbabo & carciotto, 2015; dinbabo, 2017). the substance of this global phenomenon is often politicised to a very large extent (herbst, 1990). south africa and the united states (u.s.) are not immune to this global trend. the movement of people has taken various shapes and has been characterised in different ways. irrespective of the motivation, south-north migration (snm) poses great pressure on the already scarce resources in the destination countries due to the global financial crisis of the past decade. despite the fact that some countries have signed international treaties to support migrant communities, this rhetoric is often unsupported by action. the majority of governments have failed or are not able to provide support to migrant communities in terms of funds and social services, although they are legally responsible for such assistance. as such, in most instances, international relief agencies and nongovernmental organisations (ngos) provide support in this respect. it has been estimated that between the years 1980 and 2010, the movement of people across international boundaries increased more than 100%, from 103 million to 220 million. in 2013, the figure stood at 232 million and has currently been projected to hit over 400 million by 2050 (martin, 2013). the literature tends to focus on snm; however, it has been estimated that the number of migrants that traversed between the boundaries of developing countries is equally as large as the number of migrants moving from southern to northern countries (ratha & shaw, 2007). south africa is a destination country for such cross-border migration in africa. for example, in 2017, african countries as a whole hosted 24.7 million immigrants, which was a 28% increase from 19.3 million in 1990. almost all of these immigrants were born in africa (oecd, 2018). the global economic challenge, and its debilitating effect on the majority of people in both the global south and north, has led to mass movement of people across international boundaries in search of greener pastures and economic stability. in sub-saharan africa, women are increasingly entering the workforce in a context in which urbanisation is forecasted to increase from the current rate of 40% to 58% by 2050 and the current population of 1.05 billion is expected to double to 2.2 billion by 2050 (gagnon, 2018). in this context, mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu south-south migration (ssm) is likely to continue to rise. these changing demographics have and will continue to worsen the challenges of migrants across the globe. this mass movement of migrants across international borders poses great pressure on the resources of destination countries. background/contextualization issues of immigration in both south africa and u.s. have been debated since time immemorial. while there were deliberate immigration policies in both countries to regulate access to government welfare programmes or services over the years, in the past three decades, the context, as well as the content, of these policies has been significantly altered. generally, migrants are faced with a number of political, social and economic challenges, and there are numerous opinions regarding how to approach and manage ssm and (south north migration) snm dilemmas (samet, 2013; mphambukeli & nel, 2018). a key component of these challenges is migrants’ access to social services in the destination countries. principally, the provision of social services by either the government or non-governmental organisations (ngos) is to protect the interest of the recipients. this provision remains one of the primary responsibilities of all governments to their residents. social services include but are not limited to healthcare, housing, social security, education and social work (spicker, 2013: 1). the exclusion of some individuals’ from the enjoying the benefits of these services due to their citizenry status may greatly impact their socio-economic welfare (ile & boadu, 2018). according to townsend (1976: 28), “social services are those means developed and institutionalized by society to promote ends which are wholly or primarily social.” migrant community access to social services in south africa the challenges involved in managing migrant communities are not specific to south africa. given the socio-economic implications of migration for destination countries, much like other advanced countries, such as the u.s., germany, the u.k. and france, the south african state regulates the movement of migrants and their access to government social services. however, very little is known about how these government social services are provided, evaluated and monitored for the benefits of the migrant communities. the lack of proper monitoring and evaluation systems has hampered the existing government’s social intervention services (boadu & ile, 2018). the narrative is that destination countries have difficulties providing adequate resources to meet the demands of their citizenry (ranchod, 2005) and south africa is no exception. thus, there is a need for all-encompassing monitoring and evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states 1389 evaluation systems to ensure that both nationals and migrants maximise the benefits of these services (boadu & ile, 2017). in recent years, south africa has witnessed unimaginable xenophobic violence against migrants from neighbouring economically-deprived countries (crush, 2001), such as zimbabwe, the democratic republic of congo (drc), nigeria and zambia. this pattern of violence has traumatised most migrant communities and has compounded the daily challenges they face in their attempt to accessing social services (araoye, 2015). the united nations (u.n.) universal declaration of human rights (1948) assured adequate housing as a fundamental human right to all persons living in any state party to the treaty. moreover, chapter 2 of the south african constitution reaffirmed this right, stating that, “everyone has the right to have access to adequate housing” (the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996). the country’s refugee act (130 of 1998) and the amended act also provide this right to refugees and asylum seekers as stated in chapter 2 of the constitution. in practice, migrants encounter many difficulties in their attempts to pursue this right (greenburg & polzer, 2008). the south african national and provincial government provide housing subsidies to south african nationals; however, the national housing code does not allow migrants to access housing subsidies (greenburg & polzer, 2008). migrant access to social services: the u.s. perspective in economically advanced nations such as the u.s., migrants are still faced with significant challenges in their quest to access social services such as healthcare, education, social security and housing. migrants in the u.s. confront daily discrimination with regards to some basic civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, as is noted in the immigration working group human rights network report (2007). the report further argued that the u.s. has implicitly or explicitly failed to know the various international conventions regarding the rights of migrants or immigrants from being discriminated against on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender and national origin. the report concludes that migrant women have suffered restrictions to access to basic healthcare by citing the deficit reduction act of 2005, which has imposed stringent citizenship requirements for migrants to benefit from medicaid coverage (kaiser commission on medicaid, 2007). prior to this act, the existing eligibility requirements for a migrant to access healthcare for their children were even stricter; however, most federal law over the years has allowed for automatic medicaid coverage for all children mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu born in the u.s. (kaiser commission on medicaid, 2007). the illegal immigration reform and immigration responsibility act of 1996 unfortunately put a timeframe on migrants’ eligibility for social services, such as medicaid and the state children’s health insurance program (schip), stating that one may be eligible five years after his/her entry into the country (immigration working group human rights network report, 2007). california immigrant policy centre (2006) stressed that the new regulations of the centres for medicare & medicaid services (cms) regarding access to medical aid by migrant women for their newborn babies was illegitimate in the sense that it requires the citizenship status of the baby before the mother can access even emergency medicaid services. in contrast, article 5(e)(iv) of the committee on the elimination of racial discrimination (cerd) convention that the u.s. is a party to, promises all persons “without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin,” the right to “public health, medical care, social security and social services” (cerd, 1969: 4). nonetheless, a migrant in the u.s. suffers from eligibility requirements and therefore struggles to access basic healthcare, unlike their non-immigrant counterparts (u.s. department of health and human services, 2005). migrants in the u.s. are more likely to live in deprived housing facilities due to their low earning powers; thus, they are susceptible to receiving government welfare services (hanson, 2005). the temporary assistance for needy families (tanf) and supplemental security income (ssi) are government social service programmes that provides migrants with food stamps, healthcare, housing and energy subsidies as well as cash benefits (borjas, 1999). in addition, persons born to immigrant parents in u.s. tend to have low levels of education and approximately 1.8 million children suffer from the decision their parents took years ago without their knowledge, as is argued by gonzales (2011). the author further argued that although these children recognise the u.s. as their home country, they are faced with many eligibility obstacles in their attempts to access college funding for their education and in seeking a decent job. moreover, the discourse on immigration issues in the u.s. tends to ignore the challenges of undocumented migrants and their inability to access financial aid and decent employable work, which has prohibited over 90% of such children from attaining a college degree (gonzales, 2011). migrants’ access to national or state welfare services has always generated political tension (facchini & steinhardt, 2011; kerwin, 2017). while some argue that migrants contribute positively to the national economy, which tends to improve the national income for native workers, others opined that evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states 1391 such contributions are not equally distributed, in that the inflow of migrants tends to decrease income for native workers because of high labour supply (hanson, 2005). in summary, acknowledging these complexities within and among migrant communities may be the first step to unravelling the copious challenges that confront migrants in south africa and the u.s. what are their experiences and to what extent are they able to access the varying national or provincial government welfare services? to what extent can domestic/national governments or the international community shape immigration policies in order to favour migrant communities in their quest to access social services, such as healthcare, education, housing and jobs? legislative frameworks/policies movement of people from one region to the other is common in the global political, economic and social system. the world has witnessed a remarkable growth in international migration since the 2008 global economic meltdown (united nations, 2013). the number of international migrants has increased from 154 million in 1990 to 244 million in 2015, an increase of nearly 100 million people (united nations, 2013). in addition to international migration policies and frameworks, country-specific policies and frameworks abound in both south africa and the u.s. both origin and destination countries have migration policies. domestic governments are noted for focusing on different types of migrants and services they intend to provide for such individuals. the general assumption is that effective policies and a proper regulatory framework in both countries of origin and destination ensure that the movement of people from one region to the other occurs in a well-organised manner and prevents the abuse of migrants’ rights. the u.n. supports the making of policies and legislative frameworks for regulating people’s movement from their home country (origin) to destination regions. in 2006, the organisation affirmed that “international migration could be a positive force for development in both countries of origin and countries of destination, provided that it was supported by the right set of policies” (united nations general assembly, 2006). in 2013, the organisation reiterated that the member states should continue to “promote and protect the human rights of all migrants, regardless of their migration status” (united nations general assembly, 2013). mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu in line with the u.n. approach to migration policies, south africa and the u.s. have promulgated extensive legislation and a number of immigration policies. the pre-apartheid migration policies discriminated against certain individuals and groups on the basis of race, colour and language, and are prevented them from accessing basic social services. the u.n. committee on the elimination of racial discrimination (cerd) (1965) greatly frowned upon this policy. immediately after independence, the post-apartheid government amended some of these policies in the legislations-aliens control act no. 96 of 1991, and in their place a number of legislative instruments were promulgated: aliens control amendment act (1995), green paper on international migration (1997), white paper on international migration-immigration act no. 13 of 2002, refugee white paper, of 1998, immigration act of 2002, immigration amendment act of 2004, refugees amendment bill of 2008 and refugees amendment bill of 2015 (siddique, 2004; madue, 2015; mphambukeli & nel, 2018). the continuous amendment of some of the immigration and refugee bills attest to the complicated nature of immigration issues in south africa. immigration has been one of the key subjects for policymakers since the birth of the u.s. however, in the past three decades, the country has implemented various immigration policies to curb the inflow of persons from other nations. these legislations include but are not limited to the immigration reform and control act (1986), the immigration act (1990), the illegal immigration reform and immigrant responsibility act of 1996 (iiraira). after the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001, stricter immigration measures were put in place through the enhanced border security and visa entry reform act (2002), the real id act (2005) and the deferred action for childhood arrivals (daca) dream act of (2012) (hanson, 2005; scaperlanda, 2009; facchini, mayda & mishra, 2011; facchini & steinhardt, 2011; kerwin, 2017). these pieces of legislation have various mandates, yet they are wholly premised on regulating the activities of individuals from different nations in the world. implementation of legislation important legislation regarding immigration issues in both south africa and the u.s. have been implemented in recent years. additionally, both countries have signed many u.n. conventions and declarations that guide immigration policies and legislative frameworks. in keeping with the u.n. conventions on human rights and discrimination acts, both south africa and the u.s. have sought to align their immigration policies with these international evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states 1393 conventions. crush, williams and peberdy (2005) argue that the postapartheid government passed over 200 new pieces of legislation with little attention on immigration legislation up until 1998, when the refugee act of 1998 and subsequently the immigration act of 2002 were implemented. the implementation of the refugee act of 1998 and subsequent amendment acts have received mixed responses from both migrant communities and native residents. while some consider the legislation progressive because it allows any person who wishes to apply for asylum status the opportunity to do so without discrimination whatsoever, others argue that it increased the number of xenophobic attacks on migrants and asylum seekers (palmery, 2004). xenophobic attacks took place the same year the act was promulgated (palmery, 2004). implementation of immigration policies in the u.s. has also received stringent opposition in some instances. the recent attempt by the trump government to abolish the deferred action for childhood arrivals (daca) dream act of (2012) was met with some misgivings. as a result of the human rights approach towards the immigration issues at the international and domestic level, implementation of immigration policies that seek to protect destination origins to the detriment of migrants has also come under some severe criticism (araoye, 2015). challenges in the implementation of legislation immigration is one of the many contested issues in both south africa and the u.s. citizens in both countries are divided; some argue in favour of migrants’ contribution to the socio-economic development of the host countries, while others recognise the dents migrants produce in the already scarce resources in these countries. in recent time, migrants’ accessibility to social services in south africa and the u.s. has become a source of contention. south africa has seen rampant xenophobic attacks on migrants who are nationals of other african nations, and the assumptions underlying these attacks are that migrants have deprived the south african nationals of their rightful jobs and other social services (crush, 2001; mcconnell, 2009). both south africa and the u.s. have numerous immigration policies. inferences from these policies reveal some of the loopholes inherent within them. juxtaposing domestic immigration policies to those of the u.n. conventions has always been a challenge that tends to restrict both countries from stricter implementation of their immigration policies. however, failure to implement these policies may also have some social, political, economic and security mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu implications. this necessitated the regular amendments, restructuring, and promulgation of new legislation in both countries, because ignoring immigration issues can be deadly in nature and in character. in the u.s., there is a significant gap between u.s. citizens and immigrants in term of educational attainment, due to the countries immigration policies that prevent migrants from accessing school funds. this lack of legal status and no or low-level schooling has a ripple effect on accessing some social services, such as healthcare and decent jobs. south africa grants migrants access to primary healthcare, jobs, education and, in some provinces, government subsidised housing. however, the unfortunate situation is that the majority of the migrants in south africa are undocumented, which makes it difficult for them to access these social services. to curb this situation, in 2010, the south african authorities started issuing special permits to some undocumented migrants from neighbouring countries (bimha, 2017). the illegal status of most migrants in south africa and the u.s. has contributed to their inability to obtain a good paying job. for instance, in south africa, the majority of migrants are found in the informal sector of the economy running small-scale businesses in townships (crush & mccordic, 2017). the court systems in both countries have also provided challenges regarding immigration policies. although these immigration policies tend to exclude migrants from accessing government welfare programmes, some courts in the u.s., for instance, have ruled in favour of migrants’ access to government social services meant for citizens, such as emergency medical care (hanson, 2005). court rulings with such implications have rendered state government welfare systems inefficient due to the high patronage of migrants. over the years, states such as california and texas have opted to provide migrant communities with preventive healthcare services that are less costly than emergency medical care (robison, 2003). literature review while they embrace the doctrines of human rights in principle, south africa and the u.s. encounter inadequacies in service deliveries, welfare and protection to immigrant populations – including migrant workers, asylum seekers, refugees and their children. migration policies, security, social protection and the human rights of immigrant populations are major issues that constantly dominate immigration discourse. as migration and the rights of immigrant populations are protected under international humanitarian law, evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states 1395 the call for improving the systems and service deliveries to migrant populations has also gained wider attention. thus, major threats to the wellbeing and rights of immigrant populations as global citizens include challenges to their treatment abroad, especially in terms of documentation, security, human rights, housing, education, exclusion from national development policies and priorities, segregation and poor services rendered to them by state institutions in their recipient countries. against this backdrop, some extant literature on system efficiencies and service delivery to the immigrant populations in south africa and the u.s. are hereby reviewed. open migration policy and enhancing immigrants’ capabilities forms part of the new thinking for africa’s development (gatune, 2010; bernstein, 2014; dinbabo & carciotto, 2015; dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015), especially as growing intolerance of migrants and refugees, who are often confused for economic migrants, continue to inhibit their welfare and rights to quality services abroad (mcgranahan et al., 2009). the adoption of open migration policy for skilled migrants and provision of essential services, such as low-fee schools, tertiary education, friendly labour laws and creation of special economic zones, are conceived in bernstein (2014) as necessary conditions for economic inclusion and social stability for both citizens and migrant populations in south africa. this cogitates gatune’s (2010) demand for a justice system based on inclusiveness, diaspora participation and immigrant entrepreneurship as veritable tools for springing larger social capital and success in international trade for africa. mcgranahan, et al. (2009) analysed the efficacies of wellthought-out national and regional policies to harness the potentials of migration for economic transformation. the authors identified local government capacities and the provision of basic infrastructure mediated between national and regional institutions as sustainable solutions and efficient services for the welfare of immigrants. secondly, achieving universal access to healthcare as a basis for addressing current problems of inequality, including non-inclusion of immigrant populations, requires fundamental improvements in the healthcare system in south africa (ataguba & mcintyre, 2013; reynolds, 2017). the south african healthcare system performance in relation to its benefit incidence and health service distribution among socio-economic groups reveals a high-level disparity between the poor and the rich. as this exists, poorer socio-economic groups, including immigrants, benefit less in comparison with wealthier socioeconomic groups from both private and public-sector health services (ataguba & mcintyre, 2013). consequently, reynolds (2017) argues for the imperative mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu of a multi-stakeholder involvement in south africa’s national health insurance process towards achieving universal access to healthcare for everyone. three fundamental principles of the national health insurance (nhi) are central to this goal: a constitutional right to access to affordable and acceptable quality health services, the state's responsibility for the progressive implementation of the right to health for all based on the objective of universal coverage, and equitable funding of health services to promote social solidarity. these goals require innovations in the healthcare system and the elimination of underlying socio-economic inequality and inefficiencies of primary health care (ataguba & mcintyre, 2013; reynolds, 2017). regarding the security and human rights protection of immigrants, the ‘state of exception’ of immigrants was grounds for inclusion and exclusion in postapartheid south africa, and is illustrated in the violent exclusion of foreigners as one of the key designs of the new south african political community. meanwhile, uneven service delivery to immigrants is reflected in the state's entrenchment of extra-legal and open illegal treatment of foreign nationals (dodson, 2010; mosselson, 2010). the may 2008 xenophobic violence in south africa is symptomatic of politics of belonging and citizenship contestation in post-apartheid south africa and has made immigrants the targets on whom some members of the citizenry assert their own political rights to belong (mosselson, 2010). experiences of african immigrants in cape town as expressed in dodson (2010), further testify that anti-immigrant dispositions and actions from “ordinary south africans” toward african immigrants are entrenched and systemic. police brutality, indiscriminate arrests of suspected black immigrants, and the lindela deportation centre's numerous rights abuses against foreign nationals have all revealed inadequacies in security and human rights protection of immigrant populations, especially african immigrants. again, the extreme vulnerability of immigrants to exploitation from the institution of the state and civilian population is rife, especially by employers of unskilled labour. hence, addressing injustices against immigrants and improving their socio-economic, security and legal services as ought to be enjoyed by citizens have been identified as rightful steps against the exclusionary treatment mandated by post-apartheid immigration policy's “alien-control” in south africa (dodson, 2010; mosselson, 2010). in a similar vein, the dearth of research on the settlement of immigrants in the u.s. informed pendall and hoyem’s (2009) investigation of the growing residential patterns of foreign-born immigrants within the framework of local government jurisdictions. analysis of the three metropolitan conurbations evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states 1397 referred to as “polycentric regions” – san francisco bay area in the u.s., emilia-romagna in italy, and randstad in the netherlands – illustrates the complexities of the regions in respect to their different immigrant and ethnic compositions, housing, market structures and histories of social welfare policies. the authors adduced cases of multifamily and rental housing patterns that influence the livelihood and mobility of immigrant populations. this comparative framework gave preliminary indications of future challenges and opportunities in housing strategies in polycentric regions toward an efficient service delivery as a way of making immigrants’ opinions count. the municipal administration’s policy settings to improve housing services and welfare of immigrants illustrated priorities for land use planning, subsidised housing policy and urban renewal. as the authors revealed, the municipal or local administrations are an important arena for efficient service delivery, political incorporation and socio-economic integration of immigrants. moreover, access to healthcare, health insurance policy and medicaid in the u.s. are crystalised by disparities in service delivery to the poor, vulnerable persons and immigrant populations, and are a defining factor of social injustice and growing inequalities, as policies of exclusion continue to determine immigrants’ health vulnerabilities and access to of health services in the u.s. (ku & matani, 2001; horton, 2006; owen, 2009; sargent & larchanché, 2011; de bocanegra et al., 2012). immigration status is an essential determinant of racial and ethnic disparities in access to healthcare and insurance coverage in the u.s. even when insured, it is acknowledged that non-american citizens (foreigners, undocumented immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers) and their children (even u.s. born) among other underserved groups in the u.s. have more limited access to healthcare than insured american citizens (ku & matani, 2001; de bocanegra et al., 2012). hence, policy changes, mostly in recent time, have limited immigrants’ access to insurance and healthcare even while insured, including ambulatory and emergency care. few immigrant populations and their families, mostly latino and black immigrants, have medicaid or job-based insurance, while the majority remain uninsured in comparison with american citizens and their children. thus, de bocanegra et al.’s (2012) analysis of the factors of title-x and other family pact providers in quality medical services for the underserved population in california also indicates disparate services, including in family planning for low income people in the u.s. furthermore, disparities in the u.s. healthcare services delivery to the immigrant population can be examined against the backdrop of the tension mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu between an agitation for strengthening market reforms to preserve a commercial health insurance industry and a strong state involvement in a universal health insurance plan. this tension forces the private sector to drift on fiscal austerity and enhancing workforce productivity in health service delivery (horton, 2006; owen, 2009). a review of past works on human service bureaucracies presages that a rise in demands for worker efficiency and system accountability often leads to shortcuts where individuals are treated as mass categories. horton’s (2006) ethnographic study of a latino mental health hospital in the northwestern u.s. illustrates that the privatesector drive for productivity negatively impacts latina clinicians whose invisible work subsidises the system against the groups of uninsured and immigrant patients experiencing acute psychosocial difficulties. in effect, clinicians’ neglect for uninsured patients and dismissal of irregular ones was widespread as a ploy to cushion the effects of the reforms on patients. the consequences of abandoning the entrenched practices of risk pooling healthcare expenses in most u.s. communities in favor of consumer-driven health care practices yield major accessibility and affordability challenges (owen, 2009). more importantly, owing to their engagement in temporary and low-skill jobs involving dangerous environmental conditions and the use of hazardous equipment and machinery, migrant workers are often vulnerable to workrelated injuries or accidents. exploitation and poor labour conditions also impact the wellbeing and health of their households (holden, 2002; benavides et al., 2006). low-quality housing, a direct outcome of migrant workers' lowwages, combined with dangerous and exploitative working environments, constitute grave health risk factors, particularly among migrant workers and seasonal farm workers (holden, 2002). similarly, extensive working hours required of migrants to meet their daily responsibilities and utilities constitute major threats to consistent child care. hence, children of migrant workers are often prone to domestic and traffic mishaps, injuries, accidents and, in some cases, deaths (benavides et al., 2006). globalisation and global movement of people are significant contributors to the transmission of diseases and the vulnerability of immigrants to health risks. this further reveals why it is in a host country’s best interests to promote inclusive healthcare to impoverished populations, including both citizens and immigrants. meanwhile, health challenges and services to immigrants are a product of local, national and global dynamics (sargent & larchanché, 2011). a constructive analysis of mental and reproductive health, evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states 1399 labor and health risks, and chronic and infectious diseases shows that underlying political and socio-economic structures promote particular forms of health and disease. the above elucidate the existence of policies of exclusion as a determinant of immigrants’ vulnerabilities to disparate access to healthcare, labour, housing and education. meanwhile, inhuman treatments, limited opportunities and inefficient services further affirm the prevalent inequality and social injustice against immigrants in most parts of the world. the specific cases of the u.s. and south africa as major global immigrantreceiving countries, leave much to be desired. data analysis and findings this analysis considers the system efficiency of migrants in the u.s. and south africa. in the analysis, we used empirical data from the two countries in a bid to understand the structural challenges faced by migrants living in both countries and to identify lessons that can be learned. the results are presented and discussed below. using a structured survey questionnaire, a sample of 132 respondents, representing 19 countries, were successfully interviewed. the countries represented were burundi, cameroon, congo kinshasa, the drc, eritrea, ethiopia, ghana, iraq, jordan, kenya, libya, nigeria, pakistan, rwanda, saudi arabia, somalia, sudan, vietnam and zimbabwe. four countries – somalia, nigeria, eritrea and nigeria – make up over 50% of the sample. eritrea was the country most represented in the u.s. with 26%, while zimbabwe was the country most represented in south africa, with 23%. the results show that men continue to dominate in the flow of migrants. males were comprised 75% of the sample, while females comprised 25%. however, male migrants in the u.s. constituted 34% compared to 41% in south africa. the majority of these migrants (76%) were age 26 to 45 years. in addition, refugee status was by far the dominant documentation possessed by the migrants. access to documentation for most migrants remains a major challenge worldwide. table 1 below illustrates that the proportion of refugee status was 38% for the u.s. and 14% for south africa. people with refugee status constituted 52% of the sample. the proportion of other documentation in south africa is very high (21%) compared to other documentation in the u.s. sample. undocumentation of migrants is one of the major issues in international migration. though this paper does not seem to show strong evidence in the existence undocumentation, from observation in the field, the research found that migrants who are undocumented generally used the term mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu ‘other documents’ rather than ‘undocumented’. the term ‘undocumented’ carries a certain level of stigma and non-acceptance, with which migrants do not wish to associate themselves. south africa, in particular, showed clear evidence of stigmatisation of undocumented migrants; thus, providing rationale for the high percentage of participants who selected ‘other documents’. besides the issues of documentation, the results show that 60% of the sample have lived in the destination country for 1–5 years. while for the u.s. sample the majority of migrants have lived there for between 1–5 years, the duration of stay in south africa was rather evenly spread between 1–15 years. table 1: demographic structure of migrants us sa total n % n % n % gender male 43 34% 53 41% 96 75% female 19 15% 13 10% 32 25% total 62 48% 66 52% 128 100% age groups 15-25 12 9% 6 5% 18 14% 26-35 21 17% 31 24% 52 41% 36-45 24 19% 21 17% 45 35% 46-55 4 3% 6 5% 10 8% 55+ 1 1% 1 1% 2 2% 62 49% 65 51% 127 100% duration of stay 1-5 52 42% 23 18% 75 60% 6-10 5 4% 21 17% 26 21% 11-15 2 2% 16 13% 18 14% evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states 1401 16-20 1 1% 4 3% 5 4% 21+ 1 1% 0 0% 1 1% total 61 49% 64 51% 125 100% legal status refugee status 49 38% 18 14% 67 52% asylum seeker 1 1% 11 9% 12 9% work/business visa 0 0% 9 7% 9 7% undocumented 12 9% 1 1% 13 10% other 0 0% 27 21% 27 21% total 62 48% 66 52% 128 100% source: authors’ analysis field survey (2018). migrant access to social services in this section, we evaluate the perception of migrants vis-à-vis their access to basic services, such as the healthcare, education and transport. the purpose was to identify key service areas where migrants face challenges due to system inefficiencies. thus, we explored the frequency with which migrants access basic services, system information awareness, documentation needed to access information, the ease of access to services and migrants’ level of satisfaction with the services rendered. the results indicate that more migrants in south africa (54%) have access to basic services compared to migrants in the u.s. (46%). the proportion of frequency of access to these services, however, varies with the countries. in the u.s., the majority of migrants (31%) accessed services once every two weeks compared to the majority of south african migrants (34%) who accessed services less than once every six months. considering the economic and social circumstances of both countries, it is not surprising to see u.s. migrants accessing services more frequently. migrants were also asked to state the channel through which they receive healthcare information. the results indicate that migrants in the u.s. rely on ngos for information regarding access to basic services, whereas migrants in south africa, rely on family members, friends and sometimes government mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu offices. for the sample as a whole, ngos constitute 41% of the source of information while family members and friends together form 40%. table 2: perception and access to service delivery us sa pooled n % n n % frequency of accessing services less than once every six months 8 7% 37 34% 45 41% quarterly (once every three months) 1 1% 8 7% 9 8% once a month 7 6% 7 6% 14 13% once every two weeks 34 31% 3 3% 37 34% once a week 0 0% 4 4% 4 4% total 50 46% 59 54% 109 100% knowledge of services government office 2 2% 12 11% 14 13% ngos 42 38% 3 3% 45 41% friends 0 0% 16 14% 16 14% family members 10 9% 19 17% 29 26% church members 1 1% 6 5% 7 6% total 55 50% 56 50% 111 100% documents needed to access service refugee status 44 37% 20 17% 64 54% asylum seeker 2 2% 10 8% 12 10% work/business visa 1 1% 13 11% 14 12% evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states 1403 undocumented 7 6% 22 18% 29 24% total 54 45% 65 55% 119 100% ease of obtaining relevant documents yes 48 41% 37 32% 85 73% no 5 4% 27 23% 32 27% total 53 45% 64 55% 117 100% satisfaction with service very dissatisfied 0 0% 10 9% 10 9% dissatisfied 8 7% 13 12% 21 19% neither 17 15% 7 6% 24 22% satisfied 20 18% 20 18% 40 36% very satisfied 6 5% 9 8% 15 14% total 51 46% 59 54% 110 100% source: authors’ analysis field survey (2018). system efficiency and inefficiency system efficiency was measured in terms of the level of satisfaction of migrants with services offered and accounted for the challenges migrants face with respect obtaining the documentation required to access basic social services such as healthcare services. an efficient system is revealed in the satisfaction of migrants when accessing services through governments and ngos. the results in table 3 show that about 49% were satisfied with services received while 46% were dissatisfied. the majority of u.s. migrants (36%) were either satisfied or very satisfied with services compared to the majority of south african migrants (36%) who were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. it should be noted, however, that such satisfaction was mostly related to healthcare services. on the other hand, dissatisfaction was generally associated with access to documentation, such as delays in issuing asylum seeker permits, work permits or refugee status. many migrants face challenges with documentation and this research corroborates such shreds of evidence. mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu from table 3 below, it can be seen that migrants continue to face challenges in accessing proper documentation that could help them improve their livelihoods. migrants’ perceptions of destination countries have always been rooted in hope for improved livelihoods. most african migrants tend to move with a firm conviction that life will be better in the destination country. in this regard, we investigate the opinion of migrants to better understand how they perceive their destination country after migration with respect to its available resources. for migrants in both south africa and the u.s., the results show that there was no difference in opinion on whether the host country has the resources necessary to deal with migrant’s problems. table 3: evaluating system efficiency and inefficiency us sa pooled n % n % n % satisfaction with service very dissatisfied 1 1% 24 22% 25 23% dissatisfied 10 9% 15 14% 25 23% neither 0 0% 6 6% 6 6% satisfied 34 31% 12 11% 46 43% very satisfied 5 5% 1 1% 6 6% total 50 46% 58 54% 108 100% areas of challenges documentation 3 3% 47 43% 50 45% employment 30 27% 6 5% 36 33% education 13 12% 1 1% 14 13% medical services 6 5% 0 0% 6 5% safety and security 0 0% 2 2% 2 2% others 0 0% 2 2% 2 2% evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states 1405 total 52 47% 58 53% 110 100% source: authors’ analysis field survey (2018). comparative assessment of u.s. and south african migrants table 4 shows an association of system efficiencies and inefficiencies using the derived variables of the u.s. and south africa. it shows the areas of common characteristics or similarities in terms of access to services and system inefficiencies. we applied the pearson chi square statistical technique, which measures the level of association between two categorical variables. the pearson chi-square, measured at less than 0.05, shows that there was a strong association of these variables for both countries. for age, gender and education, there was no significant difference, which generally corresponds to the literature on the age and level of education for most migrants (dinbabo, et al., 2017). based on this, our hypothesis was that there is no difference in system efficiency and migrant access to basic services. from a nationality perspective, there was clear evidence that some countries were more represented than others in the survey. somalians constituted 61% of the sample of migrants in the u.s. compared to 39% in south africa. in the sample, 70% of nigerians were living in south africa compared to 30% living in u.s. eritreans were 93% in the u.s. compared to 7% living in the south africa. according to the south african department of home affairs (2015), the exact number of african migrants in south africa is not known. however, the department ranked the top 15 migrant-sending countries as follows: zimbabwe, ethiopia, nigeria, the drc, malawi, somalia, ghana, burundi, mozambique, uganda, congo-brazzaville, cameroon, tanzania, lesotho and senegal. the duration of stay was also significant. we found that migrants who have stayed in the host country for less than 6 years were more in the u.s. (69%) than the south african sample (31%). whereas, those who have stayed for 6– 10 years were more in the south african sample (80%) than in the u.s. sample (20%). these results may support the findings of many studies that show that south africa is a transit country for many eritrean and somali migrants (settler & mpofu, 2017) system efficiency, as previously mentioned, was measured in terms of access to documentation, legal status and access to basic services, such as housing, education and healthcare. we found that obtaining refugee status was easier mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu for migrants in the u.s. than those in south africa. the south african department of home affairs has taken tougher stands in its recent white paper on refugee and asylum seeker permits. our results show that 73% of migrants in the u.s. sample had successfully obtained refugee status, while only 27% of migrants in the south african sample had done so. in addition, besides obtaining refugee status, more south african participants (84%) stated that access to documentation was generally difficult. this calls for policy improvement and monitoring and evaluation of the documentation process in south africa. as illustrated in table 4, measuring system efficiency in the form of ease of obtaining documents, satisfaction with services, challenges in accessing services, documentation challenges and community engagement contributes to our knowledge of how migrants in both countries see their host countries’ immigration systems and challenges thereof. the significance of these measurements corroborates other studies that have shown that migrants face significant challenges in terms of acceptability and recognition. in the u.s., being a citizen does not automatically exonerate children of migrants born in the u.s. from the invisible hand of u.s. migration policies. persons born to immigrant parents have the lowest level of education and often suffer from the decision their parents took years ago without their knowledge (gonzales, 2011). table 4: comparative analyses of u.s. and s.a. migrants n coef p-value gender 128 2.0437 0.153 age 127 4.4547 0.348 nationality 117 58.2810 0.000 duration in the host country 125 34.6964 0.000 legal status 128 67.9256 0.000 educational level 128 3.0274 0.387 access to services 109 53.7295 0.000 knowledge of services 111 63.3035 0.000 documents needed to access services 119 31.6311 0.000 evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states 1407 ease of obtaining documentation 117 15.6527 0.000 satisfaction with services 110 15.4571 0.004 challenges in accessing services 108 40.9807 0.000 documentation challenges 110 74.9013 0.000 community engagement 113 12.6598 0.000 source: authors’ analysis field survey (2018). furthermore, we assess system efficiency by looking at the challenges that migrants encounter while in the destination country. it is intriguing to note that 57% of migrants in u.s. reported having challenges with employment, compared to 10% of migrants in south africa. whereas, 81% of migrants in south africa migrants reported challenges in documentation. thus, in terms of challenges faced by both countries, the result was statistically significant at p<0.05. it seems to us that migrants in south africa are most likely to be employed if having the right documentation. this is supported by other studies showing that migrants in south africa who hold refugee or asylum seeker permits are able to access educational institutions and get employed (marchand et al., 2017). these differences indicate that country-specific migration challenges must be addressed. we conclude this section by pointing out that there is clear evidence from this study showing that there is a systemic gap in both countries in their approach to migration and migrants’ access to basic services. looking at the table 4 above, it can be seen that, given a significance level of <0.05, most of the variables were significantly different for both countries. however, education levels and age of migrants were not different for both countries, which is consistent with the literature as discussed in the following section. discussion recent developments in international migration have again raised worldwide international concerns on the movement of people, especially from the global south to the global north. this mass exodus of people is affecting national and international political discussions and influencing policies on the movement of people and their access to basic services. the challenges of international migration have not been sufficiently studied, especially from migrants’ perspectives, and even less so in the form of comparative analyses. given that most destination countries are beginning to raise systemic barriers to mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu migrants, these barriers are translating into physical walls, as in the case of the border between the u.s. and mexico. the main objective of this study was to evaluate system efficiency in the form of access to basic services such as healthcare, education and housing. the management of migrant communities is not peculiar to south africa. many developed economies, such as the u.s., germany, the u.k. and france, are experiencing significant influxes of migrants, which impacts the resources of these countries. while many countries tend to be protective of social services, access to these services by migrants is critical for their health and wellbeing, especially in their newcomer years. the results of this study indicate that migrants have positive perceptions of the destination countries. about 50% of migrants generally believe that the destination countries have the necessary resources to assist migrants. however, many of these destination countries themselves have difficulties in providing adequate resources to meet the demands of their citizenry (ranchod, 2005). in the case of south africa, in recent years, anti-migrant protests have sparked violence, in some cases leading to the death of refugees and asylum seekers, many who were fleeing economic and political persecution in their home countries. our findings demonstrate that access to healthcare services was by far the dominant service that migrants access in south africa. in the u.s., food stamps and education, mostly through the work of ngos, characterised the services to which migrants have easy access. in addition, the majority of the sampled population was generally satisfied with medical services and access to healthcare services were highly appreciated. in addition, lack of documentation continues to act as a barrier to these important services. in the u.s., migrant women suffer from a number of restriction in their attempt to access basic healthcare services due to the citizenship requirement imposed by the deficit reduction act of 2005 (kaiser commission on medicaid, 2007). according to the consortium for refugees and migrants in south africa (cormsa), the department of health in south africa allows asylum seekers and refugees, and other immigrants to have access to public health facilities (cormsa, 2008). they further argued that despite the fact that there are good social service systems in south africa in terms of healthcare, migrants from neighbouring countries such as zimbabwe tend to go to their home countries evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states 1409 for medical care (cormsa, 2008: 40). however, our study shows that such viewpoints have long changed. zimbabweans constituted 23% of the south african sample and all used the south african healthcare system. furthermore, service delivery may be a function of national policies, political activism and public attitudes toward immigrants. in this context, migration has often elicited discourses of illegitimacy, non-acceptability or paranoia that immigrants are opportunists. they are often blamed by state institutions or the political class for overstretching public utilities or outcompeting citizens in opportunities or benefits, such as jobs, education and marriage. this is a critical challenge to immigrants’ welfares, security and inclusiveness in south africa (dodson, 2010; mosselson, 2010). again, immigrants’ with disproportionately low incomes and who are uninsured constitute a large and growing section of the american society and their status has wider implications for the improvement of services, especially healthcare and public utilities, nationally and across the u.s. (ku & matani, 2001). for instance, the social construction of diverse immigrant populations by dominant groups in receiving societies impacts the services rendered and opportunities given to them, while their wellbeing, in turn, influences their contribution to national economic transformations. this is exemplified in the culturally conceived notions of state, citizen and ‘illegal alien’, which engender hierarchies in which latinos, african americans and immigrant populations exist at the tail of social stratification in the u.s. (briggs, 2005: 282 cited in sargent & larchanché, 2011). meanwhile, a balance between market competition and consumer responsibility, including collaboration of public and private sectors, should be maintained to enhance basic protections for all citizens, in which essential services (such as healthcare, housing, employment and social protection) for immigrants and other underprivileged members of society assume human right status (owen, 2009). as de bocanegra et al. (2012) maintain, equal opportunities and adequate funding can improve the welfare of immigrants, and quality safety net provisions can yield valuable knowledge on serving special and marginalised populations. additionally, municipal administrations or local governments are an important arena of efficient service delivery to immigrant populations (mcgranahan et al., 2009; pendall & hoyem, 2009). their political incorporation and socio-economic integration through inclusive policies and welfare services can yield efficient and positive outcomes for municipal or local jurisdictions across a wider range of immigrant receiving communities (pendall & hoyem, 2009). hence, mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu considerable amends at the level of policy formulation, legislation and service management, including international partnerships, can help enhance the welfare, service delivery and opportunities for immigrant populations (mcgranahan et al., 2009). finally, adoption of open migration policies for skilled migrants, provision of low-fee schools, engagement in critical skills, relaxation of labour laws and creation of special economic zones are necessary conditions for economic inclusion and social stability for both citizens and migrant populations. taking a cue form bernstein (2014), the threats of high level unemployment, shortage of skills, degrading education systems and negative effects on the labour market and union regulations would gradually disappear if immigrant populations are fully integrated into national development and efficiently served to realise their potentials. conclusion and recommendations migration has long been a crucial factor in cross-cultural relations, national and regional integration and global socio-economic development. however, non-inclusiveness and anti-immigrant feelings continue to militate against the well-being, emancipation, human rights and resilience of immigrant populations, including migrant workers, refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants and their children, in most parts of the world. these challenges are deeprooted in the national and local policies and attitudes of the receiving societies towards immigrants’ access to health, education, labour, decision-making power and housing services, among other essentials. hence, the treatment of migrant populations as a case of inclusions and exclusions in service deliveries and system efficiencies can also be conceived from the general perception of their acceptability and varying socio-political conditions dominant in different countries in the world. for example, issues ranging from open migration policy and supports for immigrants’ wellbeing, healthcare, security and rights protection are captured in extant studies. while inadequacies in housing services, access to healthcare, social injustice and questions of inequality against immigrants (documented and undocumented) and their children deserve to be at the forefront of academic discourse and policy formulation. studies have shown that avenues for intervention and investigating service deliveries to the immigrant population can be approached through an analysis of the roles institutionalised discrimination plays in systems and service disparities. while several studies have examined systemic forms of inequality, it is also important to realise that reduced funding for public utilities and social security leads to heightened institutional demands on providers and, in evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states 1411 several cases, may lead to aggression against the vulnerable immigrant populations as well as other underprivileged groups in the society. thus, analysis of disparities should take into account the milieu within which immigrant minorities disproportionately receive treatments and service inadequacies. in addition, real-time monitoring and evaluation (m&e) systems at the national and local levels could be of great help towards the appraisal and delivery of such social services. further studies could critically explore an electronic based (e-based) m&e system that could capture extensive data over time in order to curb some of the disparities and challenges to ensure efficient service delivery systems. references araoye, a. 2015. south africa, the global immigration crisis and the challenge of african solidarity. the thinker, 65: 8–15. ataguba, j. and mcintyre, d. 2013. who benefit from health services in south africa, health economics. policy and law, 8: 21–46. benavides, f.g., benach, j., muntaner, c., delclos, g.l., catot, n. and amable, m., 2006. associations between temporary employment and occupational injury: what are the mechanisms? 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giroux 2014; kim 2011). in south africa, the urgency to transform and indigenise universities has become even more imperative, especially after the demise of apartheid (mouton et al. 2013; tshotsho et al. 2015; kwaramba 2012; sehoole 2006). this has widened access to higher education for black  faculty of informatics and design cape peninsula university of technology, cape town. email: pinetehe@cput.ac.zac  doctoral candidate, african centre for citizenship and democracy, school of government, university of the western cape, cape town. email: teklamuluh@yahoo.com mailto:pinetehe@cput.ac.zac mailto:teklamuluh@yahoo.com ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 384 students and it has changed core curricula and pedagogical approaches. consequently, new patterns of african migration into post-apartheid south africa include the influx of transnational students, particularly from francophone sub-saharan african countries like cameroon, gabon, chad, republic of congo, central african republic, democratic republic of congo (drc) and so on. for this category of migrants, south african universities do not only offer a cheaper alternative to acquire internationally recognised qualifications, but also provide a unique opportunity to study in predominantly english-medium institutions, especially given the international status of english. for south african universities, international students are not only a source of revenue for universities, but they also symbolise modern universities’ envisions for intercultural education and internationalisation (sam 2001; andrade 2006; ryan & viete 2009). for example, transnational students bring with them a repertoire of skills that contribute significantly to the scholarship of research, teaching and learning. they also bring unique learning, social and cultural experiences which add value to the rich and unique diversity of south africa (mubembe 2012; maharaj et al. 2011). however, because migration into south africa has been shaped by violent forms of social exclusion such as xenophobia, afrophobia and racism, african student experiences in south african universities include dealing with extraordinary conditions of marginalisation, rejection, psychological and physical victimisation as well as language challenges (landau 2011; mubembe 2012; maharaj et al. 2011). given that the majority of these students have always spoken english as an additional language, “their discourse knowledge is seen as deficient and their learning is expected to conform to seemingly immutable and often implicit norms laid down by the local academy” (ryan & viete 2009: 303). in this article, we use qualitative data gleaned through semistructured interviews with fifteen gabonese and congolese students at the cape peninsula university of technology (cput) in cape town. it draws on theoretical conceptions such as transnationalism, social exclusion and migrant adaptation, to interrogate the social experiences of francophone students and their tactics for dealing with exclusionary practices from peers and staff. using selected excerpts from the data, this article attempts to analyse characteristics of transnational student life, patterns of social exclusion and the challenges of adaptation experienced by the francophone community in this teaching and learning space. against this backdrop, the article seeks to make sense of their ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 385 learning experiences and the implications for the broader challenges of studying in a post-apartheid higher education institution. description of case study to understand the unique characteristics of francophone students at cput and the reasons for focusing on gabonese and congolese students, we provide a brief description of the university. geographically, cput is located in the peninsula of cape town in the western cape province of south africa and it is the largest of the four universities in this province, in terms of student enrolment. according to statistical data from cput’s management information system (mis), the current student enrolment is approximately 34 176 of which approximately 2355 are african students mostly from sub-saharan africa (pineteh & ralarala 2014; mis 2016). the university has six faculties: business and management sciences, engineering, health and wellness sciences, informatics and design, applied sciences and education and these faculties are spread over six campuses (mis 2016). of the total number of african students, almost 50% are from francophone sub-saharan africa. this is evident from the following statistics: drc-706; zimbabwe-370; angola-358; namibia-329; gabon-192; nigeria-116; republic of congo-110; cameroon-85; rwanda-45 and lesotho-44 (mis 2014 & 2016). in addition, the statistics show that the majority of cput’s francophone students are from drc and gabon, justifying the choice of participants for this article. moreover, although cput’s language of teaching and learning is english, this university remains an attractive choice for francophone students because of affordability, the type of qualifications and the industry-oriented pedagogies. for instance, the majority of these students are undergraduates, enrolled for business, information technology, sciences and engineering qualifications and cput’s tuition fees for these qualifications are generally more affordable if compared with the other provincial universities like the university of cape and stellenbosch (pineteh & ralarala 2014). however, the findings of pineteh & ralarala’s (2014) study on international students at cput revealed that francophone students encounter similar academic and sociocultural challenges regardless of the country of origin. therefore, for this project we selected gabonese and congolese students from two faculties: informatics and design, and business and management sciences, for the simple reason that we had unfettered access to the students. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 386 literature review and theoretical framework the challenges of international students globally have been researched extensively from a myriad of perspectives. in fact, the expansive corpus of knowledge on the institutionalisation of higher education globally speaks explicitly to the upsurge of international students in modern universities (habib et al. 2013; yim 2011; lee & rice 2007). this body of knowledge alludes to international student mobility, pedagogical changes and spatial transformation at universities influenced by the presence of transnational students. there is also a burgeoning scholarly interest in international student academic experiences away from home and associated psychosocial and cultural discomforts such as cultural shock, social exclusion and adaptation (menzies & baron 2014; scharter 2015; bayaga 2011). the changes in what madge et al. (2014) refer to as the global eduscape suggest that international students do not only contribute to research, teaching and learning, they “increase the diversity of student populations, add new perspectives to classroom conversations and […] increase our awareness and appreciation of other countries and cultures” (lee & rice 2007: 381). therefore, we should begin to interrogate international student mobility not simply as a transfusion of social capital in a new space but something that has strong implications for higher education pedagogy. this is essential to our understanding of transnational studentship because experiences of international students are often nested in several challenges associated with cross-border human mobility such as social exclusion, cultural adaption, feelings of isolation, homesickness, prejudices and so on (yim 2010; swami et al. 2010). as modern universities transform to accommodate their diverse student communities, these learning spaces have equally become enclaves of new patterns of social exclusion (kim 2011; lee & rice 2007). in the south african context, the often-neglected language difficulties of particularly francophone students tend to play a significant role in their higher education experiences. here, one of the key determinants of successful sociocultural and academic adjustment of international students is being proficient in the hegemonic language of the institution (barratt & huba 1994: 429; yeh 2003: 23; bartram 2008: 666). given the contributions of international students to change the global eduscape, transnational migration still evokes feelings of “restlessness, movement, constantly being unsettled, and [is] unsettling to others” with host institutions doing very little “to identify ways of meeting the special needs of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 387 international students” (madge et al. 2015; lee & rice 2007: 386). the host institutions are expected to play a more critical role in socialising international students into the new learning environments, but very often, they are isolated and left alone to deal with physical and emotional burdens of dislocation from their families. to find new ways to adapt, they resort to forging multiple and contested identities “positioning these identities within broader contexts of social, cultural, and economic formations…” (arthur 2010: xiii). here, a twoway process of adaption, which is supposed to involve the hosts and the migrants, is reduced to a one-way process (chhetri 1980; sonn 2002; pineteh 2015). for transnational students, it is therefore imperative to maintain ties with homeland either physically or virtually, find solace and companionship in friendship and international student associations (menzies & baron 2014). for example, in their study of international students’ perceptions of discrimination, lee and rice (2007) argue that the challenges associated with language and cultural adaption increase the psychological and sociocultural distress of international students. these predictors have strong implications for the quality of their social lives and academic performance (swami et al. 2010: 57). in a university like cput where english is the language of tuition, the socialisation of non-english speaking international students into a higher education space depends on their ability to interact with peers and staff. the ability to communicate in english is indeed a useful tactic to handle and mitigate discrimination, and/or negotiate new social relations with local students. as argued in the literature, students who are fluent in english are likely to experience lower levels of acculturative distress such as isolation and low self-esteem (karuppan & barari 2011: 78; swami et al. 2010; yeh 2003: 23). the quality of life of those with a paucity of english skills tends to fluctuate rapidly as they struggle to adapt in a foreign land. their higher education experience is reduced to clustering with other students from the same linguistics and cultural background, constantly imagining a return to the homeland after graduation (pineteh 2015; brown 2008). to understand the experiences of francophone students and their challenges of studying in a post-apartheid higher education institution like cput, we frame this article around three theoretical conceptions, namely transnationalism, social exclusion and migrant adaptation. for example, transnationalism has become a conceptual frame and social praxis for understanding the asymmetries of global human mobility (van hear 1998; portes et al. 1999; lazar 2011). the epistemological strength of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 388 transnationalism is that migration is essentially a process of ‘living’ and ‘there’ through a seamlessly socioeconomic and political interconnectedness with the migrants’ countries of origin (pineteh 2015; vertovec 2001). it is a process whereby “members of the group are bound by retained memory of the homeland, partial alienation from the host country [and] an aspiration to return to the homeland” (van hear 1998: 5). although transnational migrants, including students, construct new identities as a strategy to adapt, “these identities are reconfigured and given new meanings in transnational spaces and contexts by merging old identities with the new ones they establish abroad” (arthur 2010: 55). along these contours, transnational students are always emotionally and/or physically attached to their roots/kinships and they tend to express these feelings through virtual interactions, sending of remittances, regular home visits and so on. this emotional and physical attachment with home is often exacerbated by feelings of social exclusion experienced in the host countries. social exclusion is used here as the “lack or denial of resources, rights, goods and services and the inability to participate in the normal relationships and activities, available to the majority of people in a society, whether in economic, social, cultural or political arenas [which] affects both the quality of life of individuals and the equity and cohesion of society as a whole” (levitas et al. 2007: 9; eccv policy discussion paper 2009; saith 2001; sen 2000). in the case of post-apartheid south africa, the social exclusion of transnational migrants like francophone students has been expressed through increasing xenophobic fervours, draconian immigration policies, isolation and discrimination in public spaces such as schools, hospitals and universities (pineteh 2015; bayaga 2011; landau 2011). however, since migration is transitional and often involves a temporary severance of social networks and relationship with friends and families, there is always the need to adapt or assimilate (sonn 2002; berry 1997). in the case of francophone students at cput, adaptation is imperative to enable them to complete their studies and for hopeful futures. as a conceptual lens, adaptation in the sphere of cross-border human mobility is premised on the presupposition that “migrations are not isolated events and generally associated with some kind of economic, social and cultural change to which people make an adjustment” (chhetri 1980: 49). this adjustment process could entail the formation of support systems, cultural integration, and the construction of new acceptable identities and new patterns of social ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 389 interaction. therefore, as people migrate, there is always the expectation to adapt or adjust although the process is always challenging (jakubowicz 2012; sonn 2002; saith 2001). these theoretical conceptions have provided a discursive space to analyse the experiences of francophone students at cput. research methodology and methods of data collection this article is based on qualitative interviews conducted with 15 francophone students from drc and gabon in the faculty of informatics and design as well as business and management sciences at cput, cape town campus. the students were selected using a snowballing technique and they were comprised of 9 males and 6 females as well as 8 congolese and 7 gabonese, mostly first year students. we decided to focus on first year students because, as newcomers, their experiences are usually more excruciating than those who have been at cput for longer. the interviews were conducted in the office of one of the researchers and they lasted for a maximum of 30 minutes. they were semi-structured, which gave the researchers the opportunity to probe emergent issues (babbie et al. 2001; de vos et al. 2005). each interview was preceded by an explanation of the purpose of the project and the interviewee signed a consent form in which the researcher agreed not to disclose any information that could reveal the participant’s identity. as such, the participants are cited in this article as participant 1 up to 15. this approach was used to generate responses that can be categorised, analysed and discussed under specific themes (babbie et al. 2001; maree 2007). in addition, the interviews gave the researchers an opportunity to probe social experiences such as class discrimination, relationship with locals, cput learning environment and other learning challenges. the analysis of the data tried to connect emerging themes to the focus of this article, namely patterns of transnational student life, social exclusion and the challenges of adaptation. analysis and discussion of key findings modern universities in a neo-liberal dispensation are changing radically from spaces for social change to those with “a dominance of a form of a powerful and ruthless, if not destructive market driven notion of governance, teaching, learning, freedom, agency and responsibility” (giroux 2014: 87). the transformation of modern universities into corporatelike institutions has reduced students into clients and it has taken away their erstwhile core values as agents of social transformation. critical aspects such as inclusive education, social cohesion and racial/cultural tolerance as well as the development of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 390 students into critical thinkers are becoming more and more peripheral (giroux 2014; pineteh 2014). although, transformation and social cohesion are the buzzwords at cput, the university has done very little to promote the quality of social inclusivity which can respond to its richly linguistic and culturally diverse student population (hlatshwayo & siziba 2013; rawjee & reddy 2012). it has somehow failed to embrace the idea that “the phenomenon of international students in universities is an opportunity for cultural and indigenous knowledge exchange between people of different nationalities and continents” (mda 2011: 13). in the following sections, we discuss the experiences of francophone students in three interrelated sections: francophone transnational life, social exclusion, the challenges of adaption and strategies for survival. cput francophone students as transnational students migration is always a burdensome experience, which involves spatial dislocation from kinship and familiar spaces. when people migrate they struggle in different ways to deal with the emotional and physical disconnect from families while at the same time trying to adapt to new unfamiliar spaces (pineteh 2015; brown 2008). in the context of south africa, african students including francophones are becoming more and more transnational migrants, especially given the host country’s culture of gratuitous violence against foreigners triggered by its own social challenges, xenophobia fervours and the politics of belonging and citizenship (landau 2011; hassim et al. 2008). with the francophone transnational students that we interviewed, transnationalism meant regular travels back and forth and reconnections with family networks through virtual communication as well as regularly remitting money back home. for example, gabonese students, chatted about memories of home, holiday visits and the dreams of an eventual return: i came here just to study and after my degree i am going home. the way this south african people treat us, i can’t stay here even during holidays; i want to be with my family. i only call or whatsapp them during school time and before the university closes, i already buy air-ticket to travel home and i am always going home…i know it is expensive but my parents understand because they see the xenophobia on tv and the know we are not safe here (participant 10). although technological advancement has facilitated the way diasporic communities reconnect with families and friends back home, in the case of this gabonese student transnationalism is about “regular physical presence […] in ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 391 both the country of origin and settlement” (mamattah n.d: 4; vertovec 2001). this transnational pattern, especially amongst gabonese students, exudes an impassioned attachment to home and excavates memories of homelessness while in exile. for them, migration is about living here and there, illuminating the contested notion of integration and disintegration associated with transnational migration. this often propels exclusionary tendencies because gabonese students tend to see themselves or areseen by local students as the outsiders. escaping and finding solace in regular home visits, exemplifies “rejecting aspirations of or claims to membership [… and] distancing themselves from the citizenry” (landau 2008: 107). by contrast to gabonese students who prefer going home during holidays, congolese transnational students see migrations as a long-term process which could result in permanency despite the perceived discrimination from fellow local students. for instance: i don’t go home a lot because a flight ticket is expensive. besides family really only need you to send them money rather than coming home. although it is difficult staying here because of the way we are treated in and outside, you have try fit to in and not run to your parents every time south african treat you badly. there is no need to go home because i can email, whatsapp and even skype my family. what i try to do is work during holidays, make some money and send it home to support my family. they are always happy with me when i send them money (participant 8). this interviewee is a congolese student originally from drc, who has lived in south africa for more than 10 years. for him, the diasporic predilection of living here and there should deviate from the essentialist notion that transnationalism entails the “physical presence of the transmigrant on the territory of the country of origin” (riccio 2001: 597). despite south african’s nativism, which privileges violent exclusion over tactical inclusion, to succeed as a student in post-apartheid in this case means greater interactions with local students and communities (furnham & bochner 1986; zhou et al. 2008: 63). here, migrant remittance is not simply a source of economic livelihood for migrant families, but a chain of reconnection between exile and home. this perspective of a transnational student is enforced in the following quote: yes, but i think my culture is the same as them, i don’t have to separate myself from them, it is not like i have to use my particular culture here. because when i come to a place as a foreigner, i have to respect that place and i have to deal ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 392 with that situation but if i have something new, people will learn from me and i will also learn from them, it’s not conflict but it’s culture that people in drc don’t have. we must improve each other (participant 4). here, the notion of transnationalism in a multicultural learning environment like cput is about embracing cultural difference. for them, being moored to native cultural beliefs and values that connect migrants with the country of origin is as important as finding new ways to adapt and tap into the resources of local students. to this, zhou et al. (2008: 70) argue that “through connections with their compatriots in the host country [francophone students] might learn a series of culturally relevant skills to facilitate their academic success.” this transnational trajectory has clear implications for the way francophone students deal with exclusionary tendencies at cput. patterns of social exclusion in the case of francophone students at cput generally, higher education exerts enormous pressure on transnational students because they are expected to socialise into a new academic environment and cope with equally new learning demands and expectations. in the case of cput-based francophone students, this pressure is worsened by exclusionary tendencies from both their peers and lecturers. the interviews with the participants pointed to three intertwined forms of social exclusion namely language, academic and cultural differences (talebloo & baki 2013). because they are primarily french speaking, interviewees claimed they often experience exclusion because of their inadequate english language skills especially since english is the main medium of teaching and learning at cput. one participant commented: i was now thinking that i am stupid. they do not understand that i don’t speak english properly because i am from another country. they were saying that i am stupid and i make many mistakes when i am speaking, for instance during presentations they were laughing because of my accent. i wanted to quit but the counsellor told me that if i pass all my subjects i will prove them wrong. and the entire gabonese students, all foreigners passed all their subjects. (participant 3). in this testimony, the lack of adequate english language to engage in academic activities and local students’ responses to this challenge resulted in the student’s experience of alienation. here her intellectual aptitude is compromised because of the inability to communicate in the university’s medium of instruction, resulting in a form of rejection. although local students ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 393 who are not first language english speakers encounter similar linguistic challenges, the experience of transnational students is more agonizing because they “are separated from their social and cultural comfort zone” (menzies & baron 2014: 84). instead of embracing diversity and encouraging a culture of collective peer support, local students see their francophone counterpart as the other, equating their accent and lack of english proficiency to academic incompetence (errey 1994; felix & lawson 1994). in this sense, the attitudes of local students psychologically affect the self-esteem of francophone students and their desires to interact socially in this learning environment. the learning space intimidates and breeds fear in francophone students, fears that are not only socially exclusionary but may force them to shelve or isolate themselves from participating in enriching academic activities (saith 2001; eccv policy discussion paper 2009). using language proficiency to prevent francophone students from active classroom participation pushes them into a ‘silent mode’ perpetuating the misconception at cput that francophone students are “deficient in academic skills such as critical thinking and [are] unwilling participate in class discussions” (ryan & viete 2009: 304). this has a direct negative impact on the way their oral and written projects are assessed by academic staff. this socially intimidating and exclusionary learning space, does not “take into account both the multiple and contested nature of literacy learning in multicultural classrooms and intercultural innovations in meaning and identity making” (ryan & viete 2009: 305). interestingly, this dysfunctional space is not only created by local students but also by local staff. the interviews revealed a general lack of willingness from staff to provide a supportive learning environment to francophone students. in the following quotation, one participant shares their experience: there are some lecturers when you go to them when you want to know more about the subject or the brief they gave you, they will say no and tell you to go read the brief or you have to ask your friends because they do not have time now. but while i was leaving one of these lecturers’ office, one of our class students (a south african) went to the same lecturer and she helped her. when i got my assignment from the lecturer, i failed and she said i did not understand the assignment and my language was bad. they are not supposed to say that to a student. if a student goes to a lecturer it means that he/she does not understand. the lecturer has to freely explain what the brief is talking ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 394 about. i think the lecturer does not like us coming from other countries especially us who cannot speak english well… (participant 3). from the quotation above, this student is denied access to out of classroom learning support from their lecturer simply because of their foreignness. although the university expects lecturers to provide regular one-to-one consultation with students, this student is academically excluded from this enriching learning experience because of the lecturer’s attitude towards francophone students (tati 2010; maharaj et al. 2011; menzies & barons 2014). this example shows clearly how “english language proficiency often influences the ways international students are assessed and afforded rights of participation” (ryan & viete 2009: 304). moreover, by tactically blaming the student for their own academic failure, the lecturer does not uphold the responsibility of mentoring and providing an inclusive learning space to “students from diverse cultural backgrounds” (maharaj et al. 2011: 211) as expected in a richly diverse university like cput. furthermore, the lecturer’s actions marginalise, oppress and silence, making the process of academic socialisation more burdensome to this francophone student (watson 2013). these classroom experiences expose not only the linguistic but also the cultural differences that shape the learning journeys of francophone students at cput. during the interviews students highlighted specific aspects of cultural difference that tend to enforce social exclusion in this academic environment (ward 1997; viete & peeler 2007; viete & phan 2007). they mentioned aspects such as showing respect, learning attitudes, social behaviours and so on. for example: the way we treat lecturers is different here at cput. students call lecturers by their names instead of sir, madam or doctor. i think this is not showing respect because the lecturer is an elder and has studied more than the student, and in my country we respect elders. also, they are very close to lecturer and these lecturers treat students like their friends, so they disturb in class and even answer their phones during class. for me it is very difficult to make friends with people who do not show respect. that is why you always see me with other foreigners because we are similar (participant 12). although this mode of student/lecturer relationship is very common with the current generation of university students, for this student, it is a marker of cultural difference in terms of the expression of respect. here an inclusive learning environment is hindered by francophone students’ cultural values ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 395 and belief systems, which consider lecturers as “founts of all wisdom” (ryan & viete 2009: 304). in the quotation, there is a feeling of culture shock and the interviewee represents local students’ behaviours, beliefs and values as unacceptable and should be avoided (li & gasser 2005; thomson et al. 2006). this promotes a culture of clustering amongst international students, mitigating opportunities for “developing an understanding of and adaptation to the new culture” (thomson et al. 2006: 3). by trying not to socialise with local students because of their social behaviours, the process of adaptation becomes more challenging and stressful. local students’ social behaviours recurred prominently during the interviews, as having visible implication for their attitudes to learning. for francophone students, it was difficult to develop a sense of collective identity because of the values that south african’s attach to education and also because of their perceptions about other africans. they alluded to the culture of xenophobic violence and increasing racialised classroom behaviours as a barrier to social inclusion (hassim et al. 2008; neocosmos 2010; landau 2011). the feeling of a racialised classroom is expressed in the following quotes: no, it is not the same. there is still discrimination. it means that apartheid is not finished yet. white people sit with white people, coloured people with coloured people and foreigners with foreigners. we are not very open to each other (participant 15). when the lecturers give group work, south african students do not want to work with us. when we ask them they will say it is because the want to talk their local language and we are not going to understand. but i think it is because south africans don’t like foreigners […] they think we are going to take their jobs when we finish studying. like they are always asking us when are we going back home? are you going back home after you finish? you can see that they don’t like us here. we also don’t want to work with them because they are lazy; they always have excuses like work, trains, buses, funerals etc. so any group works, we foreigners prefer to work together (participant 6). in the above quotation, the learning environment at cput is mediated by racial and xenophobic tendencies associated with post-apartheid south africa. the fear of the foreigner is not only a street level intimation but also a common discourse in an academic space like cput where local students perceive this multicultural space as an “exclusively south african domain” (hassim et al. 2008: 114). in the same token, labelling local students as ‘lazy’ and ‘full of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 396 excuses’ reinforces the practice of insulation from south african citizenry perpetuated by migrants who “claim rights to be in south africa but not part of it” (landau 2008: 107). the challenges of adaptation in a new learning environment from the different characteristics of transnational student life and exclusionary constellations expressed above, it is expected that francophone students would face many challenges adapting to a new learning environment in post-apartheid south africa. in the interviews, they blamed the challenges of adaptation on the post-apartheid pathologies such as crime, poverty and violence as well as on cultural and linguistic differences. while this blame game featured prominently, francophone students’ perceptions about local students have also contributed significantly to the challenges of adaptation (chhetri 1980; zhou et al. 2008; tati 2010; lazar 2011). as chhetri (1980) has argued, a process of adaptation is in fact a two-way process which involves migrants and host nationals. scholarship on transnational migration speaks to spaces of flow, which require movements, adjustments, acculturation, integration and assimilation (lazar 2011; sonn 2002; chhetri 1980). these symmetries of migration by no means suggest that uprootedness and adaptation in an unfamiliar space is less challenging. in the case of the francophone community at cput, the challenges of adaptation were linked to length of stay, ethnocentricity, memories of home and the feeling of loss, familiar prejudices about foreigners and local students’ attitudes to learning. nostalgia is real and yes it happened to me. i remember in my first year calling my father and telling him that i wanted to come back home. my family and friends encouraged me and told me that this bad feeling will go away (participant 10). when i just arrived south africa, it was difficult for me because i missed my family and friends in gabon. i didn’t have any friends, so i spent hours in my room thinking about my parents and some days i would even cry (participant 5). this excerpt reinforces the notion that transnational migration in south african is characterised by culture shock and a feeling loss and in the early days in exile, migrants want “to meet social and psychological needs for belonging and relatedness” (sonn 2002: 10). the culture shock and need for belonging often translates into homesickness and memories of loss, affecting their social relationship with local citizens. these competing forces impeded ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 397 francophone students’ eagerness to adapt because instead of negotiating new ways of belonging and searching for an “opportunity for developing an understanding of and adaptation to the new culture,” they decided to insulate themselves from local students (thomson et al. 2006: 3). by insulating themselves, they tend to experience cultural and social distress and, as articulated above, resort to reconnection with home and family as a coping mechanism. the feeling of discomfort, dislocation and distress experienced by francophone students exacerbates the challenges of adaptation in that these lived experiences further alienate them from the host community. in addition to homesickness and memories of home, francophone students at cput also alluded to academic discrimination, social boundaries and prejudices as challenges to adaptation in this learning environment. one interviewee commented: i have learnt that even outside the university people do not interact with each other. something i realised and what i am still seeing up to now is that people do not get together at the university. coloured people are with coloured, white people with white and black people with black. foreigners are acting the same between themselves (participant 4). i have noticed that south african people do not get used to foreigners. they are in their corners. in my country, we are different because we are welcoming people and making them feel at home. however, in south africa, foreigners only chat with fellow foreigners. as foreigners, we usually feel that we are not welcome (participant 6). in the above quotations, the classroom dynamics show that student relationships are still fractured along racial, ethnic and cultural lines, constellations “of negative psychosocial consequences for international students which may seriously interfere with their adaptation in the host country and [with] their capacity to achieve optimally in the university setting” (thomson et al. 2006: 7). the clustering of students along identical racial or nationalistic sentiments prohibit integration and cross-cultural interactions between students, which are “essential for international students to become full members of the learning community” (ryan & viete 2009: 305). the experiences of this community of francophone students show that student relationships in this learning space tended to promote even deeper feelings of exclusion and isolation, which reminded them that they do not belong there. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 398 to survive at cput and succeed academically, francophone students are expected to circumvent social boundaries and deal with the different forms discrimination on a regular basis. for them, an immediate response to the painful experiences was to establish new social networks with other foreign students in their learning space (schartner 2015; warner & miller 2015). these new social formations were expressed in transnational friendships, study partners, or membership in international students associations on campus because “greater co-national interaction is [often] linked with stronger cultural identity” (zhou et al. 2008: 70). however, these coping strategies do not only create an imaginary sense of belonging, they further complicate the process of adaptation. as i said earlier, south african students do not like foreigners, even the lecturers but when you are here, you have to look for ways to survive. in my first year, things were really difficult because i was new, and did not have any friends but now i have friends from other countries like cameroon; nigerian because they are like us, so we hang out together. in class i work with other foreigners and it does not worry me anymore that south africans do want to work with us …i am also a member of the international student association in cape town. when you go there, you meet other foreign students and you feels good (participant 13). francophone students’ adaptation in the cput learning environment requires sustained academic and social interaction with local south africa students. these interactions are mutually beneficial because they reduce stress levels and enhance psychological adjustment (warner & miller 2015; zhou et al. 2008). however, because of perceived discrimination and social exclusionary tendencies of local students as well as foreign students’ sense of loss and attempts to stay connected to home, successful adaptation in this case has been extremely discomforting. by turning to other foreigners for friendship, comfort and support, francophone students become more resilient to adaptation because the new social networks provide an alternative support system, which help them to cope with discrimination and rejection from local students. they also provided a renewed sense of community and an imaginary sense of belonging (schartner 2015, ward & kennedy 1999; berry 1997). conclusion despite the increasing number of transnational students from francophone sub-saharan africa, living and studying in post-apartheid south africa is still a ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 399 socially and culturally stressful experience for many of these students (maharaj et al. 2011; tati 2010). these students’ belief systems, memories of home and the maintenance of family ties while in exile as well as social exclusionary fervours of local students make the adjustment process more challenging than expected. in south africa, universities have become transnational migratory localities with different academic and sociocultural tensions, which reflect the consciousness of local and international students. these tensions force transnational students to forge new identities which reflect “their multiple and complex cultural heritages, their work ethic [and] commitment to education” (arthur 2010: 22). in this article, we have discussed patterns of transnational student life, social exclusion and the challenges of adaptation in the case of francophone students at cape peninsula university of technology. references andrade, m.s. 2006. international students in english speaking universities: adjustment factors. journal of research in international education, 5(2): 131154. arthur, j.a. 2010. african diaspora identities: negotiating culture in transnational migration. new york: lexington books. babbie, e, mouton, j. vorster, p. prozesky, b. 2001. the practice of social science research. cape town: oxford university press. barratt, mf. & huba, me. 1994. factors related to international undergraduate student adjustment in an american community. college student journal, 28(4): 422-436. bartram, b. 2008. supporting international students in higher education: constructions, cultures and clashes. teaching in higher education, 13(6): 657668. bayaga, a. 2011. xenophobia and racism-elements defining collegiality: case of a south african university students. the journal of international social research, 4: 534-545. berry, j.w. 1997. immigration, acculturation, and adaptation. applied psychology: an international review, 46: 5-68. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 400 brown, l. 2008. the adjustment journey of international postgraduate students at a university in england. phd thesis (unpublished). bournemouth: bournemouth university. chhetri, r.b. 1980. immigrant thakalis of pokhara: an exercise in urban ethnography. ma thesis (unpublished). india: university of pune. de vos, as., strydom, h., fouche, cb. & delport, csl. 2005. research at grass roots for the social sciences and human service professions, 3rd edition. pretoria: van schaik. eccv policy discussion paper. 2009. statewide resources centre. social inclusion for migrants and refugees. carlton: victoria. errey, l. 1994. cultural diversity: or who’s who in the university. in: rust, c. & pye, j. 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university of technology ernest a. pineteh & thecla n. mulu occupational change among nigerian immigrants living in the netherlands pamela ijeoma no future for our children: challenges faced by foreign minors living in south africa ncumisa willie & popo mfubu ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor dr mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh cape peninsula university of technology, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delagdo wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, basel, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print) copyright © 2016 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 465 6433 email: editor@sihma.org.za webpage: www.sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za http://www.sihma.org.za/ iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ volume 2 number 1 january – april 2016 articles 332 xenophobia, price competition and violence in the spaza sector in south africa laurence piper & andrew charman 362 angolan refugees in south africa: alternatives to permanent repatriation? sergio carciotto 383 francophone transnational students, social exclusion and the challenges of adaptation at a south african university of technology ernest a. pineteh & thecla n. mulu 404 occupational change among nigerian immigrants living in the netherlands pamela ijeoma 423 no future for our children: challenges faced by foreign minors living in south africa ncumisa willie & popo mfubu ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 332 xenophobia, price competition and violence in the spaza sector in south africa laurence piper and andrew charman abstract the last decade has seen growing awareness of violent attacks against foreigners in south africa. this includes attacks against foreign traders in the townships where they are portrayed as ‘taking over’ by out-competing south african traders on price. central to township trade are neighbourhood grocery or convenience stores colloquially known ‘spaza’ shops. drawing on evidence from surveys with over 1000 spaza shopkeepers from south africa’s three main cities, this article makes the case that business competitiveness does not correspond simply with being foreign or south african. while bangladeshi and somali shops were, on average, cheaper than south african shops, zimbabwean and mozambican shops were actually more expensive. further, there is also no easy correspondence between being foreign or south african and the experience of violent crime. some nationalities report levels lower than south africans, and some higher. however, there does seem to be a correlation between reported levels of violent crime and economic competitiveness: the nationalities whose shops are more expensive reported lower levels of violent crime, while those whose shops are cheaper reported higher levels. this suggests that the chance of being violently targeted is less about nationality, and more about whether you keep prices low and (presumably) profits high. however, the reality is more complicated as the nature of the crime experienced by the more successful shopkeepers differs by nationality. hence, somali shopkeepers endure much more violent crime than bangladeshi shopkeepers. not only do these findings challenge the myth that all foreign spaza shops are more competitive than south african shops, but also the assumption that all foreign shopkeepers experience the same levels and, especially, forms of violence. * department of political studies, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa, 7535. email: lpiper@uwc.ac.za ** sustainable livelihoods foundation, cape town, south africa, 7800. email: andrew.charman@livelihoods.org.za mailto:lpiper@uwc.ac.za mailto:andrew.charman@livelihoods.org.za ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 333 keywords informal economy, retail business competition, migration, nationality, xenophobia. introduction the last ten years has seen growing public awareness of violent attacks against foreign shopkeepers in south africa, especially those who run spaza shops. notably, most xenophobic attacks have occurred in poor, black urban settlements called townships that were created as dormitories for cheap labour under apartheid (fauvelle-aymar & segatti 2011), and which remain the first point of settlement for most migrants into the city, including those from the rest of africa. as the most densely populated and often poorest areas in the country, townships have high levels of unemployment and significant levels of informal economic activity. central to the informal economy of the township is the spaza shop, or neighbourhood grocery or convenience store, which is the second most common form of informal micro-enterprise in south african townships after alcohol retail establishments known as ‘shebeens’ (charman et al. 2013). in the last ten years, the spaza sector has witnessed the rise of foreign ownership, principally by migrants from the rest of africa, but also by bangladeshi and other south asian migrants (charman et al. 2012). this change of ownership has impacted on township life in several ways, and is often cited as one reason behind the xenophobic attitudes and attacks evident in south africa, especially since 2008. hence, popular explanations of violence against foreigners include allegations that foreign migrants are taking jobs, women, state grants and other social opportunities that rightly belong to south africans only. after the large-scale attacks on more than 100 small businesses in port elizabeth in 2013, the global post reported that ‘many people accuse “foreigners” of taking their jobs, or of putting south african shopkeepers out of business by undercutting their prices’ (conway-smith 2013). similarly, in 2012, the somaliland press reported that mobs tell somalis to leave south africa, in part because they ‘fear that they will take their jobs, townships, businesses and eventually their country’ (hussein 2012). claims that foreigners are illegitimate competitors for scarce resources are made frequently around the world. this is currently evident in the uk, from ukip (uk independence party) and the reaction by the conservative party on the immigration issue. other examples abound, from countries including ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 334 belgium (zagefka et al. 2007), israel (pedahzur & yishai 1999; semyonov et al. 2002), germany (wimmer 1997), turkey (zagefka et al. 2007), the united states (citrin et al. 1997) and south africa (crush 2008 & everett 2011). notably, although often dismissed as not the real or main reason behind xenophobic attacks both internationally (wimmer 1997) and in south africa (hickey 2014), there is evidence that foreign traders have impacted on the local informal economy of the urban township and informal settlements. this impact is manifest both in the increasing number of foreign-run shops, but also by competition with south african shopkeepers on price (africa unite 2007; department of the premier 2007). hence, a number of studies (charman et al 2012 & gastrow & amit 2013) have identified competition on price as a central reason for the rise of the somali spaza owners and the decline of south africanrun shops. this development is important economically as competition on price is not a practice historically embraced by south african township traders (charman & petersen 2007), whose motivations for trading are not necessarily ‘reducible to the idea of “maximisation of profit”’ (neves & du toit 2012: 131). in addition, this development is important politically in that it forms a point of potential social conflict that can be used to justify xenophobic attacks. for example, in a recent article in the star on 13 june 2014, landau and freemantle (2014) describe how xenophobic attacks are motivated by a discourse that blames a group for an individual’s alleged crimes. they cite the case of ‘marauding groups’ making their way through mamelodi, and forcing foreigners, especially foreign shopkeepers, to leave the township ‘largely unencumbered by resistance from the police or residents.’ landau and freemantle (2014) point out that these mobs often escalate out of banal conflicts between individuals, a practice they liken to ‘sippenhaft’, a term popularised during the nazi regime that literally means ‘kin liability’, and holds a whole group of people responsible for an individual’s purported crime. the point is that the increase in foreign-owned spaza shops, ostensibly at the expense of south african shopkeepers, can form an issue on which this kind of xenophobic discourse can fixate, and around which mobilisation and violence can occur (hickel 2014). notably, landau and freemantle ( 2 0 1 4 ) point out that the possibility of this kind of xenophobic mobilisation exists due to institutional failure on the part of the state, not least around formal policing. further, this institutional failure is exacerbated by the reluctance of the police to take the ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 335 problem of xenophobia and xenophobic attacks seriously. writing on politicsweb on 19 june 2014, peter fabricius argues that the ‘south african government mostly dismisses xenophobic violence as “ordinary criminality.” perhaps that explains why it now seems to be becoming routine in south africa – almost accepted as an inevitable part of the south african way of life, like other violent crimes.’ consequently, what follows in this article takes great care to interrogate carefully, systematically, and in ways well supported by evidence, claims about price competition and violent crime in the spaza sector and their relationships with nationality. what emerges is a picture very different from popular discourse in at least two respects. first, the notion that the ‘foreign’ shopkeeper out-competes the south african shopkeeper is largely inaccurate. if one compares spaza shops on price then south africans are actually slightly cheaper on average than mozambicans and zimbabweans, although more expensive than bangladeshi and somali shopkeepers. further variation is evident by area and by product. second, the idea that foreign shopkeepers bear the greatest burden of violent crime is also not sustained by the evidence. once again we found that reported levels of violent crime f o r s h o p k e e p e r s varied by nationality where south africans reported higher levels of crime than mozambicans and zimbabweans, but less than somalis and bangladeshis. again, more variety is introduced by area and form of violence. lastly, where there is a correlation between price and violent crime, the nature of the crime differs significantly by nationality, suggesting that variables other than price also matter. methodology the data used in this article comes from surveys conducted with over 1050 spaza shopkeepers nationwide. more specifically, the data comes from eleven local-area censuses conducted in townships and informal settlements in cape town, gauteng and durban by the sustainable livelihoods foundation (slf) from 2011-20131. in each of the eleven sites, a team geolocated each identifiable business on each street, and conducted semistructured surveys with all the traders from each of the main business types, including spaza shops. the surveys were conducted by the slf team in english, or in the language of the respondent where possible (the team included isixhosa, afrikaans, isizulu and somali speakers). across the whole 1 see http://livelihoods.org.za/informality/micro-enterprises/ ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 336 sample, the survey revealed shopkeepers from the following countries: angola, bangladesh, burundi, drc, egypt, ethiopia, lesotho, mozambique, namibia, pakistan, rwanda, south africa, tanzania and zimbabwe. figure 1 is an example of the entire census for one area, ivory park, in gauteng. the spaza shops are highlighted in figure 2. the areas and number of spaza shops by nationality are described in table 1 below. if one examines table 1, it is clear that ivory park accounts for the highest share of the overall sample (20.7%), followed by delft south (17.1%) and phillipi (16.0%). vrygrond accounts for the lowest share (0.2%), followed by overcome heights (2.1%) and seawinds (3.1%). looking at the south africans only, it is interesting that ivory park no longer accounts for the largest share, but it is rather kwamashu (22.0%), followed by phillipi (20.4%) and delft south (17.8%). in contrast, looking at the foreigners only, the ivory park share is the highest (27.0%), followed by delft south (16.5%) and tembisa (15.3%). in terms of row, it is notable that the south african share is clearly dominant in kwamashu (88.9%), sweet home farm (79.1%) and phillipi (61.9%). however, the foreigners’ share is more dominant in vrygrond (100.0%, note that there are only two respondents), imizamo yethu (88.3%), capricorn (79.1%) and ivory park (67.0%). table 1: distribution of spaza shops in the sample 2 number row total column total south african foreign total south african foreign total south african foreign total delft south, cct 91 89 180 50.6% 49.4% 100.0% 17.8% 16.5% 17.1% imizamo yethu, cct 7 53 60 11.7% 88.3% 100.0% 1.4% 9.8% 5.7% ivory park, jhb 72 146 218 33.0% 67.0% 100.0% 14.1% 27.0% 20.7% 2 the price tables 1 to 4 were generated by dr yu or economics at uwc as part of our drafting an article on spaza prices and nationality, forthcoming as piper & yu. 2016. deconstructing ‘the foreign’: the limits of citizenship for explaining price competition in south african spazas. development southern africa. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 337 kwamashu, dbn 112 14 126 88.9% 11.1% 100.0% 22.0% 2.6% 12.0% overcome heights, cct 9 13 22 40.9% 59.1% 100.0% 1.8% 2.4% 2.1% phillipi, cct 104 64 168 61.9% 38.1% 100.0% 20.4% 11.8% 16.0% seawinds, cct 18 15 33 54.5% 45.5% 100.0% 3.5% 2.8% 3.1% sweet home farm, cct 34 9 43 79.1% 20.9% 100.0% 6.7% 1.7% 4.1% tembisa, ekurhuleni 49 83 132 37.1% 62.9% 100.0% 9.6% 15.3% 12.6% vrygrond, cct 0 2 2 0.0% 100.0% 100.0% 0.0% 0.4% 0.2% capricorn, cct 14 53 67 20.9% 79.1% 100.0% 2.7% 9.8% 6.4% 510 541 1051 48.5% 51.5% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% source: authors notably, while the data for each site is slf census data, and therefore is representative of the site, the collation across the eleven sites does not constitute a representative national sample. thus, while the sheer size and spatial spread of the sample is suggestive, as are the recurring spatial patterns in respect of business types (for example spaza shops are always evenly spread across a settlement), it is not a basis from which to generalise statistically to the rest of the country. hence, while we can have near absolute levels of confidence in the claims in respect of each site, we cannot have the same confidence when speaking of the country as a whole. the key data used in this article is not spatial data but rather the data collected from surveys with over 1050 shopkeepers across the eleven sites. this data is linked to two main variables: prices of key products and experiences of violent crime. in terms of prices we asked each shopkeeper the price of their 12 most common products, namely: 1 litre milk, 6 eggs, a loaf of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 338 white bread, a half loaf of white bread, 250g sugar, 500g sugar, 340ml coke, 1.5 litre coke, jive, double o, premium cigarettes and economy cigarettes. these items form the basis of a price comparison across site and by nationality that allow us to interrogate the claim that foreign shopkeepers are more price competitive than south africans. in terms of violent crime, we asked each shopkeeper to list each incident of the following for the previous five years: murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, theft, assault, arson and harassment. this data forms the basis of analysis of levels of violent crime across the sample and by nationality too. three key assumptions inform the subsequent analysis. the first assumption is that foreign shop keepers are first generation migrants. while we did not ask this in the surveys, we are confident that this is overwhelmingly the case both from our experience in the field, but also from the fact that, due to the racist policies of the apartheid era, migration into south africa’s townships from the rest of africa only began on any scale in the late 1990s. the second assumption is that shops with cheaper prices will not only outcompete more expensive rivals in terms of attracting more customers, but also be more profitable due to higher turnover. indeed there is strong qualitative evidence to this effect from both somali and south african shop keepers in a previous study (charman et al. 2012: 66-7). the third assumption is that reporting on experiences of crime is the same across all types of respondents. while there are problems with this, as some foreign shop keepers may feel more vulnerable than locals and thus be less likely to report issues, we attempted to counter this by using somali surveyors for somali respondents, and by verifying mull reports of crime with the neighbours of the shopkeepers. unpacking spaza competitiveness in what follows the article unpacks the sample of shopkeepers spatially and by nationality, demonstrating both that south africans constitute the single largest nationality in the sample, and that very different nationalities are found in each of the three cities. this is the first way in which the ‘foreign’ can be disassembled in terms of spaza shops in south africa. second, the article examines the amount of stock found in spazas by nationality, demonstrating that some nationalities (zimbabweans and mozambicans) hold less stock than south africans, suggesting fewer resources, while others hold more. further, the article compares the average price of products, demonstrating that for a basket of the top 12 goods somali and bangladeshi shopkeepers are the cheapest, but that zimbabweans and mozambicans are more ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 339 expensive than south africans. both these insights further disassemble the foreign/south african distinction. indeed, the only products on which all foreigners out-compete south africans on average price are 6 eggs and economy cigarettes. notably, against the mainstream view, south africans out-compete most foreigners on prices of 1l milk and the loaf of white bread. a. nationality and spatiality to begin with the nationality of shopkeepers, figure 3 demonstrates that 510 of the 1051 (48.5%) respondents are south africans, and the remaining 541 (51.5%) are foreigners. taken as a whole then, the sample is divided roughly 50:50, south african to foreign, but actually there are more than double the number of south africans shopkeepers than the 236 somali shopkeepers, who constitute the second most common nationality. furthermore, as revealed in figure 4, when unpacked spatially, the distribution of nationalities varies tremendously by city where 220 of the 236 (93%) somali shopkeepers are found in cape town, 103 of 149 (70%) ethiopian shopkeepers are in gauteng, as were 38 of 46 (83%) of bangladeshi shopkeepers. therefore, the identity of ‘foreign’ shopkeepers differs quite profoundly from area to area, and is of little use in identifying the actual nationalities involved in any city. thus, ‘foreign’ shopkeepers in johannebsurg are very different nationalities from ‘foreign’ shopkeepers in cape town. b. spaza stock while spaza shops stock a wide variety of goods, we identified the 12 most common products from our survey. moreover, if one analyses the extent to which shopkeepers have these 12 items in their shops, and break this down by nationality as in table 2 and in figure 5, then once again the south african versus foreign contrast quickly breaks down. instead, we find that south africans are more likely to have a half loaf of white bread on their shelves than most other nationalities. conversely, somalis and ethiopians are more likely to stock sugar than most other nationalities, and mozambicans and bangladeshis almost always have eggs in their stores. further, if one treats the 12 products as a basket of goods, then south africans generally have more stock than zimbabwean and mozambican shopkeepers but less than other nationalities. also notable, the somali and bangladeshi – and perhaps the ethiopian – shopkeepers have significantly more on the shelves than other nationalities. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 340 table 2: number and proportion of shopkeepers reporting stock by nationality and product south african (n=510 ) foreign ethiopia n (n=149) somalia n (n=236) mozambica n (n=48) banglades hi (n=46) zimbabwea n (n=28) other (n=34 ) foreign total (n=541 ) 1 litre milk 284 55.7% 90 60.4% 208 88.1% 12 25.0% 32 69.6% 9 32.1% 20 58.8% 371 68.6% 6 eggs 426 83.5% 140 94.0% 222 94.1% 47 97.9% 45 97.8% 25 89.3% 23 67.6% 502 92.8% half loaf of white bread 260 51.0% 44 29.5% 169 71.6% 19 39.6% 19 41.3% 7 25.0% 18 52.9% 276 51.0% full loaf of white bread 62 12.2% 60 40.3% 58 24.6% 19 39.6% 27 58.7% 17 60.7% 12 35.3% 193 35.7% 250g sugar 338 66.3% 134 89.9% 197 83.5% 44 91.7% 42 91.3% 23 82.1% 22 64.7% 462 85.4% 500g sugar 408 80.0% 137 91.9% 217 91.9% 47 97.9% 44 95.7% 26 92.9% 25 73.5% 496 91.7% ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 341 340 ml coke 220 43.1% 94 63.1% 134 56.8% 9 18.8% 43 93.5% 6 21.4% 13 38.2% 299 55.3% 1.5l coke 233 45.7% 37 24.8% 203 86.0% 5 10.4% 8 17.4% 4 14.3% 22 64.7% 279 51.6% jive 81 15.9% 31 20.8% 122 51.7% 2 4.2% 7 15.2% 3 10.7% 14 41.2% 179 33.1% double o 80 15.7% 13 8.7% 106 44.9% 4 8.3% 6 13.0% 2 7.1% 12 35.3% 143 26.4% premiu m cigarett e 419 82.2% 139 93.3% 210 89.0% 43 89.6% 44 95.7% 25 89.3% 24 70.6% 485 89.6% econom ic cigarett e 166 32.5% 65 43.6% 148 62.7% 27 56.3% 21 45.7% 14 50.0% 9 26.5% 284 52.5% average 48.7% 55.0% 70.4% 48.3% 61.2% 47.9% 52.4% 61.1% source: authors c. pricing at the centre of the claim that foreign shopkeepers out-compete south africans is the idea of price competition, specifically the claim that foreign shopkeepers have lower prices than south africans. this appears to be confirmed by figure 6, where foreign prices are slightly cheaper than south african, with the exception of coke. however, once one disaggregates this by product and nationality, the contrast breaks down. hence, as can be seen from table 3, only on eggs and economy cigarettes are all foreign traders cheaper on mean price than south africans, but south africans are cheaper on 1l milk and a loaf of white bread than almost all other nationalities. perhaps more tellingly though, on 24 of a total of 72 prices, south africans are cheaper than all others, suggesting that the real difference on average prices is not large. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 342 this claim is confirmed by figure 7 which compares the mean price per product between south african shopkeepers and those of other nationalities. here the difference in mean price on a basket of goods is significant, with somalis being the cheapest by over r4. critically however, south africans are mid-table, with only somali, bangladeshi and other smaller nationalities being cheaper. somewhat remarkably, given the common discourse, ethiopian spaza shopkeepers are more expensive across a basket of goods, with mozambicans and zimbabweans at the bottom of the list at over r1 more per basket. table 3: difference between mean foreign price and mean south african price (in cents) ethiopian somalian mozambican bangladeshi zimbabwean other 1 litre milk 183.89* -153.76* 176.95 196.22* 211.67 -109.72 6 eggs -83.46* -83.69* -86.98* -89.32* -73.72* -86.28* ½ loaf of white bread 15.79 -25.61* 67.84* 26.79 65.14 -40.02* loaf of white bread -23.55 28.68 -82.60* -55.79 -60.15 34.95 250g sugar -5.30 -25.04* 18.97 -28.62* 2.85 -18.99 500g sugar -45.78* -69.94* 12.78 -31.24* 30.23 -45.69* 340ml coke -14.85 -42.73* 75.08 8.49 -33.25 -23.63 1.5l coke 37.67* 3.76 -2.60 -32.60 -32.60 10.59 jive 24.17 -2.96 -20.99* -35.27 12.35 -10.27 double o -16.25 -12.00 -16.25* 0.42 -16.25* -28.75 premium cigarette -10.24* -25.70* 11.92* -4.24 19.47* -15.38* economic cigarette -12.35* -15.59* -17.15* -15.03* -17.89 -19.00* total 49.74 -424.58 136.97 -60.19 107.85 -352.19 source: authors * the mean price difference is statistically significant at α = 5%. this picture is confirmed by a comparison of the difference between south african and other nationalities on median price per product, as in table 4. the key point here is that there is no difference on median price by nationality for 40 of the 72 possible prices, or 56% of all price comparisons. indeed, if one removes milk and bread, the remaining median price differences are less than 50c. in sum, price differences are generally small, and those that do exist, do not follow the south african/foreign divide. hence south africans sell the cheapest milk and bangladeshi’s sell the cheapest coke. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 343 table 4: difference between median foreign price and median south african price (in cents) ethiopian somalian mozambican bangladeshi zimbabwean other 1 litre milk 350 -50 300 425 450 -50 6 eggs 0 0 0 0 0 0 half loaf of white bread 0 0 100 50 100 -25 full loaf of white bread -100 50 -100 -100 -100 50 250g sugar 0 0 50 0 0 0 500g sugar -50 -50 0 0 0 -50 340ml coke 0 -50 50 0 -25 0 1.5l coke 0 0 0 -50 -50 0 jive 0 0 0 0 0 0 double o 0 0 0 0 0 0 premium cigarette -10 -10 40 -10 40 -10 economic cigarette 0 0 0 0 0 0 source: authors note: it is only possible to test whether the foreign price is statistically significant from the south african price at the mean (see tables 5 & 6), but not at the median. in conclusion, our analysis suggests that somalis and bangladeshis have the most stock, and are cheaper on average than others, whereas zimbabweans and mozambicans have the least stock and are more expensive on average. overall though, price differences are small as suggested by the convergence on median prices. the one partial exception to this may be somalis who are relatively more competitive than mozambicans and zimbabweans. so there is an asymmetry in the data that may be worth further exploration – especially given the findings of the following section. unpacking violent crime in this section the article unpacks the reported levels of violent crime against spaza shopkeepers in the last five years. it is critical to note that most shopkeepers had not been in the shop for a l l o f the preceding five years, so actual levels of crime will be underreported rather than overreported. nevertheless the levels of crime reported across our seven categories (theft, armed robbery, assault, arson, attempted murder, murder and harassment) were high. hence, some 747 of a possible 1054 spaza shops, or 71%, had experienced at least one incident of crime in the preceding five years. furthermore, of our seven types of crime, only theft can be argued not to ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 344 involve the exercise of violence or the threat of violence. hence, some 470 of 1054 or 45% of shops reported a violent crime in the preceding five years. this distinction will become important when considering the difference between somali and bangladeshi shopkeepers below. when unpacking all these incidents as per figure 8 it is clear that theft is the most common crime, affecting over 25% of all shops, with armed robbery affecting nearly another quarter. in short, robbery, armed or not, constitutes nearly the majority of reported crimes from spaza shops, and is thus the greatest single risk that spaza shopkeepers face. d. spatiality and violent crime aside from these generalisations, the experience of crime by spaza shopkeepers varies dramatically by area and nationality. thus, as revealed in table 5 and figure 9, there is a significant difference in the extent of crime across our eleven sites, with sweet home farm reporting 49 incidents at 43 spaza shops in the last five years (114%) and seawinds coming in as the safest with just 24%. further, this difference does not seem to correspond to settlement type as overcome heights is also a smaller informal settlement like sweet home farm and had the second lowest crime rate at 41%. perhaps there is some convergence in the larger townships, with ivory park, kwamashu, phillipi and tembisa close to the 70% mark. lastly, it seems clear that theft and robbery make the most important difference to these overall figures, as the top three sites of sweet home farm, imizamo yethu and kwamashu report combined theft/robbery figures of 67.5%, 63.3% and 62.7%, and the bottom three of capricorn, overcome heights and seawinds report combined figures of 31.3%, 36.4% and 18.2%. table 5: any incident of crime in previous five years by location delft south imizamo yethu ivory park kwama shu overco me heights phillip i seawin ds sweet home farm tembis a vrygro nd capri corn total yes 116 53 152 105 9 130 8 49 90 3 32 747 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 345 % 64.40 88.30 69.70 83.30 40.90 77.40 24.20 114.00 68.20 75.00 47.80 70.90 total shops 180 60 218 126 22 168 33 43 132 4 67 1053 source: authors e. nationality and violent crime in addition to these spatial differences, figure 10 reveals similarly divergent experiences of crime by nationality. thus, in descending order, bangladeshi, somali and ethiopian shopkeepers reported rates of 111%, 92% and 74% respectively, whereas the lowest affected groups were zimbabwean, mozambican and other foreign at 54%, 46% and 44%. south africans are right in the middle at 62%. immediately there is an obvious and suggestive correlation with the rank order of violent crime and the rank order of price competitiveness. first however, it is important to unpack more of the differences between bangladeshi and somali experiences of violent crime. table 6: any incident of crime in previous five years by nationality south african somalian ethiopian mozambican bangladeshi zimbabwean other total incidents 315 401 309 140 28 66 20 23 % 61.8 171.4 207.4 291.7 60.9 235.7 51.3 2.2 shops 510 234 149 48 46 28 39 1054 source: authors bangladeshi shopkeepers reported higher crime levels than all other nationalities in the categories of theft, armed robbery, arson and harassment. thus 37% of bangladeshi shopkeepers report theft (south africans are the next highest at 28%), 41% report armed robbery (somalis are the next highest at 33%), 7% report arson (ethiopians are the next highest at 2%) and 20% report harassment (zimbabweans are the next highest at 18%). in contrast, somalis are first in the categories of assault at 9% (ethiopians are ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 346 second at 5%), attempted murder at 11% (ethiopians are second at 5%) and murder at 4% (south africans are second at 1%). hence, as confirmed in figure 11, the nature of the violent crime experienced by the two most vulnerable groups, somali and bangladeshi, is quite different, with somalis being exposed to significantly more extreme forms of violence. indeed, as illustrated by figure 12 which compares global murder rates per 100 000 (6.2), to the country (33.2), to all spaza shopkeepers in our sample (1518), to somali shopkeepers (3913), it is clear that running a spaza shop is dangerous. the risk of murder increases to 46 times the national average, and for somali shopkeepers to over 100 times higher than the national average. in sum, the risk of violent crime does not subscribe to the south african/foreign divide often invoked in popular discourse, but varies by area, nationality and type of crime. the analysis suggests that cheaper, and presumably more profitable, shops are more likely to experience crime than more expensive profitable shops. however, this needs further research, given the significant difference in types of crime experienced by the more successful bangladeshi and somali shopkeepers. other factors clearly impact on this relationship. conclusion the main conclusion of this article is that speaking of spaza shops a s foreign conceals more than it reveals, both in terms of business competition and in terms of violent crime. it simply is not true that foreign shops are outcompeting south african shops, and conversely, that south african shopkeepers experience less violent crime than foreign shopkeepers. to make the point another way, accurate claims can only be made when they refer to some combination of nationality, area and product/form of violent crime. further, it is notable that the cheaper shops do tend to report more crime than the expensive shops, suggesting an economic motive for most violent crime experienced by spaza shops. however, this correlation needs further exploration as the nature of the crimes experienced by somali and bangladeshi shop keepers differs significantly, with somali shopkeepers enduring higher levels of violence. perhaps this has something to do with business practice and violent entrepreneurship (charman & piper 2012; liedeman 2013), o r the spatial location of businesses, or perhaps with other ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 347 factors like social integration (gastrow & amit 2012; gastrow 2013). we simply do not know. lastly, and very importantly, the claim of a correlation between spaza price and violent crime is not a causal claim. in fact, it is not even a proper correlation as it is yet to be tested statistically. at best it is suggestive of a line of further research – albeit one that makes intuitive sense as one would expect shops perceived to have more money to be more targeted by criminals. even more importantly, the claim of a correlation between spaza prices and violent crime is not to be confused with the claim that xenophobic attacks are motivated by economic reasons. our unit of analysis in this study was the spaza shop not the xenophobic attack, and so we have not explored the latter at all, and hence are not claiming any relationship between xenophobic attacks and economic interests. this is a crucial distinction often lost in the discourse around spaza shops, xenophobia and xenophobic attacks, both on the side of the state and on the side of refugee rights groups. rather, as noted in the introduction, the concern of this article is the way in which mundane daily conflicts between individuals can be seized upon by xenophobes and incorporated into xenophobic discourse to motivate and justify xenophobic violence. references africa unite. 2007. masiphumelele small business survey: a study for the department of the premier. cape town: provincial 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problems, 49(3): 416-431. wimmer, a. 1997. explaining xenophobia and racism: a critical review of current research approaches. ethnic and racial studies, 20(1): 17-41. zagefka, h, brown, r, broquard, m. & martin, s.l. 2007. predictors and consequences of negative attitudes toward immigrants in belgium and turkey: the role of acculturation preferences and economic competition. british journal of social psychology, 46: 153-1 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 350 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 351 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 352 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 353 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 354 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 355 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 356 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 357 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 358 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 359 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 360 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 361 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 362 angolan refugees in south africa: alternatives to permanent repatriation? sergio carciotto abstract for almost twenty years, voluntary repatriation has been considered by the international community the preferable, durable and fitting solution to refugee situations. however, the numerous range of socio-economic and political factors which caused protracted refugee situations in the countries of asylum and the reluctance of refugees to return have raised doubts regarding the effectiveness of these programmes. the existing body of literature on return migration focuses on migrants’ decision-making processes to return and on the challenges encountered upon their return including post-return reintegration and identity crises, but a limited number of studies address the issue of refugees facing repatriation to post-conflict areas. this article seeks to contribute to the available literature on repatriation by examining the case study of angolan refugees in south africa, the implementation of the cessation of refugee status and its consequences on the decision-making process. findings revealed that the lack of options to acquire permanent residence in the country of asylum represented a major block to transnational mobility. the article addresses the urgent need to reshape the notion of return in the context of refugee repatriation towards more flexible forms of return involving periods of dual residence and back and forth movements. keywords angolan refugees in south africa, voluntary repatriation, temporary return, cessation of refugee status. introduction the article discusses the process of repatriation of angolan refugees from south africa to angola after the south african government’s declaration of  director of the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa, cape town, south africa. email: director@sihma.org.za mailto:director@sihma.org.za ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 363 cessation of refugee status for angolans in 2013. the purpose of the study is to understand the reasons why angolan refugees in south africa refused voluntary repatriation and the factors that influence decision-making. the life of a refugee can be divided according into the following stages: perception of threat, decision to flee, a period of extreme danger and flight; reaching safety; camp behaviour; repatriation, and settlement or resettlement (stein 1981: 320). the last three steps are considered ‘durable solutions’ to refugee problems. when compared to resettlement and local integration voluntary repatriation is presented as the most desirable of the three durable solutions for the refugees’ problems and defined as the return of refugees to their country of origin, based upon a free and informed decision, in and to conditions of safety and dignity, and with the full restoration of national protection united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr 1996). in the african continent massive voluntary repatriation movements between neighbouring countries have occurred during the 1990s. it is estimated that between 1992 and 2000 over 8 million refugees have repatriated, including 236,000 refugees who returned to liberia and 195,000 to sierra leone (unhcr 2002). during the same decade, due to the resolution of protracted armed civil conflicts, the acquisition of independent statehood and the successful transition to democracy, the cessation of refugee status for ceased circumstances3 was invoked five times for the following african countries: south africa (1995), namibia (1995), mozambique (1996), malawi (1996) and ethiopia (1999) leading to the return of more refugees (bonoan 2001). more recently, in 2012, the unhcr recommended countries to invoke the cessation clause for all angolan refugees4. return decisions are complex and influenced by a series of structural determinants including adverse socio-economic and political conditions both in the country of asylum and in the country of origin (rogge and akol 1989). structural factors such as the length of time spent in the host country, language 3 article 1c(5) of the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees, paragraphs 6(a)(e) and (f) of the unhcr statute and article i(4)(e) of the 1969 organization of african unity refugee convention. the cessation of refugee status based on the ‘ceased circumstances’ provision was applied under unhcr mandate on 21 occasions between 1973 and 1999. 4 article 4 of the implementation of the comprehensive strategy for the angolan refugee situation, including unhcr’s recommendations on the applicability of the ceased circumstances cessation clause states that: ‘unhcr recommends that states continue to implement all aspects of the cessation of refugee status during the first half of 2012’. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 364 barriers for refugee children born in exile, deteriorated living conditions, loss of income-generating activities and a politically hostile environment upon return can explain, on the one hand, why refugees are forced to remain in their country of asylum for a protracted period of time and, on the other, why they cannot return home as the causes of flight still persist. the body of literature on the determinants of repatriation decision-making processes and likelihood to return have grown over the past fifteen years. prior to that, very little was known about ‘why refugees return home’ as opposed to ‘why refugees do not want to go back’. in africa, a growing body of research on repatriation has emerged following the massive return of refugees to their home countries during the 1990s. the article is divided into four sections. the first section explains how structural forces and migrants’ agency can determine voluntary and involuntary movements and reviews the literature on refugee decisionmaking processes, the second section provides information on the case study, the third section explains the methodology used and the fourth section discusses the results and provides the conclusion. analytical frame: structure–agency impasse one of the many questions underlying the concepts of migration and return is why individuals and households decide to move and whether their decisions are the result of individuals’ rational choices or rather depend on the unavoidable constraints of social structures which disable agents’ decisions. for decades, the social sciences have been grappling to better understand the relationship between structure and agency posing to migration scholars the challenge of determining how the micro and macro level of analysis interact and can be integrated. the limitation of not having a theoretical framework able to reconcile structure and agency might, in fact, not only result in the expost application of migration theories to validate the findings of the empirical research, but also prevent the formulation of ‘robust concepts and hypotheses concerning the interaction of these concepts’ (bakewell 2010: 5). the challenge to recompose this fracture has been sharpened by the migration studies’ traditional dichotomy of voluntary (economic migrant) versus involuntary (refugee) movements which has placed in contrast migrants’ agency of taking informed decisions, on the one hand, and the structural constraints that force people to move, on the other. this separation is ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 365 misleading because decisions to move are influenced by individuals’ choices as well as by external constraints. drawing from giddens’s (1984) structuration theory, richmond (1988, 1993) attempted to move beyond this dual dichotomy by introducing the notion of proactive migrants in contrast with reactive. the former are migrants whose decisions are made within a ‘rational choice framework’, the latter are those whose decisions are constrained by socio-economic, political and environmental events. as he pointed out in explaining the differences between proactive migrants and reactive behaviours: under certain conditions the decision to move may be made after due consideration of all relevant information, rationally calculated to maximise net advantage, including both material and symbolic rewards. at the other extreme, the decision to move may be made in a state of panic facing a crisis situation which leaves few alternatives but escape from intolerable threats. between these two extremes, many decisions made by both ‘economic’ and ‘political migrants’ are a response to diffuse anxiety generated by a failure of the social system to provide for the fundamental needs of individual, biological, economic and social (richmond 1988: 17). richmond’s approach enables blurring of the distinction between economic migrants and refugees by placing their decisions on a spatial continuum ranging from individuals’ choice behaviour and structural constraints, however, its limitation lies, on one hand, in the lack of ‘attempting to integrate it with a larger domain of migration theory’ (rosenblum and tichenor 2012: 40) and, on the other, on the fact that is not fully ‘capturing the interaction between agency and structure’ (bakewell 1996: 52). amongst the researchers who attempted to bridge the gap between refugee studies and broader migration theories, de haas (2010) proposed a convincing theoretical framework to solve the structure–agency impasse. his migration system, applicable to different forms of migration, both voluntary and involuntary, is based on the tension between structural forces (i.e. socioeconomic and political factors) and migration capabilities. the latter are defined as ‘the social, human and material capital individuals are able to mobilize in order to migrate’ (de haas 2010: 16) and together with migrants’ aspirations can determine how individuals make their choices. as he explained: ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 366 if we conceive migration as a response to spatial opportunities rather than mere economic differentials, it is possible to achieve a more inclusion migration theory covering most forms of migration instead of contending with the current state of migration characterized by a rather artificial distinction between voluntary (economic) and forced migration. rather than applying such dichotomous classification, it is more appropriate to conceive of a continuum running from low to high constraints, in which all migrants deal with structural constraints, although to highly varying degrees (de haas 2010: 18). by assuming that all individuals, including displaced people and refugees, need certain capabilities and access to ‘positive freedoms’ (de haas 2011: 19) in the form of social, human and material capital to be able to flee their countries, this analytical model questions the boundaries between voluntary and forced migration. in essence, all different forms of migratory movements, with the exception of slavery and deportation, involve structural constraints as well as the autonomy of the agency. it is beyond the scope of this article to critically review all theoretical approaches which have tried to mitigate the existing fracture between agency and structure. here the aim is rather twofold: firstly to present refugee repatriation as one form of return migration by overcoming the nuanced distinction between voluntary and involuntary movements and secondly, to ‘analyse refugees’ return decisions alongside other migratory decisions (harpviken 2014: 58). for the purpose of this article refugee repatriation is placed along the same side as other forms of return migration which are the result of both structural forces and individual choices and are subject to the theoretical scrutiny of migrations studies. from a conceptual perspective, blurring the dichotomy between voluntary and involuntary movements will allow the exploration of the implications of migration theories such as transnationalism to the case of refugees (al-ali et al. 2001: 616) making irrelevant the separation between refugee and migration studies. refugee repatriation and the decision-making process the concept of voluntary repatriation moves from the belief that all refugees intend to return to their home country, an externally conceived assumption ‘which has not been subjected to independent examination’ (harrell-bond 1989: 43). the belief that refugees will return home when conditions in their ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 367 countries of origin have changed and the cause of flight is no longer in place is the core of the mantra of voluntary repatriation. as bakewell pointed out: repatriation is often seen as the optimum outcome for refugee situations as if by definition and the obvious thing for refugees to do. the fact of their wanting to return is taken for granted so their motivation for repatriating does not necessarily arise as a question (1996: 15-16). scholars (harrell-bond 1989; rogge & akol 1989) have widely debated the principle of voluntary repatriation and in particular ‘the suggestion that refugees should be encouraged to go back to countries from which they were once forced to escape has inevitably aroused passionate disagreement and discussion’ (crisp 1986: 163). there are, in fact, circumstances when return is impossible and not desirable (long and crisp 2010: 56) and even when conditions are conducive for refugees to repatriate, problems might arise due to the challenges of reintegration in the country of origin (bascom 2005; cornish et al. 1999; omata 2013; setrana & tonah 2014). in this regard, harrell-bond (1989) argued that there are no empirical evidences to support the idea that reintegration into the sending countries would be more successful than into the host community. other studies (harrell-bond 1989; hathaway 2006; zieck 2004) pointed out how voluntary repatriation has been deliberately used by host governments and refugee agencies to terminate refugeehood situations by promoting repatriation when durable and fundamental changes of conditions in the country of origin have not occurred. stein (1997:4) referred to ‘premature repatriation’ as a particular form of return under duress and the resulting ‘lack of asylum which comes when both the country of origin and the refugees are not ready for the return’. a number of empirical studies (bascom 1994; koser 1997; rutinwa 1996) suggested that refugees repatriate spontaneously and without any assistance when conditions in their home countries improve, but also that self-repatriation movements might be caused by hostile socioeconomic and environmental conditions in the country of asylum (ighodaro 2006) and by deliberate pressure on refugees from ‘host governments, local communities, militia forces and other actors with the specific intention of inducing refugees to go back to their homeland’ (crisp 2000: 17). safety in the country of origin is also considered to be a pivotal determinant of the decision-making process as returnees are more likely to return to their country of origin when they perceive that safety and security are fully restored ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 368 (kifleyesus 2010: 55). even when conditions in the country of origin have changed and peace is restored, refugees may still be reluctant to return. there are numerous reasons why return is not a desirable option for refugees including: the lack of access to reliable information on the conditions in the country of origin (koser 1997), the presence of social networks in the country of asylum (karooma 2014), the notions of ‘home’ and ‘identity’ (chowdhory 2012; malkki 1995) which are subjected to a reconceptualization during exile and the lack of economic opportunities in the country of origin (kunz 1981). continued insecurity was mentioned by crisp amongst the main reasons for ugandan refugees resisting repatriation from sudan. as he analysed: given the various forms of violence and intimidation that returnees could expect in west nile, it was hardly surprising that few decided to go home. in fact, there is evidence to suggest that many of those who did choose to return had a false impression of the security they would enjoy (crisp 1986: 172). kibreab (2003) argued that what makes return an interesting option is not only the conditions in the country of origin but rather a combination of factors occurring both in the country of asylum and in the country of origin. his theory challenges the simplistic assumption that refugees should return to their actual homes and communities from which they were uprooted. while in exile, in fact, ‘refugees go through a process of transformation which enable them to create new social networks transcending ethnic and religious boundaries and weakening their attachment to the place of origin’ (kibreab 2003: 33). the geographical context also plays a pivotal role as refugees originating from the same country and living in different places react differently to repatriation. refugees who are hosted in the ‘global north’ can access a wide range of civil, social and economic rights and have the opportunity to conduct employment and self-employment activities and this has a strong influence on their decision to return. those who are living in less developed countries generally enjoy fewer socio-economic rights and are more inclined to repatriate. this leads to the conclusion that foremost are ‘the conditions in countries of asylum that influence the decision of refugees to stay put or return’ (kibreab 2003: 45). the angolan case angola was devastated by a long civil war which began in 1975 after the country’s declaration of independence in 1961 and was fought between two strongly opposed political factions; on one side the ruling popular movement ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 369 for the liberation of angola (mpla) and, on the other side, a rebel movement known as the national union for the total independence of angola (unita5). the war ended after the killing of unita’s leader, jonas savimbi, when a peace agreement was signed in luena in april 2002. almost thirty years of brutal war destroyed most of the country’s infrastructures and left an estimated one million people dead and four million internally displaced (irin 2005). since the end of the civil war the un’s refugee agency has been involved in the repatriation of angolan refugees residing in neighbouring countries such as zambia and the democratic republic of congo (drc). during the first phase of repatriation, between 2002 and 2007, an estimated 400,000 refugees of a total of 600,000 have returned to their area of origin, as the majority of the 4 million displaced did (unhcr 2007). at present, angola is experiencing a period of peace and tranquillity after the suffering and destruction which was inflicted on the population during the civil war and the government has made efforts to rebuild the country through massive development projects. the gross domestic product (gdp) reached 4.1% in 2013 (world bank 2013) and political elections were held peacefully under the new constitution. despite the remarkable improvements, a large number of the 24 million inhabitants are still living in abject poverty (carciotto 2014). although the government of angola has expressed a desire and a strong commitment to support the return of all individuals in exile, research (kaun 2008) highlighted that the reintegration process which followed the first phase of repatriation was challenged by the lack of available resources, investment and commitment offered by government in addition to the valuable but insufficient efforts made by aid agencies and international 5 unita was a pro-western organization in angola formed in 1966 by jonas savimbi. together with holden roberto's national front for the liberation of angola (fnla), it opposed the popular movement for the liberation of angola (mpla) under agostinho neto in the angolan civil war of the 1970s. south africa supported unita and the fnla by sending sadf* troops into angola in the hope of decreasing the danger of marxist infiltration into south africa and maintaining a hold over the administration of south west africa. but russian support of the mpla, including cuban troops and sophisticated weaponry, meant that south africa had to back off and the mpla took over the government of angola in 1975. thereafter the sadf continued its support of unita, launching a number of offensives against the mpla and swapo* on both sides of the angolan/namibian border in the 1980s until 1988 and the independence of namibia two years later http://bit.ly/1g2mqu1 accessed 20 march 2015. http://bit.ly/1g2mqu1 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 370 donors. during the second phase of repatriation the angolan government’s made valuable efforts to provide returnees with bilhete de identidade (identity and birth registration documents) as well as passports for those who applied for local integration in the former asylum countries.6 since 2002, the unhcr has entered into tripartite agreements with representatives from a number of african states including the drc, congo brazzaville, zambia, namibia, botswana and south africa. this facilitated the process of repatriation which took place spontaneously and through programmes of assisted repatriation. nonetheless in 2011, according to the unhcr (2012), more than 100,000 angolans still remained in exile in several countries, including the drc (74,500), zambia (23,000), south africa (5700) and namibia (1700). following the declaration of the cessation7 of angolan refugees in 2012 more angolans have returned home. in 2013, 1,6668 former angolan refugees, of whom 35 9 from south africa, and the remaining from zambia (1,161), botswana (429) and namibia (40) were repatriated through voluntary repatriation programmes.10 during the last phase of voluntary repatriation (volrep) which resumed in august 2014, 17,027 individuals were repatriated to angola. of these, 15,224 (4,719 households) from the drc, 1,620 (478 households) from zambia and 182 (79 households) from the republic of congo.11 in may 2013, following a cabinet decision, the south african government formally declared the cessation of refugee status for all angolan refugees;12 this announcement came in the wake of the 2011 unhcr declaration (unhcr 2012) that conditions in angola had improved and that it was safe for refugees to return and followed the political and economic stabilization of angola as 6 a unhcr staff member (personal communication, 28 may 2015). 7 article 1c(5) and (6) of the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees states that ‘refugee status may cease due to fundamental changes in the objective circumstances in the country of origin upon which refugee status was based’. 8 a unhcr staff member (personal communication, 17 april 2015). 9 the nationality of 1 of these 1,666 returnees in unknown. 10 in total 38 angolans decided to return voluntarily from south africa; 35 were repatriated in 2013 and 3 in 2014. p. msizi (personal communication, 26 may 2015). 11 a unhcr staff member (personal communication, 28 may 2015). 12 section 5(1)(e) of south africa’s refugee act no. 130 of 1998. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 371 well as improvements in peace and security in the country over the last few years. as declared by the south african minister of home affairs: angola is a country that has decisively put its past behind it and is notching up some impressive developmental statistics. it is one of the fastest growing economies on the continent. it is a country attracting a good deal of foreign investment. the human development index in regard to health, education and income shows that angola has since 2006 performed above the regional average and, it is a rapidly growing tourist destination (pmg 2013a) the declaration of cabinet had two effects: ‘firstly, the south african government agreed with the unhcr recommendation that angola was no longer a country producing genuine refugees. secondly, this allows the department of home affairs to find durable solutions for those individuals whose refugee status could be reversed by the standing committee on refugee affairs’13 (pmg 2013b). the cessation was meant to be applicable only to angolans ‘who fled their country as a result of the war of independence and the civil war between 1961 and 2002’ (unhcr 2012: 1) and the south african government offered three options to angolan refugees: for those who wished to voluntary return to angola assistance was provided by the unhcr, the south african and the angolan governments; for those who wished to continue to stay in south africa a 2-year temporary visa14 was introduced upon obtaining a national passport from the angolan diplomatic authorities in south africa; and finally for those angolan refugees who wanted to retain their refugee status15 a provision was made to allow them to apply for an exemption16 from the cessation regime. 13 section 36 of south africa’s refugee act no. 130 of 1998. 14 the cut-off date for the issuance of passports and visas was initially 31 august 2013 but because the angolan government was not able to issue passports at time the cut-off date was extended to 15 december 2013. 15 only six angolan refugees indicated their wish to remain under the international protection. a unhcr staff member (personal communication, 26 may 2015). 16 section 5(2) of south africa’s refugee act no. 130 of 1998 and para 5 of the unhcr, guidelines on exemption procedures in respect of cessation declaration (december 2011) states that: ‘the 1951 convention envisions two categories of refugees who should be exempted from cessation. these are (1) refugees who continue to have a well-founded fear of persecution, despite the general positive changes in the country of origin, and (2) refugees who due to compelling reasons arising out of previous persecution cannot be expected to return to their country of origin. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 372 those angolans who opted for repatriation of local integration had their refugee status withdrawn17. according to the department of home affairs, 18 in 2012, 16,529 angolan nationals of whom 3,100 had refugee status, were living in south africa, mainly in the cape town metropolitan area (2,635). in the four centres19 established in durban, port elizabeth, cape town and the tshwane interim reception office, a total of 3,713 angolans were profiled; approximately 2,200 were integrated locally under the 2002 immigration act and received 2-year visas,20 while 38 were voluntary repatriated to angola. there were also seven angolan unaccompanied minors, of whom three were granted with permanent residency and four were issued with alternate permits,21 which were dealt with by durable solutions beyond the cut-off time of december 2013. methodology the data was collected applying a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. information was gathered using a structured questionnaire administered to 131 individuals over a period of three weeks in february 2015. due to the lack of reliable information about the total number of angolan households in south africa, a purposive non-probabilistic method, in which sample units shared similar characteristics, including language, nationality and socio-economic background was applied to the present study. statistical analysis was used to examine the connection, sequence and tendencies of various variables involved. the synopsis of the data was conducted using statistical software 17 section 5(3) of south africa’s refugee act no. 130 of 1998 and regulation 17 provides that ‘when standing committee on refugee affairs (scra) intends withdrawing status from a refugee, it must give the refugee written notice of its intention to do so, including the reasons therefore, and must invite written representations within thirty days. if no representations are received or if the representations do not persuade the scra otherwise, it may withdraw the refugee’s status. the scra bears the burden of proof in respect of the grounds upon which it seeks to withdraw refugee status’ (harvey 2012: 6). 18 information was released during a meeting held with the angolan community in cape town on 16 june, 2012. 19 on 29 may 2013 the south african department of home affairs established so-called ‘one stop’ services which were staffed by south african and angolan government officials and unhcr staff. 20 two-year temporary visas for study, work, business, elderly person or spousal/dependent were issued relaxing the conditions prescribed by the 2002 immigration act and its regulations; these visas will only be renewable as per regular conditions prescribed by the 2002 immigration act and its regulations 21a unhcr staff member (personal communication, 26 may 2015). ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 373 (stata) in order to quantify the details and figures gathered. descriptive statistics were applied to interpret, conceptualize and condense the data set. members of the angolan community (9) were selected and interviewed with the assistance of the scalabrini centre, a local non-governmental organization, using a snowball sampling technique which took into consideration their different socio-economic backgrounds. two focus group discussions were also conducted with twenty selected angolan nationals. in addition, semi structures interviews with representatives from non-governmental organisations, members of international organizations and civil society were conducted in cape town between january and may 2015. although the small sample cannot be representative of the general population, the mix of both quantitative and qualitative methods of research allowed the development of some relevant considerations around the experience of angolan refugees in south africa and their attitude and response to repatriation. analysis of results a) reluctance to return in the case of angolans, repatriation from south africa did not produce the same numeric results of other voluntary repatriation programmes which took place in the region and a low number of individuals, only 38, opted for voluntary repatriation while the majority preferred to remain in south africa and were given 2-year temporary visas. before the declaration of the cessation, between 2004 and 2011, a small number of angolans (104) were repatriated from south africa22 with the assistance of the unhcr, while others were estimated to have returned spontaneously. the survey asked a series of questions to determine nationality and place of birth of the respondents. all the 131 respondents were of angolan nationality; 93 respondents (71%) were males and females (29%). the majority of respondents (49.6%) were married, 13% were living with partners, 3.1% were widows/ widowers, 7.6% were divorced or separated and 26.7% never married. in addition, the findings indicated that 46.6% of those interviewed fell within the 36-45 age category, 13.7% were between 26-35, 27.5% were between 46-55, and 9.2% and 3.1% fell in the 10-25 and over 56 age group respectively. a large number of respondents (30.5%) were born in luanda, while the rest were born in other provinces and outside angola. out of the total 22 stakeholders’ meeting notes (held in cape town on 22 may 2012). ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 374 surveyed, 28.2% were born in uige, 1.5% were born in benguela, cabinda (3.1%), bie (1.5%), cuanza norte (1.5%), huambo (1.5%), huila (3.8%), malange (3.8%), bengo (0.8%), cuanza sul (0.8%), while 17.6% were born in the then zaire and 5.3% were born in other countries. despite the lack of opportunity for many angolans to obtain permanent residence23 and to secure their legal status in south africa, of those who were interviewed, none expressed the intention to return permanently to angola. the reasons for their reluctance to return are complex and determined by a number of factors which refer both to the conditions in their home country as well as in the country of asylum. a large number of respondents have mentioned the lack of adequate healthcare structures and poor service provision amongst the reasons to refuse repatriation. other explanations that frequently recurred during the interviews were concerns about the lack of democracy, human rights and civil liberties in angola. these reasons were backed by several statements: ‘i was born there [in angola] but there are no opportunities in the country, hospitals are not good and education is expensive’ (p75).24 ‘with the current government in power i cannot return, they are dictators and infrastructures are poor’ (p77). ‘the main reason not to return is the healthcare system, the second is the education system. people don’t have sanitation and medication; they are not working and don’t have a house’ (p1). the study confirmed that decisions to return for refugees were determined by a comparison between conditions in the country of asylum and in the home country (koser 1997: 2) as reinforced by the statements of two respondents: ‘human rights and living conditions are not good; there is no one who can tell me that those conditions can be better than here [in south africa]’ (p7). ‘the idea of returning makes me feel bad because my family is here and conditions are bad compared to south africa’ (p114). b) life in south africa having lived in south africa for an average period of eighteen years, angolans have integrated into south african society. more than 50% of those interviewed were married, with 25% of them either married to or living with 23 section 26(a) of the 2002 immigration act states that: ‘the department shall issue a permanent residence permit to a foreigner who has been the holder of a work permit […] in terms of this act for five years and has received an offer for permanent employment’. 24 all open-ended survey questions were coded; ‘p’ refers to participant. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 375 a south african spouse. a significant number of interviewees had their family members in the country of asylum and children enrolled in south african schools. for those angolans who are either married to south african spouses or have children in south african schools, the challenge of integration into angolan society was much greater because of cultural and linguistic differences. as one of the respondents pointed out: ‘my kids are born here and they are receiving an education in south africa’ (p27). whereas the majority of interviewees still consider themselves as angolans, almost 25% of the respondents consider themselves as south africans and 13.7% view themselves as both south african and angolan. the adoption of a south african national identity was particularly strong amongst the younger generation of former angolan refugees, especially those who came to south africa young or were born in south africa. for all these reasons, and due to the presence of strong social networks in south africa, respondents have expressed a low interest in repatriation, in line with the affinity hypothesis which states that the higher the density of networks of friends, children and family members in the country of asylum, the lower the probability of repatriation (boyd 1989; gurak & caces 1992). as stated by one the respondents during a focus group discussion: i have got three kids that were born in south africa and this is what makes me stay here; they were born here and they are all in school and spent their life here. even myself i came in south africa when i was very young, i was 19, and i spent here more than 18 years. last year i even went to angola to see if we can get adapted but is very difficult to adapt in that country. my work is here and my children do not know how to write portuguese as they study in english. imagine if i take them to angola how are they going to adapt? especially to the education system which is very different from the one we have here in south africa. these are the things that have been keeping me in south africa for all these years, especially my kids’ education. (focus group interview, february 2015). c) is angola still ‘home’? a large majority of respondents (84%) declared to be in contact with a least one member of his immediate or extended family, while only 16% reported not having any family member left in angola. the research sought to determine the percentage of participants who have visited angola after their arrival in south africa. the frequency of travel to angola was low and the research data revealed that only 35% of the participants have since visited ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 376 angola, whilst 65% never returned to angola. out of the 35% who have visited angola, 59 % have visited at least once and moreover, 31 respondents indicated that they were last in angola in 2014. this fact, was not only a confirmation that sourcing information on the socio-economic and political conditions at home played a fundamental role in the decision-making process of repatriation (koser 1997) but also that some of the interviewed angolans returned to angola after the cessation was declared to assess whether permanent repatriation was a viable option and to validate information acquired in south africa through the media, relatives and friends. as reported by two of the respondents: yes, i went [to angola] to go and check by myself; i don’t want others to come and tell me this and that; that’s why i went there and i checked by myself and i saw what is better there and what is not better (personal interview, 15 march, 2015). i was in angola in june and again in december 2014 and because of the things i saw i wasn’t happy. most of the people were asking me: ‘are you coming back here for good?’ i told them: ‘no i’m not’. i can come here to visit but not to live (personal interview, 16 march, 2015). some of the respondents expressed their interest in returning to angola for a short period of time, both for work and to visit but without the intention to resettle, as confirmed by these statements: ‘i would consider working in angola but not staying there’ (p14). ‘i would only visit angola, cape town is my home’ (p11). questions to elicit respondents’ views on the presence of socio-economic opportunities for returnees in angola raised conflicting views. of all angolans surveyed, 63% did not believe that opportunities existed for them and their families in angola, 19% were positive about it, while 18% were uncertain. respondents reported that although some forms of economic opportunities were available due to favourable economic conditions in angola, there were also several impediments to their return including the lack of jobs for aged and uneducated individuals, language barriers for angolans who had lived abroad for many years, nepotism and corruption and the challenge of uprooting children from their social environment. these negative views were backed by the respondents’ statements: ‘there are opportunities in angola but not for me due to my age’ (p18). ‘because i have not studied it would be difficult for me to find work’ (p40). ‘i would feel happy to see my family again but there ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 377 would be barriers for me in getting a job in terms of language’ (p41). amongst those who were positive about the presence of opportunities in angola the main barrier to return was represented by the social conditions in the country which made repatriation difficult, in particular for those with wives and children in south africa. as one of the respondents declared: ‘opportunities may exist for the breadwinner but not for the family; social conditions are not good in angola’ (p17). d) legal status questions related to legal status and its uncertainty can increase anxiety amongst refugees, hinder transnational practices and reduce their propensity to return home (al-ali et al. 2001: 582). the survey asked a series of questions to establish the documentation status of the respondents and findings revealed that 96% of angolans regularised their stay in south africa during the time of the refugee cessation, between august and december 2013. data analysis showed that 89% of the respondents had refugee status permits (section 24) and 11% held asylum seeker temporary permits (section 22) prior to the declaration of cessation.25 the study also indicated that 72% of the respondents moved from section 22 and section 24 permits to temporary residency work visas, while 11% did not have valid documentation and therefore remained undocumented. although the majority of former angolan refugees received temporary residence visas, this did not give them any formal right to apply for permanent residence in south africa regardless of their long stay in the country as refugees.26 temporary visas under relaxed conditions were issued only for a period of two years leaving angolans in a state of frustration and uncertainty about their future. those angolans who are not be able to extend their visas after the initial period of two years will have no choice but to return to angola, or to remain undocumented in south africa facing the risk of deportation. 25 a section 22 permit is given to a person who has fled his or her country and is seeking recognition and protection in the republic of south africa, and whose application is still under consideration. refugee status is given to person who has been granted asylum status and protection in terms of section 24 of the refugee act no. 130 of 1998. 26 the refugee act no. 130 of 1998 section 27(c) allows a refugee to apply for permanent residence after he or she has been recognised as a refugee for five consecutive years, but permanent residence is only granted if a refugee is deemed a refugee ‘indefinitely.’ ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 378 conclusion the mantra of voluntary repatriation is based on the underlying assumption that refugees, regardless of the amount of time spent in exile, will return to their countries of origin once the cause of their flight has ceased. however, the case of angolan refugees in south africa showed that few individuals accepted voluntary repatriation while the large majority opted for local integration and were given temporary visas by the south african government. the angolans’ decision to return was influenced by a complexity of factors and entailed a cost-benefit analysis of socio-economic and political conditions in both the country of origin and asylum. for some angolans the information acquired through personal networks, the media, international organisations and government institutions was insufficient to make a final decision and ‘goand-see’ visits to angola were spontaneously taken to assess whether conditions at home were conducive for return. the presence of family and other social links, the length of time spent in exile and the possibility of accessing civil, social and economic rights in south africa have determined a low interest in repatriation amongst former angolan refugees. those who expressed an interest in visiting angola for a short period of time were in favour of flexible and non-permanent forms of return which would allow them to visit their families and to conduct some work but also retain the legal status acquired in the former country of asylum. the lack of an opportunity to be granted permanent residence or citizenship has hindered angolans’ decision to return and prevented their transnational mobility. securing a permanent legal status in south africa would have offered angolans a fall-back option – in case repatriation failed – and the opportunity for short visits and periods of dual residence. moreover, those angolans who will not meet the necessary requirements to extend their temporary visas will not be able to remain in south africa and will have to return to angola against their will. in conclusion, this paper underlined that policies which facilitate transnational mobility, encourage temporary forms of return and offer long-term refugees the possibility to access permanent residence and 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giroux 2014; kim 2011). in south africa, the urgency to transform and indigenise universities has become even more imperative, especially after the  faculty of informatics and design cape peninsula university of technology, cape town. email: pinetehe@cput.ac.zac  doctoral candidate, african centre for citizenship and democracy, school of government, university of the western cape, cape town. email: teklamuluh@yahoo.com mailto:pinetehe@cput.ac.zac mailto:teklamuluh@yahoo.com ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 384 demise of apartheid (mouton et al. 2013; tshotsho et al. 2015; kwaramba 2012; sehoole 2006). this has widened access to higher education for black students and it has changed core curricula and pedagogical approaches. consequently, new patterns of african migration into post-apartheid south africa include the influx of transnational students, particularly from francophone sub-saharan african countries like cameroon, gabon, chad, republic of congo, central african republic, democratic republic of congo (drc) and so on. for this category of migrants, south african universities do not only offer a cheaper alternative to acquire internationally recognised qualifications, but also provide a unique opportunity to study in predominantly english-medium institutions, especially given the international status of english. for south african universities, international students are not only a source of revenue for universities, but they also symbolise modern universities’ envisions for intercultural education and internationalisation (sam 2001; andrade 2006; ryan & viete 2009). for example, transnational students bring with them a repertoire of skills that contribute significantly to the scholarship of research, teaching and learning. they also bring unique learning, social and cultural experiences which add value to the rich and unique diversity of south africa (mubembe 2012; maharaj et al. 2011). however, because migration into south africa has been shaped by violent forms of social exclusion such as xenophobia, afrophobia and racism, african student experiences in south african universities include dealing with extraordinary conditions of marginalisation, rejection, psychological and physical victimisation as well as language challenges (landau 2011; mubembe 2012; maharaj et al. 2011). given that the majority of these students have always spoken english as an additional language, “their discourse knowledge is seen as deficient and their learning is expected to conform to seemingly immutable and often implicit norms laid down by the local academy” (ryan & viete 2009: 303). in this article, we use qualitative data gleaned through semistructured interviews with fifteen gabonese and congolese students at the cape peninsula university of technology (cput) in cape town. it draws on theoretical conceptions such as transnationalism, social exclusion and migrant adaptation, to interrogate the social experiences of francophone students and their tactics for dealing with exclusionary practices from peers and staff. using selected excerpts from the data, this article attempts to analyse characteristics of transnational student life, patterns of social exclusion and the challenges of adaptation experienced by the francophone community in this teaching and ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 385 learning space. against this backdrop, the article seeks to make sense of their learning experiences and the implications for the broader challenges of studying in a post-apartheid higher education institution. description of case study to understand the unique characteristics of francophone students at cput and the reasons for focusing on gabonese and congolese students, we provide a brief description of the university. geographically, cput is located in the peninsula of cape town in the western cape province of south africa and it is the largest of the four universities in this province, in terms of student enrolment. according to statistical data from cput’s management information system (mis), the current student enrolment is approximately 34 176 of which approximately 2355 are african students mostly from sub-saharan africa (pineteh & ralarala 2014; mis 2016). the university has six faculties: business and management sciences, engineering, health and wellness sciences, informatics and design, applied sciences and education and these faculties are spread over six campuses (mis 2016). of the total number of african students, almost 50% are from francophone sub-saharan africa. this is evident from the following statistics: drc-706; zimbabwe-370; angola-358; namibia-329; gabon-192; nigeria-116; republic of congo-110; cameroon-85; rwanda-45 and lesotho-44 (mis 2014 & 2016). in addition, the statistics show that the majority of cput’s francophone students are from drc and gabon, justifying the choice of participants for this article. moreover, although cput’s language of teaching and learning is english, this university remains an attractive choice for francophone students because of affordability, the type of qualifications and the industry-oriented pedagogies. for instance, the majority of these students are undergraduates, enrolled for business, information technology, sciences and engineering qualifications and cput’s tuition fees for these qualifications are generally more affordable if compared with the other provincial universities like the university of cape and stellenbosch (pineteh & ralarala 2014). however, the findings of pineteh & ralarala’s (2014) study on international students at cput revealed that francophone students encounter similar academic and sociocultural challenges regardless of the country of origin. therefore, for this project we selected gabonese and congolese students from two faculties: informatics and design, and business and management sciences, for the simple reason that we had unfettered access to the students. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 386 literature review and theoretical framework the challenges of international students globally have been researched extensively from a myriad of perspectives. in fact, the expansive corpus of knowledge on the institutionalisation of higher education globally speaks explicitly to the upsurge of international students in modern universities (habib et al. 2013; yim 2011; lee & rice 2007). this body of knowledge alludes to international student mobility, pedagogical changes and spatial transformation at universities influenced by the presence of transnational students. there is also a burgeoning scholarly interest in international student academic experiences away from home and associated psychosocial and cultural discomforts such as cultural shock, social exclusion and adaptation (menzies & baron 2014; scharter 2015; bayaga 2011). the changes in what madge et al. (2014) refer to as the global eduscape suggest that international students do not only contribute to research, teaching and learning, they “increase the diversity of student populations, add new perspectives to classroom conversations and […] increase our awareness and appreciation of other countries and cultures” (lee & rice 2007: 381). therefore, we should begin to interrogate international student mobility not simply as a transfusion of social capital in a new space but something that has strong implications for higher education pedagogy. this is essential to our understanding of transnational studentship because experiences of international students are often nested in several challenges associated with cross-border human mobility such as social exclusion, cultural adaption, feelings of isolation, homesickness, prejudices and so on (yim 2010; swami et al. 2010). as modern universities transform to accommodate their diverse student communities, these learning spaces have equally become enclaves of new patterns of social exclusion (kim 2011; lee & rice 2007). in the south african context, the often-neglected language difficulties of particularly francophone students tend to play a significant role in their higher education experiences. here, one of the key determinants of successful sociocultural and academic adjustment of international students is being proficient in the hegemonic language of the institution (barratt & huba 1994: 429; yeh 2003: 23; bartram 2008: 666). given the contributions of international students to change the global eduscape, transnational migration still evokes feelings of “restlessness, movement, constantly being unsettled, and [is] unsettling to others” with host institutions doing very little “to identify ways of meeting the special needs of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 387 international students” (madge et al. 2015; lee & rice 2007: 386). the host institutions are expected to play a more critical role in socialising international students into the new learning environments, but very often, they are isolated and left alone to deal with physical and emotional burdens of dislocation from their families. to find new ways to adapt, they resort to forging multiple and contested identities “positioning these identities within broader contexts of social, cultural, and economic formations…” (arthur 2010: xiii). here, a twoway process of adaption, which is supposed to involve the hosts and the migrants, is reduced to a one-way process (chhetri 1980; sonn 2002; pineteh 2015). for transnational students, it is therefore imperative to maintain ties with homeland either physically or virtually, find solace and companionship in friendship and international student associations (menzies & baron 2014). for example, in their study of international students’ perceptions of discrimination, lee and rice (2007) argue that the challenges associated with language and cultural adaption increase the psychological and sociocultural distress of international students. these predictors have strong implications for the quality of their social lives and academic performance (swami et al. 2010: 57). in a university like cput where english is the language of tuition, the socialisation of non-english speaking international students into a higher education space depends on their ability to interact with peers and staff. the ability to communicate in english is indeed a useful tactic to handle and mitigate discrimination, and/or negotiate new social relations with local students. as argued in the literature, students who are fluent in english are likely to experience lower levels of acculturative distress such as isolation and low self-esteem (karuppan & barari 2011: 78; swami et al. 2010; yeh 2003: 23). the quality of life of those with a paucity of english skills tends to fluctuate rapidly as they struggle to adapt in a foreign land. their higher education experience is reduced to clustering with other students from the same linguistics and cultural background, constantly imagining a return to the homeland after graduation (pineteh 2015; brown 2008). to understand the experiences of francophone students and their challenges of studying in a post-apartheid higher education institution like cput, we frame this article around three theoretical conceptions, namely transnationalism, social exclusion and migrant adaptation. for example, transnationalism has become a conceptual frame and social praxis for understanding the asymmetries of global human mobility (van hear 1998; portes et al. 1999; lazar 2011). the epistemological strength of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 388 transnationalism is that migration is essentially a process of ‘living’ and ‘there’ through a seamlessly socioeconomic and political interconnectedness with the migrants’ countries of origin (pineteh 2015; vertovec 2001). it is a process whereby “members of the group are bound by retained memory of the homeland, partial alienation from the host country [and] an aspiration to return to the homeland” (van hear 1998: 5). although transnational migrants, including students, construct new identities as a strategy to adapt, “these identities are reconfigured and given new meanings in transnational spaces and contexts by merging old identities with the new ones they establish abroad” (arthur 2010: 55). along these contours, transnational students are always emotionally and/or physically attached to their roots/kinships and they tend to express these feelings through virtual interactions, sending of remittances, regular home visits and so on. this emotional and physical attachment with home is often exacerbated by feelings of social exclusion experienced in the host countries. social exclusion is used here as the “lack or denial of resources, rights, goods and services and the inability to participate in the normal relationships and activities, available to the majority of people in a society, whether in economic, social, cultural or political arenas [which] affects both the quality of life of individuals and the equity and cohesion of society as a whole” (levitas et al. 2007: 9; eccv policy discussion paper 2009; saith 2001; sen 2000). in the case of post-apartheid south africa, the social exclusion of transnational migrants like francophone students has been expressed through increasing xenophobic fervours, draconian immigration policies, isolation and discrimination in public spaces such as schools, hospitals and universities (pineteh 2015; bayaga 2011; landau 2011). however, since migration is transitional and often involves a temporary severance of social networks and relationship with friends and families, there is always the need to adapt or assimilate (sonn 2002; berry 1997). in the case of francophone students at cput, adaptation is imperative to enable them to complete their studies and for hopeful futures. as a conceptual lens, adaptation in the sphere of cross-border human mobility is premised on the presupposition that “migrations are not isolated events and generally associated with some kind of economic, social and cultural change to which people make an adjustment” (chhetri 1980: 49). this adjustment process could entail the formation of support systems, cultural integration, and the construction of new acceptable identities and new patterns of social ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 389 interaction. therefore, as people migrate, there is always the expectation to adapt or adjust although the process is always challenging (jakubowicz 2012; sonn 2002; saith 2001). these theoretical conceptions have provided a discursive space to analyse the experiences of francophone students at cput. research methodology and methods of data collection this article is based on qualitative interviews conducted with 15 francophone students from drc and gabon in the faculty of informatics and design as well as business and management sciences at cput, cape town campus. the students were selected using a snowballing technique and they were comprised of 9 males and 6 females as well as 8 congolese and 7 gabonese, mostly first year students. we decided to focus on first year students because, as newcomers, their experiences are usually more excruciating than those who have been at cput for longer. the interviews were conducted in the office of one of the researchers and they lasted for a maximum of 30 minutes. they were semi-structured, which gave the researchers the opportunity to probe emergent issues (babbie et al. 2001; de vos et al. 2005). each interview was preceded by an explanation of the purpose of the project and the interviewee signed a consent form in which the researcher agreed not to disclose any information that could reveal the participant’s identity. as such, the participants are cited in this article as participant 1 up to 15. this approach was used to generate responses that can be categorised, analysed and discussed under specific themes (babbie et al. 2001; maree 2007). in addition, the interviews gave the researchers an opportunity to probe social experiences such as class discrimination, relationship with locals, cput learning environment and other learning challenges. the analysis of the data tried to connect emerging themes to the focus of this article, namely patterns of transnational student life, social exclusion and the challenges of adaptation. analysis and discussion of key findings modern universities in a neo-liberal dispensation are changing radically from spaces for social change to those with “a dominance of a form of a powerful and ruthless, if not destructive market driven notion of governance, teaching, learning, freedom, agency and responsibility” (giroux 2014: 87). the transformation of modern universities into corporatelike institutions has reduced students into clients and it has taken away their erstwhile core values as agents of social transformation. critical aspects such as inclusive education, social cohesion and racial/cultural tolerance as well as the development of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 390 students into critical thinkers are becoming more and more peripheral (giroux 2014; pineteh 2014). although, transformation and social cohesion are the buzzwords at cput, the university has done very little to promote the quality of social inclusivity which can respond to its richly linguistic and culturally diverse student population (hlatshwayo & siziba 2013; rawjee & reddy 2012). it has somehow failed to embrace the idea that “the phenomenon of international students in universities is an opportunity for cultural and indigenous knowledge exchange between people of different nationalities and continents” (mda 2011: 13). in the following sections, we discuss the experiences of francophone students in three interrelated sections: francophone transnational life, social exclusion, the challenges of adaption and strategies for survival. cput francophone students as transnational students migration is always a burdensome experience, which involves spatial dislocation from kinship and familiar spaces. when people migrate they struggle in different ways to deal with the emotional and physical disconnect from families while at the same time trying to adapt to new unfamiliar spaces (pineteh 2015; brown 2008). in the context of south africa, african students including francophones are becoming more and more transnational migrants, especially given the host country’s culture of gratuitous violence against foreigners triggered by its own social challenges, xenophobia fervours and the politics of belonging and citizenship (landau 2011; hassim et al. 2008). with the francophone transnational students that we interviewed, transnationalism meant regular travels back and forth and reconnections with family networks through virtual communication as well as regularly remitting money back home. for example, gabonese students, chatted about memories of home, holiday visits and the dreams of an eventual return: i came here just to study and after my degree i am going home. the way this south african people treat us, i can’t stay here even during holidays; i want to be with my family. i only call or whatsapp them during school time and before the university closes, i already buy air-ticket to travel home and i am always going home…i know it is expensive but my parents understand because they see the xenophobia on tv and the know we are not safe here (participant 10). although technological advancement has facilitated the way diasporic communities reconnect with families and friends back home, in the case of this gabonese student transnationalism is about “regular physical presence […] in ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 391 both the country of origin and settlement” (mamattah n.d: 4; vertovec 2001). this transnational pattern, especially amongst gabonese students, exudes an impassioned attachment to home and excavates memories of homelessness while in exile. for them, migration is about living here and there, illuminating the contested notion of integration and disintegration associated with transnational migration. this often propels exclusionary tendencies because gabonese students tend to see themselves or areseen by local students as the outsiders. escaping and finding solace in regular home visits, exemplifies “rejecting aspirations of or claims to membership [… and] distancing themselves from the citizenry” (landau 2008: 107). by contrast to gabonese students who prefer going home during holidays, congolese transnational students see migrations as a long-term process which could result in permanency despite the perceived discrimination from fellow local students. for instance: i don’t go home a lot because a flight ticket is expensive. besides family really only need you to send them money rather than coming home. although it is difficult staying here because of the way we are treated in and outside, you have try fit to in and not run to your parents every time south african treat you badly. there is no need to go home because i can email, whatsapp and even skype my family. what i try to do is work during holidays, make some money and send it home to support my family. they are always happy with me when i send them money (participant 8). this interviewee is a congolese student originally from drc, who has lived in south africa for more than 10 years. for him, the diasporic predilection of living here and there should deviate from the essentialist notion that transnationalism entails the “physical presence of the transmigrant on the territory of the country of origin” (riccio 2001: 597). despite south african’s nativism, which privileges violent exclusion over tactical inclusion, to succeed as a student in post-apartheid in this case means greater interactions with local students and communities (furnham & bochner 1986; zhou et al. 2008: 63). here, migrant remittance is not simply a source of economic livelihood for migrant families, but a chain of reconnection between exile and home. this perspective of a transnational student is enforced in the following quote: yes, but i think my culture is the same as them, i don’t have to separate myself from them, it is not like i have to use my particular culture here. because when i come to a place as a foreigner, i have to respect that place and i have to deal ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 392 with that situation but if i have something new, people will learn from me and i will also learn from them, it’s not conflict but it’s culture that people in drc don’t have. we must improve each other (participant 4). here, the notion of transnationalism in a multicultural learning environment like cput is about embracing cultural difference. for them, being moored to native cultural beliefs and values that connect migrants with the country of origin is as important as finding new ways to adapt and tap into the resources of local students. to this, zhou et al. (2008: 70) argue that “through connections with their compatriots in the host country [francophone students] might learn a series of culturally relevant skills to facilitate their academic success.” this transnational trajectory has clear implications for the way francophone students deal with exclusionary tendencies at cput. patterns of social exclusion in the case of francophone students at cput generally, higher education exerts enormous pressure on transnational students because they are expected to socialise into a new academic environment and cope with equally new learning demands and expectations. in the case of cput-based francophone students, this pressure is worsened by exclusionary tendencies from both their peers and lecturers. the interviews with the participants pointed to three intertwined forms of social exclusion namely language, academic and cultural differences (talebloo & baki 2013). because they are primarily french speaking, interviewees claimed they often experience exclusion because of their inadequate english language skills especially since english is the main medium of teaching and learning at cput. one participant commented: i was now thinking that i am stupid. they do not understand that i don’t speak english properly because i am from another country. they were saying that i am stupid and i make many mistakes when i am speaking, for instance during presentations they were laughing because of my accent. i wanted to quit but the counsellor told me that if i pass all my subjects i will prove them wrong. and the entire gabonese students, all foreigners passed all their subjects. (participant 3). in this testimony, the lack of adequate english language to engage in academic activities and local students’ responses to this challenge resulted in the student’s experience of alienation. here her intellectual aptitude is compromised because of the inability to communicate in the university’s medium of instruction, resulting in a form of rejection. although local students ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 393 who are not first language english speakers encounter similar linguistic challenges, the experience of transnational students is more agonizing because they “are separated from their social and cultural comfort zone” (menzies & baron 2014: 84). instead of embracing diversity and encouraging a culture of collective peer support, local students see their francophone counterpart as the other, equating their accent and lack of english proficiency to academic incompetence (errey 1994; felix & lawson 1994). in this sense, the attitudes of local students psychologically affect the self-esteem of francophone students and their desires to interact socially in this learning environment. the learning space intimidates and breeds fear in francophone students, fears that are not only socially exclusionary but may force them to shelve or isolate themselves from participating in enriching academic activities (saith 2001; eccv policy discussion paper 2009). using language proficiency to prevent francophone students from active classroom participation pushes them into a ‘silent mode’ perpetuating the misconception at cput that francophone students are “deficient in academic skills such as critical thinking and [are] unwilling participate in class discussions” (ryan & viete 2009: 304). this has a direct negative impact on the way their oral and written projects are assessed by academic staff. this socially intimidating and exclusionary learning space, does not “take into account both the multiple and contested nature of literacy learning in multicultural classrooms and intercultural innovations in meaning and identity making” (ryan & viete 2009: 305). interestingly, this dysfunctional space is not only created by local students but also by local staff. the interviews revealed a general lack of willingness from staff to provide a supportive learning environment to francophone students. in the following quotation, one participant shares their experience: there are some lecturers when you go to them when you want to know more about the subject or the brief they gave you, they will say no and tell you to go read the brief or you have to ask your friends because they do not have time now. but while i was leaving one of these lecturers’ office, one of our class students (a south african) went to the same lecturer and she helped her. when i got my assignment from the lecturer, i failed and she said i did not understand the assignment and my language was bad. they are not supposed to say that to a student. if a student goes to a lecturer it means that he/she does not understand. the lecturer has to freely explain what the brief is talking ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 394 about. i think the lecturer does not like us coming from other countries especially us who cannot speak english well… (participant 3). from the quotation above, this student is denied access to out of classroom learning support from their lecturer simply because of their foreignness. although the university expects lecturers to provide regular one-to-one consultation with students, this student is academically excluded from this enriching learning experience because of the lecturer’s attitude towards francophone students (tati 2010; maharaj et al. 2011; menzies & barons 2014). this example shows clearly how “english language proficiency often influences the ways international students are assessed and afforded rights of participation” (ryan & viete 2009: 304). moreover, by tactically blaming the student for their own academic failure, the lecturer does not uphold the responsibility of mentoring and providing an inclusive learning space to “students from diverse cultural backgrounds” (maharaj et al. 2011: 211) as expected in a richly diverse university like cput. furthermore, the lecturer’s actions marginalise, oppress and silence, making the process of academic socialisation more burdensome to this francophone student (watson 2013). these classroom experiences expose not only the linguistic but also the cultural differences that shape the learning journeys of francophone students at cput. during the interviews students highlighted specific aspects of cultural difference that tend to enforce social exclusion in this academic environment (ward 1997; viete & peeler 2007; viete & phan 2007). they mentioned aspects such as showing respect, learning attitudes, social behaviours and so on. for example: the way we treat lecturers is different here at cput. students call lecturers by their names instead of sir, madam or doctor. i think this is not showing respect because the lecturer is an elder and has studied more than the student, and in my country we respect elders. also, they are very close to lecturer and these lecturers treat students like their friends, so they disturb in class and even answer their phones during class. for me it is very difficult to make friends with people who do not show respect. that is why you always see me with other foreigners because we are similar (participant 12). although this mode of student/lecturer relationship is very common with the current generation of university students, for this student, it is a marker of cultural difference in terms of the expression of respect. here an inclusive learning environment is hindered by francophone students’ cultural values ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 395 and belief systems, which consider lecturers as “founts of all wisdom” (ryan & viete 2009: 304). in the quotation, there is a feeling of culture shock and the interviewee represents local students’ behaviours, beliefs and values as unacceptable and should be avoided (li & gasser 2005; thomson et al. 2006). this promotes a culture of clustering amongst international students, mitigating opportunities for “developing an understanding of and adaptation to the new culture” (thomson et al. 2006: 3). by trying not to socialise with local students because of their social behaviours, the process of adaptation becomes more challenging and stressful. local students’ social behaviours recurred prominently during the interviews, as having visible implication for their attitudes to learning. for francophone students, it was difficult to develop a sense of collective identity because of the values that south african’s attach to education and also because of their perceptions about other africans. they alluded to the culture of xenophobic violence and increasing racialised classroom behaviours as a barrier to social inclusion (hassim et al. 2008; neocosmos 2010; landau 2011). the feeling of a racialised classroom is expressed in the following quotes: no, it is not the same. there is still discrimination. it means that apartheid is not finished yet. white people sit with white people, coloured people with coloured people and foreigners with foreigners. we are not very open to each other (participant 15). when the lecturers give group work, south african students do not want to work with us. when we ask them they will say it is because the want to talk their local language and we are not going to understand. but i think it is because south africans don’t like foreigners […] they think we are going to take their jobs when we finish studying. like they are always asking us when are we going back home? are you going back home after you finish? you can see that they don’t like us here. we also don’t want to work with them because they are lazy; they always have excuses like work, trains, buses, funerals etc. so any group works, we foreigners prefer to work together (participant 6). in the above quotation, the learning environment at cput is mediated by racial and xenophobic tendencies associated with post-apartheid south africa. the fear of the foreigner is not only a street level intimation but also a common discourse in an academic space like cput where local students perceive this multicultural space as an “exclusively south african domain” (hassim et al. 2008: 114). in the same token, labelling local students as ‘lazy’ and ‘full of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 396 excuses’ reinforces the practice of insulation from south african citizenry perpetuated by migrants who “claim rights to be in south africa but not part of it” (landau 2008: 107). the challenges of adaptation in a new learning environment from the different characteristics of transnational student life and exclusionary constellations expressed above, it is expected that francophone students would face many challenges adapting to a new learning environment in post-apartheid south africa. in the interviews, they blamed the challenges of adaptation on the post-apartheid pathologies such as crime, poverty and violence as well as on cultural and linguistic differences. while this blame game featured prominently, francophone students’ perceptions about local students have also contributed significantly to the challenges of adaptation (chhetri 1980; zhou et al. 2008; tati 2010; lazar 2011). as chhetri (1980) has argued, a process of adaptation is in fact a two-way process which involves migrants and host nationals. scholarship on transnational migration speaks to spaces of flow, which require movements, adjustments, acculturation, integration and assimilation (lazar 2011; sonn 2002; chhetri 1980). these symmetries of migration by no means suggest that uprootedness and adaptation in an unfamiliar space is less challenging. in the case of the francophone community at cput, the challenges of adaptation were linked to length of stay, ethnocentricity, memories of home and the feeling of loss, familiar prejudices about foreigners and local students’ attitudes to learning. nostalgia is real and yes it happened to me. i remember in my first year calling my father and telling him that i wanted to come back home. my family and friends encouraged me and told me that this bad feeling will go away (participant 10). when i just arrived south africa, it was difficult for me because i missed my family and friends in gabon. i didn’t have any friends, so i spent hours in my room thinking about my parents and some days i would even cry (participant 5). this excerpt reinforces the notion that transnational migration in south african is characterised by culture shock and a feeling loss and in the early days in exile, migrants want “to meet social and psychological needs for belonging and relatedness” (sonn 2002: 10). the culture shock and need for belonging often translates into homesickness and memories of loss, affecting their social relationship with local citizens. these competing forces impeded ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 397 francophone students’ eagerness to adapt because instead of negotiating new ways of belonging and searching for an “opportunity for developing an understanding of and adaptation to the new culture,” they decided to insulate themselves from local students (thomson et al. 2006: 3). by insulating themselves, they tend to experience cultural and social distress and, as articulated above, resort to reconnection with home and family as a coping mechanism. the feeling of discomfort, dislocation and distress experienced by francophone students exacerbates the challenges of adaptation in that these lived experiences further alienate them from the host community. in addition to homesickness and memories of home, francophone students at cput also alluded to academic discrimination, social boundaries and prejudices as challenges to adaptation in this learning environment. one interviewee commented: i have learnt that even outside the university people do not interact with each other. something i realised and what i am still seeing up to now is that people do not get together at the university. coloured people are with coloured, white people with white and black people with black. foreigners are acting the same between themselves (participant 4). i have noticed that south african people do not get used to foreigners. they are in their corners. in my country, we are different because we are welcoming people and making them feel at home. however, in south africa, foreigners only chat with fellow foreigners. as foreigners, we usually feel that we are not welcome (participant 6). in the above quotations, the classroom dynamics show that student relationships are still fractured along racial, ethnic and cultural lines, constellations “of negative psychosocial consequences for international students which may seriously interfere with their adaptation in the host country and [with] their capacity to achieve optimally in the university setting” (thomson et al. 2006: 7). the clustering of students along identical racial or nationalistic sentiments prohibit integration and cross-cultural interactions between students, which are “essential for international students to become full members of the learning community” (ryan & viete 2009: 305). the experiences of this community of francophone students show that student relationships in this learning space tended to promote even deeper feelings of exclusion and isolation, which reminded them that they do not belong there. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 398 to survive at cput and succeed academically, francophone students are expected to circumvent social boundaries and deal with the different forms discrimination on a regular basis. for them, an immediate response to the painful experiences was to establish new social networks with other foreign students in their learning space (schartner 2015; warner & miller 2015). these new social formations were expressed in transnational friendships, study partners, or membership in international students associations on campus because “greater co-national interaction is [often] linked with stronger cultural identity” (zhou et al. 2008: 70). however, these coping strategies do not only create an imaginary sense of belonging, they further complicate the process of adaptation. as i said earlier, south african students do not like foreigners, even the lecturers but when you are here, you have to look for ways to survive. in my first year, things were really difficult because i was new, and did not have any friends but now i have friends from other countries like cameroon; nigerian because they are like us, so we hang out together. in class i work with other foreigners and it does not worry me anymore that south africans do want to work with us …i am also a member of the international student association in cape town. when you go there, you meet other foreign students and you feels good (participant 13). francophone students’ adaptation in the cput learning environment requires sustained academic and social interaction with local south africa students. these interactions are mutually beneficial because they reduce stress levels and enhance psychological adjustment (warner & miller 2015; zhou et al. 2008). however, because of perceived discrimination and social exclusionary tendencies of local students as well as foreign students’ sense of loss and attempts to stay connected to home, successful adaptation in this case has been extremely discomforting. by turning to other foreigners for friendship, comfort and support, francophone students become more resilient to adaptation because the new social networks provide an alternative support system, which help them to cope with discrimination and rejection from local students. they also provided a renewed sense of community and an imaginary sense of belonging (schartner 2015, ward & kennedy 1999; berry 1997). conclusion despite the increasing number of transnational students from francophone sub-saharan africa, living and studying in post-apartheid south africa is still a ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 399 socially and culturally stressful experience for many of these students (maharaj et al. 2011; tati 2010). these students’ belief systems, memories of home and the maintenance of family ties while in exile as well as social exclusionary fervours of local students make the adjustment process more challenging than expected. in south africa, universities have become transnational migratory localities with different academic and sociocultural tensions, which reflect the consciousness of local and international students. these tensions force transnational students to forge new identities which reflect “their multiple and complex cultural heritages, their work ethic [and] commitment to education” (arthur 2010: 22). in this article, we have discussed patterns of transnational student life, social exclusion and the challenges of adaptation in the case of francophone students at cape peninsula university of technology. references andrade, m.s. 2006. international students in english speaking universities: adjustment factors. journal of research in international education, 5(2): 131154. arthur, j.a. 2010. african diaspora identities: negotiating culture in transnational migration. new york: lexington books. babbie, e, mouton, j. vorster, p. prozesky, b. 2001. the practice of social science research. cape town: oxford university press. barratt, mf. & huba, me. 1994. factors related to international undergraduate student adjustment in an american community. college student journal, 28(4): 422-436. bartram, b. 2008. supporting international students in higher education: constructions, cultures and clashes. teaching in higher education, 13(6): 657668. bayaga, a. 2011. xenophobia and racism-elements defining collegiality: case of a south african university students. the journal of international social research, 4: 534-545. berry, j.w. 1997. immigration, acculturation, and adaptation. applied psychology: an international review, 46: 5-68. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 400 brown, l. 2008. the adjustment journey of international postgraduate students at a university in england. phd thesis (unpublished). bournemouth: bournemouth university. chhetri, r.b. 1980. immigrant thakalis of pokhara: an exercise in urban ethnography. ma thesis (unpublished). india: university of pune. de vos, as., strydom, h., fouche, cb. & delport, csl. 2005. research at grass roots for the social sciences and human service professions, 3rd edition. pretoria: van schaik. eccv policy discussion paper. 2009. statewide resources centre. social inclusion for migrants and refugees. carlton: victoria. errey, l. 1994. cultural diversity: or who’s who in the university. in: rust, c. & pye, j. 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additional language. higher education research and development, 34: 420-435. watson, j. 2013. combining international student social and academic transition online. international student experience journal, 1. yeh, c.j. & inose, m. 2003. international students’ reported english fluency, social support satisfaction, and social connectedness as predictors of acculturative stress. counselling psychology quarterly, 16: 15-28. zhou, y., jindal-snape, d., topping, k. & todman, j. 2008. theoretical models of culture shock and adaptation in international students in higher education. studies in higher education, 33: 63-75. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 404 occupational change among nigerian immigrants living in the netherlands pamela ijeoma abstract in this article, the term occupational change is used to refer to problems nigerian skilled immigrants encounter in the netherlands. immigrants who may have had stable occupations or have attended higher education before migrating to the netherlands face numerous difficulties including foreign qualification recognition, lack of dutch language skills, and age factors in their search for jobs. they fall back to low cadre jobs as a way of survival in the netherlands. i have explored the relationship between occupational change and stress among nigerian immigrants who studied and worked in nigeria before migrating to the netherlands. first i argue that stress, which manifests as a result of occupational change amongst nigerian immigrants in the netherlands, is a clear reason for downward mobility amongst migrant children and their parents. using the case of nigerian skilled migrants in the netherlands, i have designed a new framework that could be used to tackle issues of migrant occupational change as a result of foreign qualification recognition in host countries. keywords occupational change, stress, skilled migrants, children, social isolation, foreign qualifications introduction over the years, i have had the pleasure of having informal group and individual discussions with nigerian immigrants living in the netherlands who work in low cadre sections of the economy but have high qualifications from their home countries. discussions with mothers in particular in the bijlmer area of amsterdam zuidoost regarding their occupational dreams and aspirations brought pain to my heart. many of the women have experienced stress as a result of occupational change. chidinma, a 39 year old qualified nigerian nurse, came to the netherlands in 2009 with her husband and three children, only to realise that she cannot work in the netherlands as a nurse due to language barriers and qualification standard difference between the netherlands and  institute for history, leiden university, the netherlands. email: ijeoma@gmail.com mailto:ijeoma@gmail.com ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 405 nigeria 27 . this made chidinma channel her entire focus towards selfdevelopment, giving less time to the wellbeing of her children. she enrolled in a language school in the bijlmer area of amsterdam where she lives in a bid to attain the language requirement that is needed for her to attend nursing school in the netherlands28. on gaining admission, she applied for a student loan, only to be told that she was not eligible because she was above the age of thirty29. chidinma did not give up; she registered for her course and combined a menial job with her studies. the stress of working and studying was unbearable for chidinma; she could not cope with the stress. consequently, she dropped out of the program30. chidinma’s case is not unique as there are hundreds of immigrant families with such issues. drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with nigerian skilled immigrants in the netherlands with foreign qualifications, this paper will highlight the difficulties this group of people faces. barriers such as the lack of the dutch language skills and unrecognised qualifications keep them out of the jobs for which they are qualified. being an immigrant in a foreign country is challenging. as rath (1997) notes, one is faced with barriers such as language and unrecognised qualifications that will limit job opportunities in the host country. when combined with issues of depression, poverty and inadequate social support, one can begin to appreciate the magnitude of obstacles immigrants with stress face as a result of occupational change. clearly, not all immigrants are affected by stress, or care less about the general wellbeing of their offspring. however, for the many that are affected, the challenge of losing their identity due to occupational change is overwhelming (mckee-ryan et al. 2005). as a means of escaping the overwhelming realities that skilled immigrants face in host countries, low cadre jobs are inevitable (kloosterman et al. 1998). this solution of falling back on low cadre jobs reproduces stress in the short run, which may lead to violence against themselves, spouses and children. background/contextualisation economic motives are one of the primary reasons for human movements and are specifically influential in the case of nigerian migration. migration flows 27 formal interview with chidinma at her bijlmer residence (july 7th 2015). 28 ibid. 29 ibid. at 28 30 ibid. at 28 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 406 from nigeria to countries beyond the region did not occur on a large scale until after independence in 1960. from the 1950s through the 1970s, nigerians mainly migrated to the united kingdom due to the legacy of colonial ties and for educational pursuits. nigerian returnees of the 1960s and 1970s with valuable skills had access to civil service jobs or jobs in the private sectors of the nigerian economy. as political tensions worsened, economic conditions in the late 1970s and 1980s escalated. economic emigration from nigeria to the united kingdom extended to the united states. the structural adjustment program of the mid-1980s also fueled emigration from nigeria. unlike previous emigrants who looked forward to returning to nigeria after graduating, this set of migrants preferred never to return (mberu 2005). although less-skilled youth became a significant part of the emigration stream to countries such as italy, spain, the netherlands, ireland, germany, france, belgium and the gulf states in the early 2000s, skilled nigerians continued to emigrate for greener pastures via student and professional migration and the green card lottery (mberu 2005). on average, more recent migrants to nonenglish speaking european countries are reported to work in informal or lessskilled sectors of the economy regardless of their skill-levels as a result of their lack of cultural capital such as language skills. drawing from the case of nigerian skilled immigrants in the netherlands, the article aims to convey the effects of such a lack of cultural capital among nigerian skilled immigrants in the netherlands. as nigerians migrate to the netherlands, they realise that higher education certificates need to be updated, dutch language skills need to be developed to a proficient level and age is often an added barrier to such self-development for older migrants. increased competence in dutch increases descent job opportunities as reflected by the surinamese skilled migrants who come from former dutch colonies. the surinamese are advantaged by what oostindie (2011) refers to as “post-colonial bonus.” the post-colonial bonus avails the dutch former colonies with the cultural capital such as knowledge of and familiarity with dutch language and culture needed to integrate into dutch society with ease. nigerian immigrants do not have the post-colonial bonus of the surinamese and are disadvantaged in the dutch language skills. for nigerian immigrants with foreign qualifications from their country of origin, migrating to the netherlands ended their career goals and heightened their stress, as they lacked the cultural capital to integrate into dutch society. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 407 in general, dutch authorities provide families or individuals, including nigerian immigrants legally living in the netherlands, with monthly social assistance in the case where they earn below a certain threshold (svb 2015). however, the system has failed to realise that not all groups of people have the same intentions or desires. some people’s problems need a solution that gets to the root of the matter. the case of nigerian immigrants with foreign qualifications is a genuine one. the dutch authorities, via an informal interview session with a social worker at dienstwerk en inkomen (dwi 2015), a municipal organization in amsterdam that assists low income people, does not support assisting people in general who are on social benefits and wish to attend higher education (study in holland 2015). according to the dwi social worker, as soon as studies of higher standards are mentioned, the person’s social assistance will be in jeopardy because they chose the path of higher education (study in holland 2015). the social welfare organisations refuse to offer such people the assistance they need in fear that the money offered for their living expenses may instead be used for study expenses (study in holland 2015). it may be understandable for the government to exclude people on social benefit from having the right to ask for a tuition fee grant, but it may also harm people with serious intentions or motives. nigerian immigrants with foreign qualifications who cannot pay their way through school, are vulnerable to stress as a result of occupational change 31 . the system does not unite technical and cultural fixes to solve such social problems. there is a nigerian adage that says that a matured mother goat chewing grass in front of her offspring is indirectly teaching them the exact manner in which to chew (african studies centre boston university 2015). the lesson implied is: what children grow up seeing is what they practice. it starts with proper parenting. if parents do not work, their children learn the same and they will grow up to rely on the government to take care of them, thus becoming non-productive citizens. this article, therefore, seeks to answer the question: what does it mean to lose one’s occupational identity as a highly skilled immigrant with foreign qualifications who has the potential to do better? theoretical framework in this article, stress is regarded as a phenomenological concept as outlined by lazarus and folkman (1984). stress in the context of immigrants seeking 31 formal interview with chinedu (13th july 2015); formal interview with ifeoma (19th july 2015); formal interview with dorothy (30th july 2015). ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 408 economic betterment is not just any experience but an experience that poses a threat to what is of the utmost importance to immigrants who voluntarily leave for foreign countries with the hope of making their economic situations better than they were in their home countries. stress may lead to several different outcomes within a wide range of emotional or psychological states (lazarus et al. 1985). mental illness can be looked upon as one of many possible consequences of stress, as immigrants’ high expectations in their countries of settlement may become hard to reach (simich et al. 2006; bhugra 2004). hardship among immigrants opens doors to different mental health conditions that affect one’s mood, thinking and behaviour. examples of mental illness include aggression, depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors. the effects of stress are disadvantageous in that they may include depression that, in turn, negatively affects victims’ offspring. according to richardson (2009) and suto (2008), irrespective of heightened family and career responsibilities and demands, skilled migrants face a lack of social support in the new country that significantly affects skilled migrants’ abilities to adapt, and may lead to lower work adjustment and downward career mobility (peltokorpi and froese 2009; wang & sangalang 2005). literature on skilled migrants’ human capital has highlighted how immigrants’ qualifications are underutilised in host countries (turchick-hakak et al. 2010; zikic 2014). authors such as friedman & krackhardt (1997) and ibarra (1993) specifically point to skilled immigrants’ incapabilities of building relationships with high-status local contacts due to having lower-status and less useful networks in local business culture. it is not strange that skilled immigrants, especially immigrants from third world countries like nigeria, face such problems. drawing on cases of immigrants with foreign qualifications living in the netherlands, it is clear that some groups face more stress than others when it comes to having their foreign qualifications recognised. for example, eu immigrants from bulgaria who are not core western europeans get their qualifications recognised in the netherlands without having to carry out further studies or suffer other barriers that nigerian immigrants with foreign qualifications experience. state of the art much has been written on the struggles of skilled immigrants finding suitable jobs in the labor market but few authors have addressed the effects of such ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 409 struggles on african immigrants, their identity and their children. oreopoulos (2011) has addressed the struggles of skilled immigrants in the labour market, however, the effects of these struggles on immigrants’ children and mental health is not addressed. as such, i seek to fill these gaps in the literature. the goal of this article is to explore the relationship between occupational change and stress among highly skilled immigrants with foreign qualifications who cannot find jobs that match their skills in the netherlands. the article also advocates the need to support such immigrants so that they can meet the required standards in the netherlands. i seek to suggest a solution to alleviate the effects of migrant stress that could potentially increase the upward movement of immigrants and their children and decrease domestic violence from adults towards their children so that, in the long run, there will also be a decreased burden on the welfare system. the proposed solution suggests a combination of technical and cultural components (layne 2000). this translates to providing immigrants who cannot find an appropriate job as a result of foreign qualifications with the necessary support to standardise their qualifications regardless of being on social welfare benefits. this should form a model. merging these two models together will provide a holistic fix for skilled migrants vulnerable to stress. when these models are incorporated, it will no longer represent social assistance but would rather translate to integral social assistance32. at least in this one area, acknowledgement of the suffering of this group and extra attention to their individual needs and not just their needs as a group are required. 32 integral social assistance is a phrase i coined to show that people’s needs are not uniform as laid down rules. there are people with desires other than the currently prescribed solutions to social problems. people may need money to survive but some may also deserve money to progress with and fulfill their already established career goals in a new country. in practice, integral social assistance will involve organisations that work with government grants to provide immigrants with foreign qualifications with the tuition fees they need for studies in the netherlands so that they may not be at risk of stress. those who already suffer the risk will also benefit from integral social assistance. it will get to the root cause and provide ways to alleviate the problem, which will wad off the vicious cycle of poverty that exists for such immigrants in the netherlands. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 410 methodology in preparing this article, i administered surveys and conducted formal interviews among nigerian immigrants living in the bijlmer area of the netherlands. i targeted those hit by occupational change crisis and those who managed to escape it. the objective of the surveys and interviews was to determine the influence of occupational change on the wellbeing of the immigrants and their families in the netherlands. specifically, i wanted to determine how the issues of career change deter the upward movement of immigrants in their host country. the questionnaire sought responses from the nigerian immigrants in relation to five major issues: (1) past occupational history before migrating to the netherlands; (2) current job and socioeconomic status; (3) marital status/family life, including any experience with domestic abuse; (4) view on stress; (5) experiences on government response to their challenges. i selected participants via my own social networks like church, acquaintances, families and friends. part i of this article examines how occupational change spurs stress amongst immigrants with foreign qualifications in the netherlands. it unmasks the effects of stress as a result of occupational change on immigrants and their children and highlights lessons to be drawn from the occupational change, that is; what does it really mean to be stressed in one’s country of settlement 33? part ii proposes a series of solutions that combine technical and cultural fixes to better protect adult immigrants in their pursuit for qualification standardisation plans in the netherlands 34 . this combined model focuses on approaching the requirements and wellbeing of immigrants who are in need of standardising their education, so that they can meet employment requirements in the netherlands. part i: findings: occupational change attributes: depression, poorly mentored children, stress, social isolation, violence, no sense of belonging precious35 was a banker in zenith bank, one of nigeria’s leading banks (zenith bank nigeria 2015). she studied accounting in the university and graduated with a second-class honors degree36. she married her nigerian husband long 33 see infra part i 34 see infra part ii 35 formal interview with precious (1st of july 2015). 36 infra 48. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 411 stationed in the netherlands37. on settling in the netherlands, precious, tried to find new job in the banking sector with her certificate and previous work experience, but she was denied access38. the hr advisor of one of the banks she solicited for a job told her of the need to upgrade her bachelor’s degree in accounting to at least a master’s degree in accounting or any business related degree39. in the year during which this was happening, precious had already turned 30, and she was therefore not eligible for study grants 40 . she consequently enrolled in university without any state assistance. she faced the most difficult time of her life. there were no extra funds to see her through university. her husband’s salary was not enough to cater for her studies and domestic bills at the same time. precious got a job at a breakfast café as a cleaner where she tried to combine work and study. the stress of combining the two landed her in the hospital with chronic muscle ache. she dropped out of her course. precious confessed to have avoided all her banker friends in nigeria, especially the ones that advised her not to leave her good job in nigeria. she suffered serious depression from not being able to get through higher education in the netherlands because of the finances needed. her career goal took another turn. when she gave birth to her first baby, she did not bother informing friends back home in nigeria, she feared that they would ask her when maternity leave would be over. she recounts dropping her newborn child on the ground by mistake due to the depression and stress. she felt like sleeping all the time41. toochi’s experience echoes precious’ story. she was a qualified lawyer in a well-known firm in rivers state, nigeria42. on migrating to the netherlands, she lacked the funds to allow her to upgrade her qualification. as a low-income single mother on social benefit, she sought to ask for extra welfare assistance to enable her to pay tuition fees. she was told she was not eligible for social assistance for higher education because the social help fund is designed to assist only people with low income and not people intending to take up studies. the irony of it all is that social benefits can be combined with other training that will land people on low cadre jobs in the netherlands. depression took a 37ibid. at 31 38 ibid. at 31 39 ibid. at 31 40 see infra 8 41 ibid. at 31 42 live history interview with toochi (4th july 2015) ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 412 better part of toochi, the other part of her that managed to survive the crisis of stress set up an informal restaurant specialising in nigerian delicacies, so as to save up for her studies. events carried over and she ended up not being able to save enough money for her studies. she suffered from not being able to practice law in the netherlands. lowering her standards to a common informal chef to save up for her studies heightened her occupational stress. depression, which according gabriel et al. (2013) can lead to emotional stress, actually led toochi to a point of emotionally instability. she contemplated harming herself43. she shared with me how she lived a good life in nigeria as a lawyer. the social welfare system in the netherlands does not provide for low-income immigrants with foreign education qualifications, who aim to attend higher education but lack the funds. toochi remained on social benefits but could not be a mentor for her children because of the emotional damage resulting from the stress of the occupation change she suffered44. she was traumatised to the extent that she cared less about the academic stance of her children. france (54 years) is another nigerian immigrant who has experienced a similar saga of stress as the result of occupation change. france is a qualified civil engineer from the university of lagos, nigeria. he is married with children. he also lacked the financial tools to upgrade his qualification to match the dutch standard. as a result of this, he suffered depression that led him to occasional wife battering. he also confessed to having done illicit jobs, such as drug trafficking and pick pocketing in amsterdam ‘central’ for extra money to send to his parents who had gone through difficult times to finance his university education in nigeria. he recounts how his son’s teacher complained that his son beat up his friends at school on various occasions. france’s behavior towards his son’s mother could be the reason behind his son’s behaviour. as emphasised by humphreys & mullender (2000) and fantuzzo & mohr (1999), children learn very quickly. the boy might have picked up these habits from his mentor father’s actions at home. according to france, he is not surprised that his son refused to attend university after his secondary education. he began an apprenticeship as a plumber, yet, he was 43infra 48 44 ibid. at 44 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 413 not good at it. to date, france and his entire family are a burden on the social benefit system in the netherlands45. violence is one consequence of occupational change amongst immigrants, however there are other serious consequences such as poorly mentored children who are not well integrated in society (levendosky et al. 2000). according to chau et al. (2014) and suárez-orozco (2009), it is evident that children from poor homes are less likely to enjoy proactive, innovative and good mentored upbringing as seen in france’s case. children whose parents suffer depression are not motivated at home to strive for academic excellence (price et al.1998). parents do not inspire their children due to the circumstances they find themselves in; they see their children equally as they see themselves. such immigrants feel that as they cannot succeed in their pursuit of a decent career, how will it be possible for their children to do otherwise? this may lead to fewer migrant children making it to higher education in the netherlands in the long-term. therefore, the issue at hand must not be taken for granted. nonye eze, one of the interviewees46, is a forty five year old nigerian trained dentist with two children. she recounted how her ex-husband tried the american trend of nigerian men marrying nigerian medical professional women and exporting them to the us for money-making (information nigeria 2014; punch nigeria 2015). he thought nonye would easily find a job just like other us exported brides47. unfortunately, it was not as he thought. nonye had to meet strict requirements before she could practice dentistry in the netherlands. nonye’s ex-husband was patient in the beginning to see if she could meet the necessary requirements, but after the expenses of nonye’s intended studies including dutch language school were calculated, her exhusband realised that he could not afford her education and simultaneously care for the home. it did not take long before she was thrown out of the house. according to nonye, the reason for her ex-husband’s action was that she added more of a burden to his already stressed bank account. he is currently married to a nurse from a surinamese background. i must acknowledge that nonye was lucky to have not lost her life in the saga. it is obvious that nonye’s husband prided himself with highly skilled women 45 ibid. at 53 46 formal interview with nonye (10th of july 2015) 47 see infra 128 ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 414 as evident in the case of him marrying and bringing nonye all the way from nigeria to the netherlands, only to leave her with two young children. he was not patient enough to see nonye through school because of the finances involved. nonye did not have a choice other than to fall back to social welfare benefit, to enable her take care of her children48. similarly, chinedu ikpoenyi, a 38 year-old man who was a practicing lawyer in nigeria, also suffered the pressure and trauma of stress as a result of occupational change in the netherlands49. he confessed to me that at a point, all he wanted was an opportunity to attend university in the netherlands, even if it meant studying a course that is less stringent like professional courses. his top goal in life was to at least satisfy his occupational and educational ambition. unfortunately, the netherlands welfare system centers on technical fixes (group fix as seen in layne 2000), which exclude individual considerations (cultural fixes) when solving social problems. chengdu’s occupation and ambition came to a standstill because of the cost of tuition fees. when i asked him what he currently does for a living, he says he works at a factory where his frustrations are aggravated on a daily basis. he told me about his part-time job in a factory with other immigrants who have not attended school or university in their whole lives. according to chinedu they have all become the same people in reality for if this were not the case, he as a trained lawyer would not be working with them at the factory50. chinedu’s case appears to be the downward career mobility experience that is practically ignored in the dutch society. ifeoma left her job as a secondary school teacher in nigeria, only to realise that her occupation was on the path of no return in the netherlands51. as a 39 year old immigrant with the ambition to become a math teacher in the netherlands, there were no funds to support her study plans. she ended up getting a job as a cleaner during the week and a hairdresser in the weekend. she recounts how she was affected by occupational stress; she got so frustrated to the extent that she did not socialise with friends (see paul and moser 2009 on the same issue). dorothy, a 37 year old single mother of one, managed to successfully complete her business and management degree via funds her parents gathered back 48see infra 128 49 formal interview with chinedu (13th july 2015) 50 formal interview with chinedu (13th july 2015) 51 formal interview with ifeoma (19th july 2015) ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 415 home in nigeria52. they sold their piece of farmland to pay for her tuition. during my discussion with her, she talked of how challenging it was to get the fees to pay for her university education as a single mother on bijstaand (social assistance). her parent’s financial assistance allowed her to achieve her goals. today, her entire family is reaping the benefits of her university qualification from the netherlands, which according to benham (1974) is the reward for education. she has a well-paid job at a bank in utrecht. she also highlighted the other benefits of attending university, which are immeasurable. when i asked her of the benefits, she was quick to mention economic independence and confidence to function in dutch society (baum and payea 2005). she also told me that she is now able to take better care of her child. a clear observation of dorothy at the grocery shop on a day i trailed her truly revealed that she is well integrated and confident in dutch society (groenendijk 2004). her self-confidence was reflected in the way she behaved. i paid close attention to the way she spoke to the supermarket attendant with respect and humility. her behavior will indeed inspire her child to grow to become a good role model within dutch society. achieving higher education in the netherlands is indeed responsible for making her who she has presently become (desai and alva 1998). this article is indeed a wakeup call for the dutch society. the effect on children who come from such homes may be victimisation and vulnerability to illicit businesses and activities (edelson 1999; fantuzzo & mohr 1999). this also explains the stigma of failure that precious the banker feared and subramanian and kumar (2009) have discussed in detail. part ii: conclusion and discussions: how integral social assistance model can curb stress among immigrants in the netherlands like the saying goes, charity begins at home (idioms 2015). a child growing up with parents that are depressed as a result of stress caused by occupational change in host country that could well be avoided will live to believe that higher education is a waste of time. bradshaw et al. (2007) have ascertained that the wellbeing of children is paramount in the netherlands and therefore it does not seem ideal to ignore children in this case. ideally, children of skilled immigrants are supposed to have academic confidence as children of educated parents but due to the trauma of occupational change stress, most immigrant 52formal interview with dorothy (30th july 2015) ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 416 children in this situation suffer poor academic performance (whitehead & iman 2005). this goes to show that parents also have a contribution to make to the wellbeing of their children (mazzucato & schans 2011). integral social assistance53 (combining technical fix and cultural fix) will go a long way to improve the life of vulnerable migrant families. from the formal interviews conducted with nigerian immigrants in the netherlands54, findings show that households solely headed by women are hit the hardest in terms of stress. women interviewed all pointed to one problem: the difficulty of running a home alone and doing various jobs to pay or save for tuition fees (the guardian 2012). women are more pressurised and vulnerable to family matters, such as finding a way to generate income to live on (schrover 2006). however, none of the interviewees of the article mentioned that it was too late for them to return to the university to make up for what is required to be able to upgrade their foreign qualifications in the netherlands55 . one common confession among respondents with stress conditions is that they isolate themselves from colleagues and families (liem & liem 1988; halleröd & larsson 2008; bolton & oatley 1987). some also avoid successful nigerian immigrants in the netherlands for the fear that they would tell people back home that they are no longer what they were in nigeria, that they have experienced a loss of identity as a result of occupational change. the welfare of skilled immigrants working in jobs for which they are overqualified can be improved considerably if people like chinedu, who have foreign education qualifications, are given integral social assistance (isa) to take a step further from the norm. this will lead to more immigrants integrating positively in the netherlands. chinedu has the potential to live a better life in the netherlands but due to the lack of support and finances he needed to upgrade his degree to eu standards, he gave up on his dreams. ifeoma adibe was also affected by the technical fix system of the netherlands. the model of solving social problems did not pay attention to her goals as an 53 see infra 39 54 formal interview with precious (1st of july 2015); formal interview with toochi (4th july 2015); formal interview with france (9th july 2015); formal interview with chinedu (13th july 2015); formal interview with ifeoma (19th july 2015); formal interview with dorothy (30th july 2015) 55 formal interview with precious and chidinma (1st of july 2015); formal interview with toochi (4th july 2015); formal interview with france (9th july 2015); formal interview with chinedu (13th july 2015); formal interview with ifeoma (19th july 2015); formal interview with dorothy (30th july 2015); formal interview with dorothy (30th july 2015) ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 417 individual. there is a need to be aware of the requirements of families such as those researched in this article that have a bright future but cannot excel in their country of settlement due to the stress of finding employment in lowerlevel jobs. stress as a result of occupational change, which compels its victims to suffer depression and isolation and subsequently leads to emotional and financial trauma, is inevitable in this case. adopting an integral social assistance model as earlier proposed would serve as a viable option which could potentially combat both the more severe and the less drastic consequences of stress as a result of occupational change among skilled immigrants from third world countries. drawing from the case of dorothy, the article has shown that the benefits of working in jobs for which immigrants are qualified brings out the best in them in host countries and reduces their chances of mental health conditions. in the netherlands, achieving the goals of the integral social assistance model is not so difficult, as the amenities already in place would enable a smooth implementation of the model. for instance, the day-care system in the netherlands provides subsidies for students with low income regardless of age to be able to take their children to daycare (rijksoverheid 2015). language schools are also subsidised by municipalities for immigrants with low income who are willing to learn the dutch language (rocva 2015). another good amenity provided by the government is nuffic’s responsibility to manage and accredit foreign certificates (nuffic 2015). if this were not the case, critics would be quick to point out the need to verify the originality of immigrants’ qualification certificates. with such services provided by authorities in the netherlands, highly skilled immigrants will not face many obstacles in standardising their foreign qualifications in the netherlands. it is no doubt that the effects of stress as a result of occupational change are disastrous, thus the government needs to strive hard on this issue. the netherlands can learn from the nigerian immigrants interviewed and observed in this article so that immigrants with foreign qualifications wishing to return to studying in the hope of securing a higher-level job can achieve their goals through the integral social assistance model. the model is designed to deal with the stress crises that result from occupational change and may compel immigrants to suffer depression and isolation and lead to emotional and financial trauma. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 418 references african studies centre boston university. 2015. from <http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach-/resources/np/> (retrieved august 9, 2015). baum, s. & payea, k. 2005. education pays 2004: the benefits of higher education for individuals and society: trends in higher education series. college board report 5664. benham, l. 1974. benefits of women's education within marriage. in: schultz, t. 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no1, jan-april 2016 422 zikic, j. 2014. skilled migrants' career capital as a source of competitive advantage: implications for strategic hrm’. the international journal of human resource management, doi: mm0.1080/09585192.2014.981199. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 423 no future for our children: challenges faced by foreign minors living in south africa ncumisa willie & popo mfubu abstract the intensification of international migration and continued conflicts in africa have resulted in growing numbers of child migrants. children are increasingly becoming mobile and crossing international borders unaccompanied. the movement of unaccompanied or separated minors triggers international obligations on all states that are party to the convention of the rights of a child to take all available measures to ensure that children’s rights are respected, protected and fulfilled. south africa has arguably the most progressive child protection mechanisms in africa. those mechanisms are conferred and extended to foreign minor children within its borders. however, due to a lack of coordination between the various state departments entrusted with matters concerning foreign minors, the state has failed to fulfil its duties as required by national and international law. this paper highlights the difficulties faced by foreign minors and how the gaps in law leave them undocumented, vulnerable and unable to access social services. this paper also discusses how south africa’s approach to accompanied and unaccompanied foreign minor children provides no durable long term solutions for these children, effectively leaving them in a legal lacuna once they reach the age of majority. drawing on our experience as refugee attorneys, we demonstrate that there are disparities between the law and the implementation of the law. we conclude with recommendations on possible policy and legislative reforms that can be implemented in order to ensure that south africa develops a comprehensive and meaningful long-term approach for migrant children living in south africa. keywords separated foreign children, durable solutions, refugees, foreigners, asylum seekers, non-refoulement.  refugee rights unit, university of cape town, south africa: email: pwmfubu@gmail.com  refugee rights unit, university of cape town, south africa: email: ncumisa.willie@uct.ac.za mailto:pwmfubu@gmail.com mailto:ncumisa.willie@uct.ac.za ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 424 introduction up until the early 1990’s migration was largely perceived as an act primarily undertaken by adult males. children were commonly viewed as migrating within family units. recent studies into independent child migration reveal that a large number of children migrate independently either unaccompanied or separated from their families. it is estimated that there are 250 million child migrants globally (unhcr 2015). save the children, a non-government organisation, estimates that 25% of all migrants are children (victoria 2015). this high number of child migrants necessitates the need to formulate laws and policies that comprehensively protect children in receiving countries. south africa is the third largest economy on the continent and is absorbing a substantial number of unaccompanied child migrants (kpmg south africa 2016). as a result of the protracted conflicts in parts of the continent (gouden 2002) and growing economic instability in neighbouring countries such as zimbabwe, south africa will continue receiving accompanied and unaccompanied minors (palmary 2009). the south african government therefore needs a comprehensive approach to child migrants; an approach informed by its international legal obligations and with the principles of the constitution of south africa which states that the “best interests of the child are paramount.” this paper analyses how south africa gives effect to its national and international obligations towards child migrants. although south africa has passed laws which provide child migrants with legal protection, the implementation of these laws reveal a lack of coordination between the various relevant departments in dealing with migrant children. this results in a failure to fulfil their respective mandates and duties as required by the convention of the rights of a child (1989) as well as the south african children’s act (2005). in this paper we discuss the various legal barriers to documentation faced by migrant children in south africa and argue that the gaps in law have left many migrant children without documentation, vulnerable and unable to access social services. furthermore, we contend that south africa’s approach to foreign children provides no durable long term solutions for minors, a situation that leaves them in a legal lacuna once they reach the age of majority. the paper is organised as follows: we begin with a broad outline of the legal instruments pertaining to children in south africa. we then analyse the departmental procedures used in assisting unaccompanied and separated foreign children. thirdly, we place foreign child ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 425 migrants into four legal categories; unaccompanied foreign children with refugee claims, separated foreign children with refugee claims, unaccompanied and separated foreign children with no refugee claims and accompanied refugee children with refugee claims. we critically examine the legal protection afforded to these categories. we conclude with recommendations in an effort to fill the legislative gaps within south africa’s foreign child protection framework. child protection in south africa: the legal framework the convention of the rights of a child (1989) lays the foundation for international child protection law. this convention places a duty on states to ensure, through the passing and implementation of national laws, that the best interests of a child are always paramount. south africa gives effect to this international obligation through a number of national legal instruments; firstly the rights of a child are enshrined in the south african constitution (1996), which is the supreme law of the land. section 28 of the constitution places a duty on the state to respect, protect, fulfil and promote the rights of a child. secondly, the children’s act (2005) gives meaning and effect to the rights set out in the constitution and both the constitution and the children’s act make no distinction between children based on nationality; care and protection is afforded to all children in south africa regardless of nationality. the only act that contains particular provisions which apply to certain categories of children is the refugees act (1998) which seeks to protect children who are or may be refugees. in addition to these laws, the department of social services/development (dsd) has standard operating procedures (sops) designed to aid in the practical implementation of the rights set out in the constitution and the children’s act. according to the united nations high commission for refugees (unhcr 1996) “an unaccompanied child (also referred to as an unaccompanied minor) is a child who has been separated from both parents and other relatives and is not being cared for by an adult who, by law or custom, is responsible for doing so.” whereas a separated child is a child who has been separated from both parents, or from his or her previous legal or customary primary care-giver, but not necessarily from other relatives (separated children in europe programme 2009). conceptually, a separated child is slightly different from an unaccompanied minor in that the separated child may not be in need of care and protection as he or she might be cared for by an accompanying adult such ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 426 as an aunt or uncle. this is often the case with refugee children who are forced to flee due to conflict. as stated above, child migrants fall into various legal categories, however it is clear that once it is established that a child is unaccompanied or separated from his or her parent, care-givers or guardian, an inquiry has to be conducted to ascertain whether the child is in need of care and/or protection as is required by the children’s act. unaccompanied and separated children are therefore assisted by various government departments; generally speaking all unaccompanied or separated children who are suspected of being in need of care and protection should be referred to the dsd. the dsd is the main governmental department entrusted with giving effect to the rights of the child as provided in the children’s act. unaccompanied and separated children may also fall within the ambit of the south african police services (saps) particularly where such children have been abused, smuggled, neglected or trafficked. the department of home affairs (dha) usually encounters children at the initial undocumented stage. brief overview of the child protection process in south africa what follows is a broad overview of the processes that should be taken by government departments when assisting unaccompanied or separated children. these guidelines are set out in the children’s act and have been translated into standard operating procedures by the dsd. these guidelines for care and protection entails a five step process, namely: identification; assessment and documentation; family tracing; durable solutions; and repatriation. assessment and statutory intervention given that unaccompanied and separated children are often vulnerable to social pathologies, they are always presumed to be in need of care and protection. with regards to child protection, the same procedures govern unaccompanied children and separated children. the sops (2013) for the tracing, reunification or alternative care placements of unaccompanied and separated children in south africa state that: “upon becoming aware of an unaccompanied or separated minor child at risk, dsd, saps or the designated child protection organization (cpo) are obligated to take steps to ensure the immediate safety and well-being of the child.” the dsd’s sop states that the procedure laid out in section 110(5) of children’s act should be followed. where the child faces immediate danger, the dsd may remove the child ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 427 without a court order to a temporary safe care facility pursuant to section 152 of the children’s act, for a duration not exceeding six (6) months. once the child has been removed and placed in a temporary safe care facility, without a court order, the case must be reported to the children’s court by no later than the following court day. if the child is not in immediate danger, he/she may remain where he/she is as a temporary safe care placement, pending investigations. the investigation should be completed and a report compiled for the court within 90 days. where the child is undocumented, section 48(2) of the children’s act stipulates that the children’s court can estimate the age of the child, aided by the written motivation of a designated social worker, an investigation into the circumstances of the child, including any abuse, neglect or exploitation must be conducted and recorded and the findings together with a recommendation presented to the court. the dsd or the designated cpo should assess whether the child is seeking asylum and if so, assist the child to seek asylum through the refugee reception officers in dha. once the investigation has been completed the social worker should present the findings and make recommendations to the court regarding the most suitable solution for the minor child. the children’s court is to determine whether the child is in need of care and protection. if in need of care, the court must make an order to ensure that the child is officially placed in terms of either sections 156 or 157 of the children’s act. section 156 pertains to orders made when a child is found to be in need of care and protection, it provides five options for the type of order that the court can make in respect of a child with no parent or caregiver: to be placed in foster care, cluster foster care, to be taken to a temporary safe care pending the finalisation of an application for adoption of the child, shared care with different care-givers at different times or periods or placement at a child and youth care centre. the main objective of section 157 is the securing of stability in a child’s life. family tracing once the temporary safety of the child has been secured, the social worker has to establish why the child has left home and why she is alone. the cpo or social workers need to determine if there are any parents, caregivers or extended families of the unaccompanied or separated minor, their current living circumstances and whether they are in a position to care for and protect the ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 428 child. in doing so the social worker may elicit the assistance of other social workers in the child’s country of origin if and when it is appropriate. once family members have been traced, the social worker may request an assessment of the family and its circumstances through their national international social services (iss) office. an inter-country report will be provided through the national iss and made available to the local social worker responsible for the case. the cross border assessment may also be done by non-government organisations such as the unhcr, the international red cross or international organization for migration. the dsd can also approach the respective embassy of the child’s country of origin to obtain information such as birth certificates or travel documents provided that such a child is not an asylum seeker. if the child was born in south africa, the dha should have a record of the child’s birth because all children born to foreign parents in south africa are provided with a notice of birth by the hospital where they were born which allows them to apply for a birth certificate at the dha or in their country of origin upon their return. the birth certificate issued to foreign children is merely to document the birth. thus, the foreign child is not listed in the south african population registry. reunification or placement if the information gathered from the country of origin is favourable in terms of the family’s ability to take care of the child and it is perceived to be in the child’s best interests to be returned to the family, the child may be reunited with her family. there is a procedure to be followed when returning such children. the dsd’s sops provide that the return of a child to her country of origin should be considered on a case by case basis. however, the following needs to be taken into account: the repatriation should be in the best interests of the child and arrangements must be made to ensure the safety of the child. in practice, a social worker is usually appointed to accompany the child to the border where the child is subsequently handed over to their family or the relevant authorities and the person receiving the child signs a receipt acknowledging receipt of the child. travel documents are arranged with the relevant embassies and the dsd in principle should take cautionary measures in handing the child over so as to avoid trafficking and exploitation. a statutory document discharging the child from south africa’s statutory system is produced and handed over to the agency receiving the child. the individual receiving the child has to be pre-identified and verified by the person accompanying the child to the country of origin. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 429 alternative care placements some children cannot be reunified with their families either because their families cannot be traced or because it is not in the best interests of the child to be reunified with them. an alternative care arrangement which is suitable for the child needs to be recommended to the presiding officer of the children’s court. the relevant considerations to be made are again highlighted in the sops. unaccompanied foreign minors with refugee claims one of the biggest hurdles faced by unaccompanied and separated foreign children is access to documentation that regulates their continued stay in south africa. these documents can be obtained either through the immigration act or the refugees act. the laws governing the right to seek asylum in south africa are contained in the refugees act. section 3 of the act defines what or who a refugee is and provides three categories of people who qualify for refugee status. a refugee is a person who is compelled to leave her country of origin, owing to a wellfounded fear of persecution on a number of listed grounds and whose country is either unable or unwilling to protect her. a refugee can also be someone who fled her country of origin owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing or disrupting public order or someone who is a dependent of such a person. the act specifically provides for unaccompanied children seeking asylum but is silent on separated children. therefore, we will analyse the rights of unaccompanied foreign children within the ambit refugees act. section 32(1) of the refugees act provides that: any child who appears to qualify for refugee status in terms of section 3, and who is found under circumstances which clearly indicate that he or she is a child in need of care as contemplated in the child care act, must forthwith be brought before the children’s court for the district in which he or she was found. […] the children’s court may order that a child contemplated in subsection (1) be assisted in applying for asylum in terms of this act. while subsection 2 provides that a children’s court may order that a child who appears to qualify for refugee status be assisted in applying for asylum in terms of the act, the reality is that documentation for unaccompanied children in the asylum process remains a major barrier. this is irrespective of the fact that refugee law allows children with refugee claims to be documented under ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 430 the act. a large number of these children remain undocumented because the relevant authorities refuse to grant them access to the asylum process without the assistance of a parent or guardian. bhabha (2003) notes that “all unaccompanied children face legal impediments and legal limitations as the law mainly recognises them as objects of the law and not as subjects of the law).” this is mainly because children under the age of eighteen are normaly considered by south african law, in general, as lacking full legal capacity and therefore can only interact with the law when duly assisted by a parent or guardian. this is the case even in instances where children are legally permitted to engage directly with the law. this legal approach to children places child migrants who are seeking asylum in a vulnerable position as refugee status determination officers are unwilling to allow them to lodge independent asylum claims. it is presumed that children can only be dealt with under the procedures directed at families – the refugee status determination officers only view children as dependents of an adult and therefore only grant them asylum under section 3(c) of the refugees act (bhabha 2003). where the child is not accompanied by a parent, she is simply refused assistance on the grounds of being a minor. irrespective of whether the child has an independent refugee claim or not, this approach fails to take cognisance of child-specific claims and fails to see that children can be persecuted and that any of the grounds for asylum in section 3 can be applicable to children (bhabha 2003). in particular, children often have child-specific claims such as forced conscription as child soldiers or forced marriage as child brides who are often forced into marriages by their own parents. thus, there is a need to provide for child specific refugee protection as there is no minimum age limit to the international right to seek asylum. this is evident from articles 32 and 33 of the convention relating to the status of refugees (1951: article 29) and paragraphs 213-219 of the uhncr’s handbook on procedures and criteria for determining refugee status under the 1951 convention and the 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees (2011: 41). both provide guidelines on how unaccompanied minors may be assisted when applying for asylum. they state that where an unaccompanied minor seeks to apply for asylum, the relevant authorities need to ensure that the interests of the child are fully safeguarded (2011: 50). furthermore, the south african refugees act states that children must be assisted in applying for asylum. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 431 the children’s act provides a legal mechanism that could potentially be used in enforcing children’s right to seek asylum. but as bhabha (2003) argues, children are often only viewed as victims of malfunctioning family networks and not as victims of persecution. many cpo and social workers dedicate themselves to removing children from harmful environments and placing them in spaces of care and safety, however, once they obtain a court order from the children’s court and secure the child’s safety, they seem to believe that their work is complete (bhabha 2003). they are often unaware of the need for obtaining documentation for these children and where they are and they often lack the knowledge necessary to assist the child in obtaining the documents. as a result, unaccompanied children with refugee claims are placed in places of care and protection without legal documentation and once they reach the age of majority are removed from these places of safety because they fall outside the protection and ambit of the children’s act and are rendered vulnerable to arrest, detention and deportation as they are factually illegal migrants. in this way, social workers and cpo are only concerned with the temporary care of these minor children and they give little or no consideration to long term durable solutions for when these children attain majority. while police officers, immigration officers and refugee status determination officers only consider legal status and fail to consider the social welfare of the child. in addition social workers, family advocates, presiding officers and refugee status determination officers are not abreast with children’s rights in terms of the refugees act. this is also indicative of the current discourse which only seeks to engage with children in a welfare and humanitarian manner as opposed to a legal approach. separated foreign children with refugee claims separated children with refugee claims are slightly complex because the refugees act makes no mention of them. prior to the mubake and others v minister of home affairs and others zagpphc 1037 judgement, south african refugee law was silent as to how separated refugee children with refugee claims should be treated. in this case, the court was called upon to determine when separated children should be documented. the applicants in mubake argued that a child should automatically be regarded as a dependent of the accompanying adult and therefore documented with the adult. the respondents argued that separated children should only be documented once a children’s court inquiry has been conducted and the court has lawfully placed the children in the care of the accompanying adults. the court agreed ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 432 with the applicants’ interpretation of the law and argued that it cannot be in the best interests of the child to leave them undocumented pending the inquiry and thus vulnerable to arrest and detention. the court thus found that children should be documented with the accompanying adult and need not wait for the conclusion of the children’s court inquiry. this case clarified that when dealing with children who are separated from their biological parents and who appear to qualify for asylum, the dha needs to issue the children with at least an asylum permit pending the dsd investigation as to whether the children are in need of care and protection. the court stated that this is essential because leaving the children undocumented renders them susceptible to various social ills. the court highlighted that pending the dsd investigation, if left undocumented the children are rendered invisible to immigration officials, untraceable and left in an uncertain and precarious position. the court drew a distinction between the inquiry conducted by the dsd and the inquiry conducted by dha by stating that the former pertains to the social welfare of the child while the latter pertains to the legal status of the child in terms of human rights law. given that these two processes are not mutually exclusive, the judge saw no compelling reason why they cannot occur concurrently. the judge reasoned that the outcome of the one does not necessarily influence the other. the children’s court inquiry can find that the adult asylum seeker is fit and proper and may continue to care for the child while the asylum inquiry may determine that the child and/or the adult cannot be issued with refugee statuses as they do not meet the requirements of the act. in this situation they would both have to depart from the country. this case set the precedent that every separated child should be documented as soon as possible and that the dha need not wait for the conclusion of the children’s court before assisting the child with making the application. however, in our experience we have found that the dha continues to leave many children undocumented pending the children’s court inquiry. unaccompanied and separated foreign children without refugee claims refugee protection is only applicable to people who have a refugee claim, in terms of the refugees act. consequently, those who do not have prima facie refugee claims are dealt with in terms of the immigration act. unaccompanied children who do not fall within the ambit of the refugees act have limited mechanisms for obtaining legal status as the immigration act of south africa does not provide any concrete mechanism for these children. the permits provided for in the immigration act require passports and birth certificates ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 433 which, as stated earlier, many foreign children do not have. moreover, the immigration act bears no reference to children as independent migrants; children are only envisioned as travelling within a family unit where they are dependent on an adult. they do not have the capacity to apply for any of the permits under this act without the assistance of a legal guardian. children who fall under this category are afforded temporary protection while they are legal minors as the law provides that foreign minors should not be arrested for lacking legal documents. though there is contemporary case law reflecting this, foreign minors are still subjected to arrest and detention. the centre for child law and another v minister of home affairs and others 2005 (6) sa 50 (t) is a prime example of the lack of knowledge and application of children’s rights to foreign children. in this case, over a hundred foreign children were arrested and detained at the lindela repatriation centre which is south africa’s main deportation and repatriation holding facility. it was reported that some of the children were even housed in cells with adult inmates in clear violation of section 27(1)(a) of the child justice act which specifically provides that children should be detained separately from adults. an urgent application was brought by the centre for child law asking for the immediate release of the children, the application was granted. the court declared the arrest of the minors unlawful and furthermore stated that the respondents' behaviour constituted a serious infringement of the children's fundamental rights. the court confirmed the unlawfulness of arresting undocumented foreign minors. nonetheless, once a child reaches the age of majority they too face the danger of being arrested, detained and deported. there are no durable long term solutions for such children. as stated before, social workers and presiding officers view it as sufficient to obtain a court order placing children in a place of care, hardly going beyond catering to the legal documentation needs of the children. consequently, a children’s court inquiry does not guarantee any document to legalise a foreign child’s stay in south africa. this is particularly so when the child is not a refugee. it can be argued that these children could be dealt with and documented in terms of section 31(2)(b) of the immigration act which grants the minister of home affairs special powers to grant a foreigner the rights of permanent residence for a specified or unspecified period when special circumstances exist which justify such a decision without them having to satisfy the requirements of the immigration act. this is what we commonly refer to as a ministerial exemption; it is an application which is made to the minister of ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 434 home affairs. the minister has discretionary powers to grant or deny the application. to avoid leaving foreign children who do not have refugee claims undocumented we propose that once the children’s court concludes that the child is in need of care and protection and it is clear that the child does not fall within the ambit of the refugees act or that his or her application for asylum has been rejected, it (the children’s court) should also order the child’s legal representative or appointed social worker to make an application for documentation for the child in terms of section 31(2) of the immigration act. this should ensure that every unaccompanied foreign child is provided with temporary legal documentation. this is a suitable solution as the child may be granted temporary residence due to the special circumstances of being in need of care and protection. should these circumstances change, or should the child’s parents be located, the minister has the power to withdraw the exemption. in this way, the exemption will only be used for children who are in need of care and protection. accompanied foreign children with refugee claims accompanied foreign children are also denied the opportunity to apply for asylum in their own names; they are automatically placed into their parents’ files as dependents pursuant to section 3(c) of the refugees act. this section of the act recognises the right to family unity and allows those married to refugees or dependent on them to be permitted to remain in the country by obtaining derivative refugee status by virtue of being spouses or dependants of a recognised refugee. the spouse or dependent is required only to prove that he or she is a dependant or spouse of a recognised refugee. once the dependency or spousal relationship is established, the person is granted a derivative status. the regulations of the refugees act define a dependant as an applicant's spouse, unmarried dependent child under the age of 18 years, or any destitute, aged or infirmed member of the principal applicant's family. the act therefore envisioned a person dependant on a recognised refugee in south africa who does not have an individual claim in terms of section 3(a) or (b) of the refugees act. in order to allow such a person to lawfully reside in the country and thereby maintain family unity, the law provided for derivative refugee statuses. therefore, the legislation is meant to give protection to family members of a recognised refugee who may not have a claim without the principal applicant but also flee with the principal applicant in order to ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 435 maintain their family nucleus. however, this provision has been interpreted by officials to mean that whenever an adult is accompanied by a minor child, the minor child must be dealt with in terms of section 3(c). in this way, refugee children are perceived as dependents that are only eligible to apply for derivative status. this is unlawful and prejudicial to the minor. it is unlawful because it is an unjustifiable limitation of foreign children’s rights to have their asylum applications heard. it is also procedurally unfair and often results in the child being severely prejudiced. this is particularly so where the child has a strong independent refugee claim stemming from his or her status and the parent has a particularly weak refugee claim, an example would be young boys who are usually forced to become child soldiers in times of conflict and war or young girls who are often forced into sex slavery or child marriage. the child is thus left to the mercy of the outcome of the adult’s claim. this could result in the violation of the principle of non-refoulement which prohibits the return or expulsion of a person to a territory where his/her life or physical liberty would be threatened (un convention relating to the status of refugees 1951: article 33(1)). secondly, denying the minor child an opportunity to have his or her own asylum application adjudicated is procedurally unfair and prejudicial because it only affords the child temporary legal protection. this is because once the child attains the age of majority, which is 18 years of age, she ceases to be a dependant as defined in the refugees act. according to section 33(2) and (3) of the act and section 16(6) of the regulations of the act, a person who obtains majority and thereby ceases to be a dependant may remain in the country if the person has a valid asylum permit and will be given an opportunity to apply for asylum pursuant to section 3(a) and/or (b) of the refugees act. in reality this means that a minor who had a prima facie refugee claim when she entered south africa but was not given the opportunity to apply for her own status in terms of section 3(a) or (b) and was erroneously documented in terms of section 3(c), will lose her derivative status upon attaining the age of majority. she will then be required to make a new asylum application based on a claim she had when they first arrived in the country. the reality for most of these children is that by the time they reach majority age, their claims have elapsed and they can no longer rely on them. some of their claims are agebased claims and as young adults they can no longer rely on them. others left their home countries at a tender age and cannot be reasonably expected to ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 436 accurately remember the events that occurred when they were young. moreover, the dha also withdraws refugee permits of abandoned children. this is because when the abandoned children attempt to extend their expired permits, they are required to attend the refugee reception office with the principal applicant, where the child is unable to produce the principle applicant, the dha refuses to extend the permit. in essence, by refusing to extend, the dha is withdrawing their refugee status which is unlawful. only the standing committee for refugees established in terms of section 9 to 11 of the refugees act is empowered to withdraw the status of a refugee. this is also the case for children with deceased parents. the “aging-out” practice adopted by the department and the resultant unlawful withdrawal of derivative status of children who reach the age of majority is prejudicial to these children as it denies them the opportunity to obtain long term durable solutions. it also denies the right to family unity to accompanied minor children who at the age of majority find themselves with the undesirable legal status of being an illegal foreigner. the withdrawal of the refugee status of a person who has ceased to be a minor is problematic in two ways; firstly, some minors initially attempt to make independent claims when they first arrive in south africa but are prohibited by dha officials with a flawed and unlawful interpretation of the asylum laws. they are then issued with derivative status and their own claims are allowed to lapse or become irrelevant. therefore, it is unduly harsh, procedurally unfair and prejudicial to expect someone to recall events that caused her to flee their home country as a child when the person has now obtained majority years later. moreover, the withdrawal of the derivative status upon reaching majority is equally prejudicial to accompanied minors who entered south africa in pursuit of family reunification and were either subsequently abandoned or lost their parents after documentation. in this scenario where the child did not have an independent claim when they first arrived, they surely will not have a claim after attaining the age of majority. it is cruel and inhumane to allow a child to reside in a country for many years, get accustomed to the culture and language, and then expect her to return to a country of origin where she does not know anyone nor have any social ties. the law needs to guard against this by considering what is in the best interests of the child with a more forwardlooking approach. providing short-term solutions is not in the best interests of the child. the best interests of the child approach should not only be looking ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 437 at the present but should be forward-looking, thereby securing stability in the child’s life not only presently but in a long term, durable sense. policy reform and recommendations we have highlighted the trend of focusing on only social welfare as being prevalent in dealing with foreign minor children in south africa. the dangers of this practice are that undocumented children are often denied access to social services such as health care, education and other public services and they are rendered vulnerable to arrest and deportation. moreover, the tendency to focus only on social welfare without considering documentation when dealing with unaccompanied minors is exacerbated by the fact that the children’s act makes no specific reference or mention of foreign children. the children’s act does not recognise specific vulnerabilities of certain categories of foreign children such as unaccompanied foreign minors and separated refugee children. though the children’s act seeks to protect all children irrespective of nationality, foreign children are not afforded the full extent of the state’s child protection system on the basis of their nationality. this is because many presiding officers, social workers and other officials do not know that foreign children should be given equal protection. this lack of knowledge of children’s rights was displayed by various government officials in the centre for child law case where a magistrate in the children’s court refused to conduct inquiries in respect of foreign unaccompanied minors on the basis that the foreign children fall outside the ambit of the child care act. this crass display of methodological nationalism is commonly seen in matters where foreign children are denied basic socio-economic rights on the basis of their nationality. to combat this, the refugee rights unit has always advocated for the amendment of the definition of a child in the children’s act to include the words: “irrespective of nationality” (machingambi & ralekwa 2015). the definition would therefore read as follows: “‘child’ means any person under the age of 18, irrespective of nationality.” the act should also make explicit mention of unaccompanied foreign and separated children and should define the terms expressly stating the different legal categories that such children fall into and how they should be dealt with taking into account their specific needs. it is thus crucial for the dsd, when identifying whether a child is in need of care and protection, to also determine whether the child is a separated or unaccompanied foreign child, as this triggers the need to inquire as to whether the child needs legal documents to reside lawfully in the country. this will also ensure that those dealing with children do not only focus on the social welfare ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 438 issues faced by all children but that they are aware of the nuanced needs of foreign children that render them vulnerable to exploitation and unlawful detention as a result of not being properly documented. the dha needs to fulfil its role by identifying foreign unaccompanied and separated children at the refugee reception offices and ports of entry. when dealing with children, refugee reception offices should, as a matter of practice, ascertain first and foremost if a child has an independent refugee claim and should document the child and provide them with an asylum or refugee status document. it is also important for the dha to note the difference between a separated foreign child and an unaccompanied foreign child. this is because some children become separated from their parents after entering the country. for example, children whose parents have died or resettled in a third country without the child may turn an accompanied child into a separated child. as such, it is crucial that the dha establishes proper mechanisms that will enable officials to properly identify separated children from unaccompanied children. so that where a child is accompanied by an adult, it becomes necessary to establish the nature of the relationship between the child and the adult in order to establish whether or not the adult is in fact the child’s primary caregiver. this will assist the state in combating child trafficking. the children’s court should play a greater role in determining whether the child is in need of care and protection, the court should decide with the assistance of a legal opinion of an expert refugee attorney or unhcr whether the child appears to have a refugee claim. if the child appears to qualify for refugee status, the court should order that the child be assisted in making the application for asylum and accordingly be documented as an asylum seeker or refugee. there is, thus, a need for a provision in the refugees act and its regulations that develops a clear delineated role for dha, dsd, saps, border control and the children’s court, when dealing with unaccompanied foreign children in order to ensure that such children are properly dealt with and are not left legal undocumented. this would require that refugee status determination officers be adequately trained in determining the refugee status of unaccompanied children. furthermore, the refugees act and its regulations should clearly set out the procedure for referring unaccompanied or separated foreign children by the dha to the dsd. the referral system should invariably include a mechanism ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 439 for the recording by the dha of each child referred indicating a note on the circumstances under which the child was found, the dsd official to whom the child was referred and the name of the dha official who made the referral. there needs to be a more coordinated policy between the various government departments working with unaccompanied and separated foreign children. thus, the gap between child-protection and welfare departments and migration departments needs to be breached as children often fall through the bureaucratic cracks. the fact that a different department determines the immigration status of children and an entirely separate one deals with the overall responsibility for welfare and access to rights poses a significant inconsistency between how separated children’s cases are comprehensively considered. the lack of one central department in facilitating greater coherence and a greater focus on the best interests of children also presents a barrier to the development of a durable solution. there should be synergy between section 32(2) of the refugees act and the chapter 9 of the children’s act. section 32 of the refugee’s act provides for the referral of unaccompanied refugee children to the children’s court through the children’s act. the children’s act needs to reflect this provision by empowering the magistrate with the powers to make such an order. identification and documentation of the child should be a priority after the child has been removed from any immediate danger. where the department of home affairs is the first department to encounter a child who appears to qualify for refugee status and seems to be in need of care and protection, the child must be documented without delay and should not have to wait for the conclusion of a children’s court inquiry as contemplated by section 32(2) of the refugees act. this is because section 32(2) of the refugees act when directing refugee reception officers to first refer a child who falls within the ambit of the refugees act and who appears to be in need of care and protection fails to take into consideration sections 150(2) and 155(2) of the children’s act which states that before opening a children’s court inquiry a social worker must investigate the matter and within ninety (90) days compile a report on whether the child is in need of care and protection. during this investigation period which may last up to ninety days, the child will be undocumented, vulnerable to arrest, detention and possible deportation. furthermore, it becomes easier for trafficked children to slip back into the hands of traffickers and without documentation they are unable to access social services and are at risk of exploitation. the initial documentation of the child renders the child legally ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 440 visible and easier to track and trace. consequently, the precedent set in the mubake judgement stating that separated minors should be documented as soon as possible should be extended to unaccompanied children. the centre for child law case clearly outlined how foreign unaccompanied minor children should be dealt with. the court recognised the crucial role that the children’s court should play in these matters and noted that there is a legal duty on the various government departments in south africa to draft a policy framework which lays down the processes and procedures of dealing with unaccompanied foreign children. furthermore, the court laid the precedent which requires the court to play a central role in determining the child’s legal status. when assessing the best interests of the child, authorities need to appreciate the fact that the best interests of a child and the durable solution assessment are inextricably linked. the best interests of a child are the avenue through which a durable solution is made and should not be discarded. children should be provided with a secure, stable life throughout their childhood and beyond. we are of the view that the south african government only deems repatriation as the only durable solution after a child attains majority. the local integration and naturalisation of the child is not pursued to its full extent because if it was, it would entail considerations as to how to secure a child’s permanent legal stay in the country. by neglecting to ensure the legal documentation of foreign minors, authorities fail to understand that the ultimate goal of safeguarding the rights and protection of foreign children is the implementation of a durable solution. in most cases, this can only mean integration into the local society. social workers and presiding officers when determining what is in the best interest of a child should include considerations for long term durable solutions, particularly for children who cannot be reunited with their parents. these long term solutions will centre on the securing of permanent stay in the country. a framework of legal permanence that provides children with a sense of security, continuity and identity is consequently called for. furthermore, the dha should incorporate the best interests of the child whenever they deal with minors. they should always conduct extensive status determination interviews to determine whether a child has a refugee claim or not. a child’s age should never be seen as a deterring factor. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 441 conclusion from the above, we can conclude that despite south africa having a welldeveloped legal and policy framework for securing the rights of foreign children, a number of protection gaps, especially in terms of implementation of these frameworks, still exist. a consistent theme in this paper has been the lack of sufficient legal paths for the documentation of foreign minors. where they do exist, children face exclusion because those entrusted with assisting them do not know the full extent of their obligations or how to fulfil these obligations. furthermore, the bifurcation of competencies and the lack of a jointed approach to the needs of foreign migrant children exacerbates the problem. where children are documented, they are often provided with temporary legal status that expires at the age of majority leaving the children with no real long term durable solutions. documentation is essential in south africa and forms a significant part of the protection of foreign children. true child protection can only be achieved by considering the best interests of the child from childhood and beyond. an approach which fails to take a child’s future into account, fails to meet the best interests of the child. we therefore call upon the children’s court to play an active role in determining the best interests of a child and consider long term solutions for children who cannot be repatriated. references primary 1951 un convention relating to the status of refugees. 1989 convention on the rights of the child. centre for child law and another v minister of home affairs and others 2005 (6) sa 50 (t). child justice act 74 of 2008. children’s act 38 of 2005. department of social development, 2013. standard operating procedures for the tracing, reunification or alternative care placements of unaccompanied and separated children in south africa. immigration act 13 of 2002. ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 442 machingambi, n. & ralekwa, r.s. 2015. uct refugee rights unit submission on the children’s bill. mubake and others v minister of home affairs and others. refugees act 130 of 1998. the constitution of the republic of south africa act 108 of 1996. unhcr. 1996. note on policies and procedures in dealing with unaccompanied children seeking asylum, geneva. unhcr. 1992. handbook on procedures and criteria for determining refugee status under the 1951 convention and the 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees. secondary bhabha, j. 2003. more than their share of sorrows: international migration law and the rights of children. saint louis university public law review, 22: 301322. from < http://bit.ly/2aeam6p> (retrieved may 6, 2016). gouden, v. 2002. managing and resolving african conflicts: a critical review. from <http://bit.ly/2aipgei> (retrieved july 7, 2016). kpmg south africa. 2016. south african economy not the second largest in africa anymore. from <http://bit.ly/2aipgei> (retrieved july 6, 2016). palmary, i. 2009. for better implementation of migrant children’s rights in south africa. report for unicef, forced migration studies. separated children in europe programme. 2009. statement of good practice, revised 4th edition. from <http://bit.ly/29wurex> (retrieved may 9, 2016). victoria, j. 2015. experts weigh in on child migration. mail and guardian, august 28, 2015. from <http://mg.co.za/article/2015-08-28-00-expertsweigh-in-on-child-migration> (retrieved may 15, 2016). ahmr, vol.2 no1, jan-april 2016 443 943 informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa abel chikanda* and ines raimundo** abstract informal cross-border trading is an essential part of maputo’s informal economy. this paper presents the results of a 2014 samp survey of informal entrepreneurs involved in cross-border trade between johannesburg and maputo. a questionnaire was administered to a sample of 403 informal traders in 7 markets in maputo. the study showed that most of the entrepreneurs began their business activities as vendors and only later moved into cross-border trading. the overwhelming majority used their personal savings to start their business and they face significant barriers in accessing business loans from formal banking channels. the study demonstrates the importance of cross-border traders to both the mozambican and south african economy. in south africa, the cross-border traders make a significant contribution by buying local goods and utilising the services provided by the country’s travel and hospitality industry. in mozambique, they supply affordable products to the country’s growing informal sector and play an important role in generating employment. keywords cross-border traders, informal economy, informal sector, migration, south africa. introduction over the past decade, the mozambican economy has experienced gdp growth rates above 6% (adb, 2016). this has made mozambique the fastest growing non-oil economy in sub-saharan africa (nucifora & da silva, 2011). however, there has been limited formal employment generation (jones & tarp, 2013). most of the country’s urban working population is still in the informal economy (jenkins, 2013) and nearly two-thirds of the economically active population in maputo city is involved in the informal economy in some way * department of geography & atmospheric science, african & african-american studies, university of kansas, lawrence, kansas state, usa 66045. email address: achikanda@ku.edu. ** faculty of arts and social sciences, university of eduardo mondlane, maputo, mozambique. abel chikanda and ines raimundo 944 (jenkins, 2012). a 2007 survey found that 70% of households were involved in informal economic activities, with a significantly higher participation rate by female-headed (86%) than male-headed (62%) households (paulo et al., 2007). maputo’s informal economy is firmly integrated into the national and local economies of neighbouring states such as mozambique and swaziland and the primary mechanism of integration is informal cross-border trade or icbt. in the late 1990s and early 2000s, female icbt traders became important players in the mozambican economy, particularly in the supply of food as well as non-agricultural products such as electrical goods and building materials (macamo, 1999). a samp border monitoring study in mozambique in 20062007 showed that women made up 71% of the total number of cross-border traders (peberdy et al., 2015). a significant feature of the post-2000 crossborder trade from mozambique was its diversity. a number of mozambican traders (36.5%) said they also traded between swaziland and mozambique, buying goods in swaziland to sell in maputo (peberdy, 2000a). those travelling to south africa to buy goods for resale tended to gravitate towards johannesburg and durban, while the rest travelled to towns in the neighbouring province of mpumalanga (peberdy, 2000b). among mozambicans, the expressions dumba nengue (trust your feet) and dumba kutsutsuma (run if you can) are used to describe the informal economy (war on want, 2006). this terminology clearly reflects the tension that exists between informal traders and law enforcement agents. compared with other cities in the region, however, maputo has traditionally adopted a more tolerant approach to the informal economy (kamete & lindell, 2010; rogerson, 2016). policy interventions aim to discourage informality through registration and formalisation rather than by eradication and punishment (dibben et al., 2015). two main strategies have been pursued by the municipal government. first, formal urban markets have been established, existing informal markets have been upgraded and vendors now pay rent for stands. when xikhelene market was upgraded, for example, all trading on the streets around the old market was eliminated (ulset, 2010). second, a simplified tax system was introduced that requires traders to pay business tax either as a lump sum or as a informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa 945 percentage of turnover (dibben et al., 2015). this initiative has been hampered by low uptake and strong resistance from the informal traders. informal trade is a major catalyst for involvement in informal economies globally (desai, 2009). the eca (2010: 143) has noted that “informal trade is as old as the informal economy. it is the main source of job creation in africa, providing between 20 per cent and 75 per cent of total employment in most countries.” informal trade also plays a vital role in linking informal economies in different southern african cities. this requires a perspective on informality that takes into account the impacts of interaction between different urban informal economies across the region (akinboade, 2005). the volume of cross border trade has been monitored at the mozambique and south africa border in the past but this paper provides the opportunity to engage in an in-depth analysis of different types of cross-border trade and how icbt is integrated into maputo’s informal economy (dlela, 2006; peberdy, 2007; peberdy & crush, 1998). there has been a tendency in the past to view informal traders as sole operators rather than micro-enterprises with the potential to grow significantly, to create jobs and to generate the capital to branch out into other sectors of the informal and formal economy. by viewing informal traders as entrepreneurs per se and their activities as a potentially strong promoter of growth and employment, we are in a position to move beyond the idea that icbt traders are “survivalists” struggling to make ends meet, and rather towards an analysis of the potential for growing their businesses, the obstacles they face and the kinds of policy environment they require in order to realise their entrepreneurial ambitions (lesser & moisé-leeman, 2009; peberdy & crush, 2001; söderbaum, 2007). research methodology in the first phase of the research on which this paper is based, a survey questionnaire was administered to a sample of 403 informal traders in 7 maputo markets. the sample was divided into 3 entrepreneurial categories (table 1): abel chikanda and ines raimundo 946  category a: 243 mozambican traders who travel to and from johannesburg as part of their business, buying goods in south africa and selling them in maputo.  category b: 61 mozambican traders who travel to and from johannesburg, buying goods in south africa and supplying other informal traders in maputo. these traders supply vendors in the markets and small shops.  category c: 99 mozambican informal traders who do not travel, but purchase goods from cross-border traders for resale. in sum, 61% of the sample were cross-border traders who travel to and from south africa as part of their business, 14% were trader intermediaries who travel to south africa to buy goods and sell to other traders on return, and 29% did not cross international borders but obtained their goods from those who did. table 1: market location and types of trader markets category a category b category c total no. of interviews xipamanine 58 11 23 92 malanga and fajardo 48 13 18 79 xiquelene 42 9 16 67 estrela vermelha 37 9 13 59 mandela 23 6 11 40 museu 22 6 10 38 praça de touros 13 7 8 28 total 243 61 99 403 the sampling procedure tried to capture the range of products sold in different markets as markets are getting more specialised, primarily because of their informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa 947 geographical location and potential customer base. most customers who buy at museu market, for example, come from the relatively wealthy areas of museu, polana and sommerschield, while people who buy at xiquelene mainly come from poor wards. foodstuffs are the primary product at xiquelene, while museu's main products are alcohol and cigarettes. praça de touros market is situated in one of the busiest areas of maputo and mainly caters to vehicle owners who need spare parts and also has a car-repair garage. estrela vermelha market, also known as red star shopping centre, sells a variety of goods including household furniture, alcohol and cigarettes. this market is located between central and alto mae wards, and suburbs such as mafalala, and serves people in both middleand low-income brackets. not all of the goods in the markets come from south africa. in addition to locally sourced agricultural products, goods come from as far afield as europe and south america. for instance, frozen chicken from brazil is a common sight in many of the markets (de oliveira et al., 2015). there is also a major trade in imported second-hand clothes. at the xipamanine market in maputo, for instance, hundreds of traders sell second-hand clothing from australia, europe and north america (brooks, 2012, 2013; ericsson & brooks, 2014). many of the clothes that reach xipamanine are of low quality and, according to one researcher, neither improve the lives of the vendors nor the consumers, an outcome which he terms “clothing poverty” (brooks, 2015). in the second phase of the research, four focus group discussions were conducted with traders from the following markets: xiquelene, zimpeto, malanga and museu. key informant interviews were also conducted with different government, private sector and international organisation stakeholders with an interest in the informal economy. among the issues covered in the interviews were the history of cross-border trade in the country, the role of cross-border trade in economic development, legislation governing the informal economy and the challenges faced by cross-border traders. abel chikanda and ines raimundo 948 profile of icbt traders there is a general perception that cross-border trading in mozambique is predominantly undertaken by women, while men tend to stay at home and sell products brought into the country by women (de vletter & polanda, 2001; peberdy 2000a; peberdy et al., 2015). however, some studies have shown greater participation of men in mozambican informal cross-border trade over time (macamo, 1999). in this study, 56% of those interviewed were men (table 2). it is likely that the profile of the respondents would have weighted more heavily in favour of women if the study had been conducted at the border. women tend to find it easier to be involved in cross-border trade and leave the marketing of the products to either their husbands or sons (raimundo, 2010). the predominance of women in cross-border trade has been attributed to their long experience in crossing borders dating back to the early days of mozambique’s 16-year civil war; their business acumen; their familiarity with managers of wholesale storehouses in johannesburg; and the fact that they find it more difficult than men to access formal employment (raimundo, 2010). male respondents claimed that females are better equipped to deal with customs officials and have strategies for avoiding paying import duties; that they themselves viewed trading as more of a hobby or a way to generate extra income; and that they have greater access to jobs in the formal sector. racially, the overwhelming majority of the respondents (99%) were black, while a minority were of mixed race, indian or asian. the mean age of the sample was 37 years with 42% aged between 30 and 39 and 28% between 40 and 49. around 10% were over the age of 50, and the oldest respondent was 78. participation by young people in the trade was relatively limited with only 20% under the age of 30. across all the categories, individuals aged between 20 and 49 made up more than 90% of the total participants. informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa 949 table 2: gender, race and age profile of traders crossborder traders (%) cross-border trader intermediaries (%) non-cross border traders (%) total gender (n=402) male 35.1 6.5 14.9 56.5 female 26.3 7.2 10.0 43.5 total 61.4 13.7 24.9 100.0 race (n=391) black 98.3 98.2 100.0 98.7 mixed race 0.4 1.8 0.0 0.5 indian 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.3 other asian 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.3 other race 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.3 age (n=395) below 20 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.3 20-29 18.9 16.7 28.6 21.0 30-39 42.8 44.4 36.7 41.5 40-49 29.6 29.6 23.5 28.1 50-59 6.2 7.4 9.2 7.1 60-69 2.1 1.9 0.0 1.5 70 and above 0.4 0.0 1.0 0.5 abel chikanda and ines raimundo 950 involvement in the informal economy is usually associated with low levels of educational attainment (amaral & quintin, 2006; wilson et al., 2006). as many as 75% of the respondents had less than high school qualifications, and fewer than 2% had completed an undergraduate degree (figure 1). interestingly, traders who do not travel to johannesburg themselves but obtain goods from cross-border traders, had the highest level of education, with 28% having completed at least high school, compared to 22% of the cross-border traders who travel to johannesburg as part of their business and 16% of the intermediaries who supply goods to non-cross-border traders in maputo. figure 1: highest level of education of traders. in understanding how household structure affects participation in the business of informal trade, marital status needs to be considered. for example, are the traders independent operators looking out for themselves? are they heads of households that depend on them for a livelihood? or are they just contributing to household income? given that this business can require crossborder traders to be away from the household for several days at a time, there was an expectation that it might be dominated by single, widowed and divorced people. however, the survey found that only 29% were single (which tallies with the more mature age profile of the entrepreneurs) and 6% were 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 n o f o rm al s ch o o li n g so m e p ri m ar y sc h o o li n g p ri m ar y (c o m p le te d ) so m e se co n d ar y se co n d ar y /h ig h sc h o o l/ d ip lo m a u n d er gr ad u at e d eg re e p o st gr ad u at e d eg re e o th er p e rc e n ta g e informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa 951 divorced or widowed. of the rest, 38% were married or in a common law relationship and a further 26% were co-habiting. more than half of the respondents (52%) came from nuclear households (defined as a family made up of husband/male partner and wife/female partner with or without children). about 16% came from male-centred households, where there is no wife/female partner in the household and 13% were from female-centred households. another 11% were from extended households, while only 7% lived alone. an afsun survey in maputo in 2008/2009 showed that the majority of residents in the poorer areas of the city came from extended households, even though female-centred and nuclear households were also common (raimundo et al., 2014). this seems to suggest variation in patterns of participation by type of household. in total, 66% of households are male-headed nuclear and extended family households. these households constitute 63% of the traders’ households (although the reason why extended families are far less likely to participate than nuclear families is unclear). the major difference is in female-centred household participation where these households constitute 27% of all households but only supply 13% of traders, suggesting that these household heads are inhibited from participation because they cannot leave their children. male-centred households appear not to have a problem, with 8% of the total number of households supplying 16% of the traders. business start-up and ownership there is an assumption in the literature that many informal entrepreneurs are pushed into participation by unemployment (jones & tarp, 2013; sparks & barnett, 2010). however, only 26% of the respondents were unemployed before they started their business. another 19% had been students (table 3). around 30% had been employed, primarily in low-paying jobs such as domestic work (9%), agriculture (5%) and unskilled manual labour (3%). less than 5% had occupied skilled or semi-skilled positions. the rest were already employed (8%) or self-employed (17%) in the informal economy in another enterprise. abel chikanda and ines raimundo 952 table 3: occupation prior to starting the business no. % unemployed/job seeker 105 26.3 pupil/student 76 19.0 operated informal sector business based only in mozambique 68 17.0 domestic worker 37 9.3 employed by someone in the informal economy 30 7.5 agricultural worker 19 4.8 manual worker (unskilled) 12 3.0 businessman/woman formal sector (self-employed) 11 2.8 manual worker (skilled) 7 1.8 office worker 6 1.5 police/military/security 3 0.8 teacher 3 0.8 health worker 2 0.5 professional (e.g. lawyer, doctor, academic, engineer) 1 0.3 other occupation 19 4.8 total 399 100.0 in contrast to icbt traders from countries such as zimbabwe, the majority of the maputo city entrepreneurs had been involved in the informal economy for many years. as many as 43% had established informal businesses before 2000 and another 41% had done so between 2000 and 2010. less than 20% had set up shop in the last five years, which may suggest that entry into a highly competitive business is becoming more difficult. the survey also showed that most of the entrepreneurs began their business activities as vendors and only later moved into cross-border trading. so, while over 40% had started their businesses before 2000, only 21% were engaged in icbt at that time (figure 2). conversely, while 57% established their businesses after 2000, the proportion who started icbt activities during this period was close to 80%. this indicates that most icbt traders are post-2000 entrants to that market, a direct result of various economic factors and market opportunities. factors of relevance include the devastating floods of 2000, which impacted many informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa 953 households; the lifting of south african visa restrictions in 2005; and the strengthening of the metical in comparison to the rand (christie & hanlon, 2001). figure 2: year of business start-up and entry into cross-border trade. the overwhelming majority of the respondents started their businesses from a very low base with three-quarters having less than zar 10,000 (approximately usd850) to invest (figure 3). of these, the majority had between zar 2,001 and zar 5,000 (usd170-usd425). just 15% had invested zar 20,000 (usd 1,700) or more. this group was most likely to be crossborder traders (83%) rather than cross-border intermediaries or non-crossborder traders. the non-cross-border traders tended to have the lowest levels of start-up capital with nearly 90% investing zar 10,000 or less in their businesses. the sources of capital used to start the business varied but the majority (82%) had used personal savings. other sources of start-up business capital included loans from relatives (used by 33%), bank loans (9%) and loans from informal financial sources (8%). access to formal sources of business capital was limited, constituting a general reflection of the lack of support given to informal enterprises by formal financial institutions. 0,0 10,0 20,0 30,0 40,0 50,0 60,0 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-2010 2011-2014 p e rc e n ta g e year business started year started icbt activities abel chikanda and ines raimundo 954 figure 3: amount of money used to start business. one recent study showed that nearly 80% of mozambicans have no access to any sort of banking or microfinance services (finmark trust, 2009). only 12% of the sample had access to banking services; 10% to the informal microfinance sector and 1% to formal microfinance services. however, this study of informal entrepreneurs in maputo found that although most could not get bank loans, as many as 44% had a bank account. lack of access to business financing from formal sources is common among informal entrepreneurs. benjamin and mbaye (2012) have noted that informal entrepreneurs in africa frequently fail to access business finance because of the onerous procedures required for loan applications as well as the collateral requirements. the situation is no different in mozambique: 27% indicated that they cannot apply for bank loans because of the high interest rates and 24% do not have interest at all in applying for bank loans. in an effort to improve financial access to informal entrepreneurs, moza bank became the first private bank of mozambique to give loans to informal traders through the assotsi informal cross-border trade association. the loans are only available to assotsi members who can present a reference from assotsi and a simplified tax 0,0 5,0 10,0 15,0 20,0 25,0 30,0 r 5 0 0 o r le ss r 5 0 1 r 1 ,0 0 0 r 1 ,0 0 1 r 2 ,0 0 0 r 2 ,0 0 1 r 5 ,0 0 0 r 5 ,0 0 1 r 1 0 ,0 0 0 r 1 0 ,0 0 1 r 2 0 ,0 0 0 r 2 0 ,0 0 1 r 3 0 ,0 0 0 r 3 0 ,0 0 0 r 4 0 ,0 0 0 r 4 0 ,0 0 1 r 5 0 ,0 0 0 r 5 0 ,0 0 1 a n d a b o v e p e rc e n ta g e cross border traders cross border trader intermediaries non-cross border traders informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa 955 return. the loans may be up to one-third of the annual business turnover shown in the tax return, to a maximum loan of mzn100,000 (baxter & allwright, 2015). the programme officer of the competitiveness and private sector development project noted that several government funding schemes are available to small and medium-scale enterprises, but not to businesses in the informal economy: the government of mozambique through the ministry of commerce and industry has established the enterprise competitiveness and private sector development project, which funds small and middle enterprises for competitiveness. the state does not recognise unlicensed businesses which are run by cross-border traders. to be funded one needs to be licensed. the informal economy is not eligible for funds (interview, 25 november 2015). just over one-third of the respondents were aware of the scheme but only 2% had applied, suggesting that they are aware of the ineligibility of informal enterprises for government assistance. business strategies the research sought to examine the icbt linkages and flows between maputo and johannesburg. johannesburg was the primary place, and beneficiary, of the purchase of goods by mozambican traders. on average, the cross-border traders spend 1.52 days in south africa on each trip. as many as 54% travel to johannesburg at least once a week, which translates to nearly 80 days per year spent in south africa. a further 34% travel there at least once a month, which translates to 18 days per year in south africa (figure 4). as many as 8% of the respondents indicated that they also buy goods in other places in gauteng, such as pretoria and randfontein. more than one-third of the respondents purchased goods from other places in south africa, especially from towns close to the mozambican border such as nelspruit, malelane and komatipoort. the traders are therefore able to conduct their business activities in south africa and return to mozambique within the same day. a small number of respondents (around 12%) also travel to other countries to conduct their abel chikanda and ines raimundo 956 business, including swaziland, china and dubai. as many as 27% of those who travel to these other countries for business are non-mozambican nationals. figure 4: frequency of trips to johannesburg most of the traders sell the goods from south africa in maputo, the capital, while a small number (less than 5%) also sell their goods in other cities such as xai xai and beira. the goods are sold mainly in their own shops in the informal sector (38%) or in their own stalls in an informal market (24%). however, there is also evidence of informal-formal sector linkages with 9% selling in their own shops in the formal sector, 8% selling to retailers, 3% to wholesalers and 1% to restaurant owners. a total of 424 other people were employed directly in the businesses interviewed (figure 5). around half (51%) provide employment to others, or an average of 2.1 jobs per business. a significant proportion of the traders employ more than one person: 27% of those providing employment had two employees, 10% had three employees and 5% had four or more employees. there was a major difference in the employment practices between those who travel to south africa and those who do not (58% versus 31% providing jobs). this confirms that many cross-border traders prefer to focus on their crossborder activities and employ others to sell the goods on their behalf in maputo. non-family members made up 69% of the paid employees and the rest were 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 at least once every week at least once every month more than 4 times per year 2 4 times per year at least once per year other p e rc e n ta g e informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa 957 family members, with a total of eight employees below the age of 18. some 71% of the employees were men, confirming that there is an explicit focus on male employment in the businesses supported by icbt. this seems to support our earlier observation that men prefer not to cross borders but are employed by women in the sale of goods in mozambique. figure 5: employment by traders the involvement of children in the informal economy is a controversial issue (ilo, 2004; thorsen, 2012). some regard their involvement as an essential part of household survival strategy (becker, 2004). others view it as child labour that limits the proper development of children and should therefore be eliminated (burra, 2005). the survey found that 16% of enterprises involve children in their business in different capacities. participation was higher among children of cross-border traders (20%) than non-cross-border traders (7%). among those who involve their children, 53% said their children help them to sell goods, 43% sometimes ask their children to look after the stall and 5% involve them in other ways. participation in cross-border trading is sometimes viewed as a part-time activity to supplement income from other sources. the overwhelming majority of respondents (90%) have no other income-generating activity and rely solely on their icbt-supported business for survival. discussions of informal entrepreneurship have focused on whether the sector can create viable enterprises that can provide decent incomes to the participants (ilo, 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 family members over 18 years family members under 18 years other people from your country people from other countries n u m b e r o f e m p lo y e e s abel chikanda and ines raimundo 958 2009; sparks & barnett, 2010). in other words, can cross-border traders generate incomes comparable to formal sector jobs? the traders generate an average of zar 21,838 per month (usd 1,850) in total sales and a profit of zar 7,087 per month (usd 600) (table 4). cross-border traders who travel to johannesburg as part of their business activities are likely to generate more monthly sales and profit than non-cross-border traders or cross-border trader intermediaries. table 4: total monthly sales and profit mean monthly sales (zar) mean monthly profit (zar) cross-border traders 25,639.89 8,169.68 cross-border trader intermediaries 11,098.04 6,101.39 non-cross-border traders 16,416.67 5,095.15 total average 21,838.28 7,086.82 note: 1 zar = 0.085 usd at the time of the survey cross-border entrepreneurial activity is certainly financially beneficial to the participants. nearly two-thirds (64%) said that their income status had increased compared to the period before they started their business and only 6% said it had decreased. another 26% said that their income was variable, fluctuating according to market conditions. the greatest improvement was reported by the cross-border traders. the profits generated from informal business play an important role in meeting personal (79%) and family (77%) needs. one-quarter of respondents were investing the proceeds in education of family members, more than the proportion re-investing income in the business itself (only 19%). one-third said that profits were being saved for future use. just under 10% send money outside of mozambique as remittances either to support the needs of their family members or for investment in business. informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa 959 contributions to the south african economy who benefits most in south africa from the purchasing behaviour of mozambican cross-border entrepreneurs? this section examines the activities of those cross-border traders who travel to south africa and seeks to identify the south african beneficiaries of mozambican icbt (peberdy et al., 2015). first, icbt between south africa and mozambique contributes to south africa’s massive trade surplus by exporting south african goods and importing far less from mozambique. only 5% of the traders sell products from mozambique in south africa (including cigarettes, fabric/capulana, fresh fruit and vegetables and alcohol). most of these products are sold through personal networks, but they are also sold to wholesalers and informal vendors. second, a wide variety of outlets in south africa benefit from patronage by mozambican traders, including wholesalers, supermarkets, small retailers (formal and informal), factories, farms and fresh produce markets. easily the most important beneficiaries of mozambican patronage are south african wholesalers (used by 48%). other important sources of goods for the traders include the johannesburg fresh produce market (21%), supermarkets (16%), manufacturers (16%) and small shops or retailers either in a mall (15%) or outside a mall (9%) (table 5). chinese shops are also popular with the crossborder traders, with 19% buying goods from the china mall and 11% buying goods from other chinese-run malls. abel chikanda and ines raimundo 960 table 5: source of goods in south africa % wholesalers 48.4 city deep/johannesburg fresh produce market 20.7 china mall 18.4 supermarkets 16.4 manufacturer/factories 15.8 small shops/retailers (in a mall) 14.8 other chinese-run mall 10.5 small shops/retailers (not in a mall) 8.9 direct from farmers 5.3 other fresh produce markets 4.9 informal sector producer/retailer 3.6 oriental plaza 1.0 other place 2.3 n=304 note: multiple response question the goods bought in south africa can be grouped into five main categories: food and beverages, household/home goods, personal goods, electrical goods and miscellaneous. in the first category of food and beverages, the most common items were cooking oil (purchased by 22% on their last visit), eggs (20%), alcohol (20%), mealie meal (18%) and fresh fruit and vegetables (18%). the most popular household/home goods were household products (26%) and bedding material such as blankets and duvets (8%). personal goods were dominated by new clothing and footwear (19%), while electronics and cellphones and phone accessories were the most popular electrical goods bought in south africa. a third party benefitting from the presence of the mozambican traders is the south african treasury. most of the prices that the traders pay for their goods include vat, although vat refunds can be claimed as these goods are not informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa 961 consumed within south africa. vat refunds ensure that the traders are not double taxed through paying vat in south africa and customs duty at the border. however, on their last trip to south africa, only 55% of traders had claimed the vat to which they were entitled. of the 45% who did not claim vat, nearly half said they did not know the procedure and 36% said that the procedure takes too long. in focus group discussions, it emerged that one of the reasons was that bus drivers did not want to spend time at the border while customs officials searched for goods. this makes it extremely difficult for the traders using public transport to submit vat refund claims. those using taxis or their own vehicles are more likely to claim vat refunds. while it is advantageous for south africa if people do not claim these refunds when they leave the country, it is fundamentally unfair to the traders. the mozambican government and civil society should certainly launch a campaign aimed at educating the cross-border traders on their rights and the procedures to claim vat refunds. in addition, the mozambican government needs to work with its south african counterparts to clear the bureaucratic bottlenecks related to claiming vat refunds. fourth, icbt traders spent money on transportation, accommodation and food when in south africa. about 37% usually stay in paid accommodation, including rented rooms, hotels, guesthouses and b&bs (table 6). those who do not pay for accommodation sleep at the bus or train station, on the street, in an automobile or stay with friends and family. public transport is the most common way for traders to travel to and from johannesburg, including buses (used by 43%), trucks (15%), taxis (11%) and trains (1%). others use private transport including their own vehicles (13%), individually-rented vehicles (11%) and vehicles rented with others (6%), but still pay for petrol and other costs such as parking in south africa. abel chikanda and ines raimundo 962 table 6: accommodation in south africa no. % paid accommodation rent/rent shared room 36 15.2 hotel (shared room) 34 14.3 bed and breakfast/guest house/lodge (own room) 13 5.5 hotel (own room) 3 1.3 bed and breakfast/guest house/lodge (shared room) 2 0.8 non-paying accommodation bus or train station 51 21.5 stay with friends and family 40 16.9 street 35 14.8 in car or truck 14 5.9 stay with partner 9 3.8 total 237 100.0 in terms of the monetary spend in south africa, the cross-border traders reported spending an average of zar 14,287 on goods, zar 1,714 on customs duties, zar 1,441 on transport, zar 218 on accommodation and zar 258 on other expenses on their last trip to south africa. in total, a trader travelling from maputo to johannesburg thus spent approximately zar 17,900 per trip on business-related costs. this translates to nearly zar 5.4 million per trip for the entire sample, most of which directly benefits the south african economy (table 7). the financial contribution of cross-border traders to the south african economy is clearly significant. informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa 963 table 7: contribution to local and regional economy buying goods (zar) paying duty at the border (zar) transport (zar) accommodatio n (zar) addition al costs (zar) total (zar) amount per individual r14,287.21 r1,714.38 r1,441.21 r218.28 r258.49 r17,920 total amount for sample r4,343,311 r521,171 438,127 r66,357 r78,580 r5,447,549 note: 1 zar = 0.085 usd at the time of the survey business challenges in general, the icbt traders do not have problems with their documentation and immigration status when in south africa. the introduction of the visa exemption for mozambicans certainly played a significant role in reducing undocumented migration from mozambique. most significantly, only 2% travel to south africa with no official documentation. as such, the vast majority of the mozambican icbt traders enter the country using legal channels. the most important border or customs-related problem cited by the crossborder traders was corruption, experienced often or sometimes by 86% of the respondents (table 8). corruption leads to a reduction in government customs revenue collection and may also result in a reduction of the profit margins of the cross-border traders, which ultimately reduces prospects for business expansion. others claimed that the duties that they pay at the border are too high (85% often/sometimes), while long queues, congestion and delays at the border are experienced often/sometimes by 82% of the cross-border traders. clearly, the cross-border traders are dissatisfied with the time it takes them to clear customs at the border and there is evidence to suggest that paying bribes can help speed up the process. some of the study participants noted that they abel chikanda and ines raimundo 964 use the magaigai or intermediaries with experience in dealing with customs officials in an attempt to avoid paying the high duties. table 8: problems related to customs and immigration yes (%) no (%) too much corruption at border post 86.0 14.0 duties paid are too high 85.3 14.7 long queues/congestion/delays at border post 82.3 17.7 restrictions on import/export of goods (type and volume) 66.7 33.3 unwarranted confiscation/detention of goods 65.3 34.7 verbal harassment by south african police, army, border officials 19.7 80.3 verbal harassment by mozambican police, army, border officials 19.3 80.7 physical harassment/beating/violation of human rights by south african police, army, border officials 12.0 88.0 physical harassment/beating/violation of human rights by mozambican police, army, border officials 11.0 89.0 physical harassment/beating by other people 8.3 91.7 other respondents noted that they experience restrictions on the types and volumes of goods that they can either import or export (experienced often/sometimes by 67% of respondents). during the focus group discussions, one trader noted that “we can import spare vehicles, vegetables, groceries, fruit, meat, furniture, alcohol. the only limitation is related with duties and some do not know the common customs tariff, which is a heavy book to be read.” the common customs tariff is composed of 97 categories of products and sub products. the president of the mukhero association commented on the common customs tariff as follows: mukheristas get advice from the association about their rights and obligations and some were trained. all the time that the government updates duties or other related issues the associations are informed. as a matter of fact, before any increase or changes on common customs tariff, informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa 965 the government calls the associations to inform them, otherwise we block the streets. when the government of south africa introduced a new regulation that every crosser should prove they had an amount of zar 3,000, we felt that was a decision that had to be discussed between the two governments. we were concerned about security and not every trader carries that amount of money. south african should understand that we bring money to them and we are no longer poor as it was in the past during civil war.1 others cited the unwarranted confiscation/detention of goods at the border (56% often/sometimes). a focus group participant noted that they are sometimes forced to leave their goods at the border if they fail to reach a reasonable agreement with customs officials. participants noted that it was not worthwhile trying to get goods back because of the high cost of import duty, especially on goods such as cigarettes and alcohol. the customs department is said to auction confiscated goods. even though only a small number of respondents reported cases of harassment and abuse, these are significant enough to warrant attention. verbal harassment by police, army and border officials had been experienced often/sometimes by the cross-border traders on both the south african (16%) and mozambican (16%) sides of the border. physical harassment/beating/violation of human rights by police, army and border officials had also been experienced often/sometimes on both the south african (11%) and mozambican (10%) sides of the border. the president of the mukhero association described the border as a site of struggle between traders and customs officials: it is a titanic fight as both officers and traders are strong. traders have their way of fighting and avoiding customs, while customs use their power as official authority, but we do have our own ways of counteracting them. however, this fight ended by the time the cross-border traders realised that the only way of this fight was to meet with the authorities, as the government did in rome with renamo. conversation is the only way to 1 interview, 3 september 2014. abel chikanda and ines raimundo 966 avoid death of people, because the authorities were using fire weapons as well as some traders also had weapons.2 the challenges faced by the traders in their daily operations can be divided into two categories: those experienced while conducting business operations in mozambique and those encountered when travelling to south africa for business. in mozambique, the most common problems related to competition from other traders (65.5%), competition from large retailers or supermarkets (45%), insecurity or problems securing a selling site (43%), conflicts with other traders (35%) and confiscation of merchandise (34%) (table 9). table 9: challenges in daily operations of business yes (%) no (%) in mozambique (n=400) competition from other traders 65.5 34.5 competition from large retailers or supermarkets 45.0 55.0 insecurity of selling site/problems securing a selling site when needed 42.8 57.3 difficulty negotiating with other traders/conflicts among traders 34.5 65.5 confiscation of goods/difficulty getting confiscated goods back 33.8 66.3 theft of money or goods 31.5 68.5 harassment by authorities in mozambique 18.0 82.0 in south africa (n=300) difficulty finding an affordable and safe place to stay 21.7 78.3 insecurity of selling site/problems securing a selling site 18.0 82.0 harassment by authorities in south africa 12.7 87.3 prejudice against my nationality 12.7 87.3 harassment by south african traders 9.7 90.3 2 ibid. informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa 967 theft of goods is experienced by the traders on their way home from south africa. this is related to renewed conflict in mozambique where armed opposition party members are said to attack travellers in order to loot their cash and goods. one of the focus group discussion participants noted that: bandits assault the mukheristas taxis. they use mats with nails to punch the tyres. then they steal their money. some of mukheristas do carry a lot of money, sometimes more than r 10, 000 in one trip. last year one of our mates was on her way to johannesburg when the taxi she was travelling in was ambushed near machado. she lost more than r 40,000 cash in the robbery. there were 10 traders in that taxi.3 in south africa, the biggest challenges relate to the difficulty of finding an affordable and safe place to stay in johannesburg (22%), insecure trading sites (18%), prejudice against their nationality (13%), harassment by the police or municipal authorities (13%) and harassment by south african traders (10%). the study also sought to understand the cross-border traders’ experiences of xenophobia in south africa. nearly one in five of the respondents (19%) noted that their business had been affected by xenophobia a great deal or to some extent (figure 6). however, as many as 63% said that xenophobia had not affected their business at all. while these findings are encouraging, given the widespread xenophobic attitudes and attacks on informal entrepreneurs, it is likely that mozambicans are able to avoid the worst forms of victimisation by having a legal right to be in the country, by not remaining long and by not competing directly with south african informal businesses (crush & ramachandran, 2015). 3 focus group participant, zimpeto market, 5 december 2014. abel chikanda and ines raimundo 968 figure 6: extent to which xenophobia has affected business operations finally, the respondents were asked about their treatment while conducting their business activities in both mozambique and south africa. across all but one of the measures, the traders experienced more problems in mozambique than in south africa. they have had their business goods looted more often in mozambique than in south africa (47% versus 19%). they have been robbed more in mozambique than in south africa (39% versus 15%) and they have also been assaulted more (19% versus 12%). in addition, harassment by local authorities was more frequent in mozambique (11%) than in south africa (5%), as were incidents of unlawful arrest (6% and 1%, respectively). conclusion cross-border trading has become a way of life for many in mozambique, geographically encompassing every part of the country and also involving migrants from other countries residing in mozambique. cross-border trade in mozambique is primarily done by women with men mainly involved in the sale of the products brought back from south africa. the traders are clearly playing a key role in supplying commodities that are in scarce supply in mozambique. 0,0 10,0 20,0 30,0 40,0 50,0 60,0 70,0 a great deal to some extent not very much not at all p e rc e n ta g e informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa 969 even though the sector is an important part of the mozambican economy, little support is granted to the traders by local and municipal authorities or the private sector. access to finance remains a major obstacle to business success as neither the government nor private banks provide loans to the traders. this paper has demonstrated the specific roles played by the cross-border traders in the economies of both mozambique and south africa. it has shown that cross-border traders contribute to the south african economy through buying goods, as well as paying for accommodation and transport costs. the cross-border traders are directly contributing to the retail, hospitality and transport sectors in south africa, thereby creating and sustaining jobs in those sectors. in mozambique, the traders pay import duty for the goods bought in south africa and they play a significant role in reducing poverty and unemployment in the country. therefore, the policy environment should encourage rather than discourage the operation of icbt. a change in the attitude of government towards cross-border traders is required as they do contribute to poverty alleviation, and there is a definite need for a forum that involves government and municipal officials and the traders. therefore, there is scope to include the informal traders in mozambique’s poverty alleviation strategy. although they are regarded as informal, they pay taxes to the local authorities for access to trading sites. they also buy goods in south africa, some of which are sold to formal retailers, thereby blurring the formal-informal boundary. the informal tag becomes a hindrance when considering the functioning of the mozambican economy. the traders need to be seen as an essential component of the mozambican (and south african) economy because, in their absence, both would be poorer than they are today. acknowledgements we would like to acknowledge the international development research centre (idrc) for its support of the 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africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar abstract this article discusses the migration processes and brokering practices that link ethiopia and sudan by taking into account the social, economic, political and cultural underpinnings of human smuggling in the region. the analysis is based on three months of fieldwork using a conventional qualitative research methodology. respondents were selected from actors such as smugglers, migrants and government personnel involved in the migration process, facilitation and control activities. since the 1990s, significant irregular overland labour migration has emerged from ethiopian towns and villages to khartoum, sudan via the border towns of metema on the ethiopian side and galabat on the sudanese side. however, how various actors engage in shaping this migration process and how human smuggling sustains despite increasing control efforts by the state is less understood. this paper demonstrates that this mobility is facilitated mainly by smugglers who are involved in transnational social relations, material practice and migration knowledge production, including informal money transfer practices, transport and communication infrastructures. this challenges the view reflected in popular discourses that such smuggling is organised by independent criminal organisations. smugglers and their connectors in metema facilitate ethiopian migrants’ clandestine border crossings via the town of metema by mobilising support and resources from local communities along the border, bribing border guards and capitalising on their ethnic, religious and economic connections along ethiopian-sudanese borderlands. the study concludes that human smuggling and brokering migration partly thrives in the border areas since the actors extend benefits of  assistant professor of social anthropology at addis ababa university. email: tekalign.ayalew@socant.su.se  assistant professor of social anthropology at addis ababa university. email: fek.adugna@gmail.com  research director/senior research fellow in geography at sussex centre for migration research. email: p.deshingkar@sussex.ac.uk mailto:tekalign.ayalew@socant.su.se mailto:fek.adugna@gmail.com mailto:p.deshingkar@sussex.ac.uk social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan 1334 smuggling to the economically disadvantaged local community and in return generate social and community support for smuggling activities. keywords smuggling, migration infrastructure, borders, knowledge, migration control. introduction in recent decades, ethiopia has simultaneously become one of the major sending and transit countries of migrants and asylum seekers in the horn of africa (ayalew, 2017; zewdu, 2018). in the face of challenging socioeconomic and political conditions in the country, which are compounded by very limited options for legal international migration, a large number of ethiopian young men and women undertake long and dangerous overland journeys across deserts and seas to reach destination countries in europe, the middle east and southern parts of africa. the mobility of migrants is organised by the engagement and interactions of multiple actors and the entanglement of social and smuggling networks that link migration origin, transit and destination places (ilo, 2011; ayalew, 2017; fernandez, 2017). the focus of this paper is socio-political and cultural dimensions of smuggling of ethiopian migrants to sudan along the north-western route, which links villages and towns in ethiopia to khartoum, via the town of metema, which is located along the ethiopian-sudanese border. this route leads to europe via the eastern sahara desert, libya and the mediterranean sea. migration through this route to sudan and further north is not a recent phenomenon. the mass flow of people through the town of metema was observed during the dergue regime due to famine, civil war and the repressive political rule in ethiopia (terrazas, 2007; faiz, 2013; hailemichael, 2014; grabska, 2016). however, since the 1990s, after the current ethiopian regime took power and the emergence of a booming oil economy in sudan, ethiopian labour migration to sudan has shown a marked increase. most of these border crossings are clandestine and thousands of young men and women cross the ethiopian-sudanese border every month (triulzi & mckenzie, 2013; zeyneba, 2017; ayalew, 2017). in khartoum, women migrants face sexual, physical and labour abuses by employers and significant other actors. many new arrivals often use khartoum as a steppingstone and proceed towards european countries that are assumed to be welcoming of refugees and migrants (triulzi, 2013). tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar 1335 after the ethiopian government recently intensified control infrastructures and introduced tough anti-human smuggling regulations to control clandestine migration, the actors and practices of facilitating overland migration and clandestine crossing of international borders have become more complex than before. in this paper, we will trace the role of state, private and community actors in facilitating the smuggling of ethiopian migrants to sudan. the existing studies focus on how criminal organisations, such as human traffickers and armed gangs, stationed along this migration route deceive migrants and how professional smugglers independently organise clandestine migratory journeys and border crossings (abebaw, 2013; triulzi & mckenzie, 2013; treiber, 2013b; hailemichael, 2014; habte, 2015; collyer, 2015). migrants, mainly women, are also portrayed as silent victims of various types of sexual, labour and physical abuses by trafficking rings and smuggling operations (fernandez, 2010; guday & kiya, 2013; asnake & zerihun, 2015; grabska, 2016; zeyneba, 2017). of course, there are interesting emerging studies on the conditions of migration in sub-saharan africa. for instance, dinbabo and nyasulu (2015) explored macroeconomic determinants of pull factors of international migration to south africa and dinbabo and carciotto (2015) dealt with the necessity of a rights-based approach in international migration studies. however, less understood is the manner in which smuggling becomes a community enterprise – as it involves ordinary individuals, state actors and business people – and is embedded in cross-border informal trade and social relations in borderland areas. furthermore, little is known about how migration facilitation actors sustain clandestine migration by dynamically and creatively responding and adapting to the intensification of irregular migration control and states’ regulatory structures. thus, this paper tries to fill this knowledge gap by exploring the intersection of social and smuggling networks in organising clandestine migratory exits and journeys; sociocultural dimensions of brokerage and smuggling organisations. this study was conducted mainly in the transit town of metema, which is about 196 kilometres away from gonder and 975 kilometres from the capital, addis ababa. this town is a major node of smuggling and social networks that connect villages and towns in ethiopia to khartoum, sudan. a major source of livelihoods is cross-border trade with the town of galabat on the sudanese side of the border. the town’s economy is predominantly based on trade and service, which is related to the large numbers of migrants. the rural parts of social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan 1336 the districts on both sides of the border have agricultural investments. especially on the sudanese side, there are large-scale plantations that play a major role in attracting labour migrants from ethiopia. the study was also conducted in three major migrant sending locations in ethiopia: addis ababa, hadiya zone in southern ethiopia and south wallo zone in northern ethiopia. background/contextualisation ethiopian migration to sudan is not a new phenomenon. there was significant refugee flow from ethiopia to sudan during the ethiopian military regime (1974–1991) due to military dictatorship, civil wars, poverty and environmental disasters, such as droughts (terrazas, 2007; faiz, 2013; hailemichael, 2014; grabska, 2016). according to bariagaber (2006), political conflict and war with eritrea led to the displacement of thousands who migrated to the sudan. according to grabska (2016), these migrants of the 1980s and 1990s were labelled as refugees, unlike the present cohort who are predominantly economic migrants. faiz (2013) also states that the existence of petroleum since the 1990s and the economic boom afterwards attracted many economic migrants to the country, including ethiopians. with the downfall of the military regime, the former refugees were repatriated to ethiopia, and resettled in the border town of metema. many of those who remained in sudan settled in khartoum and continued to supply information to prospective migrants about ways of clandestine border crossings, meeting the brokers, as well as financial and psychological support for new arrivals via transnational and translocal social and family networks that connect the origin, transit and destination locations in this migration corridor (treiber, 2013a; ayalew, 2017). in addition, the longstanding migration history between the two countries, the cultural similarity and the loose and vast common border encouraged migrants to use the north-west route to the sudan. however, recently, migration patterns have become complex in terms of who is migrating, how and why. there are different estimations but no exact data on the number of migrants crossing the border clandestinely. for instance, in 2011, the ilo reported that the number of ethiopian migrants travelling to libya through sudan was around 75,000–100,000 per year (anteneh, 2011). in 2014, the number of migrants using the north-west route was reported to be 18,000– 37,000 per year (frouws, 2014). based on her source from the ethiopian immigration office in metema, zeyneba (2017) puts the annual estimate at 30,000–32,400 migrants. despite such statistics and the significant flow of tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar 1337 ethiopian, eritrean and somali migrants, little is known about migration patterns and process along this route (rmms, 2014; ayalew, 2017). extreme mobility of migrants in the sudan, egypt, libya and further in europe make it difficult to track the migration flow, processes and map out the routes that take migrants outside of ethiopia. destinations are also varied as some stay in sudan, libya and egypt while others continue their journey to europe (ayalew, 2017). despite reports of abuse and harassment in sudan, the majority of migrants taking the north-west route are women. according to zeyneba (2017), between september 2014 and august 2015, 193 migrants were caught trying to cross into the sudan. of this, 123 (63.73%) were female migrants. faiz (2013) further claimed that the number of illegal female migrants to sudan has increased after the 2013 ban on labour migration to the middle east by the ethiopian government. studies show that ethiopian women leave the country in search of better livelihoods (shewit, 2013; hailemichael, 2014). the metema route, according to anteneh (2011) and jamie (2013), thus mainly served as a route for women migrants to sudan for the purpose of domestic work. in sudan, ethiopian women are engaged in selling tea and coffee on the streets and sometimes in commercial sex work (anteneh, 2011; shewit, 2013; zeyneba, 2017). female ethiopian migrants face several problems, including physical and sexual abuse (faiz, 2013; shewit, 2013; addis, 2014; frouws, 2014; hailemichael, 2014; grabska, 2016; tsega, 2016; zeyneba, 2017). in many cases, according to shewit (2013) and faiz (2013), the women are faced with long working hours, restricted mobility and verbal abuse. they are also stereotyped and wrongly perceived as thieves and prostitutes in sudan (shewit, 2013; ayalew, 2017). looking further into the demography of migrants taking the north-west route, it is reported that many of the migrants are young ethiopians and many male migrants look forward to reaching europe through libya and egypt (kuschminder & siegel, 2012; frouws, 2014; strachan, 2016). in terms of ethnicity, they are mainly from oromiya and southern nations nationalities and people regional states (faiz, 2013; zeyneba, 2017). this might be due to geographic proximity and the history of migration to sudan from these regions. high-risk border crossings and long journeys of migrants and refugees from ethiopia must be understood in the local and global context of a socio-political economy. on the sending side, young people in ethiopia are dissatisfied with social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan 1338 the growing economic inequalities, prolonged conflicts and repressive political conditions (ayalew, 2017). at the same time, they are lured by remittances and returnees’ prosperity and driven by social and familial expectations. undoubtedly, there is evidence of state persecutions and human right violations, particularly in the last two decades in ethiopia, that drive an increasing number of refugee flights, mainly from oromyia national and regional state of ethiopia. many of the migrants use khartoum as a steppingstone to move to europe, where they can seek asylum in refugee welcoming countries such as germany and sweden (triulzi, 2013; campbell, 2014; ayalew, 2017). however, there are also several other personal factors that drive migrants, such as adventure-seeking dreams, escape from forced marriages in the case of women and failures at school. moreover, there are intermediaries and smugglers, commonly referred to as delaloch in ethiopia, and several other actors who engage in organising departure and mobility. the delaloch also arrange debts for poor migrants so that they can travel now but pay later after they get jobs in sudan. thus, the combination of complex and dynamic macro (structural), meso (social and smuggling networks) and micro (individual) factors (faist, 2000) shape the migratory experience in ethiopia. conceptual frameworks migration industry there is growing literature that makes use of term ‘migration industry’ to describe the globalised phenomena of migration and the various actors that make it possible. since the late 1990s, the concept was introduced to explain “how migration flows sustained themselves in the face of intensified efforts of states to control movement across territorial boundaries” (spener, 2009). following the pioneering work of salt and stein (1997), migration scholars have broadened the concept of the ‘migration industry’ to explain actors and processes involved in border controls and those facilitating contemporary irregular and regular labour and refugee mobility, particularly from the global south to the global north (sørensen & gammeltoft-hansen, 2013; andersson, 2014). the migration industry comprises of actors, technologies and enterprises that encourage, facilitate, mediate, condition, and control migration, cutting across both the social relations and material economy. these include recruitment and travel agencies, money lenders, formal and informal remittance and courier services, transport companies and operators, legal and advisory firms, visa tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar 1339 facilitation agencies, lawyers, security contractors, smugglers, ngos and others (spener, 2009; hernández-león, 2008; sørensen & gammeltofthansen, 2013; xiang & lindquist, 2014). according to sørensen and gammeltoft-hansen (2013), the migration industry further encompasses human smuggling and trafficking networks, transnational criminal organisations, trafficking rings, and ‘control providers’, such as private contractors performing immigration checks, operating detention centers and/or carrying out forced returns. according to sørensen and gammeltofthansen’s (2013) study, the involvement of these different institutions, individuals, and agents in the migration industry is believed to be driven by financial gain, emphasising the “commercialization of migration”. this study noted that these various actors maximise and accumulate huge economic gains by capitalising on migrants’ desire to move and the states’ increasing efforts to manage migratory mobility. in fact, for sørensen and gammeltoft-hansen (2013), it is the state that “actively sustains and funds large parts of the migration industry”, which indicates the involvement of not only market actors in the migration industry but also the intersection of market and state. however, due to the pronounced “business” domain in the concept of the migration industry, scholars centred their points of discussion on the “illegal” end of it, and argue that “human smuggling and trafficking” are salient elements of the migration industry (salt & stein, 1997; castel & miller, 2003). later encompassing the social relation in migration networks, the concept of the migration industry was further developed into a business that can also “emerge from mutually-supportive networks of social relations within a migrant community” (spener, 2009: 26). from migration industry to migration infrastructure over time, literature on the migration industry has moved away from salt and stein’s (1997) notion of “migration businesses” towards considering migration infrastructure (hernández-león, 2008; sørensen & gammeltofthansen, 2013; xiang & lindquist, 2014). these infrastructures, according to xiang and lindquist (2014: 124), can be divided into five dimensions evident in every step of the migration process. these are (1) the commercial (recruitment intermediaries), (2) the regulatory (state apparatus and procedures for documentation, licensing, training and other purposes), (3) the technological (communication and transport), (4) the humanitarian (ngos and international organisations) and (5) the social (migrant networks). these dimensions entail that the concept of the migration industry not only deals social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan 1340 with micro and macro structures but rather offers a meso-structure approach to migration. however, as hernández-león (2008) argues, the migrant has long been left out of this concept of the migration industry, which pays little attention to migrants’ active and passive agency in mobilising migration resources and the diverse and dynamic relationships that emerge between migrants and brokers (herman, 2006; sanchez, 2015; ayalew, 2018). it also lacks the existential and emotional dimensions of migration. to address this shortcoming, schapendonk (2018: 665) adds to the definition of the migration industry by incorporating relationalities and social negotiation with a focus on how migrants navigate the industry and how their practices “relate to, and are entangled with, a wider web of relations.” this emphasises the multi-scalar, relational nature of migration and its embeddedness in the social context. the literature on the migration industry also fails to incorporate the fundamental gender relations that shape and are reshaped by migration. ethnic background and age group also determine the migration experience and process. moreover, how migrants and brokers create and use networks by capitalising on shared nationality, ethnicity, religion and hometowns during organising fragmented and stepwise migratory journeys is overlooked (ayalew, 2018). it is these missing elements in the migration industry literature that the present paper takes into account. according to spener (2009), it has proven difficult to define the scope of the industry, a complex landscape with diverse actors and shifting roles. this point is reiterated by schapendonk (2018). furthermore, according to spener (2009:18), there is a “problem of how we establish the conceptual boundaries of the migration industry” either as an analytical concept or a metaphorical representation. nevertheless, the concept of the migration industry has proven to be an approach that enhances our understanding of migration as a multi-level process that involves different actors. taking this into consideration, this paper is situated partly in line with sørensen and gammeltoft-hansen’s (2013) concept of the “migration facilitation industry”, focusing on brokerage and the material and social infrastructure that shape migratory mobility, but also recognising that the profits and social trust cannot always be separated (xiang & lindquist, 2014). brokerage is the process of connecting actors in systems of social, economic or political relations in order to facilitate access to valued resources (stovel & tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar 1341 shaw, 2012; lindquist et al., 2012). brokers often occupy the ‘middle space’ between migrants, states and employers. they can act as extensions of the state, seeking to outsource border controls and colluding with employers to cheapen and commodify migrant labour (mccollum & findlay, 2018). brokers can also work on migrants’ behalf, finding ways of circumventing restrictive border control policies and practices. with the topic of brokering migratory exits and sustaining cross-border mobility, the present paper looks into the brokering practice that involves the interplay between different private actors, formal and informal brokers, humanitarian and state actors and institutions, including social networks and technologies that inform, facilitate and condition the migration process, making it self-perpetuating and self-serving (lin et al. 2017). it also looks into how brokering and smuggling practices thrive from and are sustained by a continuous process of learning about changing conditions along migration routes, including intensification of control and regulatory structures in border areas as well as negotiating power relations between migrants and smugglers at the three stages of migration process. these three states are: (1) recruitment and/or departure; (2) mobility/en route and border crossings and (3) settlement at a particular destination (faist, 2014). methodology of the study the empirical data was collected through three months of fieldwork in 2016 and 2018 using a conventional qualitative research methodology including indepth and informal interviews, focus group discussions (fgds), observations, collection of life histories, photographs, extended case studies tracing migratory departures, journey and settlement in destination or return and circulation. respondents were selected from workers and actors involved in the migration industry. these include five brokers, government officials (two border guards and 16 officials/personnel working in migration related government offices) and six non-government and international organisations, including the iom and local ngos engaged in migration management. in addition, 25 aspiring migrants, 30 families/households of migrants, 20 returnees in origin locations (addis ababa, wallo and hadiya) and 5 migrants en route in metema were interviewed. potential migrants, migrants in transit locations, failed migrants as well as returnees were the main targets of this study. this approach helped us to deeply explore the roles of migration facilitation actors at the different stages social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan 1342 of the migration process. some returnees are aiming to migrate again (either to the same destination or to try new destinations), others want to resettle and still others have managed to become successful business persons. some were expelled from sudan while others returned to ethiopia voluntarily. both types of returnees were interviewed in metema and addis ababa in order to collect information about their engagements with the migration facilitation industry actors. in addition, stories of migrants’ lived experiences helped us to trace the actual process of migratory journeys, border crossings and their experiences in destination locations. as migration decision making (including selection of brokers) engages families/households, the study also targeted households of migrants. research in archives or policy document analysis was also conducted to capture socio-political and legal contexts of migration decisions using the services of brokers as well as regulatory infrastructures that shape smuggling organisations. besides the in-depth interviews, five fgd were held with aspiring migrants and returnees in the study sites. in the following sections, we will explore this further and empirically explain the smuggling operations, process of clandestine migratory departures and journey towards the sudan. results and findings smuggling organisations and clandestine journeys as stated earlier, there is a well-established overland migration route that links ethiopia and sudan (triulzi, 2013: 235). the route begins in addis ababa and passes through the towns of bahir dar and gondar and the other major transition towns of metema and humera (himora) at the ethiopian–sudanese border, and leads to khartoum via the towns of galabat and gedaref in sudan. some people from the tigray region and gondar exit via humera in the northern part of the ethiopian–sudanese border. these migration routes and delaloch networks link villages and towns in ethiopia with khartoum. there are generally two ways of facilitating an overland journey: delaloch gather migrants in addis ababa or other bigger cities, such as jima, adama and addis ababa, for a few days and then arrange transport to khartoum. the precise number of delaloch engaged in this migratory process is largely unknown. some sources estimate that more than a thousand migration delaloch live in addis ababa alone and hundreds live in transition towns and villages (abebaw, 2013; igad, 2013; ayalew, 2017). the individuals working with these delaloch, whom migrants call ‘the bosses’ (that is, lead brokers), sit tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar 1343 in khartoum, from where they access leqamiwoch (recruiters or collectors), ashagariwoch (transporters), kezaignoch (those who keep migrants in hidden places/houses en route) and teqebayoch (receivers in destination) along the stated routes. these bosses are former eritrean and ethiopian migrants who occasionally work with sudanese and libyan smugglers, known as semsari, and have agents in europe and saudi arabia as well. migrants’ testimonies indicate that the bosses sometimes organise overland journeys via libya to italy and then scandinavia or by air directly from sudan or via saudi arabia to europe with help from sudanese semsari. the ‘bigger bosses’ in khartoum have several nicknames and many of them are from the eritrean and ethiopian tigray ethnic group. some names frequently mentioned by interlocutors are kibrom, ephrem, wedi german (son of germany), wedi asab (son of asab) and yishaq, indicating tigrigna origin. this is due to the long and established history of clandestine migration facilitations from eritrea, which the smugglers from these ethnic groups have capitalised on for a long time (ayalew, 2017). the bosses’ agents, known as leqamiwoch, move inside villages and neighbourhoods in towns and convince young men and women to take the journey before finally sending them to the ashagari in addis ababa. from addis ababa, another ashagari collects the migrants and sends them to the border towns, such as metema or humera, where the next ashagari assists them to cross the border before he hands them over to a sudanese transporter, who then takes them to khartoum. however, not only cross-border delaloch networks but also cross-border kinship obligations and other significant actors located in relevant spaces organise the irregular overland exits and journey towards sudan. in most cases, potential migrants collect the names and addresses of reliable delala or recruiters in origin locations and border areas from friends and family members in sudan who might have used the same routes or delala. the recruiter or local delala first collects the lists of potential migrants and then contacts his immediate and ‘smaller boss’ in addis ababa or metema and humera. the smaller bosses contact their ‘mastermind’ in khartoum, who arranges for agents who can bribe the border guards at various checkpoints and others who can transport people across borders and take them to khartoum. the ‘bosses’ also decide the appropriate time, condition and means of transport. according to the accounts of delaloch and migrants collected during our fieldwork, transporters flexibly use a combination of public and private transport services. social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan 1344 marishet was a 23-year-old woman from ethiopia. the researcher met her in khartoum in may 2016 while she was in transit to sudan. she described her journey from addis ababa to khartoum and the many people involved in getting them from one point to the next. she travelled with her sister after both of them had decided to migrate to sudan. they consulted their brother-in-law who put them in touch with a delala named getachew. getachew promised to get them to khartoum for 7,500 birr each (about 300 euros), to which they agreed. they planned to use her sister’s savings from an earlier stint in dubai. she promised to repay her sister after she found a job. they then met getachew at the bus station and he accompanied them to metema where he handed them over to two habeshas [ethiopians] waiting for them on the outskirts of metema. from this point onwards, the journey became more clandestine and dangerous. marishet stated: we passed the checkpoints on two motorcycles, which they rode on the side of the roads. from there, we were handed over to a sudanese man who collected us from habeshas and drove us to his place in a toyota pickup car. he offered us one night of accommodation. for the next two days, he drove us through bushes, dust and dirt roads. finally, he took us deep into the bushes near khartoum, where we joined about 120 ethiopian migrants, who were hiding in the bushes and waiting to be transported to khartoum […]. the next day, at midnight, the sudanese came with three minibuses and loaded about 50 people in the cars. after long hours of nonstop driving, we entered khartoum at midnight. after arriving in khartoum, those who had friends and relatives were dropped at their houses and others waiting for money to be transferred via hawala by their relatives would be held in accommodation arranged by the sudanese delaloch until the money was received. those who wanted to continue their trip to libya could stay with the delaloch until the next leg of the trip was arranged. but those who did not have money to pay for their journey from ethiopia to sudan entered into a debt agreement with the delaloch and were informally introduced to employers in khartoum or other places in sudan. they would remain under the surveillance of delaloch until they repaid their entire debt. the above account exemplifies that irregular migratory exits result from actions and interactions of various actors and entities. on the one hand, feelings of immobility in life, mainly among the young people in current day ethiopia, have partly motivated overland escape, which is facilitated by tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar 1345 diverse actors, including migrants and non-migrants located in several local and transnational spaces. the facilitating agents of migrants’ journeys towards sudan are smugglers that include delaloch and their connectors; technologies such as mobile phones and the internet; family and friendship networks; and public transport and road networks that link sudan and ethiopia. these have become infrastructural moorings of clandestine migratory exits and journeys. the interactions of these actors, institutions, networks and objects, which condition and facilitate overland exits, reflect the entanglement of complex economic and social forms, material and technological practices and smuggling networks. some of the actors engage for money and others (former migrants en route and in diaspora) do so because of cross-border social obligations and reciprocal relations. however, recently, the ethiopian government has intensified border controls by introducing strict regulations regarding human smuggling practices. following this, smuggling operations become more complex as smugglers dynamically adapt new strategies to overcome control structures. the following sections explore this in detail. intensification of government controls and smugglers’ reactions recently, the ethiopian government intensified migration control infrastructures and regulations following the increased media coverage of the suffering of ethiopian migrants en route and deportations of thousands of migrants from various destination locations, mainly saudi arabia, which also intensified the ongoing anti-government protests in the country (de regt & tafesse, 2015; ayalew, 2017). this increased regulation is also backed by the eu externalisation of border controls. via externalisation practices, the eu has begun to persuade african states including ethiopia to “introduce pre-emptive measures to deter or prevent their citizens from irregularly migrating to europe, and/or other nationals from doing so by transiting through their countries”. in exchange, the eu extends various promises including development aid, trade facilitation, foreign investment, and other advantages (gaibazzi et al., 2017: 5–10). the government of ethiopia has intensely engaged in criminalising brokers and portraying migrants as victims of the smuggling practices. to that end, proclamations are adopted swiftly and “antihuman trafficking taskforces” have been established at different layers of the bureaucracy targeting the irregular migration facilitators and brokers. the ethiopian government introduced different anti-human smuggling legislations. some of these include the 11th criminal bench within the federal high court (2007), human trafficking and narcotics section in organized social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan 1346 crime investigation unit of the federal police (2009) and anti-trafficking task force (2011), which were established to curb human trafficking and smuggling and combat illegal migration. the anti-human trafficking taskforce has been set up at all levels of the administrative tier. officials from the deputy prime minister to the district administrators are members of the taskforce. to broaden migration control activities, law enforcement, religious leaders and traditional leaders have formed an anti-human trafficking committee. checkpoints have been set up in the main migration routes. brokers have been criminalised and subjected to organised campaign. in the last five years, in two districts in wallo and hadya provinces, 50 and 62 brokers, respectively, were convicted and are serving long prison sentences. the private employment agency proclamation 104/1998 was later amended to the 2009 employment exchange service proclamation 632/2009, which holds private employment agencies (peas) and employers liable for the welfare of employees and states higher bond requirements for licensing. further, the proclamation amendment was argued to have caused a decline in licensed peas (from 110 in 2009 to 54 in 2010) and pushed some peas into the business of illegal brokerage (fernandez, 2017). the new anti-human smuggling proclamation (proclamation 909/2015) even introduced tougher regulations and punishments on those engaged in human smuggling and trafficking in person. in 2013, the ethiopian government banned any labour migration to middle eastern countries until agreements were reached with respective countries on the protection of migrant workers (de regt & taafesse, 2015; zewdu, 2018). following this, the north-western route towards europe via sudan became popular. smugglers diversified their migration facilitation strategies and new actors joined the facilitation industry. in other words, as it is elaborated below, intensification of control infrastructures have not stemmed clandestine migratory exits; rather, they have increased costs, risks and the number of migration facilitation actors, as smugglers dynamically and creatively design new routes and strategies to overcome barriers. diversification of exit routes and strategies the metema-galabat border has been the main exit route for migrants along the ethiopian-sudanese border. however, after the recent intensification of border controls in the area, migrants cross the border and enter into sudan by using remote desert routes. according to information from government officials and residents of metema town, there are different desert routes in tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar 1347 metema, woreda, that have emerged to serve as major gateways to sudan. some of the desert routes found in metema are doleo, meka, shinfa, korjamos, workamba, chilga, dambia, ganda and arbajira. migrants pay high costs to brokers to enter into sudan using these desert routes: from 7,000 to 12,000 ethiopian birr (zeyneba, 2017). previously, it cost approximately 2,000 ethiopian birr (ayalew, 2017). those migrants who are coming from eritrea and somaliland often use the doleo desert route, which is found to be one of the most dangerous desert routes in the woreda. in this regard, zeyneba (2017) stated that in 2016, a car holding 24 migrants from somaliland (18 male and 6 females) were caught while they were trying to cross the border to enter into sudan through the doleo desert. moreover, in addition to the above stated desert routes, where the government intensified controls, numerous other unknown desert routes are found by smugglers in order to facilitate migrants’ clandestine entry into sudan. in addition, since the ethiopian government recently tightened border controls in metema, the route passing through humera has become a key outlet. the humera border is used mainly by eritreans and ethiopians from the northern parts of ethiopia (ayalew, 2017). there is also another route via damazin along the ethiopian-sudanese border. this route is mainly used by ethiopians from benishangul-gumuz and oromiya national and regional states to enter sudan. during our recent fieldwork, we were told that migrants were found dead along this route just two months prior due to dehydration in the dessert. until 2013, in many migrants sending areas of ethiopia, brokers openly collected money, recruited, transported and hosted migrants in their own safe houses. even the security in certain areas considered them to be creators of opportunity. for instance, in one case in hadiya, a police commissioner assigned a guard for a broker. however, now brokers have moved from the public scene to underground operations in many parts of ethiopia. they undertake their services via telephone and local representatives. most of the negotiations between brokers and potential migrants are made telephonically. systems of transport have also changed; except in the case of the route from wallo to the djibouti border where there is no public transportation, transporting migrants en masse to the border in a rented car has been abandoned. rather, migrants are told to take public transport by themselves until they reach border towns such as metema. systems of sheltering have also social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan 1348 changed. instead of keeping migrants together, brokers let migrants rent rooms by themselves in hotels around the border during journeys. the above discussion indicates that intercepting migration routes simply increases the costs and risks of migration instead of preventing it. this is mainly because, besides other factors, more officials and law enforcement joined in the facilitation industry. for instance, during long journeys across the desert, migrants (especially female migrants) experience environmental hazards, gang rape, shortage of food and water, theft and robbery by criminals (ayalew, 2017; zeyneba, 2017). in addition, as is elaborated below, tightening border controls partly increased actors engaged in the facilitation of migration. smuggling becomes community enterprise in border areas according to the informants and researchers’ observations, the social and economic lives of metema town thrives because of migration and contraband trade. the town is predominantly populated by returnees, newly arrived potential migrants and seasonal labour migrants coming to the large-scale commercial sesame farms in the area. urban dwellers and organisations – such as shop owners, hawala agents, tea and coffee vendors, hotels, shoeshines, youth economic associations such as shanta mahber (luggage association) and private transport services (buses, bajaj, tractors and minibuses) – benefit from and support brokering practices and clandestine migration. this is because all of these social groups generate financial gains by hosting, feeding, guiding and transporting migrants, as well as brokering border crossings. abdalla was a sheqaba (local broker) in the town of metema. during the time of interview, in may 2018, he was 35 years old. he had served as a federal police officer, but later he quit the position and became a sheqaba in metema for five years. he narrated the following: metema town is built by the money from the migrants. everybody participates. migrants come with money, people in metema waits for that money. thus, nobody resists. you know why the government cannot stop migration? the migrants want to migrate, the people here eagerly wait to support them and obtain money. everybody waits for that money. this lady [pointing at a lady cooking food] while cooking food in front of her house she may see a strange person walking in the street. then, she calls someone she knows working as a broker, probably her husband, and tells him about the strange person. he immediately comes and tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar 1349 approaches the stranger. he takes him/her to a place of accommodation. there are many houses in the town mainly built to host migrants. this person gets money at least by taking the migrant to that accommodation place. he puts the migrant in contact with a broker, and gets money again. abdalla also added that a shoeshine does the same. a new arrival sits at a shoeshine or coffee house and tries to observe the environment. the shoeshines and the women who sell coffee report the newcomer to brokers or to a sheqaba. a shop keeper does the same. abdalla stated, “have not you seen shopkeepers sitting in empty shops, and barber shops? their incomes from the formal businesses would not pay the rent. they just sit there and wait for other opportunities”. the “other opportunities” abdalla refers to include migrant smuggling and contraband trade. shop owners might deal with more complex issues. most of them are in the money exchange business. they exchange ethiopian birr for sudanese pound, or vice versa. the shop owners also engage in informal money transfers (hawala). according to informants, many of the shop owners in metema lived in khartoum. they returned from there. thus, they know boutique owners in khartoum and work with them in money transfer. in khartoum, there are shops named after the hometown of migrants, such as jimma boutique, wallaga boutique, gondar boutique, etc. from addis ababa or jimma, families or brokers send money through ethiopian banks to metema. the shop owners in metema withdraw the money, change it to sudanese pound and send it from galabat to khartoum. there are money transfer shops there. they also use mobile banking; the most well-known being zein banking. migrants also send money from khartoum for their families or payment for a broker through these money transfers and brokers use these shop keepers. security and police officers make the importance of their tasks visible by intercepting migrants when they are crossing the border clandestinely, detaining and deporting them back to their countries of origin. however, some officers also trade migrants with brokers and open up checkpoints in exchange for bribes. villagers and peasants also work with brokers and sheqaba. for instance, village militias and farmers protect migrants from security and host, feed and guide them through safe routes via bushes and forests during clandestine crossings. for these services, they demand money from brokers and/or smugglers as well as migrants. social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan 1350 one informant stated: “here we usually say, ‘there is no sheikh and kes [priest] in metema.’ nobody is holy here. this is not a place anybody prefers to inhabit. the weather is harsh… metema is very hot.” informants claimed that some police spend only nine months in metema and will be transferred due to the difficulty of the weather. as such, they want to get their share before they are transferred to another place. smuggling migrants and contraband are the main opportunity for police officers to earn money before leaving. abdalla spoke about the engagement of local militias as follows: there is local militia. the militia is armed. people in this lowland border area are armed and are very good in shooting targets. the militia members are recruited from the local people. the militia has no salary. some of the militia members are former members of the police or army. some of them live in rented houses. so, what is their source of income? they are the brokers. for the lead brokers also, it is much better to connect to the militia than to the police. the militia members are local people. they know the route much better than the police. especially recently, when the migrants are coming in a big group, we are using the militia and it has become common. they fight with the police. the police usually run away. the engagement of unemployed youth – the sheqaba the key actors that facilitate border crossings in the town of metema are sheqaba. literally, sheqaba denotes unemployed young men and women. sheqaba play multiple roles as local brokers in facilitating clandestine migration. abdalla stated the following: when busses arrive, the sheqaba populate the bus station. some are sent by lead brokers. the main broker do not come out and make himself visible. he hides in somewhere and work by phone calls or send his agents to collect migrants from bus station. some other sheqabas are hunting for migrants who have not found broker yet, or whose broker is late to arrive. the sheqaba approach those who have no broker and connect them with a lead broker they know. then they get share in the income based on their negotiation. in case, the migrants already have a broker, who is late to receive them, either the sheqaba snatch [migrant theft is tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar 1351 common] them and pass them to another broker whom they favor or call the original broker and negotiate a term of sharing as they are the rescuers, and of course they can also threaten him as he is illegal broker…we [sheqabas] also monitor the presence of police; the presence of security guys. we monitor the border and provide information to the lead brokers. we also monitor the smuggling routes. we look for migrants who are crossing to the sudan. we know the routes. some sheqabas are formally organised by the government. for instance, the luggage association, which is locally referred in amharic as shanta mahber, also work as brokers. they are formally registered with the government. the luggage association has 108 members. their main task is facilitating legal migrants to transit the town. they are organised to support the migrants who come with visas. they pick up migrants who have visas from the bus station, transport them by bajaji with protection from abuse by illegal brokers, guide them to shelters, facilitate currency exchange in the black market, photocopy travel documents for them and take their passports to the immigration office. in a way, their task is to relieve some of the burden from the immigration office. however, some individual members are also main players in migrant smuggling. most of them compete with sheqabas and work as intermediaries for lead brokers that facilitate clandestine crossings. hence, the sheqabas call the luggage association the government sheqaba. the luggage association also have a bad public reputation, as they exploit migrants by demanding extra payments. smuggling is embedded in cross-border trade smuggling operations are embedded within and rely on cross-border informal trade and mobility. for instance, there is a main road that passes through the town of metema and extends to khartoum via galabat on the sudanese side. here, there is formal and informal cross-border trade of people and goods. lorries, buses and minibuses transport goods and people between ethiopia and sudan via the town of metema using this road. this back and forth flow of contraband goods and people is accompanied by a flow information and knowledge about clandestine migratory mobility and transitions. brokers on both sides of the border use kinship, friendship and religious, ethnic and business ties to facilitate informal money transfers for hosting and transporting migrants as well as for bribing officers to open up check points. brokers simultaneously use both formal and informal currency exchange and money transfer systems. for instance, hawala agents use formal banks and social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan 1352 mobile banking by means of ethiopian and sudanese telephone lines and sim cards. for instance, at the ethiopian-sudanese border, there is a bridge that separates two border towns (metema on the ethiopian side and galabat on the sudanese side) that has been serving as a gateway for migrants to enter into sudan. it is also one of the major routes for ethiopian migrants who legally enter into sudan using a short-term visiting visa or the sudanese id known as the tasrih. this route is also open for the residents of metema and galabat towns who visit the market centers during the day to exchange goods and services. though the tasrih is used primarily by the residents of both border towns, it is also used by migrants who disguise themselves as residents of either metema or galabat to cross the border and enter sudan. brokers arrange the tasrih for ethiopian migrants from galabat. with these sudanese ids, migrants can meet sudanese employers at galabat who help them to move to khartoum (zeyneba, 2017). some migrants try to cross the main gate and bridge by disguising themselves as residents of metema, while others wait for a suitable time to cross the bridge, such as at night or during market days in galabat or in metema when the guards are not around. these migrants then hide themselves in the huts found in suk el-galabat (the market place at galabat) and travel further into sudanese territory through the desert on foot or on lorries or other means of transportation. many female migrants pass the main gate by wearing a tob (veil) commonly worn by sudanese women. once they cross the border, they contact the sudanese broker and travel to khartoum by car through the forest. since the border area is covered with dense but uninhabited bushes, it is conducive for the brokers and smugglers to transport migrants into sudan via these bushes and easily bypass checkpoints (zeyneba, 2017). the above discussion exemplifies that in order to continue with clandestine crossings in the face of increasing border controls, the generation and sharing of knowledge about particular transition nodes is necessary. migrants and smugglers collectively produce information about how to use visibility and invisibility strategies in order to circumvent immobility regimes in the border areas. this indicates that the border areas are not merely sites where the state exercises its sovereign power by way of implementing border control regulations, but it is also a site where translocal and transnational social and tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar 1353 economic relations thrive. this is mainly due to the continuous back and forth flow – both legally and illegally – of people, information and goods across international borders. consequently, facilitating clandestine migration across the border sustains – despite intensifications of regulations and control structures – since it is embedded within and operates in relation to the stated cross-border mobilities and relations. conclusions the preceding discussions and analysis have demonstrated that human smuggling and brokering of clandestine migratory exits is embedded in and functions within broader translocal and transnational social, cultural and economic relations. this challenges the view reflected in popular discourses that such smuggling is organised by independent criminal organisations. smugglers and their intermediaries facilitate ethiopian migrants’ clandestine border crossings via the town of metema by mobilising support and resources from local communities along the border, bribing border guards and capitalising on their ethnic, religious and economic connections in the ethiopian-sudanese borderlands. thus, human smuggling has become a community enterprise. it is deeply integrated into the economic lives of the lowland poverty-stricken border areas. brokers have made the migration industry accessible to the local people. the control structure does not carry the same economic incentives. thus, brokering thrives – amidst the intensification of regulatory and control infrastructures – as it enjoys community approval and support. migration facilitation actors navigate expectations of the community by creating opportunities for transnational mobility for migrants and by sharing the benefits of smuggling with various sections of the society, mainly in border areas. they also simultaneously navigate regulatory and control structures by designing various strategies to circumvent border controls. thus, the system of control structures reproduces a dynamic system of migration facilitation infrastructures. more specifically, brokering migratory exits thrives despite intensifications of control infrastructures because of the production and reproduction of knowledge within the smugglers and migrants’ transnational networks. they continuously generate new knowledge and information about ways of recruiting migrants and transporting them via safe routes as well as ways of money transfer and payment strategies. this knowledge is shared with relevant facilitation actors and migrants using mobile phones and online communications. in other words, the entanglement of social and smuggling social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan 1354 networks, communication technology and the production and reproduction of knowledge constitute the backbone of the migration facilitation industry in general and the infrastructure of contemporary clandestine migratory mobility in particular. the production and sharing of this migration knowledge also entail unequal power relations between migrants and smugglers. those who 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abstract the movement of people across national boundaries on the african continent, for the purposes of earning a living through gainful employment, engaging in crossborder trade or visiting their kin, is commonplace. however, the extent to which political power and authority permits this mobility is dependent on specific historical and political factors of each country. this paper traces and examines ethiopian state presence at the togochale border in the east of the country by examining patterns of cross-border movement – namely migration, refugee movement and cross-border trade – since the 1960s. using archival sources and secondary sources, the paper constructs a historical narrative of strong state presence in this border area. furthermore, the paper argues that the notable presence of the ethiopian state at this border is a consequence of how the ethiopian state conceptualises the notion of territorial statehood, which is shaped by the country’s history. popular understandings suggest that local populations hold much sway in african border areas, rather than the central state, which is often confined to the capital – miles away from the border. therefore, the presence of the ethiopian state at the togochale border appears to depart from the norm of limited state presence in african borderlands. keywords territoriality, statehood, borderlands, eastern ethiopia, togochale border. introduction this paper foregrounds the control of territory by the ethiopian state in the eastern periphery by constructing a historical narrative of strong state presence in this border area. it traces and examines ethiopian state presence at the togochale border by examining patterns of cross-border movement – namely migration, refugee movement and cross-border trade – since the 1960s. the focus of the paper is the manifestation of statehood in eastern ethiopia. as such, the paper takes the border as an ideal representation of  lecturer, at the department of political studies, faculty of economic & management science, university of the western cape (uwc), south africa, e-mail: nmatshanda@gmail.com mailto:nmatshanda@gmail.com ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 469 territorial statehood. the interplay between territorial control and crossborder movement thus reveals the conceptualisation of territorial statehood by the ethiopian state. in the mid-1950s, following the withdrawal of the british military administration (bma) from ethiopia, there emerged competing ideas of what the border means and represents to the ethiopian state. these notions related to the nature of the ethiopian state at the time and the thinking that characterised the country’s rulers. borders, therefore, can be seen as directly linked to the determination of the limits of the state and as markers of the limits of the intended exercise of power by the state. borderlands, on the other hand, raise a different set of dynamics vis-à-vis the state and the exercise of power. however, borderlands have similar characteristics, as spaces that owe much of their character to the nature of the border, regardless of whether they are in ethiopia or elsewhere in africa (asiwaju 1985). according to vandergeest and peluso (1995: 389), “experienced territory or space is not abstract and homogenous, but located, relative, and varied.” this suggests that the manner in which a state elects to establish territorial statehood varies and is dependent on a range of factors. indeed, sack (1986: 3), argues that “territoriality is a historically sensitive use of space.” most of the literature on the relationship between african states and their borders is informed by the colonial experience (kapil 1966; englebert & hummel 2005; englebert 2009). the majority of this literature does not take into account countries such as ethiopia, which have different experiences with colonialism. recent literature demonstrates that it has not been easy to assess africa’s recent past, which in many ways has departed from the colonial past. as nugent (2004: 1-2) suggests, although there has been much written about contemporary africa, “a lot of it is unreflective and does not seek to place the material in any kind of historical context.” this paper rejects this approach by contextualising and historicising the relationship between the ethiopian state and its borders in order to understand contemporary practices of territorial statehood. the paper begins by conceptualising african notions of territorial statehood. it traces current understandings of territoriality in africa and locates these in the post-independence consensus on african borders. the paper then moves on to a discussion of ethiopian understandings of territoriality. this section highlights the constitutive role of peripheries in ethiopian statehood. the paper then discusses a period of rigid state borders in the post-bma period in ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 470 ethiopia. the section examines how this period influenced the manner in which the state viewed the border. to provide context, this section explores internal political dynamics within the eastern periphery under imperial rule. next, the paper surveys the increased militarisation and further rigidification during the period of the dergue from 1974. finally, the chapter examines the nature of this border since 1991, a period that has experienced unprecedented levels of cross-border movement, most of which is underlined by cross-border trade. understanding territorial statehood in the african context there is a research gap in the literature on state formation in africa, in particular the relationship between african states and their borders. approaches to state formation in africa have been dominated by analyses that are rooted in weberian sociology of the state and its notions of statehood. this has led to the categorisation of all manifestations of statehood that do not conform to this model as instances of state failure, collapse or weakness (rotberg 20021982). this literature has struggled to make sense of political development outside the confines of state capitals, and has equally been unsuccessful in explaining inter-state relations in africa. since the end of the cold war, regionalism has emerged as a prime ordering principle on the continent, with many african countries organising and cooperating at the subregional level. this inevitably requires a rethinking of statehood. the inability of the literature to grasp rapid and often unconventional political development is problematic and requires further investigation. the inability of the literature and analysts to imagine african statehood beyond the confining category of the nation-state has been the main challenge. the preoccupation with internal state ‘disorder’ has meant that the legitimacy of african cases of secession, for instance, is questioned and met with contempt, as demonstrated by zartman’s (1996) assessment of somaliland. the fixation on internal ‘collapse’ or ‘disorder’ has led others to argue that there is, in fact, logic behind the seeming disorder that is found within african polities (chabal & daloz 1999). indeed, while chabal and daloz’s main claims are open to debate, their approach nevertheless demonstrates that, in africa political dynamics and practices exist that do not conform to ideal-type forms of political organisation. the contemporary african state system is based on the decisions reached by newly independent african countries in 1963 in addis ababa and in 1964 in cairo – to retain the territorial boundaries inherited from colonial rule. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 471 consequently, there has been general agreement on the absence of inter-state conflict on the continent, regardless of the persistence of states that emerged from seemingly arbitrary boundaries – the paradox of african boundaries (herbst 1989). there is consensus on some of the reasons why this paradox has persisted. a number of commentators such as christopher clapham (1996) and jeffery herbst (2000) have noted that the nature of the international state system supports this paradox, particularly the popular idea of the nation-state. others, such as pierre englebert (2009), have gone a step further by attempting to demonstrate how the international system supports this paradox. the overall consensus is that african countries have largely remained viable and peaceful towards each other, regardless of internal turmoil, because the international system ‘rewards’ them for remaining intact. the conclusion, therefore, is that african norms of statehood find institutionalised legitimacy in the international system (young, 1991). however, the african territorial consensus and its popular understandings are challenged in the horn of africa. in most analyses, the horn is acknowledged for its exceptional nature, but the discussion tends to focus on the remarkable feat of peacefully retaining ‘artificial’ boundaries elsewhere on the continent. crawford young (1991) acknowledges that “ethiopia cries out for creative imagination and careful study” but does not offer ways to go about this. similarly, englebert (2009) and englebert and hummel (2005) do not adequately address why in the horn the seemingly low odds of international recognition for breakaway states does not seem to deter secessionist states from emerging. nor do they explain why, unlike elsewhere on the continent, as englebert has demonstrated, actors in the horn appear to be disinterested in the “domestic power of command” that is afforded by the legalities of the international system. although some of this literature has attempted to challenge the state weakness/failure discourse, it has not been able to provide the necessary analytical tools to take the analyses to a level that historically and contextually investigates the variegated forms of empirical statehood that continue to emerge in the horn of africa. to successfully challenge some of the assumptions that exist in the literature we must focus on history and context. this paper thus contributes to the current turn in the literature on african state formation, which rejects ahistorical analyses. this is highlighted by spears (2003), when he notes that the horn of africa, somaliland in particular, raises significant questions about africa’s territorial order. others have suggested other explanations for the unusual expressions of statehood in the horn. for instance, kornprobst (2002) ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 472 argues that “there is no consensus on who constitutes a colonial power in the horn,” unlike in other african sub-regions. kornprobst suggests that some states might perceive ethiopia as a colonial power in the horn. however, such an assertion needs to be interrogated. the formation of the contemporary ethiopian state in the late nineteenth century and the complexities of the decolonisation process in the twentieth century would need to be considered. this paper employs an interpretive approach and a qualitative methodology that combines historical and ethnographic research methods. as such, a constructivist inspired methodology should be inductive, interpretive and historical (pouliot 2007). indeed, a study of the state in ethiopia, as this paper demonstrates, is a study of the motives and practices of how the state has fashioned itself toward its peripheries. here, the task of the researcher is to contextualise and historicise this experience in order to arrive at a particular understanding of the relationship between the centre and the periphery. and most importantly for the purposes of this paper, the state’s relationship with its borders needs to be historicised and contextualised. territorial conceptions of statehood and the constitutive role of peripheries in ethiopia the formation of the contemporary ethiopian state in the late nineteenth century – the empire state – was shaped by the incorporation of territories located south, east and west of the political centre (donham & james 2002). subsequently, the peripheries shaped the evolution of state bureaucracy and the definition of the national territory. central to these processes was the extension of state power over a particular territory, which instituted the use of territory as a means of asserting imperial state power and authority. however, the territorialisation of state power in ethiopia was not an unambiguous process. the political and economic transformation of ethiopian society was delayed because of the organisation of state power under the imperial order. the traditional base of legitimate state power in ethiopia, initially for the christian groups and later for the ethiopian nation, ensured that a large section of the population within the ethiopian territory remained on the fringes (markakis & beyene 1967). the ‘fringe’ or lowland peripheries, where pastoralists were much harder to keep track of and to control, experienced the least amount of administration (donham 2002). in the period following the italian occupation, the state saw an increase in peripheral dissent. however, this change was less about a periphery that became more belligerent, and more about structural ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 473 changes that were taking place in the centre and in the wider region, specifically state centralisation and decolonization. the state became increasingly centralised, and for the first time, the territorial boundaries of the state became more defined than they were previously. territoriality became more salient in the post-1942 period in ethiopia. the geographic and political organisation of space found an immediate and direct expression in an increasingly centralised state. indeed, centralisation required an exact articulation of the territorial limits of the state. elsewhere on the continent, the post-colonial relationship between central state power and the national territory has been conceptualised in slightly different ways. to a large extent, the centre-periphery relationship was shaped by the colonial experience, and thus it was this experience that influenced the nature of the post-colonial state (herbst 2000). in most cases, the core-periphery relationship took the form of the urban-rural divide (bratton 1994). the postcolonial state sustained this dialectic and adapted it to suit its peculiar mode of power and control. callaghy (1987) describes the trend of increasing the power of central authority while simultaneously weakening local power structures in the periphery as the “coverover strategy.” this experience was widespread in the colonies and saw the colonial state transferring its most undesirable features to its post-independence successor (young 1994). although the practice of exercising control over the peripheries was similar to elsewhere on the continent, the motives and structures with which it was created and carried out was differed in ethiopia. unlike the post-colonial state in other places in africa, the state in ethiopia had been actively involved in the determination of its territorial boundaries. ethiopia participated in the drawing of boundaries in the horn of africa. indeed, the centre-periphery relationship in ethiopia is different because the demarcation of boundaries and incorporation of conquered territories into the state was actively pursued by ethiopian rulers even prior to the formal demarcation of boundaries. the period following liberation from the italian occupation was a key moment in ethiopia’s modern political history. this period was characterised by a determined effort by the state to: a) consolidate its territorial gains from before the occupation; and b) consolidate its political dominance, particularly in the peripheries. these two goals were essential for the survival of the imperial state following the five year italian occupation. the pursuit of these aims was accompanied by strong rhetoric on modernisation. this rhetoric was rooted in a provincial administrative structure that sought to maintain the ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 474 status quo of centre-periphery relations. the main goal of the provincial administration was to maintain the traditional role of the centre in the administration of the conquered territories and to preserve the territorial integrity of the state. this became the dominant theme in the articulation of ethiopian statehood, with subsequent state rulers adapting their ideologies in a way that they too could maintain the role of the state as an agent of control and authority. the aforementioned objectives of the state were given impetus by the presence of the bma in ethiopia from 1941. the military arrangement that ultimately threatened ethiopian territorial sovereignty began as an occupied enemy territory administration (oeta), and later, in 1942, became a full british military administration (rennell-rodd 1948). zewde (1991) notes that under the convenient cover of the continuation of the war, britain came to assume extensive control over ethiopia’s finances, administration and territorial integrity. the changes that occurred during the period of the bma are crucial as they brought to the fore the (in) ability of the ethiopian state to control its territory and assert its authority in the peripheries. during this period, ethiopian statehood shifted to an increasingly territorial conceptualisation, one that was not seen in the pre-italian occupation period. prior to the occupation, administration entailed the radiation of power from the centre to a vast and vaguely defined territory. however, the need for exact delimitation of the territory became increasingly urgent and significant after the occupation. during this period, the state sought to fashion itself as a modernising empire with a secure territory and a stable community. the preconditions for ‘modern’ statehood crystallised because the territorial foundations of the state came under threat during the period of the bma. the effects of this threat were most evident in the peripheries, which had hitherto been vaguely defined and loosely administered. attempting territorial control by militarising the eastern periphery the rationale for the uncompromising approach of the imperial state with regards to the border with the republic of somalia in the early 1960s can be found in the events of the preceding decade. the period of the bma presented a significant threat to the territorial integrity of the imperial state; this was mainly because the state was yet to consolidate its territory and political authority in the eastern regions. however, the official end of the bma in 1954 left residual territorial ambiguities, particularly in people’s minds. therefore, ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 475 the formation of the somali republic in 1960 added another dimension to the anxieties of the imperial state vis-à-vis its uncertain presence in the east. the 1960s began with a series of rebellions in the southern and eastern regions of ethiopia – in hararge and bale provinces. these revolts were staged by pastoralist sections of the population in response to increased state centralisation, particularly the introduction of livestock tax. the revised ethiopian constitution of 1955 was meant to signify a shift to a modern state and government. the supposed transformation entailed the introduction of new revenue collection measures, which implied a more centralised bureaucracy (gilkes 1975). many, particularly the pastoralists, found the increasingly centralised administration to be offensive as it curtailed some of their movements and freedoms. this led to a conflict that was ignited when a police force was deployed to collect taxes in bale province. on arrival, the police were immediately surrounded and overpowered by the local tax rebels, who until then were no more than a loose formation (gilkes 1975). the rebellion was exacerbated by the formation of a secessionist movement – the western somali liberation front (wslf) – in south-eastern ethiopia. according to gilkes (1975), there were similar movements against taxation and tax collection among pastoralists in the ogaden district of hararge province. however, he also states that “these are impossible to verify since most of the area is closed to outsiders.” this statement indicates the initial stages of the militarisation of the eastern periphery of ethiopia. the state insisted on tax collection as part of a comprehensive effort to assert its authority in these remote areas. the militarisation of the region also coincided with the commencement of oil and gas exploration in the late 1960s. what then developed was the state’s territorialisation of resource control (vandergeest & peluso 1995), where the state mobilised means of coercive enforcement in the bale and hararge provinces. gilkes (1975) notes that, by the early 1970s the ethiopian army’s third division was permanently based in the ogaden district, where it “spen[t] a substantial amount of time collecting tax.” the administrative ambiguities that were created by the bma in the eastern periphery led to suspicions by imperial state authorities regarding the loyalties of some of the borderland populations. thus, the presence of the imperial state in this periphery was first and foremost about making claims to the territory, but also increasingly to claim the population. the territorialisation of central state power and authority thus increased exponentially in the 1960s up to the 1970s and suggests an ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 476 increasingly territorial approach that reflects a range of possible objectives by the imperial state: rulers territorialized state power to achieve a variety of goals. foremost among these was the need to make claims on territory to protect access to people and income from taxes and natural resources, in a world in which only territorial claims were recognised as legitimate. second, territorialization enabled increased efficiency in the collection of regular taxes. a regular money income was necessary to finance permanent militaries, assess the viability of young men for a conscript military, and finance a growing bureaucracy as well as government investments that sustained local production in a context of global competition (vandergeest & peluso 1995). the foregoing was true in ethiopia where the imperial state deployed severe strategies in the administration of its peripheries in order to comply with its ideas of territorial statehood. the ‘modernisation’ of the state, which included an increase in revenue collection and establishing an elaborate bureaucracy, provided both the context and pretext for the militarisation of the eastern periphery. with modernisation as state rhetoric in the post-liberation period, there was much optimism about the transformation of ethiopian society. however, this optimism was thwarted when the apparent transformation failed to live up to expectations. the imperial state adopted a version of modernisation that was implemented within already established political structures of traditional hierarchy (clapham 1969). the focus on centralisation, often framed as modernisation, was underlined by a conceptualisation of territorial control as a key component of political power. there was, therefore, more continuity than transformation in the process of modernising the empire. huntington (1969) outlines what could have occurred in ethiopia as part of political change in a traditional polity, stating: to cope successfully with modernization, a political system must be able, first, to innovate policy, that is, to promote social and economic reform by state action. reform in this context usually means the changing of traditional values and behaviour patterns, the expansion of communications and education, the broadening of loyalties from family, village, and tribe to nation, the secularization of public life, the rationalization of authority structures, the promotion of functionally specific organizations, the substitution of ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 477 achievement criteria for ascriptive ones, and the furthering of a more equitable distribution of material and symbolic resources. this was not to be in ethiopia since the overriding concern was to maintain the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state. the making of territorial claims, protecting resources and collecting taxes, often through violent means, marked the beginning of the challenges that have affected the administration of this periphery since the bma period. the pastoralist populations who formed a majority and other ‘cross-border populations’ were the most affected, as the policies favoured a sedentary lifestyle. the imperial state favoured a sedentary existence particularly for the pastoralist communities whose loyalties the state could not guarantee. to a large extent, a sedentary way of life was achieved in the jijiga area up to the border at togochale where a number of pastoralists became ‘agropastoralists. post-bma patterns of cross-border migration the unstable political climate in hararge and bale provinces and the nationalist fervour that accompanied the formation of the somali republic led to the strengthening of rules that governed cross-border migration in ethiopia. policies on the use of the borders of the empire were decisive in their intention to determine who belonged and who did not. some of the most important decrees that were passed on the use of the border appeared in the negarit gazeta – the ethiopian government gazette. these included the immigration proclamation of 1943 (negarit gazeta vol.1). this was followed by the customs and export duties proclamation of 1943. the customs and duties proclamation also defined illegal activities, such as smuggling, and the penalties they carried. to confirm these proclamations, a former government employee who worked in hararge province in the 1960s and 1970s noted that there were customs posts at the border at togochale, as well as sixty five kilometres further inland at jijiga. elders interviewed by this author all confirmed that more rigid rules and regulations were introduced by the imperial state and, in particular, they noted the regulation of customs duties at the togochale border in the 1960s. customs duties were collected by state agents and went directly to the state and not to local leaders. in the jijigatogochale region, the state rarely used local ‘chiefs’ or balabbats. this is because the central state authority had directly administered this section of hararge province since its official incorporation into the state. therefore, it ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 478 was the northern military-settlers – the neftegna – who oversaw administration, including revenue collection, in the jijiga and togochale areas. interviewees in jijiga noted that imperial authorities were very strict about the use of passports at the border. the state became even firmer following somali independence. this change coincided with the beginning of the territorial claims of the republic on ethiopian territory. imperial rulers attempted to alter the movement of people on this border. however, those crossing the border often flouted these rules since they had always known and participated in unhindered cross-border movement. the conflict between ethiopia and the republic of somalia shaped the territorial (border) discourse for the next few decades. the ethiopian state became increasingly strict at the border by monitoring the movement of people. the start of a refugee problem in the 1960s and 1970s, refugees in sub-saharan africa were mainly a consequence of “explosive internal social and political situations” (milner 2009). in eastern ethiopia, in addition to internal conditions, the ethiopiasomalia conflict of 1964 produced the first wave of refugees across the togochale border. however, this movement was not massive and did not lead to the establishment of refugee camps. in the 1960s, the vast majority of refugees in africa lived in rural settlements located in the host countries (milner 2009). unfortunately there is little documentation on this particular movement of refugees. yet, we can assume that the refugees were, in one way or another, absorbed into the border villages of eastern ethiopia. the movement of large numbers of refugees across state borders has since become a defining characteristic of human migration in the horn of africa and, in the process, shaped the various states from below in quite significant ways. during the 1963-64 ethiopia-somalia conflict, one of the catalysts for the movement of people from eastern ethiopia was the “declaration of state of emergency in the region bordering the republic of somalia” order, (negarit gazeta vol. 3). this order brought the ethiopian army to the region and severely restricted the movement of people, causing many to flee across the border to the somali side. the entire region came under emergency laws as the imperial state struggled to distinguish between those who were fighting against taxation and those that were advocating for secession. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 479 in 1964 the somali republic initiated a ceasefire that remained until the close of the decade before the civilian government in mogadishu was overthrown by a military junta in 1969. the latter later re-visited the 1964 conflict and the unresolved issues thereof, and in the process plunged both ethiopia and the republic into a deadly war that generated the greatest number of refugees. limited cross-border trade there is no indication that the togochale border was involved in extensive cross-border trade during the imperial period. this is partly due to the limited available data on this area during this period. there is evidence, however, of trade in khat, to the british protectorate and beyond. the export taxes of this popular drug are reported to have been high – at two ethiopian dollars per kilo (foreign office 1954). it is likely that this was the only ethiopian export that passed through this border. following somali independence, all forms of cross-border trade were official and heavily regulated. khat remains one of the main ethiopian exports to pass through at togochale. as part of the process of modernisation and centralisation in the 1960s, cross-border trade was standardised and formalised according to strict customs rules and regulations. trade activities that take place outside official channels are perhaps the most common and rooted forms of cross-border trade at togochale. in conversations with people in jijiga, several people had personal stories of smuggling small quantities of goods and products across the border. regardless of strict rules at the border, local populations often managed to utilise the border for their own needs, where they deployed what can be termed as “practical norms” (blundo & de sardan 2006), based on personalised understandings of the meaning of the border. the populations were, overall, aware of the rules and regulations on cross-border trade, however, because of their familiarity with the landscape, they still managed to smuggle a limited number of goods. they were engaged in these activities because the goods were useful for daily consumption and for other more immediate needs. however, the changing official nature of the border had an impact on how the locals experienced it. the transformation of the border from a loosely defined concept during the bma to a more clearly defined entity after the bma, created a situation similar to what nugent (2002) sees as a “dual aspect,” where the border presents both constraint and opportunity. yet, from the perspective of central authorities, the strict measures and practices were a way of constituting a state (mitchell 1991). ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 480 radical centralisation, war and a refugee crisis in order to create and sustain the required levels of centralisation, the military regime that overthrew the ancien regime in 1974 needed to secure its territorial borders. unstable borders not only threatened the revolution, but also the territorially defined state, which was an integral component in the ongoing transformation of ethiopian society. by 1977, the ethiopian state was involved in a military confrontation with the eritreans in the north and at the same time faced increasing threats from somalia in the eastern front. these confrontations heightened the urgency to maintain the territorial integrity of the state. the resolve to maintain territorial control is evinced in a statement that was delivered by lt. col. mengistu haile-mariam to the 14th assembly of heads of state and government of the organisation of african unity (oau) in libreville, gabon, in july 1977: […] the frontiers between ethiopia and somalia are regulated by a series of international treaties. if somalia refuses to recognise these treatises, then somali itself which owes its very existence to a set of international agreements and decisions to which it was not a part must cease to exist. this fact may well be unpalatable to the somali leaders, but is a reality nonetheless. somalis are infiltrating with terrorists recruited, trained and financed by the government in mogadisho for sabotage and subversion in eastern ethiopia […] (ministry of foreign affairs 1977). the combination of internal upheaval in ethiopia and the war with somalia gave rise to the first major wave of refugees in the togochale border area. the current reasons for refugee flows in this region are not always political, but tend to be a combination of social, political and environmental factors. the human tragedy is often compounded by drought and famine. a refugee camp coordinator in jijiga aptly noted this, stating: environmental issues are additional, but it is political issues that are the major factors contributing to refugee inflows. if there was political stability, environmental issues like drought would not force people to flee and become refugees (mugoro 2011a; 2011b). the conciliatory spirit of the 1964 ceasefire between ethiopia and the republic of somalia was short lived. border skirmishes resumed when the dergue came to power in 1974. this was followed by reinforced security at the togochale border, as noted by an elder in jijiga. the elder recalled that after the dergue came to power she set out on a journey to hargeisa in northern ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 481 somalia but was detained at the togochale border. by her own admission, she was crossing the border illegally without the correct documentation. she spent a night in jail and was released the following day after her brother in hargeisa received news of her arrest and intervened. she noted that she was interrogated throughout the night, where she was shown photographs and asked to identify the people in the photos. it appears that the main objective of regulating cross-border movement was the apprehension of those that were deemed to be dissidents; under the new regime, the new role of the border was to contain and eliminate dissent. a recurring theme from the interviewees at jijiga is that everyone needed a passport to cross the border, but not everyone had one or could have one. from 1974 to 1978, immigration policies and practices were radicalised at the togochale border. the period after the war with somalia in 1978 saw the most significant changes in the usage of this border as internal political dynamics in the eastern periphery of ethiopia became radicalised. the militarisation of the region and the increasing tensions between ethiopia and the neighbouring republic of somalia led to stricter measures at the border. these measures were, indeed, a consequence of the radicalised conception of territorial statehood by the central state. this conceptualisation entailed the removal of perceived sources of discontent (clapham 2002), the origins of which the state was only too aware. the state’s security apparatus is reported to have routinely arrested people suspected of engaging in activities deemed hostile to the state, and generally terrorised anyone with contrary nationalist ambitions (hassen 2002). the economic revival of the togochale border the centuries-old objective of gaining access to the coast by successive ethiopian rulers has once again taken centre stage since 1991. the coming to power of the ethiopian people’s revolutionary democratic front (eprdf) ushered in an era of economic renewal in ethiopia, one not seen since the postwar period in the 1950s. changes in the domestic and regional political landscape called for a pragmatic approach on the part of the ethiopian state vis-à-vis its new neighbour, somaliland. in 1993, ethiopia became a landlocked country following eritrean independence, making it the most populous landlocked country in africa. ethiopia needed additional coastal outlets that, according to clapham (2006), can in principle be attained through any of its neighbours. however, political necessities are an ever-present reality in inter-state relations in this region. ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 482 thus, in reality, ethiopia did not have many coastal options. in addition to the djibouti port (closest and overused) and mombasa (much further away), addis ababa was compelled to consider the opportunities presented by its new neighbour. however, by the somaliland authorities’ own admission, the berbera port lacks the adequate infrastructure to be a serious competitor to djibouti and mombasa. with very little to lose, somaliland has made several economic bilateral arrangements with ethiopia. however, its lack of international recognition makes formal arrangements with neighbouring countries a challenge. yet, ethiopia and somaliland have developed amicable relations, the political challenges notwithstanding. ethiopia was the first country to have permanent diplomatic representation in hargeisa, with ethiopian airlines one of the first to fly into the capital. yet, to the frustration of officials in hargeisa, ethiopia has not issued formal recognition. ethiopia’s reluctance to recognise somaliland is related to the unwillingness of authorities in addis to be seen to encourage secessionist states but it also has to do with the fact that “ethiopia rides several horses in the somali regional calculus […]” (jazhbay 2007). the extent of the cordial relations between ethiopia and somaliland is reflected at their mutual border at togochale and the surrounding ethiopian borderlands. the regulation of cross-border trade flows appears to be one of the main reasons for the presence of the ethiopian state at this border, to collect customs revenue. we can distinguish between unofficial and official trade. within these two categories, we will further differentiate between largescale and small-scale trade. in their 2002 cross-border trade study, tekan and azeze (2002) noted that, unofficial imports and exports abound in the border areas between eastern ethiopia and the neighbouring somali territories, and that the ethiopian government calls this trade ‘contraband.’ small and large-scale official and unofficial cross-border trade is present at togochale. this trade involves livestock, khat, some grains and cereals, coffee and second hand clothing. the unofficial trade of these goods is sometimes also referred to as informal cross-border trade, but is not always illegal. according to a united nations economic commission for africa (uneca) report, informal cross-border trade occurs when business activities cross borders based on supply and demand imperatives (uneca 2012). informal or unofficial trade at togochale is regulated by government import/export licenses, which are issued for fixed commodities to individual traders. some of ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 483 these licences were, at the time of research, capped at two thousand dollars a month for people who live in togochale and surrounding areas. the stimulant khat dominates both official and unofficial cross-border trade at togochale. the demand for khat is overwhelming on the somali side of the border and the supply appears endless on the ethiopian side. in january 2012, cross-border trade in khat was estimated at one million ethiopian birr a day, an amount approximately the equivalent of fifty thousand us dollars at the time. this was an official estimate, based on the trade that was accounted for. the illegal trade is said to be equally profitable. the economy of the hararjijiga-togochale area is dominated by khat. both largeand small-scale informal trade in khat is present in the border area, as well as in the nearby towns of jijiga and harar. next to khat, livestock trade features prominently in cross-border trade activities at togochale. sheep, cattle, goats and camels are the main types of livestock that are exported across the border. central to this trade are the extensive somali networks that control the trade. the trade is regulated by intricate systems that have been developed by various somali clans. indeed, large-scale livestock trade is dominant not only in the eastern ethiopian borderlands, but in the entire horn of africa sub-region. for the best way to witness the intricate trans-border trade in eastern ethiopia, one needs only to visit the babile camel and cattle market. babile market is the biggest in the eastern part of ethiopia and is strategically located on a major trade route. babile is located on what majid (2010) calls the “harar-jijiga-hargeisaberbera corridor.” this village-town is located on the main road between harar and jijiga, where the harar highlands give way to the jijiga plains. it is arguable that informal cross-border trade features high on the trade that takes place across the togochale border. the numbers have increased exponentially since the early 1990s. as mentioned previously, this has much to do with the political changes that have taken place in the region. the current ethiopian government has prioritised and accelerated economic development in the country, and this is reflected in the country’s economic statistics. it is also observable at the togochale border, which witnesses a high traffic volume. a number of borderland inhabitants are engaged in many sectors of informal cross-border trade on which they rely for their livelihood. conclusion ahmr, vol.2 no2, may-august 2016 484 this paper explored patterns of cross-border movement – namely migration, refugee movement and cross-border trade – since the 1960s in eastern ethiopia. the paper used archival material and secondary sources to construct a historical narrative of strong state presence at the togochale border of ethiopia. in doing this, the paper argued and demonstrated that the notable presence of the ethiopian state at this border is a consequence of how the ethiopian state conceptualises the notion of territorial statehood. the ethiopian state has a long history of statehood, which is much longer than most african countries. this is a result of the unique processes of state formation that unfolded beginning in the nineteenth century. from this experience, the peripheries became central to the conceptualisation of territorial statehood in ethiopia. even in the face of many challenges to ethiopian territory, successive rulers prioritised the maintenance of the territorial integrity of the state. this meant paying close attention to the country’s borders. this explains why the ethiopian states’ relationship with its territory, and borders in particular, appears to go against the african norm of limited state presence at the border. the paper problematised the lack of history and context in contemporary analyses of african statehood. in particular, the paper rejected the traditional approaches to statehood that are rooted in weberian sociology of the state. these approaches frown upon forms of statehood that depart from the weberian framework. to overcome this limitation, the paper employed an interpretive approach and a qualitative methodology that combines historical and ethnographic methods. and by using a constructivist inspired methodology that is inductive, interpretive and historical, the paper contributes to the body of knowledge that seeks to provide historical context for contemporary processes of state formation in africa. a blanket approach to understanding african territorial statehood does not get us far since it is often embedded in a singular colonial narrative, which then impedes our ability to understand atypical cases such as ethiopia. the paper has demonstrated that a country like ethiopia developed its own specific conception of territorial statehood, which led to the establishment of a unique relationship between the state and its borders. references asiwaju, a.i. 1985. partitioned 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(eds.). africa in the new international order, rethinking state sovereignty and regional security. boulder: lynne rienner publishers, pp. 56-68. zewde, b. 1991. a history of modern ethiopia, 1855-1974. athens: ohio university press. 94 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 externalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the european union victor h mlambo university of zululand email: halavico@yahoo.com this paper examines how african migration to the european union (eu) has become externalized and securitized and the implications this has for migration management for both the eu and africa. to accomplish this, the paper employed a qualitative research approach which reviewed current literature on the topic under study. it found that the externalization and securitization of african migration to the eu have failed to prioritize and address the different socio-economic and political conditions that are driving irregular migration. additionally, externalization and securitization as policy responses do not stop irregular african migration; rather, they prolong the misery of migrants who are at the mercy of smugglers who prey on their desperation. the paper concludes that migration management between the eu and africa needs to be anchored on policies that address the core ‘push’ factors driving irregular migration from africa, rather than policies which do not stop migration (even though they have slowed it down) but rather indirectly empower smugglers and leave considerable room for the abuse of migrants. keywords: africa, development, management, migrants 95 introduction there have been growing debates not only on african irregular migration to the european union (eu) as a phenomenon but also on how it could be reduced. since the 1970s, more than 2.5 million migrants have crossed the mediterranean sea to enter europe without visas (iom, 2018). however, the attacks in march 2004 in madrid and on 7 july 2005 in london became a defining moment as to how the eu responded to migration. even though the number of africans arriving irregularly at eu shores has been on the decline, this has not coincided with the decline in anti-immigrant attitudes in some eu states. for ivanova (2016), the visegrád group (czech republic, hungary, poland and slovakia) has at times, incorporating the concept of state sovereignty, vehemently disagreed with the european commission’s directive how migration ought to be handled collectively. the eu does not operate in a vacuum, and thus the european commission has to take into consideration the interests of member states. despite a decline in those arriving (over a million in 2015 and 140 000 by june 2019) (mbiyozo, 2019), eu member states have been torn apart by bitter disagreements over how to collectively manage irregular migration without infringing on the territorial sovereignty of member states while also adhering to international human rights practices (farrell, 2015). the eu (through the european commission) has attempted to pressure africa (majority sending countries of migrants) to cooperate on migration management. for example, the eu introduced a new visa code which will continue to regulate the short-stay entry of third-country nationals. the new visa code introduced restrictive processes for countries that fail to cooperate on readmissions. however, the african union (au) and most african states say that returns must be voluntary and people cannot be forced to go to countries against their will (mbiyozo, 2019). the above reflects that the current migration and refugee crisis in europe requires an understanding of the different drivers of migration and how they can be addressed collectively. it is not a question of opening or closing borders, but rather, there is a need to understand the complex and overlapping relationship between forced and economic drivers of migration to europe as this can better shape an appropriate policy response to the phenomenon. this paper discusses the extent to which eu initiatives (securitization and externalization) have been successful in reducing this irregular flow which has been deemed an influx by eu media. the common narrative has been that socio-economic and political factors are drivers of irregular migration; however, such narratives have missed the point by not focusing on the often-ignored factors driving migration. this paper is based on a review of the literature on irregular african migration to the eu. the paper aims to provide a sound basis for a more evidence-based discussion of this highly debated and politicized issue, i.e., what drives african migration to the eu, how has the eu responded and how effective have these responses been. irregular african migration to the eu as a process flows into europe along land and sea routes under the control of human smugglers, and migrants in the process face further externalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the eu 96 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 marginalization and exploitation. the rest of the paper is organized as follows: after this introduction, the paper reviews eu migration management policies such as the eu charter, the eu trust fund and the new pact relating to migration. subsequently, it discusses securitization and externalization as policy reactions to irregular african migration, their effectiveness, shortcomings and finally, how the african union needs to play a more important role in the quest to reduce irregular migration to the eu. this is followed by the policy implications and conclusion of the paper. many african migrants who try to reach europe (using the north african route which cuts through libya) by boat are often intercepted by the libyan coast guard and handed over to criminal gangs that traffic them. nearly 20,000 people have been detained in libya according to amnesty international. therefore, it becomes imperative for this paper to examine whether eu policies with regards to migration management have contributed to the abuse and deaths of migrants. eu charter of fundamental rights the eu charter of fundamental rights is a legally binding treaty for member states which outlines fundamental rights for everyone within the borders of the eu, regardless of their migration status. however, the eu does not exist in a vacuum or operate detachedly from the member states or the people. the european commission is a politically independent institution that proposes legislation, policies and programs of action. it represents the collective interests of member states (laine, 2020). it is also responsible for implementing the decisions of the european parliament, the voice of the people, and the council (of ministers), the voice of the member states. there is also the european council, comprising of the heads of state or government of all the eu member states. it is the highest-level policy-making body in the eu, which defines the overall political direction and priorities of the union, but it does not exercise any legislative functions. while it is the european commission that initiates procedures and proposes new laws, it is the european parliament and council that adopt them. members of the european parliament are directly elected by eu citizens to represent their interests and the council consists of government ministers, i.e., elected officials, from all the eu member states (laine, 2020). however, the issues of irregular migration have divided opinion in the eu, with disagreements blocking agreements on reforms of eu asylum laws and fair distribution of responsibility for processing migrants and asylum seekers entering and already present in eu territory. the focus remains on keeping migrants and asylum seekers away from the eu, including through problematic proposals for offshore processing and migration cooperation with non-eu countries with fewer resources, human rights abuses and less capacity to process asylum claims. while european attempts to ‘secure’ or ‘protect’ its borders have reduced irregular migration from africa, considerable efforts are needed to address the factors facilitating irregular african migration. these revolve around understanding the drivers of migration, enacting policy (jointly by eu and africa) to address these drivers. apart from policy development concerning 97 addressing the drivers of migration, from an african perspective, good governance and economic development are key necessities in the continent’s drive to reduce irregular migration. framing migration as a problem in the eu was a result of the upsurge in antimigrant and right-wing political parties, and thus migration was observed as a border security issue that needed to be addressed (laine, 2020). seeking to debunk the common misconceptions about migration and suggest an alternative narrative that is based on mutual interests, this paper observes that from the onset, the eu and the au acknowledged that cooperation is greatly needed to address the problem. however, contentions have arisen about how this cooperation ought to take place. for the eu, securitization and externalization initiatives have received their share of criticisms, for either not doing enough to help those in need or doing too much in trying to protect its borders. the eu trust fund for africa the european union emergency trust fund (eutf for africa) was established as a mechanism to address the root causes of instability, forced displacement and irregular migration and to contribute to better migration management in africa (castillejo, 2016). the eu trust fund was born out of the implementation of the action plan adopted at the valletta summit. the eu committed 1.8 billion euros from the eu budget and the european development fund (edf), to be complemented by contributions from the eu member states and other donors (hunt, 2015). for the eu, irregular migration from african and the middle east, coupled with the rise in rightwing populism, warranted an intervention to stem the inflow of migrants. the eu trust fund was anchored on soliciting cooperation from third parties through financial support. programs under the eu trust fund are spread across three regions in africa (involving twenty-six partner countries) mainly the sahel and lake chad, the horn of africa and north africa (cangas and knoll, 2016). the eu trust fund undertakes a number of activities related to strengthening the rule of law, creating economic and educational opportunities, building better governance, and ensuring the effective and sustainable return, readmission and reintegration of irregular migrants not qualifying for protection. the support of the eu trust fund in africa requires a firm commitment to supporting capacity-building of third countries in the field of migration and border management, as well as to the stabilization and development of these regions of africa. the eu with its financial support solicits cooperation from african states who are most fragile and those most affected by migration. cangas and knoll (2016) explain that the eu trust fund is anchored on four types of interventions. firstly, economic programs, which are focused on creating employment and also to integrate returnees. secondly, resilience projects, which are meant to improve food security and provide services for local communities and refugees. thirdly, migration management, which is geared towards fighting irregular migration and smuggling, focusing on return, readmission, international protection and legal miexternalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the eu 98 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 gration. fourthly, governance and security, which is premised on the need for good governance, through strengthening the rule of law, security and development, border management and conflict-prevention systems. however, pouring billions of euros into countries which are characterized by political instability, human rights abuses and disregard for civil liberties, raises questions about the eu’s commitment to the respect and support for international human rights. therefore, this means that the lack of clarity over funding could mean that eu aid money is repackaged as border security with no development goals. moreover, tackling ‘the root causes of irregular migration’ is a lengthy, non-linear, unpredictable process, depending on many more contextual factors than support from financial and technical development partners. however, the narrative around the eu trust fund for africa suggests that aid can buy partner countries’ cooperation (in readmission and strict border management), and hence curb migration flows to the eu (cangas and knoll 2016). while the eu trust fund envisions a cooperative framework with regards to migration management, the eu however, with its financial muscle, has the upper hand with regards to policy development and soliciting cooperation through financial means. the eu migration pact on 23 september 2020, the european commission announced it’s new pact on migration and asylum, which is underpinned by strengthening border security (kirisci et al., 2020). the new pact (european commission, 2020) consists of three layers. firstly, the pact advocates for the development of policies to keep people in their countries. however, such policies ignore the positive benefits of migration, in both europe and countries of origin. in addition, the investments in addressing the ‘root causes’ of migration within these partnership agreements have, to date, done little to prevent onward movement (kirisci et al., 2020). from an african perspective, abebe and mbiyozo (2020) explain that the increased emphasis in the new pact on migrant returns is contrary to africa’s position and could affect negotiations around the post-cotonou partnership agreement (acp) and the joint africa-eu strategy. even though the number of those arriving in the eu from africa has decreased, the eu has turned its attention to returning migrants who do not have legal rights to remain. thirteen of the 16 priority countries under the european commission’s 2016 new partnership framework are in africa (abebe and mbiyozo, 2020). the new pact aims to increase returns through strengthening border control, signing returns agreements with third countries and allowing eu member states to choose between resettling refugees and sponsoring returns. however, african states have resisted intensified returns policies, maintaining that returns must be voluntary. the second layer of the new pact involves the investment in increased border security and deterrence. from an african perspective, incorporating the eu’s global approach to migration and mobility, processes such as the africa-eu migration, mobility and employment (mme) partnership, the rabat process, the rome declaration and programme for 2015-2017, the khartoum process, and the sahel regional action plan 2015-2020 99 are all processes that are geared towards strengthening border security (european commission, 2015). the third layer of the pact proposes rules to resolve the longstanding challenge within the eu to achieve a more balanced distribution of responsibilities and promote solidarity among eu members in dealing with asylum seekers and refugees. this has however, been met with considerable rebellion from within the eu (abebe and mbiyozo, 2020). critics of the pact argue that it is so inward-oriented that it fails to recognize the policy implications of the dire state of forced migration globally. secondly, the pact makes little allowance for how the covid-19 pandemic is going to impact the eu’s migration and asylum policies, since the pandemic has profoundly affected the capacity of host countries to manage the presence of refugees and ensure their protection (kirisci et al., 2020). from an african perceptive, the call by the eu’s new pact on migration and asylum for revamping partnerships with third countries is reminiscent of the eu’s long-standing policy of externalizing the cost and responsibility of managing its external borders. critiquing this approach, abebe and mbiyozo (2020) contend that cooperating with third countries with regards to migration by tying policy issues such as development assistance, trade concessions, security, education, and visa facilitation has long been criticized as asymmetrical. the pact takes this relationship to a new coercive level by suggesting the possibility of “apply[ing] restrictive visa measures” to third countries unwilling to be cooperative (european commission, 2020). securitization and externalization of african migration migration control is typically seen as a natural part of legitimate nation-states’ exercise of sovereign power. external border surveillance is, according to the european commission, a necessity because of the relaxed internal borders within the schengen region (palm, 2020: 10-14). contrary to eu media reporting, labeling the arrival of african migrants as an invasion, such reports fail to take into consideration that most african migrants move within the continent – they are not overwhelming europe or the rest of the world. african migration to the eu is complex and characterized by complex factors which present numerous dangers to migrants. a study by the united nations development programme (undp) (2019) explains that irregular migrants who made the fraught journey from africa to europe would do so again despite knowing the dangers of the trip. the report further reveals that getting a job was not the only motivation to move, not all irregular migrants were ‘poor’ in africa, nor had lower education levels. additionally, 58 per cent were either employed or in school at the time of their departure, with the majority of those working earning competitive wages. even though the undp study shows that economic need was not the main driver of migration, other studies (dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015; marie-laurence, 2016; mlambo, 2017; giménez-gómez et al., 2019) argue that key to migration is the need to maximize economic opportunities that do not exist in countries of origin. nevertheless, this paper argues that tackling irregular migration requires a considerexternalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the eu 100 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 able understanding of the other drivers of migration (political factors, family ties, socio-cultural determinations, etc.) beyond economic consideration. irregular immigration from sub-saharan africa has created considerable tensions between the eu, north african countries and sub-saharan states. from general observation, north african governments seem to have undoubtedly bowed to eu pressure and were swift in adopting dominant european public discourses on ‘combating illegal migration’ (dagot, 2020). however, some north african states openly opposed several elements of these policies, partly because they were seen as reinforcing their position as transit countries, e.g., being reluctant to readmit large numbers of irregular migrants from third (sub-saharan) countries and establishing offshore ‘processing centers’ for immigrants and asylum seekers. nevertheless, the paper considers what informs these securitization and externalization initiatives. the question may seem inconsequential, but the migration to europe has not always been a problem. in fact, in the 1950s and 1960s, migration was seen mainly as an extra workforce in most western european countries. however, today, migrants are viewed as the ‘other’ and incompatible with eu culture. sensationalist media reporting gave rise to right-wing populism and sadly, political campaigning in the eu on anti-immigrant slogans have succeeded in sowing more discord across the continent, with many centrist and liberal politicians having difficulty formulating a response (hameleers et al, 2017). the rise and popularity of the far-right in the eu and ways in which they use the securitization of migration and the alleged threat migrants pose to ‘their’ state, economic and ontological security and identity, as a conduit to justify and legitimize their anti-immigration, racist and xenophobic rhetoric and praxis are not based on current migration patterns from africa to the eu (lazaridis and wadia, 2015). reinforcing the notion that africa–eu migration is misunderstood, jobson (2017) reasons that europe’s panic over migration alienated many of its african partners, this driven by media-fueled perceptions of european countries being ‘swarmed’ by africans, arouse deep-rooted insecurity about national identity, mistrust of the ‘other’, racism, and xenophobic attacks, thus giving way to securitization and externalization of african migration. it is imperative to acknowledge that the externalization and securitization policies are not a new phenomenon; rather they are a response to the increasing rates of migration worldwide which have evoked nationalist politics. examples have been observed in the usa/mexico border area, with regards to irregular migration. they have also been observed in the eu’s cooperation with the middle east, failing to stem the outflow of migrants from syria, afghanistan and iraq. in africa, west and north africa have been central to the eu’s securitization and externalization policies and these policies have become entrenched, largely due to the financial support that comes with them. border agencies and police officers in cooperating countries (libya, mali, niger, and chad) have received training in border operation and migration management and hence this has allowed for the consolidation of securitization and externalization policies. although the eu and many of its member states, have 101 committed themselves to protecting the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, such commitment has been overshadowed by the eu’s prioritization of restrictions rather than addressing the drivers of migration. populism reinforced the securitization and externalization as key to curbing migration and even though these approaches have reduced irregular african migration to the eu, they have also contradicted the eu’s commitment to protecting refugees and asylum seekers (laine 2018: 290). this contradiction has been driven by the ever-changing public and political opinions with regards to migrants in the eu. for example, german chancellor angela merkel’s open-door policy, which allowed approximately a million refugees and migrants, faced backlash and forced the german government to backtrack on the policy. this suggests that irregular migration has been seen as being negative within the eu, which has caused a lot of anxieties. sadly, these anxieties have become intertwined with deep insecurities, triggered by originally unrelated societal changes, such as the precarization of the labor market and dissolving social security (laine 2018: 292). consequently, laine (2018) argues that the debate and public opinions concerning immigration have not been discussed in isolation; rather they have been in tandem with the above issues. walls, whether on paper or on the ground, may seem effective, but seldom are. once a wall is erected, people will soon try to cross it and this creates a fencing self-referential – a vicious cycle – which feeds itself, and sadly, enforcement pressures on third countries can increase the difficulty of crossing borders for asylum seekers and refugees as well as the ability to seek or access procedures for determining refugee status (laine, 2018). arguably, the rise of populism has fed into the nationalistic ambitions of rightwing parties. to an extent, this has side-lined the eu’s commitment to freedom, democracy, respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law. this is evident in the humanitarian and moral appeals that have been consumed by debates and outright fear-mongering about economic security and national identity (kupe, 2019). moreover, nations that have been at the forefront of developing rights‐sensitive standards and procedures for assisting and processing asylum seekers within their jurisdictions, have suddenly created barriers that prevent asylum seekers from setting foot on their territories (palm, 2020: 12). as a result, migrants have effectively been prevented from even attempting to undertake the journey to the eu, let alone reaching eu shores, seemingly freeing the eu member states from the human rights obligations that they have accepted. the media reporting on the inflow of irregular african migrants has been overstated, partly because populists, anti-migrant parties and the eu media have been able to frame african migration as a threat to the values and traditions of the eu, discounting the fact that most african migrants migrate continentally. this paper therefore argues that the media can also provoke controversy, for strategic editorial and economic reasons, even without any particular social need for it. controversy which generally forces political parties and those in charge to take a stance on certain issues, notably immigration and the threat of invasion by the ‘other’ in externalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the eu 102 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 europe, has imposed itself into the media and political sphere. laine (2020), palm (2020), moreno‐lax (2018), and mcauliffe and ruhs (2018) observe that there is a strong causal connection between the eu’s exercise of power and the many lives lost in the mediterranean sea. firstly, the eu closed legal avenues of entry, which compelled migrants to undertake risky irregular journeys and rely on human traffickers and smugglers to relocate. secondly, extreme measures were undertaken to block the remaining irregular exit paths and detain those who did not utilize heavily surveilled borders. as a result, both casualties at sea and atrocities in detention camps were foreseeable harms that, with proper measures, could have been avoided. while the eu is within its sovereign right to protect itself from what it deems security-related threats, which are driven by africa’s failure to reduce irregular migration, it is also duty-bound to protect migrants. palm (2020: 9-18, citing altman and wellman, 2011) asserts that sovereign states have, according to them, foremost obligations towards themselves and their citizens and immigration control as a matter of self‐determination, and while the deaths and abuse of migrants in detention centers are condemnable, africa has left the eu no choice but to unilaterally prioritize the protection of its integrity. this paper however, refutes such assertions and contends that while protecting one’s integrity is important, securitization and externalization are not the right way to go about it, as they do not stop migration, and, in many cases, they have a reverse effect. de haas (2008) observes that there are two problems associated with securitization and externalization. firstly, increasing border controls has led to a diversification of trans-saharan migration routes and trans-mediterranean crossing points and in turn, has led to an unintended increase in the area that eu countries have to monitor to ‘combat’ irregular migration. secondly, increasing surveillance has led to the professionalization of smuggling methods. smugglers now use larger and faster custom-made boats and zodiacs. additionally, the huge length of land and maritime borders, coupled with the widespread corruption among border guards and other officials, make it virtually impossible to prevent people from crossing. as more and more restrictions are introduced, this benefits smugglers because it increases the need (and the cost) for their services. every time a fence goes up, access to the european dream gets a little more expensive (abebe, 2019). securitization and externalization have failed to take into cognizance the plethora of drivers of migration and do not address structural inequality, which means that marginalized individuals and communities will continue to migrate (herbert, 2019). furthermore, the eu with its securitization and externalization of african migration has not only failed to dissuade migrants from taking the strenuous journey, but it has also resulted in unintended consequences, with migrants being abused and held in inhumane detention centers libya; centers which are ironically funded by the eu (andersson, 2016; abebe 2019). disputably, externalization and securitization, coupled with populism, have allowed for the migration policy to become an increasingly politicized issue. benedicto 103 and brunet (2018: 17-18) argue that the far-right have manipulated public opinion to create irrational fears of refugees. this xenophobia sets up mental walls in people, who then demand physical walls. this is because externalization is often deceptively framed as either a security imperative or a life-saving humanitarian endeavor (or both) even though such responses to migration pose serious human rights concerns and threaten the integrity of the international refugee protection system (frelick et al., 2016: 193). even though initiatives of externalization and securitization involve investing funds in technology-related equipment and ensuring the training of local law enforcement are welcomed, their association with human right abuses has cast doubt over their effectiveness. however, externalization and securitization do not take into consideration the drivers of migration from africa, hence, the focus should be on addressing the root causes of migration first rather than narrowing the focus on border capabilities. theo francken, belgium’s secretary of state for asylum and migration, revealed that the eu should stimulate economic growth and employment, to boost the buying power of the african population (politico, 2018). michael clemens, codirector of migration at the center for global development, posits that no amount of financial assistance can stop migration. he maintains that the eu should rather invest in creating skills among potential migrants in africa — specific skills that the eu needs. paul collier, an economics professor at the school of government at oxford university, argues that europe should indeed spend €6 billion to bring jobs to africa through investment by the european investment bank which would support european firms in africa, thus helping reduce irregular african migration (politico, 2018). this paper agrees that while european investments would contribute positively towards the development of the continent, they would, however, find it cumbersome to address the drivers of migration (political instability, porous borders, corruption, smuggling and trafficking syndicates), hence irregular migration will likely persist, although in far fewer numbers. furthermore, rather than promoting the externalization of migration controls, the eu and other donors could also increase support to regional and international organizations that provide or promote the protection of migrants’ rights, including the rights of asylum seekers, in third countries and countries of origin, especially considering that borders in africa have many entry and exit points (frelick et al., 2016: 195); hence the question of how to strengthen the capability of one entry point without neglecting the other. the au, and by extension african states, are important role players. the au argues that migration is inevitable, and needs to be better governed in an integrated manner through comprehensive, human-rights based and gender-responsive national migration strategies and policies (au, 2018). however, the deaths of african migrants in the mediterranean sea coupled with their abuse in libyan detention camps (funded by the eu) have become a thorny issue for the continental body, giving rise to the need to address irregular migration through policy cooperation with the eu. externalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the eu 104 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 moreover, criticisms against the au have dwelt on the notion that expecting the au to take the lead in curbing irregular migration is quite unrealistic, since within the au many decisions are made, but very few are implemented. this lack of consensus, therefore, allows the eu to enforce its externalization and securitization policies, even though such initiatives may not be largely welcomed. palm (2020: 20) contends that today privileged nations are, due to their affluence, capable of almost hermetically sealing their external borders using massive investments in sophisticated surveillance systems and financial means to reach agreements with transit countries that secure their interests in keeping ‘aliens’ out. however, rather than keeping ‘aliens’ out and hoping that poor countries can help in stemming irregular migration if rich countries want fewer immigrants, their best shot might be to help poor countries become rich so that fewer people feel the urge to leave. this is not to say, however, that africa has not done anything to reduce irregular migration. the european commission (2015) notes that the continent has cooperated with the eu on a number of policies such as the migration eu expertise (mieux), eu migration and mobility dialogue, the dakar strategy, european-wide african diaspora platform for development, and addressing mixed migration flows in eastern africa. nevertheless, criticism against africa has been premised on the notion that it is the eu which takes the lead on these initiatives. it is the eu which comes up with policies to stem migration (rightly so, because africa does not consider migration to be a threat, but rather as a way to boost continental integration development), often pouring money into the continent to solicit the cooperation of african countries. african countries have little interest in putting in place barriers to stop migration; hence, it makes sense for the eu to intervene as it observes irregular migration as a threat to its sovereignty. this paper also argues that irregular migration to the eu is not an isolated incident. since independence, the role of external actors has, of course, destabilized africa. unwarranted interventions from a socio-political perspective have further complicated the political and economic challenges african governments face today. interventions constantly overlap, with one crisis influencing another, marking the never-ending nature of foreign intervention, especially militarily, which gives way to conflict, forced displacement and migration. while both the eu and au are eager for a practical and jointly-undertaken solution, it is not going to be that simple. as a point of departure, african and european leaders must now lay the foundations for such a relationship by agreeing on a forward-looking strategy that addresses structural imbalances, harnesses the benefits of migration, and delivers tangible benefits to their citizens. the first step to address such structural imbalances is to ensure adequate opportunities for young people who are at the core of migration. altogether, the eu should help africa strengthen democratic and transparent processes and institutions in africa which will improve the socio-economic and political environment. 105 policy implications and concluding remarks this paper was not an empirical study but rather it relied extensively on the available literature to draw its conclusions. the policy implications and concluding remarks are therefore based on literary works that the paper has summarized. externalization and securitization have focused on the need to reduce irregular migration to the eu but have not addressed the issues driving these migratory patterns. this signals that externalization and securitization do not speak to the current realities on the ground in an african context. political instability across the continent has given way to the consolidation of smugglers, who fuel irregular migration. the discourse on irregular african migration to the eu has ignored the observation that most african migrants migrate within the continent. while marie-laurence (2016) asserts that europe remains the main destination for african-born migrants who seek to maximize the economic opportunities that may be available, the european media has failed to take note of vast and increased migration within the continent. the media has instead focused on framing migration from africa as a threat, even though most africans migrate within the continent. these migration patterns are informed and driven by an array of factors which include economics, family, networks and individual choices. in its quest to reduce these irregular inflows, the eu has opted to externalize and securitize migration. this paper maintains that for the eu to reduce migration, there is a need for it to understand the different drivers of migration rather than believing externalization and securitization are a one-size-fits-all solution. the rise of populism linked to migration has changed how liberal parties view migration. under pressure from right-wing populists, they have sought to externalize and securitize migration even in the face of human rights violations. the eu media also contributes to the observations of migrants as thugs and incompatible with eu culture, leading to the consolidation of racism and the ‘othering’ of migrants (wodak and krzyżanowski, 2017). even though african countries have committed to working with the eu to reduce migration, the financial imbalance favors the eu to be the major player, which often side-lines african states. finally, the external intervention in the affairs of africa has also indirectly contributed to population displacement and citizens becoming refugees. migration is an ever-evolving phenomenon and putting a complete stop to it is virtually impossible. while there is no quick fix to this situation, this paper contends that from an eu perspective, there is a need to think beyond the funding of securitization and externalization. the eu needs long-term, sustainable alliances with key partners — and with those in africa in particular. for these to be meaningful, cooperation should go beyond migration, as it is a consequence of much broader shared challenges, including geopolitical instability, demographic developments, climate change, and socioeconomic issues. secondly, while eu developmental aid to africa is needed, another form of action would be to prepare migrants for work in europe. the reality is that there is no amount of financial assistance that can stop migration; hence, the eu externalization and securitization as policy responses 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migration to the eu https://issafrica.org/iss-today/pressure-grows-on-africa-to-take-back-its-migrants https://issafrica.org/iss-today/pressure-grows-on-africa-to-take-back-its-migrants https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/wmr_2018_en.pdf https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/wmr_2018_en.pdf https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12224 https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-can-stop-african-migration-symposium-experts/ https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-can-stop-african-migration-symposium-experts/ https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/news-centre/news/2019/despite-dangers--majority-of-irregul https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/news-centre/news/2019/despite-dangers--majority-of-irregul https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/news-centre/news/2019/despite-dangers--majority-of-irregul 6 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 probing the context of vulnerability: zimbabwean migrant women’s experiences of accessing public health care in south africa victoria m mutambara* and maheshvari naidu** * university of kwazulu-natal, south africa ** university of kwazulu-natal, south africa south africa has a professed inclusive health policy that articulates that everyone is entitled to have access to health-care services, regardless of nationality and citizenship. however, several challenges exist for migrant women in south africa, in accessing this health care. this paper, based on the experiences of zimbabwean migrant women residing in durban, focuses on their experiences of seeking and accessing health-care services in south africa. using a qualitative study design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 purposively sampled female participants aged 25–49 years. this paper employs a structural-violence analysis to probe the underlying factors that make it challenging for zimbabwean migrant women to access public health-care services in south africa. the findings of this paper highlight that the lack of valid immigration documentation, often makes it challenging for participants to access services from public hospitals and clinics. the findings also reveal that the state of the south african public health-care system predisposes migrant women to health risks. keywords: gender, migration, health access, violence, south africa 7 introduction the economic meltdown and worsening levels of poverty in zimbabwe led to a significant increase in the number of women migrating to south africa from 2005 to 2010 (crush et al., 2015: 367). a southern african migration programme (samp) survey in 1997 found that 61% of zimbabwean migrants were male and 39% were female (crush et al., 2015: 367). this suggested that there was an increase in the number of women migrating to south africa compared with other countries in southern africa. this gives us reason to ‘speculate’ that the numbers could have increased a decade later because of the economic crisis that resulted in large numbers of people migrating out of zimbabwe. most zimbabwean women are now moving across borders independently of their spouses and partners in search of better and sustainable livelihoods (dzingirai et al., 2015: 13; mbiyozo, 2019). whilst some have valid immigration documents, a large number of these women are undocumented, which heightens their vulnerability to various structures of violence (bloch, 2010; rutherford, 2020: 172). their migration pathways and experiences are distinctive from those of the men as they are more vulnerable to gender(ed) inequalities and pervasive violations. migrant women are at a heightened risk of multiple forms of violence that include sexual and gender-based violence, exploitation, forced labor, and health vulnerabilities (see sigsworth et al., 2008; fuller, 2010; von kitzing, 2017; mutambara and maheshvari, 2019; rutherford, 2020). in spite of south africa’s constitutional provisions that everyone has the right to access health care, migrants and refugees encounter multiple challenges (munyewende et al., 2011; crush and tawodzera, 2014). this paper aims to contribute to existing contentions on the challenges that migrants and refugees experience when accessing health care in south africa. it particularly examines the extent to which underlying social and institutional factors of vulnerability make it challenging for zimbabwean migrant women to access public health care in south africa. the paper argues that when accessing public health care, migrant and refugee women are predisposed to various structures of violence that can easily be misconstrued as challenges that uniquely affect migrants and refugees only. the negative experiences of migrant women in public hospitals and clinics cannot all be attributed to their identity as foreigners. instead, migrant and refugee women are also adversely affected by the ‘crisis of care’ that affects any patient (citizen or foreigner) using the public health-care system in south africa. contextual background health security and legislature south africa is one of the countries in the world that has some of the most progressive laws and policies regarding migrants and refugees (see queue, 2015). however, the implementation of these policies has not been seamless and straightforward, and the immigration act of 2002 (rsa, 2002) contradicts the other overarching laws zimbabwean migrant women’s experiences of accessing public health care in south africa 8 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 that note that health-care facilities can assist undocumented migrants and refugees requiring treatment. under the ambit of the united nations charter (un, 1945), the universal declaration of human rights was adopted as a resolution. this step strengthened the principle that every human being is entitled to inalienable rights and as such spoke to the questions of how states should treat their citizens as well as nationals from other countries (bloch, 2010; scheinin, 2016). article 25 of the united nations universal declaration of human rights posits that: everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control (un, 1948). the experiences of migrant women in accessing health care in south africa can be situated within the framework of the human security paradigm. the term ‘human security’ gained momentum in the 1990s at the end of the cold war between russia and the united states of america. it was officially coined in the 1994 united nations development report and it proffered the definition which encapsulated the protection of all human beings from both physical and non-physical threats (undp, 1994). emerging work on human security has broadened the definition of human security to encompass “securing people of their physical safety, their economic wellbeing, respect for their dignity and worth as human beings and the protection of their human rights and fundamental freedom” (dzimiri and runhare, 2012: 193). the concept of human security is based on human rights, and one of those rights is any individual’s entitlement to proper health care or health security. scholars like isike and owusu-ampomah (2017: 3179) assert that health security ensures access to health-care systems and quality care; access to safe and affordable family planning; prevention of hiv and aids, poor hygiene, teenage pregnancy, substance abuse; and general well-being. the 1996 south african constitution was constructed around these principles and asserts that south africa belongs to all who live in it despite their place of birth or citizenship and all are entitled to be treated with respect and dignity. this makes health a basic human right, as all persons in south africa have the right to access health-care services (mafuwa, 2015: 15). in other words, international human rights laws bind states to provide health-care benefits for any individual residing in that state’s territory. this means that documented or undocumented migrants in south africa have the right to proper health-care service on a non-discriminatory basis. there are three ‘pieces’ of the legislature that guide south africans on matters relating to migrants and refugees. these comprise the national health act of 1998, the immigration act of 2002, and the refugees act of 1998. according to alfarovelcamp (2017: 60) these laws are inconsistent and they contradict each other. 9 the national health act 61 of 2003, chapter 1 (2)(c) (rsa, 2003) stipulates that the government will provide health care for the people of south africa including vulnerable groups such as women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. however, the vulnerable do not include migrants and refugees, particularly those who are undocumented who should be considered vulnerable because of their illegal standing (mclaughlin and alfaro-velcamp, 2015: 32). the refugees act of 1998 (rsa, 1998) appears to be consistent with the national health act as it emphasizes that refugees are entitled to basic health services. chapter 5, section 27 (g) states that, “a refugee is entitled to the same basic health services and basic primary education which the inhabitants of the republic receive from time to time” (rsa, 1998: 20). however, the legislation does not refer to asylum seekers or other foreign nationals (ramjathan-keogh, 2017: 134). according to alfaro-velcamp (2017: 59), the immigration act of 2002 contradicts the preceding health laws, as it obliges health care providers to ascertain the legal status of patients before administering care. section 44 of the immigration act states: when possible, any organ of state shall endeavour to ascertain the status or citizenship of the persons receiving its services and shall report to the directorgeneral any illegal foreigner, or any person whose status or citizenship could not be ascertained, provided that such requirement shall not prevent the rendering of services to which illegal foreigners and foreigners are entitled under the constitution or any law (rsa 2002 – section 44 substituted by section 42 of act 19 of 2004: 51). south africa’s health system south africa’s health system is a two-tier health system where patients can either have access to the public or private health-care system, depending on an individual’s ability to pay (mahlati and dlamini, 2015). public health care is funded by taxpayers and the private sector provides services to those who can afford medical aid or pay privately for health care. according to government policy documents, approximately 84% of the south african population depends on the government’s health sector (naidoo, 2012). the public health sector is divided into primary, secondary and tertiary health services provided through various health facilities within different provincial departments (mahlati and dlamini, 2015: 3). the primary level hospitals include internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, general surgery, and general practice. they often offer limited services that require the use of the laboratory and patients do not need referrals to access services. secondary level hospitals are recognized by their functionality and they usually have five to ten clinical specialties within them. hence, when someone is referred for secondary care it means that they need a professional who has more specific expertise in whatever problem the patient is experiencing. for instance, a rehabilitation centre is an example of secondary level care. tertiary level hospitals offer highly specialized equipment and expertise in zimbabwean migrant women’s experiences of accessing public health care in south africa 10 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 areas such as coronary artery bypass surgery, renal or hemodialysis, neurosurgeries, severe burn treatments, and other complex treatments and procedures. patients are transferred to tertiary level hospitals when primary and secondary level care is not adequate for their condition (young, 2016: 4). while primary care is free, secondary and tertiary care is subsidized and patients are charged according to a uniform patient fee schedule which determines the amount based on their income bracket and the number of children they have, regardless of their nationality (expatica, 2020). in sub-saharan africa, south africa is considered as one of the countries that invests a lot of money in strengthening its public health-care system. however, the results are not equivalent to what is spent (malakoane et al., 2020). the public healthcare system serves a large proportion of the population and this adds pressure as the system battles many challenges. hospitals are severely under-resourced and doctors and nurses are often demotivated because of the shortage of staff which consequently compromises the quality of patient-care (maphumulo and bhengu, 2019: 4). as a result, south african citizens who rely on the public health system experience health vulnerabilities, like prolonged hours waiting in queues, abusive attitudes by staff, and expensive treatment and care. some hospital and clinic facilities are dilapidated and most people worry that they may contract secondary infections whilst they are seeking care in the public clinics and hospitals (malakoane et al., 2020). these public hospitals are the same facilities that migrants and refugees use, and their experiences are worsened by several factors. this paper employs the theoretical lenses of the structural violence theory. according to samantroy (2010: 6), violence is not always conspicuous; instead, it is invisible and is always ubiquitous in social structures normalized by institutions or regular experiences. the theory is used to show the various forms of invisible violence that make it challenging for zimbabwean migrant women to access public health-care services in south africa. migrant women face several health risks and barriers to accessing public health care which are exacerbated by multiple factors. these include legal restrictions on their status as migrants, poor accommodation facilities, language barriers, and the increasing manifestation of xenophobia which includes prejudice and negative attitudes from health-care workers (freedman et. al., 2020: 9). migrant women who are unemployed or working in the informal sector are particularly vulnerable as they encounter economic insecurities that predispose them to high levels of poverty, living in unhealthy environments in the urban areas with poor ventilation and limited sanitation facilities, making them more vulnerable to being infected by communicable diseases (freedman et al., 2020: 6). in instances when they need to seek health care, they usually cannot afford to pay for treatment. another factor that makes it challenging for migrant women to access public health care, is legal immigration restrictions. legal immigration documents play a substantial part in accessing public health care. it is important to note that a significant number of zimbabwean migrants in south africa are unskilled and undocumented because of the strict immigration requirements that do not allow 11 unskilled migrants to apply for temporary work permits (landau et al., 2005; mbiyozo, 2018; hlatshwayo, 2019; moyo, 2020). moreover, they are also exposed to other structures of violence like “medical xenophobia” (crush and tawodzera, 2014: 659). the term xenophobia is defined as the “deep dislike of non-nationals, whatever their source of nationality” (landau et al., 2005: 4). kollapan (1999) argues that the term cannot merely be constructed and defined as attitudes; it must express action or practice. this contention implies that the definition of xenophobia should be constructed beyond dislike and fear; instead, it should include actions of violence that result in bodily harm and damage to property (harris, 2002: 170). according to kange’the and duma (2013: 160), xenophobic violence occurs in south african communities daily but many incidents go unreported. however, there have been significant nationwide violent attacks on foreigners which took place in april 2008 and october 2015. that violence was sparked by negative comments about foreigners by the zulu monarch, king goodwill zwelithini (tella, 2016: 2). the city of johannesburg also recently – during march and october of 2019 – experienced xenophobic riots (montle and mogoboya, 2020). the violence is usually characterized by the sporadic looting of property and goods from foreign-owned shops or vending stalls (cinini and singh, 2019: 62). beyond the visible violence carried out against foreigners, xenophobia can also be institutional or structural. it is manifested in south african practices through the exclusion of and discrimination against foreigners in spaces such as the education system, hospitals, banks, police services and the department of home affairs. this concurs with the views of scheperhughes (1995: 143), who contends that structural violence that is experienced every day can be defined as, “little routines and enactments of violence” that are practiced normatively in different administrative and bureaucratic spaces. in the public health care setting, these “little routines” can be considered as the status quo, even though for migrant and refugee patients it is experienced as an assault on their dignity and integrity (see price, 2012). this implies that xenophobia may be rendered normal, as invisible enactments of violence. as coined by crush and tawodzera (2014) these invisible enactments of violence can be termed “medical xenophobia” to encapsulate the argument that some public health-care practitioners discriminate against and express negative attitudes towards foreigners. in the same vein, adjai and lazaridis (2013) further strengthen this argument and assert that in institutions, xenophobia can be used to exclude foreigners by practice and not by the design of the policies. similar to the latter views, crush and tawodzera (2014) agree that other practitioners, in the absence of official directives (or not), have the power to withhold services and certainly play a pivotal role in how these services are delivered to foreigners. however, several studies have provided a counter-narrative to the ‘single story’ of medical xenophobia and migrants ‘perceptions’ on accessing health care in south africa. a recent study by vearey et al. (2018: 96) reveals that despite the immigration status and the length of stay in south africa, non-nationals have access to public health-care facilities, particularly clinics. they reported that their choice zimbabwean migrant women’s experiences of accessing public health care in south africa 12 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 was mostly influenced by the fact that most of the “staff was nice”, showing that the attitude of health-care providers is an important factor when it comes to migrant women accessing services. vanyoro (2019: 9) also puts forward the argument that the experiences of non-nationals in the south african public health-care system are complex and equivocal. vanyoro’s study reveals that in musina, a small border town between zimbabwe and south africa, there was no adequate evidence to show that non-nationals were discriminated against or denied treatment because of their nationality, immigration status, and language. vanyoro (2019) argues that past work on medical xenophobia negates the idea that differences and outsiders are subjectively and socially constructed and negotiated. this is critical to how xenophobic discrimination is experienced (or not) by locals, migrants and refugees across different spaces. this, therefore, shows that in order to access health care for migrant women in south africa, it is complex and equivocal and there is a wide range of possible experiences. methodology the findings of this paper are based on a qualitative study with zimbabwean migrant women in durban, south africa. twenty-two zimbabwean female migrants were interviewed. an overview of the demography of the women who were part of the study is provided in table 1. table 1: demography of female participants participant age migration to sa occupation marital status 1 39 2008 tailor married 2 32 2012 hairdresser married 3 30 2012 hairdresser divorced 4 37 2008 hairdresser married 5 30 2010 hairdresser married 6 36 2007 hairdresser married 7 49 2009 maid/hairdresser widow 8 29 2008 manicurist married 9 28 2013 hairdresser single 10 26 2011 hairdresser married 11 30 2013 street vendor single 12 37 1999 home-based crèche married 13 35 2009 tailor divorced 14 41 2007 street vendor divorced 13 15 40 2010 home-based crèche married 16 30 2011 street vendor divorced 17 27 2008 street vendor divorced 18 33 2010 street vendor single 19 35 2009 street vendor married 20 45 2007 internet café widow 21 25 2016 maid married 22 29 2010 maid single participants were aged between 25 and 49 years and self-employed in the informal sector as hairdressers, street vendors, and informal tailors; home-based crèche owners; and internet café attendants. snowball and purposive sampling techniques were used to recruit the participants. the study did not use the help of a specific organization with the recruitment of participants, hence a key informant who was a zimbabwean woman was recruited to help identify possible participants in her community. semi-structured interviews were conducted in shona since all the interviewed women were shona-speaking and the interviews were approximately 30–45 minutes long, depending on how the conversations unfolded. with the permission of the participants, the interviews were recorded using a tape recorder. participant observation was also used as a data collection method. interactions that were less formal such as ‘hanging out’ at hair salons and sometimes at the informal stalls set up in the streets, turned out to be a rewarding way of collecting relevant data. data gathered through participant observation was recorded by note-taking of all the distinctive behaviors and attitudes from the participants’ everyday lives. the interviews were translated and transcribed into english, and thematic analysis was conducted. this involved coding all the data before identifying and reviewing key themes. each theme was examined to gain an understanding of participants’ perceptions and motivations. to ensure that the research was ethical, potential participants were informed beforehand of the nature and the purpose of the research, and why they were being interviewed. they were informed that they could stop the interview when they felt uncomfortable, and they would not be forced to say anything they did not agree to say. participants were assured of their confidentiality and their real names were not used in the study. ethical approval was obtained from the university of kwazulu-natal human and social sciences research ethics committee (hss/2112/016 d). findings the findings of the study showed that there were interconnected challenges to accessing health-care services by zimbabwean migrant women. these included the zimbabwean migrant women’s experiences of accessing public health care in south africa 14 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 need for legal immigration documents, xenophobia and discrimination, as well as language and cultural barriers. the need for legal immigration documents the participants revealed that as foreigners they needed to have legal immigration documents to access health-care services. they indicated that when they visited a hospital, they were expected to have valid passports and temporary or permanent permits. hospital administrators often required their identification documents for verifying their legal status and their eligibility for treatment. one of the participants revealed that it was onerous to try and get treatment without producing documents such as passports and proof of address: for a person like me who does not even have a permit or even a passport, it is very difficult to go to the clinic because they always need those things and your proof of where you are staying [participant 10]. for undocumented migrants, it is impossible to open up bank accounts or be engaged in any activities that require paperwork. that means that they will likely not have any definitive proof of residence required at the public clinics and hospitals (crush and tawodzera, 2014: 660) one of the participants recounted the story of another zimbabwean woman she met at a local ante-natal clinic. she mentioned that the woman was coming to the clinic for the first time to register for her antenatal appointments. however, the clinic clerk refused to assist her because she did not have a valid or legal permit. although the woman tried to give the clerk her husband’s asylum permit, the clerk said, “we do not want your husband’s permit, we want yours”. the need for legal immigration forms of identification by health professionals affected the women’s access to essential health care. the systematic need for documentation from migrant women in the clinics restricted them from accessing public health care and it influenced some of the women to avoid going to the clinic. some of the participants noted that it was challenging to get treatment at public clinics and hospitals if they did not present documents showing that they were residing in south africa legally. hence, some of the participants opted to use private health-care services, as they were more concerned about the patient’s ability to pay, rather than legal immigration documents. two of the women said: because of the stories i have heard of bad treatment in the hospitals, i normally try not to go there; i would rather go to the pharmacy and get some pills. if it is that serious, i am left with no option but to go to private doctors who are very expensive. but they are better because they do not ask a lot of questions about your passport and permit [participant 1]. when you don’t have a permit, you are always worried about being caught by 15 the police. and sometimes going to places where they need your passport and permit, it’s like exposing yourself and you already know that you will not get any assistance [participant 9]. some of the participants viewed public hospitals and clinics as ‘places of fear’. it is important to note that this study revealed what the participants perceived their access to health-care services to be based on their own experiences and in some instances on what they heard other people in their migrant community sharing regarding their own experiences accessing care at public hospitals. based on some of these shared negative perceptions, some of the participants said that they feared being denied treatment or their lack of legal immigration documents possibly attracting attention from home affairs officials and in turn being detained. this left them with no option but to seek private health care or opting to use self-medication or over-the-counter medication. while most of the participants were self-employed, they worked in the informal sector, living ‘from hand to mouth’ and were in no position to afford medical aid and the exorbitant fees required at private health facilities. to avoid these high fees and being asked for legal documentation at public health-care facilities, several of the participants shared that they used over-the-counter medicine. two of the women said: when i am sick, i usually go and buy medication at the pharmacy [participant 9]. i have heard so many stories about hospitals in south africa, such that i go to the pharmacy. i am lucky that i have never been seriously ill ever since i came to south africa [participant 2]. however, this increased their health risks as it involved self-diagnosis, even in instances where some of the conditions possibly required treatment by a medical practitioner. these findings resonate with crush and tawodzera (2014: 661), who articulate that it is potentially dangerous for anyone, but in particular for undocumented migrants, to continuously use over-the-counter medicine without seeking professional treatment at a hospital, as they could be exposed to inappropriate medicine. communication several of the participants indicated that when they visited a clinic, some of the nurses communicated with them in the local isizulu language. the women recounted that they were expected to know and understand the language. however, the reality was that they could only understand the basic elements of the language, like greetings. beyond that, they were only able to communicate in english. however, communicating in english and being unable to fully express themselves in a local zimbabwean migrant women’s experiences of accessing public health care in south africa 16 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 language, was a visible and audible marker of difference that led to some of the participants experiencing discrimination and xenophobic attitudes from some of the health-care workers. some of the participants said: when i gave birth, the nurse said something that i did not understand. i responded in english and the nurse said she was irritated by people who speak english. she then left the room and i was later assisted by another nurse who was in the same ward [participant 10]. i still remember at the hospital, i saw the experience of another woman; she was not from zimbabwe, but she was from mozambique. it was not quite pleasing, the way they were talking to her and the way they were handling her. i felt like language was a huge barrier and she could not communicate well [participant 3]. the participants revealed that not being able to communicate in the local language, heightened their vulnerability as some of the health-care providers used that to scold the women and to show them that they did not belong. in instances where one cannot speak the local language fluently, the only solution would be for the patient and the health-care provider to communicate in the language used most frequently in business and commerce in south africa, which is english. however, the use of english by the zimbabwean migrant women often led to hostility and accelerated the nurses’ negative attitudes towards them. the language barrier resulted in poor communication and in most cases, it created fear and anxiety in the women when they visited public health-care institutions. some of the participants also indicated that their identity as migrants who spoke a different language subjected them to poor treatment even though they had legal status. they felt that they were not cared for as people who needed health care. instead, their identity as being foreign, subjected them to poor treatment and judgment from some of the health professionals. the participants regarded those actions as xenophobic as they experienced discrimination from some health-care providers who blatantly pointed out that they were not happy with migrants and refugees using the same health-care system as south africans. some of the interviewed participants revealed that the resentment that some health care professionals displayed towards them was deeply entrenched in hatred and disdain for foreigners. this was revealed in what some of them said: i gave birth in 2016, and there was an older midwife who told me that i should stop giving birth because the population in south africa is increasing and they did not need more foreigners. she told me that i was supposed to find other means of not giving birth as this was not my country (participant 9). 17 especially at the hospital, if they see that you are a “kwere kwere” they will not treat you well. i know of my neighbor who suffered terribly during birth in hospital and the nurses would come and say, “is it you removed mugabe, why is it you are still here in south africa?” (participant 12). some of the participants also said that they had been denied treatment in hospitals and they were told to go to other facilities: sometimes you go to the hospital and you expect that they will at least check you and tell you what’s wrong. but you know they can give you excuses and tell you that you were not supposed to come to the hospital and you should go to the clinic. is it i am here now and i need assistance? why can’t they just assist me? what if it’s a serious problem and they are busy telling me to go from one place to another? [participant 18]. one of the primary challenges in assessing the reasons why the participants faced difficulties when they tried to access public health care is the assumption (often held by the zimbabwean migrant women themselves) that when they received poor medical treatment from health-care workers, it was driven by the health-care workers’ xenophobic attitudes. however, a study conducted by shaeffer (2009) argues that it is imperative to acknowledge that not all instances of poor treatment can be labeled ‘medical xenophobia’. instead, the language barrier and the lack of understanding of south africa’s health-care system often ended in many migrants and refugees seeking care at the wrong facilities. according to mojaki et al. (2011) the south african health-care system follows a hierarchical referral system where health care providers at the lower level of the health system seek the assistance of providers who have more resources and capacity. based on the latter narrative, it is possible that when some of the participants were referred to other facilities, they possibly misconstrued it as denial and ‘medical xenophobia’. based on the definition of xenophobia (see landau et al., 2005), for it to be considered ‘medical xenophobia’, medical treatment has to be wrongfully denied to migrants and refugees on the grounds of their nationality or their legal right to live in south africa. however, other reasons might lead to medical care being wrongly denied. south africa’s health-care system is regarded as being in a state of disrepair and experiencing various challenges (see maphumulo and bhengu, 2019). among the various challenges is the shortage of staff, which implies that public health-care workers often work long-hour shifts and they are likely to be exhausted. in some instances, the exhaustion and fatigue they experience possibly influence their negative attitudes and behavior towards local and foreign patients (crush and tawodzera, 2014: 666). challenges in accessing sexual and reproductive health care several of the participants also indicated that they had challenges accessing sexual and zimbabwean migrant women’s experiences of accessing public health care in south africa 18 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 reproductive health-care services. they revealed that they did not feel secure about the way they accessed contraceptives from public-health institutions, particularly after giving birth. this was recounted by one of the women: i told the midwife that i was comfortable using birth control pills but, just after giving birth, i remember i was injected twice and thought these were anesthetic injections. two months after giving birth, i was still experiencing problems with bleeding. when i went to the local clinic, that was when i was told that this was normal as i had been given the injection for birth control [participant 20]. in most cases, as the participants revealed, the women unknowingly started using two birth control methods at the same time, which usually had negative effects. the above narrative shows how some of the participants were unaware of the type of contraceptives they were taking. this resonates with the findings of munyaneza and mhlongo (2019: 11) that migrant and refugee women are often not asked for their consent when they are administered contraceptives by injection. it is important to note that failure to obtain informed consent from patients before administering contraceptives is not something that only happens to migrant women. according to lince-deroche et al. (2016: 101) local south african women usually use or continue using contraceptives they did not consent to after intentional or unintentional rushed and substandard counseling with nurses. however, the findings of this study revealed that there are some instances unique to migrant women that adequately capture the existence of ‘medical xenophobia’. one of the participants said: the nurses came, and they did not even ask me, they just told me to roll up my nightdress sleeve and i assumed they wanted to put me on the drip. when i saw her take out the implant package, i immediately told her that i didn’t want an implant. but she just continued, and she told me that the implant was for five years and it was going to keep me from giving birth in a country that was not mine. i later went to see a private doctor after a month for it to be removed as it had a lot of side effects (participant 4). it is important to note that women’s bodies are at the center of sexual and reproductive health rights, yet, in most instances, they do not have power over the decisions made about their bodies and sexuality. significantly, for migrant women, this study revealed that violations of their sexual and reproductive health rights were often worsened by different structures of insecurities like xenophobic attitudes. from the latter narrative, the nurse mentioned that using a contraceptive that lasted for 5 years would prevent the participant from giving birth in a foreign land, and this is indicative of some of the xenophobic undertones that migrant women encounter when they access public health-care facilities. the ill-treatment that the participants received, constructed 19 their identity as second-class citizens who do not quite belong or fit into south african society. the attitudes and sentiments from health-care professionals cause the women to feel unwanted in a foreign land where they hoped to find security and better livelihoods. despite the negative experiences from some of the participants, it is also important to note that two of the women had positive experiences and they felt that they were treated well when they accessed public health-care facilities. the women recounted: when i gave birth to sunshine at addington hospital, i do not want to lie, i received the best treatment [participant 8]. the health system here in south africa is much better than the one that we have back home, where there are no doctors and the nurses are always on strike. if you send someone to the hospital, it’s like you are giving up on them and sending them off to die. here, it is better. i have never faced any challenges when i usually go to collect my pills for blood pressure and diabetes [participant 22]. discussion it is clear from the narratives that several factors exacerbate the health risks of zimbabwean migrant women. south africa is an inherently violent country and migrants are particular targets of violence and they are often exposed to xenophobic violence (crush et al., 2017; munyaneza and mhlongo, 2019). it is also a society that suffers from high levels of rape and sexual gender-based violence and migrant women are not an exception. they live precariously and their lives are at constant risk, both during their journey to this country, and during their residence in south africa (von kitzing, 2017; hlatshwayo, 2019). even though undocumented migrant and refugee women are entitled to their universal human health rights, the inconsistencies in the policies and legislature regarding the health care of migrants and refugees, subject them to various health risks and vulnerabilities that make it difficult to access public health care. the legal authority has been misplaced onto hospital administrators who do not have the authority to decide people’s legal immigration standing (alfaro-velcamp, 2019: 64). the most serious barriers and obstacles to their health, regardless of the zimbabwean migrant women being documented or undocumented, are their experiences of discrimination and negative attitudes on the part of individual care providers. shaeffer (2009: 8) observes that, “the health rights that are afforded to migrants on paper are belied by the harassment and denial they face in clinics and hospitals”. the lack of documentation or identifying as foreign, exposed the women to health risks. more than anything, the narratives show the power dynamics between health-care providers and migrant women. in as much as health-care providers are constitutionally obliged to serve every patient with dignity and respect regardless of zimbabwean migrant women’s experiences of accessing public health care in south africa 20 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 their nationality, they have a powerful position in the execution of their duties. in some instances, that power was abused, making it difficult for the migrant women to access proper health-care services. the women revealed that they experienced fears of being reprimanded, being shouted at and their concerns being ignored. it is important to note that the language barrier between the migrant women and some of the health-care providers influenced the negative and discriminatory attitudes. the inability to fully express themselves in english or the local language, coupled with negative discriminatory attitudes towards foreigners by locals, made it challenging for the migrant women to access quality health-care services in south africa. the belief that the presence of foreigners in south africa means that the country’s population will grow, is deeply rooted in discriminatory and xenophobic sentiments. the widespread negative beliefs and knowledge about migrants amongst local south africans influence individual health-care providers’ perceptions that if foreign women gave birth in south africa, they would be straining the country’s resources and worsening south africa’s structural, social and economic problems (crush and tawodzera, 2014: 663). more often, the health rights of migrant women are overlooked and infringed because of the strong negative beliefs towards foreigners. as cited in crush et al. (2013), benatar (2004: 81) asserted that most south africans are not content with the quality of the health-care system in public institutions. this is attributed to staff shortages and increased workloads. however, some of the south africans, including the health-care providers, are of the view that the poor service delivery is caused by an influx of foreigners, who they perceive as bringing infectious diseases and socio-economic problems to the south african health-care system. walls et al. (2016: 14) articulated that although there is a clear indication of the increased number of people moving into south africa, the impact of migration on the healthcare system is debatable, with the assumptions and beliefs often driving responses instead of data and evidence. the perceptions and views of the health-care providers can be considered as being xenophobic, as they influence their thoughts, responses, and behavior towards migrant women. writing in the 1990s, a study conducted by jewkes et al. (1998) provides a counter-narrative to the latter view. it established that both local and migrant patients suffered due to the poor health-care system, which currently continues to deteriorate daily. scholars like crush and tawodzera (2014: 9) observe that the public health-care system in south africa is heavily overburdened and most public facilities struggle to provide sustainable quality health care. hence, in some instances, zimbabwean migrant women might associate any kind of illtreatment in hospitals with xenophobia. conclusion this paper evokes an understanding of the context of the vulnerability of zimbabwean migrant women when they are accessing the public health-care system in south 21 africa. although there are singular events that display the specific poor treatment of migrant women when accessing public health care, it is important to highlight that some of the incidents might possibly be misconstrued as being unique to migrant women. the findings of this paper highlight that the issues surrounding the access of public health care are constructed on the assumptions and perceptions held by migrant women themselves. hence, it is possible that any poor treatment experienced accessing health care can easily be associated with ‘medical xenophobia’. the term ‘medical xenophobia’ has been used several times in the literature, referring to the negative attitudes and experiences that migrants encounter when accessing health care (crush and tawodzera, 2014; zihindula et al., 2015; munyaneza and mhlongo, 2019). it is imperative to note that emerging research should not only focus on the single story of migrant women being treated badly in hospitals, but it should also consider the existence of other invisible structures of violence like language barriers and the women’s lack of understanding of the state of the south african public health-care system as reasons for some of the poor treatment they receive. we cannot dismiss the fact that there is a thin line between ‘medical xenophobia’ and a deteriorating south african public health-care system, which invariably leads to vulnerability when accessing quality care and services, for both local and migrant women. zimbabwean migrant women’s experiences of accessing public health care in south africa 22 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 references adjai, c. and lazaridis, g., 2013. migration, xenophobia and new racism in postapartheid south africa. international journal of social science studies, 1(1): 192-205. https://doi.org/10.11114/ijsss.v1i1.102 alfaro-velcamp, t. 2017. “don’t send your sick here to be treated, our people need it more”: immigrants’ access to health care in south africa. international journal of migration, health, and social care, 13(10): 53-68. https://doi.org/10.1108/ ijmhsc-04-2015-0012 bloch, a. 2010. the right to rights? 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migration alexandra plowright, gillian hundt and maria stuttaford nowhere to run: a review of the political economy of migration, identity and xenophobic violence in zambia phineas bbaala and njekwa mate ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor dr mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh university of pretoria, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delgado wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof simon bekker university of stellenbosch, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, basel, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). webpage: www.sihma.org.za copyright © 2016 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 461 4741, email: editor@sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ volume 2 number 3 september – december 2016 538 from the director: a reflection on south africa’s migration policy sergio carciotto articles 542 responsibility sharing: towards a unified refugee protection framework in africa ncumisa willie and popo mfubu 567 internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts: a case study in dormaa municipality, ghana collins yeboah 596 migration and hiv/aids in rural south africa: a dual-phase intergenerational, gendered chain migration alexandra plowright, gillian hundt and maria stuttaford 617 nowhere to run: a review of the political economy of migration, identity and xenophobic violence in zambia phineas bbaala and njekwa mate ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 538 from the director:* a reflection on south africa’s migration policy albeit geographically distant, europe and south africa have a great deal of similarities in their management of migratory flows. as many countries in europe, south africa is a migration hub attracting numerous migrants, including refugees, seasonal workers, students, cross-border traders and entrepreneurs from both the rest of africa and asia. south africa is also considered, like european states, a country with a generous welfare system, where over 10 million people are living below the poverty threshold and are relying on social grants as a main source of income. moreover, because of its strong social and economic contradictions, south africa is not immune to divisive populist politics and xenophobic reactions. although up to now no nationalist anti-immigration party has emerged in the political arena, immigrant workers (amakwerekwere1) are often accused of stealing jobs and being a burden on the country’s economy. on many occasions, the discontent of poor and disenfranchised black communities has raised tensions and led to violent clashes between locals and foreign nationals. since 1994, the post-apartheid government has implemented, on one side, a benevolent policy towards african refugees fleeing conflicts and persecutions and, on the other side, approved overly restrictive immigration policies. this is evidenced by a variety of procedures and measures across the social, political and legislative frameworks. such restrictive measures in the immigration regime, coupled with the lack of legal avenues for unskilled and semi-skilled migrants from the sadc region to enter the local job-market, have resulted in large numbers of migrants turning to the country’s asylum system as a means to temporarily regularise their stay. this fact has contributed to a toxic culture of suspicion amongst politicians and bureaucrats who perceive the liberal refugee framework as a ‘loophole’ that undocumented and unskilled migrants exploit to legalise their stay. during a portfolio committee *sergio carciotto director of the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) email: director@sihma.org.za. 1 this is a term used by black south africa to refer to foreign africans. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 539 meeting held on 11 october 20162, the deputy minister of home affairs went even further stating that that “the country could not allow undocumented or bogus asylum-seekers to have rights. for them to claim rights, asylum-seekers ought to possess, at least, immigration visa and immigration visa could not be applied for while staying in the country.” in this regard, i emphasise that irregular migrants possess the same basic human rights (e.g. the right to fair trial, the right to security and the right to receive medical health care) possessed by all individuals including citizens, legal residents, tourists and temporary visitors. furthermore, some of the negative attitudes and preconceptions towards asylum seekers are reflected in the proposed 2015 refugee amendment bill which seeks to restrict, as a deterrent measure, the possibility for asylum seekers to work while in south africa. this proposal raises several concerns with regards to its actual implementation, due to the many administrative challenges and rampant corruption within the department of home affairs, and it is my view that the deprivation of the freedom to work may threaten to degrade asylum seekers in south africa. the limitation of the right to work might, in fact, deprive asylum seekers of the only means to support themselves while their applications for asylum are pending and represents a violation of the constitutional right to dignity. beside the refugee amendment bill and other piece-meal legislative amendments, in june 2016, the south african government released a green paper on international migration initiating a process that is going to lead to comprehensive overhaul of legislation. the green paper focuses on several areas (e.g. the management of residency and naturalisation; the management of international migrants with critical skills and capital and the management of international migration in the african context, amongst others) but despite presenting some commendable proposals, it was disappointing in terms of certain expectations. for instance, it has raised numerous concerns regarding 2 government printing works & iec audit outcomes: agsa briefing; refugees amendment bill: deputy minister & department briefing, 11 october 2016. available at: http://bit.ly/2fh8s35. http://bit.ly/2fh8s35 ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 540 the intention of delinking permanent residency from the length of stay in the country by not allowing long-term temporary residents, including recognised refugees, to apply for permanent residency. i believe this proposal to be morally unjust as it contravenes the ethical principle that “the longer people stay in a society, the stronger they are morally entitled to the same civil, economic, and social rights as citizens, whether they acquire formal citizenship status or not.”3 temporary workers, both skilled and unskilled, who have spent at least five years in the country participating in the domestic market and civil society, develop a moral claim to membership through their participation in the receiving society’s market and are not a threat to the collective. i argue that, for such immigrants, the claim to membership is an inalienable right and should not be restricted. i further believe that the length of stay in the country should be the guiding moral principle and the cornerstone of a full socio-economic integration and promotion of social cohesion. in this regard, the green paper is silent on how robust and effective integration policies should be enforced. if it is, on one side, the responsibility of immigrants to integrate themselves in the local communities, receiving states need to ensure that they can offer immigrants concrete opportunities to learn the national language and the country’s basic social and civic norms. as stated by the european commission, “the integration of migrants is a two-way process involving adaptation on the part of both the immigrant and of the host society 4 .” the commission has further called on receiving states to: fight discrimination and xenophobia; integrate immigrants into the labour market; grant civic and political rights to longer-term immigrant residents; and to establish a civic citizenship; measures directed at women and families from immigrant backgrounds; a welcoming society (the responsibility of national political leaders); specific integration programmes at national, regional and local levels; and long-term, comprehensive integration programmes 3 see, joseph h. carens, “the ethics of immigration” (oxford university press, 2013), pp. 89. 4 see, “integration of third-country migrants”, background paper, european foundation for the improvement of living and working conditions, (2007), available at: http://bit.ly/2dygbfb. http://bit.ly/2dygbfb ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 541 developed through partnerships involving national, regional and local authorities and civil society. none of these issues have been sufficiently addressed by the green paper and integration still remains a great challenge to the governance of migration. i concur that human mobility in south africa is largely characterised by temporary circular migration by individuals who are not in search of permanent integration, but the country is also home to tens of thousands of asylum seekers and refugees who do not want, or simply are unable, to return to their countries of origin. my concern is that the new migration policy intends to facilitate forms of temporary labour migration that might resemble exploitative and old fashion gastarbeiter systems of immigration, depriving undesirable migrants such as low-skilled/unskilled workers, refugees and their families from the right to reside permanently. sergio carciotto scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) cape town ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 542 responsibility sharing: towards a unified refugee protection framework in africa ncumisa willie* and popo mfubu** abstract in most african countries, refugees are not welcomed with the sense of regional solidarity that surrounded the promulgation of the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa. instead, african states have increasingly followed the lead of european states by closing their borders, deporting those who have made it into their territories or restricting them to camps. even in those countries where refugees are admitted, their treatment does not meet the convention’s standards and obligations. despite south africa having enacted legislation, the refugees act, which is hailed as one of the most liberal domestic refugee protection frameworks in africa, it has regressed in its refugee protection policy. continued conflict in the horn of africa, environmental disasters and struggling economies have resulted in a migratory flow of people to south africa. this paper will argue that due to the fragmented manner in which african states approach refugee protection, countries such as south africa, that have liberal and progressive refugee protection frameworks, will continue to experience higher migration flows and thus shoulder a greater responsibility. in response to this migratory pressure, this paper will demonstrate how the south african government has begun to intentionally and unlawfully violate the refugees act as well as regional obligations, and will demonstrate how south africa has adopted policies and practices aimed at hindering, discouraging and restricting access to asylum. this paper will propose that african states should adopt a unified regional approach to refugee protection in order to share the responsibility of refugee protection. * refugee rights unit, university of cape town, south africa. email: ncumisa.willie@uct.ac.za. ** refugee rights unit, university of cape town, south africa. email: popo.mfubu@uct.ac.za. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 543 keywords refugee protection, africa, coordinated approach, responsibility sharing, burden sharing. introduction at the end of 2014, the office of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr, 2015c: 4) reported that there were 59.5 million people globally who had been displaced by conflict, persecution, violations of human rights and generalised violence. of the fifteen conflicts throughout the world that have erupted or reignited, over fifty percent of them have taken place in africa, specifically in côte d'ivoire, the central african republic, libya, mali, the north eastern parts of nigeria, the democratic republic of congo, south sudan and more recently burundi (unhcr, 2015a). by mid-2015, the conflict in somalia resulted in 1.1 million people fleeing the country as refugees, the third highest number of people seeking refuge in africa. somalia is closely followed by south sudan (744,100), sudan (640,900), the democratic republic of congo (535,300) and the central african republic (470,600) (unhcr, 2015b: 6). sub-saharan africa alone accounts for more than 4.1 million refugees, which is the largest proportion of the world’s total refugees hosted by a single region, with more than half of the top ten refugee producing countries located in sub-saharan africa. the above figures reveal the magnitude of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in africa, particularly in sub-saharan africa, and with so many people in need of urgent protection, the next logical question is who must shoulder the responsibility of providing protection to the ever growing number of refugees in africa? importantly, given the inordinate pressure placed on some domestic states and not others, how must the responsibility be shared amongst african states in an equitable manner informed by a human rights approach in accordance with international refugee protection law? without a well-coordinated and uniform approach to refugee protection, many asylum seekers and refugees are left to the mercy of unilateral domestic refugee legislation and policies that are often restrictive and not in line with the principles, ethos and obligations of either the 1951 united nations convention and the subsequent protocol of 1967 relating to the status of refugees (herein after the “1951 un convention”) or the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa (herein after the “1969 oau refugee convention”). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 544 this paper will critically examine african states’ fragmented approach to refugee protection, with most adopting policies, legislation and other measures in response to the growing numbers of refugees in order to shirk or shift their international responsibility towards refugees, ultimately contributing to the uneven distribution of refugees on the continent. furthering this argument, we focus on south africa as one of the examples of a worrying trend throughout the region that indicates an absence of solidarity and responsibility sharing in relation to refugee protection. we conclude this paper with some recommendations on how african states need to approach the african refugee problem in a coherent and unified manner. methodology from a research methodology perspective, this paper will primarily draw on the authors’ own experiences as practising refugee law attorneys in south africa. the discussions will also stem from an analysis of international and regional refugee protection instruments, including domestic refugee legislation from various african states, reports and statistical data from refugee protection agencies such as the unhcr and secondary sources such as discussion papers and research papers from distinguished migration and refugee scholars. brief overview of international refugee protection instruments after the second world war, when the world witnessed some of the gravest human rights violations and atrocities in history, it became clear that international mechanisms to protect and uphold human rights were needed. in 1948, at a sitting in paris, the united nations general assembly adopted the universal declaration of human rights. apart from fostering domestic respect for human rights among member states, the universal declaration of human rights envisioned that there would be times, as history had proven, when people’s lives or human rights would be at risk and they would need to seek asylum in other countries. article 14(1) of the universal declaration of human rights provides that: “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries, asylum from persecution.” the right to seek asylum would later be echoed on a regional level by article 12(2) of the african charter on human and peoples rights (1981). in essence, article 14(1) of the universal declaration of human rights provided the foundation for later discussions that led to the formulation and adoption of the 1951 un convention which gave life and meaning to the right ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 545 to seek asylum in article 14(1) of the universal declaration of human rights. the 1951 un convention was initially aimed at affording protection to people who were forced to flee their countries as a result of the conflicts in europe at the end of the second world war. therefore, the 1951 un convention was initially limited in its application to those fleeing europe before 1 january 1951. however, the 1951 un convention was amended by the 1967 protocol which broadened the scope of its geographic limitation to include the rest of the world and to also include those who fled their countries before 1 january 1951. the 1951 un convention defines a refugee as a person who is outside of their country of origin and, due to a well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership to a particular social group, or political opinion, is unable and unwilling to return to their country of origin (1951 un convention, article 1(2)). this definition of a refugee focuses on the refugee as an individual and assesses the basis of their individual fears. the determination of refugee status is thus predicated on an adjudication of their claim on an individual basis. the 1951 un convention and its definition of a refugee did not adequately cater for refugees fleeing war or generalised violence, a phenomenon which has and continues to plague african states. the 1969 oau refugee convention was adopted in 1969 and formally came into force in 1974. the 1969 oau refugee convention was specifically adopted to fill the gaps in international refugee protection that were not covered by the 1951 un convention and the protocol of 1967 relating to the status of refugees (george okoth-obbo, 2001: 87). the 1969 oau refugee convention expanded the definition of a refugee and catered to refugee situations that were, at the time, unique to africa. the 1969 oau refugee convention was intended to provide mechanisms to protect and assist the masses of people displaced by ongoing conflict and to provide durable solutions to the refugee problem in africa. the definition introduced by the 1969 oau refugee convention, whilst incorporating the 1951 un convention, includes people who are forced to flee their countries of origin and seek refuge in another country due to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination and events seriously disturbing public order (1969 oau refugee convention, article i(2)). this expanded definition focused on the context in which refugees find themselves in their countries of origin. this definition was particularly cognisant of the need to cater for people who flee in large groups (mass influx) during conflicts, thus making it impractical to determine refugee status on an individual basis. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 546 the 1969 oau refugee convention promotes the recognition of prima facie refugee status, especially during times of mass influx precipitated by conflict. here, the reasons for seeking asylum are not directly linked to individual circumstances. this approach involves the recognition of refugee status based on objective evidence and information about events in the country of origin, all of which advance a finding that a group of people from a particular country or area qualify for refugee status on a prima facie basis (unhcr, 2005). for example, and as advanced in our daily work, somalis fleeing parts of mogadishu where the al-shabaab militia rebels have a stronghold are regarded as prima facie refugees because the conflict is recognised as pervasive and ongoing and because large numbers of people are fleeing ongoing violence caused by the civil war. the same can be said for parts of south sudan and the eastern part of the democratic republic of congo. the 1969 oau refugee convention was welcomed at the time, as an african solution to a largely african problem however, as will become clear in the next part of this paper, the implementation of the 1969 refugee convention has been largely disappointing throughout most of africa. the state of refugee protection in africa there has been a gradual but serious erosion of hospitality towards asylum seekers and refugees in africa. the increased emphasis among african states is one geared towards tightening borders or containing refugees as opposed to protecting them. this approach is influenced by political, economic and security considerations instead of the humanitarian approach articulated in the preamble of the 1969 oau refugee convention. these sentiments were also echoed by george okoth-obbo (2001), assistant high commissioner for operations at unhcr in 1999 who lamented: not surprisingly, there has been strong impetus in some african countries to emulate [the restrictive approach being pursued in other regions]. instances in which borders were closed in the face of refugees fleeing real danger have already been witnessed. mistreatment of refugees and asylum-seekers as deliberate state policy has also taken place. on the whole however, the negative creep has been relatively contained. the moral effect of the convention in africa itself has a lot to do with the restraint. the fact that the convention is so highly regarded particularly among its african stakeholders has definitely encouraged political adherence to its principles. indeed, had there been no oau convention in africa when the more restrictive tendencies ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 547 emerged the whole system of asylum and refugee protection would by now have collapsed. the adoption of the 1969 oau refugee convention came at a time of great african solidarity. many african countries, bound together in their mutual desire to be free and independent from colonial control, supported each other on a regional level in their struggle for autonomy. therefore, african states welcomed refugees with ‘open arms’ (rutinwa, 1999: 7). unfortunately, not long after many of these countries had finally attained independence from their colonial oppressors, many of them soon erupted in civil war which, as time has shown, has been difficult to quell. sudan is but one of the many examples of this. in 1956, sudan attained independence from colonial rule and shortly thereafter, in 1958 general ibrahim abboud led a military coup against the civilian government elected earlier in the year. by 1962, a full civil war besieged the south, led by the anya nya movement, a civil war that has taken on a different dimension today but still rages on (fahmi, 2013). in explaining these tragic events, douglas johnson (2003) explains that “sudanese independence was thrust upon the sudan by a colonial power eager to extricate itself from its residual responsibilities; it was not achieved by national consensus expressed through constitutional means.” this has been the destructive cocktail that has plagued most of africa; governance attained by liberation movements is by itself an illegitimate means to secure power. the disturbing trend has shown that not soon after independence is attained, this illegitimate attainment of power is challenged and is itself overthrown. although in some circumstances conflicts in africa have erupted as a result of external influences, many are a result of internal factors, the majority of which are ethnic and religious tensions and political differences. these civil wars have resulted in many people being internally displaced and those that flee remain in protracted refugee situations, such as those in refugee camps in kenya which have served somali populations for more than 20 years. the exodus of people feeling conflict situations within africa has largely not been met with an eagerness to receive them and to provide them with protection. in the 1990s, the democratic republic of congo (then, zaire) and tanzania closed their borders at a time when the rwandan patriotic front’s rebel soldiers had started a civil war that claimed many lives (d’orsi, 2008: 1062). with few alternative routes to escape, it is likely that many rwandans, prevented from crossing into the democratic republic of congo or tanzania, ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 548 were victims of the conflict and were therefore in desperate need of aid and assistance. many writers, though critical of the democratic republic of congo and tanzania’s decision to close their borders during a time of great humanitarian need, argued that it was an understandable and practical response to the seemingly unending flow of rwandans that sought refuge in the two countries. this could have been seen as a desperate act of frustration in the face of large numbers of refugees entering the countries. in march 1995, when the government of tanzania closed its borders with rwanda and burundi at the height of the genocide in rwanda, the then minister of foreign affairs, declared: “we are saying enough is enough. let us tell the refugees that the time has come for them to return home and no more should come” (the guardian, 1995; rutinwa, 1999: 295). the actions of the democratic republic of congo and tanzania in closing their borders in order to prevent asylum seekers from entering their territories and therefore preventing them from seeking asylum, was in direct violation of arguably the most important principle in refugee law contained in the1969 oau refugee convention (of which both the democratic republic of congo and tanzania were signatories and which both had ratified). this is the prohibition against the refusal to allow asylum seekers to enter a state territory or the expulsion of such an asylum seeker if they face risk of harm in their country of origin. this principle is referred to as non-refoulement and is considered the cornerstone of refugee protection. it is contained in article ii of the 1969 oau refugee convention which provides: no person shall be subjected by a member state to measures such as rejection at the frontier, return or expulsion, which would compel him to return to or remain in a territory where his life, physical integrity or liberty would be threatened for the reasons set out in article i, paragraphs 1 and 2. the prohibition against non-refoulement in the 1969 oau refugee convention is without qualification, a significant departure from the 1951 un convention. the 1951 un convention provides an exception to the prohibition of nonrefoulement and provides that non-refoulement will not apply in times where a refugee may be “[…] a danger to the security of the country in which he is, or who, having been convicted by a final judgement of a particularly serious crime, constitutes a danger to the community of that country. the above exception in the 1951 un convention has been invoked (arguably without merit and as a devious guise to avoid responsibility for refugees) by countries such as turkey and germany during the syrian refugee crisis. this is the ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 549 difficulty faced by countries that experience mass influxes of refugees. apart from the sometimes insufficient assistance they receive from unhcr, they are left to solely carry the ever growing responsibility of affording protection to refugees, protection that comes at a great cost to the national fiscus. in these difficult times, other african states do not respond with solidarity or assistance which further exacerbates the unwillingness of affected nation states to extend protection to those seeking refuge in their territories. in 2001, the namibian government ordered its national defence forces to ‘shoot to kill’ anyone trying to cross the kavango bank – these were angolan refugees trying to flee unitas soldiers. in 1999, zambia forcibly deported large numbers of refugees and nationals from the democratic republic of congo when they began to put a strain on zambia’s local economy (d’orsi, 2008). on july 14 and 15 2010, ugandan police rounded up more than 1,700 rwandans, including recognised refugees, in the nakivale and kyaka camps and forcibly sent them back to rwanda (human rights watch, 2010). in august 2015, cameroon forcibly returned over 15,000 refugees from nigeria who had fled the civil war waged by boko haram in the north, a war that is still ongoing. in 2000, close to 1000 sudanese refugees living in ugandan refugee camps were forced to return home even though at the time, sudan's seventeen-year civil war still raged on, with bombings of civilian targets and humanitarian aid projects by government planes, slave raids by pro-government militia, the collapse of a two-year ceasefire in a key province and a reluctant decision by eleven international aid agencies to stop their operations in southern sudan (reliefweb, 2000). media reports confirm that kenya will begin construction of a 700 kilometre-long security wall along the north-eastern border with somalia as part of a broader national security plan to curb cross-border terror attacks by somali terrorist group, al-shabaab, a move the unhcr has criticised as an attempt to curb the flow of somali refugees into kenya (allafrica, 2015). preventing asylum seekers and refugees from entering a country’s territory is not the only tactic employed by some african states. some neglect to provide sufficient assistance to refugees or asylum seekers who are within their territories, leaving them in such deplorable conditions that they opt to leave on their own. even in countries such as south africa that have liberal and progressive refugee protection legislation, the implementation of the legislation and the ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 550 asylum application process is, in our experience, arduous for asylum seekers. this is largely because the attitude and unspoken policy of the department of home affairs (dha) is to find ways to reject applications for asylum rather than to genuinely evaluate them on a case by case basis (amit, 2012). figure 1: monthly asylum approval rates for 2015. source: department of home affairs, 2016. the figure above indicates that in 2015, the rejection rate for asylum applications in south africa was over 95% (department of home affairs, 2016). mr mandla madumisa, acting chief director of asylum seeker management for the dha presented these figures in parliament before the portfolio committee of home affairs on 8 march 2016 with great pride as though rejecting applications for asylum is the main task of the dha. in our experience, even when the merits of an asylum application warrant the granting of refugee status in terms of section 3 of the refugees act, they are still rejected regardless. more than 90% of the clients we assist at the uct refugee rights clinic are asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected and, of those, 80% have genuine refugee claims. a policy of leaning towards the rejection of applications for asylum has resulted in many applications bottle-necking with the refugee appeal board, which is charged with adjudicating appeals from asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected as unfounded. the current backlog faced by the refugee appeal is, according to the dha, approximately 12,361 applications. applications also bottle-neck with the standing committee for refugee affairs, ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 551 which is charged with reviewing decisions to reject asylum applications as manifestly unfounded or those that the dha deems to be abusive or fraudulent. the current backlog faced by the standing committee for refugee affairs is 44,048 (department of home affairs, 2016). there is such a significant backlog of applications that some asylum seekers have been waiting for the resolution of their applications for more than 10 years. in our experience, the lines at refugee reception offices in south africa are often so long that asylum seekers have reported to us that it often takes several days, if not weeks, for an asylum seeker to finally make their way inside the refugee reception office in order for them to lodge an application for asylum. it has been the experience of the authors that asylum seekers often give up and remain undocumented. south africa has the largest number of pending and unresolved asylum applications in the word (unhcr, 2015b:13). undocumented asylum seekers are unable to access social services and are exposed to the risk of arrest and deportation. a study in september 2007 estimated that approximately 470 asylum seekers were being “turned away” every day at the five refugee reception offices (human rights watch, 2008). when these undocumented asylum seekers are eventually detained by the police or immigration officials they are often sent to the lindela repatriation centre, which is south africa’s main deportation and repatriation holding facility. some of those detained and awaiting deportation at the lindela repatriation centre are in fact asylum seekers, which is in clear violation of south africa’s refugees act and both the 1969 oau refugee convention and the 1951 un convention. a report by the south african human rights commission released in 2000 about the conditions at the lindela repatriation centre found that “[…] people at lindela who claimed that they were asylum seekers were not given the opportunity to apply for asylum, as was the policy.” detaining and deporting asylum seekers whose claims have not been adjudicated is in violation of both domestic and international refugee law and often leads to refoulement. it is almost chilling to imagine how accurately the office of the unhcr predicted the future state of refugee protection in africa (okoth-obbo, 2001: 87) when it stated that: […] in this relationship between african refugee law, policy and practice on the one hand, and global trends on the other lies the most serious likelihood of a further lowering of the thresholds of refugee protection in africa. as has often been remarked, with the end of the cold war, the political and ideological value attaching to refugees has waned. the attachment to upholding refugees’ rights which may have previously characterized the approach to asylum is in ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 552 fierce competition with tendencies towards the most restrictive and minimalist legal regimes, policies and practices... it is difficult to expect that these trends will not be observed in africa, where the underlying social and economic constraints are even more compelling. indeed, the tendency to emulate these trends is said by some already to be in evidence. the only solace to the poor implementation of south africa’s refugee legislation has been a strong and vigilant civil society that has largely been the gatekeeper of the rights of refugees and has on many occasions litigated against the state in order to vindicate the rights of refugees where the state has failed to implement legislation. however, the space for civil society to engage and challenge the government has begun to shrink and will continue to do so with the introduction of amendments to refugee legislation. the south african government is currently attempting to introduce the refugees amendment bill. our view is that that the changes proposed in the refugees amendment bill are by and large an attempt to narrow the scope of refugee protection in south africa and in some respects to limit the rights afforded to asylum seekers and refugees. the proposed amendments introduce additional administrative hurdles which may have the effect of causing further delays in processing applications for asylum. the asylum application system is already fraught with huge backlogs, a lack of human capacity and corruption, but regrettably the new proposed changes do not deal with any of these systemic issues. one of the more alarming amendments proposed by the refugees amendment bill is the removal of the right to seek and attain employment which is currently afforded to asylum seekers. in removing this right to seek and attain employment, the refugees amendment bill fails to deal with how asylum seekers will be able to obtain food, shelter, clothing and other basic necessities for themselves and for their families. both the right to engage in work and selfemployment have already been adjudicated by our courts and the courts have held that the freedom to engage in productive work is an important component of human dignity and our view is that the lacunae created by the refugees amendment bill will lead to the gross violation of human rights. an approach which aims to roll back on the progressive approach to refugee protection is also echoed in south africa’s green paper on international migration (herein after the “green paper”), which is a policy paper that seeks to overhaul the country’s migration and refugee protection policy. the green paper proposes the establishment of “asylum seeker processing centres” ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 553 which will aim to house asylum seekers and restrict their movement while their applications are being processed. this will be in conflict with south africa’s urban refugee policy which includes free movement. the green paper is silent on who will provide food and basic services to asylum seekers housed in these processing centres. the proposed removal of the right to work and the introduction of quasi camp like centres is an attempt to make south africa less of a desirable asylum destination and to curtail what the state refers to as “pull factors” that draw asylum seekers and especially migrants to south africa. additionally, the south african government is proposing a border management bill which is also in line with this worrying trend towards the securitisation of south africa’s borders. the border management bill proposes the establishment of a border management agency (bma). the new agency will assume full control of ports of entry and borderline functions and will, once it is operational, take over responsibility for all ports of entry into south africa. its purpose is to exercise border law enforcement functions, manage legitimate movement of persons and goods across borderlines and at ports of entry, co-ordinate with “other organs of state, through the principles of cooperative governance” (border management agency bill, 2015:13) the functions performed by them in border management and provide “an enabling environment to facilitate legitimate trade” (border management agency bill, 2015:13). the draft bill also envisages the creation of a border guard which ties in with a december 2014 statement by minister in the presidency, jeff radebe, that both a border and coast guard will come into being as part of the bma. there is currently no indication of whether the border guard will be staffed by soldiers currently in the south african national defence force or whether new recruits, who have to be trained and equipped, will be sought. in summary, south africa appears to have moved away from its national, regional and international obligations which require a humanitarian approach to refugee protection and towards an approach which holds securitisation and deportation as paramount considerations. as will be demonstrated in the latter part of this paper, this trend is unfortunately not unique to south africa. the above overview of the refugee situation in africa paints a grim and depressing picture of the manner in which many african states have fallen so far below the standards envisioned by the 1969 oau refugee convention or the 1951 un convention. a toxic combination of a lack of cooperation amongst african states and a focus on self-preservation and deliberate political isolation have largely led to this failure to provide protection to refugees in a ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 554 meaningful manner. as will be argued in the next section, establishing solidarity mechanisms during times of mass influxes of refugees is very much like an insurance scheme. if a state comes to the aid of another state which is experiencing an influx of a large number of refugees, certainly the affected state would reciprocate such aid. responsibility/burden sharing in africa it is worth noting that the term ‘responsibility sharing’ in relation to the protection of refugees is used in the title of this paper and is referred to in the introductory sections, as opposed to the term ‘burden sharing’ which is used in the 1969 oau refugee convention and the 1951 un convention on refugees. the term ‘responsibility sharing’ is preferred because it emphasises a commitment to the principle of human rights and solidarity which form the underlying premise for refugee protection. this differs from the potentially negative connotations that ‘burden’ may have on african countries’ understandings of their obligations towards the reception of asylum seekers and the protection of refugees. however, for completeness and to avoid confusion the term ‘burden sharing’ will be used. the concept of burden sharing only appears in the preamble of the 1951 convention on refugees: [...]considering that the grant of asylum may place unduly heavy burdens on certain countries, and that a satisfactory solution of a problem of which the united nations has recognized the international scope and nature cannot therefore be achieved without international co-operation. the 1951 convention contains no further provisions or direction as to how this “co-operation” is to take place or how it is meant to be implemented in practical terms. the 1951 convention creates no obligation on member states to cooperate or to share the burden of refugee protection but merely creates a context in which the convention should be interpreted. the 1969 oau convention refugee convention in article ii (4), though also unsatisfactory, goes a bit further and provides that: where a member state finds difficulty in continuing to grant asylum to refugees, such member state may appeal directly to other member states and through the oau, and such other member states shall in the spirit of african solidarity and international co-operation take appropriate measures to lighten the burden of the member state granting asylum. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 555 there has been no example in the history of refugee protection in africa since the adoption of the 1969 oau refugee convention where this provision has successfully been invoked and has resulted co-operation which has caused a ‘lightening of the burden’ on a host country. people who flee from their countries of origin on account of war or persecution often flee to neighbouring countries or to countries that appear politically stable and economically viable. african states that find themselves neighbours to refugee producing countries or those that appear to be prosperous in relative terms, tend to, due to their proximity, shoulder the greatest responsibility of refugees fleeing from neighbouring countries. the distribution of refugees is thus, as hathaway & neve (1997) put it, an “accident of geography.” of the 616,220 south sudanese refugees at the end of 2015, ethiopia hosted 275,400 of them followed by sudan which hosted 190,700 and uganda which hosted 179,600. these three countries, due to their proximity, host the largest populations of south sudanese refugees (unhcr, 2015b: 6). geographic proximity is an imbalanced way of sharing the responsibility of refugees on the continent. it is for this reason that many african countries who border refugee producing countries opt to restrict refugees to camps or find ways to prevent or discourage them from arriving in their territories. where refugees do manage to cross into neighbouring countries, they are soon returned or forced to return to their countries of origin. other african states that are not neighbours to refugee producing countries have become a preferable choice for asylum seekers due to the perceived liberal refugee protection mechanisms provided in those countries. when african asylum seekers or refugees decide where to seek asylum, they are generally faced with only two options: being restricted to a camp and spending years in deplorable conditions or being able to live in an urban setting and with the opportunity to seek employment. faced with these two options, the choice of where to seek asylum arguably becomes an easy one. in pursuit of a place of safety where they can live with some semblance of dignity and normality, asylum seekers will often travel across the continent of africa to seek asylum. therefore, african states with more liberal and progressive refugee protection laws and policies and better economic prospects see higher refugee numbers. one such example is south africa. south africa’s refugees act 180 of 1998, that includes an urban refugee framework and affords broad access to the same socio-economic rights as citizens, makes the country an attractive place of refuge. as of december 2015, south africa hosted 912,592 asylum seekers and ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 556 refugees (unhcr, 2015b: 6). even though south africa is in the southernmost point of africa, it draws asylum seekers from as far as the eastern and western parts of africa. in 2015 alone, south africa received 71,914 new asylum applications, 9,322 of which came from as far as ethiopia and 6,554 were from nigeria (department of home affairs, 2016). asylum seekers from these two countries skipped tanzania, zambia, namibia and botswana and opted to apply for asylum in south africa because it is perceived as an ideal place to seek protection. however, over the past 10 years there has been a decrease in the number of registered asylum seekers in south africa. in 2010, there were 222,324 asylum applications in south africa as compared to 71,914 applications in 2015 (department of home affairs, 2016). figure 2: cumulative registered asylum seekers, 2006-2015. source: department of home affairs, 2016. the decrease in new asylum applications is not as a result of more peaceful times in africa, in fact conflict has been on the increase; with the escalating violence being waged by armed forces such as boko haram in northern nigeria and mai mai rebels in the eastern parts of the democratic republic of congo who continue to force more people to flee from their countries. we postulate that the decrease in asylum applications in south africa is due to the implementation of new policies and amendments to legislation which south ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 557 africa has adopted to make the country a less desirable place to seek asylum. these include heightened border restrictions and security, an increased focus on deportation and, importantly, an effort to make the application process for asylum so laborious that it becomes discouraging. it is arguably no surprise that invoking the principle of burden sharing in africa has been unsuccessful because there is no clear or concrete administrative or enforcement mechanisms. as peter (1982: 280) argues “legal and administrative machineries for burden sharing must be constructed and implemented.” recommendation eight adopted at the recommendations from the panafrican conference on the situation of refugees in africa, arusha (tanzania) (1986), also advocates for this initiative, stating that it: recognizes that the effective implementation in africa of the principles relating to asylum will be further advanced by the strengthening and development of institutional arrangements for "burden sharing" adopted within the framework of african solidarity and international co-operation, defined in paragraph 8 of the preamble and article ii, paragraph 4 of the 1969 oau refugee convention. the solidarity and co-operation envisioned by the 1969 oau refugee convention remains but an elusive dream in the 21st century. in 1999, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa, addis ababa and geneva, dr ahmed salim, secretary-general of the oau, and mrs. sadako ogata, the united nations high commissioner for refugees, noted the following in a joint statement: [...] thirty years after the adoption of the oau convention, the continent is still afflicted by the plight of over four million refugees on the continent and several times that number of displaced people inside their countries caused by socioeconomic and political factors including, in particular, conflicts, political violence and instability. this situation is unhealthy and unacceptable. such a large number of refugees and internally displaced persons poses a heavy burden on oau member states already saddled with tremendous security, social and economic hardships. we are concerned with evident compassion fatigue within and outside the continent which is undermining the very principle which guided the founding fathers in framing the oau refugee convention (george okoth-obbo, 2001: 90). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 558 what has become increasingly clear is that not even europe has formulated an effective policy framework for burden sharing. the recent syrian refugee crisis has exposed the inherent weaknesses in the dublin system which is europe’s system of burden sharing. in theory it was meant to ensure that asylum claims are adjudicated expeditiously in the first european union country an asylum seeker enters. its key weakness is that it places the greatest burden on the country of first asylum as the primary actor responsible for refugee status determination. this is the first country that an asylum seeker enters. in relation to the syrian refugee crisis, the countries of first asylum in europe, due to geography, have been greece and italy. with a small stream of people seeking asylum the dublin system holds, but as soon as the numbers of people seeking asylum increase, as we have seen in the syrian refugee crisis, it completely collapses. the dublin system shelters countries that are furthest from refugee producing countries. in 2015 alone, 850,000 people entered greece with another 200,000 arriving in italy. without assistance, asylum determination at the rate required is nearly impossible. with little or no assistance from the rest of the european union, the syrian crisis started to turn into greece and italy’s sole problem. what greece and italy began doing was to simply allow syrian refugees to pass through their territories without processing them so that they became the problem of whichever country the eventually ended up in. this is often referred to as ‘burden shifting.’ one of the only relatively successful burden sharing frameworks was the comprehensive plan of action for indo-chinese refugees that was adopted in 1989 to respond to the many thousands of people fleeing vietnam and laos in the 1980s. the comprehensive action plan was established as a framework for international cooperation at a time when asylum in south-east asia was in crisis. it created a system of refugee status determination (screening) in the countries of first asylum that allowed those who met the criteria to be resettled, but those who did not qualify were swiftly returned to their countries of origin. while it restored asylum in the region, there were many problems with the comprehensive action plan that led to concerns that it was merely an example of political expediency (towle, 2006). the ‘every man for himself’ approach to refugee protection has neither worked in europe nor in africa. without a clear commitment to address the refugee problem in a coherent and coordinated manner that ensures that all states pitch in and contribute their collective resources regardless of geographic proximity, the refugee problem in both regions will continue to spiral out of control. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 559 towards a unified refugee protection and burden sharing framework in africa the following section provides broad recommendations on how african states should approach refugee protection in africa in a coordinated manner that is consistent with the notion of a humanitarian approach as envisioned by the 1969 oau refugee convention. 1. ratification and domestication of international and regional instruments the most obvious starting point is to encourage african states that have not already signed and ratified both the 1951 un convention and the 1969 oau refugee convention to do so urgently. this would provide, at the very least, a level of international and regional accountability. the next step would be to encourage african states to promulgate domestic legislation that gives effect to obligations in both the 1951 un convention and the 1969 oau refugee convention. the enactment of domestic legislation should however be coupled with the political will to implement the legislation fully. countries like south africa have progressive legislation but the implementation of that legislation falls short. countries must be willing to employ their resources in order to appropriately provide protection to refugees and asylum seekers in times of need. to this end, article i(1) of the 1969 oau refugee convention encourages states to “use their best endeavours consistent with their respective legislations to receive refugees and to secure the settlement of those refugees who, for well-founded reasons, are unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin or nationality.” this disjuncture between legislation and its implementation was also cited by unhcr as a challenge to refugee protection in africa in unhcr’s special issue of the international journal of refugee law (office of the unhcr; 1995: 69 70) when it noted: while the elaboration of legal standards is an important function in devising the framework for refugee protection, the optimal realization of these standards lies in essentially non-legal considerations of an institutional, resource-based, logistic and material nature. in other words, the elaboration of the appropriate legal regime for refugee protection must be underpinned by the consolidation of technical know-how and resources, logistic and other infrastructures and other material resources. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 560 domestic refugee legislation also provides recourse through domestic courts to asylum seekers and refugees in times where the state violates their rights or is in breach of its obligations. in this regard, civil society organisations in south africa has been very vigilant in times where the south african government has violated the rights of asylum seekers and has used domestic legislation to champion the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. but for this to be possible, the legal and institutional refugee protection apparatus must be available. 2. a uniform approach to accepting and processing refugees during times of mass influx the 1951 convention or the 1969 oau refugee convention do not provide a framework on how to receive and process refugees. in 2003, unhcr published procedural standards for refugee status determination which provides a guiding framework on how to receive and process asylum seekers. this is perhaps the most onerous aspect of refugee protection in africa, or anywhere in the world for that matter. how does a receiving state manage sometimes thousands of asylum seekers that have been displaced? african states have to date dealt with asylum seekers in times of mass influx on an ad hoc basis often with the assistance of the unhcr. there is no uniform approach in terms of how african states deal with large numbers of refugees. often when camps are set up it is with no involvement from the receiving government and the unhcr bears the responsibility of documenting refugees and providing them with assistance, as in the case of the of the nearly 330,000 somali refugees currently living in four refugee camps in kenya. it is often unclear as to where the unhcr’s responsibility begins and ends, and what involvement the host country has. in south africa for example, there are no camps due to south africa’s urban and integrated refugee policy, and asylum seekers and refugees enjoy access to basic services. the responsibility in this case rests with the south african government. there need to be clear and predictable standards and approaches to dealing with refugees during times of mass influx. this can be developed as protocol in the 1969 oau refugee convention and can take various regional forms to take into account conditions specific to that region. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 561 3. harmonisation of treatment and rights afforded to asylum seekers and refugees as it has been argued earlier in this paper, the unequal treatment of refugees throughout the continent manifests in an unequal distribution of refugees throughout the continent. the 1951 un convention sets out broad rights that should be afforded to asylum seekers and refugees such as access to wageearning employment and self-employment, housing, public education, identity documents and most importantly the right to choose their place of residence and to move freely. it is interesting to note that the right to free movement which is in article 26 of the 1951 convention has the most reservations by african countries. the reservations of the right to free movement indicate the preoccupation by african states with encampment. most camps provide a method for african states to shirk their responsibility of caring for refugees and places emphasis on donor or unhcr assistance. however, encampment creates dependency upon the state or the unhcr to provide constant assistance for all of the needs of a refugee. the 1969 oau refugee convention is completely silent on what fundamental core rights should be afforded to refugees. it missed an opportunity to address and codify questions around humanitarian standards for the treatment of refugees such as free movement versus encampment of refugees, access to social services, safety and access to food. it is recommended that at the very least african states should afford refugees with access to the same social welfare services that are afforded to citizens as is required by article 23 of the 1951 un convention which provides that “[…] contracting states shall accord to refugees lawfully staying in their territory the same treatment with respect to public relief and assistance as is accorded to their nationals.” the authors are, however, cognisant of the real financial challenge experienced by many african states which are themselves developing nations. many struggle to provide basic services for their own citizens especially in times of economic hardship brought on by floods and drought. however, with the combined assistance of the unhcr and other african states, it can be argued that they should at the very least provide assistance at a level equal to that of their citizens. there is also predominantly no freedom of movement afforded to refugees by many african states. namibia, swaziland and zimbabwe’s refugee legislations require refugees to reside in designated areas. as stated before, south africa ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 562 has an urban refugee framework but angola, lesotho and mozambique’s refugee legislations are silent in this regard. article 17 which affords refugees with the right to employment has the second most reservations entered by african states. south africa and mozambique afford refugees and even asylum seekers with the automatic right to employment. south africa is, however, reviewing the right for asylum seekers to work and plans to amend its refugees act to narrow this right through a bill. tanzania, zambia and botswana require refugees to obtain work permits before they can work. it is recommended that at a regional level african states determine minimum core standards for the treatment of refugees within domestic jurisdictions. a useful point of departure would be to revisit the recommendations of the final report on the legal, economic and social aspects of african refugee problems (1967) which provides a useful roadmap of minimum standards that should be afforded to refugees. it is unfortunate that these standards did not make it into the final 1969 oau refugee convention. 4. harmonisation of durable solutions to refugees local integration and naturalisation of refugees remains a thorny issue and a bone of contention amongst african states. many african states are reluctant to provide the right to naturalise to refugees. lesotho, mozambique and south africa create the possibility for a refugee to naturalise if certain conditions are met. in south africa, a refugee can apply for permanent residence if they have lived in south africa for a period of five years as a refugee and where it appears that they will remain refugees for the foreseeable future. malawi, botswana, tanzania, zambia and zimbabwe’s legislation is silent on the question of naturalisation. tanzania used to naturalise refugees as a matter of policy but no longer does so. it is recommended that african states develop common approaches that allow for the integration and naturalisation of refugees especially those that have been residing in host countries for many years with a particular focus on second and third generation refugees. 5. establishment of an institutional regional body to coordinate refugee protection the 1969 oau refugee convention only empowers the organisation for african unity (now the african union) to resolve disputes and to collect statistical data from member states and to compile reports. a regional body such as the african union together with the technical assistance of the unhcr ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 563 could provide an operational, coordinating, monitoring and supervisory role in relation to refugee protection in africa. the unhcr was instrumental as the coordinating body during the south-east asia refugee crisis. 6. contributions to a refugee protection fiscal fund or scheme hathaway and neve (1997) advocate for states to contribute to a burden sharing ‘insurance’ scheme of sorts. the reality of refugee protection is that it requires financial and other resources. hosting refugees not only comes at a social and political cost but has a fiscal strain on host countries in times of mass influx of refugees. often expenditures arise from the national budget that have not been planned or provisioned for. unless refugees are on a member state’s territory they do not regard themselves obligated to assist. the unhcr is often also unable to provide sufficient relief and aid for extended periods. in this regard, hathaway and neve (1997) note: [the] distribution of the responsibility […] is not offset by any mechanism to ensure adequate compensation to those governments that take on a disproportionate share of protective responsibilities. to the contrary, any fiscal assistance received from other countries or the unhcr is a matter of charity, not of obligation, and is not distributed solely on the basis of relative need. where a financial resource scheme exists, it minimises the fiscal risk or exposure of refugee hosting countries when the need arises. an equitable system could be developed to determine contributions from member states which is based on ability and capacity. a method could also be developed to determine how refugee hosting countries draw on the fund when the need arises. conclusion and recommendations as conflicts in africa continue to rage on with no apparent end in sight, african states have begun to retreat in their approach to refugee protection which has moved from what bonaventura rutinwa (1999: 30) described as the “open door” policy to one of self-interest and self-preservation. this has been caused by a lack of capacity to host refugees in the face of ever increasing flows and the impact of refugees on host countries, a lack of a coordinated approach and an unwillingness to share the responsibility for refugees. it is important to note that refugee protection and burden sharing in africa should always be complemented with efforts to address the situations in ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 564 countries of origin that force people to flee in the first place. the unhcr and many refugee law academics such as james hathaway have written extensively on the need to address what is typically referred to as the ‘root cause’ of refugees or the conditions in their countries of origin that compel people to flee. together with refugee protection, states must work to resolve the situations in home countries that force people to flee. the authors strongly agree with that argument and have not preoccupied themselves with that discussion in this paper because it has been dealt with at great lengths by other authors. the implementation of the 1969 oau refugee convention has been fragmented and inadequate amongst african states. this has been largely due to a lack of resources, capacity and a shortage of political will to do so. refugee protection is made more complex and difficult in the african context due to the fact that the majority of refugees often seek asylum in some of the world’s poorest countries who are struggling to cater for their own citizens. however, with greater coordination of efforts, harmonisation of domestic policies and legislation, africa can begin to share the financial and physical responsibility of refugee protection. references primary 1948 universal declaration of human rights. 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees. 1966 international covenant on civil and political rights. 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees. 1969 convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa. 1981 african charter on human and peoples rights. conference on the legal, economic and social aspects of african refugee problems. final report, addis ababa (ethiopia), october 9-18, 1967. recommendations from the pan-african conference on the situation of refugees in africa, arusha (tanzania), may 17, 1979. united nations high commissioner for refugees, procedural standards for refugee status determination under unhcr's mandate, november 20, 2003. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 565 secondary allafrica. 2015. kenya: anti-terror border wall sparks heated debate. from <http://bit.ly/1wvgqm6> (retrieved may 19, 2016). amit, r. 2012. no way in barriers to access, service and administrative justice at south africa’s refugee reception offices. acms research report, johannesburg: south africa. from <http://bit.ly/2gxpj3f > (retrieved may 20, 2016). department of home affairs. 2016. 2015 asylum statistics; analysis and trends – presentation to the portfolio committee of homes affairs. from <https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/22163/> (retrieved may 10, 2016). d’orsi, c. 2008. sub-saharan africa: is a new special regional refugee law regime emerging? heidelberg journal of international law (zaőrv), 68:10571081. from <http://bit.ly/2g9j2ih> (retrieved may 10, 2016). fahmi, m. 2013. is identity the root cause of sudan's civil wars? einternational relations. from <http://bit.ly/2g9feo6> (retrieved may 9, 2016). hathaway, jc. and neve, ra. 1997. making refugee law relevant again: a proposal for collectivized and solution-oriented protection. harvard human rights journal, 10: 115. from <http://bit.ly/2gxqzgg> (retrieved may 22, 2016). human rights watch. 2008. failings in the asylum and deportation systems leading to refoulement of zimbabweans. from <http://bit.ly/2gy8zvw> (retrieved may 10, 2016). human rights watch. 2010. uganda/rwanda: halt forced returns of refugees. from <http://bit.ly/2fhyi0c> (retrieved may 19, 2016). johnson, d. 2003. the root cause of sudan’s civil wars. indiana: indiana university press. noble, p. 1982. refugees, law and development in africa. michigan yearbook of international legal studies. michigan. clarke boardman and co, new york, 255 –287. okoth-obbo, g. 2001. thirty years on: a legal review of the 1969 oau refugee convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 566 refugee survey quarterly, 20(1). from <http://bit.ly/2gxqgbx> (retrieved may 19, 2016). reliefweb. 2000. mid-year 2000: sudan: war grinds on. from <http://bit.ly/2g9n1f3> (retrieved 19 may, 2016). rutinwa, b. 1999. the end of asylum? the changing nature of refugee policies in africa. new issues in refugee research, working paper no.5, oxford: united kingdom. from <http://bit.ly/2gn1cbs> (retrieved may 9, 2016). towle, r. 2006. processes and critiques of the indo-chinese comprehensive plan of action: an instrument of international burden-sharing? international journal of refugee law, 18(3-4): 537-570. united nations high commissioner for refugees. 2005. guidelines on international protection no. 11: prima facie recognition of refugee status. from <http://www.unhcr.org/558a62299.pdf> (retrieved may 8, 2016). united nations high commissioner for refugees. 2015a. world at war: unhcr global trends – forced displacement in 2014. from <http://bit.ly/1tkpnto> (retrieved may 10, 2016). united nations high commissioner for refugees. 2015b. mid-year trends 2015. from <http://www.unhcr.org/56701b969.pdf> (retrieved may 8, 2016). united nations high commissioner for refugees. 2015c. world at war. global trends. forced displacement in 2014. from <http://bit.ly/1tkpnto> (retrieved may 8, 2016). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 567 internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts: a case study in dormaa municipality, ghana collins yeboah* abstract though international migration and its related remittance flows have attracted considerable attention in recent years, internal migration has been the focus of academic and policy discourse for a much longer period. studies have shown that both internal and intra-regional migration are far more significant in terms of the numbers of people involved and the quantum of remittances involved than international migration. however, despite increasing internal migration with its associated remittances, their linkages with welfare impacts are complex and mixed. as such, the actual welfare impacts of this phenomenon have been a source of debate in the literature. using mixed methods, this paper examines the relationship between internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts in dormaa municipality in ghana. the study draws upon 202 migrant households on a sample of 358 households screened. the study investigates migration patterns and remittance flows, uses and impacts among migrant households in the municipality. the study suggests that many of the migrants moved to another town or village in ghana for workrelated reasons, notably job transfers, work or to seek work/better work. the study also shows that there have been substantial inflows of migrant remittances to households in dormaa municipality. these remittances have contributed significantly to improving migrant household’s access to health services and education, and have also become an important source of income for consumption smoothing. the study recommends that government should make efforts to monitor remittance flows in ghana and also increase awareness about the importance of remittances for both national and household economies. further, there is the need to scale up education on social attitudes and discourses about internal migration and policy initiatives in ghana. keywords internal migration, remittances, welfare, households, education, health, food. * centre for migration studies, university of ghana. email: collinsybh@yahoo.com. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 568 introduction globally, migration and remittance flows have attracted considerable attention of scholars in recent years. several studies (de haas, 2007; undp, 2009; european commission, 2012; world bank, 2014; randazzo and pirancha, 2014; dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015) indicate that developing countries generate a huge amount of remittances and have shown optimism in the contemporary development discourse regarding poverty reduction at the household level. migrant remittances are a source of income to most developing countries (european commission, 2012) and have the potential to increase economic development of migrants’ home countries (de haas, 2007). remittances are a crucial vehicle for poverty reduction in developing countries (world bank, 2013), an important source of disposable funds for families of migrants and a potential source by which to finance development (european commission, 2012: 8; de haas, 2007: 1). analysts indicate that remittances are twice the amount of the official development assistance (oda) and ten times more than the net private capital transfers to developing countries (kapur and mchale, 2003). though international migration and its related remittance flows have attracted considerable attention in recent years, internal migration has been the focus of academic and policy discourse for a much longer period (see lewis, 1954 and todaro, 1969). according to the united nations development program (undp, 2009), both internal and intra-regional migration are far more significant in terms of the numbers of people involved and the quantum of remittances involved. it is estimated that internal migrants outnumber international migrants by a ratio of roughly four to one (undp, 2009). despite increasing internal migration with its associated remittances, the linkages between internal migration and welfare impacts are complex and mixed (adepoju, 2005; awumbila et al, 2014). in ghana, internal migration and remittances have received significant scholarship (songsore, 2003; opare, 2003; awumbila, 2007; boakye-yiadom, 2008; ackah and medvedev, 2010; awumbila et al, 2014; awumbila et al, 2015). according to quartey (2006: 6), migrant remittances serve as a source of income smoothing and better welfare for migrant households in ghana. these remittances are used for both consumption and investment purposes that, in turn, have both direct and indirect effects on household welfare (quartey, 2006: 6). despite its significance, the relationship between internal migration and poverty outcomes has received little attention in both academic ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 569 and policy circles in terms of creating a national picture of the impacts of migrants’ remittances (dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015; twumasi-ankrah, 1995; srivastava, 2005). while some argue that this could be as a result of the paucity of data in the field (boakye-yaidom, 2008), others argue that the actual welfare impacts of migration are still unknown, which has been a source of debate in the literature (awumbila et al, 2014). to quartey (2006: 7), the relationship between migrant remittances and household welfare in ghana has not been empirically investigated. as such, the actual developmental and welfare impacts of remittances have been a source of debate in the migration literature (twumasi-ankrah, 1995; murrugarra et al, 2011). ghana’s population is characterised by high mobility with more than 43% of all households in 2005/06 having at least one migrant (ackah and medvedev, 2010). evidence from the ghana living standards survey 5 (glss 5) indicated that internal migration is the major form of migration in ghana. by 2010, the proportion of the population living in urban areas was 50.9%, an increase from 43.8% in 2000 (gss, 2012), and is projected to increase to 63% by 2025. also, the population census indicates that about 35% of the population in ghana are migrants or people living outside their places of birth. the recent glss 6 data notes that 48.6% of ghana’s population aged seven years and above were migrants (see gss, 2014). it is worth noting that in 2005/06, 51.6% of the corresponding population were migrants, with the shares of males and females who were migrants being 49.8% and 53.2%, respectively (gss, 2008). thus, in comparison with the data from 2005/06, there is a slight drop in the population’s share of migrants over the seven-year period from 2005/06 to 2012/13. caldwell (1968) explained that internal migration, especially to areas where opportunities exist has become a livelihood strategy for most ghanaians. according to awumbila et al. (2014), rural-urban migration is a livelihood strategy adopted by many to move out of poverty in ghana. migrants send home remittances to their families left behind, yet the actual impacts on their welfare are not known. this article examines the relationships between internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts using a case study in dormaa municipality, ghana. structurally, this article is divided into four sections. the first section explains the theoretical framework and conceptual discussions regarding internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts. the second section reviews the appropriate literature on internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts, describing and analysing the relevant views and models that have been put across and highlighting gaps in the literature. the third section presents the methodological approaches ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 570 employed in the study and the fourth section discusses the results and provides the conclusion. theoretical framework and conceptual discussions the push-pull theory the push-pull theory of migration was postulated by ravenstein (1889) in his work, ‘the laws of migration.’ the theory combined individual rational choice theory, newtonian physics and other rural-urban and developmental perspectives to draw empirical generalisations on the flow of human beings between places (dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015: 33). de haas (cited in dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015: 33) provides a summary of these seven laws as follows: “(1) most migration occurs within a short distance; (2) the majority of migration movements are from agricultural to industrial regions; (3) expansion of most bigger town centres is as a result of migration rather than natural growth; (4) migration develops in tandem with industrial, commercial and transportation expansion; (5) every migration flow produces a counterflow; (6) most women undertake short distance migration while the majority of men indulge in international migration; (7) economic causes are at the centre of most migration flows.” this theory has been applied to the study of migration based on what ‘pushes’ migrants from the place of origin and what attracts or ‘pulls’ them to their place of destination. this theory postulates that the decision to move results based on these two opposing forces. according to king, 2012 (cited in dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015: 33), economic and socio-political factors present in both the source and destination countries explain the push-pull migration theory. thus, factors such as “poverty, unemployment, political repression, poverty, etc… drive out (‘push’) people out of their home [source] countries”. as pointed out by awumbila et al. (2008: 20), “unfavourable conditions in one place ‘push’ people out and favourable conditions in an external location ‘pull’ them in.” critics of the theory argue that the push-pull theory is “barely a theory, it is more a grouping of factors affecting migration, without considering the exact causal mechanisms” (hagen-zanker, 2008: 9). samers (2010: 55-56) describes these factors as “economically deterministic,” “methodologically individualist” and “dreadfully antiquated.” in addition, they do more or less address internal migration rather than international migration. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 571 new economics of labour of migration theory (nelm) the nelm connotes two main perspectives. first is the recognition “that migration decisions (who goes, where to go, for how long, to do what, etc…) are not individual decisions but joint decisions taken within the ambit of the household, and for different members of the household.” thus, de haas (2010: 16) regards the “family or the household as the most appropriate decisionmaking unit.” the basic assumption here is that the households or the family members together with the individuals collectively make decisions regarding migration. according to massey et al. (1998: 21) the scale of the decisionmaking unit, sometimes, moves beyond the micro-environment into the meso scale of extended families and wider communal groups. the second part, according to king (2012: 23) is “that rational-choice decision-making is not only about wage and income maximisation but is also about income diversification and risk aversion.” taking the two perspectives into consideration, the theory brings in the new idea that remittances serve as a major motivating factor for migration. that is, the families and household members are in “an appropriate position to control risks to their economic well-being by diversifying their income-earning and livelihood resources into a ‘portfolio’ of different activities, spreading their labour resources over space and time” (king, 2012: 23). conceptualising migration, remittances and welfare migration, remittances and welfare are complex and context-specific. therefore, it is crucial to explain the relevant terms used in this study to give insight to the readers regarding the specific concepts discussed. it is also paramount that measurements of the three concepts are clearly defined to allow for the analysis of the study. migration migration may be defined as a change in the usual place of residence that entails the crossing of an administrative boundary. the study adopts awumbila et al.’s (2014: 8) definition of a migrant as “someone who has moved and settled in an area for at least six months.” remittances in the literature, remittances are variously defined. however, in this study, tewolde’s (2005 cited in oluwafemi and ayandibu, 2014: 312) definition is adopted, which states that “remittances are financial and non-financial ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 572 materials that migrants receive while working overseas and sent back to their households in their countries of origin.” measurement of welfare in this study, welfare is defined based on an individual’s subjective well-being, that is, the condition of faring or doing well (sumner, 1996). by this definition, welfare impacts of remittances will be measured by the subjective well-being of migrant households. thus, households’ subjective well-being due to remittance impacts will be analysed by finding out whether they have improved access to education, health and consumption (food) after the migration of a household member. when a household responds that based on the remittances they receive, they have an improved access to either education, health or consumption (food), then remittances are considered to have positive impacts on households, and vice versa. the following figure shows the proposed model for testing the aforementioned relationship. figure 1: hypothetical model: the relationship between migration, remittances and welfare. source: author’s own compilation from the above, it is assumed that migrants’ remittances sent to their household members left behind are used to care for the educational needs of their wards, to seek/pay for healthcare and to use for consumption purposes, particularly to purchase food. it is assumed that remittances used for these purposes will result in improved well-being. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 573 overview of existing literature on internal migration, remittances and welfare impacts migration and remittances though difficult to estimate as large amounts of remittances are channelled informally, migrant remittances represent the largest positive impact of migration on migrants’ sending communities (taylor, 1999: 67). micro-level studies indicate that informal transfers of remittances are substantial. however, empirical evidence of the impact of remittance on poverty/welfare seems inconclusive. although some studies have argued that remittances are used for consumption expenditure (adams, 2005; quartey, 2006), evidence from other studies suggests that remittances are used for human capital building (adams, 2006; world bank, 2013). also, remittance flows are crucial for both migrants and the household members left behind, as research has indicated that remittance flows are “part of familial inter temporal contracts between the migrant and the remittance receivers (see guzman et al, 2007: 126). this assertion is in line with the nelm theory that postulates that migration is a decision taken by both the migrant and the household and that migrant remittances are sent to families left behind. studies have found that migrants have different preferences with regards to how remittances are put to use. in mexico, de la cruz’s (1995) study found that the remittances of male migrants are geared towards personal investments in land, housing, agricultural production and cattle. in a similar study, the international organization for migration (iom, 2007), found that a substantial number of women in moldova remit funds to pay for education, health, furniture and loans whereas male migrants prefer to direct their remittances to investment in housing, cars and consumer durables. studies in mali have shown that remittances are used to cover basic food and cash needs and pay for irrigation in agriculture (findley and sow, 1993). households receiving remittances in ethiopia and sri lanka invest more heavily in child education than non-remittance receiving households (seife and susan, 2005). a cross-country comparison of six sub-saharan african nations shows a strong and positive correlation between the average number of household members with a secondary education and receipt of international remittances from outside of the continent (world bank, 2013). in senegal, randazzo and pirancha (2014) found productive use of remittances among those receiving international remittances. the study found ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 574 that those receiving international remittances spend, on average, less on food and more on durables goods, education and investments, signalling a productive use of remittances. in four selected west african countries – cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal – adarkwa (2015) found that inflow of remittances to senegal and nigeria impact positively on these countries’ gross domestic product, but impact negatively on the gdp of cape verde and cameroon. also, using data from 1980 to 2013 to analyse the determinants of remittances to nigeria, laniran and adeniyi (2015) found remittance flows to nigeria as pro-cyclical in nature rather than countercyclical. through the review of literature on international migration and remittances, adams (2011) observed that the impact of international migration on health and education in developing countries is mixed. he observed that while most studies find that international migration and remittances improve infant mortality and child health, by raising household incomes and increasing the health knowledge of mothers, others find the impact of migration and remittances on school enrolment and achievement to be more controversial. on the one hand, international remittances raise school retention rates. on the other hand, studies find that international migration has a negative effect on school attendance rates for teenage boys and girls because of the absence of parents due to migration. other reviews by siddique (2012) found that contrary to the popular belief that migrant families spend disproportionate amounts of remittances on daily consumption, findings show that education and health receive very high priority. for instance, various studies showed that remittances from international migration are disproportionately spent on education and health, rather than on everyday consumption. in ghana, remittances are spent on household consumption, education, debt repayment, financing of projects and investment in small-businesses (quartey and blankson, 2004). both quartey (2006) and owiafe’s (2008) respective studies on remittances and household welfare in ghana found that remittance flows are counter-cyclical in nature; in that they increase in times of economic distress and work as a consumption smoothing mechanism and an informal stabilisation fund. analysing remittance use using glss 4, guzman et al. (2007) found that female-headed households receiving remittances from within ghana have larger expenditure shares for health and education, while those receiving remittances from abroad have higher expenditure shares for health and spend significantly less on food and more on consumer and durable goods and housing. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 575 migration and welfare impacts the world over, migration is increasingly recognised as enhancing the wellbeing of migrants and their households. balbo and marconi (2005) explain that as a result of increasing economic and social inequalities, migrating is becoming an integral component of family and community strategies to improve the living conditions of those who migrate as well as those who remain. according to awumbila et al. (2014), parents encourage the migration of their sons and daughters to the cities in order to enhance the financial situation of the family at the origin through remittances. in this way, it can be said that the young migrants serve as insurers for their households (siddiqui, 2012). internal remittances received play a very crucial role in improving welfare and reducing poverty in ghana (castaldo et al, 2012). kwankye and anarfi (2011) also explain that the remittances sent home by migrants can help minimise the effects of economic shocks on household welfare. however, studies on internal migration are mixed in terms of welfare impacts in ghana. for example, beals et al (1976) and caldwell (1968), found a negative effect of origin locality’s income on rural urban migration but a positive effect of a household’s own income on the probability to migrate (see references in ackah and medvedev, 2010). litchfield and waddington (2003), also using glss rounds 3 and 4, found that migrant households have statistically significantly higher standards of living than non-migrant households in terms of consumption expenditure. however, in terms of nonmonetary welfare indicators, the difference was not statistically significant. in another study, ackah and medvedev (2010) found that internal migration turns out to only be beneficial for a subset of ghanaian households who send migrants to urban rather than rural areas. despite this, the study found evidence that households with migrants tend to be better off than similar households without migrants. ackah and medvedev’s (2010) study relied mostly on quantitative data without examining the subjective assessment by the migrants themselves. this study overcomes this shortfall by allowing for subjective assessment by the migrants themselves. in other situations, migration does not increase welfare gains when compared with non-migrant households. research by awumbila et al (2015) in five regions of ghana examining the relationships between internal/intraregional migration and poverty outcomes found no difference between the income or wealth status of non-migrant-sending households and migrant-sending households, which contradicts the general view that poor households are less ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 576 likely to migrate than wealthy households. however, the authors admitted in their work that the study results reflect a weakness in their data in capturing income and assets at the time of migration. research methodology the study employed mixed methods combining both qualitative and quantitative methods to gain deeper understanding of internal migration and remittances. the study predominantly targeted migrant households in the study area. the study adopted a two-staged stratified sampling technique. a screener survey was used to select households with and without migrants. in all, 358 households were screened. at the second stage, a random sampling technique was used to select 202 households that constituted the main respondents for the survey. household heads were interviewed using both a semi-structured questionnaire and in-depth interviews. the quantitative data was analysed using stata, whereas the qualitative data was recorded electronically, transcribed and uploaded onto nvivo for analysis. figure 2: map of dormaa municipality ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 577 source: centre for remote sensing and geographical information system, legon (2016). results and discussions factors determining migration in dormaa municipality the economic theories on migration posit that, generally, migration (aside from forced migration) is an economic phenomenon; that is wage differentials, economic disparities, and unemployment differentials (hannan, 1970; todaro, 1969; harris and todaro, 1970). others maintain that migration potential and migration decisions are dependent on push and pull factors. the rudimentary idea of the push-pull analysis is that “certain adverse factors (inherent in areas of origin) tend to ‘push’ people away, whilst other favourable factors (associated with areas of destination) tend to ‘pull’ potential migrants from their areas of origin to the destination regions” (boakye-yiadom, 2008: 77). in this regard, unemployment and lack of infrastructure, among other factors, are deemed unfavourable and push local dwellers from their communities. on the other hand, incentives for moving to the destination areas may be better employment opportunities, easier access to social services or adequate infrastructure (boakye-yiadom, 2008). the study findings show the relevance of push-pull factors in explaining migration. the survey results revealed that the main reason why people migrate is to seek work or better jobs (71.2%). that is, lack of jobs in the dormaa municipality ‘pushed’ the majority of the migrants to other areas. this is consistent with other studies (awumbila et al, 2014; dma, 2013; twumasi-ankrah, 1995) and explains the factors leading to out-migration. every three out of four male migrants travelled to look for a new or better job compared to about 65.1% of their female counterparts. about 18.3% of the migrants also travelled as a result of job transfer, whereas 10.4% travelled to further their education. relatively, many more female migrants travelled as a result of a job transfer (22.1%) or to pursue higher education (12.8%) compared to their male counterparts (15.5% and 8.6%, respectively). these findings show that the propensity to migrate in dormaa municipality, as in other areas, is a result of the search for perceived or real opportunities in the cities (ajaero and onokala, 2013). decision to migrate in dormaa municipality until recently, migration literature has traditionally treated migration as an individual decision that is motivated by mainly economic considerations. however, this unitary view has been consistently challenged. it is now ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 578 assumed that the decision to migrate is a collective decision taken by the entire household (boakye-yiadom, 2008: 78). migration has become a livelihood mechanism for diversifying income and to insure the entire household (including the migrants) against risks and uncertainty (awumbila et al, 2014; ackah and medvedev, 2010; boakye-yiadom, 2008). the study revealed that the migrants themselves were the main people who made the decisions to migrate (55%). respondents cite other people such as spouses (27.2%), parents and siblings (7.4% each), and guardians (3%) to have been involved in the migration decision-making process, lending support to the collective decision making within households. as expected, many more male migrants (57.8%) made decisions concerning their migration than female migrants (51.2%). this may be explained by patriarchal norms in traditional ghanaian societies that see men as superior to women (nukunya, 2003). on the other hand, husbands and parents influenced the migration decisions of female relatives more (30.2% and 10.5%) than their male relatives (25% and 5.2%) respectively. migrant destination communities migrants are rational economic agents moving to areas that maximise their incomes and overall well-being (harris and todaro, 1970). according to dma (2013), the main destination areas for out-migrants in the municipality are overseas, accra, kumasi, sunyani and the cocoa growing areas of sefwi. in order to know where these migrants move to other than overseas, the respondents were asked to indicate where their household members are. the respondents indicated that their household members (migrants) have moved to other regions including the brong ahafo region within ghana (46%), different districts within the brong ahafo region (41.1%) and other communities within the same district (12.9%). over half of the male migrants had a migration destination outside of their region of origin (52.6%), compared to 37.2% of the female migrants. the greatest proportion of the female migrants, on the other hand, moved to other districts within the same region (46.5%), compared to 37.1% of the male migrants (see figure 6). the survey results also show that young migrants tend to move more to other communities within the district – 20-29 years (28.6%), 30-39 years (9.9%), and 40-49 years (9.3%) – whilst none of those aged 50 years and above migrated to a different community within the same district. however, older migrants moved to other districts within the same region and other regions in ghana. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 579 figure 3: destination of migrants by gender source: author, fieldwork, 2015 migrants economic activities in destination areas migrants are engaged in a variety of activities in their destination areas, particularly in the informal sector. ratha et al (2011) explain that most poor internal and international migrants move to the urban centres to work in the informal sector. awumbila et al (2014) found that in ghana, migrants living in slum areas in accra are involved in income generating activities that are highly gendered. table 1: main economic activity of migrants at destination economic activity male female overall n % n % n % paid labour 19 16.4 10 11.6 29 14.4 service worker 13 11.2 12 14 25 12.4 own business 18 15.5 6 7 24 11.9 technician and professionals 13 11.2 10 11.6 23 11.4 sales worker 16 13.8 7 8.1 23 11.4 own farm worker 6 5.2 17 19.8 23 11.4 domestic worker 8 6.9 15 17.4 23 11.4 transport operator 16 13.8 3 3.5 19 9.4 skilled construction worker 2 1.7 5 5.8 7 3.5 ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 580 manager 5 4.3 1 1.2 6 3 total 116 100 86 100 202 100 source: author, fieldwork, 2015 thus, while women were mainly working as petty traders, food venders, catering (chop bar) assistants, shop assistants, hairdressers, head portage (kayayei) or plaiting hair, men were working as artisans, labourers in the construction sector, operators of motorbikes as taxis (okada) and other trades (awumbila et al, 2014: 23). as shown in table 1 above and in consonance with awumbila et al (2014), this study found that in general, each of the migrants had a gendered economic activity that he/she was performing. migration and remittance flow in dormaa municipality studies have found that a significant proportion of migrants, both internal and international, send remittances or transfers back to their families at their places of origin, either in the form of cash or goods (castaldo et al, 2012: 16). in studying remittances, both financial and non-financial remittances are important to the development of ghana (quartey, 2006). remittances are important in that they are associated with greater human development outcomes on health, education and gender equality (world bank, 2013) and contribute to poverty reduction in home countries because of heavy cash flows (un, 2002). remittances sent by migrants to their families and relatives in their originating communities are an important means to maintain ties with family members (akyeampong, 2000). the survey revealed that about 63.9% of the households received money from migrants. a slightly higher proportion of the female migrants (65.1%) sent money to their households than the male migrants (62.9%). this finding is not surprising as abdul-korah (2011) examined the gendered patterns of remitting by dagaaba migrants using an historical lens and found that female migrants send money home more regularly and for longer periods of time than male migrants. in terms of receiving remittances, the analysis revealed that many more male respondents (69.2%) received remittances in the form of cash than female respondents (58.2%). in the literature, issues of receiving remittances based on gender are mixed. whereas some studies found females perceived as more trustworthy to receive money, others see males as those to whom money should be entrusted for the purposes of effecting projects. when a male ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 581 respondent was asked why his sister always sends money to him but not to his other female siblings, this was his response: “for me, men can monitor projects. if you ask a woman to build a house, these masons will dupe them. but they dare not try this on men” (tp, 2015). the study further revealed that the minimum amount of money received through remittances was gh₵90 whereas the maximum was gh₵2,500. the mean amount received was gh₵631.86 with a standard deviation of 522.39. female migrants remitted higher amounts of money than male migrants: gh₵643.57 with a standard deviation of 482.60 and 622.88 with a standard deviation of gh₵554.10, respectively. most migrants remit money to households upon request (55.8%) whilst a significant proportion also remitted money to their households on a regular basis each month (36.4%). very few studies have paid attention to remittance flows from internal migrants. this, according to the world bank (2011), is a result of not being able to capture domestic transactions in the balance of payments by the central banks. also, it could be as a result of the informal channels used to send remittances, which make it difficult to capture them in official estimates. the study revealed that the dominant method migrants used to send money to their households was through mobile money (50.8%). other informal channels such as migrants bringing the money home themselves (21.9%), friends or other persons returning home with the money (14.1%) and informal money transfers (8.6%) were also prevalent. western union money transfer (4.7%) was also amongst the means migrants used to send money to their households. these findings indicate that despite the fact that most migrants send remittances, very few of them use formal channels. as such, internal remittance flows are difficult to capture in official government records. other forms of remittances in dormaa municipality as noted by quartey (2006), migrants send non-financial remittances such as food, clothing and mobile phones to their households in ghana. according to primavera (2005), non-financial remittances could come in the form of foodstuffs for consumption or items that can be sold or used by relations at the place of origin. in relation to this, the study found that apart from money transfers, other non-cash items were received by some of the households. nearly 63.4% received food and other goods from migrants. also, two-thirds of the female migrants sent food and other goods to their households ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 582 compared to about 61.2% of the male migrants. the main items that the households received from migrants in the last 12 months as indicated in figure 3 below are clothing (20.3%), mobile phones (12.5%), household utensils (10.9%), food (10.2%) and jewellery (9.4%). some differences were observed between items sent by male migrants and their female counterparts. clothing was the most dominant item sent by both sexes, male (22.5%) and female (17.5%). however, female migrants were much more likely to send mobile phones (15.8%) and food items (12.3%) to their households than the male migrants (9.9% and 8.5%, respectively). another interesting finding is that people who migrated farther away from their households were less likely to send food and other goods to the household than those who were nearer. about 69.2% of those who migrated to other communities within the same district sent food and other goods to the household, compared to 66.3% and 60.4% of people who migrated to other districts within the same region and other regions in ghana, respectively. this is not surprising, as perishable food items cannot be sent over a long distance. about 27.7% of all households in the survey did not receive either cash or noncash items. this finding could be the result of migrants being students. the households rather send money to the migrants as explained by one respondent when asked why they did not receive remittances from their migrants: “oh she is a student. you know students don’t work. she is there to study. we rather send her money and food every two months” (mk, 2015). however, the study found that nearly 55.9% received both cash and non-cash items as remittances. this is an indication that remittances are sent in both cash and goods in ghana (quartey, 2006). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 583 figure 4: items received by households from migrants by gender source: author, fieldwork, 2015 remittances and welfare impacts in dormaa municipality the positive association between migration and improvement in welfare has largely been conceived through the concept of remittances (awumbila et al, 2014: 29). it is generally assumed that remittances can contribute positively to poverty reduction by “providing migrant-sending households the resources to smoothen consumption and invest in productive ventures” (awumbila et al, 2014: 29). it is also crucial to avert future eventualities, particularly financial losses. as explained by hulme et al. (2001) cited in quartey and blankson (2004: 10), remittances when properly managed could serve as a form of premium payment for future risks to reduce vulnerability to financial shocks and to gain access to entitlements such as education and health that contribute to livelihood security and sustainability. remittances are put to various uses. according to quartey and blankson (2004), remittances are mostly invested ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 584 in consumption, health care, education and housing. this part of the analysis examines migrant households’ access to health, education and food as a result of having a migrant. remittances and access to health services remittances are crucial and can serve as an insurance policy against risks. as a form of insurance, the study revealed that overall about 57.5% of the households which received remittances indicated that they were much better able to afford to pay for health services. figure 5: households' improvement in ability to pay for health services after migration source: author, fieldwork, 2015 this is not surprising as studies have shown that migrant remittances can contribute to better health outcomes by allowing household members to access health care services and enabling them to increase information about health practices. as shown in figure 4 above, the analysis further observed a slight difference between male and female respondents with respect to improvement in their conditions regarding the affordability of health services (88.9% and 87.7%, respectively). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 585 at a significant level of 5%, a chi-square test shows that there is no statistically significant association between households’ improvement in ability to pay for health services after migration of household member by sex of the respondent (p = 0.924). that is, in general, the respondents, irrespective of their sexes, see improvement in their ability to pay for health services. though migrants’ remittances are critical for health care services, improved access to healthcare as indicated by the household could also be an indication of the importance respondents attach to the national health insurance scheme, a social intervention programme aimed at helping the poor and rich have equal access to quality health care in ghana (yeboah, 2013). remittances and access to consumption (food) the study revealed that every two out of three male respondents were much better regarding their ability to afford to buy food in their household after a household member migrated and sent remittances home. a relatively lower proportion of female respondents found their household in this situation (55.4%). however, overall, more households of female respondents had a general improvement in their ability to afford food after a household member migrated than households of male respondents (92.3% and 88.9%, respectively), as indicated in figure 5 below. furthermore, about 91.7% of households who had children of migrants living with them reported a general improvement in the affordability of food compared to 86.5% of households that had no child of the migrant living with them. this is an indication that migrants tend to send remittances for consumption purposes if they have children left behind with relatives. however, a chi-square test of significance indicates that there is no statistically significant difference in household improvement in ability to pay for food after migration according to the sex of the respondent (p=0.143). the findings above resonate with findings by quartey and blankson (2004), quartey (2006) and castaldo et al (2012) that remittances in ghana helped smooth the household consumption. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 586 figure 6: households' improvement in ability to pay for food after migration source: author, fieldwork, 2015 remittances and access to education while some studies have argued that remittances are used for consumption expenditure (adams, 2005; quartey, 2006), evidence from other studies suggests that remittances are used for human capital building (adams, 2006). thus, remittances may be used to finance schooling of children, which could lead to the reduction of child labour and school drop-outs. nevertheless, paucity of household survey data on remittances and educational outcome means little is known about the empirical evidence of the impact of remittances on educational outcomes in ghana and dormaa in particular. however, studies indicate that remittance-receiving households in ghana invest more in education than other households (quartey, 2008). the findings from this study, as indicated in figure 6 below, show that the proportion of households with female migrants (64.6%) who reported a much better improvement in their ability to pay for education outnumbered those with male migrants (55.6%). these findings give an idea about the gendered patterns of remittance use among migrant households in ghana. also, this is the only indicator where respondents noted a worse experience in their ability to pay for education. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 587 figure 7: households' improvement in ability to pay for education after migration source: author, fieldwork, 2015 despite the fact that more females reported improvement in their ability to pay for school than males, a chi-square test of significance did not reveal any statistically significant differences in one’s ability to pay for education than the other at a p-value of 0.722. only households who lived with children of migrants reported a worse position in their ability to pay for education (1.8%). in these cases, the reason for this is that the migrant rarely sends money home to pay for fees: “for 2 years now i haven’t heard from him. he doesn’t call, he doesn’t visit us neither does he sends money to us. i personally pay for his children’s school fees. in fact it’s becoming difficult for me” (tl, 2015). despite such cases, the general picture indicates positive associations between having a migrant and access to education in dormaa municipality. thus, remittances received by migrant households make a direct contribution to increasing household members’ abilities to pay for education. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 588 summary and conclusion the foremost contribution of the study to knowledge was ascertaining how remittances derived from internal migration could impact or improve welfare of the migrant households receiving remittances in dormaa municipality, ghana. using welfare indicators such as education, health and consumption (food), the study interrogated the impact of migrants’ remittances on their households’ welfare and also addressed their policy implications. the findings from the study indicate that migration is an enduring aspect of life in dormaa municipality. the propensity to migrate emanates from pushpull factors. thus, lack of jobs and unreliable agriculture, amongst other factors, push migrants away from the municipality to other areas. the availability of jobs and other life-enhancing activities pulls migrants into these areas. however, the decision to migrate is taken by the migrants and their immediate households as an ‘insurance’ received in the form of remittances. again, it is essential to emphasise that the results of both the quantitative and qualitative analysis indicate that remittances improve households’ access to health, consumption and education. the study findings are consistent with other studies that show that internal remittances do have a positive impact on receiving households in terms of repayment of debts, improved access to consumption, better education and investment in enterprise (afsar, 2003; dayal and karan, 2003; ellis, 2003). the analysis further elaborates on the fact that even if not reducing poverty, migration is an important coping strategy and remittances smooth incomes (mosse et al, 2002 cited in castaldo et al, 2012: 20). migrants’ remittances play a crucial role in improving the wellbeing of migrant households left behind. as king (2012: 2) points out and as found in the study, remittances from migrants are used to hedge against other activities failing, to cover the basic costs of everyday life (food, clothing, education and health), or to invest in some new project such as a house, land or small business. recommendations this study’s findings raise a number of policy issues related to internal migration, remittances and welfare in ghana. the need for policies to address challenges faced by internal migrants: first, the findings show that many of the people who move out of the municipality are driven by lack of jobs, which is a result of spatial inequalities in development in ghana (songsore, 2009). the implication of this is that current ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 589 policies and programs aimed at discouraging internal migration, particularly to the urban centres, are bound to fail unless spatial inequalities in development are addressed (awumbila et al, 2014). therefore, it is imperative for the government to look at the potential that internal migration presents for the majority of the rural migrants to move out of poverty and fashion out policies that will minimise the risks faced by these migrants. the need for migrants’ remittance management: the study findings also highlight the need for remittance management in ghana for national development. the development of migrant sending areas can generally be achieved through remittances and investments by migrants when remittances are properly managed. as ajaero and onokala (2013) argue, migrants’ remittances and the income multipliers they create are critical resources for the sustenance strategies of receiving households as well as agents of regional and national development. the study findings indicate that a greater share of remittances is sent through informal channels, which implies that people engaging in this practice evade taxes. it is imperative for ghana revenue authorities to devise strategies to check and formalise the operations of informal money transfer agents in order to be able to tax them so that dormaa municipality in particular and ghana as a whole will benefit fully from remittances. the need for remittances policy: the findings again highlight the need to initiate policies on remittance management in ghana through collaboration with banks and other private agencies. this could be achieved by introducing new schemes for migrant workers and family members by banks and other financial institutions, by building strong partnerships between money transfer operators/banks/micro-finance institutions on the sending side and the receiving side. this will create opportunities for both remitters/senders and receivers to be banked. this requires the establishment of a remittance management wing in different banks under the supervision and guidance of the bank of ghana. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 590 references abdul-korah, g.b. 2011. now if you have sons you are dead: migration, gender and family economy in twentieth century north-western ghana. journal of asian and african studies, 18(4): 390-403. ackah, c. and medvedev, d. 2010. internal migration in ghana: determinants and welfare impacts. world bank policy research working paper, wps5273, washington, dc: the world bank. adams, r.h. 2011. evaluating the economic impact of international remittances on developing countries using household surveys: a literature review. journal of development studies, 47(6): 809–828. adams, r.h. 2006. remittances and poverty in ghana. world bank policy research working paper no. 3838, washington dc: the world bank. adams, r.h. 2005. remittances, household expenditure and investment in guatemala. world bank policy research working paper series no. 3532, washington dc: the world bank. adarkwa, a. 2015. impact of remittances on economic growth: evidence from selected west african countries (cameroon, cape verde, nigeria & senegal). african human mobility review (ahmr), 1(2): 154-177. adepoju, a. 2005. patterns of migration in west africa. in: manuh, t. 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overcoming barriers: human mobility and development. new york: united nations development program. washington, d.c.: the world bank. world bank. 2011. migration and remittances factbook 2011. second edition, development prospects group. washington dc: the world bank. world bank. 2013. migration and remittance flows: recent trends and outlook, 2013 2016. migration and development brief 21. world bank. 2014. migration and development. brief issue 23, washington d.c.: the world bank. yeboah, c. 2013. community-based ecotourism as a means of poverty reduction. a case of boabeng-fiema monkey’s sanctuary, ghana. ma thesis (unpublished), germany: ruhr universitat. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 596 migration and hiv/aids in rural south africa: a dualphase intergenerational, gendered chain migration alexandra plowright*, gillian hundt** and maria stuttaford*** abstract migration is a complex process that is fundamental in understanding the complexity of societies across the world. in south africa, there are high levels of migration associated with hiv and aids, and the process is intrinsically linked with issues associated with population health. research conducted in kwazulunatal province, and in the wider country, has reported on a circular migratory flow of women to and from the province. however, this paper presents findings suggesting that the gendered migration occurring in this area is actually an intergenerational process of chain migration that involves women of different generations moving to south africa from households in other southern african countries. younger women are initially motivated to move by various push and pull factors, such as economic or environmental instability. despite enthusiasm to move and motivation to succeed in south africa, their experiences of migration to south africa are mostly characterised by negativity. often exposed to unsafe conditions coupled with a lack of opportunities for meaningful work, many are left vulnerable to hiv contraction. older women then migrate to follow their daughters in response to requests for support, forming the second phase of this process of intergenerational chain migration. as a result of this process, which is strongly influenced by hiv, there are emerging communities of younger women who require access to services for hiv, and older women who are in need of primary care services associated with ageing while they are providing assistance to their kin and new host communities. keywords migration, hiv, aids, south africa, health, gender, women, southern africa. * research fellow, university of warwick’s medical school, centre for applied health research and delivery. email: a.s.plowright@warwick.ac.uk. ** emeritus professor, warwick medical school, university of warwick. email: gillian.hundt@warwick.ac.uk. *** honorary research fellow, cardiff law school, university of cardiff. email: stuttafordm@cardiff.ac.uk. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 597 background and review of literature migration refers to the flow of people between and within regions and countries that takes place globally (haour-knipe, 2009). migration can occur between as well as within regions and countries, as people from different backgrounds, generations and origins migrate in response to a range of push and pull factors. these factors can include forced displacement owing to conflict or famine, physical or economic insecurity and historical migration patterns. however, this paper is concerned with an emerging pattern of interregional migration. interregional migration refers to the movement of people between countries, but within a geographical region. in this case, the region is sub-saharan africa. interregional migrants often hold the view, and the hope, that the new host country will provide improved living conditions, such as security, migrant community engagement and opportunities for employment (kok, 2006). migration is particularly evident throughout south africa (camlin et al, 2014) and has been influenced by the socio-political context of the apartheid era. during apartheid, historically disadvantaged, black south african men were systematically located to areas where labour was needed in order to reinforce the historically advantaged position of white south africans (posel, 2010). during this period, government policy sought to prevent the movement of black south african women away from rural areas (ngcobo, 1990). this containment of women in rural areas sought to reinforce the control the apartheid government had over the movement of black south africans. despite these movement restrictions, women have been successfully migrating to, from and within south africa since the early 19th century, mostly as migratory leaders, in search of income-generating opportunities (iom, 2010). furthermore, neves and du toit (2008) understand that the current structure and dynamics of households in south africa can be attributed to these historical-political migratory movements. the gendered nature of south african migration is increasingly being recognised and a number of studies have identified that migration in south africa is disproportionately becoming feminised: it is a process that women participate in. muhwava and colleagues (2010) reported increasing numbers of women participating in migration in kwazulu-natal province (kzn), whilst collinson et al (2006) identified that women aged 15-25 years are the most mobile population category in the country. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 598 the migration dynamics within kzn, particularly, are a pertinent issue that have the potential to impact social cohesion, service provision and demography in the province. kzn is easily accessible for african regional migrants as it is located in close proximity to international borders with mozambique and swaziland. the province also has a number of large scale farming areas and popular tourist destinations that are perceived to offer employment opportunities. these factors, when combined with the lifting of restrictions on the movement of black africans since the end of apartheid in 1994, have meant that large numbers of economically active people of working age and ability have migrated to rural farming areas in kzn in search of employment in agriculture and tourism. migration in kwazulu-natal province has been described as increasingly gendered (camlin et al, 2014), and has been reported as such in research from the northern coastal region of kwazulu-natal province (camlin et al, 2014; bennett et al, 2014). using data from the africa centre demographic surveillance site (dss), camlin and colleagues (2014) report that 50.4% of women, as opposed to 35.3% of men, participated in migration to rural areas between 2001 and 2006. similarly, bennett and colleagues (2014) identified increasing mobility of women, particularly parents. research from the africa centre dss that documents the “extraordinarily high levels of mobility” of adults on the north coast of kwazulu-natal, also claims that these high levels and increasingly gendered migratory patterns are cyclical or circular, consisting mainly of local, rural-to-rural migratory movements of predominantly black south african women (camlin et al, 2014). the authors found in 2001 that participants in migration of this sort were predominantly female (108 per 1000 female, as opposed to 86 per 1000 male) aged 2-24 years, with black south african women seen as participating more than men in a local short-term circulatory migratory flow, and predominating in a ruralto-rural flow of people. in contrast, the findings presented in this paper suggest that the gendered migration occurring in these northern, coastal rural areas of kwazulu-natal involves a more complex flow of women. women participate in an intergenerational process of chain migration, whereby older women move as migratory followers of younger women from their original households. these households of origin are most likely located in other southern african countries, meaning that migration is interregional. the women leave in response to push and pull factors. one of these is hiv, which has been long ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 599 identified as being a major source of household instability, particularly in northern kwazulu-natal (hosegood, 2009). hiv has for three generations been the major public health challenge faced by south africa. there are an estimated 7,000,000 people living with hiv in south africa (unaids, 2015), with the most vulnerable demographic sector being young women and girls aged 10-24 (unaids and the african union 2015). kwazulu-natal province is disproportionally affected by the hiv pandemic, and has the highest proportion of people living with hiv in the country (28% of all adults) (hsrc, 2014). as such, it is not surprising that hiv has been identified as an agent promoting the movement of household members to and from kwazulu-natal province, especially women and children (hosegood et al, 2004; hosegood et al, 2007). however, the movement of people discussed in the studies above relates mainly to vulnerable, black south african women of reproductive age and not, as argued in this paper, different generations of migrant women originating from the same households from across the southern african region. this paper presents findings from fieldwork conducted in 2011 and 2012 in a rural location in kwazulu-natal province that describe the migratory flow of women to this northern coastal area of the province. the findings indicate that there is a newly emerging intergenerational movement of women, which is different from previously identified patterns of migration. it is argued that the findings are relevant to the development of policy related to the provision of primary health services for women in rural areas of south africa. methodology data collection took place in 2011 and 2012 in one large community comprising four village areas on the north coast of kwazulu-natal province. the community, villages and participants are all anonymised. the research methods used during the ethnographic fieldwork were: non-participant observation and semi-structured interviews with younger women (30 years and younger) and older women (31 years and older). a basic community mapping exercise was also incorporated into the fieldwork. through non-participant observation, the researcher was able to become familiar with the different places and spaces, and was able to meet members of different social and community groups, as well as potential host organisations for accessing large numbers of the population of the villages. the researcher spent time observing popular places within the community, ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 600 talking to local people and making notes. initially the researcher was based at a crèche and community project, which was selected as it was located in the centre of the commercial area and was easily accessible. however, as informal discussion with participants identified additional hubs less visible to an outsider, these were included in the sampled sites for non-participation observation too. these hubs included a central trading store that sold alcohol and groceries, where hawkers and informal traders gathered at month-end to sell home-grown vegetables and second hand clothing. the researcher was also directed to an ‘uwashe’ which is an easily accessible area of the river, where women meet to wash clothes and chat, as well as other crèches located around the village areas. these crèches were mostly run by older women, gogos (grandmothers). some time was also spent in shebeens (taverns without liquor licenses), talking to men and learning about gender relations in the community areas. this non-participant observation facilitated the development of not only an understanding of the local socio-cultural context, but also the extent of the complex socio-spatial relationships between ethnicity, origin, migratory status and location, as people who originated from different countries in southern africa and other south african regions generally lived in different village. meeting people, women in particular, and engaging in informal conversation led to the identification of participants for the semi-structured interviews. additional participants were identified using a snowball sampling method, which led to the final interview sample size of 64 women and 8 men. men were included in some family group interviews, but not interviewed individually. all participants were provided with information sheets in the predominant local language, isizulu, and gave their verbal informed consent before participation in the study. whilst all participants were given the option to refuse to participate or to withdraw at any point without penalty, there were no refusals. dr alexandra plowright conducted semi-structured interviews about women’s experiences of migration, or migrants living in their communities. some participants were interviewed not only individually, but also with their peers or families in natural group interviews. women of all ages were included in the sample, with the only selection criteria being their willingness to participate. men were not excluded from the sample, but were not actively sought. therefore, the only men included in the sample were those who were present at the time of interviews with (a) female participant(s), where they chose to contribute to the discussion. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 601 the interviews were conducted in a combination of isizulu, siswati, english and uchope, depending on the language of the participant, and all interviews took place in a location of the participants’ choosing. interview participants discussed their own experiences of migration, which were strongly rooted in their backgrounds: older migrant women spoke in depth about their own experiences and, their understandings of the experiences of others. local, south african women of all ages were enthusiastic and eager to talk about their lives and experiences. during individual interviews women divulged personal information, and discussed sensitive topics, such as their views on the hiv pandemic, attitudes of others and sometimes their own hiv status. group interviews were usually conducted later, either in peer or family groups. peer groups provided a platform whereby women of similar ages could discuss issues pertinent to their generation, whereas family groups sometimes included men and, as such, provided insight into the gender dynamics within the household as well as socio-cultural norms within the village. selected women from different generations were invited to participate in a basic, modified participatory mapping exercise. participants involved in this were those whose interviews referred to and relied heavily on visual representations of their village. the mapping exercise involved the participant and the researcher walking together through the village with a very basic map, containing a diagram of the river, the two main roads and a cross that indicated the starting location (usually the woman’s home). as the journey progressed, the participant identified the places of interest to them and marked them on the map. this methodology lead to the telling of detailed, complex stories about their lives in the local area, their experiences, their feelings and their personal history and links with the community and the village where they lived. data were analysed thematically by dr alexandra plowright using nvivo 9 software. the analysis was inductive, and data from different sources were triangulated to ensure rigour. results and discussion results from this research have demonstrated that migration to the study area located on the north coast of kwazulu-natal province has led to the gradual development of a visually segregated space, divided into village areas that are distinguished according to the migratory origin of residents. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 602 at first glance, the area seemed to be a generic, typically south african, isizuluspeaking community that was small in size. however, the true extent of diversity was revealed through both observation and interviews with residents from different backgrounds: the larger community area was segregated and segmented. specific spaces had developed for non-migrants and others for migrants. the latter included south african internal migrants and international migrants who were mostly from mozambique, zimbabwe and swaziland. the wider area was clearly divided into four highly distinct sections, with characteristics that set them apart as separate villages. these different village areas are referred to as villages a, b, c and d. village a comprised of low-cost housing built as part of the government’s reconstruction and development programme (rdp) which focuses on providing housing and infrastructure for previously disadvantaged, low income, identification-holding south africans (tangri, 2008). these houses were relatively well constructed, using concrete blocks and tiled roofs, and had communal water supplies. in contrast, village b consisted of homes made of natural materials – mainly rocks, sticks and branches – and all had tin roofs. these houses were informally constructed and appeared unstable. residents from village b were mostly south africans who were unregistered; they did not have an identification book, which is needed to apply for rdp housing. village c was the final area inhabited by south african residents and houses were built in the style of modern western style bungalows, and were large in size. each had a garden and most had an indoor bathroom with running water. an emerging middle class of black south africans lived here. village d consisted of overcrowded, poor quality houses, many of which were owned by sugarcane farmers and, historically, had been used to house migrant farm labourers. empty buildings were occupied by unemployed migrants and all dwellings were overcrowded, of poor quality and without access to sanitation and water supplies. these four village areas looked very different as they were each characterised by a different style of building. they represented an underlying disparity in income as well as a poor quality of life that is often associated with spaces occupied by many migrants and non-migrants. women and men of different ages, backgrounds and migratory origins lived in each of the four village areas. some lived with their families, some alone, and ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 603 some in shared rooms utilising communal facilities. both younger and older women shared their experiences of migration. younger women younger participants in this study indicated that they had most commonly been the first family member to move to south africa. many had been inspired to move by the experience of friends or neighbours from their home community, as well as their own perception that migrating provided access to wealth, better living conditions, modern clothing and commercial items. other younger women described feelings of disillusionment with their circumstances, opportunities and prospects in their home communities. in particular, participants from zimbabwe associated these feelings with political or environmental instability and described how these feelings and experiences pushed them to migrate. most indicated that they had incurred negative experiences of both the journey and their arrival in rural kwazulu-natal. these had resulted in the younger women migrants often adopting high-risk livelihood strategies in order to ensure their survival. these strategies often posed a risk to their own health and their children’s health that was sometimes further heightened by reluctance to access primary care services. the possibility of earning salaries in south african rands (zar) and sending money back to their homes were both major pull factors that inspired the migration of younger migrant women. some described how they had observed neighbours in their home communities receiving remittances from family members who had previously moved to south africa and seen the effect the extra income had on the material circumstances of neighbours and returning migrants. one participant explained how this affected the dynamic in her home community: i used to see women buying the newest stuff for their kids, new clothes from the expensive shops. neighbours used to try and do better than each other… build bigger and better, with brighter colours, that sort of thing… every month, this one family used to go to town and buy cows or a tractor. then the next month their neighbours would come back with a plough, some goats or a new bicycle, just to prove who had more money (precious, 22, mozambique). the situation described by precious, above, and the access to sought-after material items appeared to motivate young, female migrants to move to south africa. as menenhle explained: ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 604 me, i wanted nice things. i could only get that if i moved away (menenhle, 18, mozambique). other younger women explained that they had become disillusioned with life in their home communities. princess described how a lack of income made her want to move away: i didn’t like my home because we were poor…i was cold, hungry and by myself much of the time (princess, 24, zimbabwe). often, younger women wanted to move in order to experience more of life as there were few opportunities for personal growth and no prospects in their home communities: i moved because i wanted to see this, to have more of an experience of life that is not just my small village, where there is nothing you can do (thabsile, 33, swaziland). some women reminisced about how they felt unhappy with their position as women in what were regularly described as strongly patriarchal, gendered home communities. for some younger participants, like princess, this was a major factor in their decisions to move to south africa: i was living at home and had to do all the jobs, i was expected to be married to someone horrible because his family had money and my family had none. i had no choice… i knew i was having to get away (princess, 24, zimbabwe). a number of younger participants, like princess, originated from zimbabwe. they moved from unstable home environments where they felt unsafe and lived in fear of hunger, drought, civil war or political unrest. they lived without income and were worried for their survival. the women saw their migration to south africa, not as a luxury or a long awaited goal in their life trajectory, but as a necessary move to ensure more secure futures for themselves and their children if they had any. as thembeka explained: south africa, at least it was better than sitting at home dying slowly like we did in zim…no food, so much stress about the children, the life there, where are we going to live, our houses…i don’t know how to stay there; the problems with the politics and it is all making it impossible to eat (thembeka, 24, zimbabwe). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 605 some younger migrant women indicated that they had often made choices before their move that focused on facilitating their future migration. some, like dinance, decided to delay being in a relationship or having children: i didn’t want a boyfriend, didn’t want to get pregnant and have to stay behind. i wanted to move to south africa for a new start. i didn’t want the stress of getting in a relationship and then leaving (dinance, 30, mozambique). others explained how they lessened their emotional ties to their home communities and households as they were focusing on their impending move to south africa, which they wanted to be as emotionally easy as possible. princess said: [she] didn’t want to have a boyfriend, have a family in that place or make friends, because there was no point, [she] was moving away… (princess, 24, zimbabwe). many younger generation migrant women wanted to move to south africa for a safer, improved life. yet they often described negative experiences of their eventual journeys to south africa that were characterised by extreme vulnerability: i didn’t know where i was, i had no knowledge about the safety of the area. i would put my money and my cell phone in my bra, and wrap myself up in layers of clothing. i would sleep very lightly and wake up at the smallest sound… i was also worried about malaria… usually you are sleeping inside at night, you are safe… i was very, very scared (menenhle, 18, mozambique). some, like thembeka, described experiencing rape or abuse: a drunk man fell over me and put his face next to mine, he was breathing all over me, it was disgusting, then a sex worker took a customer to the table next to mine, and there were people taking drugs all over the place, walking around with that funny look… i felt so scared, and worried they would rape me or steal from me (thembeka, 24, zimbabwe). yet most, like zinhle, were afraid of being alone: ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 606 i was so alone. i missed my family, my sisters, my friends. i had no job… i didn’t even know how i would find a job in the morning. i wished i could have gone back home (zinhle, 22, swaziland). the reality of what was available to them as migrant women was often far from the perceived improved economic and social life they had hoped for. jobs were described as being hard to find and poorly paid. accommodation was either expensive or associated with exacting manual labour on sugar or banana farms. tilly explained: i looked for a job for many days, then got one but it was hard work… [i] had sores on [my] arms, legs, feet, burns from chemicals on [my] legs… [i] was exhausted, and worked sixteen hour days… [i] only got paid r30 per day. it was the only work [i] could get, and if [i] left [i] would lose [my] room (tilly, 23, mozambique). often the income earned was a small amount of money, so women found that they were unable to afford to provide for their basic needs let alone send money home. many resorted to multiple livelihood strategies in order to improve their living conditions and increase their income. however, these strategies were often high risk and made the women vulnerable to abuse and hiv. livelihood strategies identified by participants included transactional sex, pregnancy for the child support grant through the use of ‘grantmakers’ who are informal, illegal brokers. alternatively, they turned to ‘sugar daddies,’ older boyfriends who often gave valuable gifts like mobile phone airtime, food or cash. princess described how she resorted to additional income generation methods in order to survive: i couldn’t afford to live, i needed to send money home, so i started having sex [with an older man] for airtime, mealie meal, clothes. it meant i could send money back home… i got pregnant and i used a grantmaker for the [child support] grant payment (princess, 24, zimbabwe). as a result of relying on livelihood strategies of this kind, many younger migrant women reported health problems associated with pregnancy, tuberculosis, hiv, untreated reproductive health conditions, skin complaints and sexually transmitted infections, that often were untreated. thabsile described how her actions and choices resulted in her concerns about her health: ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 607 i am in a relationship with a man, he is not like i thought he would be. he drinks, he smokes, and he smokes dagga [marijuana] every day. he doesn’t work, but he expects me to. at the end of the month he steals my money and uses it on sex, so i worry all the time about my health. he refuses to use condoms when he sleeps with me, and we already have three children… it makes me stressed that the children are from this horrible man (thabsile, 33, swaziland). younger women who had children after their migration to kwazulu-natal revealed how their own decisions and choices also negatively impacted on the health of their children through hiv-related complications. these complications were mostly the result of not having access to post mother to child transmission therapy (pmtct) whilst pregnant, thembi explained: i didn’t take the medicine when i was pregnant, now i am sick, i have hiv. i have children who are sick, they have hiv. i have a boyfriend who is sick, he has hiv. we are all sick… when you have hiv and you do not have the medicine, then you get more sick, you can’t breathe, you throw up, you can’t work, you can’t get food, you eat badly, you throw up more (thembi, 22, swaziland). it appears that these health problems were exacerbated due to the difficulties experienced and the reluctance felt by these younger, migrant women in accessing primary healthcare services. in thabsile’s opinion, she was not alone in her concern over accessing state-run primary care services: there is a church person who can give me medicine, but they don’t give me the hiv medicine… i don’t go to the clinic, i am scared that they will take my children away. i don’t take my children to the clinic, because they might send them away… there is no medicine. we all feel this way (thabsile, 33, swaziland). as a direct result of their experiences of migration to south africa, coupled with concerns and barriers to accessing primary care facilities, it was not uncommon for younger, female participants in this research to describe how gradually, over a number of years, their health deteriorated and many eventually felt unable to care for their children. some, like thabsile, described being made homeless, as she became unable to work and had to move into overcrowded, expensive, poor quality accommodation. i felt sick… i couldn’t move… i thought i was dying and then i was told to get out of my room. i had nowhere to go, so i had to pay to live in a ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 608 shared room, with other sick people… it is bad, really bad (thabsile, 33, swaziland). many younger women, like pretty, described feeling despair, sorrow and sadness at their situations and described complex emotions about their situations: some days, i wake up and i just want to give up. i can’t go home, i can’t stay here. i have nothing… my children have nothing… what is there left? (pretty, south africa). in response to their experiences of poverty, vulnerability, poor housing, chronic disease, deteriorating health and food insecurity, a number of younger women described how they called for help from their mothers. this call for help acted as a pull factor for the older generation of women, working in combination with previously existing push factors such as poverty, instability, environmental or political insecurity and poor living conditions. in combination, these factors acted as triggers for the migration of older women to south africa. as a result, there is now an emerging group of older women who are secondary migrants – migratory followers of their daughters – who have moved to rural kwazulu-natal ostensibly to help the younger generation of women from their families, but also in response to negative conditions in their home communities. this flow of older women to rural kwazulu-natal forms the second phase of this intergenerational dual phase migratory process. older women older women were mainly migratory followers of their daughters. they were generally willing and eager to tell their stories. they described their home communities, experiences of their journeys to kwazulu-natal, their experiences of arrival in the area and their shock and disappointment when they realised the conditions that their daughters, and in some cases grandchildren, were exposed to. they described feelings of sadness and despair at the progressive degeneration of the health of their daughters after their arrival. in contrast with the younger women, older female migrants tended to share stories of their home communities that were associated with positive experiences and memories. rebecca reminisced at length about her home community in mozambique: ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 609 home…the green coconut trees, and the sparkling ocean… there it is beautiful (rebecca, 60, mozambique). nancy, a migrant also from mozambique, often discussed her home country and her community. she compared it to how she perceived south africa: mozambique is a country full of sunshine, colour and beauty. south africa? south africa to me is a dull colour, maybe one time it was a bright yellow, but today it has dulled to brown. there is no joy in this place, no happiness. not even the white man who i see with all his money and his huge farms, they have no happiness in their soul, they are full of sadness, greed and the anger. anger is in all south africans. tell me, how can a country be rebuilt on a foundation of anger? (nancy, 60, mozambique). women like rebecca and nancy often expressed longing and sadness when speaking about their previous lives. they regularly described scenes of husbands, friends and children; living in extended family homesteads; growing food in ‘mashamba’ (vegetable gardens) and enjoying the abundance of fresh fish: we had a large family, we would all work together, grow our food, the men would catch fish. nobody was hungry and nobody was sick, it was a beautiful home (rebecca, 60, mozambique). many women, however, also admitted to experiencing negative factors, such as insecure living and poor quality infrastructure and services including inadequate healthcare provision. in addition, they spoke of challenging environmental factors that included monsoon rains and drought at different times of year. we had the civil war… i remember not having food, having people get sick a bit with cholera… sometimes there were landmines (rebecca, 60, mozambique). these experiences, when combined with the pull of their daughters’ need for help, resulted in the migration of older women to rural kwazulu-natal. similar to the women from younger generations, older migrant women also described uncomfortable and unsafe journeys from their home communities to south africa. duma’s journey to south africa from zimbabwe, highlighted the dangers of women travelling on their own: ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 610 i was travelling in the dark and i had to cross the border at limpopo. it is dangerous, there are men with guns and a lot of people shouting at us… there are a lot of migrants… i managed to get the last place on a taxi, but it was crowded and someone stole food from me (duma, 40, zimbabwe). even for those already living in south africa, the arrival in kwazulu-natal after a long journey was also unsafe. zodwa described her experience: i arrived very late, and there was no one around really, just a shebeen [unlicensed bar]. i was lucky though, because i found a place where i could rent a room for a night. it was expensive but it is not safe to just sit around. any tsotsi [criminal] can hurt you (zodwa, around 50, trust, south africa). however, and perhaps due to the respect that is present in southern african contexts for older women and men, older migrant women did not discuss experiencing any form of abuse when travelling to south africa. rather, their main source of negativity was caused by the emotional trauma of seeing their family members living in poverty. zodwa described her experience and her feelings: eventually, after three days, i found [my family]. they were living in a room made out of plastic. horrible bad place, right near by the sugar cane. i had to ask a lot of people to find them… their house wasn’t a house. they had moved from a beautiful house at home, made of bricks, even with a proper, indoor bathroom… this was horrible… this wasn’t a real house. i sat and cried before i had the courage to enter (zodwa, around 50, trust, south africa). some older women had been expecting to find their daughters living in perhaps cramped conditions, or maybe without enough clothes or space for their children. however, many described being extremely shocked by the reality of the conditions they found their family members living in: i knew there was a problem, because [they] wouldn’t have called otherwise… i thought maybe there was no money, i thought maybe there was no food sometimes… [but] there was a big, big, big problem, it was a bad situation, very bad…[they] were all so sick, there was nothing… it was terrible (nelly, 45, mozambique). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 611 most alarming for many older women was the noticeable and gradual degeneration of the health of their daughters. whilst many had travelled to south africa fully expecting that their daughters would need a substantial amount of help, none had quite imagined the extent to which they were unwell, often incapable of looking after their children and themselves. this was experienced by one participant, ember, who travelled from zimbabwe to south africa, where her daughter and her children were living: i came here to look after them, but when i got here… my daughter… she couldn’t do anything, then she died…my grandchildren, the one, he is dying... it is my job to try and care for them, to make the one better (ember, 55, zimbabwe). in response to the situations in which they found their daughters and themselves living, alongside their shock and grief, older women drew on great strength. they demonstrated resilience and resourcefulness, and they developed friendship groups for support. elise explained how her friends helped her make a new life in south africa: i am better now, i have my friends, and we have a small income that comes in, which means that we can help the children [grandchildren]… we live close to each other and we help each other… it is not like when i first got here and i knew nobody. then it was very difficult… too hard (elise, 40, mozambique). through their friendship groups, the older migrant women joined together to help each other. subsequently, support networks were formed that consisted of women from similar backgrounds who were experiencing similar situations. older women also tended to adopt positive livelihood strategies informed by their life experiences in order to address problems and resolve issues found in their new lives, such as vegetable gardening, working in crèches, looking after children and others, caring and informal trading. jabu described how she came about starting a vegetable garden: i didn’t have money to buy food, but i had my skills, so i looked for a chance to use them and found one [making a vegetable garden]. now we have food for our whole house, and money when there is extra to sell (jabu, 42, mozambique). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 612 in many circumstances, the daughters of these older women eventually passed away, dying from complications associated with their hiv status or the later stages of aids. when this happened, the older women described being left to care for their extended families, or others from their community, which often included young grandchildren or children of other women. for example, dudu started an informal crèche looking after the children of sick women in the community. she described her feelings: i can’t help myself, so i need, now, to help others… my daughter, i came here for her and then she died… many, many have died and left poor children behind. i can’t go home, i don’t have the money and i will not have the money – now i definitely will not have the money, because i have so many children – and so rather than sitting here in this place, i need to help the people that need it. those people are children. i am committed now, to dying in this place… my friends are committed now to dying in this place. we are needed here to help (dudu, 45, swaziland). a community of older, proactive female migrants, therefore, has been formed in a rural area on the north coast of kwazulu-natal. the community is a source of support, help and friendship to members, and many share or trade food, clothing and school uniform or medicines for themselves or their grandchildren. most of these older migrant women feel that rather than being absorbed by negativity in their new-found situations, it was important to concentrate on the positive. most were prepared to stay, living positively in kwazulu-natal, mostly for the benefit of their grandchildren. as jabu explained: i was sad, yes, when i first came, but as i made friends and created a job for myself, things got better. now i have good friends, an income and i have my grandchildren… my grandchildren need me here, not in mozambique. i am not unhappy that i will stay here forever… yes, i sometimes miss home, but there are also things that i am glad to be away from (jabu, 45, mozambique). the majority of these older generation women portrayed a positive attitude towards both their own and their grandchildren’s health, unlike their daughters before them who had experienced concern about accessing state healthcare and other facilities. duma described her experiences asking for help at the local clinic: ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 613 i am old, i do not care what people think of me, i go and ask for medicine if my child is sick, they must give me… it is their job. i do not care what they think of me, coming from zimbabwe when my child needs medicine (duma, 40, zimbabwe). as a result of the attitude of grandmothers like duma towards the health of their grandchildren, many children are now attending school as well as receiving health care. despite the proactive nature of the older women in terms of their grandchildren’s health requirements, it should still be acknowledged that there are complex primary care requirements specific to this growing community of ageing migrant women in relatively good health. as jabu explained: i go all the time to the clinic for my grandchildren… i am selling the vegetables to get the money to travel with them on the taxi… the [grandchildren] then do not have to walk to get their medicine… i think they get everything they need… when i go to the clinic with [my grandchildren] i also ask for myself, sometimes i am feeling dizzy, sometimes i am getting [bashes her chest where her heart is] and a bit of pain here, i find it difficult to walk sometimes and breathe but there is nothing they can do to me, just send me to some hospital (jabu, 45, mozambique). whilst older migrant women like jabu experienced positive care at primary healthcare clinics for their grandchildren, the services provided were related to hiv and basic primary care. however, there is a clear difficulty in accessing primary care services that catered for their own health needs, which were concerned with women’s health requirements in later stages of life. conclusions and recommendations this study identified a shift in migratory patterns in a rural area of northern, coastal kwazulu-natal province in south africa. the data demonstrate that there is gendered dual phase intergenerational migration, in which younger women migrate and are then followed by related older women. these older women are generally their mothers. the pattern of migration identified here is single direction, and interregional. previous research from the africa centre dss identified that migration to this area is a cyclical process associated with women from younger generations, from different areas of south africa, who move for labour purposes and then return home regularly for visits out of season (camlin et al, 2014; bennett et al, 2014). however, this study identified ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 614 that, rather, there is a dual phase, interregional and intergenerational process of migration that affects both younger and older women. younger women were likely to move to the rural, farming area from neighbouring southern african countries in order to find work and improve their own lives. these women can be described as migratory leaders. however, the women’s experienced reality of their participation in this gendered migratory flow was not always as they had hoped and expected. in order to cope with negative experiences, younger women resorted to the adoption of multiple and risky livelihood strategies in order to stay alive and make a small income. however, these livelihood strategies often made them vulnerable to hiv infection and, as a result, many contracted hiv and were often unable to care for their children. as a direct result, their older mothers moved to the area and, in turn, adopted positive strategies to survive and demonstrated resilience when coping with their new-found life circumstances. these older women can be described as migratory followers. it can also be ascertained that the construction and development of households in this area of kwazulu-natal province can be directly attributed to this pattern of migration. this finding is not dissimilar to that identified in the eastern cape by neves and du toit (2008). however, neves and du toit understand that historical-political nuances in south africa impact household construction, whereas this is an emerging migratory pattern rather than one that is historically and socio-politically grounded. as a direct result of this shift in migratory patterns, there is an expanding group of older, migrant women who are affected by the repercussions of the hiv status of their family members. these older women are living in the rural areas of kwazulu-natal province. these women require assistance in terms of financial support, primary care for degenerative disease, as well as recognition for the support they provide to their kin and members of their communities. further research could explore the extent to which this is or can be provided by rural, primary healthcare clinics and what improvements could be made in this respect. we would further argue that this gendered intergenerational international dual phased process of chain migration might not be specific to the study location or even, the kwazulu-natal province. this trend may be occurring more widely in other areas of urban and rural south africa. inclusion of a relevant question in national level household surveys such as the demographic and health survey (dhs) or the human sciences research ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 615 council (hsrc) household survey detailing migratory origin and behaviour of respondents could extend understandings of the generalisability of these findings. these findings raise further issues concerning health care provision and support for both younger and older women. acknowledgements with thanks to the africa centre for population health for assisting with affiliation and supporting the ethical approval process and the university of warwick for facilitating access to 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2016). unaids and the african union. 2015. empower young women and adolescent girls: fast tracking the end of the aids epidemic in africa. working paper for the joint united nations programme on hiv/aids (unaids). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 617 nowhere to run: a review of the political economy of migration, identity and xenophobic violence in zambia phineas bbaala* and njekwa mate** abstract zambia is one of the southern african countries that have not witnessed any serious bloody conflicts either in their post-independence eras or the periods hitherto. consequently, the country has, over the years, provided refuge to many victims of ethnic and racial conflicts from other african countries, especially within the sub-saharan african region. however, zambia faces the daunting challenge of sustaining interregional, interethnic and interracial harmony among its own indigenous groups and those identified as foreign immigrants. the april 2016 xenophobic looting of shops belonging to other african nationals by residents of lusaka highlighted the intensification of ethnic and racial conflict in the country. amid these identity conflicts, some commentators from different intellectual and other persuasions have tried to explain ethnic and racial identity problems in relation to primordial, constructive and instrumental theoretical underpinnings. this article goes further to draw a relationship between economic downturn and identity and xenophobic violence. the article draws arguments from a review of existing literature and empirical data. keywords migration, identity, ethnicity, racism, regionalism, xenophobia. introduction this article attempts to interrogate the deepening ethnic and racial divide in zambia. until recently, most scholarly works on zambia have exclusively focused on ethnic conflicts among the country’s major tribal groups. however, the occasion of the april xenophobic attacks by zambians, mainly involving the looting of shops belonging to rwandan and congolese immigrants, necessitated this article. from the onset, one must state that international law obliges zambia to provide shelter to refugees and other people of concern who are forcibly displaced from their home countries. the major pieces of international law that require zambia to fulfil this obligation include the 1991 united nations convention, the 1967 united nations protocol and the 1979 organisation of african unity conversion (unhcr, 1991:4). forcibly displaced * department of political and administrative studies, school of humanities and social sciences, the university of zambia. email: pbbaala@gmail.com. ** lecturer at the university of zambia. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 618 people, although usually referred to as ‘refugees,’ can be further classified in accordance with their specific migration status and the nature of help they are seeking in the host country. according to the unhcr (2009), these include asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons (idps), returned refugees and returned internally displaced persons, among others. collectively, all forcibly displaced people who require help of one kind or another in other countries are collectively referred to as people or populations of concern. in order to proceed systematically, after this introduction this paper attempts to theorise and historicise the challenges of migration, identity and xenophobic violence in zambia. while the background section highlights some of the elicit moments in the fomentation of ethnic and racial hatred in the country, the section on theoretical review evaluates the efficacy of some of the key conceptual arguments in explaining the causes of growing ethnic violence and xenophobia in zambia. thereafter, a synoptic trend of the migration situation in sub-saharan africa in general and zambia in particular is given. this is followed by a discussion of zambia’s identity conflict within the country’s political economy. within this, an account of the april 2016 xenophobic violence is given. the article discusses the political economy of identity in zambia with the argument that the heightening ethnic and racial hatred in the country is a result of deliberate politicisation and economisation of construed social differentiation by a small but powerful rent-seeking politico-economic elite class. then, the article concludes and recommends measures for fostering ethnic and racial harmony in zambia. migration has occurred throughout human history as people move from one place to another in search of a better life. a migrant is a person who changes his usual place of residence by crossing an administrative boundary and residing or intending to stay in a new area for a period of not less than six months (cso, 2013: 1). the movements of people internally and externally have been influenced by a number of factors some of which are presented here in no order of their importance. firstly, individuals are sometimes driven out of their countries because of high costs of living and poor or declining economies that prevent them from living a decent life. in such a situation, the migrant targets a country that they perceive will provide an improved quality of life for themselves and/or their families. secondly, people may be forced out of their countries for political reasons. experiences of political violence or any related threats may influence some people to flee their countries for their own safety and/or that of their family members. thirdly, others may be forced to flee their countries on religious grounds. today, religious conflict has led to ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 619 some people being attacked or killed, thereby triggering the movement of the oppressed to regions or countries in which they feel they will be able to freely practice their religion without any or much victimisation. fourthly, ethnic divisions have in many occasions throughout the world led to some people migrating to safe havens. this has occurred when one group dominates the other(s) in some aspects of life (i.e. political, economic or social), thus leading to the exclusion of the dominated group, which consequently triggers identity conflict. another related concept discussed in this paper is identity. identity is the mechanism through which we locate ourselves in relation to the social world. identity links the self with its social context. identity exists in many forms, that is, cultural, national and ethnic, among others. following stuart hall, baldacchino (2011) considers identity as an impossibility born out of the psychic and discursive suturing processes of identification. ethnicity, as a category of identity, cannot be viewed as existing in any sense, or as a substitute of culture for that matter. ethnicity is composed of an interaction between the self and the other, intra-psychically just as much as intersubjectivity. this paper, therefore, is an effort towards a plausible explanation of how political, economic and social rent-seeking in the destination country could adversely affect the safety of immigrants. it presents widely drawn examples while focusing on zambia background the republic of zambia, born on 24 october 1964 when it gained independence from britain, has gone through many politico-economic and social junctures. most noticeable among these was the period prior to the arrival of the british south africa (bsa) company and the one leading up to independence. before cecil rhodes’ commercial interests pushed the bsa company into mineral exploration ventures deep in the interior of the territory north of the zambezi river (now called zambia), there existed human communities defined and organised largely around their biological, tribal, language and other associations of blood and soil. most importantly, nearly all of the tribal groups that inhibited the territory were either immigrants escaping from other hostile groups or wanderers into new territories in search of new opportunities that nature could offer. for this reason, most of zambia’s major ethnic groups that include the lozi, nyanja, bemba and tonga, are immigrants. for instance, the lozi and bemba came from the luba-lunda ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 620 kingdom, while the nyanja group escaped shaka zulu’s wars of dispersal in modern day south africa. although the lozi and tonga, and the ngoni (a part of the nyanja group) and bemba once fought during their migration between the 17th and 19th centuries, these groups eventually established their own ethnic nations existing side by side in relative peace. in fact, the former nemeses later introduced a system of inter-ethnic cousinship in which they jokingly tease one other without taking offense. this type of cousinship exits between the lozi and tonga, and nyanja and bemba groups (bbaala and momba, 2015:2). notwithstanding the fact that inter-ethnic cousinship has catalysed interethnic harmony among former ethnic rivals, it has, itself, become a new source of identity conflicts as groups that play ethnic cousinship have tended to identify more with each other than with other ethnic groups. over the years, zambia has witnessed the clustering together of those of similar language and culture, and the emergence of ethnic stereotypes (gluckman, 1960:55-70; mitchell, 1956 cited in dresang, 1974:1605-1617). as argued later in this article, cleavages of identity that are xenophobic in nature have evolved over a very long period spanning from the pre-colonial era to the postindependence era, and they affect social and political participation (bates, 1970:546-561). although ethnic cleavage and conflict existed in the pre-colonial zambian society, xenophobic identity and conflict are mainly associated with the penetration of white settlers into the territory. the entry of the europeans into the territory north of the zambezi, as was the case in most other african lands, was met with resistance by the local people. dehumanising practices emanating from slave trade, colonialism and the proclamation of white supremacy over africans led to the resistance of the europeans’ penetration into the territory. the failure by the white settlers to appreciate the indigenous political, social and economic institutions, and their imposition of european institutions they regarded as superior, stirred racial identity and conflict. for instance, the livingstone mail, the first colonial newspaper ever published north of the zambezi, was on many occasions, as observed by kasoma (1986:21), used to spearhead hate against the indigenous blacks. the paper once carried a story that read: “the races can never mix, they are divided as east is from the west,” and that blacks were dirty people from whom the whites were to keep away (livingstone mail, 1949 cited in kasoma, 1986:21). even those africans who had eventually begun to adopt the european way of life were not spared from racial segregation. in livingstone, one of the earliest ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 621 growing urban centres that also served as the headquarters of north-western rhodesia, some africans had started working as shop-keepers. however, the introduction of an industrial colour bar by the white settlers ensured that africans were relegated to those jobs that the whites disliked for being dirty, hard or dangerous (gann, 1958:60-62). there were many other legal and structural mechanisms in which the white settlers segregated against the africans, including the operation of a social, economic and political system orchestrated to promote white dominance over other races. the treatment of people according to the colour of their skin was an institutionalised public policy under white rule. consequently, different rhodesian racial groups such as the africans (or the bantu as referred to by gann), the minority indians, arabs and coloureds (or as they were otherwise called, the half-caste), were treated differently under the obtaining public policy and regulations at the time. as gann (1958:175-191) points out, this social stratification system was dehumanising, especially to the africans, and was designed to serve the interests of the minority white settlers in northern rhodesia. particularly, as argued by rodney (1976:250), colonial powers sometimes saw the value of stimulating tribal [and other identity] jealousies so as to keep the colonised from dealing with their principal contradiction with the european overloads. it is also worth noting that the colonialists did not only create social strata based on the major racial groups found in northern rhodesia. they also stratified the major local indigenous groups based on certain stereotypes. additionally, they treated each regional-ethnic group according to the stereotype they had given it. for example, the nyanja were viewed as methodical and clerical, the tonga as rural and conservative, the bemba as tough and hardworking, and the lozi as proud and intelligent (dresang, 1974:1605-1617). although such identity tags were beneficial to the colonialists, they effectively sowed the seed of ethnic and racial hatred, the repercussions of which were to transcend the colonial period. with increased political awakening owing to the activities of the african liberation movement in northern rhodesia – which was initially led solely by the african national congress (anc), and later jointly with the united national independence party (unip) – europeans started conceding some rights to africans. for instance, some constitutional amendments between 1948 and 1958 brought in a clause that ostensibly stipulated that the interest of one race of the community could not be subordinated to those of any other race (mulenga, 2011:4). notwithstanding this, inter alia, some isolated incidents of violence against the white minority were recorded in some parts of northern ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 622 rhodesia, especially during what mulenga terms “the violent sixties.” specifically, he refers to three important events in the period of 1960-1961. one of these events was the violent attack and murder of mrs. lily burton by a group of drunken unip youths returning from a party meeting outside ndola. details were that the car in which mrs. burton and her two daughters were travelling was attacked using a petrol bomb. mrs. burton managed to save her children but not herself and died from her wounds days later (mulenga, 2011: 6). however, the period leading up to independence unequivocally revealed that as much as colonial rule remained the common enemy, the african was his own enemy given the emerging tribal identity conflicts among leaders in the african nationalist movement. disagreements within the africans nationalist movement, the anc, led to a split among the nationalist leaders that culminated in the formation of another big nationalist party, the zambia african national congress (zanc), in october 1958. the zanc was later renamed the unip. this followed consultations among the young radicals of the party who felt that the anc leader, harry mwaanga nkumbula, was not determined enough to fight for independence (sardanis, 2014:89). however, much of the literature on this subject fails to mention that this split of the nationalist movement was actually an act of ethnic repositioning among the nationalist leaders. this argument is supported by the fact that most of those who went to found or join the unip, including kenneth david kaunda, could easily be identified with the bemba ethnic group and the north-eastern region, while those who remained in the anc, including nkumbula, were mainly associated with the tonga ethnic group and the north-western region. ironically, as evidenced by most of the major elections before and after independence, ethno-regional identity, as an electoral factor, has seemingly taken precedence over more important characteristics in choosing national leaders. undoubtedly, this has been detrimental to the development of the country, especially in the post-independence period. each of the key african political parties has tended to perform well in regions associated with the ethnicity of its key leaders and has recorded poor results in regions dominated by other ethnic groups. specific incidents of ethnic-based identity and conflict are discussed later. theoretical review of identity and xenophobia although ethnicity as an academic subject has received deserved attention global scholarship over the decades, it remains of growing interest owing to ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 623 the new twists that it keeps assuming in changing political environments in different countries. in a nutshell, one can say that ethnicity is like a tree with many roots and branches, where the roots are the multiple causes and forms of ethnicity while the branches are the ethnic identities (or cleavages) as reflected by different ethnic groups. when theorising ethnicity, one should underscore the primacy of ‘identity.’ all ethnicity problems are identity problems. consequently, any good investigation into ethnicity tries to analyse the variables that define it. but what is identity? an individual’s referent group, region, language, tribe, race, colour, religion, profession, lifestyle, inter alia, constitute his or her identity. osaghae and suberu (2005), view identity as any group attribute that provides recognition or definition, reference, affinity, coherence and meaning for individual members of the group, acting individually or collectively. by the same token, ethnic identity becomes a basis of ethnic hatred and xenophobia against those with whom one does not identify. any study of ethnicity requires an in-depth analysis of its various patterns, precipitants and purposes. at this point, the paper examines the various patterns of ethnic identity and xenophobia. some scholars like norris and mattes (2003:8) view ethnicity as an enveloping term for many different forms of identity. in their view, ethnicity is an encompassing concept that one cannot define by any single demographic variable in a society. they contend that in some societies, ethnic identity may signify blood relations among members of an extended family or kinship based in a particular region. in other societies, ethnic identity may be an expression of common soil, faith, community affiliation or ancestry. thus, individuals hailing from the same sub-territory of the country may identify themselves with a particular ethno-regional-lingual group. joireman (2003:9), defines ethnicity by outlining features characteristic of an ethnic group, namely: i) proper name, ii) myth, true or false, of a common ancestry, iii) shared historical memories, iv) common culture defined by language, customs or religion, v) link to a geographical homeland and vi) sense of solidarity toward fellow members of the group. the preceding definitions clearly depict regionalism as a subset or a pattern of ethnicity. as stated in the preceding arguments, regional solidarity may also exist among members of different tribal groups who share a geographical homeland. in debating ethnicity, other scholars such as edward shils, cliford geertz, harold isaacs and walker connor have presented arguments based on a ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 624 theory called primordialism. geertz (1963) cited in bacova (1998:29-43), credited as founder of the theory, defines primordial attachment [or identity] as stemming from the “givens” or, more precisely, the assumed “givens” of social existence of humans. geertz (1963) cited in bacova (1998:29-43) further argues that: ‘givenness’ is immediate contiguity and kin connection but also being born into a particular community, religion, culture, then it is the mother tongue, and sharing the same social practices. [he] states that the congruities of blood, speech, beliefs, attitudes [and] customs are perceived by people as inexpressible and at the same time overpowering per se. one is bound to one’s kinship, one’s neighbour, one’s fellow believer, ipso facto, as the result not only of personal affection, practical necessity, common interest, or obligation, but in great part by virtue of some absolute importance attributed to the very tie itself. these natural and deep characteristics that imbue primordial identity entail an intense bondage between a member and their ethnic group. cleavage to the group values and shared interests is thus likely to be as strong as the need to stand against external dilution. it also means that members of a given ethnic group are naturally divided from those belonging to other groups, meaning that interethnic group conflict is a naturally occurring phenomenon, especially since a person usually does not choose their blood relations and the other key ethnic neighbourhood elements at birth. critics of the primordial theory have often looked elsewhere for plausible explanations for the nature and causes of ethnic conflicts in countries. consequently, other theories thought to underpin and explain ethnic conflicts have been espoused. the most important of these are the theories of constructivism and instrumentalism. although the use of constructivist methods can be traced back to the works of philosopher socrates, it is the swiss psychologist, jean piaget (1896-1980) who is accredited with the invention of this theory in his attempt to explain how people know what they know. other scholars who have been popularly identified as constructivist include michael hechter, charles tily, ernest gellner, donald horowitz, and for some unknown reasons, most feminist authors on ethnicity. under the constructivist interpretation of ethnic identity, an individuals’ cleavages or identities are constructed (and reconstructed), flexible, mutable and a product of society (yang, 2000:39-60 cited in boon, 2015:8). a constructivist sees social reality as a product of human socialisation, or at times, compromise. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 625 social institutions such as the media, churches, mosques, traditional initiation ceremonies, formal educational institutions, political parties, inter alia and opinion leaders play an important role in the construction of what one believes as social reality. for this reason, samuels (2013:153 cited in boon, 2015:8) and other scholars believe that political [or ethnic] identities are acquired and variable. wendt (1994:72) believes that an individual’s identity and reality are constituted by the ideational or cognitive structures that humans as social actors are exposed to, meaning that certain characteristics exhibited by individuals would be absent in the void of these institutions. ethnic identity or behaviour is, therefore, a product of the structures within or to which an individual is socialised. based on this perspective, it could be said that primordial characteristics are typical of a primitive society in which its members have little or no interaction with an external world or languish in cognitive deprivation and backwardness. this means that with time and more exposure to new external social constructs of reality, a person is bound to learn new ideals and shift their beliefs about reality and identity. another theory that has been used to contextualise and explain ethnicity is instrumentalism. unlike in the primordial and constructivist paradigms where ethnic identity is natural and constructed, respectively, instrumentalists argue that an individual’s social identity and conflict is a result of struggle for power by some elite elements in society. power is sought not as an end in itself but as an effective means to material ends. bacova (1998:29-43) rightly observes that, in instrumental attachments, individuals’ affiliations are stimulated by their desire to gain advantages (mostly economic and political). an important argument by the instrumentalists is the rejection of the primordial assertion that variations in ethnic attributes are the root causes of ethnic identity and conflict in society. to them, the cause of ethnic identity and conflict is rather the question of who gets what, when and how? societies experiencing a higher incidence of inequality are, therefore, more prone to an instrumental type of ethnic identity and conflict than those considered more egalitarian. this view is shared by stein (2011) who further acknowledges that although identities such as religion [or ethnicity] can play a part in violent conflict, they are merely “opium of the warriors” – a tool used by self-interested elites to mobilise support and fighting power for conflict. stein sees instrumentalism as an agent-principal based approach in which power-seeking elites pursuing economic and political ambitions instrumentalise identity, [through ethnic ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 626 consciousness], to manipulate and mobilise the masses in order to enhance the chances of attaining or defending class advantages. review of identity and xenophobia trends over the years, the world has continued to witness increased displacement of people from the places they call home. by the end of 2015, 65.3 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide due to persecution, conflict, generalised violence and human rights violations. this reflects an increase in absolute terms of 5.8 million people over 2014, and represents the greatest level of forced displacement ever recorded (iom, 2016: 5-20) by the end of 2013, more than 232 million people globally were estimated to be migrants, of which 19 million were estimated to be in africa. at the same time, some 42.5 million people worldwide were considered as displaced due to conflicts (36% refugees, 62% internally displaced persons (idps) and around 2% of individuals whose asylum applications remain to be adjudicated). of these, nearly 2.7 million refugees were in africa, constituting roughly 25% of the world’s refugee population (unhcr, 2016). indeed, africa remains a continent with complex migration dynamics. the continent is generally characterised by dynamic migratory patterns and has a long history of intra-regional as well as inter-regional migration flows. conflict, income inequalities and environmental change can result in very low levels of human security that act as push factors for migration (iom, 2014: 6-7). the southern african region experiences all types of movements including mixed and irregular migration, labour migration and displacement due to conflict and natural disasters. by virtue of its relative stability and economic opportunities, southern africa experiences a high volume of migration due to work opportunities in the mining, manufacturing and agricultural industries. the industrial development in some countries in the region – especially in south africa, botswana and zambia – and the oil wealth of angola, have been magnets for both skilled and unskilled labour migrants from within the region and elsewhere, notably from the horn of africa and west africa. southern africa is also a springboard often used as the staging ground for regular and irregular migration to europe and the americas (iom, 2014: 6-7). in 2013, the southern african region recorded over four million migrants, excluding irregular migrants, of which 44% were female and 20% were under 19 years of age. by far, the largest number of migrants is found in south africa (2.4 million, including some 1.5 million from zimbabwe) followed by the democratic republic of congo (drc) (447,000). among the 4 million migrants ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 627 are approximately 200,000 registered refugees primarily in the drc and south africa (iom, 2014: 6-7). in may 2008, a wave of xenophobic attacks spread all over south africa. more than 60 people, mainly citizens of somalia, mozambique and zimbabwe, were killed by mob violence. despite a subsequent solidarity campaign, the image of the south african rainbow nation was profoundly damaged and made the world, once again, aware of the growing inner-african sentiments against so-called foreigners (kersting, 2009: 1). in his seminal work, horowitz (2001 as cited by kersting, 2009) analyses hundreds of lethal ethnic riots and related forms of xenophobia. he distinguishes between four reasons for such outbursts: firstly, an "ethnic" or "national" antagonism; secondly, a "reasonable" justification of violence; thirdly, a response to a certain event; and fourthly, aggression in a situation where the mob does not face any, or faces only a small risk of punishment. a new dimension of globalisation has emerged with regards to migration. as a result of globalisation, the nation-state is said to be of diminishing relevance today. the global economic order, with its new information and communication technologies as well as its new transport systems, has greatly enhanced the mobility of capital and labour. peter vale, as cited by desai (2008), has argued how in post-apartheid south africa people’s movement across borders has mutated “from local issue, to international and then, to security threat.” the response from political leaders in response to allegations regarding xenophobia has often been denialism. this has triggered international migration on an unprecedented scale. on the other hand, national identities and local cultures are being reinvigorated. strong nationalism may enhance in-group solidarity, but under certain conditions, it may also strengthen out-group hostility. nationalism in sub-saharan africa was often regarded as another form of anti-colonial protest. territorial nationalism, however, was often considered inauthentic because african states were delimited along ‘artificial’ (meaning: colonially imposed) boundaries, which fenced in multiple ethnic groups, and created territorial entities characterised by strong cultural heterogeneity. jackson, as cited in kersting (2009:6), points out that in the last couple of decades, the laws regulating citizenship and nationality have become more restrictive in african countries. migrants have more frequently become victims of national campaigns and xenophobia and these "travellers in permanent transit" were demonised in cameroon, mozambique and ghana as ‘zombies’ (nyamnjoh, 2006 cited in kersting, 2009). in fact, most of the xenophobia in africa is afrophobia. although minorities, such as chinese and indians, face some forms of ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 628 xenophobic discrimination such as the use derogatory terms such as “chocholis” and “bamwenye”, respectively, most of the victims of xenophobia have been fellow africans, particularly migrants from east african countries. migration situation in zambia: a synoptic account human mobility has always been a matter of global, regional and national interest. migration, both in happy and sad moments, has social-cultural, political and economic consequences in both the departure and host countries. it is for this reason that most countries use their population policies as development tools. however, a country’s population policy is prone to unplanned human mobility caused by unforeseen events within that country or other countries. such occurrences as wars, persecution, social and economic crises, inter alia, are important catapults of human mobility in the world. the united nations high commission for refugees (unhcr, 2015) reports that at the end of 2014, there were 59.5 million forcibly displaced people in the world. of these, 10 million were stateless while the rest were either refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons (idps), returned refugees, returned internally displaced persons or those classified as ‘others.’ the unhcr (2015) further states that 42,500 people are forced to flee their homes every day because of conflict and persecution. the unhcr statistics also show that 53% of the global refugee population comes from three countries namely somalia (1.11 million), afghanistan (2.59 million) and syria (3.88 million). the leading refugee host countries in the world are turkey (1.59 million) and pakistan (1.51 million). in southern africa, zambia is one of the countries with a big refugee population. no sooner than it obtained independence did zambia became host to the first influx of refugees. the united states (us) department of state (2014) shows that as early as 1966, zambia had started hosting angolan refugees fleeing the armed conflict between the popular liberation movement of angola (mpla) and the national union for the total independence of angola (unita). in 2010, the unhcr put the number of persons of concern in zambia at 51,856. these are distributed as follows: refugees (25,578), asylum-seekers (2,186), returnees (1,640) and others (22,452) (unhcr, 2016). in order to cater for the population of forced immigrants, zambia, with the help of the unhcr, operates six major camps and settlements. each of these was strategically established to cater for the refugees originating from specific hot spots. for instance, ukwimi in eastern province, established between 1987 and 1989 (unhcr, 1991: 5), was a reaction to the influx of refugees escaping ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 629 the bloody clashes between the rival fighters belonging to the liberation front of mozambique (frelimo) and mozambican national resistance (renamo). maheba, situated in north-western zambia overlooks angola, which has witnessed one of the longest armed conflicts in the region. other camps and centres are the mayukwayukwa and nangweshi in the western province, kala in luapula province and mwange in the northern province. both kala and mwange have mainly serviced refugee inflows from the drc. in its five decades of existence as an independent country, zambia is one of the very few southern african countries that has maintained peace internally among its more than seventy-two tribes and externally with its eight neighbouring countries, most of which are epicentres of armed conflicts. consequently, zambia has been home to a refugee population from neighbouring countries. some of zambia’s neighbours that have witnessed armed conflicts are angola, the democratic republic of congo (drc) and mozambique. other countries such as rwanda, burundi and somalia, which are geographically in east africa, have been among the leading contributors to the refugee population in zambia over the last two decades or so. migration statistics show that over the last two decades, the population of refugees in zambia has been considerably reducing from 45,632 in the period 1996-2000 to 25,578 in the period 2011-2015. this reduction is mainly due to the return of relative peace in some of the countries such as angola, rwanda and the drc. table 1 below shows zambia’s refugee population between 1996 and 2015. table 1. refugee population in zambia, 1996-2015 period no. of refugees change 1996-2000 45,632 2001-2005 25,653 -19,979 2006-2010 23,594 -2,059 2011-2015 25,578 1,984 source: drawn based on world bank development indicators. the changes in the stock of refugees over the years could be attributed to the repatriation exercises that the zambian government and the unhcr have conducted over the period under review, following improvements in security situations of some of the refugees’ home countries as earlier observed. for ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 630 instance, in 2009, the unhcr assisted a total of 19,200 refugees to be repatriated to either their countries of origin or to a third country where they had chosen to live. through this exercise, 17,000 congolese (from the drc) and 2,200 angolans were among those repatriated to their countries of origin. in the same year, 137 refugees were helped to resettle in third countries of their choice. the unhcr also conducted a verification exercise to establish the number of refugees from the drc who were living in zambian communities outside of refugee camps, specifically in luapula province. a total of 6,535 refugees of congolese origin were found to live in these communities (unhcr, 2009: 89). according to the unhcr (2009), the population of persons of concern in zambia by country of origin is as shown in table 2 below. table 2persons of concern distribution by country of origin country of origin total angola 25,300 drc 22,000 rwanda 5,100 burundi 3,014 somalia 1,900 various 330 source: drawn based on data from the unhcr global report (2009) migration and the political economy of identity in zambia over the last couple of years, zambia has witnessed a flaring up of hate and rejection based on identity. although, as shown in the background section, zambia has witnessed isolated incidents of inter-racial hatred and conflict in the period before independence, the most expressed form of hatred has been that based on one’s language or tribe. however, events in the recent past seem to suggest an increase in the complexity of ethnic hatred in zambia. another dimension to the new form of ethnic hatred is the role of national politics in heightening ethnic consciousness in the population. the anti-chinese rhetoric that formed the opposition leader, michael chilufya sata’s populist ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 631 mobilisation in the 2006, 2008 and 2011 elections psyched most of the urban youths into believing that that socio-economic woes were a direct result of foreigners living in the country. as a result, from the standpoint of the authors, the constructivist-instrumentalist theoretical framework seems to explain the problem of ethnicity and violence in zambia. the chinese investors, on their part, have not done much to help their own situation given the number of reports relating to abuse of zambian workers in chinese owned firms and construction projects. for instance, the 2005 explosion at a munitions factory serving chambishi, which killed 46 zambian workers (alden, 2007: 74), reinforced the conspiracy theories including the claim that the chinese ‘bosses’ had deliberately trapped the zambian workers, a claim inflamed by the fact that not a single chinese worker was harmed in the accident. in his paper presented to the harvard university committee on human rights studies, sata (2007) accused the zambian government of failure to attract genuine investors and of favouring “rogue chinese investors” that had no regard for the welfare of those that were unfortunate enough to work for them. he also accused china of seeking relations with africa in order to, inter alia, perpetuate its abuses of the ethnic minorities in tibet and taiwan. unsurprisingly, the ascendance to power by michael sata and the patriotic front in september 2011 was greeted by frequent protests by zambian workers in chinese owned firms and construction projects. one of these protests occurred at the chinese collum coal mine (ccm) in southern zambia, where the chinese reacted by shooting 13 of the protesting miners (sautman and hairong, 2014: 1073-1092). although there were generally no reports of fatal incidents connected to ethnic or racial hatred until much recently, an official statement by the evangelical fellowship of zambia, council of churches and the zambia episcopal conference to commemorate the world refugee day on 20 june 2005 warned of rising xenophobia in zambia: one does not have to look far for evidence of the fact that refugees are increasingly unwelcome in zambia. we have seen a disturbing rise in the verbal abuse, harassment, arbitrary detention, and physical violence that refugees suffer in zambia. the church regrets the fact that people with genuine protection concerns have been forcibly returned from zambia to countries where their lives or freedom are in jeopardy. needless to say, this practice violates the human rights of refugees and does not reflect well on zambia’s international image (darwin, 2009:6). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 632 april 2016 xenophobic riots on april 7, 2016 riots broke out in zingalume, a slum area of zambia’s capital city, lusaka, after a dead body was discovered early that morning. the people accused the police of not doing anything to protect them at night. they also argued that they were not happy with the (ritual) killings that were happening in the area (nkonde, 2016:4). the riots, which were xenophobic in nature, targeted shops owned by foreigners over allegations that they were the ones behind the string of ritual killings that had occurred in lusaka. the riots were, however, quenched by the police. later, on april 18, 2016 residents of zingalume township ran amok and looted some shops run by rwandans after word went around that suspected ritual murderers had been cornered in possession of human body parts (mwenya & mwale, 2016:1-3). by this time at least seven people were discovered murdered in george, lilanda and zingalume townships, with body parts such as ears, hearts and sexual organs (now widely known as ‘sets’) removed (zimba, 2016:2-4). all of the victims were male. it was alleged that the killings were committed by a named rwandan national whose shop was later looted for groceries and fridges. the rioters later moved on to another shop owned by a rwandan in zingalume, where they escaped with various merchandise, such as plasma television sets, generator sets and radio players, before regrouping again around other shops run by rwandans in other townships. the riots then spread to the neighbouring chunga township (mwenya & mwale, 2016:1-3). by the following day, april 19, 2016, the riots and looting had spread to other townships in lusaka such as george, garden, chawama, kuku, bauleni, mtendere, garden house, matero and kanyama. during the riots, two local people, wrongly suspected of being rwandan nationals were burnt to death and more than 60 shops and houses owned by foreign nationals were looted with rioters taking cash, food, drinks, refrigerators and other electrical appliances (dawood, 2016). in the garden house area, all shops belonging to burundian and rwandan nationals were broken into and looted, with fridges that were pulled from the shops lying in the nearby vicinity (mukuka, 2016:4). in reaction to the riots, the minister of home affairs, davies mwila, assured foreigners that the government was ready to integrate most foreign nationals who originally came in as refugees as soon as they got their passports from their countries of origin (mvula, 2016:1-3). it was not clarified as to how foreigners who ran away from being killed in their own countries would go back and get passports. as a result of these riots, two foreign nationals, whose nationalities have not been confirmed, were burnt to death ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 633 on 18 april, 2016. the zambia police service fought running battles with residents and later removed merchandise from foreign owned shops for safekeeping. some residents that were interviewed called on president edgar lungu to speak out against the xenophobic attacks that were also affecting local businesses. one resident argued: we want president edgar lungu to come out from wherever he is hiding. he is the president, his word is more powerful than what his ministers can say. let him speak out against these evil happenings, let him condemn the attacks on the foreigners and give the country proper direction (mukuka, 2016:4). later, on april 21, 2016, president edgar lungu assured internally displaced rwandans and other foreigners that his administration would not abandon them but would protect them against persecution by criminals. he said this when he visited over 400 rwandans who sought refuge at kalemba hall at st. ignatius catholic church in lusaka’s rhodes park area, a low-density township (chulu, 2016:1). a number of reasons can be advanced in trying to identify, explain and understand the root causes of the xenophobic riots of april 2016 in lusaka. as noted above, kersting (2009), citing horowitz (2001), analyses hundreds of lethal ethnic riots and related forms of xenophobia and identifies four reasons for such outbursts. to recap, these are: firstly; ‘ethnic’ or ‘national’ antagonism; secondly, a ‘reasonable’ justification of violence; thirdly, a response to a certain event; and fourthly, aggression in a situation where the mob does not face any, or only a small, risk of punishment. these can be used to explain the “xenophobic” attacks that took place in april 2016 in lusaka, zambia. firstly, the april 2016 xenophobic riots might have been indirectly psyched by the competing political elite who have been increasingly electioneering on ethnic lines after the general election of 2001. all the major elections that have taken place in zambia since 2001 have expressed the country’s ethnic divide more than anything else. this is evidenced by the trend where the country’s political parties have tended to garner more votes from regions with which their key leaders identify. in the process, two ‘hostile’ ethno-political blocs have emerged, the north-western and north-eastern regions. results of the 2001, 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2015 elections clearly support this argument (ecz results sheets, 2001, 2006, 2008, 2011 & 2015). additionally, the periods preceding the 2015 presidential by-election, and leading up to the 2016 ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 634 general elections have witnessed several hate speeches by some politicians, some of which have resulted in bloody conflicts. an example is the mulobezi constituency parliamentary by-election where two supporters of the opposition united party for national development (upnd), mbangu mbangu and sakubita namushi, and one supporter of the governing patriotic front (pf) by the name of simanga siboli, were allegedly shot (mwale, 2015: 1 & 2) during a political fracas that ensued following an ethnically provocative statement by pf’s secretary general, davis chama. chama stated that the southern province of the country would never produce a head of state in one hundred years unless their men used their polygamous nature to bear more children. ironically, reports alleged that the gun used in the shooting belonged to chama. after widespread condemnation, chama said that … he would not apologise for his remarks that tonga should use their polygamous traits to have more children to stand a chance of producing a president in 100 years’ time because it was a fact (the post, 2015). such statements, and the impunity with which they are made, have arguably contributed to the rising ethnic tensions in zambia in the recent past. his refusal to apologise and the support he received from the other leaders in his party did not show any state resolve to embrace multi-ethnicity and racial harmony in the country and could have only added to the ethnocentric psyching of the population. with regard to national antagonism, it is positive to note that, generally, zambians have lived in harmony with many nationals from foreign countries since independence in 1964. in fact, zambia helped liberate a number of southern african countries, such as zimbabwe, namibia and south africa, by hosting freedom fighters during the liberation movements of the 1970s and 1980s. however, as shown earlier in this article, michael sata’s nationalistpopulist campaigns based on anti-chinese, anti-indians and anti-lebanese traders should surely have sown a seed of racial consciousness in the zambian population, especially among the poor and those who live in squalor in the country’s major slums in lusaka. most of the poor urban dwellers seem to associate their poverty with foreigners who they accuse of taking away some of their business lines. alden (2007: 49), citing dobler (2008) brings this into perspective when he cites the former trade minister of zambia, dipak patel, who once said: “does zambia need chinese investors who sell shoes, clothes, food, and chickens in our markets when the indigenous people can?” the looting of shops owned by africans hailing from neighbouring countries ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 635 during the april 2016 xenophobic violence seemed premised on this argument. secondly, one can argue that the april 2016 riots were caused by some zambians who were reasonably justified in their violence. the residents of the affected townships (zingalume, george, kanyama and matero) in lusaka justified their violence based on the assumption that the police had failed to prevent the ritual killings and had not arrested any suspects following the spate of murders within a short period of time. the locals also believed that some of the ritual killers were foreigners, especially rwandan businessmen and women, who lived in the same townships and used charms from body parts of murdered victims to enhance their businesses. these assumptions seem to have contributed to the violent riots and looting of foreign owned shops. the fact that zambian police later apprehended and charged four zambians for the ritual killings may, however, discount these assumptions because no foreign or rwandan shop owner had been arrested or charged with ritual murder at the time of this publication. thirdly, residents in the affected townships rioted and attacked foreigners and looted their shops as a response to the ritual killings that had taken place. the feelings of helplessness with little or no protection from the police against the murderers may have fuelled the violence. in addition, it can be argued that the riots and looting may have been influenced by other factors such as the high cost of living and harsh economic situations that zambians were facing. zambian’s economic outlook has deteriorated ever since the pf took over power from the movement for multi-party democracy (mmd) in 2011. the economist intelligence unit (eiu) argued that the xenophobic attacks in lusaka reflected how the challenges of an economic backdrop could fuel social tensions and weaken security. the eiu posited that high inflation and a subdued economic outlook would further heighten the social tension and escalate the unrest. according to the economist intelligence unit (eiu), in 2015, zambia was ranked among the hungriest countries on the global hunger index (ghi), with the ‘most hungry’ being the central african republic and chad. although the 2016 riots appeared to have been triggered by the suspected ritual killings, socio-economic factors such as high youth unemployment and the rapidly rising cost of living have increased frustration and tension among many zambians, especially the youths. many foreign nationals were running thriving businesses around lusaka while the majority of the citizens were not, thereby increasing the hostility towards foreigners (eiu, 2016). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 636 further, according to the world bank (2016): zambia’s economy grew at an average annual rate of 7 percent between 2010 and 2014. however, global headwinds and domestic pressures have strained the zambian economy. consequently, growth in 2015 fell to an estimated 3 percent (compared to 4.9 per cent in 2014) following a six-year low in copper prices, increasing power outages, and el nino-related poor harvests. growth is expected to remain around 3 percent in 2016, subject to the 2016 harvest, the mining industry’s reaction to softer copper prices, and stabilisation of the power situation. the benefits of gross domestic product (gdp) growth have accrued mainly to the richer segments of the population in urban areas. zambia has a very unequal income distribution (gini coefficient = 55.6). the falling copper prices, exports and foreign direct investment (fdi) have weakened the economy. copper prices declined by almost a third from their peak in february 2011 to $4,595/ton in february 2016 (lme) and are forecast to remain soft until 2018 as global supply currently exceeds demand. the mine closures in 2015 led to the loss of over 7,700 jobs. sixty percent of the population lives below the poverty line and 42 percent are considered to be in extreme poverty. moreover, the absolute number of poor has increased from about six million in 1991 to 7.9 million in 2010, primarily due to a rapidly growing population. the kwacha has depreciated considerably (the kwacha tends to depreciate as the copper price falls and appreciate as it rises). however, during this same period, global headwinds have combined with domestic pressures and ebbing confidence in the economy, resulting in huge shifts and market turbulence. while the strength of the us dollar, fused with worsening current account and fiscal imbalances, has propagated depreciation in most resource dependent currencies, the kwacha’s decline stands out. there have been three distinct phases to the kwacha to us dollar exchange rate between january and november 2015. there was the gradual depreciation between january and mid-august, where the kwacha depreciated by 21% over 30 weeks, moving from zmw 6.4 to zmw 7.9 per us$. what followed next was huge volatility and a steep decline in the exchange rate. in the 10 weeks to end-october, the kwacha depreciated by 69% to zmw 12.5 per us$. by november 11, 2015, the exchange rate reached zmw 14.2 per us$, but by the end of that month had recovered to zmw 10.3 per us$, an appreciation of 27% in 19 days. the net effect is that the kwacha depreciated by 61% over the 11 months to endnovember, 2015. put differently, the kwacha lost 38% of its value (world bank, 2015). ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 637 furthermore, between january 2012 and september 2015, inflation remained stable at an average rate of 7.2%. low inflation was attributed to low oil prices, a stable currency, and prudent monetary policy by the bank of zambia (boz). in 2015, inflation fell consecutively during the first and second quarters. however, since mid-2015, inflationary pressures began building up due to the depreciating kwacha. however, october inflation (year-on-year) jumped to 14.3% and november inflation to 19.5%, a shift driven by food inflation that increased to 16.2% in october and 23.4% in november, from 8.1% in august 2015. the basket of food measured includes both domestically produced foods, where price is largely dependent on the quality of the harvest, and imported foods where prices are impacted by the depreciation of the kwacha. non-food inflation also rose to 15.5% in november from just 7.3% in september, on the back of increased transport costs as vehicles and car parts became more costly to import (world bank, 2015). the april 2016 riots may be similar to the 1991 situation when people could not contend with the rising economic problems any longer, resulting in food riots across the country and the death of 30 people. however, due to the fact that the economy was mainly state controlled in 1991, rioters mostly looted state owned shops. in addition, there was an attempted coup d’état. the kaunda government arrested union leaders, among them fredrick chiluba. eventually, due to mounting domestic pressure, kaunda was forced to reintroduce multiparty politics and/democracy, which was abandoned in 1972. thus, on 31st october 1991, elections were held and kaunda was defeated by 80% to 20% by frederick chiluba of the mmd. by the time the mmd was defeated by pf in september 2011, inflation was at 8.8% and it has now risen to 21.8% as of april 2016 (cso, 2011; cso, 2016). in addition, the price of the staple commodity, mealie-meal, which was at 35 kwacha in 2011 has sky rocketed to an average of 100 kwacha in most places in lusaka. though the 1991 riots were caused by the harsh economic environment that created food shortages, the april 2016 riots could have been similarly caused by high prices of food (i.e. mealie-meal) and other essentials, which were available but unaffordable. fourthly, aggression against foreigners in april 2016 may have been caused by the mobs’, rioters’ or looters’ perception that they would face no or little risk of punishment; hence they looted and attacked foreigners with impunity. forthwith, the police moved in but failed to quench the riots that quickly ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 638 spread throughout lusaka. could it be that the police supported the riots and looting of foreigners, as claimed by some circles? furthermore, the spontaneous riots of april 2016 appeared to be a reaction to the police’s failure to publicise the identities of the suspected ritual killers who were in custody for possession of human body organs and parts. most people in the high density residential areas of lusaka strongly believed that the ritual killers were all foreigners. thus, foreigners, mostly from rwanda, were targeted, especially when a rumour spread that body parts were found in a deep freezer at a shop owned by a rwandan national in one area of lusaka. many of the rwandan nationals, who have lived undisturbed in zambia as refugees after escaping the 1994 rwandan genocide, were once again under threat of being lynched by rioters and looters and had to seek refuge at police stations. within two days, the riots spread quickly to several other densely populated residential areas in lusaka. the rioters not only destroyed property belonging to foreigners worth thousands of kwacha, but they also looted their shops and houses, and burnt a police station. to curb the situation, the government deployed police officers in the affected areas who subsequently failed to control the situation. therefore, the government had no option but to call upon the zambia army to move in and stop the riots and looting which were almost engulfing the whole of lusaka (nkonde, 2016: 1-4). consequently, the 400 military personnel deployed managed to quell the riots and looting and continued patrols in the high density areas of lusaka for about two weeks thereafter. later, the military was withdrawn and a special paramilitary police unit took over the patrols and was still doing so as of 30 may 2016. for 22 years, some 6,000 rwandans have lived in zambia without being harassed. they lived freely in many townships in lusaka like zingalume, george, kanyama and matero, which are by no means up-market addresses, and set up little shops to trade and survive. the locals, however, lived in abject poverty in a harsh economic environment. they had no jobs and owned nothing compared to the rwandans. as a result of the riots and looting, about 700 rwandans were internally displaced in lusaka and found themselves seeking shelter in police stations and churches. the government moved in to protect them and transported some to a refugee camp in the western part of the country where they expressed concerns about security and lack of basic sanitary conditions. the lives of the rwandans who sort refuge in zambia after the 1994 rwandan genocide are once more under threat. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 639 conclusion the arguments raised in this article generally show that as much as identity and xenophobic conflicts can be psyched by rent-seekers, they can also arise from declining socioeconomic situations and be cemented by a feeling that migrants are economic competitors. the deteriorating state of the zambian economy has been linked to the poor people’s increased dislike of the foreigners, especially those who are seen as conducting businesses traditionally thought to be reserved for the indigenous zambians. this could explain why it is the immigrants from eastern and southern african regions who are increasingly coming under threat. an attempt has also been made to show that the country’s identity consciousness is not only historical, but a result of various episodes and events that have tended to create both ethnic cleavage and hatred. the country’s political leaders have been highlighted as among those who have been responsible for fuelling hate based on tribal or racial identity as a strategy for mass mobilisation. further, the failure by the zambian authorities to punish those who commit crimes relating ethnic hatred has been identified as a guarantee of impunity for the perpetrators of such offences. recommendations notwithstanding the penetrating nature of ethnic consciousness once it is absorbed, the zambian authorities can nevertheless promulgate and enforce laws that criminalise the expression of hate in any form by a zambian or foreigner living in zambia. further, there is clearly a need to promote the creation of new socialisation institutions that should promote a sense of ‘ubuntu’ (humanity) among africans. the african union can take a leading role in promoting ethnic harmony among africans within and beyond their countries. new school curricula can be developed to include the teaching and learning of african languages in the same way that many africans are currently learning other major languages such as french, english, chinese, inter alia. deliberate educational exchange programmes among african universities ought to be promoted in order to encourage cultural exchange among the african people. african cultural institutions on the model of the confucius institute, alliance françoise and the british council, could be established by african countries to serve as conduits of cultural exchange and appreciation. african governments could also do well to economically empower themselves with capital and technical know-how so as to foster the growth of successful african entrepreneurs able to compete and survive in a growing global village. ahmr, vol.2 no3, september-december 2016 640 references darwin, c. 2009. report on the situation of refugees in zambia. cairo: africa and middle east refugee assistance (amera). alden, c. 2007. china in africa: african 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number 2 may – august 2015 an evaluation of the determinants of remittances: evidence from nigeria international migration in sub-saharan africa: a call for a global research agenda impact of remittances on economic growth: evidence from selected west african countries (cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal) failed asylum seekers in south africa: policy and practice ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor dr mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh cape peninsula university of technology, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delagdo wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, basel, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print) copyright © 2015 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 465 6433 email: editor@sihma.org.za webpage: www.sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za http://www.sihma.org.za/ iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ volume 1 number 2 may – august, 2015 articles 130 an evaluation of the determinants of remittances: evidence from nigeria temitope j. laniran & daniel a. adeniyi 154 international migration in sub-saharan africa: a call for a global research agenda mulugeta f. dinbabo & sergio carciotto 178 impact of remittances on economic growth: evidence from selected west african countries (cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal) muriel animwaa adarkwa 203 failed asylum seekers in south africa: policy and practice corey johnson ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 130 an evaluation of the determinants of remittances: evidence from nigeria temitope j. laniran and daniel a. adeniyi abstract international remittances have grown to become an integral source of finance for development. existing literature posits that there is an association between remittances and growth in developing countries. economic growth models highlight the importance of capital accumulation and high level financial flows, the inadequacy of which characterizes developing countries and often explains their fate. it is argued that remittances will provide a panacea to the serious poverty experienced in such developing economies by increasing financial flows and household income, which in turn stimulates consumption, savings, economic growth and ultimately development. the robustness of this relationship is, however, often questioned. indeed, the propensity of remittances to achieve these aspirations very much hinges on the determining factors motivating the remitters and the magnitude of the remittances. hence, given the significant flows of remittances to the developing countries, this study attempts an analysis of the determinants of remittances to nigeria. key macroeconomic variables with theoretical potentials of influencing the level of remittances received were subjected to econometric model testing using time series data from 1980 to 2013. the results indicate that the level of remittances received is more a function of portfolio motives than other macroeconomic factors. keywords: migration, motivation, investment, growth, development *graduate assistant at the centre for petroleum, energy economics and law, university of ibadan, nigeria and a doctoral researcher at the bradford centre for international development, university of bradford, united kingdom. email: lanirantemitope@gmail.com **associate programme officer at the centre for petroleum, energy economics and law, university of ibadan, nigeria and a doctoral researcher at the institute for social development, university of the western cape, south africa. email: adeolu.adeniyi@yahoo.com mailto:lanirantemitope@gmail.com mailto:adeolu.adeniyi@yahoo.com ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 131 introduction international remittances have increasingly grown to become an integral source of finance for development. remittances represent a vital source of income for poor households and a significant contributor to the gross domestic product (gdp) of nations, especially developing countries. evidence abounds that money sent home by emigrants makes up quite a large share of the revenue of most developing economies, sometimes larger than that of official development assistance (gupta, 2005; hagen-zanker & siegel, 2007; singh et al., 2010; costantinescu & schiff, 2014; world bank 2014a; 2014b). irrespective of the financial crisis plaguing the world, globally remittances have grown rapidly, especially between 1990 and 2000, and then trebled in the following decade, reaching us$335 billion in 2008 and us$489 billion in 2011 (unctad, 2012). in 2013, remittances to developing countries accounted for 74.5% of global remittances; these countries received remittance inflows in the region of us$404 billion. this figure was three times the size of official development assistance and, with the exception of china, remittance flows to developing countries were significantly larger than total foreign direct investment (world bank, 2014a). it is indeed a truism that poverty is pervasive throughout the world and often palpable in most developing countries. globally, it is estimated that 14.5% of the world’s population live in conditions of extreme poverty. in nigeria, the situation is much worse, as 62% of the nation’s population are in extreme poverty (world bank, 2015). when living standards are low and chances of improvement few and far between, people resort to leaving the shores of their own country in search of better opportunities. migration and remittances thus go hand in hand as migrants transfer funds back to their country of origin from their destination country. the number of emigrants from nigeria as a percentage of the population, according to the world bank (2011), was 0.6% as at 2010. in 2013 nigeria received remittance inflows of around us$21 billion (world bank, 2014b), representing 0.4% of the nation’s gdp. evidently therefore, remittances to nigeria represent a significant source of foreign exchange. few studies have been carried out on the determinants of remittances to nigeria. most of these studies have tended to lay emphasis either on the micro level or have distinguished the determinants of remittances to urban or rural ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 132 areas. however, the macroeconomic determinants of remittances to nigeria remain relatively unknown. this study seeks to assess the macroeconomic determinants of international remittances in nigeria. background to remittances in nigeria over the years, migrants’ remittances to nigeria have increased steadily and have now become a significant proportion of the financial inflows into the nation. this is partly due to the increasing numbers of nigerians in diaspora, for, as constantinescu and schiff (2014) point out, an increase in international migration is a major factor driving the growth of global remittances. nigeria has a population of about 173 million (world bank, 2014a), accounting for nearly one-fourth of the total population in sub-saharan africa and ranking as the seventh most populous nation in the world (world bank, 2014b). among the developing economies, nigeria is the fifth largest recipient of remittances and the largest in africa, receiving a total of us$21 billion in remittances in 2013. indeed, nigeria became the largest recipient of remittances in sub-saharan africa in 1990, and since 2006 has been the largest recipient in africa, including north africa (nyamongo et al., 2012). according to the world bank (2014a), nigeria’s remittance receipts in 2014 were projected to be us$22.3 billion. this represents an amount that is us$14.4 billion higher than the combined sum received by the other top ten largest recipients of remittances in sub-saharan africa. second to nigeria, in subsaharan africa, is senegal with total remittance receipts of us$1.7 billion – just 7.6% of the total remittances to nigeria. the foregoing has made nigeria a consistent feature in the remittance discourse. determinants of remittance: a review of the literature the international remittance literature has highlighted several motives driving migrants to send remittances and these are usually addressed at the micro or macro level. at the micro level, on the one hand, the three rationales that motivate migrants’ remittances are altruism, self-interest and contractual motives. on the other hand, remittances are categorized at the macro level based on the assumption that flows of international remittances can be countercyclical, procyclical or acyclical. the altruism rationale holds that remittance flows increase as the migrants’ income as well as extent of altruism increases and vice versa. it also predicts that a 1% increase in the migrant’s income associated with a 1% decrease in ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 133 the recipient’s income will increase transfer by 1%. this implies that high income migrants will remit more and low income recipients will obtain more. remittances also increase both by the extent of closeness between the migrant and the receiving household and the migrant’s aim to return. also, as the number of migrants in a family increases the remittances from a given migrant decrease (funkhouser, 1995). while some studies have found the foregoing to be true (see, for example, lucas & stark, 1985; carling, 2008), quite a few studies have opposed the altruistic motive for sending remittances. altonji et al. (1997) using data on personal private transfers and accounting for cash constraints, number of relatives, and uncertainty, rejected the null hypothesis and estimated a transfer-income derivate. their results showed that consumption allocation was dependent on the allocation of income. remittances for self-interest are usually motivated by the desire to enhance social status, keep the connection with parents for inheritance purposes, or as investment either towards the future or with the intention of returning back to the home country. for instance, the investment may take the form of harnessing the human capital of the migrant’s own children by remitting money to fund their education back home. furthermore, a migrant may remit home to his parent in a bid to ensure that he is also taken care of in his old age or he may desire to invest in housing or livestock at home, in which case a family member back home may serve as the agent. while the latter is what hagen-zanker and siegel (2007) refer to as the demonstration effect, the former has the effect of enhancing the migrant’s social status at home. remittances could also be driven by contractual motives, in which case remittances serve either as a form of exchange, loan repayment or coinsurance. in an effort to evade the problem of market failures in the home country, the new economics of labour migration (nelm) theory posits that a migrant leaves his or her home country to enter a non-correlated labour market to take advantage of the opportunities in the host country. such migrants help their households in the home country to overcome shocks while the migrants may also receive support during times of unemployment in the host country. as such, remittances are bound to increase in response to shocks or a reduction in income of households. aggregate remittances, singh et al. (2010) note, would thus be a function of income in the home country, wages in the host country and the total number of migrants. remittances may also be seen as a form of loan repayments used in investing in human capital or expenses acquired in the process of migrating. the exchange theory is such ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 134 that the quantity transferred increases as the quantity of services rendered increases but it reacts indefinitely to an exogenous increase in the beneficiary’s prior-transfer income. from the foregoing, the altruistic and exchange motive thus differ in terms of possibility for remittance. cox et al. (1998) held that in the altruistic scenario the prospect of transfer lowers with the receiver’s income but this is not so in the exchange scenario. this is because public transfers do not crowd out private transfers but rather prompt an increase in private flows received by recipients. however, if imperfect information exists, the migrants’ wages might be fixed according to an evaluation of their efficiency. on the other hand, since recipients are protected against economic downturn through remittances, this may lead to moral menace (reducing their search for a job, reduction in labour output or investing in risky ventures) due to information asymmetry. in a study that focused on altruism versus exchange (repaying loans for educational expenses) from parents to their offspring and vice versa in peru over the 1980s, cox et al. (1998) controlled for marital status, sex, education and for transitory and permanent transfers. their probit result indicated that child-to-parent transfer was inversely related to the parent’s income. they thus concluded that the exchange framework was stronger than that of altruism. they further found evidence transfers are in most cases to the sick and unemployed, which is consistent with the altruistic motive. they also found that private and public transfers are supplements rather than substitutes, in contrast to jensen (2004), who argued that public transfers crowd out private flows in south africa. becker (1974; 1991) examined the economics of households and the allocation of income among members of the family using the family as the unit of economic measurement. in a bid to analyse the “bequeath behaviour” of parents, he found that in making economic decisions, parents consider their children’s reduced future utility. aggarwal and horowitz (2002) on the other hand aimed at deriving a model to test the assumptions related to the altruism and insurance motivations for remitting using data from guyana. they found that the remittances of individual migrants reduce as the number of migrants in a household increases. this implies that remittances were motivated more by altruistism than insurance – to boost consumption levels and induce reciprocity. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 135 in another vein, remittances are categorized at the macroeconomic level on the basis that remittance flows can be countercyclical, procyclical or acyclical. remittance flows are classified as countercyclical if they serve as insurance, family safety nets or compensatory transfers (gupta et al., 2009; singh et al., 2010). it is assumed that remittances will act counter-cyclically in response to periods of hardship in the home country, hence migrants will remit more to their households during such periods. remittances are procyclical if they are driven by investment and profit motives, and acyclical if driven by implicit motives such as family aid and other social responsibilities (giuliano & ruizarranz, 2009). remittances behaving procyclically are premised on the “optimization of investment” motive of migrants. this is what is referred to as the portfolio approach, in which case remittances respond positively to favourable macroeconomic indicators in the migrant’s home country. indeed, empirical evidence on the relationship between the cyclicality of remittances and (economic) conditions in the countries of origin has been inconclusive. in terms of the association between remittances and income in countries of origin, some studies (such as el sakka & mcnabb, 1999; chami et al., 2005; mishra, 2005; bouhga-hagbe, 2006; yang & choi, 2007; buch & kuckulenz, 2009; singh et al., 2010) have found a negative relationship between the two phenomena, hence there is evidence of counter-cyclicality as remittances increase with a reduction in income in the home country. on the other hand, some studies found evidence that remittances behaved either procyclically (see, for instance, imf, 2005; lueth & ruiz-arranz, 2007; lin, 2011; constantinescu & schiff, 2014) or acyclically (sayan, 2006; yang, 2008). remittances were also found to have increased in response to natural disasters (clark & wallsten, 2003; gupta, 2005; ratha, 2006; yang & choi, 2007; yang, 2008; jackman, 2013) and economic crisis (hysenbegasi & pozo, 2002; kapur & mchale, 2005; halliday, 2006). similarly, black et al. (2004) observed an increase in remittance flows to ivory coast during periods of conflict. nabar-bhaduri (2013) noted that remittances increased significantly to sri lanka since the 1980s in response to the civil war that broke out in 1983. the world bank (2014a) observed an increase in remittance receipts to haiti in response to an earthquake and to pakistan as a result of devastating floods in 2010. empirical conclusions on the relationship between other related macroeconomic indicators and remittances have also been a mixed bag. while el-sakka and mcnabb (1999) and singh et al. (2010) found a negative and ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 136 significant relationship between interest rate differentials, adams (2009) observed a significantly positive relationship between investment-induced remittances and real interest rates. gupta (2005) and chami et al. (2009), however, found in india and the developing countries respectively, that remittances and interest rates were not significantly correlated. in terms of exchange rate, yang (2008) noted that filipino emigrants sent less money when the philippines currency depreciated. contrastingly, lin (2011) observed that remittances reduced in tonga as the country’s currency appreciated. straubhaar (1986) and chami et al. (2008), however, found that exchange rate variations did not affect flows of remittances. investigating the relationship between financial development and remittances, freund and spatafora (2008) used both transaction costs and the presence of a dual exchange rate system as proxies for financial development and observed that they both have a significant effect in reducing remittance flows. using the presence of a black market exchange premium as a proxy for financial development, el-sakka and mcnabb (1999) observed a negative relationship between the foregoing and remittances. evidently, the relationship between inflation and remittances in the literature is also not homogeneous. while el-sakka and mcnabb (1999) observed that remittance flows to egypt increased with the country’s inflation, buch and kuckulenz (2009) in their study of remittances to developing countries found an insignificant relationship between remittances and inflation. the latter authors opined that bad macroeconomic conditions could lead to emigration while they could inherently also reduce the origin country’s rate of return. the foregoing, they concluded, may inadvertently lead to a vagueness of the effect of inflation on remittances. although a number of studies have been carried out on the determinants of remittances in nigeria, most of these have focused on the microeconomic determinants of remittances (see for instance, nwosu et al., 2012; olowa et al., 2012). nevertheless, ajayi et al. (2009) and ojapinwa (2012) analysed the macroeconomic determinants of remittances in nigeria using the ols method. the ols approach is however prone to endogeneity problems. this research attempts an analysis of the macroeconomic determinants of remittances using the vector error correction model. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 137 methodology the methodological approach utilized is a log specified model. the series used for the analysis are annual time series data expressed in natural logarithms with the sample period 1980–2013, and were sourced from the world bank and the international monetary fund. the variables were log transformed considering the exponential growth pattern of some of the observations so as to avoid spuriousness in the relationship. each variable was subjected to unit roots testing, using the philip perron (pp) unit root test. this choice is based on the advantage of pp test specifically when dealing with financial observations. pp test is unique in dealing with serial correlation and heteroskedasticity in errors. it corrects for serial correlation and heteroskedasticity in the errors by directly modifying the test statistics. pp unit root test is robust to general forms of heteroskedasticity in the error term ut, and does not require specified lag length. the johansen co-integration test was then carried out to determine if the series are co-integrated. the presence of co-integration suggests long-run relationships among variables. based on the finding of the unit root test and order of integration of the observations, we carried out a vector error correction (vec) analysis. this is consistent with huana and vargas-silva (2005). they argued that the vector error correction model (vecm) is robust enough to handle endogeneity challenges between macroeconomic determinant variables and remittances. a crucial methodological issue in the literature on remittance determinants is the problem of non-stationarity. if there are at least two non-stationary series, chances are high for a spurious regression, albeit still having a reasonably high r2 value suggesting goodness of fit of model. consequently, we identified the use of the ordinary least square as a weakness of some of the existing literature on remittance determinants using time series (see el-sakka & mcnabb, 1999; aydas et al., 2005; ajayi et al., 2009; ojapinwa, 2012). we also tested for causality using the granger causality test framework. the empirical model used is derived from previous studies such as buch and kuckulenz (2009) and singh et al. (2010), and this was adapted to suit the nigerian context. although buch and kuckulnez (2009) made use of illiteracy rate, population and age dependency ratio, we made use of school enrolment on the presumption that it gives an insight into the former variables. we also introduced home country deposit rate to our analysis. this is based on the classic theory of savings which has its foundation on two cornerstones; say’s ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 138 law of supply and the quantity theory of money. these theories posit that savings (s) and investment (i) are equal. that is, s = i………………………………….…………………………………………………… (1) both savings and investment are functions of interest rate (r); s = f(r)…………………… ………………………………………………………………. (2) i = f(r)…………………… ……………………………………………………………….. (3) s = f(r); and 0 dr ds ……………………………………………………………………….. (4) i= f(r); and 0 dr di ………………………………………………………………………… (5) given that an individual’s income is either consumed or saved. keynes (1936) wrote in his general theory that “saving and investment are necessarily equal”. st = yt ct…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. (6) it = yt ct…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… (7) therefore s=i it is logical to say that the marginal propensity to consume (mpc) and the marginal propensity to save (mps) must be equal to unity. that is, mpc + mps = 1……………………………………………………………………………………………………… (8) mps= 1 mpc……………………………………………………………………………………………………… (9) going further, we presume that the home country’s deposit rate can influence emigrants to keep their savings in their home country. the model is specified as follows: rr = f (y, cpi, dcc, dr, er, fd, ird, se, tt) …………………………………………………………(10) ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 139 rr= αo + α1y + α2cpi + α3dcc + α4dr + α5er + α6fd + α7ird + α8se + α9tt + εt …(11) the model was therefore log transformed to derive: lrr= αo + α1ly + α2lcpi + α3ldcc + α4ldr + α5ler + α6lfd + α7lird + α8lse + α9ltt + εt ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… (12) where rr = remittances y=income per capita i= inflation dcc = domestic credit dr = deposit rate er = exchange rate fd = financial deepening ird = interest rate differential se = secondary school enrolment tt = openness αo = constant εt = error term research findings and presentations correlation analysis theoretically, migrants may remit money to help stabilize the income of their relatives and loved ones at home. we therefore expect that income levels will increase as remittances increase. also it is expected that as school enrolment increases, capacity to remit will increase but the need to remit will reduce over ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 140 time. ideally, it is expected that the need to remit will reduce as domestic credit increases on the assumption that the economy will have more liquid currency in circulation boosting domestic income levels through increased investment, hence, more jobs. as inflation increases there will be a need to remit more as money loses value. also, as the value of domestic currency appreciates, more remittances will be needed to keep up with the reducing value of foreign currency to domestic currency. it is important to note that, for economies with inadequate domestic production of goods and services, the consumption pattern is often skewed towards importation. for such economies, fluctuations in exchange rates are bound to have implications for inflation. in the event of appreciation in the value of foreign currency, it is expected that more units of domestic currency will be needed to purchase a unit of foreign currency for the purpose of importation for consumption. the additional cost will therefore be spread over each unit of good. in the case of deposit rate, the expected relationship becomes more dependent on the motive for remitting. if remitting is altruistic, not much impact on the deposit rate will be expected. from our study, data for remittances are found to be positively correlated with most of the other variables and significantly correlated with some but not all the variables (table 2). we found a positive and significant correlation between remittance levels and income, exchange rate, interest rate differential, secondary enrolment and openness, while the relationship between remittances and deposit rate was positive but insignificant. on the other hand, we found a negative and insignificant correlation between remittances and inflation, domestic credit as well as financial deepening. unit root test based on the nature of the data used, as indicated in table 1, we observe an upward trend in the series, meaning that the means of the time series change over time and signalling the possibility of the data not being stationary in its natural form. to adjust for this, we transformed the series to first differenced logarithmic form. in validating these statistically, we subjected the data to a formal stationarity test using philip perron (pp) unit root test. we subjected the variables to pp test individually. we tested for the symptoms of unit roots following the systematic procedure advanced by enders (1995). the results reveal that the variables are not stationary at level. the result for the first differenced series of all the variables revealed they are stationary, inferring ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 141 they are of order 1 i(1). the results of the pp unit root test are presented in table 3. co-integration test we then proceeded to subject the data to a co-integration test. the cointegration test signifies whether a long-run relationship exists between the variables of the model, hence a signal for causality (engle & granger, 1987; hendry, 1986; gujarati & porter, 2009). the rule of thumb in co-integration testing suggests that based on likelihood ratio, trace statistics and max-eigen values greater than their critical value connotes a rejection of the null hypothesis. this is in addition to the assumption that probability values should be less than 0.05. from the result presented in table 4, it is clear that cointegrating equations exist. using the trace test, it indicates eight cointegrating equations at the 0.05 level. the max-eigen value test indicates six co-integrating equations at the 0.05 level. we thus conclude, based on the results, that a long-run relationship exists among the variables. the normalized co integrating coefficients (standard error in parentheses) is therefore specified as: lrr ly li ldcc ldr ler lfd lird lse ltt 1.00 000 70.8 4808 3.42 6853 6.67 9664 13.0 1552 2.95 2473 14.0 8619 5.52 2407 36.4 0867 44.6 9625 (3.18 402) (0.27 411) (0.57 523) (0.60 773) (0.21 800) (1.16 606) (0.30 587) (1.58 111) (1.53 508) the foregoing implies that, in the long run, there is a positive relationship between remittance and income, domestic credit, deposit rate and exchange rate as well as interest rate differential, while there is an inverse relationship between remittance and inflation, financial deepening, school enrolment and openness. vector error correction analysis the vector error correction analysis result, as depicted in table 5, shows that in the short run there is an inverse relationship between exchange rate, ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 142 domestic credit, first lag of remittance and second lag of income. the other variables have a positive relationship with remittance. the coefficient of the error-correction term (ecmt-1) reflects the speed of adjustment from the short-run period to the long-run period. this is statistically significant and negative, as expected. the ecmt-1 value of 0.096817 implies remittance received is corrected from the short-run towards long-run equilibrium by about 9.7% annually. the short-run equation is specified as follows: dlrr= -12.76427 + -0.215412 dlrr (-1) + 0.303173 dlrr (-2) + 2.683970 dly (-1) -3.163380 dly (-2) + 0.303133 dli -1.458292 dldcc + 0.287024 dldr -0.545621 dler + 1.391185 dlfd + 0.343712 dlird + 1.131100 dlse + 1.871654 dltt 0.096817 (ecmt-1) in terms of diagnostic statistics in the short run, the estimated r square is approximately 56% and a moderate f-statics value is 1.67 suggesting an overall good fit and significance of the estimated model. therefore, fitness of the model is accepted empirically. however, we attribute the difference existing in the long run and short run to disturbances/shocks that occur in the short run but are absent in the long run. granger causality test after establishing that there exists a co-integrating relationship among our variables and specifying the error corrected model, we went a step further to identify if there is a causal relationship among our exogenous variables and remittances, and where it exists to identify its nature. this was done by employing the pairwise granger causality test. the result is reported in table 6. we test whether the exogenous variables individually do not cause remittance and vice versa. hence, we set up a null hypothesis to test ‘non-causality’; that the variables (income, inflation, domestic credit, deposit rate, exchange rate, financial deepening, interest rate differential, secondary enrolment and openness) do not cause remittance. h0:δ=0 (y, cpi, dcc, dr, er, fd, ird, se, tt does not granger-cause rr) ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 143 from the result, not much causality exists between the exogenous variables and remittance. we find, however, that where causality exists, it is unidirectional. this was found between exchange rate, deposit rate, openness and remittances. we find that the direction of the causality runs from the exogenous variables to remittance. therefore, we reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis for the variables of exchange rate, deposit rate and openness, and conclude that they do cause remittance flows to nigeria. discussion our research finds heterogeneity among the remittance determinant dynamics in nigeria. for income, we find a positive relationship for remittance and income levels in the long run and the first lag of the short run but negative for the second lag. the positive relationship is consistent with lianos (1997) and el-sakka and mcnabb (1999). similarly omobitan (2012) found a positive relationship for remittance and income level for nigeria. this suggests deviance from altruistic remittance, and an indication that remittance flow is procyclical. the results reveal an inverse relationship between remittance and inflation in the long run. interestingly, the short run reveals a positive relationship. the short-run relationship suggests that remittances received increase as price level in the recipient economy goes up. this is in consonance with the findings of el-sakka and mcnabb (1999). they opined that remittance increases with a country’s price level using the egyptian example. this suggests that remittance can serve as a response to day-to-day economic activities that affect recipients such as price fluctuations. however, the long-run result with an inverse relationship suggests a procyclical situation. this conforms with the findings on remittance to latin america and the caribbean from the usa by aydas et al. (2005) and orozco and lowell (2005). orozco (2004) argued however that magnitude of remittance is not affected by changes in price levels, using the case of the dominican republic. the coefficient for domestic credit is negative in the short run and positive in the long run. the result corroborates the findings of gani and sharma (2013). they find an inverse relationship for lower-middle-income economies, but for upper-middle-income economies the relationship is positive. it is expected ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 144 that in the long run countries grow to a steady state (barro & sala-i-martin, 2004). this suggests that, as countries grow, domestic credit grows, thus explaining the long-run positive relationship. this explains our finding on the relationship between income and remittance. migrants may remit to their home countries in order to invest in their growing economies. we find a positive correlation between remittance and deposit rate. similarly the long and short run are positive with a causal relationship running from deposit rate to remittance. this suggests a portfolio motive for remitting. our findings suggest remittances are procyclical rather than countercyclical. we find a strong correlation between exchange rate and remittance and a causal relationship running from exchange rate and remittance. in the short run, we find an inverse relationship between remittance and exchange rate, inferring that, as domestic currency appreciates, remittance levels reduce. however, in the long run, we find a positive relationship for exchange rate, implying that as domestic currency depreciates migrants find it lucrative to remit. yang (2008) found that filipino migrants sent less foreign currency when the asian financial crisis led to the depreciation of the filipino peso, suggesting that migrants have a specified range of amounts of money they intend their families to receive. our findings therefore reflect the possibilities of an investment portfolio choice in the home country (see singh et al., 2010). mouhoud, oudinet and unan (2008) opined that it is only when motivation to remit is altruistic that migrants will increase remittance in the face of currency depreciation in the country of origin. we find an inverse correlation and long-run relationship for financial deepening and remittance, but a positive short-run relationship. fajnzylber and lopez (2007) found a positive coefficient for remittance but when it is in interaction with financial deepening it becomes negative; they suggested remittances can be substituted for by financial depth in stimulating economic growth. this suggests that remittances boost economic growth in developing economies with an underdeveloped financial system (see also giuliano & ruizarranz, 2005). we find a positive relationship for remittance and interest rate differential in all periods. this corroborates with the findings of mouhoud et al. (2008). they opined that the impact of interest rates in determining remittance levels occurs mostly on investment motivation. they argued that it is expected to have a positive coefficient for investment motives since it depicts the deviation ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 145 of domestic interest rate from the international interest rate which in this study was captured with the libor. we also controlled for level of skill and education as an insight into the wage level of potential migrants using school enrolment level. we expect a positive coefficient since better education levels will attract better remuneration in the host country and as such improve migrants’ capacity to remit funds. we find an inverse relationship in the long run and a positive relationship in the short run. buch and kuckulenz (2009) opined that, since education is often used as a proxy for development level in an economy, chances are that high illiteracy level (i.e., low school enrolment) will increase the need for remittances. going further, we propose that since education is a process involving time, it is possible to find what was derived from our analysis; that in the short run, an increase in educational level will lead to better wage-earning abilities, hence increasing remittance level. in the long run we find the inverse of the foregoing. since better education attracts better wages, and education is a proxy for development, we conclude that there would be less drive to migrate in the long run as the recipient economy develops. our findings on openness reveal a positive relationship in the short run but an inverse relationship in the long run. the positive relationship in the short run attests to the high uncertainty associated with developing economies like nigeria in connection with the benefits of openness for robust economic policies addressing the competitiveness of nigeria in the global world. this aligns with the works of omobitan (2012). while openness is usually linked with liberalization and is often seen as a catalyst for national income, remittances on the other hand improve the income levels of the recipients’ households. there is, however, contradicting evidence as to whether openness itself is good or bad. although most discussion on the subject gives the impression that openness is a tool for growth in developing economies (see easterly, 2001; shafaeddin, 2005), systematic quantification attempts have however failed in identifying openness as a crucial driver of growth for developing economies (rodriguez & rodrick, 1999; bouet et al., 2006). sundaram and von armin (2008) argued further that it can distract developing economies from industrializing. drawing from the literature, it can be deduced that economies can optimize openness if they have some form of comparative advantage, as witnessed in china and india (pacheco-lopez & thirwall, 2009). alessandrini et al. (2011) alluded to the indian experience ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 146 claiming that openness helped in improving india’s specialization in industries with mediumto high-technology content thereby generating a comparative advantage in them and enjoying a global growth in demand. pacheco-lópez and thirlwall (2009) argued that there can be gains from specialization and openness, but they noted however that the gains depend on the achievement of two basic conditions which are rarely met. the first is that the process of resources reallocation should not disrupt full employment. they backed this with keynes’s (1936) assertion that if people lose their jobs in one sector as a result of specialization and free trade, the other sectors should be able to absorb them. the other notion is that the trade liberalization process in itself does not alter the balance of payments equilibrium, although they noted that evidence abounds in many developing countries for imports rising above exports. this explains the long-run inverse relationship between remittance and openness. we conclude that if openness follows the conditions put forward by pacheco-lopez and thirlwall, (2009), then there will be less need to remit as recipient household income levels will increase with openness. conclusion this paper analyses the determinants of remittances to nigeria using data from 1980 to 2013. the literature is inconclusive on the selected variables, hence this study. our findings indicate that remittance receipts in nigeria are largely influenced by portfolio options rather than altruism as they seem to respond positively to differentials in exchange rate, deposit rate and interest rate. in other words, remittance flows to nigeria are procyclical in nature rather than countercyclical. the study further indicates that remittances appear to respond to the level of openness in the home country. we also find causality running from deposit rate, exchange rate and openness in nigeria. this paper does not capture the contributions of remittances to economic development or welfare, as this can be done best using disaggregated data. furthermore, our data captures largely the formal channel leaving informal channels uncaptured. according to ratha (2006), informal channels account for about 50% of remittances. this data challenge remains a bane of remittance studies at the macro level and warrants caution in policy formation. boothroyd and chapman (1988) highlight this as a common issue in the academic and research environment, especially in the fields of development ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 147 issues and developing economies. perhaps access to more robust data in future will provide better insight into the foregoing phenomena. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge the insightful comments of saheed layiwola bello of the centre for petroleum, energy economics and law, university of ibadan, nigeria. references adams, r. h. 2009. the determinants of international 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informed by research can have a real influence on the lives of migrants throughout the world. it is also believed that the outcome of this research will help the ways in which concerned organizations think and act while dealing with the situation of international migrants. this research is aimed at drawing an inclusive research agenda that is better informed by distinguishable human rights requirements. the research agenda presented here is the result of the contribution of nearly 35 purposely selected researchers from various organizations working in the area of international migration in sub-saharan africa. the knowledge base that is produced from this study can yield data and information to governmental and  senior lecturer at the institute for social development, faculty of economic & management science, university of the western cape (uwc), south africa. he holds a phd in development studies from the university of the western cape, south africa. mdinbabo@uwc.ac.za  director of the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa, phd candidate in political studies at the university of cape town. he holds an ma in development studies from the university of the western cape, south africa. director@sihma.org.za this paper was presented at the human development and capability association (hdca) 2015 conference: ‘capabilities on the move: mobility and aspirations’. washington, d.c. usa september 10-13, 2015. mailto:mdinbabo@uwc.ac.za mailto:director@sihma.org.za http://hd-ca.org/conferences ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 155 non-governmental organizations that are dealing with international migration in sub-saharan africa. keywords: international migration, sub-saharan africa, policy makers, research agenda introduction the ever increasing worldwide human movement, the growth and complexity of migratory practice and its effect on migrants, families and communities have all contributed to make international migration a major area for academics and researchers from various disciplines. international migration is an escalating practice of our times with millions of people flowing across geographical boundaries (hatton, 1995; lee, 1966; maddala & kajal, 2009). nevertheless, human mobility in sub-saharan africa (ssa) has a long history spanning several centuries. the region has a highly mobile population composed of nomads, frontier workers, highly skilled professionals, refugees and undocumented migrants (adepoju, 2000). the discourse around migration patterns in ssa is dominated by myths and false assumptions. first, the widespread perception that migrants from ssa countries are ready to flock onto the shores of europe is contradicted by official data from the world bank showing that migration in ssa is largely characterized by intra-regional movements which account for 65 per cent of the total population of migrants who move to other african countries (ratha et al., 2011). second, the impression that ssa countries are urbanizing at a fast pace with a massive influx of rural migrants is also deceptive. the rapid population growth of african towns and large cities due to a natural increase of the population in fact cannot be directly linked to migration. on average, the rate of urbanization in the ssa region is estimated to be 2 per cent with the exception of a few countries (burkina faso, ghana and cameroon) which are urbanizing faster and others (zambia, ivory coast, central african republic and mali) which have even faced a process of de-urbanization (un-habitat, 2014). a reduced contribution of net in-migration to urban growth it is not caused by less internal mobility though but rather by ‘significant rates of circular migration’ (potts, 2009). this means that migrants are no longer residing in urban areas for long periods of time as it has become more difficult for them to secure employment and a decent standard of living in a highly informalized urban economy. therefore, circular migration in the ssa represents an enduring mobility pattern and a family survival strategy for ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 156 rural migrants. third, to dispel the myth that poverty reduction, economic growth and human development will halt migrants it is necessary to point out that development might lead to an increased level of migration. in 2014, the ssa region sustained a growth of 4.3 per cent (world bank, 2014) driven by an increase in the internal demand for goods and services, investment in mining activities, infrastructure for transport and communication and improvement of agricultural productivity (imf, 2014). this widespread growth in the per capita gdp has also improved the human development index (hdi) of many countries in the region, meaning that more people had access to water, health care and education services. a higher level of human development will not only increase social, human and material capital but will also boost people’s aspirations to move, leading to more migration (de haas, 2010; 2011; flahaux & de haas, 2014). finally, ssa is largely depicted as a region where people are forced to flee because of conflicts and social unrest. despite the fact that four of the five countries with the highest number of refugees per usd of gdp per capita belong to the ssa region (ethiopia, kenya, chad and south sudan), refugees account only for 16 per cent of the total population of international migrants in africa (unhcr 2013). debunking myths around migration patterns in ssa allows us to reflect on the more realistic trends of this phenomenon. human mobility in ssa is characterized by sub-regional movements between neighbouring countries and is driven primarily by economic factors rather than by conflicts. forms of circular labour migration, complemented by ‘less structured forms of mobility’, both at domestic and international level, also reveal an increase in the percentage of migrant women as in the case of southern africa (acms, 2015, 4). as the vast majority of those who move are labour migrants, expectations were raised to achieve regional integration and remove restrictions to free movements in ssa. on the contrary, many african states have promoted restrictive immigration policies in the attempt to reduce the influx of undocumented migrants. these measures, driven by security concerns, have led to the exploitation of migrants and to the systematic violation of their basic rights. it is, therefore, necessary to reflect on a global research agenda for ssa ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 157 informed by distinguishable human rights requirements and to identify the founding principles of an ethical paradigm of migration. in the following sections, this paper presents the methodological approach used (section 2), elaborates the theoretical and conceptual framework of a rights-based approach (rba) to international migration (section 3), and analyses the experience of researchers and development of a rights-based global agenda (section 4). the final section provides conclusions. research methodology the research methodology employed a mix of secondary data analysis and field data collection to understand the issues involved in international migration in ssa. according to bryman (2008), in the social sciences the mixed methods approach enables a thorough investigation of the phenomenon under study and therefore remains highly relevant in generating knowledge for policy making purposes. in general, a purposefully selected group of 35 researchers from fourteen ssa countries1 and 25 organizations in ssa were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. these included researchers and institutions involved in research on international migration, representatives of civil associations, and associations undertaking research on international migration. this empirical research helped to examine the different views, ideas; experiences and perspectives of the participants towards international migration in ssa: a call for a global research agenda. theoretical and conceptual framework a rights-based approach is a theoretical and conceptual model that helps to examine disparities which lie at the centre of social and economic development problems and entrench prejudiced practices impeding development progress (cornwall & nyamu-musembi, 2004; unhcr, 2002). it also strives to develop awareness among institutions, civil society organizations, governments and other pertinent stakeholders on how to fulfil their duties, to respect and protect human rights, and to empower individuals and communities to claim their rights (unicef, 2007). in a rba, the plans, policies and processes of development are attached in a system of rights and corresponding obligations established by international 1 angola, cameron, democratic republic of congo, ethiopia, ghana, kenya, malawi, nigeria, rwanda, somalia, south africa, tanzania, uganda and zimbabwe. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 158 law. this helps promote equality among citizens and brings about sustainable development/empowerment, especially for the most marginalized groups of people, in order to take part in policy development, and also to hold accountable those who have a duty to act (cornwall & nyamu-musembi, 2004). this methodology warrants the participation of all stakeholders, transparency and accountability, and the awareness of the rights of the historically excluded people. it strives to examine disparities which lie at the heart of development problems and discriminations that hinder growth (cornwall & nyamumusembi, 2004). the rationale for a rba is usually a blend of two major points. first, the intrinsic rationale acknowledges that an rba is the right thing to do from a moral perspective. in this regard, baggio (2007) noted that although it is not possible to identify universally applicable methods for the governance of migration, it is feasible to identify some universal principles that constitute the basis for an ethical approach to migration policies and practices. he suggested five principles that firmly respond to moral obligations: (i) promotion of human rights and human dignity; (ii) superiority of the common good, summarized as the superiority of the common good over personal interests and individualism; (iii) universal destination of goods and solidarity which represents the moral duty of many religions to be supportive towards disadvantaged people and also refers to the principle of philanthropy and solidarity; (iv) global stewardship and co-responsibility, an ethical principle based on the collective duty of the proper use and development of natural and environmental resources. according to this principle, everyone is free to access resources where they are as there is a moral obligation on those who have more to share with those who have less; (v) global citizenship, a principle based on the concept of ‘global fraternity’ which strongly undermines contemporary immigration policies whose main pillars are national sovereignty and the security of nationals. underlying the paradoxes of a globalized world where goods and capital can move freely while human beings are often constrained, these principles constitute the backbone of an ethical paradigm to assess the contemporary scenario of human mobility. second, an active foundation identifies that a rba leads to better and more sustainable social and economic development outcomes (unhcr, 2002). in general, rba comprises the incorporation of rights, rules, values, and ethics in policy, identification, planning, implementation, and evaluation to help ensure that the programme respects rights, in every direction, and encourages their further awareness where possible. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 159 according to unicef (2007, cited in dinbabo (2013)), a human rights based approach is all about capacity building, and enabling people to claim their rights and enhancing the ability of individuals and institutions who are accountable for respecting, safeguarding and rewarding rights. dinbabo (2013) further indicates that providing people with the opportunities to participate will ensure ownership and decision making that impacts on their human rights. as cholewinsky and taran (2010: 18) suggested, ‘a right-based approach to migration is placement of universal rights norms defined by the relevant international instruments as central premises of national migration legislation, policy, and practice founded on the rule of law’. in addition, how a rba is implemented appears to have more to do with the context and objectives of an agency or organisation than the definition of the approach. the office of the united nations high commissioner for human rights (ohchr) gives a definition of rights-based approach: a human rights-based approach to migration means that all migrants are right-holders, and therefore they are entitled to participate in the design and delivery of migration policies, to challenge abuse and human rights violations, and to demand accountability. ultimately, many migrants will remain on the periphery of development, literally and conceptually, unless they are enabled to participate equally in development. (ohchr, 2013: 8). the recognition by international organizations and civil society groups of the importance of promoting, protecting and upholding migrants’ fundamental rights has compelled them to urge states, in both sending and receiving countries, to adhere to international human and labour standards. in part, this major change has been the outcome of an increasing appreciation that needsbased or service-delivery methods have failed to significantly decrease the problem (ledogar, 1993; oestreich, 1998; woll, 2000; unicef, 2007; dinbabo, 2011) but is also motivated by the numerous human rights violations reported by media which often target vulnerable groups. the international labour organization (ilo) has identified several highly vulnerable categories including: women workers, especially those involved in domestic service, temporary and seasonal migrant workers, children, migrant workers in irregular status and victims of trafficking (ilo, 2010). it can be argued that the rba is not free from pitfalls; munch and hyland (2013) challenged the dominant paradigm, advocated by international organizations, of a rba to migration based on universalistic individual rights ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 160 promoted by western countries. they suggested an alternative and transformative model which affirms the central role of regional integration and social movements, in particular trade unions, to legitimate labour rights for all migrants independently from the dominant human rights discourse. baggio (2015) criticized the fact that the rba is based only on the enlightenment ideals of freedom and equality but not on ‘fraternity’ or ‘brotherhood’. he further noticed that the rba’s conceptual framework is limited to the prevention and punishment of human rights violations but does not express the duty of individuals, groups, societies and states to promote the welfare of every person, family and collectivity (ibid.). international legal frameworks/instruments the rba to migration is informed by a set of international standards found in international instruments and conventions that provide basic rights to all human beings and in some cases apply specifically to migrant workers. moreover, these sets of rights are applicable to all individuals regardless of their immigration status, documented or undocumented. for example, numerous studies (o’manique, 1990; ledogar, 1993; oestreich, 1998; woll, 2000; o’donnell, 2004; few, brown & tompkins, 2007; unicef, 2007; moeckli, 2012; dinbabo, 2013; dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015) show that the relationship between migration and human rights can be found at all stages in the migratory cycle: in the country of origin, during transit, and in the country of destination. when a migrant crosses a border, the act that defines international migration, international legal instruments intersecting migration and human rights become enforceable. three major intercontinental legal instruments, developed by the united nations, comprise the international bill of human rights namely: (i) the 1948 universal declaration of human rights; (ii) the 1966 international covenant of economic, social and cultural rights, and (iii) the 1996 international covenant on civil and political rights. article 13 of the universal declaration of human rights states that “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country”. this right guarantees the right of emigration covering not only immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, but also internally displaced persons, economic migrants or even students. dinbabo and nyasulu (2015) show that if a migrant entered a country or remained there without authorization that does not nullify the state’s duty under international law to protect his or her basic rights without any ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 161 discrimination, for example, against torture, degrading treatment, or forced labour. a rba is characterized by seven fundamental principles (see figure 1) including the universality and inalienability of human rights and equality and non-discrimination of all individuals which underlie labour and human rights. according to moeckli (2012), equality and non-discrimination means that all human beings, regardless of colour, race, religion, etc. are equal as human beings and, by virtue of the intrinsic self-esteem of any individual, they are eligible to exercise their rights without discrimination. a rba requires a specific effort to target unfairness and discrimination; protections need to be included in all kinds of legal tools to protect the rights and well-being of neglected groups of people. ilo conventions and recommendations set labour standards and rights at work which aim to provide a ‘common framework to regulate the rights and duties of labour migrants’ (nshimbi & fioramonti, 2013: 10). the 1998 ilo declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work is based on eight conventions which make explicit the ‘human rights at work’ (ilo 2010:120) and is articulated in four different categories: (i) freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining2; (ii) the abolition of forced labour3; (iii) equality and non-discrimination in employment and occupation 4 ; (iv) the elimination of child labour5 (ilo 2007: 1). two ilo conventions and their accompanying recommendations specifically deal with migrant workers. these are the migration for employment convention (revised), 1949 (no. 97) and the migrant workers (supplementary provisions) convention, 1975 (no. 143). these two international legal instruments provide the standard for giving a direction on what should constitute the basic elements of major labour migration policy, the safeguarding of workers, the establishment of their potentials in order to measure and facilitate as well as to control migration movements. furthermore, they aim to control the situations in which labour 2 freedom of association and protection of the right to organise convention, 1948 (no 87); right to organise and collective bargaining convention, 1949 (no 98). 3 forced labour convention, 1957 (no. 105); abolition of forced labour convention, 1957 (no. 105). 4 discrimination (employment and occupation) convention, 1958 (no. 111); equal remuneration convention, 1951 (no. 100). 5 minimum age convention, 1973 (no. 138); worst forms of child labour convention, 1999 (no. 182). ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 162 migration for employment occurs and labour trafficking, and try to control any kinds of illegal employment of migrants with the aim of preventing and eliminating abuses (ilo, 2007). a further useful tool developed by the ilo is the multilateral framework on labour migration: non-binding principles and guidelines for a rba to labour immigration which provides a ‘collection of principles, guidelines and best practices on labour migration policy, derived from relevant international instruments and a global review of labour migration policies and practices of ilo constituents’ (ilo, 2006: iv). in particular, principle 8 of the framework deals with the protection of migrant workers as a cornerstone of a rba to labour migration: the human rights of all migrant workers, regardless of their status, should be promoted and protected. in particular, all migrant workers should benefit from the principles and rights in the 1998 ilo declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work and its follow-up, which are reflected in the eight fundamental ilo conventions and the relevant united nations human rights convention. (ilo, 2006: 15). another relevant international instrument that deals with the protection of migrant workers’ rights is the 1990 international convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families (icrmw) which form, together with the two ilo conventions (no. 97 and no. 143) the international charter on migration (cholewinsky & turan, 2010: 20). other binding un instruments are the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination and the 2000 un convention against transnational organized crime and its two protocols, the protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children and the protocol against the smuggling of migrants by land, sea and air. in addition to the icrmw and the ilo conventions, the 1951 united nations convention relating to the status of refugees and its 1967 protocol protect the rights of refugees and all people in need of international protection. the convention is ‘both a status and rights-based instrument and is underpinned by a number of fundamental principles, most notably non-discrimination, nonpenalization and non-refoulement’ (unhcr, 2010: 3). ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 163 figure 1. the seven principles of a rights-based approach source: adapted from dinbabo (2013: 13) regional legal frameworks/instruments amongst the regional human rights instruments, the african charter on human and peoples’ rights6 adopted in 1981 by the organization of african unity (oau) aims at establishing a framework for the promotion and protection of human and people’s rights in the african continent. the charter lists a set of basic human rights applicable to all human beings of which some are particularly relevant to migrants. article 12(2) and article 15 respectively state that: ‘every individual shall have the right to leave any country including his own, and to return to his country’ and that ‘every individual shall have the right to work under equitable and satisfactory conditions, and shall receive equal pay for equal work.’ furthermore, the right of non-discrimination is enshrined in article 2, while the rights to access basic health care and education for all individuals are promoted respectively by articles 16 and 17 of the charter. a second regional pillar legal instrument for the rba to migration is the migration policy framework for africa (mpfa) which deals with nine key migration issues including migrants’ human and labour rights (au 2006: 1). the document invites states to ‘incorporate provisions from ilo conventions no 97 and no 143 and the international convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families into national 6 http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/z1afchar.htm universality and inalienability indivisibility interdependence and interrelatedness equality and nondiscrimination participation and inclusion empowerment accountability and respect for the rule of law http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/z1afchar.htm ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 164 legislation’, as well as ‘to promote respect for and protection of the rights of labour migrants including combating discrimination and xenophobia through inter alia civic education and awareness raising activities’ (au, 2006: 8). the mpfa enlists the upholding of the humanitarian principles of migration amongst states’ key priorities and clearly states that: ensuring the effective protection of the human rights of migrants is a fundamental component of a comprehensive and balanced migration management system […] safeguarding the human rights of migrants implies the effective application of norms enshrined in human rights instruments of general applicability as well as the ratification and enforcement of instruments specifically relevant to the treatment of migrants (au, 2006: 24). the mfpa, which is not legally binding, also recommends states should meet their humanitarian obligations to refugees by adopting adequate national policies and to strengthen mechanisms to protect internally displaced people and victims of trafficking. issues relating to the protection and nondiscrimination of refugees are also addressed by the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa. the economic community of west african states (ecowas): comprises 15 states7 and currently its regional policy framework on migration is regulated by the ecowas treaty and the 1979 ecowas protocol on free movement of persons, residence and establishment both of which protect the right to freedom of movement (right of entry), right of residence and right of establishment (atsenuwa & adepoju, 2010). the protocol had a 15-year, three-phase implementation process gradually to abolish visa requirements for ecowas citizens, promote the right of residence and lastly the right of establishment and seek employment. the ecowas common approach to migration, adopted in 2008, is a regional programmatic document which reaffirms the applicability of basic human rights expressed in all adopted international legal instruments to migrants, including women and victims of trafficking, and refugees. amongst its objectives the ecowas common approach to migration seeks to: (i) formulate an active integration policy for migrants from ecowas member states; (ii) combat exclusion and xenophobia; (iii) encourage member states and their eu partners to ratify the un 7 benin, burkina faso, cape verde, cote d’ivoire, gambia, ghana, guinea, guinea bissau, liberia, mali, niger, nigeria, senegal, sierra leone and togo. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 165 convention on the rights of migrants; (iv) put in place regional mechanism to monitor the un convention on the rights of migrants and (v) put in place mechanisms for granting rights of residence and establishment to refugees from ecowas countries (ecowas, 2008: 10). the east african community (eac): comprises five states of which kenya, tanzania and uganda were the founding members,8 joined in 1999 by burundi and rwanda. all member states signed the treaty for the establishment of the east african community9 committing themselves to strengthen their political and socio-cultural ties and to achieve full economic integration and subregional cooperation (eac, 2009a). the eac regional legislative framework also comprises the protocol on the establishment of the eac common market which came into force in 2010, upon ratification of all member states, and allowed free movement of goods, capital and labour among partner states (nshimbi & fioramonti, 2013). the protocol guarantees the rights of establishment and residence for all eac citizens and their families and reiterates the importance of non-discrimination as one of its underlying principles (eac, 2009b). in particular, article 3 and article 10(2) of the protocol call for the observation of the principle of non-discrimination respectively for non-nationals, citizens and foreign workers in relation to remuneration and other conditions at work (ibid.). moreover, to reduce the constraints regarding the portability of social security benefits, an additional annex on social security was drafted with the ilo’s technical assistance (ilo, 2010). the southern african development community (sadc): comprises 15 member states.10 despite the declared objectives of the 1992 sadc treaty to promote regional cooperation and to reduce obstacles to the free movement of capital, goods, services and people (sadc 1992) very little has been achieved so far by member states. the 1995 draft protocol on the free movement of persons in the southern african development community, a three-phase process which envisioned the possibility for sadc citizens to ‘enter freely the territory of a 9 the treaty was ratified by kenya, uganda and tanzania in 2000. burundi and rwanda acceded and became full members in 2007. http://www.eac.int/treaty/ 10 angola, botswana, democratic republic of congo (drc), lesotho, madagascar, malawi, mauritius, mozambique, namibia, seychelles, south africa, swaziland, tanzania, zambia and zimbabwe. http://www.eac.int/treaty/ ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 166 member state for the purpose of seeking employment’ (sadc, 1996) encountered fierce resistance from botswana, namibia and, in particular, south africa. the implementation of the ‘free movement’ provision was, in fact, considered by the authorities to be detrimental for the socio-economic conditions and the social well-being of south african citizens (oucho & crush, 2001). in 2005, the free movement protocol was replaced by the protocol on the facilitation of movement of persons which established a visa-free system for sadc countries and aimed at harmonizing immigration practices (sadc, 2005). the protocol, which is a binding document, was signed by 13 member states11 but has not came into force yet because it requires a minimum of twothirds to ratify it.12 the timid progress to eliminate obstacles to free movement and to draft a regional labour migration policy reveals that ‘migration is not a key priority of member states compared with more prominent issues such as border control and the fight against irregular migration’ (segatti, 2011: 29). empirical data presentation and analysis examining researchers’ experiences with a rba to research in international migration in the context of ssa is considered an important element in this study. in this regard, mcintyre, byrd and foxx (1996) argue that analysing researchers’ experiences is an important component in social science. garibaldi (1992) notes that most social science research projects have incorporated more and more experience analysis into their research programmes. field data analysis indicated that the majority of respondents were familiar with the rba framework. there was constant mention of rightsbased research that the majority of the respondents had previously employed to advocate for socio-economic and political rights of international migrants and marginalized groups of people through their organizations. they also indicated that a rights-based research approach to international migration is very relevant in the context of ssa. however, participants in the research made it clear that the modalities of implementation of a rights-based research approach to international migration are not clear. in this regard, the survey participants indicated that there is a need for increased awareness, collaboration and networking, amongst government and non-government offices, private service providers, community based 11 madagascar and seychelles did not sign the protocol 12 the document was ratified by south africa, botswana, mozambique, swaziland and zambia. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 167 organisations and churches in communities, and research organizations, in terms of effectively utilizing a rights-based research approach to international migration. based on information obtained, some of the respondents indicated that looking at research on international migrants through a ‘rights’ lens helped them in designing a new way of devising a research framework and in orienting themselves progressively towards addressing rights through advocacy and via strengthening of civil society. researchers also raised their concern about the general lack of a sound theoretical framework and strong empirical basis for a rights-based research approach to migration. some also raised their concern about the researchers’ expertise in rights-based research approach, methodology and scarcity of research findings and evaluation strategies. in sum, each of the respondents’ cases demonstrates that the rights-based research approach will need to develop its in-house capacity to assess, interpret, and synthesize information about the rights issues that underpin economic, social, political and cultural matters and to design programmes that seek to address them. in this regard, several respondents indicated their opinions, suggestions and views on the development of a human rights measurement framework. some respondents also suggested the need for understanding and building consensus within the international rights-based research approach strengths: several respondents stated that a rights-based research approach to migration helped in deepening the focus on disadvantaged and socially marginalized migrants as well as fostering respect and dignity and enhancing the opportunities of neglected migrants. a large number of respondents also indicated that the presence of the basic rights contained in the two international covenants, i.e., the international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr) and the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (icescr) are important tools in terms of undertaking research on the rights of the migrants. an exclusive response received from a few of the researchers indicated that the strengths of the rights-based research approach is reinforced by important international legal instruments, as emerged from respondents’ observations: ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 168 …the adoption of the universal declaration of human rights in 1948 was the first occasion on which the organized community of nations ... made a declaration of human rights and fundamental freedoms.... …it is conceived as “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations,” the universal declaration ... has become just that: a yardstick by which to measure the degree of respect for, and compliance with, international human rights standards... …it is one of the basic instruments of human rights .... states a common understanding of the peoples of the world concerning the inalienable and inviolable rights of all members of the human family and constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community… ….the human rights declaration consists of 30 articles setting forth the civil and political, and economic, social and cultural rights to which all persons are entitled, without discrimination. this means international migrants are part of the beneficiaries of the human rights declaration… …characterizes these rights as indispensable for human dignity and the free development of personality, and indicates that they are to be realized “through national effort and international cooperation.” at the same time, it points out the limitations of realization, the extent of which depends on the resources of each state…. weaknesses: a number of respondents indicated that the main weakness is a very poor collaborative research network. respondents believed that a panafrican research network on rights-based research approach to international migration would bring a platform for sharing research outputs and experiences. respondents also believed that collaborative research networks are helpful in designing and developing the research capacity of smaller, emerging researchers and institutions in ssa. according to them, collaborative research networks encourage these institutions and researchers to become familiar with a research system focussed on results by partnering with similar organizations in areas of common interest. respondents indicated that such kinds of partnership will benefit all of the stakeholders involved. opportunities: almost all the respondents agreed about the existence of various types of legislative and policy framework as an opportunity to undertake rights based research on international migration. in this regard, respondents indicated that, in fact, a significant number of ssa countries have either completed or are in the process of completing major law reforms on migrants. this, therefore, shows a great opportunity to work in the field and commitment ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 169 for the furtherance of international migrants’ rights on the continent. for example, respondents pointed out that, continentally, the african union seeks to build an african economic community (aec) and regards eight african regional economic communities (recs) as crucial in realizing an aec. to achieve this, the abuja treaty (paragraph 2 (i) article 4) encourages member states eventually to do away with barriers “to the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital and the right of residence and establishment.” the abuja treaty’s article 6(e) even fleshes out four activities for establishing an african common market (acm). additionally, article 71(e) implores au members to adopt employment policies that enable people to move freely within africa. in order to achieve this, article 71(e) urges members to establish and strengthen labor exchanges that make possible the harnessing of available skilled labour of a member state in other au states where such labour is needed but is in short supply. the au’s hope is that africa will be an economic community by 2028. as an opportunity, respondents further indicated that the two migration policy frameworks in africa, namely, the african common position on migration and development (acpmd) and the migration policy framework for africa (mpfa), warrant some attention. the acpmd promotes prioritization of migration-related policy, recommendations and actions on national, continental and international levels. similarly, the mpfa underscores the significant role that migration plays in development and appeals to all african regional economic communities members to craft policies designed to boost continental development. unfortunately, the mpfa is but a reference document that is not legally binding from which au members and recs can borrow issues that they consider valuable and appropriate to their migration settings. however, some of the researchers also indicated that the degree to which these instruments and laws will improve international migrants’ lives depends greatly on how state parties implement them and adopt domestic measures to comply with their international obligations. a number of respondents commented that the list of adverse factors with which the implementation and enforcement of migration laws has to contend, especially in africa, is still very long. challenges: analyses of the feedback of numerous respondents indicated that despite the theoretical strength of this method, as was stated in the earlier section, some of the respondents indicated that the rba to international ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 170 migration is not free from pitfalls. according to them, there are problems of operationalization and consensus about the rba among researchers, and its practical implementation in the context of africa. for example, some respondents indicated that although values of human rights notions such as non-discrimination and equality are not special values only for developed countries, it is assumed that human rights dialogue is not as operational in africa as in europe due to its origin in the west. some respondents also pointed out that a rba to international migration remains perceived in international law as rights enforceable only against the state or its agents. some respondents also indicated their feelings about the progressive breaches of human rights which are taking place in ssa because of the actions of nonstate actors. in general, they believed that human rights violations occur at different levels. the above evidence suggests that there are opportunities and challenges for conducting a rights-based research approach to international migrants in ssa. however, the researchers stated that research should be aimed at strengthening the resilience of vulnerable migrants, which is particularly relevant if participatory approaches and tools are used. in general, a rightsbased research approach to international migration has to be linked with state agencies, ngos and the private sector to bring the voice of civil society to ssa forums. respondents also indicated that a rights-based research approach should influence the political agenda in ssa on a range of migrants’ rights issues. key priorities for a global research agenda respondents suggested that despite the numerous laws, legal instruments, and policy frameworks, to which most governments in ssa may have acceded, the promotion of migrants rights issues for many countries still remains under-explored. in this regard, several researchers in ssa indicated that a global research agenda on migrants’ rights should be considered. according to them, the rights of international migrants globally and in the ssa context received thoughtful focus and attention after the 1948 universal declaration of human rights, the 1994 international convention on civil and political rights and the 1981 african charter on human and peoples’ rights. according to the respondents, these international and continental legal instruments establish that governments must ensure that all human rights should be protected. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 171 the result of the field data assessment demonstrates a great demand for urgent action on planning a rights-based global research agenda that responds to the present international migrants’ rights situation. in general, the research process identified two interrelated gaps that hinder the successful implementation of a rights-based research agenda. first, insufficient networking, communication and synergy between researchers, practitioners, government officials, funding agencies, research organizations and ngos. second, an inadequate understanding of the theoretical and conceptual framework of rights-based research exists among scholars in the field. within the framework of the aforementioned analysis, the study finally brings into focus major observations gained from the analysis and provides key priorities for a global research agenda in ssa. the following is a summary of a research agenda that has been suggested by most researchers in ssa countries.  analysis of legal and policy research agendas in the ssa context should be embedded in an approach which is informed by justice and restorative justice practices, as well as focused on especially vulnerable groups (unaccompanied minors, migrants deprived of their liberty, etc.).  assessing where opportunities and gaps exist for ensuring that the rights of migrants are included (migrants’ access to social services, e.g. health care and grants).  evaluating diversion and programming for migrants at risk or in conflict with the law. there is a great need for research into the regulation of issues of migrants at risk and prevailing conditions that threaten them, which, it is suggested, is an area of weakness in the region as a whole.  identifying factors determining migration in ssa, social exclusion and xenophobia; and undertaking comparative analysis of policies and practices governing migration in ssa.  examining the integration of research on migrants’ rights in ssa as an integral part of mainstream african social science research and ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 172 research on the possibility of developing a network of african researchers.  exploring migrants as victims of family violence, including: data collection on victims, particularly over time; family violence prevention and intervention measures.  assessing gender and migration. increasing feminization of migration is unveiling a potential risk (of abuses, exploitation and sexual harassment of women). conclusion this article seeks to provide a thoughtful understanding of a rights-based approach (rba) to international migration with a focus on sub-saharan africa (ssa). it also suggests the need for a research agenda predicated on the principle of human rights and intertwined with social and economic development. the findings reveal the necessity to address some of the asymmetries of international migration, such as the tension between sovereignty rights and human rights which often leads to the exclusion of noncitizens from social protection, labour rights and human rights. in this regard, the role of national and regional networking groups comprising researchers, ngos, practitioners, trade unions, civil society organizations and social movements can contribute to advancing migrants’ rights by exercising pressure from the bottom on both states and non-state actors to uphold and enforce international human rights law. moreover, there is an urgent need to identify universal and widely accepted principles able to inform national and regional migration policies. we suggest that such an ethical paradigm should be based on the following five principles: (i) promotion of human rights and human dignity; (ii) superiority of the common good; (iii) universal destination of goods and solidarity; (iv) global stewardship and coresponsibility and (v) global citizenship. building an effective institutional base that drives the design of international 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2014. available from: http://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr (accessed on 25 july 2015). http://www.unhcr.org/statistics http://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 178 impact of remittances on economic growth: evidence from selected west african countries (cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal) muriel animwaa adarkwa abstract remittances from abroad play a key role in the development of many west african countries. remittances tend to increase the income of recipients, reduce shortage of foreign exchange and help alleviate poverty. this research examines the impact of remittances on economic growth in four selected west african countries: cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. using developmentalist, structuralist and pluralist views on remittances, a linear regression was run on time series data from the world bank database for the period 2000–2010. after a critical analysis of the impact of remittances on economic growth in these four countries, it was found that inflow of remittances to senegal and nigeria has a positive effect on these countries’ gross domestic product whereas for cape verde and cameroon it had a negative effect. cameroon benefitted the least from remittances and nigeria benefitted the most within the period. one contribution of this study is the finding that remittance inflows need to be invested in productive sectors. even if remittances continue to increase, without investment in productive sectors they cannot have any meaningful impact on economic growth in these countries. keywords: cameroon, cape verde, gross domestic product, nigeria, remittance inflows, remittance outflows, senegal. introduction globally, there has been a steady rise in the number of migrants. the number of migrants increased rapidly between 2000 and 2010. according to the international migration report (2013), between 2000 and 2010 there were 4.6 million new migrants annually, compared with an average of 2 million per  candidate in ma development studies, institute for social development, faculty of economic & management science, university of the western cape (uwc), south africa. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 179 annum between 1990 and 2000 and 3.6 million per annum from 2010 to 2013. migration has positive and negative impacts on ‘home’ and ‘host’ countries, but one generally positive benefit of migration is financial remittances. over the past decade, remittances to developing countries from their nationals living abroad have grown steadily, reaching an estimated us$404 billion in 2013 and out-performing official development assistance (world bank, 2014). this figure excludes the money transferred through informal channels which cannot be captured and hence is not recorded. migrants’ remittances currently rank as the second largest source of external inflows to developing countries (world bank, 2014). this increase in remittances to developing countries can be attributed to the increase in the number of people settling abroad; and faster, easier and cheaper modes of transferring money around the world today (imai et al., 2012; world bank, 2014). previous research on the areas of outward migration has shown that countries with higher remittance inflows have higher growth rates and lower poverty indices (fajnzylber & lopez, 2007). this is because remittances tend to increase the income of recipients in the home country who in turn decide whether to invest or spend the money in the domestic economy. it further assists countries to reduce the problem of shortage of foreign exchange which is sometimes needed urgently by governments to fund import bills (siddique, 2010). in smaller developing countries, significant remittance inflows account for more than a quarter of their gross domestic product (gdp) (pop, 2011). with insights such as this, it becomes important to find out if indeed remittances have any impact on economic growth. this paper examines the impact of remittances on economic growth in the home countries of migrants, based on four selected countries in west africa: cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. the study uses data from the world bank for the period from 2000 to 2010. this period was chosen because, compared with the years before 2000 and after 2010, the number of people who emigrated from their home countries reached a peak of 4.6 million per annum during this period (international migration report, 2013). the next section gives a general introduction on the four selected countries. section 3 discusses the theoretical framework used and section 4 discusses the result of the data analysis. the study then concludes and gives recommendations. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 180 background and contextualization in recent times, research on the role of remittances in development has surged due to increasing evidence of its positive impacts on the economies of developing countries. despite the fact that remittances to sub-saharan africa have been growing at a far slower pace than those of countries in other regions, research has shown that they contribute equally positive benefits to subsaharan african countries. remittances are driven by migration. according to tolentino and peixoto (2011), sub-saharan africa has the most unstable migration flows compared with other regions in the world, although the west african sub-region has been the least volatile within the region, recording positive growth rates recorded in migrant numbers. there are many reasons why west africans emigrate. among them are: economic difficulties, political instability and conflicts, and increased poverty (nyamwange, 2013). in 2013, inflows of remittances to sub-saharan africa increased by 3.5% (world bank, 2014). the increase was not distributed evenly across the continent, however. east african countries experienced significant gains in remittance inflows while those in the west africa sub-region experienced only a marginal increase (world bank, 2014). despite this, organizationally, the economic community of west african states (ecowas) ranks second in terms of the collective value of remittances in-flows by member-states falling behind the southern african development community (sadc). research has shown that, despite the west african countries receiving relatively less in remittances, the impact of remittances on the economies of those countries has been positive (uneca, 2013). remittances have helped the region reduce poverty – its most pressing challenge –, supplemented household incomes, provided working capital and, above all, created multiplier effects within the economy through increased spending (uneca, 2013). nigeria is the recipient of the greatest volume of remittances in west africa and sub-saharan africa as a whole (maimbo & ratha, 2005; world bank, 2014). it receives between 30% and 60% of all the remittances to the west african sub-region and its remittances rank second as a foreign exchange earner after oil exports (orozco, 2003; world bank, 2014). cape verde and senegal, like nigeria, in turn rank among the top recipients of remittances in west africa. as a small island nation, cape verde’s economy is heavily dependent on remittances and this can be seen in their contribution to the country’s gdp (pop, 2011). according to official estimates, about one-third of the population ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 181 of cape verde live abroad, although some scholars place the figure well above that, arguing even that the number of emigrants exceeds the total resident population of cape verde (carling, 2002; pop, 2011). remittances to senegal more than trebled from 2002 to 2008, rising from us$ 344 million to us$ 1288 million within that period (cisse, 2011). this growth has seen senegal become the fourth largest recipient of remittances in sub-saharan africa. further to this success, studies show that remittances entering the country through informal channels could make the figures even higher. remittances play a key role in the economy of senegal, contributing between 6% and 11% to its gdp, sometimes surpassing other export products and certain sectors (cisse, 2011). in cameroon, international migration is known as ‘bush falling’ and this phenomenon is triggered by a number of factors including: falls in the price of primary goods in the 1980s and ‘90s, structural adjustment programmes and corruption (atekmangoh, 2011). these factors tend to serve as a motivation for cameroonians to travel outside their country in order to seek ‘greener pastures’. in cameroon, the total inflow of remittances has been relatively stable and despite this financial contribution to the economy over the years, the people who usually migrate are the educated and active populace and this can have negative repercussions on the economy (atekmangoh, 2011). theoretical framework from observation, although few people would disagree on the benefits of remittances to recipients in home countries, the extent to which remittances contribute to economic growth and development is another debate altogether. diverse theories have emerged to explain the impact of remittances on economic growth (development) of the countries of origin of migrants. among these are the developmentalist/neo-classical view, the structuralist/dependency view and the pluralist view (de haas, 2007). these three theories will be used to ascertain how remittances impact economic growth in cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. the developmentalist/neo-classical view (optimists) this view emerged in the 1950s and 1960s with the assumption that, through capital transfer, industrialization and the adoption of western values, developing countries would be able to accelerate their developmental process (so, 1990). during this period, underdevelopment was attributed to internal factors within developing countries and the notion was that, if developing ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 182 countries wanted to develop, they needed to abandon their traditions, values and culture and adopt those of the west (coetzee, 2001). it was during this period that the developmentalist view emerged. some prominent scholars who hold this view include: kindleberger (1965), todaro (1969), beijer, (1970) and massey et al (1993). they argue that migration will result in the transfer of investment capital through remittances and expose traditional/primitive societies to more rational, democratic and liberal ideas that will aid in their development (de haas, 2007; 2010). labour migration is viewed as a core part of modernization and it is believed that the effects of migration on development can be seen through the inflow of capital (remittances) which could help increase productivity and incomes (massey et al., 1998). from this perspective, migrants’ remittances are deemed important since they bring about change in household incomes, promote investments and innovations, and thereby aid the larger economy of the migrants’ country of origin in its economic take-off (kindleberger (1965) and beijer (1970), as cited in de haas, 2007, p.3). structural and dependency views (pessimists) in contrast to the above, the dependency view argues that migration and remittances create underdevelopment in migrants’ countries of origin (oluwafemi & ayandibu, 2014). this view emerged in the 1970s and the 1980s; some scholars associated with this theory include rubenstein (1992) and binford (2003). they hold that remittances make receiving countries dependent on the sending countries as well as making receivers of remittances dependent on the senders (binford, 2003). they argue that migration drains the human capacities of communities and leads to development that is passive as well as making these communities remittance-dependent (de haas, 2007). rather than encouraging economic growth, remittances lead to inequalities in areas where there is a large inflow of remittances (lipton (1980), as cited in oluwafemi & ayandibu, 2014, p. 314). this is because when the remittances are sent to recipients in the home countries, they tend not to use the money for any productive ventures but rather spend it on conspicuous consumption, such as cars, houses and clothing, which helps to deepen the income inequalities between households receiving remittances and those that do not receive any (de haas, 2007; 2010; oluwafemi & ayandibu, 2014). this can lead to inflation and the rise of prices in basic commodities in remittance receiving countries. for scholars of this tradition, remittances have a negative impact on the economies of receiving countries; they view remittances as indicators of ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 183 developing countries relying on developed countries for their development (de haas, 2010). remittances lead to the “development of underdevelopment” (frank (1966), as cited in de haas, 2007, p.9). pluralist view (the new economics of labour migration) this view emerged in the 1980s and 1990s in the context of american research in reaction to the neo-classical and the structuralist views (oluwafemi & ayandibu, 2014). this view tries to link the two theories above and argues that remittances and migration have both positive and negative impacts (de haas, 2010). in this view, migration is seen as “a household response to income risk since migrants’ remittances serve as insurance for households of origin” (lucas & stark (1985), as cited in de haas, 2007, p. 12). this can be seen as explaining why people migrate despite not knowing about prospects of income in host countries. this view sees remittances as having the tendency to produce both positive and negative impacts on development depending on what recipients and home countries do with the remitted money. according to the pluralist view, migration plays a key role in the economy by providing capital through remittances which can be used for investments in developing countries that are mostly characterized by poor credit and high market risk such as fluctuating exchange rates that deters financial institutions from giving out credit frequently (taylor & wyatt, 1996). it also stresses the importance of human “agency” if remittances are to contribute significantly to the economies of migrants’ home countries (de haas, 2007; 2010). accordingly, remittances will impact economic growth positively if recipients of these remittances use them for productive purposes and negatively if recipients use them for unproductive purposes. techniques of data collection this study is a quantitative study. quantitative research emphasizes the testing of hypotheses and the measurements of variables by linking them to general causal explanations (neuman, 2000). in quantitative research, the language of variables, numbers, objectivity, hypothesis and causation are emphasized. this study used data sets from the world bank. convenience and purposive sampling techniques were used to select the countries and corresponding data under study. the sample consisted of four countries selected from the west african sub-region (cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal). the study period 2000–2010 was selected because it saw the average number of migrants per annum increase to 4.6 million compared with ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 184 an average of 2 million per annum between 1990 and 2000 and 3.6 million per annum from 2010 to 2013 (international migration report, 2013). the data set includes remittance inflows, remittance outflows and gdp for the years from 2000 to 2010. it also contains the percentage of gdp made up of remittances in 2010 for the four countries involved in the study. stata (version 12) and microsoft excel were used to analyse the data. descriptive statistics of the relevant variables were reviewed. graphs were drawn to show the trend of remittance inflows and outflows for the 11-year period. linear regression analyses were used to examine the extent to which inflows of remittances predicted changes in gdp for the four countries. results and discussion in this section, i present the results of the analysis. i will begin by presenting the trend of remittance inflows and outflows for each of the four countries (cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal), followed by an analysis of the differences between remittance inflows and outflows between these countries. next, an analysis of a linear regression is performed to find out if there is a relationship between gdp and remittance inflow. lastly, the share of remittances as a percentage of the 2010 gdp for these countries is shown graphically as a pie chart. remittances inflows can be defined as financial resources sent into the home country of the migrant. on the other hand, remittances outflows are those financial resources leaving the host country of the migrant (world bank). figure 1 shows the trend of remittance inflows and outflows for cameroon from 2000 to 2010. it can be seen that the inflow of remittances into cameroon has been inconsistent over the 11-year period. it peaked in 2003 at us$ 76 million, rising from us$ 35 million in 2002. it then fell to us$ 10.3 million in 2004 and rose to its highest value within the 11-year period of around us$ 77 million in 2005. from there onwards, it was consistently low from 2006 to 2010, ranging from us$ 11.4 million to us$ 19.2 million. the inconsistency in remittance inflows to cameroon is associated with a generally falling trend in the amount of remittance inflows into the country. ngome and mpako (2009) also found that over the years remittances have been falling in cameroon. they identified a number of reasons for this: the high cost of money-transfer fees, the breakdown of trust in carriers of informal remittances, the belief that hardearned money sent home by migrants is squandered by family members on luxury goods instead of being invested in productive activities and, lastly, the ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 185 wide dispersal of cameroonians in the diaspora which makes it difficult for them to remit money through informal channels. on the other hand, remittance outflows from cameroon has been extremely inconsistent, varying widely from one year to the next, as shown in figure 1 below. figure 1: trend of remittance inflow and outflow for cameroon, 2000–2010 source: author’s computation with data from the world bank figure 2 shows the trend of remittance inflows and outflows for cape verde from 2000 to 2010. it can be seen that the inflows of remittances into cape verde fell steadily over the 11-year period, from us$ 86 million in 2000 to around us$ 13.2 million in 2010. it should be noted that the amount of remittance inflows was stable at around us$ 14 million from 2005 to 2007. an explanation for this trend could be the restrictive immigration policies being adopted by cape verdeans’ traditional host countries in europe, such as portugal and the netherlands (see carling, 2002). however, remittance outflows have also been consistently low, ranging between less than us$ 1 million and us$ 10 million. 20 40 60 80 100 120 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 in fl o w i n m il li o n s o f u s $ year inflow-cam outflowcam ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 186 figure 2: trend of remittance inflow and outflow for cape verde, 2000–2011 source: author’s computation with data from the world bank figure 3 shows the trend of remittance inflows and outflows for nigeria from 2000 to 2010. it can be seen that the inflows of remittances into nigeria rose steadily, from us$ 1,167 million in 2001 to an all-time high of us$ 9,980 million in 2008. it then took a dip down to around us$ 958 million in 2009 due to the global financial crisis. however, it picked up in 2010, rising to us$ 1,005 million. this is consistent with the findings of ukeje and obiechina (2013) who argued that, despite the global financial crisis, remittance inflows to nigeria have remained resilient. on the other hand, remittance outflows from nigeria have been consistently low over the 11-year period, rising from less than us$ 1 million in 2000 to around us$ 21 million in 2004, and trebling to us$ 68 million in 2005; its highest in the period. remittance outflow then fell to us$ 10 million in 2007 and since then has ranged between us$ 47 million and us$ 58 million between 2007 to 2010. 20 40 60 80 100 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 inflowscpv outflowcpv ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 187 figure 3: trend of remittance inflow and outflow for nigeria, 2000–2011 source: author’s computation with data from the world bank figure 4 shows the trend of remittance inflows and outflows for senegal from 2000 to 2010. it can be seen that the inflow of remittances into senegal has steadily risen. it rose from around us$ 3 million in 2001 to us$ 148 million in 2008, its all-time high for the period. however, the global financial crisis in 2009 had an effect on the inflow of remittances, causing it to fall to us$ 135 million in 2009. it maintained this value in 2010 after the crisis. the resilience of remittance inflows into senegal can be attributed to the constant inflows of money from migrants. it has been estimated that most remittance-receiving households receive between us$ 290 and us$300 per month from abroad (see orozco et al., 2010). on the other hand, remittance outflows from senegal were inconsistent over the period, rising and falling in various years. outflow rose from us$ 55 million in 2000 to us$ 98 million in 2005, its highest value for the period. it then fell to less than us$ 10 million in 2006, rose to us$ 14 million in 2007 through to 2008 and then continued its rise to us$ 17 million in 2009 and 2010 respectively. 2 000 4 000 6 000 8 000 10 000 12 000 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 inflownig outflownig ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 188 figure 4: trend of inflow and outflow for senegal, 2000–2010 source: author’s computation with data from the world bank figure 5 compares the remittance inflows of cameroon, cape verde and senegal. it can be observed that while remittance inflows into senegal from 2000 to 2010 rose steadily, remittance inflows into cape verde dropped steadily from 2003. on the other hand, remittance inflows to cameroon for that same period were inconsistent, rising in 2003 and falling the following year, only to rise again in 2005 and fall again in 2006. (20) 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 inflowsen outflowsen ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 189 figure 5: trend of remittance inflow to cameroon, cape verde and senegal source: author’s computation with data from the world bank figure 6 shows the trend of remittance inflows to nigeria in comparison with cameroon, cape verde and senegal combined. it can be observed that whereas the level of combined remittances for the three countries (cameroon, cape verde and senegal) was steady from 2000 to 2010, that of nigeria also rose steadily from 2000 to 2009 when it fell from us$ 9,980 million in 2008 to us$ 958 in 2009. it then picked up pace in 2010 rising to us$ 1,005 million. the sharp fall in nigeria’s inflow in 2009 can be attributed to the global financial crisis. although the crisis did affect the combined inflows of the other three countries, its impact on their economies was minimal in comparison to that of nigeria. figure 6 shows the trend of remittance inflows to nigeria in comparison with cameroon, cape verde and senegal combined. it can be observed that whereas the level of combined remittances for the three countries (cameroon, cape verde and senegal) was steady from 2000 to 2010, that of nigeria also rose steadily from 2000 to 2009 when it fell from us$ 9,980 million in 2008 to us$ 958 in 2009. it then picked up pace in 2010 rising to us$ 1,005 million. the sharp fall in nigeria’s inflow in 2009 can be attributed to the global financial crisis. although the crisis did affect the combined inflows of the other three countries, its impact on their economies was minimal in comparison to that of nigeria. (100) 100 200 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 r e m it ta n ce s in fl o w (m il li o n s o f u s $ ) years inflow-cam inflowscpv inflowsen ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 190 figure 6: trend of remittance inflow of nigeria in comparison with cameroon cape verde and senegal combined source: author’s computation with data from the world bank figure 7 shows the trend of remittance outflows for cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. it can be observed that remittance outflows for cape verde were consistently low for the 11-year period. on the other hand, for senegal, remittance outflows consistently rose from 2000 to 2004, and then steadily decreased from 2004 to 2010. remittance outflows for cameroon and nigeria were inconsistent for the 11-year period. 2 000 4 000 6 000 8 000 10 000 12 000 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 r im it ta n ce s in fl o w ( m il li o n s o f u s $ ) years inflownig inflow (cam cpv sen) ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 191 figure 7: trend of remittance outflow of cameroon, cape verde. nigeria and senegal source: author’s computation with data from the world bank table 1 shows the differences between remittance inflows and remittance outflows for cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal for the 11-year period (2000–2010). it can be observed that remittance outflows from cameroon exceeded remittance inflows into the country. in most years (2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008 respectively), the country recorded negative values as the difference between inflows and outflows of remittances was computed. this means that, during those years, remittance outflows from cameroon exceeded inflows into the country. it should be noted, however, that since 2009 cameroon has recorded positive values meaning that, since 2009– 2010, the inflows of remittances have increased while outflows have fallen. from table 1 it can be observed that remittance inflows into cape verde exceed remittance outflows although this value is continuously falling. cape verde recorded positive values for the 11-year period, except in 2004 when it recorded a negative value (that is, in 2004, remittance outflows exceeded remittance inflows). it should be noted that although remittance inflows have always exceeded outflows, the figure has been positive but at a decreasing rate for the period. this means that the value of inflows is consistently falling 20 40 60 80 100 120 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 r im m it ta n ce s o u tf lo w (m il li o n s u s $ ) years outflowcam outflowcpv outflownig outflowsen ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 192 although not falling to the extent that it is exceeded by outflows. this finding can be attributed to the huge disassociation between cape verdeans back at home and the second-generation emigrants in the host countries of migrants, which serves as a disincentive for them to send remittances (see carling, 2002). from table 1 it can be observed that nigeria always recorded positive values in the difference between remittance inflows and outflows for the 11-year period. this means that the value of remittance inflows always exceeded remittance outflows. the differences in outflows and inflows were positive and rose consistently from 2000 to 2008. however in 2009, inflows dropped due to the global financial crisis. despite this sharp drop in 2009, the inflow of remittances was still sufficient to exceed outflow for that same period and hence nigeria recorded a positive figure. from table 1 it can be observed that senegal has recorded both negative and positive values as the difference between remittance inflows and outflows for the 11-year period. the difference between inflows and outflows from 2000 to 2005 was negative. this means that the amount of remittance outflows from senegal was higher than remittance inflows. however, from 2006 to 2010, the differences between inflows and outflows were positive. that is, from 2006 to 2010, the amount of remittance inflows into senegal increased whereas the remittance outflows decreased, enabling the country to gain positive returns. from table 1 it can be observed that, among the four countries, cameroon benefitted the least from remittances. for the 11-year period its outflows exceeded inflows in six different years (2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008). on the other hand, nigeria benefitted the most within the period, consistently receiving more remittance inflow than outflow, thereby enabling it to record only positive values. cape verde benefitted from remittance inflows during this period too, albeit at a decreasing rate. this means that, although cape verde recorded positive returns year after year, the amount of remittances entering the country kept on decreasing. this could be a cause of concern for the economy since it is heavily dependent on remittances (see; carling 2002; pop, 2011). lastly, senegal was able to turn around the trend of outflows exceeding inflows from 2006, with a steady rise in remittance inflows and a corresponding decrease in outflows. this enabled the country to gain positive returns from 2006 to 2010. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 193 table 1: differences between remittance inflows and outflows from 2000 to 2010 for cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal year inflow cam outflow cam diff cam inflow cpv outflow cpv diff cpv inflow nig outflow nig diff nig inflow sen outflow sen diff sen 2000 30 30 0 86 0 86 1,392 1 1,391 23 55 (32) 2001 20 42 (22) 80 0 80 1,167 1 1,166 3 51 (48) 2002 35 56 (21) 85 2 84 1,209 1 1,208 3 39 (36) 2003 76 57 19 11 7 4 1,063 12 1,051 51 57 (6) 2004 10 42 (32) 11 12 (1) 2,273 21 2,252 63 77 (14) 2005 77 6 71 14 5 9 3,329 68 3,261 79 98 (19) 2006 14 92 (78) 14 6 8 5,435 10 5,425 93 10 83 2007 17 90 (73) 14 6 8 9,221 54 9,167 119 14 105 2008 17 62 (45) 16 10 6 9,980 58 9,922 148 14 133 2009 19 14 6 14 1 13 958 47 911 135 17 118 2010 11 5 6 13 8 6 1,005 48 957 135 17 118 the descriptive statistics of the variables used in the regression analysis are presented in table 2 table 2: descriptive statistics of variables used in the regression analysis mean standard deviation minimum maximum inflow of cameroon* 29.64545 24.32071 10.3 77 inflow of cape verde* 32.41818 32.97013 10.8 86 inflow of nigeria* 3366.391 3370.011 958.4 9980 inflow of senegal* 77.44545 53.26271 3 147.6 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 194 gdp of cameroon** 16.77236 5.485961 9.287368 23.62248 gdp of cape verde** 1.110979 0 .4795174 0.539227 1.789333 gdp of nigeria** 134.1709 95.67969 44.13801 369.0624 gdp of senegal** 8.566893 2.968586 4.679605 12.93243 *millions of us $; **billions of current us$ the result of regression between gdp and remittance inflow from 2000 to 2010 is presented in table 3 (see appendix for the regression of individual countries). remittance inflow in senegal has a positive relationship with the country’s gdp and is significant at 1%. the coefficient of determination (i.e. rsquare) is 0.9105 which implies that 91% of the changes in the gdp in this model are explained by the remittance inflow. thus, the coefficient of senegal’s inflow implies that a dollar increase in remittance inflows to the country increases the gdp by 0.05 us dollars, all other things held constant. this result is consistent with the findings of orozco, burgess and massardier (2010) and un-instraw and undp (2010) whose research reveals that most households receive remittances on a monthly basis. further, various researches (see orozco et al., 2010; randazzo & piracha, 2014) have revealed that remittances do not necessarily change the household consumption of senegalese who receive them but rather those who are privileged to receive them spend the money on education and investments. there has also been engagement of migrant associations in philanthropic activities in senegal. these wide arrays of productive purposes for which remittance inflows are used can to a large extent explain the significant relationship between remittance inflows and gdp in senegal. this result is also consistent with the new economics of labour migration (nelm) which argues that the inflow of remittances in and of itself does not enhance or inhibit development but will be dependent on what recipients do with the money in home countries (de haas, 2007; 2010). the coefficient of nigeria’s inflow is positive but not significant. this means that as the inflow of remittances increases the gdp of nigeria also increases but there is no clear link between the two. increases in remittance inflows do not play a significant role in the rise in nigeria’s gdp over the period. this can be explained by the large differences between the values of gdp and remittance inflows. despite that fact that remittance inflow to nigeria is the second largest source of foreign exchange after oil exports (see orozco & mills, 2007), the lack of a direct relationship between remittance inflows and gdp in ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 195 nigeria can be explained by the increase in exports over the same period (see ukeje & obiechina, 2013). this result is also consistent with the developmentalist theory which argues that labour migration is a core part of modernization and that the effects of migration on development can be seen through the inflow of capital (remittances) which could help increase productivity and incomes (massey et al., 1998). thus, although this theory argues that capital inflows do indeed increase incomes, as in the case of nigeria, it does not shows us the ways in which these incomes can be used to increase productivity (that is, perhaps despite the increase in the flow of remittances to nigeria, it does not have any significant relationship with its gdp). the coefficient of cape verde’s remittance inflow is significant at 1% but has a negative relationship with the gdp. this means that as remittance inflow to cape verde increases there is a corresponding decrease in its gdp. one possible explanation of this is that when remittances flow into the country they are either used for unproductive purposes or for activities that cannot be captured in the gdp. this finding can be explained with the decreasing role remittances play in the cape verdean economy now as compared with earlier years, in the 1960s (see ronci et al., 2008; akesson, 2010; watkins, 2010). further, research has also revealed that the inflow of remittance into cape verde is usually used to supplement household incomes, instead of being used for productive purposes, due to the increase in the cost of living (see akesson, 2010). these explanations are rooted in the dependency/structuralist theory which argues that remittances make receiving countries and recipients dependent on senders and sending countries (binford, 2003). this theory holds that migration drains the human capacities of communities and leads to development that is passive as well as making these communities remittance dependent (de haas, 2007). this is evidenced in the present analysis where, despite increases in remittance inflows, their relationship with gdp is negative. this is because in cape verde recipients do not use the money they receive from remittances for productive purposes but rather they use it as a way of supplementing their incomes for consumption purposes. the coefficient of cameroon’s remittance inflow is not significant. there is no clear relationship between remittance inflows and gdp. this can be explained by the decreasing amount of remittance inflows into cameroon as well as the slow pace with which its gdp has been increasing over the years. one possible explanation for the decline in the amount of remittance inflows into cameroon ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 196 is the lack of banking infrastructure and the belief that money sent back home is usually used by relatives for unproductive purposes and for indulging in luxurious lifestyles (ngome & mpako, 2009). this tends to discourage migrants from sending money back to cameroon. table 3: regression results dependent variable: gross domestic product (gdp), 2000–2010 independent variable: remittances (inflow), 2000–2010 coefficient std. error t-value p > | t | r-square cameroon -.0754467 0.0438481 -1.72 0.119 0.1119 cape verde -0.010141 0.0021835 -4.64 0.001 0.4862 nigeria 0.0070372 0.0067744 1.04 0.326 0.0614 senegal 0.0531813 0.0061664 8.62 0.000*** 0.9105 *** significant at 1% figure 8 shows the remittance inflows as a percentage of gdp in 2010 for cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. this year was chosen because remittances are said to be counter-cyclical (see unescap, 2007), tending to increase during times of crisis. thus, this figure displays the contribution of remittance inflows to gdp in 2010, one year after the global financial crisis. in 2010, the gdp of cameroon was us$ 23.7 billion and remittances made up 0.9% of this figure. this reinforces the analysis above, that there is virtually no relationship between remittance inflows and gdp in cameroon. the gdp of cape verde was us$ 1.7 billion and remittances formed 9.9% of this amount. although this is significant, studies by other researchers (see international monetary fund, 2008; ronci et al., 2008; akesson, 2010) have revealed that remittance inflows as a percentage of gdp have steadily declined over the years, falling from around 25% in the 1970s to barely 9% in the 2000s. the gdp of nigeria was us$ 369.1 billion and remittances formed 4.5% of this value. this percentage is relatively low considering nigeria ranks first as the recipient of the greatest amount of remittances in sub-saharan africa (see orozco, 2003; ukeje & obiechina, 2013). lastly, the gdp of senegal was us$ 13 billion and remittances formed 11% of this amount. this supports the literature that remittances to senegal are usually used for productive purposes ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 197 (see orozco et al., 2010; randazzo & piracha, 2014). it can therefore be concluded that the percentage of remittance inflows contributed the most to gdp in senegal (11%) and remittance inflow as a share of gdp in 2010 was the lowest in cameroon (0.9%). figure 8: remittance inflows as a percentage of gdp in 2010* *calculations based on the gdp for each of the four countries as at 2010 and not as a percentage of their combined gdp source: author’s computation with data from the world bank conclusion this paper, using data sets from the world bank, critically evaluated the impact of remittances on economic growth in cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. it used the developmentalist, dependency and pluralist views as the framework within which the analysis was conducted. using linear regression, analysis was made to ascertain the relationship between remittance inflows and gdp. the analysis reveals that there is a positive relationship between remittance inflows and gdp in senegal and nigeria. however, the relationship between remittance inflows and gdp was negative for both cameroon and cape verde. this study also provided evidence that it is not enough for remittances to increase within a country without them being used for productive activities as, without such practices, remittance inflows cannot contribute to development within receiving countries. 0.9% 9.9% 4.5% 11% cameroon cape verde nigeria senegal ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 198 recommendations focusing on the findings of this study, the following recommendations are made to improve the impact of remittances on economic growth in cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal. first, remittance inflows need to be invested in productive sectors. this is because without such investments the inflows cannot play any significant role in the economy. second, governments will have to expand the financial sector and make the process of transfer of remittances to home countries much easier and less expensive. this will enable the economy to capture remittance inflows that come in through informal channels which are usually difficult to capture officially. lastly, countries will have to regulate their remittance outflows. this is essential for cameroon and cape verde. for cameroon, there have been periods when remittance outflows far exceeded remittance inflows and this does not augur well for economic growth. cape verde on the other hand has seen its remittance inflows steadily falling for the period. although the fall in inflows has not yet exceeded outflows, should this trend continue, it could lead to a situation where the country will be experiencing negative returns which will not be good for economic growth. hence, the government will have to implement policies that will encourage migrants and recipients to invest remittances in productive sectors. references akesson, l. 2010. cape verdean notions of migrant remittances (pdf). cadernos de estudos africanos:140-159. from < http://cea.revues.org/pdf/168 > [retrieved 4 june 2015]. atekmangoh, c. 2011. expectations abound: family obligations and remittance flow amongst cameroonian “bushfallers” in sweden. a gender insight. masters’ thesis. sweden: lund university. binford, l. 2003. migrant remittances and (under) development in mexico. critique of anthropology, 23(3): 305-336. carling, j. 2002. cape verde: towards the end of emigration (online). from <http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/cape-verde-towards-endemigration> [retrieved 4 june 2015]. http://cea.revues.org/pdf/168 http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/cape-verde-towards-end-emigration http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/cape-verde-towards-end-emigration ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 199 cisse, f. 2011. senegal. in: mohapatra, s & ratha, d (eds.). remittances and the markets. washington d.c.: world bank. coetzee, j.k., graaf, j., hendricks, f. and wood, g. 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http://www.mdc.gov.cv/index.php/documentos/doc_download/9-tese-calliewatkins-beyond-remittances-susteinable-diasporacontributions-and-development-in-capeverde ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 202 world bank. 2014a. migration and development brief. issue 23. washington d.c.: world bank. world bank. 2014b. migration and development brief issue 22. washington d.c.: world bank. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 203 failed asylum seekers in south africa: policy and practice corey johnson abstract the return of failed asylum seekers has become an issue of concern for asylum states who must balance immigration control measures while upholding refugee protection obligations. the 1994 transition to democracy in south africa saw the state establish a strong urban refugee protection framework based on individualised refugee status determination processes, freedom of movement, and local integration. the refugee protection framework, although strong on paper, has suffered from a lack of implementation and has coexisted uneasily next to immigration control imperatives. this tension is further exacerbated by the post-1994 immigration regime which promotes a restrictive immigration policy with few options for low-skilled migrants who have turned to the asylum system as a means by which to legalise their stay, thus stretching capacity and conflating immigration control and refugee protection. this article provides a general overview of these issues, as well as an analysis of south africa's policies to address failed asylum seekers. in doing so it explores the tension between formal human rights protections found in legislation and underlying immigration enforcement imperatives. the article finds that the conditions for an effective failed asylum seeker policy are not present and concludes with a discussion of some of the issues that need to be addressed to implement a more effective and rights-based policy. keywords: deportation, detention, forced return, irregular migration, nonrefoulement introduction south africa’s historical transition to democracy set forth a new dispensation based on equality and human rights. prior to 1994, the country was not a party to any international human rights instruments, including the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees and its 1967 protocol (hereinafter the ‘1951 convention’), and, as such, refugees with international protection needs in the  advocacy officer at the scalabrini centre of cape town, 47 commercial street, cape town, south africa, 8001 corey@scalabrini.org.za mailto:corey@scalabrini.org.za ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 204 country were treated as illegal aliens subject to deportation without consideration of the potential consequences of return. after the democratic transition, the state signed and ratified the 1951 convention, the organisation of african unity convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa (hereinafter the ‘oau convention’), as well as a host of international human rights instruments, such as the international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr), many provisions of which were incorporated into the constitution in the bill of rights. importantly, most of the bill of rights' provisions apply to all people in south africa regardless of nationality or legal status. a review of migration policy and legislation was undertaken shortly thereafter, resulting in the refugees act (no. 130) 1998 and its accompanying regulations, which entered into force in 2000 (hereinafter the ‘refugees act’). the refugees act, as administered by the department of home affairs (dha), establishes an individualised refugee status determination (rsd) system that features the right to freedom of movement, the right to work, and local integration as opposed to refugee camp settings commonly found throughout the african continent. under this system, individuals lodge applications at designated refugee reception offices (rro) and receive documentation to legalise their sojourn while they await final adjudication of their claim. during this process, asylum seekers and refugees are guaranteed just administrative action under the the promotion of administrative justice act (paja) (no. 3, 2000) which gives effect to section 33 of the constitution. discussing the system in 2007, the high commissioner of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), antonio guterres, described it as ‘one of the most advanced and progressive systems of protection in the world today’ (unhcr, 2007). according to the act, asylum seekers and refugees are protected from deportation and generally detention should be employed only as a matter of last resort. officials must exercise their discretion in regards to possible detention ‘in favorem libertatis’, or in favour of liberty, and officials are not obligated to detain an illegal foreigner. despite the strong legal framework, refugee protection has existed uneasily next to the country's immigration regime and its focus on immigration control, particularly the control of undocumented migrants. the immigration act (no. 11) 2002 and its accompanying regulations (hereinafter the ‘immigration act’) establishes a restrictive immigration regime that facilitates immigration for highly skilled immigrants but offers few options for low-skilled workers. the lack of legal options under the immigration act has led many migrants to ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 205 lodge asylum claims to temporarily and imperfectly legalise their sojourn. this strategy has resulted in large numbers of asylum applications, many without legitimate claims, and stretched the capacity of dha to effectively administer the asylum system. it has also led to many state officials taking a sceptical view of asylum seekers and refugees as illegitimate and in practice many asylum seekers and refugees have difficulty realising their rights as guaranteed under the legal framework. while refugee law and immigration law are separate regimes, they do overlap at certain points. one of the most critical junctures is where an asylum seeker receives a final rejection of their asylum claim and becomes termed a 'failed asylum seeker', transitioning from the refugee to immigration system. 13 unhcr and the international organization for migration (iom) define failed asylum seekers as ‘people who, after due consideration of their claims to asylum in fair procedures, are found not to qualify for refugee status, nor be in need of international protection [and thus] are not authorized to stay in the country concerned’ (unhcr/iom, 1997). in south africa, the state has struggled to implement effective failed asylum seeker policies in the context of high numbers of asylum seekers, many without legitimate protection claims, and a lack of capacity within dha to administer both the refugee and immigration systems. this article will assess south africa's experience in attempting to implement policy to address failed asylum seekers and explore the tension between the state's emphasis on immigration control against the human rights protections found the in the formal legal framework. as effective policies are predicated on fair, efficient and timely refugee status determination processes, this article will begin by analysing the state of the asylum system and deportation regime. it then considers the state’s two failed asylum seeker return policies, one involving voluntary return with minimal state oversight and the other regarding the state’s more recent attempt to implement a more stringent detention and deportation policy upon receipt of a final rejection of their asylum claim. the article finds that the state’s primary focus is on the removal of failed asylum seekers regardless of alternative legal options and human rights obligations. somewhat paradoxically, it also finds that the 13 the terms ‘rejected’ and ‘unsuccessful’ asylum seeker are also commonly used. this paper will use the term ‘failed asylum seeker’ as this is the common term used in south africa. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 206 implementation of both of these policies are driven by a lack of capacity within the immigration enforcement regime. methodology in assessing south africa's failed asylum seeker policy, this article first provides a brief overview of international legal principles and norms for the return of failed asylum seekers. it then analyses the development and implementation of south africa’s urban refugee framework and parallel immigration framework, before turning to the state’s two primary failed asylum seeker return policies. the article relies heavily on primary information supplied by dha in the western cape high court case tshianda and others v minister of home affairs and others (2011) (hereinafter the ‘tshianda matter’), which details dha’s attempt to implement a stringent removal policy for failed asylum seekers through detention and deportation upon receipt of a final rejection at rros. this information includes founding, responding and supplementary affidavits, a standard operating procedure (sop) developed by dha for processing failed asylum seekers, and transcripts from immigration hearings at the cape town magistrates court in which dha immigration officials testified under oath regarding the implementation of the sop. at the time of writing, the tshianda matter has not been finalised and the legality of the sop has not been determined. however, despite the legal uncertainty, the case provides an insight into dha policy considerations and implementation in regards to failed asylum seekers. the analysis is supplemented by the author’s experience with the advocacy programme at the scalabrini centre of cape town, a non-governmental organisation (ngo) that provides assistance to migrants with accessing documentation and government services and functions on a walk-in basis. a significant portion of this work includes assisting with access to the asylum system. this has provided the author with the opportunity for interactions with failed asylum seekers as well with dha officials within the asylum and immigration systems. international legal principles, norms and considerations for effective return practices the right of a state to remove individuals from its territory is fundamental to liberal democracies and remains a central feature of the state (arendt, 1958, p. 279; torpey, 1997). however, the right to deport is not absolute and is limited by international human rights law and regulated by domestic judicial ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 207 systems that require that state actions adhere to recognised norms and standards. unhcr (2001) has stated generally that ‘return procedures should be undertaken in a humane manner, in full respect for human rights and dignity and, that force, should it be necessary, be proportional and undertaken in a manner consistent with human rights law.’ the first consideration is the principle of non-refoulement, the cornerstone of international refugee law which safeguards individuals against being returned to a country where they have reason to fear persecution or harm as stated in article 31 of the 1951 convention. this principle represents the international community’s commitment to ‘ensure all persons the enjoyment of human rights, including the rights to life, to freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and to liberty and security of person. these and other rights are threatened when a refugee is returned to persecution or danger’ (unhcr, 1997). an efficient return policy that maintains the principle of non-refoulement is ‘predicated on the existence of a fair, efficient, and timely process of refugee determination’ as well as the notion that ‘a determination system that lacks some or all of the qualities of fairness, efficiency, timeliness and transparency exacerbates the difficulties often associated with removals.’ the longer an individual asylum seeker stays in the country of asylum, the more difficult the removal will be if the claim is rejected (gibson, 2007, pp. 1-3). asylum states have preferred to implement voluntary return measures for failed asylum seekers due, in part, to the social, political and monetary costs of detention and deportation practices. however, even if voluntary return is preferred, the credible threat of forced return remains a useful tool to reinforce and promote voluntary return processes (noll, 1999b, p. 269). return is not the only option available to the state and, in some cases, failed asylum seekers may be eligible for an alternative legal status based on family unity or, in some jurisdictions, temporary protection measures. the use of force in detention and deportation procedures is regulated by the iccpr, the main international instrument that regulates the deprivation of liberty in any form. articles 7, 9(1), and 10(1) set out the basic framework for the use of detention and deportation for returns. in general, the legality of forced return measures depends on the ‘nature, purpose and severity of the treatment applied’ and there is no blanket list of prohibited actions or procedures (un human rights committee, 1994, para. 4). the use of force in return processes must conform to these standards and be proportionate to the ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 208 goal of returning the individual to their country of origin. although there is evidence to support the presumption that rejected asylum seekers are more likely to abscond and avoid forced return, the mere fact that an individual receives a final rejection cannot be automatically equated with a high rate of absconding and does not automatically justify detention (noll, 1999a, p. 28). detention and deportation may be inapplicable to particular vulnerable groups of failed asylum seekers who invoke more specific responsibilities under the international human rights framework. individuals with mental or physical illness may not be eligible for forced return measures if these measures might negatively affect the individual’s health or, at the extreme, their right to life. for individuals with these circumstances, forced return must be assessed against norms that prohibit cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (noll, 1999a, p. 30). the optimal practice for implementing an effective return policy involves the provision of information to asylum seekers about the possibility of return during the asylum process, well before a final rejection is issued. this ensures that individuals are aware of the possibility of return and, more importantly, understand the asylum process. the provision of information for asylum seekers involves minimal expenditure and will offer ancillary benefits such as increased knowledge about the asylum process that may steer migrants not in need of protection to other immigration streams and lessen the administrative burden. counselling services may also be provided during the asylum process which may constitute another means by which to offer information on the asylum process and conditions in the country of origin (noll, 1999b, p. 271272). unhcr (2001) notes that ngos have an important contribution to make in this regard, helping failed asylum seekers retain or regain their self-esteem and self-respect, as well as provide assistance with skills-development to take home. while voluntary mechanisms are preferred, the exact definition of ‘voluntary’ is debatable and states often employ measures that might involve elements of coercion, such as the threat of force or the provision of inducements and incentives in voluntary return schemes (black and gent, 2006; weber, 2011). in practice, any return mechanism will involve a mix of incentives and threats to ensure compliance. to make certain that an efficient return can be enacted if necessary, returning states should engage in activities directed at ensuring cooperation with countries of origin (such as bilateral return agreements or ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 209 documentation arrangements), and, if necessary, activities securing the cooperation of third states (noll, 1999b, p. 269). operating outside of the governmental removal process are assisted voluntary return (avr) programmes as operated by iom, defined as ‘the administrative, logistical, financial and reintegration support to rejected asylum seekers, victims of trafficking in human beings, stranded migrants, qualified nationals and other migrants unable or unwilling to remain in the host country who volunteer to return to their countries of origin’ (iom 2011, p. 15). avr programmes can thus assist those willing to return (only individuals who voluntarily opt for the programme can be considered) but unable to do so without financial and logistical support. for highly vulnerable migrants, avr programmes provide assistance at all points of the return process. the south african urban refugee framework and immigration control the development of the post-1994 migration regime began in 1996 with a comprehensive consultative process resulting in a draft green paper on international migration drafted by civil society members, government representatives and international refugee legal scholars (draft green paper, 1997). the draft green paper proposed a rights-based migration framework (containing a refugee-specific chapter), a collectivised approach to burdensharing in the region, as well as an inclusive approach to regional migration that would address irregular immigration through increased means for legal participation in the economy. in terms of failed asylum seekers, the importance of effective policy was recognised and it was noted that a ‘firm commitment to expeditiously deport rejected asylum seekers who have exhausted their appeal rights is moreover essential to the credibility of the refugee protection system’ (draft green paper, 1997, para 4.4.2). the resulting draft legislation that culminated in the refugees act largely avoided many of the draft green paper’s recommendations. barutciski (1998, p.703, 722) noted that the draft bill originated ‘essentially from internal drafting attempts that emphasize a bureaucratic approach to refugee protection [that] does not fully comply with international law’ and ‘proposes to establish a self-sufficient bureaucratic model of refugee protection which pays no heed to international cooperation.’ throughout the policy development process, refugee protection was often seen as 'within the ambit ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 210 of migration control' and early versions of the immigration act stated that in the event of conflict between the refugees act, the immigration act should take precedence (handmaker, 2001, p. 105). the policy development process was characterised by belvedere (2007, p. 59) as civil society representatives ‘lobbying for the inclusion of refugee rights against recalcitrant representatives from the department of home affairs who held that foreigners did not enjoy any rights in south africa’ contrary to the bill of rights. despite these difficulties, the resulting refugees act establishes a refugee protection system based upon freedom of movement and local integration and is recognised as one of the strongest regimes in southern africa. a strong articulation of the principle of non-refoulement that embodies the intent and spirit of the non-refoulement principle by recognising the possibility of indirect refoulement and extends protection to those whose ‘life will be at risk’ in line with the expanded oau convention refugee definition. 14 additionally, the refugees act provides for dependents of recognised refugees to be able to access the status afforded to the principal applicant through section 3(c). this provision recognises the importance of family unity and allows for immediate family members who might not have refugee claims to access protection. dependants are defined as ‘the spouse, any unmarried dependent child or any destitute, aged or infirm member of the family of such asylum seeker or refugee.’ at all points in the asylum application process, the constitutional guarantee of administrative justice must be observed, requiring dha officials to ensure that applicants are aware of their rights and obligations and understand the process (section 24). the removal of failed asylum seekers was not elaborated on in full in the refugees act and the power to detain asylum seekers is narrow; section 21(4), giving effect to article 31(1) of the 1951 convention, protects asylum seekers from treatment as illegal foreigners and from criminal proceedings flowing from unlawful entry. asylum seekers are only liable for detention and deportation after the withdrawal of the asylum permit, which may be done if 14 the oau definition is found in section 3(b) of the refugees act which states that an individual qualifies for refugee status if that person ‘owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing or disrupting public order in either a part or the whole of his or her country of origin or nationality, is compelled to leave his or her place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge elsewhere.’ ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 211 the holder contravenes the conditions on the permit or receives a final rejection of their claim (section 22(6)). individuals whose claims are finally rejected, are then subject to the immigration act’s provisions. an asylum seeker can only be detained if the asylum seeker permit has been withdrawn in terms of section 22(6), and they may be ‘arrested and detained pending the finalisation of the application for asylum, in the manner and place determined by him or her with due regard to human dignity’ (section 23). this provision is not common practice for failed asylum seekers as dha officials, instead, opt to use the immigration act’s framework (cote, 2014, p. 256). the overhaul of the country's immigration regime proceeded at a much slower pace than the refugee protection legislation. the immigration act entered into force in 2005 and immigration matters were previously governed by the alien controls act (no. 96) of 1991, one of the final acts of apartheid-era governance. during this period, immigration policy ‘remained impervious to the new political dispensation and its stated commitment to inclusivity, diversity, and human rights’ (peberdy, 2001, p. 16) with a continuing emphasis on immigration control (algotsson and klaaren, 2003). in terms of the new dispensation, the ruling african national congress (anc) party viewed immigration’s role in transformation as ‘antithetical or at best irrelevant,’ making it a low priority (crush and mcdonald, 2001, p. 8). the immigration act promotes ‘a highly restrictionist immigration policy’ (khan, 2007, p. 4), in which detention is used as the primary means of immigration enforcement (lawyers for human rights [lhr], 2008, p. 2) in terms of provisions, section 1 of the immigration act defines an illegal foreigner broadly as a ‘foreigner who is in the republic in contravention of this act’. section 32(2) requires that any person declared an illegal foreigner must be deported; however section 34(1) confers discretion on the part of the officer as to whether the individual must be detained. section 34(1) also includes a range of safeguards including the need for the authorities to provide reasons in writing for the negative decision, the right to appeal the decision to deport them, the right to have a court confirm the detention, and temporal limitations on detention. the courts have developed a strong body of jurisprudence regarding detention and deportation processes, discretion and liberty. in silva v minister of safety and security, the court underscored the importance of liberty, stating that: ‘a detained person has an absolute right not to be deprived of his freedom for one second longer than necessary by an official who cannot justify his ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 212 detention’ (1997, p. 661). in ulde v minister of home affairs the sca confirmed that foreigners cannot be detained ‘arbitrarily or without just cause’, and that section 34 does not require officials to detain every illegal foreigner they encounter, but instead obligates officials to exercise their discretion, which must be construed ‘in favorem libertatis’, or in favour of liberty (2009, para 7). in jeebhai v minister of home affairs the sca held that ‘every deprivation of liberty is presumptively unlawful,’ which obligates government officials to sufficiently justify their actions, as the consequences of a decision to deport someone […] concerns that person’s livelihood, security, freedom and, sometimes, his or her very survival. this is why immigration laws, are often harsh and severe in their operation, contain safeguards to ensure that people who are alleged to fall within their reach are dealt with properly and in a manner that protects their human rights (2009, para 21). thus, the refugee protection framework is one that affords a range of rights, but is complemented by a restrictive immigration regime focused on exclusion. in practice, the tension between the formal protections of the refugees act and the exclusionary immigration regime has resulted in refugee protection being subsumed by immigration concerns. the refugee protection framework in practice since the refugees act entered into force in 2000, south africa has struggled to efficiently implement the refugees act’s provisions. for asylum seekers, a number of obstacles block them from realising their rights in the asylum process, including access to information on the asylum process, provision of interpreters and quality rsd processes. additionally, the detention and deportation process has a history of unlawful practices and is synonymous with human rights violations. a lack of information available to asylum seekers about their rights and the asylum process, has been a historic feature of the south african asylum system. five years after the refugees act had entered into force, human rights watch (2005) found that the ‘[l]ack of clear, easily available rules regarding the asylum process […] and the lack of official interpreters complicate the process’ (p. 10). in 2009, the a national survey of rros conducted by amit found that 17% of respondents had errors on their asylum permits (p. 32), less than onethird of respondents received official assistance in filling out application forms, and 68% did not have the application process explained to them (p. 35). a ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 213 further study in 2012 found that roughly half of respondents did not know anything about the interview process and one-fifth did not receive assistance from an interpreter (amit, 2012b, p. 12). the first-instance rsd interview process has been characterised by delays and poor decisions. amit's 2009 survey found irregularities in the interview process, brief interviews with a large portion lasting 10 minutes or less, and applicants waiting, on average, for over one and a half years for their interview (p. 40-42). in subsequent research conducted in 2013-2014, it was found that on average, survey respondents were in the system for 2.8 years with one applicant being in the system for over 18 years (amit, 2015, p. 31). the decisions resulting from these interviews have been consistently poor with numerous errors of law, including the failure to provide adequate reasons for rejection, errors of law such as the misapplication of the concept of persecution and well-founded fear, improper use of the internal relocation standard, as well as improper and inaccurate assessment of the conditions in the country of origin (amit, 2010; amit, 2012a). in conclusion, amit (2012a, p. 10) notes that ‘migration control has displaced protection as the primary goal of the asylum system.’ the state has explained the low acceptance rates and delays as evidence of economic migrants abusing the asylum system, justifying restrictions in the asylum system as due, in part, to the abuse (african national congress, 2012). the poor decision making in the rsd process has required numerous individuals to undertake judicial review of the rsd process under paja. a recent case which resulted in refugee status being conferred by the high court, prompted the judge to describe dha’s handling of the case as ‘deplorable’ and comment generally that ‘[o]ne shudders to think of the many thousands of refugees in similar situations … subjected to the same treatment [as the applicant] by those to whom the law has entrusted their fate’ (rickard, 2015). consequently, the judicial review process has proven a critical safeguard for many refugees, resulting in a growing body of refugee law jurisprudence15and providing further evidence of systemic problems in the rsd process. asylum seekers have also struggled to access the 3(c) family joining process for dependants. difficulties arise in the declaration of dependants during the application process which can be hampered by the lack of interpreters and the 15 for an overview of the judicial review process and associated case law, see de la hunt, 2014. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 214 lack of assistance provided by officials at rros in explaining the process or understanding applicants' rights. in addition to these practical obstacles, khan (2013, p. 85) notes that because of the lack of a specific family joining system or procedure, dha ‘often refuse a family member’s application on the basis of a more restrictive reading of the refugees act,’ often regarding regulation 16 which stipulates that 3(c) applies only to ‘dependants who accompanied the asylum applicant to the republic.’ in addition to the challenges in the asylum system, the state has also struggled to administer its detention and deportation system and, as such, unlawful practices have been commonplace at the facility since the late 1990s (de wet, 2014). while a large proportion of deportees are not failed asylum seekers and are instead irregular migrants, failed asylum seekers are returned through the same process and facility, and face the same conditions. the south african human rights commission first investigated the lindela repatraition facility in 1999 and found significant obstacles in accessing detainees and poor conditions (algotsson, 2000). in 2005, the un working group on arbitrary detentions (2005, p. 14, 21) found similar circumstances with arbitrary detention, unlawful detention of asylum seekers and refugees, inadequate legal procedures to challenge detention, and conditions that do not meet international standards. in 2009, research conducted with detainees found that many detainees were prevented from exercising their rights and accessing legal counsel (amit, 2010a). over an 18 month period in 2009-2010, lawyers for human rights brought over 60 cases to the high court concerning unlawfully detained asylum seekers and describe a ‘general pattern of contempt’ exhibited by dha and officials at lindela in the legal process (lhr, 2010, pp. 9-12). more recently, the sahrc (2014) released a report detailing severe human rights abuses such as procedural irregularities, inhumane conditions and the use of violence against detainees. the review above highlights some of the more critical gaps in south africa’s refugee protection framework and establishes that the conditions for efficient failed asylum seeker policies are not present. these issues have led some scholars to argue that asylum seekers and refugees are 'internally excluded' from human rights protections due to dha practices and the construction of asylum seekers as 'bogus' illegal immigrants who manipulate the system (belvedere, 2007). others have advanced the notion that the state, in an attempt to regulate foreign nationals within the country, has declared a 'state of exception' in which elements of the normal legal order are suspended to ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 215 address crises (the presence of foreign nationals) that threatens the state. the state of exception allows state authorities to act outside of their legal mandate but still retain the power and authority of the law to address threat of foreign nationals by establishing a parallel system to regulate threats not bound by normal regulation (landau, 2005a; musuva, 2014). this declaration of a state of exception results in categories of individuals who are unable to realise their rights under the law. this response is rooted in notions of the foreign migrant as a negative and criminal presence, similar to the rationale for restrictive immigration legislation. the post-1994 state has increasingly relied on descriptions of foreign migrants (particularly african migrants) as endangering the country's physical and moral health, its ability to provide services and employment to citizens, and its ability to control crime (peberdy, 2001, p. 24). at other times, government officials have overtly labelled migrants as criminal, as evidenced by a former director general of dha who labelled '90 per cent of foreign persons' in south africa as possessing fraudulent documents (quoted in algotsson and klaaren, 2003, p. 1) or, more recently, through a coded description of asylum seekers as ‘illegal immigrants’ who are ‘illegitimately’ undertaking employment (sapa, 2014). the effects of such a discourse lead the citizenry to equate ‘foreignness’ with a crime, as this association is not discouraged in government rhetoric or national media (misago et al, 2009). while these exceptional responses towards migrants are not formal nor monolithic declarations and are subject to various forms of resistance from the state and civil society, landau (2005a, p. 338) notes the state of exception is instead implemented through ‘official endorsement or tacit acceptance of systems in which government officials (albeit at different levels of the official hierarchy) legitimise or help create parallel – extra-legal – systems for policing foreigners.’ while this response is prevalent across government departments in their treatment of foreign migrants, it is particularly acute within dha and at rros. segatti et al. (2012, pp. 138-139) note that dha officials at the johannesburg crown mines rro criminalise asylum seekers by fostering a legal culture that questions the legitimacy of foreigners’ presence in south africa. vigneswaran (2008, p. 6) notes that access issues at rros often arise out of the individual efforts of dha officials who act outside their legislative mandate to prevent asylum seekers gaining access to the reception system [and] are embedded in an institution which ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 216 sanctions its officials engaging in extra-legal practices that prevent foreigners from entering and residing legally in south africa. while these extra-legal practices are not absolute or all-encompassing, the frequency and scope of rights violations committed by the state against asylum seekers and refugees suggests that more than bureaucratic maladministration or incompetence is behind these practices. south africa’s failed asylum seeker policies in administering the refugees act, dha has predominantly relied on a voluntary return process with minimal government oversight for failed asylum seekers. in recent years, dha has attempted to implement a more stringent detention and deportation process by which, upon the asylum seeker receiving a final rejection at the rro, they are detained for the purposes of deportation. the two processes are at opposite ends of the use of force spectrum and the changes in policy, tracks with the dha’s inclusion in the justice and security government cluster in 2010 along with a host of restrictive practices implemented from 2011 onwards. this policy shift amounts to a ‘significant reduction of asylum seeker and refugee protection, culminating in increased danger of refoulement’ (polzer ngwato, 2013, p. 3). the voluntary return process involves the failed asylum seeker being given 30 days to finalise any outstanding affairs and make their own arrangements to leave south africa. this can be arranged through a final asylum seeker permit or through alternative immigration measures such as form 21 to depart or form 23 requiring the individual to report at a certain date to provide proof of their intention to depart (cote, 2014, p. 261). the failed asylum seeker will receive notification of the final rejection upon reporting to an rro and will subsequently receive the documentation informing them that they must depart the country. while these notices give dha the ability to follow-up with individuals if they do not report or to confirm the departure of individuals, the author is not aware of immigration officials systematically investigating individuals who do not report as required as standard practice in recent years. due to the poor collection of information at the rro during the application process, these details are often incomplete or recorded incorrectly. the voluntary return process affords failed asylum seekers ample opportunity to return to their country of origin without being detained or deported, and does not result in the serious expenditure of state resources. more critically, in terms of non-refoulement, the 30 day notices also provide recourse for ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 217 individuals who believe their asylum claim has not been handled as required by law, to undertake a review. the review may be completed either under section 8 of the immigration act, which provides for an internal review within dha, or more commonly through section 33 of the constitution, which allows for a judicial review at the high court in terms of paja. it also provides family members with separate asylum claims the opportunity to enact section 3(c)'s family joining proceedings in respect of the principle of family unity. the initial rationale for adopting this policy, whether for the above protectionrelated reasons or out of capacity constraints, is unknown. in terms of effectiveness, it remains unclear how many rejected applicants fail to depart the country within the allotted time period. internationally, data on the efficacy of voluntary return schemes is limited, although officials in europe have made unverified statements that up to 70% of non-detained rejected asylum seekers abscond (field and edwards, 2006, p. 41). in regards to south africa’s voluntary return practice, dha officials have stated at various times that the policy is ineffectual. in the tshianda matter, dha noted that the 30-day period afforded to failed asylum seekers, was abused in that the vast majority of failed asylum seekers who were issued with the said notice, failed to leave the country and instead, disappeared into the mainstream of south african society, thereby defeating the objects of the immigration act, which requires that all illegal foreigners depart or be deported … in most cases, these people relocate from the places where they originally stayed in order to evade deportation and accordingly make it immensely difficult for officials within the immigration inspectorate to find them (tshianda matter, respondents' answering affidavit, pp. 16-18). additionally, an immigration officer at the cape town rro stated more specifically that 2,000 individuals had absconded in this way (tshianda matter, applicants' founding affidavit, p. 121). however, the figure was not compared to how many in total were rejected or how many voluntarily departed, nor do dha’s deportation statistics differentiate between failed asylum seekers and irregular migrants. in an attempt to address the perceived ineffectiveness of the voluntary return practice, dha implemented the tshianda sop for the return of failed asylum seekers in 2011. in addition to the challenges in the voluntary return process mentioned above, dha noted, in the tshianda matter, that the combination of porous borders, large numbers of asylum seekers, and the lack of an encampment policy has led to difficulties in administering its rsd system, ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 218 thereby allowing for asylum seekers to reside in society at large for ‘many years’ while awaiting the determination of their claim. further, ‘in many cases asylum seekers are not economic migrants but rather persons belonging to crime syndicates,’ placing extra burdens on the state’s resources committed to combatting crime (tshianda matter, respondents' answering affidavit, 2012, p. 16-17). as a response to these issues, the tshianda sop was developed to deal with the process for the deportation of failed asylum seekers and establish guidelines as to how failed asylum seekers could be dealt with. the sop consists of guidelines, including handover procedures upon receipt of a final rejection where the failed asylum seeker transitions from the refugees act to the immigration act. in addition, the sop provides guidelines for the determination of forced return through detention and deportation via lindela, based on the possibility of absconding and flight risk, or through voluntary measures similar to the 30 day notice discussed above (tshianda matter, sop, pp. 1-6). the tshianda sop requires the immigration official to interview the failed asylum seeker to determine the appropriate course of action and to detain the individual while verifying the details of the failed asylum seeker, namely addresses, workplace details, bank details and other relevant information. the investigating official can then, ‘with discretion, decide on the appropriate action to be taken’ and, if the decision to ‘detain and/or deport’ is made, ‘the failed asylum seeker may then be detained in order for the immigration officer to do verification of details and see what affairs the suspect needs to close up’ (p. 2). if the investigating official determines the asylum seeker has family or property ‘and other ties to rsa such as children in school’, the official will ‘draw up lists of assets and provide a motivation on whether a person is a flight risk if released to close up their affairs’ and, if so, continue to detain for deportation.if not, release can be recommended for the purposes of closing affairs and an order to leave must also be issued (p. 3). while the law requires an immigration officer to exercise their discretion, the tshianda sop requires the individual to be detained before investigating the situation. attorneys acting on behalf of the applicants argued that the tshianda sop is unlawful as the failed asylum seeker would be detained in terms of section 34 of the immigration act, for the purposes of deportation, before being investigated as to determine what steps the person would need to undertake to finalise their affairs; if the person is detained it would be ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 219 practically impossible for a person to finalise their affairs if necessary (p. 18). the sop appears to contradict the principle of in favorem libertatis and instead favours the immediate detention and deportation of failed asylum seekers. included in the evidence presented to the court were transcripts from hearings at the cape town magistrates court taken during confirmation of warrant hearings as provided under section 34 of the immigration act. the transcripts cover three cases in which individuals were detained for deportation as provided for in the sop by three different immigration officials in the employ of dha. the transcripts reveal that in all three cases the immigration officials understood their duty in regards to failed asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants generally, to verify the individual’s legal status and then summarily detain and deport the failed asylum seeker. one official, when questioned about his interpretation of the sop, stated that it means that failed asylum seekers ‘must be arrested with immediate effect … and deported’ (tshianda matter, applicants' founding affidavit, p. 127). another official described his duties towards failed asylum seekers to ‘arrest it [the failed asylum seeker] for investigation purposes first and then after we discover that the person doesn’t have a status and then we declare him for deportation' [sic] (tshianda matter, applicants' founding affidavit, p. 128). the above policies represent opposing ends of the spectrum in terms of failed asylum seeker policy, with either minimal oversight or conversely immediate detention and deportation upon receipt of a final rejection. the seemingly schizophrenic approach reinforces segatti's (2011, p. 54) description of post1994 immigration policy and enforcement as a 'mix of laissez faire and mismanagement, related to both chronically weak administrative capacity and coercive and abusive practice.' the adoption of both return practices described above, despite their difference in the use of force, relates to capacity within the immigration inspectorate as each practice can be implemented by dha with minimal effort in terms of capacity. in practice, both return practices rely on the asylum seeker to report to the rro which removes the need for an investigation which might involve address checks from across the metro region, province or country. while both options provide for further investigation and follow-up, there is little evidence to suggest officials undertake such investigations routinely. any practice such as enhanced reporting mechanisms and regular address checks require more action on the part of officials, complicated by the poor record keeping at rros due to capacity constraints. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 220 while the implementation of the tshianda sop might not require a considerable increase in the use of resources from immigration officers at rros, it would likely result in increased costs through the detention and deportation regime and put more individuals at risk of refoulement. these increased costs might deter dha to increase its reliance on detention and deportation, but there is little evidence that the immigration enforcement regime’s direct cost factors heavily in policy implementation. a 2012 study found that dha incurred unnecessary legal costs of around 4.7 million rands in regards to unlawful detentions at lindela (amit and zelada-aprili, 2012) and as of 2013, unlawful practices within immigration enforcement amount to r503.3 million or 37.5% of dha’s pending legal claims (mthembu-salter et al, 2014, p. 11). these figures and the lack of concern associated with them suggest these costs are acceptable for pursuing immigration enforcement goals. summary and implications the analysis above has provided an overview of south africa's refugee protection and immigration enforcement regime and the state's attempts to address failed asylum seekers. put simply, the conditions for effective failed asylum seeker policies – efficient and fair refugee status determinations – are not present. the state has either employed a laissez-faire approach that relies on the removal of the asylum permit and legal status as a coercive measure, or a more stringent detention and deportation upon receipt of a final rejection policy that increases the likelihood of refoulement and endangers the principle of family unity. the state's evolving policy for failed asylum seekers can be explained by the state’s increasing focus on security issues in migration policy and associated restrictions in the asylum system (amit, 2013; polzer ngwato, 2013), as well as the state's attempt to implement policy with limited resources (sapa, 2014). for a more effective failed asylum seeker policy, a number of issues might be considered: a more regional approach to immigration issues, more effective administration at rros, increased involvement of civil society and international organisations, and increases in state capacity to allow for dha to carry out its duties and fulfil its obligations considering south africa's role on the continent as a destination for migrants, both economic and forced. for the implementation of an effective failed asylum seeker policy, consideration first needs to be given to how to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the rsd system. towards that end, alternative immigration ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 221 options with relaxed conditions for low-skilled migrants may reduce the burden on the asylum system, resulting in a more manageable caseload. the isolationist approach to migration taken during the policy development process in the late 1990s has not been conducive to effective immigration policy in recent years, dha has discussed the development of 'work seeker' visas for sadc nationals (dha, 2013) and increased cooperation in regards to refugee protection (dha, 2015). these adjustments might result in a reduction in the number of unnecessary asylum applications lodged and may also assist in increased coordination of migration matters. however, as evidenced elsewhere, are not without their own potential pitfalls (arbel and brenner, 2013; mouzourakis, 2014) and follows a history of difficulties in regards to increased integration of the movements of people in southern africa (oucho and crush, 2001). the state should also consider how to increase the efficiency at rros to ensure that asylum seekers better understand their rights and responsibilities and that dha can obtain updated and accurate information. the studies cited above have all found high numbers of asylum seekers not being informed of the process or of their rights; the establishment of information desks and counselling services at rros may address that chronic deficiency. some of these services may also be established with assistance from ngos, lessening the cost of implementation for the state. such measures, while modest and not directly involved in the return process, might result in more awareness amongst asylum seekers of the possibility of return and begin to prepare them for that reality in line with unhcr's recommendations. other options might involve providing support – both financial and institutional – for iom’s avr programme which assisted with 250 returns from south africa in 2014. support might allow for the programme to expand and may reduce the unnecessary expenditure in deportation costs and litigation. a further, more long-term benefit of these adjustments might be increased consideration of the vulnerability of asylum seekers amongst officials, resulting in a better understanding and adherence to humanitarian obligations. a lack of capacity and resources (both human and financial) are significant factors in the failed asylum seeker practices described above and has perhaps been the most structural obstacle to effective failed asylum seeker policywith capacity issues affecting all stages of the asylum process. this issue has been acknowledged as a significant impediment by dha and it is now being addressed as a departmental priority (dha, 2014). the danger inherent in this ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 222 reprioritisation is that it becomes focused on exclusionary practices such as deportation without consideration of the protection needs and nonrefoulement concerns. however, even with efforts to address the above issues, extra-legal practices and underlying anti-asylum seeker sentiment amongst many officials may mitigate the positive effects of any policy changes. as vigneswaran (2011, pp. 116-117) notes, '[d]ecades of neglect have produced a range of deeply embedded control-oriented practices that lower-level officials adhere to regardless of the signals from above or the goals of their departments.' this factor makes formal policy changes unlikely to succeed unless accompanied by engagement with officials and new incentive structures. as such, the above considerations should be accompanied by the political will to ensure that the refugee protection framework is effectively implemented and its associated human rights protections are given equal footing with immigration control measures. in conclusion, consideration of the above issues may lead to the establishment of a more fair and efficient asylum system. with 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(eds) contemporary migration to south africa: a regional development issue. washington dc: agence française de de veloppement and the world bank, pp. 105‐120. weber, f. 2011. how voluntary are voluntary returns? race & class, 52(4): 98‐ 107. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 230 80 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 is voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? the view of refugees in south africa fatima khan* *university of cape town, south africa email: fatima.khan@uct.ac.za voluntary repatriation as the preferred durable solution for refugees has attracted much scholarly attention and the existing literature highlights the complexities of the process. this paper attempts to answer the question of when return can be considered as truly voluntary and preferred. to answer this question, the paper considers reasons offered by refugees themselves. the percentage of voluntary repatriation applications by refugees living in south africa is low in relation to the number of refugees living in the country. however, reasons why refugees might choose to repatriate are still worthy of interrogation if we are to truly establish whether it is a preferred solution. refugees’ answers illustrate that they are not always completely free to make choices. they may indicate consent, but consent does not necessarily indicate a preference. this paper incorporates a study which reveals that refugees choosing to repatriate from south africa are indeed very small in number, despite the vigorous attempts of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) at promoting voluntary repatriation. it further reveals that this can be partly attributed to the fact that in an urban setting such as south africa with a rights-based framework, refugees are often able to better integrate into their host society without the direct assistance of the unhcr as they would do in a camp-based setting. as such, assumptions that voluntary repatriation is a preferred durable solution for all refugees, need to be interrogated. keywords: voluntary repatriation; refugees; south africa; unhcr; urban policy 81 introduction voluntary repatriation is the voluntary return of refugees or displaced persons to their countries of origin. the number of refugees and asylum seekers seeking to be voluntarily repatriated to their countries of origin from south africa, a country with a rights-based legal framework and a non-encampment or urban policy, is significantly small. for example, between 2004 and 2014, only 137 angolan refugees living in south africa were voluntarily repatriated to angola (unhcr, 2015). this is surprising, considering that 281 000 angolans sought repatriation from refugee camps in neighboring countries including namibia, democratic republic of the congo, botswana, and zambia during 2004 alone. (human rights watch report, 2005:1). equally small numbers of rwandan refugees returned from south africa (unhcr, 2015) as opposed to the large numbers that returned from refugee camps elsewhere in africa (unhcr, 2003a). in 2003 the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) assisted 23 000 rwandans in the democratic republic of the congo (drc) and a further 11 000 rwandans in tanzania, with repatriation (unhcr, 2003b). furthermore, in the last five years fewer than 100 refugees were voluntarily repatriated from south africa to their countries of origin by the unhcr (unhcr, 2020). despite these statistics, the united nations high commissioner for refugees continues to promote voluntary repatriation as the preferred durable solution and actively campaigns to promote voluntary repatriation in south africa. the main purpose of this paper is to interrogate voluntary repatriation as a preferred durable solution for refugees living in an urban setting by considering the reasons offered by refugees themselves for wanting to return home. the paper begins with a brief discussion on the methodology used in this study and then presents the debates by scholars on voluntary repatriation as the preferred solution. the paper also provides an analysis of the organisation of african unity’s (oau) article 5 of the 1969 oau convention governing specific aspects of refugee problems in africa (hereafter the oau refugee convention) (oau, 1969) as it is the only international legal instrument that has provided for voluntary repatriation. moreover, this paper discusses the unhcr’s approach and programs regarding repatriation from south africa. lastly, and most importantly, the paper analyzes the responses of refugees from data obtained over seven years (from 2008 to 2014) which consists of 254 applications for voluntary repatriation made to the unhcr in south africa. in addition to analyzing the responses from refugees, statistical data obtained from the unhcr’s regional office in southern africa is also used to illustrate that refugees from an urban environment do not regard voluntary repatriation as the preferred solution. leading on from this, in order to demonstrate how the unhcr operationalized voluntary repatriation within south africa during this period, this paper offers a brief overview of two of the unhcr’s assisted repatriation programs for mozambicans and angolans. is voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? 82 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 methodology background this study’s desktop research reveals that the assertion by the unhcr that voluntary repatriation is the preferred durable solution to ending refugee status, has been highly criticized by scholars. the focus of this paper is to ascertain whether voluntary repatriation is in fact considered to be the voluntary and preferred durable solution by refugees themselves. to answer this question, data was drawn from the 254 applications for repatriation that were made and received by a legal implementing partner of the unhcr in south africa. in south africa, the unhcr does not provide direct legal services to refugees and aslyum seekers; instead it has appointed local organizations and institutions to implement its mandate.the cases studied were all applications made over a period of seven years, from 2008 to the end of 2014, to one of the legal implementing partners tasked with the facilitation of the voluntary repatriation program, for the unhcr. it is important to bear in mind that the number of repatriation applications processed by the legal partner were minimal considering that the partner assists over 5 000 refugees per annum. the research was prompted precisely because the number of refugees seeking voluntary repatriation was so low, given the unhcr’s assertion that repatriation is the preferred solution and their targeted strategy of repatriation in south africa among angolan and rwandan refugees. research design voluntary repatriation applications are conducted by the unhcr’s legal implementing partner. the application requires refugees to complete a single questionnaire (see annexure 1). all applicants are informed that the data will be shared with the unhcr and that the unhcr uses such data to study trends in south africa. the results are used to inform its policies and develop its annual operational plan for south africa. the requisite permission was obtained from the unhcr to use the data from these applications and ethical clearance was obtained from the legal implementing partners’ ethics committee to study the case files. a simple coding of all the questions was done by focusing on key questions and the nationality of applicants. in particular, the study focused on the questionnaire questions that could provide insight into the reasons for seeking repatriation. the two key questions analyzed were: “what will happen if you return to your home country?” and “what change of circumstances explains that you no longer fear returning home?” as stated, 254 cases were analyzed. this is the sum total of the voluntary repatriation applications made at this legal partner. applicants comprised of 14 nationalities, most from sub-saharan countries. the purpose of the case review was to establish who sought repatriation, to determine their reasons for repatriation, and to establish the extent to which their repatriation was truly voluntary. 83 additionally, further statistics were sought from the unhcr’s voluntary repatriation officer in southern africa. the statistics provided by the unhcr proved particularly useful because the unhcr keeps meticulous records of all voluntary repatriations that it facilitates throughout the country. table 1: repatriation numbers and nationality from 2008 to 2014 limitations relying on the case files and the unhcr statistics for a study of this nature could be considered a limitation, since they exclude refugees who have been assisted by other organizations. this study also does not include instances of spontaneous return by refugees, and neither the south african government nor the unhcr are able to provide statistics on spontaneous return by individual refugees. the lack of recorded information on instances of spontaneous return illuminates a gap in research and record-keeping in the south african context and it would be worthwhile for a future study to interrogate these cases further. since the empirical element of the research was conducted in an urban setting that utilizes a rights-based framework, these findings cannot address refugees in camp-based settings. thus, a parallel study that seeks to explore why refugees in camps seek repatriation might also be worthwhile. the empirical review was drawn purely from application documents (see annexure1), and thus follow-up questions country 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 total (per country) angola 4 3 1 1 9 burundi 3 9 5 19 22 24 2 85 congo-brazzaville 2 2 5 8 13 5 35 drc 2 5 11 9 21 21 5 75 ethiopia 2 2 indonesia 1 1 liberia 1 1 nigeria 2 2 rwanda 1 5 16 1 1 6 31 senegal 1 1 somalia 4 5 9 sudan 1 1 2 tanzania 2 2 zimbabwe 1 1 2 total (for year) 10 29 43 40 53 65 14 254 is voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? 84 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 could not be posed to applicants. a qualitative study on reasons behind repatriation can add further insight into whether repatriation is a preferred durable solution. when assessing applications of this nature, it is also difficult to assess the truth-value of reasoning, as some applicants might have understandably tailored their answers with the end goal of wanting to go home. furthermore, the sample size used for this paper has implications on the ability to respond fully whether voluntary repatriation is a preferred durable solution. an additional study is required to ascertain the validity of such claim. despite this, the small number of voluntary repatriation cases over the seven-year period (254) against the total number of refugee and asylum seekers who were provided with legal assistance (35 000) by the legal partner for this same period suggests that voluntary repatriation is not a preferred durable solution for refugees living in an urban-based setting, utilizing a rights-based framework. debating voluntary repatriation repatriation has gained much scholarly attention for a variety of reasons. much of the debate between scholars is centered on the unhcr’s policy of voluntary repatriation as its preferred durable solution for refugees despite the complexities associated with return, the lack of definition of voluntary repatriation, and the absent consideration of refugees’ preferences. this section briefly considers these debates. the unhcr believes that there are three durable solutions: resettlement, local integration, and voluntary repatriation. the unhcr asserts that this last option – voluntary repatriation – is its preferred option, as it believes that it is the only solution that re-establishes the bond between the refugees and their countries of origin, and between the citizen and the state (unhcr, 2013a). this assumption is based on the unhcr’s understanding that refugees ultimately want to return home. as refugees can never be forced or coerced into returning home, the unhcr handbook on voluntary repatriation states that the voluntariness of repatriation involves a refugee making an informed decision about the conditions of the country of origin and choosing freely to leave the host country (unhcr, 1996). thus, the refugee’s decision must be informed and uncoerced. however, critics are quick to point out that voluntary repatriation might not be completely voluntary because of the complexities associated with return, that are “unforeseeable, neglected or ignored” (bradley, 2008: 285-304). bradley reiterated this position in 2019 when she stated, “when refugees do return, voluntarily or otherwise, they commonly face impoverishment and violence, sometimes resulting in repeated displacement” (2019: 154173). scholars even say that, depending on the circumstances, a refugee’s decision to return to their country of origin is often mandatory, forced, or coerced and therefore involuntary rather than voluntary (chimni, 2004: 55-73). for example, chimni argues that a refugee’s decision to repatriate may not be spurred by a desire to return home or a belief that the country of origin’s conditions have become safe; instead, the need to repatriate is the only viable option available because life in the asylum state 85 is unbearable. under these circumstances, the decision to return home cannot be considered voluntary (chimni, 2004). scholars also question the voluntariness of voluntary repatriation due to the relationship between voluntary repatriation and the processes of cessation, as outlined in article 1c of the 1951 refugee convention (hathaway, 2005: 917-953). according to hathaway, while voluntary repatriation and cessation are two distinct processes, both processes return refugees to their countries of origin (hathaway, 2005: 917-953). cessation is invoked when, due to changes in circumstances in the home country, refugees no longer require international protection and cannot, therefore, refuse to avail themselves of the protection of their country (siddiqui, 2011). cessation allows for the withdrawal of refugee status by a host state and raises the question of whether repatriation facilitated after invoking a cessation clause can be considered voluntary (stein, 1994). according to hathaway, this sort of repatriation is mandatory rather than voluntary (hathaway, 2005). furthermore, if voluntary repatriation precedes the invocation of cessation, it raises the obvious question of whether the requisite level of safety in the country of origin for voluntary repatriation differs from that required for cessation. how is it possible for a country to be safe for voluntary repatriation, but not safe enough for cessation? hathaway makes a legal argument that repatriation should not be possible where circumstances have not changed (hathaway, 2005). assessing role players also indicates whether voluntary repatriation is truly voluntary. while host states, countries of origin, and the unhcr may have roles in the voluntary repatriation process, refugees themselves are the most important role players in determining whether the process is truly voluntary (stein, 1994). goodwingill and mcadam note that the promotion of voluntary repatriation anticipates varying degrees of encouragement by outside bodies. the motivation for the promotion of voluntary repatriation by the unhcr raises various questions (goodwin-gill and mcadam, 2007:270-291). for this reason, goodwin-gill and mcadam assert that the unhcr should not promote voluntary repatriation as the best solution; instead, the unhcr should promote refugees’ agency to choose for themselves (goodwin-gill and mcadam, 2007). hathaway agrees and adds that the unhcr’s approach of “go and see” or “look and see” visits are an acceptable means of promoting repatriation, as it is carried out in secured conditions and without prejudice to the refugees’ continued right to remain in their host countries (hathaway, 2005). the promotion of voluntary repatriation as the preferred solution also begs the question: preferred by whom – the host country, the refugee, or the country of origin? harrell-bond (1989) contends that assumptions around refugee conceptions of “home”, possible confusion regarding nostalgia for the country of origin, and other factors are responsible for the push toward voluntary repatriation as the preferred solution (harrel-bond, 1989:41-70). chimni debunks the underlying assumption that all refugees want to go home and argues that the unhcr’s acceptance of voluntary repatriation as the preferred solution must be understood within the context is voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? 86 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 of developed countries that are attempting to contain and manage the global refugee problem (chimni, 2004). scholars have also positioned their attention on the analysis of ‘just return,’ shifting the focus to reintegration and the sustainability of voluntary repatriation (black and gent, 2004:1-23). bradley thus introduces a model of ‘just return’, which she admits cannot be neatly applied to all circumstances of return; still, bradley’s model is an essential demonstration of the country of origin’s responsibility towards its displaced citizens (2008; 2019). she states that “just return is best understood as the restoration of a normal relationship of rights and duties between returnees and the state, such that returnees and their non-displaced co-nationals are rendered equal as citizens” (bradley, 2008:1). there is clearly no consensus regarding voluntary repatriation. however, it is simultaneously apparent that this method has a major impact on the lives of refugees. considering these debates and the impact that voluntary repatriation has on refugees, the paper seeks to address two questions. firstly, when can the return of refugees to their countries of origin be considered truly voluntary? secondly, is voluntary repatriation the preferred solution for refugees themselves? voluntary repatriation and the oau refugee convention article 5 of the oau refugee convention outlines the requirements for voluntary repatriation and explains how the process should be implemented (oau, 1969) . most importantly, article 5(1) of the oau refugee convention underlines the voluntary nature of repatriation, stating that “no one should be repatriated against their will” (oau, 1969). thus, consent from the refugee is a necessary element. even though the unhcr promotes and facilitates repatriation, the unhcr’s role should not influence the refugee’s decision to return to his or her country of origin. similarly, an invitation from a country of origin for return should not impact this decision. alternatively, when the governments of host countries fail to protect refugees, as evidenced by the xenophobic attacks in south africa (maharaj, 2018), the decision to return cannot be deemed voluntary. voluntary repatriation can only be considered such if alternative durable solutions are available. still, a refugee’s consent is not always an accurate measure of voluntariness, particularly if the decision to repatriate is made under duress which can manifest in many ways. the questionable nature of voluntary repatriation was illustrated when the australian government paid afghan refugees sums of money to repatriate (bialczyk, 2008: 1-23; gerver, 2017:631-645). article 5(2) of the oau refugee convention (oau, 1969) requires ‘cooperation’ between the governments of the country of asylum and the country of origin to facilitate safe return. an important element of safe return is the formal recognition of the refugee as a national of his or her country of origin. on a practical level, this requires the issuance of proper documentation such as passports and corresponding cooperation of embassies. although refugees may approach their respective governments to request return, the unhcr is mandated to oversee the safe return of refu87 gees when agreements are signed. in an urban setting like south africa, it will require the refugees to either approach the embassies for a passport or seek the assistance of the unhcr. while both processes demand agency from the refugees, it is not an indication of the voluntariness of their return or that it is a preferred solution. because there is an acknowledgment that refugees may have been displaced from their original homes and will require resettlement assistance, article 5(3) of the oau refugee convention (oau, 1969) places an obligation on the country of origin to facilitate refugees’ resettlement and grant them the full rights and privileges of nationals of the country. despite the weight this provision places on the country of origin, there is no guidance regarding what is expected of states and their resettlement duties. refugees should not be penalized for voluntarily returning to their countries of origin, as outlined in article 5(4) of the oau refugee convention (oau, 1969). this may be an important consideration in the refugees’ decision to return voluntarily and should be provided in a concrete form – such as amnesty declarations – to safeguard against risk of persecution upon repatriation. furthermore, refugees are entitled to assurances that new circumstances in their country of origin will enable them to return to lead a peaceful life. such reassurances include effective governance and functioning administrative systems which are essential in cases where refugees have fled because of war or occupation. article 5(5) of the oau refugee convention (oau, 1969) recognizes that refugees being repatriated will need assistance in many different areas. when the unhcr is present in a country, it is the first agency approached to facilitate repatriation and, given the terms of its statute, the unhcr is obligated to facilitate return (statute of unhcr 1950: art 8(c)). rutinwa argues that the oau refugee convention’s article 5 is “much more about elaborating the principles and the modalities of effecting voluntary repatriation than a prescription of it as the only solution” (1999:1-29) and that it does not state that voluntary repatriation is a preferred solution. article 5 does list many important requirements that must be met before repatriation can be considered or implemented (oau, 1969) but most importantly, it underlines the voluntary nature of repatriation, stating that “no one should be repatriated against their will” (oau, 1969: article 5). the unhcr’s role in voluntary repatriation the unhcr is the main proponent that voluntary repatriation is the preferred durable solution. the unhcr continues to promote voluntary repatriation in the recently adopted global compact for refugees (unhcr, 2018). although return to one’s country of origin may always be possible, repatriation implies facilitation of return and the unhcr is mandated to facilitate voluntary repatriation in terms of its statute (statute of the unhcr 1950: art 8(c)). in a united nations (un) resolution on the ‘question of refugees’ adopted in 1946, the general assembly stated: is voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? 88 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 “the main task concerning displaced persons is to encourage and assist in every way possible their […] return to their country of origin” (un, 1946). the unhcr’s ability to facilitate return, however, is limited and subject to the willingness of the states to cooperate. in the unhcr statute, the general assembly specifically called upon states to cooperate with the high commissioner’s office in the performance of its functions, but most importantly, the unhcr is urged to respect the international law principles of sovereignty when facilitating return (chetail, 2004:1-23). the unhcr sets out four prerequisites for its involvement in the return of refugees to their countries of origin. first, if and when there is a fundamental change to the circumstances from which they fled; second, if the decision to return is truly voluntary and not based on lack of assistance in the host country; third, if tripartite agreements are signed between the host country, the unhcr, and the country of origin; and finally, if the refugee is assured safety and dignity upon return (unhcr, 1992). the unhcr does not hold the fundamental changes expected at the conclusion of a cessation agreement to be at the same threshold as those expected when assisting with voluntary repatriation (unhcr, 2003). according to the unhcr handbook, voluntary repatriation takes place at a lower threshold; the basis of voluntary repatriation must merely be the general improvement in the situation of the country of origin, unlike cessation (unhcr, 1992). thus, there is an assumption by the unhcr that return can take place in safety, even though the change in the country of origin is at a lower threshold than expected for cessation. with regard to the ‘with dignity’ statement, the unhcr concedes that the concept of dignity is less self-evident than that of safety. even though the unhcr has adopted a checklist approach to the complex concept of dignity, the concept not only seeks full restoration of rights, but it also includes exemptions for past violations. to the concept of safety, the unhcr has developed a tripartite approach including the legal, physical, and material safety of those requesting repatriation. according to the unhcr, physical safety entails a return to a secure environment in which there is protection, guaranteed freedom of movement, and access to land. legal safety envisages equality with citizens while material safety implies access to humanitarian assistance. it is, however, difficult to envisage such conditions of safety and dignity in the absence of a fundamental change. the unhcr’s involvement in voluntary repatriation ensures that there is a difference between unassisted return by the refugee and facilitated voluntary repatriation as envisaged by the unhcr. despite the justifiable criticisms of the unhcr’s facilitation of voluntary repatriation, the reality is that many refugees would not be able to return home without this assistance. 89 unhcr’s repatriation programme in south africa: analysis of case studies introduction this section explains the nature of repatriation from south africa and who is seeking repatriation in south africa before analyzing the case studies of voluntary repatriation from this country. all three analyses attempt to answer whether the unhcr has satisfied its own safety and dignity standards, the extent of consent obtained, the voluntariness of return and whether voluntary repatriation is deemed the preferred solution by refugees. the nature of repatriation from south africa in south africa, applications for repatriation are made at the initiative of individual refugees through a unhcr implementing partner. regardless of whether a formal voluntary repatriation agreement exists between the unhcr, the country of origin and south africa, the implementing partner facilitates the completion of the application and the unhcr voluntary repatriation officer will consider the repatriation request. under the circumstances, the application form can be a form of consent, because there is no coercion from the unhcr. the entire process starts at the request of the refugee. the current application form, however, lacks direct questions about a refugee’s reasons for leaving south africa. furthermore, there are no questions to directly determine the applicants’ reasons for return to their countries of origin. accordingly, applicants’ voluntary and individual requests for voluntary repatriation cannot be the only measure of the voluntariness of their decision to return to their countries of origin. as previously noted, the unhcr handbook on voluntary repatriation assures return if the return is conducted with the consent of the returnee and with safety and dignity. instead, applicants are asked the following two questions: “what will happen if you return to your home country?” and “what change of circumstances explains that you no longer fear return?” these questions are meant to establish the applicant’s safety upon return and, therefore, help satisfy the unhcr’s safety requirement. for refugees leaving south africa, this is a legal necessity because article 5 of the oau refugee convention (oau, 1969) demands the safe return of refugees. the unhcr’s approach to physical safety entails a return to a safe environment which requires freedom of movement, protection from attacks, and access to land (unhcr, 1996). the application process of minors requires the consent of both parents; according to the implementing partner, every effort is made to ensure that families are not arbitrarily separated. this is a key component of dignity. also, the unhcr assists with acquiring national identity documents including passports and travel documents. the issuance of such documents by the country of origin is a clear inis voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? 90 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 dication of a refugee’s acceptance as a national of his or her country of origin, and this compliance satisfies the requirements of the assurance of both dignity and safety (legal safety in this case). furthermore, refugees repatriating from south africa are received by the unhcr field officers upon arrival in the country of origin to ensure a smooth transition. by offering such material and logistical assistance, the unhcr can be deemed to be facilitating and promoting voluntary repatriation. who seeks repatriation? the answer to this question does not lie in legal or policy frameworks, but in understanding the complex relationships between refugees and their countries of origin as well as refugees’ attititudes towards living in exile. migration theorist egon kunz has explored these questions in his research. kuntz categorizes refugees into three groups based on their relationships with the population of their home country (kunz, 1981). the first group of refugees are alienated from their home country by some sort of event that is out of their control. the second group constitutes refugees who alienate themselves from their home country and the third group, usually the majoirty, holds a firm conviction that the events that caused them to seek asylum, are shared by most of their compatriots (kunz, 1981). the first group identified by kunz, “events alienated refugees”, consists of refugees such as social minorities or religious groups, who were marginalized and whose marginality came to the fore due to an event. these refugees are less likely to seek repatriation because they felt alienated from their homeland and faced discrimination (kunz, 1981). the second group comprises “self-alienated persons” who have no wish to identify themselves with their fellow citizens, and thereby are the least likely to repatriate (kunz, 1981). kunz claims that it is the social relationship which may be a determining factor in their choice to repatriate (kunz, 1981). the third group retains a strong bond with their home countries. similarly, rogge (1994) suggests that these refugees are also most likely to repatriate when the cause of their exile is removed. the third group are typically refugees who fled because of war, external aggression, or events seriously disturbing the public order, situations they perceived to be intolerable. an analysis of burundian and congolese repatriates from south africa bears some evidence of this theory (see table 1 above). of the 254 case files reviewed, all the burundian and congolese refugees who were repatriated were refugees who fled war, yet, they also retained social relationships with people in their countries of origin. this is evident from their responses which included: “there is stability in my country now, the war is over […] there is no more conflict between hutus and tutsis”; and “the war has ended”. close communication with family and friends provided reassurance of a change in conditions, and it is these bonds, the longing for their family, and their attitudes towards living in exile that drew them home. these bonds were particularly encapsulated by one applicant who stated, “i 91 contacted my family and they told me it is safe now”. kunz’s theory demonstrates that it is a false assumption that the preferred solution for all refugees is voluntary repatriation. while there are refugees who retain a bond with their country of origin and are therefore likely to appeal to the unhcr to facilitate their repatriation even if the threat of harm remains, this number is often small (kunz, 1981). there are also refugees who are alienated from their home country and are less likely to want to return home. irrespective of its applicability, kunz’s theory neglects to consider the dynamism of the life of urban refugees. factors such as the number of years spent away from their countries of origin, the new bonds created in the country of asylum, and refugees’ established sense of self-reliance may also contribute to whether refugees decide to repatriate. the next section explores these factors through the responses given by refugees in the case files studied. refugees’ reasons for repatriating from south africa data from the case files reveals that refugees’ reasons for return are nuanced and individualistic. the answers provided confirm that even though refugees are not completely free to make choices as they are constrained by many factors, they are not ‘passive role-players’ in the process of repatriation. the responses demonstrate that when given a choice, the refugees are critical in their decision to repatriate. the data reveals that safety is as important a consideration for the refugees as it is for the unhcr. as noted above, applicants sighted safety as a reason for wanting to return, noting that ”the war has ended” and the ‘political situation in the country is no longer so bad”. the two questions posed to applicants: “what will happen if you return to your home country?” and “what change of circumstances explains that you no longer fear returning home?” have been instrumental in gathering the refugees’ reasons for return. for a better understanding of the refugees’ reasons, the researcher grouped answers to the above two questions into push and pull factors. although these broad categories exist, the findings indicate that the reasons for return remain intensely personal. the answer lies largely in the social relationship with the society back home (pull factor) and the refugees’ attitude toward living in exile (push factor). their attitude toward living in exile can be gathered from the information below. these applicants were clearly unhappy in south africa. for example, 167 of the 254 applicants asserted that they lived better lives in their home countries and, despite their best efforts, are victims of downward social mobility in south africa. a refugee woman remarked, “in my country, i was a scientist, but here in south africa i am braiding hair”. similarly, a refugee man remarked that in his country of origin, he was a respected teacher, but in south africa, he is a car guard. the data also indicates that all the applicants struggled to provide for themselves. despite the right to work for refugees and asylum seekers in south africa, the applicants have cited various obstacles to finding employment or decent employment and identified these obstacles as a major push factor. eighty percent of male appliis voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? 92 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 cants also noted that they were only able to access low-skilled jobs and, therefore, struggled to support their families even when employed. refugee applicants also cited constant xenophobia and were often referred to as job stealers. these interactions also factored into their belief that things would be better at home. it is apparent that this group had failed to benefit sufficiently from the rights-based framework in south africa. not one of the applicants were well employed or financially stable. one applicant revealed, “life is hard here. i have no job and cannot find accommodation”. applicants also held the view that the south african government and the asylum determination system were directly responsible for their primary reason for repatriation, their inability to receive proper services at the department of home affairs, and the fact that the refugee documents are not enabling documents. one burundian male noted that he felt “worse than a second-class human being”. moreover, longing for family was a pull factor for many women, a factor that was further emphasized through these women’s pattern of maintaining strong family bonds. an astonishing 100 percent of the applicants had contacted family or friends in their countries of origin before seeking the assistance of the unhcr to facilitate their repatriation. in each case, the unhcr established contact with the relatives before facilitating repatriation. the application reveals the contact details of family members who had been contacted in the home countries. the unhcr thus establishes contact with family or relatives listed on the application forms. thirty-two female applicants who were either abandoned by their husbands, victims of domestic violence, or single women with children, cited loneliness and the longing for family as reasons for seeking repatriation. in contrast, an inability to adjust to life in south africa was not their primary reason for wanting to repatriate. the major pull factor for the women was evidently the need to be with family. at the time of application for voluntary repatriation, the applicants had already been in contact with family back home and had been assured of support upon return. they therefore felt they had a guarantee that they would not be destitute upon return. one applicant stated, “i want to go home to burundi, my father has returned from the refugee camp and he will look after me”. another revealed, “my family told me to come home. my house and land are waiting for me”. another significant pull factor was the perceived security situation in the country of origin. except for the angolans, none of the other nationals had the assurance of safe return under the auspices of a voluntary repatriation agreement between their government, south africa, and the unhcr, yet they requested assistance with repatriation. applicants assured themselves of safety upon return through contact with family or determined themselves that it was safe through engaging with the radio and news reports. for example, 53 of the 85 burundians were single males, all of whom cited the end of the war as the reason for their return. this may well be the case for women as well, except that the majority of women also cited longing for family as a primary reason. though no one in the study stated love or attachment to their land as a reason 93 for return, they did express wanting to be with their families. some of these refugees chose to relocate internally in their country of origin with the help of family support. in seven cases, women and children chose to return because they wanted to be reunited with their families while their husbands, who still felt unsafe, chose to remain in exile in south africa. for the women in these cases, the desire to be with family was stronger than safety considerations. four of the applicants – one from rwanda and three from burundi – had fled during times of war and presumed family to be dead when they left. they were among those who wanted to return and join long-lost family members who had resettled in different areas. one can conclude that “home” for them was not considered a physical space but rather was associated with specific people. more precisely, it appears that for many of the applicants, return to family was the overwhelming reason for return. the applicants were all required to sign a declaration stating that they were returning to their home countries of their own free will. the declaration may indicate consent to return but it does not necessarily mean that it is their preferred choice of a durable solution; it could well be the only option available to them. examples of repatriation from south africa: an overview of unhcr’s policy application in south africa in 1993, south africa signed a memorandum of understanding (mou) for the unhcr’s involvement in mozambique to facilitate the repatriation of mozambican refugees. (handmaker and ndessomin, 2011: 145). this occurred before the introduction of refugee legislation or the ratification of international refugee conventions. the only formal voluntary repatriation agreement signed by south africa since then was in 2003 for angolan refugees. the unhcr and rwanda are currently considering a repatriation agreement, but south africa has given no indication of its intentions. mozambican repatriation the mozambican refugees who were repatriated by the 1993 agreement between the unhcr, south africa, and mozambique represent the only large-scale voluntary repatriation exercise that took place from south africa (polzer, 2007). these mozambican refugees had no formal legal status in south africa because the apartheid government failed to register them as refugees in south africa. accordingly, they were unable to assert their right to remain in south africa. the unhcr, the apartheid government, and the mozambican government nevertheless signed a voluntary repatriation agreement. handmaker and ndessomin contend that false assumptions were made about the refugees’ desire to return and that the mou was signed on the basis that repatriation was the preferred solution (handmaker and ndessomin, 2011). it is evident that it was preferred by the signing parties, but there is no evidence that the unhcr undertook any study or research to determine whether it was preferred by the mozambican refugees themselves. since this mozambican exodus, the unhcr is voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? 94 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 has not been able to undertake a mass repatriation program of refugees from south africa. angolan repatriation the only formal voluntary repatriation agreement signed in south africa since the introduction of refugee legislation pertained to angolan refugees in 2003 (handmaker and ndessomin, 2011). in addition, in may 2013 a cessation agreement was reached between the same parties. however, neither the voluntary repatriation agreement nor the cessation agreement has led to significant repatriation to angola, as evidenced by the small number of angolans (137) who have been repatriated since 2003 (unhcr, 2015). spontaneous return by individual angolan refugees has not been recorded. there is no sign of any mass departures of angolans during this same period. this is the case even though the unhcr has been actively promoting voluntary repatriation for angolan refugees following the tripartite agreement in 2003 (handmaker and ndessomin, 2011). information sessions were held for large numbers of angolans in cape town and johannesburg (handmaker and ndessomin, 2011). though no governmental bodies conducted an independent study to assess the readiness of angolan refugees to repatriate, the voluntary repatriation agreement was signed (handmaker and ndessomin, 2011). the african centre for migration undertook a study in johannesburg which revealed that few angolans were willing to return because they felt well-integrated in the south african economy and society. (landau and jacobsen, 2004). this can be contrasted with the refugees in the analyzed case files who sought repatriation because they failed to integrate. the manner of angolan repatriation from south africa demonstrates the unhcr’s interpretation of voluntary repatriation as a stand-alone program, distinct from cessation. even though the south african government signed a tripartite voluntary repatriation agreement together with angola and the unhcr in 2003, it was only nine years later (in january 2012) that it recommended that refugee status cease through the invocation of the cessation clause for angolans (redden, 2006; unhcr, 2012). this approach highlights the unhcr’s willingness to facilitate voluntary repatriation in the absence of a fundamental change in the country of origin. it is also indicative that the unhcr regards cessation and voluntary repatriation as two distinct programs. given their continued refugee status (from 2003 when the voluntary repatriation agreement was signed to the invocation of cessation in 2012), angolans did not face the withdrawal of their rights and remained beneficiaries of the rights to which they are entitled under the refugees act 130 of 1998 (rsa, 1998) and the south african constitution (rsa, 1996). because refugees in south africa are not confined to refugee camps, they have freedom of movement and access to various socio-economic rights that have allowed them the opportunity for meaningful integration. these rights enable them to become self-reliant, as found by handmaker and ndessomin (2011) and landau and jacobsen (2004). 95 the examples given above indicate that voluntary repatriation is a highly specific program facilitated by the unhcr. as stated above, the example of angolan repatriation happened both before and after cessation in south africa. hathaway argues that the voluntary repatriation that took place after cessation cannot be considered voluntary; at best, hathaway considers this assisted return (hathaway, 2005). considering hathaway’s argument, can it be said that this amounted to assisted return? only 34 angolan refugees of the 5 700 present in south africa chose to repatriate after the signing of the cessation agreement in 2012. it is apparent from these statistics that no forced or mandatory return was instituted for angolans after the signing of the cessation agreement. because the unhcr followed the same processes for voluntary repatriation after cessation in 2013, the unhcr continued to refer to the angolans’ return as the voluntary repatriation program because only the refugees who requested repatriation from the unhcr were assisted (unhcr, 2015). given that the south african government granted angolans the right to remain for an additional two years, it cannot be deduced that the angolan refugees who returned after the cessation agreement were coerced into doing so. although the unhcr concluded the repatriation program at that time, it did not coerce angolans to return by withholding assistance for return if they chose to stay in south africa for a further two years on their tempoary residence permits. thus far, the repatriation exercise facilitated by the unhcr from south africa to angola cannot be considered anything other than voluntary. it can also be safely inferred from the small number of refugees who repatriated, that the durable solution of choice for angolans in south africa (where they were able to integrate and become economically self-reliant) is not voluntary repatriation. however, it remains to be seen whether the south african government will choose to forcibly repatriate angolan refugees who chose to stay in south africa after their temporary residents permits expire (extended twice since the first issuance) and whether the unhcr will be involved in this operation. promoting return amongst rwandans of the 254 cases analyzed in this study, only 14 rwandans (seven of whom were children) chose to repatriate with the assistance of the unhcr over the seven-year period under study. none of the voluntary repatriation applicants expected to return to their original homes. only one man returned, and the rest were women with children who had contact with their families in rwanda and were expecting to return to them. in these cases, the social relationships with those back home were strong and provided the biggest motivation for wanting to return. the unhcr has recommended the invocation of the cessation clause for rwandans (unhcr, 2019) and has vigorously promoted voluntary repatriation despite refugees’ claims that the circumstances that forced them to flee continue to prevail (unhcr, 2011). although the unhcr has openly promoted cessation for is voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? 96 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 rwandans, the south african government has not indicated that it is willing to enter into a voluntary repatriation or cessation agreement with the unhcr or rwanda (okoth-obbo, 2015). while evidence indicates that rwandan refugees who repatriate will either seek asylum once again or face persecution, like those who returned from belgium, uganda and malawi, the unhcr’s strategy to promote voluntary repatriation and cessation is yet another example of the unhcr overstepping (whitaker, 2002). by doing so, the unhcr should be concerned with what bradley (2008: 1) has termed “just return”. an approach of just return would consider the totality of repatriation including whether rwandans would have an opportunity to restore their relationship as citizens with their state and whether they would face persecution. conclusion refugees choosing to repatriate from south africa are indeed few in number. this is evidenced by the fact that the implementing partner only received 254 repatriation applications in a seven-year period, despite seeing 35 000 clients during that same period. despite the unhcr’s vigorous attempts to promote voluntary repatriation for angolans and rwandans, numbers have remained small. this can partly be attributed to the fact that in an urban setting such as south africa with a rights-based framework, refugees are not as dependent on the unhcr for their daily survival. the few refugees who have chosen to repatriate from south africa in this study came to seek the unhcr’s assistance to facilitate their repatriation of their own volition and, in many cases, this was due to a longing for family and perceived security in their home countries. in other instances, the refugees who returned were unable to forge a meaningful life in south africa where they could enjoy financial autonomy or live without the fear of violence. for them, it appears that repatriation was the only solution, even if repatriation was not the preferred solution and or did not guarantee a better life. given the small percentage of refugees who want to repatriate from south africa, it is evident that this is not the preferred durable solution for many refugees. the refugee is the best person to decide if and when the time is ripe for return. the small number of refugees who chose voluntary repatriation from south africa indicates that the refugees who were assessed within this study and who reside in an urban setting with a rights-based framework do not consider voluntary repatriation to be the preferred solution. 97 annexure 1 voluntary repatriation application form (vraf) 1. travelling with case no. total number of persons: 2. family name: given names: 3. other names: 4. sex: male/female: 5. date of birth: 6. marital status: single married deceased widowed nationality: ethnic group: languages spoken: clan: sub-clan: father’s name: mother’s name: 7. place of birth: town province: 8. country of origin: date of departure: 9. place of departure: 10. date of arrival in country of asylum: 11. present address in country of asylum: town: province: country: 12. last address in country of origin: town: province: country: 13. intended destination within the country of origin: town: province: country: 14. entry point in country of origin: 15. details of any travel document/passport/id: 16. accompanying spouse: n/a family name given names: dob/place sex relationship is your spouse included in your rsa asylum application? yes  no  attach ic’s refugee permit: 17. accompanying dependants under 18: are they included in your rsa asylum application? yes  no  attach ics refugee permits: (1), (2), (3), (4) 18. (for unaccompanied children under 18 years old) names of parents/guardians: relationship: is voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? 98 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 2, may-aug 2020 ________________________________________________________________ declaration i (full name) being the citizen of and desiring to return peacefully and voluntarily to my country of origin, hereby declare that after due consideration and entirely of my own free will, i wish to be repatriated to independent witness: applicant: full name: signature: signature: date: ________________________________________________________________ questionnaire to be completed by the applicant: asylum seeker or a recognized refugee date of departure in country of origin: place of birth: country of birth: nationality: date of arrival in country of asylum: last address in country of origin: profession in home country: were you active or sympathized with any political party? name of organization: military service: military grade: indicate the significant events, incidents or circumstances, which caused you to flee the country of origin. ic should elaborate. were you arrested before in country of origin & when? describe the circumstances of arrest: what will happen if you return to your home country? what change of circumstances explains that you do no longer fear returning home? how did you travel from your country of origin? which route did you take? were you using a travel document/passport? passport no.: nb: provide us with names of your relatives to be informed about your return: full names: relationship: physical address: house no: street name: area: province: country: contact numbers of relatives in country of origin: contact numbers of the applicant in south africa: ______________________________________________________________________________ the applicant should be informed that unhcr will keep all information confidential. false or incorrect information may delay the 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2019. rwandan returnees. retrieved from: https://www.unhcr.org/rw/returnees. accessed on: 7 august 2019. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2020. data provided by southern africa, unhcr voluntary repatriation officer, mr m. hobwane. whitaker, b.e. 2002. changing priorities in refugee protection: the rwandan repatriation from tanzania. refugee survey quarterly, 21(1&2): 328 -344. is voluntary repatriation the preferred durable solution? https://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2003/11/3fab7c95b/rwanda-voluntary-repatriation-campaign-begins. https://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2003/11/3fab7c95b/rwanda-voluntary-repatriation-campaign-begins. https://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2003/11/3fab7c95b/rwanda-voluntary-repatriation-campaign-begins. https://www.refworld.org/docid/4f33a1642.html https://www.refworld.org/docid/4f33a1642.html https://www.refworld.org/docid/4f3395972.html https://www.refworld.org/docid/4f3395972.html http://www.unhcr.org/statistics/country/45c06c662/unhcr-statistical-online-population-database-sourc http://www.unhcr.org/statistics/country/45c06c662/unhcr-statistical-online-population-database-sourc http://www.unhcr.org/statistics/country/45c06c662/unhcr-statistical-online-population-database-sourc https://www.unhcr.org/rw/returnees ahmr volume 6 number 1 jan-apr 2020.indd 27 turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city: a case-study of blame-shifting in cape town greg ruiters*, felicia lombard** and denys uwimpuhwe*** * school of government, university of the western cape, south africa corresponding author. email: gruiters@uwc.ac.za ** school of government, university of the western cape, south africa *** school of government, university of the western cape, south africa what role do municipalities play in limiting xenophobia in all its forms and what should these bodies do in promoting the integration of african immigrants? this paper analyzes a case study of cape town’s policies and programs concerning african immigrants and refugees following the 2008 xenophobic crisis, up to 2016. municipalities as a separate sphere of the government have their own space to address socio-political problems and to shape local alliances and urban life. despite being a tourist-led, gentrifying city which substantially draws on vulnerable african immigrant labor, cape town’s leaders and businesses, however, have no explicit policies or programs to address xenophobia – a ticking time bomb; and they tend to shift the blame to other actors. city leaders and employers see african immigrants in an instrumental way (as mere labor; a financial burden and not as potential citizens). this paper focuses on local government’s definition of the ‘foreign immigrant problem’ and its poor record of reducing the drivers of xenophobic conflicts in south african cities, recognizing that while cities are not the only players, they certainly are the closest to the problem. the paper concludes that the city needs a proactive, comprehensive approach, recognizing migrants and their organizations, especially foreign workers, legal immigrants and refugees, as key city builders, stakeholders and potential citizens in the city. the paper draws on interviews with city officials, migrants and asylum seekers in the city of cape town. keywords: policy silences, cape town, leadership, local government, political inclusion, xenophobia 28 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 introduction according to hogwood and gunn (1985) policy should be analyzed for its covert aspects, its silences and non-decisions. as hogwood and gunn (1985) assert, policy is what governments do and do not do. the role of municipal street-level bureaucrats in bending policy to fit their prejudices and making policy as they implement it, is also crucial (lipsky, 2010). this paper argues that the problem in the city of cape town (coct) is threefold: first, city leaders and key allies have no explicit policies or programs for assisting refugees and asylum seekers and foreign workers – a case of non-decisions and strategic silences. secondly, they show little leadership around the needs and challenges of refugees and asylum seekers, shifting the blame to national and global actors. their responses are essentially symbolic and they tend to shift the responsibility onto non-governmental organizations (ngos). thirdly, city leaders and powerful commercial interests in cape town, while blaming the national government for the presence of foreign africans, see refugees and asylum seekers in an instrumental way (as a ready pool of acquiescent labor) and not as potential citizens. the paper is divided into three sections. section one focuses on the literature on xenophobia and the role of local government. the second section covers the coct context, local business practices, municipal policies (or the lack thereof) and how certain local officials (those interviewed) understand city policies. section three considers the organizational responses of refugees and asylum seekers to threats and their interactions with the city; this section also discusses the role of non-governmental organizations. a total of 28 face-to-face interviews were conducted in 2015 and 2017, with city officials, ngos, refugees and asylum seekers’ associations, individual migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. researchers reviewed the city budget for spending related to refugees and asylum seekers, with a focus on four policy areas: metro policing, cape town’s social development strategy (coct, 2013), the policy on vulnerable groups (draft policy, march 2013) and the responsible tourism policy for the city of cape town (2009). the research method is largely qualitative and interpretive. the paper does not compare cape town to durban and johannesburg where more explicit forms of xenophobia and harsher state action have been prevalent. a comparative study falls outside the scope of this paper. importantly, this paper sees xenophobia as a multifaceted phenomenon that may surface in both episodic violence and covert, institutional ways. institutional xenophobia (such as benign neglect) has been a marginal issue since much of the focus is on violence. some argue that xenophobia has abated in some places because violence is less frequent. immigrants and the city context in south africa, the intergovernmental system is meant to be cooperative and allocates functions so that the national sphere of the state provides foundational policies, while municipalities as a separate sphere of the government have their own space 29 to address socio-economic challenges and shape local alliances. city governments also have a responsibility to develop policies that promote integrated development, local economic development inclusive of non-racial societies, respect for diversity, and participatory local democracy (palmary, 2002). their roles as implementers and policymakers are frequently underestimated. municipal governments are obliged to “take the lead in mitigating practices of exclusion and segregation that are so acutely felt in the places where people live” (ray, 2003: 1) and develop local policies that reduce inequalities and integrate newcomers into vibrant workplaces and socio-political environments. they must also take the lead in mitigating spatial segregation, acutely felt in the south african cities (pieterse, 2009). social inclusion in cosmopolitan urban places will not simply happen with time or spontaneously through market forces. each city has its approach to these challenges. but most south african cities, in managing immigration, rely on the core national policies of public education, health care, public policing, the justice system and border control which are the immediate responsibility of national and provincial governments. yet, “managing immigrants also depends on the quality of the countless interactions that occur between individuals, social groups, and institutions that exist in a city at the level of local workplaces, cultural and religious activity and residential areas” (ray, 2003). xenophobia is not only violently expressed but also operates through institutional practices that exclude and discriminate against foreign africans within the department of home affairs, the police, hospitals, and schools, based on their appearance, documents, or language. south africa has long been a country of immigration – from european colonial settlers to an exploitative migrant labor complex where southern african workers served mining capital. but immigration has changed dramatically since 1994 when the apartheid system ended and south african cities became desirable for refugees and economic immigrants. according to crush and chikanda (2015), sa ranks 36th in the world for the size of its refugee population, and although south africa receives many asylum seekers, it grants refugee status to very few. nonetheless, by 2019 the international organization for migration (iom, 2019) estimated that south africa had the largest number of immigrants in africa (around 4 million). a refugee, as defined by the refugees act 130 of 1998, is a person to whom the south african state has granted asylum. acceptance rates are less than half of the global average. most immigrants remain ‘undocumented migrants, whose labor can be hyper-exploited. based on the 2011 census, more than 550,000 new immigrants moved to south africa between 2001 and 2011 (an average of 55 000 per annum). that is an undercount but is nonetheless a substantial influx for a country of south africa’s size. in 2016 the western cape received 296 000 internal migrants from other provinces and 106 000 international migrants (rsa, 2019: 15-16). recent immigrants, including white immigrants (who make up 17% of the total), are five times more likely to have post-matric qualifications and generally enjoy employment rates of 78%, which is turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 30 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 substantially higher compared to south africans at 58% (groundup, 2017). in the post-1994 era, a growing number of african refugees and economic migrants (zimbabweans, mozambicans, malawians, somalis, nigerians, and congolese) have found work in diverse fields and have settled in major cities including black townships. in 2005, international migrants comprised only 2.8% of south africa’s population, but by 2019, this figure had climbed to 7.2% (iom, 2019). in south africa, about 20% (or 300 000) of the 1,5 million domestic workers are reported to be foreign migrants while migrants make up 4% of the general labor force (africa check, 2015). migrants are 3.5% more likely than south africans to be involved in sales and services and almost 5% more likely to be involved in crafts and related trades. only 14.68% of international migrants are unemployed compared to 32% of south african national migrants (africa check, 2015). this is very unusual since, in most other countries, international migrants tend to have higher unemployment rates than locals (africa check, 2015). gauteng leads the national statistics in reported incidents of xenophobic violence since 1994, followed by the western cape and kwazulu-natal (mlilo and misago, 2019). over “200 somali nationals were murdered in south africa, most in the western cape, between 2000-2004 and media reports show that migrants have been targeted by youths in cape town areas such as philippi, khayelitsha, dunoon, gugulethu, nyanga and masiphumelele townships for years” (jara and perbedy, 2010: 25). a two-week countrywide spree of violence in may 2008 left 62 people dead and 150 000 immigrants homeless. during the course of the violence, an estimated 20 000–30 000 were displaced in cape town and it is thought that as many as 30 000 may have left the city. it is not possible to provide exact figures as people not only fled to community halls, mosques and churches before being moved to camps but also sought refuge with family and friends in safer areas (jara and perbedy, 2010: 26). during november 2009, 3 000 zimbabwean seasonal farmworkers in de doorns, outside cape town were forced to flee after xenophobic violence. violent attacks by some south africans, problems experienced obtaining official documents, workplace exploitation and everyday discrimination have become major issues for foreign workers and refugees but scholars remain deeply divided about defining and explaining xenophobia (uwimpuhwe and ruiters, 2018). literature review: xenophobia and the city context there are diverging definitions of xenophobia in the scholarly literature. far-right populists in europe have exploited “fear about existential and ontological threats to spur the exclusion of unwanted ‘others’, such as muslims, roma, and refugees” (kinnvall, 2017: 1). recent scholarship on this phenomenon has focused exclusively on collective violent acts, and inflammatory statements of national and local city leaders (crush and tawodzera, 2014; misago et al, 2015). citizens in south africa regularly draw on xenophobic state discourses and negative statements by politicians about 31 immigrants (landau, 2006). others hold that populist politicians have no incentive to protect foreigners since they are not eligible to vote (mngqibisa and netshikulwe, cited in daily maverick, 2018) and hence it is easy to scapegoat them. moreover, misago et al (2015: 24) argue that: national government and relevant local authorities have thus far either tended to categorise violence against foreign nationals and other forms of xenophobic behaviour as part of ‘normal’ crime with no need for additional targeted interventions. however, the general social explanations argue that xenophobia reflects the realities of deepening inequality, rising unemployment and frustrations of the poor in south africa often leave out the issue of how general discontent is mobilised and channelled into collective xenophobic acts (misago 2019) and how the silences of the local state are complicit in such processes (maharaj, 2009). academic research on the discriminatory practices and the complicit role of local businesses that eagerly employ vulnerable foreign africans (a kind of labor preference or xenophilia) and how the local state influences or overlooks these unfair labor practices, is uncommon. south africans’ xenophobic fears about jobs being taken by foreigners are also seen by some as unfounded (crush and chikanda, 2015; misago et al, 2015). an exception is maharaj (2009), who examines the challenges of international migrants in the ethekwini (durban) municipality. he argues that: the local authority has yet to engage constructively in addressing the problems of migrants and refugees, and the policy response has ranged from one of benign neglect to active hostility. almost all the major policy documents of the ethekwini local authority make no reference to migrants (maharaj, 2009). anti-immigrant violence by groups is a collective act, and one of the key explanations focuses on how this violence is organized and resourced, and the opportunities for such violence to happen (mcadam, 1986). some analysts focus on only specific local factors and the organized nature of violence: a strong explanation must account for the appearance of violence in some areas while others with similar socio-economic conditions remained calm…. violence occurs in specific areas … where local government is weak or considered illegitimate (misago et al, 2015: 24). yet, in cape town local government is considered both legitimate and strong and not complicit with perpetrators of violence. the benign neglect of townships by strong municipalities and by the wealthy cannot be underestimated. this paper argues that the focus should be on local governance, which is much broader than local government as the former is usually an alliance of fractions of powerful networked interests that govern a city (harvey, 1989; miraftab, 2007). such alliances include wealthy ratepayers (who use the services of mainly foreign workers), the local business chamber, donors to political parties, city improvement districts, big property, tourism interests, etc.). turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 32 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 cape town: economy, labor and politics cape town is a popular global tourist destination. it has some of the most expensive real estate and private schools in the country; it also has some of the highest concentrations of multi-millionaires (mainly white). in 2016 cape town had a retail, catering and accommodation and financial services economy with 78% of jobs in the tertiary sector (city of cape town, 2018). during 2011, the area received 1.4 million foreign visitors (city of cape town, 2013b: 31). it is no exaggeration to suggest that the success of the city and the profitability of tourism is built on the labor of its poor citizens and especially its recent foreign african immigrants. moreover, mathers and landau (2007) suggest that south african tourism depends on the willingness of african migrants to risk crossing the border, often with artefacts to sell and invest in the south african craft markets. according to mathers and landau (2007: 530), “one only has to stroll the markets that tourist buses frequent to note that the vast majority of artefacts on sale are made and sold by africans from anywhere but south africa”. they assert that certain sectors of south african tourism is dependent on the endeavors and labor of migrants. when cape town was run by the african national congress (anc) in the mid-1990s the mayor, nomaindia mfeketo worked with a power block of the city managers, politicians, rich property owners and bankers, who mobilized to ‘save’ cape town from “going the way of johannesburg” and “descending into a morass of crime and grime”, social decay and capital flight (cape town partnership, 2009). they initiated and designed the central city improvement district (ccid) in 2000, a private-public partnership to provide “safety and cleanliness” and make cape town “a pleasant urban environment” to live and work in. governed by the democratic alliance (da) since 2006, cape town has fashioned itself as a successful, non-racial, inclusive, well-governed city that seemingly works for social inclusion (mcdonald, 2008). under the da the city of cape town (coct) has eight separate metro police units including an ‘anti-land invasion unit’ aimed at curbing informal settlements and an ‘anti-vagrant unit’. the increasing repressive local state apparatuses, in policing everyday life, are not unusual in touristbased world cities (lemanski, 2006; miraftab, 2007, mcdonald, 2008). binns and nel (2002: 240) point out that “waterfront developments and convention centres … in cape town and durban have attracted strong criticism … they do not adequately involve community members, few benefits devolve to them, and the developments are undertaken without adequate concern being given to affected communities”. there is another interesting twist in the cape town government’s rhetoric about immigrants since black south africans have previously been labelled as immigrants by da leaders. in 2012, helen zille, the then premier invoked the term ‘refugee’ to refer to black african south africans. the context is that the western cape has the lowest black african population of all nine provinces at 32% and the eastern cape, south africa’s most underdeveloped province, has the highest black population 33 at 86% (rsa, 2011). she suggested that the western cape (and cape town) was in danger, given the eastern cape african ‘influx’ taking resources and jobs that belong to the western cape. the narrative of fear appeals to the idea that cape townians (the majority ‘coloured’ and minority white groups) are being ‘swamped’ by ‘refugees’ from the eastern cape (who are also seen as predominantly anc supporters). this ‘western cape first’ and eastern cape ‘invasion’ narrative has underpinned the da’s electoral success among ‘coloureds’ and whites. african foreign migrants preferred as workers cape town with its burgeoning tourist economy has attracted tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers, who have settled close to economic/work opportunities (in the informal shack settlements in areas such as hout bay, dunoon, masiphumelele). they also choose to settle in areas where they can set up ‘spaza’ shops (for example, in khayelitsha where somalis predominate) or they find casual jobs around cape town. foreign migrants entering cape town appear to have become an ever more visible, vulnerable and influential sub-population in both black townships and central business areas (hill and bekker, 2014: 675). cape town’s refugees and asylum seekers are mostly young people (in their 20s and early 30s) who have migrated mostly without their families. they often accept lower wages, work longer hours and tend to be exploited and are averse to joining trade unions (taal, 2012; dodson, 2018). moreover, migrants have changed labor markets: employers often prefer vulnerable foreign labor and “this vulnerability makes immigrants popular with management as they are cheaper and easier to control” (taal, 2012: 21). as a manager at a top restaurant in cape town, where the majority of staff are foreigners, claimed, “foreign waiters, especially from zimbabwe, are usually better spoken and offer phenomenal service to customers” (cited in dirk, 2015). another canal walk restaurant manager revealed that “the high work ethic of foreign employees was the reason they were more readily hired” (cited in dirk, 2015). it was suggested that “south african employees are not “up to scratch for these jobs” (cited in dirk, 2015). for instance, a cape town fish market and restaurant at the waterfront employed 16 waiters, but only four were south african. another manager at a major restaurant had 12 waiters but only one was from south africa. he noted: “they (zimbabweans) have the kind of personalities where they are able to keep our patrons happy and entertained” (cited in dirk, 2015). a manager in camps bay claimed when it comes to hiring staff, it has more to do with the best candidate than whether the applicant is foreign or local. five of the restaurant’s seven waiters are from zimbabwe (cited in dirk, 2015). there is thus a cocktail of racial, ethnic, national identity stereotypes at play in the split labor market. the cape chamber of commerce and industry (ccci) noted: it was important to understand that the people fleeing their own countries were among the best qualified and most enterprising workers. they were strongly turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 34 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 motivated and they competed fiercely for jobs and trade. in many cases, this competition was unwelcome and created some local resentment (ccci, 2015). according to taal (2012: 21) “foreign workers are encouraged by management to see south african workers as lazy”. these sentiments might reflect a new split labor market formation, the preference among employers for foreign workers, and also unresolved residual hostilities between black and white south africans. one interviewee highlighted that: south africans take advantage of the fact that foreigners are desperate and will work for lower wages. and in many cases, when the residence permit is about to expire, the bosses refuse to pay foreign nationals (respondent d). it is evident that this increasing role in visible services means that the footprint of foreign workers is considerable. however, this has produced significant resentment among black local workers and the unemployed towards both employers and foreign national employees. defining the ‘problem’: official silences what are the official approaches to and definitions of the ‘problem’? the city over time has had contradictory definitions and messages. in 2003 when the anc governed the province there were an estimated 20 000 to 30 000 refugees and asylum seekers in the city. a high level 2001 city report noted that, “the ‘problem’ aspect of foreign migrants is overstated and that in many ways the presence of these migrants contributes positively to the economic and cultural development of the region” (coct, 2003: 13). but at this time, local government officials interviewed by palmary (2002: 6) also felt that provision of services for refugees should be the responsibility of the department of home affairs at the national level. a front-line coct official cited in palmary’s study argued: there is no land for these immigrants … they occupy city-owned land illegally. so we take action against them. we’re trying to get central government to take full responsibility for this. because the city does not have the resources or the manpower to deal with this. tonight i’ve got to go again, go deal with the immigrants. in 2005, at a world refugee day event, anc mayor, nomaindia mfeketo put a positive spin on immigrants saying, “we are committed to developing a sustainable partnership. through our social development directorate, we are assisting tutumike with completing an audit of skills of refugees in cape town. we have been amazed at the results so far: 23 medical doctors, 6 engineers, 20 lawyers and 5 teachers. and this is only the beginning” (unhcr news, 2005). in 2006, the da won the municipal elections. a series of violent xenophobic outbreaks in 2008 in gauteng spread, about a week later reaching cape town. in may 2008, somalis and zimbabweans were attacked by mobs and their shops were vandalized and looted. in response to the humanitarian needs of people who left their homes and needed shelter and other basic items, the city prepared six safety camps 35 at former ‘coloured’ beach camping sites and the youngsfield military base (city of cape town, 2008). the da decisively swung the definition of the issue towards blaming the national and international factors and showing how local city resources were being wasted on poor refugees from dysfunctional countries. these messages can be seen in the mayor of cape town, helen zille’s media responses to the 2008 wave of xenophobic violence, as captured by mnguni (2010). zille essentially labelled the problem as an “international” one, thereby shifting the focus away from the city to global factors. “they just haven’t applied themselves to how they deal with it,” zille remarked of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). counting the financial costs to the city of having poor foreign blacks in the city, she argued that, “the unhcr had an international mandate and budget to deal with problems”. she asserted that: this is an international problem. why are people forced to be refugees in the first place? r170m had been taken away from other service delivery projects to deal with the xenophobic violence of 2008 (mnguni, 2010). cape town mayoral committee member for safety and security, councillor j.p. smith similarly remarked: “attacking other people incurs costs and the city paid r147 million to house, feed and protect dispossessed people in 2008. we had to use rates money to cover those costs” (defence web, 2010). zille and smith were appealing to their ratepaying voters when they referred to the waste of money and they implied that foreign refugees are an unfunded mandate. the cape chamber of commerce and industry similarly held that: we should be asking why people are fleeing from african countries and what can be done about it. i’m afraid we are all dealing with the fall-out from poor governance, corruption and the actions of war lords…xenophobia is a much bigger problem than we realize. we must get the african union, the european union and the united nations involved (ccci, 2015). another cluster of official negative messages linked immigrants to crime and unrest. in interviews with j.p. smith refugees and foreign nationals were also mentioned alongside ‘street people’ and crime (smith 2019). on the other hand, there is some evidence of local ward community development workers (cdws) aligned to the anc and the development forum playing a constructive role in calling township meetings between locals and refugees and asylum seekers and building solidarity during the 2008 crisis in imizamo yethu (iy) in hout bay. according to pillay (2015): our team finds out that iy has a vibrant community life, and that its development forum (cdf) is very active. a range of political organizations operate here, and there are two very active community development workers (cdws), who also happen to be officials of the ruling party.  we find out very quickly that the cdws are angry – not at foreign nationals, but because two years of community work to build relations between the locals and foreign nationals turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 36 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 is being undone by a very vocal and insistent group of residents in hout bay. the cdws are angry because the white residents of hout bay, on hearing the stories about attacks on foreign nationals, are putting increasing pressure on the police to escort foreigners from the area. they are angry that white residents are arriving at iy and removing the foreign nationals in their employ themselves; and they are angry that all of this is done without consultation, particularly because after the foreign nationals leave the area, the looting of their shops, homes and businesses begins. now, this is but one recurring story and i think it is instructive. in dunoon, for example, these meetings were called by councillors without official assistance from the city (samodien, 2013). vulnerable groups the coct decided to exclude refugees and asylum seekers from its final social development strategy based on a belief that the problem is not a priority. in an early draft policy of the coct, the city identified five priorities. as depicted in the table below, immigrants were initially considered in goal 4.3 related to enhancing community participation and involvement. figure 1: extract from the draft social development strategy policy goal 4: enhancing community participation and involvement strategies actions s.4.1 strengthening of ngo sector & empowerment of community leaders a4.1.1 complement the capacity of ngo's dealing with refugee community a4.1.2 capacity building for community leaders to deal effectively with issues pertaining to sustainable relationships between foreign nationals and host communities 37 s.4.2 compliance engagement & enforcement a4.2.1 facilitate the establishment of area based business forums, facilitate development and implementation of guidelines to regulate informal business a4.2.2 regulate and monitoring selling of houses to foreign nationals to start small businesses s.4.3 entrepreneurial development and mentoring a4.3.1 empower both foreign and nationals and locals with entrepreneurial skills and mentoring services s.4.4 cultural and sport activities a4.4.1 implement cultural and sport activities to integrate foreign nationals and locals s.4.5 poverty mitigation a4.5.1 involve foreign nationals in poverty reduction programs and social security networks a4.5.2 ensure that in all programmes implemented/sponsored by government, foreign nationals are involved source: the city of cape town, 2012. even though the draft policy was not explicit on how foreign nationals were going to be integrated into the city’s development strategy, it indicated that some in the city leadership at least thought about foreign nationals and had an agenda. however, in the final version published in 2013, this aspect of ‘goal 4’ was entirely removed. the 2013 policy on vulnerable groups (pvg) defines certain categories of people as vulnerable in the coct (coct, 2013c). this policy (see definition on page 7 and throughout the document) completely excludes refugees and african immigrants. undocumented female migrants and even unaccompanied children who are asylum seekers or refugees are not considered as part of vulnerable children (mundell and carone, 2016). responsible tourism the coct’s responsible tourism policy (2009: 3) defines responsible tourism as an activity “that creates better places for people to live in, and better places to visit”. the responsible tourism policy, however, has a blind spot regarding the reality of miturning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 38 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 grants in the coct. where it talks about non-south african migrants (coct, 2009: 25), it merely calls for encouraging business relationships between foreign, local and emerging entrepreneurs. the policy also identifies local crafts as a priority. it says: give customers the opportunity to purchase locally produced crafts and curios, set targets to increase the proportion of sales of goods sourced within 20 km of the enterprise. assist local craft workers to develop new products to meet market demand (coct, 2009: 26). however, it is self-evident that most of the crafts sold in craft markets are from north of the limpopo. rogerson (2018: 157) found that: in cape town, despite a pro-development rhetoric in the inner city, there is evidence of a subtle but systematic exclusion of street traders, including of migrant entrepreneurs. little evidence exists of a coherent analysis by city policymakers to understand and foreground the contributions made by migrant entrepreneurs for the urban economy. ignorance among city officials, low priority of refugees and asylum seekers, lack of vision and token projects to probe how the city sees foreign africans, this study included interviews of midlevel officials in trading licensing services. at this level, the responses revealed that city officials (much like cape town’s da mayors) were not clear about what was meant by terms such as ‘asylum seeker’ or ‘refugee’. informants employed by the city indicated that they were not aware of any policies about foreign nationals. by and large, local government officials view migrants’ access to services such as housing as the responsibility of the national department of housing. local government respondents often failed to understand who refugees are and what rights they have (see palmary, 2002). according to a respondent: as far as the city is concerned, we’re not making any provisions for them [migrants] at this present moment. i think they’re doing it for themselves…we are not really involved, as the department of housing… (interview, department of housing, cape town). the term ‘xenophobia’ is mentioned only once in the disaster management policy. and here it is listed with social unrest. moreover, the city has no language support services or learning centres to assist migrants. rather than formulating a solid policy, the coct initiated a token project such as hosting a forum for community dialogue about xenophobia, in honor of mandela day in 2011. this single event sought “to increase awareness about issues affecting foreign nationals and to encourage a spirit of unity and peaceful relations between south africans and african foreign nationals” (coct, 2011). in the 2014/15 events budget, zero funding was assigned to the world refugee day budget line item whereas the world triathlon series received r2,1 million (coct, 2015). in early 2015, then mayor of cape town, patricia de lille stridently 39 condemned the new surge in nationwide xenophobic violence. in a public statement, she proclaimed that, “we cannot let this be done, in the name of our country, south africa” (coct, 2015). in 2015 de lille donated r21 000 – a tokenistic amount – to a non-governmental organization (ngo) assisting the children of refugees and asylum seekers. in 2015 she also minimized the issue, proclaiming that cape town has a small minority of xenophobic people. yet, she reported: we have daily meetings with the south african police service and metro police to report on any potential threats of xenophobic attacks. our early warning system is therefore in place. members of the public are also urged to report any suspicion of impending attacks in their communities (coct, 2015). a city-ngo agreement for a small sponsorship of r75 000 for world refugee day (2017) provides an indication of the low status of refugees on the city’s agenda and budget in 2017 (coct, 2017). in summary, the city of cape town has distinctly sidestepped its role and responsibility to provide a solid lead to minimize the xenophobia tragedy. refugees and foreign migrants enjoy very low priority in the coct budget. ngo’s views in contrast to the lack of knowledge about refugees and asylum seekers among coct officials, four ngo workers interviewed for this study were able to distinguish between the different status categories among refugees and asylum seekers. in the ngos responses, one participant stated that: yes, there are administrative categories in terms of documentation. the asylum seeker is the person who has made an application for asylum. this is a recognized refugee whose asylum application was granted. then there is a migrant who is a holder of a passport and visa that corresponds with the purpose for their visit to sa (e.g. work, study). an undocumented migrant is someone who has no documents whatsoever to legalize their stay in sa. then there are citizens and permanent residents. a visa is thus pertinent to a temporary resident and ‘permanent resident’ is another category (respondent c). an ngo worker (respondent c) also indicated that “refugees and asylum seekers have the same rights as south african citizens, except that they do not have the right to vote or form a political party”. ngos assisting refugees, asylum seekers and migrants raised some interesting points. two of the four ngo respondents referred to the need to address institutional xenophobia routinely found in government departments as well as inflammatory political rhetoric. respondent c stated that “there’s a great need for training and creating awareness”. all four ngo respondents felt that foreign nationals do not receive enough support from local government and stated that there are no special or additional services to assist foreign nationals, even in light of the 2008 xenophobic attacks. they indicated that they were not aware of any policy changes that had been beneficial to foreigners but they identified new ones that are not beneficial, such as the city’s amended trading by-law. passop, an ngo which has especially fought the criminalturning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 40 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 izing of the informal sector, has suggested that the government should focus on real crime as opposed to enforcing “outlandish by-laws”: the renewed harassment of informal traders by the police and city officials results in a breakdown of trust and makes informal traders especially vulnerable to criminal elements who extort ‘taxes’ and victimize them without them being able to rely on the police for protection due to the police being seen as being a part of an oppressive system (passop, 2013). another respondent stated that: i also think that they want to first save south africans before foreigners. it’s not supposed to be like that, you are supposed to treat everyone fairly. the city also discriminates against those who do not have documents and offers no assistance to rectify this. they also often think that you have received your documents illegally, especially the metro police (respondent d). refugees and asylum seekers as traders and organizations representing refugees and asylum seekers the black foreign traders interviewed (malawian, somalian, cameroonian, and zimbabwean nationalities) were asked what they thought the coct municipality could do to prevent xenophobia. four of the five said that the city should improve security and protection services on the streets, especially the security of foreigners. one respondent indicated that: the metro police, they will come here and i will show them even who stole from my stall but they will do nothing. but if you fight with the people then they blame you (respondent j). in 2015, refugee traders in cape town paid r879 per month to the city for renting a site, and r1950 for an annual permit – three times more than in limpopo (crush and tawodzera, 2017: 5). despite this, three respondents indicated that they had experienced hostility from metro police. a respondent operating in wynberg indicated that “they must stop taking our stuff. when we do something wrong, they take our stuff and we must pay to get it back” (respondent g). asked whether they felt that special allowances should be made for the employment of foreign nationals in south africa, all five agreed. one female respondent stated that, “there should be a law in place that allows foreigners easier access to jobs. when south africans come to my home country they get jobs, they are not left without jobs and we should be treated the same in their country” (respondent i). another respondent indicated that: we don’t get the jobs that we are qualified for in south africa. south africa does not see that we are teachers in our countries. instead, we must come here and look for other jobs that pay a little money (respondent k). cape town has dozens of migrant organizations representing the interests of refugee and asylum seekers, as well as several ngos that support refugees and asylum seekers by providing different services. there are also intimate relationships between 41 south african blacks and foreign africans, for example through marriage (sichone, 2008; owen, 2015; uwimpuhwe and ruiters, 2018; isd, 2018). each migrant organization has independent initiatives to assist its members but the local state has not effectively engaged with these organizations or assisted the refugees and asylum seekers. if, as portes (1995) suggests, migration is rarely a single individual effort, then migrant organizations and networks need to be central to efforts to find solutions. for example, somalis in townships initiated a ‘self-protection program’ and street committees. moreover: we encourage them also to be part of the local community where they are ... furthermore, we are creating street committees that will be composed of both somalis and south africans in order to encourage locals to protect somalis (a.r. sheikh, february 2016). language barriers were identified as being a problem for immigrants. health services also provide an example of language and cultural discrimination. the albayaan islamic council trust (aict) leader asserts that somali women are facing a big problem at clinics, as some women are being sterilized without their consent: when our women go to maternity clinics they are abused and given family planning without their consent. some of them find out that they can’t have kids anymore while they didn’t know when they had been sterilized. i think it is because many of them don’t know english and are forced to sign what they don’t understand (a. rachid, october 2015). the aict is involved in integrating somalis into the south african citizenry. this is done through skills transfer initiatives in which they teach south africans how to run a small business. this organization also identifies people in the local communities who need help: firstly, as refugees we are helping south africans by employing them in our businesses, teaching them how to start a business. we also help other immigrants, for instance last year we gave donations to burundians in townships. we also do cleaning of this bellville cbd; last year we did it twice and we are planning to do it again this year. we have a good relationship with the darul islam foundation trust, muslim judicial council (mjc) and the african muslims agency (a. rachid, 2015). immigrant organizations are involved in promoting social cohesion through civic education and cultural events. for example, the south african somali association organizes different educational programs for both somalis and south africans of different cultural backgrounds and promotes social cohesion between immigrants and citizens (a khalif, leader of the somali association of south africa (sasa). the amis bk (friends of bukavu) brings together both south africans and african immigrants through cultural events: in 2011 and 2012 we had a volunteering project in langa township to teach south african students in public schools maths and physics, which is part of the integration. we wanted to show citizens that it is not true what people are turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 42 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 saying that migrants came to take their jobs and their women (a. namufakage, amis bk, february 2016). the level of self-defence, organization and networking among migrants and external refugees and with ngos has increased since the mid-2000s (uwimpuhwe and ruiters, 2018). migrant organizations play a major role in social cohesion, albeit with very little active local government support. conclusion while recognizing that city authorities are not the only players, they are certainly the closest to the problem. this study analyzed the coct’s policies vis-a-vis foreign african migrants, revealing that despite their growing numbers and significant contribution to the growth of the city, refugees and african immigrants remain at the margins of policies and the local government’s programs. the study found that there is a blame game between the local government and the central government about who is responsible for poor immigrants and the xenophobic conflict. this paper identified local government’s shifting definition of the ‘foreign immigrant problem’ and its poor record of resourcing and encouraging the integration of african migrants. the city of cape town has also underplayed the extent and scope of the xenophobia problem and the related labor market issues. it has missed opportunities to devise a more visionary, comprehensive approach to ensuring citizenship for all who labor and live in cape town. refugees and foreign migrants are not taken into consideration in the formulation of the coct’s budget. the study found that ngos and refugee and asylum seeker organizations have much to bring to the table to alleviate problems and realize the vision of cape town as an african cosmopolitan city. as argued in an earlier paper, “given the dominant ‘methodological individualism’ and gaps in recent migration scholarship in south africa, a fresh theoretical perspective and knowledge about organized refugee and asylum seeker formations, the activities and services they offer, their geographical reach and location, who they assist and what sorts of resources they can mobilize” is needed (uwimpuhwe and ruiters, 2018: 1122). it is, therefore, crucial to increase the political will and capacity of local authorities, to ensure an inclusive response to the needs of migrants. a comprehensive response needs to take seriously the claims that working-class south africans feel threatened by competition in the labor market and that employers are taking advantage of the new labor pool of insecure foreign african migrants. the coct should consider including migrants and representative migrant organizations in ongoing policy dialogues and its planning for housing and other programs. it should create spaces for positive encounters between various groups in public spaces, encourage inclusive public art, food festivals, exert social and other kinds of pressure through campaigns for decent work for all to ensure that employers do not exploit foreign workers who underpin the tourist economy and enforce equal treatment, apply equal standards and uphold regulations for all. it should provide training and awareness43 raising for local government officials and councillors on refugee and migrant rights. it should develop programs to educate businesses and landlords about refugees and asylum seekers and monitor those businesses and landlords who take illegal advantage of vulnerable migrants. by valuing and recognizing migrants, especially legal immigrants and refugees, as key city builders and stakeholders in the coct, the exploitation of the insecurity of migrants could be minimized. migrant exclusion not only leaves large sections of the population without the services they need but in the long run, they too become less productive. the city of cape town could nurture a pan-african partnership with transnational players and be more tolerant of the presence of the poor in the city. finally, local governments should have policies and funded programs built on co-creation and cooperation with both migrant and local civic and cultural organizations. turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 44 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 references africa check. 2015. are migrants really stealing jobs? retrieved from: https://bit. ly/3eegr7h accessed on: 13 august 2018. binns, t., and nel, e. 2002. tourism as a local development strategy in south africa. geographical journal, 168(3): 235-247. cape chamber of commerce and industry (ccci). 2015. retrieved from: https:// bit.ly/2xmicel accessed on: 10 september 2018. cape talk. 2019. ‘no person needs to be on the streets’ jp smith, 2 july. city of cape town’s mayco member for safety, jp smith responds to criticisms of its by-laws regarding the homeless. 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(neville alexander). 1979. one azania, one nation: the national question in south africa. london: zed. taal, m. 2012. organising the hospitality sector in sa. labor research services, salt river. retrieved from: https://bit.ly/34oo6od. accessed on: 7 march 2018. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) news. 2005. cape town recognises refugee brain gain. retrieved from: https://bit.ly/3airhgc. accessed on: 3 april 2016. uwimpuhwe, d. and ruiters, g. 2018. organising somalian, congolese and rwandan migrants in a time of xenophobia in south africa: empirical and methodological reflections. journal of international migration and integration, 19(4): 1119-1136. western, j. c. 1981. outcast cape town. london: allen & unwin. list of named interviewees abdul rachid, leader of the albayan islamic council trust (aict), interviewed in bellville, october 2015. abdi-rashid shiekh, leader of the somalis community board south africa (scbsa), interviewed in bellville, february 2016. abdul khalif, leader of the somali association of south africa (sasa), interviewed in bellville, february 2016. amani namufakage, chairperson of the amis bk, interviewed at observatory, february 2016. 49 anonymous interviews interviewee (pseudonym) area of expertise place interviewed date interviewed coct business areas management mr a coct business areas management cape town cbd 30 july 2015 mrs t coct business areas management cape town cbd 30 july 2015 coct ngos working with refugees ms c ngo (1) cape town cbd 7 july 2015 mrs d ngo (1) cape town cbd 12 august 2015 mrs f ngo (2) cape town cbd 12 august 2015 mrs q ngo (2) cape town cbd 20 august 2015 informal traders in the coct municipality mr g malawian trader wynberg 18 august 2015 mr h somalian trader wynberg 18 august 2015 ms i cameroonian trader cape town cbd 26 august 2015 mr j somali trader cape town cbd 27 august 2015 ms k zimbabwean trader cape town cbd 27 august 2015 mr g malawian trader wynberg 31 august 2015 mr h somali trader wynberg 31 august 2015 ms i cameroonian trader cape town cbd 25 august 2015 turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 53 between the imagined and the reality: threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa edmond akwasi agyeman university of winneba, ghana email: kwasikyei2004@hotmail.com the paper examines spain’s migration policy aimed at controlling sub-saharan african immigration. it is based on analysis of policy documents, migration statistics and secondary literature. the paper shows that current migratory trends and statistics do not support the perception that sub-saharan african migrants are invading spain. the paper shows that spain’s policy of walling itself off the african continent is borne out of an imaginary threat and spain’s role as a gatekeeper for western europe’s southern borders. it further argues that spain’s restrictive policies ignore the long-standing interdependent trade and other economic networks that exist between spain, north africa and west africa, which predate the european colonization of africa. keywords: sub-saharan migration, spain, immigration control, policy threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 54 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 introduction in this paper, i trace the strategies adopted by the spanish government since the 1990s to control ‘unwanted’ migration from sub-saharan africa. i show that, these policies are based on a false premise that african migrants are invading spain and, by extension, europe. in 2019, the government of spain launched its third plan áfrica, a strategic document for the governance of spanish relations in sub-saharan africa. as is the case with the previous plans, immigration from sub-saharan africa proved to be a crucial concern for the spanish government. the first plan áfrica which was launched in 2006 had specified that spain’s geographical proximity to the african continent and the use of some african nations as transit points for drug trafficking or for the establishment of terrorist networks and refuge points in the continent coupled with the issue of immigration constituted a reality that preoccupied public opinion in spain. for that matter, the document spelled out the strategies to intensify spain’s border control mechanisms and to plant and extend spanish influence in africa through aid, trade and cooperation. the ultimate goal of the first plan áfrica and subsequent ones was to keep africans at home and focused pre-eminently on building fortress spain by barricading borders used by sub-saharan african youth to enter spain ‘illegally’ through diplomacy and border controls. i argue that the volume of african migration to spain in the last thirty years represents an insignificant fraction of the total immigrant population in spain and that the policies themselves have rather led to creating unwanted migrants out of the african migrant population in spain. i indicate that spain’s policy of walling itself off the african continent is borne out of an imaginary threat and spain’s role as a gatekeeper for western europe’s southern borders. i further argue that there is a long-standing interdependent trade and other economic networks that exist between spain, north africa and west africa predating the european colonization of africa, which have also contributed to shaping the migration trends. literature and methods spain’s southern border control strategies have received a lot of scholarly attention in the past three decades. broadly, these studies can be grouped into two: (i) those that focus on border control methods and strategies, including border externalization and excessive pressure on morocco and senegal to crack down on sub-saharan migration and the human rights implication of these policies; and (ii) those that focus on spain’s foreign policy in sub-saharan africa. studies that focus on border control mechanisms by spanish authorities against sub-saharan african migration have sustained that the surveillance methods used at spain’s southern sea borders breach international human rights treaties, because by intercepting immigrants at sea before they reach spanish waters, they prevent potential asylum seekers from receiving protection (ceriani et al., 2009; williams, 2018). some other researches, however, try to examine the effectiveness of the 55 control methods used at the spanish southern borders. they include the works of alscher (2005) carling (2007) and carrera (2007) which analyze the impact of the integrated system of exterior surveillance (sistema integral de vigilancia exterior– sive) and the activities of frontex, the european border and coast guard agency. in a recent work, williams (2018: 157) argues that this approach “was not effective at stopping current or future migration”. the literature that examines spain’s foreign policy in sub-saharan africa focuses on the legal, political and economic implications of relying on economic aid and diplomacy as means of controlling unwanted migration from sub-saharan africa to spain. they generally fall into two categories: those that have economic, sociological, political and moral character, and those that have legal character. the first group includes the work of eduardo romero, which questions the moral base of spain’s migration policies in sub-saharan africa (romero, 2006); and the study by arango and martin (2005), which has both economic and political character, and focuses on the migration control methods and bilateral agreements reached between spain and morocco. pérez graciela (2008) examines the possible conflict of interest between migration control and spain’s development aid programs in sub-saharan africa. wolff and schout’s (2013) work focuses on the identity of frontex, the legitimacy of its operations and their implications for interstate relations and human rights. the other group of works that are more juridical in nature include the publications by asunción asín cabrera (2008) and del castillo fajardo (2006) that analyze the bilateral agreements signed between spain and the sub-saharan african countries and their implication for cooperation. much of this literature is very critical of the approach adopted and some of them have questioned their implication in regards to race relations, human rights, state autonomy of african countries and the need to respect the interest of african states and migrants (casas et al., 2011; jones, 2017; adam et al., 2020). the approach of this paper is analytical, focusing on spain’s policy documents and secondary literature relating to sub-saharan african migration control. i also draw on official statistical data sources of spain—instituto nacional de estadística data bank—to obtain figures of sub-saharan african migrant stock in spain, world bank data on migrants’ remittance flows, as well as the 2020 official report by the frontex agency and other official sources on migration flows and interception data. based on this information, i develop tables and figures to enable me to do a comparative analysis of actual migrant flows and stocks, and spain’s migration control policies. the goal is to tease out how the principle of fear of invasion based on the imagined rather than the actual migrant stock and flows, has influenced spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa. theory and concepts the concept of imagined threat of invasion as used in this paper draws on sociological theories of inter-group relations by blumer (1958), blalock (1956, 1957) and quilthreat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 56 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 lian (1995). i also draw on the invasion anxiety concept advanced by burke (2008) to explain the feeling of imminent threat of invasion on the part of states and state actors, which informs their attitudes, actions and policies towards certain migrant groups. i also rely on more recent works by herda (2010, 2013, 2018) and semyonov et al. (2008) to show how in many instances this feeling of threat is borne out of the imagined rather than the actual threat by the migrant population. blumer was one of the key proponents of the chicago sociological school. in his seminal 1958 paper entitled “race prejudice as a sense of group position”, he argues that during inter-group or race relations, each group develops a position relative to the other in hierarchical terms that influences power relations between them. he indicates that group prejudice develops when the dominant group feels that its position is threatened by a subordinate group. blumer (1958: 588) identifies four types of feelings that he believed could lead to this situation: “(1) a feeling of superiority, (2) a feeling that the subordinate race is intrinsically different and alien, (3) a feeling of proprietary claim to certain areas of privilege and advantage, and (4) a fear and suspicion that the subordinate race harbors designs on the prerogatives of the dominant race”. for blumer, group prejudice is a function of perceived rather than actual threat. arguing along the same line, blalock (1956; 1957) shows that perceptions of threat by the dominant group towards the subordinate group are influenced by demographic and economic factors. blalock posits that the size of the subordinate group relative to that of the dominant group as well as precarious economic conditions constitute major sources of threat perceptions by the majority group towards the subordinate group. more recent studies have further showed that the feeling of perceived threat by majority groups with respect to minority groups worsens when the former have to protect their economic interest (quillian,1995) or where there are economic and cultural threats at stake (fietkau and hansen, 2018). in some instances, however, the perceived threat posed by migrant groups hinges on national identity issues. this is the position taken by burke (2008) to explain australian authorities’ attitudes towards migrants and national migration policies. he argues that the idea of white racial supremacy and the fear of a non-white invasion have had great impact on australian migration policy and attitudes toward other asian immigrants over a long period. in several studies based on national surveys, herda (2010; 2013, 2018) and semyonov et al. (2008) have also argued that misconceptions and ignorance about the actual threat posed by immigrants inform a great deal of host nations’ policies and attitudes towards certain migrant groups. they show that migrant exclusion is associated with these misconceptions. in particular, herda (2013, 2018) found that citizens’ misconception about migrants’ legal status (i.e. conceiving migrants to be undocumented or illegal settlers) or having an inflated perception of their actual population size, is associated with citizens’ tendencies and desires to exclude migrants, halt immigration, restrict migrants’ rights, or support anti-im migrant policies. hsia (2007) observes that the imagined threat may be the result of media construction and fram57 ing, which in many instances could be far from reality. other studies have shown that immigrant threat feelings among host populations are sometimes the result of political framing by radical right-wing political parties to improve their popular appeal and electoral fortunes (doerschler and jackson, 2018). in the case of spain, toasije (2009) maintains that african migration is manipulated by the spanish political elite as a strategy to please european union law makers and to europeanize spain with the ulterior agenda of weaning the country from its african and complex multi-ethnic identity. in this paper therefore, i examine how the perceived or imagined rather than the actual threat of invasion is manipulated and used by spain’s political actors to manage the socio-political challenges posed by african migration to spain. sub-saharan african migration to spain spain, unlike france, united kingdom or portugal, had minimal colonial ties with africa. equatorial guinea, which passed into the hands of spain in 1827 after seventeen years of british administration, is the only country in sub-saharan africa that has a direct colonial link with spain. resultantly, migration from sub-saharan africa to spain started relatively late and has remained on a very low key. the early group of sub-saharan labor migrants in spain originated from cape verde. in 1975 a group of cape verdean men from lisbon settled in the mining towns of bembire in the area of el bierzo and villablino in the laciana valley in león after their failed trip to the netherlands (moldes and gonzàlez, 2008). between 1977 and 1978 another community of cape verdeans settled in galizia to work on the construction of the alúmína-alumíno metallurgical plant. after the construction of the plant some of the migrant workers were integrated into the local fishing industry while the rest dispersed in the area to find jobs. the men were later joined by cape verdean women from lisbon and the rate of family reunification increased from the second half of the 1980s. in the early 1980s migrants from gambia, mali, mauritania and senegal settled in the catalonia region following the restriction imposed by france after the 1973 oil crisis (sow, 2006). the first group of senegalese migrants, consisting mainly of people from pulaar and soninké ethnic groups, settled in maresme in barcelona and from there they moved on to zaragoza and valencia. they are currently dispersed all over the country due to their itinerant commercial activity. by the end of 1992 there were only 12,776 sub-saharan immigrants in spain out of which four communities represented three-quarters of the total population. the senegalese (3,190) represented the largest group at the time and they were uniformly distributed across the country. they were followed by the gambians (2,952) concentrated in the catalonian provinces of barcelona and gerona where they were largely employed in the agricultural sector. cape verdean citizens made up the third largest group (1,939). they lived between león and madrid. migrants from equatorial guinea (1,569), found mainly in madrid, were the fourth largest group (pumares, 1997). threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 58 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 from the late 1990s, the sub-saharan african population in spain began to experience a sharp increase. however, despite negative media reportage and criminalization of these movements the rate of growth remained very slow and was much contained over the years. sub-saharan africans in spain originate principally from west africa and account for close to 80% of the total sub-saharan migrants. stemming african migration to spain in the past two decades, spain and the european union have spent millions of euros to prevent africans and other nationals entering their territory. williams (2018) shows that between 2006 and 2015, close to €127 million was budgeted for joint migrant interdiction operations in the central mediterranean sea. these operations include: nautilus, hermes, aenas and triton. spain’s immigration control policy in relation to sub-saharan immigration is influenced strongly by domestic politics (negative public opinion, interest group politics and political party politics) and is strictly linked to national security matters and foreign aid (pinyol-jiménez, 2008; 2012). for that matter, the main political strategy that spain has adopted to control migration flows from sub-saharan africa could be synthesized into two strategies. the first strategy consists of a set of policy measures directed towards intensive border control. these measures are designed and coordinated principally by the spanish interior ministry in collaboration with the eu and the affected african countries. their main objective is to obstruct and dissuade illegal entry or illegal stay of sub-saharan immigrants in spanish territory. the second set of policy measures focuses on development aid, trade and investment to reduce migration pressure in the migrant sending and transit countries. this policy measure is preventative and it is driven mainly by the ministry of foreign affairs and cooperation. its objective is to mitigate the root causes of emigration. the roadmap for this approach is contemplated in the plan africa (romero, 2006; casas et al., 2011). even though the two strategies are different, their ultimate goals, however, are to reduce the propensity to migrate from sub-saharan africa to spain and to the european union, ensure that unwanted african migrants do not arrive in their territory, remove those who enter or stay in spanish territory without authorization, and encourage voluntary return of those who have legally settled in spain (agyeman, 2011; agyeman and fernandez garcia, 2016). maritime border control systems alscher (2005) observed that during the period between 2000 and 2004 when spain’s conservative popular party (pp) won an absolute majority in parliament, the fight against illegal migration became the central issue of immigration policy. however, it was the socialist government, led by felipe gonzález and the socialist workers’ party (psoe) that introduced visa requirements for moroccan immigrants and began the early construction of a border fence around the spanish enclaves ceuta and melilla 59 (alscher, 2005). the accession of spain to the schengen treaty required that spain controlled its southern border, which until the late 1990s was considered the transit route for african migrants heading towards various european destinations. the first set of measures that spain adopted to control migration pressure from sub-saharan africa included intensifying its maritime border control system through dissuasion, obstruction, apprehension and repatriation of migrants found entering spain illegally through its southern borders (carling, 2007). dissuasion and obstruction are strategies involving putting pressure on spain’s immediate southern neighbors, particularly, moroccan, senegalese and mauritanian authorities to introduce stricter border control and visa regulation in order to crack down on illegal smuggling of moroccans and sub-saharans into spain (gonzález-enríquez et al., 2018). other efforts to dissuade ‘unwanted immigration’ included information campaigns and joint police patrols in morocco and sub-saharan countries, particularly senegal and mauritania to dissuade prospective immigrants from departing. these efforts are facilitated by opening migration information centres (mics) in sending countries. for example, as part of the eu-funded ghana integrated migration management approach (gimma) program, spain funded the establishment of mics in tamale and sunyani, considered transit and origin zones of ghanaian youth destined to spain across the sahara. border surveillance is perhaps the area where spain has devoted greater resources to the effort to fight ‘unwanted’ immigration from sub-saharan africa. the first step to a stricter border control started in the early 1990s with the construction of an 8.4km fence around ceuta in 1993 and another around melilla in 1996. these fences were later fortified and equipped with video and infrared cameras, control towers and motion detectors (alscher, 2005). in january 1998, the pp government introduced the plan sur (alscher, 2005) to strengthen the border control system. the project introduced more intensive surveillance systems in spain’s air and sea ports, it tightened the deportation procedures and strengthened cooperation with moroccan and algerian authorities. additionally, a special unit of motorized police force was created to search for undocumented immigrants along spain’s coastal cities. half a year later, the civil guard (guardia civil), introduced another project named frontera sur (southern border/frontier) equipped with new vehicles and helicopters from the spanish army (alscher, 2005). in may 1999, the pp government introduced a more intensive border control system labelled integrated system of exterior surveillance (sistema integral de vigilancia exterior–sive). initial work on the project was financed at a cost of €150 million. it was operated by the civil guard (guardia civil) and its objectives were to detect and intercept small vessels and pateras (boats) and cayucos (kayaks/canoes) arriving at spain’s southern sea border. the system was equipped with fixed and mobile detection devices including radars, infrared and video cameras that are able to detect a small vessel 10km away and estimate the number of people in the vessel when it is 5km away. when a vessel is detected, information about its course and position is transmitted to a central command, from where inthreat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 60 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 terception units including boats, helicopters and cars are dispatched (carling, 2007). the sive was first developed on the coast of gibraltar and in 2002, was extended to the canary islands in the towns of fuerteventura, gran canaria and lanzarote. it was also extended to cover the entire coast of the cádiz province in 2004 and the entire coast of the province of andalucía in 2005. it is noteworthy that the psoe government continued to develop the sive project after it won the 2004 election, although it initially opposed the project when it was in opposition. in addition to sive, in 2005 spain impressed upon the eu, the need for a european border and coast guard agency, hence the creation of frontex. this agency was created in 2006 with a spanish official, gil arias, appointed its executive director (gonzález-enríquez et al., 2018). in addition, the general directorate of international relations and alien affairs and its two sub-directorates were also created in 2006 to enable spanish authorities to reach agreements for institutional cooperation with officials in the migrant origin or transit countries. this enabled spanish police officials to collaborate with officials of the frontex agency and officials of origin or transit countries to organize joint border operations. the european union’s sponsored projects undertaken by frontex at the spanish coasts include, agios (joint operation to identify forged documents in spain’s mediterranean ports); hera i (identification and return of unauthorized immigrants); hera ii (patrol of spanish seas near senegal and mauritania) (commission of the european community, 2006); and hera iii (surveillance mission by frontex deployed on the territorial waters of mauritania and senegal) (ceriani et al., 2009). greater effort has also been made to improve information exchange between spain and the african countries. the spanish police have provided technical and material support and exchanged information with the police and immigration officials in the transit and origin countries to strengthen their internal patrol system (ministerio de interior, 2007). examples include the seahorse and the atlantis projects funded by the european union which formed a network of information exchange among the border police between spain, portugal, mauritania, senegal, cape verde and three other countries which were incorporated in 2009 which also include morocco, gambia and guinea bissau (gonzález-enríquez et al., 2018). the joint border surveillance operations have three objectives: to dissuade the immigrants in the origin or transit country before they set out to reach spanish borders; to intercept and return the immigrants who succeed to depart before they reach spanish coasts; and, to ensure that those who reach spanish borders are repatriated within the terms established by law (ministerio de interior, 2007). while spanish officials and some scholars tout this initiative as contributing to stemming unwanted immigration to spain, williams (2018) argues that the operations of frontex are nothing more than search and rescue. 61 immigration control through ‘migratory diplomacy’ since 2000, spain’s development aid to sub-saharan countries has become a tool to control immigration from these countries to spain. their declared goal is to fight poverty and promote economic development and democracy in africa – factors believed to be the main cause of migration. the main architecture of spain’s foreign diplomacy to control migration pressure from sub-saharan africa is the master plan called plan of action for sub-saharan africa (el plan de acción para áfrica subsahariana) or plan áfrica in short. the first plan was developed in 2006 to cover the period between 2006 and 2008. since then, two other master plans have followed: the 2009-2012 plan and the more recent 2019-2024 plan. plan áfrica i set in motion what pinyoljiménez (2008: 61) described as spain’s “migratory diplomacy”. the document laid greater emphasis on migration management, commercial links and development cooperation (casas et al. 2011). the document placed the sub-saharan countries into three main geographical divisions based on the type of actions that the spanish government intended to perform in the regions. the first group consists of countries that are considered to respond to the majority of the objectives set out by the plan. the second division is made up of countries considered as strategic for the fight against illegal immigration or for spain’s economic and cultural activities in africa. the last group consists of countries considered as strategic in the medium term—due to their political situation of being unstable and in conflict-prone areas. however, a critical look at this geographical division shows that two main principles guided the choice of countries, namely, economic interest and the fight against immigration. the document exposed a clear distinction between african countries that are senders, potential senders or transit points of migrants destined to spain and countries that are strategic for spanish trade relations with africa because they host large quantities of raw materials and natural resources essential for spain’s economy. in anticipation of the master plan, spain’s foreign minister visited ghana, angola, mozambique, nigeria, niger and mali in 2005 (moratinos, 2005). after plan áfrica i was launched, it paved the way for the signing of bilateral and readmission agreements between spain and sub-saharan african countries including gambia (2006), guinea (2006), cape verde (2007), mali (2008) and niger (2008) (cabrera, 2008). spain’s objective for these agreements was to enable it to establish and expand its institutional base and influence in sub-saharan africa through the establishment of diplomatic missions, new embassies and consulates, offices for economic cooperation and trade as well as offices for the technical operations of the spanish interior and defense ministries’ missions in sub-saharan africa so that its fight against unwanted migration from sub-saharan africa could be effective. to this end, spain established a permanent diplomatic mission in cape verde in 2006 and an office for the spanish agency for international cooperation in 2007; in 2006 spain created a permanent diplomatic mission in mali; in 2007 spain created a general consular office in dakar, senegal; and in the same year it established offices for the spanthreat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 62 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 ish agency for international cooperation in both senegal and mauritania (cabrera, 2008: 86). all the bilateral agreements that were signed, with the partial exception of the one signed with mali, have almost identical structure and content (cabrera, 2008). they all have eighteen articles expressed in eight chapters. they begin with an identical preamble and end with an annexure indicating the procedures and guarantees for readmission of persons. six lines of action are also delineated in the agreements, which include: admission of workers; voluntary return; integration of immigrants; migration and development; cooperation in the fight against illegal immigration and trafficking of persons; and readmission of persons. however, the most controversial aspect of the agreement lay in sections dealing with the readmission of persons, or obliging african nations to prevent the emigration of their own nationals. contracting african countries were obliged to readmit their citizens apprehended or found living illegally in spain. this section took inspiration from article 13 of the cotonou accord of 2000, rectified by spain in 2003 in which the african, caribbean and pacific (acp) and eu countries committed themselves to accept their nationals deported from another country party to the contract. another issue which the spanish government pursued was to seek the cooperation of the contracting african countries to fight what spain termed as the illegal migration or trafficking of african nationals to spain. chapter six of the agreement obliged the contracting parties to cooperate in the following areas: (i) exchange of information between the competent authorities on human trafficking; (ii) provision of technical assistance to the sub-saharan african countries affected in the fight against illegal migration to spain; (iii) organization of formation courses for consular and immigration personnel; (iv) cooperation for border control enforcement; (v) mutual support to guarantee the security of national identity cards; (vi) strengthened capacities of the fight against illegal migration and human trafficking; (vii) running of campaign programs on the dangers of illegal migration and human trafficking (cabrera, 2008). in return, spain promised to open a window for the legal recruitment of african migrant workers and put measures in place to promote temporal migration through the admission of seasonal workers and through the quota system as well as facilitating the travel of highly qualified professionals such as professors, scientists, researchers, managers, as well as artists, sportsmen and women (cabrera, 2008). however, a more recent study has revealed that these kinds of schemes have not yielded positive results. for example, gonzález-enríquez et al. (2018), note that a recruitment scheme meant to enable senegalese women to work in the strawberry sector in the province of huelva in andalusia was not successful and had to be discontinued. this was because there were deficiencies in the selection process and many recruits ended up becoming illegal immigrants in spain. in spite of the limited legal channels, remittances from sub-saharan african migrants in spain far outpace spain’s official development aid to these countries and thus contribute immensely to the wellbeing of families left at home, as shown in the table 1. 63 table 1: remittance flow from spain to subsaharan african countries per $ million source: author’s elaboration from world bank data cassarino (2007) observes that the reciprocity of obligations expressed in the agreements does not mean that both parties benefit equally due to the “significant level of development asymmetry” between the contracting parties and that, while the interest of the destination country sounds obvious (“unwanted migrants have to be effectively removed”), the interest of the origin country may be less evident, above all when considering that its economy remains dependent on the revenues of its (legal and illegal) expatriates living abroad, or when migration continues to be viewed as a safety valve to relieve pressure on domestic unemployment (cassarino, 2007: 182). therefore, spain’s migration policy, while seeking partnership of african countries to execute, regrettably, focuses on the likely benefits which will accrue to spain, and not that of the sub-saharan migrants involved or their nations which spain has made its (control) partners. the imagined threat of african invasion vs reality: revisiting the statistics as asserted earlier, semyonov et al. (2008) comment that the inflated perception of the size of the immigrant population in a country is one of the main causes of antiimmigrant feeling, discrimination and support for exclusionary policies towards migrant groups. we have also discussed studies by herda (2013, 2018), who observes that misconceptions about the actual population size and the legal status of migrants are more likely to generate exclusionary sentiments towards immigrants. he notes that in most european countries, citizens perceive immigrant numbers to be more than twice the actual size of the immigrant population in their country. he describes this as immigrant population innumeracy (herda, 2013). the imagined rather than an actual threat of sub-saharan african migrants invading spain is the main motivation behind spain’s anti-african immigration policy. country/year 2015 2016 2017 nigeria 690 706 771 senegal 211 272 302 mali 40 64 71 gambia 50 58 60 ghana 48 51 53 cape verde 5 6 6 threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 64 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 at the end of 2019, there were 235,951 sub-saharan african immigrants from over forty countries, resident in spain. this was fewer than the british immigrants in spain and a little above the italian nationals resident in spain. sub-saharan african migrants represent 4.75% of the total immigrant population in spain and only 21% of africans, as shown in table 2 table 2: sub-saharan africa immigrants in spain source: author’s elaboration from ine data (www.ine.es) senegal has the largest sub-saharan community in spain (71,020), followed by nigeria (39,306), mali (25,011), gambia (20,387), ghana (17,669), equatorial guinea (13,221), guinea (10,811), and mauritania (8,184). it is significant to know that the population of nigerian immigrants in spain has seen a substantial decrease consistently since 2012. several other countries, including spain’s former colony, equatorial guinea, have also seen a marginal decrease in their population. in fact, since the economic crisis and particularly from 2013, the entry of african migrants in spain has seen a substantial decrease, with the exception of 2017, when the number of irregular entries went up sharply (consejo económico y social españa, 2019). figure 1: growth rate of foreign population in spain by continent source: author's elaboration from ine (www.ine.es) region/year 1999 % 2004 % 2009 % 2014 % 2019 % sub-saharan africa 32,302 4.31 115,999 5.14 230,044 4.07 231,373 4.6 235,951 4.68 africa 174,402 23.28 579,372 19.09 1,009,169 17.86 1,076,164 21.42 1,122,409 22.28 spain 748,954 100 3,034,326 100 5,648,671 100 5,023,487 100 5,036,878 100 65 over the past twenty years, the sub-saharan africans have recorded the slowest growth rate in spain compared to europeans, south americans and asians, as shown in figure 1. this supports the argument that there is no threat of invasion, as portrayed by spain’s right-wing political parties and the media (toasije, 2009). this supports hsia’s (2007) findings that the threat of invasion is sometimes the product of media construction and political manipulation. moreover, public opinion toward sub-saharan african migrants in spain is increasingly positive compared to that of other immigrant groups. in a recent survey, only 2% of spanish claimed they felt uncomfortable working with a black person, compared to 3% for asians and jews and 7% for roma and muslims (gonzálezenríquez, 2017). in the same study, gonzález-enríquez (2017: 20) notes that, “there is also a significant increase in responses expressing closeness, especially noticeable towards us citizens and sub-saharan africans”. about 25% of the spanish who participated in the survey said they felt “quite or very close” towards sub-saharan africans whereas only 18% and 15% said they felt the same toward moroccan and chinese migrants respectively. this form of public opinion does not support spain’s aggressive control of sub-saharan immigration. generating illegality through restrictive immigration policy from the time spain became an immigration country, its coastal cities became regular scenes of sub-saharan, north african and asian boat-people entering europe without going through the strict immigration regulations, by using small wooden boats known in spain as pateras. these scenes raised media interest and almost every week there was news of new entrances and reports of deaths on the boats. the excessive media attention and coverage of african migrants entering the european southern border by boat, dominated policy discourse on illegal migration and increasingly conveyed the image that massive numbers of desperate africans are fleeing poverty and war and are attempting to enter europe irregularly. this raised fears of possible invasion and security threats (de haas, 2007). since then, a great deal of literature has fueled the perception that economic and demographic pressure persisting in africa today is driving africans to invade europe and the rest of the oecd (organisation for economic co-operation and development) countries in the same way as the european states migrated to america in the half-century before world war i. this perception has strongly influenced public opinion on immigration matters and electoral politics in spain (hatton and williamson, 2003). for example, in july 2018, the leader of spain’s popular party claimed that there were over fifty million prospective african migrants ready to invade spanish territory, a claim which was discredited by spain’s popular newspaper, el pais (2018). even though such claims lack an empirical base, these forms of perceptions have greatly influenced spain’s relations with its black african neighbors at their southern borders and have threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 66 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 informed the increasing apprehension, detention and repatriation of sub-saharan migrants who are legally or illegally resident in spain. as burke (2008) observes, the emphasis on security threats posed by immigrants, although based on false pretense, gives legitimacy to restrictive immigration control measures by state authorities. however, empirical data does not support the media hype of sub-saharan african invasion of spain through illegal migration. since 2000, the annual number of migrants who arrive in spain or italy by sea, represents a small fraction of the total number of migrants who enter spain illegally. data from the frontex agency shows that out of 141,846 persons intercepted at border crossing points (bcps) attempting to enter europe illegally in 2018, those who originated from the west african route were a meagre 2,718 persons, representing 1.9% of the total. of these, moroccan nationals constituted one-third. in 2017, for example, only 25,251 individuals out of 532,482 immigrants who entered spain that year without following the regular immigration procedures, were africans (el pais, 2018). this reduction in numbers is, however, attributed to the aggressive control measures that have been put in place by spain with european union backing to stem immigration from sub-saharan africa (gonzález-enríquez et al., 2018). the asymmetry between the actual figures of sub-saharan migration flows to spain and the restrictive state control policies can be properly understood within the sphere of race relations where the perceptions of threat rather than the actual threat, govern policy decisions, attitudes and actions. following from studies by blumer (1958), blalock (1956; 1957), quillian (1995) and burke (2008), one can argue that the perceptions of threat to spain’s racial identity and economic position rather than the actual migration flows from sub-saharan africa to spain, have greatly informed spain’s migration control policies in africa. long-standing relations vs spain’s role as european union’s southern border gatekeeper touching on issues pertaining to identity and economic relations, this paper argues that spain, by its actions of excessive migration control of sub-saharan african migration, is ignoring the long-standing relations that have existed between spain, north africa and sub-saharan africa, which span across several centuries (toasije, 2009). these relations have generated several forms of interdependence within the spheres of economics, politics, culture, family ties and social relations, spanning several centuries. toasije (2009: 343) notes that “until the defeat of grenada in 1492, the western end of the european subcontinent had been the core of european and african struggles, and this has created an ethnically-mixed population” in spain. moreover, there is also a long history of migration and trade relations between spain and the rest of the mediterranean and sub-saharan countries. during his visit to timbuktu in 1352, ibn battuta reported that, “in this town is the grave of the illustrious poet abu ishaq al-sahill of granada, known in his own country as al-tuwaijin (‘the little cooking pan’), and also of siraj al-din b. al-kuwaik, one 67 of the great merchants among the people of alexandria” (gibb and beckingham, 1994: 969). these interconnections were the subject of the 2019 special edition of the journal of north african studies, which depicts not only a history of conflict between spain and morocco but also a construction of economic, social and cultural relations and interdependence through “ideas, people, texts, and material goods that have circulated across the sea and continue to do so until today” (stenner, 2019: 8). in his introduction, stenner (2019: 8), notes that this “focus on connections between europe and africa indirectly challenged the notion of the mediterranean as a frontier separating two worlds, and instead highlighted its role as a shared cultural space”. gonzález-enríquez (2017) asserts that the right-wing anti-immigration politics which has a lot of force elsewhere in europe, has struggled to gain influence in spain to push the anti-black immigration agenda. this may be due largely to the long-standing relations that spain has had with africa over the centuries. however, spain bears the brunt of anti-black african sentiments held elsewhere in europe. spain is therefore forced to implement policies which in many situations are not in its interest and to a large extent run counter to the long-standing relations that it has with the african continent. toasije (2009) considers this as part of efforts to europeanize spain and to deny it of its african and complex multi-ethnic identity. many european governments assume that uncontrolled sub-saharan immigration can generate social alarm among the citizenry, challenge the sovereignty of the state and jeopardize the welfare system and the idea of ethnic homogeneity underlying the formation of european states (toasije, 2009; ambrosini, 2013). consequently, there is a subtle criminalization of african migration through the complicity of the european union, spain’s political elite and the media (toasije, 2009). politics, more than actual migration trends, is the main factor underlying the illegalization and aggressive combatting of sub-saharan african migration to spain. this is because, given the trends of african migration to spain over the past three decades, it is very difficult to imagine that african migrants would flock to spain and stay there permanently if the borders were open. in fact, open borders would have generated fluidity of human movements across the borders, as it existed before. this is because, for centuries, movements across the mediterranean sea has been bidirectional, and as therrien (2019) observes, there is a growing trend of spanish migrants moving in the opposite direction to morocco, to settle there. the sendentation of african migrants in spain and elsewhere in europe is borne largely out of restrictive immigration policies and border controls against african migrants (agyeman, 2011). according to cachón (2002), immigrants from southern european nations who migrated to northern europe for reconstruction during the post-world war ii period, sought permanent settlement and family reunification when restrictions were imposed after the oil crisis in the 1970s. the increasing proportion of ‘illegal’ or ‘unwanted’ african migration to spain is borne out of the policies being implemented by the spanish government. threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 68 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 conclusion in this paper, i have shown that spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa involving intensive border policing, and strategies to dissuade african migrants from entering spain, is borne out of an imaginary threat of possible african invasion of the spanish peninsula and europe. the paper argues that statistics showing the migration trends from sub-saharan african to spain, both through legal and illegal means over the last three decades, does not support this perception of invasion. compared with migration movements originating from other parts of europe, south america and asia to spain, sub-saharan migration trends are the slowest. however, the african migration figures, although low, are magnified and manipulated to give legitimacy to restrictive control policies. based on the above observations, the paper argues that spain’s control of subsaharan african migration is an over-reaction and ignores all forms of historical, economic and social relations that exist between spain and sub-saharan africa. it further maintains that there are long-standing cultural, economic and social relations between the two regions that have generated aspects of interdependence which predate european colonization of africa. however, spain’s role as the european union’s gatekeeper at its southern borders appears 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sub-saharan africa https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2018.1459269 https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934706297563 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 201 failed asylum seekers in south africa: policy and practice corey johnson abstract the return of failed asylum seekers has become an issue of concern for asylum states who must balance immigration control measures while upholding refugee protection obligations. the 1994 transition to democracy in south africa saw the state establish a strong urban refugee protection framework based on individualised refugee status determination processes, freedom of movement, and local integration. the refugee protection framework, although strong on paper, has suffered from a lack of implementation and has coexisted uneasily next to immigration control imperatives. this tension is further exacerbated by the post-1994 immigration regime which promotes a restrictive immigration policy with few options for low-skilled migrants who have turned to the asylum system as a means by which to legalise their stay, thus stretching capacity and conflating immigration control and refugee protection. this article provides a general overview of these issues, as well as an analysis of south africa's policies to address failed asylum seekers. in doing so it explores the tension between formal human rights protections found in legislation and underlying immigration enforcement imperatives. the article finds that the conditions for an effective failed asylum seeker policy are not present and concludes with a discussion of some of the issues that need to be addressed to implement a more effective and rights-based policy. keywords: deportation, detention, forced return, irregular migration, nonrefoulement. introduction south africa’s historical transition to democracy set forth a new dispensation based on equality and human rights. prior to 1994, the country was not a party to any international human rights instruments, including the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees and its 1967 protocol (hereinafter the ‘1951 convention’), and, as such, refugees with international  advocacy officer at the scalabrini centre of cape town, 47 commercial street, cape town, south africa, 8001 corey@scalabrini.org.za mailto:corey@scalabrini.org.za ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 202 protection needs in the country were treated as illegal aliens subject to deportation without consideration of the potential consequences of return. after the democratic transition, the state signed and ratified the 1951 convention, the organisation of african unity convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa (hereinafter the ‘oau convention’), as well as a host of international human rights instruments, such as the international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr), many provisions of which were incorporated into the constitution in the bill of rights. importantly, most of the bill of rights' provisions apply to all people in south africa regardless of nationality or legal status. a review of migration policy and legislation was undertaken shortly thereafter, resulting in the refugees act (no. 130) 1998 and its accompanying regulations, which entered into force in 2000 (hereinafter the ‘refugees act’). the refugees act, as administered by the department of home affairs (dha), establishes an individualised refugee status determination (rsd) system that features the right to freedom of movement, the right to work, and local integration as opposed to refugee camp settings commonly found throughout the african continent. under this system, individuals lodge applications at designated refugee reception offices (rro) and receive documentation to legalise their sojourn while they await final adjudication of their claim. during this process, asylum seekers and refugees are guaranteed just administrative action under the the promotion of administrative justice act (paja) (no. 3, 2000) which gives effect to section 33 of the constitution. discussing the system in 2007, the high commissioner of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), antonio guterres, described it as ‘one of the most advanced and progressive systems of protection in the world today’ (unhcr, 2007). according to the act, asylum seekers and refugees are protected from deportation and generally detention should be employed only as a matter of last resort. officials must exercise their discretion in regards to possible detention ‘in favorem libertatis’, or in favour of liberty, and officials are not obligated to detain an illegal foreigner. despite the strong legal framework, refugee protection has existed uneasily next to the country's immigration regime and its focus on immigration control, particularly the control of undocumented migrants. the immigration act (no. 11) 2002 and its accompanying regulations (hereinafter the ‘immigration act’) establishes a restrictive immigration regime that facilitates immigration for highly skilled immigrants but offers few options ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 203 for low-skilled workers. the lack of legal options under the immigration act has led many migrants to lodge asylum claims to temporarily and imperfectly legalise their sojourn. this strategy has resulted in large numbers of asylum applications, many without legitimate claims, and stretched the capacity of dha to effectively administer the asylum system. it has also led to many state officials taking a sceptical view of asylum seekers and refugees as illegitimate and in practice many asylum seekers and refugees have difficulty realising their rights as guaranteed under the legal framework. while refugee law and immigration law are separate regimes, they do overlap at certain points. one of the most critical junctures is where an asylum seeker receives a final rejection of their asylum claim and becomes termed a 'failed asylum seeker', transitioning from the refugee to immigration system. 1 unhcr and the international organization for migration (iom) define failed asylum seekers as ‘people who, after due consideration of their claims to asylum in fair procedures, are found not to qualify for refugee status, nor be in need of international protection [and thus] are not authorized to stay in the country concerned’ (unhcr/iom, 1997). in south africa, the state has struggled to implement effective failed asylum seeker policies in the context of high numbers of asylum seekers, many without legitimate protection claims, and a lack of capacity within dha to administer both the refugee and immigration systems. this article will assess south africa's experience in attempting to implement policy to address failed asylum seekers and explore the tension between the state's emphasis on immigration control against the human rights protections found the in the formal legal framework. as effective policies are predicated on fair, efficient and timely refugee status determination processes, this article will begin by analysing the state of the asylum system and deportation regime. it then considers the state’s two failed asylum seeker return policies, one involving voluntary return with minimal state oversight and the other regarding the state’s more recent attempt to implement a more stringent detention and deportation policy upon receipt of a final rejection of their asylum claim. the article finds that the state’s primary focus is on the removal of failed asylum seekers regardless of 1 the terms ‘rejected’ and ‘unsuccessful’ asylum seeker are also commonly used. this paper will use the term ‘failed asylum seeker’ as this is the common term used in south africa. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 204 alternative legal options and human rights obligations. somewhat paradoxically, it also finds that the implementation of both of these policies are driven by a lack of capacity within the immigration enforcement regime. methodology in assessing south africa's failed asylum seeker policy, this article first provides a brief overview of international legal principles and norms for the return of failed asylum seekers. it then analyses the development and implementation of south africa’s urban refugee framework and parallel immigration framework, before turning to the state’s two primary failed asylum seeker return policies. the article relies heavily on primary information supplied by dha in the western cape high court case tshianda and others v minister of home affairs and others (2011) (hereinafter the ‘tshianda matter’), which details dha’s attempt to implement a stringent removal policy for failed asylum seekers through detention and deportation upon receipt of a final rejection at rros. this information includes founding, responding and supplementary affidavits, a standard operating procedure (sop) developed by dha for processing failed asylum seekers, and transcripts from immigration hearings at the cape town magistrates court in which dha immigration officials testified under oath regarding the implementation of the sop. at the time of writing, the tshianda matter has not been finalised and the legality of the sop has not been determined. however, despite the legal uncertainty, the case provides an insight into dha policy considerations and implementation in regards to failed asylum seekers. the analysis is supplemented by the author’s experience with the advocacy programme at the scalabrini centre of cape town, a non-governmental organisation (ngo) that provides assistance to migrants with accessing documentation and government services and functions on a walk-in basis. a significant portion of this work includes assisting with access to the asylum system. this has provided the author with the opportunity for interactions with failed asylum seekers as well with dha officials within the asylum and immigration systems. international legal principles, norms and considerations for effective return practices the right of a state to remove individuals from its territory is fundamental to liberal democracies and remains a central feature of the state (arendt, 1958, p. 279; torpey, 1997). however, the right to deport is not absolute and is ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 205 limited by international human rights law and regulated by domestic judicial systems that require that state actions adhere to recognised norms and standards. unhcr (2001) has stated generally that ‘return procedures should be undertaken in a humane manner, in full respect for human rights and dignity and, that force, should it be necessary, be proportional and undertaken in a manner consistent with human rights law.’ the first consideration is the principle of non-refoulement, the cornerstone of international refugee law which safeguards individuals against being returned to a country where they have reason to fear persecution or harm as stated in article 31 of the 1951 convention. this principle represents the international community’s commitment to ‘ensure all persons the enjoyment of human rights, including the rights to life, to freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and to liberty and security of person. these and other rights are threatened when a refugee is returned to persecution or danger’ (unhcr, 1997). an efficient return policy that maintains the principle of non-refoulement is ‘predicated on the existence of a fair, efficient, and timely process of refugee determination’ as well as the notion that ‘a determination system that lacks some or all of the qualities of fairness, efficiency, timeliness and transparency exacerbates the difficulties often associated with removals.’ the longer an individual asylum seeker stays in the country of asylum, the more difficult the removal will be if the claim is rejected (gibson, 2007, pp. 1-3). asylum states have preferred to implement voluntary return measures for failed asylum seekers due, in part, to the social, political and monetary costs of detention and deportation practices. however, even if voluntary return is preferred, the credible threat of forced return remains a useful tool to reinforce and promote voluntary return processes (noll, 1999b, p. 269). return is not the only option available to the state and, in some cases, failed asylum seekers may be eligible for an alternative legal status based on family unity or, in some jurisdictions, temporary protection measures. the use of force in detention and deportation procedures is regulated by the iccpr, the main international instrument that regulates the deprivation of liberty in any form. articles 7, 9(1), and 10(1) set out the basic framework for the use of detention and deportation for returns. in general, the legality of forced return measures depends on the ‘nature, purpose and severity of the treatment applied’ and there is no blanket list of prohibited actions or procedures (un human rights committee, 1994, para. 4). the use of force in ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 206 return processes must conform to these standards and be proportionate to the goal of returning the individual to their country of origin. although there is evidence to support the presumption that rejected asylum seekers are more likely to abscond and avoid forced return, the mere fact that an individual receives a final rejection cannot be automatically equated with a high rate of absconding and does not automatically justify detention (noll, 1999a, p. 28). detention and deportation may be inapplicable to particular vulnerable groups of failed asylum seekers who invoke more specific responsibilities under the international human rights framework. individuals with mental or physical illness may not be eligible for forced return measures if these measures might negatively affect the individual’s health or, at the extreme, their right to life. for individuals with these circumstances, forced return must be assessed against norms that prohibit cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (noll, 1999a, p. 30). the optimal practice for implementing an effective return policy involves the provision of information to asylum seekers about the possibility of return during the asylum process, well before a final rejection is issued. this ensures that individuals are aware of the possibility of return and, more importantly, understand the asylum process. the provision of information for asylum seekers involves minimal expenditure and will offer ancillary benefits such as increased knowledge about the asylum process that may steer migrants not in need of protection to other immigration streams and lessen the administrative burden. counselling services may also be provided during the asylum process which may constitute another means by which to offer information on the asylum process and conditions in the country of origin (noll, 1999b, p. 271-272). unhcr (2001) notes that ngos have an important contribution to make in this regard, helping failed asylum seekers retain or regain their self-esteem and self-respect, as well as provide assistance with skills-development to take home. while voluntary mechanisms are preferred, the exact definition of ‘voluntary’ is debatable and states often employ measures that might involve elements of coercion, such as the threat of force or the provision of inducements and incentives in voluntary return schemes (black and gent, 2006; weber, 2011). in practice, any return mechanism will involve a mix of incentives and threats to ensure compliance. to make certain that an efficient return can be enacted if necessary, returning states should engage in activities directed at ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 207 ensuring cooperation with countries of origin (such as bilateral return agreements or documentation arrangements), and, if necessary, activities securing the cooperation of third states (noll, 1999b, p. 269). operating outside of the governmental removal process are assisted voluntary return (avr) programmes as operated by iom, defined as ‘the administrative, logistical, financial and reintegration support to rejected asylum seekers, victims of trafficking in human beings, stranded migrants, qualified nationals and other migrants unable or unwilling to remain in the host country who volunteer to return to their countries of origin’ (iom 2011, p. 15). avr programmes can thus assist those willing to return (only individuals who voluntarily opt for the programme can be considered) but unable to do so without financial and logistical support. for highly vulnerable migrants, avr programmes provide assistance at all points of the return process. the south african urban refugee framework and immigration control the development of the post-1994 migration regime began in 1996 with a comprehensive consultative process resulting in a draft green paper on international migration drafted by civil society members, government representatives and international refugee legal scholars (draft green paper, 1997). the draft green paper proposed a rights-based migration framework (containing a refugee-specific chapter), a collectivised approach to burdensharing in the region, as well as an inclusive approach to regional migration that would address irregular immigration through increased means for legal participation in the economy. in terms of failed asylum seekers, the importance of effective policy was recognised and it was noted that a ‘firm commitment to expeditiously deport rejected asylum seekers who have exhausted their appeal rights is moreover essential to the credibility of the refugee protection system’ (draft green paper, 1997, para 4.4.2). the resulting draft legislation that culminated in the refugees act largely avoided many of the draft green paper’s recommendations. barutciski (1998, p.703, 722) noted that the draft bill originated ‘essentially from internal drafting attempts that emphasize a bureaucratic approach to refugee protection [that] does not fully comply with international law’ and ‘proposes to establish a self-sufficient bureaucratic model of refugee protection which pays no heed to international cooperation.’ throughout the policy ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 208 development process, refugee protection was often seen as 'within the ambit of migration control' and early versions of the immigration act stated that in the event of conflict between the refugees act, the immigration act should take precedence (handmaker, 2001, p. 105). the policy development process was characterised by belvedere (2007, p. 59) as civil society representatives ‘lobbying for the inclusion of refugee rights against recalcitrant representatives from the department of home affairs who held that foreigners did not enjoy any rights in south africa’ contrary to the bill of rights. despite these difficulties, the resulting refugees act establishes a refugee protection system based upon freedom of movement and local integration and is recognised as one of the strongest regimes in southern africa. a strong articulation of the principle of non-refoulement that embodies the intent and spirit of the non-refoulement principle by recognising the possibility of indirect refoulement and extends protection to those whose ‘life will be at risk’ in line with the expanded oau convention refugee definition. 2 additionally, the refugees act provides for dependents of recognised refugees to be able to access the status afforded to the principal applicant through section 3(c). this provision recognises the importance of family unity and allows for immediate family members who might not have refugee claims to access protection. dependants are defined as ‘the spouse, any unmarried dependent child or any destitute, aged or infirm member of the family of such asylum seeker or refugee.’ at all points in the asylum application process, the constitutional guarantee of administrative justice must be observed, requiring dha officials to ensure that applicants are aware of their rights and obligations and understand the process (section 24). the removal of failed asylum seekers was not elaborated on in full in the refugees act and the power to detain asylum seekers is narrow; section 21(4), giving effect to article 31(1) of the 1951 convention, protects asylum 2 the oau definition is found in section 3(b) of the refugees act which states that an individual qualifies for refugee status if that person ‘owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing or disrupting public order in either a part or the whole of his or her country of origin or nationality, is compelled to leave his or her place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge elsewhere.’ ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 209 seekers from treatment as illegal foreigners and from criminal proceedings flowing from unlawful entry. asylum seekers are only liable for detention and deportation after the withdrawal of the asylum permit, which may be done if the holder contravenes the conditions on the permit or receives a final rejection of their claim (section 22(6)). individuals whose claims are finally rejected, are then subject to the immigration act’s provisions. an asylum seeker can only be detained if the asylum seeker permit has been withdrawn in terms of section 22(6), and they may be ‘arrested and detained pending the finalisation of the application for asylum, in the manner and place determined by him or her with due regard to human dignity’ (section 23). this provision is not common practice for failed asylum seekers as dha officials, instead, opt to use the immigration act’s framework (cote, 2014, p. 256). the overhaul of the country's immigration regime proceeded at a much slower pace than the refugee protection legislation. the immigration act entered into force in 2005 and immigration matters were previously governed by the alien controls act (no. 96) of 1991, one of the final acts of apartheid-era governance. during this period, immigration policy ‘remained impervious to the new political dispensation and its stated commitment to inclusivity, diversity, and human rights’ (peberdy, 2001, p. 16) with a continuing emphasis on immigration control (algotsson and klaaren, 2003). in terms of the new dispensation, the ruling african national congress (anc) party viewed immigration’s role in transformation as ‘antithetical or at best irrelevant,’ making it a low priority (crush and mcdonald, 2001, p. 8). the immigration act promotes ‘a highly restrictionist immigration policy’ (khan, 2007, p. 4), in which detention is used as the primary means of immigration enforcement (lawyers for human rights [lhr], 2008, p. 2) in terms of provisions, section 1 of the immigration act defines an illegal foreigner broadly as a ‘foreigner who is in the republic in contravention of this act’. section 32(2) requires that any person declared an illegal foreigner must be deported; however section 34(1) confers discretion on the part of the officer as to whether the individual must be detained. section 34(1) also includes a range of safeguards including the need for the authorities to provide reasons in writing for the negative decision, the right to appeal the decision to deport them, the right to have a court confirm the detention, and temporal limitations on detention. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 210 the courts have developed a strong body of jurisprudence regarding detention and deportation processes, discretion and liberty. in silva v minister of safety and security, the court underscored the importance of liberty, stating that: ‘a detained person has an absolute right not to be deprived of his freedom for one second longer than necessary by an official who cannot justify his detention’ (1997, p. 661). in ulde v minister of home affairs the sca confirmed that foreigners cannot be detained ‘arbitrarily or without just cause’, and that section 34 does not require officials to detain every illegal foreigner they encounter, but instead obligates officials to exercise their discretion, which must be construed ‘in favorem libertatis’, or in favour of liberty (2009, para 7). in jeebhai v minister of home affairs the sca held that ‘every deprivation of liberty is presumptively unlawful,’ which obligates government officials to sufficiently justify their actions, as the consequences of a decision to deport someone […] concerns that person’s livelihood, security, freedom and, sometimes, his or her very survival. this is why immigration laws, are often harsh and severe in their operation, contain safeguards to ensure that people who are alleged to fall within their reach are dealt with properly and in a manner that protects their human rights (2009, para 21). thus, the refugee protection framework is one that affords a range of rights, but is complemented by a restrictive immigration regime focused on exclusion. in practice, the tension between the formal protections of the refugees act and the exclusionary immigration regime has resulted in refugee protection being subsumed by immigration concerns. the refugee protection framework in practice since the refugees act entered into force in 2000, south africa has struggled to efficiently implement the refugees act’s provisions. for asylum seekers, a number of obstacles block them from realising their rights in the asylum process, including access to information on the asylum process, provision of interpreters and quality rsd processes. additionally, the detention and deportation process has a history of unlawful practices and is synonymous with human rights violations. a lack of information available to asylum seekers about their rights and the asylum process, has been a historic feature of the south african asylum system. five years after the refugees act had entered into force, human rights watch (2005) found that the ‘[l]ack of clear, easily available rules ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 211 regarding the asylum process […] and the lack of official interpreters complicate the process’ (p. 10). in 2009, the a national survey of rros conducted by amit found that 17% of respondents had errors on their asylum permits (p. 32), less than one-third of respondents received official assistance in filling out application forms, and 68% did not have the application process explained to them (p. 35). a further study in 2012 found that roughly half of respondents did not know anything about the interview process and one-fifth did not receive assistance from an interpreter (amit, 2012b, p. 12). the first-instance rsd interview process has been characterised by delays and poor decisions. amit's 2009 survey found irregularities in the interview process, brief interviews with a large portion lasting 10 minutes or less, and applicants waiting, on average, for over one and a half years for their interview (p. 40-42). in subsequent research conducted in 2013-2014, it was found that on average, survey respondents were in the system for 2.8 years with one applicant being in the system for over 18 years (amit, 2015, p. 31). the decisions resulting from these interviews have been consistently poor with numerous errors of law, including the failure to provide adequate reasons for rejection, errors of law such as the misapplication of the concept of persecution and well-founded fear, improper use of the internal relocation standard, as well as improper and inaccurate assessment of the conditions in the country of origin (amit, 2010; amit, 2012a). in conclusion, amit (2012a, p. 10) notes that ‘migration control has displaced protection as the primary goal of the asylum system.’ the state has explained the low acceptance rates and delays as evidence of economic migrants abusing the asylum system, justifying restrictions in the asylum system as due, in part, to the abuse (african national congress, 2012). the poor decision making in the rsd process has required numerous individuals to undertake judicial review of the rsd process under paja. a recent case which resulted in refugee status being conferred by the high court, prompted the judge to describe dha’s handling of the case as ‘deplorable’ and comment generally that ‘[o]ne shudders to think of the many thousands of refugees in similar situations … subjected to the same treatment [as the applicant] by those to whom the law has entrusted their fate’ (rickard, 2015). consequently, the judicial review process has proven a critical safeguard for many refugees, resulting in a growing body of refugee law ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 212 jurisprudence3and providing further evidence of systemic problems in the rsd process. asylum seekers have also struggled to access the 3(c) family joining process for dependants. difficulties arise in the declaration of dependants during the application process which can be hampered by the lack of interpreters and the lack of assistance provided by officials at rros in explaining the process or understanding applicants' rights. in addition to these practical obstacles, khan (2013, p. 85) notes that because of the lack of a specific family joining system or procedure, dha ‘often refuse a family member’s application on the basis of a more restrictive reading of the refugees act,’ often regarding regulation 16 which stipulates that 3(c) applies only to ‘dependants who accompanied the asylum applicant to the republic.’ in addition to the challenges in the asylum system, the state has also struggled to administer its detention and deportation system and, as such, unlawful practices have been commonplace at the facility since the late 1990s (de wet, 2014). while a large proportion of deportees are not failed asylum seekers and are instead irregular migrants, failed asylum seekers are returned through the same process and facility, and face the same conditions. the south african human rights commission first investigated the lindela repatraition facility in 1999 and found significant obstacles in accessing detainees and poor conditions (algotsson, 2000). in 2005, the un working group on arbitrary detentions (2005, p. 14, 21) found similar circumstances with arbitrary detention, unlawful detention of asylum seekers and refugees, inadequate legal procedures to challenge detention, and conditions that do not meet international standards. in 2009, research conducted with detainees found that many detainees were prevented from exercising their rights and accessing legal counsel (amit, 2010a). over an 18 month period in 2009-2010, lawyers for human rights brought over 60 cases to the high court concerning unlawfully detained asylum seekers and describe a ‘general pattern of contempt’ exhibited by dha and officials at lindela in the legal process (lhr, 2010, pp. 9-12). more recently, the sahrc (2014) released a report detailing severe human rights abuses such as procedural irregularities, inhumane conditions and the use of violence against detainees. 3 for an overview of the judicial review process and associated case law, see de la hunt, 2014. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 213 the review above highlights some of the more critical gaps in south africa’s refugee protection framework and establishes that the conditions for efficient failed asylum seeker policies are not present. these issues have led some scholars to argue that asylum seekers and refugees are 'internally excluded' from human rights protections due to dha practices and the construction of asylum seekers as 'bogus' illegal immigrants who manipulate the system (belvedere, 2007). others have advanced the notion that the state, in an attempt to regulate foreign nationals within the country, has declared a 'state of exception' in which elements of the normal legal order are suspended to address crises (the presence of foreign nationals) that threatens the state. the state of exception allows state authorities to act outside of their legal mandate but still retain the power and authority of the law to address threat of foreign nationals by establishing a parallel system to regulate threats not bound by normal regulation (landau, 2005a; musuva, 2014). this declaration of a state of exception results in categories of individuals who are unable to realise their rights under the law. this response is rooted in notions of the foreign migrant as a negative and criminal presence, similar to the rationale for restrictive immigration legislation. the post-1994 state has increasingly relied on descriptions of foreign migrants (particularly african migrants) as endangering the country's physical and moral health, its ability to provide services and employment to citizens, and its ability to control crime (peberdy, 2001, p. 24). at other times, government officials have overtly labelled migrants as criminal, as evidenced by a former director general of dha who labelled '90 per cent of foreign persons' in south africa as possessing fraudulent documents (quoted in algotsson and klaaren, 2003, p. 1) or, more recently, through a coded description of asylum seekers as ‘illegal immigrants’ who are ‘illegitimately’ undertaking employment (sapa, 2014). the effects of such a discourse lead the citizenry to equate ‘foreignness’ with a crime, as this association is not discouraged in government rhetoric or national media (misago et al, 2009). while these exceptional responses towards migrants are not formal nor monolithic declarations and are subject to various forms of resistance from the state and civil society, landau (2005a, p. 338) notes the state of exception is instead implemented through ‘official endorsement or tacit acceptance of systems in which government officials (albeit at different levels of the official hierarchy) legitimise or help create parallel – extra-legal – systems for ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 214 policing foreigners.’ while this response is prevalent across government departments in their treatment of foreign migrants, it is particularly acute within dha and at rros. segatti et al. (2012, pp. 138-139) note that dha officials at the johannesburg crown mines rro criminalise asylum seekers by fostering a legal culture that questions the legitimacy of foreigners’ presence in south africa. vigneswaran (2008, p. 6) notes that access issues at rros often arise out of the individual efforts of dha officials who act outside their legislative mandate to prevent asylum seekers gaining access to the reception system [and] are embedded in an institution which sanctions its officials engaging in extra-legal practices that prevent foreigners from entering and residing legally in south africa. while these extra-legal practices are not absolute or all-encompassing, the frequency and scope of rights violations committed by the state against asylum seekers and refugees suggests that more than bureaucratic maladministration or incompetence is behind these practices. south africa’s failed asylum seeker policies in administering the refugees act, dha has predominantly relied on a voluntary return process with minimal government oversight for failed asylum seekers. in recent years, dha has attempted to implement a more stringent detention and deportation process by which, upon the asylum seeker receiving a final rejection at the rro, they are detained for the purposes of deportation. the two processes are at opposite ends of the use of force spectrum and the changes in policy, tracks with the dha’s inclusion in the justice and security government cluster in 2010 along with a host of restrictive practices implemented from 2011 onwards. this policy shift amounts to a ‘significant reduction of asylum seeker and refugee protection, culminating in increased danger of refoulement’ (polzer ngwato, 2013, p. 3). the voluntary return process involves the failed asylum seeker being given 30 days to finalise any outstanding affairs and make their own arrangements to leave south africa. this can be arranged through a final asylum seeker permit or through alternative immigration measures such as form 21 to depart or form 23 requiring the individual to report at a certain date to provide proof of their intention to depart (cote, 2014, p. 261). the failed asylum seeker will receive notification of the final rejection upon reporting to an rro and will subsequently receive the documentation informing them that they must depart the country. while these notices give dha the ability to ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 215 follow-up with individuals if they do not report or to confirm the departure of individuals, the author is not aware of immigration officials systematically investigating individuals who do not report as required as standard practice in recent years. due to the poor collection of information at the rro during the application process, these details are often incomplete or recorded incorrectly. the voluntary return process affords failed asylum seekers ample opportunity to return to their country of origin without being detained or deported, and does not result in the serious expenditure of state resources. more critically, in terms of non-refoulement, the 30 day notices also provide recourse for individuals who believe their asylum claim has not been handled as required by law, to undertake a review. the review may be completed either under section 8 of the immigration act, which provides for an internal review within dha, or more commonly through section 33 of the constitution, which allows for a judicial review at the high court in terms of paja. it also provides family members with separate asylum claims the opportunity to enact section 3(c)'s family joining proceedings in respect of the principle of family unity. the initial rationale for adopting this policy, whether for the above protection-related reasons or out of capacity constraints, is unknown. in terms of effectiveness, it remains unclear how many rejected applicants fail to depart the country within the allotted time period. internationally, data on the efficacy of voluntary return schemes is limited, although officials in europe have made unverified statements that up to 70% of non-detained rejected asylum seekers abscond (field and edwards, 2006, p. 41). in regards to south africa’s voluntary return practice, dha officials have stated at various times that the policy is ineffectual. in the tshianda matter, dha noted that the 30-day period afforded to failed asylum seekers, was abused in that the vast majority of failed asylum seekers who were issued with the said notice, failed to leave the country and instead, disappeared into the mainstream of south african society, thereby defeating the objects of the immigration act, which requires that all illegal foreigners depart or be deported … in most cases, these people relocate from the places where they originally stayed in order to evade deportation and accordingly make it immensely difficult for officials within the immigration inspectorate to find them (tshianda matter, respondents' answering affidavit, pp. 16-18). ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 216 additionally, an immigration officer at the cape town rro stated more specifically that 2,000 individuals had absconded in this way (tshianda matter, applicants' founding affidavit, p. 121). however, the figure was not compared to how many in total were rejected or how many voluntarily departed, nor do dha’s deportation statistics differentiate between failed asylum seekers and irregular migrants. in an attempt to address the perceived ineffectiveness of the voluntary return practice, dha implemented the tshianda sop for the return of failed asylum seekers in 2011. in addition to the challenges in the voluntary return process mentioned above, dha noted, in the tshianda matter, that the combination of porous borders, large numbers of asylum seekers, and the lack of an encampment policy has led to difficulties in administering its rsd system, thereby allowing for asylum seekers to reside in society at large for ‘many years’ while awaiting the determination of their claim. further, ‘in many cases asylum seekers are not economic migrants but rather persons belonging to crime syndicates,’ placing extra burdens on the state’s resources committed to combatting crime (tshianda matter, respondents' answering affidavit, 2012, p. 16-17). as a response to these issues, the tshianda sop was developed to deal with the process for the deportation of failed asylum seekers and establish guidelines as to how failed asylum seekers could be dealt with. the sop consists of guidelines, including handover procedures upon receipt of a final rejection where the failed asylum seeker transitions from the refugees act to the immigration act. in addition, the sop provides guidelines for the determination of forced return through detention and deportation via lindela, based on the possibility of absconding and flight risk, or through voluntary measures similar to the 30 day notice discussed above (tshianda matter, sop, pp. 1-6). the tshianda sop requires the immigration official to interview the failed asylum seeker to determine the appropriate course of action and to detain the individual while verifying the details of the failed asylum seeker, namely addresses, workplace details, bank details and other relevant information. the investigating official can then, ‘with discretion, decide on the appropriate action to be taken’ and, if the decision to ‘detain and/or deport’ is made, ‘the failed asylum seeker may then be detained in order for the immigration officer to do verification of details and see what affairs the suspect needs to close up’ (p. 2). if the investigating official determines the asylum seeker has ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 217 family or property ‘and other ties to rsa such as children in school’, the official will ‘draw up lists of assets and provide a motivation on whether a person is a flight risk if released to close up their affairs’ and, if so, continue to detain for deportation.if not, release can be recommended for the purposes of closing affairs and an order to leave must also be issued (p. 3). while the law requires an immigration officer to exercise their discretion, the tshianda sop requires the individual to be detained before investigating the situation. attorneys acting on behalf of the applicants argued that the tshianda sop is unlawful as the failed asylum seeker would be detained in terms of section 34 of the immigration act, for the purposes of deportation, before being investigated as to determine what steps the person would need to undertake to finalise their affairs; if the person is detained it would be practically impossible for a person to finalise their affairs if necessary (p. 18). the sop appears to contradict the principle of in favorem libertatis and instead favours the immediate detention and deportation of failed asylum seekers. included in the evidence presented to the court were transcripts from hearings at the cape town magistrates court taken during confirmation of warrant hearings as provided under section 34 of the immigration act. the transcripts cover three cases in which individuals were detained for deportation as provided for in the sop by three different immigration officials in the employ of dha. the transcripts reveal that in all three cases the immigration officials understood their duty in regards to failed asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants generally, to verify the individual’s legal status and then summarily detain and deport the failed asylum seeker. one official, when questioned about his interpretation of the sop, stated that it means that failed asylum seekers ‘must be arrested with immediate effect … and deported’ (tshianda matter, applicants' founding affidavit, p. 127). another official described his duties towards failed asylum seekers to ‘arrest it [the failed asylum seeker] for investigation purposes first and then after we discover that the person doesn’t have a status and then we declare him for deportation' [sic] (tshianda matter, applicants' founding affidavit, p. 128). the above policies represent opposing ends of the spectrum in terms of failed asylum seeker policy, with either minimal oversight or conversely immediate detention and deportation upon receipt of a final rejection. the seemingly schizophrenic approach reinforces segatti's (2011, p. 54) description of post-1994 immigration policy and enforcement as a 'mix of ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 218 laissez faire and mismanagement, related to both chronically weak administrative capacity and coercive and abusive practice.' the adoption of both return practices described above, despite their difference in the use of force, relates to capacity within the immigration inspectorate as each practice can be implemented by dha with minimal effort in terms of capacity. in practice, both return practices rely on the asylum seeker to report to the rro which removes the need for an investigation which might involve address checks from across the metro region, province or country. while both options provide for further investigation and follow-up, there is little evidence to suggest officials undertake such investigations routinely. any practice such as enhanced reporting mechanisms and regular address checks require more action on the part of officials, complicated by the poor record keeping at rros due to capacity constraints. while the implementation of the tshianda sop might not require a considerable increase in the use of resources from immigration officers at rros, it would likely result in increased costs through the detention and deportation regime and put more individuals at risk of refoulement. these increased costs might deter dha to increase its reliance on detention and deportation, but there is little evidence that the immigration enforcement regime’s direct cost factors heavily in policy implementation. a 2012 study found that dha incurred unnecessary legal costs of around 4.7 million rands in regards to unlawful detentions at lindela (amit and zelada-aprili, 2012) and as of 2013, unlawful practices within immigration enforcement amount to r503.3 million or 37.5% of dha’s pending legal claims (mthembu-salter et al, 2014, p. 11). these figures and the lack of concern associated with them suggest these costs are acceptable for pursuing immigration enforcement goals. summary and implications the analysis above has provided an overview of south africa's refugee protection and immigration enforcement regime and the state's attempts to address failed asylum seekers. put simply, the conditions for effective failed asylum seeker policies – efficient and fair refugee status determinations – are not present. the state has either employed a laissez-faire approach that relies on the removal of the asylum permit and legal status as a coercive measure, or a more stringent detention and deportation upon receipt of a final rejection policy that increases the likelihood of refoulement and endangers the principle of family unity. the state's evolving policy for failed ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 219 asylum seekers can be explained by the state’s increasing focus on security issues in migration policy and associated restrictions in the asylum system (amit, 2013; polzer ngwato, 2013), as well as the state's attempt to implement policy with limited resources (sapa, 2014). for a more effective failed asylum seeker policy, a number of issues might be considered: a more regional approach to immigration issues, more effective administration at rros, increased involvement of civil society and international organisations, and increases in state capacity to allow for dha to carry out its duties and fulfil its obligations considering south africa's role on the continent as a destination for migrants, both economic and forced. for the implementation of an effective failed asylum seeker policy, consideration first needs to be given to how to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the rsd system. towards that end, alternative immigration options with relaxed conditions for low-skilled migrants may reduce the burden on the asylum system, resulting in a more manageable caseload. the isolationist approach to migration taken during the policy development process in the late 1990s has not been conducive to effective immigration policy in recent years, dha has discussed the development of 'work seeker' visas for sadc nationals (dha, 2013) and increased cooperation in regards to refugee protection (dha, 2015). these adjustments might result in a reduction in the number of unnecessary asylum applications lodged and may also assist in increased coordination of migration matters. however, as evidenced elsewhere, are not without their own potential pitfalls (arbel and brenner, 2013; mouzourakis, 2014) and follows a history of difficulties in regards to increased integration of the movements of people in southern africa (oucho and crush, 2001). the state should also consider how to increase the efficiency at rros to ensure that asylum seekers better understand their rights and responsibilities and that dha can obtain updated and accurate information. the studies cited above have all found high numbers of asylum seekers not being informed of the process or of their rights; the establishment of information desks and counselling services at rros may address that chronic deficiency. some of these services may also be established with assistance from ngos, lessening the cost of implementation for the state. such measures, while modest and not directly involved in the return process, might result in more awareness amongst asylum seekers of the possibility of return and begin to prepare them for that reality in line with unhcr's recommendations. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 220 other options might involve providing support – both financial and institutional – for iom’s avr programme which assisted with 250 returns from south africa in 2014. support might allow for the programme to expand and may reduce the unnecessary expenditure in deportation costs and litigation. a further, more long-term benefit of these adjustments might be increased consideration of the vulnerability of asylum seekers amongst officials, resulting in a better understanding and adherence to humanitarian obligations. a lack of capacity and resources (both human and financial) are significant factors in the failed asylum seeker practices described above and has perhaps been the most structural obstacle to effective failed asylum seeker policywith capacity issues affecting all stages of the asylum process. this issue has been acknowledged as a significant impediment by dha and it is now being addressed as a departmental priority (dha, 2014). the danger inherent in this reprioritisation is that it becomes focused on exclusionary practices such as deportation without consideration of the protection needs and non-refoulement concerns. however, even with efforts to address the above issues, extra-legal practices and underlying anti-asylum seeker sentiment amongst many officials may mitigate the positive effects of any policy changes. as vigneswaran (2011, pp. 116-117) notes, '[d]ecades of neglect have produced a range of deeply embedded control-oriented practices that lower-level officials adhere to regardless of the signals from above or the goals of their departments.' this factor makes formal policy changes unlikely to succeed unless accompanied by engagement with officials and new incentive structures. as such, the above considerations should be accompanied by the political will to ensure that the refugee protection framework is effectively implemented and its associated human rights protections are given equal footing with immigration control measures. in conclusion, consideration of the above issues may lead to the establishment of a more fair and efficient asylum system. with 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(eds) contemporary migration to south africa: a regional development issue. washington dc: agence française de de veloppement and the world bank, pp. 105-120. weber, f. 2011. how voluntary are voluntary returns? race & class, 52(4): 98107. ahmr volume 6 number 1 jan-apr 2020.indd african human mobility review ahmr volume 6 number 1 january april 2020 sihma scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa ahmr editorial board _______________________________________________________ editor-in-chief prof mulugeta f. dinbabo, university of the western cape, south africa managing editor sergio carciotto, university of the western cape, south africa board members prof vivienne lawack, university of the western cape, south africa prof jonathan crush, balsillie school of international affairs, canada prof loren landau, university of witwatersrand, south africa prof simon bekker, university of stellenbosch, south africa prof thomas faist, bielefeld university, germany prof raul delagdo wise, universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico prof laurence piper, university of the western cape, south africa prof shimelis gulema, stony brook university, new york, usa prof wilson majee, university of missouri, usa dr delali margaret badasu, university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman, university of education, winneba, ghana dr razack karriem, university of the western cape, south africa dr eria serwajja, makerere university, uganda dr ernest angu pineteh, university of pretoria, south africa dr joseph yaro, university of ghana, ghana dr linda oucho, african migration and development policy centre, kenya dr lothar smith, radboud university, netherlands 1 ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects of human mobility in africa, including socio-economic, political, legal, developmental, educational and cultural aspects. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence-based research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of current migration trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is jointly owned by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) and the university of the western cape (uwc). the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, sao paulo and manila. ahmr is accredited by the department of higher education and training (dhet) in south africa. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). copyright © 2020 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa and the university of the western cape sihma physical address 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 461 4741 email: ahmr@sihma.org.za webpage: www.sihma.org.za 2 ahmr ___________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, january-april 2020 contents 6 interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa: review of contemporary studies mary muyonga, george odipo and alfred o. agwanda 27 turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city: a case-study of blame-shifting in cape town greg ruiters, felicia lombard and denys uwimpuhwe 50 intersection of migration and local governance: lessons on methods and research design caitlin blaser mapitsa 66 social media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa godwin etta odok 89 building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa thea shahrokh and giulia treves 116 in pursuit of being and belonging: migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare mushonga rufaro hamish and dzingirai vupenyu 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za african human mobility review (ahmr) is one of the few peer-reviewed scholarly journals in the field of migration in sub-saharan africa. the objective of ahmr is to publish up-to-date, high-quality and original research papers alongside relevant and insightful reviews. as such, the journal aspires to be vibrant, engaging and accessible, and at the same time integrative and challenging. at the moment, ahmr publishes three issues per year in april, august, and december. the journal also publishes occasional special issues. in the past few years, a number of articles were received by the editorial office, of which, after the critical peer review process, selected articles were published. our online publication has increased accessibility of information for practitioners, researchers, students, academicians and policy makers. ahmr, vol. 6, no1, 2020, presents a diverse selection of stimulating articles from various scholars in the field. the first article looks at the interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa through the review of contemporary studies in several parts of the continent. the second article analyzes policies and programs concerning african immigrants and refugees following the 2008 xenophobic crisis up to 2016. the third article reflects not only on the results of the study itself, but on the methodological process issues that can lay a foundation for a better understanding of how to study the intersections of migration and local governance. the fourth article examines how social media strengthen in-group solidarities with the attendant consequences of loss of lives, properties, and inter-state diplomatic relations in post-colonial africa. the fifth article identifies the barriers to belonging for young migrants in south africa. the last article analyzes how a migrant association facilitates being, belonging and integration of migrants in the host society. this issue offers a shared vision and understanding of a major predicament of policies and programs in the african continent. in this regard, authors provide an increasingly critical and compelling evidence-based reflection on emerging trends and economic, social, political and cultural issues in africa. this issue also provides valuable information to researchers, policy makers, practitioners and students, shedding light on the complexities of human mobility in africa. it is a precious collection of insightful articles on various aspects and issues of human mobility, dynamics and perspectives in the african continent. the opinions expressed in this editorial report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ahmr. as always, we would like to thank the outgoing board of directors of ahmr, dr meselu alamnie mulugeta, (bahir dar university, ethiopia), dr beneberu assefa 4 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 wondimagegnhu (bahir dar university, ethiopia), and dr sharon penderis (university of the western cape). their guidance and support make our journal possible, and we are deeply indebted to them for the time and effort that they put into our journal. it is also with sincere pleasure that i welcome the new board of directors of ahmr, prof vivienne lawack, deputy vice-chancellor: academic at the university of the western cape, south africa, prof jonathan crush, balsillie school of international affairs, canada, prof wilson majee, university of missouri, usa, and dr eria serwajja, makerere university, uganda. in 2020, we are proud to be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the university of the western cape. for the past six decades, the university of the western cape opened up education for all. during this landmark anniversary, we are also celebrating the partnership and joint ownership of the african human mobility review (ahmr) with the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma). i believe that this issue provides invaluable information to researchers, practitioners and students. it also dishes up thoughtful ideas to policy makers to make well-informed decisions about migration policies, programs and projects, by presenting the best available evidence from research in africa. 5 sihma is part of the scalabrini international migration network (simn), and joins an existing network of scalabrini study centres around the globe: cser (centro studi emigrazione roma), established in 1964 in rome (italy) journal: studi emigrazione www.cser.it ciemi (centre d’information et études sur les migrations internationales), established in 1971 in paris (france) journal: migrations société www.ciemi.org cms (center for migration studies of new york,) established in 1969 in new york (usa) journal: international migration review (imr) and journal on migration and human security (jmhs) www.cmsny.org smc (scalabrini migration center,) established in 1987 in manila (philippines) journal: asian and pacific migration journal (apmj) www.smc.org.ph cem (centro de estudios migratorios), established in 1985 in são paulo (brazil) journal: travessia www.missaonspaz.org cemla (buenos centro de estudios migratorios latinoamericanos), established in 1985 in buenos aires (argentina) journal: estudios migratorios latinoamericanos (eml) www.cemla.com among our partners: csem (centro scalabriniano de estudos migratórios) in brasilia (brazil); journal: revista interdisciplinar da mobilidade humana (remhu); www.csem.org.br cemla, buenos aires ciemi, paris smc, manila cser, rome cem, sao paolo cms, new york sihma, cape town scalabrini network _______________________________________________________ 6 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa: review of contemporary studies mary muyonga*, george odipo** and alfred o. agwanda*** * population studies and research institute, university of nairobi, kenya corresponding author. email: mmuyonga@students.uonbi.ac.ke ** population studies and research institute, university of nairobi, kenya *** population studies and research institute, university of nairobi, kenya in recent times, migration and inequality have become topical issues of global attention. in the sustainable development goals (sdgs), goal 10 focuses on tackling inequality with indicator 10.7, which pertains to the facilitation of safe, orderly, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people. few studies show that migration and inequality are interlinked; yet, others show that migration is an outcome of inequality. to the contrary, others argue that migration triggers inequality in the sending areas, due to increased flows of remittances sent by migrants to their areas of origin. the differential conclusions are attributed to varied methodological approaches used and the dimension of inequality investigated. this paper seeks to contribute to this knowledge gap by highlighting the scholarly work on migration and inequality in africa, challenges encountered, as well as presenting the key findings. the study comprised a desk review of published studies on migration and inequality in africa. the review found that most studies in africa relied on census and survey data and mostly focused on the nexus between economic inequality and migration, thus ignoring other social inequalities. few studies used population registers. none of the studies considered the drivers of internal and international migration and how these impact on inequality. the study recommends an investigation of the nexus between non-income inequalities and migration as well as the unpacking of the contextual factors behind inequality and migration using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. additionally, the study strongly encourages the use of specialist migration surveys to improve the body of knowledge on this subject. keywords: migration, inequality, migration survey, kenya, africa 7 introduction migration and inequality are twin issues that have occupied global governance and humanitarian discourse in the recent years with the western countries focusing on the governance of migration, and large programs put in place to improve coordination and policy response (see for example the global knowledge partnership on migration and development1 (knomad). the sustainable development goals (sdgs) reflect the shifting global concerns on unsustainable development and rising inequality, with goal 10 dealing with the reduction of inequality within and between countries. tracking progress on sdg goal 10 requires an assessment of the interface between migration and inequalities in the world. conceptually, there is no standard definition of inequality although different scholars agree that it has to do with differences in access to opportunities and outcomes in each population. mckay (2002:1) describes inequality as ‘concerning variations in living standards across a whole population’. inequality is a multidimensional concept but there is vast literature on economic inequality compared to any other dimensions of inequality. economists define economic inequality as ‘the fundamental disparity that permits one individual certain material choices, while denying another individual those very same choices’ (ray, 1998:170). spatial inequality, defined as inequality in economic and social indicators of wellbeing across geographical units within a country, is also more common in the literature (kanbur and venables, 2005). globally, studies on migration and inequality rely on longitudinal data that compare prevailing circumstances before and after migration, looking critically at how household livelihood patterns change after migration. the studies vary methodologically, with some conceptualizing remittances as an exogenous source of income, and thus, measure how inequality in sending areas arises between households which have migrants and those that do not have migrants. others simulate a counterfactual argument, where a society is compared with the contribution of income from remittances and compared with a different scenario where remittances do not exist. fewer studies feature the effect of other dimensions of inequality on migration including spatial and horizontal inequalities. studies on the impact of migration on inequality have yielded stronger results from international migration than internal migration. most of the global scholarly discourse feature the us-mexico migration, china, and global north to south pathways, but fewer studies have been done in africa which boasts large intra-continental migratory flows. this paper reviews the existing literature of studies on the linkages between migration and inequality in africa, interrogating the design, methodologies employed, as well as key findings on the linkages between migration and inequality in africa. the paper is organized as follows: the next two sections provide the rationale and methodology. section 4 highlights the theoretical perspectives of migration and inequality. section 5 features the sources of data and methodological issues in study1 see www.knomad.org interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 8 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 ing migration and inequality. section 6 focuses on the empirical studies in africa and their key findings on the relationship between migration and inequality. section 7 provides a synthesis of the emerging issues from the earlier sections, while the last section provides conclusions and recommendations on studying migration and inequality in africa. rationale the choice of reviewing african-based studies separately from the western and other regions is aimed at highlighting the uniqueness of the inequality structure, discourse, policy response and methodological issues that may face researchers based in africa due to its geopolitical state. as the world moves towards monitoring trends on the sdg goals, there is a need to show evidence of the impact of migration on inequality in the global south, using case studies from the continent to inform the policy discourse and programmatic interventions as necessary. methodology the review uses secondary data sources based on published articles investigating migration and inequality in africa. the review was not a systematic review but an online search for scholarly articles on migration and inequality in africa. the methodology adopted included the use of the keywords, ‘inequality’, ‘migration’, and ‘africa’ as well as the use of the phrase ‘migration and inequality in africa’. no time frames were indicated, to enable a higher number of articles to be traced. google scholar was used as it is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. the interface of google makes it easier to do academic research than is possible through the standard google interface. once the articles were identified by google scholar, they were categorized by country and year of publication. all identified articles were considered in the review while those articles that did not consider migration and inequality were left out of the review. several limitations arise from using online searches including the fact that not all articles are published through such platforms, prompting some researchers to conclude that there is inequality of global academic knowledge production (wight, 2008; mouton, 2010; collyer, 2018; medie and kang, 2018). google scholar uses automatic indexing systems resulting in the accidental indexing of non-scholarly sources. the search engine also limits each search to a maximum of 1,000 results, which are too voluminous to explore, and hence require additional effective ways of locating the relevant articles. theoretical perspectives on migration and inequality nexus migration and inequality are both multidimensional concepts that have been studied over the years and theoretical formulations have been made to better understand 9 these phenomena. migration is founded on various theoretical dispensations that describe the patterns, motivations, choices and outcomes of human mobility. inequality on the other hand is a concept that has been associated with human welfare as economic development occurs, therefore focusing on how resources are shared and distributed within and between societies. few studies have theorized the direct link between migration and inequality. demographic theories have an impact on the understanding of the migration and inequality nexus, and these include the seminal work by the american demographer, frank notestein who postulated the demographic transition theory (notestein, 1945). however, his work does not address outmigration in this formulation. the theory, based on data from the western world, describes the relationship between economic development and demographic changes, with a focus on the changing dynamics of mortality and fertility as society grows. a criticism of the theory is that it is based on experiences of the western world, which are different from those in developing countries, including africa (mabogunje, 1970). additionally, it ignores the impact of migration transitions as societies develop over time. the theory does not facilitate the understanding of migration and inequality but provides a basis for understanding how population dynamics change over time. zelinsky (1971) offers an alternative theory, the migration transition model that links migration to notestein’s demographic transition theory. while still using data from western countries, zelinsky shows that migration typologies depend on a country’s stage of development, concluding that the more developed a country, the more complex the migration systems. zelinsky has been criticized for ignoring the effects of spatio-temporal changes that occur in societies and which may impact migratory behavior, especially the improvements in transport and communications infrastructure (skeldon, 1990; de haas, 2007). while the demographic transition theory does not help in explaining the migration and inequality nexus, the modified zelinksy (1971) migration transition model is useful as it shows how complex migration typologies are formed as a society develops. the theory expounds on the migration hump showing high migration at the low levels of development, and after a critical threshold, migration begins to decline (stark and taylor, 1991; faini and venturini, 1993; vogler and rotte, 2000). the inverse relationship between migration and development has been observed in studies looking at migration and income inequality, noting that during the early stages of migration, inequality is low, but as migration rises, inequality also rises leading to a threshold where no further rise in inequality occurs with increased migration (kuznets, 1955). several theories elaborate on the drivers of migration and mechanisms through which migration is sustained. migrant selectivity is expounded on in the human capital theory (lee, 1966) which posits that international migration depends on the individual attributes of migrants including age, sex, educational level and skills, competencies, marital status, previous experience as well as risk-taking spirit. this theory interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 10 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 has been particularly useful in the migration and inequality nexus, as it shows the selectivity of migration; hence, the inequality of opportunities between nations leads to an increase in international migration. a similar observation is made in the push and pull model, as articulated by ravenstein (1885), that people move from their origin areas due to ‘push factors’ that drive them away and move to their destination areas due to ‘pull factors’ that attract them. ultimately, the main flows are fueled by wage differentials between nations, which perpetuate migration. the migration systems theory pioneered by mabogunje (1970) identifies a migration system as comprising of places linked by flows and counterflows of people, goods, and information, which increases the likelihood of migration between such systems. this theory is based on the observations of rural to urban migration in africa and posits that the macro environment influences the individual migrants’ decisions. factors that influence migration decision-making, are the social welfare system including education and health, economic conditions including wages, prices, consumer preferences and degree of industrial development, as well as technological development including transport and communication networks. this theory argues that the transition of migrants from rural to urban subsystems results in a complete transformation of their social and other attributes. the theory recognizes the importance of a feedback mechanism between sending and receiving areas that promotes the continuous flow of people, goods and information between them. the self-sustaining nature of migration is expounded by the cumulative causation theory postulated by myrdal (1957) and later modified by massey (massey, 1990; massey et al, 1994; massey and zenteno, 1999), with the proponents arguing that migration motivations are different and each migration experience alters the social contexts in which each occurred. the neoclassical theory of migration (harris and todaro, 1970) argues that migrants move from regions with low wages to those of higher wages by considering the cost-benefit of migrating. the theory argues that when wage differentials between regions in a country are reduced, then migration levels also reduce, thus migration is seen as an equalizing factor for rural-urban migration. critics have pointed out that migration seems to continue even when there are no economic benefits or job opportunities available in the urban areas. thus, they argue that it is not only economic considerations that make individuals move. the theory is useful in understanding the structural factors influencing migration, including spatial inequalities and wage inequalities. the dual market economy theory (piore, 1979), corroborates this view, adding that the capitalism of international migration maintained by two coexisting economic models, the capital-intensive primary sectors which offer well-paying jobs and high wages, and the labor-intensive sectors which have low wages and unskilled labor. migrants therefore move to the regions with higher skills and higher wages, prompting the migration of educated and skilled members of the society compared to the immobility of their uneducated counterparts. 11 the new economics of migration theory (taylor, 1999) shifts the focus from individual migrant decisions to migrant households or families, where migration is seen as a household survival strategy. migrants, both local and international, are seen to move based on the strategic decisions their households make when faced with economic shocks such as poor harvests, and harsh weather conditions. the theory helps in explaining the household decision-making mechanism, which results in either a positive or a negative impact of migration on inequality. while these models argue that wage differentials between nations fuel migration, this view has been criticized as it ignores the counter flows between nations with shared history, who have a mutually dependent series of flows and counterflows, as expounded in the world systems theory (fawcett and arnold,1987). this theory conceptualizes the world as a capitalist system that perpetuates international migration, noting that colonialism shifted the global relations between the colonizers and the colonized countries, resulting in the continued flows of populations between the two regions owing to the differences in economic development between them. capitalist firms from rich countries move to poorer peripheral countries in search of land, raw materials and markets for their products. thus, proponents of this theory argue that migration systems are context specific and are linked by people who share historical, cultural, colonial and technological linkages. this perspective enriches the conceptualization of migration and inequality nexus, as it considers the role of macro factors, including the historical and sociocultural background of the migration system. the review of the different theories shows that few of them distinctively look at migration and inequality, although they interrogate the possible consequences of migration and development. most of the theories describe the development and mobility patterns of the western nations, but there is a need to have theories that are grounded in the social contexts and structural realities of different countries (brown and sanders, 1981). while the world systems theory expounds how colonial history influences inequalities between nations and perpetuates migration flows across the regions, the push and pull theory and the human capital theory elaborate on how the flows are sustained. the structured relations between origin and destination areas have also been well articulated in the works of zelinsky (1971) and skeldon (1990) who note the linkage between the demographic processes and the resultant typologies of migration. the theories under review only focus on international migration and not internal migration, although one could expect that they could also apply to the domestic migration contexts. brown and sanders (1981) criticize them as inadequate in explaining scenarios in developing countries, including the role of ‘pull factors’ including the importance of the informal sector to rural-urban migrants, the role of social networks in origin and destination areas, the impacts of circular and seasonal migration strategies as well as structural issues, including class and status of migrants. the review of the literature shows that migration, unlike the other populainterlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 12 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 tion dynamics of fertility and mortality, is a system that affects and is affected by development (skeldon, 1997; de haas, 2010). migration is an endogenous factor in development, or part of that change but the development impacts on migration are heterogeneous. de haas (2007) reformulated the mobility transition in a more integrated format which can simply be referred to as migration transition. in this reformulation and underscoring the work of skeldon (1997), it is impossible to envisage development without migration, as migration is part of development. through this framework, de haas (2007) provides three perspectives about the migration-development nexus. first, development is generally associated with higher overall levels of migration and mobility which arises because of increasing capabilities by loosening constraints on movement, increasing aspirations and increasing occupational specialization. secondly, the relation between migration and broader development processes is fundamentally non-linear as development goes with the shifting patterns of the spatial opportunity differential. thirdly, societies tend to go through a sequence of internal and international migration transitions. de haas (2010) reiterated that other factors, particularly those rooted in the political economy of countries, geographical location and historical contingencies explain why countries with roughly similar levels of development show divergent migration patterns. he summarizes the two emerging dilemmas about migration and inequality. on the one hand, migration is linked to increased inequality because migrants tend to come from better off households. on the other hand, as more migration occurs, the sending areas lose out on the human capital as development gains, leading to increased spatial inequalities between the sending and receiving areas. empirical evidence has shown that migration does have positive effects on sending areas, and that it does not always lead to increased inequalities. owing to the contradiction inherent in some of the findings, he proposes the need to conceptualize the role of structural factors including the political, institutional, economic, social and cultural contexts within which migration occurs, as well as the role of agency, the real capacity of humans to overcome constraints and potentially reshape structure (de haas, 2010:241). similar views have been articulated by other scholars such as massey et al (1999) and morawska (2007) who criticize theories that ignore human agency and how this interacts with state and other social structures to influence migration and inequality. inequalities both reflect and amplify a constrained opportunity structure (melamed and samman, 2013). black et al (2006) argue that across different geographical, economic and social environments, the relationship between institutions of migration and inequality is governed by access – who gets to migrate where – and the different opportunities that different types of migration streams offer. the complexity of the theorizing of migration has been captured in the works of de haas (2014) where he notes that, ‘there is no central body of conceptual frameworks or theories on migration that can guide and be informed by empirical work’ (de haas, 2014:6). he outlines some of the challenges faced in applying the theory 13 by the different ‘modes of inquiry’ adopted by scholars, such as focus on international versus internal migration as an example. the resultant complexity of migration confirms that the phenomenon ‘has many parts in elaborate, multi-layered arrangements’ (ibid). in the next section, the paper reviews the findings on the established linkages between migration and inequality. interlinkages of migration and inequality migration and inequality are interlinked through the development process, with studies showing that economic development results in unequal spatial development and therefore unequal wages and incomes between urban and rural areas, resulting in an inverse relationship between migration and development. with increased development, the rising incomes in the urban areas lead to urban-rural disparities in wages and result in the increase in migration between urban and rural areas. simon kuznets postulated this in his seminal paper on economic development and inequality, noting that during the early stages of economic development, inequality increases with rising incomes, but as the level of per capita income increases, inequality reduces, leading to an inverted u-shape relationship between income inequality and economic development (kuznets, 1955). this assertion has been criticized for focusing on the developed countries rather than being aligned to the realities of the developing world. an alternative mechanism is proposed by lipton (1980), noting that inequalities within the origin area pushes out migration, hence individuals living in unequal settings tend to move out. as a result of the outmigration, remittances sent from migrants from rich households have a negative effect on the rural income distribution as it increases income inequality between migrant and non-migrant households. in the longer term, as migration increases between rural and urban areas, this leads to a neutralizing effect on intrahousehold inequality in sending areas. this perspective shows the linkage between inequalities in sending areas and the increased migration intensities, as migrants move to regions with better prospects. the effects of migration on inequality can be direct or indirect. the direct effects of migration on inequality are associated with remittances sent to migrant households thereby changing their patterns of household expenditure and investments. the indirect effect is through the ‘multiplier effects’ of such investments and changes in the labor market in sending communities (mendola, 2012). barham and boucher (1998) found that migration increases income inequality when comparing households with migrants to those without migrants, in their nicaraguan study. similar findings were observed in pakistan (oberai and singh, 1980) and in kenya (knowles and anker, 1981). other studies did not find the same results when they decomposed incomes based on their sources. those studies, conducted in mexico, thus concluded that the effect of remittances on income inequality depends on the length of the migration history of the community, the ranking of the migrant houseinterlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 14 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 holds within the origin communities as well as the role that remittances play in comparison to other income sources for the receiving households (stark et al, 1986). while some studies focus on the mechanism through which migration effects inequality, scholars such as stark and taylor (1991) caution that the net effect of remittances on inequality depends on the relative deprivation of rural households before migration occurs. they conclude that societies with a longer migration history report a neutralizing effect on the income inequalities in the longer term. ebeke and le goff (2011) add that the impact that migration is likely to have on inequality will depend on the cost of migration, level of development and human capital in origin communities. the effect of remittances has been found to spill over to the wider community (massey et al, 1994). communities also benefit from migrant networks which help to reduce the costs associated with migration, as they share information and resources that make migration less risky. they note that the effect of remittances on inequality is dependent on the position of the migrant household within the income distribution of the sending community. the interlinkages of migration and inequality differ based on the type of migration, as differential effects have been found when comparing international and internal migration. black et al (2006) conclude that although the migration-inequality relationship varies across space and time, there is a need to specify the type of migration and dimension of inequality as different types of migration may have different effects on different types of inequality. other linkages identified by scholars focus on the pessimistic or positivist views on the effects of migration on equality and vice versa. for the pessimists, migration results in increasing inequalities between regions reinforcing spatial and interpersonal disparities in development in low income sending communities, as seen in empirical studies in india (zachariah et al, 2001); in mexico (binford, 2003; mckenzie and rapoport, 2006); in bangladesh (rahman, 2000); and a comparative study of global data (solimano, 2001). additionally, there are scholars who believe that outmigration leads to the so-called ‘brain drain’ in rural areas, as the more educated members are more likely to migrate. a counter narrative argues that migration has the positive effect of reducing inequalities between regions, by leading to ‘brain gain’, as migrants acquire new skills which make them more competitive, and the remittances they send back are used to improve livelihoods. adams et al (2008) outline the two key methodological issues that arise when studying the impact of remittances on income inequality. the first approach considers remittances as an exogenous transfer from migrants, while the second approach considers remittances as an extra source of income that the migrant would earn if they had not moved out. each of these cases requires a different determination. for the first case of remittances as exogenous income, the key task is to determine how such remittances affect the overall distribution of income in the origin area (gustafsson and makonnen, 1993). for the second case, the task will be to compute the changes in inequality in a counterfactual scenario where there is no migration and 15 no remittance and compare that with scenarios where there is migration and remittance with an input of the expected income that migrants would have earned if they had stayed at home (adams and page, 2005; adams et al, 2008). indeed, barham and boucher (1998) concur that these differential findings arise due to the empirical contexts of the study areas as well as methodological rigor, with studies that consider remittances as an exogenous transfer of income or as a substitute to home earnings getting conflicting findings on the inequality and migration nexus. de haas (2010:241) proposes the need to conceptualize the role of structural factors, including the political, institutional, economic, social and cultural contexts within which migration occurs, as well as the role of agency, the capacity of humans to overcome constraints and potentially reshape structure. similar views have been articulated by other scholars such as massey et al (1999) and morawska (2007) who criticize theories that ignore human agency and how this interacts with state and other social structures to influence migration and inequality. review of studies in africa this section reviews the contemporary studies in africa and highlights the conceptualization of the subject, data sources, and mechanisms through which migration and inequality are interrelated. conceptualization of migration and inequality in africa the conceptualization of a migrant has differed in various studies conducted in africa with those based on census data defining a migrant as a person who has changed the ‘usual place of residence’ at least once during the migration interval, which is one year before the census. for the normal census a migrant is considered a person who lived in the household for at least one year. in others, such as the world bank african migration project, a migrant is defined as a person who used to the live in a household in the country, for at least six months, to live abroad (international migrant) or in another village or urban area within the country (internal migrant). this definition of a migrant could influence the outcome of analysis, with those making moves within a shorter period likely to inflate the number of migrants. while migration is easy to measure, inequality presents a different conceptual challenge. inequality is defined as the difference in social status, wealth or opportunity between people or groups.2 distinction is often made between inequality of outcomes and inequality of opportunity. inequality of outcomes is concerned with differences in overall living economic conditions including income, wealth, education and nutrition. inequality of opportunity is concerned with differential access to opportunities by people living in the same community, and therefore the circumstances surrounding their place of birth, their parental background, ethnicity and gender determine their access to opportunities, including where they go to school, 2 https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/inequality interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 16 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 what jobs they get and how economically successful they become. the studies reviewed have not delved into the interlinkages within and between group inequalities and migration, and this is an area for future exploration. globally, studies looking at migration and inequality have used the gini coefficient generated from the lorenz curve (morgan, 1962). this requires the availability of consumption data from households which is not captured in the census questionnaires. thus, most african countries have used the small area estimation technique to generate values for subnational estimates (ngugi, kipruto and samoei, 2013). an improvement in measuring inequality when income and expenditure data is unavailable in surveys or census was proposed by mckenzie (2005), where the relative measure of ‘inequality in living standards’ (i), is derived using asset indicators. the method has been used widely in studies of migration and inequality, including latin american migration surveys3 where questions are asked about household assets. mckay (2002) proposes that inequality studies should explore other dimensions apart form income, including the inequality of opportunities and outcomes, within-group and between-group inequalities such as considering households within communities, as well as exploring the temporal variations of inequality. few studies have considered all these suggestions but there has been a greater focus on income inequality by economists in most studies including those in africa, as will be outlined in the next section. data sources and study design in africa like most global studies, the scholarly work in africa has relied on the three main data sources namely, censuses, surveys including specialist surveys, and ethnographic studies. while studies in the developed nations use population registers as a major source of data for migration studies, in africa, due to poor civil registration systems, this is limited. survey data has been widely used to analyze the interlinkages between migration and inequality. the world bank living standards survey4 provides useful data on a wide range of issues including migration and migrant welfare. the surveys have been conducted in nigeria, ghana, tanzania, burkina faso, kenya, senegal, south africa and uganda. a disadvantage of survey data is that it is not standardized and comparable as noted in a review of 70 household surveys conducted between 1990 and 2006 (plaza et al, 2011). for example, the review found that migration modules are different and incomparable across many african countries, with most surveys collecting information on migration history of all household members above 15 years of age, while others collected information only from the head of the household. 3 this includes the mexican migration project (mmp) and subsequent latin american migration project (mckenzie, 2005:2). 4 the living standards measurement study (lsms) is a household survey program housed within the survey unit of the world bank’s development data group that provides technical assistance to national statistical offices (nsos) in the design and implementation of multi-topic household surveys. 17 additionally, sections capturing migration data in these surveys are located differently, with some surveys putting this in a stand-alone, or incorporating it into the other modules (ibid). challenges identified in obtaining survey information include the difficulty in sampling of households. researchers therefore rely on the use of national sampling frames to identify such households or the use of remittance transfer data from mobile phones (bang et al, 2016). a critical look at the gender dynamics of studies based on sample surveys, shows that some studies featured only male migrants, especially those dealing with international migration. for example, in the study of migration and inequality in egypt which sampled only male migrants, adams (1989:47) notes that in rural egypt, social tradition denied women in rural areas to work ‘outside the home’ by describing this as ‘shameful’. there would thus have been fewer women in the study owing to such socio-cultural factors. census data has also been a source of data for research on migration and inequality. the census data captures two types of data, namely the migration event where information is collected about the migrants, capturing all the moves they make across time and space; and the migration transition where information is collected about who moved, when and where to – the kind of information collected in the national census. an obvious weakness of migration transition measure is that it fails to capture repeat moves, returns or even deaths during the interphase. migration data captured in the census relates to the place of current residence, how long an individual has lived in such residence, any previous migration, place of birth and place of current remuneration, while reasons and motivations for migration are largely uncaptured. migration history can be easily captured through a trend analysis of a series of census datasets (see arouri and nguyen, 2018) while inequality data can be derived from comparing household living conditions. increasingly popular are the specialist migration surveys that provide unique and rich data on the migration experience and migrant attributes which can be used to analyze migration trends, including effect of remittances on household economies (stark and lucas, 1988). in the early 90s, only botswana and burkina faso had conducted such surveys, as observed by oucho and gould (1993). presently, more countries in africa have conducted specialist migration surveys, including egypt which carried out the egypt household international migration survey (egypt-hims) in 2013, that provides detailed information on why, when, where and how migration has occurred. the ethiopian rural household survey (erhs) also provides longitudinal data. the remittances surveys conducted by the world bank also add to the pool of these resources, although they covered a few countries in africa. comparatively, the use of specialist surveys has provided a wealth of knowledge about the us-mexico border migration streams where data from the mexico national rural household survey (encuesta nacional a hogares rurales de mexico, or enhrum) provides detailed data on assets, sociodemographic characteristics, production, income sources and migration from a nationally representative sample interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 18 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 of rural households. the other major source of data has been the mexican migration project which employs ethnographic survey methodology to provide both qualitative and quantitative data; the latin american migration project (lamp) and later the migrations between africa and europe (mafe) project which collected data at individual, family and national level to provide longitudinal data for analysis. in asia, china has institutionalized the use of household registration systems (hakou) to capture and monitor migration. the studies in africa have progressively used data from specialist surveys to track the interlinkage between migration and inequality over time. while the surveys cannot be representative of the entire population, they complement the data on the drivers and impacts of migration. use of population registers could provide updated data on migration and household characteristics. major findings on linkages between migration and inequality in studies in africa migration and income inequality linkages the studies reviewed were largely testing the association between migration and income inequality, thus testing lipton’s hypothesis of an inverted u-shaped relationship between the two phenomena. while some studies confirm that remittances lead to higher inequality in origin areas by increasing inequality between migrant and non-migrant households, others show that remittances reduce such inequality. in kenya, knowles and anker (1981) found a weak effect when they studied the link between urban-rural remittances and income inequality, noting that remittances are highly related to the level of education and income, urban residence and migrant status as well as ownership of a house in the home areas and number of dependants living in a different residence from the migrant. other studies confirm higher income inequality in rural migrant households than non-migrant households (hoddinott, 1992, 1994; oyvat and wa githinji, 2017). bang et al (2016) used data from the kenya migration household survey (2009)5 and found that existing differentials in propensity to migrate influence the distributional effects of remittances, thus while remittances increase household expenditure across all households in kenya, they have a huger impact on poorer households. several other studies confirm that households receiving remittances from internal migrants have higher expenditure and improved social status, thus concluding that migration increases inequalities in sending areas. this has been confirmed in nigeria (chiwuzulum et al, 2010; fonta et al, 2011); in botswana (lucas and stark, 1985); in somaliland (lindley, 2007); in egypt (adams, 1989); and in ghana (quartey, 2006). international remittances have higher impact on inequality than rural remit5 the dataset is publicly available for download at the world bank’s microdata library website at: http://microdata. worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/94. 19 tances as shown in findings from several countries. wouterse (2010) found that, although remittances from within africa reduced inequality for communities in burkina faso, intercontinental remittances increased inequality. in nigeria, olowa et al (2013) found that remittances, both domestic (within nigeria) and foreign (other countries outside nigeria and africa), reduced poverty and inequality in rural households. in egypt, mccormick and wahba (2003) attribute rising rural-urban inequalities to returnee international migrants who are more likely to settle and invest in urban areas than rural areas of egypt, while arouri and nguyen (2018) found that migrants in rural egypt were more likely to move to areas of high-asset and high-income inequality. comparatively, in ghana, adams et al (2008) confirmed that international remittances increased income inequalities more than domestic remittances, although rural households were more likely to access domestic remittances than international remittances. in some cases, studies within one country yielded conflicting results on the interlinkage between migration and inequality. in ethiopia, de brauw et al (2013) measured the impact of migration on household welfare by comparing migrant and non-migrant households and the findings showed that consumption per capita increased for migrants, implying there was improved wellbeing, using data from the ethiopian rural household survey,6 which was matched by a panel survey,7 tracking the employed migrants. beyene (2014) used data from a 2004 survey8 and found no significant impact on inequality from remittances for ethiopia when comparing actual and counterfactual scenarios with remittances. in contrast, andersson (2014) found a considerable positive impact of remittances to rural household welfare when he considered the impact of remittances on household welfare in ethiopia, using the data pertaining to household subjective economic wellbeing. elsewhere, anyanwu (2011) assessed the impact of migrant remittances on income inequality in african countries using data for the period 1960-2006 and established that remittances had a significant positive impact on income inequality in african countries, although remittances to the north african regions fueled higher income inequality while the reverse was true for sub-saharan africa. from these studies, the findings validated lipton’s hypothesis of an inverse relationship between migration and income inequality. depending on the methodology used, some studies found a strong negative correlation between migration and income inequality while others found a weak relationship. this is similar to other global studies, such as in china (ha et al, 2016); in mexico, where migration remittances were found to increase inequalities, with migrants being better off than their non-migrant peers even within the same social class background (stark et al, 1986; 6 the erhs is a unique, longitudinal household dataset collected by addis ababa university, the university of oxford, and the international food policy research institute. it follows households from fifteen villages from 1994 to 2009. three additional villages were added to the 2004 round (and were surveyed in 2005). the 2009 round then included all eighteen villages. 7 the focus of the migrant tracking study was to learn about migration and remittance behavior in ethiopia. 8 ethiopian urban socio-economic survey (euss), collected by addis ababa university in collaboration with gothenburg university. interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 20 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 mines and massey, 1985; durand and massey, 1992). in egypt and pakistan, remittances were found to affect the rural income distribution in poor villages (adams 1989; adams and mahmood, 1992), with remittances benefitting mainly the migrant households. non-income inequalities and migration linkages a few studies have reviewed the impact of spatial inequalities on migration and found that migration increased when spatial inequalities were high. in egypt, arouri and nguyen (2018) found that migrants moved to regions with high income and asset inequality while mccormick and wahba (2003) attributed rising rural-urban inequalities to returnee international migrants who were more likely to settle and invest in the urban areas than in the rural areas of egypt. in ogun state of nigeria, a study found that the unequal distribution of higher educational facilities biased to urban areas resulted in increased migration between urban and rural nigeria, leading to loss of human capital in rural regions okhankhuele and opafunso, 2013). discussion this paper presented a summary of key studies on migration and inequality in africa, citing various empirical studies done in the region. the review shows that a higher number of studies considered the impact of income inequalities on migration compared to interlinkages between non-income inequalities and migration. the majority of the studies featured an econometric analysis of the effect of remittances on inequality, without illuminating the contextual factors behind the household welfare changes. a limited number of studies used census data, as surveys were the more popular option. the limitation of census data, such as the unavailability of household welfare indicators to complement the migrant data collected in such censuses and surveys, results in the use of specialist surveys to fill the gap. this observation reinforces the notion that migration studies are not accompanied by data that induces perspectives of measuring inequality. the adoption of multiple data sources would therefore be highly recommended for such studies. fewer studies looked at nonincome inequalities and their interlinkages with migration. several studies have investigated the impact of remittances on inequalities using the world bank sponsored migration and remittances survey, although this survey did not cover many countries in africa. this database, which is now outdated, needs to be expanded to include other countries, especially in northern and southern africa. local surveys such as the ethiopian urban socio-economic survey (euss) need to be scaled and replicated to improve the data sources on migration and inequality. most of the studies focused on understanding the impact of international remittances on inequalities in developing countries, but fewer considered internal mi21 gration and the effect of domestic remittances on inequality. the findings show that international migration has a positive effect on inequality compared to internal migration, attributing to the higher income received through international remittances compared to domestic remittances. however, domestic remittances have a higher impact on poorer households whose welfare changed due to remittances, according to most of the findings from the studies reviewed. what does not emerge from the studies conducted so far, is how the drivers of internal and international migration impact on inequality. the major gap identified in most of the studies is the lack of examination of the role of human agency in understanding the effects of migration on inequality, a criticism offered by massey et al (1999), morawska (2007) and de haas (2010). there is a need to expand the conceptualization of studies on migration and inequality to consider the impact of different migration patterns and their drivers. while aiyar and ebeke (2019) considered this for some developing countries, the focus was only on international migration and not internal migration. conclusion and recommendations most studies relied on quantitative data sources from surveys. however, these are limited as they do not capture the qualitative aspects of migration. although the mexican studies used the ethnographic survey methodology in their migration surveys, they have limited coverage of countries in africa. the use of specialist surveys in africa to complement data on migration is a research necessity and more countries need to embrace it. this literature review offers recommendations to address the shortcomings identified above. first, there is a need to update and increase the database of migration and remittances studies to incorporate more countries for comparative analysis, and to increase such analysis to non-income inequalities, including intergenerational, gender and spatial analysis. further, there is a need to unpack the contextual factors behind inequality and migration by adopting qualitative techniques to understand how inequality affects those who migrate and those who do not migrate. the role of human agency should also be considered in future studies. the policy implications of these findings include the need to improve the collection of longitudinal data on migration to inform the cross-sectional analysis of the impacts of migration. while the sdgs target the reduction of inequalities between and within countries, most of the african countries need to improve in their measurement and monitoring of internal and interregional migration, which are the most popular typologies in africa. additionally, there should be a deliberate effort to conduct specialist migration surveys periodically across most of the african countries to allow for comparative analysis. interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa 22 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 references adams jr, r. h. 1989. worker remittances and inequality in rural egypt. economic development and cultural change, 38(1): 45-71. adams jr, r. h., and mahmood, z. 1992. the effects of migration and remittances on inequality in rural pakistan 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(2001). impact of migration on kerala’s economy and society. international migration, 39(1): 63-87. zelinsky, w. 1971. the hypothesis of the mobility transition. geographical review, 61(2): 219-249. 27 turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city: a case-study of blame-shifting in cape town greg ruiters*, felicia lombard** and denys uwimpuhwe*** * school of government, university of the western cape, south africa corresponding author. email: gruiters@uwc.ac.za ** school of government, university of the western cape, south africa *** school of government, university of the western cape, south africa what role do municipalities play in limiting xenophobia in all its forms and what should these bodies do in promoting the integration of african immigrants? this paper analyzes a case study of cape town’s policies and programs concerning african immigrants and refugees following the 2008 xenophobic crisis, up to 2016. municipalities as a separate sphere of the government have their own space to address socio-political problems and to shape local alliances and urban life. despite being a tourist-led, gentrifying city which substantially draws on vulnerable african immigrant labor, cape town’s leaders and businesses, however, have no explicit policies or programs to address xenophobia – a ticking time bomb; and they tend to shift the blame to other actors. city leaders and employers see african immigrants in an instrumental way (as mere labor; a financial burden and not as potential citizens). this paper focuses on local government’s definition of the ‘foreign immigrant problem’ and its poor record of reducing the drivers of xenophobic conflicts in south african cities, recognizing that while cities are not the only players, they certainly are the closest to the problem. the paper concludes that the city needs a proactive, comprehensive approach, recognizing migrants and their organizations, especially foreign workers, legal immigrants and refugees, as key city builders, stakeholders and potential citizens in the city. the paper draws on interviews with city officials, migrants and asylum seekers in the city of cape town. keywords: policy silences, cape town, leadership, local government, political inclusion, xenophobia 28 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 introduction according to hogwood and gunn (1985) policy should be analyzed for its covert aspects, its silences and non-decisions. as hogwood and gunn (1985) assert, policy is what governments do and do not do. the role of municipal street-level bureaucrats in bending policy to fit their prejudices and making policy as they implement it, is also crucial (lipsky, 2010). this paper argues that the problem in the city of cape town (coct) is threefold: first, city leaders and key allies have no explicit policies or programs for assisting refugees and asylum seekers and foreign workers – a case of non-decisions and strategic silences. secondly, they show little leadership around the needs and challenges of refugees and asylum seekers, shifting the blame to national and global actors. their responses are essentially symbolic and they tend to shift the responsibility onto non-governmental organizations (ngos). thirdly, city leaders and powerful commercial interests in cape town, while blaming the national government for the presence of foreign africans, see refugees and asylum seekers in an instrumental way (as a ready pool of acquiescent labor) and not as potential citizens. the paper is divided into three sections. section one focuses on the literature on xenophobia and the role of local government. the second section covers the coct context, local business practices, municipal policies (or the lack thereof) and how certain local officials (those interviewed) understand city policies. section three considers the organizational responses of refugees and asylum seekers to threats and their interactions with the city; this section also discusses the role of non-governmental organizations. a total of 28 face-to-face interviews were conducted in 2015 and 2017, with city officials, ngos, refugees and asylum seekers’ associations, individual migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. researchers reviewed the city budget for spending related to refugees and asylum seekers, with a focus on four policy areas: metro policing, cape town’s social development strategy (coct, 2013), the policy on vulnerable groups (draft policy, march 2013) and the responsible tourism policy for the city of cape town (2009). the research method is largely qualitative and interpretive. the paper does not compare cape town to durban and johannesburg where more explicit forms of xenophobia and harsher state action have been prevalent. a comparative study falls outside the scope of this paper. importantly, this paper sees xenophobia as a multifaceted phenomenon that may surface in both episodic violence and covert, institutional ways. institutional xenophobia (such as benign neglect) has been a marginal issue since much of the focus is on violence. some argue that xenophobia has abated in some places because violence is less frequent. immigrants and the city context in south africa, the intergovernmental system is meant to be cooperative and allocates functions so that the national sphere of the state provides foundational policies, while municipalities as a separate sphere of the government have their own space 29 to address socio-economic challenges and shape local alliances. city governments also have a responsibility to develop policies that promote integrated development, local economic development inclusive of non-racial societies, respect for diversity, and participatory local democracy (palmary, 2002). their roles as implementers and policymakers are frequently underestimated. municipal governments are obliged to “take the lead in mitigating practices of exclusion and segregation that are so acutely felt in the places where people live” (ray, 2003: 1) and develop local policies that reduce inequalities and integrate newcomers into vibrant workplaces and socio-political environments. they must also take the lead in mitigating spatial segregation, acutely felt in the south african cities (pieterse, 2009). social inclusion in cosmopolitan urban places will not simply happen with time or spontaneously through market forces. each city has its approach to these challenges. but most south african cities, in managing immigration, rely on the core national policies of public education, health care, public policing, the justice system and border control which are the immediate responsibility of national and provincial governments. yet, “managing immigrants also depends on the quality of the countless interactions that occur between individuals, social groups, and institutions that exist in a city at the level of local workplaces, cultural and religious activity and residential areas” (ray, 2003). xenophobia is not only violently expressed but also operates through institutional practices that exclude and discriminate against foreign africans within the department of home affairs, the police, hospitals, and schools, based on their appearance, documents, or language. south africa has long been a country of immigration – from european colonial settlers to an exploitative migrant labor complex where southern african workers served mining capital. but immigration has changed dramatically since 1994 when the apartheid system ended and south african cities became desirable for refugees and economic immigrants. according to crush and chikanda (2015), sa ranks 36th in the world for the size of its refugee population, and although south africa receives many asylum seekers, it grants refugee status to very few. nonetheless, by 2019 the international organization for migration (iom, 2019) estimated that south africa had the largest number of immigrants in africa (around 4 million). a refugee, as defined by the refugees act 130 of 1998, is a person to whom the south african state has granted asylum. acceptance rates are less than half of the global average. most immigrants remain ‘undocumented migrants, whose labor can be hyper-exploited. based on the 2011 census, more than 550,000 new immigrants moved to south africa between 2001 and 2011 (an average of 55 000 per annum). that is an undercount but is nonetheless a substantial influx for a country of south africa’s size. in 2016 the western cape received 296 000 internal migrants from other provinces and 106 000 international migrants (rsa, 2019: 15-16). recent immigrants, including white immigrants (who make up 17% of the total), are five times more likely to have post-matric qualifications and generally enjoy employment rates of 78%, which is turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 30 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 substantially higher compared to south africans at 58% (groundup, 2017). in the post-1994 era, a growing number of african refugees and economic migrants (zimbabweans, mozambicans, malawians, somalis, nigerians, and congolese) have found work in diverse fields and have settled in major cities including black townships. in 2005, international migrants comprised only 2.8% of south africa’s population, but by 2019, this figure had climbed to 7.2% (iom, 2019). in south africa, about 20% (or 300 000) of the 1,5 million domestic workers are reported to be foreign migrants while migrants make up 4% of the general labor force (africa check, 2015). migrants are 3.5% more likely than south africans to be involved in sales and services and almost 5% more likely to be involved in crafts and related trades. only 14.68% of international migrants are unemployed compared to 32% of south african national migrants (africa check, 2015). this is very unusual since, in most other countries, international migrants tend to have higher unemployment rates than locals (africa check, 2015). gauteng leads the national statistics in reported incidents of xenophobic violence since 1994, followed by the western cape and kwazulu-natal (mlilo and misago, 2019). over “200 somali nationals were murdered in south africa, most in the western cape, between 2000-2004 and media reports show that migrants have been targeted by youths in cape town areas such as philippi, khayelitsha, dunoon, gugulethu, nyanga and masiphumelele townships for years” (jara and perbedy, 2010: 25). a two-week countrywide spree of violence in may 2008 left 62 people dead and 150 000 immigrants homeless. during the course of the violence, an estimated 20 000–30 000 were displaced in cape town and it is thought that as many as 30 000 may have left the city. it is not possible to provide exact figures as people not only fled to community halls, mosques and churches before being moved to camps but also sought refuge with family and friends in safer areas (jara and perbedy, 2010: 26). during november 2009, 3 000 zimbabwean seasonal farmworkers in de doorns, outside cape town were forced to flee after xenophobic violence. violent attacks by some south africans, problems experienced obtaining official documents, workplace exploitation and everyday discrimination have become major issues for foreign workers and refugees but scholars remain deeply divided about defining and explaining xenophobia (uwimpuhwe and ruiters, 2018). literature review: xenophobia and the city context there are diverging definitions of xenophobia in the scholarly literature. far-right populists in europe have exploited “fear about existential and ontological threats to spur the exclusion of unwanted ‘others’, such as muslims, roma, and refugees” (kinnvall, 2017: 1). recent scholarship on this phenomenon has focused exclusively on collective violent acts, and inflammatory statements of national and local city leaders (crush and tawodzera, 2014; misago et al, 2015). citizens in south africa regularly draw on xenophobic state discourses and negative statements by politicians about 31 immigrants (landau, 2006). others hold that populist politicians have no incentive to protect foreigners since they are not eligible to vote (mngqibisa and netshikulwe, cited in daily maverick, 2018) and hence it is easy to scapegoat them. moreover, misago et al (2015: 24) argue that: national government and relevant local authorities have thus far either tended to categorise violence against foreign nationals and other forms of xenophobic behaviour as part of ‘normal’ crime with no need for additional targeted interventions. however, the general social explanations argue that xenophobia reflects the realities of deepening inequality, rising unemployment and frustrations of the poor in south africa often leave out the issue of how general discontent is mobilised and channelled into collective xenophobic acts (misago 2019) and how the silences of the local state are complicit in such processes (maharaj, 2009). academic research on the discriminatory practices and the complicit role of local businesses that eagerly employ vulnerable foreign africans (a kind of labor preference or xenophilia) and how the local state influences or overlooks these unfair labor practices, is uncommon. south africans’ xenophobic fears about jobs being taken by foreigners are also seen by some as unfounded (crush and chikanda, 2015; misago et al, 2015). an exception is maharaj (2009), who examines the challenges of international migrants in the ethekwini (durban) municipality. he argues that: the local authority has yet to engage constructively in addressing the problems of migrants and refugees, and the policy response has ranged from one of benign neglect to active hostility. almost all the major policy documents of the ethekwini local authority make no reference to migrants (maharaj, 2009). anti-immigrant violence by groups is a collective act, and one of the key explanations focuses on how this violence is organized and resourced, and the opportunities for such violence to happen (mcadam, 1986). some analysts focus on only specific local factors and the organized nature of violence: a strong explanation must account for the appearance of violence in some areas while others with similar socio-economic conditions remained calm…. violence occurs in specific areas … where local government is weak or considered illegitimate (misago et al, 2015: 24). yet, in cape town local government is considered both legitimate and strong and not complicit with perpetrators of violence. the benign neglect of townships by strong municipalities and by the wealthy cannot be underestimated. this paper argues that the focus should be on local governance, which is much broader than local government as the former is usually an alliance of fractions of powerful networked interests that govern a city (harvey, 1989; miraftab, 2007). such alliances include wealthy ratepayers (who use the services of mainly foreign workers), the local business chamber, donors to political parties, city improvement districts, big property, tourism interests, etc.). turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 32 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 cape town: economy, labor and politics cape town is a popular global tourist destination. it has some of the most expensive real estate and private schools in the country; it also has some of the highest concentrations of multi-millionaires (mainly white). in 2016 cape town had a retail, catering and accommodation and financial services economy with 78% of jobs in the tertiary sector (city of cape town, 2018). during 2011, the area received 1.4 million foreign visitors (city of cape town, 2013b: 31). it is no exaggeration to suggest that the success of the city and the profitability of tourism is built on the labor of its poor citizens and especially its recent foreign african immigrants. moreover, mathers and landau (2007) suggest that south african tourism depends on the willingness of african migrants to risk crossing the border, often with artefacts to sell and invest in the south african craft markets. according to mathers and landau (2007: 530), “one only has to stroll the markets that tourist buses frequent to note that the vast majority of artefacts on sale are made and sold by africans from anywhere but south africa”. they assert that certain sectors of south african tourism is dependent on the endeavors and labor of migrants. when cape town was run by the african national congress (anc) in the mid-1990s the mayor, nomaindia mfeketo worked with a power block of the city managers, politicians, rich property owners and bankers, who mobilized to ‘save’ cape town from “going the way of johannesburg” and “descending into a morass of crime and grime”, social decay and capital flight (cape town partnership, 2009). they initiated and designed the central city improvement district (ccid) in 2000, a private-public partnership to provide “safety and cleanliness” and make cape town “a pleasant urban environment” to live and work in. governed by the democratic alliance (da) since 2006, cape town has fashioned itself as a successful, non-racial, inclusive, well-governed city that seemingly works for social inclusion (mcdonald, 2008). under the da the city of cape town (coct) has eight separate metro police units including an ‘anti-land invasion unit’ aimed at curbing informal settlements and an ‘anti-vagrant unit’. the increasing repressive local state apparatuses, in policing everyday life, are not unusual in touristbased world cities (lemanski, 2006; miraftab, 2007, mcdonald, 2008). binns and nel (2002: 240) point out that “waterfront developments and convention centres … in cape town and durban have attracted strong criticism … they do not adequately involve community members, few benefits devolve to them, and the developments are undertaken without adequate concern being given to affected communities”. there is another interesting twist in the cape town government’s rhetoric about immigrants since black south africans have previously been labelled as immigrants by da leaders. in 2012, helen zille, the then premier invoked the term ‘refugee’ to refer to black african south africans. the context is that the western cape has the lowest black african population of all nine provinces at 32% and the eastern cape, south africa’s most underdeveloped province, has the highest black population 33 at 86% (rsa, 2011). she suggested that the western cape (and cape town) was in danger, given the eastern cape african ‘influx’ taking resources and jobs that belong to the western cape. the narrative of fear appeals to the idea that cape townians (the majority ‘coloured’ and minority white groups) are being ‘swamped’ by ‘refugees’ from the eastern cape (who are also seen as predominantly anc supporters). this ‘western cape first’ and eastern cape ‘invasion’ narrative has underpinned the da’s electoral success among ‘coloureds’ and whites. african foreign migrants preferred as workers cape town with its burgeoning tourist economy has attracted tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers, who have settled close to economic/work opportunities (in the informal shack settlements in areas such as hout bay, dunoon, masiphumelele). they also choose to settle in areas where they can set up ‘spaza’ shops (for example, in khayelitsha where somalis predominate) or they find casual jobs around cape town. foreign migrants entering cape town appear to have become an ever more visible, vulnerable and influential sub-population in both black townships and central business areas (hill and bekker, 2014: 675). cape town’s refugees and asylum seekers are mostly young people (in their 20s and early 30s) who have migrated mostly without their families. they often accept lower wages, work longer hours and tend to be exploited and are averse to joining trade unions (taal, 2012; dodson, 2018). moreover, migrants have changed labor markets: employers often prefer vulnerable foreign labor and “this vulnerability makes immigrants popular with management as they are cheaper and easier to control” (taal, 2012: 21). as a manager at a top restaurant in cape town, where the majority of staff are foreigners, claimed, “foreign waiters, especially from zimbabwe, are usually better spoken and offer phenomenal service to customers” (cited in dirk, 2015). another canal walk restaurant manager revealed that “the high work ethic of foreign employees was the reason they were more readily hired” (cited in dirk, 2015). it was suggested that “south african employees are not “up to scratch for these jobs” (cited in dirk, 2015). for instance, a cape town fish market and restaurant at the waterfront employed 16 waiters, but only four were south african. another manager at a major restaurant had 12 waiters but only one was from south africa. he noted: “they (zimbabweans) have the kind of personalities where they are able to keep our patrons happy and entertained” (cited in dirk, 2015). a manager in camps bay claimed when it comes to hiring staff, it has more to do with the best candidate than whether the applicant is foreign or local. five of the restaurant’s seven waiters are from zimbabwe (cited in dirk, 2015). there is thus a cocktail of racial, ethnic, national identity stereotypes at play in the split labor market. the cape chamber of commerce and industry (ccci) noted: it was important to understand that the people fleeing their own countries were among the best qualified and most enterprising workers. they were strongly turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 34 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 motivated and they competed fiercely for jobs and trade. in many cases, this competition was unwelcome and created some local resentment (ccci, 2015). according to taal (2012: 21) “foreign workers are encouraged by management to see south african workers as lazy”. these sentiments might reflect a new split labor market formation, the preference among employers for foreign workers, and also unresolved residual hostilities between black and white south africans. one interviewee highlighted that: south africans take advantage of the fact that foreigners are desperate and will work for lower wages. and in many cases, when the residence permit is about to expire, the bosses refuse to pay foreign nationals (respondent d). it is evident that this increasing role in visible services means that the footprint of foreign workers is considerable. however, this has produced significant resentment among black local workers and the unemployed towards both employers and foreign national employees. defining the ‘problem’: official silences what are the official approaches to and definitions of the ‘problem’? the city over time has had contradictory definitions and messages. in 2003 when the anc governed the province there were an estimated 20 000 to 30 000 refugees and asylum seekers in the city. a high level 2001 city report noted that, “the ‘problem’ aspect of foreign migrants is overstated and that in many ways the presence of these migrants contributes positively to the economic and cultural development of the region” (coct, 2003: 13). but at this time, local government officials interviewed by palmary (2002: 6) also felt that provision of services for refugees should be the responsibility of the department of home affairs at the national level. a front-line coct official cited in palmary’s study argued: there is no land for these immigrants … they occupy city-owned land illegally. so we take action against them. we’re trying to get central government to take full responsibility for this. because the city does not have the resources or the manpower to deal with this. tonight i’ve got to go again, go deal with the immigrants. in 2005, at a world refugee day event, anc mayor, nomaindia mfeketo put a positive spin on immigrants saying, “we are committed to developing a sustainable partnership. through our social development directorate, we are assisting tutumike with completing an audit of skills of refugees in cape town. we have been amazed at the results so far: 23 medical doctors, 6 engineers, 20 lawyers and 5 teachers. and this is only the beginning” (unhcr news, 2005). in 2006, the da won the municipal elections. a series of violent xenophobic outbreaks in 2008 in gauteng spread, about a week later reaching cape town. in may 2008, somalis and zimbabweans were attacked by mobs and their shops were vandalized and looted. in response to the humanitarian needs of people who left their homes and needed shelter and other basic items, the city prepared six safety camps 35 at former ‘coloured’ beach camping sites and the youngsfield military base (city of cape town, 2008). the da decisively swung the definition of the issue towards blaming the national and international factors and showing how local city resources were being wasted on poor refugees from dysfunctional countries. these messages can be seen in the mayor of cape town, helen zille’s media responses to the 2008 wave of xenophobic violence, as captured by mnguni (2010). zille essentially labelled the problem as an “international” one, thereby shifting the focus away from the city to global factors. “they just haven’t applied themselves to how they deal with it,” zille remarked of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). counting the financial costs to the city of having poor foreign blacks in the city, she argued that, “the unhcr had an international mandate and budget to deal with problems”. she asserted that: this is an international problem. why are people forced to be refugees in the first place? r170m had been taken away from other service delivery projects to deal with the xenophobic violence of 2008 (mnguni, 2010). cape town mayoral committee member for safety and security, councillor j.p. smith similarly remarked: “attacking other people incurs costs and the city paid r147 million to house, feed and protect dispossessed people in 2008. we had to use rates money to cover those costs” (defence web, 2010). zille and smith were appealing to their ratepaying voters when they referred to the waste of money and they implied that foreign refugees are an unfunded mandate. the cape chamber of commerce and industry similarly held that: we should be asking why people are fleeing from african countries and what can be done about it. i’m afraid we are all dealing with the fall-out from poor governance, corruption and the actions of war lords…xenophobia is a much bigger problem than we realize. we must get the african union, the european union and the united nations involved (ccci, 2015). another cluster of official negative messages linked immigrants to crime and unrest. in interviews with j.p. smith refugees and foreign nationals were also mentioned alongside ‘street people’ and crime (smith 2019). on the other hand, there is some evidence of local ward community development workers (cdws) aligned to the anc and the development forum playing a constructive role in calling township meetings between locals and refugees and asylum seekers and building solidarity during the 2008 crisis in imizamo yethu (iy) in hout bay. according to pillay (2015): our team finds out that iy has a vibrant community life, and that its development forum (cdf) is very active. a range of political organizations operate here, and there are two very active community development workers (cdws), who also happen to be officials of the ruling party.  we find out very quickly that the cdws are angry – not at foreign nationals, but because two years of community work to build relations between the locals and foreign nationals turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 36 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 is being undone by a very vocal and insistent group of residents in hout bay. the cdws are angry because the white residents of hout bay, on hearing the stories about attacks on foreign nationals, are putting increasing pressure on the police to escort foreigners from the area. they are angry that white residents are arriving at iy and removing the foreign nationals in their employ themselves; and they are angry that all of this is done without consultation, particularly because after the foreign nationals leave the area, the looting of their shops, homes and businesses begins. now, this is but one recurring story and i think it is instructive. in dunoon, for example, these meetings were called by councillors without official assistance from the city (samodien, 2013). vulnerable groups the coct decided to exclude refugees and asylum seekers from its final social development strategy based on a belief that the problem is not a priority. in an early draft policy of the coct, the city identified five priorities. as depicted in the table below, immigrants were initially considered in goal 4.3 related to enhancing community participation and involvement. figure 1: extract from the draft social development strategy policy goal 4: enhancing community participation and involvement strategies actions s.4.1 strengthening of ngo sector & empowerment of community leaders a4.1.1 complement the capacity of ngo's dealing with refugee community a4.1.2 capacity building for community leaders to deal effectively with issues pertaining to sustainable relationships between foreign nationals and host communities 37 s.4.2 compliance engagement & enforcement a4.2.1 facilitate the establishment of area based business forums, facilitate development and implementation of guidelines to regulate informal business a4.2.2 regulate and monitoring selling of houses to foreign nationals to start small businesses s.4.3 entrepreneurial development and mentoring a4.3.1 empower both foreign and nationals and locals with entrepreneurial skills and mentoring services s.4.4 cultural and sport activities a4.4.1 implement cultural and sport activities to integrate foreign nationals and locals s.4.5 poverty mitigation a4.5.1 involve foreign nationals in poverty reduction programs and social security networks a4.5.2 ensure that in all programmes implemented/sponsored by government, foreign nationals are involved source: the city of cape town, 2012. even though the draft policy was not explicit on how foreign nationals were going to be integrated into the city’s development strategy, it indicated that some in the city leadership at least thought about foreign nationals and had an agenda. however, in the final version published in 2013, this aspect of ‘goal 4’ was entirely removed. the 2013 policy on vulnerable groups (pvg) defines certain categories of people as vulnerable in the coct (coct, 2013c). this policy (see definition on page 7 and throughout the document) completely excludes refugees and african immigrants. undocumented female migrants and even unaccompanied children who are asylum seekers or refugees are not considered as part of vulnerable children (mundell and carone, 2016). responsible tourism the coct’s responsible tourism policy (2009: 3) defines responsible tourism as an activity “that creates better places for people to live in, and better places to visit”. the responsible tourism policy, however, has a blind spot regarding the reality of miturning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 38 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 grants in the coct. where it talks about non-south african migrants (coct, 2009: 25), it merely calls for encouraging business relationships between foreign, local and emerging entrepreneurs. the policy also identifies local crafts as a priority. it says: give customers the opportunity to purchase locally produced crafts and curios, set targets to increase the proportion of sales of goods sourced within 20 km of the enterprise. assist local craft workers to develop new products to meet market demand (coct, 2009: 26). however, it is self-evident that most of the crafts sold in craft markets are from north of the limpopo. rogerson (2018: 157) found that: in cape town, despite a pro-development rhetoric in the inner city, there is evidence of a subtle but systematic exclusion of street traders, including of migrant entrepreneurs. little evidence exists of a coherent analysis by city policymakers to understand and foreground the contributions made by migrant entrepreneurs for the urban economy. ignorance among city officials, low priority of refugees and asylum seekers, lack of vision and token projects to probe how the city sees foreign africans, this study included interviews of midlevel officials in trading licensing services. at this level, the responses revealed that city officials (much like cape town’s da mayors) were not clear about what was meant by terms such as ‘asylum seeker’ or ‘refugee’. informants employed by the city indicated that they were not aware of any policies about foreign nationals. by and large, local government officials view migrants’ access to services such as housing as the responsibility of the national department of housing. local government respondents often failed to understand who refugees are and what rights they have (see palmary, 2002). according to a respondent: as far as the city is concerned, we’re not making any provisions for them [migrants] at this present moment. i think they’re doing it for themselves…we are not really involved, as the department of housing… (interview, department of housing, cape town). the term ‘xenophobia’ is mentioned only once in the disaster management policy. and here it is listed with social unrest. moreover, the city has no language support services or learning centres to assist migrants. rather than formulating a solid policy, the coct initiated a token project such as hosting a forum for community dialogue about xenophobia, in honor of mandela day in 2011. this single event sought “to increase awareness about issues affecting foreign nationals and to encourage a spirit of unity and peaceful relations between south africans and african foreign nationals” (coct, 2011). in the 2014/15 events budget, zero funding was assigned to the world refugee day budget line item whereas the world triathlon series received r2,1 million (coct, 2015). in early 2015, then mayor of cape town, patricia de lille stridently 39 condemned the new surge in nationwide xenophobic violence. in a public statement, she proclaimed that, “we cannot let this be done, in the name of our country, south africa” (coct, 2015). in 2015 de lille donated r21 000 – a tokenistic amount – to a non-governmental organization (ngo) assisting the children of refugees and asylum seekers. in 2015 she also minimized the issue, proclaiming that cape town has a small minority of xenophobic people. yet, she reported: we have daily meetings with the south african police service and metro police to report on any potential threats of xenophobic attacks. our early warning system is therefore in place. members of the public are also urged to report any suspicion of impending attacks in their communities (coct, 2015). a city-ngo agreement for a small sponsorship of r75 000 for world refugee day (2017) provides an indication of the low status of refugees on the city’s agenda and budget in 2017 (coct, 2017). in summary, the city of cape town has distinctly sidestepped its role and responsibility to provide a solid lead to minimize the xenophobia tragedy. refugees and foreign migrants enjoy very low priority in the coct budget. ngo’s views in contrast to the lack of knowledge about refugees and asylum seekers among coct officials, four ngo workers interviewed for this study were able to distinguish between the different status categories among refugees and asylum seekers. in the ngos responses, one participant stated that: yes, there are administrative categories in terms of documentation. the asylum seeker is the person who has made an application for asylum. this is a recognized refugee whose asylum application was granted. then there is a migrant who is a holder of a passport and visa that corresponds with the purpose for their visit to sa (e.g. work, study). an undocumented migrant is someone who has no documents whatsoever to legalize their stay in sa. then there are citizens and permanent residents. a visa is thus pertinent to a temporary resident and ‘permanent resident’ is another category (respondent c). an ngo worker (respondent c) also indicated that “refugees and asylum seekers have the same rights as south african citizens, except that they do not have the right to vote or form a political party”. ngos assisting refugees, asylum seekers and migrants raised some interesting points. two of the four ngo respondents referred to the need to address institutional xenophobia routinely found in government departments as well as inflammatory political rhetoric. respondent c stated that “there’s a great need for training and creating awareness”. all four ngo respondents felt that foreign nationals do not receive enough support from local government and stated that there are no special or additional services to assist foreign nationals, even in light of the 2008 xenophobic attacks. they indicated that they were not aware of any policy changes that had been beneficial to foreigners but they identified new ones that are not beneficial, such as the city’s amended trading by-law. passop, an ngo which has especially fought the criminalturning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 40 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 izing of the informal sector, has suggested that the government should focus on real crime as opposed to enforcing “outlandish by-laws”: the renewed harassment of informal traders by the police and city officials results in a breakdown of trust and makes informal traders especially vulnerable to criminal elements who extort ‘taxes’ and victimize them without them being able to rely on the police for protection due to the police being seen as being a part of an oppressive system (passop, 2013). another respondent stated that: i also think that they want to first save south africans before foreigners. it’s not supposed to be like that, you are supposed to treat everyone fairly. the city also discriminates against those who do not have documents and offers no assistance to rectify this. they also often think that you have received your documents illegally, especially the metro police (respondent d). refugees and asylum seekers as traders and organizations representing refugees and asylum seekers the black foreign traders interviewed (malawian, somalian, cameroonian, and zimbabwean nationalities) were asked what they thought the coct municipality could do to prevent xenophobia. four of the five said that the city should improve security and protection services on the streets, especially the security of foreigners. one respondent indicated that: the metro police, they will come here and i will show them even who stole from my stall but they will do nothing. but if you fight with the people then they blame you (respondent j). in 2015, refugee traders in cape town paid r879 per month to the city for renting a site, and r1950 for an annual permit – three times more than in limpopo (crush and tawodzera, 2017: 5). despite this, three respondents indicated that they had experienced hostility from metro police. a respondent operating in wynberg indicated that “they must stop taking our stuff. when we do something wrong, they take our stuff and we must pay to get it back” (respondent g). asked whether they felt that special allowances should be made for the employment of foreign nationals in south africa, all five agreed. one female respondent stated that, “there should be a law in place that allows foreigners easier access to jobs. when south africans come to my home country they get jobs, they are not left without jobs and we should be treated the same in their country” (respondent i). another respondent indicated that: we don’t get the jobs that we are qualified for in south africa. south africa does not see that we are teachers in our countries. instead, we must come here and look for other jobs that pay a little money (respondent k). cape town has dozens of migrant organizations representing the interests of refugee and asylum seekers, as well as several ngos that support refugees and asylum seekers by providing different services. there are also intimate relationships between 41 south african blacks and foreign africans, for example through marriage (sichone, 2008; owen, 2015; uwimpuhwe and ruiters, 2018; isd, 2018). each migrant organization has independent initiatives to assist its members but the local state has not effectively engaged with these organizations or assisted the refugees and asylum seekers. if, as portes (1995) suggests, migration is rarely a single individual effort, then migrant organizations and networks need to be central to efforts to find solutions. for example, somalis in townships initiated a ‘self-protection program’ and street committees. moreover: we encourage them also to be part of the local community where they are ... furthermore, we are creating street committees that will be composed of both somalis and south africans in order to encourage locals to protect somalis (a.r. sheikh, february 2016). language barriers were identified as being a problem for immigrants. health services also provide an example of language and cultural discrimination. the albayaan islamic council trust (aict) leader asserts that somali women are facing a big problem at clinics, as some women are being sterilized without their consent: when our women go to maternity clinics they are abused and given family planning without their consent. some of them find out that they can’t have kids anymore while they didn’t know when they had been sterilized. i think it is because many of them don’t know english and are forced to sign what they don’t understand (a. rachid, october 2015). the aict is involved in integrating somalis into the south african citizenry. this is done through skills transfer initiatives in which they teach south africans how to run a small business. this organization also identifies people in the local communities who need help: firstly, as refugees we are helping south africans by employing them in our businesses, teaching them how to start a business. we also help other immigrants, for instance last year we gave donations to burundians in townships. we also do cleaning of this bellville cbd; last year we did it twice and we are planning to do it again this year. we have a good relationship with the darul islam foundation trust, muslim judicial council (mjc) and the african muslims agency (a. rachid, 2015). immigrant organizations are involved in promoting social cohesion through civic education and cultural events. for example, the south african somali association organizes different educational programs for both somalis and south africans of different cultural backgrounds and promotes social cohesion between immigrants and citizens (a khalif, leader of the somali association of south africa (sasa). the amis bk (friends of bukavu) brings together both south africans and african immigrants through cultural events: in 2011 and 2012 we had a volunteering project in langa township to teach south african students in public schools maths and physics, which is part of the integration. we wanted to show citizens that it is not true what people are turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 42 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 saying that migrants came to take their jobs and their women (a. namufakage, amis bk, february 2016). the level of self-defence, organization and networking among migrants and external refugees and with ngos has increased since the mid-2000s (uwimpuhwe and ruiters, 2018). migrant organizations play a major role in social cohesion, albeit with very little active local government support. conclusion while recognizing that city authorities are not the only players, they are certainly the closest to the problem. this study analyzed the coct’s policies vis-a-vis foreign african migrants, revealing that despite their growing numbers and significant contribution to the growth of the city, refugees and african immigrants remain at the margins of policies and the local government’s programs. the study found that there is a blame game between the local government and the central government about who is responsible for poor immigrants and the xenophobic conflict. this paper identified local government’s shifting definition of the ‘foreign immigrant problem’ and its poor record of resourcing and encouraging the integration of african migrants. the city of cape town has also underplayed the extent and scope of the xenophobia problem and the related labor market issues. it has missed opportunities to devise a more visionary, comprehensive approach to ensuring citizenship for all who labor and live in cape town. refugees and foreign migrants are not taken into consideration in the formulation of the coct’s budget. the study found that ngos and refugee and asylum seeker organizations have much to bring to the table to alleviate problems and realize the vision of cape town as an african cosmopolitan city. as argued in an earlier paper, “given the dominant ‘methodological individualism’ and gaps in recent migration scholarship in south africa, a fresh theoretical perspective and knowledge about organized refugee and asylum seeker formations, the activities and services they offer, their geographical reach and location, who they assist and what sorts of resources they can mobilize” is needed (uwimpuhwe and ruiters, 2018: 1122). it is, therefore, crucial to increase the political will and capacity of local authorities, to ensure an inclusive response to the needs of migrants. a comprehensive response needs to take seriously the claims that working-class south africans feel threatened by competition in the labor market and that employers are taking advantage of the new labor pool of insecure foreign african migrants. the coct should consider including migrants and representative migrant organizations in ongoing policy dialogues and its planning for housing and other programs. it should create spaces for positive encounters between various groups in public spaces, encourage inclusive public art, food festivals, exert social and other kinds of pressure through campaigns for decent work for all to ensure that employers do not exploit foreign workers who underpin the tourist economy and enforce equal treatment, apply equal standards and uphold regulations for all. it should provide training and awareness43 raising for local government officials and councillors on refugee and migrant rights. it should develop programs to educate businesses and landlords about refugees and asylum seekers and monitor those businesses and landlords who take illegal advantage of vulnerable migrants. by valuing and recognizing migrants, especially legal immigrants and refugees, as key city builders and stakeholders in the coct, the exploitation of the insecurity of migrants could be minimized. migrant exclusion not only leaves large sections of the population without the services they need but in the long run, they too become less productive. the city of cape town could nurture a pan-african partnership with transnational players and be more tolerant of the presence of the poor in the city. finally, local governments should have 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(neville alexander). 1979. one azania, one nation: the national question in south africa. london: zed. taal, m. 2012. organising the hospitality sector in sa. labor research services, salt river. retrieved from: https://bit.ly/34oo6od. accessed on: 7 march 2018. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) news. 2005. cape town recognises refugee brain gain. retrieved from: https://bit.ly/3airhgc. accessed on: 3 april 2016. uwimpuhwe, d. and ruiters, g. 2018. organising somalian, congolese and rwandan migrants in a time of xenophobia in south africa: empirical and methodological reflections. journal of international migration and integration, 19(4): 1119-1136. western, j. c. 1981. outcast cape town. london: allen & unwin. list of named interviewees abdul rachid, leader of the albayan islamic council trust (aict), interviewed in bellville, october 2015. abdi-rashid shiekh, leader of the somalis community board south africa (scbsa), interviewed in bellville, february 2016. abdul khalif, leader of the somali association of south africa (sasa), interviewed in bellville, february 2016. amani namufakage, chairperson of the amis bk, interviewed at observatory, february 2016. 49 anonymous interviews interviewee (pseudonym) area of expertise place interviewed date interviewed coct business areas management mr a coct business areas management cape town cbd 30 july 2015 mrs t coct business areas management cape town cbd 30 july 2015 coct ngos working with refugees ms c ngo (1) cape town cbd 7 july 2015 mrs d ngo (1) cape town cbd 12 august 2015 mrs f ngo (2) cape town cbd 12 august 2015 mrs q ngo (2) cape town cbd 20 august 2015 informal traders in the coct municipality mr g malawian trader wynberg 18 august 2015 mr h somalian trader wynberg 18 august 2015 ms i cameroonian trader cape town cbd 26 august 2015 mr j somali trader cape town cbd 27 august 2015 ms k zimbabwean trader cape town cbd 27 august 2015 mr g malawian trader wynberg 31 august 2015 mr h somali trader wynberg 31 august 2015 ms i cameroonian trader cape town cbd 25 august 2015 turning a blind eye to african refugees and immigrants in a tourist city 50 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 intersection of migration and local governance: lessons on methods and research design caitlin blaser mapitsa* *school of governance, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa email: caitlin.mapitsa@wits.ac.za a recent study interrogating the ways in which municipal authorities in south africa are governing their mobile communities demonstrated that there is potential for both conceptual innovation and methodological rigor when integrating the cross-cutting systems of migration and local governance. however, this integration also posed a number of challenges that were apparent both during the data collection phase, as well as when the diagnostic tool was designed. the process of implementing this research raised methodological and conceptual questions about how these two areas of work intersect. this paper aims to reflect not on the results of the study itself, but on the methodological process issues that can lay a foundation for a better understanding of how to study the intersection of two interdisciplinary fields. this research took place in five south african municipalities in limpopo, gauteng, and mpumalanga, selected because they reflect a broad spectrum of migration dynamics and demographic patterns. an institutional ethnography approach was drawn on, which included mixed methods fieldwork with document review, key stakeholder interviews, focus groups, and community mapping took place in all five municipalities, taking an inductive approach to developing a diagnostic tool, which was applied retrospectively based on the data gathered. this paper found that resolving a number of divergent conceptual issues is important to effectively interpret results around the intersection of the cross-cutting fields of governance and migration. this methodological reflection is important on its own, but it will also help ensure that future initiatives around strengthening local governance, or making systems more responsive to the needs of migrants, are on solid conceptual, methodological, and practical ground. keywords: migration, governance, research methods, urbanization 51 introduction the governance of municipalities and migration are both critical forces in reconfiguring processes of democracy and development both globally, and in south africa. megacities have long been recognized as spaces of global innovation, economic growth and creativity, but this lens has rarely been extended to south africa’s secondary cities. while these are the metropoles that are statistically receiving the highest percentage of migrants, they remain on the periphery of scholarship and policymaking (mberu et al., 2017). they have a high degree of autonomy in development planning, but the competencies required to plan proactively towards the demographic changes posed by migration vary significantly. this research found that the ability of local governments to respond effectively to a mobile population varied considerably on the basis of a wide range of factors. it also emerged from the research process that preconceptions held by both municipal officials and migrants about the nature of the community, the service delivery needs of migrants, and the processes of municipal planning have meant that municipalities are missing an opportunity for more effective and efficient service delivery, and migrants are unable to access the participatory channels that do exist. this paper does not primarily engage with the content of the findings of the study, which have been published elsewhere (blaser and landau, 2014). while these results are important for municipal planning and local government capacity building, the focus of this paper is on the conceptual and methodological lessons that were learned through the process of implementing the research. studying the local governance of mobility, two cross-cutting topics that are hotly contested, requires methodological tools that allow the researcher to take respondents beyond their instrumental understanding of either topic. through a focus on the research process, this paper provides lessons for a wide range of stakeholders, academics, and practitioners who are working with cross-cutting governance or migration initiatives. this paper highlights key lessons for how both areas of focus are conceptualized and translated into research methods and tools. illustrating how research methods hinge on these intersecting topics, is an important way of understanding how local government can be more responsive to migration dynamics in the future. context of local governance and migration local governance, and particularly municipal level governance play a central role in discussions on migration, and the management of mobile populations (ahouga, 2018). the united nations (un) sustainable development goals (sdgs) have a strong focus on localization, looking at global issues through a lens of local management structures. goal 11 focuses explicitly on sustainable cities, and urban planners and municipal managers are now engaging with a range of global processes that are actively seeking to understand what role local governance, and the governance of intersection of migration and local governance 52 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 cities in particular, play in key global issues such as inequality and climate change (kanuri et al., 2016; communitas coalition, 2016). this interest in local governance is juxtaposed with a similarly strong interest in migration. migration has often been part of a wider debate on development and identity, but a rise of populism globally is reigniting debates about the definition, identity and rights of migrants (okyerefo and setrana, 2018). inspired in part by brexit, the process of defining nation states and the populations they govern is part of a global conversation contemplating how these different definitional approaches connect to public sector bureaucracies, and what it means for migrants (somerville, 2016). furthermore, spatial mobility in africa has long been defined by poorly defined borders between international and internal migration, due to colonial national boundaries that cut across shared culture and language (adepoju, 2006). these two cross-cutting trends are the localization of analyses of global governance, and the importance of migration in understanding how places develop spatial definitions and cohesive communities. in spite of the simultaneous importance of both areas of study, there is no consensus around how to understand local government’s responsiveness to migration, let alone what good practice could look like in this regard (zapata-barrero et al., 2017). this research therefore required the development of a tool and method that could bring people together around common core concepts, and specify an approach that would allow the research team to understand how these concepts were operationalized by respondents, and analyze trends and areas of divergence. through this experience, a range of important lessons were learned, and this paper aims to distill a few of the most salient points that have emerged from this process. in doing so, this paper first explains the design of a diagnostic tool designed to categorize municipal responses to mobility, and considers the practical, conceptual, and contextual challenges of applying this tool across several different municipalities. it concludes with lessons for scholars who are studying the intersection of cross-cutting fields. among the many scholars of governance in south africa, greffrath and van der waldt (2016) posit that, “transformation of the local sphere of government has probably been the largest undertaking within the entire governance adjustment process since democratization in 1994”. however, tremendous work remains for municipalities to be functional, let alone developmental entities. in the 2015-2016 financial year, only 49 out of 263 municipalities received a clean audit, and none of them were from limpopo, where much of this fieldwork was conducted (agsa, 2016). a wide range of capacity development initiatives are targeting municipalities in the hope of improving local service delivery, with an increasing focus on intervention by national and provincial structures (reddy, 2014; greffrath and van der waldt, 2016). however, without a widely held consensus of what the composite components of planning capacity are, efforts are likely to remain incomplete. 53 development of a migration responsive diagnostic tool it was evident from the outset that building a diagnostic tool that would reflect the migration responsiveness of local government would be an important step in providing participants from different perspectives with a common reference point on a complex topic. however, it was also clear that the tool had to be informed by an iterative process of data collection, and could not be developed without first understanding the conceptual boundaries of the respondents. it has already been acknowledged that the way dimensions of local governance are conceptualized is a driving force in management research (roiseland, 2011). a collaboration between the migrating out of poverty programme (moop), the african centre for migration and society (acms) at the university of witwatersrand, and the south african local government association (salga) made it possible to spearhead iterative fieldwork to better understand the ways in which local government in south africa is responding to migration in five south african municipalities. municipalities first self-selected into the project, based on their identification of a need to build capacity in their response to mobility, and among the municipalities volunteering to participate, a selection of secondary cities was chosen. secondary cities were targeted because they experience the highest rates of migration and are relatively under-studied (awumbila, 2017). selection was based on identifying the widest range of demographic and migration dynamics from the municipalities available, to allow for lessons that could be relevant across various contexts. this research was part of a longer-term, phased research project which aims to better understand how migration is reshaping communities, and what potential it holds for poverty reduction. the overall methodological design of the research was based on principles of institutional ethnography. fieldwork for this research was conducted in iterative steps guided by an inductive approach, with two visits to each site. due to data privacy concerns, the specific municipalities involved cannot be named. the duration of the first visit was a week, and included a community mapping exercise, as well as interviews to get a sense of both the migration and governance dynamics within the community (gioia et al., 2013). the second visit took place over a month and included key stakeholder interviews and focus groups. the tool emerged from these key stakeholder interviews rather than informing them. it was based on a conceptual framework of ecological systems developed by bronfenbrenner (1979) and previously used by the author in a gender diagnostic study (jansen van rensburg and blaser mapitsa, 2017). this model includes the macro levels of social cohesion and participation, meso levels of accountability and participation, and micro levels of data collection and budgeting. this approach was adopted keeping in mind a systems approach to governance, which acknowledges the administrative and social dynamics therein. while the diagnostic tool is deliberately reductionist to allow for comparability across a range of contexts, it did not replace a more exploratory, inductive approach, which was a hallmark of the research project. without bringing together intersection of migration and local governance 54 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 both approaches, such detailed substantive and methodological reflections would not have been possible. the research team tried to balance issues of comparability across different administrative and institutional contexts, and held that a framework which simplified these issues was helpful provided that it was not at the exclusion of more exploratory work. however, the structured tool still created difficulty in reaching consensus among the various stakeholders around the scope of measurement, particularly with regards to which components of governance would be captured. scope of the tool six dimensions emerged, which covered the widest span of key competencies municipalities needed to demonstrate in order to be responsive to mobility. the dimensions included: budgeting, data collection and use, participation, accountability, perceptions, and social cohesion. a deliberate decision was made to include a full spectrum of competencies, ranging from technical, to strategic. moreover, the purpose of the tool was to be broadly indicative, so while each step of the five-point scale was generally defined (blaser and landau, 2014), a decision was made not to be prescriptive in the scoring process, because the value of the tool was to identify relative strengths and gaps. several criteria were identified within each dimension, to interrogate the degree to which mobility was found in the various dimensions. the criteria began with a score of 0, as entirely absent or even problematic to responding to mobility. the scale increased to a score of five, which was a robust and proactive response to a mobile population and the needs of migrant communities. the measurements were a deliberately imprecise process, with the numerical values being broadly indicative. that was to allow for a schematic comparison across contexts from which rich qualitative data had been gathered, rather than applying a specific quantitative scale. applying the migration responsive diagnostic tool once the tool was fully developed, it was applied retrospectively to the municipalities of bushbuckridge, lephalale, and hammanskraal on the basis of data which had already been collected, and from which the diagnostic tool emerged. sources of information for the assessment included integrated development plans (idps), a review of documents from the municipalities, key stakeholder interviews and focus groups, and participant observation notes from a range of municipal public participation initiatives. departments responsible for local economic development, planning, and service provision were explicitly targeted for interviews as well as observation, in addition to civil society organizations, and community-based organizations serving migrants within the community. data was collected through an iterative process described above. once fieldwork was complete, data was analyzed, and the tool was developed on the basis of points of convergence and divergence across the municipalities studied. the tool was 55 then applied retrospectively on the basis of available data. the results were then discussed with the municipalities in a verification workshop. had time and resources allowed, having an additional step of fieldwork to apply the tool collaboratively with stakeholders may have both resulted in less schematic findings and more refined criteria, but also strengthened buy-in and ownership. however, applying the tool retrospectively was a useful way of triangulating the consistency of data gathered across municipalities, and confirming areas of consistency and divergence in the findings. conceptual challenges in a comparative case study approach in developing the migrant responsive diagnostic tool, a key concern was to have some level of comparability across each municipality, and to the extent possible, to maintain comparability across different dimensions of the diagnostic. a first phase of research conducted at acms carried out detailed case studies within several municipalities, but the focus in this later stage was to target the potential for capacity building initiatives, and as such, while contextualizing the data was important, being able to compare and generalize was a central aim (vearey et al., 2014). each municipality demonstrated key differences. some will be discussed later in the paper, while others are illustrated in detail in publications addressing the content of thematic findings of the research (blaser and landau, 2014). these differences ranged from contextual differences around the dynamics of mobility within the municipality, to institutional differences in the structures of governance and political incentives. sometimes, these institutional differences presented a challenge in defining concepts around both migration, and governance (zapata-barrero et al., 2017). consistently applying these concepts in different institutional concepts was a constant struggle for the research team. this was made even more challenging due to the fact that a range of responsibilities were required to respond effectively to mobility, including planning, data management, etc. each municipality defined and delegated these responsibilities differently across different offices, with some functions located strongly in departments of economic development, while others were performed by service delivery departments. finally, others conducted these functions through institutional partnerships with other bodies (vearey et al., 2014). since no municipality had specific, defined outcomes around migration, understanding what these different capacities looked like, and where they were located within the municipal administration was a crucial part of the diagnostic study. furthermore, each municipality had varied migration dynamics, which interfaced with mechanisms of governance in different ways. in some communities, migrant workers remitted a significant portion of the economy, and represented a powerful political force. in other municipalities, international migrants were closely aligned to the ruling political party, and were again a powerful political force. in yet other municipalities, the ruling party was actively involved in perpetuating xenophobic violence to build its electoral support (blaser mapitsa, 2018). these differences in context between the various municipalities had a tremendous influence on the way intersection of migration and local governance 56 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 the diagnostic tool was applied, and the way the results were interpreted. due to this, it is particularly important to have stronger tools, applied more broadly, for understanding municipal institutions and their role in responding to a mobile population. reflecting on the methodology of developing and applying the diagnostic tool from a comparative perspective is important because the results of the diagnostic tool will only translate into learning if the context from the municipalities is reflected. further studies about municipal planning capacity can only be appropriately contextualized if the methodological approach, as well as the study’s results, have sufficient reflection and interrogation. overview of research findings while this paper primarily deals with the study’s conceptual framework and research methods, rather than its explicit findings, a summary of the key results helps to contextualize this methodological discussion. the most central finding of the study is that both migrants and local government officials are co-creating the community through a dynamic process of governance and contestation around how communities are defined and served. municipal policy is developed in a way that largely ignores both the specific service delivery requirements of migrants, but also that does not take into account the ways through which migration is shaping the community (blaser and landau, 2014). with the introduction of the spatial planning and land use management act (spluma), which gives municipalities widespread powers linked to land use, strengthening municipal capacity to spatialize planning processes is becoming increasingly vital. there are other key powers in the municipal domain that are critical for migrant well-being, such as the management of nodes of transport, and shaping social cohesion, where municipal authorities play a central role in shaping migrant experiences in south africa. this paper synthesizes the results of a research project that entailed fieldwork in five south african municipalities in 2013-2014, exploring how secondary cities in the region are responding to mobile populations. what emerged were three themes, that, when seen in aggregate, point to a need for a conceptual shift to be shared by migrants and local government officials if mobility is to achieve its potential of enabling development. the first is that migration is seen overwhelmingly as a problem, by both municipal authorities, and sometimes even by migrants themselves. while there are some nuances within this, most local authorities within municipalities are certainly not embracing migration as an opportunity. blaser and landau (2014) previously explored the various capacities required for local government officials to respond effectively to mobility at a municipal level. however, none of these dimensions will work effectively if municipal officials are not, first and foremost, willing to view the opportunities migration presents. the second theme that emerged as particularly important for the way municipal responses to mobility should be designed, is that state practice is experienced 57 locally. while both municipal authorities and migrants have a discourse that speaks to a belief in a rationalized bureaucracy that is uniform at least at a national level, in fact, the evaluation of governance and people’s experiences of management happen on a very localized scale, and this needs to be understood in planning. while scholarship on local governance in africa acknowledges that the state has varied manifestations at a local level (fukuyama, 2017; börzel and risse, 2016), it is critical to explore this in more granularity for issues which are often not considered a local competency. finally, migrants are currently seen as being in limbo, in a bureaucratic, social, and political ‘no man’s land’ in terms of state governance. claimed by neither their communities of origin nor their hosts, there is no clarity of mandate in terms of either what is needed to govern migrant communities, nor where that competency and responsibility should reside. the result is an oscillation between a policy vacuum, and a cacophony. as one scholar summarizes, “where policy instruments have, explicitly or implicitly, addressed issues of migration, there have been contradictory and confusing messages” (atkinson and marais, 2006). the confluence of these three things means that both the migrant experience is made far more difficult, but also that municipal authorities are missing a tremendous opportunity for more efficient service delivery and accelerated economic development. methodological reflection this paper considers reflections that came from all researchers who were part of the project, as well as the data gathered in the findings. it specifically assesses three different aspects of the research process. the first area is of practical considerations, such as differences in language and migrant status of the research team, preparation of the research project, and the data collection itself. the second section reflects on the conceptual challenges in applying the tool, and the institutional differences in the municipalities. the third and main area of reflection looks at the intersection of and fragmentation between governance and migration. it is through this third area that it becomes apparent how both fields need to be reconceptualized to better articulate areas of intersection. it also points to areas where capacity building may gain traction at the municipal level. practical challenges in transecting two interdisciplinary areas working multi-locally was a timeand resource-intensive process. even with significant time allocated to the fieldwork process, multiple trips needed to be taken to each site, for an iterative approach to data collection. with a small team of researchers all at the behest of municipal officials’ schedules, a significant travel budget and generous time were both requirements to ensure coherence in data collection approaches. additionally, since the research began as inductive, as the diagnostic tool was forming, the research team needed to be in constant communication about the findings emerging from each site, and developed a tightly coordinated approach to intersection of migration and local governance 58 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 data collection. that was particularly important with the most critical stakeholders, with whom the interview instruments were open-ended, to allow for maximum benefit from an inductive approach. however, it also meant that results were reliant on skilled interviewers who were in close communication with each other, to build the data collection in a common direction across sites. one decision was taken to aggregate the technical capacities of the municipality across all departments and entities. in fact, there was significant variation across different departments and entities, around everything from accountability and participation, to data collection and use. that was true in some places due to individual competency, but also in other places due to the location of a function within the municipal administration. while the diagnostic tool could be adapted to be applied to a smaller unit of analysis, keeping it at the municipal level was an important decision in order to maintain the possibility for researchers to compare across municipal contexts. departmental levels were too varied and localized for the purposes of the research. additionally, defining both the concepts of migration and governance in a way that resonated across all the municipalities was difficult. while there were administrative definitions in place, these were not always accurate reflections of the way the concepts were practiced. furthermore, the same terminology, both around migration and around governance, was often used to represent very different concepts. for example, governance in some places looked at the exercise of the audit function, while in other places it referred to ethnolinguistic dimensions of the ruling political party. it emerged through the course of fieldwork that there was a very evident practical challenge linked to existing stereotypes of migration. while international migrants were particularly targeted with xenophobic beliefs, the negative sentiments were not restricted to migrants who had to cross international borders. negative associations with migrants and migration are reasonably well documented in the literature on migration and governance (vertovec, 2015). however, governance is also subject to a range of stereotypes, particularly at a local government level, where municipal capacity and political violence dramatically impact individual attitudes and perceptions (benit-gbaffou, 2014). conceptual difficulties applying the tool an immediate struggle in developing the tool and applying it effectively is because migration was often a politically charged topic at the municipal level, prompting officials to respond in a certain way. however, these influences were not the same across municipal contexts. as a result, it was difficult to know that respondents were engaging with the concept of migration in the same way. for example, in some places ‘migration’ immediately triggered discussions of foreign-born spaza shop-owners. in other places, ‘migration’ spoke nearly exclusively to migrant mineworkers. both migrant communities existed in all these municipalities, but due to the local social and political dynamics, one particular migrant community was a reference point, and 59 certainly informed the approach of municipal officials to the research. related to this problem was the challenge that many municipal officials had not thought in great detail about the various ways in which migrants shape communities, and as a result, questions that were articulated around migration specifically, either led to officials saying that migration is a national competency and does not have anything to do with their work, or spoke only to issues of service delivery towards international migrants, which was of interest, but a very limited component of the research. while this did come out in the pilot phase and was mitigated by the introduction of a range of questions related to planning and demographic change and less explicitly about migration, it remained a key conceptual issue as the research unfolded. it is evident that due to a lack of consensus about the importance and competencies to respond to a mobile population, different municipalities located these functions in different places (parnell et al., 2002; harrison and todes, 2015). while exploring these functions in more detail may have been interesting, pragmatically, it meant that entry points into municipalities varied, and that understanding how these functions were expressed was inconsistent and often difficult. it also made it more complex to go through a process of obtaining buy-in and support for the research process, as it was not immediately evident who the most important stakeholders were. the fact that this hurdle was encountered in every single municipality, demonstrates that there is a definite lack of consensus around how municipalities should best respond to migration. contextualizing and comparing results the previous sections have already agreed that analyzing the results of the diagnostic study required returning to a large amount of inductive data on how municipalities understand migration, and how communities understand governance, to look for points of intersection and divergence. a diagnostic tool then summarized the most salient features, to allow for comparability across a range of municipal contexts. this is important to allow each municipality to plan for coordinated capacity development responses. a further challenge to comparing municipal responses to mobility across different municipalities is that it is difficult to contextualize each site’s demographic variations, as well as the political dynamics these imply for migration. both are socially and historically embedded, constantly changing, and require a high level of contextual knowledge about each community. in future studies, methods around these intersections might introduce respondent coding to address some of these contextual variations, but it was not possible to introduce such approaches for this particular study. finally, the research encountered a simple shortage of contextual information in all the municipalities that would have made it easier to draw stronger comparisons. as discussed earlier, the municipalities were specifically chosen due to their intersection of migration and local governance 60 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 relative exclusion from migration-related research. while this is a strength in terms of the study’s contribution to literature in the field, it is a weakness from the perspective of contextualization and comparability. understanding the richness of the social dynamics in each municipality was part of the strength of the research, but for purposes of future research, a more nuanced comparative analysis would be possible if these contextual diversities had a stronger basis in research. intersecting migration and local governance mainstreaming migration across local governance in south africa faces a wide range of challenges. both include divergent technical and political concepts that different stakeholders understand and practice in different ways. the mandates and practice within local government for responding to mobility are complex and at times, unclear. while both fields have been widely recognized as priorities, given the economic development trajectory and the sdgs, activities are unlikely to increase as long as there are not commonly held definitions, or widespread capacity. without consensus on core conceptual tenets of migration and local governance, it was a difficult task to pull together a diagnostic tool that will gauge their intersection, particularly one that could then be compared across a range of municipal contexts. however, that was precisely why the research team found the development of the diagnostic tool so valuable. this iterative process of sharpening the scope and focus of the tool helped uncover the core competencies that municipalities need to respond effectively to migration, and to see how these looked across different municipal contexts. the research process was an important part of defining the problem, which may be a theme in better understanding how cross-cutting fields intersect. one important aspect that emerged, is that a wide range of roles and responsibilities are involved in making municipalities more responsive to migration. however, for this to happen effectively, it is important to separate out each role and mandate within each administrative body, and strengthen cross functional coordination. this has not traditionally been a strength of local government (rogerson, 2014), and points to an area that may require capacity building if a mobility citizenry is to be responded to effectively. finally, complexities in this research, and the development of the diagnostic tool, highlighted that each municipal context had a distinct political, social, and administrative structure. it is within each of these contexts that migration and local governance processes of planning and participation are contested, conceptualized, and operationalized. this points to considerable variations in how migrations are conceptualized and received by municipal institutions. for example, in some communities, international migrants shared a common linguistic heritage to the community, and were considered more ‘local’ to the municipal authorities than migrants from other provinces of south africa. while the diagnostic tool development was one step towards teasing out some of the points of contestation, and making these divergent views more explicit, more work is still needed to translate this into a process 61 of building capacity and encouraging consensus. lessons learned in integrating cross-cutting topics over all, this study highlighted several lessons for integrating mobility and local governance, both of which are cross-cutting fields with multiple points of intersection. any effort at understanding municipal capacity, or planning capacity development interventions, will only be successful with an in-depth engagement of the intersection between local governance and mobility, to ensure that planning processes effectively accommodate demographic change. there are clearly multiple factors ranging from technical skills around data and use, to the structure and implementation of participation practices, and more contextual components of social inclusion. municipal officials would benefit from clear guidelines around how they can better respond to migration in the community, and these materials would be best developed with engagement from a wide range of stakeholders, using the diagnostic tool as a basis for discussion and consensus building. it is important that the capacity to respond to a migrant populace does not lie with specific individuals responsible for service delivery or participation processes, but that the complexity is owned across the municipality, and that a range of functions can be drawn on to ensure responsive planning and implementation. sometimes, a resistance to engaging with migrants or issues of migration can be a helpful starting point for understanding how best to transform municipal practice. finally, it was evident that a municipality’s capacity to respond to migration was interwoven with its capacity to engage with a large range of other issues, from planning to service delivery. as such, this diagnostic tool should not stand in isolation of other tools to gauge and support municipal effectiveness, ranging from the local government management improvement mechanism (lgmim) to audit functions (reddy, 2014; sanderson, 2001). however, using the lens of a cross-cutting issue, migration in this case (though other population indicators like gender, could provide a different and equally interesting analysis), can occasionally uncover intersectional linkages that other approaches to understanding capacity might miss. in this case, what came out most clearly were the interlinkages between technical and institutional capacities within the municipality, as well as the way in which political authority within municipalities is historically and socially embedded. while this is not a surprise to those working on issues of local governance, capacity development approaches may not always integrate this reality. conclusion the results of a preliminary application of the diagnostic tool in three municipalities, lephalale, bushbuckridge, and hammanskraal, offer a significant opportunity to identify strengths and gaps in municipal capacity to manage a mobile community. technical challenges were identified, such as data availability and management, as intersection of migration and local governance 62 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 well as the existence of forums for coordination and mechanisms for participation. there are also political and social factors which range from the ownership of spaza shops to historical economic ties across migrant communities. despite the unique localized landscape of mobility and governance, there are many common threads in municipal response capacity. municipalities and migrants are both engaged in a dynamic process of creating a common community. however, expectations and perceptions held by both migrants and municipal officials are limiting robust participation and effective service delivery. one step towards overcoming this will be developing a shared understanding of what municipal responses to mobility could look like. given the level of autonomy municipal authorities have in south africa, empowering municipal officials to translate the lofty goals held nationally in the constitution and the national development plan (ndp) requires equipping officials with appropriate tools to understand migration-responsive budgeting, participation mechanisms, and accountability. an important foundational step to facilitate this is to build recognition for the fact that municipal policy-making has an impact on migrants. there is a widespread perception that migrants can only be governed by national government, and this ignores the realities that governance is experienced locally, and local policies and practices are crucial frontline links between migrants and governance. one of the results of implementing the study is that it revealed the extent to which definitions and concepts linked to migration and local governance are divergent, and dependent on the specificities of the municipality and its unique social and political dynamics. this was unexpected; it made a strong case for the importance of the diagnostic tool, given the difficulties of comparing the empirical data across different contexts. at the same time, it generated additional results. the diagnostic tool helped identify and draw attention to areas of contestation that otherwise may have been overlooked. if these discussions are continued and deepened, there is a possibility to build consensus among stakeholders who have an important role to play in municipal responsiveness to a mobile population. additionally, such results will help all levels of government better understand the current capacity and landscape to identify the most relevant capacity development interventions. given that municipalities having such autonomy in the way migrants are received, starting to define migrant responsive local governance is critical for meeting sdg targets around inclusive cities. 63 references adepoju, a. 2006. internal and international migration within africa. in migration in south and southern africa: dynamics and determinants, edited by p. kok, d. gelderblom, j.o. oucho, and j. van zyl. cape town: hsrc press, pp. 26-46. ahouga, y. 2018. the local turn in migration management: the iom and the engagement of local authorities. journal of ethnic and 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may. retrieved from: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/paper/brexit-role-migration-upcoming-eu-referendum. accessed on: 29 september 2018. vearey, j., misago, j.p., araia, t., and monama, e. 2014. migration, mobility and urban vulnerabilities. south african cities network. vertovec, s., 2015. introduction: migration, cities, diversities ‘old’ and ‘new’. in di65 versities old and new, edited by s. vertovec. london: palgrave macmillan, pp. 1-20. zapata-barrero, r., caponio, t., and scholten, p. 2017. theorizing the ‘local turn’ in a multi-level governance framework of analysis: a case study in immigrant policies. international review of administrative sciences, 83(2): 241-246. intersection of migration and local governance 66 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 social media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa godwin etta odok* *department of sociology, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa email: godwinodok2000@yahoo.com in recent times, there is a resurgence of aggressive consciousness by citizens of most african countries, firmly fashioned and sustained through social media. social media in this way effectively play roles of mobilizing and (re)constructing national identities and solidarities in ways that citizens regularly enter into violent confrontations with foreign nationals, often stereotyped as threats to the prosperity of citizens. in some african countries, executive orders have been given by heads of government that saw the vicious expulsion of millions of foreign nationals. with the advent of distance-andtime-shrinking information and communication technologies, social media platforms such as facebook‚ twitter‚ youtube and whatsapp are relied upon in rousing support for national interests and in-group solidarity. through a systematic review of national immigration policies and content analysis of facebook newsfeeds in selected countries of east/central, west and southern africa (zimbabwe, ethiopia, the democratic republic of the congo (drc), nigeria, somalia, ghana, uganda, and south africa), this paper examines how social media strengthen in-group solidarities with the attendant consequences of loss of lives, properties, and inter-state diplomatic relations in postcolonial africa. the paper concludes that while encouraging freedom of expression within the continent, social media also bolster freedom to hate as both citizens and foreign nationals become more distrustful of one another, thereby exacerbating competition, rivalry and xenophobia. as citizens exercise their right to voice their opinions, they also actively dehumanize foreign nationals. the paper recommends that kin and friendship networks should become the sphere within which interventions for antixenophobia campaigns occur in post-colonial africa, as these hold the social capital to bridge the divide between citizens and foreign nationals in attempts to achieve peaceful co-existence. keywords: social cohesion, xenophobia, social capital, coloniality, social media, nationalism 67 introduction this paper examines how social media leverage on the social structures of post-independence africa to fuel nationalistic sentiments in ways that unremittingly affect visions of pan-africanism and the united nations (un) sustainable development goals (sdgs). in recent times, social media platforms such as facebook‚ twitter‚ blackberry messenger, youtube and whatsapp, have become powerful platforms to broadcast messages, photos and video clips to a global audience (gillespie, 2010). aker and mbiti (2010) and the african union (au, 2015) argue that both nationals and foreign nationals of african countries engage with social media to disseminate misleading narratives that generate negative perceptions of themselves. landau (2010) show that this is generating an aggressive and restless consciousness among nationals and foreign nationals, frequently leading to conflict and confrontation – including the use of violence against themselves – as foreign nationals are often seen as threats to the prosperity of nationals. in nigeria for instance, during the president shehu shagari administration in 1983, an executive order was given for undocumented foreign nationals and those with improper documents to leave the country within two weeks (17 to 31 january 1983). almost all of those foreign nationals were west africans, of whom over a million were ghanaians, and the remaining one million were a mix of other west african countries (aremu and ajayi, 2014). during that period, foreign nationals had been attracted to nigeria because of the oil boom of the 1970s, when the nigerian economy thrived (eker, 1981). however, in 1983 when the ‘ghana must go’ revolution began, the nigerian economy had become weak and was fast falling apart (umaru and zubairu, 2012). about two decades earlier, in 1969, the ghanaian government had banished nigerians and other immigrants in an expulsion order, commonly known as the ‘alien’s compliance order’ (aremu and ajayi, 2014:176). this order saw the expulsion of a large number of african migrants from ghana. the order required all foreign nationals in ghana to be in possession of a residence permit within two weeks. it earned ghana the displeasure of most west african governments, especially nigeria, togo, benin, niger, mali, ivory coast, and burkina faso whose nationals were affected (aremu and ajayi, 2014). in the same fashion, in 1981 president mobutu of the democratic republic of the congo (which he had renamed zaire in 1971) repealed his 1971 presidential decree granting citizenship to rwandan and burundian immigrants in reaction to national resentment against foreign nationals. likewise, immigrants from the democratic republic of the congo (drc) were brutally expelled and chased away by the angolan state agencies in 2008 (betts, 2010). kersting (2009) documents the september 1977 decision of the drc government to deport about 6,000 west africans, whose shops and businesses were confiscated and distributed to congolese. these west africans were described by congolese as ndingari, which refers to a “tick sucking blood from a cow to which it is attached” (kersting, 2009:14). the west africans were also stereotyped as being corrupt, liars, violent, criminal and unclean (kersting, 2009). in a similar vein, the social media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 68 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 drc government in a 2005 national legislation completely barred foreign nationals from owning small transport businesses, side walk stalls, and bakeries. these are all disquieting accounts of how africans have been dehumanizing each other. in recent times, mostly public individuals and institutions in africa tend to take advantage of social media to continue the dehumanization of fellow africans by spreading and promoting ideologies that find scapegoats in foreign nationals, who are often blamed for underdevelopment and poor social services, thereby winning and retaining the trust of nationals for non-performance (landau, 2010). adopting the social capital theory, this paper discusses the origin of xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa, which is traced to the strong bonding in-group social capital or social ties among nationals of african countries. this strong-bonding social capital among nationals results in weak ties with foreign nationals who are often considered as ‘out-group’ members. the paper engages pierre bourdieu’s (2011) social capital theory to explain the role of kin and friendship networks in maintaining strong bonding in-group social capital among nationals and foreign nationals. in explaining social capital, kelly and lusis (2006) support bourdieu (2011), arguing that although social capital may be typically acquired through immersion in kin networks, to them, state interventions for peaceful co-existence between nationals and foreign nationals do not often take into consideration the pivotal role of kin and friendship networks. they argue that immigrants or foreign nationals who maintain strong ties exclusively with their kin men and women or people with whom they share the same nationality, may be socially and economically disadvantaged, as these strong ties may prevent them from accessing material, informational, instrumental and emotional support from wider networks. putnam (2007:143) also reaffirms the relationship between bonding and bridging social capital by illustrating how people who have many friends with whom they share the same kinship or ethnicity, also tend not to have many friends who do not share the same kinship or ethnicity. in explaining why some foreign nationals and nationals remain strongly bonded to their kin or nationalistic ties, bourdieu (2008) provides a useful analysis. rather than taking networks for granted, bourdieu argues that networking requires effort and the investment of time and resources. thus, depending on the available time and resources, people have different opportunities to access and participate in networks. he identifies three forms of capital that individuals may possess: economic, cultural and social. economic capital refers to material assets and income, while cultural capital refers to the symbolic assets that a person possesses, such as language and behavior – this can also be institutionalized in the form of educational qualifications. social capital refers to the size and type of social networks a person can access and draw upon (bourdieu, 2008). in this era of digital technologies where social media reign, the ability of both nationals and foreign nationals to mobilize social capital and successfully engage in bridging with kin and friendship networks outside their nationality is mostly dependent on the cultural capital (which include language, social 69 media skills and educational qualifications) at their disposal. morris (2003) argues that in post-colonial africa, this ability is further conditioned by wider social processes such as national immigration policies. the new pan-africanist initiative envisions a united, integrated, prosperous and peaceful africa driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the international arena (au, 2015:11). by this aspiration, it therefore means that the global economic order with its new information and communication technologies as well as its new digital technologies greatly offer opportunities for the integration of the african continent in terms of ease of the mobility of labor and capital (kersting, 2009). to the contrary, opportunities of digital technologies have rather triggered transnational migration on an unprecedented scale within the continent and have also reinvigorated national identities and local cultures where there is a fort of nationalism that strives for in-group solidarity and out-group hostility (guarnizo and smith, 2017). this form of nationalism declares national boundaries sacrosanct, with the suppression of ethnic and cultural diversity (kersting, 2009). according to kersting (2009), citizens under this form of nationalism are made to incontestably accept the concept of state in ways that they develop a feeling of national solidarity and identity based on an imagined shared history and a common destiny. in this way, national symbols such as anthems, holidays, currency, passports, postage stamps, flags and football or ‘rugby’ teams are depended upon to foster nationalism. nationalism here only represents a doctrine in which the citizens’ culture, history, institutions, and religion are distinct and the aspiration for self-rule and politics is to preserve and protect their distinctiveness (kersting, 2009:8). in this way, nationalism is ethnocentric (mamdani, 2005; ihonvbere, 1994; yeros, 2016). in ethnocentric nationalism, the inclusion of foreign nationals into the destination society is based on criteria such as language, religion, or a myth of shared kinship (kersting, 2009:8). in the context of post-colonial africa, the new social media serve as important tools that nationals rely on to remind themselves daily of their place in the world of nations (guarnizo and smith, 2017). claude ake (1996) calls nationalism in africa ‘internal xenophobia’. to ake, the first wave of nationalism during colonial africa mobilized nationalistic solidarity against colonial powers, while post-colonial nationalism in the continent mobilizes solidarity among nationals against denizens (non-citizens) (kersting, 2009:8). in this nationalism, citizenship is key, it gives right to access social services, employment, land, and identity. hence, foreign nationals or ‘strangers’ are violently excluded even when they have been long-term denizens of a given country. they are excluded because they are not “sons of the soil” (kersting, 2009:11). in this way, migration is not recognized as a veritable cause that has the ability to contribute to inclusive growth and development at destination countries (de haas, 2010). instead, i argue in this paper that the accordances and offerings of social media have made it easier for xenophobia and xenophobic violence to be transmitted in post-colonial africa. misago (2016:446) has noted conceptual and empirical distinctions between ‘xenophobia’ and ‘xenophobic violence’. in his definitions, misago (2016:446) refers social media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 70 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 to ‘xenophobia’ as negative attitudes towards the ‘other’; while ‘xenophobic violence’ is a manifestation of xenophobia towards the ‘other’. according to misago (2016:447), the methodologies and interventions required to tackle xenophobia (attitudes) are different from those required for tackling xenophobic violence (behavior). in an attempt to understand how social media maintain social bonds among nationals and foreign nationals in manners that exacerbate xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa, this paper systematically reviews national immigration policies and facebook newsfeeds in selected countries of east/central, west and southern africa. these include zimbabwe, ethiopia, the drc, nigeria, somalia, ghana, uganda, and south africa. the paper consists of three sections. the first section provides a global overview of migration as a defining feature of the 21st century. this section stresses that people will continue to cross borders in search of a decent life. it also provides the origins of the term ‘xenophobia’, which emerged from the greek words xenos meaning a ‘stranger’ or a ‘foreigner’ and phobo meaning ‘phobia’, referring to an irrational fear of persons or groups regarded as ‘outsiders’ (kang’ethe and duma, 2013:157). discussions in this section coalesce to advocate that foreign nationals need to be entitled to the same universal human rights and fundamental freedoms which must be respected, protected and fulfilled at all times. the second section of the paper explains the methodological approach and underscores the emancipatory and oppressive power of social media, highlighting how social media influence xenophobia and xenophobic violence in africa. the paper concludes that as nationals feel stronger bonds to seek national development, there is a correlate heightening of opposing relations and interests against foreign nationals in the form of violent actions, including xenophobia. this frustrates efforts for an integrated african continent, politically united, based on ideals of pan-africanism and the vision of africa’s renaissance. the paper therefore recommends that kin and friendship networks – which broadly include extended family, biological relationships, genealogy, marriage, and other self-ascribed associations, beyond the nuclear family – have a critical role to play in catalyzing action and facilitating anti-xenophobic interventions in post-colonial africa. digital technologies, which include social media platforms, can serve to encourage pro-social behaviors that build bridging rather than only bonding social capital among nationals and foreign nationals of african countries. human mobility, xenophobia and state capability in post-colonial africa a key defining feature of the 21st century is believed to be human mobility characterized by the trends of fragility and mobility (betts, 2015). in this era, people will continue to move and cross national borders in search of a decent life (betts, 2015). with advances of globalization, opportunities to move have increased (castles et al., 2013; czaika and de haas, 2014). regrettably, most nation-states, especially within the african continent, are fragile with weak governance structures and capability that 71 complicate their ability and willingness to ensure the protection of the most fundamental human rights of citizens and immigrants. pointedly, the 2018 fragile states index for instance, placed both countries that are poor (such as zimbabwe, mali, congo, drc), and rich countries (such as the united kingdom, united states and qatar) towards the top of its list as the most-worsened countries (messner, 2018:1). this clearly demonstrates that the world has fewer answers to challenges of fragility and mobility. kaplan and schulhofer‐wohl (2017) and hanna (2017) argue that the world is witnessing the greatest human mobility throughout all human history as tens of millions of people are daily forced to cross national borders. according to betts (2015), there were 70 million international migrants worldwide in 1970. however, this number has risen to over 200 million international migrants across the world in 2018 (mella, 2018). according to the world migration report 2020, “current estimates are that there are 272 million international migrants globally (or 3.5% of the world’s population)” (iom, 2020). even though most nation-states are pursuing the politically expedient fiction that they can unilaterally assert sovereign control over immigration, the reality shows that control over immigration is becoming a more complex matter in the 21st century (mella, 2018). a common position has emerged that affirms the global migration crisis, even though there are debates whether it is either a ‘migrant’ or a ‘refugee’ crisis (geddes and scholten, 2016:85). specifically, most human migratory movements have been from refugee-producing countries (czaika and de haas, 2014; reuveny, 2007). feller (2005), koser (2010), zetter (2007) and morris (2003) differentiate between migrants and refugees. they are in consonance with anderson and blinder (2011:2), who assert that migrants are persons who make a conscious choice to leave their country to seek a better life elsewhere. on their part, the international federation of red cross and red crescent societies’ (ifrc) policy on migration describe migrants as people who leave or flee their places of habitual residence to go to a new place across international borders or within their own state, to seek better or safer prospects (moretti and bonzon, 2017:165). moretti and bonzon (2017) argue that before migrants decide to leave their home country, they usually seek information about their destination country, study the language and explore employment opportunities. this means that they have the time and privilege to plan their travel, take their belongings, and to say ‘goodbye’ to the important people in their lives (betts, 2015). they are also free to return home at any time if things do not work out as they had hoped, or if they get homesick or if they wish to visit family members and friends left behind (betts, 2015). on the other hand, refugees are forced to leave their home country because they are at risk, or because they experience persecution (moretti and bonzon, 2017:165). this therefore means that the basic concern for refugees is the protection of their human rights and safety. regrettably, betts (2015) argues that a significant proportion of foreign nationals across the world today fall into the category of survival migrants whose governments cannot support or provide some kind of remedy or reliefs to people affected by environmensocial media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 72 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 tal change, food insecurity, and generalized violence. on his part, ragaven (2008) reveals that cultural, genocidal and hegemonic racism and ethnicity remain primary social evils of our times globally. accordingly, these de-socialize and pathologize whole generations of foreign nationals, depriving them of fundamental human rights and fabricating them as ‘outcasts’ in countries of destination. this has resulted in the fragmentation of populations, thereby indelibly etching identities and solidarities that accentuate ‘otherness’ (christou and spyrou, 2012), with new forms of xenophobia, racial and ethnic segregation, prejudice and rationalities becoming the norm globally (mendelberg, 2017). xenophobia is used here in a more general sense to describe hostilities based on prejudice and stereotypes toward foreign nationals (harris, 2002; neocosmos, 2010). this therefore means that xenophobia constitutes stereotypical thinking or prejudiced attitudes toward groups and members of groups that can be distinguished on national or ethnic terms (crush and ramachandran, 2010). the term ‘xenophobia’, as indicated earlier in this paper, is believed to have originated from the greek word xenos which refers to a ‘stranger’ or a ‘foreigner’ and the greek word phobo which means ‘phobia’ – an irrational fear of persons or groups that are regarded as ‘outsiders’ (kang’ethe and duma, 2013:157). all through history, there are accounts of xenophobia occurring across different nations and peoples, as exemplified in the jewish holocaust that culminated in hate and an explosion of unimaginable brutality leading to the mass, industrialized murder of nearly six million jews, not killed in battle or war, but put to death in factories built expressly for murder (major, 1996). in europe, a study of social attitudes by harvard university established strong racial bias in several eastern european countries such as the czech republic, lithuania, belarus, ukraine, moldova, bulgaria, slovakia, as well as malta, italy, and portugal (greenwald and pettigrew, 2014; kinge, 2016). in the united states of america (usa), xenophobia has manifested in the form of anti-hispanic hate crimes (stacey et al., 2011). a 2016 survey from ‘the environics institute’, which was a follow-up to a study conducted ten years earlier, identified discriminating attitudes in the united states (kinge, 2016). in myanmar (former burma), an estimated 400,000 rohingya muslim refugees, out of a total of about one million living in myanmar, escaped a surge of xenophobic violence in myanmar’s rakhine state in 2017, into neighboring bangladesh, after at least 6,700 rohingya were killed by the myanmar army (persio, 2017). according to the british broadcasting corporation (bbc, 2020), the rohingya “risked everything to escape by sea or on foot, a military offensive which the united nations later described as a ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing’… (t)he massive numbers of refugees who fled to bangladesh in 2017 joined hundreds of thousands of rohingya who had fled myanmar in previous years.” according to human rights watch (hrw, 2019), “more than 730,000 rohingya have fled to neighboring bangladesh since the military campaign of ethnic cleansing began in august 2017.” in africa, nigeria and ghana have had records of hatred for foreign nationals ending up with xenophobia (campbell, 2003). for example, there have been xeno73 phobic reactions of leading politicians and intellectuals in ethiopia and eritrea towards each other and the contradictory tendency towards forced ‘unification’ have made a clear understanding of each other’s claims and identities difficult (smidt, 2012:116). in the beginning of the ethiopia-eritrea war in 1998, tens of thousands of eritreans and persons of eritrean origin were expelled from ethiopia within a few weeks. that was followed in 1999-2000 by the expulsions of ethiopians from eritrea (smidt, 2012). since then, both in ethiopia and eritrea, national discourses strongly claim that “the other” belonged to a “different race” (smidt, 2012:116). south africa has been experiencing xenophobia and xenophobic violence both during apartheid and after apartheid (giliomee, 2003). giliomee (2003) states that during apartheid in south africa, hostility between the british and the boers exacerbated during the second boer war, which led to a rebellion by poor afrikaners who looted british-owned shops. during this period, south africa passed several laws that ostracized foreign nationals, for example, the immigrants regulation act of 1913 was intended to exclude ‘undesirables’, a term that referred to foreign nationals (giliomee, 2003). this effectively halted the immigration of other foreign nationals to south africa. the township franchise ordinance of 1924 deprived foreign nationals of certain municipal privileges (giliomee, 2003). in 1994 and 1995, there were several demands by armed youths demanding that the police repatriate foreign nationals back to their home countries. homes of most foreign nationals were destroyed in johannesburg (giliomee, 2003). from 2008 to 2019, recurring spates of xenophobic violence took place in south africa, where tens of thousands of foreign nationals were displaced, and properties, businesses and homes were looted (misago, 2019; kinge, 2016). in their definition of xenophobia, delanty and o’mahony (2002) depict this phenomenon as a pathological condition that arises when the self is unable to cope with ‘otherness’ and is destructive of both self and others. in south africa, the term makwerekwere is widely used to refer to foreign nationals (kinge, 2016:14). interpretively, the term refers to “a people who speak strange languages coming from economically devastated countries in search of greener pastures” (kinge, 2016:14). kersting (2009) argues that, across the african continent, xenophobia and xenophobic violence have become a common feature in post-colonial africa, manifesting in different forms, ranging from everyday street-level abuse to discrimination and harassment by government officials, the police, and private organizations. nnoli (1998) concurs, positing that in post-colonial africa, it is no longer a question of excluding ‘out-group’ members from jobs and the enjoyment of various social services or repressing them, but the trend has become about ruthlessly and inhumanely eliminating them in violent actions including xenophobia and genocide. illuminating examples of xenophobic sentiments in post-colonial africa abound in the histories of rwanda, burundi, somalia, ghana, nigeria, liberia, sierra-leone, djibouti, and south africa (kersting, 2009). in his seminal work, horowitz (2001) analyzes forms of xenophobia and he adduces four reasons for xenophobia and xenophobic violence in human society. social media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 74 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 he identifies the first form of xenophobia as ‘ethnic’ or ‘national’ antagonism. this form involves conditions where there are outbursts against out-groups who differ in language, religion, or a myth of shared kinship. the second form of xenophobia occurs in cultures that have a ‘reasonable’ justification for violence, such as cultures that emphasize absolute obedience to religious texts with the aim of eliminating outsiders’ influences from every part of their culture. the third form of xenophobia has to do with retaliating with violence when confronted with a xenophobic event. the last form of xenophobia relates to the form that prevails in societies where there is little or no punishment for perpetrators of xenophobia. mark et al. (2014) note that with the increase of strong nationalism in postcolonial africa, citizens of most african countries are becoming strong supporters of affective and normative systems that are nationalistic in nature. the implication of this is that national identities and local cultures are reinvigorated, thereby consolidating strong nationalism and in-group solidarity at the expense of out-group hostility (kersting, 2009). these dispositions are heightened at unprecedented scales especially with the advent of new information and communication technologies (bennett, 2012). gijsberts and hagendoorn (2017) show that foreign nationals in most african countries are confronted on a daily basis, with barriers that prevent them from fully participating in the political, economic, and social life of host countries. these barriers rob them of dignity, security and the opportunity to lead a better life. other studies from the world bank (2010) and nurse (2018) illustrate that the exclusion of foreign nationals or minority groups from the political, economic and social life of a country, has damaging consequences for human capital development. this is because the majority of foreign nationals have been recognized as possessing the capacity of promoting inclusive growth and achieving the un’s sustainable development goals (sdgs) in both country of origin and country of destination (nurse, 2018). hence, the acknowledged developmental potential of foreign nationals, as captured in four goals and five targets of the sdgs, which established the prominence of labor mobility and remittances as development triggers, especially in developing countries (clemens and mckenzie, 2018). with the call, as provided in the global compact on migration (gcm), to create conditions for migrants and diasporas to fully contribute to sustainable development in all countries, social inclusion of foreign nationals is undoubtedly vital in achieving the world bank group’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity (gcm, 2018:3). the advocacy here is that foreign nationals need to be accorded the same universal human rights and fundamental freedoms which must be respected, protected and fulfilled at all times. the social inclusion of foreign nationals in this context implies the process of improving their ability, opportunity and dignity to take part in the political, economic and social life of their host country (ratha, 2016). consequently, social media have both the potential and responsibility to contribute towards continental and international efforts at unlocking the potential of foreign nationals in enriching the social, economic and 75 political life of both origin and destination countries. methodological note the research strategy wherein data for this paper emerged involves a close textual analysis of reviewed national immigration policies and facebook newsfeeds in east/ central, west and southern africa. the following top african countries of origin of migrants in south africa were purposively selected: zimbabwe (southern africa), ethiopia (east/central africa), the drc (east/central africa), nigeria (west africa), somalia (east/central africa), ghana (west africa), and uganda (east/central africa). the systematic review of national immigration policies and facebook newsfeeds was complemented with direct observation of nationals of zimbabwe, ethiopia, the drc, nigeria, somalia, ghana, uganda, and south africa, living, working and doing business in the city of tshwane (pretoria), south africa. throughout the period of the systematic review and observation from july 2018 to december 2019, the researcher lived in sunnyside, a part of the city of tshwane, where a significant number of the identified foreign nationals live, work and do business (segatti et al., 2012). events and behaviors relating to how social media reinvigorate national identities and local cultures among these foreign nationals were observed. systematic observations were directed at membership and attendance of churches and mosques, business partnerships and patronages, and sport groupings among foreign nationals. the data analysis took an inductive approach. this approach allows for the descriptive and detailed analysis of collections of stories, which enables the researcher to constitute a logical account based on a comparison of different accounts (ritchie et al., 2003). this recognizes inter-relationships between the interpreter and the interpretation. ethical approval for the study was obtained from the research ethics committee of the college of human sciences, university of south africa. social media as curator of xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa in its wider use, the term ‘social media’ connotes a generic term that refers to all forms of electronic communication and networking sites that allow users to follow and share content such as texts, pictures, videos and ideas within an online community (zeitzoff 2017:1970). in broad terms, social media have made it easy to maintain connections with close friends, relatives, as well as acquaintances, which also allow for new connections with other people (harari, 2018). in this way social media have demonstrated the ability to blur audience boundaries, where audiences are collapsed into one general space (sanchez abril et al., 2012). this is because social media offer public and private communication features in the form of tagging, liking or commenting and passive communication which involves the silent consumption of what is on the newsfeed (utz and muscanell, 2015). gerbaudo (2018) has highlighted how social media are taking away the mosocial media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 76 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 nopoly of traditional media sites and outlets that have been controlling information dissemination in human society. sunstein (2018) describes this take-over as the ‘facebook’ or ‘twitter’ revolution. according to him, this revolution has given enormous emancipatory powers to social media users in diverse ways. in many parts of the world, including post-colonial africa, social media have been relied upon to organize collective action against oppressive regimes. for example, social media played a critical role in both the ‘arab spring’ uprisings across the arab world from late 2010 until 2011, and in the 9-month protests in sudan that eventually led to the ousting of president omar al-bashir in april 2019. mccombs (2018) and valenzuela (2013) argue that the power of social media is in its ability to mobilize and get ordinary people on the streets to use its platforms as both content producers and content receivers to shape public opinion. in this way, social media allow ordinary people to be active in sharing instant information in news that go viral in a matter of seconds (lievrouw, 2009). on the contrary, lievrouw (2009) argues that as a result of instant sharing of sensitive information in seconds, african societies are becoming desensitized to violence, murder and death to a point where these do not affect citizens any longer, as images of gruesome deaths and torture of humans are circulated on social media with no trace of respect for the dead. with its far-reaching capacity, social media reaches out to a wide range of people, including the most isolated people, thereby posing both a threat and an opportunity for african societies (van dijck, 2013). digital transformation therefore has brought about a social condition whereby about half of the world’s population get their news from social media (allen, 2018:193). with the increasing penetration of news through social media in ethiopia and eritrea, nationalist discourses are continuously framed in manners that the existence of ‘otherness’ is no longer acknowledged. most of the news that exacerbated tension between ethiopia and eritrea in recent times was obtained from digital or social media (gagliardone and stremlau, 2011). this provoked xenophobia and xenophobic violence, especially among younger ethiopians who continue to use social media to uphold pan‐ethiopianism, by claiming that eritrea belongs to ethiopia and to express xenophobic rejections of eritrea as a nation-state. ethiopian nationalism in this way regards eritrea as an eternal trouble‐maker (smidt, 2012). even though the development and use of social media in ethiopia is similar to the path taken by other authoritarian regimes, there are, however, unique characteristics of social media in ethiopia (gagliardone and stremlau, 2011). the ethiopian government has a strong monopoly over social media platforms, in spite of pressure from the international community to liberalize the market. a high-ranking ethiopian technocrat confirmed that the monopoly of telecommunications and social media is crucial to the government. this is because social media have the capacity to penetrate every aspect of “our lives that we have to make sure that it is the state that is in charge of using and implementing them. hence, state-ordered internet shutdowns are on the verge of becoming the ‘new normal’ in ethiopia” (statement by an official of the ‘internet society’, 18 june 2019). in ethiopia social media is synonymous with facebook, which 77 accounts for about 84% of social media users (pettersson and solomon, 2019). other social media players are google’s youtube, facebook-owned instagram and whatsapp, and messaging service telegram. in a 2019 report by fojo media institute, social media in ethiopia is described as a dark horse that not only mobilizes people but is also a means of spreading rumors, hate speech and disinformation (pettersson and solomon, 2019:3). in somalia, statistics of social media users as at january 2020 from globalstats (2020) show the facebook dominance at about 63.23%, followed by youtube (15.56%), twitter (10.48%), pinterest (3.5%), and vkontakte (0.14%). in south africa, a study by the ‘citizen research centre’ analyzed public social media posts (comments and blog posts) across twitter, facebook, tumblr, instagram, forums, and chat rooms. in their report, social media contents represent the truest expression of the people’s views on xenophobia and xenophobic violence in south africa (khoza, 2017). the report reveals that between 2011 and 2015, twitter posts that demanded that ‘all foreigners’ must leave south africa, amounted to about 5.7 billion feeds (khoza, 2017:1). the report also affirms that on average, there are about 760 posts per day in social media calling for all foreign nationals to leave south africa (khoza, 2017). the report notes that social media played critical roles in two incidents involving xenophobic violence in south africa in april 2015 and in february 2017. in the april 2015 xenophobic violence incident, the zulu monarch, king goodwill zwelithini was reported to have commented on social media that “all foreigners should leave the country” (khoza, 2017:1). these comments were believed to have sparked the violence directed at foreign nationals in kwazulu-natal which rapidly spread to other parts of the country. during the periods of xenophobic violence in south africa, daily social media conversations around the subject of ‘xenophobia’ rose from 760 posts per day to 5,670 posts per day (khoza, 2017). misago et al. (2015) observe that even local business associations such as the greater gauteng business forum (ggbf) and the south african blacks association (saba) depended on social media to mobilize their members against foreign business owners in south africa. xenophobia as ‘politics’ by other means: social media and safe-orderly migration within continental and international frameworks, migration has been recognized as a source of prosperity, innovation and sustainable development (gcm, 2018:2). migration therefore affects countries, communities, families, and migrants in very unpredictable ways. hence, in order to effectively appropriate the development-dividend of migration, it is crucial that social media be engaged in ways that unite people and communities to make migration work for all, rather than divide and impoverish them. the potential of social media as the fastest channel of disseminating information means that social media can be engaged in ways that ensure that current and potential migrants are fully informed about their rights, obligations and options for safe, orderly and regular migration and are also informed of the risks of irregular social media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 78 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 migration (gcm, 2018). although different explanations have been given to account for xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa, misago et al. (2015) point out that most of these explanations are not based on empirical evidence. instead, they are merely based on normative assumptions, political rationales and ideological stances (misago et al., 2015:24). these explanations only trace xenophobia and xenophobic violence in africa to factors like poverty, unemployment, rising costs of living, poor service delivery, and poor border control (misago et al., 2015). these explanations name ‘nationality’ as the sole reason for xenophobia and xenophobic violence in africa without credence to other structural variables (misago et al., 2015). misago (2016) argues that while structural factors such as history and national immigration policies are important factors in explaining xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa, these factors are not given serious attention in xenophobia discourses. hence, there is a need to explain why there is pronounced xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa especially as most countries in latin america with similar socio-economic conditions have remained calm with peaceful co-existence between citizens and foreign nationals. misago et al. (2015) argue that a critical assessment of the nature and character of xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa shows that specific groups of foreign nationals are usually targeted during acts involving xenophobic violence and that these incidents occur at certain times and at certain locations. with these peculiarities, it is convenient to posit that there is a political dimension to xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-colonial africa. according to misago et al., (2015), acts of xenophobia and xenophobic violence against foreign nationals in post-colonial africa are in most cases organized and led by local groups and individuals who are attempting to get and solidify their power bases for political and economic purposes. to these local groups and individuals, xenophobia is just ‘politics by other means’ (misago, 2016). in this sense, acts of xenophobia and xenophobic violence are products of coloniality rather than products of differences in national origins or cultural heritage. this is when post-colonial african politicians take advantage of social media to reinforce strong nationalistic bonds and solidarities to justify their non-performance by scapegoating foreign nationals as presenting threats to national prosperity and development. in defining xenophobia, an analysis of the hashtag ‘#xenophobia’ shows that 17,000 tweets were issued with this hashtag between 30 january 2017 and 26 february 2017. of all the ten top hashtags involved in the conversation, only one was aimed at an individual; the rest were targeted at groups. for instance, the south african minister of home affairs tweeted a denial of the existence of xenophobia, stating that: it is merely crime, drugs and prostitution that south africans are fixating on. in a tweet, ‘@johny_theblessd’ said: to me #xenophobia is: selling counterfeit goods, human trafficking of sa 79 women, selling drugs, kidnapping and prostituting young sa girls by nigerians, not paying your taxes, overcrowding sa schools and hospitals, smuggling of cigarettes by zim and 4x4 highjacks by moz and zim. however, along with related hashtags, there are words that are often used in conjunction with ‘#xenophobia’ – 7.7% of tweets with this hashtag included the word ‘fellow’, indicating that nationals acknowledge that foreign nationals ordinarily were supposed to be ‘fellow’ africans. review of african post-colonial migration policies building on the global interest in migration development, international immigration policies are recognizing key policy issues, debates, and consequences of international migration. a close analysis of africa’s post-colonial international migration policies identifies at least three areas where migration is influencing development in postcolonial africa. first, by offering options to africans affected by conflicts and crises, especially in countries with limited formal disaster management and social protection systems. second, by mitigating shortcomings and distortions in national and regional labor markets. third, by providing support to struggling rural economies and ever-expanding urban areas in the continent in terms of livelihoods and social capital transfers. in analyzing changes in contemporary official attitudes toward migration in south africa, segatti (2011) observes that despite changes in the economy and the adoption of constitutionally sound legislation, regulations governing low-skilled labor remain largely unchanged, and the mobility of skilled professionals has not been addressed. rather, policy developments in south africa reflect increasing engagement with research and advocacy groups on issues such as human rights, but these groups’ appeals have remained largely unheeded in terms of substantial changes in the management and implementation practice of international migration. three continuing challenges befall international policy in south africa. first, the fundamental disagreements between government, business, and unions on access to the south african labor market and the role of the state and the market in the control and management of international migration. second, the leadership deficiencies of the department of home affairs; and third, the absence of a functional platform of engagement between stakeholders, including migrants’ organizations, rights advocacy groups, research, business, unions, and different government departments (segatti 2011:31). within the southern african region, tevera and zinyama (2002) note that zimbabwe’s migration history is unusual. they argue that zimbabwe has always been in the unusual position of being both a recipient and sending country for international migrants. over the years, many zimbabweans migrate primarily to south africa to work. for example, almost a quarter of adult zimbabweans have parents and grandparents who have worked in south africa at some point in their lives (tevera and zinyama, 2002). on the other hand, zimbabwe was a recipient of international social media and xenophobic solidarity in post-colonial africa 80 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 labor migrants from countries such as zambia, malawi and mozambique (tevera and zinyama, 2002:2). during the 1951 census, there were about 246,000 foreign africans in zimbabwe (40% of them from mozambique) (tevera and zinyama, 2002:2). zimbabwe has been a source, destination and a corridor country for international migrants. benyera (2018) identifies the preconditions that brought about xenophobia and xenophobic violence in zimbabwe: the construction and reinforcement of certain identities, contestation over land and land ownership and by extension, exclusion from land ownership, and human movement within states’ borders. in the past three decades, nigeria has witnessed a “reverse migration transition, transforming itself from a net immigration country to a net emigration country” (de haas 2008:162). within the african continent, nigerians increasingly emigrate to countries such as south africa, ghana, gabon, cameroon and botswana (adepoju, 2000). nonetheless, nigeria remains a migration destination for international migrants. despite the country’s economic decline since 1980, substantial communities of west african migrants remain in nigeria, especially togolese, nigeriens, beninoise and cameroonians. nigeria has largely pursued laissez faire international policies. in early february 2020, the federal government of nigeria announced the introduction of the issuance of a visa at the point of entry into nigeria to all persons holding passports of african countries. this is intended to encourage the free circulation and mobility of africans within the continent, especially as the african union (au) launched its operational phase of the africa continental free trade area (afcfta) in july 2019 (wef, 2019). in contrast to this aspiration of a free flow of trade with other africans, in late august 2019 and “until further notice” (president muhammadu buhari statement on 2 december 2019 when he received a delegation of katsina state elders forum in his country home in daura, katsina state). nigeria closed its international land borders with neighboring african countries that highly depend on the nigerian market. this could be interpreted as being driven by xenophobic sentiments, as the main explanation for closing the border, as given by the controller-general of the nigerian customs service: …is to ensure that we have total control over what comes in… (t)his time nigeria must survive first before we begin to ask for our rights (interview with the nigerian customs service boss during his appearance before the national assembly joint committee on finance on 2 october 2019). this no less reinforces national solidarity and xenophobia against nationals of neighboring african countries who are blamed for colluding with nigerians to bring into nigeria about: …95 per cent of arms and ammunition inflow to boko haram, kidnappers, killer herdsmen and bandits… (statement made by nigerian minister of information and culture on 26 november 2019). on 19 january 2020 ‘talljohn@johnfanimokun’ posted a tweet that said: president @mbuhari has again said that the nigeria’s border will remain closed. only a fraudulent soul will be displeased with what the president said. 81 there were 300 retweets and 685 likes of the tweet. all the retweets coalesce to represent these xenophobic sentiments. for example, ‘@oduobodumu’ replied to ‘@ johnfanimokun’: borders should be sealed. all noise about some west african countries doing better have gone. all depend on illegal businesses in nigeria. we can see that we have capacity to do many things on our own, that is how to grow an economy of about 200m persons. also, ‘@zheun85’ replied to ‘@oduobodumu’ and ‘@johnfanimokun’: throw the key into the lagos lagoon. who will believe that we can grow our own rice to this level? we only need a serious leader, walahi this country will be great. a further response – ‘@sethmola’ replying to ‘@zheun85’ and ‘@oduobodumu’: so many idiots and bots still so seriously believed that nigerian rice production is a fallacy still? meanwhile the facts are all there now, we are the best rice producer in whole of africa, from a position of best importer of same foreign rice. asides other nigeria farm produces. conclusion in post-colonial africa, foreign nationals are looked upon as competitors with nationals (citizens) for markets and social services. hence, kin or ethnic solidarity is vigorously pursued and mobilized through affordances and offerings of social media to reinforce in-group loyalty (solidarity) and out-group hostility against foreigners, particularly foreign nationals of other african countries. also, nationalist immigration policies in post-colonial africa strengthen and pressurize national governments to maintain structural injustices that encourage citizens to resort to xenophobia and xenophobic violence with little or no punishment. so far, the perception of foreign nationals by citizens of most african countries is intensely incongruent with the vision of pan-africanism as promoted by agenda 2063 that has a vision of perceiving africans as comrades who need to be supported by one another to achieve the vision of african renaissance and development. hence, there is a need to reinvigorate and strengthen kin and friendship networks within africa’s rural and urban spaces, as these networks have shown resilience to persist in terms of continued interaction among kinfolk of different generations, in spite of the impacts of globalization. kin and friendship networks are intensely characterized by strong affective ties among members that perform various services for one another. hence, kin and friendship networks should become the sphere wherein interventions and campaigns against xenophobia and xenophobic violence occur in post-colonial africa. this is because these social networks 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(ed.). 2016. ethnicity and nationalism in africa: constructivist reflections and contemporary politics. new york: springer. zeitzoff, t. 2017. how social media is changing conflict. journal of conflict resolution, 61(9): 1970-1991. zetter, r. 2007. more labels, fewer refugees: remaking the refugee label in an era of globalization. journal of refugee studies, 20(2): 172-192. 89 building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa thea shahrokh* and giulia treves** * centre for trust, peace and social relations, coventry university, coventry, united kingdom. email: thea.shahrokh@gmail.com ** lawrence house child and youth care centre, cape town, south africa. corresponding author. email: lawrencehouse@scalabrini.org.za as young people with migration experiences build their lives in new contexts, their connectedness to who they are, to other people, to place and to culture underpin whether and how a sense of belonging is built in their lives. belonging as a concept matters in young lives as it is underpinned by feelings of acceptance, inclusion and selfdetermination. the realization of belonging can have important implications for young people’s wellbeing and development. this paper shares the barriers to belonging for young migrants in south africa, and how the pain of past experiences, and the exclusions they are navigating in the present constrain their sense of agency, impacting selfworth and relationship formation. we share how a child and youth care center in cape town specializing in supporting young migrants and young people with experiences of trauma, innovated with a group of young women through participatory arts-based methods towards building belonging. we found that layering multiple arts methods can support young people to connect to their cultural roots and personal relationships, re-build trust, reimagine their identities as part of a collective and challenge power relations around gender, nationality and generation. we found that building belonging should be seen as a continuous learning process, that builds young people’s reflective capacities to understand self and others and to make sense of the interaction between past, present and future. in turn, belonging provides an important conceptual tool for youth-led, context-specific approaches to working with young migrants, including on youth transitions. keywords: belonging, identities, youth, migration, participation, arts methods, care 90 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 introduction belonging, understood as our connection to people, culture, place and subjective sense of home, and mediated by a politics of inclusion and exclusion, (antonsich 2010) has particular relevance to young people with migration experiences (degraeve and bex 2017; harris 2016; magqibelo et al. 2016). young people that migrate are navigating changes in relationships, as well as in social, political and economic contexts. as young people work to build their lives in new contexts, the relationship between their past and the present can come into tension (kistner 2015; kohli 2011). young migrants are working to make sense of the changing dynamics of their attachments and identities, and at the same time processing past pains including those related to loss and violence (denov and shevell 2019; clacherty 2015). these experiences and emotions are being negotiated alongside new and changing desires and aspirations including for their families, communities and within society (kohli 2011; opfermann 2019). young migrants are longing to belong, and at the same time trying to make sense of what they long for (probyn 1996). how belonging is determined for young people with migration experiences is also deeply interwoven in the politics of who is seen as welcome within society (antonsich 2010; yuval-davis 2006). many young migrants face a reality of unbelonging as socially produced lines of difference, of exclusion, are drawn in their lives within their new contexts (christensen 2009). the influence these dynamics have on young people’s ongoing identity formation and sense of having ‘a place in the world’ (arendt 1971: 296), can have significant implications for their wellbeing and the foundations from which they are building their futures (correa-velez et al. 2010; gonzales et al. 2013). in south africa, young migrants’ resilience is tested on a daily basis through their navigation of everyday and institutional xenophobia, alongside racialized inequalities established through apartheid and colonialism. global research has shown that where a sense of isolation, loss or being an outsider is dominant in young migrants’ lives, their identities and belonging can be destabilized (huot et al. 2014; kaukko and wernesjö 2017). for young people with migration experiences living in residential care, relationships can involve a new sense of instability, which can perpetuate loneliness and feelings of being an outsider (ní raghallaigh and sirriyeh 2015). feelings of being out of place can be further amplified at the age of 18 when young people transition into legal adulthood and out of the care of the state (bengtsson and mølholt 2018). research and practice that work with young migrants to understand their lived experiences of belonging provide an opportunity to comprehend the interplay of personal, emotional factors and sociocultural and political dynamics as they build their lives in new contexts. this knowledge can help build insight into how young people make sense of their past and present life experiences, build meaningful connections and attachments, and develop a sense of possibility for the future (bradbury and clark 2012). this knowledge has the potential to foster young people’s capacities to forge identities and belonging, and to navigate the barriers to belonging. these capacities can also provide an important foundation for the social and institutional 91 transitions young migrants will navigate at the age of 18. there is limited knowledge however, globally and in the south african context, on how to foster an everyday sense of belonging with young migrants, including those living in residential care (kaukko and wernesjö 2017; valentine et al. 2009). this paper discusses the development of a participatory arts project that aimed to creatively engage young people with migration experiences in building belonging. the commitment to participation emphasizes the importance of understanding young people’s perspectives on belonging and the need to respond to their understanding and aspirations for how it can be nurtured in their lives. participatory arts approaches create space for young people to grow confidence in self-expression, to build relationships and to share experiences with other youth, artists and practitioners (nunn 2018; marnell and hoosain khan 2015). the creative focus builds on the empowering qualities of arts-based methods, recognizing that words do not always support people with migration experiences to connect to and communicate complex experiences in a culturally and emotionally appropriate way (kohli 2005; lenette 2019). taking a strength-based approach within creative methods also emphasizes the remembering of past abilities, to build strength of self and hope for the future (norton and sliep 2018). building on the therapeutic and restorative possibilities of arts approaches (koch and weidinger-von der recke 2009; leavy 2018; reavey 2011), the work presented here connects to calls within social work practice to better understand the role of art in supporting people with migration experiences (denov and shevell 2019). this paper argues that participatory arts approaches can provide an important space for young people’s safe and supported exploration of their identities and can nurture their capacities for building a sense of belonging. through long-term engagement, these methods can support young people to reconnect to their sense of self, to have control of the narratives of their identities and to have the tools to build their relationships with community and society. to establish this argument, the paper first sheds light on the realities of migrant young people who are living in residential care in cape town, south africa, and the barriers that undermine their sense of belonging. secondly, it introduces the specific case of lawrence house, a child and youth care center, that has evolved a youth-centered praxis focused on supporting young migrants to strengthen their sense of self, relationships and resilience. thirdly, the paper shares the specific development of a layered, participatory artsbased approach within lawrence house that aims to contribute to building a sense of belonging with these young migrants. we discuss how the approach engages young people in self-understanding, building trusting relationships, and mobilizing collective power in order to support their navigation of society. throughout this paper we share our reflections on this work and conclude with implications for continuing practice. we do this from the perspectives of being in a leadership role at lawrence house (treves), and a collaborating researcher-practitioner (shahrokh) who worked together, with artists, child and youth care workers and young people to develop the building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 92 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 participatory arts initiative. this paper contributes to knowledge on child and youth care practice with young migrants, and provides insights for researchers committed to social justice and transformation in research. barriers to belonging for young migrants in south africa in the context of south africa, children and young people have moved to the country both independently, and as a part of family networks, for multiple reasons including, amongst others, extreme poverty and unemployment, violence and persecution including based on religion, ethnicity, and politics, in their countries of origin (fritsch et al. 2010; mahati and palmary 2018; magqibelo et al. 2016; palmary 2009). young people have often navigated extreme adversity journeying to south africa (hillier 2007), and trauma related to reasons for leaving their countries of origin is a pervasive reality for many (clacherty 2015). painful memories related to war, conflict, abandonment and abuse including sexual violence and exploitation, disrupt young people’s lives, undermine trust and fracture meaningful relationships (borg 2018). where loss occurs, whether familial, cultural, societal or political, there is a loss of identity, and being able to see a “place in the world” (arendt 1971: 296). these fractures can become embedded in young people’s life narratives and this can create multiple and compounding barriers to belonging (alayarian 2007). migrant young people in south africa face complex challenges in building their lives. they often live insecurely with inadequate housing or shelter, face language barriers, and struggle to access education and health services (magqibelo et al. 2016; willie and mfubu 2016). they are also confronted with new norms, roles and expectations around race, gender and power in south african society (kihato 2007; walker et al. 2017). they can be met by exclusionary social structures as the country bears the scars of apartheid’s racialized systems of oppression. as swartz et al. (2012: 36) suggest, young people “experience belonging to south african society...through their exclusion from it”. this racialized exclusion manifests, socially, economically and politically for young south africans as well. for young migrants from other african countries this exclusionary context mobilizes the politics of belonging in their lives in the form of everyday xenophobic violence (landau 2012; misago 2015) and bullying (hlatshwayo and vally 2014), which is fuelled by a sense of xenophobic sentiment within the state (crush and tawodzera 2014; opfermann 2019). this impacts young people’s ability to feel safe, stable and accepted in the context they are building their lives in. kistner (2007) refers to migrants in south africa as living in landscapes of past and present trauma, a conceptualization which corresponds with what benjamin and crawford-browne (2010) refer to as the continuous trauma of young people living with pervasive violence in south africa. through migration, many children and young people are unaccompanied or become separated from their families. south africa’s children’s act (rsa 2005) commits to the care and protection of all children (a person under the age of 18) regardless of nationality. young migrants in some circumstances find their way into 93 the child protection system. research found that four per cent of young people in cape town’s child and youth care centers are defined as non-citizens (sloth-nielsen and ackermann 2015; rsa 2016). not all children and young people are able to access the full resources of the child protection system as government service providers are not always aware of migrant children’s right to equal protection (willie and mfubu 2016). research by magqibelo et al. (2016) found that context-specific care was not being prioritized for migrant children under the protection of the south african government, in particular with regard to their trauma and loss, alongside issues around legal documentation. this is in spite of the department for social development (dsd) having guidelines for social workers on assisting unaccompanied children (dsd 2009). large numbers of unaccompanied children and young people struggle to be documented. there is a shortcoming in the south african children’s act (rsa 2005) whose concept of care and protection does not entail the provision of legal status as a form of protection, or as a need necessary to ensure children’s wellbeing (ackermann 2018). the realization of one’s legal rights, including the right to an identity, not only enables access to legal services and rights claims, but also can confirm a sense of having a valued and recognized identity. the mental health implications of being young and undocumented have been explored globally (ellis et al. 2011), with research by gonzales et al. (2013) in north america finding that young people’s wellbeing and identity formation were constrained by their construction as ‘illegal’. the missing of significant social milestones and constricted trajectories, alongside a sense of contracting social networks, created isolation and hopelessness. living without documentation creates an incredible amount of uncertainty on young people’s futures, in particular around the age of 18 where they are no longer protected as children by human rights law. turning 18 can also be a significant rupture for young people living in state care, who must at the same time prepare for their transition to adulthood. young migrants living in care often face a double burden when they transition into adulthood at 18 years as they are called upon to deal with how this experience relates to the immigration system, and the social care system. they may be transitioning out of care without legal documentation, or with a temporary status, and at the same leaving school and starting to live independently in a setting where they feel they are not accepted. despite structural constraints, gonzales et al. (2013) found that undocumented young people maintained hope in the face of hopelessness. this sense of hope was made possible in particular where young people had secure relationships and could build trust. building belonging into child and youth care practice with young migrants within the broader setting outlined above, the complex dynamics of young migrants’ belonging in cape town provides the context for this work. the lawrence house child and youth care center opened its doors in the city in 2005 to offer a residential building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 94 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 setting for unaccompanied migrant children and young people. this decision was taken, as there seemed no alternative solution to the situation of a group of over 20 young migrants stranded at the ark shelter in mfuleni township, outside cape town. most of them had no appointed caregiver, were not accessing formal schooling and were undocumented. the then child care act of 1983 was not giving clear instruction on the rights of non-nationals and their access to social services; hence social workers on the ground were unsure about their mandate concerning these children. with time, lawrence house established itself within the residential care sector and the promulgation of the children’s act 38 of 2005 (rsa 2005), alongside consistent advocacy and lobbying work, solidified the general understanding that all children, irrespective of their nationality or legal status were entitled to the same protection and care. through ongoing reflective practice between child and youth care workers, social workers and the center manager, lawrence house generated knowledge on the shared difficulties faced by this group of young people, in particular regarding their emotional wellbeing and social interaction. of particular significance in unpacking these patterns was the persistent fracturing and fragmentation of young people’s sense of belonging. the analysis was initially grounded in lawrence house’s use of the developmental assessment framework, the circle of courage. the circle of courage is a resilience-focused approach to working with young people, which is premised on the understanding that emotional health is connected to young people having a sense of belonging, mastery, independence and generosity (naccw 2014). lawrence house staff found that young people tended to displace attachment to staff and the network of the care center, and that a sense of belonging in relation to their past, to kinship networks, culture, and their relation to their countries of origin was fractured. dominant feelings that young people held, included a sense of loss, isolation, detachment, emotional numbness and challenges in sustaining relationships. it was visible that the pains these young people had experienced, had moved with them across time and space, and were affecting their capacity to build belonging in their present and future lives (alayarian 2007). the impact of this fractured sense of self and belonging, was exacerbated by anxiety and frustration linked to feelings of not having control over their lives (ward 2011). this appeared to be amplified by being in an institutional care setting where young people often felt powerless over the decisions that affected their lives. future transitional moments also came with fear of the unknown. the intersecting nature of past pains, present exclusions, and anxieties about the future were interacting with a decline in agency, mental wellbeing, and retreat from self-development, including less independence, scarce generosity and a continuous withdrawal into oneself. this deeper understanding of the complex realities that young migrants faced, shaped lawrence house’s strength-based youth practice approach, which was linked to the need to counter the impact of trauma within migratory experiences. in doing so, lawrence house emphasized a contextualized and grounded approach to youth 95 development and started to challenge practice that imposed linear, or external definitions of successful life transitions for young people (everatt 2015). this was an integral part of recognizing young migrants’ resilience, capabilities and agency in driving their development trajectories. practice evolved to focus on creating journeys of selfdiscovery and self-reflection and to create opportunities to build knowledge and understanding through relational learning processes. the aim was to build empowered transitions where young people can replenish and move forward with choices, albeit not always with all solutions. within this broader approach, and in a collaboration between the young people living in lawrence house, the organization’s programming staff and thea shahrokh as a researcher-practitioner, there was a sense that belonging as a process of personal and collective change, with implications for young people’s present and future wellbeing, needed to be specifically engaged. the rest of the paper shares the emergence of a youth-centered, developmental, participatory and arts-based praxis within this setting and discusses its contribution to building belonging with young migrants. nyumba yangu (my home): a participatory arts project connecting self and society nyumba yangu, a participatory arts project developed with young people living at lawrence house focused on how young migrants locate themselves in the here and now, form emotional connections, relationships and a sense of place (antonsich 2010). nyumba yangu, meaning ‘my home’ in swahili, evolved with a focus on connecting young people to finding their own sense of home in south africa. the approach aimed to create space and time for young migrants to explore their identities and belonging through a reflexive, relational, and strength-based learning process that surfaced agentic acts. lawrence house aimed to support young people to practice agency, grow resilience and build relational and political forms of belonging, in turn collapsing the difference felt between self and society. drawing on critical childhood studies, for example the work of james and prout (1990), it was evident that children and young people were established as social actors that produce meaning in their own right, and can direct their own journeys, including within new contexts (goodman 2004; denov and bryan 2012). this project aimed to contribute to the refinement of young person-centered, participatory, and creative methodologies for working with young migrants to build their belonging (green and denov 2019; kohli 2005; korjonen-kuusipuro and kuusisto 2019; nunn 2018). a participatory approach places young people at the center, and shifts power relations towards young people driving the process (torre and fine 2006). it means working with youth to move “beyond silence into a quest to proclaim the world” (freire 1982: 30). creative and artistic expression can enable a freedom of expression that is not constrained by language, or expectations (kohli 2005). young people often feel defined by past traumas and experience a fragmented sense of self. creative expression can support new ways of seeing and understanding both the self and sobuilding belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 96 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 ciety, which can be a catalyst for countering narratives of being an outsider, and feelings of rejection (heidenreich-seleme and o’toole 2012; pink 2004; harper 2002). participatory, arts-based methods take multiple forms and can support visualization and self-representation from corporal expression such as dance and dramatization, to drawing and image creation methods such as body mapping, collages, and photography. the approach developed here focused on group-building and nurturing relationships through creative connection (korjonen-kuusipuro and kuusisto 2019). this emphasis also builds on youth development approaches, including the role of sport, that emphasize the power of positive social interactions and self-efficacy in building belonging (burrmann et al. 2017). drawing on lessons from art therapy, the approach was grounded in the premise that artistic and performative expression can remediate feelings of helplessness or powerlessness (clacherty 2006; kalmanowitz and lloyd 2005), and support the identification of ways of healing, and defining self, through emotional expression (österlind 2008). connecting this art-making as an agentic practice to the development of positive interactions and relationships in the environments young migrants were building their lives in, shifted the focus of resilience in youth development work away from the individual, towards the social context within which resilience is interwoven and shaped (kohli 2011). the use of creative and visual methods builds on a growing body of culturally sensitive, decolonizing, participatory work in south africa that takes an adaptive and responsive approach to supporting the visibility of the voices of marginalized young people (blackbeard and lindegger 2015; luttrell et al. 2012; mitchell and de-lange 2011; mitchell et al. 2016) and young migrants (clacherty 2016; norton and sliep 2018; opfermann 2015, 2019). the project was initiated with 10 young women between the ages of 14 and 19 living in lawrence house. these young women had diverse experiences of migration and dislocation, including experiences of complex trauma as a result of abandonment, loss, trafficking and violence. the young women’s countries of origins included democratic republic of the congo, angola, tanzania, burundi, zimbabwe, somalia and south africa. for a number of the young women it was difficult to identify a ‘home’ country, having spent many years moving between countries and with dual heritage parents, or having never lived in their ancestral lands. the project started with a young women’s group, aiming to sustain previous group-building work at lawrence house that had supported the beginnings of a collective identity between these young women. it also aimed at recognizing gendered experiences of violence and insecurity and creating a single gender space that would offer a sense of safety for the young women. for migrant young people, safety is an important marker of belonging (kohli 2011). this work took a layered, and emergent methodological approach (wheeler et al. 2018) that built towards different kinds of change at personal and collective levels. its aim was to generate more equitable and just experiences and transformed lived realities towards belonging for the young people involved (cahill 2007). an 97 initial dialogue process with the young women on how and why a participatory arts project on belonging would be relevant to their lives, led to the process starting at the personal level, as shown in figure 1. figure 1: a layered and emergent participatory arts-based approach aimed at building belonging starting with a focus on ‘self-understanding’, each new layer emerged, revealing the aspirations for knowledge and change, as expressed by the young women. this responsive approach was important for ensuring young people’s experiences with and reactions to the arts methods that drove the process. the project took place over a period of 12 months. each methodological layer differed in its duration, depending on the aim of the process and the arts method. ultimately, the first and the last layers ran over a longer-term – over four months each – with layers two and three running consecutively for six weeks at a time. nyumba yangu project implementation and outcomes the methodological approach within the nyumba yangu project aimed to support the young women to move through cycles of sharing, listening and reflecting on their lived experiences as expressed through different artistic mediums. in doing so, the project envisaged to support the young people to see self, other and society differently as they learnt from their own and others’ experiences in new ways, and with a sense of safety in self-expression. this would also create mindfulness of the power relations and differential experiences of social marginalization between the young women in the group. these participants were supported within the project to engage in the way that they negotiated power amongst themselves and with others in their lives, to recognize that such power relations affected not only their everyday lives but also the participatory arts process. the following sections elaborate on the implementation of the nyumba yangu project, highlighting what was learnt about the process of building belonging with young migrants in care. building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 1. self-understanding visual arts 2. relationships and trust dance/movement 3. collective power spoken-word 4. navigating society theatre 98 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 self-understanding the process was initiated with a set of artistic workshops facilitated by shahrokh, that supported young people to explore, through the mediums of drama and visual arts, what belonging, or home, meant in their present lives, and the extent to which it mattered to them. as an external facilitator, shahrokh focused on evolving a process that was driven by the young women and their aspirations. the facilitator also connected her own experience of living with iranian-scottish dual heritage and holding a migrant background in the united kingdom and south africa into the process, which supported conversations about complex and changing identities as they relate to context. initially the discussions centered around the idea of unbelonging, as this was the dominant connection the young women felt to the concept. as shown in figure 2 below, there was a sense of detachment between this young woman’s close personal relationships. the young woman who created this image explained that her relationships were separated not only by geographical, but by emotional distance. as the young women shifted towards discussing their aspirations for belonging, their definitions centered on the relationality of belonging. the definitions included: something between people; when you are able to be yourself and have selfworth; when you have a place where you feel safe and long to be; when you have control over your decisions; and when you are supportive and kind to others. from this shared starting point, the workshop focus shifted to self-understanding, because the young women felt that their identities were in tension between their self-definition and who they felt others wanted them to be. self-reflection and awareness became important as a first step to opening other wider possibilities of change. figure 2: relationships of belonging artwork by young woman aged 17 99 resonating with kistner’s (2015) analysis of migrants in south africa being situated in landscapes of trauma, for many young women in the group, past pains were a barrier to engaging with a wider sense of home, and making positive cultural, relational and place-based connections that could become a part of their present lives. as one young woman explained: “i need help in learning to express my feelings and to be able to speak about my life”. another young woman explained that, “i don’t want my face to change, from happiness to sadness by looking back at the past”. visual and creative storytelling methods supported young people to regain a sense of control and to ‘safely’, and ethically connect with both past and present, and with each other. the facilitators developed a method that supported layers of private and public expression so that the young women could engage in uncensored preparatory work before choosing what they wanted to make public about their experiences. the young women created private ‘my belonging’ books that provided space for freedom of self-expression, processing of difficult past experiences, and aspirations for what they wanted to know more about in their lives. the creation of an artefact (the book) aimed to bring a sense of ownership and continuity to the process, something that can feel disrupted in the lives of young migrants and young people in care (ward 2011). the young women then engaged in group reflections and sharing circles where they chose what to share about the work that they had been doing, and had conversations about related social and political issues. by starting to engage the self, young women were taking ownership of their identities, which was a response to their sense of fragmentation from their cultures and histories. in resonance with probyn’s idea of ‘be-longing’, being desires that come with the longing for something other than what you have (probyn 1996: 5), the young women were supported to speak about what they “wanted to know more about” to build their sense of self and belonging, and why that was important to them. an example of this reflective work is shown in figure 3. this young woman’s aspirations were connected to her desire to make sense of multiple life-worlds. she wanted to speak her own language, as well as afrikaans, the language spoken by her south african peers at school, and by a number of the child and youth care workers; it is also the language which she was studying. she wanted to know more about her “family root(s)” and her “family history”, and build a connection to that part of herself. she also expressed her desire to find confidence and courage. when this was discussed, she explained that this was in relation to being able to take the linguistic and cultural aspirations in the list forward. through the artwork, the young women were recalling parts of their identities and depicting the times when they were loved as a child, sister, grand-child, friend – these were identities that they felt they had lost as a result of their experiences. they were shifting their sense of self to becoming a young person who could build personal strength and positive relationships. an example of this is a 16-year-old young woman who used oil pastels to create an image of the bedroom she used to share building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 100 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 with her mother. she was on her own in south africa as her mother had returned to her country of origin. she explained that, “this picture is about me and my mother and the bond that a daughter has (with her mother)”. this experience echoes another young woman’s reflection that through this process, “we have moved from what was lost, to feeling found”. another young woman explained that, “i gained as a skill, learning to express myself in a positive way. i’ve learnt to speak and write about my feelings and i’ve learnt to accept life as it is and being positive”. this work was catalytic, a beginning rather than an end, and a contribution towards being able to bring positive connections with the past into the present (bradbury and clark 2012; kistner 2015; kohli 2011). figure 3: what i want to know more about artwork created by young woman aged 18 building relationships and trust for young people with backgrounds of migration a sense of safety within relationships has often been broken. this happens through diverse and complex experiences but has lasting effects on young people’s abilities to feel safe, stable and to trust (korjonen-kuusipuro et al. 2018). issues and questions around trust, in particular around fear of judgment from others, existed within the group. to complement the above visual expressive modes, the idea of integrating a dance component into the program emerged. the young women responded positively to this artistic form of expression within a regular “girls’ group” that they participated in. the dance group was facilitated by a south african woman, a native of cape town, who had also 101 lived and worked abroad in the performance arts. the facilitator’s understanding of the complex cultural and relational dynamics within this group of young women, informed by her own lived experience as a woman in south africa, coupled with her experience as a dance facilitator, contributed to the creation of a sense of safety and trust in this process. this set of relationships, experience and contextualized knowledge was brought into a partnership with evidence from the field of dance and movement therapy (pierce 2014) including with refugees (koch and weidinger-von der recke 2009; verreault 2017). this research suggests that a movement-based process could strengthen a sense of safety and trust within the young women’s relationships with themselves and in their relationships with each other. the method using art to give expression to feelings, was also particularly important given the emphasis on bodies, race and skin color within the xenophobic narratives of exclusion in south africa. the facilitated workshops aimed to counter these narratives through building embodied connections to self and others. to support openness in self-expression, the program of dance and movement work was facilitated using the 5rhythms approach (roth 1997). this is a therapeutic practice structured through improvizational movement where participants explore the rhythms of flowing, chaos, staccato, lyrical and stillness, using their bodies. within this structure, creative expression took place, particularly in relation to self-discovery and in working towards unity (payne 2006). within this process, grounding exercises were used to encourage the young women to find healing in being connected to their bodies. finding their own ways of expressing their bodies through movement helped address harmful communication strategies, where anger or aggression could dominate, and strengthened a sense of agency (koch et al. 2012). movement, connected to the different rhythms helped to bring about images and metaphors of symbolic expression around different emotions. body-to-body relation through mirroring promoted the feeling of being validated by others, built empathy and countered assumptions that the young women had about the way that others in the group would treat them. group-based movement created relational exchange between the young women and supported nonverbal dialogue that helped build trust. in response, one of the young women explained that, “i didn’t have trust and it is hard to do the moves; trying to let go was hard. trying to trust when you are unsure, is difficult. but, in the trust circle, they didn’t let me fall”. this validation within the group supported young women to reflect that they could be accepted when expressing themselves in their own ways, to build a positive relationship with their own bodies, and to have a sense of control in their lives (bengtsson and mølholt 2018; kohli 2011). the artistic process included an activity where the young women collectively worked on a body map, shown in figure 4. this exercise created a space for reflection and articulation of a shared sense of identity within the group. building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 102 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 figure 4: body map image of connections made through movement artwork created by the group of young women as the artwork shows, this space gave the young women a platform from which to recognize and value their uniqueness as their beauty, to articulate the power that they have to fight for what they believe in, and to establish that others do not have the power to change who they are. this transition from personal expression in the visual storybook work, to nonverbal dialogue through movement, to a collective articulation of self and identity was a powerful way of building trust in others, to understand the connections between bodies, lived experiences and aspirations for change. the body map presents evidence concrete example of this important transition. creating collective power the progression from personal to collective reflection illustrated the connection between a sense of self, and a sense of belonging in relation to others. learning from the lived experiences of others, as a part of a collective can enable engagement with broader power relations that surround young people’s lives, as well as understanding the lived reality of others. as the young people moved through the process, they articulated a desire to shift from reflecting inwardly, to narrating their identities outwardly, and shaping their place in the world (arendt 1971). as a result, the next phase of the process built on the performance art of spoken word poetry. this layer of the project invited young people to engage as active witnesses to each other’s expe103 riences and their quests for recognition, healing and autonomy (prendergast 2015). the spoken word process was facilitated by a cape town-born poet, raised on the cape flats, an area of the city to which people of color were forcibly relocated under apartheid, and to which a strong history of activism is attached. with a background as a performance artist and cultural activist, her work as a youth facilitator connects the power of poetry to social transformation and integration. the process started with the young women writing “i” poems, which located themselves as the main actor, and agent of change within their poetry. through sharing and reflection, the young women then worked in pairs, then small groups to start a process of reimagining shared identities and narratives in their lives, through the medium of poetry. in doing so the young women were encouraged to make personal connections to cultural references, symbols and icons, and their own lived experiences, to enable them to build new narratives about their lives (antonsich 2010). the process connected to the political ideology of spoken word poetry, which is a form of collective resistance for marginalized people – a refusal to accept stereotypes or imposed identities, rather, presenting a call for social justice (stovall 2006). the work that the young people were engaged in, brought them together with others to find a way of speaking to the world, engaging with the politics of belonging (yuvaldavis 2006). importantly, this exercise was not about creating a simplistic narrative of who these young women are, but rather giving space to both their individual and collective identities. the poem shared here is the final version of the collective poem that all the young women in the group constructed together: we are the start of a line that never ends by lawrence house young women’s group i am flowing on the dark side of the moon i am the smell of blood that shed many tears i am the womb of a barren woman i am the refugee that crawled through the dust of a thousand borders i am the pencil that draws this story the thief that stole the heart of the unknown we are the start of a line that never ends generations wrought of earth’s womb diamonds risen from the bowels of an african tomb i am the daughter of an african woman the beat of my heart is the first drum i am strong, i am feeling, i am love i am fire the light that brings everything to life building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 104 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 we are the start of a line that never ends generations wrought of earth’s womb diamonds risen from the bowels of an african tomb and so now in life’s highs and lows my heart stays steady in the spirit root of this family tree africa lives proud in me. in writing this poem these young women were still grappling with what it means to belong, but rather than it being something out of reach, it was something, that together they started to articulate and to claim. they claimed it in re-writing themselves; they are strong, they are love, they are fire. at the same time, they retain the complexity, the confusion and the dark and light of their lived experiences. they recognize their strength and their agency in writing their own story and they recognize that they have the power to take hold of their belonging together, as african women. navigating society drawing on critical and participatory pedagogy, the facilitators and lawrence house staff were committed to the young people’s engagement with the wider social realities and power relations that impact on their lives. throughout the process it was evident that young migrants in care often felt that they were powerless to change what they know about who they are and their life stories. furthermore, there was a strong sense of others having control over their lives. up until this point the group space had been for young women only. within the visual, movement-based and spoken word layers of the process the young people had started to explore the gendered power relations that shape belonging. responding to this, the young women chose for the final layer of the process to be opened up to all young people at lawrence house. methodologically this also recognized the relational nature of gender, and the importance of seeing the interaction of norms around gender roles and responsibilities, and power in young people’s lives (gouws 2017). this also increased the number of young south africans within the process, which also shifted the dynamics of learning towards understanding shared realities across perceived lines of difference. the young people’s commitment to work together aimed at building respect for, and understanding the perspectives and ideas of others, countering experiences of unbelonging (christensen 2009). throughout the process it became clear was evident that young people found value in self-expression through drama and performance. dramatic expression appeared to be deeply enabling in terms of critical dialogue and reflective learning with others, as well as in ‘rehearsing’ change in their lives. participatory theatre became the focus for engaging the young people in understanding the role of societal narratives in oppression and the reconstruction of self and agency. given the emphasis on self-making and building collective community in this program, a strong col105 laboration was forged with a female european facilitator who lived in south africa for an extended period, and whose doctoral work engaged critically with the construction of gendered identities in young south africans’ lives. her methodology was informed by the principles of paulo freire’s conscientization and augusto boal’s ‘theatre of the oppressed’ that emphasized the use of physical and verbal expression in making visible social issues, deconstructing them and practicing transformation through performances. in response to the changing gendered make-up of the group, a local male co-facilitator with a background in youth work, was also invited to support the process. the participatory theatre methodology constituted fictionalized stories based on young people’s lived experiences which were able to support a sense of distance between emotionally and politically sensitive issues. the theatre work gave young people space to make visible silenced issues, and to engage with the sensitivity of the issue of belonging as it relates to norms and expectations around what belonging is, and for who (yuval-davis 2007). young people were able to articulate the way violence, abuse and bullying impacted their capacity to belong. additionally, that assumptions of the family being a safe and supportive place of belonging need to be challenged. instead, new forms of relationships and sense of family need to be imagined. as clark (2009) articulates, this created space for young people with migration backgrounds to speak out about who they are, who they can be, and in turn move towards the belonging they long for (probyn 1996). implications for building belonging with young migrants in care the young people involved in this process have, through the embodied practice of making art, generated an understanding of belonging that is both relational and in process. building belonging is therefore not about working towards a fixed outcome or identifiable end goal; it is a continuous process that is deeply interconnected with the changing dynamics of young people’s lives. young people are looking to build self-worth, feelings of safety, decision-making power and supportive relationships, in order to support their capacities to navigate these dynamics. this project’s findings indicate that participatory arts methods can create a space for understanding and realizing belonging in young people’s immediate lives, and contribute to the development of capacities for building belonging as young people construct their future, independent lives. to nurture the relational dynamic of belonging, the process needed to engage with the role of trust in relationships and in building connections to others. nonverbal expression in the form of movement and dance was a powerful way of young people finding new ways to trust and to share experiences as equals. trust between the adult facilitators was supported by the commitment to the time and space needed for this process to grow in response to the unfolding aspirations of the young people involved. the creation of a safe space, was supported by long-term relationships bebuilding belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 106 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 tween young people, and with facilitators, which help to (re)build trust that had been fractured through complex life experiences. the emphasis on trust draws visibility to the interaction with past experiences, of loss, violence and abandonment (kistner 2015), and building present and future relationships that can establish connections to people and places (antonsich 2010; arendt 1971). nurturing this trust, and trusting relationships with peers and adults in turn can contribute to the capacities of young people to build trust beyond the life-space of the participatory arts group. work on belonging is not easy; it is not a neutral issue for young people and involves emotional labor that needs to be continuously held and nurtured by the care network around the young person. significantly, this project was supported by an organizational culture of young people’s participation in their own development. child and youth care workers and social workers were engaged from the outset and feedback loops were embedded so that young people were able to articulate the changes they were going through to their peers and care workers. within this process, child and youth care workers indicated that an important lesson for their practice was that while legal documentation is critical for young migrants, it is not all that is needed for belonging. social workers should continue to ensure documentation is realized, and at the same time, young people want to know more about their families, their communities, their language and their cultures. this research has shown that participatory arts processes can support young migrants to engage with these questions and work towards possibilities of realizing change. the knowledge generated through this process provides rich and in-depth understanding of belonging in young migrants’ lives, which has implications for the young people themselves, as well as for the practitioners and researchers engaged in their care. reflective arts methods supported young people’s self-understanding, enabling them to make sense of fractured pasts, in relation to how they were directing their lives in the present. using a creative approach supported young people in recognizing the multiple forms of knowledge and identities that exist within them, and to reclaim this new knowledge. visual storytelling created the space for narrative construction that recalled past strengths, including those pertaining to people, cultures and places, and to connect this to self-identification and determination within their futures (bradbury and clark 2012). the transitioning from the personal to the collective level was also important for building understanding of self and other, and for developing new ways of seeing connections and relationships. this layered learning was supported by the emergence of a deep form of empathic listening that enabled an understanding of complexity and power-relations within the different young people’s stories and experiences. this complexity helped build the potential for transformation as it created room for young people to construct new identities and belongings that embraced fluidity, multiplicity and change. this embracing of multiplicity has the potential to support them to make sense of their whole selves, without fear, shame or rejection of what had come before. it also supported their connection to each other, and fa107 cilitated the finding of linked social issues that led to their connection to a shared struggle, overcoming the isolation that can manifest through the politics of belonging (yuval-davis 2006). an important change seen in young people was reflected in the development of “non-oppressive identities” (swartz and soudien 2015: 35), made up of tolerance, acceptance and a rejection of discrimination. the further development of this work with young migrants, together with young people marginalized within the care system more broadly, may create opportunities for young people to come together and learn across perceived lines of difference, building towards more inclusive societies. additionally, by developing this work with other young people within the communities where these young people currently live, and will be transitioning into, it may become possible for young people to translate their knowledge into concrete action, and make meaningful connections with their future selves, and future lives (korjonen-kuusipuro et al. 2018). conclusion this paper shared the reflections and insights of young migrants living in care in south africa, on their search for belonging. the project grew from the perspectives of young migrants, and provides insight into methods using different art forms, that can contribute to their unique conceptualizations of belonging. the participatory approach supported the building of meaningful connections to self and others, which have the power to facilitate feelings of belonging across young people’s past, present and future lives. the building of belonging for these young people speaks to the unique realities of their past pains, and present insecurity in south africa. the contextualized knowledge generated through an emergent, participatory arts process can help improve child and youth care practice by enhancing sensitivity and responsiveness to young people’s realities. this project has shown that efforts towards building belonging need to be continuous, they have to move through cycles of connecting young people to self, to others, and to society. belonging is a process. within a context of youth transitions, participatory arts can support young people to drive this process, and through this, they could reconceptualize and realize their sense of self, and sense of belonging, in the present, and importantly, in their futures. building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 108 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 acknowledgement the authors would like to thank the young people at the center of this work. without their openness, and commitment to change, this learning would not have been possible. appreciation is extended to the participatory arts facilitators: hannah loewenthal who brought dance into the process, khadija heeger who connected the young people with spoken word poetry, and alice clarfelt who brought the vision of theatre to life in this program. thank you to the hci foundation for their ongoing contributions to youth work at lawrence house. the methodological learning process documented in this paper was developed in collaboration with shahrokh’s doctoral research, which was funded by coventry university, uk. the authors are very grateful for the reviewer’s comments, which we feel were really positively directed at strengthening the paper. note the young people in this study have been anonymized throughout to protect their identities. images in this article cannot be reproduce without explicit permission of the author. 109 references ackermann, m. 2018. unaccompanied and separated children in south africa: is return the only option? scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa, 1: 975-994. alayarian, a. 2007. trauma, resilience, and creativity. in resilience, suffering, and 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belonging and the politics of belonging. patterns of prejudice, 40(3): 197-214. yuval-davis, n. 2007. intersectionality, citizenship and contemporary politics of belonging. critical review of international social and political philosophy, 10(4): 561-574. building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 116 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 in pursuit of being and belonging: migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare mushonga rufaro hamish* and dzingirai vupenyu** * centre for applied social sciences (cass), university of zimbabwe, harare, zimbabwe corresponding author. email: rufarohamish@gmail.com ** centre for applied social sciences (cass), university of zimbabwe, harare, zimbabwe the main thrust of this article is to analyze how a migrant association, particularly the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz), facilitates being, belonging and integration of migrants in the host society. grounded on ethnography as a method of inquiry and transactional theory as an analytical framework, the article attempts to answer two questions: i) how does the association help to bond and enrich the lives of migrants; and ii) how does the association facilitate the bridging of social connections with the ‘other’ with the ultimate goal of burying differences, which in essence helps them to continue staying and accumulating in the diaspora. the article illustrates how the association facilitates newcomers’ integration, through a range of activities, purportedly, to enrich the lives of migrants in ‘strange’ downtown environs. as increased contact with the indigenes ensues, the article also shows that the association shifts focus and starts to lessen the social differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ through various activities. the article concludes that migrant associations act as a buffer for migrants as well as a bridging mediator vis-à-vis the host society. with these observations, the article recommends that there is a need for nation-states to leverage on migrant associations for effective migration management as their roles need to be incorporated into migration policies. additionally, establishing a line of communication with migrant associations is vital. migrant associations and the nation-state need to find more spaces of communication and interaction to bridge the divide that separates ‘us’ and ‘them’. keywords: ethnography, identity, integration, migrants, migration, transactionalism 117 introduction migrations, with all incidental collision, conflicts and fusions of peoples and culture which they occasion, have been documented among the decisive forces in human history (park 1928). in recent years, one consequence of increased mobility which is evidential in mobility discourse is migrants’ disposition to form migrant associations in host nations. however, despite the overwhelming evidence on intra-african mobility, research has mainly focused on the global north (layton-henry 1990; putnam 1993; owusu 2000; moya 2005; sardinha 2009). african migrants in other african countries have rarely been the subject of serious study, and hence very little is known about migrant associations in african settings. the overbearing angle of this article is to look closely at the roles attributed to migrant associations when it comes to migrants’ being, belonging, and integration in host societies amidst ethno-cultural and social differences. in practice, nigerian migrant entrepreneurs have organized themselves internally often belonging to an association – the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz). the article also shows that beyond the entrepreneurship, the association also helps them to forge relationships with the ‘other’, namely the local community to which they are strangers and must fit in. in addition, the article shows how they use this association to win favours among the authorities and the local people who constitute their neighbours. accompanying ethnographically-based observations, this article sets itself within the theoretical outlook that being, belonging and integration are not only socially constructed but mutually constructed by migrants and the host society they are settling in. within this context, the article supports the assertion that being, belonging and integration are migrants’ objectives to be achieved within multicultural/intercultural environs. literature review – contextualization the current era is one in which varied forms of human mobility, across cities, nations and geopolitical frontiers are redefining the meaning of ‘home’, ‘community’ and ‘belonging’ (landau and bakewell 2018). migration is not a new phenomenon in the history of africa. according to migration scholars, migration had its own functions for different groups and societies, which included the pursuit of sheer survival, search for better opportunities and improved conditions, and of course, the consolidation of advantages and benefits (adepoju 1995; baker and aina 1995). some observers have amply described africa as a ‘continent perpetually on the move’ (flahaux and de haas 2016). in africa, the dominant theme has been movement to the global north (adepoju 2005; obi 2010). however, there is evidence which points to internal mobility within the continent even if this is intended to prepare for final migration to the global north (whitehouse 2012; antwi-bosiakoh 2009). despite the apparently distinct phases of african history (the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial eras), migration assumes a considerable measure of both migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 118 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 diversity and continuity in its causes, magnitude and effects on african cities and economies (mbembe and nuttall 2004). as the african city increasingly becomes metropolitan (mbembe and nuttall 2008; simone 2001), new scents are smelt, new tastes savoured, new sounds heard and above all, new faces seen (simone 2004). the city is reproducing the uneasy convergence of seemingly different needs and practices among migrants as new arrivals are moving in, seeking profit, passage and protection (landau and bakewell 2018). through migrants’ mobility into, within and out of cities, urban spaces which had tenuous connections between subjects for many years, have now become nodes in diasporic networks of social and economic exchange (mbembe and nuttall 2004; landau 2014). migrants not only leave their homelands and find ways into new spaces, rather they reshape themselves along with relations, values and institutions in the host country (landau and freemantle 2016). they create and recreate relations with their compatriots who moved with them or before (schrover and vermeulen 2005). in the host country they are subject to different laws and regulations; they take on new customs; they have different neighbours and they learn new skills and reshape their own history (owusu 2000; whitehouse 2012). these novel and peculiar laws and regulations, as alluded by landau and bakewell (2018), create possibilities of migrants organizing themselves and creating symbiotically organized associations in order to navigate the strangeness and quandaries that characterize the new urban milieu (waldinger and fitzgerald 2004). these associations are formed to create solidarities in the host countries to protect mutual interests and mobilize support on issues of concern (layton-henry 1990). casual observers and scholars alike have called attention to migrants’ disposition to form associations or communities abroad (moya 2005; vertovec 2004). de haas (2006) defines a migrant association as a voluntary grouping of migrants based on reciprocity, solidarity and collectivism, which wields resources and power to forge collective benefits. bell (1975) defines a migrant association as an effective tie with a common interest formed to preserve the identity and culture of migrants as well as playing a role in the settlement processes through to pathways of integration. these associations provide migrants with social capital, either bonding or bridging (putnam 2000). bonding capital connects migrants internally to sustain in-group reciprocity. thus, integration is maintained through interdependence, exchange and reciprocity (sardinha 2009). on the other hand, bridging capital connects migrants and the hosts and helps to bring consensus between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (putnam 1993) and integration is achieved through forging of relationships with the hosts, which can lead to cooperation, transactions, and exchange of resources (cheater 1989). the review above is suggestive that migrants often develop social and close relations with each other. this might involve subjugating themselves to a membership or voluntary association. whatever the case, migrants are able to adapt to the new environment using these institutions. but there is another set of literature which suggests that migrants also forge relationships with outsiders using these associa119 tions (sardinha 2009; cheater 1989). they may provide gifts, information or provide social responsibility. the range of what they do is unlimited. these sets of relationships, it would appear, are capable of making the new migrants better understand, and more importantly exploit the resources at destination. this article deals with this matter, using the case of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs who have migrated to harare since the 1990s. mangezvo (2018) observed that nigerian migrants represent the largest proportion of foreign entrepreneurs operating informal businesses in harare. data provided by the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz) shows that there are between 1500–2000 nigerian entrepreneurs, broken down to fluid ethnic groups which include yoruba, edo, igbo, hausa and ogoni. these ethnic identities are de-emphasized, and the common identity as ‘nigerian’ is the one that is preferred. these migrants chiefly come for business opportunities which they say are endless in zimbabwe. even those who view zimbabwe as a transit point to other destinations end up attracted by these opportunities. in harare, nigerians have taken over the downtown area, putting up shops retailing goods and services ranging from motor spares, electricals, cell phones, clothing, cosmetics and internet cafes. however, in this same locale, migrants are often regarded as ‘aliens and unwanted intruders’ who have come to grab opportunities from the autochthons, and this further compounds their precarity. thus, to navigate this seemingly chaotic and rough terrain imbued in their everyday struggles over ‘politics of space’ (certoma et al.2002), they enact being and belonging through forming associations. this article employs a transactional lens to show how migrant associations facilitate migrants’ integration into the host society. barth (1963, 1966, and 1969) and bailey (1970) propose the importance of association in enhancing group solidarity. additionally, these scholars also observe that reciprocity and exchange between diverse actors is the basis for bridging social relations. in recent years, a new concept of conviviality has emerged (nyamnjoh 2017; overing and passes 2000; gilroy 2004), emphasizing how migrants create associations to enrich themselves or to use these associations to create convivial relations with the ‘other’ thereby forging belonging in particular contested spaces. this article argues that this is still the essence of transactionalism, which both frederick bailey and fredrik barth – two leading transactionalists – saw as being at the centre of all societies, including urban cities. methodology data for this article was generated from ethnographic fieldwork carried out in harare’s popular downtown boulevards, located in the fringes of the city centre. this is a locale where migrants, nigerians included, have arrived in various migratory rhythms seeking opportunities in the thriving informal sector. in line with ferguson’s assertion that, “ethnography is like fishing; all you need is a net to swing; and you will be sure of catching something” (1999:17), ethnography allowed for the acute exploration of the associational lives and experiences of participants. since there was no existing sampling frame and participants exemplified a migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 120 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 hard-to-reach population (atkinson and flint 2001), snowball sampling was the main vehicle through which participants were selected. as suggested by akanle (2013), this method consists of identifying and contacting participants recommended by others. for example, the researcher identified the association’s president and one local entrepreneur operating in downtown harare, who then referred the researcher to other participants. this technique was useful because many potential participants were sceptical of the researcher’s intentions. thus, initial participants and contacts were relied upon to recommend other participants. in keeping with denscombe (2010), the aim of this study was to emphasize the depth and detail of everyday associational lives and experiences rather than the breadth of associational lives and experiences of migrants. the number of participants was thus limited to 45. by its nature, ethnography may not yield depth if not narrowed to a few cases. geertz rightly points out that “small facts speak to large issues” (1973:23). participant observations and in-depth interviews were the primary avenues of approach to gather the required data from a broad swathe of participants, who included: 20 nigerian entrepreneurs, 8 association leaders, 3 commuters, 10 local traders, 2 immigration officials and 2 zimbabwe republic police (zrp) officials. in other instances, the researcher made use of informal discussions, some spontaneous and some orchestrated to capture the lived realities of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs. secondary sources, particularly the local newspapers and the associations’ facebook pages were also used to triangulate data obtained from in-depth interviews and participant observations. results and discussion motives for formation of the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz) according to its president, mr obodo, the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz) was formed in 1994 to cater for the welfare of nigerians in the country. the association has a clear organizational structure which consists of the president, vicepresident, secretary, vice-secretary, treasurer, welfare officer, assistant welfare officer, spokesperson and the provost/coordinator. these leaders ‘give face’ to the association and work as active members, defining rules and modes of action, emitting their opinions and exercizing their influence on the association’s members. this resonates well with the observations of cheater (1989) and albuquerque et al. (2000) that social relations and agreed rules govern migrant associations. additionally, the ncz leaders have been in zimbabwe for a period of 15–20 years, and have extensive knowledge about the host country. this coincides with the popular belief that migrant associations are governed ‘from above’ by migrants who have been in the host country for considerable periods of time (antwi-bosiakoh 2010; obeng 2010). ncz leaders are chosen on a rotational basis, after every two years. mr osuofa, vice-president of the ncz and household electricals shop owner, succinctly captured the various prerequisites for eligibility to serve on the leadership 121 structure: ncz is the powerhouse welfare organization of nigerians in the country and leaders are chosen on a rotational basis. each of the leaders has his or her own roles and responsibilities. we vote for each leader based on merit. we check whether the individual is brave enough and with ‘big heart’ because no one is paid and it is time consuming. we try to involve every tribe in these leadership positions based on ethnicity, although in zimbabwe there are more igbos than any other tribe (18 december 2018, harare street). thus, based on the above narrative, being a leader of the association is contingent upon the personal qualities and abilities required to qualify for various leadership positions. these can be academic qualifications, knowledge of the host country, and credibility they may possess in the eyes of nigerian migrants. as argued by labelle et al. (1994), as association leaders, these individuals are vital in carrying out the responsibilities of group representation, partly because of their positioning and visibility as intermediaries. the association’s members meet once every two months to discuss planned activities. at these meetings new migrants are introduced to the association and members also vote for their respective leaders. non-members may also attend the meetings but they do not have the right to vote. moreover, all association members are obliged to pay a monthly subscription fee of $5 (usd) and those who default are relieved of their privileges as active members of the association. adaptive and integrative functions of the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz) one thing that is clear about migrants is that they find their initial phases of settling bewildering because they lack the requisite information about the host nation. the ncz plays a pivotal role in providing information about the host nation to migrants. it functions as an intermediary in offering first-hand experience of the host country to the prospective migrants. this came out clearly from the association’s spokesperson, who runs a business specializing in motor spares. he said: you can’t migrate without prior information of where you are going. you have to join the association together with people you know and as nigerians, we help each other with information about the host nation, we are brothers and we love each other (23 december 2018, kaguvi street). similarly, the ncz coordinator claimed: we inform nigerians who would want to migrate what is required in zimbabwe before they come here. this involves information about visas, permits, either spousal permit or investors’ permit. we also tell those who want to travel that if they are not married, they should marry here in the country and get a spousal permit (5 january 2019, bank street). additionally, the association informs members about investment opportunities in the country as some migrants end up running illicit businesses that tarnish the image of all nigerians in the country. this was expressed clearly by the welfare officer migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 122 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 of the association who poignantly expressed the following: i came here in 2005 and i found out that there was ncz in the country. ncz was formed to bring all nigerians in zimbabwe together. in ncz we ask a lot of questions: what are your reasons for coming here? what are you doing? some of our fellow brothers bring a bad name which the host country doesn’t like. if you want to specialize in minerals, we warn members to never go near the mineral sector as it is highly political (8 january 2019, kaguvi street). likewise, obi, a 40-year-old from enugu state is exemplary to the sentiments made by the ncz welfare officer. obi came to zimbabwe in 2006, a period when diamonds were discovered in the eastern parts of the country. obi had a goal to ‘flourish in exile’ as he wanted to trade in these precious gems. that was possible for him because the diamond fields were characterized by impunity and lawlessness, an indication of the desperation and chaos that pervaded the country at that time (katsaura 2010). upon arrival in the country, he registered with the association and was warned not to do that business as it was going to tarnish the image of nigerians in the country. to avoid swimming in troubled waters, obi then invested in the motor spares business and today he is a proud owner of two motor spares businesses, one in harare and another one in lagos. the laconic narratives above clearly show the importance of the ncz in conveying pertinent information to migrants. these results concur with scholars. for instance, crisp (2000) states that migrant associations provide invaluable information to prospective and new migrants. according to caglar (2006), migrants are often secluded in host communities and migrant associations help migrants by providing critical information for their survival in host communities. advocacy roles generally, when migrants move to new territories they are regarded as aliens; and they become scapegoats when nation-states confront economic, political and social problems. they become targets of hostility from the autochthons and blamed for all the social, economic and political problems in the host nation. zimbabwean bureaucrats suspect migrants of being drug dealers, thieves, fraudsters, and con artists (mangezvo 2018). this means that nigerian migrants have to devise new strategies of surviving such a toxic environment. nigerian migrant entrepreneurs have learnt that the only resolution to disputes with their hosts is through forming an association, which plays a critical judicial function in advocating for their rights. despite the documents they have to legitimize their stay, they remain subject to multiple forms of exactions from various rent-seeking individuals, maltreatment and unlawful arrests. rather that exercizing the ‘politics of invisibility’, which characterizes most migrants in a foreign land (whitehouse 2012), they have opted for the ‘politics of recognition’ (taylor 1994; englund and nyamnjoh 2004) through the association, to defend their interests en masse – by collectively refusing to put up with abuse, being cheated and paying bribes. to illustrate its advocacy roles, the association’s president reiterated that there 123 was a time when nigerian entrepreneurs were continually maltreated by the zimbabwean authorities. they were unlawfully arrested and detained and pressured to pay huge sums for legal representation or bribes. however, the association helped by representing them in the courts of justice. ozeze, a 33-year-old specializing in cosmetics was once arrested. he expressed the following: i was once arrested and unlawfully detained by the immigration, compliance department. our ncz lawyers represented me in the courts and i was later released (15 january 2019, gulf complex). however, taking such a grand stand of ‘politics of recognition’ does not go down well with some zimbabweans, who think that this is a breach of their tacit agreement not to ‘rock the boat’ in the host country. this was evident from kenny, the compliance officer at the immigration department who was reported by the ncz to the zimbabwe anti-corruption commission (zacc) for soliciting bribes from some nigerian traders. he frantically noted: it’s a very difficult position for foreigners to advocate for their rights in this country. they should not do what they want and they should know they have limits. last time i was called by the zimbabwe anti-corruption commission (zacc) to respond to allegations of soliciting bribes from foreigners including nigerians. this led to my immediate suspension but i was later reassigned. it didn’t go well with me and my superiors (5 january 2019, department of immigration). this narrative concurs with whitehouse’s (2012) observations that strangers in a foreign land should have a stranger’s code that obliges them to desist from any activity that might disturb the tenuous relationships between them and the hosts. this includes desisting from drawing unwanted scrutiny to the locals in exchange for permission for ‘belonging’ in the host country. by this, whitehouse (2012) argues that strangers should remain quiet and keep their heads down, as exile knows no dignity. moreover, at an individual level, the association has also performed the judicial function of solving disputes among nigerians, that would otherwise end up as police or court cases. such disputes are normally arbitrated by the leaders of the association who use appropriate nigerian social practices as the basis for settling the disputes. death and bereavement generally, people of african descent desire to be buried in their native lands. the ncz also ensures that its members are buried in their native land. in the event of the death of a member, their kin or relatives in the host country, the association offers a monetary contribution to the grieving family and assists in repatriating the body back home. this was stated clearly by both the association’s treasurer and the spokesperson, respectively: ncz helps members during good times and bad moments. for example, if death befalls our members, we contribute towards repatriation and burial (3 march 2019, harare street). migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 124 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 sometimes the ncz helps in times of need. for example, when my wife died, the association took over the whole repatriation process to imo state for her burial (3 march 2019, kaguvi street). however, it appears that those nigerians who are not part of the association do not get any help from the association when misfortune befalls them. this was expressed by the association’s spokesperson: we love each other as nigerians, but there are those who go astray and ncz punishes them. ncz helps to repatriate the dead back to nigeria unless you don’t associate with us. someone died 2 years ago who wasn’t registered with us and he was buried here (7 may 2019, robert mugabe street). these narratives reflect that in the event of the death of a member, the association helps financially to repatriate the body back home. moreover, in the case of migrants whose family members in nigeria pass away, the association also contributes financially to assist them. these contributions attest not only to the social and economic importance of migrant associations, but also to the cultural importance attached to death in their homeland (owusu 2000). according to nwala (1985), the nigerian customary belief in an eternal existence in the assumed next life, often leads to burial rites that embrace a variety of functions and rituals, mediated by kinsmen, sons and secret societies, to mention but a few. where burials are well-planned, they comprise of many rituals, separating the dead from the living, as well as re-arranging spiritual communion and relationships with the ancestors (nwala 1985). from this discussion of the roles of the association, it is clear that these activities help to bond, enrich and facilitate the adaptation of nigerian migrants in the host nation. the next section discusses how nigerian migrant entrepreneurs, through the ncz, mount activities and forge relations with the locals, thus facilitating their continued living and accumulation in the host community. recognition of incompleteness leads to conviviality with the ‘other’ when a migrant community encounters adaptation and integration challenges, the activities of a migrant association take a new direction. this section discusses the efforts of the migrant community at cementing relationships between ‘us’ and ‘them’ with the ultimate goal of bridging social connections and burying differences (albuquerque et al. 2000). this bridging of social connections, where nigerian traders come closer to the indigenes in various contact zones, allows for the forging of conviviality, where differences between outsiders and insiders recede and become somewhat inconspicuous (overing and passes 2000). nyamnjoh (2017) asserts that conviviality is the recognition of being incomplete, as humans, on the part of both migrants and indigenes. it is this incompleteness that allows migrants to be open minded in their claims and articulations of identities, belonging and being. “conviviality encourages (both ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’) to reach out, encounter and explore ways of enhancing or complementing themselves with the added possibilities of potency brought their way by the incompleteness of 125 others, never as a ploy to becoming complete, but to make them more efficacious in their relationships and sociality” (nyamnjoh 2017: 1). one of the activities where this much-needed conviviality is experienced in abundance, is end-of-year parties, where all nigerians gather to celebrate their achievements of the year. two of the participants expressed the following: this is the time that we gather as ncz and our families. we invite zimbabweans happening to be our in-laws as well as other well-wishers to celebrate ourselves after a hectic year. this is just a way of cementing our relations (3 january 2019, kaguvi street). every year we hold end-of-year parties for our families, where we also involve locals. sometimes we even invite the local ministers. we are all africans and it’s a moment for togetherness with zimbabweans as one people. in africa there are no borders, like in europe (8 january 2019, copa cabana). it is also at these end-of-year parties that relations with the officialdom are also consolidated, as a few officials, especially from the department of immigration, the city council and zimbabwe republic police are tactically invited. by forming alliances with these high-ranking officials, they are fashioning a new form of ‘tactical cosmopolitanism’ (landau and freemantle 2010) to navigate real or imaginary intricacies characterizing the host community. one might say that they are playing by the rules, which although largely unspoken and unwritten, are known by the actors. this concurs with milandou (1997) who argues that laws and regulations are only for the anonymous; everything is a matter of relationships. thus, conviviality can be explored as a process of interaction embedded in social practice, sometimes free from tensions and racism (wessendorf 2014; wise and velayutham 2014; gilroy 2004). as putnam (2000) argues, networks forged in these contact zones, like the end-of-year parties, facilitate the integration of newcomers into the host nation, and they also potentially open up more social and economic opportunities. for locals, this is also an opportunity to know and integrate with the ‘aliens’ better and also to pursue their own interests. this was expressed by a zimbabwean entrepreneur who operates a clothing shop in downtown harare: nigerians have their own association here in zimbabwe called ncz. this association serves a lot of purposes for them. every year they hold end-of-year parties where we are also invited. i have been invited to their parties several times where we celebrated together and i befriended most nigerians who later helped me (27 march 2019, gulf complex). however, it is not only migrants who invite the locals to their celebrations. locals also extend the ‘olive branch’ and invite migrants as a symbol of oneness. this was well captured by kedha, a local entrepreneur who shares a cosmetic shop with ozeze, a nigerian entrepreneur: i have managed to invite a couple of ncz members to our celebrations like weddings, parties and other cultural ceremonies and rites in my rural area. this is just to show that we are one and to cement our relations even more (16 migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 126 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 january 2019, gulf complex). moreover, besides the ordinary zimbabweans inviting nigerian migrants to their celebrations, the officialdom is not left out. this was expressed by a senior immigration officer who articulated the following: every year we send formal invitations to all foreigners in the country, including the nigerians to attend our independence celebrations, heroes day celebrations as well as the annual harare carnival, to come and showcase their cultural talents. this is a gesture to show our cordial relations with nigeria from time immemorial (3 july 2019, department of immigration). from the narrative above, it is clear that the ncz is fashioning new forms of belonging where convivial relations are continually created and recreated. it is at these parties, celebrations and gatherings where accommodation of differences between ‘them’ and ‘us’ and where reciprocity and exchange have become the norm (hinchliffe and whatmore 2006). the demonstration of conviviality above bears testimony to the ways in which migrants employ celebrations and rituals to win the support of a potentially hostile community, narrowing the gap between ‘us’ and ‘them’. financial assistance sometimes migrants get start-up capital to start their businesses from the association because they do not have, as a result of their unresolved citizenship status, the requisite documentation to access funding from formal institutions like banks and credit institutions. the association offers direct financial assistance to its members in the form of soft loans, with low interest rates and flexible repayment terms. one of the respondents, ngozie, who owns two cosmetic shops at the popular gulf complex, delightedly expressed the following: when i came to zimbabwe, i didn’t have enough capital. ncz helped me with start-up capital amounting to $3000 usd which i repaid after a year (3 june 2019, kaguvi street). besides financial assistance, the association also assists newcomers to stock their new businesses, if they do not have enough. this was the case of victor, who was given motor spares to stock his shop and he said: at first when i came here it wasn’t easy because i didn’t have enough capital for a business. one of my brothers, who is also one of the members of the association, advised me to join the association which then helped me with the motor spares stock (26 june 2019, harare street). these results confirm putnam’s (2000) observations that migrant associations foster social ties, which facilitate entrepreneurship among migrants. norris (1975) also pointed out that migrant associations provide newcomers with a basis of familiar and viable interactions and relationships on which they start to build their new lives ‘elsewhere’. however, besides borrowing from the association, some have also borrowed from their zimbabwean counterparts. for instance, stany borrowed about us$ 5000 127 from his zimbabwean business partner to expand his business. at the same time, one zimbabwean automotive entrepreneur based in norton, about 40km north west of harare who has close ties with the association members noted that, in order for him to start his motor spares business, he borrowed from association members. this two-way reciprocity qualifies migrant associations as ‘communities of itinerancy’ in which debts, gifts and finances are exchanged whilst fostering a sense of collective consciousness among migrants and indigenes who did not know each other previously (alioua 2011). social responsibility the nigerian community in zimbabwe seldom limits its integrative activities to one specific activity. rather, it has a range of activities to facilitate integration of nigerian entrepreneurs into the socio-economic environs of the host country, as the scope of its activities involve, most often, forging relationships with the indigenes. of late, the association has donated to the less privileged, the zimbabwe republic police, the harare city council and the victims of cyclone idai that ravaged parts of eastern zimbabwe. the following narratives by nigerians support this assertion: we have donated towards cyclone idai victims. we do it with our hearts. sometime in 2015, we bought bicycles for the zimbabwe republic police and sometime, we bought refuse bins for the harare city council. this country is also our country, so we need the zimbabweans to welcome us as fellow africans (30 april 2019, bank street). typically, nigerians are the most travelled people in africa, but when we travel, we take with us beliefs that, whatever place we live in is our second home and problems faced in that country we also regard them as our problems. we are committed to serving this country with all our hearts (8 may 2019, robert mugabe street). the expression, ‘this country is also our country, so we need zimbabweans to welcome us as fellow africans’ can be conceived as a narrative to claim space and belonging, where new-comers try to portray an image that there is no difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (landau and freemantle 2010). moreover, the nigerian foreign minister, mr onyeama, was invited by the association to zimbabwe in the aftermath of cyclone idai in 2018. he was accompanied by the ncz president to the state house to meet the zimbabwean president. as cited by the local newspaper, the herald, the foreign minister candidly expressed the following in light of the special visit: it is a manifestation of the fraternity and solidarity between our people and our two countries (interview with foreign minister onyeama at state house). more so, the zimbabwean president was overwhelmed by nigeria’s gesture, reiterating that it was demonstrative of the cordial relations between the two countries which date back to the liberation struggle (munyoro 2019). the president expressed the following: the people of nigeria and its leadership have realized that our brothers and sisters here were visited by cyclone idai and in their compassion have sent us a migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 128 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 plane-load of aid to give to people in that area, who have suffered a devastating event (interview with zimbabwe’s president at state house). by virtue of these activities and initiatives, the association can be conceived as allowing newcomers to be ‘at home away from home’. the association contributes to ‘home-making abroad’ (antwi-bosiakoh 2009), as it is strategically encouraging its members to be responsible citizens at points of destination. members are encouraged to exhibit a high level of civic spirit to facilitate cohesion and integration. as suggested by landau and duponchel (2011), this could offer newcomers protection from exploitation, as these activities and initiatives seem to grease the corridors of bureaucracy. as one nigerian internet café owner clarified: at first, the police and the immigration officials were so suspicious about us, so they couldn’t take our matters seriously, but now when we can’t solve our matters on our own, we now engage the police and immigration officials as we now have a cordial relationship, particularly because of what they have seen us doing in the country. enhancing networks through cultural exchanges in reaction to the swelling ‘politics of non-belonging’ on the continent, african scholars have stood up to challenge the rhetoric of nativism and autochthony (whitehouse 2012). achille mbembe has been at the forefront of this crusade, as well as ghanaian philosopher kwame anthony appiah. appiah (2006) argues that cultural purity is an oxymoron. endeavours to fix human identity in space and place, he argues, rests on a fundamental error: cultural hybridization and migration are not exceptions but are indeed its very essence. it is possible, thus, to imagine a future in which openness to outside influence is celebrated as a virtue. appiah (1997) argues that the cultural differences that we bring to the table, make it rewarding to interact after all. owusu (2000) argues that one element that defines the identity of migrants is the ability to exercize their sense of belonging through symbolic and material practices. as argued by giberovitch (1994), migrant associations help to fulfil the cultural needs of their members for the perpetuation of their particular language, tradition or culture. this is done through cultural expression, preservation, exchange and promotion. chineze and ajoki expressed the following, respectively: as an association we also observe our cultural holidays, for example the new yam festival, which is for igbos. we invite even our zimbabwean friends to celebrate our culture together. this is just to facilitate oneness, just like shonas and ndebeles here in zimbabwe (3 august 2019, chinhoyi street). every year we celebrate new yam festival and it’s a time for all igbos in the host country to come together wearing our attire to thank the gods for the harvest and protection (3 august 2019, cameroon street). the new yam festival also offers an opportunity for cultural mixing between the igbos and other nigerian tribes. as noted by the association’s president, who is himself an igbo, the new yam festival is the most glamorous and most important festival of 129 the igboland in the southeast of nigeria. it is celebrated between august and october each year to thank the gods for a bumper harvest. it also heralds the time of harvest as well as providing an opportunity for social integration of the various tribes in nigeria or in the diaspora. the festival creates a sense of oneness and solidarity between migrants and helps to forge belonging in host communities. it is also at these festivals where nigerians invite the local people for cultural exchanges. this was expressed by mama amaka, a local woman married to a nigerian igbo king: we celebrate new yam festival each year where we also invite zimbabweans for cultural exchange. zimbabwean music is played and we dance to it and nigerian music is played and the local people also dance to it. different nigerian and local cuisine is also served at the festival (8 september 2019, mbuya nehanda street). a local zimbabwean friend of a nigerian who was invited for the 2018 new yam festival expressed the following: i used to think that nigerian food is unpalatable. however, thanks to my friend who invited me to their festival, i really enjoyed their food as they do too, our own food here. we look forward for more of these festivals as they help us to meet and exchange our cultures with our nigerian brothers. i have also invited a couple of nigerians to our rural home for various celebrations and they really enjoyed it. they now feel home away from home with the reception we give them here in zimbabwe (8 september 2019, kaguvi street). although a cultural exchange denotes bridging of social capital, it is not integration itself (landau and duponchel 2011). what emerges from these cultural exchange arenas is what bhabha (1994) refers to as a ‘third space’ of belonging, a space that fuses multiple identities and practices. this is where resources, rights and belongings are constantly negotiated, with the result that migrant associations become multiethnic and multinational (sardinha 2009; marquez 2001). conclusion and recommendations the main thrust of this article was to analyze how a migrant association, particularly the nigerian community in zimbabwe (ncz), facilitates being, belonging and integration of migrants in the host society. the article attempted to answer two questions: i) how does the association help to bond and enrich the lives of migrants; and ii) how does the association facilitate the bridging of social connections with the ‘other’ with the ultimate goal of burying differences, which in essence helps them to continue staying and accumulating in the diaspora? as revealed in this study, migrant associations function to minimize the challenges of initial settlement caused by mobility, becoming spaces of solidarity and reciprocity (putnam 1993; alioua 2011). at the initial stage of migration, the association facilitates the adaptation among migrants. additionally, the association functions to preserve the migrant community’s values and heritage. it is these shared values and heritage, together with the cultural identity shared by migrants, which become fundamental for a positive association migrant associations and the integration of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in harare 130 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 (nwala 1985; owusu 2000). however, migrants’ associative actions are reliant upon the host society’s attitudes towards the migrant community, and this is vital for their integration. as increased contact with the indigenes ensues, the association shifts attention and starts to mount activities to bridge social relations, thereby lessening the social differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (nyamnjoh 2017; overing and passes 2000; gilroy 2004). what conclusions can be drawn from this case study? contrary to the prevailing idea that african mobility and cities are characterized as chaotic and competitive, it turns out that these places are centres of conviviality and encounters between migrants and hosts. diverse cities are thus transformed into places and spaces of interrelationships, interconnections, collaboration, interdependence, compassion and coproduction where migrants and hosts are converging and producing new forms of values, practices and beliefs in potentially hostile and toxic environments. this seems to be a more useful way of theorizing about urban cities, than the dominant perspective which describes them as chaotic and doomed. the authors perceive being, belonging and integration as mutable processes, ever-changing in space and time. these processes are not conclusive, but rather it is the making of headway and progression towards achieving the acceptance of difference within diverse spaces that makes migrant associations momentous. migrant associations advocate the right to negotiate difference and identity, in turn allowing migrants to actively belong and participate under the flagship of plurality. within this context, the authors recommend that in calling for attention to place migrant associations in migration policy-making discourse, there remains an urgent need for nation-states to leverage on migrant associations for effective migration management in zimbabwe and beyond. the roles that migrant associations play should be incorporated into migration policies such that migration associations should be viewed positively, and if possible encouraged by nation-states. finally, establishing a line of communication with migrant associations is 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some of the most important migration-related issues. the journal is also accessible on-line at no charge at sihma.org.za. ahmr is jointly owned by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) and university of the western cape (uwc) and accredited by the department of higher education and training (dhet) in south africa. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). ahmr volume 6 number 1 jan-apr 2020 single pages.pdf ahmr cover online volume 6 number 1 african human mobility review volume 3 number 1 january– april 2017 harnessing economic impacts of migrant remittances for development in sub-saharan africa: a critical review of the literature themba nyasulu the role of trust and migrant investments in diasporahomeland development relations leander kandilige attitude, risk perception and readiness of ethiopian potential migrants and returnees towards unsafe migration abebaw minaye & waganesh a. zeleke the impact of migration on the welfare of households in ghana: a propensity score matching approach abdul-malik abdulai, louis boakye-yiadom and peter quartey ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor dr mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh university of pretoria, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delgado wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof simon bekker university of stellenbosch, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrini centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). webpage: www.sihma.org.za copyright © 2017 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 461 4741, email: editor@sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ volume 3 number 1 january – april 2017 articles 645 harnessing economic impacts of migrant remittances for development in sub-saharan africa: a critical review of the literature themba nyasulu 671 the role of trust and migrant investments in diasporahomeland development relations leander kandilige 702 attitude, risk perception and readiness of ethiopian potential migrants and returnees towards unsafe migration abebaw minaye & waganesh a. zeleke 732 the impact of migration on the welfare of households in ghana: a propensity score matching approach abdul-malik abdulai, louis boakye-yiadom and peter quartey ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 645 harnessing economic impacts of migrant remittances for development in sub-saharan africa: a critical review of the literature themba nyasulu* abstract the recent rise in migrant remittances across sub-saharan africa is one of the important issues currently dominating economic policy discourse in the region. given the large volume of remittance flows, it is obvious that they have important positive and negative economic effects on the individual families and economies that receive them. therefore, this paper critically examines channels through which remittance transfers affect microeconomic and macroeconomic activity, and suggests policy options available to sub-saharan african countries in terms of harnessing their development potential. the paper affirms that prospects for remittances to facilitate economic development remain high provided that recipient countries put in place institutional frameworks capable of mitigating the malign effects and enhancing the benign effects of remittances. keywords migrant remittances, microeconomic impacts, economic development, sub-saharan africa. introduction remittances, referring to money sent by migrants to their countries of origin, are among the important topics currently dominating economic policy discussions across the globe. in line with the reality that more than 3.4 percent (i.e. more than 247 million people) of the world population lives outside their countries of birth, remittances have also been expanding rapidly in recent times. the world bank (2016) observes that as of 2015, global remittance flows exceeded us$601 billion. a similar pattern has prevailed in sub-saharan africa where remittances have meteorically risen so much so that they now, together with foreign direct investment and aid, constitute one of the three most important forms of capital inflows in the region (imf, 2016). *fellow in international development, institute for development research and development policy (iee), ruhr-university bochum, germany. email: themba.nyasulu@ruhr-uni-bochum.de ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 646 from both an empirical and a theoretical point of view, migrant remittances are reputed to generate important economic impacts, which in turn profoundly influence development. in particular, these economic impacts are normally felt in terms of consumption, gross domestic product (gdp), foreign exchange reserves, exchange rates, exports and imports, and the country’s creditworthiness, among others. moreover, remittance flows also have important impacts on human development through their influences on poverty reduction, education and health outcomes (chami et al., 2008; chami & fullenkamp, 2013; dinbabo & carciotto, 2015). for sub-saharan africa, which is the least developed region in the world and also home to over twothirds of world’s poorest people, the above remittance-induced economic impacts, whether positive or negative, have a significant bearing on the development prospects of the region. this also suggests that there are multiple paths through which remittances affect both macroeconomic and microeconomic activity in recipient countries in this part of the world. as such, both the benign and malign economic impacts of migrant remittance inflows on development in sub-saharan african countries cannot simply be presumed but deserve critical empirical investigation. therefore, the purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to analytically assess microeconomic and macroeconomic economic effects of remittances on development, and secondly, to suggest ways through which sub-saharan african countries can effectively utilise remittance receipts in order to maximise their development impact. in undertaking these tasks, the discussion critically reviews available theoretical and empirical literature on the subject from both sub-saharan africa and other developing regions of the world. the paper is organised as follows: the economic motivations for remitting are analysed at the beginning of the discussion. after this, the paper examines the impacts of remittances on recipient households (i.e. micro-level) and the economies of sub-saharan africa (i.e. macro-level). furthermore, the discussion suggests some policy recommendations for leveraging the economic impacts of remittances for development. finally, concluding remarks on the subject in question are presented in the epilogue. economic motivations for migrant remittances among the important drivers of remittance flows are both the ability of migrants to generate and save income and their determination to remit savings back to their countries of origin (i.e. source/home countries). it must also be pointed out that the willingness to send remittances may also be driven ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 647 by the length of time migrants plan to stay abroad either on a permanent or temporary basis. for others, their family status (i.e. single or married) and social networks may play an important role in their decisions to remit. this indicates that there are several ways of analysing determinants of remittance flows, one of which is examining the motivations of migrants to remit. a careful survey of the literature reveals that there are four major economic motives for remitting, namely: altruism, self-interest, informal agreements with family members and portfolio management decisions. but this notwithstanding, there is no general theory that explains remittances (rapoport & docquier, 2005; oecd, 2006). instead, what are available are empirical studies trying to describe the occurrence of remittances, even though their explanations are partial and often specific to certain geographical, socio-cultural and temporal contexts. the table below summarises the four major economic motives for remitting. motivation for remitting rationale 1. altruism  migrants may remit money simply because they are concerned about the welfare of their relatives they have left behind in the origin country.  the altruistic hypothesis suggests that migrants derive utility from the welfare of their relatives. in the source country.  the amount of money remitted should vary with changes in the migrant’s level of income.  the volume of remittances should decrease not only as the household income of the migrant’s family declines but also when migrant’s social bonds with his/her family in the sourcecountry weaken. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 648  the level of remittances should gradually subside as the migrant settles in the destination country and brings over his/her relatives. 2. self-interest  the self-interest model argues that migrants may send remittances to their parents because of the aspiration to inherit increased bequests from their parents.  migrants owning assets in their countries of origin are more likely to remit to their relatives left behind in order to take care of the assets. 3. implicit family agreements: (i) co-insurance and loans  the decision to remit is taken as a family arrangement whereby remittances are considered as endogenous to the migration process. households seek to find a pareto-optimal allocation solution where certain family members are designated as migrants and remittances obtained are used as a redistributive tool for the acquired gains.  firstly, migrants adopt the role of insurees while their dependents in the home country play the role of the insurers. but once migrants get employed, earning income and ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 649 (ii) the migrant’s saving target holding positive expectations about further income accumulation, they become insurers. finally, in anticipation of a return home, migrants increase their remittances by investing their accumulated savings at home.  the desire to return home with a certain amount of savings is an important motivation for remitting. this ‘savings target’ motive is a direct result of a bargaining duel between a migrant and his/her family.  the migrant’s ability to remit is classified as the supply side while the family’s claim in the home country is the demand side of the remittance function.  the migrant is interested in not only minimising the leakage of his/her income (i.e. remittances and consumption expenditure) but also maximising the savings target. in contrast, the family’s main goal is assumed to be the accumulation of income and remittances above that of its neighbours. 4. portfolio management decisions  macroeconomic variables such as real rates of interest in both the source and destination countries ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 650 may significantly drive the decisions to remit and hence the volume of the total remittances.  savings which are not required for household consumption can be remitted because of their profitability (i.e. high rates of return) in both the source and destination countries.  portfolio management choice theory argues that savings may have an exogenous character which is intrinsically linked to the migration regime and are therefore dependent on macroeconomic factors such as exchange rates, rates of returns of real and financial assets, and real interest rates. source: adapted from rapoport & docquier (2005) and oecd (2006). economic impacts of remittances the discussion classifies economic impacts of remittances on development into macroeconomic and microeconomic categories. macroeconomic impacts a careful review of the literature in developing countries clearly shows that the impact of remittances is felt on the macroeconomic level mainly through access to finance and economic growth in the recipient country. the following section outlines the remittance-effects on the macro economy through three important channels: economic growth and financial development, economic stability and international finance. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 651 remittances as a macroeconomic stabiliser available empirical and theoretical evidence indicates that remittances behave in a counter-cyclical manner, meaning that their changes are inversely related to macroeconomic fluctuations. the main implication of this is that remittances insulate recipient households in home countries from the vagaries brought about by macroeconomic fluctuations (chami et al., 2009). for instance, ratha (2007) observes that money sent by migrants to their home countries rose significantly during the financial crisis of the 1990s in mexico as well as during the 1997 asian financial crisis, especially in countries such as thailand and indonesia. during this time, other private flows such as fdi and equity flows were at an all-time low. apart from the surges experienced during financial crises, remittances have also shown a tendency to increase counter-cyclically in times of natural disasters and socio-political upheaval in the developing world (clarke & wallsten, 2004; yang & choi, 2007; mohapatra et al., 2009; sithole & dinbabo, 2016). with this, therefore, ratha (2003) and frankel (2011) argue that remittances have different characteristics relative to most other private flows such as fdi, foreign aid or portfolio equity. this is so because remittances primarily consist of transactions made by households in destination countries. as such, they are less influenced by profit-maximising motives that are commonly associated with private resource flows. on the same note, sayan (2006) observes that remittances show pro-cyclical patterns when they are sent in order to accomplish investment purposes in home countries. these patterns are more pronounced in middle-income developing countries than in low-income ones (lueth & ruiz-arranz, 2008). evidence from several sub-saharan african countries indicates that remittances show more stability in times of economic crises relative to other private capital flows such as private debt and equity flows and fdi (dinbabo & carciotto, 2015; gupta et al., 2009). remittances as a source of external finance and guarantor for creditworthiness it is now widely recognised in international finance that remittance inflows have a significant potential to boost global sovereign creditworthiness primarily by increasing the volume and stability of foreign exchange received by countries. large remittance receipts have enabled many african countries to reduce their trade imbalances and hence lower their current account deficits (avendaño et al., 2009). according to chami et al. (2008), remittances have also enabled these countries to stabilise their current account ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 652 fluctuations by steadying the overall flow of capital. similarly, bugamelli and patemo (2009) have argued that, as a rule of thumb, remittances significantly reduce current account deficits when they exceed 3 percent of the total national income. these examples give a clear indication of the importance of remittance flows to source countries as far as external financing is concerned. it is an open secret that effective accounting of remittances can go a long way in improving the evaluation of credit worthiness and debt sustainability of many african source countries. ratha et al. (2011) argue that the foreign debtto-exports ratio for many african source countries would be significantly lower if remittances were included in the analysis as a denominator. the importance of remittances in debt sustainability analysis is now recognised by multilateral agencies such as imf and the world bank. in recent times, remittances have formed important variables necessary for sovereign assessments and debt sustainability analyses in middle-income and lowincome countries, respectively (imf, 2016). however, despite the importance of the above, very few remittance-receiving african economies have managed to have their creditworthiness appraised by major sovereign rating agencies. remittances as collateral for development financing remittances provide collateral for mobilising financing for economic development in international capital markets. the success in this endeavor of countries such as brazil, el salvador, turkey and kazakhstan suggests that sub-saharan african countries that often face severe capital constraints can also use future remittances as an important tool for mobilising development finance (ratha, 2005; ketkar & ratha, 2009). indeed, securitising future remittance receipts can help countries in the sub-saharan african region to mobilise not only cheaper but also long-term financial resources for development. ratha et al. (2011) argue that since remittances in most cases are denominated in hard currencies, international banks can use them as collateral to obtain loan injections, provided their ability to settle domestic transactions in local currencies is not impeded. so, by securitising future remittance flows, migrant source countries are able to not only obtain higher sovereign credit ratings, but also attract a large number of potential foreign investors who can spur economic development. in a similar vein, a number of banks in the aforementioned countries have utilised remittance securitisation to obtain lower cost international financing and maturities. undeniably, with the support of the african export-import bank (afreximbank), many countries throughout the region have used the ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 653 securitisation of future remittances to acquire significant medium-term development loans (afreximbank, 2005; rutten & oramah, 2006; ratha et al., 2011). ghana, nigeria and ethiopia are some of the economies in the region that have used the remittance-backed syndicated facilities to obtain external financing for their development projects in sectors such as agriculture and infrastructure investment (afreximbank, 2005). ratha et al. (2011) argue that african countries can leverage a small fraction of their future remittance receipts to issue bonds. but, of course, the quantity of bonds issued would very much depend on the level of collateral possible for banks to secure. available estimates project that the potential for securitisation of future remittance flows in africa stood in excess of us$35 billion as of 2009 (ratha et al., 2009). however, it is worth noting that at present, securitisation of remittance flows faces significant challenges in many low-income african countries. among the major bottlenecks identified in the literature include: underdeveloped domestic financial systems, limited integration of domestic banks into the global financial system, and exorbitant fixed costs incurred when acquiring legal, credit rating and investment banking services (ketkar & ratha, 2009). it must also be pointed out in passing that remittance-backed bonds may, however, pose a risk to issuers, especially if there is a currency mismatch that often accompanies foreign currency debt. ratha et al. (2011) contend that developing countries need to put in place prudent risk management mechanisms before obtaining additional debt. additionally, the existence of political instability may expose african economies to volatility in remittance flows as well as disruption of social networks between migrants and their countries of origin. what is more, increased foreign currency inflows resulting from the issuing of remittance-backed bonds may trigger currency appreciation in african countries with fragile macroeconomic structures. remittances as a driver of economic growth, financial development and competitiveness remittance flows are also known to positively affect economic growth, competiveness and financial development in many migrant source countries. the positive effect of remittances on growth and development is mainly transmitted through the following channels: consumption and investment increases, productivity enhancing social spending, and both macroeconomic and microeconomic stability of consumption and production (chami et al., 2009; dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015; mohapatra et al., 2009; sithole & dinbabo, ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 654 2016). the above benefits in turn boost investment supply by spurring the demand for financial intermediation. this is what ultimately conveys the positive impacts of remittance flows on economic growth in developing countries. literature on the subject is awash with empirical examples from sub-saharan african countries confirming the above scenario (rajan & zingales, 1998; gupta et al., 2009; akinlo & egbetunde, 2010). apart from the positive effects, remittances can also negatively affect growth. indeed, several theoretical reasons have been advanced as to why remittances may reduce the level of economic growth. to begin with, researchers argue that a large inflow of remittances may trigger an appreciation in the value of the domestic currency, which in the end can curtail growth through reduction of tradable production and other scale economies and externalities. this negative exchange rate effect on growth is what is commonly known as the ‘dutch disease’ (world bank, 2006; acosta et al., 2010 gupta et al., 2009). however, rajan and subramaniam (2005) find no empirical evidence suggesting that remittance-induced exchange rate surges have negatively affected growth in developing countries across the globe. a second channel through which remittances may depress growth is the reduction of labour supply. in theory, since migration takes away some of the most productive individuals, it therefore deprives the home country of an important growth driver, labour supply (lucas, 1987; azam & gubert, 2006; bussolo & medvedev, 2007; chami et al., 2008). however, there is very little empirical evidence supporting the above argument. in fact, in many developing countries that are characterised by high unemployment and underemployment levels, the loss of one laborer can easily (and cheaply) be replaced by another. as such, the remittance-induced labour supplyreductions will likely have a very limited negative effect on economic growth. on another note, some economic commentators suggest that additional income emanating from remittance receipts eases pressure on migrant destination countries to improve the quality of social service delivery, since with the help of remittances the recipient households can afford to access alternative private services (abdih et al., 2008; sithole & dinbabo, 2016). the above researchers also find evidence suggesting that remittances greatly boost home countries’ foreign exchange position and hence ease balance of payment bottlenecks and fiscal deficits that characterise many developing countries. in contrast, catrinescu et al. (2006 observe that the impact of remittances on growth is only positive in countries that already possess high ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 655 quality political and economic institutions. for these economists, many developing countries in sub-saharan africa are unlikely to harvest the growth dividends from remittance inflows because they lack the necessary policy and institutional frameworks. remittances have also been touted as an important mechanism for alleviating liquidity and credit constraints in many developing economies. therefore, they play an active role in generating capital for microenterprises and, thus, act as an important alternative for financial development. giuliano and ruizarranz (2009) examine the contribution of remittances to economic growth and financial development in developing countries. these economists find robust econometric evidence suggesting that remittances have the strongest positive impact on economic growth only when the level of financial development in the country is low. the above findings firmly resonate with the experience of many sub-saharan african economies that contain undeveloped financial systems and face severe liquidity and credit constraints. microeconomic impacts of remittances apart from having developmental impacts on the macro-level, remittances can also influence microeconomic development fundamentals such as poverty reduction, household consumption and investment decisions, as well as access to social services such as health and education. it is the aim of the following section to review available empirical literature on the microeconomic development impacts of migrant remittances on recipient regions of the developing world, including sub-saharan africa. remittances as a driver of household capital investment and entrepreneurship to begin with, the fungibility of money and the unreliability of migration data in developing countries make it difficult to calculate the proportion of remittances allocated to physical capital investment and entrepreneurship in source countries. nevertheless, ample empirical evidence still exists suggesting that recipient households devote a significant chunk of remittance receipts to investment in housing and the acquisition of land, especially in regions where there are no credible alternative stores of value for money. on the same note, empirical studies by taylor and wyatt (1996) reveal that in many developing home nations, the shadow value of remittances necessary for offsetting risk and liquidity bottlenecks is vital for low and middle-income recipient households that usually face challenges to obtain credit from formal ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 656 financial institutions. concurring with this assertion, adams and cuecuecha (2010) find that remittance-receiving families in guatemala allocate very minimal amounts of the remittances to housing expenditure. however, the positive micro-effects of remittances are not limited to urban areas of developing regions. for instance, adams (1998) finds that migrant remittances significantly boost investment in agricultural land in rural areas of pakistan. despite the abundance of empirical evidence in latin america and asia, studies assessing the utilisation of remittances for investment and entrepreneurial purposes in africa appear to be scarce. among the few available studies are those done by mccormick and wahba (2001), which find that remittances from return migrants greatly enhance the prospects of entrepreneurship and investment in egypt. in addition, osili (2004) found that not only do remittances from united states-based migrants boost investment expenditure on housing in nigeria, but also that the investment is very responsive to macroeconomic fluctuations in exchange rate, inflation and political climate. ratha et al. (2011) observe that the majority of studies on africa conducted under the auspices of the africa migration project (amp) reveal that a significant proportion of the remittances are spent on housing infrastructure, land acquisition, establishment of small-scale businesses and farming activities. there is strong empirical evidence on the above tendencies gathered from household surveys conducted in burkina faso, kenya, uganda, nigeria and senegal. remittances as an enabler for recipient households to attain high quality education migrant remittances boost expenditure on education by contributing to funding of school activities in many migrants’ home countries. the increased education financing reduces the need for child labour in these countries. there is ample empirical evidence in african countries suggesting that migrant remittances can contribute to increasing school enrolment and attendance levels. but despite these positive education spinoffs, migration may sometimes negatively affect children’s performance in schools since the absence of parents/guardians at home as a result of migration increases the burden for kids to perform household chores (ratha et al., 2011). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 657 even though there is scarcity of empirical household surveys analysing the remittance-education nexus in sub-saharan africa, in some countries such as egypt, remittances are known to increase university enrollment rates and reduce domestic chores for school-going children (elbadawi & roushy, 2009). on the same note, adams & page (2005) found that in ghana, households that received remittances from abroad invested more in education than families with no remittance receipts. this suggests that remittances may be a potent tool for financing education in africa. remittances as a financier of household health expenditure money sent by migrants can also enable home countries to achieve their health outcomes by, among others, empowering families in rural areas to acquire more food and healthcare services and improving their access to information on modern health practices. in support of the above hypothesis, drabo and ebeke (2010) found in a survey of 56 developing countries that remittances not only increased access to private treatment for communicable diseases such as malaria and diarrhea, but also augmented foreign aid in financing health outcomes. in a similar vein, an empirical study covering 84 countries by chauvet et al. (2009) found that an increase in the level of remittances significantly reduced infant mortality, even though the reduction was higher for richer recipient households over those that were poorer. going further into the above analysis, guzmán et al. (2007) found that femaleheaded households in ghana spend more of their remittances on healthcare than those headed by men, irrespective of whether the remittances came from outside or within africa. earlier studies done in mali by birdsall and chuhan (1986) also found that remittances triggered not only a rise in healthcare demand but also modern health facilities. in south africa, nagarajan (2009) found that between 1993 and 2004, increased migrant remittances enabled poor households in kwazulu-natal province to spend more on healthcare and food items and improved access to better medical facilities. remittances as a form insurance against adverse socio-economic and climatic shocks there is now growing recognition among economists that migration can contribute positively to diversifying household income sources and thereby minimise their risk exposure to adversities such as famine, drought and other vagaries of nature. for example, calero et al. (2009) observe that remittances were vital in keeping ecuadorian children in school at a time when their ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 658 households faced adverse shocks. moreover, weiss-fagan (2006) and ratha (2010) empirically demonstrate that remittances from relatives and wellwishers in the united states enabled recipient-households to ably cope with several cyclone and earthquake crises that affected haiti in 2004 and 2010, respectively. remittances are also reputed to have accelerated the recovery of indonesian households affected by the 2004 tsunami disaster. on the same note, wu (2006) observes that remittance-receiving families showed evidence of a quicker recovery than those with no access to money from migrants. a similar episode was also reported in pakistan where remittances enabled the recovery and reconstruction of household livelihoods after a ravaging earthquake (suleri & savage, 2006). it is a well-known fact that in many disaster-prone regions of africa, migration and remittances play a vital role in enabling recipient households to cope with the resultant shocks and thereby smooth their consumption patterns (block & webb, 2001; dinbabo & carciotto, 2015). lucas and stark (1985) buttress the above point by empirically showing that families facing drought in botswana were able to avert income shocks by utilising their increased remittance receipts to purchase livestock and food for sustenance. in a similar study, mohapatra et al. (2009) unearth a somewhat startling result that during droughts, remittance-receiving families in ethiopia are less likely to pawn their product assets such cattle for food as a way of consumption-smoothing. however, a study by quartey and blankson (2004) reveals that migrant remittances are the major source of consumption-smoothing for ghanaian small-holder farmers in rural areas. furthermore, there is empirical evidence emanating from rural mali suggesting that remittances are an effective tool for dealing with various types of household income shocks (gubert, 2002). apart from cushioning households from income shocks, remittances were also found to be an important risk-diversification tool for malian and senegalese farming households in times of adverse climatic conditions (azam & gubert, 2005 and 2006). besides, money from migrants abroad can enable their relatives in home countries to construct durable and more resilient housing. in concurrence with this view, mohapatra et al. (2009) found that in burkina faso and ghana, remittances enabled recipient households to construct more concrete and iron-roofed houses than non-remittance receiving families. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 659 remittances as a potent tool for poverty and inequality reduction in the literature, it is a well-established fact that remittances have the ability to reduce the level of household poverty. this is so because, among others, remittances supplement the incomes of poor recipient families and boost aggregate demand levels and, in turn, create employment opportunities and wage earnings of the poor (ratha et al., 2011). seminal studies by adams and page (2003 and 2005) strongly support the above theoretical assertions by illustrating that increased inflows of remittances in migrant source countries greatly diminish the share of poor people in the country. there is a plethora of econometric studies suggesting that remittances play an important role in poverty reduction in africa. ajayi et al. (2009) and anyanwu and erhijakpor (2010) find evidence that suggests that official international remittances as a percentage of the gdp have a significant positive effect on poverty reduction in 33 african countries. likewise, gupta et al. (2009) find that the remittance-induced poverty reduction in africa is much higher when compared to other developing regions of the world. similarly, numerous case study analyses in burkina faso, ghana, lesotho, morocco and nigeria, among others, firmly endorse the poverty-reducing effect of remittances in rural regions (lachaud, 1999; quartey & blankson, 2004; adams & page, 2005; sorensen, 2004; odozia et al., 2010). these studies further suggest that remittances not only reduce the overall number of people living in poverty but also reduce the severity and depth of the deprivation. despite the availability of numerous studies analysing the relationship between remittances and poverty, the same cannot be said about the remittance-inequality nexus. the world bank (2006) and ratha and mohapatra (2007) argue that the ambiguity of the impact of remittances on income inequality is largely a result of the unavailability of counterfactuals, i.e. how inequality levels in the source countries would be in the absence of remittance inflows. nevertheless, the influence of income inequality on the decision to emigrate and actual flows of remittances is quite clear. as a matter of fact, households receiving remittances from outside africa may need a certain income threshold for them to ably sponsor a family member to emigrate in the first place. remittance-receiving families may also have higher incomes than those households with no access to remittances. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 660 some policy options for leveraging remittance impacts for economic development in sub-saharan africa the positive role that remittances play in poverty reduction, growth enhancement and social transformation has been explored at length in this paper. both theoretical and empirical studies broadly agree that remittances contribute to socio-economic development in source countries by meeting the basic needs of recipients such as housing, education and health. this is in addition to the facilitation role that remittances play in transferring skills and knowledge from returning migrants and the diaspora. the above merits suggest a strong case for sub-sahara african countries to integrate remittance inflows into their overarching migration and national development strategies. the discussion has indicated a reasonable degree of consensus that exists among migration economists on the potential that remittances have to positively contribute to economic development in recipient countries. however, for these positive development spinoffs to be maximised there is need for proactive and targeted policies to be implemented. for instance, remittance recipient countries should improve the levels of financial literacy and financial inclusion for both their emigrants and the beneficiaries of remittances. this would ensure that the remittance funds are channelled into productive sectors. apart from this, both migrant source and destination countries can cooperate in providing technical training on money transfers and financial services to both the remitters and the recipients. training programs can also take the form of migrant entrepreneurship and sme (small and medium scale enterprise) development sessions. moreover, the securitisation of remittances through initiatives such as diaspora bonds can also greatly improve the remittance-impact on socio-economic development. even though sub-saharan african countries must keep in mind that remittances are private flows, their economic effects can still be harnessed for development. one of the important ways of maximising the development impact of remittances is by formalising their flows. furthermore, remittances can have a maximum impact on development if sub-saharan african governments make deliberate efforts to put in place enabling and competitive environments that allow these funds to flow into productive sectors. another important solution is for the recipient countries to upgrade and increase coverage of their underdeveloped financial systems. improved access to financial services facilitates the linkages between remittances and other ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 661 financial products, such as savings, insurance, mortgages and credit, which in the end foster economic development (mashayekhi, 2013). recipient countries in sub-saharan africa should also consider reducing transaction costs for growth-enhancing remittance flows to be effective. allowing non-bank financial institutions such as microfinance organisations to undertake distribution and proper supervision can go a long way in reducing remittance transaction costs (ratha & riedberg, 2005). on the same note, the removal of taxation remittances can not only lower transaction costs, but can also encourage formal transfers and increase the available fiscal revenue (chami et al., 2008; world bank, 2011). it would be advisable for remittancereceiving sub-saharan african countries to implement consumption-based taxation in order to reduce the deleterious effects on economic growth. such a taxation system would also help these countries to greatly reduce distortions induced by macroeconomic stabilisation policies, and also reap the remittance benefits emanating from tax-driven investments. more importantly, perhaps, it would be prudent for remittance-receiving subsaharan african countries to channel their remittance inflows into activities that promote economic development in the long-term, and preserve poverty alleviation efforts in the short-term. this so because there is lack of empirical clarity on whether the two main development objectives of remittances: growth enhancement and poverty reduction are compatible (ratha, 2013). this being the case, the above governments should strive to strike a delicate balance in allocating remittance receipts between competing growthpromoting activities and poverty alleviating measures. the increased fiscal space generated by remittance inflows certainly allows for this undertaking. international financial institutions can also play a crucial role in assisting recipient sub-saharan african countries to leverage the economic impacts of remittances for development. through engagement and dialogue, these financial organisations can encourage governments to not only implement but also to accelerate the necessary reforms pertaining to remittance inflows. instead of imposing one-size-fits-all reform prescriptions, international financial institutions should encourage country-specific strategies that are driven by the remittance inflow characteristics of each sub-saharan african nation. this may assist these countries to boost the development potential of remittance receipts. all in all, international cooperation between sub-saharan african countries and the international community could also be a key to enhancing the ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 662 economic development impact of remittances. this international cooperation agenda should primarily focus on making remittances cheaper, safer and more productive for both migrant source countries and destination countries. concluding remarks in conclusion this paper observes that even though remittances have a significant potential to contribute to economic development, many subsaharan african recipient economies have not been able to maximise the developmental benefits from their economic impacts. therefore, this calls for a better understanding of the realities concerning the remittance-effects on economic development. without doubt, policy makers intending to channel remittance receipts into economic development need to appreciate that these inflows can have both positive and harmful consequences on the economy. coupled with this is the fact that remittances do not automatically gravitate towards economic development-enhancing activities, but may sometimes flow into development-inhibiting activities, mainly because of the moral hazards that are associated with them. against this background, sub-saharan african countries that desire to reap the positive economic benefits of remittances need to establish enabling institutional and infrastructural frameworks capable of channeling these inflows into development-enhancing activities through the financial system and private sector. furthermore, recipient governments need to muster political will in order to efficiently utilise the fiscal revenue generated by remittances in order to judiciously invest only in those public goods and infrastructure that yield the highest returns. to this end, this paper strongly advocates for the development of well-functioning domestic institutions as an important driver for harnessing the positive economic benefits of remittances for development. it is beyond doubt that remittances have a significant potential to facilitate economic transformation, but to translate this possibility into reality, sub-saharan african countries need to develop and strengthen their economic 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sending countries in sub-saharan africa in 2014 remittance sending countries gross value of remittances sent (us$ billion) angola south africa liberia uganda mozambique mauritania kenya rwanda tanzania zambia 1.3 1.1 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 source: world bank (2016) ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 670 annex 3: recent trends in international financial flows and economic growth in sub-saharan africa 2004-08 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016p real gdp growth (percentage change) remittances (us$ billions) fdi inflows (us$ billions) foreign aid inflows (us$ billions) 6.6 3.9 7.0 5.0 4.3 5.2 5.1 3.4 1.4 36.7 44.9 52.5 57.0 61.9 61.2 63.8 64.6 66.4 42.8 55.1 46.0 49.8 49.7 54.2 49.4 57.5 66.3 39.0 48.0 47.7 51.5 51.1 56.7 54.2 56.4 58.7 source: international monetary fund-imf (2016), p is projection. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 671 the role of trust and migrant investments in diasporahomeland development relations leander kandilige* abstract research into the role of diaspora communities in origin countries’ development is a growing phenomenon. however, there is little understanding of the role of trust in mediating transnational relationships between migrants and recipients of remittances (non-migrants, members of migrant households and community leaders). using a case study methodology, mixed methods and a comparative approach – in-depth interviews with 40 key informants (20 in the uk and 20 in ghana), 120 questionnaires administered in the uk and 346 questionnaires administered in ghana – this paper examines differing conceptualisations of trust among ‘development partners’ in the process of negotiating as well as implementing migrant-funded development projects. it also examines the nature of investments of migrants in the origin country. migrant respondents are from the kwahuman traditional area and the upper east region of ghana. ghana is used as a case study to examine this phenomenon both from the perspective of the migrant and that of the origin country partners. narratives by migrants are examined in order to unearth factors that inform their decision-making and the approaches they adopt to ensure accountability. survey results are also used to highlight associations between key variables. the findings indicate that the bulk of the expenditure on productive activities by migrants takes place outside of household circles. consequently, productive uses of migrant remittances are grossly under-reported due to a lack of trust between migrants and beneficiaries in the origin country. keywords trust, diaspora, development, hometown associations, diasporahomeland relations. introduction globally, migration of people across national borders has increased for a variety of reasons. recent statistics indicate that approximately 244 million international migrants participated in this process in 2015 (undesa, 2016). *lecturer, centre for migration studies, university of ghana and research associate, refugee studies centre, department of international development (qeh), university of oxford. email: lkandilige@ug.edu.gh ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 672 this substantial number of international migrants is associated with equally considerable amounts of remittances. global remittance flows totalled about $601 billion in 2015, with developing countries receiving about $441 billion, according to the world bank (2016). as migrant populations congregate in common destination locations, some of them coalesce around common symbols of identity and belonging. with time, this strength of association increases as members of migrant communities (from a common origin) feel that they are not fully accepted by the destination community and they develop a nostalgic feeling about their roles in helping develop their communities of origin. these migrant communities, over time, are designated as ‘diaspora’ in recognition of their deliberate decision to assert their rootedness in their societies of origin. diaspora relations with the homeland are constructed as mostly positive in terms of the potential development resources that could be granted to origin countries (castles et al., 2014; kandilige, 2012; mohan, 2008). however, in some circumstances, diaspora groups are perceived as potential security threats to both the origin and destination countries due to their sometimes non-transparent and activist relations within their homelands (baser, 2015). these two perspectives highlight the value of trust in the sustenance of mutually beneficial relations between diasporas and their homelands. this paper seeks to examine the shifting bases and prerequisites of trust building and consider the prospects of replicating these structures in a transnational setting. the concept of transnationalism refers to “the process by which transmigrants, through their daily activities, forge and sustain multi-stranded social, economic, and political relations that link their societies of origin and settlement, and through which they create transnational social fields that cross national borders” (basch et al., 1994: 7). the discussion is framed around the key questions: what is the role of trust in micro and meso level interpersonal relationships? how do ‘lower level’ trust relationships feed into the transnational setting? what are the prospects and/or dilemmas for transnational trust to work in practice? a multiple case study methodology and mixed methods approaches were adopted in the collection and analysis of primary data (bryman, 2012; teye, 2012). the paper is arranged into five main sections. after this introduction, the different interpretations of the concept of diaspora are assessed. an attempt is made to define development from both the perspective of human wellbeing and that of traditional market-focused economics. in addition, the concept of ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 673 trust is examined in order to highlight its role in fostering relations between diaspora members and development partners in home countries. secondly, a review of diaspora-homeland relations in ghana is presented in order to highlight general perspectives on the role of the diaspora in ghana’s development. thirdly, the methodology adopted for study is discussed. fourthly, findings on the experiences of ghanaian migrants in the uk are presented in order to highlight the impact of trust deficit in diasporahomeland relations at the transnational level. lastly, conclusions are drawn based on the migrants’ narratives and perspectives from partners in the origin country. conceptualising diaspora, development and trust defining diaspora the term diaspora has been subjected to multiple definitions in the social sciences. for instance, it has been used as a figurative designation to describe alien residents, expellees, political refugees, expatriates, migrants and ethnic and racial minorities (safran, 1991). commonness of place of origin, source of identity and mode of dispersion (voluntary or involuntary) of “diasporans” (vertovec, 2006) characterise the ghanaian diaspora. place of origin is sometimes defined at different spatial levels by migrants. as a result, the national attribute of ‘ghanaianess’ serves as a higher identifying characteristic to migrants in a foreign country than their ethnic or clan affiliations. cohen (1997; 2008) sub-divides diaspora into “victim,” “trade” and “labour” diaspora in an attempt to reflect the different reasons that sometimes inform migration decisions in the first instance. the first wave of ghanaian emigrants in the mid1960s migrated for economic reasons to other west and southern african countries (anarfi & kwankye, 2003) and formed “labour” and “trade” diasporas. the second substantial wave of emigrants fled the country during periods of political upheaval in the late 1970s and 1980s. over time, these individuals coalesced into a “victim” diaspora in countries such as the united kingdom, the usa and canada. contemporary movements comprise of mostly labour migrants and this cohort of emigrants has bolstered the ghanaian labour diaspora. scholars such as safran (1991: 83-84) insist on specific characteristics that a given society must possess before being described as a diaspora. going by safran’s (1991) detailed set of requirements, the ghanaian migrant communities abroad might not fulfil all of the criteria. however, others such as clifford (1994) and dufoix (2008) advocate a more liberal approach. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 674 clifford (1994: 305), for instance, acknowledges that “societies may wax and wane in diasporism.” this alludes to the organic nature of feelings of attachment to the homeland, depending on existential factors in migrant communities’ relations with their destination countries. dufoix (2008: 19-34) also points out that diasporas should not be perceived as pre-existing groups that have static features that meet or do not meet specific academic criteria, but rather that they can be “heterogeneous populations that are selfconsciously imagined” and developed into collectives through “the projects of émigrés and states.” marienstras (1989: 125) introduces a temporal dimension to diaspora formation. in line with this, koser (2003) refers to the ghanaian diaspora as a “neo-diaspora,” based on its relative newness compared to others such as the classic jewish diaspora. kleist (2008), however, argues against what she perceives as the undue focus on migrant communities defined by dispersion and, rather, proposes that the term diaspora should be conceptualised as “a concept of a political nature that might be at once claimed by and attributed to different groups and subjects” (kleist, 2008: 308). ghanaians abroad increasingly claim the label ‘diaspora’ as a political statement of their affinity to a country experiencing socio-economic development partly attributable to the discovery and production of oil and a sustained period of democracy (wong, 2013). conversely, the government of ghana attributes the label ‘diaspora’ to nationals abroad with an aim of attracting development resources. in spite of discrepancies in how diaspora is conceptualised, the commonalities in definitions refer to individuals that form a community outside of their country of origin due to a range of factors and are either unable or unwilling to return ‘home’ on a permanent basis, but hold the prospect of doing so in the future. these are also people who perceive a sense of belonging to and a need to contribute to the development of their origin country. in the case of ghana, nationals living abroad have routinely attempted to have both virtual and physical presence in the country’s development agenda. however, there is no common understanding of what the ‘development’ they seek to contribute to entails, how this endeavour could be realised and under what conditions. defining development the association between diaspora and homeland development could, therefore, vary depending on how ‘development’ is defined. both scholars and practitioners have subjected the concept of development to multiple ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 675 interpretations. for instance, within the field of migration studies, basok (2003) defines development to include activities linked to economic growthrelated variables – such as the generation of employment and increase in agricultural production – and welfare-related variables, such as reduction of poverty, increase in average income and decrease in inequality. others note that development needs to be examined closely through the prism of agency-oriented interpretations of human wellbeing (de haas, 2009; sen, 1999; nussbaum, 1992; griffin, 1986). this conceptualisation is markedly different from definitions by classical development economists such as rostow (1960) and lewis (1955), who measure development by economic growth, especially the increase in market activities. on his part, amartya sen (1999) argues that the prime focus of development discourses should be on how to maximise substantive freedoms such as access to education, good nutrition, shelter, political participation and healthcare. he perceives these freedoms as basic yet integral to any claims of development. this perspective of development is consistent with that of dudley seers (1969) who famously defined development as “the reduction and elimination of poverty, inequality and unemployment within a growing economy.” ghana has been lower middle-income country since 2011, with an economic growth rate of 14.4 percent in 2011 that made it one of the fastest growing countries in the world, boasting a us$1,580 per capita income and one of the highest gdp per capita in west africa. despite this, ghana continues to experience inequalities, especially between the northern and southern regions of the country (oseiassibey, 2013). as de haas (2009: 5) aptly concludes, development is not only a complex multi-dimensional concept, but can also be assessed and analysed at different levels and has varying meanings within different normative, cultural and historical contexts. how the seemingly uncontroversial concept of development is defined has implications in terms of engendering trust between the promoters and beneficiaries of that development. diasporas, as agents of development, do not imply a carte blanche relationship with development partners in origin countries. trust is critical. defining trust just as with the concepts of development and diaspora, trust means different things to different scholars. mohan (2006), for instance, situates trust within the broader concept of obligation. he examines this within parekh’s (1996: 264) conceptualisation of obligation as “social actions that the moral agent ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 676 ought to undertake and his failure to do which reflects badly on him and renders him liable to social disapproval.” within this interpretation of obligation, the moral agent is defined flexibly to include the migrant, nonmigrant or former migrant who is expected to be self-critical and conscious of the impact of his or her actions on society. failure to deliver on their socially prescribed obligations leads to the lost of credibility and incurs social disapproval. within the ghanaian context, at the local and community levels, interpersonal relations and social transactions are characterised by mutually dependent social obligations. as such, mohan (2006) regards trust as central to the mutual exchange of resources and information among ascribed ethnic groupings in ghana. lyon (2000: 665) further notes that the sources of these socially prescribed obligations are located in “reputations, sanctions and moral norms.” however, what are the prospects of (re)producing these obligations in a transnational setting? in discussing transnational activities of cameroonian and tanzanian home associations, mercer et al. (2009) cite examples of how the absence of transnational trust sometimes leads to tensions between migrants and home community members, particularly around community development projects. therefore, the authors perceive trust as key in sustaining both the negotiation and implementation of such projects. more importantly, smith and mazzucato’s (2009: 669) work conceptualises trust in transnational relationships as stemming from long-standing relationships created through shared past experiences and reciprocal economic and social investments in one another. they note that relationships of trust established between migrants and friends are freer from social obligations than those with family relations. according to smith and mazzucato, when transactions fail, it is easier to apply sanctions on friends than on family members, due to a feeling of entitlement on the part of family members. the different conceptualisations of trust ultimately form a subset of the broader discourses on “social capital” (putnam, 2000) and are used to guide the ghanaian case study in order to unearth the particular challenges migrants face in negotiating the preconditions of trust within a transnational setting. perceptions on diaspora-homeland development the diaspora is increasingly being courted as a potential development partner in ghana (kandilige, 2012; mohan, 2008). as a result, specifically earmarked contributions by the diaspora have been incorporated into recent national development plans in the country (for instance, see: ndpc, 2015; ndpc, 2010; ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 677 ndpc, 2005). at a practical level, diaspora-homeland relations find expression in the political rhetoric, civil society discourses, legislative enactments and initiatives by international development agencies such as the international organisation for migration (iom) and the united nations development programme (undp). the aspirations of the political elites in encouraging an increased role for the ghanaian diaspora can be captured by two important observations. the first one is by a former ghanaian president, john agyekum kufuor: i must acknowledge the contributions made by our compatriots who live outside the country... many of you do more than send money home, many of you have kept up keen interest in the affairs at home and some of you have even been part of the struggle of the past twenty years (mohan, 2006). the second is by a former minister of finance, osafo-maafo: may i humbly invite ghanaians overseas to use the natural advantage they have over their home based countrymen such as proximity and access to the latest technology, foreign exchange, reliable export markets and partners with know-how to begin to make direct investment into our economy (mohan, 2008). both quotes point to an appreciation of the transnational nature of international migration and the possible opportunities that could be exploited by the homeland through its ‘extraterritorial’ citizens (baubock, 2003; escobar, 2007; castles et al., 2014). within the transnational theory, cash and social remittances are acknowledged as important development tools at the disposal of homelands without any express requirement on migrants to return to their countries of origin on a permanent basis. this is a significant departure from previously popular complaints by leaders of developing countries about the “development of underdevelopment” (binford, 2003; lipton, 1980) due to brain drain and the ‘poaching’ of skilled african migrants by the developed ‘core’ countries (pang et al., 2002; desai et al., 2002; voigt-graf, 2008; chanda, 2001; dovlo & nyonator, 1999). these pronouncements are backed by policy formulations and events that have tended to facilitate diaspora engagement processes.* ghana drafted a national migration policy in 2014 (launched in april 2016) in order to effectively manage migration in a way that yields positive development outcomes. in addition, a diaspora support unit was created in 2012, under the ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 678 auspices of the country’s ministry of foreign affairs and regional integration. its specific responsibility was to identify and provide the needed support to the ghanaian diaspora purposely to increase their interest in national development. this unit was later upgraded to a bureau (diaspora affairs bureau) in 2014 – a possible sign of an even greater appreciation of the role of the diaspora in national development. another concrete step has been the initiation of the process of drafting a national diaspora engagement policy (started in 2015), drawing on the expertise of the centre for migration studies at the university of ghana and other development partners such as the iom, the international centre for migration policy development (icmpd) and ecowas. the transmission of what peggy levitt (1996) refers to as social remittances to ghana by members of the diaspora has also been hugely significant. these have included the transfer of ideas, behaviours, practices and social capital accrued from destination countries. these transfers have been executed by individual members of the ghanaian diaspora as well as facilitated by international organisations such as the iom and the undp. individual social remittances have included ideas on democratic governance, transparency and accountability, human rights, punctuality, work ethics and assertiveness, among others. in addition, social capital derived from their membership of business and epistemic networks abroad have enabled the ghanaian diaspora to promote transnational investments and collaborations in ghana (kandilige, 2012). equally noteworthy is the role of international agencies (especially the iom and undp) that have initiated projects such as the knowledge transfer programmes for the purposes of bolstering socio-economic development in the country. a classic example is the migration for development in africa (mida) initiative launched by the iom in 2001 to assist in the transfer of critical skills and resources of the african diaspora to their countries of origin. ghana benefited from the circulation of competencies, expertise and experience of the ghanaian diaspora (faist, 2008). another example is the undp’s programme referred to as the transfer of knowledge through expatriate nationals (tokten). this mechanism allowed for the tapping of professional skills of expatriate ghanaians through the means of short-term consultancies in ghana. in terms of cash remittances, ghana has recorded year-on-year increases in the volume of remittances, which has consistently surpassed the ratio of some ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 679 ‘macro’ variables such as foreign direct investment (fdi) and overseas development aid (oda) to gross domestic product (gdp). for the period from 1990 to 2003, bank of ghana data suggest that private unrequited transfers had a significant impact on the country’s gdp. as a percentage of gdp, remittances increased from about 2 per cent in 1990 to about 13 per cent in 2003, and also increased from 22 per cent to almost 40 per cent as a percentage of total exports earnings (addison, 2004). there was a similar trend of year-on-year increases in the aggregate volume of cash remittances from 2004 to 2014. the bank of ghana recorded a rise in remittances from $1.2 billion in 2004, to over $1.9 billion in 2008, to $2.1 billion in 2014, to $4.9 billion in 2015 (bank of ghana, 2015; kandilige, 2012; bank of ghana, 2016). the injection of such cash contributions could support economic development in the origin country. however, as the human development report (undp, 2009: 71) notes, “impacts are complex, context-specific and subject to change over time.” for development to be triggered in ghana as a result of diaspora activities, it depends to a large extent on the internal dynamics in the country. as de haas (2009: 52) concludes, migrants and their remittances can neither be expected to “trigger take-off development nor be blamed for a lack of development in fundamentally unattractive investment environments.” methodology and methods a multiple case study research methodology, involving two different geographical areas in ghana, was adopted to guide this study. the context and processes involved in the activities of members of two ghanaian hometown associations (kwahuman association and kasena-nankana development league) based in the uk were analysed. this enabled a measurement of their peculiarities as well as similarities. these two hometown associations represent the eastern and upper east regions of ghana, respectively. this kind of research strategy has firm roots in classic studies in other social science disciplines (burgess, 1983; cavendish, 1982; sassen, 2006). mixed methods were adopted for this study that allowed for the triangulation of results and complementarity of techniques (bryman, 2012). the selection of respondents from the two regions was actualised by tracing leads from migrants belonging to the two selected hometown associations to their home regions in ghana. migrant associations provided information on their contacts and partners in the origin communities and they were interviewed for more information on the nature of and basis for their collaborations with migrants. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 680 the overall logic of the methodology adopted was to glean quantitative data on frequencies, associations, patterns and proportions in addition to qualitative data that helped provide an in-depth explanation for behaviours, decisions and reactions by respondents. the innovation in this study partly stems from the fact that it was conducted in both the origin and destination communities in order to build a holistic perspective on the concept of trust, rather than the single-sited approach often embraced by most migration researchers (werbner, 2002; osili, 2004; mohan, 2006; mercer et al., 2009). the first stage of the study was carried out in the greater london area (especially the boroughs of southwark, lambeth, newham, hackney, haringey, lewisham, croydon and brent). the main reason for the choice of these boroughs was that most ghanaian migrants are based there (compas, 2004). the second phase was conducted in the upper east and eastern regions of ghana. the upper east region is among the poorest of the ten regions of ghana. it is located in the north, and accounts for comparatively fewer migrants. the eastern region is much richer and, located in the south-eastern part of the country, it accounts for one of the largest sources of ghanaian migrants outside of the african continent (kandilige, 2012). the differences in economic affluence, migration prevalence and geographical location are important because they provide apt comparative parameters. the fieldwork in the greater london area included in-depth interviews with twenty key informants from the ghanaian migrant community, participant observation activities, informal conversations and the administration of 120 questionnaires. the aims of these data collection strategies were to gauge, among others, migrants’ participation in group activities, their transnational support to local communities, their main partners in the origin community, challenges they face and the value they place on the concept of trust in their transnational relationships. the ghana fieldwork included 20 in-depth interviews with local chiefs, district chief executives (local government officials), community development leaders and executive members of local hometown associations (located in urban centres). these interviews focused on how development projects are negotiated with migrants abroad (the uk), how they are implemented, the role of the origin communities in local development, their perceptions on the effects of collective remittances on poverty alleviation and income redistribution and possible new areas of collaboration with migrants. all ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 681 interviews were conducted personally by the author and at respondents’ homes, places of work, restaurants or pubs. in order to gauge the perception of the beneficiary communities, 346 questionnaires were administered among heads of migrant households (246 in the kwahu traditional area and 118 in the upper east region). of these, 66 per cent were male and 34 per cent were female. the data presented in this paper are from a bigger project** carried out over fifteen-months. the paper is based on the narratives of respondents from the two hometown associations and their development partners in ghana as well as some survey statistics. findings trust as a critical component in diaspora-homeland relations: the case of ghana this section examines the concept of trust between diasporas and their homelands by using the experiences of ghanaian migrants in the uk and their local partners as a case study. these are analysed under four main sections: knowledge about the types of investments migrants make, engaging family/relatives to carry out projects, migrants’ individual experiences and hometown associations’ group experiences of initiating and executing migrant-funded projects. knowledge about investments in general empirical research among 364 migrant households in ghana indicates that the bulk of remittances received, according to heads of migrant households, were predominantly used to pay for education, daily upkeep and solving family emergencies (see figure 1). almost 44 per cent and 34 per cent of respondents in kwahu traditional area and the upper east region, respectively, reported using remittances for education purposes. this is consistent with international research, which also suggests a positive relationship between remittances and educational attainment and enrolment (rapoport & docquier, 2005; coxedwards & ureta, 2003). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 682 n=246 figure 1. purpose of remittance. there was, however, a discrepancy between what migrants themselves and heads of migrant households claimed about how remittances were actually spent. on the one hand, heads of migrant households generally claimed that the bulk of remittances were spent on ‘consumptive’ expenditures (connell & conway, 2000). on the other hand, migrants indicated that only a small percentage of their total remittances were sent to migrant households for such ‘consumptive’ expenditures. so what accounts for this apparent disjuncture? there could be a myriad of reasons for this disparity but the most common refrain by migrants was that they did not trust their families or relatives in ghana to run their businesses honestly and properly and, as a result, failed to declare such projects to them. this suggests that some heads of migrant households were either not informed about some of the business ventures and investments (‘productive’ expenditures) their migrant relatives own in ghana, or were aware but not involved in the running of such ventures. to test this assertion, an analysis of the number of migrants who had funded, already set up or were in the process of setting up businesses in ghana was carried out. where 32 per cent of respondents (migrants in the uk) reported having funded, set up or were in the process of setting up businesses in ghana, less than 9 per cent of heads of migrant households in ghana reported that their migrant relatives had made such ‘productive’ investments. this implies that 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 p e r c e n t a g e kwahu upper east ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 683 the bulk of the expenditure on ‘productive’ activities by migrants takes place outside of household circles. furthermore, when a direct question was posed on investment in ‘productive’ activities in general, up to 84 per cent of respondents (heads of migrant households) in the upper east region and 67 per cent in the kwahu traditional area believed that their transnational relatives had neither businesses nor stores in ghana (see figure 2). this marked disparity suggests the need for empirical research into the relationship between remittances and development to consider both the perceptions of the receiving households or communities and the views of the migrants themselves. this is critical because a lop-sided examination of the extent of migrant investments in homelands, only from the perspective of heads of migrant households without a matched sample from migrants, is likely to underestimate the magnitude of ‘productive’ investments. n= 353 figure 2. perceived investment habits of uk-based ghanaians by heads of migrant households). knowledge about investments in housing and residential arrangements of migrants international empirical research suggests that a large proportion of remittances are spent on housing-related expenditure in migrants’ home countries, generally. this has been the case in countries such as morocco, where between 71 per cent (de haas, 2003) and 84 per cent (hamdouch, 67 20 9 4 0 84 12 3 0 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 no yes, set up a business yes, opened a store don't know other kwahu upper east ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 684 2000) of remittances have been spent on housing, and egypt where 54 per cent of remittances are spent on housing (adams jr., 1991). also, osili (2004) reported that a large proportion of remittance income to nigeria is spent on housing. he concludes that a ten (10) per cent increase in remittance income in nigeria raises the probability of investing in housing by three (3) percentage points. consistent with these high percentages, the study found that over 81 per cent of respondents in the uk had investments in either private housing or real estate development as a business (see table 1). additionally, more than a third of the uk respondents have either set up or were in the process of setting up a business or a store in ghana. table 1. investment patterns of ghanaian transnationals in the uk. sector frequency percentage housing only 59 49% housing plus business and stores 38 32% total housing 97 81% no investments 16 13% no response (refused to answer) 7 6% total 120 100% beyond some productive investment interests of ghanaian migrants being concealed from members of their immediate families, there also appear to be gaps in knowledge about the residential arrangements of migrants in the origin community. there has been an appreciable chunk of migration literature on the apparent conspicuous nature of migrants’ investments in housing, especially second houses (mohan, 2006; de haas, 2007; fadloullah et al., 2000 in de haas, 2009 and van der geest, 1998). these residential edifices are preserved as a sign of prestige by migrants and only occupied very occasionally when they are on holiday to the origin community or when they are attending special events such as funerals, weddings, anniversaries or religious and cultural celebrations. a classic example exists in the residential ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 685 arrangements of one migrant (kojo) from the kwahu traditional area in the eastern region of ghana, who owns a spacious six-bedroom house (see figure 3) on an exclusive migrants’ residential enclave. this property contains three washrooms, two living rooms, a mini bar and two garages, among other amenities. interestingly, up to ten months in a year, a caretaker occupies this ‘mansion.’ kojo’s uk-based nuclear family only visits kwahu over the easter festive period to participate in paragliding and some cultural celebrations. in contrast, kojo’s mother, eight siblings, nephews and nieces all live in a rundown mud house (see figure 4) located two towns away from the migrants’ residential enclave. he indicates that his family in ghana is unaware of the existence of his opulent house and that his decision to keep it a secret stems from his anxiety over likely excessive demands for money by members of his left-behind household (see mohan, 2008; henry & mohan, 2003), requests from them to occupy his property on a ‘temporary’ basis and his fear of envious neighbours and family members killing him using juju (voodoo). this is an extreme example of trust deficit in migrant-homeland relations. however, it is another example of the difficulty of sustaining trust relations in a transnational context. kojo’s account challenges smith and mazzucato’s (2009) conceptualisation of trust since in spite of the long-lasting relationship between kojo and his family in ghana, which should have informed a reciprocal economic and social investment from him, he fails to replicate this at the transnational level. he, however, trusts an outsider (caretaker) over his family, in line with smith and mazzucato’s views that social obligations are freer with outsiders than with family members and sanctions are easier to apply on outsiders. within parekh’s (1996) conceptualisation of obligation, kojo’s actions have the propensity to be judged negatively by his community and to incur social disapproval. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 686 figure 3. posh migrants’ mansions (mostly occupied by caretakers). figure 4. rundown accommodation occupied by parents and left-behind household members of a migrant. trust deficit in supervisory roles misgivings expressed by migrants about informing members of their leftbehind households of their investment interests are further corroborated by survey results among migrant households in ghana in three main areas (running of businesses on behalf of migrants, supervising building projects and clearing goods from harbours). these areas are selected as important in testing the level of migrants’ trust in their families and relatives in ghana, because they are activities that involve large amounts of capital or cash transactions. less than 20 per cent of heads of migrant households reported ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 687 any involvement in the running of businesses or clearing of goods on behalf of their relatives in the uk. the supervision of building projects, whilst slightly higher than the other two activities, still accounts for less than half of all cases (see table 2). these total figures are slightly lower than in cases of city-based migrant household members where up to half are involved in supervising housing construction for migrants, according to previous research (mazzucato, 2011: 460). the increasing reliance on friends, associates and former work colleagues to supervise projects and to conduct business transactions on behalf of migrants is again consistent with smith and mazzucato’s (2009) assertion that obligations with ‘outsiders’ are freer than those with family members. however, beyond the absolute percentages of heads of migrant households who are involved in the three key activities, inferential statistics (chi-square test) is used to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference between the two regions in terms of the level of trust. the results (table 2) show that there is a statistically significant association between migrants’ trust in relatives to supervise their buildings and the hometown of the migrant, χ2 (1, n= 363) = 13.425, p < 0.001). however, the results (table 2) indicate that there is no statistically significant association between migrants’ trust in relatives to run a business for them and the hometown of the migrant, χ2 (1, n= 364) = 1.012, p > 0.001). furthermore, the results demonstrate that there is no statistically significant association between migrants’ trust in relatives to clear goods for them and the hometown of the migrant, χ2 (1, n= 362) = 1.533, p > 0.001). table 2: level of involvement in capital-intensive activities on behalf of migrants. supervise a building (dependent variable) home town (independent variable) no yes eastern region (kwahu traditional area) 189 (73.5 %) 57 (53.8 %) upper east region 68 (26.5 %) 49 (46.2 %) ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 688 total 257 (100.0 %) 106 (100.0 %) χ2 statistic = 13.425, df = 1, n = 363, *p = 0.000 < 0.001 run a business home town (independent variable) no yes eastern region (kwahu traditional area) 214 (68.6 %) 32 (61.5 %) upper east region 98 (31.4 %) 20 (38.5 %) total 312 (100.0 %) 52 (100.0 %) χ2 statistic = 1.012, df = 1, n = 364, p = 0.198 > 0.001 clear goods home town (independent variable) no yes eastern region (kwahu traditional area) 201 (66.3 %) 44 (74.6 %) upper east region 102 (33.7 %) 15 (25.4 %) total 303 (100.0 %) 59 (100.0 %) χ2 statistic = 1.533, df = 1, n = 362, p = 0.138 > 0.001 source: author’s fieldwork. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 689 trust: migrants’ personal experiences several ghanaian migrants in the uk genuinely feel let down by their own family and relatives and have resorted to relying on help from friends and former colleagues to run and manage their businesses and building projects (see also smith & mazzucato, 2009: 667-669). this seems to account for the marked disparity in the perceptions of members of migrant households and the reality on volumes of ‘productive’ investments undertaken by migrants. personal accounts help contextualise the levels of mistrust. for instance, ‘ibrahim’s’ own sister misappropriated his funds: when i started [a housing project], i gave my sister 30 million [cedis] to start but when the old man died and i went home, i asked her where’s the house and she said she spent the money... my own sister, one mother one father (sic). no! so i don’t allow them to go even near my things (56 year-old male migrant, upper east region). ‘yaw’ was also cheated and betrayed by his relative: that has been a problem honestly ... it started off with my sister-in-law she actually bought the land and you know ghana the way they are, i even realised that they inflated the price of the land like five times. then she told me the boyfriend was a contractor. when i was sending the money they were not even using the money to do the project, she was now using it for her own thing. so i had to get rid of that contractor, get another person to do it, so the initial money i spent was just wasted (61 year-old female migrant, eastern region). these two quotes demonstrate the sense of frustration and despair that characterise some relations between migrants and their kin. family members and relatives are expected by society to observe relations that parekh (1996) conceptualises as relations of obligation. failure to adhere to these socially constructed obligations reflects badly on them and attracts social disapproval. accounts of outright disregard for the investment capital of migrants, some of whom have experienced incidents of discrimination and racism in the host country (see herbert et al., 2006), have engendered a feeling of resignation on the part of some migrants. this despair is evident in what a female migrant from the kwahu traditional area had to say: you can’t help ghanaians. that’s one thing you just cannot. honestly they take too much advantage and they think we don’t know what goes on, we do. even though we’ve been away from the country for a long time, ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 690 we still know what goes on (secretary of the kwahuman association, uk). similar expressions of doubt and mistrust discourage some migrants from investing in the origin country altogether. some of those migrants who invest in private accommodation units reported either using the services of private real estate developers to construct their houses or purchasing already built houses in an attempt to avoid embezzlement of funds by family relations. that is the difficult side of it. as i said you send them money and they embezzle it so it is difficult for us people living over here to put up houses because your own brother or sister or best friend that you trust to do something for you will clean you out (58-year old female migrant, uk). trust: experiences of migrant collectives versus homeland partners feelings of mistrust are a double-edged sword and examples of such feelings also exist from the perspective the origin country. in-depth interviews with chiefs, community development leaders and members of local-based hometown associations in ghana suggest both cordial relations with migrants in the process of negotiation and implementation of migrant-funded community-based projects, but also tensions between migrants and home communities. on the one hand, instances of prior discussions between migrants and local stakeholders as well as collaborative work have been recorded. these were more prominent among the kwahuman association members and their ghanaian partners. examples include detailed discussions of proposed projects in origin communities between migrants and traditional leaders during migrant-funded overseas trips by traditional chiefs. they sometimes invite nana [the chief] and his elders to visit the uk but especially holland and the usa. they pay for all their travel expenses so that nana and his elders will go over to brief them on what is going on, on the ground. they then fundraise and send the money to support whatever projects they agree on (linguist to the paramount chief, abene, eastern region). such cordial deliberations have helped cement relations between members of the ghanaian diaspora and development partners from their origin communities. these negotiations form a basis for the transfer of both cash and in-kind collective remittances towards community development. for that matter, projects supported are not dissimilar to those reported from other research among the cameroonian diaspora (mercer et al., 2009), pakistani ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 691 diaspora (werbner, 2002), mexican diaspora (smith, 2003) and moroccan diaspora (de haas, 2007). these mostly include the donation of used medical equipment, educational materials, street lighting, potable water and computing equipment, the renovation of old public buildings and the setting up of scholarships for local students. two examples of donations to health facilities are provided: they [migrants] used to send clinic or hospital equipment especially beds, mattresses, wardrobes and other materials that are being used at the hospital. the other day they brought some one or two containers full of hospital equipment alone (sic) ... they brought incubators, bicycles for people with cardiovascular problems and so on and they are all at the hospital now (chief of abetifi, kwahu, eastern region). they brought about 50 sets of beds. the chief gave them a place to store them and when some are broken then they go and replace them from the stores. secondly, an electric plant was donated to the clinic, a generator to the clinic so that when the lights go off they can use it. when the machine arrived they called nana [the chief] and everyone in the town and he inaugurated it. we the local association here in abetifi have also built a shed to cover it in order to protect it from the elements (sub-chief of abetifi, kwahu, eastern region). on the other hand, mistrust is manifested, transnationally, in differences in the value placed on remittances by origin partners as opposed to diaspora members. origin partners complain of over-estimation of the value of collective remittances sent by members of the diaspora and a lack of appreciation for the magnitude of contributions made by local-based hometown associations towards community development. diaspora members are accused of placing unreasonable demands on local counterparts. this feeling is demonstrated in two quotes from representatives of two migrant communities in ghana. i actually run into problems with the people in the uk. if you send $100 or £100 and you think that it is a lot, and that’s for the year. when i gave an example of how much my wife and i alone have contributed to development of our town, they took offence but i was just doing some analysis. when you compare their earnings and ours, they should be doing more. so they [migrants abroad] should not feel that if they send £100 that is so much money (chairman of a local hometown association, upper east region of ghana). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 692 i think they [migrants abroad] brought in $2000. at that time it was the equivalent of about 16 million cedis. when you hear 16 million cedis it sounds big but when it goes to the ground it can’t do much (sic). so sometimes that is the problem we have with them [migrants] because they find it difficult to understand why they bring in the money and they don’t see what it has been used for. because they could not understand this, they refused to top it up and since we were also having our different projects going on, we were not be able to raise extra money to do what they wanted us to do (community development leader, kwahu, eastern region). migrant collectives (hometown associations), however, insist that their incredulities or suspicions are based on actual experiences of cases of embezzlement of collective remittances by some local counterparts. there are also accounts of lack of transparency in the selection of community representatives and the refusal by others to publicly acknowledge receipt of collective remittances (see mercer et al., 2009). a representative of the one of the selected hometown associations in the uk aptly portrays these claims in the following statement: yes, that was a good plan to build a big roof supermarket…so we started with stage one which according to them the government of ghana had given them about 350 million cedis so we donated 170 million cedis which, you know, will come to half a billion to start the project. they were rushing us. our people ordered me to go and present to them the 170 million cedis, which was the equivalent of £10,000 at that time and the money is gone astray! (treasurer, kwahuman association, uk). members of migrant collectives also hold their origin country partners to a high standard of openness and accountability in line with socialised values, probably cultivated in the host country (the uk). some migrant groups demand legitimacy and representativeness of local community groups as a condition for continued funding. this assertion is partly borne out by demands such as these: i demanded certain guarantees from them because i needed to make sure that the election of people onto that committee was fair and that whatever they did they had a constitution that guided them as to, you know, what they wanted to work on, and i wasn’t really impressed with the fact that they were just hand picking people to sit on it. so i decided to kind of step back for now … i’ve worked in this kind of area for many years here in the uk so i am fairly aware of what can go wrong if you don’t get the group or groups set up properly with ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 693 the right representation. you could cause lots of problems (52-year old female migrant, upper east region). in addition, migrants request evidence of receipt and use of collective remittances as a monitoring tool but also as a useful advertisement to future donors. forms of evidence range from audio clips of radio broadcasts, footage of tv coverage, photographs in print media or on the internet and formal acknowledgement of receipt in writing on headed paper by development partners. failure to deliver on these requests sometimes leads to mistrust and frustration on the part of migrants. these socially prescribed obligations are located in “reputations, sanctions and moral norms” (lyon, 2000: 665). this is captured in the remarks made by one fundraiser for the kwahuman association: the reason i haven’t continued to fundraise is, you know, when you collect this fundraising money these people [british] they want evidence to see that you haven’t spent the money. so initially i sent £500 to them [local partners] so now i’m waiting for them even to send me a picture to prove we’ve done the foundation or we’ve done this or that. every time i phone, i don’t get any word from them (sic) (61-year old female migrant fundraiser, eastern region). cases of mistrust emanating from lack of publicity on migrants’ collective remittances are not limited to the ghanaian context. an instructive example exists in mercer et al.’s (2009: 154) account on cameroonian and tanzanian home associations. according to them, the bali cultural and development association, uk (bcda-uk) cut its links with the bali nyonga development and cultural association (bandeca) in the homeland because the bandeca’s water department had failed to acknowledge the bcda-uk’s donation of 500,000 cfa francs (about £500) in its published list of donors. conclusion this paper has highlighted the limited involvement of familial relations in the execution of productive investments that are funded by diaspora members. while a substantial proportion of remittances are directed at funding the cost of education, healthcare and daily upkeep of migrant households in origin communities, the paper demonstrates that the bulk of expenditure on ‘productive activities’ takes place outside of household circles. even though ‘consumptive expenditure’ could generate long-term multiplier effects beyond the immediate recipients (de haas, 2005), ‘productive expenditure’ yields direct, immediate effects on job creation and improvements in living ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 694 standards. this questions the scope of new economics of labour migration theorists’ interpretations of the household as the most appropriate unit of analysis of migration as a livelihood strategy. lack of trust towards family members has negative implications on the potential of remittances as household poverty alleviating resources. the paper also finds that there are some similarities in the preconditions and basis of constructing trust in social relations both within the local and transnational contexts. as lyon (2000: 665) notes, fundamental sources of socially prescribed obligations are located in “reputations, sanctions and moral norms.” the risk of reputational damage, imposition of social sanctions (real or perceived) and the ascribed normative culture form the basis of trust within the local sphere. these prerequisites are equally valid in the transnational context but geographical proximity and the attendant immediacy of effects of social sanctions on the social actor engender greater intensity in trust relations locally compared to transnationally. also, parekh’s (1996: 264) conceptualisation of obligation as “social actions that the moral agent ought to undertake and his failure to do which reflects badly on him and renders him liable to social disapproval,” has limited application in the transnational context. while social actions around the provision of consumptive goods are critical in migrants’ transnational interrelationships, substantial productive investments are broadly based on “long-standing relationships created through shared past experiences and also reciprocal economic and social investments in one another” (smith & mazzucato, 2009: 669). these transnational relationships do not have to be familial. to this extent, how much of the estimated $601 billion remitted globally in 2015, out of which $441 billion went to developing countries (world bank, 2016), was actually directed at productive uses? this and the level of involvement of migrant households in managing productive investments ensuing from these remittances are difficult to ascertain by conducting single-sited empirical research only among migrant households in origin countries. the ghana example is instructive as well as illustrative of the nuances that international/intergovernmental development agencies, such as the undp, the iom, the world bank, the european union (eu) governments and others, 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the dual citizenship act [act, 591, republic of ghana, 2002]; establishment of the nonresident ghanaian secretariat in 2004; the ghana investment promotion centre [promotion of tourism] instrument, 2005 [l.i. 1817]; the representation of the peoples [amendment] act [act 699, republic of ghana, 2006] and the investment summit in 2007). ** this project was among members of the ghanaian diaspora in the uk and heads of migrant households in ghana, community leaders and ghanaian political elites, the bank of ghana, ghana statistical service and the department of national archives. the uk component of the bigger study comprised of interviews with 20 key informants, a survey of 120 ghanaian migrants, participant-observation activities and library research. the ghana ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 701 component involved a survey of 346 heads of migrant households, interviews with 20 key informants (community leaders and political elites), data from the bank of ghana, ghana statistical service and the department of national archives. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 702 attitude, risk perception and readiness of ethiopian potential migrants and returnees towards unsafe migration abebaw minaye* and waganesh a. zeleke** abstract in ethiopia, where there is high prevalence of migration to the middle east and europe, a multitude of studies have focused on the relationships between the role of smugglers, push and pull factors, and illegal migration. however, only a fraction of studies have examined the context from the individual and collective mind-set perspective. the process of the decision to migrate may be influenced by individuals’ beliefs about illegal migration. this study examined the attitudes, levels of readiness and risk perceptions of potential and returnee migrants towards illegal migration to the middle east. survey data were collected from 1,726 ethiopian returnee (n=991) and potential migrants (n=735). results indicated that here was a significant difference between potential and returnee migrants in holding a positive attitude towards unsafe and illegal migration, t (1260) =-8.474, p=0.000. potential migrants favour illegal migration more so than returnees. the level of risk perception of returnee migrants and the level of readiness for migration to the middle east of both potential and returnee migrants was found to be below the expected mean score. gender differences in the level of risk perception and readiness were also observed. female participants tended to see the risks associated with unsafe migration less than male returnee migrants; female participants indicated a lower level of readiness than their male counterparts. results imply a need to work on the level of behaviour change communication and to focus on attitude and practice change rather than mere awareness-raising. the results also imply the need to create actual jobs that can keep people from choosing unsafe migration. keywords ethiopia, migrants, attitude, risk-perception, readiness. *assistant professor, school of psychology addis ababa university. **assistant professor, department of counselling, psychology and special needs education, duquesne university. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 703 introduction migration is a global occurrence, however, information on what shapes individuals’ decisions towards unsafe migration in developing countries such as ethiopia is scant. although it is well-documented that poverty, system failure (abebaw & waganesh, 2015; adams, 2011; dinbabo & carciotto, 2015; fernandez, 2013), actions of organised criminal groups like traffickers, smugglers and brokers (fernandez, 2013; friesender, 2007; gozdziak & macdonnel, 2007; unodc, 2010; us department of state, 2016), family and peer pressure (abebaw, 2013; biniam, 2012; marina, 2016), and other push forces (animaw, 2011) act as causes for the high prevalence of legal and illegal migration, a similar level of attention is needed to understand what shapes migrants’ decisions at the individual level. one evidence of the focus on organised crime groups is the billions of dollars invested by leading antitrafficking nations or regions, such as the usa and europe, in convicting traffickers and illegal migrants rather than supporting migrants. internal dynamics within the individual migrant, like attitude and risk-perception, seem to have received little attention. this lack of understanding might undermine the agency of migrants in the decision-making process, which in turn has implications for our understanding of the migration decision and shifts the target of intervention to external forces rather than the migrants themselves (gong et al., 2011; sharma, 2005). the literature regarding migrants’ attitudes and risk-perceptions of migration to the middle east and south africa in particular, is dearth. the middle east is becoming one of the biggest hubs for migrants (saudi arabia and the united arab emirates (uae) alone host 17 million migrants) from south east asia (mainly the philippines, sri lanka, india and bangladesh) and eastern africa and horn of africa (mainly ethiopia, somalia, kenya, uganda and tanzania). of the top ten countries with the highest migrant population relative to their ‘native’ population in the 2004 human development report, the first four are middle eastern countries (gmdac, 2015). for example, the uae, qatar, kuwait and bahrain have migrants that constitute more than 50% of their population (iom, 2014). south africa is also a top destination (2.2 million in a 2015 estimate) within africa for migrants from different regions of africa (west, east and south) (horwood, 2009) and other parts of the world (mainly south east asia, i.e.: india, china, pakistan, bangladesh and thailand) (statistics south africa, 2014). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 704 factors related to the influx of migrants to the middle east and south africa should be investigated in more detail, especially because there are many safety concerns identified in various studies (waganesh et al., 2015; meskerem, 2011) and reports by international aid and human rights agencies such as human rights watch, ilo and iom. there is a dire need for empirical evidence to better understand what contributes to the decisions people make to migrate to the middle east and south africa despite the potentially unsafe situations in these destinations. ethiopian context ethiopia is a source country for migration, smuggling and trafficking (fernandez, 2013; jureidini, 2011; unicef, 2005; us department of state, 2016). according to the ethiopian ministry of labour and social affairs (molsa, 2013), in 2011/12 alone, 198,667 ethiopian women legally (their migration processed by the ethiopian ministry of labour and social affairs) migrated to saudi arabia, the uae and kuwait for domestic work. on top of this, 60-70% of migrants migrate illegally, that is through smuggling or being trafficked (us department of state, 2016). in 2011/12, the illegal migration was estimated at 300,000-350,000, making the total sum close to 550,000. the regional mixed migration studies (2014) reported the smuggling of 334,000 ethiopians through yemen alone from 2006-2014. the issue was given attention as a major social, economic, political and national security problem following the 2013 deportation of over 163,000 ethiopian irregular migrants when the kingdom of saudi arabia (ksa) cracked down on irregular migration (iom, 2014). studies that address the ethiopian migration context emphasise factors such as push and pull forces (blagbrough, 2008; kangaspunta, 2007; yoseph et al., 2006)and the plight of migrants, such as sexual abuse, physical abuse, salary denial, labour exploitation, confinement and denial of access to health services (human rights watch, 2008; us state department, 2016;abebaw, 2013). the movement of populations has been associated with sexual health risks and increased transmission of hiv/aids (bastide, 2015; weine & kashuba, 2012; camlin, et al., 2010). there are also reports of the negative mental health consequences of unsafe migration on victims (anbesse et al., 2009; bhugra, 2004; mirsky, 2009; waganesh et al., 2015). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 705 unsafe and stressful migration affects migrants, their families and their governments in general. consequences of unsafe migration can have an impact on people physically, psychologically, socially and economically. for example, a qualitative study involving female ethiopian migrants who were employed in the middle east found themes of exploitation, enforced cultural isolation, undermining of cultural identity and thwarted expectations (anbesse et al., 2009). some women in this study alluded to being sexually assaulted and dehumanised. women shared their experiences; one noted: “they don’t see you as a human being.” another said: “there were times when i would take food from the wastebasket and eat” (anbesse et al., 2009: 560). the aforementioned themes revealed major concerns for the mental and physical health of ethiopian migrants in the middle east. anbesse et al. (2009) remarked that migrants initially left ethiopia hoping to work and improve their lives. but potential migrants may not have accurately evaluated the reality of potential risks related to migrating. in spite of this, how migrants perceive potential risks was not well studied, at least in the ethiopian context. another important issue related to better understanding the attitudes of migrants is the belief that some migrants espouse that their fate is in the hands of god, which may help them to overcome the fear and risks associated with migrating (bastide, 2015). this is a critical point to understand about the attitudes of some migrants, because if they believe that they must endure their hardships as part of their predestined lives, their conceptualisation of a “risk” may be less relevant to them (bastide, 2015). paradoxically, some migrants may view leaving their birth country as a way of challenging their destiny; they do not necessarily see themselves as passive recipients of a predetermined life (bastide, 2015). though these beliefs may vary by individual, region and religion, these conceptualisations are important to consider when working to understand how potential migrants evaluate risks and how migrating may affect their lives. as tenants of social judgment theory (sjt) and cognitive behavioural theory (cbt) show, cognitive processes are related to subsequent behaviour. so, if migrants believe that their fate is already predetermined, they may not be concerned about the decisions they make and the safety implications of those decisions. research on sudanese youth indicated that their attitudes towards international migration were influenced by their families, friends and current circumstances in their home country, often related to unemployment (yaseen, 2012). this study asserted that “the majority of youth had positive attitudes ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 706 towards migration” and believe it to be the “best solution to improve” their economic circumstances, specifically “unemployment and low incomes” (yaseen, 2012: 108). it seems that unfavorable current circumstances may lead potential migrants to overlook the dangers of migrating. in most ethiopian cases, the initial migration decision is made by the migrants’ own free will (abebaw & waganesh, 2015; addis ababa university, 2015; sharma, 2005). they are often given misinformation regarding the positions and circumstances awaiting them in the host countries by brokers, agencies, smugglers and traffickers (lansink, 2006; un, 2000; marina & medareshaw, 2015). misleading information by traffickers shapes the knowledge and beliefs of migrants. in spite of theoretical support regarding the role of an individual’s attitude in decision-making of any sort, studies on attitudes of migrants towards unsafe migration is missing. the only study which addresses attitudes of ethiopian migrants is the regional mixed migration study of 2014, entitled “blinded by hope: attitude, knowledge and practice of ethiopian migrants.” to reduce the impact of unsafe and illegal migration, we must improve attitudes and increase readiness of migrants for potential risks. this potential is substantiated by research that suggests that modifying attitudes also changes behaviours (sheeran et al., 2016). given the importance of individuals’ attitudes towards migration, it is necessary to examine factors that shape these attitudes. in this study, we proposed a conceptual framework for examining the factors that influence migrants’ and potential migrants’ attitudes. the framework includes both antecedents and consequences of migrant returnees and potential migrants’ attitudes. the antecedents can be grouped into personal factors (e.g. gender, age and religion), social factors (e.g. mass media, family influence and peer groups), previous exposure to migration, and other environmental factors (e.g. one’s level of education and economic independence). this model could help us understand how migrants’ and potential migrants’ attitudes towards migration are formed and maintained, which could assist in our efforts to shape those attitudes and prevent unsafe migration that may happen as a result of individuals’ attitudes and misguided perceptions of risks. perceptions of risks are sometimes overshadowed by potential migrants’ hopes for personal change for the better and a positive future for their families. this cognitive minimisation of risks might increase positive attitudes towards unsafe migration. in order to positively influence the attitudes of potential ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 707 migrants, it is necessary to first understand the level of attitude and risk perception, as well as the variables that influence these attitudes and perceptions. theoretical and conceptual frameworks attitude is a key component in judgment and subsequent courses of action. attitude can be understood as the internal psychological tendency one uses when evaluating an idea or potential action (eagly & chaiken, 1993). for instance, if a person is weighing whether to leave his or her birth country in hopes of obtaining better circumstances for his/her family, his/her attitude about that hope and the likely negative consequences associated with the migration (risk perception) are part of this individual’s processing of the decision alternatives. there are cognitive, affective and behavioural components to attitudes which relate to beliefs, feelings and actions, respectively (eagly & chaiken, 1993; garrett et al., 2003). sjt offers a paradigm to better understand how people’s attitudes contribute to their mindset and how attitudes can change. in their theory of reasoned action, aijen and fishben (1980 cited in southey, 2011) have indicated the link between attitude and behaviour and identified intermediaries that affect the strength of this link, like specificity and strength of the attitude. stemming from brunswik’s functionalist psychology (doherty & kurz, 1996), sjt posits that an individual’s attitudes are an integral part of the perception and evaluation of new ideas (sherif & hovland, 1980). attitudes are part of a person’s identity (sherif et al., 1965), which could be based on a person’s current state and past experiences, and they inform their decision-making process. therefore, it is important to take into account the context within which a migrant returnee or potential migrant functions, and the systems that affect him/her, when trying to better infer his/her attitudes and decisionmaking processes. another important piece of sjt is persuasiveness (sherif & sherif, 1968) and the study of the likelihood of someone to change his/her mind or attitude about something, which includes consideration of what contributes to that process. specifically, ego-involvement, or how personally affected by or involved someone is in a particular issue, is highly relevant to how likely someone is to change his/her attitude (sherif & sherif, 1968). cbt also offers useful information when attempting to decipher how people come to their decisions to make changes. cbt refers to the interconnectedness of cognitive processes, emotions and behaviours. this theory is based upon a model of cognition that entails the aforementioned components. beck’s (2006) ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 708 work in rational emotive behaviour therapy indicates that systematic bias may contribute to irrational thoughts. the application of cbt can be useful when attempting to better understand a person’s mindset. one can apply cbt to the migrant’s mindset and attitudes as part of cognitive processes as well as perceptions of risk. given the interrelatedness of cognitions and behaviours, it is worthwhile to examine the attitudes of migrants to understand their decision-making processes to leave their birth countries. attitudes create a potentially systematic bias that contributes to a migrant’s decision to leave their country and choice of where to go. although attitudes might be strong enough in informing the decisions of people, individuals may not be conscious of their attitudes. some migrants may not realise the inherent danger in some of the decisions they make. so it is worthwhile to better understand their attitudes and perceptions about migration and the risks associated with it. taken together, sjt and cbt offer some models to aid in understanding how people come to make judgments about their lives; however, more information is needed about the migrants’ mindset specifically, so they can be informed about potentially unsafe decisions they are making. sometimes because of having strong attitudes, migrants may not be fully aware of the conditions that await them after they migrate and the dangers associated with migrating to specific regions. this leads to an attitude not based on sound knowledge or on irrational belief. the present study examined the attitudes and risk perceptions of ethiopian returnees and potential migrants towards migration to the middle east and south africa. it examined various beliefs of the study participants that influenced their decision-making processes to commit to or consider unsafe or illegal migration. it reviewed variations in belief systems based on participants’ demographic characteristics. understanding the belief systems of ethiopian returnees or potential migrants can promote culturally and contextually relevant outreach and treatment (chang-muy & congress, 2009). specifically, the study addressed four research questions regarding returnee and potential migrants’ belief systems towards migration: 1)what is the level of readiness, risk perception, and attitude of ethiopian potential migrants and returnees towards migration to the middle east and south africa?2) is there a significant relationship between readiness, risk perception and attitude among returnee and potential migrants? 3) is there a significant difference in risk perception and attitude between returnees and potential migrants? and ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 709 4) what is the effect of readiness and risk perception on the attitudes of returnees and potential migrants towards migration? method a. site of the study this study was conducted in six regions identified as hotspots for migration from ethiopia to the middle east and south africa. the six regions consist of eight sites identified as hotspots for migration based on previous studies (animaw, 2011; abebaw, 2013), ethiopian media reports and consultation with the ethiopian ministry of labour and social affairs. the sites included two zones in oromia region, two zones from the southern nations and nationalities region, one zone in amhara region, one zone in tigray, and addis ababa and dire dawa city administrations. b. participants using a purposive sampling technique (convenient and snowball), study participants were individuals who either returned from the middle east and south africa or those who were preparing to migrate to the middle east or south africa illegally. data was collected from february-april2014. of the 1,771 participants, 60.5% (n=1036) were returnee migrants from the middle east or south africa and 39.5% (n=735) were potential migrants who planned to illegally migrate to the middle east or south africa. both returnees and potential migrants completed a survey questionnaire having demographic, readiness, attitude and risk perception items/scales. c. instrumentation at the time of this writing, there were no standardised or empirically validated scales that measure the constructs proposed in this study (readiness, attitude and risk perception of migrants to unsafe migration). also, there were no instruments available in amharic, the primary language of ethiopia. consequently, this survey was developed by a group of psychology and social work faculty members at addis ababa university. based on a comprehensive review of the risks and challenges associated with migration and a review of the literature on ethiopian and african migration, the researchers developed the survey instrument. the instrument was organised into five sections: (a) ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 710 demographic data, (b) antecedents, (c) readiness scale, (d) perception of risk scale and (e) attitude scale. demographic questions included sex, age, employment status, educational level, religion, region of residency and migration status of respondents. the antecedents section asked information about the role of social context like family, brokers, agencies, friends, relatives and mass media. it also asked about personal reasons and motivations that shaped decision-making. d. readiness measure this was a five items scale, which measured participants’ levels of readiness to work in the cultural context and understandings of the nature of the job circumstances in the destination countries. items included: how aware are/were you about the nature of the job in the destination? how familiar are/were you about the culture of the destination country? how aware are/were you about your rights and responsibilities in the destination country? how confident are/were you in your coping skills if you face challenges? how much do/did you know about the communication style in the middle east/south africa? scores were computed by taking the sum of the 5 items (each measured on a 1 to 4 likert scale), with 1 being “totally unaware” and 4 being “very aware.” scores for this variable ranged from 5 to 20. e. risks perception scale the perception of risk scale was a three point likert scale which measured participants’ perceptions of the risks involved in migrating to the middle east and south africa. the items included: level of fear of being cheated by broker or agency or employer; level of concern about facing difficult circumstances in the destination country; level of determination to go to the middle east or south africa even through illegal channels if the legal process doesn’t work; and level of concern about safety while traveling through the illegal migration route. the scale score is computed by taking the sum of the 4 items measuring the knowledge of risks, each measured on a 1 to 3 scale with 1 being ‘i know much,’ 2 being ‘i know some’ and 3 being ‘i don’t know.’ the scores for this variable range from 3 to 12, and the scores were reverse-coded so that high scores reflected more knowledge and low scores reflected little knowledge regarding risks. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 711 f. attitude scale the attitude scale was a six item scale developed to measure participants’ attitudes towards unsafe or illegal migration. the scale consisted of items such as: life is predetermined, not affected by whether you migrate or not; i prefer working low status jobs overseas than in ethiopia; i don’t believe working in ethiopia changes my own or my family’s life for the better; i believe media reports on the problems of illegal migration are exaggerated; i prefer to work overseas with no dignity than living under poverty in ethiopia; and i believe that ethiopian youth can change their own life and their family’s lives only by working overseas. the scale score was computed by taking the sum of the 6 items, each measured on a 1 to 4 likert scale, with 1 being ‘strongly disagree’ and 4 being ‘strongly agree. ’the scale score ranged from 6 to 24. since the items were negatively-worded, the scores were reverse-coded so that low scores reflected negative attitudes and high scores reflected positive attitudes towards unsafe migration to saudi arabia and south africa. the measures were developed and administered in amharic. internal consistency estimates (cronbach’s alpha) for each subscale were computed to confirm the reliability of the subscales used in this study. the reliability estimates for all the subscales were as follows: attitude (a=. 79), risk perception (a=.54) and readiness (a=.72). the reliabilities of the measures were, therefore, quite satisfactory (panayides, 2013) and indicate consistency. g. data collection procedures with approval from addis ababa university’s office of the vice president for research and technology transfer, 21 data collectors (three in each of the six zones and three more for addis ababa and dire dawa) and 7 supervisors (one for each of the six zones and one for addis ababa and dire dawa) were hired and given a day-long training in the data collection process. the data collectors included graduate students and faculty members at higher institutes in ethiopia from the fields of psychology, social work, law, economics and health. the supervisors were faculty members from addis ababa university. they were assigned to assist and monitor the data collection process. the data collectors explained the purpose of the study to the study participants before administering the questionnaire. participation in the study was voluntary. returnees and potential migrants who chose to participate completed a paper ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 712 and-pencil questionnaire. those who could not read were assisted by the data collectors in completing the questionnaire. h. data analysis descriptive statistics were conducted to report participants’ demographic characteristics and the associated factors involved in participants’ decisionmaking about migration. a factorial manova was conducted to evaluate the differences due to migration experience, gender, religion and education on the three dependent variables of readiness to work in destination context, attitude towards migration and perception of risk. pre-screening of data was conducted to identify outliers and missing data, and to collapse the response categories of the independent variables with small sample sizes in cases where it made conceptual sense. for example, for the variable education, the categories of ‘certificate/diploma’ and ‘first degree and above’ in the original data were combined into one category, ‘certificate/diploma and above.’ i. variables the main independent variables in this study were demographic variables (see table 2); migration experiences (returnee vs. potential), gender, religion and educational level. the dependent variables were readiness to adjust to the destination context, attitude towards migration and perception of risks (see table 1). table 1. dependent variables. minimum maximum expected mean readiness to adjust to destination context 5.00 20.00 12.50 attitude towards migration 6.00 24.00 15.00 ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 713 perception of risks 4.00 12.00 8.00 research findings and analysis demographic characteristics of participants the sample consisted of 1,726individuals of which 991 were returnee migrants from the middle east and south africa and 735 were potential migrants who were considering migrating to the middle east or south africa. a demographic profile of the sample is presented in table 2. returnee migrants the returnees were between the ages of 16 and 60 years (m=27.55; sd 6.34). approximately 55% (n=545) were female and 44.9 % (n=446) were male. over 82.96% (n=789) returned from the middle east, while 17.04% (n=162) returned from south africa. over half (51.2%) of the returnees resided in an urban setting (n=518) and 48.8% were from rural parts of ethiopia (n=498).in terms of participants’ education, 6.4% (n=66) did not have any formal education, 8% (n=88) could write and read, 8.8%(n=90) attained grade 1-4 levels of education, 25.9% (n=268) had grade 5-8 levels of education, 30.8%(n=316) completed grade 9-10, 12.9% (n=132) completed grade 11-12 and7.3% (n=74) had a certificate, diploma or above. the prior migration job profile of returnees indicated that 49% (n=464) did not have a specific job other than supporting their families. over half 51% (n=479) reported that they were employed as domestic workers, daily labourers, government employees or other types of low-class jobs. potential migrants the average age of potential migrant participants was 25.3 years. approximately, 57% were female (n=417) and 43.3% were male (n=325). over half (53.9%) of the participants resided in urban settings (n=398) and 46.1% were from rural parts of ethiopia (n=340). in terms of education, 5% (n=37) did not have any formal education, 5.4% (n=40) said they could read and write, 7.9%(n=59) attained a grade 1-4 level of education, 35.9% (n=268) had a grade 9-10 level of education, 27.7%(n=206) completed a grade 5-8 level of education, 9.8% (n=73) completed a grade 11-12 level of education and the ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 714 8.5% (n=63) had a certificate/diploma or above. in terms of employment, 63.6% (n=478) did not have a job at the time they planned to migrate, whereas 31.4% (n=236) had a job. table 2. demographic characteristics of participants. returnee migrants (n=991) potential migrants (n=735) n % n % sex male 446 45.00 325 43 female 545 55.00 417 57 religion orthodox 301 29.60 244 32 muslim 512 50.40 412 55 protestant 175 17.20 81 11 catholic 18 1.80 12 1.6 education no education 66 6.40 37 5.0 reading and writing 88 8.00 40 5.40 grade 1 to 4 90 8.80 59 8.00 grade 5 to 8 268 25.90 268 36.00 grade 9 to 10 316 30.80 206 28.00 grade 11 to 12 132 12.90 73 10.00 certificate/diploma or above 74 7.40 64 8.50 residence urban 518 52.20 395 53.70 rural 498 48.80 340 46.30 marital status married 449 44.80 226 32.00 single 507 50.00 457 64.70 divorced 43 4.30 23 3.30 employment status employed 479 51.00 236 31.40 not-employed 464 49.00 478 63.60 destination middle east 789 82.96 639 86.90 south africa 162 17.03 92 13.10 ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 715 *please note, due to missing data, sample size for some variables may not add up to 1036 for returnees, or 735 for potential migrants. associated factors that lead to migration or the decision to migrate the motivation for migration for 64.4% of returnees (n=646) and 66.4% of potential migrants (n=499) came from themselves, while 20% of returnees (n=201) and 13.4% of potential migrants (n=104) reported that their friends encouraged them to migrate. about 13.8% (n=138) of returnees and 14.8% (n=111) of potential migrants reported that families/relatives initiated the decision to migrate. less than 1.8% (n=20) of returnees and 5.4% (n=39) of potential migrants reported the initiative came from brokers and agencies. concerning source of information, 42.1% of returnees reported that they got the information on how to go to the middle east from brokers, 39.1% got it from friends, 14.3%indicated family as their source of information and 4.1% of returnees reported they received the information from the media. related to the major reasons for migrating, almost half, 49.7%, of returnees and 45.8% of potential migrants indicated poverty, while 38.5% of returnees and 31.5% of potential migrants indicated a lack of opportunity for employment in ethiopia and a desire to be economically independent. the data on source of information, reasons for migration and motivation for migration is presented in table 3. table 3. frequency and percentage of source of information, reasons and motivation for migration. returnee migrants potential migrants n % n % source of information broker 423 42.10 291 40.81 family 144 14.30 107 15.00 friend 397 39.50 286 40.12 media 41 4.10 29 4.07 reason to migrate poverty 502 49.70 344 45.80 others’ influence 110 10.90 63 8.40 economic influence 389 38.50 274 31.50 ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 716 who initiated migration self 46 64.40 499 66.40 friends 201 20.00 104 13.80 family/relatives 138 13.80 111 14.80 others 18 1.80 19 2.40 risk perception of unsafe migration the results show that the returnee migrants’ score (m=10.307, sd=1.81) was lower than the expected average (m=12.5). these results suggest that returnee migrants assumed lesser risk related to unsafe migration. the independent ttest indicated that there was a significant difference between male (m=10.57, sd=1.75) and female returnees (m=10.0984, sd=1.842) on their levels of risk perception, t (649) =3.43, p=0.001. this suggests that female returnee migrants tend to acknowledge the risks associated with unsafe migration less than male returnees. participants’ readiness both returnee (m=6.13) and potential migrants’ (m=7.04) scores were below the average (8.00) on the readiness scale. an independent sample t-test was conducted to compare the difference between returnee (m=6.1304, sd=1.80) and potential migrants (m=7.04, sd=1.80) in terms of their levels of readiness, t (1276) =-8.93, p=0.23. these results suggest that both returnee and potential migrants’ levels of readiness to migrate to the middle east and south africa are less than the expected mean. the independent t-test result revealed that there was a significant difference between male (m=6.87, ds=1.97) and female participants (m=6.37, sd=1.75) with regards to level of readiness, t (1263) =4.59, p=0.04. these results suggest that females were, or are, less prepared for illegal migration than their male counterparts. table 4. independent sample t-test: readiness. returnee migrants potential migrants t df readiness to migrate m 6.130 7.033 -8.930 1276 sd 1.806 1.801 gender ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 717 note * = p <0.05 attitude towards migration as table 5 shows, 49% of the returnees believe that life is pre-determined, showing an undermining tendency of vulnerability. over 60% prefer working a low-paying job abroad than doing the same job in ethiopia, indicating a favorable attitude towards migration. close to 55% of the returnees do not believe that working in ethiopia will help to change their own and their family’s life for the better, rather 65% of the returnees believe that ethiopian youth can change their life for the better by working abroad. over 53% of the returnees believe that reports by the media, specifically the ethiopian television, about the problems of illegal migration are exaggerated. all of this shows that almost half of the migrants had a positive attitude towards migration of any sort (legal or illegal). the general attitude scale result shows that 540 (57.1%) of the returnees have a positive attitude toward migration in any form. this reveals that despite their plight and expulsion by force and after facing several problems in the destination country, more than half of these returnees are in favor of migration. they added that if they got the chance they would be willing to remigrate even if it was risky (with the likelihood of being trafficked). the one sample statistic for returnees shows that there is no significant difference between the expected and obtained means, indicating that returnees are not significantly in favour of or against the expected unsafe migration despite what they have experienced. female male m 6.374 6.869 4.594* 1263 sd 1.759 1.972 ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 718 table5. frequency and percentage, n (%), of attitude of returnees towards migration. the independent t-test results indicated a significant difference between returnee migrants (m=15.318, sd=5.15) and potential migrants (m=17.39, attitudes strongly disagree moderately disagree moderately agree strongly agree life is predetermined, not affected by whether or not you migrate. 368(36.5) 146(14.5) 184(18.3) 309(30.7) i prefer working low status jobs overseas than in ethiopia. 252(24.9) 164(16.2) 251(24.8) 346(34.2) i don’t believe working in ethiopia improves my own or my family’s life. 292 (29.1) 164(16.3) 246(24.5) 303(30.1) i believe that ethiopian television reports on the problems of illegal migration are exaggerated. 336(33.7) 132(13.2) 282(28.3) 247(24.8) i prefer to work overseas with no dignity than living under poverty in ethiopia. 367 (36.7) 182 (18.2) 174(17.4) 278 (27.8) i believe that ethiopian youth can change their own and their families’ lives only by working oversees. 188 (18.7) 141(14.0) 242 (24.1) 435( 43.2) ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 719 sd=4.65) on the level of attitude towards illegal or unsafe migration, t (1260) =-8.47, p=0.000. these results suggest that potential migrants have a more favourable attitude towards unsafe migration than returnee migrants. the difference between female (m=16.21, sd=4.94) and male (m=16.124, sd=5.202) attitudes towards migration, t (1511) =-0.332, p=0.74, was found to be insignificant. table 6. independent sample t-test: readiness. returnee migrants potential migrants t df attitude towards migration m 15.3083 17.3929 8.474* 1260 sd 5.152 4.652 gender female male m 16.208 16.124 -0.332 1511 sd 4.943 5.202 note * = p<0.01 relationship between participants’ ages and the dependent variables age has a high negative correlation with attitude, showing that younger participants have more positive attitudes towards migration. readiness has a strong positive correlation to both risk perception and attitude (p < 0.01), showing that better readiness is associated with higher risk perception but positive attitude to migration. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 720 table 7: correlations among study variables. variables age readiness attitude risk perception age of the respondents 1 0.05 -0.71* readiness 1 0.26** 0.19** attitude 1 -0.07 risk perception 1 analysis of variance: education, attitude and readiness analysis of variance (anova) yielded significant differences between levels of education among participants and readiness, f(7,591)=4.62,p<0.001; level of education and attitude towards migration (f(7,692)=2.10, p<0.05); gender and awareness (f(3,1260)=7.58, p<0.000); and gender and attitude (f(3,1260)=3.40, p<0.001. these results suggest that participants’ with a higher level of education seem to have better readiness (m=8.57, sd=2.38) and less favorable attitudes (m=15.79, sd=0.492) towards migration to the middle east and south africa than participants with less education (m=6.03, sd=1.47) and lower levels of readiness (m=17.71, sd=5.055). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 721 table 8. test of anova in readiness and attitude based on educational background. variables groups sum of squares df mean square f sig. readiness between groups 134.37 3 19.20 7.58 .000 within groups 4252.40 1260 3.36 total 4386.78 1272 attitude toward migration between groups 601.35 3 85.91 3.40 .001 within groups 41132.386 1260 25.25 total 41733.740 1636 discussion overall, the current study indicated that both potential and returnee migrants have a positive attitude towards migration to the middle east and south africa. on the other hand, their levels of readiness and risk perception towards unsafe migration were found to be below the expected average. these findings are of particularly great concern because they indicate the lack of informed decisionmaking by participants about illegal or unsafe migration. more than the action of organised groups or the push forces, returnees’ and potential migrants’ decisions to migrate are a product of their attitudes and risk perception about migration. the results further indicated that, in general, the experience of migrating may influence risk perceptions and attitudes about migration, as returnees saw themselves as less prepared to re-migrate than potential migrants. the potential migrants had more favourable attitudes about migration than the returnees. this could be because the returnees had ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 722 witnessed the challenges of unsafe migration and were more likely to have an objective evaluation of the risks, whereas potential migrants could have been more optimistic as they had not directly experienced the challenges. in terms of readiness, the potential migrants and returnees significantly differed from each other. the potential migrants reported having greater readiness. this could also be associated with returnees’ emic experience of what is required during harsh travel and working in the destination. they knew their gaps better. they may have struggled to adjust to the work and social environment in the destination and in transit. whereas potential migrants might have been guided by their optimistic bias about what was actually demanded. many ethiopian domestic workers suffer in the middle east, partly because of their poor preparation for the work and lifestyle (waganesh, 2015). they assume that domestic work is similar in ethiopia and in the middle east. returnees perceiving themselves as less prepared for migration than potential migrants may speak with the clarity of hindsight about the reality of migration. returnees understand that they did not have much readiness for what the destination cultural, language and work-nature required. supporting this inference, it was found that the participants’ experiences related to migration had an effect on the level of his or her perception of risk and attitudes toward migration. the returnees indicated a higher level of risk perception and a less positive attitude towards migrating compared to potential migrants. this further indicates that the experiences of migrating have some influence on subsequent views on migration and possibly on willingness to migrate again as well as where to migrate. this, in particular, is in line with previous findings related to the potentially dehumanising and unfavorable situations ethiopian migrants found themselves in when they migrated to the middle east (anbesse et al., 2009). the results also suggest an association between socio-demographic characteristics such as age, sex and educational level, the perception that illegal migration is low risk, and an individual’s favorable attitude towards migration. this provides some support for the argument that public education and knowledge-building may be effective strategies in addressing illegal migration issues. it is not surprising that there was a direct positive association between education level and a relatively better readiness to migrate. education level is inversely associated with a favorable attitude to migration which makes sense in that the better the understanding level (education), the lesser an individual may favour unsafe migration. in terms of ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 723 sex, female participants were less ready to migrate. additionally, readiness and risk perception were significantly related such that increased readiness of an individual to migrate is associated with increased perceived risk related to unsafe migration. notably, attitude about migration was negatively correlated with readiness, age and risk perception, seeming to further indicate that as one gains experience, by aging or otherwise, his or her attitudes about migration seem to become less favorable. consistent with and building upon previous research on youth having positive attitudes toward international migration (yaseen, 2012), the current study found that younger individuals had more positive attitudes about migration than older individuals, possibly indicating that they would rather work low-paying jobs outside of ethiopia, even if their dignity was compromised, in pursuit of a better life. additionally, perhaps the older migrants have gained more experience with the hardships associated with migrating, which may account for the more negative attitudes of the older participants in this study. on top of this, there are more opportunities for work for young people as the demand is higher for young labour. previous studies have shown that trafficking and smuggling victims are largely children and women because of the growth of the service and sex industry (lutz, 2011) and because of their hard work, compliance and submissiveness, as well as the assumption that they can be easily misguided about opportunities (iom, 2006). the more favourable the attitude towards migration, the less perceived risk is associated with migrating. what is arguably one of the most important points of these results is the finding that many returnees still have a favourable view of migration, even if their experiences were negative. some indicated that they would re-migrate, even knowing that they could be trafficked. they were still in favour of migrating. what is notable about these findings is that even knowing the hardships associated with migration, many ethiopians are willing to consciously put themselves in potentially dangerous situations in order to leave ethiopia. such preferences may speak to broader concerns related to conditions in ethiopia. looking at the individual’s context and work culture in ethiopia may be of value when attempting to understand these results. one example is the tradition of ascribing a ‘brave son or daughter’ to youngsters who risk their lives for the well-being of their family. a second example is the long tradition of viewing offspring as property in which children are expected to work beginning from around age six to contribute to the family’s economic betterment, working within the household or in other households for a salary that goes to the family. referencing back to sjt and cbt, perhaps the returnees ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 724 are of the mindset that they would rather work abroad, even under similar poverty-stricken circumstances, than remain in ethiopia. thus, their behaviour could be in line with their surmised attitude that migration will not change their destiny, and it is better to leave ethiopia than to stay. another possible explanation is the one given by marina and medareshaw (2015), who propose that returnees may regret being deported before tasting the good side of migration and hence desire to try again. another seemingly contradictory finding is the higher the readiness, the less individuals favour migrating. this may be partly related to the relationship between readiness and education. migrants who have readiness and an understanding of the work and lifestyle of an illegal migrant may be more concerned about the possibility of abuse and, hence, they may be cautious in their attitudes. although there is no specific study on attitude, risk perception and readiness of migrants, the current study is consistent with one previous study by the regional mixed migration secretariat (2014) that documented ethiopian migrants being blinded by hope. in line with previous research, potential migrants often consider leaving their birth countries due to economic reasons, and they hope to have increased opportunities elsewhere (anbesse et al., 2009). the present study has some new information about the perspectives of migrants and potential migrants. a particularly salient point from the current study is that almost half of the participants believe that life is predetermined and that migrating will not ultimately affect their lives or destinies; this particular finding is consistent with some previous literature regarding some migrants’ beliefs of god as being in control (bastide, 2015). this mindset may lead some potential migrants to overlook risks and vulnerabilities associated with migrating, relating to the aforementioned systematic bias that can be associated with cognitive theory or cbt. when we reference systematic bias, we are not indicating that this “bias” is inherently a “bad” thing, rather, we are pointing out that a systematic bias, or basis from which they operate, namely believing their lives to be predetermined, likely permeates all areas of their lives and should be taken into account. conclusions the current study examined attitudes, risk perception and readiness to migrate to the middle east or south africa from ethiopia. the data was gathered from ethiopians who were either returnee migrants (n=1036) or considering migration to the middle east and south africa (n=735). to our ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 725 knowledge, this is the first time that attitudes toward illegal migration to the middle east have been studied in the ethiopian context. the main finding here is that the majority of respondents believe that migrating to the middle east by any means, including illegal migration, is better than living in ethiopia as there is little chance for a better life in ethiopia. the majority perceive the risks associated with illegally migrating to the middle east and south africa to be very low. the level of readiness, such as being aware of what kinds of job they could do or having some knowledge and experience of the language and lifestyle of the destination country, was found to be low. the study also explored other influences that potentially shape attitudes toward migration. this included characteristics such as age, gender and educational level. the results suggest that a mix of different influences shape the perception of migration among ethiopian returnees and potential migrants. migrants hold the key in the beginning of the migration decision in the form of initiating the migration, being driven by lowered risk perception and not being ready as a result of lower risk perception/optimistic bias. of course, their risk perception and more positive attitude may be shaped by external forces like family, peers and brokers. factors such as desire for economic independence, hearing of successes, desiring to support one’s family and the lack of job opportunities shape their attitudes. thus, a more practical action to reduce unsafe migration would be working on risk perception, readiness and attitudes of migrants. but there is also a need to work on what leads to the positive attitude and lowered risk perception, which may include issues of socialisation agents (family, peers, neighborhood/community, societal culture and media) and push forces for migration like the evaluation of opportunities in one’s own country and in a foreign country. therefore, future studies may further investigate the factors that shape migrants’ attitudes. hence, by first focusing on the inward, we move to the outward. looking inward helps researchers to understand the dynamics of migration decisions. for example, there is evidence that poverty may not necessarily drive the decision for unsafe migration. at times we may also wonder why people migrate under the likelihood of trafficking. part of the explanation is related to the attitudes and risk perceptions of migrants. so risk perception and attitudes are vital for judgment and decision. there is also a need to disentangle the mindset of migrants. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 726 a first key implication is that actors in preventing unsafe migration in ethiopia have to focus on the attitude/mindset of migrants to bring meaningful change. second, as findings suggest, some ethiopians are willing to put themselves in harm’s way. so, working to change their attitudes that contribute to these dangerous decisions is important. however, it is also imperative to respect a person’s culture while attempting to raise awareness. for example, if a person holds the belief that their life is in god’s hands and is predestined, it is important to acknowledge that paradigm from which they operate and not dismiss it. carl rogers’ (1957; 1959) person-centered approach may be of value as it acknowledges that in order for change to occur, there needs to be a mismatch between a person’s experience and awareness, and that person needs to feel to to be understood. translating this idea to the context of migration, to raise awareness about the potential dangers of migration, we may need to point out the differences between a person’s experience and their attitudes while making sure we acknowledge and validate the culture and context they function within. finally, more studies are needed to examine both what shapes ethiopians’ attitudes toward illegal migration and how their attitudes also (re)shape the decisions they make about migration. references abebaw, m. 2013. experiences of trafficking returnee domestic workers from the gulf states: implications for policy and intervention.phd dissertation, 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quartey, 2006; yang, 2005), less understood is the impact of migration on the well-being of family members left behind, more specifically, households with internal migrants. since most migrant workers *department of mathematics, university for development studies, navrongo, ghana. **department of economics, university of ghana, legon. ***department of economics, university of ghana, legon. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 733 migrate alone, and in some cases migrate with spouses,1 their children and other dependents (the aged) are left in the care of others. as such, a question worth investigating is: to what extent is the well-being of the left-behind affected by this migration? it is evident that though migration is prevalent in ghana and is also not a new phenomenon, very few studies have rigorously examined its welfare impact empirically. while several causes might account for this gap in the ghanaian literature, it does appear that data limitation and modelling difficulties are some of the main reasons. individuals normally participate in migration to improve their well-being, whether those decisions are made at the individual or household levels (lipton, 1980; de haan, 1999). a household is likely to send a migrant when the expected value of the migrant’s remittances exceeds that individual’s net contribution to household welfare prior to migration. that is to say that in the ideal situation, migration would always be welfare enhancing. in the welfare literature, however, there are mixed findings regarding the likely impact of migration on welfare. while some studies find a higher welfare for households with migrants (see ackah & medeleve, 2010; de brauw et al., 2012), others did not find any significant impact of migration on household welfare (see boakye-yiadon, 2008; litchfield & waddington, 2003; farrington & slater, 2006; lloyd-sherlock, 2006; sahn & alderman, 1996). the current study contributes to the debate by offering a novel empirical assessment of the welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant households by drawing on and analysing data recently collected by the centre for migration studies, university of ghana and funded by the sussex university, u.k. methodology of the study data used for this study is sourced from the migrating out of poverty (mop) dataset collected by the centre for migration studies, university of ghana, in collaboration with sussex university, u.k., from march to may 2013. this dataset is unique2 over the census datasets, which are predominantly used by most studies in ghana. a multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 315 households in the northern region, consisting of 231 migrant and 84 nonmigrant households for interview. the first stage was a purposive selection of 1 this is more specific to rural-rural migrants who migrate for the purposes of farming. 2 given that the survey was specifically designed for migrant source regions with high incidences of poverty, it was more detailed and comprehensive. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 734 11 districts consisting of 21 enumeration areas (eas) selected from a list of eas in the 2010 national population census results. the number of eas selected from each district is proportional to the total number of out-migrants from each district. these districts are the tolon, savelugu-nantong, kumbungu, sagnarigu, central and east gonja, west and east mamprusi, kariga, yendi, and tamale metropolis. the selection of these districts was informed by the high proportion of out-migrants produced by those districts recorded in the 2010 national population census results. this was followed by a listing of households in these selected eas. the second stage involved a systematic sampling with a random start to select migrant and non-migrant households from each of the selected eas. the migrant households were further stratified into three groups: seasonal migrants, return migrants and absent out-migrants. a total of 15 households were purposively selected from each ea, consisting of 4 households from the non-migrant households and 11 households from the migrant households. the final stage was the purposive selection of an adult household member, irrespective of gender, who had more knowledge about the household for interview. estimation procedure given that individuals or households undertake migration to improve on their well-being as espoused by economic theories, the natural questions that arise are: why are some people failing to migrate? what, if any, are the welfare differences between migrant and non-migrant households as a result of migration? clearly, these questions fall under impact evaluation. one major challenge in empirical studies regarding impact evaluation is the issue of a counterfactual, that is, a hypothetical scenario of what the welfare profile of households would have been in the absence of the activity (migration). the counterfactual is hypothetical because it is impossible for the researcher to know or observe exactly what the welfare levels of households would have been had one or more of their members not migrated or if the activity had not occurred. methods of welfare impact can be classified into two broader types: experimental and non-experimental methods. experimental methodologies randomly select a control group prior to the application/onset of the activity and, therefore, individuals or households belonging to this group are then exempted from the intervention/activity (see burtless, 1995; world bank, 2007; galasso et al., 2001). this approach is suitable for evaluating ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 735 interventions for which participation can be controlled by the researcher or for which participation is randomly and naturally determined. migration flow is not an activity that can be assessed experimentally in terms of its impact on welfare since participation is neither random nor subject to a researcher’s influence. non-experimental approaches, on the other hand, consist of a wide range of techniques that construct a control group to facilitate comparisons with a treatment group (see world bank, 2007; ravallion, 2001; moffitt, 1991). these techniques include propensity score matching (psm), instrumental variable (iv) and the double difference (difference in difference) methods. the first two techniques will be used in the current study for comparison to deal with the issue of selection bias. the last technique cannot be used as it requires data on treatments and controls before and after migration. instrument variables are variables that matter to participation but not outcomes. that is, a variable (instrument) that is related to migration but not to welfare is chosen. the instrumentals are first used to predict participation in activity (migration) and then one sees how the outcome indicators vary with the predicted values conditional on other characteristics. psm, on the other hand, is a statistical matching technique that attempts to estimate the effect of a treatment, policy or other intervention (in our case, migration) by accounting for the covariates that predict receiving the treatment. the psm approach tries to capture the effects of different observed covariates x on participation in a single propensity score. then, outcomes of participating and non-participating households with similar propensity scores are compared to obtain the program’s (participating in migration) effect (see mensah et al., 2010). that is, propensity score: p(x) = pr (t = 1/x). in using the psm, two assumptions need to be made. these are the conditional independence and presence of common support (rosenbaum & rubin, 1983). the conditional independence states that given a set of observable covariates x that are not affected by treatment; potential outcomes y are independent of treatment assignment t. if yt represents outcomes for participants and yc outcomes for nonparticipants, conditional independence implies: (yt, yc) ┴ ti/x. the second assumption – common support or overlap condition: 0 < p (ti = 1/xi) < 1. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 736 this condition ensures that treatment observations have comparison observations ‘nearby’ in the propensity score distribution (heckman et al., 1999). in matching participants to non-participants, different matching criteria can be used to assign participants to non-participants on the basis of the propensity. primarily, there are four matching methods. these include the nearest-neighbour matching (nnm), radius matching (rm), caliper matching (cm) and stratified matching (sm).3 in this study, the nnm technique with replacement and a caliper imposed to avoid poor matching is used. in the nnm, the absolute difference between propensity scores in the treated and control groups is minimised. the control and treatment subjects are randomly ordered where a treated subject is matched with a control subject with a closest propensity score. c(pi) = minj│pi pj│ where c(pi) is the group of control subjects j matched to treated subjects i on the estimated propensity scores. pi is the estimated propensity score for the treated subject i. pj is the estimated propensity score for the control subject j. having estimated the propensity scores, the next thing to do is to examine the impact of program participation (migration) on potential outcomes (in this case, welfare). the impact of a treatment for an individual i, noted δi, is defined as the difference between the potential outcomes with treatment and without treatment. thus, δi = y1i −y0i. the mean impact of treatment is obtained by averaging the impact across all individuals in the population. this estimate is called average treatment effect (ate). implies ate = e(δ) = e(y1-y0). a quantity of interest is the average treatment effect on the treated (att), which measures the impact of participation in migration on the welfare of those households left behind. 3 see khandker et al. (2010) for a more detailed discussion of the various methods. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 737 i.e att = e(y1-y0/d=1). finally, the average treatment on the unmatched (atu) measures the impact that the treatment would have had on those who did not receive the treatment (control group). in welfare literature generally, there are two main ways of measuring welfare. these are the consumption and income approaches. each of these approaches has advantages and disadvantages. consumption is usually measured better than income in survey data; it is less noisy and better reflects long-term household well-being. it is also a standard measure of welfare, allowing for cross-country comparisons with the results of other studies (bontchosmolovski, 2009). the use of income, on the other hand, may be comparable across space (de brauw et al., 2012). this study adopted the consumption approach of measuring welfare because of the reasons cited above by bontchosmolovski (2009). to assess the welfare difference between migrants and non-migrants in a more robust framework, the methodology of beegle et al. (2011) was followed. the model is specified as follows: ∆ ln𝐶 = 𝛼0 + 𝛼1𝑀+ 𝛼2𝑋 + 𝛼3𝐻 + 𝜀…………………(1) where ∆𝑙𝑛𝐶 is the change in the logarithm of monthly per capita consumption for a given household, x represents individual characteristics, m is an indicator variable for an individual who migrates out of the household or if a household had a migrant at the time of the survey, and h represents a household-specific fixed effect. an advantage of this model is that one can control for individual differences through the vector x by including categorical variables for age, gender, marital status and educational status in x. results and discussion a comparison of mean consumption expenditure as a measure of welfare across districts in the study area revealed that tamale metropolis and sagnarigu district have the highest mean welfare values (gh¢9,419.12 and ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 738 gh¢9,499.12, respectively). 4 this result is expected, as these two areas constitute the capital of the northern region of ghana where, all being equal, living standards are relatively high and more job opportunities are available. savelugu district recorded the least mean welfare in the region. using the welfare index, a common approach of welfare measure (world bank, 2008) expressed as the ratio of the mean consumption of migrants to that of non-migrants, gives an index of 0.9786.5 this indicates equality in welfare between migrant and non-migrant households. one other measure of nonfinancial welfare used widely in the literature is the proportion of children enrolled in school by households (see dudwick et al., 2011; molyaneth, 2012). among migrant and non-migrant households, we estimated the proportion of children between the ages of 5 and 15 years (inclusive) who were at school at the time of the survey. the result indicates that there is a welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant households, with the latter households enjoying higher welfare (having higher numbers of children enrolled in school). as high as 81 percent of children in non-migrant households were enrolled in school, compared to 27.3 percent in migrant households. perhaps the low enrolment in migrant households could be explained by the absence of migrant parents to send their left-behind children to school in cases where nobody is fully responsible for their wards at origin. this is consistent with the conventional knowledge in the literature that presumes negative consequences of parental migration for the children who are left behind at origin (see dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015; xin & chikako, 2015; liang et al., 2008; xiang, 2007). the acquisition of household consumer durables by households, which is an indicator of household welfare, was also examined. the study noted that a higher percentage of non-migrant than migrant households acquired new houses and agricultural lands. approximately 25 percent of non-migrant households acquired new houses compared to 23 percent of migrant households. also, about 20 percent of migrants’ households acquired more agricultural lands, compared to 25 percent of non-migrant households. the low patronage of agricultural lands by migrant households could be explained perhaps by the identification of other more productive investment sources 4 equivalent to us$ 2,943.48 and us$ 2,968.48, respectively, at an exchange rate of us$1 to gh¢3.2 as at january 2015. 5 an index closer to 1 indicates greater equality between groups on the welfare measure (dudwick et al., 2011). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 739 than acquiring agricultural lands and might therefore be diversifying. this result is at odds with the findings noted in the literature that through remittances migrant households are more able to improve their agricultural land holding than non-migrant households. as expected, more migrant than non-migrant households acquired household electronic goods and other electronic appliances. also worth noting is the small number of households6 that reported acquiring household ‘white goods’ (fridges and washing machines). this could be explained by the fact that some of the communities in the study area were not connected to the national grid or, if connected, might have had difficulty paying for the exorbitant electricity bills. in recent times, sanitation has been considered important not only for healthy living but also for ensuring a filth-free environment. this is undoubtedly welfare enhancing. availability of places of convenience in the study area was therefore examined. the result shows that regardless of the migration status of households, almost all households (99 percent) in the study area have bathrooms. on the other hand, the majority of households (81.40 percent) do not have toilet facilities. 7 this figure is about four times higher than the national average of 19 percent, but slightly lower than the regional average of 86 percent (gss, 2012). however, it is observed that a higher percentage of migrant than non-migrant households (85 versus 81 percent) do not have toilet facilities, indicating that non-migrant households do better in constructing toilet facilities at homes and enjoy higher welfare than migrant households. this finding is consistent with awumbila et al.’s (2014) study that reports that close to 94 and 63 percent of migrant households in old fadama and nima, respectively, do not have toilet facilities in their residence. sundari (2003) noted similar findings about chennai slums. to assess the impact of migration on households’ welfare in the study area and to correct for selectivity bias, a regression equation was estimated using the heckman two-step selection model. the first step was to choose an instrument that is correlated with migration as an independent variable and is not correlated with per capita consumption expenditure as the dependent variable. ethnicity of individuals was chosen as an instrument and it was argued that people are likely to migrate if they are identifiable by certain 6 0.71 and 0.70 percent, respectively, for non-migrant and migrant households. 7 this high deficit of toilet facilities registered by households is because most households use the bush as a place of convenience or use public toilets where available. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 740 ethnic groups. for example, in most of the other regions, certain ethnic groups8 have replicas of their chieftaincy institutions and, therefore, people who travel to those destinations and are identified with these institutions are accommodated and given the necessary assistance to adjust. the same argument cannot be made for consumption expenditure. to test the relevance of the instrument, the authors regressed the ethnicity variable on per capita consumption expenditure as proposed by mckenzie and sasin (2007). the result shows no association between the two variables. the second step was to regress the log of per capita consumption expenditure on the regressors, including the migration status using the heckman two-step selection to counter the selectivity bias. the heckman two-step selection involves, first, estimating a probit model to drive the inverse mills ratio. the second step is to estimate the outcome equation including the inverse mills as a regressor. five welfare variables were included in the equation as explanatory variables and these are the human asset variables, the house composition variables, the location variables, the employment variables and the physical asset variables. results from the estimation indicate that most of the parameter estimates are statistically significant and rightly signed, as shown in table 1. consistent with prior expectations and existing literature, educational qualification of household head increases with welfare. implicitly, the more a household head is educated, the more likely he/she increases the earnings as predicted by the human capital model, therefore increasing the household consumption and welfare. households increase their consumption expenditure by 6.3 percent as their heads increase their educational status. age of head of household (ageheadhh) is positive and significant, which means that household welfare is higher when the head is younger. this finding is consistent with studies by ackah and medvedev (2010). 8 for example, we have the dagomba, gonja and the mamprusi chiefs in most of the other regions in ghana. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 741 table 1: migration effect on welfare using the heckman two-step selection model variables lnconexp migstathd coef. z coef. z educquhead 0.0627*** 5.180 ageheadhh 0.0181*** 4.830 sexheadhh -0.5573*** -3.610 ethnicindiv -0.114*** -7.740 hsehdsize -0.0775*** -4.780 0.0599*** 5.530 childdeprat -0.0195 -0.160 maturindex -1.0585** -2.030 lansize 0.0153*** 2.810 ocupatn -0.1140*** -4.960 distrt -0.0546*** -2.950 migstathds 0.0955 0.730 sexindiv -0.0776 -1.020 ageindiv 0.0163** 1.960 educindiv 0.0119*** 4.370 comtyfacil 0.3829*** 8.590 hseownship -0.2510 -1.220 agesqur -0.0002* -1.680 _cons 7.0710*** 15.870 -1.074*** -3.550 mills lambda -0.7839*** -3.830 rho -0.6330 sigma 1.2384 lambda -0.7839 ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 742 number of observations 1207 wald chi2 140.73 prob > chi2 0.000 note: ***, ** and * imply the level of significance at 1%, 5% and 10%, respectively. source: authors’ estimation from the mop dataset. sex of household head significantly and negatively relates to welfare as indicated by sexheadhh variable. this means that households with male heads have less welfare than their female counterparts. this can be explained perhaps by the practice of polygamy by male heads. polygamous practice may result in larger household size9 and subsequently lead to a reduction in per capita consumption. this finding is at variance with those of nwaru et al. (2011) and sakiru (2013), which indicate that male-headed households have higher welfare than female-headed households in nigeria. having a larger household and a higher maturity index negatively affect household welfare, while owning land of greater size increases household welfare. the strong negative correlation between household size and welfare is consistent with lanjouw and ravallion’s (1995) findings, which show a negative correlation between household size and consumption per person in developing countries. there were spatial differences in terms of welfare as shown by the district variable (distrt). somehow at odds with literature and the widely held view that living standards and welfare are highest in cities, the findings of the current study show that households in all other districts in the study area have higher household welfare than those in the tamale metropolis. of much interest to the study is the effect of migration on household welfare as indicated by the migstathd variable. the parameter estimate shows increases in household welfare with increasing migration, though not statistically significant. this confirms our earlier findings about the welfare and migration linkage using simple tabulation. the coefficient of the mills ratio (λ) is negative and significant which lends support to the hypothesis of selectivity bias and, therefore, the model could not have been estimated using the ols. individual educational level and access to community facilities enhance household welfare. 9 male-headed households tend to have larger household sizes using cross tabulation with a chisquare value of 152.09 at p < 1%. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 743 an alternative method to the instrumental variable approach in dealing with the selectivity bias is propensity score matching. the authors used this method to also ascertain if there is a welfare difference between migrant and nonmigrant households. the results from the average treatment effects, indicators of the quality of propensity score matching, estimation of propensity scores using the logit model, covariate balance as well as robustness checking or sensitivity analysis are presented below in tables 2, 3 and 4, respectively. the summary statistics in table 2 clearly show a difference in mean welfare between migrant and non-migrant households. that is, migrant households increase their consumption expenditure by gh¢ 22.47 over non-migrant households. this mean difference in welfare may not just be the result of the treatment (migration) but could also be due to differences in individual characteristics. table 2: summary statistics of mean welfare difference before matching group observation mean std.err non-migrant 1583 346.46 17.72 migrant 209 323.99 36.36 combined 1792 343.84 16.22 diff 22.47 50.54 t = 0.4445 diff = mean (migrant) mean (non-migrant) source: authors' estimate from mop dataset. to ascertain if individual characteristics explain the welfare difference, the propensity scores using the logit model were estimated. results from the scores indicate that most of the variables used were rightly signed and significantly influence the probability to migrate. sex of individual significantly and negatively associated with the probability to migrate (see table 3), suggesting that males are less likely to migrate than females. this finding is at variance with the widely held notion in the literature that males are more likely to migrate than females (see richter & taylor, 2006). marital status, household size and having access to community facilities negatively and significantly correlate with the probability to migrate. the negative effect of access to community facilities on the probability to migrate suggests that having access to electricity and pipe-borne water, among others, reduces the ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 744 likelihood of a household sending out a migrant (see ackah & medvedev, 2010). table 3: psm logistic regression result migstathds variables coeff z-stat sexindiv -0.612*** -2.68 ageindiv 0.314*** 4.97 agesqur -0.005*** -4.99 ethnicindiv 0.030 0.94 maritindiv -0.439* -1.7 ocupatn 0.191*** 2.88 sexheadhh 0.626 1.59 ageheadhh 0.011 1.19 educquhead 0.011 0.36 hsehdsize -0.075** -2.24 hseownship -0.029 -0.07 childdeprat 0.190 0.59 maturindex 0.113 0.09 comtyfacil -0.251** -1.89 distrt 0.022 0.49 _cons -5.662*** -3.93 number of obs 784 lr chi2(15) 88.36 prob > chi2 0.00 pseudo r2 0.13 log likelihood -284.43 ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 745 source: authors’ estimate from mop dataset. examining the welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant households, the average treatment effect was estimated, as shown in table 4. the result indicates a welfare difference between households with and without migrants. focusing on the att, which is the average treatment effect on the treated, it is noted that migrant households increase their consumption expenditure (welfare) by gh¢ 14.17 higher than the non-migrant households with the difference not statistically significant. this result is at odds with our earlier result on welfare using the number of children enrolled in school, but is consistent with the finding of awumbila et al. (2015). table 4: welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant hh after matching variable sample treate d control s differenc e s.e tstat conexppcapi ta unmatche d 319.14 310.63 8.51 52.16 0.16 att 340.21 326.04 14.17 68.65 0.21 atu 323.16 444.21 121.05 118.8 5 1.02 ate 105.18 108.6 9 0.97 source: authors’ estimate from the mop dataset. we further conducted a balancing test between the covariates to ascertain if the level of heterogeneity between the treated (migrant households) and the control (non-migrant households) is eliminated after matching. both the standard bias before and after matching indicates that the psm using the nearest neighbour algorithm eliminates most of the bias between the treated and the control groups. indeed, we do not observe any significant difference in means of all the covariates included in the model after matching. the proportion of bias reduction for most of these variables is at least 55 percent. the pseudo r2 value after matching has also significantly reduced, suggesting that the overall results from the matching procedure have satisfactorily ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 746 created a balance between the covariates of the treated and the control groups (sianesi, 2004). conclusions and recommendations the study examined the welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant households. a comparison of mean consumption expenditure (a proxy for welfare) across source districts shows that tamale metropolis and sagnarigu district have higher welfare values than the other districts studied in the region. welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant households was not conclusive. while there is a higher welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant households, with the latter enjoying higher welfare using the number of children enrolled in school, there is equality in welfare between the households using the world bank welfare index. on the contrary, an econometric assessment (psm) shows higher welfare levels for migrant households, though not statistically significant. regarding policies, it would be useful for government and other nongovernmental organisations (ngos) considering policies to streamline migration and improve on the welfare of the people to give more priority to education in terms of access and affordability. also, government and other stakeholders should consider providing job opportunities and extending access to public facilities such as schools, electricity, health posts and potable drinking water to the people. furthermore, for the recent government policy dubbed ‘sanitation day’10 (which, of course, is a welfare policy) to achieve the desired goal, district assemblies should enforce their by-laws that mandate every house to have a toilet facility as most households did not have toilet facilities. 10 this is a day reserved for every household to clean around its environs in the country, which falls on every first saturday of the month. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 747 references ackah, c. and medvedev, d. 2010. internal migration in ghana: determinants and welfare impacts. world bank 2010 ghana poverty assessment paper. world bank. awumbila, m., owusu, g. and teye, j.k. 2014. can rural-urban migration into slums reduce poverty? 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over human capital development: lesson from nigeria experience asogwa ikechukwu sebastine, anumudu charles nnamdi, ugwuanyi charles uche and ogbuakanne maryann uche abstract the aim of this study is to ascertain the distribution of international remittance inflow as opposed to the level attained in education before migration. the study uses the gini coefficient decomposition analysis for the emigrants’ remittances and the logistic regression model to ascertain the distribution of emigrants’ remittances as opposed to the level of human capital development in education completed before migration. evidence from the study shows that the level of education completed before migration contributes to the unequal distribution of remittances across the emigrating groups. the gini coefficient for primary school or lower, secondary, technical, tertiary and other levels of education are 0.09, 0.08, 0.07 and 0.08 respectively with their corresponding theil indices being 0.014, 0.011, 0.001 and 0.011 respectively. these statistics suggest that the advancement in human capital development in education before migration would reduce the inequality in remittance inflow. the policy implication of this finding supports the migration policies that encourage education before migration as it reduces the inequality in the remittances. keywords nigeria, remittance, human capital development.  department of economics, michael okpara university of agriculture, umudike, abia state, nigeria and department of economics, university of nigeria nsukka. email: is.asogwa@mouau.edu.ng  department of economics, michael okpara university of agriculture, umudike, abia state, nigeria. email: anumudu.charles@mouau.edu.ng  department of economics, michael okpara university of agriculture, umudike, abia state, nigeria. email: ugwuanyi.charles@yahoo.com  centre for entrepreneurship and development research (cedr), university of nigeria, nsukka. email: annogbuakanne@gmail.com asogwa et al 1444 background to the study according to the international organization for migration (iom), the united nations (un) migration agency, a migrant is any person moving or who has moved across international borders or within a state away from his or her habitual place of residence (iom, 2017). this implies that migration is the overall movement of people between countries, which applies to both immigration and emigration. immigration refers to people coming into a country while emigration refers to people leaving a country for a different country. according to stalker (1997), international migration is one of the major keys that drives the globalization process. likewise, iom (2016) reveals that international migration is a force for development and international cooperation for both countries of origin and countries of destination. since the late 1980s, migration across borders has been rapidly increasing and high to industrialized countries over time than the migration to developing countries. for example, the growth rate of the migrants’ stock for industrialized countries between 1990 and 2015 rose to 3.0% from 2.9% during the period 1975 to 1990, while the migrants’ stock for developing countries declined to 0.5% during the period 1990 to 2015, from 2.6% stock during the period 1975 to 1990 (un, 2016 and zlotnik,2004). the recent un’s 2017 international migration report also reveals that international migrant statistics have continued to grow rapidly over the past fifteen years, reaching 258 million in 2017, (un, 2017). in terms of overall international migration, in 2015 twothirds of all international migrants lived in europe, estimated at 76 million (78 million in 2017), while 75 million lived in asia (in 2017) this had increased to 80 million). in 2015 northern america hosted the third largest international migrants, estimated at 54 million (58 million in 2017) followed by africa with 21 million (up to 25 million in 2017), latin america and the caribbean with 9 million (up to 10 million in 2017) and oceania remained steady at 8 million (un, 2016, 2017). the percentage growth rate of international migrants from 2000-2010 is 23.69%, 2010-2013 is 8.411%, and 2013-2015 is 5.172%. hence, over the period 1995-2017, the international migration growth rose to 93% and this demonstrates a significant growth in the global migration patterns, (un, 2017). despite the fact that sub-saharan africa as a host, receives more refugees as caused by conflict and political instability, the region sends forth both skilled and unskilled labourers to the rest of the world, leading to a labour supply to other countries. nigeria, côte d’ivoire and south africa have emerged as the top recipients of intra-sub-saharan migration with 0.9 million, 2.3 million and african human mobility review vol 5, no. 1, april 2019 1445 2 million people as the stock of migrants respectively. in recent times, the majority of immigrants in nigeria are from economic community of west african states (ecowas) countries, but not as refugees, since the refugees constitute a small proportion of the overall immigrants stock of 0.9% from 2007 to the present time (afolayan, 2009). nigeria as an important destination for migrants in the west african region, has increasing numbers of emigrants in return. nigeria as a host country or country of origin to immigrants as well as a sending country for emigrants has experienced some economic improvement as a result of the migration through remittance. however, it is currently unclear if the inflow of foreign remittances is spread equally or unequally across the emigrants, especially considering the level of human capital development of the emigrants before migration. it is becoming evident that nigeria as a developing country is traditionally an important destination for migrants in africa, but nigeria also sends forth emigrants to other countries. the implication of the rising emigration from nigeria has resulted in a negative net migration rate per 1000 people to -0.3% in 2005 from -0.2% in 2000; the trend, as projected, got worse in 2010 to 0.4% and that, that about 1,041,284 nigerian nationals lived abroad with 0.6% of the country’s population to be emigrants (afolayan 2009) . the study further reveals that nigerian emigrants majorly live in sudan (24%), united states (14%), united kingdom (9%), cameroon (8%) and ghana (5%), (afolayan 2009) and that in 2013, two-thirds of emigrants from nigeria, which is 64.4%, were residing in more developed regions,(un, 2013). this conforms to the projection of the united nations on the rising nigerian emigration rate. current estimates in 2017 shows that nigerian international migration as a percentage of the total population is 0.6% from and this represent a rise from 0.4% in the year 2000, (un, 2017). likewise, iom,(2018) report reveals that the international migration by major region of residence as at 2015 for africa was 22million, asia was 76million, europe was 77million, caribbean was 9million, america was 54million and oceania was 8million. it is not in doubt that there are wide-ranging impacts of migration on development such as human trafficking, social development, health, environment, employment and the labour force. the most common impact of emigration is on the remittance inflow into nigeria. according to afolayan (2009), the inflow of remittances into nigeria prior to 2004 was under $2.0 billion but rapidly rose to $2.3 billion in 2004, $6.5 billion in 2005, $10.6 billion in 2006, and $18.0 billion in 2007. in the recent time, the annual growth rate of remittance inflow in nigeria for 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 were 1.69%, asogwa et al 1446 6.99%, 11.79% and 10.49% respectively, (world bank 2017). however, a major factor to be considered here, is the impact of the level of human capital development in education acquired by the emigrants before migration, on the remittance inflow. a related factor is the distribution of the total remittance inflow over the level of human capital development in education acquired by emigrants before migration. in the light of afolayan (2009), the propensity to migrate is particularly high among the highly skilled or educated and further reveals that in 2000 that 10.7% of the highly skilled population who were trained in nigeria worked abroad, which is an example of the so-called ‘brain drain’, which impacted most severely on the medical sector. despite the gains from international migration, government policies had constantly tried either to maintain the current migration or to decline it. for example, among the 195 countries with nigeria inclusive a large majority of governments (73%) either had policies to maintain the current level of immigration or they were not intervening to change it, while 16% had policies to lower and 11% had policies to raise it. it is on this premise that the following two key questions are raised. firstly, what is the distribution of the total amount of remittance, as opposed to the level of human capital development in the education acquired before migration? secondly, does the level of education acquired before migration have a significant effect on the total amount of remittance inflow? theoretical literature review international migration is as old as human existence. it is difficult to discuss global integration without recognizing the role of migration (un, 2013). several theories have discussed migration with a variety of views and concepts both in economic, social and psychological concepts yet there is no unified model on what, why and how people migrate. some of the theories of migration have both macroeconomic and microeconomic foundations and these are discussed below. early theory of migration and neoclassical macro-theory the early theory of migration is based on the economic analysis of smith’s (1776) “inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations” and is further buttressed by the views of lewis (1954), hicks (1963) and harris and todaro (1970) on labour market theory, as cited by olejarova (2007). while the early theory on migration focused on domestic migration, it was closely linked to the location model from regional economics and economic african human mobility review vol 5, no. 1, april 2019 1447 geography. smith emphasized that there is greater spatial dispersion of wages than commodity prices. this further suggests that migration is potentially a response to spatial disequilibrium in the labour markets. the formalized model of smith’s hypothesis to show that labour moves from location ‘i’ to location ‘j’ if the wage is higher in ‘j’ than in ‘i’ and that the volume of migration is related to the wage differential, as illustrated below: mij = βij(wj-wi),…(1) where w is the wage, m is the number of migrants and β reflects barriers to migration, such as distance, policy restrictions, etc. that may reduce the speed at which wages adjust to migration. the parameter takes on higher value when the barriers to migration are reduced. on the other hand, the contributions of british geographer, ravenstein (1889) and american economist, jerome (1926) added to the formulation of a set of migration laws: a) most migrants move only a short distance and usually to large cities; b) cities that grow rapidly tend to be populated by migrants from proximate rural areas and gaps arising in the rural population generate migration from more distant areas; c) out-migration is inversely related to in-migration; d) a major migration wave will generate a compensating counter-wave; e) those migrating long distance tend to move to large cities; f) rural persons are more likely to migrate than urban persons; and g) women are more likely to migrate than men. the highlighted laws were jointly summarized, using the gravity model of migration, which states that the product of the population of the origin and destination are inversely proportional to the distance between the two, as illustrated below: yp = p(1)p(2)/d,…(2) where yp is the product of migration, p(1) is the origin population and p(2) is the destination population and d is the distance between origin and destination. asogwa et al 1448 dual labour market theory the dual labour market theory, like other macroeconomic theories, queries the rational choice in decision-making about migration made by individuals and argues that international migration stems from the intrinsic labour from modern industrial societies. piore (1979) laid the claim that the lasting demand for immigrant labour is associated with the economic structure of developed countries. the sub-sectors of the economic structure include: a high wage-level sector and a low wage-level sector. the high wage-level sector comprises a capital-intensive method of production while the low wage-level sector is characterized by the labour-intensive method of production. empirical literature despite migrants being the most vulnerable members of a society, evidence has shown that there are both positive and negative sides of international migration, which are determined by a number of factors. naude (2009) lists conflicts, environmental and economic factors as the key determinants of migration. the paper stresses further that conflict is a major cause of forced migration in sub-saharan africa. the environmental degradation, desertification and deforestation along with other natural disasters like floods or drought are all factors that force migrants into migration as a coping strategy. african as an agro-based region records increased migration of labour in the face of the existing environmental pressure (grote and warner, 2009). similarly, adepoju (2005) sheds light on migration in west africa, stating that migration in this region is caused by population pressure, inequality, poverty, poor economic performance and economic conflicts during pre-colonial and colonial era. zoomers and naerssen (2007) also state that the high rate of migration in africa is a consequence of increasing problems with the multi-cultural society in the receiving area, combined with a fear of invasion. lidak’s (2014) empirical evidence on the impacts of migration shows that migration brings a large number of problems to european countries, that fundamentally influences the policies of liberal democratic nation states. the literature analyses international migration on two dimensions, namely the micro and the macro levels. the macro theories explain the structural conditions that influence the international migration flow, including economic, political and cultural factors. the micro theories, on the other hand, approach it from an individual level of decision-making. the statistics of study from darkwah and verter (2014), reveals that europe received about half a million african human mobility review vol 5, no. 1, april 2019 1449 people illegally, who were mostly economic migrants from asia and africa. regarding the determinants of international migration, unemployment and population pressure are among the key determinants of migration in nigeria. in the work of darkwah and verter (2014), the linear regression model result showed that the log of unemployment, the log of remittances and the log of population were the significant factors determining emigration from nigeria with 0.15%, 0.05% and 11.3% positive magnitudes respectively. the study tends to mirror migration and remittance situation in the nigerian context, although the use of time series data for the analysis limits the knowledge on the patterns of emigration and inequality in the households in nigeria. a study by ratha, mohapatra and scheja (2010) reveals that international migration is a channel of remittance access with positive impacts on the development of an economy, in both sending and receiving countries. ratha et al. (2010) draw attention to the social impacts of international migration on poverty, inequality and human capital development, despite the negative impacts and social costs of international migration. a study on nigeria by fonta,onyukwu and nwosu (2011) reveals that remittance income could play an important role in mitigating poverty and income inequality. it also found that the impact of remittances is unevenly distributed across the different regions by gender and by levels of educational attainment. the evidence from the study using the foster-greer-thorbecke (fg 1984) model states that a scenario where the head of the household without formal education, who receives remittances, reduces poverty by 0.07%. on the other hand, if the head of the household had attained a tertiary-level education and receives remittances, the poverty rate declines by over 0.22% (fonta et al., 2011). although the findings from this study seem interesting, the findings do not take into consideration the knowledge and the skills-level attained by the emigrants prior to migration, who send remittances to their home countries – which is the focus of this study. that knowledge could mirror the welfare status of the households back home, thereby validating the level of significance of the findings. the decision to migrate varies from individual to individual. according to king (2012), the phenomenon of the immobility of people raises a series of questions on migration adventure. for example, if about 97% of the world’s population does not migrate, does the 3% of the world’s population who are migrants, have a peculiar reason for doing so? is immobility linked to the lack of access to travel resources? is it a choice of the population of a country to choose to be immobile? what are the factors that can determine the patterns asogwa et al 1450 of international migration? are there common drivers of international migration? which patterns of international migration best explain the migration patterns in africa? yaro (2017) posits that west africa has a long history of population mobility, both in the continent and internationally. on the african continent, with its 54 countries, 35.7% of migration is from central africa, 5.8% is from southern africa and 44.6% is from west africa. analytical framework this study uses the gini decomposition technique to analyze the extent of equal and unequal distribution of the international remittances in relation to some level of human capital development in education attained before migration. according to stark et al. (1986) as cited in fonta et al. (2011), the gini coefficient is a measure of inequality of a distribution and it is defined as the ratio with values between 0 and 1. the income inequality, g, is calculated as follows: )3,...( 1    k i kkkt sgrg where sk = household share of income source k on total income, gk = the source gini and rk = gini correlation of income from source k with the distribution of total income. following the equation (3), we are therefore allowed to decompose, firstly, the total remittance income upon distribution or inequality as a function of the level of skills that the emigrants attained before migration (sk); secondly, the extent of the equal or unequal remittance distribution (gk); thirdly, how remittance inflow sources and the distribution of total remittances are correlated (rk). this determines the extent to which the level of human capital development in education influences the odds of remittance inflow. in the second experiment estimating the impact of the level of human capital development in education acquired before migration, on the odds of emigrants’ remittance inflow, this study uses a logistic regression model. logistic regression model logistic regression is a mathematical model used to describe the relationship of several xs to a dichotomous dependent variable. the functional form of the african human mobility review vol 5, no. 1, april 2019 1451 logistic regression model as stated by kleinbaum and klein (2010) is as follows: f(z) = 1)(0.. )4(........................................ 1 1 )(     zffor zf z z is the vector of the explanatory variables and coefficients. below is an illustration of the prediction of the probability of a logistic regression model. )6(.................... 1 )()(1)1(pr 1 1 1 1           k i kk k k i k x x k k k k kkkk xlxlyob      the prob(y = 1) is the probability of an occurrence or treatment as opposed to the event not occurring or not being treated. below is an illustration of the model, in a compact and linear form: )7(..............................) 1 ()()/( iiiii x p p logwexxwp    the dependent variable wi is a linear function of the vector of conditioning variable xi while the log )(1 )( wp wp  is the natural log of the treatment odds. the functional form of the regression model above allows this study to estimate the impact of skills and the duration of stay of the emigrants on the odds of remittance inflow into nigeria as specified below: )8....(.......... ___) )(1 )( ( 5 4321 ilocation sexgroupmigrationstaydurationlevelskilled rp rp log      where log(p(r)/1p(r) is the odds ratio of the emigrants ever sending money as opposed to not sending money. if the emigrant ever sends money, the probability p(r) of response takes yes or 1, but if the emigrant never sends money 1p(r), the outcome takes no or 0. the skills level of the emigrant is the level of skill attained by the emigrant before migration. the level of skills of the emigrants is classified as ‘primary school or lower’, ‘secondary level asogwa et al 1452 technical/vocational school’, ‘tertiary/university’, ‘others’ and ‘people that don’t know’. the duration of stay is defined as the length of period the emigrant lived abroad since migration. sex is classified into male or female. although the level of skills attained by the emigrants before migration is primarily the variable of interest for this study, the other variables are used to check for interaction effects. data source and scope of the study the scope of this study is limited to nigeria, using survey data on migration from nigeria by the international organization for migration (iom) in 2009. the performance of emigrants is measured by the dichotomous outcome of whether the emigrants ever send money to the home country or not. the level of skills of the emigrants is measured in terms of education levels attained before migration, taking into consideration primary education, secondary education, tertiary education and other unspecified training, as well as socioeconomic characteristics of the emigrants, including gender, location and duration of stay. analysis and discussion inequality decomposition the inequality aversion shows how sensitive income difference is to inequality aversion. the more positive e > 0 is, the more sensitive a(e) is to income difference at the bottom. table 1 shows that remittances are less sensitive to the inequality on the emigrant level of human capital development. for example, a(1) = 0.01383, which is very close to zero. table 1: atkinson indices, a(e), where e > 0 is the inequality aversion parameter all obs a(0.5) a(1) a(2) 0.00676 0.01383 0.02906 computed by authors using stata 12. inequality decomposition of remittances by sub-groups the gini coefficient is the aggregate numerical measure of income inequality ranging from 0, which is perfect equality, to 1 for perfect inequality. the higher the value of the coefficient, the higher the inequality of income distribution; the lower it is, the more equal the distribution of income. table 2 below shows african human mobility review vol 5, no. 1, april 2019 1453 that emigrants’ remittances across the levels of human capital development in education attained before migration, are generally close to equal distribution. but from the groups of the level of human capital development, the gini coefficient for primary school or lower, secondary and technical, tertiary and others are 0.09, 0.08, 0.07 and 0.08 respectively with their corresponding theil indices at 0.014, 0.011, 0.001 and 0.011 respectively. these statistics suggest that the advancement in human capital development (education) before migration reduces the inequality in remittance inflow. the policy implication of these findings is that migration policies with human capital development can reduce the inequality in the remittances. this is supported by the gini coefficient of the primary or lower level of human capital development (0.09414) which remained higher than other levels of human capital development. table 2: sub-groups indices ge_k(a) and gini_k highest schooling level attained before migration pop.share income share ge(-1) ge(0) ge(1) ge(2) gini primary or lower 0.13842 0.12050 0.01677 0.01555 0.01475 0.01425 0.09414 secondary and technical 0.36299 0.35583 0.031346 0.01249 0.01182 0.01137 0.08385 tertiary 0.48376 0.51064 0.01068 0.01011 0.00975 0.00954 0.07552 other 0.01483 0.01302 0.01074 0.01086 0.01105 0.01134 0.08311 computed by authors using stata 12. logistic regression result table 3 below with the results, shows the estimated odds of the logistic model for the study after 4 iterations. the odds of the emigrants sending money home is categorized as the probability of the emigrants sending money home (yes or 1) as opposed to the emigrants not sending money home after migration (no or 0). the odds ratio column represents the odds of y = 1 (sending money asogwa et al 1454 home) with the change in the independent variables. if the odds ratio is greater than one, then the odds of y = 1 increase but if the odds ratio is less than 1, the odds of sending money decreases. with the focus on the level of human capital development in education attained by the emigrants before migration, the increase in the education levels of the emigrants increases the odds of the emigrants sending money, is higher than the emigrant with primary school education only. the tertiary education level proved significantly different from the other levels of education or skills attained before migration. the increase in the duration of stay by the emigrants also increases the odds of the emigrants’ remittances. the presence of the emigrants from the rural areas also increases the odds of the remittance. on the other hand, the presence of female emigrants decreases the odds of the remittances, showing them to be lower than with the presence of males. additionally, the presence of emigrants from african and other countries decreases the odds of emigrant remittance, making them lower than those of the organization of economic cooperation and development (oecd). the variation explained in the model of the emigrants sending money home with the presence of the level of human capital development in education of the emigrants before migration, is 14.67%, but the model is significant with a probability value of 0.000 and the l-r chi2(8) is 147.50. number of iteration = 4 number of observation = 769 lr chi2(8) = 147.50 prob > chi2 = 0.0000 pseudo r2 = 0.1467 log likelihood = --428.82172 african human mobility review vol 5, no. 1, april 2019 1455 computed by authors using stata 12. policy recommendations although the inequality in emigrants’ remittances as opposed to the level of human capital development (education) before migration is not quite pronounced, there is still no perfect equality. migration policies that promote human capital development in education before migration will significantly improve the unequal distribution of international remittances, as opposed to the level of human capital development. the promotion of human capital development in education before migration will also increase the odds of the inflow of international remittances in nigeria. in order to achieve a perfect distribution in international remittances as opposed to the level of human capital development in education, the government could introduce and implement a policy mandating the attainment of specified levels of education, for emigration control in the country. furthermore, human capital development table 3: odds ratio result odds-remittance odds ratio std.error z p>/z/ 95% conf. interval education group:_secondary 1.427838 0.4721536 1.08 0.281 0.7468028 2.729933 education group:_tertiary 3.573276 1.20584 3.77 0.000 1.84425 6.923306 education group:_others 0.2211937 0.1843808 1.81 0.070 0.0431753 1.13321 females 0.4488508 0.0827441 4.35 0.000 0.3127418 0.6441961 duration of stay 1.090695 0.0205603 4.61 0.000 1.051133 1.131746 location:_rural 1.298179 0.2227823 1.52 0.128 0.9273825 1.817233 int.migration:_africa 0.4140167 0.0798218 4.57 0.000 0.2837314 0.6041272 int.migration:_others 0.2509643 0.1200782 2.89 0.004 0.0982516 0.6410385 asogwa et al 1456 in education would balance the effects the emigration of a high-skilled labour force – the so-called ‘brain drain’ – with the high inflow of international remittances into the country. conclusion this study has established the impact of human capital development in education before migration, on the unequal distribution of international remittances. it was the aim of this paper to study the international remittance distribution as opposed to the level of the human capital development attained before migration. it applied a logistic-based regression model to determine the effects of the level of human capital development on the odds of sending money back to the households. further study is required to investigate the decomposition of remittances to the households, both for the emigrants and non-migrants, as opposed to the level of human capital development. this will ascertain if there is a difference in the effects of human capital development as a treatment variable on remittances to the households, if data were available. references adepoju, a.2005. migration in west africa. a paper prepared for the policy analysis and research programme of the global commission on international migration. global commission on international migration gcim. from <www.gcim.org> (retrieved april 20, 2019). afolayan, a. 2009. migration in nigeria. a country profile 2009. international organization for migration (iom). from <www.iom.int> (retrieved february 5, 2019). darkwah, s.a. and verter, n. 2014. determinants of international migration: the nigerian experience. acta universitatis agriculturae et silviculturae mendelbianae brunesis. 62. from <https://bit.ly/2l1ftfp> (retrieved february 5, 2019). fonta, m.w., onyukwu, o.e., and nwosu, o.e., 2011. international remittance inflows and household welfare: empirical evidence from nigeria. research journal of finance and accounting. grote, u. and warner, k. 2009. environmental change and forced migration. brief 39, migration and displacement in sub-saharan africa: the securitymigration nexus ii. bonn international center for conversion (bicc). http://www.gcim.org/ http://www.iom.int/ african human mobility review vol 5, no. 1, april 2019 1457 international organization for migration (iom). 2017. who is a migrant? international organization for migration. united nations migration agency. from <www.iom.int/home> (retrieved april 24, 2019). iom, 2018. world migration report. international organization for migration. un migration agency. <www.iom.int> (retrieved april 19, 2019). jerome, h. 1926. migration and business cycles. cambridge, mass.: national bureau of economic research (nber), pp.77-88. king, r. 2012. theories and typologies of migration: an overview and a primer. willy brandt series of working papers in international migration and ethnic relations. sweden: malmo university. from <www.bit.mah.se/muep> (retrieved february 5, 2019). kleinbaum, g.d. and klein, m. 2010. logistic regression, statistics for biology and health: a self-learning text. third edition. new york: springer-verlag. lidak, j., 2014. international migration, europe and migration from africa. asian african studies, 23(2): 226-254. naude, w. 2009. forced migration and conflict in sub-saharan africa. brief 39, migration and displacement in sub-saharan africa: the security-migration nexus ii. bonn international center for conversion (bicc). olejarova, e. 2007. labour migration as a socio-economic phenomenon: slovakia and the czech republic in a comparative perspective. department of international relations and european studies, central european university. piore, m.j. 1979. birds of passage: migrant labour in industrial societies. cambridge: cambridge university press. ratha, d., mohapatra, s. and scheja, e. 2010. impact of migration on economic and social development: a review of evidence and emerging issues. policy research working paper, global forum on migration and development. washington dc: world bank. ravenstein, e.g. 1889. the law of migration. journal of the royal statistical society, 52(2): 241-305. from <www.jstor.org/stable/29> (retrieved february 5, 2019). stalker,p. 1997. global nation: the impact of globalization on international migration. employment and training department, international labour office, geneva. international labour organization. from <www.ilo.org> (retrieved february 18, 2019). http://www.iom.int/ http://www.bit.mah.se/muep http://www.jstor.org/stable/29 http://www.ilo.org/ asogwa et al 1458 united nations (un). 2013. international migration report 2013 (st/esa/ser.a/346). department of economic and social affairs, population division. from <https://bit.ly/2kzxmqq> (retrieved april 20, 2019). united nations (un). 2016. international migration report 2015: highlights (st/esa.ser.a/375). department of economic and social affairs, population division. from <https://bit.ly/2w2pdev> (retrieved april 20, 2019). united nations (un), department and social affairs, population division 2017. international migration report 2017 highlights (st/esa/ser.a/404). <www.un.org> (retrieved 7 april, 2019). united nations, department of economic and social affairs population division, 2013. international migration policies: government views and priorities. st/esa/ser.a/342. <www.un.org> (retrieved april 20, 2019). world bank, 2016. migration and development: a role for the world bank group. <www.worldbank.org> (retrieved april 20, 2019). world bank, 2017. migration and remittance data. from <www.worldbank.org> (retrieved 19 april, 2019). yaro, j.a. 2017. migration in west africa: patterns, issues and challenges. from <www.waifem-cbp.org/migration> (retrieved february 5, 2019). zlotnik, h. 2004. international migration in africa: an analysis based on estimates of the migration stock. migration policy institute (mpi). from <https://bit.ly/2xlcijv> (retrieved february 5, 2019). zoomers, a. and naerssen, t. 2007. international migration and national development in sub-saharan africa: viewpoints presented at the conference on trans-nationalization and developments towards a north-south perspective, center for interdisciplinary research, bielefeld, germany, 31 may to 1 june 2007. http://www.un.org/ http://www.un.org/ http://www.worldbank.org/ http://www.worldbank.org/ http://www.waifem-cbp.org/migration african human mobility review volume 5 number 1, january – april 2019 book review: children of hope: the odyssey of the oromo slaves from ethiopia to south africa by sandra rowoldt shell decomposing remittances from international migration over human capital development: lesson from nigeria experience migrant remittances inspired enterprises in tsholotsho: issues of sustainability precarious mobility: infrastructures of eritrean migration through the sudan and the sahara desert the value of human dignity in the refugee protection the migration processes in ghana: the case of northern migrants ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor prof mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh university of pretoria, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delgado wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof simon bekker university of stellenbosch, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, sao paulo and manila. ahmr is accredited by the department of higher education and training (dhet) in south africa. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). webpage: www.sihma.org.za copyright © 2019 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 461 4741, email: editor@sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ http://www.sihma.org.za/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1439 book review: children of hope: the odyssey of the oromo slaves from ethiopia to south africa by sandra rowoldt shell 1443 decomposing remittances from international migration over human capital development: lesson from nigeria experience asogwa ikechukwu sebastine, anumudu charles nnamdi, ugwuanyi charles uche and ogbuakanne maryann uche 1459 migrant remittances inspired enterprises in tsholotsho: issues of sustainability gracious maviza, mandlenkosi maphosa, nevel tshuma, zenzo dube and tomson dube 1482 precarious mobility: infrastructures of eritrean migration through the sudan and the sahara desert tekalign ayalew mengiste 1510 the value of human dignity in the refugee protection callixte kavuro 1535 the migration processes in ghana: the case of northern migrants shamsu deen-ziblim and adadow yidana african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1439 book review children of hope: the odyssey of the oromo slaves from ethiopia to south africa, by sandra rowoldt shell. ohio university press, 2018, 352 pages. isbn: 9780-8214-2318-9. hardcover price: $49.95. hewan girma university of north carolina sandra rowoldt shell’s recounting of 64 first-person narratives of enslaved oromo (ethiopian) children is an innovative and well-written piece of research. as the horn of africa is an under-researched geographic area for the study of both domestic and external slave trades, the plurality of these firstperson slave narratives has much to teach the reader about the sensitive topic of african domestic slavery. while we can question if these accounts of the enslaved children (aged 10–19, with an average age of 14 at the time of the interviews) are typical, they nonetheless reveal a complicated and detailed history of slavery from the horn of africa. shell systematically coded the narratives to highlight trends and generate keen insights into the ordeal of the children’s first passage (moments of capture, identities of initial captors and subsequent slave traders, the commodity value of the enslaved, gender differences in terms of treatment and value, periods of domestic servitude, pre-capture social status, parental occupation, etc.). shell employs prosopography, a methodology of quantitative history (cliometrics) to systematically analyse the collective characteristics of the biographies. although she provides a brief synopsis of each of the 64 narratives in an appendix, shell analyses them as a group, highlighting similarities and variations in the children's’ experiences. in addition to the narratives, shell uses archival data, such as the records of the royal navy which liberated the children, and missionaries who interacted with the children at different times post-emancipation. additionally, shell refers to other external sources such as school records, a survey on repatriation issued by the lovedale missionary institute in 1903, death registers, personal correspondence, and other official documentations, thus providing for a more complete picture. moreover, to complete her rigorous methodological arsenal, shell employs geographic information system (gis) to map out the internal african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1440 journeys the children took before reaching the coastal areas and being transported out of africa across the red sea. the practice of slavery, both domestic and international, was widespread in the horn of africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. it was only outlawed and abolished in ethiopia in 1936 under the regime of haile selassie. domestic african slavery has been alternatively interpreted as ‘rights-in-persons’ and ‘slavery-to-kinship’ continuum within an intricate system of african social and kinship relationships. in the example of the oromo, the practice known as guddifachaa meant that child war captives were adopted and therefore incorporated into the victors’ kin group. in effect, this became a system of kinship absorption or ambiguous slavery, although disagreements on these interpretations abound. in the late 1880s, ethiopia experienced a devastating drought and ensuing famine that wiped out one-third to one-half of the country’s population. bartering children for food became a means of survival, and shell aptly notes that “enslavement was an individuated, not a collective process” (p. 191). shell indicates that there was no “concerted plan to enslave a particular group,” but that circumstances brought together 64 children who “shared a common heritage and a broad, common area of origin” (p. 194). while 83% of the enslaved children are of oromo origin, 7% were kafficho, 2.4% were shangalla, gurage, and yamo, and the ethnicities of 7.1% of the children could not be determined. shell erroneously asserts that these other ethnic groups are cognate with the oromo or share strong genealogical or political links to the oromo. in fact, these other ethnic groups were raided and enslaved, not just by highlanders, but also by oromo slavers. unfortunately, this is not the only place where shell makes an erroneous assertion about ethnic identity in ethiopia. the enslaved children repeatedly describe their captors and slavers as ‘sidama’, which shell misinterprets as abyssinian. for an afaan oromo speaker during the turn of the 20th century, ‘sidama’ was a generic term that referred to non-oromos, outsiders, aliens, or enemies. therefore, equating ‘sidama’ with abyssinian is reductive and incorrect. this misrepresentation is a disservice to the author’s otherwise brilliant scholarship as it stretches the narratives of the enslaved children to fit within a particular contemporary narrative. it also highlights the author’s limited knowledge about crucial aspects of oromo history, their internal migrations, and their encounters with other communities. a discussion of the place of the oromo in the larger story of local and transnational networks of slave trade in the indian ocean world is missing. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1441 shell argues that “any a priori assumptions that slaves were garnered from only the poorest and humblest of ethiopian society have to be abandoned” (p. 50), and advocates for an understanding that the children came from a broad spectrum of social strata, even royal lines. although the enslaved children emanated from all socioeconomic backgrounds, their religious status is revealing. the ethiopian orthodox church purposely neglected to penetrate the southern territories of its empire, enabling a continued source of subservient populations. as a result, the oromo either retained their traditional belief system of waqqifecha, which is closely linked with the gaada system of governance, or converted to protestantism and islam. all of these religions were subjugated compared to the older ethiopian orthodox tradition. this also meant that the oromo population could be used as slave labour by the more dominant ethnic groups based on religious grounds. shell makes some problematic and indefensible comparisons between the racial segregation of south africa’s apartheid regime and ethiopia’s presentday system of ethnic federalism. how can one conscionably compare a system of white (colonial) supremacy with indigenous ethnic federalism? she further rehashes a limited history of the ‘colonization’ of oromo principalities by the abyssinian empire without providing the necessary nuanced context to understand this complicated history of state expansion. for instance, while shell mentions the system of guddifachaa, whereby individual children are adopted into a new family, she neglects to address the system of mass assimilation campaigns knows as mogassa, where entire communities are voluntarily or forcibly integrated into the oromo group, thus gradually increasing the size of the oromo population. shell ardently criticises ethiopian studies for bypassing the history of the oromo, whom she paints as singularly oppressed, blurring the boundary between scholarship and political practice. yet, ethiopian studies has made tremendous strides over the last 60 years that take into account most of the criticism that shell levels. nonetheless, since this problematic historical reexamination of the ethnic plurality of ethiopia is not the key intervention of this book, it can be begrudgingly overlooked. while the internal trade of domestic slavery was controlled locally, arabs governed the red sea trade. from initial capture to the red sea crossing, the enslaved took slow and intricate internal routes and were used as domestic slaves. the author limits her analysis to the length of time between initial capture and arrival at the red sea crossing (from 1 to 9 years), and notes differences in the children’s treatment based on gender. since the girls were viewed as more valuable, their trek was generally shorter than that of the boys. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1442 moreover, while the first passage (from capture to the coast) was arduous, the middle passage across the red sea (unlike the trans-atlantic slave trades) took a matter of hours. in 1888 and 1889, the enslaved children were loaded into dhows with the intended destination of the arabian slave market. when the dhows carrying the enslaved children were intercepted by the british royal navy, the enslaved children regained their freedom. the year of the oromo children’s liberation coincides with the ascendency of king menelik ii to ethiopia’s imperial throne in 1889. the children became ‘prize slaves’ as the british were rewarding the liberation of slaves after the abolition of the slave trades in 1807. the irony that the europeans who were the biggest instigators and beneficiaries of african slave trades later became the self-styled saviors of enslaved africans is somehow lost in this narration. after reaching aden, the british decided that sending the children back to ethiopia would potentially condemn them to a life of slavery. the lovedale missionary institute in the eastern cape of south africa (founded in 1824 by the glasgow missionary society) would eventually become the home of the enslaved oromo children. the gender differences upon arrival were marked. the author notes that the girls seem traumatized, probably due to sexual trauma that the narratives fail to capture. since lovedale was the leading missionary institution of its era in south africa and educated many future leaders, the oromo children received unrivaled education. while shell implies that race did not matter in the integration of the oromo children in south africa, it is impossible to imagine this to be the unadulterated reality. after receiving their education in south africa, between 1900 and 1908, 21 of the 64 oromo children eventually returned to ethiopia (8 independently and 13 with german assistance). others either died or permanently remained in south africa. the fates of the rest are unknown. overall, this book provides the reader a complete overview of the children’s lives from pre-capture to enslavement to eventual return to their homeland. it is unequivocally a must-read for any person interested in the african slave trade, particularly as it concerns the first passage. for future research, it would be informative to learn about the long-term fairings of the survivors and their lives in south africa and ethiopia. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1443 decomposing remittances from international migration over human capital development: lesson from nigeria experience asogwa ikechukwu sebastine, anumudu charles nnamdi, ugwuanyi charles uche and ogbuakanne maryann uche abstract the aim of this study is to ascertain the distribution of international remittance inflow as opposed to the level attained in education before migration. the study uses the gini coefficient decomposition analysis for the emigrants’ remittances and the logistic regression model to ascertain the distribution of emigrants’ remittances as opposed to the level of human capital development in education completed before migration. evidence from the study shows that the level of education completed before migration contributes to the unequal distribution of remittances across the emigrating groups. the gini coefficient for primary school or lower, secondary, technical, tertiary and other levels of education are 0.09, 0.08, 0.07 and 0.08 respectively with their corresponding theil indices being 0.014, 0.011, 0.001 and 0.011 respectively. these statistics suggest that the advancement in human capital development in education before migration would reduce the inequality in remittance inflow. the policy implication of this finding supports the migration policies that encourage education before migration as it reduces the inequality in the remittances. keywords nigeria, remittance, human capital development.  department of economics, michael okpara university of agriculture, umudike, abia state, nigeria and department of economics, university of nigeria nsukka. email: is.asogwa@mouau.edu.ng  department of economics, michael okpara university of agriculture, umudike, abia state, nigeria. email: anumudu.charles@mouau.edu.ng  department of economics, michael okpara university of agriculture, umudike, abia state, nigeria. email: ugwuanyi.charles@yahoo.com  centre for entrepreneurship and development research (cedr), university of nigeria, nsukka. email: annogbuakanne@gmail.com african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1444 background to the study according to the international organization for migration (iom), the united nations (un) migration agency, a migrant is any person moving or who has moved across international borders or within a state away from his or her habitual place of residence (iom, 2017). this implies that migration is the overall movement of people between countries, which applies to both immigration and emigration. immigration refers to people coming into a country while emigration refers to people leaving a country for a different country. according to stalker (1997), international migration is one of the major keys that drives the globalization process. likewise, iom (2016) reveals that international migration is a force for development and international cooperation for both countries of origin and countries of destination. since the late 1980s, migration across borders has been rapidly increasing and high to industrialized countries over time than the migration to developing countries. for example, the growth rate of the migrants’ stock for industrialized countries between 1990 and 2015 rose to 3.0% from 2.9% during the period 1975 to 1990, while the migrants’ stock for developing countries declined to 0.5% during the period 1990 to 2015, from 2.6% stock during the period 1975 to 1990 (un, 2016 and zlotnik,2004). the recent un’s 2017 international migration report also reveals that international migrant statistics have continued to grow rapidly over the past fifteen years, reaching 258 million in 2017, (un, 2017). in terms of overall international migration, in 2015 twothirds of all international migrants lived in europe, estimated at 76 million (78 million in 2017), while 75 million lived in asia (in 2017) this had increased to 80 million). in 2015 northern america hosted the third largest international migrants, estimated at 54 million (58 million in 2017) followed by africa with 21 million (up to 25 million in 2017), latin america and the caribbean with 9 million (up to 10 million in 2017) and oceania remained steady at 8 million (un, 2016, 2017). the percentage growth rate of international migrants from 2000-2010 is 23.69%, 2010-2013 is 8.411%, and 2013-2015 is 5.172%. hence, over the period 1995-2017, the international migration growth rose to 93% and this demonstrates a significant growth in the global migration patterns, (un, 2017). despite the fact that sub-saharan africa as a host, receives more refugees as caused by conflict and political instability, the region sends forth both skilled and unskilled labourers to the rest of the world, leading to a labour supply to other countries. nigeria, côte d’ivoire and south africa have emerged as the top recipients of intra-sub-saharan migration with 0.9 million, 2.3 million and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1445 2 million people as the stock of migrants respectively. in recent times, the majority of immigrants in nigeria are from economic community of west african states (ecowas) countries, but not as refugees, since the refugees constitute a small proportion of the overall immigrants stock of 0.9% from 2007 to the present time (afolayan, 2009). nigeria as an important destination for migrants in the west african region, has increasing numbers of emigrants in return. nigeria as a host country or country of origin to immigrants as well as a sending country for emigrants has experienced some economic improvement as a result of the migration through remittance. however, it is currently unclear if the inflow of foreign remittances is spread equally or unequally across the emigrants, especially considering the level of human capital development of the emigrants before migration. it is becoming evident that nigeria as a developing country is traditionally an important destination for migrants in africa, but nigeria also sends forth emigrants to other countries. the implication of the rising emigration from nigeria has resulted in a negative net migration rate per 1000 people to -0.3% in 2005 from -0.2% in 2000; the trend, as projected, got worse in 2010 to 0.4% and that, that about 1,041,284 nigerian nationals lived abroad with 0.6% of the country’s population to be emigrants (afolayan 2009) . the study further reveals that nigerian emigrants majorly live in sudan (24%), united states (14%), united kingdom (9%), cameroon (8%) and ghana (5%), (afolayan 2009) and that in 2013, two-thirds of emigrants from nigeria, which is 64.4%, were residing in more developed regions,(un, 2013). this conforms to the projection of the united nations on the rising nigerian emigration rate. current estimates in 2017 shows that nigerian international migration as a percentage of the total population is 0.6% from and this represent a rise from 0.4% in the year 2000, (un, 2017). likewise, iom,(2018) report reveals that the international migration by major region of residence as at 2015 for africa was 22million, asia was 76million, europe was 77million, caribbean was 9million, america was 54million and oceania was 8million. it is not in doubt that there are wide-ranging impacts of migration on development such as human trafficking, social development, health, environment, employment and the labour force. the most common impact of emigration is on the remittance inflow into nigeria. according to afolayan (2009), the inflow of remittances into nigeria prior to 2004 was under $2.0 billion but rapidly rose to $2.3 billion in 2004, $6.5 billion in 2005, $10.6 billion in 2006, and $18.0 billion in 2007. in the recent time, the annual growth rate of remittance inflow in nigeria for 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 were 1.69%, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1446 6.99%, 11.79% and 10.49% respectively, (world bank 2017). however, a major factor to be considered here, is the impact of the level of human capital development in education acquired by the emigrants before migration, on the remittance inflow. a related factor is the distribution of the total remittance inflow over the level of human capital development in education acquired by emigrants before migration. in the light of afolayan (2009), the propensity to migrate is particularly high among the highly skilled or educated and further reveals that in 2000 that 10.7% of the highly skilled population who were trained in nigeria worked abroad, which is an example of the so-called ‘brain drain’, which impacted most severely on the medical sector. despite the gains from international migration, government policies had constantly tried either to maintain the current migration or to decline it. for example, among the 195 countries with nigeria inclusive a large majority of governments (73%) either had policies to maintain the current level of immigration or they were not intervening to change it, while 16% had policies to lower and 11% had policies to raise it. it is on this premise that the following two key questions are raised. firstly, what is the distribution of the total amount of remittance, as opposed to the level of human capital development in the education acquired before migration? secondly, does the level of education acquired before migration have a significant effect on the total amount of remittance inflow? theoretical literature review international migration is as old as human existence. it is difficult to discuss global integration without recognizing the role of migration (un, 2013). several theories have discussed migration with a variety of views and concepts both in economic, social and psychological concepts yet there is no unified model on what, why and how people migrate. some of the theories of migration have both macroeconomic and microeconomic foundations and these are discussed below. early theory of migration and neoclassical macro-theory the early theory of migration is based on the economic analysis of smith’s (1776) “inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations” and is further buttressed by the views of lewis (1954), hicks (1963) and harris and todaro (1970) on labour market theory, as cited by olejarova (2007). while the early theory on migration focused on domestic migration, it was closely linked to the location model from regional economics and economic african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1447 geography. smith emphasized that there is greater spatial dispersion of wages than commodity prices. this further suggests that migration is potentially a response to spatial disequilibrium in the labour markets. the formalized model of smith’s hypothesis to show that labour moves from location ‘i’ to location ‘j’ if the wage is higher in ‘j’ than in ‘i’ and that the volume of migration is related to the wage differential, as illustrated below: mij = βij(wj-wi),…(1) where w is the wage, m is the number of migrants and β reflects barriers to migration, such as distance, policy restrictions, etc. that may reduce the speed at which wages adjust to migration. the parameter takes on higher value when the barriers to migration are reduced. on the other hand, the contributions of british geographer, ravenstein (1889) and american economist, jerome (1926) added to the formulation of a set of migration laws: a) most migrants move only a short distance and usually to large cities; b) cities that grow rapidly tend to be populated by migrants from proximate rural areas and gaps arising in the rural population generate migration from more distant areas; c) out-migration is inversely related to in-migration; d) a major migration wave will generate a compensating counter-wave; e) those migrating long distance tend to move to large cities; f) rural persons are more likely to migrate than urban persons; and g) women are more likely to migrate than men. the highlighted laws were jointly summarized, using the gravity model of migration, which states that the product of the population of the origin and destination are inversely proportional to the distance between the two, as illustrated below: yp = p(1)p(2)/d,…(2) where yp is the product of migration, p(1) is the origin population and p(2) is the destination population and d is the distance between origin and destination. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1448 dual labour market theory the dual labour market theory, like other macroeconomic theories, queries the rational choice in decision-making about migration made by individuals and argues that international migration stems from the intrinsic labour from modern industrial societies. piore (1979) laid the claim that the lasting demand for immigrant labour is associated with the economic structure of developed countries. the sub-sectors of the economic structure include: a high wage-level sector and a low wage-level sector. the high wage-level sector comprises a capital-intensive method of production while the low wage-level sector is characterized by the labour-intensive method of production. empirical literature despite migrants being the most vulnerable members of a society, evidence has shown that there are both positive and negative sides of international migration, which are determined by a number of factors. naude (2009) lists conflicts, environmental and economic factors as the key determinants of migration. the paper stresses further that conflict is a major cause of forced migration in sub-saharan africa. the environmental degradation, desertification and deforestation along with other natural disasters like floods or drought are all factors that force migrants into migration as a coping strategy. african as an agro-based region records increased migration of labour in the face of the existing environmental pressure (grote and warner, 2009). similarly, adepoju (2005) sheds light on migration in west africa, stating that migration in this region is caused by population pressure, inequality, poverty, poor economic performance and economic conflicts during pre-colonial and colonial era. zoomers and naerssen (2007) also state that the high rate of migration in africa is a consequence of increasing problems with the multi-cultural society in the receiving area, combined with a fear of invasion. lidak’s (2014) empirical evidence on the impacts of migration shows that migration brings a large number of problems to european countries, that fundamentally influences the policies of liberal democratic nation states. the literature analyses international migration on two dimensions, namely the micro and the macro levels. the macro theories explain the structural conditions that influence the international migration flow, including economic, political and cultural factors. the micro theories, on the other hand, approach it from an individual level of decision-making. the statistics of study from darkwah and verter (2014), reveals that europe received about half a million african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1449 people illegally, who were mostly economic migrants from asia and africa. regarding the determinants of international migration, unemployment and population pressure are among the key determinants of migration in nigeria. in the work of darkwah and verter (2014), the linear regression model result showed that the log of unemployment, the log of remittances and the log of population were the significant factors determining emigration from nigeria with 0.15%, 0.05% and 11.3% positive magnitudes respectively. the study tends to mirror migration and remittance situation in the nigerian context, although the use of time series data for the analysis limits the knowledge on the patterns of emigration and inequality in the households in nigeria. a study by ratha, mohapatra and scheja (2010) reveals that international migration is a channel of remittance access with positive impacts on the development of an economy, in both sending and receiving countries. ratha et al. (2010) draw attention to the social impacts of international migration on poverty, inequality and human capital development, despite the negative impacts and social costs of international migration. a study on nigeria by fonta,onyukwu and nwosu (2011) reveals that remittance income could play an important role in mitigating poverty and income inequality. it also found that the impact of remittances is unevenly distributed across the different regions by gender and by levels of educational attainment. the evidence from the study using the foster-greer-thorbecke (fg 1984) model states that a scenario where the head of the household without formal education, who receives remittances, reduces poverty by 0.07%. on the other hand, if the head of the household had attained a tertiary-level education and receives remittances, the poverty rate declines by over 0.22% (fonta et al., 2011). although the findings from this study seem interesting, the findings do not take into consideration the knowledge and the skills-level attained by the emigrants prior to migration, who send remittances to their home countries – which is the focus of this study. that knowledge could mirror the welfare status of the households back home, thereby validating the level of significance of the findings. the decision to migrate varies from individual to individual. according to king (2012), the phenomenon of the immobility of people raises a series of questions on migration adventure. for example, if about 97% of the world’s population does not migrate, does the 3% of the world’s population who are migrants, have a peculiar reason for doing so? is immobility linked to the lack of access to travel resources? is it a choice of the population of a country to choose to be immobile? what are the factors that can determine the patterns african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1450 of international migration? are there common drivers of international migration? which patterns of international migration best explain the migration patterns in africa? yaro (2017) posits that west africa has a long history of population mobility, both in the continent and internationally. on the african continent, with its 54 countries, 35.7% of migration is from central africa, 5.8% is from southern africa and 44.6% is from west africa. analytical framework this study uses the gini decomposition technique to analyze the extent of equal and unequal distribution of the international remittances in relation to some level of human capital development in education attained before migration. according to stark et al. (1986) as cited in fonta et al. (2011), the gini coefficient is a measure of inequality of a distribution and it is defined as the ratio with values between 0 and 1. the income inequality, g, is calculated as follows: )3,...( 1    k i kkkt sgrg where sk = household share of income source k on total income, gk = the source gini and rk = gini correlation of income from source k with the distribution of total income. following the equation (3), we are therefore allowed to decompose, firstly, the total remittance income upon distribution or inequality as a function of the level of skills that the emigrants attained before migration (sk); secondly, the extent of the equal or unequal remittance distribution (gk); thirdly, how remittance inflow sources and the distribution of total remittances are correlated (rk). this determines the extent to which the level of human capital development in education influences the odds of remittance inflow. in the second experiment estimating the impact of the level of human capital development in education acquired before migration, on the odds of emigrants’ remittance inflow, this study uses a logistic regression model. logistic regression model logistic regression is a mathematical model used to describe the relationship of several xs to a dichotomous dependent variable. the functional form of the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1451 logistic regression model as stated by kleinbaum and klein (2010) is as follows: f(z) = 1)(0.. )4(........................................ 1 1 )(     zffor zf z z is the vector of the explanatory variables and coefficients. below is an illustration of the prediction of the probability of a logistic regression model. )6(.................... 1 )()(1)1(pr 1 1 1 1           k i kk k k i k x x k k k k kkkk xlxlyob      the prob(y = 1) is the probability of an occurrence or treatment as opposed to the event not occurring or not being treated. below is an illustration of the model, in a compact and linear form: )7(..............................) 1 ()()/( iiiii x p p logwexxwp    the dependent variable wi is a linear function of the vector of conditioning variable xi while the log )(1 )( wp wp  is the natural log of the treatment odds. the functional form of the regression model above allows this study to estimate the impact of skills and the duration of stay of the emigrants on the odds of remittance inflow into nigeria as specified below: )8....(.......... ___) )(1 )( ( 5 4321 ilocation sexgroupmigrationstaydurationlevelskilled rp rp log      where log(p(r)/1p(r) is the odds ratio of the emigrants ever sending money as opposed to not sending money. if the emigrant ever sends money, the probability p(r) of response takes yes or 1, but if the emigrant never sends money 1p(r), the outcome takes no or 0. the skills level of the emigrant is the level of skill attained by the emigrant before migration. the level of skills of the emigrants is classified as ‘primary school or lower’, ‘secondary level african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1452 technical/vocational school’, ‘tertiary/university’, ‘others’ and ‘people that don’t know’. the duration of stay is defined as the length of period the emigrant lived abroad since migration. sex is classified into male or female. although the level of skills attained by the emigrants before migration is primarily the variable of interest for this study, the other variables are used to check for interaction effects. data source and scope of the study the scope of this study is limited to nigeria, using survey data on migration from nigeria by the international organization for migration (iom) in 2009. the performance of emigrants is measured by the dichotomous outcome of whether the emigrants ever send money to the home country or not. the level of skills of the emigrants is measured in terms of education levels attained before migration, taking into consideration primary education, secondary education, tertiary education and other unspecified training, as well as socioeconomic characteristics of the emigrants, including gender, location and duration of stay. analysis and discussion inequality decomposition the inequality aversion shows how sensitive income difference is to inequality aversion. the more positive e > 0 is, the more sensitive a(e) is to income difference at the bottom. table 1 shows that remittances are less sensitive to the inequality on the emigrant level of human capital development. for example, a(1) = 0.01383, which is very close to zero. table 1: atkinson indices, a(e), where e > 0 is the inequality aversion parameter all obs a(0.5) a(1) a(2) 0.00676 0.01383 0.02906 computed by authors using stata 12. inequality decomposition of remittances by sub-groups the gini coefficient is the aggregate numerical measure of income inequality ranging from 0, which is perfect equality, to 1 for perfect inequality. the higher the value of the coefficient, the higher the inequality of income distribution; the lower it is, the more equal the distribution of income. table 2 below shows african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1453 that emigrants’ remittances across the levels of human capital development in education attained before migration, are generally close to equal distribution. but from the groups of the level of human capital development, the gini coefficient for primary school or lower, secondary and technical, tertiary and others are 0.09, 0.08, 0.07 and 0.08 respectively with their corresponding theil indices at 0.014, 0.011, 0.001 and 0.011 respectively. these statistics suggest that the advancement in human capital development (education) before migration reduces the inequality in remittance inflow. the policy implication of these findings is that migration policies with human capital development can reduce the inequality in the remittances. this is supported by the gini coefficient of the primary or lower level of human capital development (0.09414) which remained higher than other levels of human capital development. table 2: sub-groups indices ge_k(a) and gini_k highest schooling level attained before migration pop.share income share ge(-1) ge(0) ge(1) ge(2) gini primary or lower 0.13842 0.12050 0.01677 0.01555 0.01475 0.01425 0.09414 secondary and technical 0.36299 0.35583 0.031346 0.01249 0.01182 0.01137 0.08385 tertiary 0.48376 0.51064 0.01068 0.01011 0.00975 0.00954 0.07552 other 0.01483 0.01302 0.01074 0.01086 0.01105 0.01134 0.08311 computed by authors using stata 12. logistic regression result table 3 below with the results, shows the estimated odds of the logistic model for the study after 4 iterations. the odds of the emigrants sending money home is categorized as the probability of the emigrants sending money home (yes or 1) as opposed to the emigrants not sending money home after migration (no or 0). the odds ratio column represents the odds of y = 1 (sending money african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1454 home) with the change in the independent variables. if the odds ratio is greater than one, then the odds of y = 1 increase but if the odds ratio is less than 1, the odds of sending money decreases. with the focus on the level of human capital development in education attained by the emigrants before migration, the increase in the education levels of the emigrants increases the odds of the emigrants sending money, is higher than the emigrant with primary school education only. the tertiary education level proved significantly different from the other levels of education or skills attained before migration. the increase in the duration of stay by the emigrants also increases the odds of the emigrants’ remittances. the presence of the emigrants from the rural areas also increases the odds of the remittance. on the other hand, the presence of female emigrants decreases the odds of the remittances, showing them to be lower than with the presence of males. additionally, the presence of emigrants from african and other countries decreases the odds of emigrant remittance, making them lower than those of the organization of economic cooperation and development (oecd). the variation explained in the model of the emigrants sending money home with the presence of the level of human capital development in education of the emigrants before migration, is 14.67%, but the model is significant with a probability value of 0.000 and the l-r chi2(8) is 147.50. number of iteration = 4 number of observation = 769 lr chi2(8) = 147.50 prob > chi2 = 0.0000 pseudo r2 = 0.1467 log likelihood = --428.82172 african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1455 computed by authors using stata 12. policy recommendations although the inequality in emigrants’ remittances as opposed to the level of human capital development (education) before migration is not quite pronounced, there is still no perfect equality. migration policies that promote human capital development in education before migration will significantly improve the unequal distribution of international remittances, as opposed to the level of human capital development. the promotion of human capital development in education before migration will also increase the odds of the inflow of international remittances in nigeria. in order to achieve a perfect distribution in international remittances as opposed to the level of human capital development in education, the government could introduce and implement a policy mandating the attainment of specified levels of education, for emigration control in the country. furthermore, human capital development table 3: odds ratio result odds-remittance odds ratio std.error z p>/z/ 95% conf. interval education group:_secondary 1.427838 0.4721536 1.08 0.281 0.7468028 2.729933 education group:_tertiary 3.573276 1.20584 3.77 0.000 1.84425 6.923306 education group:_others 0.2211937 0.1843808 1.81 0.070 0.0431753 1.13321 females 0.4488508 0.0827441 4.35 0.000 0.3127418 0.6441961 duration of stay 1.090695 0.0205603 4.61 0.000 1.051133 1.131746 location:_rural 1.298179 0.2227823 1.52 0.128 0.9273825 1.817233 int.migration:_africa 0.4140167 0.0798218 4.57 0.000 0.2837314 0.6041272 int.migration:_others 0.2509643 0.1200782 2.89 0.004 0.0982516 0.6410385 african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1456 in education would balance the effects the emigration of a high-skilled labour force – the so-called ‘brain drain’ – with the high inflow of international remittances into the country. conclusion this study has established the impact of human capital development in education before migration, on the unequal distribution of international remittances. it was the aim of this paper to study the international remittance distribution as opposed to the level of the human capital development attained before migration. it applied a logistic-based regression model to determine the effects of the level of human capital development on the odds of sending money back to the households. further study is required to investigate the decomposition of remittances to the households, both for the emigrants and non-migrants, as opposed to the level of human capital development. this will ascertain if there is a difference in the effects of human capital development as a treatment variable on remittances to the households, if data were available. references adepoju, a.2005. migration in west africa. a paper prepared for the policy analysis and research programme of the global commission on international migration. global commission on international migration gcim. from <www.gcim.org> (retrieved april 20, 2019). afolayan, a. 2009. migration in nigeria. a country profile 2009. international organization for migration (iom). from <www.iom.int> (retrieved february 5, 2019). darkwah, s.a. and verter, n. 2014. determinants of international migration: the nigerian experience. acta 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(retrieved 19 april, 2019). yaro, j.a. 2017. migration in west africa: patterns, issues and challenges. from <www.waifem-cbp.org/migration> (retrieved february 5, 2019). zlotnik, h. 2004. international migration in africa: an analysis based on estimates of the migration stock. migration policy institute (mpi). from <https://bit.ly/2xlcijv> (retrieved february 5, 2019). zoomers, a. and naerssen, t. 2007. international migration and national development in sub-saharan africa: viewpoints presented at the conference on trans-nationalization and developments towards a north-south perspective, center for interdisciplinary research, bielefeld, germany, 31 may to 1 june 2007. http://www.un.org/ http://www.un.org/ http://www.worldbank.org/ http://www.worldbank.org/ http://www.waifem-cbp.org/migration african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1459 migrant remittances inspired enterprises in tsholotsho: issues of sustainability gracious maviza mandlenkosi maphosa, nevel tshuma, zenzo dube and tomson dube abstract following unprecedented and protracted political and economic crises during the period spanning 2000 to 2009, zimbabwe experienced increased migration of its populace to the diaspora. one notable positive result of this migration phenomenon has been an increase in the inflows of remittances, which have partly inspired the emergence of enterprises. in february of 2009, zimbabwe introduced the multi-currency system, which introduced new dynamics related to the sustainability of these enterprises. this, coupled with the foregoing, called for the review of the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises to ensure their potential for survival in the interim and the long term. as such, the present study was guided by a framework produced by the international labour organization (ilo), which lists the six basic conditions necessary for nurturing sustainable enterprises. this study made use of both primary and secondary data that included a household survey carried out on 40 households and 10 key informant interviews. in line with five of the six pillars of the ilo framework, the study found the following: 1) there is a governance framework instituted by the district council that regulates the operations of businesses; 2) the infrastructure to support businesses is either not in place or is in a poor state; 3) enterprises practice responsible stewardship of the environment; 4) the society and culture is supportive of enterprise formation; and 5) the macro-economic environment is riddled with uncertainties. the study concludes that whilst remittances  institute of development studies, national university of science and technology, bulawayo, zimbabwe.  institute of development studies, national university of science and technology, bulawayo, zimbabwe.  institute of development studies, national university of science and technology, bulawayo, zimbabwe.  institute of development studies, national university of science and technology, bulawayo, zimbabwe.  institute of development studies, national university of science and technology, bulawayo, zimbabwe. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1460 provide seed capital for entrepreneurs to invest in tsholotsho, the environment does not adequately support the sustainable running of those enterprises. keywords migrant, remittances, sustainability, enterprises, zimbabwe, tsholotsho. introduction from 2000 to 2009, zimbabwe experienced a mass exodus of its populace to the diaspora due to the economic meltdown and political unrest that characterised this period. this phenomenon created different economic opportunities across the country, with the massive inflow of remittances to zimbabwe from migrants leading to a significant emergence of enterprises in areas such as tsholotsho. this article seeks to address the questions that ensued from a study carried out in the same area, which sought to follow the distribution of remittance use between consumption and investment, analysed the kind of investments remittances promote in the local economy, and examined the impact of remittances on local development (ncube & gomez, 2011; ncube & gómez, 2015). ncube and gómez’s (2011; 2015) study used the ‘follow the money principle’ ethnographic technique. it involved recording several rounds of transactions in a village in rural zimbabwe after receipt of cash from abroad. the study paid attention to four indicative aspects of local development, namely income generation, agricultural productivity and growth, job and enterprise creation, and infrastructure improvements. ncube and gómez (2015: 191) found that remittances: [...] promote micro-enterprises and employment generation; increase the households purchasing power, which revitalises entrepreneurial skills among those that are inclined towards own-employment and leads to investments that add diversity and income to the local economy, resulting in what is referred to as productive consumption. furthermore, the study revealed that “productive consumption created opportunities for investment in growth-oriented smes, whether their owners are receivers of remittances or not” (ibid). on one hand, the receivers formed a consumptive class with limited motivation to run new businesses. as such, they mainly focused on upgrading agricultural activities. on the other hand, the non-receivers formed a pool of low-wage labour (ncube & gómez, 2015). the results from the study indicated that “the enterprises and jobs created were not particularly of high quality or innovative and their sustainability in african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1461 the event that remittances cease flowing in was not ascertained” (ncube & gómez, 2015: 191). this uncertainty necessitated further research into the sustainability of these remittance-inspired enterprises. furthermore, in february 2009, zimbabwe introduced the multi-currency system, which brought new dynamics related to the sustainability of these enterprises. this, coupled with the foregoing, called for review of the sustainability of these remittance-inspired enterprises to ensure their potential for survival in the interim and the long term. to this end, this article amplifies the current understanding in development discourse that the matabeleland region has had the highest incidence of emigration in the country and has experienced significantly high returns from remittances (maphosa, 2005; ncube & gómez, 2011). according to maphosa (2005: 3), “remittances are the most important source of income for many households in the southern [and northern] districts of zimbabwe.” in tsholotsho, this high turnover of remittances has seen an increase in the development of enterprises that have possibly improved the employment rate in the region. however, the sustainability of these remittance-inspired enterprises has not been established notwithstanding their high prevalence. thus, this article investigates the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises in tsholotsho district. this is done in light of the dynamics of the multi-currency systems and their broad impacts on enterprises. remittances and entrepreneurship globally, remittances are worth billions annually with the world bank (2018) estimating that in 2017 remittances amounted to us$613 billion. the world bank (2018) goes on to indicate that remittances to lowand middle-income countries increased from us$429 billion in 2016 to us$466 billion in 2017. for southern africa, the remittances totalled us$38 billion in 2017 (ibid). in 2017, the top remittance-receiving countries included india (us$65,380 million), china (us$62,850 million), philippines (us$32,795 million), mexico (us$30,534 million), nigeria (us$18,956 million), and egypt (us$18,199 million) (knomad, 2019). in zimbabwe, diaspora remittances have been steadily rising from a low of approximately us$300 million in 2009 to a high of us$939 million in 2015 (reserve bank of zimbabwe, 2017; iom, 2018). in countries affected by long-term crises, migration is often seen as a key coping survival strategy, which leads to the formation of diasporas that play an important role in sustaining the livelihoods of those who remain behind. remittances are viewed as counter-cyclical. they increase during periods of african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1462 crisis and therefore play an important role in enabling some people to survive in such periods. zimbabwe’s migration trends and the size of the zimbabwean diaspora population, although varied and contested, seem to confirm this view; the number of zimbabweans migrating to the diaspora has been steadily increasing, especially during peak crisis periods. to this end, estimates of zimbabweans in the diaspora range from a low of 571,970 living in the top five countries of destination (iom, 2018) to an estimate of 1,253,100 (ratha, mohapatra, & scheja, 2011) to a high of over 3,000,000 said to have emigrated over the last decade, with roughly two thirds of these migrants heading to south africa (von burgsdorff, 2012). the top five countries of destination and their zimbabwean populations in 2018 are as follows: south africa (358,109), the united kingdom (115,708), malawi (35,287), australia (34,034), and botswana (28,832) (iom, 2018). the significance of the size of the zimbabwean diaspora community becomes clearer if one juxtaposes it with the size of zimbabwe’s population of 13,061,239 in 2012 (iom, 2018). maphosa (2005) notes that remittances from south africa are the most important source of income for many households in the southern districts of zimbabwe. indeed, zimbabwean migrants working in south africa, including undocumented migrants, remit significant amounts from their host country to their communities of origin (ibid). remittances are defined as “income (in any form) received by a household in one distinct place, from individuals or households living in another place” (savage & harvey, 2007: 10). however, for the purposes of this study, the remittances in question refer to money sent to zimbabwe by emigrants in the diaspora. zimbabwe is one of the top ten emigrating countries in the sub-saharan region (iom, 2009). most zimbabweans in the neighbouring countries remit cash at least once a month. those within the sadc region visit zimbabwe frequently and, as such, are more able to remit in person (ibid). it is estimated that zimbabweans in south africa remitted zar 5.1–6.8 billion, which is us$680– 905 million in 2011 (von burgsdorff, 2012). remittances are now seen as a way of reducing poverty (iom, 2009). it can be noted that remittances ease survival for the vulnerable and for some remittances can sustain local trading. chalise (2014) holds that a good investment climate with well-developed financial systems and sound institutions is likely to lead to a higher degree of remittances invested in physical and human capital. it is argued that remittances form a source of savings and capital for investment in education, health, and entrepreneurship, all of which have an effect on productivity, employment, and growth in both the short term and the long term (nzima, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1463 2013; mishi & mudziwapasi, 2014; nzima, et al. 2017). however, the largest impact on growth and development occurs when remittances fund productive investment. poverty tends to be higher in rural areas than in urban areas, and remittances are viewed as central elements of household strategies to overcome poverty and development constraints (de haas, 2007). a significant number of studies reveal that households receiving remittances from across borders have a higher propensity to invest than non-migrant households when controlling for income and other relevant household variables per se (ibid). de haas (2007) notes that the extent to which money is remitted, and how and where remittances are spent by the recipient, essentially depends on the migrant’s social and economic position in the destination country, as well as on the investment conditions in the countries of origin. jokisch (2002) posits that remittances have helped migrants to invest in land, cattle, and housing, and in some cases, remittances have not been focussed on agricultural improvements. they have also been used to pay for education and health, settle debts, perpetuate emigration, and fund luxurious consumption, such as large homes (ibid). some scholars (nzima, 2013; ncube & gómez, 2015; nzima, duma, & moyo, 2016) argue that the ultimate impact of remittances on local development would be reflected by indicators such as employment creation, start-ups and investments in small enterprises, and an overall increased competitiveness. in their study carried out in village 2 of ward 19 in tsholotsho district, zimbabwe, ncube and gomez (2015) found that the recipients of remittances purchased assets that boosted their income streams and sustained them in the event of shocks. inter alia, these assets included scotch-carts, livestock, solar panels, brick under asbestos, and zinc housing structures. ncube and gomez’s analysis revealed that the remittances increased household purchasing power, awakened entrepreneurial skills and thus led to investments that added diversity and income to the local economy. maphosa's (2005) remittance study in ward 7 of mangwe district in matabeleland, south province of zimbabwe, revealed that 31.2 percent of remittances were invested in agriculture. ten percent was invested in the business sector, such as in general dealer shops, grindings mills, and bottle stores, amongst others. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1464 the integrated approach to sustainable enterprise development the ilo (2007:7) posits the following: [...] sustainable enterprises are those which truly value human resources, over and above other resources (natural, financial, physical) and ensure that all who are engaged in the activities of the enterprise have appropriate skills sets, capacities and lifelong learning possibilities. there are several external constraints to enterprise development (which businesses may have no control over) and internal constraints to enterprise development (relating to the capacities and knowledge of entrepreneurs) (reinecke, 2002; ilo, 2014). examples of internal constraints include the quality of labour, skill levels, and education. education includes basic numeracy and reading skills. external constraints include the socio-economic environment and the polity. as such, the promotion of sustainable enterprises is an extensive subject due to the diversity of enterprises in terms of size, sector, spatial dimensions, management, governance systems, legal status, and operational objectives (reinecke & white, 2004, ilo, 2005). according to ilo (2007: v): [...] promoting sustainable enterprises is about strengthening the institutions and governance systems which nurture enterprises because strong and efficient markets need strong and effective institutions; and ensuring that human, financial and natural resources are combined equitably and efficiently in order to bring about innovation and enhanced productivity. the importance of enterprise as the prime source of growth and employment cannot be overemphasised. driven by the pursuit for profits, enterprises innovate, invest, and generate employment and wage income. to achieve this, they are often in need of a supportive and enabling environment pigeonholed by the existence of open, rule-based, predictable, and non-discriminatory markets, as well as non-corrupt and well-governed economies (grebel, 2005). the concept of ‘sustainable enterprise’ is associated with the universal approach to sustainable development. this approach emphasises forms of progress that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. it is an approach that proposes a holistic, impartial, and integrated perspective on development (harris, 2000; ilo, 2005). iol (2007: 7) notes: african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1465 in contrast to narrowly defined, traditional perspectives which depict enterprises in terms of linear input–output relationships centred solely on maximizing short-term economic value, an integrated approach to sustainable enterprise development takes a more holistic and long-term view. it gives distinct overlaps of mutually dependent operational and policy spheres which exist on micro, macro, and meta levels. the micro level is concerned with the enterprise itself and its immediate environment. it covers the various resources that make an enterprise sustainable, for example, natural and physical resources (reinecke & white, 2004; ilo, 2007). the macro level embodies policy frameworks that directly determine the competitive and enabling environment, as well as the sustainability and growth potential of enterprises (ibid). the meta level refers to: [...] the broad political, economic, social and environmental conditions which determine, among other things, the quality of institutions and governance in a society and; include a range of factors which might not be specific to enterprise but effectively influencing broader private sector development and general societal outcomes such as stability, inclusivity and the challenges of addressing issues like inequality and corruption (ilo, 2007: 8). therefore, it is clear that there are complex and diverse conditions necessary for creating the prospect for sustainable enterprises. the basics of these conditions include, inter alia, good governance and social dialogue, microeconomic stability and sound management of the economy, sociocultural dynamics, physical capital, environmental stewardship, as well as equity and socio-economic inclusion. these conditions are summarised in figure 1 and explained below. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1466 figure 1: basic conditions for creating the opportunity for sustainable enterprises (iol, 2007). according to the ilo (2007) framework, the good governance and social dialogue pillar encapsulates tenets such as participation, consultation, transparency, accountability, and a legal framework that enables creation of opportunities for enterprises. this also entails the respect of property rights and their legal enforcement and protection. an effective social dialogue between the government, the civic society, and the private sector needs to be in place. efficient civil and political institutions and processes foster an environment of opportunity and just. social inclusion has the potential to create bigger outputs and markets though increased participation. it is argued that social inclusion is inherent in sustainable societies and strengthens the potential for sustainable enterprises. high levels of income inequality hinder opportunities for the poor to contribute and participate in the economy. this can also weaken poverty reduction attempts and undermine political stability. there should be proper stewardship of natural resources by the government african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1467 on behalf its citizenry. similarly, good macroeconomic policies that provide stability and certainty are vital. these polices nurture and foster the spirit of entrepreneurship. good management of the economy, resources and, on a micro level, sustainable enterprises is needed. sound savings and investments mechanisms lead to better physical infrastructure. commerce grows hand in hand with opportunities. enterprises flourish in environments in which the culture supports entrepreneurship (ilo, 2007). the aforementioned basic conditions for creating the opportunity for sustainable enterprises are appropriate to consider in this article, as it investigates the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises. these basic conditions foster and nurture sustainable enterprises. notwithstanding the importance of all the aforementioned pillars of the ilo framework and their building blocks, this study only focuses on the following pillars: good governance and social dialogue, social and cultural support of enterprises, responsible stewardship of the environment, physical infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, and sound management of the economy. given the broad nature of the concept of good governance, this study focuses on the availability of legal frameworks that support enterprise development and growth. methodology quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in this study. quantitative data was collected through a household survey. to complement the quantitative data, qualitative data was collected through interviews that were conducted with key informants such as the entrepreneurs, the district administrator’s (da) office, and the rural district council’s (rdc) office. furthermore, documents from the da’s office in tsholotsho district, such as the rural district councils act of 1988, district development plan, and rdc’s reports, were reviewed. tsholotsho district is in matabeleland north province in the western part of zimbabwe and is comprised of 21 wards. the district lies in the agro-ecological region five, which is characterised by low and erratic rainfall averaging 650mm per annum (maphosa et al., 2014). tsholotsho is one of the districts in matabeleland provinces which was affected by the political disturbances african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1468 known as gukurahundi1 in the early 1980s, where it is alleged that 20,000 people were massacred (moyo, 2017; ndlovu, 2017). this political history and economic marginalisation of matabeleland in general and tsholotsho in particular has had great influence on sustained migration patterns (ncube & gómez, 2015). sampling procedures tsholotsho district was purposively selected due to its high incidence of migration and remittance-inspired enterprises. of the 21 wards in tsholotsho, 2 were sampled purposively since this was a follow-up study on ward 19. the other ward (ward 16) was also chosen purposively since it borders ward 19 and, hence, they have similar socio-economic profiles. each of the sampled wards has 6 villages, meaning that a total of 12 villages made up the targeted population. one village was picked in each of the wards. according to the zimstat 2012 census findings, ward 19 has 1208 households and ward 16 has 1204. as such, a total of 2,412 households were part of the targeted population. given this total number of households, on average, each village in tsholotsho has approximately 200 households. as such, by multiplying the number of households by the number of villages in the sample, a total of 400 households was obtained. this was further sampled by picking every 10th household in the village, providing a total sample of 40 households, representing 10% of the study population. to gather further data, purposive sampling was used in the identification of key informants – that is, entrepreneurs – the district administrator’s office and the council office. data collection methods this research required both primary and secondary data. primary data was gathered through various instruments, which were developed in line with the study objectives and the ilo conceptual model. the instruments were translated into isindebele, a local language spoken in tsholotsho, before being piloted in ward 17, which is adjacent to the sampled wards. after the pilot, anomalies that were observed in the instruments were addressed. the 1 the term ‘gukurahundi’ refers to the ‘early rain that washes away chaff before the spring rains’, referring to the period of post-colonial, state sanctioned political and ethnic violence enacted against the ndebele people in the matabeleland and midlands regions by the fifth brigade (cameron, 2017). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1469 instruments included a household survey questionnaire carried out on 40 households in the sampled villages. the questionnaire captured indicators of the amount of remittances received, spending patterns, and dominant currency, among other key factors. it also captured how these factors eventually affected enterprise development and sustainability. notably, not all significant information relating to the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises and the effects of the multi-currency system in tsholotsho district could be gathered through a survey. as such, the study also made use of in-depth interviews with the key informants. it probed the institutional frameworks available to support entrepreneurs (e.g. business development services), the prevailing legal environment governing the operations of the enterprises, the nature of human resources engaged, and the plough back techniques that the entrepreneurs adopted. findings the findings reveal that of the 40 respondents that participated in the survey, 66% were aged 51 years and above. the majority of these were women who constituted 90% (36) of the respondents. all the respondents had attained some level of education albeit at varying levels. of the total number of respondents, 85% (34) stated that they received an income of between us$100 and us$200 a month, inclusive of remittances. all the respondents mentioned that they had at least one relative in south africa, with 80% indicating that these family members send remittances of at least zar200 to zar500 every month. the majority of the respondents received their remittances from south africa through informal means. the predominant mode of remitting was through cross-border transporters, informally and natively known as ‘omalayitsha’2, and sometimes through relatives or allies travelling back home from south africa. the challenges associated with this were that there were delays in delivery, failure to deliver by omalayitsha who embezzled funds, delivery of fake money by omalayitsha, preference for the us dollar (usd) over the south african rand (zar) in paying fees, not enough money was received to cater for the needs at home, heavy commissions by omalayitsha, and unstable rand exchange rates. all these challenges negatively impacted the receiving households. 2 omalayitsha is the isindebele word for private transporters or courier-service providers, which literally means ‘those who carry’. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1470 responding to a multiple response question, respondents indicated that the remittances they received were generally used to subsidise household expenses (86%), pay for children’s education (58%), finance building projects (45%), pay for access to health care (40%), pay for burial society membership subscriptions (33%), buy livestock (24%), among others. these remittances were predominantly spent locally depending on the availability of the commodities being sought. this was the case mainly because the money received was hardly enough to finance the movement to and from bulawayo, the closest city, and at the same time get meaningful household supplies. however, before dollarization, households indicated that they used to buy their goods in bulawayo because the exchange rate was favourable. this afforded them more zimbabwean dollars from the zar they would have received. this is unlike in the current economic regime, in which zimbabwe has adopted the multi-currency system. in this system, recipients of remittances no longer have the advantage of exchange rate differentials that they enjoyed during the zimbabwean dollar era. the majority (72%) of the households indicated that they never get surplus from the monetary remittances received. the remittances received were hardly enough to cover basic necessities. for those who had surplus, they indicated that they saved the money or used it to cover other day-to-day needs, for example, labour. it also emerged from this study that although local households received remittances, they did not have much capital to invest, which proved detrimental to sustaining enterprises. this coupled with a poor economic environment, liquidity challenges, the unstable exchange rate between the usd and the zar, as well as the depreciation of the rand, negatively affected businesses and ultimately their sustainability. key issues in the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises governance according to méndez-picazo et al. (2012), the behaviour and performance of the government in specific countries creates an environment that will promote or thwart the growth of entrepreneurship as a viable vehicle for economic growth. additionally, historical, cultural, socio-economic, and political processes have been identified as determinants of the growth or demise of entrepreneurship (ilo, 2007). in the case of tsholotsho district, there were evident governance structures and regulatory frameworks that were supportive of entrepreneurship in the form of relevant by-laws. for example, in an interview with the tsholotsho rdc chief executive officer (ceo), it was revealed that the rdc was empowered to institute by-laws, charge enterprises african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1471 certain levies, and even fine the enterprises in cases of transgression. the ceo averred that: [...] as an rdc we are the responsible authority for all business operations in the district. we are empowered by the rural district councils act chapter 29:13 to, amongst other things, regulate these business operations by promulgating by-laws. furthermore, we are entitled to charge fees for licences that we issue, such as liquor and shop licences. we also levy rates and other charges to these enterprises so that we can use the revenue generated to further development in the district. this is evidence of some form of governance, support, and regulation of enterprises through its by-laws. méndez-picazo et al. (2012) observe that laws, decisions made by policy makers and public officials and institutions, create incentives for economic agents (in this case entrepreneurs) to invest, and this has direct effects on economic growth. this means that the governance and regulatory mechanisms in place boost investor confidence as they can see value for money. however, in the case of tsholotsho, although these governance provisions are in place, the local authority indicated that some enterprises did not pay their levies through licencing fees. this is indicative of some of the ill-elements in the entrepreneurial field, as some entrepreneurs are only after making profit and are not necessarily keen on future development and sustainability. notably, most of the remittanceinspired enterprises in the locality had a profit orientation rather than a sustainability orientation. as a result, regardless of the significantly enabling governance framework in the district, some of the enterprises did not comply with the requirements, thus jeopardising their chances of sustainability. although, according to the rdc by-laws, failure to pay levies may result in shops being shut down or licenses revoked resulting in loss of business, not much was done to enforce these by-laws. this could be partly attributed to the fact that 65% of the survey respondents expressed sentiment that corruption and bribery were also common practices in the allocation of stands and policing for licences. this is detrimental to enterprise development, growth, and opportunities. the responsibility to ensure that such ill practices are discouraged lies with the rdc, and the rdc should have coined mechanisms to ensure that the punishment for failure to pay the levies and comply with the by-laws is greater than non-compliance. although there are provisions for regulation of entrepreneurship at the macro-level, the micro (rdc) entities are failing to enforce the governance mechanisms (chalise, 2014). this results in african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1472 curtailing the benefits of entrepreneurship and its potential to contribute to economic growth. furthermore, the vibrancy of the enterprises is negatively affected by lack of collectives for enterprise proprietors. all the enterprise owners interviewed indicated that they do not have associations that provide a platform for them to collectively advance their interests. therefore, the enterprise owners seem to be advancing individual interests instead of pushing for collectivity, especially as they engage with governing authorities. social and cultural support of enterprises entrepreneurs play an important role in the process of industrialization, employment creation, and breaking the vicious circle of poverty (ncube & gómez, 2011; chalise, 2014; nzima et al., 2017). however, for enterprises to thrive in any given locality, the society and culture in which they exist should be supportive of entrepreneurship (ilo, 2007). this creates an enabling environment that promotes the sustainability of the business ventures. in tsholotsho, it emerged that through its rdc, the district had regulations in place that were supportive of enterprise formation. this had a positive effect on the viability of the enterprises as there were institutional provisions to support the establishment of enterprises in the district. according to the ilo (2007), enterprises are likely to be sustainable when their host societies embrace a broad-based culture that is supportive of enterprise development. thus, the availability of sound institutional frameworks and regulations in the sphere of business, as well as locals’ buying behaviour in tsholotsho, demonstrates that the society and culture at large are supportive of enterprises. in this regard, 80% (32) of the survey respondents indicated that they buy their goods from local enterprises and also contract local service providers for services such as brick moulding and building. this is in line with scholarship on sustainable enterprises, which proffers that, for enterprises to be sustainable, host societies and cultures at large should be pro-enterprise development and governed by sound institutions that promote and reward business intelligence and successes (ncube & gómez, 2011, nzima, 2013; ncube & gómez, 2015). although most of the households that received remittances did not directly invest in any entrepreneurial activities, the institutional and socio-cultural environment in the district is supportive of enterprises in tsholotsho as evidenced by a high incidence (88%) of family run remittance-inspired enterprises in the study area. to further buttress the notion that the society and culture is supportive of enterprises, one of the key informants representing the local government opined that: african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1473 [...] in this area, we embrace entrepreneurship and as families, we also support each other in any business adventures. that is why you will find that there are a lot of shops around here whose owners are in south africa but their family members here will make sure that the business is open and runs smoothly every day. furthermore, it emerged that in tsholotsho there is high tolerance for tribal diversity as a significant number of enterprise owners were people who were foreign to the locality who were attracted by remittances. some come as far as masvingo, yet comfortably trade in the area. this resonates with the assertion on the socio-cultural dimension of sustainable enterprises, which typically includes the following: […] a commitment to promote social integration by fostering societies that are stable, safe and just and which are based on the promotion and protection of all human rights and on non-discrimination, tolerance, respect for diversity, equality of opportunity, security and participation of all people including the disadvantaged and vulnerable groups and persons (ilo, 2007: 9). this kind of diversity was noted in tsholotsho, entailing that the society has high tolerance for people who are not native to the locality yet are pioneering meaningful business initiatives that may foster greater sustainability in the resultant enterprises. this was in line with the findings of ncube and gomez (2011), that remittances in the study area had attracted investors from afar. remittances and physical infrastructure the relationship between infrastructure and economic development has been well established by various authors. thus, it is relevant to briefly interrogate how remittances have spurred infrastructural development in the study area. this is critical given that “little research has been undertaken to establish links between infrastructure and private economic activity at the local level and for rural areas” (rives & heaney, 1995: 60). notwithstanding that a sound infrastructure is a key enabler of local economic development, this study established that remittances have not directly contributed to the establishment of public infrastructure in the study area. in the survey, none of the 40 respondents indicated that they had used their remittances in part or in full to advance public infrastructural development in their localities. the closest that remittances have come to contributing to infrastructural development in the area is through the construction of a local clinic that, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1474 according to the councillor for ward 19, was largely funded from pooled resources contributed by diasporas mostly based in south africa and botswana. the councillor for ward 19 revealed the following: [...] people in this area generally do not invest their remittances in public infrastructure development, perhaps because the remittances they receive are mostly enough to cover their sustenance with no surplus to invest let alone in the development of public infrastructure. even on the soft infrastructure side, there has not been any meaningful injection of remittances to fund issues, such as human capital development or aiding the development of sound regulatory mechanisms within the district. since infrastructure is a key enabler of economic development, this lack of investment on both the soft and hard infrastructure calls into question the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises. for instance, the lack of investment in the road network by those businesspeople who are into brickmaking and welding constrains the development of these enterprises as market access becomes an inhibiting factor. this is so because the access roads to the business centre are in a poor state due to lack of maintenance. the laissez-faire approach to issues of infrastructural development by the business community is largely explained by the belief that this is the domain of the government and its related agencies. furthermore, on the soft infrastructure side it is of concern that there is no investment to boost human capital development. this is because tsholotsho has suffered serious brain and brawn drain. for most of the enterprises surveyed, the employees for very basic jobs such as shop keepers, were coming from faraway places such as nkayi, binga, hwange, lupane, and masvingo. most of the businesspeople also revealed that there are challenges regarding the supply of electricity and water in the business centre. this situation thus calls for greater involvement by the business community in ensuring that these vital services are availed consistently. however, no such initiatives were noted during the course of the study. such a situation compromises the sustainability of all enterprises in general. for instance, two bakery owners said they continually suffer losses due to power cuts, which affects the bread production process. this led to the production of poorquality bread, which they had to sell at sub-economic prices. the situation was the same for welders, as they claimed that sometimes they could go for a whole day without working on any orders placed by clients due to load shedding. the welders averred that this situation led local people to opt to buy readymade african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1475 products, such as window frames, door frames, and scotch carts from other areas, such as bulawayo. one of the key issues that came out of the study is that most of the enterprises were operating from rented premises. this indicates that the businesspeople who had initiated their enterprises through remittances were not just failing to contribute to public infrastructure development but were also failing to build infrastructure for their own use. another key determinant of the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises relates to how the businesses interact with the natural environment, which is discussed in the following section. responsible stewardship of the environment the nature of environmental usage is one of the critical factors that determine the sustainability of business enterprises. this is especially true for those businesses that directly rely on the natural environment for their survival. as noted above, some of the businesses initiated through remittance funding rely primarily on the natural environment. for instance, there are a number of brick-moulding enterprises around the business centre. the brick moulding enterprises are creating environmental hazards in the area through sand poaching. the councillor for ward 16 indicated that, as a council, they were seized with the matter as they were empowered by the rural district councils act to manage the environment in their areas of jurisdiction. he averred that [...] as a council we are obliged to manage the environment in tsholotsho and the act [rdc act, 1988] directs that we should have a council committee responsible for the environment. we have that committee and as a council we have noted with concern that some of the brick-making enterprises did not get river sand through official channels but instead resorted to poaching in undesignated areas. this practise, the councillor argued, leads to environmental degradation in general, and in terms of the siltation of rivers and dams in particular. however, the councillor also noted that whilst these enterprises degraded the environment, it was at a lower scale than the traditional brick-moulding practises to which locals are accustomed. he argued that these practises degraded the environment through extensive deforestation, since firewood is needed to light fires to catalyse the brick hardening process. furthermore, traditional brick-moulding requires moulders to source clay, which leads to land degradation. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1476 macroeconomic stability and sound management of the economy macroeconomic policies that seek to stabilize the economy are fundamental in the growth of sustainable enterprises. according to ilo (2007), macroeconomic policies should guarantee steady and conducive conditions for sustainable economic growth. also, sound management of the economy should focus on creating better job opportunities, combating inflation, and formulating and implementing policies and regulatory frameworks that encourage long-term investments. in relation to this study, it is critical to assess the macroeconomic environment in the study area and how the zimbabwean economy is managed as a condition of promoting sustainable enterprises. it is worth noting that, at the time of the establishment of these enterprises, the macro-economic environment prevailing in zimbabwe was characterised by hyperinflation. this environment made establishing business ventures challenging. however, as has been alluded to earlier in this paper, the availability of foreign currency remitted by zimbabweans in the diaspora made it possible to establish these enterprises. this was mainly due to favourable exchange rates for those with foreign currency. the state of the economic instability in zimbabwe made spending by the local recipients of remittances economic in nature. the research revealed that, apart from the local members of the community, there were shop owners who came from other regions to establish their businesses in tsholotsho district. this was in the hope of tapping into the monetary remittances being received in the district. however, with the introduction of the multi-currency system, the macroeconomic environment stabilised, thereby eroding the comparative advantage that the tsholotsho residents had enjoyed over the years. a stable macroeconomic environment would naturally promote sustainable growth of enterprises. however, business owners who were interviewed complained about the exchange rate that was so unfavourable to them, as they changed the weaker zar to the stronger usd. for instance, a businessperson who operates a welding company indicated the following: [...] when the rand was stronger than the zimbabwean dollar, business was good. however, now with the rand weaker than most of the currencies used in zimbabwe, we are struggling to survive. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1477 these sentiments were echoed by another businessman who argued that “this place [tsholotsho] has rands but when we buy raw materials we are negatively affected by the cross-rate since where we get our stuff, they want us dollars”. as a result of these observed realities, the prevailing macroeconomic environment does not encourage the growth and sustainability of these enterprises, given the fact that very few jobs are created by the enterprises and that the market, which promoted their very establishment, are slowly but surely dwindling. one observation that came out strongly from key informants during the research was that it was becoming a lot cheaper for the diaspora to send groceries than to send money to purchase commodities in the local shops. a retailer in dikili, ward 16, indicated that [...] demand for most non-perishable commodities had been declining gradually since the introduction of the multi-currency regime. this has largely been influenced by an increase in the inflow of in-kind remittances. inevitably, this affected demand for various commodities and services offered by the enterprises. scholars have argued that the development of sustainable enterprises cannot be achieved without addressing demand drivers. this study revealed that there are no specific policies or strategies to stimulate demand, hence putting the sustainability of enterprises into question. for instance, entrepreneurs bemoaned lack of access to capital as a drawback in their business operations that curtailed their efforts to expand the businesses. to this end, a proprietor of a bakery in the matshangana business centre argued that “we wish to grow but we have no capital.” this challenge was also highlighted by a fellow business person who indicated that “no institution is supporting us, we wish someone could finance us or give us access to loans so that we can conduct business properly.” these concerns were corroborated by the assistant to the district administrator, who indicated that “access to capital remains a challenge for small rural enterprises as capital that was available had stringent conditions attached to it which most rural entrepreneurs cannot meet.” the other observation that was made in the field was that of a relatively bettermanaged economy by the government of national unity (gnu) from 2009 to 2013. during this period, there was general flow of cash and it was in good supply. however, at the time of research, the new government at the helm of the zimbabwean economy was facing a cash crisis. the liquidity crisis affects african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1478 spending by both enterprises and consumers. thus, in the long run, it is a threat to the sustainability of the enterprises. conclusion and recommendations this study interrogated the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises in tsholotsho. it established that there are steady inflows of remittances, mainly from neighbouring countries. these remittances are usually small amounts channelled through informal means. as such, most of the money received is used for consumptive purposes, such as healthcare, education, funerals, food expenses, etc. in investigating the sustainability of the remittance-inspired enterprises, the study was guided by the ilo framework. on the good governance and social dialogue pillar, it emerged that there are structures in place, instituted by the tsholotsho rdc, which regulate the operations of businesses, creating a conducive environment for entrepreneurship. nonetheless, a major drawback in the operations of enterprises in this respect is the lack of organisation on the part of the business community, where each operator minds his or her business without due consideration of the wider interests of the group. the study revealed that the infrastructure to support vibrant businesses is either poor or non-existent. furthermore, it noted that the business community is not contributing to the development of a sound infrastructural base to aid economic development in the district. the study further noted that the poor infrastructural base is further compounded by a macro-economic environment that has been in flux, dovetailing political developments in the country. as such, there have been periods that have been enticing for those with remittances to initiate enterprises within the district, whilst those with established businesses would be recording brisk business. however, it should be stressed that where remittance-inspired enterprises are concerned, macroeconomic stability does not always translate to thriving enterprises. this is because there have been times where an economic downturn has actually spurred remittance-inspired enterprises, as was discussed in the case of tsholotsho. in terms of responsible stewardship of the environment, the establishment of some licenced enterprises such as brick-making is assisting in promoting better ways of interacting with the natural environment. nonetheless, there are concerns relating to unsustainable use of the environment by the locals such as traditional brick-makers. the activities of such groups can in future jeopardise those of licenced brick-makers. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1479 the tsholotsho community was found to be supportive of enterprises, including those established by proprietors from other districts. furthermore, the establishment of enterprises through remittances promoted both social and economic inclusion, as jobs are created and goods are made available locally. in light of the foregoing, it can be surmised that remittances provide seed capital for entrepreneurs to invest in tsholotsho, and the environment obtaining does not adequately support those enterprises to be run in a sustainable manner. notwithstanding, it is recommended that efforts to support and strengthen remittance-inspired enterprises be upscaled to ensure their continued contribution to local economic development and sustainability. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to the research board of the national university of science and technology for supporting this study with a research grant. furthermore, the authors acknowledge the support of authorities and communities in tsholotsho during the fieldwork phase. references cameron, h. 2017. the matabeleland massacres: britain’s wilful blindness. the international history review, 40(1): 1–19. chalise, b. 2014. remittance and its effect on entrepreneurial activities: a case study from kandebas village development committee, nepal. izmir review of social sciences, 2(1). de haas, h. 2007. the impact of international migration on social and economic development in moroccan sending regions. a review of the empirical 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1 (april 2019) 1482 precarious mobility: infrastructures of eritrean migration through the sudan and the sahara desert tekalign ayalew mengiste abstract this paper explores migrants’ experiences and their specific practices geared towards negotiating migration barriers and the effects of externalization. contemporary migration from eritrea is shaped by changing migrant aspirations, expanding networks of intermediaries and socioeconomic challenges. this is compounded by the european union’s (eu) externalization of border controls and limited opportunities for legal migration paths. in this context, a vast majority of eritrean young men and women opt for overland exits through dangerous and long trails across the sahara desert and the mediterranean sea until they arrive in europe. the irregular transitions and stepwise mobility are facilitated by the interactions of actors, mainly smugglers, family members in one’s homeland, former migrants en route and in the diaspora as well as the local people along the trails, which i call infrastructures of migratory mobility. the paper argues that migrants and their communities develop and use alternative mobility infrastructures by establishing a transnational knowledge community to navigate increasing migration controls in origin and transit countries, as well as the externalization of european borders and migratory controls. keywords migration infrastructure, journey, transition, eritrea, smuggling, knowledge, externalization. introduction our dream is to reach europe at any cost. look at what is happening here [sudan]….the police chase us everywhere in khartoum. we must leave soon…. we cannot go back to eritrea.... staying here is also  assistant professor of social anthropology at addis ababa university and research associate at stockholm university. email: tekalign.ayalew@socant.su.se african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1483 dangerous.... i pray to find a good ‘semsari’1 [lit. smuggler in arabic] and a good co-traveller. i am gathering information about routes, smugglers, timing, how to behave during interactions with smugglers, how to hide money, which clothes, medicine and food to carry. i am also waiting for my sister from germany to send me money to pay the ‘semsari’ who would assist us to cross the desert. the vignette above was narrated by an eritrean migrant named meqdi, who was in her 30s when i met her in khartoum, sudan, in april 2016. she was mobilizing resources to cross the desert from khartoum. her situation was not an isolated case. it was a typical example of how, in the context of challenging socio-economic and political conditions in origin and transit countries and limited availability of paths for legal migration, young male and female migrants from eritrea strive to organize precarious journeys across deserts and seas. this paper discusses the emergence and role of irregular migration facilitating infrastructures that support and sustain eritreans migrating to europe and their transition experiences in the sudan in the context of the european union’s (eu) increasing efforts to externalize border controls. by transition i mean an onward migratory mobility through transit spaces. the discussion is based on empirical data from the field that show specific resources and knowledge used by migrants to keep moving, despite the stated impediments. since 2000, the sudan and libya have been both destination and transition countries for horn of african migrants and asylum seekers who use the northwestern migration routes towards europe via the sudan, the eastern sahara, libya and the mediterranean sea. however, the journey is unpredictable and migrants face uncertainty and violence at every step of their journeys and transitions, particularly in libya. the migratory journeys across the sahara desert have always been risky (dinbabo and carciotto, 2015; dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015; triulzi and mackenzie, 2013: 219). however, the level, types and intensity of violence have recently become more complex, particularly after the libyan civil wars. the situation has deteriorated further with the eu’s insistence on tightening the control of its external borders with the mediterranean sea and libya. it has created a legal and security vacuum where 1 semsari: a term used for persons who informally arrange travel documents or transport services for migrants in exchange for money. migrants also use the term alternatively with delaloch when they are in libya, sudan or other middle eastern countries. semsaris or delalochs also arrange domestic work for migrant women in the sudan, libya and italy. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1484 various criminal groups take advantage of the increasing number of migrants who try to cross the desert and enter libya for subsequent mobility towards italy or beyond (cf. reitano, 2015). in addition, countries such as ethiopia and the sudan cooperate with the eu in border controls as they introduce tough border control strategies including seizing and imprisoning eritrean migrants irregularly transiting through their territories (cf. gaibazzi et al., 2017; mengiste, 2017). this indicates not just tightened border control in europe but the diffusion of border control practices from europe to africa. because of these measures and the structural violence manifested via the unequal access to safe migration channels between citizens of the global north and those of the south, a migration journey to europe requires more resources than before, not only in terms of finance but also with regard to reliable information and useful connections with former migrants stationed en route and those settled in the diaspora. nevertheless, migrants are not just victims of this direct and structural violence and the impediments erected along their treks. they have a collective practice in producing and sharing relevant knowledge, finance and other resources by multiplying the effectiveness of individual capacity to enhance their safety and welfare and to keep moving (cf. wheatley and gombergmuñoz, 2016). migrants and their communities design alternative mobility strategies by mobilizing irregular migration facilitation infrastructures (cf. xiang and lindquist, 2014). these include support from their family in the diaspora, smugglers and local people along the route, which becomes a transnational knowledge community (see also mengiste, 2018). this article explores how migrants survive violence and how they organize their migration by mobilizing knowledge, finance, and smuggling services at different phases of their journeys. the next section elaborates the underlining socio-economic and political conditions of mass migration from eritrea. background/contextualization eritrea has recently become one of the leading refugee-sending countries in the world, mainly towards europe. between 2013 and 2016, eritreans constituted about 20 percent of migrants entering italy by sea (frouws, 2017) and from 2013 until 2017 about 104,415 eritreans arrived in italy by sea (unhcr, 2018). however, eritreans have been fleeing war and conflict since the 1960s: first they experienced a 30-year-long war of independence from ethiopia (between 1960 and 1991), which was compounded by recurrent drought and famine that generated about 1 million eritrean refugees scattered african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1485 throughout the world. many of the early refugees settled along transit countries such as ethiopia, the sudan, and libya. contemporary migration routes that link eritrea with europe, are extending financial support and information to newly arriving migrants. many of the young people from contemporary eritrea are dissatisfied with the growing economic inequalities, prolonged conflicts and repressive political conditions. the introduction of open-ended and not rendering compulsory military service also put the vast majority of eritrean youth in a prison-like situation (see belloni, 2015). they are also lured by diasporic remittances from receiving countries, mainly in europe, or “returnees’ prosperity” and are driven by social and familial expectations. state persecutions and human rights violations in contemporary eritrea lead to an increasing number of refugee flights (treiber, 2014; campbell, 2014; belloni, 2016). there are smugglers and their connectors and several other actors that emerge and engage in mediating barriers and organize departure and mobility. in addition, the regime has not only inadvertently caused an increase in the flight of asylum seekers but also designed strategies to sustain them, for example, through remittances sent back by the exiled community (tecle and goldring, 2013). within this context, risky migration departures and reaching a perceived better refugee receiving country, mainly in europe, have become a part of the societal norm as well as personal and family hopes to survive and thrive in such uncertain socio-political environments (kibreab, 2013; belloni, 2016). this, in turn, is compounded by the eu’s increasing efforts to stop migratory journeys towards europe by introducing various externalization strategies of border controls such as intercepting migrants and refugees en route and forced deportation. european borders have penetrated deep into african territories as the eu has begun collaborating with african states to impede the migration of africans to europe. this has drastically altered well-established regional population movements within africa (andersson, 2014; menjívar, 2014; kleist, 2017). the eu forcefully implemented its externalization programs by engaging countries such as egypt, the sudan, ethiopia and eritrea to fight irregular eritrean and other east african migratory journeys across their territories (stern, 2015). to generate the promised economic and diplomatic gains from the eu’s externalization strategies, the sudan and egypt introduced tighter border controls in 2014. they began shutting down human smuggling routes african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1486 that connect eritrea, the sudan, egypt, libya, the central mediterranean sea and italy. they also continuously intercept eritrean asylum seekers passing through their territories and deport them back to eritrea and ethiopia (mengiste, 2017). however, depriving formal channels of mobility across territorial spaces in the era of ‘global interconnections’ has forced many of the youth from eritrea to find alternative informal, dynamic and defiant means of mobility, often at the expense of their lives (cf. triulzi and mckenzie, 2013; belloni, 2016). dynamic informal migration strategies and facilitating infrastructures have developed to fill this gap between expectations and opportunities of migration and mobility. however, the above discussion does not mean that migrants chose mobility because of political and socioeconomic challenges, all at the same time. for each individual, one of the factors is more important and compelling than others. in addition, one condition results in the other. for instance, political challenges and dictatorship may result in economic deprivations and desperations. thus, the focus of this section is not to explain causes of migration in eritrea, but rather to show the forces behind or the context of eritrean asylum seekers’ flight. the sections below empirically highlight how individual strategies, the flow of information and the flow of money are affected by the externalization measures and how they also help to mitigate externalization effects and all kinds of impediments and risks along the migration trails. conceptual framework the paper analyses the material using two concepts: the notion of structural violence and migration infrastructure. the theory of structural violence explains how structural inequalities (political and economic) systematically deny some people their basic human needs and rights (ho, 2007). it defines violence as the avoidable disparity between the potential ability to fulfil basic needs and their actual fulfilment. the theory further constitutes the unequal share of power to decide over the distribution of resources as the pivotal causal factor of these avoidable structural inequalities (ho, 2007). the theory of structural violence provides a useful framework for the understanding of structural violations of global inequalities that lead to violence. these include limited access to safe migration paths for africans, through an examination of how structures (such as border regimes, poverty, political crises, globalization) constrain migrants’ agency to the extent that migrants’ fundamental human needs are constrained during clandestine journeys. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1487 the renowned sociologist zygmunt bauman noted the unintended and uncontrollable consequences or risks related to contemporary globalization processes. he argued that globalization divides as much as it unites by making the poor poorer, while the rich become richer and those in the middle suffer from “existential uncertainty, anxiety and fear as a result” (bauman, 1998: 4). bauman asserts that the freedom of mobility promoted by globalization is not equally distributed across the world and certain sections of the population. he further stated that “mobility climbs to the rank of the uppermost among the coveted values – and the freedom to move, perpetually a scarce and unequally distributed commodity, fast becomes the main stratifying factor of our latemodern or post-modern times” (bauman, 1998: 2). in transnational migration, context violence refers to structural inequalities that deprive people of access to valued resources, including legal paths of migration and hence forces them to take dangerous migration routes (see holmes, 2013: 43-88). it is violence committed by configurations of global inequalities that, in the end, lead to deprivations and physical and psychological injuries. clandestine migrants also experience violence directly, as they often encounter physical, sexual and labour abuses during the migration process (lucht, 2012; mengiste, 2017). to organize migration and survive these violent conditions, migrants mobilize the necessary resources from migration facilitation infrastructures. xiang and lindquist (2014: 124) define migration infrastructure as “the systematically interlinked technologies, institutions, and actors that facilitate and control mobility”. in the context of restrictive immigration regulations at destinations globally and externalizing border control practices towards transit lands, migration can be viewed as procedural, multidirectional and self-adjusting movement. accordingly, migration is mediated by the involution of the regulatory, humanitarian and facilitation elements of the migration infrastructure (xiang and lindquist, 2014). in this regard, the rise of an international regulatory environment and externalization of border control practices have led to a renewed and broad scholarly concern with the migration industry and infrastructures (sørensen and gammeltoft-hansen, 2013; andersson, 2014). however, the migrant has long been left out of this concept of the migration industry, which pays little attention to migrants’ active and passive agency in mobilising migration resources and the diverse and dynamic relationships that emerge between migrants and smugglers (herman, 2006; mengiste, 2018). this study goes beyond the business dimensions and adopts a broader approach, recognizing the entanglement of social and smuggling networks, migration knowledge african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1488 production and mobilizing financial support from the diaspora. this helps migrants to survive the risks and to mediate barriers related to the eu’s externalization practices including tracking, intercepting, detaining and deporting migrants back to their countries of origin (see gaibazzi et al., 2017). this migration facilitation infrastructure becomes important in organizing migratory journeys from the horn of africa towards europe. it becomes the “spatial, infrastructural and institutional moorings that configure and enable mobilities” (hannam et al., 2006: 3). as demonstrated in the empirical section of this paper, the practice of human smuggling and organizing overland migration partly thrives on being embedded in diasporic transnational social spaces, material practices and migration knowledge production, which collectively build up a transnational knowledge community of migration. while the term transnational knowledge community does not disregard the violence and suffering encountered by migrants and refugees, it can be used to understand the shared practices of producing a body of information pertaining to and allowing for past, on-going and future experiences of migration as constituting a collective system of knowledge. it goes without saying that migrants’ knowledge is incomplete and partial to combat all types of threats and risks; however, it is constantly improvised and updated within the community of mobility. some groups of migrants are well connected to diasporic networks that generate material and economic support. however, as demonstrated in the empirical section, those migrants who have no connections of this kind also generate support from fellow travellers, helpful locals as well as former migrants or co-nationals settled in transit locations (cf. kleinman, 2014; mengiste, 2018). this kind of translocal relations and infrastructural practices enable eritrean migrants to design their own strategies and ways of navigating the system to survive and access remunerative work en route. the translocal connection is an ambiguous space of experiences and agency, a space that does not exist in an absolute form but is created by the interconnections of mobile people, ideas and objects during the migration journeys (see mengiste, 2017). methods of the study this paper is part of a larger research project based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in stockholm (sweden), addis ababa (ethiopia), khartoum (sudan) and rome (italy), conducted between 2014, 2016 and 2018 but this paper focuses on the african part of the study. these cities were african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1489 chosen because they are both main destinations and transition nodes of eritrean migration, and they are located along the overland migration routes that link eritrea with main european destination countries such as sweden and the united kingdom (uk) (see mengiste, 2017). the ethnography produced from the african part of the study and used for this paper consists of 94 in-depth interviews with interlocutors (migrants, brokers, border guards and non-governmental organization (ngo) personnel) composed of an almost equal number of women and men, including 35 detailed individual migration narratives. five smugglers were also interviewed, each providing insights into a particular leg of migration pathways. primary data findings were supplemented through reviewing research, policy and critical media reports on contemporary migratory mobility from the horn of africa and practices of human smuggling across euro-african borderlands and beyond. i also had several informal discussions with migrants in the stated research sites and other locations such as malmö in sweden and london in the united kingdom. i carried out participant observations, including extensive casual conversations with refugees, brokers, and smugglers in reception camps, homes, churches, neighbourhoods, squats, restaurants, workplaces and a variety of other settings in addis ababa, khartoum, and rome. this method helped me to generate data on migrants’ transition experiences and the role of communication technologies, brokers and smugglers in facilitating their onward mobility. informal conversations opened up opportunities to recruit key participants who were willing to describe the organization of migratory journeys from eritrea to europe. i conducted interviews while sitting, standing, walking and eating with the interlocutors. in fact, participant observations and informal conversations went hand-in-hand when i conducted fieldwork in the refugee reception centre in stockholm, migrant neighbourhoods, mainly in khartoum and addis ababa and squats in rome. i referenced a list of key themes and questions during the interviews to generate the required information related to migration conditions, facilitation actors, networks and their roles. nevertheless, interlocutors were allowed to propose issues and events they believed were important in the immigration process. i employed life history narrative techniques to generate data on the various stages of migration. as a follow-up, i conducted telephone interviews with my interlocutors regarding their experiences in libya, italy and germany and also with asylum seekers in the märsta refugee reception centre in northern stockholm but who were transferred to other municipalities in sweden. because of the mobile african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1490 nature of my study subjects, i ensured taking their telephone numbers and established online connections with them via facebook, whatsapp and viber. i actively conducted follow-ups using old, new and social media during all phases of this project (e.g. data collection and write-up processes) to remain updated about the latest developments in the ‘migration and refugee crises’, mainly along the euro-african borderlands and within europe. through the migrant biographies in sweden and the uk and shorter fieldwork stints in the transition nodes in addis ababa, khartoum and rome, i managed to track, trace and map the process of migrants’ mobility across the origin, transition and destination locations. results and findings process of departures: leaving eritrea clandestine overland migration from eritrea requires careful planning, money and accumulated knowledge. in general, the necessary knowledge and information about the ‘safest ways of escape from eritrea’ are obtained from former migrants en route and in the diaspora, using cell phones and social media. the overland departure routes and different actors that organize the journey towards the sudan are located in ethiopia and eritrea and link eritrean villages and towns to the city of khartoum in the sudan. this in turn forms a transnational social space that reproduces clandestine migratory exits from eritrea. before departure, eritrean migrants spend months to years gathering the necessary migration knowledge. this shows that the decision to leave eritrea is dangerous, given that its government criminalized migration. the journey to europe is riskier and longer, partly due to the eu’s external border enforcements. before the peace deal between eritrea and ethiopia in 2018, the eritrean regime followed ‘shoot-to-kill policies’ for migrants attempting to cross the border with ethiopia. even though the borders have recently legally opened up and freer movement of the population is made possible, in practice, free mobility of younger people from eritrea to ethiopia or the sudan is not possible as the eritrean regime still maintains the compulsory open-ended national service for the youth. the escaping youth are labelled ‘traitors’ and are hence often exposed to imprisonment or torture. due to the irregular and clandestine nature of the mobility across the highly risky eritrean-ethiopian and eritrean-sudanese border zones, which is partly related to eu intervention and collaboration with migrant-sending and transit african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1491 countries in east africa in border controls, secrecy is a necessity for the survival of the migrant (cf. alpes, 2012). it took four years of learning and preparation for the 26-year-old yordi and her husband to leave eritrea. she stated, “i decided to leave the country. but, it took four years of preparation to escape asmara.” migrants claim that in eritrea, it is difficult to know who is a friend or a foe. even one’s own close relative may be a siliya (a spy for the government) and may expose migrants’ escape plans to the regime. migrants could end up in prison for unlimited periods of time. yordi further noted, “the most important thing is finding a reliable ‘pilot’” (a smuggler who guides migrants all the way to the borders). finally, her husband’s friends who were former migrants in ethiopia put yordi’s husband in touch with a ‘pilot’ named kibru, via the internet. kibru had lived in the border areas and crossed the ethiopian borders before the war. he knew every detail of the ‘safest routes to ethiopia’. yordi said that she dressed in black pretending to go to a funeral outside the city. she styled her hair like a rural girl, made up her face and hid any traces of an urban look on her body, to ensure that she did not attract attention from the soldiers and security people. this shows that during escapes, eritrean migrants use particular forms of visibility and invisibility strategies in order to move across closed borders. migrants attempting clandestine crossings at the eritrean-ethiopian and eritrean-sudanese borders do not simply run away independently when they are desperate (mengiste, 2017). rather, their flights are gradual and processual, which requires accumulated knowledge and networks of help embedded in and generated from relations and a range of actors in the locations of origin and in the diaspora. this illustrates that brokering migratory exits involve elements of migration facilitation infrastructures such as communication technologies, state actors and translocal and transnational social relations that produce the necessary migration knowledge, finance and smuggling services (cf. spener, 2004; andersson, 2014; xiang and lindquist, 2014). thus, migratory departures are not an act of moving but a process that requires context-specific substantial resources and know-how. in addition, the clandestine departures from eritrea and overland journeys towards khartoum in the sudan, are dangerous mainly due to kidnappings by criminal bedouin rashaida tribes for ransom (see belloni, 2015), environmental hazards such as hot and arid deserts and interceptions and detentions by the eritrean regime. the migrants therefore need migration facilitators such as ‘pilots’ that guide them through safe passages. yordi noted, “the ‘pilots’ are our visa to exit eritrea. they are our saviours!” this indicates african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1492 that the process of escape facilitated by smugglers is, contrary to the mainstream narratives of exploitation and crime, far from being perceived as exploitative by migrants. rather, smugglers and migrants conceptualize the facilitation of migrants’ clandestine departures as a mechanism that allows those in transit to be guarded against criminal organizations, environmental challenges and restrictive migration regimes. the specific resources and knowledge produced and reproduced by prospective migrants and migration facilitators enable the migrant departures in the context where externalization operates together with internal measures such as criminalization of emigration in eritrea, put in place by the authoritarian state. this also shows that, because of restrictive border controls, smuggling becomes not only a small-scale migration facilitation industry along state borders, but also an element embedded in the web of social relations within the migrant community (see spener, 2004). the eu externalization policy has increased the vulnerabilities and risks of eritrean migrant departures. following a collaborative border management platform between the eu and east african countries, the sudan and ethiopia increased border control measures including interceptions and deportations of eritrean migrants along the existing overland migration routes that link eritrea with the sudan and ethiopia (see mengiste, 2017). to escape state interception, eritrean migrants take longer and dangerous journeys in order to arrive in the sudan. some of the interlocutors on this research project stated that they moved northwards from asmara and other towns in northern eritrea and passed through several towns to enter port sudan, and then to khartoum by walking for months along dangerous lowland deserts. this has exposed migrants to various kinds of risks including robberies, kidnappings by bedouin rashaida pastoralists in eastern sudan for ransom and attacks by hyenas (see belloni, 2015; mengiste, 2017, 2018). this indicates that the cooperation between the eu and non-european countries on migration and border control could lead to serious human rights violations and migrant vulnerabilities instead of stopping mobility. migrant vulnerabilities in sudan and decisions to cross the desert the sudan has historically been a major destination of eritrean migrants during the liberation war and after the independence of eritrea. since the early 2000s, eritrean migrants have been joining their friends, relatives, neighbours and other eritreans residing in kassala, port sudan, gedaref and khartoum (hassanen, 2007; kibreab, 2013). from 2003 – after the eritrean regime african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1493 introduced restrictive emigration laws including criminalizing migratory departures – to the time of writing this article, 1,600 eritreans have crossed the border and entered the sudan every month (kibreab, 2013; mengiste, 2017, 2018). however, new arrivals often come to the sudan using khartoum as a stepping-stone and proceed towards european countries that are assumed to be refugee welcoming nations (cf. belloni, 2016). however, the old, the sick, those who have well established family members in sudan and those who have acquired businesses and obtained sudanese citizenship in various ways, remain in the sudan (see mengiste, 2017). as discussed in detail below, many newly-arrived eritrean migrants in khartoum are undocumented and informally engage in various incomegenerating activities. similar to other contexts of deportable and thus easily exploitable labour, migrants suffer many forms of abuse and exploitation. women migrants are overworked, denied of their salary and lack access to healthcare. they claim that they are also physically and emotionally abused, bearing insults, threats of attacks and ultimatums perpetrated by employers. the police repeatedly ask them for butaqa (identification) and threaten to imprison them if they do not pay bribes. migrants claim that in 2014 and 2015 social exclusion, police harassment and economic exploitation became more frequent. this crackdown on irregular migrants and refugees in the sudan is related to the internal crises in the sudan and the pressure from the eu’s externalization practices via the khartoum process. through the khartoum process, both ethiopia and the sudan receive direct and indirect support from the eu in terms of logistical facilities and development aids in exchange for preventing would-be migrants from migrating. the eu gives states incentives for ensuring that individuals remain in the sudan or ethiopia or for keeping asylum seekers in refugee camps and for introducing physical or legal barriers, including migrant apprehensions (interdictions, interceptions, or ‘turn-backs’) (stern, 2015; mengiste, 2017). this has made the traditional population movements, including migration across the sudanese, ethiopian and eritrean borders more difficult, compared to previous decades. many of the eritrean migrants i met in the sudan said they were planning to leave the country. my informant, meqdi, told me that she and her eritrean partner, solomon, had been preparing to migrate to another country for the past four years. meqdi was tired of the situation in khartoum. every day, the police would round up, detain and impose penalties on undocumented african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1494 eritrean and ethiopian migrants. meqdi and many other eritrean women who sold coffee and tea on street corners were most vulnerable. in 2015 alone, the police detained her twice, imposed a penalty and confiscated her stall equipment. she had been anxiously waiting to hear about the decision on solomon’s family reunification visa for canada: i am tired! have you seen the giffa [police rounding up and detaining migrants] today? i have lost hope! i should leave soon! it is taking longer. i can’t wait! i do not want to miss this season. all my friends have reached europe. i have prepared all necessary things to cross the desert! meqdi was determined, like many other eritrean overland migrants entering the sudan, to reach europe by crossing the sahara desert and the mediterranean sea. migrants complained about skyrocketing rental and housing costs, deteriorating employment opportunities, frequent arbitrary detentions and demands for bribes by the police. christian interlocutors mentioned that they experienced increased xenophobia from local muslim sudanese. following the eu externalization of border controls to the sudan, mass arrests and deportations of ethiopian and eritrean undocumented migrants and refugees who had moved illegally to the city were the order of the day when i was in sudan in may 2015 and 2016. the police would suddenly round up migrants on the streets or raid their neighbourhoods at night, pile them into trucks, transport them to kasala, a town on the eritrean-sudanese border, or other remote areas and offload them there. in the face of social, economic, political and cultural exclusions, many of my informants felt that they were stuck: they could not return because of the social, political and economic challenges in their homeland, nor could they easily move forward. staying in the sudan was equally dangerous given the high probability of deportations. similar to many refugees in other countries resettlement in a well-off third country through the support of the unhcr was either inaccessible for many of the eritrean asylum seekers or complicated and time-consuming in the sudan for various reasons, including corruption (hassanen, 2007; treiber, 2013, 2014). thus, the sahara desert becomes the only way out for migrants in order to keep moving. as elaborated in the examples below, while they were in khartoum, many migrants were also engaged in income-generating activities until they met a smuggler, found co-travellers and cultivated other necessary resources for the journey to cross the borders. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1495 sharing and reciprocity among migrants in khartoum the accounts of a female migrant, samrawit, demonstrate how migrants in transit countries generate assistance and resources from former migrants who settled in khartoum. when i met samrawit, she was in her late 30s. samrawit first moved from asmara to ethiopia with the help of ‘pilots’ and then to khartoum by securing a tourist visa which was arranged by a delala (broker) in addis ababa for a fee of 18,000 birr (about 750 usd). she lived clandestinely in khartoum for four years, as her tourist visa had expired. she got a cleaning job informally at a private school with the help of her friends and families in the sudan. when i was in khartoum, she was accommodating three cousins and a woman named semhal, a former neighbour and friend in asmara. all four moved to khartoum after living in the shagarab refugee camp for three weeks. smugglers arranged their clandestine trip from the camp to the city. samrawit shared her rooms and food and provided information she assumed was helpful to survive in khartoum. she told them how to move around, use public transport, meet delala, how to behave towards the police and how to bribe them when necessary. samrawit asserted that it is her social duty to help her kin and fellow eritrean migrants: it is my responsibility to help them as much as possible. when i arrived in khartoum, others did the same for me. it is my turn now to help others […] i have to do what i can do for them until they find ways to settle here or move to another country. every eritrean migrant does the same in every step of the journey … in ethiopia, in sudan, in libya, even in italy. samrawit’s accounts reflect ethnic solidarity, kinship obligations and reciprocal relations developed along the transition spaces. these are important resources that configure the organization of contemporary irregular migratory journeys from the horn of africa towards the eu and beyond. social ties en route, according to samrawit’s accounts, not only provide useful information and material support, but also generate hope of surviving the journey and keep migrants moving. community ties are sources of knowledge on how to navigate between the labour market, strict border controls, smuggling services, the sudanese migration or refugee regimes as well as police violence and brutality (cf. de genova, 2002; mengiste, 2017). thus, it is an important element of migration facilitation infrastructure that is reproduced in transit locations via translocal social relations (sørensen and gammeltoft-hansen, 2013; xiang and lindquist, 2014). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1496 before the eu tightened its migration policies and externalized border controls to african states, there was huge migratory mobility from subsaharan african countries towards libya via the sudan without much difficulty (see triulzi and mackenzie, 2013). however, following the externalization, smugglers that facilitated migration through the sahara desert found out ‘new’ but dangerous and long routes along the chad territory which in turn exposed migrants to environmental hazards and abuses by criminals (cf. mengiste, 2017; gaibazzi et al., 2017). thus, before their departure from khartoum, migrants generate information from multiple sources, including former migrants who had settled en route, those who managed to arrive in europe, smugglers, local people and failed migrants as the journeys traverse multiple locations and risk factors. migrants constantly learn and differentiate between information that is valuable or not, in managing their journeys. migrants en route establish intimate relations with co-travellers and smugglers to cultivate and maximize their individual and collective agency, survive violence, keep moving and cross borders. even strategic spousal relations are used as a migration strategy through which male and female migrants help each other by generating, for example, money, charity and protection. the sharing practices and knowledge production in transit spaces become an important element of the migration facilitation infrastructure. it serves as a means for migrants to overcome immobility regimes resulting mainly from the diffusion of border controls from europe to transit places in africa. these transition practices further indicate that each step of transnational migration mediation encompasses multiple layers of social relations, values, imprints of the past and imaginations of the future. preparing to cross the sahara: meeting the desert smugglers when migrants decide to cross the sahara desert with the help of smugglers, they must gather the necessary information from their contacts in khartoum and abroad. they try to talk to many people they assume have useful information at every possible occasion, for example, at the church and workplace, to minimize the perceived risks in the desert, libya, the mediterranean sea and beyond, which indicates the unpredictability of the journey. many of the migrants prefer to stay in the sudan or move to other destinations such as the middle east and south africa, rather than crossing the desert. after the sudan introduced tough migration control policies partly due to the pressure from the eu to block east african migrants’ transitions via the sudan, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1497 migrants and smugglers established underground ‘migration shops’ in khartoum (cf. mengiste, 2017). there were some ethiopian and eritrean electronic and clothing shops in the neighbourhood of sahafa sherig and surrounding areas in khartoum. those shops were also the places where the newly arriving and established migrants planning to move to other places met different brokers of eritrean and ethiopian origin, referred to as semsari in the sudan. some of the semsari are shop and other business owners but they work as connectors of migrants with the sudanese and libyan smugglers. here, migrants negotiate prices with semsari to travel to libya or buy passports with forged visas to enter europe or other destinations and collect remittances transferred through hawala 2 money transfers and credit networks from families abroad. remittance in foreign currency is exchanged on the black market. the shops connect migrants, smugglers and migrant families abroad or in the diaspora as well as employers in the sudan and in other countries. this type of shop is an alternative liminal space carved out by migrants and their needs and thus, is truly a ‘migration shop’. i refer to such places in migration trails as ‘transition nodes’, which are places where newly arriving migrants meet former migrants, brokers, informal money transfer agents and other actors to gather information and resources to organize transitions and subsequent journeys. the police regularly raid these areas to corner and detain undocumented migrants, partly with the intention of collecting fines and bribes. choosing ‘good smugglers’ can be difficult, given the rumours of success and failure circulating in the migrant community. some important questions raised by potential migrants include: whose boat is it and how many entered europe safely, traversing eu border control infrastructures in the mediterranean sea? which semsari rescued migrants from criminal kidnappers in the desert and has wider contacts with the sudanese and libyan bigger smuggling rings? which semsari has the ‘best misras’ (lit. safe houses) in the desert and in libya? however, except the connectors, no one knows the exact whereabouts of the bigger smugglers (bosses). one of my informants in the sudan said that semsaris are like winds – they are everywhere and nowhere. they go by different names and constantly change their names, phone numbers and other 2 hawala: the american heritage dictionary of the english language (5th ed.) defines hawala as an “informal system for transferring money, especially across borders, in which local agents disperse or collect money or goods on behalf of friends, relatives, or other agents without legal protection or supervision, trusting that all remaining obligations will be settled through future transactions.” from < https://bit.ly/2duc8pz> (retrieved 21 december 2018). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1498 contact details. former migrants en route and those who managed to enter destinations in europe using the same route also guide prospective migrants and put them in contact with connecters and human smugglers. migrants generally prefer a semsari from their own ethnic background or hometown. this increases their confidence and trust in the smuggler that he would be more humane to them during the journey. this indicates that migrants have voices in the smuggling processes and their relations with smugglers are diverse and complex (van liempt and doomernik, 2006). mesi, a 28-year-old eritrean migrant woman, was selling coffee on a street corner when i met her in khartoum in 2015. she told me how she and other eritrean migrants meet smugglers in khartoum. we make and serve coffee in an eritrean way, smoking etan [lit. incense]. we also serve shisha together with coffee. all kinds of migrants, including brokers visit these coffee shops. it is a meeting ground for us to gather information about good brokers and how to contact them. it was here that i contacted the semsari, kibrom. he was a popular semsari from eritrea and has worked with a reputable delela, abdirzak, in libya. kibrom became a friend and arranged my trip to libya on discount. i am working until we depart in the summer. the sudan also has other irregular transition opportunities for migrants and refugees stranded there. the highly corrupted state systems, mainly the security and the police, also engage in human smuggling, exploiting the poorly controlled but vast geographical borderlands the country shares with eritrea, ethiopia, libya, egypt and chad, which makes it an ideal place for the overland human smuggling industry to flourish (cf. triulzi and mackenzie, 2013). however, the eu is trying its best to convince and collaborate with the sudanese government to close the migration routes that pass through the sudanese territory. the eu, with various agreements, including the khartoum process and development aids, helps sudan by funding the border infrastructure at 17 crossing points. the sudanese government militia, the rapid support force (rsf), is tasked with preventing border crossings. with eu support, the sudan also increased joint-border management as already tried between ethiopia, djibouti and the sudan. in addition, the eu money goes towards the financing of the border police in the sudan, purchasing equipment for a training centre in khartoum, and securing cars, cameras, and computers at crossing points (stern, 2015; mengiste, 2017). border guards and security african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1499 people of the sudan see these eu externalization measures as a support to strengthen the sudanese internal security and also boost the importance of their task as border controllers (cf. andersson, 2014). the smugglers use their networks to design new and alternative mobility strategies. they gather and share information in reaction to the effects/impact of the eu externalization measures, including the changing situation at the border infrastructure, the legal infrastructure and the securitization context along the migration trail. as discussed below, smugglers and migrants also continuously update each other on the tightening of border control practices and collectively devise strategies to use new mobility routes and timings of the journey. according to my interlocutors, big eritrean and ethiopian smugglers (bosses) are often based in libya and organize the migration remotely. however, after the eu externalization of border controls, they began to commute between khartoum and libya to gather migrants from ethiopia and eritrea through their intermediaries and collectors at various stages of the journey. each smuggler has 10-15 brokers (intermediaries) in khartoum, matama (a border town between ethiopia and the sudan) and kassala (a town along the eritrean and sudanese border) – even in refugee camps in northern ethiopia, eastern sudan as well as in towns and villages in eritrea. each smuggler has connections with other sudanese, libyan, ethiopian and eritrean smugglers en route and at destination points (cf. newsweek, 2015). the major task of ethiopian and eritrean smugglers is generally to bring migrants and connect them to sudanese and libyan smugglers who transport them across the sahara desert. in libya, both eritrean and other libyan or sudanese smugglers host migrants in their misrah (lit. a safe house arranged by smugglers for migrants in order to guard migrants from border regimes) and arrange boats to cross the mediterranean sea. these smuggling services are some of the key elements of the migration facilitation infrastructure that enable migrants to overcome barriers related to externalization measures and cross the harsh and vast desert as well as the mediterranean waters. however, smugglers do not often work as full-time professionals or organize the entire journey. many of them are stranded eritrean and sudanese migrants themselves along the migration route. they temporarily team up with brokers, transporters and informal money transfer agents and facilitate journeys to a certain location, namely from the sudan to libya. in libya, migrants must find another group of facilitators to cross the mediterranean sea. this shows that migrants negotiate challenges and risks as well as opportunities of mobility by mobilizing information, economic and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1500 social resources as well as psychological or emotional strengths through prayer in migrant churches/mosques in transit lands. these relations and practices exemplify how migrants keep moving along closed borders by navigating and negotiating various dimensions of migration infrastructures (cf.xiang and lindquist, 2014: 132). crossing the sahara desert from khartoum: risks and violence informants mentioned that once the migrants and smugglers, including their connectors and transporters, complete the preparations, the journey commences when the time is right. in general, the journey begins in seasons when the heat is less harsh in the sahara desert and sea passages are assumed to be most favourable. on the day of the journey, connecters secretly move from door-to-door and pick up migrants in mini-buses and rickshaws, which transport them to hidden houses rented by the smugglers on the outskirts of khartoum. my interlocutors said that 150-200 people are transported in one go. according to a connector in the sudan, the sudanese drivers and guides take migrants half-way and hand them over to the libyans, or the next link in the trail, who then complete the rest of the journey to libya. the ‘safety’ of the routes from robbers and border control agents on the sudanese, egyptian, chad and libyan territories are double-checked. payment procedures and other matters with transporters, connecters and big smugglers in the sudan and libya are also properly settled. this is because smugglers’ agents who drive the migrants across the desert have more power than their big bosses as they have custody of the migrants in the no-man’s land of the sahara desert and they perpetrate sexual abuses. my informant, meqdi, said, “we were intercepted by robbers when we were crossing the desert. many of the girls travelling with us were raped by robbers. later, our broker in libya negotiated with the bandits and rescued us.” according to the interlocutors, the journey from the sudan to libya across the sahara desert is generally unpredictable and dangerous and everyone is vulnerable to forces beyond their control. the externalization of border controls effected through collaboration between the eu and the transit countries (sudan and libya), by intercepting migrants trying to cross the desert, forced migrants and smugglers to take longer and riskier routes of crossing the chad territory where various types of criminals and armed groups engage in kidnapping refugees for ransom (see mengiste, 2017). the major sources of the risks are robbers, human traffickers, natural phenomena, border guards and armed rebel groups. however, the level of migrants’ african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1501 vulnerability varies depending on prevailing local realities along the routes and migrants’ individual conditions, with some migrants being more vulnerable than others. migrants’ individual profiles such as gender, age and access to remittances are also crucial factors of vulnerability. this in turn indicates differentiated impacts of the externalizing of border controls by the eu on migrants on the move. the literature shows that women are likely to be subject to abuses including rapes on different occasions, and it is difficult for groups such as pregnant women, children and the elderly to survive dehydration and other challenges during long journeys across such a vast desert (see also hamood, 2006; triulzi and mackenzie, 2013). many of those involved, including robbers, smugglers and security/border guards, take advantage of migrants because they are lucrative trade subjects. migrants are often rescued from criminals and kidnappers in the desert by smugglers in libya, but they have to generate money from their families and friends in their homeland or diasporic locations and pay a ransom, which could be transferred to the criminals through an informal money transfer system known as hawala. some of the migrants, who have no families abroad to transfer ransom money (hawalet) to the bandits, are tortured by them. thus, they often depend on support from co-travellers. according to some narratives, eritrean migrants become victims of a slave trade in the sahara desert and in the libyan territory as they are sold time and again between brokers, detention guards and criminals (see mengiste, 2017). even some local libyans buy migrants from the police and exploit their migrant labour. i met hagos, a 29-year-old man from eritrea, in rome in may 2016. he told me that he had been sold by prison guards in libya. hagos also said that migrants with families and friends abroad who were willing to remit, could be rescued from prison or from the migrant slave trade between prison guards, delaloch and locals in libya. migrants could also negotiate a price to buy their freedom or bribe someone who could help them escape. migrants in precarious conditions in transit spaces, therefore, establish multiple relations with actors ranging from smugglers, locals and fellow travellers, to families and friends back home and elsewhere, to survive the violent conditions and negotiate involuntary im/mobility. however, migrants who cannot arrange for the ransom money, try their best to mobilize support from possible compassionate locals. migrants also end up making friends with former migrants who settled in libya or by finding partners who may help acquire financial and other resources for the next stage african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1502 of their journey. this is an important aspect of translocal connections that help refugees to generate resources of mobility en route. hagos was accommodated and financed by his girlfriend, whom he met in benghazi, libya. this exemplifies how migrants get access to capital (money, information and logistics) through social networks with fellow travellers, those in the diaspora and smuggling services during the journey. through these relations, they generate the specific capital needed to overcome barriers and specific risks they face en route and to keep moving. the above discussion shows that externalization has different effects on different migrants on the move and this in turn requires specific skills and networks to secure help en route. this is possible through translocal networks and practices of reciprocity, solidarity and the sharing of resources and knowledge along the migration trails. the underlying conditions of violence and survival the direct violence, as reported by informants, perpetrated by agents of the smugglers, drivers in the desert, other actors and criminals in the libyan territory need to be viewed from a perspective of broader structural violence that produced inequality and powerlessness (cf. holmes, 2013). unlike the popular discourses, the suffering of migrants en route is not just due to smugglers’ mercilessness. migrants often associate smuggling practices with service to overcome border regimes and realize migration dreams (see mengiste, 2018). there are a number of related structural conditions that expose migrants to violence, such as, restrictive migration control regimes depriving asylum seekers’ formal mobility channels to file their applications directly in europe; the security and protection vacuum mainly due to crises in libya; and chaos and statelessness in the area. thus, migrants are exposed to violent practices and natural obstacles (deserts) or geographic contexts in which mobility is organized. these conditions, together with the diffusion of border control from the eu to african transit countries, exacerbate migrants’ vulnerability in the desert. faced with these harsh conditions, migrants desperately desire support to survive the violence and mediate barriers to keep moving. diasporic remittances, practices of sharing among migrants/refugees during the journey, systems of informal money transfer networks (hawala) and the creation and sharing of important information and support of semsari are vital conditions in mediating involuntary mobility and immobility of asylum seekers and migrants along the sudanese and libyan borderlands. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1503 in sum, the violence that migrants encounter in the sudan, the sahara desert and libya is an extension of the structural violence of global inequality that deprives the migrants of their mobility rights. the violence is also due to western intervention in african conflicts and crises as well as the externalization of european borders and migratory regimes (cf. holmes, 2013; albahari, 2015; andersson, 2014). the eu’s attempt to tighten its migration and border policies and the practice of externalization result in the production of this structural violence. to survive these predicaments and meet smugglers to organize their transitions and journeys, migrants and their communities mobilize the necessary resources such as finance and knowledge through their local and transnational social relations with former migrants who have settled en route and in the diaspora. conclusion ethnographic research on the irregular journeys of migrants from the horn of africa indicates that the smuggling of migrants is far from being monolithically perceived as a criminal activity. instead, it is a socially embedded collective practice emerging in the context of restricted mobility and migrationenforcement infrastructures and where cross-border social networks, communication technologies and brokering practices intersect. this study demonstrated how borders and immigration control systems produce different systems of migration facilitation infrastructures and the various ways in which migrants experience and cope with immobility regimes and suffering at the hands of criminals en route. migration systems originating in eritrea towards europe can be regarded as unpredictable assemblages of diverse actors operating at different scales and with different objectives that overlap or are in conflict. their interactions shape the migration industry and infrastructure and are in a state of flux in response to changes in geopolitics and externalizing border control along the trail. the infrastructures such as interlinked technologies, institutions and actors that facilitate eritrean transnational migration have evolved historically in relation to changing border regimes (cf. sørensen and gammeltoft-hansen, 2013). migratory journeys thus involve designing new strategies to negotiate with changing migration facilitation actors, externalization practices and global inequalities that led to structural violence. migration from eritrea does not imply a linear journey to europe. migration biographies reveal that the migration projects are fragmented, stepwise and unpredictable and can take anything between months and years. this african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1504 migration process requires choosing a good smuggler, engaging in an informal economy and continuously learning about the possibilities of mobility and surviving new challenges along the routes and transit lands. in the face of externalizing migration and border controls, migratory journeys are produced in complex social relations where different influences reinforce, complement and sometimes contradict each other. externalizing border controls and global inequalities together with the authoritarian eritrean regime that has criminalized migratory exits, have resulted in a system of complex smuggling practices that shape and are shaped by intra-migrant support networks and transnational social relations between migrants, those left behind and the ones settled in the diaspora. this in turn has affected the old established population movement patterns and directions in east africa and the eastern sahara. new migration facilitation industries have been built along the emerging clandestine migratory mobility routes that link eritrea, the sudan, the sahara desert, libya and the mediterranean sea. social connections — translocal and transnational — between migrants, smugglers, helpful locals and former migrants along the trail or in the diaspora have become a transnational community. relations are used to generate the necessary information, material and economic resources at a specific time and location during the journey. this has become an alternative mobility infrastructure for migrants who are immobilized due to restrictive migration controls and the externalization of borders and migratory controls from receiving countries (cf. xiang and lindquist, 2014; gaibazzi et al., 2017). the borderlands and clandestine migration routes are not merely sites of border control where state power is exercised and violent practices of smugglers and criminals against the migrants are exhibited (see andersson, 2014). they are also locations of knowledge production and the reconfiguration of social relations between mobile and non-mobile people in nearby and distant locations. however, the externalization of borders and migration controls by the european union has different effects on migrants on the move. those who have some kind of capital in terms of finance and social networks in the diaspora could generate the necessary knowledge of migration to survive risks and accomplish their journey to europe. however, those who do not have such resources are less likely to manage long journeys and endure the vulnerabilities along the migration trail, unless they mobilize support from local people and fellow travellers. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1505 from the time that the eu tightened its migration polices and externalized border controls towards the migration routes in africa, migratory mobility have become risky and complex. migration facilitators have grown larger and routes have become longer and more dangerous. several actors, including criminals, local people en route and smugglers started taking advantage of the migrants’ immobility by perpetrating sexual, labour and physical abuses against migrants on the move (see also andersson, 2014; gaibazzi et al., 2017; unhcr, 2018). in this context, the entanglement of transnational social relations, smuggling practices and the generation and flow of information and finance from the diaspora and other actors have become infrastructural moorings of migrant mobility. specific resources and knowledge enable migrants to navigate impediments resulting from strict migration controls at various scales and locations and also the externalization of border control from europe to transit countries in africa. migration journeys should not be imagined as a line between two places but rather as a multifaceted space of mediation occupied by migration facilitators and intermediaries. these include actors such as smugglers, local people, migrants, former migrants and communication devices. this in turn constitutes the notion of the transnational knowledge community that is constituted by the phenomena described above. it takes into account the entanglement of social and smuggling networks in the migration facilitation industry. smuggling migration journeys thrive as they are embedded in and 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international migration review, 48(1): 122-148 . african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1510 the value of human dignity in the refugee protection callixte kavuro abstract this article seeks to illuminate the significance and importance of human dignity in the evolution of the legal protection of refugees and asylum-seekers at international, continental and national level. human dignity – as a value and a right – plays an important role in the interpretation of the rights as outlined in the south african bill of rights and the various laws and policies that give effect to them. the article demonstrates how human dignity contributed (and still contributes) to the advancement of south africa’s refugee regime, whose main objective is to ensure that refugees and asylum-seekers are afforded access to their constitutional rights. a further objective is ensuring that refugees and asylum-seekers are afforded the kind of treatment that is consistent with global and constitutional standards of dignity, which inform the ethics of refugee reception and treatment. keywords refugees, asylum-seekers, human dignity, fundamental rights, interpretation, realistic, idealistic. introduction in south africa, respect for and protection of dignity is a cornerstone of the country’s constitution. the principle of dignity is at the heart of the bill of the rights, which is an integral part of the constitution, and a human rights charter that protects the civil, political and socio-economic rights of all who live in south africa (rsa, 1996). dignity is placed at the centre of the jurisprudence of the bill of rights. its value is reflected in the prominence it enjoys at the constitutional court, where it is regarded as one of the most fundamental moral norms, from which all rights derive (currie and de waal, 2005: 272-3). it therefore functions as an interpretive tool to give meaning, substance, content and scope to those rights contained in the bill of rights or to those fundamental rights which are not contained in the bill of rights, such as refugee rights. it is further serves to provide principled guidance to resolve constitutional value conflicts (botha, 2009: 171). in this way, the highest court  lecturer in law, department of public law and jurisprudence, university of the western cape. e-mail: callixtekav@gmail.com african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1511 links dignity to socio-economic rights and benefits for all purposes of protection of vulnerable and poor people, including refugees and asylumseekers. in other words, dignity has served as a vital part of the mediation of disputes related to refugees’ and asylum-seekers’ eligibility for the benefits of socio-economic programmes designed to respond to the material deprivation of their essential needs. dignity is also an integral component of the economic development of the poor and vulnerable. emphasizing dignity, the courts have insisted that south africa should uphold its international, constitutional and legislative obligations to treat human beings with the appropriate respect, dignity, care, and concern (kavuro, 2018: 27-28). this article demonstrates that this position is drawn from the idealistic approach to the ethics of international migration. against this background, this article explores the role and value of dignity in the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers. the primary focus is on the exploration of the links between human dignity, socio-economic rights and the rights of refugees, at international, continental and national levels. the centrality of dignity in the protection of the poor, marginalised and vulnerable is illuminated with a view to shedding light on the need to offer fair, decent and favourable treatment to recognised refugees and asylum-seekers. accordingly, the article considers the importance of dignity in guiding the interpretation of specific socio-economic rights underpinning the protection of vulnerable groups. in this context, the article discusses the impact of dignity on the evolution of international refugee protection. it argues that after the reaffirmation of human dignity as a core tenet on which the international legal order should be grounded, international refugee law was revisited and reengineered to meet the standards of dignified protection as contemplated in the 1945 charter of the united nations (un) and the 1948 universal declaration of human rights (udhr). it further argues that gaps in international refugee law can be closed by human rights texts, adopted to give effect to those rights contained in the udhr (1948). the article then examines the treatment of refugees in south africa during all the political eras of this country – prior to the formation of the union; pre-apartheid; apartheid; and post-apartheid. the article shows that there was no refugee legislation until the inception of democracy in 1994. this would afford refugees and asylumseekers the dignity, which they were denied by previous regimes. this article takes into account the fact that this dignity – as a constitutional value – is given precedence by the constitutional court over the values of equality and freedom, as ensconced in the bill of rights. related rights include socioafrican human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1512 economic rights, which are granted to refugees and asylum-seekers in terms of the constitution (rsa, 1996) and the refugees act 130 of 1998 (rsa, 1998), which affords them humane and dignified treatment. the article further examines the question of favourable treatment, as enshrined in international refugee treaty, through realistic and idealistic approaches to the ethics of the treatment of non-citizens, in general and refugees, in particular. the concluding section stresses the value of human dignity and emphasises the centrality of its role in the recognition of the rights of refugees and asylumseekers, by having rights extended to them, not only to this country’s citizens. the impact of dignity on international refugee protection dignified treatment under the united nations (un) refugee convention (1951) the need for the protection of human dignity led the international community to revisit international refugee treaty, which was revised in 1951, to ensure that refugees and asylum-seekers are afforded fair, decent and favourable treatment. this radical move to create a universal standard of treatment of refugees cannot be separated from the recognition of human dignity as reaffirmed by the charter of the un (1945). the importance of human dignity is principally reflected in and underpins the udhr (1948) as well as subsequent human rights treaties. these important human rights decisions, which inform the current international legal order, elevated the protection of the moral worth of human beings to the centre of the protection of humanity as a whole. this approach is anchored in the moral philosophy of immanuel kant, who observed that the protection of dignity of the person implies that the person should be given liberties that will allow such person to live his or her life in accordance with ends that he or she freely chose. by enjoying all liberties, an individual can be an autonomous agent with the ability to define his or her own destiny independently. to get here, an individual must enjoy all fundamental rights and freedoms, which the state must desist from threatening or violating. any human being – citizens and non-citizens alike – should not be treated as mere objects or as means to an end. despite the territorial boundaries or sovereignty of any nation, all individuals must be treated as ends in themselves who act for their own sake and are capable of autonomous choice (kant, 1785: 8-31). universal fundamental rights and freedoms as well as fundamental refugee rights were developed with a view of furthering the kantian philosophy. the idealistic approach to the ethics of the treatment of persons would dictate that african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1513 all people should be entitled to all universal rights, regardless of their nationality (ugur, 2007: 7). within this view, jacques maritain, one of the drafters of the udhr, asserts that human beings are bearers of fundamental human rights and freedoms because of the very fact that they are persons and masters of themselves and of their acts. consequently, the state cannot treat human beings merely as means to an end. a person is “an end, which must be treated as such” (maritain and anson, 1949: 65). what this view tells us, is that the dignity of a person cannot be respected and protected if there is no recognition of fundamental rights and freedoms that equally apply to all people, irrespective of their gender, economic status or nationality. this is the rationale behind the recognition of universal human rights and universal refugee rights. it is therefore clear why dignity, as a vital and vibrant precept, led heads of state and governments to consider the place of refugees within international legal systems with a particular focus on how the plight of refugees and asylum-seekers can humanely, favourably and effectively be protected. it is crucial to point out that international refugee treaty was adopted in the 1920s. however, in 1951 international refugee treaty was reformed in a manner that incorporated most liberal elements in terms of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. as a result, the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees (the un refugee convention) was adopted and thus grounded the protection of refugees in the theories of equality in rights and dignity. in fact, the un refugee convention (1951) introduced a number of strategies intended to provide for favourable standards of treatment with respect to access to socio-economic rights and benefits that were exclusively enjoyed by citizens. prior to the adoption of the un refugee convention (1951), legal obligations to respond to socio-economic needs of refugees and asylum-seekers were non-existent. issues related to socio-economic problems were largely addressed by charity organisations or non-state agents. the grounding of international refugee protection in equality, rights and dignity has the potential of creating a positive legal obligation on the state, which requires the national government to act positively. this would subsequently create and secure humane conditions under which refugees’ essential needs will be responded to in accordance with the resources available, and through international cooperation. securing humane conditions can be achieved through the entitlement of socio-economic rights and benefits and through being included as beneficiaries of socio-economic schemes as well as other public goods and services. inadequate national resources do not absolve the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1514 host state from extending social welfare to refugees. hence, the host state may seek financial assistance from other nations on the basis of international cooperation and burden sharing. it follows that the positive legal obligations – imposed on the host state – to protect refugees and asylum-seekers’ dignity and moral worth should require the establishment of social justice, which allows them to regain self-respect and self-esteem through access to socioeconomic programmes and labour opportunities. such access must be facilitated in a fair, dignified and favourable manner. the analysis of fair and unbiased protection may not overlook the fact that political realism can provide an ethical basis for exclusion of refugees from certain entitlements. as a sovereign state, a host country is obliged to take into consideration the relevant internationally recognised standards. however, nothing stops the host country from adopting immigration or refugee measures which it morally views as not posing a threat to the ways of life of its citizens, but whose outcome may generate restrictive immigration policies. proponents of fair and dignified treatment will, in this regard, advocate for the right to work for all refugees as such entitlement will contribute to the increase of the state’s resources. the promotion of self-reliance is the threshold requirement, as entrenched in the un refugee convention (1951), whose aim is to ensure the restoration of hope and dignity in the lives of people who live in exile. the restoration of the self-esteem and self-reliance of refugees and asylum-seekers is not only grounded in the accessibility of social welfare, but also in the active participation in the economy of the host country. the 1951 revision of international refugee treaty set out certain strategies towards, if implemented, the protection of the dignity, health and well-being of refugees and asylum-seekers. worth citing are the following strategies: (i) both refugees and asylum-seekers must be recognised as human beings endowed with certain inalienable rights. by recognising the necessity to protect them as humans, a host state must observe the demands made under the charter of the un (1945), the udhr (1948), the refugee convention and human rights treaties (preamble to the un refugee convention, 1951). (ii) all nations or states that are party to the un refugee convention (1951) have to extend fundamental rights and benefits traditionally associated with citizenship, to refugees and asylum-seekers in a manner that promotes, at national level, the widest possible exercise of refugees’ rights and benefits contained in the un african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1515 refugee convention (preamble to the un refugee convention, 1951). (iii) owing to the special vulnerabilities of refugees, their fundamental rights and freedoms (and their entitlements thereof) must be conceived and understood in social and humanitarian terms. entitlements and accessibility of rights and benefits must be accorded to refugees and asylum-seekers on a favourable basis (preamble to the un refugee convention, 1951). (iv) offering the differentiated treatment to refugees (or asylumseekers) with respect to socio-economic rights must be prioritised. the prioritisation of access to the existing social welfare system at national level can be drawn from the mandate given to the unhcr to promote the admission of asylum-seekers regardless of their socio-economic status (article 8(d) of the statute of the unhcr (un, 1950)). in light of the above strategies, the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers in a humane and equitable manner is of fundamental importance. at the heart of the un refugee convention lays moral and legal obligations to protect refugees and asylum-seekers from humiliation, degradation, deprivation and poverty. within this view, a host state must, in practice, play a major role in ensuring that refugees retain feelings of self-worth and self-esteem and move toward self-reliance. at national level, it is imperative for the host state – as a sovereign nation – to adopt its own refugee regime in light of the principles of international refugee law and in light of the principles underpinning its constitution. in situations where the national refugee regime falls short of the international refugee protection, refugees should have a legal recourse to approach the court for resolution of disputes. the court has the mandate to determine whether the state conforms to refugee norms, principles and standards and to interpret the rights of refugees in a way that promotes freedom from human suffering caused by war, political persecution or caused by other reasons such as physical deprivation or discrimination. although human dignity is at the centre of the protection of the plight of refugees and asylum-seekers, there is no right to human dignity expressly protected under the un refugee convention (1951). rather, the idea of protection of human dignity is implicitly reflected in the positive and negative nature of refugee rights. whilst the negative nature of certain rights imposes a duty on the state and others not to interfere with refugees’ or asylum-seekers’ african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1516 rights and liberties, the positive nature of certain rights requires that refugees or asylum-seekers should live in conditions in which the basic necessities of life will be provided. in emergency situations, they must be provided with public relief and assistance. for the purpose of restoration of normalcy to their lives, they must have favourable access to public goods and services that seek to improve the quality of life of citizens. in other words, where refugees or asylum-seekers lack the material means to do so, the state must avail the resources required to enhance their ability to arrange their lives in accordance with their choices. it is evident that the underlying purpose of the provision of dignified and favourable treatment is to create spaces in which refugees can favourably enjoy access to the state’s social welfare system. this would facilitate and promote the effective local integration into socio-economic development programmes. dignified treatment under the african union (au) refugee convention in 1969, the organisation of african unity (oau), and currently the african union (au) adopted the convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa (au refugee convention, 1969). the oau committed african states and governments to the alleviation of refugees’ and asylumseekers’ misery and suffering by means of offering them socio-economic opportunities to achieve a better life and future. like the un refugee convention (1951), the au refugee convention (1969) does not expressly protect the right to human dignity. unlike the un refugee convention (1951), the au refugee convention (1969) does not expressly guarantee socioeconomic rights and benefits of refugees. nonetheless, the convention imposes a positive obligation on african states to create and secure humane conditions under which refugees’ essential socio-economic problems will be responded to on a humanitarian basis and on the basis of the spirit of african solidarity or in the african context (articles 2(2), 2(4) and para 8 of the preamble, au refugee convention, 1969). it is within the african humanitarian context that the principle of favourable treatment should apply to refugees and asylumseekers. it follows that the au refugee convention (1969) closes gaps in the un refugee convention (1951) in such a way that those rights which are not contained in the latter convention should be interpreted in terms of the furtherance of the spirit of african solidarity (article 2(4), au refugee convention, 1969). the au refugee convention (1969) stresses that the admission, reception and treatment of asylum-seekers (or refugees) should be viewed as a peaceful and humanitarian act (article 2(2), au refugee convention, 1969). poor african countries cannot object to admitting and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1517 receiving asylum-seekers on the ground of poverty as such objection will be inconsistent with the african spirit of protecting all humanity or the notion of african compassion towards other human beings. african compassion towards the protection of all humans, is imbedded in the collective or communitarian efforts to alleviate the suffering of others. it is not morally right to sit idly and watch when another human being is suffering or in danger. one must act. this is what the spirit of african solidarity implies at individual level. at national level, the state must morally adhere to and apply those moral norms, ethics and rules established by its political community for the humane treatment of another human being. such african approach to the treatment of human beings must, in principle, be reinforced by the principle of nonrefoulement, which prohibits the return of refugees or asylum-seekers to a place where their lives would be exposed to danger (article 2(3), au refugee convention, 1969). in light of these views, african countries are therefore obliged to make the best efforts to adopt their own asylum regimes that are in line with the spirit, purports and objectives of the au refugee convention. once a national asylum law has been developed and adopted, each and every african government is required to make its best efforts consistent with its own asylum law and societal norms to receive refugees and to secure their full local integration, or in terms of sharing burdens, to secure their resettlement in the third countries (article 2(1), au refugee convention, 1969). in other words, in the event that the protection of refugees becomes a burden, an african country enjoys the discretion to appeal to other african countries through the au to take appropriate measures to lighten such burden in the spirit of african solidarity and international cooperation (article 2, au refugee convention, 1969). the humanitarian approach, however, places an emphasis on the need to create conditions in which a better life and future can be achieved by refugees (paragraph 1 of the preamble, au refugee convention, 1969). a better standard of life – comparable to that of citizens – cannot be achieved without access to socio-economic rights and benefits as well as other public service delivery programmes. accessibility must be informed by african morals, norms and values that are ingrained in the most recognised african ethics of african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1518 ubuntu1. the ethics of the treatment of persons is grounded in the notion of equal treatment, equality in dignity, mutual respect, mutual concern, and in the idea that a person enjoys humanity through others (kavuro, 2015: 188189). the african ethics should permeate and inform any measure taken for the protection of refugees. that measure should aim at the restoration of the dignity that refugees or asylum-seekers had lost, as this will rebuild their confidence, hope and vision. hope for a better future can be restored through social and economic empowerment. the protection of human dignity is linked to access to resources, to enable refugees and asylum-seekers to pursue their happiness or dreams. this approach to the ethics of the protection of refugees defeats the argument that national resources should be reserved and preserved for the benefit of citizens only. this article demonstrates that the said approach does not sit well with the realistic approach to the ethics of the protection of non-citizens. dignified treatment under human rights treaties the emphasis on the protection of humanity engenders the morality for host states to adopt refugee management measures that are not only consistent with international refugee treaties, but also consistent with human rights law. a human rights-based approach to the treatment of human beings is conceptually grounded in equality in rights and dignity. a human rights-based approach has to supplement the international refugee protection. rights contained in the human rights texts can be invoked by refugees or asylumseekers to claim dignified treatment in the situations where the un refugee convention (1951) does not provide a favourable approach to certain rights. from a realistic view, the host state cannot fall short of some supposed moral 1 ubuntu is described by mokgoro j in s v makwanyane 1995 (3) sa 391 (cc) para 308 as follows: generally, ubuntu translates as ‘humaneness’. in its most fundamental sense it translates as personhood and ‘morality’. metaphorically, it expresses itself in umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, describing the significance of group solidarity on survival issues so central to the survival of communities. while it envelops the key values of group solidarity, compassion, respect, human dignity, conformity to basic norms and collective unity, in its fundamental sense it denotes humanity and morality. its spirit emphasises a respect for human dignity, marking a shift from confrontation to conciliation. in south africa ubuntu has become a notion with particular resonance in the building of a democracy. it is part of our rainbow heritage, though it might have operated and still operates differently in diverse community settings. in the western cultural heritage, respect and the value for life, manifested in the all-embracing concepts of ‘humanity’ and ‘menswaardigheid’, are also highly priced. it is values like these that [section 39(1)(a) of the south african constitution] requires to be promoted. they give meaning and texture to the principles of a society based on freedom and equality. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1519 duties entrenched in international human rights. this article recognises the shortcomings of the un refugee convention (1951). firstly, it does not require a favourable approach to entitlement to rights and benefits which do not find expression in it. secondly, it does not recognise the special vulnerabilities of refugees. furthermore, the au refugee convention (1969) is of no help with regard to the manner in which a particular right should be accorded to a particular individual. it applies an ambiguous approach when it seeks to afford all rights to refugees and asylum-seekers on the basis of an african spirit and philosophy. accordingly, the main concern is that both international refugee conventions do not clearly specify the treatment that could be afforded vulnerable groups of refugees, such as women, children, disabled people, elderly people or persons with serious illnesses. these lacunae in international refugee law could possibly be filled by relying on dignified standards of treatment as set forth under, for example, the udhr, the 1966 international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (icescr), the 1966 international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr), the 1965 international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (icerd), the 1980 convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw), the 1981 african charter on human and peoples’ rights (achpr), the 1989 convention on the rights of the child (crc), the 1990 african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc) and the 2006 convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (crpd). the list of human rights texts is non-exhaustive, as there are a number of other human rights texts designed to protect certain specific interests of certain categories of people. generally, the basic human rights standards play a significant role, not only in the fight against discrimination against vulnerable groups, including refugees and asylum-seekers, but also in the struggles of the needy and vulnerable, to demand positive state measures that would allow them to live a life of dignity (veneklasen et al., 2004: 4). observance and promotion of human rights norms and standards is regarded as bases of the alleviation of social vulnerabilities and other types of marginalisation. hence, human rights principles require individuals’ active participation in economic development and democratic processes. the human rights-based protection is a principled and viable tool that can be invoked by refugees and asylum-seekers to claim basic human rights and to promote active participation in human, social, political and economic development of the host country. integral to effective african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1520 human rights protection is the understanding that poor, vulnerable, marginalised individuals’ desire for the enjoyment of a sense of dignity and for the satisfaction of their basic needs would be realised only if they have access to human rights entitlements (chapman, 2005: 4). according to beracochea et al. (2011: 5), the human rights-based approach provides an alternative response to challenges to receive an effective human rights protection, because: deep within [its] essence is the knowledge that ordinary people have the capacity to manage their own lives and society quite well using knowledge and resources that [the international community] have developed that must be shared freely. for refugees and asylum-seekers to manage their own lives, they must be allowed to have access to those rights that the domestic distributive justice system provides. in fact, the domestic distributive justice system makes national resources to be shared freely among its own citizens. the human rights-based approach challenges this approach based on the principle of citizenship, as this approach deprives certain individuals of national protection. in refugee protection domains, a human rights-based approach can support and strengthen asylum laws in restoring a sense of normality to the lives of victims of persecutions and reviving their participation in social and economic activities. it can be invoked with respect to defining special treatment that should be accorded to certain individuals, such as women, pregnant women, young girls, infants, children (separated or unaccompanied), elderly people, disabled people and victims of rape or human trafficking. in understanding these differences in treatment, the rights of refugees must be incorporated into national laws, policies and strategies, in a manner which gives effect to special treatment accorded to different categories of refugees. this approach to the treatment of refugees should be what the favourable treatment of refugees entails or what the modern human rights protection entails. the protection of dignity varies and this is dependent on the situation of the person. the need for human rights protection to reinforce or supplement the refugee rights protection is very important because, as eide (1996: 25) posits, human rights law inter-relates the promotion of human rights norms and standards with the advancement of socio-economic development. socio-economic development is seen as a vehicle to the progressive realisation of socioeconomic rights or better standards of life. the observance of human rights african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1521 norms plays a crucial role in the alleviation of deprivation and poverty and is seen as a primary goal of social protection and social progress, thereby contributing to positive national economic growth (eide, 1996: 25). of concern is that, by its very nature, refugee rights are not viewed as tenets of socioeconomic development but as tenets of the humanitarian protection in the host community. more often, refugee rights are understood in the context of humanitarian terms and not in the context of development terms. given the fact that the refugees’ situation is not a matter that is likely to be resolved in the foreseeable future, it is widely argued that refugees should therefore be integrated into the host society, including integration into economic and ultimately political participation. the inclusion of refugees in the democratic processes would allow them to voice their views on how the economy could be sustained and grown at individual, community and national levels. this article argues that refugee scholars have not given adequate attention to the issue of political participation by refugees and asylum-seekers. the protection of human rights has not been linked to economic development until very recently. human rights principles and economic development were, prior to 1990, viewed as separate disciplines that were aimed at increasing human freedom and individual autonomy. this article argues that not enough has been done in the analysis of the role of human rights norms in the protection of refugees, following the recent merger of these two disciplines that gave birth to the human rights-based approach. this approach is regarded as a tool that provides solutions to poverty or deprivation “through the establishment and enforcement of the rights that entitle the poor and marginalised people to a fair share of society’s resources” (chapman 2005: 16). this suggests that refugees’ socio-economic rights should be recognised in terms of their right to development and empowerment, in order to conceptualise those rights in a concrete way that responds to the position of refugees in a globalised economy. in a globalised economy, refugees and asylum-seekers should be given opportunities to restore their freedom to use their talents and skills or to develop their abilities with a view of achieving better and dignified standards of life. in this context, the idea of social empowerment and economic development should, according to chapman (2005: 4), be understood as: […] increasing people’s possibility and capacity to make the most of their potential to live as full creative human beings and to come together to african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1522 build caring, supporting, and accountable society [and]… responding to people’s basic needs for survival and aspirations for human dignity and respect. this denotes that the capabilities of different categories of refugees (i.e. men, women, children and people with disabilities) should be developed logically and rationally. although there is a tendency to associate the concept of development with citizenship and analyse it in that context, human fulfilment, active participation and development should not be denied to refugees or asylum-seekers on the ground of nationality. because socio-economic development is integral to the advancement of better standards of dignified treatment, the right to socio-economic development is an inalienable right, as explicitly stated by the 1986 declaration on the right to development. the preamble of the declaration (un, 1986) defines the concept of development as: […] a comprehensive economic, social, cultural and political process, which aims at the constant improvement of the well-being of the entire population and of all individuals on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in the distribution of benefits resulting therefrom. in this light, all humans are afforded the right to participate in, contribute to and enjoy socio-economic development, including cultural and political progress. it is within this context that refugee rights should be construed at the national level. this argument is supported by the fact that the right to human dignity would imply favourable treatment in labour, social, cultural, economic and political domains. together with the right to life, the right to human dignity or dignified treatment is viewed as a pillar of social empowerment, social transformation and economic development. as demonstrated, dignified treatment requires the state to make social programmes available to the poor and to ensure that they enjoy unlimited access to those programmes. there is consensus among human rights scholars that a constant improvement of the well-being of individuals will not be possible in circumstances in which people are stuck in poverty, entirely deprived of basic rights or are not accorded special treatment tailored to meet their special needs (liebenberg, 2008: 154; pieterse, 2007: 796-822; sen, 1999: 38; nussbaum, 2000: 34). the same applies in situations where nothing is done by the state to improve the conditions of the poor. poverty or deprivation makes it harder for vulnerable people such as refugees, asylumafrican human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1523 seekers and needy citizens to benefit from a range of rights. access to socioeconomic rights is central to the full realisation of human and refugee rights, as well as fundamental freedoms. integral to human and societal development is the accessibility of socio-economic rights and benefits. upholding refugee rights should involve more than the protection of physical safety. it needs to include a comprehensive process by which refugees should be integrated into the basic socio-economic strata of society and certain levels of socio-economic development. sen, who views rights and freedoms as development, maintains that equitable social transformation will be achieved if every human being has access to those basic rights that increase or enhance human freedom which, in turn, enables a person to achieve his or her life goals (sen, 1999:38). in the view of nussbaum (2000: 34), the pain, suffering, humiliation or degradation associated with social inequality or physical deprivation can be eradicated through the accessibility of socio-economic rights, which she views as a principled and nuanced mechanism to empower vulnerable, poor individuals to realise their potential. the main question is whether socio-economic rights are refugee rights or human rights or both, prior to analysing their role in the protection of the right to the economic development of refugees. the human rights-based approach presumes that human rights are universal and inalienable. they inhere in everyone. they cannot be given by a state or taken away by it. secondly, all human rights are indivisible. whether of a positive or negative nature, human rights are derived from the concept of human dignity and seek to protect the intrinsic worth of the human being. thirdly, human rights are interdependent and interrelated. the realisation of socio-economic rights presupposes the observance of core civil and political rights such as the right to equality, human dignity and freedom from arbitrary treatment. these rights are a cornerstone of social transformation and economic empowerment in south africa, hence their foundational constitutional value. fourthly, all individuals are equal in dignity and rights. all human beings are entitled to fundamental human rights and freedoms without discrimination of any kind. this cosmopolitan approach informs south africa’s bill of rights which, in turn, underpins the provisions of the refugees act (rsa, 1998), relating to the rights of refugees and asylumseekers (s 27(b) of the refugees act). in this respect, the government of south africa has to adhere to the norms and standards of the treatment, as expressed in regional and international texts relating to the treatment of refugees and enshrining refugee and human rights. in sum, the connection between refugee african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1524 rights and socio-economic development/empowerment is expressed in terms of the norms of equality and dignity which engender the favourable treatment of refugees at the national level through the requirement that certain human rights, norms and standards be observed when admitting and protecting refugees in the country. the following sections illustrate that the significance of human dignity has shaped south africa’s legal protection and has engendered the dignity-based jurisprudence invoked by the court to ensure the effective protection of refugees and asylum-seekers in terms of law and policy. development of refugee law in south africa historical background the post-apartheid immigration and refugee law seeks to distance itself from the apartheid practices which denied black south africans and their fellow black africans dignified treatment. the current law also distances itself from the previous practices conducted prior to the installation of the apartheid government in 1948. prior to 1900, the movement of refugees from europe was understood as white people migrating to and settling in south africa, whereas other races were forced to migrate as slaves or to work as cheap labourers (lazerson, 1994: 82-99). after 1900, immigration became an issue of legal concern. there was a need to control and manage immigration on a legal basis. the first immigration law was adopted in 1913 under the immigrants regulations act 22 of 1913, and was aimed at excluding indian immigrants (klotz, 2014: 10-11). in 1930, the immigration law was revised under the immigration quota act 8 of 1930 with a view to excluding those migrants classified as ‘undesirable’. based on this exclusionary approach, more restrictive immigration measures were imposed under the aliens act 1 of 1937 and the aliens registration act 26 of 1939, with a view of restricting “an influx of european refugees prior to world war ii” (comaroff and comaroff, 2001: 249). later, discriminatory immigration measures were directed at the exclusion of african black people and this approach remained operational until the 1990s (comaroff and comaroff, 2001). exclusion, which gives rise to unfair discrimination, lies at the heart of denying people their respect and dignity. unfair discrimination always sends a message to victims that they are individuals of lesser moral worth, as compared to others. for that reason, unfair discrimination is not compatible with equality in rights and dignity. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1525 klotz (2014: 10) illustrates how the immigration laws and policies adopted by the apartheid regime were firmly underpinned by segregation, whereby a sharp ontological line between white and non-white was developed. the roots of the contemporary exclusionary approach and xenophobic sentiments (or violence) can be traced to the past immigration laws. for instance, between 1913 and 1986, african black people, whether refugees or not, were, in principle, not allowed to enter south africa and could only stay in south africa as ‘illegal migrants’ and, if employed, as ‘illegal migrant workers’ (adepoju, 2003: 4). consequently, refugees and asylum-seekers resided in south africa illegally and had to do their best to support themselves (polzer, 2008: 480; handmaker, 2001: 92). they could not claim the dignified standards of treatment, contemplated either in the international refugee law or human rights law. the tension between this long history of an exclusionary approach and the post-apartheid commitment to the protection of dignity of every human person can still be seen in contemporary political approaches to the question of whether refugees and asylum-seekers should, on either an equal basis or a favourable basis, enjoy socio-economic protection. the question of the favourable protection of refugees can be understood better if two approaches to the ethics of international migration are explored. these two approaches are realistic and idealistic. the morality of the realistic approach is based on the moral standards of protection offered to members of a political community (i.e. citizens) as opposed to non-members or outsiders (i.e. non-citizens), who are viewed as a threat to the political community (ugur, 2007: 5-6). the realistic theory posits immigration as posing a threat to national interests and the ways of life of citizens and their association as well as their economic development or empowerment. within this understanding, politicians and policymakers support and adopt socio-economic laws that confine the distribution of national resources to citizens to the exclusion of non-citizens. put plainly, citizenship becomes the moral ground on which national resources and opportunities can primarily be distributed. in this way, immigration laws, policies and procedures are reformed with a view of decreasing the overall levels of immigration (ugur, 2007: 5-6). new criteria for admission into the country or for accessing the labour market are introduced, including changes in refugee determination procedures. the shortcomings of the realistic approach are based on the state placing greater weight on the protection of the interests of citizens than on the interests of outsiders seeking to join its political community. in doing so, little attention is given to meeting the moral standards of protection that take root in equality in rights and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1526 dignity, espoused under human rights law (carens, 1996: 164). the disregard of international moral standards is ethically justified on the basis of the sovereignty of the nation and its moral primary obligation to protect its citizens. however, carens (1996) asserts that every human being belongs to a particular political community, who enjoys the protection of the government of that community, even if he or she is in another country. the reality is that refugees are the only human beings who do not enjoy the protection of the governments of their own political communities, from which they fled. in contrast to the realistic approach, the idealistic approach justifies the protection of all human beings (citizens and non-citizens alike) on the basis of humanity and thus applies an egalitarian principle to the protection of international migration. the egalitarian principle derives from and is constructed on the natural law theories on which the ethics of human rights standards are based. the idealistic approach assumes that human rights apply to all human beings irrespective of their nationalities. it purports that people should move freely around the globe and that people should seek asylum in another country. it advocates for a just and fair distribution of wealth among all people within given territorial boundaries. politicians view this approach as a danger to the preservation of their state’s national resources. hence, the idealistic approach overlooks the sovereignty of the nation and its territorial power to choose who to admit into the country and to decide on the protection to be afforded to that person (ugur, 2007: 6-7; carens, 1996: 167). in light of the above, this article analyses the question of the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers in the post-apartheid constitutional order, in the context of the realistic and the idealistic approaches. the primary point of departure is that the south african constitution is informed by the natural law theories and thus guarantees certain fundamental rights in the bill of rights to all, without distinction of any kind. these rights include socio-economic rights, which are seen as a vehicle to the protection of the human dignity of the poor and vulnerable. the idealistic approach adopted by the constitution makes the question of protection of the dignity of refugees and asylum-seekers very interesting. why? because the post-apartheid government has constitutionally committed itself to upholding the principle of equality in rights and dignity of all people living in the country. does the idealistic approach apply to immigration law and distributive law? this question will be responded to through the analysis of the current immigration law. in principle, the application of the idealistic approach is partially underscored in the 1997 green paper on international migration. this green african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1527 paper (rsa, 1997) pointed to the need to extend special protection to refugees and asylum-seekers in a sensible and humane manner. the shift from the discriminatory practices to the dignified protection practices resulted in the adoption of the refugees act, 1998. the act firstly domesticates the un refugee convention (1951) and the au refugee convention (1969). secondly, it recognises the human rights law as an interpretative tool to be employed when defining the treatment of refugees and asylum-seekers with respect to a disputed or impugned right. thirdly, the act gives effect to basic fundamental rights and freedoms contained in the bill of rights that apply to everyone. in a nutshell, the act recognises the equal dignity and moral worth of refugees and asylum-seekers. it thus rests on a rejection of south africa’s racist history, in which black people – citizens and non-citizens alike – were subjected to humiliation and degradation. holistically, the refugees act (1998) is conceived in cosmopolitan and positive terms. it underscores the idealistic theories. the cosmopolitan terms imply that refugees and asylum-seekers are entitled to all fundamental rights and freedoms, save for those rights the constitution ascribes to citizens. the positive terms imply that south africa should act positively to ensure that (a) their needs are met; (b) they have adequate resources; and (c) they are afforded opportunities to advance themselves. people cannot have their dignity respected by the state if they are not afforded socio-economic rights and benefits, whose access is a key to the development of a society in which every individual can pursue his or her dream for the fulfilment of his or her potential. it is within this context that the refugees act (1998) is designed to alleviate the desperation and destitution suffered by refugees and asylumseekers prior to and after arriving in south africa through the facilitation of equal access to subsidised public service delivery. despite these promises, the implementation of the refugee law highlights the tension between the protection of human rights and inherited inclinations to treat non-citizens, in particular african black people, as a threat to national security and economic growth (klotz, 2014: 171). human dignity as an interpretive tool as a foundational value, human dignity is employed to interpret the rights contained in the bill of rights. owing to the idealistic approach to the ethics of the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers, most of the constitutional rights in the bill of rights accrue to refugees and asylum-seekers. firstly, they accrue to them on account of their cosmopolitan or universal nature. secondly, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1528 the cosmopolitan rights accrue to them by virtue of the refugees act (1998). these cosmopolitan rights include the socio-economic rights. the cosmopolitan nature of socio-economic rights is not of concern to this article. the article is more concerned about the fact that it has become a norm that socio-economic rights (and other rights in the bill of rights) must be interpreted to promote the values that underlie an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom. it is understood that the equal respect of human dignity has the potential of promoting the individual autonomy and liberty. in this respect, the founding value of human dignity must essentially inform the interpretation of both the constitutional rights of refugees and of distributive law (i.e. socio-economic legislation) that recognises, circumscribes or limits their rights. the human dignity-based jurisprudence is given precedence in the interpretation of the rights guaranteed by the refugees act. the reason is that human dignity – as a value – has been used to develop socio-economic laws in a manner that gives more protection to poor and vulnerable individuals. in refugee realms, it has, so far, been relied on to extend the right to study, work and engage in economic activities to asylum-seekers. unlike the refugee law, distributive or socio-economic laws are framed within the realistic context. the realism about the exclusion of refugees and asylumseekers starts with the recognition that the primary obligation of the state is to protect and advance its citizens, in particular the previously disadvantaged people. in the pursuit of an egalitarian society, the moral worth of refugees and asylum-seekers are usually recognised when the court is ceased with scrutinising a distributive law, conferring socio-economic benefits to ascertain whether such distributive law is in compliance with the constitutional aim, value and standard of dignity. in scrutinising the distributive law, certain factors are taken into consideration. consideration is given to: (i) the impact of socio-economic measures on the conditions of individuals, groups or communities, when determining whether such measures facilitate, promote, and expedite the eradication of deep-seated or inherited inequality (cf. abahlali basemjondolo movement sa v premier of the province of kwazulu-natal 2010 2 bclr 99 (cc) para 18). (ii) the reasonableness of positive measures to protect the interests of marginalised groups effectively (cf. government of the republic of south africa v grootboom 2000 11 bclr 1169 (cc) paras 31, 36). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1529 (iii) the need to redress historical, structural and systemic forms of marginalisation, discrimination, indignity or humiliation experienced by millions of black people (cf. bato star fishing (pty) ltd v minister of environmental affairs 2004 4 sa 490 (cc) para 91). these considerations are meant to ground the interpretation and adjudication of socio-economic rights in contextual, historical, comparative and purposive methods (de ville, 2000: 144). as noted, the dignity-based jurisprudence has been elevated to the number one position when it comes to giving meaning, content and substance to socio-economic rights of citizens on the one hand and of refugees on the other in practical situations or in resolving constitutional disputes. in this way, human dignity was central to the reasoning of the supreme court of appeal (sca) in minister of home affairs v watchenuka 2004 1 sa 21 (sca). in this case, the minister of home affairs prohibited asylum-seekers from taking up employment and from studying within the first six months. although the state as sovereign body has the power to describe the conditions for noncitizens as it deems desirable, the sca stated that the absolute deprivation of access to education and livelihood opportunities during the first six months violated the human dignity of asylum-seekers (para 24). viewing work as an important component of living in dignity, the sca explained that the freedom to engage in productive work ensured, at least, the minimum conditions for asylum-seekers’ dignified life (para 27). in justifying its reasoning, the sca went on to state that human dignity inheres in all people regardless of their nationality and that “self-esteem and a sense of self-worth – the fulfilment of what it is to be human – is most often bound up with being accepted as socially useful” (para 27). the sca’s remarks were primarily based on the idealistic approach to the protection of the intrinsic worth of a human being. because human dignity must be protected in every situation, the right to human dignity outweighed distributive laws which fundamentally impair the human dignity of refugees. in the context of asylum-seeking, the protection of dignity requires mechanisms that would enable asylum-seekers to survive and live a better life. access to the labour market and education is among those mechanisms. the sca, in somali association of south africa v limpopo, department of economic development, environment and tourism, 2015 1 sa 151 (sca), also invoked the value of human dignity to determine the scope and ambit of the right to seek employment contained in the refugees act. the court noted that the right to seek employment was wide enough to include the right to self-employment african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1530 guaranteed by article 18 of the un refugee convention. the supreme court of appeal (para 43) stated that: […] if, because of circumstances, a refugee or asylum-seeker is unable to obtain wage-earning employment and is on the brink of starvation, which brings with it humiliation and degradation, and that person can only sustain himor herself by engaging in trade, that such a person ought to be able to rely on the constitutional right to dignity in order to advance a case for the granting of a licence to trade. the sca stated that since certain constitutional rights, such as the right to freely choose a trade, occupation or profession, are reserved for citizens, it cannot be invoked by the state to condemn refugees or asylum-seekers to a life of humiliation and degradation (para 43). this illustrates that certain rights constitutionally afforded to citizens, can be extended to refugees or asylumseekers. proceeding from this analysis, new restrictive changes to the refugees act, which came into force in terms of the refugees amendment act 11 of 2017 (rsa, 2017), and which were aimed at limiting asylum-seekers’ right to work, fall short of the dignified standards of treatment. under the current revised regime, asylum-seekers must be allowed to work by the standing committee for refugee affairs and on the basis of conditions determined by the standing committee. accordingly, asylum-seekers are subjected to assessment to determine their abilities to sustain themselves and their dependants – with or without the assistance of family or friends. those who are unable to sustain themselves must be assisted by humanitarian organisations or be allowed to work. this new dimension of protection of asylum-seekers is inconsistent with the judgements of the sca handed down in the two aforementioned cases and is in conflict with obligations imposed on south africa by international refugee law to offer them humanitarian assistance or protection. conclusion the idea of human dignity has shifted from a moral value to a legal norm on which the current international legal order is based. as a legal norm, the idea has gradually shaped the international refugee protection at global, continental and national level to the extent that restores the moral worth of refugees and asylum-seekers. it challenges the realistic approach which is grounded in essential elements of sovereignty. in the south african context, the idea has greatly contributed to a more liberal constitutional, statutory, or judicial protection of refugees and asylum-seekers. normatively, human african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1531 dignity has engendered the dignity-based jurisprudence, which is a powerful tool that is used, not only to give effect to refugees’ rights, but also to extend some of the rights traditionally attached to citizenship to refugees or asylumseekers for the protection of their welfare. it holistically connects and brings all refugee, human and constitutional rights together for all purposes of social progress. it problematises the traditional distinctions between the rights of citizens and the rights of non-citizens and between needy citizens and needy refugees. the dignity-based jurisprudence employed by the courts is significant for the interpretation and protection of refugee rights for several reasons. firstly, the value of dignity demands that no-one should be reduced to a mere object of state power, or be left without the resources needed to live a dignified life or be deprived of autonomous choice and abilities to meet their own ends. secondly, dignity has no boundaries and for that reason, it cannot be confined to citizens only. thirdly, dignity, read together with the value of ubuntu, requires all persons to be treated humanely and demands equal treatment consistent with and infused by values of group solidarity, compassion, respect, human dignity, conformity to basic norms and collective unity. fourthly, measures based on the immigration law principle of self-sufficiency, in cases involving destitute refugees, would not be constitutionally justified in circumstances where they have the effect of degrading refugees by compelling them to resort to crime, prostitution, stealing, or begging. fifthly, discrimination against this vulnerable group would amount to unfair discrimination if it has a stigmatising effect by sending out a message that this group of people is in some ways inferior to citizens or less worthy as human persons. the value of human dignity has played an important role in the recognition of the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers and the extension of rights to them. it is still applied to mediate a number of legal disputes, including administrative disputes or criminal matters involving refugees and asylum-seekers. references adepoju, a. 2003. continuity and changing configuration of migration to and from the republic of south africa. international migration, 41(1): 3-28. african union (au). 1969. african union convention governing specific aspects of refugee problems in africa, african union (au), addis ababa, ethiopia. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1532 beracochea, e., weinstein, c. and evans, d. 2011. rights-based approaches to public health. new york: springer publishing company. botha, h. 2009. human dignity in comparative perspective. stellenbosch law review, 20(2): 171-220. carens, j.h. 1996. realistic and idealistic approaches to the ethics of immigration. international migration review, 30(2): 156-170. chapman, j. 2005. rights-based development: the challenge of change and power. paper presented at the gprg sponsored conference on “the winners and losers from rights-based approaches to development”, institute for development policy and management, university of manchester, 21-22 february. global poverty research group (gprg), 1-41. comaroff, j. and comaroff, j.l. 2001. naturing the nation: aliens, apocalypse, and the postcolonial state. social identities, 7(2): 233-265. currie, i. and de waal, j. 2005. the bill of rights handbook (5th ed.). cape town: juta & company ltd. de ville, j.r. 2000. constitutional and statutory interpretation. cape town: interdoc. eide, a. 1996. human rights requirements to social and economic development. food policy, 21(1): 23-39. handmaker, j. 2001. no easy walk: advancing refugee protection in south africa. africa today, 48(3): 91-113. kant, i. 1785. groundwork for the metaphysics of morals. new haven and london: yale university press. kavuro, c. 2015. refugees and asylum-seekers: barriers to accessing south africa’s labour market. law, democracy and development, 19: 232-260. kavuro, c. 2018. exploring the full legal protection of refugees and its limitations with reference to natural and positive law. obiter, 39(1): 17-44. klotz, a. 2014. migration and national identity in south africa, 1860-2010. new york: cambridge university. lazerson, j.a. 1994. against the tide: whites in the struggle against apartheid. boulder: westview press. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1533 liebenberg, s. 2008. the value of freedom in interpreting socio-economic rights. acta juridica (special edition), 149-176. maritain, j. and anson, d.c. 1949. the right of man and natural law. tacoma: charles scribner’s sons. nussbaum, m.c. 2000. women and human development: the capabilities approach. cambridge: cambridge university press. pieterse, m. 2007. eating socio-economic rights: the usefulness of rights talk in alleviating social hardship revisited. human rights quarterly, 29(3): 796822. polzer, t. 2008. invisible integration: how bureaucratic, academic and social categories obscure integrated refugees. journal of refugee studies, 21(4): 476– 498. republic of south africa (rsa). 1996. constitution of the republic of south africa, government of the republic of south africa, pretoria. republic of south africa (rsa). 1997. green paper on international migration, 1997. government of the republic of south africa, pretoria. republic of south africa (rsa). 1998. refugees act 130 of 1998, government of the republic of south africa, pretoria. republic of south africa (rsa). 2017. refugees amendment act 11 of 2017, government of the republic of south africa, pretoria. sen, a. 1999. development as freedom. oxford: oxford university press. ugur, m. 2007. the ethics, economics and governance of free movement. mpra paper no 26007, posted 21 october 2010, 1-27. united nations (un). 1948. universal declaration of human rights (udhr), united nations. united nations (un). 1950. statute of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). from <https://bit.ly/2vlqkt3> (retrieved 16 june 2018). united nations (un). 1951. convention relating to the status of refugees, united nations. united nations (un).1986. declaration on the right to development (drd), united nations. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1534 veneklasen, l., miller, v., clark, c. and reilly, m. 2004. rights-based approaches and beyond – linking rights and participation: challenges of current thinking and action. unpublished paper drafted for a joint initiative of the participation group – ids and just associates. from < https://bit.ly/2isbq79> (retrieved 13 may 2018). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1535 the migration processes in ghana: the case of northern migrants shamsu deen-ziblim and adadow yidana abstract over the past four decades, accra has witnessed an increasing influx of young women who migrate to the city with the sole aim of carrying goods. this paper examines the migration processes of these young women, who mostly migrate from the northern part of ghana to accra, in the south. a sample of 216 female porters were selected for the study. a survey, personal interviews, and focus group discussions were the main tools for data collection. the reasons for their migration, the parties involved in the decision to migrate, and how their migration was financed were explored. the study revealed that the migration process of female porters is enabled by social networks; the women have varying levels of social capital, which facilitates movement and settlement. these social networks increase the social asset base of female porters and provide safety nets for them. it is found that the reasons for their migration are related to the declining importance of agriculture and the non-availability of jobs at their origin, which can be blamed on the liberalisation of the ghanaian economy. it is also found that mothers are deeply involved in their daughters’ migration decisions. keywords migration, processes, female porters, social network, ghana. introduction migration is a common phenomenon in ghana, with at least one internal or international migrant living in 43% of all households in 2005/2006 (ackah and medvedev, 2010). it is estimated that approximately 50% of the ghanaian population is comprised of internal migrants (awumbila, 2015). what this means is that half of the ghanaian population migrated to settle in cities other than those in which they were born. the pattern of internal migration in ghana has been one of continual movement of people from the less-developed north  department of community health and family medicine, school of medicine and health science, university for development studies, tamale, ghana. email: zshamsu72@gmail.com  department of community health and family medicine, school of medicine and health science, university for development studies, tamale, ghana. email: adadowy@yahoo.com african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1536 (which includes the northern, savannah, north east, upper east, and upper west regions) to the well-developed south (central, western, ashanti, and greater accra regions). this study focuses on the migration of people to the greater accra region from the five regions that form the northern part of ghana. internal migration has resulted from a spatial dichotomy of an underdeveloped north and a relatively developed south (anarfi and kwankye 2005; kwankye, & anarfi 2006). this spatial dichotomy is due to pre-colonial and post-colonial policies that made the north a labour reserve for the south (saaka, 2002). the establishment of infrastructures in the south to the neglect of the north also increased this dichotomy (stephen, 2006). however, the desire to travel is often times facilitated by the existing social networks that have been established. head porters are highly networked in both the source communities and the destination communities. in the networking process, head porters relate to one another from network positions that both constrain and facilitates their interactions, while the networks provide some stability to the broader social structure. according to rahman and lee (2005), social networks play a crucial role in reducing the risks of migration. the decision by the individual to migrate is largely influenced by existing social networks and kinship capital (stark and bloom, 1985), with the networks in the destination acting as a form of social insurance (kuhn, 2003). a strong and viable network reduces the level of uncertainty in finding jobs and enables migrant head porters to secure work (in kiosks and storefronts) and accommodation prior to moving (afsar, 2000; rakib and islam, 2009). through this social network, migrants at the destination community affect the labour market outcomes of newly arriving migrants at these destinations, thereby reducing migration costs and consequently influencing the selection patterns of migrants ( mckenzie and rapoport, 2012; munshi, 2015). other researchers, like mishra (2007), have observed an interplay between migration and inequality in the source community, as the network in the destination community can reduce inequality through regular remittances to the country of origin. according to van der geest (2011), female migration in ghana is a common response to unfavourable cultural and social issues and is a survival strategy to cope with economic inequality. according to action aid (2012), female migration in ghana is attributed to livelihood insecurity. until recently, the north-south migration in ghana used to be the preserve of men for economic and social reasons. however, this pattern has changed and today the dominant migration stream from north to south is of young women moving african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1537 independently of their families towards the cities of accra and kumasi (iddrisu, 2001; litchfield and weddington, 2003; whitehead and hashim, 2007; gss, 2012). due to the enormous benefits associated with remittances, families (mostly mothers) consciously support their daughters’ migration by aiding their decision-making process and funding the migration (awumbila, owusu, and teye, 2014; awumbila, 1997). the movement has brought about spatial imbalances in levels of development and has contributed to the north having the highest incidence of poverty (gss/ghs, 2009). consequently, the northern part of ghana has been the major supplier of labour to the industries and the cocoa farms in the south, and this has contributed to high migration rates from the north to the large towns and the cocoa growing areas in the south. for several years, there has been an increase in the number of unskilled and uneducated women, and young girls who have dropped out of school to migrate to the market centres in southern ghana. the high school dropout rates of the female porters is not as a result of parents’ inability to pay school fees; rather it is largely due to cultural practices, such as early marriage and the desire of young girls to migrate to earn money to prepare themselves for marriage. these young women migrate to the south to engage exclusively in work as porters, carrying luggage on their heads for a negotiable fee. any woman who engages in such trade is called a ‘kayayoo’. in the hausa language, ‘kaya’ means ‘load’ or ‘goods’. in the ga language, the language of the indigenous people of accra, ‘yoo’ means ‘woman’. therefore, ‘kayayoo’ i refers to any woman or young girl who carries a load on her head for a fee. the plural form of ‘yoo’ is ‘yei’; hence, ‘kayayei’ are female head porters in the market centres in ghana, especially in accra and kumasi. materials and methods this study draws on a wide range of data collection and analysis methods. according to bryman (2008), the use of triangulation helps to capture different dimensions, that is, the choice of different methods provides this synergy in data capture. therefore, the research employed the mixed method approach (qualitative and quantitative). the tools employed in the data collection included a survey, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and individual interviews. about 216 respondents were selected from 4 locations in accra. the areas selected for the survey were agbogloshie, tema lorry station, mallam attah market and the cocoa marketing board market (cmb). these areas were purposively selected because they are noted african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1538 to be the major areas in accra where migrant female porters reside and work. a convenient sampling technique was used to select the respondents. this was deemed appropriate as the porters are always moving, depending on where they are tasked to carry their loads. because the concentration of porters in these four locations varied, the selection of respondents was made in proportion to the concentration. focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were employed to capture the wide range of experiences of the kayayei, which are useful in complementing the data collected through the survey (johnson & onwuegbuzie, 2004). a questionnaire was used to elicit information for the quantitative arm of the study. two analytical procedures were used that contribute to the mixed-method approach employed. the quantitative data analysis followed the conventional variable identification, entry, and manipulation using the spss software (version 20), while the qualitative data analysis used manual coding procedures. first, the qualitative data were analysed using thematic and content analysis approaches. second, the survey data were analysed by means of univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analytic techniques. results and discussion socio-demographic characteristics the study selected a total of 213 respondents from the 4 locations. from the results, the majority (44.4%) of the respondents were within the ages 15–19 years, 25.4% were within 20–24 years, and 21.5% were 25 years and over. this ties in well with the findings of zaami (2010) and baah-ennumh et al. (2012), who claim that more teenage girls than matured women develop an interest in migration. in terms of ethnicity, 41.7% were mamprusi, 35.6% were dagombas, and 22% were tamplinsi. tmajority of the respondents were not married (59.1%), 15.9% were married, and 5.6% were divorced. in terms of the education levels of respondents, 54.5% of them had a primary level of education, 25.4% had no formal education, and only 2.8% had shs/vocational education (see table 1). from the results, those with primary education all dropped out due to lack of interest, and those with junior and senior high levels of education left school due to failure. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1539 table 1: socio-demographic characteristics of respondents sn variables frequency percent 1 age group 10–14 years 27 12.7 15–19 years 86 40.4 20–24 years 54 25.4 25+ years 46 21.5 total 213 100 2 ethnicity dagomba 76 35.6 mamprusi 89 41.7 tamplinsi 47 22.0 other 4 1.8 total 213 100 3 marital status single 126 59.1 married 34 15.9 co-habiting 42 19.7 divorced 11 5.6 total 213 100 4 educational level no formal education 54 25.4 primary education 116 54.5 jhs 37 17.4 shs/vocational 6 2.8 african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1540 total 213 100 source: field survey, 2017. the migration process and experience until recently, analysis of the migration process as a whole has received very little attention (schapendonk, 2012); rather, there has been a focus on migration in different areas, particularly relating to the causes and consequences of migration. the actual process, involving the reasons, the nature of movement, and the arrival and settling of the migrant, has been either viewed separately or ignored. this has led to suggestions that to obtain a nuanced understanding of people’s migration, it is imperative to consider the entire process as a whole. these processes relate to push and pull factors from the source to the destination communities. reasons for migration from the results, different reasons were provided to explain why the porters migrate. these include water crisis, forced marriage, lack of jobs, quest for wealth or ‘looking for money’, and high poverty rates in the north. a little over two-thirds of the female head porters (68.4%) reported that they travelled to accra to look for money. similarly, 13.9% of the respondents reported that they migrated to accra due to poverty. about 4.8% reported water crisis in their places of origin as the reason for their migration. a small percentage (1.0%) attributed their migration to forced marriage, while about 3.3% mentioned lack of jobs at the source communities as the reason for the migration. across all the age groups, the most significant reason for migration was to look for money or, relatedly, to escape from poverty. in all, 73.3% of the respondents aged 15–19 years migrated to look for money, while those aged 10–14 years had the highest percentage (27%) migrating as a result of poverty. those who migrated as a result of forced marriage were in the 15–19 years and 20–24 years age groups. there was also a significant proportion of respondents in the age group of 25 years and above who migrated for other reasons, such as escaping conflicts, joining a partner, and family pressure at the place of origin (see table 2). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1541 table 2: reason for migrating to accra by age (n=209) age groups reason for migrating 10–14 15–19 20–24 25+ total (n=27) (n=86) (n=54) (n=43) (n=209) water shortage/crisis 3.8 4.7 3.7 7.0 4.8 forced marriage 3.8 1.2 0.0 0.0 1.0 lack of jobs 0.0 3.5 5.6 2.3 3.3 quest for wealth 61.5 73.3 72.2 58.1 68.4 poverty 26.9 8.1 13.0 18.6 13.9 lack of social amenities 3.8 9.3 5.6 14.0 8.6 source: field survey 2017 respondents provided different accounts to explain why they moved from the northern part of ghana to accra. though they did not indicate this in the survey, it appears that some of them travel because of the perceived success of their colleagues returning to their origin communities. my friends came from accra the previous year with a lot of things (assets) so i also wanted to go and see what i could get. i harvested groundnuts from people’s farms and was given my share which amounted to four bags. so i borrowed money from a woman under the pretext of buying a nice cloth a friend had brought from accra. we took a vehicle to the tamale town from our village where we boarded a bigger bus to accra (abiba, 16-year-old kayayoo). others gave account of how the journey was embarked upon and who was given prior notice of the impending trip. i migrated to accra from zian in the savelegu-naton district. the very day i left the house, a friend i had already planned to travel with came to my house with the intention that we were going to the river to fetch water. i took some of my important things along with me. i did not inform african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1542 my father, it was only my mother that i informed about my trip which she agreed to, but advised me not to inform my father. it was my mother who assisted me with transportation cost and some monies for my upkeep on the way. when we got to the river, i left my container there and joined my boy lover on a motor bike to tamale to join a car to accra (salma, 20-year-old kayayoo). as illustrated by the cases of abiba and salma, some women provide assistance to their daughters to migrate, since they share in the aspirations to migrate. additionally, the case of abiba shows that boyfriends of some girls provided their initial transport and other related travel costs. this is understandable as the items bought by these girls form the basis for subsequent marriage. unless a female partner has accumulated basic ‘feminine’ assets, such as cooking utensils and cloths, a marriage cannot be consummated. these findings support those of abdulai (2010) who argued that mothers are the main propellers of their daughters’ migration, while fathers often oppose the process. additionally, the findings support those of awumbila et al. (2014) who found that family relations tend to provide financial and moral support for rural migrants leaving for cities. lack of social amenities that are important in sustainable livelihoods, especially water and good roads, are critical push factors associated with the porters’ migration. this is because women and girls are responsible for fetching water and carting produce from the farm to the home and to the market. the poor roads and long distances to water sources increases the drudgery women suffer in their daily activities. this finding resonates with the findings of awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf (2008) that the reasons for migration from the rural north to the urban south include not only the limited economic opportunities but also the poor social amenities and cultural restrictions that partly account for female poverty. while socio-economic and cultural factors act as push factors for female migration from the north, relatively favourable factors act as pull factors in various destinations in the south. for example, awumbila et al. (2014) argues that the pattern of internal migration in ghana has also been influenced by the stark differences in the levels of poverty between the north and the south. employment opportunities resulting from the growth of industries in urban areas like accra have contributed to the rise in the movement of young people from the north to the south (yaro, 2004; van der geest, 2011). the decision to migrate african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1543 the percentage distribution of the main person involved in each female porter’s decision to migrate to accra is shown in table 3. most of the female porters (68.4%) made their independent decision to move to accra. in addition, 21.2% were influenced by their mothers. siblings (1.9%), aunts (2.4%), and friends/boy lovers (4.7%) also had some influence. the fewest number of porters (1.4%) listed recruiting agents as their main influence. table 3: percentage distribution of persons involved in decision to migrate to accra person involved in the decision to migrate frequency percent self only 145 68.4 mother 45 21.2 siblings 4 1.9 aunt 5 2.4 friends/boyfriend 10 4.7 recruitment agent 3 1.4 total 212 100 source: field survey, 2017. the decision-making process, however, is more complex than what the quantitative data depicts. the quantitative data only depicts the main sources of influence in the decision to migrate and does not convey how the interaction of various sources impact the decision. how is the role of other people or intermediaries in the decision to migrate played out? focus group discussions suggest that aunts and sisters play substantial roles in the decision-making process. based on what i saw from those girls in our community who had come to accra and returned home, i also wanted to come to accra. so i talked to my mother and my father. my father strongly disagreed and it was a very difficult thing for me. it was my mother who agreed that i should go and even supported me with gh¢ 30 for transport. when i finally got here i had the phone call from my father that if i fail to return to the village within 3 days he will disown me and that i should look for my father. i had to get an elder in our village to talk to my father on my behalf and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1544 the first thing i did to make my father happy was to buy him a bicycle within my first month of working as a kayayoo. in the third month i sent to him an amount of gh¢ 100 to enable him buy fertilizer for his farm. all these i was doing for him to forgive me and also to know that my being here is not to misbehave but rather to look for money to support the family and to prepare myself for marriage (azara, 19 year-old kayayoo). as shown by the case of azara, most fathers in rural ghana are not in support of the migration of their daughters to the city to work as kayayei. this finding resonates well with abdulai (2010) who argues that the reasons why most fathers oppose the migration of their daughters to the city is that it tarnishes their image and reputation, especially when the girl is given out in marriage. the kayayei is good, but girls of today can do anything to disgrace the parents. i don’t support it because i am a victim because my first daughter was given to a man to marry we collected the bride price and she requested to go to accra to work and get money for the marriage. hmm! after 4 months i was told that a different man in accra has put my daughter in the family way. it was a big disappointment and disgrace to the entire family. since then i do not encourage any girl in my house to go to accra for kayayei (mba alidu, an elder). another parent in kasulyili in the tolon district whose 17-year-old daughter had migrated to accra explained: if i had the means in providing her all what she need to prepare her to join her husband, or if i could send her to learn a profession or provide her with capital to do business, then she would not go. but because we can’t provide her any of these, she has to go. this quotation, similar to that of salma presented earlier in this study, demonstrates the position of many in the focus group discussions: that most women provide assistance to their daughters to migrate as they share in their daughters’ aspirations to migrate. the findings support those of awumbila et al. (2014) who found that family relations tend to provide financial and moral support to rural migrants leaving for cities. other factors emerged from the in-depth interviews with parents in the porters’ origin communities. these include the influence of peers, with peers acting not only as a major source of information about the destination areas, but also as persuasive agents who ask their colleagues to come along to see african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1545 and enjoy the city life. according to some of the parents, when young girls see their peers returning home from cities with items like clothing, cooking utensils, and cell phones, they also yearn to go in order to acquire these items. during a focus group discussion, one parent whose daughter migrated without her knowledge corroborated this when he said: their peers go and come back with clothes and home utensils, so if they see these, they also feel the urge to migrate to accra so that they can also come with those items. when the returned porters ask them to go with them to the city, they just jump high in sky and go along, they hide away usually in the morning or late in the evening when we thought they have gone to search for water at the river (mba salifu, a 51-year-old parent). recruiting agents although the results of the data analysis show that recruiting agents play a smaller role in the decision to migrate, their influence seems to be on the rise. focus groups and interviews with the female head porters in accra showed that the experienced kayayei who have established strong social networks with potential employers now act as job brokers to recruiting agents. these experienced female porters return to their home villages and surrounding villages to recruit more young girls to the city to work as porters, as is reported by this porter: i was in my village when a woman from the nearby village who works in accra came and told me that she wants to pick me to accra to help her in her work. i agreed but when we got here i ended up working for her because i pay a commission of 10 cedis every day to her. besides the experienced kayayei, family members and friends also recruit people from the origin communities, as a female porter explained: one of the market women in accra told me to bring someone i trusted, someone like me, to assist her in her work. so i quickly called my brother’s daughter who had failed her jhs exams and was just sitting in the house doing nothing. she was happy and i sent her money to come the following week to help the woman in her shop” (amina, 30-year-old kayayoo). the focus groups suggested that the form of recruitment depicted in the narration of amina was becoming rather common. this is said to be facilitated by telephone communication, as the messages and discussions can be african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1546 communicated more quickly by phone than by passing them through returnees. recruitment in the migration industry is increasingly becoming an important factor in the migration of females worldwide. however, empirical works on this topic have been limited in the case of internal migration (adepoju, 2010, 2004, 2002). several emerging studies accounting for the processes that facilitate the international migration of women show that recruitment agencies, both formal and informal, are increasingly recruiting women, particularly from asia, to work in the service industry in europe. financing the migration this section examines how the female porters’ journeys to accra were financed. here, the study tried to analyse the various mechanisms the female porters adopted in financing their journeys to accra. the percentage distribution of how their trips were financed is shown in table 4. the highest percentage of (46.7%) said that they used their savings to make their journeys. in addition, about one-quarter (24.8%) of the respondents obtained money for their travel through sale of assets. others reported that their journeys were funded through borrowing from family members (8.4%). some migrants used other means (12.1%), while 4.2% said their travel did not involve any cost. those who reported that their journey did not involve any cost were those who were assisted by recruiting agents. lastly, those who took a loan (usually from a friend or relative) constituted the least proportion (3.7%). table 4: percentage distribution of how the journey to accra was financed means of financing travel to accra frequency percent no cost 9 4.2 savings 100 46.7 sale of assets 53 24.8 loan from friends 8 3.7 borrowing from family members 18 8.4 other 26 12.1 total 214 100 source: field survey, 2017. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1547 some migrants secure loans for their travel by presenting an asset to the lender as collateral. this, according to several focus group discussions, is a new way of sourcing loans. one of the respondents explained as follows: i sold all my farm produce to enable me to finance my trip to accra. the money i got was not enough so i had to give some of my cloths to a friend that enabled me to take some monies from her. i thank god because i had enough that i can pay and collect my cloths and i return to the north (amama, 19-year-old kayayoo). the practice of offering collateral is said to have evolved as a result of the failure of migrants or returnees to honour their debts. this finding supports the argument by stephen (2006) that the female porters use their assets at their origins as a collateral to obtain the funds necessary to travel to the city to work as head porters. there are various means of financing the trip to accra. my coming here was supported by an agent. she came to our village and requested the service of young girls she will send to accra to assist her in her business. my aunty handed me over to her. she paid for my transportation. i cannot even say the amount she paid in transporting me here. even when we were coming, she bought food for me and when we got to accra she took a taxi cab that brought as to our present location. for this reason i did not pay anything in coming here (amama, 17-year-old kayayoo). amama was one of the respondents who reported that they did not spend any money of their own in travelling to accra. these findings support those of abdulai (2010) that most of the migrations of female porters are financed by agents who come to the rural areas, recruit young girls, and transport them to the south to work for them for a fee. while some migrant female porters went directly to accra from their villages, others had to stop temporarily in towns along the route before eventually arriving in accra several months or years later, depending on the intervening circumstances. the places in which they stopped on their way to accra included tamale, kintampo, techiman, and kumasi. far less than one tenth (6.6%) of them stopped somewhere before arriving in their current place of residence in accra, while the majority (93.4%) did not have any stop. of those who migrated to accra from another place rather than directly from their home village, the majority (64.2%) had intentions to eventually migrate to accra, while a smaller proportion (35.7%) continued to accra after their initial african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1548 destinations were perceived to be unfavourable or less beneficial. thus, 64.2% embarked on stepwise migration. according to the focus group discussions and interviews, the main reasons for stepwise migration include the lack of capital to reach accra, as depicted in asana’s situation narrated earlier, and the need to garner information from friends and relations about the location of other friends and relatives in accra. some of the migrants explained that they had to stop in places ‘to look for money’ that would enable them pay for their transport to accra. it is important to stay over for a few days so that they can teach you a few things about accra before you enter that city. (a 16-year-old porter in agbogloshie market) when asked whether learning about accra was the reason for her stepwise migration, she answered in the affirmative. she further explained: i was not the only one who stopped over for fear of just coming to accra without knowing someone; this one sitting here also did the same. a 30 year-old-woman and mother of two, mariama, was the one referred to by the above respondent. mariama echoed the story of the earlier respondent when she stated: that place (accra) is not home and most of these people living on the way to accra has worked in accra before and has tasted the life in accra before, so they know what it is. they know people in accra who could help you, they will also not let you just go like that, some want you to stay and work with them, others want you to return home, but you want to go on the road and also to see things for yourself (mariama, 30-year-old kayayoo). one could then say that the friends and relations who are located on the way to accra enable the process of migration by acting as ‘information brokers’ and by offering migrants a place to stay, jobs, moral support, and advice. thus, the need to earn enough money for the journey to accra and the fear of migrating to accra without the necessary networks is an important factor for stepwise migration among female porters. stepwise migration enables female porter’s access to important information and establishes networks at the destination, which helps in ‘settling down’. paul has already noted the relevance of stepwise migration. he noted that this was crucial for migrants as it enabled them to make enough money and find out enough about the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1549 advantages of the next destination. stepwise migration could result from intervening obstacles or deliberate stop overs (ravenstein, 1867; paul, 2011). the journey to accra this section explains the strategies that young girls from the north adopted when preparing to migrate to accra to work as kayayei. the study revealed that some of the young girls leave their houses without saying goodbye to their parents or guardians. the following quotation illustrates some of the strategies they employed when planning to migrate to accra. before coming here i made a stop in tamale to work in a chop bar for 14 days, which enabled me to get money to transport myself to accra. i would have wished to continue working in tamale but the daily wage was very small […] my people in the village always knew that i was in accra but about a week after i arrived in tamale i called my mother on phone and told her i was in tamale. although i didn’t tell anybody i was going to tamale or accra they guessed that i had run away to accra to look for money to buy nice things. i had planned to go to accra but the money i took from my mother was not enough. i didn’t even have time to count the money, i just run to the station and waited for a bus, but i realized that if my mum looked for the money and didn’t see it she would immediately look for me, so i joined a tricycle and left to walewale where i then boarded a big car. it was when i was going to pay the collector that i saw that the money couldn’t take me to accra […]. what did i do? i could go back home of course, would you have? so i paid the bus collector to drop at tamale and looked for work to get money to continue my trip to accra (asana, 21-year-old kayayoo). two key issues are depicted in salmas’s and asan’s narrations: migration capital (financial capital and network capital), and the nature of the journey (i.e., whether it is made in one go or in a stepwise manner). this section has explored how potential female migrants finance and begin their journeys and arrive at their intended destinations. social capital and social networks of female porters social network is a resource upon which migrant female porters rely. it entails a network of support and reciprocity that exists between individual porters within communities (derham and gzirishvili, 1998; moser, 1998; meikle et al., 2001). according to carney (1998), such social support can be grouped into two categories: personal social resources and public good social capital. the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1550 public good social capital allows other resources to be utilised in a community. these include community-based organisations capable of negotiating on behalf of poor people. the personal resources, on the other hand, include personal loans, child-care support, and sharing of food, accommodation, and information. the value of the social networks of migrant female porters are demonstrated by their ability to migrate from their origins in the north to accra. the study revealed that the female porters rely heavily on their personalised social networks in accra. in a focus group discussion with female porters in mallam atta market in accra, the porters mentioned that they always get information about accra, the kayayei work, and other economic activities in the city before making a decision to migrate. such information was obtained from friends, family members, and young women in their villages that had already been to accra and survived there as kayayei (beuachemin, 2000; tanle, 2003). during the migration process, the women are usually escorted to accra by friends, sisters, and other girls from their villages who have already been to accra to work as porters. in situations where an individual had to travel alone to accra, word was sent out to friends and relatives or or other acquaintances of the woman to meet her at the bus station upon arrival. communication technologies allow the travelling woman to call her host at intervals to provide updates on the progress of her travel. before coming to accra, i had never been here before. so the day i was to leave i called amina who is working here as a kayayei on phone for her to assist me to come. she asked me to go to tamale and ask of imperial bus station. when i got to tamale i went to the station and had my ticket ready for the journey to unknown accra. amina had already told me to arrive at the last stop. so when we got to accra in the morning by 4am, my friend was there to receive me. she picked me to her sleeping place and there i saw about ten young girls from my village. amina took me through the work for almost two weeks just to introduce me to the kayayei work. the first day she gave me a head pan and led me to the market. hmmm friendship is good (damata, 17-year-old kayayoo). reliance on social network goes beyond information-sharing to include care, financial assistance, and the sharing of food and tools for work between old and new arrivals in the kayayei business. according to the migrant female porters, when one does not have money to travel to the city, one relies on african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1551 friends in accra to lend money which is repaid after the woman has arrived and worked for some days. before coming here i called my friend amina who has been working here for four month to help me with transportation cost and also share information with me about my new destination. she agreed and sent down to me one hundred ghana cedis (ghs 100) through mobile money transfer. she also told me which car to take and how to get to the station. she directed me to a young man in tamale called abukari who is a loading boy at the tamale station who always assists new kayayei to get to accra. when i got to tamale, abukari handed me to the driver of the benz bus and instructed him that my friend amina would be at the station to receive me. with this assistance it was easy for me to find my way to accra to join my friend for kayayei business (zalia, a 20-year-old kayayoo). the statement above was confirmed by a driver in tamale who indicated the role drivers play in the migration processes of the female porters who often join their vehicles to accra and kumasi. he narrated the following: most of the young girls who migrate from the north to the south, especially accra, do not know their way to their destination. what we do is that those who are there direct them to come to us at the station in tamale. so when they come, their friends will call us on phone and plead with us to bring them to accra. because they are to depend on us till we hand them over to their friends in accra, their lorry fare is different. we charge them additional ten ghana cedis (ghs 10) because we have to make series of phone calls before we hand them over to their friends and also the risk involve in carrying them (haruna, 38-year-old bus driver in tamale). the findings here support the argument by awumbila (2010) that migrant female porters are usually aided by transport owners and drivers to get to accra. they are assisted by their social networks of their friends from their home villages who are already working in accra as porters and domestic workers. conclusions and policy recommendations migration is seen by the female porters as a means to gain autonomy in their lives, a means of livelihood diversification, or as an alternative livelihood source. migration has always been an alternative or additional source of african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1552 livelihood for rural people, especially in times of crisis (ellis, 2000; ellis, 2003). the rapid urbanisation of ghana, with accra playing a primary role, accounts for its magnetic attraction. this finding is in line with those of several other researchers who argue that structural and economic reform policies have great effects on livelihoods, thereby contributing to rural-urban migration, especially of women to cities to work as head porters (adepoju, 2010, 2004, 2002; kwankye, anarfi, tagoe, & castaldo, 2009). the migration process of female porters is enabled by their mothers and social networks, including boy lovers, friends, and family in the origin communities, along the way, and at the destination. the study recommends that the government, through the northern development authority which seeks to bridge the gap between the north and the south, should make funds available for the young women in the north, so as to engage them in economic activities that will prevent them from migrating to the south to work as kayayei. in particular, the policy of revamping the shea nut industry should target the young women. references abdulai a. 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(2010). gendered strategies among migrants from northern ghana in accra: a case study of madina. thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the award of master of philosophy in resource human adaptations, university of bergen, bergen. javascript:void(0) javascript:void(0) african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1556 26 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 surviving human trafficking: a case for strengthening the escape routes adopted by victims of trafficking in uganda jacqueline nakaiza* * makerere university, uganda characterized as modern-day slavery, human trafficking has attracted the attention of scholars, legislators and law enforcers in many countries. a major gap in efforts to curb the problem, however, relates to the fact that attention is being paid primarily to legislation; prosecution and punishment of traffickers; and rehabilitation of the survivors of trafficking. efforts to support people who are still trapped in trafficking situations are generally non-existent. this paper reports the findings of a study that attempted to respond to the need to support these people by generating information on the routes by which victims of trafficking in uganda escape bondage. using interviews, data was collected from twenty-six survivors of trafficking on the ways through which they escaped and the factors that supported their escape. the findings showed that the victims of trafficking had escaped by: (a) acquiring the (financial) resources they needed to escape the bondage of forced labor; or (b) getting referred to organizations where they obtained the support that they needed to exit the bondage. yet, it was also found that information on support for the victims of trafficking is generally unavailable and victims accessed it after they had been bonded in trafficking situations for a while. the paper concludes that the limited availability of this information is a major factor in sustaining the bondage of the victims of trafficking because it ensures that victims are unable to seek and obtain help even if it is available. hence, the study urges the government, faith-based organizations and civil society organizations providing support for victims of trafficking to expand the reach of information on the support services that they offer. keywords: escape routes; human trafficking; opportunities; strategies; surviving; victims 27 introduction over the last three decades, a rapidly expanding body of literature has emerged on the subject of human trafficking (adepoju, 2005; lee, 2007). for instance, while writing on best practices to counter human trafficking in africa, truong and angeles (2005) reference a rich body of literature and resources. among others, two key things are prominently discernible from this literature. first, the fact that the problem of human trafficking is intricate, horrendous and rising. human trafficking is intricate because it touches on a wide range of issues including, as truong and angeles (2005) observe, migration management, crime control, labor standards, poverty reduction and communities at risk. according to nambatya and gubo (2016: 159), “child trafficking is one of the fastest growing global crimes against children, placing children more and more in danger”. among other authors, kasirye (2007) expositions the horrendous and rising aspects of trafficking (with specific reference to children in uganda) thus: children are mainly taken to work as child domestic workers, bar/restaurant attendants, sex workers, strippers, and vendors. others are taken to work at fishing/landing sites and agricultural plantations, between 25,000-30,000 children were abducted and recruited in [to] the lord’s resistance army rank and these children usually suffer a myriad of problems including depression and trauma. others actually are killed. cross-border trafficking appears to be increasing. trafficked children from uganda are usually taken to sudan, kenya, rwanda, tanzania and drc, while others are taken to dubai, uae, europe and america. trafficked children were subjected to intolerable, inhuman and [the] worst forms of degrading treatment. children were forced to fight as combatants, kill innocent people, smuggle drugs and work as drug conduits while others were sexually abused many abducted children were involved in other hazardous activities including carrying heavy luggage, ammunitions, wounded soldiers, merchandise and loot. most children were maimed and suffering from a myriad of psychosocial depression and sexual trauma (kasirye, 2007: v). the second theme notable from the literature on human trafficking is that actors at local, national, regional and international levels are working to prevent human trafficking and to liberate its victims from the scourge. in uganda, for instance, the 1995 constitution (as amended in 2002 and 2006), the children act 2000 (cap 59), the prevention of trafficking in persons act 2009, the employment act (2006) and the national action plan for prevention of trafficking in persons in uganda (rou, 2020), among other laws and policy instruments, all seek to prevent human trafficking in various ways (cf. walakira et al., 2015). the literature further indicates that the intricacy of the problem of human trafficking is multifaceted, considering both the victims and the perpetrators of the surviving human trafficking: escape routes adopted by victims of trafficking in uganda 28 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 vice as well as pertinent policies and the implementers of these policies (see, for example, kasirye’s (2007) exposition of the assumed role of guardians in facilitating the trafficking of vulnerable children). thus, actors working towards eliminating human trafficking need quality information about each of these facets, to develop and implement effective panaceas against the problem (nambatya and gubo, 2016). to address this need, organizations like the international labour organization (ilo), the united nations (un) and united nations african research institute for the prevention of crime and treatment of offenders (unafri) regularly generate and disseminate information on human trafficking with a view to highlight its increasing magnitude and excesses and to empower policy-makers and implementers to confront it. in uganda, this information has been the basis of useful interventions against human trafficking. notwithstanding these interventions, a notable gap in the information relates to the fact that it focuses primarily on the incidence of human trafficking – describing why and how people are trafficked and victimized. four country-level studies from kasirye (2007), nambatya and gubo (2016), the ministry of internal affairs (2014) and walakira et al. (2016), reference this point. walakira et al. (2016) focus on estimating the incidence of human trafficking, with an attempt at understanding the enormity of the problem of human trafficking and how victims are trafficked from the north-eastern to the central parts of the country. specifically, their report highlights the scale and nature of trafficking in children; recruitment, transport means and destination of child trafficking; victims, factors contributing to and sustaining child trafficking; knowledge and perceptions on child trafficking; and programs and resources to address child trafficking. on the other hand, in a rapid assessment, kasirye focuses on the incidence of child trafficking into the worst forms of child labor, discussing in detail the recruitment, transporting, deployment and confinement of trafficked children. articles by nambatya and gubo (2016) and ondieki (2017) are largely similar in content scope. these and other reports typify truong and angeles’ (2005: 1) observation that, “in general, the existing body of knowledge about human trafficking serves to raise public consciousness about the issue, but remains insufficient to lend support to a more comprehensive action program for addressing different dimensions of the problem”. in all these reports the current ones on trafficking in the country, little (in some cases no) attention is paid to the strategies that the victims of trafficking adopt to deal with and to escape their enslavement. consequently, legislation and interventions against human trafficking that are being adopted are targeted at prevention – primarily by prosecution and punishment of perpetrators (cf. rou, 2009). as truong and angeles (2005: 2) point out, “current policy for counteracting human trafficking falls into three categories: (a) prevention and deterrence, (b) law enforcement and prosecution of traffickers, (c) protection of trafficked persons, ‘rehabilitation’ and assistance in social reintegration”. scant attention has been paid to the need to strengthen the strategies through which the victims of trafficking cope with and liberate themselves out of 29 the trafficking. this paper contends that this is an important knowledge/policy gap because despite the indisputable need for preventing human trafficking from occurring in the very first place, people continue to be trafficked. additionally, owing to the intricate nature of trafficking, many victims may not access formal support mechanisms against the problem, the inference being that they have to navigate their own escape pathways. moreover, although policy and legislative attention is paid primarily to deterrence, prosecution and punishment, ‘profits’ emanating from trafficking remain high and risk of arrest and conviction remain low (fitzgibbon, 2003), which serves to sustain the victimization of people into trafficking. the inference here is that in addition to what is being done to prevent trafficking, greater efforts should be made to strengthen escape routes, so that those who are trafficked could benefit from regaining their freedom. in that case, governments and others involved in mitigating the incidence of human trafficking, need to strengthen these pathways. however, this need has not been addressed, because information on the coping strategies and escape routes adopted by victims of human trafficking (especially those trafficked locally within their own countries) are generally non-existent. it is within this context that this paper reports on the findings of a recent study that undertook to generate this information, cognizant of the need to “channel the narratives as well as insights of trafficked persons as ‘knowing subjects’ into scholarly knowledge and the policy field” (truong and angeles, 2005: v). grounded on a tracer study of former victims of human trafficking and actors involved in mitigating the practice, the study presents qualitative data on the coping strategies and escape routes adopted by victims of human trafficking in uganda. in the discussion that follows, the data is crossreferenced to related literature, legislation and policies. subsequently, pertinent gaps are exposed and recommendations are articulated. methodology the study involved 26 participants (see table 1). these included both males and females who originated from over six districts of uganda. most (42%) of them were aged 15 or above, had some formal education – primary (46%) or secondary (31%) – and hailed from single parent-headed households (46%). the geographical spread of the districts from which the respondents originated, which covered all the regions of the country, suggests that the incidence of human trafficking is likely in all the parts of the country. the sample also suggests that trafficking is likely for both males and females, especially teenagers. the modal age group of the sample appears to link the problem of trafficking to child labor in a way that most of the persons who had been trafficked tended to fall in the group that has been deployed in child labor in the country. surviving human trafficking: escape routes adopted by victims of trafficking in uganda 30 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 table 1: profiling of the victims of child trafficking (%, n = 26) all the participants were survivors of child trafficking. survivors were characterized using the definition of trafficking given in the united nations protocol to prevent, gender % male 58 female 42 total 100 age % 5–10 23 10–15 35 15+ 42 total 100 origin % luwero 8 iganga 12 mbale 23 kyotera 12 masaka 15 kabale 8 others 23 total 100 occupation % bar attendant 12 sex worker 23 house girl 27 house boy 8 petty trader 12 others 19 total 100 education % never attended school 15 primary 46 secondary 31 vocation 8 total 100 family type % child-headed household 11 married 15 widowed 46 single parent 15 others 12 total 100 31 suppress, and punish trafficking in persons and the national action plan for the prevention of trafficking in persons in uganda. this includes the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by means of threats, use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or a position of vulnerability, giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. therefore, this paper assumes victims of trafficking to be persons who, as walakira et al. (2016) explain, had been subjected to any of the following: (a) an employer who threatens the person’s family if he/she left; (b) isolation from the public by being kept under confinement or surveillance; (c) an employer who confiscates the identity card, academic papers, or travel documents of the person; and (d) bonded servitude. participants were identified through snowball methodology. the snowballing started at a non-governmental organization that provides support to victims of child trafficking. this method was extended to three civil society organizations and two faith-based organizations, where survivors of trafficking had been traced. data was collected during the first quarter of 2017 (january to march). this was done using structured interviews, during which the survivors of trafficking were asked to describe their experiences. they provided details of their backgrounds (before trafficking), the trafficking process, and the strategies and opportunities they exploited to escape the trafficking situations. eleven key informant interviews were also conducted with policy-makers and staff of some of the organizations through which the survivors of trafficking were traced. these interviews were conducted with the view to make better sense of the responses that the survivors of child trafficking had provided. to this end, they were conducted after analyzing the data elicited from the survivors of child trafficking. the qualitative data collected was analyzed using content analysis and nvivo 11– a qualitative data analysis computer software package – and the results were presented following an interpretative and constructivist approach. the study found the general lack of understanding of the concept of trafficking among the key informants as a limitation because a significant amount of time was spent clarifying what constitutes trafficking. strategies and opportunities exploited to escape trafficking in relating their experiences, the survivors of trafficking described the confinement and vulnerability that held them in bondage. regarding confinement, at least a quarter of the respondents explained that their captors restricted their movements and interactions with the public. two respondents indicated that in addition to holding them in an environment where interaction with members of the public was highly restricted, their captors threatened them with physical harm if they contemplated leaving (see the responses cited below). on the other hand, respondents related their vulnerability from a more familiar surviving human trafficking: escape routes adopted by victims of trafficking in uganda 32 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 perspective. they described being held under conditions of forced labor after being trafficked. that was primarily because they did not have the means to strike out on their own, to return to where they had been trafficked from or to start new lives in the neighborhoods where they were being held in the trafficked situations (see table 2). table 2: factors of vulnerability in trafficking situations note: n = 26; multiple responses elicited in their quest to escape from the bondage of their ordeal, the former victims of trafficking described two main opportunities that they exploited: (a) attainment of independence; and (b) connection to support towards exiting the trafficking situation. attainment of independence the victims of trafficking developed the ability to strike out on their own and they exited from the trafficking situations. typically, the respondents explained that they obtained money that enabled them to either return to their home villages or to start small businesses and sustain livelihoods of their own. the young people spoke candidly: after working for about 4 months, i managed to save 30,000 uganda shillings which i used to buy a charcoal stove, charcoal, a packet of baking flour, cooking oil, a tray of eggs and other ingredients which i used to start my own rolex business which is similar to the one i was running for my boss. i did not even move very far away from the place where i was working from, so i retained a bigger percentage of my customers (15-year-old boy who had been trafficked from bugiri). i was collecting scrap and i would save my daily earnings in a small savings box. in the evenings i would go to a nearby garage that repairs motorcycles. i befriended one of the men working at this garage and after some time i asked him to teach me how to repair motorcycles. luckily, he accepted; so, every day after collecting scrap, i would go to this garage and learn about repairing motorcycles. i also learnt [about] the different spare parts and where i can sn source count 1 ignorance of where i was 9 2 ignorance of where i came from 3 3 lack of money (to travel back to where i came from) 17 4 lack of money (to consider a life of my own) 9 5 lack of contacts (friendly and familial) that might help 10 33 buy them easily because my friend would send me to buy them for him from different places, which helped me to get connected to the industry. so, now i am a motorcycle mechanic (15-year-old-boy from mbale). i worked as a nanny for 3 years. in these years i never went back to the village to see my family. my boss was very tough and would quarrel about anything small. but i knew i had a target that i was working to achieve. i was saving all the money i was being paid in a small box. i used not to buy clothes or even send my family money. actually, they did not even know where i was because we had lost touch. but after the 3 years when i went back for christmas, i never returned to my workplace. instead, i went to a lady who i had befriended in the neighborhood where i used to take my boss’ daughters for hairdressing. i paid her 1.5m for teaching me and accommodating me. she taught me for 6 months and after the 6 months, because i had learnt hairdressing, she gave me a job. i plan to work here for the next 3 years as i save money to start my own salon (16-year-old girl from masaka). it is evident that in the majority of these instances, the respondents raised the monies from the very work in which they had been deployed while under bondage. it is noteworthy that the respondents would leave to continue practicing the same trades, albeit on their own. this usually happened after they were fairly acclimatized to both the trade and the environment in which they conducted this trade, often including or having built a possible client base. the respondents who cited this exit route had been bonded for a period ranging between two and five years. connection to support this pertains to a situation in which the respondent received information from someone who directed them to a place where they might obtain assistance that liberated them from the trafficking situation. this ‘connecting’ person was typically an acquaintance or neighbor who happened to learn of the victim’s plight but also had some idea about where the victim might obtain support. the different respondents narrated their experiences thus: our neighbor was a good lady; she would greet me kindly once in a while. then one day we had a conversation and i explained to her what i was going through and that my boss would not be happy if she got to know that i had talked to her. because my boss was not giving me any money, she gave me money for transport, advised me to go and report to a nearby police station and even directed me where to find it. i went to the police station and a police probation officer in charge of family and children took me to a child welfare ngo (15-year-old girl from kabale). surviving human trafficking: escape routes adopted by victims of trafficking in uganda 34 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 one of the girls who used to work close to where i was staying, used to see how abusive my boss was and the way she used to mistreat me. she was ‘born again’ and used to pray from a nearby church. she advised me to go and talk to the senior pastor of that church. i went there and explained to the pastor what i was going through. he welcomed me and told me to go and bring my clothes and offered me accommodation at the church. he told me to work with the other people who were staying at the church in cleaning that church, washing church linen, washing the chairs and setting up the church for the different services. i have lived here for the past seven months (15-year-old girl from kyotera). when i was in p6, i was forced to drop out of school because my step-mother was mistreating me and i did not have scholastic materials like books and a uniform. so, one of the teachers at school got me a job at his friend’s farm in mubende to go and look after his cattle and goats. but while at the farm, i was working hard and i was also humble. one of the people who used to come to the farm frequently with the boss to supervise, had observed me for some time. he was also a very good man. he called me and advised me to go back to school. he even got me a place and a bursary in a church school. so, starting next year, i will be going back to s2. i am still working at the farm, as i save up money to buy myself the necessary requirements like a mattress, bedding and other requirements (13-year-old boy from mbale). it is clear that the above respondents were informed about a place from which they obtained assistance (typically police, civil society organizations and faith-based organizations). unsurprisingly, therefore, access to information played a pivotal role in creating opportunities for exiting trafficking situations. the respondents were asked to specify when they obtained this information, to gain insights into how likely victims of human trafficking were to have the information they required to avoid or exit trafficking situations. the findings showed that the respondents got the information once they got into contact with the people who gave it to them. they did not know about the availability of this support until they were told about it. this is an important finding, considering that, as indicated in table 2, their captors endeavored to confine them, thereby limiting their likelihood to learn about the availability of support. during the key informant interviews, staff of the organizations that helped the victims of trafficking to exit forced labor were asked to explain whether and how they routinely disseminate information on the availability of support for victims of trafficking. the salient responses are captured below: we as an organization, our mandate is to support the children and youth who are vulnerable to all forms of exploitation. so, we periodically go to places 35 which we suspect to have the victims of trafficking. we sensitize the youth and the community about the programs we offer that can help those who are experiencing exploitation and even those who are at risk of exploitation out of their current situation. actually, community leaders know our work and many times have referred victims to the organization. we also have specific programs intended for trafficked girls involved in transactional sex and sex workers. these programs are geared towards skilling them (hairdressing, tailoring and baking) to enable them to become financially independent as well as to rehabilitate them psychologically, empower and boost their esteem (community development officer, uganda youth development link – uydel). the police and other community leaders know our work with protection of child rights. we also invite them to our sensitization meetings periodically which we hold in communities with other stakeholders (social worker, african network for the prevention and protection against child abuse and neglect – anppcan). we work with different media houses, newspapers, radio stations and television stations who broadcast community sensitization programs and talk shows with partner organizations on the availability of support services for the victims of trafficking and how to access support for the victims (family affairs officer, ministry of gender). these findings suggest that on the whole, the organizations that provided support to the victims of trafficking do not routinely provide information on the support that they offer in this regard. discussion, conclusion and recommendation the finding that the victims of trafficking exit the bondage of trafficking when they are informed about organizations providing support, corroborates the findings of authors like bell and banks (2018: 363) affirming that these organizations “are in a strong position to influence trafficking outcomes and policies”. however, since these organizations do not routinely provide information on this support, this finding points to an insight that has implications for efforts to salvage and support the victims of human trafficking. people are held in the bondage associated with trafficking due to information asymmetry between them and their captors, who endeavor to confine them from the public (where they may obtain the information that they need on the availability of support). this observation rhymes well with the studies on human trafficking in uganda (see for example, kasirye, 2007; walakira et al., 2016) wherein the authors conclude that disempowerment arising from the lack of information on support, bonds victims of trafficking in abusive situations. surviving human trafficking: escape routes adopted by victims of trafficking in uganda 36 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 the finding that some of the respondents had escaped bondage through gaining the financial capacity to strike out on their own, concurs with truong (2005), who links bondage in trafficking to poverty and vulnerability. while some of the respondents indicated that they escaped the trafficking situations by developing the capacity to get out and survive on their own (typically through devising means of earning a livelihood), promoting this approach to escaping trafficking situations is difficult because of the intricate (in principle cloak-and-dagger) nature of trafficking. it is inherently challenging to reach the persons trapped in trafficking situations, to provide them with the economic empowerment they may need to escape their bondage. in fact, some of the activities by which the victims of trafficking escaped (e.g., prostitution) are deemed maladaptive and illegal. despite the practical challenges, the dissemination of information on the availability of support for victims of human trafficking is not impossible. if implemented through the mass media, the dissemination of such information will ensure that the victims of trafficking are connected with the information that they require to obtain support in good time. however, the study found that the organizations that provided support to the victims of human trafficking were not routinely disseminating information about their services. indeed, a review of the literature on human trafficking in uganda (in particular the work of walakira et al., 2016) shows that attention has been paid primarily to legislating against the practice (cf. republic of uganda (rou), 2009), prosecution and punishment as deterrent measures but not on the provision of information that is targeted at supporting the escape routes that those who are already victimized, might benefit from. this observation concurs with truong and angeles (2005) who decry the incidence of discrepancies between the needs of the victims of human trafficking and the approaches of organizations working to support them. therefore, the organizations providing support for the victims of human trafficking in the country (e.g., uganda police, civil society organizations and faith-based organizations) are urged to integrate a strong component of public information in their programing, to ensure that persons requiring their support are aware of its availability and means of accessing it. informing the leaders of these organizations that would-be beneficiaries of their support are not aware of the existence of this support, is an important starting point. beyond uganda, it is recommended that wherever they are in the world, organizations providing support for victims of trafficking, integrate a strong component of public information in their programing. this is because there is ample evidence that the disconnect of the victims of trafficking from support noted by this study, exists in other societies, given the covert nature of human trafficking and the broad syndrome of vulnerability that typifies the experience of the victims of human trafficking. 37 references adepoju, a. 2005. review of research and data on human trafficking in sub‐saharan africa. international migration, 43(1-2): 75-98. bell, s.r. and banks, v. (2018), women's rights organizations and human trafficking. social science quarterly, 99: 362-376. https://doi.org/10.1111/ ssqu.12396 fitzgibbon, k. 2003. modern-day slavery? the scope of trafficking in persons in africa. african security review, 12(1): 81-89. kasirye, r. 2007. rapid assessment report in trafficking of children into worst forms of child labor, including child soldiers in uganda. international programme on the elimination of child labour. geneva: ilo. lee, m. (ed.). 2007. human trafficking. oxford: routledge. ministry of internal affairs. 2014. annual report on the trend of trafficking in persons in uganda: 2013. kampala: the coordination office to combat trafficking in persons. nambatya, s. and gubo, q. 2016. a comparative study of child trafficking causes between china and uganda. developing country studies, 6(6): 159-170. ondieki, j. 2017. human trafficking and its impact on national security in east africa: a case study of the vice in kenya. unpublished master’s research project. university of nairobi, kenya. republic of uganda (rou). 2009. prevention of trafficking in persons act, 2009. entebbe: uganda publishing and printing corporation. republic of uganda (rou). 2020. national action plan for prevention of trafficking in persons in uganda 20192024. kampala truong, t. 2005. poverty, gender and human trafficking in sub-saharan africa: rethinking best practices in migration management. paris: unesco. truong, t. and angeles, m.b. 2005. searching for best practices to counter human trafficking in africa: a focus on women and children. paris: unesco. walakira, bukenya and nyanzi-ddumba (2015); u.s. department of state. 2012. “uganda,” in trafficking in persons report2012. washington, dc; http:// www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2012/ index.htm. walakira, e.j., bukenya, b. and dumba-nyanzi, i. 2016. child trafficking in kampala, iganga and moroto districts: iract project final evaluation report. kampala: terres des hommes netherlands. surviving human trafficking: escape routes adopted by victims of trafficking in uganda https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12396 https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12396 http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2012/ index.htm http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2012/ index.htm ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 732 the impact of migration on the welfare of households in ghana: a propensity score matching approach abdul-malik abdulai*, louis boakye-yiadom** and peter quartey*** abstract individuals usually migrate to improve their economic conditions and those of their family members left behind. however, less is understood about the impact of internal migration on the well-being of family members left behind. this study contributes to the debate by offering an empirical assessment of the welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant households by analysing data recently collected by the centre for migration studies, university of ghana. results from the analysis are inconclusive. using two indicators of measuring welfare (the world bank welfare index and the number of children enrolled in school at the time of the survey), the latter shows higher welfare in favour of nonmigrant households whilst the former indicates equality in welfare for all households. on the other hand, econometric estimations using the propensity score matching (psm) did not find any significant difference between the welfare of households that sent out migrants and those that did not. keywords impact, internal migration, households’ welfare, ghana. introduction in developing countries, it is fairly common to see one or more household members migrate to either urban areas or neighbouring countries, attempting to increase their income and improve the economic conditions of their households. while remittances from migrant workers have been shown empirically to improve the economic conditions of family members left behind (ackah & medvedev, 2010; quartey, 2006; yang, 2005), less understood is the impact of migration on the well-being of family members left behind, more specifically, households with internal migrants. since most migrant workers *department of mathematics, university for development studies, navrongo, ghana. **department of economics, university of ghana, legon. ***department of economics, university of ghana, legon. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 733 migrate alone, and in some cases migrate with spouses,1 their children and other dependents (the aged) are left in the care of others. as such, a question worth investigating is: to what extent is the well-being of the left-behind affected by this migration? it is evident that though migration is prevalent in ghana and is also not a new phenomenon, very few studies have rigorously examined its welfare impact empirically. while several causes might account for this gap in the ghanaian literature, it does appear that data limitation and modelling difficulties are some of the main reasons. individuals normally participate in migration to improve their well-being, whether those decisions are made at the individual or household levels (lipton, 1980; de haan, 1999). a household is likely to send a migrant when the expected value of the migrant’s remittances exceeds that individual’s net contribution to household welfare prior to migration. that is to say that in the ideal situation, migration would always be welfare enhancing. in the welfare literature, however, there are mixed findings regarding the likely impact of migration on welfare. while some studies find a higher welfare for households with migrants (see ackah & medeleve, 2010; de brauw et al., 2012), others did not find any significant impact of migration on household welfare (see boakye-yiadon, 2008; litchfield & waddington, 2003; farrington & slater, 2006; lloyd-sherlock, 2006; sahn & alderman, 1996). the current study contributes to the debate by offering a novel empirical assessment of the welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant households by drawing on and analysing data recently collected by the centre for migration studies, university of ghana and funded by the sussex university, u.k. methodology of the study data used for this study is sourced from the migrating out of poverty (mop) dataset collected by the centre for migration studies, university of ghana, in collaboration with sussex university, u.k., from march to may 2013. this dataset is unique2 over the census datasets, which are predominantly used by most studies in ghana. a multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 315 households in the northern region, consisting of 231 migrant and 84 nonmigrant households for interview. the first stage was a purposive selection of 1 this is more specific to rural-rural migrants who migrate for the purposes of farming. 2 given that the survey was specifically designed for migrant source regions with high incidences of poverty, it was more detailed and comprehensive. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 734 11 districts consisting of 21 enumeration areas (eas) selected from a list of eas in the 2010 national population census results. the number of eas selected from each district is proportional to the total number of out-migrants from each district. these districts are the tolon, savelugu-nantong, kumbungu, sagnarigu, central and east gonja, west and east mamprusi, kariga, yendi, and tamale metropolis. the selection of these districts was informed by the high proportion of out-migrants produced by those districts recorded in the 2010 national population census results. this was followed by a listing of households in these selected eas. the second stage involved a systematic sampling with a random start to select migrant and non-migrant households from each of the selected eas. the migrant households were further stratified into three groups: seasonal migrants, return migrants and absent out-migrants. a total of 15 households were purposively selected from each ea, consisting of 4 households from the non-migrant households and 11 households from the migrant households. the final stage was the purposive selection of an adult household member, irrespective of gender, who had more knowledge about the household for interview. estimation procedure given that individuals or households undertake migration to improve on their well-being as espoused by economic theories, the natural questions that arise are: why are some people failing to migrate? what, if any, are the welfare differences between migrant and non-migrant households as a result of migration? clearly, these questions fall under impact evaluation. one major challenge in empirical studies regarding impact evaluation is the issue of a counterfactual, that is, a hypothetical scenario of what the welfare profile of households would have been in the absence of the activity (migration). the counterfactual is hypothetical because it is impossible for the researcher to know or observe exactly what the welfare levels of households would have been had one or more of their members not migrated or if the activity had not occurred. methods of welfare impact can be classified into two broader types: experimental and non-experimental methods. experimental methodologies randomly select a control group prior to the application/onset of the activity and, therefore, individuals or households belonging to this group are then exempted from the intervention/activity (see burtless, 1995; world bank, 2007; galasso et al., 2001). this approach is suitable for evaluating ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 735 interventions for which participation can be controlled by the researcher or for which participation is randomly and naturally determined. migration flow is not an activity that can be assessed experimentally in terms of its impact on welfare since participation is neither random nor subject to a researcher’s influence. non-experimental approaches, on the other hand, consist of a wide range of techniques that construct a control group to facilitate comparisons with a treatment group (see world bank, 2007; ravallion, 2001; moffitt, 1991). these techniques include propensity score matching (psm), instrumental variable (iv) and the double difference (difference in difference) methods. the first two techniques will be used in the current study for comparison to deal with the issue of selection bias. the last technique cannot be used as it requires data on treatments and controls before and after migration. instrument variables are variables that matter to participation but not outcomes. that is, a variable (instrument) that is related to migration but not to welfare is chosen. the instrumentals are first used to predict participation in activity (migration) and then one sees how the outcome indicators vary with the predicted values conditional on other characteristics. psm, on the other hand, is a statistical matching technique that attempts to estimate the effect of a treatment, policy or other intervention (in our case, migration) by accounting for the covariates that predict receiving the treatment. the psm approach tries to capture the effects of different observed covariates x on participation in a single propensity score. then, outcomes of participating and non-participating households with similar propensity scores are compared to obtain the program’s (participating in migration) effect (see mensah et al., 2010). that is, propensity score: p(x) = pr (t = 1/x). in using the psm, two assumptions need to be made. these are the conditional independence and presence of common support (rosenbaum & rubin, 1983). the conditional independence states that given a set of observable covariates x that are not affected by treatment; potential outcomes y are independent of treatment assignment t. if yt represents outcomes for participants and yc outcomes for nonparticipants, conditional independence implies: (yt, yc) ┴ ti/x. the second assumption – common support or overlap condition: 0 < p (ti = 1/xi) < 1. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 736 this condition ensures that treatment observations have comparison observations ‘nearby’ in the propensity score distribution (heckman et al., 1999). in matching participants to non-participants, different matching criteria can be used to assign participants to non-participants on the basis of the propensity. primarily, there are four matching methods. these include the nearest-neighbour matching (nnm), radius matching (rm), caliper matching (cm) and stratified matching (sm).3 in this study, the nnm technique with replacement and a caliper imposed to avoid poor matching is used. in the nnm, the absolute difference between propensity scores in the treated and control groups is minimised. the control and treatment subjects are randomly ordered where a treated subject is matched with a control subject with a closest propensity score. c(pi) = minj│pi pj│ where c(pi) is the group of control subjects j matched to treated subjects i on the estimated propensity scores. pi is the estimated propensity score for the treated subject i. pj is the estimated propensity score for the control subject j. having estimated the propensity scores, the next thing to do is to examine the impact of program participation (migration) on potential outcomes (in this case, welfare). the impact of a treatment for an individual i, noted δi, is defined as the difference between the potential outcomes with treatment and without treatment. thus, δi = y1i −y0i. the mean impact of treatment is obtained by averaging the impact across all individuals in the population. this estimate is called average treatment effect (ate). implies ate = e(δ) = e(y1-y0). a quantity of interest is the average treatment effect on the treated (att), which measures the impact of participation in migration on the welfare of those households left behind. 3 see khandker et al. (2010) for a more detailed discussion of the various methods. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 737 i.e att = e(y1-y0/d=1). finally, the average treatment on the unmatched (atu) measures the impact that the treatment would have had on those who did not receive the treatment (control group). in welfare literature generally, there are two main ways of measuring welfare. these are the consumption and income approaches. each of these approaches has advantages and disadvantages. consumption is usually measured better than income in survey data; it is less noisy and better reflects long-term household well-being. it is also a standard measure of welfare, allowing for cross-country comparisons with the results of other studies (bontchosmolovski, 2009). the use of income, on the other hand, may be comparable across space (de brauw et al., 2012). this study adopted the consumption approach of measuring welfare because of the reasons cited above by bontchosmolovski (2009). to assess the welfare difference between migrants and non-migrants in a more robust framework, the methodology of beegle et al. (2011) was followed. the model is specified as follows: ∆ ln𝐶 = 𝛼0 + 𝛼1𝑀+ 𝛼2𝑋 + 𝛼3𝐻 + 𝜀…………………(1) where ∆𝑙𝑛𝐶 is the change in the logarithm of monthly per capita consumption for a given household, x represents individual characteristics, m is an indicator variable for an individual who migrates out of the household or if a household had a migrant at the time of the survey, and h represents a household-specific fixed effect. an advantage of this model is that one can control for individual differences through the vector x by including categorical variables for age, gender, marital status and educational status in x. results and discussion a comparison of mean consumption expenditure as a measure of welfare across districts in the study area revealed that tamale metropolis and sagnarigu district have the highest mean welfare values (gh¢9,419.12 and ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 738 gh¢9,499.12, respectively). 4 this result is expected, as these two areas constitute the capital of the northern region of ghana where, all being equal, living standards are relatively high and more job opportunities are available. savelugu district recorded the least mean welfare in the region. using the welfare index, a common approach of welfare measure (world bank, 2008) expressed as the ratio of the mean consumption of migrants to that of non-migrants, gives an index of 0.9786.5 this indicates equality in welfare between migrant and non-migrant households. one other measure of nonfinancial welfare used widely in the literature is the proportion of children enrolled in school by households (see dudwick et al., 2011; molyaneth, 2012). among migrant and non-migrant households, we estimated the proportion of children between the ages of 5 and 15 years (inclusive) who were at school at the time of the survey. the result indicates that there is a welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant households, with the latter households enjoying higher welfare (having higher numbers of children enrolled in school). as high as 81 percent of children in non-migrant households were enrolled in school, compared to 27.3 percent in migrant households. perhaps the low enrolment in migrant households could be explained by the absence of migrant parents to send their left-behind children to school in cases where nobody is fully responsible for their wards at origin. this is consistent with the conventional knowledge in the literature that presumes negative consequences of parental migration for the children who are left behind at origin (see dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015; xin & chikako, 2015; liang et al., 2008; xiang, 2007). the acquisition of household consumer durables by households, which is an indicator of household welfare, was also examined. the study noted that a higher percentage of non-migrant than migrant households acquired new houses and agricultural lands. approximately 25 percent of non-migrant households acquired new houses compared to 23 percent of migrant households. also, about 20 percent of migrants’ households acquired more agricultural lands, compared to 25 percent of non-migrant households. the low patronage of agricultural lands by migrant households could be explained perhaps by the identification of other more productive investment sources 4 equivalent to us$ 2,943.48 and us$ 2,968.48, respectively, at an exchange rate of us$1 to gh¢3.2 as at january 2015. 5 an index closer to 1 indicates greater equality between groups on the welfare measure (dudwick et al., 2011). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 739 than acquiring agricultural lands and might therefore be diversifying. this result is at odds with the findings noted in the literature that through remittances migrant households are more able to improve their agricultural land holding than non-migrant households. as expected, more migrant than non-migrant households acquired household electronic goods and other electronic appliances. also worth noting is the small number of households6 that reported acquiring household ‘white goods’ (fridges and washing machines). this could be explained by the fact that some of the communities in the study area were not connected to the national grid or, if connected, might have had difficulty paying for the exorbitant electricity bills. in recent times, sanitation has been considered important not only for healthy living but also for ensuring a filth-free environment. this is undoubtedly welfare enhancing. availability of places of convenience in the study area was therefore examined. the result shows that regardless of the migration status of households, almost all households (99 percent) in the study area have bathrooms. on the other hand, the majority of households (81.40 percent) do not have toilet facilities. 7 this figure is about four times higher than the national average of 19 percent, but slightly lower than the regional average of 86 percent (gss, 2012). however, it is observed that a higher percentage of migrant than non-migrant households (85 versus 81 percent) do not have toilet facilities, indicating that non-migrant households do better in constructing toilet facilities at homes and enjoy higher welfare than migrant households. this finding is consistent with awumbila et al.’s (2014) study that reports that close to 94 and 63 percent of migrant households in old fadama and nima, respectively, do not have toilet facilities in their residence. sundari (2003) noted similar findings about chennai slums. to assess the impact of migration on households’ welfare in the study area and to correct for selectivity bias, a regression equation was estimated using the heckman two-step selection model. the first step was to choose an instrument that is correlated with migration as an independent variable and is not correlated with per capita consumption expenditure as the dependent variable. ethnicity of individuals was chosen as an instrument and it was argued that people are likely to migrate if they are identifiable by certain 6 0.71 and 0.70 percent, respectively, for non-migrant and migrant households. 7 this high deficit of toilet facilities registered by households is because most households use the bush as a place of convenience or use public toilets where available. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 740 ethnic groups. for example, in most of the other regions, certain ethnic groups8 have replicas of their chieftaincy institutions and, therefore, people who travel to those destinations and are identified with these institutions are accommodated and given the necessary assistance to adjust. the same argument cannot be made for consumption expenditure. to test the relevance of the instrument, the authors regressed the ethnicity variable on per capita consumption expenditure as proposed by mckenzie and sasin (2007). the result shows no association between the two variables. the second step was to regress the log of per capita consumption expenditure on the regressors, including the migration status using the heckman two-step selection to counter the selectivity bias. the heckman two-step selection involves, first, estimating a probit model to drive the inverse mills ratio. the second step is to estimate the outcome equation including the inverse mills as a regressor. five welfare variables were included in the equation as explanatory variables and these are the human asset variables, the house composition variables, the location variables, the employment variables and the physical asset variables. results from the estimation indicate that most of the parameter estimates are statistically significant and rightly signed, as shown in table 1. consistent with prior expectations and existing literature, educational qualification of household head increases with welfare. implicitly, the more a household head is educated, the more likely he/she increases the earnings as predicted by the human capital model, therefore increasing the household consumption and welfare. households increase their consumption expenditure by 6.3 percent as their heads increase their educational status. age of head of household (ageheadhh) is positive and significant, which means that household welfare is higher when the head is younger. this finding is consistent with studies by ackah and medvedev (2010). 8 for example, we have the dagomba, gonja and the mamprusi chiefs in most of the other regions in ghana. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 741 table 1: migration effect on welfare using the heckman two-step selection model variables lnconexp migstathd coef. z coef. z educquhead 0.0627*** 5.180 ageheadhh 0.0181*** 4.830 sexheadhh -0.5573*** -3.610 ethnicindiv -0.114*** -7.740 hsehdsize -0.0775*** -4.780 0.0599*** 5.530 childdeprat -0.0195 -0.160 maturindex -1.0585** -2.030 lansize 0.0153*** 2.810 ocupatn -0.1140*** -4.960 distrt -0.0546*** -2.950 migstathds 0.0955 0.730 sexindiv -0.0776 -1.020 ageindiv 0.0163** 1.960 educindiv 0.0119*** 4.370 comtyfacil 0.3829*** 8.590 hseownship -0.2510 -1.220 agesqur -0.0002* -1.680 _cons 7.0710*** 15.870 -1.074*** -3.550 mills lambda -0.7839*** -3.830 rho -0.6330 sigma 1.2384 lambda -0.7839 ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 742 number of observations 1207 wald chi2 140.73 prob > chi2 0.000 note: ***, ** and * imply the level of significance at 1%, 5% and 10%, respectively. source: authors’ estimation from the mop dataset. sex of household head significantly and negatively relates to welfare as indicated by sexheadhh variable. this means that households with male heads have less welfare than their female counterparts. this can be explained perhaps by the practice of polygamy by male heads. polygamous practice may result in larger household size9 and subsequently lead to a reduction in per capita consumption. this finding is at variance with those of nwaru et al. (2011) and sakiru (2013), which indicate that male-headed households have higher welfare than female-headed households in nigeria. having a larger household and a higher maturity index negatively affect household welfare, while owning land of greater size increases household welfare. the strong negative correlation between household size and welfare is consistent with lanjouw and ravallion’s (1995) findings, which show a negative correlation between household size and consumption per person in developing countries. there were spatial differences in terms of welfare as shown by the district variable (distrt). somehow at odds with literature and the widely held view that living standards and welfare are highest in cities, the findings of the current study show that households in all other districts in the study area have higher household welfare than those in the tamale metropolis. of much interest to the study is the effect of migration on household welfare as indicated by the migstathd variable. the parameter estimate shows increases in household welfare with increasing migration, though not statistically significant. this confirms our earlier findings about the welfare and migration linkage using simple tabulation. the coefficient of the mills ratio (λ) is negative and significant which lends support to the hypothesis of selectivity bias and, therefore, the model could not have been estimated using the ols. individual educational level and access to community facilities enhance household welfare. 9 male-headed households tend to have larger household sizes using cross tabulation with a chisquare value of 152.09 at p < 1%. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 743 an alternative method to the instrumental variable approach in dealing with the selectivity bias is propensity score matching. the authors used this method to also ascertain if there is a welfare difference between migrant and nonmigrant households. the results from the average treatment effects, indicators of the quality of propensity score matching, estimation of propensity scores using the logit model, covariate balance as well as robustness checking or sensitivity analysis are presented below in tables 2, 3 and 4, respectively. the summary statistics in table 2 clearly show a difference in mean welfare between migrant and non-migrant households. that is, migrant households increase their consumption expenditure by gh¢ 22.47 over non-migrant households. this mean difference in welfare may not just be the result of the treatment (migration) but could also be due to differences in individual characteristics. table 2: summary statistics of mean welfare difference before matching group observation mean std.err non-migrant 1583 346.46 17.72 migrant 209 323.99 36.36 combined 1792 343.84 16.22 diff 22.47 50.54 t = 0.4445 diff = mean (migrant) mean (non-migrant) source: authors' estimate from mop dataset. to ascertain if individual characteristics explain the welfare difference, the propensity scores using the logit model were estimated. results from the scores indicate that most of the variables used were rightly signed and significantly influence the probability to migrate. sex of individual significantly and negatively associated with the probability to migrate (see table 3), suggesting that males are less likely to migrate than females. this finding is at variance with the widely held notion in the literature that males are more likely to migrate than females (see richter & taylor, 2006). marital status, household size and having access to community facilities negatively and significantly correlate with the probability to migrate. the negative effect of access to community facilities on the probability to migrate suggests that having access to electricity and pipe-borne water, among others, reduces the ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 744 likelihood of a household sending out a migrant (see ackah & medvedev, 2010). table 3: psm logistic regression result migstathds variables coeff z-stat sexindiv -0.612*** -2.68 ageindiv 0.314*** 4.97 agesqur -0.005*** -4.99 ethnicindiv 0.030 0.94 maritindiv -0.439* -1.7 ocupatn 0.191*** 2.88 sexheadhh 0.626 1.59 ageheadhh 0.011 1.19 educquhead 0.011 0.36 hsehdsize -0.075** -2.24 hseownship -0.029 -0.07 childdeprat 0.190 0.59 maturindex 0.113 0.09 comtyfacil -0.251** -1.89 distrt 0.022 0.49 _cons -5.662*** -3.93 number of obs 784 lr chi2(15) 88.36 prob > chi2 0.00 pseudo r2 0.13 log likelihood -284.43 ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 745 source: authors’ estimate from mop dataset. examining the welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant households, the average treatment effect was estimated, as shown in table 4. the result indicates a welfare difference between households with and without migrants. focusing on the att, which is the average treatment effect on the treated, it is noted that migrant households increase their consumption expenditure (welfare) by gh¢ 14.17 higher than the non-migrant households with the difference not statistically significant. this result is at odds with our earlier result on welfare using the number of children enrolled in school, but is consistent with the finding of awumbila et al. (2015). table 4: welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant hh after matching variable sample treate d control s differenc e s.e tstat conexppcapi ta unmatche d 319.14 310.63 8.51 52.16 0.16 att 340.21 326.04 14.17 68.65 0.21 atu 323.16 444.21 121.05 118.8 5 1.02 ate 105.18 108.6 9 0.97 source: authors’ estimate from the mop dataset. we further conducted a balancing test between the covariates to ascertain if the level of heterogeneity between the treated (migrant households) and the control (non-migrant households) is eliminated after matching. both the standard bias before and after matching indicates that the psm using the nearest neighbour algorithm eliminates most of the bias between the treated and the control groups. indeed, we do not observe any significant difference in means of all the covariates included in the model after matching. the proportion of bias reduction for most of these variables is at least 55 percent. the pseudo r2 value after matching has also significantly reduced, suggesting that the overall results from the matching procedure have satisfactorily ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 746 created a balance between the covariates of the treated and the control groups (sianesi, 2004). conclusions and recommendations the study examined the welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant households. a comparison of mean consumption expenditure (a proxy for welfare) across source districts shows that tamale metropolis and sagnarigu district have higher welfare values than the other districts studied in the region. welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant households was not conclusive. while there is a higher welfare difference between migrant and non-migrant households, with the latter enjoying higher welfare using the number of children enrolled in school, there is equality in welfare between the households using the world bank welfare index. on the contrary, an econometric assessment (psm) shows higher welfare levels for migrant households, though not statistically significant. regarding policies, it would be useful for government and other nongovernmental organisations (ngos) considering policies to streamline migration and improve on the welfare of the people to give more priority to education in terms of access and affordability. also, government and other stakeholders should consider providing job opportunities and extending access to public facilities such as schools, electricity, health posts and potable drinking water to the people. furthermore, for the recent government policy dubbed ‘sanitation day’10 (which, of course, is a welfare policy) to achieve the desired goal, district assemblies should enforce their by-laws that mandate every house to have a toilet facility as most households did not have toilet facilities. 10 this is a day reserved for every household to clean around its environs in the country, which falls on every first saturday of the month. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 747 references ackah, c. and medvedev, d. 2010. internal migration in ghana: determinants and welfare impacts. world bank 2010 ghana poverty assessment paper. world bank. awumbila, m., owusu, g. and teye, j.k. 2014. can rural-urban migration into slums reduce poverty? 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ipcc, 2013; iom, 2019). these earthshattering variations mirror the overloading of the earth’s ecological and biophysical systems, leading to the direct loss of water resources, desertification, stratospheric ozone depletion, and biodiversity caused by an unprecedented explosion in the human population, that has led to an uptake in economic activity and damaging environmental practices (warner et al., 2013). according to findings of the ipcc (1990: 22): “the greatest effect of climate change may be on human migration as millions of persons will be displaced due to shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and agricultural disruptions.” since the past decade, on an annual basis large populations of persons are displaced by events of drought, flash flooding, and tropical storms. following these statistics, the idmc (2020) reported that an estimated 24.9 million persons were displaced by nonanthropogenic disasters alone in 2019, which included 95.9% weather-induced displacement cases across 140 countries and territories. furthermore, a recent world bank forecast projected that environmental change due to climate variability will be the leading determinant of migration flow with an estimated 143 million environmental migrants over the next three decades in sub-saharan africa, asia, and latin america (rigaud et al., 2018). what is most noteworthy, is the reality that a large population in the global south who are susceptible to climate risks do not migrate but remain in-situ (see for example, foresight, 2011; iom, 2018; mallick, 2019). the majority of the climate change environmental and social impact assessment studies have concentrated on the fast hydrological changes and impact on small island developing states (sids) in the pacific ocean and indian sub-continent such as in tuvalu, fiji, and the maldives, alongside regions with mega delta such as in bangladesh and nigeria. however, gradual and slow-set changes which are often attributed to desertification will continue to affect large populations in the long term. for example, data showed that towards the end of the last century (1970-2000), an estimated 718 million people were directly affected by storms compared to 1.6 billion persons affected by droughts (cutter, 2009). according to the iom (2019), population displacement related to environmental stress events, whose intensity and frequency are often magnified by climatic change, has become the ever-present and the biggest humanitarian challenge being confronted especially within poorer and more vulnerable nations. this is a concern co-shared among academia and policy9 makers as depicted by the growing number of scientific studies investigating the potential links between climate change, extreme environmental events, and human migration (black et al., 2013). studies show that the global migration landscape is being adversely altered by environmental change, specifically via its influence alongside a range of traditional drivers of human mobility such as economic, social, and political factors. it has long been established that the source of human migration causation is not linear-oriented but multi-causal. however, the range and complexity of the interactions between these drivers mean that it will rarely be possible to distinguish between economic and environmental migrants (idmc, 2020; mallick and schanze, 2020). these migratory processes are generated and swayed by complex and dynamic interactions between direct and indirect proximate factors leading to a decision on whether to migrate or not (foresight, 2011). this is differentiated from other well-known theories such as the simplistic push-pull models, nelm (stark, 1978; stark and taylor, 1991) or the migration transition theory (zelinsky, 1971; de haas, 2010; skeldon, 2012). as aforementioned, the majority of the world’s population directly impacted by environmental change in poorer nations do not migrate. for instance, foresight (2011) terms non-migrants impacted by environmental change as “trapped populations”. this generalization is biased, and it hinders the understanding of migration triggered by environmental change (black et al., 2011; adams, 2016). having these complexities in mind schewel (2019) classifies non-environment migrants into four categories: left behind (involuntary), stayers (voluntary), nonmigrants (voluntary) and immobile (involuntary). to limit inherent mobility bias and to enhance simplification, this study does not distinguish between voluntary and involuntary non-migrants. thus, understanding the complexity and variability associated with the drivers of migration is matched by comparable uncertainty as regards the broader relationships between environmental change and migration. this has contributed towards the dearth of empirical studies assessing the relationship between climate-related environmental events and migration (black et al., 2008). a research gap exists in the understanding of how and why greying populations opt not to migrate and understanding the implications of their nonmobile state, degree of resilience and locations depends on a detailed analysis of interrelated environmental, political, economic, demographic, and social structures operationalized at multiple levels. this study seeks to answer the following pertinent questions relating to the drivers of non-migration in the environmental change context: does a household’s resilience play a significant role in making non-migration decisions? why are greying cohorts in these stressed areas less impacted by traditional drivers of migration? to support a more detailed analysis of environmental and other migration drivers, this study seeks to explore the role of resilience in mediating the relationship between household vulnerability to environmental change and (im) mobility in the sudano-sahelian zone of nigeria. the study is divided into five sections which consist of the introduction, material and methods, result, discussion, aging, resilience, and migration in the sudano-sahelian ecological belt in nigeria 10 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 and conclusion. method and data study area the study is positioned within the northern guinea and sudan-sahel savanna ecological zone (sez) of northern nigeria. this sez is geographically located between latitudes 6˚ 27ʹ n to 140 001 of the equator and longitudes 2˚ 411 e to 140 42ʹ e of the greenwich meridian (see figure 2). the zone outspreads from the chad basin passing through the northern highlands to the sokoto plains at its western boundary (odekunle et al., 2008). this sez occupies one-third of the total land area of nigeria (aremu and olatunde, 2013). figure 1: map of nigeria showing the sudano-sahelian ecological zone source: authors’ compilation data source the secondary data for this study came from the general household surveypanel (ghs-panel) executed in partnership with the world bank living standards measurement study (lsms) in conjunction with the integrated surveys on agriculture 11 (isa) programme – lsms-isa. the ghs-panel, a nationally representative survey of approximately 22,200 households from 500 enumeration areas (eas), was selected for the panel component; 2018/19 is the most recent round of the survey with prior rounds conducted in 2010/11 and 2015/16 (nbs, 2019). the selected study population consisted of about 920 (n=920) respondents aged 50 years and above, selected on the conditionality that they all reside within sudano-sahelian ecological zone and have also not migrated since the first survey in 2010. study models the context-specific resilience indicators used in this research, mitigate against the inherent bias of migratory causation linearity. this enables the analysis of multi-causal issues that are combined, with attention paid to the interaction and interconnection of the different facets of households’ resilience to environmental and other migration drivers. the aim is to examine what drives and fosters aging household non-migration resilience. the study aimed to capture the level of interactions of the varying drivers of migration and the resilience of aged persons to these factors (pull and push). the selection of variables to construct the latent non-migration resilience measure is bedrocked on well-grounded mobility-centered literature (see the conceptual framework in figure 2). to conduct the analysis, this study used structural equation modeling (sem).1 the study adopted and augmented this framework, that was developed by the fao (2016) and tested in a variety of contexts (rima-ii measures household resilience). it builds on the existing resilience framework by assessing both temporal and spatial trends. the analysis factored in the multi-causal drivers of environmental migration. the observed variables were selected specifically for the case of northern nigeria to reflect both theoretical factors (foresight, 2011) and contextual factors (zickgraf, 2018; 2019; mallick and schanze, 2020; schewel, 2020) in the literature as well as data availability. as a result of persistent environmental shocks, a series of coping strategies are activated by the household such as assets smoothing, consumption smoothing, and in some cases, households opt to migrate. over the long term, the strategies could lead to an increase or decrease in y. any change in y affects a household’s nonmigration resilience capacity and, consequently, can limit future capacity to react to shocks (see figure 2). 1 structural equation modeling (sem) is a general modeling framework that incorporates many common statistical techniques, such as factor analysis and multiple regression analysis used to analyze the structural relationship between measured variables and latent construct. aging, resilience, and migration in the sudano-sahelian ecological belt in nigeria 12 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 figure 2: non-migration resilience (mgr-res) conceptual framework source: adapted from fao (2016) description of variables the model assumes that change is constant. thus, the non-migration resilience of an individual or household can be described by the adaptive capacity concerning traditional drivers of migration, such as economic, social, demographic, and policy factors (black et al., 2011), and how the affected individual or household copes amidst environmental change. mgrres = f(evdit,edit,pdit,sdit,ddit,aptit )+ɛit latent variables the combined scores in this index can be expressed in the equation as follows, where: mgr_res=migration resilience; evd=environmental drivers, ed=economic drivers; pd=political drivers; sd=social drivers; dd=demographic drivers, and apd=agricultural practices drivers. 13 table 1: description of study variables source: computed by authors from lsms-isa data indicator variable obs mean std dev apt herbicide 920 1.52 .50 pesticide 920 1.88 .32 inorganic fertilizer 920 1.61 .49 organic fertilizer 920 1.90 .30 machinery 920 1.90 .30 dd distance (pop center) 920 22.23 8.60 population density 920 3422.2 265.5 age distribution 920 60.6 9.55 gender 920 1.45 .50 ed remittance 920 1.98 .12 housing 920 3.24 .92 income 920 1.97 .17 non-foodexp 920 1.75 .43 foodexp 920 1.96 .18 depend 920 1.75 .43 coping 920 4.24 4.44 evda fuel 920 5.23 1.82 sanitation 920 1.99 .37 water source 920 8.67 1.08 water security 920 1.85 .61 evdn wetness index 139 14.51 1.61 toxicity 131 1.00 .00 avg temp 920 261.4 3.63 avg precipitation 920 1424.8 250.1 pd insurance 920 1.97 .08 health service 920 3.59 1.07 internet 920 1.22 .36 electricity 920 1.73 .23 assistance food 920 1.91 .29 assistance cash 920 1.94 .24 sd marital 920 2.43 3.193 relationship hhhead 920 2.65 1.932 religion 920 1.49 .24 migrate 920 5.43 1.22 literate 920 1.38 .45 morbidity 920 1.93 .22 aging, resilience, and migration in the sudano-sahelian ecological belt in nigeria 14 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 results table 2: basic characteristics of respondents source: computed by authors from lsms-isa data findings and discussions households’ livelihood strategies and ways of coping with economic, political, social, or environmental change (or + or ±) are anchored upon a broad range of factors, including location; relative wealth; security regimes; kinship structures and variables frequency (%) variables frequency (%) age n=920 literacy status n=742 50-59 487(52.9) yes 457(61.6) 60-69 262(28.5) no 285(38.4) 70-79 118(12.8) 80-89 43(4.7) 90-130 10(1.1) gender n=920 religious affiliation n=920 male 531(57.7) islam 677(73.6) female 389(42.3) christianity 241 (26.2) traditionalist 2(0.2) geo-political zone n=920 highest qualification attained n=553 north east 366(39.8) none 254(45.9) north west 554(60.2) primary education (fslc) 102(18.4) secondary education(ssce) 135(24.4) nce/ond/nursing 26(4.7) ba/bsc/hnd 26(4.7) ph.d./masters 2(0.4) vocational studies 8(1.5) locale n=920 marital status n=920 urban 184(20.0) married (monogamous) 402(43.7) rural 736(80.0) married (polygamous) 344(37.4) divorced 5(.5) separated 5(.5) widowed 154(16.7) never married 10(1.1) 15 other informal institutions; the nature of local governance and social networks; and access to land, food, roads, markets, water, and other resources. table 2 gives the descriptive statistics of the socio-economic realities of the respondents. the age of the household head determines the security of younger household members in times of climate-related hazards. based on the age distribution of respondents, those aged 50-59 (52.9%) constituted the largest cohort, followed by those aged 60-69 (28.5%), while persons aged above 90 years (1.1%) were in the minority in line with life expectancy. gender-wise, males had a 57.7% representation compared to 42.3% of females. in terms of place of residence, 80% of respondents were living in ruralized settings compared to 20% resident in urban locales. furthermore, respondents in the northwestern region constituted about 60.2% compared to 39.8% of respondents in the northeastern region (see table 2). figure 3: distribution of sampled households by wealth quintile (2010–2018) source: computed by authors from lsms-isa data the result in figure 4 indicates that household wealth inequalities are widening year-on-year. these dire economic situations could be partly attributed to reduced household revenue accrued from agriculture. this is particularly telling, considering that the bulk of household income is agro-centric, leading to the consequent decline in the share of labor employed in the agricultural sector. this distribution of household wealth trajectory conforms with the results of previous studies (see for example, npc, 2013, 2019; nbs, 2019). the prevailing economic reality greatly diminished the capability of poorer households to migrate, although certain literature suggests that even at lower-level wealth disparities, households with better socio-economic aging, resilience, and migration in the sudano-sahelian ecological belt in nigeria 16 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 standing are most likely to migrate (bhandari, 2004), while some households may opt not to migrate (jain, 2010). table 3: household migratory flow over period 2010-2018 due to arable land loss source: computed by authors from lsms-isa data table 3 shows the year-on-year trend in households’ migratory responses to environmental stress (agricultural income risk) by households within the study area. the result shows that environment-induced migration increased year-onyear among younger-aged households but reduced among older-aged households, likely due to more place-confidence among stay-put factors. moreover, the findings also revealed that the proportion of female migrants increased within younger households, indicating a tightening of gender-based migratory disparities within the study area. of significance, is the perception that most men are economic migrants while females are predominantly non-economic migrants, as exemplified in the case study conducted in ethiopia (ezra, 2001). age 2010 migration (%) 2015 migration (%) 2016 migration (%) total 50-59 32.0 41.0 49.0 40.6 male 27.4 34.7 32.8 31.6 female 4.6 6.3 16.2 9.0 60-69 43.0 43.0 42.0 42.7 male 34.1 34.5 32.9 33.8 female 8.9 8.5 9.1 8.9 70-79 18.0 10.0 8.0 12.0 male 14.3 7.3 5.9 9.2 female 3.7 2.7 2.1 2.8 80-89 7.0 3.0 1.0 3.7 male 5.6 1.7 0.63 2.64 female 1.4 1.3 0.37 1.1 90-130 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 male 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 female 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 total 100 100 100 100 17 figure 4: reason for non-environmental migration among the study cohort source: computed by authors from lsms-isa data nb: p.o.b: place of birth; p.o.r: place of retirement; participate: communal participation; finance: lack of finance; assistance: government (local and foreign)/ ngo assistance; asset: ownership of farm/animal this study examines the reason for non-migration decisions among aged individuals/ households based on ecological and socio-economic effects. the result, as presented in figure 5, shows that 32.4% of the studied individuals indicated that the ownership of land and animals (warner and afifi, 2014) was the driving force behind their decision not to migrate despite the effect of desertification. this finding is not out of place when compared with the result of other studies (see for example, gray, 2010; mallick and vogt, 2012). furthermore, in a region such as the sudano-sahelian zone that is highly ruralized and poor, households without land are more susceptible to environmental migration. also, 21.3% of the aged non-environmental migrants associated financial accessibility to their non-migration status; this finding is in line with many studies (see black et al., 2011; mallick and vogt, 2012) that suggest that financial opportunities play a significant role in households’ decisions to stay put. the results of this study show that 18.2% of aged people opted not to out-migrate from their place of birth, revealing that length of residency breeds more place confidence and social attachment, as these factors promote immobility (adams and adger, 2013) and foster adaptive capacity (lewicka, 2011; adams, 2016). in all scenarios, the ultimate decisions of older individuals to refrain from migrating, were found to be intertwined and highly associative with economic and social factors within the study area. aging, resilience, and migration in the sudano-sahelian ecological belt in nigeria 18 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 table 4: mimic estimation results for resilience measurement source: computed by authors from lsms-isa data table 4 presents the household resilience score per driver. the agriculture practice scores (a) do not show any clear relationship in terms of household migration resilience levels. the lowest apt scores (where no apt was present) reflect a wide range of resilience scores, suggesting that when risk is not a significant indicator for the household, the association is void and other factors drive resilience levels. there is a very clear negative linear relationship between economic driver (ed) scores (b) and overall household migration resilience. the environmental driver scores (c) indicate a negative non-linear relationship with household migration resilience. for households in locales with higher risk scores, resilience levels were lower. the lowest evd scores (where no hazardous risk was present) reflect a wide range of resilience scores, suggesting that when risk is not a significant indicator for the household, the association is void, and other migratory drivers influence households' resilience levels. political driver scores (d) are quite low for the entire population of households; however, the relationship with the outcome variable is positive, with some indication of small changes in each predictor variable producing very large changes in resilience. in the case of social driver (sd) scores (e), there is a very clear positive linear relationship between sd and overall household resilience to migration, based on the result (see table 4). it appears that the elements (observed variables) within the sd indicator may be the strongest drivers of overall household migration resilience. there is great merit in considering the temporal effects of resilience measurement, and patience to observe the actual changes that emerge. as more data becomes available, this will help refine the practice and improve the accuracy of measurement observed variable parameter estimate (standard error) other statistic dd 1 chi squared (constrained) 18.84 apt .061 rmsea (.064) 0.051 ed -.037 (.014) evd -1.853 average resilience score (.124) (2010-2018) sd 4.126 2010: 21.84(+non-migration) (1.012) 2015:15.26(-non-migration) pd 2.571 2018: 26.81(+non-migration) (1.055) n = 920; log likelihood = -1156.77 *significant at p<.05; ** significant at p<0.001 19 (see table 4). the time series results of the household migration resilience index changed over the considered period,2 household migration resilience decreased (↓43.2%) between 2010–2015, indicating that there was a very high likelihood of households migrating during this time frame. furthermore, the household’s resilience rebounded between the years 2015–2018 (↑43.1%), demonstrating an upturn in the adaptive capacity of households in the sudano-sahelian region. in a nutshell, there is a very likelihood of the studied population being trapped in the long term (see table 4). however, a household’s differential and changing vulnerability to or protection from trends, hazards, and shocks among households make it a tricky endeavor because of the complex and transient nature of migration. figure 5: household non-migration resilience by multi-causal drivers (2010-2018) nb: dd: demographic driver; ed: economic driver; evd: environmental driver; pd: political driver; sd: social driver; apt: agricultural practices source: computed by authors from lsms-isa data when comparing the contributions of the studied migration drivers, interesting findings emerge. it is noteworthy that the composition and the intensity of these drivers are more skewed between ed, evd, apt, sd, pd, and dd in the longitudinal analysis. however, the benefit of examining resilience over time revealed that 2 the resilience index has been rescaled in order to make a comparison over a three-time period (2010-2018). aging, resilience, and migration in the sudano-sahelian ecological belt in nigeria 20 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 additional variables begin to contribute in varying capacities to the overall resilience score. ed, together with evd, are consistently the most relevant dimensions in all three time periods, accounting for more than 40% of imports. dd and pd are the only pillars that significantly change their relevance over time. dd increases from 2010–2015 but then decreases from 2015–2018 (see figure 5). in terms of chippingoff household resilience to migration, ed and evd were found to be the leading determinants of out-migration across time and space in the study area. considering that the majority of the households' income and livelihood is dependent on agricultural productivity, apt was found to be the driver of weakened household resilience to environmental stressors leading to out-migration (see figure 5). discussion the study's quantitative findings demonstrate that ownership of land and animals for agricultural uses, and accessibility to finance were the lead determinants of nonenvironmental migration among older people living within the sudano-sahelian region of nigeria. the result further revealed widening wealth inequalities among households within the space of eight years. the level of regional poverty was observed, considering that the share of employment in agriculture remains over 50% in the socio-ecological zone. this finding is consistent with that of the nbs (2019). it is generally acknowledged that the agricultural sector is the hardest hit by climate change. the majority of households (>60%) in the sez consist of rural-based smallholder farmers practising rain-fed agriculture in a dry/semi-arid zone and marginal lands that are highly susceptible to rainfall scarcity, as experienced in other locales within the sahel region (alinovi et al., 2009; alinovi et al., 2010; fao, 2017; d’errico et al., 2020). this finding is also consistent with those of de longueville et al. (2016) which also found that the majority of farmers in the sahelian arid zone believe that precipitation changes have occurred during the past 20–30 years, whereas in wetter areas (guinean zone) effects were felt during the past decade, with a resultant impact on productivity and earnings. also, the effect on a household’s resilience is further impacted by the indirect nature of many environmental changes (foresight, 2011; warner and afifi, 2014; zickgraf, 2018). other focal findings are that a household’s resilience to migration is extremely impacted by the structural conditions (economic and agricultural practice values). it follows from the above discussion that a range of agricultural practices and economic drivers are highly significant in affecting the relationships between environmental change and migration. these effects are real and observable among the examined households, such as large-scale land acquisitions which increase the vulnerability of populations while decreasing their resilience to future environmental and socioeconomic shocks. the study affirmed that economic factors are major push factors in the study area. the major source of the income of the households in the study area is based on rain-dependent agricultural activities where more than 50% of households are fully employed by this sector. these livelihood realities adversely affect the 21 households’ resilience to non-migration. this finding is consistent with observations communicated in several previous studies (see for example, black et al., 2011; de sherbinin et al., 2012; mallick and vogt, 2012). the result further revealed that social drivers (ayeb-karlsson, 2018; ayeb-karlsson et al., 2018) such as networks, household structure, place attachment, and health services were found to contribute to the aging population “staying put” within the sudano sahelian economic zone by assisting these individuals to adapt and also undergo significant (negative or positive) transformations as a consequence of environmental changes. conclusion environmental non-migration decisions are relatively understudied in nigeria. this study explored the role of resilience in mediating the relationship between household vulnerability to environmental change and (im)mobility in the sudano-sahelian ecological zone of nigeria. the result identified three key structural factors that heightened out-migration and two factors that promote non-migration decisions in the study area. firstly, the study found a household’s economic status to be a key decision-making factor – aging persons in the richest households are more likely to migrate away, compared to the majority of poor households, many of which would become trapped because of high migratory costs. secondly, the environmental stress factors that result from farmland loss, water, and food insecurity, are serious push factors, as exemplified by the mass migratory surge of fulani cattle-grazing herdsmen southwards in search of green spaces. thirdly, the evidence revealed that agricultural values and practices in the area which have bonded people and steered their livelihoods in the past are being threatened, thus negatively impacting local food security and heightened out-migration within the sudano-sahelian ecological zone. on the other hand, factors such as social and political drivers were found to be significant in making the population stay. this trend indicates that both social and political factors were significant in causing households to remain in-situ in the sudano-sahelian region. in conclusion, the trend analysis (2010-2018) revealed that the non-migratory resilience of households, although relatively low, has increased significantly during the examined period. this study therefore recommends that the nigerian government articulates effective environmental and socio-economic policies that would mitigate against environmental change and improve aging people’s resilience going forward. aging, resilience, and migration in the sudano-sahelian ecological belt in nigeria 22 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 references adams, h. 2016. why populations persist: mobility, place attachment and climate change. population and environment, 37(4): 429-448. adams, h. and adger, w.n. 2013. the contribution of ecosystem services to place utility as a determinant of migration decision-making. environmental research letters, 8(1): 015006. alinovi, l., mane, e. and romano, d. 2009. measuring household resilience to food insecurity: application to palestinian households. ec-fao food security programme, rome, pp.1-39. alinovi, l., d’errico, m., mane, e. and romano, d. 2010. livelihoods strategies and household resilience to food insecurity: an empirical analysis of kenya. european report on development, pp.1-52. aremu, j.k. and olatunde, a.f. 2013. drought trends in areas above latitude 8 n of nigeria. journal of environment and earth science, 3(8): 111-119. ayeb-karlsson, s. 2018. when the disaster strikes: (im)mobility decision-making in the context of environmental shocks and climate change impacts. doctoral dissertation, university of sussex. ayeb-karlsson, s., smith, c.d. and kniveton, d. 2018. a discursive review of the textual use of ‘trapped’ in environmental migration studies: the conceptual birth and troubled teenage years of trapped populations. ambio, 47(5): 557573. bhandari, p. 2004. relative deprivation and migration in an agricultural setting of nepal. population and environment, 25(5): 475-499. black, r. and collyer, m. 2014. ‘trapped’ populations: limits on mobility at times of crisis. in martin, s.f., weerasinghe, s., taylor, a. 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(eds.), routledge handbook of environmental displacement and migration, 1st ed. london, uk: routledge, pp. 71–84. zickgraf, c. 2019. keeping people in place: political factors of (im)mobility and climate change. social sciences, 8(8), 228. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8080228 aging, resilience, and migration in the sudano-sahelian ecological belt in nigeria african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3, 2018 understanding relationships and remittance flow during the migration period: strength of social ties as a factor determining remittance behaviour thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj abstract remittances transferred between migrants and non-migrants play a major role in alleviating poverty and improving social and economic well-being in many developing countries. although remittances are regarded as an outcome of migration with far reaching effects as a livelihood strategy, not all non-migrants with migrant family members are recipients of remittances. remittances are not transferred to all non-migrant family members in the country of origin. migrants identify particular individuals as recipients of remittances, which they send to their home countries during the migration period. therefore, it is important to understand the determinants of remittance flow and remittance behaviour during the migration period. this study explores relationships between migrants and non-migrants and how such relations influence the flow of remittances during the migration period. a qualitative approach was employed in which 60 interviews were conducted (30 with zimbabwean migrants in durban and 30 with their respective family members in zimbabwe). the study found that the strength of social ties between migrants and non-migrants plays a major role in determining remittance flows. strong social ties allow remittances to be transferred between migrants and non-migrants. in the event that the social ties are weakened or broken, the direction of remittance flows changes as migrants find other individuals to transfer remittances to. such findings show that the flow of remittances is determined by relationships between migrants and nonmigrants. as such, initiatives to strengthen social relations should be established to ensure a continuous transfer of remittances. keywords remittance flow, migration, relationships, remittance recipients, transnationalism.  school of built environment and development studies, university of kwazulu-natal. email: trmukwembi@gmail.com  school of built environment and development studies, university of kwazulu-natal. mailto:trmukwembi@gmail.com thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1418 introduction the trends and patterns of migration have been changing over the years as migration has been adopted as a source of livelihood in many developing countries (iom, 2015). migrants send remittances for the upkeep of their families back home; hence, remittances are a major component of contemporary migration given their contribution to poverty reduction and improving socio-economic statuses in developing countries (crush et al., 2005; makina, 2014). this transfer of remittances has reduced poverty levels and vulnerability amongst remittance-receiving individuals and households. although studies have been conducted on remittances, their effects on development initiatives and improvement on human well-being, little research has been done on the relationships between migrants and nonmigrants and on how such relationships influence remittance behaviour. given the relevance of remittances in poverty alleviation and development initiatives, it is important to explore different factors that determine the transfer of remittances during migration. however, not every individual or household with a migrant family member receives remittances during the migration period. therefore, this paper focuses on understanding relationships that exit between migrant and nonmigrant family members that determine where remittances are transferred during the migration period. understanding these relationships is important when analysing the dynamics of remittance behaviour and remittance flows. in this paper, remittance behaviour is understood by evaluating relationships during the migration period and how those relations influence remittance flows. background migration within southern africa is not a new phenomenon but has a long history dating back to the mid-19th century (crush et al., 2005; mlambo, 2010). during the colonial period, migration was viewed as the single most important factor tying all colonies and countries together into a single regional labour market (crush et al., 2005). this migration tended to be circular and maledominated. men would migrate to work temporarily in the host community, leaving their families behind, and would return to their areas of origin at the end of their working period. however, the patterns and trends of migration have significantly evolved due to the changing economic and political landscape in the region. as economies crumble, these patterns and trends of movement continue to change with more people engaging in the migrant thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1419 labour system as a way of earning a livelihood (crush et al., 2005; bakewell et al., 2009; crush & tevera, 2010; makina, 2013). unlike migration in the colonial period, contemporary migration has become a major means of livelihood for many households in developing countries. zimbabwe experienced massive economic and political crises over the past decades, which saw the closure of many companies, retrenchment of several workers, devaluation and collapse of the local currency and increased poverty levels amongst the citizens (zanamwe & devillard, 2009; crush & tevera, 2010; mzumara, 2012; makina, 2013). such economic challenges forced many zimbabweans to emigrate and secure livelihoods elsewhere (crush & tevera, 2010; mzumara, 2012; makina, 2013). the emigration of zimbabweans during the crisis period is described as catastrophic, as it resulted in massive brain drain and deterioration of service delivery, especially in the public sector (chikanda & dodson, 2013). however, this brain drain argument is criticised by other scholars who argue that migrant-sending countries also benefit from remittances sent by migrants. thus, literature shows that remittances have varying benefits in the home country. like other migrant sending countries, literature shows that remittances are a major source of income for many households in zimbabwe (maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008; mzumara, 2012). the high unemployment rate and economic situation in zimbabwe compel households to rely on remittances transferred by migrant family members. such transfers are used to improve the socio-economic well-being of non-migrant family members. tevera and chikanda (2008) and maphosa (2007) highlight that households that do not receive remittances regularly are struggling to cope with the economic situation in zimbabwe and, thus, become more vulnerable to poverty than those that regularly receive remittances. remittances are transferred for various reasons; some are transferred for consumption smoothing (tevera & chikanda, 2008), while others are transferred for payment of bills and investment (maphosa, 2007; makina, 2013). changes in migration patterns have been reported in different countries and regions. such migration experiences were reported in south-eastern europe where bulgarian citizens left their country in the late 1980s (markova & reilly, 2007). nearly a quarter of bulgarians left their country by 1989 towards european destinations such as the czech republic, austria and hungary, amongst others. the patterns and trends of migration in bulgaria have changed over the years towards the tendency of temporary and seasonal thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1420 migration rather than permanent migration. migrant remittances have proven to be a significant form of finance and livelihood income in developing countries (markova & reilly, 2007; nzima et al., 2016). officially recorded remittance flows to developing countries were estimated to have reached $436 billion in 2014. the bulgarian national bank confirmed that the amount sent by migrants has steadily increased (markova & reilly, 2007). literature on remittances shows that a large percentage of remittances transferred to developing countries are used for consumption and other household uses. although literature highlights the crucial role of remittances in improving the well-being of individuals and households in the migrant-sending country, research has not been done to evaluate and understand relationships that exist between migrants and non-migrants. therefore, this paper assesses changes in the relationship between migrants and remittance recipients over the migration period, the causes of these changes and effects of these relationships on remittance flows. the paper extends the discussion beyond the remittance decay hypothesis; it demonstrates that there are determinants of remittance behaviour other than altruism that influence remittance flows during the migration period. migration, remittances and transnationalism migration for the purpose of securing a livelihood has been commonly reported in many developing countries. in the southern african region, migration is determined by social, economic and political factors that compel people to leave their communities of origin (maphosa, 2007). given the economic environment in countries of origin, families spread their labour assets over geographically dispersed and structurally different markets to reduce risk and maximise the chances of securing their livelihood. migration is adopted as a household decision to secure a better livelihood and improve families’ or households’ well-being (posel, 2002; konseiga, 2006). it is regarded as a risk management strategy or a way to avert liquidity constraints in the absence of insurance (muzondidya, 2008; makina, 2014). a household or family as a unit of analysis reflects the ways in which households act as collective units in which all members are united in maximising household well-being (posel, 2002). by so doing, the benefits of migration accrue to both migrants and non-migrants (konseiga, 2006; chakraborty & kuri, 2017).given that members in a household have different responsibilities in the family structures, the decision to migrate should be taken at a household level. some household members are more likely to thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1421 migrate than others. chakraborty and kuri (2017) argue that in household migration, the characteristics of the household play a major role in influencing the migration decisions and process. households are not homogeneous; they differ in structure and size. as such, the number of potential migrants who are able to migrate differs among households. regardless of the initial determinants of migration, sander and mainbo (2005) state that migrants from developing countries leave their families behind to secure a livelihood in their host countries, and transfer remittances back to the country of origin. according to tevera and chikanda (2008), remittances are the transfer of funds and goods from migrants to relatives and friends in the country of origin. these transfers can be in the form of cash, goods and even acquired skills (maphosa, 2007). remittances can be formal, those that are transferred through registered means like financial institutions, and they can be informal, those that are transferred through migrants’ personal networks that connect them with their home countries. although it is difficult to measure the actual amount transferred due to the use of informal channels, the volume of remittance flows to developing countries has grown significantly in recent years (sander & mainbo, 2005; maphosa, 2007; makina, 2013; inter censal demographic survey (icds), 2017). sander and mainbo (2005) state that remittances from migrants to their families, increased from $33.1 billion in 1991 to $80 billion in 2002. regarding remittance transfers by zimbabwean migrants, the icds (2017) indicates a steady increase in the number of remittances transferred over the years. however, given that a significant portion of remittances go unrecorded, as they are transferred through informal channels, the actual figures could be higher than those reported (icds, 2017). remittances have become the second largest source of external funding in africa, just behind direct foreign investment (sander & mainbo, 2005; maphosa, 2007). as such, they have become an important source of finance and foreign exchange for many african households and nations. there are fewer bureaucratic procedures for remittance transfer and collection than for other types of aid transfer, and remittances are transferred directly to the end user, which makes them more efficient than other forms of aid given to developing countries. tevera and chikanda (2008) posit that had it not been for remittance transfers, the situation of many zimbabwean households would have been more dire than it already was due to the economic crisis. remittances have reduced vulnerability to hunger, ill-health and poverty for both rural and thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1422 urban households (maphosa, 2007). many children have remained in school due to the remittances sent by migrant family members, while others have received medical care from such remittances. unlike the recipients of remittances, some non-receiving households rely on borrowing from money launderers whose interest rates are extremely high, making it difficult to repay the loans (maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008; mzumara, 2012). as a result, non-recipient households remain trapped in a vicious cycle of borrowing, as they continue borrowing to cover the initial loan (tevera & chikanda, 2008). a large percentage of the remittances are used by receiving households for consumption smoothing, highlighting the precarious situation of food insecurity in the region (maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008). however, not all remittances are used for consumption smoothing; some are invested in livestock and agricultural inputs, such as fortified maize seed and fertilizers, as well as establishing small income generating projects (maphosa, 2007). as mentioned earlier, in many developing countries, migration is viewed as a household survival strategy where one or more household members leave the country to secure a livelihood elsewhere (posel, 2002; sander & mainbo, 2005; bakewell et al., 2009). therefore, non-migrant family members look forward to receiving remittances during the migration period. in some instances, family members left behind borrow money from their neighbours, intending to repay them once their migrant family members remit (tevera & chikanda, 2008). such findings show that the family members left behind expect their migrant relatives to remit during the period of migration. this is supported by maphosa’s (2007) finding that migrants are motivated to remit, sometimes daily, to fulfill an obligation to their households left behind. study of the transfer of remittances over years shows that migrants maintain relations with the family members they leave behind. grieco (2003) highlights that remittances are sustained as a result of migrants’ participation in social networks where remittances represent the migrants’ efforts to build and maintain social capital. regardless of the time and distance that separates migrants from their families in the country of origin, there are various means by which they remain connected with their non-migrant networks (jakubowicz, 2012). while migrants and their non-migrant family members maintain relationships during the migration period, their relationships can change over the period as they are influenced by different factors. thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1423 migration has been identified as a phenomenon that connects areas that are geographically separated (jakubowicz, 2012). as people continue to move from one country to another, they establish links to all the countries with which they are associated. individuals migrate leaving their families behinds, hence the need to maintain contact with the country of origin over space and time (bloch, 2010). pasura (2008) states that during the period of migration, migrants maintain ties with their home country while integrating into the host country. this simultaneous integration of migrants into more than one society forms the basis of the concept of transnationalism (pasura, 2008; bloch, 2010). transnationalism entails being connected to several places at once, which, to a large extent, is a defining feature of the migrant experience (levitt & jaworsky, 2007; pasura, 2008). the concept of transnationalism incorporates the kinds of activities in which migrants and non-migrants engage. analysis of migration, under transnationalism, precedes the mere determinants of the movement of people. it takes into account the activities in which people engage after migration and the connections they establish as a result thereof. individuals in different parts of the world are connected through transnationalism, and their actions and activities are systematic. faist (2000) states that transnational communities cause migrants and non-migrants to be connected by strong social and symbolic ties over time and over large geographical areas. thus, activities in which migrants and their non-migrant family members engage during the period of migration have a bearing on their relationships. although remittances are regarded as one of the outcomes of migration with far reaching effects as a livelihood strategy, not all non-migrants with migrant family members are recipients of remittances. therefore, it is important to understand the determinants of remittance flows during the migration period. thus, this study sought to explore how relationships between migrants and non-migrants influence the flow of remittances during the migration period. study area this paper is based on data collected for a phd thesis examining the familial relationships between migrants and their non-migrant family members. the study was carried out in two places: durban, south africa and harare, zimbabwe. initial study interviews were conducted with zimbabwean migrants living in durban and the second phase of interviews was performed in harare with the respective family members of the interviewed migrants in durban. durban is the largest city in south africa’s kwazulu-natal province thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1424 and is one of the country’s main seaside resort cities. it is located at the fareast side of the country, about 600 km from johannesburg. harare is the capital city of zimbabwe, situated in the north-east of the country, in mashonaland province. as the capital city, it is zimbabwe’s leading financial, commercial and communication centre with residents from diverse cultures and backgrounds. research design this paper entails a qualitative study of zimbabwean migrant workers in durban and their respective family members back home in zimbabwe. creswell (2009: 4) defines qualitative research as “a means for exploring and understanding the meanings individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem”. qualitative research uses concepts and clarifications to interpret human behaviour and social phenomena from the perspective of the people affected by the phenomena under review (cohen et al., 2002). hennink et al. (2010) argue that the main distinctive feature of qualitative research is that it allows the researcher to identify and understand issues from the perspective of the participants. the emphasis is on the verbal description of the phenomena in its natural setting. this study sought to explore relationships during the migration period; thus, a qualitative research design was the most suitable method as it allowed for the interpretations and meanings that people attach to migration to be explored. sampling the study employed a snowball or chain sampling technique. hennink et al. (2010) state that snowballing is a recruitment method that is particularly suitable for identifying study participants with specific characteristics or information required in the study. this sampling technique relies on personal contacts to recruit study participants. for the purposes of this research, a total of 60 interviewees were contacted in both durban and harare. the researcher identified migrants from harare who then identified others who had family members in harare as well. the process was repeated until a total of 30 migrants were interviewed in durban, 16 males and 14 females. out of the 16 male migrants interviewed in durban, 75% were married, 20% were single and 5% were not married but cohabiting. one married male participant was in a polygamous relationship with three wives. of the total number of female participants, 35.7% were married, 35.7% were widowed, 7.1% were cohabiting and 21.4% were single. participants in harare were family members of the migrant participants in durban. of the participants in harare, thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1425 40% were parents of the migrants while 33.3% were siblings. extended family members constituted 20% and 6.7% were hired caregivers. data collection methods data was collected using two types of interviews in qualitative data-eliciting methods: narrative accounts and one-on-one in-depth interviews. these two types of data collection are important when the researcher wants to elicit detailed views from the participants in a short period of time. participants gave narrative accounts of their lives and experiences of migration that were unguided by research questions. this narration was followed by one-on-one in-depth interviews in which research questions were used to elicit the specific pieces of information required to answer the identified research questions. narrative interviews entail the retelling of stories from the informant’s point of view (jovchelovitch & bauer, 2000). hence, the stories that are told and the way they are told reflect the understanding of the person telling it, which might be different from the way the next person may relate the same story. this makes the narrative inquiry a suitable methodology since it allows for the participant’s actual interpretation of the issue at hand, to be revealed. after engaging in narrative discussions, the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with the participants. miller and glassner (1997) highlight that one-on-one in-depth interviews, in a qualitative enquiry, provide the researcher with the opportunity to explore the participants’ point of view regarding the issue at hand. as such, people’s beliefs, perceptions, feelings and emotions, as well as the meanings they attach to experiences, will be learned in the process. given that this study sought individual meanings and perceptions, in-depth interviews were a relevant means of collecting data. allowing the participants to narrate their stories first then engage in interviews later allowed the researcher to elicit more information from the participants. issues were raised in the narratives that the researcher followed up on during the in-depth interviews for further clarity, hence, obtaining the relevant information required to answer the research questions. the research design and data-eliciting methods adopted in this study ensured that participants’ voices were heard. hence, conclusions of the study are based on the information provided by the study participants. thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1426 analysis data collected through qualitative methods comprise mainly of words, in contrast to the numeric nature of quantitative data. data collected in this study were analysed using the thematic analysis method. according to braun and clarke (2006), thematic analysis is a method of identifying, analysing and reporting patterns within data. it involves identifying patterns or themes from the collected data, selecting those of special interest and reporting on them. themes are formed around the main issues or points raised by study participants as they respond to research questions. by so doing, thematising data brings order to the collected data, and enables a better understanding. research findings the major result of this study highlights that the strength of social ties between migrants and non-migrants is crucial in determining remittance flows during the migration period. although literature shows that migrants transfer remittances that are crucial in improving the well-being of their nonmigrant counterparts (bakewell, et al., 2007; maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008), this relationship has not been discussed in the literature. this study explored the relationships that exist between migrants and nonmigrants and how these relations influence the flow of remittances during the migration period. in this paper, four sub-themes are identified and used to explain how these relationships determine the flow of remittances. family tension and remittance flows family is regarded as a social unit that supports its members (dintwat, 2010); however, results from this study show that there are inter and intra family conflicts that affect relationships within families. such conflicts and tension compromise the potential of the family to fully support its family members, as highlighted in other literature. participants reported different conflicts within their families that negatively affected their relationships. such conflicts differ depending on the relationships between family members, with the main conflicts that were reported being between women and their mothers-in-law. both migrants and non-migrant participants reported that daughters-in-law are less likely to be accepted in their husbands’ families, which causes significant tension within families: my mother in-law would tell me to my face how she wishes her son got married to someone as educated as he is. she would make me do all the thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1427 housework because she said that’s all i was good at. (mrs chabata, a nonmigrant participant) another widow reported that her late husband’s family chased her away soon after her husband’s burial. in her opinion, her husband’s family had never accepted her as part of the family and they could not stay with her and her daughter after her husband’s passing: she would tell me there was no need for me to keep hanging onto the family because the one who brought me there was gone. it’s like to her i was never part of the family, i was just a constant reminder of a son she once had. (revai, a 33-year-old migrant widow) participants reported that in many families, the daughter-in-law is regarded as a stumbling block that disturbs the peace and unity that was always in their home. however, instead of the families blaming their sons for bringing a wife into their home, the daughter-in-law becomes the scapegoat and is blamed for disturbing peace in the family. this was highlighted by married female participants when they reported that “blood is thicker than water”, as families do not blame their own sons for bringing the ‘stranger’ into the family. in emphasizing that daughters-in-law are treated differently from other family members, mrs chabata said, “daughters-in-law are like owls, whenever people see them they think they are there to cause trouble”. in shona culture, an owl is associated with witchcraft, and as such, when people see it, they believe it has been sent by witches to do something evil. participants emphasised that daughters-in-law are the least trusted family members. marotz-baden and cowan (1987) argue that if a daughter in-law feels accepted in the family, her feeling may contribute to the eventual success of the of family initiatives. her unhappiness can disrupt the family success as she can connive with her husband to detach from the family. such was highlighted in this study as female and male participants who reported in-law tensions within their families reported that they do not remit regularly. although some in-laws try to make amends and restore the broken relationships, women in the study reported that such actions are not sincere but are part of a strategy to access remittances. as a result, some migrants refuse to send remittances home, and others reported that when their husbands ask them to send remittances home they take a portion to spite their in-laws: thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1428 sometimes when i am sending money or groceries to my in-laws, i take a portion and give to my mother without my husband’s knowledge. (faith, a married migrant participant) in addition to this conflict with in-laws, there are other tensions within families that affect relations between members. the study indicated that, in some instances, the way people grew up impacts how they relate in their adult life. people invest in social relations by interacting and networking with others in order to gain access to resources embedded in the network (grieco, 2003). participants in the study indicated that their interactions with different family members before migration determines how they feel about each other and influences their social relations after migration. one migrant widow, revai, and her non-grant sister, mrs moyo, reported that they experienced rejection from their father after the death of their mother. their father remarried and his focus shifted to his new wife. that experience brought the sisters closer to each other, as they relied more on each other for moral and social support. given their mother’s sudden death, revai and her sister needed their father to be with them as they grieved. unfortunately, their father decided to remarry sooner than they expected, and that affected their relationship with him. as such, revai felt compelled to remit to her sister whom she regarded as her only close family member. when she migrated, revai left her daughter in her sister’s custody, and hence she regularly remits to her. explaining the reasons for leaving her daughter with her sister, revai indicated that she trusts her sister with her own life and she knew she was the only person she can trust with her child’s life. her relationships with her sister and father influenced her remittance behaviour. although her father is not employed and could have an improved standard of living if she transferred remittances, revai prefers sending remittances to her sister with whom she has a strong social bond. literature shows that individuals who receive remittances from their migrant family members have better chances of improving their living standards (maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008). this study has shown that remittances are transferred to every non-migrant family member. the flow of remittances is influenced by the kinds of social relationships that exist between migrants and non-migrants. another migrant participant, melisa’s relationship with her father adds to the argument that life experiences can have an effect on how family members relate to each other and that this relationship effects remittance transfers. thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1429 melisa lost her mother at a young age. although her father was still alive, he was never there for her, as he supported his new wife and never attended to melisa’s needs as a father should. melisa stated that she resented him for the way he treated her, and she blamed him for the trauma she went through as a child. as such, she did not want to be associated with her father’s house. responding to the question on her relationship and association with her father’s house melisa said the following: i am not a part of that household; it’s for him, his wife and their children. after all, it’s not like i grew up there anyway. i seriously have no attachment to that household whatsoever. as a result of the kind of relationship she has with her father, melisa does not remit. she believes that sending remittances indicates a functional relationship. since she is not willing to establish one with her father, she does not find it necessary to remit. the experiences of revai and melisa show that although people are tied together as a family by birth or marriage, the strength of their social ties can either be strengthened or weakened by their mutual life experiences. may (2011) posits that strong family relations are attained when members have a sense of belonging. coordination and cooperation can be realised and family members are able to work together and assist one another in times of need. in this study, it was revealed that life experiences have the potential to determine the strength of family ties. such social ties have a greater effect on remittance behaviour than the biological ties that exist between migrants and nonmigrants. choice of remittance recipients as was confirmed by participants, migrants remit to their families in the home country for various reasons (bakewell et al., 2007; maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008). the purpose for remitting was identified as the major determinant for identifying a certain individual as a recipient. remittances transferred for the family upkeep are sent to the person in charge of the household back home. sibongile, a migrant participant, reported that she always sent remittances to her sister who stays with her son in zimbabwe. sibongile, like many other migrant participants, indicated that the people that they left in charge of the household are the current household heads. as such, they are responsible for ensuring the maintenance of the household. stanly, another migrant participant, said, thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1430 my sister is now in charge of the household, and we always communicate, as she informs me about the situation back home. i might be the father, but i am not at home; hence, i am not aware of what happens there on a daily basis. as such, i have to rely on what she tells me. if there is a problem with the children, she is the one with first-hand information. such sentiments show that migrants regard the person that they left in charge of the household as the right person to send remittances that are meant for the family upkeep. this highlights the importance of both migrants and nonmigrants in transnational activities (levitt & jaworsky, 2007; pasura, 2008). migrants and non-migrants engage in different transnational activities that either strengthen or weaken their relationships during the migration period and beyond. as the migrant remits and the non-migrant looks after the migrant’s investments in the country of origin, their relationships are strengthened. however, in terms of remitting to assist other extended family members, participants reported that they prefer to send the remittances directly to the actual beneficiary. there were reports that some family members tend to keep remittances that are not meant for them. in the event that remittances are sent to one family member to distribute to the respective beneficiaries, migrants reported that some intended beneficiaries do not receive their full shares: they would keep everything and not pass it onto the right person, even when they are aware that it’s not theirs. some take a portion of the other relatives’ remittance and keep it. (tecla, a female migrant participant). as a measure to prevent conflict and unnecessary tension between family members, tecla and other migrant participants prefer remitting to the actual beneficiary than passing remittances through a third party. regarding remitting for investment, participants reported that due care is necessary when selecting recipients of remittances. reports of misuse of remittances meant for investment were highlighted by most of the migrant participants. migrants reported remitting for investment in incomegenerating initiatives and real estate highlighted high levels of disappointment after recipients misappropriated the remittances transferred for a particular purpose. it has been reported that some recipients disregard the wishes and commands of migrants and use remittances for their own benefit. given the economic situation in zimbabwe, other recipients use the money send by their migrant family members hoping that they can replace it before thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1431 it is needed. however, they sometimes fail to do so. as a result, misuse of remittances becomes a source of conflict in some families. constance is a nonmigrant who agreed that she sometimes misuses remittances meant for other investment purposes: sometimes it is difficult because you are given $1000 to buy bricks or other building material yet; you do not have mealie-meal in the house. you will be tempted to take a portion of the money and buy food. (constance, a non-migrant participant). however, she said that since she takes a small percentage of the money, she does not deem it necessary to tell the migrant about it. instead, she buys the materials with the remaining money and does not tell the migrant. misappropriation of remittances meant for investment has far reaching effects on the relationship between migrants and non-migrants. in some instances, relationships completely disintegrated, and in other instances, the levels of trust between family members deteriorated during the period of migration due to misappropriation of remittances. clever, a migrant participant, reported that he moved to south africa in 2010 with his wife and their two children. he bought a residential stand in harare and entrusted his young brother to oversee the project in his absence. however, clever was disappointed by his brother, who took advantage of the trust he had in him and his absence and had inflated the prices of the building material, which ended up costing him more than necessary. clever felt betrayed by a family member that he trusted. he reported that he had a good relationship with his brother before migration. as such, he never expected such betrayal. for such reasons, migrant participants reported that they do not mix family remittances and those that are meant for investment: when sending money home, i prefer sending directly to the person who is supposed to benefit from it. if it is my parents, i sent it to them directly. that’s why for the construction of my house, i sent it directly to the building contractor himself. (solomon, a migrant participant). solomon argued that sending remittances through a third party may delay payments and can also result in the misuse of the remittances. however, migrant participants reported that regardless of the disappointments they experience, they find other individuals to transfer remittances to so that the projects progress. this is supported by faist (2000), thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1432 who argues that migrants continue to engage with their countries of origin, and hence there is continued contact and interaction during the migration period regardless of the challenges experienced. effective communication and remittance flow both migrant and non-migrant participants reported that where remittances are transferred, communication lines are opened between migrants and nonmigrants. results from this study revealed that there is a relationship between transfer of remittances and frequency of communication between migrants and non-migrants during the migration period. when remittances are transferred, migrants and non-migrants keep updating each other on the events that led to or resulted from the transfer of the remittance. the higher the frequency of remittance flows, the better the chances of constant communication during the migration period. such was reported by both migrants and non-migrant participants in the study. remitting to the extended family has opened lines of communication for many. the study revealed that in some instances social relationships between migrants and non-migrants were weak before migration. however, after migration their relationships changed and they attribute the changes to the transfer of remittances during the migration period. such sentiments were shared mostly by migrant participants who indicated that the levels of communication between them and family members improved after they sent remittances. they admitted that after sending remittances, they continued to talk for a certain period of time. meaningful communication was guaranteed where remittances were transferred and that communication strengthened their relationships. such is supported by literature on transnational space, which states that activities in which migrants and their non-migrant family members engage during the period of migration have a bearing on their relationships (faist, 2000). duration and frequency of remitting although literature shows that migrants remit to their non-migrants family members during the migration period (grieco, 2003; maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008), the study revealed that not all migrants remit back home. the strength of social ties between migrants and non-migrants was reported as the major determinant of remittance behaviour. results from the study did not show any relationship between time spent away from the country of origin and the flow of remittances during the migration period. one quarter of the thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1433 study participants reported that they do not regularly remit back home. they indicated that they did not prioritise remitting back home because of the relationships they had with the families. as such, their remittance behaviour was not influenced by time spent in the host country. as highlighted by grieco (2003), remittances represent efforts by migrants to establish and strengthen relationships with non-migrants. migrants who did not have intentions of establishing relationships with their non-migrant family members reported that they do not regularly remit. regardless of the time they spent in the host countries, such migrants do not remit unless their relationships with nonmigrant family members have changed. the study also revealed that remittance transfers are not always consistent. rather, migrants remit erratically, when remittances are needed. participants who remit erratically indicated that they are not primary breadwinners to any household in the country of origin. as such, they are not compelled to remit regularly or constantly. most of these participants either migrated with their nuclear families or were single people with no primary dependents in the home country. it should, however, be noted that there are other single migrants without children in the home country but they remit regularly for specifics causes. robert is a single male migrant who reported that although he does not have children of his own, he took the responsibility to pay tuition fees for his younger sister who is at a teacher’s college: i have been paying for my sister’s college tuition for two years now and she is left with one year before she finishes. i will be happy to see her through this final year. (robert, male migrant participant). such remittances that are meant for a particular cause are likely to cease once their purpose is fulfilled. however, waning of such remittances cannot be attributed to time spent away from home. rather, the flow of such remittances is determined by the need in the home country. in the event that the purposes the remittances are fulfilled, such remittances may cease to flow. simba, a married migrant, reported that he migrated with wife and children to south africa. as such he does not remit back home frequently. he indicated that although his parents were living in zimbabwe, they were both employed and they provide for their own need. he reported that two of his siblings were working in canada and, therefore, they assist in providing for their parents. as such, it is not his sole responsibility to provide for his parents back home. thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1434 however, he admitted that he sometimes remits to other extended family members from time to time. he used a shona proverb which says ‘ukama igasva hunozadziswa nekudya’. the proverb stresses the relevance of food in cementing and strengthening social relationships. in the shona culture, food is given a great significance in showing how people relate to each other. if someone does not eat another’s food, it is interpreted as them being afraid of being bewitched. therefore, to show that there is trust, people should accept the food that they are given by their relatives or neighbours. as such, simba indicated that sending groceries and money to family members back home is an indication of his support so that they would know that he is willing to help them if they are in need of assistance. his remittance behaviour signifies his willingness to establish relationships with family members back home (grieco, 2003). discussion and conclusion transfer of remittances has been identified by many scholars as the major characteristic of migration in developing countries (maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008). literature has shown that migrants transfer remittances to their families in the countries of origin for various reasons, and that such remittances are significant to their well-being. however, little has been done to explore the kinds of relationships that exist between those migrants and their non-migrant family members and how such relationships impact remittance flow. this study explored these relationships and found that the strength of social ties between migrants and their non-migrant family members is an important determinant of remittance behaviour. migration is regarded as a household decision to improve family or household well-being (konseiga, 2006). the family in the country of origin relies on the migrant family member to send remittances back home. however, as the study indicated, familial experiences sometimes hinder the flow of remittances. tensions and conflict within families affect relationships between family members. as a result, remittance flow is hampered because migrants tend to remit to individuals with whom they have a strong social relationship. therefore, the flow of remittances is influenced by the nature of the ties that exist between migrants and non-migrants. remittance flows signify the existence of a relationship (grieco, 2003). therefore, as much as migration is regarded as a household decision meant to benefit the family, if relationships between family members are compromised, the transfer of remittances is not guaranteed. therefore, when evaluating remittance behaviour, emphasis thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1435 should also be placed on the nature of the relationships between migrants and non-migrants. migrants’ choices of remittance recipients are not random. before migration, migrants had relationship with other family or household members. after migration, they use such relationships to identify recipients of remittances. as they integrate into their host communities, migrants remain invested in activities in their countries of origin in a number of ways (pasura, 2008; jakubowicz, 2012). the nature of the relationships between the migrants and their non-migrant family members before migration influences the selection of the recipients of remittances during the migration period. as the findings of the study have shown, migrants identified family members with whom they had strong relationships before migration as recipients of the remittances. however, when social ties are broken as a result of misuse of remittances by recipients, the direction of remittance flows changes. as a result, some migrants shift the direction of remittances and select another individual as the recipient. such results show that remittance transfer is guided by the strength of social ties between migrants and non-migrants. when relationships are broken or weakened, remittances do not necessarily cease; rather, they change the direction and are transferred to another recipient. such arguments support grieco (2003; 2004), who notes that the transfer of migrant remittances is not only dependent on altruism. grieco posits there are other factors that determine the transfer of remittances during the migration period. grieco (2003: 3) states that: remittances are not simply sent by the migrant to family members rather they are exchanged for resources accessible through the maintenance of relationships with other members, of a given social network. findings of this study add to such arguments as they indicate that transfer of remittances between migrants and non-migrants is, to a greater extent, influenced by relationships between migrants and non-migrants. remittances are transferred where there are relationships or where individuals are willing to establish or strengthen relationships. when strong social ties diminish, migrants identify new recipients to whom remittances can be transferred. thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj 1436 references bakewell, o., de haas, h., castles, s., vezzoli, s. and jónsson, g. 2009. south south migration and human development: reflections on african experiences. oxford: hdrp. bloch, a. 2010. the right to rights? undocumented migrants from zimbabwe living in south africa. sociology, 44: 233–250. braun, v. and clarke, v. 2006. using thematic analysis in psychology. qualitative research in psychology, 3: 77–101. chakraborty, d. and kuri, p.k. 2017. the household level determinants in the choice and level of migration: a micro study in west bengal. environment and urbanization asia, 8: 94–104. chikanda, a. and dodson, b. 2013. bandaid transnationalism: remittance practices of emigrant zimbabwean medical doctors. migration and development 2: 57–73. cohen, l., manion, l. and morrison, k. 2002. research methods in education. 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(unpublished). sander, c. and mainbo, s.m. 2005. migrant labor remittances in africa: reducing obstacles to developmental contributions. african region working paper series no. 64. tevera, d. and chikanda, a. 2008. migrant remittances and household survival in zimbabwe. african books collective.cape town: samp. zanamwe, l. and devillard, a. 2009. migration in zimbabwe: a country profile. harare: zimstats. 89 evidence of spiritual capital in the schooling of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam justice richard kwabena owusu kyei*, rafal smoczynski** and mary boatemaa setrana*** * kwame nkrumah university of science and technology, ghana. email: rokyei@hotmail.com ** institute of philosophy and sociology, polish academy of sciences, poland *** centre for migration studies, university of ghana, ghana this study investigates how spiritual capital accrued from religiosity influences the educational mobility of second-generation migrants in amsterdam, the netherlands. we propose that inherently, religiosity possesses resources that have consequences for the socio-economic and cultural life of the adherents. the study adopts ethnographic research methods including in-depth interviews, participant observation and informal interviews in the religious field of african initiated christian churches (aiccs) in amsterdam. fifty second-generation migrants participated in the research out of which thirty-five were women and fifteen were men. nine representatives of aiccs were interviewed. all the research participants were purposively selected. the study found that although educational attainment is not a driving force for the creation of aiccs, religiosity has consequential effects on the schooling of second-generation ghanaians. the study also found that spiritual capital accumulated through prayers, reading of holy scriptures, participation in religious services and church commitment may facilitate or deter progress in the schooling of second-generation ghanaians. the paper concludes that religiosity and schooling are not incompatible; rather, they are complementary in the integration of second-generation migrants in the dutch society. keywords: spiritual capital, schooling, second-generation migrants, religiosity, african initiated christian churches (aiccs) spiritual capital in the schooling of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam 90 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 introduction studies on ethnic religious organizations (alba, 2005; alba et al., 2009) identify religion as a stepping stone in the process of immigrant integration. as a result, the long-term contribution of ethnic religious organizations to immigrants’ lives in the host country is questioned (warner, 2007; ambrosini and caneva, 2009; baffoe, 2013). the premature forecast of secularization theorists a century ago on the demise of religion in public discourse influenced migration scholars to lessen the importance of religion (berger, 1999; bramadat, 2011) in the public sphere. the world has, however, witnessed religious revival in the 21st century and religion continues to be active in both the public and private spheres (casanova, 1994; kyei and smoczynski, 2016; levitt and jaworsky, 2007). this work aims at contributing to the understanding of how the inherent resources in religiosity influence the schooling of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam. immigrant churches have been identified as retarding immigrant integration into mainstream society of the host nation (chang, 2006). studies further argue that members of immigrant religious groups are less interested in integrating into the host nation, as members are offered a more familiar and comfortable environment (see for example, chang, 2006; tsang, 2015). this research, however, proposes that immigrant churches provide services that enhance immigrant integration in the host nation, which are often overlooked (stepick et al., 2009). several studies have established that ethnic religious organizations provide psychological and sociocultural comfort to their members (ebaugh and chafetz, 2000; hirschman, 2004; edgell and docka, 2007). this function of immigrant religious organizations can lead to latent conflict in secular nations like the netherlands. arguably, social capital obtained through religious involvement is a resource that generates networks, trust and norms facilitating the attainment of individual and collective goals (kyei et al., 2019; putnam, 2000). the religious social capital acquired in the religious field may enhance the skills and know-how of the members (kyei and smoczynski, 2016). following this line of inquiry, the study conceptualizes the resources inherent in religiosity as spiritual capital. religiosity provides meaning to the day-to-day academic and cultural lifestyle of communities in spite of the disenchantment that is bred in contemporary european societies, especially in the netherlands (bernts et al., 2007). this research investigates the various religiously-oriented strategies that ghanaian second-generation migrants in amsterdam employ in schooling. the paper also questions how african initiated christian churches (aiccs) influence the schooling of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam. background: ghanaian immigrants in the netherlands ghanaian immigrants settled primarily in the bijlmer district of amsterdam and to a lesser extent in the hague in the late 1980s and early 1990s (dietz et al., 2011). ghanaians are visible in the netherlands through their churches, shops (food, 91 clothing), media (television and radio broadcasting) and magazines (ter haar, 1998). in spite of the relatively medium education level of ghanaians in the netherlands, they are employed in mainly semi-skilled and unskilled jobs due to low proficiency in the dutch language, discrimination in the labor market, and the cumbersome process of foreign diploma recognition by the dutch government (choenni, 2002). the literature is not clear on the definition of ‘second generation’ but the migrants’ age at the time of arrival is crucial in the process of integration of immigrant children (portes and zhou, 1993; alba and nee, 1997). this article takes into account the migrants’ age at the time of arrival in the definition of second-generation migrants. a second-generation ghanaian is therefore defined here as anyone born in the netherlands or who entered the netherlands at or before the age of six, with at least one parent of ghanaian origin (agyeman and kyei, 2019). according to data from statistics netherlands (2019), out of the 24,460 ghanaians in the netherlands, 10,120 were of second-generation descent. since the dutch system of pillarization dwindled in the late 1960s (maussen, 2014), the infiltration of religion in all spheres of public life has reduced drastically. the dutch ‘depillarization’ model also changed the religious affiliation criteria of school enrolment. pressure from social forces pushed for the advancement of secularization and neutralization of public life (hertogh, 2009; maussen, 2014: 47). at the beginning of the 20th century, about 95% of dutch people were affiliated to a church (meijering, 2007). christianity among native dutch citizens continues to dwindle as affiliation to traditional churches fell from 76% in 1958 to 35% in 2004 (becker and de hart, 2006: 38). secularization in the netherlands at the micro and macro levels is on the ascendency, as shown by the ‘god in nederland’ survey. according to the survey, more than 82% of dutch people hardly attend any church and only 17% believe in the existence of god (bernts and berghuijs, 2016). moreover, from the survey, more than 25% of dutch people claim to be atheist (bernts and berghuijs, 2016). the secularization thesis envisages the decline of religiosity as society becomes modernized. religion is therefore perceived as a hindrance to immigrant integration (foner and alba, 2008). in this work, we delve into how the complex fields of religiosity and secularization in the netherlands contribute to the schooling of second-generation ghanaians. conceptual framework: spiritual capital in immigrant integration immigrant integration is understood here as the process through which immigrants enter into the social, economic, political and cultural life of the host society. scholars of immigrant integration generally agree that the success or failure of the integration of immigrants in the host society is determined by the course followed by secondgeneration migrants (portes and rumbaut, 2001; crul and doomernik, 2003; kyei et al., 2017). unsuccessful integration of second-generation migrants has adverse spiritual capital in the schooling of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam 92 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 impacts on immigrants themselves as well as on the host society as a whole. one of the important factors that influence the integration of immigrants in the host society is immigrants’ religion and this is widely established in the literature (kyei and smoczynski, 2016; agyeman, 2017). immigrant integration studies, however, identified religion as a stepping stone in the process of immigrant integration. hence, the long-term contribution of ethnic religious organizations in the socio-economic and cultural integration of second-generation migrants in the host country was questioned (alba and nee, 1997; alba, 2005; alba et al., 2009). it has been argued that through socialization in the host society, second-generation migrants are likely to abandon the religion of their parents and associate with the religion of the host nation (van der bracht et al., 2013). there have been inconsistent results on the religiosity of second-generation migrants. in the united states of america, studies have noted the rise in the religiosity of second-generation migrants (min and kim, 2002; alanezi and sherkat, 2008). diehl et al. (2009) identified the stagnation in germany whereas phalet and ter wal (2004) noted a fall in religiosity in the netherlands. empirical literature on the effect of ethnic religious organizations in the socio-cultural and socio-economic life on second-generation immigrants of subsaharan african descent in europe, is marginal (tonah, 2007; ekué, 2009). the few available studies on west african immigrants’ church participation and integration have established that first-generation immigrants look for faith communities in the host society and this encourages the establishment of ethnic religious organizations (sonn, 2002; adogame, 2003; mensah, 2009). research findings on ghanaians in the netherlands and germany have shown that ghanaian religious organizations are the first point of contact for newly-arrived migrants where they share their experiences in the migratory trajectories (tonah, 2007; kyei et al., 2017). membership of ethnic religious organizations enables immigrants to face the challenges of loneliness, trauma and discrimination in the new environment, as they are able to socialize and associate with people from their own country with little or no language barriers (ekué, 2009; baffoe, 2013). aiccs, unlike the dutch churches, communicate in the language that immigrants are conversant with and can understand (nieswand, 2003). immigrants build their identity within ethnic religious organizations which shape their way of life as they personalize the values of religion (peschke, 2009). the religious field of aiccs in amsterdam serves as a marriage market for second-generation ghanaians (kyei and smoczynski, 2016). kyei et al. (2019) reiterate how religious social capital generated within aiccs facilitates the political integration of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam. moreover, secondgeneration ghanaians in amsterdam create religious identities in the religious field of aiccs as they engage in transnational religious practices (agyeman and kyei, 2019). aiccs in amsterdam have been identified as a field of expressing gender values that conflict with the secular dutch perspective (kyei and smoczynski, 2019). studies on religiosity have mostly employed the concept of social capital to 93 understand how the relationships and networks within the religious field generate resources that contribute to immigrant integration (coleman, 1990; putnam, 2000; kyei et al., 2019). we propose that the concept of spiritual capital is a form of accrued investment in the practice of religiosity. spiritual capital is related to social capital inasmuch as institutionalized religiosity persists and resources are accrued from belongingness to a religious organization. spiritual capital is, however, independent from social capital insofar as the individual is capable of mobilizing resources from the simple fact of being religious. this paper departs from the resources obtained through social networking in the religious field and explores the inherent resources that reside in the practice of religiosity and conceptualizes it as spiritual capital. the focus on spiritual capital is on how the content in individualized and institutionalized forms of religiosity generates resources that contribute to the well-being of the individual and the society. the metanexus spiritual capital research project funded by the templeton foundation defines spiritual capital as “the effects of spiritual and religious practices, beliefs, networks and institutions that have a measurable impact on individuals, communities and societies” (hansell, 2006: 5). woodberry (2005) describes spiritual capital as the resources that are created or that people have access to when they invest in religion as religion. this study conceptualizes spiritual capital as the resources accrued in spiritual and religious practices that contribute to the well-being of the adherent. we argue that spiritual capital is obtained through individualized and institutionalized religiosity. the individualized form of religiosity is operationalized as spiritual commitment, and religious behavior (cornwall et al., 1998). spiritual commitment is defined as the personal relationship that a person has with a supernatural being. religious behavior refers to those religious acts which are expected of religious people without any reference to their belongingness to a religious organization and it is operationalized as frequency of private prayers and reading of the holy scriptures. an institutionalized mode of religiosity is characterized by church commitment and religious participation (cornwall et al., 1998). church commitment is the attachment and dedication that a person has towards a religious organization and it is operationalized as frequency of churchrelated activities. religious participation is referred to as ritual involvement. these typologies are distinct but interactive because for one to be committed to god, one must first believe in god. methodology the study adopted an ethnographic research methodology of in-depth interviews, participant observation (flick, 2009; suryani, 2013) and informal interviews in african initiated christian churches in amsterdam in 2015, which were followed up in 2017. the study adopted a purposive sampling technique, which is a type of nonprobability sampling that permits the selection of the units to be observed on the basis of the judgment about which units will be the most useful or representative (babbie, spiritual capital in the schooling of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam 94 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 2007: 184). two types of purposive samples were selected in this study, namely second-generation ghanaians who attend aiccs in amsterdam, and representatives of aiccs in amsterdam. the snowball sampling technique was used to recruit sixty second-generation ghanaians within aiccs in amsterdam to participate in lifehistory interviews, but after fifty interviews, no new themes were emerging, as the process had reached saturation. the in-depth interviews brought out the nuances in religiosity and how it related to schooling. semi-structured in-depth interviews were also conducted with nine representatives of aiccs in amsterdam and they were also recruited through the purposive sampling technique, based on the dominant churches attended by the second-generation ghanaians interviewed. the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. the data were manually categorized into analytic units under descriptive words or category names. the information was organized into themes and sub-themes (rossman and rallis, 1998). the themes and sub-themes were analyzed for each participant and they were also connected to other interviewees with quotations. descriptive and inferential analyses of data were employed in this work (guba and lincoln, 1982; hammersley, 1992). the study disaggregated the data into manageable patterns, themes and relationships (merriam, 1998). ethical approval was obtained from the ethics committee in the graduate school for social research, warsaw. the informed consent of the respondents was obtained and the details of the research were communicated to the research participants. the respondents were also informed that they could withdraw their consent and participation at any time without being required to explain and without prejudice. the research participants were assured of the confidentiality of the information gathered during the fieldwork and the privacy of their identity throughout the research process. results and discussions educational performance is complex and a multiplicity of factors account for its fulfillment. as such, it is impossible for any individual attribute to claim sole responsibility for educational progress. the attention here is to investigate how spiritual capital accumulated through religiosity serves as a contributory factor to the schooling of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam. this section begins with a demographic description of the respondents. we then categorize the interventions in religiosity that translates spiritual capital into direct and indirect interventions. in the subsequent two sub-themes, we establish the intricacies and nuances in the interplay between spiritual capital and schooling by discussing the direct and indirect interventions. finally, we elucidate the challenges that religiosity poses to schooling. demographic characteristics of the respondents fifty second-generation migrants participated in life-history interviews, of whom 35 were women and 15 were men. thirty-seven of the respondents were born in 95 amsterdam and interestingly, thirty-five of the research participants were born in the municipality of amsterdam southeast, which hosts the majority of ghanaian immigrants in amsterdam (gemeente amsterdam, 2015). the ages of the secondgeneration respondents ranged between 19 and 34 years and that provided the opportunity to understand different patterns of educational trajectories and their interaction in the aiccs. based on the data, twenty of the respondents were university graduates, eight of whom attended research universities (wo or wetenschappelijk onderwijs – research-oriented education in research universities) and twelve attended vocational and technical universities (hbo or hoger beroepsonderwijs – higher professional education in universities of applied sciences) (ep-nuffic, 2015). twenty-four were undergraduate students, of whom five were in wo and nineteen were in hbo. four of the respondents were in various levels of secondary school education. all the respondents, except three, went through the step-by-step dutch system of education. two of the respondents had entered the job market with a secondary vocational diploma (mbo or middelbaar beroepsonderwijs – senior secondary vocational education and training) (ep-nuffic, 2015). nine representatives of aiccs in amsterdam were interviewed. six out of the nine representatives were head pastors and the other three were part of the executive committees of the aiccs. categorizing educational interventions of religiosity the contribution of religiosity in the education of the studied second-generation migrants is categorized into indirect and direct interventions. direct intervention is understood here as those activities or programs of the aiccs that have the goal of improving upon the academic performance of second-generation migrants. indirect intervention is conceived, however, as those activities and programs of aiccs that are not purposely geared towards educational progress but have consequential effects on academic performance. the indirect interventions are operationalized as sunday school programs, youth meetings, and recreational activities in the church, as demonstrated in table 1. spiritual capital in the schooling of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam 96 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 table 1: educational interventions in aiccs educational interventions direct indirect • educational programmes • praying for successful schooling (exams) • attendance of night vigil • sermon admonishment on schooling • enforcement of discipline in schooling • sunday school programmes1 • youth meetings • recreational activities • role modelling source: authors’ own study direct interventions are categorized as offering educational programs, praying for exams, attending night vigils, enforcement of discipline, and after-school classes, as shown in table 1. from these interventions we draw out sub-themes to explain the enhancement and/or challenges to the schooling of second-generation migrants. direct interventions of religiosity in schooling in this section we explore the direct interventions of religiosity in the schooling of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam by elucidating some of the activities raised in table 1, without necessarily being exhaustive. thirty-eight of the respondents related how possession of spiritual and church commitment served as tools in the fight against downward mobility in the process of economic integration. respondent sg17 recounted the step-by-step improvement in her academic performance that enabled her to rise from pre-vocational education to pre-university education: the results of my final exams (cito toets) and my teacher’s advice were vmbo. i started secondary school with vmbo but after a year i performed well and moved to havo. at havo i also did well in the first year and got promoted to vwo. my secondary education took long because i began the secondary school with a lower grade and in each new school, i had to stay a year longer. i drew my educational strength from the enforcement of discipline in schooling and the spirit of perseverance that i acquired from my church teachings. aiccs are endowed with spiritual and social resources that participants accumulate due to their engagement. drawing strength is an act of seeking refuge and resources (hirschman, 2004) in god, with the expectation of addressing the specific problem in academic performance. spiritual capital inherent in religiosity served as an arsenal during challenging moments in education. spiritual capital is accumulated through prayers, reading of the bible and belief in god, that are peculiar to members of 1 sunday school refers to christian services organized to meet the needs of children in the religious field 97 religious organizations. individualized religiosity contributes to the bridging of the academic gap between autochthones and second-generation migrants in secularized dutch society. respondent sg27 also narrated that: the church prepared me spiritually and mentally for the challenges ahead in my education. when i started my bachelor in nursing [degree], i was the only black person in the class and i went through a whole year of discrimination and bullying, not from my classmates, but from my teachers […] at the end of the second year, i dropped out of school. i prayed continuously and read my bible to enrich my faith and through that i gained the strength to register in a new school for the same course. it was difficult to concentrate initially because psychologically the voices of my teachers re-echoed but by the grace of god and the support of my church, i am now in my final year. the religious behavior of a sizeable number of the respondents corresponded with weber’s (1930/1992) notion of ‘calling’. weber’s perspective of calling refers “basically to the idea that the highest form of moral obligation of the individual is to fulfill his duty in worldly affairs” (weber, 1930/1992: 12). dedication to schooling is identified as a moral obligation through which respondents secure a place with god in the life after death. the pursuance of educational prowess was identified as ‘good work’ that was a mark of being part of the chosen children of god. the acquisition of higher education was noted as evidence of god’s favor. respondent sg21 also narrated that: i believe it was during the course in statistics in the university when i started to look for god and the reason was that i was not good in statistics. in the first year i had statistics i could not pass and in the second year still i could not pass. i passed everything except statistics and that was when i felt i needed god most. all this while i knew him (god) but i did not have trials which made me depend on him so i went to church and prayed. i really saw that god was a prayer-answering god although i am living in a society that sidelines god. so yes, it helped me to be more disciplined and i worked even harder and finally passed. i pursue my education as a vocation to glorify god and secure a place in his kingdom. most of the participants jumped the hurdles in the dutch education system step-bystep before achieving the highest level of education. the step-by-step movement took a lot of time and it needed much patience and enthusiasm and they were motivated by religious behavior and church commitment to aim high in schooling. we found that spiritual and moral behavior, motivated by ‘other-worldly’ attitudes of escaping the encumbrances of the material world (weber, 1930/1992: 9) contributed to the accumulation of spiritual capital that enhanced academic achievement among most of the second-generation respondents. respondent sg35 recounted that: spiritual capital in the schooling of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam 98 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 we prayed as a family together once every week and we did fast once every month. all these spiritual exercises instilled the sense of discipline in me that guided my schooling. i persevered irrespective of the academic challenges and i am now a medical doctor. self-discipline and inner-world asceticism (weber, 1930/1992) are practices that mold the schooling of second-generation migrants in the host nation. research participant sg23 noted: as a catholic, i prayed at the beginning of each lecture by making the sign of the cross. i was mocked by some of my colleagues because they described the act as archaic but i was resilient and never succumbed to their pressure. the data showed the resilience of second-generation ghanaians in resisting the secularized dutch education system and the dutch society (bernts et al., 2007; bernts and berghuijs, 2016) through engagement in the religious field of aiccs. assimilation theorists (park, 1930; alba and nee, 1997; portes and rumbaut, 2006) emphasized the necessity of education in the process of integration of second-generation migrants in the host country. this study found that aiccs in amsterdam, such as the pentecost revival church international, are primary agents in the socialization process of the studied second-generation migrants. aiccs admonish and exhort second-generation migrants to be disciplined in life and to take their studies seriously. a pastor implored in a sermon, “my children, you are the future of this church, so i urge you to achieve greater heights in education so that you can position the church well in the dutch society.” another pastor also emphasized, “discipline, discipline, self-discipline and denial of self are the basis of academic and life success.” our findings reveal how aiccs live beyond the initial stages of settlement of first-generation immigrants in the host country, which yields intergenerational transfer of individualized and institutionalized religiosity from first-generation ghanaians to their children. indirect interventions of religiosity in schooling the study classified the indirect intervention in the religious field as extra-curricular school activities in line with studies that acknowledged the effect of extra-curricular activities on educational performance (marsh and kleitman, 2002; fredricks and eccles, 2006). extra-curricular activities complement the events and skills acquired in the more formal part of the school day (marsh and kleitman, 2002; eccles et al., 2003). the head pastor of redemption faith international ministries explained how the sunday school is structured in his church: the sunday school is organized by the education department of the church 99 and the children are taught in english and dutch. children between the ages of 4 and 8 are taught bible stories with pictures and they are also taught to memorize bible quotations. children between the ages of 8-12 are assigned more difficult tasks like writing, reading and bible studies. children are grouped according to their ages in order to help develop their cognitive and intellectual capacities from infancy. the programs supplement the classroom teaching and learning scheme. the sunday school system provides a pseudo-school environment that offered most of the respondents the opportunity to go through similar exercises that exist in the dutch educational sector. it is widely acknowledged that the acquisition of human capital opens avenues for upward mobility in the dutch society (crul and doomernik, 2003; crul, 2005). institutionalized religious commitment is entwined with educational programs that have the tendency of enhancing the educational achievement of the studied second-generation ghanaians. five of the aiccs identified themselves as partners in the intellectual formation of second-generation ghanaians as they strive for upward mobility in the dutch society. a head pastor in one of the participating churches also buttressed the importance of sunday school and youth meetings in the educational formation of second-generation migrants in his church: children in the sunday school who are between the ages of 4-12 are taught bible stories, drawing, poems, prayers, quiz competition and drama. when they begin the youth meetings from 13 years upward, they are engaged with drama, bible teaching, sex education, homework and leadership roles. these interactive activities are extra-curricular school activities which do not contradict but complement the intellectual formation of the youth in the church. through the sunday school system of education and youth meetings, the church intervenes directly in developing the interest of second-generation migrants in schooling. the data showed that in a quasi-school environment, two-thirds of the respondents learned how to read, write, draw and memorize bible quotations similar to the ordinary school setting. in the case of forty of the research participants, sunday school programs inculcated religious education in second-generation migrants through which they develop religious beliefs, knowledge or conviction about morality. the spiritual capital in the practice of institutionalized and personalized forms of religiosity blend the dichotomy between religion as private and education as public in the secularization discourse as they all seek to contribute to the schooling of the research participants. some of the studied aiccs in amsterdam, such as the church of pentecost and emmanuel presbyterian church of ghana, reward second-generation migrants who spiritual capital in the schooling of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam 100 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 complete different levels of their education, with spiritual blessings and physical gifts. the ghana seventh day adventist church in amsterdam has set aside a day called students recognition day to reward second-generation migrants who complete the different cycles of education. on the church’s online bulletin, it was written: the amsterdam ghana s.d.a. church has set the sabbath, 7th of november 2015 as a special day in recognition of our youth who by the grace of god have successfully completed their mbo, bachelor or master degrees. the church wants to express their gratitude to god for bringing the youth this far and also to encourage the other children to follow in their steps. come and support your christian students and celebrate this day together with them (amsterdam ghana sda church, 2018). the public acknowledgement and the gifts served two main purposes: first, it was a sign of recognition by institutionalized religiosity that aimed at boosting the morale of the recipients to advance their education; secondly, it stimulated other secondgeneration migrants to stay focused on their education and motivated them to seek academic success. the sanctions in the form of rewards for conforming to the informal norms in the religious field of aiccs in amsterdam were practical steps taken to promote the education of second-generation migrants. religiosity posing challenges to schooling spiritual capital obtained through institutionalized and individualized religiosity does not always enhance educational advancement but they sometimes disrupt it. there are situations when spiritual capital generates reverse effects in the schooling of second-generation migrants. respondent sg32 narrated that: as a teenager i dedicated most of my time to church activities. apart from sunday, i attended evening prayers, mid-week prayer meetings on wednesday and on saturday i went for youth meetings. sometimes i had exams the next day but i had to be at the witness movement or the men’s ministry to listen to the discussion and gather information for my sermon. the church activities were in conflict with my education and my social life. my school performance deteriorated due to the dedication of most of my time to church activities and spiritual activities. from the research, the time invested in individualized and institutionalized religiosity by a few of the respondents was unfavorable to their educational progress. the christian religion is learned through a process to produce a religious good but the process requires time, which has to be shared proportionately with other competing engagements like schooling. in economic terms, the opportunity cost of disproportionately investing time in the formation of religiosity by some of the 101 studied participants was the forgone time that could have been invested in schooling. disproportionate investment of time to church-related activities to the quasi neglect of education hampered performance in the schooling of second-generation ghanaians. respondent sg9 also noted that, “every wednesday, i attended all night service in church and it closed at dawn, which tremendously affected my school performance because i was inactive in class and sometime, i was late for school.” strauss (2006) has shown that little sleep at night has serious health consequences like depression, heart disease and weight gain. sleep deprivation affects the correct functioning of students in school as it causes behavioral problems, inability to pay attention and learn in class. conclusion this study set out to understand the relationships that exist between religiosity and schooling of second-generation migrants with the case of aiccs in amsterdam. the concept of spiritual capital facilitated the discussion on how the inherent resources accumulated in religiosity contribute to the schooling of their members. secondgeneration migrants invest time, energy and resources in the religious field and in the process, they accumulate spiritual capital. the article has primarily argued that inherently, religiosity possesses resources that are expressed in the lived experiences of second-generation migrants with the propensity of shaping their schooling path. spiritual capital which includes, among others, the awareness that god is in control or that others are praying for them in their educational efforts, examination and career choice are unique to the adherents of the belief system. although the paper sought not to quantify the extent to which spiritual capital contributes to the schooling of second-generation ghanaians, it revealed through thick and rich information, the varied way in which spiritual capital contributes to schooling. higher level of education is an indicator of upward mobility in immigrant integration studies but the process of attaining higher education is embedded with difficulties and challenges. the study found that in difficult and challenging moments of their schooling, thirty-eight of the respondents relied on spiritual capital through praying, reading of the bible and church participation in order to persevere in schooling. through religious practices, individuals and ethnic groups express their problems, joys, hopes, aspirations, fears and anxieties (riesebrodt, 2014). second-generation migrants relied on spiritual capital in times of deprivation to draw inspiration and encouragement in order to achieve academic excellence. studies have shown that immigrant churches retard immigrant integration into mainstream society of the host nation (chang, 2006; tsang, 2015). this study, however, identified a multiplicity of effects of religiosity on the schooling of second-generation migrants. religiosity may assist second-generation migrants to overcome structural integration problems of schooling. conversely, the paper found that religiosity under certain conditions has reverse effects that are detrimental spiritual capital in the schooling of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam 102 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 to the educational growth of second-generation migrants. six of the respondents experienced downward educational paths that were attributed to disproportionate engagement in the religious field. the acquisition of higher education does not automatically lead to a decline in religious belief systems and church participation, as anticipated by the secularization thesis (johnson, 1997; schwadel, 2011). contrary to the secularization argument that higher education was antithetical to institutionalized and individualized religiosity (ruiter and van tubergen, 2009; wilson, 1982), this study revealed that religiosity and education are not incompatible; on the contrary, they coexist in the process of integration of second-generation migrants. we recommend the implementation of more robust and systematic religious programs that directly engage second-generation migrants at each stage of their education. randomized religiosity may not produce sufficient spiritual capital to yield effective outcomes in the schooling of second-generation migrants. 103 references adogame, a. 2003. betwixt identity and security: african new religious movements and the politics of religious networking in europe. the journal of alternative and emergent religions, 7(2): 24-41. agyeman, e.a. 2017. religion, race 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(ed.), spiritual information: 100 perspectives on science and religion. west conshohocken: templeton foundation press. https://opendata.cbs.nl/#/cbs/en/dataset/37325eng/table https://opendata.cbs.nl/#/cbs/en/dataset/37325eng/table https://doi.org/10.24002/jik.v5i1.221 https://doi.org/10.24002/jik.v5i1.221 995 post-migration outcomes and the decision to return: processes and consequences mary boatemaa setrana* abstract this paper examines the decision-making processes of return migrants, especially since the 2001 introduction of government programmes to encourage the return of skilled migrants who have the capacity to contribute their quota to the development agenda of ghana. structured questionnaires were used to gather information on the migration trajectories of 120 return migrants. this was followed by interviews that primarily sought in-depth understanding of the decision-making processes of the return migrants. the findings indicate that these migrants were motivated by, among other factors, the availability of investment opportunities in ghana, completion of education abroad, loss of jobs abroad, the decision to join family, feeling homesick and difficulty in integrating abroad. the paper recommends that home country governments should develop conducive policies appropriate for addressing the needs of the categories of returnees based on their decisions for coming home and how their skills and resources could be channelled into development. keywords return migration, voluntary and involuntary return, ghana, motivation. introduction international migration is a complex global issue that affects every country in the world. as noted by ghosh (2000: 4), “international migration is essentially a multidimensional phenomenon [because] it defies a unisectoral approach.” the magnitude of population movement on a global scale is increasing rapidly. the number of migrants who live in a country other than the one in which they were born has more than doubled from 191 million in 2005 (international organization for migration (iom), 2005; united nations, 2006) to 232 million in 2013 (oecd and undesa, 2013) and 244 million in 2015 (undesa, 2016). the occurrence of mass migration, including both regular and irregular movements, coupled with the growing complexity of migration systems, led *centre for migration studies university of ghana. email: mbsetrana@ug.edu.gh/ mobkjowat@yahoo.com post-migration outcomes and the decision to return: processes and consequences 996 lidgard (1992: 12) to argue that “current immigration theories do little to explain the life span of these movements or predict future migrations.” thus, it is not surprising when other researchers, such as ghosh (2000), suggest that we need a new comprehensive, coherent and internationally harmonised regime to manage international migration and, in this situation, return migration. in recent times, african governments have been positively strategising to reverse the brain drain into a brain gain for the development of africa (tonah & setrana, 2017). since 2001, various governments have introduced programmes to encourage the return of skilled migrants who have the capacity to contribute their quota to the development agenda of ghana. however, in ghana, only a handful of researchers have dealt with certain aspects of return migration. some have assessed the effect of migration experience on return and development in the countries of origin (anarfi et al., 2005; black & king, 2004; black, king & tiemoko, 2003; setrana & tonah, 2016), while others have examined the extent to which return migration contributes to the development of the home country. still others have considered the effects of return migration on the migrant networks (anarfi et al. 2010; grant, 2009) and have highlighted the challenges associated with return migration (setrana & tonah, 2014; setrana, 2017; taylor, 2009). among this limited number of studies, there are few studies (wong 2013) that explore the post-migration outcomes and return decisions for development. this paper contributes to the knowledge on return migration by providing an in-depth understanding of the return decision and analysing, comparatively, the migration and return decisions for development. first, the paper reviews the literature on why migrants return. this is followed by a presentation of the research methods, the characteristics of the return migrants and an analysis of the motives for return. this paper sums up with conclusions and recommendations. theoretical perspectives on return migration the process of return migration is usually conceptualised under four main theoretical perspectives, namely the transnational approach, the structural approach, the neoclassical migration models (ne) and the new economics of labour migration (nelm). transnationalism explains migration beyond the unidirectional movement of migrants to emphasise the frequent interaction between the home and host countries through the use of advanced technology (glick schiller et al., 1992). mary boatemaa setrana 997 some scholars have argued that these constant contacts (known as transnational activities) between host and home countries may serve as preparatory strategies for the migrants’ eventual return (cassarino, 2004). however, this theory is inappropriate for this study because it endorses circular rather than return migration. it views migrants as individuals who may not return to their country of origin or to their parents’ birthplace and therefore does not explain the potential factors driving their return. structural theories highlight the significance of contextual factors in the return process. they argue that no matter the resources acquired by the migrant, upon return, the political, economic and social factors have an impact on the productiveness of these resources in the home country (diatta & mbow, 1999; thomas-hope, 1999; cassarino, 2004). these home country factors have an impact on migrants’ decisions to return. once again, this theory was not extensively employed because it pays little attention to how migration experience, particularly in the destination country, influences return decisions. both the ne and nelm theories emphasise economic factors as the reasons for migration. while the ne perceives wage differentials between origin and destination countries as reasons for migration (massey et al., 1998), the nelm explains migrants’ departure from the home country as a strategic plan with the aim of accumulating enough resources in the host country to then return to the home country (galor & stark, 1990; stark, 1991). according to the ne, migrants may extend their stay in the host country because of higher wages (borjas, 1989). however, if the migrant returns without any indication of higher wages in the home country, the return is seen as a failure. these two theories are limited in their explanations of the reasons for return; they only explain some economic factors, leaving out social factors such as family. with respect to the limitations above, my study relies mainly on the ‘push-pull’ model of migration that was propounded by lee (1966). according to lee (1966), migration from one place to the other is reliant on factors existing in the home and host countries. the ‘pull’ factors are the favourable conditions that attract the migrant to a place, while the ‘push’ factors are the unfavourable conditions that drive migrants to a place. however, these factors were used by lee (1966) to explain the movements of migrants from their countries of origin to their destination countries without linking this discussion to the issue of return migration. king (2000), in his study of return migration, applied these push and pull concepts, although he did not refer to lee’s model. yet, these ideas are found relevant for this study in that they assist in explaining post-migration outcomes and the decision to return: processes and consequences 998 the reasons why ghanaians return (either temporarily or permanently) to their home country after a period abroad. the study mainly relies on king’s (2000) explanation of pull and push factors for return. king (2000) identified individual, economic, political and social factors as both pull and push factors. the economic pull factors are higher wages and economic development, while the economic push factor is economic downturn in the country to which migrants had emigrated (king, 2000). the social push factors include difficulty integrating in the host country, loss of job opportunities and death of a spouse or parents in the host country (king, 2000). on the other hand, the social pull factors may include the privilege to enjoy prestige status once a migrant’s status has improved, the desire to find a marriage partner, the decision to return to the home country after retirement, the need to raise children in the home country’s culture, the need to care for the elderly and the need to be cared for by kinsfolk after retirement (king, 2000; gmelch, 1980). the push-pull model suggests that there are also intervening obstacles that slow down movement between the two areas (de haas, 2010). intervening obstacles may include issues such as instituted restrictive policies that prevent or result in a more cumbersome situation for families to reunite, change jobs, receive social protection and enjoy certain citizenship benefits (de haas, 2010). based on this analytical framework, the researcher examines the intersection between factors that push migrants from developed countries to ghana and factors that pull migrants to return to ghana. despite the use of the push-pull model as the main theoretical framework, the researcher also relies on aspects of the other theories to explain some of the findings. research methods and data the study employed a mixed methods approach that provided an opportunity for the researcher to combine quantitative and qualitative methods. such a triangulation of methods was deemed appropriate in view of the strengths and weaknesses of the individual methods (bryman, 2012; cresswell, 2009). it also allowed for a better understanding of the problem than using either quantitative or qualitative methods alone (creswell & clark, 2007). like most african countries, ghana has no universal registration of returnees on which to base a random sample. however, anarfi et al. (2003) found that, overall, returnees largely mirrored national demographics; thus, an effort was made in this study to find a balanced sample with regards to age and sex. a representative ethnic mix was a more difficult task because of the diverse mary boatemaa setrana 999 groups as well as the absence of records on the ethnicity of emigrants or returnees. the study also improved on the quality of data by purposively selecting four sites, namely accra and kumasi metropolitan areas and dormaa/berekum and new juaben municipal areas. the international migration literature (anarfi et al., 2000; taylor, 2009) cites these locations as the established migration flow regions in ghana. accra and kumasi metropolitan areas are more developed than dormaa/berekum and new juaben municipal areas. these differences attract more international return migrants to the former two study areas than the latter two. however, the new juaben municipal area is strategically positioned because it is closer to the capital city of ghana (accra), and international return migrants make choices to live close-by. dormaa and berekum were combined because the researcher experienced difficulty in finding international return migrants in berekum. the decision on the field was to work in berekum and dormaa since these areas were not far from each other. based on the outlined differences, the researcher assigned a quota of 28% and 22%, respectively, to the four study sites (accra and kumasi metropolitan areas, dormaa/berekum and new juaben municipal areas). the researcher used the snowball technique in identifying respondents, though this technique has some advantages and setbacks. in order to have as many diverse responses as possible, key informants with in-depth knowledge on the survey areas were recruited to assist the researcher in identifying returnees. in the first round of the survey, 14 returnees were selected. through chain referrals by the 14 respondents in the first wave and personal contacts, the researcher obtained a second wave of respondents who, in turn, assisted in identifying further respondents for the study. out of the total number of respondents, 34 (28%) lived in accra and kumasi metropolitan areas and 26 (22%) lived in dormaa/berekum and new juaben municipal areas. in all, the researcher interviewed 120 return migrants. the survey asked questions relating to the migrants' socio-economic circumstances before and after return. the survey instrument was pre-tested by ten international return migrants in the greater accra region in order to help establish consistency and clarity of questions in the questionnaire. it was self-administered and the advantage was that all of the questions that were relevant to respondents were answered. at the end of the structured questionnaires, respondents were asked to give their consent by providing their contact details for further in-depth-interviews. twenty-five of these respondents were selected based on their sex, age and mode of return. the post-migration outcomes and the decision to return: processes and consequences 1000 qualitative information was a follow-up on the structured questionnaires and focused primarily on prior and post-return experiences. results and discussion profile of study sample most of the respondents were within working age; the average age was 42.40 years, with males dominating (63%). the educational level of return migrants was generally high, with 61% having either a university or diploma certificate. out of the total 120 respondents, 54% either furthered their education or earned some kind of qualification or skills abroad. respondents were found in all sectors of the ghanaian labour market, with the majority (23%) of the skilled returnees working in the educational sector as lecturers, researchers and high school teachers. other skilled returnees were involved in banking, administration, sales/marketing and health. this relates to the high unemployment situation in the country and the fact that recruitment of skilled personnel appears limited to the teaching and telecommunication sectors as well as some non-governmental organisations (anarfi & jagare, 2005). most of the low or unskilled returnees were engaged in trading/businesses (29%), including mechanics, drivers, traders, masons, hairdressers and tailors. 8% are farmers, while 5% have no income earning activity; it must be stressed that included in the latter category were a student and a housewife (refer to table 1). more than half (69%) of the respondents were married, while the rest were single (22%), separated or divorced (8%) and widowed (1%). about 87.5% returned voluntarily, while 10.8% were involuntary return migrants. table 1: socio-economic and demographic characteristics of return migrants surveyed. source: survey questionnaire, august, 2011january, 2012. characteristics frequencies percentages gender male 75 62.5 female 45 37.5 total 120 100 age (years) 15-24 2 1.6 25-34 29 24.1 mary boatemaa setrana 1001 35-44 44 36.6 45-54 30 25.0 55-64 11 9.1 65+ 4 3.3 total 120 99.7≈100 education level tertiary 75 62.5 secondary 40 33.3 primary 3 2.5 no formal education 2 1.6 total 120 99.9 ≈100 employment status education 28 23.3 banking 5 4.2 health 6 5.0 administration 9 7.5 managerial 6 5.0 communication/ict 6 5.0 trading/business 35 29.1 farming 10 8.3 security 2 1.6 consultancies 7 5.8 no income earning activity 6 5.0 total 120 99.8≈100 sample size: 120 post-migration outcomes and the decision to return: processes and consequences 1002 migration history of the return migrants the return migrants had stayed in different countries in europe and north america, with the majority coming from the united kingdom (41%). this could be due to the common language and similar educational systems of ghana and britain (ghana’s former colonial master). the average time spent abroad was approximately 9 years, with a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of 44 years. table 2: migration trajectories of the return migrants surveyed. source: survey questionnaire, august, 2011january, 2012. migration trajectories frequencies percentages country of destination uk 49 41 italy 23 19 usa 14 12 germany 8 7 the netherlands 7 6 israel 4 3 others 15 12 total 120 100 number of years abroad 1-5 years 51 43 6-10 years 36 30 11-15 years 17 14 16+ years 16 13 total 120 100 mode of return voluntary 107 89 involuntary 13 11 total 120 100 number of years since return 1-5 years 70 58 6-10 years 24 20 mary boatemaa setrana 1003 11-15 years 15 13 16+ years 11 9 total 120 100 sample size: 120 the most important reasons that motivated respondents to migrate out of ghana were to find a better life (16, representing 13.3%), employment opportunities (14, representing 11.6%), studies (40, representing 33.3%), family reunion (18, representing 15%), better income (19, representing 15.8%) and peer pressure (14, representing 11.6%). the historical analysis of ghanaian international migration shows that migration has been a means by which ghanaians improve their human capital and better their living conditions (anarfi et al., 2003; awumbila et al., 2008). this finding is also evident among the respondents of this study, since many of them had aims to secure better living conditions, better income or pursue further education abroad. regional analysis of the data shows that the reasons for migrating from origin communities were diverse. migrating for further studies was predominant among respondents who migrated from accra, kumasi and new juabeng. this was followed by better incomes and family reunion, especially among respondents from domaa/berekum, kumasi and new juabeng. table 3: reasons for migrating from origin areas. source: survey questionnaire, august, 2011january, 2012. place of origin better life emplo yment studies family reunio n better income peer pressu re total accra 3 3 18 2 4 4 34 kumasi 4 5 10 6 6 3 34 new juabeng 4 3 10 5 3 1 26 dormaa /bereku m 5 3 2 5 6 6 26 post-migration outcomes and the decision to return: processes and consequences 1004 total 16(13. 3%) 14(11. 6%) 40(33. 3%) 18(15 %) 19(15. 8%) 14(11. 6%) 120 sample size: 120 motivation for return respondents were asked to choose their most important motivations to return. table 4: most important reasons for returning home. source: survey questionnaire, august, 2011january, 2012. motivation for return frequencies percentages completed education 33 31 availability of investment opportunities in ghana 18 17 lack of job abroad 17 16 decision to join the family/retirement 17 16 feeling homesick 14 13 difficulty integrating abroad 8 7 deported/lack of legal documentation 13 11 overall total 120 100 sample size: 120 the most important reason for participants’ return was completion of education in the host country. this was followed by the availability of investment opportunities in ghana, the loss of employment abroad, the decision to join family in ghana, homesickness and difficulty integrating abroad. the returned migrants expressed their emotions through statements such as “remember your home whenever you travel out of your home” and “home is home” (fieldwork, august, 2011-january, 2012). indeed, this finding confirms manuh’s (2001) description of “home is home” as a place of mary boatemaa setrana 1005 “quietness and rest.” some female return migrants found it necessary to come home with their husbands and children in order to save their marriages. though she had completed her master’s degree programme, nancy, the wife of edmond, returned for the following reasons: i came because my husband wanted me to come home with him. i thought about it. as a married woman i couldn’t just abandon my children and husband like that. who would take care of them? had it not been that, i would have stayed in germany. after all, the system is far, far better than ghana’s; our system is bad. i wonder! anytime i visited, the differences were so obvious. ghanaians don’t follow or obey any laws (nancy, interview in accra, 9th november 2011). although wong (2013) noted that females had power to make decisions that were not in favour of their male partners, this study presents a contrary situation. in nancy’s case, she preferred to live the rest of her life abroad; yet, she had to make a decision to come to ghana to take care of her children and husband. in addition, families such as nancy’s who had children found it tiring and expensive raising the children abroad. however, families who left their children behind returned to ghana to provide the best of care for their wards. the desire to spend more time with the nuclear family was noted as a crucial expectation of the return migrants. spending more time with the family is central to ensuring a happy marriage and a unified family life. such expectations of return are particularly ignited by the isolation that characterises migrants in the western world. it was observed that the western environment, with its secluding and secular lifestyle, was viewed by return migrants raising children as not conducive to the children’s upbringing (fieldwork, august, 2011-january, 2012). the respondents argued that though the host countries offered better facilities for their children’s academic development than ghana, the moral development of their children could not be guaranteed in such environments. the concern for the moral development of children is seen as a form of social investment. alternatively, other return migrants with children were of the view that training children in ghana was much more preferable than their country of destination because they wanted their children to imbibe ghanaian values. the retiree returnees said that they returned home because they were more likely to receive better care from their extended families in ghana than abroad. they found solace and incentive in the reception and comfort that the elderly receive within the ghanaian traditional system. some respondents had quality care from extended families because of their age. this is to be expected if post-migration outcomes and the decision to return: processes and consequences 1006 contact with kinsmen was frequent and contribution towards festivities was regular whilst abroad. particularly in the matrilineal lineage, the caretaking of aged uncles and aunts by nieces and nephews is expected from diligent family members. in this situation, the intervening variable to receiving quality care upon return was linked to the returnees’ contact with home while abroad (lee, 1966). one of the respondents echoed these sentiments during the interviews, noting: if for nothing at all, in ghana, when i am here, my grandchildren and nephews are around [...] i can send them on errands anytime, ask them to fetch me water and cook for me, at least. who will do this for me in italy? i can only get help when i am admitted to the elderly home (‘teacher burger’, interview in kumasi, 23rd january 2013). others also decided to return to ghana to inherit leadership positions in their families and communities. for example, in dormaa, there is a suburb called ‘burger anane’ street. the return migrants in this community revealed that the area was named after a wealthy return migrant called ‘anane [the name of an akan male]’. the title burger was given to him by the community because, first, he had returned from abroad; second, he returned with “flashy goods” (visible wealth) and third, he had bought and settled on a large portion of land. burger anane was an accountant who left ghana for germany in 1990, with the aim of finding better living conditions for himself and his wife and children. having earned enough money, he purchased this vast plot of land and the street named after him. in 2005, he returned to ghana to start and manage his own businesses. on the other hand, some respondents indicated that they returned to ghana because they were divorced. in order to avoid the shame from the ghanaian diaspora community, some decided to return to ghana where they could begin a new life. this finding is confirmed by manuh (1998), who notes that ghanaians abroad adhere to some cultural practices and behaviours such as the stigma of divorce. the other factors that influenced migrants’ return are political in nature, ranging from forced expulsion to incentives for voluntary return. all of the respondents who ticked political causes were deportees (13, representing 11%). mary boatemaa setrana 1007 characteristics associated with motives for return this section highlights some socio-demographic and migration characteristics related to migrants’ reasons for return to their home countries. the main characteristics analysed include education, age, gender and number of years spent abroad. table 5: educational level and reasons for returning to ghana. source: survey questionnaire, august, 2011january, 2012 education level compl. educatio n invest in business loss of job abroad decision to join family/ retireme nt feeling homesick difficulty integrating deportatio n secondary 2 (6%) 13 (72%) 7 (41%) 6 (35%) 3 (38%) 6 (43%) 3 (23%) tertiary 31 (94%) 5 (28%) 10 (59%) 11 (65%) 5 (63%) 8 (57%) 10 (77%) total 33 (100%) 18 (100%) 17 (100%) 17 (100%) 8 (100%) 14 (100%) 13 (100%) sample size: 120 a large majority of the respondents with tertiary education returned with the motive of finding jobs in ghana after completing their education abroad. some of the respondents with tertiary education returned due to loss of employment abroad, while only a little below a third of respondents with tertiary education returned to invest in ghana. however, the story is slightly different for respondents with investment opportunity motives. 72% of returnees with the motive of investing in ghana had relatively low academic qualifications compared to their counterparts with other motives. on the other hand, more than half of the respondents who returned due to problems integrating abroad had tertiary rather than secondary education (37%). among those who came to join their families, 65% had tertiary education, while more than half (57%) of those who returned due to feelings of homesickness had tertiary education. from the findings, it is evident that migrants’ motives for finding jobs in the formal sector are influenced by their higher levels of education; but those who had the intention to access the investment opportunities of the home country may have realised that their lower levels of education were not competitive enough to secure them ‘white collar’ jobs. in this regard, they sought resources or means other than their educational backgrounds. post-migration outcomes and the decision to return: processes and consequences 1008 table 6: age and reasons for returning to ghana. source: survey questionnaire, august, 2011-january, 2012 age completed education invest in business lack of job abroad decision to join family/ retirement feeling homesick difficulty integrating total < 42 years 6 (18%) 10 (57%) 7 (41%) 8 (47%) 5 (63%) 8 (57%) 10 (77%) > 42 years 27 (82%) 8 (44%) 10 (59%) 9 (53%) 3 (37%) 6 (43%) 3 (23%) total 33 (100%) 18 (100%) 17 (100%) 17 (100%) 8 (100%) 14 (100%) 13 (100%) sample size: 120 table 6 presents the age categories of the returnees. the majority (82%) of the return migrants who were above the average age of 42 years had the motive of accessing job opportunities compared to their counterparts of the same age with investment (44%) and loss of job (34%) motives. thus, return migrants are returning home at younger ages and are actively working. more than half (63%) of the returnees who were 42 years and below were motivated due to problems integrating abroad, while 57% of them returned due to homesickness. the finding confirms anarfi et al.’s (2005) conclusion that more than half of ghanaian return migrants are in the economically active age group of 30-49 years. the proportion of males (83%) is higher among returnees who came home for investment opportunities (refer to table 7). this is followed by 65% who returned due to loss of jobs abroad, while slightly more than half (55%) had the motive of accessing job opportunities in the home country (refer to table 7). indeed, the finding indicates that more male returnees than female returnees would make the decision to invest in the home country. for return migrants who had the intention to join their families, more than half (59%) of them were females and about 41% were males. the motive to join family at home is the only motive with more female representation than male representation. additionally, 50% of the respondents that noted homesickness as their motivation were female. implied in these statistics is the idea that return decisions such as problems integrating abroad, feelings of homesickness and joining family were not determined by the gender of the return migrant. mary boatemaa setrana 1009 sample size: 120 a higher proportion (88%) of returnees who had lived abroad for nine or fewer years returned for job opportunities in the home country; 77% returned due to loss of jobs abroad, while 61% came home for investment opportunities (refer to table 7). for respondents who returned for job opportunities, the time spent abroad was crucial in their decision-making, particularly with regard to meeting their objectives for travelling. for instance, respondents who pursued further education had to do so within a limited time frame before deciding to come home for job opportunities. the majority (75%) of the returnees who had spent nine or more years came to ghana due to problems of integration abroad, while the majority (71%) of those who had spent nine or fewer years abroad returned due to homesickness. these categories of returnees could not adjust to the cold weather, racism and other difficulties integrating after spending some time abroad. table 8: number of years spent abroad and reasons for returning to ghana. source: survey questionnaire, august, 2011-january, 2012 number of years spent abroad completed education invest in business lack of jobs abroad decision to join family/ retirement difficulty integrating feeling homesick deportation < 9 years 29 (88%) 11 (61%) 13 (77%) 8 (47%) 2 (25%) 10 (71%) 8(62%) > 9 years 4 (12%) 7 (39%) 4 (24%) 9 (53%) 6 (75%) 4 (29%) 5(38%) total 33 (100%) 18 (100%) 17 (100%) 17 (100%) 8 (100%) 14 (100%) 13(100%) this last paragraph presents some characteristics on the 13 (representing 11%) deportees. 9 out of the 13 deportees (69%) were males; 10 of them table 7: gender and reasons for returning to ghana. source: survey questionnaire, august, 2011-january, 2012 gender completed education invest in business lack of job abroad decision to join family/ retirement feeling homesick difficulty integrating deportation male 19 (58%) 15 (83%) 12 (70%) 10 (59%) 1 (12%) 7 (50%) 9 (69%) female 14 (42%) 3 (17%) 5 (29%) 7 (41%) 7 (88%) 7 (50%) 4(31%) total 33 (100%) 18 (100%) 17 (100%) 17 (100%) 8 (100%) 14 (100%) 13 (100%) post-migration outcomes and the decision to return: processes and consequences 1010 (77%) had tertiary education, while the remaining 3 (23%) had secondary education. again, 10 out of the 13 (77%) were 42 years and below. the majority of these respondents were educated, economically active and could establish themselves in the home country if proper reintegration strategies were put in place. exploring the possible links between the ‘reasons for migration’ and the ‘reasons for return’ this segment outlines the most important reasons for departure from home and compares these reasons with the essential motives for return. in exploring the reasons for ‘departing from’ and ‘returning to’ ghana, qualitatively, the data shows that migrants who migrated to pursue further studies returned because they had completed their education. these return migrants decided on their return at a time when they knew they had what was required for them to compete in the ghanaian labour market. during the in-depth interviews, some respondents said that their frequent contact with ‘home’ made them discover that their classmates in ghana had ‘made it big’ (secured lucrative jobs) with similar or even lower qualifications and, therefore, felt the need to return after the acquisition of similar qualifications (see box 1). mary boatemaa setrana 1011 box 1: the story of a returned couple at age 35, the young married teacher from asoso secondary school, in the ashanti region left ghana to visit his wife, who was then a student in norway. instead of coming back to ghana from his visit, quame seized the opportunity to further his education in the same university as his wife. after obtaining a master’s degree in globalisation in 2004, quame envisaged getting a better employment at home. together with his wife, they returned home to settle permanently in 2005. quame wanted to find a job in the labour market but did not apply for any jobs until his return. however, his high hopes for a job that would let him use his masters’ degree had to wait for some time as all his applications for employment received no immediate responses. he secured his first job with an insurance company limited in 2007, two years after he returned to ghana. he obtained this job through his uncle, who was in possession of some copies of his curriculum vitae. although news of a new job is received with joy, it did not meet all of quame’s expectations. his employers appointed him based on his bachelor’s degree. in order to overcome the stigma attached to the concept of ‘unemployment’, he accepted the offer and kept on searching, making use of all the available networks he had made. meanwhile, he had applied to a public university for the position of an assistant registrar. quame was invited for an interview in 2008 after which he was employed by the university as an assistant registrar. he stated; i will forever be grateful to my uncle and my friend who helped me to secure jobs in ghana (interview in accra, 14th december 2011). post-migration outcomes and the decision to return: processes and consequences 1012 for respondents who returned home due to investment opportunities in ghana, it was observed that their main motive for moving abroad was to obtain “better living conditions.” this finding supports the nelm view that following the original plans, return migrants would find it prudent to return home after accumulating resources abroad that could help them continue to achieve their “better lives” (stark, 1991). for respondents who returned home due to loss of job abroad, two main motives influenced their trips overseas, namely the pursuit of better living conditions and further studies. some respondents expanded the description of loss of job to include temporary occupation, collapse of personal business or loss of job. some of the respondents indicated that menial jobs were usually not permanent, while return migrants from europe, especially those from italy and the uk, said that they were laid off from their jobs. this finding supports the pull analysis that recent global economic crises have led to the closure of several industries in some parts of europe. so, return is possible if migrants experience such conditions in the destination country. this finding does not support the proposition by the ne that return migrants would only return when they experience the loss of a job abroad and fail to achieve their intentions of having a better life or employment (stark, 1991). it is more likely that respondents weighed the costs and benefits of return and realised that with their levels of education or accumulated capital, they could fare better in ghana than abroad. mary boatemaa setrana 1013 box 2: the story of a female returnee grace, a single young student at the university, decided to acquire the ‘been to’ label at age 27 in 2002. grace’s first attempt to travel to ireland was not successful because a travelling agent swindled her. her desire to travel did not go away. her uncle in the uk sent her an invitation for the second trial, which earned her a six-month visa in her second year at the university. while in school, grace travelled to the uk five times during the vacation periods and on each visit, she spent not more than six months. even when school had reopened, grace, contracted some friends who registered on her behalf so she could come back later in the semester. surprisingly, grace’s motive for migrating in the subsequent years changed from ‘having a feel of outside life’ to seeking greener pastures. in 2005, grace completed her bachelor’s studies and applied for a two year visa to the uk, where she stayed for one year. notwithstanding grace’s satisfaction with her stay abroad, she returned to ghana after a year for two main reasons. the first was the threat of losing her teaching job in ghana and the second was to prevent the constant demand from friends and relatives for items such as mobile phones and clothes. grace, however, admitted having made enough money compared to the salary she received in ghana, though she did not want to disclose the amount. making a monthly salary of £1500 in the uk, grace managed to save about £500 after paying a monthly rent of £300. she did not use her savings to purchase a new car or build a house because she thought she would get married and move to her husband’s house. however, her savings were compromised by a friend she trusted as a business partner. the business partner absconded with her money under the pretext of getting some goods to be sold later for profit. in terms of finances, grace seemed to be comfortable, although she admitted that she was not able to save, a practice she perfected whilst in the united kingdom. the then 27 year old adventurous lady is now 35 years old and single. she hopes to crown her success at work with a ‘wedding bell’ very soon. she does not wish to travel abroad any longer as she is satisfied with her return to ghana. post-migration outcomes and the decision to return: processes and consequences 1014 among the respondents who returned home to join their families (for reasons such as retirement), the primary reason for migration out of ghana was to better their lives. for respondents who returned home due to homesickness/retirement, their reasons for migrating included pursuing further studies, employment, better living conditions and family reunion. for respondents who came home because of the challenges associated with integration abroad, their initial migration was motivated by education. indeed, the returnees had a well-defined plan prior to their migration that was influenced more by a social than an economic motive. alternatively, this also reflects the strong attachment ghanaians have to their extended and nuclear families. the experiences that occurred during migration processes led to changes in the original migration intention. this finding confirms du toit’s (1990) statement that migration is a process instead of an act or static event. so, premigration intentions may not always match with real migration outcomes because many obstacles or opportunities may compel the migrants to adjust their initial plan. for this reason, the migrant may decide to explore better opportunities, move on to new goals or return to the point of departure with the same plan. the dynamic nature of migration experiences moves the argument beyond the ‘calculated strategy’ or ‘set targets’ based on economic factors as proposed by the nelm. for many of the deported returnees, two main motives influenced their trips overseas. these were to further their studies abroad and the desire for better living conditions. only one respondent took the risk of reaching italy via the desert; all of the other respondents travelled with the correct documents, namely three months tourist visas, student visas or working visas. respondents said that even after their documents had expired, they kept on with their normal duties until they were arrested. in these instances, the goal of the migration could not be achieved because of circumstances beyond the migrants’ control. conclusions and recommendations similar to previous studies (king, 2000), the decision to return by these groups of ghanaian returnees was based on both social and economic factors, including available income, accumulated skills or capital, family circumstances in the home country, old age, retirement and the need for care. these social reasons could be explained by the structural approach to return migration, which stipulates that the family and home structures are influential in the mary boatemaa setrana 1015 return decision-making. migrants’ accumulated resources, be they skill or capital, are invested in job creation and this has multiple effects on the national economy. on the other hand, the social reasons, though prestigious, setrana and tonah (2016) conclude that they may pose challenges to these returnees as they attempt to satisfy their own expectations as well as the high expectations from the community and family. in between the push and pull factors, the study also identified intervening variables (such as migration experience factors, age, immigration policies, travel documentation, education and marriage), which changed the prior-migration decisions as well as the return decisions. this study supports the argument that migration is not a onetime event, but a process (du toit, 1990) that is imbued with several opportunities and obstacles (de haas, 2010) that can challenge pre-migration decisions and influence real migration outcomes. furthermore, the positive attractions such as job and investment opportunities in ghana were dominant among these respondents in the return decision. this finding provides evidence that suggests that migrants are mostly returning for better opportunities in the home country and not only due to economic crisis or negative circumstances in the host countries, as suggested in the literature. indeed, the structural approach to return explains that migrants who return home are attracted by the home country’s political or economic conditions that enable them to utilise their acquired resources. thus, they invest their financial resources into businesses or set up enterprises, which has a ripple effect on the economy of ghana. based on their profiles, some of these returnees are also working in the formal sector and are thereby using their knowledge acquired abroad for the improvement of some sectors of the economy. the study, therefore, recommends that ghana develop reintegration programmes for addressing the needs of the different categories of returnees based on their decisions for return and how their skills and resources could be channelled into development. the reintegration programmes should not only operate in the capital city but in all the regional capitals and districts of ghana in order to serve return migrants who prefer to live 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migration of pastoralists in africa: reflections on practical and policy implications patience adzande abstract in recent years, there has been increased migration of pastoralists from countries in central and west africa into nigeria. such movements are supported by the ecowas transhumance protocol and the nigerian constitution respectively. the movement of pastoralists has been associated with multi-dimensional practical and policy implications. this paper reflects on the policy implications of the migration of pastoralists across and within the borders of nigeria and presents pointers to the areas for future policy intervention and research. the paper relied on existing policies like the ecowas transhumance protocol, the nigerian constitution and the open grazing prohibition law enacted by the benue state government to draw inferences about the relevance and effectiveness of such laws in nigeria. interviews with farmers and pastoralists were conducted in 2017 to augment the policy analysis. the paper reports that the provisions of the ecowas transhumance protocol, like the possession of the international transhumance certificate as a mandatory entry requirement, have not been implemented in nigeria. in addition, the ecowas transhumance protocol acknowledges the primacy of national and local laws, which means that the validity of the transhumance protocol does not transcend borders. in nigeria, the absence of specific federal laws that address pastoralism have created a vacuum that is currently being filled by the introduction of antiopen grazing laws in states like benue. this paper calls for an increased focus on research to remove contradictions in existing laws and to identify alternative policies in addressing the migration of pastoralists in west africa and beyond. keywords cross-border transhumance, ecowas protocols, migration, pastoralism, pastoral conflict, pastoral policies, transhumance. introduction in recent years, the rate of migration of pastoralists within and across borders has been on the increase. this massive influx of pastoralists from other countries in africa into nigeria and the drift of pastoralists from northern towards southern nigeria have been associated with multi-dimensional and  department of urban and regional planning, benue state university, makurdi, nigeria. email: padzande@bsum.edu.ng adzande, p. 1651 long-term practical and policy implications. whereas the practical implications which are often visible and shape lived experiences have received significant attention in the extant literature, commensurate attention has not been accorded the policy implications of such movements. this paper therefore reflects on the policy implications of the migration of pastoralists across and within the borders of nigeria and presents pointers to the areas for future policy intervention and research. migration among west african countries was originally viewed as an integrating factor capable of promoting interactions between populations within the region. consequently, in 1978, the ecowas protocol on free movement of persons, residence and establishment was ratified by member states in advancement of the goal of regional integration. article 2 of the protocol on free movement states that “citizens of member states have the right to enter, reside and establish in the territory of other member states”. however, article 3 (numbers 1 and 2) requires such citizens to possess valid travel documents, an international health certificate and to enter the territory of a member state through official entry points (ecowas, 1979). it is evident that the emphasis of this protocol is on the movement of people. this raises a challenge concerning the regulation of other forms of mobility across the west african sub-region. consequently, legislation governing pastoralism began to emerge in many countries in west africa. dyer (2008) noted that over time, governments have sought to manage international transhumance primarily through bilateral accords, sub-regional compacts and regional agreements. velasco-gil and maru (2018) further classified types of legal arrangements for trans-boundary pastoralism to include bilateral treaties, regional agreements and protocol, national legislation, local arrangements and non-binding arrangements like memoranda of understanding (mous). these policies were initiated to facilitate trans-border mobility by specifying guidelines and processes for obtaining permits for border crossings, conditions for cross-border transhumance and institutional structures governing livestock mobility. within africa, west africa has the most developed set of agreements. dyer (2008) identified some bilateral agreements reached between mali and countries like burkina faso, mauritania, niger, senegal and cote d’ivoire from 1988 to 1994. other regional agreements also exist between cameroon, central african republic, democratic republic of the congo, equatorial guinea and gabon on the one hand, and benin, burkina faso, cote d’ivoire and niger on the other. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) in 1998, the regional agreements were consolidated with the introduction of the protocol on transhumance which was ratified by the 15 member states of the economic community of west african states (ecowas). the protocol on transhumance was introduced in recognition of the importance of pastoralism as a key source of animal products like meat and milk and was designed to regulate transhumance between the ecowas member states. the introduction of this protocol was hinged on the premise that “the development of livestock breeding is an integral part of any food security policy” (ecowas, 1998). thus, it was imperative for ecowas to foster cooperation between member states to ensure agricultural development and to achieve food security. this goal was based on the conviction of member states that “transhumant livestock breeding was essential for safeguarding and increasing agricultural production”. interestingly, the protocol duly acknowledged that “transhumance is a source of health, social, environmental, economic and political problems”. one of such problems has been the incessant conflicts between itinerant pastoralists and sedentary farmers across countries in west africa. while the protocol makes provision for the resolution of disputes between farmers and nomadic herders through an arbitration commission or the law courts, the conflicts have continued unabated with devastating consequences across the sub-region. with the persistent conflicts between farmers and pastoralists across west africa, the achievement of the goal of boosting agricultural production and food security is increasingly becoming an illusion. in nigeria, amnesty international (2018) reports that the number of casualties in the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists has increased over time due to the government’s inability to keep the peace and arrest and prosecute the perpetrators of violence. this perceived ineptitude of the federal (central) government has led to the introduction of laws that criminalize open grazing of livestock by some states in nigeria like ekiti, benue and taraba. these ‘antiopen grazing’ laws, as they are popularly called, are perceived by some groups, especially sedentary farmers as the only panacea to the lingering conflicts between farmers and pastoralists. the nomadic herders on the other hand view these laws as a violation of their fundamental human rights as enshrined in the ecowas protocol on free movement of persons, residence and establishment, the protocol on transhumance and the nigerian constitution (kwaja and ademola-adelehin, 2017; nasir, 2018). there have been fierce debates about the legitimacy of such laws and the implications of enforcing the laws. as researchers and policy-makers chart the adzande, p. 1653 course for the future of mobility research and pastoralism in west africa, it is imperative to examine the ways in which the available policies have shaped the migration of pastoralists and pastoralism in general and the implications going forward. drawing on case studies from parts of nigeria and provisions of some existing policies, this paper briefly highlights the practical implications of transhumant activities and further reviews the seemingly unintended effects of the existing policies and the alternative policies that have emerged in response to the perceived failures of extant laws in nigeria. specifically, the paper examines the provisions of the ecowas transhumance protocol, the nigerian constitution and the open grazing prohibition laws and the suitability and effectiveness of the laws. it further explores available policy response options (amend, replace, remove or add a policy) to address issues associated with the migration of pastoralists in west africa and nigeria in particular. this knowledge is fundamental for policy formulation and review as the nigerian government and its regional partners grapple with the conflicts arising from the migration of pastoralists across local and international borders. background/contextualization transhumance as an adaptation measure entails the movement of pastoralists across agro-ecological zones at various seasons in search of pasture for their livestock. it has a long history as an important source of livelihood in the sahel and the sudanese regions of africa. the depletion of arable land for farming and rapid urbanization have caused the amount of land available for crop production and grazing to shrink. in addition, tall (2018) noted that livestock density per hectare of grazing land has increased by 41% between 2006 to 2016 while forage and fodder production has significantly reduced, leading to increased cross-border transhumance. generally, the increased rate of migration which is largely in search of pasture for livestock has been attributed to the ravaging effects of climate change. climate change across the globe has resulted in longer periods of droughts, changes in precipitation patterns, increased heat waves and by implication, changes in plant and animal ranges. in addition to climate variability, environmental degradation and socio-political upheavals have also altered the migratory patterns of pastoralists (aremu and abraham, 2018; bonneau, 2012; burrows and kinney, 2016; chatty and sternberg, 2015; djekić, 2014; hartmann et al, 2010). the historical migratory patterns (routes, destinations and season of movement) of pastoralists have been greatly affected by the variations in climatic conditions, increase in population, settlement expansion/urbanization and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) intensity of crop production. thus, areas that were once designated as grazing routes have been taken over by farms and settlements. hitherto attractive destinations for pastoralists are currently experiencing adverse climatic conditions, causing the pastoralists to deflect to more favourable environments. relatedly, seasonal migration of pastoralists which once recorded massive movements southwards during the dry season and northwards at the onset of the rains have been altered as a result of the changing climatic conditions and abrupt displacements from increased conflicts across the continent. these movements which were once temporary have become semi-permanent or even permanent in recent times (tonah, 2006). figure 1 below shows the migratory patterns of cross-border pastoralists within west africa. figure 1: map showing migratory patterns of cross-border pastoralists source: sahel and west africa club (swac, 2018). adzande, p. 1655 the resultant effect of these movements in the transit or host countries is an increase in the competition for available land resources between farmers and pastoralists, often leading to violent confrontations and conflicts. thus, the age-long cross-border transhumance practice has come under threat of extinction since it is perceived as the source of many major conflicts in the west african sub-region. in fact, the united nations economic commission for africa (uneca, 2017) reported that the majority of the ongoing conflicts in central african republic, chad, mali, northeast kenya, somalia and sudan involve pastoralists. from mali to south sudan, democratic republic of the congo, burkina faso, ghana to nigeria, the magnitude and intensity of violence between farmers and herders has increased significantly. in burkina faso, a report presented by the new humanitarian (2012) indicated that from 20082012, about 55 people were killed in 4,000 recorded clashes between farmers and pastoralists. the report further showed that an estimated 600 incidences of conflicts occur each year and the number has been rising with each passing year. similarly, gaye (2018) reported high incidences of violent conflicts between sedentary farmers and pastoralists in mali and burkina faso. in nigeria, historical accounts suggest that the relationship between farmers and herders was relatively cordial and mutually beneficial. this coexistence was not without low-scale skirmishes which were usually caused by the destruction of crops or the killing of cattle. in recent times, such confrontations have become more violent, involving massive casualties, destruction of settlements, infrastructure and properties, including large-scale forceful displacement of people. it also involves the use of sophisticated weapons like machine guns and ak-47 rifles. these new dimensions of the conflicts have raised questions about the origins of the ‘new breed’ of itinerant herders on the one hand and the support-base or criminal networks of the ‘indigenous’ herders on the other. the current surge in conflicts between farmers and pastoralists across west africa is contrary to the tenets and expectations of the ecowas protocols on free movement of persons and transhumance. thus, there has been an enhanced and intentional focus on the development and improvement of policies by local, national and regional actors across west africa to address the protracted conflicts between farmers and pastoralists. literature review: overview of interactions between farmers and pastoralists in africa while the transhumance protocol acknowledges the benefits of pastoralism, it is also not oblivious of the potential conflicts that may arise when two african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) divergent agricultural livelihoods – farming and pastoralism cross paths. however, in recent times, the negative consequences of the escalated conflicts between farmers and pastoralists seem to have inundated the benefits of pastoralism. the limited information and statistics available suggest that pastoralism contributes about 30-38% of the gross value of the agricultural commodities in africa (uneca, 2017). avis, (2018) note that in 2014, a world bank report indicated that livestock rearing contributed about 38% to the agricultural gross domestic product (gdp) in 16 african countries. among these african countries covered in the report, djibouti had the highest contribution (90%) of livestock to agricultural gdp while in nigeria livestock contributed about 10% to the agricultural gdp. generally, pastoralists supply about 90% of the meat consumed in east africa and about 60% of the meat and milk products consumed in west africa (avis, 2018). on the other hand, several studies have reported on the conflicts between pastoralists and farmers or local communities in different parts of africa and the attendant consequences. olaniyan (2015) reported violent clashes between fulani pastoralists and the konkomba farming community, in which human lives were lost, cattle were rustled, houses were burnt and large-scale displacement of people occurred. the study also reported that some of the herders affected in the conflicts were citizens of burkina faso. this points to the possibility of cross-border herders being victims of the conflicts. the finding also deflates the skewed impression created by the dominant narratives that cross-border pastoralists are the sole perpetrators of conflicts in their host communities. in tanzania, mwamfupe (2015) observed that conflicts between farmers and pastoralists have increased in magnitude and spread. he noted further that the areas affected were historically crop producing areas; but the migration of pastoralists triggered conflicts within such areas. these persistent conflicts between farmers and pastoralists across africa have given rise to a number of issues including food insecurity. a report presented by the internal displacement monitoring centre (idmc) suggests that in 2018, there were about 541,000 new displacements as a result of conflict and violence in parts of nigeria (idmc, 2018). out of this number, about 200,000 persons were displaced in the middle belt region of nigeria where the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists are rife. these conflict-induced displacements have had a significant effect on the economy, agriculture and development efforts as a whole. adzande, p. 1657 research suggests that conflicts are the main drivers of food insecurity across the world. in 2017, findings obtained from 18 countries across the world including south sudan, somalia, yemen and nigeria indicate that famine driven by conflict has given rise to increased hunger and malnutrition which has affected over 20 million people (united nations world food programme, 2018). in ghana, antwi (2018) found that loss of access to arable farmlands, reduced crop production, labour shortages and crop destruction all had an adverse effect on food security. similarly, azad and kaila (2018) conducted surveys among households in conflict regions of nigeria including north central, north east and south-south and found that a significant percentage of the households are highly ‘food insecure’. this study found that there was a link between food prices and food insecurity in all three nigerian regions. the high cost of food in the areas affected by conflicts may not be unconnected to decreased crop production, high cost of labour and costs involved in transporting food to regions affected by conflicts. consequently, the research concluded that armed conflicts have a detrimental effect on food security as they reduce production, increase food prices and reduce access to food. in response to the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists, governments in african countries have individually and collectively introduced measures including the promulgation of laws. for instance, the ghanaian state adopted a policy of expulsion which entailed the evacuation of fulani herders from ghana and the introduction of measures that prevented them from entering and conducting any business in the country (olaniyan et al, 2015). the policy was introduced as a measure to put an end to the recurrent conflicts between farmers and pastoralists and it was applied in agogo town in northern ghana. these expulsions were premised on the perceived status of fulani herders as ‘strangers’ and not originally from ghana. the policy of expulsion contravenes the provisions of the ghanaian constitution which recognizes people born in the country and those who have acquired citizenship as legitimate citizens of the country (olaniyan et al, 2015). similarly, as a member state of ecowas and a signatory to the regional treaties, the policy of expulsion introduced in ghana violated the protocols on free movement of persons, residence and establishment and transhumance. this example highlights the contradictions in local, national and regional pacts which are capable of threatening the free movement of pastoralists within and across countries in west africa. the situation in east africa is not different either. in tanzania, the government employed strategies like the eviction of livestock and their owners from certain areas and split villages, designating specific areas for crop cultivation african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) and others for grazing to deal with the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists. however, mwamfupe (2015) still identifies policy deficiencies and contradictions as a major factor contributing to the protracted conflicts. this is in line with the observations by unowas (2018) that the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists are aggravated by the weak enforcement of the rule of law. in a comprehensive analysis of the regulations governing pastoralism in africa, leonhardt (2017) assesses the extent to which free movement policies, legislation and practices are being applied to transhumant pastoralism in the ecowas region, particularly in mali, niger and nigeria and the resultant effect thereof. leonhardt (2017:13) finds that contradictory public policies are currently affecting the mobility of pastoralists. for instance, he noted that, […] in contrast to the transhumance protocol of 1998, the ecowas regulation on the implementation of the transhumance protocol (2003) regards pastoralist transhumance not so much as a valuable economic activity but more as a relic of the past that will soon be replaced by more intensive forms of animal husbandry. the analysis further identifies limited domestication of the ecowas transhumance protocol in member states and uneven development of the institutional structures and operational guidelines required for the implementation of the protocols as some of the challenges faced in the regulation of cross-border transhumance. consistent with this view, a study by the food and agricultural organization (fao) and ecowas (2012) outlined key challenges encountered by practitioners of cross-border transhumance to include the existence of land policies that do not take into account pastoral mobility and limited promulgation and implementation of policies, institutions, legal and regulatory frameworks regarding pastoralism. alidou (2016) also observed that various countries have formulated and passed legislation but these have not been put into operation. opanike and aduloju (2015) presented a more radical view when they asserted that the ecowas protocol on free movement of persons is contributing to insecurity in the west africa sub-region. they further alleged that ecowas does not have adequate instituted mechanisms for monitoring cross-border movements. thus, people who carry out nefarious activities have exploited the opportunities to their advantage. this has led to increased crime and criminality, thus abusing the privileges of the ecowas protocol on free movement of persons and goods. in april 2018, a high-level meeting of adzande, p. 1659 ministers in charge of security and agriculture/livestock or transhumance in west african countries and representatives of regional and international organizations held in abuja deliberated on some of the challenges of transhumance. the challenges identified were the lack of implementation of existing pastoral and transhumance laws, political manipulation and the proliferation of weapons in the region. the meeting therefore proffered some recommendations which include: the audit of the non-implementation of the existing regulatory framework relating to transhumance; the control of the proliferation of small arms; the review and update of the existing regional regulatory frameworks relating to transhumance and the international transhumance certificate considering current realities; the harmonization and implementation of national legislation in compliance with ecowas laws on transhumance and small arms control; and the review of the existing transhumance routes. it is too early at this point to ascertain the progress made by the participating countries on the implementation of the aforementioned recommendations. the meeting further agreed that herder-farmer conflicts are a regional issue that requires a regional approach as it affects human, economic, national and regional security. the preceding discussions and the recommendations proffered by the high-level panel suggest that the non-implementation of policy frameworks and the contradictions in the regional, national and local laws are major impediments to the regulation of pastoralism and its attendant consequences. thus, adequate attention needs to be given to the policies that regulate pastoralism within and across countries, to harness the benefits of the practice and mitigate its adverse effects. methodology this study adopted a combination of policy analysis and fieldwork in selected states in nigeria. existing policies like the ecowas protocol on transhumance (1998), the constitution of the federal republic of nigeria (1999) and other local laws were examined. this was necessary because these laws stipulate the conditions for the migration of pastoralists and are at the centre of the quest for a lasting solution to the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists in nigeria. information from the fieldwork was used to complement the policy analysis. the fieldwork covered three states in nigeria namely benue, plateau and adamawa, where the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists were prevalent. benue and plateau states are located in the central part of nigeria while adamawa state is situated in north-east nigeria. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) semi-structured interviews with farmers and pastoralists were used. interviews were conducted between august and november 2017. the interviews sought to elicit information on the nature of the conflicts, the drivers of the conflicts from the perspective of those directly affected and the efficacy of existing policies in dousing the tensions between the two groups. the views of farmers and pastoralists were important to confirm or dispute the claims relating to the emergence and role of new actors in the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists. the qualitative data generated through the interviews was analyzed according to dominant themes. the provisions of the ecowas transhumance protocol were outlined and examined to address pertinent issues and questions relating to effectiveness (how well a policy works), evaluation of alternatives (how good the policy is compared to other approaches) and the establishment of recommendations for positive change (is it better to amend, replace, remove or add a policy?) in addition, the provisions of related legal instruments like the nigerian constitution and the anti-open grazing laws were reviewed. discussion while the ecowas protocol on free movement of persons and goods and the protocol on transhumance aim to promote regional integration and boost agricultural production respectively, the policies have contributed to transborder crime and insecurity in nigeria, thereby producing counter-productive results. the situation is worsened by the uncontrolled and porous borders across nigeria. cross-border transhumance has been associated with exacerbated conflicts between farmers and pastoralists, the emergence of new actors and the proliferation of small arms and ammunition. these have compounded and changed the dynamics of farmer-herder conflicts across west africa. the widespread displacement of people, destruction of homes and infrastructure, loss of lives, disruption of livelihoods and diminishing labour force are currently affecting the socio-economic development of states like benue, plateau and adamawa. the conflicts have long-term effects on food security, access to education and other aspects of development. the international crisis group (2018) found that the disruption caused by conflicts between farmers and herders in benue, nasarawa and taraba states in nigeria have led to an estimated 33-65% reduction in farming activities and food production. relatedly, officials of benue and plateau states reported that about 60% of displaced persons were children of school-going age. this implies that such children have been deprived of access to formal and non-formal basic education. the cumulative effect is an increase in poverty, inequality and adzande, p. 1661 underdevelopment in the affected states. these negative effects of the migration of pastoralists across and within borders have elicited debates on the place of itinerant herders in contemporary african society. policy implications: provisions of the ecowas transhumance protocol several aspects of the transhumance protocol are of particular interest in this paper. article 3 allows for free movement across the borders of all member states upon the satisfaction of stipulated conditions. these conditions include the possession of the ecowas international transhumance certificate (itc). the reason for the introduction of the transhumance certificate was to document the movement of cross-border pastoralists. this documentation enables the tracking of pastoral movements and provides information to the host communities on the arrival of transhumant animals. the certificate basically contains the itinerary of the herders, the border posts to be crossed and the final destination of the pastoralists. article 7 stipulates that transhumance herds shall follow the routes defined by member states in accordance with the itinerary indicated on the ecowas itc. in the event of any contraventions, article 13 makes provision for the apprehension of stray animals by the relevant authorities without prejudice to the application of sanctions against their owner or herdsmen as provided for by laws applicable in cases of stray animals in the member states concerned. articles 14 and 15 address issues relating to the period during which migrating livestock may enter into and depart from host territories and the responsibility of states in defining the areas where transhumant animals may be stocked and the maximum capacity of each holding zone. the protocol further demands that accompanying herdsmen must pen up their herd in the zone assigned by officials at the point of entry. while it appears that the proponents of the transhumance protocol foresaw the likelihood of conflicts between pastoralists and host communities and laid down seemingly adequate measures to prevent the occurrences of such, persistent conflicts between the two groups suggest that either the protocol is inefficient or enforcement and adherence have been lacking. article 16 requires herders to observe all laws and regulations of the host country, particularly those concerning the conservation of forest reserves, forest resources and the management of watering points and pastoral land. interestingly, the transhumance protocol in both articles 13 and 16 acknowledges the extant laws in member states and does not in any way assume overarching authority in the regulation of transhumant activities in african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) the member states. however, the attempts by some state governments in nigeria to introduce and enforce laws to abate the conflicts have often met stiff resistance, with the majority of those opposing such laws making reference to the contradictions between local laws and the ecowas transhumance protocol. even though the nigerian government was a signatory to the ecowas transhumance protocol, little or no effort has been made in domesticating and implementing the provisions of the protocol. for instance, cross-border pastoralists migrate into the country unchecked and without the required international transhumance certificate which is supposed to show their itinerary and certify their livestock fit for passage. another contradictory dimension could be the relevance of the ecowas transhumance protocol in the member states. if the provisions of the protocol suggest that national and local laws of member states supersede the protocol, then of what use is the protocol in regulating cross-border transhumance besides the issuance of the international transhumance certificate? policy implications: perspectives of farmers and pastoralists in nigeria through semi-structured interviews with farmers and pastoralists in parts of nigeria, it was gathered that there is a link between the escalation of conflicts and the emergence of new actors. the farmers and pastoralists interviewed referred to these new conflict actors as ‘a new breed’ of pastoralists originating from other countries in africa. some of the respondents traced the origin of the pastoralists to central african republic and libya. they alleged that these pastoralists who had been displaced by conflicts in their original areas of habitation brought along sophisticated weapons which are used in the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists in nigeria. according to the members of farming communities in benue, plateau and adamawa states, the major differences between the new and old pastoralists are that the former carry weapons such as guns as they move with their livestock and they are unable speak the hausa language while the latter carry sticks and often communicate in other nigerian languages such as hausa. some excerpts from the interviews show the views of respondents on the migration of pastoralists in nigeria: the new herders with guns from mali, libya and central african republic where there are ongoing conflicts move freely into nigeria. they are received by the indigenous herders residing in northern nigeria. as unfavourable conditions such as drought and desert encroachment worsen in northern nigeria, they drift southwards adzande, p. 1663 towards central nigeria. conflicts arise when their cattle destroy farmers’ crops or when the farmers steal or kill their cattle (interview with a community leader, plateau state). similarly, interviews with community leaders and the fulani ardos in adamawa state revealed that the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists are driven by the influx of a ‘new breed’ of herders. these ‘new breeds of herders’ were referred to as fulani daji (literally translated as ‘bush fulani’) in a bid to distinguish ‘legitimate’ herders (fulani gida), who are inhabitants of the local communities, from the unrecognized itinerant herders who are new entrants. these itinerant herders allegedly migrated from countries such as mali, niger and chad. in adamawa state, a traditional ruler in yola south local government gave a brief historical account thus: the fulani gida pastoralists lived with the bachama ethnic group peacefully before the arrival of the foreign itinerant herders (fulani daji). the fulani daji caused the conflicts from the beginning. they killed members of the other ethnic groups in the state. after igniting the violence, they moved on, leaving behind tensions between the other ethnic groups and the fulani gida. the other ethnic groups then turned on the fulani gida claiming that they were co-conspirators of the fulani daji. this led to the escalation of the conflicts between the other ethnic groups which are predominantly farmers and the fulani gida who are pastoralists. though the government was aware that the initial perpetrators of the violence were migrant herders, no action was taken to address the issue (interview with a traditional ruler in yola south, adamawa state). the views on the influx of a supposedly different group of herders were corroborated by respondents in benue state. in providing the distinction between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ types of pastoralists, a traditional ruler said: in those days, fulani herders sought permission from local traditional rulers before settling temporarily in a community. that way, it was easy to hold the herders accountable in the event of crop destruction by cattle. recently, the ‘new type’ of herders arrive in our communities without prior notice, thus violating the mutual arrangements we had with the old fulani herders (interview with a traditional ruler in benue state). in benue, adamawa and plateau states, it was reported that the emergence of these foreign itinerant herders has led to more violent and brutal killings, the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) use of sophisticated weapons such as ak-47 guns and midnight attacks that leave no trace of the attackers by daybreak. besides the identification of the new or foreign pastoralists by their inability to communicate in an indigenous nigerian language, there exists little or no substantial evidence to prove the actual identities of these invaders. despite the protracted nature of the conflicts, no foreign itinerant pastoralist has been arrested or prosecuted. however, these narratives of the identities of the invaders have also been propagated by the nigerian president and the military security chiefs who alleged that the violence between farmers and pastoralists is perpetrated by ‘mercenaries’ who have received training in libya. in spite of these allegations and subtle admission of a possible security breach, little or nothing has been done to control the entrance of pastoralists into nigeria. in addition, no effort has been made to enforce the pre-conditions for admission into ecowas member states as stipulated by the transhumance protocol. failure to enforce the terms and conditions outlined in the transhumance protocol like the issuance of international transhumance certificates endorsed by competent authorities in pastoralists’ countries of origin, has resulted in the uncontrolled influx of pastoralists from different parts of africa into nigeria. the traditional ruler in yola south, adamawa state opined that the nigerian government must be held accountable for the unregulated movements of pastoralists within and across local and international borders. he stated: the government needs to address these questions: how did the pastoralists come here? where did they come from? what is their reason for moving? how do they manage to traverse the country without the intervention of law enforcement agencies? why are permits not issued by government agencies at the border crossing? …the nomads come in as if there are no rules or laws governing their movements. why won’t the government enforce the laws which relate to migration of pastoralists and if there is none, why can’t the government enact such laws? (interview with a traditional ruler in yola south, adamawa state). adamawa state is on the nigerian border with cameroon. the traditional ruler compared the experiences of pastoralists attempting to cross over to cameroon with what is obtainable in nigeria: i have five different shepherds nurturing five different herds of cattle. if any of my shepherds intend crossing the border into cameroon, there is always a border security personnel who will first ask questions like, where are you from? where are you going to? are your cows healthy? in adzande, p. 1665 fact, there are veterinarians stationed at the border to check the health condition of the cows before livestock are granted entry into cameroon. you also have to tell them your name, present your passport to them or any nigerian identity card which bears your name. after all the security checks, the security personnel leads the pastoralist to the village head for proper introduction. the village head then allocates a space for the pastoralist and his livestock. that way, they are able to monitor incoming pastoralists effectively. the nigerian government needs to enforce the issuance of resident permits to all itinerant pastoralists who come into the country through the borders and even for those traversing internal borders. the permits can serve as evidence that the holder is moving under the authority of the government. they can achieve that by manning the borders with credible security personnel. if these measures are implemented, the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists will be reduced if not eradicated (interview with a traditional ruler in yola south, adamawa state). two key issues can be identified from the preceding discussion. first, it is evident that the provisions of the ecowas transhumance protocol have not been implemented in nigeria. thus, pastoralists have unfettered access into the country. secondly, the ecowas transhumance protocol acknowledges the primacy of national and local laws, which means that the validity of the transhumance protocol does not transcend borders. this further implies that the guidelines of the ecowas transhumance protocol can be adhered to at the international boundary crossing points but whatever happens after the pastoralists get into the transit or host territory, is to be determined by the laws of that country. so, what do the national and local laws say about the movement of pastoralists within internal borders? provisions of national and local laws in nigeria the major legal documents within nigeria that are referenced in the discourse relating to pastoralism are the constitution of the federal republic of nigeria (1999) and the laws prohibiting open grazing of livestock (as is applicable in ekiti, benue and taraba states) or criminalizing cattle rustling (as is the case in katsina state). the nigerian constitution (1999) chapter 4 of the nigerian constitution (1999) as amended describes components of fundamental rights to include the right to freedom of african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) movement. specifically, section 41 states that every citizen of nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout nigeria and to reside in any part thereof, and no citizen of nigeria shall be expelled from nigeria or refused entry thereby or exit therefrom. the nigerian constitution of 1999 as amended does not specifically address pastoral mobility but permits the free movement and settlement of people wherever they choose to. even though the freedom of movement and residence is accorded to human beings, livestock are an integral part of the people’s livelihoods and therefore share in the privileges accorded their owners. this freedom to reside wherever one desires has been classified as a fundamental human right of all citizens and rightly so. however, such laws do not define the boundaries of one’s freedom of movement and residence and are silent on issues that may arise when one’s freedom of movement and residence impinges on another’s right to life and sustenance. these lapses in the constitution and the absence of specific federal laws that address pastoralism have created a vacuum that is currently being filled by the introduction of laws in some states across nigeria. the open-grazing prohibition law the recent trend in nigeria is the enactment of the open-grazing prohibition and ranches establishment act in some of the states plagued by violent conflicts between farmers and pastoralists. according to the governors of the states where laws have been introduced to criminalize open-grazing of animals including cattle, the laws became necessary to minimize the conflicts between the two groups. this became imperative especially in the face of perceived inaction from the federal government of nigeria. however, the introduction of the laws have been faced by stiff resistance from various stakeholders including the president of nigeria, the chief of defence staff, the former inspector-general of police and members of the socio-cultural group representing all fulani pastoralists in the country, the miyetti allah cattle breeders’ association of nigeria (macban). in nigeria, states determine what is permissible on the land within their territory/borders. similarly, the states also have the legal mandate to enact laws that prohibit certain practices and spell out punitive measures for the offenders. these powers have been vested in state governors by the land use act of 1978 (federal republic of nigeria, 1978). according to the land use act of 1978, all lands within the boundaries of a state are under the control of the state and are administered under the authority of the state governor. consequently, nigerian states are at liberty to make laws on how land will be adzande, p. 1667 used within their areas of jurisdiction. even the federal government has to acquire land from state governments for the execution of projects in states under the terms and conditions stipulated by the state. it is safe to say that the local laws governing the administration and access or use of land supersede any federal or regional law. acting within its legal authority, the benue state government promulgated the open grazing prohibition and ranches establishment law in may 2017 (benue state government, 2017). however, the implementation of the law was delayed for about six months. the law sets the conditions under which livestock rearing can be done within the state. the law, which is popularly called the anti-open grazing law, came into effect in november 2017. the law aims to abolish the current practice of pastoralism by prohibiting the free movement of animals within the state except by road or rail. the law further advocates for ranching as the ‘best practice’ for livestock rearing. according to the law, pastoralists and other interested parties are to lease land from the government for the establishment of ranches. the lease permit issued for such land is to be renewed annually. the law further stipulates penalties for defaulters including a jail term of a minimum of five years, or a fine of one million naira (equivalent of $3,000). it is pertinent to note that proposing changes to the lifestyle of a group of people should be a long-term measure: to allow the pastoralists who wish to conform to the government’s proposal to adjust mentally to the sedentary lifestyle; to enable the pastoralists to do away with the local breeds and acquire breeds of cattle that are suitable for ranching; and to enable the government to set in place mechanisms for the successful establishment of ranches. in benue state, the implementation of the law commenced about 5 months after it was signed by the governor – a very short period for interested pastoralists to establish ranches and take the steps towards a sedentary lifestyle. figure 2 below shows a billboard erected by the benue state government providing information on the anti-open grazing law. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) figure 2: a billboard providing information on the anti-open grazing law in benue state, nigeria photo credit: linus unah (2018). the introduction of the anti-open grazing law has consequently stirred up debates about its legitimacy on the one hand, and on the other hand, highlights deviations from the ecowas protocols on free movement and transhumance and the nigerian constitution. the representatives of pastoralists in nigeria operating as the miyetti allah cattle breeders’ association (macban) have argued that the provisions of the law trample on their fundamental constitutional rights to free movement and residence in any part of nigeria. in a bid to seek justice, the miyetti allah kautal hore instituted a law suit against the benue state government, pointing out the contradictions between the anti-open grazing law and the provisions of the constitution of nigeria as the major issue of contention. the suit was dismissed by the federal high court, abuja. on the other hand, the benue state government has defended its antiopen grazing law, claiming that the constitutional rights to freedom of movement and residence apply only to humans and not to animals. another line of argument has been on the issue of whose rights are more legitimate, adzande, p. 1669 especially in a state like benue where a significant percentage of the population are rural crop farmers. thus, members of farming communities have argued that freedom of movement and residence is not an exclusive right for pastoralists, but that such freedom of residence ought to be enjoyed by farmers as they engage in their livelihood practices. shortly after the commencement of the implementation of the law in benue state, more than 70 people lost their lives in attacks by suspected fulani militia on 1 january 2018. nigeria’s security chiefs attributed the violent attacks to the introduction of the anti-open grazing law in the state. the arguments presented for the attacks were that the aggrieved pastoralists reacted against an oppressive law. this narrative seemed to suggest that the killings were justifiable. however, it can be argued that local laws such as the anti-open grazing law are filling a void created by the non-implementation of the stipulated conditions for legitimate transhumant activities or the absence of deliberate policies on pastoralism in the country. in addition, states like benue could be responding to the conflicts in the face of daunting frustration by the non-commitment of the federal government of nigeria to deploy strategies to effectively manage the conflicts. conclusion and recommendation the economic community of west african states (ecowas) protocol on transhumance enacted in 1998, though borne out of good intentions, has limited applicability in the transit and host countries because national and local laws supersede the regional protocol. the preceding discussions show that there is weak enforcement of the provisions of the transhumance protocol especially along nigerian borders. in addition, the regional, national and local laws are not aligned to provide a harmonized policy for the migration of pastoralists in west africa. this legal imbroglio that has arisen from the existence of contradictory policies and inherent ambiguities in the national laws, needs to be addressed for pastoralism to thrive. policy-related issues that require attention include, the undocumented movement of pastoralists across internal and international borders; unpacking the notion and implications of ‘free movement’ across internal and international borders to ensure fairness to all; and the development of institutions and mechanisms to specifically address issues associated with the migration of pastoralists. there is also a need to find a compromise between national laws and local laws to address the contradictory issues. focus should be placed on research to find ways of reaching this compromise and to identify the alternative 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security in west africa and the sahel: towards peaceful coexistence, unowas, dakar, senegal. united nations world food programme (wfp). 2018. global report on food crises, world food programme (wfp), rome, italy. velasco-gil, g. and maru, n. 2018. crossing boundaries: legal and policy arrangements for cross-border pastoralism. rome: food and agriculture organization (fao) of the united nations and the international union for conservation of nature (iucn). https://www.trtworld.com/ http://www.uneca.org/ 879 the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa jonathan crush*, godfrey tawodzera**, abel chikanda*** and daniel tevera**** abstract this paper is a contribution to our understanding of the intertwined economic and political crises in zimbabwe and the crisis of xenophobia in south africa. there have been few studies to date specifically examining the impact of xenophobic violence on zimbabweans trying to make a living in the south african informal economy. the paper first provides a picture of zimbabwean migrant entrepreneurship using survey data from a 2015 study of migrants in the informal economy. all of the zimbabwean entrepreneurs interviewed in depth for the study in 2016 had either witnessed or been the victims of xenophobic violence or both. the interviews focused on the experience and impact of xenophobic violence on personal safety and business operations. the migrant accounts clearly demonstrate that they see xenophobia as a key driver of the hostility, looting and violence that they experience. the paper argues that the deep-rooted crisis in zimbabwe, which has driven many to south africa in the first place, makes return home in the face of xenophobia a non-viable option. zimbabweans are forced to adopt a number of self-protection strategies, none of which ultimately provide insurance against future attack. keywords zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence. * international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb st west, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l6c2. email address: jcrush@balsillieschool.ca ** department of geography and environmental studies, university of limpopo, p. bag x1106, sovenga. email address: godfreyltawodzera@yahoo.com *** department of geography & atmospheric science, and african & african-american studies, university of kansas, lawrence, kansas state, usa 66045. email address: achikanda@ku.edu **** department of geography & environmental studies, university of western cape, robert sobukwe road, bellville 7535. email: dtevera@uwc.ac.za mailto:jcrush@balsillieschool.ca mailto:godfreyltawodzera@yahoo.com mailto:achikanda@ku.edu mailto:dtevera@uwc.ac.za the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa 880 “south africans are very xenophobic – they are the owners of xenophobia” (zimbabwean migrant, cape town, 2016). introduction the above arresting image of south africans as the “owners of xenophobia” is confirmed by numerous surveys suggesting that levels of xenophobia in south africa are unprecedented globally (crush et al., 2013). south africa’s crisis of xenophobia is defined by the discrimination and intolerance to which migrants are exposed on a daily basis. according to misago et al. (2015: 17), xenophobia manifests in “a broad spectrum of behaviours including discriminatory, stereotyping and dehumanizing remarks; discriminatory policies and practices by government and private officials such as exclusion from public services to which target groups are entitled; selective enforcement of by-laws by local authorities; assault and harassment by state agents particularly the police and immigration officials; as well as public threats and violence […]that often results in massive loss of lives and livelihoods.” the nub of the crisis of xenophobia in south africa is when feelings of hostility and intolerance manifest as extreme xenophobia, which crush and ramachandran (2015a) define as “a heightened form of xenophobia in which hostility and opposition to those perceived as outsiders and foreigners is strongly embedded and expressed through aggressive acts directed at migrants and refugees [and] recurrent episodes of violence.” xenophobic violence represents ‘tipping points’ or intense moments in the general ongoing crisis of xenophobia. southern african migration project’s (samp) national surveys have consistently found that a significant minority of south african citizens are willing to resort to violence to rid their communities of migrants (crush, 2008; crush et al., 2013). the deadliest examples of extreme xenophobia in south africa to date were high-profile and widespread violence against migrants and refugees in may 2008 and march 2015. the nature and impacts of the 2008 crisis are now well-documented, although there remain differences of opinion about its causes (bekker, 2015; cabane, 2015; desai, 2015; everatt, 2011; hassim et al., 2008; hayem, 2013; landau, 2012; steinberg, 2012). jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera for all its strengths, the literature on may 2008 tends to treat the victims of xenophobic violence in an undifferentiated fashion, leading to the assumption that all migrants – irrespective of national origin, legal status, length of time in the country and livelihood activity – were equally at risk. yet, attitudinal surveys clearly show that south africans differentiate between migrants of different national origin and that zimbabweans are amongst the most disliked (crush et al., 2013). discussions of may 2008 also do not differentiate sufficiently between the types of targets that were attacked. for example, many african migrants and refugees operated small businesses in the informal economy of affected urban areas and these enterprises came under sustained attack during the pogrom. in 2015, one of the explicit targets of the xenophobic attacks was informal businesses run by migrants and refugees. violent attacks on migrant and refugee entrepreneurs and their businesses have not been confined to acute episodes of extreme xenophobia such as those in may 2008 and march 2015 (charman & piper, 2012; crush et al., 2015; crush & ramachandran, 2015a, 2015b; tevera, 2013). ongoing acts of extreme xenophobia have increasingly manifested in the form of collective violence targeted at migrant and refugee-owned businesses. the frequency and ferocity of such attacks have increased over time and cannot simply be written off, as the state seeks to do, as ‘mere criminality.’ chronic extreme xenophobia has prompted various responses and remedial actions by migrants and refugees including paying protection money, beefing up business security, arming in self-defence, avoiding neighbourhoods known to be particularly dangerous and moving away from the major cities to smaller urban centres (crush et al., 2015a). zimbabweans are not the only small business owners who have become victims of extreme xenophobia in south africa; attacks on migrants and refugees from other countries are also well documented (gastrow, 2013; gastrow & amit, 2015; piper & charman, 2016). however, there have been few studies to date specifically examining the impact of xenophobic violence on zimbabweans trying to make a living in the south african informal economy (duri, 2016; hungwe, 2014; sibanda & sibanda, 2014). this paper is based on two sources of data. first, samp’s growing informal cities project surveyed over 1,000 randomly selected migrant-owned informal the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa 882 sector enterprises in cape town and johannesburg in 2015 (peberdy, 2016; tawodzera et al., 2016). the survey sample included 304 zimbabwean-owned enterprises. for the purposes of this paper, we extracted this data from the larger database. second, 50 in-depth interviews were conducted in 2016 with zimbabwean informal business-owners in cape town, johannesburg and polokwane as part of samp participation in the migrants in countries in crisis (micic) project. this paper is a contribution to our understanding of the intertwined economic and political crises in zimbabwe and the crisis of xenophobia in south africa. it also aims to contribute to the more general literature on migrants in countries in crisis in a situation of intersectionality where migrants are forced to navigate a state of crisis in both the country of origin and the country of destination. the term “migration in countries in crisis” is usually taken to refer to the plight of migrants caught up in an unexpected crisis situation in a “host country” (koser, 2014; martin et al., 2014; weerasinghe & taylor, 2015). although emergencies affecting migrants are becoming increasingly complex and multifaceted, the intersection of crisis situations in countries of origin and destination have been given insufficient attention (iom, 2012; mcadam, 2014). a dual or multiple crisis situation spanning origin and destination presents new, and not easily resolved, challenges for the management of crisis and the safety of migrants (hendow et al., 2016; perching, 2016). crisis-driven migration betts and kaytaz (2009: 2) label the exodus from zimbabwe an example of “survival migration,” which they define as refugees and “people who are forced to cross an international border to flee state failure, severe environmental distress, or widespread livelihood collapse.” under conditions of survival migration, the traditional distinction between refugees and economic migrants breaks down (betts, 2013). the argument that all zimbabwean migrants should be defined as “survival migrants” requires closer scrutiny. for example, it is based in part on the view that conditions in zimbabwe are so dire that out-migration for survival is the only option. however, this does not explain why the majority of zimbabweans have not left nor the role of jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera migration in reducing pressures for further out-migration through remittances (crush & tevera, 2010). the argument that all zimbabweans are “survival migrants” also runs the risk of homogenising migrant flows and downplaying the heterogeneity of migration movement out of the country. the idea that all migrants from zimbabwe are “survival migrants” also seems to rest on the admittedly desperate situation of migrants in squalid transit shelters in the border town of musina and at overcrowded safe havens such as churches (betts & kaytaz, 2009; kuljian, 2013). the idea of “survival migration” fits this sub-set of zimbabwean migrants but certainly does not encompass them all. far from being the desperate and destitute people conveyed by images of “survival migration,” many zimbabwean migrants to south africa exhibit considerable ingenuity, industry and energy. a recent survey of zimbabwean migrants in cape town and johannesburg found that over 60% of migrants who had come to south africa in the previous decade were formally employed and only 18% were unemployed (crush et al., 2015b). at the same time, increasing numbers were doing more menial jobs including 25% in manual work, 13% in the service industry and 8% in domestic work. a longitudinal study of day labourers in tshwane demonstrates the increase in zimbabweans seeking casual work, which rose from 7% in 2004 to 33% in 2007 to 45% of workseekers in 2015 (blaauw et al., 2016). the extent of participation by zimbabwean migrants in the south african informal sector is unknown. samp’s 2005 national survey of migrant-sending households in zimbabwe found that 21% of working migrants outside the country were in the informal economy (crush & tevera, 2010: 12). a 2007 survey of migrants in johannesburg found that 19% were working as hawkers or artisans (makina, 2010). samp’s 2010 survey of recent zimbabwean migrants in johannesburg and cape town found that 27% were working or deriving income from the informal economy (crush et al., 2015a). crush and tawodzera’s (2017) survey of poorer zimbabwean households in south africa found that 36% of household members in employment were working in the informal economy. while indicative, these studies suggest that somewhere the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa 884 between 20-30% of zimbabwean migrants in major south african cities could be involved in the informal economy. they also suggest that the importance of informal sector employment to zimbabweans has increased over time. the 2015 samp survey of migrant enterprises found a distinct gender bias in both cities with 60% of zimbabwe entrepreneurs in cape town and 65% in johannesburg being male. this was a marked contrast to the business of informal cross-border trading between zimbabwe and south africa which is dominated by female zimbabweans (chikanda & tawodzera, 2017). the number of migrant entrepreneurs who arrived in south africa peaked in the years between 2005 and 2010, at the height of the economic crisis in zimbabwe, and appears to have fallen since (figure 1). less than 2% had migrated to south africa before 1994. nearly 18% of the johannesburg migrant entrepreneurs had moved there before 2000 compared to only 2% of those in cape town. over time, cape town has become an increasingly attractive destination. as many as 88% of the migrants in cape town arrived in the city after 2005 (compared to 52% of those who moved to johannesburg). figure 1: comparison of year of migration and year of establishing informal business. jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera only 5% of the survey respondents had experience working in the zimbabwean informal economy prior to migrating to south africa. those with prior experience had generally been involved in informal cross-border trading and were therefore familiar with south africa. one male migrant described the transition as follows: i used to come here as a trader from the early 2000s. i stopped in 2005 and came here to south africa to live. my business is about making and selling electric jugs and brooms. i used to come here and sell them and go back home. there are some reasons why i came to stay. one is that the economic situation was getting bad. [zimbabwe] was no longer the same. i was selling things and not making much money. i wanted to build a house in zimbabwe and i was failing to do so. the cost of living was high. i had just married and things were tough. then there was the issue of politics. my wife was harassed when i was in johannesburg buying goods. they came and searched our house and they found nothing. they wanted evidence that i was a sell-out, but they did not find anything. my wife was pregnant so i saw that they could injure her if they came back next time. that is when i moved to south africa (johannesburg interview no. 4). in this case, economic hardship and political harassment were additional factors in the decision to move to south africa. the overall reasons for migration to south africa were clearly related to the ongoing economic crisis in zimbabwe. over 80% agreed with the proposition that they had come to south africa in order to provide for family back home. as many as 73% said they had come to south africa to look for employment (figure 2). there was a marked difference here between the johannesburg and cape town respondents (with 82% and 59% in agreement, respectively) which may reflect differences in the perception (and reality) of labour market access in the two cities. the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa 886 figure 2: reasons for migrating to south africa the reverse was true with regard to starting a business as a reason for migration, with 56% in cape town and 35% in johannesburg in agreement. in general, this suggests that johannesburg is seen as a place where it is easier to obtain formal sector employment and cape town is a more amenable location for starting an informal business. unemployment was a significant driver of migration, with 39% of the sample reporting that they were unemployed prior to leaving zimbabwe. again, there was a marked difference between the entrepreneurs in the two cities: only 20% of the cape town respondents were unemployed prior to leaving compared with 51% of the johannesburg respondents. the high proportion who said that they had migrated as refugees or asylum-seekers is a reflection of the fact that over 300,000 zimbabweans applied for asylum-seeker permits between 2004 and 2010 in order to legalise their stay in south africa (amit & kriger, 2014). at the same time, a proportion of this number left because of political persecution. exactly how many is difficult to say given that south africa has approved less than 3,000 of all zimbabwean refugee claimants. the survey found that relatively few of the zimbabwean entrepreneurs did not have papers permitting them to be in and/or legally work in the country (table jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera 1). just over one-third of the migrants had asylum-seeker (section 22) permits but only 5% had recognised refugee status (section 24 permits). both asylumseekers and refugees have a legal right to work and earn. around one-quarter had work permits, which the majority would have acquired under the zimbabwe dispensation programme (zdp) in 2010 and 2014 (thebe, 2017). around 10% of the migrants had visitor’s permits which are usually issued for 90 days at a time. only 15% were undocumented and did not have permits to reside and/or work in south africa. table 1: legal status of zimbabwean entrepreneurs total (%) cape town (%) johannesburg (%) asylum-seeker permit 35.9 43.2 31.2 work permit 24.7 17.8 29.0 visitor’s permit 9.5 8.5 10.2 refugee permit 5.3 8.5 3.2 permanent resident 4.6 3.4 5.4 undocumented 14.5 16.1 13.4 other 2.3 0.8 3.3 no answer 3.1 1.6 4.3 the majority of the surveyed zimbabwean migrant enterprises were in the retail, trade and wholesale sector, followed by services and manufacturing, with slight differences between the two cities (figure 3). as figure 1 shows, most migrants did not immediately start an informal business on arrival but first needed to raise start-up capital. migrants and refugees face severe obstacles in accessing loans from formal sources in south africa as they require collateral (tawodzera et al., 2015). just over three-quarters of the migrant entrepreneurs in this survey relied on their personal savings to start their businesses (table 2). there was slightly greater reliance on personal the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa 888 savings by entrepreneurs in johannesburg (87%) than cape town (64%). more zimbabwean migrants in cape town were able to access funds from relatives and non-relatives. figure 3: sectoral breakdown of zimbabwean migrant businesses table 2: primary sources of start-up capital total (%) cape town (%) johannesburg (%) personal savings 78.0 64.4 86.6 loan from relatives 9.2 13.6 6.5 loan from non-relatives 6.6 15.3 1.1 money lenders 2.0 1.7 2.2 loan from informal financial institutions 2.0 1.7 2.2 jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera business credit (goods on terms) 0.7 0.0 1.1 loan from micro-finance institution 0.3 0.8 0.0 other source of capital 1.3 2.5 0.5 experiencing xenophobia all of the zimbabwean entrepreneurs interviewed in depth had either witnessed or been the victims of xenophobic violence or both. the interviews focused on the experiences and impact of xenophobic violence on personal safety and business operations. many of those interviewed had come to south africa after the nationwide attacks on migrants in may 2008 but none were unaware of the violence or did not know some of the victims. those who had been in the country at the time lost almost everything they had, but they did not return permanently to zimbabwe, a primary objective of their attackers. instead, they took refuge in shelters and churches and re-started their businesses once the worst of the violence was over. three accounts in widely separated parts of the country (alexandra park in johannesburg, imizamo yethu in cape town and mankweng in polokwane) show both the destructive nature of the 2008 xenophobic violence and the responses of the migrants: during the xenophobic attacks of 2008 i was there. my musika was destroyed. people came marching and asking foreigners to leave […] they came and destroyed the musika. it was made up of cardboard and corrugated iron sheets. they destroyed it. the cardboard was burnt and the corrugated sheets were taken and some of them thrown all over. i lost a lot of money there. maybe zar 3,000. i had a lot of goods and i was also selling beans, groundnuts and even matemba and fish. i lost everything. i was only able to carry a few things and fled. otherwise they would have killed me as well. what could they do? the people that start the violence are the ones that can even kill you. many people died in alex park. they died. i actually saw a person who had been stoned to death and he was lying there for a day without the police getting him (johannesburg interview no. 13). the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa 890 i had just closed my spaza and had not even reached home when i saw people singing and getting up here. they were coming from the direction of the police station coming uphill. we had already heard of xenophobia and so i knew it was happening here. i wanted to go back and get some things from the spaza but i was too late because they were moving fast. i just had time to change direction and ended up in hout bay. there were other zimbabweans who had also run away and were there. i joined them and we went to wynberg and stayed there at the police station. there were many of us. like me, most people had nothing because they never had time to go home and get clothes or blankets. i called someone in rosebank and they told us that they were staying at a methodist church there so that is where we went. we spent three weeks there. my spaza shop was looted. i never got anything back, not even a single sweet. they took everything so i had to start from scratch (cape town interview no. 20). i was living in mankweng with two other ladies from zimbabwe. we were renting a room in zone 2. we had been living there for some time and we knew most of the people there. but when xenophobia erupted it was as if we had never lived there. we saw some of the people that we knew actually looting things belonging to foreigners. we were confronted by a group of young men – and they demanded money otherwise they would kill us. it was like a dream. we could not believe it. we were robbed there, close to the road, where everyone could see. they just took what they wanted and went away singing. i lost my bag, my wallet and my friend also lost everything. i was scared that we could be killed or raped. even now i cannot believe that i survived. we went to the highway, the n1 and hiked to musina and then home to zimbabwe. i only came back after a month when things had calmed down. i stopped doing business for over a month. i had no money to start over. i had to borrow some money and it took time to recover. some of my customers moved with my money and i never recovered the money. i had to start from scratch and it was difficult (polokwane interview no. 3). most of the respondents recounted incidents of violence that had personally affected them since 2008. these accounts revealed a number of features jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera common to all xenophobic attacks on migrant businesses. first, much of the violence seems to the migrants to be spontaneous and occurs without warning. in practice, this is rarely the case as many attacks are preceded by community meetings from which migrants are excluded (landau, 2012). therefore, they have little notice or ability to take evasive action. as one victim of violence in the informal settlement of diepsloot near johannesburg in 2013 observed: they just occur haphazardly. we cannot always tell what happens next so it is difficult to do anything and to think of a way to respond. it just happens when you are least aware of the problems that are about to erupt. sometimes we are caught up with all our wares and they are destroyed and stolen and so it is difficult to do anything (johannesburg interview no. 10). the journalist, anton harber’s (2011) portrait of diepsloot paints a picture of a volatile settlement in which vigilante justice and attacks on foreign-owned businesses are common. in 2008, for example, “they showed no discrimination in targeting men, women and children, and destroyed, looted and burnt down their businesses and houses” (harber, 2011: 123). second, the perpetrators of xenophobic violence are often from the same community and are even personally known to the victims: the people that robbed us are in this community and we know them. they are the community members here. some of the people here do not like us foreigners. they pretend when you deal with them to like us. but they do not like us (johannesburg interview no. 2). the fact that migrant entrepreneurs are able to provide goods, including food, at competitive prices and offer credit to consumers is clearly insufficient to protect them when violence erupts. in one part of khayelitsha, there is reportedly little violence as long as migrant business owners pay protection money to the powerful local taxi association. in many other areas, the respondents reported that community leaders are either ineffective in dealing with the violence or, in some cases, actively foment hostility and instigate attacks. the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa 892 third, the looting of stock on the premises is a constant feature in the narratives of the migrant business-owners. as one observed: there are hard core thieves who rob people and also jobless people around who are now taking advantage of these xenophobic attacks and robbing people to get money because they have nothing to do with their lives (johannesburg interview no. 1). however, the respondents consistently maintained that robbery per se was not the prime motive for the attacks. as one respondent noted: they target shops, the owners as well as the goods inside. they only target foreign owned shops. there is more to that (than robbery), they want us to leave their country because they hate our businesses here and they say we are finishing their jobs (johannesburg interview no. 3). others pointed out that south african business owners in the same vicinity are left alone during crowd violence, that attacks often involve vicious physical assaults against the person, and that they are usually accompanied by vituperative xenophobic language: people were being beaten up and they were dying. a group of south africans moved around this whole squatter camp terrorising all foreigners and they used to move with someone who knew where all foreigners stayed. these people moved with knobkerries, metal sticks, sjamboks and any sort of weapon you can think of for distraction. if you were a foreigner and did not have a passport they would beat you up (johannesburg interview no. 3). the violence was there for two days or so and i thought it was over. i went to service a car in heideveld. when i was coming back i passed through my friend’s place and he accompanied me half way. when he had gone, and i was in sisulu street down there, they attacked me with a plank and something like a rubber. they hit me all over and even stomped on me. it was xenophobia. they told me that they would kill me and that i was a foreigner and not wanted here. i cried and asked for them to leave me and they continued. no-one intervened. it was past 8pm jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera and there were still people moving about. a few other guys joined in. i was saved by a car that passed, when its lights flashed at them they ran away. they told me that next time they would kill me (cape town interview no. 3). i was robbed in broad daylight here in masiphumelele. it was not a real robbery, it was a gang just saying foreigners must leave. i was about to park my car when the group of men descended on me. they asked for my id and when i said let me go and get it, they pounced on me and started pushing me. my neighbours just looked on. i asked what i had done but they were just singing derogatory songs. it was pure xenophobia. most of the locals here joined and wanted to chase me out. even my neighbours were caught up in that chaos and were told to go. you see, when there is a small thing that happens, it ends up being that foreigners must be chased away. is that not xenophobia? many times here i have been insulted only because i am a foreigner. you ferry someone’s goods and they pay you little and the next time you want your balance they start some story that you are a thief or so on and the others join in. is that not xenophobia? why do they not do that to south africans? why only to foreigners? these people have xenophobia in their blood (cape town interview no. 13). fourth, many of the accounts describe how an anti-government service delivery protest or march can quickly disintegrate into mob violence and looting of shops and stores owned by migrants. the connection between the two events is not immediately obvious but, according to the respondents, the looting is never indiscriminate but only targets migrants. the reason, according to some, is that they become scapegoats for the government’s failure to deliver services south africans are not friendly. they say this is their country and they do what they want to us, hurting us. these locals ask services from their government and if they are not given them they demonstrate and if their concerns are not heard they put their frustrations on foreigners. most of them are uneducated so they think we are the cause of their problem and when they see you in business they think you are taking over their the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa 894 business. they target foreigners in business. they start with businesses and sometimes when their concerns are not heard they even start attacking those not in business and foreigners in their homes (cape town interview no. 11). fifth, there was some evidence of “violent entrepreneurship” involving attacks orchestrated by south african competitors. one zimbabwean entrepreneur in polokwane, for example, described how he had established a business selling and repairing cell phones. he said that his south african competitors reported him to the police for dealing in stolen phones but his records showed that all his transactions were legitimate. according to him they had tried several times to get him arrested. the reason? “they even tell me to my face that they want me out of this place because i am a foreigner. how can they fail to make business when i as a foreigner is doing well? that is their quarrel. some have even organised thieves to rob me and i have been robbed twice.” sixth, xenophobic violence is gender-indiscriminate in that both male and female migrants recounted equally harrowing stories. lefko-everett (2010) has argued that one of the most common strategies adopted by zimbabwean women migrants travelling to south africa as cross-border traders is to travel and stay in groups as a means of protection. zimbabwean women living in south africa and selling on the streets are generally unable to benefit from group protection. one woman in johannesburg described her experience and helpless situation as follows: they were calling me names and some were telling me to go back to zimbabwe saying i would die that night. some of the foreigners who were there and had been trying to support me saw that the situation was getting serious and just disappeared. i lost most of my goods that day as people just started taking them. the lady who was selling close to me also lost her products as people just took and went. it was terrible. no-one was on our side. they just did not care that we were females. they just harassed us. i even thought of going back home that day. what stopped me is the thought of going back to look at my kids without anything. and there was nothing that i would do in zimbabwe. here we live with jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera xenophobia every day. we see it happening and there is nothing that we can do (johannesburg interview no. 10). finally, the respondents differed on whether zimbabweans were particular targets. most said that all foreign-owned businesses were targeted, not simply zimbabweans. a number commented that the type of business made a difference, with food and grocery shops being especially vulnerable. however, virtually all agreed on one point: the purpose of the attacks was not simply to steal certain desirable goods but to clean them out and destroy their business premises and operations so that they could not continue to operate. there were numerous examples of entrepreneurs who had lost all of their stock and also had their premises vandalised and wrecked, even when they were operating from containers, which are generally considered to be the best form of protection: they broke and took away everything as if they don’t want one to be in business. if they wanted goods only, they would have just broken in and taken stuff only but they destroyed, breaking windows and even removing them and most people are not yet back on their feet (cape town interview no. 8). in 2011, the business was attacked by local people. the shop was attacked by the mob. they looted everything and left me with almost nothing. i had goods worth over r 15,000 in here. everything except some few bottles of cooking oil and cigarettes remained. it almost destroyed my business. i was left with very little. i had not saved much so it took me some time to be on my feet again. i had to borrow some money from friends because i needed to restock. i cannot afford to stock much as i am not sure what happens tomorrow. these days we no longer put everything here. some of the stock is at home so that if the steal here, i will have some of my stock at home to start again. i just replenish what is in short supply here (cape town interview no. 10). we had just brought stuff from zimbabweans on a sunday. they were worth about r 10,000 and included nyimo, mbambaira, nzungu, matemba and we had also just stocked the local products. we had bought a lot of crates like onions for about zar 15,000. all these products were the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa 896 in the container and the container was destroyed. they upended it and spilled all the products that were inside to the ground. some of the products were burnt, taken and we were left with nothing. and because we had just stocked we didn’t have any money at home so we had to start all over from scratch (cape town interview no. 1). responses to xenophobic violence the pervasive view amongst south african politicians that xenophobia does not even exist in the country seems particularly odious given the experiences of zimbabwean and other migrants. the term “xenophobia” itself was used by all the respondents to describe the harassment and physical abuse they experience and some even referred to the widespread violence in 2008 and 2015 as “the xenophobia.” however, they were also asked if they thought south africans were xenophobic and, if so, why. no-one answered the question in the negative. a selection of responses clearly indicate that for zimbabweans, south africans are, indeed, the “owners of xenophobia”: i can say that three-quarters of them show their hatred towards us foreign nationals. they don’t like us. xenophobia is a south african thing. it happens more than anywhere in the world i think. everything they do shows it. they do not like us. they speak to us like we are not like them. they look down upon us. they are like that whether they are christians or not. the children learn it from their parents. they call us makwerekwere. do you know even small kids can call you makwerekwere? is that not xenophobic? (johannesburg interview no. 2). if you want to see how they hate us, just have a disagreement and they will tell you bad things, telling you that you will die. what kind of a person wants to see another person dying? life is sacred, but here in south africa no one seems to care about that. they would rather you die so that they can get what you have. this is the only society where people kill each other over very simple disagreements (johannesburg interview no. 10). you can see it almost every day in the train and other places when you pass they call you derogatory names like makwerekwere. we can see it every day in our daily life and we live with it. it does not only happen to people jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera doing business, but it happens to any foreigner no matter whom. if you can’t speak their language, you already are a kwerekwere and you are in trouble (cape town interview no. 4). the way they see us, they see us as if we are lesser than them. they say bad things about us, like we are thieves and we are ugly and we do not bath, such things. but they know most of these things are not true but they like saying them anyway (cape town interview no. 10). is there a country in the world where foreigners are killed and burnt like here? no. south africa is a place like no other place. it is a country with people that do not care about other people. look at the way they kill foreigners. the way they chase foreigners and steal their goods and injure them. that is not done by normal people. south africans are xenophobic. they do not fear evil spirits from the dead. they just kill and the next hour they are busy braaiing and singing and eating amagwinya. they are not normal people (cape town interview no. 12). the language and practices of xenophobia cow the victims into silence and a sense of helplessness, short of returning to zimbabwe, which is not seen as a viable option. as one respondent said: “here we live with xenophobia every day. we see it happening and there is nothing that we can do” (johannesburg interview no. 10). and another: “i remain silent because i am zimbabwean and i can’t go against what they say. but they have to realise that we are the same we have the same skin as black people but we just keep quiet even as they insult us” (johannesburg interview no. 12). the interviews provide important insights into how migrant entrepreneurs themselves respond to the threat and reality of xenophobic violence. from the responses of some of the migrants, it appears that trying to “fit in” and integrate by learning local languages, dress codes and cultural practices is one way to try and pre-empt attacks (hungwe, 2012, 2013). however, these strategies are no guarantee of protection when mob violence breaks out: i was robbed during the day. there was a strike and i was coming from the shops. i was not here the previous day and so i did not know that the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa 898 there was a strike. when they saw me coming the mob ran to me. i was beaten and robbed. they knew i was a foreigner. i can speak three local languages and i spoke in isizulu but they knew me, some of them and they said he is a zimbabwean and they attacked me. if i was a local i was not going to be attacked. i had zar 1,800. all was taken. that was my money that i had collected from my customers. they robbed me because i was a zimbabwean, a foreigner (johannesburg interview no. 2). a number of the respondents observed that unlike some migrant groups, such as somalis and ethiopians, zimbabweans are not inclined to band together to form associations or groups to lobby for and secure protection for their members. some did suggest that there was safety in numbers and that by doing business in areas where there were many other migrant businesses, the chances of being attacked were considerably reduced. one respondent explained the attraction of running a business in the johannesburg cbd as follows: “you will find that incidences of xenophobic attacks are very rare in joburg central where they are a lot of foreigners. also, park station is a strategic location which supplies the whole of south africa so our protection as foreigners is better” (johannesburg interview no. 13). the downside of operating in safer spaces is that business competition is extremely fierce. most were aware that a great deal of the xenophobic violence was confined to low-income areas, particularly informal settlements. while it was possible for some to avoid doing business in these areas, and instead operating in areas of the city where attacks were less frequent, this was not a feasible option for all. many zimbabwean migrants to south africa do not have the financial resources to afford accommodation nor the means to run a business anywhere other than informal settlements. a number of the respondents noted that the unpredictability of the attacks made it difficult to plan in advance. some said that they made sure that they did not keep all of their stock at the place of business, storing some of it at home or in rented containers. all tried to minimise the amount of cash they kept on the premises, although not many zimbabwean entrepreneurs have access to formal banking facilities. one noted that as soon as he had made jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera some money, he immediately remitted it to zimbabwe “so that even if i am attacked, there is nothing much that they can take from me. it is better if my family can have that money” (polokwane interview no. 6). another said that he was planning to relocate once he had sufficient capital saved up: surely experience is the best teacher but i think you plan when you have money, so i am thinking of saving a lot of money and looking for safer business locations like in town. i am thinking so because in 2008 they also attacked my business. they just broke and took away all my stuff, now they have burnt the structure down. so i re-constructed and started again so i am now thinking how i am to keep myself and my stuff safe (cape town interview no. 15). various reactive strategies were mentioned when their businesses were attacked. these included temporarily ceasing business operations, staying indoors at home and moving to stay with friends or relatives in other parts of the city “until the dust settled,” as one put it. others said that the best strategy was simply to flee the area (or as one graphically put it “you run with your life”), if possible taking some valuable item with them which they could later sell and restart the business with. none of the respondents said that xenophobic attacks would put them permanently out of business. on the contrary, most said they would simply raise the capital and start up again. the logical implication of the determination to stay in business is that xenophobic violence has failed in its two main aims: to drive migrant entrepreneurs out of business and to drive them out of the country and back to zimbabwe. the respondents were asked if they would return to zimbabwe as a result of xenophobic attacks and the general consensus was that they would not. a significant number noted that they had settled in south africa with their families and did not want to return. many more made reference to the fact that the crisis in zimbabwe meant that there was nothing for them to return to, even if they wished to do so: there is nothing in zimbabwe. i am not going back. i am trying to make my life here. my wife is here and my child is here. i am not going back there. zimbabwe is a country i love. it’s just that at the moment things the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa 900 are tough and there is really nothing to do when you return back home (johannesburg interview no. 11). while the hardships which i face in south africa are many they are still better than the hardships i endured back in zimbabwe. in the event of future attacks, i could try and survive because at least i will be doing something (johannesburg interview no. 13). i could never go back because there are no means of surviving. i could simply have to look for an alternative way to survive while in south africa. even if they attack me i will look for another means to survive as long as i am not dead (johannesburg interview no. 19). i am not going back. there is nothing to do in zimbabwe especially because we left a long time ago. what will we do there? so we stay here because this is where our life is. we are establishing here and so if you leave you have to start again. i am not going back. when xenophobia starts we simply move to areas that are safe and return when it is quiet (cape town interview no. 12). perceptions of government inaction all of the respondents were asked about the response of the south african and zimbabwean governments to xenophobic violence. the responses ranged from the outright cynical to the totally dismissive. not a single respondent said they had been helped by either government and none were prepared to defend their response to xenophobic violence. most were extremely critical of both governments. the general consensus was not that the governments did not do enough but rather that they did nothing at all. in the case of the zimbabwean government, the prevailing sentiment was captured by one johannesburg respondent who said: the zimbabwean government does nothing. i have never heard them comment or say anything about these attacks. they do not help us at all. they do not send anyone to come and see how we are living and even provide us with assistance. there is no government that helps us (johannesburg interview no. 2). jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera explanations for why the government “does nothing” ranged from sheer lack of interest in what happened to zimbabweans outside the country, a lack of resources to do anything to help and a desire to see zimbabweans return home instead of staying in south africa. much harsher criticism was reserved for the south african government’s practice of “doing nothing”: the south african government does not do anything. at least nothing that i know of. they are just silent. we just see the police, but they come too late and do not do anything. they do not arrest anyone even though you report. they are just moving about, but really doing nothing. i sometimes think that even the police hate us the foreigners. would they do the same and not help if foreigners attack local people? no, they would arrest us. so the police do not help us and would rather see us gone. even the community leaders do not do anything (johannesburg interview no. 2). some of the people in government are fuelling xenophobia. they are also xenophobic because they say a lot of things that are not true. like we are the ones who are causing problems here. they had problems here before we came. they are very corrupt but they are the ones that tell people that foreigners are the cause of the problems. people listen to the government. they keep saying that foreigners are bad. what do you expect the people to do? the people follow their government (cape town interview no. 5). they are the ones that cause it so they do not care. the one that occurred in durban it was the king who incited people. now he is saying he did not do it but we all saw him on tv. the government does not care for us. they care about their people only. if it were foreigners doing violence against the locals, we would all be in jail (cape town interview no. 6). some felt that xenophobic violence was tolerated by government because it supposedly achieved the desired effect of getting “foreigners” to leave the country. a recurring theme was police inaction during episodes of mass xenophobic violence. some felt that the police were extremely slow to respond. as one the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa 902 respondent noted “the police usually come late when everything has been done and people have been killed or their goods stolen” (cape town interview no. 5). others commented on how the police offered no protection even when they were present: both the city of cape town and the police are not protecting us at all. like on the day that the people were demonstrating, the police were there. they were just walking. after they were passing, the people started taking our things. there was no one to protect us and no one to stop those people. so, i don’t know what they are doing. i think they just put on uniform and walk around. when there is trouble they don’t come to protect us (cape town interview no. 4). the police just stand at the robots. or they run away. there is poor enforcement because their response is very slow. containers were being opened and things taken while the police stared. they are either scared of the people or because it’s their own people so they can’t stop them. there were three police vehicles, but they just stood while people’s containers were being opened. only foreign containers were broken and they knew whose container it is. no containers for local xhosas (south africans) were broken into and destroyed (cape town interview no. 12). one respondent felt that the reason for inaction was that “south africans do not fear police” and compared the police behaviour with that in zimbabwe: they throw stones at the police. have you ever seen people throwing stones at the police in zimbabwe? no, they do not do that. here they just do what they want. so they attack foreigners even if the police are there. unless the police are using teargas or throwing water. but they rarely do that. but you can run to a police station if you are close and seek refuge. there are other areas where the local people even attacked police stations – attacked foreigners in police stations (cape town interview no. 7). there was also a pervasive view that there was little point in reporting theft or assault to the police because nothing was ever done, based on past experiences of police inaction. dockets may have been opened but the jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera perpetrators were rarely arrested and brought to book and stolen goods were rarely, if ever, recovered: it was the mob that took the things and what would i tell the police? besides there were many people whose goods were destroyed that i never bothered. the police do not help much. it is useless to report to the police. the police here do not care. especially if you are a foreigner. they will just tell you it is a mob. they cannot arrest a mob (johannesburg interview no. 2). the argument that the police were not particularly concerned by what happened to “foreigners” was very common. one respondent claimed that even if a perpetrator was arrested, “as soon as they have gone around the corner they will ask for a bribe and release the person. as soon as the person is released they will either come and shoot you or permanently injure you” (johannesburg interview no. 18). another said that they had reported a robbery to the police and even named the assailants but little was done: they took down my details and the details of the things i lost. i listed all of them and went with them to the police station. i was told that they would call me when they have made progress and that was that. i went back but there was no progress. the officer who was dealing with the issue kept telling me there were no suspects and that there was nothing they could do. i even gave them some names of the suspects because i had seen some of them, but the police officer did not even take them down. he insisted that there needed to be a witness for him to put those people as witnesses. i thought he should have at least questioned them or gone to their homes and searched. neither was done (polokwane interview no. 4). apart from the failure to protect, in a xenophobic environment in which migrants are extremely vulnerable, there is always the possibility that the police themselves might seek to take advantage of the situation for their own personal gain. this was certainly the view of many of the respondents who described persistent police harassment, and even theft, during business hours: the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa 904 they know that we are not south africans. sometimes the metro and police can just come and take your products. during winter they came and took socks and hats. once you just try to confront them, they tell you that this is not your country, go back to your country. tomorrow the same thing can happen again. the police officer will just come and say they lost the gloves and take another pair. if that day they are in the mood of arresting people, they will arrest you despite the fact that they took your things before. some are those who arrest you and ask for a certain amount of money like zar 200 even if you don’t have it. maybe that day you only made zar 50 and if you try to explain that you don’t have the money, they threaten to take all your stock. if the stock value is more than zar 200 and i don’t have it, i am forced to ask from other people. if they assist me, i give them and they go and if not, they take all my stock (johannesburg interview no. 1). confiscation of stock appears to be relatively common and the owners are forced to pay large fines to retrieve their goods. in many cases, the fines are so heavy that they simply abandon the goods, borrow money and begin again. simply to be allowed to operate in an area for a day or to avoid impounding of goods may require payment of a bribe of up to zar 200. mobile vendors play a continuous cat and mouse game with the police, ready to pack up their goods and disappear at the first sign of a police car. in sum, police protection cannot be counted on during episodes of mob violence and there is also very little redress when individuals report crimes against their businesses or themselves to the police. fear of reprisals from those they report or identify is also a very real disincentive to getting the police involved. as a result, there is a certain fatalism and resignation to the inevitability of losing goods and property in general or isolated attacks. conclusion crush and ramachandran (2015a) argue that there are three main policy and scholarly responses to violence against migrants in general, and migrant entrepreneurs in particular: xenophobia denialism (the official position of the south african government since 2008 and supported by some researchers jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera who argue that south africans are equally as vulnerable to violence as migrants); xenophobia minimalism (whose proponents suggest that xenophobia may exist but it is an epiphenomenon and that the real causes lie elsewhere) and xenophobia realism (which argues that xenophobia is not only widespread and real but can take a violent form in specific places and under certain circumstances). this paper revisits these arguments from the perspective of a group of migrants themselves, that is zimbabweans running businesses in the informal economy. the migrants clearly have no difficulty in naming what happens to them as xenophobic. nor do they hesitate, on the basis of first-hand experience, to name south africans as the “owners of xenophobia.” their accounts clearly demonstrate that they see xenophobia as a key driver of the hostility, looting and violence that they experience. we suggest in this paper that xenophobic violence has several key and common characteristics that constantly put zimbabwean informal enterprise owners at risk of losing their and their property. we also argue that the deep-rooted crisis in zimbabwe, which has driven 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'land of opportunity and despair': zimbabwean migrants in johannesburg. journal of social development in africa, 29: 55. steinberg, j. 2012. security and disappointment: policing, freedom and xenophobia in south africa. british journal of criminology, 52: 345-360. tawodzera, g., chikanda, a., crush, j and tengeh, r. 2015. international migrants and refugees in cape town’s informal economy. samp migration policy series no. 70, cape town: samp. tevera, d. 2013. african migrants, xenophobia and urban violence in postapartheid south africa. alternation, 7: 9-26. thebe, v. 2017. ‘two steps forward, one step back’: zimbabwean migration and south africa’s regularising programme (the zdp). journal of international migration and integration 18: 612-633. weerasinghe, s. and taylor, a. 2015. on the margins: noncitizens caught in countries experiencing violence, conflict and disaster. journal on migration and human security, 3: 26-57. http://samponline.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/acrobat71.pdf https://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/52/2/345.full https://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/52/2/345.full ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 671 the role of trust and migrant investments in diasporahomeland development relations leander kandilige* abstract research into the role of diaspora communities in origin countries’ development is a growing phenomenon. however, there is little understanding of the role of trust in mediating transnational relationships between migrants and recipients of remittances (non-migrants, members of migrant households and community leaders). using a case study methodology, mixed methods and a comparative approach – in-depth interviews with 40 key informants (20 in the uk and 20 in ghana), 120 questionnaires administered in the uk and 346 questionnaires administered in ghana – this paper examines differing conceptualisations of trust among ‘development partners’ in the process of negotiating as well as implementing migrant-funded development projects. it also examines the nature of investments of migrants in the origin country. migrant respondents are from the kwahuman traditional area and the upper east region of ghana. ghana is used as a case study to examine this phenomenon both from the perspective of the migrant and that of the origin country partners. narratives by migrants are examined in order to unearth factors that inform their decision-making and the approaches they adopt to ensure accountability. survey results are also used to highlight associations between key variables. the findings indicate that the bulk of the expenditure on productive activities by migrants takes place outside of household circles. consequently, productive uses of migrant remittances are grossly under-reported due to a lack of trust between migrants and beneficiaries in the origin country. keywords trust, diaspora, development, hometown associations, diasporahomeland relations. introduction globally, migration of people across national borders has increased for a variety of reasons. recent statistics indicate that approximately 244 million international migrants participated in this process in 2015 (undesa, 2016). *lecturer, centre for migration studies, university of ghana and research associate, refugee studies centre, department of international development (qeh), university of oxford. email: lkandilige@ug.edu.gh ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 672 this substantial number of international migrants is associated with equally considerable amounts of remittances. global remittance flows totalled about $601 billion in 2015, with developing countries receiving about $441 billion, according to the world bank (2016). as migrant populations congregate in common destination locations, some of them coalesce around common symbols of identity and belonging. with time, this strength of association increases as members of migrant communities (from a common origin) feel that they are not fully accepted by the destination community and they develop a nostalgic feeling about their roles in helping develop their communities of origin. these migrant communities, over time, are designated as ‘diaspora’ in recognition of their deliberate decision to assert their rootedness in their societies of origin. diaspora relations with the homeland are constructed as mostly positive in terms of the potential development resources that could be granted to origin countries (castles et al., 2014; kandilige, 2012; mohan, 2008). however, in some circumstances, diaspora groups are perceived as potential security threats to both the origin and destination countries due to their sometimes non-transparent and activist relations within their homelands (baser, 2015). these two perspectives highlight the value of trust in the sustenance of mutually beneficial relations between diasporas and their homelands. this paper seeks to examine the shifting bases and prerequisites of trust building and consider the prospects of replicating these structures in a transnational setting. the concept of transnationalism refers to “the process by which transmigrants, through their daily activities, forge and sustain multi-stranded social, economic, and political relations that link their societies of origin and settlement, and through which they create transnational social fields that cross national borders” (basch et al., 1994: 7). the discussion is framed around the key questions: what is the role of trust in micro and meso level interpersonal relationships? how do ‘lower level’ trust relationships feed into the transnational setting? what are the prospects and/or dilemmas for transnational trust to work in practice? a multiple case study methodology and mixed methods approaches were adopted in the collection and analysis of primary data (bryman, 2012; teye, 2012). the paper is arranged into five main sections. after this introduction, the different interpretations of the concept of diaspora are assessed. an attempt is made to define development from both the perspective of human wellbeing and that of traditional market-focused economics. in addition, the concept of ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 673 trust is examined in order to highlight its role in fostering relations between diaspora members and development partners in home countries. secondly, a review of diaspora-homeland relations in ghana is presented in order to highlight general perspectives on the role of the diaspora in ghana’s development. thirdly, the methodology adopted for study is discussed. fourthly, findings on the experiences of ghanaian migrants in the uk are presented in order to highlight the impact of trust deficit in diasporahomeland relations at the transnational level. lastly, conclusions are drawn based on the migrants’ narratives and perspectives from partners in the origin country. conceptualising diaspora, development and trust defining diaspora the term diaspora has been subjected to multiple definitions in the social sciences. for instance, it has been used as a figurative designation to describe alien residents, expellees, political refugees, expatriates, migrants and ethnic and racial minorities (safran, 1991). commonness of place of origin, source of identity and mode of dispersion (voluntary or involuntary) of “diasporans” (vertovec, 2006) characterise the ghanaian diaspora. place of origin is sometimes defined at different spatial levels by migrants. as a result, the national attribute of ‘ghanaianess’ serves as a higher identifying characteristic to migrants in a foreign country than their ethnic or clan affiliations. cohen (1997; 2008) sub-divides diaspora into “victim,” “trade” and “labour” diaspora in an attempt to reflect the different reasons that sometimes inform migration decisions in the first instance. the first wave of ghanaian emigrants in the mid1960s migrated for economic reasons to other west and southern african countries (anarfi & kwankye, 2003) and formed “labour” and “trade” diasporas. the second substantial wave of emigrants fled the country during periods of political upheaval in the late 1970s and 1980s. over time, these individuals coalesced into a “victim” diaspora in countries such as the united kingdom, the usa and canada. contemporary movements comprise of mostly labour migrants and this cohort of emigrants has bolstered the ghanaian labour diaspora. scholars such as safran (1991: 83-84) insist on specific characteristics that a given society must possess before being described as a diaspora. going by safran’s (1991) detailed set of requirements, the ghanaian migrant communities abroad might not fulfil all of the criteria. however, others such as clifford (1994) and dufoix (2008) advocate a more liberal approach. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 674 clifford (1994: 305), for instance, acknowledges that “societies may wax and wane in diasporism.” this alludes to the organic nature of feelings of attachment to the homeland, depending on existential factors in migrant communities’ relations with their destination countries. dufoix (2008: 19-34) also points out that diasporas should not be perceived as pre-existing groups that have static features that meet or do not meet specific academic criteria, but rather that they can be “heterogeneous populations that are selfconsciously imagined” and developed into collectives through “the projects of émigrés and states.” marienstras (1989: 125) introduces a temporal dimension to diaspora formation. in line with this, koser (2003) refers to the ghanaian diaspora as a “neo-diaspora,” based on its relative newness compared to others such as the classic jewish diaspora. kleist (2008), however, argues against what she perceives as the undue focus on migrant communities defined by dispersion and, rather, proposes that the term diaspora should be conceptualised as “a concept of a political nature that might be at once claimed by and attributed to different groups and subjects” (kleist, 2008: 308). ghanaians abroad increasingly claim the label ‘diaspora’ as a political statement of their affinity to a country experiencing socio-economic development partly attributable to the discovery and production of oil and a sustained period of democracy (wong, 2013). conversely, the government of ghana attributes the label ‘diaspora’ to nationals abroad with an aim of attracting development resources. in spite of discrepancies in how diaspora is conceptualised, the commonalities in definitions refer to individuals that form a community outside of their country of origin due to a range of factors and are either unable or unwilling to return ‘home’ on a permanent basis, but hold the prospect of doing so in the future. these are also people who perceive a sense of belonging to and a need to contribute to the development of their origin country. in the case of ghana, nationals living abroad have routinely attempted to have both virtual and physical presence in the country’s development agenda. however, there is no common understanding of what the ‘development’ they seek to contribute to entails, how this endeavour could be realised and under what conditions. defining development the association between diaspora and homeland development could, therefore, vary depending on how ‘development’ is defined. both scholars and practitioners have subjected the concept of development to multiple ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 675 interpretations. for instance, within the field of migration studies, basok (2003) defines development to include activities linked to economic growthrelated variables – such as the generation of employment and increase in agricultural production – and welfare-related variables, such as reduction of poverty, increase in average income and decrease in inequality. others note that development needs to be examined closely through the prism of agency-oriented interpretations of human wellbeing (de haas, 2009; sen, 1999; nussbaum, 1992; griffin, 1986). this conceptualisation is markedly different from definitions by classical development economists such as rostow (1960) and lewis (1955), who measure development by economic growth, especially the increase in market activities. on his part, amartya sen (1999) argues that the prime focus of development discourses should be on how to maximise substantive freedoms such as access to education, good nutrition, shelter, political participation and healthcare. he perceives these freedoms as basic yet integral to any claims of development. this perspective of development is consistent with that of dudley seers (1969) who famously defined development as “the reduction and elimination of poverty, inequality and unemployment within a growing economy.” ghana has been lower middle-income country since 2011, with an economic growth rate of 14.4 percent in 2011 that made it one of the fastest growing countries in the world, boasting a us$1,580 per capita income and one of the highest gdp per capita in west africa. despite this, ghana continues to experience inequalities, especially between the northern and southern regions of the country (oseiassibey, 2013). as de haas (2009: 5) aptly concludes, development is not only a complex multi-dimensional concept, but can also be assessed and analysed at different levels and has varying meanings within different normative, cultural and historical contexts. how the seemingly uncontroversial concept of development is defined has implications in terms of engendering trust between the promoters and beneficiaries of that development. diasporas, as agents of development, do not imply a carte blanche relationship with development partners in origin countries. trust is critical. defining trust just as with the concepts of development and diaspora, trust means different things to different scholars. mohan (2006), for instance, situates trust within the broader concept of obligation. he examines this within parekh’s (1996: 264) conceptualisation of obligation as “social actions that the moral agent ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 676 ought to undertake and his failure to do which reflects badly on him and renders him liable to social disapproval.” within this interpretation of obligation, the moral agent is defined flexibly to include the migrant, nonmigrant or former migrant who is expected to be self-critical and conscious of the impact of his or her actions on society. failure to deliver on their socially prescribed obligations leads to the lost of credibility and incurs social disapproval. within the ghanaian context, at the local and community levels, interpersonal relations and social transactions are characterised by mutually dependent social obligations. as such, mohan (2006) regards trust as central to the mutual exchange of resources and information among ascribed ethnic groupings in ghana. lyon (2000: 665) further notes that the sources of these socially prescribed obligations are located in “reputations, sanctions and moral norms.” however, what are the prospects of (re)producing these obligations in a transnational setting? in discussing transnational activities of cameroonian and tanzanian home associations, mercer et al. (2009) cite examples of how the absence of transnational trust sometimes leads to tensions between migrants and home community members, particularly around community development projects. therefore, the authors perceive trust as key in sustaining both the negotiation and implementation of such projects. more importantly, smith and mazzucato’s (2009: 669) work conceptualises trust in transnational relationships as stemming from long-standing relationships created through shared past experiences and reciprocal economic and social investments in one another. they note that relationships of trust established between migrants and friends are freer from social obligations than those with family relations. according to smith and mazzucato, when transactions fail, it is easier to apply sanctions on friends than on family members, due to a feeling of entitlement on the part of family members. the different conceptualisations of trust ultimately form a subset of the broader discourses on “social capital” (putnam, 2000) and are used to guide the ghanaian case study in order to unearth the particular challenges migrants face in negotiating the preconditions of trust within a transnational setting. perceptions on diaspora-homeland development the diaspora is increasingly being courted as a potential development partner in ghana (kandilige, 2012; mohan, 2008). as a result, specifically earmarked contributions by the diaspora have been incorporated into recent national development plans in the country (for instance, see: ndpc, 2015; ndpc, 2010; ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 677 ndpc, 2005). at a practical level, diaspora-homeland relations find expression in the political rhetoric, civil society discourses, legislative enactments and initiatives by international development agencies such as the international organisation for migration (iom) and the united nations development programme (undp). the aspirations of the political elites in encouraging an increased role for the ghanaian diaspora can be captured by two important observations. the first one is by a former ghanaian president, john agyekum kufuor: i must acknowledge the contributions made by our compatriots who live outside the country... many of you do more than send money home, many of you have kept up keen interest in the affairs at home and some of you have even been part of the struggle of the past twenty years (mohan, 2006). the second is by a former minister of finance, osafo-maafo: may i humbly invite ghanaians overseas to use the natural advantage they have over their home based countrymen such as proximity and access to the latest technology, foreign exchange, reliable export markets and partners with know-how to begin to make direct investment into our economy (mohan, 2008). both quotes point to an appreciation of the transnational nature of international migration and the possible opportunities that could be exploited by the homeland through its ‘extraterritorial’ citizens (baubock, 2003; escobar, 2007; castles et al., 2014). within the transnational theory, cash and social remittances are acknowledged as important development tools at the disposal of homelands without any express requirement on migrants to return to their countries of origin on a permanent basis. this is a significant departure from previously popular complaints by leaders of developing countries about the “development of underdevelopment” (binford, 2003; lipton, 1980) due to brain drain and the ‘poaching’ of skilled african migrants by the developed ‘core’ countries (pang et al., 2002; desai et al., 2002; voigt-graf, 2008; chanda, 2001; dovlo & nyonator, 1999). these pronouncements are backed by policy formulations and events that have tended to facilitate diaspora engagement processes.* ghana drafted a national migration policy in 2014 (launched in april 2016) in order to effectively manage migration in a way that yields positive development outcomes. in addition, a diaspora support unit was created in 2012, under the ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 678 auspices of the country’s ministry of foreign affairs and regional integration. its specific responsibility was to identify and provide the needed support to the ghanaian diaspora purposely to increase their interest in national development. this unit was later upgraded to a bureau (diaspora affairs bureau) in 2014 – a possible sign of an even greater appreciation of the role of the diaspora in national development. another concrete step has been the initiation of the process of drafting a national diaspora engagement policy (started in 2015), drawing on the expertise of the centre for migration studies at the university of ghana and other development partners such as the iom, the international centre for migration policy development (icmpd) and ecowas. the transmission of what peggy levitt (1996) refers to as social remittances to ghana by members of the diaspora has also been hugely significant. these have included the transfer of ideas, behaviours, practices and social capital accrued from destination countries. these transfers have been executed by individual members of the ghanaian diaspora as well as facilitated by international organisations such as the iom and the undp. individual social remittances have included ideas on democratic governance, transparency and accountability, human rights, punctuality, work ethics and assertiveness, among others. in addition, social capital derived from their membership of business and epistemic networks abroad have enabled the ghanaian diaspora to promote transnational investments and collaborations in ghana (kandilige, 2012). equally noteworthy is the role of international agencies (especially the iom and undp) that have initiated projects such as the knowledge transfer programmes for the purposes of bolstering socio-economic development in the country. a classic example is the migration for development in africa (mida) initiative launched by the iom in 2001 to assist in the transfer of critical skills and resources of the african diaspora to their countries of origin. ghana benefited from the circulation of competencies, expertise and experience of the ghanaian diaspora (faist, 2008). another example is the undp’s programme referred to as the transfer of knowledge through expatriate nationals (tokten). this mechanism allowed for the tapping of professional skills of expatriate ghanaians through the means of short-term consultancies in ghana. in terms of cash remittances, ghana has recorded year-on-year increases in the volume of remittances, which has consistently surpassed the ratio of some ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 679 ‘macro’ variables such as foreign direct investment (fdi) and overseas development aid (oda) to gross domestic product (gdp). for the period from 1990 to 2003, bank of ghana data suggest that private unrequited transfers had a significant impact on the country’s gdp. as a percentage of gdp, remittances increased from about 2 per cent in 1990 to about 13 per cent in 2003, and also increased from 22 per cent to almost 40 per cent as a percentage of total exports earnings (addison, 2004). there was a similar trend of year-on-year increases in the aggregate volume of cash remittances from 2004 to 2014. the bank of ghana recorded a rise in remittances from $1.2 billion in 2004, to over $1.9 billion in 2008, to $2.1 billion in 2014, to $4.9 billion in 2015 (bank of ghana, 2015; kandilige, 2012; bank of ghana, 2016). the injection of such cash contributions could support economic development in the origin country. however, as the human development report (undp, 2009: 71) notes, “impacts are complex, context-specific and subject to change over time.” for development to be triggered in ghana as a result of diaspora activities, it depends to a large extent on the internal dynamics in the country. as de haas (2009: 52) concludes, migrants and their remittances can neither be expected to “trigger take-off development nor be blamed for a lack of development in fundamentally unattractive investment environments.” methodology and methods a multiple case study research methodology, involving two different geographical areas in ghana, was adopted to guide this study. the context and processes involved in the activities of members of two ghanaian hometown associations (kwahuman association and kasena-nankana development league) based in the uk were analysed. this enabled a measurement of their peculiarities as well as similarities. these two hometown associations represent the eastern and upper east regions of ghana, respectively. this kind of research strategy has firm roots in classic studies in other social science disciplines (burgess, 1983; cavendish, 1982; sassen, 2006). mixed methods were adopted for this study that allowed for the triangulation of results and complementarity of techniques (bryman, 2012). the selection of respondents from the two regions was actualised by tracing leads from migrants belonging to the two selected hometown associations to their home regions in ghana. migrant associations provided information on their contacts and partners in the origin communities and they were interviewed for more information on the nature of and basis for their collaborations with migrants. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 680 the overall logic of the methodology adopted was to glean quantitative data on frequencies, associations, patterns and proportions in addition to qualitative data that helped provide an in-depth explanation for behaviours, decisions and reactions by respondents. the innovation in this study partly stems from the fact that it was conducted in both the origin and destination communities in order to build a holistic perspective on the concept of trust, rather than the single-sited approach often embraced by most migration researchers (werbner, 2002; osili, 2004; mohan, 2006; mercer et al., 2009). the first stage of the study was carried out in the greater london area (especially the boroughs of southwark, lambeth, newham, hackney, haringey, lewisham, croydon and brent). the main reason for the choice of these boroughs was that most ghanaian migrants are based there (compas, 2004). the second phase was conducted in the upper east and eastern regions of ghana. the upper east region is among the poorest of the ten regions of ghana. it is located in the north, and accounts for comparatively fewer migrants. the eastern region is much richer and, located in the south-eastern part of the country, it accounts for one of the largest sources of ghanaian migrants outside of the african continent (kandilige, 2012). the differences in economic affluence, migration prevalence and geographical location are important because they provide apt comparative parameters. the fieldwork in the greater london area included in-depth interviews with twenty key informants from the ghanaian migrant community, participant observation activities, informal conversations and the administration of 120 questionnaires. the aims of these data collection strategies were to gauge, among others, migrants’ participation in group activities, their transnational support to local communities, their main partners in the origin community, challenges they face and the value they place on the concept of trust in their transnational relationships. the ghana fieldwork included 20 in-depth interviews with local chiefs, district chief executives (local government officials), community development leaders and executive members of local hometown associations (located in urban centres). these interviews focused on how development projects are negotiated with migrants abroad (the uk), how they are implemented, the role of the origin communities in local development, their perceptions on the effects of collective remittances on poverty alleviation and income redistribution and possible new areas of collaboration with migrants. all ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 681 interviews were conducted personally by the author and at respondents’ homes, places of work, restaurants or pubs. in order to gauge the perception of the beneficiary communities, 346 questionnaires were administered among heads of migrant households (246 in the kwahu traditional area and 118 in the upper east region). of these, 66 per cent were male and 34 per cent were female. the data presented in this paper are from a bigger project** carried out over fifteen-months. the paper is based on the narratives of respondents from the two hometown associations and their development partners in ghana as well as some survey statistics. findings trust as a critical component in diaspora-homeland relations: the case of ghana this section examines the concept of trust between diasporas and their homelands by using the experiences of ghanaian migrants in the uk and their local partners as a case study. these are analysed under four main sections: knowledge about the types of investments migrants make, engaging family/relatives to carry out projects, migrants’ individual experiences and hometown associations’ group experiences of initiating and executing migrant-funded projects. knowledge about investments in general empirical research among 364 migrant households in ghana indicates that the bulk of remittances received, according to heads of migrant households, were predominantly used to pay for education, daily upkeep and solving family emergencies (see figure 1). almost 44 per cent and 34 per cent of respondents in kwahu traditional area and the upper east region, respectively, reported using remittances for education purposes. this is consistent with international research, which also suggests a positive relationship between remittances and educational attainment and enrolment (rapoport & docquier, 2005; coxedwards & ureta, 2003). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 682 n=246 figure 1. purpose of remittance. there was, however, a discrepancy between what migrants themselves and heads of migrant households claimed about how remittances were actually spent. on the one hand, heads of migrant households generally claimed that the bulk of remittances were spent on ‘consumptive’ expenditures (connell & conway, 2000). on the other hand, migrants indicated that only a small percentage of their total remittances were sent to migrant households for such ‘consumptive’ expenditures. so what accounts for this apparent disjuncture? there could be a myriad of reasons for this disparity but the most common refrain by migrants was that they did not trust their families or relatives in ghana to run their businesses honestly and properly and, as a result, failed to declare such projects to them. this suggests that some heads of migrant households were either not informed about some of the business ventures and investments (‘productive’ expenditures) their migrant relatives own in ghana, or were aware but not involved in the running of such ventures. to test this assertion, an analysis of the number of migrants who had funded, already set up or were in the process of setting up businesses in ghana was carried out. where 32 per cent of respondents (migrants in the uk) reported having funded, set up or were in the process of setting up businesses in ghana, less than 9 per cent of heads of migrant households in ghana reported that their migrant relatives had made such ‘productive’ investments. this implies that 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 p e r c e n t a g e kwahu upper east ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 683 the bulk of the expenditure on ‘productive’ activities by migrants takes place outside of household circles. furthermore, when a direct question was posed on investment in ‘productive’ activities in general, up to 84 per cent of respondents (heads of migrant households) in the upper east region and 67 per cent in the kwahu traditional area believed that their transnational relatives had neither businesses nor stores in ghana (see figure 2). this marked disparity suggests the need for empirical research into the relationship between remittances and development to consider both the perceptions of the receiving households or communities and the views of the migrants themselves. this is critical because a lop-sided examination of the extent of migrant investments in homelands, only from the perspective of heads of migrant households without a matched sample from migrants, is likely to underestimate the magnitude of ‘productive’ investments. n= 353 figure 2. perceived investment habits of uk-based ghanaians by heads of migrant households). knowledge about investments in housing and residential arrangements of migrants international empirical research suggests that a large proportion of remittances are spent on housing-related expenditure in migrants’ home countries, generally. this has been the case in countries such as morocco, where between 71 per cent (de haas, 2003) and 84 per cent (hamdouch, 67 20 9 4 0 84 12 3 0 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 no yes, set up a business yes, opened a store don't know other kwahu upper east ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 684 2000) of remittances have been spent on housing, and egypt where 54 per cent of remittances are spent on housing (adams jr., 1991). also, osili (2004) reported that a large proportion of remittance income to nigeria is spent on housing. he concludes that a ten (10) per cent increase in remittance income in nigeria raises the probability of investing in housing by three (3) percentage points. consistent with these high percentages, the study found that over 81 per cent of respondents in the uk had investments in either private housing or real estate development as a business (see table 1). additionally, more than a third of the uk respondents have either set up or were in the process of setting up a business or a store in ghana. table 1. investment patterns of ghanaian transnationals in the uk. sector frequency percentage housing only 59 49% housing plus business and stores 38 32% total housing 97 81% no investments 16 13% no response (refused to answer) 7 6% total 120 100% beyond some productive investment interests of ghanaian migrants being concealed from members of their immediate families, there also appear to be gaps in knowledge about the residential arrangements of migrants in the origin community. there has been an appreciable chunk of migration literature on the apparent conspicuous nature of migrants’ investments in housing, especially second houses (mohan, 2006; de haas, 2007; fadloullah et al., 2000 in de haas, 2009 and van der geest, 1998). these residential edifices are preserved as a sign of prestige by migrants and only occupied very occasionally when they are on holiday to the origin community or when they are attending special events such as funerals, weddings, anniversaries or religious and cultural celebrations. a classic example exists in the residential ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 685 arrangements of one migrant (kojo) from the kwahu traditional area in the eastern region of ghana, who owns a spacious six-bedroom house (see figure 3) on an exclusive migrants’ residential enclave. this property contains three washrooms, two living rooms, a mini bar and two garages, among other amenities. interestingly, up to ten months in a year, a caretaker occupies this ‘mansion.’ kojo’s uk-based nuclear family only visits kwahu over the easter festive period to participate in paragliding and some cultural celebrations. in contrast, kojo’s mother, eight siblings, nephews and nieces all live in a rundown mud house (see figure 4) located two towns away from the migrants’ residential enclave. he indicates that his family in ghana is unaware of the existence of his opulent house and that his decision to keep it a secret stems from his anxiety over likely excessive demands for money by members of his left-behind household (see mohan, 2008; henry & mohan, 2003), requests from them to occupy his property on a ‘temporary’ basis and his fear of envious neighbours and family members killing him using juju (voodoo). this is an extreme example of trust deficit in migrant-homeland relations. however, it is another example of the difficulty of sustaining trust relations in a transnational context. kojo’s account challenges smith and mazzucato’s (2009) conceptualisation of trust since in spite of the long-lasting relationship between kojo and his family in ghana, which should have informed a reciprocal economic and social investment from him, he fails to replicate this at the transnational level. he, however, trusts an outsider (caretaker) over his family, in line with smith and mazzucato’s views that social obligations are freer with outsiders than with family members and sanctions are easier to apply on outsiders. within parekh’s (1996) conceptualisation of obligation, kojo’s actions have the propensity to be judged negatively by his community and to incur social disapproval. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 686 figure 3. posh migrants’ mansions (mostly occupied by caretakers). figure 4. rundown accommodation occupied by parents and left-behind household members of a migrant. trust deficit in supervisory roles misgivings expressed by migrants about informing members of their leftbehind households of their investment interests are further corroborated by survey results among migrant households in ghana in three main areas (running of businesses on behalf of migrants, supervising building projects and clearing goods from harbours). these areas are selected as important in testing the level of migrants’ trust in their families and relatives in ghana, because they are activities that involve large amounts of capital or cash transactions. less than 20 per cent of heads of migrant households reported ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 687 any involvement in the running of businesses or clearing of goods on behalf of their relatives in the uk. the supervision of building projects, whilst slightly higher than the other two activities, still accounts for less than half of all cases (see table 2). these total figures are slightly lower than in cases of city-based migrant household members where up to half are involved in supervising housing construction for migrants, according to previous research (mazzucato, 2011: 460). the increasing reliance on friends, associates and former work colleagues to supervise projects and to conduct business transactions on behalf of migrants is again consistent with smith and mazzucato’s (2009) assertion that obligations with ‘outsiders’ are freer than those with family members. however, beyond the absolute percentages of heads of migrant households who are involved in the three key activities, inferential statistics (chi-square test) is used to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference between the two regions in terms of the level of trust. the results (table 2) show that there is a statistically significant association between migrants’ trust in relatives to supervise their buildings and the hometown of the migrant, χ2 (1, n= 363) = 13.425, p < 0.001). however, the results (table 2) indicate that there is no statistically significant association between migrants’ trust in relatives to run a business for them and the hometown of the migrant, χ2 (1, n= 364) = 1.012, p > 0.001). furthermore, the results demonstrate that there is no statistically significant association between migrants’ trust in relatives to clear goods for them and the hometown of the migrant, χ2 (1, n= 362) = 1.533, p > 0.001). table 2: level of involvement in capital-intensive activities on behalf of migrants. supervise a building (dependent variable) home town (independent variable) no yes eastern region (kwahu traditional area) 189 (73.5 %) 57 (53.8 %) upper east region 68 (26.5 %) 49 (46.2 %) ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 688 total 257 (100.0 %) 106 (100.0 %) χ2 statistic = 13.425, df = 1, n = 363, *p = 0.000 < 0.001 run a business home town (independent variable) no yes eastern region (kwahu traditional area) 214 (68.6 %) 32 (61.5 %) upper east region 98 (31.4 %) 20 (38.5 %) total 312 (100.0 %) 52 (100.0 %) χ2 statistic = 1.012, df = 1, n = 364, p = 0.198 > 0.001 clear goods home town (independent variable) no yes eastern region (kwahu traditional area) 201 (66.3 %) 44 (74.6 %) upper east region 102 (33.7 %) 15 (25.4 %) total 303 (100.0 %) 59 (100.0 %) χ2 statistic = 1.533, df = 1, n = 362, p = 0.138 > 0.001 source: author’s fieldwork. ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 689 trust: migrants’ personal experiences several ghanaian migrants in the uk genuinely feel let down by their own family and relatives and have resorted to relying on help from friends and former colleagues to run and manage their businesses and building projects (see also smith & mazzucato, 2009: 667-669). this seems to account for the marked disparity in the perceptions of members of migrant households and the reality on volumes of ‘productive’ investments undertaken by migrants. personal accounts help contextualise the levels of mistrust. for instance, ‘ibrahim’s’ own sister misappropriated his funds: when i started [a housing project], i gave my sister 30 million [cedis] to start but when the old man died and i went home, i asked her where’s the house and she said she spent the money... my own sister, one mother one father (sic). no! so i don’t allow them to go even near my things (56 year-old male migrant, upper east region). ‘yaw’ was also cheated and betrayed by his relative: that has been a problem honestly ... it started off with my sister-in-law she actually bought the land and you know ghana the way they are, i even realised that they inflated the price of the land like five times. then she told me the boyfriend was a contractor. when i was sending the money they were not even using the money to do the project, she was now using it for her own thing. so i had to get rid of that contractor, get another person to do it, so the initial money i spent was just wasted (61 year-old female migrant, eastern region). these two quotes demonstrate the sense of frustration and despair that characterise some relations between migrants and their kin. family members and relatives are expected by society to observe relations that parekh (1996) conceptualises as relations of obligation. failure to adhere to these socially constructed obligations reflects badly on them and attracts social disapproval. accounts of outright disregard for the investment capital of migrants, some of whom have experienced incidents of discrimination and racism in the host country (see herbert et al., 2006), have engendered a feeling of resignation on the part of some migrants. this despair is evident in what a female migrant from the kwahu traditional area had to say: you can’t help ghanaians. that’s one thing you just cannot. honestly they take too much advantage and they think we don’t know what goes on, we do. even though we’ve been away from the country for a long time, ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 690 we still know what goes on (secretary of the kwahuman association, uk). similar expressions of doubt and mistrust discourage some migrants from investing in the origin country altogether. some of those migrants who invest in private accommodation units reported either using the services of private real estate developers to construct their houses or purchasing already built houses in an attempt to avoid embezzlement of funds by family relations. that is the difficult side of it. as i said you send them money and they embezzle it so it is difficult for us people living over here to put up houses because your own brother or sister or best friend that you trust to do something for you will clean you out (58-year old female migrant, uk). trust: experiences of migrant collectives versus homeland partners feelings of mistrust are a double-edged sword and examples of such feelings also exist from the perspective the origin country. in-depth interviews with chiefs, community development leaders and members of local-based hometown associations in ghana suggest both cordial relations with migrants in the process of negotiation and implementation of migrant-funded community-based projects, but also tensions between migrants and home communities. on the one hand, instances of prior discussions between migrants and local stakeholders as well as collaborative work have been recorded. these were more prominent among the kwahuman association members and their ghanaian partners. examples include detailed discussions of proposed projects in origin communities between migrants and traditional leaders during migrant-funded overseas trips by traditional chiefs. they sometimes invite nana [the chief] and his elders to visit the uk but especially holland and the usa. they pay for all their travel expenses so that nana and his elders will go over to brief them on what is going on, on the ground. they then fundraise and send the money to support whatever projects they agree on (linguist to the paramount chief, abene, eastern region). such cordial deliberations have helped cement relations between members of the ghanaian diaspora and development partners from their origin communities. these negotiations form a basis for the transfer of both cash and in-kind collective remittances towards community development. for that matter, projects supported are not dissimilar to those reported from other research among the cameroonian diaspora (mercer et al., 2009), pakistani ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 691 diaspora (werbner, 2002), mexican diaspora (smith, 2003) and moroccan diaspora (de haas, 2007). these mostly include the donation of used medical equipment, educational materials, street lighting, potable water and computing equipment, the renovation of old public buildings and the setting up of scholarships for local students. two examples of donations to health facilities are provided: they [migrants] used to send clinic or hospital equipment especially beds, mattresses, wardrobes and other materials that are being used at the hospital. the other day they brought some one or two containers full of hospital equipment alone (sic) ... they brought incubators, bicycles for people with cardiovascular problems and so on and they are all at the hospital now (chief of abetifi, kwahu, eastern region). they brought about 50 sets of beds. the chief gave them a place to store them and when some are broken then they go and replace them from the stores. secondly, an electric plant was donated to the clinic, a generator to the clinic so that when the lights go off they can use it. when the machine arrived they called nana [the chief] and everyone in the town and he inaugurated it. we the local association here in abetifi have also built a shed to cover it in order to protect it from the elements (sub-chief of abetifi, kwahu, eastern region). on the other hand, mistrust is manifested, transnationally, in differences in the value placed on remittances by origin partners as opposed to diaspora members. origin partners complain of over-estimation of the value of collective remittances sent by members of the diaspora and a lack of appreciation for the magnitude of contributions made by local-based hometown associations towards community development. diaspora members are accused of placing unreasonable demands on local counterparts. this feeling is demonstrated in two quotes from representatives of two migrant communities in ghana. i actually run into problems with the people in the uk. if you send $100 or £100 and you think that it is a lot, and that’s for the year. when i gave an example of how much my wife and i alone have contributed to development of our town, they took offence but i was just doing some analysis. when you compare their earnings and ours, they should be doing more. so they [migrants abroad] should not feel that if they send £100 that is so much money (chairman of a local hometown association, upper east region of ghana). ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 692 i think they [migrants abroad] brought in $2000. at that time it was the equivalent of about 16 million cedis. when you hear 16 million cedis it sounds big but when it goes to the ground it can’t do much (sic). so sometimes that is the problem we have with them [migrants] because they find it difficult to understand why they bring in the money and they don’t see what it has been used for. because they could not understand this, they refused to top it up and since we were also having our different projects going on, we were not be able to raise extra money to do what they wanted us to do (community development leader, kwahu, eastern region). migrant collectives (hometown associations), however, insist that their incredulities or suspicions are based on actual experiences of cases of embezzlement of collective remittances by some local counterparts. there are also accounts of lack of transparency in the selection of community representatives and the refusal by others to publicly acknowledge receipt of collective remittances (see mercer et al., 2009). a representative of the one of the selected hometown associations in the uk aptly portrays these claims in the following statement: yes, that was a good plan to build a big roof supermarket…so we started with stage one which according to them the government of ghana had given them about 350 million cedis so we donated 170 million cedis which, you know, will come to half a billion to start the project. they were rushing us. our people ordered me to go and present to them the 170 million cedis, which was the equivalent of £10,000 at that time and the money is gone astray! (treasurer, kwahuman association, uk). members of migrant collectives also hold their origin country partners to a high standard of openness and accountability in line with socialised values, probably cultivated in the host country (the uk). some migrant groups demand legitimacy and representativeness of local community groups as a condition for continued funding. this assertion is partly borne out by demands such as these: i demanded certain guarantees from them because i needed to make sure that the election of people onto that committee was fair and that whatever they did they had a constitution that guided them as to, you know, what they wanted to work on, and i wasn’t really impressed with the fact that they were just hand picking people to sit on it. so i decided to kind of step back for now … i’ve worked in this kind of area for many years here in the uk so i am fairly aware of what can go wrong if you don’t get the group or groups set up properly with ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 693 the right representation. you could cause lots of problems (52-year old female migrant, upper east region). in addition, migrants request evidence of receipt and use of collective remittances as a monitoring tool but also as a useful advertisement to future donors. forms of evidence range from audio clips of radio broadcasts, footage of tv coverage, photographs in print media or on the internet and formal acknowledgement of receipt in writing on headed paper by development partners. failure to deliver on these requests sometimes leads to mistrust and frustration on the part of migrants. these socially prescribed obligations are located in “reputations, sanctions and moral norms” (lyon, 2000: 665). this is captured in the remarks made by one fundraiser for the kwahuman association: the reason i haven’t continued to fundraise is, you know, when you collect this fundraising money these people [british] they want evidence to see that you haven’t spent the money. so initially i sent £500 to them [local partners] so now i’m waiting for them even to send me a picture to prove we’ve done the foundation or we’ve done this or that. every time i phone, i don’t get any word from them (sic) (61-year old female migrant fundraiser, eastern region). cases of mistrust emanating from lack of publicity on migrants’ collective remittances are not limited to the ghanaian context. an instructive example exists in mercer et al.’s (2009: 154) account on cameroonian and tanzanian home associations. according to them, the bali cultural and development association, uk (bcda-uk) cut its links with the bali nyonga development and cultural association (bandeca) in the homeland because the bandeca’s water department had failed to acknowledge the bcda-uk’s donation of 500,000 cfa francs (about £500) in its published list of donors. conclusion this paper has highlighted the limited involvement of familial relations in the execution of productive investments that are funded by diaspora members. while a substantial proportion of remittances are directed at funding the cost of education, healthcare and daily upkeep of migrant households in origin communities, the paper demonstrates that the bulk of expenditure on ‘productive activities’ takes place outside of household circles. even though ‘consumptive expenditure’ could generate long-term multiplier effects beyond the immediate recipients (de haas, 2005), ‘productive expenditure’ yields direct, immediate effects on job creation and improvements in living ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 694 standards. this questions the scope of new economics of labour migration theorists’ interpretations of the household as the most appropriate unit of analysis of migration as a livelihood strategy. lack of trust towards family members has negative implications on the potential of remittances as household poverty alleviating resources. the paper also finds that there are some similarities in the preconditions and basis of constructing trust in social relations both within the local and transnational contexts. as lyon (2000: 665) notes, fundamental sources of socially prescribed obligations are located in “reputations, sanctions and moral norms.” the risk of reputational damage, imposition of social sanctions (real or perceived) and the ascribed normative culture form the basis of trust within the local sphere. these prerequisites are equally valid in the transnational context but geographical proximity and the attendant immediacy of effects of social sanctions on the social actor engender greater intensity in trust relations locally compared to transnationally. also, parekh’s (1996: 264) conceptualisation of obligation as “social actions that the moral agent ought to undertake and his failure to do which reflects badly on him and renders him liable to social disapproval,” has limited application in the transnational context. while social actions around the provision of consumptive goods are critical in migrants’ transnational interrelationships, substantial productive investments are broadly based on “long-standing relationships created through shared past experiences and also reciprocal economic and social investments in one another” (smith & mazzucato, 2009: 669). these transnational relationships do not have to be familial. to this extent, how much of the estimated $601 billion remitted globally in 2015, out of which $441 billion went to developing countries (world bank, 2016), was actually directed at productive uses? this and the level of involvement of migrant households in managing productive investments ensuing from these remittances are difficult to ascertain by conducting single-sited empirical research only among migrant households in origin countries. the ghana example is instructive as well as illustrative of the nuances that international/intergovernmental development agencies, such as the undp, the iom, the world bank, the european union (eu) governments and others, 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the dual citizenship act [act, 591, republic of ghana, 2002]; establishment of the nonresident ghanaian secretariat in 2004; the ghana investment promotion centre [promotion of tourism] instrument, 2005 [l.i. 1817]; the representation of the peoples [amendment] act [act 699, republic of ghana, 2006] and the investment summit in 2007). ** this project was among members of the ghanaian diaspora in the uk and heads of migrant households in ghana, community leaders and ghanaian political elites, the bank of ghana, ghana statistical service and the department of national archives. the uk component of the bigger study comprised of interviews with 20 key informants, a survey of 120 ghanaian migrants, participant-observation activities and library research. the ghana ahmr, vol.3 no1, january-april 2017 701 component involved a survey of 346 heads of migrant households, interviews with 20 key informants (community leaders and political elites), data from the bank of ghana, ghana statistical service and the department of national archives. african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1717 internal migration, socio-economic status and remittances: experiences of migrant adolescent girl head porters in ghana kennedy a. alatinga abstract this paper examines the relationship between internal migration, socioeconomic status and remittances, drawing on the experiences of migrant adolescent girl head porters in the cities of accra and kumasi in ghana. through an explanatory sequential mixed methods research design involving 503 individual surveys and 24 in-depth interviews, the paper established that 61% of adolescents studied migrated from the north to the south to escape poverty while 29% migrated to work and raise money for school fees. the kayayoo business does not seem to capacitate the adolescent girls to live the kind of lives they have reason to value because only 36% of them remitted to their families. a logistic regression model showed that older adolescents, 1519 years, (aor=7.32, p<0.05, ci= [1.999-26.802] number of years spent working as head porter, 3-years, (aor=3.97, p<0.05, ci= [1.633-9.677] and socio-economic status – not poor (aor=8.63, p<0.001, ci=[4.761-8.435]) significantly influenced remittances. remittances capacitated recipient families to invest in human capital development and also improved household food security. this study recommends that, in the short-term, adolescents working as head porters to raise money for school fees must be identified and enrolled in schools, based on the ghanaian free senior high school policy, while the establishment of factories and industries in northern ghana to create employment opportunities could be a long-term measure. keywords: capabilities-aspirations, human transport, kayayoo, females, remittances, adolescents, ghana.  department of community development faculty of planning and land management university for development studies, ghana. email: kalatinga@gmail.com alatinga, k.a. 1718 introduction migration remains a critical part of human existence. migration, whether internal or international, is a public policy concern and is perhaps the most visible sign of globalization in the 21st century (goldin and reinert, 2012; iom, 2018). in developing countries, internal migration is largely a rural-urban phenomenon. this trend is justified on the hypothesis that urban residents have access to better infrastructure and services, including employment opportunities, health care, education and are generally more prosperous than rural dwellers (rice, 2008; white, 2016). urbanization is often equated with modernization, and socio-economic development (cyril et al., 2013). contemporary migration trends in developing countries, including ghana, reveal that the migration process is dominated by youth aged 18-24 years (white, 2016), especially adolescent girls (temin et al., 2013). migration may offer adolescent girls who migrate voluntarily the social space for socioeconomic advancement through access to education, access to quality health services, and remittances to reduce household poverty (mac-ikemenjima and gebregiorgis, 2018; nyasulu, 2017). migration trends in ghana in recent times reveal the movement of predominantly adolescent girls aged 10-19 years largely from the poorer northern regions of ghana to the richer urban markets of accra and kumasi with the aim of improving their socio-economic status (awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf, 2008; tufeiru, 2014). opare (2003) claims that most families and households mobilize financial resources, and some even borrow money to finance the adolescent girls’ travel to kumasi and accra. in the cities of accra and kumasi, most of these adolescent girls engage in the head-load carrying (kayayoo) business. the kayayoo ‘business’ is the situation in which adolescent girls literally use themselves as human transport by carrying loads of goods on their heads for unregulated fees to save money for later investment and remitting to their families back home (agarwal et al., 1997; tufeiru, 2014). it appears thus, that the kayayoo business in the urban market centers is a household survival strategy in response to poverty (awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf, 2008). thus migration becomes a conduit for the adolescent girls to aspire to change the poor socio-economic status of their families for the better. african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1719 however, there is currently little evidence on whether these adolescent girls’ aspirations of migration are met. for example, the adolescent girls’ ability to remit, the extent to which the kayayoo business improves the adolescents girls’ socio-economic status, financial situation, and their overall poverty situation and that of their families appear not to have received adequate scholarly attention. from a capabilities perspective, the extent to which the kayayoo business increases the capacity of the adolescent girls to be more secure and live the kind of lives they have reason to value, is also not known. in terms of income potential, head porters are reported to have low levels of earnings. for example, awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf (2008, p.177) and oberhauser and yeboah (2011: 22) found that female head porters are among the poorest of urban dwellers in accra, with an estimated average daily earnings ranging from us$ 1.20 to us$ 2.20 and us$ 3.20 to us$ 5.20 on a good day. the female head porters live and work under deplorable and harsh conditions including poor accommodation, which have implications for their health (nyarko and tahiru, 2018; opare, 2003). it is in these trying circumstances that the adolescent girls aspire to make money to finance their living costs, save and remit to their families in order to make a positive difference. examining whether or not the kayayoo business capacitates these female youngsters to achieve their aspirations is of crucial public social policy relevance because they are of school-going age and should normally have been in school. the sustainable development goal four (sdg 4) is loud and clear as it calls for inclusive and equitable quality education for all (unga, 2015: 17). the purpose of this paper is two-fold. first, it interrogates the adolescent girls’ ability to remit, their socio-economic status, financial situation, and their overall poverty situation and that of their families in the context of the kayayoo business. secondly, it makes a novel methodological contribution by deploying a mixed methods research design, drawing on the centers of aggregation sampling technique and purposive sampling, which are suitable for hard-toreach populations such as the female head porters (reichel and morales, 2017). earlier studies on the subject matter have been qualitative in nature, relying largely on intuition and convenience to draw their samples (baahennumh et al., 2012; nyarko and tahiru, 2018). section two presents a clear picture of the kayayoo business in ghana, followed by the theoretical and alatinga, k.a. 1720 conceptual literature in section three. the research setting and methodology are presented in section four. section five exemplifies the study results and discusses them. section six concludes the paper and makes recommendations. adolescents girls on the move: the case of ghana’s head porters ghana’s population is increasingly becoming urbanized. with an urban growth rate of 4.25%, ghana’s current urban population is estimated to be about 56%, making ghana the third most urbanized country in west africa (un, 2018). the proportion of the urban population is further projected to increase to about 63% by the year 2025 (awumbila et al., 2014: 6). scholars have pointed to several reasons that explain ghana’s adolescent girls’ movement from the north to the south to engage in head-load business – including high levels of poverty in the three northern regions, conceptions of female occupational career structure, and ghana’s urban light goods transportation structure. high levels of poverty compel people to migrate from the three northern regions of ghana (upper west, upper east and northern regions) to the two largest urban cities: accra – the national capital, and also the capital of the greater accra region, and kumasi – the capital of the ashanti region, in search of jobs and other economic opportunities (osei-boateng, 2012). these three northern regions also have the highest incidence of poverty in ghana. the latest ghana living standards survey (glss7) reports that poverty in the three northern regions worsened, from 70.7% in 2012/13 to 70.9% in 2016/17, in the upper west region, from 44.4% in 2012/13 to 54.8% in 2016/17 in the upper east region, and from 50.4% in 2012/13 to 61.1% in 2016/17 in the northern region respectively (gss, 2018). during the same period, the poverty situation improved in the ashanti and greater accra regions: poverty declined from 14.8% in 2012/2013 to 11.6% in 2016/17 in the ashanti region, and from 5.6% in 2012/13 to 2.5% in the greater accra region, compared to the national average of 23.4%. the conceptions of female occupational career structures, particularly in northern ghana, appear to fuel the migration practice of adolescent girls. for example, in ghana, kayayoo is considered a petty form of trading which is culturally understood as being women’s work, and so head-load carriers are self-employed, informal sector workers (agarwal et al., 1997). the authors indicate that the engagement of female children in kayayoo is considered as african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1721 part of the female occupational career structure. agarwal et al. (1997) argue that adolescent girls and women engage in kayayoo in order to build up capital to invest later in assets such as sewing machines and more rewarding occupations. besides, it is less expensive to invest in kayayoo than other informal sector businesses. the use of human transport in the form of adolescent girl head porters can also be understoond as part of the light goods transport structure in ghana’s urban markets. commerical traders and some shoppers in ghana’s urban markets engage the services of adolescent girl head porters to transport their goods from one point to another (agarwal et al., 1997). inappropraite urban physical planning and design resulting in overcrowding and congestion make the use of human transport within markets more convenient as compared to motor vehicles (agarwal et al.,1997; ardayfio-schandorf et al., 2012). the theory of migration: towards a conceptual and theoretical framework of aspirations and capabilities historically, colonial development policy was essentially urban-biased and northern ghana has long served as a labour reserve for the south (thomas, 1973). investments in modern health care and educational facilities were undertaken in southern ghana to the detriment of the north. after independence, dr kwame nkrumah, the first president of ghana, embarked on a rapid industrialization drive to usher in egalitarian development and eliminate the north-south development gap created by the colonialists (adarkwa, 2012). however, nkrumah’s industrialization policy concentrated particularly in the south, in the ‘golden triangle’ – accra-tema, kumasi and sekondi-tarkoradi – resulting in an unsuccessful policy (adarkwa, 2012). the migration of adolescent girls to ghana’s urban cities can be understood within the context of the north-south development gap. existing research such as ravenstein’s laws of migration (ravenstein, 1885), lee’s push and pull factor theory (lee, 1966), todaro and smith’s rational choice theory (todaro and smith, 2012), and stark’s migration decision-making model (stark, 1984), amongst others draw largely on development and economic theories or models to explain migration. the gist of these theories is that economic reasons fuel migration. for example, ravenstein (1885) argues that migrants drift from areas of low economic advantage to more endowed areas. lee’s alatinga, k.a. 1722 (1966) ‘push and pull’ theory suggests that ‘push’ factors such as poverty, the lack of job opportunities, poor social services and inadequate infrastructure in rural areas, and ‘pull’ factors such as better job opportunities and improved infrastructure in the urban areas are responsible for rural-urban migration. explaining the economic motives for migration further, todaro and smith (2012) suggest that the decision to migrate is calculated rationally based on expected urban-rural real wage differentials. migrants expect higher wages in urban areas than in rural areas, which are usually agriculturally dominated. according to stark (1984), rural-urban migration is a survival strategy where migrants under favorable conditions accumulate wealth and send remittances to their families. remittance is a key concept in the migration literature because available evidence suggests that migration and remittances reduce poverty, improve living conditions, improve household welfare and contribute to human development in origin communities (abdulai et al., 2017). other researchers (see for example, de haas, 2014; kleist and thorsen, 2017,)) also argue that poverty and economic factors alone cannot explain migration since migrants need a certain minimum of financial, human and social resources in order to migrate. the need for resources to migrate speaks to two important issues. first, it speaks to the fact that migration is selective because migrants have different abilities and respond differently to sets of circumstances triggering their movement (lee, 1966). carling (2002) argues that migration is restricted by poverty, illiteracy and lack of planning in the lives of the poor and disadvantaged. secondly, if poverty alone were the trigger for the movement of the adolescent girls, one would expect that the volume of movement would be reduced because of the resources and the initial financial costs needed to migrate. on the contrary, opare (2003) reports that the number of adolescent girl head porters keep rising every day in the urban markets. this scenario foregrounds other issues, such as aspirations and opportunities, in addition to poverty, that may occasion the movement of the adolescent girls (mac-ikemenjima and gebregiorgis, 2018). the different views espoused by researchers and the multifaceted nature of migration suggest that migration cannot be explained by a single theory. this paper therefore, draws on the capabilities-aspirations theoretical model to complement the main economic theories with a capabilities-aspirations theoretical conceptualization to explain the migration of the adolescent girls. african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1723 this conceptualization aims to advance a comprehensive understanding of the north-south migration of the adolescent girls in ghana. drawing on sen’s capability approach, human capabilities are regarded as the substantive freedoms people have or enjoy to live the kind of lives they have reason to value (sen, 1999). the range of human capabilities is diverse and varies from elementary freedoms encompassing being free from hunger to complex abilities such as achieving self-respect, irrespective of one’s socio-economic status and gender (sen, 1989). from this perspective, migration entails people’s capability or freedom to choose where to live or to stay (de haas, 2014). the concept of capabilities used in this context demonstrates the ability of individuals to achieve meaningful outcomes for themselves and their families through migration (preibisc et al., 2016). aspirations are more attitudinal or psychological in nature, including migration desires, needs and intentions (carling and schewel, 2018). aspirations depend on people’s life preferences and perceptions about opportunities and life elsewhere, shaped by culture, personal disposition and information (de haas, 2014). according to kleist (2017), aspirations present an excellent starting point for appreciating the link between migration and young people’s sense of the possibilities they have for their lives. this capabilities-aspirations framework is justified because migration first involves the wish to migrate, and second, the realization of that wish (carling, 2002: 6). in this sense, some people may aspire to migrate but may never realize their dreams because they lack the ability do so, thus becoming involuntarily immobile (carling, 2002; carling and schewel, 2018). furthermore, some scholars conceptualize migration as a function of aspirations and capabilities within a given set of opportunity structures (de haas, 2014). this means that structural conditions in society may shape and offer opportunity structures that enable individuals and groups to pursue and achieve their personal or communal aspirations and capabilities (merton, 1968; preibisc et al., 2016). in societies where people are constrained by the lack of, or inadequate opportunity structures, adventurous individuals or groups may migrate to perceived opportunity-abundant locations in order to achieve their ambitions and aspirations (opare, 2003). put differently, where local opportunities do not allow people to live the kind of lives they have reason to value, they may migrate once they have the capability to do so. thus, alatinga, k.a. 1724 the lack of these opportunity structures constitutes impediments to individuals’ aspirations and their capacity to live the kind of lives they have reason to value. mac-ikemenjima and gebregiorgis (2018) report that the migration of eritrean youth is largely due to lack of appropriate institutional arrangements to achieve their aspirations and limited opportunities for employment. deploying the aspirations-capabilities framework, de haas (2014) observed that despite significant increases in income and the improvement in general living conditions between 1998 and 2000, rural-urban migration in morocco had continued unabated. based on this observation, de haas (2014: 16) argues that neo-classical push-pull economic models failed to explain migration adequately because it is an integral part of social change, and “to understand society is to understand migration, and to understand migration is to better understand society”. thus, relying on economic push-pull factors alone reduces migrants to objects that lack capabilities, perception and are deprived of social relations (de haas, 2014). theoretically, the aspirations-capabilities framework explores the fact that migration may be valued, and yearned for in its own right. adventure, curiosity or experience and the need to be independent from parental control may drive teenagers to migrate (carling and schewel, 2018). viewing migration beyond economic factors also allows one to distinguish clearly between the instrumental (where migration is a means to achieve an end, such as earning higher incomes, higher social status, better education) and the intrinsic (value attached to the migration experience, the joy and pleasure derived from exploring new societies) nature of migration (de haas, 2014). people may migrate not just to achieve material and social resources and lifestyles but because of wanderlust and a desire to discover new horizons (de haas, 2014). consistent with carling and schewel (2018), de haas (2014) suggests that the youth demonstrates an innate desire to migrate for varied reasons, including the psychological need to separate from their parents, to prove their independence and satisfy their curiosity. adolescents and youth may also aspire to migrate to meet future partners and acquire basic assets in preparation for marriage. for these reasons, migration may be considered a fundamental capabilities-enhancing freedom in its own right (de haas and rodríguez, 2010). opare (2003) argues that the current phenomenal rise in african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1725 the rate at which teenage girls and young women migrate southwards from the north is in fulfillment of their aspirations. research setting and methodology this research was conducted in the accra and kumasi metropolitan areas. accra and kumasi are the biggest and most urbanized cities in ghana where the adolescent girls usually go to engage in the kayayoo business. while accra is located along the coast, kumasi is centrally located and serves as a traversing point from all parts of the country. major financial institutions and government ministries also operate in these cities. accra contributes about 2030% of the national gross domestic product (gdp) and has the highest average per capita income in ghana while kumasi has the second highest average per capita income (oberhauser, 2011). these two cities are also endowed with modern health care and educational facilities. prior to data collection, the author visited the research sites and met with the leadership of the kayayoo association in accra and some key informants in both accra and kumasi who have been working with the head porters as part of a formative study. thereafter, research instruments – a questionnaire for a cross-sectional survey and an in-depth interview – guide were developed. an explanatory mixed methods research design was deployed in collating and analyzing data. because hard-to-reach populations and migrant populations are characterized by the difficulty in sampling from them using standard probability methods (gile and handcock, 2010), quantitatively, time-location sampling was considered appropriate for generating random estimates for the migrant adolescent girl head porters (reichel and morales, 2017). additionally, there are no accurate statistics on female head porters in ghana, hence no sampling frame is available (lattof, 2018). time-location sampling assumes that it is possible to adequately reach and cover the target population at predefined locations through random sampling of those locations, using the ‘centers of aggregation sampling technique’ (reichel and morales, 2017). the centers of aggregation sampling technique produces a list of non-residential locations where the target population concentrates (reichel and morales, 2017). the rationale behind this strategy is that the random selection from this list provides interviewers with the locations where they also randomly select the final respondents (reichel and morales, 2017). alatinga, k.a. 1726 in accra, the following locations (markets) were listed: agbogboloshie, tema station, mataheko, rawlings park, nima, madina, mamobi and tudu market. subsequently, agbogboloshie, tema station, and madina were randomly selected. in kumasi, the following locations were listed: aboabo station, central market, adum, kejetia, roman hill, asawase, alabaa, and dr mensa. of these, aboabo station, kejetia, and roman hill were randomly selected. in each of these selected locations, centers of aggregation, where the head porters frequently met or visited, were created (salentin, 2014). the centers of aggregation sampling technique was then used to select the study respondents from these locations. adolescent girls between the ages of 10-19 years, and who had been in the kayayoo business for six months or longer were included in the study. this time frame was considered long enough to determine the adolescent girls’ remittance ability, their socio-economic status, financial situation, and the overall poverty situation of the girls and their families. these processes resulted in the administration of 503 questionnaires – 253 in accra, and 250 in kumasi. the questionnaire was 9 pages long and comprised 87 questions including: the socio-demographics of the respondents, income and savings levels, remittance history, their socio-economic status, and their financial and poverty situations. for purposes of international comparisons, the socio-economic status of the adolescent girls was determined using the world bank’s poverty line of us$ 1.90 a day. adolescents whose daily incomes fell below us$ 1.90 were categorized as poor and those whose daily incomes were above the us$ 1.90 poverty line were considered not poor. data collection was done mostly on sundays when the head porters conglomerated, resting or washing their clothes. the survey data was entered into a data base using epidata, and then exported into stata version 14.0 for analysis. double entry was done to minimize errors. cross-tabulations, chi-square test and logistic regression models were used to analyze the data. qualitatively, purposive sampling was used to select some of the girls for in-depth interviews on specific issues, in order to assess the validity of the quantitative findings. twelve in-depth interviews were conducted in both accra and kumasi. all the interviews were conducted in the local dialect (twi), taperecorded and later transcribed verbatim into english. thematic content analysis was employed to analyze the qualitative data manually. after listening to the audio recordings several times and comparing them with the visual transcripts to ensure that the recordings and the visual transcripts were african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1727 consistent, the data was then categorized and summarized into themes based on the research objectives. the themes were then compared across the various respondents to establish any similarities and differences in their responses (leech and onwuegbuzie, 2008), with the aid of the verbatim quotes. results and discussion table: 1 background characteristics of respondents background characteristics frequency (n) percent (%) age group 10-14 37 7.4 15-19 466 92.6 level of education none 183 36.4 primary 121 24.1 jss/jhs 158 31.4 secondary/technical 41 8.2 marital status married 79 15.8 never married 415 82.8 divorced/widow 2 0.4 cohabitation 5 1.0 ethnic group dagomba 215 42.7 mamprusi 210 41.7 walla 14 2.8 gonja 33 6.6 others 31 6.2 religion islam 459 91.3 christian 33 6.6 traditional/other 11 2.2 city of migration accra 253 50.3 kumasi 250 49.7 number of years working as a head potter alatinga, k.a. 1728 source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 age, educational status and length of stay as head porters as illustrated in table 1, nearly 93% of the adolescent girls (92.6%) fall in the age categories of 15-19 years. this age bracket is the prime time for the adolescents to be at senior high schools or at tertiary schools. it was thus not surprising that one-third of the girls had no formal education while 31% of them attained junior high school status, with only 8.2% of them attaining secondary/technical education status. regarding the duration of their stay in the kayayoo business, more than half (59%) of adolescent girls had worked as head porters for 1-2 years, 28% of them had worked for less than a year, while 13% of them had worked for 3-4 years or longer. these variables – age, length of stay in the kayayoo business, and the educational satus of the adolescent girls – relate to their aspirations for migrating, their earnings potential, their socio-economic status and their ability to remit. for this reason, these issues are discussed in detail in light of the existing literature and the theoretical framework in the ensuing sections. as previously stated, all the migrant adolescent girls in this study came from northern ghana. their reasons for migration are presented next. <1year 141 28.0 1year 151 30.0 2years 145 29.0 3years 36 7.0 4years or more 30 6.0 ses( wealth index) poor 176 35 not poor 327 65 ability to send remittance to family yes no 181 36 322 64 job category frequency mean daily income std. deviation kayayoo business only 471 ghs 13 23.00 other jobs in addition to kayayoo 32 ghs 42.5 18.87 african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1729 figure 1 summarizes the adolescents’ aspirations for migrating source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 figure 1 clearly demonstrates that over 60% of the adolescent girls migrated to escape poverty. for this reason, poverty remains the core reason for migrating. poverty has reduced nominally in ghana from 56.5% in 1992 to 23.4% in 2017 (gss, 2018: 10-18). the reduction in poverty appears uneven – the gss report estimated that the number of poor persons living in poverty in ghana increased by close to 400,000 people. even so, these aggregate figures mask the reality because huge regional disparities abound – the reduction in poverty has largely not benefitted the northern savannah ecological zone. the incidence of poverty has been an endemic rural phenomenon. the highest poverty head-count in 2016/17 was found in the rural savannah zone at 67.7% (gss, 2018: 11). for example, the gss (2018: 14) illustrated that more 1 61 29 3 3 3 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 to escape forced marriage to escape poverty to raise money for school fees because my peers moved to be exposed to city life to escape fgm p er ce n ta ge o f a d o le sc en t g ir ls fig 1: aspirations for migrating aspirations for migrating alatinga, k.a. 1730 ghanaians were living in extreme poverty in 2017 than they did in 2013: the number of people living in extreme poverty increased from 2.2 million in 2013 to 2.4 million in 2017. the implication of this situation is that about 2.4 million people do not have access to the minimum daily requirement of 2,900 calories per adult equivalent of food per day, even if they were to spend all their income on food. at this rate of progress, and without any radical policy direction, achieving the first sustainable development goal (sdg) of ending extreme poverty by 2030, is questionable in ghana. the results support earlier research that reported that poor households living below the poverty line and who have high unemployment rates are most likely to send out members of their families as migrants to supplement family income (redehegn, et al., 2019). the results resonate perfectly with mainstream development and economic theories, especially lee’s (1966) push and pull factor theory, because in the context of the adolescents, poverty is the push factor propelling them to migrate. these results also point to the economic and social values of migration where the majority of adolescents see it as an opportune platform to improve their lives. consistent with the theoretical framework, 6% of the adolescent girls migrated because of peer influence and the need to be exposed to city life. in consonance with de haas (2014), these results are also aligned to the instrinsic value of migration, where young people aspire to migrate not merely to accummulate material and financial resources but also, importantly, for the joy and pleasure of doing so. as de haas (2014) explains, the social prestige attached to moving to the city to see the ‘bright lights’ coupled with the freedom to migrate increases people’s life satisfaction particularly in the context of rural-urban migration. four percent of the adolescents migrated in an effort to escape from outmoded socio-cultural practices such as forced marriage and female genital mutilation (fgm). these practices affect adolescent girls’ school attendance and performance as well as their psychological well-being. for instance, studies in tanzania showed that girls who underwent fgm missed school for several weeks to allow for a recuperation period to recover from their wounds, and the pain associated with fgm created a phobia for some girls who became so psychologically disoriented, that they could not concentrate on classroom learning (pesambili and mkumbo, 2018). african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1731 importantly, 29% of the girls migrated to raise money from the kayayoo business in order to pay school fees. this finding dovetails into the findings in table 1 because about 31% of the girls attained junior high school status and would probably seek to raise money to at least, attain senior high school status. one respondent corroborated this finding during an in-depth interview as follows: my aspirations for coming here have not been met. i came here to work and get money to pay my school fees because my parents can’t afford it. i am sorry for coming here, since up to now, i am left with 14 days for us to go back to school, and today my money is not even up to ghs 50 [us$ 9.31] (18-year-old adolescent girl, in agbogbloshie market, accra). another respondent remarked: the main reason why i migrated to kumasi is that my sister has gained admission into senior high school but there is no money to finance her education and there is no help coming from anywhere. if i do not do something about it, my sister will not further her education, so for this reason i have migrated to kumasi to work to support her education (19year-old adolescent, roman hill market, kumasi). the aspiration of the adolescent girls to migrate and work as head porters in an effort to raise money to pay their school fees is a function of poverty because if their parents could afford to pay the fees, the girls could be in school. at the 2019 women deliver conference in canada, the president of ghana, during a panel discussion suggested that ghanaian women were not equitably represented in the political landscape because women lacked activism and dynamism (ghanaweb, 2019). but the adolescent girls – future women leaders – have abandoned the classroom to transport heavy loads of goods in the urban markets to support their families, and in some cases, to support their brothers’ education. adolescent girls missing out on formal schooling opens up spaces for social and political inequalities between women and men and produces entrenched disadvantages, including poverty for women (kabeer, 2015). this study acknowledges the empowering potential of education and asserts that these adolescent girls must return to the classroom if the activism and dynamism alatinga, k.a. 1732 that the president demands of women to propel them into the political limelight is to be achieved. foucault (1977) postulated that knowledge is power because knowledge in the form of education acts as a catalyst for both individual civic participation and for higher levels of household well-being. education leverages knowledge to individuals in the form of acquired skills and innovative ideas to make them more employable in better paid jobs (alatinga and williams, 2015; 2019). kabeer (2008) suggests that women’s paid work has a transformative potential, leading to empowerment and agency; it also engenders social change. however, to ignite the desired social change, women’s paid work must be fulfilling – work that offers a sense of selfactualization – rather than being alienating – work taken up under extreme forms of economic compulsion, distress, sale of labor entailing hard physical labor under unfavorable conditions (kabeer, 2008). the kayayoo business fits the description of alienating work because it undermines the self-esteem and dignity of the adolescents as females, yet they take up this work because they have no choice of getting a fulfilling one. this study believes that repositioning the adolescent girls to take advantage of education is possible through the ghanaian free senior high school policy (fshsp). for example, if the 29% of adolescent girls in this study who were determined to raise money for their school fees were identified and supported to return to school through the fshsp, the multiplier effects of their contribution to community development would be enormous. earning potential, socio-economic status and remittances the estimated average daily income of the adolescent girls was (ghs 13 or us$ 2.41) for those adolescents who worked only as head porters and (ghs 42.5 or us$ 7.89) for those who did additional jobs. regarding their socio-economic status, figure 4 below illustrates that 35% of the sampled population was categorized as poor and 65% was categorized as not poor based on the world bank’s us$ 1.90/day poverty line. of the 35% poor population, only 10% managed to remit. it is likely that this category of adolescents engaged in other activities deemed as illicit in ghana, such as prostitution in their quest to earn income to remit to their families. the following quote supports this claim: some people practice prostitution. from midnight around 12am-1am most people in my room go out and do that. they do it [prostitution] themselves without force (18-year-old adolescent, in agbogbloshie market, accra). african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1733 another respondent also claimed: those who are into prostitution only do that to support themselves financially, and this is because we do not get the money we need from the kayayoo business. they are easily influenced by men to meet their needs (19-year-old adolescent, kejetia market, kumasi). interestingly, only half of those who were not poor were able to remit while the other half were unable to remit as shown in figure 2. figure 2: average monthly expenditure source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 based on the results in figure 2 above, a chi-square test was performed to determine the association between socio-economic status and the amount of money remitted annually, as shown in table 2 below. 120 16 117 12 19 35 7 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 a m o u n t ih g h s expenditure type average monthly expenditure alatinga, k.a. 1734 table 2: chi-square test of association between ses and remittance amount remitted annually (ghs) poor not poor total <100 0 (0.00) 28 (100.00) 28 (100.00) 100-300 17 (15.45) 93 (84.55) 110 (100.00) >300 1 (2.50) 39 (97.50) 40 (100.00) total 18 (10.11) 160 (89.89) 178 (100.00) source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 the chi-square test produced a chi-square value of 9 and a p-value of 0.010 at 95% level of confidence. the p-value of 0.010 shows a significant level of association between socio-economic status and the amount of money remitted annually. in other words, those who were not poor were better able to remit even higher amounts compared to the poor. nearly 98% of those who were not poor were able to remit ghs 300 (us $55.58) or more annually to their families. from the disaggregated data, the highest annual remittance amount was ghs 500 (us$ 92.63). one girl remarked: i have been able to support my mother and siblings back at home with the little money that i get in their feeding (sic) even though i wish i had the ability to do more or better especially with their education (19-yearold adolescent, kejetia market, kumasi). based on these findings, a logistic regression model was run to determine the predictors of remittances among the adolescents as presented in table 3 below. table 3: logistic regression analysis of remittances by adolescent girls head-porters in ghana variables unadjusted adjusted or (95% ci) or (95% ci) age group 10-14 (reference) 15-19 6.870(2.07622.733)** 7.319(1.999-26.802)* marital status married (reference) african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1735 never married 0.980(0.592-1.623) 2.150(1.097-4.211)* divorced 1.785(0.107-29.665) 2.473(0.077-79.501) ethnic group dagomba (reference) mamprusis 1.262(0.846-1.881) 1.664(0.991-2.794) walla 2.028(0.685-6.005) 1.400(0.403-4.857) gonja 1.014(0.466-2.207) 1.057(0.419-2.666) others 1.465(0.6803.157) 1.598(0.625-4.089) education none (reference) primary 0.795(0.499-1.268) 0.8201(0.471-1.430) jss/jhs 0.384(0.242-0.611)*** 0.425(0.240-0.752)** secondary/technical 0.288(0.126-0.659)** 0.230(0.088-0.599)** religion islam (reference) christian 1.014(0 .486 2.114) 0.765(0.310-1.884) traditional/other 1.479( 0.444 4.920) 2.126(0.492-9.185) city of migration accra (reference) kumasi 0.733(0.509-1.057) 1.028(0.634-1.666) number years working as a head porter <1year (reference) 1year 1.369(0.829-2.260) 0.996(0.550-1.804) 2years 2.879(1.592-5.207)*** 2.289(1.132-4.626)* 3years 3.102(1.532-6.279)** 3.976(1.633-9.677)* 4years & above 3.246(1.509-6.980)** 3.202(1.216-8.435)* socio-economic status (ses) poor(reference) not poor 9.41(5.456-16.231)*** 8.627(4.761-15.632)*** *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 the regression results show that the variables – age, marital status, education, number of years spent working as a head porter and socio-economic status – significantly influence the adolescents’ ability to remit at p<0.05, p<0.01, alatinga, k.a. 1736 p<0.001 significance levels respectively. based on the adjusted odds ratio (aor), adolescents aged 15-19 years were about 7 times more likely at p<0.05 significance level to remit compared to those aged 10-14 years. similarly, at p<0.05 significance level, the aor of 2, indicated that adolescents who were never married were twice as likely to remit relative to their married counterparts. the number of years spent working as head porter is significantly associated with the adolescents’ ability to remit. for example, adolescents who worked for three years as head porters are nearly 4 times more likely to remit compared to those who had worked for less than a year at p<0.05 significance level. at p<0.01, adolescents who attained junior high school and secondary/technical school levels were 0.43 times and 0.23 times respectively less likely to remit with reference to those who never attended school. this scenario reflects the findings in figure 1 because as many as 29% of the adolescents migrated to work as head porters to enable them to raise money for school fees. this category of adolescents may thus simply accumulate funds for the purpose of paying school fees; hence, they may not be in the position to remit. finally, at p<0.001, adolescents who were not poor were nearly 9 times more likely to remit relative those who were poor. this finding is also very consistent with the chi-square test results in table 3 as nearly 90% of the non-poor adolescents were able to remit various sums of money to their families. in this study, the kayayoo business had capacitated only 36% of the adolescent girls to remit various sums of money ranging from less than ghs 100 to over ghs 300 (us$ 18.5-55.58 annually. despite these amounts being lower than expected, the results amply demonstrated that receiving families used these remittances to increase household food consumption and also to pay school fees of children. atuoye et al. (2017) found that remittance-receiving households reported a high incidence of food security in both rural and urban settings in the upper west region of ghana. mabrouk and mekni's (2018) research in ethiopia reported identical results. remittances positively and significantly impacted upon the access, stability and utilization dimensions of food security. it does appear that the migration of the adolescent girls has an instrumental value. these favourable stories may make it difficult, if not impossible, to address the north-south migration of adolescent girls without a deliberate and coherent policy agenda that seeks to structurally transform the african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1737 economy of northern ghana through the establishment of factories and industries to create job opportunities to address the yawning development gap between the north and the south. these positives, however, appear to cancel each other out because the majority (64%) of the adolescents are unable to remit. because age and the length of time spent working as a head porter are positively and significantly correlated with remittances, adolescent girls would have to spend longer periods out of school or they may never return to school in order to work and raise money for themselves and their families. expenditure patterns of adolescent girl head porters fig 3: ses and remittances source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 as indicated in figure 3 above, the estimated average daily income of the adolescent girls was (ghs 13 or us$ 2.35). this amount was then multiplied by 30 – that is 30 days in a month to obtain the average monthly income – ghs 13*30 (ghs 390 or us$ 70.46). as shown in figure 3, the total monthly expenditure on the various items amounted to ghs 326. the average monthly income over expenditure was then computed as ghs 390-ghs 326=64 or us$ 11.56. the average daily expenditure on food was estimated at ghs 120/30 total sample 503 poor 176 (35%) remittance 17 (10%) no remittance 159 (90%) not poor 327 (65%) remittance 164 (50%) no remittance 163 (50%) alatinga, k.a. 1738 =ghs 4 or us$ 0.74. food, health, and water constituted the largest expenditure, amounting to 31%, 30% and 9% of income respectively. the health care expenditure related to only those respondents who sought and paid for health care in the past month preceding the survey (i.e. 63% of respondents). electricity constituted the lowest expenditure item, amounting to about 7% of the monthly income. the low expenditure on electricity is understandable because most of the adolescent girls lived in make-shift structures such as shacks, kiosks and containers, which may not be connected to the national grid. notably, the colossal health expenditure of the adolescents is an issue of relevance to the country’s social and health policy because such a huge health expenditure is potentially catastrophic to poor families – health expenditure that exceeds or equals 30%-40% of household incomes – and could further push both the adolescents and their families into extreme poverty (xu et al., 2003). the huge health expenditure is not surprising, given the physical and tedious nature of the adolescents’ work. the implication of the huge health expenditure is that the adolescent girls may adopt other coping strategies, such as cutting down on other necessities such as food and clothing. this appears to be the case with the adolescents because their average monthly food expenditure was ghs 120 (us$ 22.14). this figure translates to an average daily food expenditure of ghs 4 (us$ 0.74), but some even spend as low as ghs 1.50 (us$ 0.28). this amount of ghs 4 is too paltry to access any reasonable balanced meal in the urban setting to meet the daily calorie requirements of the adolescent girls in light of the brutal nature of their work. the qualitiave narratives (in this study) reported that feeding was sometimes difficult for some of the head porters. as highlighted earlier, some of these adolescents even indulged in activities such as prostitution, with its associated health risks such as contracting hiv/aids, and teenage pregnancy, just to make a living. prevailing financial situation and overall poverty situation in order to appreciate the prevailing financial and overall poverty situations of the migrant adolescent girls, the following two questions were asked: (1) based on the kayayoo work, how would you assess your current financial situation? (2) since you started the kayayoo work, how would you assess the overall poverty situation of yourself and your family back home? these african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1739 questions attracted mixed responses detailed in the results presented in tables 4 and 5 and the qualitative narratives below. table 4: current financial situation based on kayayoo business current financial situation based on kayayoo business frequency percentage more than adequate 5 0.99 adequate 113 22.47 just adequate 125 24.85 inadequate 260 51.69 total 503 100 source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 table 5: overall poverty situation based on kayayoo business overall poverty situation based on kayayoo business frequency percentage improved a lot 18 3.58 somewhat improved 175 34.79 remained the same 250 49.70 somewhat deteriorated 28 5.57 deteriorated 32 6.36 total 503 100 source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 the results from table 4 illustrate that over half (52%) of the adolescents saw their current financial situation as inadequate and fewer than 1% of them saw their current financial situation as being more than adequate based on the kayayoo business. these results are not surprising because as shown earlier, the average daily income of the adolescent girls ranged from ghs 13 (or us$ 2.41) to ghs 42.5 (or us$ 7.89). nearly half of the adolescents did not experience any changes in their poverty status. in fact, as shown in table 5, remarkably, nearly 12% of the adolescents reported that their poverty situation had worsened. the following qualitative narrative bolstered these quantitative results: alatinga, k.a. 1740 i and my family (sic) are now poorer than before. my father borrowed money (ghs 300) [us$ 55.58]) for me to come to accra because we thought i could raise enough money to pay that money. but for the past two years i have been here, i have been struggling to raise that money. the little money i get, sometimes ghs 8 in a day, i have to spend ghs 1.50 [us$ 0.28] on food, ghs 1 [us$ 0.18] to bath, ghs .50 [ us$ 0.090] for toilet use, pay for accommodation and light bill. and the person who gave the money to my father is putting pressure on him (14-year-old adolescent, madina market, accra). these findings are consistent with previous work. for instance, awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf (2008) and oberhauser (2011) reported that female head porters are among the poorest of urban dwellers in ghana. even so, as shown in table 5, 38% of adolescents indicated that their poverty situation had seen some improvement. the quote below lends credence to this finding: to speak the truth, my finances are okay now. i have been able to send money to my parents when they demanded some. i also buy things for myself. i have been able to gather money to send back home to cater for my younger brother’s fees since for the past three years my dad said he didn’t have (the money). just three days ago, i sent money home in preparation towards my brother’s school (fees) (18-year-old adolescent, agbogbloshie market, accra). these mixed results and narratives paint a worrying picture about the ability of the majority of the adolescents to improve their well-being through the incomes generated from the kayayoo business. disturbingly, from the earlier narrative above, migration had worsened the poverty situation of some of the adolescents and their families because some families borrowed money to finance the trips of their daughters. these findings are consistent with the existing literature; opare (2003) suggests that some families go to the extent of borrowing money to finance the travel expenses of the adolescent girls. the findings are also consistent with the aspirations-capability theoretical framework deployed in this work. the results aptly imply that the kayayoo business does not necessarily capacitate the majority of the adolescents to meet their aspirations in order to live the kind of lives they have reason to african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1741 value (sen, 1999). awumbila et al. (2014) and hagen-zanker et al. (2017) assert that migration does not always achieve its poverty reduction potential because of poor living conditions, exposing migrants to floods and diseases such as typhoid fever and cholera. involuntary immobility in order to appreciate the adolescents’ own subjective evaluation of their wellbeing relative to achieving their migration aspirations, the adolescent girls were asked whether they would like to return home. overwhelmingly, 93% of adolescents responded in the affirmative, as illustrated in table 6. table 6: return home or stay would you like to return home? frequency percentage yes 466 93 no 37 7 total 503 100 source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 however, the question to ask is: what prevents the adolescents from returning home if their aspirations for migrating are not being met? here is why: what am i going back home to do? the situation at home has not changed, there are no jobs for my parents to do and get money for my school fees. there is no food, there is just nothing, and so i can’t return home now because the family expects me to work and get money to help them (17-year-old adolescent, kejetia market, kumasi). the above scenario highlights carling’s (2002) concept of involuntary immobility initially used to describe the number of people willing to migrate but not being able to do so. instead of migration being considered a fundamental capabilities-enhancing freedom in its own right (de haas and rodríguez, 2010), it rather constrains the freedom of choice of the adolescent girls to return home. contextually, the concept of involuntary immobility may also be used here to describe the situation of the migrant adolescent girls who want to return home but are not able to do so because of lack of resources thus becoming involuntarily immobile. this finding fits in neatly with the alatinga, k.a. 1742 aspirations-capabilities theoretical framework because from the narrative above, the necessary structural conditions in the adolescents’ places of origin to shape and offer opportunity structures that would enable them to pursue and achieve their personal or communal aspirations and capabilities are inadequate or non-existent (merton, 1968). in summary, based on the evidence adduced here, the potential of the kayayoo business to improve the socio-economic status of the adolescents and their families does not seem bright. on the contrary, it looks bleak because 64% of them are worse-off in the kayayoo business. in this process, most of the adolescents become involuntarily immobile, and socially dislocated from their families. based on the capabilities-aspirations framework therefore, the kayayoo business does not seem to capacitate the adolescent girls to live the kind of lives they have reason to value. conclusion and recommendations this paper examined the relationship between internal migration, socioeconomic status and remittances, drawing on the experiences of migrant adolescent girl head porters in the cities of accra and kumasi in ghana. the evidence presented in the paper suggests that poverty is the chief driver of the girls’ migration. for this reason, the migration of adolescents largely appears to have an instrumental value, a kind of social protection mechanism to manage household poverty. yet, only 36% of the adolescents remit to their families for various purposes, including the payment of school fees and improving household consumption. factors such as age and the length of time spent working as a head porter positively and significantly influenced remittances. while remittances improved the lives of impoverished families, they carried a high cost for the adolescents, who stayed out of formal schooling, either temporarily or permanently. this study shows that the practice of adolescents forgoing formal schooling to engage in the kayayoo business, jeopardizes the future manpower development needs of ghana because women constitute 52% of the population, of which adolescents are an integral part. the process of migration also caused some adolescents and their families to be poorer because some families borrowed money to finance their trips. thirty percent of the adolescents’ earnings were spent on healthcare. some of these adolescents were unable to return home against their wishes, thus becoming socially african human mobility review, vol. 5 no. 3 (december) 1743 dislocated. based on the evidence, two strands of policy recommendations are proffered – short-term and long-term. in the short-term, the ministry of gender, children and social protection must collaborate with the kayayoo association to identify adolescent girls who work as head porters, to raise money to pay their school fees in line with the free senior high school policy. this strategy will ensure that such girls are not deprived of education because of poverty. in the long-term, the state must deliberately roll out plans to close or narrow the development gap between the north and the south through the establishment of relevant industries and factories to provide employment opportunities. northern ghana is a largely agricultural economy and so the construction of dams for irrigation to ensure all-year farming may help boost the local economy of the area. it is in this context that the government’s ‘one village, one dam’ and ‘one village, one factory’ policy, if successfully implemented, could provide a fertile ground for the structural transformation of northern ghana. acknowledgment the council for the development of social science research in africa (codesria) supported the research for this paper under the african diaspora support to african universities program. references abdulai, a.m., boakye-yiadom, l. and quartey, p. 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(2003). household catastrophic health expenditure: a multicountry analysis. lancet, 362 (9378): 111-7. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1439 book review children of hope: the odyssey of the oromo slaves from ethiopia to south africa, by sandra rowoldt shell. ohio university press, 2018, 352 pages. isbn: 9780-8214-2318-9. hardcover price: $49.95. hewan girma university of north carolina sandra rowoldt shell’s recounting of 64 first-person narratives of enslaved oromo (ethiopian) children is an innovative and well-written piece of research. as the horn of africa is an under-researched geographic area for the study of both domestic and external slave trades, the plurality of these firstperson slave narratives has much to teach the reader about the sensitive topic of african domestic slavery. while we can question if these accounts of the enslaved children (aged 10–19, with an average age of 14 at the time of the interviews) are typical, they nonetheless reveal a complicated and detailed history of slavery from the horn of africa. shell systematically coded the narratives to highlight trends and generate keen insights into the ordeal of the children’s first passage (moments of capture, identities of initial captors and subsequent slave traders, the commodity value of the enslaved, gender differences in terms of treatment and value, periods of domestic servitude, pre-capture social status, parental occupation, etc.). shell employs prosopography, a methodology of quantitative history (cliometrics) to systematically analyse the collective characteristics of the biographies. although she provides a brief synopsis of each of the 64 narratives in an appendix, shell analyses them as a group, highlighting similarities and variations in the children's’ experiences. in addition to the narratives, shell uses archival data, such as the records of the royal navy which liberated the children, and missionaries who interacted with the children at different times post-emancipation. additionally, shell refers to other external sources such as school records, a survey on repatriation issued by the lovedale missionary institute in 1903, death registers, personal correspondence, and other official documentations, thus providing for a more complete picture. moreover, to complete her rigorous methodological arsenal, shell employs geographic information system (gis) to map out the internal african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1440 journeys the children took before reaching the coastal areas and being transported out of africa across the red sea. the practice of slavery, both domestic and international, was widespread in the horn of africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. it was only outlawed and abolished in ethiopia in 1936 under the regime of haile selassie. domestic african slavery has been alternatively interpreted as ‘rights-in-persons’ and ‘slavery-to-kinship’ continuum within an intricate system of african social and kinship relationships. in the example of the oromo, the practice known as guddifachaa meant that child war captives were adopted and therefore incorporated into the victors’ kin group. in effect, this became a system of kinship absorption or ambiguous slavery, although disagreements on these interpretations abound. in the late 1880s, ethiopia experienced a devastating drought and ensuing famine that wiped out one-third to one-half of the country’s population. bartering children for food became a means of survival, and shell aptly notes that “enslavement was an individuated, not a collective process” (p. 191). shell indicates that there was no “concerted plan to enslave a particular group,” but that circumstances brought together 64 children who “shared a common heritage and a broad, common area of origin” (p. 194). while 83% of the enslaved children are of oromo origin, 7% were kafficho, 2.4% were shangalla, gurage, and yamo, and the ethnicities of 7.1% of the children could not be determined. shell erroneously asserts that these other ethnic groups are cognate with the oromo or share strong genealogical or political links to the oromo. in fact, these other ethnic groups were raided and enslaved, not just by highlanders, but also by oromo slavers. unfortunately, this is not the only place where shell makes an erroneous assertion about ethnic identity in ethiopia. the enslaved children repeatedly describe their captors and slavers as ‘sidama’, which shell misinterprets as abyssinian. for an afaan oromo speaker during the turn of the 20th century, ‘sidama’ was a generic term that referred to non-oromos, outsiders, aliens, or enemies. therefore, equating ‘sidama’ with abyssinian is reductive and incorrect. this misrepresentation is a disservice to the author’s otherwise brilliant scholarship as it stretches the narratives of the enslaved children to fit within a particular contemporary narrative. it also highlights the author’s limited knowledge about crucial aspects of oromo history, their internal migrations, and their encounters with other communities. a discussion of the place of the oromo in the larger story of local and transnational networks of slave trade in the indian ocean world is missing. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1441 shell argues that “any a priori assumptions that slaves were garnered from only the poorest and humblest of ethiopian society have to be abandoned” (p. 50), and advocates for an understanding that the children came from a broad spectrum of social strata, even royal lines. although the enslaved children emanated from all socioeconomic backgrounds, their religious status is revealing. the ethiopian orthodox church purposely neglected to penetrate the southern territories of its empire, enabling a continued source of subservient populations. as a result, the oromo either retained their traditional belief system of waqqifecha, which is closely linked with the gaada system of governance, or converted to protestantism and islam. all of these religions were subjugated compared to the older ethiopian orthodox tradition. this also meant that the oromo population could be used as slave labour by the more dominant ethnic groups based on religious grounds. shell makes some problematic and indefensible comparisons between the racial segregation of south africa’s apartheid regime and ethiopia’s presentday system of ethnic federalism. how can one conscionably compare a system of white (colonial) supremacy with indigenous ethnic federalism? she further rehashes a limited history of the ‘colonization’ of oromo principalities by the abyssinian empire without providing the necessary nuanced context to understand this complicated history of state expansion. for instance, while shell mentions the system of guddifachaa, whereby individual children are adopted into a new family, she neglects to address the system of mass assimilation campaigns knows as mogassa, where entire communities are voluntarily or forcibly integrated into the oromo group, thus gradually increasing the size of the oromo population. shell ardently criticises ethiopian studies for bypassing the history of the oromo, whom she paints as singularly oppressed, blurring the boundary between scholarship and political practice. yet, ethiopian studies has made tremendous strides over the last 60 years that take into account most of the criticism that shell levels. nonetheless, since this problematic historical reexamination of the ethnic plurality of ethiopia is not the key intervention of this book, it can be begrudgingly overlooked. while the internal trade of domestic slavery was controlled locally, arabs governed the red sea trade. from initial capture to the red sea crossing, the enslaved took slow and intricate internal routes and were used as domestic slaves. the author limits her analysis to the length of time between initial capture and arrival at the red sea crossing (from 1 to 9 years), and notes differences in the children’s treatment based on gender. since the girls were viewed as more valuable, their trek was generally shorter than that of the boys. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1442 moreover, while the first passage (from capture to the coast) was arduous, the middle passage across the red sea (unlike the trans-atlantic slave trades) took a matter of hours. in 1888 and 1889, the enslaved children were loaded into dhows with the intended destination of the arabian slave market. when the dhows carrying the enslaved children were intercepted by the british royal navy, the enslaved children regained their freedom. the year of the oromo children’s liberation coincides with the ascendency of king menelik ii to ethiopia’s imperial throne in 1889. the children became ‘prize slaves’ as the british were rewarding the liberation of slaves after the abolition of the slave trades in 1807. the irony that the europeans who were the biggest instigators and beneficiaries of african slave trades later became the self-styled saviors of enslaved africans is somehow lost in this narration. after reaching aden, the british decided that sending the children back to ethiopia would potentially condemn them to a life of slavery. the lovedale missionary institute in the eastern cape of south africa (founded in 1824 by the glasgow missionary society) would eventually become the home of the enslaved oromo children. the gender differences upon arrival were marked. the author notes that the girls seem traumatized, probably due to sexual trauma that the narratives fail to capture. since lovedale was the leading missionary institution of its era in south africa and educated many future leaders, the oromo children received unrivaled education. while shell implies that race did not matter in the integration of the oromo children in south africa, it is impossible to imagine this to be the unadulterated reality. after receiving their education in south africa, between 1900 and 1908, 21 of the 64 oromo children eventually returned to ethiopia (8 independently and 13 with german assistance). others either died or permanently remained in south africa. the fates of the rest are unknown. overall, this book provides the reader a complete overview of the children’s lives from pre-capture to enslavement to eventual return to their homeland. it is unequivocally a must-read for any person interested in the african slave trade, particularly as it concerns the first passage. for future research, it would be informative to learn about the long-term fairings of the survivors and their lives in south africa and ethiopia. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 129 an evaluation of the determinants of remittances: evidence from nigeria temitope j. laniran and daniel a. adeniyi abstract international remittances have grown to become an integral source of finance for development. existing literature posits that there is an association between remittances and growth in developing countries. economic growth models highlight the importance of capital accumulation and high level financial flows, the inadequacy of which characterizes developing countries and often explains their fate. it is argued that remittances will provide a panacea to the serious poverty experienced in such developing economies by increasing financial flows and household income, which in turn stimulates consumption, savings, economic growth and ultimately development. the robustness of this relationship is, however, often questioned. indeed, the propensity of remittances to achieve these aspirations very much hinges on the determining factors motivating the remitters and the magnitude of the remittances. hence, given the significant flows of remittances to the developing countries, this study attempts an analysis of the determinants of remittances to nigeria. key macroeconomic variables with theoretical potentials of influencing the level of remittances received were subjected to econometric model testing using time series data from 1980 to 2013. the results indicate that the level of remittances received is more a function of portfolio motives than other macroeconomic factors. keywords: migration, motivation, investment, growth, development. *graduate assistant at the centre for petroleum, energy economics and law, university of ibadan, nigeria and a doctoral researcher at the bradford centre for international development, university of bradford, united kingdom. email: lanirantemitope@gmail.com **associate programme officer at the centre for petroleum, energy economics and law, university of ibadan, nigeria and a doctoral researcher at the institute for social development, university of the western cape, south africa. email: adeolu.adeniyi@yahoo.com mailto:lanirantemitope@gmail.com mailto:adeolu.adeniyi@yahoo.com ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 130 introduction international remittances have increasingly grown to become an integral source of finance for development. remittances represent a vital source of income for poor households and a significant contributor to the gross domestic product (gdp) of nations, especially developing countries. evidence abounds that money sent home by emigrants makes up quite a large share of the revenue of most developing economies, sometimes larger than that of official development assistance (gupta, 2005; hagen-zanker & siegel, 2007; singh et al., 2010; costantinescu & schiff, 2014; world bank 2014a; 2014b). irrespective of the financial crisis plaguing the world, globally remittances have grown rapidly, especially between 1990 and 2000, and then trebled in the following decade, reaching us$335 billion in 2008 and us$489 billion in 2011 (unctad, 2012). in 2013, remittances to developing countries accounted for 74.5% of global remittances; these countries received remittance inflows in the region of us$404 billion. this figure was three times the size of official development assistance and, with the exception of china, remittance flows to developing countries were significantly larger than total foreign direct investment (world bank, 2014a). it is indeed a truism that poverty is pervasive throughout the world and often palpable in most developing countries. globally, it is estimated that 14.5% of the world’s population live in conditions of extreme poverty. in nigeria, the situation is much worse, as 62% of the nation’s population are in extreme poverty (world bank, 2015). when living standards are low and chances of improvement few and far between, people resort to leaving the shores of their own country in search of better opportunities. migration and remittances thus go hand in hand as migrants transfer funds back to their country of origin from their destination country. the number of emigrants from nigeria as a percentage of the population, according to the world bank (2011), was 0.6% as at 2010. in 2013 nigeria received remittance inflows of around us$21 billion (world bank, 2014b), representing 0.4% of the nation’s gdp. evidently therefore, remittances to nigeria represent a significant source of foreign exchange. few studies have been carried out on the determinants of remittances to nigeria. most of these studies have tended to lay emphasis either on the micro level or have distinguished the determinants of remittances to urban ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 131 or rural areas. however, the macroeconomic determinants of remittances to nigeria remain relatively unknown. this study seeks to assess the macroeconomic determinants of international remittances in nigeria. background to remittances in nigeria over the years, migrants’ remittances to nigeria have increased steadily and have now become a significant proportion of the financial inflows into the nation. this is partly due to the increasing numbers of nigerians in diaspora, for, as constantinescu and schiff (2014) point out, an increase in international migration is a major factor driving the growth of global remittances. nigeria has a population of about 173 million (world bank, 2014a), accounting for nearly one-fourth of the total population in subsaharan africa and ranking as the seventh most populous nation in the world (world bank, 2014b). among the developing economies, nigeria is the fifth largest recipient of remittances and the largest in africa, receiving a total of us$21 billion in remittances in 2013. indeed, nigeria became the largest recipient of remittances in sub-saharan africa in 1990, and since 2006 has been the largest recipient in africa, including north africa (nyamongo et al., 2012). according to the world bank (2014a), nigeria’s remittance receipts in 2014 were projected to be us$22.3 billion. this represents an amount that is us$14.4 billion higher than the combined sum received by the other top ten largest recipients of remittances in sub-saharan africa. second to nigeria, in sub-saharan africa, is senegal with total remittance receipts of us$1.7 billion – just 7.6% of the total remittances to nigeria. the foregoing has made nigeria a consistent feature in the remittance discourse. determinants of remittance: a review of the literature the international remittance literature has highlighted several motives driving migrants to send remittances and these are usually addressed at the micro or macro level. at the micro level, on the one hand, the three rationales that motivate migrants’ remittances are altruism, self-interest and contractual motives. on the other hand, remittances are categorized at the macro level based on the assumption that flows of international remittances can be countercyclical, procyclical or acyclical. the altruism rationale holds that remittance flows increase as the migrants’ income as well as extent of altruism increases and vice versa. it also predicts ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 132 that a 1% increase in the migrant’s income associated with a 1% decrease in the recipient’s income will increase transfer by 1%. this implies that high income migrants will remit more and low income recipients will obtain more. remittances also increase both by the extent of closeness between the migrant and the receiving household and the migrant’s aim to return. also, as the number of migrants in a family increases the remittances from a given migrant decrease (funkhouser, 1995). while some studies have found the foregoing to be true (see, for example, lucas & stark, 1985; carling, 2008), quite a few studies have opposed the altruistic motive for sending remittances. altonji et al. (1997) using data on personal private transfers and accounting for cash constraints, number of relatives, and uncertainty, rejected the null hypothesis and estimated a transfer-income derivate. their results showed that consumption allocation was dependent on the allocation of income. remittances for self-interest are usually motivated by the desire to enhance social status, keep the connection with parents for inheritance purposes, or as investment either towards the future or with the intention of returning back to the home country. for instance, the investment may take the form of harnessing the human capital of the migrant’s own children by remitting money to fund their education back home. furthermore, a migrant may remit home to his parent in a bid to ensure that he is also taken care of in his old age or he may desire to invest in housing or livestock at home, in which case a family member back home may serve as the agent. while the latter is what hagen-zanker and siegel (2007) refer to as the demonstration effect, the former has the effect of enhancing the migrant’s social status at home. remittances could also be driven by contractual motives, in which case remittances serve either as a form of exchange, loan repayment or coinsurance. in an effort to evade the problem of market failures in the home country, the new economics of labour migration (nelm) theory posits that a migrant leaves his or her home country to enter a non-correlated labour market to take advantage of the opportunities in the host country. such migrants help their households in the home country to overcome shocks while the migrants may also receive support during times of unemployment in the host country. as such, remittances are bound to increase in response to shocks or a reduction in income of households. aggregate remittances, singh et al. (2010) note, would thus be a function of income in the home country, wages in the host country and the total number of migrants. remittances ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 133 may also be seen as a form of loan repayments used in investing in human capital or expenses acquired in the process of migrating. the exchange theory is such that the quantity transferred increases as the quantity of services rendered increases but it reacts indefinitely to an exogenous increase in the beneficiary’s prior-transfer income. from the foregoing, the altruistic and exchange motive thus differ in terms of possibility for remittance. cox et al. (1998) held that in the altruistic scenario the prospect of transfer lowers with the receiver’s income but this is not so in the exchange scenario. this is because public transfers do not crowd out private transfers but rather prompt an increase in private flows received by recipients. however, if imperfect information exists, the migrants’ wages might be fixed according to an evaluation of their efficiency. on the other hand, since recipients are protected against economic downturn through remittances, this may lead to moral menace (reducing their search for a job, reduction in labour output or investing in risky ventures) due to information asymmetry. in a study that focused on altruism versus exchange (repaying loans for educational expenses) from parents to their offspring and vice versa in peru over the 1980s, cox et al. (1998) controlled for marital status, sex, education and for transitory and permanent transfers. their probit result indicated that child-to-parent transfer was inversely related to the parent’s income. they thus concluded that the exchange framework was stronger than that of altruism. they further found evidence transfers are in most cases to the sick and unemployed, which is consistent with the altruistic motive. they also found that private and public transfers are supplements rather than substitutes, in contrast to jensen (2004), who argued that public transfers crowd out private flows in south africa. becker (1974; 1991) examined the economics of households and the allocation of income among members of the family using the family as the unit of economic measurement. in a bid to analyse the “bequeath behaviour” of parents, he found that in making economic decisions, parents consider their children’s reduced future utility. aggarwal and horowitz (2002) on the other hand aimed at deriving a model to test the assumptions related to the altruism and insurance motivations for remitting using data from guyana. they found that the remittances of individual migrants reduce as the number of migrants in a household increases. this implies that remittances were ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 134 motivated more by altruistism than insurance – to boost consumption levels and induce reciprocity. in another vein, remittances are categorized at the macroeconomic level on the basis that remittance flows can be countercyclical, procyclical or acyclical. remittance flows are classified as countercyclical if they serve as insurance, family safety nets or compensatory transfers (gupta et al., 2009; singh et al., 2010). it is assumed that remittances will act counter-cyclically in response to periods of hardship in the home country, hence migrants will remit more to their households during such periods. remittances are procyclical if they are driven by investment and profit motives, and acyclical if driven by implicit motives such as family aid and other social responsibilities (giuliano & ruiz-arranz, 2009). remittances behaving procyclically are premised on the “optimization of investment” motive of migrants. this is what is referred to as the portfolio approach, in which case remittances respond positively to favourable macroeconomic indicators in the migrant’s home country. indeed, empirical evidence on the relationship between the cyclicality of remittances and (economic) conditions in the countries of origin has been inconclusive. in terms of the association between remittances and income in countries of origin, some studies (such as el sakka & mcnabb, 1999; chami et al., 2005; mishra, 2005; bouhga-hagbe, 2006; yang & choi, 2007; buch & kuckulenz, 2009; singh et al., 2010) have found a negative relationship between the two phenomena, hence there is evidence of counter-cyclicality as remittances increase with a reduction in income in the home country. on the other hand, some studies found evidence that remittances behaved either procyclically (see, for instance, imf, 2005; lueth & ruiz-arranz, 2007; lin, 2011; constantinescu & schiff, 2014) or acyclically (sayan, 2006; yang, 2008). remittances were also found to have increased in response to natural disasters (clark & wallsten, 2003; gupta, 2005; ratha, 2006; yang & choi, 2007; yang, 2008; jackman, 2013) and economic crisis (hysenbegasi & pozo, 2002; kapur & mchale, 2005; halliday, 2006). similarly, black et al. (2004) observed an increase in remittance flows to ivory coast during periods of conflict. nabar-bhaduri (2013) noted that remittances increased significantly to sri lanka since the 1980s in response to the civil war that broke out in 1983. the world bank (2014a) observed an increase in remittance receipts to haiti in response to an earthquake and to pakistan as a result of devastating floods in 2010. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 135 empirical conclusions on the relationship between other related macroeconomic indicators and remittances have also been a mixed bag. while el-sakka and mcnabb (1999) and singh et al. (2010) found a negative and significant relationship between interest rate differentials, adams (2009) observed a significantly positive relationship between investmentinduced remittances and real interest rates. gupta (2005) and chami et al. (2009), however, found in india and the developing countries respectively, that remittances and interest rates were not significantly correlated. in terms of exchange rate, yang (2008) noted that filipino emigrants sent less money when the philippines currency depreciated. contrastingly, lin (2011) observed that remittances reduced in tonga as the country’s currency appreciated. straubhaar (1986) and chami et al. (2008), however, found that exchange rate variations did not affect flows of remittances. investigating the relationship between financial development and remittances, freund and spatafora (2008) used both transaction costs and the presence of a dual exchange rate system as proxies for financial development and observed that they both have a significant effect in reducing remittance flows. using the presence of a black market exchange premium as a proxy for financial development, el-sakka and mcnabb (1999) observed a negative relationship between the foregoing and remittances. evidently, the relationship between inflation and remittances in the literature is also not homogeneous. while el-sakka and mcnabb (1999) observed that remittance flows to egypt increased with the country’s inflation, buch and kuckulenz (2009) in their study of remittances to developing countries found an insignificant relationship between remittances and inflation. the latter authors opined that bad macroeconomic conditions could lead to emigration while they could inherently also reduce the origin country’s rate of return. the foregoing, they concluded, may inadvertently lead to a vagueness of the effect of inflation on remittances. although a number of studies have been carried out on the determinants of remittances in nigeria, most of these have focused on the microeconomic determinants of remittances (see for instance, nwosu et al., 2012; olowa et al., 2012). nevertheless, ajayi et al. (2009) and ojapinwa (2012) analysed the macroeconomic determinants of remittances in nigeria using the ols method. the ols approach is however prone to endogeneity problems. this research attempts an analysis of the macroeconomic determinants of remittances using the vector error correction model. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 136 methodology the methodological approach utilized is a log specified model. the series used for the analysis are annual time series data expressed in natural logarithms with the sample period 1980–2013, and were sourced from the world bank and the international monetary fund. the variables were log transformed considering the exponential growth pattern of some of the observations so as to avoid spuriousness in the relationship. each variable was subjected to unit roots testing, using the philip perron (pp) unit root test. this choice is based on the advantage of pp test specifically when dealing with financial observations. pp test is unique in dealing with serial correlation and heteroskedasticity in errors. it corrects for serial correlation and heteroskedasticity in the errors by directly modifying the test statistics. pp unit root test is robust to general forms of heteroskedasticity in the error term ut, and does not require specified lag length. the johansen cointegration test was then carried out to determine if the series are cointegrated. the presence of co-integration suggests long-run relationships among variables. based on the finding of the unit root test and order of integration of the observations, we carried out a vector error correction (vec) analysis. this is consistent with huana and vargas-silva (2005). they argued that the vector error correction model (vecm) is robust enough to handle endogeneity challenges between macroeconomic determinant variables and remittances. a crucial methodological issue in the literature on remittance determinants is the problem of non-stationarity. if there are at least two non-stationary series, chances are high for a spurious regression, albeit still having a reasonably high r2 value suggesting goodness of fit of model. consequently, we identified the use of the ordinary least square as a weakness of some of the existing literature on remittance determinants using time series (see el-sakka & mcnabb, 1999; aydas et al., 2005; ajayi et al., 2009; ojapinwa, 2012). we also tested for causality using the granger causality test framework. the empirical model used is derived from previous studies such as buch and kuckulenz (2009) and singh et al. (2010), and this was adapted to suit the nigerian context. although buch and kuckulnez (2009) made use of illiteracy rate, population and age dependency ratio, we made use of school enrolment on the presumption that it gives an insight into the former variables. we also introduced home country deposit rate to our analysis. this is based on the classic theory of savings which has its foundation on two cornerstones; say’s ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 137 law of supply and the quantity theory of money. these theories posit that savings (s) and investment (i) are equal. that is, s = i………………………………….…………………………………………………… (1) both savings and investment are functions of interest rate (r); s = f(r)…………………… ………………………………………………………………. (2) i = f(r)…………………… ……………………………………………………………….. (3) s = f(r); and 0 dr ds ……………………………………………………………………….. (4) i= f(r); and 0 dr di ………………………………………………………………………… (5) given that an individual’s income is either consumed or saved. keynes (1936) wrote in his general theory that “saving and investment are necessarily equal”. st = yt ct…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. (6) it = yt ct…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… (7) therefore s=i it is logical to say that the marginal propensity to consume (mpc) and the marginal propensity to save (mps) must be equal to unity. that is, mpc + mps = 1……………………………………………………………………………………………………… (8) mps= 1 mpc……………………………………………………………………………………………………… (9) going further, we presume that the home country’s deposit rate can influence emigrants to keep their savings in their home country. the model is specified as follows: ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 138 rr = f (y, cpi, dcc, dr, er, fd, ird, se, tt) …………………………………………………………(10) rr= αo + α1y + α2cpi + α3dcc + α4dr + α5er + α6fd + α7ird + α8se + α9tt + εt …(11) the model was therefore log transformed to derive: lrr= αo + α1ly + α2lcpi + α3ldcc + α4ldr + α5ler + α6lfd + α7lird + α8lse + α9ltt + εt ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… (12) where rr = remittances y=income per capita i= inflation dcc = domestic credit dr = deposit rate er = exchange rate fd = financial deepening ird = interest rate differential se = secondary school enrolment tt = openness αo = constant εt = error term research findings and presentations correlation analysis theoretically, migrants may remit money to help stabilize the income of their relatives and loved ones at home. we therefore expect that income levels will increase as remittances increase. also it is expected that as school enrolment increases, capacity to remit will increase but the need to remit will reduce ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 139 over time. ideally, it is expected that the need to remit will reduce as domestic credit increases on the assumption that the economy will have more liquid currency in circulation boosting domestic income levels through increased investment, hence, more jobs. as inflation increases there will be a need to remit more as money loses value. also, as the value of domestic currency appreciates, more remittances will be needed to keep up with the reducing value of foreign currency to domestic currency. it is important to note that, for economies with inadequate domestic production of goods and services, the consumption pattern is often skewed towards importation. for such economies, fluctuations in exchange rates are bound to have implications for inflation. in the event of appreciation in the value of foreign currency, it is expected that more units of domestic currency will be needed to purchase a unit of foreign currency for the purpose of importation for consumption. the additional cost will therefore be spread over each unit of good. in the case of deposit rate, the expected relationship becomes more dependent on the motive for remitting. if remitting is altruistic, not much impact on the deposit rate will be expected. from our study, data for remittances are found to be positively correlated with most of the other variables and significantly correlated with some but not all the variables (table 2). we found a positive and significant correlation between remittance levels and income, exchange rate, interest rate differential, secondary enrolment and openness, while the relationship between remittances and deposit rate was positive but insignificant. on the other hand, we found a negative and insignificant correlation between remittances and inflation, domestic credit as well as financial deepening. unit root test based on the nature of the data used, as indicated in table 1, we observe an upward trend in the series, meaning that the means of the time series change over time and signalling the possibility of the data not being stationary in its natural form. to adjust for this, we transformed the series to first differenced logarithmic form. in validating these statistically, we subjected the data to a formal stationarity test using philip perron (pp) unit root test. we subjected the variables to pp test individually. we tested for the symptoms of unit roots following the systematic procedure advanced by enders (1995). the results reveal that the variables are not stationary at level. the result for the first differenced series of all the variables revealed they are stationary, inferring ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 140 they are of order 1 i(1). the results of the pp unit root test are presented in table 3. co-integration test we then proceeded to subject the data to a co-integration test. the cointegration test signifies whether a long-run relationship exists between the variables of the model, hence a signal for causality (engle & granger, 1987; hendry, 1986; gujarati & porter, 2009). the rule of thumb in co-integration testing suggests that based on likelihood ratio, trace statistics and max-eigen values greater than their critical value connotes a rejection of the null hypothesis. this is in addition to the assumption that probability values should be less than 0.05. from the result presented in table 4, it is clear that co-integrating equations exist. using the trace test, it indicates eight cointegrating equations at the 0.05 level. the max-eigen value test indicates six co-integrating equations at the 0.05 level. we thus conclude, based on the results that a long-run relationship exists among the variables. the normalized co integrating coefficients (standard error in parentheses) is therefore specified as: lrr ly li ldcc ldr ler lfd lird lse ltt 1.00 000 70.84 808 3.426 853 6.679 664 13.01 552 2.952 473 14.08 619 5.522 407 36.40 867 44.69 625 (3.18 402) (0.27 411) (0.57 523) (0.60 773) (0.21 800) (1.16 606) (0.30 587) (1.58 111) (1.53 508) the foregoing implies that, in the long run, there is a positive relationship between remittance and income, domestic credit, deposit rate and exchange rate as well as interest rate differential, while there is an inverse relationship between remittance and inflation, financial deepening, school enrolment and openness. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 141 vector error correction analysis the vector error correction analysis result, as depicted in table 5, shows that in the short run there is an inverse relationship between exchange rate, domestic credit, first lag of remittance and second lag of income. the other variables have a positive relationship with remittance. the coefficient of the error-correction term (ecmt-1) reflects the speed of adjustment from the short-run period to the long-run period. this is statistically significant and negative, as expected. the ecmt-1 value of 0.096817 implies remittance received is corrected from the short-run towards long-run equilibrium by about 9.7% annually. the short-run equation is specified as follows: dlrr= -12.76427 + -0.215412 dlrr (-1) + 0.303173 dlrr (-2) + 2.683970 dly (-1) -3.163380 dly (-2) + 0.303133 dli -1.458292 dldcc + 0.287024 dldr -0.545621 dler + 1.391185 dlfd + 0.343712 dlird + 1.131100 dlse + 1.871654 dltt 0.096817 (ecmt-1) in terms of diagnostic statistics in the short run, the estimated r square is approximately 56% and a moderate f-statics value is 1.67 suggesting an overall good fit and significance of the estimated model. therefore, fitness of the model is accepted empirically. however, we attribute the difference existing in the long run and short run to disturbances/shocks that occur in the short run but are absent in the long run. granger causality test after establishing that there exists a co-integrating relationship among our variables and specifying the error corrected model, we went a step further to identify if there is a causal relationship among our exogenous variables and remittances, and where it exists to identify its nature. this was done by employing the pairwise granger causality test. the result is reported in table 6. we test whether the exogenous variables individually do not cause remittance and vice versa. hence, we set up a null hypothesis to test ‘noncausality’; that the variables (income, inflation, domestic credit, deposit rate, ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 142 exchange rate, financial deepening, interest rate differential, secondary enrolment and openness) do not cause remittance. h0:δ=0 (y, cpi, dcc, dr, er, fd, ird, se, tt does not granger-cause rr) from the result, not much causality exists between the exogenous variables and remittance. we find, however, that where causality exists, it is unidirectional. this was found between exchange rate, deposit rate, openness and remittances. we find that the direction of the causality runs from the exogenous variables to remittance. therefore, we reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis for the variables of exchange rate, deposit rate and openness, and conclude that they do cause remittance flows to nigeria. discussion our research finds heterogeneity among the remittance determinant dynamics in nigeria. for income, we find a positive relationship for remittance and income levels in the long run and the first lag of the short run but negative for the second lag. the positive relationship is consistent with lianos (1997) and el-sakka and mcnabb (1999). similarly omobitan (2012) found a positive relationship for remittance and income level for nigeria. this suggests deviance from altruistic remittance, and an indication that remittance flow is procyclical. the results reveal an inverse relationship between remittance and inflation in the long run. interestingly, the short run reveals a positive relationship. the short-run relationship suggests that remittances received increase as price level in the recipient economy goes up. this is in consonance with the findings of el-sakka and mcnabb (1999). they opined that remittance increases with a country’s price level using the egyptian example. this suggests that remittance can serve as a response to day-to-day economic activities that affect recipients such as price fluctuations. however, the longrun result with an inverse relationship suggests a procyclical situation. this conforms with the findings on remittance to latin america and the caribbean from the usa by aydas et al. (2005) and orozco and lowell (2005). orozco (2004) argued however that magnitude of remittance is not affected by changes in price levels, using the case of the dominican republic. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 143 the coefficient for domestic credit is negative in the short run and positive in the long run. the result corroborates the findings of gani and sharma (2013). they find an inverse relationship for lower-middle-income economies, but for upper-middle-income economies the relationship is positive. it is expected that in the long run countries grow to a steady state (barro & sala-imartin, 2004). this suggests that, as countries grow, domestic credit grows, thus explaining the long-run positive relationship. this explains our finding on the relationship between income and remittance. migrants may remit to their home countries in order to invest in their growing economies. we find a positive correlation between remittance and deposit rate. similarly the long and short run are positive with a causal relationship running from deposit rate to remittance. this suggests a portfolio motive for remitting. our findings suggest remittances are procyclical rather than countercyclical. we find a strong correlation between exchange rate and remittance and a causal relationship running from exchange rate and remittance. in the short run, we find an inverse relationship between remittance and exchange rate, inferring that, as domestic currency appreciates, remittance levels reduce. however, in the long run, we find a positive relationship for exchange rate, implying that as domestic currency depreciates migrants find it lucrative to remit. yang (2008) found that filipino migrants sent less foreign currency when the asian financial crisis led to the depreciation of the filipino peso, suggesting that migrants have a specified range of amounts of money they intend their families to receive. our findings therefore reflect the possibilities of an investment portfolio choice in the home country (see singh et al., 2010). mouhoud, oudinet and unan (2008) opined that it is only when motivation to remit is altruistic that migrants will increase remittance in the face of currency depreciation in the country of origin. we find an inverse correlation and long-run relationship for financial deepening and remittance, but a positive short-run relationship. fajnzylber and lopez (2007) found a positive coefficient for remittance but when it is in interaction with financial deepening it becomes negative; they suggested remittances can be substituted for by financial depth in stimulating economic growth. this suggests that remittances boost economic growth in developing economies with an underdeveloped financial system (see also giuliano & ruiz-arranz, 2005). ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 144 we find a positive relationship for remittance and interest rate differential in all periods. this corroborates with the findings of mouhoud et al. (2008). they opined that the impact of interest rates in determining remittance levels occurs mostly on investment motivation. they argued that it is expected to have a positive coefficient for investment motives since it depicts the deviation of domestic interest rate from the international interest rate which in this study was captured with the libor. we also controlled for level of skill and education as an insight into the wage level of potential migrants using school enrolment level. we expect a positive coefficient since better education levels will attract better remuneration in the host country and as such improve migrants’ capacity to remit funds. we find an inverse relationship in the long run and a positive relationship in the short run. buch and kuckulenz (2009) opined that, since education is often used as a proxy for development level in an economy, chances are that high illiteracy level (i.e., low school enrolment) will increase the need for remittances. going further, we propose that since education is a process involving time, it is possible to find what was derived from our analysis; that in the short run, an increase in educational level will lead to better wageearning abilities, hence increasing remittance level. in the long run we find the inverse of the foregoing. since better education attracts better wages, and education is a proxy for development, we conclude that there would be less drive to migrate in the long run as the recipient economy develops. our findings on openness reveal a positive relationship in the short run but an inverse relationship in the long run. the positive relationship in the short run attests to the high uncertainty associated with developing economies like nigeria in connection with the benefits of openness for robust economic policies addressing the competitiveness of nigeria in the global world. this aligns with the works of omobitan (2012). while openness is usually linked with liberalization and is often seen as a catalyst for national income, remittances on the other hand improve the income levels of the recipients’ households. there is, however, contradicting evidence as to whether openness itself is good or bad. although most discussion on the subject gives the impression that openness is a tool for growth in developing economies (see easterly, 2001; shafaeddin, 2005), systematic quantification attempts have however failed in identifying openness as a crucial driver of growth for developing economies (rodriguez & rodrick, 1999; bouet et al., 2006). ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 145 sundaram and von armin (2008) argued further that it can distract developing economies from industrializing. drawing from the literature, it can be deduced that economies can optimize openness if they have some form of comparative advantage, as witnessed in china and india (pachecolopez & thirwall, 2009). alessandrini et al. (2011) alluded to the indian experience claiming that openness helped in improving india’s specialization in industries with mediumto high-technology content thereby generating a comparative advantage in them and enjoying a global growth in demand. pacheco-lópez and thirlwall (2009) argued that there can be gains from specialization and openness, but they noted however that the gains depend on the achievement of two basic conditions which are rarely met. the first is that the process of resources reallocation should not disrupt full employment. they backed this with keynes’s (1936) assertion that if people lose their jobs in one sector as a result of specialization and free trade, the other sectors should be able to absorb them. the other notion is that the trade liberalization process in itself does not alter the balance of payments equilibrium, although they noted that evidence abounds in many developing countries for imports rising above exports. this explains the long-run inverse relationship between remittance and openness. we conclude that if openness follows the conditions put forward by pacheco-lopez and thirlwall, (2009), then there will be less need to remit as recipient household income levels will increase with openness. conclusion this paper analyses the determinants of remittances to nigeria using data from 1980 to 2013. the literature is inconclusive on the selected variables, hence this study. our findings indicate that remittance receipts in nigeria are largely influenced by portfolio options rather than altruism as they seem to respond positively to differentials in exchange rate, deposit rate and interest rate. in other words, remittance flows to nigeria are procyclical in nature rather than countercyclical. the study further indicates that remittances appear to respond to the level of openness in the home country. we also find causality running from deposit rate, exchange rate and openness in nigeria. this paper does not capture the contributions of remittances to economic development or welfare, as this can be done best using disaggregated data. furthermore, our data captures largely the formal channel leaving informal ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 146 channels uncaptured. according to ratha (2006), informal channels account for about 50% of remittances. this data challenge remains a bane of remittance studies at the macro level and warrants caution in policy formation. boothroyd and chapman (1988) highlight this as a common issue in the academic and research environment, especially in the fields of development issues and developing economies. perhaps access to more robust data in future will provide better insight into the foregoing phenomena. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge the insightful comments of saheed layiwola bello of the centre for petroleum, energy economics and law, university of ibadan, nigeria. references adams, r. h. 2009. the determinants of international remittances in developing 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remittances, and household investment: evidence from philippine migrants’ exchange rate shocks. the economic journal, 118: 591-630. yang, d., and choi, h. 2007. are remittances insurance? evidence from rainfall shocks in the philippines. world bank economic review, 21(2): 219248. ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 i appendix tables table 1: preliminary descriptive analysis lrr ly li ldcc ldr ler lfd lird lse ltt mean 2.4918 71 7.3595 49 2.708773 5.9368 13 2.3789 83 2.9972 58 3.2060 40 1.6471 91 3.3311 57 6.89415 0 median 3.6291 51 7.2959 74 2.502478 5.9753 33 2.4705 69 3.0887 65 3.1908 50 1.2193 57 3.2622 90 7.05248 3 maximum 5.4660 29 7.8477 63 4.288265 6.9309 72 3.1458 75 5.0550 35 3.7057 37 4.5164 20 3.9180 05 7.51480 4 minimum 2.0983 54 7.0796 11 1.682688 4.4887 65 1.6620 30 0.5978 37 2.5733 75 0.0735 76 2.5932 98 5.79947 7 std. dev. 2.6672 37 0.1934 18 0.728571 0.5578 81 0.3774 34 2.0100 65 0.2883 26 1.3055 39 0.2800 02 0.44964 5 skewness 0.4316 54 0.9496 87 0.769955 0.4487 66 0.1744 07 0.5859 68 0.2228 55 0.9413 15 0.0793 93 1.030449 kurtosis 1.5681 80 3.1843 06 2.547835 2.9539 04 2.2304 58 1.9332 39 2.1392 77 2.8746 92 3.6127 37 3.10899 1 jarquebera 3.9601 64 5.1589 21 3.649013 1.1442 27 1.0113 11 3.5578 31 1.3309 59 5.0433 30 0.5676 02 6.03384 0 probability 0.1380 58 0.0758 15 0.161297 0.5643 31 0.6031 10 0.1688 21 0.5140 27 0.0803 26 0.7529 16 0.04895 2 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 ii sum 84.723 63 250.22 47 92.09827 201.85 16 80.885 42 101.90 68 109.00 54 56.004 50 113.25 93 234.401 1 sum sq. dev. 234.76 71 1.2345 52 17.51691 10.270 64 4.7010 67 133.33 19 2.7433 50 56.246 25 2.5872 44 6.67196 1 observatio ns 34 34 34 34 34 34 34 34 34 34 table 2: correlation table lrr ly li ldcc ldr ler lfd lird lse ltt lrr 1.00000 0 0.73445 0 0.120728 -0.173113 0.00376 3 0.88930 1 0.167958 0.70327 1 0.61666 2 0.839356 ly 1.00000 0 0.229557 0.252506 0.325948 0.68250 8 0.30170 0 0.82714 2 0.71229 6 0.751775 li 1.00000 0 0.025273 0.37283 3 0.100494 0.327041 0.025623 0.172958 0.025306 ldcc 1.000000 0.324687 0.212511 0.79739 0 0.33000 0 0.31259 0 -0.167958 ldr 1.00000 0 0.24808 1 0.462053 0.024995 0.083663 0.168936 ler 1.00000 0 0.191957 0.76700 8 0.68942 5 0.862681 lfd 1.00000 0 0.20026 2 0.30873 5 -0.262741 lird 1.00000 0 0.80494 3 0.737716 lse 1.00000 0 0.468385 ltt 1.000000 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 iii table 3: unit root test phillip-perron test variables level first difference adj. t-stat p-value remark adj. t-stat p-value remark ly pp t-stat 0.786027 0.9923 contains unit root (at 1%) pp t-stat -5.272307 0.0001 no unit root (at 1%) 1%level -3.646342 1%level -3.653730 5% level -2.954021 5% level -2.957110 10% level -2.615817 10%level -2.617434 adj. t-stat p-value remark adj. t-stat p-value remark lrr pp t-stat -0.840719 0.7940 contains unit root (at 1%) pp t-stat -6.481117 0.0000 no unit root (at 1%) 1%level -3.646342 1%level -3.653730 5% level -2.954021 5% level -2.957110 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 iv 10% level -2.615817 10%level -2.617434 adj. t-stat p-value remark adj. t-stat p-value remark lse pp t-stat -1.880590 0.3369 contains unit root (at 1%) pp t-stat -3.210442 0.0286 no unit root (at 5%) 1%level -3.646342 1%level -3.653730 5% level -2.954021 5% level -2.957110 10% level -2.615817 10%level -2.617434 adj. t-stat p-value remark adj. t-stat p-value remark ler pp t-stat -1.768399 0.3890 contains unit root (at 1%) pp t-stat -4.849382 0.0004 no unit root (at 1%) 1%level -3.646342 1%level -3.653730 5% level -2.954021 5% level -2.957110 10% level -2.615817 10%level -2.617434 adj. t-stat p-value remark adj. t-stat p-value remark ldr pp t-stat -2.444153 0.1380 contains unit root (at 1%) pp t-stat -6.246327 0.0000 no unit root (at 1%) 1%level -3.646342 1%level -3.653730 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 v 5% level -2.954021 5% level -2.957110 10% level -2.615817 10%level -2.617434 adj. t-stat p-value remark adj. t-stat p-value remark lcpi pp t-stat -3.123614 0.0344 contains unit root (at 1%) pp t-stat -12.75752 0.0000 no unit root (at 1%) 1%level -3.646342 1%level -3.653730 5% level -2.954021 5% level -2.957110 10% level -2.615817 10%level -2.617434 adj. t-stat p-value remark adj. t-stat p-value remark lfd pp t-stat -1.581052 0.4808 contains unit root (at 1%) pp t-stat -4.069969 0.0035 no unit root (at 1%) 1%level -3.646342 1%level -3.653730 5% level -2.954021 5% level -2.957110 10% level -2.615817 10%level -2.617434 adj. t-stat p-value remark adj. t-stat p-value remark ldcc pp t-stat -1.781783 0.3826 contains unit root pp t-stat -6.244903 0.0000 no unit root (at ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 vi 1%level -3.646342 (at 1%) 1%level -3.653730 1%) 5% level -2.954021 5% level -2.957110 10% level -2.615817 10%level -2.617434 phillip-perron test variables level first difference adj. t-stat p-value remark adj. t-stat p-value remark lird pp t-stat -0.117874 0.9392 contains unit root (at 1%) pp t-stat -3.848479 0.0062 no unit root (at 1%) 1%level -3.646342 1%level -3.653730 5% level -2.954021 5% level -2.957110 10% level -2.615817 10%level -2.617434 adj. t-stat p-value remark adj. t-stat p-value remark ltt pp t-stat -0.954722 0.7575 contains unit root pp t-stat -4.69662 0.00007 no unit root (at ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 vii table 4: co integration test hypothesized trace 0.05 no. of ce(s) eigenvalue statistic critical value prob.** none * 0.985482 518.5301 239.2354 0.0000 at most 1 * 0.968670 383.0938 197.3709 0.0000 at most 2 * 0.902956 272.2723 159.5297 0.0000 at most 3 * 0.833023 197.6296 125.6154 0.0000 at most 4 * 0.766463 140.3528 95.75366 0.0000 at most 5 * 0.677000 93.81149 69.81889 0.0002 at most 6 * 0.544727 57.64824 47.85613 0.0046 at most 7 * 0.473163 32.46875 29.79707 0.0241 at most 8 0.308742 11.96110 15.49471 0.1588 at most 9 0.004532 0.145339 3.841466 0.7030 1%level -3.646342 (at 1%) 1%level -3.653730 1%) 5% level -2.954021 5% level -2.957110 10% level -2.615817 10%level -2.617434 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 viii trace test indicates 8 cointegrating eqn(s) at the 0.05 level * denotes rejection of the hypothesis at the 0.05 level **mackinnon-haug-michelis (1999) p-values unrestricted cointegration rank test (maximum eigenvalue) hypothesized max-eigen 0.05 no. of ce(s) eigenvalue statistic critical value prob.** none * 0.985482 135.4362 64.50472 0.0000 at most 1 * 0.968670 110.8215 58.43354 0.0000 at most 2 * 0.902956 74.64275 52.36261 0.0001 at most 3 * 0.833023 57.27673 46.23142 0.0023 at most 4 * 0.766463 46.54133 40.07757 0.0082 at most 5 * 0.677000 36.16325 33.87687 0.0262 at most 6 0.544727 25.17949 27.58434 0.0985 at most 7 0.473163 20.50765 21.13162 0.0609 at most 8 0.308742 11.81577 14.26460 0.1178 at most 9 0.004532 0.145339 3.841466 0.7030 max-eigenvalue test indicates 6 cointegrating eqn(s) at the 0.05 level * denotes rejection of the hypothesis at the 0.05 level ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 ix **mackinnon-haug-michelis (1999) p-values unrestricted cointegrating coefficients (normalized by b'*s11*b=i): lrr ly li ldcc ldr ler lfd lird lse ltt -0.393820 -27.90139 1.349563 2.630585 5.1257 73 1.16274 3 5.547422 2.1748 34 14.3384 6 17.602 28 -0.112721 -16.11633 -2.587112 2.609106 0.6788 24 0.31645 1 1.680886 1.7193 06 6.76283 1 9.3815 57 0.474364 -3.873658 0.754754 5.139791 2.7521 39 2.68352 2 4.557941 3.2651 29 1.36809 8 0.2208 78 0.090678 21.21750 -0.258952 0.239269 5.1929 61 0.2580 44 1.894819 0.8016 67 12.37826 6.38278 6 0.636732 4.860103 -1.379505 1.924359 0.5107 82 1.04823 6 1.070590 1.8910 74 10.82345 3.26292 0 -0.417307 -20.55968 0.123920 3.618186 3.6829 83 0.00768 9 11.32125 0.9090 67 3.20199 5 8.3364 19 1.193542 -10.48259 1.403854 3.659330 0.5641 87 1.66907 4 10.20408 0.1105 20 1.11529 6 3.3436 91 0.516842 9.049796 -1.470028 2.479396 4.1875 88 1.92567 1 0.380657 0.1650 30 5.17765 2 0.6723 32 -0.866553 -2.881722 0.683530 0.950867 2.6119 0.5717 72 1.010294 2.0766 7.27969 4 4.1734 29 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 x 50 13 -0.289159 8.127609 -0.440125 2.423210 0.5808 85 0.21739 4 3.481075 0.5141 36 1.20099 0 1.1961 58 unrestricted adjustment coefficients (alpha): d(lrr) 0.293248 -0.166667 0.245501 0.1889 03 0.11755 1 0.209108 0.2871 93 0.04467 2 0.1029 33 0.0013 21 d(ly) -0.008008 -0.010879 0.006462 0.0076 66 0.01654 8 0.014954 0.0095 23 0.001162 0.00044 6 0.0006 50 d(li) 0.089083 0.504225 0.095439 0.0613 24 0.0200 18 0.139474 0.1303 46 0.05908 8 0.0173 76 0.0110 34 d(ldcc) 0.045568 -0.034267 0.003181 0.0222 31 0.0795 29 0.131075 0.0765 46 0.14079 0 0.0858 92 0.0031 54 d(ldr) -0.005322 -0.003599 0.010503 0.0301 40 0.0847 13 0.033087 0.0074 06 0.040070 0.0705 00 0.0033 17 d(ler) -0.081970 0.077069 0.102204 0.0635 26 0.1279 87 0.065673 0.0040 45 0.019660 0.00967 9 0.0097 17 d(lfd) 0.020206 -0.047709 0.037961 0.0184 66 0.0243 98 0.002521 0.0044 58 0.05962 9 0.0183 86 0.0005 81 d(lird) 0.004159 0.090960 0.202293 0.0785 49 0.0119 44 0.036625 0.1116 00 0.012854 0.1086 11 0.0117 61 d(lse) 0.003373 -0.006902 0.0201 0.0084 0.002715 0.0045 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 xi 0.027962 82 59 0.0032 76 0.007723 42 0.0009 73 d(ltt) -0.084784 -0.008115 0.027039 0.0026 28 0.0079 15 0.002698 0.0160 94 0.00127 1 0.0225 80 0.0037 20 1 cointegrating equation(s): log likelihood 212.2030 normalized cointegrating coefficients (standard error in parentheses) lrr ly li ldcc ldr ler lfd lird lse ltt 1.000000 70.84808 -3.426853 6.679664 13.015 52 2.9524 73 14.08619 5.5224 07 36.40867 44.6962 5 (3.18402) (0.27411) (0.57523 ) (0.607 73) (0.218 00) (1.16606 ) (0.305 87) (1.58111 ) (1.5350 8) table 5: vector error correction estimates cointegrating eq: cointeq1 lrr(-1) 1.000000 ly(-1) 7.972193 (8.42825) [ 0.94589] c -61.16185 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 xii error correction: d(lrr) cointeq1 -0.090817 (0.15070) [-0.60262] d(lrr(-1)) -0.215412 (0.23182) [-0.92921] d(lrr(-2)) 0.303173 (0.21994) [ 1.37846] d(ly(-1)) 2.683970 (4.48998) [ 0.59777] d(ly(-2)) -3.163380 (4.48005) [-0.70610] c -12.76427 (12.1662) [-1.04916] dli 0.303133 (0.24527) [ 1.23592] dldcc -1.458292 (0.69179) ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 xiii [-2.10800] dldr 0.287024 (0.77711) [ 0.36935] dler -0.545621 (0.38334) [-1.42335] dlfd 1.391185 (1.21281) [ 1.14708] dlird 0.343712 (0.35857) [ 0.95857] dlse 1.131100 (1.85857) [ 0.60859] dltt 1.871654 (1.22767) [ 1.52456] r-squared 0.561270 adj. r-squared 0.225771 sum sq. resids 8.337869 s.e. equation 0.700331 f-statistic 1.672940 log likelihood -23.63281 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 xiv akaike aic 2.427923 schwarz sc 3.075530 mean dependent 0.192473 s.d. dependent 0.795918 table 6: causality test pairwise granger causality tests null hypothesis: obs f-statistic prob. ly does not granger cause lrr 32 1.25392 0.3015 no causality lrr does not granger cause ly 0.22314 0.8015 li does not granger cause lrr 32 2.25429 0.1243 no causality lrr does not granger cause li 0.50246 0.6106 no causality ldcc does not granger cause lrr 32 0.32742 0.7236 no causality lrr does not granger cause ldcc 0.13137 0.8774 no causality ldr does not granger cause lrr 32 2.89759 0.0724 unidirectional causality lrr does not granger cause ldr 1.95672 0.1608 ldr to lrr ler does not granger cause lrr 32 3.59939 0.0411 unidirectional causality lrr does not granger cause ler 0.12468 0.8833 ler to lrr lfd does not granger cause lrr 32 1.69692 0.2022 no causality lrr does not granger cause lfd 0.38271 0.6857 ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 xv lird does not granger cause lrr 32 1.26468 0.2985 no causality lrr does not granger cause lird 2.34779 0.1148 lse does not granger cause lrr 32 0.03598 0.9647 no causality lrr does not granger cause lse 1.77723 0.1883 ltt does not granger cause lrr 32 9.04250 0.0010 unidirectional causality lrr does not granger cause ltt 0.39773 0.6757 ltt to lrr ahmr, vol.1 no2, mayaugust, 2015 xvi african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) iv introduction by prof joseph kofi teye in recognition of the benefits of migration and the challenges associated with its management, many governments and development partners have, in recent years, been discussing how to develop effective frameworks for migration governance at the national, regional and international levels (mangala, 2017). as a result of the increasing realisation that population mobility can contribute to socio-economic transformation of both migrant sending and receiving areas, migration management was, in 2015, included in the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the sustainable development goals (sdgs) (oecd/ilo 2018), marking the first time that migration is formally integrated into the global development agenda. although population mobility, in west africa, is not a recent phenomenon (adepoju, 2006), the region has become the focus of academic and policy discussions on population mobility in recent years because it is characterised by high level of labour migration (olsen, 2011) and displacement (boateng, 2012). while political narratives and media images suggest an ‘exodus’ of africans to europe, a majority of west african migrants travel to destinations within the region (teye et al, 2015). in 2006, for instance, swac and oecd (2006) estimated that 84% of migrations from west africa are directed towards another country in the region. similarly, more recent data provided by the united nations department of economic and social affairs united nations department of economic and social affairs (un desa) shows that about 72% of west african migrants remain in the region (un desa, 2018). intra-regional migration patterns in the west african region have shown a certain historical continuity of mobility patterns observed in the colonial era, with many migrants moving from countries in sahel zone (i.e. mali, burkina faso, and niger) to the mineral-rich and plantation-rich coastal countries, especially côte d’ivoire, ghana, nigeria, senegal and the gambia (awumbila et al, 2014). it is estimated that west african intra-regional migration movements, which involve about 7.5 million persons, are seven times greater than migration movements from west africa to the rest of the world (swac and oecd 2006). olsen (2011) asserted that, with more than 3% of the regional population circulating within west africa, migration within the region is about six times higher than intra-european mobility. internal  director of the centre for migration studies, university of ghana. email: jteye@ug.edu.gh african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) v migration is also very pervasive in west africa due to rapid urbanization. trafficking in children and women is also common in the region. large-scale refugee movements, mainly caused by civil wars and ethnic conflicts, are also widespread in contemporary west africa (boateng, 2012). intra-regional migration in west africa is largely facilitated by the protocol on free movement of persons, right of residence and establishment which was adopted in 1979 by the economic community of west african states (ecowas), made up of 15 of the 16 in countries in west africa. the free movement protocol, which is based on an understanding that regional cooperation in the field of labour migration could promote the transfer of skills and assets, seeks to ensure that citizens of ecowas states are able to enter any ecowas member state visa free for up to 90 days. outside africa, europe is the most popular destination of west african migrants. since 1970s, economic crisis and political conflicts have contributed significantly to migration from west africa to north africa towards europe. both highly skilled and unskilled migrants continue to migrate to europe, either regularly or irregularly. although irregular migration from africa to europe is not a new phenomenon, irregular entry of europe by west africans who travel through the mediterranean has received public attention in recent years. west africans constitute about 60% of irregular arrivals in italy and spain (de haas, 2006). as a result of restrictive visa regimes imposed by traditional countries of destination in europe, there has been increasing migration of west africans to asia countries, especially china and the gulf states, in recent years. despite the high level of mobility within west africa, there is a general paucity of data and research findings on various dimensions of population mobility and its outcomes within west africa. existing knowledge gaps make it difficult to integrate migration into development planning processes in the region (awumbila et al, 2017). for instance, policy prescription in many west african countries tend to discourage migration because of its negative effects, such as shortage of labour, migrants smuggling, human trafficking and pressure on social amenities in urban centres. yet, there is little understanding of the developmental impacts of various types of migration on migrants, host communities and families left behind. as a way of helping to fill some of these gaps in knowledge, this special issue seeks to provide an analysis of migration within, from and towards west africa, particularly from the perspectives of migration scholars in the west african region. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) vi the first article written by teye, awumbila and nikoi examines the challenges to the implementation of the ecowas protocol on free movement, with particular reference to ghana and sierra leone. the authors demonstrated that the factors that negatively affect the implementation of the free movement protocol include policy ambiguities, harassment of migrants at the borders, migrants’ lack of travel documents, low level of knowledge about ecowas protocol, resource constraints, securitization of migration, economic challenges and political instability. the authors conclude that future implementation outcomes of the ecowas protocol will largely depend on the commitment of the member states and ability of ecowas to develop mechanisms to deal with states that continue to violate the rights of migrants. in the second article in this issue, kandilige and hamidou collected data on the experiences of ghanaian and nigerien migrants who were affected by the 2011 libyan crisis to examine how micro-level factors shape migration decision-making processes. the authors argued that migration culture, the desire to improve household livelihoods, existence of social networks and activities of migrant smuggling rings promote migration to libya. having identified the limitations of repatriation and evacuation programmes put in place by the ghanaian and nigerian governments during the libyan crisis, the authors make a recommendation for the development of regional evacuation and repatriation programmes to facilitate the timely extraction of trapped migrants from countries in crisis. the third paper written by obeng employed multiple ethnographic methodologies to examine african importers’ participation in the burgeoning economy of china. he argues that strategies employed by these importers are based on various factors such as the size of capital, trading experiences and locations of their imports. the fourth article by agyeman and gyampah also adopts a historical perspective to analyse cross-cultural ties between ghana and egypt though an analysis of the agency of the egyptian community in accra, ghana. the authors examine the type of cross-border and transnational ties that egyptian migrants in ghana have established between ghana and egypt and how these ties generate cross-cultural relations between ghana and egypt. they argued that due to high profile intermarriages between ghanaians and egyptians and the nkrumah factor, the egyptian community in ghana occupies a privileged economic and political position in ghana the last paper, written by adzande, discusses how climate induced migration of itinerant pastoralists from countries in central and west africa into nigeria african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) vii is contributing to conflicts. the author noted that states in north and central nigeria are experiencing heightened conflicts between sedentary farmers and itinerant herders, and this has given rise to the disruption of livelihoods, leading to a major threat to food security. they argue that the ecowas protocol on free movement is unintentionally contributing these conflicts. taken together, the papers provide multi-disciplinary perspectives on contemporary migration issues within the west african region. although the papers presented in this special issue are diverse, they all indicate the need for policy interventions that can reduce the negative outcomes associated with migration while maximising its developmental impacts. the article led by teye and adzande’s paper demonstrate the weaknesses of the ecowas free movement protocol for the management of migration within the region. similarly, the paper led by kandilige demonstrates the need for effective regional level framework for dealing with humanitarian crises associated with migration. the three papers taken together therefore discuss the weaknesses of current regional level migration and displacement governance systems. obeng’s article and the paper led by agyeman demonstrate the importance of social networks in facilitating migration flows and enhancing the outcomes of migration. while obeng showed how ghanaian traders rely on networks of social capital with agents in their trading activities, agyemang and his colleagues demonstrated how similar networks help egyptians to enjoy certain privileges in ghana. the papers demonstrate that despite the undesirable outcomes of migration, there are unique windows of opportunity to make it a triple win situation for the migrant, the origin and the receiving countries. this requires intensification of lesson drawing, knowledge sharing, and purposive interactions among researchers, policy makers, development partners, social partners and other stakeholders. the special issue discusses topical issues which should be of interest to migration scholars, policy makers, and development practitioners. references adepoju. a. 2006. the challenge of labour migration flows between west africa and the maghreb. international migration programme, ilo, geneva. awumbila, m.,y, benneh, j.k. teye, and atiim, g. 2014. across artificial borders: an assessment of labour migration in the ecowas region. brussels: acp observatory on migration. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) viii awumbila, m., badasu, d. and teye, j.k (eds.). 2017. migration in a globalizing world: perspectives from ghana. accra: sub-saharan publishers. boateng, a. 2012. survival voices: social capital and the well-being of liberian refugee women in ghana. journal of immigrant & refugee studies, 8(4): 386– 408. de haas, h. 2006. trans-saharan migration to north africa and the eu: historical roots and current trends. migration information source. from <www.migrationinformation.org> (retrieved 5 august 2019). mangala, j. (ed.). 2017. africa and its global diaspora: the policy and politics of emigration. new york: palgrave macmillan. oecd/ilo, 2018. how immigrants contribute to ghana’s economy. oecd publishing: paris. from <https://bit.ly/2yuegn6> (retrieved 5 august 2019). olsen, a.s.w. 2011. reconsidering west african migration: changing focus from european immigration to intraregional flows. diis working paper, 2011:21. danish institute for international studies, copenhagen. sahel and west africa club (swac) and organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd), 2006. the socio-economic and regional context of west african migrations. november 2006. from <https://bit.ly/2m7rfuk> (retrieved 5 august 2019). teye, j. k., awumbila, m., & benneh, y. 2015. intra-regional migration in the ecowas region: trends and emerging challenges. in: akoutou, a., b. sohn, r. vogl, m. and yeboah, d. (eds.). migration and civil society as development drivers a regional perspective. bonn: zei centre for european integration studies, pp. 97-124. teye, j. k., alhassan, o., and setrana, m. 2017. evolution and nature of diaspora engagement policies in ghana. in: mangala j. r. (ed.). africa and its global diaspora: the policy and politics of emigration. new york: palgrave macmillan, pp 143-174. united nations, department of economic and social affairs, 2018. international migration report 2017. united nations: geneva http://www.migrationinformation.org/ https://bit.ly/2yuegn6 https://bit.ly/2m7rfuk african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 1535 the migration processes in ghana: the case of northern migrants shamsu deen-ziblim and adadow yidana abstract over the past four decades, accra has witnessed an increasing influx of young women who migrate to the city with the sole aim of carrying goods. this paper examines the migration processes of these young women, who mostly migrate from the northern part of ghana to accra, in the south. a sample of 216 female porters were selected for the study. a survey, personal interviews, and focus group discussions were the main tools for data collection. the reasons for their migration, the parties involved in the decision to migrate, and how their migration was financed were explored. the study revealed that the migration process of female porters is enabled by social networks; the women have varying levels of social capital, which facilitates movement and settlement. these social networks increase the social asset base of female porters and provide safety nets for them. it is found that the reasons for their migration are related to the declining importance of agriculture and the non-availability of jobs at their origin, which can be blamed on the liberalisation of the ghanaian economy. it is also found that mothers are deeply involved in their daughters’ migration decisions. keywords migration, processes, female porters, social network, ghana. introduction migration is a common phenomenon in ghana, with at least one internal or international migrant living in 43% of all households in 2005/2006 (ackah and medvedev, 2010). it is estimated that approximately 50% of the ghanaian population is comprised of internal migrants (awumbila, 2015). what this means is that half of the ghanaian population migrated to settle in cities other than those in which they were born. the pattern of internal migration in ghana has been one of continual movement of people from the less-developed north (which includes the northern, savannah, north east, upper east, and upper west regions) to the well-developed south (central, western, ashanti, and  department of community health and family medicine, school of medicine and health science, university for development studies, tamale, ghana. email: zshamsu72@gmail.com  department of community health and family medicine, school of medicine and health science, university for development studies, tamale, ghana. email: adadowy@yahoo.com deen-ziblim and yidana greater accra regions). this study focuses on the migration of people to the greater accra region from the five regions that form the northern part of ghana. internal migration has resulted from a spatial dichotomy of an underdeveloped north and a relatively developed south (anarfi and kwankye 2005; kwankye, & anarfi 2006). this spatial dichotomy is due to pre-colonial and post-colonial policies that made the north a labour reserve for the south (saaka, 2002). the establishment of infrastructures in the south to the neglect of the north also increased this dichotomy (stephen, 2006). however, the desire to travel is often times facilitated by the existing social networks that have been established. head porters are highly networked in both the source communities and the destination communities. in the networking process, head porters relate to one another from network positions that both constrain and facilitates their interactions, while the networks provide some stability to the broader social structure. according to rahman and lee (2005), social networks play a crucial role in reducing the risks of migration. the decision by the individual to migrate is largely influenced by existing social networks and kinship capital (stark and bloom, 1985), with the networks in the destination acting as a form of social insurance (kuhn, 2003). a strong and viable network reduces the level of uncertainty in finding jobs and enables migrant head porters to secure work (in kiosks and storefronts) and accommodation prior to moving (afsar, 2000; rakib and islam, 2009). through this social network, migrants at the destination community affect the labour market outcomes of newly arriving migrants at these destinations, thereby reducing migration costs and consequently influencing the selection patterns of migrants ( mckenzie and rapoport, 2012; munshi, 2015). other researchers, like mishra (2007), have observed an interplay between migration and inequality in the source community, as the network in the destination community can reduce inequality through regular remittances to the country of origin. according to van der geest (2011), female migration in ghana is a common response to unfavourable cultural and social issues and is a survival strategy to cope with economic inequality. according to action aid (2012), female migration in ghana is attributed to livelihood insecurity. until recently, the north-south migration in ghana used to be the preserve of men for economic and social reasons. however, this pattern has changed and today the dominant migration stream from north to south is of young women moving independently of their families towards the cities of accra and kumasi (iddrisu, 2001; litchfield and weddington, 2003; whitehead and hashim, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 1537 2007; gss, 2012). due to the enormous benefits associated with remittances, families (mostly mothers) consciously support their daughters’ migration by aiding their decision-making process and funding the migration (awumbila, owusu, and teye, 2014; awumbila, 1997). the movement has brought about spatial imbalances in levels of development and has contributed to the north having the highest incidence of poverty (gss/ghs, 2009). consequently, the northern part of ghana has been the major supplier of labour to the industries and the cocoa farms in the south, and this has contributed to high migration rates from the north to the large towns and the cocoa growing areas in the south. for several years, there has been an increase in the number of unskilled and uneducated women, and young girls who have dropped out of school to migrate to the market centres in southern ghana. the high school dropout rates of the female porters is not as a result of parents’ inability to pay school fees; rather it is largely due to cultural practices, such as early marriage and the desire of young girls to migrate to earn money to prepare themselves for marriage. these young women migrate to the south to engage exclusively in work as porters, carrying luggage on their heads for a negotiable fee. any woman who engages in such trade is called a ‘kayayoo’. in the hausa language, ‘kaya’ means ‘load’ or ‘goods’. in the ga language, the language of the indigenous people of accra, ‘yoo’ means ‘woman’. therefore, ‘kayayoo’ i refers to any woman or young girl who carries a load on her head for a fee. the plural form of ‘yoo’ is ‘yei’; hence, ‘kayayei’ are female head porters in the market centres in ghana, especially in accra and kumasi. materials and methods this study draws on a wide range of data collection and analysis methods. according to bryman (2008), the use of triangulation helps to capture different dimensions, that is, the choice of different methods provides this synergy in data capture. therefore, the research employed the mixed method approach (qualitative and quantitative). the tools employed in the data collection included a survey, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and individual interviews. about 216 respondents were selected from 4 locations in accra. the areas selected for the survey were agbogloshie, tema lorry station, mallam attah market and the cocoa marketing board market (cmb). these areas were purposively selected because they are noted to be the major areas in accra where migrant female porters reside and work. deen-ziblim and yidana a convenient sampling technique was used to select the respondents. this was deemed appropriate as the porters are always moving, depending on where they are tasked to carry their loads. because the concentration of porters in these four locations varied, the selection of respondents was made in proportion to the concentration. focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were employed to capture the wide range of experiences of the kayayei, which are useful in complementing the data collected through the survey (johnson & onwuegbuzie, 2004). a questionnaire was used to elicit information for the quantitative arm of the study. two analytical procedures were used that contribute to the mixed-method approach employed. the quantitative data analysis followed the conventional variable identification, entry, and manipulation using the spss software (version 20), while the qualitative data analysis used manual coding procedures. first, the qualitative data were analysed using thematic and content analysis approaches. second, the survey data were analysed by means of univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analytic techniques. results and discussion socio-demographic characteristics the study selected a total of 213 respondents from the 4 locations. from the results, the majority (44.4%) of the respondents were within the ages 15–19 years, 25.4% were within 20–24 years, and 21.5% were 25 years and over. this ties in well with the findings of zaami (2010) and baah-ennumh et al. (2012), who claim that more teenage girls than matured women develop an interest in migration. in terms of ethnicity, 41.7% were mamprusi, 35.6% were dagombas, and 22% were tamplinsi. tmajority of the respondents were not married (59.1%), 15.9% were married, and 5.6% were divorced. in terms of the education levels of respondents, 54.5% of them had a primary level of education, 25.4% had no formal education, and only 2.8% had shs/vocational education (see table 1). from the results, those with primary education all dropped out due to lack of interest, and those with junior and senior high levels of education left school due to failure. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 1539 table 1: socio-demographic characteristics of respondents sn variables frequency percent 1 age group 10–14 years 27 12.7 15–19 years 86 40.4 20–24 years 54 25.4 25+ years 46 21.5 total 213 100 2 ethnicity dagomba 76 35.6 mamprusi 89 41.7 tamplinsi 47 22.0 other 4 1.8 total 213 100 3 marital status single 126 59.1 married 34 15.9 co-habiting 42 19.7 divorced 11 5.6 total 213 100 4 educational level no formal education 54 25.4 primary education 116 54.5 jhs 37 17.4 shs/vocational 6 2.8 deen-ziblim and yidana total 213 100 source: field survey, 2017. the migration process and experience until recently, analysis of the migration process as a whole has received very little attention (schapendonk, 2012); rather, there has been a focus on migration in different areas, particularly relating to the causes and consequences of migration. the actual process, involving the reasons, the nature of movement, and the arrival and settling of the migrant, has been either viewed separately or ignored. this has led to suggestions that to obtain a nuanced understanding of people’s migration, it is imperative to consider the entire process as a whole. these processes relate to push and pull factors from the source to the destination communities. reasons for migration from the results, different reasons were provided to explain why the porters migrate. these include water crisis, forced marriage, lack of jobs, quest for wealth or ‘looking for money’, and high poverty rates in the north. a little over two-thirds of the female head porters (68.4%) reported that they travelled to accra to look for money. similarly, 13.9% of the respondents reported that they migrated to accra due to poverty. about 4.8% reported water crisis in their places of origin as the reason for their migration. a small percentage (1.0%) attributed their migration to forced marriage, while about 3.3% mentioned lack of jobs at the source communities as the reason for the migration. across all the age groups, the most significant reason for migration was to look for money or, relatedly, to escape from poverty. in all, 73.3% of the respondents aged 15–19 years migrated to look for money, while those aged 10–14 years had the highest percentage (27%) migrating as a result of poverty. those who migrated as a result of forced marriage were in the 15–19 years and 20–24 years age groups. there was also a significant proportion of respondents in the age group of 25 years and above who migrated for other reasons, such as escaping conflicts, joining a partner, and family pressure at the place of origin (see table 2). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 1541 table 2: reason for migrating to accra by age (n=209) age groups reason for migrating 10–14 15–19 20–24 25+ total (n=27) (n=86) (n=54) (n=43) (n=209) water shortage/crisis 3.8 4.7 3.7 7.0 4.8 forced marriage 3.8 1.2 0.0 0.0 1.0 lack of jobs 0.0 3.5 5.6 2.3 3.3 quest for wealth 61.5 73.3 72.2 58.1 68.4 poverty 26.9 8.1 13.0 18.6 13.9 lack of social amenities 3.8 9.3 5.6 14.0 8.6 source: field survey 2017 respondents provided different accounts to explain why they moved from the northern part of ghana to accra. though they did not indicate this in the survey, it appears that some of them travel because of the perceived success of their colleagues returning to their origin communities. my friends came from accra the previous year with a lot of things (assets) so i also wanted to go and see what i could get. i harvested groundnuts from people’s farms and was given my share which amounted to four bags. so i borrowed money from a woman under the pretext of buying a nice cloth a friend had brought from accra. we took a vehicle to the tamale town from our village where we boarded a bigger bus to accra (abiba, 16-year-old kayayoo). others gave account of how the journey was embarked upon and who was given prior notice of the impending trip. i migrated to accra from zian in the savelegu-naton district. the very day i left the house, a friend i had already planned to travel with came to my house with the intention that we were going to the river to fetch water. i took some of my important things along with me. i did not inform deen-ziblim and yidana my father, it was only my mother that i informed about my trip which she agreed to, but advised me not to inform my father. it was my mother who assisted me with transportation cost and some monies for my upkeep on the way. when we got to the river, i left my container there and joined my boy lover on a motor bike to tamale to join a car to accra (salma, 20-year-old kayayoo). as illustrated by the cases of abiba and salma, some women provide assistance to their daughters to migrate, since they share in the aspirations to migrate. additionally, the case of abiba shows that boyfriends of some girls provided their initial transport and other related travel costs. this is understandable as the items bought by these girls form the basis for subsequent marriage. unless a female partner has accumulated basic ‘feminine’ assets, such as cooking utensils and cloths, a marriage cannot be consummated. these findings support those of abdulai (2010) who argued that mothers are the main propellers of their daughters’ migration, while fathers often oppose the process. additionally, the findings support those of awumbila et al. (2014) who found that family relations tend to provide financial and moral support for rural migrants leaving for cities. lack of social amenities that are important in sustainable livelihoods, especially water and good roads, are critical push factors associated with the porters’ migration. this is because women and girls are responsible for fetching water and carting produce from the farm to the home and to the market. the poor roads and long distances to water sources increases the drudgery women suffer in their daily activities. this finding resonates with the findings of awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf (2008) that the reasons for migration from the rural north to the urban south include not only the limited economic opportunities but also the poor social amenities and cultural restrictions that partly account for female poverty. while socio-economic and cultural factors act as push factors for female migration from the north, relatively favourable factors act as pull factors in various destinations in the south. for example, awumbila et al. (2014) argues that the pattern of internal migration in ghana has also been influenced by the stark differences in the levels of poverty between the north and the south. employment opportunities resulting from the growth of industries in urban areas like accra have contributed to the rise in the movement of young people from the north to the south (yaro, 2004; van der geest, 2011). the decision to migrate african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 1543 the percentage distribution of the main person involved in each female porter’s decision to migrate to accra is shown in table 3. most of the female porters (68.4%) made their independent decision to move to accra. in addition, 21.2% were influenced by their mothers. siblings (1.9%), aunts (2.4%), and friends/boy lovers (4.7%) also had some influence. the fewest number of porters (1.4%) listed recruiting agents as their main influence. table 3: percentage distribution of persons involved in decision to migrate to accra person involved in the decision to migrate frequency percent self only 145 68.4 mother 45 21.2 siblings 4 1.9 aunt 5 2.4 friends/boyfriend 10 4.7 recruitment agent 3 1.4 total 212 100 source: field survey, 2017. the decision-making process, however, is more complex than what the quantitative data depicts. the quantitative data only depicts the main sources of influence in the decision to migrate and does not convey how the interaction of various sources impact the decision. how is the role of other people or intermediaries in the decision to migrate played out? focus group discussions suggest that aunts and sisters play substantial roles in the decision-making process. based on what i saw from those girls in our community who had come to accra and returned home, i also wanted to come to accra. so i talked to my mother and my father. my father strongly disagreed and it was a very difficult thing for me. it was my mother who agreed that i should go and even supported me with gh¢ 30 for transport. when i finally got here i had the phone call from my father that if i fail to return to the village within 3 days he will disown me and that i should look for my father. i deen-ziblim and yidana had to get an elder in our village to talk to my father on my behalf and the first thing i did to make my father happy was to buy him a bicycle within my first month of working as a kayayoo. in the third month i sent to him an amount of gh¢ 100 to enable him buy fertilizer for his farm. all these i was doing for him to forgive me and also to know that my being here is not to misbehave but rather to look for money to support the family and to prepare myself for marriage (azara, 19 year-old kayayoo). as shown by the case of azara, most fathers in rural ghana are not in support of the migration of their daughters to the city to work as kayayei. this finding resonates well with abdulai (2010) who argues that the reasons why most fathers oppose the migration of their daughters to the city is that it tarnishes their image and reputation, especially when the girl is given out in marriage. the kayayei is good, but girls of today can do anything to disgrace the parents. i don’t support it because i am a victim because my first daughter was given to a man to marry we collected the bride price and she requested to go to accra to work and get money for the marriage. hmm! after 4 months i was told that a different man in accra has put my daughter in the family way. it was a big disappointment and disgrace to the entire family. since then i do not encourage any girl in my house to go to accra for kayayei (mba alidu, an elder). another parent in kasulyili in the tolon district whose 17-year-old daughter had migrated to accra explained: if i had the means in providing her all what she need to prepare her to join her husband, or if i could send her to learn a profession or provide her with capital to do business, then she would not go. but because we can’t provide her any of these, she has to go. this quotation, similar to that of salma presented earlier in this study, demonstrates the position of many in the focus group discussions: that most women provide assistance to their daughters to migrate as they share in their daughters’ aspirations to migrate. the findings support those of awumbila et al. (2014) who found that family relations tend to provide financial and moral support to rural migrants leaving for cities. other factors emerged from the in-depth interviews with parents in the porters’ origin communities. these include the influence of peers, with peers acting not only as a major source of information about the destination areas, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 1545 but also as persuasive agents who ask their colleagues to come along to see and enjoy the city life. according to some of the parents, when young girls see their peers returning home from cities with items like clothing, cooking utensils, and cell phones, they also yearn to go in order to acquire these items. during a focus group discussion, one parent whose daughter migrated without her knowledge corroborated this when he said: their peers go and come back with clothes and home utensils, so if they see these, they also feel the urge to migrate to accra so that they can also come with those items. when the returned porters ask them to go with them to the city, they just jump high in sky and go along, they hide away usually in the morning or late in the evening when we thought they have gone to search for water at the river (mba salifu, a 51-year-old parent). recruiting agents although the results of the data analysis show that recruiting agents play a smaller role in the decision to migrate, their influence seems to be on the rise. focus groups and interviews with the female head porters in accra showed that the experienced kayayei who have established strong social networks with potential employers now act as job brokers to recruiting agents. these experienced female porters return to their home villages and surrounding villages to recruit more young girls to the city to work as porters, as is reported by this porter: i was in my village when a woman from the nearby village who works in accra came and told me that she wants to pick me to accra to help her in her work. i agreed but when we got here i ended up working for her because i pay a commission of 10 cedis every day to her. besides the experienced kayayei, family members and friends also recruit people from the origin communities, as a female porter explained: one of the market women in accra told me to bring someone i trusted, someone like me, to assist her in her work. so i quickly called my brother’s daughter who had failed her jhs exams and was just sitting in the house doing nothing. she was happy and i sent her money to come the following week to help the woman in her shop” (amina, 30-year-old kayayoo). the focus groups suggested that the form of recruitment depicted in the narration of amina was becoming rather common. this is said to be facilitated deen-ziblim and yidana by telephone communication, as the messages and discussions can be communicated more quickly by phone than by passing them through returnees. recruitment in the migration industry is increasingly becoming an important factor in the migration of females worldwide. however, empirical works on this topic have been limited in the case of internal migration (adepoju, 2010, 2004, 2002). several emerging studies accounting for the processes that facilitate the international migration of women show that recruitment agencies, both formal and informal, are increasingly recruiting women, particularly from asia, to work in the service industry in europe. financing the migration this section examines how the female porters’ journeys to accra were financed. here, the study tried to analyse the various mechanisms the female porters adopted in financing their journeys to accra. the percentage distribution of how their trips were financed is shown in table 4. the highest percentage of (46.7%) said that they used their savings to make their journeys. in addition, about one-quarter (24.8%) of the respondents obtained money for their travel through sale of assets. others reported that their journeys were funded through borrowing from family members (8.4%). some migrants used other means (12.1%), while 4.2% said their travel did not involve any cost. those who reported that their journey did not involve any cost were those who were assisted by recruiting agents. lastly, those who took a loan (usually from a friend or relative) constituted the least proportion (3.7%). table 4: percentage distribution of how the journey to accra was financed means of financing travel to accra frequency percent no cost 9 4.2 savings 100 46.7 sale of assets 53 24.8 loan from friends 8 3.7 borrowing from family members 18 8.4 other 26 12.1 total 214 100 african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 1547 source: field survey, 2017. some migrants secure loans for their travel by presenting an asset to the lender as collateral. this, according to several focus group discussions, is a new way of sourcing loans. one of the respondents explained as follows: i sold all my farm produce to enable me to finance my trip to accra. the money i got was not enough so i had to give some of my cloths to a friend that enabled me to take some monies from her. i thank god because i had enough that i can pay and collect my cloths and i return to the north (amama, 19-year-old kayayoo). the practice of offering collateral is said to have evolved as a result of the failure of migrants or returnees to honour their debts. this finding supports the argument by stephen (2006) that the female porters use their assets at their origins as a collateral to obtain the funds necessary to travel to the city to work as head porters. there are various means of financing the trip to accra. my coming here was supported by an agent. she came to our village and requested the service of young girls she will send to accra to assist her in her business. my aunty handed me over to her. she paid for my transportation. i cannot even say the amount she paid in transporting me here. even when we were coming, she bought food for me and when we got to accra she took a taxi cab that brought as to our present location. for this reason i did not pay anything in coming here (amama, 17-year-old kayayoo). amama was one of the respondents who reported that they did not spend any money of their own in travelling to accra. these findings support those of abdulai (2010) that most of the migrations of female porters are financed by agents who come to the rural areas, recruit young girls, and transport them to the south to work for them for a fee. while some migrant female porters went directly to accra from their villages, others had to stop temporarily in towns along the route before eventually arriving in accra several months or years later, depending on the intervening circumstances. the places in which they stopped on their way to accra included tamale, kintampo, techiman, and kumasi. far less than one tenth (6.6%) of them stopped somewhere before arriving in their current place of residence in accra, while the majority (93.4%) did not have any stop. of those who migrated to accra from another place rather than directly from their home village, the majority (64.2%) had intentions to eventually migrate to deen-ziblim and yidana accra, while a smaller proportion (35.7%) continued to accra after their initial destinations were perceived to be unfavourable or less beneficial. thus, 64.2% embarked on stepwise migration. according to the focus group discussions and interviews, the main reasons for stepwise migration include the lack of capital to reach accra, as depicted in asana’s situation narrated earlier, and the need to garner information from friends and relations about the location of other friends and relatives in accra. some of the migrants explained that they had to stop in places ‘to look for money’ that would enable them pay for their transport to accra. it is important to stay over for a few days so that they can teach you a few things about accra before you enter that city. (a 16-year-old porter in agbogloshie market) when asked whether learning about accra was the reason for her stepwise migration, she answered in the affirmative. she further explained: i was not the only one who stopped over for fear of just coming to accra without knowing someone; this one sitting here also did the same. a 30 year-old-woman and mother of two, mariama, was the one referred to by the above respondent. mariama echoed the story of the earlier respondent when she stated: that place (accra) is not home and most of these people living on the way to accra has worked in accra before and has tasted the life in accra before, so they know what it is. they know people in accra who could help you, they will also not let you just go like that, some want you to stay and work with them, others want you to return home, but you want to go on the road and also to see things for yourself (mariama, 30-year-old kayayoo). one could then say that the friends and relations who are located on the way to accra enable the process of migration by acting as ‘information brokers’ and by offering migrants a place to stay, jobs, moral support, and advice. thus, the need to earn enough money for the journey to accra and the fear of migrating to accra without the necessary networks is an important factor for stepwise migration among female porters. stepwise migration enables female porter’s access to important information and establishes networks at the destination, which helps in ‘settling down’. paul has already noted the relevance of stepwise migration. he noted that this was crucial for migrants as african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 1549 it enabled them to make enough money and find out enough about the advantages of the next destination. stepwise migration could result from intervening obstacles or deliberate stop overs (ravenstein, 1867; paul, 2011). the journey to accra this section explains the strategies that young girls from the north adopted when preparing to migrate to accra to work as kayayei. the study revealed that some of the young girls leave their houses without saying goodbye to their parents or guardians. the following quotation illustrates some of the strategies they employed when planning to migrate to accra. before coming here i made a stop in tamale to work in a chop bar for 14 days, which enabled me to get money to transport myself to accra. i would have wished to continue working in tamale but the daily wage was very small […] my people in the village always knew that i was in accra but about a week after i arrived in tamale i called my mother on phone and told her i was in tamale. although i didn’t tell anybody i was going to tamale or accra they guessed that i had run away to accra to look for money to buy nice things. i had planned to go to accra but the money i took from my mother was not enough. i didn’t even have time to count the money, i just run to the station and waited for a bus, but i realized that if my mum looked for the money and didn’t see it she would immediately look for me, so i joined a tricycle and left to walewale where i then boarded a big car. it was when i was going to pay the collector that i saw that the money couldn’t take me to accra […]. what did i do? i could go back home of course, would you have? so i paid the bus collector to drop at tamale and looked for work to get money to continue my trip to accra (asana, 21-year-old kayayoo). two key issues are depicted in salmas’s and asan’s narrations: migration capital (financial capital and network capital), and the nature of the journey (i.e., whether it is made in one go or in a stepwise manner). this section has explored how potential female migrants finance and begin their journeys and arrive at their intended destinations. social capital and social networks of female porters social network is a resource upon which migrant female porters rely. it entails a network of support and reciprocity that exists between individual porters within communities (derham and gzirishvili, 1998; moser, 1998; meikle et al., 2001). according to carney (1998), such social support can be grouped into deen-ziblim and yidana two categories: personal social resources and public good social capital. the public good social capital allows other resources to be utilised in a community. these include community-based organisations capable of negotiating on behalf of poor people. the personal resources, on the other hand, include personal loans, child-care support, and sharing of food, accommodation, and information. the value of the social networks of migrant female porters are demonstrated by their ability to migrate from their origins in the north to accra. the study revealed that the female porters rely heavily on their personalised social networks in accra. in a focus group discussion with female porters in mallam atta market in accra, the porters mentioned that they always get information about accra, the kayayei work, and other economic activities in the city before making a decision to migrate. such information was obtained from friends, family members, and young women in their villages that had already been to accra and survived there as kayayei (beuachemin, 2000; tanle, 2003). during the migration process, the women are usually escorted to accra by friends, sisters, and other girls from their villages who have already been to accra to work as porters. in situations where an individual had to travel alone to accra, word was sent out to friends and relatives or or other acquaintances of the woman to meet her at the bus station upon arrival. communication technologies allow the travelling woman to call her host at intervals to provide updates on the progress of her travel. before coming to accra, i had never been here before. so the day i was to leave i called amina who is working here as a kayayei on phone for her to assist me to come. she asked me to go to tamale and ask of imperial bus station. when i got to tamale i went to the station and had my ticket ready for the journey to unknown accra. amina had already told me to arrive at the last stop. so when we got to accra in the morning by 4am, my friend was there to receive me. she picked me to her sleeping place and there i saw about ten young girls from my village. amina took me through the work for almost two weeks just to introduce me to the kayayei work. the first day she gave me a head pan and led me to the market. hmmm friendship is good (damata, 17-year-old kayayoo). reliance on social network goes beyond information-sharing to include care, financial assistance, and the sharing of food and tools for work between old and new arrivals in the kayayei business. according to the migrant female african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 1551 porters, when one does not have money to travel to the city, one relies on friends in accra to lend money which is repaid after the woman has arrived and worked for some days. before coming here i called my friend amina who has been working here for four month to help me with transportation cost and also share information with me about my new destination. she agreed and sent down to me one hundred ghana cedis (ghs 100) through mobile money transfer. she also told me which car to take and how to get to the station. she directed me to a young man in tamale called abukari who is a loading boy at the tamale station who always assists new kayayei to get to accra. when i got to tamale, abukari handed me to the driver of the benz bus and instructed him that my friend amina would be at the station to receive me. with this assistance it was easy for me to find my way to accra to join my friend for kayayei business (zalia, a 20-year-old kayayoo). the statement above was confirmed by a driver in tamale who indicated the role drivers play in the migration processes of the female porters who often join their vehicles to accra and kumasi. he narrated the following: most of the young girls who migrate from the north to the south, especially accra, do not know their way to their destination. what we do is that those who are there direct them to come to us at the station in tamale. so when they come, their friends will call us on phone and plead with us to bring them to accra. because they are to depend on us till we hand them over to their friends in accra, their lorry fare is different. we charge them additional ten ghana cedis (ghs 10) because we have to make series of phone calls before we hand them over to their friends and also the risk involve in carrying them (haruna, 38-year-old bus driver in tamale). the findings here support the argument by awumbila (2010) that migrant female porters are usually aided by transport owners and drivers to get to accra. they are assisted by their social networks of their friends from their home villages who are already working in accra as porters and domestic workers. conclusions and policy recommendations migration is seen by the female porters as a means to gain autonomy in their lives, a means of livelihood diversification, or as an alternative livelihood deen-ziblim and yidana source. migration has always been an alternative or additional source of livelihood for rural people, especially in times of crisis (ellis, 2000; ellis, 2003). the rapid urbanisation of ghana, with accra playing a primary role, accounts for its magnetic attraction. this finding is in line with those of several other researchers who argue that structural and economic reform policies have great effects on livelihoods, thereby contributing to rural-urban migration, especially of women to cities to work as head porters (adepoju, 2010, 2004, 2002; kwankye, anarfi, tagoe, & castaldo, 2009). the migration process of female porters is enabled by their mothers and social networks, including boy lovers, friends, and family in the origin communities, along the way, and at the destination. the study recommends that the government, through the northern development authority which seeks to bridge the gap between the north and the south, should make funds available for the young women in the north, so as to engage them in economic activities that will prevent them from migrating to the south to work as kayayei. in particular, the policy of revamping the shea nut industry should target the young women. references abdulai a. 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(2007). child migration, child agency and inter-generational relations in africa and south asia. working paper series, t24. development research centre on migration, globalisation and poverty: university of sussex. yaro, j. a. (2004). combating food insecurity in northern ghana. food insecurity and rural livelihood strategies in kajelo, china and korania. phd thesis, department of sociology and human geography, university of oslo. zaami, m. (2010). gendered strategies among migrants from northern ghana in accra: a case study of madina. thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the award of master of philosophy in resource human adaptations, university of bergen, bergen. javascript:void(0) javascript:void(0) 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za this issue consists of five articles. the first article by mulatu zerihun, entitled “remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda”, analyzes the possible effect of international remittances on the economic growth in three selected countries within the intergovernmental authority on development (igad). the result demonstrates that remittances in the countries included in this study serve as a ‘big-push’ towards economic development and have an impact on growth. the findings also suggest the development of close cooperation with host countries to leverage mutual benefit, as well as the establishment of successful collaboration with migrants and diasporas. finally, the research proposes future studies on the impact of remittances on economic growth. the second article by adebayo makanju and hafiz khan is entitled “determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria”. different statistical techniques were used in the analysis, including cross-tabulation and binary logistic regression. the findings of the research indicate a high mean prevalence of old-age disability within the study area, irrespective of migration status in north-eastern nigeria. the research also establishes robust predictors of later-life health outcomes as socio-economic and environmental determinants. regression analysis has also shown that a variety of factors have a negative influence on the wellbeing of older adults. based on the findings of the research, the authors recommend that the proposed sahelian ‘green belt’ afforestation project of the economic community of west african states (ecowas) targeting, in particular areas around the chad basin, be fully implemented. the authors also emphasize the urgent need to formulate a systematic and evidence-driven integration between migration and geriatrics. the third article by edmond akwasi agyeman is entitled “between the imagined and the reality: threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa”. the study examines spain’s migration policy aimed at controlling sub-saharan african immigration. a review of policy papers, migration statistics and secondary literature was used methodologically in the research. the study indicates that current migration trends and statistics do not support the perception that spain is being invaded by sub-saharan african migrants. the study also shows that the restrictive policies of spain neglect the long-standing interdependent trade and other economic networks existing between spain, north africa and west africa prior to the european colonization of africa. the fourth article presented by hemish govera and amiena bayat is entitled 4 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 “differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa: evidence from the national income dynamics study”. the goal of this research was to determine whether the prevalence of depressive symptoms is higher in south africa among migrants than among non-migrants. the study also investigates the association of migration status with a wide set of sociodemographic variables in the same context. the study applied descriptive analysis and logistic modelling to the south african national income dynamics study (nids) panel datasets. the study found a significant association between low sociodemographic status and the risk of poor mental health. the report concludes that compared to the western cape, residing in the rest of the south african provinces was associated with a lower risk of poor mental health after controlling for migration status. the final article, presented by victor mlambo, is entitled “externalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the european union”. the study explores the externalization and securitization of african migration to the european union (eu) and the consequences this has for migration governance and management for both the eu and africa. methodologically, a qualitative research approach was applied. the study concludes that eu-africa migration management needs to be focused on policies that address the main ‘push’ factors driving irregular migration from africa. i believe these articles offer invaluable insights to scholars, practitioners and students with the skills necessary to provide solutions to many of the major migration challenges faced by society. they also provide informative advice for policy-makers to think critically about migration policies, programs and projects by presenting the continent with reliable empirical research evidence. ahmr volume 6 number 1 jan-apr 2020.indd 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za african human mobility review (ahmr) is one of the few peer-reviewed scholarly journals in the field of migration in sub-saharan africa. the objective of ahmr is to publish up-to-date, high-quality and original research papers alongside relevant and insightful reviews. as such, the journal aspires to be vibrant, engaging and accessible, and at the same time integrative and challenging. at the moment, ahmr publishes three issues per year in april, august, and december. the journal also publishes occasional special issues. in the past few years, a number of articles were received by the editorial office, of which, after the critical peer review process, selected articles were published. our online publication has increased accessibility of information for practitioners, researchers, students, academicians and policy makers. ahmr, vol. 6, no1, 2020, presents a diverse selection of stimulating articles from various scholars in the field. the first article looks at the interlinkages between migration and inequality in africa through the review of contemporary studies in several parts of the continent. the second article analyzes policies and programs concerning african immigrants and refugees following the 2008 xenophobic crisis up to 2016. the third article reflects not only on the results of the study itself, but on the methodological process issues that can lay a foundation for a better understanding of how to study the intersections of migration and local governance. the fourth article examines how social media strengthen in-group solidarities with the attendant consequences of loss of lives, properties, and inter-state diplomatic relations in post-colonial africa. the fifth article identifies the barriers to belonging for young migrants in south africa. the last article analyzes how a migrant association facilitates being, belonging and integration of migrants in the host society. this issue offers a shared vision and understanding of a major predicament of policies and programs in the african continent. in this regard, authors provide an increasingly critical and compelling evidence-based reflection on emerging trends and economic, social, political and cultural issues in africa. this issue also provides valuable information to researchers, policy makers, practitioners and students, shedding light on the complexities of human mobility in africa. it is a precious collection of insightful articles on various aspects and issues of human mobility, dynamics and perspectives in the african continent. the opinions expressed in this editorial report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ahmr. as always, we would like to thank the outgoing board of directors of ahmr, dr meselu alamnie mulugeta, (bahir dar university, ethiopia), dr beneberu assefa 4 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 wondimagegnhu (bahir dar university, ethiopia), and dr sharon penderis (university of the western cape). their guidance and support make our journal possible, and we are deeply indebted to them for the time and effort that they put into our journal. it is also with sincere pleasure that i welcome the new board of directors of ahmr, prof vivienne lawack, deputy vice-chancellor: academic at the university of the western cape, south africa, prof jonathan crush, balsillie school of international affairs, canada, prof wilson majee, university of missouri, usa, and dr eria serwajja, makerere university, uganda. in 2020, we are proud to be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the university of the western cape. for the past six decades, the university of the western cape opened up education for all. during this landmark anniversary, we are also celebrating the partnership and joint ownership of the african human mobility review (ahmr) with the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma). i believe that this issue provides invaluable information to researchers, practitioners and students. it also dishes up thoughtful ideas to policy makers to make well-informed decisions about migration policies, programs and projects, by presenting the best available evidence from research in africa. african human mobility review volume 4 number 3 september – december 2018 social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar refugee integration between a rock and a hard place: challenges and possibilities of local integration as a durable solution for eritrean and somali refugees in ethiopia wogene berhanu mena evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu strength of social ties as a factor determining remittance behaviour thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor prof mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh university of pretoria, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delgado wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof simon bekker university of stellenbosch, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, sao paulo and manila. ahmr is accredited by the department of higher education and training (dhet) in south africa. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). webpage: www.sihma.org.za copyright © 2019 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 461 4741, email: editor@sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ http://www.sihma.org.za/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1333 social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar 1359 refugee integration between a rock and a hard place: challenges and possibilities of local integration as a durable solution for eritrean and somali refugees in ethiopia wogene berhanu mena 1386 evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema and evans boadu 1417 strength of social ties as a factor determining remittance behaviour thebeth, r. mukwembi and pranitha maharaj african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1333 social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan tekalign ayalew, fekadu adugna and priya deshingkar abstract this article discusses the migration processes and brokering practices that link ethiopia and sudan by taking into account the social, economic, political and cultural underpinnings of human smuggling in the region. the analysis is based on three months of fieldwork using a conventional qualitative research methodology. respondents were selected from actors such as smugglers, migrants and government personnel involved in the migration process, facilitation and control activities. since the 1990s, significant irregular overland labour migration has emerged from ethiopian towns and villages to khartoum, sudan via the border towns of metema on the ethiopian side and galabat on the sudanese side. however, how various actors engage in shaping this migration process and how human smuggling sustains despite increasing control efforts by the state is less understood. this paper demonstrates that this mobility is facilitated mainly by smugglers who are involved in transnational social relations, material practice and migration knowledge production, including informal money transfer practices, transport and communication infrastructures. this challenges the view reflected in popular discourses that such smuggling is organised by independent criminal organisations. smugglers and their connectors in metema facilitate ethiopian migrants’ clandestine border crossings via the town of metema by mobilising support and resources from local communities along the border, bribing border guards and capitalising on their ethnic, religious and economic connections along ethiopian-sudanese borderlands. the study concludes that human smuggling and brokering migration partly thrives in the border areas since the actors extend benefits of smuggling to the economically disadvantaged local community and in return generate social and community support for smuggling activities.  assistant professor of social anthropology at addis ababa university. email: tekalign.ayalew@socant.su.se  assistant professor of social anthropology at addis ababa university. email: fek.adugna@gmail.com  research director/senior research fellow in geography at sussex centre for migration research. email: p.deshingkar@sussex.ac.uk mailto:tekalign.ayalew@socant.su.se mailto:fek.adugna@gmail.com mailto:p.deshingkar@sussex.ac.uk african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1334 keywords smuggling, migration infrastructure, borders, knowledge, migration control. introduction in recent decades, ethiopia has simultaneously become one of the major sending and transit countries of migrants and asylum seekers in the horn of africa (ayalew, 2017; zewdu, 2018). in the face of challenging socioeconomic and political conditions in the country, which are compounded by very limited options for legal international migration, a large number of ethiopian young men and women undertake long and dangerous overland journeys across deserts and seas to reach destination countries in europe, the middle east and southern parts of africa. the mobility of migrants is organised by the engagement and interactions of multiple actors and the entanglement of social and smuggling networks that link migration origin, transit and destination places (ilo, 2011; ayalew, 2017; fernandez, 2017). the focus of this paper is socio-political and cultural dimensions of smuggling of ethiopian migrants to sudan along the north-western route, which links villages and towns in ethiopia to khartoum, via the town of metema, which is located along the ethiopian-sudanese border. this route leads to europe via the eastern sahara desert, libya and the mediterranean sea. migration through this route to sudan and further north is not a recent phenomenon. the mass flow of people through the town of metema was observed during the dergue regime due to famine, civil war and the repressive political rule in ethiopia (terrazas, 2007; faiz, 2013; hailemichael, 2014; grabska, 2016). however, since the 1990s, after the current ethiopian regime took power and the emergence of a booming oil economy in sudan, ethiopian labour migration to sudan has shown a marked increase. most of these border crossings are clandestine and thousands of young men and women cross the ethiopian-sudanese border every month (triulzi & mckenzie, 2013; zeyneba, 2017; ayalew, 2017). in khartoum, women migrants face sexual, physical and labour abuses by employers and significant other actors. many new arrivals often use khartoum as a steppingstone and proceed towards european countries that are assumed to be welcoming of refugees and migrants (triulzi, 2013). after the ethiopian government recently intensified control infrastructures and introduced tough anti-human smuggling regulations to control clandestine migration, the actors and practices of facilitating overland migration and clandestine crossing of international borders have become african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1335 more complex than before. in this paper, we will trace the role of state, private and community actors in facilitating the smuggling of ethiopian migrants to sudan. the existing studies focus on how criminal organisations, such as human traffickers and armed gangs, stationed along this migration route deceive migrants and how professional smugglers independently organise clandestine migratory journeys and border crossings (abebaw, 2013; triulzi & mckenzie, 2013; treiber, 2013b; hailemichael, 2014; habte, 2015; collyer, 2015). migrants, mainly women, are also portrayed as silent victims of various types of sexual, labour and physical abuses by trafficking rings and smuggling operations (fernandez, 2010; guday & kiya, 2013; asnake & zerihun, 2015; grabska, 2016; zeyneba, 2017). of course, there are interesting emerging studies on the conditions of migration in sub-saharan africa. for instance, dinbabo and nyasulu (2015) explored macroeconomic determinants of pull factors of international migration to south africa and dinbabo and carciotto (2015) dealt with the necessity of a rights-based approach in international migration studies. however, less understood is the manner in which smuggling becomes a community enterprise – as it involves ordinary individuals, state actors and business people – and is embedded in cross-border informal trade and social relations in borderland areas. furthermore, little is known about how migration facilitation actors sustain clandestine migration by dynamically and creatively responding and adapting to the intensification of irregular migration control and states’ regulatory structures. thus, this paper tries to fill this knowledge gap by exploring the intersection of social and smuggling networks in organising clandestine migratory exits and journeys; sociocultural dimensions of brokerage and smuggling organisations. this study was conducted mainly in the transit town of metema, which is about 196 kilometres away from gonder and 975 kilometres from the capital, addis ababa. this town is a major node of smuggling and social networks that connect villages and towns in ethiopia to khartoum, sudan. a major source of livelihoods is cross-border trade with the town of galabat on the sudanese side of the border. the town’s economy is predominantly based on trade and service, which is related to the large numbers of migrants. the rural parts of the districts on both sides of the border have agricultural investments. especially on the sudanese side, there are large-scale plantations that play a major role in attracting labour migrants from ethiopia. the study was also conducted in three major migrant sending locations in ethiopia: addis ababa, hadiya zone in southern ethiopia and south wallo zone in northern ethiopia. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1336 background/contextualisation ethiopian migration to sudan is not a new phenomenon. there was significant refugee flow from ethiopia to sudan during the ethiopian military regime (1974–1991) due to military dictatorship, civil wars, poverty and environmental disasters, such as droughts (terrazas, 2007; faiz, 2013; hailemichael, 2014; grabska, 2016). according to bariagaber (2006), political conflict and war with eritrea led to the displacement of thousands who migrated to the sudan. according to grabska (2016), these migrants of the 1980s and 1990s were labelled as refugees, unlike the present cohort who are predominantly economic migrants. faiz (2013) also states that the existence of petroleum since the 1990s and the economic boom afterwards attracted many economic migrants to the country, including ethiopians. with the downfall of the military regime, the former refugees were repatriated to ethiopia, and resettled in the border town of metema. many of those who remained in sudan settled in khartoum and continued to supply information to prospective migrants about ways of clandestine border crossings, meeting the brokers, as well as financial and psychological support for new arrivals via transnational and translocal social and family networks that connect the origin, transit and destination locations in this migration corridor (treiber, 2013a; ayalew, 2017). in addition, the longstanding migration history between the two countries, the cultural similarity and the loose and vast common border encouraged migrants to use the north-west route to the sudan. however, recently, migration patterns have become complex in terms of who is migrating, how and why. there are different estimations but no exact data on the number of migrants crossing the border clandestinely. for instance, in 2011, the ilo reported that the number of ethiopian migrants travelling to libya through sudan was around 75,000–100,000 per year (anteneh, 2011). in 2014, the number of migrants using the north-west route was reported to be 18,000– 37,000 per year (frouws, 2014). based on her source from the ethiopian immigration office in metema, zeyneba (2017) puts the annual estimate at 30,000–32,400 migrants. despite such statistics and the significant flow of ethiopian, eritrean and somali migrants, little is known about migration patterns and process along this route (rmms, 2014; ayalew, 2017). extreme mobility of migrants in the sudan, egypt, libya and further in europe make it difficult to track the migration flow, processes and map out the routes that take migrants outside of ethiopia. destinations are also varied as some stay in african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1337 sudan, libya and egypt while others continue their journey to europe (ayalew, 2017). despite reports of abuse and harassment in sudan, the majority of migrants taking the north-west route are women. according to zeyneba (2017), between september 2014 and august 2015, 193 migrants were caught trying to cross into the sudan. of this, 123 (63.73%) were female migrants. faiz (2013) further claimed that the number of illegal female migrants to sudan has increased after the 2013 ban on labour migration to the middle east by the ethiopian government. studies show that ethiopian women leave the country in search of better livelihoods (shewit, 2013; hailemichael, 2014). the metema route, according to anteneh (2011) and jamie (2013), thus mainly served as a route for women migrants to sudan for the purpose of domestic work. in sudan, ethiopian women are engaged in selling tea and coffee on the streets and sometimes in commercial sex work (anteneh, 2011; shewit, 2013; zeyneba, 2017). female ethiopian migrants face several problems, including physical and sexual abuse (faiz, 2013; shewit, 2013; addis, 2014; frouws, 2014; hailemichael, 2014; grabska, 2016; tsega, 2016; zeyneba, 2017). in many cases, according to shewit (2013) and faiz (2013), the women are faced with long working hours, restricted mobility and verbal abuse. they are also stereotyped and wrongly perceived as thieves and prostitutes in sudan (shewit, 2013; ayalew, 2017). looking further into the demography of migrants taking the north-west route, it is reported that many of the migrants are young ethiopians and many male migrants look forward to reaching europe through libya and egypt (kuschminder & siegel, 2012; frouws, 2014; strachan, 2016). in terms of ethnicity, they are mainly from oromiya and southern nations nationalities and people regional states (faiz, 2013; zeyneba, 2017). this might be due to geographic proximity and the history of migration to sudan from these regions. high-risk border crossings and long journeys of migrants and refugees from ethiopia must be understood in the local and global context of a socio-political economy. on the sending side, young people in ethiopia are dissatisfied with the growing economic inequalities, prolonged conflicts and repressive political conditions (ayalew, 2017). at the same time, they are lured by remittances and returnees’ prosperity and driven by social and familial expectations. undoubtedly, there is evidence of state persecutions and human right violations, particularly in the last two decades in ethiopia, that drive an african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1338 increasing number of refugee flights, mainly from oromyia national and regional state of ethiopia. many of the migrants use khartoum as a steppingstone to move to europe, where they can seek asylum in refugee welcoming countries such as germany and sweden (triulzi, 2013; campbell, 2014; ayalew, 2017). however, there are also several other personal factors that drive migrants, such as adventure-seeking dreams, escape from forced marriages in the case of women and failures at school. moreover, there are intermediaries and smugglers, commonly referred to as delaloch in ethiopia, and several other actors who engage in organising departure and mobility. the delaloch also arrange debts for poor migrants so that they can travel now but pay later after they get jobs in sudan. thus, the combination of complex and dynamic macro (structural), meso (social and smuggling networks) and micro (individual) factors (faist, 2000) shape the migratory experience in ethiopia. conceptual frameworks migration industry there is growing literature that makes use of term ‘migration industry’ to describe the globalised phenomena of migration and the various actors that make it possible. since the late 1990s, the concept was introduced to explain “how migration flows sustained themselves in the face of intensified efforts of states to control movement across territorial boundaries” (spener, 2009). following the pioneering work of salt and stein (1997), migration scholars have broadened the concept of the ‘migration industry’ to explain actors and processes involved in border controls and those facilitating contemporary irregular and regular labour and refugee mobility, particularly from the global south to the global north (sørensen & gammeltoft-hansen, 2013; andersson, 2014). the migration industry comprises of actors, technologies and enterprises that encourage, facilitate, mediate, condition, and control migration, cutting across both the social relations and material economy. these include recruitment and travel agencies, money lenders, formal and informal remittance and courier services, transport companies and operators, legal and advisory firms, visa facilitation agencies, lawyers, security contractors, smugglers, ngos and others (spener, 2009; hernández-león, 2008; sørensen & gammeltofthansen, 2013; xiang & lindquist, 2014). according to sørensen and gammeltoft-hansen (2013), the migration industry further encompasses human smuggling and trafficking networks, transnational criminal organisations, trafficking rings, and ‘control providers’, such as private african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1339 contractors performing immigration checks, operating detention centers and/or carrying out forced returns. according to sørensen and gammeltofthansen’s (2013) study, the involvement of these different institutions, individuals, and agents in the migration industry is believed to be driven by financial gain, emphasising the “commercialization of migration”. this study noted that these various actors maximise and accumulate huge economic gains by capitalising on migrants’ desire to move and the states’ increasing efforts to manage migratory mobility. in fact, for sørensen and gammeltoft-hansen (2013), it is the state that “actively sustains and funds large parts of the migration industry”, which indicates the involvement of not only market actors in the migration industry but also the intersection of market and state. however, due to the pronounced “business” domain in the concept of the migration industry, scholars centred their points of discussion on the “illegal” end of it, and argue that “human smuggling and trafficking” are salient elements of the migration industry (salt & stein, 1997; castel & miller, 2003). later encompassing the social relation in migration networks, the concept of the migration industry was further developed into a business that can also “emerge from mutually-supportive networks of social relations within a migrant community” (spener, 2009: 26). from migration industry to migration infrastructure over time, literature on the migration industry has moved away from salt and stein’s (1997) notion of “migration businesses” towards considering migration infrastructure (hernández-león, 2008; sørensen & gammeltofthansen, 2013; xiang & lindquist, 2014). these infrastructures, according to xiang and lindquist (2014: 124), can be divided into five dimensions evident in every step of the migration process. these are (1) the commercial (recruitment intermediaries), (2) the regulatory (state apparatus and procedures for documentation, licensing, training and other purposes), (3) the technological (communication and transport), (4) the humanitarian (ngos and international organisations) and (5) the social (migrant networks). these dimensions entail that the concept of the migration industry not only deals with micro and macro structures but rather offers a meso-structure approach to migration. however, as hernández-león (2008) argues, the migrant has long been left out of this concept of the migration industry, which pays little attention to migrants’ active and passive agency in mobilising migration resources and the diverse and dynamic relationships that emerge between migrants and brokers african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1340 (herman, 2006; sanchez, 2015; ayalew, 2018). it also lacks the existential and emotional dimensions of migration. to address this shortcoming, schapendonk (2018: 665) adds to the definition of the migration industry by incorporating relationalities and social negotiation with a focus on how migrants navigate the industry and how their practices “relate to, and are entangled with, a wider web of relations.” this emphasises the multi-scalar, relational nature of migration and its embeddedness in the social context. the literature on the migration industry also fails to incorporate the fundamental gender relations that shape and are reshaped by migration. ethnic background and age group also determine the migration experience and process. moreover, how migrants and brokers create and use networks by capitalising on shared nationality, ethnicity, religion and hometowns during organising fragmented and stepwise migratory journeys is overlooked (ayalew, 2018). it is these missing elements in the migration industry literature that the present paper takes into account. according to spener (2009), it has proven difficult to define the scope of the industry, a complex landscape with diverse actors and shifting roles. this point is reiterated by schapendonk (2018). furthermore, according to spener (2009:18), there is a “problem of how we establish the conceptual boundaries of the migration industry” either as an analytical concept or a metaphorical representation. nevertheless, the concept of the migration industry has proven to be an approach that enhances our understanding of migration as a multi-level process that involves different actors. taking this into consideration, this paper is situated partly in line with sørensen and gammeltoft-hansen’s (2013) concept of the “migration facilitation industry”, focusing on brokerage and the material and social infrastructure that shape migratory mobility, but also recognising that the profits and social trust cannot always be separated (xiang & lindquist, 2014). brokerage is the process of connecting actors in systems of social, economic or political relations in order to facilitate access to valued resources (stovel & shaw, 2012; lindquist et al., 2012). brokers often occupy the ‘middle space’ between migrants, states and employers. they can act as extensions of the state, seeking to outsource border controls and colluding with employers to cheapen and commodify migrant labour (mccollum & findlay, 2018). brokers can also work on migrants’ behalf, finding ways of circumventing restrictive border control policies and practices. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1341 with the topic of brokering migratory exits and sustaining cross-border mobility, the present paper looks into the brokering practice that involves the interplay between different private actors, formal and informal brokers, humanitarian and state actors and institutions, including social networks and technologies that inform, facilitate and condition the migration process, making it self-perpetuating and self-serving (lin et al. 2017). it also looks into how brokering and smuggling practices thrive from and are sustained by a continuous process of learning about changing conditions along migration routes, including intensification of control and regulatory structures in border areas as well as negotiating power relations between migrants and smugglers at the three stages of migration process. these three states are: (1) recruitment and/or departure; (2) mobility/en route and border crossings and (3) settlement at a particular destination (faist, 2014). methodology of the study the empirical data was collected through three months of fieldwork in 2016 and 2018 using a conventional qualitative research methodology including indepth and informal interviews, focus group discussions (fgds), observations, collection of life histories, photographs, extended case studies tracing migratory departures, journey and settlement in destination or return and circulation. respondents were selected from workers and actors involved in the migration industry. these include five brokers, government officials (two border guards and 16 officials/personnel working in migration related government offices) and six non-government and international organisations, including the iom and local ngos engaged in migration management. in addition, 25 aspiring migrants, 30 families/households of migrants, 20 returnees in origin locations (addis ababa, wallo and hadiya) and 5 migrants en route in metema were interviewed. potential migrants, migrants in transit locations, failed migrants as well as returnees were the main targets of this study. this approach helped us to deeply explore the roles of migration facilitation actors at the different stages of the migration process. some returnees are aiming to migrate again (either to the same destination or to try new destinations), others want to resettle and still others have managed to become successful business persons. some were expelled from sudan while others returned to ethiopia voluntarily. both types of returnees were interviewed in metema and addis ababa in order to collect information about their engagements with the migration facilitation industry actors. in addition, stories of migrants’ lived experiences helped us to trace the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1342 actual process of migratory journeys, border crossings and their experiences in destination locations. as migration decision making (including selection of brokers) engages families/households, the study also targeted households of migrants. research in archives or policy document analysis was also conducted to capture socio-political and legal contexts of migration decisions using the services of brokers as well as regulatory infrastructures that shape smuggling organisations. besides the in-depth interviews, five fgd were held with aspiring migrants and returnees in the study sites. in the following sections, we will explore this further and empirically explain the smuggling operations, process of clandestine migratory departures and journey towards the sudan. results and findings smuggling organisations and clandestine journeys as stated earlier, there is a well-established overland migration route that links ethiopia and sudan (triulzi, 2013: 235). the route begins in addis ababa and passes through the towns of bahir dar and gondar and the other major transition towns of metema and humera (himora) at the ethiopian–sudanese border, and leads to khartoum via the towns of galabat and gedaref in sudan. some people from the tigray region and gondar exit via humera in the northern part of the ethiopian–sudanese border. these migration routes and delaloch networks link villages and towns in ethiopia with khartoum. there are generally two ways of facilitating an overland journey: delaloch gather migrants in addis ababa or other bigger cities, such as jima, adama and addis ababa, for a few days and then arrange transport to khartoum. the precise number of delaloch engaged in this migratory process is largely unknown. some sources estimate that more than a thousand migration delaloch live in addis ababa alone and hundreds live in transition towns and villages (abebaw, 2013; igad, 2013; ayalew, 2017). the individuals working with these delaloch, whom migrants call ‘the bosses’ (that is, lead brokers), sit in khartoum, from where they access leqamiwoch (recruiters or collectors), ashagariwoch (transporters), kezaignoch (those who keep migrants in hidden places/houses en route) and teqebayoch (receivers in destination) along the stated routes. these bosses are former eritrean and ethiopian migrants who occasionally work with sudanese and libyan smugglers, known as semsari, and have agents in europe and saudi arabia as well. migrants’ testimonies indicate that african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1343 the bosses sometimes organise overland journeys via libya to italy and then scandinavia or by air directly from sudan or via saudi arabia to europe with help from sudanese semsari. the ‘bigger bosses’ in khartoum have several nicknames and many of them are from the eritrean and ethiopian tigray ethnic group. some names frequently mentioned by interlocutors are kibrom, ephrem, wedi german (son of germany), wedi asab (son of asab) and yishaq, indicating tigrigna origin. this is due to the long and established history of clandestine migration facilitations from eritrea, which the smugglers from these ethnic groups have capitalised on for a long time (ayalew, 2017). the bosses’ agents, known as leqamiwoch, move inside villages and neighbourhoods in towns and convince young men and women to take the journey before finally sending them to the ashagari in addis ababa. from addis ababa, another ashagari collects the migrants and sends them to the border towns, such as metema or humera, where the next ashagari assists them to cross the border before he hands them over to a sudanese transporter, who then takes them to khartoum. however, not only cross-border delaloch networks but also cross-border kinship obligations and other significant actors located in relevant spaces organise the irregular overland exits and journey towards sudan. in most cases, potential migrants collect the names and addresses of reliable delala or recruiters in origin locations and border areas from friends and family members in sudan who might have used the same routes or delala. the recruiter or local delala first collects the lists of potential migrants and then contacts his immediate and ‘smaller boss’ in addis ababa or metema and humera. the smaller bosses contact their ‘mastermind’ in khartoum, who arranges for agents who can bribe the border guards at various checkpoints and others who can transport people across borders and take them to khartoum. the ‘bosses’ also decide the appropriate time, condition and means of transport. according to the accounts of delaloch and migrants collected during our fieldwork, transporters flexibly use a combination of public and private transport services. marishet was a 23-year-old woman from ethiopia. the researcher met her in khartoum in may 2016 while she was in transit to sudan. she described her journey from addis ababa to khartoum and the many people involved in getting them from one point to the next. she travelled with her sister after both of them had decided to migrate to sudan. they consulted their brother-in-law who put them in touch with a delala named getachew. getachew promised to get them to khartoum for 7,500 birr each (about 300 euros), to which they agreed. they planned to use her sister’s savings from an earlier stint in dubai. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1344 she promised to repay her sister after she found a job. they then met getachew at the bus station and he accompanied them to metema where he handed them over to two habeshas [ethiopians] waiting for them on the outskirts of metema. from this point onwards, the journey became more clandestine and dangerous. marishet stated: we passed the checkpoints on two motorcycles, which they rode on the side of the roads. from there, we were handed over to a sudanese man who collected us from habeshas and drove us to his place in a toyota pickup car. he offered us one night of accommodation. for the next two days, he drove us through bushes, dust and dirt roads. finally, he took us deep into the bushes near khartoum, where we joined about 120 ethiopian migrants, who were hiding in the bushes and waiting to be transported to khartoum […]. the next day, at midnight, the sudanese came with three minibuses and loaded about 50 people in the cars. after long hours of nonstop driving, we entered khartoum at midnight. after arriving in khartoum, those who had friends and relatives were dropped at their houses and others waiting for money to be transferred via hawala by their relatives would be held in accommodation arranged by the sudanese delaloch until the money was received. those who wanted to continue their trip to libya could stay with the delaloch until the next leg of the trip was arranged. but those who did not have money to pay for their journey from ethiopia to sudan entered into a debt agreement with the delaloch and were informally introduced to employers in khartoum or other places in sudan. they would remain under the surveillance of delaloch until they repaid their entire debt. the above account exemplifies that irregular migratory exits result from actions and interactions of various actors and entities. on the one hand, feelings of immobility in life, mainly among the young people in current day ethiopia, have partly motivated overland escape, which is facilitated by diverse actors, including migrants and non-migrants located in several local and transnational spaces. the facilitating agents of migrants’ journeys towards sudan are smugglers that include delaloch and their connectors; technologies such as mobile phones and the internet; family and friendship networks; and public transport and road networks that link sudan and ethiopia. these have become infrastructural moorings of clandestine migratory exits and journeys. the interactions of these actors, institutions, networks and objects, which condition and facilitate overland exits, reflect the entanglement of complex african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1345 economic and social forms, material and technological practices and smuggling networks. some of the actors engage for money and others (former migrants en route and in diaspora) do so because of cross-border social obligations and reciprocal relations. however, recently, the ethiopian government has intensified border controls by introducing strict regulations regarding human smuggling practices. following this, smuggling operations become more complex as smugglers dynamically adapt new strategies to overcome control structures. the following sections explore this in detail. intensification of government controls and smugglers’ reactions recently, the ethiopian government intensified migration control infrastructures and regulations following the increased media coverage of the suffering of ethiopian migrants en route and deportations of thousands of migrants from various destination locations, mainly saudi arabia, which also intensified the ongoing anti-government protests in the country (de regt & tafesse, 2015; ayalew, 2017). this increased regulation is also backed by the eu externalisation of border controls. via externalisation practices, the eu has begun to persuade african states including ethiopia to “introduce pre-emptive measures to deter or prevent their citizens from irregularly migrating to europe, and/or other nationals from doing so by transiting through their countries”. in exchange, the eu extends various promises including development aid, trade facilitation, foreign investment, and other advantages (gaibazzi et al., 2017: 5–10). the government of ethiopia has intensely engaged in criminalising brokers and portraying migrants as victims of the smuggling practices. to that end, proclamations are adopted swiftly and “antihuman trafficking taskforces” have been established at different layers of the bureaucracy targeting the irregular migration facilitators and brokers. the ethiopian government introduced different anti-human smuggling legislations. some of these include the 11th criminal bench within the federal high court (2007), human trafficking and narcotics section in organized crime investigation unit of the federal police (2009) and anti-trafficking task force (2011), which were established to curb human trafficking and smuggling and combat illegal migration. the anti-human trafficking taskforce has been set up at all levels of the administrative tier. officials from the deputy prime minister to the district administrators are members of the taskforce. to broaden migration control activities, law enforcement, religious leaders and traditional leaders have formed an anti-human trafficking committee. checkpoints have been set up in the main migration routes. brokers have been african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1346 criminalised and subjected to organised campaign. in the last five years, in two districts in wallo and hadya provinces, 50 and 62 brokers, respectively, were convicted and are serving long prison sentences. the private employment agency proclamation 104/1998 was later amended to the 2009 employment exchange service proclamation 632/2009, which holds private employment agencies (peas) and employers liable for the welfare of employees and states higher bond requirements for licensing. further, the proclamation amendment was argued to have caused a decline in licensed peas (from 110 in 2009 to 54 in 2010) and pushed some peas into the business of illegal brokerage (fernandez, 2017). the new anti-human smuggling proclamation (proclamation 909/2015) even introduced tougher regulations and punishments on those engaged in human smuggling and trafficking in person. in 2013, the ethiopian government banned any labour migration to middle eastern countries until agreements were reached with respective countries on the protection of migrant workers (de regt & taafesse, 2015; zewdu, 2018). following this, the north-western route towards europe via sudan became popular. smugglers diversified their migration facilitation strategies and new actors joined the facilitation industry. in other words, as it is elaborated below, intensification of control infrastructures have not stemmed clandestine migratory exits; rather, they have increased costs, risks and the number of migration facilitation actors, as smugglers dynamically and creatively design new routes and strategies to overcome barriers. diversification of exit routes and strategies the metema-galabat border has been the main exit route for migrants along the ethiopian-sudanese border. however, after the recent intensification of border controls in the area, migrants cross the border and enter into sudan by using remote desert routes. according to information from government officials and residents of metema town, there are different desert routes in metema, woreda, that have emerged to serve as major gateways to sudan. some of the desert routes found in metema are doleo, meka, shinfa, korjamos, workamba, chilga, dambia, ganda and arbajira. migrants pay high costs to brokers to enter into sudan using these desert routes: from 7,000 to 12,000 ethiopian birr (zeyneba, 2017). previously, it cost approximately 2,000 ethiopian birr (ayalew, 2017). those migrants who are coming from eritrea and somaliland often use the doleo desert route, which is found to be one of the most dangerous desert african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1347 routes in the woreda. in this regard, zeyneba (2017) stated that in 2016, a car holding 24 migrants from somaliland (18 male and 6 females) were caught while they were trying to cross the border to enter into sudan through the doleo desert. moreover, in addition to the above stated desert routes, where the government intensified controls, numerous other unknown desert routes are found by smugglers in order to facilitate migrants’ clandestine entry into sudan. in addition, since the ethiopian government recently tightened border controls in metema, the route passing through humera has become a key outlet. the humera border is used mainly by eritreans and ethiopians from the northern parts of ethiopia (ayalew, 2017). there is also another route via damazin along the ethiopian-sudanese border. this route is mainly used by ethiopians from benishangul-gumuz and oromiya national and regional states to enter sudan. during our recent fieldwork, we were told that migrants were found dead along this route just two months prior due to dehydration in the dessert. until 2013, in many migrants sending areas of ethiopia, brokers openly collected money, recruited, transported and hosted migrants in their own safe houses. even the security in certain areas considered them to be creators of opportunity. for instance, in one case in hadiya, a police commissioner assigned a guard for a broker. however, now brokers have moved from the public scene to underground operations in many parts of ethiopia. they undertake their services via telephone and local representatives. most of the negotiations between brokers and potential migrants are made telephonically. systems of transport have also changed; except in the case of the route from wallo to the djibouti border where there is no public transportation, transporting migrants en masse to the border in a rented car has been abandoned. rather, migrants are told to take public transport by themselves until they reach border towns such as metema. systems of sheltering have also changed. instead of keeping migrants together, brokers let migrants rent rooms by themselves in hotels around the border during journeys. the above discussion indicates that intercepting migration routes simply increases the costs and risks of migration instead of preventing it. this is mainly because, besides other factors, more officials and law enforcement joined in the facilitation industry. for instance, during long journeys across the desert, migrants (especially female migrants) experience environmental hazards, gang rape, shortage of food and water, theft and robbery by criminals (ayalew, 2017; zeyneba, 2017). in addition, as is elaborated below, tightening african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1348 border controls partly increased actors engaged in the facilitation of migration. smuggling becomes community enterprise in border areas according to the informants and researchers’ observations, the social and economic lives of metema town thrives because of migration and contraband trade. the town is predominantly populated by returnees, newly arrived potential migrants and seasonal labour migrants coming to the large-scale commercial sesame farms in the area. urban dwellers and organisations – such as shop owners, hawala agents, tea and coffee vendors, hotels, shoeshines, youth economic associations such as shanta mahber (luggage association) and private transport services (buses, bajaj, tractors and minibuses) – benefit from and support brokering practices and clandestine migration. this is because all of these social groups generate financial gains by hosting, feeding, guiding and transporting migrants, as well as brokering border crossings. abdalla was a sheqaba (local broker) in the town of metema. during the time of interview, in may 2018, he was 35 years old. he had served as a federal police officer, but later he quit the position and became a sheqaba in metema for five years. he narrated the following: metema town is built by the money from the migrants. everybody participates. migrants come with money, people in metema waits for that money. thus, nobody resists. you know why the government cannot stop migration? the migrants want to migrate, the people here eagerly wait to support them and obtain money. everybody waits for that money. this lady [pointing at a lady cooking food] while cooking food in front of her house she may see a strange person walking in the street. then, she calls someone she knows working as a broker, probably her husband, and tells him about the strange person. he immediately comes and approaches the stranger. he takes him/her to a place of accommodation. there are many houses in the town mainly built to host migrants. this person gets money at least by taking the migrant to that accommodation place. he puts the migrant in contact with a broker, and gets money again. abdalla also added that a shoeshine does the same. a new arrival sits at a shoeshine or coffee house and tries to observe the environment. the shoeshines and the women who sell coffee report the newcomer to brokers or to a sheqaba. a shop keeper does the same. abdalla stated, “have not you seen african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1349 shopkeepers sitting in empty shops, and barber shops? their incomes from the formal businesses would not pay the rent. they just sit there and wait for other opportunities”. the “other opportunities” abdalla refers to include migrant smuggling and contraband trade. shop owners might deal with more complex issues. most of them are in the money exchange business. they exchange ethiopian birr for sudanese pound, or vice versa. the shop owners also engage in informal money transfers (hawala). according to informants, many of the shop owners in metema lived in khartoum. they returned from there. thus, they know boutique owners in khartoum and work with them in money transfer. in khartoum, there are shops named after the hometown of migrants, such as jimma boutique, wallaga boutique, gondar boutique, etc. from addis ababa or jimma, families or brokers send money through ethiopian banks to metema. the shop owners in metema withdraw the money, change it to sudanese pound and send it from galabat to khartoum. there are money transfer shops there. they also use mobile banking; the most well-known being zein banking. migrants also send money from khartoum for their families or payment for a broker through these money transfers and brokers use these shop keepers. security and police officers make the importance of their tasks visible by intercepting migrants when they are crossing the border clandestinely, detaining and deporting them back to their countries of origin. however, some officers also trade migrants with brokers and open up checkpoints in exchange for bribes. villagers and peasants also work with brokers and sheqaba. for instance, village militias and farmers protect migrants from security and host, feed and guide them through safe routes via bushes and forests during clandestine crossings. for these services, they demand money from brokers and/or smugglers as well as migrants. one informant stated: “here we usually say, ‘there is no sheikh and kes [priest] in metema.’ nobody is holy here. this is not a place anybody prefers to inhabit. the weather is harsh… metema is very hot.” informants claimed that some police spend only nine months in metema and will be transferred due to the difficulty of the weather. as such, they want to get their share before they are transferred to another place. smuggling migrants and contraband are the main opportunity for police officers to earn money before leaving. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1350 abdalla spoke about the engagement of local militias as follows: there is local militia. the militia is armed. people in this lowland border area are armed and are very good in shooting targets. the militia members are recruited from the local people. the militia has no salary. some of the militia members are former members of the police or army. some of them live in rented houses. so, what is their source of income? they are the brokers. for the lead brokers also, it is much better to connect to the militia than to the police. the militia members are local people. they know the route much better than the police. especially recently, when the migrants are coming in a big group, we are using the militia and it has become common. they fight with the police. the police usually run away. the engagement of unemployed youth – the sheqaba the key actors that facilitate border crossings in the town of metema are sheqaba. literally, sheqaba denotes unemployed young men and women. sheqaba play multiple roles as local brokers in facilitating clandestine migration. abdalla stated the following: when busses arrive, the sheqaba populate the bus station. some are sent by lead brokers. the main broker do not come out and make himself visible. he hides in somewhere and work by phone calls or send his agents to collect migrants from bus station. some other sheqabas are hunting for migrants who have not found broker yet, or whose broker is late to arrive. the sheqaba approach those who have no broker and connect them with a lead broker they know. then they get share in the income based on their negotiation. in case, the migrants already have a broker, who is late to receive them, either the sheqaba snatch [migrant theft is common] them and pass them to another broker whom they favor or call the original broker and negotiate a term of sharing as they are the rescuers, and of course they can also threaten him as he is illegal broker…we [sheqabas] also monitor the presence of police; the presence of security guys. we monitor the border and provide information to the lead brokers. we also monitor the smuggling routes. we look for migrants who are crossing to the sudan. we know the routes. some sheqabas are formally organised by the government. for instance, the luggage association, which is locally referred in amharic as shanta mahber, also work as brokers. they are formally registered with the government. the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1351 luggage association has 108 members. their main task is facilitating legal migrants to transit the town. they are organised to support the migrants who come with visas. they pick up migrants who have visas from the bus station, transport them by bajaji with protection from abuse by illegal brokers, guide them to shelters, facilitate currency exchange in the black market, photocopy travel documents for them and take their passports to the immigration office. in a way, their task is to relieve some of the burden from the immigration office. however, some individual members are also main players in migrant smuggling. most of them compete with sheqabas and work as intermediaries for lead brokers that facilitate clandestine crossings. hence, the sheqabas call the luggage association the government sheqaba. the luggage association also have a bad public reputation, as they exploit migrants by demanding extra payments. smuggling is embedded in cross-border trade smuggling operations are embedded within and rely on cross-border informal trade and mobility. for instance, there is a main road that passes through the town of metema and extends to khartoum via galabat on the sudanese side. here, there is formal and informal cross-border trade of people and goods. lorries, buses and minibuses transport goods and people between ethiopia and sudan via the town of metema using this road. this back and forth flow of contraband goods and people is accompanied by a flow information and knowledge about clandestine migratory mobility and transitions. brokers on both sides of the border use kinship, friendship and religious, ethnic and business ties to facilitate informal money transfers for hosting and transporting migrants as well as for bribing officers to open up check points. brokers simultaneously use both formal and informal currency exchange and money transfer systems. for instance, hawala agents use formal banks and mobile banking by means of ethiopian and sudanese telephone lines and sim cards. for instance, at the ethiopian-sudanese border, there is a bridge that separates two border towns (metema on the ethiopian side and galabat on the sudanese side) that has been serving as a gateway for migrants to enter into sudan. it is also one of the major routes for ethiopian migrants who legally enter into sudan using a short-term visiting visa or the sudanese id known as the tasrih. this route is also open for the residents of metema and galabat towns who visit the market centers during the day to exchange goods and services. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1352 though the tasrih is used primarily by the residents of both border towns, it is also used by migrants who disguise themselves as residents of either metema or galabat to cross the border and enter sudan. brokers arrange the tasrih for ethiopian migrants from galabat. with these sudanese ids, migrants can meet sudanese employers at galabat who help them to move to khartoum (zeyneba, 2017). some migrants try to cross the main gate and bridge by disguising themselves as residents of metema, while others wait for a suitable time to cross the bridge, such as at night or during market days in galabat or in metema when the guards are not around. these migrants then hide themselves in the huts found in suk el-galabat (the market place at galabat) and travel further into sudanese territory through the desert on foot or on lorries or other means of transportation. many female migrants pass the main gate by wearing a tob (veil) commonly worn by sudanese women. once they cross the border, they contact the sudanese broker and travel to khartoum by car through the forest. since the border area is covered with dense but uninhabited bushes, it is conducive for the brokers and smugglers to transport migrants into sudan via these bushes and easily bypass checkpoints (zeyneba, 2017). the above discussion exemplifies that in order to continue with clandestine crossings in the face of increasing border controls, the generation and sharing of knowledge about particular transition nodes is necessary. migrants and smugglers collectively produce information about how to use visibility and invisibility strategies in order to circumvent immobility regimes in the border areas. this indicates that the border areas are not merely sites where the state exercises its sovereign power by way of implementing border control regulations, but it is also a site where translocal and transnational social and economic relations thrive. this is mainly due to the continuous back and forth flow – both legally and illegally – of people, information and goods across international borders. consequently, facilitating clandestine migration across the border sustains – despite intensifications of regulations and control structures – since it is embedded within and operates in relation to the stated cross-border mobilities and relations. conclusions the preceding discussions and analysis have demonstrated that human smuggling and brokering of clandestine migratory exits is embedded in and functions within broader translocal and transnational social, cultural and economic relations. this challenges the view reflected in popular discourses african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1353 that such smuggling is organised by independent criminal organisations. smugglers and their intermediaries facilitate ethiopian migrants’ clandestine border crossings via the town of metema by mobilising support and resources from local communities along the border, bribing border guards and capitalising on their ethnic, religious and economic connections in the ethiopian-sudanese borderlands. thus, human smuggling has become a community enterprise. it is deeply integrated into the economic lives of the lowland poverty-stricken border areas. brokers have made the migration industry accessible to the local people. the control structure does not carry the same economic incentives. thus, brokering thrives – amidst the intensification of regulatory and control infrastructures – as it enjoys community approval and support. migration facilitation actors navigate expectations of the community by creating opportunities for transnational mobility for migrants and by sharing the benefits of smuggling with various sections of the society, mainly in border areas. they also simultaneously navigate regulatory and control structures by designing various strategies to circumvent border controls. thus, the system of control structures reproduces a dynamic system of migration facilitation infrastructures. more specifically, brokering migratory exits thrives despite intensifications of control infrastructures because of the production and reproduction of knowledge within the smugglers and migrants’ transnational networks. they continuously generate new knowledge and information about ways of recruiting migrants and transporting them via safe routes as well as ways of money transfer and payment strategies. this knowledge is shared with relevant facilitation actors and migrants using mobile phones and online communications. in other words, the entanglement of social and smuggling networks, communication technology and the production and reproduction of knowledge constitute the backbone of the migration facilitation industry in general and the infrastructure of contemporary clandestine migratory mobility in particular. the production and sharing of this migration knowledge also entail unequal power relations between migrants and smugglers. those who have knowledge and the means of mobility – the smugglers and local community along the border areas – have more power than migrants. thus, capitalising on this knowledge, some of them perpetrate violence toward and exploitation of migrants on the move. therefore, intensifications of border controls do not stop clandestine migration; rather they increase risks, costs and vulnerabilities of migration as more actors join to organise migration and migrants are forced to take longer unsafe routes. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1354 acknowledgment this research is funded by the migrating out of poverty research programme consortium which is funded by uk aid from the uk government. however the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the uk's government's official policy. references abebaw, m. 2013. experiences of trafficking returnee domestic workers from the gulf states: implications for policy and 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between a rock and a hard place: challenges and possibilities of local integration as a durable solution for eritrean and somali refugees in ethiopia wogene berhanu mena abstract this study examines the challenges and possibilities of local integration for urban refugees by comparing two refugee groups (eritreans and somalis) in addis ababa. a qualitative research methodology was employed and semistructured interviews with refugees and host communities as well as key informant interviews with the administration of refugees and returnees affairs (arra) and local authorities were conducted. in addition, focus group discussions (fgds) with refugees and host communities of the study areas were held. the respondents for both interviews and fgds were purposively selected. the historical and ongoing relations between ethiopia and the refugee producing countries, a structural factor, impacted not only the country’s policy direction towards the refugees’ but also the refugees’ and hosts’ perceptions of local integration. the study revealed that somali refugees are more integrated in the host communities than eritrean refugees in the respective areas despite the cultural compatibility of the latter because of the interplay of structural, refugee and host community related factors. the prolonged settlement and engagement of somali refugees in both the formal and informal economy in the area reduced prior mutual mistrust and misperceptions and resulted in the refugees’ progressive integration in the host communities. however, the securitisation of somali refugees in the area by interlinking them with the insecurity and terrorism in their country obstructs the intensive integration by creating fear among both refugees and host communities. on the other hand, the eritrean refugees perceive the special treatment provided to them as politically motivated and temporary. low levels of migrant integration are caused by the perception of ethiopia as country of transit and a lack of motivation on the side of host communities to facilitate integration.  lecturer, department of political science and international relations, wolkite university, ethiopia. email: bwogene@yahoo.com african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1360 keywords: refugees, local integration, securitisation, politicisation, somalia, eritrea, ethiopia. introduction africa has been unrelenting in producing refugees since the 1960s. the horn of africa, one of the most conflict-ridden regions in the world, is known for its mass exodus of refugees. currently, the region is the biggest source of refugees worldwide next to the middle east. according to a 2017 united nations higher commission for refugee (unhcr) report, three of the top ten refugeeproducing countries in the world are from the horn of africa (somalia, south sudan and eritrea). on the other hand, ethiopia and kenya are among the biggest refugee hosting countries in the region (global trends forced displacement, 2017)). as a result of producing and hosting refugees simultaneously, the sub-region has been referred to as the ‘belt of refugeeproducing and receiving’. for the last two and half decades, ethiopia has been hosting refugees from the neighbouring countries of south sudan, somalia, eritrea, yemen and other countries from the great lake region. the absence of a central government in somalia since 1991, ongoing civil war in the youngest state of south sudan and political oppression and human rights violations in eritrea are the major push factors for refugees’ flight to ethiopia (assefaw, 2006; international crisis group, 2014). the unhcr identified three durable solutions for the problem of refugees: voluntary repatriation, local integration and resettlement. with protracted conflict and political repressions in the refugee-producing countries, voluntary repatriation is a distant possibility. similarly, because of perceived and real conditions of identifying refugees as a security threat and economic burden in developed countries (third countries of resettlement), the opportunity for resettlement is far from positive. in addition, immigration is becoming the major cause of rising populism in western countries. washington post columnist and host of cnn’s gps, fareed zakaria (2018), identified immigration as the central issue feeding populism around the globe. given the dwindling prospect of security in their homelands in the near future and the unlikelihood of smooth resettlement or secondary movement across the mediterranean sea, the remaining solution is the local integration of refugees in the host communities. however, local integration is a two-way process impacted by both the refugees’ and the host communities’ perceptions towards local integration, in addition to the state’s policy praxis. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1361 like other african countries, the structure of refugee settlement in ethiopia is mainly confined to camps located in isolated rural areas due to the perceived economic burden and security concern of the state. although camps are considered to be impermanent settlement for refugees in a temporary state of emergency, most of the refugees in the country have been in camps for prolonged periods of time. few exceptions are made for refugees who desire urban settlement. however, self-settlement (significantly) and assisted settlement (insignificantly) of refugees in urban areas are increasing due to different pull and push factors. hence, refugees are found in different urban areas of the country, such as addis ababa, adama, jijiga, gambella, shire, mekelle, assosa and samara, among others. somali and eritrean refugees have settled in addis ababa for a long time (unhcr ethiopia, 2017). as per the ethiopian orthodox church development and inter-church aid commission (eoc-dicac) report of march 2017, the numbers of assisted refugees from eritrea and somalia who have settled in addis ababa for the purpose of specialised protection or medical care are 594 and 853, respectively. however, the number of self-settled refugees in both countries is far greater than the number of officially recognised and assisted refugees in addis ababa. jacobsen (2006) notes that “the government is incapable or chooses to turn a blind eye to the situation.” according to the joint report of the arra and the eoc-dicac, as of march 2017, approximately 192,000 refugees are settled in addis ababa on unpermitted and permitted grounds, as assisted urban refugees, out-ofcamp policy beneficiaries and unregistered asylum seekers. despite this significant presence of urban refugees, few studies have been carried out on the issue of urban refugees in general and on the issue of local integration in particular. therefore, this study compares the local integration of eritrean and somali refugees in addis ababa from the perspectives of both refugees and host communities, in order to analyse the challenges and possibilities for local integration. methodology a qualitative research methodology was employed and data for the study was collected from both primary and secondary sources. primary data were collected through in-depth interviews with refugees and host communities (twenty semi-structured interviews), and eight key informant interviews with arra and local authorities were conducted. additionally, four fgds with refugees and host communities of the study areas were held. the respondents for both interviews and fgds were purposively selected. to substantiate the data incurred from primary sources and to develop a conceptual framework, african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1362 secondary sources of data were consulted, such as books, journal articles, published and unpublished thesis, newspapers, governmental and nongovernmental organisations’ reports, newspapers and study reports. the data obtained from both primary and secondary sources were analysed using a qualitative method. among many refugee groups settled in addis ababa, the somali and eritrean refugees were selected based on their large presence for a relatively prolonged period of time. additionally, the historic attachment of somalis and eritreans with the host state and host community makes them comparable cases. major differences between the two groups include the variation in the level of integration with the host community in respective areas and impacting factors from refugees, the host community and policyrelated issues regarding local integration. the areas in addis ababa selected for study were gofa mebrat hail for eritrean refugees and bole michael for somali refugees. the benchmarks for sampling the areas were the number of the refugees in the area and their settlement in the area for a relatively long period of time. conceptual framework and literature review understanding the concept of local integration local integration is one of three durable solutions for the refugee problem (repatriation and resettlement are the other two). local integration is a multidimensional process that consists of economic, social, legal and political aspects. in the countries of resettlement, the level of refugee integration with the hosts is determined by the following variables: employment, education, health service and naturalisation (ager & strang, 2004). however, in developing countries in general, and africa in particular, host governments’ policy directions and practices discourage integration and prefer encampment and segregated rural settlements, with the exception of the republic of south africa and egypt (kibreab, 1989; malkki, 1995; karadawi, 1999). the concept of integration is chaotic and understood differently by different scholars. however, it has basic indicators for assessing the local integration of refugees in their host communities. according to crisp (2004), local integration is a process that consists of interrelated legal, economic and social dimensions. legally speaking, “refugees are granted a progressively wider range of rights and entitlements by host states.” these rights and entitlements include the right to “seek employment, to engage in other income-generating activities, to own and dispose of property, to enjoy freedom of movement and to have access to public services such as education” (crisp, 2004). the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1363 progressive realisation of these rights may lead to migrants being granted citizenship, but this does not guarantee local integration. beyond this, refugees in the global south receive the legal recognition of citizenship and its related benefits in the host states not only through formal state institutions and policy directions but also through different informal manners that resist state control. the major pull factor for refugees’ migration to urban areas is the potential for invisibility that the environment provides. refugees’ invisibility and the fluidity of their status can prevent them from being captured by the state as illegal but also prevents them from participating in activities to which they are not legally entitled (polzer, 2009; landau, 2010; frischkorn, 2013). the fluidity of refugee status in african countries is largely influenced by a situation of people with common history, culture, ethnic group, religion and way of life that are artificially separated by colonial boundaries (mengisteab & bereketeab, 2012). this enables refugees to defy state control by being invisible and changing their identity as citizens of the host country. this level of fluidity is amplified by the limitation of state capacity. this creates alternative means for integration in an informal manner, despite the obstructing policy environment. negotiating with local authorities is another means by which urban refugees acquire the legal rights and entitlements to settle in urban areas and engage in different economic activities. unlike in western countries, refugees in african countries rarely have formal means to influence and negotiate state policy that negates their interests (polzer, 2007; polzer, 2009; frischkorn, 2013). by using corruption as a negotiating mechanism, refugees defy their status and acquire legal status, though the process is not trouble-free. this trend has been seen with mozambican refugees in south africa (polzer, 2007; polzer, 2009) and different refugee groups in lusaka (frischkorn, 2013) and kenya (campbell, 2005; campbell, 2006), among others. secondly, integration is a social and cultural process that enables “refugees to live among or alongside the host population, without fear of systematic discrimination, intimidation or exploitation by the authorities and peoples of the host population” (crisp, 2004: 1). jacobsen (2001) further defines sociocultural integration the process by which refugees develop social networks in the host community with little distinction between the standard of living of refugees and that of the host community, and when refugees feel at home in the host country. finally, local integration as an economic process is mainly defined and measured in terms of achieving self-sufficiency and a standard of living for refugees that is comparable to the host community. in addition, the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1364 intensive economic engagement of refugees’ results in meaningful interaction that primarily contributes toward sociocultural integration by lessening various barriers (mekuria, 1998; jacobsen, 2001). refugees’ ability to pursue improved livelihoods has impacted the status of refugees in the host country in general and in urban areas in particular (jacobsen, 2001; crisp, 2004). thus, local integration is a multi-dimensional (legal, economic and socio-cultural) process that is fundamentally driven and impacted by both refugees and host communities, rather than stand-alone policy response. factors impacting refugee-host community integration local integration is a complex and multi-dimensional process impacted by refugees, host communities and policy-related factors. however, these factors are not mutually exclusive. rather, one factor can be an effect of or cause for another. hence, incorporating and understanding the impacting factors from refugees’ and host communities’ perspectives provides a comprehensive view of the issue. refugees are active and primary decision makers in establishing their home within their host community (jacobsen, 2001; griffiths, 2003; korac, 2009 as cited by frischkorn, 2013). firstly, the refugees’ plan to stay in the host country affects their level of integration with the host community. when refugees consider their first country of asylum as a transit country to resettle in developed countries (legally or illegally-by using smugglers), or to go to their homeland, they see no reason to invest in their lives in the host country (grabska, 2006). hence, the refugees’ intentions and aspirations for resettlement in the third country of asylum or repatriation impact their perceptions of local integration (ager & strang, 2010). secondly, the psychological compatibility or the social connections of refugees with the local community impact the refugees’ integration with locals. the social connection can be reflected in terms of language, culture, ethnic background and/or historical ties (fielden, 2008). ager and strang (2008) dubbed these elements as “facilitators” for integration. thus, the existing similarities of language, culture and social values between the host communities and the refugees on the one hand, and the refugees’ interest in knowing and understanding the hosts on the other, are significant factors for local integration. the level of trust in the host state and its people based on past experience also impacts refugees’ perceptions of local integration. for example, based on their past experience in sudan with perceived and real arab domination, the south sudan refugees in cairo were mistrusting and african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1365 suspicious of host communities with arab cultural roots (grabska, 2006). therefore, the plan of their stay, the level of shared identity and the trust towards local communities are refugee-related factors that impact local integration. in addition to socio-cultural (in)compatibility (campbell, 2006; grabska, 2006; fielden, 2008), the expectations of the host communities regarding the duration of migrants’ settlement and the desirability of repatriation or resettlement have an impact on their perceptions towards integration. during the initial phase of refugees’ arrival, host communities view refugees as guests and hosts’ actions are mainly welcoming and assistance-based (kibreab, 1989). however, this perception of temporariness obstructs hosts’ interests in integrating with refugees. on the contrary, the protracted situation may facilitate local integration as the long history of refugee movement develops the hosts’ perception of refugees as part of their community (jacobsen, 2001). similarly, extended stay has contribution for de facto integration by enabling linguistic and cultural adaptation (fielden, 2008). this is reflected in the case of angolan ‘refugees’ in zambia who were highly integrated and difficult to differentiate from locals (bakewell, 2000). the host communities’ perceptions of the economic implications of refugee settlement is another major factor that impacts local integration. integration is hindered when host communities perceive refugees as a burden on social goods and services (health, education and housing) and as competitors in the labour market (especially the unskilled labour market). in addition, when host communities perceive refugees as more economically privileged than them, discrimination and resentment become common (campbell, 2005; betts, 2008). on the other hand, when the host communities view refugees as sources of labour, consumers of goods and services and creators of new business opportunities and cross-border trade, integration is bolstered (campbell, 2006; grabska, 2006; codjoe et al. 2013). thus, buy-in from host communities has a significant impact on local integration. policy related issues also impact the local integration of refugees in host communities. in most african states, as the first country of asylum, urban refugees technically do not or should not exist, as their existence is unrecognised or their settlement is illegal. the perception of refugees as security threats or economic burdens is a commonly propagated justification for opposing the presence of refugees in urban areas in developing countries. as result, these states have never developed clearly defined policies towards african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1366 urban refugees, which places refugees in a state of legal limbo (campbell, 2006; fábos & kibreab, 2007). in addition to their liminal and marginalised position, the securitisation of refugee issues develops a sense of an “outsider” status among refugees and sense of “cultural othering” within the host communities (kibreab, 2000). securitisation also creates an unfavourable environment for the refugees by fostering xenophobia within the host communities (fábos & kibreab, 2007). even for those assisted refugees that are legally settled in urban areas, states reservations to provide for some rights granted under the international refugee regimes limit refugees’ access to education, employment and legal protection. limits on these rights negatively impact refugees’ perceptions towards local integration by making their livelihoods unstable (grabska, 2006). thus, policy inclusion or exclusion has a direct impact on the integration process as it creates the sense of marginalisation for refugees. literature review local integration is one of the unhcr’s three stated durable solutions for the problem of refugees (kobia & cranfield, 2009). it is common to find differences in the literature about urban refugees and the issue of integration in urban areas of the west (dryden-peterson, 2006; rai, 2015). in africa, extensive research has been done on refugees in camps and rural settlements. nevertheless, in developing countries in general, and in africa in particular, the study of urban refugees received attention in the late 1980s. thereafter, kibreab (1996) identified the issue of urban refugees as “what the eye refuses to see”. most of the scholarly works on this topic focus on refugees in cities such as cairo, johannesburg, nairobi, kampala, and khartoum (drydenpeterson, 2006). in the case of ethiopia, the issue of urban refugees in general, and their local integration with the hosts in particular, has received little scholarly attention. webster (2011) assessed the protection challenges that eritrean refugees encountered in ethiopia and only considered the issue of refugees in addis ababa from the refugees’ perspective. according to the researcher, the source of protection challenges emanates from eritrean state officials and ethiopian administrators who act in pursuit of their political interests. thus, the analysis ignores the multidimensional sources of protection challenges as well as the perception of the host communities towards the eritrean refugees. conversely, kibrom (2016) assessed the socioeconomic impact of somali refugees on the host community in addis ababa from host communities’ african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1367 perspective and recommended repatriation of refugees to their host country as a solution to minimise the burden on the host community, even though the somali refugees would be returning to a difficult situation in somalia. on the other hand, ali (2014) analysed the challenges of social integration for the refugee women of the great lake region (rwanda, burundi, uganda tanzania, democratic republic of congo) in addis ababa through the refugees’ lens. in his work, ali problematically referred to the refugees from those four countries as a homogenous group by understating their heterogeneity of language, culture and national identity. however, as a strength of the study, the researcher acknowledged refugees as active decision-makers and primary social actors in integrating with the host community. however, the study failed to include the perception of host communities of the refugees’ integration, though the researcher recognised integration as an interactive, two-way process in his conceptual framing of the study. therefore, the aforementioned studies about urban refugee integration with the host communities approach the issue of local integration as one-directional (only from refugees’ or hosts’ perspective). in reality, integration is multidirectional. thus, it is fair to identify the issue of local integration of urban refugees with the host community in addis ababa as an under-researched subject. moreover, the local integration of eritrean and somali refugees as the largest refugee groups in the city, has been neglected. this study examines the local integration of eritrean and somali refugees with local communities in addis ababa and compares the impacting factors from both refugees’ and host communities’ perspectives. research findings and presentations the fluidity of refugees’ status the ethiopian refuge proclamation no. 409/2004 defines refugee in an inclusive manner by incorporating both the united nations refugee convention of 1951 and the organization for african unity convention of 1969 (the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problem in africa) under article 4. according to the arra legal protection department, refugees and asylum seekers can be categorised into four major groups: assisted urban refugees, unassisted urban refugees (eritrean refugees who are beneficiaries of the out-of-camp policy), non-permit holders (refugees from camps without permission to settle in urban areas), and unregistered asylum seekers (mainly somali refugees). the unhcr report of march 2017 indicates that 594 eritrean and 853 somali assisted urban refugees are african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1368 settled in addis ababa to receive either special medical care or special security. these groups hold a legally authorised document from the arra that enables them to receive a monthly allowance from the dicac. in addition, the out-of-camp policy has provided the eritrean refugees who are self-sufficient to live with relatives outside the camp in their area of choice since 2010. these groups of refugees have special identity cards (ids) that identify them as outof-camp beneficiaries. refugees of all nationalities outside of these four categories (both non-permit holders and unregistered asylum seekers) are considered illegal but are not subjected to arbitrary detention. ethiopia has been praised for granting freedom from arbitrary detention for illegal entry or presence under article 13(6) of the refugee proclamation (webster, 2011). this legal and institutional commitment of the ethiopian government cannot be underestimated. however, most states in africa, and the horn states in particular, share not only borders but people with a common history, culture, ethnic group, religion and way of life. this enables refugees to defy state control and limits the states’ capacity to control their borders. the existence of this shared identity and limit in the state capacity paves the way for invisible and de jure integration of people across the border without regard for state policy directions (mengisteab & bereketeab, 2012: 102). the status of both eritrean and somali refugees in addis ababa is highly fluid. each refugee groups has strong commonalities with an ethnic group in ethiopia (i.e., the ethiopian somali ethnic group for somali refugees and the tigrean ethnic group that exists in both eritrea and ethiopia). this enables refugees to have ethiopian passports like ethiopian citizens regardless of the restrictive government policy. one of the somali refugee respondents revealed that he has three passports for three countries (ethiopia, somaliland, and djibouti) while he is considered to have refugee status by the ethiopian government. as means of resisting state authority, refugees negotiate the enforcement efforts through various mechanisms, including corruption. in explaining how the refugees get id cards in addis ababa or in the somali regional state, one respondent said, “money can ease the challenge.” on the other hand, eritrean refugees informally obtain ethiopian id cards to have access to work that refugees do not have, rather than to obtain access to legal residence like somali refugees. in spite of ethiopia’s prohibition of refugees, by engaging in income generating activities and settling in urban areas with a few exceptions, the ethiopian refugees have subverted the legal constraints of the state through local informality (i.e., by negotiating with corrupt local african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1369 officials) and through their co-ethnic groups in ethiopia. similarly, mozambican refugees in south africa (polzer, 2007; polzer, 2009), various refugee groups in lusaka (frischkorn, 2013) and somali refugees in kenya (campbell, 2005; campbell, 2006), among others, defied state control by hiding themselves within the co-ethnic groups in the hosting countries. thus, shared identity, lack of state capacity to control its border and right of residence with negotiating capacity of the refugees have facilitated the invisible integration of refugees in the host community and indicate the blurred boundary between refugees and citizens. the livelihood and economic integration of eritrean and somali refugees in addis ababa like urban refugees in other countries, several strategies of livelihood are evident for eritrean refugees in gofa mebrat hail. these include: receiving income from remittances, financial assistance from the unhcr, working as hired labour in informal and formal sectors and running small businesses. refugees’ participation in the local economy is the major indicator of local integration. those eritrean refugees that successfully negotiated and have ethiopian id cards or passports work in the formal economy as ethiopian citizens without losing their refugee status. the major business areas in which they work include shops, barber shops, beauty salons, wood and metal work centres, coffee houses, cafés, grocers, restaurants and pool houses. another means by which eritrean refugees engage in the formal economy is through business partnerships with ethiopians. however, the vast majority of eritrean refugees in gofa mebrat hail heavily rely on remittances, as their engagement in income-generating business activities is limited. with regard to access to social utilities, they have access to public education, health services and basic consumable goods such as food, oil, sugar and bread flour. this access is granted from local authorities through the refugees’ status card or ocp beneficiary special card. in terms of achieving self-sufficiency in comparison to their local counterparts, it is fair to say that eritrean refugees in gofa-mebrta hail are not a burden to the local economy and are pursuing living standards that are equivalent to or better than locals. however, since active involvement in business (both formal and informal) is the major indicator of the integration of refugees in the host communities, it is fair to note that their economic integration as limited. on the other hand, somali refugees, like eritreans and other urban refugees, have both productive and reproductive livelihood strategies. productive african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1370 livelihood strategies include using natural resources and financial and human capital to maintain and improve livelihoods. reproductive livelihood strategies mainly involve using social capital to improve livelihoods. somalis are among the most dispersed people in the world with 1–2 million people settled in more than 60 countries, comprising the diaspora (knerr, 2012; fagioli-ndlovu, 2015). this enables the vast majority of somali refugees in bole michael to pursue their livelihoods through overseas remittances as their major source of income. these remittances are transferred by an informal banking system called hawala or hawalaad. in addition to remittances, in bole michael, it is common to witness somali refugees running different businesses in both the informal and formal economies. currently, guesthouses, cloth shops, cafés and restaurants, chat (it’s a leaf that is a mild narcotic and its leaves are chewed for a stimulating effect), internet cafés, shops and mini-supermarkets are the major businesses in which somali refugees are engaged. most of the guesthouses in bole michael are owned by somali refugees. they rent the whole compound from the local people and then sublet it as guesthouses for those refugees that come to addis ababa from refugee camps in the somali regional state for medical reasons, to visit their family in the city or for business-related purposes. somali refugees have a strong transnational trade network with co-ethnic ties in their country of origin, the host country (ethiopia) and some countries in the middle east, such as the united arab emirates (uae). this can be seen from the type of materials that are sold in bole michael, such as somali clothes, other cloth items, mobile telephones, tablet computers, laptops and packed foods and beverages from dubai and the gulf states. most of this items are imported from those middle east countries via the ethiopia somali regional state. with frequent smuggling of goods from somalia to ethiopian somali regional state, ethiopian revenue and customs authority dubbed eastern part of the country particularly ethiopia-somalia border areas as a major contraband corridor that stretches to addis ababa with a significant damping-out share (habtamu and wubeshet, 2016). this transnational linkage as part of reproductive and productive livelihood strategy in combination facilitated somali refugees’ economic integration in bole michael. in addition, this study has revealed, in opposite to the official position and the popular local perception, that urban refugees are not an economic burden to the state or its citizens. on the contrary, somali refugees’ presence in bole michael positively contributes to the economy by creating job opportunities and new business prospects. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1371 thus, from the parameters of self-sufficiency, the majority of somali refugees in bole michael are self-reliant, using remittances, clan-based social networks and informal and formal business activities to pursue equivalent or higher living standards compared to the host community. in addition, the somali refugees’ active engagement in income generating activities in the host area paved the way for their de facto integration in the host community. refugees’ socio-cultural integration with the host communities socio-cultural integration, as a process, mainly starts with the establishment of contact between refugees and host communities. this interaction begins with interpersonal communication or ‘friendliness’ between the refugees and the host communities that extends to intensive social interaction. this interaction gradually eases barriers to integration and enables the refugees to live alongside the host community. this further develops to forming social networks through marriage and participation in different social institutions (mekuria, 1988; jacobsen, 2001; crisp, 2004). this aspect of integration as a process is impacted by different factors. among them are communication (language), cultural (in-) compatibility, the settlement pattern of refugees, mutual perceptions of one another and the level of economic interaction between refugees and host communities (mekuria, 1988; jacobsen, 2001; crisp, 2004). these factors are used as a prism to assess the socio-cultural integration of eritrean and somali refugees in their respective settlement areas. historically, ethiopians and eritreans used to have a common culture and people, but also a common country – ethiopia. italian colonial control in 1890 created the state of eritrea. after half a century under italian colonial rule and a decade-old british military administration, eritrea was federated with ethiopia in 1952. for around four decades, until eritrea got de facto statehood in 1991 and de jure in 1993, ethiopia and eritrea were the same country (pool, 1980; markakis, 1988; woldemikael, 2013). this historical unity enabled people of the two states to share many traits, including culture and religion. ager and strang (2008) identified language and cultural knowledge as facilitators of integration. in this regard, eritrean refugees’ knowledge of affinity with ethiopian culture can be considered an essential factor in minimising barriers to integration. one of the respondents in an fgd noted the following: it’s not as such difficult for us (eritrean refugees) to communicate with the host community; because we share a lot of cultural elements in african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1372 common… the way we dress, the food we eat, the manner we celebrate different social events and other issues. all in all, the cultural similarity between ethiopia and eritrea made our stay in addis ababa easy. interpersonal communication is a basis for integration. eritrean refugees, mainly those who had been in ethiopia before and deported to eritrea during the ethiopian-eritrean war of 1998–2000, speak amharic well with no discernible accent. this facilitated their probability of integration. other refugees also speak amharic, the main language of the host community, though they do so with an accent. however, understanding the host culture and language can facilitate the socio-cultural integration of refugees in the host community rather than spontaneously leading to it. refugees’ engagement in different economic activities, their settlement patterns and their interest in integration can impact to what extent their shared culture and language assists in socio-cultural integration. social integration starts with the establishment of contacts between refugees and their hosts. according to mekuria (1988: 174), “it is through social interaction that barriers are removed and attitudes change […] [c]ommon interests are recognised and accommodations made only if interactions take place.” economic integration is considered to be the first and the most important step toward this type of interaction between refugees and host communities (mekuria, 1988; ager & strang, 2008). as assessed in the preceding section, eritrean refugees’ engagement in different economic activities in gofa mebrat hail is limited, which has resulted in minimal social integration of eritrean refugees in the host community. this low interaction is further limited by their settlement pattern, which is confined only to their fellow refugees and co-ethnic groups in the area. this, in turn, results in limited interaction with the host communities. however, this does not refute the positive, supportive role of ethnic enclaves in preserving refugees’ identities and social capital at the initial stage of settlement. heavy dependence on these enclaves, however, results in a fragile social bridge between the refugees and the host community that becomes a barrier for socio-cultural integration (hale, 2000 as cited in ager & strang, 2008). almost all of the interviews with both refugees and host communities reinforce that the refugees’ interaction is largely limited to themselves and the co-ethnic ethiopian tigreans’ in the area. this results in a weak social interaction between eritrean refugees and the host communities except for those host people from the tigrean ethnic group. in addition, some of the host african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1373 community respondents have bad feelings toward the eritreans due to their overwhelming vote for the cessation of eritrea from ethiopia through referendum in 1993 and the bloody ethiopia-eritrea war that followed from 1998–2000. eritrean refugees have a kind of social contact with their host community that can be understood as a lack of conflict and sense of acceptance, or what ager and strang (2008: 180) refer to as a “sense of safety and security.” during a fgd, refugees expressed that the local people, including authorities, accepted them without systematic discrimination, with the exception of a few refugees who perceived of an unreasonably high house rental price. the refugees’ involvement with local people is occasional. thus, regardless of cultural compatibility and shared history between eritrean refugees and the host community, the refugees’ limited engagement in the local economy (formal or informal) and lack of interest in integration (refugee-related and policyrelated factors that will be discussed later) resulted in weak socio-cultural integration. on the other hand, the impact of the aforementioned factors works differently for somali refugees in the study area. historically, successive ethiopian regimes (imperial, derg and the ethiopian people revolutionary democratic front) considered the irredentist claim of somalian governments (since somalia became a state in 1960) as a threat to the territorial integrity of the country. while from adeb adde (aden abdulle osman daar, the first president of the somali republic in 1960) to siyad barrre, the somali government has considered ethiopia to be a ‘colonizer’ of their ‘lost territories’, without any significant departure from the irredentist policy of ‘greater somalia’. these contentious relations between the two countries resulted in two major wars in 1964 and 1977/78 (the ogaaden war), with several skirmishes between their borderlands (gebru, 2000; lewis, 2002; assefaw, 2006). these disharmonious inter-state relations have impacted the people of the two respective countries. assefaw (2006) described the somali refugees’ decision to settle in ethiopia since 1988 (as a result of the acute condition in the country) as “unconsidered” because of the majority of somali refugees’ perception towards ethiopia as an enemy state. respondents expressed that their prior perception towards ethiopia was that the country was an enemy state. this perception has also been reflected among the host communities as a threat to the state. the respondents from the host communities reflected on the historical wounds of somalia’s conflict-based relations with ethiopia and african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1374 on the ogaaden war in particular, as factors that contributed to their initial lack of interest in interacting with the refugees. one of the respondents that has been settled in bole michael since 1996 explained the challenges that somali refugees’ encountered from the local people as follows: in the first decade of our settlement, we (he and his family) faced a lot of challenges. the local people considered the somali refugees as historical enemies, aggressors, and those who do not pause from destructing the country. as result, it had been very difficult to interact with the host communities that [was] further worsened by our inability to speak amharic. this historical mistrust/misperception between refugees and host communities as a barrier to interaction has been widened by the language and cultural difference between the two. culture as a set of typical spiritual and material features of a social group and consists of the way of living, values and beliefs (unesco, 2002). irrespective of clan difference, culturally, somalis are relatively homogenous, with the vast majority following islam as their religion. as result, when somali refugees came to addis ababa, they were exposed to a different way of living (the way they dress, the food they consume, social networks) and different values, beliefs and religious practices. they faced great challenges in interpersonal interactions with ethiopians. in addition, they explained that interactions with the host communities had been discriminatory. in a fgd, one respondent noted that ‘even in business interaction, the host communities that increase the price of any goods and services, has a double standard (high price for somali refugees and normal price for habesha)’. on the other hand, the host communities’ respondents also confirmed the discrimination. one host community respondent stated that “when the business persons told us an exaggerated price for a given good, we used to say them, ‘i am not somali; tell the price in amharic’, and they told us the revised price. but that trend has been changed.” as a coping mechanism for these challenges, somali refugees preferred to restrict their interaction to co-ethnic ethiopian somalis in bole michael. the initial plan of many refugees was to resettle in western countries or to repatriate to their homeland of somalia. however, when the prospects for both solutions became far from reach in the near future, the refugees started to engage in different business activities, mainly in the informal economy and later in the formal economy, by using their fluid status. jaji’s (2009) found that the residential settlement of somali refugees in eastleigh has reduced the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1375 refugees’ interaction with the host community. this is again reflected in this study of eritrean refugees. nevertheless, with protracted settlement in the area and refugees’ active involvement in different economic activities, the interaction between host people and somali refugees in bole michael has become intensive. many scholars in the area agree that economic interactions provide refugees and the host communities with the opportunity to build cultural understanding and develop language skills, thereby building trust through intensive social interaction (mekuria, 1988; jacobsen, 2001; ager & strang, 2008). somali refugees in bole michael explained the progressive betterment of their social interaction with the host communities. according to one of the respondents, “continuous interaction in business issues enabled us to understand the way of living, values, and beliefs of the host community and also to share our own. that is why many of us now can communicate in amharic with some discernible accent.” this sentiment was echoed by the majority of the respondents. some of the host community members, especially those who work with the refugees in a different area, have developed their somali language skills. some even work as translators (locally called toorjuman) from the somali language to amharic for refugees who have recently come to the area. in this regard, campbell’s (2006) finding shows that prior tenuous relations between somali refugees and host communities in eastleigh (nairobi) have become better in broader areas because of their constant economic exchange, though they are not perfect. this progressive and strong economic interaction between somali refugees and the host communities in bole michael resulted in what bress (2009: 164) dubbed “meaningful contact and intensive social interaction.” social interactions have also spurred the development of social networks, such as through marriage between refugees and the host communities. during fgds, the respondents expressed that marriage between ethiopians and refugees is becoming common and is no longer an exception. one of the respondents has an ethiopian wife who follows ethiopian orthodox christianity while he is muslim. however, these progressive conditions about the interaction of refugees and host communities are not undisputable, and misperceptions and mistrust between the two groups are still evident. some refugees complain about the lingering host community’s misperception and ‘othering’ of somali refugees and culture. host community respondents complained about the “diluting african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1376 effect” of somalis in bole michael because of their numerical advantage, communal lifestyle and capital to do business. these respondents expressed distaste for the demographic domination of somalis and their flourishing cafés, restaurants, mills and cloth shops. corresponding to this argument, bress (2009) found that some of thai hosts have feelings of being overwhelmed by the burmese refugee culture. this is significant because, as discussed in chapter two, integration is a two-way process and does not entail “inserting of one group amidst another” (ager & strang, 2008: 177). rather, it is the process of mutual accommodation. another issue in the process of socio-cultural integration is the treatment of refugees by the local authorities. in comparison to the host people, refugees complain about discriminatory treatment, especially by local authorities that request bribes. considering all of these challenges, both refugees and the host communities underlined the progressive change in their socio-cultural integration as a result of constant economic interaction and long-term settlement in the area. structural factors: politicisation of eritrean refugee protection vs. securitisation of somali refugees the policy response of the host state towards refugees can be positive, negative or non-existent (due to lack of capacity or willingness or the opinion that the issue of refugees is insignificant). according to jacobsen (1996), the policy choice among the above three depends on different factors. among them are interstate relations between the refugee-host state and refugeesending state, political motivation and national security considerations. policy response also varies for different refugee groups (jacobsen, 1996). local integration is a multidimensional and mutually inclusive process and these policy structures have an impact on the perceptions of both refugees and host communities. to this end, it is important to analyse the structural factors that have impacted perceptions toward local integration in the respective areas. eritrean refugees are the only refugee group in ethiopia who have the right to choose their place of settlement, in either an urban or rural area, by proving self-sufficiency or by relying on other sources of support in ethiopia through the out-of-camp policy (un news centre, 2010). they also get special treatment from local authorities, which refugees interviewed in this study confirmed. furthermore, abebe (2016) identified the ethiopian government effort of treating eritrean refugee as part of building amicable relations between the people of eritrea and ethiopia. in spite of these favourable african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1377 structural grounds for integration, eritrean refugees’ aspirations to integrate with the host community in gofa mebrat hail are low. this is mainly because the refugees’ consider the treatment they receive from ethiopia’s government as politically driven and subject to change rather than mere humanitarian protection. the first rationale that they provide for their mistrust of ethiopian protection commitment towards eritrean refugees is the interstate relations between the two countries. since the secession of the 1998–2000 war through the algiers agreement, the relations between the states have been defined by a ‘no peace no war’ stalemate. international and regional refugee legal instruments, such as the 1951 geneva convention relating to status of refugees and the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problem in africa, consider hosting refugees to be humanitarian and apolitical. but, when a country hosts refugees, tacitly or openly, it recognises and publicises the refugee-producing countries’ inability or lack of willingness to protect its people. according to alexander betts and gil loescher (2011), the issue of refugees, from the cause of flight to policy response, is an integral part of international politics and international relations. and when the relationship between the refugee-sending and receiving state is contentious, the host state treats the refugees generously, mainly to delegitimise the sending state as a foreign policy tool. this trend was mainly reflected during the cold-war period. in the usa, until the late 1980s, refugees from communist countries and the middle east received special treatment as part of the state’s foreign policy direction to delegitimise communist states as countries where people live in fear of persecution (teitelbaum, 1984; hathaway, 1990). in line with this, the source of the ethiopian government’s generosity and commitment towards eritrean refugees in a specific manner cannot simply emanate from the country’s culture of hospitability. rather, it is part of ethiopian policy to delegitimise the government in asmara to gain reputation from the international community. the eritrean refugees’ responses in gofa mebrat hail show a similar perception. one respondent said, “we are grateful for a good treatment that we receive from the ethiopian government, but i am not sure whether it’s apolitical.” another respondent considers such treatment as more politically driven than merely humanitarian, though it does temporarily contribute to refugees’ protection. the prior experience of deportation from ethiopia is another source of fear and mistrust towards the current policy. after the 1998–2000 ethiopianafrican human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1378 eritrean war, both countries deported citizens of the other state from their territory as they were perceived as security threats. since the start of the conflict between ethiopia and eritrea in may 1998, nationals of both countries had to return to their places of origin. based on this experience and some of the eritrean refugees in gofa mebrat hail having living experience of deportation, they argue that there is no guarantee against this history repeating itself. it is the same government with similar officials to those who identified people of eritrean origin in ethiopia as aliens and a threat to national security during the war. the cloud of uncertainty is not only because of the poor relations that the two states have since the outbreak of the war of 1998–2000. the change of relations for good might also have contributed to the uncertainty. refugees may be treated poorly in order to maintain the positive relations with the refugee-producing country (sexton, 1985: 804). in this regard, the eritrean refugees’ sense of insecurity is not only related to the inharmonious relations between ethiopia and eritrea for the last fifteen years; but, the ongoing amicable relations also hold an uncertain future for them. their fear is based on prior occasions of eritrean refugees’ forceful return from friendly countries like sudan, gaddafi’s libya and egypt (human rights watch, 2006). therefore, regardless of special treatment provided for eritrean refugees in ethiopia, the structure has failed to positively affect the perception of the agents (refugees) towards local integration because of their prior experience and mistrust of the ethiopian government’s treatment as politically driven, temporary and uncertain. on the other hand, securitisation of somali refugees in bole michael by associating them with national insecurity and terrorism in their homeland has negatively impacted the integration process. in relation to the securitisation measure, the somali refugees complain about the disappearance and forceful detention of their fellow refugees in the area by government forces. the securitisation also created fear among the host community towards the refugees as a potential source of the threat. the local officials also confirmed that the security issue in their woreda has taken special attention and they have been working on the issue with the addis ababa city administration, federal government, and the refugees in collaboration that associated mainly with the presence of somali refugees in their district at large. the woreda’s security officer specified the october 13, 2013 bomb blast in the district, that the ethiopian government alleged al-shabab for the action (al-shabab also claimed responsibility on its twitter account), as justification for high-security african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1379 alertness. this created fear and mistrust on the side refugees that discouraged the refugees from building sustainable livelihoods in the area. although the refugees have been engaged in different business activities in the area, they refrain from investing in big businesses like hotels and big market centers, like eastleigh in nairobi, and other immovable properties (campbell, 2006). the securitisation also creates fear among the host community towards the refugees as a potential source of the threat. thus, the securitisation of somali refugees by the government is a structural factor among others that negatively affect both the somali refugees’ and the hosts’ perceptions of local integration in the area. conclusion like other african countries, the ethiopian government ruled-out local integration as a durable solution to the refugee issue. however, the refugees have a different level of interaction and integration. local integration as a multidimensional process is impacted by different factors related to refugees, the host community and the policy direction of ethiopia as the host state. among other factors, the refugees’ settlement time span, their plan to stay in ethiopia and their engagement in either formal or informal economic sectors significantly impacts refugee-host community integration. having a shared culture and history, the eritrean refugees have the advantage of psychological compatibility, which facilitates socio-cultural integration. however, the similarity in sociocultural elements have not automatically and spontaneously resulted in social integration. the findings of this study indicate that eritrean refugees’ social interaction is very limited. the major cause of this is that eritrean refugees considered their stay in ethiopia, in general, and in addis ababa, in particular, as a temporary place of transit. they see no reason to invest socially or economically in gofa mebrat hail. similarly, the host communities also consider the eritrean refugees as guests in transit, which has contributed for their low level of interaction with refugees. hence, the eritrean refugees’ engagement in different economic activities, either formally or informally, is minimal or resulted in limited interaction with the host communities. furthermore, the eritrean refugees perceive the special treatment provided for them as politically motivated and temporary, which has obstructed integration by making their futures uncertain. on the other hand, variation in culture and historical accounts between somali refugees and the host communities in bole michael have negatively affected the process of socio-cultural integration. in addition, the securitisation of african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1380 somali refugees that associates them with insecurity and terrorism in somalia has obstructed substantial integration by creating fear among refugees and host communities. however, the active engagement of somali refugees in different economic activities in bole michael resulted in intensive interaction with the host communities. this has progressively 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(retrieved 12 april 2017). un news center. 2010, august 10. un welcomes ethiopian policy to allow eritrean refugees to live outside camps. <https://bit.ly/2dii3mg> (retrieved 12 april 2017). unhcr ethiopian factsheet. march 2017. from <https://bit.ly/2suegb8> (retrieved 28 april 28 2017). unhcr global trend 2017-statisical yearbooks. from: <https://bit.ly/2ra2k1w> (retrieved 18 april 2018). unesco (2002). universal declaration on cultural diversity. cultural diversity series. no.1. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1385 webster, s. 2011. getting beyond politics and bad blood: the protection of eritrean refugees in ethiopia, ma thesis (unpublished), american university in cairo: cairo. woldemikael, t. 2013. introduction to special issue: post-liberation eritrea. africa today, 60(2): v–xix. zakaria, f. 2018. there’s a middle ground on immigration. both sides refuse to find it, washington post, january 18. from <https://wapo.st/2twlhlm> (retrieved 28 january 2018). african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1386 evaluating system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, wilson majee, michael belebema,and evans boadu abstract recently, global issues on the migration and development discourse have reemerged and the literature has been expanding rapidly. however, most of the research has not taken into account the connection between the migrationdevelopment nexus in the context of social service delivery. in general, discussions and systematic reflections on the international comparison between south africa and united states is completely absent or rarely found in the academic debates. both countries were selected as sites for this study given the high migrant populations. using a quantitative research methodology this study assessed and evaluated the system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population in south africa and united states of america. structured questionnaires were administered to selected african immigrants in the two case study areas (cape town, south africa and columbia, missouri). the surveys provided data for a range of indicators that helped in evaluating the system efficiencies and service delivery of immigrant population. the result of this empirical study clearly indicates that non-inclusiveness and anti-immigrant feelings continue to militate against the well-being, emancipation, human rights and resilience of immigrant populations. this research recommends that avenues for intervention and investigation of service deliveries to the immigrant population should be designed to address current irregularities that range from the role institutionalized discrimination play in systems to actual and perceived service disparities. keywords development, evaluation, international, legislation, migration, rights, social service and welfare  associate professor of development studies at the institute for social development, university of the western cape.  professor at the school of government, university of the western cape.  assistant professor of public health and health sciences, university of missouri.  phd candidate at the institute for social development, university of the western cape.  phd candidate at the school of government, university of the western cape. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1387 introduction in recent times, migration issues have become a very sensitive debate in national and international developmental discourse (dinbabo & carciotto, 2015; dinbabo, 2017). the substance of this global phenomenon is often politicised to a very large extent (herbst, 1990). south africa and the united states (u.s.) are not immune to this global trend. the movement of people has taken various shapes and has been characterised in different ways. irrespective of the motivation, south-north migration (snm) poses great pressure on the already scarce resources in the destination countries due to the global financial crisis of the past decade. despite the fact that some countries have signed international treaties to support migrant communities, this rhetoric is often unsupported by action. the majority of governments have failed or are not able to provide support to migrant communities in terms of funds and social services, although they are legally responsible for such assistance. as such, in most instances, international relief agencies and nongovernmental organisations (ngos) provide support in this respect. it has been estimated that between the years 1980 and 2010, the movement of people across international boundaries increased more than 100%, from 103 million to 220 million. in 2013, the figure stood at 232 million and has currently been projected to hit over 400 million by 2050 (martin, 2013). the literature tends to focus on snm; however, it has been estimated that the number of migrants that traversed between the boundaries of developing countries is equally as large as the number of migrants moving from southern to northern countries (ratha & shaw, 2007). south africa is a destination country for such cross-border migration in africa. for example, in 2017, african countries as a whole hosted 24.7 million immigrants, which was a 28% increase from 19.3 million in 1990. almost all of these immigrants were born in africa (oecd, 2018). the global economic challenge, and its debilitating effect on the majority of people in both the global south and north, has led to mass movement of people across international boundaries in search of greener pastures and economic stability. in sub-saharan africa, women are increasingly entering the workforce in a context in which urbanisation is forecasted to increase from the current rate of 40% to 58% by 2050 and the current population of 1.05 billion is expected to double to 2.2 billion by 2050 (gagnon, 2018). in this context, south-south migration (ssm) is likely to continue to rise. these changing demographics have and will continue to worsen the challenges of migrants african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1388 across the globe. this mass movement of migrants across international borders poses great pressure on the resources of destination countries. background/contextualization issues of immigration in both south africa and u.s. have been debated since time immemorial. while there were deliberate immigration policies in both countries to regulate access to government welfare programmes or services over the years, in the past three decades, the context, as well as the content, of these policies has been significantly altered. generally, migrants are faced with a number of political, social and economic challenges, and there are numerous opinions regarding how to approach and manage ssm and (south north migration) snm dilemmas (samet, 2013; mphambukeli & nel, 2018). a key component of these challenges is migrants’ access to social services in the destination countries. principally, the provision of social services by either the government or non-governmental organisations (ngos) is to protect the interest of the recipients. this provision remains one of the primary responsibilities of all governments to their residents. social services include but are not limited to healthcare, housing, social security, education and social work (spicker, 2013: 1). the exclusion of some individuals’ from the enjoying the benefits of these services due to their citizenry status may greatly impact their socio-economic welfare (ile & boadu, 2018). according to townsend (1976: 28), “social services are those means developed and institutionalized by society to promote ends which are wholly or primarily social.” migrant community access to social services in south africa the challenges involved in managing migrant communities are not specific to south africa. given the socio-economic implications of migration for destination countries, much like other advanced countries, such as the u.s., germany, the u.k. and france, the south african state regulates the movement of migrants and their access to government social services. however, very little is known about how these government social services are provided, evaluated and monitored for the benefits of the migrant communities. the lack of proper monitoring and evaluation systems has hampered the existing government’s social intervention services (boadu & ile, 2018). the narrative is that destination countries have difficulties providing adequate resources to meet the demands of their citizenry (ranchod, 2005) and south africa is no exception. thus, there is a need for all-encompassing monitoring and evaluation systems to ensure that both nationals and migrants maximise the benefits of these services (boadu & ile, 2017). in recent years, south africa has african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1389 witnessed unimaginable xenophobic violence against migrants from neighbouring economically-deprived countries (crush, 2001), such as zimbabwe, the democratic republic of congo (drc), nigeria and zambia. this pattern of violence has traumatised most migrant communities and has compounded the daily challenges they face in their attempt to accessing social services (araoye, 2015). the united nations (u.n.) universal declaration of human rights (1948) assured adequate housing as a fundamental human right to all persons living in any state party to the treaty. moreover, chapter 2 of the south african constitution reaffirmed this right, stating that, “everyone has the right to have access to adequate housing” (the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996). the country’s refugee act (130 of 1998) and the amended act also provide this right to refugees and asylum seekers as stated in chapter 2 of the constitution. in practice, migrants encounter many difficulties in their attempts to pursue this right (greenburg & polzer, 2008). the south african national and provincial government provide housing subsidies to south african nationals; however, the national housing code does not allow migrants to access housing subsidies (greenburg & polzer, 2008). migrant access to social services: the u.s. perspective in economically advanced nations such as the u.s., migrants are still faced with significant challenges in their quest to access social services such as healthcare, education, social security and housing. migrants in the u.s. confront daily discrimination with regards to some basic civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, as is noted in the immigration working group human rights network report (2007). the report further argued that the u.s. has implicitly or explicitly failed to know the various international conventions regarding the rights of migrants or immigrants from being discriminated against on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender and national origin. the report concludes that migrant women have suffered restrictions to access to basic healthcare by citing the deficit reduction act of 2005, which has imposed stringent citizenship requirements for migrants to benefit from medicaid coverage (kaiser commission on medicaid, 2007). prior to this act, the existing eligibility requirements for a migrant to access healthcare for their children were even stricter; however, most federal law over the years has allowed for automatic medicaid coverage for all children born in the u.s. (kaiser commission on medicaid, 2007). the illegal immigration reform and immigration responsibility act of 1996 african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1390 unfortunately put a timeframe on migrants’ eligibility for social services, such as medicaid and the state children’s health insurance program (schip), stating that one may be eligible five years after his/her entry into the country (immigration working group human rights network report, 2007). california immigrant policy centre (2006) stressed that the new regulations of the centres for medicare & medicaid services (cms) regarding access to medical aid by migrant women for their newborn babies was illegitimate in the sense that it requires the citizenship status of the baby before the mother can access even emergency medicaid services. in contrast, article 5(e)(iv) of the committee on the elimination of racial discrimination (cerd) convention that the u.s. is a party to, promises all persons “without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin,” the right to “public health, medical care, social security and social services” (cerd, 1969: 4). nonetheless, a migrant in the u.s. suffers from eligibility requirements and therefore struggles to access basic healthcare, unlike their non-immigrant counterparts (u.s. department of health and human services, 2005). migrants in the u.s. are more likely to live in deprived housing facilities due to their low earning powers; thus, they are susceptible to receiving government welfare services (hanson, 2005). the temporary assistance for needy families (tanf) and supplemental security income (ssi) are government social service programmes that provides migrants with food stamps, healthcare, housing and energy subsidies as well as cash benefits (borjas, 1999). in addition, persons born to immigrant parents in u.s. tend to have low levels of education and approximately 1.8 million children suffer from the decision their parents took years ago without their knowledge, as is argued by gonzales (2011). the author further argued that although these children recognise the u.s. as their home country, they are faced with many eligibility obstacles in their attempts to access college funding for their education and in seeking a decent job. moreover, the discourse on immigration issues in the u.s. tends to ignore the challenges of undocumented migrants and their inability to access financial aid and decent employable work, which has prohibited over 90% of such children from attaining a college degree (gonzales, 2011). migrants’ access to national or state welfare services has always generated political tension (facchini & steinhardt, 2011; kerwin, 2017). while some argue that migrants contribute positively to the national economy, which tends to improve the national income for native workers, others opined that such contributions are not equally distributed, in that the inflow of migrants african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1391 tends to decrease income for native workers because of high labour supply (hanson, 2005). in summary, acknowledging these complexities within and among migrant communities may be the first step to unravelling the copious challenges that confront migrants in south africa and the u.s. what are their experiences and to what extent are they able to access the varying national or provincial government welfare services? to what extent can domestic/national governments or the international community shape immigration policies in order to favour migrant communities in their quest to access social services, such as healthcare, education, housing and jobs? legislative frameworks/policies movement of people from one region to the other is common in the global political, economic and social system. the world has witnessed a remarkable growth in international migration since the 2008 global economic meltdown (united nations, 2013). the number of international migrants has increased from 154 million in 1990 to 244 million in 2015, an increase of nearly 100 million people (united nations, 2013). in addition to international migration policies and frameworks, country-specific policies and frameworks abound in both south africa and the u.s. both origin and destination countries have migration policies. domestic governments are noted for focusing on different types of migrants and services they intend to provide for such individuals. the general assumption is that effective policies and a proper regulatory framework in both countries of origin and destination ensure that the movement of people from one region to the other occurs in a well-organised manner and prevents the abuse of migrants’ rights. the u.n. supports the making of policies and legislative frameworks for regulating people’s movement from their home country (origin) to destination regions. in 2006, the organisation affirmed that “international migration could be a positive force for development in both countries of origin and countries of destination, provided that it was supported by the right set of policies” (united nations general assembly, 2006). in 2013, the organisation reiterated that the member states should continue to “promote and protect the human rights of all migrants, regardless of their migration status” (united nations general assembly, 2013). in line with the u.n. approach to migration policies, south africa and the u.s. have promulgated extensive legislation and a number of immigration policies. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1392 the pre-apartheid migration policies discriminated against certain individuals and groups on the basis of race, colour and language, and are prevented them from accessing basic social services. the u.n. committee on the elimination of racial discrimination (cerd) (1965) greatly frowned upon this policy. immediately after independence, the post-apartheid government amended some of these policies in the legislations-aliens control act no. 96 of 1991, and in their place a number of legislative instruments were promulgated: aliens control amendment act (1995), green paper on international migration (1997), white paper on international migration-immigration act no. 13 of 2002, refugee white paper, of 1998, immigration act of 2002, immigration amendment act of 2004, refugees amendment bill of 2008 and refugees amendment bill of 2015 (siddique, 2004; madue, 2015; mphambukeli & nel, 2018). the continuous amendment of some of the immigration and refugee bills attest to the complicated nature of immigration issues in south africa. immigration has been one of the key subjects for policymakers since the birth of the u.s. however, in the past three decades, the country has implemented various immigration policies to curb the inflow of persons from other nations. these legislations include but are not limited to the immigration reform and control act (1986), the immigration act (1990), the illegal immigration reform and immigrant responsibility act of 1996 (iiraira). after the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001, stricter immigration measures were put in place through the enhanced border security and visa entry reform act (2002), the real id act (2005) and the deferred action for childhood arrivals (daca) dream act of (2012) (hanson, 2005; scaperlanda, 2009; facchini, mayda & mishra, 2011; facchini & steinhardt, 2011; kerwin, 2017). these pieces of legislation have various mandates, yet they are wholly premised on regulating the activities of individuals from different nations in the world. implementation of legislation important legislation regarding immigration issues in both south africa and the u.s. have been implemented in recent years. additionally, both countries have signed many u.n. conventions and declarations that guide immigration policies and legislative frameworks. in keeping with the u.n. conventions on human rights and discrimination acts, both south africa and the u.s. have sought to align their immigration policies with these international conventions. crush, williams and peberdy (2005) argue that the postapartheid government passed over 200 new pieces of legislation with little african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1393 attention on immigration legislation up until 1998, when the refugee act of 1998 and subsequently the immigration act of 2002 were implemented. the implementation of the refugee act of 1998 and subsequent amendment acts have received mixed responses from both migrant communities and native residents. while some consider the legislation progressive because it allows any person who wishes to apply for asylum status the opportunity to do so without discrimination whatsoever, others argue that it increased the number of xenophobic attacks on migrants and asylum seekers (palmery, 2004). xenophobic attacks took place the same year the act was promulgated (palmery, 2004). implementation of immigration policies in the u.s. has also received stringent opposition in some instances. the recent attempt by the trump government to abolish the deferred action for childhood arrivals (daca) dream act of (2012) was met with some misgivings. as a result of the human rights approach towards the immigration issues at the international and domestic level, implementation of immigration policies that seek to protect destination origins to the detriment of migrants has also come under some severe criticism (araoye, 2015). challenges in the implementation of legislation immigration is one of the many contested issues in both south africa and the u.s. citizens in both countries are divided; some argue in favour of migrants’ contribution to the socio-economic development of the host countries, while others recognise the dents migrants produce in the already scarce resources in these countries. in recent time, migrants’ accessibility to social services in south africa and the u.s. has become a source of contention. south africa has seen rampant xenophobic attacks on migrants who are nationals of other african nations, and the assumptions underlying these attacks are that migrants have deprived the south african nationals of their rightful jobs and other social services (crush, 2001; mcconnell, 2009). both south africa and the u.s. have numerous immigration policies. inferences from these policies reveal some of the loopholes inherent within them. juxtaposing domestic immigration policies to those of the u.n. conventions has always been a challenge that tends to restrict both countries from stricter implementation of their immigration policies. however, failure to implement these policies may also have some social, political, economic and security implications. this necessitated the regular amendments, restructuring, and promulgation of new legislation in both countries, because ignoring african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1394 immigration issues can be deadly in nature and in character. in the u.s., there is a significant gap between u.s. citizens and immigrants in term of educational attainment, due to the countries immigration policies that prevent migrants from accessing school funds. this lack of legal status and no or low-level schooling has a ripple effect on accessing some social services, such as healthcare and decent jobs. south africa grants migrants access to primary healthcare, jobs, education and, in some provinces, government subsidised housing. however, the unfortunate situation is that the majority of the migrants in south africa are undocumented, which makes it difficult for them to access these social services. to curb this situation, in 2010, the south african authorities started issuing special permits to some undocumented migrants from neighbouring countries (bimha, 2017). the illegal status of most migrants in south africa and the u.s. has contributed to their inability to obtain a good paying job. for instance, in south africa, the majority of migrants are found in the informal sector of the economy running small-scale businesses in townships (crush & mccordic, 2017). the court systems in both countries have also provided challenges regarding immigration policies. although these immigration policies tend to exclude migrants from accessing government welfare programmes, some courts in the u.s., for instance, have ruled in favour of migrants’ access to government social services meant for citizens, such as emergency medical care (hanson, 2005). court rulings with such implications have rendered state government welfare systems inefficient due to the high patronage of migrants. over the years, states such as california and texas have opted to provide migrant communities with preventive healthcare services that are less costly than emergency medical care (robison, 2003). literature review while they embrace the doctrines of human rights in principle, south africa and the u.s. encounter inadequacies in service deliveries, welfare and protection to immigrant populations – including migrant workers, asylum seekers, refugees and their children. migration policies, security, social protection and the human rights of immigrant populations are major issues that constantly dominate immigration discourse. as migration and the rights of immigrant populations are protected under international humanitarian law, the call for improving the systems and service deliveries to migrant populations has also gained wider attention. thus, major threats to the wellafrican human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1395 being and rights of immigrant populations as global citizens include challenges to their treatment abroad, especially in terms of documentation, security, human rights, housing, education, exclusion from national development policies and priorities, segregation and poor services rendered to them by state institutions in their recipient countries. against this backdrop, some extant literature on system efficiencies and service delivery to the immigrant populations in south africa and the u.s. are hereby reviewed. open migration policy and enhancing immigrants’ capabilities forms part of the new thinking for africa’s development (gatune, 2010; bernstein, 2014; dinbabo & carciotto, 2015; dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015), especially as growing intolerance of migrants and refugees, who are often confused for economic migrants, continue to inhibit their welfare and rights to quality services abroad (mcgranahan et al., 2009). the adoption of open migration policy for skilled migrants and provision of essential services, such as low-fee schools, tertiary education, friendly labour laws and creation of special economic zones, are conceived in bernstein (2014) as necessary conditions for economic inclusion and social stability for both citizens and migrant populations in south africa. this cogitates gatune’s (2010) demand for a justice system based on inclusiveness, diaspora participation and immigrant entrepreneurship as veritable tools for springing larger social capital and success in international trade for africa. mcgranahan, et al. (2009) analysed the efficacies of wellthought-out national and regional policies to harness the potentials of migration for economic transformation. the authors identified local government capacities and the provision of basic infrastructure mediated between national and regional institutions as sustainable solutions and efficient services for the welfare of immigrants. secondly, achieving universal access to healthcare as a basis for addressing current problems of inequality, including non-inclusion of immigrant populations, requires fundamental improvements in the healthcare system in south africa (ataguba & mcintyre, 2013; reynolds, 2017). the south african healthcare system performance in relation to its benefit incidence and health service distribution among socio-economic groups reveals a high-level disparity between the poor and the rich. as this exists, poorer socio-economic groups, including immigrants, benefit less in comparison with wealthier socioeconomic groups from both private and public-sector health services (ataguba & mcintyre, 2013). consequently, reynolds (2017) argues for the imperative of a multi-stakeholder involvement in south africa’s national health insurance process towards achieving universal access to healthcare for african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1396 everyone. three fundamental principles of the national health insurance (nhi) are central to this goal: a constitutional right to access to affordable and acceptable quality health services, the state's responsibility for the progressive implementation of the right to health for all based on the objective of universal coverage, and equitable funding of health services to promote social solidarity. these goals require innovations in the healthcare system and the elimination of underlying socio-economic inequality and inefficiencies of primary health care (ataguba & mcintyre, 2013; reynolds, 2017). regarding the security and human rights protection of immigrants, the ‘state of exception’ of immigrants was grounds for inclusion and exclusion in postapartheid south africa, and is illustrated in the violent exclusion of foreigners as one of the key designs of the new south african political community. meanwhile, uneven service delivery to immigrants is reflected in the state's entrenchment of extra-legal and open illegal treatment of foreign nationals (dodson, 2010; mosselson, 2010). the may 2008 xenophobic violence in south africa is symptomatic of politics of belonging and citizenship contestation in post-apartheid south africa and has made immigrants the targets on whom some members of the citizenry assert their own political rights to belong (mosselson, 2010). experiences of african immigrants in cape town as expressed in dodson (2010), further testify that anti-immigrant dispositions and actions from “ordinary south africans” toward african immigrants are entrenched and systemic. police brutality, indiscriminate arrests of suspected black immigrants, and the lindela deportation centre's numerous rights abuses against foreign nationals have all revealed inadequacies in security and human rights protection of immigrant populations, especially african immigrants. again, the extreme vulnerability of immigrants to exploitation from the institution of the state and civilian population is rife, especially by employers of unskilled labour. hence, addressing injustices against immigrants and improving their socio-economic, security and legal services as ought to be enjoyed by citizens have been identified as rightful steps against the exclusionary treatment mandated by post-apartheid immigration policy's “alien-control” in south africa (dodson, 2010; mosselson, 2010). in a similar vein, the dearth of research on the settlement of immigrants in the u.s. informed pendall and hoyem’s (2009) investigation of the growing residential patterns of foreign-born immigrants within the framework of local government jurisdictions. analysis of the three metropolitan conurbations referred to as “polycentric regions” – san francisco bay area in the u.s., emilia-romagna in italy, and randstad in the netherlands – illustrates the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1397 complexities of the regions in respect to their different immigrant and ethnic compositions, housing, market structures and histories of social welfare policies. the authors adduced cases of multifamily and rental housing patterns that influence the livelihood and mobility of immigrant populations. this comparative framework gave preliminary indications of future challenges and opportunities in housing strategies in polycentric regions toward an efficient service delivery as a way of making immigrants’ opinions count. the municipal administration’s policy settings to improve housing services and welfare of immigrants illustrated priorities for land use planning, subsidised housing policy and urban renewal. as the authors revealed, the municipal or local administrations are an important arena for efficient service delivery, political incorporation and socio-economic integration of immigrants. moreover, access to healthcare, health insurance policy and medicaid in the u.s. are crystalised by disparities in service delivery to the poor, vulnerable persons and immigrant populations, and are a defining factor of social injustice and growing inequalities, as policies of exclusion continue to determine immigrants’ health vulnerabilities and access to of health services in the u.s. (ku & matani, 2001; horton, 2006; owen, 2009; sargent & larchanché, 2011; de bocanegra et al., 2012). immigration status is an essential determinant of racial and ethnic disparities in access to healthcare and insurance coverage in the u.s. even when insured, it is acknowledged that non-american citizens (foreigners, undocumented immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers) and their children (even u.s. born) among other underserved groups in the u.s. have more limited access to healthcare than insured american citizens (ku & matani, 2001; de bocanegra et al., 2012). hence, policy changes, mostly in recent time, have limited immigrants’ access to insurance and healthcare even while insured, including ambulatory and emergency care. few immigrant populations and their families, mostly latino and black immigrants, have medicaid or job-based insurance, while the majority remain uninsured in comparison with american citizens and their children. thus, de bocanegra et al.’s (2012) analysis of the factors of title-x and other family pact providers in quality medical services for the underserved population in california also indicates disparate services, including in family planning for low income people in the u.s. furthermore, disparities in the u.s. healthcare services delivery to the immigrant population can be examined against the backdrop of the tension between an agitation for strengthening market reforms to preserve a commercial health insurance industry and a strong state involvement in a african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1398 universal health insurance plan. this tension forces the private sector to drift on fiscal austerity and enhancing workforce productivity in health service delivery (horton, 2006; owen, 2009). a review of past works on human service bureaucracies presages that a rise in demands for worker efficiency and system accountability often leads to shortcuts where individuals are treated as mass categories. horton’s (2006) ethnographic study of a latino mental health hospital in the northwestern u.s. illustrates that the privatesector drive for productivity negatively impacts latina clinicians whose invisible work subsidises the system against the groups of uninsured and immigrant patients experiencing acute psychosocial difficulties. in effect, clinicians’ neglect for uninsured patients and dismissal of irregular ones was widespread as a ploy to cushion the effects of the reforms on patients. the consequences of abandoning the entrenched practices of risk pooling healthcare expenses in most u.s. communities in favor of consumer-driven health care practices yield major accessibility and affordability challenges (owen, 2009). more importantly, owing to their engagement in temporary and low-skill jobs involving dangerous environmental conditions and the use of hazardous equipment and machinery, migrant workers are often vulnerable to workrelated injuries or accidents. exploitation and poor labour conditions also impact the wellbeing and health of their households (holden, 2002; benavides et al., 2006). low-quality housing, a direct outcome of migrant workers' lowwages, combined with dangerous and exploitative working environments, constitute grave health risk factors, particularly among migrant workers and seasonal farm workers (holden, 2002). similarly, extensive working hours required of migrants to meet their daily responsibilities and utilities constitute major threats to consistent child care. hence, children of migrant workers are often prone to domestic and traffic mishaps, injuries, accidents and, in some cases, deaths (benavides et al., 2006). globalisation and global movement of people are significant contributors to the transmission of diseases and the vulnerability of immigrants to health risks. this further reveals why it is in a host country’s best interests to promote inclusive healthcare to impoverished populations, including both citizens and immigrants. meanwhile, health challenges and services to immigrants are a product of local, national and global dynamics (sargent & larchanché, 2011). a constructive analysis of mental and reproductive health, labor and health risks, and chronic and infectious diseases shows that underlying political and socio-economic structures promote particular forms african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1399 of health and disease. the above elucidate the existence of policies of exclusion as a determinant of immigrants’ vulnerabilities to disparate access to healthcare, labour, housing and education. meanwhile, inhuman treatments, limited opportunities and inefficient services further affirm the prevalent inequality and social injustice against immigrants in most parts of the world. the specific cases of the u.s. and south africa as major global immigrantreceiving countries, leave much to be desired. data analysis and findings this analysis considers the system efficiency of migrants in the u.s. and south africa. in the analysis, we used empirical data from the two countries in a bid to understand the structural challenges faced by migrants living in both countries and to identify lessons that can be learned. the results are presented and discussed below. using a structured survey questionnaire, a sample of 132 respondents, representing 19 countries, were successfully interviewed. the countries represented were burundi, cameroon, congo kinshasa, the drc, eritrea, ethiopia, ghana, iraq, jordan, kenya, libya, nigeria, pakistan, rwanda, saudi arabia, somalia, sudan, vietnam and zimbabwe. four countries – somalia, nigeria, eritrea and nigeria – make up over 50% of the sample. eritrea was the country most represented in the u.s. with 26%, while zimbabwe was the country most represented in south africa, with 23%. the results show that men continue to dominate in the flow of migrants. males were comprised 75% of the sample, while females comprised 25%. however, male migrants in the u.s. constituted 34% compared to 41% in south africa. the majority of these migrants (76%) were age 26 to 45 years. in addition, refugee status was by far the dominant documentation possessed by the migrants. access to documentation for most migrants remains a major challenge worldwide. table 1 below illustrates that the proportion of refugee status was 38% for the u.s. and 14% for south africa. people with refugee status constituted 52% of the sample. the proportion of other documentation in south africa is very high (21%) compared to other documentation in the u.s. sample. undocumentation of migrants is one of the major issues in international migration. though this paper does not seem to show strong evidence in the existence undocumentation, from observation in the field, the research found that migrants who are undocumented generally used the term ‘other documents’ rather than ‘undocumented’. the term ‘undocumented’ carries a certain level of stigma and non-acceptance, with which migrants do african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1400 not wish to associate themselves. south africa, in particular, showed clear evidence of stigmatisation of undocumented migrants; thus, providing rationale for the high percentage of participants who selected ‘other documents’. besides the issues of documentation, the results show that 60% of the sample have lived in the destination country for 1–5 years. while for the u.s. sample the majority of migrants have lived there for between 1–5 years, the duration of stay in south africa was rather evenly spread between 1–15 years. table 1: demographic structure of migrants us sa total n % n % n % gender male 43 34% 53 41% 96 75% female 19 15% 13 10% 32 25% total 62 48% 66 52% 128 100% age groups 15-25 12 9% 6 5% 18 14% 26-35 21 17% 31 24% 52 41% 36-45 24 19% 21 17% 45 35% 46-55 4 3% 6 5% 10 8% 55+ 1 1% 1 1% 2 2% 62 49% 65 51% 127 100% duration of stay 1-5 52 42% 23 18% 75 60% 6-10 5 4% 21 17% 26 21% 11-15 2 2% 16 13% 18 14% 16-20 1 1% 4 3% 5 4% african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1401 21+ 1 1% 0 0% 1 1% total 61 49% 64 51% 125 100% legal status refugee status 49 38% 18 14% 67 52% asylum seeker 1 1% 11 9% 12 9% work/business visa 0 0% 9 7% 9 7% undocumented 12 9% 1 1% 13 10% other 0 0% 27 21% 27 21% total 62 48% 66 52% 128 100% source: authors’ analysis field survey (2018). migrant access to social services in this section, we evaluate the perception of migrants vis-à-vis their access to basic services, such as the healthcare, education and transport. the purpose was to identify key service areas where migrants face challenges due to system inefficiencies. thus, we explored the frequency with which migrants access basic services, system information awareness, documentation needed to access information, the ease of access to services and migrants’ level of satisfaction with the services rendered. the results indicate that more migrants in south africa (54%) have access to basic services compared to migrants in the u.s. (46%). the proportion of frequency of access to these services, however, varies with the countries. in the u.s., the majority of migrants (31%) accessed services once every two weeks compared to the majority of south african migrants (34%) who accessed services less than once every six months. considering the economic and social circumstances of both countries, it is not surprising to see u.s. migrants accessing services more frequently. migrants were also asked to state the channel through which they receive healthcare information. the results indicate that migrants in the u.s. rely on ngos for information regarding access to basic services, whereas migrants in south africa, rely on family members, friends and sometimes government offices. for the sample as a whole, ngos constitute 41% of the source of information while family members and friends together form 40%. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1402 table 2: perception and access to service delivery us sa pooled n % n n % frequency of accessing services less than once every six months 8 7% 37 34% 45 41% quarterly (once every three months) 1 1% 8 7% 9 8% once a month 7 6% 7 6% 14 13% once every two weeks 34 31% 3 3% 37 34% once a week 0 0% 4 4% 4 4% total 50 46% 59 54% 109 100% knowledge of services government office 2 2% 12 11% 14 13% ngos 42 38% 3 3% 45 41% friends 0 0% 16 14% 16 14% family members 10 9% 19 17% 29 26% church members 1 1% 6 5% 7 6% total 55 50% 56 50% 111 100% documents needed to access service refugee status 44 37% 20 17% 64 54% asylum seeker 2 2% 10 8% 12 10% work/business visa 1 1% 13 11% 14 12% undocumented 7 6% 22 18% 29 24% total 54 45% 65 55% 119 100% african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1403 ease of obtaining relevant documents yes 48 41% 37 32% 85 73% no 5 4% 27 23% 32 27% total 53 45% 64 55% 117 100% satisfaction with service very dissatisfied 0 0% 10 9% 10 9% dissatisfied 8 7% 13 12% 21 19% neither 17 15% 7 6% 24 22% satisfied 20 18% 20 18% 40 36% very satisfied 6 5% 9 8% 15 14% total 51 46% 59 54% 110 100% source: authors’ analysis field survey (2018). system efficiency and inefficiency system efficiency was measured in terms of the level of satisfaction of migrants with services offered and accounted for the challenges migrants face with respect obtaining the documentation required to access basic social services such as healthcare services. an efficient system is revealed in the satisfaction of migrants when accessing services through governments and ngos. the results in table 3 show that about 49% were satisfied with services received while 46% were dissatisfied. the majority of u.s. migrants (36%) were either satisfied or very satisfied with services compared to the majority of south african migrants (36%) who were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. it should be noted, however, that such satisfaction was mostly related to healthcare services. on the other hand, dissatisfaction was generally associated with access to documentation, such as delays in issuing asylum seeker permits, work permits or refugee status. many migrants face challenges with documentation and this research corroborates such shreds of evidence. from table 3 below, it can be seen that migrants continue to face challenges in accessing proper documentation that could help them improve their livelihoods. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1404 migrants’ perceptions of destination countries have always been rooted in hope for improved livelihoods. most african migrants tend to move with a firm conviction that life will be better in the destination country. in this regard, we investigate the opinion of migrants to better understand how they perceive their destination country after migration with respect to its available resources. for migrants in both south africa and the u.s., the results show that there was no difference in opinion on whether the host country has the resources necessary to deal with migrant’s problems. table 3: evaluating system efficiency and inefficiency us sa pooled n % n % n % satisfaction with service very dissatisfied 1 1% 24 22% 25 23% dissatisfied 10 9% 15 14% 25 23% neither 0 0% 6 6% 6 6% satisfied 34 31% 12 11% 46 43% very satisfied 5 5% 1 1% 6 6% total 50 46% 58 54% 108 100% areas of challenges documentation 3 3% 47 43% 50 45% employment 30 27% 6 5% 36 33% education 13 12% 1 1% 14 13% medical services 6 5% 0 0% 6 5% safety and security 0 0% 2 2% 2 2% others 0 0% 2 2% 2 2% total 52 47% 58 53% 110 100% source: authors’ analysis field survey (2018). african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1405 comparative assessment of u.s. and south african migrants table 4 shows an association of system efficiencies and inefficiencies using the derived variables of the u.s. and south africa. it shows the areas of common characteristics or similarities in terms of access to services and system inefficiencies. we applied the pearson chi square statistical technique, which measures the level of association between two categorical variables. the pearson chi-square, measured at less than 0.05, shows that there was a strong association of these variables for both countries. for age, gender and education, there was no significant difference, which generally corresponds to the literature on the age and level of education for most migrants (dinbabo, et al., 2017). based on this, our hypothesis was that there is no difference in system efficiency and migrant access to basic services. from a nationality perspective, there was clear evidence that some countries were more represented than others in the survey. somalians constituted 61% of the sample of migrants in the u.s. compared to 39% in south africa. in the sample, 70% of nigerians were living in south africa compared to 30% living in u.s. eritreans were 93% in the u.s. compared to 7% living in the south africa. according to the south african department of home affairs (2015), the exact number of african migrants in south africa is not known. however, the department ranked the top 15 migrant-sending countries as follows: zimbabwe, ethiopia, nigeria, the drc, malawi, somalia, ghana, burundi, mozambique, uganda, congo-brazzaville, cameroon, tanzania, lesotho and senegal. the duration of stay was also significant. we found that migrants who have stayed in the host country for less than 6 years were more in the u.s. (69%) than the south african sample (31%). whereas, those who have stayed for 6– 10 years were more in the south african sample (80%) than in the u.s. sample (20%). these results may support the findings of many studies that show that south africa is a transit country for many eritrean and somali migrants (settler & mpofu, 2017) system efficiency, as previously mentioned, was measured in terms of access to documentation, legal status and access to basic services, such as housing, education and healthcare. we found that obtaining refugee status was easier for migrants in the u.s. than those in south africa. the south african department of home affairs has taken tougher stands in its recent white paper on refugee and asylum seeker permits. our results show that 73% of migrants in the u.s. sample had successfully obtained refugee status, while african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1406 only 27% of migrants in the south african sample had done so. in addition, besides obtaining refugee status, more south african participants (84%) stated that access to documentation was generally difficult. this calls for policy improvement and monitoring and evaluation of the documentation process in south africa. as illustrated in table 4, measuring system efficiency in the form of ease of obtaining documents, satisfaction with services, challenges in accessing services, documentation challenges and community engagement contributes to our knowledge of how migrants in both countries see their host countries’ immigration systems and challenges thereof. the significance of these measurements corroborates other studies that have shown that migrants face significant challenges in terms of acceptability and recognition. in the u.s., being a citizen does not automatically exonerate children of migrants born in the u.s. from the invisible hand of u.s. migration policies. persons born to immigrant parents have the lowest level of education and often suffer from the decision their parents took years ago without their knowledge (gonzales, 2011). table 4: comparative analyses of u.s. and s.a. migrants n coef p-value gender 128 2.0437 0.153 age 127 4.4547 0.348 nationality 117 58.2810 0.000 duration in the host country 125 34.6964 0.000 legal status 128 67.9256 0.000 educational level 128 3.0274 0.387 access to services 109 53.7295 0.000 knowledge of services 111 63.3035 0.000 documents needed to access services 119 31.6311 0.000 ease of obtaining documentation 117 15.6527 0.000 satisfaction with services 110 15.4571 0.004 challenges in accessing services 108 40.9807 0.000 african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1407 documentation challenges 110 74.9013 0.000 community engagement 113 12.6598 0.000 source: authors’ analysis field survey (2018). furthermore, we assess system efficiency by looking at the challenges that migrants encounter while in the destination country. it is intriguing to note that 57% of migrants in u.s. reported having challenges with employment, compared to 10% of migrants in south africa. whereas, 81% of migrants in south africa migrants reported challenges in documentation. thus, in terms of challenges faced by both countries, the result was statistically significant at p<0.05. it seems to us that migrants in south africa are most likely to be employed if having the right documentation. this is supported by other studies showing that migrants in south africa who hold refugee or asylum seeker permits are able to access educational institutions and get employed (marchand et al., 2017). these differences indicate that country-specific migration challenges must be addressed. we conclude this section by pointing out that there is clear evidence from this study showing that there is a systemic gap in both countries in their approach to migration and migrants’ access to basic services. looking at the table 4 above, it can be seen that, given a significance level of <0.05, most of the variables were significantly different for both countries. however, education levels and age of migrants were not different for both countries, which is consistent with the literature as discussed in the following section. discussion recent developments in international migration have again raised worldwide international concerns on the movement of people, especially from the global south to the global north. this mass exodus of people is affecting national and international political discussions and influencing policies on the movement of people and their access to basic services. the challenges of international migration have not been sufficiently studied, especially from migrants’ perspectives, and even less so in the form of comparative analyses. given that most destination countries are beginning to raise systemic barriers to migrants, these barriers are translating into physical walls, as in the case of the border between the u.s. and mexico. the main objective of this study was to evaluate system efficiency in the form of access to basic services such as healthcare, education and housing. the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1408 management of migrant communities is not peculiar to south africa. many developed economies, such as the u.s., germany, the u.k. and france, are experiencing significant influxes of migrants, which impacts the resources of these countries. while many countries tend to be protective of social services, access to these services by migrants is critical for their health and wellbeing, especially in their newcomer years. the results of this study indicate that migrants have positive perceptions of the destination countries. about 50% of migrants generally believe that the destination countries have the necessary resources to assist migrants. however, many of these destination countries themselves have difficulties in providing adequate resources to meet the demands of their citizenry (ranchod, 2005). in the case of south africa, in recent years, anti-migrant protests have sparked violence, in some cases leading to the death of refugees and asylum seekers, many who were fleeing economic and political persecution in their home countries. our findings demonstrate that access to healthcare services was by far the dominant service that migrants access in south africa. in the u.s., food stamps and education, mostly through the work of ngos, characterised the services to which migrants have easy access. in addition, the majority of the sampled population was generally satisfied with medical services and access to healthcare services were highly appreciated. in addition, lack of documentation continues to act as a barrier to these important services. in the u.s., migrant women suffer from a number of restriction in their attempt to access basic healthcare services due to the citizenship requirement imposed by the deficit reduction act of 2005 (kaiser commission on medicaid, 2007). according to the consortium for refugees and migrants in south africa (cormsa), the department of health in south africa allows asylum seekers and refugees, and other immigrants to have access to public health facilities (cormsa, 2008). they further argued that despite the fact that there are good social service systems in south africa in terms of healthcare, migrants from neighbouring countries such as zimbabwe tend to go to their home countries for medical care (cormsa, 2008: 40). however, our study shows that such viewpoints have long changed. zimbabweans constituted 23% of the south african sample and all used the south african healthcare system. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1409 furthermore, service delivery may be a function of national policies, political activism and public attitudes toward immigrants. in this context, migration has often elicited discourses of illegitimacy, non-acceptability or paranoia that immigrants are opportunists. they are often blamed by state institutions or the political class for overstretching public utilities or outcompeting citizens in opportunities or benefits, such as jobs, education and marriage. this is a critical challenge to immigrants’ welfares, security and inclusiveness in south africa (dodson, 2010; mosselson, 2010). again, immigrants’ with disproportionately low incomes and who are uninsured constitute a large and growing section of the american society and their status has wider implications for the improvement of services, especially healthcare and public utilities, nationally and across the u.s. (ku & matani, 2001). for instance, the social construction of diverse immigrant populations by dominant groups in receiving societies impacts the services rendered and opportunities given to them, while their wellbeing, in turn, influences their contribution to national economic transformations. this is exemplified in the culturally conceived notions of state, citizen and ‘illegal alien’, which engender hierarchies in which latinos, african americans and immigrant populations exist at the tail of social stratification in the u.s. (briggs, 2005: 282 cited in sargent & larchanché, 2011). meanwhile, a balance between market competition and consumer responsibility, including collaboration of public and private sectors, should be maintained to enhance basic protections for all citizens, in which essential services (such as healthcare, housing, employment and social protection) for immigrants and other underprivileged members of society assume human right status (owen, 2009). as de bocanegra et al. (2012) maintain, equal opportunities and adequate funding can improve the welfare of immigrants, and quality safety net provisions can yield valuable knowledge on serving special and marginalised populations. additionally, municipal administrations or local governments are an important arena of efficient service delivery to immigrant populations (mcgranahan et al., 2009; pendall & hoyem, 2009). their political incorporation and socio-economic integration through inclusive policies and welfare services can yield efficient and positive outcomes for municipal or local jurisdictions across a wider range of immigrant receiving communities (pendall & hoyem, 2009). hence, considerable amends at the level of policy formulation, legislation and service management, including international partnerships, can help enhance the welfare, service delivery and opportunities for immigrant populations african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1410 (mcgranahan et al., 2009). finally, adoption of open migration policies for skilled migrants, provision of low-fee schools, engagement in critical skills, relaxation of labour laws and creation of special economic zones are necessary conditions for economic inclusion and social stability for both citizens and migrant populations. taking a cue form bernstein (2014), the threats of high level unemployment, shortage of skills, degrading education systems and negative effects on the labour market and union regulations would gradually disappear if immigrant populations are fully integrated into national development and efficiently served to realise their potentials. conclusion and recommendations migration has long been a crucial factor in cross-cultural relations, national and regional integration and global socio-economic development. however, non-inclusiveness and anti-immigrant feelings continue to militate against the well-being, emancipation, human rights and resilience of immigrant populations, including migrant workers, refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants and their children, in most parts of the world. these challenges are deeprooted in the national and local policies and attitudes of the receiving societies towards immigrants’ access to health, education, labour, decision-making power and housing services, among other essentials. hence, the treatment of migrant populations as a case of inclusions and exclusions in service deliveries and system efficiencies can also be conceived from the general perception of their acceptability and varying socio-political conditions dominant in different countries in the world. for example, issues ranging from open migration policy and supports for immigrants’ wellbeing, healthcare, security and rights protection are captured in extant studies. while inadequacies in housing services, access to healthcare, social injustice and questions of inequality against immigrants (documented and undocumented) and their children deserve to be at the forefront of academic discourse and policy formulation. studies have shown that avenues for intervention and investigating service deliveries to the immigrant population can be approached through an analysis of the roles institutionalised discrimination plays in systems and service disparities. while several studies have examined systemic forms of inequality, it is also important to realise that reduced funding for public utilities and social security leads to heightened institutional demands on providers and, in several cases, may lead to aggression against the vulnerable immigrant populations as well as other underprivileged groups in the society. thus, analysis of disparities should take into account the milieu within which african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1411 immigrant minorities disproportionately receive treatments and service inadequacies. in addition, real-time monitoring and evaluation (m&e) systems at the national and local levels could be of great help towards the appraisal and delivery of such social services. further studies could critically explore an electronic based (e-based) m&e system that could capture extensive data over time in order to curb some of the disparities and challenges to ensure efficient service delivery systems. references araoye, a. 2015. south africa, the global immigration crisis and the challenge of african solidarity. the thinker, 65: 8–15. ataguba, j. and mcintyre, d. 2013. who benefit from health services in south africa, health economics. policy and law, 8: 21–46. benavides, f.g., benach, j., muntaner, c., delclos, g.l., catot, n. and amable, m., 2006. associations between temporary employment and occupational injury: what are the mechanisms? 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hence, remittances are a major component of contemporary migration given their contribution to poverty reduction and improving socio-economic statuses in developing countries (crush et al., 2005; makina, 2014). this transfer of remittances has reduced poverty levels and vulnerability amongst remittance-receiving individuals and households. although studies have been conducted on remittances, their effects on development initiatives and improvement on human well-being, little research has been done on the relationships between migrants and nonmigrants and on how such relationships influence remittance behaviour. given the relevance of remittances in poverty alleviation and development initiatives, it is important to explore different factors that determine the transfer of remittances during migration. however, not every individual or household with a migrant family member receives remittances during the migration period. therefore, this paper focuses on understanding relationships that exit between migrant and nonmigrant family members that determine where remittances are transferred during the migration period. understanding these relationships is important when analysing the dynamics of remittance behaviour and remittance flows. in this paper, remittance behaviour is understood by evaluating relationships during the migration period and how those relations influence remittance flows. background migration within southern africa is not a new phenomenon but has a long history dating back to the mid-19th century (crush et al., 2005; mlambo, 2010). during the colonial period, migration was viewed as the single most important factor tying all colonies and countries together into a single regional labour market (crush et al., 2005). this migration tended to be circular and maledominated. men would migrate to work temporarily in the host community, leaving their families behind, and would return to their areas of origin at the end of their working period. however, the patterns and trends of migration have significantly evolved due to the changing economic and political landscape in the region. as economies crumble, these patterns and trends of movement continue to change with more people engaging in the migrant african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1419 labour system as a way of earning a livelihood (crush et al., 2005; bakewell et al., 2009; crush & tevera, 2010; makina, 2013). unlike migration in the colonial period, contemporary migration has become a major means of livelihood for many households in developing countries. zimbabwe experienced massive economic and political crises over the past decades, which saw the closure of many companies, retrenchment of several workers, devaluation and collapse of the local currency and increased poverty levels amongst the citizens (zanamwe & devillard, 2009; crush & tevera, 2010; mzumara, 2012; makina, 2013). such economic challenges forced many zimbabweans to emigrate and secure livelihoods elsewhere (crush & tevera, 2010; mzumara, 2012; makina, 2013). the emigration of zimbabweans during the crisis period is described as catastrophic, as it resulted in massive brain drain and deterioration of service delivery, especially in the public sector (chikanda & dodson, 2013). however, this brain drain argument is criticised by other scholars who argue that migrant-sending countries also benefit from remittances sent by migrants. thus, literature shows that remittances have varying benefits in the home country. like other migrant sending countries, literature shows that remittances are a major source of income for many households in zimbabwe (maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008; mzumara, 2012). the high unemployment rate and economic situation in zimbabwe compel households to rely on remittances transferred by migrant family members. such transfers are used to improve the socio-economic well-being of non-migrant family members. tevera and chikanda (2008) and maphosa (2007) highlight that households that do not receive remittances regularly are struggling to cope with the economic situation in zimbabwe and, thus, become more vulnerable to poverty than those that regularly receive remittances. remittances are transferred for various reasons; some are transferred for consumption smoothing (tevera & chikanda, 2008), while others are transferred for payment of bills and investment (maphosa, 2007; makina, 2013). changes in migration patterns have been reported in different countries and regions. such migration experiences were reported in south-eastern europe where bulgarian citizens left their country in the late 1980s (markova & reilly, 2007). nearly a quarter of bulgarians left their country by 1989 towards european destinations such as the czech republic, austria and hungary, amongst others. the patterns and trends of migration in bulgaria have changed over the years towards the tendency of temporary and seasonal african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1420 migration rather than permanent migration. migrant remittances have proven to be a significant form of finance and livelihood income in developing countries (markova & reilly, 2007; nzima et al., 2016). officially recorded remittance flows to developing countries were estimated to have reached $436 billion in 2014. the bulgarian national bank confirmed that the amount sent by migrants has steadily increased (markova & reilly, 2007). literature on remittances shows that a large percentage of remittances transferred to developing countries are used for consumption and other household uses. although literature highlights the crucial role of remittances in improving the well-being of individuals and households in the migrant-sending country, research has not been done to evaluate and understand relationships that exist between migrants and non-migrants. therefore, this paper assesses changes in the relationship between migrants and remittance recipients over the migration period, the causes of these changes and effects of these relationships on remittance flows. the paper extends the discussion beyond the remittance decay hypothesis; it demonstrates that there are determinants of remittance behaviour other than altruism that influence remittance flows during the migration period. migration, remittances and transnationalism migration for the purpose of securing a livelihood has been commonly reported in many developing countries. in the southern african region, migration is determined by social, economic and political factors that compel people to leave their communities of origin (maphosa, 2007). given the economic environment in countries of origin, families spread their labour assets over geographically dispersed and structurally different markets to reduce risk and maximise the chances of securing their livelihood. migration is adopted as a household decision to secure a better livelihood and improve families’ or households’ well-being (posel, 2002; konseiga, 2006). it is regarded as a risk management strategy or a way to avert liquidity constraints in the absence of insurance (muzondidya, 2008; makina, 2014). a household or family as a unit of analysis reflects the ways in which households act as collective units in which all members are united in maximising household well-being (posel, 2002). by so doing, the benefits of migration accrue to both migrants and non-migrants (konseiga, 2006; chakraborty & kuri, 2017).given that members in a household have different responsibilities in the family structures, the decision to migrate should be taken at a household level. some household members are more likely to african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1421 migrate than others. chakraborty and kuri (2017) argue that in household migration, the characteristics of the household play a major role in influencing the migration decisions and process. households are not homogeneous; they differ in structure and size. as such, the number of potential migrants who are able to migrate differs among households. regardless of the initial determinants of migration, sander and mainbo (2005) state that migrants from developing countries leave their families behind to secure a livelihood in their host countries, and transfer remittances back to the country of origin. according to tevera and chikanda (2008), remittances are the transfer of funds and goods from migrants to relatives and friends in the country of origin. these transfers can be in the form of cash, goods and even acquired skills (maphosa, 2007). remittances can be formal, those that are transferred through registered means like financial institutions, and they can be informal, those that are transferred through migrants’ personal networks that connect them with their home countries. although it is difficult to measure the actual amount transferred due to the use of informal channels, the volume of remittance flows to developing countries has grown significantly in recent years (sander & mainbo, 2005; maphosa, 2007; makina, 2013; inter censal demographic survey (icds), 2017). sander and mainbo (2005) state that remittances from migrants to their families, increased from $33.1 billion in 1991 to $80 billion in 2002. regarding remittance transfers by zimbabwean migrants, the icds (2017) indicates a steady increase in the number of remittances transferred over the years. however, given that a significant portion of remittances go unrecorded, as they are transferred through informal channels, the actual figures could be higher than those reported (icds, 2017). remittances have become the second largest source of external funding in africa, just behind direct foreign investment (sander & mainbo, 2005; maphosa, 2007). as such, they have become an important source of finance and foreign exchange for many african households and nations. there are fewer bureaucratic procedures for remittance transfer and collection than for other types of aid transfer, and remittances are transferred directly to the end user, which makes them more efficient than other forms of aid given to developing countries. tevera and chikanda (2008) posit that had it not been for remittance transfers, the situation of many zimbabwean households would have been more dire than it already was due to the economic crisis. remittances have reduced vulnerability to hunger, ill-health and poverty for both rural and african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1422 urban households (maphosa, 2007). many children have remained in school due to the remittances sent by migrant family members, while others have received medical care from such remittances. unlike the recipients of remittances, some non-receiving households rely on borrowing from money launderers whose interest rates are extremely high, making it difficult to repay the loans (maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008; mzumara, 2012). as a result, non-recipient households remain trapped in a vicious cycle of borrowing, as they continue borrowing to cover the initial loan (tevera & chikanda, 2008). a large percentage of the remittances are used by receiving households for consumption smoothing, highlighting the precarious situation of food insecurity in the region (maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008). however, not all remittances are used for consumption smoothing; some are invested in livestock and agricultural inputs, such as fortified maize seed and fertilizers, as well as establishing small income generating projects (maphosa, 2007). as mentioned earlier, in many developing countries, migration is viewed as a household survival strategy where one or more household members leave the country to secure a livelihood elsewhere (posel, 2002; sander & mainbo, 2005; bakewell et al., 2009). therefore, non-migrant family members look forward to receiving remittances during the migration period. in some instances, family members left behind borrow money from their neighbours, intending to repay them once their migrant family members remit (tevera & chikanda, 2008). such findings show that the family members left behind expect their migrant relatives to remit during the period of migration. this is supported by maphosa’s (2007) finding that migrants are motivated to remit, sometimes daily, to fulfill an obligation to their households left behind. study of the transfer of remittances over years shows that migrants maintain relations with the family members they leave behind. grieco (2003) highlights that remittances are sustained as a result of migrants’ participation in social networks where remittances represent the migrants’ efforts to build and maintain social capital. regardless of the time and distance that separates migrants from their families in the country of origin, there are various means by which they remain connected with their non-migrant networks (jakubowicz, 2012). while migrants and their non-migrant family members maintain relationships during the migration period, their relationships can change over the period as they are influenced by different factors. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1423 migration has been identified as a phenomenon that connects areas that are geographically separated (jakubowicz, 2012). as people continue to move from one country to another, they establish links to all the countries with which they are associated. individuals migrate leaving their families behinds, hence the need to maintain contact with the country of origin over space and time (bloch, 2010). pasura (2008) states that during the period of migration, migrants maintain ties with their home country while integrating into the host country. this simultaneous integration of migrants into more than one society forms the basis of the concept of transnationalism (pasura, 2008; bloch, 2010). transnationalism entails being connected to several places at once, which, to a large extent, is a defining feature of the migrant experience (levitt & jaworsky, 2007; pasura, 2008). the concept of transnationalism incorporates the kinds of activities in which migrants and non-migrants engage. analysis of migration, under transnationalism, precedes the mere determinants of the movement of people. it takes into account the activities in which people engage after migration and the connections they establish as a result thereof. individuals in different parts of the world are connected through transnationalism, and their actions and activities are systematic. faist (2000) states that transnational communities cause migrants and non-migrants to be connected by strong social and symbolic ties over time and over large geographical areas. thus, activities in which migrants and their non-migrant family members engage during the period of migration have a bearing on their relationships. although remittances are regarded as one of the outcomes of migration with far reaching effects as a livelihood strategy, not all non-migrants with migrant family members are recipients of remittances. therefore, it is important to understand the determinants of remittance flows during the migration period. thus, this study sought to explore how relationships between migrants and non-migrants influence the flow of remittances during the migration period. study area this paper is based on data collected for a phd thesis examining the familial relationships between migrants and their non-migrant family members. the study was carried out in two places: durban, south africa and harare, zimbabwe. initial study interviews were conducted with zimbabwean migrants living in durban and the second phase of interviews was performed in harare with the respective family members of the interviewed migrants in durban. durban is the largest city in south africa’s kwazulu-natal province african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1424 and is one of the country’s main seaside resort cities. it is located at the fareast side of the country, about 600 km from johannesburg. harare is the capital city of zimbabwe, situated in the north-east of the country, in mashonaland province. as the capital city, it is zimbabwe’s leading financial, commercial and communication centre with residents from diverse cultures and backgrounds. research design this paper entails a qualitative study of zimbabwean migrant workers in durban and their respective family members back home in zimbabwe. creswell (2009: 4) defines qualitative research as “a means for exploring and understanding the meanings individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem”. qualitative research uses concepts and clarifications to interpret human behaviour and social phenomena from the perspective of the people affected by the phenomena under review (cohen et al., 2002). hennink et al. (2010) argue that the main distinctive feature of qualitative research is that it allows the researcher to identify and understand issues from the perspective of the participants. the emphasis is on the verbal description of the phenomena in its natural setting. this study sought to explore relationships during the migration period; thus, a qualitative research design was the most suitable method as it allowed for the interpretations and meanings that people attach to migration to be explored. sampling the study employed a snowball or chain sampling technique. hennink et al. (2010) state that snowballing is a recruitment method that is particularly suitable for identifying study participants with specific characteristics or information required in the study. this sampling technique relies on personal contacts to recruit study participants. for the purposes of this research, a total of 60 interviewees were contacted in both durban and harare. the researcher identified migrants from harare who then identified others who had family members in harare as well. the process was repeated until a total of 30 migrants were interviewed in durban, 16 males and 14 females. out of the 16 male migrants interviewed in durban, 75% were married, 20% were single and 5% were not married but cohabiting. one married male participant was in a polygamous relationship with three wives. of the total number of female participants, 35.7% were married, 35.7% were widowed, 7.1% were cohabiting and 21.4% were single. participants in harare were family members of the migrant participants in durban. of the participants in harare, african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1425 40% were parents of the migrants while 33.3% were siblings. extended family members constituted 20% and 6.7% were hired caregivers. data collection methods data was collected using two types of interviews in qualitative data-eliciting methods: narrative accounts and one-on-one in-depth interviews. these two types of data collection are important when the researcher wants to elicit detailed views from the participants in a short period of time. participants gave narrative accounts of their lives and experiences of migration that were unguided by research questions. this narration was followed by one-on-one in-depth interviews in which research questions were used to elicit the specific pieces of information required to answer the identified research questions. narrative interviews entail the retelling of stories from the informant’s point of view (jovchelovitch & bauer, 2000). hence, the stories that are told and the way they are told reflect the understanding of the person telling it, which might be different from the way the next person may relate the same story. this makes the narrative inquiry a suitable methodology since it allows for the participant’s actual interpretation of the issue at hand, to be revealed. after engaging in narrative discussions, the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with the participants. miller and glassner (1997) highlight that one-on-one in-depth interviews, in a qualitative enquiry, provide the researcher with the opportunity to explore the participants’ point of view regarding the issue at hand. as such, people’s beliefs, perceptions, feelings and emotions, as well as the meanings they attach to experiences, will be learned in the process. given that this study sought individual meanings and perceptions, in-depth interviews were a relevant means of collecting data. allowing the participants to narrate their stories first then engage in interviews later allowed the researcher to elicit more information from the participants. issues were raised in the narratives that the researcher followed up on during the in-depth interviews for further clarity, hence, obtaining the relevant information required to answer the research questions. the research design and data-eliciting methods adopted in this study ensured that participants’ voices were heard. hence, conclusions of the study are based on the information provided by the study participants. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1426 analysis data collected through qualitative methods comprise mainly of words, in contrast to the numeric nature of quantitative data. data collected in this study were analysed using the thematic analysis method. according to braun and clarke (2006), thematic analysis is a method of identifying, analysing and reporting patterns within data. it involves identifying patterns or themes from the collected data, selecting those of special interest and reporting on them. themes are formed around the main issues or points raised by study participants as they respond to research questions. by so doing, thematising data brings order to the collected data, and enables a better understanding. research findings the major result of this study highlights that the strength of social ties between migrants and non-migrants is crucial in determining remittance flows during the migration period. although literature shows that migrants transfer remittances that are crucial in improving the well-being of their nonmigrant counterparts (bakewell, et al., 2007; maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008), this relationship has not been discussed in the literature. this study explored the relationships that exist between migrants and nonmigrants and how these relations influence the flow of remittances during the migration period. in this paper, four sub-themes are identified and used to explain how these relationships determine the flow of remittances. family tension and remittance flows family is regarded as a social unit that supports its members (dintwat, 2010); however, results from this study show that there are inter and intra family conflicts that affect relationships within families. such conflicts and tension compromise the potential of the family to fully support its family members, as highlighted in other literature. participants reported different conflicts within their families that negatively affected their relationships. such conflicts differ depending on the relationships between family members, with the main conflicts that were reported being between women and their mothers-in-law. both migrants and non-migrant participants reported that daughters-in-law are less likely to be accepted in their husbands’ families, which causes significant tension within families: my mother in-law would tell me to my face how she wishes her son got married to someone as educated as he is. she would make me do all the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1427 housework because she said that’s all i was good at. (mrs chabata, a nonmigrant participant) another widow reported that her late husband’s family chased her away soon after her husband’s burial. in her opinion, her husband’s family had never accepted her as part of the family and they could not stay with her and her daughter after her husband’s passing: she would tell me there was no need for me to keep hanging onto the family because the one who brought me there was gone. it’s like to her i was never part of the family, i was just a constant reminder of a son she once had. (revai, a 33-year-old migrant widow) participants reported that in many families, the daughter-in-law is regarded as a stumbling block that disturbs the peace and unity that was always in their home. however, instead of the families blaming their sons for bringing a wife into their home, the daughter-in-law becomes the scapegoat and is blamed for disturbing peace in the family. this was highlighted by married female participants when they reported that “blood is thicker than water”, as families do not blame their own sons for bringing the ‘stranger’ into the family. in emphasizing that daughters-in-law are treated differently from other family members, mrs chabata said, “daughters-in-law are like owls, whenever people see them they think they are there to cause trouble”. in shona culture, an owl is associated with witchcraft, and as such, when people see it, they believe it has been sent by witches to do something evil. participants emphasised that daughters-in-law are the least trusted family members. marotz-baden and cowan (1987) argue that if a daughter in-law feels accepted in the family, her feeling may contribute to the eventual success of the of family initiatives. her unhappiness can disrupt the family success as she can connive with her husband to detach from the family. such was highlighted in this study as female and male participants who reported in-law tensions within their families reported that they do not remit regularly. although some in-laws try to make amends and restore the broken relationships, women in the study reported that such actions are not sincere but are part of a strategy to access remittances. as a result, some migrants refuse to send remittances home, and others reported that when their husbands ask them to send remittances home they take a portion to spite their in-laws: african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1428 sometimes when i am sending money or groceries to my in-laws, i take a portion and give to my mother without my husband’s knowledge. (faith, a married migrant participant) in addition to this conflict with in-laws, there are other tensions within families that affect relations between members. the study indicated that, in some instances, the way people grew up impacts how they relate in their adult life. people invest in social relations by interacting and networking with others in order to gain access to resources embedded in the network (grieco, 2003). participants in the study indicated that their interactions with different family members before migration determines how they feel about each other and influences their social relations after migration. one migrant widow, revai, and her non-grant sister, mrs moyo, reported that they experienced rejection from their father after the death of their mother. their father remarried and his focus shifted to his new wife. that experience brought the sisters closer to each other, as they relied more on each other for moral and social support. given their mother’s sudden death, revai and her sister needed their father to be with them as they grieved. unfortunately, their father decided to remarry sooner than they expected, and that affected their relationship with him. as such, revai felt compelled to remit to her sister whom she regarded as her only close family member. when she migrated, revai left her daughter in her sister’s custody, and hence she regularly remits to her. explaining the reasons for leaving her daughter with her sister, revai indicated that she trusts her sister with her own life and she knew she was the only person she can trust with her child’s life. her relationships with her sister and father influenced her remittance behaviour. although her father is not employed and could have an improved standard of living if she transferred remittances, revai prefers sending remittances to her sister with whom she has a strong social bond. literature shows that individuals who receive remittances from their migrant family members have better chances of improving their living standards (maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008). this study has shown that remittances are transferred to every non-migrant family member. the flow of remittances is influenced by the kinds of social relationships that exist between migrants and non-migrants. another migrant participant, melisa’s relationship with her father adds to the argument that life experiences can have an effect on how family members relate to each other and that this relationship effects remittance transfers. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1429 melisa lost her mother at a young age. although her father was still alive, he was never there for her, as he supported his new wife and never attended to melisa’s needs as a father should. melisa stated that she resented him for the way he treated her, and she blamed him for the trauma she went through as a child. as such, she did not want to be associated with her father’s house. responding to the question on her relationship and association with her father’s house melisa said the following: i am not a part of that household; it’s for him, his wife and their children. after all, it’s not like i grew up there anyway. i seriously have no attachment to that household whatsoever. as a result of the kind of relationship she has with her father, melisa does not remit. she believes that sending remittances indicates a functional relationship. since she is not willing to establish one with her father, she does not find it necessary to remit. the experiences of revai and melisa show that although people are tied together as a family by birth or marriage, the strength of their social ties can either be strengthened or weakened by their mutual life experiences. may (2011) posits that strong family relations are attained when members have a sense of belonging. coordination and cooperation can be realised and family members are able to work together and assist one another in times of need. in this study, it was revealed that life experiences have the potential to determine the strength of family ties. such social ties have a greater effect on remittance behaviour than the biological ties that exist between migrants and nonmigrants. choice of remittance recipients as was confirmed by participants, migrants remit to their families in the home country for various reasons (bakewell et al., 2007; maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008). the purpose for remitting was identified as the major determinant for identifying a certain individual as a recipient. remittances transferred for the family upkeep are sent to the person in charge of the household back home. sibongile, a migrant participant, reported that she always sent remittances to her sister who stays with her son in zimbabwe. sibongile, like many other migrant participants, indicated that the people that they left in charge of the household are the current household heads. as such, they are responsible for ensuring the maintenance of the household. stanly, another migrant participant, said, african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1430 my sister is now in charge of the household, and we always communicate, as she informs me about the situation back home. i might be the father, but i am not at home; hence, i am not aware of what happens there on a daily basis. as such, i have to rely on what she tells me. if there is a problem with the children, she is the one with first-hand information. such sentiments show that migrants regard the person that they left in charge of the household as the right person to send remittances that are meant for the family upkeep. this highlights the importance of both migrants and nonmigrants in transnational activities (levitt & jaworsky, 2007; pasura, 2008). migrants and non-migrants engage in different transnational activities that either strengthen or weaken their relationships during the migration period and beyond. as the migrant remits and the non-migrant looks after the migrant’s investments in the country of origin, their relationships are strengthened. however, in terms of remitting to assist other extended family members, participants reported that they prefer to send the remittances directly to the actual beneficiary. there were reports that some family members tend to keep remittances that are not meant for them. in the event that remittances are sent to one family member to distribute to the respective beneficiaries, migrants reported that some intended beneficiaries do not receive their full shares: they would keep everything and not pass it onto the right person, even when they are aware that it’s not theirs. some take a portion of the other relatives’ remittance and keep it. (tecla, a female migrant participant). as a measure to prevent conflict and unnecessary tension between family members, tecla and other migrant participants prefer remitting to the actual beneficiary than passing remittances through a third party. regarding remitting for investment, participants reported that due care is necessary when selecting recipients of remittances. reports of misuse of remittances meant for investment were highlighted by most of the migrant participants. migrants reported remitting for investment in incomegenerating initiatives and real estate highlighted high levels of disappointment after recipients misappropriated the remittances transferred for a particular purpose. it has been reported that some recipients disregard the wishes and commands of migrants and use remittances for their own benefit. given the economic situation in zimbabwe, other recipients use the money send by their migrant family members hoping that they can replace it before african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1431 it is needed. however, they sometimes fail to do so. as a result, misuse of remittances becomes a source of conflict in some families. constance is a nonmigrant who agreed that she sometimes misuses remittances meant for other investment purposes: sometimes it is difficult because you are given $1000 to buy bricks or other building material yet; you do not have mealie-meal in the house. you will be tempted to take a portion of the money and buy food. (constance, a non-migrant participant). however, she said that since she takes a small percentage of the money, she does not deem it necessary to tell the migrant about it. instead, she buys the materials with the remaining money and does not tell the migrant. misappropriation of remittances meant for investment has far reaching effects on the relationship between migrants and non-migrants. in some instances, relationships completely disintegrated, and in other instances, the levels of trust between family members deteriorated during the period of migration due to misappropriation of remittances. clever, a migrant participant, reported that he moved to south africa in 2010 with his wife and their two children. he bought a residential stand in harare and entrusted his young brother to oversee the project in his absence. however, clever was disappointed by his brother, who took advantage of the trust he had in him and his absence and had inflated the prices of the building material, which ended up costing him more than necessary. clever felt betrayed by a family member that he trusted. he reported that he had a good relationship with his brother before migration. as such, he never expected such betrayal. for such reasons, migrant participants reported that they do not mix family remittances and those that are meant for investment: when sending money home, i prefer sending directly to the person who is supposed to benefit from it. if it is my parents, i sent it to them directly. that’s why for the construction of my house, i sent it directly to the building contractor himself. (solomon, a migrant participant). solomon argued that sending remittances through a third party may delay payments and can also result in the misuse of the remittances. however, migrant participants reported that regardless of the disappointments they experience, they find other individuals to transfer remittances to so that the projects progress. this is supported by faist (2000), african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1432 who argues that migrants continue to engage with their countries of origin, and hence there is continued contact and interaction during the migration period regardless of the challenges experienced. effective communication and remittance flow both migrant and non-migrant participants reported that where remittances are transferred, communication lines are opened between migrants and nonmigrants. results from this study revealed that there is a relationship between transfer of remittances and frequency of communication between migrants and non-migrants during the migration period. when remittances are transferred, migrants and non-migrants keep updating each other on the events that led to or resulted from the transfer of the remittance. the higher the frequency of remittance flows, the better the chances of constant communication during the migration period. such was reported by both migrants and non-migrant participants in the study. remitting to the extended family has opened lines of communication for many. the study revealed that in some instances social relationships between migrants and non-migrants were weak before migration. however, after migration their relationships changed and they attribute the changes to the transfer of remittances during the migration period. such sentiments were shared mostly by migrant participants who indicated that the levels of communication between them and family members improved after they sent remittances. they admitted that after sending remittances, they continued to talk for a certain period of time. meaningful communication was guaranteed where remittances were transferred and that communication strengthened their relationships. such is supported by literature on transnational space, which states that activities in which migrants and their non-migrant family members engage during the period of migration have a bearing on their relationships (faist, 2000). duration and frequency of remitting although literature shows that migrants remit to their non-migrants family members during the migration period (grieco, 2003; maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008), the study revealed that not all migrants remit back home. the strength of social ties between migrants and non-migrants was reported as the major determinant of remittance behaviour. results from the study did not show any relationship between time spent away from the country of origin and the flow of remittances during the migration period. one quarter of the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1433 study participants reported that they do not regularly remit back home. they indicated that they did not prioritise remitting back home because of the relationships they had with the families. as such, their remittance behaviour was not influenced by time spent in the host country. as highlighted by grieco (2003), remittances represent efforts by migrants to establish and strengthen relationships with non-migrants. migrants who did not have intentions of establishing relationships with their non-migrant family members reported that they do not regularly remit. regardless of the time they spent in the host countries, such migrants do not remit unless their relationships with nonmigrant family members have changed. the study also revealed that remittance transfers are not always consistent. rather, migrants remit erratically, when remittances are needed. participants who remit erratically indicated that they are not primary breadwinners to any household in the country of origin. as such, they are not compelled to remit regularly or constantly. most of these participants either migrated with their nuclear families or were single people with no primary dependents in the home country. it should, however, be noted that there are other single migrants without children in the home country but they remit regularly for specifics causes. robert is a single male migrant who reported that although he does not have children of his own, he took the responsibility to pay tuition fees for his younger sister who is at a teacher’s college: i have been paying for my sister’s college tuition for two years now and she is left with one year before she finishes. i will be happy to see her through this final year. (robert, male migrant participant). such remittances that are meant for a particular cause are likely to cease once their purpose is fulfilled. however, waning of such remittances cannot be attributed to time spent away from home. rather, the flow of such remittances is determined by the need in the home country. in the event that the purposes the remittances are fulfilled, such remittances may cease to flow. simba, a married migrant, reported that he migrated with wife and children to south africa. as such he does not remit back home frequently. he indicated that although his parents were living in zimbabwe, they were both employed and they provide for their own need. he reported that two of his siblings were working in canada and, therefore, they assist in providing for their parents. as such, it is not his sole responsibility to provide for his parents back home. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1434 however, he admitted that he sometimes remits to other extended family members from time to time. he used a shona proverb which says ‘ukama igasva hunozadziswa nekudya’. the proverb stresses the relevance of food in cementing and strengthening social relationships. in the shona culture, food is given a great significance in showing how people relate to each other. if someone does not eat another’s food, it is interpreted as them being afraid of being bewitched. therefore, to show that there is trust, people should accept the food that they are given by their relatives or neighbours. as such, simba indicated that sending groceries and money to family members back home is an indication of his support so that they would know that he is willing to help them if they are in need of assistance. his remittance behaviour signifies his willingness to establish relationships with family members back home (grieco, 2003). discussion and conclusion transfer of remittances has been identified by many scholars as the major characteristic of migration in developing countries (maphosa, 2007; tevera & chikanda, 2008). literature has shown that migrants transfer remittances to their families in the countries of origin for various reasons, and that such remittances are significant to their well-being. however, little has been done to explore the kinds of relationships that exist between those migrants and their non-migrant family members and how such relationships impact remittance flow. this study explored these relationships and found that the strength of social ties between migrants and their non-migrant family members is an important determinant of remittance behaviour. migration is regarded as a household decision to improve family or household well-being (konseiga, 2006). the family in the country of origin relies on the migrant family member to send remittances back home. however, as the study indicated, familial experiences sometimes hinder the flow of remittances. tensions and conflict within families affect relationships between family members. as a result, remittance flow is hampered because migrants tend to remit to individuals with whom they have a strong social relationship. therefore, the flow of remittances is influenced by the nature of the ties that exist between migrants and non-migrants. remittance flows signify the existence of a relationship (grieco, 2003). therefore, as much as migration is regarded as a household decision meant to benefit the family, if relationships between family members are compromised, the transfer of remittances is not guaranteed. therefore, when evaluating remittance behaviour, emphasis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1435 should also be placed on the nature of the relationships between migrants and non-migrants. migrants’ choices of remittance recipients are not random. before migration, migrants had relationship with other family or household members. after migration, they use such relationships to identify recipients of remittances. as they integrate into their host communities, migrants remain invested in activities in their countries of origin in a number of ways (pasura, 2008; jakubowicz, 2012). the nature of the relationships between the migrants and their non-migrant family members before migration influences the selection of the recipients of remittances during the migration period. as the findings of the study have shown, migrants identified family members with whom they had strong relationships before migration as recipients of the remittances. however, when social ties are broken as a result of misuse of remittances by recipients, the direction of remittance flows changes. as a result, some migrants shift the direction of remittances and select another individual as the recipient. such results show that remittance transfer is guided by the strength of social ties between migrants and non-migrants. when relationships are broken or weakened, remittances do not necessarily cease; rather, they change the direction and are transferred to another recipient. such arguments support grieco (2003; 2004), who notes that the transfer of migrant remittances is not only dependent on altruism. grieco posits there are other factors that determine the transfer of remittances during the migration period. grieco (2003: 3) states that: remittances are not simply sent by the migrant to family members rather they are exchanged for resources accessible through the maintenance of relationships with other members, of a given social network. findings of this study add to such arguments as they indicate that transfer of remittances between migrants and non-migrants is, to a greater extent, influenced by relationships between migrants and non-migrants. remittances are transferred where there are relationships or where individuals are willing to establish or strengthen relationships. when strong social ties diminish, migrants identify new recipients to whom remittances can be transferred. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1436 references bakewell, o., de haas, h., castles, s., vezzoli, s. and jónsson, g. 2009. south south migration and human development: reflections on african experiences. oxford: hdrp. bloch, a. 2010. the right to rights? undocumented migrants from zimbabwe living in south africa. sociology, 44: 233–250. braun, v. and clarke, v. 2006. using thematic analysis in psychology. qualitative research in psychology, 3: 77–101. chakraborty, d. and kuri, p.k. 2017. the household level determinants in the choice and level of migration: a micro study in west bengal. environment and urbanization asia, 8: 94–104. chikanda, a. and dodson, b. 2013. bandaid transnationalism: remittance practices of emigrant zimbabwean medical doctors. migration and development 2: 57–73. cohen, l., manion, l. and morrison, k. 2002. research methods in education. 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(unpublished). sander, c. and mainbo, s.m. 2005. migrant labor remittances in africa: reducing obstacles to developmental contributions. african region working paper series no. 64. tevera, d. and chikanda, a. 2008. migrant remittances and household survival in zimbabwe. african books collective.cape town: samp. zanamwe, l. and devillard, a. 2009. migration in zimbabwe: a country profile. harare: zimstats. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 3 (december 2018) 1439 african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) ambiguity and symbolism in the implementation of the ecowas free movement protocol: evidence from ghana and sierra leone joseph kofi teye, mariama awumbila and ebenezer nikoi abstract this paper examines the challenges to the implementation of the economic community of west african states (ecowas) protocol on free movement, with particular reference to ghana and sierra leone. the paper is based on a desktop review and in-depth interviews with selected ecowas migrants and officials of institutions responsible for managing migration in ghana and sierra leone. the findings suggest that ghana and sierra leone have made modest progress in the implementation of the protocol. apart from abolishing visa and entry requirements for 90 days, both countries have adopted the standardized ecowas travel certificate. despite a few achievements, the following challenges affect the implementation of the free movement protocol in both countries: policy ambiguities resulting from contradictions between national laws on employment and the ecowas free movement protocol; harassment of migrants; migrants’ lack of travel documents; low level of knowledge about the ecowas protocol; resource constraints; fears of competition with immigrants, especially in ghana; securitization of migration and migrants; weak labour market and migration information systems, economic challenges and political instability. this paper concludes that the future implementation outcomes of the ecowas protocol largely depend on the commitment of the member states and financial support that they receive from ecowas and its development partners. while ecowas should continue to lobby states to implement agreements and protocols, mechanisms must also evolve to deal with states that continue to violate the rights of citizens and migrants. keywords free movement; protocol; ghana; sierra leone, ecowas. introduction although the relationship between labour mobility and economic development is contested (ajaero and onokala, 2013), there is enough  centre for migration studies, university of ghana. email: jteye@ug.edu.gh  centre for migration studies, university of ghana.  department of geography and resource development, university of ghana. mailto:jteye@ug.edu.gh teye, j.k., awumbila, m., and nikoi, e. 1557 evidence to suggest that if properly managed, migration could contribute to economic transformation in both migrant sending and receiving areas (switek, 2016; teye et al, 2017). in response to increasing acknowledgement that properly managed migration could promote socio-economic transformation in both sending and receiving countries, a number of governments are making efforts to effectively mainstream labour migration into development planning and policy (mangala, 2017; teye et al, 2017). however, while the developmental outcomes of international migration is increasingly acknowledged, apparently in view of the flow of international remittances (mazzucato et al, 2005; ratha et al, 2011), the contributions of internal and intra-regional migration have not been adequately discussed in both policy and academic circles (teye et al, 2015). recognizing the potential and actual benefits of intra-regional mobility, the economic community of west african states (ecowas) adopted the protocol on free movement of persons, right of residence and right of establishment in 1979 (protocol a/p.1/5/79). this was followed by the formulation of a number of agreements and supplementary protocols aimed at facilitating the mobility of labour and goods within the ecowas region. while these protocols provide guidelines for promoting intra-regional mobility and regional integration, there is enough evidence to suggest that the full implementation of the rights of residence and establishment, as detailed in the 1979 ecowas protocol relating to the free movement of persons, and its supplementary protocols has not been fully achieved (icmpd and iom, 2015). while it is acknowledged that evidence-based data is needed for addressing the gaps in the implementation of the ecowas protocol on free movement (adepoju, 2005; teye et al, 2015), there are only a few studies on its implementation. against this background, this paper examines the implementation record and challenges to the full implementation of the ecowas protocol on free movement, with particular reference to ghana and sierra leone. conceptualising gaps in the implementation of the ecowas free movement protocol based on insights from the policy science literature (parsons, 1995; grainger and konteh, 2007), this paper analyzes gaps in the implementation of the ecowas free movement protocol by assessing the intentions and commitments of governments of the ecowas countries towards the development of policy and institutional structures and resource availability african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) for the implementation of the protocol in ghana and sierra leone. in analysing intentions and commitments of ecowas governments towards free movement, the paper argues that even though all ecowas governments have signed and ratified the free movement protocol, some governments are not committed to certain aspects of the protocols they have signed. to explain why and how ecowas countries do not implement the ecowas protocol fully, the paper relies on the concept of stated and actual policy (aucoin, 1971; grainger and konteh, 2007). according to grainger and konteh, (2007), actual policy reflects the true intentions of the governments towards free movement and regional integration. this actual policy may differ from stated policy published in official documents (in this case the free movement protocol). this theoretical perspective suggests that since governments cannot satisfy all interest groups, one governing strategy is to design or ratify policies of frameworks that satisfy powerful development partners and then implement a very different policy that satisfies the government’s interest. this strategy creates policy ambiguities and stated policy then remains “symbolic statements” (smith, 1985: 135) that are never fully implemented. grainger and konteh (2007: 46-47) identified three main scenarios when stated policy may deviate from actual policy. first, a government may find it difficult to publicize its choice between competing interests of various sectors/groups of the economy. such a government may publish sectoral policies which contradict those of other sectors, are internally inconsistent and do not reflect their actual intentions. the government may also implement policy poorly, or maintain uncertainty (e.g. by poor monitoring of policy outcomes) to discourage challenges to ambiguity. secondly, actual policy has changed due to changes in government or priority goals compared with those at the time of the formulation of the stated policy. the third scenario occurs when a government wants to hide, especially from international actors, activities that clash with rules of the institutional state. this involves ambiguity by delusion and delay. drawing on insights from this theoretical perspective, this paper argues that many governments of the ecowas countries, in reality are not committed to implementation of certain aspects of the protocol because they want to maintain autonomy and preserve certain privileges for their nationals. however, the governments have signed the protocol and supplementary agreements just to satisfy the interests of powerful regional and international policy actors. the current implementation record in the different countries, therefore, reflects the actual policy while the protocol can be seen as stated policy which is merely designed for symbolic teye, j.k., awumbila, m., and nikoi, e. 1559 reasons. this conceptualization suggests that some aspects of the ecowas free movement protocol are poorly implemented in some countries because the governments of those countries are actually in favour of restricting the flows of certain categories of immigrants who are likely to compete with citizens for jobs and scarce resources. this paper’s conceptualization resonates with the argument by mathias and de haas (2013) that while many governments sign agreements to facilitate free movement of skilled labour, they also adopt policies which seek to discourage the immigration and settlement of particular categories of migrants, such as low-skilled labour migrants. such selective immigration policies are intended to shape the skills and income composition of migrant inflows, based on perceived economic needs of the countries and social desirability of different categories of immigrants. apart from the lack of commitment on the part of governments, this paper recognizes that in some countries poor implementation of some aspects of the ecowas protocol may be a result of institutional weaknesses and resource constraints. to explain such institutional constraints, the authors reviewed the various approaches to analyzing policy implementation and chose the topdown rational policy implementation analysis approach and the bottom-up policy implementation analysis approach to guide this assessment. the topdown approach regards policy implementation as a top-down rational activity whereby policy-makers formulate policies and street-level bureaucrats implement those policies. it is assumed that implementation can only be effective when goals are clearly defined, when there are adequate resources and where an effective chain of command exists (pressman and wildavsky, 1984). in contrast, the bottom-up approach posits that policy outcomes largely depend on the interests and decisions of street-level bureaucrats. the approach assumes that the implementation of any given policy involves a multiplicity of organisations at national and local levels. this produces a complex system, which top-down mechanisms of coordination are unable to handle. since strict hierarchical control is not possible, street-level policy implementers have the power to change stated policies (linder and peters, 1987). given that migration flows in both ghana and sierra leone are managed by immigration departments that operate top-down coordination systems, this paper employs the top-down approach to examine how the chain of command and resource availability within the immigration departments in both countries shape the implementation of the protocol. on the other hand, the paper employs the bottom-up approach to examine how the interests and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) decisions of street-level border officials may determine how the free movement protocol is implemented in various parts of the countries. methodology the data used to write this paper was gathered as part of the research activities of the made west africa project which is financed by the european union and aims to promote good governance of migration and mobility and protection of migrants’ rights in the ecowas region. the study involved a desktop review and in-depth interviews with selected ecowas migrants and key informants, made up of officials of institutions/agencies responsible for managing migration in ghana and sierra leone. in all, 35 persons in ghana and 28 persons in sierra leone were interviewed. both the key informants and individual migrants interviewed were selected purposively. the migrant category comprises both highly skilled migrants (i.e. professionals) and lowskilled migrants working in the informal sector. the instruments used to interview public officials and social partners responsible for migration management were flexible and focused on the following themes: trends of immigration and emigration; perceptions on the developmental impacts of migration; respondents’ knowledge of the ecowas protocol; challenges to the implementation of the ecowas protocols; and migrants’ rights. the flexible instruments used to interview ecowas migrants focused on motivations for migration and migration processes and experiences. all the interviews were recorded electronically and transcribed. the transcripts were further analysed thematically. while the findings of this study could have been enhanced by a combination of in-depth interviews and a questionnaire survey among a larger sample of ecowas migrants in the two countries, the authors believe that the conclusions drawn from the rich qualitative data alone are valid. overview of ecowas free movement protocol and supplementary instruments efforts to promote cooperation and integration of the ecowas countries date back to 1975, when the ecowas treaty was adopted by member states. this treaty conferred the status of community citizenship on nationals of member states. the treaty also enjoined member states to ensure to gradually work towards the abolition of the obstacles to free movement of persons, services and capital (adepoju, 2005). in line with the ecowas treaty, the ecowas free movement protocol was adopted in 1979 (ecowas, 1979). it emphasizes the free movement of persons, right of residence and right of establishment. teye, j.k., awumbila, m., and nikoi, e. 1561 the revised ecowas treaty of 1993 further provides in article 3 (1) for “the removal, between member states, of obstacles to the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital, and to the right of residence and establishment”. the major provisions on “immigration” under article 59 are as follows: a) community citizens are granted the rights of entry, residence and establishment and member states undertake to recognize these rights of community citizens in their territories in accordance with the provisions of the free movement protocols. b) member states undertake to adopt all appropriate measures to ensure that community citizens enjoy fully the rights granted them. c) member states undertake to adopt, at a national level, all measures necessary for the effective implementation of the provisions of this article (ecowas, 1993). these provisions are consistent with the 1979 protocol relating to the free entry, right of residence and establishment (agyei and clottey, 2007; awumbila et al, 2014). by this protocol, citizens of member states do not need to apply for a visa to enter another ecowas country for stays up to 90 days. however, ecowas citizens who plan to stay for more than 90 days are required to obtain permission for an extension of stay from the appropriate authority in the member states. other supplementary protocols have been passed following this major protocol. the 2008 ecowas common approach on migration, for instance, provides guidelines for dealing with challenges affecting the implementation of the ecowas free movement protocol. it also provides strategies for dealing with other key migration issues, including combating human trafficking; policy harmonization; protection of the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees; and recognition of the gender dimension of the migration (ecowas, 2008). record of implementation of the free movement protocols in ghana and sierra leone the ecowas free movement protocol is expected to be implemented in stages. during phase 1 (right of entry), member states are expected to allow free entry of citizens of member countries without visa. phase 2 and phase 3 respectively, emphasize the granting of citizens of member states the right of residence and right of establishment in other ecowas countries that they may african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) choose to migrate to. this study has shown that phase 1 has been implemented well in the ecowas region. all 15 ecowas countries, including ghana and sierra leone, have abolished visa and entry requirements for 90 days. the implication of this is that ecowas citizens with valid travel documents and international health certificates are allowed to enter and stay in any ecowas country for 90 days without going through a prior visa application process. both ghana and sierra leone have adopted the standardized ecowas travel certificate, which was introduced in 1985 to make cross-border movements easier and cheaper. the two countries have also adopted the harmonized “immigration and emigration form of ecowas member states” which aims to facilitate and simplify cross-border formalities in member states. both ghana and sierra leone now use the ecowas common passport which was adopted by the authority of heads of state and government in may 2000. with regards to the second phase (right of residence), which came into force in july 1986 following ratification by all member states, ecowas citizens who want to stay and work in another member state for more than 90 days are required to apply for and obtain residence permits or work permits just like immigrants from other parts of the world. however, refusal is possible on grounds of public order, public security or public health. in relation to the third phase (right of establishment), all citizens of ecowas member states have the right to access economic activities and to hold employment, including pursuit of the liberal professions. discrimination may only be justified by exigencies of public order, security or public health. as a result of these provisions, many ecowas citizens have migrated to ghana and are working mainly in the informal sector. sierra leone also has a few ecowas citizens. apart from facilitating labour mobility, the ecowas protocol has contributed to student mobility within the region. for instance, tertiary institutions in ghana have reduced the international students’ fees for students from ecowas countries. this has contributed to an increase in the number of ecowas students at ghanaian universities. despite these achievements, there are serious gaps in the implementation of both the right of residence and right of establishment components of the ecowas protocol. a major challenge to the implementation of the right of residence is created by the procedures for issuing work permits. a recent assessment conducted by teye and asima (2017) on work permit regimes in four west african countries, including ghana and sierra leone, showed that the procedures for issuing work permits in these countries do not support the right of residence enshrined in the ecowas protocol. in both sierra leone teye, j.k., awumbila, m., and nikoi, e. 1563 and ghana, the requirements and procedures for issuing work permits are the same for both ecowas citizens and other nationals. in principle, work permits are expected to be issued to all foreigners, including ecowas citizens, only in situations whereby there is a proof that the skills possessed by the migrant do not exist locally. in both countries, certain sectors are reserved for citizens and as such work permits cannot be granted to ecowas citizens who want to work in such sectors. public service jobs are available to nationals only, except under special arrangements (see also teye et al, 2015). foreigners in ghana, including those from ecowas member states, are not permitted to work in the security services. again, ghana’s investment act, 2013 (act 865) prohibits migrants from engaging in petty trading, operating taxis, beauty salons or barber shops, printing of recharge cards for subscribers of telecommunication services, producing exercise books, supplying retail sachet water and retailing finished pharmaceutical products. given that these economic activities are undertaken by mainly low-skilled persons, it is safe to conclude that the governments are adopting selective policies which will make it difficult for low-skilled immigrants to settle in those countries. this is consistent with the argument of mathias and de haas (2013) that many governments use such restrictive policies to affect the composition of immigrants and discourage low-skilled persons from settling in some countries. these restrictive employment policies discriminate against nationals from other member states and as such these policies violate the ecowas free movement protocol, which stipulates that ecowas nationals who intend to pursue livelihood activities should be subjected to the same laws as nationals of the destination member state (agyei and clottey, 2007; teye et al, 2015). this scenario resonates with the idea of actual and stated policies discussed earlier. the governments of sierra leone and ghana are not committed to the aspect of the protocol that seeks to ensure equal employment opportunities for nationals and citizens of member states. as a result, they have formulated domestic policies that contradict the principles of the protocol, creating policy ambiguities (see grainger and konteh, 2007). the protocol then becomes only a symbolic document (see smith, 1985) which can be interpreted as a token gesture, designed to portray the governments as committed to regional integration without making any real change in the status quo. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) challenges and gaps in the implementation of the ecowas protocol on free movement despite the modest progress made with respect to the implementation of the free movement protocol in ghana and sierra leone, there are a number of issues that affect the successful implementation of the protocols. this section discusses these gaps and challenges based on evidence from ghana and sierra leone. refusal of admission and discrimination a major challenge to the implementation of the ecowas protocol on free movement is presented by the protocol affording member states the right to refuse admission into their territory, community citizens deemed inadmissible under their domestic laws (article 4). according to adepoju et al, (2007), this provision undermines the purpose of the protocol through the use of restrictive domestic inadmissibility laws. as highlighted in the statement below, some countries may intentionally cite security reasons to prevent migrants from entering or staying in their countries: […] countries can hide behind national order and security concerns to refuse granting of residence permits...practically anything can fall under public security. i mean if i get up and say that you are against the security of the state so i’m deporting you that is it, i don’t have to explain to you how you are against the security of this state. so that provision gives a leeway for nations to manipulate the system depending on whether they want you or they don’t want you (g.a., ghana immigration service, kotoka international airport). apart from the refusal to admit unwanted migrants, nationals of ecowas member states are sometimes exposed to some discrimination in both countries. as noted already, in both sierra leone and ghana, public service jobs are available to nationals only and foreigners can only be employed in the public services under special arrangements. additionally, both countries also have a quota system of issuing work permits which implies that some ecowas citizens may not get work permits even if they applied. for instance, according to section 35 of the ghana investment act (act 865), an enterprise with a paidup capital of between us$50,000 and us$250,000 is entitled to an automatic expatriate quota of one person. an enterprise with a paid-up capital range of us$250,000-us$500,000 is entitled to an automatic expatriate quota of 2 persons while the us$500,000-us$700,000 range allows for an automatic expatriate quota of 3 persons and paid up capital of more than us$700,000 allows for an automatic expatriate quota of 4 persons. in ghana, quotas are teye, j.k., awumbila, m., and nikoi, e. 1565 granted by the ghana investment promotion centre (gipc). similarly, the sierra leone local content policy makes provision for quotas for its citizens in all employment fields as follows: at least 10% for top management, 25% for middle management, and 50% at the bottom cadre (teye and asima, 2017). given that ecowas citizens are not exempted from the application of the quota system, these requirements are not consistent with the rights of residence and establishment proposed by the protocol. this is highlighted in the statement below by an officer in ghana: in terms of residency, we have a quota system and you have to apply it. if we talk about right of establishment then we can say that the current work permit law is not consistent with the ecowas protocol because the quota system restricts the number of foreigners to be given work permits. ecowas citizens have a right of establishment so they don’t even need to come to us, i mean practically if we want to implement the right of establishment (g.a., ghana immigration service, kotoka international airport). these domestic laws reflect the true intentions (actual policy) of the government of ghana while the protocol that ghana has ratified is a symbolic document (smith, 1985). in such situations, different policy actors are expected to read different aspects of the policy. ghanaians could read the investment promotion policies and be happy that the government is protecting their interests while ecowas countries can also read ghana’s ratification of the protocol and conclude that it fully supports regional integration. harassment of migrants at borders many migrants from member states are harassed at the borders and asked to make unofficial payments before being allowed to enter some ecowas countries. migrants who travel by air are harassed to a lesser extent because of the presence of senior migration officials at the airports. given that poor people are likely to cross borders by road, they tend to experience harassment more than rich people who travel by air. among people who travel by roads, persons without genuine travel documents are more likely to be asked to make unofficial payments. a.n., a 48-year-old highly skilled nigerian migrant living in ghana who crosses several borders in a year for business purposes, reported that he does not face problems at the borders on occasions when he carries genuine travel documents but he was seriously harassed on other occasions when he appeared at the borders without documents: african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) the border officers don’t worry me much because i have all the documents…when they say, ‘bring your bag’, i bring it, ‘bring your passport’, i bring all those things. and once i give it to them and they check it, i am free to go. i remember there are some occasions i forgot my yellow card and they asked for some surcharge. for the francophone countries they may surcharge you about 1000 cfa or less if you forgot a card and then they let you go (a.n., highly skilled nigerian migrant in ghana). however, the border crossing experiences of some other highly skilled migrants sharply contrast with the accounts of a.n. some of them reported harassment whether they had the documents or not. for instance, m.b.a. is a beninois migrant who holds a phd and works as a researcher in ghana. he arrived in ghana in 2015 by crossing the togolese and ghanaian borders and has since been crossing these borders at least once every two months. he noted that there is extortion at almost every immigration check-point even though he possesses valid travel documents: […] if we rely on what is in the ecowas [protocol], we are supposed to freely move to any country of ecowas as long as we have id or passport. however, at every checking point, especially at the immigration, you have to pay…i have fought with them once but i later decided to just pay and forget about the ecowas and this free movement protocol. i don’t know what it stands for and whether it means that when you want to cross you just present your id or passport and then you go or if it comes along with some fees. i don’t know what the free movement really means… if it’s supposed to be that you freely move without paying anything then its not really working (m.b.a., highly skilled beninois migrant in ghana). the accounts of a.j., a nigerian tailor in sierra leone confirms reports of harassment. a.j., who has travelled widely in the ecowas region reported that some of the borders are more difficult but he believes that the officials at all the borders are only interested in the money and not the documents. he said: once you appear before them, they are only interested in the money and not the documents you carry along. if you have no passport and you are prepared to pay them, they are happy to let you go. if you carry all the documents and you don’t want to pay, they keep you…one day i spent 2 hours at the elubo border when returning from ghana because i refused to pay and they said i must wait. i challenged them but at the end of the day i paid because they just wouldn’t allow me to go (a.j., nigerian tailor in sierra leone). teye, j.k., awumbila, m., and nikoi, e. 1567 besides the main border points, there are numerous barriers where payments are demanded from migrants by the police, customs officials and others and all these add to the challenges of crossing the borders. another low-skilled migrant, f.r., spoke about these other barriers when moving from burkina faso to ghana: there are also people in-between the two countries [ghana and burkina faso]. if the bus moves a bit further after crossing a border, they will also stop the bus and demand payment...i don’t know them but they are also dressed like police or custom officers; they are always sitting under trees…it is very sad and we fear them because they will stop you after you have gone past the border (f.r., low-skilled migrant, ghana). further interviews also revealed that ecowas citizens travelling on passports that have never been stamped are more likely to be harassed as they are required by border agents to pay ‘disvirgin’ fees, which is a kind of bribe, before their passports are stamped for the first time. this situation is explained by a migrant: always, [during] your first time of travelling, they say you should ‘disvirgin’ your passport through bribes. ‘disvirgin’ means that your passprot has not been used before, and so they assume that you have not travelled before. so to ‘disvirgin’ it, you have to pay money. so you pay the ‘disvirgining’ fee in combination with the money you are going to pay for the stamping of your pasport...at least i know that it happens at the elubo border in ghana and the nigerian border… sometimes [the driver of] the vehicle you are travelling in takes the money and then when you get to the border they are going to ‘devirgin’ it [the passport] for you, kind of for you (t.q.g., cross-border trader and dual citizen of nigeria and ghana). a nigerian migrant in sierra leone also reported being asked to make this unofficial payment when he first used the elubo border: my first time of crossing the elubo border, things were more serious as they required me to pay more because i was new at that border…they worried me and delayed me so i paid more than the other passengers. i knew that if i argued with them they will ask me to wait and the car will leave me, so i just paid (a.j., nigerian tailor in sierra leone). top immigration officials who were interviewed reportedly knew of these forms of harassment at the borders. some of them noted that extortions are caused by low levels of salaries and lack of incentive packages. the claim that african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) low salaries contribute to harassment is consistent with resource constraints on the part of organisations, which suggests that resource constraints and low salaries may force employees to perform poorly (pfeffer, 1997). when asked about the measures they are adopting to deal with harassment, some top immigration officials in both ghana and sierra leone stated that they have put in place some measures, such as organising training for officials and punishment of those found to have seriously violated migrants’ rights. an official in ghana also stated that they have asked officials to wear name tags so that travellers could identify and report those who harassed them. another official, however, was less sanguine about the effectiveness of this approach. he noted that asking migrants to report incidents of harassment at the borders would not solve the problem as the migrants would not get to top immigration officials to make such reports. he noted that the ecowas secretariat should have mechanisms for dealing with state officials who harass migrants: the major weakness with ecowas is that it does not have enforcement powers. so people will feel harassed but they have nowhere to turn. so when the issue arose in one of the joint meetings, they said that various countries should establish complaint desk at their borders. i don’t think this will work. like someone who went to nigeria and was harassed at akrake, how will he go back to nigeria to complain that their men have harassed him or her? the best way to deal with this problem should be sanctions by the ecowas secretariat (rnt, ghana immigration service). the statements above indicate that harassment at the borders takes different forms and affect free movement within the sub-region negatively. the causes of harassment are consistent with both the top-down and bottom-up policy implementation analysis approaches discussed earlier. in relation to the topdown approach (pressman and wildavsky, 1984), the chain of command for managing border officials can be regarded as being weak which is why the street-level border officials are able to demand unofficial payments, with impunity. the situation also demonstrates the ability of street-level border officials to ‘reformulate policy’ governing mobility based on their own interests and this gives credence to the bottom up approach (linder and peters, 1987) which argues that policy outcomes depend more on the interests and actions of street-level bureaucrats. teye, j.k., awumbila, m., and nikoi, e. 1569 lack of travel documents and residence/work permits another challenge to the implementation of the free movement protocol has been the difficulty of establishing the nationalities of travellers because some of them do not carry national identity (id) cards or passports. border management officials of the immigration departments in sierra leone and ghana described this situation in the following statements: the free movement protocol enjoins us to admit people into our territory but we also have to establish their nationalities and be sure they are ecowas citizens. however, most of the guineans we have seen at the sierra leone border do not think they need passports…when you tell them they need passports to be allowed to pass, they get angry…they don’t understand the ‘free movement’ thing very well because some ask, ‘why do i need a passport when i am an ecowas citizen and need to travel anywhere freely?’…and when we tell them what they need, they think we just want to make life difficult (m.j., immigration department, sierra leone). people have always blamed immigration officers for harassment of travellers at the borders but the reality is that some of the travellers also get there without any travel document. you ask them to give you their passports for inspection and they tell you stories...in such situations, they are asked to wait…sometimes our men may also take that opportunity to take money from those without documents (o.o.m., ghana immigration service, ecowas section, ghana). the statements above show that some of the ecowas citizens do not have adequate understanding of the free movement protocol. the statements also indicate that harassment at the borders are linked to the lack of travel documents. however, the accounts of some migrants suggest that it is indeed the harassment at the borders that make people reluctant to acquire travel documents. they asserted that border officials are more interested in the money they extort from people than travel documents and given that travellers who have all their travel documents are also required to make unofficial payments, there is no incentive to acquire travel documents. this is clearly captured in the statements below: some travellers think it is not necessary to acquire any passport because whether you have documents or not you are forced to pay money before being allowed to cross the borders…the border officials even prefer those without any document…if you don’t have any document, they appear excited dealing african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) with you because then they tell you, ‘well you don’t have any document so just pay so that i allow you to enter’ (a.j., nigerian migrant in sierra leone). when you get to the border, they are not even interested in any document. what they want is their money. that is the first thing they ask for. even if you have all your documents, what they always say is that, they are not there for papers but money. i can swear that i was once beaten several times at the burkina-ghana border at bawku. i told them that i don’t have money and they beat me and locked me up in a room. i was in the room until everyone in our bus went through the process and got into the bus, then someone came from the bus and paid for me before i was allowed to join the bus (c.o., low-skilled nigerien immigrant in ghana). a few migrants and immigration officials also spoke about the inefficient passport acquisition processes, especially in ghana, as a reason why people travel without travel documents. in ghana, it can take as long as 6 months or more to get a passport. while the passport can be obtained officially for just 50 cedis (10 euros), many people who require passports within a reasonably short time (e.g. 1 month) tend to use the services of ‘middle men’ locally referred to as goro boys who can charge as much as 1000 cedis (200 euros) to get a passport. the passport acquisition processes in sierra leone are more efficient and faster than the processes in ghana. apart from travelling without appropriate documents, many ecowas migrants do not apply for residence/work permits even though this is a requirement for right of residence and establishment, as stated below: whenever we try to monitor the movements and activities of migrants in this country, we realize that the migrants from the ecowas countries hardly apply for work permits…if you ask them why they don’t apply for work permits they will tell you that they are ecowas citizens (c.m., ministry of labour ans social security (mlss), sierra leone). the available data support the claims of the officials that in both countries, the number of work permits issued to migrants from the ecowas countries is very low. in ghana, only about 6% of the total work permits issued in 2015 went to migrants from ecowas even though they constitute a significant proportion of immigrants. in sierra leone, only about 17% of work permits issued in 2015 went to ecowas citizens (teye and asima, 2017). teye, j.k., awumbila, m., and nikoi, e. 1571 challenges with harmonization of immigration procedures and documents while both sierra leone and ghana can be commended for the significant progress made in the area of harmonization of travel documents, especially with regards to the adoption and use of the ecowas passport and the harmonized immigration and emigration form of ecowas member states, there are still gaps in the area of the harmonization of procedures of admission and travel documents. one area of concern has to do with what constitutes a travel document. while the ecowas protocol provides for the use of other travel documents such as travel certificates and the carte d’identité, some of the border management officials in some countries, including ghana, tend to emphasize the use of only passports: you see the harmonization of policies is one of the biggest issues that must be addressed. the francophone have what we call the ‘‘carte d'identité’’ which they use to travel among themselves but which the anglophone countries don’t recognize as a travel document. so the ecowas common approach aims at harmonizing policies but we still have problems with implementation because of lack of political will. so the political heads should be committed to whatever protocols they have signed (i. a., ghana immigration service, aflao border). while the statement above suggests that anglophone countries in general tend to insist on the use of passports for travel purposes, this study found that sierra leonean border officials are more liberal with the acceptance of other travel documents than their ghanaian counterparts. the ghanaian border officials’ rejection of other travel documents, apart from the passport, contravenes the 1979 protocol relating to the free movement of persons, which defines a valid travel document as, […] a passport or any other valid travel document establishing the identity of the holder with his photograph, issued by or on behalf of the member state of which he is citizen and on which endorsement by immigration and emigration authorities may be made. a valid travel document shall also include a laissezpasser issued by the community to its officials establishing the identity of the holder (ecowas, 1979). however, ghanaian immigration officials explained that they reject the carte d’identité because it is not biometrically readable. while the existence of a harmonized work permit is good for intra-regional mobility and integration within any sub-region (clarke and salt, 2003), there african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) are significant variations in the procedures for issuance of work permits in the ecowas countries. according to teye and asima (2017), the residence and work permit regimes vary in terms of the categories, documents required, fees charged and delivery time. sierra leone requires more documentation than ghana. both countries have reduced fees for ecowas citizens but these charges vary significantly from one country to another. low-level of knowledge about ecowas protocol a few migration officials and social partners in both countries indicated that some training programmes have been organized on the ecowas protocol, but they were quick to add that the training workshops were not adequate. in view of the limited number of training programmes organized, a significant number of public officials and the general public have a low level of knowledge about the protocols, as highlighted in the statements below: for me, i would say no, i don’t have adequate knowledge of the protocol. even as an immigration officer, i don’t know much about it…i do not see any sensitization done on it (e.c., immigration department, ministry of internal affairs, sierra leone). no, there is little understanding of the principles. we as officers don’t know the details and there is no platform for educating the public because for immigration service, for instance, the sensitization that we have is geared towards anti-human smuggling, but there are no programmes to teach people about ecowas (a.a.o., ghana immigration service, work permit, section). the low level of knowledge about the protocol partly contributes to the harassment of migrants and the abuse of the rights of travellers. the authors also observed that, apart from the immigration officials, the general public has an even lower level of knowledge of the protocol and this also accounts for the agitation and demonstrations against the inflow of ecowas immigrants. in ghana, for instance, most of the people who complained about the presence of many nigerians in the petty-trading sector did not seem to be aware of the existence of the ecowas protocol on free movement, as there is very little public education on this protocol. this was confirmed by a ghanaian immigration official: one challenge that needs to be addressed is the low level of knowledge about the protocol. so if you look at the kind of complaints about nigerians in ghana, especially if something bad happens, you will realize that many ghanaians are ignorant about the protocol…public education in schools, churches and even teye, j.k., awumbila, m., and nikoi, e. 1573 the market will be important so that people stop asking the government to drive nigerians away (f.a., migration information bureau, ghana). some of the ecowas immigrants interviewed in the two countries stated that they did not know much about the rights that the protocols grant them, and that was why they did not challenge border officials who harassed them. a highly skilled nigerian migrant noted that he does not challenge border officials who demand unofficial payments because of his low level of knowledge of the protocol: i don’t know much about the rights that ecowas migrants have…i can’t challenge the officials because i don’t know the laws very well, if you go to the border and tell them that they are supposed to allow you to enter freely…so the biggest problem is education. both the immigration officers and we the ecowas citizens are not very conversant with our rights. we don’t know our rights, we also don’t know our obligations…some people just travel; they don’t have any documents (t.q.g., highly skilled nigerian migrant). the low level of knowledge about the protocol also accounts for the lack of travel documents, as some ecowas citizens interpret free movement as being movement without documents. these findings highlight the need for more public education on free movement and the acquisition of genuine travel documents. of the two countries, ghana seems to have organized more public education programmes on migration than sierra leone. in ghana, some information campaigns have been organized by the ghana immigration service in collaboration with the international organization for migration (iom). in sierra leone, the few training programmes on ecowas were organized recently by the international centre for migration policy development (icmpd) and the iom under the free movement of persons and migration (fmm) programme. the state institutions do not have long-term programmes for educating the public on free movement. resource constraints and border management challenges given the importance of resource availability for effective policy implementation (pfeffer, 1997), public officials were asked about the adequacy of resources for implementing the ecowas protocol. the data collected shows that both ghana and sierra leone do not have sufficient technical and human resources for the effective management of their porous borders. consequently, many irregular migrants are able to enter these countries. to address these challenges, both ghana and sierra leone have african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) established border patrol units within their immigration services to police their borders. however, the policing of borders is very difficult as there are several hundreds of unapproved border crossing points, which have security implications. as shown in the statements below, the immigration officials in both sierra leone and ghana reported that as a result of resource constraints, they do not have equipment to patrol the unapproved border crossing points: it is very difficult monitoring the borders along unapproved routes, especially during the rainy season…there are no rooms for officials manning some of those routes…the challenge we had was the means of transport to those crossing points (d.t., ghana immigration service). there are several challenges with border control in this country…we operate with limited resources. we need more electronic gadgets but we don’t have the funds to buy these things. as border management is a challenge, border officials may be so stressed that they will also frustrate people crossing the borders (e.c., immigration department, ministry of internal affairs, freetown). the statements above link resource constraints to the harassment at the borders. apart from the lack of resources, officials also talked about the difficulty in managing border residents who can cross the border anywhere: we face problems managing border residents…those who fall within a five kilometre radius from the borders normally access both points without using any travel documents. and you know we have to recognize them as such, as border residents. and so it becomes difficult to monitor their movements and get data on them (k.d., ghana immigration service). border control is very difficult because some people live very close to the borders and they cross it at any place. so the borders are porous and we don’t have the resources to be monitoring the borders (c.l., statistics department, sierra leone). the interviews highlight the fact that, with serious challenges associated with border management, immigration officials who are frustrated by the lack of resources, may engage in various forms of harassment in order to get money. some officials also indicated that harassment at the borders may be partly explained by the poor conditions under which border officials do their work. teye, j.k., awumbila, m., and nikoi, e. 1575 security and health concerns increasing securitization of migration and migrants, especially in the wake of what is perceived as growing threats of terrorism, is also a challenge to the implementation of the ecowas protocol on free movement. in sierra leone, there is a belief that the civil war was fuelled by mercenaries who entered the country and this belief has an influence on border management in the country. the influx of migrants has also been blamed for rising criminal activities, such as kidnapping and armed robberies, money laundering and the flow of fake goods in ghana, as highlighted in the following statements: i will say in recent times there is an increase in the number of robberies. when most of these guys are arrested, you will realize that most of them are foreigners. that is one of the negative impacts of free movement of people within the region (f.a.o., immigration, migration information bureau, ghana). cross-border crime is a negative outcome of the protocol. other problems are money laundering and inflow of fake drugs into the country…most of these guys do one bad thing in ghana, then they move into togo, nigeria or benin, and then we have criminals roaming in the whole region (k.m., ghana immigration service, akanu border). thus, as noted elsewhere (see teye et al, 2015), there are concerns that the privileges enshrined in the protocol have been abused by some citizens of the sub-region, including the prevalence of armed robbery, fraud, and illicit trade in narcotics. these crimes have led to expressions of resentment among officials and the general public, especially in ghana where nigerian immigrants, in particular, were likely to be perceived as being associated with crime. recent conflicts between fulani herdsmen and local farmers in the agogo area of ghana have created local community resentment against ecowas migrants in ghana. in addition to the security threat, migrants are perceived by some as sources of disease transmission, carrying “foreign pathogens” that would exacerbate the burden of disease in these countries. the fear of diseases was more marked in sierra leone: ebola was transported from guinea to liberia and sierra leone to another. so that was one of the disadvantages [of free movement]…there is the tendency for migrants to bring foreign pathogens into our country (a.j.s., public health superintendent, environmental health directorate, ministry of health and sanitation, freetown). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) these findings underscore the need for more public education and campaigns that will change the negative perceptions that people have about ecowas migrants, especially in ghana. data and labour market information challenges while reliable data on migration flows is important to support ongoing policy initiatives (adepoju, 2005; quartey, 2009), there is a general lack of accurate and up-to-date data on the flow of immigrants and emigrants in both ghana and sierra leone and this poses problems to migration management. in both countries, officials explained that the lack of data is caused by a lack of resources to conduct research on migrants and or to analyse the data which is collected at the exit and entry points. another problem has to do with the technical capacity of the agencies responsible for data collection. it emerged that in both ghana and sierra leone, there is a general lack of both equipment and the technical capacity of immigration officials to manage and disseminate the data collected on a daily basis. however, ghana has more advanced systems of data collection and analysis than sierra leone. the porous nature of borders also affects data collection. the statements below by some officials stress the data management challenges in both countries: we do not have the resources needed to collect and analyze data on migrants. the census questionnaire has a few questions on migrants but this is not done regularly...the data collected at the entry points are not really analyzed because we lack the capacity. we also don’t have equipment like servers and computers even to store and share this data (c.l., department of statistics, sierra leone). we don’t have equipment, like computers and a server to store and analyze data. we also lack capacity but i think the iom, in recent times have organized a training programme where data management was taught. so that capacity is being built now, so that the ministry or the unit will serve as the custodian of all information or data relating to migration…issues of capacity building, staffing, office accommodation are really a challenge (o.a., migration unit, ministry of interior). related to the challenges associated with data collection is the inability of governments of both countries to develop comprehensive data-sets on labour markets to provide information on employment opportunities to people entering the labour market. the labour market information systems (lmis) are quite weak in both countries. a recent icmpd/ecowas-commissioned teye, j.k., awumbila, m., and nikoi, e. 1577 assessment conducted by teye (2016) shows that there is currently no comprehensive labour market information system in sierra leone. individual government institutions and the private sector keep records of their employees in different forms and manners. data on the labour market are mainly records of job vacancies and applications on public employment services. although ghana’s lmis is more advanced than that of sierra leone, it is still quite weak and does not provide adequate information on job avenues to both nationals and immigrants. economic challenges and political instability the poor economic situation in both sierra leone and ghana and pressure from indigenes of these countries frustrate the migration process by making the benefits for most low-skilled jobs not worth the efforts of migrants. economic challenges facing citizens create anti-migrant sentiments that render states reluctant to implement the ecowas free movement protocols (konan and kouakou, 2012). the blame for economic problems is usually put on immigrants rather than on the root causes of corruption and mismanagement (yaro, 2008). in the past, this has contributed to the mass expulsion of ecowas citizens from some countries. in both countries studied, economic challenges continue to create anti-migrant sentiments. these sentiments are more pervasive in ghana’s informal trading sector where ghanaian traders attribute their low sales to the presence of nigerian traders. there has been a series of demonstrations by ghanaian traders against nigerians and chinese in the trading sector (adjavon, 2013). additionally, political instability poses a serious challenge to using intraregional mobility to promote development. as noted by teye et al (2015), since the early 1990s, west africa has experienced a number of intra-state conflicts. an immigration officer in sierra leone noted that as a result of the belief that the civil war was partly caused by mercenaries from other countries, border officials are concerned about the security implications of the inflows of migrants: there is a general belief that the some fighters from other countries caused the civil war that destroyed our country. they crossed into sierra leone from liberia where the same people fought during the civil war there. so we want people to come to sierra leone but we are concerned about security issues when we see many young men who appear at the borders without any travel document (tyn, immigration official, sierra leone). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) the statement above shows that although border officials are not worried about inflows of all migrants, they are particularly concerned about young men who appear at the borders without travel documents. as yaro (2008) noted elsewhere, since the conflicts created many refugees, both the individual countries and ecowas have to devote much attention and commit their scarce human and financial resources to the resolution of these conflicts, thereby constraining ecowas from achieving its set objectives. conclusions the analysis in this paper indicates that both ghana and sierra leone have made modest progress in the implementation of the ecowas free movement protocol, especially in relation to phase 1 (right of entry). all 15 ecowas countries, including ghana and sierra leone, have abolished visa and entry requirements for up to 90 days. there are however, still serious challenges to the implementation of the free movement protocols, especially with regards to the phase 2 and phase 3 components. one challenge has to do with the harmonization of rules on travel documents. while some countries in the subregion use identity cards (carte d'identité) as a travel document, these are not accepted by ghanaian immigration officials. the procedures for issuing work and residence permits in both sierra leone and ghana also do not support the right of residence enshrined in the ecowas protocol. in principle, legislative instruments in both countries stipulate that work permits should be issued to all foreigners, including ecowas citizens, only in situations whereby there is a proof that the skills possessed by the migrants do not exist locally. these rules contradict the ecowas free movement protocol which seeks to ensure that citizens of ecowas member countries are treated the same way as nationals of the host countries. the scenario resonates with the idea of governments having actual and stated policies (grainger and konteh, 2007) on the same issue. the governments of sierra leone and ghana are not truly committed to the aspect of the protocol that seeks to ensure equal employment opportunities for nationals and citizens of ecowas member states. consequently the domestic policies on employment contradict the principles of the protocol, creating policy ambiguities. the ecowas protocol, in some sense, remains a symbolic document, while the domestic rules governing the issuance of work permits constitute actual policy. by this strategy, the governments are able to maintain autonomy in the management of migration while also appearing to be abiding by the sub-regional protocol. teye, j.k., awumbila, m., and nikoi, e. 1579 in line with reports of some earlier studies (see adepoju, 2005; teye et al, 2015), many migrants from member states are still harassed at the borders and asked to make unofficial payments. another challenge to the implementation of the free movement protocol is the difficulty that immigration officials face in establishing the nationalities of the many migrants who arrive at the borders without travel documents. many immigration officials and migrants in both countries have very low levels of knowledge about ecowas protocols. of the two countries, ghana seems to have more resources for border management than sierra leone, but both countries clearly need support to fully implement the free movement protocol. other challenges which seriously affect the implementation of the ecowas protocol, in both ghana and sierra leone, include fear of competition with immigrants, especially in ghana; securitization of migration and migrants; lack of up-to-date data on migration flows, especially in sierra leone; weak labour market information systems, especially in sierra leone; and economic challenges and political instability in the ecowas region. this study concludes that while some of the gaps in the implementation of the protocol, such as discriminatory work permit regimes, can be attributed to lack of ecowas governments’ commitment which has led to the creation of policy ambiguities, other challenges (e.g. harassment at the borders) can be attributed to weak institutional arrangements and resource constraints. although the top-down policy implementation model (pressman and wildavsky, 1984) is adopted to govern mobility in both countries, the lack of resources makes it difficult to ensure that street-level border officials protect these rights. this study concludes that the future implementation outcomes of the ecowas protocol largely depend on the commitment of the member states and financial and technical support that they receive from ecowas and its 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(ed). africa and its global diaspora: the policy and politics of emigration. new york: palgrave macmillan. teye, j.k., awumbila, m. and benneh, y. 2015. intra-regional migration in the ecowas region: trends and emerging challenges. in akoutou, a.b., sohn, r., vogl, m. and yeboah, d. (eds). migration and civil society as development drivers – a regional perspective. bonn: zei centre for european integration studies. yaro, j.a. 2008. migration in west africa: patterns, issues and challenges. unpublished paper. university of ghana 75 fish-for-sex (ffs) and risk of hiv infection among fishers in elmina fishing community in ghana sylvester kyei-gyamfi1 received 20 december 2021 / accepted 06 june 2022 / published 31 august 2022 abstract this paper is a cross-sectional study that employed mix-methods for data collection and analysis to investigate a relationship between mobility and hiv risks among 385 fishers in elmina. it discusses the roles of people in fish-for-sex (ffs), the reasons for such transactional sexual activity, and its implications for hiv-risk infection. the study uses the theory of gender and power (tgp) to explain gender dynamics in power inequalities, and their effects on interpersonal sexual relations between males and females within the fishing community. the paper concludes that the gendered division of labor exists in the study area and thrives on socio-cultural norms and power inequalities. these inequalities mainly favor men, who are thus emboldened to exploit women through the supply of fish. the paper further observes that as long as the female petty fish traders require capital for their fish trade and the male fishers have greater control over the supply of the fish, the women will have limited negotiating power. in addition, the paper establishes a linkage between fish-for-sex relations and the risk of hiv exposure among fishers in elmina. the paper recommends the empowerment of female petty fish traders by granting them trading capital to limit their overdependence on male fishers for capital, thereby eliminating the need for exchanging sex for fish. the paper also calls for the intensification of education by relevant agencies involved in hiv education on safe sex practices through the use of condoms in fishing communities. keywords: fish-for-sex, gendered labor division, power, inequality, exploitation 1 department of children, ministry of gender children and social protection, ghana, accra. corresponding author  sylvesterr_kyeigyamfi@yahoo.com moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa 76 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 introduction fish-for-sex (ffs) is a transactional sexual activity that involves an exchange of fish for sex between male and female fishers2 in fishing destinations. earlier studies have reported the occurrence of ffs in fishing communities in many developing countries (kissling et al., 2005; camlin et al., 2013). most of the occurrences of ffs are observed in sub-saharan africa. for instance, scholars like camlin et al. (2013) and merten and haller (2007) observed the presence of such activity in the nyanza lakeside communities in kenya, and among local ila or tonga women and immigrant fishermen in the zambian kafue flats. anecdotal evidence shows that it may be happening in some fishing communities in ghana too. béné and merten (2008) describe it as a transactional sexual relationship between male and female fishers as part of the local fish-trade economy. kwena et al. (2013) explain that generally, female fish traders enter into the ffs to be assured of a steady supply of fish to sustain their fish trade. duwal et al. (2015) emphasize that once this arrangement is concluded, male fishers are obliged to grant their ffs partners preferential access to their catch of fish. macpherson et al. (2012) report that after the sexual transaction, the women become the first to get their supply of fish, while those who do not engage in this transactional sexual relationship often find it difficult to get fish. for this reason, female fish traders are sometimes compelled to look for sex partners among male fishers at fishing destinations. gordon (2005) reports that in some communities, the female fish traders compete to be part of an ffs arrangement, or risk losing out on the supply of fish, especially during lean fishing seasons (fao, 2006). kissling et al. (2005) maintain that ffs increases hiv vulnerability among those who engage in this practice. female fish traders who lack trading capital are the victims of ffs in many fishing communities, at the hands of male fishers who demand sex before supplying fish (kwena et al., 2013). kwena et al. (2013) also contend that not only do the women become victims of exploitation, but the ffs occurs in unprotected contexts of very low condom use. further insights into the practice also show that it involves either a small number of female fish traders having unprotected sex with a large number of male fishers or a large number of female fish traders having sex with a small number of male fishers within the fishing destination (garnett and anderson, 1996, cited in duwal et al., 2015). the extant literature deems ffs both a potentially hiv-risk practice, and an exploitative practice as it increases the vulnerability of not only fish traders but the general population through their sexual partners. it is an issue of power play in which males have an upper hand in the decisions taken to engage in sex, with some men even refusing to use condoms (kyei-gyamfi, 2019). incidentally, very little is documented on ffs in the fisheries literature in ghana, even though anecdotal evidence shows that this phenomenon may be occurring in some ghanaian fishing 2 ‘fishers’ refers to the study participants who were categorized into four groups: those who catch the fish, those engaged in post-harvest activities (drying, smoking, marketing, etc.), those engaged in maintenance and repair activities (boat repairs, net mending, etc.), and those who carry fish from one point of the fishing market to another. 77 communities. this paper analyzes the roles of people in the fishing activity of elmina in the komenda-edina-eguafo-abirem (keea) municipality in ghana, their engagement in ffs, the reasons for engagement, and the implications for hiv-risk infection among men and women in the fishing community. the paper is based on an earlier study, which established a relationship between mobility and hiv-risk infection among fishers in the elmina fishing community. theory of gender and power the theory of gender and power (tgp) is an important theory to consider when designing behavioral health interventions that address issues that adversely affect women. the tgp is a social structural theory that addresses the wider social and environmental issues surrounding women, in the distribution of power and authority, affective influences, and gender-specific norms within heterosexual relationships. the theory was developed by robert connell in 1987 and has three constructs: sexual division of labor, sexual division of power, and the structure of cathexis. the tgp has been used in public health research to examine risk factors, also known as acquired risks, as they relate to women’s health. it has also been used in earlier studies to analyze gender-based inequalities and disparities that affect women’s choices and decisions in sexual relationships. in this paper, the theory is used to explain the division of labor, power, and sexual relationships between male and female fishers in fishing communities, and the implications for the risk of hiv infection. the three constructs of the tgp operate at both the societal and institutional levels, and identify conditions that expose women to hiv risk at both levels. at the societal level, in terms of the sexual division of labor, males and females are assigned genderspecific occupations where females usually find themselves in low-paying positions. at the institutional level, females are often assigned to do work usually described as “women’s work”, with lower income compared to that of men. this is how most fishing economies are structured, where males engage in actual fishing and have control of fish, and females engage in post-harvest activities such as smoking, drying, and marketing (mbenga, 1999; fao, 2016). there is, however, evidence that women also wield power in the fisheries (overa, 2003; de silva, 2011). for example, earlier works in some fishing communities in ghana indicate that women have significant control within the postharvest domains such as setting prices. evidence also abounds where women are financiers of many fishing expeditions, own canoes, and even hire men to fish for them. through their provision of capital, ownership of canoes, and control of fish pricing, some women secure their supply of fish and wield a lot of power (overa, 1993, 2003). regardless of gender-role differences, both women and men play dominant roles in the value chain (de silva, 2011). notwithstanding the power some women wield, the fisheries literature generally indicates that most female fishers are engaged in the lower levels of the fisheries value chain and have less access to fish resources and income compared to men (de silva, 2011). wingood and diclemente fish-for-sex and risk of hiv infection among fishers in elmina fishing community in ghana 78 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 (2000) argue that the sexual division of power at the institutional level is maintained by abuse of power, authority, and control in the hands of men. such is the case in ffs relations, which allows men to use their control over fish to exploit women engaged in petty fish trading for sex (kwena et al., 2013). kwena et al. (2013) and mojola (2011) also adduce low condom use in fishing communities to the division of power, which usually occurs because women have very little say in negotiating for protected sex in ffs. pitpitan et al. (2012) report that many fish traders are afraid to discuss condoms with male partners for fear of being denied access to fish. the third construct refers to the structure of cathexis. connell (1987) used this term to describe the constraints in people’s emotional attachments to each other. at the institutional level, social norms and affective attachments are maintained by social mechanisms such as socio-cultural biases, which allow the ascription or references of ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’ to certain jobs and positions. for example, in the fishing communities, the actual work of catching fish is a preserve for males because that is what society accepts and this tends to discourage women (odotei, 1990; de silva, 2011). hitomi (2009) notes that socio-cultural beliefs limit women’s participation in actual fishing, citing the example of south asian fishing communities, where it is believed that women onboard a fishing expedition brings bad luck. the fante and ewe fishers in ghana also hold the belief that a woman in her menstrual period on a fishing expedition could lead to a bad fish catch or the capsizing of the expedition boat, putting lives at risk (kyei-gyamfi, 2019). these cultural beliefs affect women’s participation in fishing to men’s advantage. in sum, the three constructs of the theory explain the gender division of labor, power dynamics, and sexual behaviors between male and female fishers in fishing destinations. methods this paper presents findings from the initial study that set out to establish a relationship between the mobility of fishers and hiv infection risks. this crosssectional study employed convergent parallel mixed research methods for data collection and analysis and was conducted among artisanal fishers in the fishing community of elmina in ghana (see figure 1). the choice of qualitative methods allowed for an in-depth interpretation of mobility and sexual experiences of fishers, while the quantitative method examined relationships between independent and dependent variables in the analysis. the study combined a survey, key informant interviews (kiis), focus group discussions (fgds), and observation for collecting primary data. the population comprised artisanal marine water fishers aged 18 and above engaged in any form of fishing activity and included actual fishers, fish porters, boat (canoe) repairers, fishing gear sellers, and fish traders. due to budget constraints, the time needed to administer questionnaires, and the unknown population size of fishers in the study area, the researcher derived the sample size by computing the minimum sample size required for accuracy in estimating proportions. the author reached an estimated sample size of 385 79 respondents for the survey. figure 1 map of the study area in keea municipality source: fieldwork, july-august 2017 the study used purposive sampling in the selection of 30 key subjects for the kiis. participants of the kiis comprised key officials of the keea municipality, and community opinion leaders. the purpose of conducting the kiis was to explore their views on fishing activity and issues related to the sexual behaviors of fishers. the researcher held two separate fgds with female and male fishers, with 10 participants in each group. at the landing beach, the researcher made several visits for physical observation of the settlement patterns, state of social infrastructure, mode of economic activities, and living arrangements of the fishers in elmina. the researcher organized and analyzed the qualitative data gathered during the interviews and fgds through a five-stage process, using a thematic approach. the study includes narrative descriptions to explain relationships in the data presented, with selected quotations by subjects in the fgds and kiis to enrich the analysis. regarding the quantitative analysis, the study used both descriptive (frequencies, percentages) and inferential (chi-square test) statistics. the researcher did bivariate analysis by way of cross-tabulation between variables of interest to determine the association between independent and dependent variables. fish-for-sex and risk of hiv infection among fishers in elmina fishing community in ghana 80 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 results and discussion socio-demographic characteristics of fishers the researcher examined the socio-demographic characteristics of the 385 fishers who participated in the study with respect to age, sex, marital status, level of education, religion, mobility status, and type of fishing occupation engaged in, as illustrated in table 1. more than half (51.4 percent) of the participants were female, while the remaining 48.6 percent constituted males. the large majority of female fishers in the current study indicates active participation of females in fishing, hitherto described as a male-dominated endeavor. in terms of age, table 1 also shows that participants aged 34–44 constituted the highest percentage (29.9 percent), followed by the 25– 34 age group (24.2 percent) and <25 age group (22.3 percent). respondents aged 65 years and above constituted the least (3.6 percent). the data presented in table 1 further indicate that fishers below the age of 35 represented 76.4 percent of the respondents. this suggests higher engagement of younger people in the fishing activity in the study area, corroborating earlier works which describe the fisheries sector as an area attracting younger and stronger individuals with the capacity to do physically demanding tasks (caldwell et al., 1997). table 1 also indicates that 54.3 percent of the study participants were mobile fishers,1 while 45.7 percent were nonmobile. the data in table 1 further indicate that 53.8 percent of respondents had middle/junior high school education, almost a third of respondents had no education, and 12.7 percent had secondary/vocational school and higher education. the results show a high illiteracy rate among fishers in the study area. this was to be expected as some studies undertaken on artisanal marine fishers have shown high illiteracy rates among fishers (duwal et al., 2015). the majority of respondents were christians (82.1 percent), and regarding marital status, 46.8 percent reported being married, while 53.2 percent were not in any form of marital union. from table 1, it is evident that the fishers who engaged in post-harvest activities constituted the highest number (38.7 percent), followed by those engaged in actual fishing (25.5 percent), fish porters (21.6 percent), and boat (canoe) repair and maintenance workers (14.3 percent). 1 fishers reporting to have traveled from elmina to other fishing communities to engage in any fishing activity in the last 12 months before the study. 81 table 1: socio-demographic characteristics of respondents source: fieldwork, july-august 2017. elmina fishing activity and the engagement of women the roles in the fishing activities in elmina are sharply divided, with men dominant in the areas of actual catching of fish, boat repair/maintenance and sale of fishing gear, and fish porterage, with women dominant in the post-harvest activities, as seen in table 2. ‘actual fishing’ refers to the fishers who go out to sea on fishing canoes/ boats to catch the fish. in an interview with the regional/district fisheries officer, he indicated that there is no record of any woman going to fish in the sea in elmina. actual fishing is exclusive to males, as the study results confirm in table 2. in an earlier study on gender and traditional authority in the artisanal marine industry in ghana, odotei (1990) describes the sea as an entity that is recognized as a god sex frequency percent male 187 48.6 female 198 51.4 age <25 86 22.3 25-34 93 24.2 35-44 115 29.9 45-54 50 13.0 55-64 27 7.0 65+ 14 3.6 mobility status mobile fisher 209 54.3 non-mobile fisher 176 45.7 education no education 129 33.5 middle/jhs education 207 53.8 secondary/vocational and higher 49 12.7 religion islam 21 5.5 african traditionalist 19 4.9 no religion 29 7.5 christianity 316 82.1 marital status never married 112 29.1 cohabiting/informal/consensual 34 8.8 married 180 46.8 divorced/separated/widowed 59 15.3 type of fishing occupation fish catch group 98 25.5 post-harvest group 149 38.7 maintenance and repair group 55 14.3 porters and errand group 83 21.6 fish-for-sex and risk of hiv infection among fishers in elmina fishing community in ghana 82 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 who abhors uncleanliness. participants in the male fgd reported that women are perceived to be unclean during menstruation and cannot go near the god of the sea and fish in that state. the fishers in the community hold the belief that women carry a lot of bad luck during their menstrual period and may be displeasing to the sea god, who might show his wrath with a poor fish catch or capsizing an expedition boat (kyei-gyamfi, 2019). the perception of women causing bad luck at sea demotivates their engagement, as noted by hitomi (2009). it is important to note that the lack of engagement by women in actual fishing does not in any way place all-female fishers at a disadvantage in terms of fish supplies. the women also have power and control over retailing and fish pricing, which give them significant power within the postharvest space (overa, 1993). table 2: type of fishing activity engaged in among respondents by sex source: fieldwork, july-august 2017. according to the study results, post-harvest fishing activity in elmina is a femaledominated area. table 2 shows 70.7 percent engagement of females compared to only 4.8 percent of males. the post-harvest activities relate to a variety of activities by women, such as processing of the fish through drying, smoking, and frying. it also involves marketing, where the fish traders either buy or sell the fish on a retail basis. the post-harvest also includes storage and transportation, which is dominated by large-scale female fish traders referred to as fishmongers. according to some fishmongers interviewed, many of them acquire their trading capital through loans, which are accessed from rural banks and savings/loans companies. since they have access to capital, they serve as financiers of many fishing expeditions and also buy portions of fish from fishers who work on the canoes. in an interview with one fishmonger, she expressed the following: most of the fishing trips are financed by women who provide money for fuel, food, and maintenance of boats and nets. most of us pre-finance the fish expeditions to secure access to the catch from the fishers on the canoes. some of our women even own canoes/boats and engage male fishers as the crew of their boats. they always have money with them and buy fish from the fishers who work on the canoes. response type of fishing activity engaged in actual fishing post-harvest activity (processing, marketing, storage, transportation etc.) boat repair/ maintenance and sale of fishing gears etc. fish porters (mending of nets, carrying, errands etc.) sex engaged not engaed engaged not engaged engaged not engaged engaged not engaged male 52.4 47.6 4.8 95.2 18.2 81.8 24.6 75.4 female 0.0 100 70.7 29.3 10.6 89.4 18.7 81.3 p-value 0.000 83 the statement above indicates the power that some women wield over fish supplies, either because of their access to capital, investments in expeditions, or ownership of fishing boats, corroborating the findings of earlier studies (overa, 1993, 2003; quagrainie and chu, 2019; usaid/sfmp, 2020). in the female fgd, participants also reported that just as women are not encouraged to catch fish, the men are also not encouraged to engage in post-harvest activities, which are the preserve of women. the following was expressed by a participant: in elmina, women don’t go fishing. only our men are permitted to go. so, we also have taken over post-harvest activities, which are usually regarded as female activities. when a man smokes fish or fries fish, people in the community will refer to him as kojo basia (a male who behaves like a female). owing to this, many of our men are not even interested in processing, and marketing. the observation expressed above accounts for the predominance of men in the actual catching of fish and of women in post-harvest fishing activities. it further clarifies the structure of the division of labor in the fishing economy of elmina and the players within it, as documented earlier by britwum (2009). the description of the postharvest roles as a female enterprise is a common community perception, which demotivates males to accept certain post-harvest roles, in order not to be branded kojo basia. the feminine ascription attached to post-harvest fishing activities also affords women considerable influence in fisheries governance as their roles make them the primary processors and marketers of the bulk of the harvested fish (overa, 2003; britwum, 2009; quagrainie and chu, 2019). though the prevailing narratives in the fisheries literature have described post-harvest activities as the domain of women, there is evidence that seems to suggest that the situation is changing as a few males now engage in post-harvest fishing activities (overa, 2007; quagrainie and chu, 2019; usaid/sfmp, 2020). overa (2007) notes that the meager formal job market in ghana forces men to cross gender barriers and enter domains described as female-dominated. the statement above confirms that the changing dynamics have also affected the fisheries job market. the boat repair and sale of fishing gear also has a higher percentage engagement of males (18.2 percent) compared to females (10.6 percent), as seen in table 2. although the sale of fishing gear has significant participation of females, the fisheries literature describes the aspects of boat repair/maintenance as dominated by aged male fishers (fao, 2006; kyei-gyamfi, 2019). participants in the fgds indicated that older male fishers do boat repair or maintenance work because it requires experience, expertise, and less physical strength. the fish porters are young males and females who carry fish from the canoes/ fish-for-sex and risk of hiv infection among fishers in elmina fishing community in ghana 84 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 boats at the landing sites to the markets. the fgds revealed that the work of the fish porters is laborious and requires extreme physical ability to carry it out. this may explain the engagement of more males than females in this area (see table 2). fish-for-sex in elmina earlier studies have described ffs as a transactional sexual relationship between male and female fishers as a part of the local fish trade economy in which fish is traded for sex (kissling et al., 2005; béné and merten, 2008; mojola, 2011). participants who reported engaging in ffs were asked if they had engaged in the practice in the previous 12 months. as shown in table 3, a proportion of 13.9 percent affirmed. table 3: ffs in the last 12 months by sex, age, mobility status, marital status and type of fishing activity source: fieldwork, july-august 2017 background characteristics respondents who engaged in ffs n percent p-value sex 0.000 male 31 24.8 female 6 4.3 age 0.000 <25 20 32.8 25-34 10 15.9 35-44 6 7.1 45-54 1 3.0 55-64 0 0.0 65+ 0 0.0 mobility status 0.024 mobile fisher 28 17.7 non-mobile fisher 9 7.8 marital status 0.001 never married 22 27.8 cohabiting/informal/consensual 2 11.1 married 10 7.4 divorced/separated/widowed 3 12.3 type of fishing occupation 0.000 fish catch group 16 23.9 post-harvest group 3 2.9 maintenance and repair group 3 7.5 porters and errand group 15 27.8 total 37 13.9 85 higher engagement is reported among males (24.8 percent) than in females (4.3 percent), confirming earlier findings (see for example, idowu et al., 2012). the result of the engagement in ffs needs to be interpreted with caution. the fgds revealed that male fishers were more outspoken in sharing their ffs experiences than female fishers. this was to be expected because according to kwankye et al. (2007) and kyeigyamfi (2019), in ghana, it is easier for males to openly discuss personal sexual experiences than for females. adiku (2017) also notes that women in ghana hardly talk about their sexual issues with strangers. based on these earlier findings, it is, therefore, possible that some of the female respondents who reported not engaging in ffs may have engaged in it but were shy in disclosing their engagement. it can also not be ruled out that the males may have exaggerated their engagement as a way of bragging about their ffs exploits. in terms of age, respondents who reported engaging in ffs were younger fishers. table 3 shows a statistically significant association (p<0.000) between age and engagement in ffs, with higher engagement being recorded among respondents younger than 25 years (32.8 percent) and those in the 25–34 years age group (15.9 percent). this finding confirms the findings of idowu et al. (2012), who found that younger fishers are more prone to engaging in ffs. participants in the female fgd reported that ffs occurs among a few young unmarried fishers. this was corroborated in a kii with the fish queen, who affirmed it as follows: these days it is not easy for fishers to make a good catch, and for an entire crew to give away their fish for sex, is impossible. if any of them would use their portion of fish for sex, then it may be the young boys on the boats. during the interview with the chief fisherman, he also indicated that ffs is common among younger fishers who work on canoes: most of the young male fishers on my boat engage in all kinds of risky behaviors, including sexual encounters with fish traders. since they don’t have money to have fun, they use part of their portion of the fish catch i give them at the end of a fish trip to indulge in alcoholism and sex. this statement suggests that in elmina, ffs occurs among younger fishers, suggesting that being young influences one’s quest to engage in risky sexual behavior such as ffs (duwal et al., 2015). from the narratives, it is evident that younger fishers are more exposed to hiv risk through their sexual behavior in the fishing destinations. the results further show that engagement in ffs is common among mobile fishers,2 and this is also affirmed in table 3, where a higher rate of engagement (17.7 percent) was reported among mobile fishers than the non-mobile fishers (7.8 2 a mobile fisher is any respondent who traveled outside of elmina (point of origin) to engage in any fishing-related activity in any other fishing community during the 12 months preceding the study. fish-for-sex and risk of hiv infection among fishers in elmina fishing community in ghana 86 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 percent). the fgds revealed that it is common to find mobile female fishers engage in ffs because their identities are usually unknown in other fishing destinations, and they are less likely to be found out even if they engaged in it. one participant in the female fgd explained: i have heard that some women from other communities exchange sex for fish when they come here but i doubt if the local women can do the same. if community members hear that a local woman engages in ffs, she will be branded as a prostitute. another participant indicated that he has engaged in ffs relationships for several years and has never had sex with a woman domiciled in elmina: none of the women i have had sex with lives in elmina. many of my partners are from other towns. i believe the local women do not engage in ffs because of fear of local gossip. the above statements indicate that mobile female fishers are more likely to report ffs engagement than non-mobile ones. conversely, female fishers who are domiciled at the fishing destination may be branded as prostitutes if they were found to be engaging in ffs, which is not the same case as mobile fishers whose identities are not known. the current finding conforms to earlier studies that documented higher ffs engagement among mobile fishers (see for example, skeldon, 2000; mojola, 2011). in chi-square analysis, marital status and engagement in ffs are significantly associated (p<0.001), with higher engagement observed among respondents who were never married. participants of the fgds reported that the higher engagement could be because of the involvement of migrant fishers on the boats, most of whom were unmarried. one participant in the male fgd said: most of the men on the boats have wives and give them their fish portion. those who give their fish to other women in exchange for sex are the young unmarried fishers. the likelihood of unmarried fishers engaging in ffs was emphasized in the following statement by another participant in the male fgd: the unmarried fishing crew hold no allegiance to anyone. they neither have marital commitments nor wives to hold them in check and are always free to decide on what to do with their fish. this accounts for some of them exchanging their fish for sex. this finding of unmarried men having a higher involvement in ffs is not unique 87 to this study. the current results conform to earlier studies that found risky sexual behavior among unmarried fishers at fishing destination points (see zafar et al., 2014; duwal et al., 2015). the chi-square test indicates a significant association between type of fishing activity and engagement in ffs (p<0.000). based on the type of fishing activity, engagement in ffs was found to be highest amongst actual fishers and those engaged in the porterage of fish, but the lowest among respondents engaged in post-harvest activities, which are dominated by females. this was to be expected due to the high composition of males and young people in the first two categories. though the result shows a 13.9 percent rate of engagement in ffs, it is quite high considering the risk involved in this practice, and earlier findings of fishers consistently not using condoms in casual sexual encounters (kwena et al., 2013). factors accounting for ffs in elmina and the other immediate fishing destinations (see figure 2), the crew on fishing boats are not paid cash at the end of a fishing expedition but receive portions of fish as payment (wage). the kii with the chief fisherman revealed that many of the fishing expeditions are not financed by boat owners, but by other financiers, some of whom are large-scale female fish traders (fishmongers). the fishmongers usually prefinance the fish trips to secure fish supplies from the catch. at the end of a fishing expedition, the crew has to account to the financiers for the fish catch and pay the cost of the trip. after counting all the fish, the financier is given an amount of fish that covers the cost of investment. when that is settled, the boat owners are then given their portion, and the remainder is shared among the rest of the crew. the portion given to the crew is what is referred to as edzidzinam. after receiving their portions of the fish, it is up to the fisher to decide to whom to give their fish to sell. the married fishers usually give their fish to their spouses and the unmarried ones to their girlfriends or local contact fish traders. incidentally, most of the local contact fish traders (most of whom are female petty traders) are not able to make outright payment for the fish, so the male fishers give it to them on a credit basis, for payment on an agreed future date. this initially starts as some sort of business arrangement but may later turn into a sexual relationship if the fish traders default on their payments. fish-for-sex and risk of hiv infection among fishers in elmina fishing community in ghana 88 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 figure 2: map showing immediate fishing destinations source: fieldwork, july-august 2017 several reasons account for the ffs in the study area. participants in the male fgd reported that most men engage in ffs for sexual gratification, and they do so by exploiting women who owed them money. one participant who claimed to have engaged in ffs corroborated it in the following statement: the woman i had sex with owed me money for fish i gave her to sell. we agreed to defray some of the cost by having sex with her. since then, anytime she defaults on payment, she offers sex in return. in the male fgd, a participant indicated that there are instances where some male fishers refuse to give out fish even when the fish trader has money to buy some outright. he explained: some of the fishermen are very bad. during lean fishing periods when fish is hard to come by, they use their fish to get women to have sex with them. these fishermen only give their fish to traders who will agree to have sex with them before giving out the fish. 89 it was also reported in the female fgd that there are young female fish traders in the community who have little or no capital to sustain their fish trade. such women are the targets of some fishers who lure them under the guise of doing them a favor by giving them the fish at reduced prices or on a credit basis. when these women default on their payment, the fishers ask for sex to defray or settle payment because they know the women have no means of settling the debts. this finding indicates how some male fishers exploit female fishers through the supply of fish. it also depicts how some female petty fish traders were pushed into ffs due to their inability to either settle their debts or secure capital for their fish trade. this finding corroborates earlier research, which notes that ffs occurs when fish traders are unable to secure capital or supply of fish on credit from fishermen (kissling et al., 2005; fao, 2006; lungu and hüsken, 2010; idowu et al., 2012). the highly gendered roles within the fishing labor and activity chain offer some advantages to both men and women in terms of income (de silva, 2011). for example, the trader power of fish pricing in post-harvest activities often resides with women, granting them a considerable advantage in terms of earnings (britwum, 2009). the men, on the other hand, have a competitive advantage over women as some of their areas of engagement in the fisheries value chain also generate better income than their female counterparts. for instance, the actual harvesting of fish, and the maintenance/repair works are all dominated by men. with regards to the sale of fishing gear, it was also observed that though women participated, the larger wholesale fishing gear shops around the fishing harbor in elmina were all owned by males, and the smaller retail shops were owned by females. it was also gathered from the kii with a fisheries official that except for a few elderly large-scale fish traders who can secure loans for their business capital, the majority of the female petty fish traders lack capital for their fishing trade. due to the lack of an adequate and reliable source of capital, many women who were engaged in petty fish trading tend to borrow from friends and relatives. however, the amount they can mobilize is usually meager to serve as trading capital. in sum, compared to women, the male fishers (though not exclusive) in the study area have better sources of income since their areas of engagement yield better income. though some large-scale female fish traders wield power and have control over fish supplies and pricing, the situation is not the same for the vast majority of the women engaged in petty trading who have no access to capital and depend on the male fishers for fish. in effect, some women engage in ffs because they have very limited sources of income and can hardly raise capital for their fish trade, so relying on their male counterparts seems the easiest and most convenient source of raising capital. fish-for-sex as risky sexual behavior ffs is risky because it is done under unprotected circumstances with less condom usage (kwena et al., 2013; kyei-gyamfi, 2019). concerning condom usage in fish-for-sex and risk of hiv infection among fishers in elmina fishing community in ghana 90 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 ffs practices, table 4 shows that 67.6 percent of the respondents who reported engagement in ffs in the last 12 months did not use a condom, with non-use of condoms being higher in males than in females. table 4: respondents who used condoms with ffs partners and reasons for non-use of condoms by sex source: fieldwork, july-august 2017 when asked to explain the reason for the non-use of condoms, the majority (69.2 percent) said they trusted their partner not to be promiscuous. in the male fgd, some participants explained that most ffs partners they have had sexual relations with are women they trust to be decent and disease-free. one participant in the group who engaged in ffs explained: i don’t use a condom with my ffs partner because i trust her. a lot of our ffs women refuse condoms during sex because they perceive that condoms are only for prostitutes. the current results corroborate earlier work by cassels et al. (2013) that mentions the non-use or inconsistent use of condoms in ffs because partners claim to trust each other. the other reasons mentioned were that condoms reduce the pleasure of sex (19.2 percent), refusal due to dislike of condoms by partner (7.7 percent), and unavailability of condoms at the time of the sexual act (3.8 percent). the inability of female fishers to negotiate for the use of condoms even when their male ffs counterparts are not interested, also makes sexual relations risky to hiv infection exposure. the fgds revealed that many women who fall victim to ffs do so because of the expectation of getting fish. as a result, they are unable to response sex total (percent) male (percent) female (per cent) used condom 30.0 42.9 32.4 did not use condom 70.0 57.1 67.6 total per cent 100.0 100.0 100.0 total n 30 7 37 reasons for non-use condom reduces sexual pleasure 18.2 25.0 19.2 my partner does not like to use condoms 4.5 25.0 7.7 trust partner not to be promiscuous and didn’t think it was necessary to use a condom 72.7 50.0 69.2 condom not available 4.5 0.0 3.8 total percent 100.0 100.0 100.0 total n 30 7 37 91 deny the male fishers who solicit unprotected sex, for fear of losing the supply of fish. one participant who claimed to have engaged in ffs without the use of a condom corroborated this when she made the following statement: the male fishers in this community don’t like using condoms. even when you ask for it, they object angrily and sometimes threaten to leave you for another trader. the reasons offered by females in their fgd were similar to those of the males. for instance, one male fgd participant said: i don’t like using condoms and so i avoid women who require the use of a condom during sex. if my partner insists on the use of a condom, i always object, and if she is still persistent, i leave her for a partner who is willing to have sex without a condom. it is as simple as abc. the above statements indicate how female fishers find it challenging to negotiate condom use in ffs encounters. it also depicts how some female fish traders are pushed into having unprotected sex out of desperation for fish. summary of findings this paper has shown that fishing activity roles in elmina are sharply divided, with men dominating the aspects related to actual fishing, boat repair/maintenance, sale of fishing gear, and fish porterage. the women, on the other hand, dominate the post-harvest activities. the division of labor is associated with social norms of tagging maleness and femaleness to certain roles within the fisheries value chain as the structure of cathexis espouses in the tgp. whereas the females do not engage in actual fishing due to socio-cultural norms and beliefs, the males are also discouraged from engaging in post-harvest activities, for fear of being labeled ‘female’. incidentally, overa (2007) indicates that the lack of opportunities in the job market compels both men and women to cross gender barriers to engage in activities traditionally labeled as either female or male domains. this is an indication that the labeling of certain roles, occupations, and activities as masculine and feminine domains may be changing. in fishing communities, fish is the most important resource every fisher strives to have, and so the one who owns the fish has the power to dictate. in line with the tgp’s structure of cathexis, ffs thrives on gender inequality within the fishing communities, as it allows men more access and control over fish than their female counterparts. additionally, ffs constitutes a high-risk factor for the transmission and spread of hiv among women. the study found that almost 14 percent of respondents had engaged in ffs in the 12 months preceding the study, and only a little above three in ten ffs respondents fish-for-sex and risk of hiv infection among fishers in elmina fishing community in ghana 92 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 used condoms. the study also found lower condom use among females. from the qualitative results, the low use of condoms stems from the trust ffs partners had for each other, men’s objection to condom use, and women’s inability to negotiate for its use. the issue of trust stems from ignorance and comes with significant sexual risks as the ffs partners may have other non-regular partners. again, having unprotected sex with an ffs partner is risky as it exposes both partners to hiv infection. it is problematic and signifies that people in ffs relations, according to the results, do not perceive themselves to be at risk, even when they do not use condoms with their partners. the vulnerability of female fishers is driven by the economic power vested in male fishers by their control over the supply of fish. since most women lack capital and depend on their male counterparts, many are pushed into subservience, losing their confidence to insist on condom use when their male counterparts propose not to use them. if women lack capital for their fish trade and depend on men for the supply of fish, the disparities espoused by the tgp will always prevail, and hiv risks will constitute an ever-present phenomenon in fishing destinations. the results of this study suggest a link between mobility and engagement in ffs. the findings indicate that those female respondents who were mobile during the 12 months preceding the study, engaged in ffs more than those who were nonmobile. this research shows that the identities of female mobile fishers are usually not known in the fishing destination points, thus making it much easier for them to engage in ffs than non-mobile female fishers. the implication is that mobile fish traders are more prone to hiv infection due to their high rate of mobility and low condom use. there is also the possibility of transmitting the virus to their casual partners at the destination points, and to their regular partners back home. conclusions and recommendations the tgp presented in this paper was intended to analyze and explain the genderbased inequalities that affect choices and decisions in sexual relationships. in this paper, the tgp offered important insights into the prevailing challenges faced by female petty fish traders in carrying out their roles in the fishing community and the fisheries value chain as a whole. the paper concludes that the gendered division of labor exists in fishing activities thriving on socio-cultural norms and power inequalities. the paper outlined that although actual fish harvesting is carried out by men, their control of fish supplies is not absolute. women also have many advantages in terms of fish supplies and earnings over the fishermen in some cases. consequently, the results show that a few large-scale female fish traders wield a considerable amount of power being financiers of fishing trips, and owners of boats. the results indicate that most of the women engaged in petty fish trading are exploited due to their lack of trading capital and resultant dependence on male fishers for fish supplies and trading capital. according to the tgp, the gendered nature of power is maintained 93 by abuse of power, authority, and control in the hands of men. such is the case in ffs transactional relations, which allow some men to have control over fish supplies and decide who to sell to, or who to give the fish to. furthermore, the results show that women are unable to negotiate safer sex in ffs sexual relations for fear of being denied fish by their partners. in line with the tgp construct on the division of power, ffs transactional sexual exchange is deemed exploitative and likely to elevate hiv infection rates amongst both male and female fishers due to low condom use. in sum, if the female fishers need fish or capital for their fish trade and the male fishers have power and greater control over the fish, women will have very little basis on which to negotiate. there is therefore the need to find ways of putting in place interventions that seek to address how to successfully negotiate safer sex and improve partner norms favorable to consistent condom use in fishing communities. the tgp provides an explanation regarding how women can protect themselves from the abusive power of their male counterparts in the fishing communities. from the findings, it is evident that without control over fish supplies, male fishers have no leverage to exert power over the female petty traders for sex. the results showed that large-scale fish traders are not exploited because they have access to capital and control over fish supplies. since the lack of capital is the main motivating factor for the engagement of female petty fish traders in ffs, they should be empowered by granting them trading capital or encouraged to form cooperative associations, which will offer them financial support. if the female petty fish traders are given the means to buy fish, they will not have to exchange sex for fish and expose themselves to hiv infection. the revelation of low condom use is a risky sexual behavior likely to expose ffs partners to the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases. special efforts are required from the agencies engaged in hiv education to intensify education on safe sex practices. emphasis should also be on attitudinal change since education alone may not be enough to address risky sexual behaviors. ongoing and future programs need to explore ways of supplying free condoms and urging the fishers to consistently use condoms in their sexual exchanges. acknowledgments putting this manuscript together would have been impossible without the invaluable contribution of some individuals. the author would like to express special thanks to professor delali margaret badasu, professor s.o. kwankye, professor mariama awumbila, professor joseph teye, dr. leander kandiligi, dr. mary setrana, dr. ada adoley allotey, ben amoh, daniel coffie, michael abiaw, joseph otchere martey, and zita kyei-gyamfi for the encouragement and guidance in writing the paper. the author is equally grateful for the support and inputs received from the komenda edina eguarfo municipal assembly officials during the data collection exercise. fish-for-sex and risk of hiv infection among fishers in elmina fishing community in ghana 94 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 disclosure statement the author has no potential conflict of interest to report regarding the contents of the manuscript. funding this research received no form of a grant from any funding agency and was solely funded by the author. 95 references adiku, g. a. 2017. negotiating transnational intimacy: a study of ghanaian couples. ghana social science journal, 14(1): 161-192. available at: http://ugspace. ug.edu.gh/handle/123456789/35023. béné, c. and merten, s. 2008. women and fish-for-sex: transactional sex, hiv/aids and gender in african fisheries. world development, 36(5): 875-899. https:// 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of hiv infection among fishers in elmina fishing community in ghana https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x0700287x https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x0700287x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.06.020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.06.020 https://doi.org/10.3390/su11020298 https://doi.org/10.1177/109019810002700502 https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-437 https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-437 african human mobility review vol 5, no 1, april 2019 1459 migrant remittances inspired enterprises in tsholotsho: issues of sustainability gracious maviza mandlenkosi maphosa, nevel tshuma, zenzo dube and tomson dube abstract following unprecedented and protracted political and economic crises during the period spanning 2000 to 2009, zimbabwe experienced increased migration of its populace to the diaspora. one notable positive result of this migration phenomenon has been an increase in the inflows of remittances, which have partly inspired the emergence of enterprises. in february of 2009, zimbabwe introduced the multi-currency system, which introduced new dynamics related to the sustainability of these enterprises. this, coupled with the foregoing, called for the review of the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises to ensure their potential for survival in the interim and the long term. as such, the present study was guided by a framework produced by the international labour organization (ilo), which lists the six basic conditions necessary for nurturing sustainable enterprises. this study made use of both primary and secondary data that included a household survey carried out on 40 households and 10 key informant interviews. in line with five of the six pillars of the ilo framework, the study found the following: 1) there is a governance framework instituted by the district council that regulates the operations of businesses; 2) the infrastructure to support businesses is either not in place or is in a poor state; 3) enterprises practice responsible stewardship of the environment; 4) the society and culture is supportive of enterprise formation; and 5) the macro-economic environment is riddled with uncertainties. the study concludes that whilst remittances  institute of development studies, national university of science and technology, bulawayo, zimbabwe.  institute of development studies, national university of science and technology, bulawayo, zimbabwe.  institute of development studies, national university of science and technology, bulawayo, zimbabwe.  institute of development studies, national university of science and technology, bulawayo, zimbabwe.  institute of development studies, national university of science and technology, bulawayo, zimbabwe. maviza et al 1460 provide seed capital for entrepreneurs to invest in tsholotsho, the environment does not adequately support the sustainable running of those enterprises. keywords migrant, remittances, sustainability, enterprises, zimbabwe, tsholotsho. introduction from 2000 to 2009, zimbabwe experienced a mass exodus of its populace to the diaspora due to the economic meltdown and political unrest that characterised this period. this phenomenon created different economic opportunities across the country, with the massive inflow of remittances to zimbabwe from migrants leading to a significant emergence of enterprises in areas such as tsholotsho. this article seeks to address the questions that ensued from a study carried out in the same area, which sought to follow the distribution of remittance use between consumption and investment, analysed the kind of investments remittances promote in the local economy, and examined the impact of remittances on local development (ncube & gomez, 2011; ncube & gómez, 2015). ncube and gómez’s (2011; 2015) study used the ‘follow the money principle’ ethnographic technique. it involved recording several rounds of transactions in a village in rural zimbabwe after receipt of cash from abroad. the study paid attention to four indicative aspects of local development, namely income generation, agricultural productivity and growth, job and enterprise creation, and infrastructure improvements. ncube and gómez (2015: 191) found that remittances: [...] promote micro-enterprises and employment generation; increase the households purchasing power, which revitalises entrepreneurial skills among those that are inclined towards own-employment and leads to investments that add diversity and income to the local economy, resulting in what is referred to as productive consumption. furthermore, the study revealed that “productive consumption created opportunities for investment in growth-oriented smes, whether their owners are receivers of remittances or not” (ibid). on one hand, the receivers formed a consumptive class with limited motivation to run new businesses. as such, they mainly focused on upgrading agricultural activities. on the other hand, the non-receivers formed a pool of low-wage labour (ncube & gómez, 2015). the results from the study indicated that “the enterprises and jobs created were not particularly of high quality or innovative and their sustainability in the event that remittances cease flowing in was not ascertained” (ncube & african human mobility review vol 5, no 1, april 2019 1461 gómez, 2015: 191). this uncertainty necessitated further research into the sustainability of these remittance-inspired enterprises. furthermore, in february 2009, zimbabwe introduced the multi-currency system, which brought new dynamics related to the sustainability of these enterprises. this, coupled with the foregoing, called for review of the sustainability of these remittance-inspired enterprises to ensure their potential for survival in the interim and the long term. to this end, this article amplifies the current understanding in development discourse that the matabeleland region has had the highest incidence of emigration in the country and has experienced significantly high returns from remittances (maphosa, 2005; ncube & gómez, 2011). according to maphosa (2005: 3), “remittances are the most important source of income for many households in the southern [and northern] districts of zimbabwe.” in tsholotsho, this high turnover of remittances has seen an increase in the development of enterprises that have possibly improved the employment rate in the region. however, the sustainability of these remittance-inspired enterprises has not been established notwithstanding their high prevalence. thus, this article investigates the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises in tsholotsho district. this is done in light of the dynamics of the multi-currency systems and their broad impacts on enterprises. remittances and entrepreneurship globally, remittances are worth billions annually with the world bank (2018) estimating that in 2017 remittances amounted to us$613 billion. the world bank (2018) goes on to indicate that remittances to lowand middle-income countries increased from us$429 billion in 2016 to us$466 billion in 2017. for southern africa, the remittances totalled us$38 billion in 2017 (ibid). in 2017, the top remittance-receiving countries included india (us$65,380 million), china (us$62,850 million), philippines (us$32,795 million), mexico (us$30,534 million), nigeria (us$18,956 million), and egypt (us$18,199 million) (knomad, 2019). in zimbabwe, diaspora remittances have been steadily rising from a low of approximately us$300 million in 2009 to a high of us$939 million in 2015 (reserve bank of zimbabwe, 2017; iom, 2018). in countries affected by long-term crises, migration is often seen as a key coping survival strategy, which leads to the formation of diasporas that play an important role in sustaining the livelihoods of those who remain behind. remittances are viewed as counter-cyclical. they increase during periods of crisis and therefore play an important role in enabling some people to survive in such periods. zimbabwe’s migration trends and the size of the zimbabwean maviza et al 1462 diaspora population, although varied and contested, seem to confirm this view; the number of zimbabweans migrating to the diaspora has been steadily increasing, especially during peak crisis periods. to this end, estimates of zimbabweans in the diaspora range from a low of 571,970 living in the top five countries of destination (iom, 2018) to an estimate of 1,253,100 (ratha, mohapatra, & scheja, 2011) to a high of over 3,000,000 said to have emigrated over the last decade, with roughly two thirds of these migrants heading to south africa (von burgsdorff, 2012). the top five countries of destination and their zimbabwean populations in 2018 are as follows: south africa (358,109), the united kingdom (115,708), malawi (35,287), australia (34,034), and botswana (28,832) (iom, 2018). the significance of the size of the zimbabwean diaspora community becomes clearer if one juxtaposes it with the size of zimbabwe’s population of 13,061,239 in 2012 (iom, 2018). maphosa (2005) notes that remittances from south africa are the most important source of income for many households in the southern districts of zimbabwe. indeed, zimbabwean migrants working in south africa, including undocumented migrants, remit significant amounts from their host country to their communities of origin (ibid). remittances are defined as “income (in any form) received by a household in one distinct place, from individuals or households living in another place” (savage & harvey, 2007: 10). however, for the purposes of this study, the remittances in question refer to money sent to zimbabwe by emigrants in the diaspora. zimbabwe is one of the top ten emigrating countries in the sub-saharan region (iom, 2009). most zimbabweans in the neighbouring countries remit cash at least once a month. those within the sadc region visit zimbabwe frequently and, as such, are more able to remit in person (ibid). it is estimated that zimbabweans in south africa remitted zar 5.1–6.8 billion, which is us$680– 905 million in 2011 (von burgsdorff, 2012). remittances are now seen as a way of reducing poverty (iom, 2009). it can be noted that remittances ease survival for the vulnerable and for some remittances can sustain local trading. chalise (2014) holds that a good investment climate with well-developed financial systems and sound institutions is likely to lead to a higher degree of remittances invested in physical and human capital. it is argued that remittances form a source of savings and capital for investment in education, health, and entrepreneurship, all of which have an effect on productivity, employment, and growth in both the short term and the long term (nzima, 2013; mishi & mudziwapasi, 2014; nzima, et al. 2017). however, the largest impact on growth and development occurs when remittances fund productive investment. african human mobility review vol 5, no 1, april 2019 1463 poverty tends to be higher in rural areas than in urban areas, and remittances are viewed as central elements of household strategies to overcome poverty and development constraints (de haas, 2007). a significant number of studies reveal that households receiving remittances from across borders have a higher propensity to invest than non-migrant households when controlling for income and other relevant household variables per se (ibid). de haas (2007) notes that the extent to which money is remitted, and how and where remittances are spent by the recipient, essentially depends on the migrant’s social and economic position in the destination country, as well as on the investment conditions in the countries of origin. jokisch (2002) posits that remittances have helped migrants to invest in land, cattle, and housing, and in some cases, remittances have not been focussed on agricultural improvements. they have also been used to pay for education and health, settle debts, perpetuate emigration, and fund luxurious consumption, such as large homes (ibid). some scholars (nzima, 2013; ncube & gómez, 2015; nzima, duma, & moyo, 2016) argue that the ultimate impact of remittances on local development would be reflected by indicators such as employment creation, start-ups and investments in small enterprises, and an overall increased competitiveness. in their study carried out in village 2 of ward 19 in tsholotsho district, zimbabwe, ncube and gomez (2015) found that the recipients of remittances purchased assets that boosted their income streams and sustained them in the event of shocks. inter alia, these assets included scotch-carts, livestock, solar panels, brick under asbestos, and zinc housing structures. ncube and gomez’s analysis revealed that the remittances increased household purchasing power, awakened entrepreneurial skills and thus led to investments that added diversity and income to the local economy. maphosa's (2005) remittance study in ward 7 of mangwe district in matabeleland, south province of zimbabwe, revealed that 31.2 percent of remittances were invested in agriculture. ten percent was invested in the business sector, such as in general dealer shops, grindings mills, and bottle stores, amongst others. the integrated approach to sustainable enterprise development the ilo (2007:7) posits the following: maviza et al 1464 [...] sustainable enterprises are those which truly value human resources, over and above other resources (natural, financial, physical) and ensure that all who are engaged in the activities of the enterprise have appropriate skills sets, capacities and lifelong learning possibilities. there are several external constraints to enterprise development (which businesses may have no control over) and internal constraints to enterprise development (relating to the capacities and knowledge of entrepreneurs) (reinecke, 2002; ilo, 2014). examples of internal constraints include the quality of labour, skill levels, and education. education includes basic numeracy and reading skills. external constraints include the socio-economic environment and the polity. as such, the promotion of sustainable enterprises is an extensive subject due to the diversity of enterprises in terms of size, sector, spatial dimensions, management, governance systems, legal status, and operational objectives (reinecke & white, 2004, ilo, 2005). according to ilo (2007: v): [...] promoting sustainable enterprises is about strengthening the institutions and governance systems which nurture enterprises because strong and efficient markets need strong and effective institutions; and ensuring that human, financial and natural resources are combined equitably and efficiently in order to bring about innovation and enhanced productivity. the importance of enterprise as the prime source of growth and employment cannot be overemphasised. driven by the pursuit for profits, enterprises innovate, invest, and generate employment and wage income. to achieve this, they are often in need of a supportive and enabling environment pigeonholed by the existence of open, rule-based, predictable, and non-discriminatory markets, as well as non-corrupt and well-governed economies (grebel, 2005). the concept of ‘sustainable enterprise’ is associated with the universal approach to sustainable development. this approach emphasises forms of progress that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. it is an approach that proposes a holistic, impartial, and integrated perspective on development (harris, 2000; ilo, 2005). iol (2007: 7) notes: in contrast to narrowly defined, traditional perspectives which depict enterprises in terms of linear input–output relationships centred solely on maximizing short-term economic value, an integrated approach to sustainable enterprise development takes a more holistic and long-term view. african human mobility review vol 5, no 1, april 2019 1465 it gives distinct overlaps of mutually dependent operational and policy spheres which exist on micro, macro, and meta levels. the micro level is concerned with the enterprise itself and its immediate environment. it covers the various resources that make an enterprise sustainable, for example, natural and physical resources (reinecke & white, 2004; ilo, 2007). the macro level embodies policy frameworks that directly determine the competitive and enabling environment, as well as the sustainability and growth potential of enterprises (ibid). the meta level refers to: [...] the broad political, economic, social and environmental conditions which determine, among other things, the quality of institutions and governance in a society and; include a range of factors which might not be specific to enterprise but effectively influencing broader private sector development and general societal outcomes such as stability, inclusivity and the challenges of addressing issues like inequality and corruption (ilo, 2007: 8). therefore, it is clear that there are complex and diverse conditions necessary for creating the prospect for sustainable enterprises. the basics of these conditions include, inter alia, good governance and social dialogue, microeconomic stability and sound management of the economy, sociocultural dynamics, physical capital, environmental stewardship, as well as equity and socio-economic inclusion. these conditions are summarised in figure 1 and explained below. maviza et al 1466 figure 1: basic conditions for creating the opportunity for sustainable enterprises (iol, 2007). according to the ilo (2007) framework, the good governance and social dialogue pillar encapsulates tenets such as participation, consultation, transparency, accountability, and a legal framework that enables creation of opportunities for enterprises. this also entails the respect of property rights and their legal enforcement and protection. an effective social dialogue between the government, the civic society, and the private sector needs to be in place. efficient civil and political institutions and processes foster an environment of opportunity and just. social inclusion has the potential to create bigger outputs and markets though increased participation. it is argued that social inclusion is inherent in sustainable societies and strengthens the potential for sustainable enterprises. high levels of income inequality hinder opportunities for the poor to contribute and participate in the economy. this can also weaken poverty reduction attempts and undermine political stability. there should be proper stewardship of natural resources by the government on behalf its citizenry. similarly, good macroeconomic policies that provide african human mobility review vol 5, no 1, april 2019 1467 stability and certainty are vital. these polices nurture and foster the spirit of entrepreneurship. good management of the economy, resources and, on a micro level, sustainable enterprises is needed. sound savings and investments mechanisms lead to better physical infrastructure. commerce grows hand in hand with opportunities. enterprises flourish in environments in which the culture supports entrepreneurship (ilo, 2007). the aforementioned basic conditions for creating the opportunity for sustainable enterprises are appropriate to consider in this article, as it investigates the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises. these basic conditions foster and nurture sustainable enterprises. notwithstanding the importance of all the aforementioned pillars of the ilo framework and their building blocks, this study only focuses on the following pillars: good governance and social dialogue, social and cultural support of enterprises, responsible stewardship of the environment, physical infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, and sound management of the economy. given the broad nature of the concept of good governance, this study focuses on the availability of legal frameworks that support enterprise development and growth. methodology quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in this study. quantitative data was collected through a household survey. to complement the quantitative data, qualitative data was collected through interviews that were conducted with key informants such as the entrepreneurs, the district administrator’s (da) office, and the rural district council’s (rdc) office. furthermore, documents from the da’s office in tsholotsho district, such as the rural district councils act of 1988, district development plan, and rdc’s reports, were reviewed. tsholotsho district is in matabeleland north province in the western part of zimbabwe and is comprised of 21 wards. the district lies in the agro-ecological region five, which is characterised by low and erratic rainfall averaging 650mm per annum (maphosa et al., 2014). tsholotsho is one of the districts in matabeleland provinces which was affected by the political disturbances known as gukurahundi1 in the early 1980s, where it is alleged that 20,000 1 the term ‘gukurahundi’ refers to the ‘early rain that washes away chaff before the spring rains’, referring to the period of post-colonial, state sanctioned political and ethnic violence enacted against the ndebele people in the matabeleland and midlands regions by the fifth brigade (cameron, 2017). maviza et al 1468 people were massacred (moyo, 2017; ndlovu, 2017). this political history and economic marginalisation of matabeleland in general and tsholotsho in particular has had great influence on sustained migration patterns (ncube & gómez, 2015). sampling procedures tsholotsho district was purposively selected due to its high incidence of migration and remittance-inspired enterprises. of the 21 wards in tsholotsho, 2 were sampled purposively since this was a follow-up study on ward 19. the other ward (ward 16) was also chosen purposively since it borders ward 19 and, hence, they have similar socio-economic profiles. each of the sampled wards has 6 villages, meaning that a total of 12 villages made up the targeted population. one village was picked in each of the wards. according to the zimstat 2012 census findings, ward 19 has 1208 households and ward 16 has 1204. as such, a total of 2,412 households were part of the targeted population. given this total number of households, on average, each village in tsholotsho has approximately 200 households. as such, by multiplying the number of households by the number of villages in the sample, a total of 400 households was obtained. this was further sampled by picking every 10th household in the village, providing a total sample of 40 households, representing 10% of the study population. to gather further data, purposive sampling was used in the identification of key informants – that is, entrepreneurs – the district administrator’s office and the council office. data collection methods this research required both primary and secondary data. primary data was gathered through various instruments, which were developed in line with the study objectives and the ilo conceptual model. the instruments were translated into isindebele, a local language spoken in tsholotsho, before being piloted in ward 17, which is adjacent to the sampled wards. after the pilot, anomalies that were observed in the instruments were addressed. the instruments included a household survey questionnaire carried out on 40 households in the sampled villages. the questionnaire captured indicators of the amount of remittances received, spending patterns, and dominant currency, among other key factors. it also captured how these factors eventually affected enterprise development and sustainability. notably, not all significant information relating to the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises and the effects of the multi-currency system african human mobility review vol 5, no 1, april 2019 1469 in tsholotsho district could be gathered through a survey. as such, the study also made use of in-depth interviews with the key informants. it probed the institutional frameworks available to support entrepreneurs (e.g. business development services), the prevailing legal environment governing the operations of the enterprises, the nature of human resources engaged, and the plough back techniques that the entrepreneurs adopted. findings the findings reveal that of the 40 respondents that participated in the survey, 66% were aged 51 years and above. the majority of these were women who constituted 90% (36) of the respondents. all the respondents had attained some level of education albeit at varying levels. of the total number of respondents, 85% (34) stated that they received an income of between us$100 and us$200 a month, inclusive of remittances. all the respondents mentioned that they had at least one relative in south africa, with 80% indicating that these family members send remittances of at least zar200 to zar500 every month. the majority of the respondents received their remittances from south africa through informal means. the predominant mode of remitting was through cross-border transporters, informally and natively known as ‘omalayitsha’2, and sometimes through relatives or allies travelling back home from south africa. the challenges associated with this were that there were delays in delivery, failure to deliver by omalayitsha who embezzled funds, delivery of fake money by omalayitsha, preference for the us dollar (usd) over the south african rand (zar) in paying fees, not enough money was received to cater for the needs at home, heavy commissions by omalayitsha, and unstable rand exchange rates. all these challenges negatively impacted the receiving households. responding to a multiple response question, respondents indicated that the remittances they received were generally used to subsidise household expenses (86%), pay for children’s education (58%), finance building projects (45%), pay for access to health care (40%), pay for burial society membership subscriptions (33%), buy livestock (24%), among others. these remittances were predominantly spent locally depending on the availability of the commodities being sought. this was the case mainly because the money received was hardly enough to finance the movement to and from bulawayo, the closest city, and at the same time get meaningful household supplies. however, before dollarization, households indicated that they used to buy 2 omalayitsha is the isindebele word for private transporters or courier-service providers, which literally means ‘those who carry’. maviza et al 1470 their goods in bulawayo because the exchange rate was favourable. this afforded them more zimbabwean dollars from the zar they would have received. this is unlike in the current economic regime, in which zimbabwe has adopted the multi-currency system. in this system, recipients of remittances no longer have the advantage of exchange rate differentials that they enjoyed during the zimbabwean dollar era. the majority (72%) of the households indicated that they never get surplus from the monetary remittances received. the remittances received were hardly enough to cover basic necessities. for those who had surplus, they indicated that they saved the money or used it to cover other day-to-day needs, for example, labour. it also emerged from this study that although local households received remittances, they did not have much capital to invest, which proved detrimental to sustaining enterprises. this coupled with a poor economic environment, liquidity challenges, the unstable exchange rate between the usd and the zar, as well as the depreciation of the rand, negatively affected businesses and ultimately their sustainability. key issues in the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises governance according to méndez-picazo et al. (2012), the behaviour and performance of the government in specific countries creates an environment that will promote or thwart the growth of entrepreneurship as a viable vehicle for economic growth. additionally, historical, cultural, socio-economic, and political processes have been identified as determinants of the growth or demise of entrepreneurship (ilo, 2007). in the case of tsholotsho district, there were evident governance structures and regulatory frameworks that were supportive of entrepreneurship in the form of relevant by-laws. for example, in an interview with the tsholotsho rdc chief executive officer (ceo), it was revealed that the rdc was empowered to institute by-laws, charge enterprises certain levies, and even fine the enterprises in cases of transgression. the ceo averred that: [...] as an rdc we are the responsible authority for all business operations in the district. we are empowered by the rural district councils act chapter 29:13 to, amongst other things, regulate these business operations by promulgating by-laws. furthermore, we are entitled to charge fees for licences that we issue, such as liquor and shop licences. we also levy rates and other charges to these enterprises so that we can use the revenue generated to further development in the district. african human mobility review vol 5, no 1, april 2019 1471 this is evidence of some form of governance, support, and regulation of enterprises through its by-laws. méndez-picazo et al. (2012) observe that laws, decisions made by policy makers and public officials and institutions, create incentives for economic agents (in this case entrepreneurs) to invest, and this has direct effects on economic growth. this means that the governance and regulatory mechanisms in place boost investor confidence as they can see value for money. however, in the case of tsholotsho, although these governance provisions are in place, the local authority indicated that some enterprises did not pay their levies through licencing fees. this is indicative of some of the ill-elements in the entrepreneurial field, as some entrepreneurs are only after making profit and are not necessarily keen on future development and sustainability. notably, most of the remittanceinspired enterprises in the locality had a profit orientation rather than a sustainability orientation. as a result, regardless of the significantly enabling governance framework in the district, some of the enterprises did not comply with the requirements, thus jeopardising their chances of sustainability. although, according to the rdc by-laws, failure to pay levies may result in shops being shut down or licenses revoked resulting in loss of business, not much was done to enforce these by-laws. this could be partly attributed to the fact that 65% of the survey respondents expressed sentiment that corruption and bribery were also common practices in the allocation of stands and policing for licences. this is detrimental to enterprise development, growth, and opportunities. the responsibility to ensure that such ill practices are discouraged lies with the rdc, and the rdc should have coined mechanisms to ensure that the punishment for failure to pay the levies and comply with the by-laws is greater than non-compliance. although there are provisions for regulation of entrepreneurship at the macro-level, the micro (rdc) entities are failing to enforce the governance mechanisms (chalise, 2014). this results in curtailing the benefits of entrepreneurship and its potential to contribute to economic growth. furthermore, the vibrancy of the enterprises is negatively affected by lack of collectives for enterprise proprietors. all the enterprise owners interviewed indicated that they do not have associations that provide a platform for them to collectively advance their interests. therefore, the enterprise owners seem to be advancing individual interests instead of pushing for collectivity, especially as they engage with governing authorities. social and cultural support of enterprises entrepreneurs play an important role in the process of industrialization, employment creation, and breaking the vicious circle of poverty (ncube & maviza et al 1472 gómez, 2011; chalise, 2014; nzima et al., 2017). however, for enterprises to thrive in any given locality, the society and culture in which they exist should be supportive of entrepreneurship (ilo, 2007). this creates an enabling environment that promotes the sustainability of the business ventures. in tsholotsho, it emerged that through its rdc, the district had regulations in place that were supportive of enterprise formation. this had a positive effect on the viability of the enterprises as there were institutional provisions to support the establishment of enterprises in the district. according to the ilo (2007), enterprises are likely to be sustainable when their host societies embrace a broad-based culture that is supportive of enterprise development. thus, the availability of sound institutional frameworks and regulations in the sphere of business, as well as locals’ buying behaviour in tsholotsho, demonstrates that the society and culture at large are supportive of enterprises. in this regard, 80% (32) of the survey respondents indicated that they buy their goods from local enterprises and also contract local service providers for services such as brick moulding and building. this is in line with scholarship on sustainable enterprises, which proffers that, for enterprises to be sustainable, host societies and cultures at large should be pro-enterprise development and governed by sound institutions that promote and reward business intelligence and successes (ncube & gómez, 2011, nzima, 2013; ncube & gómez, 2015). although most of the households that received remittances did not directly invest in any entrepreneurial activities, the institutional and socio-cultural environment in the district is supportive of enterprises in tsholotsho as evidenced by a high incidence (88%) of family run remittance-inspired enterprises in the study area. to further buttress the notion that the society and culture is supportive of enterprises, one of the key informants representing the local government opined that: [...] in this area, we embrace entrepreneurship and as families, we also support each other in any business adventures. that is why you will find that there are a lot of shops around here whose owners are in south africa but their family members here will make sure that the business is open and runs smoothly every day. furthermore, it emerged that in tsholotsho there is high tolerance for tribal diversity as a significant number of enterprise owners were people who were foreign to the locality who were attracted by remittances. some come as far as masvingo, yet comfortably trade in the area. this resonates with the assertion on the socio-cultural dimension of sustainable enterprises, which typically includes the following: african human mobility review vol 5, no 1, april 2019 1473 […] a commitment to promote social integration by fostering societies that are stable, safe and just and which are based on the promotion and protection of all human rights and on non-discrimination, tolerance, respect for diversity, equality of opportunity, security and participation of all people including the disadvantaged and vulnerable groups and persons (ilo, 2007: 9). this kind of diversity was noted in tsholotsho, entailing that the society has high tolerance for people who are not native to the locality yet are pioneering meaningful business initiatives that may foster greater sustainability in the resultant enterprises. this was in line with the findings of ncube and gomez (2011), that remittances in the study area had attracted investors from afar. remittances and physical infrastructure the relationship between infrastructure and economic development has been well established by various authors. thus, it is relevant to briefly interrogate how remittances have spurred infrastructural development in the study area. this is critical given that “little research has been undertaken to establish links between infrastructure and private economic activity at the local level and for rural areas” (rives & heaney, 1995: 60). notwithstanding that a sound infrastructure is a key enabler of local economic development, this study established that remittances have not directly contributed to the establishment of public infrastructure in the study area. in the survey, none of the 40 respondents indicated that they had used their remittances in part or in full to advance public infrastructural development in their localities. the closest that remittances have come to contributing to infrastructural development in the area is through the construction of a local clinic that, according to the councillor for ward 19, was largely funded from pooled resources contributed by diasporas mostly based in south africa and botswana. the councillor for ward 19 revealed the following: [...] people in this area generally do not invest their remittances in public infrastructure development, perhaps because the remittances they receive are mostly enough to cover their sustenance with no surplus to invest let alone in the development of public infrastructure. even on the soft infrastructure side, there has not been any meaningful injection of remittances to fund issues, such as human capital development or aiding the development of sound regulatory mechanisms within the district. since infrastructure is a key enabler of economic development, this lack of investment on both the soft and hard infrastructure calls into question the maviza et al 1474 sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises. for instance, the lack of investment in the road network by those businesspeople who are into brickmaking and welding constrains the development of these enterprises as market access becomes an inhibiting factor. this is so because the access roads to the business centre are in a poor state due to lack of maintenance. the laissez-faire approach to issues of infrastructural development by the business community is largely explained by the belief that this is the domain of the government and its related agencies. furthermore, on the soft infrastructure side it is of concern that there is no investment to boost human capital development. this is because tsholotsho has suffered serious brain and brawn drain. for most of the enterprises surveyed, the employees for very basic jobs such as shop keepers, were coming from faraway places such as nkayi, binga, hwange, lupane, and masvingo. most of the businesspeople also revealed that there are challenges regarding the supply of electricity and water in the business centre. this situation thus calls for greater involvement by the business community in ensuring that these vital services are availed consistently. however, no such initiatives were noted during the course of the study. such a situation compromises the sustainability of all enterprises in general. for instance, two bakery owners said they continually suffer losses due to power cuts, which affects the bread production process. this led to the production of poorquality bread, which they had to sell at sub-economic prices. the situation was the same for welders, as they claimed that sometimes they could go for a whole day without working on any orders placed by clients due to load shedding. the welders averred that this situation led local people to opt to buy readymade products, such as window frames, door frames, and scotch carts from other areas, such as bulawayo. one of the key issues that came out of the study is that most of the enterprises were operating from rented premises. this indicates that the businesspeople who had initiated their enterprises through remittances were not just failing to contribute to public infrastructure development but were also failing to build infrastructure for their own use. another key determinant of the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises relates to how the businesses interact with the natural environment, which is discussed in the following section. responsible stewardship of the environment african human mobility review vol 5, no 1, april 2019 1475 the nature of environmental usage is one of the critical factors that determine the sustainability of business enterprises. this is especially true for those businesses that directly rely on the natural environment for their survival. as noted above, some of the businesses initiated through remittance funding rely primarily on the natural environment. for instance, there are a number of brick-moulding enterprises around the business centre. the brick moulding enterprises are creating environmental hazards in the area through sand poaching. the councillor for ward 16 indicated that, as a council, they were seized with the matter as they were empowered by the rural district councils act to manage the environment in their areas of jurisdiction. he averred that [...] as a council we are obliged to manage the environment in tsholotsho and the act [rdc act, 1988] directs that we should have a council committee responsible for the environment. we have that committee and as a council we have noted with concern that some of the brick-making enterprises did not get river sand through official channels but instead resorted to poaching in undesignated areas. this practise, the councillor argued, leads to environmental degradation in general, and in terms of the siltation of rivers and dams in particular. however, the councillor also noted that whilst these enterprises degraded the environment, it was at a lower scale than the traditional brick-moulding practises to which locals are accustomed. he argued that these practises degraded the environment through extensive deforestation, since firewood is needed to light fires to catalyse the brick hardening process. furthermore, traditional brick-moulding requires moulders to source clay, which leads to land degradation. macroeconomic stability and sound management of the economy macroeconomic policies that seek to stabilize the economy are fundamental in the growth of sustainable enterprises. according to ilo (2007), macroeconomic policies should guarantee steady and conducive conditions for sustainable economic growth. also, sound management of the economy should focus on creating better job opportunities, combating inflation, and formulating and implementing policies and regulatory frameworks that encourage long-term investments. in relation to this study, it is critical to assess the macroeconomic environment in the study area and how the zimbabwean economy is managed as a condition of promoting sustainable enterprises. maviza et al 1476 it is worth noting that, at the time of the establishment of these enterprises, the macro-economic environment prevailing in zimbabwe was characterised by hyperinflation. this environment made establishing business ventures challenging. however, as has been alluded to earlier in this paper, the availability of foreign currency remitted by zimbabweans in the diaspora made it possible to establish these enterprises. this was mainly due to favourable exchange rates for those with foreign currency. the state of the economic instability in zimbabwe made spending by the local recipients of remittances economic in nature. the research revealed that, apart from the local members of the community, there were shop owners who came from other regions to establish their businesses in tsholotsho district. this was in the hope of tapping into the monetary remittances being received in the district. however, with the introduction of the multi-currency system, the macroeconomic environment stabilised, thereby eroding the comparative advantage that the tsholotsho residents had enjoyed over the years. a stable macroeconomic environment would naturally promote sustainable growth of enterprises. however, business owners who were interviewed complained about the exchange rate that was so unfavourable to them, as they changed the weaker zar to the stronger usd. for instance, a businessperson who operates a welding company indicated the following: [...] when the rand was stronger than the zimbabwean dollar, business was good. however, now with the rand weaker than most of the currencies used in zimbabwe, we are struggling to survive. these sentiments were echoed by another businessman who argued that “this place [tsholotsho] has rands but when we buy raw materials we are negatively affected by the cross-rate since where we get our stuff, they want us dollars”. as a result of these observed realities, the prevailing macroeconomic environment does not encourage the growth and sustainability of these enterprises, given the fact that very few jobs are created by the enterprises and that the market, which promoted their very establishment, are slowly but surely dwindling. one observation that came out strongly from key informants during the research was that it was becoming a lot cheaper for the diaspora to send groceries than to send money to purchase commodities in the local shops. a retailer in dikili, ward 16, indicated that [...] demand for most non-perishable commodities had been declining gradually since the introduction of the multi-currency regime. this has african human mobility review vol 5, no 1, april 2019 1477 largely been influenced by an increase in the inflow of in-kind remittances. inevitably, this affected demand for various commodities and services offered by the enterprises. scholars have argued that the development of sustainable enterprises cannot be achieved without addressing demand drivers. this study revealed that there are no specific policies or strategies to stimulate demand, hence putting the sustainability of enterprises into question. for instance, entrepreneurs bemoaned lack of access to capital as a drawback in their business operations that curtailed their efforts to expand the businesses. to this end, a proprietor of a bakery in the matshangana business centre argued that “we wish to grow but we have no capital.” this challenge was also highlighted by a fellow business person who indicated that “no institution is supporting us, we wish someone could finance us or give us access to loans so that we can conduct business properly.” these concerns were corroborated by the assistant to the district administrator, who indicated that “access to capital remains a challenge for small rural enterprises as capital that was available had stringent conditions attached to it which most rural entrepreneurs cannot meet.” the other observation that was made in the field was that of a relatively bettermanaged economy by the government of national unity (gnu) from 2009 to 2013. during this period, there was general flow of cash and it was in good supply. however, at the time of research, the new government at the helm of the zimbabwean economy was facing a cash crisis. the liquidity crisis affects spending by both enterprises and consumers. thus, in the long run, it is a threat to the sustainability of the enterprises. conclusion and recommendations this study interrogated the sustainability of remittance-inspired enterprises in tsholotsho. it established that there are steady inflows of remittances, mainly from neighbouring countries. these remittances are usually small amounts channelled through informal means. as such, most of the money received is used for consumptive purposes, such as healthcare, education, funerals, food expenses, etc. in investigating the sustainability of the remittance-inspired enterprises, the study was guided by the ilo framework. on the good governance and social dialogue pillar, it emerged that there are structures in place, instituted by the tsholotsho rdc, which regulate the operations of businesses, creating a conducive environment for entrepreneurship. nonetheless, a major drawback in the operations of enterprises in this respect is the lack of organisation on the part of the business maviza et al 1478 community, where each operator minds his or her business without due consideration of the wider interests of the group. the study revealed that the infrastructure to support vibrant businesses is either poor or non-existent. furthermore, it noted that the business community is not contributing to the development of a sound infrastructural base to aid economic development in the district. the study further noted that the poor infrastructural base is further compounded by a macro-economic environment that has been in flux, dovetailing political developments in the country. as such, there have been periods that have been enticing for those with remittances to initiate enterprises within the district, whilst those with established businesses would be recording brisk business. however, it should be stressed that where remittance-inspired enterprises are concerned, macroeconomic stability does not always translate to thriving enterprises. this is because there have been times where an economic downturn has actually spurred remittance-inspired enterprises, as was discussed in the case of tsholotsho. in terms of responsible stewardship of the environment, the establishment of some licenced enterprises such as brick-making is assisting in promoting better ways of interacting with the natural environment. nonetheless, there are concerns relating to unsustainable use of the environment by the locals such as traditional brick-makers. the activities of such groups can in future jeopardise those of licenced brick-makers. the tsholotsho community was found to be supportive of enterprises, including those established by proprietors from other districts. furthermore, the establishment of enterprises through remittances promoted both social and economic inclusion, as jobs are created and goods are made available locally. in light of the foregoing, it can be surmised that remittances provide seed capital for entrepreneurs to invest in tsholotsho, and the environment obtaining does not adequately support those enterprises to be run in a sustainable manner. notwithstanding, it is recommended that efforts to support and strengthen remittance-inspired enterprises be upscaled to ensure their continued contribution to local economic development and sustainability. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to the research board of the national university of science and technology for supporting this study with a research grant. african human mobility review vol 5, no 1, april 2019 1479 furthermore, the authors acknowledge the support of authorities and communities in tsholotsho during the fieldwork phase. references cameron, h. 2017. the matabeleland massacres: britain’s wilful blindness. the international history review, 40(1): 1–19. chalise, b. 2014. remittance and its effect on entrepreneurial activities: a case study from kandebas village development committee, nepal. izmir review of social sciences, 2(1). de haas, h. 2007. the impact of international migration on social and economic development in moroccan sending regions. a review of the empirical literature, international migration institute, james martin 21st century school, wp3, university of oxford. grebel, t. 2005. entrepreneurship: a new perspective. 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harris 2016; magqibelo et al. 2016). young people that migrate are navigating changes in relationships, as well as in social, political and economic contexts. as young people work to build their lives in new contexts, the relationship between their past and the present can come into tension (kistner 2015; kohli 2011). young migrants are working to make sense of the changing dynamics of their attachments and identities, and at the same time processing past pains including those related to loss and violence (denov and shevell 2019; clacherty 2015). these experiences and emotions are being negotiated alongside new and changing desires and aspirations including for their families, communities and within society (kohli 2011; opfermann 2019). young migrants are longing to belong, and at the same time trying to make sense of what they long for (probyn 1996). how belonging is determined for young people with migration experiences is also deeply interwoven in the politics of who is seen as welcome within society (antonsich 2010; yuval-davis 2006). many young migrants face a reality of unbelonging as socially produced lines of difference, of exclusion, are drawn in their lives within their new contexts (christensen 2009). the influence these dynamics have on young people’s ongoing identity formation and sense of having ‘a place in the world’ (arendt 1971: 296), can have significant implications for their wellbeing and the foundations from which they are building their futures (correa-velez et al. 2010; gonzales et al. 2013). in south africa, young migrants’ resilience is tested on a daily basis through their navigation of everyday and institutional xenophobia, alongside racialized inequalities established through apartheid and colonialism. global research has shown that where a sense of isolation, loss or being an outsider is dominant in young migrants’ lives, their identities and belonging can be destabilized (huot et al. 2014; kaukko and wernesjö 2017). for young people with migration experiences living in residential care, relationships can involve a new sense of instability, which can perpetuate loneliness and feelings of being an outsider (ní raghallaigh and sirriyeh 2015). feelings of being out of place can be further amplified at the age of 18 when young people transition into legal adulthood and out of the care of the state (bengtsson and mølholt 2018). research and practice that work with young migrants to understand their lived experiences of belonging provide an opportunity to comprehend the interplay of personal, emotional factors and sociocultural and political dynamics as they build their lives in new contexts. this knowledge can help build insight into how young people make sense of their past and present life experiences, build meaningful connections and attachments, and develop a sense of possibility for the future (bradbury and clark 2012). this knowledge has the potential to foster young people’s capacities to forge identities and belonging, and to navigate the barriers to belonging. these capacities can also provide an important foundation for the social and institutional 91 transitions young migrants will navigate at the age of 18. there is limited knowledge however, globally and in the south african context, on how to foster an everyday sense of belonging with young migrants, including those living in residential care (kaukko and wernesjö 2017; valentine et al. 2009). this paper discusses the development of a participatory arts project that aimed to creatively engage young people with migration experiences in building belonging. the commitment to participation emphasizes the importance of understanding young people’s perspectives on belonging and the need to respond to their understanding and aspirations for how it can be nurtured in their lives. participatory arts approaches create space for young people to grow confidence in self-expression, to build relationships and to share experiences with other youth, artists and practitioners (nunn 2018; marnell and hoosain khan 2015). the creative focus builds on the empowering qualities of arts-based methods, recognizing that words do not always support people with migration experiences to connect to and communicate complex experiences in a culturally and emotionally appropriate way (kohli 2005; lenette 2019). taking a strength-based approach within creative methods also emphasizes the remembering of past abilities, to build strength of self and hope for the future (norton and sliep 2018). building on the therapeutic and restorative possibilities of arts approaches (koch and weidinger-von der recke 2009; leavy 2018; reavey 2011), the work presented here connects to calls within social work practice to better understand the role of art in supporting people with migration experiences (denov and shevell 2019). this paper argues that participatory arts approaches can provide an important space for young people’s safe and supported exploration of their identities and can nurture their capacities for building a sense of belonging. through long-term engagement, these methods can support young people to reconnect to their sense of self, to have control of the narratives of their identities and to have the tools to build their relationships with community and society. to establish this argument, the paper first sheds light on the realities of migrant young people who are living in residential care in cape town, south africa, and the barriers that undermine their sense of belonging. secondly, it introduces the specific case of lawrence house, a child and youth care center, that has evolved a youth-centered praxis focused on supporting young migrants to strengthen their sense of self, relationships and resilience. thirdly, the paper shares the specific development of a layered, participatory artsbased approach within lawrence house that aims to contribute to building a sense of belonging with these young migrants. we discuss how the approach engages young people in self-understanding, building trusting relationships, and mobilizing collective power in order to support their navigation of society. throughout this paper we share our reflections on this work and conclude with implications for continuing practice. we do this from the perspectives of being in a leadership role at lawrence house (treves), and a collaborating researcher-practitioner (shahrokh) who worked together, with artists, child and youth care workers and young people to develop the building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 92 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 participatory arts initiative. this paper contributes to knowledge on child and youth care practice with young migrants, and provides insights for researchers committed to social justice and transformation in research. barriers to belonging for young migrants in south africa in the context of south africa, children and young people have moved to the country both independently, and as a part of family networks, for multiple reasons including, amongst others, extreme poverty and unemployment, violence and persecution including based on religion, ethnicity, and politics, in their countries of origin (fritsch et al. 2010; mahati and palmary 2018; magqibelo et al. 2016; palmary 2009). young people have often navigated extreme adversity journeying to south africa (hillier 2007), and trauma related to reasons for leaving their countries of origin is a pervasive reality for many (clacherty 2015). painful memories related to war, conflict, abandonment and abuse including sexual violence and exploitation, disrupt young people’s lives, undermine trust and fracture meaningful relationships (borg 2018). where loss occurs, whether familial, cultural, societal or political, there is a loss of identity, and being able to see a “place in the world” (arendt 1971: 296). these fractures can become embedded in young people’s life narratives and this can create multiple and compounding barriers to belonging (alayarian 2007). migrant young people in south africa face complex challenges in building their lives. they often live insecurely with inadequate housing or shelter, face language barriers, and struggle to access education and health services (magqibelo et al. 2016; willie and mfubu 2016). they are also confronted with new norms, roles and expectations around race, gender and power in south african society (kihato 2007; walker et al. 2017). they can be met by exclusionary social structures as the country bears the scars of apartheid’s racialized systems of oppression. as swartz et al. (2012: 36) suggest, young people “experience belonging to south african society...through their exclusion from it”. this racialized exclusion manifests, socially, economically and politically for young south africans as well. for young migrants from other african countries this exclusionary context mobilizes the politics of belonging in their lives in the form of everyday xenophobic violence (landau 2012; misago 2015) and bullying (hlatshwayo and vally 2014), which is fuelled by a sense of xenophobic sentiment within the state (crush and tawodzera 2014; opfermann 2019). this impacts young people’s ability to feel safe, stable and accepted in the context they are building their lives in. kistner (2007) refers to migrants in south africa as living in landscapes of past and present trauma, a conceptualization which corresponds with what benjamin and crawford-browne (2010) refer to as the continuous trauma of young people living with pervasive violence in south africa. through migration, many children and young people are unaccompanied or become separated from their families. south africa’s children’s act (rsa 2005) commits to the care and protection of all children (a person under the age of 18) regardless of nationality. young migrants in some circumstances find their way into 93 the child protection system. research found that four per cent of young people in cape town’s child and youth care centers are defined as non-citizens (sloth-nielsen and ackermann 2015; rsa 2016). not all children and young people are able to access the full resources of the child protection system as government service providers are not always aware of migrant children’s right to equal protection (willie and mfubu 2016). research by magqibelo et al. (2016) found that context-specific care was not being prioritized for migrant children under the protection of the south african government, in particular with regard to their trauma and loss, alongside issues around legal documentation. this is in spite of the department for social development (dsd) having guidelines for social workers on assisting unaccompanied children (dsd 2009). large numbers of unaccompanied children and young people struggle to be documented. there is a shortcoming in the south african children’s act (rsa 2005) whose concept of care and protection does not entail the provision of legal status as a form of protection, or as a need necessary to ensure children’s wellbeing (ackermann 2018). the realization of one’s legal rights, including the right to an identity, not only enables access to legal services and rights claims, but also can confirm a sense of having a valued and recognized identity. the mental health implications of being young and undocumented have been explored globally (ellis et al. 2011), with research by gonzales et al. (2013) in north america finding that young people’s wellbeing and identity formation were constrained by their construction as ‘illegal’. the missing of significant social milestones and constricted trajectories, alongside a sense of contracting social networks, created isolation and hopelessness. living without documentation creates an incredible amount of uncertainty on young people’s futures, in particular around the age of 18 where they are no longer protected as children by human rights law. turning 18 can also be a significant rupture for young people living in state care, who must at the same time prepare for their transition to adulthood. young migrants living in care often face a double burden when they transition into adulthood at 18 years as they are called upon to deal with how this experience relates to the immigration system, and the social care system. they may be transitioning out of care without legal documentation, or with a temporary status, and at the same leaving school and starting to live independently in a setting where they feel they are not accepted. despite structural constraints, gonzales et al. (2013) found that undocumented young people maintained hope in the face of hopelessness. this sense of hope was made possible in particular where young people had secure relationships and could build trust. building belonging into child and youth care practice with young migrants within the broader setting outlined above, the complex dynamics of young migrants’ belonging in cape town provides the context for this work. the lawrence house child and youth care center opened its doors in the city in 2005 to offer a residential building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 94 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 setting for unaccompanied migrant children and young people. this decision was taken, as there seemed no alternative solution to the situation of a group of over 20 young migrants stranded at the ark shelter in mfuleni township, outside cape town. most of them had no appointed caregiver, were not accessing formal schooling and were undocumented. the then child care act of 1983 was not giving clear instruction on the rights of non-nationals and their access to social services; hence social workers on the ground were unsure about their mandate concerning these children. with time, lawrence house established itself within the residential care sector and the promulgation of the children’s act 38 of 2005 (rsa 2005), alongside consistent advocacy and lobbying work, solidified the general understanding that all children, irrespective of their nationality or legal status were entitled to the same protection and care. through ongoing reflective practice between child and youth care workers, social workers and the center manager, lawrence house generated knowledge on the shared difficulties faced by this group of young people, in particular regarding their emotional wellbeing and social interaction. of particular significance in unpacking these patterns was the persistent fracturing and fragmentation of young people’s sense of belonging. the analysis was initially grounded in lawrence house’s use of the developmental assessment framework, the circle of courage. the circle of courage is a resilience-focused approach to working with young people, which is premised on the understanding that emotional health is connected to young people having a sense of belonging, mastery, independence and generosity (naccw 2014). lawrence house staff found that young people tended to displace attachment to staff and the network of the care center, and that a sense of belonging in relation to their past, to kinship networks, culture, and their relation to their countries of origin was fractured. dominant feelings that young people held, included a sense of loss, isolation, detachment, emotional numbness and challenges in sustaining relationships. it was visible that the pains these young people had experienced, had moved with them across time and space, and were affecting their capacity to build belonging in their present and future lives (alayarian 2007). the impact of this fractured sense of self and belonging, was exacerbated by anxiety and frustration linked to feelings of not having control over their lives (ward 2011). this appeared to be amplified by being in an institutional care setting where young people often felt powerless over the decisions that affected their lives. future transitional moments also came with fear of the unknown. the intersecting nature of past pains, present exclusions, and anxieties about the future were interacting with a decline in agency, mental wellbeing, and retreat from self-development, including less independence, scarce generosity and a continuous withdrawal into oneself. this deeper understanding of the complex realities that young migrants faced, shaped lawrence house’s strength-based youth practice approach, which was linked to the need to counter the impact of trauma within migratory experiences. in doing so, lawrence house emphasized a contextualized and grounded approach to youth 95 development and started to challenge practice that imposed linear, or external definitions of successful life transitions for young people (everatt 2015). this was an integral part of recognizing young migrants’ resilience, capabilities and agency in driving their development trajectories. practice evolved to focus on creating journeys of selfdiscovery and self-reflection and to create opportunities to build knowledge and understanding through relational learning processes. the aim was to build empowered transitions where young people can replenish and move forward with choices, albeit not always with all solutions. within this broader approach, and in a collaboration between the young people living in lawrence house, the organization’s programming staff and thea shahrokh as a researcher-practitioner, there was a sense that belonging as a process of personal and collective change, with implications for young people’s present and future wellbeing, needed to be specifically engaged. the rest of the paper shares the emergence of a youth-centered, developmental, participatory and arts-based praxis within this setting and discusses its contribution to building belonging with young migrants. nyumba yangu (my home): a participatory arts project connecting self and society nyumba yangu, a participatory arts project developed with young people living at lawrence house focused on how young migrants locate themselves in the here and now, form emotional connections, relationships and a sense of place (antonsich 2010). nyumba yangu, meaning ‘my home’ in swahili, evolved with a focus on connecting young people to finding their own sense of home in south africa. the approach aimed to create space and time for young migrants to explore their identities and belonging through a reflexive, relational, and strength-based learning process that surfaced agentic acts. lawrence house aimed to support young people to practice agency, grow resilience and build relational and political forms of belonging, in turn collapsing the difference felt between self and society. drawing on critical childhood studies, for example the work of james and prout (1990), it was evident that children and young people were established as social actors that produce meaning in their own right, and can direct their own journeys, including within new contexts (goodman 2004; denov and bryan 2012). this project aimed to contribute to the refinement of young person-centered, participatory, and creative methodologies for working with young migrants to build their belonging (green and denov 2019; kohli 2005; korjonen-kuusipuro and kuusisto 2019; nunn 2018). a participatory approach places young people at the center, and shifts power relations towards young people driving the process (torre and fine 2006). it means working with youth to move “beyond silence into a quest to proclaim the world” (freire 1982: 30). creative and artistic expression can enable a freedom of expression that is not constrained by language, or expectations (kohli 2005). young people often feel defined by past traumas and experience a fragmented sense of self. creative expression can support new ways of seeing and understanding both the self and sobuilding belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 96 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 ciety, which can be a catalyst for countering narratives of being an outsider, and feelings of rejection (heidenreich-seleme and o’toole 2012; pink 2004; harper 2002). participatory, arts-based methods take multiple forms and can support visualization and self-representation from corporal expression such as dance and dramatization, to drawing and image creation methods such as body mapping, collages, and photography. the approach developed here focused on group-building and nurturing relationships through creative connection (korjonen-kuusipuro and kuusisto 2019). this emphasis also builds on youth development approaches, including the role of sport, that emphasize the power of positive social interactions and self-efficacy in building belonging (burrmann et al. 2017). drawing on lessons from art therapy, the approach was grounded in the premise that artistic and performative expression can remediate feelings of helplessness or powerlessness (clacherty 2006; kalmanowitz and lloyd 2005), and support the identification of ways of healing, and defining self, through emotional expression (österlind 2008). connecting this art-making as an agentic practice to the development of positive interactions and relationships in the environments young migrants were building their lives in, shifted the focus of resilience in youth development work away from the individual, towards the social context within which resilience is interwoven and shaped (kohli 2011). the use of creative and visual methods builds on a growing body of culturally sensitive, decolonizing, participatory work in south africa that takes an adaptive and responsive approach to supporting the visibility of the voices of marginalized young people (blackbeard and lindegger 2015; luttrell et al. 2012; mitchell and de-lange 2011; mitchell et al. 2016) and young migrants (clacherty 2016; norton and sliep 2018; opfermann 2015, 2019). the project was initiated with 10 young women between the ages of 14 and 19 living in lawrence house. these young women had diverse experiences of migration and dislocation, including experiences of complex trauma as a result of abandonment, loss, trafficking and violence. the young women’s countries of origins included democratic republic of the congo, angola, tanzania, burundi, zimbabwe, somalia and south africa. for a number of the young women it was difficult to identify a ‘home’ country, having spent many years moving between countries and with dual heritage parents, or having never lived in their ancestral lands. the project started with a young women’s group, aiming to sustain previous group-building work at lawrence house that had supported the beginnings of a collective identity between these young women. it also aimed at recognizing gendered experiences of violence and insecurity and creating a single gender space that would offer a sense of safety for the young women. for migrant young people, safety is an important marker of belonging (kohli 2011). this work took a layered, and emergent methodological approach (wheeler et al. 2018) that built towards different kinds of change at personal and collective levels. its aim was to generate more equitable and just experiences and transformed lived realities towards belonging for the young people involved (cahill 2007). an 97 initial dialogue process with the young women on how and why a participatory arts project on belonging would be relevant to their lives, led to the process starting at the personal level, as shown in figure 1. figure 1: a layered and emergent participatory arts-based approach aimed at building belonging starting with a focus on ‘self-understanding’, each new layer emerged, revealing the aspirations for knowledge and change, as expressed by the young women. this responsive approach was important for ensuring young people’s experiences with and reactions to the arts methods that drove the process. the project took place over a period of 12 months. each methodological layer differed in its duration, depending on the aim of the process and the arts method. ultimately, the first and the last layers ran over a longer-term – over four months each – with layers two and three running consecutively for six weeks at a time. nyumba yangu project implementation and outcomes the methodological approach within the nyumba yangu project aimed to support the young women to move through cycles of sharing, listening and reflecting on their lived experiences as expressed through different artistic mediums. in doing so, the project envisaged to support the young people to see self, other and society differently as they learnt from their own and others’ experiences in new ways, and with a sense of safety in self-expression. this would also create mindfulness of the power relations and differential experiences of social marginalization between the young women in the group. these participants were supported within the project to engage in the way that they negotiated power amongst themselves and with others in their lives, to recognize that such power relations affected not only their everyday lives but also the participatory arts process. the following sections elaborate on the implementation of the nyumba yangu project, highlighting what was learnt about the process of building belonging with young migrants in care. building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 1. self-understanding visual arts 2. relationships and trust dance/movement 3. collective power spoken-word 4. navigating society theatre 98 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 self-understanding the process was initiated with a set of artistic workshops facilitated by shahrokh, that supported young people to explore, through the mediums of drama and visual arts, what belonging, or home, meant in their present lives, and the extent to which it mattered to them. as an external facilitator, shahrokh focused on evolving a process that was driven by the young women and their aspirations. the facilitator also connected her own experience of living with iranian-scottish dual heritage and holding a migrant background in the united kingdom and south africa into the process, which supported conversations about complex and changing identities as they relate to context. initially the discussions centered around the idea of unbelonging, as this was the dominant connection the young women felt to the concept. as shown in figure 2 below, there was a sense of detachment between this young woman’s close personal relationships. the young woman who created this image explained that her relationships were separated not only by geographical, but by emotional distance. as the young women shifted towards discussing their aspirations for belonging, their definitions centered on the relationality of belonging. the definitions included: something between people; when you are able to be yourself and have selfworth; when you have a place where you feel safe and long to be; when you have control over your decisions; and when you are supportive and kind to others. from this shared starting point, the workshop focus shifted to self-understanding, because the young women felt that their identities were in tension between their self-definition and who they felt others wanted them to be. self-reflection and awareness became important as a first step to opening other wider possibilities of change. figure 2: relationships of belonging artwork by young woman aged 17 99 resonating with kistner’s (2015) analysis of migrants in south africa being situated in landscapes of trauma, for many young women in the group, past pains were a barrier to engaging with a wider sense of home, and making positive cultural, relational and place-based connections that could become a part of their present lives. as one young woman explained: “i need help in learning to express my feelings and to be able to speak about my life”. another young woman explained that, “i don’t want my face to change, from happiness to sadness by looking back at the past”. visual and creative storytelling methods supported young people to regain a sense of control and to ‘safely’, and ethically connect with both past and present, and with each other. the facilitators developed a method that supported layers of private and public expression so that the young women could engage in uncensored preparatory work before choosing what they wanted to make public about their experiences. the young women created private ‘my belonging’ books that provided space for freedom of self-expression, processing of difficult past experiences, and aspirations for what they wanted to know more about in their lives. the creation of an artefact (the book) aimed to bring a sense of ownership and continuity to the process, something that can feel disrupted in the lives of young migrants and young people in care (ward 2011). the young women then engaged in group reflections and sharing circles where they chose what to share about the work that they had been doing, and had conversations about related social and political issues. by starting to engage the self, young women were taking ownership of their identities, which was a response to their sense of fragmentation from their cultures and histories. in resonance with probyn’s idea of ‘be-longing’, being desires that come with the longing for something other than what you have (probyn 1996: 5), the young women were supported to speak about what they “wanted to know more about” to build their sense of self and belonging, and why that was important to them. an example of this reflective work is shown in figure 3. this young woman’s aspirations were connected to her desire to make sense of multiple life-worlds. she wanted to speak her own language, as well as afrikaans, the language spoken by her south african peers at school, and by a number of the child and youth care workers; it is also the language which she was studying. she wanted to know more about her “family root(s)” and her “family history”, and build a connection to that part of herself. she also expressed her desire to find confidence and courage. when this was discussed, she explained that this was in relation to being able to take the linguistic and cultural aspirations in the list forward. through the artwork, the young women were recalling parts of their identities and depicting the times when they were loved as a child, sister, grand-child, friend – these were identities that they felt they had lost as a result of their experiences. they were shifting their sense of self to becoming a young person who could build personal strength and positive relationships. an example of this is a 16-year-old young woman who used oil pastels to create an image of the bedroom she used to share building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 100 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 with her mother. she was on her own in south africa as her mother had returned to her country of origin. she explained that, “this picture is about me and my mother and the bond that a daughter has (with her mother)”. this experience echoes another young woman’s reflection that through this process, “we have moved from what was lost, to feeling found”. another young woman explained that, “i gained as a skill, learning to express myself in a positive way. i’ve learnt to speak and write about my feelings and i’ve learnt to accept life as it is and being positive”. this work was catalytic, a beginning rather than an end, and a contribution towards being able to bring positive connections with the past into the present (bradbury and clark 2012; kistner 2015; kohli 2011). figure 3: what i want to know more about artwork created by young woman aged 18 building relationships and trust for young people with backgrounds of migration a sense of safety within relationships has often been broken. this happens through diverse and complex experiences but has lasting effects on young people’s abilities to feel safe, stable and to trust (korjonen-kuusipuro et al. 2018). issues and questions around trust, in particular around fear of judgment from others, existed within the group. to complement the above visual expressive modes, the idea of integrating a dance component into the program emerged. the young women responded positively to this artistic form of expression within a regular “girls’ group” that they participated in. the dance group was facilitated by a south african woman, a native of cape town, who had also 101 lived and worked abroad in the performance arts. the facilitator’s understanding of the complex cultural and relational dynamics within this group of young women, informed by her own lived experience as a woman in south africa, coupled with her experience as a dance facilitator, contributed to the creation of a sense of safety and trust in this process. this set of relationships, experience and contextualized knowledge was brought into a partnership with evidence from the field of dance and movement therapy (pierce 2014) including with refugees (koch and weidinger-von der recke 2009; verreault 2017). this research suggests that a movement-based process could strengthen a sense of safety and trust within the young women’s relationships with themselves and in their relationships with each other. the method using art to give expression to feelings, was also particularly important given the emphasis on bodies, race and skin color within the xenophobic narratives of exclusion in south africa. the facilitated workshops aimed to counter these narratives through building embodied connections to self and others. to support openness in self-expression, the program of dance and movement work was facilitated using the 5rhythms approach (roth 1997). this is a therapeutic practice structured through improvizational movement where participants explore the rhythms of flowing, chaos, staccato, lyrical and stillness, using their bodies. within this structure, creative expression took place, particularly in relation to self-discovery and in working towards unity (payne 2006). within this process, grounding exercises were used to encourage the young women to find healing in being connected to their bodies. finding their own ways of expressing their bodies through movement helped address harmful communication strategies, where anger or aggression could dominate, and strengthened a sense of agency (koch et al. 2012). movement, connected to the different rhythms helped to bring about images and metaphors of symbolic expression around different emotions. body-to-body relation through mirroring promoted the feeling of being validated by others, built empathy and countered assumptions that the young women had about the way that others in the group would treat them. group-based movement created relational exchange between the young women and supported nonverbal dialogue that helped build trust. in response, one of the young women explained that, “i didn’t have trust and it is hard to do the moves; trying to let go was hard. trying to trust when you are unsure, is difficult. but, in the trust circle, they didn’t let me fall”. this validation within the group supported young women to reflect that they could be accepted when expressing themselves in their own ways, to build a positive relationship with their own bodies, and to have a sense of control in their lives (bengtsson and mølholt 2018; kohli 2011). the artistic process included an activity where the young women collectively worked on a body map, shown in figure 4. this exercise created a space for reflection and articulation of a shared sense of identity within the group. building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 102 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 figure 4: body map image of connections made through movement artwork created by the group of young women as the artwork shows, this space gave the young women a platform from which to recognize and value their uniqueness as their beauty, to articulate the power that they have to fight for what they believe in, and to establish that others do not have the power to change who they are. this transition from personal expression in the visual storybook work, to nonverbal dialogue through movement, to a collective articulation of self and identity was a powerful way of building trust in others, to understand the connections between bodies, lived experiences and aspirations for change. the body map presents evidence concrete example of this important transition. creating collective power the progression from personal to collective reflection illustrated the connection between a sense of self, and a sense of belonging in relation to others. learning from the lived experiences of others, as a part of a collective can enable engagement with broader power relations that surround young people’s lives, as well as understanding the lived reality of others. as the young people moved through the process, they articulated a desire to shift from reflecting inwardly, to narrating their identities outwardly, and shaping their place in the world (arendt 1971). as a result, the next phase of the process built on the performance art of spoken word poetry. this layer of the project invited young people to engage as active witnesses to each other’s expe103 riences and their quests for recognition, healing and autonomy (prendergast 2015). the spoken word process was facilitated by a cape town-born poet, raised on the cape flats, an area of the city to which people of color were forcibly relocated under apartheid, and to which a strong history of activism is attached. with a background as a performance artist and cultural activist, her work as a youth facilitator connects the power of poetry to social transformation and integration. the process started with the young women writing “i” poems, which located themselves as the main actor, and agent of change within their poetry. through sharing and reflection, the young women then worked in pairs, then small groups to start a process of reimagining shared identities and narratives in their lives, through the medium of poetry. in doing so the young women were encouraged to make personal connections to cultural references, symbols and icons, and their own lived experiences, to enable them to build new narratives about their lives (antonsich 2010). the process connected to the political ideology of spoken word poetry, which is a form of collective resistance for marginalized people – a refusal to accept stereotypes or imposed identities, rather, presenting a call for social justice (stovall 2006). the work that the young people were engaged in, brought them together with others to find a way of speaking to the world, engaging with the politics of belonging (yuvaldavis 2006). importantly, this exercise was not about creating a simplistic narrative of who these young women are, but rather giving space to both their individual and collective identities. the poem shared here is the final version of the collective poem that all the young women in the group constructed together: we are the start of a line that never ends by lawrence house young women’s group i am flowing on the dark side of the moon i am the smell of blood that shed many tears i am the womb of a barren woman i am the refugee that crawled through the dust of a thousand borders i am the pencil that draws this story the thief that stole the heart of the unknown we are the start of a line that never ends generations wrought of earth’s womb diamonds risen from the bowels of an african tomb i am the daughter of an african woman the beat of my heart is the first drum i am strong, i am feeling, i am love i am fire the light that brings everything to life building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 104 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 we are the start of a line that never ends generations wrought of earth’s womb diamonds risen from the bowels of an african tomb and so now in life’s highs and lows my heart stays steady in the spirit root of this family tree africa lives proud in me. in writing this poem these young women were still grappling with what it means to belong, but rather than it being something out of reach, it was something, that together they started to articulate and to claim. they claimed it in re-writing themselves; they are strong, they are love, they are fire. at the same time, they retain the complexity, the confusion and the dark and light of their lived experiences. they recognize their strength and their agency in writing their own story and they recognize that they have the power to take hold of their belonging together, as african women. navigating society drawing on critical and participatory pedagogy, the facilitators and lawrence house staff were committed to the young people’s engagement with the wider social realities and power relations that impact on their lives. throughout the process it was evident that young migrants in care often felt that they were powerless to change what they know about who they are and their life stories. furthermore, there was a strong sense of others having control over their lives. up until this point the group space had been for young women only. within the visual, movement-based and spoken word layers of the process the young people had started to explore the gendered power relations that shape belonging. responding to this, the young women chose for the final layer of the process to be opened up to all young people at lawrence house. methodologically this also recognized the relational nature of gender, and the importance of seeing the interaction of norms around gender roles and responsibilities, and power in young people’s lives (gouws 2017). this also increased the number of young south africans within the process, which also shifted the dynamics of learning towards understanding shared realities across perceived lines of difference. the young people’s commitment to work together aimed at building respect for, and understanding the perspectives and ideas of others, countering experiences of unbelonging (christensen 2009). throughout the process it became clear was evident that young people found value in self-expression through drama and performance. dramatic expression appeared to be deeply enabling in terms of critical dialogue and reflective learning with others, as well as in ‘rehearsing’ change in their lives. participatory theatre became the focus for engaging the young people in understanding the role of societal narratives in oppression and the reconstruction of self and agency. given the emphasis on self-making and building collective community in this program, a strong col105 laboration was forged with a female european facilitator who lived in south africa for an extended period, and whose doctoral work engaged critically with the construction of gendered identities in young south africans’ lives. her methodology was informed by the principles of paulo freire’s conscientization and augusto boal’s ‘theatre of the oppressed’ that emphasized the use of physical and verbal expression in making visible social issues, deconstructing them and practicing transformation through performances. in response to the changing gendered make-up of the group, a local male co-facilitator with a background in youth work, was also invited to support the process. the participatory theatre methodology constituted fictionalized stories based on young people’s lived experiences which were able to support a sense of distance between emotionally and politically sensitive issues. the theatre work gave young people space to make visible silenced issues, and to engage with the sensitivity of the issue of belonging as it relates to norms and expectations around what belonging is, and for who (yuval-davis 2007). young people were able to articulate the way violence, abuse and bullying impacted their capacity to belong. additionally, that assumptions of the family being a safe and supportive place of belonging need to be challenged. instead, new forms of relationships and sense of family need to be imagined. as clark (2009) articulates, this created space for young people with migration backgrounds to speak out about who they are, who they can be, and in turn move towards the belonging they long for (probyn 1996). implications for building belonging with young migrants in care the young people involved in this process have, through the embodied practice of making art, generated an understanding of belonging that is both relational and in process. building belonging is therefore not about working towards a fixed outcome or identifiable end goal; it is a continuous process that is deeply interconnected with the changing dynamics of young people’s lives. young people are looking to build self-worth, feelings of safety, decision-making power and supportive relationships, in order to support their capacities to navigate these dynamics. this project’s findings indicate that participatory arts methods can create a space for understanding and realizing belonging in young people’s immediate lives, and contribute to the development of capacities for building belonging as young people construct their future, independent lives. to nurture the relational dynamic of belonging, the process needed to engage with the role of trust in relationships and in building connections to others. nonverbal expression in the form of movement and dance was a powerful way of young people finding new ways to trust and to share experiences as equals. trust between the adult facilitators was supported by the commitment to the time and space needed for this process to grow in response to the unfolding aspirations of the young people involved. the creation of a safe space, was supported by long-term relationships bebuilding belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 106 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 tween young people, and with facilitators, which help to (re)build trust that had been fractured through complex life experiences. the emphasis on trust draws visibility to the interaction with past experiences, of loss, violence and abandonment (kistner 2015), and building present and future relationships that can establish connections to people and places (antonsich 2010; arendt 1971). nurturing this trust, and trusting relationships with peers and adults in turn can contribute to the capacities of young people to build trust beyond the life-space of the participatory arts group. work on belonging is not easy; it is not a neutral issue for young people and involves emotional labor that needs to be continuously held and nurtured by the care network around the young person. significantly, this project was supported by an organizational culture of young people’s participation in their own development. child and youth care workers and social workers were engaged from the outset and feedback loops were embedded so that young people were able to articulate the changes they were going through to their peers and care workers. within this process, child and youth care workers indicated that an important lesson for their practice was that while legal documentation is critical for young migrants, it is not all that is needed for belonging. social workers should continue to ensure documentation is realized, and at the same time, young people want to know more about their families, their communities, their language and their cultures. this research has shown that participatory arts processes can support young migrants to engage with these questions and work towards possibilities of realizing change. the knowledge generated through this process provides rich and in-depth understanding of belonging in young migrants’ lives, which has implications for the young people themselves, as well as for the practitioners and researchers engaged in their care. reflective arts methods supported young people’s self-understanding, enabling them to make sense of fractured pasts, in relation to how they were directing their lives in the present. using a creative approach supported young people in recognizing the multiple forms of knowledge and identities that exist within them, and to reclaim this new knowledge. visual storytelling created the space for narrative construction that recalled past strengths, including those pertaining to people, cultures and places, and to connect this to self-identification and determination within their futures (bradbury and clark 2012). the transitioning from the personal to the collective level was also important for building understanding of self and other, and for developing new ways of seeing connections and relationships. this layered learning was supported by the emergence of a deep form of empathic listening that enabled an understanding of complexity and power-relations within the different young people’s stories and experiences. this complexity helped build the potential for transformation as it created room for young people to construct new identities and belongings that embraced fluidity, multiplicity and change. this embracing of multiplicity has the potential to support them to make sense of their whole selves, without fear, shame or rejection of what had come before. it also supported their connection to each other, and fa107 cilitated the finding of linked social issues that led to their connection to a shared struggle, overcoming the isolation that can manifest through the politics of belonging (yuval-davis 2006). an important change seen in young people was reflected in the development of “non-oppressive identities” (swartz and soudien 2015: 35), made up of tolerance, acceptance and a rejection of discrimination. the further development of this work with young migrants, together with young people marginalized within the care system more broadly, may create opportunities for young people to come together and learn across perceived lines of difference, building towards more inclusive societies. additionally, by developing this work with other young people within the communities where these young people currently live, and will be transitioning into, it may become possible for young people to translate their knowledge into concrete action, and make meaningful connections with their future selves, and future lives (korjonen-kuusipuro et al. 2018). conclusion this paper shared the reflections and insights of young migrants living in care in south africa, on their search for belonging. the project grew from the perspectives of young migrants, and provides insight into methods using different art forms, that can contribute to their unique conceptualizations of belonging. the participatory approach supported the building of meaningful connections to self and others, which have the power to facilitate feelings of belonging across young people’s past, present and future lives. the building of belonging for these young people speaks to the unique realities of their past pains, and present insecurity in south africa. the contextualized knowledge generated through an emergent, participatory arts process can help improve child and youth care practice by enhancing sensitivity and responsiveness to young people’s realities. this project has shown that efforts towards building belonging need to be continuous, they have to move through cycles of connecting young people to self, to others, and to society. belonging is a process. within a context of youth transitions, participatory arts can support young people to drive this process, and through this, they could reconceptualize and realize their sense of self, and sense of belonging, in the present, and importantly, in their futures. building belonging through art with young migrants living in care in south africa 108 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 1, jan-apr 2020 acknowledgement the authors would like to thank the young people at the center of this work. without their openness, and commitment to change, this learning would not have been possible. appreciation is extended to the participatory arts facilitators: hannah loewenthal who brought dance into the process, khadija heeger who connected the young people with spoken word poetry, and alice clarfelt who brought the vision of theatre to life in this program. thank you to the hci foundation for their ongoing contributions to youth work at lawrence house. the methodological learning process documented in this paper was developed in collaboration with shahrokh’s doctoral research, which was funded by coventry university, uk. the authors are very grateful for the reviewer’s comments, which we feel were really positively directed at strengthening the paper. note the young people in this study have been anonymized throughout to protect their identities. images in this article cannot be reproduce without explicit permission of the author. 109 references ackermann, m. 2018. unaccompanied and separated children in south africa: is return the only option? scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa, 1: 975-994. alayarian, a. 2007. trauma, resilience, and creativity. in resilience, suffering, and 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experienced large-scale traders procure the services of ‘visa agents’ for convenient purposes, the small-scale trader's need the ‘visa agents’ to be able to undertake their business in china. keywords china, ghana, traders, networks. introduction trade between china and africa has grown steadily over the past 16 years. the highest value of us$ 215 billion was recorded in 2014 (cari, 2018; monyae, 2014) and is projected to reach $440 billion by 2025 (sun et al, 2017). despite the recent slump of values of commodity imports from africa, the trade exchange between africa and china has witnessed year-on-year average increase of 7.5% over the last 16 years of intensive trade (un comtrade data, 2017). for many africans however, the chinese presence is marked by traders in the markets (dankwah and amoah, 2019; obeng, 2018) and the availability of ‘made in china’ products in their homes (obeng, 2019b). these commodities are imported to the african continent by both african and chinese traders. the literature on the importers and their activities is however tilted in favour of the chinese (see dankwah and valenta, 2019; gu, 2009; haugen, 2011; marfaing and thiel, 2011; mcnamee, 2012; park, 2009). accounting for this neglect includes the fact that in studying the chinese traders on the continent, the chinese traders had expressed significant doubt about the abilities and competencies of the africans to participate meaningfully in the import industry. they attribute these challenges to the  department of sociology, university of ghana, legon, p.o. box lg 65. email: mkobeng@ug.edu.gh mailto:mkobeng@ug.edu.gh obeng, m., k., m. structural difficulties in china as well as the bad business practices of the african intermediaries in china (haugen, 2011; marsh, 2016; obeng, 2019a). this is in spite of the realization that there are more africans importing chinese products onto the african continent than their chinese counterparts (marfaing and thiel, 2011). this observation negates earlier studies that have justified the lack of focus on african entrepreneurs on the lack of zeal and poor business practices (see haugen, 2011). this, however, does not mean that the reported challenges are not present. instead, it indicates that the traders have successfully devised reliable networks and strategies to circumvent these and other challenges (obeng, 2017). these new insights have also failed to present a segregated analysis of these african actors and instead present these networks and the strategies in a more linear fashion (see babou, 2002; bodomo, 2018; cissé, 2018; diouf, 2000; tall, 2004) and thus blur the observable nuances exhibited by these actors as they navigate this new territory. in this paper, i use the stories of two ghanaian transnational importers of chinese products (one small-scale and less exposed transnational trader and another large-scale and experienced transnational trader) to demonstrate and analyze how in the midst of the structural and cultural constraints, these african traders procure and devise varied networks and strategies to participate in the chinese import economy. this is done by profiling the traders and their trading trajectories and by highlighting the networks and strategies utilized to participate in the ‘treacherous chinese import economy’ (haugen 2011:167). ghana serves as an appropriate destination for such an analysis because ghana has witnessed a dramatic surge of imports since 2000 and in the process became the second largest importer of chinese goods in africa in 2006 (jenkins and edward, 2006). specifically, data from the un comtrade – the international trade statistics database – indicates that the value of imports increased from us$ 243 million in 2001 to us$ 1.8 billion in 2017, representing a cumulative increase of over 741% growth. figure 1 below presents a summary of the annual data on ghanaian imports from china. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1613 figure 1: ghanaian imports from china (million usd) source: un comtrade data, 2019. further, the data indicates a consistent increase in the values of imports except for the periods between 2008 and 2009 and between 2014 and 2016 that witnessed a year-on-year decline. percentage-wise, the data indicates growth from 3.9% to 10.4% over the period. african traders and the chinese import business the potential expansion of trade between the two continents was identified during the african-asian summit in jakarta in april 2005. at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the bandung declaration, the dramatic rise in international commerce between the two regions featured prominently. similar interest was evident at the g-8 summit in gleneagles in july 2005 when the leaders of the global north underscored the growing importance of southsouth trade and investment flows, especially as they pertained to the prospects for fostering growth and poverty reduction in africa (obeng, 2015). as expected, the rising exchanges between china and africa have generated an academic interest in implications for africa largely at the macro level. the works of the following scholars are instructive in this regard: alden, 2007; bodomo, 2018; brautigam, 2003; broadman, 2007; cheru and obi, 2010; lampert and mohan, 2014; taylor, 2009. in particular, marfaing and thiel (2011:1) stated that: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 china $24 $29 $41 $561 $65 $79 $95 $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $ $500,000,000.00 $1,000,000,000.00 $1,500,000,000.00 $2,000,000,000.00 $2,500,000,000.00 2001-2017 imports from china to ghana obeng, m., k., m. […]this highly diverse subject field has been scrutinized in terms of partnerships in developmental aid projects, cultural exchange … and macro-economic and geopolitical issues related to large-scale chinese projects in the natural resource or infrastructure sectors. this interest has resulted in two major positions about the extent to which china’s increasing penetration into the economies of africa is good or bad for the continent (ajakaiye and kaplinsky, 2009;). in this debate, the optimists have emphasized the opportunities that china offers the african continent and its people, while the pessimists have highlighted the more exploitative aspect of the chinese engagement (see hess and aidoo, 2014; tsikata et al, 2008). one area emphasized by the optimist group is the availability of global consumables to the african continent and the benefits that the increasing consumption of such imported items offer the consumers (see dobler, 2009; obeng, 2019b; zi, 2015). while the dominant theme in this area of research has been framed as a form of imperialism, leading to massive reports of tension and acrimony between the chinese and their african counterparts (see dittgen, 2010; dobler, 2009 mcnamee, et al. 2012), new perspectives have emerged that underscore multiple responses of africans to the chinese presence on the continent (see haugen, 2011; lampert and mohan, 2014; obeng, 2018). for instance, lampert and mohan (2014) and obeng (2018) make the point that what generally gets framed by outsiders as tension between africans and chinese traders, is mostly a demonstration of competing african interests, mostly between those who have the capacity to import directly from china and those african distributors and consumers who do not have such transnational capabilities and have over time come to appreciate chinese traders as a cheaper source of chinese goods. they both, however, conclude that sino-african encounters involve more convivial relations than usually reported. it must, however, be noted that these remain fluid subject to the trading capacity of these actors. closely related to this paper is the set of works that have addressed the inadequate representation of africans in the business of importing chinese products. for instance, the chinese on the continent assert that africans lack both the skills and the zeal necessary to succeed in a ‘treacherous chinese business environment’. they state: “this environment requires extreme vigilance and good bargaining skills for a successful purchase. the absence of such competencies (apparently lacking in many africans) will end one up with african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1615 goods of different quantity or quality than the ones paid for’’ (haugen, 2011:167). the description of mainland china as a ‘treacherous and dangerous destination’ was particularly widespread in ghana in the early 2000s. as a result of this, the few ghanaians who desired to import items from mainland china did so through other asian intermediaries from hong kong, as illustrated in the narratives below by kofiga and mansaba, respondents in this study: i knew that the middle east people, from whom we were buying these goods from in hong kong were bringing these products to us from mainland china, but we dare not go there on our own. this is because we were told it was a very dangerous place with the possibility of losing even our lives (kofiga, accra)1. […] the chinese were dangerous people; they will take your money and give goods of inferior quality and that you won’t even have anybody to complain to (mansaba, kumasi). additionally, the chinese described the african attitude toward business as unproductive and less competitive. haugen (2011) reports the chinese traders in cape verde as saying, “whilst the african aims at earning 100% profit, we won’t do that; we take maybe 30 or 50% profit” (haugen 2011: 167). the latter view is shared by a sizable number of african small-scale traders and their consumers who attribute the dramatic domestic successes of chinese importers to poor trading practices of their nationals (see obeng, 2018:6264). notwithstanding the above narratives, a scoping study in senegal and ghana in 2012, ghana in 2015 and 2019 indicated that there are more africans importing chinese products in person than their chinese counterparts (dankwah and amoah, 2019; marfaing and thiel, 2011; obeng 2015). in terms of numbers, although currently, no reliable statistics exist on the number of africans importing from china for sale in africa, the population of importers is 1 kofiga and mansaba are among the first set of ghanaian traders who began the import business in mainland china. prior to importing from china, they had imported from other countries including malaysia, singapore and hong kong. importing from hong kong, they had learnt that the products imported were cheaper in mainland china, particularly in guangzhou, but were for years never courageous enough to enter mainland china because of the reported threats. to imports from mainland china were only possible with the services of middlemen, mostly from the middle east. obeng, m., k., m. estimated to be large and continues to expand. the city of guangzhou reported that about 60,000 african tourists, mostly itinerant traders, stayed in hotels in 2007 (guangzhou municipal statistics bureau, 2008), ostensibly to trade directly with chinese factories and wholesalers rather than through intermediaries. similarly, bodomo (2012 and 2018) estimated that there were about 500,000 africans in china with almost 60% of them being traders or engaged in trade-related activities. the huge numbers of africans in this venture challenge the pessimism with which their chinese counterparts had perceived their attempts at doing business with the asians (haugen, 2011) as well as the projection that the chinese dream for africans was dead or dying (marsh, 2016). these traders travel from all parts of africa regularly in search of various manufactured items in china and ship them to africa for sale and ultimately for profits. research method the base data for this research was collected both in ghana and china over a period of 13 months, as part of a larger study. the study sought to understand the networks and strategies that are used by ghanaian transnational traders who import global consumables from china for sale in ghana. the respondents included both ghanaians and chinese citizens involved in the import enterprise. multiple ethnographic methods were employed, notably in-depth interviews with 50 ghanaian importers – 30 from accra and 20 from kumasi (the two biggest commercial centres in ghana). this was supplemented with key informant interviews with 3 visa agents in ghana and 5 itinerant agents in china. the itinerant agents included 3 ghanaians and 2 chinese. other chinese nationals interviewed were suppliers and shop attendants from whom the ghanaian importers bought their products in china. additional data was solicited from ghanaian residents in china, whose livelihoods were connected to the import business. the last set of data was collected during nonparticipant observation. this involved ‘shadowing’ a few ghanaian importers in china while they undertook their daily business activities in guangzhou. in all, 89 interviews were conducted to properly contextualize the narratives and experiences of the transnational traders. the data for this paper, however, includes additional data gathered through continuous engagement with some of the traders (2015-2018). all interviews were transcribed, manually analyzed and presented. in this paper, i project the cases of two traders, with whom i have maintained a working relationship since 2013, to advance the subject of networks and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1617 strategies used by ghanaian transnational traders importing from guangzhou. these traders were among participants interviewed in 2013 in ghana and subsequently, followed in non-participant observation in guangzhou as they went about their trading routines in guangzhou. the stories of the two are highlighted because they represent the two categories of ghanaian transnational traders: large-scale and small-scale, a characteristic that to a great extent determines the different networks that are procured as well as strategies devised by the traders as they ‘hunt’ for their fortunes in guangzhou. the discussion of the two cases is preceded by a summary presentation of the 50 ghanaian transnational traders interviewed as part of the bigger project. this offers a broader perspective to the nature and strategies employed by ghanaian importers, which the two selected cases typify. ghanaian transnational traders importing goods from china the study involved 24 males and 26 females of varied trading experiences and demographics. this is a clear departure from other studies on ghanaian transnational traders which have focused exclusively on women (bowles, 2013; darkwah, 2007). although this challenges the perception that trade is a feminine enterprise (clark, 1994; cruickshank, 1853; daniell, 1856; robertson, 1983), it also reveals the dynamism that characterizes the trade enterprise. further analysis indicates that men’s superior access to financial capital has created gender differences in terms of what is imported and the volume of import between men and women. specifically, most of males sampled (58%) traded in luxury and durable commodities and in large volumes, while the females (77%) were into fashion and trendy items that require relatively little capital. comparatively, the males were younger, with 71% below 40 years, while 65% of the females were above 40 years. the age disparity could be accounted for by three related socio-cultural practices in ghana. the first is the unequal access to financial capital to the disadvantage of women (see asiedu et al, 2013). the second is the practice of ghanaians preferring to hand over their viable businesses to their male children rather than their female children, as in the case of lamptey, whose story is related later. the third reason for the relatively late entry of women into international trade, are the domestic and gendered responsibilities such as the rearing of and caring for children, which make such long-distance business travels a tough field for women. to overcome the above gender-related challenges, particularly poor access to capital, female traders start from petty trading and rise through the ranks to obeng, m., k., m. become transnational traders as demonstrated by the story of akorkor, discussed later in this paper. they do this by importing from countries such as nigeria, togo, benin and ivory coast in a manner described by ravenstein (1885:198) as “step-wise migration,” a practice where emigrants who failed to satisfy the immigration criteria of europe opted to travel to ‘lower status, easy visa’ countries from where they hoped to eventually relocate to a ‘higher status’ country (konadu-agyemang 1999). on the contrary, fewer men ever imported commodities from the coast of west africa. they usually entered the import business as international traders. the small-scale traders’ activities in guangzhou are characterized by the following: first, the importers do not have a known supplier from whom they import. because of this, they have limited control over the design, style and sizes of the products they import. to be successful then requires them to move from one retail unit to another in search of marketable items and to ‘pick’ limited pieces. though very stressful and time-consuming, the ‘pickers’ 2 , unlike their large-scale counterparts, have the advantage of importing less compromised products because they buy the ‘already made’ products which offer a greater guarantee. secondly, because they buy from various retail outlets, they enjoy the benefits of having a variety of items from various producers and designers as compared to the large-scale importers who purchase in bulk from limited producers. in china, the small-scale traders are usually seen with heavily loaded black polythene bags. they employ this strategy for about 80% of their time in china until they exhaust their funds. after successful purchases, they spend the rest of the period re-packaging for easy transport. the goods are transported home either by air or sea or a combination of both. the former, however, remains the main option. they buy up to ten, ‘32 kg’ of extra luggage to transport their items home. with this, the traders are usually guaranteed their delivery between 3-5 business days. the cost of the extra luggage of 32 kg ranges from us$ 200 to us$ 300. this is, however, subject to space availability and thus becomes very difficult during the peak seasons – may to july and october to november. another challenge is the limited size and weight permitted by air. as a result of this limitation, they complement their export by sea travel in a practice known in the industry as ‘groupage’ but technically known as ‘less than container load’ (lcl). the lcl 2 this term is used to refer to small-scale importers who normally carry with them very small amounts of money on their trips, moving from one shop or market to another as they search for and buy limited quantities of various already manufactured products usually for retail in their home country. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1619 implies that two or more importers hire a container and share the cost based on the space occupied by their goods. in terms of cost, sea transportation is cheaper. the 20-foot container costs between us$ 6000 and us$ 8000 depending on the season. but this may take between 6-8 weeks before its arrival at the tema harbour in ghana. as a compromise, almost all traders simultaneously combine air and sea transportation. unlike the small-scale importers, the large-scale importers enjoy much more control over their type of imports and their sources of imports. these importers, wielding huge capital, are able to deal directly with wholesalers and factories. this direct access allows them to order for the production of quantities of a given item with their own specifications. some of them even enjoy the privilege of their products being branded in their own registered trademarks. additionally, instead of travelling from one retail market to the other, they rather move from factory to factory, usually located in the small villages of china or to the showrooms in the commercial cities. one of the greatest advantages these importers enjoy over their small-scale counterparts is the advantage of economies of scale. ironically, this also poses the biggest threat to their businesses. because of the large volumes of import, they are not always able to verify the quality and specification of all the items ordered. after a successful order and payments, the goods are usually transported after they have left guangzhou to ghana by their agents. they are mostly able to charter a minimum of a 20-foot container. closely related to this typology is the traders’ perspective on the future outlook of the import industry. for instance, for the large-scale importers, the chinese traders operating within the country poses a major threat to the future of the business, while the chinese traders are the least of the challenges of the small-scale traders. in some instances, the ghanaians have forged a complimentary trading relationship with the chinese traders and rate other internal threats above the chinese presence in the market space (for more details see obeng, 2018). another difference is the means of procuring a chinese visa. while all traders eventually resort to proxy to secure visas, the motivation for doing so differs. for the large-scale traders, it is motivated by opportunity cost but for the small-scale traders, it is out of necessity. the varied strategies and nature of networks utilized by the respective importers as they endeavour to benefit from the hidden treasures of guangzhou are told through the stories of mr lamptey, a large-scale importer obeng, m., k., m. and madam akorkor, a small-scale importer. further, the study highlights how variations in gender, financial resourcefulness, international trade exposure and level of education shape the activities of ghanaian transnational traders participating in the chinese economy. lamptey – large-scale importer mr lamptey represents the educated ghanaian men who have joined the business of importing global commodities into ghana, an enterprise which was originally dominated by women (see awumbilla et al, 2011; bowles 2013; darkwah, 2002). lamptey, 34, is married with three children. he is a university graduate and combines his import business with his professional career as a civil engineer. lamptey inherited the business from his parents, an enterprise they managed for more than two decades. even though lamptey had a sister who was the eldest child, their parents preferred him because they believed that guaranteed the family ownership of the business. a woman, according to the family, will marry and ultimately join her husband’s family. lamptey manages the business together with his brother and three other employees. one of the three employees is a distant relative, while the two others are non-kin members. the business is, however, managed professionally, with little familial attachment. lamptey maintains an effective bookkeeping system and has the company’s account distinct from his personal account. the business is also registered with the ghana revenue authority, the registrar general as well as the local municipal assembly and pays tax regularly to the state. the business outlet is relatively big and is in one of the busiest sections of the makola market in accra, ghana. apart from the shop outlet where the imported items are sold, he also has a large warehouse where the imported items are kept and from where he restocks the showroom and the sales outlet. for lamptey, taking over the business from his parent was not a very difficult task because on several occasions he accompanied his parents on their trips to germany, the original import destination for business purposes and worked in the shop during vacation periods. this practically acquainted him with the day-to-day routine and management of the business enterprise. he took charge of the business eventually after completing his national service3. 3 national service is a mandatory one-year service to the state by all citizens usually after tertiary education. a proof of national service certificate is a fundamental requirement for future employment. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1621 having taken over the business in 2003, lamptey continued with his parents’ legacy by importing from germany the same sets of products such as men’s suits, shirts and suiting materials and sold these items in the same shop and largely to the inherited client base. occasionally, he tried to make some modifications to the line of business but stuck generally to his parents’ business model. all this changed in 2005. in 2005, lamptey and his brother decided to shift the import destination from germany to china. lamptey, like most ghanaians, was aware of china as a potentially profitable market but was very sceptical about the destination. although he knew some ghanaians had started importing from china since the early 2000s, he never considered a shift to the chinese market because of the generally held perception that imports from china are inferior (obadia, 2009). this began to change during one of his trips to germany when he discovered that one of his most trusted suppliers also sourced his wares from china. this information came as a shock to lamptey because all the while he believed that all his imports were made in germany and usually boasted of the quality of the products to his competitors by displaying the ‘made in germany’ label. this worked because germany remains one of the countries that ghanaians in general recognize and acknowledge as makers of durable and quality products (obeng, 2019b). this information suddenly changed his long-held scepticism about chinese products and he immediately set into motion plans to import directly from china. in september 2005 lamptey saw an advertisement in one of the national newspapers inviting businesses to attend a trade exhibition, the canton fair in guangzhou, china. he enrolled and applied for a visa to attend the fair. as an experienced importer, acquiring a visa was easy for him. he states, ‘i went to the embassy, picked up an application form, filled it out and attached all the needed documents including my bank statement and business registration certificate and in less than a week i had a 6-months’ business visa’. even though lamptey wields the capacity to procure his visa in person, after five trips he decided to procure his visa by proxy because he felt it was more convenient to do so. he would instead collect the application form, fill it out, obeng, m., k., m. and attach all the relevant documentation including a letter of invitation4 and give it to the visa agent to facilitate the processing at a fee. he pays between us $250 and us$ 300 dollars per application. lamptey had little difficulty settling on what to import because of his experience. his main challenge was where and how he could buy these items. as a strategy, lamptey preferred to have embarked on the journey in the company of an experienced ghanaian importer, but he failed in his bid because of fewer importers of ‘made in china’ items at the time. he, however, secured the services of a non-ghanaian agent in china via the internet and arranged his trip with him. the agent was due to pick him up at the baiyun international airport and guide him through guangzhou. on the day of the departure, lamptey was disappointed when he arrived at the airport and discovered that fewer people had signed up for the program. he, however, was fortunate to have sat next to an experienced importer. he shared his concerns about the trip with the woman and solicited her assistance on the trip. on their way, he learned that there were ghanaians in china who provide intermediary services to new traders. lamptey requested such services and the woman arranged one for him. the preference for a ghanaian intermediary is consistent with most of the ghanaian respondents in this study who almost always preferred, particularly, at the initial stages, to have a ghanaian contact person on their visits. this is also consistent with the literature on the role of what darkwah (2002) calls transient nationalistic networks in helping importers navigate foreign terrain (obeng, 2015). on arrival, lamptey was picked up and assisted to check-in at his hotel and together they discussed where lamptey could find the items he was interested in buying and agreed on the terms of their engagement. lamptey agreed to pay the agent us$50 per day in addition to his meals. lamptey also bore the costs of transportation. lamptey was interested in importing items such as floor and wall tiles, construction materials and electronic gadgets in addition to his core 4 as a measure by the chinese authorities to control the number of persons who enter the country and to ensure that all persons who enter china have legitimate reasons for doing so, the immigration service now insists that all persons desiring to enter china must produce a letter of invitation. for traders, this should be issued by a registered trader, usually, from a major client. for the large-scale traders procuring this letter is easy because they already have clients who have the capacity to issue these letters. the small-scale traders, however, do not have major and regular suppliers with such capacity. to secure this, means resorting to using the services of an agent. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1623 imports. the peripheral import, nonetheless, changes from time to time either as a result of specific requests or because different types of items caught his attention during the market tour. lamptey was astonished by the huge size of the market space and its structuring by wares: master!! their malls and markets are well structured and very huge; so, if you want garments, for example, the whole of accra business district will be for such items. so, when you get there, you will have to walk through these places, observing and making your bargaining. in fact, it will take you more than two or three days just to tour the garment market alone. as a large-scale importer, he was taken to both the city market and showrooms in guangzhou and two other factory sites in the small districts of china. the two factory sites were foshan, for the sanitary items and santon, known for electronics within the guangdong province. these three sites remain his main import destinations. lamptey, like most of his colleagues, even after years of importing from china and the guangdong province, still perceives the region as a learning field. he says: i am always learning on my trips. you see, sometimes, you might be thinking that you are actually dealing with a factory or wholesaler and so you are getting your wares at the best price only for you to realize that the things sell on another floor at half the price in the same department. statements such as the one above gives further credence to the description of china as ‘treacherous’ by the chinese on the african continent. for lamptey, therefore, the key to a successful purchase in china is a combination of meticulousness and persistence. guided by this, he spends the first three to five days acquainting himself with developments within the market by combing the market and bargaining with potential suppliers without necessarily making any financial commitments. this activity was initially undertaken by his agents but over time, he has decided to take charge of it because the agents have consistently not lived up to his expectation. he is, however, unable to terminate the relationship with the agent because of some structural constraints, key among which is the language barrier, particularly as he moves to the outskirts of guangzhou. unlike the business district of guangzhou, where the spread and use of the english language keep improving, in the smaller towns it becomes practically impossible to engage in any meaningful discussion without a chinese-speaking intermediary. in addition obeng, m., k., m. to language, lamptey needs the agent to supervise the delivery of ordered goods that usually tend to be supplied after his departure to ghana. the agent then arranges and supervises the transportation of the goods to ghana. this is in spite of the realization that the agents keep taking undue advantage of his lack of proficiency in the chinese language by pre-arranging prices with suppliers with their mark-up included, a practice he refers to as a bicommission. this is because the agent gains from both parties in a single transaction, a cost that is borne eventually by the trader. to protect his interest, he has changed agents on several occasions, but he remains unsure even of his current agent. in terms of money, lamptey spends between us$ 35000 and us$ 50000 per trip. after a successful purchase, lamptey transports his goods mostly by chartering a 20-foot ‘full container’, but may in addition resort to ‘groupage’ when he has more products than the chartered container could transport. he spends between us$ 6000 and us$ 8000 per 20-foot container subject to the season. he regularly transports some of his imports by air to hold the business until the bulk of his imports arrive. compared to others, lamptey makes fewer (2-3) trips a year at an average airfare cost of us$ 3000. he also complements the direct imports with indirect imports through the help of his agents and suppliers. doing so, however, requires clear instructions and detailed descriptions of the products to avoid any difficulties or misunderstanding. so for instance, if he needs to import suits, he will, in addition to telling them the quantity, sizes and colours of the suits, include the number of buttons for each set and the type of lapel to be affixed. in addition, because he finds it difficult to describe the nature and types of fabrics, he sends samples of the fabrics properly labelled via airmail or other colleagues. he also enters into a written agreement with the supplier in order to protect his stake. in these contracts, lamptey makes a 20%-30% part-payment of the agreed sum and undertakes to pay the difference upon satisfactory delivery of the order. he arrived at this strategy in response to earlier mishaps which almost cost him his capital. although lamptey has reservations about his suppliers, he maintains that if he proves to be trustworthy, his action will be reciprocated by the chinese suppliers. this, he believes, he has achieved successfully. as a result, he enjoys supply on credit, sometimes, even without making any deposits. he returns the money after delivery or sales. notwithstanding this partnership, he remains very sceptical of the quality of the product. he says, “…in business, you never trust 100%.” african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1625 lamptey is not very optimistic about the future of the business even though he aspires to remain in the import business. key to this expression of pessimism is the incursion of the chinese into the retail business in ghana. he sees the chinese as undermining the ghanaian participation in the distribution sector. he vehemently discounts the assertion that it is the ghanaian quest for huge profits that makes the chinese better competitors. instead, he cites two major factors that work to the advantage of the chinese. the first is the comparatively large volume of imports of the chinese. this translates into a cheaper unit cost. secondly, he believes that the chinese circumvent the customs system and thus pay lower import duties than the ghanaians. to illustrate the latter, he recounts an instance where a chinese offered to help him ‘clear his imports’ at a lower cost. this according to him makes it unbearable for him and his counterparts. to illustrate this, he states that there are other colleagues who are now bankrupt because the chinese are retailing at prices below their cost prices in china. he complains of losing some of his bulk buyers to the chinese competitors as a result of the lower chinese prices. to sustain this business, lamptey and his counterparts demand the removal of the chinese retailers from the market space and full implementation of the ghana investment promotion center act, act 825. the gipc act 825, 27 (a and b) grants ghanaians the exclusive right to the “sale of anything whatsoever in a market, petty trading, hawking or selling in a stall at any place”. in 2013 the state responded to this demand by setting up an inter-ministerial task force to address their issue. in the process, several shops operated by the chinese were closed, while others operating illegally were repatriated. the activities of the task force, however, failed because of the complex nature of the situation (obeng, 2018). amid the chinese influx, lamptey has decided to offer some customers who have proven over the years to be credit-worthy, supply credit. the decision to offer commodities on credit, according to lamptey, remains one of the key strategies employed to maintain large-scale customers. closely related to the success of the credit facility is the maintenance of social and personal contacts with traders and the offering of gifts, usually, purchased from china, as a token of appreciation. this offer of giving goods on credit to ‘known customers’ has not always yielded the expected prompt payments from the customers. despite this, it continues to be one of the key strategies that ghanaians use to compete against their chinese counterparts since the chinese lack the social connection based on which credit facilities could be extended and monitored. obeng, m., k., m. this ability to offer goods on credit buttresses petersen and rajan’s (1994) work on small-scale entrepreneurs’ access to bank credit. similarly, uzzi (1999) argues that embedding commercial transactions in ‘social attachment’ allows the lender and the client to overcome their mutually experienced ambiguity. just as it is in the case of banks, suppliers/creditors in this study invest in close personal relationships in the form of frequent interaction with each other’s families in social settings such as child-naming or wedding ceremonies. through these personal and extended ties, the creditors and the customers develop a trust and a deeper knowledge of each other’s character and business dealings (carruthers and ariovich, 2013). in the process, as uzzi (1999:488) points out, both parties form direct relations with third persons such as spouses and children whom they confidently rely on for perceptions of character and trustworthiness in their business dealings with others. such interaction is not common between the chinese suppliers and their customers. as a result, traders who do not readily have the capital to buy from the chinese suppliers at a cheaper cost may still resort to getting their supplies at a relatively higher price from the ghanaian who offers softer terms of payment. the offer of soft payment terms is what allows the ghanaian importers to maintain their status as the main channel through which imported goods are sold in ghana (marfaing and thiel, 2011). akorkor – small-scale importer madam akorkor is a 53-year-old married woman with three children. akorkor lives with her husband and her youngest child in one of the suburbs in accra. although akorkor completed a middle school leavers’ certificate education (mslce), she describes herself as an ‘illiterate’ person, because she cannot express herself fluently in the english language. she sells palm nuts as her main business and sells corn seasonally. she has been doing this for the past 30 years. five years ago, akorkor took a giant step and joined the import business to generate an additional stream of income. she settled on fancy jewellery. she imported from west african cities – lomé and cotonou, the capital cities of togo and benin respectively. the choice of togo and benin was influenced by two key networks who helped her to navigate the two territories, an approach consistent with the role of networks as persons /groups that help new entrants to navigate unknown regions (prell 2012:9). her husband is a beninese so when she decided on cotonou, her husband accompanied her on the first trip and introduced her to one of his family members in the city. the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1627 relative who is a trader herself assisted her during her business trips to cotonou until she was able to navigate the market independently. in lomé, she also had a close friend who lived close to the ghana-togo border and assisted her with accommodation and communication. these persons were, thus, very instrumental in her insertion into the cross-border trade along the ghanaian coast of west africa. six months later, akorkor abandoned togo and concentrated on benin because cotonou offered her more quality products than lomé. after importing from cotonou regularly for two years, akorkor discovered that the items were originally sourced from china at a cheaper cost. that was after she had inquired about the sudden absence of her nigerian counterparts from the cotonou market. on her return from benin, akorkor solicited assistance from a friend to travel to china. at that point, akorkor had made sizeable savings from both her jewellery and oil palm businesses. the friend introduced her to a travel and tour agency to assist her to procure a chinese visa. she paid us$ 400 for the services of the agency. she only had to submit her passport and two passport-size photos. the rest of the documentation such as a letter of invitation from a chinese supplier, statement of account, business registration and tax clearance certificate were procured by the agency on her behalf. the agency also linked akorkor to a ghanaian based in china who serves as a trade broker to facilitate her business activities in china. the business relationship had changed from the initial role of an itinerary agent who was always with her during her visit to china to a business consultant who proffers experts knowledge when approached. akorkor changed her visa agent after two trips because she got better offer from another agency that charged us$ 300 instead of the us$ 400. the cost of her airfare over the periods has ranged between us$ 1000 and us$ 2000 for a return trip. in preparing for her first chinese trip, akorkor sought to know from her friend how much money she needed to make a successful trip to china and back. instead of a direct response, her friend offered her some guidelines. she quotes: i cannot tell you how much money you need, but to be successful on your trip, you must at least have about double the amount you spent securing the visa and your plane ticket and maybe your accommodation in china. obeng, m., k., m. after several years akorkor confirmed the validity of her friend’s guidelines. guided by this advice, akorkor subsequently travels with an amount of between us$10000 and us$ 15000 and makes reasonable returns. similar to the experiences of lamptey, akorkor did not have a problem with her core imports, the jewellery items. as part of her preparation, she undertook a kind of market survey to identify the goods that sell fast at the best prices. to do this, akorkor adopted a combination of pretense and deception. she recounts: i couldn’t go and ask them for their assistance directly, you know ghanaian traders, they will not be truthful. so, what i did was to go to the stores and tell them that i am a regular customer and was there to re-stock. with this, they then opened up to me and i bought some items to be used as samples on my trip…. to be sure, i got the appropriate pricing. i tried to bargain vigorously and bought at the wholesale prices. after a successful market survey and adequate preparation, akorkor made her first trip to guangzhou, china, in february 2010. she was met at the airport by her agent and taken to the agent’s home. the agent had converted his private apartment in china into a guesthouse and rents out rooms within the apartment to his clients at us$ 15 a day compared to the average hotel rate which ranges from us$ 30 to us$ 50. the traders also have access to a kitchen where they can prepare their own preferred dishes during their stay in china. akorkor therefore always carries some ghanaian delicacies on her trips. just like lamptey, akorkor pays her agent us$ 50 a day. she is also responsible for his meals during their trips. the agent also assists her with currency exchange from us dollars to the chinese rmb. it takes 3 to 4 days for her to go through all the business areas and to all the potential shops where she could find her choice of fabrics, dresses, shoes as well as the fancy jewellery. as a strategy, akorkor window-shops on the first 3 days as a form of recognisance. she takes note of potential items and their respective prices with the assistance of her agent because of the language barrier. the routines normally take her to major centres such as the yulong plaza, canaan and the sanyuali sub-way area. other places also toured included dashatou flee markets, the tianxiu building and the denferc hotel areas. these are known to have items that meet the taste of africans and are mostly visited by african small-scale traders (bodomo, 2012; obeng, 2018). after this, she usually dedicates a day in her apartment to compare and review her notes and plan african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1629 her subsequent itineraries. this also includes converting and expressing the cost in ghanaian currency to determine its marketability in the light of products already on the ghanaian market. after these exercises akorkor embarks on her shopping, mediated by the agent, from one shopping outlet to another. in between the regular purchases, akorkor would sometimes purchase items she did not budget for but chanced upon in the course of her shopping when she envisages a potential market for the item in ghana. in fact, some of these items, according to her, on a couple of occasions, had fetched her more profit than her regular imports. akorkor further reveals that it was this possibility of an ‘occasional bonanza’ that had entrenched her desire to always make the chinese trip in person even though she could have arranged for her regular imports to be shipped to ghana on her behalf. akorkor has ceased moving around with her agent but maintains close contacts with him and continues to stay in his apartment, if it is available, when she travels to china. in addition, she calls him for assistance when needed and when she intends visiting an unfamiliar place. she discontinued using the services of the agent mainly because she had become conversant with navigating the market area independently. just like lamptey, akorkor also attributes her decision partly to some unethical practices of the agent. she accuses the agent of not being truthful as he always sought to steal from her either by pre-arranging prices with the suppliers or overstating the cost of services he renders on her behalf. this decision was not taken hastily, though. akorkor prepared and armed herself before finally severing the relationship, albeit not completely. akorkor set out to observe all the relevant processes, closely and to learn some of the relevant expressions in the chinese language. in particular, she learned and took note of key landmarks so she would know where to board and alight from the bus, how to communicate with the taxi drivers and, most importantly, how to negotiate prices with her suppliers. to use a taxi, she learned to collect complimentary cards from all the shops she visited. in order to keep track, akorkor makes notes on all the cards. when she needs to make a visit, she will stop a metered taxi and show the destination to the driver and she will be driven to the destination. similarly, to transact business with the suppliers, akorkor recounts: one just needs a workable calculator and three important chinese phrases. the phrases are, tiga do sa, which translates into ‘how much’; the second is tud tudi, which means ‘reduce the price’ or ‘your last price’; obeng, m., k., m. and haundu haundu, which is to tell the supplier that you are interested in buying in bulk. bodomo (2012:43) calls the use of these simple expressions, combined with the use of a calculator and body movements, “calculator communication”. it works for akorkor because she makes all her purchases in the main cities of guangzhou where these expressions are meaningful to the non-englishspeaking chinese suppliers. this approach, though familiar to mr lamptey, cannot suffice for him, because he does most of his business activities in the less cosmopolitan districts. the service of an intermediary, therefore, becomes indispensable. after a successful purchase, akorkor transports her commodities to ghana by paying the airlines for the excess baggage. she pays between us$ 150 and us$ 200 for every 32 kg luggage and is permitted up to 10 pieces of excess luggage. where she had more goods, she made use of sea transport. unlike lamptey, akorkor does not have a retail outlet where she sells her imports but rents a room where she keeps her imported items. she sells her products through a combination of targeted marketing and personal retailing. she visits boutique owners and wholesalers and showcases her products to them and retails them to friends and other acquaintances, including her palm fruit and corn customers. she has little concern about the increasing presence of chinese retailers in ghana. her challenge relates to the difficulties in acquiring a visa and the depreciation of the ghanaian cedi against the major trading currencies. this is because it increases the cost of her items which directly reduces the volumes that she can import as well as the quantity she is able to sell which ultimately affects her profit margin. for akorkor, therefore, as long as the presence of the chinese traders does not deny ghanaians access to china, the chinese traders pose no threat to her business. conclusion the two cases presented above serve as a signpost to the lives and navigation processes of ghanaian transnational traders who import from china. the study reveals that both men and women with varied trading experiences are involved in the importation of global consumables from guangzhou. in terms of demography, the study confirms the assertion that the import business is a high-class enterprise (bowles, 2013; darkwah 2007). the field is dominated by well-educated people, contrary to the notion that trade is for the poorlyafrican human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1631 educated who cannot find employment in the mainstream economic sector. a significant number also combine their formal sector jobs with their import businesses, as in the case of mr lamptey. although all the importers are within the active working age group, the males are comparatively younger (mostly below 40 years) than the females (mostly above 40 years). a combination of socio-economic factors including male dominance and access to financial capital, result in women’s late entry into the import industry, though they have a longer history of trading. this also influences the nature of items and the volumes of items imported. the regularity and consistency of importing by ghanaians successfully defy the pessimism of the chinese traders on the continent and show the agency of the african traders, as passionate, entrepreneurial and resourceful. this is despite the problem they face from their compatriot agents in china and other issues such as the difficulty in obtaining a travel visa, competition from chinese importers back in africa and depreciation of the local currency. they have achieved this by procuring the services of relevant networks at every stage to render services that they could not perform in person. the longevity or otherwise of these network relationships nonetheless depends on trust and personal capacity. as innocuous as the situations may be to reduce risks, the engagement is done in a piecemeal fashion until the point where trust between the parties is secured. when this is abused, the relations are terminated either completely or are reviewed to safeguard the trader’s interest. succeeding in such environments thus depends on tactfulness. this requires different approaches and strategies to be used by different categories of traders. for instance, small-scale traders, by necessity, have to maintain the networks in order to procure their visas while the large-scale importers do so for convenience. similarly, the services of the itinerary agent in china can be terminated 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deliberately migrating to a preferred destination country at an advanced stage of pregnancy to secure citizenship rights for the child. this study employed concurrent triangulation design – a survey and semi-structured in-depth interviews – to collect data from 260 urban dwellers in three metropolises in ghana – accra, cape coast, and kumasi – who were yet to give birth in the united states and 15 parents who already had a total of 25 american ‘jackpot babies’, to measure a broader spectrum of attitudes toward this phenomenon. this paper records a nuanced continuum of attitudes to the concept of american ‘jackpot babies’, ranging from favorable, to neutral/indifference, to objection to this phenomenon among ghanaian urban dwellers. keywords: birth tourism, attitude, intention, jackpot baby, anchor baby 39 introduction birth tourism to the united states of america (the “united states”, “usa” or “us”) has grown in popularity (heaton and dean, 2016). however, little is known about the attitudes toward this travel trend in the home countries of its participants. birth tourism is travel undertaken by an expectant woman to a foreign country that practices jus soli (right of soil) citizenship to bear a child and return with the child to her country (lollman, 2015; ji and bates, 2017). feere (2010) and arthur (2018) observe that there are about 40 countries in the world that practice jus soli citizenship. canada and the united states are the only developed countries that offer unrestricted citizenship to children born to irregular and temporary immigrants. the only exception is in the instance of children born to diplomats. the us version of jus soli citizenship has been described as more inclusive compared to the other countries and is enshrined in the us constitution; specifically, the citizenship clause of the fourteenth (14th) amendment (schuck, 1998; ho et al., 2009; feere, 2010). birth tourists to the united states come from all over the world, in particular from latin america, eastern asia and europe, with smaller numbers from africa (tetteh, 2010; guerrero, 2013; grant, 2015; altan-olcay and balta, 2016; heaton and dean, 2016; nori, 2016; wang, 2017). also, pearl (2011) indicates that statistics on foreign visitors and anecdotal evidence suggest that tens of thousands of women who are on tourist or business visas give birth in the usa every year. a decade ago, reasoner (2011) estimated that nearly 200,000 children were born annually to shortterm visitors to the usa. the center for immigration studies (cis) in the usa has also reported that out of 300,000 children who are born to foreign citizens in the usa every year, 40,000 are born to birth tourists who are legally in the country (grant, 2015). furthermore, altan-olcay and balta (2016) estimated that in 2011 600 turkish women traveled to the usa during the later stages of their pregnancy to give birth to their children. the number of chinese women who travel to the usa to give birth has more than doubled over the years, that is, from 4,200 in 2008 to about 10,000 in 2012 (heaton and dean, 2016; arthur, 2018). while the above statistics hardly agree on the exact number of birth tourists who travel to the usa in a year, they confirm that there are large numbers of foreign pregnant women from the different parts of the world who give birth in the usa every year. wang (2017) has, however, indicated that the global number of birth tourists is small in comparison to immigrant populations at large. birth tourism to the united states has attracted much empirical attention because of its worldwide popularity, motivations, and implications for the us society. to date, very little attention has been paid to attitudes of the home countries of the birth tourists toward the decision to give birth in the united states. andriotis (2005) posits that an investigation into the attitudes of residents toward tourism can determine the extent to which the community will support or not support tourism. the objective of this study is to examine the attitudes of the ghanaian urban population toward their female compatriots who travel to the united states to have the conundrum of birth tourism and american ‘jackpot babies’ in ghana 40 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 us-born citizens. this paper sheds new light on the intentions to embark on this practice from the perspective of the ghanaian urban dwellers who are yet to have us-born citizens and ghanaian parents of us-born citizens, using their attitudes toward ghanaian birth tourists to the united states as an independent variable. two reasons accounted for the focus of this paper on the ghanaian urban population. first, it has been established that most international migrants from ghana are from the most urbanized regions, especially from the greater accra and ashanti regions (gss, 2013). second, middle-class women from urban areas in ghana travel to the united states to give birth (tetteh, 2010). motivations behind birth tourism to the united states scholars and the media both within and outside the united states have reported that birth tourists to the country come from all over the world, in particular from china, mexico, nigeria, russia, south korea, taiwan, and turkey (feere, 2015; wang, 2017). tetteh (2010) observes that several pregnant women from ghana travel to the united states to have us-born citizens. several other scholars have also deliberated on these women’s motivations for giving birth on us soil (tetteh, 2010; guerrero, 2013; grant, 2015; altan-olcay and balta, 2016; heaton and dean, 2016; nori, 2016). the first motivation for most of the mothers is the right that their us-born citizens would have from the legal age of 18 onwards as stipulated in the immigration and national act (ina) of 1965 to guarantee a path to legal immigration through a sponsorship process for the immediate family members (feere, 2010; nori, 2016; kerwin and warren, 2019a). this sponsorship process is known as family reunification (kerwin and warren, 2019b; sironi et al., 2019). others refer to it as ‘chain migration’ (feere, 2010) but this reference is deemed by some as nativist and offensive. the ina grants this child, at the legal age of 18, a right to sponsor an overseas spouse and his or her unmarried children for permanent residency. also, at the age of 21, the child can legally sponsor the parents and any siblings (feere, 2010). for this reason, this us citizen is called, by mostly anti-immigrant scholars, an ‘anchor baby’ (ward, 2009; feere, 2010). interestingly, most of the country’s growth in immigration levels emanates from family-sponsored immigration. kerwin and warren (2019a) found that in 2017, 87 percent of all immigrants obtained legal permanent residency through the various categories of family reunification. contrary to popular belief, nori (2016) and kerwin and warren (2019a) argue that having us-born citizens do not guarantee the fastest path to legal immigration because the sponsorship process for immediate relatives is lengthy. even though there is no limit on the number of visas issued to immediate relatives, kerwin and warren (2019a) assert that these relatives face barriers to securing visas such as the high cost of application and attorney’s fees. an application fee for naturalization and biometric processing is reported to cost $725 (kerwin and warren, 2019b). the sponsorship process can only start when the us-born child is 21 years old, has a middle-class income and it also depends on whether the immediate family members are residing 41 in or outside the usa (stock, 2012; nori, 2016). aside from these impediments, as of 1 november 2018 nearly 3.7 million intending applicants were in family-based visa backlogs (kerwin and warren, 2019a). the us passport provided shortly after the registration of the child’s birth is the second motivation (feere, 2010). it is advantageous for a family to have a member being a holder of a us passport as it entitles the holder to enter and reside in the united states, travel whenever and wherever he or she chooses, and enjoy almost unrivaled protection (castles, 2005; feere, 2010; reasoner, 2011; altan-olcay and balta, 2016). yet, this claim does not entirely represent the reality in contemporary times because americans require a visa to travel to certain countries like ghana. also, being an american in the era of terrorism does not grant unrivaled protection in certain parts of the world. other motivations include: having access to better maternal care (tetteh, 2010; nori, 2016), securing the benefits of dual citizenship for the child – from the parent’s country and the united states (grant, 2015) and having access to the country’s improved systems of education for their offspring (nori, 2016). hence, the expectation of earning these benefits has become a magnet for birth tourists to travel on valid visas to the united states and the emergence of a birth tourism industry (feere, 2010; reasoner, 2011; ji and bates, 2017; arthur, 2018). the use of the pejorative term ‘jackpot baby’ to refer to a us-born citizen who was born as a result of birth tourism to the united states, has become widespread (guerrero, 2013). attitudes toward birth tourists from the perspective of the american society this paper first investigates american citizens’ attitudes toward birth tourists who travel to their country. from the extant literature, the attitudes of american citizens have mostly been expressed as negative appraisals. the most widely discussed negative appraisal is the disapproval that some immigration experts in the united states have against the right that us-born citizens have and use in sponsoring their immediate relatives for american citizenship and receiving other economic benefits (feere, 2010; reasoner, 2011). these immigration experts believe that these women are abusing the 14th amendment of the us constitution (ward, 2009; lederer, 2013). this disapproval has led to the use of potentially derogatory terms such as ‘anchor baby’ and ‘jackpot baby’. however, these terms differ in definitions because of the mothers’ immigration status at the birth of their babies (ward, 2009; feere, 2010; guerrero, 2013). ward (2009) explains that the term ‘anchor baby’ is used to refer to the speculative possibility that a us-born citizen at the age of 21 will use his or her right to sponsor the extended family members who are non-citizens for permanent residency in the united states. this child becomes an ‘anchor’ for the entire family to reside legally in the country (feere, 2010). the federation for american immigration reform (fair) also defines an ‘anchor baby’ as the offspring of an illegal immigrant the conundrum of birth tourism and american ‘jackpot babies’ in ghana 42 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 or a non-citizen, who under the current legal interpretation becomes an american citizen at birth but can only sponsor his or her parents for immigrant benefits at the age of 21 (culliton-gonzález, 2012). ho (2006) and ho et al. (2009) dispute fair’s assertion that the legal interpretation of the 14th amendment is recent but affirm that jus soli citizenship has been enshrined in the us constitution for the past 150 years. also, the southern poverty law center reported that fair has links with racist groups with a white nationalist agenda (culliton-gonzález, 2012). on the contrary, guerrero (2013) uses the urban dictionary to describe a ‘jackpot baby’ as a child planned and conceived abroad and delivered on us soil solely for the parental desires of becoming us citizens indirectly and receiving other economic benefits. for purposes of this paper, the term american ‘jackpot baby’ is used to highlight the contested and anti-immigrant sentiments espoused by a section of academia, while acknowledging the immigration-related benefits expected to be earned by both the us-born citizen and his or her family. more specifically, the paper uses the term american ‘jackpot baby’ to refer to any child who was born in the united states to either ghanaian parents admitted as short-term visitors or to birth tourists, solely for the child to have access to better opportunities available to american citizens. opponents of birth tourism, including anti-immigration politicians, immigration reform activists, and some scholars hold the belief that birth tourists use deceptive reasons to apply for a visa, gain entry and give birth to earn american citizenship and a social security number for their offspring (tetteh, 2010; grant, 2015). they maintain that these foreign pregnant women are circumventing the legal process of becoming american citizens (feere, 2010; reasoner, 2011; grant, 2015). furthermore, some americans regard birth tourism as unethical practice, as they believe that these women have discovered a ‘loophole’ in the citizenship clause, and that they are taking advantage to secure us citizenship for their unborn children (grant, 2015). however, there is evidence that some birth tourists enter the country legally (reasoner, 2011; grant, 2015) and then avail themselves of rights enshrined in the us constitution. opponents of birth tourism further argue that some immigrants and us-born citizens do not sufficiently embrace the american values and are not fully assimilated into the society to warrant their inclusion as american citizens (junn, 2011). the former president of the united states, donald trump, also added his voice to this negative appraisal. the former president claimed that the abuse of the us’s jus soli citizenship provision by the birth tourists has opened the door to unregulated immigration and instant citizenship (grant, 2015; nori, 2016; cnn, 2018). he further alleged, without any credible evidence, that these us-born citizens and their families do not contribute, show love and respect to american society. consequently, opponents of birth tourism to the united states, including the past president, are advocating for an amendment to or the repeal of the citizenship clause to serve as a deterrent to foreign women who want to claim us-born citizenship for their children. this recommendation has ignited debates that, while they are heated, they are by no means novel. as arthur (2018) observes, these 43 debates have been ongoing for the past 150 years. during the run-up to the mid-term elections on 6 november 2018, former president trump ignited these debates again when he announced his plans to sign an executive order to end jus soli citizenship (arthur, 2018). however, such an order had not been signed by the time he left office on 20 january 2021. other scholars have recommended other measures since the legal route to amend or repeal the citizenship clause is fraught with some challenges (pearl, 2011; arthur, 2018). while most scholars agree with the need to amend the us constitution, they admit that this process is exceedingly difficult. as such, one recommendation is to amend the ina that governs most of the visa rules and eligibility (pearl, 2011). pearl (2011) explains that this amendment would in the first instance detect, deter and penalize foreign women from purposely traveling to the united states to have american ‘jackpot babies’. secondly, it aims to prevent the citizen children from sponsoring their families for permanent residency on return to the united states. as a result, on 24 january 2020 the state department introduced a new travel policy that obliges foreign pregnant women to declare the purpose of their visit to the united states other than for giving birth (bbc, 2020a; graphic online, 2020). conversely, some american citizens have positive attitudes toward birth tourists who travel to their country. to them, american citizens born to foreign parents would become economic and social assets to the united states in adulthood (stock, 2012). stock (2009; 2012) observes that this category of citizens has over the years made contributions to the country in the same way as other americans. they have joined the military, opened prosperous businesses, served in political office, and worked as diplomats. grant (2015) agrees that american ‘jackpot babies’ who stay behind after their studies can become vital assets to the development of the country. in line with this thinking, some legal scholars, politicians, and immigration experts are against the limitation or elimination of the long-standing american provision of jus soli citizenship because they believe this citizenship principle is the bedrock that the country prides itself on (schuck, 1998; stock, 2012). it is also a demonstration of their adherence to the principle of equality for all. on the other hand, there are scholars who have found that this principle is not a reality for all american citizens. there is a denial among some americans of the citizenship rights in both law and fact for native americans, african americans, and other ethnic or religious minorities in the american society, even if they acquire their citizenship by birth (schuck, 1998; aleinikoff, 2001; castles, 2005). deducing from the attitudes toward birth tourists to the united states, from the destination country’s perspective, the negative appraisals confirm what carens (1987) has pointed out, namely that it is common for citizens born in affluent countries like the united states to assume that they are morally entitled to the citizenship of the countries of their birth or countries in which their parents have citizenship. it follows that any potential immigrant from a developing country does not have any right to claim admission into these developed countries beyond an appeal of generosity the conundrum of birth tourism and american ‘jackpot babies’ in ghana 44 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 (carens, 1987). thus, some americans are demanding strong border control, reforms to the political and legal systems to protect their ‘citizenship privilege’ and to determine how new members can be admitted to their country (choules, 2006). choules (2006) describes ‘citizenship privilege’ as the privilege of having citizenship of a safe, stable, and materially affluent country. a distinctive feature of citizenship privilege is that it is acquired through the accident of birth, although it is also possible by naturalization (aleinikoff, 2001; mcintosh, 2002, cited in choules, 2006). american citizenship could therefore be regarded as privileged under these circumstances. however, the positive appraisals acknowledge the contribution of us-born children of immigrants (referred to by some as american ‘jackpot babies’) as one of the factors that has led to the united states attaining a superpower status because these immigrants have become economic and social assets to the country (stock, 2012). theory of planned behavior an influential model that used attitude toward behavior as an independent determinant in predicting human social behavior is the theory of planned behavior (ajzen, 2011; kor and mullan, 2011). this theory posits that an individual’s intent to behave in a certain way can be predicted by three independent variables – attitude toward the behavior, subjective norm concerning the behavior, and perceived behavioral control (kor and mullan, 2011; ajzen, 2020). attitude refers to the person’s overall evaluation of performing a given behavior where the implication is, the more positive the person’s attitude, the more likely he or she will have the intention to perform the behavior (rise et al., 2010). also, nunkoo and ramkissoon (2010) aver that having a positive attitude toward a behavior is an indication of support while a negative attitude suggests opposition to the said behavior. in this paper, attitudes toward ghanaian birth tourists who travel to the united states were used to investigate the intention of the country’s urban population to have american ‘jackpot babies’. a frequently cited criticism of this theory is that it is too ‘rational’ and unaffected by emotions (ajzen, 2011). however, ajzen (2011) clarifies that behavior can be said to be planned, provided that attitudes toward the behavior follow automatically and consistently from people’s beliefs. it follows that attitudes, intentions, and behaviors are consistent with people’s beliefs even if they are inaccurate, biased, or irrational (geraerts et al., 2008; ajzen, 2011). therefore, affect and emotions can serve as background factors that can influence intention and behavior directly or indirectly (ajzen, 2011). the investigation of attitude (i.e., personal evaluation) will reveal a different aspect of birth tourism to the united states among the ghanaian urban population. 45 methods data collection the data presented in this paper was extracted from fieldwork conducted by the first author between may 2017 and march 2018, into the intentions and experiences of having american ‘jackpot babies’ among the ghanaian urban dwellers. the paper uses the term urban dwellers to refer to the ghanaian urban middle class and adopted the african development bank’s (adb) definition of a middle class. the bank’s representative for ghana in 2013, marie-laure akin-olugbade, suggested that everyone who spends the equivalent of $2 to $20 per capita per day has a middle-class status (bbc world service, 2013; lentz, 2016). accordingly, akin-olugbade stated that about 46 percent of ghanaians have a middle-class status. data was collected from the three most urbanized metropolises located within the most urbanized regions in ghana – greater accra, ashanti, and central regions, using a crosssectional survey and semi-structured in-depth interviews. the appropriate ethics committee cleared the data collection instruments before use. accra, kumasi, and cape coast metropolises were thus purposively selected from the sampled regions because of the consistent status of being the most urbanized regions since ghana’s independence (gss, 2012; 2013). this method was deemed the most appropriate given that the approach adopted helped to examine the convergence or differences between the attitudes of urban dwellers who were yet to have, and parents who had, american ‘jackpot babies’ toward ghanaian birth tourists who travel to the united states (creswell, 2012; saunders et al., 2012). the researchers developed a survey, using a self-completed questionnaire and took care to sequence the questions so that the responses provided were not biased (mcburney and white, 2010; saunders et al., 2012). the questionnaire design used a combination of different question types like open-ended, closed-ended, likert scale, among others. before the research commenced, the researchers piloted the survey instrument and made minor changes. the researchers opted for a multistage sampling procedure, which combined both probability and non-probability techniques to select 400 urban dwellers from a sampling frame of 1,526,433. the sample size was reached with the help of yamane’s (1967) formula, which considers a 95 percent confidence level and 0.05 level of precision. the questionnaire was administered to urban dwellers with these key variables: aged 18 years and older, literate in english and a ghanaian language, and have not given birth in the united states. a total of 260 questionnaires were completed, representing a 65 percent response rate. the breakdown of the 260 respondents across the selected study areas was as follows: 115 from the accra metropolis, 55 from the cape coast metropolis, and 90 from the kumasi metropolis. for the semi-structured in-depth interviews, the researchers recruited parents who are ghanaian citizens residing in any of the three study areas and who had given birth to american ‘jackpot babies’, through purposive and snowball sampling. the conundrum of birth tourism and american ‘jackpot babies’ in ghana 46 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 the first author used personal networks to contact the parents, but networks in the kumasi metropolis were not able to yield potential interviewees from this city. the initial interviewees were solicited to become de facto research assistants. a de facto assistant is a gatekeeper but also a participant in the study (biernacki and waldorf, 1981). eventually, three de facto assistants recruited six other eligible participants from their social networks to take part in the research. the researchers decided not to recruit any new participants after the 15th interview, as no additional relevant knowledge was obtained (bailey, 2007; creswell, 2012; saunders et al., 2012). twelve parents in accra and three parents in cape coast were interviewed. the researchers captured the parents’ responses on an audio recorder with their consent and provided assurances of anonymity. additionally, the researchers took short notes of some key information to allow for further clarification if need be, bearing in mind that the focus of this study is on the parents’ attitudes toward other compatriots who also have american ‘jackpot babies’. the researchers conducted the interviews in english; these lasted between 30 and ninety minutes each. locations for the interviews were at the parents’ discretion and they chose a variety of locations (i.e., car, homes, and offices). data analysis the researchers analyzed the data from the survey, using spss version 20 and stata 14.1. the major analyses performed were univariate, bivariate, and logistic regression modeling. the results of the univariate analysis described the sociodemographic characteristics (i.e., age, sex, education, employment, marital status) of the respondents, which are presented first. the results of the logistic regression modeling follow next, which assess the strength of the cause-and-effect relationship between the independent variables, some intermediate variables (not discussed within this paper), and the intentions to have an american ‘jackpot baby’ as the dependent variable (saunders et al., 2012). the researchers used the urban dwellers’ responses to the question about the attitudes toward ghanaian birth tourists to the united states to determine the intentions. they also tested all associations at a 95 percent confidence level, using the spss and stata. the researchers then transcribed the audio information from the interviews verbatim into text. each transcript was then either emailed or hand-delivered to the parents by the first author to read through to ensure their responses were correctly represented and not modified to suit the researcher’s agenda and knowledge (tong et al., 2007). the research team analyzed the qualitative data obtained using a thematic analysis approach (braun and clarke, 2012). this process involved the research team manually developing themes from the transcripts and responses to the open-ended questions on the questionnaires about the attitudes toward ghanaian birth tourists to the united states, which dictated the discussion (creswell, 2012). some of the direct quotes from the survey and transcribed interviews also provided the ‘spice’ for the discussion of the findings within this study (blumberg et al., 2011). the inclusion of 47 quotations from different parents ensured the transparency and trustworthiness of the findings and interpretations made (bailey, 2007; tong et al., 2007). the research team protected the identities of parents by using pseudonyms. the findings are discussed in the succeeding sections. results and discussion profile of the ghanaian urban dwellers over half (51.5%) of the respondents of the survey were females and a little over 7 out of every 10 (72.3%) urban dwellers sampled were between the ages of 20-34 years. table 1 below illustrates the key socio-demographic characteristics of urban dwellers who were yet to have american ‘jackpot babies’. out of the overall sample, two-thirds (63.5%) of the respondents were never married whereas about 36.5 percent were ever married. the ever-married category includes currently married (33.1%), informal or consensual union (1.5%), widowed (0.8%), separated (0.7%), and 0.4 per cent were divorced. for the entire sample, 68.8 percent were in salaried or wage employment. most of the respondents in salaried or wage employment were professionals in academia, administration, banking, health, civil and public service. however, less than a quarter (23.5%) were students, who reflect the social dynamics within the three metropolises, such as being hosts to tertiary institutions (e.g., universities, nursing training schools, among others). table 1 also shows that most of the respondents (91.1%) had tertiary or higher education, with the majority indicating that they have an undergraduate degree. the target population for this study was urban middleclass ghanaians who naturally have a higher propensity to have a good education. additionally, the selected metropolises are popular destinations for ghanaians who move from rural areas to the cities for better opportunities such as tertiary education and jobs (gss, 2013; 2014). the parents interviewed were aged from the mid-30s to the late-60s and only three were fathers. regarding the marital status, there were eight married women, two marital dyads, one divorcee, one husband, and one single woman. the highest education qualification for five of the parents was a doctorate; six had master’s degrees, three had bachelor’s degrees, one had a diploma, and one was a doctoral student. most of the parents were in salaried or wage employment but two mothers were unemployed. those who were employed, were in the following professions: academia, banking, civil service, horticulture, marketing, nursing, and teaching. one mother was a lawyer in addition to working in the public service. the sampled parents had a total of 25 american ‘jackpot babies’, whose ages ranged from below 1 year to 32 years. out of this number, only two were 18 years and above, 13 were males while the rest were females. thus, each parent had at least one american ‘jackpot baby’, with the maximum being three american ‘jackpot babies’. the conundrum of birth tourism and american ‘jackpot babies’ in ghana 48 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 table 1: socio-demographic characteristics of urban dwellers yet to have american ‘jackpot babies’ source: field data, 2018 1 jhs: junior high school 2 shs: senior high school 3 voc: vocational 4 tertiary: bachelor’s degree the research study found that both sample sets of ghanaian urban dwellers have a few similarities. the majority of the respondents were females, of a youthful age, welleducated, and economically active professionals. the diverse formal occupations of the parents were an indication of having the required motility to give birth in the united states (kaufmann, 2014). conversely, there was a noticeable difference in the marital status where most of the respondents of the survey were never married compared to the interviewees who were married. this finding confirms what the ghana statistical service (gss) observed in 2015 – that ghanaians who partake in international tourism are usually married. most of the american ‘jackpot babies’ born to the parents were males below the age of 18 years. variables frequency percentage sex female 134 51.5 male 126 48.5 age (years) <20 22 8.5 20-34 188 72.3 35-49 44 16.9 50+ 6 2.3 educational attainment jhs 3 1.2 shs/voc/tech 20 7.7 tertiary/higher 237 91.1 marital status never married 165 63.5 ever married 95 36.5 type of employment salary/wage employee 179 68.8 self-employed 14 5.4 student 61 23.5 other 6 2.3 total 260 100.0 49 attitudes toward ghanaian women who have american ‘jackpot babies’ attitude is a function of an individual’s belief that performing a given behavior will result in certain outcomes, either positive or negative (coleman et al., 2011). ajzen (2020) similarly describes belief as a person’s subjective probability in performing behavior of interest that results in a certain outcome. this study categorized the most frequent recurring responses regarding attitudes into favorable, unfavorable, and neutral (see table 2). table 2: attitudes towards ghanaian women who have american ‘jackpot babies’ source: field data, 2018 favorable evaluation two central themes ran through the favorable appraisal: a strategy to secure a better future for children (34.6%); and the acquisition of american citizenship to gain access to its associated benefits (24.2%). some of the respondents to the survey and most of the interviewees held the belief that giving birth in the united states is a good strategy, driven by parental instinct to guarantee a better future or opportunities for unborn children (sundari, 2005; pine, 2014). this could be achieved when the children migrate to the united states in adulthood. this appraisal revealed that parents viewed the travel to the united states to give birth as an exhibition of faith and hope that future migration of the us-born persons to their country of birth will enhance life chances (pine, 2014). yet, a father of a us-born child disagreed with this view. he substantiated his objection by comparing the social dynamics within ghana and the united states. to him, ghana is far better than the united states: what is a better future? have you seen the statistics on crime in the united states? your skin might not help you if they are looking for anybody who is black, and you are at the wrong place at the wrong time. didn’t you see the attitude frequency percentage favorable evaluation a strategy to secure a better future for children 90 34.6 american citizenship & its associated benefits 63 24.2 unfavorable evaluation disapproval 46 17.7 lack of patriotism & confidence in ghana 33 12.7 neutral evaluation indifference & personal choice 28 10.8 total 260 100.0 the conundrum of birth tourism and american ‘jackpot babies’ in ghana 50 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 bombings? so, if you are in here [ghana] and there is no crisis; why will you have a reason to go over there [the united states]? (kingsley, 67 years, accra). the above quote alludes to how an american citizen’s race might endanger his or her life in the united states. accordingly, some scholars have acknowledged that not every american citizen would be entitled to full and equal rights. this is more so for us-born children of undocumented parents. castles (2005), for instance, argues that native americans, african americans, other ethnic or religious minorities encounter challenges in successfully claiming rights as american citizens. although the legal rights and obligations of american citizens are formally equal, there is a denial of rights in law and fact for american citizens from minority groups (schuck, 1998; aleinikoff, 2001). thus, aleinikoff (2001) asserts that the representation of american citizenship as a magic circle that entitles those within it to full and equal rights is misleading and worrisome. the northern hemisphere summer of 2020 was characterized by heightened racial tension with attendant anti-racism protests in the united states and around the world. these protests, following the killing of george floyd on 25 may 2020, demanded justice for minority groups (bbc, 2020b). floyd died as a white police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. the recent past has seen the frequent shooting incidents of unarmed african americans and africans by the police and other citizens and the subsequent acquittal of the perpetrators of these crimes. resultantly, civil rights movements like the “black lives matter” movement have been holding protests within and outside the united states since its inception in 2013 to demand equality, access to basic human rights, and dignity for the victims and minority groups. these exceptions in claiming equal rights as american citizens confirm the existence of differentiated citizenship within the american society (castles, 2005). the second theme confirmed the perception that certain rights and benefits are conferred on individuals based on their birthplace (pessar and mahler, 2003; shachar and hirschl, 2007). therefore, according to the urban dwellers, ghanaian birth tourists evaluate what the citizenship status of the two countries offers their offspring. they arrive at the conclusion that american citizenship is more beneficial because of the assurances of certain rights and benefits that ghanaian citizenship does not guarantee (castles, 2005; choules, 2006). some of the benefits and rights enumerated, included: prestige attached to being an american citizen; a passport that allows the holder to travel without any hindrances; and access to a good education. most of the female respondents were of the view that giving birth in the united states paves the way for their offspring to have undeniable access to those privileges. comfort’s response underscores this position: i did that purposely for him to take advantage of the american educational system. america has one of the best educational systems and also boosts confidence in a human being. i realized that here [ghana] they make us 51 [ghanaians] very timid. a blend of ghana’s timidity and america’s confidence was what i wanted for my son (comfort, 52 years, accra). the favorable evaluation confirmed the assertion by coleman et al. (2011) that individuals holding a positive attitude toward a given behavior, believe that executing this behavior (i.e., having an american ‘jackpot baby’) will lead to the desired outcomes for the parents, children, and families. unfavorable evaluation conversely, about a third (30.4%) of the urban dwellers were not enthused that their female compatriots were traveling purposely to have so-called american ‘jackpot babies’ because this behavior is associated with undesirable consequences. the two dominant themes identified under the unfavorable appraisal were disapproval (17.7%) and lack of patriotism and confidence in ghana (12.7%). some of the negative appraisals were, however, described and expressed in strong language, that included: ‘cheats’; ‘illiterates’; ‘ignorant’; ‘opportunist’; ‘repugnant’; ‘disrespectful’; and an ‘act of betraying our national identity’. bianchi and stephenson (2013) maintain that historically, citizenship has been closely associated with national identity. this category of urban dwellers believes that the travels to the united states to have offspring with an american identity convey the message that ghanaian identity is not valued (shils, 1995). smith (1991) and lewin-epstein and levanon (2005) explain that national identity together with nationality help individuals to define who they are and provide them with a sense of purpose through the prism of collective personality and its distinctive culture. one of the female respondents initially agreed with these sentiments but later offered a justification for why birth tourists like her made a decision to give birth in the united states: yeah, many of us are not proud to be ghanaians. that is the sad truth. there is no reason to sugar-coat this because many of us [ghanaians] are trying to get out of the country [ghana]. but we are afraid for our children. for example, we cannot trust our educational system. so, i think for many of us [parents], we are trying to get the best for our children. in spite of how patriotic we are, the bottom line is that we want what is best for our children (thelma, 40 years, cape coast). her narrative suggests that a secure citizenship status in a country is a crucial factor in determining an individual’s life chances. access to privileged citizenship, therefore, perpetuates global inequality (shachar and hirschl, 2007; shachar, 2009; balta and altan-olcay, 2016). shachar and hirschl (2007) argue that a child born in a developed country would have far better living conditions than a child born in a developing country. moreover, citizens born in developed countries are described as having the ‘right’ citizenship because they are more likely to enjoy better life opportunities, social the conundrum of birth tourism and american ‘jackpot babies’ in ghana 52 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 conditions, and freedoms compared to the citizens who have the ‘wrong’ citizenship from the developing countries who are likely to be poor, suffer starvation and disease, and die younger (shachar, 2009; orgad, 2011). additionally, citizenship in western liberal democracies has been described as the modern equivalent of feudal privilege – an inherited status that greatly enhances one’s life chances (carens, 1987; shachar and hirschl, 2007). neutral evaluation the last sentence from thelma’s quote above supports the viewpoint of about 10.8 percent of the urban dwellers who participated in the survey, who had an indifferent attitude toward ghanaian birth tourists to the united states. they believed that having an american ‘jackpot baby’ is a personal choice and the right of anyone to decide where to give birth and what is appropriate for their unborn children. thus, the analyses on attitudes indicate that most of the urban dwellers who participated in this study had a favorable evaluation and an indication of strong intentions to have american ‘jackpot babies’, especially for those who were yet to have one (ajzen, 2020). coleman et al. (2011) describe intention as the best predictor of behavior. moreover, a positive attitude suggests support for birth tourism to the united states (andriotis, 2005; nunkoo and ramkissoon, 2010). aside from this indication, ajzen (2020) contends that intentions are dynamic because of access to new information, and people rarely act on their intentions. furthermore, a favorable attitude at least discloses the motivations of those who are yet to have, and those who have had american ‘jackpot babies’ (ajzen, 2020). apart from the favorable and unfavorable evaluation that the theory of planned behavior indicated that people would express toward a given behavior, this research study established that there is also a neutral evaluation. subsequently, a binary regression model was used to analyze attitudes toward ghanaian birth tourists to the united states and other factors to determine the intentions of ghanaian urban dwellers to have an american ‘jackpot baby’ (see table 3). the model established that 35.4 percent of the intentions to have an american ‘jackpot baby’ are explained by the socio-demographic conditions of the respondents. thus, 64.6 percent of the intentions to have an american ‘jackpot baby’ are not explained by other factors not considered in the larger study. the only significant predictor variable in the model was the attitudes toward ghanaian birth tourists to the united states. all the other socio-demographic variables were not significant predictors of intentions to have an american ‘jackpot baby’. nonetheless, the effect of attitudes toward ghanaian birth tourists to the united states on intentions to have an american ‘jackpot baby’ was negative. the various attitudes exhibited by the sampled population toward ghanaian birth tourists to the united states were less likely to influence urban dwellers’ intentions to participate in birth tourism to the united states compared to those who have the attitude that having an american ‘jackpot baby’ is a strategy to secure a better future for children. 53 table 3: logistic regession on factors determining the intentions to have an american 'jackpot baby' variables socio-demographic characteristics coef. std. err. odds ratio p>z confidence interval sex male (rc) female -0.300 0.432 0.741 0.487 -1.146 0.546 age (years) <20 (rc) 20 34 0.209 0.980 1.232 0.832 -1.713 2.130 35 49 0.087 1.200 1.091 0.942 -2.264 2.439 50+ years -0.380 1.401 0.684 0.786 -3.126 2.366 education attainment jhs/shs/voc/tech (rc) tertiary/higher 0.899 0.795 2.458 0.258 -0.660 2.458 residence kma (rc) cape coast -0.116 0.813 0.891 0.887 -1.708 1.477 ama 0.040 0.526 1.041 0.939 -0.990 1.071 type of employment salary/wage employee (rc) self employed -0.292 0.648 0.747 0.652 -1.562 0.978 student 0.819 0.749 2.267 0.275 -0.650 2.287 other 0.798 3.122 2.220 0.798 -5.322 6.917 ethnicity akan (rc) ga-dangme -0.389 0.599 0.678 0.516 -1.562 0.785 ewe -0.421 0.614 0.656 0.493 -1.625 0.782 other -0.276 0.819 0.759 0.736 -1.881 1.330 marital status never married (rc) ever married 0.013 0.572 1.013 0.981 -1.108 1.135 determinants of the intentions to have an american ‘jackpot baby' awareness of ghanaian women participation in birth tourism to the united states yes (rc) no -0.902 0.828 0.406 0.276 -2.524 0.721 know a ghanaian birth tourist to the united states yes (rc) no -0.715 0.425 0.489 0.093 -1.549 0.119 the conundrum of birth tourism and american ‘jackpot babies’ in ghana 54 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 source: field data, 2018. rc: reference category as seen in table 3, respondents who had the attitude that having an american ‘jackpot baby’ is proof of the lack of patriotism and confidence in ghana, are 0.035 times less likely to have the intentions of having an american ‘jackpot baby’ compared with those who think it is a strategy to secure a better future for children. also, the respondents who disapproved of the idea of having an american ‘jackpot baby’ were 0.018 times less likely to have the intentions to have an american ‘jackpot baby’ compared with those who thought it is a strategy to secure a better future for children. moreover, respondents who had an indifferent view or belief that having an american ‘jackpot baby’ is an individual choice, were also less likely to have the intentions to have an american ‘jackpot baby’ compared with those who thought it is a strategy to secure a better future for children. this study thus concludes that compared to having the attitude that giving birth in the united states is a strategy to secure a better future for children, urban dwellers at the three metropolises are less likely to have the intentions to have an american ‘jackpot baby’. conclusion the purpose of this paper is to build an understanding of a complex and multifaceted phenomenon – birth tourism to the united states – by investigating the attitudes of ghana’s urban population toward ghanaian parents who have us-born babies. this paper has established that there is a favorable attitude toward ghanaian birth tourists who give birth in the united states, and this represented almost 59 percent of the survey participants. the positive appraisal spelled out the motivations that would induce an urban dweller in ghana to give birth in the united states and prompt another to follow suit. the binary regression model also revealed that 35 percent of the intentions are explained by the socio-demographic characteristics of urban dwellers. the attitudes toward ghanaian birth tourists to the united states constitute attitudes towards ghanaian birth tourists to the united states a strategy to a better future for children (rc) us citizenship & its benefits -0.328 0.633 0.721* 0.605 -1.568 0.913 disapproval -4.004 0.710 0.018* 0.001* -5.395 -2.613 lack of patriotism & confidence -3.340 0.722 0.035* 0.001* -4.756 -1.924 indifference & personal choice -1.971 0.611 0.139* 0.001* -3.168 -0.774 amend american jus soli yes (rc) no 0.180 0.434 1.198 0.678 -0.671 1.031 constant 1.600 1.149 0.164 -0.652 3.853 pseudo r2 0.354* 55 the only significant predictor variable in the model but its effect on the intentions to have an american ‘jackpot baby’ is negative. this result disproves some scholars’ assumption that an attitude toward a given behavior is a sufficient predictor of one’s intention to perform a given behavior in relation to birth tourism to the united states, within the ghanaian context. however, this study recognizes that a missing independent variable in the model could be income. income could have become a natural predictor in the model since having american ‘jackpot babies’ is a capitalintensive endeavor. nonetheless, the educational qualifications and the types of employment of respondents to the survey and interviewees, indirectly allude to the income levels. despite the results from the logistic regression model, this paper has provided a deeper insight into the intentions of having so-called american ‘jackpot babies’ among urban dwellers in a developing country context. that is, the global inequality in the acquisition of citizenship is the primary motivating factor that would drive some ghanaian urban dwellers to act ‘rationally’ by using international tourism as a means to acquire the ‘right’ citizenship from the united states for their offspring. they see american citizenship as a privileged and opportunity-enhancing tool to obtain for the benefit of their children and families (choules, 2006; shachar and hirschl, 2007). another strength of this paper is that a neutral evaluation should be taken into consideration in addition to the favorable and unfavorable evaluation that the theory of planned behavior had indicated as criteria in evaluating attitude as an independent determinant of intention to perform a given behavior. ultimately, a reasonable approach to tackle global inequality perpetuated by hierarchical citizenship leading to the desire to have a so-called american ‘jackpot baby’ is to ensure each country’s citizenship functions as an opportunity-enhancing tool. acknowledgments the authors extend special thanks to all the gatekeepers and the participants of the study who formed the basis for this study. the authors also wish to thank benjamin kobina kwansa, mumuni abu and seidu amenyaglo for their support. disclosure statement the authors have no potential conflict of interest to report. funding this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. the conundrum of birth tourism and american ‘jackpot babies’ in ghana 56 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 references ajzen, i. 2011. the theory of planned behaviour: reactions and reflections. psychology and health, 26(9): 1113-1127. available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/08870446 .2011.613995 ajzen, i. 2020. the theory of planned behavior: frequently asked questions. human behavior and emerging technologies, 2(4): 314-324. 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countries in crisis: the experiences of ghanaian and nigerien migrants during the libyan crisis of 2011 navigating the unknown treasures of guangzhou, china: ghanaian traders’ networks and strategies cross-cultural ties between ghana and egypt: the agency of the egyptian community in accra, ghana practical and policy implications of the migration of pastoralists in west africa ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor prof mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh university of pretoria, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delgado wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof simon bekker university of stellenbosch, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, sao paulo and manila. ahmr is accredited by the department of higher education and training (dhet) in south africa. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). webpage: www.sihma.org.za copyright © 2019 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 461 4741, email: editor@sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ http://www.sihma.org.za/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) special issue: migration in west africa contents iv-vii introduction by prof joseph kofi teye 1556 ambiguity and symbolism in the implementation of the ecowas free movement protocol: evidence from ghana and sierra leone joseph kofi teye, mariama awumbila and ebenezer nikoi 1583 migrants in countries in crisis: the experiences of ghanaian and nigerien migrants during the libyan crisis of 2011 leander kandilige and manou nabara hamidou 1611 navigating the unknown treasures of guangzhou, china: ghanaian traders’ networks and strategies mark kwaku mensah obeng 1637 cross-cultural ties between ghana and egypt: the agency of the egyptian community in accra, ghana edmond akwasi agyeman and akwasi kwarteng amoako-gyampah 1650 practical and policy implications of the migration of pastoralists in west africa patience adzande african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) iv introduction by prof joseph kofi teye in recognition of the benefits of migration and the challenges associated with its management, many governments and development partners have, in recent years, been discussing how to develop effective frameworks for migration governance at the national, regional and international levels (mangala, 2017). as a result of the increasing realisation that population mobility can contribute to socio-economic transformation of both migrant sending and receiving areas, migration management was, in 2015, included in the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the sustainable development goals (sdgs) (oecd/ilo 2018), marking the first time that migration is formally integrated into the global development agenda. although population mobility, in west africa, is not a recent phenomenon (adepoju, 2006), the region has become the focus of academic and policy discussions on population mobility in recent years because it is characterised by high level of labour migration (olsen, 2011) and displacement (boateng, 2012). while political narratives and media images suggest an ‘exodus’ of africans to europe, a majority of west african migrants travel to destinations within the region (teye et al, 2015). in 2006, for instance, swac and oecd (2006) estimated that 84% of migrations from west africa are directed towards another country in the region. similarly, more recent data provided by the united nations department of economic and social affairs united nations department of economic and social affairs (un desa) shows that about 72% of west african migrants remain in the region (un desa, 2018). intra-regional migration patterns in the west african region have shown a certain historical continuity of mobility patterns observed in the colonial era, with many migrants moving from countries in sahel zone (i.e. mali, burkina faso, and niger) to the mineral-rich and plantation-rich coastal countries, especially côte d’ivoire, ghana, nigeria, senegal and the gambia (awumbila et al, 2014). it is estimated that west african intra-regional migration movements, which involve about 7.5 million persons, are seven times greater than migration movements from west africa to the rest of the world (swac and oecd 2006). olsen (2011) asserted that, with more than 3% of the regional population circulating within west africa, migration within the region is about six times higher than intra-european mobility. internal  director of the centre for migration studies, university of ghana. email: jteye@ug.edu.gh african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) v migration is also very pervasive in west africa due to rapid urbanization. trafficking in children and women is also common in the region. large-scale refugee movements, mainly caused by civil wars and ethnic conflicts, are also widespread in contemporary west africa (boateng, 2012). intra-regional migration in west africa is largely facilitated by the protocol on free movement of persons, right of residence and establishment which was adopted in 1979 by the economic community of west african states (ecowas), made up of 15 of the 16 in countries in west africa. the free movement protocol, which is based on an understanding that regional cooperation in the field of labour migration could promote the transfer of skills and assets, seeks to ensure that citizens of ecowas states are able to enter any ecowas member state visa free for up to 90 days. outside africa, europe is the most popular destination of west african migrants. since 1970s, economic crisis and political conflicts have contributed significantly to migration from west africa to north africa towards europe. both highly skilled and unskilled migrants continue to migrate to europe, either regularly or irregularly. although irregular migration from africa to europe is not a new phenomenon, irregular entry of europe by west africans who travel through the mediterranean has received public attention in recent years. west africans constitute about 60% of irregular arrivals in italy and spain (de haas, 2006). as a result of restrictive visa regimes imposed by traditional countries of destination in europe, there has been increasing migration of west africans to asia countries, especially china and the gulf states, in recent years. despite the high level of mobility within west africa, there is a general paucity of data and research findings on various dimensions of population mobility and its outcomes within west africa. existing knowledge gaps make it difficult to integrate migration into development planning processes in the region (awumbila et al, 2017). for instance, policy prescription in many west african countries tend to discourage migration because of its negative effects, such as shortage of labour, migrants smuggling, human trafficking and pressure on social amenities in urban centres. yet, there is little understanding of the developmental impacts of various types of migration on migrants, host communities and families left behind. as a way of helping to fill some of these gaps in knowledge, this special issue seeks to provide an analysis of migration within, from and towards west africa, particularly from the perspectives of migration scholars in the west african region. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) vi the first article written by teye, awumbila and nikoi examines the challenges to the implementation of the ecowas protocol on free movement, with particular reference to ghana and sierra leone. the authors demonstrated that the factors that negatively affect the implementation of the free movement protocol include policy ambiguities, harassment of migrants at the borders, migrants’ lack of travel documents, low level of knowledge about ecowas protocol, resource constraints, securitization of migration, economic challenges and political instability. the authors conclude that future implementation outcomes of the ecowas protocol will largely depend on the commitment of the member states and ability of ecowas to develop mechanisms to deal with states that continue to violate the rights of migrants. in the second article in this issue, kandilige and hamidou collected data on the experiences of ghanaian and nigerien migrants who were affected by the 2011 libyan crisis to examine how micro-level factors shape migration decision-making processes. the authors argued that migration culture, the desire to improve household livelihoods, existence of social networks and activities of migrant smuggling rings promote migration to libya. having identified the limitations of repatriation and evacuation programmes put in place by the ghanaian and nigerian governments during the libyan crisis, the authors make a recommendation for the development of regional evacuation and repatriation programmes to facilitate the timely extraction of trapped migrants from countries in crisis. the third paper written by obeng employed multiple ethnographic methodologies to examine african importers’ participation in the burgeoning economy of china. he argues that strategies employed by these importers are based on various factors such as the size of capital, trading experiences and locations of their imports. the fourth article by agyeman and gyampah also adopts a historical perspective to analyse cross-cultural ties between ghana and egypt though an analysis of the agency of the egyptian community in accra, ghana. the authors examine the type of cross-border and transnational ties that egyptian migrants in ghana have established between ghana and egypt and how these ties generate cross-cultural relations between ghana and egypt. they argued that due to high profile intermarriages between ghanaians and egyptians and the nkrumah factor, the egyptian community in ghana occupies a privileged economic and political position in ghana the last paper, written by adzande, discusses how climate induced migration of itinerant pastoralists from countries in central and west africa into nigeria african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) vii is contributing to conflicts. the author noted that states in north and central nigeria are experiencing heightened conflicts between sedentary farmers and itinerant herders, and this has given rise to the disruption of livelihoods, leading to a major threat to food security. they argue that the ecowas protocol on free movement is unintentionally contributing these conflicts. taken together, the papers provide multi-disciplinary perspectives on contemporary migration issues within the west african region. although the papers presented in this special issue are diverse, they all indicate the need for policy interventions that can reduce the negative outcomes associated with migration while maximising its developmental impacts. the article led by teye and adzande’s paper demonstrate the weaknesses of the ecowas free movement protocol for the management of migration within the region. similarly, the paper led by kandilige demonstrates the need for effective regional level framework for dealing with humanitarian crises associated with migration. the three papers taken together therefore discuss the weaknesses of current regional level migration and displacement governance systems. obeng’s article and the paper led by agyeman demonstrate the importance of social networks in facilitating migration flows and enhancing the outcomes of migration. while obeng showed how ghanaian traders rely on networks of social capital with agents in their trading activities, agyemang and his colleagues demonstrated how similar networks help egyptians to enjoy certain privileges in ghana. the papers demonstrate that despite the undesirable outcomes of migration, there are unique windows of opportunity to make it a triple win situation for the migrant, the origin and the receiving countries. this requires intensification of lesson drawing, knowledge sharing, and purposive interactions among researchers, policy makers, development partners, social partners and other stakeholders. the special issue discusses topical issues which should be of interest to migration scholars, policy makers, and development practitioners. references adepoju. a. 2006. the challenge of labour migration flows between west africa and the maghreb. international migration programme, ilo, geneva. awumbila, m.,y, benneh, j.k. teye, and atiim, g. 2014. across artificial borders: an assessment of labour migration in the ecowas region. brussels: acp observatory on migration. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) viii awumbila, m., badasu, d. and teye, j.k (eds.). 2017. migration in a globalizing world: perspectives from ghana. accra: sub-saharan publishers. boateng, a. 2012. survival voices: social capital and the well-being of liberian refugee women in ghana. journal of immigrant & refugee studies, 8(4): 386– 408. de haas, h. 2006. trans-saharan migration to north africa and the eu: historical roots and current trends. migration information source. from <www.migrationinformation.org> (retrieved 5 august 2019). mangala, j. (ed.). 2017. africa and its global diaspora: the policy and politics of emigration. new york: palgrave macmillan. oecd/ilo, 2018. how immigrants contribute to ghana’s economy. oecd publishing: paris. from <https://bit.ly/2yuegn6> (retrieved 5 august 2019). olsen, a.s.w. 2011. reconsidering west african migration: changing focus from european immigration to intraregional flows. diis working paper, 2011:21. danish institute for international studies, copenhagen. sahel and west africa club (swac) and organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd), 2006. the socio-economic and regional context of west african migrations. november 2006. from <https://bit.ly/2m7rfuk> (retrieved 5 august 2019). teye, j. k., awumbila, m., & benneh, y. 2015. intra-regional migration in the ecowas region: trends and emerging challenges. in: akoutou, a., b. sohn, r. vogl, m. and yeboah, d. (eds.). migration and civil society as development drivers a regional perspective. bonn: zei centre for european integration studies, pp. 97-124. teye, j. k., alhassan, o., and setrana, m. 2017. evolution and nature of diaspora engagement policies in ghana. in: mangala j. r. (ed.). africa and its global diaspora: the policy and politics of emigration. new york: palgrave macmillan, pp 143-174. united nations, department of economic and social affairs, 2018. international migration report 2017. united nations: geneva. http://www.migrationinformation.org/ https://bit.ly/2yuegn6 https://bit.ly/2m7rfuk african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1556 ambiguity and symbolism in the implementation of the ecowas free movement protocol: evidence from ghana and sierra leone joseph kofi teye, mariama awumbila and ebenezer nikoi abstract this paper examines the challenges to the implementation of the economic community of west african states (ecowas) protocol on free movement, with particular reference to ghana and sierra leone. the paper is based on a desktop review and in-depth interviews with selected ecowas migrants and officials of institutions responsible for managing migration in ghana and sierra leone. the findings suggest that ghana and sierra leone have made modest progress in the implementation of the protocol. apart from abolishing visa and entry requirements for 90 days, both countries have adopted the standardized ecowas travel certificate. despite a few achievements, the following challenges affect the implementation of the free movement protocol in both countries: policy ambiguities resulting from contradictions between national laws on employment and the ecowas free movement protocol; harassment of migrants; migrants’ lack of travel documents; low level of knowledge about the ecowas protocol; resource constraints; fears of competition with immigrants, especially in ghana; securitization of migration and migrants; weak labour market and migration information systems, economic challenges and political instability. this paper concludes that the future implementation outcomes of the ecowas protocol largely depend on the commitment of the member states and financial support that they receive from ecowas and its development partners. while ecowas should continue to lobby states to implement agreements and protocols, mechanisms must also evolve to deal with states that continue to violate the rights of citizens and migrants. keywords free movement; protocol; ghana; sierra leone, ecowas. introduction although the relationship between labour mobility and economic development is contested (ajaero and onokala, 2013), there is enough  centre for migration studies, university of ghana. email: jteye@ug.edu.gh  centre for migration studies, university of ghana.  department of geography and resource development, university of ghana. mailto:jteye@ug.edu.gh african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1557 evidence to suggest that if properly managed, migration could contribute to economic transformation in both migrant sending and receiving areas (switek, 2016; teye et al, 2017). in response to increasing acknowledgement that properly managed migration could promote socio-economic transformation in both sending and receiving countries, a number of governments are making efforts to effectively mainstream labour migration into development planning and policy (mangala, 2017; teye et al, 2017). however, while the developmental outcomes of international migration is increasingly acknowledged, apparently in view of the flow of international remittances (mazzucato et al, 2005; ratha et al, 2011), the contributions of internal and intra-regional migration have not been adequately discussed in both policy and academic circles (teye et al, 2015). recognizing the potential and actual benefits of intra-regional mobility, the economic community of west african states (ecowas) adopted the protocol on free movement of persons, right of residence and right of establishment in 1979 (protocol a/p.1/5/79). this was followed by the formulation of a number of agreements and supplementary protocols aimed at facilitating the mobility of labour and goods within the ecowas region. while these protocols provide guidelines for promoting intra-regional mobility and regional integration, there is enough evidence to suggest that the full implementation of the rights of residence and establishment, as detailed in the 1979 ecowas protocol relating to the free movement of persons, and its supplementary protocols has not been fully achieved (icmpd and iom, 2015). while it is acknowledged that evidence-based data is needed for addressing the gaps in the implementation of the ecowas protocol on free movement (adepoju, 2005; teye et al, 2015), there are only a few studies on its implementation. against this background, this paper examines the implementation record and challenges to the full implementation of the ecowas protocol on free movement, with particular reference to ghana and sierra leone. conceptualising gaps in the implementation of the ecowas free movement protocol based on insights from the policy science literature (parsons, 1995; grainger and konteh, 2007), this paper analyzes gaps in the implementation of the ecowas free movement protocol by assessing the intentions and commitments of governments of the ecowas countries towards the development of policy and institutional structures and resource availability african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1558 for the implementation of the protocol in ghana and sierra leone. in analysing intentions and commitments of ecowas governments towards free movement, the paper argues that even though all ecowas governments have signed and ratified the free movement protocol, some governments are not committed to certain aspects of the protocols they have signed. to explain why and how ecowas countries do not implement the ecowas protocol fully, the paper relies on the concept of stated and actual policy (aucoin, 1971; grainger and konteh, 2007). according to grainger and konteh, (2007), actual policy reflects the true intentions of the governments towards free movement and regional integration. this actual policy may differ from stated policy published in official documents (in this case the free movement protocol). this theoretical perspective suggests that since governments cannot satisfy all interest groups, one governing strategy is to design or ratify policies of frameworks that satisfy powerful development partners and then implement a very different policy that satisfies the government’s interest. this strategy creates policy ambiguities and stated policy then remains “symbolic statements” (smith, 1985: 135) that are never fully implemented. grainger and konteh (2007: 46-47) identified three main scenarios when stated policy may deviate from actual policy. first, a government may find it difficult to publicize its choice between competing interests of various sectors/groups of the economy. such a government may publish sectoral policies which contradict those of other sectors, are internally inconsistent and do not reflect their actual intentions. the government may also implement policy poorly, or maintain uncertainty (e.g. by poor monitoring of policy outcomes) to discourage challenges to ambiguity. secondly, actual policy has changed due to changes in government or priority goals compared with those at the time of the formulation of the stated policy. the third scenario occurs when a government wants to hide, especially from international actors, activities that clash with rules of the institutional state. this involves ambiguity by delusion and delay. drawing on insights from this theoretical perspective, this paper argues that many governments of the ecowas countries, in reality are not committed to implementation of certain aspects of the protocol because they want to maintain autonomy and preserve certain privileges for their nationals. however, the governments have signed the protocol and supplementary agreements just to satisfy the interests of powerful regional and international policy actors. the current implementation record in the different countries, therefore, reflects the actual policy while the protocol can be seen as stated policy which is merely designed for symbolic african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1559 reasons. this conceptualization suggests that some aspects of the ecowas free movement protocol are poorly implemented in some countries because the governments of those countries are actually in favour of restricting the flows of certain categories of immigrants who are likely to compete with citizens for jobs and scarce resources. this paper’s conceptualization resonates with the argument by mathias and de haas (2013) that while many governments sign agreements to facilitate free movement of skilled labour, they also adopt policies which seek to discourage the immigration and settlement of particular categories of migrants, such as low-skilled labour migrants. such selective immigration policies are intended to shape the skills and income composition of migrant inflows, based on perceived economic needs of the countries and social desirability of different categories of immigrants. apart from the lack of commitment on the part of governments, this paper recognizes that in some countries poor implementation of some aspects of the ecowas protocol may be a result of institutional weaknesses and resource constraints. to explain such institutional constraints, the authors reviewed the various approaches to analyzing policy implementation and chose the topdown rational policy implementation analysis approach and the bottom-up policy implementation analysis approach to guide this assessment. the topdown approach regards policy implementation as a top-down rational activity whereby policy-makers formulate policies and street-level bureaucrats implement those policies. it is assumed that implementation can only be effective when goals are clearly defined, when there are adequate resources and where an effective chain of command exists (pressman and wildavsky, 1984). in contrast, the bottom-up approach posits that policy outcomes largely depend on the interests and decisions of street-level bureaucrats. the approach assumes that the implementation of any given policy involves a multiplicity of organisations at national and local levels. this produces a complex system, which top-down mechanisms of coordination are unable to handle. since strict hierarchical control is not possible, street-level policy implementers have the power to change stated policies (linder and peters, 1987). given that migration flows in both ghana and sierra leone are managed by immigration departments that operate top-down coordination systems, this paper employs the top-down approach to examine how the chain of command and resource availability within the immigration departments in both countries shape the implementation of the protocol. on the other hand, the paper employs the bottom-up approach to examine how the interests and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1560 decisions of street-level border officials may determine how the free movement protocol is implemented in various parts of the countries. methodology the data used to write this paper was gathered as part of the research activities of the made west africa project which is financed by the european union and aims to promote good governance of migration and mobility and protection of migrants’ rights in the ecowas region. the study involved a desktop review and in-depth interviews with selected ecowas migrants and key informants, made up of officials of institutions/agencies responsible for managing migration in ghana and sierra leone. in all, 35 persons in ghana and 28 persons in sierra leone were interviewed. both the key informants and individual migrants interviewed were selected purposively. the migrant category comprises both highly skilled migrants (i.e. professionals) and lowskilled migrants working in the informal sector. the instruments used to interview public officials and social partners responsible for migration management were flexible and focused on the following themes: trends of immigration and emigration; perceptions on the developmental impacts of migration; respondents’ knowledge of the ecowas protocol; challenges to the implementation of the ecowas protocols; and migrants’ rights. the flexible instruments used to interview ecowas migrants focused on motivations for migration and migration processes and experiences. all the interviews were recorded electronically and transcribed. the transcripts were further analysed thematically. while the findings of this study could have been enhanced by a combination of in-depth interviews and a questionnaire survey among a larger sample of ecowas migrants in the two countries, the authors believe that the conclusions drawn from the rich qualitative data alone are valid. overview of ecowas free movement protocol and supplementary instruments efforts to promote cooperation and integration of the ecowas countries date back to 1975, when the ecowas treaty was adopted by member states. this treaty conferred the status of community citizenship on nationals of member states. the treaty also enjoined member states to ensure to gradually work towards the abolition of the obstacles to free movement of persons, services and capital (adepoju, 2005). in line with the ecowas treaty, the ecowas free movement protocol was adopted in 1979 (ecowas, 1979). it emphasizes the free movement of persons, right of residence and right of establishment. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1561 the revised ecowas treaty of 1993 further provides in article 3 (1) for “the removal, between member states, of obstacles to the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital, and to the right of residence and establishment”. the major provisions on “immigration” under article 59 are as follows: a) community citizens are granted the rights of entry, residence and establishment and member states undertake to recognize these rights of community citizens in their territories in accordance with the provisions of the free movement protocols. b) member states undertake to adopt all appropriate measures to ensure that community citizens enjoy fully the rights granted them. c) member states undertake to adopt, at a national level, all measures necessary for the effective implementation of the provisions of this article (ecowas, 1993). these provisions are consistent with the 1979 protocol relating to the free entry, right of residence and establishment (agyei and clottey, 2007; awumbila et al, 2014). by this protocol, citizens of member states do not need to apply for a visa to enter another ecowas country for stays up to 90 days. however, ecowas citizens who plan to stay for more than 90 days are required to obtain permission for an extension of stay from the appropriate authority in the member states. other supplementary protocols have been passed following this major protocol. the 2008 ecowas common approach on migration, for instance, provides guidelines for dealing with challenges affecting the implementation of the ecowas free movement protocol. it also provides strategies for dealing with other key migration issues, including combating human trafficking; policy harmonization; protection of the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees; and recognition of the gender dimension of the migration (ecowas, 2008). record of implementation of the free movement protocols in ghana and sierra leone the ecowas free movement protocol is expected to be implemented in stages. during phase 1 (right of entry), member states are expected to allow free entry of citizens of member countries without visa. phase 2 and phase 3 respectively, emphasize the granting of citizens of member states the right of residence and right of establishment in other ecowas countries that they may african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1562 choose to migrate to. this study has shown that phase 1 has been implemented well in the ecowas region. all 15 ecowas countries, including ghana and sierra leone, have abolished visa and entry requirements for 90 days. the implication of this is that ecowas citizens with valid travel documents and international health certificates are allowed to enter and stay in any ecowas country for 90 days without going through a prior visa application process. both ghana and sierra leone have adopted the standardized ecowas travel certificate, which was introduced in 1985 to make cross-border movements easier and cheaper. the two countries have also adopted the harmonized “immigration and emigration form of ecowas member states” which aims to facilitate and simplify cross-border formalities in member states. both ghana and sierra leone now use the ecowas common passport which was adopted by the authority of heads of state and government in may 2000. with regards to the second phase (right of residence), which came into force in july 1986 following ratification by all member states, ecowas citizens who want to stay and work in another member state for more than 90 days are required to apply for and obtain residence permits or work permits just like immigrants from other parts of the world. however, refusal is possible on grounds of public order, public security or public health. in relation to the third phase (right of establishment), all citizens of ecowas member states have the right to access economic activities and to hold employment, including pursuit of the liberal professions. discrimination may only be justified by exigencies of public order, security or public health. as a result of these provisions, many ecowas citizens have migrated to ghana and are working mainly in the informal sector. sierra leone also has a few ecowas citizens. apart from facilitating labour mobility, the ecowas protocol has contributed to student mobility within the region. for instance, tertiary institutions in ghana have reduced the international students’ fees for students from ecowas countries. this has contributed to an increase in the number of ecowas students at ghanaian universities. despite these achievements, there are serious gaps in the implementation of both the right of residence and right of establishment components of the ecowas protocol. a major challenge to the implementation of the right of residence is created by the procedures for issuing work permits. a recent assessment conducted by teye and asima (2017) on work permit regimes in four west african countries, including ghana and sierra leone, showed that the procedures for issuing work permits in these countries do not support the right of residence enshrined in the ecowas protocol. in both sierra leone african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1563 and ghana, the requirements and procedures for issuing work permits are the same for both ecowas citizens and other nationals. in principle, work permits are expected to be issued to all foreigners, including ecowas citizens, only in situations whereby there is a proof that the skills possessed by the migrant do not exist locally. in both countries, certain sectors are reserved for citizens and as such work permits cannot be granted to ecowas citizens who want to work in such sectors. public service jobs are available to nationals only, except under special arrangements (see also teye et al, 2015). foreigners in ghana, including those from ecowas member states, are not permitted to work in the security services. again, ghana’s investment act, 2013 (act 865) prohibits migrants from engaging in petty trading, operating taxis, beauty salons or barber shops, printing of recharge cards for subscribers of telecommunication services, producing exercise books, supplying retail sachet water and retailing finished pharmaceutical products. given that these economic activities are undertaken by mainly low-skilled persons, it is safe to conclude that the governments are adopting selective policies which will make it difficult for low-skilled immigrants to settle in those countries. this is consistent with the argument of mathias and de haas (2013) that many governments use such restrictive policies to affect the composition of immigrants and discourage low-skilled persons from settling in some countries. these restrictive employment policies discriminate against nationals from other member states and as such these policies violate the ecowas free movement protocol, which stipulates that ecowas nationals who intend to pursue livelihood activities should be subjected to the same laws as nationals of the destination member state (agyei and clottey, 2007; teye et al, 2015). this scenario resonates with the idea of actual and stated policies discussed earlier. the governments of sierra leone and ghana are not committed to the aspect of the protocol that seeks to ensure equal employment opportunities for nationals and citizens of member states. as a result, they have formulated domestic policies that contradict the principles of the protocol, creating policy ambiguities (see grainger and konteh, 2007). the protocol then becomes only a symbolic document (see smith, 1985) which can be interpreted as a token gesture, designed to portray the governments as committed to regional integration without making any real change in the status quo. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1564 challenges and gaps in the implementation of the ecowas protocol on free movement despite the modest progress made with respect to the implementation of the free movement protocol in ghana and sierra leone, there are a number of issues that affect the successful implementation of the protocols. this section discusses these gaps and challenges based on evidence from ghana and sierra leone. refusal of admission and discrimination a major challenge to the implementation of the ecowas protocol on free movement is presented by the protocol affording member states the right to refuse admission into their territory, community citizens deemed inadmissible under their domestic laws (article 4). according to adepoju et al, (2007), this provision undermines the purpose of the protocol through the use of restrictive domestic inadmissibility laws. as highlighted in the statement below, some countries may intentionally cite security reasons to prevent migrants from entering or staying in their countries: […] countries can hide behind national order and security concerns to refuse granting of residence permits...practically anything can fall under public security. i mean if i get up and say that you are against the security of the state so i’m deporting you that is it, i don’t have to explain to you how you are against the security of this state. so that provision gives a leeway for nations to manipulate the system depending on whether they want you or they don’t want you (g.a., ghana immigration service, kotoka international airport). apart from the refusal to admit unwanted migrants, nationals of ecowas member states are sometimes exposed to some discrimination in both countries. as noted already, in both sierra leone and ghana, public service jobs are available to nationals only and foreigners can only be employed in the public services under special arrangements. additionally, both countries also have a quota system of issuing work permits which implies that some ecowas citizens may not get work permits even if they applied. for instance, according to section 35 of the ghana investment act (act 865), an enterprise with a paidup capital of between us$50,000 and us$250,000 is entitled to an automatic expatriate quota of one person. an enterprise with a paid-up capital range of us$250,000-us$500,000 is entitled to an automatic expatriate quota of 2 persons while the us$500,000-us$700,000 range allows for an automatic expatriate quota of 3 persons and paid up capital of more than us$700,000 allows for an automatic expatriate quota of 4 persons. in ghana, quotas are african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1565 granted by the ghana investment promotion centre (gipc). similarly, the sierra leone local content policy makes provision for quotas for its citizens in all employment fields as follows: at least 10% for top management, 25% for middle management, and 50% at the bottom cadre (teye and asima, 2017). given that ecowas citizens are not exempted from the application of the quota system, these requirements are not consistent with the rights of residence and establishment proposed by the protocol. this is highlighted in the statement below by an officer in ghana: in terms of residency, we have a quota system and you have to apply it. if we talk about right of establishment then we can say that the current work permit law is not consistent with the ecowas protocol because the quota system restricts the number of foreigners to be given work permits. ecowas citizens have a right of establishment so they don’t even need to come to us, i mean practically if we want to implement the right of establishment (g.a., ghana immigration service, kotoka international airport). these domestic laws reflect the true intentions (actual policy) of the government of ghana while the protocol that ghana has ratified is a symbolic document (smith, 1985). in such situations, different policy actors are expected to read different aspects of the policy. ghanaians could read the investment promotion policies and be happy that the government is protecting their interests while ecowas countries can also read ghana’s ratification of the protocol and conclude that it fully supports regional integration. harassment of migrants at borders many migrants from member states are harassed at the borders and asked to make unofficial payments before being allowed to enter some ecowas countries. migrants who travel by air are harassed to a lesser extent because of the presence of senior migration officials at the airports. given that poor people are likely to cross borders by road, they tend to experience harassment more than rich people who travel by air. among people who travel by roads, persons without genuine travel documents are more likely to be asked to make unofficial payments. a.n., a 48-year-old highly skilled nigerian migrant living in ghana who crosses several borders in a year for business purposes, reported that he does not face problems at the borders on occasions when he carries genuine travel documents but he was seriously harassed on other occasions when he appeared at the borders without documents: african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1566 the border officers don’t worry me much because i have all the documents…when they say, ‘bring your bag’, i bring it, ‘bring your passport’, i bring all those things. and once i give it to them and they check it, i am free to go. i remember there are some occasions i forgot my yellow card and they asked for some surcharge. for the francophone countries they may surcharge you about 1000 cfa or less if you forgot a card and then they let you go (a.n., highly skilled nigerian migrant in ghana). however, the border crossing experiences of some other highly skilled migrants sharply contrast with the accounts of a.n. some of them reported harassment whether they had the documents or not. for instance, m.b.a. is a beninois migrant who holds a phd and works as a researcher in ghana. he arrived in ghana in 2015 by crossing the togolese and ghanaian borders and has since been crossing these borders at least once every two months. he noted that there is extortion at almost every immigration check-point even though he possesses valid travel documents: […] if we rely on what is in the ecowas [protocol], we are supposed to freely move to any country of ecowas as long as we have id or passport. however, at every checking point, especially at the immigration, you have to pay…i have fought with them once but i later decided to just pay and forget about the ecowas and this free movement protocol. i don’t know what it stands for and whether it means that when you want to cross you just present your id or passport and then you go or if it comes along with some fees. i don’t know what the free movement really means… if it’s supposed to be that you freely move without paying anything then its not really working (m.b.a., highly skilled beninois migrant in ghana). the accounts of a.j., a nigerian tailor in sierra leone confirms reports of harassment. a.j., who has travelled widely in the ecowas region reported that some of the borders are more difficult but he believes that the officials at all the borders are only interested in the money and not the documents. he said: once you appear before them, they are only interested in the money and not the documents you carry along. if you have no passport and you are prepared to pay them, they are happy to let you go. if you carry all the documents and you don’t want to pay, they keep you…one day i spent 2 hours at the elubo border when returning from ghana because i refused to pay and they said i must wait. i challenged them but at the end of the day i paid because they just wouldn’t allow me to go (a.j., nigerian tailor in sierra leone). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1567 besides the main border points, there are numerous barriers where payments are demanded from migrants by the police, customs officials and others and all these add to the challenges of crossing the borders. another low-skilled migrant, f.r., spoke about these other barriers when moving from burkina faso to ghana: there are also people in-between the two countries [ghana and burkina faso]. if the bus moves a bit further after crossing a border, they will also stop the bus and demand payment...i don’t know them but they are also dressed like police or custom officers; they are always sitting under trees…it is very sad and we fear them because they will stop you after you have gone past the border (f.r., low-skilled migrant, ghana). further interviews also revealed that ecowas citizens travelling on passports that have never been stamped are more likely to be harassed as they are required by border agents to pay ‘disvirgin’ fees, which is a kind of bribe, before their passports are stamped for the first time. this situation is explained by a migrant: always, [during] your first time of travelling, they say you should ‘disvirgin’ your passport through bribes. ‘disvirgin’ means that your passprot has not been used before, and so they assume that you have not travelled before. so to ‘disvirgin’ it, you have to pay money. so you pay the ‘disvirgining’ fee in combination with the money you are going to pay for the stamping of your pasport...at least i know that it happens at the elubo border in ghana and the nigerian border… sometimes [the driver of] the vehicle you are travelling in takes the money and then when you get to the border they are going to ‘devirgin’ it [the passport] for you, kind of for you (t.q.g., cross-border trader and dual citizen of nigeria and ghana). a nigerian migrant in sierra leone also reported being asked to make this unofficial payment when he first used the elubo border: my first time of crossing the elubo border, things were more serious as they required me to pay more because i was new at that border…they worried me and delayed me so i paid more than the other passengers. i knew that if i argued with them they will ask me to wait and the car will leave me, so i just paid (a.j., nigerian tailor in sierra leone). top immigration officials who were interviewed reportedly knew of these forms of harassment at the borders. some of them noted that extortions are caused by low levels of salaries and lack of incentive packages. the claim that african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1568 low salaries contribute to harassment is consistent with resource constraints on the part of organisations, which suggests that resource constraints and low salaries may force employees to perform poorly (pfeffer, 1997). when asked about the measures they are adopting to deal with harassment, some top immigration officials in both ghana and sierra leone stated that they have put in place some measures, such as organising training for officials and punishment of those found to have seriously violated migrants’ rights. an official in ghana also stated that they have asked officials to wear name tags so that travellers could identify and report those who harassed them. another official, however, was less sanguine about the effectiveness of this approach. he noted that asking migrants to report incidents of harassment at the borders would not solve the problem as the migrants would not get to top immigration officials to make such reports. he noted that the ecowas secretariat should have mechanisms for dealing with state officials who harass migrants: the major weakness with ecowas is that it does not have enforcement powers. so people will feel harassed but they have nowhere to turn. so when the issue arose in one of the joint meetings, they said that various countries should establish complaint desk at their borders. i don’t think this will work. like someone who went to nigeria and was harassed at akrake, how will he go back to nigeria to complain that their men have harassed him or her? the best way to deal with this problem should be sanctions by the ecowas secretariat (rnt, ghana immigration service). the statements above indicate that harassment at the borders takes different forms and affect free movement within the sub-region negatively. the causes of harassment are consistent with both the top-down and bottom-up policy implementation analysis approaches discussed earlier. in relation to the topdown approach (pressman and wildavsky, 1984), the chain of command for managing border officials can be regarded as being weak which is why the street-level border officials are able to demand unofficial payments, with impunity. the situation also demonstrates the ability of street-level border officials to ‘reformulate policy’ governing mobility based on their own interests and this gives credence to the bottom up approach (linder and peters, 1987) which argues that policy outcomes depend more on the interests and actions of street-level bureaucrats. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1569 lack of travel documents and residence/work permits another challenge to the implementation of the free movement protocol has been the difficulty of establishing the nationalities of travellers because some of them do not carry national identity (id) cards or passports. border management officials of the immigration departments in sierra leone and ghana described this situation in the following statements: the free movement protocol enjoins us to admit people into our territory but we also have to establish their nationalities and be sure they are ecowas citizens. however, most of the guineans we have seen at the sierra leone border do not think they need passports…when you tell them they need passports to be allowed to pass, they get angry…they don’t understand the ‘free movement’ thing very well because some ask, ‘why do i need a passport when i am an ecowas citizen and need to travel anywhere freely?’…and when we tell them what they need, they think we just want to make life difficult (m.j., immigration department, sierra leone). people have always blamed immigration officers for harassment of travellers at the borders but the reality is that some of the travellers also get there without any travel document. you ask them to give you their passports for inspection and they tell you stories...in such situations, they are asked to wait…sometimes our men may also take that opportunity to take money from those without documents (o.o.m., ghana immigration service, ecowas section, ghana). the statements above show that some of the ecowas citizens do not have adequate understanding of the free movement protocol. the statements also indicate that harassment at the borders are linked to the lack of travel documents. however, the accounts of some migrants suggest that it is indeed the harassment at the borders that make people reluctant to acquire travel documents. they asserted that border officials are more interested in the money they extort from people than travel documents and given that travellers who have all their travel documents are also required to make unofficial payments, there is no incentive to acquire travel documents. this is clearly captured in the statements below: some travellers think it is not necessary to acquire any passport because whether you have documents or not you are forced to pay money before being allowed to cross the borders…the border officials even prefer those without any document…if you don’t have any document, they appear excited dealing african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1570 with you because then they tell you, ‘well you don’t have any document so just pay so that i allow you to enter’ (a.j., nigerian migrant in sierra leone). when you get to the border, they are not even interested in any document. what they want is their money. that is the first thing they ask for. even if you have all your documents, what they always say is that, they are not there for papers but money. i can swear that i was once beaten several times at the burkina-ghana border at bawku. i told them that i don’t have money and they beat me and locked me up in a room. i was in the room until everyone in our bus went through the process and got into the bus, then someone came from the bus and paid for me before i was allowed to join the bus (c.o., low-skilled nigerien immigrant in ghana). a few migrants and immigration officials also spoke about the inefficient passport acquisition processes, especially in ghana, as a reason why people travel without travel documents. in ghana, it can take as long as 6 months or more to get a passport. while the passport can be obtained officially for just 50 cedis (10 euros), many people who require passports within a reasonably short time (e.g. 1 month) tend to use the services of ‘middle men’ locally referred to as goro boys who can charge as much as 1000 cedis (200 euros) to get a passport. the passport acquisition processes in sierra leone are more efficient and faster than the processes in ghana. apart from travelling without appropriate documents, many ecowas migrants do not apply for residence/work permits even though this is a requirement for right of residence and establishment, as stated below: whenever we try to monitor the movements and activities of migrants in this country, we realize that the migrants from the ecowas countries hardly apply for work permits…if you ask them why they don’t apply for work permits they will tell you that they are ecowas citizens (c.m., ministry of labour ans social security (mlss), sierra leone). the available data support the claims of the officials that in both countries, the number of work permits issued to migrants from the ecowas countries is very low. in ghana, only about 6% of the total work permits issued in 2015 went to migrants from ecowas even though they constitute a significant proportion of immigrants. in sierra leone, only about 17% of work permits issued in 2015 went to ecowas citizens (teye and asima, 2017). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1571 challenges with harmonization of immigration procedures and documents while both sierra leone and ghana can be commended for the significant progress made in the area of harmonization of travel documents, especially with regards to the adoption and use of the ecowas passport and the harmonized immigration and emigration form of ecowas member states, there are still gaps in the area of the harmonization of procedures of admission and travel documents. one area of concern has to do with what constitutes a travel document. while the ecowas protocol provides for the use of other travel documents such as travel certificates and the carte d’identité, some of the border management officials in some countries, including ghana, tend to emphasize the use of only passports: you see the harmonization of policies is one of the biggest issues that must be addressed. the francophone have what we call the ‘‘carte d'identité’’ which they use to travel among themselves but which the anglophone countries don’t recognize as a travel document. so the ecowas common approach aims at harmonizing policies but we still have problems with implementation because of lack of political will. so the political heads should be committed to whatever protocols they have signed (i. a., ghana immigration service, aflao border). while the statement above suggests that anglophone countries in general tend to insist on the use of passports for travel purposes, this study found that sierra leonean border officials are more liberal with the acceptance of other travel documents than their ghanaian counterparts. the ghanaian border officials’ rejection of other travel documents, apart from the passport, contravenes the 1979 protocol relating to the free movement of persons, which defines a valid travel document as, […] a passport or any other valid travel document establishing the identity of the holder with his photograph, issued by or on behalf of the member state of which he is citizen and on which endorsement by immigration and emigration authorities may be made. a valid travel document shall also include a laissezpasser issued by the community to its officials establishing the identity of the holder (ecowas, 1979). however, ghanaian immigration officials explained that they reject the carte d’identité because it is not biometrically readable. while the existence of a harmonized work permit is good for intra-regional mobility and integration within any sub-region (clarke and salt, 2003), there african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1572 are significant variations in the procedures for issuance of work permits in the ecowas countries. according to teye and asima (2017), the residence and work permit regimes vary in terms of the categories, documents required, fees charged and delivery time. sierra leone requires more documentation than ghana. both countries have reduced fees for ecowas citizens but these charges vary significantly from one country to another. low-level of knowledge about ecowas protocol a few migration officials and social partners in both countries indicated that some training programmes have been organized on the ecowas protocol, but they were quick to add that the training workshops were not adequate. in view of the limited number of training programmes organized, a significant number of public officials and the general public have a low level of knowledge about the protocols, as highlighted in the statements below: for me, i would say no, i don’t have adequate knowledge of the protocol. even as an immigration officer, i don’t know much about it…i do not see any sensitization done on it (e.c., immigration department, ministry of internal affairs, sierra leone). no, there is little understanding of the principles. we as officers don’t know the details and there is no platform for educating the public because for immigration service, for instance, the sensitization that we have is geared towards anti-human smuggling, but there are no programmes to teach people about ecowas (a.a.o., ghana immigration service, work permit, section). the low level of knowledge about the protocol partly contributes to the harassment of migrants and the abuse of the rights of travellers. the authors also observed that, apart from the immigration officials, the general public has an even lower level of knowledge of the protocol and this also accounts for the agitation and demonstrations against the inflow of ecowas immigrants. in ghana, for instance, most of the people who complained about the presence of many nigerians in the petty-trading sector did not seem to be aware of the existence of the ecowas protocol on free movement, as there is very little public education on this protocol. this was confirmed by a ghanaian immigration official: one challenge that needs to be addressed is the low level of knowledge about the protocol. so if you look at the kind of complaints about nigerians in ghana, especially if something bad happens, you will realize that many ghanaians are ignorant about the protocol…public education in schools, churches and even african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1573 the market will be important so that people stop asking the government to drive nigerians away (f.a., migration information bureau, ghana). some of the ecowas immigrants interviewed in the two countries stated that they did not know much about the rights that the protocols grant them, and that was why they did not challenge border officials who harassed them. a highly skilled nigerian migrant noted that he does not challenge border officials who demand unofficial payments because of his low level of knowledge of the protocol: i don’t know much about the rights that ecowas migrants have…i can’t challenge the officials because i don’t know the laws very well, if you go to the border and tell them that they are supposed to allow you to enter freely…so the biggest problem is education. both the immigration officers and we the ecowas citizens are not very conversant with our rights. we don’t know our rights, we also don’t know our obligations…some people just travel; they don’t have any documents (t.q.g., highly skilled nigerian migrant). the low level of knowledge about the protocol also accounts for the lack of travel documents, as some ecowas citizens interpret free movement as being movement without documents. these findings highlight the need for more public education on free movement and the acquisition of genuine travel documents. of the two countries, ghana seems to have organized more public education programmes on migration than sierra leone. in ghana, some information campaigns have been organized by the ghana immigration service in collaboration with the international organization for migration (iom). in sierra leone, the few training programmes on ecowas were organized recently by the international centre for migration policy development (icmpd) and the iom under the free movement of persons and migration (fmm) programme. the state institutions do not have long-term programmes for educating the public on free movement. resource constraints and border management challenges given the importance of resource availability for effective policy implementation (pfeffer, 1997), public officials were asked about the adequacy of resources for implementing the ecowas protocol. the data collected shows that both ghana and sierra leone do not have sufficient technical and human resources for the effective management of their porous borders. consequently, many irregular migrants are able to enter these countries. to address these challenges, both ghana and sierra leone have african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1574 established border patrol units within their immigration services to police their borders. however, the policing of borders is very difficult as there are several hundreds of unapproved border crossing points, which have security implications. as shown in the statements below, the immigration officials in both sierra leone and ghana reported that as a result of resource constraints, they do not have equipment to patrol the unapproved border crossing points: it is very difficult monitoring the borders along unapproved routes, especially during the rainy season…there are no rooms for officials manning some of those routes…the challenge we had was the means of transport to those crossing points (d.t., ghana immigration service). there are several challenges with border control in this country…we operate with limited resources. we need more electronic gadgets but we don’t have the funds to buy these things. as border management is a challenge, border officials may be so stressed that they will also frustrate people crossing the borders (e.c., immigration department, ministry of internal affairs, freetown). the statements above link resource constraints to the harassment at the borders. apart from the lack of resources, officials also talked about the difficulty in managing border residents who can cross the border anywhere: we face problems managing border residents…those who fall within a five kilometre radius from the borders normally access both points without using any travel documents. and you know we have to recognize them as such, as border residents. and so it becomes difficult to monitor their movements and get data on them (k.d., ghana immigration service). border control is very difficult because some people live very close to the borders and they cross it at any place. so the borders are porous and we don’t have the resources to be monitoring the borders (c.l., statistics department, sierra leone). the interviews highlight the fact that, with serious challenges associated with border management, immigration officials who are frustrated by the lack of resources, may engage in various forms of harassment in order to get money. some officials also indicated that harassment at the borders may be partly explained by the poor conditions under which border officials do their work. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1575 security and health concerns increasing securitization of migration and migrants, especially in the wake of what is perceived as growing threats of terrorism, is also a challenge to the implementation of the ecowas protocol on free movement. in sierra leone, there is a belief that the civil war was fuelled by mercenaries who entered the country and this belief has an influence on border management in the country. the influx of migrants has also been blamed for rising criminal activities, such as kidnapping and armed robberies, money laundering and the flow of fake goods in ghana, as highlighted in the following statements: i will say in recent times there is an increase in the number of robberies. when most of these guys are arrested, you will realize that most of them are foreigners. that is one of the negative impacts of free movement of people within the region (f.a.o., immigration, migration information bureau, ghana). cross-border crime is a negative outcome of the protocol. other problems are money laundering and inflow of fake drugs into the country…most of these guys do one bad thing in ghana, then they move into togo, nigeria or benin, and then we have criminals roaming in the whole region (k.m., ghana immigration service, akanu border). thus, as noted elsewhere (see teye et al, 2015), there are concerns that the privileges enshrined in the protocol have been abused by some citizens of the sub-region, including the prevalence of armed robbery, fraud, and illicit trade in narcotics. these crimes have led to expressions of resentment among officials and the general public, especially in ghana where nigerian immigrants, in particular, were likely to be perceived as being associated with crime. recent conflicts between fulani herdsmen and local farmers in the agogo area of ghana have created local community resentment against ecowas migrants in ghana. in addition to the security threat, migrants are perceived by some as sources of disease transmission, carrying “foreign pathogens” that would exacerbate the burden of disease in these countries. the fear of diseases was more marked in sierra leone: ebola was transported from guinea to liberia and sierra leone to another. so that was one of the disadvantages [of free movement]…there is the tendency for migrants to bring foreign pathogens into our country (a.j.s., public health superintendent, environmental health directorate, ministry of health and sanitation, freetown). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1576 these findings underscore the need for more public education and campaigns that will change the negative perceptions that people have about ecowas migrants, especially in ghana. data and labour market information challenges while reliable data on migration flows is important to support ongoing policy initiatives (adepoju, 2005; quartey, 2009), there is a general lack of accurate and up-to-date data on the flow of immigrants and emigrants in both ghana and sierra leone and this poses problems to migration management. in both countries, officials explained that the lack of data is caused by a lack of resources to conduct research on migrants and or to analyse the data which is collected at the exit and entry points. another problem has to do with the technical capacity of the agencies responsible for data collection. it emerged that in both ghana and sierra leone, there is a general lack of both equipment and the technical capacity of immigration officials to manage and disseminate the data collected on a daily basis. however, ghana has more advanced systems of data collection and analysis than sierra leone. the porous nature of borders also affects data collection. the statements below by some officials stress the data management challenges in both countries: we do not have the resources needed to collect and analyze data on migrants. the census questionnaire has a few questions on migrants but this is not done regularly...the data collected at the entry points are not really analyzed because we lack the capacity. we also don’t have equipment like servers and computers even to store and share this data (c.l., department of statistics, sierra leone). we don’t have equipment, like computers and a server to store and analyze data. we also lack capacity but i think the iom, in recent times have organized a training programme where data management was taught. so that capacity is being built now, so that the ministry or the unit will serve as the custodian of all information or data relating to migration…issues of capacity building, staffing, office accommodation are really a challenge (o.a., migration unit, ministry of interior). related to the challenges associated with data collection is the inability of governments of both countries to develop comprehensive data-sets on labour markets to provide information on employment opportunities to people entering the labour market. the labour market information systems (lmis) are quite weak in both countries. a recent icmpd/ecowas-commissioned african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1577 assessment conducted by teye (2016) shows that there is currently no comprehensive labour market information system in sierra leone. individual government institutions and the private sector keep records of their employees in different forms and manners. data on the labour market are mainly records of job vacancies and applications on public employment services. although ghana’s lmis is more advanced than that of sierra leone, it is still quite weak and does not provide adequate information on job avenues to both nationals and immigrants. economic challenges and political instability the poor economic situation in both sierra leone and ghana and pressure from indigenes of these countries frustrate the migration process by making the benefits for most low-skilled jobs not worth the efforts of migrants. economic challenges facing citizens create anti-migrant sentiments that render states reluctant to implement the ecowas free movement protocols (konan and kouakou, 2012). the blame for economic problems is usually put on immigrants rather than on the root causes of corruption and mismanagement (yaro, 2008). in the past, this has contributed to the mass expulsion of ecowas citizens from some countries. in both countries studied, economic challenges continue to create anti-migrant sentiments. these sentiments are more pervasive in ghana’s informal trading sector where ghanaian traders attribute their low sales to the presence of nigerian traders. there has been a series of demonstrations by ghanaian traders against nigerians and chinese in the trading sector (adjavon, 2013). additionally, political instability poses a serious challenge to using intraregional mobility to promote development. as noted by teye et al (2015), since the early 1990s, west africa has experienced a number of intra-state conflicts. an immigration officer in sierra leone noted that as a result of the belief that the civil war was partly caused by mercenaries from other countries, border officials are concerned about the security implications of the inflows of migrants: there is a general belief that the some fighters from other countries caused the civil war that destroyed our country. they crossed into sierra leone from liberia where the same people fought during the civil war there. so we want people to come to sierra leone but we are concerned about security issues when we see many young men who appear at the borders without any travel document (tyn, immigration official, sierra leone). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1578 the statement above shows that although border officials are not worried about inflows of all migrants, they are particularly concerned about young men who appear at the borders without travel documents. as yaro (2008) noted elsewhere, since the conflicts created many refugees, both the individual countries and ecowas have to devote much attention and commit their scarce human and financial resources to the resolution of these conflicts, thereby constraining ecowas from achieving its set objectives. conclusions the analysis in this paper indicates that both ghana and sierra leone have made modest progress in the implementation of the ecowas free movement protocol, especially in relation to phase 1 (right of entry). all 15 ecowas countries, including ghana and sierra leone, have abolished visa and entry requirements for up to 90 days. there are however, still serious challenges to the implementation of the free movement protocols, especially with regards to the phase 2 and phase 3 components. one challenge has to do with the harmonization of rules on travel documents. while some countries in the subregion use identity cards (carte d'identité) as a travel document, these are not accepted by ghanaian immigration officials. the procedures for issuing work and residence permits in both sierra leone and ghana also do not support the right of residence enshrined in the ecowas protocol. in principle, legislative instruments in both countries stipulate that work permits should be issued to all foreigners, including ecowas citizens, only in situations whereby there is a proof that the skills possessed by the migrants do not exist locally. these rules contradict the ecowas free movement protocol which seeks to ensure that citizens of ecowas member countries are treated the same way as nationals of the host countries. the scenario resonates with the idea of governments having actual and stated policies (grainger and konteh, 2007) on the same issue. the governments of sierra leone and ghana are not truly committed to the aspect of the protocol that seeks to ensure equal employment opportunities for nationals and citizens of ecowas member states. consequently the domestic policies on employment contradict the principles of the protocol, creating policy ambiguities. the ecowas protocol, in some sense, remains a symbolic document, while the domestic rules governing the issuance of work permits constitute actual policy. by this strategy, the governments are able to maintain autonomy in the management of migration while also appearing to be abiding by the sub-regional protocol. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1579 in line with reports of some earlier studies (see adepoju, 2005; teye et al, 2015), many migrants from member states are still harassed at the borders and asked to make unofficial payments. another challenge to the implementation of the free movement protocol is the difficulty that immigration officials face in establishing the nationalities of the many migrants who arrive at the borders without travel documents. many immigration officials and migrants in both countries have very low levels of knowledge about ecowas protocols. of the two countries, ghana seems to have more resources for border management than sierra leone, but both countries clearly need support to fully implement the free movement protocol. other challenges which seriously affect the implementation of the ecowas protocol, in both ghana and sierra leone, include fear of competition with immigrants, especially in ghana; securitization of migration and migrants; lack of up-to-date data on migration flows, especially in sierra leone; weak labour market information systems, especially in sierra leone; and economic challenges and political instability in the ecowas region. this study concludes that while some of the gaps in the implementation of the protocol, such as discriminatory work permit regimes, can be attributed to lack of ecowas governments’ commitment which has led to the creation of policy ambiguities, other challenges (e.g. harassment at the borders) can be attributed to weak institutional arrangements and resource constraints. although the top-down policy implementation model (pressman and wildavsky, 1984) is adopted to govern mobility in both countries, the lack of resources makes it difficult to ensure that street-level border officials protect these rights. this study concludes that the future implementation outcomes of the ecowas protocol largely depend on the commitment of the member states and financial and technical support that they receive from ecowas and its development partners. acknowledgements this paper is largely based on a research report that the authors produced as part of the made west african project, funded by the european union. we are indebted to all our respondents and research assistants. we are grateful to the international catholic migration commission europe for the effective coordinating role during the various stages of the research project. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1580 references adepoju, a. 2005. patterns of migration in west africa. in manuh, t. 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(ed.) at home in the world? international migration and development in contemporary ghana and west africa. accra: sub-saharan publishers. parsons, w. 1995. public policy: an introduction to the theory and practice of policy analysis aldershot: edward elgar. pfeffer, j. 1997. new directions for organisation theory: problems and prospects. new york: oxford university press. pressman, j.l. and wildavsky, a. 1984. implementation (3rd ed). berkeley: university of california press. quartey, p. 2009. migration in ghana: a country profile 2009. geneva: international organization for migration (iom). ratha, d., mohapatra, s. and scheja, e. 2011. impact of migration on economic and social development: a review of evidence and emerging issues. world bank policy research working paper. washington dc: world bank. smith, t.b. 1985. evaluating development policies and programs in the third world. public administration and development 5: 129-44. switek, m. 2016. internal migration and life satisfaction: well-being paths of young adult migrants. social indicators research, 125(1):191-241 african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1582 teye, j.k (2016). assessment of the capacity of the ministry of labour and social security of sierra leone, unpublished report produced for icmpd/ecowas teye, j.k. and asima, p. 2017. assessment of the potential benefits and challenges of waiving/reducing work permit fees for skilled professionals within the countries participating in the tntra-african talent mobility partnership programme in west africa. accra: acet. teye, j.k., alhassan, o. and setrana, m. 2017. evolution and nature of diaspora engagement policies in ghana. in mangala, j. (ed). africa and its global diaspora: the policy and politics of emigration. new york: palgrave macmillan. teye, j.k., awumbila, m. and benneh, y. 2015. intra-regional migration in the ecowas region: trends and emerging challenges. in akoutou, a.b., sohn, r., vogl, m. and yeboah, d. (eds). migration and civil society as development drivers – a regional perspective. bonn: zei centre for european integration studies. yaro, j.a. 2008. migration in west africa: patterns, issues and challenges. unpublished paper. university of ghana african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1583 migrants in countries in crisis: the experiences of ghanaian and nigerien migrants during the libyan crisis of 2011 leander kandilige and manou nabara hamidou abstract using the experiences of ghanaian and nigerian migrants who were implicated in the 2011 libyan crisis as a case study, this paper highlights the importance of examining micro-level factors in explaining migration decision-making processes. it therefore challenges the uncritical use of macro-level factors as exogenous ‘root causes’ of migration especially in developing country contexts. adopting mainly qualitative approaches among seventy-five key informants from six distinct categories, the study finds that migration culture, household livelihood aspirations, geographical propinquity, the existence of social networks and migrant smuggling rings motivate migrations to libya. the paper also challenges scholarship on the 2011 libyan crisis that treats the experiences of sub-saharan african (ssa) migrants in the country as an undifferentiated group. the paper concludes that within a developing country context, the political economy of the origin country contributes to the establishment, over time, of a migration culture especially among youth who feel trapped in ‘waithood’ and are unable to realize basic socio-cultural and economic markers in life. the paper recommends the regionalization of evacuation and repatriation programmes to facilitate the timely extraction of trapped migrants from countries in crisis. keywords libya, motivations for migration, ghanaian migrants, nigerian migrants, crisis situation. introduction this paper provides a nuanced perspective on how individuals’ migration decision-making processes are informed by the broader social, economic, cultural and political environments in both their country of origin and the country of destination. the paper also argues that the experience of ‘trappedness’ in crisis-ridden destination countries is shaped by the political economy in both origin and destination countries. ghana and niger are used  centre for migration studies, university of ghana. email: leanderkandilige@gmail.com groupe d'etudes et de recherches migration environment sociétés (germes)/abdou moumouni university and lasdel, niger. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1584 as case studies to test whether sameness or difference in religious and cultural affiliation and geographical propinquity necessarily serve as proximate factors in migration journeys and coping mechanisms by migrants during an outbreak of conflict in destination countries. the paper is situated within the 2011 libyan crisis context. existing literature on migration in ghana has examined different aspects of the effects of the libyan crisis of 2011. kandilige and adiku (2019) analyzed the institutional challenges faced in the return and reintegration of ghanaian returnees from libya. mensah (2016) examined the major difficulties that returnees faced in reintegrating into their societies of origin after their forcedreturn and assessed the factors that influence reintegration and possible reemigration. bob-milliar (2012) discussed the deportation and repatriation of ghanaian nationals from libya and the challenges they faced in reintegrating into their home communities. manuh (2011) assessed the reintegration needs of returnees from libya to the brong ahafo region of ghana. in niger, the limited number of academic writings tended to focus on the return and reintegration challenges. nabara (2014) for instance, examined the return migration of nigeriens from libya, the reintegration strategies adopted and incidents of social change in the urban commune of tchintabaraden as a result of their return. mounkaïla (2015) discussed the management of nigerien nationals who were repatriated from libya to the municipality of tchintabaraden and examined the challenges to their sustainable reintegration. some studies have also examined cases of racism, discrimination, name-calling, robberies and casual attacks by libyan youths, arbitrary arrests and detentions, lack of access to rental accommodation, inability to access the formal banking system and lack of protection by libyan security services (hamood, 2006; kleist, 2017). however, a limited number of the extant studies have interrogated, from the perspective of the key actors themselves – migrants and their family members – the motivations behind the migration of mostly young, unskilled and illiterate/semi-literate migrants to libya. also, the first-hand accounts of experiences of the crisis situation by migrants have not been sufficiently examined (see kleist, 2017) while generalizations about the experiences of sub-saharan africans in libya are made as though they are an undifferentiated group (see hamood, 2006). this paper argues that even though experiences of sub-saharan african migrants of the libyan crisis were similar in some circumstances, they were significantly unique in others. moreover, using ghana and niger as a case study, this paper extends the migration discourse beyond the predominant use african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1585 of macro-level factors to predict or explain individuals’ migration decisionmaking by focusing on the micro-level motivations for migration. the comparative approach adopted in this paper allows for contrasts between a muslim-majority sending country (niger) and a christian-majority sending country (ghana). one country shares contiguous borders with libya (niger) and the other is far-removed from libya (ghana). niger is one of the poorest countries in africa and ghana is one of the fastest growing economies in africa. this paper complements the existing works by asking new questions about the main motivations for migration from ghana and niger to libya. it also discusses migrants’ experiences and responses to the 2011 conflict situation in libya. key questions addressed in this paper include: (a) what are the individual as well as household-level motivations for migration to libya? (b) what are migrants’ experiences of crises in which they become implicated? (c) how are migrants’ experiences of ‘trappedness’ defined by policy gaps in both countries of origin and destination? data for this paper are from two case studies completed in ghana and niger as part of the research component of a european union-funded project1. to better contextualize the two case studies, this paper provides a brief account of sub-saharan african migrants in libya in general and nigerien and ghanaian migrants in libya in particular. the paper discusses key theories and concepts that are relevant for analyzing the drivers of migration, before outlining the methodology used for the data collection and analysis. the paper then presents the key findings, conclusions and policy implications. sub-saharan african (ssa) migrants in libya: an overview in contemporary times, libya has increasingly come to serve as a strategic staging post for broader migrations, particularly for sub-saharan africans (ssas) heading to europe (see baldwin-edwards, 2006). however, libya also provides intervening opportunities for sub-saharan african migrants who end up staying in the country as a destination, albeit with the desire to ultimately 1 “migrants in countries in crisis: supporting an evidence-based approach for effective and cooperative state action”. this larger project aimed at providing accessible, methodologically-robust and policy-relevant data on the migration implications of crisis situations in host countries. in addition, the project sought to investigate the availability of relevant mechanisms ensuring the protection of migrants before, during and after crises in countries of origin, transit and destination. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1586 proceed to europe on an uncertain future date. these migrants have historically not been afforded adequate protection due to unclear and very fluid policies regulating their stay in libya (hamood, 2006). the country’s immigration policy has vacillated like a pendulum from pan-arabism in the 1970s and 1980s to pro-sub-saharan african migration in the 1990s. several factors influenced this fluid policy: disagreements between former libyan leader colonel gaddafi and arab countries; the imposition of united nations sanctions; the normalization of relations with european countries in the early 2000s and the attendant clamping down on sub-saharan african migrations to and through libya to europe. this policy u-turn led to the deportation of over 12 200 ghanaian migrants between 2000 and 2012, making libya one of the leading countries deporting ghanaian migrants (bob-milliar, 2012; kleist, 2017). the experiences of ssa migrants have been characterized by a lack of state protection, regardless of their legal status in libya. migrants risk detention and, once detained, suffer ill-treatment. sub-saharan africans face the additional difficulty of racism from both state officials and the wider libyan society (hamood, 2006; kleist, 2017; lucht, 2012). furthermore, kleist (2017) and hamood (2006) report that ssa migrants are also vulnerable to theft by libyan youths and exploitation (including non-payment of wages) by some employers. detention of ssa migrants, for variable periods of time, continues to be commonplace, mostly without any formal explanation of alleged crimes committed. anecdotal evidence from police officers and prison wardens suggests that migrants are held for tahrib2 . according to hamood (2006) migrants understand that this means trying to leave libya illegally using the services of migrant smugglers. however, as many ssa migrants in libya regard the country as a transit destination, they endure these hardships in the hope of fulfilling their dreams of reaching europe. the circumstances of ssa migrants significantly worsened during the 2011 libyan revolution. following the outbreak of the war, there were unproven allegations that a large number of mercenaries from subsaharan africa were fighting for gaddafi. these migrants were portrayed as a security threat and massacres and mass violence against them ensued. life during the 2011 revolution became torturous. human rights watch (2017) reported that during the 2011 conflict in libya, armed groups and guards of the government and militia groups detained ssa migrants at various facilities 2 tahrib means ‘smuggling’ in arabic. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1587 and subjected many to forced labour, torture, sexual abuse and extortion. nigerien and ghanaian emigration to libya: a brief background niger is a vast territory in west africa that occupies a pivotal position between north and west africa. historically, the country has been the crossroads and transit space connecting west africa to north africa through the transsaharan trade (ecowas/csao-oecd, 2006; karine et al., 2007). nigerien migration remained essentially intra-west african, but during the 1950s and 1960s there was an increase in migration to the maghreb motivated by positive developments in libyan and algerian oil production and the tightening of migration policies of schengen countries (adepoju, 2006; de wenden, 2009). this contributed to a reorientation of flows towards the maghreb with the aim of irregularly continuing the journey towards europe. migration flows of nigeriens to libya and algeria further accelerated in the 1970s and 1980s because of droughts in sahel countries (gregory, 2010; pliez, 2000). niger is still characterized by intense movement of people. indeed, in contemporary times, niger remains the centre of exchange between black africa and the maghreb (gregory, 1998). niger continues to be a country of emigration and of transit to north africa specifically libya and algeria, with which it shares a long and porous border (mounkaïla, 2016). with libya, niger shares a border of 354 km (iom, 2009). predominant communities that migrate to libya include the tuareg, arab, toubou and the niger hausa. many nigeriens migrate to libya, mostly irregularly, due to difficulties in obtaining travel documents, stringent immigration controls in libya and the existence of structured networks of migrant smuggling (nabara, 2014). libyan official statistics classify niger as the third largest sub-saharan source country of immigration to libya, after sudan and chad (iom, 2009; pliez, 2004). this is why the libyan crisis in 2011 generated massive returns of nigeriens. niger simultaneously served as a transit country for west african migrants fleeing the libyan crisis, especially nationals of nigeria, burkina faso, liberia, senegal, ghana and the gambia (republic of niger, 2012). this situation posed a huge humanitarian and social challenge to the country. according to the international organization for migration (iom, 2012a), in june 2012 nearly 100 500 nigerien nationals returned from libya since the outbreak of the crisis in 2011. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1588 historically, ghanaians have participated in both voluntary and involuntary migration at internal, regional and international levels since the 1970s due to economic and political crises (akyeampong, 2000). emigration from ghana has been predominantly to other sub-saharan african countries, especially nigeria and cote d’ivoire (awumbila et al., 2013). however, a faltering economic situation in nigeria resulted in the expulsion of almost two million ghanaian immigrants in 1983 and 1985 (akyeampong, 2000). these mass forced returns necessitated a change in the pattern of ghanaian migration to other destination countries including to libya (bob-milliar, 2012; akyeampong, 2000). drought, hunger and widespread bushfires that decimated farmlands and cocoa plantations in the early 1980s also served as push factors for ghanaians to mostly african countries, including libya. cordial relations between the then president of ghana (flight lieutenant jerry j. rawlings) and the then libyan leader (colonel gaddafi) on account of their shared interests in pan-africanism and the non-aligned movement, bolstered a bilateral agreement between both countries (bob-milliar and bob-milliar, 2013). this agreement included opportunities for ghanaian teachers to teach english in libya. subsequently, less-skilled ghanaians also migrated to libya to work in mainly the construction sector (predominantly as plasterers). theoretical and conceptual considerations international migration from labour-surplus but capital-scarce origin countries to labour-scarce but capital-surplus destination countries has been explained largely from an economic perspective in the migration literature (see borjas, 1989; lucas, 2005; stark, 1992; taylor, 1999). it is, however, almost impossible to adduce one single theory that comprehensively explains the drivers of migration and the decision-making processes involved in international migration. as a result, while acknowledging the value of economic theories, this paper equally relies on the social network theory and the concept of ‘migration culture’ to guide the analysis. this is because the study finds that economic factors are intrinsically intertwined with sociocultural and geographic factors. proponents of the network theory (see bourdieu, 1985; putnam, 1995) explain that once emigration is initiated, it becomes self-sustaining and develops its own autonomy as a result of migrants’ networks. networks in this context are defined as “sets of interpersonal ties that connect migrants, former migrants, and non-migrants in origin and destination areas through bonds of kinship, friendship, and shared community of origin” (massey et al., 1993: 448). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1589 migrants from the same origin community based at the destination are perceived to serve as what böcker (1994) refers to as ‘bridgeheads’ with the capacity to reduce risks and the material and psychological costs of subsequent migration. much as this might be true in most circumstances, some settled migrants could rather serve as ‘gatekeepers’, thus inhibiting opportunities for newly arrived migrants. pieke et al.’s (2004) work draws attention to the need for a critical analysis of the role of networks so as not to take them for granted. they therefore examine how new networks are created and how old ones are reproduced, sustained and turned to serve the needs of different groups (old and new migrants, local officials and those left behind). they also demonstrate how migrants’ networks are trans-nationalized, with time, due to either deliberate or accidental actions on their part (pieke et al., 2004). there is, however, the need to further contextualize the importance of networks in explaining migration decision-making processes and patterns by interrogating the concept of ‘migration culture’ or ‘culture of migration’. heering et al. (2004) define the ‘culture of migration’ as a culture where migration is considered to be the only way to improve one’s standard of living; that is, those who stay are believed to be losers, and those who leave are winners (see black et al., 2006). pieke et al. (2004: 48 quoted in black et al., 2006) concur that cultural explanations that take into consideration the historical context, in addition to an appreciation of structural opportunities and constraints, is critical in understanding the drivers of migration. a central plank of this culture is a discourse on how migration serves as a dominant strategy that initiates social mobility. this discourse prescribes what constitutes success, as well as ignoring other local strategies that are not considered an option (pieke et al., 2004: 194). they also argue that this culture of migration “renders current emigration patterns unintelligible in terms of a narrow cost-benefit analysis”. the netherlands interdisciplinary demographic institute (nidi) carried out a large survey in five labour-sending countries (egypt, ghana, morocco, senegal and turkey) and found a fairly significant group of young people in morocco who were neither working nor looking for work, but reported that they spent their time and energy in looking for ways to migrate, as they were convinced there were no alternatives for them (schoorl, 2002 quoted in black et al., 2006). the concept of ‘migration culture’ therefore alters the formula of the potential migrants’ decision-making process and thus it is critical for a deeper understanding of emigration dynamics (see black et al., 2006: 46). the culture african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1590 of migration, however, has some political economy aspects and it is unrealistic to assume a clear-cut difference between this culture and the political economy of the origin state. socio-economic inequalities in ghana and niger have engendered a process of ‘othering’ and the creation of group boundaries that can be understood as the first step in establishing inequality among social groups in a society. while ‘othering’ entails drawing the lines between who belongs to a society or is excluded, inequality among such groups or dominance of one group requires differential control of the means of production and access to economic rights (barth, 1998: 28). inherent inequalities in the allocation as well as access to economic and political power in the origin country perpetuate migrants’ positive evaluation of migration as the only route out of poverty. research methodology and socio-demographic characteristics of returnees from libya data was collected using mainly qualitative research methods (in-depth interviews and focus group discussions) among seventy-five participants from six categories of actors (return migrants, family members, civil society organizations, community leaders, inter-governmental organizations, government authorities). generally, qualitative methods allow for an in-depth appreciation of perspectives, behaviors and experiences. as bedford and burgess (2001: 123) argued, focus group discussions place the individual research participants in a group context, where “conversations can flourish in what can be considered more commonplace social situations”. focus group discussions tend to help the researchers to understand the lived experiences, complexities, negotiations, perceptions, conflicts and shared meanings of actors’ everyday social worlds and realities (limb and dwyer, 2001). the returnees comprised both male and female migrants even though the overwhelming majority were males. beyond the returnees, family members who were knowledgeable about the migration experience, return process and impact of return on the household were interviewed in-depth. in addition, community leaders and civil society organizations (csos) were selected on the basis of their provision of services to returnees from libya. government agencies that actively participated in the evacuation, repatriation and reintegration of returnees from libya were also sampled in order to gauge the statutory and structural factors in managing situations of forced return. scoping exercises conducted prior to the data collection in both countries and results of previous research (bob-milliar, 2012; nabara, 2014) suggested the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1591 involvement of far fewer csos and government agencies in the case of ghana compared with niger. this informed the bigger sample sizes in niger (see table 1). finally, inter-governmental organizations that provided logistical, technical, financial or advisory support to the evacuation, repatriation and reintegration of returnees from libya were interviewed. participants provided informed consent and pseudonyms have been used throughout this paper in order to protect the identity of participants. the ghana data collection took place in accra (the capital city) and the brong ahafo region (especially nkoranza but also sunyani, domaa maasu, nkwabeng and domaa-ahenkro) between march and september 2016. accra was selected because it hosts the head offices of almost all government agencies as well as those of intergovernmental organizations. the brong ahafo region represents the region with the largest number of ghanaian migrants to libya (see table 2) and also returnees to ghana in 2011 (bob-milliar, 2012). table 1: list of participants, ghana and niger participant ghana niger total 1. return migrants 11 9 20 2. family members of migrants 11 8 19 3. inter-governmental organisation 2 3 5 4. community leaders and private actors 3 3 6 5. civil society organisations (csos) 1 9 10 6. government authorities 4 11 15 total 32 43 75 african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1592 source: iom and nadmo, accra, 2012. in niger, data was collected between april and september 2016 from niamey (the capital city), tahoua and tchintabaraden (central and north-western regions of the country, respectively). the goal of this approach was to see how policies were made at the central level and how they were implemented locally. the tahoua region and the commune of tchintabaraden were selected because they hosted more returnees from libya than any other regions of niger during the crisis (see figure 1). these areas have an ancient tradition of emigration to libya (mounkaïla, 2015). according to a report from the nigerien prime minister’s office, in 2011, of the 212 791 migrants returning from libya, 136 287 were hosted by the tahoua region, representing 64% of the returnees (republic of niger, 2011). table 2: regional distribution of ghanaian return migrants from libya in 2011 region percentage share of national population 2010 (n = 24, 658,823) number of returnees from libya, 2011 percentage share of returnees from libya, 2011 (n =18,445) greater accra 16.3% 665 3.6% central 8.9% 366 2% western 9.6% 852 4.7% ashanti 19.4% 2,375 12.8% eastern 10.7% 562 3.1% brong ahafo 9.4% 9,520 51.6% volta 8.6% 373 2% northern 10.1% 1,834 9.9% upper east 4.2% 1,110 6% upper west 2.8% 784 4.3% african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1593 figure 1: breakdown of returning migrants from libya by host regions and localities: niger ghanaian return migrants sampled included 11 participants – ten males and one female. even though this sample size is too small to draw broad generalizations, the proportions are reflective of findings in existing literature (iom, 2012a:5; mensah, 2016) that indicate that the overwhelming majority of ghanaian migrants to libya are male. this is attributed to the types of work that ghanaian migrants tend to do (masonry and construction work, especially plastering) and the perilous nature of the migration process through the desert (iom, 2012b 4; gh/c/013; gh/a/014). in addition, migration of single females to libya is frowned upon in ghana due to the stigma attached to the jobs that some of them are alleged to engage in (i.e. prostitution) (gh/e/015). this perception might, however, be mistaken as there are other domestic roles 3 representative of a ghanaian civil society organisation. 4 a former ghanaian diplomat to libya. 5 the director of a community radio station in ghana. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1594 such as housekeeping and even hairdressing that some female ghanaian migrants engage themselves in. the only female return migrant interviewed for this study (gh/m/076), for instance, joined her spouse in libya and worked as a domestic worker (see kandilige and adiku, 2019). her duties included cleaning, taking care of children and general household chores. of the nine nigerien return migrants sampled, eight were males and one was female. again, a small sample size constrains broad generalizations but the male-female ratio in our sample is also consistent with the results of bigger studies such as the national survey on migration (enami) of 2011, which reported that 93.1% of nigerien emigrants are men (national statistics institute, 2013). with particular reference to libya, the niger horizon consultancy (2014) reported that 98% of nigerien migrants are male. it is also commonplace for at least half of the male population in rural areas to embark on seasonal migration during the dry season (mounkaïla, 2016). similar to the ghanaian case study, male dominance in niger’s migration profile is partly attributed to the rugged travelling conditions and activities migrants engage in, in libya, which require great physical effort. in addition, the nigerien society is largely islamic, and it does not tolerate independent female migration. women must either migrate with their husbands or with their husbands’ permission. the only female nigerien migrant in this study’s sample migrated with her husband and she did not work in libya. nine out of the eleven ghanaian returnees interviewed were between the ages of 20 and 30 years (see also mensah, 2016: 311). similarly, nigerien returnees were of the young productive ages of between 20 and 45 years. although small samples are used in this study, the results are borne out by larger studies that conclude that nigerien migration to libya concerns young adults (gregory, 2010). the age of migrants is important in explaining the types of jobs executed in libya. the ghanaian research indicates that the overwhelming majority of ghanaian returnees are without any formal education, with the highest level of qualification being a junior high school certificate (gh/c/017 ; gh/m/09 8 ; gh/a/019). in the case of niger, four out of the nine returnees interviewed were without any formal education and the rest had low educational 6 a female ghanaian return migrant from libya. 7 a representative of a civil society organisation. 8 a male ghanaian return migrant from libya. 9 a former ghanaian diplomat to libya. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1595 qualifications (the highest also being junior high school certificate). low educational qualifications limit such migrants’ chances of obtaining paid employment in their countries of origin upon return. moreover, the low educational qualifications of migrants partly explain why most nigerien migrants hold low-skilled jobs in libya (in agriculture, construction, and also as dock workers, labourers or security guards). findings motivations for nigerien and ghanaian migrations to libya while the macro-level debates about the ‘root causes’ of migration from subsaharan africa to, and through libya to europe are well-rehearsed and complex (de haas, 2007; diatta and mbow, 1999), it is immensely beneficial to carry out a focused and nuanced examination of motivating factors that inform migration decision-making processes at the individual and household levels. this approach extends the structure-agency debates (bakewell, 2008) by arguing that in reality endogenous factors are just as important as exogenous ones in explaining migration decision-making. as de haas (2007) notes, broader macro-level factors such as extreme poverty, high unemployment, civil war, environmental degradation, globalization, population pressure and general development failure are routinely presented, uncritically, as exogenous ‘root causes’ of migration from poor african countries. in such analysis, the individual’s agency is missed. classical attempts at explaining the main drivers of migration (e.g. lee, 1966; ravenstein, 1885) have identified economic factors as being fundamental to most migrations. this study indicates that international migration to libya from niger and ghana has been motivated by an interplay of economic, socio-cultural and geographical factors. the results are thematised under these three categories, even though they overlap in some cases. both case studies demonstrate the centrality of unemployment, perceived poverty, lack of economic opportunities at home and household survival as the main economic factors underlying individuals’ decisions to migrate to libya. even local authority officials of migrant-sending communities attested to these factors: the main reasons pushing nigeriens to emigrate to libya are unemployment and poverty in the country [niger]. libya is a developed country that needs manpower and pays the migrants well. nigeriens earn much more in libya, especially before the crisis (interview with deputy mayor of tchintabaraden, on 25 may 2016 at tchintabaraden). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1596 return migrants and their household members in this study cite good economic opportunities in libya, poor employment prospects at home, wages in libya considered as ‘good’, the existence of networks of smuggling rings that facilitate irregular entry and a demand for manpower to do unskilled jobs that libyans detest (gregory, 2010) as the main motivating factors for their migration. as ghanaian return migrants asserted, poverty, family survival, unfulfilling jobs and potential reward from international migration are the main motivations for migration: i travelled to libya due to hardship and pressure from my household. my father is dead and my mother is poor and there is no one to care for the poor children. so, i decided to travel to libya with a friend of mine through the desert. so, we passed through burkina [faso] to niger. from niger, we entered libya with the help of smugglers (interview with ernest, 33-year-old ghanaian returnee from libya). ernest’s younger brother, kwadwo, who remained in ghana, confirmed his brother’s stance on migration: my brother went to libya because of hardship like what we are facing now. he was farming and the yield wasn’t enough. even the annoying part is, despite the efforts of the farmers, these kumasi-accra traders will come and buy the food produce for a very cheap price. sadly, these farmers have no option because if you don’t sell it to them, your produce will rot. you see how sad it is? so he was frustrated, as he was not getting any job in ghana to do, apart from farming. here in dormaa, those who have been to libya come back with a lot of money. the libyan returnees own most of the cars you see in this town. some have even built their own houses. this is the motivating factor for most of the young guys in this community (interview with kwadwo, 28-year-old family member of a ghanaian return migrant from libya). kwadwo’s assessment of his brother’s perceived poverty is relative to the apparent wealth that is associated with returnees from libya who are able to acquire cars and even houses. this analysis feeds into the migration culture that has been entrenched in these migrant-sending communities whereby ‘stayers’ are classified as losers, while ‘leavers’ are regarded as winners. within this context, migration to libya serves as an important strategy that initiates social mobility. according to rev. twumasi, chief executive officer (ceo) of a civil society organization (scholars in transit) that operates in nkoranza, the migration culture among the youth is even affecting their african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1597 attitude towards education: we realized that irregular migration was predominant and most students mainly focused their attention on irregular migration. because of that they were not concentrating on their education but rather on the trip that they were going to make...it was like the issue of ‘children-onthe-run’. so our worry was, how do we curb this so that these young ones’ concentration would be on their studies rather than migrating? (interview with rev. twumasi, ceo of scholars in transit). the ceo’s use of the graphic imagery of ‘children-on-the-run’ is indicative of a situation where perceived remuneration abroad overshadows any local opportunities that might exist and defines the livelihood approaches adopted by individuals and families. kandilige and adiku (2019: 10) note that migration of ghanaians to libya is informed mainly by a search for employment opportunities. in the origin communities of migrants, which are mostly agrarian in nature, deprivation and low educational attainment are distinct disadvantages in accessing paid employment in ghana. this reality frustrates any meaningful effort to realize their aspirations in life such as building a house, marrying, sending their children to private schools, acquiring property or starting a business (see mensah, 2016). kandilige and adiku (2019) further note the importance of attaining these aspirational goals, since they are linked with transitioning from ‘childhood’ to ‘adulthood’ in the ghanaian context. honwana’s (2012: 19) conceptualisation of ‘waithood’ is particularly instructive as it examines the “challenges of youth transitions to adulthood in africa as an illustration of global contemporary forms of the struggle for freedom from want and freedom from fear. it explores the lives of young people struggling with unemployment and sustainable livelihoods in the context of widespread social and economic crisis”. the concept of ‘waithood’ is equally applicable in examples of youth being involuntarily immobile due to lack of resources to pay for the cost of their migrations. in such instances, they are stuck both in their immobility and their youth (i.e. stagnated life-cycle). nigerien returnees adduce similar economic and social reasons as motivations for their migration to libya. the nigerien migrants also expressed a desire to accomplish a personal ‘project’ such as getting married, starting a business, building a house or supporting their families. these are measures aimed at escaping the trap of ‘waithood’ (honwana, 2012). one returnee captured these sentiments succinctly: african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1598 the reasons that led me to leave my country are both economic and social. they are economic because i had no economic activities that would bring me money here in niger, so i wanted to go and look for a means to start a business. in addition, we do not own land and we cultivate on a borrowed patch of land. so, i needed money to buy my own land. the reasons are social because i want to get married, buy a house and leave the family home. that is what pushed me to leave my country to go to libya (interview with a nigerien returnee from libya at tahoua, 25 may 2016). a family member underscored this return migrant’s sentiments: the first thing that drove my brother to emigrate was to have enough money to build his own house and to leave the family house. moreover, we cultivate on borrowed land because we do not have our own land. and he wanted to buy one for us. so, we sold a part of our agricultural produce to finance his trip to libya (interview with a family member of a nigerien return migrant from libya, 27 may 2016 at tahoua). another nigerien returnee further corroborated the use of migration as a household livelihood strategy: before going to libya, i was a tailor but i did not earn enough to support my family. that is why i went to libya to earn money to support my family (interview with a nigerien return migrant from libya, 27 may 2016 at tahoua). socio-cultural factors also play a key role in shaping the decisions of young nigerien and ghanaian males migrating to libya. the study’s results indicate that among the youth in especially tahoua and tchintabaraden in niger and nkoranza and domaa-ahenkro in ghana, emigration to libya is perceived as proof of maturity and a demonstration of bravery. some parents even refuse their daughters in marriage to any young man who has not been to libya, at least on one occasion. this is particularly commonplace in the village of amokaye in tchintabaraden in niger and the towns of nkoranza and domaaahenkro in ghana. anecdotal evidence from both countries suggests that some young men who are unable to embark on such migration to libya resort to memorizing names of libyan towns and also experiences of crossing the sahara desert from their interactions with actual returnees and then african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1599 impersonating ‘been-tos10’ in order to lure unsuspecting young women into dating and possibly marrying them. the deputy mayor of tchintabaraden’s views are illustrative of these socio-cultural factors: we must add the influence of environment because migration has become a culture within the tuareg community. it is very difficult to find a home in which there has never been a migrant. for example, in the village called amokaye, emigration to libya has become an act of bravery and one who never emigrated, hardly has a woman to marry (interview with deputy mayor of tchintabaraden, on 25 may 2016 at tchintabaraden). moreover, in the case of niger, the existence of trans-border ethnic networks and the proximity of the libyan border to some nigerien communities such as the tuareg, toubou and arab communities further serve as motivations for migration to libya. the drought situations of the 1970s and 1980s, which caused large-scale loss of livestock in the sahel countries, led several pastoralists of niger (tuareg, arab and fulani) to emigrate to libya, which enabled the creation of a significant diaspora network of communities in southern libya and algeria (gregory, 2010; mounkaïla, 2015). the existence of interpersonal ties between prospective migrants in niger and established social networks based in libya, generates social capital through bonds of kinship, friendship, and shared community of origin. these social networks are not only beneficial to the prospective migrants but are equally important in helping members of the nigerien diaspora in north africa maintain what pieke et al. (2004) refer to as a transnationalized migrants’ network. migrants’ experiences of the crisis in libya the libyan crisis had variable impacts on migrants from sub-saharan africa (ssa). the precarity of the employment status of migrants in libya was manifest during the crisis situation partly because it lacked permanence, job security and the necessary subtle social ties that cushioned native employees. migrants who worked for the more formalized corporate entities in the construction, oil and commercial agricultural sectors were first to be laid off as their, mostly western, employers shut down their operations and advised their migrant staff to vacate the country (nabara, 2014; ne/m/0111). on the other hand, migrants who were employed in informal settings or worked for 10 this concept refers to an enhanced social status acquired through migration. 11 a male nigerien return migrant from libya. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1600 individuals later abandoned their jobs of their own volition for fear of coming to personal harm, injury or even death. in libya, many ssa migrants occupy mostly very low socio-economic positions relative to the native population. this is partly due to their irregular migration statuses and differences in cultural, religious and linguistic characteristics (naik and laczko, 2012). they are mainly on the periphery of the libyan society and are employed in the lower sectors of the economy. a high percentage of the returnees interviewed in this study held low-skilled jobs in libya, such as labouring, farming and construction. the research equally revealed cases of racism, discrimination, name-calling, robberies and casual attacks by libyan youths, arbitrary arrests and detentions, lack of access to rental accommodation, inability to access the formal banking system and lack of protection from the libyan security services. this characterized the political economy of libya leading up to the crisis in 2011. the 2011 crisis, therefore, exacerbated these pre-existing precarious living conditions. both ghanaian and nigerien migrants experienced such difficulties: while i was in libya, the war broke out and it became very intense dayby-day. everywhere you turned you’d hear the sounds of deadly weapons and bombs flying all over and i knew i could easily lose my precious life. i therefore decided to come back home, because i know that once there’s life, there’s hope (interview with samuel, 30-year-old ghanaian returnee from libya). when the war started i was plastering a storey building. they fired a gunshot and the bullet came through the walls i was working on. with my own eyes, i saw it. meanwhile that was where we were staying, but we thank god nothing happened to us. so when i reflected on what happened i asked myself if this bullet had gotten to where we were sleeping, what would have happened? (interview with kwabena, 34year-old ghanaian returnee from libya). during the crisis, migrants were in an unsafe situation and work opportunities declined. the fighting forced more than 100 000 migrants to return [to their countries of origin]. the migrants were traumatized, some were injured, without travel documents, especially for families (interview with head of iom mission in niger). the loss of employment was compounded by the forfeiture of property and accumulated personal savings during migrants’ flight from the crisis. the irregular migration status of most ghanaian and nigerien migrants in libya african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1601 impacted negatively on their access to the formal banking system in the country. as a result, prior to the crisis most migrants either sent the bulk of their earnings as cash remittances through returning migrants or buried bundles of cash in unmarked secret locations. the outbreak of war denied migrants the opportunity to retrieve their informal savings. in addition, other property acquired by migrants was either confiscated by the warring parties or abandoned for fear of inhibiting their escape from the conflict. a nigerien return migrant reflected, war...when the bomb exploded, we fled into the bush. in the city, libyan soldiers caught and imprisoned people. then they took all our properties. furthermore, it is in our city that gaddafi left to go to sirte, where he was murdered (interview with a nigerien return migrant from libya). the impromptu departure of a migrant such as ernest resulted in him leaving behind us$8,000: i couldn’t bring my stuff. i was in a rush because of the war. i left some of my money there – about us$8,000 and some of my luggage. i remember the amount because we used to wrap every $1,000 we get and i had wrapped about 8 of them by then. not that i forgot to take it. the fighting was becoming intensive and scary. we were even lucky because we were under a kobri [i.e. overhead bridge] but even the overhead bridge was later destroyed by bombs (interview with ernest, 33-year-old ghanaian returnee from libya). ghanaian and nigerien migrants, just as other sub-saharan africans, were implicated in the conflict by virtue of their skin colour. black africans were accused of being mercenaries of gaddafi during the conflict (see bob-milliar, 2012; hamood, 2006). while this study corroborates a limited involvement by some nigerien migrants (especially tuareg and toubou migrants), these claims were exaggerated by libyan rebels and used as a basis for attacking all male migrants with a black skin. there is no evidence of involvement by ghanaian migrants in the conflict but they were equally attacked just because they satisfied the racial profile of the alleged mercenaries. unlike ghanaian migrants, however, nigerien migrants became targets of multiple warring factions during the crisis following the nigerien authorities’ recognition (through an official statement) of the national transitional council of libya as the legitimate representatives of the libyan people (ne/c/06 12 ). this 12 a representative of a nigerien ngo. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1602 statement drew the anger of gaddafi supporters who scapegoated nigeriens living in the country (nabara, 2014). thus, nigerien migrants were disproportionately persecuted, stripped of their properties, arrested, physically assaulted and some killed by competing parties in the same conflict (ne/c/0513). some trapped ghanaian migrants were assaulted and others killed on racial grounds. the account by this 25-year-old ghanaian return migrant, vividly demonstrates the severity of the racially inspired vulnerability ghanaian migrants faced in libya: they were four, all holding ak47s. they started shooting at us. unfortunately for us, the bullets hit us. as for my friend it hit his waist and he fell. then i was also hit in the leg by a bullet and i also fell down. then i also lay down as if i was dead. so when they saw that we were both lying, then they moved their car and drove off. they thought they had killed us so they went away. so i went to my friend and called him, ‘gabriel, gabriel’, and he raised his head and looked at my face. within a few minutes, his head just went down and he died (interview with prince, 25-year-old ghanaian return migrant from libya). there was a general sense of dissatisfaction by migrants with the role of the national governments of both ghana and niger in dealing with the complexities and vulnerabilities associated with being trapped in a country in crisis. the ghanaian embassy in libya, like other embassies, is charged with providing, among other services, consular protection for ghanaians. however, this study found that there was a profound lack of trust in embassy officials by ghanaian migrants, which predated the 2011 conflict. this mistrust culminated in very few migrants registering with the embassy, thus weakening the embassy’s access to reliable data on the ghanaian migrant stock in libya. this handicap constrained the efficacy of logistical planning during the evacuation phase of the crisis. in addition, the absence of a policy on evacuation and repatriation of nationals from countries in crisis as well as an acute lack of financial resources resulted in delays in extracting trapped migrants and an over-reliance on inter-governmental organizations for evacuation support. as a former senior diplomat at the ghanaian embassy in libya noted: the major evacuation when people were going to the border, unhcr, the red cross and iom were instrumental in getting us the buses. they 13 a representative of a nigerien civil society organisation. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1603 had an office arranged so people could go there [tripoli]; people on the verge of dying, people who had their hands cut could go there and they will pay their hospital bills for them. we always relied on them; they will send people to the border and airlift them to ghana (interview with a former ghanaian senior diplomat in libya). the former senior diplomat also noted the direct impact on the embassy’s daily operations as a result of re-assigning limited funds to meet unbudgeted costs. the absence of contingency funds to meet emergency expenditure in a crisis situation resulted in the ambassador using funds that were earmarked for staff salaries to support the cost of feeding migrants who were trapped at airports and transit centres. the former senior diplomat observed: it denied resources for daily administration expenditure such as servicing of vehicles at the workshop. to a large extent it also affected payment of salaries. for example, for two months we were not paying ourselves. we requested for us$100,000 from government to cater for the trapped ghanaians but nothing came. we finally spent about us$30,000 of our meagre funds on feeding the people because we had created a shelter at the airport (interview with a former ghanaian senior diplomat in libya). ghanaian migrants described their embassy staff in libya as ‘useless’, ‘selfcentred’ and ‘uncaring’. oyibo, for instance, recounted challenges migrants faced with acquiring emergency travel documentation to enable them return to ghana during the crisis: when it [the crisis] happened, like that all the countries were air-lifting their nationals because a lot of people travel to libya to work... so when we realized that every country was rescuing its nationals, we also started calling home, but it was useless. the ghanaian embassy over there [in libya] doesn’t even recognize you, they have an office there but it only benefits them, not us the migrants. they won’t mind you, when you go there, they tell you that they don’t know you, even when you are speaking twi14. at times you may tell them where you come from just to confirm that you are a ghanaian, but they still won’t help you (interview with oyibo, a 32-year-old ghanaian return migrant from libya). 14 twi is the most popular local language spoken in ghana and it is native to the akan ethnic group. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1604 nigerien migrants who were trapped in libya also shared these concerns. poor consular support during the crisis and the scapegoating of nigeriens by rebel forces compelled migrants to hide their true identity (identifying themselves as malians instead) and being repatriated to mali before returning to niger (ne/m/0115). the weakness in consular protection is compounded by the fact that niger has neither a national migration policy nor official guidelines on the evacuation of nationals from countries in crisis. although the process of adopting such a policy began in 2007, it has stalled because of lack of funding. there is also lack of accurate empirical data on the number of nigeriens in libya and their socio-economic profiles, which are important for contingency planning. according to a nigerien return migrant: i was myself a witness to the conditions of repatriation. while migrants were stuck and they needed papers [laissez-passer], the ambassador refused to make the trip to see the living conditions of nigeriens, as did other ambassadors [example of mali]. for several days the nigeriens were at the border in the rain and cold and homeless. iom transported people to the border, but the nigerien authorities were unable to deliver laissez-passer for repatriation. also, the committee for receiving migrants did not play its role. for example, when migrants transited through tunisia and algeria people welcomed them with water at the airport, which was not the case in niger (interview with 31-yearold nigerien returnee from libya and member of the collective of nigerien returnees). policy implications the libyan crisis of 2011 has broader implications for global migration governance and management especially within the context of south-south migration. this paper demonstrates the importance of examining the multifaceted personal motivations for migration as a basis for better international migration policy formulation. the study also highlights the importance of drafting national migration policies, which expressly outline policy as well as institutional frameworks for the evacuation of nationals from countries in crisis. the international organization for migration (iom) and the international labour organization (ilo) have played leading roles in supporting countries in the global south such as nigeria (in 2015) and ghana (in 2016) to draft and launch national migration policies. the iom and the ilo 15 a nigerien return migrant from libya. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1605 have also supported countries such as sri lanka (in 2008), ethiopia (in 2013), kenya (in 2014) and jamaica (in 2015) in drafting and launching either national labour migration policies or diaspora engagement policies. these policies are all geare d towards enhancing the potential for migration to contribute to national development. the status of these migration policies vary in the different countries. the ghana national migration policy (2016: 45) calls for the drafting of “guidelines for the evacuation of ghanaian nationals abroad, during situations of political crisis, deportation or natural disaster”. the sri lanka national labour migration policy (2008: 21) acknowledges that “repatriation is the responsibility of the state and the state shall ensure safe repatriation for all workers in need. this will address emergency situations faced by migrant workers, due to sudden and serious health issues, and grave safety and security issues”. however, the migration policies of nigeria, ethiopia, kenya and jamaica are all silent on the evacuation of nationals from crisis situations abroad. this notwithstanding, specific guidelines on the ‘how’ and ‘by who’ are still lacking even in the cases of ghana and sri lanka. there is, therefore, the need for the extension of rights and protections to migrants to be considered as central to the migration-development nexus debate, as migrants should not be perceived only as remittance ‘cash cows’ (saddled with obligations) that are devoid of protection entitlements (rights). unplanned and forcible return of migrants from countries in crisis impoverishes both returnees and their families that depend on them as a source of remittance income. it is, therefore, imperative for origin countries to develop programmes that facilitate a sustainable reintegration of forcibly returned migrants into their home communities. such programmes should seek to capitalize on the skills that such migrants acquire abroad rather than embarking on ‘one size fits all’ types of generic projects that win governments and inter-governmental organizations/ngos political capital without necessarily empowering the targeted beneficiaries. while regional economic groupings across africa are rightly drafting regional migration protocols (e.g. the ecowas migration protocol), aimed at facilitating uninhibited movement of persons and goods, there is the need for the creation of regional evacuation units that are specifically mandated to manage the evacuation and repatriation of migrants in times of political/social crises. this minimizes the onus on impoverished member states (which might not have the logistics and expertise) to extract their nationals at short notice. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1606 conclusion this paper concludes that micro-level motivations for migration to libya entail an amalgam of economic, social, cultural and political factors. within a developing country context, the political economy of the origin country contributes to the establishment, over time, of a migration culture especially among youth who feel trapped in ‘waithood’ and unable to realize basic sociocultural and economic markers in life. the paper 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monyae, 2014) and is projected to reach $440 billion by 2025 (sun et al, 2017). despite the recent slump of values of commodity imports from africa, the trade exchange between africa and china has witnessed year-on-year average increase of 7.5% over the last 16 years of intensive trade (un comtrade data, 2017). for many africans however, the chinese presence is marked by traders in the markets (dankwah and amoah, 2019; obeng, 2018) and the availability of ‘made in china’ products in their homes (obeng, 2019b). these commodities are imported to the african continent by both african and chinese traders. the literature on the importers and their activities is however tilted in favour of the chinese (see dankwah and valenta, 2019; gu, 2009; haugen, 2011; marfaing and thiel, 2011; mcnamee, 2012; park, 2009). accounting for this neglect includes the fact that in studying the chinese traders on the continent, the chinese traders had expressed significant doubt about the abilities and competencies of the africans to participate meaningfully in the import industry. they attribute these challenges to the  department of sociology, university of ghana, legon, p.o. box lg 65. email: mkobeng@ug.edu.gh mailto:mkobeng@ug.edu.gh african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1612 structural difficulties in china as well as the bad business practices of the african intermediaries in china (haugen, 2011; marsh, 2016; obeng, 2019a). this is in spite of the realization that there are more africans importing chinese products onto the african continent than their chinese counterparts (marfaing and thiel, 2011). this observation negates earlier studies that have justified the lack of focus on african entrepreneurs on the lack of zeal and poor business practices (see haugen, 2011). this, however, does not mean that the reported challenges are not present. instead, it indicates that the traders have successfully devised reliable networks and strategies to circumvent these and other challenges (obeng, 2017). these new insights have also failed to present a segregated analysis of these african actors and instead present these networks and the strategies in a more linear fashion (see babou, 2002; bodomo, 2018; cissé, 2018; diouf, 2000; tall, 2004) and thus blur the observable nuances exhibited by these actors as they navigate this new territory. in this paper, i use the stories of two ghanaian transnational importers of chinese products (one small-scale and less exposed transnational trader and another large-scale and experienced transnational trader) to demonstrate and analyze how in the midst of the structural and cultural constraints, these african traders procure and devise varied networks and strategies to participate in the chinese import economy. this is done by profiling the traders and their trading trajectories and by highlighting the networks and strategies utilized to participate in the ‘treacherous chinese import economy’ (haugen 2011:167). ghana serves as an appropriate destination for such an analysis because ghana has witnessed a dramatic surge of imports since 2000 and in the process became the second largest importer of chinese goods in africa in 2006 (jenkins and edward, 2006). specifically, data from the un comtrade – the international trade statistics database – indicates that the value of imports increased from us$ 243 million in 2001 to us$ 1.8 billion in 2017, representing a cumulative increase of over 741% growth. figure 1 below presents a summary of the annual data on ghanaian imports from china. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1613 figure 1: ghanaian imports from china (million usd) source: un comtrade data, 2019. further, the data indicates a consistent increase in the values of imports except for the periods between 2008 and 2009 and between 2014 and 2016 that witnessed a year-on-year decline. percentage-wise, the data indicates growth from 3.9% to 10.4% over the period. african traders and the chinese import business the potential expansion of trade between the two continents was identified during the african-asian summit in jakarta in april 2005. at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the bandung declaration, the dramatic rise in international commerce between the two regions featured prominently. similar interest was evident at the g-8 summit in gleneagles in july 2005 when the leaders of the global north underscored the growing importance of southsouth trade and investment flows, especially as they pertained to the prospects for fostering growth and poverty reduction in africa (obeng, 2015). as expected, the rising exchanges between china and africa have generated an academic interest in implications for africa largely at the macro level. the works of the following scholars are instructive in this regard: alden, 2007; bodomo, 2018; brautigam, 2003; broadman, 2007; cheru and obi, 2010; lampert and mohan, 2014; taylor, 2009. in particular, marfaing and thiel (2011:1) stated that: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 china $24 $29 $41 $561 $65 $79 $95 $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1, $ $500,000,000.00 $1,000,000,000.00 $1,500,000,000.00 $2,000,000,000.00 $2,500,000,000.00 2001-2017 imports from china to ghana african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1614 […]this highly diverse subject field has been scrutinized in terms of partnerships in developmental aid projects, cultural exchange … and macro-economic and geopolitical issues related to large-scale chinese projects in the natural resource or infrastructure sectors. this interest has resulted in two major positions about the extent to which china’s increasing penetration into the economies of africa is good or bad for the continent (ajakaiye and kaplinsky, 2009;). in this debate, the optimists have emphasized the opportunities that china offers the african continent and its people, while the pessimists have highlighted the more exploitative aspect of the chinese engagement (see hess and aidoo, 2014; tsikata et al, 2008). one area emphasized by the optimist group is the availability of global consumables to the african continent and the benefits that the increasing consumption of such imported items offer the consumers (see dobler, 2009; obeng, 2019b; zi, 2015). while the dominant theme in this area of research has been framed as a form of imperialism, leading to massive reports of tension and acrimony between the chinese and their african counterparts (see dittgen, 2010; dobler, 2009 mcnamee, et al. 2012), new perspectives have emerged that underscore multiple responses of africans to the chinese presence on the continent (see haugen, 2011; lampert and mohan, 2014; obeng, 2018). for instance, lampert and mohan (2014) and obeng (2018) make the point that what generally gets framed by outsiders as tension between africans and chinese traders, is mostly a demonstration of competing african interests, mostly between those who have the capacity to import directly from china and those african distributors and consumers who do not have such transnational capabilities and have over time come to appreciate chinese traders as a cheaper source of chinese goods. they both, however, conclude that sino-african encounters involve more convivial relations than usually reported. it must, however, be noted that these remain fluid subject to the trading capacity of these actors. closely related to this paper is the set of works that have addressed the inadequate representation of africans in the business of importing chinese products. for instance, the chinese on the continent assert that africans lack both the skills and the zeal necessary to succeed in a ‘treacherous chinese business environment’. they state: “this environment requires extreme vigilance and good bargaining skills for a successful purchase. the absence of such competencies (apparently lacking in many africans) will end one up with african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1615 goods of different quantity or quality than the ones paid for’’ (haugen, 2011:167). the description of mainland china as a ‘treacherous and dangerous destination’ was particularly widespread in ghana in the early 2000s. as a result of this, the few ghanaians who desired to import items from mainland china did so through other asian intermediaries from hong kong, as illustrated in the narratives below by kofiga and mansaba, respondents in this study: i knew that the middle east people, from whom we were buying these goods from in hong kong were bringing these products to us from mainland china, but we dare not go there on our own. this is because we were told it was a very dangerous place with the possibility of losing even our lives (kofiga, accra)16. […] the chinese were dangerous people; they will take your money and give goods of inferior quality and that you won’t even have anybody to complain to (mansaba, kumasi). additionally, the chinese described the african attitude toward business as unproductive and less competitive. haugen (2011) reports the chinese traders in cape verde as saying, “whilst the african aims at earning 100% profit, we won’t do that; we take maybe 30 or 50% profit” (haugen 2011: 167). the latter view is shared by a sizable number of african small-scale traders and their consumers who attribute the dramatic domestic successes of chinese importers to poor trading practices of their nationals (see obeng, 2018:6264). notwithstanding the above narratives, a scoping study in senegal and ghana in 2012, ghana in 2015 and 2019 indicated that there are more africans importing chinese products in person than their chinese counterparts (dankwah and amoah, 2019; marfaing and thiel, 2011; obeng 2015). in terms of numbers, although currently, no reliable statistics exist on the number of africans importing from china for sale in africa, the population of importers is 16 kofiga and mansaba are among the first set of ghanaian traders who began the import business in mainland china. prior to importing from china, they had imported from other countries including malaysia, singapore and hong kong. importing from hong kong, they had learnt that the products imported were cheaper in mainland china, particularly in guangzhou, but were for years never courageous enough to enter mainland china because of the reported threats. to imports from mainland china were only possible with the services of middlemen, mostly from the middle east. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1616 estimated to be large and continues to expand. the city of guangzhou reported that about 60,000 african tourists, mostly itinerant traders, stayed in hotels in 2007 (guangzhou municipal statistics bureau, 2008), ostensibly to trade directly with chinese factories and wholesalers rather than through intermediaries. similarly, bodomo (2012 and 2018) estimated that there were about 500,000 africans in china with almost 60% of them being traders or engaged in trade-related activities. the huge numbers of africans in this venture challenge the pessimism with which their chinese counterparts had perceived their attempts at doing business with the asians (haugen, 2011) as well as the projection that the chinese dream for africans was dead or dying (marsh, 2016). these traders travel from all parts of africa regularly in search of various manufactured items in china and ship them to africa for sale and ultimately for profits. research method the base data for this research was collected both in ghana and china over a period of 13 months, as part of a larger study. the study sought to understand the networks and strategies that are used by ghanaian transnational traders who import global consumables from china for sale in ghana. the respondents included both ghanaians and chinese citizens involved in the import enterprise. multiple ethnographic methods were employed, notably in-depth interviews with 50 ghanaian importers – 30 from accra and 20 from kumasi (the two biggest commercial centres in ghana). this was supplemented with key informant interviews with 3 visa agents in ghana and 5 itinerant agents in china. the itinerant agents included 3 ghanaians and 2 chinese. other chinese nationals interviewed were suppliers and shop attendants from whom the ghanaian importers bought their products in china. additional data was solicited from ghanaian residents in china, whose livelihoods were connected to the import business. the last set of data was collected during nonparticipant observation. this involved ‘shadowing’ a few ghanaian importers in china while they undertook their daily business activities in guangzhou. in all, 89 interviews were conducted to properly contextualize the narratives and experiences of the transnational traders. the data for this paper, however, includes additional data gathered through continuous engagement with some of the traders (2015-2018). all interviews were transcribed, manually analyzed and presented. in this paper, i project the cases of two traders, with whom i have maintained a working relationship since 2013, to advance the subject of networks and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1617 strategies used by ghanaian transnational traders importing from guangzhou. these traders were among participants interviewed in 2013 in ghana and subsequently, followed in non-participant observation in guangzhou as they went about their trading routines in guangzhou. the stories of the two are highlighted because they represent the two categories of ghanaian transnational traders: large-scale and small-scale, a characteristic that to a great extent determines the different networks that are procured as well as strategies devised by the traders as they ‘hunt’ for their fortunes in guangzhou. the discussion of the two cases is preceded by a summary presentation of the 50 ghanaian transnational traders interviewed as part of the bigger project. this offers a broader perspective to the nature and strategies employed by ghanaian importers, which the two selected cases typify. ghanaian transnational traders importing goods from china the study involved 24 males and 26 females of varied trading experiences and demographics. this is a clear departure from other studies on ghanaian transnational traders which have focused exclusively on women (bowles, 2013; darkwah, 2007). although this challenges the perception that trade is a feminine enterprise (clark, 1994; cruickshank, 1853; daniell, 1856; robertson, 1983), it also reveals the dynamism that characterizes the trade enterprise. further analysis indicates that men’s superior access to financial capital has created gender differences in terms of what is imported and the volume of import between men and women. specifically, most of males sampled (58%) traded in luxury and durable commodities and in large volumes, while the females (77%) were into fashion and trendy items that require relatively little capital. comparatively, the males were younger, with 71% below 40 years, while 65% of the females were above 40 years. the age disparity could be accounted for by three related socio-cultural practices in ghana. the first is the unequal access to financial capital to the disadvantage of women (see asiedu et al, 2013). the second is the practice of ghanaians preferring to hand over their viable businesses to their male children rather than their female children, as in the case of lamptey, whose story is related later. the third reason for the relatively late entry of women into international trade, are the domestic and gendered responsibilities such as the rearing of and caring for children, which make such long-distance business travels a tough field for women. to overcome the above gender-related challenges, particularly poor access to capital, female traders start from petty trading and rise through the ranks to african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1618 become transnational traders as demonstrated by the story of akorkor, discussed later in this paper. they do this by importing from countries such as nigeria, togo, benin and ivory coast in a manner described by ravenstein (1885:198) as “step-wise migration,” a practice where emigrants who failed to satisfy the immigration criteria of europe opted to travel to ‘lower status, easy visa’ countries from where they hoped to eventually relocate to a ‘higher status’ country (konadu-agyemang 1999). on the contrary, fewer men ever imported commodities from the coast of west africa. they usually entered the import business as international traders. the small-scale traders’ activities in guangzhou are characterized by the following: first, the importers do not have a known supplier from whom they import. because of this, they have limited control over the design, style and sizes of the products they import. to be successful then requires them to move from one retail unit to another in search of marketable items and to ‘pick’ limited pieces. though very stressful and time-consuming, the ‘pickers’ 17 , unlike their large-scale counterparts, have the advantage of importing less compromised products because they buy the ‘already made’ products which offer a greater guarantee. secondly, because they buy from various retail outlets, they enjoy the benefits of having a variety of items from various producers and designers as compared to the large-scale importers who purchase in bulk from limited producers. in china, the small-scale traders are usually seen with heavily loaded black polythene bags. they employ this strategy for about 80% of their time in china until they exhaust their funds. after successful purchases, they spend the rest of the period re-packaging for easy transport. the goods are transported home either by air or sea or a combination of both. the former, however, remains the main option. they buy up to ten, ‘32 kg’ of extra luggage to transport their items home. with this, the traders are usually guaranteed their delivery between 3-5 business days. the cost of the extra luggage of 32 kg ranges from us$ 200 to us$ 300. this is, however, subject to space availability and thus becomes very difficult during the peak seasons – may to july and october to november. another challenge is the limited size and weight permitted by air. as a result of this limitation, they complement their export by sea travel in a practice known in the industry as ‘groupage’ but technically known as ‘less than container load’ (lcl). the lcl 17 this term is used to refer to small-scale importers who normally carry with them very small amounts of money on their trips, moving from one shop or market to another as they search for and buy limited quantities of various already manufactured products usually for retail in their home country. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1619 implies that two or more importers hire a container and share the cost based on the space occupied by their goods. in terms of cost, sea transportation is cheaper. the 20-foot container costs between us$ 6000 and us$ 8000 depending on the season. but this may take between 6-8 weeks before its arrival at the tema harbour in ghana. as a compromise, almost all traders simultaneously combine air and sea transportation. unlike the small-scale importers, the large-scale importers enjoy much more control over their type of imports and their sources of imports. these importers, wielding huge capital, are able to deal directly with wholesalers and factories. this direct access allows them to order for the production of quantities of a given item with their own specifications. some of them even enjoy the privilege of their products being branded in their own registered trademarks. additionally, instead of travelling from one retail market to the other, they rather move from factory to factory, usually located in the small villages of china or to the showrooms in the commercial cities. one of the greatest advantages these importers enjoy over their small-scale counterparts is the advantage of economies of scale. ironically, this also poses the biggest threat to their businesses. because of the large volumes of import, they are not always able to verify the quality and specification of all the items ordered. after a successful order and payments, the goods are usually transported after they have left guangzhou to ghana by their agents. they are mostly able to charter a minimum of a 20-foot container. closely related to this typology is the traders’ perspective on the future outlook of the import industry. for instance, for the large-scale importers, the chinese traders operating within the country poses a major threat to the future of the business, while the chinese traders are the least of the challenges of the small-scale traders. in some instances, the ghanaians have forged a complimentary trading relationship with the chinese traders and rate other internal threats above the chinese presence in the market space (for more details see obeng, 2018). another difference is the means of procuring a chinese visa. while all traders eventually resort to proxy to secure visas, the motivation for doing so differs. for the large-scale traders, it is motivated by opportunity cost but for the small-scale traders, it is out of necessity. the varied strategies and nature of networks utilized by the respective importers as they endeavour to benefit from the hidden treasures of guangzhou are told through the stories of mr lamptey, a large-scale importer african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1620 and madam akorkor, a small-scale importer. further, the study highlights how variations in gender, financial resourcefulness, international trade exposure and level of education shape the activities of ghanaian transnational traders participating in the chinese economy. lamptey – large-scale importer mr lamptey represents the educated ghanaian men who have joined the business of importing global commodities into ghana, an enterprise which was originally dominated by women (see awumbilla et al, 2011; bowles 2013; darkwah, 2002). lamptey, 34, is married with three children. he is a university graduate and combines his import business with his professional career as a civil engineer. lamptey inherited the business from his parents, an enterprise they managed for more than two decades. even though lamptey had a sister who was the eldest child, their parents preferred him because they believed that guaranteed the family ownership of the business. a woman, according to the family, will marry and ultimately join her husband’s family. lamptey manages the business together with his brother and three other employees. one of the three employees is a distant relative, while the two others are non-kin members. the business is, however, managed professionally, with little familial attachment. lamptey maintains an effective bookkeeping system and has the company’s account distinct from his personal account. the business is also registered with the ghana revenue authority, the registrar general as well as the local municipal assembly and pays tax regularly to the state. the business outlet is relatively big and is in one of the busiest sections of the makola market in accra, ghana. apart from the shop outlet where the imported items are sold, he also has a large warehouse where the imported items are kept and from where he restocks the showroom and the sales outlet. for lamptey, taking over the business from his parent was not a very difficult task because on several occasions he accompanied his parents on their trips to germany, the original import destination for business purposes and worked in the shop during vacation periods. this practically acquainted him with the day-to-day routine and management of the business enterprise. he took charge of the business eventually after completing his national service18. 18 national service is a mandatory one-year service to the state by all citizens usually after tertiary education. a proof of national service certificate is a fundamental requirement for future employment. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1621 having taken over the business in 2003, lamptey continued with his parents’ legacy by importing from germany the same sets of products such as men’s suits, shirts and suiting materials and sold these items in the same shop and largely to the inherited client base. occasionally, he tried to make some modifications to the line of business but stuck generally to his parents’ business model. all this changed in 2005. in 2005, lamptey and his brother decided to shift the import destination from germany to china. lamptey, like most ghanaians, was aware of china as a potentially profitable market but was very sceptical about the destination. although he knew some ghanaians had started importing from china since the early 2000s, he never considered a shift to the chinese market because of the generally held perception that imports from china are inferior (obadia, 2009). this began to change during one of his trips to germany when he discovered that one of his most trusted suppliers also sourced his wares from china. this information came as a shock to lamptey because all the while he believed that all his imports were made in germany and usually boasted of the quality of the products to his competitors by displaying the ‘made in germany’ label. this worked because germany remains one of the countries that ghanaians in general recognize and acknowledge as makers of durable and quality products (obeng, 2019b). this information suddenly changed his long-held scepticism about chinese products and he immediately set into motion plans to import directly from china. in september 2005 lamptey saw an advertisement in one of the national newspapers inviting businesses to attend a trade exhibition, the canton fair in guangzhou, china. he enrolled and applied for a visa to attend the fair. as an experienced importer, acquiring a visa was easy for him. he states, ‘i went to the embassy, picked up an application form, filled it out and attached all the needed documents including my bank statement and business registration certificate and in less than a week i had a 6-months’ business visa’. even though lamptey wields the capacity to procure his visa in person, after five trips he decided to procure his visa by proxy because he felt it was more convenient to do so. he would instead collect the application form, fill it out, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1622 and attach all the relevant documentation including a letter of invitation19 and give it to the visa agent to facilitate the processing at a fee. he pays between us $250 and us$ 300 dollars per application. lamptey had little difficulty settling on what to import because of his experience. his main challenge was where and how he could buy these items. as a strategy, lamptey preferred to have embarked on the journey in the company of an experienced ghanaian importer, but he failed in his bid because of fewer importers of ‘made in china’ items at the time. he, however, secured the services of a non-ghanaian agent in china via the internet and arranged his trip with him. the agent was due to pick him up at the baiyun international airport and guide him through guangzhou. on the day of the departure, lamptey was disappointed when he arrived at the airport and discovered that fewer people had signed up for the program. he, however, was fortunate to have sat next to an experienced importer. he shared his concerns about the trip with the woman and solicited her assistance on the trip. on their way, he learned that there were ghanaians in china who provide intermediary services to new traders. lamptey requested such services and the woman arranged one for him. the preference for a ghanaian intermediary is consistent with most of the ghanaian respondents in this study who almost always preferred, particularly, at the initial stages, to have a ghanaian contact person on their visits. this is also consistent with the literature on the role of what darkwah (2002) calls transient nationalistic networks in helping importers navigate foreign terrain (obeng, 2015). on arrival, lamptey was picked up and assisted to check-in at his hotel and together they discussed where lamptey could find the items he was interested in buying and agreed on the terms of their engagement. lamptey agreed to pay the agent us$50 per day in addition to his meals. lamptey also bore the costs of transportation. lamptey was interested in importing items such as floor and wall tiles, construction materials and electronic gadgets in addition to his core 19 as a measure by the chinese authorities to control the number of persons who enter the country and to ensure that all persons who enter china have legitimate reasons for doing so, the immigration service now insists that all persons desiring to enter china must produce a letter of invitation. for traders, this should be issued by a registered trader, usually, from a major client. for the large-scale traders procuring this letter is easy because they already have clients who have the capacity to issue these letters. the small-scale traders, however, do not have major and regular suppliers with such capacity. to secure this, means resorting to using the services of an agent. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1623 imports. the peripheral import, nonetheless, changes from time to time either as a result of specific requests or because different types of items caught his attention during the market tour. lamptey was astonished by the huge size of the market space and its structuring by wares: master!! their malls and markets are well structured and very huge; so, if you want garments, for example, the whole of accra business district will be for such items. so, when you get there, you will have to walk through these places, observing and making your bargaining. in fact, it will take you more than two or three days just to tour the garment market alone. as a large-scale importer, he was taken to both the city market and showrooms in guangzhou and two other factory sites in the small districts of china. the two factory sites were foshan, for the sanitary items and santon, known for electronics within the guangdong province. these three sites remain his main import destinations. lamptey, like most of his colleagues, even after years of importing from china and the guangdong province, still perceives the region as a learning field. he says: i am always learning on my trips. you see, sometimes, you might be thinking that you are actually dealing with a factory or wholesaler and so you are getting your wares at the best price only for you to realize that the things sell on another floor at half the price in the same department. statements such as the one above gives further credence to the description of china as ‘treacherous’ by the chinese on the african continent. for lamptey, therefore, the key to a successful purchase in china is a combination of meticulousness and persistence. guided by this, he spends the first three to five days acquainting himself with developments within the market by combing the market and bargaining with potential suppliers without necessarily making any financial commitments. this activity was initially undertaken by his agents but over time, he has decided to take charge of it because the agents have consistently not lived up to his expectation. he is, however, unable to terminate the relationship with the agent because of some structural constraints, key among which is the language barrier, particularly as he moves to the outskirts of guangzhou. unlike the business district of guangzhou, where the spread and use of the english language keep improving, in the smaller towns it becomes practically impossible to engage in any meaningful discussion without a chinese-speaking intermediary. in addition african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1624 to language, lamptey needs the agent to supervise the delivery of ordered goods that usually tend to be supplied after his departure to ghana. the agent then arranges and supervises the transportation of the goods to ghana. this is in spite of the realization that the agents keep taking undue advantage of his lack of proficiency in the chinese language by pre-arranging prices with suppliers with their mark-up included, a practice he refers to as a bicommission. this is because the agent gains from both parties in a single transaction, a cost that is borne eventually by the trader. to protect his interest, he has changed agents on several occasions, but he remains unsure even of his current agent. in terms of money, lamptey spends between us$ 35000 and us$ 50000 per trip. after a successful purchase, lamptey transports his goods mostly by chartering a 20-foot ‘full container’, but may in addition resort to ‘groupage’ when he has more products than the chartered container could transport. he spends between us$ 6000 and us$ 8000 per 20-foot container subject to the season. he regularly transports some of his imports by air to hold the business until the bulk of his imports arrive. compared to others, lamptey makes fewer (2-3) trips a year at an average airfare cost of us$ 3000. he also complements the direct imports with indirect imports through the help of his agents and suppliers. doing so, however, requires clear instructions and detailed descriptions of the products to avoid any difficulties or misunderstanding. so for instance, if he needs to import suits, he will, in addition to telling them the quantity, sizes and colours of the suits, include the number of buttons for each set and the type of lapel to be affixed. in addition, because he finds it difficult to describe the nature and types of fabrics, he sends samples of the fabrics properly labelled via airmail or other colleagues. he also enters into a written agreement with the supplier in order to protect his stake. in these contracts, lamptey makes a 20%-30% part-payment of the agreed sum and undertakes to pay the difference upon satisfactory delivery of the order. he arrived at this strategy in response to earlier mishaps which almost cost him his capital. although lamptey has reservations about his suppliers, he maintains that if he proves to be trustworthy, his action will be reciprocated by the chinese suppliers. this, he believes, he has achieved successfully. as a result, he enjoys supply on credit, sometimes, even without making any deposits. he returns the money after delivery or sales. notwithstanding this partnership, he remains very sceptical of the quality of the product. he says, “…in business, you never trust 100%.” african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1625 lamptey is not very optimistic about the future of the business even though he aspires to remain in the import business. key to this expression of pessimism is the incursion of the chinese into the retail business in ghana. he sees the chinese as undermining the ghanaian participation in the distribution sector. he vehemently discounts the assertion that it is the ghanaian quest for huge profits that makes the chinese better competitors. instead, he cites two major factors that work to the advantage of the chinese. the first is the comparatively large volume of imports of the chinese. this translates into a cheaper unit cost. secondly, he believes that the chinese circumvent the customs system and thus pay lower import duties than the ghanaians. to illustrate the latter, he recounts an instance where a chinese offered to help him ‘clear his imports’ at a lower cost. this according to him makes it unbearable for him and his counterparts. to illustrate this, he states that there are other colleagues who are now bankrupt because the chinese are retailing at prices below their cost prices in china. he complains of losing some of his bulk buyers to the chinese competitors as a result of the lower chinese prices. to sustain this business, lamptey and his counterparts demand the removal of the chinese retailers from the market space and full implementation of the ghana investment promotion center act, act 825. the gipc act 825, 27 (a and b) grants ghanaians the exclusive right to the “sale of anything whatsoever in a market, petty trading, hawking or selling in a stall at any place”. in 2013 the state responded to this demand by setting up an inter-ministerial task force to address their issue. in the process, several shops operated by the chinese were closed, while others operating illegally were repatriated. the activities of the task force, however, failed because of the complex nature of the situation (obeng, 2018). amid the chinese influx, lamptey has decided to offer some customers who have proven over the years to be credit-worthy, supply credit. the decision to offer commodities on credit, according to lamptey, remains one of the key strategies employed to maintain large-scale customers. closely related to the success of the credit facility is the maintenance of social and personal contacts with traders and the offering of gifts, usually, purchased from china, as a token of appreciation. this offer of giving goods on credit to ‘known customers’ has not always yielded the expected prompt payments from the customers. despite this, it continues to be one of the key strategies that ghanaians use to compete against their chinese counterparts since the chinese lack the social connection based on which credit facilities could be extended and monitored. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1626 this ability to offer goods on credit buttresses petersen and rajan’s (1994) work on small-scale entrepreneurs’ access to bank credit. similarly, uzzi (1999) argues that embedding commercial transactions in ‘social attachment’ allows the lender and the client to overcome their mutually experienced ambiguity. just as it is in the case of banks, suppliers/creditors in this study invest in close personal relationships in the form of frequent interaction with each other’s families in social settings such as child-naming or wedding ceremonies. through these personal and extended ties, the creditors and the customers develop a trust and a deeper knowledge of each other’s character and business dealings (carruthers and ariovich, 2013). in the process, as uzzi (1999:488) points out, both parties form direct relations with third persons such as spouses and children whom they confidently rely on for perceptions of character and trustworthiness in their business dealings with others. such interaction is not common between the chinese suppliers and their customers. as a result, traders who do not readily have the capital to buy from the chinese suppliers at a cheaper cost may still resort to getting their supplies at a relatively higher price from the ghanaian who offers softer terms of payment. the offer of soft payment terms is what allows the ghanaian importers to maintain their status as the main channel through which imported goods are sold in ghana (marfaing and thiel, 2011). akorkor – small-scale importer madam akorkor is a 53-year-old married woman with three children. akorkor lives with her husband and her youngest child in one of the suburbs in accra. although akorkor completed a middle school leavers’ certificate education (mslce), she describes herself as an ‘illiterate’ person, because she cannot express herself fluently in the english language. she sells palm nuts as her main business and sells corn seasonally. she has been doing this for the past 30 years. five years ago, akorkor took a giant step and joined the import business to generate an additional stream of income. she settled on fancy jewellery. she imported from west african cities – lomé and cotonou, the capital cities of togo and benin respectively. the choice of togo and benin was influenced by two key networks who helped her to navigate the two territories, an approach consistent with the role of networks as persons /groups that help new entrants to navigate unknown regions (prell 2012:9). her husband is a beninese so when she decided on cotonou, her husband accompanied her on the first trip and introduced her to one of his family members in the city. the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1627 relative who is a trader herself assisted her during her business trips to cotonou until she was able to navigate the market independently. in lomé, she also had a close friend who lived close to the ghana-togo border and assisted her with accommodation and communication. these persons were, thus, very instrumental in her insertion into the cross-border trade along the ghanaian coast of west africa. six months later, akorkor abandoned togo and concentrated on benin because cotonou offered her more quality products than lomé. after importing from cotonou regularly for two years, akorkor discovered that the items were originally sourced from china at a cheaper cost. that was after she had inquired about the sudden absence of her nigerian counterparts from the cotonou market. on her return from benin, akorkor solicited assistance from a friend to travel to china. at that point, akorkor had made sizeable savings from both her jewellery and oil palm businesses. the friend introduced her to a travel and tour agency to assist her to procure a chinese visa. she paid us$ 400 for the services of the agency. she only had to submit her passport and two passport-size photos. the rest of the documentation such as a letter of invitation from a chinese supplier, statement of account, business registration and tax clearance certificate were procured by the agency on her behalf. the agency also linked akorkor to a ghanaian based in china who serves as a trade broker to facilitate her business activities in china. the business relationship had changed from the initial role of an itinerary agent who was always with her during her visit to china to a business consultant who proffers experts knowledge when approached. akorkor changed her visa agent after two trips because she got better offer from another agency that charged us$ 300 instead of the us$ 400. the cost of her airfare over the periods has ranged between us$ 1000 and us$ 2000 for a return trip. in preparing for her first chinese trip, akorkor sought to know from her friend how much money she needed to make a successful trip to china and back. instead of a direct response, her friend offered her some guidelines. she quotes: i cannot tell you how much money you need, but to be successful on your trip, you must at least have about double the amount you spent securing the visa and your plane ticket and maybe your accommodation in china. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1628 after several years akorkor confirmed the validity of her friend’s guidelines. guided by this advice, akorkor subsequently travels with an amount of between us$10000 and us$ 15000 and makes reasonable returns. similar to the experiences of lamptey, akorkor did not have a problem with her core imports, the jewellery items. as part of her preparation, she undertook a kind of market survey to identify the goods that sell fast at the best prices. to do this, akorkor adopted a combination of pretense and deception. she recounts: i couldn’t go and ask them for their assistance directly, you know ghanaian traders, they will not be truthful. so, what i did was to go to the stores and tell them that i am a regular customer and was there to re-stock. with this, they then opened up to me and i bought some items to be used as samples on my trip…. to be sure, i got the appropriate pricing. i tried to bargain vigorously and bought at the wholesale prices. after a successful market survey and adequate preparation, akorkor made her first trip to guangzhou, china, in february 2010. she was met at the airport by her agent and taken to the agent’s home. the agent had converted his private apartment in china into a guesthouse and rents out rooms within the apartment to his clients at us$ 15 a day compared to the average hotel rate which ranges from us$ 30 to us$ 50. the traders also have access to a kitchen where they can prepare their own preferred dishes during their stay in china. akorkor therefore always carries some ghanaian delicacies on her trips. just like lamptey, akorkor pays her agent us$ 50 a day. she is also responsible for his meals during their trips. the agent also assists her with currency exchange from us dollars to the chinese rmb. it takes 3 to 4 days for her to go through all the business areas and to all the potential shops where she could find her choice of fabrics, dresses, shoes as well as the fancy jewellery. as a strategy, akorkor window-shops on the first 3 days as a form of recognisance. she takes note of potential items and their respective prices with the assistance of her agent because of the language barrier. the routines normally take her to major centres such as the yulong plaza, canaan and the sanyuali sub-way area. other places also toured included dashatou flee markets, the tianxiu building and the denferc hotel areas. these are known to have items that meet the taste of africans and are mostly visited by african small-scale traders (bodomo, 2012; obeng, 2018). after this, she usually dedicates a day in her apartment to compare and review her notes and plan african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1629 her subsequent itineraries. this also includes converting and expressing the cost in ghanaian currency to determine its marketability in the light of products already on the ghanaian market. after these exercises akorkor embarks on her shopping, mediated by the agent, from one shopping outlet to another. in between the regular purchases, akorkor would sometimes purchase items she did not budget for but chanced upon in the course of her shopping when she envisages a potential market for the item in ghana. in fact, some of these items, according to her, on a couple of occasions, had fetched her more profit than her regular imports. akorkor further reveals that it was this possibility of an ‘occasional bonanza’ that had entrenched her desire to always make the chinese trip in person even though she could have arranged for her regular imports to be shipped to ghana on her behalf. akorkor has ceased moving around with her agent but maintains close contacts with him and continues to stay in his apartment, if it is available, when she travels to china. in addition, she calls him for assistance when needed and when she intends visiting an unfamiliar place. she discontinued using the services of the agent mainly because she had become conversant with navigating the market area independently. just like lamptey, akorkor also attributes her decision partly to some unethical practices of the agent. she accuses the agent of not being truthful as he always sought to steal from her either by pre-arranging prices with the suppliers or overstating the cost of services he renders on her behalf. this decision was not taken hastily, though. akorkor prepared and armed herself before finally severing the relationship, albeit not completely. akorkor set out to observe all the relevant processes, closely and to learn some of the relevant expressions in the chinese language. in particular, she learned and took note of key landmarks so she would know where to board and alight from the bus, how to communicate with the taxi drivers and, most importantly, how to negotiate prices with her suppliers. to use a taxi, she learned to collect complimentary cards from all the shops she visited. in order to keep track, akorkor makes notes on all the cards. when she needs to make a visit, she will stop a metered taxi and show the destination to the driver and she will be driven to the destination. similarly, to transact business with the suppliers, akorkor recounts: one just needs a workable calculator and three important chinese phrases. the phrases are, tiga do sa, which translates into ‘how much’; the second is tud tudi, which means ‘reduce the price’ or ‘your last price’; african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1630 and haundu haundu, which is to tell the supplier that you are interested in buying in bulk. bodomo (2012:43) calls the use of these simple expressions, combined with the use of a calculator and body movements, “calculator communication”. it works for akorkor because she makes all her purchases in the main cities of guangzhou where these expressions are meaningful to the non-englishspeaking chinese suppliers. this approach, though familiar to mr lamptey, cannot suffice for him, because he does most of his business activities in the less cosmopolitan districts. the service of an intermediary, therefore, becomes indispensable. after a successful purchase, akorkor transports her commodities to ghana by paying the airlines for the excess baggage. she pays between us$ 150 and us$ 200 for every 32 kg luggage and is permitted up to 10 pieces of excess luggage. where she had more goods, she made use of sea transport. unlike lamptey, akorkor does not have a retail outlet where she sells her imports but rents a room where she keeps her imported items. she sells her products through a combination of targeted marketing and personal retailing. she visits boutique owners and wholesalers and showcases her products to them and retails them to friends and other acquaintances, including her palm fruit and corn customers. she has little concern about the increasing presence of chinese retailers in ghana. her challenge relates to the difficulties in acquiring a visa and the depreciation of the ghanaian cedi against the major trading currencies. this is because it increases the cost of her items which directly reduces the volumes that she can import as well as the quantity she is able to sell which ultimately affects her profit margin. for akorkor, therefore, as long as the presence of the chinese traders does not deny ghanaians access to china, the chinese traders pose no threat to her business. conclusion the two cases presented above serve as a signpost to the lives and navigation processes of ghanaian transnational traders who import from china. the study reveals that both men and women with varied trading experiences are involved in the importation of global consumables from guangzhou. in terms of demography, the study confirms the assertion that the import business is a high-class enterprise (bowles, 2013; darkwah 2007). the field is dominated by well-educated people, contrary to the notion that trade is for the poorlyafrican human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1631 educated who cannot find employment in the mainstream economic sector. a significant number also combine their formal sector jobs with their import businesses, as in the case of mr lamptey. although all the importers are within the active working age group, the males are comparatively younger (mostly below 40 years) than the females (mostly above 40 years). a combination of socio-economic factors including male dominance and access to financial capital, result in women’s late entry into the import industry, though they have a longer history of trading. this also influences the nature of items and the volumes of items imported. the regularity and consistency of importing by ghanaians successfully defy the pessimism of the chinese traders on the continent and show the agency of the african traders, as passionate, entrepreneurial and resourceful. this is despite the problem they face from their compatriot agents in china and other issues such as the difficulty in obtaining a travel visa, competition from chinese importers back in africa and depreciation of the local currency. they have achieved this by procuring the services of relevant networks at every stage to render services that they could not perform in person. the longevity or otherwise of these network relationships nonetheless depends on trust and personal capacity. as innocuous as the situations may be to reduce risks, the engagement is done in a piecemeal fashion until the point where trust between the parties is secured. when this is abused, the relations are terminated either completely or are reviewed to safeguard the trader’s interest. succeeding in such environments thus depends on 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https://comtrade.un.org/> (retrieved 29 february 2019). uzzi, b. 1999. embeddedness in the making of financial capital: how social relations and networks benefit firms seeking capital. american sociological review, 64(4): 481-505. zi, y. 2015. the ‘fong kong’ phenomenon in botswana: a perspective on globalisation from below. african east-asian affairs, centre for chinese studies: (1):6-27. https://comtrade.un.org/ https://comtrade.un.org/ african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1637 cross-cultural ties between ghana and egypt: the agency of the egyptian community in accra, ghana edmond akwasi agyeman and akwasi kwarteng amoako-gyampah abstract ghana is recognized as an important destination of international migrants. in spite of the socio-economic and political upheavals that the country experienced during the early post-independence era leading to the (forced) return of several of its migrant groups, some have still remained and formed permanent communities and integrated into the ghanaian society. this paper focuses on the egyptian diaspora in ghana. it examines: (1) the type of cross-border and transnational ties that egyptian migrants in ghana have established between ghana and egypt; (2) how these ties generate cross-cultural relations between ghana and egypt; and (3) the extent to which these ties provide a privileged economic and political position to the egyptian community in ghana. the work is based on the socio-cultural transnationalism theory. a socio-historical method was adopted for the research and apart from the analysis of historical data, eight key informants were interviewed. the paper shows that due to high-profile intermarriages between ghanaians and egyptians, coupled with the ‘nkrumah factor’, the egyptian community in ghana occupies a privileged economic and political position in ghana. keywords egyptian migrants in ghana, intermarriage, privilege, economic and political position. introduction the migration of persons, families and groups across the african continent has played a leading role not only in advancing the livelihood strategies of the different people who inhabit the continent, but also in the process of empirebuilding, state formation and the evolution of the present forms of nationstates (agyeman and setrana, 2014). migration was also key in promoting the interaction amongst the different tribes and ethnic groups. it facilitated the building of social, political and economic relationships across the african continent. such movements took different forms and occurred for varying reasons. these included large-scale movements owing to unfavourable  centre for african studies, university of education, winneba, ghana.  department of history education, university of education, winneba & research associate, department of history, university of johannesburg, south africa. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1638 climatic conditions; economically induced migrations such as people moving in search of new farmlands, hunting grounds, grazing land and for trade; as well as politically induced migration such as groups fleeing from wars or from tyrannical, wicked and atrocious leaders (boahen et al, 1986). whereas many of these movements and socio-economic dynamics took place in the period before the development of modern african states, colonialism and events leading to the independence of african states led to the construction of new ties and political alliances between states across the african continent. for example, during the ghanaian struggle for independence, kwame nkrumah, ghana’s first president, was strongly backed by a pan-african ideology which enabled him to develop inter-state relations that permeated the ethnic, religious, racial and territorial boundaries that existed on the continent. this led him to develop stronger ties with the maghreb countries which later constituted the casablanca group that supported the establishment of a single african state (badejo, 2008). it is within this context that this paper foregrounds the intersection between ghana and egypt, the pioneers in african independence. the shared political ideology between kwame nkrumah and the egyptian leader gamal abdel nasser set the grounds for the construction of political ties between the two states during the period of the african independence struggle and in subsequent periods on the continent. additionally, nkrumah’s marriage to madam fathia, an egyptian woman, during the late 1950s, and other high-profile marriages between ghanaians and egyptians contributed to solidifying these relations. this subsequently ignited migration movements between ghana and egypt, further intermarriages as well as trade and socio-cultural ties between the two countries. today egyptian migrants constitute one of the most significant north african communities in ghana and, over the years, they have contributed to establishing various degrees of linkages such as trade, political ties and religious networks between egypt and ghana. this paper focuses on the egyptian diaspora in ghana, examining, (1) the type of cross-border and transnational ties that egyptian migrants in ghana establish between ghana and egypt; (2) how these ties generate cross-cultural relations between ghana and egypt; and (3) the extent to which these ties provide a privileged economic and political position to the egyptian community in ghana. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1639 theoretical framework and method the work is situated within the framework of migration and socio-cultural transnationalism literature (see basch et al, 1994; levitt, 1998; portes et al, 1999). according to this line of thought, the activities of migrants across state borders create transnational kinship ties and identities that transcend national barriers. these ties vary from informal to formal ones, ranging from individual to collective linkages, including family, economic, political, religious and institutional connections. through these ties, migrants are able to transfer and exchange vital resources, including cultural goods, knowledge, human and financial capital that affect origin and host societies (basch et al, 1994; levitt, 1998; portes et al, 1999). this study adopted a socio-historical approach, which was premised on the thesis that a combination of history and sociology provides a sense of complexity and change, sensitizing researchers to strategies that were prevalent in the past, while pointing to contemporary correlates. beyond that, the sociological approach provides a theoretical lens for analyzing historical phenomena. data for the study was generated through interviews of key informants, who were identified through the snowball sampling technique. a total of five key informants were interviewed in accra between june and september, 2016. they included egyptian community leaders, embassy staff and entrepreneurs living in accra. participants felt free and at ease to discuss their lived experiences and activities in ghana. the study accessed archival materials housed at the public records and archives administration department (praad) in accra, as well as newspapers and secondary literature to gain in-depth knowledge about ghana-egypt relations. this information was useful in understanding and analyzing the diplomatic context that shaped the cross-border and transnational ties between egypt and ghana and the experiences of egyptian migrants in ghana. it was unfortunate that a key target group was not interviewed. these were the children from marriages between ghanaians and egyptians who hold key political positions in ghana. that was due to the interview period (2016) coinciding with an election year in ghana and raising sensitive issues could potentially affect the identity sentiments of participants and eventually impact adversely on the research. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1640 trans-saharan migration and relations between north and west africa in historical perspective the mention of trans-saharan relations evokes several images and feelings – some of which are historical constructs. in some instances, the sahara evokes the image of a desert – an arid land where human habitation and activity is less desirable. in other instances, it conjures the image of a vast sea of sand that separates the mediterranean north african region from tropical africa. yet, in another sense, and probably the most popular, it evokes the image of commerce – the trans-saharan trade that linked north africa to sub-saharan africa (austen, 2010). as a result of the trade relations between the northern part of africa and the rest of tropical africa, human mobility between states and across the sahara became a regular occurrence, over a very long period. indeed, historians date the beginning of the trans-saharan trade to the 3rd and 4th centuries. yet, its traffic became significant from the 7th century and reached its peak between the 14th and 17th centuries (boahen et al, 1986). these trade relations across the sahara provided sub-saharan africa with its earliest and most significant contact with the outside world before europeans arrived on the atlantic coast of west africa in the 15th century (see austen, 2010). falola (2000: 25) aptly observed that, “trade was, perhaps, the most important form of relations between pre-colonial african states”. the reason for the emergence of the trans-saharan trade have been extensively documented (boahen et al, 1986). one lesser-known fact is that merchants from north africa, in the initial stages of the trade, rarely made any contact nor built any relations beyond the cities south of the sahara. austen (2010) has argued that the perceived dangers associated with travel beyond the desert, the lack of a more sophisticated mode of transportation as well as the lack of cultural skills to traverse such new environments, hindered such enterprise. nonetheless, in later centuries, it seemed that with the involvement and active participation of the mande and dyula traders, who had acquired the cultural skills to mediate the cultural relations of both the north african traders and their neighbouring sub-saharan africans, the trans-saharan trade extended into the savannah and forest areas further south. thus, as austen (2010: 41) states, “the task of connecting the end points of the caravans with savannah and forest zone sources of export goods thus became the specialty of indigenous sudanic traders.” these sudanic merchants would develop into professional entrepreneurs, developing unique communities close to african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1641 commercial centres of the sahel and beyond and would eventually become not only exporters of tropical african products across the sahara to the north, but also the transmission belt of the culture of the northern africans to most people of sub-saharan africa. the vital role of trade is underscored by falola (2000: 26), who asserts that, “the requirements of trade, such as currencies, languages of communication, trade routes, markets and professional traders served to promote interactions among states.” migrants, mostly merchants, formed communities in ancient ghana, gao, mali, djenne, bona and timbuctu and these migrant communities which were often referred to as ‘stranger communities’ integrated well into their host communities. skinner (1963) notes that migrants, predominantly merchants, actively involved themselves in both local and foreign trade and they became the economic force that ensured that almost the entire west african subregion was linked together as a common economic unit. he further notes that, because of their wide exposure and their ability to understand and speak more than one language, their host communities relied on them to act as interpreters to visitors as well as travellers to and from the host community. additionally, because of their vast exposure to other cultures they became cultural bearers, introducing their host communities to new cultural traits. historians have established the impact of the trans-saharan trade on the development of african kingdoms. the trade provided the impetus for the rise and development of ancient kingdoms such as ghana, mali and songhay. these kingdoms primarily benefited from the trans-saharan trade to rise into prominence. the trade was also essential for the spread of ideas, goods and institutions among african kingdoms. the spread of languages such as hausa and swahili across the continent as well as the spread of the arabic civilisation to most parts of africa was essentially the result of the trans-atlantic trade. with the arrival of europeans on the west coast of africa, the direction of the trans-saharan trade shifted towards the atlantic ocean, so that by the 18th century, the trans-saharan trade had declined considerably. as european colonisation made inroads on the african continent, the migration pattern of africans was also reconfigured (skinner, 1963). it similarly altered the nature of relationships that existed between migrants and their host communities. as new urban centres emerged and as europeans established plantations and commercial ventures along the west african coast, new opportunities were created and the number of immigrants to these new entrepôts increased substantially. as skinner (1963) observed: “african migrants who were later to settle as strangers flocked to these centres from far and wide, drawn and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1642 pushed by forces introduced by europeans. for example, yoruba, togolese, ewe, dahomeyans, mossi, and songhay migrated to the former gold coast and the ivory coast…” (skinner, 1963: 309). these new migrants followed preeuropean migrant traditions and established their own permanent quarters under their elected chiefs and headsmen. this pattern of migration across subsahara africa, encouraged by the colonial political economy, continued throughout the colonial period, so that by the time colonial rule ended, several permanent migrant communities in most west african cities had been established. these migrants were politically and economically integrated into their host communities and served as the bridge between their host communities and their original nations. yet, relations between migrants and their host communities were not always cordial (skinner, 1963). economic pressures often pitched migrants against local populations as migrants were often accused by local populations of helping to perpetuate the exploitative tendencies of europeans by accepting low wages and serving as middlemen between the europeans and the locals (akyeampong, 2006). also, the migrants’ involvement in local politics, particularly, during the struggle for independence, often created tensions between migrant communities and nationalist leaders, resulting in some migrants being deported soon after independence. a clear case was the deportation of several migrants in ghana in the 1950s and also in the ivory coast in more recent times (agyeman and setrana, 2014). as most african countries gained independence in the 20th century, new dynamics emerged not only in the pattern of migration in sub-sahara africa, but also in the relationship between migrants, migrant communities and their host communities. the egyptian diaspora community in ghana the egyptian community in ghana, along with the lebanese, constitute what is generally referred to as ghana’s arab community. this group of nearly one million migrants in ghana, occupies a central position in ghana’s economic and political structure. whereas the egyptian migration to ghana started during the 1950s, that of the lebanese started a century earlier (akyeampong, 2006). the earliest egyptian settlers in ghana were mainly diplomatic administrative staff. however, from the late 1950s egyptian women who were married to ghanaian men, settled in ghana. those women included rouby sinare, wife of the late army general, alhaji said senare, megwa cata, the wife of another army general and most notably fathia nkrumah, the wife of ghana’s first president, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1643 kwame nkrumah. there were, indeed, curious amorous relationships between ghanaian military professionals and egyptian women and between ghanaian political elite and egyptians. that was, in part, due to the training programmes and educational opportunities offered to ghanaians by the egyptian government, as well as the prevailing pan-african political ideology of the time (cct5).20 in subsequent years, other egyptian migrants arrived in ghana to establish their businesses. the current egyptian community in ghana remains very small, numbering between 200 and 800. they have settled mainly in accra and kumasi. in spite of its small size, the egyptian community in ghana, like the lebanese, controls large-scale family businesses and constitutes what akyeampong describes as “a formidable entrepreneurial class” (akyeampong, 2006: 308). some notable companies controlled by egyptian migrants include rafi aluminium, elsewedy electric which is the lead supplier of electrometers and cables in ghana as well as mantrac which is the sole company authorized to supply cat caterpillars (construction equipment) and spare parts to ghana. in addition, children of the egyptian migrants and some of the migrants themselves have become formidable political leaders in ghana. three prominent cases include samia nkrumah, daughter of kwame nkrumah who was leader of her father’s convention people’s party and member of parliament for the jomoro constituency between 2012 and 2016; alhaji said senare, the second vice-chairman of the national democratic congress, who also served as ghana’s ambassador to egypt and later to saudi arabia; and dr medhat khalil, chairman of rafi aluminium and patron of the egyptian community in ghana; dr khalil is also the malawian ambassador to ghana. during the study, it was evident that the egyptian community in ghana constitutes a privileged group and unlike other immigrant groups, the level of interaction between them and members of the ghanaian community is quite intense. the study deduced that this is largely the result of the (high-profile) intermarriages that have occurred between ghanaians and egyptians since the 1950s. 20 cct5: cct was the coding technique that was adopted in order to protect the anonymity of our informants. cct1, cct2, cct3, cct4 and cct5, thus, refers to the first, second, third, fourth and fifth informant respectively. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1644 intermarriage and cross-cultural and kinship ties between ghanaians and egyptians among the non-west african migrants in ghana, egyptians have increasingly developed conjugal ties with ghanaians. akyeampong (2006) observed that lebanese migrants who have lived in ghana for more than a century have managed to keep their cultural heritage and ethnic/racial identity intact by strictly prohibiting mixed marriages between members of their group and those of the host society. research on some west african migrants in ghana also report a similar practice. a case in point pertains to the gao and zabrama people from mali and niger who observe a similar exogamous marriage prohibition rule between ghanaians and members of their community (gamado, 2016). this practice has succeeded in creating some degree of distance between these groups and members of the host society, across generations. however, unlike the lebanese, gao and zabrama, the egyptian diaspora in ghana has developed strong cross-cultural ties with ghanaians. this is manifested in intermarriages and the resultant development of kinship relations, the establishment of the coptic orthodox churches and islamic centres in ghana led by egyptian scholars, the development of egyptian businesses, and the popularity of the egyptian smock, even among nonghanaian muslims in ghana. these practices were also confirmed during the interviews with the key informants. one of them said: “there are no borders between egyptians and ghanaians; there are no short ways in the interrelations” (cct1).21 intermarriage between ghanaians and egyptians has been a prominent feature since the 1950s. this practice appears to be the key behind the establishment of close ties between members of the two communities. in 1957 when kwame nkrumah married his egyptian wife, this relationship lent itself to several interpretations. recently, ray (2015) argued that nkrumah’s marriage to madam fathia created panic among western leaders who viewed it as grounds for a political alliance between ghana and egypt. in fact, western scholars, such as scott thompson (1969: 49), viewed it as a politically motivated ‘bizarre’ marriage: in december 1957, nkrumah married an egyptian coptic woman, one of the more bizarre alliances caused by his foreign policy […] the marriage was to be 21 cct1: informant 1. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1645 a continuous embarrassment to nkrumah, and to his colleagues. he seldom paid any attention to her. at the time of writing, it was reported she was suing nkrumah for divorce. in fact, while the political circumstances at the time opened the window for intensive interaction between leaders and citizens of ghana and egypt who combined roles to help african counties to gain independence, evidence from this study further shows that the affective relationships that developed at the time might have triggered the close political ties between nkrumah and nasser after the 1950s and not the vice versa. the role of ghanaian students studying in egypt was key in this process of affective interaction. over the years, egypt has served as one of the principal destinations of ghanaian overseas students. a good number of ghanaian islamic scholars attained university education in egypt and it was during the period of their schooling in that country that some of them met their egyptian partners. this practice was confirmed during this researcher’s interaction with leaders of the egyptian community in accra. according to their patron, it was alhaji said senare who had advised his friend, kwame nkrumah, to marry madam fathia after senare had forged an affective relationship with an egyptian woman while studying in egypt: while senare was studying in egypt at hazard university, he met his egyptian wife. senare married the egyptian (woman) and introduced fathia to nkrumah (cct5).22 as mentioned earlier, both senare and nkrumah relocated their wives to ghana and these high-profile marriages set the precedent for further marriages and intensive kinship ties between ghanaians and egyptians. another key informant observed: the effect of nkrumah’s marriage with madam fathia is that many ghanaians and egyptians started having mixed marriages. some ghanaian students returned from egypt with wives, diplomatic representatives and other egyptians came to ghana and started having ghanaian wives. they did so not just to imitate nkrumah, but due to intensive relations (cct2).23 22 cct5: informant 5. 23 cct2: informant 2. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1646 this social phenomenon was not the preserve of ghanaian males who went to egypt to seek wives. egyptians in ghana also sought ghanaian wives. moreover, there are many intermarriages between ghanaians and egyptians within the muslim community in ghana. some of the egyptian community leaders interviewed for this study, are also married to ghanaians. a striking case is the patron of the community, who had been living in ghana for 33 years, at the time of the interview and is married to a ghanaian woman and they have children. he is the owner of one of the largest aluminium firms in west africa and is also the current ambassador of the republic of malawi to ghana. this man represents a perfect example of instances where the lives of ghanaians and egyptians intersect. during the interview, it was evident that he used part of the premises of his company building as the embassy of malawi. apart from being an entrepreneur and ambassador, he is also a professor and a lawyer who holds a doctoral degree. he asserted that he had achieved everything he had aspired to, after migrating to ghana. although the circumstances leading to his appointment as malawian ambassador to ghana were not discussed during the interview, this study surmises that ghana’s ties with egypt and malawi during the african independence struggle in the 1950s and the role of nkrumah opened such an opportunity for him. malawi’s first president, hastings kamuzu banda, who studied and practiced medicine in the united kingdom, settled and practiced his medical profession in ghana after he left europe. during the time he was in ghana (then the gold coast) he was active in ghana’s independence movement before he finally moved to his home country malawi to lead his people to achieve independence. the ghanaian concept of kinship is very broad and when two people marry, it is perceived as entire families, communities and ethnic groups marrying. as a result, egyptian migrants in ghana are perceived in many circles as kinsmen rather than foreigners. the appointment in 2012 of alhaji said senare, whose mother is an egyptian, as ghana’s ambassador to egypt symbolically represents this relationship. in doing so, ghana was in fact sending her son to represent her in his mother’s land. the choice of samia nkrumah as leader of her father’s political party also demonstrates the level of acceptance that she has gained within the ghanaian society. as a matrilineal society, the akan which constitutes, by far, the largest ethnic group in ghana, and to which nkrumah belonged, children do not normally inherit from their father’s lineage. . the cross-cultural exchanges between ghanaians and egyptians are evident in several other practices, including culinary practices, tastes and the manner of african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1647 dressing. ghanaian local dishes such as fufu, kenkey and banku have also become staple foods for many egyptians living in ghana. this was confirmed in the following interview: the egyptians that came here managed to live the way ghanaians live, even though they kept their identity (cct2)24. the adoption of ghanaian local dishes by the egyptians migrants could also be attributed to the intermarriages. however, this does not mean that the egyptians have abandoned their ways. the lifestyle of the egyptian migrants and their children born with ghanaian spouses manifests a close knit between ghanaian and egyptian cultures. this is evident in name-giving, way of dressing, religious practices and social relations. for example, during a number of public appearances, alhaji said senare sometimes wears the egyptian smock to showcase this cross-cultural identity. conclusion this paper examined the transnational ties between ghana and egypt which have been forged due to migration. in tracing the instances where north and west africa intersect, the paper examined the kinship, political and economic ties that have developed between ghana and egypt since the 1950s. while the political circumstances at the time dictated the instances leading to such relationships, these connections have been perpetuated by the egyptian community living in ghana. in an attempt to situate where transnational kinship ties connect ghana and egypt, this study found that the impact of highprofile intermarriages between ghanaians and egyptians were at the bedrock of such relationships. whereas the existing literature on migrants’ transnationalism is largely drawn from research based on migration experiences between the united states and south america or asia (iredale et al, 2003; portes et al, 1999) and between europe and africa (mazzucato, 2010) this paper shows that there is a strong transnational tie between north and west africa as a result of the activity of migrants. ghana has been able to maintain long-term political, trade, cultural and social relations with egypt because the egyptian citizens who settled in ghana many years ago have developed and used several forms of transnational networks to connect the two countries. the egyptian migrants in ghana are able run 24 cct2: informant 2. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1648 their businesses and trade through the transnational networks they have established between their host and origin countries. this practice has proven to be common elsewhere, as the case among bangladeshi migrants in japan illustrated (rahman and lian, 2010). the high rate of intermarriage between the egyptians and ghanaians has given the former the leverage in developing a degree of economic and political power in ghana. the informal and formal family and kinship ties (husband, wife, son, daughter, in-laws, parents, grandparents) which have developed between ghanaians and egyptians have had a rippling effect on the way members of the two communities and nations perceive one another. as kinsmen, these ties constitute an important resource to leverage political relationships. more so, these ties are buried in lasting relationships (the burial of madam fathia in ghana symbolically represents this) and they have become important elements for the formation of a mnemonic community, that is, a community with memory of a common history, which continues to influence a great deal of ghana-egypt relations. this study recommends that any discourse on migrant integration in ghana should not overlook the complexity of transnational relations, kinship and socio-cultural ties that develop between migrants and the host society, which nurture and perpetuate long-term coexistence. the literature would be enriched by future studies that drill down more deeply to explore the construction of the ghanaian-egyptian identity among the second generation, that is, the children from these mixed marriages. references agyeman, e.a. and setrana, m.b. 2014. human mobility in ghana. in baggio, f. (ed). africans on the move: human mobility in ghana, nigeria, angola and south africa. cape town: sihma, pp. 13-69. akyeampong, e.k. 2006. race, identity and citizenship in black africa: the case of lebanese in ghana. africa, 76(3): 297-323. austen, r. 2010. trans-saharan africa in world history. oxford: oxford university press. badejo, l.d. 2008. the african union. new york: infobase publishing. basch, l., schiller, n.g. and blanc, c.s. 1994. nations unbound: transnational projects, postcolonial predicaments, and deterritorialized nation-states. langhorne, pa: gordon and breach science publishers. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1649 boahen, a., ade ajayi, j.f. and tidy, m. 1986. topics in west african history (2nd ed), england: longman limited. falola, t. (ed). 2000. africa, vol. ii: african cultures and societies before 1885. durham, north carolina: carolina academic press. gamado, v. 2016. ethnic transformation among the gao people of zabrama line, accra. mphil thesis, department of sociology, university of ghana, accra. iredale, r., guo, f. and rozario, s. 2003. return migration in the asia pacific. cheltenham: edward elgar. levitt, p. 1998. social remittances: migration driven local-level forms of cultural diffusion. international migration review, 32(4): 926-948. mazzucato, v. 2010. operationalising transnational migrant networks through a simultaneous matched sample methodology. in bauböck, r. and faist, t., diaspora and transnationalism: concepts, theories and methods. amsterdam: amsterdam university press. rahman, m. and lian, k.f. 2010. the development of migrant entrepreneurship in japan: the case of bangladeshis. international migration and integration, 12(3): 253-274. portes, a., guarnizo, l.e. and landolt, p. 1999. the study of transnationalism: pitfalls and promise of an emerging research field. ethnic and racial studies, 22(2): 217-237. ray, c.e. 2015. crossing the color line: race, sex and the contested politics of colonialism in ghana. athens: ohio university press. scott thompson, w. 1969. ghana’s foreign policy: diplomacy ideology in a new state. princeton: princeton university press. skinner, e.p. 1963. strangers in west african societies. africa, 33(4): 307-320. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1650 migration of pastoralists in africa: reflections on practical and policy implications patience adzande abstract in recent years, there has been increased migration of pastoralists from countries in central and west africa into nigeria. such movements are supported by the ecowas transhumance protocol and the nigerian constitution respectively. the movement of pastoralists has been associated with multi-dimensional practical and policy implications. this paper reflects on the policy implications of the migration of pastoralists across and within the borders of nigeria and presents pointers to the areas for future policy intervention and research. the paper relied on existing policies like the ecowas transhumance protocol, the nigerian constitution and the open grazing prohibition law enacted by the benue state government to draw inferences about the relevance and effectiveness of such laws in nigeria. interviews with farmers and pastoralists were conducted in 2017 to augment the policy analysis. the paper reports that the provisions of the ecowas transhumance protocol, like the possession of the international transhumance certificate as a mandatory entry requirement, have not been implemented in nigeria. in addition, the ecowas transhumance protocol acknowledges the primacy of national and local laws, which means that the validity of the transhumance protocol does not transcend borders. in nigeria, the absence of specific federal laws that address pastoralism have created a vacuum that is currently being filled by the introduction of antiopen grazing laws in states like benue. this paper calls for an increased focus on research to remove contradictions in existing laws and to identify alternative policies in addressing the migration of pastoralists in west africa and beyond. keywords cross-border transhumance, ecowas protocols, migration, pastoralism, pastoral conflict, pastoral policies, transhumance. introduction in recent years, the rate of migration of pastoralists within and across borders has been on the increase. this massive influx of pastoralists from other countries in africa into nigeria and the drift of pastoralists from northern towards southern nigeria have been associated with multi-dimensional and  department of urban and regional planning, benue state university, makurdi, nigeria. email: padzande@bsum.edu.ng african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1651 long-term practical and policy implications. whereas the practical implications which are often visible and shape lived experiences have received significant attention in the extant literature, commensurate attention has not been accorded the policy implications of such movements. this paper therefore reflects on the policy implications of the migration of pastoralists across and within the borders of nigeria and presents pointers to the areas for future policy intervention and research. migration among west african countries was originally viewed as an integrating factor capable of promoting interactions between populations within the region. consequently, in 1978, the ecowas protocol on free movement of persons, residence and establishment was ratified by member states in advancement of the goal of regional integration. article 2 of the protocol on free movement states that “citizens of member states have the right to enter, reside and establish in the territory of other member states”. however, article 3 (numbers 1 and 2) requires such citizens to possess valid travel documents, an international health certificate and to enter the territory of a member state through official entry points (ecowas, 1979). it is evident that the emphasis of this protocol is on the movement of people. this raises a challenge concerning the regulation of other forms of mobility across the west african sub-region. consequently, legislation governing pastoralism began to emerge in many countries in west africa. dyer (2008) noted that over time, governments have sought to manage international transhumance primarily through bilateral accords, sub-regional compacts and regional agreements. velasco-gil and maru (2018) further classified types of legal arrangements for trans-boundary pastoralism to include bilateral treaties, regional agreements and protocol, national legislation, local arrangements and non-binding arrangements like memoranda of understanding (mous). these policies were initiated to facilitate trans-border mobility by specifying guidelines and processes for obtaining permits for border crossings, conditions for cross-border transhumance and institutional structures governing livestock mobility. within africa, west africa has the most developed set of agreements. dyer (2008) identified some bilateral agreements reached between mali and countries like burkina faso, mauritania, niger, senegal and cote d’ivoire from 1988 to 1994. other regional agreements also exist between cameroon, central african republic, democratic republic of the congo, equatorial guinea and gabon on the one hand, and benin, burkina faso, cote d’ivoire and niger on the other. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1652 in 1998, the regional agreements were consolidated with the introduction of the protocol on transhumance which was ratified by the 15 member states of the economic community of west african states (ecowas). the protocol on transhumance was introduced in recognition of the importance of pastoralism as a key source of animal products like meat and milk and was designed to regulate transhumance between the ecowas member states. the introduction of this protocol was hinged on the premise that “the development of livestock breeding is an integral part of any food security policy” (ecowas, 1998). thus, it was imperative for ecowas to foster cooperation between member states to ensure agricultural development and to achieve food security. this goal was based on the conviction of member states that “transhumant livestock breeding was essential for safeguarding and increasing agricultural production”. interestingly, the protocol duly acknowledged that “transhumance is a source of health, social, environmental, economic and political problems”. one of such problems has been the incessant conflicts between itinerant pastoralists and sedentary farmers across countries in west africa. while the protocol makes provision for the resolution of disputes between farmers and nomadic herders through an arbitration commission or the law courts, the conflicts have continued unabated with devastating consequences across the sub-region. with the persistent conflicts between farmers and pastoralists across west africa, the achievement of the goal of boosting agricultural production and food security is increasingly becoming an illusion. in nigeria, amnesty international (2018) reports that the number of casualties in the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists has increased over time due to the government’s inability to keep the peace and arrest and prosecute the perpetrators of violence. this perceived ineptitude of the federal (central) government has led to the introduction of laws that criminalize open grazing of livestock by some states in nigeria like ekiti, benue and taraba. these ‘antiopen grazing’ laws, as they are popularly called, are perceived by some groups, especially sedentary farmers as the only panacea to the lingering conflicts between farmers and pastoralists. the nomadic herders on the other hand view these laws as a violation of their fundamental human rights as enshrined in the ecowas protocol on free movement of persons, residence and establishment, the protocol on transhumance and the nigerian constitution (kwaja and ademola-adelehin, 2017; nasir, 2018). there have been fierce debates about the legitimacy of such laws and the implications of enforcing the laws. as researchers and policy-makers chart the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1653 course for the future of mobility research and pastoralism in west africa, it is imperative to examine the ways in which the available policies have shaped the migration of pastoralists and pastoralism in general and the implications going forward. drawing on case studies from parts of nigeria and provisions of some existing policies, this paper briefly highlights the practical implications of transhumant activities and further reviews the seemingly unintended effects of the existing policies and the alternative policies that have emerged in response to the perceived failures of extant laws in nigeria. specifically, the paper examines the provisions of the ecowas transhumance protocol, the nigerian constitution and the open grazing prohibition laws and the suitability and effectiveness of the laws. it further explores available policy response options (amend, replace, remove or add a policy) to address issues associated with the migration of pastoralists in west africa and nigeria in particular. this knowledge is fundamental for policy formulation and review as the nigerian government and its regional partners grapple with the conflicts arising from the migration of pastoralists across local and international borders. background/contextualization transhumance as an adaptation measure entails the movement of pastoralists across agro-ecological zones at various seasons in search of pasture for their livestock. it has a long history as an important source of livelihood in the sahel and the sudanese regions of africa. the depletion of arable land for farming and rapid urbanization have caused the amount of land available for crop production and grazing to shrink. in addition, tall (2018) noted that livestock density per hectare of grazing land has increased by 41% between 2006 to 2016 while forage and fodder production has significantly reduced, leading to increased cross-border transhumance. generally, the increased rate of migration which is largely in search of pasture for livestock has been attributed to the ravaging effects of climate change. climate change across the globe has resulted in longer periods of droughts, changes in precipitation patterns, increased heat waves and by implication, changes in plant and animal ranges. in addition to climate variability, environmental degradation and socio-political upheavals have also altered the migratory patterns of pastoralists (aremu and abraham, 2018; bonneau, 2012; burrows and kinney, 2016; chatty and sternberg, 2015; djekić, 2014; hartmann et al, 2010). the historical migratory patterns (routes, destinations and season of movement) of pastoralists have been greatly affected by the variations in climatic conditions, increase in population, settlement expansion/urbanization and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1654 intensity of crop production. thus, areas that were once designated as grazing routes have been taken over by farms and settlements. hitherto attractive destinations for pastoralists are currently experiencing adverse climatic conditions, causing the pastoralists to deflect to more favourable environments. relatedly, seasonal migration of pastoralists which once recorded massive movements southwards during the dry season and northwards at the onset of the rains have been altered as a result of the changing climatic conditions and abrupt displacements from increased conflicts across the continent. these movements which were once temporary have become semi-permanent or even permanent in recent times (tonah, 2006). figure 1 below shows the migratory patterns of cross-border pastoralists within west africa. figure 1: map showing migratory patterns of cross-border pastoralists source: sahel and west africa club (swac, 2018). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1655 the resultant effect of these movements in the transit or host countries is an increase in the competition for available land resources between farmers and pastoralists, often leading to violent confrontations and conflicts. thus, the age-long cross-border transhumance practice has come under threat of extinction since it is perceived as the source of many major conflicts in the west african sub-region. in fact, the united nations economic commission for africa (uneca, 2017) reported that the majority of the ongoing conflicts in central african republic, chad, mali, northeast kenya, somalia and sudan involve pastoralists. from mali to south sudan, democratic republic of the congo, burkina faso, ghana to nigeria, the magnitude and intensity of violence between farmers and herders has increased significantly. in burkina faso, a report presented by the new humanitarian (2012) indicated that from 20082012, about 55 people were killed in 4,000 recorded clashes between farmers and pastoralists. the report further showed that an estimated 600 incidences of conflicts occur each year and the number has been rising with each passing year. similarly, gaye (2018) reported high incidences of violent conflicts between sedentary farmers and pastoralists in mali and burkina faso. in nigeria, historical accounts suggest that the relationship between farmers and herders was relatively cordial and mutually beneficial. this coexistence was not without low-scale skirmishes which were usually caused by the destruction of crops or the killing of cattle. in recent times, such confrontations have become more violent, involving massive casualties, destruction of settlements, infrastructure and properties, including large-scale forceful displacement of people. it also involves the use of sophisticated weapons like machine guns and ak-47 rifles. these new dimensions of the conflicts have raised questions about the origins of the ‘new breed’ of itinerant herders on the one hand and the support-base or criminal networks of the ‘indigenous’ herders on the other. the current surge in conflicts between farmers and pastoralists across west africa is contrary to the tenets and expectations of the ecowas protocols on free movement of persons and transhumance. thus, there has been an enhanced and intentional focus on the development and improvement of policies by local, national and regional actors across west africa to address the protracted conflicts between farmers and pastoralists. literature review: overview of interactions between farmers and pastoralists in africa while the transhumance protocol acknowledges the benefits of pastoralism, it is also not oblivious of the potential conflicts that may arise when two african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1656 divergent agricultural livelihoods – farming and pastoralism cross paths. however, in recent times, the negative consequences of the escalated conflicts between farmers and pastoralists seem to have inundated the benefits of pastoralism. the limited information and statistics available suggest that pastoralism contributes about 30-38% of the gross value of the agricultural commodities in africa (uneca, 2017). avis, (2018) note that in 2014, a world bank report indicated that livestock rearing contributed about 38% to the agricultural gross domestic product (gdp) in 16 african countries. among these african countries covered in the report, djibouti had the highest contribution (90%) of livestock to agricultural gdp while in nigeria livestock contributed about 10% to the agricultural gdp. generally, pastoralists supply about 90% of the meat consumed in east africa and about 60% of the meat and milk products consumed in west africa (avis, 2018). on the other hand, several studies have reported on the conflicts between pastoralists and farmers or local communities in different parts of africa and the attendant consequences. olaniyan (2015) reported violent clashes between fulani pastoralists and the konkomba farming community, in which human lives were lost, cattle were rustled, houses were burnt and large-scale displacement of people occurred. the study also reported that some of the herders affected in the conflicts were citizens of burkina faso. this points to the possibility of cross-border herders being victims of the conflicts. the finding also deflates the skewed impression created by the dominant narratives that cross-border pastoralists are the sole perpetrators of conflicts in their host communities. in tanzania, mwamfupe (2015) observed that conflicts between farmers and pastoralists have increased in magnitude and spread. he noted further that the areas affected were historically crop producing areas; but the migration of pastoralists triggered conflicts within such areas. these persistent conflicts between farmers and pastoralists across africa have given rise to a number of issues including food insecurity. a report presented by the internal displacement monitoring centre (idmc) suggests that in 2018, there were about 541,000 new displacements as a result of conflict and violence in parts of nigeria (idmc, 2018). out of this number, about 200,000 persons were displaced in the middle belt region of nigeria where the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists are rife. these conflict-induced displacements have had a significant effect on the economy, agriculture and development efforts as a whole. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1657 research suggests that conflicts are the main drivers of food insecurity across the world. in 2017, findings obtained from 18 countries across the world including south sudan, somalia, yemen and nigeria indicate that famine driven by conflict has given rise to increased hunger and malnutrition which has affected over 20 million people (united nations world food programme, 2018). in ghana, antwi (2018) found that loss of access to arable farmlands, reduced crop production, labour shortages and crop destruction all had an adverse effect on food security. similarly, azad and kaila (2018) conducted surveys among households in conflict regions of nigeria including north central, north east and south-south and found that a significant percentage of the households are highly ‘food insecure’. this study found that there was a link between food prices and food insecurity in all three nigerian regions. the high cost of food in the areas affected by conflicts may not be unconnected to decreased crop production, high cost of labour and costs involved in transporting food to regions affected by conflicts. consequently, the research concluded that armed conflicts have a detrimental effect on food security as they reduce production, increase food prices and reduce access to food. in response to the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists, governments in african countries have individually and collectively introduced measures including the promulgation of laws. for instance, the ghanaian state adopted a policy of expulsion which entailed the evacuation of fulani herders from ghana and the introduction of measures that prevented them from entering and conducting any business in the country (olaniyan et al, 2015). the policy was introduced as a measure to put an end to the recurrent conflicts between farmers and pastoralists and it was applied in agogo town in northern ghana. these expulsions were premised on the perceived status of fulani herders as ‘strangers’ and not originally from ghana. the policy of expulsion contravenes the provisions of the ghanaian constitution which recognizes people born in the country and those who have acquired citizenship as legitimate citizens of the country (olaniyan et al, 2015). similarly, as a member state of ecowas and a signatory to the regional treaties, the policy of expulsion introduced in ghana violated the protocols on free movement of persons, residence and establishment and transhumance. this example highlights the contradictions in local, national and regional pacts which are capable of threatening the free movement of pastoralists within and across countries in west africa. the situation in east africa is not different either. in tanzania, the government employed strategies like the eviction of livestock and their owners from certain areas and split villages, designating specific areas for crop cultivation african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1658 and others for grazing to deal with the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists. however, mwamfupe (2015) still identifies policy deficiencies and contradictions as a major factor contributing to the protracted conflicts. this is in line with the observations by unowas (2018) that the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists are aggravated by the weak enforcement of the rule of law. in a comprehensive analysis of the regulations governing pastoralism in africa, leonhardt (2017) assesses the extent to which free movement policies, legislation and practices are being applied to transhumant pastoralism in the ecowas region, particularly in mali, niger and nigeria and the resultant effect thereof. leonhardt (2017:13) finds that contradictory public policies are currently affecting the mobility of pastoralists. for instance, he noted that, […] in contrast to the transhumance protocol of 1998, the ecowas regulation on the implementation of the transhumance protocol (2003) regards pastoralist transhumance not so much as a valuable economic activity but more as a relic of the past that will soon be replaced by more intensive forms of animal husbandry. the analysis further identifies limited domestication of the ecowas transhumance protocol in member states and uneven development of the institutional structures and operational guidelines required for the implementation of the protocols as some of the challenges faced in the regulation of cross-border transhumance. consistent with this view, a study by the food and agricultural organization (fao) and ecowas (2012) outlined key challenges encountered by practitioners of cross-border transhumance to include the existence of land policies that do not take into account pastoral mobility and limited promulgation and implementation of policies, institutions, legal and regulatory frameworks regarding pastoralism. alidou (2016) also observed that various countries have formulated and passed legislation but these have not been put into operation. opanike and aduloju (2015) presented a more radical view when they asserted that the ecowas protocol on free movement of persons is contributing to insecurity in the west africa sub-region. they further alleged that ecowas does not have adequate instituted mechanisms for monitoring cross-border movements. thus, people who carry out nefarious activities have exploited the opportunities to their advantage. this has led to increased crime and criminality, thus abusing the privileges of the ecowas protocol on free movement of persons and goods. in april 2018, a high-level meeting of african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1659 ministers in charge of security and agriculture/livestock or transhumance in west african countries and representatives of regional and international organizations held in abuja deliberated on some of the challenges of transhumance. the challenges identified were the lack of implementation of existing pastoral and transhumance laws, political manipulation and the proliferation of weapons in the region. the meeting therefore proffered some recommendations which include: the audit of the non-implementation of the existing regulatory framework relating to transhumance; the control of the proliferation of small arms; the review and update of the existing regional regulatory frameworks relating to transhumance and the international transhumance certificate considering current realities; the harmonization and implementation of national legislation in compliance with ecowas laws on transhumance and small arms control; and the review of the existing transhumance routes. it is too early at this point to ascertain the progress made by the participating countries on the implementation of the aforementioned recommendations. the meeting further agreed that herder-farmer conflicts are a regional issue that requires a regional approach as it affects human, economic, national and regional security. the preceding discussions and the recommendations proffered by the high-level panel suggest that the non-implementation of policy frameworks and the contradictions in the regional, national and local laws are major impediments to the regulation of pastoralism and its attendant consequences. thus, adequate attention needs to be given to the policies that regulate pastoralism within and across countries, to harness the benefits of the practice and mitigate its adverse effects. methodology this study adopted a combination of policy analysis and fieldwork in selected states in nigeria. existing policies like the ecowas protocol on transhumance (1998), the constitution of the federal republic of nigeria (1999) and other local laws were examined. this was necessary because these laws stipulate the conditions for the migration of pastoralists and are at the centre of the quest for a lasting solution to the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists in nigeria. information from the fieldwork was used to complement the policy analysis. the fieldwork covered three states in nigeria namely benue, plateau and adamawa, where the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists were prevalent. benue and plateau states are located in the central part of nigeria while adamawa state is situated in north-east nigeria. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1660 semi-structured interviews with farmers and pastoralists were used. interviews were conducted between august and november 2017. the interviews sought to elicit information on the nature of the conflicts, the drivers of the conflicts from the perspective of those directly affected and the efficacy of existing policies in dousing the tensions between the two groups. the views of farmers and pastoralists were important to confirm or dispute the claims relating to the emergence and role of new actors in the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists. the qualitative data generated through the interviews was analyzed according to dominant themes. the provisions of the ecowas transhumance protocol were outlined and examined to address pertinent issues and questions relating to effectiveness (how well a policy works), evaluation of alternatives (how good the policy is compared to other approaches) and the establishment of recommendations for positive change (is it better to amend, replace, remove or add a policy?) in addition, the provisions of related legal instruments like the nigerian constitution and the anti-open grazing laws were reviewed. discussion while the ecowas protocol on free movement of persons and goods and the protocol on transhumance aim to promote regional integration and boost agricultural production respectively, the policies have contributed to transborder crime and insecurity in nigeria, thereby producing counter-productive results. the situation is worsened by the uncontrolled and porous borders across nigeria. cross-border transhumance has been associated with exacerbated conflicts between farmers and pastoralists, the emergence of new actors and the proliferation of small arms and ammunition. these have compounded and changed the dynamics of farmer-herder conflicts across west africa. the widespread displacement of people, destruction of homes and infrastructure, loss of lives, disruption of livelihoods and diminishing labour force are currently affecting the socio-economic development of states like benue, plateau and adamawa. the conflicts have long-term effects on food security, access to education and other aspects of development. the international crisis group (2018) found that the disruption caused by conflicts between farmers and herders in benue, nasarawa and taraba states in nigeria have led to an estimated 33-65% reduction in farming activities and food production. relatedly, officials of benue and plateau states reported that about 60% of displaced persons were children of school-going age. this implies that such children have been deprived of access to formal and non-formal basic education. the cumulative effect is an increase in poverty, inequality and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1661 underdevelopment in the affected states. these negative effects of the migration of pastoralists across and within borders have elicited debates on the place of itinerant herders in contemporary african society. policy implications: provisions of the ecowas transhumance protocol several aspects of the transhumance protocol are of particular interest in this paper. article 3 allows for free movement across the borders of all member states upon the satisfaction of stipulated conditions. these conditions include the possession of the ecowas international transhumance certificate (itc). the reason for the introduction of the transhumance certificate was to document the movement of cross-border pastoralists. this documentation enables the tracking of pastoral movements and provides information to the host communities on the arrival of transhumant animals. the certificate basically contains the itinerary of the herders, the border posts to be crossed and the final destination of the pastoralists. article 7 stipulates that transhumance herds shall follow the routes defined by member states in accordance with the itinerary indicated on the ecowas itc. in the event of any contraventions, article 13 makes provision for the apprehension of stray animals by the relevant authorities without prejudice to the application of sanctions against their owner or herdsmen as provided for by laws applicable in cases of stray animals in the member states concerned. articles 14 and 15 address issues relating to the period during which migrating livestock may enter into and depart from host territories and the responsibility of states in defining the areas where transhumant animals may be stocked and the maximum capacity of each holding zone. the protocol further demands that accompanying herdsmen must pen up their herd in the zone assigned by officials at the point of entry. while it appears that the proponents of the transhumance protocol foresaw the likelihood of conflicts between pastoralists and host communities and laid down seemingly adequate measures to prevent the occurrences of such, persistent conflicts between the two groups suggest that either the protocol is inefficient or enforcement and adherence have been lacking. article 16 requires herders to observe all laws and regulations of the host country, particularly those concerning the conservation of forest reserves, forest resources and the management of watering points and pastoral land. interestingly, the transhumance protocol in both articles 13 and 16 acknowledges the extant laws in member states and does not in any way assume overarching authority in the regulation of transhumant activities in african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1662 the member states. however, the attempts by some state governments in nigeria to introduce and enforce laws to abate the conflicts have often met stiff resistance, with the majority of those opposing such laws making reference to the contradictions between local laws and the ecowas transhumance protocol. even though the nigerian government was a signatory to the ecowas transhumance protocol, little or no effort has been made in domesticating and implementing the provisions of the protocol. for instance, cross-border pastoralists migrate into the country unchecked and without the required international transhumance certificate which is supposed to show their itinerary and certify their livestock fit for passage. another contradictory dimension could be the relevance of the ecowas transhumance protocol in the member states. if the provisions of the protocol suggest that national and local laws of member states supersede the protocol, then of what use is the protocol in regulating cross-border transhumance besides the issuance of the international transhumance certificate? policy implications: perspectives of farmers and pastoralists in nigeria through semi-structured interviews with farmers and pastoralists in parts of nigeria, it was gathered that there is a link between the escalation of conflicts and the emergence of new actors. the farmers and pastoralists interviewed referred to these new conflict actors as ‘a new breed’ of pastoralists originating from other countries in africa. some of the respondents traced the origin of the pastoralists to central african republic and libya. they alleged that these pastoralists who had been displaced by conflicts in their original areas of habitation brought along sophisticated weapons which are used in the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists in nigeria. according to the members of farming communities in benue, plateau and adamawa states, the major differences between the new and old pastoralists are that the former carry weapons such as guns as they move with their livestock and they are unable speak the hausa language while the latter carry sticks and often communicate in other nigerian languages such as hausa. some excerpts from the interviews show the views of respondents on the migration of pastoralists in nigeria: the new herders with guns from mali, libya and central african republic where there are ongoing conflicts move freely into nigeria. they are received by the indigenous herders residing in northern nigeria. as unfavourable conditions such as drought and desert encroachment worsen in northern nigeria, they drift southwards african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1663 towards central nigeria. conflicts arise when their cattle destroy farmers’ crops or when the farmers steal or kill their cattle (interview with a community leader, plateau state). similarly, interviews with community leaders and the fulani ardos in adamawa state revealed that the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists are driven by the influx of a ‘new breed’ of herders. these ‘new breeds of herders’ were referred to as fulani daji (literally translated as ‘bush fulani’) in a bid to distinguish ‘legitimate’ herders (fulani gida), who are inhabitants of the local communities, from the unrecognized itinerant herders who are new entrants. these itinerant herders allegedly migrated from countries such as mali, niger and chad. in adamawa state, a traditional ruler in yola south local government gave a brief historical account thus: the fulani gida pastoralists lived with the bachama ethnic group peacefully before the arrival of the foreign itinerant herders (fulani daji). the fulani daji caused the conflicts from the beginning. they killed members of the other ethnic groups in the state. after igniting the violence, they moved on, leaving behind tensions between the other ethnic groups and the fulani gida. the other ethnic groups then turned on the fulani gida claiming that they were co-conspirators of the fulani daji. this led to the escalation of the conflicts between the other ethnic groups which are predominantly farmers and the fulani gida who are pastoralists. though the government was aware that the initial perpetrators of the violence were migrant herders, no action was taken to address the issue (interview with a traditional ruler in yola south, adamawa state). the views on the influx of a supposedly different group of herders were corroborated by respondents in benue state. in providing the distinction between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ types of pastoralists, a traditional ruler said: in those days, fulani herders sought permission from local traditional rulers before settling temporarily in a community. that way, it was easy to hold the herders accountable in the event of crop destruction by cattle. recently, the ‘new type’ of herders arrive in our communities without prior notice, thus violating the mutual arrangements we had with the old fulani herders (interview with a traditional ruler in benue state). in benue, adamawa and plateau states, it was reported that the emergence of these foreign itinerant herders has led to more violent and brutal killings, the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1664 use of sophisticated weapons such as ak-47 guns and midnight attacks that leave no trace of the attackers by daybreak. besides the identification of the new or foreign pastoralists by their inability to communicate in an indigenous nigerian language, there exists little or no substantial evidence to prove the actual identities of these invaders. despite the protracted nature of the conflicts, no foreign itinerant pastoralist has been arrested or prosecuted. however, these narratives of the identities of the invaders have also been propagated by the nigerian president and the military security chiefs who alleged that the violence between farmers and pastoralists is perpetrated by ‘mercenaries’ who have received training in libya. in spite of these allegations and subtle admission of a possible security breach, little or nothing has been done to control the entrance of pastoralists into nigeria. in addition, no effort has been made to enforce the pre-conditions for admission into ecowas member states as stipulated by the transhumance protocol. failure to enforce the terms and conditions outlined in the transhumance protocol like the issuance of international transhumance certificates endorsed by competent authorities in pastoralists’ countries of origin, has resulted in the uncontrolled influx of pastoralists from different parts of africa into nigeria. the traditional ruler in yola south, adamawa state opined that the nigerian government must be held accountable for the unregulated movements of pastoralists within and across local and international borders. he stated: the government needs to address these questions: how did the pastoralists come here? where did they come from? what is their reason for moving? how do they manage to traverse the country without the intervention of law enforcement agencies? why are permits not issued by government agencies at the border crossing? …the nomads come in as if there are no rules or laws governing their movements. why won’t the government enforce the laws which relate to migration of pastoralists and if there is none, why can’t the government enact such laws? (interview with a traditional ruler in yola south, adamawa state). adamawa state is on the nigerian border with cameroon. the traditional ruler compared the experiences of pastoralists attempting to cross over to cameroon with what is obtainable in nigeria: i have five different shepherds nurturing five different herds of cattle. if any of my shepherds intend crossing the border into cameroon, there is always a border security personnel who will first ask questions like, where are you from? where are you going to? are your cows healthy? in african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1665 fact, there are veterinarians stationed at the border to check the health condition of the cows before livestock are granted entry into cameroon. you also have to tell them your name, present your passport to them or any nigerian identity card which bears your name. after all the security checks, the security personnel leads the pastoralist to the village head for proper introduction. the village head then allocates a space for the pastoralist and his livestock. that way, they are able to monitor incoming pastoralists effectively. the nigerian government needs to enforce the issuance of resident permits to all itinerant pastoralists who come into the country through the borders and even for those traversing internal borders. the permits can serve as evidence that the holder is moving under the authority of the government. they can achieve that by manning the borders with credible security personnel. if these measures are implemented, the conflicts between farmers and pastoralists will be reduced if not eradicated (interview with a traditional ruler in yola south, adamawa state). two key issues can be identified from the preceding discussion. first, it is evident that the provisions of the ecowas transhumance protocol have not been implemented in nigeria. thus, pastoralists have unfettered access into the country. secondly, the ecowas transhumance protocol acknowledges the primacy of national and local laws, which means that the validity of the transhumance protocol does not transcend borders. this further implies that the guidelines of the ecowas transhumance protocol can be adhered to at the international boundary crossing points but whatever happens after the pastoralists get into the transit or host territory, is to be determined by the laws of that country. so, what do the national and local laws say about the movement of pastoralists within internal borders? provisions of national and local laws in nigeria the major legal documents within nigeria that are referenced in the discourse relating to pastoralism are the constitution of the federal republic of nigeria (1999) and the laws prohibiting open grazing of livestock (as is applicable in ekiti, benue and taraba states) or criminalizing cattle rustling (as is the case in katsina state). the nigerian constitution (1999) chapter 4 of the nigerian constitution (1999) as amended describes components of fundamental rights to include the right to freedom of african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1666 movement. specifically, section 41 states that every citizen of nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout nigeria and to reside in any part thereof, and no citizen of nigeria shall be expelled from nigeria or refused entry thereby or exit therefrom. the nigerian constitution of 1999 as amended does not specifically address pastoral mobility but permits the free movement and settlement of people wherever they choose to. even though the freedom of movement and residence is accorded to human beings, livestock are an integral part of the people’s livelihoods and therefore share in the privileges accorded their owners. this freedom to reside wherever one desires has been classified as a fundamental human right of all citizens and rightly so. however, such laws do not define the boundaries of one’s freedom of movement and residence and are silent on issues that may arise when one’s freedom of movement and residence impinges on another’s right to life and sustenance. these lapses in the constitution and the absence of specific federal laws that address pastoralism have created a vacuum that is currently being filled by the introduction of laws in some states across nigeria. the open-grazing prohibition law the recent trend in nigeria is the enactment of the open-grazing prohibition and ranches establishment act in some of the states plagued by violent conflicts between farmers and pastoralists. according to the governors of the states where laws have been introduced to criminalize open-grazing of animals including cattle, the laws became necessary to minimize the conflicts between the two groups. this became imperative especially in the face of perceived inaction from the federal government of nigeria. however, the introduction of the laws have been faced by stiff resistance from various stakeholders including the president of nigeria, the chief of defence staff, the former inspector-general of police and members of the socio-cultural group representing all fulani pastoralists in the country, the miyetti allah cattle breeders’ association of nigeria (macban). in nigeria, states determine what is permissible on the land within their territory/borders. similarly, the states also have the legal mandate to enact laws that prohibit certain practices and spell out punitive measures for the offenders. these powers have been vested in state governors by the land use act of 1978 (federal republic of nigeria, 1978). according to the land use act of 1978, all lands within the boundaries of a state are under the control of the state and are administered under the authority of the state governor. consequently, nigerian states are at liberty to make laws on how land will be african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1667 used within their areas of jurisdiction. even the federal government has to acquire land from state governments for the execution of projects in states under the terms and conditions stipulated by the state. it is safe to say that the local laws governing the administration and access or use of land supersede any federal or regional law. acting within its legal authority, the benue state government promulgated the open grazing prohibition and ranches establishment law in may 2017 (benue state government, 2017). however, the implementation of the law was delayed for about six months. the law sets the conditions under which livestock rearing can be done within the state. the law, which is popularly called the anti-open grazing law, came into effect in november 2017. the law aims to abolish the current practice of pastoralism by prohibiting the free movement of animals within the state except by road or rail. the law further advocates for ranching as the ‘best practice’ for livestock rearing. according to the law, pastoralists and other interested parties are to lease land from the government for the establishment of ranches. the lease permit issued for such land is to be renewed annually. the law further stipulates penalties for defaulters including a jail term of a minimum of five years, or a fine of one million naira (equivalent of $3,000). it is pertinent to note that proposing changes to the lifestyle of a group of people should be a long-term measure: to allow the pastoralists who wish to conform to the government’s proposal to adjust mentally to the sedentary lifestyle; to enable the pastoralists to do away with the local breeds and acquire breeds of cattle that are suitable for ranching; and to enable the government to set in place mechanisms for the successful establishment of ranches. in benue state, the implementation of the law commenced about 5 months after it was signed by the governor – a very short period for interested pastoralists to establish ranches and take the steps towards a sedentary lifestyle. figure 2 below shows a billboard erected by the benue state government providing information on the anti-open grazing law. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1668 figure 2: a billboard providing information on the anti-open grazing law in benue state, nigeria photo credit: linus unah (2018). the introduction of the anti-open grazing law has consequently stirred up debates about its legitimacy on the one hand, and on the other hand, highlights deviations from the ecowas protocols on free movement and transhumance and the nigerian constitution. the representatives of pastoralists in nigeria operating as the miyetti allah cattle breeders’ association (macban) have argued that the provisions of the law trample on their fundamental constitutional rights to free movement and residence in any part of nigeria. in a bid to seek justice, the miyetti allah kautal hore instituted a law suit against the benue state government, pointing out the contradictions between the anti-open grazing law and the provisions of the constitution of nigeria as the major issue of contention. the suit was dismissed by the federal high court, abuja. on the other hand, the benue state government has defended its antiopen grazing law, claiming that the constitutional rights to freedom of movement and residence apply only to humans and not to animals. another line of argument has been on the issue of whose rights are more legitimate, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1669 especially in a state like benue where a significant percentage of the population are rural crop farmers. thus, members of farming communities have argued that freedom of movement and residence is not an exclusive right for pastoralists, but that such freedom of residence ought to be enjoyed by farmers as they engage in their livelihood practices. shortly after the commencement of the implementation of the law in benue state, more than 70 people lost their lives in attacks by suspected fulani militia on 1 january 2018. nigeria’s security chiefs attributed the violent attacks to the introduction of the anti-open grazing law in the state. the arguments presented for the attacks were that the aggrieved pastoralists reacted against an oppressive law. this narrative seemed to suggest that the killings were justifiable. however, it can be argued that local laws such as the anti-open grazing law are filling a void created by the non-implementation of the stipulated conditions for legitimate transhumant activities or the absence of deliberate policies on pastoralism in the country. in addition, states like benue could be responding to the conflicts in the face of daunting frustration by the non-commitment of the federal government of nigeria to deploy strategies to effectively manage the conflicts. conclusion and recommendation the economic community of west african states (ecowas) protocol on transhumance enacted in 1998, though borne out of good intentions, has limited applicability in the transit and host countries because national and local laws supersede the regional protocol. the preceding discussions show that there is weak enforcement of the provisions of the transhumance protocol especially along nigerian borders. in addition, the regional, national and local laws are not aligned to provide a harmonized policy for the migration of pastoralists in west africa. this legal imbroglio that has arisen from the existence of contradictory policies and inherent ambiguities in the national laws, needs to be addressed for pastoralism to thrive. policy-related issues that require attention include, the undocumented movement of pastoralists across internal and international borders; unpacking the notion and implications of ‘free movement’ across internal and international borders to ensure fairness to all; and the development of institutions and mechanisms to specifically address issues associated with the migration of pastoralists. there is also a need to find a compromise between national laws and local laws to address the contradictory issues. focus should be placed on research to find ways of reaching this compromise and to identify the alternative policies that african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1670 may be useful in addressing the migration of pastoralists in west africa and beyond. references alidou, s.m. 2016. cross-border transhumance corridors in west africa, capex series on pastoralism. switzerland: swiss agency for development and cooperation (sdc). from < https://bit.ly/31mggrq> (retrieved on may, 25, 2019) amnesty international, 2018. harvest of death: three years of bloody clashes between farmers and herders in nigeria. abuja: amnesty international ltd, afr44/9503/2018. antwi, s.o. 2018. farmer-herder conflict and food security in kwahu east district, eastern region, ghana. master’s thesis, norwegian university of life sciences. from <http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2505703> (retrieved on april 11, 2019). aremu, t. and 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may, 12, 2019). united nations office for west africa and the sahel (unowas). 2018. pastoralism and security in west africa and the sahel: towards peaceful coexistence, unowas, dakar, senegal. united nations world food programme (wfp). 2018. global report on food crises, world food programme (wfp), rome, italy. velasco-gil, g. and maru, n. 2018. crossing boundaries: legal and policy arrangements for cross-border pastoralism. rome: food and agriculture organization (fao) of the united nations and the international union for conservation of nature (iucn). https://www.trtworld.com/ http://www.uneca.org/ african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1674 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za this issue consists of a book review and four articles. the review was made by daniel tevera of a book entitled “expanding boundaries: borders, mobilities and the future of europe–africa relations”, edited by jussi p. laine, inocent moyo and christopher changwe nshimbe (2021). the reviewer made a critical and scholarly evaluation of the entire book. according to tevera, the book, which is organized into three parts, provides an interesting perspective on various issues. the reviewer concludes that this book is an important contribution to the literature on borders, mobilities and the future of europe–africa relations, despite the fact that a few chapters would have benefitted from a more in-depth discussion of the relevant issues. the first article by meron zeleke is entitled “the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants”. using a qualitative method of research, which involved the collection and analysis of non-numerical data, the author explored opinions and experiences of the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants. the author’s data collection method defies the commonly recognized trend of “methodological nationalism” in migration research. this empirical study suggests that such an approach fails to grasp the essence of the complex nature of transitioning by moving beyond such an orientation. the author underlines the need of taking a diachronic approach when studying transit migration paths, given that the transit experience is not always tied to a certain location and time, as evidenced by the experiences of ethiopian female migrants reported in this research. the findings of this study shed light on ethiopian female migrants’ complex transit experiences in two different transit locations, as well as their agency in determining their mobility/ immobility, redefining their destinations and transit pathways, and settling, a theme that has escaped attention in prior works on female migration from ethiopia. the second article by leander kandilige, thomas yeboah and theophilus kwabena abutima is entitled “citizenship, belonging and crisis-induced returns of ghanaian migrants from côte d’ivoire”. the research employed a qualitative research design involving semi-structured interviews conducted with six categories of participants in ghana and examines the experiences of returned ghanaian migrants who were victimized and trapped in a conflict situation in côte d’ivoire in 2002–2003 and 2010–2011. despite their passive role as perpetrators of violence, ghanaian migrants were subjected to harassment, intimidation, and physical attacks, which contributed to painful feelings long after the crisis ended. overall, this work 4 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 makes a significant contribution to the literature on the vulnerabilities of migrants caught up in crisis situations, as well as policies and emergency actions to address migrants caught up in crisis situations. these findings have significant implications for emergency responses to migrant crisis situations. the third article by johannes machinya is entitled “migration and politics in south africa: mainstreaming anti-immigrant populist discourse”. methodologically, this paper is based on an analysis of selected political actors’ mediated performances like press statements, public speeches, interviews, or other statements posted on social media platforms like twitter and youtube, and how these politicians presented their messages with a conspicuous anti-immigrant populist appeal. the author examined several political players and conducted a critical discourse analysis in terms of anti-immigrant rhetoric, identifying crucial trends in how political actors mediated immigration discourse. this paper underscores that what feeds and bestows social legitimacy to xenophobia is the foregrounding of an anti-immigrant populist discourse in the mainstream political discourse with the participation of political leaders from across the political spectrum. in general, the paper provides an in-depth analysis of the status quo of the anti-immigrant populist political discourse being entrenched and normalized in the mainstream political discourse and highlights areas for improvement. the fourth article by samson olaoluwa faboye is entitled “examining nigeria’s digital identity project as a tool for economic inclusion and regional integration”. a qualitative research methodology and secondary data analysis – mainly documentary reviews – were applied to explore the core themes of the topic. the study claims that african countries should invest in and develop their own digital database management infrastructure in order to reduce their reliance on the european union (eu) and china. furthermore, the study recommends that, similar to frontex’s work in the schengen area, a central regional and continental border control agency based on an au-managed database may assist with the coordination of digital identification throughout the continent for immigration and customs reasons. the outcomes of this study suggest that digital technology is pervasive in all aspects of human life and serves as a means of navigating the globalized digital world. with effective academic writing and presentations, good organization, and critical argumentation, the authors produced an outstanding research output. i am confident that african human mobility review, volume 8, number 1, 2022 provides a significant resource for scholars, practitioners, and students. african human mobility review, vol 5, no 1, april 2019 precarious mobility: infrastructures of eritrean migration through the sudan and the sahara desert tekalign ayalew mengiste abstract this paper explores migrants’ experiences and their specific practices geared towards negotiating migration barriers and the effects of externalization. contemporary migration from eritrea is shaped by changing migrant aspirations, expanding networks of intermediaries and socioeconomic challenges. this is compounded by the european union’s (eu) externalization of border controls and limited opportunities for legal migration paths. in this context, a vast majority of eritrean young men and women opt for overland exits through dangerous and long trails across the sahara desert and the mediterranean sea until they arrive in europe. the irregular transitions and stepwise mobility are facilitated by the interactions of actors, mainly smugglers, family members in one’s homeland, former migrants en route and in the diaspora as well as the local people along the trails, which i call infrastructures of migratory mobility. the paper argues that migrants and their communities develop and use alternative mobility infrastructures by establishing a transnational knowledge community to navigate increasing migration controls in origin and transit countries, as well as the externalization of european borders and migratory controls. keywords migration infrastructure, journey, transition, eritrea, smuggling, knowledge, externalization. introduction our dream is to reach europe at any cost. look at what is happening here [sudan]….the police chase us everywhere in khartoum. we must leave soon…. we cannot go back to eritrea.... staying here is also dangerous.... i pray to find a good ‘semsari’1 [lit. smuggler in arabic] and a good cotraveller. i am gathering information about routes, smugglers, timing,  assistant professor of social anthropology at addis ababa university and research associate at stockholm university. email: tekalign.ayalew@socant.su.se 1 semsari: a term used for persons who informally arrange travel documents or transport services for migrants in exchange for money. migrants also use the term alternatively with delaloch when they are in libya, sudan or other middle eastern countries. semsaris or delalochs also arrange domestic work for migrant women in the sudan, libya and italy. tekalign ayalew mengiste 1483 how to behave during interactions with smugglers, how to hide money, which clothes, medicine and food to carry. i am also waiting for my sister from germany to send me money to pay the ‘semsari’ who would assist us to cross the desert. the vignette above was narrated by an eritrean migrant named meqdi, who was in her 30s when i met her in khartoum, sudan, in april 2016. she was mobilizing resources to cross the desert from khartoum. her situation was not an isolated case. it was a typical example of how, in the context of challenging socio-economic and political conditions in origin and transit countries and limited availability of paths for legal migration, young male and female migrants from eritrea strive to organize precarious journeys across deserts and seas. this paper discusses the emergence and role of irregular migration facilitating infrastructures that support and sustain eritreans migrating to europe and their transition experiences in the sudan in the context of the european union’s (eu) increasing efforts to externalize border controls. by transition i mean an onward migratory mobility through transit spaces. the discussion is based on empirical data from the field that show specific resources and knowledge used by migrants to keep moving, despite the stated impediments. since 2000, the sudan and libya have been both destination and transition countries for horn of african migrants and asylum seekers who use the northwestern migration routes towards europe via the sudan, the eastern sahara, libya and the mediterranean sea. however, the journey is unpredictable and migrants face uncertainty and violence at every step of their journeys and transitions, particularly in libya. the migratory journeys across the sahara desert have always been risky (dinbabo and carciotto, 2015; dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015; triulzi and mackenzie, 2013: 219). however, the level, types and intensity of violence have recently become more complex, particularly after the libyan civil wars. the situation has deteriorated further with the eu’s insistence on tightening the control of its external borders with the mediterranean sea and libya. it has created a legal and security vacuum where various criminal groups take advantage of the increasing number of migrants who try to cross the desert and enter libya for subsequent mobility towards italy or beyond (cf. reitano, 2015). in addition, countries such as ethiopia and the sudan cooperate with the eu in border controls as they introduce tough border control strategies including african human mobility review, vol 5, no 1, april 2019 seizing and imprisoning eritrean migrants irregularly transiting through their territories (cf. gaibazzi et al., 2017; mengiste, 2017). this indicates not just tightened border control in europe but the diffusion of border control practices from europe to africa. because of these measures and the structural violence manifested via the unequal access to safe migration channels between citizens of the global north and those of the south, a migration journey to europe requires more resources than before, not only in terms of finance but also with regard to reliable information and useful connections with former migrants stationed en route and those settled in the diaspora. nevertheless, migrants are not just victims of this direct and structural violence and the impediments erected along their treks. they have a collective practice in producing and sharing relevant knowledge, finance and other resources by multiplying the effectiveness of individual capacity to enhance their safety and welfare and to keep moving (cf. wheatley and gombergmuñoz, 2016). migrants and their communities design alternative mobility strategies by mobilizing irregular migration facilitation infrastructures (cf. xiang and lindquist, 2014). these include support from their family in the diaspora, smugglers and local people along the route, which becomes a transnational knowledge community (see also mengiste, 2018). this article explores how migrants survive violence and how they organize their migration by mobilizing knowledge, finance, and smuggling services at different phases of their journeys. the next section elaborates the underlining socio-economic and political conditions of mass migration from eritrea. background/contextualization eritrea has recently become one of the leading refugee-sending countries in the world, mainly towards europe. between 2013 and 2016, eritreans constituted about 20 percent of migrants entering italy by sea (frouws, 2017) and from 2013 until 2017 about 104,415 eritreans arrived in italy by sea (unhcr, 2018). however, eritreans have been fleeing war and conflict since the 1960s: first they experienced a 30-year-long war of independence from ethiopia (between 1960 and 1991), which was compounded by recurrent drought and famine that generated about 1 million eritrean refugees scattered throughout the world. many of the early refugees settled along transit countries such as ethiopia, the sudan, and libya. contemporary migration routes that link eritrea with europe, are extending financial support and information to newly arriving migrants. many of the young people from contemporary eritrea are dissatisfied with the growing economic inequalities, tekalign ayalew mengiste 1485 prolonged conflicts and repressive political conditions. the introduction of open-ended and not rendering compulsory military service also put the vast majority of eritrean youth in a prison-like situation (see belloni, 2015). they are also lured by diasporic remittances from receiving countries, mainly in europe, or “returnees’ prosperity” and are driven by social and familial expectations. state persecutions and human rights violations in contemporary eritrea lead to an increasing number of refugee flights (treiber, 2014; campbell, 2014; belloni, 2016). there are smugglers and their connectors and several other actors that emerge and engage in mediating barriers and organize departure and mobility. in addition, the regime has not only inadvertently caused an increase in the flight of asylum seekers but also designed strategies to sustain them, for example, through remittances sent back by the exiled community (tecle and goldring, 2013). within this context, risky migration departures and reaching a perceived better refugee receiving country, mainly in europe, have become a part of the societal norm as well as personal and family hopes to survive and thrive in such uncertain socio-political environments (kibreab, 2013; belloni, 2016). this, in turn, is compounded by the eu’s increasing efforts to stop migratory journeys towards europe by introducing various externalization strategies of border controls such as intercepting migrants and refugees en route and forced deportation. european borders have penetrated deep into african territories as the eu has begun collaborating with african states to impede the migration of africans to europe. this has drastically altered well-established regional population movements within africa (andersson, 2014; menjívar, 2014; kleist, 2017). the eu forcefully implemented its externalization programs by engaging countries such as egypt, the sudan, ethiopia and eritrea to fight irregular eritrean and other east african migratory journeys across their territories (stern, 2015). to generate the promised economic and diplomatic gains from the eu’s externalization strategies, the sudan and egypt introduced tighter border controls in 2014. they began shutting down human smuggling routes that connect eritrea, the sudan, egypt, libya, the central mediterranean sea and italy. they also continuously intercept eritrean asylum seekers passing through their territories and deport them back to eritrea and ethiopia (mengiste, 2017). african human mobility review, vol 5, no 1, april 2019 however, depriving formal channels of mobility across territorial spaces in the era of ‘global interconnections’ has forced many of the youth from eritrea to find alternative informal, dynamic and defiant means of mobility, often at the expense of their lives (cf. triulzi and mckenzie, 2013; belloni, 2016). dynamic informal migration strategies and facilitating infrastructures have developed to fill this gap between expectations and opportunities of migration and mobility. however, the above discussion does not mean that migrants chose mobility because of political and socioeconomic challenges, all at the same time. for each individual, one of the factors is more important and compelling than others. in addition, one condition results in the other. for instance, political challenges and dictatorship may result in economic deprivations and desperations. thus, the focus of this section is not to explain causes of migration in eritrea, but rather to show the forces behind or the context of eritrean asylum seekers’ flight. the sections below empirically highlight how individual strategies, the flow of information and the flow of money are affected by the externalization measures and how they also help to mitigate externalization effects and all kinds of impediments and risks along the migration trails. conceptual framework the paper analyses the material using two concepts: the notion of structural violence and migration infrastructure. the theory of structural violence explains how structural inequalities (political and economic) systematically deny some people their basic human needs and rights (ho, 2007). it defines violence as the avoidable disparity between the potential ability to fulfil basic needs and their actual fulfilment. the theory further constitutes the unequal share of power to decide over the distribution of resources as the pivotal causal factor of these avoidable structural inequalities (ho, 2007). the theory of structural violence provides a useful framework for the understanding of structural violations of global inequalities that lead to violence. these include limited access to safe migration paths for africans, through an examination of how structures (such as border regimes, poverty, political crises, globalization) constrain migrants’ agency to the extent that migrants’ fundamental human needs are constrained during clandestine journeys. the renowned sociologist zygmunt bauman noted the unintended and uncontrollable consequences or risks related to contemporary globalization processes. he argued that globalization divides as much as it unites by making the poor poorer, while the rich become richer and those in the middle suffer tekalign ayalew mengiste 1487 from “existential uncertainty, anxiety and fear as a result” (bauman, 1998: 4). bauman asserts that the freedom of mobility promoted by globalization is not equally distributed across the world and certain sections of the population. he further stated that “mobility climbs to the rank of the uppermost among the coveted values – and the freedom to move, perpetually a scarce and unequally distributed commodity, fast becomes the main stratifying factor of our latemodern or post-modern times” (bauman, 1998: 2). in transnational migration, context violence refers to structural inequalities that deprive people of access to valued resources, including legal paths of migration and hence forces them to take dangerous migration routes (see holmes, 2013: 43-88). it is violence committed by configurations of global inequalities that, in the end, lead to deprivations and physical and psychological injuries. clandestine migrants also experience violence directly, as they often encounter physical, sexual and labour abuses during the migration process (lucht, 2012; mengiste, 2017). to organize migration and survive these violent conditions, migrants mobilize the necessary resources from migration facilitation infrastructures. xiang and lindquist (2014: 124) define migration infrastructure as “the systematically interlinked technologies, institutions, and actors that facilitate and control mobility”. in the context of restrictive immigration regulations at destinations globally and externalizing border control practices towards transit lands, migration can be viewed as procedural, multidirectional and self-adjusting movement. accordingly, migration is mediated by the involution of the regulatory, humanitarian and facilitation elements of the migration infrastructure (xiang and lindquist, 2014). in this regard, the rise of an international regulatory environment and externalization of border control practices have led to a renewed and broad scholarly concern with the migration industry and infrastructures (sørensen and gammeltoft-hansen, 2013; andersson, 2014). however, the migrant has long been left out of this concept of the migration industry, which pays little attention to migrants’ active and passive agency in mobilising migration resources and the diverse and dynamic relationships that emerge between migrants and smugglers (herman, 2006; mengiste, 2018). this study goes beyond the business dimensions and adopts a broader approach, recognizing the entanglement of social and smuggling networks, migration knowledge production and mobilizing financial support from the diaspora. this helps migrants to survive the risks and to mediate barriers related to the eu’s african human mobility review, vol 5, no 1, april 2019 externalization practices including tracking, intercepting, detaining and deporting migrants back to their countries of origin (see gaibazzi et al., 2017). this migration facilitation infrastructure becomes important in organizing migratory journeys from the horn of africa towards europe. it becomes the “spatial, infrastructural and institutional moorings that configure and enable mobilities” (hannam et al., 2006: 3). as demonstrated in the empirical section of this paper, the practice of human smuggling and organizing overland migration partly thrives on being embedded in diasporic transnational social spaces, material practices and migration knowledge production, which collectively build up a transnational knowledge community of migration. while the term transnational knowledge community does not disregard the violence and suffering encountered by migrants and refugees, it can be used to understand the shared practices of producing a body of information pertaining to and allowing for past, on-going and future experiences of migration as constituting a collective system of knowledge. it goes without saying that migrants’ knowledge is incomplete and partial to combat all types of threats and risks; however, it is constantly improvised and updated within the community of mobility. some groups of migrants are well connected to diasporic networks that generate material and economic support. however, as demonstrated in the empirical section, those migrants who have no connections of this kind also generate support from fellow travellers, helpful locals as well as former migrants or co-nationals settled in transit locations (cf. kleinman, 2014; mengiste, 2018). this kind of translocal relations and infrastructural practices enable eritrean migrants to design their own strategies and ways of navigating the system to survive and access remunerative work en route. the translocal connection is an ambiguous space of experiences and agency, a space that does not exist in an absolute form but is created by the interconnections of mobile people, ideas and objects during the migration journeys (see mengiste, 2017). methods of the study this paper is part of a larger research project based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in stockholm (sweden), addis ababa (ethiopia), khartoum (sudan) and rome (italy), conducted between 2014, 2016 and 2018 but this paper focuses on the african part of the study. these cities were chosen because they are both main destinations and transition nodes of eritrean migration, and they are located along the overland migration routes tekalign ayalew mengiste 1489 that link eritrea with main european destination countries such as sweden and the united kingdom (uk) (see mengiste, 2017). the ethnography produced from the african part of the study and used for this paper consists of 94 in-depth interviews with interlocutors (migrants, brokers, border guards and non-governmental organization (ngo) personnel) composed of an almost equal number of women and men, including 35 detailed individual migration narratives. five smugglers were also interviewed, each providing insights into a particular leg of migration pathways. primary data findings were supplemented through reviewing research, policy and critical media reports on contemporary migratory mobility from the horn of africa and practices of human smuggling across euro-african borderlands and beyond. i also had several informal discussions with migrants in the stated research sites and other locations such as malmö in sweden and london in the united kingdom. i carried out participant observations, including extensive casual conversations with refugees, brokers, and smugglers in reception camps, homes, churches, neighbourhoods, squats, restaurants, workplaces and a variety of other settings in addis ababa, khartoum, and rome. this method helped me to generate data on migrants’ transition experiences and the role of communication technologies, brokers and smugglers in facilitating their onward mobility. informal conversations opened up opportunities to recruit key participants who were willing to describe the organization of migratory journeys from eritrea to europe. i conducted interviews while sitting, standing, walking and eating with the interlocutors. in fact, participant observations and informal conversations went hand-in-hand when i conducted fieldwork in the refugee reception centre in stockholm, migrant neighbourhoods, mainly in khartoum and addis ababa and squats in rome. i referenced a list of key themes and questions during the interviews to generate the required information related to migration conditions, facilitation actors, networks and their roles. nevertheless, interlocutors were allowed to propose issues and events they believed were important in the immigration process. i employed life history narrative techniques to generate data on the various stages of migration. as a follow-up, i conducted telephone interviews with my interlocutors regarding their experiences in libya, italy and germany and also with asylum seekers in the märsta refugee reception centre in northern stockholm but who were transferred to other municipalities in sweden. because of the mobile nature of my study subjects, i ensured taking their telephone numbers and african human mobility review, vol 5, no 1, april 2019 established online connections with them via facebook, whatsapp and viber. i actively conducted follow-ups using old, new and social media during all phases of this project (e.g. data collection and write-up processes) to remain updated about the latest developments in the ‘migration and refugee crises’, mainly along the euro-african borderlands and within europe. through the migrant biographies in sweden and the uk and shorter fieldwork stints in the transition nodes in addis ababa, khartoum and rome, i managed to track, trace and map the process of migrants’ mobility across the origin, transition and destination locations. results and findings process of departures: leaving eritrea clandestine overland migration from eritrea requires careful planning, money and accumulated knowledge. in general, the necessary knowledge and information about the ‘safest ways of escape from eritrea’ are obtained from former migrants en route and in the diaspora, using cell phones and social media. the overland departure routes and different actors that organize the journey towards the sudan are located in ethiopia and eritrea and link eritrean villages and towns to the city of khartoum in the sudan. this in turn forms a transnational social space that reproduces clandestine migratory exits from eritrea. before departure, eritrean migrants spend months to years gathering the necessary migration knowledge. this shows that the decision to leave eritrea is dangerous, given that its government criminalized migration. the journey to europe is riskier and longer, partly due to the eu’s external border enforcements. before the peace deal between eritrea and ethiopia in 2018, the eritrean regime followed ‘shoot-to-kill policies’ for migrants attempting to cross the border with ethiopia. even though the borders have recently legally opened up and freer movement of the population is made possible, in practice, free mobility of younger people from eritrea to ethiopia or the sudan is not possible as the eritrean regime still maintains the compulsory open-ended national service for the youth. the escaping youth are labelled ‘traitors’ and are hence often exposed to imprisonment or torture. due to the irregular and clandestine nature of the mobility across the highly risky eritrean-ethiopian and eritrean-sudanese border zones, which is partly related to eu intervention and collaboration with migrant-sending and transit countries in east africa in border controls, secrecy is a necessity for the tekalign ayalew mengiste 1491 survival of the migrant (cf. alpes, 2012). it took four years of learning and preparation for the 26-year-old yordi and her husband to leave eritrea. she stated, “i decided to leave the country. but, it took four years of preparation to escape asmara.” migrants claim that in eritrea, it is difficult to know who is a friend or a foe. even one’s own close relative may be a siliya (a spy for the government) and may expose migrants’ escape plans to the regime. migrants could end up in prison for unlimited periods of time. yordi further noted, “the most important thing is finding a reliable ‘pilot’” (a smuggler who guides migrants all the way to the borders). finally, her husband’s friends who were former migrants in ethiopia put yordi’s husband in touch with a ‘pilot’ named kibru, via the internet. kibru had lived in the border areas and crossed the ethiopian borders before the war. he knew every detail of the ‘safest routes to ethiopia’. yordi said that she dressed in black pretending to go to a funeral outside the city. she styled her hair like a rural girl, made up her face and hid any traces of an urban look on her body, to ensure that she did not attract attention from the soldiers and security people. this shows that during escapes, eritrean migrants use particular forms of visibility and invisibility strategies in order to move across closed borders. migrants attempting clandestine crossings at the eritrean-ethiopian and eritrean-sudanese borders do not simply run away independently when they are desperate (mengiste, 2017). rather, their flights are gradual and processual, which requires accumulated knowledge and networks of help embedded in and generated from relations and a range of actors in the locations of origin and in the diaspora. this illustrates that brokering migratory exits involve elements of migration facilitation infrastructures such as communication technologies, state actors and translocal and transnational social relations that produce the necessary migration knowledge, finance and smuggling services (cf. spener, 2004; andersson, 2014; xiang and lindquist, 2014). thus, migratory departures are not an act of moving but a process that requires context-specific substantial resources and know-how. in addition, the clandestine departures from eritrea and overland journeys towards khartoum in the sudan, are dangerous mainly due to kidnappings by criminal bedouin rashaida tribes for ransom (see belloni, 2015), environmental hazards such as hot and arid deserts and interceptions and detentions by the eritrean regime. the migrants therefore need migration facilitators such as ‘pilots’ that guide them through safe passages. yordi noted, “the ‘pilots’ are our visa to exit eritrea. they are our saviours!” this indicates african human mobility review, vol 5, no 1, april 2019 that the process of escape facilitated by smugglers is, contrary to the mainstream narratives of exploitation and crime, far from being perceived as exploitative by migrants. rather, smugglers and migrants conceptualize the facilitation of migrants’ clandestine departures as a mechanism that allows those in transit to be guarded against criminal organizations, environmental challenges and restrictive migration regimes. the specific resources and knowledge produced and reproduced by prospective migrants and migration facilitators enable the migrant departures in the context where externalization operates together with internal measures such as criminalization of emigration in eritrea, put in place by the authoritarian state. this also shows that, because of restrictive border controls, smuggling becomes not only a small-scale migration facilitation industry along state borders, but also an element embedded in the web of social relations within the migrant community (see spener, 2004). the eu externalization policy has increased the vulnerabilities and risks of eritrean migrant departures. following a collaborative border management platform between the eu and east african countries, the sudan and ethiopia increased border control measures including interceptions and deportations of eritrean migrants along the existing overland migration routes that link eritrea with the sudan and ethiopia (see mengiste, 2017). to escape state interception, eritrean migrants take longer and dangerous journeys in order to arrive in the sudan. some of the interlocutors on this research project stated that they moved northwards from asmara and other towns in northern eritrea and passed through several towns to enter port sudan, and then to khartoum by walking for months along dangerous lowland deserts. this has exposed migrants to various kinds of risks including robberies, kidnappings by bedouin rashaida pastoralists in eastern sudan for ransom and attacks by hyenas (see belloni, 2015; mengiste, 2017, 2018). this indicates that the cooperation between the eu and non-european countries on migration and border control could lead to serious human rights violations and migrant vulnerabilities instead of stopping mobility. migrant vulnerabilities in sudan and decisions to cross the desert the sudan has historically been a major destination of eritrean migrants during the liberation war and after the independence of eritrea. since the early 2000s, eritrean migrants have been joining their friends, relatives, neighbours and other eritreans residing in kassala, port sudan, gedaref and khartoum (hassanen, 2007; kibreab, 2013). from 2003 – after the eritrean regime tekalign ayalew mengiste 1493 introduced restrictive emigration laws including criminalizing migratory departures – to the time of writing this article, 1,600 eritreans have crossed the border and entered the sudan every month (kibreab, 2013; mengiste, 2017, 2018). however, new arrivals often come to the sudan using khartoum as a stepping-stone and proceed towards european countries that are assumed to be refugee welcoming nations (cf. belloni, 2016). however, the old, the sick, those who have well established family members in sudan and those who have acquired businesses and obtained sudanese citizenship in various ways, remain in the sudan (see mengiste, 2017). as discussed in detail below, many newly-arrived eritrean migrants in khartoum are undocumented and informally engage in various incomegenerating activities. similar to other contexts of deportable and thus easily exploitable labour, migrants suffer many forms of abuse and exploitation. women migrants are overworked, denied of their salary and lack access to healthcare. they claim that they are also physically and emotionally abused, bearing insults, threats of attacks and ultimatums perpetrated by employers. the police repeatedly ask them for butaqa (identification) and threaten to imprison them if they do not pay bribes. migrants claim that in 2014 and 2015 social exclusion, police harassment and economic exploitation became more frequent. this crackdown on irregular migrants and refugees in the sudan is related to the internal crises in the sudan and the pressure from the eu’s externalization practices via the khartoum process. through the khartoum process, both ethiopia and the sudan receive direct and indirect support from the eu in terms of logistical facilities and development aids in exchange for preventing would-be migrants from migrating. the eu gives states incentives for ensuring that individuals remain in the sudan or ethiopia or for keeping asylum seekers in refugee camps and for introducing physical or legal barriers, including migrant apprehensions (interdictions, interceptions, or ‘turn-backs’) (stern, 2015; mengiste, 2017). this has made the traditional population movements, including migration across the sudanese, ethiopian and eritrean borders more difficult, compared to previous decades. many of the eritrean migrants i met in the sudan said they were planning to leave the country. my informant, meqdi, told me that she and her eritrean partner, solomon, had been preparing to migrate to another country for the past four years. meqdi was tired of the situation in khartoum. every day, the police would round up, detain and impose penalties on undocumented african human mobility review, vol 5, no 1, april 2019 eritrean and ethiopian migrants. meqdi and many other eritrean women who sold coffee and tea on street corners were most vulnerable. in 2015 alone, the police detained her twice, imposed a penalty and confiscated her stall equipment. she had been anxiously waiting to hear about the decision on solomon’s family reunification visa for canada: i am tired! have you seen the giffa [police rounding up and detaining migrants] today? i have lost hope! i should leave soon! it is taking longer. i can’t wait! i do not want to miss this season. all my friends have reached europe. i have prepared all necessary things to cross the desert! meqdi was determined, like many other eritrean overland migrants entering the sudan, to reach europe by crossing the sahara desert and the mediterranean sea. migrants complained about skyrocketing rental and housing costs, deteriorating employment opportunities, frequent arbitrary detentions and demands for bribes by the police. christian interlocutors mentioned that they experienced increased xenophobia from local muslim sudanese. following the eu externalization of border controls to the sudan, mass arrests and deportations of ethiopian and eritrean undocumented migrants and refugees who had moved illegally to the city were the order of the day when i was in sudan in may 2015 and 2016. the police would suddenly round up migrants on the streets or raid their neighbourhoods at night, pile them into trucks, transport them to kasala, a town on the eritrean-sudanese border, or other remote areas and offload them there. in the face of social, economic, political and cultural exclusions, many of my informants felt that they were stuck: they could not return because of the social, political and economic challenges in their homeland, nor could they easily move forward. staying in the sudan was equally dangerous given the high probability of deportations. similar to many refugees in other countries resettlement in a well-off third country through the support of the unhcr was either inaccessible for many of the eritrean asylum seekers or complicated and time-consuming in the sudan for various reasons, including corruption (hassanen, 2007; treiber, 2013, 2014). thus, the sahara desert becomes the only way out for migrants in order to keep moving. as elaborated in the examples below, while they were in khartoum, many migrants were also engaged in income-generating activities until they met a smuggler, found co-travellers and cultivated other necessary resources for the journey to cross the borders. tekalign ayalew mengiste 1495 sharing and reciprocity among migrants in khartoum the accounts of a female migrant, samrawit, demonstrate how migrants in transit countries generate assistance and resources from former migrants who settled in khartoum. when i met samrawit, she was in her late 30s. samrawit first moved from asmara to ethiopia with the help of ‘pilots’ and then to khartoum by securing a tourist visa which was arranged by a delala (broker) in addis ababa for a fee of 18,000 birr (about 750 usd). she lived clandestinely in khartoum for four years, as her tourist visa had expired. she got a cleaning job informally at a private school with the help of her friends and families in the sudan. when i was in khartoum, she was accommodating three cousins and a woman named semhal, a former neighbour and friend in asmara. all four moved to khartoum after living in the shagarab refugee camp for three weeks. smugglers arranged their clandestine trip from the camp to the city. samrawit shared her rooms and food and provided information she assumed was helpful to survive in khartoum. she told them how to move around, use public transport, meet delala, how to behave towards the police and how to bribe them when necessary. samrawit asserted that it is her social duty to help her kin and fellow eritrean migrants: it is my responsibility to help them as much as possible. when i arrived in khartoum, others did the same for me. it is my turn now to help others […] i have to do what i can do for them until they find ways to settle here or move to another country. every eritrean migrant does the same in every step of the journey … in ethiopia, in sudan, in libya, even in italy. samrawit’s accounts reflect ethnic solidarity, kinship obligations and reciprocal relations developed along the transition spaces. these are important resources that configure the organization of contemporary irregular migratory journeys from the horn of africa towards the eu and beyond. social ties en route, according to samrawit’s accounts, not only provide useful information and material support, but also generate hope of surviving the journey and keep migrants moving. community ties are sources of knowledge on how to navigate between the labour market, strict border controls, smuggling services, the sudanese migration or refugee regimes as well as police violence and brutality (cf. de genova, 2002; mengiste, 2017). thus, it is an important element of migration facilitation infrastructure that is reproduced in transit locations via translocal social relations (sørensen and gammeltoft-hansen, 2013; xiang and lindquist, 2014). african human mobility review, vol 5, no 1, april 2019 before the eu tightened its migration policies and externalized border controls to african states, there was huge migratory mobility from subsaharan african countries towards libya via the sudan without much difficulty (see triulzi and mackenzie, 2013). however, following the externalization, smugglers that facilitated migration through the sahara desert found out ‘new’ but dangerous and long routes along the chad territory which in turn exposed migrants to environmental hazards and abuses by criminals (cf. mengiste, 2017; gaibazzi et al., 2017). thus, before their departure from khartoum, migrants generate information from multiple sources, including former migrants who had settled en route, those who managed to arrive in europe, smugglers, local people and failed migrants as the journeys traverse multiple locations and risk factors. migrants constantly learn and differentiate between information that is valuable or not, in managing their journeys. migrants en route establish intimate relations with co-travellers and smugglers to cultivate and maximize their individual and collective agency, survive violence, keep moving and cross borders. even strategic spousal relations are used as a migration strategy through which male and female migrants help each other by generating, for example, money, charity and protection. the sharing practices and knowledge production in transit spaces become an important element of the migration facilitation infrastructure. it serves as a means for migrants to overcome immobility regimes resulting mainly from the diffusion of border controls from europe to transit places in africa. these transition practices further indicate that each step of transnational migration mediation encompasses multiple layers of social relations, values, imprints of the past and imaginations of the future. preparing to cross the sahara: meeting the desert smugglers when migrants decide to cross the sahara desert with the help of smugglers, they must gather the necessary information from their contacts in khartoum and abroad. they try to talk to many people they assume have useful information at every possible occasion, for example, at the church and workplace, to minimize the perceived risks in the desert, libya, the mediterranean sea and beyond, which indicates the unpredictability of the journey. many of the migrants prefer to stay in the sudan or move to other destinations such as the middle east and south africa, rather than crossing the desert. after the sudan introduced tough migration control policies partly due to the pressure from the eu to block east african migrants’ transitions via the sudan, tekalign ayalew mengiste 1497 migrants and smugglers established underground ‘migration shops’ in khartoum (cf. mengiste, 2017). there were some ethiopian and eritrean electronic and clothing shops in the neighbourhood of sahafa sherig and surrounding areas in khartoum. those shops were also the places where the newly arriving and established migrants planning to move to other places met different brokers of eritrean and ethiopian origin, referred to as semsari in the sudan. some of the semsari are shop and other business owners but they work as connectors of migrants with the sudanese and libyan smugglers. here, migrants negotiate prices with semsari to travel to libya or buy passports with forged visas to enter europe or other destinations and collect remittances transferred through hawala 2 money transfers and credit networks from families abroad. remittance in foreign currency is exchanged on the black market. the shops connect migrants, smugglers and migrant families abroad or in the diaspora as well as employers in the sudan and in other countries. this type of shop is an alternative liminal space carved out by migrants and their needs and thus, is truly a ‘migration shop’. i refer to such places in migration trails as ‘transition nodes’, which are places where newly arriving migrants meet former migrants, brokers, informal money transfer agents and other actors to gather information and resources to organize transitions and subsequent journeys. the police regularly raid these areas to corner and detain undocumented migrants, partly with the intention of collecting fines and bribes. choosing ‘good smugglers’ can be difficult, given the rumours of success and failure circulating in the migrant community. some important questions raised by potential migrants include: whose boat is it and how many entered europe safely, traversing eu border control infrastructures in the mediterranean sea? which semsari rescued migrants from criminal kidnappers in the desert and has wider contacts with the sudanese and libyan bigger smuggling rings? which semsari has the ‘best misras’ (lit. safe houses) in the desert and in libya? however, except the connectors, no one knows the exact whereabouts of the bigger smugglers (bosses). one of my informants in the sudan said that semsaris are like winds – they are everywhere and nowhere. they go by different names and constantly change their names, phone numbers and other 2 hawala: the american heritage dictionary of the english language (5th ed.) defines hawala as an “informal system for transferring money, especially across borders, in which local agents disperse or collect money or goods on behalf of friends, relatives, or other agents without legal protection or supervision, trusting that all remaining obligations will be settled through future transactions.” from < https://bit.ly/2duc8pz> (retrieved 21 december 2018). african human mobility review, vol 5, no 1, april 2019 contact details. former migrants en route and those who managed to enter destinations in europe using the same route also guide prospective migrants and put them in contact with connecters and human smugglers. migrants generally prefer a semsari from their own ethnic background or hometown. this increases their confidence and trust in the smuggler that he would be more humane to them during the journey. this indicates that migrants have voices in the smuggling processes and their relations with smugglers are diverse and complex (van liempt and doomernik, 2006). mesi, a 28-year-old eritrean migrant woman, was selling coffee on a street corner when i met her in khartoum in 2015. she told me how she and other eritrean migrants meet smugglers in khartoum. we make and serve coffee in an eritrean way, smoking etan [lit. incense]. we also serve shisha together with coffee. all kinds of migrants, including brokers visit these coffee shops. it is a meeting ground for us to gather information about good brokers and how to contact them. it was here that i contacted the semsari, kibrom. he was a popular semsari from eritrea and has worked with a reputable delela, abdirzak, in libya. kibrom became a friend and arranged my trip to libya on discount. i am working until we depart in the summer. the sudan also has other irregular transition opportunities for migrants and refugees stranded there. the highly corrupted state systems, mainly the security and the police, also engage in human smuggling, exploiting the poorly controlled but vast geographical borderlands the country shares with eritrea, ethiopia, libya, egypt and chad, which makes it an ideal place for the overland human smuggling industry to flourish (cf. triulzi and mackenzie, 2013). however, the eu is trying its best to convince and collaborate with the sudanese government to close the migration routes that pass through the sudanese territory. the eu, with various agreements, including the khartoum process and development aids, helps sudan by funding the border infrastructure at 17 crossing points. the sudanese government militia, the rapid support force (rsf), is tasked with preventing border crossings. with eu support, the sudan also increased joint-border management as already tried between ethiopia, djibouti and the sudan. in addition, the eu money goes towards the financing of the border police in the sudan, purchasing equipment for a training centre in khartoum, and securing cars, cameras, and computers at crossing points (stern, 2015; mengiste, 2017). border guards and security tekalign ayalew mengiste 1499 people of the sudan see these eu externalization measures as a support to strengthen the sudanese internal security and also boost the importance of their task as border controllers (cf. andersson, 2014). the smugglers use their networks to design new and alternative mobility strategies. they gather and share information in reaction to the effects/impact of the eu externalization measures, including the changing situation at the border infrastructure, the legal infrastructure and the securitization context along the migration trail. as discussed below, smugglers and migrants also continuously update each other on the tightening of border control practices and collectively devise strategies to use new mobility routes and timings of the journey. according to my interlocutors, big eritrean and ethiopian smugglers (bosses) are often based in libya and organize the migration remotely. however, after the eu externalization of border controls, they began to commute between khartoum and libya to gather migrants from ethiopia and eritrea through their intermediaries and collectors at various stages of the journey. each smuggler has 10-15 brokers (intermediaries) in khartoum, matama (a border town between ethiopia and the sudan) and kassala (a town along the eritrean and sudanese border) – even in refugee camps in northern ethiopia, eastern sudan as well as in towns and villages in eritrea. each smuggler has connections with other sudanese, libyan, ethiopian and eritrean smugglers en route and at destination points (cf. newsweek, 2015). the major task of ethiopian and eritrean smugglers is generally to bring migrants and connect them to sudanese and libyan smugglers who transport them across the sahara desert. in libya, both eritrean and other libyan or sudanese smugglers host migrants in their misrah (lit. a safe house arranged by smugglers for migrants in order to guard migrants from border regimes) and arrange boats to cross the mediterranean sea. these smuggling services are some of the key elements of the migration facilitation infrastructure that enable migrants to overcome barriers related to externalization measures and cross the harsh and vast desert as well as the mediterranean waters. however, smugglers do not often work as full-time professionals or organize the entire journey. many of them are stranded eritrean and sudanese migrants themselves along the migration route. they temporarily team up with brokers, transporters and informal money transfer agents and facilitate journeys to a certain location, namely from the sudan to libya. in libya, migrants must find another group of facilitators to cross the mediterranean sea. this shows that migrants negotiate challenges and risks african human mobility review, vol 5, no 1, april 2019 as well as opportunities of mobility by mobilizing information, economic and social resources as well as psychological or emotional strengths through prayer in migrant churches/mosques in transit lands. these relations and practices exemplify how migrants keep moving along closed borders by navigating and negotiating various dimensions of migration infrastructures (cf.xiang and lindquist, 2014: 132). crossing the sahara desert from khartoum: risks and violence informants mentioned that once the migrants and smugglers, including their connectors and transporters, complete the preparations, the journey commences when the time is right. in general, the journey begins in seasons when the heat is less harsh in the sahara desert and sea passages are assumed to be most favourable. on the day of the journey, connecters secretly move from door-to-door and pick up migrants in mini-buses and rickshaws, which transport them to hidden houses rented by the smugglers on the outskirts of khartoum. my interlocutors said that 150-200 people are transported in one go. according to a connector in the sudan, the sudanese drivers and guides take migrants half-way and hand them over to the libyans, or the next link in the trail, who then complete the rest of the journey to libya. the ‘safety’ of the routes from robbers and border control agents on the sudanese, egyptian, chad and libyan territories are double-checked. payment procedures and other matters with transporters, connecters and big smugglers in the sudan and libya are also properly settled. this is because smugglers’ agents who drive the migrants across the desert have more power than their big bosses as they have custody of the migrants in the no-man’s land of the sahara desert and they perpetrate sexual abuses. my informant, meqdi, said, “we were intercepted by robbers when we were crossing the desert. many of the girls travelling with us were raped by robbers. later, our broker in libya negotiated with the bandits and rescued us.” according to the interlocutors, the journey from the sudan to libya across the sahara desert is generally unpredictable and dangerous and everyone is vulnerable to forces beyond their control. the externalization of border controls effected through collaboration between the eu and the transit countries (sudan and libya), by intercepting migrants trying to cross the desert, forced migrants and smugglers to take longer and riskier routes of crossing the chad territory where various types of criminals and armed groups engage in kidnapping refugees for ransom (see mengiste, 2017). the major sources of the risks are robbers, human traffickers, natural phenomena, tekalign ayalew mengiste 1501 border guards and armed rebel groups. however, the level of migrants’ vulnerability varies depending on prevailing local realities along the routes and migrants’ individual conditions, with some migrants being more vulnerable than others. migrants’ individual profiles such as gender, age and access to remittances are also crucial factors of vulnerability. this in turn indicates differentiated impacts of the externalizing of border controls by the eu on migrants on the move. the literature shows that women are likely to be subject to abuses including rapes on different occasions, and it is difficult for groups such as pregnant women, children and the elderly to survive dehydration and other challenges during long journeys across such a vast desert (see also hamood, 2006; triulzi and mackenzie, 2013). many of those involved, including robbers, smugglers and security/border guards, take advantage of migrants because they are lucrative trade subjects. migrants are often rescued from criminals and kidnappers in the desert by smugglers in libya, but they have to generate money from their families and friends in their homeland or diasporic locations and pay a ransom, which could be transferred to the criminals through an informal money transfer system known as hawala. some of the migrants, who have no families abroad to transfer ransom money (hawalet) to the bandits, are tortured by them. thus, they often depend on support from co-travellers. according to some narratives, eritrean migrants become victims of a slave trade in the sahara desert and in the libyan territory as they are sold time and again between brokers, detention guards and criminals (see mengiste, 2017). even some local libyans buy migrants from the police and exploit their migrant labour. i met hagos, a 29-year-old man from eritrea, in rome in may 2016. he told me that he had been sold by prison guards in libya. hagos also said that migrants with families and friends abroad who were willing to remit, could be rescued from prison or from the migrant slave trade between prison guards, delaloch and locals in libya. migrants could also negotiate a price to buy their freedom or bribe someone who could help them escape. migrants in precarious conditions in transit spaces, therefore, establish multiple relations with actors ranging from smugglers, locals and fellow travellers, to families and friends back home and elsewhere, to survive the violent conditions and negotiate involuntary im/mobility. however, migrants who cannot arrange for the ransom money, try their best to mobilize support from possible compassionate locals. migrants also end up making friends with former migrants who settled in libya or by finding african human mobility review, vol 5, no 1, april 2019 partners who may help acquire financial and other resources for the next stage of their journey. this is an important aspect of translocal connections that help refugees to generate resources of mobility en route. hagos was accommodated and financed by his girlfriend, whom he met in benghazi, libya. this exemplifies how migrants get access to capital (money, information and logistics) through social networks with fellow travellers, those in the diaspora and smuggling services during the journey. through these relations, they generate the specific capital needed to overcome barriers and specific risks they face en route and to keep moving. the above discussion shows that externalization has different effects on different migrants on the move and this in turn requires specific skills and networks to secure help en route. this is possible through translocal networks and practices of reciprocity, solidarity and the sharing of resources and knowledge along the migration trails. the underlying conditions of violence and survival the direct violence, as reported by informants, perpetrated by agents of the smugglers, drivers in the desert, other actors and criminals in the libyan territory need to be viewed from a perspective of broader structural violence that produced inequality and powerlessness (cf. holmes, 2013). unlike the popular discourses, the suffering of migrants en route is not just due to smugglers’ mercilessness. migrants often associate smuggling practices with service to overcome border regimes and realize migration dreams (see mengiste, 2018). there are a number of related structural conditions that expose migrants to violence, such as, restrictive migration control regimes depriving asylum seekers’ formal mobility channels to file their applications directly in europe; the security and protection vacuum mainly due to crises in libya; and chaos and statelessness in the area. thus, migrants are exposed to violent practices and natural obstacles (deserts) or geographic contexts in which mobility is organized. these conditions, together with the diffusion of border control from the eu to african transit countries, exacerbate migrants’ vulnerability in the desert. faced with these harsh conditions, migrants desperately desire support to survive the violence and mediate barriers to keep moving. diasporic remittances, practices of sharing among migrants/refugees during the journey, systems of informal money transfer networks (hawala) and the creation and sharing of important information and support of semsari are vital conditions in mediating involuntary mobility and immobility of asylum seekers and migrants along the sudanese and libyan borderlands. tekalign ayalew mengiste 1503 in sum, the violence that migrants encounter in the sudan, the sahara desert and libya is an extension of the structural violence of global inequality that deprives the migrants of their mobility rights. the violence is also due to western intervention in african conflicts and crises as well as the externalization of european borders and migratory regimes (cf. holmes, 2013; albahari, 2015; andersson, 2014). the eu’s attempt to tighten its migration and border policies and the practice of externalization result in the production of this structural violence. to survive these predicaments and meet smugglers to organize their transitions and journeys, migrants and their communities mobilize the necessary resources such as finance and knowledge through their local and transnational social relations with former migrants who have settled en route and in the diaspora. conclusion ethnographic research on the irregular journeys of migrants from the horn of africa indicates that the smuggling of migrants is far from being monolithically perceived as a criminal activity. instead, it is a socially embedded collective practice emerging in the context of restricted mobility and migrationenforcement infrastructures and where cross-border social networks, communication technologies and brokering practices intersect. this study demonstrated how borders and immigration control systems produce different systems of migration facilitation infrastructures and the various ways in which migrants experience and cope with immobility regimes and suffering at the hands of criminals en route. migration systems originating in eritrea towards europe can be regarded as unpredictable assemblages of diverse actors operating at different scales and with different objectives that overlap or are in conflict. their interactions shape the migration industry and infrastructure and are in a state of flux in response to changes in geopolitics and externalizing border control along the trail. the infrastructures such as interlinked technologies, institutions and actors that facilitate eritrean transnational migration have evolved historically in relation to changing border regimes (cf. sørensen and gammeltoft-hansen, 2013). migratory journeys thus involve designing new strategies to negotiate with changing migration facilitation actors, externalization practices and global inequalities that led to structural violence. migration from eritrea does not imply a linear journey to europe. migration biographies reveal that the migration projects are fragmented, stepwise and african human mobility review, vol 5, no 1, april 2019 unpredictable and can take anything between months and years. this migration process requires choosing a good smuggler, engaging in an informal economy and continuously learning about the possibilities of mobility and surviving new challenges along the routes and transit lands. in the face of externalizing migration and border controls, migratory journeys are produced in complex social relations where different influences reinforce, complement and sometimes contradict each other. externalizing border controls and global inequalities together with the authoritarian eritrean regime that has criminalized migratory exits, have resulted in a system of complex smuggling practices that shape and are shaped by intra-migrant support networks and transnational social relations between migrants, those left behind and the ones settled in the diaspora. this in turn has affected the old established population movement patterns and directions in east africa and the eastern sahara. new migration facilitation industries have been built along the emerging clandestine migratory mobility routes that link eritrea, the sudan, the sahara desert, libya and the mediterranean sea. social connections — translocal and transnational — between migrants, smugglers, helpful locals and former migrants along the trail or in the diaspora have become a transnational community. relations are used to generate the necessary information, material and economic resources at a specific time and location during the journey. this has become an alternative mobility infrastructure for migrants who are immobilized due to restrictive migration controls and the externalization of borders and migratory controls from receiving countries (cf. xiang and lindquist, 2014; gaibazzi et al., 2017). the borderlands and clandestine migration routes are not merely sites of border control where state power is exercised and violent practices of smugglers and criminals against the migrants are exhibited (see andersson, 2014). they are also locations of knowledge production and the reconfiguration of social relations between mobile and non-mobile people in nearby and distant locations. however, the externalization of borders and migration controls by the european union has different effects on migrants on the move. those who have some kind of capital in terms of finance and social networks in the diaspora could generate the necessary knowledge of migration to survive risks and accomplish their journey to europe. however, those who do not have such resources are less likely to manage long journeys and endure the vulnerabilities along the migration trail, unless they mobilize support from local people and fellow travellers. tekalign ayalew mengiste 1505 from the time that the eu tightened its migration polices and externalized border controls towards the migration routes in africa, migratory mobility have become risky and complex. migration facilitators have grown larger and routes have become longer and more dangerous. several actors, including criminals, local people en route and smugglers started taking advantage of the migrants’ immobility by perpetrating sexual, labour and physical abuses against migrants on the move (see also andersson, 2014; gaibazzi et al., 2017; unhcr, 2018). in this context, the entanglement of transnational social relations, smuggling practices and the generation and flow of information and finance from the diaspora and other actors have become infrastructural moorings of migrant mobility. specific resources and knowledge enable migrants to navigate impediments resulting from strict migration controls at various scales and locations and also the externalization of border control from europe to transit countries in africa. migration journeys should not be imagined as a line between two places but rather as a multifaceted space of mediation occupied by migration facilitators and intermediaries. these include actors such as smugglers, local people, migrants, former migrants and communication devices. this in turn constitutes the notion of the transnational knowledge community that is constituted by the phenomena described above. it takes into account the entanglement of social and smuggling networks in the migration facilitation industry. smuggling migration journeys thrive as they are 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48(1): 122-14 ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor prof mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh university of pretoria, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delgado wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof simon bekker university of stellenbosch, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, sao paulo and manila. ahmr is accredited by the department of higher education and training (dhet) in south africa. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). webpage: www.sihma.org.za copyright © 2019 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 461 4741, email: editor@sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ http://www.sihma.org.za/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za 34 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 citizenship, belonging and crisis-induced returns of ghanaian migrants from côte d’ivoire leander kandilige,1 thomas yeboah2 and theophilus kwabena abutima3 received: 22 october 2021 / accepted: 11 march 2022 / published: 29 april 2022 the socio-economic embeddedness of economic community of west african states (ecowas) foreign nationals and migrants in côte d’ivoire has been amply described. despite previous episodes of political violence and the somewhat recent anti-immigrant policies, côte d’ivoire has served and will continue to serve as a haven for foreign-born populations of ecowas nationals and ivorian-born descendants of foreigners. this paper draws on the notion of citizenship and belonging, and qualitative data gathered through interviews to explore the experiences of returned ghanaian migrants who were victimized and trapped in a conflict situation in côte d’ivoire in 2002–2003 and 2010–2011. all interviews were transcribed fully, and the reflexive thematic coding and analysis technique was employed to analyze the qualitative data. the findings show that despite playing a passive role as perpetrators of the violence, ghanaian migrants experienced harassment, intimidation and physical attacks, which in turn contributed to traumatic feelings beyond the crisis period. while the notion of citizenship and belonging facilitated migrants’ easy entry to ghana upon return, they had to navigate multiple challenges, including hostile attitudes of militants, rebels and vigilante groups at border checkpoints, extortion of cash and other material possessions. re-integration and resettlement were further exacerbated due to their experiences. these findings have important implications for emergency responses to situations of migrants being caught up in crisis. keywords: political violence, migrants, re-integration, experiences, côte d’ivoire 1 centre for migration studies, university of ghana. corresponding author  lkandilige@ug.edu.gh or leanderkandilige@gmail.com 2 bureau of integrated rural development, kwame nkrumah university of science and technology, kumasi, ghana 3 centre for migration studies, university of ghana 35 introduction for several years, côte d’ivoire served as a centre of attraction for migrants and foreign non-citizens, particularly those from the economic community of west african states (ecowas) community and elsewhere. the country has been described as the “first immigration country of west africa”, and a primary destination for labor migrants and displaced populations (fargues and rango, 2020; undesa, 2020). protracted conflicts in neighboring countries such as mali and liberia, and elsewhere within the sub-region have also meant that economic migrants, as well as individuals and families fleeing violence and instability have found côte d’ivoire as one popular destination (allouche and mohammed, 2014; marc et al., 2015). fundamentally, the high economic growth rates experienced in the post-independence era mainly through the production of cash crops such as cocoa and coffee have made côte d’ivoire a country of large-scale immigration (ajayi et al., 2009; solhjell et al., 2019; sabas et al., 2020). nevertheless, austerity measures implemented throughout the 1980s in the country led to socio-economic challenges, key among them being the closure of businesses, and public sector downsizing, which led to unemployment among the ivorian political elite and graduates (zongo, 2006). it has been argued that the crisis which erupted in the 2000s was largely underpinned by the economic recession experienced in the 1980s and 1990s which by implication overturned previous migrant-friendly policies in côte d’ivoire. in light of concerns around migration, belonging and identity, the 1990s electoral upheavals and tensions, facilitated a national discourse around what it meant to be a real ivorian citizen, and the deep fissures in ivorian society resulted in binary categorization of citizens on the one hand, and non-citizens on the other, as well as between the muslim and the christian communities (ndi, 2013). in the late 1990s, foreigners made up around 26% of côte d’ivoire’s population, with the greater share originating from burkina faso (kress, 2006). nevertheless, the governmentsanctioned anti-immigrant policy implemented throughout the mid-1990s and early 2000s onwards led to a decline in the immigrant population. despite previous episodes of a positive net migration rate (generally between 2 and 5 migrants/1,000 population) since the 1950s, state-sanctioned anti-immigrant measures have meant that the net rate of migration in 2017, for example, was estimated to be 0 migrants/1,000 population (iom, 2009a, 2009b; cia, 2017). it is fundamentally clear that policies and practices around citizenship and nationality in the ivorian context have tended to promote migrant unfriendly practices, thus restricting the freedoms and rights of migrants. in this connection, romano (2015) asserts that the notion of belonging and citizenship in the ivorian context, since the 2000s, has been conflated with politicization of identity, economic austerity, and outbreak of violence that is often, but not always, targeted at foreign nationals (particularly african foreign noncitizens) and those perceived as non-ivorian citizens in the country. notwithstanding previous political violence and state-sanctioned antiimmigrant measures, côte d’ivoire still serves as the principal destination for citizenship, belonging and crisis-induced returns of ghanaian migrants from côte d’ivoire 36 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 foreign-born populations of ecowas nationals and ivorian-born descendants of foreigners. for example, in 2012 the country hosted 2.4 million ecowas nationals, following post-electoral violence which implicated migrants (awumbila et al., 2013). the immigrant population (excluding refugees) in côte d’ivoire stood at 2.2 million in 2015, accounting for approximately nine percent of the country’s population (undesa, 2015; undp, 2016). although the immigrant population in côte d’ivoire might have decreased over the years, the country has served and would continue to serve as an important destination, particularly for citizens of other ecowas member states residing in the country. this raises fundamental questions about the socioeconomic embeddedness of migrants in the ivorian society, and what implications this might have for future crises, should they occur. this paper draws on qualitative data gathered through one of the six case studies in the migrants in countries in crisis (micic) research project – côte d’ivoire at a crossroads: socio-economic development implications of crisisinduced returns to burkina faso, ghana, and liberia (see also pailey et al, 2017). the project focused on improving the capacity of states and other stakeholders to assist and provide protection to migrants who find themselves in countries affected by crisis, as well as addressing the long-term implications that result from such crisis situations. the paper sheds light on the experiences of returned ghanaian migrants who were victimized and trapped in conflict situations in côte d’ivoire during the periods 2002–2003 and 2010–2011. first, it becomes evident through the qualitative interviews that the notions of citizenship and nationality played no role in ensuring migrants’ belongingness to ivorian society in the context of the politico-economic challenges that generated the episodes of conflict in 2002–2003 and 2010–2011. although ghanaian migrants were not directly seen as perpetrators of the violence, they became victims of the conflict, with many experiencing harassment, intimidation and physical attacks, which in turn contributed to traumatic feelings beyond the crisis period. while the notion of citizenship and nationality facilitated easy entry to ghana upon return, migrants had to negotiate multiple challenges including hostile attitudes of rebels and vigilante groups at border checkpoints, extortion of cash and other material possessions, which in turn exacerbated their experiences of the crisis in côte d’ivoire. again, citizenship and belonging played a minor role in facilitating the re-integration and resettlement of some return migrants, especially those with weak social ties. on the whole, this paper contributes substantially to the literature on the vulnerabilities of migrants caught up in crisis situations and to policies and emergency responses to address the situation of migrants caught up in crisis situations. the remainder of the paper is structured as follows: the next part provides a conceptualization of citizenship, nationality and belonging as the framework to understanding the experiences of migrants during the conflict situation and upon return. next, we outline the methodology including the research design, research participants and methods of data collection, and analysis of the data. the penultimate 37 section presents the findings and discussion of the research which leads to the conclusion as well as some reflections on policy implications. conceptualization of citizenship, nationality and belonging in social and political discourses, citizenship and nationality are sometimes used interchangeably, even though the two concepts do not exactly mean the same thing. as hartnell (2006: 342) notes, while “nationality” and “citizenship” both capture fundamental aspects of the content and meaning of “belonging”, they are different. hartnell (2006) and mammadova (2020) posit that nationality is the legalistic term that connotes the linkage between an individual and a state, whereas citizenship refers to “full membership” in a political community. citizenship has further been conceptualized as membership of a self-governing political community, bringing with it rights and obligations for both the citizen and their community (stanford university, 2017; prabhat, 2018). healy (2019) however, notes that having a sense of belonging whilst being rejected and alienated can be frustrating. other scholars perceive citizenship as a mechanism of distinction between migrants and nonmigrants based on associations with place, origin, and national community (bauder, 2007; van den brink and kochenov, 2019). when related to international migration, bauböck (2006) and neumayer (2006) argue that citizenship from an international perspective acts as a sorting device that allocates human populations to sovereign countries and in the process helps to sort the desirable from the undesirable immigrants through the granting of visas, and it also acts as an established second gate that immigrants have to pass through in order to become full members of the countries that host them. as such, citizenship can act as a medium through which immigrants are granted the opportunity to enjoy the same rights and entitlements as the citizens of the hosting country (bauder, 2014) or serves as an avenue for an international migrant to have a formal belonging to a specific country by providing the official recognition of a close relationship between them and the destination country (yuval-davis et al., 2005; koser, 2007; bhabha, 2009; antonsich, 2010; golash-boza, 2016; prabhat, 2018; chin, 2019). put broadly, citizenship can, therefore, be defined as being a legally recognized member of a sovereign political community, including the enjoyment of rights and obligations and emotional belonging for both the citizen and their community (stanford university, 2017; prabhat, 2018) or a medium through which people build a formal legal relationship and status with a state (long et al., 2017). however, citizenship is not just a legal concept, but it is embedded in the quest for self-identity (manby, 2018). generally, the concept of citizenship is primarily constructed and understood within the confines of national identity and belonging (aber and small, 2013). globally, membership of a particular society or a group of people is governed by legal citizenship regimes. these structures also regulate the multifaced systems of conferring citizenship. broadly, there are two principal modes of conferring citizenship at birth – jus sanguinis (attainment of citizenship through blood citizenship, belonging and crisis-induced returns of ghanaian migrants from côte d’ivoire 38 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 connection) and jus soli (citizenship by soil or place of birth). the conferment of jus sanguinis varies from country to country on how citizenship is passed from parents to children. ng’weno and aloo (2019) contend that attainment of citizenship through jus sanguinis is selective in that it poses the risk of marginalizing people within the same shared space of the nation-state. citizenship, therefore, is inherently a means of inclusion and exclusion (van den brink and kochenov, 2019). a third principle for the acquisition of citizenship is by jus matrimonii (citizenship by marriage); however, it varies from country to country, coupled with its challenges regarding the holding of dual citizenship and the associated complexities in the enjoyment of rights. individuals attain rights to state protection, opportunities, and privileges by virtue of being a national of the state (mancini and finlay, 2008; middleton and wigginton, 2012; cohen, 2022). nationality can therefore be characterized as “the right to have rights” (arendt, 2007:299). citizenship transforms and borders and boundaries transform (schacher, 2020). in most countries across the world, demographic changes have impacted jus soli, which has further engendered debates and complexities around issues of belonging, membership, and citizenship. these have also influenced immigration policies (van waas, 2007; mancini and finlay, 2008; tarumoto, 2020; cohen, 2022). some countries have introduced the concept of double jus soli in their citizenship policies where at least one migrant parent is required to be a citizen before children born to immigrants in soils of destination countries can attain automatic citizenship (manby, 2018). at independence, african countries that were colonized by britain, france and portugal applied double jus soli to determine the citizenship of migrants as a means of limiting the volume of claims to citizenship by migrants who were born in these countries, but their parents were foreign-born. aside from the attainment of citizenship, migrants also have the option of being granted permanent residency, right of abode or indefinite leave to reside/ remain, which are often devoid of the obligated rights associated with citizenship. in other contexts, citizenship can also be granted to migrants through registration, naturalization and investments (e.g., antigua, the comoros, or the dominican republic). this channel is mainly used by states, especially small island states, to attract foreign investments for economic purposes. while the overwhelming focus of citizenship is a symbol of belonging, possession of national identity and exception from exclusion (cresswell, 2006; van den brink and kochenov, 2019), citizenship is also linked to the concept of “othering”, culminating in exclusion and denial of rights and privileges. citizenship is one of the tools of inclusion and exclusion used by states to cope with the perceived threat of mobile migrants (gilmartin, 2008; healy, 2019; ng’weno and aloo, 2019; schenk, 2021). there are also racial, religious, and gender requirements in acquisition of citizenship in some countries (solhjell et al., 2019). the constitution of liberia, for instance, is categorical that all applicants for citizenship must be ‘negro or be of negro descent’. this obviously excludes all non-black residents – like lebanese – from 39 acquiring liberian citizenship (long et al., 2017). more so, the same constitution also bars non-citizens from owning property in liberia. beyond race, other countries (benin, burundi, eswatini, guinea, liberia, libya, madagascar, mauritania, somalia, sudan, and togo) have citizenship laws that discriminate based on gender (manby, 2018). whereas males can transfer their citizenship status to their offspring, females cannot. in the case of côte d’ivoire, as noted by manby (2018: 62), the country had a legal provision that changed the jus soli route to acquiring citizenship for children born in the country to parents, one of whom was a citizen, to requiring that both parents must be born in côte d’ivoire. these changes were occasioned by the motive to disqualify some political candidates from contesting elections. as such, the constitutional amendments that required candidates for the presidency or vice presidency of the country to be “ivorian by birth” (ivoirien de naissance) born of parents who were (both) also ivorian by birth (manby, 2018: 62), reinforced a legal environment in which all those who might be regarded as not from côte d’ivoire’s “core” ethnic groups, were not eligible for nationality. as argued by hendow and kandilige (forthcoming), it is important to examine how the process of establishing “groupness” of the “self ” and exclusion of the “other” based on racial, ethnic or cultural characteristics involves establishing policies and practices, as well as public narratives or discourse, which set the boundaries of certain groups’ belonging or exclusion (brubaker and cooper, 2000: 19; brubaker et al., 2004: 4647). the pernicious reliance on othering is manifested in the exploitation of power imbalances in relationships to the extent that the gains of one party are at the expense of others (canales, 2000; miles, 2002; bastos et al., 2006). moreover, othering can be either overt or transpire through more opaque and subtle instances of exclusion, with the potential of being taken for granted as part of the routine of daily life (sibley, 1995). these include institutional and structural arrangements whereby boundaries are constructed between different groups in society, some of whom believe themselves to be superior to others (jensen, 2011; mensah and williams, 2015). we draw on the concepts of citizenship, nationality, belonging, and othering to examine the context within which the crisis in côte d’ivoire was occasioned, as well as the experiences of victimized and trapped migrants during the conflict, and their re-integration into their communities of origin in ghana. methodology research design the research employed a qualitative research design involving semi-structured interviews conducted with six main categories of participants in ghana. cresswell (2006) explains that qualitative research techniques are useful when one wants to explore and gain an in-depth picture of the meanings and subjective views that individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human phenomenon. according to citizenship, belonging and crisis-induced returns of ghanaian migrants from côte d’ivoire 40 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 bryman (2012) and akcam et al. (2019), qualitative research is characterized by the deployment of a wide range of interconnected methods, including desk-based research, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observation. our choice of the qualitative design is informed by the main objective of our research, which was to gain in-depth knowledge on the experiences of victimized and trapped migrants in a conflict situation at a destination and their experiences with re-integration upon return. hammarberg et al. (2016) posit that qualitative methods are useful to answer questions about experiences, meaning and perspectives from the perspective of the participant. the choice of this design is also informed by the fact that we were interested in seeking the views of participants on a focused topic, namely, to understand the experiences of victimization and re-integration upon return (hammarberg, et al., 2016; braun and clarke, 2021). target population and sampling procedure the research targeted ghanaian migrants who were victimized in côte d’ivoire but had returned to ghana, their adult relations (siblings, aunts, mothers, fathers, etc.) in addition to key stakeholders involved in decision-making, policy formulation, protection, advocacy and support services for migrants through evacuation, repatriation and re-integration of migrants. in all, 22 participants were purposively sampled to participate in the study. they included: 4 government authorities (a), 2 intergovernmental organizations (i), 1 civil society organization (c), 1 private sector actor (e), 9 return migrants (m), and 5 family members of return migrants (f). the alphabetic characters assigned to each category (i.e., a, i, c, e, m, and f), together with the designation ‘gh’ (which is an abbreviation for ghana) and the unique numerical codes e.g., 01, 02, etc., are meant to aid the anonymization of data from participants. within the returnee category, the sampling technique adopted was mainly snowball sampling. this was necessary because there is no credible sample frame that one could rely upon to carry out rigorous probability sampling of participants. in addition, due to the traumatic nature of involuntary returns from crisis situations and the fact that few returnees registered with formal governmental as well as nongovernmental agencies, using different entry nodes based on contacts with returnees who could serve as bridgeheads was the most viable approach. return migrants were selected based on their experience of crises in côte d’ivoire in 2002–2003 or 2010– 2011, subsequent evacuation and return to their country of origin. family members of migrants were interviewed based on their knowledge of relatives’ migration and return experiences. government authorities, intergovernmental organizations, civil society organizations, experts and private sector actors were purposively sampled based on the degree of their knowledge of or involvement in policy formulation and execution, advocacy, protection, technical and logistical support or the provision of funding for evacuation, repatriation and re-integration of migrants. 41 data collection the researchers developed six tailored semi-structured interview guides for the six main categories of respondents, based on an overall topical guideline prepared for the migrants in countries in crisis (micic) project as well as a data collection manual developed by research teams at the international centre for migration policy development (icmpd) and the international migration institute (imi). key themes covered included: drivers of migration to côte d’ivoire, role of migrants in the conflict, experiences of the conflict, return processes, key institutions that oversaw the evacuation of migrants, availability of support to reintegrate into origin communities, and impact of conflict on migrants and members of their households. the researchers executed the fieldwork within april and may 2016 with a focus on accra, ghana’s capital, and the western region. accra was selected because it hosts the head offices of almost all government authorities as well as those of intergovernmental organizations. the western region accounts for the largest number of ghanaian migrants to côte d’ivoire and returnees to ghana during 2002–2003 and 2010–2011 (awumbila et al., 2013). data analysis the researchers transcribed all the interviews fully, and employed the reflexive thematic coding and analysis technique to analyze the qualitative data. this approach involved the centrality of the researchers’ subjectivity and reflexivity, involving a sixphase process (braun and clarke, 2021). the reflexive thematic coding and analysis technique first involved reading through all the transcribed texts to help with familiarization. the next process involved coding the text. this involved assigning words and phrases to chunks of the textual data which enabled the researchers to sort, reduce and distil the content of the textual data. the coding process involved was iterative, involving revisions, reorganization of codes and relating coded interview data to the key questions that were asked during the data collection process. the next step involved analyzing the data using the thematic analysis technique. this approach involved identifying and grouping closely related codes, expressions, ideas, and patterns which emerged from the qualitative data. this enabled the researchers to derive the key themes for analysis and write up. research ethics the researchers obtained written consent from participants who were literate. in cases where written consent was not possible, because the participant was illiterate, interviewers obtained verbal consent. for the sake of confidentiality, consent forms and interview transcripts were kept separate, at all times, to ensure that interviewees were not linked with their responses. researchers reiterated to participants that participation in the research (i.e., interviews) was voluntary and that withdrawal from the interviews would not lead to any sanctions. where possible, and in most citizenship, belonging and crisis-induced returns of ghanaian migrants from côte d’ivoire 42 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 cases, researchers conducted interviews in locations where participants could speak freely without interruptions or the risk of being overheard by others. the researchers presented a summary sheet containing information on the rationale for the research to any participant who needed more background information. findings and discussion migrant experiences of and responses to ivorian crises relying on the conceptualization of citizenship and nationality, we discuss the experiences and responses of ghanaian migrants to the crises. citizenship and nationality did not play a significant role in discourses about belongingness to the ivorian community prior to the economic and political challenges that culminated in the 2002–2003 and 2010–2011 conflicts in the country. our interview data suggest that during periods of economic upturn and increased demand for agricultural labor, the presence of foreigners was not perceived as posing a risk to national security, a dilution of the national identity nor an encroachment on the sense of belongingness. in fact, as noted by pailey et al. (2017), between 1960 and 1980 foreign-born noncitizens and ivorian-born non-citizens were accorded courtesies as citizens even though they lacked any such formal legal status as citizens. however, a poor run of economic performance characterized by falling prices of cocoa and coffee and the ensuing spike in unemployment rates, ignited a complete reversal of the sense of inclusiveness of migrants into the ivorian society. discriminatory and xenophobic sentiments thrived amid stiff competition for scarce land resources. this ended the longstanding collegial attitude to land ownership and the ability of migrants or people of migrant heritage to transfer same to others. two examples demonstrate this complete change in relations between the destination community and west african economic migrants: we used to enjoy the country [côte d’ivoire] a lot! people mingled well and bought things from our kiosks. the same people wanted to kill us the next day (gh/m/14; 40-year-old female return migrant). this whole thing [conflict] had nothing to do with us [foreigners] but we were used as scapegoats. i managed to buy a small plot on which i built my business; but they are now saying that i’m ghanaian so i can’t own land in their country! this is not the côte d’ivoire i knew (gh/m/18; 32-year-old female returnee from côte d’ivoire). quoting bekoe and bartoli (2010), pailey et al. (2017) further note that the passing of the rural land law (1998) firmly revoked non-citizens’ rights to customary ownership of property. within the political realm, accusations of unqualified or illegitimate non-citizens tilting the outcome of the 1990 elections in favor of the then 43 incumbent government, marked the beginning of violent retaliatory attacks against foreigners. as noted by human rights watch (2011), the outbreak of conflict in 2002– 2003 and the electoral crisis of 2010–2011 fostered anti-foreigner reprisals against non-citizens and ‘non-ivorian’ citizens, who were arbitrarily detained, attacked at checkpoints, burned alive, or had their homes or businesses looted or confiscated (pailey et al., 2017). citizenship, therefore, became an exclusionary concept within the ivorian polity, singling out migrants as the ‘other’. citizenship and experiences of violence and trauma unlike the citizens of burkina faso and liberia who were widely accused of participating in the conflict in côte d’ivoire as mercenaries who actively fought in support of multiple factions, ghanaian migrants were less involved in the direct upheavals as perpetrators. nonetheless, the relatively passive role of ghanaian migrants did not immune them from becoming victims of the conflict. within a political climate where migrants were perceived as an undifferentiated group, who were scapegoated for all economic and political problems, ghanaians were tagged along with other migrants as mercenaries and biased conspirators who encroached on the national identity of “ivoirité” (bjarnesen, 2012; romano, 2015). as a result, ghanaian migrants were subjected to physical attacks, intimidation, and harassment, which led to traumatic feelings beyond the crisis periods. citizenship as a vehicle through which rights are accorded to persons within a polity, serves as a double-edged sword that states equally use to exclude so-called undesirable sections of a population when it is politically expedient. migrants, as a perceived threat to national security during a conflict situation, are exposed to exclusion and victimization (gilmartin, 2008). migrant enclaves or sections of côte d’ivoire that hosted significant numbers of migrants, quickly became frontlines during the conflict. as recounted by a male and a female return migrant from the 2010–2011 conflict in côte d’ivoire, both factions of the conflict perceived migrant neighborhoods as a contested turf for settling political differences: in koumassi, where i was staying, military men numbering thousands started patrolling the place day and night. so, the place became uneasy for us to live in. then at one point, the supporters of one of the fighting political parties killed one of the military men and that started the riot and the unrest in koumassi. the military men also became crazy over the loss of their colleague and forcibly went into houses to drive occupants out and subjected them to unnecessary questions. if you’re not able to answer correctly, they’d give you severe lashes … what was happening in the town, was that if they found you outside, you could be arrested by the military men or harassed by the civilians who were fighting the military men (gh/m/20; 25-year-old male returnee from côte d’ivoire). citizenship, belonging and crisis-induced returns of ghanaian migrants from côte d’ivoire 44 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 the conflict was very severe in my neighborhood. it was so intense, that we woke up every morning to hear rumors circulating that hundreds of people have been massacred on the streets. it was very scary; the cry of gunshots intensified each passing day. sometimes you could hear people shout, “they are coming!” referring to the rebels. then you have to run and look for a good place to hide (gh/m/12; 38-year-old female returnee from côte d’ivoire). beyond the residential neighborhoods of migrants and other non-citizens, the conflict targeted economic sectors that were popular with non-citizens. côte d’ivoire, like many other host countries, has a dual/segmented labor market (piore, 1979) with a primary labor market of high-wage, secure and high-status jobs, mostly occupied by the native population and a secondary labor market comprising low-wage, insecure and low-status jobs, mostly done by the immigrant population. ghanaian migrants interviewed as part of the study all held secondary labor market jobs. this does not, however, suggest that no ghanaian migrant works in the primary labor market, but rather that the overwhelming majority operated within the secondary labor market. the job roles undertaken by ghanaian labor migrants are to some extent gendered. for instance, the predominant employment for female ghanaian labor migrants in côte d’ivoire is trading, but apparently includes some prostitution as well (anarfi, 1998). these two sectors are readily accessible to female migrants (for instance, gh/m/15 was a clothes trader; gh/m/19 was a fishmonger; gh/m/16 was a petty trader; gh/m/17 was a food vendor; gh/m/12 was a retailer of jewelry; gh/m/14 was an owner of a supermarket) compared with the sectors that male labor migrants tend to engage in (fishing and farm labor) (for instance, gh/m/13 was a farm laborer; gh/m/20 was a fisherman). as noted earlier, the concept of ‘othering’ can either be overt or transpire through more opaque and subtle instances of exclusion and victimization whereby persons who are deemed not to belong, are targeted for attacks, sometimes in a manner that could be mistaken for being coincidental or random (sibley, 1995). three ghanaian female return migrants all recounted how markets, which were popular with the non-citizen migrant population, became a focus of attacks: one day at the market i heard people screaming and running and there was a tenant who lived in our house who wanted to close his store before running and he was hit by a bullet. so, we went to the village, where my husband was working and we walked; we couldn’t take any of our things. so, we walked till we got to a point and we boarded a bus and came to ghana (gh/m/18; 32-year-old female return migrant). i was selling [goods] when the war broke out. i had to run without packing my things. we walked to ‘konzak’ and we boarded a vehicle to ghana. i get worried sometimes because i had to leave everything i had in côte d’ivoire 45 (gh/m/14; 40-year-old female return migrant). i was trading. i was selling fish also. when the war started, we were in the market selling our fish and other products. i had to run because guns were being fired. so, i left the things i was selling behind and came home. i was thinking the war would stop, but it rather worsened, so i had to leave that country because my life was in danger (gh/m/16; 40-year-old female return migrant). while the market attacks might have affected some of the indigenous population as well as the migrants, the choice of a location that is predominated by migrant workers, suggests a degree of victimization of foreigners based on their otherness. akin to the possibility of one enjoying citizenship or nationality (and all the rights and privileges that are associated with citizenship) on account of one’s parents through the jus sanguinis, jus soli or double jus soli channels of gaining citizenship, we suggest that the experience of violence and the trauma of conflict can be suffered due to the citizenship status of one’s parents. the targeting of non-citizens equally imperiled their children who were caught up in the conflict on account of their lack of citizenship or that of their parents. the implications of war have the potential to be detrimental to children who observe, unwillingly participate, or are compelled to plan and execute their own escape from violence. the impact of the ivorian crises, therefore, extends beyond adult migrants to affect children with longlasting implications for their mental health and well-being, as explained by a female ghanaian migrant who fled the crisis in 2011: when the war happened, my child really suffered. she was just eight years [old] as at that time; the kid walked for miles in trying to come to us. she was made to jump over dead bodies that were lying on the streets. she was made to handle a gun as young as she was to protect herself; it was even broadcast in the print media. she walked all the way from bouaké to abidjan. most of the kids she came with became paralyzed and they couldn’t walk again … because of the war, my children became traumatized and terrified by any sound; anytime they heard any sound or loud noise, they would quickly run to hide. it really affected them psychologically; but gradually through prayers, they came back to normal. the neighbors convinced them that we don’t kill human beings in ghana (gh/m/12; 38-year-old female return migrant). citizenship, nationality, and involuntary returns as both exclusionary and inclusionary concepts, citizenship and nationality equally define the nature of involuntary returns to a geographical space where one can reassert one’s sense of belongingness and membership. the same national identity that constitutes a basis for discrimination and victimization at the destination citizenship, belonging and crisis-induced returns of ghanaian migrants from côte d’ivoire 46 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 country, becomes the marker of belongingness upon return, even in involuntary situations. involuntary returns were realized through the efforts of a combination of actors – international, state, non-state and private individuals. despite the geographical closeness of ghana to côte d’ivoire, evacuations and returns were arduous for ghanaian migrants. trapped migrants did not rely on consular officials who were located at the capital city for assistance, but rather fled through the nearest exit points. in addition, a lack of a credible registration database of ghanaians in côte d’ivoire suggested that embassy officials did not know the number of migrants who needed evacuation assistance, in the first instance. additionally, ghana did not have a policy on evacuation of nationals from conflict situations abroad, until the country’s national migration policy was launched in 2016. the absence of such a policy led to delays in extracting trapped migrants from not only côte d’ivoire, but also from other conflict situations, such as libya in 2011. migrants returned via a variety of modes of transportation during both episodes of crisis, including on foot, by hired cars, boats and buses. as gh/m/12 recounted, most victims escaped on foot: most of the journey was done on foot. the fact is, you are running for your dear life, so no time to wait for vehicles. we walked to a point and then joined a car. those who had cars were also doing their business. some people took advantage of the situation and were making money out of the desperate people. so, these drivers go round looking for stranded people to transport; then, after transporting you to your destination, they would charge you. sometimes you get to a point [when] the car can’t proceed because the road is barred from any vehicular movement. so, when it happens like that, we had to continue the journey by foot (gh/m/12; 38-year-old female migrant). others left on buses that were escorted by military personnel, under the auspices of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) and the international organization for migration (iom): they advised that those who wanted to go, should come out with their luggage. so, i went there and stayed there for a day because the people gathered there were many – we were in the thousands who agreed to return to ghana, in koumassi alone. they arranged to take us in batches, and i was in the third batch, which was the last one. some of the military men would accompany the first batch into the vehicle to abidjan and put them in a vehicle that would bring them to ghana (gh/m/20; 25-year-old male migrant). moreover, gh/m/13 explained that some ghanaian migrants relied on a combination of means of transportation, including boats and walking: 47 some people died in the bushes and their bodies were never found. yes, some were ghanaians, nigerians, togolese and beninese and others. a lot of people lost their lives because they were caught unawares. so, there are people who died and their bodies have not been found to date. initially, we used boats, but some guys showed us a route on land. we had to pass through bushes till we got to the ghanaian border. we met the officials at the border and explained to them that we were ghanaians and they understood (gh/m/13, 45-year-old male migrant). while transportation was organized by the unhcr and the iom, in some cases (gh/m/20; gh/i/01), other migrants escaped on their own. in all cases, the sense of ‘ghanaianness’ by virtue of their citizenship or nationality entitled return migrants a hassle-free entry and welcome at border entry points. however, prior to arriving at the entry points, where their citizenship was an asset rather than a liability, migrants had to navigate several checkpoints and barriers that were manned by multiple actors in the conflicts they were fleeing from. these included military personnel, rebels, and vigilante groups. crossing each barrier involved thorough searches and the extortion of cash and personal possessions, especially by vigilantes. failure to succumb to demands for bribes, could lead to death (gh/m/12). these conditions exacerbated migrants’ experiences of crises in côte d’ivoire, as demonstrated by a female ghanaian migrant who fled the political violence in 2011: each living thing crossing any of these barriers, was given an amount to pay, including children and even the unborn babies, before they were allowed to cross. this amount is per head; so, i, for instance, had five kids and i was also pregnant. i was made to pay for each and every child, including the one i was carrying in the womb. failure to pay would mean you can’t cross. you would have to die. they would kill you should you fail to pay (gh/m/12; 38-year-old female migrant). the right of citizenship, coupled with the proximity of the origin to the destination country, allowed some ghanaian migrants to returned to their hometowns and villages without any contact with government agencies and officials. these migrants returned to their towns and villages along the shared border with côte d’ivoire, without going through any formal immigration control processes. this was possible because these are communities that share common linguistic, cultural, and familial relations with communities in parts of côte d’ivoire and they were one community prior to the artificial carving of national borders by colonial powers. two respondents reflected thus: when you speak to them, it is mainly for the economic reasons. with the western side, with côte d’ivoire, you know, if you look at the south-western citizenship, belonging and crisis-induced returns of ghanaian migrants from côte d’ivoire 48 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 corner of ghana, they are predominantly nzemas and there are nzemas at the other side in côte d’ivoire; basically, they see themselves as one people. so, they maintain close family ties, going there to stay and if need be, they return to ghana (gh/i/01; staff of intergovernmental organization). nobody met us; we just crossed and entered our homes with no reception from anywhere. we weren’t even expecting anything. all we wanted was to get home safely, which we did; so that was okay for us (gh/m/12; 38-year-old female migrant). the shared linguistic, cultural, and familial relations were insufficient to protect ghanaian migrants in times of the conflict situations in côte d’ivoire because the attacks against the ‘other’ were premised more on the political/legal concept of citizenship or nationality rather than a cultural sense of affiliation. as opined by aber and small (2013), the concept of citizenship is primarily constructed and understood within the confines of national identity and belonging. hartnell (2006) also emphasizes that citizenship refers to “full membership” in a political community. while ghanaian migrants could assert some level of belongingness to some communities in côte d’ivoire on account of their shared cultural history, their lack of “full membership” as citizens ultimately determined their experiences of conflict. belongingness in the process of re-integration re-integration is a multifaceted phenomenon that operates at different levels. this suggests more than a mere reinsertion of an individual into their community of origin after an episode of migration. re-integration must be sustainable for it to be meaningful to both the returnee and the community. the iom (2017) notes that re-integration can be considered sustainable when returnees have reached levels of economic self-sufficiency, social stability within their communities, and psychological well-being that allow them to cope with (re)migration drivers. having achieved sustainable re-integration, returnees are able to make further migration decisions, as a matter of choice, rather than of necessity. cassarino (2008) also posits that re-integration is the process through which a return migrant participates in the social, cultural economic and political life of the country of origin. citizenship and belongingness to a home community do not automatically guarantee a seamless re-integration upon an involuntary return. for returnees who made it back safely to their communities of origin, the processes of resettlement and re-integration proved to be difficult, particularly for those without strong social networks and transferable skills that could easily be absorbed into the local labor market. this adversely affected their economic self-sufficiency as well as their social stability within their communities of origin. members of return migrants’ households in ghana attested to the lack of material as well as monetary possessions during the involuntary return of their relatives. for migrants’ families, the abrupt return of their 49 relatives contributed to increased household expenses, which have become sources of tension. nonetheless, families have had to extend reciprocal gestures of support to returnees, in recognition of remittance income received during periods abroad. due to the sense of belongingness, some migrants who returned to their villages were received by their extended families and provided with shelter and food, as corroborated by a relative of a return migrant and a return migrant who fled côte d’ivoire: well, if you couldn’t bring anything, but you came back with your life, that is good enough. besides, everyone knows what happened; so, she can’t be blamed. she lost all her room’s possessions, including the things at her shop, so she couldn’t bring anything along. getting these things now will be quite difficult. we can’t eat without her, because she used to provide for our feeding. so, since she doesn’t have anything now, we give her some of what we have (gh/f/15; 41-year-old brother of a return migrant from côte d’ivoire). oh yes, as i said, my family received me warmly; they supported me financially since we returned empty-handed. my elder siblings supported me in terms of money and food. they gave us almost everything and my children never lacked [anything]. they really did well (gh/m/12; 38-year-old female return migrant). as much as this type of socio-economic support to returnees is helpful in meeting their immediate needs, it is not sustainable. moreover, the psychosocial support, which is vital in addressing the traumatic experiences that led to their forcible return, was lacking. beyond direct kinship relations, some return migrants also received support from non-familial ties, such as friends, including a 45-year-old male returnee who said: “some of my friends helped by giving me money or even food” (gh/m/13). this support was critical, especially in cases where returnees’ nuclear and extended families perceived their returns as particularly burdensome, as indicated by the following quotes from ghanaian returnees who fled côte d’ivoire during the 2010–2011 crisis: i didn’t get any help from the family. they were all looking up to me. they didn’t consider the fact that i could have died. they were rather complaining about the fact that i couldn’t bring anything when i was coming. the major problem is that i am not earning enough to help my family the way i want to. i am not getting help from anywhere. so, that is my worry at the moment. that is why i go to the bush to work to make ends meet (gh/m/13; 45-year-old male return migrant). i’m now a useless person over here with nothing. it’s my younger brother who citizenship, belonging and crisis-induced returns of ghanaian migrants from côte d’ivoire 50 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 even helps [me] because he now works after he completed school. he also takes care of my mother (gh/m/18; 32-year-old female return migrant). it is worth noting that not all return migrants were gainfully employed in côte d’ivoire and therefore able to support family and friends while abroad. household members are ambivalent about the impact of return if migrants previously lamented hard times while abroad and failed to remit, as articulated by this spouse of a ghanaian returnee: initially i did not want her [my wife] to go, but she managed to take the kids with her when i was not at home. she returned when the war started. she told me she was selling fish, but it wasn’t lucrative enough. i can’t really tell if she told me the truth. she was always complaining of hardships. she couldn’t even call; i was always doing the calling. i can’t really tell what she lost. she came with just a polythene bag. aside [from] the clothes i bought for her on credit when she returned, i did not help her in any way. she had to join me in the firewood business in order for us to earn a living (gh/f/14; 46, male). re-migration as a last resort the absence of economic self-sufficiency, social stability within their communities, and support towards improving the psychological well-being, exposed returnees to a high risk of re-migration. according to pailey et al. (2017), migrants who were unable or unwilling to fully reintegrate in their countries of origin, considered remigration to côte d’ivoire to be an enticing alternative. for example, after the lina marcoussis agreement of 2003 was signed between the ivorian government and rebels, bringing the first ivorian crisis to an end, many burkinabé returnees remigrated to côte d’ivoire, especially those who wanted to reclaim farms and property they had abandoned (pailey et al., 2017). in 2007, the government of burkina faso estimated that more than two thirds of burkinabé migrants previously resident in côte d’ivoire returned to the host country (bredeloup, 2009). ghanaian returnees interviewed also cited the lack of employment opportunities and re-integration programmes in ghana as the catalyst for their re-migration to côte d’ivoire (gh/m/12; gh/m/13; gh/m/18), as articulated by gh/m/13 above. some returnees to ghana found that, apart from reception and accommodation, they received almost no contribution from families, which forced them to re-migrate (bredeloup and zongo, 2005). this also highlights the nexus between provision of economic opportunities and reduction in international migration in the longer term, even though the migration literature indicates initial short-to-medium term increases in migration flows due to development (de haas, 2005). conclusions and implications for policy this paper explored the experiences of ghanaian migrants who were trapped and 51 victimized in côte d’ivoire, following the episodes of political violence in 2002–2003 and 2010–2011. it focused on migrants’ experiences during the crises as well as with re-integration and resettlement upon return to ghana. overall, what emerges from a variety of experiences and narratives is that, unlike other foreign citizens or migrants from elsewhere who were perceived to have played a fundamental role as perpetrators of the violence, ghanaian migrants were seen to have played no active role in the processes leading to the escalation of the two episodes of political crises in côte d’ivoire. nevertheless, their passive role did not necessarily immune them from encountering physical attacks, harassment and other forms of torture that were meted out to migrants as a result of the crises. in effect, migrants – including those we interviewed from ghana – were implicated in the ivorian political crises, not because of their ethnicity or nationality, but rather because of their perceived involvement (and the involvement of their governments) in the crises (i.e., liberians and burkinabé) and their often falsely perceived advantaged socio-economic positions in the ivorian society. while one would have generally expected that the notion of citizenship and nationality would have facilitated migrants’ re-integration and resettlement of migrants upon return to ghana, the process of return itself was particularly daunting for the ghanaian migrants we interviewed. with little or no support from neither the host nor the origin country, migrants were implicated in the process of return, often through extortion of cash and material possessions. moreover, the extra burden of re-integration and resettlement was particularly problematic for return migrants with no networks and skills that could have opened up opportunities for them in the labor market. this ultimately impacted their economic, social and psychosocial reintegration into their communities of origin and formed the basis for re-migration. overall, these findings bring into sharp focus the limited capacity of governments of origin countries and their development partners, including private sector and civil society in developing comprehensive mechanisms that facilitate long-term mass return of migrants implicated in humanitarian emergencies. this points to the need for origin country governments to better recognize the unique vulnerabilities and circumstances that migrants in crisis situations are confronted with, to better organize targeted actions and strategies to protect such groups from crisis as well as to facilitate their re-integration through initiatives that enable their access to skills, the labor market, resources and opportunities in the home country. furthermore, the ability of origin governments to support their nationals abroad in crisis situations – particularly through embassy consular services – would be significantly enhanced by reliable data on their migrant populations abroad, as well as nationally derived migration policies with crisis and emergency response protocols. the collation of credible migration data and real-time access to migrant stock, as well as migrant flow figures, are also critical to international responses to crisis situations in which migrants are implicated (see pailey et al., 2017). finally, the findings also call into question the need for clear-cut and wellcarved policies and procedures to facilitate the timely evacuation, resettlement and citizenship, 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(undesa). 2015. international migrant stock 2015. undesa population division. available at: http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/ estimates2/estimates15.shtml accessed in september 2017. united nations department of economic and social affairs (undesa). 2020. international migrant stock 2020. undesa population division. united nations development programme (undp). 2016. human development report 2016 – human development for everyone. new york: undp. available at: http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2016_human_development_report. citizenship, belonging and crisis-induced returns of ghanaian migrants from côte d’ivoire http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/land9120524 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/land9120524 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0002716220941571 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0002716220941571 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-018-9408-9 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-018-9408-9 http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/estimates2/estimates15.shtml http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/estimates2/estimates15.shtml http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2016_human_development_report.pdf 58 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 pdf. accessed in september 2017. van den brink, m. and kochenov, d. 2019. against associate eu citizenship. journal of common market studies, 57(6): 1366-1382. https://doi.org/10.1111/ jcms.12898 van waas, l. 2007. the children of irregular migrants: a stateless generation? netherlands quarterly of human rights, 25(3): 437-458. https://doi.org/10.117 7%2f016934410702500303 yuval-davis, n., anthias, f. and kofman, e. 2005. secure borders and safe haven and the gendered politics of belonging: beyond social cohesion. ethnic and racial studies, 28(3): 513-535. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141987042000337867 zongo, m. 2006. between two burkinabé communities in west ivorian forest: economic crisis, inter-community relation and membership questions. newspaper of social science, 2: 21-38. http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2016_human_development_report.pdf https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12898 https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12898 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f016934410702500303 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f016934410702500303 https://doi.org/10.1080/0141987042000337867 68 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 ‘recruitment’ and job-seeking mechanisms for zimbabwean women care workers in the domestic services sector in south africa precious baison* *university of pretoria, south africa email: preciouszhou@gmail.com this article explores the migration of zimbabwean women to south africa to undertake various types of care work within the broader domestic work sector. studies on care migration have largely discussed south to north migration flows. this is despite evidence showing that there are significant flows of migrants within countries in the global south. this article seeks to understand the recruitment and job-seeking strategies employed by women in this south-south migration flow in light of their migrant status and processes related to their migration. it is based on a qualitative study and utilizes data collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with key informants from four domestic worker recruitment agencies and 23 care workers in two cities – johannesburg and pretoria. the leading findings were that zimbabwean migrant care workers in south africa faced exploitative working conditions as the majority of them were undocumented or irregular. they faced challenges in obtaining valid work visas and therefore, migrant care workers could not seek employment through formal channels such as recruitment agencies. they used informal channels such as social networks and the ‘market’. the article discusses the implications of using such strategies with regards to the subsequent working conditions and the protection of care workers’ rights. keywords: female migrants, care work, domestic work, migrant status, job search, social networks, recruitment agencies 69 introduction domestic work forms a significant part of jobs in the care industry and is a major source of employment for migrant workers. according to the international labour organization (ilo), in 2018 there were about 70.1 million domestic workers making up 18% of the global care work force, with women constituting 70.2% (ilo, 2018). the ilo also reported that there were an estimated 11.5 million migrant domestic workers globally, representing about 17.2% of the total share of domestic workers in 2013 (ilo, 2015). in south africa, the domestic services sector plays a significant role. statistics south africa (statssa, 2019) shows that just over one million of the country’s 52 million people were employed as domestic workers in the third quarter of 2019; this represents about 6% of all employed people in south africa. it is to this end that south africa has been cited as having the highest number of domestic workers in the southern african region (hengeveld, 2015). whilst this sector is dominated by local black women, who include internal migrants, available evidence shows regional migrants as part of the work force (griffin, 2010; kiwanuka et al., 2015; zack et al., 2019; jinnah, 2020). using evidence from the 2011 census, statistics south africa (2015) reported that with regards to employment, 62.6% of the international migrants were employed in the formal sector, 17.7% in the informal sector and 17.1% in private households. the report stated that almost three-quarters (73.3%) of migrants working in private households are from the southern african development community (sadc) region, with other african countries making up 8.1%. domestic workers are employed in private households and their duties involve caring for some members of their families; thus, research has pointed to an overlap between care work and domestic work. the international labour organization (2018: 6) defines care work as “consisting of activities and relations involved in meeting the physical, psychological and emotional needs of adults and children, old and young, frail and able-bodied”. the situation in many migrant destination areas is that care workers and domestic workers are essentially carrying out ‘housework and care’. that is, in addition to doing housekeeping, they provide care for children, the elderly and other vulnerable people within private homes, for some form of remuneration (cox, 2016; who, 2017; ilo, 2018). the employment of migrant workers in the domestic and care worker sector has been analyzed through the concept of global care chains. the concept relates to how women from developing countries migrate to take up employment, caring for children and others in families located in wealthier neighboring, regional or international countries, while they seek help from their extended families to take over their own care-giving responsibilities (yeates, 2005). while much of the available literature on global care chains emanates from studies based on migration flows from south to north, increasing care demands propelled by social and demographic transformations in many countries of the global south make the concept relevant to the south-south context. the transformations include greater numbers of women recruitment and job-seeking mechanisms for zimbabwean domestic women in south africa 70 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 entering the labor market, increased migration, and the rise in the aging population. this article is based on a study that explored the experiences of zimbabwean women who migrated to south africa to undertake various types of care work within the broader domestic work sector. it seeks to contribute to knowledge on the work experiences of care workers in the south-south migration, by documenting the different strategies used by zimbabwean migrant women to find employment in the domestic sector. it also highlights how the migrant status (legality) shapes these recruitment and job-seeking mechanisms. contextualization: migrant status and recruitment processes for domestic workers the recruitment and employment of migrant domestic workers is governed by the immigration and labor policies of the destination countries. scholars have argued that the migrant domestic workers have been incorporated into the host countries through policies that limit their full participation in the labor market as well as protection of their labor rights (parreñas, 2017; romero, 2018). migration and employment of care workers typically involve recruitment agencies and other intermediaries, sponsorship visas that tie workers to their employers as well as specific migrant recruitment programs for domestic workers, such as the canadian caregiver program (ccp). considered ‘best practice’, the ccp was put in place to cover a shortage of caregivers willing to live-in with employers and to provide care to members of households. (fudge, 2011; king-dejarddin, 2019). by the same token, domestic workers migrating to middle eastern countries such as the united arab emirates are employed under the kafala sponsorship system, which also ties the migrant to the employer (parreñas, 2017; romero, 2018). while the involvement of recruitment agencies in this process ensures that migrant domestic workers have employment contracts and are legally resident in the destination countries, concerns have been raised that sponsored visas often have stringent conditions that, for example, make it difficult to change employers if the migrant worker is unhappy about the employment conditions. romero (2018) argues that migrant domestic workers first encounter abuse through contact with recruiters and other intermediaries that facilitate their migration and employment in destination countries. challenges of using recruitment agencies that have been highlighted in the literature, include that they may charge exorbitant fees to assist migrant workers in finding employment and in acquiring travel documents (anderson, 2000; who, 2017; romero, 2018). recruitment agencies can confiscate migrants’ passports, and deduct travel costs and other expenses from their salaries (who, 2017; romero, 2018). further, it has been reported that recruitment agencies may offer misleading contracts in which terms of employment are not explicitly defined in relation to the position they are employed, working hours and remuneration (de regt, 2010; ghaddar et al., 2018; laiboni, 2020). isike (2017) has shown that migration into south africa after apartheid has 71 shifted from being solely male-dominated to include women and children. with particular reference to the zimbabwe-south africa migration corridor, crush et al. (2017) argue that following the zimbabwean political and economic deterioration, from the 2000s, outmigration increased and became mixed in character comprising both sexes, all age groups – from young children to seniors – as well as skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled migrants. studies focusing on skilled migration have focused on doctors, nurses and teachers (see for example, weda and de villiers, 2019). the employment of migrant workers in south africa is governed by the country’s immigration act 13 of 2002 (amended in 2014) (rsa, 2002), which requires migrants who intend to live or work in this country to obtain a temporary or permanent residence permit. however, low-skilled migrants often face challenges in acquiring this as they cannot meet the requirements (fish, 2013; thebe, 2017). according to fish, applicants have to undergo a “rigorous screening process that systematically disadvantages ‘unskilled’ migrants” (fish, 2013: 236). she further points out that applicants have to show proof that they have sufficient financial means to survive in south africa, which is a significant hurdle to overcome. thus, they resort to entering the country and working without proper documentation, which leaves them without legal protection and vulnerable (fish, 2013; mbiyozo, 2018; vanyoro, 2019a). it can thus be argued that south africa’s immigration laws are favorable to professional migrants with ‘scarce skills’ as potential employers are required to prove that they have not been able to find an equally qualified south african national, in order for an applicant to obtain a work permit (fish, 2013). while other routes, which include the asylum and refugee process under the refugees act 130 of 1998 (rsa, 1998) and the regularizations schemes have been available, they do not fully cover migrant domestic workers. the refugees act of 1998 provides for asylum to anyone who can show that they have reasonable fear of persecution that precludes return to their home country. fish (2013) explains that this act offers protection only to registered refugees and asylum seekers, thus leaving out a large number of migrants who decide to migrate and cannot establish refugee status. the effect is that migrants seeking domestic work in south africa face obstacles to acquiring the legal authority to work (fish, 2013; vanyoro, 2019b). another way in which migrants have managed to stay and work in south africa is through regularization schemes. the south african government introduced the dispensation of zimbabweans project (dzp) which sought to legalize the stay of zimbabweans in south africa (mbiyozo, 2018; vanyoro, 2019b). the initial permits were valid for four years (2010–2014) and were replaced by zimbabwe special permit (zsp) in 2014. again, these permits were replaced by the zimbabwe exemption permit (zep) in 2017, valid for four years until 2021. vanyoro (2019b) observes that while this process has been commended for regularizing the stay of zimbabweans in south africa, these permits have conditions attached to them – they are nonrenewable and permit holders do not qualify for permanent residence based on their temporary residence under these permits. vanyoro (2019b) further points out that recruitment and job-seeking mechanisms for zimbabwean domestic women in south africa 72 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 these permits were successfully accessed by only a small number of people, leaving many undocumented. theoretical framework: social reproduction and transnational migration the movement of women to take up employment in the domestic sector and more broadly in the service sectors across the world, highlights the interconnection between migration and social reproduction. hester and srnicek (2018: 335) describe social reproduction or reproductive labor as: … activities that nurture future workers, regenerate the current work force, and maintain those who cannot work – that is, the set of tasks that together maintain and reproduce life, both daily and generationally. social reproduction consists, broadly speaking, of caring directly for oneself and others (childcare, elder care, healthcare), maintaining physical spaces and organizing resources as part of an indirect process of care for oneself and others (cleaning, shopping, repairing), and species reproduction (bearing children) … as a theoretical framework, the analysis of social reproduction insists upon the intricate and intimate ways in which historically gendered caring activities are tied to the imperatives of capitalism. the scope of social reproduction and care has expanded from the site of the family to the global scene with the incorporation of migrant domestic workers (parreñas, 2000; kofman, 2012; kofman and raghuram, 2015). parreñas (2000) explains how reproductive labor on an international level has been affected by processes of globalization, commodification and the increased feminization of migration from the global south to the global north. using a case study of filipino domestic workers in the us and italy, she refers to a three-tier transfer of reproductive labor among women in receiving and sending countries. that is, middle-class women in developed countries who employ migrant filipino domestic workers and filipino domestic workers in the philippines who lack resources to migrate (employed in migrant domestic workers’ families). she argues that this transfer of reproductive labor is a structural relationship among women in a global market, highlighting inequalities based on class, race, gender, and citizenship. parreñas further asserts that this division of labor is shaped by global capitalism and gender inequalities in both the sending and receiving countries. thus, gender is a key factor in migration as the employment of migrant women enables women in the destination countries to ‘ease their gender constraints’ while migrant women relegate their gender roles to other women left behind. fudge (2014) also draws linkages between migration and care work in her conceptualization of social reproduction. fudge argues that immigration, which is controlled by the state, is an important element in social reproduction as it is a 73 source of labor and regulates the labor market. fudge notes that in line with the gender division of labor in receiving countries, women migrants are often restricted to traditional occupations, such as domestic and care work, that are precarious – “unstable, marked by low wages, absence of social services and poor working conditions” (fudge, 2014: 9). another concept significant to this study is “transnationalism”, which according to schiller et al. (1992: ix), refers to the “social process in which migrants establish social fields that cross geographical, cultural, and political fields”. it involves sustained relations that migrants are involved in, both in the countries of origin and settlement. migration from a transnational perspective places emphasis on the ways in which migrants “construct and reconstitute simultaneous embeddedness in more than one society” (schiller et al., 1995: 48). key characteristics identified in the literature in relation to transnationalism include emphasis on connectedness across the borders through high intensity of exchanges, transactions and activities; social networks and linkages across the border which facilitate migration; hybrid identities as migrants take on multiple identities that combine the sending and destination countries and that transnational activities are linked to globalization (modern communication and transport technologies which enable migrants to maintain social ties) as well as being part of a global capitalist system characterized by inequalities (crush and mcdonald, 2000; tedeschi et al., 2020). the concept of transnationalism has been used to understand transformations in the family and household brought about by migration (boccagni, 2012; nguyen, 2020). to the extent that transnational migration entails the movement of family members across borders, contemporary migration studies have focused on the formation of transnational families, which bryceson and vuorela (2002: 3) describe as “families that live for some time or most of the time separated from each other yet hold together and create … a feeling of collective welfare and unity, namely ‘familyhood’ even across the borders”. migrant domestic workers are part of transnational families with caring responsibilities in their country of origin and maintain close relations with their families through constant communication and remittances. studies on transnational families also highlight the changes in how care is defined and provided (baldassar et al., 2007). the migration of women has brought a focus on gender relations, with scholars such as salih (2000: 87) arguing that transnationalism is not a “uniform process” but a “complex and varied terrain experienced differently according to gender and class and to their interplay with normative constraints”. research setting and methodology this article utilizes data collected from a qualitative study undertaken in 2018. data was collected during two periods, from december 2017 to february 2018 for the pilot study while the rest of the data was collected from june to november 2018. a qualitative research design was deemed the most appropriate for addressing the research objectives as it places emphasis on context and lived experiences. a feminist recruitment and job-seeking mechanisms for zimbabwean domestic women in south africa 74 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 approach to methodology was adopted as it pays attention to the illumination of women’s lives and a focus on the ‘open-ended’ investigation of women’s experiences (devault, 1996; maynard and purvis, 2013). participants in this study were selected in two south african cities – johannesburg and pretoria. as urban areas, pretoria and johannesburg tend to be favored destinations for internal and foreign migrants who are drawn to these cities in anticipation of employment and economic opportunities. the 2011 census results showed that migrant inflows from outside south africa were the highest in gauteng (statssa, 2014). this article draws on data collected from in-depth interviews with two categories of participants: four key informants and 23 care workers. the key informants were owners or managers of domestic worker recruitment agencies in pretoria and johannesburg. such agencies play the role of being the point of contact for both employers who seek domestic help or home-based care services as well as the domestic or care workers seeking placement. four recruitment agencies were selected through purposive sampling, which is used when selecting cases “with a specific purpose in mind”, and is appropriate for specialized populations (neuman, 2011: 268). the key informants were identified through an online search of domestic worker agency websites. three were privately-owned businesses while one was a faith-based informal agency. two of the privately-owned businesses were located in johannesburg while one was in pretoria with the faith-based agency being in johannesburg. with regards to the care workers, snowball sampling was used to select participants for the study. snowball sampling was deemed the most appropriate in accessing “concealed” participants (atkinson and flint, 2001; berg, 2009). migrant care workers in private households represent a “hidden” population that is invisible to the public. data was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews. interview guides were designed for both categories of the participants. care workers selected to participate in the study were working in private households where their responsibilities included providing care for young children up to school-going age or members of the family needing care, such as older people, the frail or the sick. the ages of the participants ranged from 20 to 50 years. the majority of the participants (21) worked as full-time employees and 18 lived in the employer’s household. two were part-time employees. fifteen respondents were single, separated or divorced, five were married and three were widowed. interviews were conducted mostly during weekends when participants were off-duty and in a range of venues which included parks, food outlets and their places of accommodation, often located in the townships. for the key informants, interviews were held at the agencies’ offices. in order to ensure anonymity, pseudonyms were used in the write-up and analysis of findings. 75 research findings the migration journey women interviewed in this study described the various push and pull factors which motivated their migration. the pull factors were mainly economic, specifically the prospect for jobs in south africa that could offer better remuneration and hence enhance the women’s ability to support their children and other family members back in zimbabwe. the deterioration in the political and economic situation in zimbabwe emerged as the major push factor. reasons highlighted as driving their decision to migrate included lack of jobs and the declining economic situation in zimbabwe, poor working conditions in the domestic services sector for those who were employed in this sector prior to their migration, as well as caring responsibilities. according to one respondent, here in south africa, it is easy to get jobs, like domestic work jobs are easy to find. it is not as difficult as in other countries like namibia … moreover, in south africa, the amount of money that we get paid is a bit better. it depends on your employer, but if you look at it, the salaries that we get paid here in south africa, are generally better. you are able to support your family in zimbabwe (chido, pretoria). discussing the respondents’ migration journey was a sensitive topic as some respondents were afraid to expose the ways in which they had come into south africa. it emerged that the migration or documentation status of the respondents changed over the course of their stay in south africa. most of the respondents indicated that on their first entry into south africa they had used passports or emergency travel documents. at the time of the interviews, the documentation status of the respondents was as follows: • one participant indicated she had acquired permanent residency. • five had acquired work visas through the dispensation of zimbabwe project, with one highlighting that the permit had expired and she was yet to renew it. • three had obtained asylum seekers’ permits. • fourteen indicated that they were making use of visitors’ visas, and ‘overstaying’. participants highlighted challenges they faced in obtaining the required travel documents, especially in zimbabwe because of the economic challenges the country faced and also in south africa. for example, the following quote highlights the transitions that the respondents went through during their stay in south africa: ratidzo: when i first came, i used an etd (emergency travel document) recruitment and job-seeking mechanisms for zimbabwean domestic women in south africa 76 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 because at that time, it was very difficult to obtain a passport and the visas. i had acquired a (visitors’) visa when i came. interviewer: what about now? ... what about a permit? ratidzo: yes, i do … i applied in 2010 and got it in 2011 … at the moment, some of us went to renew [the permits] but they are still being processed. so, we don’t know the outcome, whether we will get them or not (ratidzo, johannesburg). another participant, tanyaradzwa, recounted her job history in south africa and she noted that, i have just been doing domestic work. there are no other jobs that you will find in south africa other than domestic work. to find jobs in south africa, you have to have a work permit; they require a lot of documents. we don’t have adequate documents (tanyaradzwa, johannesburg). while respondents and key informants suggested that the asylum permit was often disliked and avoided, it remained one of the preferred ways of maintaining one’s stay in south africa as it permits holders to work and study. it is a way of securing longterm employment. however, respondents raised certain challenges to acquiring this type of permit that discouraged other migrants from considering it, including long queues at the department of home affairs offices. furthermore, asylum permits are renewable every three to six months, which means holders must endure this process often. thus, other migrants resorted to the method of sending their passports to be ‘processed out’. this phenomenon entails the movement of travel documents, via a third party and at a cost, to have it stamped by a ‘connected’ border official, to show that the holder has officially left the country while they remain in the republic (thebe, 2017; vanyoro, 2019b; zack et al., 2019). the job-seeking journey the participants highlighted a number of ways in which they found employment, which included through agencies, the ‘market’ and social networks of relatives and friends who were already in south africa. § social networks the most popular method of securing jobs for the respondents in this study was through their networks of relatives and friends who were already living in south africa, aligning with zack et al.'s (2019) study of female zimbabwean migrants in the domestic sector. employers also made use of these networks of zimbabwean nationals in south africa to solicit potential employees in zimbabwe to come and 77 work in south africa. for example, sifiso from johannesburg explained her decision to come to south africa, which was influenced by her social networks, as follows: i chose to come to south africa because i had relatives living here already and i asked them to search for jobs for me ... in december 2012, my cousin told me about the job during the christmas holidays and i got the contact details of the employer and i started communicating with her. i travelled after the 1st of january … i went to my sister’s place and i started work the next day. de regt (2010) and awumbila et al. (2017) highlight several advantages of using social networks in the migration process. de regt (2010) notes that migrants receive information through their networks, which is useful for helping them to prepare for the new environment and life. further, she notes that relatives and friends in the destination country will assist new migrants with settling in and adjustment through providing accommodation and information on employment opportunities as well providing support in times of trouble, such as when a job is lost abruptly. most respondents noted that the reason they chose to come south africa was because their relatives or friends were already in the country. many of the respondents noted that relatives and friends had notified them of the job openings while they were still in zimbabwe. they therefore migrated to take up a position that was already available and did not have to spend any time searching for a job. other respondents noted that they had asked their relatives residing in south africa to search for jobs on their behalf, as indicated in sifiso’s quote above. the foregoing can be related to the theorists of transnational migration who highlight the idea of “simultaneous embeddedness” as migrants maintain social ties in the country of origin and destination. a central issue in the use of social networks is trust. both employers and employees prefer to use recommendations from within their social networks as a way of finding good employers or domestic workers they can trust, which is vital in care work. employers leave their children with domestic workers while they are at work during the day. de regt (2010) points out that for domestic workers, being employed by families recommended by social networks enhances the chances that they would be treated well. churches were also a significant element of the social networks, as both employers and job seekers used this channel as a way of advertising, in search of an employee or for a job. for example, one participant, rufaro indicated that she found her current job through networks from the church that her sister attended. it was not only family and friends who assisted in the search for employment, but also being part of social media groups. some participants explained that they were part of social media groups in which job openings could be advertised or posted. thus, social networks were a resource for information on job openings. recruitment and job-seeking mechanisms for zimbabwean domestic women in south africa 78 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 § the ‘market’ the other method of finding jobs was through the ‘market’, which the respondents explained as being areas where “people go and wait, so individuals looking for people to contract, just stop there and they choose the person they want, and then you discuss; if you agree and then you go …’ (chido, pretoria). the participants explained that there are designated areas where individuals in search of casual work or part-time jobs congregate, such as by the roadside, at major intersections, or at service stations. this method can be risky and dangerous especially in relation to human trafficking. for example, in an informal conversation after the interview in johannesburg, abigail referred to an incident in which two women had been picked up by the roadside while they were looking for a job; they disappeared and were later found dead in the area where she lived. this narrative reflects only one aspect of the many vulnerabilities associated with searching for casual jobs in the domestic sector. another relates to the question of trust, where relying on the ‘market’ to find work posed a risk to employers who would be employing strangers without knowledge of their background or credentials. respondents indicated that the ‘market’ was one way of securing part-time work as well as to find more than one employer to fill their working week. however, this method presented limited opportunities for negotiating working conditions and remuneration for the employees, as the employers had a wide range of workers to choose from. § recruitment agencies only a small number of the participants (five) had made use of private recruitment agencies representing a formal channel of job seeking. domestic worker recruitment agencies are considered as mediators between employers and domestic workers and often play the role of matching or pairing employers and workers according to specifications set by employers (hondagneu-sotelo, 2001; tsikata, 2011). the agencies that participated in this study, referred to as p1, p2, and p3, were privatelyowned businesses, while agency f1 was a faith-based informal employment agency. there are advantages for both employer and employee to use recruitment agencies in contrast to the two methods discussed above. employers have access to employees with experience and who have been vetted. the owner of agency p3 in johannesburg stated: a lot of the people who hire domestics don’t bother to check references and stuff, they just hire them off the street and that’s the problem … so we do all that – we do the reference checking, the interviewing, we do the preliminary work for the customers because they don’t have time (or) they don’t want to … we can do police checks if they want (owner, agency p3, johannesburg). the quote above gives a sense of the role of domestic worker agencies and the services 79 they provide, which are mainly to source the candidates according to the requirements of the employers, as well as to manage the screening process that candidates undertake before they register them. services provided by private recruitment agencies included facilitating contractual agreements between employers and employees, which provide details on terms of employment as well as remuneration. data from the agency officials showed that in the sourcing of prospective candidates, there were variations in terms of the requirements needed for a job seeker to be registered. the key items were a reference letter and proof of identification, while others mentioned experience. for people coming from outside of south africa, an additional requirement was proof of authorization to legally work in the country. for example, according to an agency owner: they must have a valid id or passport or work permit; we don’t take asylum papers. so, passport, valid work permit or id, reference letter – current references … for at least three years … (owner, agency p3, johannesburg). officials at the informal agency reported that they additionally accepted asylum documents for the registration process. another difference noted in the services provided by the informal agency was that their role was to ‘introduce’ job seekers to the employers and check if the prospective employees had the required documents. however, they explained that they did not verify the references, a responsibility left to the employers. one of the reasons that could have contributed to this situation, was that the informal agency relied on volunteers in their operations and therefore did not have resources to invest in the process of vetting and verification checks. some of the reasons cited by agency officials in the privately-owned agencies for not taking asylum papers into consideration, were that: the problem if they have an asylum [permit], it’s only valid for six months … so they need to go and get it renewed and it gets refused, because it does happen. so, we want them to have a valid work permit and a lot of the residential estates do not take asylum papers … there are massive penalties, massive, massive … penalties for employing say for instance a zimbabwean without a valid work permit … (manager, agency p1, pretoria). by drawing attention to the limitations of asylum permits, the manager at agency p1 corroborated some of the challenges raised by the respondents pertaining to acquiring these documents highlighted in earlier sections. furthermore, agency officials cited documentation issues as one of the major challenges faced by migrant care workers, as narrated by this respondent: … so, getting all the documentation right is probably a challenge and you know, as we said, we are not prepared to register them if they don’t have recruitment and job-seeking mechanisms for zimbabwean domestic women in south africa 80 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 permission to work here because the employers that come here expect them to have permission to work here. if not, they can get into trouble; so, i think the challenge of getting permission to work can be an issue. the special permits, like, expired in december last year, so they are busy issuing new ones. but they haven’t issued them all, so some people are sitting in the middle with a receipt with no permit. it’s difficult for us to register them because we have no way to check if receipts become permits. so, when you get your new permit, we will register you. but you know, sometimes they sit in no-man’s land (manager, agency f1, johannesburg). evidence from the agency officials pointed to the strict requirements, which meant that only a few migrant workers could make use of their services, given that the majority of the care workers did not have the required documents and those with asylum documents were not guaranteed to receive assistance in this process. with regards to the reference letters, tame (2018) contends that the requirement allows private recruitment agencies to play the role of a gate-keeper. she argues that in order to gain references indicating work experience, migrant women are often subject to exploitation, as they have to endure harsh working conditions before they can access this document. thus, she argues that reference letters can “limit workers’ mobility in the labor market” (tame, 2018: 104). documentation and access to jobs the majority of workers pointed to the disadvantages of not having the required documents, particularly in salary negotiations. the extract below from a conversation with one of the respondents, rufaro, and her sister, highlighted the challenges faced by migrant women in the course of seeking employment. unlike rufaro, her sister had managed to acquire the special permit. rufaro’s sister shared her experience: it limits their opportunities because, for example with me, i have experience of working for different employers of different races. so, what employers do – for someone who does not have the work papers, it’s a disadvantage, firstly, with regards to the salary. because they know you don’t have the papers and if they decide to pay you r2000 (us$118), because you are desperate for the job, you will agree. i have a permit right now; i can negotiate with the employer. if they say, “i can pay you r250 or r300 (us$15-18) per day”, i can negotiate for more money, you see. so, it’s a disadvantage to them because they don’t have the papers … also, [regarding] the areas where you find employment – there are areas where they refuse asylum papers; it’s either a work permit or id, you see, so it’s a very big disadvantage. as rufaro’s sister relates, women without the required work documents are disadvantaged in terms of job opportunities as well as salary negotiations because 81 of their status. the above excerpt highlights that a number of factors come into play, such as nationality, migrant status, race, class, and gender, which are interlinked with the disadvantage of the care worker. this further highlights their vulnerable positioning in the labor market. participants highlighted that without work visas, they found jobs that received very low remuneration. for instance, one participant, vimbai, highlighted her frustration after she realized that without a work visa, she was securing only positions where she would be paid r1500 (us$88). under such circumstances, some migrant women might be pushed to take drastic measures such as using another person’s documents to secure employment in the hope of increasing their chances of securing positions that offer higher remuneration and better working conditions. this increases their vulnerability as they risk losing the job, if their fraudulent actions were exposed. thus, care workers would sometimes confide in their employers about their migrant status, depending on whether they had developed a relationship of trust. in consequence, migrant workers found themselves dependent on their employers in order to maintain their jobs as well as for protection. this emphasizes how the domestic sector is extremely privatized and informalized. it links to griffin's (2011) study on lesotho migrant workers in south africa, as she notes that domestic workers were dependent on their employers to protect them from state officials as they feared deportation. being dependent on their employers highlights their vulnerability to exploitation. discussion and conclusion the findings of this study highlight that despite the significant presence of zimbabwean women in the domestic services sector in south africa, the majority of them are working without the proper documents, which has implications for how they secure employment and the conditions they work under thereafter. in terms of migration processes, it emerged that most of the women entered the country legally using visitors’ visas. only a few managed to subsequently acquire work visas or asylum permits. the findings confirm fish's (2013) observations that migrant domestic workers face barriers in terms of accessing the legal right to work and leave many of them with an undocumented status. they are exposed to conditions that infringe on their rights; they are at risk of exploitation and abuse as well as living in fear of deportation (fish, 2013: 240). in addition, fish assert that, because of their undocumented status, migrant domestic workers are afraid of approaching government institutions for the protection of their rights. the findings also show that unlike in south-north global care chains where migration is facilitated either by the state through bilateral agreements or temporary labor migration programs as well as through recruitment agencies that facilitate the processing of work visas, employment contracts and travel fees, the migration of zimbabwean women to south africa is ‘informalized’ and not regulated. the women typically make their own plans to migrate (zack et al., 2019) and, in line recruitment and job-seeking mechanisms for zimbabwean domestic women in south africa 82 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 with the concept of transnationalism, social networks play an important role in facilitating the process of migration. this is in contrast to other migration flows such as those from africa to the middle east where domestic workers rely on recruitment agencies and brokers, some operated under government-provided guidelines, to obtain employment (laiboni, 2020). this ensures that the migration process is more formalized and potentially assists in protecting the rights of migrant care workers. without legal documentation, migrant care workers cannot seek employment through formal channels such as recruitment agencies; officials of such agencies indicated that they could only register migrant workers who had valid and legitimate work visas. for these ‘overstayers’ as well as for women still back in zimbabwe, using social networks, as stated above, is the most common method of finding employment. as observed by gurung (2009), domestic work falls within the informal labor market and hiring processes are usually through the employers’ and employees’ social networks and by word of mouth. she argues that in such cases, there is a power imbalance, as the employer has control over the hiring as well as the working conditions, adding that “employers can change their work policies and rules at any time without consultation with the workers” (gurung, 2009: 385). when employers are aware of the migrant’s illegal status, they often have more control and discretion in terms of employment conditions as well as remuneration. thus, compared to those jobs secured through recruitment agencies, jobs acquired through social networks do not offer protection to care workers. agencies, for example, insist upon a written contract, which is used to regulate the employment relationship. formal contracts also facilitate salary negotiations and therefore play a key role in ensuring that care workers’ rights are protected. the overall migration between zimbabwe and south africa is guided by regional instruments such as the 2003 sadc charter of the fundamental social rights in sadc, which seeks to “promote labour policies, practices and measures which facilitate labour mobility” and “to promote the establishment and harmonization of social security systems”. in 2013, the regional body launched the sadc labour migration action plan under which the sadc labour migration policy framework (2014) was developed. the main objective of this framework is to “promote the sound management of intra-regional labour migration for the benefit of both the sending and receiving country”. through the development of national labour migration policies, the sadc labour migration policy framework seeks to ensure that all types of migrant workers are protected against discrimination at the workplace and to promote the portability of social security benefits. to meet this requirement, the south african department of labour was, at the time of writing of this article, developing a draft national labour migration policy to be implemented in 2020. this study has highlighted that south africa’s strict migration policy, which continues to focus on skilled labor, is not comprehensive enough to cover all types of labor migrants and that there is a need for policies tailored for different categories 83 of migrant workers. the study recommends the introduction of less stringent and affordable visa options for care workers, as proper documentation is important for the protection of the rights of the care workers. recruitment and job-seeking mechanisms for zimbabwean domestic women in south africa 84 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 references anderson, b. 2000. doing the dirty work?: the global politics of domestic labour. london and new york: zed books. atkinson, r. and flint, j. 2001. accessing hidden and hard-to-reach populations: snowball research strategies. social research update, 33(1): 1-4. awumbila, m., teye, j.k. and yaro, j.a. 2017. social networks, migration trajectories and livelihood strategies of migrant domestic and construction workers in accra, ghana. journal of asian and african studies, 52(7): 982-996. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0021909616634743 baldassar, l., baldock, c.v. and wilding, r. 2007. families caring across borders: migration, ageing and transnational caregiving. basingstoke and new york: palgrave macmillan. berg, b.l. 2009. qualitative research methods for the social sciences, 7th ed. boston: allyn and bacon. boccagni, p. 2012. practising motherhood at a distance: retention and loss in ecuadorian transnational families. journal of ethnic and migration studies, 38(2): 261-277. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2012.646421 bryceson, d.f. and vuorela, u. 2002. transnational families in the twenty-first century. in bryceson, d. and vuorela, u. 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(eds.), masons and maids: class, gender and ethnicity in migrant experiences. ssiim unesco chair, pp. 93-111. tedeschi, m., vorobeva, e. and jauhiainen, j.s. 2020. transnationalism: current debates and new perspectives. geojournal, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10708-020-10271-8 thebe, v. 2017. ‘two steps forward, one step back’: zimbabwean migration and south africa’s regularising programme (the zdp). journal of international migration and integration, 18(2): 613-622. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-016-0495-8 tsikata, d. 2011. employment agencies and the regulation of domestic workers in ghana: institutionalizing informality? canadian journal of women and the law, 23(1): 213-234. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjwl.23.1.213 vanyoro, k.p. 2019a. regularising labour migration of zimbabwean domestic workers in south africa. johannesburg: african centre for migration and society, university of the witwatersrand. available at: http://www.migration.org. za/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/regularising-labour-migration-of-zimdomestic-workers-in-sa-issue-brief-15-july-2019.pdf. accessed on 13 april 2021. recruitment and job-seeking mechanisms for zimbabwean domestic women in south africa https://doi.org/10.2307/3317464 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1992.tb33484.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1992.tb33484.x https://bit.ly/3tqd2mn https://bit.ly/32nimws https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-020-10271-8 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-020-10271-8 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-016-0495-8 https://doi.org/10.3138/cjwl.23.1.213 http://www.migration.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/regularising-labour-migration-of-zim-domestic http://www.migration.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/regularising-labour-migration-of-zim-domestic http://www.migration.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/regularising-labour-migration-of-zim-domestic 88 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 vanyoro, k.p. 2019b. zimbabwean migrant domestic worker activism in south africa. migrating out of poverty research programme consortium. brighton: university of sussex. weda, z. and de villiers, r. 2019. migrant zimbabwean teachers in south africa: challenging and rewarding issues. journal of international migration and integration, 20(4): 1013-1028. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-018-00649-6 world health organization (who). 2017. women on the move: migration, care work and health. geneva: world health organization. yeates, n. 2005. global care chains: a critical introduction. global migration perspectives. geneva: global commission on international migration. zack, t., matshaka, s., moyo, k. and vanyoro, k.p. 2019. my way? the circumstances and intermediaries that influence the migration decision-making of female zimbabwean domestic workers in johannesburg. migrating out of poverty research programme consortium working paper 57. brighton: migrating out of poverty research programme consortium, university of sussex. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-018-00649-6 49 towards a legal and regulatory framework for south african domestic remittances: some considerations vivienne lawack* * mercantile and labour law department, faculty of law, university of the western cape, south africa email: vlawack@uwc.ac.za this paper is an exploratory study that examines the legal and regulatory framework for domestic remittances within the south african legal context. the author makes some proposals for consideration in the review of the national payment system act no 78 of 1998 (nps act) with regards to domestic remittances as a retail, lowvalue payment service. to this end, the paper provides an understanding of domestic remittances, the transaction, process and channels used. it also contextualizes domestic remittances within the south african national payment system (nps) and finally examines the current gaps that can be remedied through the review of the nps act. the author argues that if financial inclusion is to be promoted, the regulatory framework pertaining to domestic remittances should enable, rather than inhibit the use of domestic remittances as a payment service. keywords: domestic remittances, migration, national payment system, payment service(s), financial inclusion 50 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 introduction in the global economy, regardless of the legality of work, migrants experience the need to send money to families they have left in their countries of origin. the same applies at the domestic level, where workers often work in other provinces and need to send money home to support their families. it is interesting to note that in a 2016 report of technoserve, south africa’s domestic remittance market was estimated to include between us$11 billion and us$13 billion in annual transactions at an average of us$60 per transaction. this was the equivalent of four percent of the south african gross domestic product (gdp). this is more than six times as large as international remittances outflows of south africa, driven by a far higher number of domestic over international migrants within the country. in 2016, south africa had approximately 24,3 million domestic remittance users (technoserve, 2016). much has been written on the economic and development aspects of remittances, but less so on the legal and regulatory framework pertaining to remittances (abida and sghaier, 2014; beyene, 2014; adarkwa, 2015; matuzeviciute and butkus, 2016; maviza et al., 2019). in previous articles, the author dealt with international remittances and the regulatory obstacles pertaining to international remittances and implications for migrant workers and asylum seekers (lawack, 2013, 2014). this paper is an exploratory study that aims to examine the legal and regulatory framework for domestic remittances, in order to make some proposals for consideration in the review of the national payment system act no 78 of 1998 (nps act) (rsa, 1998) with regards to domestic remittances as a retail, low-value payment service. the author uses a legal desktop analysis methodology. to this end, the paper provides an understanding of domestic remittances, the transaction, process and channels used. it also contextualizes domestic remittances within the national payment system (nps) and finally examines the current regulatory gaps that can be remedied through the review of the nps act. the author argues that if financial inclusion is to be promoted, the regulatory framework pertaining to domestic remittances should enable, rather than inhibit the use of domestic remittances as a payment service. background and meaning of domestic remittances remittances can be both domestic and international in nature. the term ‘international remittance’ (lawack, 2013) does not have a solid universal definition. different authors have assigned varying definitions to the term. the bank for international settlements (bis) and the world bank define international remittances as, “crossborder person-to-person payments of relatively low value” (cpss and world bank, 2007: 4). bester et al. (2010: 2) define them as, “non-reciprocal transfers from one person to another across a distance”, while abdul azeez and begum (2009: 300) define them as, “that portion of migrants’ earnings sent from the migration destination to the place of origin”. the latter definition is deemed more suitable for the purposes of this paper, 51 which looks at the context of the labor migrants who send funds back to families in their countries of origin. according to statistics presented by genesis analytics, amounts sent by such migrants within the southern african development community (sadc) region are of relatively low value (genesis analytics, 2005). from the varying definitions mentioned above, two common features of international remittances can be identified, namely that (a) remittances are unrequited person-to-person payments – not made in exchange for goods or services and do not involve receipts and invoices – of relatively low value; and (b) there is a considerable geographical distance between the sender and the recipient. the same definition can be applied to domestic remittances, except that the remittances take place within the borders of a country. remittance transactions can be categorized as credit transfers, as payment is typically initiated when the sender instructs a remittance service provider to send funds (cpss and world bank, 2007). remittance transactions are typically recurrent payments made via individual transfers as opposed to being made by standing order. the latter pre-authorizes an institution, typically a bank, to make regular payments to a specified individual or entity. remittances may be done either in the form of cash transfers, or goods such as groceries (dodson, 2008). however, this paper focuses on remittances of a monetary type and not those made in the form of goods. the remittance transaction participants the key participants in a typical remittance transaction are the sender, the recipient, the capturing remittance service provider (rsp) and the disbursing remittance service provider. the sender, in the context of this paper, refers to the migrant worker seeking to send funds to their home of origin. the recipient is the person to whom the migrant seeks to send funds to. often, but not necessarily, the person is a family member of the migrant such as a spouse, sibling or parent. a remittance service provider facilitates the transfer of funds from the sender to the recipient in exchange for a fee, which is usually a percentage of the amount being sent (world bank, 2015). different types of remittance service providers exist within the south african remittance industry. the nature of these rsps differs depending on the type of remittance channel that is utilized. the ‘capturing rsp’ is the rsp to whom the sender hands over the funds to be sent to the recipient. the ‘disbursing rsp’, on the other hand, is the rsp that pays out the funds to the recipient. depending on the type of remittance network in place, the capturing and disbursing rsp may be one and the same entity or, alternatively, agents of a single rsp, albeit located in different countries. regardless of whether or not a remittance is channeled via formal or informal means, some form of network needs to be in place in order for the service to function. access points at which consumers can hand over funds and conversely receive towards a legal and regulatory framework for south african domestic remittances 52 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 funds need to be in place and interlinked (biller, 2007). in regard to the nature of a remittance network, four types can be distinguished, namely unilateral, franchised, negotiated and open networks. unilateral remittance networks involve a single rsp and do not utilize the services of any other entities for the purpose of capturing and disbursement. such networks can only be implemented if the rsp has physical access points in both the sending and recipient countries or if the network is a virtual one. access points are not physical agents but electronic devices such as computers or mobile phones (see cpss, 2005:9; biller, 2007). unilateral remittance networks are rare due to scarcity of physical access points and lack of access to electronic communications and banking in general. in a franchised remittance network, an rsp creates a remittance network without owning any of the physical access points. the rsp provides the infrastructure for the messaging and settlement aspects of the remittance transaction and acquires physical access points by inviting institutions in both the sending and recipient countries to offer services as agents of the rsp on standardized terms (cpss, 2005: 9). this type of network is typically associated with global money transfer organizations (mtos) such as western union which utilize, inter alia, banks and post offices as agents (imf, 2009: 9). in a negotiated remittance service network, an rsp negotiates and establishes a network with an institution or institutions, or even individuals, in other countries and by doing so creates an adequate network of access points (cpss and world bank, 2007). it is typical for funds to be paid out to the recipient before the disbursing rsp actually receives funds from the capturing rsp with no guarantee of payment aside from the expectation that the capturing agent will settle the amount in future (biller, 2007). in an open remittance network, an rsp is able to offer remittance services to customers without owning any access points in the recipient country. it obtains access points by using an open network which any rsp can access (cpss and world bank, 2007). these networks are not pre-negotiated and usually, as a consequence, the messaging and settlement aspects of a transaction occur simultaneously. rsps that are not banks can access the network via banks that they hold accounts with. the remittance process a variety of activities transpire within the process of making a remittance transaction. of these activities, the capturing and disbursement aspects are the most visible to the end user. messaging and settlement, which transpire between capturing and disbursement, are not as apparent. capturing involves the sender paying funds to be sent, as well as the applicable transaction fees, to the rsp or its agent. payment can be effected by any means acceptable to the sender and rsp and may be done via cash, cheque or account transfer. the mode of payment may be influenced by the nature of the rsp. for 53 instance, if the rsp is a bank, payment is more likely to be effected via an account transfer. transactions are typically carried out at a physical location such as a bank branch, post office and so forth. however, with technological advancements it is now possible for transactions to be concluded in a virtual location by means of a computer or mobile phone (cpss, 2005: 40). in south africa such practice is possible through, for instance, absa bank and western union’s internet and mobile remittance services. it is usually necessary for the sender to identify themselves and to verify such identity using documents that are prescribed by regulatory authorities. in contrast, minimal information in regard to the identity of the recipient is usually required, with specification of their name being the basic minimum requirement. messaging encompasses the sending of information in regard to the transaction from the capturing rsp to the disbursing rsp (biller, 2007) and is predominantly carried out through the message transmission of the society for worldwide interbank financial telecommunication (swift) (bis, 1999: 158). swift acts as a carrier of financial messages between financial institutions. depending on the nature of the remittance service, for instance whether it is an open or franchised service, funds and information in regard to the transaction can be sent either simultaneously or independently. in an open service remittance network, funds are usually sent simultaneously with information about the transaction, whereas in other networks, funds are sent separately from the information pertaining to the transaction (cpss, 2005: 41). settlement provides for the actual movement of funds between the capturing rsp and the disbursing rsp (biller, 2007). the settlement process, depending on the arrangements in place, can be of varying speed and complexity (cpss and world bank, 2007). settlement usually occurs in a ‘settlement chain’ – a series of separate payments each of which can be made differently – by way of a credit transfer from the payer to the payee’s bank. in south africa, this takes place through the usual process of settlement of obligations between the banks as settlement system participants. in south africa, rsps that are not banks cannot directly access the settlement system. they can only access the settlement system indirectly via the banks that they hold accounts with. unlike payments between end users and agents, which are paid on an individual basis, payments between the agents and rsps can be batched and possibly netted (cpss, 2005: 41). in order for netting arrangements to function, it is necessary for a fairly even two-way flow of remittances between the sender and recipient to be in place (cpss and world bank, 2007). despite the fact that settlement occurs in a chain, it is not always necessary for the disbursing agent to wait for the actual receipt of funds that have been sent in order to pay the recipient. it is possible for liquidity arrangements to be in place, allowing for the disbursing rsp to pay the recipient before actual receipt of funds from the capturing rsp (cpss, 2005: 41). liquidity arrangements are more commonplace within franchised networks provided by global mtos such as western union, whereby the recipient may collect funds from anywhere and the rsp will towards a legal and regulatory framework for south african domestic remittances 54 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 not be aware of which disbursing agent to pay until the funds are actually collected. liquidity arrangements entail a greater credit risk on the part of the rsp and make it necessary for the disbursing agent to retain greater liquidity. provision of greater liquidity coupled with the increased credit risk that the rsp is exposed to, are likely to raise the overall transaction costs (cpss, 2005: 41). disbursement entails the payment of funds by the disbursing agent to the recipient. as with capturing, payment can occur via any means acceptable to the recipient and the disbursing agent. where money is sent via an mto, the sender is typically required to provide a multi transfer control number (mtcn) and answer a test question set by the sender. failure to provide the correct mtcn or answer the set question correctly, prevents the recipient from obtaining the funds from the disbursing agent. remittance channels when migrants decide to send funds beyond the host country’s borders, they have the option of channeling such funds through either formal or informal mechanisms. formal channels in formulating a description of formal channels, reference can be made to the financial department of the international monetary fund (imf), which defines a formal rsp as, “a provider that is regulated and overseen by competent government agencies for its remittance services” (imf, 2005: 10). based on this definition, formal remittance channels can be described as being those that are operated within the legal and regulatory framework and that are subject to the supervision of a superior regulatory authority. in the case of south africa, the south african reserve bank (sarb) is the latter authority. banks are traditionally an important means of effecting remittance transactions, which can be attributed to their extensive networks in the country and their participation in the national payment system (nps). banks also offer internet as well as mobile transfer services. previously, in south africa such services were only available for domestic transfers. all major banks have now introduced such services to their internet and cell phone banking clients, allowing them to send as well as receive remittances electronically (techcentral, n.d.). mobile payments (m-payments) can be described as transactions whereby customers are able to give payment instructions by means of their cell phones, to either a merchant, payment service provider, or, as in the case of south africa, a bank. upon being given the instruction, the institution proceeds to pay the specified amount towards the beneficiary (bester et al., 2010: 6). transactions, reportedly, take between 2-3 minutes to execute (rasool, 2010), thereby offering much convenience and appeal. migrants who are unbanked have the option of engaging the services of money 55 transfer operators. mtos are financial companies that provide services in regard to cross-border transfer of funds using either their own internal network or another cross-border banking network (imf, 2009: 9) the services of money gram and western union are currently available in south africa. according to bradford (2008: 2) these mtos are two of the worldwide leaders in this field of the formal remittance market. as an alternative to banks and mtos, remitters have the option of engaging the services of the post office, which is empowered to remit funds within south africa, in accordance with section 46 of the post office act 44 of 1958 (rsa, 1958). in comparison to other formal rsps, post offices have been identified as having the largest outreach network (imf, 2009: 9), which encompass remote locations and can prove useful within developing countries that lack adequate financial infrastructure. post offices either provide their own services for international money transfers or may act as agents of other money transfer agents. they provide remittance products in the form of ordinary money orders and telegraphic money orders, the latter being speedier than ordinary money orders (genesis analytics, 2003). the post office’s position within the remittance market is unique in that, unlike its counterparts, it is not subject to the exchange control regulations. this anomaly is attributed to the fact that its services were initiated prior to the passage of the exchange control laws (bester et al., 2010). it is able to offer its services at a much cheaper price, which is partially a circumstance of the fact that it faces no regulatory compliance costs. the post office, despite its unique situation, is not immune from deficiencies. for instance, transactions via the post office take a longer time period and, unlike the services of mtos such as money gram, receipt of funds is not immediate. in april 2006, shoprite launched a money transfer service at its money market counters. this transformed the domestic remittance market and set the scene for innovation in the sector. on the retail side, the post office (post bank), shoprite money market, spar instant money pep (various partnerships) and pick ‘n pay money transfer and mobile money partnership are amongst the most-used remittance channels. all four big banks have domestic remittance products as well, such as absa cashsend, fnb ewallet, standard bank instant money and nedbank send-imali. digital or mobile money products include vodacom m-pesa, mtn mobile money, wechat wallet, mobicash and even facebook messenger. interestingly enough, the technoserve report (2016) indicates that approximately 50 percent of all domestic remittance transfers are initiated through bank services, while at least 25 percent of transfers are still cash-based. informal remittance channels the imf (2005: 10) defines an informal rsp as, “a provider functioning without regulation or oversight of financial supervisors for its remittance services”. taking into account this definition, informal remittance channels can be described as those towards a legal and regulatory framework for south african domestic remittances 56 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 that are operated outside the legal and regulatory framework. such remittance channels are often, but not necessarily, illegal (imf, 2009: 7). informal transfers are based on informal relationships and involve a high level of trust between the sender and the rsp. these channels entail a high level of risk, on the part of the sender, as there is no guarantee of delivery and the sender has no legal recourse should the rsp fail to deliver. in the south african remittance market, common providers of informal remittance services are long distance taxi drivers and friends (genesis analytics, 2003). when sending funds via taxi drivers, the procedure appears to vary dependent on whether the remitter is a friend or stranger to the taxi driver (genesis analytics, 2005). if the remitter is familiar with the driver, transaction costs are lower or even foregone. no record of the transaction is maintained, making trust an essential component. unlike with a familiar remitter, if the remitter is a stranger, the procedure is more formalized. the sender approaches a taxi association office and together with the driver, who will be entrusted with the funds, counts the amount to be sent. the value of the amount entrusted to the driver is recorded in a book kept at the office specifically for such purposes. the recipient collects the funds from the taxi association office in the destination city or country and is required to know the number-plate of the taxi as well as the name of the driver who delivered the money. senders are often not insured against losses incurred due to theft or accidents. taxi drivers, on the other hand, are at times insured against such losses, more specifically in cases where transactions have been recorded in books at the taxi association office (genesis analytics, 2005). remittances via friends or family are similar to those channeled via taxi drivers and are also highly trust-based. remittances via these people are favorable as they allow for funds to be sent to recipients located in remote areas where infrastructural facilities may be inadequate or non-existent. furthermore, transaction costs are low or may be foregone where the relationship between the sender and person entrusted with the funds is close (genesis analytics, 2005). it is submitted that from a risk perspective, on the part of the consumer, formal channels are a safer remittance channel in terms of guaranteeing the delivery of funds to the recipient. despite this, informal channels, which commonly do not offer a consumer any form of recourse in the event of non-delivery, are sometimes the preferred means of sending remittances. in this regard, one also has to be mindful of the challenges that the remittance payment system encounters as it operates within the national payment system (nps). in addition, when formal channels are used, a key consideration should be how financial inclusion can be improved, whilst ensuring that financial integrity is maintained. 57 domestic remittances and the south african national payment system (nps) background on the nps a national payment system (nps), as defined by the bis, encompasses a set of instruments, banking procedures, and typically a funds transfer system that allows for the circulation of funds (cpss, 2005). aside from the payments between banks, a payment system includes the entire payment process, systems, mechanisms, institutions, agreements as well as laws that are in place and have an impact upon the movement of funds (sarb, 2008). before the national payment system act 78 of 1998 (rsa, 1998) came into effect, there was no legislation that specifically governed the nps. the nps was established, regulated by either common law or in terms of certain provisions contained in selected south african legislation (lawack-davids, 2008). the nps act, which came into effect on 28 october 2008, is currently the principal piece of legislation that regulates the nps. over the past years, the south african nps has developed into a complex environment which, for clarity, can be broken down into various inter-linking payment networks. these networks are: • the customer network; • the payment network; • the clearing network; • the settlement network; and • the continuous linked settlement network (sarb, 2008). the customer network encompasses the payment networks that have been put in place by business customers of commercial banks such as supermarkets and public utilities (sarb, 2008). the customer network allows these businesses to partake in the payment system and provide payment services to their clients. the business customers of banks cannot, however, directly access the settlement network and must therefore use the payment networks of participating banks. the payment network consists of the systems and communications mechanisms put in place by commercial banks in order to provide their customers with facilities and channels to effect payments (sarb, 2008). it encompasses bankowned automated teller machines (atms), internet banking services, branch networks and payment instruments such as cheques, debit cards, credit cards and so forth. clearing refers to the exchange of payment instructions, in line with section 1(iv) of the nps act (rsa, 1998). the clearing network provides a forum for payment system participants to exchange payment instructions. previously only banking institutions were granted access to the clearing network. as the payment system evolved, more non-banking institutions began to participate in the payment towards a legal and regulatory framework for south african domestic remittances 58 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 system. the reserve bank decided to re-evaluate the criteria for participation in the clearing network and as a consequence, non-banking institutions are now able to access the network and clear in their own name (sarb, 2008). payment clearing house (pch) system operators are other participants of the clearing network. these are also referred to as “clearing houses”. the nps act defines a pch system operator as, “a person authorised by the payment system management body to provide clearing processing services on behalf of two or more system participants or a payment clearing house – as per section 1(xx) (rsa, 1998). in south africa, one such pch system operator is bankserv. bankserv, which is owned by the south african clearing and settlement banks, is responsible for clearing and determining interbank obligations stemming from the retail payments environment. a settlement system is defined by the nps act as, “a system established and operated by the reserve bank for the discharge of payment and settlement obligations between system participants” as per section 1(xvii) (rsa, 1998). the core of south africa’s payment system is the south african multiple option settlement (samos) system, which is owned and operated by the south african reserve bank. the samos is a real-time gross settlement (rtgs) system and enables settlement participants to settle their interbank payment obligations finally and irrevocably. rtgs systems allow for funds as well as securities transfers to be continuously settled in ‘real time’. transfers are settled individually at the time that they are received as opposed to them being settled collectively with other transfers at a later stage (see cpss definition of ‘real time’ and ‘rtgs systems’ in cpss, 2005: 40-41. only banking institutions and designated settlement operators have access to the settlement system (see sections 3 and 4 of the nps act, 1998). the continuous linked settlement (cls) system interlinks with the samos for purposes of settling the rand leg of high-value cross-border foreign exchange transactions (lawack-davids, 2008). low-value payments such as remittances are not settled within the cls system. such cross-border transactions are settled through cross-border banking relationships. (bis, 1999: 147, 158). oversight of the national payment system (nps) the south african reserve bank describes the function of overseeing the national payment system as being inclusive of the entire process that is initiated when an end-user issues a payment instruction to pay another person or business, up until the point when the beneficiary receives the payment (sarb, 2006: 11). it covers all the arrangements and procedures that exist to cater for clearing as well as settlement of the payment instruction, and payment towards the intended beneficiary (sarb, 2006). the efficiency, as well as safety, of an nps plays a crucial part in ensuring overall stability of the country’s financial sector (sarb, 2008). it is therefore necessary for some form of oversight to be put in place. in south africa, the south african reserve bank act (sarb, 1989) provides for such oversight. this act was 59 amended in 1996 in order to clarify the role of the sarb in regard to the national payment system. section 10(1)(c) of the act expressly empowers the sarb to, inter alia, perform functions that allow it to regulate as well as oversee the payment system. in turn, the sarb has established a national payment system department which bears the responsibility of overseeing the nps. the bis has defined the function of overseeing the nps as being: [a] central bank task, principally intended to protect the smooth functioning of a payment system and to protect the financial system from possible ‘domino effects’ which may occur when one or more participants in the payment system incur credit risk or liquidity risk (bis, 1999: 37). the bis definition of ‘oversight’ gives a notion of why it is necessary for an nps to be overseen. payment systems are subject to a number of risks. these include: credit risks – when a participant will not be able to fully meet its financial obligations within the system; liquidity risks – when a participant within the system will have insufficient funds to fulfil financial obligations within the system as, and when, they become due; legal risks – when a poor legal framework will cause or exacerbate credit or liquidity risks; and operational risks – when operational factors such as technical malfunctions or operational mistakes will cause or exacerbate credit or liquidity risks. a participant who incurs either credit or liquidity risks, may compromise other system participants’ capacity, or financial institutions in other parts of the financial system, to fulfil their financial obligations as they become due; hence the need for oversight to prevent this potential ‘domino effect’. the risk of detrimental effects being imposed on other participants due to, amongst others, credit or liquidity problems faced by another participant in the system, is known as systemic risk, as outlined in section 12(1) of the nps act (see rsa, 1998, and also cpss, 2005: 48). it is submitted that the potential threat of systemic failure makes it necessary to control access to the nps, as well as to monitor the activities of participants. remittances, as stated by bester et al. (2010: 2), are a payment system phenomenon. providers of remittance services fall within the payment system, albeit at a lower level of the entire system or the ‘outer layer’, as the author previously described the layers of the nps (lawack-davids, 2008). remittance transactions can be categorized within the retail payment system of the nps. the latter systems primarily deal with consumer payments of relatively low value and, in contrast to systematically important payment systems, are generally not viewed as being a threat to systemic stability. these systemically important payment systems service participants with high value transactions and can, in the event of risk exposure, trigger systematic disruptions amongst other system participants or financial institutions in other financial areas (see cpss, 2005: 5; cpss, 2003: 48; competition commission, 2006). the bis and world bank have stated that, taking into account that remittances are low value payments, credit or liquidity failure by an rsp is unlikely to cause towards a legal and regulatory framework for south african domestic remittances 60 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 systemic risk in the nps (cpss, 2005: 18). the sarb has, however, stated that retail payment systems can collectively form a systematically important payment system (sarb, 2008: 15). taking the latter into account, this paper maintains that it is necessary for retail payment systems to be overseen. this oversight is also necessary taking into account that these systems facilitate day-to-day consumer transactions and can, in the event of inefficiency and failure, compromise public confidence in, as well as the integrity of, the nps (competition commission, 2006; sarb, 2006: 11). given the above, if the sarb oversees formal, as opposed to informal remittances, it would be preferred that formal remittance channels be used. as seen above, it is clear that the preference is for informal remittance channels. one therefore needs to understand the factors that influence the use of informal remittance channels. the legal and regulatory environment like most financial services, remittance services are subject to legislation governing anti-money laundering and combating financing of terrorism. these laws impose obligations to know the customer or customer due diligence, that require financial institutions to gather, what at times can be extensive, information from their clients as well as to report on suspicious transactions (cpss, 2005: 16). these regulatory requisites may impose compliance costs which can have an impact upon remittance transaction fees. regulatory requirements can also bear significant implications for the competition within the remittance industry, especially in circumstances where rsps are required to be in possession of a license or registered to provide remittance services. a potential effect of the latter would be the limitation of competition within the remittance market by excluding potential rsps from entering into the remittance industry. that would be the more so, if the fees for licensing and registration are expensive (cpss, 2005: 17) or where only certain financial institutions are awarded such licenses or are entitled to registration. economic theory suggests that the less competitive a market is, the higher the price of products and services in the market will be (neuhoff et al., 2006: 46). the regulatory environment also potentially constrains competition in circumstances where licensing is a pre-requisite for an individual or institution to deal in foreign currency. such pre-requisites can compromise a potential rsp’s ability to enter into a remittance market. in providing remittance services, rsps face a variety of financial, legal, operational, fraud and reputational risks (cpss, 2005: 18). a mutual concern for all participants in a remittance transaction is the risk that funds will be lost whilst in transition. the question of who bears the risk depends on the nature of the remittance service (cpss, 2005: 18). in regard to unilateral and franchised networks, the rsp usually bears the risk (cpss, 2005: 18). this paper argues that the exposure 61 to such risk is inevitably taken into account when providing remittance services and plays a role in determining the costs of a transaction. whilst the discussion above gives an insight into the factors that contribute towards the preference for informal remittance channels, it is evident that the government needs to strengthen the risk-based approach with an explicit framework for oversight of international remittances, as the benefits of international remittances for the poor cannot be under-estimated. this can only be achieved if the conditions are conductive and the legal and regulatory framework is sufficiently robust and sound to enable the increased use of formal remittance channels. a stratified approach could be used; that means that the particular payment system should be overseen bearing in mind the risks posed by the product and not only the institution which provides the payment system. regulatory gaps and recommendations the national payment system department of the sarb issued a review of the nps act report (sarb, 2018) which has various objectives, of which strengthening the regulatory framework for domestic remittances is but one. amongst other things, the review seeks to align the south african mobile framework with the mobile money guidelines and the general principles for international remittances issued by the world bank (sarb, 2018). a comprehensive review of the south african remittance market was conducted by the world bank and finalized in august 2015. the report identified key actions that could lead to enhanced safety and efficiency of remittance transactions within south africa. this includes the development of a consumer protection framework, financial literacy strategies, the development of governance and risk management frameworks, promotion of competition, interoperability and access in the remittance market (world bank, 2015). there has been an increased focus on retail payment systems, increased financial inclusion through access to the payment system and coupled with the competition issues, necessitated a review of the nps act in alignment with the general principles for international remittance services. with the financial surveillance department of the sarb having made exchange control rulings to enable alignment in respect of international remittances, some regulatory gaps still remain in respect of domestic remittances. most noteworthy, is that domestic remittances are essentially low-value retail payment services. however, in terms of section 7 of the nps act, these payment services cannot fall within the ambit of payments to third parties, as the payments are ‘not due’ to the beneficiary. consequently, the sarb does not have the necessary regulatory authority to address remittances as services to third parties. the sarb has developed a payment services engagement paper in consultation with the financial sector conduct authority (fsca), established in terms of the financial sector regulation (fsr) act of the south african reserve bank (sarb, 2016). the aim of this paper is to review the current payment services landscape and to present possible regulatory options. the first option is to issue an exemption in towards a legal and regulatory framework for south african domestic remittances 62 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 terms of the banks act in relation to the definition of deposit-taking or the business of a bank for pooling of funds for purposes of providing domestic remittances. the second option is the development of a regulatory framework for domestic remittances activities and for all domestic mtos. this should enable mtos to operate independently from banks. the third option is for section 7 of the nps act to be amended to include payment services where money is ‘not due’ to a recipient. the enabling provision will be included in the nps act to allow for the provision of domestic remittances by non-banks independently of banks. in the author’s view, the combination of a detailed framework for domestic remittances, coupled with an amendment of section 7 of the nps act to cater for the oversight of payment services that are ‘not due’, would be better. the framework could provide the key policy drivers, such as financial inclusion and financial integrity, the risk-based approach which could be stratified, as well as standards for the provision of domestic remittances. this paper proposes that the amendment of section 7 of the nps act should include the deletion of “to whom payment is due” and the following insertion in section 7: a person may, as a regular feature of that person’s business, accept money or payment instructions from any other person for purposes of making payment on behalf of that person to a third person. in addition, some of the standards for domestic remittances could be included as part of the detailed domestic remittances framework or as directives issued in terms of the nps act, as is the case for the practice of third-party payment service providers where payments are due. furthermore, requirements for licensing of payment services can be provided in the amendment of the act and a new definition of payment services could be inserted that would make it clear that these would fall under the sarb and offer the necessary protection to the front-end customers of payment service providers, as is currently the case with back-end wholesale customers. this should be aligned with the framework issued by the financial surveillance department with regard to cross-border money remittances, as well as the payment aspects of financial inclusion (pafi) report, issued by the world bank and the payment and financial market infrastructure committee of the bank for international settlements (bis and world bank, 2016). the regulatory framework should provide a clear description of payment services, a threshold in respect of low-value transactions, the consumer protection of the funds, capital/prudential requirements, how the system would operate timeously, interoperability, interest accrued, clearing and settlement of transactions, provisions for anti-money laundering and combatting financing of terrorism, supervision, amongst other things. the opportunity exists to more fully capture the use of remittances as a channel for financial inclusion. this can be done if market participants build more seamless 63 connections between remittance transfer products and other financial services. this could include: evolving offerings for interoperability; increasing flexible send-options (whether mobile, retail, atm/bank branch); enabling choice of most convenient and comfortable channels and receipt options to make digital payments using remittances received, etc. if providers of remittance services were to partner with merchant payment solutions on merchant networks, opportunities exist for remittance beneficiaries to make electronic payments directly with money transfers, rather than simply cashing out. currently, since non-bank providers have to partner with banks, these opportunities cannot be leveraged. this paper proposes that the nps act should be amended to allow non-banks to settle transactions in samos, subject to applicable requirements, particularly risk mitigation measures, capital, liquidity, collateral or pre-funding requirements, and so on. in this regard, the nps act should have an enabling provision in order to designate non-banks as settlement system participants. conclusion this paper has presented an exposition of the various arrangements commonly put in place by rsps to allow for funds to be transferred from a sender to a recipient across the country, outlining the payment system aspects of the domestic remittance industry. in doing so, it described the various rsps as well the different channels through which remittances are sent. the paper further examined domestic remittances within the context of the regulatory framework of the nps in south africa, delineated the current regulatory gaps and made recommendations for inclusion in a regulatory framework and subsequent revision of the nps act. these recommendations pertain to the inadequacy of section 7 of the nps act and put forward suggestions relating to the licensing of remittance services as payment services. once the amendment to section 7 is effected, the sarb would be able to license and lay down standards for the prudential and market conduct of the remittance service operators and subject remittances to oversight. this paper should broaden the understanding of the regulatory gaps in the regulation of the south african remittance industry, for those operating in this industry as well as the regulators. the author argues that unless the risk-based approach is complemented by a framework for the oversight of international remittances, a proper balance between the priorities of financial inclusion and financial integrity will not be reached. the government appears to be serious about promoting financial inclusion as one of its key priorities. domestic remittances can be a contributor towards this priority if the obstacles highlighted in this paper can be overcome. in conclusion, it is worth noting guiding principle 2 of the payment aspects of financial inclusion (pafi) report as follows: towards a legal and regulatory framework for south african domestic remittances 64 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 the legal and regulatory framework underpins financial inclusion by effectively addressing all relevant risks and by protecting consumers, while at the same time fostering innovation and competition (bis and world bank, 2016: 60). 65 references abdul azeez, a. and begum, m. 2009. international remittances: a source of development 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bank. 2015. migration and remittances: recent development and outlook. migration and development brief 25, october. world bank, washington dc. towards a legal and regulatory framework for south african domestic remittances http://www.treasury.gov.za/publications/other/nps%20act%20review%20policy%20paper%20-%20final%20vers http://www.treasury.gov.za/publications/other/nps%20act%20review%20policy%20paper%20-%20final%20vers http://www.treasury.gov.za/publications/other/nps%20act%20review%20policy%20paper%20-%20final%20vers http://www.swift.com http://www.techcentral.co.za/absa-takes-global-money-transfers-online/14328/ http://www.techcentral.co.za/absa-takes-global-money-transfers-online/14328/ https://www.technoserve.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/south-africa-domestic-remittances-report.pdf https://www.technoserve.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/south-africa-domestic-remittances-report.pdf 24 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 european immigrants in johannesburg: perceptions, privileges and their implications for migration experiences terry-ann jones* and tamara last** * lehigh university, usa ** university of the witwatersrand this paper presents qualitative data from two independent studies on south african attitudes towards immigrants and european immigration to south africa, respectively. the data demonstrates that many south africans perceive europeans to be unproblematic and even contribute to the country, and that european immigrants in johannesburg enjoy a privileged experience of immigration, especially as compared to their african counterparts. the visible outcomes of european privileges such as international mobility and access to resources accumulated in and by european states, contextualized in experiences and legacies of the apartheid regime, are reflected in perceptions of european immigrants in south africa. moreover, perceptions of european immigrants shape their privileged experience and enable their social mobility in a deeply segregated country by exempting them from migration politics and xenophobia and facilitating their economic integration. keywords: racial hierarchies, xenophobia, whiteness, visa regimes, borders 25 introduction south africa, also called mzansi, hosts millions of immigrants from all over the world, the majority from southern africa. immigration is integral to south africa’s economy (oecd and ilo, 2018; statssa 2019). yet, immigration policies are increasingly restrictive, promoting – like many immigration countries – temporary, skilled international migration while seeking to exclude ‘unwanted’ migrant groups (crush and tshitereke, 2001; peberdy, 2001; madue, 2015; pokroy, 2015). a considerable concentration of foreigners (and south africans) live in gauteng province, around johannesburg and pretoria, which is also a region with high reported incidences of xenophobic violence (mlilo and misago, 2019). everyday xenophobia and repeated eruptions of xenophobic violence – including an outbreak during the time of the research presented in this paper – is the subject of fierce debate in south africa, with explanations on a continuum from disavowal of xenophobia as a factor in eruptions of violence to recognition that south africa contends with extreme xenophobia, which manifests in violence (crush and ramachandran, 2014). xenophobic violence has been variously explained by legacies of colonial group relations (matsinhe, 2011), local governance structures, denialism on the part of political leadership (neocosmos, 2006), micro-political economies of violence (misago, 2017; 2019) and proximity of outsiders to disadvantaged south africans who are still struggling for economic freedom (tewolde, 2020). predominantly african and asian immigrant communities, employees and businesses are targeted (dube, 2018; moyo et al., 2018; tewolde, 2020); white, european immigrants appear to be spared. according to 2020 estimates, a quarter of a million european immigrants are recorded as residing in south africa, making up just under a tenth of the country’s documented migrant stock (undesa, 2020).1 south africa is a well-established destination for european migrants. a former settler colony,2 various waves of european migration since the late 1600s have established the largest national population of people with european origin in sub-saharan africa.3 long after formal decolonization, so-called ‘white south africans’ benefited from white minority rule, and still enjoy significant socio-economic power today. since democracy was attained in 1994, majority democratic rule, revoking discriminatory legislation and introducing broad-based black economic empowerment (bbbee) policies have not (yet) significantly reconfigured social, spatial and economic inequality and distribution of resources in post-apartheid south africa (see e.g., nnadozie, 2013; wa azania, 2014; shai et al., 2019). for instance, south africa’s labor market is 1 however, statistics south africa (statssa, 2020) estimates that a significantly higher number of foreign-born people live in south africa. 2 a settler colony, in contrast to a resource/extraction colony, includes the intention to establish a permanent non-military community. european settlements were established in many african lands. south africa’s began with the cape colony, initially designed as a refueling post for the verenigde oos-indiese kompanjie (voc, dutch east india company). 3 the so-called ‘white’ population stabilized at just under 20% of the south african population, but has declined since 1994 – in 2020, the ‘white’ population group was estimated at around 8% of the total population (statssa, 2020). compared to settler colonies on other continents (e.g., usa, australia), empire migration to south africa was considered unsuccessful because the european population never reached a majority (harper and constantine, 2010: 111-112; 122-131). european immigrants in johannesburg: perceptions, privileges and implications 26 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 still characterized by racial dualism and low mobility between a minority, formally educated and wealthy, ‘white’ elite, and a tightly controlled, disempowered, ‘black’ majority providing a profitable surplus labor reserve (cassim, 1982; burger and jafta, 2006; naidoo et al., 2014). in comparison to historical migrations of europeans and contemporary migrations of, especially, africans, trends, characteristics and experiences of contemporary european migration have not been widely researched. this is a gap this paper aims to contribute towards. drawing on two qualitative studies conducted in johannesburg in 2019–2020, described in the following section, this paper discusses european immigrant experiences in south africa and south africans’ perceptions of european immigrants, exploring the interplay of social recognition and legal authorization (ambrosini, 2015) in relation to privileged migrants. we question how perceptions reflect and shape lived experiences of european immigrants in johannesburg, and the ways in which they are spared injustices associated with the enforcement of restrictive immigration. the south african and european participants in the two studies presented in this paper demonstrate an awareness of racial hierarchies and often use ‘black’/‘white’ interchangeably with ‘african’/‘european’, especially to refer to polarized figures and experiences. while south africa is home to a ‘rainbow’ of peoples, ‘black’ and ‘white’ are co-constructed racialized identities (gartushka, 2020), often juxtaposed in ways that obscure the complex racial hierarchy entrenched in the south african economy. as a population described by the geopolitical continent of their citizenship/nationality, european immigrants do not necessarily identify as ‘white’ nor do they have homogenous experiences of immigration or privilege. although european immigrants’ experiences are nuanced, we interrogate whether unchecked positive perceptions of them grant them exemption from xenophobia and border policing, facilitate their economic integration and preserve their privilege. sources of data and methods this research paper presents an analysis of findings from two qualitative studies derived from 88 interviews in 2019–2020 in johannesburg. both studies were conducted in english and underwent formal ethical review. over the course of 15 months, jones conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 68 individual participants and one focus group of five participants, all of whom self-identified as south african. the questionnaire was divided into sections that address the following overarching questions: 1. how do south africans feel about the presence of immigrants in south africa? 2. do south africans’ attitudes toward immigrants vary according to the immigrants’ nationality, race, ethnicity, occupation, or socio-economic class? 27 3. do south africans’ attitudes toward immigrants vary according to their own race, ethnicity, occupation, or socio-economic class? 4. are there consistencies in attitudes across certain south african demographic groups? the questions focused specifically on the context of the johannesburg metropolitan area. the sample included diversity in race, ethnicity, socio-economic class, and occupation. of the 73 participants, 30 were women and 43 were men. the majority of the participants (52) self-identified as black, 11 coloured, seven white, and three indian. the participants ranged in age from 19 to 83 years. the participants were primarily identified using the snowball sampling technique, although a conscious effort was made to maintain racial, regional, and socio-economic diversity. the participants were interviewed in locations of their choice. between july 2019 and march 2020, the second author conducted 15 semistructured interviews with european immigrants (people who entered south africa on a passport issued by a european union/european economic community member state) living in johannesburg. the aim was to explore experiences of privileged migration and strategies adopted by european immigrants to navigate south africa’s immigration regime. the researcher is herself a european immigrant to south africa and the participants were recruited through convenience sampling, including three friends, six professional and social acquaintances, one referral by a participant and five referrals by friends and acquaintances who did not participate in the study themselves. the participants are nationals-from-birth of germany, belgium, luxembourg, the united kingdom (uk), italy, spain, denmark and bulgaria. while all participants migrated to south africa in adulthood, the length of time spent in south africa at the time of interview ranged from six months to over two decades. the participants were interviewed alone or with their partner, in locations of their choice. the second author began each interview with, “i like to start with your ‘origin story’: how did you come to live in south africa?” after the participants’ opening narratives, the interviews became conversational. the researcher asked questions of clarification that followed from the opening narrative and shared relevant experiences and emerging ideas to co-create narratives around topics that are relevant to immigration, such as passports, visa applications, embassies, borders and immigration enforcement. through conversation, the complementary nature of the two studies became apparent. the first author analyzed transcripts of interviews from her study to identify perceptions of european immigrants among south africans in johannesburg. these perceptions served as themes in the analysis of transcripts of interviews from the second author’s study – the aim being to explore ways in which perceptions reflected and shaped participating europeans’ experiences and strategies of immigrating to south africa european immigrants in johannesburg: perceptions, privileges and implications 28 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 south africans’ perceptions of european immigrants when asked about their perceptions of immigrants, the majority of south african participants referred to immigrants from other african countries, their assumption being that immigrants entered south africa primarily from these countries. europeans are largely absent from south africans’ imagined identity of an immigrant. in discussions of south africans’ perceptions of immigrants, the participants were not explicitly asked how they feel about white immigrants or the white population in general. however, the inclusion of their sentiments toward these groups in their narratives offered some insight into the widely accepted view of european immigrants as generally unproblematic. a black south african woman offered an explanation for why xenophobic violence primarily targets africans: i think in general we have a tendency as south africans to potentially view european immigrants as potentially ok and non-european immigrants as different, and that for me is a construct of competition for scarce resources, more than anything else because the resentment that a lot of the lower class – when i say lower class, i don’t mean it in a bad way, you know what i mean, low socio-economic income people – feel towards foreign nationals – african foreign nationals – it’s really because of the fact that they compete for the same resources more than anything else, whereas most of the europeans who come in here are people who are competing at a different level and i don’t think they experience the same kind of discrimination. i mean, there’s a lot of multinational companies in this country and people always export talent and more often than not you’ve got a ceo who is either american or british. it’s not frowned upon. they get treated differently. a white south african man shared a similar expression that europeans are perceived to be superior, although he added that this perception is a legacy of colonialism: from my understanding, immigrants from other countries, particularly european countries, are seen as like a boon, they’re seen as bringing their skills to enrich africa and that, once again, is part of the brainwashing that we’ve endured, of colonial is better, europe is better, europe is superior. a black south african woman, explained that white immigrants were less likely to be seen as an economic threat because their professional positions are deemed to be out of the reach of the black population and as such, they are contributing to the country’s economy rather than being in direct competition with the majority of workers: for the most part, most of them come here with a job, with a set-up, so their 29 presence here is less impacted on the people who are already here. so it’s not often felt like, “that french guy took my job”, because often it’s the thought that i don’t know whether i was eligible for the job that the french guy was doing. a black south african woman expressed her praise for european immigrants, whom she considers to be beneficial to south african society, in juxtaposition to african immigrants, whom she associates with illegality, corruption, tax evasion, and the general degradation of south african society: why are we not attacking those people from europe? it’s not because we are scared of them. they are not here to come and corrupt our country. they are here to try and come and at least improve our economy. they are doing things according to the book. you will not find a company that is owned by a person from europe or any other country except for africa whereby you find they are invading [sic] tax, and, and, and. they are here and they try to do things in the legal way, so they are trying to come and help us, you know, better south africa. but unfortunately for us, these african countries, they are the ones that are messing up our country. it is not fair!! an unemployed black south african man was adamant that european immigrants make positive contributions to south african society by virtue of their ‘right’ approach to entering south africa and doing business here, in contrast to the presumed unauthorized access that african immigrants gain, and their consequently malevolent actions: when the europeans came here it was in a good manner, they decided to do business in a good manner, in a right manner, for a longer period. even though maybe right now the statistics may say maybe they are doing wrong, because of how they approve first and how they [are] cooperating with us, they gain trust in us and they gain loyalty in us. so the difference in how others came here from their start to how their intention was… even if statistics may come out that they [europeans are] doing wrong, it would be so hard for me to believe because how they came from the start was right. across race and class in south africa, white european immigrants are seen to have positive social and economic impacts, to be entitled to elite, white spaces and positions, and to associate with the white south african population and benefit from their status. even if the ease of their integration is presumed, europeans are enabled to navigate and bridge different spaces and are shielded from discrimination and xenophobia. the inflated view of european magnanimity and the legitimacy of their presence in south africa is compounded by the particular ostracism that african immigrants face (matsinhe, 2011; dube, 2018). european immigrants in johannesburg: perceptions, privileges and implications 30 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 experiences of european immigrants in johannesburg contributing to south africa as a driver of european immigration like most migration projects, the drivers that influence european migration to south africa are multi-faceted, relational and fluid. drivers are often articulated in terms of social relations and employment, but family and labor are the dominant legal migration pathways (massey et al., 1993; bauer and zimmerman, 2018) and so immigrants may be inclined to present their motivations in these terms. a belgian man, whose temporary residence permit is based on his fluency in dutch, deemed a ‘critical skill’ for call centers operating in south africa, argued that the multinational corporation he works for takes advantage of foreigners searching for a south african residence visa for a myriad of reasons: they know, from experience, from years, that they will always find some adventurous people who want to come down. i sat next to a lawyer. i sat next to a person who is now working in belgian home affairs, in pretoria […]. i sit with a pilot – he just needed to be here because he was finalizing his commercial pilot license. because, as expensive as it is here, it’s cheaper here than in europe. that was his reason. people who just fell in love with someone and wanted to be here – i’m one of those. you would have to look hard. if you take twenty people, you’ll find three or four who are here for it experience, the company, the cv credentials … very, very rare, all the other ones, different reasons. whatever it takes. thus, diverse aspirations to migrate are enabled by employers able to secure visas for employees. families may also support aspirations to migrate. for instance, a german man was enabled to search for work in his chosen profession in south africa by his parents: i knew i want to be carpenter, already [...] i tried to find a job, was not so successful. […] i met a lot of people here. i met my girlfriend just in the last 4 months before my leaving in 2011. and yes, i was in germany for a year, working. i have been working, but actually also been struggling to find a job. […] my parents said, if you want, we will support you for a while, if you want you can go to south africa and try your luck there. south africa may not initially be a planned destination for some immigrants, but aspirations can evolve once someone has spent time in the country. for instance, a british woman reluctantly settled for johannesburg when there were no research projects available in east africa to complete her london-based master’s degree. now she does not imagine ever leaving south africa permanently: 31 i was supposed to come for just 6 weeks and then i ended up doing an internship [for] just 6 months and then that became a year, then 18 months, then 2 years. and then i decided to apply for a phd, ended up doing the phd here and then i just stayed. so it was not intended. sixteen years. […] and it is that weird thing, like, 16 years is quite long now and […] my adult life really began here. a few participants described wanting to make a contribution to south africa, but as a justification, not as a driver. for instance, a catalan-spanish man described his ongoing struggle to gain residency status that would permit him to work, having accompanied his south african girlfriend (now wife) when she ‘decided to come back’. later in the interview, he justified his aspirations: i’m just a simple man who tries to get married, to reside with my spouse and work and pay taxes here. i just want to pay taxes. i want to pay taxes and contribute to the country. paying taxes is presented as a financial contribution to the south african economy, but on the understanding that it secures a status accruing citizenship rights via financial levies by the state (oecd, 2015). aspirations to contribute to south africa were communicated in the context of immigration barriers that participants felt prevented them from utilizing their skills. a belgian woman with a degree and years of experience in social work thought her skills could help to “uplift” the sector in south africa, but “they don’t give visas for that”. a skilled bicycle mechanic without status in south africa expressed a similar sentiment, returning to the figure of the taxpayer: if i had the chance, if i had the status, as a permanent resident – not as citizen, even, as [a] permanent resident – i would give a job to 2 people. [...] for this period of time i interacted with the suppliers and i can order parts, i can do the whole process from the beginning to the end. and it can involve another 2 even 3 people to give a job because of this. so who is … who loses? the government loses because, first, i don’t pay taxes for all this period of time, which i’m repeating, and now, i’ve reached the maturity to give a job to people, to south africans. although contributing to south africa emerges more as a justification for staying than a reason to come, many europeans are structurally facilitated to take up positions that could be viewed as ‘helping’ or ‘bringing skills and expertise’. for instance, capital flows from the global north to the global south, in the form of development and humanitarian aid or foreign investment, create jobs for european consultants european immigrants in johannesburg: perceptions, privileges and implications 32 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 and via european companies and organizations. in another instance, a german man first came to south africa as a volunteer assistant carpentry teacher, funded by the german government as an alternative to military service. also, a british man described his struggle in the south african labor market as being partly due to a relative lack of overseas development aid, as compared to other african countries, “so you don’t have that grant [sic] swell of development aid-funded project-based positions” that he relied on to work and live in africa. the organizations and companies creating these positions, usually with a view to their being taken up by foreigners, also have the governmental connections and administrative capacity to facilitate the immigration process, even when the positions are contentious. for example, a belgian woman, who developed a strong affinity with south africa and its peoples through youth exchange programmes, waited years to immigrate. the opportunity finally came in the form of being ‘eyes on the ground’ for european funds dedicated to south african youth development projects: i loved it, i loved the culture, i loved how people were open and optimistic and whatwhat. then i always wanted to come back. [...] i was searching, searching, searching to come here, which is not easy, as you know, to find work and [a] permit and what. but i kept being involved […] anyway, then after a few years [the flemish government] wanted somebody here, because they didn’t trust the new leadership [in south africa]. so they asked me, “do you want to go?” ja! that was, like, quite an obvious question, [and] answer. i was waiting for that for years, so i was totally excited. […] i remember the day i left, my parents were at the airport. i still got an email about them [flemish and south african governments] fighting about me going. my parents were like, “come on, do you really need to leave like this?” i was like, “ach, i don’t care, we’ll see.” because i really wanted to go. access to positions and experience which can be viewed as contributing to south africa’s development and to legal migration channels, mask myriad pertinent factors driving contemporary european migration to south africa, including social ties, dynamic economic opportunities and a higher standard of living than europe. however, such positions provide for temporary residence only. pathways to status become more obscure once an immigrant aspires to stay in south africa. thus, a british man, who first came to south africa on “the 3-year merry-go-round” of international development consultancy and then married a permanent resident and “decided no, this is the place, we’re going to buy a house, we’re going to settle here”, emphasized repeatedly how this decision “changed everything”. european immigrants navigating immigration barriers and exclusion most european participants reported struggling to overcome challenges associated with obtaining status and with restrictions imposed by visa conditions, especially 33 those who were looking to stay. those participants who have been navigating south african immigration for many years noted that it has become more difficult to secure status since the government began reforming migration policy in the mid2010s (madue, 2015). as one woman described, “it’s not like it’s a thing that it’s only africans struggling, everybody’s struggling now”. a german participant described the precarity european immigrants experience with status as both a vulnerability to and unfamiliarity with power dynamics: i know people who have had to go for some periods of time onto a spousal visa or a partnership visa with a south african boyfriend – and those things then just get anxiety-inducing because of the power dynamic. and then you have to go do that silly thing about going on holiday to swaziland for a weekend to come back in. like, you know, those things are real. […] it’s also that sort of – if you’ve never had to deal with it in your own country or anywhere else – there’s that sense of being a bit incensed, like, “what? there’s this institution that has some ability to tell me what to be, where to be?!” in a bureaucratic, restrictive immigration environment, european immigrants rely on their economic and social capital, as well as the international mobility granted by their european passports, to pursue their aspirations in south africa. for instance, by leaving south africa for a few days and re-entering, many european immigrants take advantage of the 3-month visa waiver available for european nationals entering south africa to extend their stay in the country. although in recent years the department of home affairs has become more prohibitive with regard to so-called ‘visa runs’. this has predominantly affected land borders and not international airports and information on strategies and routes is shared within immigrant communities. a few participants reported sustaining a temporary but legal status in south africa this way for years on end, despite the challenges this pathway presents in terms of access to the south african labor market, banking, expenses and organization. in navigating the preferable, regular pathways to residence, european participants often relied on assistance – paid or through privileged social networks – to resolve immigration issues ranging from changing visa conditions in-country to revoking the five-year entry ban imposed for overstaying. success in south africa’s formal labor market determines access to employment-related pathways to status. but success in south africa’s formal labor market is also dependent on residence status. a spanish man described his struggle with this circularity in the context of job-seeking: i’m a software developer. i have, i know, i can see now, i have critical skills that are very scarce here, i could get a job very easy [sic]. the problem was, how i can tell companies that i am from spain, i don’t have a work permit, i’m married to a south african, i don’t have a work permit but to get one i need european immigrants in johannesburg: perceptions, privileges and implications 34 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 an offer of employment. so, if you go through all the processes and you want to hire me – and the whole process can take 2 weeks to one month – at the end of this long process, we need to apply for my work visa, which is 6-8 weeks, probably 8 weeks. how can i say a company that wants to hire me, they need to wait 8 weeks for me to start working? in addition to non-permanent status, european participants cited broad-based black economic empowerment (bbbee) policies as significant obstacles to their employment in the formal south african labor market. bbbee policies are aimed at transforming the south african economy after apartheid to “enable the meaningful participation of the majority of its citizens” (see rsa, 2003), thus creating a barrier for non-citizens. as a british man with permanent residence explained: to get to the crux of the matter, [...] as a black – i class myself as black – but as a foreigner, permanent resident, in terms of bbbee legislation you are invisible, you are a zero, you don’t count. […] for certain positions, employers are looking for… black female is top, followed by black male, then coloured female, then indian female… there’s actually a hierarchy in terms of bbbee status and bbbee points. so, yeah, for me, […] the real issue is not my residency status, it’s about the bbbee legislation and the effect that it has on the number and types of jobs that are open to me. […] your foreignness becomes a barrier. many european participants relied on their social capital to gain employment in the formal labor market. a british man “was already in discussion with another company” through a professional contact when he resigned from his employer to avoid a transnational intra-company transfer that would take him away from south africa. a belgian woman who was struggling on a south african salary, was informed by a friend who was leaving south africa that her job with a belgian nongovernmental organization (ngo) was going to become available before it had been advertised, so she could inquire in advance. a german woman described how her 20-year career in south africa was facilitated by her social capital: my best friend, who i had studied with in london at the lse, who was american, […and her argentine partner] were both sitting at the [employer], running this research program and phoned me up and said, “we desperately need a researcher. don’t you want to come join us? we’ll fiddle the [employer], kind of, recruitment process, so that we can hire you.” so there you go! a perfect example of how it works, right? […] my contract just got renewed and extended and eventually made permanent and i was there. then after my maternity leave, i chose to come back part-time and then consult. and i was largely consulting for the un and the international ngos, so, again, nationality was not an issue. and then, when i was fed up with that and decided, ok, i need a job – my 35 one chance of getting hit with that – i applied for this job with [employer] and the person who had the job before me and was essentially selecting her successor, was a white american. and she took one look at this thing and said, “ok, i recognize this, i think.” you know, educational background, writing style, choosing to be here, all of those things. […] she was like, “ok, here is somebody i can recognize.” [...] i think [she] basically said, “here, this is the person you need. you like me, she’ll be another me.” [employer] said, “ok, fine.” and that was that. department of labor doesn’t come into that kind of suggestion. and then i got recruited out of that job by [current employer], who, [did the] same thing, […] we got on so well, and we’re essentially sort of clones of each other, or i’m like a mini-[her], essentially. so she said, “i’ll hire you, it’ll mess with my bbbee but i’ll do it anyway.” thus, those participants who have progressed in the formal labor market are reliant on their social networks and social capital to bypass barriers for foreigners that seemingly arise when responding to publicized job vacancies. as a belgian woman noted: i’m scared to job hunt. that’s [the] only thing i’m scared of. if i have to job hunt, it’s not going to be easy, i think. […] as a permanent resident, ok, but still, you’re not a south african, not a black south african, and there’s a thing you can’t change much about. those participants for whom career progression was not dependent on formal employment, and who had acquired status through their relations, were enthusiastic about opportunities for (informal) entrepreneurship in south africa. for instance, a british woman married to a south african said she knew she could “make a plan” when she arrived: this has just been very organic, it’s been word-of-mouth, people finding me, people speak to people, they come see me, and yeah, i’m in the process of formalizing [an arrangement]. but [i’m] enjoying that i didn’t have to formalize before. in the uk, it would have been: i’ve got to have a company, gotta register, gotta, you know, all that kind of stuff that gives me the heebiejeebies. things here can be done a bit more informally. european immigrants encounter obstacles in the formal labor market, but not in other areas where foreigners typically encounter bordering, such as health care and education. in general, european immigrants have the money – or employment package – to go for “private, parallel everything”, as a german woman put it. a british man explained that “going private” takes you out of competition with south africans: european immigrants in johannesburg: perceptions, privileges and implications 36 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 i have never really had to access south african public sector resources. […] other than the jobs i’ve been employed in, i’ve never been in a situation where one might say but you’re taking an opportunity, or a place, or a resource away from a black south african who deserves it more. private health care, private schooling, you know? not all european immigrants can afford private health insurance and some prefer not to spend their money that way. nonetheless, several participants stated clearly that they would always avoid south african public hospitals. as a belgian woman said after describing the experience of visiting a friend at a public hospital: “i was very clear in my head: i’ll never be here. then, i’ll rather pay.” a luxembourgish man also “decided to just pay cash, [for] most of the things”, but he also maintains his luxembourg health insurance: … for more complicated … i mean, in the case of a surgery or something […], because, i know, if something really bad happens and i’m not covered – that really goes into the hundreds of thousands of rands, you know? so at least i know that i’m insured. a danish man also made the decision to save on the health insurance payments that were “eating” into his funds, with the idea that, “i can always take a flight back home. i don’t have to go to hospital, as such.” thus, in different ways, european immigrants rely on their privileged access to funds, to european health systems and their international mobility to reduce their vulnerability to exclusion. it is questionable whether european immigrants would face exclusion from public health care on the basis of their foreignness or lack of residence status. especially white europeans may experience privileged treatment in public health care facilities because of how they are perceived in the south african context. as a white, middle-class german woman described, i did go and get a particular service at the local hospital, namely, my contraception. […] and they would run because they assumed i was a sort of department of health monitor or somebody from the [employer] medical system that was checking on whether they knew how to do it right, as a sort of oversight thing, right? that would just be … whether or not i said anything, i would just walk in and they would immediately … i could just see that, in their heads, why else would this person possibly be here? she must be here to check on us. and therefore, we now have to provide the best service, so that bad things don’t happen to us. the power to “go private” is an economic freedom. the exchange rate from euros or pounds to rand inflates europeans’ wealth in south africa, so that even those 37 who would struggle financially in europe can live comfortably in south africa. income or savings in hard currencies are a crucial aspect of strategies for navigating immigration, including facilitating ‘visa-runs’, overcoming exploitative sectors, hiring professional help with immigration procedures, and social security. for instance, a belgian woman who grew tired of visa runs found a job that would secure her a visa but did not pay enough to cover her living costs, so she bought a house “with what i saved from home” so as not to lose money on rent, and she went back to work in belgium for a few months so as to be able to afford a car and save on transport. for another example, a danish artist without residence status in south africa returns to denmark at regular intervals to renew his south african visitor’s visa and to “collect some funds” to pay the rent on his studio in johannesburg, by selling paintings for euros. and a german woman explained that she was able to afford to pay fees to obtain a phd from a uk university because she qualified for european part-time fees as a german national and enjoyed reduced living costs in south africa. indeed, many participants demonstrated awareness of the fiscal advantage of having access to hard currencies and took steps to maintain funds in europe, even if they were invested in living in south africa long-term. a belgian woman maintains a minimal amount in a belgian bank account as an insurance (“a little pot”) for unexpected costs that a south african salary cannot cover, such as “if something happens to my parents, i want to be able to fly back”. a british man nearing retirement has invested in a property and a pension scheme in the uk – in addition to his property and pension scheme in south africa – that “generates some sterling income so there’s some pounds sitting in a bank account that i use to run various expenses”. describing his uk investments led him to raise his uncertainties about his future retirement in south africa. a british woman also raised her british bank account in the context of maintaining a connection to the uk: it’s quite funny how there is something about wanting to make sure that there is a kind of connection, i guess? because, you know, i’ve got friends there, i’ve got, you know, i still pay my social security […]. i still have a couple of bank accounts, i still keep my registration with the nhs going, i’m registered with an nhs dentist, you know, because i pay my thing so i don’t really, i don’t think i’m cheating the system, right? […] just keeping some of those things going. in sum, while european immigrants have felt the restrictive turn in south african immigration policy, as a german participant put it, “it’s like one continuous white privilege story, which is sort of the south african story, i suppose, the global story”. europeans have significant unearned advantages in international migration: their passports grant them international mobility and access to territories; their access to european currencies, markets and resources ensures their relative wealth; and their networks are generally powerful (leonard and walsh, 2019). furthermore, white european immigrants in johannesburg: perceptions, privileges and implications 38 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 europeans in south africa benefit from the presumption of their superior societal positions. europeans utilize their privilege to navigate formal and informal systems in south africa. thus, these advantages – and perceptions based on their outcomes – ensure europeans an immigration experience to south africa that is rarely violent and, in many ways, privileged. comparing europeans to other immigrant groups privilege is made more visible through comparison with non-privileged groups. as some have argued (dube, 2018; moyo et al., 2018) and south african participants demonstrated, the politicized and securitized ‘immigrant’ in south africa is african. many european participants described stressful immigration experiences, but went on to express awareness – in varying degrees – that they were nonetheless privileged in contrast with experiences of african immigrants. as one participant described, i’ve got a colleague now who’s zimbabwean. extremely… been here for many, many years, you know, super highly qualified. he’s still on a work permit. his daughter, who’s spent her entire life here, her permit in south africa is fine, but her zimbabwean passport expired. […] so he was getting told that she would have to leave. and, you know, that then becomes incredibly stressful. whereas those aren’t the kind of stories i’ve ever heard from my network of europeans. a man who identifies as ghanaian but only recently obtained a ghanaian passport (so as to enter ghana without a visa and work for the african union), explained that, in south africa, it is better for him to operate on his british passport: that’s the south african paradox: that it’s easier to get in here as a brit or an american, than as a black african from somewhere north of the limpopo. if you’re doing it officially, of course. […] it’s this idea that as a brit … you’re coming here to contribute something and as a ghanaian you’re coming here to take away something. that’s the, kind of, underlying sentiment behind it. during the data collection period, in the winter of 2019, another outbreak of xenophobic violence in gauteng province grabbed headlines. no european participant had direct experience of xenophobic violence, but the outbreak came up as a topic of conversation in relation to their foreignness. the following quotes of european participants, from a white man, a white woman and a black man, respectively, illustrate how race, wealth and gender factor into indirect experiences of xenophobia: i live in hillbrow,4 i’m not afraid of anyone. i can … they’re not going to do me any harm. 4 inner-city neighborhood in johannesburg, home to many immigrants. 39 i don’t know if i want to stay here anymore … it had a really big impact on me. […] i felt like i’m not yet a target, but if they finish there, they’ll come. and it was the first time that i felt – because i’m white, i’m a girl, i’m a woman, and i’m a foreigner … so everything that you can be. when you come from belgium, i have never been in the minority of a group and now i’m in everything the minority or the victim or … so it was very confronting. you know, if there’s something happening in braamfontein or jeppestown5 or whatever – we’re in rosebank,6 8-ft walls, electric fence, five dogs on the property, armed response – it doesn’t really touch us. it may do one day. but to be honest – and i’ve said this to some south africans, black south africans in the anc7 – i said, “if they’re coming for us in rosebank, it’s because they’re coming for you. they’ve finally realized that we’re not the problem, you are, and they’re coming for you. […] and when they do come to the rich suburbs, they’re coming for everybody, they’re coming for the rich,” i’d say. so, no, the xenophobia thing hasn’t really impacted us, physically. thus, as others have pointed out (tewolde 2020), european immigrants’ experience and general exemption from xenophobia is intertwined with their positions in south african society. not all european immigrants experience privileges associated with being european. which nationalities count as ‘european’ is also subject to geopolitical dynamics, which change over time. a bulgarian man argued that his immigration experience is similar to that of african immigrants because of how he came to south africa: i was in my mid-20s to early-30s when it came in my mind to emigrate, because in eastern europe we had one social system, or one economical system, […] and that system, it didn’t work, it collapsed. so, but, exactly in this moment, when it collapsed, it has become like a turmoil, anarchy […] let’s say, my generation – we decided to go wherever, where you can live and have a decent way of living. you know, in dignity and prosperity. and i tried in different places and from a distance was always hard to obtain straightforward immigration permission, to call it, or to obtain a visa with which you can easily go and emigrate and settle down. […] so what we did was, we bought as low as possible visa which you can use and you just go there, which is not very correctful [sic] wherever you go, because you jumped and you say, “ok, i want to stay here.” [...] and i’m one of those guys who did this. i didn’t want to do it, you need to have a little bit of courage […] i haven’t managed to go back because i haven’t obtained any permanent status in south africa still. […] i 5 inner-city neighborhoods in johannesburg. 6 a suburban neighborhood north of johannesburg’s city centre. 7 african national congress, the ruling party in south africa since the first free elections in 1994. european immigrants in johannesburg: perceptions, privileges and implications 40 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 think i’m not the only one. not only eastern europeans. i would say i don’t think there is that huge difference between eastern europeans and african emigrants. because they … because as soon as you arrive here you have the same issues. you know. we have different issues outside of south africa, … but when we are here, we are emigrants, and we have the same, you know, to be adopted here and how to happen and what to happen [sic]. so that makes us one thing, a group of people with similar issues or yes, yeah … the same problems. however, he went on to report that he had never been targeted by police and associated this with how he is perceived and his association with white south africans: not directly. not brutally, not the way how some african people, some african emigrants already had an issue. […] african immigrants had a severe issue with their own, south african-african people. […] they can stop me, i’m not saying i’ve got immune[ity]. but no … i’m fortunate, put it this way, i’m lucky. […] the cops, they are aware, they know me. not in person, but they know, they know that i’m productive. if they stop me, there’s somebody who – from the local people – to protect me maybe. as long as i don’t do anything wrong, they’re comfortable with me, i think. a danish-german man and an italian woman, after describing their administrative struggles and immigration strategies as being similar to those of many immigrants who live in their respective inner-city neighborhoods in johannesburg, also pointed out policing as an important difference: here in joburg, in the cbd,8 we’re all on the same level. except some people are more leveled than others. for example, [african immigrants] are always very aware that the police are out to get them. they always have to have 50 rand handy, for bribes. in terms of security, in terms of, you know … i can easily walk and be ok. it’s not the same for many [african immigrants]. you know, the cops stop them, it’s a disaster, even if they’ve got the document. cops don’t stop me. well, they do, but in yeoville9 they actually don’t. even when european immigrants are stopped by police or other south african authorities, interactions are predominantly straightforward, privileged by nationality and race. one of the common scenarios in which european immigrants come into contact with south african police is when they are stopped by traffic officials and 8 central business district, inner-city johannesburg. 9 an inner-city neighborhood in johannesburg. 41 are asked to produce their driver’s license. many european participants, including those who have lived in south africa for over a decade, drive in south africa on a european driver’s license, even though they know that they are supposed to have an international or south african license. a german woman had “one little conversation about that” with a policeman on one occasion who, she suspected “had just been through some training or something”, because: … everyone else, as soon as they want to fine me and then i pull out the german license, they’ll say: “well, never mind. it’s just too complicated. ok, just go away.” […] so it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card. a british woman suggested that she could just pretend she had just arrived in south africa: no one quite seems to know and [...] i kind of also, maybe, get a bit naughty, like, “oh yeah, whatever, you know?” which i wouldn’t do in the uk, i would be much more by the book. because i have to be. if i don’t have to be, i won’t. another british woman, who also feigned ignorance or accepted the minor fines, flagged that her race and nationality, as well as experience in the country, facilitate her interactions with police: i think if i had a different skin color and a different passport it would potentially be different. i think i can joke my way out of things in a very different way. non-policing of europeans is in dramatic contrast to experiences of (non-elite) african immigrants, who are routinely harassed with regard to their status, even when they have all the requisite papers and permits (moyo and nshimbi, 2020). as a belgian woman married to a nigerian man described: [any interactions with police?] no. i can’t … no. [husband] gets stopped and asked, of course, but i don’t. yeah, [husband], they’ll even look in his phone and what what, sometimes. ah, it’s crazy. […] because they’ll say, “ah, you’re one of these internet fraud people.” like, because nigerians are known for that. then they start looking, […] ja, there you see the difference in treatment, obviously. he also often gets stopped, i never get stopped, i don’t know why – but he gets stopped … anyway, he’s got mostly a good way of dealing with them. and mostly it’s just like a friendly encounter. not always. like, the last time, they searched his whole car, from top to bottom, thinking they will find drugs or something. but ne, they didn’t find. it’s like, we went once to emergencies with [husband] – anyway it doesn’t have anything to do with papers but – he had such pain, here, in his stomach. [...] i had to go out when european immigrants in johannesburg: perceptions, privileges and implications 42 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 the doctor wanted to talk to him. ja, afterwards i thought maybe they feel he’s my gardener or something, he doesn’t know i’m his wife. i had never even thought, because i was stressed – then his thing was, he had an overdose of cocaine and he had a heart attack. […] i’m like, “heart attack? but you have pain in your stomach!” [...] and they did all these ecgs and what and yeah, we were waiting for a blood test, that’s why we were there for hours, to get the results, to see the cocaine levels in his blood. of course, there was nothing. oh, yeah, it wasn’t a heart attack. i’m like, “i could have told you that 4 hours ago and r7000 ago […]” [you said it’s nothing to do with papers, but then what is it?] well, it’s nationality. well, yeah, it’s based on nationality, no? like, “oh, he’s nigerian, so it’s an overdose of cocaine. and he’s got a heart attack.” ja, that was like … he was a black doctor. so, you see the prejudices. crazy. in sum, the european participants often qualified and compared the immigration experiences of european immigrants with those of african immigrants. while people from both groups share common experiences of encountering exclusionary/ nationalist administrative barriers, european immigrants are spared the violence of immigration enforcement, policing and xenophobia that african and other nonwhite immigrant groups regularly face, and demonstrate awareness of this difference. discussion: perceptions, reflecting and shaping outcomes of privilege while immigration is often a stressful, frustrating and expensive experience, european immigrants rely on their privileges to find ways to pursue their aspirations in johannesburg and, therefore, their struggles with status in south africa are experienced as predominantly bureaucratic and administrative. the data presented in this paper demonstrates two types of privilege that europeans have when immigrating to south africa: the unearned advantage of european nationality (from birth) that grants privileged access to financial and social resources accumulated in and by european states through colonial and capitalist ventures, and the exceptional privilege of being spared the injustice of securitized exclusion on the basis of racialized identity and legal status. these privileges do not uniformly benefit all european immigrants as race, class and gender also play important roles. for instance, white and middle-class european nationals may benefit from better access to skilled employment, financial and social capital, and other resources than their black and working-class counterparts. nonetheless, while not all individuals will reap benefits from their privileges – as exemplified by the bulgarian man who has lived in limbo in johannesburg for 22 years – the privileges nonetheless exist (johnson, 2001) and, in the case of this participant, manifest in non-policing of his irregular presence in the country. beneficiaries of privilege tend to discount the experiences of those who suffer injustice and the structural conditioning of their unearned advantages (mcintosh, 43 1989), a syndrome described as ‘white innocence’ (baldwin, 1963; wekker, 2016). steyn (2018) describes the phenomenon as, ‘constructing innocence,’ a process that involves claiming ignorance of the atrocities that accompanied apartheid. she argues that white south africans’ claim to innocence relieves them of any responsibility to forge relationships with the black population, cultivating persistent racial segregation. despite enduring poverty and unemployment that is largely concentrated among blacks, steyn (2018: 11) maintains that white south africans reject accountability and discount their privilege by positioning themselves as victims, particularly of affirmative action. while the european participants demonstrated a similar ‘innocence’, several – especially those who had integrated into mixed or black communities in south africa – demonstrated awareness and understanding of privileges associated with their european passports and as european foreigners in contrast to other people in south africa. outcomes of privilege reflect in perceptions among south africans of european immigrants’ wealth, legality, skills, and contributions to south africa. european immigrants are not problematized and are rarely associated with immigration in political debates. they are not associated with the figure of the migrant as lawbreaking, poor, low-skilled, and driven by political and economic underdevelopment or persecution. they can pass for white south africans and enjoy access to white spaces in johannesburg, and also gain access to black south african communities and spaces because their foreignness distinguishes them from white south africans. they are not perceived as a threat to the south african labor market and economy, but rather as a boon. the european participants reported no policing of their status and no violent experiences of xenophobia or policing, demonstrating sustained racialization of law enforcement and violence (newham et al., 2006; saucier and woods, 2014; mckaiser, 2020) and illustrating how racial hierarchies manifest in european exceptionalism. bonds and inwood (2016: 715-716) argue that in former settler colonies, white supremacy is the “animating logic of racism and privilege” that ensures not only “individual social conditions of whiteness”, but also the “enduring structures of white power”. we suggest that perceptions of european immigrants in johannesburg are informed by white supremacy as well as the visible outcomes of unearned advantages. we argue that such privileged perceptions reproduce outcomes of white supremacy and further enhance european privileges in south africa by affording them freedom from the political economy of violence of xenophobia (misago, 2017), immigration enforcement and policing that target non-white foreigners. furthermore, european immigrants are not burdened by the trauma of, or culpability for, the apartheid regime – an added dimension of their privileged exceptionalism that expands their social capital and capability to access racialized and classed spaces in south africa in ways that even nationals cannot. instead, european immigrants benefit from the kind of global and social mobility previously associated with empire migration – the migration of europeans around the world under colonial european immigrants in johannesburg: perceptions, privileges and implications 44 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 regimes (harper and constantine, 2010). global and social mobility facilitate european immigrants’ access to employment in south africa, which improves their chances of gaining status as well as their perceived desirability. access to resources in europe help them to overcome exploitative practices, job precarity, social insecurity and obstacles to employment, such as transport and formal qualifications of skills. recognition of european immigrants’ ‘skills’ also derives from “gendered and racialized biases of existing approaches to skills definition” in immigration regimes (boucher, 2020). one outcome of this is accessibility of privileged immigration pathways such as permits for ‘critical’ (previously ‘exceptional’) skills. thus, european immigrants tend to enter into south africa’s primary or ‘white’ labor market sector (cassim, 1982; burger and jafta, 2006), an outcome of their privilege which may influence perceptions about europeans’ superiority and further enhance european immigrants’ position in the labor market and society in general. if “the desirability of immigrants has come to correspond to their rank in the labor market” (ellermann, 2020), european immigrants benefit from colonial and apartheid legacies in south africa’s labor market, in which differentiated streams of migration are a central feature, “deliberately so engineered and structurally related” (harper and constantine, 2010: 5). anti-immigrant sentiments and violence against foreigners prevailing in contemporary south africa are the subject of much debate. we argue that the discourse surrounding the exclusion of immigrants should also consider the privileges accompanying european immigration, that inform perceptions of their magnanimity and allow them to integrate into south africa in ways that african immigrants especially are denied. 45 references ambrosini, m. 2015. from ‘illegality’ to tolerance and beyond: irregular immigration as a selective and dynamic process. international migration, 54(2): 144-159. baldwin, j. 1963. the fire next time. new york: dial press. bauer, t. and zimmerman, k. 2018. causes of international migration: a survey. in gorter, c., nijkamp, p. and poot, j. 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measuring on a relative basis. african statistical journal, 6(may): 81-103. organization for economic cooperation and development (oecd). 2015. building tax culture, compliance and citizenship: a global source book on taxpayer education. oecd. available at: https://www.oecd.org/publications/buildingtax-culture-compliance-and-citizenship-9789264205154-en.htm accessed on 15 january 2021. organization for economic cooperation and development (oecd) and international labour organization (ilo). 2018. how immigrants contribute to south africa’s economy. oecd publishing, paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264085398en accessed on 15 july 2021. peberdy, s. 2001. imagining immigration: inclusive identities and exclusive policies in post-1994 south africa. africa today, 48(3): 15-32. pokroy, j. 2015. full circle in south africa’s immigration law regime: is this a metamorphosis from skillsand investor-friendly to… less friendly? legal border crossing 04: 42-45. available at: https://www.immigration-sa.com/wpcontent/uploads/2015/07/julian-pokroy-hr-future-2015-aptil.pdf accessed on 19 july 2021. republic of south africa (rsa). 2003. broad-based black economic empowerment act 53 of 2003. available at: https://www.gov.za/documents/broadbased-black-economic-empowerment-act and http://www.thedtic.gov.za/ financial-and-non-financial-support/b-bbee/broad-based-black-economicempowerment/ accessed on 31 july 2021. saucier, p.k. and woods, t.p. 2014. ex aqua: the mediterranean basin, africans on the move and the politics of policing. theoria, 61(141): 55-75. shai, l., molefinyana, c., and quinot, g. 2019. public procurement in the context of broad-based black economic empowerment (bbbee) in south africa – lessons learned for sustainable public procurement. sustainability, 11(24): 7164. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11247164 accessed on 19 july 2021. statistics south africa (statssa). 2019. labour market outcomes of migrant populations in south africa, 2012 and 2017. statistics south africa report no. european immigrants in johannesburg: perceptions, privileges and implications https://csvr.org.za/docs/policing/diversity.pdf https://csvr.org.za/docs/policing/diversity.pdf https://www.oecd.org/publications/building-tax-culture-compliance-and-citizenship-9789264205154-en.h https://www.oecd.org/publications/building-tax-culture-compliance-and-citizenship-9789264205154-en.h http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264085398-en http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264085398-en https://www.immigration-sa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/julian-pokroy-hr-future-2015-aptil.pdf https://www.immigration-sa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/julian-pokroy-hr-future-2015-aptil.pdf https://www.gov.za/documents/broad-based-black-economic-empowerment-act https://www.gov.za/documents/broad-based-black-economic-empowerment-act http://www.thedtic.gov.za/financial-and-non-financial-support/b-bbee/broad-based-black-economic-empo http://www.thedtic.gov.za/financial-and-non-financial-support/b-bbee/broad-based-black-economic-empo http://www.thedtic.gov.za/financial-and-non-financial-support/b-bbee/broad-based-black-economic-empo https://doi.org/10.3390/su11247164 48 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 02-11-04, statssa. statistics south africa (statssa). 2020. mid-year population estimates. statistical release p0302. available at: http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/p0302/ p03022020.pdf accessed on 22 july 2021. steyn, m. 2018. whiteness: post-apartheid, decolonial. in merrett, c., gilder, b. and netshitenzhe, j. 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disaster displacement: lessons from west africa julia blocher* and dalila gharbaoui** abstract west africa is known across the world for its admirable adherence to its longheld principles of hospitality and inclusion. it is also a sub-region whose population shares a deep common history, a fact that is ever more evident in the on-going integration of the politics and communities of this highly mobile area. states in the region have advanced measures for disaster risk management and response, and are forward looking in terms of the implications of climate change. many relocation projects have already been developed and implemented in some west african countries, generally within national borders, in response to environmental disasters (e.g. contamination of the niger river) or for economic reasons (e.g. villages relocated in western ghana to make way for mining companies). although fewer examples exist, some relocation projects specifically concern persons vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. this paper provides concrete suggestions for how regional cooperation can build on existing free movement and transhumance-related instruments to enable cross-border mobility and resettlement for people affected by disasters. it argues for the expansion of durable solutions for people living in protracted displacement following natural hazard induced disasters, an increasingly important question. furthermore, circular movement enabled by labour and free movement protocols could be extended to enable people to gain necessary resources to rebuild their homes, rather than sentencing them to cope in situ. regional solutions such as those presented in this paper may prove fundamental in enabling people to reconstruct their lives. keywords west africa, disaster, climate change, displacement, relocation, regional governance. *hugo observatory for environmental migration university of liège bâtiment 31 boîte 45 7, boulevard du rectorat, 4000 liège, belgium united nations university, dc2-2062, 2 u.n. plaza, ny 10017. email: juliablocher@gmail.com/ blocher@unu.edu ** hugo observatory for environmental migration university of liège bâtiment 31 boîte 45 7, boulevard du rectorat, 4000 liège, belgium, macmillan brown center for pacific studies (mbc), university of canterbury, private bag 4800 christchurch 8140 new zealand. email: dgharbaoui@doct.ulg.ac.be/ dalila.gharbaoui@pg.canterbury.ac.nz mailto:juliablocher@gmail.com mailto:blocher@unu.edu long term solutions to cross-border disaster displacement: lessons from west africa 1021 introduction west africa is known across the world for its admirable adherence to its longheld principles of hospitality and inclusion. it is also a sub-region whose population shares a deep common history, a fact that is ever more evident in the on-going integration of the politics and communities of this highly mobile area. human mobility in west africa is mostly intra-regional, with 84% of population movements taking place within the region. in absolute terms, intraregional migration is ten times greater than migration from west africa to europe (organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd), 2016). while episodes of population movements triggered by conflicts, population pressures and poverty are more visible in recent generations, the region of west africa itself – as an economic unit – has historically been distinguished by the interactions between trade, economic opportunities and free movement of people and goods (united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), 2008). notably, most west african states are committed to unity and to re-enforcing existing community ties through the economic community of west african states (ecowas). the ‘vision 2020’ of ecowas sets an ambitious goal of a coherent ‘borderless’ and ‘people-centered’ sub-region. this article reviews and builds on current knowledge and practices regarding cross-border disaster displacement, using experiences from ecowas states in order to assess the promise of pursuing different solutions to protection and human rights challenges for people displaced by disasters in the sub-region. ecowas is chosen as a case study due to its history of intra-regional mobility, current policy processes towards integration and the presence of national political will to address challenges common to countries in the region. the following sections attempt to provide the basis on which to assess solutions to disaster displacement; it does so by first outlining the conceptual and legal framework, then the relevant environmentand climate-related risks, then the procedures and tools already in use. methodologically, this article draws on secondary data on west african responses to disaster displacement, relying heavily on public statements, news articles and desk research. it also draws from the authors’ direct experiences in the advisory group on climate change and human mobility (comprised of a small number of academic, policy and operational actors, including the unhcr and the international organization for migration (iom)), julia blocher and dalila gharbaoui 1022 in particular, and the authors’ contribution to the background paper 1 and preparation of the event ‘disasters, climate change and displacement: regional dynamics of human mobility in west africa’. in addition, it considers activities and discussions with key members of the consultative committee of the nansen initiative, as well as the initiative’s successor, the platform on disaster displacement. 2 lastly, it draws upon their involvement in related international processes, especially the un process towards global compacts for large movements of refugees and for safe, orderly and regular migration, triggered by the 2016 new york declaration (see below). constituents of human mobility outcomes: an approach conceptually, this paper builds on the framework articulated by black et al. (2013). migration, displacement and immobility represent three types of possible mobility outcomes of extreme events such as flood and drought, each of which interacts with and responds to multiple drivers (black et al., 2013: s33). importantly, it is critical to consider displacement as a process embedded in wider socio-economic, political and demographic processes. this approach considers human mobility as multi-causal, influenced by a range of factors (piguet et al., 2011; foresight, 2011). poor governmental responses, poor disaster planning and early warning contribute to a population’s exposure to displacement risks, as well as the structural vulnerabilities that leave specific – often marginalised – groups facing heightened threats (cutter, 2003; adger, 2006). the social, economic or political status of individuals and households experiencing disasters have a clear influence on likely outcomes (wisner et al., 2004). considering the multiple, complex, context-specific and time-variant contributions to displacement risk, environmental migration is often considered to be existing on a continuum from forced to non-forced mobility (hugo, 1996; bates, 2002; renaud et al., 2007). on one end, people displaced by sudden-onset events are considered to be in refugee-like situations; they have a very low level of control over the whole process and a very high degree of vulnerability. on the other end of the spectrum, migration influenced by environmental factors manifests itself much like economic migration. it is a 1 see: http://hdl.handle.net/2268/177609 2 this side event to the annual climate change conference was held in bonn, germany on 4 june 2014. it was co-organised by the governments of norway and switzerland, as the chairmanship of the nansen initiative, and the government of germany, as a member of the nansen initiative steering group. see: http://bit.ly/2hmce0q https://vpn.gw.ulg.ac.be/2268/,danainfo=hdl.handle.net+177609 long term solutions to cross-border disaster displacement: lessons from west africa 1023 compelled but ‘voluntary’ movement (bates, 2002). such people have more control over timing and direction of their mobility and are less vulnerable than refugees; nevertheless, they often experience less control and more vulnerability than ‘normal’ economic migrants. considering these processes and connections leads to consideration of a wider range of outcomes – in which displacement is one undesirable outcome – which can help policymakers develop specific, targeted responses to the causes and negative outcomes of displacement. governments can develop programmatic interventions that may occur before, during and after displacement. this ‘life cycle approach’ to policy provides for three points in this arc of human mobility, where interventions are possible (martin, 2010). in the pre-migration phase, programs can target prevention, mitigation and adaptation to environmental hazards. during migration and/or displacement processes, specific protection and assistance programs can be tailored to different types of movements. following displacement, governments can support return or resettlement and, indeed, can support (re-)integration of target groups into their homes or new locations. return, resettlement and integration are not three distinct phases of a linear process, but represent points on a cycle of mobility. mobility of human populations is the norm, not an exceptional event. this article seeks to provide insights into programmatic and policy responses to disaster displacement, with a focus on the ecowas region as a potential leader in providing practical solutions to an issue for which no international legal framework exists. the following sections consider current international frameworks for disaster displacement, which provide a foundation for regional and sub-regional governments. the following section provides an overview of current climate-related drivers of displacement in the sub-region. finally, solutions and good practices in the ecowas states are reviewed, with a view to encouraging further progress towards filling protection gaps. current international debates the terms ‘climate refugee’ or ‘environmental refugee’ are sometimes used in the media to define a person displaced in the context of disasters such as droughts, the rise of sea levels and extreme weather events such as hurricanes, tsunamis or earthquakes. this concept does not exist in international law, and is thus considered legally non-binding (warner, 2010), and the terminology is generally rejected by scholars. in addition to misstating the criteria for de jure refugee status, the term has been increasingly julia blocher and dalila gharbaoui 1024 questioned on the basis that it leads to a reductionist view of the complexity of real-life situations (tacoli, 2011). the majority of people moving in the context of disasters remain within their home countries, and their national governments are thus responsible for protecting and assisting them and for facilitating durable solutions for their displacement. such people are internally displaced persons (idps) as defined in the guiding principles on internal displacement and are entitled to the full range of rights and responsibilities included therein. people who cross national borders because of disasters, however, are neither idps nor refugees. while the humanitarian community has historically provided assistance to displaced people as though they were refugees – as was the case for those fleeing the ethiopian famine in 1984-85 – un officials and human rights practitioners identified the gap in legal protection for those forced to leave their own countries because of natural disasters or longer-term environmental degradation occasioned by climate change (kälin, 2008). for a decade, a number of initiatives were undertaken – with the notable involvement of the representative of the un secretary general on the human rights of internally displaced persons, unhcr and the norwegian refugee council, among others – to fill these gaps (for a more detailed timeline and overview, see mcadam, 2016). in october 2015, 109 states endorsed the agenda for the protection of crossborder displaced persons in the context of disasters and climate change, providing a toolbox of concrete policy options and proposing a series of recommendations for future work. importantly, human mobility was also included in the sendai framework for disaster risk reduction 2015-2030 and the 2015 paris outcome on climate change, recognising that displacement is one of the most devastating consequences of disasters. the sendai framework, in particular, recognises that disaster risk reduction requires “protecting persons and their property, health, livelihoods and productive assets, as well as cultural and environmental assets, while promoting and protecting all human rights” (united nations international strategy for disaster reduction (unisdr), 2015: 19(c)). the nansen initiative on disasterinduced cross-border displacement (nansen initiative) drafted a guide for member countries of the regional conference on migration (rcm) to create more harmonised responses to disaster-related movement. at the global intergovernmental consultation that endorsed the protection agenda, states underscored the importance of collaboration and coordination long term solutions to cross-border disaster displacement: lessons from west africa 1025 across different policy areas and with other stakeholders (e.g., government departments, international agencies and academic disciplines) (nansen initiative, 2015: 76). states acknowledged the need to develop appropriate responses to multi-causal natural hazard-induced movements – which are increasingly frequent, due to climate change – through even closer collaboration, in order to ensure that policy, responses and action evolve in parallel (ibid). at the consultation, states agreed that such measures require adequate financing, technical cooperation and capacity building; and while national governments bear the primary responsibility to manage risk, “developing countries should be able to rely on international cooperation to tackle this challenge” (ibid, 82). lesotho similarly observed that “[n]ational authorities cannot always find solutions on their own” and nigeria stated that “regional or subregional cooperation is crucial in making the engagement of protecting displaced population[s] across international borders more enduring” (ibid, 161). this article argues that the ecowas region serves as a model of good practices to move this policy agenda forward. states can leverage existing mechanisms more strategically to create targeted, localised responses that together form part of a global effort. this is not mutually exclusive in terms of the progressive development of the law at the international level, nor is it contingent on it (mcadam, 2016: 1542). yet responses developed at the regional and local levels, in good faith, represent the best solutions to protection gaps. as noted in the protection agenda, such policies and programmes – targeting vulnerabilities and risks experienced before, during and after displacement, as noted above – should address, inter alia: climate change mitigation and adaptation; resilience building and livelihoods building, including improving access to voluntary migration opportunities; disaster risk reduction, disaster management and humanitarian assistance; return, resettlement and integration; and, in some specific cases, planned relocations of at-risk populations. how ecowas states have begun to tackle these areas is discussed below. disaster displacement in west africa adverse effects of climate change climate change is projected to adversely affect several physical, ecological/biological and socio-economic characteristics of the west african coastal zone and adjacent oceans that are presently under stress (intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc), 1997). even in a region julia blocher and dalila gharbaoui 1026 characterised by mobility, environmental changes are significantly influencing internal and international migration patterns (zickgraf et al., 2016). west africa is home to countless communities that are among those bearing the brunt of climate change and those least able to marshal the resources to adapt. warming temperatures will manifest significant effects across west africa, including a rise in sea level, soil salinization, floods, drought, desertification, intensifying winds and heat waves (ipcc, 2014; dara, 2013). a study on livelihood security identified 19 climate ‘hotspots’ in the region (see figure 1). the areas, defined as severely affected by the physical and ecological effects of climate change, were also home to large numbers of vulnerable and poor communities (unep, 2011). these hotspots are mainly located in the central part of the sahel, niger, burkina faso and northern and coastal ghana, as well as in northern togo, benin and nigeria. they often straddle internationally-demarcated boundaries. to add to climate effects such as increased extreme weather events and a rise in sea-levels, population pressures and conflicting policies of exploitation –of marine, riparian, coastal and land resources, for example, – also have adverse effects on sustainability. at least 31% of the total population of west africa lives in coastal areas (world bank, 2016). about 4.5 million senegalese (66.6% of the national population) live in the dakar coastal area. about 90% of the industries in senegal are located within the dakar coastal zone (ipcc, 2014). strong coastal erosion and rising sea levels are further compounding the vulnerability of populations along the entire coast, from mauritania to nigeria (uemoa, 2010). desertification and soil erosion are happening continuously as a result of climatic events (stringer et al., 2011), adding pressure to food insecurity and thus further exacerbating the vulnerability of local populations (ozer et al., 2013). much of the agriculture in the region is based on cash crops for export. an increase in average temperatures of 1.5°c-2°c will contribute to farmers losing 40-80% of cropland conducive to growing maize, millet and sorghum by the 2030s-2040s (world bank, 2013). this is of great concern in a region where the agricultural sector represents about 35% of the gdp in the region and employs the majority of the workforce. those whose livelihoods are heavily dependent on rain-fed agriculture and pasture land are particularly vulnerable. flooding is among the most frequent natural hazards in west africa. of the 1.1 million people displaced by natural hazard induced disasters in 2015, 100,420 were in nigeria and 34,000 were in guinea (internal displacement monitoring long term solutions to cross-border disaster displacement: lessons from west africa 1027 centre (idmc), 2016; boluwaji obahopo, 2015). nouakchott, ouagadougou, cotonou, dakar and niamey are some examples of cities that are more and more regularly affected by flooding, as are a large number of primary and secondary cities of all countries of the west african region (ould sidi cheikh et al., 2007; descroix et al., 2013). the first destination of rural-to-urban migrants is often to slums and other forms of informal housing areas where costs are cheaper, but exposure to various hazards and types of exploitation are often great. burgeoning urban areas are ill-equipped to absorb population growth and, simultaneously, face a high risk of natural hazards that are accelerated by global climate change (foresight, 2011). even in this unified region, people who may cross borders to seek safety following disasters may face serious barriers to rebuilding their lives. ecowas stands to pioneer mutually beneficial solutions for displaced people through regionally conceived frameworks that enable people to secure a legal status in any member state. free movement in the ecowas region the 1979 protocol relating to the free movement of persons, the right of residence and establishment, established and generally regulates the right of entry, entitling citizens to enter other member states without a visa for up to 90 days.3 in order to facilitate cross-border displacements, the ecowas travel certificate was initiated in 1985 as a standardised document, valid for two years and renewable for another two years. the ecowas passport was created in 2000, enacting a five-year transitional period and allowing national passports to be used simultaneously. decades after the adoption of the protocol, the right of entry and the 90-day stay abolition of visa requirements have been implemented in all countries. although several issues still need to be addressed to allow effective inter-regional mobility,4 ecowas remains a pioneer in facilitating cross-border displacement within the region (devillard et al., 2016). the common approach to migration, endorsed by the west african member states, was set up in 2008 at the 33rd ecowas summit. its aim was to develop coherent intra-regional migration policies and promote cross-border movement through the region in order to optimise the benefits of migration. 3 provided the citizen has an international health certificate and valid travel documents. 4 transposing the 1979 protocol and supplementary protocols into states parties’ law, the right of residence, the right of establishment and access to employment is still a major challenge. julia blocher and dalila gharbaoui 1028 the legal framework on refugee protection in west africa includes endorsement by all ecowas members to the geneva convention on the status of refugees (1951) and its additional protocol (1967), and to the oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa (1969). regional organisations have often been considered as best placed to assist governments in providing policy support on climate change and forced migration, and as promoters of policy coherence through multi-stakeholder cooperation across countries (barnett & webber, 2010; african, caribbean and pacific group of states (acp), 2011). authors such as angela williams (2008: 517) argue that regional organisations should be considered as major players in coordinating and planning policies on forced displacement and climate change, as an “alternative system” to states acting in isolation; “[a system] may be better coordinated by way of regional agreement, operating under an international umbrella framework.”. in the context of west africa, the free movement of persons, residence and establishment, and four supplementary protocols, could in principle give displaced people the right to find a long-term solution to their situation in another member state. from here, solutions through resettlement and relocation can also be envisaged. for those who would like to return to their home country, some relevant best practices have been established. this article discusses these possibilities, with a view to assessing what durable solutions could be supported for people displaced by disasters in west africa. figure 1: sahel climate hotspots long term solutions to cross-border disaster displacement: lessons from west africa 1029 addressing disaster displacement risk durable solutions a number of avenues for helping displaced people to rebuild their livelihoods and find long-term solutions could potentially be developed and applied to situations of cross-border disaster displacement. evidence suggests that disaster displacement does not necessarily end after the disaster event has subsided. according to the inter-agency standing committee (iasc) guidelines, durable solutions are achieved when people who have been displaced have no more specific needs related to their displacement. in the case of refugees and idps, these conditions are achieved when a person is permanently and voluntarily reintegrated into her/his place of origin (return), in the areas where s/he sought refuge (local integration), or in another location (relocation). ecowas has paid particular attention to the return and reintegration of displaced persons. in partnership with the iom, a regional consultative process was initiated through the migration dialogue for west africa (midwa) project. in addition, in collaboration with the african development bank (afdb) and the unhcr, ecowas has evaluated different projects to promote resettlement and reintegration of displaced populations. the section below argues that a number of frameworks already exist that could be scaled up or applied to help people displaced by disasters achieve durable solutions. return for people displaced across borders due to natural hazard induced disasters, the most common path towards achieving durable solutions is likely to entail safe return to one’s place of habitual residence (provided that the area has adequately recovered from the displacement-producing event). the main criterion considered by governments to begin the return process after a disaster – that is, the conditions of the area affected by the event – merits further consideration in policy discussions. populations that have survived disasters have often experienced serious and widespread adverse effects on their human rights. principles for return have already been established for the return of refugees and idps, elucidated in unhcr’s framework for durable solutions for refugees and persons of concern. good practices have also been established in refugee situations, for which return is monitored and facilitated through tripartite agreements between the unhcr, julia blocher and dalila gharbaoui 1030 the country of origin and the country of destination.5 similar agreements, or bilateral agreements, could be specially envisaged for disaster displacees. spontaneous return of displaced people provides a different set of challenges and is highly probable, particularly where communities of origin and destination are often strongly linked. such movement was observed in mali following the 2012 crisis. people who return without assistance risk increased vulnerability upon return, or secondary displacement. a special situation that may occur in ecowas is the return of displaced people, not otherwise protected, to their homes areas within the 90 days of temporary residence in another state afforded by the protocol on free movement. these people may need special policy prescriptions to ensure that they do not ‘fall through the cracks’ in receiving the assistance they need to rebuild and find long-term solutions to their displacement. moreover, conditions need to be fulfilled in order to ensure that people returning home are able to fully exercise their rights. fostering the requirements for sustainable return to devastated areas will require significant efforts to rebuild basic societal systems and services. according to united nations guiding principles on internal displacement (particularly principles 28, 29 and 30) and the pinheiro principles, displaced people should be able to recover their property, in the form of restitution or adequate compensation. the interface between facilitating sustainable return and sustained community development, should be a key target for policy makers. in practice, however, rebuilding of services, restitution of property and ensuring protection of the rights of returnees in recently devastated areas prove to be difficult tasks. one possible solution should be envisaged, in which circular migration is permitted, so that people may seek employment in unaffected states and assist in the rebuilding of their communities, without acquiring the status of irregular migrants after 90 days. an analogous scheme exists in the ecowas zone for nomadic herders: the international transhumance certificate (cit). this document could be compared to a passport that facilitates cross-border movement, allowing pastoralists to sustain their traditional routes and livelihoods. alternatively, special 5 one west african example, signed in 2011, involved the repatriation of some 32,000 ivorian refugees from liberia from 2013-14. upon return, former refugees typically receive a cash grant, food and essential non-food items. long term solutions to cross-border disaster displacement: lessons from west africa 1031 exceptions could be made to the protocol on free movement, on a case-by-case basis. local integration in most countries of the west african region, local protection mechanisms for people displaced across borders are present in hosting communities. ethnic solidarity networks attract migrants from related ethnic groups beyond borders. community-based reception structures support local integration by providing, for example, accommodation or livelihood activities (unhcr, 2008). however, contemporary cross-border migration in west africa is increasingly individually-based, and decreasingly associated with previous networks of ethnic or village solidarity in destination countries (bâ & ndiaye, 2008). cross-border ethnic solidarity networks are weakened by the lack of economic opportunities, thus increasing human mobility in the region, and the desire of younger generations to escape from family control and social pressure, including the pressure to send remittances (bâ & ndiaye, 2008). community-based reception structures and ethnic solidarity networks are becoming incapable of coping with entire groups of migrants from one ethnic group. in cote d’ivoire, for example, ancestral reception structures for haalpulaaren migrants from the senegal river valley have progressively disintegrated (bredeloup, 1995). in disaster contexts, people may not have a community to return to and/or prefer to stay in their area of refuge. although the ecowas protocols on free movement of persons, residence and establishment, and its four supplementary protocols (the “‘free movement protocols’),6 give citizens the right to reside in all countries of the community, currently, anyone wishing to settle permanently in the host country must meet the legal requirements and make the necessary administrative steps to obtain residency permits following the 90-day visiting period. as they would not currently be able to benefit from refugee status, displaced people who are unable to return risk falling into irregularity. irregular migrants often face difficulty accessing employment and adequate living conditions, and are at greater risk of 6 1979 protocol a/p.1/5/79 relating to free movement of persons, residence and establishment, http://tiny.cc/1979protocol; 1985 supplementary protocol a/sp.1/7/85, article 2(1);1986 supplementary protocol a/sp.1/7/86, article 2; 1979 protocol a/p.1/5/79 relating to free movement of persons, residence and establishment, article 11; 1985 supplementary protocol a/sp.1/7/85, article 3; 1986 supplementary protocol a/sp.1/7/86, article 13(1). http://tiny.cc/1979protocol julia blocher and dalila gharbaoui 1032 exploitation. already in the case of refugees, even in countries open to integration, the legal steps to visa regularisation can be extremely long. refugees are excluded from labour markets in many cases, calling into question the conditions and sustainability of their stay. ensuring local integration necessitates the promotion of the entitlements set out in the free movement protocols, and their principles of burden-sharing and cooperation. a valuable example already exists in the case of refugees in the unhcr’s local integration initiative for sierra leonean and liberian refugees. three core principles are at the center of the initiative. first is the principle of reciprocity; “by promoting entitlements set out in the protocols, the initiative was able immediately to provide a degree of reciprocity for two of the countries involved,” (boulton, 2009: n.p.) sierra leonean refugees would benefit from the application of the initiative in liberia, while liberian refugees would benefit from its application in sierra leone. this provided an incentive for cooperation between both countries and paved the way for other ecowas countries to collaborate in the future. secondly, the initiative has been conceived as community-based rather than individually oriented; benefits for both the displaced and hosting communities are considered and recognised by the initiative. finally, the initiative has been included, as much as possible, in national development priorities rather than the other way around (ibid). integrating displaced people requires ensuring an adequate quality of life, which would involve addressing barriers to employment, access to education and health care. interventions specifically tailored to cases of people displaced by disasters, expedited residency and employment visas for example, should be developed. regional and multilateral processes could assist countries to achieve these aims. the regional dialogue promoted through the 2006 rabat process already in motion, intends to “[launch] a balanced, pragmatic and operational mechanism of cooperation among countries of origin, transit and destination of migrants coming from west and central africa” (eu-africa partnership, 2011). it treats many parallel issues, providing the foundation for the more recent rome programme 2014–2017 that introduced “international protection” to the four pillars7 approach to migration framed in the rabat process. the third regional consultation of the migrants in countries in crisis (micic) 7 “organizing mobility and legal migration (pillar 1), improving border management and combating irregular migration (pillar 2), strengthening the synergies between migration and development (pillar 3), promoting international protection (pillar 4)” (icmpd, 2017). long term solutions to cross-border disaster displacement: lessons from west africa 1033 initiative held in december 2015 revealed a few recent regional initiatives providing ground for durable solutions to cross-border displacement such as the adoption of regional standards for protecting children through the child protection action plan, a participatory monitoring mechanism for migrant children (the international federation of red cross and red crescent societies (ifrc), 2016). resettlement and relocation west africa is likely to witness an increasing number of cases of destruction of communities following sudden disasters of considerable magnitude, inevitably leading to some permanent resettlement or/and relocation within the region. planned relocation, as referred to in paragraph 14(f) of the cancun climate change adaptation framework,8 is the “planned process of settling persons or groups of persons to a new location.”9 recurrent hazards and multiple displacements eroding resilience with each event also play into this situation. relocation and resettlement – through which livelihoods, housing and infrastructure are rebuilt in a different location – can also be considered as corrective measures to reduce the risks of natural hazards for particularly vulnerable populations. many relocation projects have already been developed and implemented in some west african countries, generally within national borders, in response to man-made disasters (e.g. contamination of the niger river) or for economic reasons (e.g. villages relocated in western ghana to make way for mining companies). although fewer examples exist, some relocation projects specifically concern persons vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. for example, ivoirian authorities decided to relocate 6,000 of 15,553 8 unfccc, supra note 9, paras.14 (b)(c)(h). report of the conference of the parties on its eighteenth session, held in doha from 26 november to 8 december 2012, decision 3/cp.18, approaches to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change to enhance adaptive capacity, fccc/cp/2012/8/add.1.f. 9 another commonly used definition of ‘planned relocation’ is when “persons or groups of persons move or are assisted to move away from their homes or places of temporary residence, are settled in a new location, and provided with the conditions for rebuilding their lives.” in brookings, georgetown university and unhcr, “guidance on planned relocation within national borders: to protect people from impacts of disasters and environmental change, including climate change,” draft, 5 june 2015. see also: iasc, iasc operational guidelines on the protection of persons in situations of natural disasters. the brookings-bern project on internal displacement (2011) defining “planned relocation” as “the act of moving people to another location in the country and settling them there when they no longer can return to their homes or place of habitual residence.” julia blocher and dalila gharbaoui 1034 people living in floodable areas of abidjan in 2012, in anticipation of the rainy season. 10 this relocation was organised within the framework of the organization plan of orsec emergency (flood prevention plan) and a financial incentive to encourage people to move included an allowance of 150,000 cfa francs (228 euros) (irin news, 2012; idmc, 2015). in the near future, more relocation projects are expected to emerge in west africa, due to global warming and rising sea levels (e.g. in nigeria and guinea). past relocation projects took place within national boundaries, but the expected intensification of natural disasters could lead to joint relocation programs. regional up-scaling and proliferation of states’ offers to admit displaced people in the context of disasters is becoming a reality in the region. the importance of the issue and the possibility of opening the borders to environmental migrants have, as an example, been affirmed by president abdoulaye wade in the aftermath of the earthquake that struck haiti in january 2012. the senegalese president proposed haitians, considered as descendants of deported slaves, to leave their vulnerable island and settle in their ‘homeland’ of senegal. this scenario of jointly managing planned relocations could be realised within the framework of ecowas, which has been developing best practices for regional coordination in hosting displaced populations for years. numerous challenges remain. due to the recent characterisation of relocation as an adaptive response to climate change, coordination mechanisms are rare, not institutionalised and – in the majority of cases – implemented only through development projects. however, a number of frameworks already exist that could help foster future policies on sustainable and durable relocation. lessons learned from previous relocations planned in the context of development projects could be used as a foundation for future environmentrelated cases. the normative content on planned relocations that is skewed to development projects should be redressed. other frameworks that have expertise in the management of this type of population movement have been developed by regional development banks 10 this relocation was organised within the framework of the organization plan of orsec emergency (flood prevention plan). to encourage people to move, the plan provided an allowance of 150,000 cfa francs, the equivalent of 228 euros. in the event that the financial incentive was not enough, the minister of the interior asked the ivorian prefect to conduct the relocation operations "even against the will of the people who inhabit the places at risk" (communication service the ministry of interior, 2012). long term solutions to cross-border disaster displacement: lessons from west africa 1035 and the world bank. one relevant model is that of the asian development bank (adb), which has supported numerous population relocations and defined a framework for feasible resettlement options depending on the situation. it considers whether the event is: (1) a local relocation, occurring in a single locality and is possible only when the number of people affected is small; (2) a self-relocation, when those affected by the relocation organise it as an individual or group initiative or (3) a relocation that takes place in a site selected by an external agency. in the latter option, the integration of the concerned communities in planning the relocation is therefore essential in order to avoid tensions related to new environmental, economic, social and cultural conditions. the adb (1998: 56) also recommends avoiding, as much as possible, the relocation of communities in remote locations with different environmental, social, cultural and economic characteristics. planned relocation can take place in three different types of situations: “[i]n anticipation of disasters, environmental change and/or the effects of climate change; as a response to disasters, environmental change and/or the effects of climate change; and as a consequence of measures related to climate change adaptation or disaster risk reduction measures” (ferris et al, 2015). the type of planned relocation also varies depending on whether it is related to partial or full relocation of the community. on this point, the literature presents diverse and contrasting points of view. several authors argue that the planned relocation process must involve only part of the affected community, conducting a limited and gradual relocation of the population in order to reduce the human and financial costs (zahir, sarker & al-mahmud, 2009). other authors are critical of such partial relocation. for them, this method does not take into account the cultural and sociological elements of the communities involved. if social disarticulation is one of the most complex parts of the relocation process, preservation of the cohesion and social structure of the affected communities should be considered in order to achieve durable solutions (campbell, 2010; perry & lindell, 1997). social and political costs can be minimised by granting sufficient time for the participation of the host community and their new community members (barnett & webber, 2010). considering historical and community linkages, when planning for population resettlement, is particularly crucial in the west african context. respecting cross border communities in the management of international boundaries in the region is an issue for governments, as boundaries have been shaped without necessarily considering cultural and ethnic groups that are divided over two different countries (iom, 2013). including the affected and hosting julia blocher and dalila gharbaoui 1036 communities in the relocation planning, and considering cultural linkages and cross border communities, should be a key target for policy makers. the acquisition of suitable land and ensuring sufficient funds for this purpose are essential to the planned relocation process (united nations university institute for environment and human security (unu-ehs), 2013). at this level, the main difficulty lies in the acquisition of sufficient and suitable land to ensure the reproduction of decent living conditions for the affected communities in the long term. it is also important to consider how the community in question defines its relation to land ownership, namely, the legal or customary body defining the relationship between individuals or groups of individuals vis-à-vis their land (united nations food and agriculture organization (fao), 2013). the ‘right to soil’ is paramount in many systems in the region, and is therefore an important element to consider, particularly when relocation takes place outside the territory governed by the customary law of the affected population. indeed, customary land rights reflect an important part of the economic, political, cultural and social life of some communities. recognition of local customary rights is central to current debates on land policy reforms in many countries in west africa and proves to be an essential step in planning for relocation related to climate change in the region. the comprehensive refugee response framework (crrf) questions surrounding large movements of refugees and migrants have been increasingly in the spotlight of public and political debate – largely due to the political fallout of the so-called migration crisis in europe that has been further fueled by a wave of arrivals from syria – adding urgency to un member states’ search for national and international tools to deal with migration-related challenges. on 19 september 2016, the general assembly of the un for the first time addressed these issues at a high-level plenary meeting on addressing large movements of refugees and migrants. the high-level meeting culminated in the adoption of the new york declaration for refugees and migrants (un doc. a/71/l.1, 19 sept. 2016), which launched a process towards intergovernmental negotiations aimed at the adoption of a global compact for refugee responsibility sharing, and a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration in 2018. the un secretary-general's report launched ahead of the meeting, titled in safety and in dignity (un doc. a/70/59, 9 may 2016), underscored the displacement risks posed by the impacts of disasters and climate change, noting the need for strengthened long term solutions to cross-border disaster displacement: lessons from west africa 1037 international cooperation and protection, and more attention to root causes (mcadam, 2016). throughout 2017, the unhcr scaled-up and ‘tested’ its comprehensive refugee response framework (crrf) in several countries around the world to support the adoption of a compact in 2018 (unhcr, 2016). the framework builds on what the unhcr and its government partners already intended to achieve in many countries, namely ensuring that refugees have access to basic rights, labour markets, income-producing and livelihood activities and protections in their host country. uganda, somalia and tanzania will be the first pilot countries, to be followed by asian, latin american and middle eastern pilots. by design, the first countries are post-emergency refugee situations in countries with long histories of hosting and integrating refugees, while the latter will be in emergency contexts. ecowas states’ experiences of hosting both refugees and international migrants can also serve to inform the refugee compact. the text above underlines the holistic approach ecowas states take to human mobility, which is precisely what is needed to move forward on global governance for international migration in all its forms. although the process towards a compact for refugee responsibility sharing is currently de-linked from the parallel process towards a global compact for safe, regular and orderly migration in 2018, west african states have the opportunity to lead in ensuring the complementarity of the two final compacts. many of the commitments for migrants and refugees (see figure 2) are areas in which ecowas states already deal with mobile peoples holistically: reception of all regardless of migration status; providing education and labor opportunities; enabling safe pathways for admission and developing alternatives to detention, inter alia. julia blocher and dalila gharbaoui 1038 figure 2: shared commitments in the two global compacts’ processes addressed in the 2016 new york declaration (courtesy of iom). conclusion the road is wide open for ecowas states to lead the way in finding long term solutions for their displaced citizens, with a number of important milestones already in the rear view. pioneering this area entails progress towards ensuring full exercise of rights by all mobile peoples on all points of the spectrum of movement. a rightsbased approach underlying future policy actions can encourage concerted action between the competent authorities at multiple levels, along with international partners. respect of the dignity of populations displaced and at risk of displacement by disasters, as well as adequate consultation and participation in any interventions, are paramount. such an approach is also critical to the success and sustainability of solutions for affected peoples, as has been shown in regard to community relocations. as was alluded to above, it should be noted that how efficiently durable solutions can be found depends on a number of factors, such as the type of long term solutions to cross-border disaster displacement: lessons from west africa 1039 hazard event experienced, the characteristics of the affected population and the capacity of institutions (local, national and international) to prevent some of the adverse effects of disasters. all the same, the lack of reliable data in west africa and misunderstandings of the complex nature of those movements reduces the possibilities of defining adequate safeguards for those affected. for example, nigeria was not able to undertake any specific measures to protect migrants, in part due to a lack of adequate data on the migrants’ residences during the floods in nigeria in 2012 and during the boko haram attacks. tools such as national census data of the population can support effective collection of data on non-nationals and help address this issue (iom, 2015). governments must work together to collect reliable data on the number of people displaced by natural disasters and their areas of destination. the two global compacts under development by un member states present landmark opportunities for countries to improve the protection of people on the move and to develop people-centred responses to the situation of displaced persons. furthermore, improving safe pathways for migrants and protecting the rights of people in all phases of movement will help communities build resilience, leading to a reduction of displacement risk. while these compacts may 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(abingdon, oxon: routledge). world bank. 2013. ibadan urban flood management project report. washington dc. from <http://bit.ly/2ev3nyx> [retrieved 01 february 2017]. zahir, s., sarker, s., al-mahmud, l. 2009. an interactive decision support system for implementing sustainable relocation strategies for adaptation to climate change: a multi-objective optimisation approach. international journal of mathematics in operational research, 1(3): 326-350. zickgraf, c., s. vigil, f. de longueville, p. ozer, and f. gemenne. 2016. the impact of vulnerability and resilience to environmental changes on mobility patterns in west africa. knomad working paper 14, world bank, washington, dc. about:blank african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1774 the human security implications of migration on zimbabwean migrant women in south africa victoria mutambara and naidu maheshvari abstract a large number of people enter the south african borders legally and illegally from zimbabwe in pursuit of secure, better living conditions. amongst those people are women. this paper argues that most of the women who migrate to south africa escape from insecurity in zimbabwe, only to be confronted with other human security challenges in south africa. the paper presents an overview of the theoretical framework of the human security paradigm, which helps to unpack how the experiences of zimbabwean migrant women can be labelled as forms of insecurity. using qualitative data, the paper discusses the possible human insecurity aspects that force the women to leave their home country and the challenges that they encounter in the host country. the findings of the paper indicate that economic insecurity and poverty highly influence the decisions and choices for migration for most of the women. however, the women’s expectations of better lives and human security appear to contradict their social experiences. the migrant women face multiple forms of discrimination and violence that are constructed around their identities as women, non-citizens and black africans. cumulatively, most of the women experience gender-based violence and discrimination from south african citizens, foregrounded in xenophobic sentiments. therefore, this paper reaches the conclusion that migrant women are victims of the compounded trauma of insecurities, as many of them would have encountered human insecurity consequences in their home country. keywords: economic insecurity, poverty, identity, livelihood, xenophobia, gender-based violence. introduction the movement of people to other countries has become a way of life in africa that affects day-to-day activities (gouws, 2010: 2). soon after the dawn of corresponding author. university of kwazulu-natal, south africa. email: vmutambara@gmail.com  university of kwazulu-natal, south africa. mutambara, v. and maheshvari, n. 1775 democracy in south africa in 1994, there was an increase in the number of people moving to south africa from other african countries, increasing the trend of south-south migration (sigsworth et al., 2008: 4; isike and isike, 2012: 93). one of the countries is zimbabwe, which over the past decade has seen a large number of its citizens moving across borders to neighboring states or overseas as a way of escaping protracted political and economic challenges (bloch 2010; dzingirai et al., 2015, crush et al., 2017 b). the twentieth century migration patterns from zimbabwe to south africa reflect that young unmarried and married men who were in search of jobs dominated movement, looking for greener pastures in south african farms and mines (gouws, 2010: 1; mlambo, 2010; makina, 2013: 149; crush et al., 2015: 366). however, the number of women leaving zimbabwe to south africa in search of better standards of living also increased rapidly. statistics produced from the study conducted by crush et al. (2015: 367-368) highlighted that by the late 1990s migration from zimbabwe to south africa was noticeably more varied than anything seen in the past. women were migrating in significantly higher numbers and they were the breadwinners for their families. most women in urban zimbabwe view migration to south africa as a panacea to the economicrelated problems in their family households (muzvidziwa, 2015: 218; mutopo, 2010: 466; jamela, 2013). therefore, many zimbabwean women relocate to south africa in search of better economic opportunities and better standards of living. however, in their journey for economic emancipation and sustainable livelihoods, the women become vulnerable to hostile conditions that are constructed at the intersection of their different identities, particularly, gender identity, race, and their migration status (sigsworth, 2010; von kitzing, 2017; achiume, 2014; mutopo, 2010). in south africa, they are usually seen as an unwanted burden, taking what are often characterized as limited or scarce resources (crush et al 2017: 2b). their gender identity as female often exposes them to precarious conditions. this article attempts to contextualize the migration of zimbabwean women to south africa, document their experiences prior to and after moving, and establish the human security implications for the women. it presents the view that women migrate to south africa as an escape from the economic insecurities they face in zimbabwe, only to be confronted by other human security challenges that include genderbased violence and the recurrent episodes of xenophobic harassment and violence. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1776 literature review: contextualization the current dispensation of the migrant crises in europe has been portrayed by the media as one of the worst humanitarian crises since the second world war. it has enhanced visibility on some structurally embedded issues in the discourse on international migration (forced migration). salient amongst these issues are “the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, the responsibilities of transit and destination countries, and even more pertinent the rights of migrant women” (mabera, 2015:15). the term ‘migrant women’ is regarded as an umbrella term that encapsulates a range of circumstances that speak to the experiences of women on the move. these include different ages, legality (legal resident, undocumented migrants or refugees) or migrating for a number of reasons that can be categorized as either forced or voluntary (bloch, 2010; pophiwa, 2014; o’neil et al., 2016; muzenda, 2017; van heerden, 2017). the latter strengthens the views from dodson (2002) which note that for some women, migration is viewed as a strategic response to their challenging social, economic, environmental, political or personal circumstances. the movement of most zimbabweans to other countries can be labelled as an example of survival migration, which can be defined as people who are forced to cross an international border to escape state failure, severe environmental distress, or widespread livelihood collapse. several scholars posit that a number of zimbabwean women make the decision to move to a foreign land as a way of responding to household poverty or hardships, linked to the absence of family breadwinners (crush et al., 2017a: 6; betts and kaytaz, 2009). zimbabwean migrant women in south africa are forced to navigate not only a singular crisis at a particular location but also two ongoing crises occurring at the same time. the first crisis involves the political turmoil and the collapse of the economy in zimbabwe after 2000, which has driven hundreds and thousands of citizens to seek better standards of living and a sustainable livelihood for themselves and their families by migrating to other countries (crush and tevera, 2010: 41; crush et al., 2017b: 6). this crisis has driven people to move to south africa as it appears to be politically stable, economically strong, and requires lower transaction costs for immigration. however, paradoxically it is far from a safe space for the migrants (particularly women) as most south africans have over the years responded with prejudice and discrimination towards african migrants and refugees (bloch, 2010; mutambara, v. and maheshvari, n. 1777 akinola, 2014; crush and tawodzera 2017a; von kitzing, 2017). therefore, the other ongoing crisis is xenophobic intolerance and violence against african migrants in which zimbabwean migrants have become entangled. zimbabwean migrants who fled the political and desperate economic challenges face the intimidating challenge of looking for jobs to secure a livelihood while they continue to face discrimination, social exclusion, xenophobic harassment, violence and being labelled as the ‘other’ (sigsworth et al., 2008; akinola, 2014; chinomona and maziriri, 2015). misago et al. (2015: 17) propound that, xenophobia in south africa translates into a broad spectrum of behaviors including discriminatory, stereotyping and dehumanizing remarks; discriminatory policies and practices by government and private officials such as exclusion from public services to which target groups are entitled; selective enforcement of by-laws by local authorities; assault and harassment by state agents particularly the police and immigration officials; as well as public threats and violence commonly known as xenophobic violence that often results in massive loss of lives and livelihoods. there is no doubt that vulnerability is heightened for zimbabwean migrant women as they face human insecurity challenges in the form of xenophobia and gender-based violence. the increasing number of women migrating independently means that the vulnerability of women migrants to exploitation, abuse and discrimination also increases (kawar, 2004: 74). despite the possible chances of improving their lives and those of their families left behind in zimbabwe, migration exposes the women to precarious situations and has considerable disadvantages, compared to challenges faced by men (kawar, 2004: 75; sigsworth, 2010: 1). while there is no limit to who is affected by the prevalent intolerances and dislike of foreigners in south africa, scholars like sigsworth et al. (2008: 1) are of the view that there is a gendered perspective to xenophobia, which is easily overlooked. in the wake of the recurring episodes of violence, “female migrants are unjustifiably affected, not only because the violence is played out on the site of their bodies (through beatings and rape), but also because the violence is directed towards their homes (through burning and looting), which in many cases is symbolic african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1778 of a woman’s family and is perceived as a place of safety and security” (sigsworth, 2010: 2). besides violence, xenophobia also manifests itself in a non-violent manner. as such, research conducted by the centre for the study of violence and reconciliation (csvr) before and after the may 2008 violent attacks in south africa revealed that foreign women endured xenophobic attitudes from south african nationals in their day-to-day lives (akinola, 2014). most women encounter this phenomenon in the public spaces they make use of daily, for instance at work or in public transport (sigsworth et al., 2008: 26). women are in double jeopardy and their vulnerability lies at the intersection of the different identities they embody. being a migrant is not the only condition for their vulnerability, but the fact that they are women exacerbates it. migrant women are also victims of sexual and gender-based violence.1 this illuminates the vulnerability of migrant women. while there are significant reports of women being raped emanating from anti-foreign sentiments, in a country where sexual gender-based violence is pervasive, it proves challenging to know whether rapes were instigated by xenophobic attitudes or simply by violent lawlessness (fuller, 2008: 9; sigsworth, 2010: 2; conry, 2015). theoretical framing of the women’s insecurities within the human security paradigm the debate about the challenges and insecurities that zimbabwean migrant women face can be situated within the framework of the human security paradigm. human security can be defined as safety from chronic threats such as hunger, disease and repression as well as protection from sudden and harmful disruptions in the patterns of daily life (undp, 1994). the aftermath of world war 2 in 1945 saw the development of groundbreaking concepts that still guide states in the international system. according to scheinin (2016: 441), under the principle of universality, the united nations adopted the un charter in 1945. the universal declaration of human rights was adopted as a resolution by the un general assembly in 1948. these monumental decisions reiterated the principle that every human being is entitled to inalienable rights 1 according to the office of the united nations high commissioner for human rights (ohchr) report of 2014, gender-based violence refers to any harmful act incited on individuals or persons based on their gender. it may include sexual violence, domestic violence, trafficking, forced/early marriage and harmful traditional practices. mutambara, v. and maheshvari, n. 1779 and as such addressed the questions of how territorial states should treat their own nationals as well as the nationals from other countries (bloch, 2010: 234; scheinin, 2016: 441). in global discourse, the term ‘human security’ gained prominence in the 1990s at the end of the cold war between russia and the united states of america (usa). the term was officially coined in the 1994 united nations development report and it proffered the definition, which envisaged the protection of all human beings from both physical and non-physical threats (undp, 1994). a number of scholars have broadened the definition of human security to encapsulate securing of people, their physical safety, their economic wellbeing, respect for their dignity and worth as human beings, and the protection of their human rights and fundamental freedoms (evans and sahnoun, 2001; chandler, 2004; tibaijuka, 2005; dzimiri and runhare, 2012: 3). the hypothetical perspective of the human security framework thus informs this study, highlighting the importance of prioritizing individual security which focuses on the different sources of insecurity that affect zimbabwean migrant women in south africa. scholars like thakur (2003: 5) put forward the view that the threats many people worldwide experience emanate from internal conflicts, disease, hunger, environmental degradation, street crime and domestic violence. these factors underpin the important beliefs of the human security approach. the 1994 undp report listed seven dimensions of human security, which included economic security, personal security, food security, health security, political security, community security and environmental security. isike and owusu-ampomah (2017: 3181) posited that, “the human security framework accommodates a wider range of issues that not only constitute threats to human existence, but also breed insecurity and societal anarchy. it views security from the perspective of human wellbeing and includes broad issues of human concern such as security from poverty, disease, famine, illiteracy, environmental plundering and unemployment, which singly or jointly, contribute to the impairments of human existence”. looking at the migration of zimbabwean women to south africa using the lens of the human security framework requires an analysis of the political and socio-economic factors that are seen as ‘push’ factors from zimbabwe, as well as an analysis of the conditions in which the women are living in south africa. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1780 methodology the article is based on the results of a qualitative study with zimbabwean women migrants in durban, south africa. the city of durban has seen an increase in the number of african migrants and refugees moving there, hence it seemed to be a suitable research site for the study. for the purposes of the study, 22 in-depth interviews with zimbabwean female migrants working as informal traders in durban central were undertaken. the ages of the participants ranged from 18-45 years; the women were employed as hairdressers, street vendors, informal tailors and seamstresses and child minders. purposive sampling was used in selecting some of the participants with prior knowledge of the target group. snowballing was also used as a sampling technique and it enabled the researcher to locate other possible participants for the study through referrals. a key informant who was part of the target group assisted in some of the referrals. open-ended interviews and participant observation were used as methods of collecting data. the women determined the places where the interviews were conducted but, in most cases,, they were regularly conducted at their work places. the women were informed of the purposes of the study and they all gave informed consent for the interviews to be used for the research study. they were assured of their confidentiality hence this paper uses pseudonyms. while all the women had a good command of english, the interviews were conducted in their home language, shona. it enabled them to speak freely and better explain some of their experiences. the major constraint experienced during the study was the personal and emotional sensitivity of some of the issues that were discussed. some of the women would openly discuss and trivialize issues that bordered on gender-based violence and xenophobia in their own lives. however, in oneon-one interviews, they would not share much about their experiences. this was possibly influenced by the idea that they were aware that they were being audio recorded and the identity of the researcher being zimbabwean. hence, some of the women refrained from sharing ‘too much’ personal information, possibly due to the fear of being judged, so they would give general responses they felt did not reveal too much of their own personal experiences. to analyze the data, all the interviews were transcribed and they were coded by selecting words and sentences that were related to the experiences of the women prior to leaving zimbabwe and their experiences in south africa. the mutambara, v. and maheshvari, n. 1781 codes were then sorted into themes that sought to answer the research questions relating to the human security conditions of the women before leaving zimbabwe and in south africa. research findings while the narratives included many issues, there were issues that appeared reiterative and were centered on two dominant themes presented below. they include the reason why the women decided to move from zimbabwe to south africa, and the experiences of the migrant women trying to integrate into the south african society. migration an escape from economic insecurity and poverty one of the first questions asked was, what influenced the women to leave zimbabwe to come to south africa. most of the participants indicated that they left zimbabwe because of the worsening economic situation. this was a salient theme as most of the participants revealed that they decided to migrate from zimbabwe to emancipate themselves from economic insecurities. loveness, a 39-year-old woman, working as an informal tailor, spoke about her own reason for leaving zimbabwe: i came here because of three things, mari, nzara, nhamo chaiyo (money, hunger and poverty, i mean extreme poverty). that kind of poverty that leaves you with nothing to cook for meals made me to leave. when i decided to leave, i left my kids without enough food to sustain them for a long period. this narrative corroborates the views of dzingirai et al (2015) who posit that the main trigger of migration in zimbabwe appears to be linked with poverty. following the closure of a number of industries, many people are no longer employed and have been living on less than one us dollar a day (bracking and sachikonye, 2006; raftopoulos, 2001). this pushes them to migrate to neighboring south africa with the hope of escaping poverty. in the same vein, lefko-everett (2010: 269), whose study examined the reasons that drove women to leave zimbabwe, articulate that economic challenges and insecurity in the form of poverty and unemployment are the main push factors for female zimbabwean migrants. human security is intertwined with food security and it is underpinned by the idea that the realization of human rights to adequate african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1782 food is essential. the right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has the physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement (un, article 25). however, participants like loveness revealed that the decision to migrate was influenced by the food insecurities she encountered. joyce and mercy, both young women in their late twenties working as hairdresser and manicurist in one of the salons in inner-city durban, also shared some of their reasons for moving to south africa: i came here to south africa in 2008, when things got difficult. when i left, things were not okay, there were no jobs, most of the companies had shut down and there was a cash crisis. before i came here, i was involved in buying and selling of different products. however, it was difficult to sustain the business as many did not pay in time because of the cash crisis. i started to plait hair when i came here to south africa; as it is right now with the little that i can manage to get from my job, i am able to take care of my family back home, as well as take care of my well-being (joyce). i am 28 years old and i came to south africa in 2013 in search of a job because in zimbabwe i cannot say there was anything tangible that i could do. even though i was a hairdresser, it was not easy to find clients and people would not pay you after doing your job. you could go for a week, up to three weeks without receiving any money for the job that you would have done already. my sister eunice was already here, and she encouraged me to move. i had also seen when i had previously visited her, how she would get her money instantly as soon as she finished working with a client. it motivated me that is why i came here to south africa (mercy). the above narratives demystify the assumption that all women leave zimbabwe for south africa out of extreme desperation and poverty. instead, some of the women had jobs but they viewed south africa as having better employment prospects. some women make the decision to migrate from zimbabwe to south africa as a response to the protracted prevalence of the economic insecurities in their country. the participants revealed that life in mutambara, v. and maheshvari, n. 1783 zimbabwe was becoming unbearable and it was becoming difficult to maintain a sustainable livelihood and well-being. the shrinking economy, soaring inflation, widespread shortages of food and basic amenities, and unemployment proved to be a powerful force driving most participants to leave zimbabwe (crush and tevera, 2010: 1). many of the women also revealed that their main goal was to secure employment as the economic insecurities in zimbabwe influenced the existence of high job shortages. the likelihood of at least having an employment opportunity in south africa and earning an income influenced the women to migrate. because of south africa’s fairly stable political and economic situation, the women perceived that life would be better in south africa, with the abundance of jobs and better living conditions (crush et al., 2017b: 3). one of the women, tendai, a 30-year-old hairdresser, said: kumba kwaiva kusina chekuita (back home, there was nothing that i could do to sustain myself), with no jobs. and you will be thinking that maybe if i go there, things will be better, and i can find a job. eunice, a 37-year-old woman, said: the reason i came from zimbabwe in 2008 was because of the political situation that the country was facing. our government was not in an amicable state, everything was not okay. and when i decided to come here, my main intention was to come and work so that i could support my family. back home i used to be a hairdresser, but because of the economic situation which affected the cash flow, we were no longer getting customers. it is undeniable that the need to construct a secure and sustainable livelihood through gainful employment in other countries is an important driver of migration for most of the participants. based on the drivers of migration from zimbabwe, a number of scholarly work labels zimbabwean migrants as ‘economic migrants’ who leave in search for better economic opportunities for their well-being and that of their families left behind (bloch, 2010; makina, 2012; crush et al., 2015; dzingirai et al., 2015; hlatshwayo, 2019). the challenges that the women encounter intricately link to different ranges of human security consequences, which border on political, food and economic security. the ongoing changes in the zimbabwean political economy are an african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1784 economic limitation that hinders most of the women from reaching their full potential as they find it difficult, if not impossible, to make a living. the memories the women have about the economic crisis in zimbabwe are constructed around their everyday experiences of the scarcity of basic commodities like flour, maize meal, sugar and cooking oil (crush and tevera 2010; dzingirai et al., 2015:16; mcduff, 2015). as the women spoke of their experiences, one could sense their confusion about the degree of poverty affecting their country, which used to be regarded as the bread-basket of africa. some of the women have vivid memories of how it became difficult to find employment. these experiences reveal how the women’s lives shifted to not having any options to sustain their livelihoods, leading them to migrate to south africa. the move to south africa seems to have been influenced by the idea that one would be able to secure a sustainable job as soon as one reached one’s destination. for most of the women, they left for south africa from zimbabwe with the perception that south africa had many sustainable job opportunities. while the women aim to ensure economic security for their families through the provision of basic needs and food, one of those basic needs is quality education. veronica and hildah said: i came here to south africa in 2009, and my main intention was kuzotsvaga mari ye vana vechikoro (to raise school fees money for my kids) (veronica). i came from zimbabwe in 2007. the economic crisis was too bad for us, mabasa kwainge kusina (there were no jobs), everything was so difficult, especially for me, i had children, the educational system became very weak, teachers were no longer coming to class. the conditions were just deteriorating, and i decided to come to south africa (hildah). the political and economic challenges aggravated some human security concerns, which included the provision of sustainable quality education for the citizens. it influenced the inability to pay school fees by guardians, which contributed to poor educational systems. some women like veronica left zimbabwe for south africa with the hopes of securing enough money to send home to ensure a sustainable well-being and a good education. prior to migrating, most of the women anticipated to find better opportunities that could enable them to send remittances and take care of their families back in mutambara, v. and maheshvari, n. 1785 zimbabwe (bloch, 2005; makina, 2012)2. under economic security, the human security concept notes that every child has the right to social safety, education and vocational training (isike and owusuampomah, 2017: 3181). however, the women’s narratives reveal that this privilege is compromised by the political situation in zimbabwe, increasing the human security consequences for the women and their children. experiences of zimbabwean migrant women in south africa the women’s expectations of better lives and human security appear to be in contrast with their social experiences. zimbabwean migrant women face multiple forms of discrimination and violence that are constructed around structures like their identity as women, non-citizens, black africans and poverty-stricken (hlatshwayo, 2019: 168). cumulatively, most of the women revealed that they experienced gender-based violence and discrimination from south african citizens foregrounded in xenophobic sentiments. one of the negative experiences that the women revealed was the prevalence of gender-based violence in the form of intimate partner violence. this was reflected in joyce’s narrative. she explained that she was a victim of intimate partner violence from a local south african man with whom she was in a relationship. she was a victim of gender-based violence and her vulnerability was constructed around the idea that her partner felt entitled to her, as he was the one who had a bigger role to play in ensuring a sustainable livelihood and security in south africa. she stated: taidanana, but the problem was that aigara achingondirova (we were so much in love, but the problem was that he would frequently beat me). he was so possessive, and he would not even want to see me speaking with other males. he somehow had the belief that he had made me the person that i was at that time. we did all the formal introductions, what was only left for us was to travel to zimbabwe so that he could pay the bride price. after much thought, i called off the negotiations because i really thought hard of how my future would be with someone who always degraded and abused me. the previous weekend before 2 in a study carried out by bloch (2005), the sample indicated that 85% of zimbabwean migrants sent remittances to their relatives and families in zimbabwe. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1786 the breakup he had beat me up so badly because i had decided to go out with my friends and not him. after that night, i told myself that (hwaisava hupenyu) i was not going to live like this for the rest of my life and i would not put myself in prison (joyce). although the experiences of migrant and non-migrant women regarding intimate partner violence appear to be similar, what increases the vulnerability of migrant women is their immigrant status. this status is shaped by different factors, which include immigration policies that exclude and limit their access to some basic services. the other factor is staying in south africa illegally which intensifies the women’s dependency on the perpetrators and in most cases restrains the women’s options to respond to their insecurity in the form of gender-based violence (kiwanuka, 2010). as joyce continued to narrate her story she shared that, at that time she was not legally documented in south africa and at some point she envisioned herself with a south african identity book and citizenship which she hoped would bring more security for her livelihood. this reveals that some zimbabwean migrant women have relationships with local south african men with the anticipation of marriage, which could eventually lead to attaining south african citizenship. their compromised agency, worsened by financial insecurities and in most cases, structural factors like legality, position migrant women as victims of xenophobic gender-based attacks. this, in turn, compromises their personal well-being and security. the misconception of migrants as the ‘other’, criminal and undeserving of protection, affects various migrants differently, but migrant women are mostly affected and more vulnerable (von kitzing, 2017:8). the excitement and anticipation for better jobs, opportunities, and economic and social security is easily shadowed by their lived realities as they are viewed as the ‘other’ and are exposed to a range of insecurities in south africa. the women who were interviewed for this study revealed that it was difficult to experience the security and the life-changing opportunities they imagined they would encounter in south africa (kihato, 2009; dodson, 2010; chinomona and maziriri, 2015; crush et al., 2015; dzingirai et al., 2015). living conditions are often difficult and with most of the participants being involved in informal trading, they struggle to make ends meet. a visit to one of the women’s homes revealed that some of the migrant women reside in dilapidated, overcrowded and poorly maintained blocks of flats where the rooms are usually divided with mutambara, v. and maheshvari, n. 1787 cardboard boxes and there is poor sanitation. these conditions, coupled with a significant percentage of the women being undocumented, heighten their vulnerabilities. the study revealed that women are not only susceptible outside, but also within their homes. women remain in abusive relationships as a way of ensuring that they have access to basic goods, such as shelter, clothing and food. their relationships, with both foreign and local men, are influenced by their need to depend on someone who they feel can provide for and take care of them. however, this leads to the women normalizing intimate partner violence and viewing it as tolerable. vivian, a 37-year-old zimbabwean woman who lives in inner-city durban and operates an informal children’s daycare center, revealed that she is accustomed to her partner abusing her, but she is dependent on him. it is important to note that they are both foreign (the partner is nigerian) which sheds more light on the fact that local men are not the only ones who perpetuate gender-based violence and abuse. my nigerian boyfriend is not always nice to me, especially when he is frustrated, he can even beat me up… i just tell myself that it is part of life, no relationship has got no issues…. he gives me good money’ (vivian). the continued presence of economic insecurity in the lives of the women (not being able to buy basic foodstuffs to support their livelihoods) is also linked to their own personal well-being and security being compromised. it influences migrant women to normalize human insecurity red flags like the existence of gender-based violence and domestic violence (von kitzing, 2017; hlatshwayo, 2019). the proponents of the human security concept assert that security also involves personal security, which includes safety from violent crime, all forms of physical abuse, rape, and gender-based violence on sexual orientation (isike and awusu-ampomah, 2017; dzimiri and runhare, 2012). therefore, one is inclined to argue that zimbabwean migrant women turn a blind eye to their personal security hoping to attain economic security and sustain their livelihoods in a foreign land. trivializing sexual violence towards migrant women african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1788 gender-based violence can also be expressed in the form of sexual violence and harassment. some of the participants felt that both local and migrant men sometimes behave like sexual predators, who feel entitled to expressing sexual innuendos and, in most cases, belittle the existence of sexual harassment. it appears that some men do not see any harm in sexually violating women as they are socially conditioned to believe that it is normal and acceptable for a man to touch women inappropriately without their consent. they see nothing wrong in their actions, operating from a position of entitlement and believe that it is normal for men to extend and impose such behavior on women. this is strengthened by what eunice said: the one thing i understand about males when it concerns women is that if they are attracted to you, they can even do the unthinkable, anokwanisa kungosvika, okubata kana maprivate parts, (they can even just touch your private parts). it does not matter whether you are foreign or what, because i once encountered it. the above narrative shows that both migrant women and local south african women can fall victim to sexual violence and harassment. therefore, this paper purports that the sexual harassment of migrant women by local south african men can be considered xenophobic, premised on the assumption and perception that migrant women would not expect these kinds of sexual advances from random unknown men in the streets. the fact that most migrant women have less protection than south african women who can easily seek recourse from the relevant authorities, increases their vulnerability to xenophobia (csvr, 2016). according to von kitzing (2017: 12), most migrant women do not report cases of sexual harassment and abuse to the relevant authorities. this positions migrant women as vulnerable, and any sexual harassment towards them can be labelled as xenophobic and acknowledged as a form of insecurity. this connotes that for the migrant women, human insecurity concerns are exacerbated by their inability to seek recourse influenced by their identity. one key guiding principle of the human security paradigm outlines how important the security of an individual is. however, the latter narrative reveals that human security concerns are easily influenced and compromised by structures such as identity. the fact that the women are ‘migrants’ plays a huge part in downplaying their access to basic mutambara, v. and maheshvari, n. 1789 human rights like reporting gender-based violence cases to the relevant authorities. the concepts of identity and security sigsworth et al. (2008) posited that traditionally, women are the bearers of culture. however, the concept of identity and belonging is one issue that has become a distinctly gendered problem for foreign women. some of the women who were interviewed expressed the concern that clinging to the aspects of one’s identity renders them more vulnerable to xenophobic violence. it is worsened by the other identity of being a woman. this is reflected in the narrative given by charity: it becomes worse when you cannot speak isizulu. at times when you become resilient shouting back using the local language the perpetrators become apologetic. however, once you speak english and they pick up that you are not a local, they will take away everything from you, especially us, women, it’s like they will be preying on us more. while charity is aware of stories of men being mugged, she believes women are easy targets and that perpetrators take advantage when they notice that one is not local. while most tragedies appear to be general crimes, foreignness makes many women more vulnerable. zimbabwean migrant women are often noticeable through several characteristics that distinguish them from the local south african population, hence, they are more prone to being exploited and being affected by xenophobia. sigsworth et al. (2008: 17) referred to these different characteristics as ‘markers of difference’. these visible aspects include the language that zimbabwean migrant women speak, their accents when they speak english or when they attempt to speak the local language, as well as their clothing. this is consistent with the study by lefko-everett (2010: 280) which established that some zimbabwean women changed their style of dressing to avoid being noticed. the women who were interviewed revealed that they migrated to south africa in search of an ‘economic haven’ away from the political and economic crisis in zimbabwe. however, their experiences of south africa portray feelings of powerlessness and insecurity. they live in constant fear of what african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1790 they might come across daily. because of their differences, they are often labelled with the derogatory term kwere kwere, which is usually used by locals when referring to foreign nationals. while the idea of xenophobia is generally associated with bodily harm and physical violence against migrant women, xenophobia can be exhibited in a subtle manner through verbal abuse. participants revealed that during their stay in south africa they had encountered at least one incident of verbal abuse in the public transport they use daily. the relentless name-calling appears to be a source of hurt, humiliation and insecurity for many zimbabwean migrant women. it increases their feelings of being socially excluded and insecurity in a country where they believed social integration and security would be easy to attain (lefko-everett, 2010: 208). although there are several scholars (chireka, 2015; dodson 2010; crush and tawodzerwa, 2017b) who have published work pertaining to the challenges that zimbabwean migrant women encounter in south africa, very few addresses how the concept of human security can be included in the discourse of female migration, xenophobia and gender-based violence. while violence against women and the rights of women are integral to the millennium development goals (mdgs), the sad reality is that during xenophobic conflict, women are always caught in the middle. as established by fuller (2008: 8), migrant women are inevitably placed in a position of double jeopardy because of their identity as women and as migrants or outsiders. however, the antimigrant hostility and the incidents of gender-based violence they encounter, go unreported because of the women’s fear to face hostility from police or possibly the general feeling of not wanting to cause unnecessary trouble premised on their social position as outsiders in another person’s territory (fuller, 2008; sigsworth et al., 2008; charman et al., 2012). scholars like waiganjo (2017: 39) have proposed that the xenophobic sentiments in south africa have affected several migrant women through violence that is incited on their bodies through sexual assault, emotional abuse and beatings. waiganjo (2017) further noted that the violence that migrant women encounter, whether emotional or physical, is embedded in patriarchal structures that exist within cultures that strengthen gender inequality, revealed in ideas, attitudes and practices that are expressed during war and conflict. hence, african scholars like mama and okazawa-rey (2012) have noted that during war and mutambara, v. and maheshvari, n. 1791 conflict, atrocious acts of human insecurity against women are often used as a weapon of violence. the prevalence of the moral ills of society such as gender-based violence and xenophobic conflicts in the spaces they live and work make it difficult for most of the women to feel safe and be easily integrated into society. the violent cycle of gender-based violence, coupled with the protracted existence of xenophobia, renders migrant females insecure and vulnerable. in fact, scholars like von kitzing (2017: 1) maintained that “the intersectionality3 of their ‘illegality’ and womanhood highlight their particular vulnerability and showcase the fluidity of xenophobic and gender-based violence”. this alternatively jeopardizes their security, and in many ways speaks to the fact that civil society has not yet reached a position where they can fully consolidate the human security of migrant women in south africa. conclusion going beyond the discussed themes, the women’s daily experiences are premised on their multiple identities. although the experiences of the women are specifically tied to their identity as migrants, it cannot be denied that some of their experiences, such as intimate partner violence, are like those of the local south african women. the changing aspects of their class, gender and nationality certainly construct their experiences, but they share many experiences with other women. therefore, the experiences of the zimbabwean migrant women inform us of the broader experience of being women (a vulnerable and marginalized group) in south africa. kihato (2009: 187) noted that, “migrant women certainly share class, gendered and ‘outsider’ characteristics with others, including categories of women of south african origin”. for instance, most of the challenges and questions about safety, domestic violence and the insensitive reaction of the police to gender-based violence, reverberate with many of the experiences of local south african women. however, these experiences are more likely to be intensified when it comes to migrant women who are even more susceptible due to their migrant 3 the concept of intersectionality was coined by the scholar kimberlé crenshaw (1989). the concept puts forward the idea that various social identities like race, gender, class and sexuality usually interlock with each other to influence the different world-views and experiences that individuals have. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1792 status. to combat the experiences of human insecurity that migrant women encounter, it is essential to start from the grassroots, tackling issues that affect local women in south africa as well. references achiume, e.t. 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(2017). gender complexities in the context of xenophobiaafrophobia in the transnational space: the experiences of somali women in mayfair and pretoria west in gauteng province, south africa. phd thesis (unpublished) durban: university of kwazulunatal. http://www.osisa.org/publications/buwa-page=1.html http://www.osisa.org/publications/buwa-page=1.html 6 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 complexities in the case management of unaccompanied minors: perceptions of social workers practicing in the polokwane child and youth care centres aklilu asha* and matlou nkwana* * university of limpopo, south africa post-apartheid south africa has become a preferred destination for migrants and refugees from across different parts of the globe, particularly the african and asian continents. the influx of foreign nationals into the country has contributed to an increase in the number of unaccompanied refugee minors as they either travel alone or become separated from caregivers or parents once they have entered the country. this situation has complicated the management aspects of the cases of unaccompanied minors at the local level. the purpose of this article is to explore the experiences of social workers in the management of the cases of unaccompanied refugee minors in the child and youth care centres (cyccs) in the polokwane area. qualitative data was collected by employing face-to-face interviews as well as observation techniques and data was analysed by applying the qualitative thematic approach. the findings highlighted that most of the unaccompanied minors were in dire need and lacked proper documentation. it was also revealed that a number of perilous child protection challenges existed in the management of the cases of unaccompanied minors. these include the limited capacity of social workers, lack of intersectoral integration and collaboration, and insufficient allocation of resources to tackle the multiple dilemmas that affect unaccompanied minors in the cyccs. the study concludes that despite the solid international legal framework and south africa having a relatively well-developed legal and policy framework governing child protection, there are a number of critical child protection gaps that exist in terms of the implementation of these frameworks for unaccompanied or separated foreign children, by government officials. keywords: migration, unaccompanied minors, social workers, child and youth care centres 7 introduction the migration of unaccompanied minors represents a trend which affects many countries from across the globe. children who are unaccompanied minors constitute the majority of the world’s refugees (swart, 2009). the united states, for instance, experienced a rapid growth in the number of unaccompanied children entering the country through the us/mexican border between 2011 and 2014 (rosenblum, 2015). a report by the unhcr (2015) indicates that half of the refugees who entered south africa during the reporting period, were children. after 1994, the democratic south africa has become the preferred destination for many migrants and refugees from across the african continent. many children travel independently or become separated from the care-giving adult once reaching the country; they are then referred to as unaccompanied minors. mothapo (2017) notes that many unaccompanied migrant children in the country do not have an asylum claim but that they are economic migrants, and often children are in need of care and protection. most of these unaccompanied minors are often undocumented, as they entered the country illegally. their cases are dealt with in terms of this country’s children’s act (rsa, 2005) so that they are protected from deportation by obtaining an order from the children’s court. in the limpopo province, the migration of citizens of other african states into the province has caused an increase in the number of unaccompanied minors within the child protection system, particularly in the child and youth care centres (cyccs), and it needs a collaborative intervention. the cyccs accommodate unaccompanied minors who remain in the system for more than two years, as the stipulated time in relation to section 159 of the children’s act 38 of 2005 (mothapo, 2017). the cyccs are full to capacity and there are also delays in finalising the cases of unaccompanied minors due to several challenges. these challenges include the lack of identifying particular, untraceable families from the country of origin for reunification purposes; non-finalisation of placement; infrastructure; and other related problems (rosenblum, 2015). against this background, the article aims to explore the experiences of social workers in the management of the cases of unaccompanied minors, particularly the strategies and challenges in the process of case management literature review this section critically engages with the concept of unaccompanied refugee minors, the processes and procedures pertaining to the case management of unaccompanied minors, and the challenges related to the case management of unaccompanied minors. the section also presents the rights-based approach as a theoretical framework. unaccompanied refugee minors (urms) an unaccompanied refugee minor is a child who seeks refuge on his or her own complexities in the case management of unaccompanied minors in polokwane 8 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 without any family or company, while undocumented children refer to both accompanied and unaccompanied children (van der burg, 2009). the reasons these children are outside of their country of origin without caregivers are diverse: they seem to be mainly fleeing prosecution or conflict, are victims of trafficking, or are in search of economic opportunities or schooling (dsd, 2009). moreover, these unaccompanied and separated children often face discrimination and difficulty in accessing basic services and are at high risk of violence, exploitation and abuse. currently, social welfare services are experiencing huge challenges in safeguarding care and protection of children (dsd, 2009). sobantu and warria (2013) emphasise that unaccompanied minors in south africa are protected by the constitution of the republic of south africa (rsa, 1996), the children’s act no 35 of 2005 (rsa, 2005), the refugees act no 130 of 1998 (rsa, 1998) and the immigration act no 13 of 2002 (rsa, 2002). section 28 of the constitution sets out the rights of all children in south africa, including the right to family or parental care or to suitable alternative care when removed from the family environment. it also stipulates the right to basic necessities and social services as well as the right to be protected from maltreatment, neglect and abuse (rsa, 1996). the refugees act no 130 of 1998, also provides for the reception into south africa of asylum seekers’ relevant international statutory instruments, principles and standards relating to refugees (rsa, 1998). section 32 of the refugees amendment act of 2008 refers to the children’s act in cases where unaccompanied children are found in need of care. the children’s court may order that the child who appears to qualify for refugee status be assisted with the application for asylum in terms of the act, but practically obtaining the documentation for unaccompanied children in the asylum process remains a challenge. a significant proportion of these children remain undocumented because the authorities refuse to grant them access to the asylum process without the assistance of a parent or guardian. this is because south african laws regard children below the age of 18 as lacking the full capacity to interact with the law when not duly assisted by their parents or guardian. this approach fails to take cognisance of the child’s specific claims and that children can be persecuted and that any of the grounds for asylum in section 3 can be applicable to children (bhabha, 2008). on the other hand, once social workers and police officials have removed a child from a harmful environment and placed them in temporary safe care, and obtained the court order from the children’s court, they consider their work complete (willie and mfubu, 2016). the children’s act no 38 of 2005, equally gives effect to the right of the children as stipulated in the constitution, and it sets out principles in relation to care and protection of children. the aim of this act is to promote and preserve families and give effect to the constitutional rights of children. however, the children’s act is silent about unaccompanied minors; it does not identify particular vulnerabilities of foreign children like unaccompanied minors and separated refugee children, and hence there is a tendency of social workers and magistrates to focus only on social 9 welfare. case management of unaccompanied minors it is important for social workers who work with unaccompanied minors to bear in mind that these children have generally been through traumatic situations. therefore, clarity in roles among stakeholders could reduce the overlapping of roles and also fill the gaps that could be created by performing roles of others and minimise possible harm (ambrose-miller and ashcroft, 2016). the department of social development (dsd) has developed guidelines on separated and unaccompanied children outside their countries of origin. the aim of the guidelines is to assist the staff of the department in fulfilling their obligations with regards to separated and unaccompanied foreign children in south africa. the guidelines (dsd, 2012: 5) specify a number of responsibilities on the part of social workers and other stakeholders, as follows: • identification of an unaccompanied or separated child: it can be done by anyone including police, immigration officials, social workers, ngos and the community. children who are identified should then be referred to a social worker or a police official. • assessment and documentation: the child will be assessed by the social worker within 72 hours, gathering information and the circumstances around the child and the child should be registered and documented. • tracing and investigation of the biological parents, family or any other person who is the caregiver to the child, from the country of origin. • temporary placement: children must immediately be placed in temporary safe care. • formal placement and options for durable solutions: the social worker should investigate the child’s situation and compile the report within 90 days before the child is brought to the children’s court. the social worker must then present recommendations for formal placement or a durable solution for the child, which is the permanency plan, taking into consideration the views of the child. in line with the aforementioned process, social workers should play a critical role in ensuring effective management with the cases of unaccompanied minors. wright (2014) concurs that social workers can play a key role in the initial screening, supervision and support in placement and where required, social workers can prepare unaccompanied asylum-seeking children to be returned to their countries of origin. in practice, however, there are some challenges that social workers face in implementing the procedures and process as outlined in the guideline. complexities in the case management of unaccompanied minors in polokwane 10 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 challenges in managing the cases of unaccompanied minors managing cases of unaccompanied minors within the child protection system is an important process, but how to do it, becomes a problem to most social workers. the lack of legal documentation delays the process and in addition, the lack of adequate knowledge – on the part of social workers and magistrates – of the legal framework and procedures relating to unaccompanied foreign children, contribute to this problem (schreier, 2011). the area of social work figures prominently within the continuum of care for unaccompanied refugee minors (lee, 2012). however, there is a gap in the literature to explore refugee and migrant issues from a social work perspective. the national association of social workers (nasw, 2008) requires the profession to take responsibility for the ethical practice and research activities relevant to unaccompanied refugee minors (urms). competence is a key capability required of social workers engaging with urms. therefore, an evidence-base of knowledge and skills that inform best practices requires ongoing research. hence, this research was undertaken, in order to study the effectiveness of the services of social workers to unaccompanied minors and the challenges that they encounter. although all social workers are placed at risk, there is global recognition of the particularly demanding nature of a designated social worker (bradbury-jones, 2013). regardless of the inadequate knowledge base of unaccompanied minors’ cases, child protection social workers have to make decisions and act. they have to predict the underlying picture and make decisions about the safety of the children involved. their statutory responsibilities mean they have limited time and resources to investigate and reflect and the need for speed is another constraint. mahmoudi and mothapo (2018) argue that language barriers present the main challenge in assisting the children, especially if they are very young. furthermore, translation resources are limited and informal mechanisms to assist with translation are used, which is certainly not ideal when dealing with vulnerable persons. on the contrary, westwood (2012) contends that when language is a barrier, social workers worry if the children are getting accurate information from the interpreters. the survey conducted suggests that a large percentage of the children originate from french-speaking african countries (burundi, the democratic republic of the congo and rwanda) and language is also an obstacle in the way of family tracing and reunification, since reunification efforts in the country of origin would entail liaison with french-speaking counterparts or relatives (scct, 2019). the reality of migrant children is that they enter their host countries with no proper documentation, which is difficult insofar as identity and age assessments go (westwood, 2012). research suggests that the south african refugee system is illequipped to deal with age assessments, creating a gap in the system when it comes to the identification of applicants as minors (haidar, 2017). research indicates that a social worker may conduct an age assessment of a child by visiting a doctor, but whether children are given the option to consent or not is unknown and no case law 11 was found that may shed light on this topic (westwood, 2012). social workers felt that the migration agency did not do enough in making an allowance for the cases of unaccompanied minors; they called for the holistic assessment of cases; and they also felt that they do not have much influence on decisions made by the migration agency (zwebathu, 2018). tham (2018) shows that doing social work with unaccompanied minors presents a high job demand with low control, which may lead to work-related stress. rights-based approach as a theoretical framework a theoretical framework refers to a structure that summarises concepts and theories from previously tested and published knowledge to provide a synthesis of a theoretical background or a basis for data analysis and interpretation (kivunja, 2018). accordingly, this study deemed the theory of a rights-based approach (rba) to be relevant because much emphasis has been given to rba to address the issues and challenges related to child protection (dinbabo, 2013). the rba consists of seven steps, as described below (adapted from dinbabo, 2013: 274; dinbabo and carciotto, 2015: 165): • universality and inalienability: human rights are universal and inalienable, and the entitlement of all people everywhere in the world. an individual cannot voluntarily give them up. nor can others take them away. as stated in article 1 of the universal declaration of human rights, “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. • indivisibility: human rights are indivisible. whether civil, cultural, economic, political or social, they are all inherent to the dignity of every person. consequently, they all have equal status as rights and cannot be ranked in a hierarchy. • interdependence and interrelatedness: the realisation of one right often depends, wholly or in part, on the realisation of others. for example, the realisation of the right to health may depend on the realisation of the right to information. • equality and non-discrimination: all individuals are equal as human beings, and by virtue of the inherent dignity of each person, are entitled to their rights without discrimination of any kind. a rights-based approach requires a particular focus on addressing discrimination and inequality. safeguards need to be included in development instruments to protect the rights and well-being of marginalised groups. • participation and inclusion: every person and all peoples are entitled to active, free and meaningful participation in, contribution to and enjoyment of civil, economic, social, cultural and political development, through which human rights and fundamental freedoms can be enjoyed. complexities in the case management of unaccompanied minors in polokwane 12 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 • empowerment: empowerment is the process by which people’s capabilities to demand and use their human rights grow. they are empowered to claim their rights rather than simply to wait for policies, legislation or the provision of services. • accountability and respect for the rule of law: a rights-based approach seeks to raise levels of accountability in the development process by identifying “rights holders” and corresponding “duty bearers” and to enhance the capacities of those duty bearers to meet their obligations. as indicated above, the rba was adopted as a theoretical framework of this study, which demonstrates the importance of human rights principles to unravel challenges and issues in the arena of migrant child protection. the focus of this paper is to explore the experiences of social workers in the management of the cases of unaccompanied minors in the child and youth care centres in the polokwane area, limpopo province. in this regard, the rba assists in understanding the complexities in the management of cases of unaccompanied refugee minors. methodology a qualitative case study design was adopted to explore the complexities in the case management of unaccompanied refugee minors from a social work perspective. it was conducted in two cyccs in polokwane, namely, the polokwane welfare complex and the samaritan children’s home. the polokwane welfare complex is a governmentowned institution, consisting of four units: temporary safe care, children’s home, secure care, and khuseleka one-stop centre. the samaritan children’s home is a registered child protection organisation in polokwane. these centres accommodate unaccompanied refugee minors. the participants of the study constituted primarily social workers practicing within the two cyccs, including the supervisors and coordinators. these groups were selected purposively because of their extensive knowledge of and involvement in the activities of the two centres. accordingly, eight social workers, two supervisors and two coordinators were selected for this study. the total sample size for this qualitative study was 12, based on the data saturation. the qualitative data was collected using interviews and observation. the oneon-one interview schedule was used as a guide to collect first-hand information from the social workers. the data analysis involves an inductive thematic analysis technique which involves transcribing the field notes, followed by coding the data using codes identified from the data. the coded data was classified into themes and sub-themes. the interpretation was then provided and cross-examination was done with the relevant literature. the findings are presented in the form of a textual report and direct quotations. 13 findings and discussions this section provides biographical profiles of the respondents. regarding the gender of participants, 92% of the participants were female while 8% were male. as a helping profession, social work is often regarded as a woman-dominated field. with regard to work experience, 90% of the participants had 5 to 10 years of experience practicing as a social worker. fewer than 10% of the respondents had more than 10 years’ experience as social workers and they held senior positions, such as social work supervisors, and district and provincial coordinators of programmes. the next section provides the findings and discussions using the themes derived from the study. these include: the overall situation of unaccompanied minors; the management of cases of unaccompanied minors; perceptions on case management; and challenges faced by social workers in the management of cases of unaccompanied minors in the study area. the overall situation of unaccompanied refugee minors child protection, including for unaccompanied refugee minors, has been promulgated in different legal and policy frameworks in south africa. despite the existence of a plethora of legislation, the evidence suggests that unaccompanied minors are still exposed to exploitation and they are in a situation of hopelessness (magqibelo et al., 2016). this study sought to establish the overall situation of unaccompanied minors in the study area. the findings show that unaccompanied minors are generally in a dire situation as they live on the streets, begging, stealing and are mostly exposed to abuse and exploitation by adults and some might be involved in criminal activities like stealing for survival. according to the participants of the study, the cases of unaccompanied minors are increasing around the polokwane area. these minors are normally found roaming the streets of the city. this situation puts them in a vulnerable state as they are mostly unprotected against abuse and mistreatment. according to the iom (2012), children who leave their homes, communities and countries are at risk of economic or sexual exploitation, abuse, neglect and violence. moreover, these unaccompanied minors often face discrimination and difficulty in accessing basic services, and are at high risk of violence, exploitation and abuse (van der burg, 2009). the following extracts from participant responses confirm this harsh reality: the situation is dire in that there are a lot of those cases of unaccompanied minors in polokwane. they live in places and leave in the morning to come and beg in the street and go to the same place to sleep (p3 social worker, 27 april 2019). these children are normally found roaming the street in the cities. they survive through begging, stealing and are mostly exploited by adults. this puts them in a vulnerable state as they are mostly exposed to abuse and exploitation. most complexities in the case management of unaccompanied minors in polokwane 14 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 of these children are of zimbabwean nationality, which is a challenge because they don’t qualify as asylum seekers. they are here for economic reasons (p11 provincial coordinator, 09 may 2019). the findings also revealed that the majority of unaccompanied minors are zimbabwean nationals, which disqualifies them as asylum seekers. they left their countries, usually without their families’ knowledge, due to economic and political instability. the major reasons for migration were extreme household poverty and exposure to various vulnerabilities including starvation, lack of/threatened education, financial difficulties, abuse/victimisation and lack of adult protection (adefehinti and arts, 2019). the literature shows that south africa is home to thousands of unaccompanied child migrants from neighbouring countries, especially zimbabwe (unicef, 2011). most of these children are often undocumented as their entry into the country is irregular (westwood, 2012; mothapo, 2017), which makes intervention by social workers difficult. since the majority of these children are from zimbabwe, they are located in quite big numbers in musina, a town next to the zimbabwe/south africa border. they are also found in the streets of polokwane city for survival mechanisms, mainly through begging. it is evident that they entered the country without their parents or guardians, while others came to south africa with their relatives and parents, and at a later stage became separated from them, for various reasons. according to the participants of the study, they lack documentation, which becomes difficult in terms of managing their cases. as a result, the unaccompanied minors cannot access basic education at schools and remain without a birth certificate, making it more complex to be transferred to foster care and to facilitate access to social grants. it should be emphasised that the rights-based approach requires a particular focus on addressing discrimination and inequality in order to safeguard the rights and well-being of marginalised children, including unaccompanied refugee minors (dinbabo, 2013). the management of cases of unaccompanied minors according to greenff and chetty (2018), case management refers to linking the identified migrating child with systems that provide him/her with the needed services and/or resources to facilitate a safe transit and initial placement during their migratory journey. these authors further state that case management involves steps such as: identifying and documenting an unaccompanied minor; assessing the needs of the minor; developing an individual case plan for the minor; starting the case plan by making use of direct support and referral services; following up and review; and finally closing the case (greenff and chetty (2018). in south africa, the children’s act of 2005 provides clarity on the case management of vulnerable children. as the implementing agency, the department of social development (dsd) guidelines also stipulate the procedures and roles by officials in managing the cases of vulnerable children, including unaccompanied refugee minors to ensure access to effective child 15 protection services. this study engaged participants to determine the efficiency of case management procedures for unaccompanied minors. according to the respondents, these children are mostly found by the police during patrols in the city or else when they are arrested for petty crimes. the police will then take them to the cyccs and after that the case will normally be referred to the social worker for further attention or to a probation officer if the child has committed a crime. the documentation should be done as a priority, as stipulated in the dsd guidelines for unaccompanied and separated minors outside their country of origin (dsd, 2015). once the case has been reported, a social worker has to seek a temporary placement for the child. to effect this, a social worker takes the case to a court and places the child in a cycc, depending on the age of the child. if the birth of the child has not been registered, the social worker needs to approach the department of home affairs (dha), the department responsible for birth registrations. in most cases, because the children are undocumented, the matter has to be referred to the department of health (doh) for age estimation before the dha issues a hand-written registration of birth. the following extracts capture participant responses: the first thing that i must do as a social worker, once the case has been reported, is to seek temporary placement for the child. i have to go to court and place the child in cyccs depending on the age of the child. also, if the birth of the child is not registered, one needs to involve home affairs and, in most cases, because they are undocumented, you have to go to the department of health for age estimation before home affairs issues a hand-written registration of birth (p2 social worker, 13 april 2019). mostly they are found by police when they are patrolling in the cities, or else they are being arrested for petty crimes. the police will then take them to cyccs and after that they will normally refer the case to the social worker for further attention or to a probation officer if the child has committed a crime (p11 social worker, 09 may 2019). according to the respondents of this study, after the placement of the minors into cyccs, they are interviewed to obtain more information regarding their status. some difficulties during interviews, include: the children provide incorrect personal details required to trace families; some children have been known to go home (zimbabwe) for christmas – while having claimed not to have a family – and then return to south africa. this prevents reunification efforts made by social workers (mahmoudi and mothapo, 2018). despite this challenge, the social workers interview the children in order to gather information about their background that will assist at a later stage for tracing of the family. respondents further highlighted that it is very difficult to get the truth from these minors as their stories always change, which complexities in the case management of unaccompanied minors in polokwane 16 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 make it difficult to win their trust. in addition, this complicates the situation and the families are untraceable because of inconsistent information. however, in practice there are several challenges, including a highly restricted immigration system, an overburdened and poorly functioning asylum system, and an under-resourced, unsuitable child protection system, leaving the minors extremely vulnerable to arrest, detention, exploitation and abuse (andersen et al., 2016). perceptions of case management the rights-based approach (rba) seeks accountability and respect for the rule of law in terms of the management process and promotes an integrated and comprehensive approach towards ensuring the rights of people in general and more specifically child protection (dinbabo, 2013). the authors of this paper argue that it is important to build the capacity and empower various implementing agents. however, the respondents of the study are of the opinion that the cases are not well managed, based on the fact that social workers do not know how to handle these cases. participants also revealed that there is a delay by international social services (iss) to attend to these cases, let alone to give either feedback or updates to social workers about the status of the case. in practice, there is no proper communication between service providers and iss nor acknowledgement of receipt and feedback about the cases referred, which indicates that there is a gap in the implementation of policies. schreier (2011) concurs that the lack of sufficient knowledge by social workers and magistrates of the legal framework and procedures pertaining to unaccompanied foreign children, contributes directly to the delay in the finalisation of these cases. the evidence also reaffirmed the dsd’s guidelines on separated and unaccompanied children outside their country of origin in south africa, which states that action to assist separated and unaccompanied children who are outside their country of origin, requires long-term commitment, often lasting years, by the stakeholders involved (dsd, 2015). below are extracts from participants’ perceptions of case management: cases are not well managed. i submitted a case of a child from nigeria in january 2019 to the iss and even to date no response, feedback or update received. it is now three months; when making a follow-up, you only get one sentence: “we are still busy with the case.” dsd is actually contributing towards not assisting these children according to the norms and standards of the children’s act (p10, social worker, 26 march 2019). i don’t think they are well managed, there is a lot of mismanagement, and cases are not well managed as we do not have direct contact with iss or the person referring the cases. there is a lot of red tape between the social worker and iss. many a time the information does not reach the manager, only when follow-up is made by the case manager, they are then told they used the wrong 17 format or the social worker from the other country or iss is no longer working there. if a social worker can have direct contact with the counterpart from the other side, maybe this process will be less complicated (p1, social worker, 14 march 2019). perceptions of the effectiveness of the case management system according to magqibelo et al. (2016), there are several legislative frameworks to ensure that unaccompanied minor refugees have access to the most basic human rights, which include regional, national and international declarations pertaining to children. these include, the united nations convention on the rights of the child (uncrc) (1989), the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc) (1990), and the children’s act (act 38 of 2005) as amended by the children’s amendment act (act 41 of 2007). however, the authors argue that a number of protection gaps, especially in terms of implementation of these frameworks, still exist (willie and mfubu, 2016; magqibelo et al., 2016) due mainly to the lack of sufficient legal paths for the documentation of foreign minors, lack of coordination between the various state departments, and lack of knowledge about the relevant laws. participants of this study also expressed their disappointment regarding the effectiveness of the system. despite a few successful cases, most participants believed that the case management processes and procedures governing unaccompanied minors are not effectively implemented because most of the social workers lack awareness about the system and that there is inadequate collaboration between the iss and social workers. as a result of the lack of progress and delays, the executions of cases by the social workers were inefficient. one of the participants of this study indicated that they wished for social workers to be given the authority to directly trace the families of the children or find a suitable family so that the child can be raised in the family set-up rather than remaining for long periods in the cyccs. in line with this finding, andersen et al. (2016) pointed out that despite the legislation and guidelines that provide a comprehensive system of protection and care for children in south africa, there still remains a profound gap in the ability of social services to meet their statutory duties to vulnerable children. the following extracts from participant responses concur with the literature: in my opinion i don’t think it is because the cases are still not moving. there is no progress yet, and in my opinion, i would wish if things can be done differently, in the sense that if social workers can be given the authority to not work via the iss which takes a very long period. if they can be given the authority to trace the families of the children themselves or if there is no one coming forth, maybe we find a suitable family for this child so that they can be raised in south africa to prevent them remaining in the cyccs and disadvantage them from the opportunity to grow up in a family setting (p1, complexities in the case management of unaccompanied minors in polokwane 18 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 social worker, 14 march 2019). in my opinion, the system is there, but it is not working. there are few successful cases. social workers will end up stuck with these cases because they will not be solved. maybe if the iss can be decentralised up to the provincial level, maybe it might work because it might be that they are having high caseloads or insufficient human resources (p2, social worker, 13 april 2019). challenges faced by social workers the study found that there are numerous challenges that are hampering service delivery to unaccompanied children. among other challenges mentioned by respondents, is the fact that these children are undocumented. according to sobantu and warria (2013), numerous unaccompanied children do not possess documents because of the circumstances which led to them leaving their homes, with documents being confiscated by immigration offices or police, or getting lost during the trip, or becoming illegible because of travelling conditions. these children are undocumented and the relevant department does not show full cooperation and commitment to deal with the matter. as a result, children are not attending school and are not getting other important services, simply because of having no documentation. the following extracts from participant responses bear testimony to this unfortunate reality: they do not have documents and then it becomes a big challenge with us because at the end you don’t know what to do with this child. the child can’t be registered at a school; they can’t get a birth certificate where you can say these children can be fostered and get a grant; you get stuck (p8 supervisor, 14 march 2019). these children are undocumented. the department of home affairs is not cooperative, nor willing to assist with the issue of documentation. children are not attending school due to lack of documentation (p9 social worker, 26 march 2019). the second challenge, as identified by participants, is that these children often do not tell the truth about their background, which causes their cases to take long before being finalised. on the other hand, the iss takes time to give feedback of cases referred for family tracing. tracing the families is also a challenge, as the iss is not effective, because many cases are not finalised. the fact that the cases are active for a very long time and there is no progress, is like a back-and-forth kind of a situation and is a challenge on its own. the fact that this child is in limbo, the child does not have a family that they can be linked to, and the child is staying in a cycc, is a challenge on its own. this implies that the best interest of the child is not really given priority in the situation, which is a massive challenge, as confirmed by these 19 interview extracts: sometimes children are not willing to cooperate, not willing to either participate or give information. there is a lack of resources like telephones, so phoning other countries is a hassle; there are no landlines and sometimes one has to go to other offices to make calls (p3, social worker, 27 april 2019). tracing the families is also a challenge, as iss is not effective because many cases are not finalised. capacity-building was last conducted in 2012 and it was not on unaccompanied children in particular, but it was on case management, of cases in cyccs and the management board of cyccs, on chapter 13 on their roles as the board (p9 social worker, 26 march 2019). thirdly, there is lack of knowledge on the part of social workers, which suggests that they are not well-capacitated and lack adequate support from management. there is also a lack of support by their supervisors, and the children themselves are often not willing to cooperate, or to participate and provide information. additionally, there is lack of resources like telephones, so phoning other countries is a problem; there are no landlines and sometimes social workers have to go to other offices to make calls. hence, it would help if the department could do more to capacitate social workers on policies around unaccompanied minors in particular, and on migration in general, and not capacitate only social workers who are dealing with the cases, but all social workers. conclusion and recommendations it can, therefore, be concluded that the cases of unaccompanied minors are not well managed and there are challenges with regards to the management of these cases. regardless of the solid international legal framework and south africa having a relatively well-developed legal and policy framework governing child protection, there are a number of critical child protection gaps that exist in terms of the implementation of these frameworks for unaccompanied or separated foreign children by government officials. furthermore, social workers and other stakeholders are not capacitated on dealing with cases of unaccompanied minors. lack of intersectoral collaboration and social workers without resources aggravate the challenges. the following recommendations are drawn, based on the findings: • the respective government departments should allow unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors to apply for permits under section 31(2) (b) of the immigration act, which will be a sustainable solution, which will ultimately lead to a permanent solution for these minors. • the concerned government department should provide social work resources in order to render services and implement guidelines for the benefit of the foreign children whom they are obligated to protect. complexities in the case management of unaccompanied minors in polokwane 20 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 • the relevant social workers and care workers should be capacitated on different legislations that deal with unaccompanied and foreign children in order to ensure proper implementation of the law. • the responsible department should make an amendment to the children’s act to include unaccompanied minors in section 150 of the act. • the concerned government department should develop a practice note that will effectively provide guidance in relation to the refugees amendment act to its officials on procedures to follow when dealing with unaccompanied and foreign children. • there should be coordination and integration of services among the relevant government departments wherein each stakeholder plays their role, as mandated by their respective departments, to ensure that the rights of unaccompanied children of migrants and refugees are protected. 21 references adefehinti, a. and arts, k. 2019. challenging the odds of vulnerability and resilience in lone migration: coping strategies of zimbabwean unaccompanied minors in south africa. children's geographies, 17(4): 427-441. https://doi.org/10.108 0/14733285.2018.1536776 ambrose-miller, w. and ashcroft, r. 2016. challenges faced by social workers as a member of the interprofessional collaborative health care team. health and social work, 41(2): 101-109. https://doi.org/10.1093/hsw/hlw006 andersen, k., apland, k. and yarrow, e. 2016. unaccompanied and unprotected: the systemic vulnerability of unaccompanied migrant children in south africa. in liefaard, t. and sloth-nielsen, j. 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june 2019. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2015. country operation profile – south africa. available at: http://www.unhcr.org/ pages/49e485aa6.html accessed on 23 august 2017. van der burg, a. 2009. legal protection of undocumented foreign migrant children, south africa: reality or myth? law, democracy and development, 10(2): 82100. westwood, j.l. 2012. constructing risk and avoiding need: findings from the interviews with social workers and police officers involved in safeguarding work with migrant children. child abuse review, 21: 349-361. willie, n. and mfubu, p. 2016. no future for our children: challenges faced by foreign minors living in south africa. african human mobility review, 2(1): 423-441. wright, f. 2014. social work practice with unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people facing removal. british journal of social work, 44(4): 1027-1044. zwebathu, k. 2018. roles of social workers working with unaccompanied minors: experiences of social workers in gothenburg. master’s thesis, university of gothenburg. complexities in the case management of unaccompanied minors in polokwane http://www.unicef.org http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e485aa6.html http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e485aa6.html 9 ‘metema became my istanbul’ the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants meron zeleke1 received: 04 january 2022 / accepted: 17 march 2022 / published online: 29 april 2022 discussions on transit migration have for long focused on presenting the experiences of migrants transiting through a given place at a specific time in a linear manner. accordingly, most prior research adopts a snapshot approach to examine the lived experiences of transit migrants. this paper argues that such an approach fails to aptly capture the gist of the complex nature of transiting and the dynamics of change in the migration trajectories. it emphasizes the need to have a diachronic approach in examining the transit migration trajectory of migrants, considering the fact that the transit experience is not often bound to a given place and space, as it can be inferred from the case of ethiopian female migrants presented in this paper. furthermore, the discourse on transit migration often portrays transit migrants as individuals stranded in a place against their will and lacking the agency to decide about their prospects of mobility/immobility. by drawing on an extended ethnographic study conducted over the course of six years (2017–2022) in djibouti and in ethiopia, this paper explores the intricate transit experiences of ethiopian female migrants in two different transit places and their agency in deciding about their mobility/immobility, redefining their destinations and transit pathways, and settlement, a theme that escaped attention in prior works on female migration from ethiopia. keywords: female migrants, ethiopia, djibouti, rerouting transit, agency 1 researcher mideq project. addis ababa university, ethiopia.  eressokiyya@gmail.com © the author 2022 the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants 10 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 setting the scene ... istanbul was my dream destination when i left my birth village in northern ethiopia back in 2017. like many waiting here, i am revisiting my plan and looking for other alternatives. my latest plan is to move to the sudan via metema in may, insihallah (hikmat; 01 march 2018; djibouti city). i stayed in djibouti for 2 years, waiting for the turkish visa that never arrived. by end of 2019, i left djibouti and had to return back to ethiopia to take the northwestern route with the hope to get to sudan and proceed further. my stay in metema, which was originally supposed to be a short-lived one, turned out to be for good. metema became my istanbul (hikmat; 22 october 2020; metema town, ethiopia). introduction the account of the female transit migrant, hikmat, aptly captures the gist of the complex nature of transiting and the dynamics of change in migratory routes, the core issue addressed in this paper. the gendered migration pattern in contemporary ethiopia can be seen in the massive labor migration to the middle east and the gulf states which has for long been dominated by female labor migrants. the post-1990 period in ethiopia was marked by the mass exodus of thousands leaving the country in search for work in the oil rich gulf states and beyond (de regt, 2009). the major destinations for ethiopian female labor migrants in the 1990s and 2000s include dubai, kuwait, lebanon, and saudi arabia. in addition to the oil rich gulf countries, thousands of ethiopian female labor migrants were destined for economically lessdeveloped countries such as djibouti and the sudan (zeleke, 2019). despite the mass exodus, there is no official record of the number of migrants leaving ethiopia, or gender-segregated data, except for a few anecdotal sources. the ministry of labor and social affairs (molsa) estimates that around 1.5 million ethiopians had left the country illegally between 2008 and 2014 (girmachew, 2021). during this time, 480,480 ethiopians migrated to arab countries legally and women account for about 95 percent of these documented migrants (ibid). several factors account for the phenomenon of the feminization of labor migration from ethiopia. these include: the rising demand for cheaper sources of labor in the middle east and gulf states; the unemployment and poverty rate in ethiopia; and structural factors at places of destination, such as the existence of the khafala labor migrant sponsorship system (dessiye, 2001). a crucial factor that often went unnoticed or underdiscussed is existing socio-cultural gendered norms and values in ethiopia. reports indicate that about 160,000 undocumented ethiopian migrants were deported from saudi arabia between november 2013 and april 2014. during 2016– 2017, the kingdom of saudi arabia deported more than 120,000 ethiopians. an estimated number of 1,780,000 migrants have left ethiopia for the middle east and 11 gulf countries (girmachew, 2021). the objective of this paper is to examine the migration trajectories and lived experiences of ethiopian female transit migrants moving from djibouti to the sudan. the paper elucidates the factors that informed their decisions and choices to reroute their migration paths and assesses the actors and factors involved. the paper pays due attention to the accounts of those who have moved to metema (a bordering town on the ethio-sudanese border), where the migrants spend longer periods of transiting. through the examination of the lived experiences of ethiopian female migrants, the paper foregrounds the creative strategies the migrants employ while negotiating their precarious and vulnerable positions and making informed decisions about their migration trajectories. furthermore, the study aims to understand the prospects of mobility and/or settlement of migrants in transit, including the factors that affect their informed decisions to continue the migration journey, to settle down, or to return home. these issues are contextualized by examining whether geopolitical factors in any way affect their potential mobility or immobility. by addressing these themes, the paper aims to contribute to academic discussions on transit migration. the remaining parts of the paper are structured into five sections. it starts off with the section that provides background information on the gendered trends in the migration and transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants. the next section presents a review of the literature on discourses of transit migration, and introduces the analytical framework. this is followed by a discussion of the methodological considerations. the next section presents the empirical material by drawing on the accounts of key informants and their lived experiences in the two transit places. the final section presents concluding remarks. background ethiopia’s official ban of the legal migration to the gulf states in 2013/4 increased the number of female migrants resorting to irregular migration using different routes. these irregular migration routes involve several stopovers, often referred to as transit places. djibouti is a transit country often used by ethiopian labor migrants destined for the middle east (rmms, 2017). apart from its significance as a transit pathway, djibouti city, the capital of the republic of djibouti, is one of the fastest growing cities in the horn of africa region and is sometimes labeled as the “future dubai of the horn of africa”. the civil war in yemen has resulted in large influx of yemeni refugees and ethiopian migrant returnees from yemen via djibouti between 2016 and 2019. during this time, some ethiopian female transit migrants in djibouti considered looking for alternative destinations and transit routes. according to the finding of the study conducted by the author, between 2017-2019 a significant number of these migrants had left djibouti for the sudan. sudan is one of the major transit and destination countries in the horn of africa. the finding of the extended study on ethiopian female transit migrants indicates how migration routes and the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants 12 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 migration aspirations change. the finding of the study conducted by the author further elucidates the fluid space of mobility in the horn of africa region. as there is no direct route connecting djibouti and the sudan, the migrants have to travel back to ethiopia before crossing to the sudan. sudan has for long been a transit pathway for migrants from western and eastern african countries destined for europe, the gulf and northern african countries (babkier, 2011). sudan’s geographical location and its long porous border with neighboring countries makes it a transit country for irregular migrants having the strategic significance for smuggling services (ayalew et al., 2018). the migration routes in the sudan are destined for libya (the northwestern route) and the other one leading to the sinai peninsula in egypt (the eastern route) constitutes the pillar of the so-called east africa migration route. there is an estimation that close to three million ethiopians reside in the sudan (zakir, 2019). ethiopia is one of the top three countries of origin of the migrants in sudan, after south sudan, and eritrea (babkier, 2011). this unprecedented complex development of rerouting transit pathways observed over the course of the study has left the author with key questions. in order to understand the changing transit migration experiences of the female migrants under study, the emerging intricate picture needs to be scrutinized in its full complexity. hence, the paper seeks to bridge this gap by examining the dynamics of the transit migration trajectories of ethiopian female migrants and thus aims to understand the various factors informing their decisions to reroute their migration paths and the related decision-making process while in transit. the paper sets out to answer several questions. firstly, what are the different reasons that inform the migrants’ decisions to leave djibouti and re-route to the sudan? secondly, drawing on papadopouloukourkoula’s (2008: 5) point that transiting is a situation that “may or may not develop into further migration”, the paper asks, how do the migrants consider the new transit and what are the different factors that influence the migrants’ decisions to further immigrate to the sudan, or to settle at the place of transit, or to return home? thirdly, by acknowledging the agency of the transit migrants, the paper asks, how do the migrants navigate around and muddle through existing options and changing migration trajectories while trying to make sense of their new social experiences in the new transit setting? the empirical basis of this paper is the extended ethnographic study conducted from 2017 to 2022 in djibouti and in ethiopia. this is discussed more fully in the methodology section. conceptual framework: reflections on the discourses of transit migration despite the prominence of the concept of transit migration for over three decades, there is no commonly agreed-upon definition of the concept of transit migration. the un/ece (1993: 7) defines transit migration as “migration in one country with the intention of seeking the possibility there to immigrate to another country as the 13 country of destination”. transit is also defined as “the stage between emigration and settlement” (papadopoulou, 2005: 2). cassarino and fargues (2006) conceptualize transit migration as a process rather than a migration status. coutin (2005: 196) points out the inherent challenges and dangers faced by migrants in transit: “the term transit denotes the time and space when migrants are most bereft of state protection and, therefore are more vulnerable to crime, exploitation, injury, and death. transit also redefines the territories through which migrants pass”. for others, transit migration refers either to “ongoing mobility” involving undocumented border crossing (düvell, 2006) or to a period of “involuntary immobility” (collyer et al., 2010). a conceptualization of transit by exclusively associating it with countries that migrants cross to get to their respective final destinations, contradicts the common reality in which countries often tend to fit in broader categories of origin, transit, and destination, challenging the discourse of the ‘destination–origin’ dichotomy (suter, 2012). two features stand out in the study of transit migration, namely, the migrants’ intention to move on, and the temporariness of the transit (suter, 2012). the centrality of these two features is however, contested. ethnographic studies proved that places described as ‘transit’ are often considered as, or become, final destinations (collyer, 2007). this paper draws on papadopoulou-kourkoula’s (2008) framework describing transit as the situation between emigration and settlement, characterized by indefinite migrant stay, that may or may not develop into further migration, depending on different factors. this paper adds to the existing discourse on transit migration, the fact that transit migration is characterized by indefinite routes of further mobility as the routes of next migration and destinations might be reconsidered while en route, as the analysis of the empirical findings of the research project on ethiopian female migrants presented in this paper clearly shows. one of the major limitations in the conceptualization of transit migration relates to the eurocentric undertones of the term, informed by an underlying assumption describing european union (eu) countries as intended destinations of transit migrants (düvell, 2006). such presumption recognizes countries at the fringes of europe as main transit countries, while paying less attention to countries located further away (suter, 2012). by going beyond such geographical bias in transit research, this paper presents the experience of transit migrants at two transit points in the horn of africa. the factors influencing decision-making of migrants in general and that of transit migrants in particular, tend to be varied and complex in nature. suter (2012) argues that the decision leading up to spatial mobility or immobility in transit is not clear-cut, but a process that highly depends on external factors. brewer and yükseker (2011) accentuate the value of access to information as being a key factor. van hear (2004) places emphasis on migrants’ access to economic resources, while other scholars foreground lived experiences of migrants in transit and the conditions they face during transit (jordan and düvell, 2002,). since this paper aims to understand the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants 14 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 the factors that affect the decision-making of transit migrants in rerouting their migratory routes, the primary question is: what are the different factors informing the decision of ethiopian female transit migrants to reroute their migratory pathways from djibouti to sudan? the discourse on transit migration often portrays transit migrants as passive individuals who are contained in a given space against their will (düvell, 2006). accordingly, transit migration is often associated with illegality, high risk, and lack of control over one’s own state of being (collyer et al., 2010). furthermore, the common feature in transit literature is focused on the migrants’ journey, the challenges they face, with little or no focus on exploring their lived experience (see e.g., hammond, 2006). this paper is framed against conventional discourses of transit migration, that often portray migrants in transit as criminal trespassers, passive actors who lack agency, without control over their mobility and immobility. by going beyond such a pre-biased perspective, this paper aims to contribute to the gap on the agency of transit migrants. as schapendonk (2018: 665) observes: … migration trajectories cannot be explained by focusing solely on migrant agency as a form of autonomous power. in fact, the evolvement of individual pathways depends so much on social networks, brokering services, helping hands, un/expected encounters and policy interventions”. the lived experiences of ethiopian female transit migrants presented in this paper clearly show how the migrants use the rerouting of migration pathways as a coping strategy and it further examines the resourcefulness of the transit migrants in planning/replanning their mobility and/or immobility from their new transit area, metema. this paper argues that transit migrants make informed decisions in identifying the migratory routes, their final destinations as well as their overall mobility/immobility, as expounded in the case material presented in this paper. the discussions highlight how the female migrants’ action – or inaction; or mobility/ immobility – is at times a well-thought-out move, unlike the main discourse that emphasizes the victimhood narrative. the discussions on transit migration have for long adopted a linear understanding of migration (oelgemöller, 2011). however, such assumptions on linearity are debunked in this paper, which acknowledges the dynamics of ethiopian female migrants who change the directions of their migration and their aspirations while in transit. methodology the changing nature of migration trajectories in transit often poses a methodological challenge to researchers studying transit migration. the data collection method adopted by the author challenges the common trend of ‘methodological nationalism’ 15 often observed in migration research. methodological nationalism is an ideological orientation that approaches the study of social and historical processes as if they were contained within the borders of individual nation-states (glick schiller, 2009). by going beyond such an orientation, the empirical study leading to this publication problematizes the migration trajectories of transit migrants as a phenomenon that is not contained in particular space and time. transit migration research is by and large dominated by sedentarism thought which shapes the data collection method, whereby the researches tend focus on the points of departure and arrival, representing migration as a predominantly bipolar process (bredeloup, 2012; schapendonk, 2012; suter, 2012). the research methods adopted are hence often framed with the expectation of migrants moving in straight lines that commence in the village, go through the town, the metropolis, and eventually reach international destinations (schapendonk, 2018). by going beyond such a dominant approach of a linear understanding of a transit pathway, as a movement that starts at a place, transits at one specific site and ends at a destination, this research project resorted to a broader approach that examines a spatial-temporal link between migrants’ situations in different transit places, both in djibouti and ethiopia. accordingly, the study on the transit lived experiences of the ethiopian female migrants was conducted in djibouti and metema. as van liempt and bilger (2006) suggest, in order to be able to capture the changing dynamics of migration trajectories of the migrants, ideally the same migrants should be interviewed at different moments along their migration process, to better comprehend their experience. the study adopted such an approach that pays attention to mobility in transit migration and draws on following the lived experiences of the same key informants interviewed in djibouti. the empirical basis of the paper is an ethnographic study on ethiopian female transit migrants, conducted in both djibouti and in ethiopia from 2017 to 2022. this paper draws on the lived experiences of ethiopian female migrants documented in both djibouti and metema. the rapport established with the informants in djibouti over three years (2017–2019) helped the author to win their trust and maintain strong contact. the author was in close communication with the informants through regular calls and communication via social media, especially telegram and whatsapp, which most migrants frequent. this helped the author to gain further insights into their migration trajectories, mainly pertaining to their rerouted transit pathways and their decisions to move/not to move across time and space. based on the relationship established and maintained, the author visited the key informants during follow-up visits in metema, the places migrants moved to in 2020–2021. of the 15 key informants, two have already left for the sudan; the author met 12 of the key informants in metema. nine of these informants were between the ages of 25 and 30, while two informants were aged 19, one informant was 31 years old, two informants are 33 years old and the oldest one was 35. by going beyond the mere analysis of the factors that affect their mobility and as a way of specifying the the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants 16 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 agency of the migrants, the in-depth interviews focused on how the migrants navigate around and muddle through existing options and changing migration trajectories while trying to make sense of their new social experiences. related to this, one of the questions addressed in the study is: what are the factors that influence the migrants’ decisions to further immigrate to a specific destination, or to reside in djibouti, or to return home? in addition to in-depth interviews conducted with the key informants in djibouti and ethiopia, the researcher conducted two focus group discussions (fgds) with a group of female migrants in metema. the fgds were used to comprehend the lived experiences of ethiopian female migrants in transit in metema and to understand the various challenges they faced during transit. by going beyond the normative victimization narrative, during the data collection, due attention was paid to the creative strategies the migrants employed while negotiating their precarious and vulnerable positions. the multi-site study approach goes against one of the major limitations in the study of mobility in transit research, that often inclines to privilege analyses of separate segments of individuals’ migratory paths, rather than capturing the longitudinal character of migration (castagnone, 2011). the long duration of the study – from 2017 to 2022 – enabled the author to conduct extended fieldwork in both study sites. in addition to the interviews and fgds, the researcher conducted informal conversations with local residents of metema town and did observations during the fieldwork in different neighborhoods where the transit migrants resided, with the aim of gaining further insights into the informants’ socio-economic situations. during the study, the author frequently visited small coffee shops and restaurants run by the transit migrants, as well as those places where transit migrants were employed, to get insights into their work routines and the prospects of their integration with the locals. as a way of protecting the identity of informants, all names used in this paper are pseudonyms. examining rerouted transit and settlement at transit: accounts of ethiopian female migrants in djibouti and ethiopia this part of the paper closely examines two themes, namely: the factors responsible for the rerouting of migration pathways/transit points; and the factors enhancing or inhibiting forward mobility from the second transit place – in this instance, metema. redefining destination and transit one of the key general research questions addressed during the course of the study was a question pertaining to how migrants decide to redefine destinations and transit points. given the complex nature of decision-making during transit, such an attempt to capture the nuances of decision-making of transit migrants should aim at 17 exploring multiple factors “by going beyond a monocausal analysis of the decisionmaking process” (zeleke, 2019: 60). even though factors influencing one’s decisionmaking process during transit tend to be subjective in nature, the findings of the study show how some factors are shared by groups of informants, as it can be inferred from the discussion here. geopolitics – conflict in yemen the civil war in yemen and the resulting humanitarian crisis that led to the mass exodus from yemen is one of the developments that affected the migration dynamics in and around the horn of africa. following the uprising in 2011 that overthrew the authoritarian regime led by the ousted president, ali abdullah saleh, yemen ended up in a volatile situation that led to a violent civil war. the war in yemen has left yemenis in a desperate situation and by october 2017 around 37,000 yemenis has fled to djibouti (semnani and sydney, 2020). even though the markazi refugee camp established at the outskirts of the portal town of obock in northern djibouti hosts yemeni refugees, thousands of yemenis have moved further south to mainland djibouti, to the capital djibouti city. this has affected the soaring living costs in djibouti where the rental costs and prices for consumable goods, including food, have skyrocketed. furthermore, the civil war in yemen has also led to the return of thousands of ethiopian migrants from yemen via djibouti. the transcript from the fgd conducted with five informants in metema, states how such geo-political situations impacted on the decision-making process of rerouting a migration path: following the arrival of the yemenis, djiboutian landlords doubled the rentals and the overall living costs in djibouti soared. the yemenis came with money and they have a strong support base from their relatives in the diaspora. the locals prefer to rent their houses to the yemenis who were ready to pay whatever amount they are asked for. even though they are generally called sidetegna (refugees), the yemeni started running businesses in djibouti – opening restaurants and shops. we had to look for other alternatives as there was no way that we could compete with the yemenis in djibouti (fgd; 25 march 2021; metema). even though most informants shared the concern of the rising cost of living, two informants described the impact of the civil war on their decision-making differently. for them, a more pressing factor for reconsidering their migration journey, was the insecurity of the migration route via yemen: one must be out of one’s mind to consider traveling to saudi via yemen at this time. we met hundreds of ethiopian migrants who made it back to djibouti and shared their horrific experiences. we also saw with our own eyes – injured the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants 18 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 yemenis and ethiopians in djibouti. so how can one consider proceeding to yemen under such circumstances? (fgd; 20 september 2021; metema). the civil war in yemen and its spillover impact has in one way or the other impacted on the decision-making processes of rerouting the transit pathways of ethiopian female informants, in their decision to leave djibouti to look for alternative destinations. studies have focused on the nexus between conflict and migration, emphasizing how migration results from conflicts and in return leads to new conflicts (adamson, 2006). this paper argues that there is a need to go beyond the discussion on the correlation between migration and conflicts in the context of forced displacement. the analysis of the aforementioned cases shows how the conflict dynamics impact on the transit trajectories of migrants – an element that goes beyond the context of forced displacement. risks associated with strict immigration policy in 2011, the government of saudi arabia introduced the nitaqat programme, commonly known as the saudi nationalization scheme – a policy implemented by the ministry of labor, requiring saudi employers to hire saudi nationals. this resulted in a crackdown on irregular migrants in saudi arabia. by november 2013, saudi arabia evicted more than 163,000 ethiopian irregular migrants (girmachew, 2021). in march 2017 a strict measure targeting irregular migrants was launched by the government of the kingdom of saudi arabia (ksa). this was a campaign known as ‘a nation without violations’ whereby irregular migrants in the kingdom were granted an amnesty period of 90 days to leave the country. the international organization for migration (iom, 2019) estimated the existence of 500,000 irregular migrants in the kingdom of saudi arabia by march 2017. the amnesty period lasted until november 2017, after which the ksa government started taking harsh measures of detaining and deporting hundreds of thousands of ethiopian migrants. about 10,000 ethiopians on average were detained and deported by saudi authorities every month (hrw, 2020). during the fgds, informants emphasized how this development discouraged their forward journey to crossing over to yemen and proceeding to saudi arabia: thousands are being deported from saudi until this day, while thousands are detained in an overcrowded jail. we have come across short video footages showing how uninhabitable the jails in saudi are. there was a short 2-minute video that went viral on whatsapp, showing the hardship of a young ethiopian mother and her new-born child in an overcrowded prison where her cellmates were trying to help. there were other graphic images coming out about the inhuman treatment of ethiopian migrants in saudi and watching those terrible videos was a game changer to my migration plan (fgd; 25 april 2021; metema). 19 the strict migration regime was raised as a push factor to reconsider the original plan of traveling to saudi arabia. for many, sudan seems to offer opportunities for work that they aspired to find in saudi arabia, but with relatively less pay and a safer working environment: even though one cannot compare the fee to be earned in saudi arabia to what one would earn in sudan, for me my life and wellbeing matters most, as i can only enjoy whatever i earn, only if i am alive (tiruwerk; 03 may 2021; metema). the issues pertaining to strict migration regime and immigration policies often draw boundaries that inhibit integration, making migrants feel that they are in a state of permanent transit (nyamnjoh, 2007). likewise, the analysis of the data indicates how migrant decision-making is not a straightforward process and points to how an often-overlooked and underexplored factor of the perceptions of risk influences the decision-making of the migrants in rerouting their migration pathway. the circulation and perception of the available risk information plays a role in the decision-making process. hardship during transit many informants recounted the hardship encountered during transit in djibouti and state how that contributed to their decision-making to reroute. many considered immobility and time spent in transit as being a transitional stage when migrants acquired some life-skills while working in djibouti. however, the lived experience related to the difficulty of finding a job in djibouti and the low wages earned in djiboutian households was mentioned as one of the factors that pushed the informants to look for alternative transits and destinations, as the account by muna shows: i arrived in djibouti in 2015 with an ambitious plan and hope to work as a maid for 6 months and earn an income to cover my trip to saudi arabia. i spent 2 years working as a janitor in a hotel in djibouti but i hardly managed to pay for my accommodation and food, let alone saving for financing my trip to saudi. when i heard about the better fee and better living conditions in sudan, i decided to leave djibouti and traveled to sudan (muna; 02 march 2021; metema). as suter (2012) argues, the challenges encountered during transit often force migrants to look for alternative pathways, as the case of muna and several ethiopian female transit migrants elucidates. the other aspect of hardship raised by informants relates to the negative encounters migrants had from abusive police and immigration officers in the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants 20 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 djibouti city. there is a strong crackdown on illegal migrants, leading to frequent imprisonment and deportation of migrants. all 5 participants of a focus group discussion encountered such maltreatment by the local police due to their illegal residential status: some policemen feel entitled to getting a bribe from irregular migrants. bribing the local police is like sharing whatever we earn equally with them. many of us had to change the neighborhoods we lived in, just trying to run away from such abuses. a local policeman living in the neighborhood approached us through our landlord, asking for a weekly bribe of 100 birr. we were threatened that he would report us to the immigration authorities if we failed to pay him. we used to contribute 25 birr every week and paid him for about 2 months (fgd; 20 april 2021; metema). the encounters of the ethiopian female transit migrants resonate with horwood’s account that irregular migrants in transit in the republic of south africa “pass immigration officials in large numbers and pay ‘fees’ / bribes …” (horwood, 2009: 43). while transiting in djibouti, the migrants encountered various challenges, ranging from economic hardship, detention, kidnapping for ransom, to sexual abuse. these challenges were described by informants as being among the leading factors that made them reconsider their original migration plans and rerouted their migration route. social networks and information the findings of the extended study conducted at both transit points show the value of social networks in influencing migrants’ decision to reroute their migration journey. the value of social networks can be examined from two perspectives. for some, the strong social network they have with friends and family members who took the north western migratory route to sudan is the main source of information. for this group of informants, their friends and family members in sudan are their main pool of information about the living conditions in sudan. this group of informants accentuated how the relative sense of deprivation pushed them to consider leaving djibouti for the sudan, as the following account clearly shows: i have a friend and two cousins in khartoum. they all earn between 175–200 usd working in a cafeteria in khartoum. they are free to live on their own and live in a rented room that they share. i am working at a house with extended families of 8 [in djibouti]. i am a live-in maid and hence i work day and night and earn only 100 usd a month. i have to rent a place for my weekend days off on friday. the income they earn and the work opportunities they have in khartoum are by far better than the limited options one has in djibouti. i will 21 be leaving for khartoum in march (betty; 04 january 2018; djibouti). as brewer and yükseker (2011) emphasize, access to information is a key factor that influences the decision-making of the migrants on the move. betty’s account above clearly shows how the information that transit migrants get from their social networks impacts on the decision-making process. in some cases, the value of social networks extends to the provision of a safety-net to migrants in the form of financial support. the second dimension of the value of social networks relates to the networks that migrants established in djibouti. migrants in djibouti have institutional and non-institutional social networks. the weekly church service in djibouti is one of the main platforms where they exchange information about a wide range of issues, including alternative routes and destinations. furthermore, there is a vibrant customary self-help association of migrants in djibouti called idir/kire, a forum that migrants get information from. it is a customary member-supported association where by members of the association meet on occasions such as weddings and in circumstances when members lose their loved ones. the kire social gatherings are occasions when migrants get together and exchange information on a wide range of issues including contacts of brokers, contacts of individuals at the destinations – both in metema and khartoum, and exchange information about potential co-migrants, i.e., individuals planning to depart. the lived experiences of the migrants relate to the phenomenon that jordan and düvell (2002) discuss on how lived experiences of migrants in transit and the conditions they face during transit influence their prospects of further mobility and immobility. based on the analysis of the empirical data on the diverse factors that migrants consider in redirecting their migration journeys presented above, this paper argues against the dominant discourse presuming migration decisions during transit are often taken in the context of idiosyncratic personal needs, stress, urgency, uncertainty, and limited information about livelihood opportunities (düvell, 2006). transit migrants are often portrayed as migrants stranded in a certain place against their will, often having limited access to resources and information (carling, 2002). on the other hand, the lived experience of the ethiopian female migrants clearly shows how initial plans of migration tend to change and are redefined during the transit phases of the migration trajectory. furthermore, the paper argues that an attempt to examine the factors responsible for the rerouting of migration journeys, should take into account a multitude of factors, ranging from social networks, and access to information, to experiences during transit. redefining transit as destination by going beyond examining the rerouting of migration journeys, this paper also aims at understanding the multitude of factors and the complex decision-making process of migrants in settling at a place originally considered to be a transit pathway. examining the issue is essential. of the 15 key informants whose stories the author the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants 22 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 closely followed up, only two proceeded to the sudan, one reconsidered the whole idea of migrating, while the remaining 12 decided to stay in metema, a transit place. migrants rerouting their journey from djibouti to sudan, pass though the border town of metema yohannes, commonly known as metema. the town is located in northwestern ethiopia, in amhara regional state, west gondar zone, metema wereda. metema wereda has 19 rural kebeles and two urban districts, namely gendewuha, and metema yohannes. following the administrative adjustment in 2015, metema yohannes town was upgraded from a kebele to a town administration with an independent municipality. the town became a bustling business center, given its strategic location on the border of the two countries and its a strategic position in its proximity to the sudan. the area has significant commercial importance in ethiosudanese business relationships and also for the historical long-distance trade route running from gondar, up to timbuktu via northern africa (hagose, 2014). metema’s significance as a transit pathway for migrants destined for sudan has a long history (ayalew et al., 2018). the town of metema yohannes and the sudanese border town of gallabat in gadarif state share 10 km border. metema yohannes and gallabat are separated by a porous border – a bridge demarcating this international border. this route was used by thousands of political refugees who ran away from the political persecution of the derg regime in the 1970s and 1980s (hagose, 2014). historically the border area is known for the volatile conflicts that took place at different times (gezahegne, 2019). the analysis of these key findings pertaining to the settlement of the migrants at the supposedly transit place, metema town accentuates schapendonk’s account that migration trajectories in transit are beyond mobility, involving periods of immobility, waiting, reorientation and (un)intended temporary or long-term settlements (schapendonk, 2012). the circumstances of immobility while transiting in metema, as the account of the 12 key informants interviewed both in djibouti and metema clearly show, are therefore an important part of the migration trajectory that allow the migrants to gain new experiences, acquire new information and reconsider their original migration plans. schewel (2020) asserts that understanding the multitude of factors that hold people in a place, are important in getting a full understanding of their immobility. the closer examination of the lived experiences of the key informants revealed the interplay of several factors that informed their decisions to settle in metema, as presented here. work opportunities for many, metema offers ample work opportunities, mostly in the informal petty business sector and informants recounted how this experience changed their original plans. metema is the hotspot for both small-scale petty trading and large-scale cross-border trade. the metema-gallabat border is well-known for the regular and irregular trade and mobility of goods and people. metema has a strategic significance for the bustling business due to the mega agricultural cash-crop farming, and its 23 wealth of livestock resources (bakewell et al., 2020). a recent policy framework that contributed to the enhancement of the commercial significance of metema yohannes is the petty periphery cross border trade (ppcbt), an agreement that offers residents of the border areas an opportunity to be involved in small-scale business and trading of food commodities and small consumable goods. this was developed with the intention of controlling the informal cross-border trade. three of the informants were actively involved in cross-border informal cross-border trade. they smuggle mainly coffee, sunflower (suf), and butter from the ethiopian side and bring henna, edible oil, spices/herbs and perfumes from sudan. the migrants originally started the informal cross-border business as a share business with well-established residents of metema town. they all mentioned how in due course they became autonomous and changed their original plans of proceeding to sudan once they found the business lucrative and profitable. hirut reported it thus: i came to metema in february 2019 with the intention of moving to sudan. but once i reached here, i met several returnees from sudan who are involved in informal cross-border trade. i was lucky to be introduced to a family friend, a woman who was in saudi arabia with my sister and returned to metema in 2016. she mentored me on how to get into the business. i had only 5,000 birr – money that i used as a start-up capital when i first crossed over to sudan. even though my intention was to do the shiqala (trade) for a while and move on, i found myself in this business for the last 2 years. there are some challenges with the tax authorities which at times become discouraging, but i am now learning the best way to deal with it and i do not see myself migrating to sudan or anywhere else (hirut; 20 october 2021; metema). unlike the victimization narrative that portrays transit migrants as passive individuals – as passive agents, mere victims stranded en route devoid of agency (dowd, 2008), in most circumstances, transit migrants make informed decisions in various circumstances. hirut mentioned two challenges: the border control of informal cross-border trade often done by the officials stationed at the customs post of the ethiopian revenue and customs authority in metema yohannes; and the curfew. there is a curfew on the cross-border – residents of the two border towns are allowed to cross the borders between 7:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. and they commute across the border daily. this paper argues that while research studies pay attention to the structural constraints, they need to simultaneously engage in examining how transit migrants cope with and overcome the challenges. for others, the work opportunities relate to starting up a small business. two other informants had started running small coffee shops, locally often referred to as yajabana bunna bet. the small coffee shops are not limited to the town of metema the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants 24 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 yohannes, as in some cases, individuals cross the border to gallabat and sell coffee and tea at the sudanese market. tilaye, one of the key informants, mentioned that she decided to extend her stay in metema after she started the small coffee shop at the bus stop where she serves hundreds of customers in a day. she expanded her business by employing a young girl from wollo, who crosses the border daily to sell tea, coffee and ethiopian bread (difo dabo) in galabat market. tilaye pays about 200 sudanese pound (circa 0.50 usd) for the rental of the shade and a tax daily. meti, another key informant, runs a small road-side restaurant in metema town. her road-side restaurant is made of a rugged and faded emergency tent that accommodates up to seven customers at a time. her main customers are daily laborers, locally referred to as saluges: my main customers are the saluges, who come to work on the large-scale plantations and farmland on both the ethiopian and sudanese sides of the border. i had a large number of customers over the summer (july to the end of august) as many would come during school break holidays to work and earn an income to cover their school expenses the following year. after paying for the rent of this shelter, and the salary of the girl assisting me, i make a profit of up to 5,000 birr a month on average. even though this is not much considering the labor that goes into it, i am quite grateful and satisfied with the income (meti; 20 september 2021; metema). the saluges that meti referred to, work on the ethiopian side of the border on different sesame and cotton plantation farms in the district during the rainy season. most of them move to the sudan during the autumn and work on the large-scale sorghum plantations. metema yohannes is renowned for its status as a transit area to these migrant workers. the agricultural high seasons from june to september are times when hundreds of thousands of people working as day laborers in the mechanized agricultural farms flock to the area. for others, another work opportunity is related to either working in or running bars. selamawit, a key informant who settled in metema, runs her own mini-bar in jingira, a red-light neighborhood. she moved to metema in november 2019 with the intention of moving further to the sudan. upon arriving in metema she was welcomed by a friend whom she knew back in djibouti, who was running the bar, which selamawit took over. she narrated her experience as follows: i was lucky to be welcomed by lily, who integrated well to metema by the time i got here. upon getting here, i started working in this bar as a bar attendant. i was with her for almost a year and a half before she left for cairo. her sudanese boyfriend, who is a businessman, helped lily to move to egypt. i took over her business and now there are three young girls working for me – one of them is a returnee from sudan who speaks fluent [arabic]; her clients are mostly 25 sudanese tourists. the other two girls have ethiopian and sudanese clients. the reason why you don’t see many sudanese men now, is because this is their fasting season, the ramadan. i don’t have any intention of migrating further and i don’t also have any plans to do what i am doing now. my plan is to work hard, save enough, get some basic training and open a small beauty salon in addis (selamawit; 05 may 2020; metema). selamawit’s account indicates how social networks affect migration decisions and subsequent movements of migrants. the stage of waiting while in transit, is significant in giving the migrants in transit a chance to reflect on their further mobility plans. the sudanese men often cross over to the ethiopian side, mainly to metema yohannes town for business and entertainment. most of the small bars sell alcohol, an item which is banned in sudan. kinfu (2019) indicates that there are over 300 hotels, bars, nightclubs and restaurants housing sex workers in metema. as the lived experiences of the seven informants presented above clearly show, the different work opportunities they secured in metema are considered as significant improvements in their lives, regardless of how little, but significant the money that they generate is. this shows how the work opportunities that the migrants come across are fulfilling in enhancing their sense of increased self-esteem and self-worth – factors that make them reconsider their further mobility plans. this phenomenon challenges the very conceptualization of transit that by and large is associated with countries that migrants cross to get to their respective final destinations. as the case of ethiopian female transit migrants clearly shows, places that are supposedly considered as transit areas, like metema, tend to fit rather into broader categories of origin, transit, and destination, challenging the discourse of the ‘destination–origin’ dichotomy (suter, 2012). relationships and starting a family relationships and starting a family are additional factors that play a significant role in the decision to settle at the place of transit, reconsidering migration plans. the migrants start relationships, either with local ethiopian men or in some cases with sudanese. for two of the key informants, the relationships and the families they established in metema are described as being key factors that made them reconsider their original migration aspirations. nina, one of the key informants, married a local businessman and was expecting her first child at the time of the interview. she summarized her experiences in metema: starting a family has been my life-time dream. but considering the situation i was in, like spending three years in djibouti and with the plan of moving to egypt. i never saw myself starting a family in the near future. after getting to metema i got the information about the possibilities of migrating to israel with the help of sudanese brokers – information which made me reconsider my the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants 26 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 original plan of moving to cairo, back in 2019. the travel to israel is expensive and for that i had to work and make a saving. i rented a small verandah where i started running a coffee shop with the hope of working for a year and then proceed further. i met my current husband by the end of 2020. he used to own a grain store around the neighborhood of my coffee shop. he was my regular customer and we started dating. i moved in and started living with him in january 2021. now i am a wife and will soon be a mother. there is no way that i can leave behind my new family; so metema is where i will be spending the rest of my time, inshihallah (nina; 07 september 2021; metema). as schapendonk (2018) observes, the evolvement of individual migration pathways is highly influenced by different factors, including social networks and un/expected encounters. in line with this observation, zinat’s experience of relationship and marriage has impacted her migration trajectory. zinat is an informant, described by locals as a sheqaba, a broker. informants emphasized that she is a middleperson working with local and sudanese brokers involved in smuggling migrants. zinat is in a de facto marriage with her sudanese partner, whom she was dating for over eight months and whom she refers to as bal (husband) even though they are not yet officially married. her partner kareem is based in galabat. zinat related her experiences, below: my husband, kareem, is an official agent for the sudanese investor that runs a cotton farm in galabat. they often get workers for the farm from here [metema]. he travels to metema at least once a month on a business trip. i met him in february 2021 through his ethiopian friend, a broker who has business here and in gonder. kareem is divorced from his sudanese wife and has three children. he bought this small house for me and helped me to start the kiosk i am running now. i mainly sell coffee, incense and sudanese perfume. i help my husband with his business mainly in recruiting local workers. even though many workers would cross the border without any work contracts, my husband and the local delala are also liaising to recruit those who want to cross the border on a work contract (toleb). this does not incur a cost to the saluges, as my husband and his co-worker are paid by the sudanese investors who are looking for a reliable worker. my role in most cases is to introduce the young men looking for jobs, to the friend of my husband, who is mostly here in metema. my shop is located near meqomiya, a station where the daily laborers hang out to be picked. there are dozens of kiimits (mistresses) of sudanese men in this small town. i don’t want to end up like them, but rather start living with my husband and we are in the process of legalizing our marriage (zinat; 21 september 2021; metema). zinat felt uneasy about being referred to as a sheqaba, as the word denotes being 27 involved in the smuggling business. the analysis of the aforementioned case and similar cases shows how social networks shape the migration decisions and subsequent prospects of mobility/ immobility of migrants. the social networks might range from the networks that migrants have with their friends, close family members, extended family members, and people they met en route. essence of time there was a phrase which informants used during the fgds, emphasizing the essence and value of time. on two different occasions informants cited an amharic saying that seemed to be familiar to all taking part in the discussion: gize werik new la set lij degimo almazwa (time is gold for all, while it is a diamond for a woman). when the author probed further about the meaning of this popular saying, all informants emphasized how powerful this statement is, underscoring the value of time for the subjects of the study: one thing that we realized through time, is the indefinite nature of a migration journey. we came here with the assumption that crossing over to the sudan will be quite easy. i am turning 30 in a week. i have spent three years in djibouti and another one year here. it might take me another 5 years to get to europe and bear in mind that i am a woman. i am racing against time as the biological clock is ticking for us women. [at this point, all the fgd participants nod their heads in agreement with the informant, fozia] … once a woman is over 30, it gets harder to conceive, and even if she does, she runs a greater risk of having an unhealthy baby (fgd; 20 april 2021; metema). time spent at the second transit place, metema, gives the migrants the chance to reflect on their past migration experiences and their future migration plans. the indefinite time-frame emphasized in the quotation above, is considered an essential element affecting the decision to settle at the place of transit. this is a clear example of why researchers need to adopt a gender lens in migration processes. geopolitics – crises in sudan informants referred to geo-political instability as being a key element inhibiting further mobility from metema. the revolution in sudan and the subsequent political instability, have their roots in the protests against former sudanese president omar al-bashir’s imposed emergency austerity measures and the resulting economic inflation. these factors have caused many to reconsider their original plans of moving to khartoum. the volatile political situation in the sudan in the aftermath of the overthrow of former president al-bashir from power on 11 april 2019, and the protests following this event, have left sudan in an economic crisis, amid political the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants 28 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 instability. finot reflected on her experiences: my intention upon coming to metema in 2019 was to get to egypt, as it is less complicated than getting to europe. i got a tourist visa in addis ababa in march 2019 with the plan to move to khartoum. the visa was valid through april 24, 2019. my plan was to cross over to sudan from metema with a bus, meet the broker in khartoum and then proceed to cairo. but the night i got here, there was an intense crackdown on protestors in sudan and there was a strict border control. the broker told me that i should wait for few months and that i will cross over to sudan with the tahrish, a sudanese id, that he would get me. i met dozens of returnees from sudan here. some of them were those who were trapped in khartoum for months with the hope to cross over to cairo. had i left metema last year, my fate would have been the same. i changed my mind after reaching here. heading to the sudan feels like throwing oneself to a flame, as they too, are going through a difficult time (finot; 03 november 2020; metema). furthermore, informants also mentioned how the growing political tension between ethiopia and sudan made them feel insecure to find themselves on the other side of the border. during the fgds, informants referred to the 2020 deadly conflict and the resulting standoff over al-fashaga – the 260 km2 borderland which has been a contested area between ethiopia and the sudan for decades. following the eviction of thousands of ethiopian farmers from the area in december 2020, there were several clashes that led to tensions and the closure of the border. the points raised by the transit migrants as factors informing their reasoned decisions, clearly go against the conventional wisdom in the field of transit study – the perspective emphasizing the lack of agency of transit migrants in making informed decisions. furthermore, this is a point best illustrating the subjective nature of the decision-making process in rerouting migration paths and making decisions to settle in a place of transit. as the case material presented above clearly indicates, destinations are entities defined and redefined through time. conclusion this contribution advances knowledge in the field of transit migration. through an empirical case study, it has critiqued three dominant discourses in transit migration and has suggested new lines of inquiry. first, is the issue of linearity. the dominant academic discourse in transit research is informed by the underlying assumption of linearity of transit migration (oelgemöller, 2011). such a linear assumption considers transit points like djibouti and metema as the in-between phase between departure and arrival. the analysis of the lived experiences of ethiopian female transit migrants in rerouting transit and redefining destinations, as presented in this paper, challenges such assumptions. the rerouting of migration pathway calls for the need for going 29 beyond methodological nationalism in transit research and following the stories of migrants across space and time, as it was done in this paper. another dominant approach in transit migration research which this contribution critiqued, is affording much attention to prospects of further mobility from transit places (schapendonk, 2012). this assumption is informed by the consideration of a transit area as an in-between space. the discussion on the redefinition of destinations of migrants and the phenomenon of changing the supposed transit pathway to a destination presented in this paper, contributes to the existing academic literature on transit migration. it challenges the bias in contemporary transit migration discourse that focuses heavily on addressing prospects of mobility at the expense of immobility. furthermore, the due emphasis given to mobility in prior transit research has for long contributed to the marginal attention given to decision-making processes at the level of the individual, who might prefer to remain in a transit place (suter, 2012). by paying attention to the case of migrants who settled at a place of transit – in this instance metema – this paper argued that transit migration trajectories and the related decision-making during transit, are complex phenomena that need to be interrogated and scrutinized in their full complexity, rather than focusing the attention on part of the transit experiences of migrants, at a specific space and time. this contribution emphasizes the need to examine the decision-making of migrants, in contexts of both mobility and immobility. the dominant trend in transit research has for long portrayed migrants in transit as passive agents (düvel, 2006). as a way of specifying the agency of the migrants, and by going beyond the mere analysis of the factors that affect their mobility, this contribution argued that researchers need to pay attention to the question of how the migrants navigate around and muddle through existing options and changing migration trajectories (suter, 2012; schapendonk, 2018). as the case of the ethiopian female migrants clearly showed, migrants consider several contextual issues, such as: geopolitics, shifting migration policies, opportunity structures of transit places, and the consequences of moving or not moving in a certain direction, when they decide to reroute their migration paths or settle at a place, originally considered as a transit area. the paper argued that transit migrants’ trajectories are shaped by a multitude of factors, including policy frameworks, socio-economic factors, social networks, and more. the gap in opportunities in an initial transit stop, whereby migrants are deprived of participating in socio-economic domains, is another structural constraint that pushes migrants to look for other ‘better’ alternatives. the agency of the migrants can be best understood by considering how the migrants cope with and overcome the multitude of challenges, including the contextual factors, through creativity and seizing new opportunities as they arise. this also includes rerouting their migration paths and settling at a place and the strategies they employ while negotiating their precarious and vulnerable circumstances. this paper calls for more research exploring the complex process of decisionmaking of transit migrants to understand the experiences of migrants in transit. an the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants 30 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 essential question to pose in such research, would be the question of how a temporary state of immobility influences migrants’ actions and decisions of further mobility/ immobility. such research might explore themes that contribute towards evidencebased policy-making with regard to migration processes in the horn of africa region and beyond. 31 references adamson, f. 2006. crossing borders: international migration and national security. international security, 31(1): 165-199. ayalew, t., adugna, f. and deshingkar, p. 2018. social embeddedness of human smuggling in east africa: brokering ethiopian migration to sudan. african human mobility review, 4(3): 1333-1358. https://doi.org/10.14426/ahmr. v4i3.849 babkier, a. 2011. irregular migration in sudan: a legal perspective. carim analytic and synthetic notes; 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(eds.), borderland dynamics in east africa: cases from ethiopia, sudan and uganda. ethiopia: ossrea, pp 33-50. nyamnjoh, f. 2007. from bounded to flexible citizenship: lessons from africa. citizenship studies, 11(1): 73-82. oelgemöller, c. 2011. ‘transit’ and ‘suspension’: migration management or the https://reliefweb.int/report/saudi-arabia/saudi-arabia-migrants-held-inhuman-degrading-conditions https://reliefweb.int/report/saudi-arabia/saudi-arabia-migrants-held-inhuman-degrading-conditions https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/ksa%20factsheet_march%202019_regional%20da https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/ksa%20factsheet_march%202019_regional%20da https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/ksa%20factsheet_march%202019_regional%20da 33 metamorphosis of asylum-seekers into ‘illegal’ immigrants. journal of ethnic and migration studies, 37(3): 407-424. https://doi.org/10.1080/136918 3x.2011.526782 papadopoulou-kourkoula, a. 2008. transit migration. the missing link between emigration and settlement. hampshire: palgrave. papadopoulou, a. 2005. exploring the asylum-migration nexus: a case study of transit migrants in europe. global migration perspectives no. 23. geneva: global commission on international migration. regional mixed migration secretariat (rmms). 2017. djibouti country statement: addressing migrant smuggling and human trafficking in east africa. nairobi: rmms. schapendonk, j. 2012. turbulent trajectories: african migrants on their way to the european union. societies, 2: 27-41. schapendonk, j. 2018. navigating the migration industry: migrants moving through an african-european web of facilitation/control. journal of ethnic and migration studies, 44(4): 663-679. schewel, k. 2020. understanding immobility: moving beyond the mobility bias in migration studies. international migration review, 54(2): 328-355. semnani, s. and sydney, c. 2020. the invisible majority. internal displacement monitoring centre (idmc). available at: https://www.internal-displacement. org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/202004-yemen-cross-borderreport.pdf. accessed on 05 january 5 2022. suter, b. 2012. tales of transit: sub-saharan african migrants’ experiences in istanbul. phd dissertation, malmö university, sweden. united nations economic commission for europe (un/ece). 1993. international migration bulletin, no 3. geneva: united nations. van hear, n. 2004. “i went as far as my money would take me.” conflict, forced migration and class. working paper no. 6. oxford: compas. van liempt, i. and bilger, v. (eds.) 2006. the ethics of migration research methodology: dealing with vulnerable migrants. brighton: sussex academic press. zakir, z. 2019. the dynamics of cross-border migration along the ethio-sudan border: ethiopian women migrants and the metema route. in manger, l. adugna, f., assal, m. and onyango, e.o. (eds.), borderland dynamics in east africa: cases from ethiopia, sudan and uganda. ethiopia: ossrea, pp.51-71. zeleke, m. 2019. too many winds to consider; which way and when to sail!: ethiopian female transit migrants in djibouti and the dynamics of their decision-making. african and black diaspora: an international journal, 12(1): 49-63. the complex transit trajectories of ethiopian female migrants https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2011.526782 https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2011.526782 https://www.internal-displacement.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/202004-yemen-crosshttps://www.internal-displacement.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/202004-yemen-crosshttps://www.internal-displacement.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/202004-yemen-cross88 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia tekalign ayalew* * addis ababa university, ethiopia each year, thousands of ethiopian migrants depart the country irregularly towards europe by crossing the sahara desert and the mediterranean sea, but also traveling to the gulf states via djibouti, the red sea and yemen, and to south africa through the indian ocean or several african countries in-between. regardless of the migration route they pursue, thousands of ethiopian migrants have died or gone missing. despite the ubiquitous and regular coverage of migrant deaths in global media, there is limited understanding of the impacts that these deaths and disappearances have on their loved ones and the roles of the state in preventing risky migration that leads to disappearance during fatal journeys. while much has been written about the tragic circumstances leading to their deaths and disappearances, much less is known about how their families search for missing migrants, including the structural and institutional challenges they encounter in the process, and how their overlapping experiences can better inform good practices. this article thus (a) explores the causes and conditions of missing ethiopian migrants; (b) identifies the challenges and needs of families in ethiopia who have relatives who went missing or died in the context of international migration; and (c) maps the relevant laws, policy and institutional frameworks already in existence, their gaps as well as the actors and their roles relevant to the topic. data for this article was generated through interviews with families and stakeholders, policy reviews as well as participant observation and desk research; this work was carried out over three months in 2020 and two months in 2021. keywords: ethiopia, migration, missing persons, borders, human trafficking, family 89 introduction as safe, dignified and legal migration pathways are limited, quite large number of ethiopians engage in risky and long journeys towards europe, the middle east and to south africa by crossing dangerous deserts, seas and conflict-prone areas (iom, 2018a; horwood and forin, 2019). these journeys are mostly fatal, with thousands of ethiopians believed to have died or gone missing, due to criminal attacks, kidnappings, accidents, shipwrecks, or lack of access to medicine, shelter and food along the way. however, very limited empirical knowledge and systematic analysis exist with regard to the context of missing migrants, impacts on families left behind and related challenges in ethiopia. much less is also known about the legal and institutional frameworks protecting the rights of missing migrants and their gaps when it comes to missing migrants. thus, the focus of the article is to explore the needs and challenges of families of missing migrants by taking into account the gaps in existing legal and institutional frameworks. families of those missing migrants along the migration routes and in destination countries spend years not knowing what has happened to their loved ones. families encounter multiple personal, legal and financial challenges when searching for their missing loved ones and when trying to repatriate the remains in the event of death. even though the ethiopian state has several national laws and resources dedicated to migration management and has adopted and ratified relevant international human and migrant rights conventions (estifanos, 2017; tekalign, 2021), there are gaps in policies, legal frameworks or institutions to deal with the specific needs and concerns of families of missing or dead migrants. those challenges furthermore include getting help in searching for missing persons, identification and repatriation of remains from abroad, and the emotional and socioeconomic impacts of the loss. by drawing on this gap, this article explores the factors accounting for disappearing migrants and the challenges and needs of ethiopian families whose loved ones went missing or died in the context of international migration. the article also maps out and analyzes the legal, policy and institutional frameworks applicable to issues of missing migrants in ethiopia. the researcher collected data for the article through qualitative interviews with stakeholders and families, as well as participant observation and policy and legal framework analysis, which were carried out over three months in 2020 and two months 2021. methods and materials this article is based on desk research, supplemented by participant observation, face-to-face qualitative interviews, and policy reviews. the desk research involved systematic reviews of legal and policy frameworks. the research design is basically phenomenological. the focus of the researcher was to analyze factors accounting for the disappearance of migrants and identify what families with missing or dead the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia 90 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 migrant relatives defined as their challenges and needs in the context of a search or the aftermath of the death or disappearance of a family member. the intention was not to be representative, but to gain insight into the lives of people living with such a loss, through a qualitative methodology. in total, 21 family members, from 21 different households, between the ages of 25 and 66 were interviewed during 2020 and 2021. twelve of these family members were men (fathers and brothers of missing migrants), and nine were women (mothers and sisters). ten interviews were conducted in addis ababa and eleven in hadiya. in hadiya, interviews were conducted in hadiya language and occasionally in amharic. in addis ababa, all interviews were conducted in amharic. the interview data was supplemented through a review of the ethiopian context and included an examination of the country’s laws and regulations relevant to the matter of migrant deaths and disappearances. informants were selected purposively for having a family member missed during migration processes. in terms of defining research participants, the focus was on the nuclear family (that is, biological parents, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters) of a person who had gone missing or died in the context of a migratory journey, but the relatives and acquaintances who held close emotional, social and economic ties to the nuclear family were also considered to be nuclear family members. the sample size was not meant to be representative of all families with missing migrants in the country, but rather was explorative to show the trend and nature of the problem. the selection of rural and urban field sites was done in consultation with the literature reviews. the researcher conducted fieldwork with urban families in the neighborhood of qirqos in addis ababa, and in hadiya in southern ethiopia, both of which have historically high levels of out-migration. addis ababa, the capital of ethiopia, is a vast metropolis of nearly 5 million inhabitants. it has been a major sending and transit location for ethiopians embarking on irregular migration to europe, the gulf states and south africa (belloni, 2019; kefale and gebresenbet, 2021). it was also the epicenter of refugee migration to europe following the conflicts and civil wars during the dergue regime in ethiopia (1967–1991) (girmachew, 2018). the success stories of this diaspora and their active transnational economic, political and social engagement with people in addis ababa have continued to fuel the migration aspirations of the current ethiopian youth. multiple factors such as political repression, demographics, youth unemployment, the availability of technology and the existence of diasporic networks combined with personal aspirations, drive migration from addis ababa (triulzi, 2013; kefale and gebresenbet, 2021), and specifically from the workingclass neighborhood of qirqos (kirkos), the selected research site. qirqos is known locally for the vast numbers of young people who have embarked on long journeys to europe through libya since the early 2000s, relying on the eastern trans-saharan migration route. migration to europe is a socially and morally accepted and deeply rooted practice among youth in qirqos. informants in addis ababa estimated that each family in qirqos has lost at least one family member for everyone who has made 91 it to europe safely. the familiarity with migrant death and loss was one of the reasons that qirqos was selected as a site of research for this study. hadiya, on the other hand, was selected given its rural context, in addition to being known among informants as one of the regions in ethiopia with high numbers of migrant deaths (in the migration towards south africa). residents here believe that the number of missing and dead exceeds any estimates and that migrant tragedies of families remain unknown and untold. local officials consulted for this briefing referred to several of these incidents. for example, in 2017, more than 80 migrants from hadiya and neighboring kambatta died of suffocation inside containers during transit; however, the case was not made public. similarly, in 2019, 45 hadiya migrants died as they traveled from tanzania to malawi in an overloaded truck across dangerous highways. while research conducted in either qirqos or hadiya cannot be seen as representative of the experiences of all families in ethiopia or of the challenges ethiopians face in response to the deaths and disappearances of their migrant loved ones, both contexts provide important insights into the conditions surrounding the loss and the search process in ethiopia. aware of the deeply sensitive nature of the study, the researcher conducted all interviews with the participants’ best interests in mind. the researcher followed the ethical guidelines, including securing informed consent and maintaining the privacy, dignity and anonymity of the families (all names used in this article are pseudonyms). emotionally distressed and economically precarious families were given contacts to relevant charity and state organizations for the immediate or future provision of psychosocial and economic support. while the researcher used an interview guide, the approach was inductive and participatory in nature – in other words, the families were invited to direct the conversations and to identify what they themselves considered important aspects of their experiences with the goal of allowing them to articulate their own authentic reflections. the study also generated data from the analysis of legal and institutional frameworks, interviews with relevant stakeholders and their roles with regard to the issue of missing migrants. for the legal review and policy analysis, the researcher collected information on global, regional and bilateral instruments/conventions; national laws; proclamations; policies; and regulations/directives. the review was used to identify the existing gaps in national laws, institutions, policies and practices relating to the protection of missing migrants, their families’ needs, and the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders relevant to missing migrants. the researcher recorded, transcribed, and translated the interviews and organized the notes taken. the interviews were integrated into legal and policy reviews; gaps in the legislatures were identified; and stakeholders, their roles and responsibilities were mapped. the researcher sorted the data thematically and organized it to ensure the logical flow of ideas and arguments. the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia 92 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 literature review: global trends and factors accounting for missing migrants the literature addresses different dimensions of missing migrants. some of the existing studies provide trends and statistical estimations of missing migrants at various locations of the world. the international organization for migration (iom)’s missing migrants project tracks and publishes deaths of migrants, including refugees and asylum-seekers, who have died or gone missing in the process of migration towards an international destination. the iom (2018b) estimated that between 2014 and 2017 about 15,348 deaths occurred at the european union (eu)’s borders alone. the iom’s reports and publications on fatal journeys have recorded the magnitude of missing migrants in africa, middle east and latin america during the last 15 years (sanchez dionis et al., 2021). the iom has also calculated that at least 60,000 migrants have died between 2000 and 2018 globally (iom, 2018a). many studies identified conditions and driving factors that led to the deaths and disappearance of migrants during fatal journeys. complex conditions related to immigration controls and border enforcement mechanisms along the migration pathways, compounded by illness and lack of access to medical treatment in detention centers result in the deaths and disappearances of migrants (iom, 2014; hrw, 2019; msf, 2020). other factors related to deportation practices to remote locations in places such as the sahara desert in response to the european union’s externalization of borders (tekalign, 2018; monella and creta, 2020), also increasingly place migrants in vulnerable situations that could result in their deaths and disappearances. the incidence of kidnapping or torture for ransom resulting in deaths and disappearances among migrants has been widely documented in yemen, libya, saudi arabia, mozambique, and malawi (horwood, 2014; horwood and forin, 2019). other conditions that resulted in the deaths and disappearances of migrants include: the experiences of abuse, exploitation or human trafficking on their migration journeys; migration journeys via more remote and distant pathways to reach a destination; incidents of migrants dying of suffocation in containers or lorries during transit; and those – dead or alive – being deliberately thrown into the sea by smugglers from overcrowded boats, have been reported by survivors (un news, 2017; iom, 2020; zakoska-todorovska and bartolini, 2020). there are numerous reports that show migrants being abandoned by smugglers after they had run out of fuel, become lost, or encountered law enforcement or border control authorities (iom, 2014; hairsine, 2019; reidy, 2019). a study by simon robins shows the underlining structural factors such as exclusionary border control practices, that ignored missing migrants. he argues that “while living migrants are the object of enormous attention, counted and screened on arrival and throughout their presence in european states … those who die crossing the mediterranean remain uncounted and largely unidentified, as a result of a failure of european states to collect data from both bodies and from families looking for missing loved ones” (robins, 2019: 1). this is partly because dead migrants are often 93 considered as no longer presenting any economic or security threat to european welfare states, compared to those entering clandestinely. migrant deaths in the mediterranean waters, resulted from externalization of eu borders; in fact, the externalization serves as a border control tool (kovras and robins, 2016). the deaths and disappearances of migrants during fatal journeys demonstrate the structural violence inflicted on migrants, which is manifested via the inequality between citizens of the global north and the global south in accessing safe migration pathways. the everyday violence, suffering and deaths of migrants during irregular journeys are directly related to the strict border controls and securitization of migration by destination states (holmes, 2013). existing studies often focus on these and other driving factors and conditions resulting in the deaths and disappearance of migrants. despite the pervasive and regular coverage of migrant deaths in the global media, there is limited understanding of the impacts that these deaths and disappearances have on their families left behind. this article therefore strives to fill this knowledge gap by foregrounding the cases of ethiopian families of missing migrants. there are few emerging studies that documented some of the challenges to families (see for example, attia et al., 2016; icrc, 2017; robins, 2017; vogt, 2018; sánchez dionis et al., 2021). this paper builds on these studies and adds to the empirical knowledge by documenting the experiences of ethiopian families searching for missing relatives lost in the context of irregular migration journeys to europe, the gulf states and south africa. context of irregular migration from ethiopia the literature estimates that about half a million ethiopians migrate annually to destination countries in the middle east, europe, south africa, australia and the us, fueling a vibrant global diaspora estimated at approximately three million (iom, 2018b; kefale and gebresenbet, 2021). according to tekalign (2021) about 70% of ethiopian migration to international destinations is undertaken by young men and women between the ages of 16 and 22, who embark on irregular journeys across dangerous overland and sea routes (tekalign, 2021). one third of those making such journeys get lost or die along the routes due to man-made and natural risks and disasters. families who have lost their loved ones due to migration, experience psychosocial, legal, economic, and administrative challenges. ethiopian migrants engage in long and dangerous clandestine migratory journeys to international destinations. there are three major migratory routes along which ethiopians depart the country. the first one is the north-western route towards europe, which links villages and towns in ethiopia to khartoum, and the sudan, and proceeds via the eastern sahara desert into libya and then across the central mediterranean sea. the second is the eastern route to the middle east and the gulf states, through djibouti and somalia via yemen, which involves crossing the red sea and the gulf of aden. the third one is the southern route to south africa via eastern and southern african countries (estifanos et al., 2019; williams, 2019). the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia 94 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 local brokers and smugglers facilitate these fragmented and risky journeys. structural, social, familial, and individual conditions drive migration in general, and youth migration from ethiopia in particular. conflict, displacement, poverty, and unemployment have been cited as the main driving factors spurring young ethiopians to leave their country (girmachew, 2018; williams, 2019). however, contrary to the commonly held assumptions claiming that poverty reduction would directly lead to a decline in outbound migration from ethiopia, there are some indicators that it may even lead to increased mobility. the poorest people migrate to the nearest destinations (mostly in-country). the number of migrants on a given route are inversely proportional to the length of that route. in financial terms, the main routes used by ethiopians could be categorized into three major groups: expensive routes (mainly europe and north america) that require more than usd 7,000; mediumcost routes (africa and asia) that require a minimum of usd 4,000; and budget routes (middle eastern countries) that require as little as usd 500 (tekalign, 2021). migrants traveling to the nearest destinations within the country and outside the country (such as the middle east) are mostly female (girmachew, 2018). in addition to the financial capability required, demand in these middle eastern countries for specific services and labor – such as domestic helpers and construction workers – also plays an important role in attracting female and low-skilled migrants. both internal and external migration from ethiopia, is primarily a cultural and socioeconomic developmental issue. young ethiopians migrate mainly due to the disjuncture between actual living conditions, on the one hand, and the expectation of higher living standards, on the other. socioeconomic determinants of migration in ethiopia are related to the following four major factors: (a) the discrepancies between the aspired living standards by the youth and their actual living conditions in their own country; (b) the income inequalities between persons staying in the country and migrants or families with relatives in the ethiopian diaspora; (c) the high population growth, increasing unemployment rate, and relatively low incomes in ethiopia; and (d) the pervasive culture of migration and the collective societal encouragement of even risky and irregular migration (evidenced by the direct moral and financial support accorded to migrants) (kefale and gebresenbet, 2021; tekalign, 2021). of all factors, the pervasive culture of migration, often fueled by the diaspora network in the form of peer pressure, alongside family support, constitutes the most prevalent driver of migration from ethiopia (girmachew, 2018; kefale and gebresenbet, 2021). migration is no longer an individual decision and has increasingly become a collective action with the support of relatives in the diaspora as well as religious and traditional community leaders (kefale and gebresenbet, 2021). in migration hotspot areas such as wollo in northern ethiopia and hadiya in the south, communities take collective decisions to encourage members to migrate, so much so, that families in some communities organize parties where the neighbors are invited to bid farewell to departing migrants. community and religious leaders are invited to attend and ‘bless’ the party and the migrant or migrants. such ‘migration showers’ 95 or farewell parties are used to seek contributions from the community to cover travel expenses. migration from ethiopia to the middle east, europe, and south africa and within the igad (intergovernmental authority on development) region is of sizable proportion and it is expected to rise in the coming years, particularly flows to the middle east, neighboring countries and to the east african community (eac) countries including kenya and uganda. migration, and more especially mobility within the country and the region, is expected to increase due to a number of factors exhibited by mega-trends such as diaspora engagements and new migration laws. the information and communications technology (ict) and aviation connectivity as well as other infrastructural developments in the region will certainly grow at accelerated rates, leading to surges in mobility within the igad region and beyond. increased local job protection and restrictive migration policies as well as potential increases in xenophobic and ‘afro-phobic’ attacks against ethiopians could however increase in countries of destination (de regt and medareshae, 2016; kefale and gebresenbet, 2021). findings causes and conditions of ethiopian migrant deaths and disappearances clandestine migration from ethiopia towards europe, the gulf states, and south africa requires long journeys and can pose many risks en route and it is estimated that of every four migrants undertaking the journey, at least one dies or disappears along the way (iom, 2014; botti, 2019; mmc, 2020). however, it is impossible to provide exact numbers of missing or dead ethiopian migrants. the numbers available constitute an incomplete record, yet are indicative of how many of them go missing on the migration journeys. although only estimates – since information on nationality is often lacking – ethiopians are systematically identified among the missing and the dead in the mediterranean sea, through gathering information from survivors and dna tests (iom, 2014, 2018a). a significant number of deaths have also been reported along the eastern route to the gulf states and on the southern routes to south africa (iom, 2014). data collected by the bureau of labour and social affairs (bolsa) in southern ethiopia, and the mixed migration centre also reflects the lethality of the route to south africa (mmc, 2019). according to the central statistics authority’s labor migration survey (lms) 2021, an estimated 51,089 ethiopians are missing migrants, with the majority of these being males (84.6%), while females account for 15.4% (csa, 2021). while these are important sources, statistics concerning deaths and disappearances are not recorded systematically within ethiopia itself or by any of its government entities, which creates a serious statistical gap. as indicated above, it is only in 2021, with the support from the iom, that the central statistics authority of ethiopia has included missing migrants in its labor migration survey data. the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia 96 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 data from the mixed migration centre (mmc, 2019, 2020) and the missing migrants project (iom, 2017) indicates that migrants departing from ethiopia have died as a result of the physical hardships encountered during their journeys on foot, on board boats and trucks that deliberately traverse remote mountain ranges, deserts and open seas. exposure to harsh environments leads to death by dehydration, exhaustion and starvation. many migrants also die by drowning in the red sea and the indian ocean; by suffocation inside containers; following attacks by fauna; as a result of violent practices by border guards, smugglers and militias; and also, as a result of gender-based forms of violence (horwood, 2014; global initiative, 2018; horwood and forin, 2019). the occurrence of kidnapping or torture for ransom resulting in deaths and disappearances among ethiopian migrants has also been widely documented in contexts like yemen, libya, saudi arabia, mozambique, and malawi. many ethiopian women also experience violence and die as a result of harsh working and living conditions or labor exploitation in domestic work or xenophobic attacks in the gulf states and in south africa (de regt and medareshae, 2016; busza et al., 2017). the southern routes to southern africa are generally considered the most dangerous to navigate by ethiopian migrants. this appears to be confirmed by data from the mixed migration centre, indicating that the deaths and disappearances of ethiopian migrants tripled along the eastern and southern routes between 2016 and 2019, as migration along these routes increased following the restrictions on the northern route to europe as a result of the eu externalization of border controls towards east africa (strange and oliveira martins, 2019; mmc, 2020). between 2012 and 2019, the bureau of labour and social affairs (bolsa) in southern ethiopia recorded migrant deaths and disappearances along this route from major sending districts including hadiya and kambata tambaro. during this period, the bureau recorded 4,265 deaths and the disappearance of 1,707 missing migrants (bolsa, 2020). this data was gathered from testimonies made by families and survivors, and by field reports at ethiopian embassies along the migration routes. however, many more deaths are neither recorded nor reported, as there is no established institution mandated with this task in ethiopia. challenges faced by families of missing migrants this section outlines the challenges faced by families while searching for missing or disappeared loved ones who departed ethiopia with the purpose of migrating to another country and the impacts on living with their loss. after describing how families take action to search for their missing loved ones in both research sites (hadiya and addis ababa), the study examines cross-cutting issues faced by the families, including challenging gender dynamics; outstanding debts; demands for ransom for their kidnapped relatives; mental and physical health problems; and the role of spirituality and social relations. overall, three challenges emerged as common experiences of the participants, as captured below. 97 firstly, it is often impossible to determine when a person left, let alone when (or where) they went missing. many migrants leave without informing friends or family members, abandoning their neighborhoods or villages without notice, and leaving no details concerning their plans or destination. it is only once migrating groups arrive at points along the migration journey, such as in sudan or even libya, that migrants contact their families, or that their co-travelers and companions call with updates, to request money to continue their travel, or to report accidents or fatalities that took place during the journey, or even to return to ethiopia if they are unable to continue the journey. these delays prevent the timely deployment of a search mission and the likelihood of a positive outcome (that is, the ability to determine the whereabouts of a missing loved one). secondly, the search for missing loved ones, and its aftermath, have deeply gendered dynamics. interviews indicated that the decision of when to start or stop searching tends to often be made by male relatives (fathers or older sons), but also by someone in the family considered to have the ability ‘to remain calm’ (most often a man). according to the tradition in both research sites, men are considered by families as emotionally stable and have the ability to cope with hardships and hence are given the task of searching. women (the widows or daughters of missing migrants) reported often having to challenge the decisions made by their fathers or brothers-in-law concerning the search, but also the control of any property or their ability to remarry – all factors impacting on the shortand long-term financial stability of women and their children. these gender dimensions of missing persons are described and analyzed in detail in subsequent sections. thirdly, there is a lack of formal institutions or mechanisms to support families looking for migrants who went missing while pursuing their journeys. this has led to the emergence of community-based forms of information gathering and support, but not to the establishment of responses by the state. the following sections discuss these three challenges in more detail. a. searching challenges all interviewees shared their experiences of losing a loved one who decided to embark on a migratory journey, and the initial confusion concerning how to jumpstart a search. many of them reported being unaware that their loved one had decided to migrate. many people (particularly young men) reportedly left without informing friends or family members, abandoning their neighborhoods or villages without notice, and leaving no details concerning their plans and destinations. yet even in the case of migrants who did inform their families about their journeys, or who traveled with their support, it was also difficult to determine when or where the person had gone missing. this was partly the result of migrants themselves being constrained by several factors, such as the lack of financial means or their uncertainty of whether they have to communicate or not to manage information concerning their journeys. for example, many tell their loved ones that they will be in touch once they reach the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia 98 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 their destination because they do not know what will happen during journeys. often, having little information themselves about their itineraries or the locations through which they travel, migrants may opt not to communicate. most families expressed respect for the decision of their loved ones to manage the flow of information. however, many others shared they had started their own searches as soon as they received, by way of friends, relatives, smugglers, brokers, news or social media, reports concerning incidents involving migrants, that could involve their family members. searches also began whenever the pattern of communication with the migrating family member changed or ended without a reason. still, families indicated it had been difficult for them to decide when, where and how to start searching, because they had limited information concerning their loved ones’ journeys. in hadiya, rural families reported relying mainly on information shared by people who had traveled with their missing loved ones (other migrants, guides or smugglers,). for most, the first person they contacted was the broker or smuggler who had facilitated the journey, followed by attempts to reach other migrants known to have traveled with their loved one, or any known survivors. if none of these efforts were successful, or if additional information was needed, interviewees indicated they would report the case to members of the ethiopian diaspora in the last country the missing person was known to travel through. in the case of migrants traveling to south africa, interviewees reported calling friends, relatives and south africa-based smugglers for information about recent migrant journeys over land or through the indian ocean. despite the stigma that surrounds their activities, smugglers are often recognized for their willingness and ability to access contacts and information that could establish or inform the whereabouts of a missing person. interviewees indicated how smugglers often had information concerning vehicular accidents, could contact border guards for information concerning any migrants being detained or imprisoned while transiting countries such as tanzania, malawi, and mozambique, or members of smuggling and brokering networks operating from ethiopia all the way down to south africa, which expedited the dissemination of information. families of migrants from hadiya also reported relying on the iddir1 system and its social networks to obtain information about missing migrants. iddir plays a vital role in investigating and collecting data about missing and dead migrants since many of their members either have a good rapport with smugglers or are smugglers themselves. iddir leaders broadcast the information to the members and support families using the network as a platform. fieldwork in addis ababa revealed somewhat different search patterns. only a few families reported seeking information about relatives from smugglers themselves. contrary to the experiences of hadiya families, smugglers operating in addis ababa were believed to have limited information concerning specific journeys followed 1 iddir are community-based support networks, common in rural areas of ethiopia, that garner financial resources to minimize the adverse effects of sudden shocks or crises (aredo, 2010). 99 by migrants traveling along the northern route. from the interviewees’ perspective, this was due to the fact that the facilitation of migration along the northern route is organized in a different fashion. interviewees indicated that contrary to the case of the southern route, where a single smuggler or broker tends to be the contact person for the entire duration of the journey, smugglers on the northern route tend to work more independently and do not know each other. they perform specific tasks, charging separate, stand-alone fees, and are therefore less likely to be in contact with a migrant for the entire duration of their journey (see lucht, 2011). this drastic difference in their modus operandi implies that often, contacts with smugglers operating along the northern route yielded limited or no information concerning a missing migrant. personal and community ties, as well as interactions with smugglers were also reportedly weaker in the urban context, compared to those reported by families in hadiya. families in addis ababa were also more likely than those in hadiya to follow local and international news coverage for information concerning missing persons. informants stated that in addis ababa interviewees were also more likely to reach out to relatives or friends in other countries whenever they saw reports of shipwrecks involving migrant-carrying boats in the mediterranean sea, the red sea or the indian ocean. they also seemed more inclined than families in hadiya to rely on social media networking sites for their searches, screening community groups for information about missing or dead migrants. in addis ababa, interviewees reported having learned of the deaths of loved ones from photos posted on facebook, often made by other migrants (particularly young people) or by government organizations, such as the ministry of foreign affairs or ethiopian consulates along migration routes. seyum’s brother, eyasu, is believed to have been killed by isis in libya in 2015. seyum has been searching for details concerning eyasu on behalf of his family ever since the tragedy. seyum was notified of eyasu’s apparent death via a phone call he received from a friend he believed had identified eyasu’s death online. this is what he reflected: my brother eyasu left for libya to reach europe with his friends. one saturday night i was watching a soccer game with my friends. someone called me on eyasu’s phone, which [he had left] with me. they asked if i was eyasu and i told them i was a neighbor who had borrowed his phone. i did not want to say who i was before i learned who was calling. they asked if i had seen [eyasu’s] picture on facebook. i left the house and went to the nearby shop. i asked them to check what had been posted on facebook on their smart phone. that is when i saw eyasu and i knew immediately it was him. the person who called, thinking i was someone else, had already told me that eyasu had been captured and killed by isis. this was four years ago. we reported the case to the police. i [testified]. but nothing has happened following my testimony. the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia 100 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 in addis ababa, families also reported reaching out to mass media to search for missing migrants. helen is the older sister of abenezer, who went missing in libya. she reported the following: we went to several broadcasting companies such as fana television, ethiopian television, josi tv, and ethiopian satellite television (esat). after several times of going back and forth and many appointments, esat, the diasporabased tv, reported on the case, since at that time many ethiopians had gone missing in libya. we [also] heard that the diaspora raised funds to search for the missing in libya or to pay [ransoms] in case any of the missing [persons] were alive or found. however, we have yet to receive support or news about our brother. my brother told me he had buried many friends. i think he is [now] dead as well. what can we do if the government does not help? we cannot go to libya and search for him. we just pray god brings good news to us. having exhausted all other options, some interviewees (four family members had traveled to search for missing persons) indicated that on occasion, they had no other option but to embark on separate journeys in an effort to trace the whereabouts of their loved ones, which often implied, however, acquiring additional debt in order to cover smuggling fees. as it is virtually impossible for ethiopians to obtain visas to travel abroad to search for a loved one or to identify and repatriate their remains, families have no other alternative than pursuing irregular journeys for this purpose. haile is the brother of michael, who at the time of the interview had been missing in libya for three years: even my other younger brother has left; he is now in germany. he is the youngest of all. he decided to leave after [my older brother] michael went missing. he went to libya to search for michael and at the same time to cross to europe. he spent one year just looking for [michael] in libya. fortunately, he made it to germany, but he did not find our brother. in libya he contacted brokers. [he] talked [to] eritreans in tripoli and talked to many other people. but no one told him about his brother. in sum, the interviews indicate that families actively engage in searching for their loved ones, and that they pursue every path available to them if they suspect something has happened to their migrating family member. the families interviewed for this research recounted the challenges that they faced when interacting with state officials about their missing loved ones and provided suggestions and appeals for changes that could help them tackle some of the challenges described earlier. while the relationship between families and smugglers must not be romanticized, the interviews revealed that many families were more likely to trust 101 smugglers over authorities when it came to solutions or information about their missing ones. this reality is explained by this mother of a missing migrant: we don’t know which state institution is responsible to offer information regarding missing migrants. i don't know where to go or whom to ask in the government. secondly, it is impossible to go to the country where [my son] went missing because i can't afford that. what i can do is to get news from the delala (broker) who facilitated his journey. though i am very disappointed in the delaloch (brokers), i have never thought to accuse them [of my son’s disappearance] also because most of them are my relatives. also, i am scared to go to the government office because i have heard of families who sent their children through illegal ways and who were arrested and thrown into jail. thus, what i can do is keep praying, hoping that one day my god may herald me with good news. what is more, ethiopian migrants often go missing or die in places such as the sahara desert, the sinai desert and in libya, or they get drown into the mediterranean sea. the evidence connected to specific people is not collected or catalogued by any entity, nor is it communicated to relatives. there is therefore a need for a systemized documentation and cataloguing of evidence that could allow for the eventual identification of a missing person. families also raised the issue of obtaining visas to travel to other countries to search for missing loved ones. there are no special visas issued for the purpose of carrying out a search for humanitarian reasons and obtaining a tourist or medical visa involves a highly bureaucratic and financially unaffordable and inaccessible process for most ethiopian families. the fact that many disappearances are believed to take place in locations in conflict also compromises the safety of grieving families, who still on occasion (and documented in this research) embark on journeys with the hope of finding information concerning their loved ones. therefore, the ability to travel safely, legally and in a dignified manner for families searching for their missed relatives has to be supported by the responsible bodies. lastly, families indicated that in the event that the remains of their loved one were found, the repatriation process and its cost reduce the possibility that they could be buried according to tradition. as described above, many families are already in debt and impoverished as a result of having to pay smuggling and ransom fees, and therefore cannot access additional money from local lenders to cover repatriation costs. mechanisms that allow for the dignified repatriation of loved ones are therefore urgently needed. b. gendered impacts of a loss migrants’ deaths and disappearances, and the searches that they result in, have different impacts on men and women. since most missing and disappeared migrants the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia 102 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 are men, it is often the women who stay behind (wives, sisters, and mothers), the ones who perform tasks related to the search, and who most often carry a disproportionate amount of social and financial responsibility. among families in hadiya, the ambiguity and the uncertainty that come with the loss of a family member, carry deep social meaning. it also has strong gender implications. for instance, the death or disappearance of a husband is often blamed on the wife who stayed behind – her ‘bad luck’ having led to the outcome. widows are often mistreated, not only by their relative in-laws, but also by the community at large. the wife of a man who died on his migration journey described this as follows: truly, this is the worst moment of my life. i don’t know why god tempted me. his (her husband’s) relatives frequently blame me because they assume that my husband is dead as a result of my ‘bad luck’. in our community, it is very common to blame wives [whenever something wrong happens to their husbands]. that is heartbreaking. unable to legally demonstrate that her husband had died, or to obtain a death certificate recognized by the community and state institutions, a woman cannot claim ownership of the properties belonging to her husband and her children cannot apply for state support or legally claim inheritance. the interviewed women indicated that wives of missing migrants do not only face the emotional trauma of not knowing the fate of their husbands, but they also face legal challenges because of their ambiguous marital status. women also face stigma if they decide to leave the family home or to remarry, as both actions are perceived as betrayal of a deceased or missing husband and his family. if women decide not to remarry, they are likely to face severe economic challenges impacting on their ability to care for themselves and their children, especially if they were reliant on their husbands’ income for survival. the wife of a missing migrant described her legal challenges and lack of independence this way: i can’t talk about property or inherit the land before i get proof of the death of my husband. according to the tradition, his brothers control the land. i can’t go to the courts and get into a fight with his relatives. if they farm the land and give some food to my children, that is fine. i can’t go against tradition and fight over inheritance. land disputes are serious problems in this village. people kill each other over land conflicts. i live with his relatives. i depend on them ... everything is difficult for me. asserting ownership over farming land after the death of a husband is complicated for rural women in many parts of southern ethiopia (see hussein, 2014). although national laws recognize women’s equal rights to access and control property (including land), community law and tradition still prevent them from inheriting 103 and controlling farming land in rural areas. in many communities, the ownership of land is given only to husbands at the time of marriage and the rights of women to inherit land is not recognized. c. the burden of debt another aspect with deeply gendered implications is the issue of debt. migrants often acquire significant debt in order to cover the costs of their journeys. many others depart already indebted, for reasons ranging from the costs of household expenses, family illnesses, or even the smuggling fees for other family members. however, even in the event of someone’s death or disappearance, their debt is not canceled, and many times in hadiya the responsibility to cover financial obligations fall on migrants’ wives if a husband dies or disappears along migration routes. given the fact that women are often prevented from assuming control over property or other inherited goods, the debt imposes long-term obligations that limit women’s ability to care for themselves, their children, and often other relatives. a widow who lost her husband during his migration to south africa explained: i was left on my own with kids to feed. i was left alone with the debts we acquired to pay for his travel. i would be happy if i got help to pay the debt and save the land we put down as collateral. i want to feed my children. i want to send them to school. but how can i do all this alone? his family should stop blaming me for [my] bad luck. [his disappearance] was not my fault. if they helped me care for these small children i could at least work. his brothers also want to take the land. my problems are many. women who lose their husbands or partners encounter difficulties bringing up children on their own. when the death of a missing person has not been confirmed, interviewed women indicated that they were simultaneously expected to continue the search for the missing person as well as to care for family members and children on their own. a widow whose husband disappeared on the route to south africa explained: i gave birth four months after my husband left ethiopia. you can imagine what happened to me. my heart is broken. he was the only one who took care of me and understood me. he farmed the land. i don’t know how i am going to raise these kids. i sold everything we had to search for information and to make international calls to his friends, relatives and sometimes to the brokers. we had also borrowed money with a high interest rate from local money lenders to cover his migration costs. now the money lenders are asking me to pay back as per agreement or they will take the land. yet, i can’t pay their money and the interest. the debt is increasing every year. initially, we thought that my husband would pay back the money we have taken when he arrived in south the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia 104 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 africa. older relatives also face grave challenges as a result of the death or disappearance of their children, especially when they have invested or mortgaged their property or land to finance their journeys. older mothers and fathers are often left without the economic support that their children were expected to provide in the event their journeys being successful. these losses are compounded when deaths or disappearances involve multiple children in a single family. the father of two missing sons stated: my sons were my hope. one died during an earlier migration [journey]. the second went to search for him and also to try his luck and reach south africa. he went missing as well. it was last year when he called after arriving in malawi. he never called again. i am dying twice: [because] i lost them and [because] i lost hope. they used to help me till and farm the land. they were my pride. they were my hope. i am getting older and weaker. i can’t work. i rely on my relatives for agricultural labor, but they can only help me after finishing with their own farming. my farm is ploughed late and cannot produce much yield. in the village children change their families’ lives through migration. they buy new houses for their family. they buy oxen to plough the land. everyone’s life changed here after migration to south africa [started]. but look at my life, which is becoming hell. i cannot even pay the money lender. i am living with debt. my wife is already bedridden. d. kidnapping fees and ransom demands for many years, researchers have written about the phenomenon of kidnapping, especially among ethiopian migrants and their diaspora. the term ‘kidnapping’ in the ethiopian context has been used broadly not only in reference to the abduction of a person for ransom by a criminal group (tekalign, 2018), but also to the retention or withholding of a person in transit until a fee for a service is paid to a smuggler or broker (global initiative, 2018), or as a form of extortion to be released from detention (horwood and forin, 2019). mass killings of migrants are also often linked to kidnapping cases (reuters, 2020). while no specific statistics concerning kidnappings of ethiopian migrant exist, the ubiquity of testimonies related to these experiences (documented in this study and in other publications) indicates that the potential of a migrant to be subjected to a kidnapping is high – one estimate suggests that one in seven people traveling from the horn of africa towards north africa is likely to be kidnapped (mcgregor, 2019; mmc, 2020). during the interviews, families described kidnappings as a common element of the irregular journeys in all three routes out of ethiopia. families often paid ransoms (or at least were familiar with this experience from others) to release their relatives 105 from detention or other forms of confinement, or simply to obtain information on their whereabouts. paying for smuggling and ransom fees, however, on top of the additional debt acquired to finance a journey, can easily leave a family destitute. furthermore, the payment of a ransom does not necessarily result in the release of a migrant nor does it generate information about their whereabouts. in fact, most testimonies indicate that despite the payment of a kidnapping fee or ransom, many migrants are never found. the following testimony shows the financial impacts of kidnapping events: my brother went missing in libya three years ago. first, he was kidnapped by rebels and they held him hostage with many other ethiopians. they asked us to pay 12,500 usd. we tried our best to raise money by begging, but could not put together the required amount. we sent 3,000 usd to keep him alive. the criminals shot on his legs and hands. they sent us the video of him squirming and photos by imo and whatsapp [both instant-messaging apps]. for a year we begged in many places and in public. we were unable to [come up] with the money. then the criminals switched off their phone. our brother has been missing since. it has been three years now. i think they killed him. my mother does not want to think he was killed. she insists that we keep searching. we went from office to office and even contacted the libyan embassy here in addis ababa. we got nothing. many families became poor after paying ransom money to criminals. my brother’s friend was kidnapped by another criminal group in libya at the same time. the criminals asked the family to send 50,000 usd. his family sold their house and sent 40,000 usd to save their son. but their son has also been missing in libya for three years. many families in our neighborhood (qirqos) have become poor since they borrowed money to pay the delala (smuggler) who facilitated the migration to libya and then sold their houses to pay the ransom money for kidnappers and then ultimately lost their sons. they have lost everything. e. mental and physical health impacts of loss the interviews, and field observations attest to the deep psychological impacts related to the loss, disappearance or death of a loved one in the context of migration. most families interviewed indicated they had been unable to establish whether their missing loved ones were dead or alive, leading them to experience ambiguous loss, which occurs when there is no clear closure or reason (boss 1999; vogt, 2018). as a result of their loved ones’ disappearance, family members indicated that they experienced a vast range of physical, psychological and behavioral issues ranging from anxiety, depression, hopelessness, stress, sadness and loneliness to sleep disturbance, inability to focus, loss of appetite and paralysis. families also reported having relatives who attempted suicide following the disappearance or death of a migrant, overcome by the regret of having encouraged or even pressured a migrating family member to the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia 106 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 undertake risky migration journeys. the mother of a missing young woman explained her grief: i am really worried about my daughter. i can’t stop thinking about her. i don’t know what i am going to do. my hopes and dreams left with her. sometimes i talk to myself just like a mad woman. i have long waited to see her face. but my wishes remain a daydream. every day i pray, hoping to get her back alive. whenever someone knocks at my door i run, hoping that will be my daughter who has come back. i know she is not dead because i see her in my dreams. my heart always tells me she is alive. similarly, the father of a missing man explained: as time goes on, our pain and suffering worsen. i can’t work in my farm effectively because [i can see] the face of my son again and again. as a result, i can’t even fulfill the basic needs of my family. i don't sleep at night. his voice and image come to my mind every minute. his mother had a heart attack after she heard of his disappearance. testimonies clearly demonstrate the multidimensional emotional and psychological challenges families experience due to the loss of their loved ones. as time goes by, the emotional pain increases, having material implications in the everyday lives of families, leading at times even to the loss of livelihoods and personal wellbeing. the state and missing migrants: legal and institutional frameworks a. legal frameworks the ethiopian state has ratified some of the relevant laws to prevent people disappearing in different contexts and to protect their rights, such as the international humanitarian law (ihl) and specific provisions of the 1949 geneva conventions (gc i–iv) and their two additional protocols of 1977 (ap i and ap ii). however, ethiopia has not ratified the international convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance (icpped), the international convention on civil and political rights, and the african commission on human and people’s rights. domestically the civil code (art 153-174), the criminal code, and proclamations 1178/2020 and 923/2016 stipulate relevant laws in preventing missing persons, management of dead and detained populations or procedures of arrest. however, the law has serious gaps in specifically dealing with missing persons. there is a lack of clear definitions of a missing person, a family and disappearance. there is no a clear procedure on how the searching can be initiated and who is responsible for the prevention of people disappearing. proclamation 1178/2020 strives to prevent people going missing due to 107 irregular migration while proclamation 923/2016 has provisions to prevent people from disappearing or to repatriate bodies and support victims’ families, in particular regarding ethiopian migrant workers legally deployed as domestic workers abroad. articles 8–14 of proclamation 1178/2020 detail the prevention, protection and prosecution procedures regarding human trafficking and smuggling of migrants that cause disappearance and death of migrants during migration processes, including overseas labor deployments. the overseas employment proclamation (no. 923/2016) requires foreign employers to have life and disability insurance for their workers. the proclamation holds private employment agencies (peas) and employers liable for the welfare of their (ethiopian migrant) employees. despite this legislation, there are no specific directives or ministerial regulations to effectively implement the provisions in the civil code. there is no integrated system for searching for information, or methods for informing the families of persons who have gone missing during migration, or who have died in conflict. families mostly use their own search mechanisms and strategies to collect information of the missing relatives, due to conflict or due to migration. law enforcement agents’ engagement is often focused on crime detections, investigations and prosecutions of perpetrators. they focus less on searching for missing persons and management of the dead. they have not ensured compliance to ihl with regard to requirements that all persons are protected by the third and fourth geneva conventions. there are some domestic laws which are relevant to missing migrants, as these laws prohibit all kinds of human trafficking, including migrants in ethiopia, domestically and abroad. for example, article 597 (1) of the revised criminal code (proclamation no.414/2004) imposes penalties for those who engage in human trafficking and provides compensation for victims of trafficking, including families. the civil code also states that victims of trafficking, including families, have the right to claim compensation for damages. these laws are generic laws inclusive of all kinds of victims of trafficking, including migrants who died or disappeared within ethiopia or abroad. the proclamation on overseas employment (no. 923/2016) stipulates that foreign employers must have life and disability insurance for the workers concerned. the proclamation holds private employment agencies (peas) and employers liable for the welfare of (ethiopian migrant) employees and imposes stringent conditions with regard to the establishment, management and licensing, as well as the operations of peas. while ethiopia has several national laws related to migration and has adopted and ratified relevant international human and migrant rights conventions, including the global compact for migration, which calls on states to “save lives and establish coordinated international efforts in relation to missing migrants” (unga, 2018), there are no specific policies, legal frameworks or institutions in the country that concretely and proactively deal with missing ethiopian migrants. the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia 108 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 b. institutions, actors and roles there are government actors – the office of attorney general (oag), ministry of foreign affairs (mfa), ministry of labor and social affairs (molsa), federal police; civil society and community-based organizations – community care coalitions (cccs), non-governmental organizations (ngos); and others available for migration governance in ethiopia in general and missing migrants in particular. in the absence of clearly mandated government agencies, families of the missing migrants are more likely to interact with non-governmental organizations and community-based associations. for instance, cccs operate at the kebele (village) level and have been effective at mobilizing psychosocial and economic support for destitute families who have lost their loved ones, including relatives who went missing during migration journeys. thus, community-based associations such as iddir and other civil society and church groups can mobilize psychosocial and economic support for families of missing migrants. in addition, other diaspora and community-based associations, such as iddir and church organizations play a vital role in investigating and collecting data about missing and dead migrants and providing psychosocial and economic support to families left behind in hadiya district of southern ethiopia. families of missing migrants interviewed in this study reported relying on iddir and their social networks to obtain information when looking for information about relatives who emigrated using irregular channels. iddir members who reside in south africa often have contacts with smuggling facilitators, who are often members of these groups themselves in rural areas and who can help search for the missing persons through their contacts along migration routes. families engage in searching for their missing loved ones primarily through informal channels and networks. they may contact relevant authorities for support with the search. family members in the diaspora search through their networks and contact brokers for information. the ministry of foreign affairs coordinates the activities of ethiopia’s diplomatic and consular missions to ensure that the interests and rights of ethiopians residing abroad are protected. the mfa is mandated to initiate the process to rescue, release and return any ethiopian, found outside ethiopia, who is a victim of trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants. the molsa oversees the operation of peas, monitors the safety of legally deployed ethiopian migrants in gulf states and supports the repatriation of the remains of legally deployed migrant workers who died in gulf states and the middle east. the office of attorney general (oag) is mandated to prevent, protect, and prosecute crimes related to human smuggling and trafficking in persons, and to support the victims. law enforcement authorities are mandated to detect crimes related to human trafficking, smuggling, and irregular migration, and to investigate complaints of disappearances filed by families. ethiopian embassies and consulates overseas may engage in searching for ethiopian nationals missing abroad and facilitate the repatriation of remains. the international committee of the red cross (icrc) also occasionally supports this process. 109 however, despite the large number of state and non-state institutions engaged in migration governance, very few specifically attend to the dynamic needs of families with missing relatives – including the search processes, the identification and repatriation of remains, and assistance with the legal, economic and social challenges they face as a result of the disappearance. only a small handful of actors work directly on issues concerning missing migrants and their families, and they largely do so on an ad hoc manner. besides the intervention of government agencies when legally deployed migrant workers die abroad, or as a reaction to large incidents of death of ethiopian migrants when there is international media attention or involvement of influential ethiopian diaspora groups, there is no formal system in place to search for people who left the country irregularly. conclusion despite the vast size of the ethiopian diaspora and many migrants who have gone missing or perished in the context of their migration journeys (at least 4,000 recorded by the iom’s missing migrants project and bolsa within five years – 2015–2020), the dire needs and challenges that families of the missing face, are not proportionately represented in the policy or legal framework in the country. this is evidenced by the fact that there is not a single official body or institution with a mandate to provide assistance or support to families looking for missing migrants. state actions related to victim support are often ad hoc, and only in response to high profile cases, such as those involving a large number of deportations or deaths. even though ethiopia has several government agencies and proclamations related to migration and the government has ratified important human rights and migration-related international conventions, there is a lack of the technical and financial capacity to tackle the issue of missing and dead migrants. despite ethiopia having an increasing number of national laws and resources dedicated to migration management and having adopted and ratified relevant international human and migrant rights conventions, the domestic legal and policy framework does not specifically and directly deal with the phenomenon of missing migrants and the needs and concerns of their families. the ethiopian government mobilized resources and established several institutions to manage migration and reduce the risks and violence that migrants encounter at various stages of the migration cycle. there are many achievements in migration governance. however, much of the country’s refugee and migration governance and humanitarian support are still donor dependent and their roles are therefore determined by donors’ priorities and procedures. there is very limited institutional and organizational support to proactively engage with the issue of migrant deaths and disappearances and that addresses the concerns and challenges of the families left behind. there is serious mistrust between families and the state. the increasing criminalization of smuggling is a barrier to families seeking state support in searching for the missing persons, knowing that they will be interrogated the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia 110 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 and asked for information concerning smugglers, rather than their loved ones. all families who participated in the research experienced psychosocial, economic, cultural and communal challenges, but their needs and priorities also varied across rural and urban settings and the regional government they were dealing with. therefore, multi-dimensional, evidence-based, community-rooted approaches that better support the families of the missing persons across ethiopia in the face of deep financial precarity and limited mechanisms of social protection, are urgently needed. acknowledgments the research project in ethiopia and the gulf states was partly funded by a postdoctoral project from the swedish research council (vetenskapsrådet, grant number 2019-02185) and by the gmdac and the iom. the author would like to acknowledge the technical and financial support offered by these organizations. 111 references aredo, d. 2010. the iddir: an informal insurance arrangement. savings and development, 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https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2021.1874934 https://bit.ly/2hukxuk https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/08/563092-smugglers-throw-hundreds-african-migrants-boats-headed-y https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/08/563092-smugglers-throw-hundreds-african-migrants-boats-headed-y https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/08/563092-smugglers-throw-hundreds-african-migrants-boats-headed-y 115 governance. geneva: iom. available at: https://publications.iom.int/books/ migration-west-and-north-africa-and-across-mediterranean-chapter-15 the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia https://publications.iom.int/books/migration-west-and-north-africa-and-across-mediterranean-chapterhttps://publications.iom.int/books/migration-west-and-north-africa-and-across-mediterranean-chapterafrican human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1749 social inequality and social mobility: the construed diversity of ethiopian female labor migrants in djibouti meron zeleke eresso  abstract discussions about female labor migrants from the horn of africa are often loaded with accounts describing them as a homogenized group of destitute people on the move. such trends of homogenization often hide the diverse social classes within these groups and the differential access co-nationals have across such social classes. moreover, such discourses conceal the differences in migrants’ migration trajectories and related variances in their overall integration processes. this paper accentuates the heterogeneity of the social classes of ethiopian female migrants and argues that the term ethiopian female migrant is a parasol that often obscures the diverse and highly stratified migrant group. by going beyond this dominant trend of homogenization, this study addresses how differential access to economic resources, different social characteristics of migrants, and migrants’ settlement patterns impact migrants’ networks and their status within the larger ethiopian female migrant group. by building on lived experiences of ethiopian female migrants, the project assesses how ethiopian female migrants in djibouti describe their social class trajectories reflecting on how non/belonging to a specific class shaped the scale and nature of their social exclusion and inclusion by the djiboutian host community, and their entire integration process. as an anthropological piece based on an ethnographic study, the paper shows how class and social inequality is subjectively construed. keywords: djibouti, ethiopia, female migrants, social class, social inequality. introduction: setting the scene ethiopia is one of the countries in the horn of africa region with a large track record of outmigration. a study by the regional mixed migration secretariat (rmms) in 2014 noted that about 1 500 ethiopian migrants legally depart  associate professor of social anthropology and editor in chief of the ethiopian journal of human rights, addis ababa university, center for human rights. email: eressokiyya@gmail.com zeleke eresso, m. 1750 from ethiopia every day, of which the majority is recorded to be female. studies conducted over the last decade indicate a rise in the number of migrants leaving the country. woldemichael (2013) mentions that about 154 660 migrants left the country in the period between 2012 and 2013. another study by the regional mixed migration secretariat (rmms, 2014) indicates the rise in migration stating that out of 107 532 horn of africa migrants crossing the arabian sea and the red sea to yemen, 78% (84 446) were ethiopians. the us state department annual trafficking in person (tip) report of 2015 indicates that about 1 500 ethiopian migrants legally depart from ethiopia every day. political instability, coupled with economic push factors, have been the leading drivers of migration for hundreds of thousands of ethiopians leaving the country (rmms, 2014). the majority of labor migrants destined to the middle east are young ethiopian girls and women. the growing level of landlessness in the context of a massive agrarian economy, coupled with growing youth unemployment, are considered to be the leading factors significantly contributing to the mass exodus from ethiopia (carter and rohwerder, 2016). furthermore, gendered dynamics and sociocultural factors are among the contributing factors for the growing trend in the feminization of migration in ethiopia (meron, 2018a). following the mass deportation of ethiopian migrants, ethiopia officially banned the legal migration to the gulf states in 2013/2014, a phenomenon that led thousands of migrants to resort to irregular means of migration. unlike legal migration routes, this involves several transit points and stopovers. for labor migrants destined to the middle east, djibouti is one of the key transit countries. prior research has documented the plight of the female labor migrants by drawing on the different socio-economic rights violations the migrants face in different contexts (felegebirhan, 2013; waganesh etal 2015; zewdu and suleyman, 2018). the conventional discussion on ethiopian female labor migrants has portrayed women and young girls as a homogeneous group of passive agents whose migration trajectories are often narrated in reference to the diverse socio-economic violations of rights they face (selamawit, 2017). most of these prior studies on ethiopian female labor migrants failed to provide a detailed gendered analysis (for more on this see meron, 2018b). these studies have the tendency to homogenize the socio-economic profile of african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1751 ethiopian female migrants and essentialize the group of female migrants without discussing the diverse social class differences existing among the respective migrants, and the different factors accounting for such differences (rmms, 2014). furthermore, prior studies, which pay more attention to the victimhood narrative, tend to undermine the agency of the migrants. this paper argues against this point by emphasizing the agency of female migrants by drawing on aspects of social mobility. this paper addresses these two sets of gaps, i.e. the gap in understanding the heterogeneity of female labor migrants and the gap of research in addressing the agency of migrants by paying attention to aspects of social mobility. the paper is structured in five sections. the following section, i.e., section ii, presents a note on the research method. section iii provides a brief review of the literature on social inequality, class, and international migration as a way of giving a brief summary of the relevant literature and introducing the general analytical framework. section iv presents the heterogeneous class of ethiopian female migrants in djibouti. section v explores the factors affecting the social mobility of migrants and section vi presents the concluding remarks. brief note on methodology this paper addresses the perceived gap in research addressing the class positioning of migrants and the agency of female emigrants by drawing on the findings of an extended qualitative research conducted on ethiopian female migrants residing in djibouti. the empirical data presented in this article is based on a senior postdoctoral research project of the author, conducted for a period of three years on ethiopian female migrants in djibouti. djibouti’s geographical proximity to ethiopia gives it the significance of a preferred transit and destination country for many ethiopian migrants. it draws on accounts of key ethiopian female informants interviewed in djibouti consisting of a purposively selected group of informants. the informants interviewed during the course of the study are from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. their socio-economic status, as discussing in section iv of this paper, is quite diverse. the study implemented various data collection tools such as in-depth interviews with key informants, collection of migrants’ biographies and narratives (self-descriptions and definition of the situation), and focus group discussions. the study was conducted in both djibouti city zeleke eresso, m. 1752 and in the border town of obock neighboring yemen. unstructured, openended questions were posed to key informants with the purpose of giving them more room to shape the flow of conversation. furthermore, two focus group discussions (fgds) were held with a group of 10 informants over the course of the study. the study pays attention to the subjective understanding of social class and class positioning and thus draws on individual stories as a tool in order to get the nuances of the dynamics of class positioning, and the factors that account for social mobility. the methodological departure point of the study is that the subject-centered approach in migration research helps to avoid biases by letting the subjects of the study speak for themselves (triulzi and mckenzie, 2013). by going beyond the dominant trend that often treats migrants in general, and female migrants in particular, as a homogeneous entity, the paper shows the heterogeneity of ethiopian female migrants revealing a complex social class positioning. as a way of protecting informants, pseudonyms are used in this paper. by going beyond presenting trends of the feminization of labor migration in ethiopia, this paper presents the heterogeneity of ethiopian female migrants and their differences in their socio-economic status. furthermore, it reviews how migrants make sense of such diversities and the factors contributing to it, and their subjective understandings of class and social mobility in such heterogeneous environments. social class is conceptualized in this paper as a fluid, dynamic and flexible entity referring to the hierarchical distinctions between migrant individuals, where the factors that determine class varies widely, as illustrated below. this paper shows that ethiopian female migrants have different ideas about what makes one ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ in the hierarchy with different defining characteristics. social stratification among the migrant community under discussion represents the structured inequality between individuals and social groups, whereby the migrants find themselves in asymmetrical relations and possess statuses in a hierarchical structure that is prone to change rather than being a fixed entity. class, social mobility and migration class is a theme that has attracted less scholarly attention in migration research than others. van hear (2014: 100) explains that, “while once a mainstay of social science, class has lately been eclipsed in much of migration studies by consideration of other forms of social difference, affinity, and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1753 allegiance such as ethnicity, gender, generation, and lately religion”. latest discussions of class and migration involve various sub-topics. some studies focus on discussing class in relation to the socio-economic inequality happening after migration (oliver and o’reilly, 2010). other studies discuss how class affects mobility/immobility either by providing or limiting access to migration and the way class shapes the migration trajectories of migrants’ decision-making, the routes they take, and their respective destinations (van hear, 2004). van hear (2014) argues that the resources that would-be migrants could gather often shapes the form and outcome of migration. furthermore, the discussion about class and mobility also relates to studies that address how migration policies are influenced by the educational and professional profile of prospective migrants (kofman and raghuram, 2015). how migration is perceived, as a means to realize some goals by groups belonging to a certain class of the society is another theme addressed within the overarching topic of the relationship between class and migration (mapril, 2014). a recent study by cederberg (2017) accents the importance of understanding class from the individual subjects themselves. accordingly, cederberg (2017: 149) argues, “exploring subjective accounts of class provides useful insights into the complexity of how class is experienced in the context of international migration.” cederberg (2017) shows the different aspects in which migrants evaluate their class trajectories. instead of looking at and defining their status quo at a given specific time, migrants tend to describe their long-term prospective class positioning. others discuss their class trajectories in reference to the context of the family unit, by emphasizing different quality-oflife aspects existing across generations. the other central theme in the discussion on class and migration involved discussions on social mobility attending to migration outcomes in host, destination or home countries. likewise, studies by parrenas (2015) and kelly et al. (2012) present the intricacy of social class in migration by referring to points of social mobility. parrenas (2000, 2015) highlights how such social mobility is defined in different ways in different contexts. accordingly, she uses the term ‘contradictory class mobility’ to signify the trajectories of filipina female migrants who managed to secure higher income through zeleke eresso, m. 1754 domestic work in western countries, but who at the same time are experiencing ‘downward social mobility’ by being involved in work that is believed to be a domain of those with low social status. kelly’s study emphasizes the need to pay attention to a subjective understanding of social mobility and discusses how, in a context that apparently seems to be ‘deprofessionalisation and deskilling’ (2012: 166) migrants might on the other hand tend to describe their situation of class positioning in more complex ways. thus, the main discourse in the studies of social mobility in the context of migration research accents the need to adopt a transnational perspective in an attempt to understand and study social class and social mobility within the framework of migrant communities. likewise, kelly (2014: 18) notes that, “class position that must be understood in a comparative or transnational frame concerns the extension of class identity from the individual to a wider familial network”. accordingly, these academic works argue that in discussions of class and social mobility, studies need to address the themes across national boundaries because migrants are often differently positioned in different contexts (nowicka, 2013; parrenas, 2015). furthermore, kelly et al. (2012: 17) state that, “discussions of social mobility in a transnational frame tend to go beyond the aspect of presenting one’s position in one hierarchy and comparing it with a position in another, it is rather discussing the prospect for mobility within that hierarchy, either across a career or across generations, that is a major factor.” the other point in the discussion on social mobility in migration relates to the value of different forms of capital in shaping the social mobility process. as van hear (2014: 101) argues, “patterns and outcomes of migration are shaped by the resources migrants can mobilize.” economic capital is described as affecting the pattern of social mobility of migrants. while arguing along the same line, sheller and urry (2006) used the allegory of mobility in “fast and slow lanes” to discuss how the social mobility of migrants is shaped by access to resources and power (sheller and urry, 2006: 219) apart from economic capital, the gathering of non-economic resources is discussed as another factor impacting the longer-term class prospects and social mobility (nowicka, 2013). the value of social capital in shaping the social mobility of migrants is quite significant. as bourdieu (1986: 248-249) african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1755 mentions, the amount of social capital at the disposal of a given agent is shaped by the size of the network and connections that could be mobilized, and by the amount of capital held by the different networked agents. however, there are two competing accounts discussing the value of social networks. some like massey et al. (1994) accent the value of social networks arguing that social capital decreases the costs and the risks of migration by increasing the expected net returns. on the other hand, mahuteau and junankar (2008) highlight the negative effect of migrant networks, which they argue limit the integration of migrants to the local community and market and often restrict them to lower positions in the labor market. other studies have discussed the importance of taking a family-wide and intergenerational perspective on social mobility (kelly et al., 2012; nowicka, 2013). studies on social mobility have accented the importance of time in the mobility process (eade et al., 2007). ryan (2015) shows that migrants who might have experienced deskilling earlier in their migration trajectories have experiences followed by upward mobility based on the friendship and social ties they form, emphasizing the value of time in the social mobility process. as arthur (2014) argues, contemporary migration dynamics in africa exhibit class dynamics and inform the ever-widening inequality structures on the continent. attending to the complexity of the interplay between factors accounting for migration, van hear (2014) notes that the nexus between social development and migration dynamics in contemporary africa is quite a complex and multifaceted entity. flahaux and de haas (2016) argue that development and social transformation in contemporary africa raised the capabilities and aspirations to migrate. prior research conducted on ethiopian female labor migrants destined to the middle east has discussed groups of migrants often facing different forms of rights violations and precarious working conditions in their respective destinations (busza et al., 2017). furthermore, the studies drew attention to the discourse about the homogeneous socio-economic profile of ethiopian female labor migrants who in most circumstances are uneducated, young girls from an economically deprived family making the decision to migrate in search of a better future (rmms, 2014; woldemichael 2017). by drawing on the findings of the study on ethiopian female migrants in djibouti, this article https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=busza%20j%5bauthor%5d&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=28893298 zeleke eresso, m. 1756 shows the diverse socio-economic profile of migrants and the highly stratified migrant community residing in the republic and transiting through it. in the following section, this paper argues against the dominant trend in the literature paying much attention to discussing class in reference to economic factors and rather argues for the subjective understanding of class and social mobility. by going beyond the homogenization trend dominant in studies on ethiopian female migrants, this paper analyzes how the migrants speak about class in class-terms, and reviews the different features of their accounts that refer more broadly to their socio-economic positions. it further addresses the implications of migrants’ social class positioning in defining their migration trajectories. this is an essential methodological and analytical shift from the dominant trend of migration studies on ethiopia, which fail to address the account of migrants defining their social status and where migrants’ subjective understanding of class is often muted. furthermore, this paper argues that while addressing the factors contributing to the social mobility of migrants, studies need to pay attention to exploring the subjective accounts of social mobility in a specific context rather than pinpointing to specific factors, as such an approach helps to provide useful insights into the complexity of the social mobility process and factors accounting for it. the setting and heterogeneity of ethiopian female migrants djibouti has a coastline stretching from the red sea to the indian ocean, passing through the bab el mandeb strait, granting it a strategic location enticing thousands of migrants from this troubled region of the horn of africa. accordingly, thousands of ethiopians, somalis and eritreans destined to the gulf area and beyond transit through djibouti. ethiopians are the majority of foreign communities in djibouti followed by somalis and eritreans (hawa, 2015). following the deportation of about 160 000 undocumented ethiopian migrants from the kingdom of saudi arabia, the ethiopian government announced a temporary ban on migration to the middle east (meron, 2018a). this ban on official labor migration led a number of migrants to resort to irregular ways of migrating. djibouti appealed as one of the major transit pathways for thousands of ethiopian migrants. in order to better comprehend the discussion on social class and status of migrants, this paper focuses on stationed ethiopian female migrants who are residing in african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1757 djibouti ville excluding thousands of transit migrants. the analysis of the empirical data collected during the course of the study shows the heterogeneous social class of the group. the subjective definition of class by the migrant groups shows the insights into the complexity of experiencing and defining class. the three major variables said to mark the social class of the female migrants are the nature of job/income status of migrants, the migration status of the respective migrants, and their settlement patterns. income/nature of job and social class ethiopian female migrants in djibouti are highly stratified in terms of their economic status. even though it is difficult to draw a clear line marking the hierarchy, the class difference among this migrant community can be inferred from the different nature of the jobs they engage in and the related economic capital they generate and have at their disposal. as an ethnographic study that paid much attention to the subject-centered approach, the hierarchies of the different types of jobs and the sub-categories and hierarchies of different businesswomen are drawn from accounts of the key informants of the study. as most informants allude, negade setoch (businesswomen) are the ones regarded as being economically well-to-do and at the upper scale of the economic ladder. even though the number of ethiopian female business owners in djibouti city is insignificant compared to their male counterparts, there are few women who run businesses in djibouti ville and on the outskirts of djibouti town. there is no special immigration scheme in djibouti that aims at facilitating the entry of highly skilled, well-educated and wealthy immigrants at the national and provincial levels. hence, most ethiopian business owners in djibouti are those who entered the country either as undocumented migrants and have stayed in the country for a while and changed their status or those who have entered on a work permit. negade setoch are heralded as providing economic benefits to the locals and as being better integrated into the local market. the negade setoch is a generic term used to describe those owning hotels, restaurants, bars and nightclubs. owners of sagur bet (beauty salon) are the second in the social class of negade setoch following hotel owners. the third in the social class of migrant businesswomen are those selling vegetables, fruits and spices imported from eastern ethiopia. the justifications given for placing businesswomen on top zeleke eresso, m. 1758 mainly relates to their higher income and earning capacity. the other factor raised by informants also relates to the immigration status of businesswomen who in most circumstances have a legal permanent/temporary resident status, which qualifies them to run businesses in djibouti. while describing the economic status of the migrants, informants tend to describe professional women as the ones who hold secondary status next to businesswomen. the number of professional ethiopian women in djibouti participating in the workforce requiring some type of specialization and higher education training is very insignificant. there are very few ethiopian women working as sales agents in transit and freight companies, transnational corporations and in the financial services in djibouti. there were about six young girls working for transit companies during the time of the fieldwork. the strict immigration policy, language requirement (proficiency in the official working language, french), the low pay scale and the harsh weather conditions are described by this group of skilled migrants as non-conducive factors restraining the number of skilled ethiopian female migrants from joining different private firms in djibouti. the other set of professional female immigrants consists of the few ethiopian nationals working at different international and regional development organizations in djibouti. their number is also quite insignificant compared to the thousands of labor migrants residing in the capital and in the republic. the groups holding the third status among ethiopian female migrants are the ethiopian sex workers involved in the lucrative sex work business. sex work is a well-paid business in djibouti due to the significant number of international military personnel, numerous port operators, and long-distance truck drivers. as an economic hub, djibouti city is a place where there is a high injection of global finance. the sex workers are a highly stratified group ranging from the sex workers working as kimit (mistresses), strippers/dancers, those working at private residences, massage parlors, and those working at hotels and nightclubs. during the course of the fieldwork, the author interviewed a number of ethiopian women who are serving as kimit of expatriates, mainly foreign military men, working as contractors and soldiers for the foreign military bases, mainly the americans, french, spanish, and chinese. the majority of the informants involved in the sex work business mentioned their aspirations to be in such a relationship which is commonly african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1759 referred to as kimit, as the account of elisabeth shows: the dream of every sex worker is to change her status from being a bar girl to a kimit. this dream further entails the ultimate aim of every kimit which is to change her status from being a kimit to being a wife. even though there are rare cases of young ethiopian sex workers marrying expats, such precedents give the kimits the hope that most of them cling to, to becoming a wife. among the general categories of sex workers, those who are considered to be on the lowest strata are the ones working at small brothels in the neighborhood of quartier 2, a neighborhood with numerous small bars with large numbers of ethiopian sex workers. while sex work is officially outlawed, such ‘complexes’ like quartier 2 are located at the heart of the old city. they usually consist of 30-50 brothels run by separate owners and each housing between 3-5 sex workers. even though informants mentioned sex work as a better paying job than domestic work in djibouti, most of the key informants, including the sex workers, mentioned the stereotype and stigma attached to it. this relates to the account by sanders and campbell (2007: 3) which relates to the historical and cultural endurance of intolerance and hostility towards sex workers. the social class of specific migrants defined by the ethiopian community in relation to the type of job places ethiopian women working in the care sector on the lowest strata of the economic ladder. the care sector refers to transnational labor and care arrangements in domestic work migration. this group consists of the majority of the migrants who are over-represented in low-paid jobs. they are generally described as shaqala or serataganas (maids). the shaqala group, like the three general groups mentioned above, consists of further stratified migrant workers. the difference between classes among this group relates to the pay scale, the nature of jobs they engage in and the immigration status of the workers. the jobs these groups of female migrants often engage in are tsidat (cleaning), migib sira (cooking), and lij tibeka (babysitting). key informants and focus group discussion participants emphasized the better pay that maids in djiboutian households earn than the average payment a maid working in ethiopian upper-class households earn. in ethiopian upper-middle class households the maximum amount maids earn zeleke eresso, m. 1760 on average is about 2 000 ethiopian birr (circa 65 usd) per month. this amount is by far less than the minimum wage. a maid working in a djiboutian lower-middle class household usually earns about 17 000 djf (circa 3 150 ethiopian birr, or 112 usd). the pay is by far higher in djiboutian upper-class households where maids earn on average up to 25 000-30 000 djf (circa 143170 usd). despite djibouti’s high cost of living, the expenses for the migrants in djibouti are quite low due the fact that food and accommodation are provided by employers. the construction of social hierarchies of class in the context of the female migrants shows a strong inclination towards defining class in relation to earning capacity. this needs to be situated and analyzed with reference to the key push factor accounting for the migration project of the migrants under discussion. as most migrants are labor migrants who left their country in search of green pastures, the relative success of a migration project in such circumstances tend to be framed and defined in reference to one’s economic income. the analysis of such a reference to the pay scale in their home country, while discussing their income in djibouti, shows the value of transnational understanding and the spatiality of class. this relates to kelly’s (2009) discussion on the point that class is constructed in important ways either in the context of comparisons between the host country and home, or in relation to transnational linkages between the two places. migration status and social class although there are no official statistics available on the overall number of ethiopian migrants in djibouti, data collected by the ethiopian community association shows that there are more than 60 000 ethiopians residing in the republic. as shown in this section, the migration status is labeled by key informants as a crucial element shaping and defining the social hierarchy of respective migrants. migration status is closely intertwined with the nature of the work the migrants engage in. drawing on her lived experience, lydia mentions that employers place more value on legal status than they do on the skills of migrant workers: i have friends who have less cooking and cleaning skills than myself and who didn't have any skills training back home, but who are earning double the amount of what i earn here. i have a cooking skills certificate, which i african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1761 obtained from a public technical and vocational training school (tvet) back home. i am relatively better educated as i have completed high school and i have better command of english. the skills and the assets i have did not make any significant change on the nature of the job i am doing as a maid and the terms of my employment. all that counts is having the werket (the legal immigration documents) (lydia, djibouti). lydia’s story gives us an insight into how much the possession of a legal migration status shapes their everyday lived experience, defining the prospects for integration into the local job market and better living and working conditions. the majority of ethiopian female migrants in djibouti are undocumented. these are groups who entered the country without authorization from djiboutian immigration authorities or without an entry visa. quite insignificant numbers of the undocumented migrants initially traveled with a valid visa and overstayed the period of time allowed to be in the country as a visitor. undocumented immigrants are the precarious group holding uncertain migration status and are not eligible to get work permits that would allow them to engage in the djiboutian labor market. hence, undocumented ethiopian female immigrants in most circumstances are employed in local djiboutian households where they live and work as live-in maids with restricted mobility and lower wages. the official working days in djibouti are from sunday through thursday and accordingly fridays (juma’a) and saturdays are the main weekly off-days in the country. the other groups of ethiopian female migrants are documented migrants having the legal documents allowing them to reside in djibouti. such legal immigration status often entitles them to obtain work permits. the carte de séjour temporaire, the temporary residents’ card, valid for a year, allows the migrants to live and work in djibouti. owning such a legal residence permit offers the female migrants better working opportunities than undocumented ones. furthermore, it offers them a better negotiating ground about the terms and the nature of their employment. even though the nature of jobs that ethiopian female migrants in djibouti engage in tends to be in the domestic care business, the documented immigrants get relatively better pay and decent working conditions as in some circumstances they are employed at households of expatriates working for international organizations, and highranking diplomats. unlike the undocumented workers, they often work as zeleke eresso, m. 1762 weraj or temelalash, an arrangement whereby the workers commute between the places of their work and their residences. the average working hours for documented migrants working as maids is often 8 hours a day, while the livein migrant workers work on average between 12-14 hours a day. settlement pattern and social status the subjective accounts of social class as presented by ethiopian female migrants in djibouti point to the third key element, which pertains to the social class of migrants. the settlement pattern of the migrants in djibouti is described as a variable indicating the class of migrants, showing their status in the migrants’ social class hierarchy. pk 12 is a highway where hundreds of trucks pass through every day while travelling on the ethio-djiboutian corridor. after offloading the items imported from ethiopia, truckers wait at pk 12 for their papers to be processed to enter djibouti city before resuming the journey back to ethiopia. pk 12 is home to some 35 000 people. this is a neighborhood where young female migrants crossing from eastern ethiopia to djibouti pass through. when walking on the streets of pk 12 it is quite common to come across a number of newly arriving migrants and accordingly pk 12 is a transit and resting place for these groups of migrants as much as it is for the truckers. the small restaurants and bars in the neighborhood have sheds built to host the drivers during their days in djibouti. these resting places, referred to as marafiya bets, are usually owned and run by ethiopian businesswomen. amharic is the main lingua franca in the neighborhood and people use both the birr (the ethiopian currency) and djiboutian franc for their everyday transactions. the marafiya bets are mini dining houses where drivers can get ethiopian meals, ethiopian coffee and where they can chew qat (catha edulis, a stimulant growing in the horn of africa and the middle east). the ethiopian madams running the small restaurants often employ young newcomers who have crossed the border recently and those who do not have the resources (both financial resources and social networks) in djibouti city, or to travel further. hence, pk 12 serves as a transit point for a group of young newly arriving labor migrants and as a place where they get employed for a very small fee, an income that they use to pay for their further migration. the madams owning the small restaurants are in most cases wives or partners african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1763 of truck drivers. some of them are elderly women who have lived in djibouti for decades and have secured work permits that allow them to run businesses. during a focus group discussion held with the girls employed in those restaurants, the most accented point about the transit nature of pk 12 relates to the fact that this is a place associated with transiting to djibouti and further, and a place that serves the purpose of obtaining the necessary resources and information needed. the city is like an ocean and we don’t dare to take the risk of going to a place where we do not know anyone. if one has the money to buy the service of a local broker to find job in djibouti city or to proceed further then it is less likely to find that person here in pk 12. this is the place for the destitute who lack the resources and information. (nesra nuri; djibouti 12.01.2019). arhiba is a major slum area in djibouti city located at the center of the city. this is a neighborhood with tiny shacks made of cardboard, wood and metal junk. arhiba is a part of djibouti city where mainly members of the afar-ethnic group, one of the two major ethnic groups of djibouti, live. it is an old neighborhood, established in 1970, for afar dockers working at the port. it is a densely populated slum area hosting numerous ethiopian migrants. these migrants include a group of transit migrants, migrant workers, and smugglers/brokers who facilitate the employment of migrants in djibouti city and further migration. given djibouti city’s high rental cost, arhiba provides relatively low-budget housing in small rooms of 4m2 x 5m2. ethiopian female migrants working in djiboutian households come to their small rented shacks during their monthly days off. furthermore, it is also a home for transit migrants who are transiting through djibouti and waiting for the brokers and smugglers facilitating their travels. so, the two groups of ethiopian female migrants residing in arhiba are the transit migrants and undocumented migrants working in djibouti city as domestic workers. in most circumstances, ethiopian bale bet, or akeray (landlords) married to local djiboutian afar men own the small shacks. nafisa recounted: like hundreds of other ethiopian girls, i rented a small room with 5 of my friends and i am usually coming to this place for my monthly days off. arhiba is a sanctuary to higawet sidetegena (illegal migrants). a documented person wouldn't reside in this neighborhood unless he/she is the owner of zeleke eresso, m. 1764 the place i.e. the akeray (nafisa, arhiba). nafisa’s statement frames arhiba as the place for the destitute and undocumented migrants and best shows the consensus among the ethiopian migrants emphasizing the relationship between social class and residential areas. likewise, quartier 2 is a neighborhood in djibouti city with a large number of ethiopian migrants. it is a neighborhood with small bars and a large numbers of ethiopian sex workers (see section iii above). the two neighborhoods (arhiba and quartier 2) are considered neighborhoods where undocumented ethiopian female migrants reside in large numbers. the reputation of quartier 2 is as a complex where young migrant girls, mostly sex workers from ethiopia, rent places in houses owned by older ethiopian women who have lived in djibouti for a long time and have mostly passed through the same life experience of working at brothels. this is a neighborhood in the city where police raids, locally referred to as ‘roughs’, take place frequently, undermining the safety of sex workers and forcing them often to work underground. informants from this neighborhood emphasize the point that the criminalization of sex work puts migrant sex workers at the risk of abuse and exploitation by local customers. neighborhoods like djibouti foq, eron and place menelik are parts of the city where in most circumstances documented female migrants working in bigger bars, professional women and those running businesses, are residing. these are neighborhoods with high rentals and ethiopian female migrants living in such neighborhoods are the ones who can afford to pay the high rental costs. unlike the other neighborhoods the places are often apartments and relatively modern-style common residential flats. the settlement pattern of ethiopian female migrants in djibouti is hence described as something exhibiting the high levels of income inequality at best. thus, the differences are described as entities duplicated between occupation-defined classes within the neighborhoods. factors affecting social mobility of migrants gold (2001) argues that individual migrants and sub-groups experience social and economic mobility in host settings. social mobility is “the movement or opportunities for movement between different social classes or occupational african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1765 groups” (aldridge, 2003: 189). such mobilities can either be upward or downward. cederberg (2017) likewise accents the point that international migration may involve upward or downward social mobility. furthermore, she mentions different factors affecting the positioning of migrants in social strata such points as education, linguistic competence, and social capital. the lived experiences of ethiopian female migrants in djibouti show how a multitude of factors contribute to the upward social mobility of migrants and change of social status, as discussed in this section. one of the key findings of the study is that the social positioning of ethiopian female migrants in a specific class is a complex entity. this is mainly because migrants, who are believed to experience some downward social mobility in the djiboutian context, maintain property or businesses back in ethiopia, which are financed through remittances sent from djibouti. this at best exhibits what parrenas (2001:15) calls “contradictory class mobility” whereby while their economic situation back home improves, their social status in the receiving country decreases. thus, while the female migrants are engaged in one set of class relationships in djibouti, their experiences show that they are engaged in quite different ones in ethiopia. muna’s narrative about her lived experience explains this: i am working in a hair salon here in djibouti earning six to seven times more than what a person with the same skill and expertise makes back home. of course, being employed at someone else’s hair salon is not such a dignified job in ethiopia even though it is considered as being better than to be employed as a maid. so, the fact that i am working as a hairdresser here might sound as if i am doing the low paying job in ethiopia. but now i have bought and shipped back all the hair salon stuffs i need to start up my own business in desse, my birth town. i have already built the house i will be running my business in and also managed to buy all the materials i need. so, inshallah in few months’ time i will be a business owner in my own country which is going to be a real lewit (transformation). one of the key factors that informants mentioned during both in-depth interviews and focus group discussions was the value of social networks in shaping the social mobility of migrants. a social network is described as something that can deliver valuable resources such as access to information, zeleke eresso, m. 1766 and a support base that often helps migrants to advance in their careers. the networks established by the migrants and the friends they make often become major sources of information and support. hence, as coleman (1988) argues, social capital is not embodied in the social agents themselves, or in the physical implements of production, like economic capital, but it is mainly embodied in the relations among persons (coleman, 1988:98). the co-residential arrangement, or the local debal living arrangement mentioned under section iii above, is one of the key ways in which the female migrants build their social networks. the co-residence in the small shared rooms in djibouti city is one of the ways in which the migrants get the opportunity to access information. in most circumstances, well-established migrants provide different social protections and support to migrants such as hosting migrants, providing financial support, and facilitating their employment. there is a strong sense of ‘filial’ responsibility from the bale bêtes (the landlords renting their places) emphasizing the point that those with legal migration status are expected to support the desperate ones seeking help. the above discussion shows how social capital is often converted to a source of economic capital, a point that prior research highlights (drever and hoffmeister, 2008; van meeteren et al., 2009). as van hear (2014) asserts, migrants’ endowments of economic and social capital, or the amount of economic, social and other capital, would affect their migration trajectories, as ethiopian migrants in djibouti emphasize their upward social mobility. the second main factor mentioned by most informants as a key factor contributing to the upward social mobility of the female migrants is the change in immigration status. there are three main ways that immigrants use to obtain the carte de séjour temporaire – the temporary residents’ legal residence permit. the first way is through the afar traditional indigenization practice of the fiqmatagle, which is an afar customary institution of assimilating non-afars born outside of djibouti. according to this assimilation mechanism, the non-afar person approaches and requests an afar family to adopt him/her to their family for lifelong fostering. the adopting afar family helps him/her to fully integrate into afar culture. this traditional assimilation system also helps the non-afar to be identified as a member of the afar ethnic group allowing the person to obtain a local residence card and ultimately become a djiboutian citizen. the second mechanism mentioned by informants african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1767 as a way of securing the legal residence permit is through marrying a local djiboutian and having a marriage certificate proving the marriage of an ethiopian woman to a djiboutian citizen. the third mechanism is through paying for a one-year residency card, which costs 30 000 djf (circa 169 usd). for the third mechanism a migrant worker is expected to be in possession of a legal travel document, i.e. a passport, which she or he has used when entering djibouti. furthermore, he/she is expected to provide evidence of employment showing he/she will be employed or starting his/her own business. informants mentioned how much social networks and economic capital shape gaining access to the aforementioned mechanisms that would allow a person to get a legal residency status in djibouti, which ultimately is believed to contribute to the upward social mobility of the migrants. the third crucial factor informants raised as a factor affecting the social mobility of the migrants, is time. most informants, especially the businesswomen, emphasize the value of time in defining and shaping their achievements and gaining a better financial stance. this resonates with wright’s (2005) argument that class has a temporal dimension and current class positioning must be seen in this context. while describing the value of time, informants state that upon arrival most immigrants tend not to have basic information about the place, ways of finding jobs and they might not have networks with other co-nationals or the local community. ‘ya gize guday new’ (it is a matter of time) is a phrase that featured often in most of the discussions pertaining to social mobility. time is described as an entity that affects the migration trajectories mainly affecting the integration process into the labor market and occupational mobility that in turn affects the social mobility of the female migrants. the value of time in the social mobility of the migrants can be inferred from the analysis of the data collected during the fieldwork. it shows that most of the female migrants, upon their arrival, experience occupational downgrading whereby high school graduates and migrants with some skills training certificates and diplomas work in domestic services in their first jobs. through time, movement out of domestic services is possible, in situations where the migrants develop the necessary linguistic competence and networks. zeleke eresso, m. 1768 the fourth factor the study found out, as an element impacting the social mobility of female migrants, is family. informants explained this in three different ways. for the first set of informants, getting married to a local djiboutian citizen and gaining a certain legal residence status uplifts their status from a certain social class group and entitles them to climb the social class ladder by integrating into the djiboutian labor market. the second line of thought is for those groups of female migrants who emphasize the emotional satisfaction of becoming a mother. this second account, which offers great importance to establishing a family life relates to the point that van den berg (2011) makes when discussing how social mobility is described in multiple ways. he includes the way in which migrants seek alternative forms of success by having good friends and family, being healthy and striving for a better future for their children (van den berg, 2011). the third line of thought has a transnational frame whereby social mobility is addressed in reference to a wider familial network. accordingly, many informants mentioned that despite the dissatisfaction they have with their living and working conditions in djibouti, their success stories in relation to the support they extend to their families back home is what they duly consider as an aspect of their upward social mobility. this paper accentuates the need to adopt a broader framework in analyzing the factors accounting for social mobility than a monocausal analysis, which often focuses on economic factors. the conceptual contribution to the discourse of migration research also relates to the argument for adopting a ‘broader conceptualization of migration’, as a phenomenon taking place within social fields extended beyond the actual migrants themselves to include those whom they have left behind and to whom they are connected through networks of social relations. this is a point that can be inferred from the fact that social class positioning and social mobility among the group of migrants under discussion is also framed with transnational reference. the discussion on social mobility highlights the agency of the migrants. the discussions presented here challenged pre-existing discourses stressing the passive nature of female migrants often inscribed in the victimhood narrative. instead, it has shown that migrants are indeed active agents with their own lived experiences, exhibiting aspects of change and dynamic class positioning. this paper contributes to the wider discussion of social class and mobility by african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december) 1769 highlighting that, among migrants, a) social class systems tend to be quite fluid; b) class positions in the context of mobility are often achieved; and c) social class goes beyond being an economically-based category. conclusion migrants’ class trajectories reveal a complex social class positioning of migrants. despite the common social class they have, this paper revealed that ethiopian female migrants in djibouti are highly stratified groups with various social classes. as the data presented in the above sections clearly shows, social class is experienced and interpreted by female migrants in different ways, strengthening the argument for considering subjective understandings of class processes. one of the complexities of migrants’ class trajectories relates to the experiences they have whereby they concurrently experience better economic positions and a decline in social status. this dual positioning of social class is a point that key informants reference while discussing their social class position in relation to the positions they hold in the host country while at the same time referring to their probable social positioning back home. this key argument of the paper therefore goes beyond a phenomenon called “methodological nationalism” (glick schiller, 2009: 4), an orientation that approaches the study of social and historical processes as if they were contained within the borders of individual nation-states and rather pays attention to the multiple, shifting nature of migration class positioning. this accentuates the importance of transnational linkages and comparisons in the subjective interpretation of class among migrants in general, and the female migrants in particular. based on the analysis of the data presented in the preceding sections, this paper emphasizes the importance of developing both a subjective framework and a transnational framework of understanding class processes in order to get a comprehensive understanding about the phenomenon of social class and social mobility of migrants. the comparison of their economic status with the community back home impacts on the way female migrants evaluate their social class trajectories, emphasizing the sense of positive distinction from those left behind. transnational frames of reference vividly show the way migrants evaluate their migration trajectories, their class positioning and their prospects for social mobility as presented in the empirical data from djibouti. zeleke eresso, m. 1770 the subjective understanding of class among the ethiopian female migrants shows how the variables setting classes apart might not necessarily or exclusively relate to the economic status or economic capital. such variables as immigration status and settlement patterns are used as part of the criteria to measure a migrant’s position in the socio-economic hierarchy. while outlining the elements defining the class of respective migrants, the three elements believed to set the migrants’ social class apart were: differential access to economic resources, the migration status of respective migrants and their settlement patterns. this paper asserts that the positioning of migrants in a certain class, limits their full immersion into the receiving culture. even though immigrants themselves might have experienced a downward social mobility in positional class terms, their outlook towards upward social mobility is framed in reference to the result that their migration bears for those left behind in terms of raising their income and catering for their opportunities in life. references aldridge, s. 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(2018). depression and coping mechanisms among migrant returnees from middle east countries in amhara region, ethiopia. health science journal, 12(2): 560. https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjms20/current https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjms20/current 79 examining nigeria’s digital identity project as a tool for economic inclusion and regional integration samson olaoluwa faboye1 received: 15 november 2021 / accepted: 05 april 2022 / published online: 29 april 2022 access to the digitized economy has an increased penetration across the spectrum of africa’s rural and urban populace. unlike the prevalent informal economy, the digital economy scrutinizes people’s identities as individuals with exclusive identities. after years of prior proclamations postponements, in 2017, the nigerian government began enforcing the harmonization of sundry digital identity databases and compelling digital identity registration of all citizens and residents. on the other hand, there is a de facto delineation of the nigerian citizenry into normative categories of ‘indigenes’ and ‘settlers’, which is at the heart of the nigerian identity question. this casts doubt on the ability of the nigerian state to fulfil its commitment to regional and continental free movement protocols it has ratified. this article explores the de facto nuances of stratified nigerian citizenship, which the nigerian digital identity project can help solve. i employ descriptive and explanatory analysis of extant national, regional and continental policy frameworks to appraise nigeria’s digital identity management systems. harmonizing nigeria’s sundry digital schemes is critical to defining citizenship, residency rights, socioeconomic inclusion, transnational citizenship and border security, while facilitating the desired free movement of persons and goods within the african continent, as yearned by regional and continental protocols. keywords: citizenship, digitization, transnationalism 1 department of urban and regional planning, university of johannesburg, south africa.  sfaboye@gmail.com © the author 2022 nigeria’s digital identity project as a tool for economic inclusion and regional integration 80 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 introduction digital identity systems in nigeria have been characterized by independent personal data curations by private and public agencies, which are not harmonized and centrally accessible. the initial drive at identity registration by sundry public and private organizations was aimed at issuing “identity cards” deemed valid to be utilized by the bearer for the activity it prescribes (nimc, 2010). for example, the federal road safety commission (frsc) manages the issuance of driver's licenses (frn, 2007a); nigeria immigration service (nis) handles the issue of international passports (frn, 2015). the independent national electoral commission (inec) issues voter cards (frn, 2010), among several governmental agencies which administer identity cards to signify the registration of the bearer. in several cases, these sundry identity cards are recognized as identity particulars to validate one’s identity when required publicly. advancement in technology has ensured the sophistication of identity management systems. there is now a universal penchant for switching from non-digital forms of identity curation to digital or electronic formats, which are interoperable across organizations and nation-states and utilized to access various services relating to human activities. information and communication technology (ict) systems are now incorporated into public and private enterprise service delivery. referred to as ‘e-governance’, these measures are intended to enhance transparency and improved service delivery (bannister and connolly, 2012). this modality would require interaction with a consistent digital identity of citizens rather than multiple digital identities for effectiveness (ayo, 2010). this measure serves as a check for faceless individuals and sharp practices within the digital economy. technological advancements in digital systems now enable the synchronization of digital identity across human activity platforms such as business transactions, voting, health insurance, driver licensing, etc. (engin and treleaven, 2019). this aligns with the extant globalization trend, which requires seamless cross-border human interaction in public and private dealings. such would require data sharing and synchronization to drive the economy and uphold formalized transactions worldwide. current initiatives at harmonizing nigeria’s digital identity began in 2005, building on past national identity implementation initiatives when nigeria’s federal government constituted a technical sub-committee to evaluate extant identity card projects. the findings declared twelve independent identity schemes, most of which inculcated biometrics (presidency, 2006). these separate identity schemes held data ranging from ten thousand to fifty-eight million persons (ibid). however, these several independent identity schemes were found to duplicate functions and were tantamount to resource wastage, particularly for digital identity management initiatives of governmental agencies. consequently, governmental efforts were invigorated to manage the harmonization of digital identity systems in nigeria. this culminated in the establishment of the national identity management commission 81 (nimc), backed by the nimc act 23 of 2007. this act established the national identity database (nidb) to be managed by nimc, as prescribed in sections 14–17 of the act (frn, 2007b). therefore, the identities of nigerian citizens and legal residents would be coded in unique national identification numbers (nin), which would be a prerequisite to obtaining a national electronic identity card (ibid). additionally, the nin is expected to be a digital identity requirement for accessing government services and a framework for the integration of other independent databases such as voter’s cards, driver’s licenses, bank accounts, international passports and the likes (frn, 2017; soriwei and adetayo, 2017). extant enrolment figures declared by nimc as of july 2021 stand at a little over 54 million nigerians (nimc, 2021), which is around a quarter of the national population, estimated to be 211.4 million persons (unfpa, 2021). ongoing efforts by the nigerian government to institute and harmonize digital identity schemes to consolidate the national identity database present an opportunity to address the underlying issues of inclusion among nigeria's citizens and legal residents. there is a search for the soul of the ‘nigerian identity’ amidst fragmented identity allegiance along the lines of ethnicity, religion and regional bias (odum, 2018). this phenomenon is the bane of broader socioeconomic exclusions through which nigerians may face discrimination in accessing governmental services on the grounds of ethnic ancestry. exclusion based on religion is also common; however, exclusion based on indigeneship2 is prime. enforcing this exclusion is the “certificate of local government of origin”, which serves as the de facto nigerian citizenship identity document required to access most government services, especially civil service jobs, scholarships, and elective and political appointments. nigeria has a long unsettling citizenship stratification question with the normative categorization of citizens as “indigenes” and “settlers” (olakunle et al., 2016; akintola and yabayanze, 2017; oyeweso, 2021). though not a constitutionally recognized identity document, the local government of origin certificate enforces the stratification of nigerian citizenship as indigenes and settlers. this, in turn, queries the constitutional mandate and privileges of nigerian citizenship, legal residency, and the nigerian state’s ability to confer privileges of transnational citizenship within regional and continental free movement protocols. the de facto prevalence of ethnoreligious identity schemes with discriminatory intent as the basis for defining stratified nigerian citizenship will inhibit the intent of the african continental free trade area (afcfta) and the african union (au) and economic community of west african states (ecowas) protocols on the free movement of persons in nigeria. there is a need to appraise the ability of the nigerian government’s digital identity scheme to foster internal, 2 the indigeneship question is the core of the nigerian identity debate. due to fears of domination by ethnic sections, the extant nigerian constitution enshrines the “federal character principle”, which ensures a sectional representative balance of appointments/employment in all national government institutions. section 147 (b) of the 1999 constitution stipulates that “the president shall appoint at least one minister from each state, who shall be an indigene of such state” (frn, 2011). to this, the “certificate of local government of origin” obtained from traditional rulers or local government areas to which one can trace ethnic ancestry serves as the de facto identity document with which a nigerian citizen can access governmental service. nigeria’s digital identity project as a tool for economic inclusion and regional integration 82 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 regional and continental integration. in three core segments of this article, i explore the nuances of the nigerian de facto and de jure identity, citizenship and residency. i explore regional and continental frameworks for socioeconomic integration in africa that nigeria subscribes to and interrogate how nigeria’s digital identity scheme would facilitate socioeconomic inclusion on the local, regional and continental scale. the first segment draws from the theory of boundaries of inclusion to underpin the research framework. in the second segment, i case study the european union (eu) schengen agreement, drawing from its success as a pan-european socioeconomic regional integration tool through an integrated identity repository. the third segment examines the nigerian digital scheme, exploring gaps that might inhibit its functionality from fostering national, regional and continental socioeconomic integration. research methodology the article relied on secondary data to explore and explain the core themes of the topic. as such, the qualitative research method was employed. this entailed a literature search and documentary reviews. citizenship and transnationalism were keywords used to ignite the literature search on google scholar. documentary reviews covered nigeria’s 1999 constitution, digital identity policy documents, ecowas and au protocols on the free movement of persons. berkwits and inui (1998) argue that qualitative research employs case studies and participant observation methods to present a descriptive account of a norm. in appraising nigeria’s digital identity project to achieve national, regional and continental socioeconomic integration, i draw from my personal experience as a nigerian and case study of the european union’s schengen agreement. theories on the boundaries of inclusion and citizenship the phenomenon of globalization permeates international border barriers bringing about worldwide interconnectivity in all spheres of human socioeconomic and cultural interactions (o’rourke and williamson, 2002). in a sense, the feel of a vast world has been reduced to what is termed a “global village” (martens et al., 2010). as a result, the trend of globalization and migration is increasingly creating multicultural societies. as the composition of peoples of modern nation-states becomes heterogeneous, there is a rising dichotomy along the lines of inclusion and exclusion on the group that should be rightly ascribed as “the people”. näsström (2007) points out that the people identity question becomes thorny in the face of border delineation for local municipalities and nation-states. as such, the legitimacy of the claimants alluding to being “founding peoples” in a given society and then having to determine the legitimacy and apportioning citizenship and residency rights of subsequent settlers is called to question (ibid). political theory scholarship finds a puzzle to justify the legitimacy of “founding peoples” claims to the extent 83 of this group determining the lines of inclusion and exclusion (thomassen, 2006; deckard and heslin, 2016; okamoto and ebert, 2016; fischer et al., 2020). building on deductions of political theorists such as habermas (2005) and benhabib (2004), the premise for the founding of societies to be based on “unexamined prejudices, ancient battles, historical injustices and sheer administrative fiat” (benhabib, 2004: 178; habermas, 2005). ordinarily, residency confers rights to social rights, which provide access to living the “good life” (macaro, 2005). however, citizenship avails a much fuller measure of demanding greater rights from the social contract, which is invisibly extant between the government and the masses (adejumobi, 2001). normative legal citizenship conferment identifies jus soli or citizenship acquisition by birth and jus sanguinis or citizenship acquisition by descent (faist, 2009). however, depending on extant national laws, there could be an alternate path to citizenship by naturalization, which procedural requirement differs from country to country (andreouli and howarth, 2013). by this, country residents can be delineated as citizens and noncitizens. the non-citizen category is further divided into temporary and permanent residents. the aristotelian definition of citizenship confers judicial and political privileges on individuals within the confines of a nation-state (deckard and heslin, 2016). arendt (1962) argues that the privilege to acquire political rights makes a significant difference between human and animal organizations. therefore, citizenship confers “rights to have rights” within a sociopolitical commune (arendt, 1962; deckard and heslin, 2016). scholars have identified core attributes of citizenship as status, rights, political engagement, and identity (bosniak, 2006; scherz, 2013: 2). to this end, citizenship status is described as statutory obligations of individuals to the nationstate. individuals begin to enjoy the privilege of citizenship only after fulfilling the set obligations as required by the nation-state (weinstock, 2001). having attained the required eligibility for citizenship, individuals are required to register and procure the necessary state-issued identity documents. this validates the status of qualified individuals as citizens and makes the state liable to provide the privileges of citizenship to such individuals (hammar, 2018). from marshall’s (1950) theory of citizenship, the attributive rights of citizenship are identified as civil, political and social. civil rights come under the purview of fundamental rights necessary for preserving human dignity, as guaranteed by the state. such include liberty rights, property ownership rights, right to justice, freedom of thought, belief and speech. political rights allude to the right to participate in the state’s political process either as an elector or by taking up political leadership positions. social rights refer to the right to access social services provided by the state (de la paz, 2012). while the citizenship attributes of ‘status’ and ‘rights’ are inclusionary, lines of exclusions emerge in the other citizenship attributes of ‘political engagement’ and ‘identity’. the utmost delineation of resident categories within a state is the attribute nigeria’s digital identity project as a tool for economic inclusion and regional integration 84 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 and right to political participation. this presents exclusionary situations wherein a category of the citizenry is limited or excluded from political involvement. marshall’s citizenship theory argues that the concept of citizenship affords equality amongst the diverse socioeconomic groupings within a state, particularly in liberal constitutional societies. despite being a professed constitutional liberal democracy right from its founding, pre-1960 usa did not guarantee the full right to political participation of non-white racial groups. the jim crow laws (klarman, 2004) notably reinforced discriminatory political and economic disenfranchisement of black american citizens who were rated as three-fifth humans (henricks, 2017). therefore, where such individuals are opportune to vote, they do not have one full vote. neither can such a category of citizenry stand for elective positions. however, discriminatory exclusionary racial laws were abolished in the usa in the 1960s, following intense civil rights activity led by martin luther king jr (kotz, 2006). identity as an attribute of citizenship manifests as patriotic or nationalistic allegiance to the state (weinstock, 2001). however, the identity attribute of citizenship poses substantial controversies, as presented in the concept of modern nation-states, especially for cases of colonial-created countries, in africa. identity is a social construct typified by ethnic, religious and cultural affiliations (rundle, 2009). nation-states rally around common identity constructs to define and portray a national identity. while this would be easy for homogenous nation-states, heterogeneous ones would have to acknowledge the diverse identity components to forge an inclusive national identity. nevertheless, citizens of multi-ethnic nation-states – such as nigeria – grapple with identity preferences torn between prime allegiance to ethnic-leaning or the nation-state. nigeria’s extant constitution defines three pathways to obtaining nigerian citizenship: descent, registration, and naturalization (frn, 2011). the conferment of nigerian citizenship by descent is on having one or both parents as citizens regardless of the country in which one is born. acquiring nigerian citizenship by registration can be claimed by marriage to a nigerian citizen (in the case of a foreign woman) or through a verified claim of nigerian grandparentage (frn, 2011). a foreign resident may acquire nigerian citizenship by naturalization if such person has lived in nigeria for at least 15 years and is conversant with at least a nigerian language and custom, has attained the age of 17, is of good character and has a veritable source of income (ibid). privileges and rights accruing from acquiring citizenship of a nation-state come with responsibilities, as required by the nation-state of its citizens. these responsibilities are encapsulated as civic and patriotic duties, including voting in elections, national or military services when required, respect and protection of national symbols and willingness to pay the supreme sacrifice for the homeland (weinstock, 2001). globalization and neoliberalism have evoked a new category of citizenship identity in transnational or global citizenship. this novel citizenship category recognizes the interconnectedness of nation-states, and therefore identity is tied to humanity above nation-state citizenship. this notion is iterated in the 30 85 articles of the united nations declaration on human rights adopted by the un general assembly in 1948. article 22 of the universal declaration of human rights iterates transnational social rights as stated: everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each state, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality (un, 1948). the westphalia treaty of 1648 initiated the concept of “sovereignty” of nation-states in the consciousness of global governance. by the emergence of independent feudal protestant princes in western europe from the hapsburg-controlled holy roman empire, it became an underpinned covenant in the sphere of international politics and diplomacy for nation-states to have absolute control over internal matters of the state devoid of external influence (hayman and williams, 2006). increasing cross-border migration has opened questions on exclusive citizenship rights within sovereign nation-states. as of 2019, around 3.5% of the world’s population live outside their countries of birth, with the immigration attraction tending towards high and middle-income countries (un desa, 2019). the case of transnational migration for voluntary and involuntary reasons would continually increase as people seek the good life for themselves. the european union schengen agreement just as europe presented the world with the concept of sovereignty from the treaty of westphalia in 1648, the schengen agreement, which came into being in 1985, denoted an exemplary shift from unilateral sovereignty to multilateralism. the schengen agreement guarantees free movement between signatory countries. it is a culmination of decades of efforts at progressive european integration following the carnage and butcherdom of the second world war between 1939 and 1945 that left all of europe in ruins (schengen labour info, 2021a). efforts at post-world war two european integration mirrored the 1648 westphalia treaty, which ended the 30-year war that ravaged much of western europe at the time. while seventeenth century european peace efforts guaranteed sovereignty and rights to national independence, twentieth century peace efforts recognized the need for international collaboration, integration and trade to stimulate economic growth and ensure global peace. lessons were learnt from the post-world war one failed efforts at multilateral cooperation (diehl, 2005). therefore, most international institutions that emerged from postworld war two peace sustaining initiatives, such as the world bank, united nations, and european union, have stood the test of time despite challenges. the journey to the schengen agreement can be traced to the treaty of paris of 1951 and the treaty of rome of 1957, which established the european coal nigeria’s digital identity project as a tool for economic inclusion and regional integration 86 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 and steel community (ecsc) and the european economic community (eec), respectively. the eec envisioned the free movement of persons across borders of member nations to foster greater economic integration. this initiative would require the synchronization of the identity database of member countries (kurz, 2016). although the schengen agreement sought to incorporate eec (now eu) member countries to actualize the goals of the treaty of rome, not all eu member countries ratified the schengen agreement. some non-eu member states opted to join the schengen agreement in the same vein. germany, france, luxembourg, belgium, and the netherlands were initial signatory countries to the schengen agreement. while eu member countries such as the united kingdom (uk)3 and ireland chose to optout of the agreement, non-eu member countries such as liechtenstein, norway, switzerland and iceland (gstöhl and frommelt, 2017) opted into the agreement. aside from these eu member and non-member countries’ opt-ins’ and ‘opt-outs’ (wang, 2016), other eu member countries have ratified the schengen agreement. as such, the schengen area covering western europe includes 26 countries, having a cumulative border of 50,000 km within an area of 4,312,099 km2 with a population of 419,392,429 citizens (schengen visa info, 2021b). in understanding the schengen agreement from the perspective of political theory, the agreement typifies multilateral cross-border integration efforts characterized by theories of liberalism, neoliberalism, intergovernmentalism, postfunctionalism and neofunctionalism (börzel and risse, 2018). while concepts, as applied to the schengen agreement, have the hallmark of integrative inclusion, article 96 of the schengen treaty allows for the right of member states to temporarily suspend the implementation of the treaty if they consider the person(s) “a threat to public policy or public security or national security” (eu, 2000: 44). migrant concerns due to the influx of refugees fleeing the syrian conflict and increasing waves of economic and involuntary refugees from mediterranean crossing have tested the resolve of the schengen agreement (popa, 2016). in the same vein, some schengen member countries invoked temporary border controls in efforts to curb the spread of the covid-19 pandemic (linka et al., 2020). in operationalizing the schengen agreement, member countries leverage digital technologies to make borders smart and avail efficient surveillance systems (lehtonen and aalto, 2017). to this, by the framework of the agreement, already implemented is the schengen information system, a centrally accessed digital database for internal border surveillance. other implemented schengen digital controls are the visa information system (vis) which is purposed as a platform for sharing data on visa details (eu, 2019a). the european border and coast guard agency (frontex) manages and checks on suspicious activities, asylum and refugee migrants at the point of entry into the eu, while the european asylum dactyloscopy database (eurodac) system serves as a fingerprint repository for asylum applications (ponzanesi and leurs, 2014; eu, 2019b). the lisbon treaty and dublin 3 the uk ceased to be an eu member from 31 january 2020. 87 regulation4 provide the legal framework for the immigration policies within the eu and schengen area (blockmans and wessel, 2009; brekke and brochmann, 2014). citizens of schengen member countries and valid schengen visa holders are granted free movement across the international borders within the schengen zone. to ensure standard border surveillance and control amongst member countries, the capacities of new eu member countries are ensured to be upgraded to fulfil set criteria5 in article 3 of the act on accession of 2003 before admittance into the schengen zone (eu, 2019b). overall, the schengen agreement as an eu initiative has presented a workable example of how digital identity management can be utilized to foster multilateral economic inclusion. by ensuring newly admitted countries into the eu upgrade capacity to required standards upheld by older members in terms of labor standards, digital and personnel capacity, the schengen zone has lived and upheld its standards over time. nigeria and continental integration on 7 july 2019, nigeria’s president muhammadu buhari signed the ratification of nigeria’s membership of the african continental free trade area (afcfta) agreement, becoming the 34th member of the continental economic bloc. this move could be considered a reluctant one, considering nigeria’s pole position in contributing to regional and continental organizations fostering integration, peacekeeping and development. nigeria’s ratification of afcfta came one year late from its launch at the au summit in january 2018, where 27 african countries signed their articles of ratification at the instant. ironically, the nigerian government had also shut land borders to transit goods since the last quarter of 2019, only mooting to rescind that decision before the end of 2020 (olawoyin, 2020). as africa’s most populous country and one of its largest economies, nigeria has been a keen player in the formation of pan-african integration, poised alongside regional and continental organizations such as the economic community of west african states (ecowas) in 1975 and the organization of african unity (oau) in 1963 (tella, 2018). initiatives for africa’s economic integration were rooted in post-independence pan-africanist visions espoused by post-independence african leaders grouped in three ideological blocs, namely: the monrovia bloc (comprising nigeria, ethiopia, liberia, sudan, togo, somalia and sudan) advocating gradual progressive continental integration; the casablanca bloc (comprising guinea, ghana, mali, libya, morocco, algeria and mali) advocating the radical dissolution of colonial borders; and the brazzaville bloc (comprising other francophone countries, chiefly côte d’ivoire and senegal) insisting on maintaining socioeconomic ties with france (gumede, 2019). 4 the dublin regulation is the eu’s legal framework for dealing with asylum and refugee applications. the first dublin convention was established in 1990 and came into force in 1997. the dublin ii regulation became operational in 2003 and dublin iii became effective in 2013. 5 some of the criteria include: personal data protection infrastructure, police cooperation deportations, and border control legislation. nigeria’s digital identity project as a tool for economic inclusion and regional integration 88 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 drawing from the economic integration success of the eec, the oau, through the lagos plan of action agreement of 1980, sought to initiate africa’s economic integration, which was designated to be implemented by the continent’s component regional economic communities (recs), namely: ecowas, the common market for eastern and south africa (comesa), and the economic community for central african states (eccas). later, the arab maghreb union (amu) was established (vhumbunu, 2015). in 1979, ecowas leaders launched the ecowas protocol on the free movement of persons. this protocol allowed for unrestricted movement of citizens of ecowas member countries across borders of ecowas member countries without the need for visas for 90 days. the protocol also availed free movement of goods and capital across borders of member countries, intending to spur economic growth. article 27 of the protocol envisioned an ultimate goal of “community citizenship” whereby by 2020, “community citizens” would no longer need to obtain residency permits if they choose to live in any ecowas member country other than their home country. the unified identity document proposed to validate community citizenship, is the ecowas passport. border checks were envisaged to be eliminated, and immigration and security operatives would share information (okunade and ogunnubi, 2021). on the continental front, the overarching pan-africanist vision, as iterated by the au agenda 2063, is “an integrated, prosperous and peaceful africa” (au, 2015: 5). achieving this vision calls for trade liberalization and free movement of african citizens across the borders of au member nations. to facilitate this, the au agenda 2063 iterates the issuance of au passports that would replace that of member countries. the au passport was launched at the extraordinary summit of the au heads of state held in kigali, rwanda, in 2016. the au passport is intended to eliminate visa requirements for holders in cross-border travels amongst african nations. the afcfta agreement, as launched by the au in 2016, began to receive instruments of ratification from au member countries at the au summit of january 2018. operational since 2021, it aims to liberalize trade among au member states (aniche, 2020). in the same vein, the au protocol on the free movement of persons was also launched at the 2018 au summit. this protocol harmonizes the policy framework for the free movement of citizens of au member states. articles of note in the protocol enhancing transnational citizenship are: • article 10: on the au passport • article 11: on the use of vehicles across borders • article 12: on the free movement of residents of border communities • article 13: on the free movement of students and researchers • article 14: on the free movement of workers • article 16 on the right of residence the implementation of the au free movement protocol is to be in phases, with 89 member countries allowed to progressively adjust their migration policies to suit the desired intent of the protocol over time (hirsch, 2021). however, the au free movement protocol was revised into the migration policy framework for africa as released by the au in may 2018. the exemplary success of the eu’s socioeconomic integration can be replicated in africa through the au’s protocol on migration. in february 2020, the au adopted its digital transformation strategy, which is a 10-year policy framework (2020–2030). the strategy builds on the au’s extant protocols on socioeconomic integration aforementioned to “support the development of a digital single market (dsm) for africa, as part of the integration priorities of the african union” (au, 2020: 1). however, progress on this quest will mean that au member states have to escalate individual digital identity programmes and synchronize and share data systems among member nations. nigeria’s efforts and contribution to regional and continental integration – matters arising the nigerian government has long been at the forefront of forming regional and continental treaties to integrate ecowas and au member countries. some of the treaties, agreements and declarations rolled out in nigeria are: i. the 1975 treaty of lagos establishing ecowas ii. the 1979 ecowas protocol on free movement of persons – signed in lagos iii. the 1980 lagos plan of action iv. the 1991 abuja declaration despite hosting and championing regional and continental integration initiatives, the nigerian government has sometimes tended to initiate policies that counter the initiative of regional and continental integration. for example, in 1983, just four years after ratifying the ecowas protocol on the free movement of persons, the nigerian government expelled foreigners (mostly non-nigerian ecowas citizens) to reduce crime and protect local industry and jobs for nigerians (benjamin et al., 2015). in the same vein, the nigerian government has occasionally shut its borders with neighboring benin to tackle smuggling (aluede, 2017). ecowas and the au had set 2020 as the target year for operationalizing the ecowas’ “community citizenship” and the au’s continental citizenship via the broader use of the ecowas and au passports by citizens of member countries (bettencourt, 2018). however, in 2022 this target is yet to be implemented or actualized. for security guarantees and identity verification, most countries, including those of the schengen zone, issue biometric passports capturing mandatory features, as specified by the international civil aviation organization (icao). such passports would contain an electronic microprocessor chip storing the holder’s digitized identity in facial, fingerprint, and iris recognition. since 2009, the icao mandates international travel documents to have electronic machine-readable zones nigeria’s digital identity project as a tool for economic inclusion and regional integration 90 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 on them (icao, 2021). this ensures international operability, uniformity of security features, durability and quality reliability of travel documents. therefore, while not all african countries issue e-passports – such as ghana, ethiopia, south africa, malawi, eritrea, and zambia – these passports have the icao prescribed machinereadable zones. even though nigeria has completely phased out non-e-passports, the ecowas travel certificate, an alternate travel document within the subregion, does not contain biometric identity features of holders. therefore, the extant use of nonelectronic identity documents not having machine-readable zones for travel within the ecowas region yet, entrenches suspicious fears of foreign migrants as their identities cannot be digitally verified. nigeria’s national identity scheme – matters arising the nigerian government is seeking ways to accelerate the digital identity enrolment of its citizenry. this is done through the issue of national identity numbers (nins) after a process of biometric capture. the standard passport currently issued by the nigerian government is compliant with icao specifications, and the national identity card that bears the nin also captures the holder’s biometric features. the government has sought to expand national id enrolment by linking the use of the nin to access government services. however, national id enrolment remains low and inefficient. the relevance and legitimacy of the state/local government of origin document as a normative citizenship and identity document come into question. section 41 of the nigerian 1999 constitution grants rights to every nigerian citizen “to move freely throughout nigeria and to reside in any part thereof, and no citizen of nigeria shall be expelled from nigeria or refused entry thereby or exit therefrom” (frn, 2011). while this is a de jure rule, contemporary nigerian citizenship experience proves it otherwise. there is yet discrimination along ethnic lines in accessing government and social services outside one’s region of ancestry. resultant social friction and suspicion among nigeria’s multiple ethnic groups can be diffused to the barest minimum when the prime identity reference of citizens and residents is the national identity number. i refer to the united states social security number and the south african national identification number, among examples from other countries where government assigned and curated digital identity numbers are used to compute and manage the welfare of the citizens and legal residents. the de facto concept of nigerian citizenship and residency as tied to ethnic affiliations is conventionally enforced through the local government of origin certificate. although not backed by law as a legal identity document, it is required for obtaining the nigerian passport and national id. the certificate is issued upon request by traditional authorities and local government councils to persons who can prove ancestry within the jurisdiction areas of the issuing authority. studies by fourchard (2015) and ehrhardt (2017) reveal a widespread arbitrariness and 91 indiscretion6 in the issue of the document, which also lacks standardization. regardless, the de facto relevance of this document is further perpetuated as one of the requirements for accessing civil service jobs, public tertiary education and government scholarships. with respect to land governance, christopher et al. (2018) note another discriminatory manifestation wherein, in some parts of nigeria, a settler is barred from perpetual land ownership, only holding land title on a lease, which is in contravention of the land use act. it is also a weapon for excluding non-indigenes within a community from political office. according to the act of establishment of the federal character commission, non-indigenes are excluded from holding federal/national representative positions in their place of residency. this legal impediment contradicts constitutional legal residency provisions for nigerian citizens and is at the heart of the residency rights debate resulting from the dichotomy of stratified nigerian citizenship. effective urban governance amplifies the dilemma of legal residency and nigerian citizenship rights. urban centers are an agglomeration of internal and external immigrants. in most cases, the dominant population percentage of urban dwellers cannot trace historic ancestry to their current residence community. however, with the perpetuation of the local government of origin certificate as a prerequisite to benefitting from social services, a more significant percentage of the urban populace faces social and economic exclusion. the au digital strategy asserts digital identity as a guarantee of legal protection for individuals to access the benefits of “gender equality, social protection delivery, financial inclusion, improved governance, safer migration, superior health delivery, enhanced and refugee child protection, reducing statelessness” (au, 2020: 39). grappling with the dilemma of governance perpetuated by the lack of digital reference for residents, some nigerian states like lagos, ondo and oyo have mooted independent provincial residency identity registration schemes separate from the nigerian federal government. for example, the lagos state residents registration agency (lasrra) maintains a database (comprising biometric details) of lagos state residents and issues an id number independent of the nigerian government’s nin (lasrra, 2020). this lasrra number is required to access services provided by the lagos state government but is not linked to the nigerian government database of residents and citizens. noting the dichotomy between civic and customary nigerian citizenship and the need to respect constitutionally ascribed rights of legal nigerian residents regardless of ethnicity, this resolves the obnoxious normative categorization of the residency status of nigerians in any part of the country within the prism of indigenes and settlers. the legitimacy of nigerian citizenship and residency would then be adjudged by an individual’s contribution to the host community using 6 fourchard (2015) identifies commodification of these certificates by issuing authorities. the nonstandardization of the certificate also makes it susceptible to counterfeiting. applicants who may ordinarily not be eligible to obtain the certificate can beat the system by inventing a life story of their ancestry which would sound favorable to the issuing officer. ehrhardt (2017) also notes that there are no explicit criteria to access indigeneship claims. while there are uncontested claims, the criteria ambiguity is also giving rise to ‘difficult cases’ from applicants. nigeria’s digital identity project as a tool for economic inclusion and regional integration 92 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 likely tax compliance and property ownership parameters. this provides an identity framework for the nigerian state to avail trans-national citizenship to its residents and fulfil its obligation to the ecowas and au protocol on the free movement of persons. there is an urgent need to penetrate national digital identity schemes across all african countries. more importantly, this would manage the diffused citizenship between border communities. extant borders of africa’s nation-states are arbitrarily drawn colonial borders that take no cognizance of agelong ethnic boundaries. identity allegiance in border communities is tied primarily to ethnic leanings above the national cause. therefore, economic activities in border communities are linked to suspicion of smuggling, which has led to the nigerian government occasionally shutting down its land borders. the trend of international polity has shifted from unilateral sovereignty to multilateral cooperation as nation-states seek to benefit from the global system. this has impacted increased voluntary and involuntary migration, as individuals gravitate to seek the good life in foreign nation-states. the au and ecowas protocol on the free movement of persons, and the afcfta, being examples of multilateral agreements to which nigeria is a signatory, are aimed to liberalize cross-border migration and trade and ultimately ascribe “community citizenship” status to citizens of member states. the schengen zone proved a worthy example that ecowas and the au can emulate in the progression towards ascribing transnational community citizenship. a coherent, accelerated, and synchronized digitization drive in au member states is anticipated with the recently launched au digital transformation strategy. conclusion and recommendations digital identity for individuals is a vital facilitator for socioeconomic, regional and continental integration. concurrent digital identity schemes operated by some nigerian states like lagos should be appraised as necessary to blur the lines of stratified nigerian citizenship. noting its effectiveness in lagos, it should be replicated across other nigerian states and be enshrined in the national identity framework. this would be a key driver to perpetuate residency rights within the federalist apparatus of the nigerian state through digital identity other than the irregular local government of origin certificate. while awaiting the implementation of au passports to liberalize cross-border travel and trade within au member countries, other alternate identity documents that could be utilized for intra-african travel – such as national ids – should be upgraded to icao standards. au member countries should phase out identity documents that are not biometric and lack machine-readable parts. furthermore, there is a need for african countries to invest in and develop local digital database management infrastructure with a view to eliminating dependence on the eu and china for such. just as obtained in the schengen area in frontex, a central regional and continental border control agency leveraging an au centrally 93 managed database would help coordinate digital identity continentally, leveraged for immigration and customs purposes. digital technology permeates all facets of human life; digital identity is the modality for navigating the globalized digital world. acknowledgments the researcher acknowledges research and funding support from the omidyar network through the centre for african affairs and conflict 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vanya, 2022. citizen and pariah johannesburg: wits university press, 233 pages isbn: 978-1-77614-739-7 (pbk) isbn: 978-1-77614-740-3 (hbk) isbn: 978-1-77614-741-0 (web pdf) isbn: 978-1-77614-742-7 (epub) https://dx.doi.org/10.18772/12022037397 citizen and pariah is the title of a book by vanya gastrow that is based on her doctoral and postdoctoral research. in the preface gastrow informs the reader that “the book investigates violent crime affecting somali shopkeepers, their ability to access informal and formal justice mechanisms, and efforts to regulate their economic activities” (p.xii). as one navigates the different chapters of the book it becomes clear that gastrow uses the term “pariah” as a social and geographical metaphor. socially, the “pariah” is economically excluded, and geographically, the pariah’s condition of precarity compels them to occupy the street as the space to pursue livelihoods during the daytime and then to retreat in the evening to their ethnicized spaces. gastrow produced a very readable book that is divided into three parts consisting of twenty-one essays that delicately address the marginalization and victimization of immigrant entrepreneurs. foreign shopkeepers with business interests in urban spaces have been victims of xenophobic attacks in most parts of south africa. the victims’ frustrations to access justice mechanisms and protection from such attacks have been highly documented. drawing from narratives emerging from qualitative research, part 1, which consists of eight chapters that provide rich personal migration experiences of somali immigrant entrepreneurs, explores the theme, arrival and reception. the chapters offer revealing insights into how social networks, involving established somali immigrants, help the new arrivals to adjust to a new environment and to livelihood opportunities in the immigrant economy. the contours of the urban geography of migrant entrepreneurship in south africa become clear as gastrow unpacks how “somali spaza traders have found themselves in a foreign country as modern pariahs” (p.11). as social pariahs residing in ethnic enclaves that are cut off from mainstream society, somali migrants in south african cities have become entrepreneurs largely because of the various impediments, such as lack of requisite documents, in the path to formal employment. gastrow argues that in addition to being spatially and socially marginalised, the “somali migrants are largely unwelcome guests in south africa and criminals target their businesses with relative impunity” (p.39). given this intolerable situation, gastrow 7 observes that flight and relocation have become the primary responses by the somali entrepreneurs to the structural xenophobic attacks that are prevalent in the migrant neighborhoods and which have “created a fertile environment” for general lawlessness (p.67). part 2, on regulation and containment, consists of eleven chapters that provide nuanced analyses of the survival strategies employed by somali entrepreneurs to remain viable in an environment that is generally hostile to african migrant entrepreneurship. the ethnographic studies conducted by gastrow in cape town reveal that most of the somali entrepreneurs interviewed were deeply concerned about the xenophobic environment in which they operated and the determination of the south african police to close down their shops. gastrow asserts that by casting migrants as criminals, the police are perpetuating the unfounded view that many somali shop owners in south african cities are “engaged in illegal trading” (p.87). she contends that the police raids on foreigners, codenamed “operation fiela” – meaning “sweep clean” in sesotho – should be regarded as part of a grand design “to rid neighbourhoods of unclean foreign criminals” (p.90). part 3 of the book focuses on the politics of pariahdom and it consists of the final two chapters. the last chapter on pariah justice is arguably one of the strongest in the book, suggesting that the pariahs can empower themselves “by becoming conscious of the roles imposed on them and actively rebel against them” (p.185). however, gastrow readily concedes that somali traders who reside in the predominantly low-income townships are not empowered to change their status as spatially and socially marginalized pariahs, without triggering a violent backlash. in view of this untenable situation, they are unlikely to resort to anything that would exacerbate their already precarious situation. citizen and pariah is a well-researched and informative book; its wellformulated collection of essays is essential reading for scholars and students seeking a grounded understanding of african immigrant entrepreneurship in south africa. the book contributes substantially to the academic conversation on somali immigrant entrepreneurship and its attendant challenges and dangers in south african cities. prof daniel tevera, university of the western cape, south africa book review citizen and pariah african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1 (april 2019) 1439 book review: children of hope: the odyssey of the oromo slaves from ethiopia to south africa by sandra rowoldt shell 1443 decomposing remittances from international migration over human capital development: lesson from nigeria experience asogwa ikechukwu sebastine, anumudu charles nnamdi, ugwuanyi charles uche and ogbuakanne maryann uche 1459 migrant remittances inspired enterprises in tsholotsho: issues of sustainability gracious maviza, mandlenkosi maphosa, nevel tshuma, zenzo dube and tomson dube 1482 precarious mobility: infrastructures of eritrean migration through the sudan and the sahara desert tekalign ayalew mengiste 1510 the value of human dignity in the refugee protection callixte kavuro 1535 the migration processes in ghana: the case of northern migrants shamsu deen-ziblim and adadow yidana 96 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 the link between documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants: evidence from kenya, nigeria, and south africa paul asquith* and richard neetzow** * centre of rural development, university of humboldt in berlin; germany centre of african studies, school of oriental & african studies (soas), university of london, uk email: pa4@soas.ac.uk ** centre of rural development (seminar für ländliche entwicklung, sle), university of humboldt in berlin, germany email: neetzowr@outlook.com the link between migrants’ legal and employment status, access to health and health outcomes is widely explored in the academic literature on migration and health. however, there are few, if any, studies examining this link within african states. in this article we present survey data collected from refugees and people in refugee-like situations in kenya, regular (labor) migrants in nigeria, and irregular migrants in south africa to examine the link between registration status, employment or occupation status, gender, and (perceptions of) access to healthcare. a range of statistical tests and models were applied to examine the effects of these different characteristics. a consistent finding throughout the three sample countries is that access for people without any documentation is lower than other groups, not only by means but also within the linear models. this strongly suggests that extending regularization pathways in african states, even if on a temporary basis, would be an effective policy lever to improve migrants’ access to healthcare, and by extension migrants’ health. however, the effects of employment status and gender on access to healthcare were more ambiguous, and further research in african contexts is required to clarify their impact. keywords: migration, access to healthcare, africa, african union, refugees, regular migrants, irregular migrants, health policy, migration policy, health systems, migrant registration status 97 introduction the impact of migration on health, and of the link between migrants’ health status and their registration status is an area of growing interest and importance amongst scholars and policy-makers alike. there is already a substantial body of literature that examines the linkages between migrants’ health outcomes, and states’ migration policies, especially where these are restrictive or exclusionary, as well as the impact of registration status on health outcomes and access to health services (see, inter alia, juárez et al., 2019, wickramage et al., 2019). however, as castañeda et al. (2015) note, the vast majority of these articles focus on migrants’ health or access to health in high-income countries, with only 3% covering the world health organization (who) african region. moreover, many also consider the impact of exclusionary, xenophobic, or racist policies and practices on migrants to highor medium-income countries from other regions (martinez et al., 2015; venkataramani et al., 2017; filges et al., 2018). whilst this is an important area for further research and for policy focus, and there is undoubtedly some evidence of xenophobic or racist attitudes towards african migrants in other african countries, it is likely that this is mediated and experienced differently in intra-african rather than extra-african migration contexts (cf. crush and ramachandran, 2009; akinola, 2018; king, 2019). in this article we consider the impact of african migrants’ registration status on migrants’ own perceived health status in kenya, nigeria, and south africa, based on primary data collection in these countries. the goal of this article is to identify differences of health access based on different characteristics. this informs our research question, which is, “does gender, occupation or documentation status affect perceived access to healthcare among migrants?” it is often assumed that migrants’ registration status affects their health and access to health services, and data from other regions supports this hypothesis, which has also underpinned advocacy efforts from international agencies and non-governmental organizations (ngos) for increased regularization of migration (kossoudji, 2016; kraler, 2019; freier, 2020). logically and experientially, this would appear to be the case, but we were interested to test this assumption by analyzing data from different sub-categories of migrants in three heterogeneous african contexts. in 2020, a research team at the centre for rural development (sle) at the university of humboldt in berlin undertook a research project for the african union commission (auc) and the gesellschaft für internationale zusammenarbeit (giz) examining migration and health policy and practice across africa. the objective of this research was to survey migration and health policy and practice at the continental, regional, and national levels. this was complemented and enriched by primary data collection in kenya, nigeria, and south africa from migrants and refugees, health workers, as well as regional and national officials from the african union (au) and agency staff from the united nations (un). the project was divided into two main phases of data collection. the first documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 98 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 phase comprised of a scoping study of relevant policy and governance frameworks for migration and health at the continental, regional, and member state levels (15 au mss were selected, three from each of the five african regions), as well as a literature review of relevant scientific and academic literature. the second phase comprised of primary data collection on three migrant sub-groups in three african countries: refugees and people in refugee-like situations in kenya; regular (labor) migrants in nigeria; and undocumented migrants in south africa (auc and sle, forthcoming). primary data collection included surveys of the migrant sub-groups in each of the three countries, complemented by semi-structured key informant interviews and focus group discussions with migrants, government officials, and health workers in each country (auc and sle, forthcoming). a review of available secondary data identified in the study showed that there is a lack of research on intra-african migration patterns and trends, especially at the regional and continental levels, and a lack of routine data collection on migrants’ health, specifically (auc and sle, forthcoming). primary data collected in the second phase of the study indicated that migrants from all three sub-categories reported being in good health before their departure from their country of origin, upon arrival in their country of settlement, and at the time of data collection (auc and sle, forthcoming). it also suggested a positive correlation between health status and access to health services, and between registration status and health status (auc and sle, forthcoming). in addition, the data showed that the majority of respondents enjoyed at least a degree of social coverage – i.e., they were able to access some health services – in the three countries concerned, either as a result of their registration status (in nigeria and kenya) or due to policies and programs that enable undocumented migrants to access health services (in south africa and kenya) (auc and sle, forthcoming). in this article we seek to examine the effects of registration status on respondents’ perceived (perceptions of) health status through statistical analysis of the survey data collected from the three study countries. we argue that across these heterogeneous contexts the data shows that registration status, even temporary registration, has an impact on migrants’ health as well as their access to healthcare. our discussion about these characteristics will be enriched by additional data about potential variations. we hope that policy-makers will find this evidence useful for more informed decision-making to enhance health access for migrants. the structure of this article is as follows: first we present key theoretical frameworks on migration and health, and an overview of migration and health policy and practice in the three study countries; we also provide a common understanding of the most important terms in this paper by defining them and briefly presenting drivers for them. second, we describe the data collection process and its analysis along with the methodology. third, we present the findings within the data. this is followed by a broader discussion, which informs the recommendations and conclusion of this article. 99 theoretical background and definitions in this section we explore the theoretical background and common understanding of migrants’ health status and access to healthcare. we also define and discuss key terms used. theoretical frameworks on migration and health the systematic scoping review of the literature conducted as part of the auc/sle study identified the main theoretical frameworks used in research on migration and health. perhaps the two most common of these – othering and health inequalities approaches, and cultural frameworks / acculturation hypotheses – are widely found in the literature and have influenced both research and policy-making in migration over recent decades (hossin, 2020). in the first of these, migrants (among other social minority or out-groups) are affected, as grove and zwi (2006: 1931) argue, by a “a variety of mechanisms by which refugees, asylum seekers and irregular migrants are positioned as 'the other' and are defined and treated as separate, distant and disconnected from the host communities in receiving countries”. different migrant sub-groups are further affected in this regard, for example “othering effects” are likely to be experienced more severely by forced migrants or refugees (grove and zwi, 2006: 1931). in the second of these models, cultural differences (which also influence lifestyle and other factors underpinning health) affect migrant groups, with health effects and inequalities in theory reducing as acculturation in the country of destination increases over time, whether in a migrant’s lifetime or across generations (viruell-fuentes, 2007). acculturation models have been criticized for their inability to adequately address the structural underpinnings of culture, race, and racism, as well as potentially problematic constructions of ‘acculturation’, which is sometimes seen in rather binary terms (hossin, 2020). indeed, one argument for using structural or othering and health inequalities approaches is that these are better able to account for structural factors underpinning health inequalities (ingleby et al., 2019). however, both frameworks described above were largely developed out of research into patterns of migrant health and immigrant experience in the global north, which may limit their applicability in other contexts (wickramage et al., 2018). the global strategic frameworks for health and development (notably the sustainable development goals (sdgs), but also for our purposes the global compacts on refugees and safe, orderly, and regular migration) are grounded in a ‘leave no-one behind’ approach to public health and give expanding universal health coverage (uhc) a central role in improving health outcomes for all (unga, 2017; un, 2018). there is a significant body of public health research and policy-making on using rights-based approaches to identify and reduce health inequalities, often to achieve better health outcomes (lougarre, 2016). rights-based approaches have thus documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 100 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 influenced research, policy formulation, and implementation in the development sector, including migration and migrants’ health (sweileh et al., 2018). rights-based approaches can be especially valuable in relation to health advocacy for migrants, who are often excluded from uhc (whether wholly or in part) when this is interpreted to pertain to national citizens only (abubakar et al., 2018). social determinants of health (sdh) approaches are favored by the who and the international organization for migration (iom), and stress that definitions of health need to incorporate the broader social dimensions underpinning health, such as (access to) employment, education, family status, etc. (who, 2011; braveman and gottlieb, 2014; wallace et al., 2018). moreover, migration itself is increasingly seen as a determinant of health (davies et al., 2009; iom, 2017; chung and griffiths, 2018). however, sdh approaches have been criticized for inadequately considering migration (especially in their earlier iterations), and for focusing on socio-economic status at the expense of other determinants such as race, gender, and legal status (ingleby et al., 2019). a further set of theoretical frameworks revolve around the health status of migrants and how migration affects migrants’ health before, during, and after the migration journeys. one common example cited above is the ‘selectivity model’, often described as the ‘healthy migrant effect’, which posits that migrants as a self-selecting group tend to be healthier than those who do not migrate (constant et al., 2018). another framework, and in some ways its reverse image, is the ‘negative impacts’ model, which looks at the negative health impacts of migration in the home country pre-departure (such as malnutrition), difficult migration processes (such as forced migration or risky journeys), and difficult conditions in the country of residence or transit (such as lack of employment) (attanapola, 2013). more recently, intersectional approaches have become popular due to their usefulness in exploring inequalities in and between social groups, and their suitability for explaining inequalities in health status among groups, especially migrants (viruellfuentes et al., 2012; green et al., 2017). these originated in black feminist scholarship and consider the multiple ways in which aspects of an individual’s identity – such as race, class, or gender – intersect to affect their life experiences (carbado et al., 2013). hossin (2020: 4) notes that “conventional structural and cultural frameworks have limited utility in explaining the multifactorial health disadvantages” faced by migrants, and argues that intersectionality can incorporate and highlight both pre and post-migration contextual factors affecting migrants’ health. the two principal approaches to incorporating intersectionality in social research identified in the literature are the traditional fixed effects approach, which examines interactions between social categories or variables, and more complex multilevel models, such as the multilevel analysis of individual heterogeneity and discriminatory accuracy (maihda) approach (evans et al., 2020). while the former is best suited to research where the number of aspects of identity and other variables under consideration are relatively limited, the latter is preferred for where 101 the number of identity and other variables under consideration is large (green et al., 2017). wickramage et al. (2019) argue that a focus on migrants’ health according to different typologies of migrants is essential to understand the complex interlinkages between international (and internal) migration and health, and to avoid the exceptionalization of migration and migrants. they propose two areas of research focus: (a) exploring health issues across various migrant typologies; and (b) improving understanding of the interactions between migration and health to achieve better public health for all (wickramage et al., 2019). key terms and definitions migrants for the purpose of this article, we use the umbrella term ‘migrant’, which even though it has no universal legal definition, reflects the common understanding of a person who moves away from his or her place of usual residence, whether within a country or across an international border, temporarily or permanently, and for a variety of reasons (iom, 2018: 132). however, this article does not consider ‘internal migrants’, including internally displaced people and rural-urban migrants in-country, as the focus of the research is on transnational intra-african migrants. the main groups of interest to this article were international regular (labor) migrants, refugees, as well as irregular migrants and people in refugee-like situations, in nigeria, kenya, and south africa. table 1 in the appendix sets out definitions used (adapted from zimmerman et al., 2011). it should also be noted that these categories are not necessarily constant. people’s status and categorization imposed on them by international law and states’ application of these may change repeatedly on their journeys, a phenomenon which is increasingly termed ‘mixed migration’ (mixed migration centre, 2021). migrants and refugees are often marginalized in their communities and countries of settlement and can face multiple barriers in accessing entitlements and services (o’donnell et al., 2016; mphambukeli and nel, 2018 ). reasons for this can include having a different mother tongue, differing cultural backgrounds, restrictive policy environments, or just the challenges of adapting to living in a new society (flahaux and de haas, 2016; helgesson et al., 2019). disadvantages may be intensified depending on the manifestation of other characteristics, such as gender, documentation status, or occupational situation. access to healthcare economic accessibility, also referred to as affordability, … is a measure of people’s ability to pay for services without financial hardship. it takes into account not only the price of the health services but also indirect documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 102 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 and opportunity costs (e.g., the costs of transportation to and from facilities and of taking time away from work) (evans, hsu, and boerma, 2013:1). accessibility of healthcare can also refer to the appropriateness of service provision to specific groups (e.g., whether services or information are available in community languages commonly used by service users). information accessibility also refers to “the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas concerning health issues” without compromising patient confidentiality (who, 2002: 13). access to healthcare may reflect how well a group is embedded in society. if variations arise based on socio-demographic characteristics, it may be considered as unequal treatment (nørredam and krasnik, 2011). many possible proxies could be used to measure health access, for example clinical measurements such as mortality (e.g. excess deaths) or length of stays in clinics ( nørredam et al., 2007). however, such approaches require large samples to control for all necessary covariates that influence health access. besides access to the health system, the need for migrant-sensitive health systems has been identified as necessary by the 61st world health assembly (who, 2018a). therefore, workforce training (e.g., about mental health issues) or, reduction of barriers such as communication, may enhance the perceived health access (who, 2018a). the notion of access to healthcare used within this study is based on selfperception. therefore, migrants were asked to rate their access to health on a scale from 1 (=non-existent) to 10 (perfect) (see appendix 5). the use of this measurement of health access makes the migrants' voices heard. at the same time, it is important to note that it cannot be seen as completely objective. to assess health access, survey participants were asked the question, “how do you rate the general access to healthcare provision where you currently live? (10=excellent, to 1=non-existent)” as an indicator of health access. gender female migrants can be more vulnerable than other groups. examples are the exploitation in low-paid domestic work or trafficking (who, 2018c). a bias exists as most data is based on men and thereby health needs of women are neglected (perez, 2019). as a result, humanitarian action or laws can be designed for male migrants rather than for females. for example, the support of women who have become victims of gender-based violence along the migration route, is likely to be disregarded as there are few, if any, safe or private spaces to share their stories or complaints (women’s refugee commission, 2016). furthermore, the majority of victims of human trafficking are females (unodc, 2009: 11). thus, health needs of women are different and not always adequately met. this is why, the sdg 5 is focused on gender equality and indicator 5.2.2 measures the violence against women and girls (undesa, 2020). 103 occupation health disparities may arise based on migrants’ occupation or employment status. moyce and schenker (2018) emphasize environmental exposure (e.g. pesticides), working conditions (e.g. physical hazards) or trafficking and forced labor in general as potential disadvantages. hargreaves et al. (2019) conclude that because of such existing higher risks, accessible and affordable healthcare are important to cope with special health needs. in line with this, sdgs 8.7 and 8.8 aim to prevent human trafficking and to protect labor rights, respectively (undesa, 2020). documentation status the legal status granted to different sub-groups of migrants by states, often on the basis of their reasons for migrating and their migration journeys, defines their residence status. potential groups of migrants in this category will be people with permanent documentation (e.g. labor migrants), migrants with temporary documents (e.g. refugees, asylum seekers or students) and migrants without a legal status (e.g. undocumented migrants). international and national laws categorize migrants into different groups, giving them different rights in their countries of residence (auc and sle, forthcoming). the application of these laws may affect access to national healthcare. sdg 10.7 aims to ensure well-managed migration policies and measures, for example migrants' right to healthcare (undesa, 2020). several studies have identified different rights in access to healthcare according to their documentation status (pace, 2009). as a result, irregular migrants seek medical assistance less than the normal population or migrants and in doing so, they are neglected in vaccinations, pregnancy care or safe childbirth (iom, 2011). migration and health policy and practice in kenya, nigeria, and south africa before setting out the conceptual framework used for this article (and the broader study it forms part of) it is perhaps useful to briefly discuss the migration and health policy frameworks in place in the three study countries, the mix of health services available, and how these impact on eligibility to access healthcare. kenya kenya has recognized the need for a unified and mainstreamed approach to the area of migration and health and has undertaken several actions. in 2016, the government launched the national coordination mechanism on migration (ncm), which drafted the country's first unified national migration policy in 2017, containing comprehensive migration management guidelines, in line with the un sustainable development goals (iom, 2018). the refugees bill (republic of kenya 2019), which promises special protection documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 104 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 and attention to health needs of women, children, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable groups, extends this tendency to mainstream migration in health provision. the bill also calls for health screening of all refugees and asylum seekers who enter kenya to stop the spread of contagious diseases. furthermore, it stipulates the equal treatment and integration of refugees as well as the sensitization of host communities of the presence of and coexistence with refugees. migrants residing in kenya can access healthcare through various channels. those who officially reside in kenya, i.e., those who have legal status or are registered as refugees, may access the national hospital insurance fund (nhif) (who, 2018a; iied, 2019). it provides unrestricted secondary and tertiary healthcare to subscribers. initially, non-nationals were only allowed to subscribe when presenting a work permit or student visa (who, 2018a; iied, 2019). as work permits are virtually inaccessible to refugees, they were driven into informal labor markets without healthcare (hargrave et al., 2020). even migrants with theoretical access to this fund are often excluded due to missing documentation. newly arrived migrants in particular may have to wait for their documents for extended periods of time, while there have also been cases of migrants waiting for years for their documentation to be processed by the agencies (iied, 2019). concerning other barriers that migrants face when trying to access health services, an important distinction between the locations they reside in has to be made. this is especially true for refugees. in 2014, after a series of attacks in kenya by the terrorist organization al-shabaab, kenyan politicians changed course in their refugee policy. therefore, many refugees were required to relocate to camps, such as the dadaab refugee complex, hosting 220,000 refugees – and as at 2020 one of the largest such complexes in the world – and the kakuma refugee camp, hosting almost 200,000 refugees. these numbers are so large that the kenyan government relies on significant assistance in the management and support of the camps by the unhcr (unhcr, 2020a; 2020b). another significant population of refugees of 60,000 is located in nairobi. these are mainly refugees from somalia who reside in a community named eastleigh, where there is already a large diaspora community of somalis. several united nations organizations are active there, led by the efforts of the iom, providing care to refugees and locals alike in a model facility at the eastleigh community wellness centre (ecwc), in collaboration with the kamukunji sub-county health management team (who, 2018b: 9). this facility provides treatment for hiv, sexual and reproductive health services, maternal and child health services, immunization and growth monitoring, nutrition services, health promotion through community mobilization and health outreach, and interpretation services for disease prevention (who, 2018b: 9). nigeria key policy frameworks in nigeria include the 2015 national migration policy 105 (federal republic of nigeria) and the national policy on labour migration (federal republic of nigeria, 2014). the former plays a crucial role in governing migration in nigeria and covers a broad range of issues such as migration and development, border management, statelessness, and information management. migrants’ health is treated as one of several cross-cutting issues as seen in one of the nmp’s objectives which aims to “facilitate migrants’ access to health services in the same way as those of nationals” (federal republic of nigeria, 2014: 60). another objective states that persons wishing to enter nigeria must meet the national standards of health (federal republic of nigeria, 2014: 60), without further defining what this entails precisely. the healthcare of migrant workers is further addressed in the 2014 national policy on labour migration (nplm) which aims to improve the protection of migrant workers and promotion of their and their families’ welfare, including the promotion of the right to decent work and access to social protection, ensuring equality of treatment and non-discrimination for all workers, as well as labor standards and code of ethics for employment of migrant workers (federal republic of nigeria, 2014: 6). unlike employment policies and legislation, nigerian health policies and legal frameworks do not explicitly address migrants. for instance, the 2016 national health policy deploys terminology which excludes non-citizens (federal republic of nigeria, 2016: art. 3.3). the 2017 national hiv/aids strategic framework 2017-2021 uses the exclusive term “nigerians” and inclusive terms “populations” or “people living with hiv” interchangeably, though not addressing migrants explicitly (federal republic of nigeria, 2017). several of the regular migrants interviewed for the auc/sle study stated that they did not have any experience of using the national health insurance system, while others were covered through health insurance plans through their employers in the form of health management organisations. hence, the extent to which migrant workers can benefit from the nigerian national health insurance scheme (nhis), if not directly through their employment schemes, appears to depend on their ability to pay for it (auc and sle, forthcoming). south africa the national health act, no. 61/2003 of 2003 (rsa, 2003) provides for free healthcare services for all pregnant and lactating women, free primary healthcare for all, and free emergency care at the point of use for all. according to a clarification by the national department of health, this includes both documented and undocumented migrants as well as refugees and asylum seekers (iom, 2009; matlin et al., 2018). accordingly, in theory at least, no documents are required for accessing services. nevertheless, in contradiction to this, the immigration act, no. 12/2002 of 2002 (rsa, 2002) and its amendment, no. 8/2016 of 2016 (rsa, 2016) state in art. 16 that medical staff must find out the legal status of patients before providing care, with the exception of emergency healthcare. documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 106 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 the national health insurance bill of 2019 states, “[a]n asylum seeker or illegal foreigner is only entitled to—(a) emergency medical services; and (b) services for notifiable conditions of public health concern” (rsa, 2019: section 4.2). however, to access these services, migrants must register as a user of the fund and in order to do that, they need to provide biometrics (including fingerprints, photographs, proof of habitual place of residence) and—(a) an identity card; (b) an original birth certificate; or (c) a refugee identity card, which irregular migrants often do not possess. due to fear of being arrested and deported, many undocumented migrants tend to avoid public healthcare services in general (crush and tawodzera, 2014). the need to register therefore may exacerbate already existing access barriers. comparative overview of migrant health policies and programs in the study countries while all three countries show important differences in terms of local context and historical development of health provision, there are also some broad similarities across the three countries that are worth noting. firstly, health service provision in all three countries consists of a mix of public, private, and voluntary sector provision. secondly, international agencies such as the unhcr and the iom play an important role in service provision for refugees and migrants. however, this provision is not always well-integrated into country health systems overall (auc and sle, forthcoming). thirdly, while migrants and refugees do enjoy some access to health services, this is often dependent on the ability to pay and/or register with national health insurance schemes; only in the south african example were undocumented migrants eligible to access health services. it should also be noted that citizens in each of the study countries can also face similar barriers to accessing – and paying for healthcare – that migrants experience. finally, while health policies in place in each country do offer degrees of access to different migrant groups, this also depends on the implementation of such policies, as well as the knowledge of health workers of these policy frameworks. in practice, this means that there can be real barriers to migrants accessing health services. conceptual framework the diverse theoretical approaches identified in the scoping review were used to inform the conceptual framework and methodology developed by the research team for the study. following wickramage et al. (2019), this included surveying three different sub-groups of migrants in three different au member states, and centered on migrants’ health and access to health services in each country. given the challenges inherent in surveying respondents in three different locations over a short time period, the research team decided to avoid more complex multi-level models and opted for a more traditional fixed-effects approach using a more limited set of variables drawn from the surveys, complemented and contextualized by data from interviews and focus groups. 107 in light of these considerations, the study deployed a conceptual framework that is set out in figure 1. as can be seen, this focuses on the migration and health nexus at the policy-framework level, as well as the implementation of these relative to the needs and health status of migrants. figure 1: conceptual framework of the study (source: authors’ illustration) methodological approach the goal of this article is to identify differences in access to healthcare based on different characteristics. this informs our research question, which is, “does gender, occupation or documentation status affect the perceived access to healthcare of migrants?” thus, the hypothesis is: h1: no differences exist in self-perceived access to healthcare between the different manifestations in (a) gender; (b) occupation; (c) documentation status; and (iv) residence status; while alternatively the average group access to healthcare is rated as distinctive. in order to be able to make a statement on this hypothesis, our procedure is as follows: (a) setting/population; (b) questionnaire creation; (c) data collection; (d) data cleaning; (e) formulation of assumptions; and (f) data analysis. finally, we list documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 108 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 the limitations of the methodology. in the following paragraphs we describe the procedure in more detail. setting / population the auc/sle study collected primary data from different migrant sub-groups based in three african states, namely: regular (labor) migrants in nigeria (to reflect the existing patterns of free movement across the economic community of west african states (ecowas) space); people in refugee-like situations in kenya (to reflect the significant refugee flows to the country from neighboring states, especially the horn of africa); and undocumented (irregular) migrants in south africa (to reflect the significant irregular migration flows on the ‘southern route’). due to the global covid-19 pandemic, travel restrictions in place in these countries, as well as challenges of time and resources, surveying these three groups was limited to major urban centers (see limitations section below). questionnaire creation a survey was conducted in order to collect quantitative data on migrants’ health and access to health services. existing surveys from the health on the move project and relevant who surveys were adapted towards the specific needs and context of this project. the survey targeted different cohorts in the three study countries, in order to cover many migrant groups. as a result, in kenya most of the respondents were refugees, in nigeria most of the respondents were labor migrants and in south africa most of the respondents were irregular migrants. data collection data collection was done as part of a study on the healthcare of different groups of migrants in africa (auc and sle, forthcoming). the questionnaires were distributed by partner researchers, both digitally and also in print format, among the specific groups of migrants. surveys were distributed in english and translated into local languages by partner researchers. surveys included multiple selection, single selection, ranking and open answer fields. quantitative data collection ran from november to december 2020. respondents could fill out questionnaires if they had the link to the survey, which was provided by research teams and distributed among migrant networks in each country. most answers were collected through field teams, where the data collectors went through the surveys with participants question-byquestion. the survey thus deployed purposive sampling to recruit participants. data cleaning surveys were excluded if the respondents did not live in any of the three countries or if they were not from the african continent. based on these criteria, seven respondents were withdrawn from the dataset. a total of 965 eligible surveys were acquired, with 109 south africa n=310, nigeria n=355, and kenya n=300. people who did not meet these criteria above were not included within the linear model. formulation of assumptions the necessary assumptions used to apply this model, such as heteroskedasticity and uncorrelated independent variables, were checked – appendix 2 and appendix 3 provide the results. survey responses were collected using purposive sampling, rather than using random sampling. in order to ensure that potential differences are not entirely based on different covariates between the groups, we use a kruskal-wallis test to determine if differences exist (kruskal and wallis, 1952), even in the cases where normal distribution is absent. as this test is used to identify differences between groups of more than two, it is only applied to the variables of residence status and occupation, and the results of the test are presented in appendix 4. data analysis based on this data, we identify differences of access to healthcare within the different sub-groups, which are characterized through different answers. therefore, the question “how do you rate the general access of the healthcare provision where you currently live? (10=excellent, to 1=non-existent)” will be used as an indicator of access to healthcare. in order to identify different groups within the data, the survey asks for gender, residence status, and occupation. only one response was possible for each question and it was not mandatory to reply to them. to examine the different groups, we calculate the means of the groups and use a t-test to check if the differences are significant. we only consider groups consisting of at least 10 people. comparisons are only made between different groups within the same country, to ensure fixed country effects are not responsible for the measured impacts. additionally, a least squares linear regression model is calculated. the variable characteristics in each category are used as a dummy to indicate its effect on the selfrated access to healthcare, when controlled for the other variables. appendix 5 contains the question and the possible answers. in addition to the quantitative evidence, migration and health experts were interviewed for further insights, regarding access in general, restrictions, or the health system, via online semi-structured interviews. calculations and table drawings were made in rstudio and latex. survey and data limitations as noted above, the scope of the research study, as well as the selection of participants and sites, and the survey design, present certain limitations on the data generated, and the conclusions that can be drawn. firstly, focusing on different migrant sub-groups in each country raises issues of comparability of the datasets from each country. this is why no comparisons documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 110 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 between countries are made, just within different cohorts and groups within the same country. secondly, the sample sizes are relatively small, and were based on the limited data collection available in major urban centers. this was necessary given the travel and other restrictions imposed by the covid-19 pandemic to protect researchers’ and participants’ health. moreover, recruiting migrants as research participants is always challenging, especially at scale, as these may have very good reasons not to want to participate, especially if they are concerned it might affect their personal circumstances. this is particularly the case for undocumented migrants and refugees. as a result, the data cannot be understood as representative of all migrants, but nevertheless it does suggest some important trends. thirdly, as noted above, the study was based on migrants' own perceived health status and healthcare access, which are not an objective measure. nevertheless, in the absence of access to clinical data (which fell outside the scope and limitations of the study), self-perception is still a useful proxy indicator, and while survey participants may well exaggerate or not be entirely truthful in their assessments, there is nonetheless value in asking about their experiences. fourthly, while the research used sdh approaches to understanding migrants’ health, one of the challenges inherent in the sdh framework is that it is very difficult to include, and control for, broader social determinants of migrants' health in a comprehensive way. as noted above, the sdh framework has been criticized for prioritizing socio-economic factors over others. this being the case, the research used a few limited variables (such as employment status, educational level, gender, and age) as proxy indicators of sdh. findings the following table describes the effects of the individual manifestations of the cohorts for the countries kenya, nigeria, and south africa. table 1: association of gender, residence status and occupation on self-rated access to health services dependent variable: kenya nigeria south africa (1) (2) (3) gender male 0.019 0.340** 0.001 (0.234) (0.172) (0.217) residence status none -0.370 -0.265 -1.928 (0.750) (0.362) (1.323) work 0.918 0.865*** -1.552 (1.337) (0.305) (1.378) 111 dependent variable: kenya nigeria south africa (1) (2) (3) residence status prefer not to say -0.402 -1.061** -5.083*** (1.123) (0.436) (1.857) temporary (asylum) -0.940* 0.245 -0.930 (0.528) (0.344) (1.337) temporary (refugee) -0.233 0.482 -1.903 (0.369) (0.392) (1.423) temporary (education) 0.724 0.976*** -0.382 (1.082) (0.333) (1.504) occupation self-employed -0.394 -0.383 1.231 (0.673) (0.311) (1.084) unemployed -0.080 0.331 1.398 (0.677) (0.413) (1.091) full-time work 0.043 -0.091 2.049* (0.824) (0.336) (1.087) part-time work -0.212 -0.080 2.951*** (0.733) (0.323) (1.099) work without contract 1.107 -0.704 0.227 (0.973) (0.619) (1.175) other 0.436 0.853 (1.255) (1.403) retired 0.853 (1.403) constant 8.507*** 8.073*** 7.768*** (0.642) (0.356) (1.714) observations 277 278 306 r2 0.052 0.193 0.204 adjusted r2 0.005 0.150 0.172 note: *p<0.1; **p<0.05; ***p<0.01 documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 112 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 table 1 reveals how different the manifestations of the groups can be associated when we look at the different countries. we strongly recommend withholding comparisons between countries, as different groups were targeted. in general, one could say that the average access to health services is rated high, which is visible through high values for the constant of each country (ranging from 7.8 to 8.5). in kenya, where most of the respondents were refugees, people who were asylum seekers rated their access to health services by 0.9 points lower on average. potentially their residence status, with slightly fewer rights or more uncertainty for the migrants could affect their experience – and lower their rating – about access to health services. on the contrary, however, in south africa where most of the respondents were irregular migrants without documentation, people who were able to work, rated their access to health services by 3 points (part-time work) and 2 points (full-time work) higher. thus, managing the challenge to find work, despite the fact that they may not be allowed to, suggests that this enhances access to health services. gender table 2: mean access to healthcare in kenya, nigeria, and south africa, grouped by gender table 2 above and figure 1 below represent the self-assessed access to healthcare in different ways: table 2 displays the overall average with its standard deviation and number of people for each cohort. figure 1 represents one dot for each survey respondent’s rating. small vertical and horizontal shifts occur, so the same rated values do not overlap completely, hence figure 1 is only an approximated representation of access to healthcare. however, the scatter plot aims to give an impression about distribution and sample size of each cohort. people who did not answer the question regarding their gender or responded, “prefer not to say” are excluded from both illustrations, to ensure clarity. while this could feasibly result in bias, the small numbers of respondents excluded on these grounds mean that the effect on our analysis is not likely to be significant.  kenya   nigeria   south africa   female   male   female   male   female   male   a   b   a   b   a   b   rating_access     mean  8.0  8.1  8.4  8.6  7.9  7.8     std. dev.  1.7  1.8  1.7  1.3  2.1  2.0     unw. valid n  200.0  87.0  108.0  170.0  158.0  148.0 113 figure 2: scatterplot of rating of access to healthcare in kenya, nigeria, and south africa, grouped by gender cohorts gender has an ambiguous impact on the average access to healthcare. however, the differences are not particularly significant – in kenya and nigeria male respondents rated their access to healthcare by 0.1 and 0.2 points higher. to the contrary, in south africa female respondents rated it by 0.1 points higher. it is likely that the effects are not clear, due to other underlying factors. when we control for occupation and residence status, male migrants in nigeria rate their access significantly better than females by 0.34 points, while the two cohorts in kenya and south africa rated their health status quite similar. in nigeria, the focus was on labor migrants; thus, specific disadvantages faced by women within labor migration and within labor markets could be a reason for this effect. for example, they work in less secure jobs, often without health insurance. however, it could also be due to a country or context effect of the nigerian sample that female migrants are particularly disadvantaged in accessing healthcare. if this effect of better access to healthcare in nigeria for male migrants is a recurrent finding in other studies, further research is needed to explain it. apart from this, the data does not reveal many significant differences based on gender, contrary to expectations from the literature and also statements from the interviews. this could be because of sampling bias or survey design, but equally it could just be that the differences in perceptions of access to healthcare are smaller than expected. that does not mean that health services do not need to be more responsive to the needs of female migrants, as this relates to their experience of these services, which can be(come) a barrier; it means that the effect of gender differences is perhaps less pronounced in terms of access to healthcare or perceptions of health. documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants  kenya   nigeria   south africa   female   male   female   male   female   male   a   b   a   b   a   b   rating_access     mean  8.0  8.1  8.4  8.6  7.9  7.8     std. dev.  1.7  1.8  1.7  1.3  2.1  2.0     unw. valid n  200.0  87.0  108.0  170.0  158.0  148.0 114 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 occupation table 3 here (tables 3.1, 3.2, 3.3) table 3: mean access to healthcare for kenya (3.1), nigeria (3.2) and south africa (3.3), grouped by occupation table 3 above and figure 2 below represent the self-assessed access to healthcare in different ways: table 3 displays the overall average with its standard deviation and number of people for each cohort. figure 2 represents one dot for each survey respondent’s rating. small vertical and horizontal shifts occur, so the same rated values do not overlap completely; hence, figure 2 is only an approximated table 3.1. mean health status in kenya, grouped by occupation #total i am a student i am selfemployed i am unemployed i work full-time i work part-time i work without a contract other (please specify ): a b c d e f g rating_access mean 8.6 7.8 < f 8.2 < f 8.5 8.0 < f 9.5 > b c e 8.8 std. dev. 1.6 1.9 1.6 1.2 1.7 0.8 1.3 unw. valid n 12.0 146.0 83.0 11.0 25.0 6.0 4.0 table 3.2. mean health status in nigeria, grouped by occupation #total i am a student i am selfemployed i am unemployed i work full-time i work part-time i work without a contract other (please specify ): i am retired a b c d e f g h rating_access mean 9.1 > b c 8.1 < a e 8.5 < a 8.5 8.8 > b 7.5 9.0 9.0 std. dev. 1.3 1.7 0.8 1.5 1.1 2.0 unw. valid n 57.0 89.0 34.0 48.0 42.0 8.0 1.0 1.0 table 3.3. mean health status in south africa, grouped by occupation #total i am a student i am selfemployed i am unemployed i work full-time i work part-time i work without a contract a b c d e f rating_access mean 7.0 7.3 > f < d e 7.4 < e 8.2 > b f < e 9.0 > b c d f 6.3 < b d e std. dev. 1.4 1.8 2.2 2.1 1.8 1.8 unw. valid n 4.0 116.0 38.0 70.0 65.0 15.0 115 representation of access to healthcare. however, the scatter plot gives information about the distribution and sample size of each cohort. people who did not answer the question regarding their employment status or responded, “other” or “i am retired” are excluded from figure 2, to ensure clarity. figure 3: scatterplot of rating of access to healthcare in kenya, nigeria and south africa, grouped by occupation cohorts employment status provides mixed effects on access to healthcare. self-employment has a negative effect in all three countries and is significantly lower than in other groups. however, this is no longer the case in south africa once gender and residence status are included into the calculation. it is possible that people are self-employed due to their residence status and therefore have reduced access to healthcare. in kenya and nigeria for example, unemployed people rate their access higher than self-employed ones. thus, being unemployed does not necessarily mean having less access, which might have been expected due to fewer financial resources. part-time and full-time workers seem to position themselves in a higher-rated access. however, this effect only holds true for south africa within the linear model. when people migrate for educational reasons, they rate their access to healthcare higher than most other groups of occupation. this suggests that the effects of occupation are neither intuitive nor consistent, which is discussed further below. however, the kruskal-wallis test indicates that the groups do not rate their access to healthcare equally in nigeria and south africa. this result underlines the fact that different types of employment relationships correspond to different experiences of access to healthcare, and that this effect was not caused by the differently distributed covariates. this cannot be said for the kenya dataset. documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 116 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 documentation and residence status table 4 here (tables 4.1, 4.2, 4.3) table 4: mean access to healthcare in kenya (4.1), nigeria (4.2) and south africa (4.3), grouped by documentation status table 4 above and figure 4 below represent self-assessed access to healthcare in different ways: table 4 displays the overall average with its standard deviation and number of people for each cohort. figure 3 represents one dot for each survey respondent’s rating. small vertical and horizontal shifts occur, so the same rated values do not overlap completely. hence, figure 3 is only an approximated representation of access to healthcare. however, the scatter plot aims to give an impression about distribution and sample size of each cohort. people who did not answer the question regarding their residence status or responded, “prefer not to say” are excluded from figure 3, to ensure clarity. table 4.1. mean health status in kenya, grouped by documentation status #total  citizen   no documents   prefer not to say   some documents   a   b   c   d  rating_access    mean  8.4 > d 7.9  8.0  8.0 < a    std. dev.  0.9   1.6  1.0  1.8      unw. valid n  32.0   7.0  3.0  239.0   table 4.2. mean health status in nigeria, grouped by documentation status #total  citizen   no documents   prefer not to say   some documents   a   b   c   d  rating_access    mean  8.0 > c < d 8.0 > c < d 7.0 < a b d 8.9 > a b c    std. dev.  1.6   1.7   1.0   1.3      unw. valid n  32.0   49.0   14.0   185.0   table 4.3. mean health status in south africa, grouped by documentation status #total  citizen   no documents   prefer not to say   some documents   a   b   c   d  rating_access    mean  9.0 > b d 7.6 < a d 4.0  8.3 > b < a    std. dev.  0.0   2.1   2.8  1.7      unw. valid n  2.0   202.0   2.0  102.0   117 figure 4: scatterplot of rating of access to healthcare in kenya, nigeria, and south africa, grouped by documentation cohorts in general, documentation status can be associated with different access to health services. therefore, aggregated data from respondents' answers about their residence status and three groups were considered: people with some kind of documentation (e.g. refugees, educational migrants), people without any kind of documentation, and citizens. evidently, in south africa and nigeria, people with some documents rate their access to health services significantly higher by 0.7 and 0.9. the findings are consistent with the negative effect of the linear model. as the undocumented sample in kenya is below 10 people, the analysis of effects is not representative and is not included. to allow for a more detailed interpretation, we disaggregate the documentation status into the categories of a working status, an asylum status, a refugee status, and an educational status – see table 5 and figure 5 below. documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 118 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 table 5: mean access to healthcare in kenya (5.1), nigeria (5.2), and south africa (5.3), grouped by residence status table 5 above and figure 5 below represent the self-assessed access to healthcare in different ways: table 4 displays the overall average with its standard deviation and number of people for each cohort. figure 3 represents one dot for each survey respondent’s rating. small vertical and horizontal shifts occur, so the same rated values do not overlap completely. hence, figure 3 is only an approximated representation of access to healthcare. however, the scatter plot aims to give an impression about distribution and sample size of each cohort. people who did not answer the question regarding their residence status or responded, “prefer not to say” are excluded from figure 3, to ensure clarity. table 5.1. mean health status in kenya, grouped by residence status #total citizen no documents permanent documents (work) prefer not to say temporary documents (asylum) temporary documents (refugee) temporary documents (education) a b c d e f g rating_access mean 8.4 < c 7.9 < c 10.0 > a b e f 8.0 7.6 < c 8.0 < c 9.2 std. dev. 0.9 1.6 0.0 1.0 2.2 1.8 1.5 unw. valid n 32.0 7.0 2.0 3.0 20.0 213.0 4.0 table 5.2. mean health status in nigeria, grouped by residence status #total citizen no documents permanent documents (work) prefer not to say temporary documents (asylum) temporary documents (refugee) temporary documents (education) a b c d e f g rating_access mean 8.0 > d < c g 8.0 > d < c g 9.0 > a b d e 7.0 < a b c e f g 8.4 > d < c g 8.5 > d 9.1 > a b d e std. dev. 1.6 1.7 0.9 1.0 1.4 1.7 1.3 unw. valid n 32.0 49.0 57.0 14.0 36.0 22.0 70.0 table 5.3. mean health status in south africa, grouped by residence status #total citizen no documents permanent documents (work) prefer not to say temporary documents (asylum) temporary documents (refugee) temporary documents (education) a b c d e f rating_access mean 9.0 > b e f 7.6 < a e 8.0 4.0 8.6 > b f < a 7.5 < a e 8.4 std. dev. 0.0 2.1 2.2 2.8 1.6 1.6 1.2 unw. valid n 2.0 202.0 20.0 2.0 60.0 13.0 9.0 119 figure 5: scatterplot of rating of access to healthcare in kenya, nigeria, and south africa, grouped by documentation cohorts a consistent finding throughout the three sample countries is that self-assessed access for people without any documentation is lower than the other groups, not only by means but also within the linear models. in particular, the sample in south africa, where undocumented migrants were targeted, the effects were almost 2 points in the linear model. in kenya, refugees and asylum seekers rated their access lower than other groups by 0.4 and 0.8 points respectively. the effects remain similar in the linear model. in nigeria, refugees reported having greater access than citizens by 0.5 points and asylum seekers by 0.4 points more. thus again, having refugee status seems to have a slightly more positive effect on perceived access to health services than for those in the process of seeking asylum. this was not the case in south africa, where refugees rated their access as one of the lowest and asylum seekers rated it quite high, with a 1.1 points difference in access to healthcare when refugees are compared to asylum seekers. this may appear counter-intuitive, as registered refugees typically enjoy greater social coverage than those seeking asylum by virtue of their registration status. however, one possible explanation for this could be linked to expectations of improved access to healthcare and the extent to which these are met once registration has been granted. if respondents had work permits or the right to work, their access to healthcare was generally high. in nigeria, the access to healthcare of this cohort was the second highest after educational migrants and significantly better than the four other groups. although people with work visas in south africa also described their access to healthcare as good, the effects here are not as strong and negative in the documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 120 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 multivariate model. interestingly, the analysis indicates that the groups do not rate their access to healthcare equally in nigeria and south africa. this result underlines the fact that having a certain residence status corresponds to a different access to healthcare, and that this effect was not caused by the differently distributed covariates. this cannot be said for kenya, which did not show an effect for groups bigger than ten respondents for the tests on different averages. discussion findings the most consistent result across groups and models is that migrants without documentation have worse access than those with documents. this provides evidence for the disadvantage of this former group due to irregular or illegal residence status, which was anticipated in the literature, including in other world regions (juárez et al., 2019, spitzer et al., 2019). it also strongly suggests that extending regularization pathways in african states, even if on a temporary basis, would be an effective policy lever to improve migrants’ access to healthcare, and by extension migrants’ health. our findings in regards to occupation remained diverse. in south africa, where our sample targeted irregular migrants, it was evident that a full-time or parttime occupation was associated with a higher access to health services. in kenya, where our sample targeted refugees, the rating suggests that being self-employed is very common for refugees and seems to be associated with less access to health services. in kenya, where our sample targeted labor migrants, once again, selfemployed migrants rated their access to health services lower than those in regular employment (fulland part-time), but also being a student can be associated with higher rating in access to health services. apart from the clear trend in documentation, other effects, such as the ones through occupational differences, remain unclear across samples and models. there are many possible reasons for this, as discussed below. limitations to the findings firstly, the survey targeted different groups across countries, cohorts therefore resulted in different group sizes and may not be normally distributed covariates. moreover, the data set used was not originally designed for this type of examination. perhaps this is most evident in relation to employment and occupation status, because being self-employed or even unemployed can sometimes be the result of a conscious choice, which in turn has an impact, depending on residence status. this could explain the effects of the regression model. in south africa, where we focused mostly on irregular migrants, for this group of people any form of employment has a positive effect on healthcare, because they become financially independent and would otherwise fall through the safety net. in kenya and nigeria, refugees and labor 121 migrants are already within the safety net, but employment conditions often include precarious working conditions and obligations that make accessing healthcare more difficult. this would be reflected in the negative coefficients, but further research is required to clarify the relationship between migrants’ occupation and health status. secondly, the contexts of the countries and groups studied were diverse, which leads to variable overall healthcare access. examples of this may be language differences in neighboring countries, nationality, traveling alone or in a group, network at the new location of residence, and many more. in order to mitigate this heterogeneity, we applied intra-country comparison only. however, responses like part-time work or full-time work may have different meanings and implications in different settings. for example, it is not known how safe the working environment is, and if people consciously choose a reduction of working time or this may be an indication of precarious employment conditions. thirdly, potential answers may not have been sufficiently distinct. selfemployment and full-time work are not exclusive from one another. evidence that people did not always know where to categorize themselves is provided by the absolute numbers of answers to the question of occupation status, ‘student’ compared to the residence status, ‘education’: in kenya the difference was 8 responses, in nigeria 13 and south africa 5. potentially, people obtain educational residence status but work part-time, thus categorizing themselves differently. while this is a common issue with surveys, a clearer distinction or explanation could have mitigated the effects. potentially, this also explains why documentation has the most consistent findings, as no documents vs some documents could be seen as very clear-cut. fourthly, it can be argued that self-rated access to healthcare is not adequate to identify actual access to healthcare. waiting times to see the doctor were reported by some interviewees and survey respondents as worse for migrants, and this should be the subject of further research. nevertheless, a rating scheme is normally easy to understand, and corresponds to the subjective feeling of migrants, thus taking into account their perception of integration. furthermore, it allows for numeric comparisons within groups, for which the literature still lacks evidence in many regards. fifthly, data collection was affected by the social-distance measurements of the covid-19 pandemic. this potentially also introduced some sample bias as a result. consequently, the non-parametric kruskal-wallis test was used additionally to check for differences in the groups. here the kenyan sample, unlike in the other models, did not seem to differ. a possible explanation could be the data collection process: in kenya, respondents mostly completed the surveys in the eastleigh health centre in nairobi. as this institution delivers health services irrespective of status, and does not charge money or require documentation, the sample may not be representative of the entire migrant population throughout the country, especially since most refugees live in the two camps of dadaab and kakuma, which are situated in rural border areas of the country. documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 122 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 overall, in all three countries the data collection was conducted primarily in urban hubs, thus representativity may suffer because of this factor. this also limits the ability to generalize the findings. to overcome this issue, the sample size would have to be increased, or fewer groups regarded for this study. it will be useful for future research in this area to undertake larger-scale, and more longitudinal, studies on migrant health in the african context that include both clinical data and data on migrants’ experiences and perceptions of healthcare access. finally, policy implementation and delivery of healthcare services may differ considerably. this means that perceived access to health services may differ based on the facility and the healthcare workers that migrants encounter in accessing treatment. this is difficult to control for statistically, for example, it may be the case that a clinic in nigeria specializing in migrant health, and where staff are more used to treating migrants, makes treatment more accessible to migrants. other factors might include the financial and time resources required to travel to a health facility. such unobserved factors may bias our calculation. despite the named weaknesses and unclear effects within the groups, the data presented in this paper still provides evidence of existing differences between different cohorts. from this we can deduce that the groups would benefit from different measures to reduce, or ideally eliminate, barriers to accessing healthcare. conclusion and recommendations certain manifestations of gender, occupation, documentation, and residence status can result in higher or lower access to healthcare for migrants. clear negative effects are evident for non-documented migrants, while impacts of other characteristics remain ambiguous. however, several tests verified that access to healthcare is different among the groups investigated in the survey. there are various policy levers that african policy-makers can use to improve migrants’ access to health, including national social coverage or health insurance schemes. however, most such schemes are restricted to documented migrants and refugees. whilst it may be politically challenging for african states to provide longterm registration status to irregular migrants, there are various options for extending registration status on a temporary basis. these include temporary and short-term registration, for example on public health grounds, as well as time-limited amnesties for undocumented migrants. our findings suggest that the linkages between migrants’ occupation and access to healthcare in african states are less clear, and require further research. however, there is also a strong case for increasing irregular migrants’ economic participation – for example, by providing the right to work or own a business – in order to increase their ability to pay for healthcare and medicine, as well as to make contributions to government tax revenues and minimize inequalities. in the african context, measures such as these will help to achieve delivery of the african union agenda 2063, which aims to increase regional and continental 123 integration to improve prosperity and livelihoods for african citizens. in global contexts, such steps are also important for achieving sdg targets but also for realizing the ambition of article 25 of the universal declaration of human rights (unga, 1948), which defines adequate access to health and social determinants of well-being as a human right. finally, at a time of the global covid-19 pandemic, it is worth stressing that enhanced access to healthcare for vulnerable groups of migrants, also promises to benefit the health of the broader population as a whole. based on these findings, we make the following recommendations for african union member states, regional economic communities, and the auc: • au member states should introduce or extend pathways to regularization for migrants. governments should consider implementing temporary registrations and amnesties during the current covid-19 pandemic. • enabling greater economic participation for migrants in settlement countries promises to improve their access to healthcare and health outcomes. • states should strengthen workplace protection for migrants, including ensuring that all staff, including migrants, have access to health insurance schemes. • healthcare authorities in au ms should consider the benefits of more mixed, integrated healthcare provision for migrants and local citizens, instead of treating them as separate categories. • the equitable access to healthcare services for refugees and migrants, in accordance with national and international laws and practice shall be acknowledged as a vital step to reduce inequalities and achieve the sdgs, for example, by considering them in health plans and policies. • policy-makers need to recognize different health needs for different genders and, respectively incorporate these in policy reforms. • researchers should improve data collection on migrants’ health and occupations, and conduct more research, including longitudinal studies assessing migrants’ health status pre-departure, upon arrival, and postarrival, for which a forthcoming policy brief of the auc will provide recommendations for action (“multidimensional approaches towards migrants health”). • states should use existing guidelines to enhance migration and health governance, such as sdg 10.7, the migration policy framework for africa, african health strategy, and the au’s agenda 2063. • beyond these recommendations, policy-makers should develop policies and documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 124 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 programs that address the broader sdh affecting peoples’ access to, and experience of, healthcare, such 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appendix 1: categories of migrants table 6: definitions of migrant categories (source: adapted from zimmerman et al., 2011) documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants migrant category definition international migrants individuals who remain outside their usual country of residence for at least one year (undesa) international labour migrants individuals engaged in remunerated activity in a state of which he/she is not a national, including persons legally admitted as a migrant for employment (ilo) irregular / undocumented migrants (sometimes also referred to as “ illegal migrants”) individuals who enter a country, often in search of employment or other opportunities, without the required documents or permits or who overstay the authorised length of stay in the country (un population division) * there are few reliable data sources on numbers of irregular migrants people in refugee-like situations similar to refugees below, but this category is broader as it includes people who have been forced to leave their country of origin but who lack legal status as refugees and who have not registered claims for asylum. typically, this latter group are irregular migrants (unhcr) in this report, ‘people in refugee-like situations’ is used as an umbrella term that includes registered/ legal refugees, asylum-seekers, and irregular migrants who have been forced to flee their country of origin.  * there are few reliable data sources on this broader category refugees individuals who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, are outside of the country of their nationality, and are unable to, or owing to such fear are unwilling to, avail themselves of the protection of that country, or return because of fear of persecution (unhcr) the term refugee is typically used in a precise legal sense – i.e. someone who has been granted legal status as a refugee – as well as in a broader, more abstract sense.  asylum seekers individuals who have sought international protection and whose claims for refugee status have not been determined (unhcr) 134 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 appendix 2: multicollinearity multicollinearity within the independent variables is checked by variation inflation factor (vif) and describes how much the variables correlate. if it is detected, the linear model suffers large variances and its estimators shall be used cautiously only (mansfield and helms, 1982). a rule of thumb is that the variance inflation factor (vif) should be below 5, which is introduced by hair et al. (2011). in our datasets, for all factors this is the case. however, in the nigerian sample, residence status and occupational status are approximately 4, which suggests a moderate collinearity and consequently the results from the linear model created for nigeria should be used more cautiously. table 7: variance inflation factor appendix 3: heteroskedasticity the error terms of a linear model shall be distributed equally, to ensure a best unbiased efficient estimator. if heteroskedasticity is identified, hypothesis testing may be wrong, as the prediction relies on some high variance observations, which is not optimal. nevertheless, the estimator remains unbiased. a breusch-pagan test can be used to check the hypothesis if the error terms are uncorrelated (breusch and pagan, 1979). when we apply the breusch-pagan test to the error terms of our data sets, we have to reject our hypothesis of uncorrelated error terms for the nigerian sample, as the p-value is 0.014. consequently, results from the linear model created for nigeria should be used more cautiously. this is not the case for the data in kenya and south africa with p-values of 0.077 and 0.359 respectively. table 8: breusch-pagan test variance inflation factor / degrees of freedom (df) kenya nigeria south africa gender 1.091133 / 1 1.083923 / 1 1.051230 / 1 residence status 2.641129 / 6 4.032341 / 6 1.452490 / 6 occupation 2.538441 / 6 4.048248 / 7 1.499908 / 5 kenya nigeria south africa breusch pagan 20.802 27.953 13.143 df 13 14 12 p-value 0.07694 0.01443 0.3587 135 appendix 4: kruskal-wallis test the kruskal-wallis test can be used to check if the medians of two or more groups are different from each other. as a non-parametric test, it can be implemented regardless of the distribution of the sample. this is important, as not fully random data collection and heteroskedastic error terms of the nigerian sample. the hypothesis of the kruskal-wallis test is that the mean ranks of the different factors are equal (p > 0,05). if this is rejected (p < 0,05), the data provides evidence that outcome (access to healthcare) is unequal based on the factors (occupation and residence status). calculation of the kruskal-wallis test reveals differences in south africa and nigeria in both categories. this is not the case for the data in kenya. table 9: kruskal-wallis test appendix 5: questionnaire the data was generated by respondents who answered the questions captured in figure 6, which were part of a bigger health and migration study. figure 6: survey questions used for this article kenya nigeria south africa occupation residence occupation residence occupation residence chi² 9.4883 7.7864 21.92 56.948 47.602 16.334 df 6 6 7 6 5 6 p-value 0.1479 0.2542 0.002622 1.871e-10 4.282e-09 0.01207 1. what is your gender? { female { male { other { prefer not to say 2. what is your residence status in this country? { citizen { permanent documents (e.g. unlimited working permit, etc.) { temporary documents (asylum seeker, e.g. asylum seeker certificate) { temporary documents (recognized refugee, e.g. alien card) { temporary documents (educational stay) { no documents/ without legal documents (e.g. working permit or refugee status denied) { other (please specify): { prefer not to say documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants 136 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 3. what is your current occupational situation? { i work full-time { i work part-time { i am self-employed { i work without a contract { i am a student { i am unemployed { i am retired { other (please specify): 27 covid-19 and its effects on the lives and livelihoods of congolese female asylum seekers and refugees in the city of cape town ngwi nnam thecla mulu* and katebesha mbanza * rhodes university, south africa email: n.mulu@ru.ac.za this paper explores the socio-economic effects of the covid-19 pandemic on the lives and livelihoods of congolese female asylum seekers and refugees living in cape town. it is framed around the assumption that this group of women exist at the intersection of multiple forms of vulnerability by virtue of their migrant status, gender, race, and social class. the study adopted a qualitative approach to data collection and analysis. one-onone in-depth interviews were conducted with seven female asylum seekers and refugees from the democratic republic of congo, using a semi-structured interview guide. drawing on a feminist intersectional framework, the findings revealed that containment measures imposed by the south african government to curb the spread of covid-19 significantly increased asylum-seeking and refugee women’s care roles in homes, while rendering paid work more precarious. we argue that resilience strategies adopted by these women during the pandemic varied, depending on their demographic and socioeconomic status, educational level, nature of employment or entrepreneurial activity and their residency status in south africa. this article concludes that the covid-19 pandemic has amplified existing inequalities experienced by female congolese asylum seekers and refugees and created new ones, with long-term implications for their lives and livelihoods. keywords: intersectionality, gender, asylum seekers, refugees, vulnerabilities, resilience 28 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 introduction the covid-19 pandemic has unleashed a global health crisis with significant implications for the lives and livelihoods of the world’s poorest populations. in an effort to protect lives, the south african government’s responses to the pandemic have inadvertently exacerbated existing vulnerabilities of poor black women, young people, undocumented migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees (mukumbang et al., 2020; zanker and moyo, 2020). on 23 march 2020, south africa embarked on a 21-day national lockdown, which restricted the movement of people and suspended all social and economic activities, except for essential services. it is important to note that what is considered an essential service varies from one context to another. at the onset of the pandemic in south africa, essential services were categorized with a focus on paid work in the formal sector, such as: financial services, transport services, healthcare services, journalism and media services, emergency services, security, defence and safety services, etc. (stevano et al., 2020: 2). such a narrow focus excludes women’s care roles in homes and ignores the fact that a vast majority of the working population in south africa, particularly women and migrants, engage in multiple activities in the informal economy for their livelihoods (tawodzera et al., 2015). the lockdown was extended in a phased-out manner between alert levels one and five. strict regulations during alert levels three, four and five lockdown dealt a severe blow to the livelihoods of poor black women in south africa because social distancing measures impacted mostly sectors with high rates of female employment, like informal trading, hairdressing and domestic work (ramparsad, 2020). also, the closure of schools and childcare centers during that period increased the burden of care on working mothers (alon et al., 2020). while the south african government implemented a variety of short-term financial relief packages for businesses and unemployed citizens, vulnerable migrant populations, particularly female asylum seekers, irregular and undocumented migrants engaged in the informal economy were excluded from these initiatives, rendering them destitute (mukumbang et al., 2020). african female migrants in south africa comprise of the following categories: women with permanent residency status, work visas, spousal visas, study visas; refugees, asylum seekers, and irregular and undocumented migrants (ncube, 2017). a refugee is defined as “… someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence” (mbiyozo, 2018: 4). in order to be recognized as a refugee in south africa, a person is expected to apply for asylum and demonstrate that his/her fear of persecution on the basis of ethnicity, religion, political opinion or membership of a particular social group is well founded (unhcr, 2021). according to unhcr (2018), refugees and asylum seekers from the democratic republic of congo (drc) are the third largest displaced people in the world and a minimum of 25,000 congolese refugees have lived in south africa for at least five or more consecutive years. armed conflict in the eastern provinces of the drc have forcibly displaced over 5.1 million people and women and children continue to bear the brunt 29 of human rights violations (schockaert et al., 2020: 33). in this context, the paper explores the socio-economic effects of the covid-19 pandemic on the lives and livelihoods of congolese female asylum seekers and refugees living in cape town. it is framed around the assumption that this group of women exist at the intersection of multiple forms of vulnerability by virtue of their migrant status, gender, race, and social class. drawing on a feminist intersectional framework, the research found that containment measures imposed by the south african government to curb the spread of covid-19 significantly increased the women’s care role in homes, while rendering paid work more precarious. the findings of the study indicate that the level of resilience demonstrated by these women during the pandemic varied, depending on their demographic and socio-economic status, educational level, nature of employment or entrepreneurial activity and their residency status in south africa. consequently, the covid-19 pandemic has amplified existing inequalities experienced by female congolese asylum seekers and refugees and created new ones. given the above, the main aim of this paper is to examine the effects of the pandemic on the lives and livelihoods of congolese female migrants through a feminist intersectional lens. this paper is structured as follows: first it provides an overview of patterns of female migration to south africa, with a focus on opportunities and challenges experienced by female asylum seekers and refugees. second, it discusses intersectionality and its operationalization in migration studies. third, it presents a brief description of the methodology used. furthermore, it presents and discusses key findings of the study. finally, the conclusion summarizes key findings in relation to understanding the experiences of female congolese refugees and asylum seekers during the covid-19 pandemic, through a feminist intersectional lens. literature review and theoretical framework although africa is often depicted as a continent of mass migration to the northern hemisphere that is driven by civil wars, environmental disasters and underdevelopment, empirical research on trends, patterns and determinants of migration in africa indicate that these perceptions are largely based on stereotypes (flahaux and de haas, 2016). data from cross-country migration matrix and household surveys from several african countries indicate that africa has one of the lowest rates of immigration when compared with other continents and the majority of africans migrate within the continent (shimeles, 2010). contrary to popular interpretations of trends of african migration, empirical research shows that migration out of africa is characterized by the movement of high-skilled individuals, motivated to improve their livelihoods in more advanced economies (flahaux and de haas, 2016). however, african migration is mainly characterized by intra-regional movements of highly-skilled workers, irregular migrants and refugees driven by worsening socio-economic and political conditions in countries of origin (adepoju, 2002, 2006; shimeles, 2010; pineteh and mulu, 2020). this signifies the importance covid-19 and its effects on congolese female asylum seekers and refugees in cape town 30 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 of research with a focus on south-south migration. moreover, southern africa has a history of migration dating back to the nineteenth century, with entrenched patterns of mobility focused on the movement of cheap male labor in the mining and agricultural industries (crush et al., 2005). consequently, studies on the dynamics of african migration to south africa have been mostly gender neutral and this has led to the formulation of migration policies that are largely geared towards the experiences of men (dodson and crush, 2004; palmary et al., 2010). structural determinants like the end of apartheid and south africa’s integration into the global economy, civil wars, ethnic conflicts, natural disasters and economic crises across the african continent have created new patterns of human mobility (landau, 2006; pineteh, 2010). an important aspect of these changes has been an increase in the movement of african female migrants to south africa (ojong, 2012; isike, 2017; ncube, 2017; ncube and mkwananzi, 2020). this section of the paper provides a brief review of the literature on the dynamics of african female migration to south africa and examines recent studies on the socioeconomic effects of covid-19 on female migrants globally. patterns of female migration to south africa: opportunities and challenges in spite of its socio-economic challenges, south africa remains the most popular destination for economic and forced migrants from across the african continent (crush et al., 2005; pineteh, 2010). like their male counterparts, african women migrate to south africa in pursuit of better economic opportunities and/or are fleeing political violence, community conflicts or natural disasters (mbiyozo, 2018; farley, 2019). recent trends in migration research indicate an increasing recognition that women’s experiences throughout the migration journey and in the host country are shaped by their gender, with positive and negative outcomes (isike, 2016, 2017). recent studies on female african migrants in south africa have revealed that a significant number of women travelled to south africa independently and were living in south africa without spouses or partners (farley, 2019; ncube and mkwananzi, 2020). this trend, which is referred to as the feminization of migration is expected to continue growing globally, as well as in the african context (pillinger, 2007; piper, 2008; mbiyozo, 2018). it is therefore important to understand the experiences of migrants from a gendered perspective, particularly during times of crisis like the current covid-19 pandemic that is wreaking havoc on vulnerable populations. the following section examines diversity in the experiences of african female migrants in south africa. § african female migration to south africa as positive and empowering migration can be a positive experience for african migrant women, enabling them to have access to further education, participate in the labor market as skilled professionals and contribute to their host communities and countries of origin 31 through remittances (dodson et al., 2008). a study of african professional women from cameroon, zambia, nigeria, kenya, malawi, tanzania, uganda and congo found a positive relationship between migration to south africa and an increase in socio-economic empowerment opportunities (ojong and muthuki, 2010). for independent african professional women who came to south africa in pursuit of tertiary education and employment opportunities, migration has enabled experiences that have challenged gender norms based on patriarchy and religion (ojong, 2012). adepoju (2006) argues that migration has become a family survival strategy and has redefined the role of women in the family in positive ways. outcomes of access to skilled employment as a result of education and entrepreneurial opportunities have positively influenced adaptation and coping strategies for african female migrants in south africa (ncube, 2017; ncube and mkwananzi, 2020). therefore, increasing autonomy and independence amongst african migrant professional women enables them to forge new gender roles in relationships, which position them as agents of socio-cultural and economic change (pillinger, 2007). these changes affect power relations in the family, creating contestations between traditional gender roles and the new identities that migrant women forge in their public and private lives. in an analysis of the coping and adaptation strategies employed by african migrant women in south africa, ncube et al. (2019) argue that migrant women need human, physical, social, cultural, economic and political capital in order to adapt well in a host community. positive adjustment by female african migrants in south africa was influenced by their educational level, language aptitude and residency status (ncube, 2017). that is, women with higher levels of education, proficiency in english language and access to pathways for legal residency status in south africa find it easier to adapt and cope than those with little or no formal education, inability to communicate in english and residing in the country as asylum seekers, irregular or undocumented migrants (rugunanan and smit, 2011; smit and rugunanan, 2014). asylum-seeking and refugee women from conflict regions like the drc are more likely to find themselves as part of the latter than the former category. most of these women have developed survival strategies; the most significant of these is their participation in the informal economy (nkomo, 2019). however, migrant women’s experiences in the informal economy are diverse. for instance, on the one hand, ojong (2017) contends that cultural identity increases the propensity of ghanaian female migrants in south africa to succeed in the beauty industry as hairdressers. on the other hand, precarious work, like domestic and sex work, constitutes an important livelihood strategy for low-skilled african female asylum seekers and refugees (richter et al., 2014; walker and oliveira, 2015). in this context, domestic workers from neighboring countries like lesotho and refugee and asylum-seeking women who sell sex in south africa’s urban areas experience multiple forms of vulnerabilities such as, violence at the hands of intimate partners, employers/clients; police harassment; as well as barriers to accessing social and healthcare services (griffin, 2011; walker and oliveira, 2015). this supports findings from other covid-19 and its effects on congolese female asylum seekers and refugees in cape town 32 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 contexts indicating that marginalized entrepreneurs are likely to experience extreme precarity during covid-19 and should be targeted by responses from the state and civil society organizations (martinez dy and jayawarna, 2020). female refugees and asylum seekers make up a significant share of participants in the informal economy of south africa’s inner cities like cape town and johannesburg and experience many challenges in an effort to eke out a living for themselves and their families. § challenges experienced by african refugee and asylum-seeking women in south africa the dynamics of displacement affect asylum-seeking and refugee women in south africa in different ways. while migration can empower these women by improving their socio-economic potential, it can reinforce traditional gender roles and expose women to a variety of new challenges in the host community (adepoju, 2006). refugee and asylum-seeking women in south africa experience gender-based violence, afrophobia and racial discrimination in their daily lives as they navigate to integrate into host communities and participate in the labor market. south africa’s labor market is characterized by gender and racial inequalities (ramparsad, 2020: 135-136). landau (2006) argues that while south africa’s refugee policy enables temporary integration of asylum seekers and refugees into the community, with the legal rights to work and study, refugees and asylum seekers are unable to translate these rights into socio-economic protection. institutional failures in determining refugee status timeously and offering social protection for asylum seekers negatively affect women more as they are less likely to have access to information in comparison to men (mbiyozo, 2018). violence is a widespread challenge experienced by asylum-seeking and refugee women in south africa. this ranges from political violence to gender-based violence such as rape (isike, 2017). displaced congolese women journeying to south africa by bus, boat and trucks across multiple countries are vulnerable to exploitation through extortion, rape and sex trafficking (amisi, 2005; schockaert et al., 2020). factors such as the absence of kinship support, unemployment, a hostile environment, conflict between patriarchal gender norms and women’s economic empowerment, contribute to domestic violence among asylum-seeking and refugee women in south africa (hiralal, 2017). this is particularly relevant in circumstances where displaced women depend on their spouses for their refugee status or asylum-seeking permits. it is extremely difficult for displaced women to escape situations of domestic abuse in this context. female refugees and asylum seekers from war-torn regions like the eastern region of the drc, burundi and somalia have reported experiencing rape, beatings, threats, arson, killings and disappearance of family members in their countries of origin and in transit (mbiyozo, 2018:14). these women were motivated by social networks, prospects of economic opportunities and the respect of human rights to migrate to south africa. however, they are often confronted with gendered forms of violence throughout the migration journey, as well as at the hands of their 33 spouses in host communities. furthermore, african asylum-seeking and refugee women make up a significant number of participants in low-skilled and undervalued work in south africa (farley, 2019). south africa’s migration policy framework does not offer any legal pathway for low-skilled employment; so many female asylum seekers and refugees find employment in the informal economy as self-employed hairdressers, tailors, petty traders, domestic workers, sex workers and seasonal farm workers (halkias and anast, 2009; griffin, 2011; richter et al., 2014; walker and oliveira, 2015; ojong, 2017). in this context, women with formal qualifications are willing to take up unskilled labor in order to provide for their livelihoods and send remittances home. ncube (2017) refers to this as a process of deskilling. furthermore, asylum-seeking and refugee women experience more challenges than their male counterparts in finding employment and this exposes them to precarious working conditions, unstable living conditions and little or no legal protection (farley, 2019). this disparity can be attributed to gender inequality in accessing educational and other socio-economic opportunities in migrants’ country of origin, as well as gender and racialized disparities in south africa’s immigration and labor market policies (dodson; 2001; dodson and crush, 2004). importantly, dodson (2001) contends that gender blindness in the formulation and implementation of migration policy has negative implications for migrant women’s rights, as well for a socially-just and economically-viable migration policy framework for south africa. the following section examines the relevance of intersectionality in framing inequality among congolese female migrants. intersectionality and migration studies on the gendered experiences of african migrants in south africa have employed a variety of theoretical and analytical frames, such as: gendered geographies of power, livelihoods and capabilities approaches (isike, 2017; ncube, 2017, ncube et al., 2019; ncube and mkwananzi, 2020). this paper explores the lived experiences of congolese female refugees and asylum seekers using intersectionality as an analytical framework. intersectionality as an analytical tool emerged within feminist and anti-racist scholarship in north america in the 1980s (cho et al., 2013: 786). it interrogated and brought to the fore multiple, complex and distinct forms of oppression experienced by black women, indigenous women and other women of color in the united states (crenshaw, 1991). intersectionality was particularly useful in drawing attention to the interconnections and interdependence of categories of disadvantage, such as class, race and ethnicity, which were hitherto, operationalized as separate categories (collins, 2009). in the 2000s, academic and public debates on immigration in europe increasingly adopted notions of intersectionality as important (yuval-davis, 2006; bürkner, 2012: 181). this shift was motivated by the need to respond effectively to increasing socio-cultural diversity related to the presence of covid-19 and its effects on congolese female asylum seekers and refugees in cape town 34 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 ethnic minorities and immigration. although the concept of intersectionality was originally conceived in gender studies in the global north, migration scholars have adopted its analytical approach to empirical research on malawian migrant nurses in the united states, skilled migrant job seekers in australia, as well as in understanding the challenges and constraints faced by female migrants in south africa (hiralal, 2017; ressia et al., 2017; semu, 2020). an intersectional approach to migration studies has the potential to address some weaknesses in migration research. by disaggregate analytical categories, intersectionality as an analytical frame is important in revealing intragroup differences. it provides a conceptual lens that uncovers the complexity in the lived experiences of this group of female refugees and asylum seekers, during a time of crisis. the application of intersectionality as an analytical framework has been criticized for treating categories of disadvantage such as race, gender and class as additive (different forms of oppression adding onto each other), while ignoring structural factors that create inequality (yuval-davis, 2007). this critique misses the essence of intersectionality by assuming that discussions on oppression amalgamate problems under one umbrella, when in fact, it is a number of intersecting problems that oppress persons in the world. intersectionality is therefore particularly important in understanding the gendered experiences of congolese female migrants in south africa during covid-19 because migrant women’s issues are often glossed over to the detriment of women (or womxn) in public policy and academic debates on migration in south africa (dodson, 2001; dodson and crush, 2004). the strength of an intersectional analytical approach lies in its ability to deepen our understanding of the differentiated social positions that this group of female refugees and asylum seekers occupy and how this affected their ability to cope and adapt during the pandemic. methodology the study adopted a qualitative research methodology. data was collected with the use of in-depth one-on-one interviews. seven participants were selected with the use of purposive and snowball sampling techniques. covid-19 protocols such as maintaining physical distance between interviewers and interviewees, sanitizing hands and wearing masks were observed throughout the data collection process. a semi-structured interview guide with a list of 10 open-ended questions was used as a data collection tool. female asylum seekers and refugees from the drc were purposively selected to include married and single participants, women with and without children, women from diverse age groups and longevity in south africa. interviews were tape-recorded and analyzed using thematic analysis. each interview lasted approximately 60 minutes. with regards to ethical considerations, all interviews were conducted in a safe space, away from participants’ homes and places of employment. all participants signed participant information forms, which 35 outlined the purpose of the study and consent forms stipulating their voluntary participation in the study. prior to each interview, participants were reminded of their right to withdraw from the interview process at any stage. participants’ names were not recorded on research instruments for purposes of anonymity. participants experiencing specific challenges were referred to civil society organizations (csos) and faith-based organizations (fbos) in cape town that offer support to asylum seekers and refugees. presentation and discussion of findings cape town is home to many congolese asylum seekers and refugees. these include individuals with refugee status (section 24), asylum-seeker permits (section 22) and permanent residents (section 27 (d)). in addition, there are congolese in cape town who are awaiting appeal hearings and others waiting to be deported back to the drc. there is no specific figure for congolese migrants living in cape town because the majority of asylum seekers and refugees received asylum permits from different refugee reception offices (rros) in the country. although most congolese migrants in cape town are engaged in casual labor or are self-employed in the informal economy, there are also congolese women who were engaged in formal employment as essential service and frontline workers during the covid-19 pandemic. prior to the outbreak of covid-19, congolese refugees and asylum seekers were confronted with issues of subsistence like shelter, food, protection from eviction and xenophobia (rugunanan and smit, 2011). the following section discusses findings related to how covid-19 has affected the lives and livelihoods of female refugees and asylum seekers from the drc through a feminist intersectional lens. health and psycho-social effects of covid-19 on female congolese refugees and asylum seekers during covid-19, service and healthcare workers have been particularly at risk of infection by continuing to provide care for the sick and rendering services to the public. in south africa like elsewhere, data on covid-19 infections among healthcare workers does not account for intersecting issues like occupation, nationality and race (lokot and bhatia, 2020). taking into consideration the psychosocial effects and health risks involved in working at the front-line during the pandemic, the experiences of congolese female essential workers were further exacerbated by increased childcare needs as a result of school closures and the absence of additional compensation for childcare and services rendered during a time of crisis. for instance, a 41-year-old mother of two from the drc who has been living in south africa for 23 years and was working at a popular chain supermarket in cape town, described her experiences as follows: this thing of social distancing, how to protect yourself and your kids, it was covid-19 and its effects on congolese female asylum seekers and refugees in cape town 36 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 not easy for me. i tried to protect myself and my kids from covid because i used to go to work, since the place where i work was not closed. they said it was essential service. i used to wear my masks and gloves at work and removed all my clothes when i got home before greeting my kids. i sanitize my hands first before going to the bathroom. after having a bath, i had to wash the clothes that i was wearing at work. then, from there i had to change again. each and every day it used to take a lot of energy. at work, all the time i had to sanitize for not getting infected with covid from the customers. also, all the time, we were exchanging products that we sell by giving items to customers, all those kinds of movements. now, i had to deal with it, it was not easy for me. i had to protect myself by wearing a mask and gloves, sanitizing and social distancing. and even my kids at home had to wear their masks as well, and each one of us had three masks to change when one is dirty. after wearing a mask for a particular period, you have to remove and wash it, you cannot rely on one mask. my kids were not going outside but i was telling them to wear a mask in the house in case of unknown [effects of the] pandemic (participant 6, refugee). this excerpt indicates that the participant experienced significant psycho-social effects as a result of working at a busy supermarket and caring for her children during the peak of the pandemic. this supports the contention by foley and piper (2020) that the outbreak of covid-19 has exposed the front-line nature of much of the work carried out by asylum-seeking and refugee women, as well as the socio-economic and structural inequalities in the labor market that render them vulnerable to infection during pandemics. the participant’s anxieties around trying to prevent infection with the virus were compounded by anxieties around simultaneously infecting her children because of the nature of her job. although her children were not allowed to play outdoors, they still wore masks in order to prevent infection from their mother. this must have been very emotionally taxing on them. the term ‘emotional geographies of covid’ has been used to describe multiple factors that intersect to render vulnerable women more anxious about getting infected with covid-19 as a result of their socio-economic circumstances (azeez et al., 2021). fears about getting infected at work and infecting one’s family also had a positive effect as the participant was diligent in observing covid-19 protocols. however, the psycho-social effects of covid-19 experienced by the participant were exacerbated by her increased burden of care at home as a mother and her socio-economic status, as depicted by the front-line nature of her work. these factors intersect, thereby facilitating emotional geographies of covid that are often overlooked among congolese asylum-seeking and refugee women. congolese refugees and asylum seekers in the healthcare sector were particularly vulnerable during covid-19 by virtue of their precarious working conditions while caring for the sick. a 48-year-old nurse who has been living in 37 south africa for the last 20 years described her experience of getting infected with covid-19 as follows: i am a nurse but i can’t find a permanent job at the hospital or clinic because of my refugee papers, so i work for an agency that finds work for me at different hospitals. i dealt with a lot of people at the hospitals; that is how i got infected. due to my age, i had all the signs of covid-19, like the fever, body tiredness, loss of smell and appetite. i was really sick, but they told me to self-isolate because that time the hospitals were full and there was a shortage of ventilator machines. how can i self-isolate when i live in a small flat? what pains me the most is that i infected my 2 children. i thank god because their symptoms were not too serious. my husband died in 2005, so i am just grateful that i can still work and support my children (participant 5, refugee). this excerpt captures the health and psycho-social effects of covid-19 on the participant. the precarious nature of her work in the healthcare sector intersects with her refugee status to render her vulnerable to exploitation by labor brokers in the healthcare industry. nursing agencies act as labor brokers between employees and employers in the sector, leading to the casualization of skilled labor in a sector that is considered as an essential service during covid-19 (van eck, 2010; olojede and rispel, 2015; stevano et al., 2020: 2). in this context, the participant was vulnerable to exploitation as employers do not have any legal obligation and offered no social protection to her during her illness. this reveals how intersections of refugee status, race and gender collide in south africa’s healthcare sector, exacerbating the vulnerabilities experienced by congolese female refugees. to put this into context, since 1994 globalization has created opportunities for white nurses in south africa to emigrate to the uk, australia or the us as a form of upward social mobility, while leading to the casualization of refugee and asylum-seeking women’s roles in the sector through the use of labor brokers (hull, 2010; olojede and rispel, 2015). the excerpt above also raises important questions around the implementation of non-pharmaceutical measures such as self-isolation as an effective strategy to prevent the spread of covid-19 among asylum seekers and refugees. female congolese asylum seekers and refugees live in cramped spaces, with several families sharing the same apartment in the inner-city. this is an adaptation strategy to cope with the rising cost of rentals in south africa’s urban areas (amisi, 2005; rugunanan and smit, 2011). this excerpt reveals the contradiction of being an essential worker and being engaged in labor that is undervalued, as depicted by low wages, that are not sufficient to provide for decent housing in the city of cape town. therefore, the findings indicate that gender, age, refugee status, healthcare role, casual working conditions and cramped living conditions intersect to render female congolese asylum seekers in the healthand social care sectors vulnerable in unique ways during the covid-19 pandemic. covid-19 and its effects on congolese female asylum seekers and refugees in cape town 38 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 socio-economic effects of covid-19 on female congolese asylum seekers and refugees several authors have argued that congolese asylum seekers and refugees experience a myriad of challenges in an effort to eke out a living in south africa (amisi, 2005; smit and rugunanan, 2014; schockaert et al., 2020). as a result of protracted asylum processes, lack of aptitude in the english language and the necessity to earn a living while taking care of children, female congolese asylum seekers often set up survivalist businesses. these include both legal and illegal economic activities, such as hairdressing, sewing clothes, petty trading and sex work (mitchell, 2004). the outbreak of covid-19 has exposed fault-lines in the survivalist nature of entrepreneurship amongst female congolese asylum seekers and refugees. factors such as lack of start-up capital, the burden of childcare and low levels of education and training have limited their ventures into entrepreneurship to survivalist businesses that could not withstand the socio-economic challenges imposed by covid-19. for instance, a 28-year-old self-employed asylum seeker described the impact of covid-19 on her source of livelihood as follows: i am a beauty therapist and i sell my homemade organic products. lockdown affected my business a lot because the sales became very low. people who were buying from me were working on a budget due to covid-19. also, the courier company that was assisting to send my products to the customers in johannesburg, was closed; even my products were closed inside their stores for many days (participant 7, asylum seeker). prior to the outbreak of covid-19, the beauty industry in general and hairdressing in particular were considered as lucrative sectors for the establishment of survivalist businesses amongst female refugees and asylum seekers from the drc. ojong (2017) posits that with the fall of apartheid, hair has become an important indicator of modernity among black south african women. congolese refugees and asylum seekers are major role players in this sector as it offers them flexibility to earn an income, while caring for their children and engaging in other clandestine economic activities like sex work (walker and oliveira, 2015). however, the beauty industry is one of the sectors of the south african economy that was hardest hit by covid-19 regulations around social distancing (ramparsad, 2020). this is a sector of migrant entrepreneurship that has traditionally provided a source livelihood to a large share of female refugees and asylum seekers from the drc. unlike spaza shops, beauty salons were shut down and the purchase of luxury beauty items was no longer a priority, as households battled to cope with the economic effects of covid-19. furthermore, two self-employed participants involved in the sale of indigenous foodstuff imported from the drc to the congolese community in cape town experienced disruptions to their survivalist businesses during lockdown. both participants were married and they became completely dependent on their husbands for survival. they related their experiences thus: 39 i was running a small business before the lockdown; now i am unable to do it because all borders are closed. we are trying to cut down our cost of living. we have to manage the little food we can afford for the family. i would be very happy if the government assisted everybody with low income in this chaos, but personally i didn’t receive anything from them, things are tough (participant 1, refugee). i was affected by the lockdown because i could not buy the food from outside the country since the borders are closed. covid-19 has affected my income because i had to stop selling food and there is no income. i am not getting any support from the government except from that child grant support which i receive from the south african government (participant 2, permanent resident). these participants relied on the cross-border movement of goods and people to run their businesses successfully and provide for the needs of their families such as paying for rent, food and healthcare. the informal economy in southern africa is dominated by transnational networks of small businesses engaged in economic exchanges (nshimbi and moyo, 2017). within this network of exporters, importers and truck drivers, congolese female asylum seekers and refugees are among the most vulnerable groups because they are involved in petty trading. with limited capital, they can purchase only small quantities of indigenous foodstuff for retail. covid-19 disrupted the flow of goods through informal networks, thereby disrupting their businesses, with negative implications for their livelihoods. the effects of these disruptions on their livelihoods compelled the participants to make compromises in different areas of their lives to make ends meet. although both women experienced economic distress as a result of loss of livelihood, by virtue of her permanent residency status, participant 2 received the child support grant from the south african department of social development. this safety net was important in subsidizing her livelihood. without any social protection, participant 1, who is a refugee, reported that she made adjustments to the quality and quantity of food in her household in response to the limited resources at her disposal. although both women experienced disruptions to their petty trading businesses, participant 1’s compromise bears evidence of the added vulnerability of the lack of a safety net. this corresponds with findings from a recent study that highlights food security among black african asylum seekers and refugees as a serious problem in south africa (napier et al., 2018). in our study, gender, refugee status, social class and race intersected to create conditions of vulnerability that negatively impacted the nutritional status of participant 1’s family during the pandemic. it is evident that food insecurity could have negative implications for the health status of her family during and after the pandemic. covid-19 and its effects on congolese female asylum seekers and refugees in cape town 40 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 coping and adaptation strategies adopted by female congolese asylum seekers and refugees during the covid-19 pandemic apart from the health, psychological and economic constraints that were exacerbated by covid-19 protocols and lockdown regulations, anxieties related to the possibility of getting infected with covid-19 was a common theme that emerged from findings of this study. this section discusses how intersections of migrant status, social class, gender, ethnicity, and religion enabled this group of women to survive during the lockdown. all participants were concerned about the risk of getting infected with covid-19 and demonstrated sufficient knowledge of covid-19 prevention protocols. how they dealt with actually getting infected with covid-19, revealed intersections of refugee status, gender, ethnicity and religion. previous research highlighting inequities in access to healthcare indicates that there are political, legal and economic determinants of vulnerabilities experienced by asylum-seeking and refugee women in south africa (freedman et al., 2020). however, a focus on structural factors that drive inequalities in access to healthcare fails to take into consideration the agency of congolese asylum seekers and refugees in choosing alternative forms of treatment over hospitalization, based on intersections of refugee status, ethnicity, gender and religion. participant 6 described her anxieties with accessing healthcare during the pandemic as follows: there was a time when i lost my appetite and smell and i was very weak. i came to notice that i had covid-19. i thought if i go to the clinic or the hospital, i will die and leave my kids. i used to hear that when people go to hospital, they were not coming back home again. that fear was in me by refusing to die. for me to protect my kids, i used to prepare for them ginger, lemon, and garlic. i mixed them, and cooked them by boiling them. also, i can give it to my kids to drink or we can use its steam by covering ourselves with a blanket, and when you sweat you can definitely feel all right (participant 6, refugee). this participant demonstrated a high level of awareness about the transmission and prevention of covid-19. however, this knowledge fueled her anxieties of potentially dying from the infection and leaving her children motherless. consequently, she did not test when she suspected that she had contracted the virus and rather resorted to using traditional home remedies that have been used by congolese women for decades to treat common ailments. this demonstrates intersections of motherhood and ethnicity as important factors in coping with the health challenges unleashed by covid-19. another participant, who was able to confirm through a test that she was in fact infected with covid-19, also adopted the same cultural practice of steaming to ameliorate symptoms associated with the virus. in response to a question about how she recovered, she elaborated: 41 how we recovered? [laughs]. in congo as a mother, you have to know how to use [natural remedies] and treat certain diseases by using natural herbs. for us to get cured, my mother prepared or boiled particular herbs. then, one at the time, we had to cover ourselves with the blanket; then the vapor or steam from the cooked herbs comes up to your noise and eyes while covered with the blanket. after a certain period of going through this specific experience, we all recovered from covid-19 and here i am as a living testimony (participant 4, asylum seeker). the excerpt above indicates that intersections of motherhood and ethnicity are important in understanding health-seeking behaviors among asylum-seeking and refugee women from the drc. while previous research has argued that there are structural inequalities in access to healthcare, it is also important to highlight gendered and cultural factors that have shaped this group of women’s health-seeking behaviour during the covid-19 pandemic in south africa. findings from this study also revealed that civil society organizations with a focus on refugees, social networks and religion were important in helping this group of female asylum-seeking and refugee women cope during the covid-19 pandemic. these experiences are captured in the following quotes: i got support from an ngo called adonis mossati and they supported me for a period of three months. they gave me food and r700 (participant 7, asylum seeker). sometimes we used to share things that we had. for example, if you see that a particular person does not have [essentials], we used to assist her. on my side, when i was going to pick ’n pay to work, on my way back, i used to buy bread and veggies to give to my neighbors who were struggling because i knew they were not going to work because of the pandemic (participant 6, refugee). oh yes, i was praying and god was listening to me in that difficult time. praying was making my mind relax and comfortable because i knew that god was on my side. churches were closed but i knew if i communicate with god through prayer, he will listen to me (participant 4, asylum seeker). the excerpts above highlight the fact that non-governmental organizations (ngos) play an important role in providing social protection to vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers in cape town, particularly in times of crisis. family and friendship ties were important in providing social support during the covid-19 pandemic. despite her low wages, participant 6 provided basic food items to other women within her social network who were destitute as a result of the pandemic. the findings of this study corroborate evidence from prior research that there is a strong sense of covid-19 and its effects on congolese female asylum seekers and refugees in cape town 42 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 solidarity amongst congolese migrants in south africa (amisi, 2005; rugunanan and smit, 2011). social networks of friends, family, religious groups, ethnic groups, and ngos provided social protection for vulnerable female congolese refugees and asylum seekers during the first three months of lockdown. religion was also a commonly-utilized source of coping among this group of women. participant 4 described how she placed her faith in god as a way of dealing with the socioeconomic and psychological challenges that come with living as an unemployed black woman and asylum seeker during a pandemic. although there are similarities in the experiences of vulnerability and resilience among this group of congolese asylum seekers and refugees, it is important to note that these experiences are not universal. two female congolese asylum seekers in their twenties who were both single and had no children described their experiences of living and working in cape town during the pandemic, as follows: i am lucky that i was able to work from home but we had salary cuts because there was not enough demand in the industry and some investors pulled out of the market. i tried to stay motivated by up-skilling myself with online learning but it was very challenging financially. i hope things will get better soon (participant 3, asylum seeker). in the period of lockdown, i developed other skills, for instance, learning how to sell online rather than meeting clients face-to-face. for real, i tried to improvise that way (participant 7, asylum seeker). in spite of the economic and psycho-social effects of living during a pandemic, participant 3’s experiences as an educated and skilled professional in the it industry meant that she was able to work from the safety of her home with minimal risk of infection. she was able to continue earning a living while up-skilling herself through online learning. participant 7 also adapted by using online platforms such as social media to run her business during the pandemic. in this instance, intersections of participant 3’s professional identity as a junior software developer, her age, gendered identity as a single woman, unencumbered by the burden of childcare and her socioeconomic status which allowed her to work from home during the pandemic, were important factors that explain her resilience. 43 conclusion and recommendations while there has been considerable interest in the feminization of migration in scholarly literature in the field of migration and development, there is still limited application of intersectionality in the analysis of social inequalities among female asylum seekers and refugees in the south african context (palmary et al., 2010; isike, 2017; mbiyozo, 2018; farley, 2019). consequently, research on gender and migration often presents experiences of vulnerability or resilience amongst asylum-seeking and refugee women as homogenous. the aim of this paper was to explore the impact of covid-19 on the lives and livelihoods of female congolese asylum seekers and refugees through an intersectional framework. the findings indicate that complex intersections of gender, refugee status, social class, ethnicity and religion interact to produce different experiences of vulnerability and resilience within this small group of women during the covid-19 pandemic. congolese female refugees and asylum seekers in south africa often reside in urban areas and have developed survivalist approaches to entrepreneurship in order to provide for their needs. by exploring the intersections between gender and socioeconomic status during covid-19, the study found that refugee and asylum-seeking women who were engaged in survivalist businesses were more vulnerable to extreme poverty and malnutrition, irrespective of their marital status, when compared to women who were employed in the formal economy. the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic has exposed fault-lines in the survivalist nature of entrepreneurship amongst female congolese asylum seekers and refugees. in addition, social protection from ngos, churches, social networks and the south african department of social development in the form of the child support grant provided a safety net for some congolese women, depending on their refugee status, gender and social class. with regards to access to healthcare as a coping strategy, the data revealed that an overwhelming focus on structural factors that drive inequalities in access to healthcare for female african asylum seekers and refugees in south africa fails to take into consideration their agency in choosing alternative forms of treatment based on intersections of ethnicity, gender and religion. in terms of recommendations, it is important that the department of health prioritizes refugees and asylum seekers in its efforts to effectively combat the covid-19 pandemic in south africa. this is because intersections of gender, social class, religion, refugee status and ethnicity render refugees and asylum seekers vulnerable to infection and the findings of this study indicate that they are less likely to seek medical attention 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work: the dilemma facing refugees in gauteng, south africa. south african review of sociology, 45:2, 4-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/21528586.2014.917876 stevano, s., ali, r. and jamieson, m. 2020. essential for what? a global social reproduction view on the re-organisation of work during the covid-19 pandemic. canadian journal of development studies/revue canadienne d'études du développement. https://doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2020.1834362 tawodzera, g., chikanda, a., crush, j. and tengeh, r. 2015. international migrants and refugees in cape town’s informal economy. samp migration policy series no 70, southern african migration programme (samp). united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2018. global trends: forced displacement in 2018, unhcr. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2021. what is a refugee? available at: www.unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/what-is-a-refugee? accessed on 05 april 2021. van eck, b.p.s. 2010. temporary employment services (labor brokers) in south africa and namibia. potchefstroom electronic law journal, 13(2): 1-21. walker, r. and oliveira, e. 2015. contested spaces: exploring the intersections of migration, sex work and trafficking in south africa. graduate journal of social science, 11(2): 129-153. yuval-davis, n. 2006. intersectionality and feminist politics. european journal of women's studies, 13(3): 193-209. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506806065752 yuval-davis, n. 2007. intersectionality, citizenship and contemporary politics of belonging, critical review of international, social and political philosophy, 10(4): 561-574. zanker, f.l. and moyo, k. 2020. the corona virus and migration governance in south africa. african spectrum, 55(1): 100-112. https://doi. org/10.1177/0002039720925826 https://doi.org/10.1080/21528586.2014.917876 https://doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2020.1834362 http://www.unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/what-is-a-refugee? https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506806065752 https://doi.org/10.1177/0002039720925826 https://doi.org/10.1177/0002039720925826 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za this issue consists of five articles. the first article by victoria m. mutambara and maheshvari naidu entitled “probing the context of vulnerability: zimbabwean migrant women’s experiences of accessing public health care in south africa”, employs a structural-violence analysis to probe the underlying factors that make it challenging for zimbabwean migrant women to access public health-care services in south africa. this research is based on a qualitative study and evokes an understanding of the context of the vulnerability of zimbabwean migrant women when they are accessing the public health-care system in south africa. the research argues that although there are singular events that display the specific poor treatment of migrant women when accessing public health care, it is important to highlight that some of the incidents might possibly be misconstrued as being unique to migrant women. the findings of this research highlight that the issues surrounding the access of public health care are constructed on the assumptions and perceptions held by migrant women themselves. the research concludes that any poor treatment experienced accessing health care can easily be associated with ‘medical xenophobia’. the second article by ngwi nnam thecla mulu and katebesha mbanza is entitled “covid-19 and its effects on the lives and livelihoods of congolese female asylum seekers and refugees in the city of cape town”. the research examines the effects of the pandemic on the lives and livelihoods of congolese female migrants through a feminist intersectional lens. it is framed around the assumption that this group of women exists at the intersection of multiple forms of vulnerability by virtue of their migrant status, gender, race, and social class. drawing on a feminist intersectional framework, the research found that containment measures imposed by the south african government to curb the spread of covid-19 significantly increased the women’s care roles in homes, while rendering paid work more precarious. the study found that refugee and asylum-seeking women who were engaged in survivalist businesses were more vulnerable to extreme poverty and malnutrition, irrespective of their marital status, when compared to women who were employed in the formal economy. the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic has exposed fault-lines in the survivalist nature of entrepreneurship amongst female congolese asylum seekers and refugees. the third article by vivienne lawack is entitled “towards a legal and regulatory framework for south african domestic remittances: some considerations”. it is an exploratory study that examines the legal and regulatory 4 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 1, jan-apr 2021 framework for domestic remittances within the south african legal context. the research provides consolidated information on existing national, regional and continental policy frameworks, in the context of domestic transaction channels, by indicating the existing research gaps in the legal and regulatory environment. the article further examined domestic remittances within the context of the regulatory framework of the nps in south africa, delineated the current regulatory gaps and made recommendations for inclusion in a regulatory framework and subsequent revision of the south african national payment system (nps). based on a thorough literature review, the research goes even further to present an elucidation of the practices of the nps. it highlights areas for improvement, and provides an in-depth analysis of the status quo of the legal and regulatory framework. finally, the author offers suggestion for the amendment of the nps act. the fourth article by precious baison is entitled “‘recruitment’ and job-seeking mechanisms for zimbabwean women care workers in the domestic services sector in south africa”. a qualitative research methodology and a feminist approach was adopted as it pays attention to the illumination of women’s lives, with a focus on the ‘open-ended’ investigation of women’s experiences. overall, the research provides strong arguments and a coherent analysis of zimbabwean women care workers in the domestic services sector. the findings of this research show that despite the significant presence of zimbabwean women in the domestic services sector in south africa, the majority of them are working without the proper documents, which has implications for how they secure employment and the conditions they work under thereafter. the fifth article by richard kwabena owusu kyei, rafal smoczynski and mary boatemaa setrana is entitled “evidence of spiritual capital in the schooling of second-generation ghanaians in amsterdam”. the article strongly argues that spiritual capital is a form of accrued investment in the practice of religiosity. it is the long-term accumulation of beliefs, skills, values, and attitudes that influence social, organizational, and interpersonal behavior. this article focuses on the resources inherent in religiosity as spiritual capital. using the conceptual framework of spiritual capital in immigrant integration, the article discusses in detail the experiences of ghanaian immigrants in the netherlands. the article argues that through socialization in the host society, second-generation migrants are to abandon the religion of their parents and associate with the religion of the host nation. the research recommends the implementation of more robust and systematic religious programs that directly engage second-generation migrants at each stage of their education. the authors have produced good research outputs, with competent presentations, good organisation and critical arguments. i am confident that african human mobility review, volume 7, number 1, 2021 provides an invaluable resource for researchers, practitioners and students. african human mobility review volume 3 number 2 may – august 2017 guest editor’s note: mythologies of migration and the informal sector benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tengeh comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector jonathan crush and cameron mccordic security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector sujata ramachandran, jonathan crush and godfrey tawodzera the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa abel chikanda and ines raimundo ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor dr mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh university of pretoria, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delgado wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof simon bekker university of stellenbosch, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). webpage: www.sihma.org.za copyright © 2017 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 461 4741, email: editor@sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ volume 3 number 2 may – august 2017 – special issue iv-xiv guest editor’s note: mythologies of migration and the informal sector jonathan crush 751 benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa jonathan crush, caroline skinner and manal stulgaitis 783 refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, cameron mccordic, sujata ramachandran and robertson tengeh 820 comparing refugee and south african migrant enterprise in the urban informal sector jonathan crush and cameron mccordic 854 security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector sujata ramachandran, jonathan crush and godfrey tawodzera 879 the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, abel chikanda and daniel tevera 910 linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship godfrey tawodzera and abel chikanda 943 informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa abel chikanda and ines raimundo iv guest editor’s note: mythologies of migrants in the informal sector on a recent visit to washington dc, i had an animated discussion with a taxi driver who was an avid supporter of donald trump. the driver was not the stereotypical white, middle-aged, small-town, working-class, non-collegeeducated, angry voter who put trump in the white house. rather, he was a former television producer and poet from india who had immigrated to the us in the 1990s, and was adamant that trump would stop the “flood of illegal aliens” into the country. his vigorous defence of trump was a surprise, as was his buy-in to trump’s anti-immigrant discourse of threat. there are few issues in the contemporary world that generate so much uninformed debate and misinformation as immigration (blinder, 2015; de haas, 2008; hellwig and sinno, 2017; valentino et al., 2013). in a recent three-volume study on the mythologies of migration, arcarazo and wiesbrock (2015) argue that there are three foundational and intertwined myths structuring citizen reactions and government responses to established and new migration flows. the first myth is that sovereign territories and local labour markets are being “swamped” by migrants to the detriment of citizens. the second is that all migration is driven by poverty in countries of origin. and the third is that migration is economically negative for receiving countries. these myths, and variants thereof, are present in public and policy responses to migrants running informal-sector businesses in south africa (crush and ramachandran, 2015). the swamping myth is particularly evident in the numbers game popular with south african politicians, government officials and the media. in a briefing to an ad hoc parliamentary committee on the work of the inter-ministerial committee on migration (imc) in 2015, for example, minister jeff radebe observed that “a heavy influx of foreign nationals has led to migration laws not being adhered to due to border management laxity.” as a result, “it was very clear [to the minister at least] that in townships and in villages foreign nationals were dominating” (pmg, 2015). here, in just a few words, he performed the common linguistic trick of juxtaposing migration, unlawful entry, and the disadvantaging of south africans. as if to emphasise that there could be no other outcome from migration, he also asserted that there were 5-6 million migrants in the country, representing 10% of the population (na, 2015: 5.4). a local current affairs television programme, carte blanche, later claimed that there were as many as 6 million malawians in south africa, representing one-third of that country’s population (africa check, 2017). others have implausibly claimed that there are 800,000 nigerians in south v africa. statistics south africa (ssa) is thus currently trying to work out why census 2011 recorded a total of 2,188,872 foreign-born people in the country while the 2016 community survey recorded only 1,578,541 (ssa, 2016:25). the implication that the foreign-born population might conceivably be declining does not, as the ssa admits, “conform to expected outcomes” (ssa, 2016). similar hyperbole has clouded the issue of the number of asylum-seekers in the country. the unhcr (2016: 44) controversially claimed in 2015 that the number of asylum-seekers in south africa at the end of 2014 was 1,057,600. south africa, according to the unhcr, therefore hosted more asylum-seekers than any other country in the world, and more than double the number in germany in second place (unhcr, 2016: 44). in its next annual report on forced displacement, however, the unhcr (2017: 45) noted that there had been a “sharp reduction” from 1.1 million to 218,300 asylum-seekers at the end of 2016. it would have much more helpful to admit that the 2015 figure was a mistake and that south africa was never, in fact, host to the largest number of asylum-seekers (stupart, 2016). regrettably, the claim and the numbers became part of government’s case for abandoning the rights-based post-apartheid model of refugee protection and its replacement with the draconian proposals of the recent refugees amendment act (cape times, 2016). the white paper on international migration admits that the number is actually less than 100,000 but still goes on to endorse and justify the new exclusionary approach. the damage has been done, with fake numbers and the authority of the unhcr used to support the myth of swamping with extremely detrimental implications for refugee protection. the second foundational myth is that poverty is the root cause of all migration. this is the myth that collapses the many complex and varied causes of migration into one and homogenises all migrants into a single impoverished category. this myth expresses itself in various ways in south african policy discourse. for example, politicians regularly claim that south africa is a destination for migrants from poverty-stricken africa, conveniently overlooking that many countries are growing much faster economically than south africa and that the south african economy and job creation in the country are major beneficiaries of investment in africa. the motives of migrants coming to south africa from the rest of africa are extremely diverse and, in general, it is not the poorest who migrate. even if we grant that poverty is a root cause of some migration from neighbouring countries like zimbabwe, mozambique and lesotho, it does not follow that migrants are desperate and vi faceless victims. they are, in the main, highly motivated individuals with extraordinary degrees of ingenuity, tenacity and resilience. the homogenising and (mis)naming of migrants is a regular south african pastime. there are the derogatory epithets that are used on the streets and in communities to insult non-south africans to their faces. as one zimbabwean cited in a paper in this special issue commented: “the children learn it from their parents. they call us makwerekwere. do you know even small kids can call you makwerekwere? is that not xenophobic?” however, there are other, only slightly more sanitised, homogenising labels that erase diversity and emphasise exclusion in policy discussion. in the 1990s, the apartheid-era term “aliens” was used by politicians and the media to describe all migrants. this term was replaced in the 2002 immigration act, but by an equally alienating term: the “foreigner.” the terms “foreigner” and “illegal foreigner” are now common currency, courtesy of the act, and are used incessantly to draw a sharp distinction between those who belong in south africa and all those (non-south african-born) who supposedly do not. government also frequently divides migrants into just two categories: economic migrants (said to constitute 90% of the population) and refugees (the other 10%). an associated claim repeated in the white paper, for which there is also no proof, is that 90% of refugees are really economic migrants. the third foundational myth relates to the supposed negative economic impacts of migrants on receiving countries. this myth has consistently been undermined by research evidence that points to the positive impacts of migration and migrant entrepreneurship on host economies (kloosterman and rath, 2003; fairlie and lofstrom, 2015). in the south african case, this mythology takes on a particular inflection: that is, that migrants are “stealing our jobs”; a claim with superficial plausibility given the high rates of unemployment in the country. however, past surveys have shown that the proportion of south africans who have actually lost a job to a migrant is relatively low. and the calculus fails to take into account the economic advantages to south africans from hiring migrants and, by extension, the benefits to the state in increased tax revenues. the negative economic impacts argument has crystallised in recent years around opposition to the activities of asylum-seekers and refugees in the informal sector, whose right to establish and operate businesses in the informal economy has nevertheless been upheld by the courts (crush et al., 2015; rogerson, 2016). the imc, for example, maintains that migrants are “dominating trade in certain sectors such as consumable goods in informal settlements which has had a negative vii impact on unemployed and low skilled south africans” (na, 2015). the imc ignores the positive economic impacts of refugee and migrant informal entrepreneurship including job creation for south africans, profits for local retailers and wholesalers, licensing fees paid to municipalities, cheaper goods for poor consumers, and rent paid to south african property owners (basardien et al., 2014; jinnah, 2010; peberdy, 2016, 2017; radipere, 2012; tawodzera et al., 2015). indeed, south africans have been publicly condemned by government ministers for renting their properties to refugee and migrant entrepreneurs (na, 2015: 7.17). the papers in this special issue on migrant entrepreneurship (and the projects on which they are based) test all three foundational migration myths. first, they examine claims that south africa and, by extension, the south african informal sector is being “swamped” by “foreigners.” gauteng is generally reckoned to be the province with the largest number of migrants. ssa (2016) calculates that the province had 801,308 non-south african-born residents in 2016 or 6% of the total population. in most other provinces, the proportion is 1-3%. a survey of the gauteng informal sector found that over 80% of small businesses in the informal sector were still owned by south africans (peberdy, 2015). certainly, there are more migrants in the informal sector in 2017 than there were in 2000 or 2010 and there are more migrant than south african entrepreneurs in parts of some cities (and vice-versa in other areas). because refugees, asylum-seekers and other migrants are shut out of sectors of the formal labour market (as they have been in the security industry, or because employers will not accept section 22 and 24 permits as bona fide legal entitlements to work), the numbers working informally have inevitably swelled. working in the tough and unrelenting environment of the informal sector is not necessarily the first choice of the many migrants and refugees who are more than qualified for formal employment. second, these papers provide a more nuanced and humanised picture of socalled foreigners and their activities in the informal sector than is suggested by the notion that they are all desperate survivalists fleeing poverty and strife in other african countries. while a significant number of refugees say that they work in the informal sector because they cannot get formal-sector jobs, many also exhibit strong entrepreneurial characteristics, orientation and ambition. this emerges both in their attitudinal profile of suitability for running their own businesses and in the innovative business strategies that they have developed. perhaps most surprisingly, given the blanketing clouds of myth, refugees are far more likely than their south african counterparts to want to viii contribute to the development of south africa through running an informal business. as the two papers in this collection focused on informal crossborder traders clearly show, there is also significant entrepreneurial orientation amongst these primarily female informal sector participants. like their less mobile counterparts, cross-border traders working the transportation corridors between harare, maputo and johannesburg are dedicated and enterprising individuals with high levels of motivation. third, the papers in this collection take issue with the predominantly negative stereotyping of migrant entrepreneurs to justify and promote harsher sanctions against them. national, provincial and local level campaigns by the police and army – with telling names such as operation fiela (‘sweep’ in english), hardstick and clean sweep – aim to create city environments swept of informal entrepreneurship by migrants and refugees. however, in case such “operations” are viewed (as they were by the courts) as cynical and unconstitutional, it also seems necessary to target informal entrepreneurs with the most negative language possible. the imc, for example, asserts that the impact of foreign national domination “is compounded by business models used by migrants to discourage competition such as forming monopolies, evading taxes, avoiding customs and selling illegal and expired goods” (na, 2015). or again, the previous minister of home affairs pointed to the seriousness of “the dynamics of migration, crime, drugs, prostitution, fraud and unfair labour practices” (gigaba, 2017). the most efficient, and misleading, way to highlight the supposedly negative impact of migrant and refugee entrepreneurship is to directly associate it with criminality. the papers in this collection instead show that crime is a very real business challenge for refugee and migrant entrepreneurs. their many positive economic contributions are made despite, not because of, crime. in addition to replicating the foundational mythology of migration, south africa has several of its own homegrown myths about migrant entrepreneurs in the informal sector. first, there is the myth, articulated by the minister of small business development, that refugees enjoy a competitive advantage over south africans because trading and vending is ingrained and instinctual. she claimed in an interview that foreign spaza shop owners are “better at running shops than the local owners – they have a great network system. and also that’s how they live. from the moment they are born, they are introduced to trade. their mothers, uncles – everyone trades. they start at an early age…how are they able to make it when our people can’t? it is because they know business. it is in their blood” (zwane, 2014). only a small proportion of ix the refugees and other migrant business owners interviewed for these studies had experience running an informal sector enterprise before they came to south africa, however. the success of refugees and migrants in the informal economy is not because entrepreneurship is innate, as the minister claimed, but rather a function of hard work, innovation and competitive business strategies. the tools of the trade were acquired on site. the second homegrown myth is that south africans are bad informal entrepreneurs unable to compete with the “foreigner.” many south africans have decided to opt out of the spaza business because it requires less work and is more remunerative to rent their property to refugees and other migrants. that said, there is still stiff competition in the informal economy between south africans and non-south africans, as there is between south africans and other south africans and between non-south africans of one nationality and another (piper and charman, 2016). there is also evidence that antagonism towards refugee business owners is stoked by south african trader associations who would rather not compete openly and fairly. however, as the papers in this collection demonstrate, south africans are certainly not incompetent or incapable of competing. they, too, have their own competitive strategies and carve out market niches, especially within the informal food economy, where they operate with success. third, there is the myth that the post-2008 upsurge in violent attacks against migrant-owned businesses in the informal sector is purely the work of fringe criminal elements. according to the imc, “the main causes of the violent attacks (are) criminal actions that started with stealing of goods from foreign owned spaza shops by south african criminals who are often drug addicts” (na, 2015). this is certainly called into question by the large crowds, including many parents and children, that surround refugee and migrantowned shops during episodes of collective looting. whenever there is a particularly vicious flare-up, or after a spate of looting and murder, government ministers and cabinet are quick to proclaim that crime, not xenophobia, is the driver (misago, 2016). indeed, there has been a persistent strain of xenophobia denialism ever since former president thabo mbeki proclaimed in 2008 that south africans were not xenophobic. most recently, the imc has vigorously denied the existence of xenophobia in the country: “south africans (are) not xenophobic; no evidence was found to indicate that south africans were xenophobic” (na, 2015). the imc has clearly not acquainted itself with the large body of attitudinal research that proves precisely the opposite (crush et al., 2013; gordon, 2016, 2017). as the paper x in this collection on zimbabweans in the informal sector suggests, migrants themselves have no hesitation in naming xenophobia for what it is. they say south africans are the owners of xenophobia, refer to violence against their small businesses as “the xenophobia”, and recount numerous harrowing incidents that are either triggered by xenophobia or, as in the case of service delivery protests against government, quickly turn xenophobic. finally, there is the argument that xenophobia is not a factor because violence and vulnerability to crime comes equally to all who work in the informal sector. the suggestion here is that south africans and non-south africans are equally vulnerable and to single out violence against the latter is to ignore the identical plight faced by south africans. some statistical evidence on relative vulnerability has been advanced in support of this argument (piper and charman, 2016). the paper in this collection on business risk presents alternative evidence. while it is true that south africans in the informal sector are not immune from crimes such as robbery and looting, the prevalence is significantly higher amongst refugees and in different parts of the country. many refugees in towns in limpopo had started businesses in large cities but moved to what they assumed would be a safer operating environment after the levels of violence and xenophobia became overwhelming. it is safer, but it is certainly not safe. south africa is the process of a major overhaul of its migration and refugee protection systems. in the case of migration for work, there are some grounds for optimism in the recognition that south africa is integrated into, and benefits from, a regional sadc economy. the white paper on international migration contains proposals for a streamlined skills-based immigration policy and a system of work and trading permits for sadc citizens. in the case of cross-border traders, the proposed system seems unnecessarily bureaucratic unless the intention is to try to control numbers through quotas. this is unworkable and it would be far simpler to allow visitors to the country to both buy and sell goods. whether proposals to issue quota-based permits to migrants from other sadc countries will ever see the light of day is questionable given the current upsurge in public complaints, now supported by the unions, that migrants are taking jobs from south africans. however, it is the proposals for restructuring south africa’s post-apartheid refugee protection regime that are likely to have the most far-reaching impact on livelihoods in the informal economy. as the first paper in this special issue argues, the intention is to make south africa undesirable by moving from an urban integration towards a border encampment model, denying asylum xi seekers their current right to pursue a livelihood while waiting for a hearing, and ensuring that no refugee ever qualifies for permanent residence, no matter how long they have been in the country. the proposed changes rest on the shaky foundation of myth. this issue is a contribution to the ongoing task of testing anti-migration mythologies with fact. it comprises a selection of papers from three projects implemented by the southern african migration programme (samp) (see also www.samponline.org): (a) the growing informal cities project, an idrcfunded partnership between the african centre for cities (acc), the gauteng city regional observatory (gcro), eduardo mondlane university and queen’s university; (b) the migrants in countries in crisis (micic) project between the university of the western cape, the university of limpopo, the balsillie school of international affairs, the international centre for migration policy development and the international migration institute at oxford university; and (c) the unhcr-funded refugee economic impacts project, a partnership between researchers at the universities of cape town, limpopo and western cape and the international migration research centre. prof jonathan crush* cigi chair in global migration and development, international migration research center balsillie school of international affairs waterloo, canada jcrush@balsillieschool.ca * a recipient of numerous academic awards and honours, professor crush founded the southern african migration programme (a consortium of canadian and african researchers) in 1997. in 2005, he co-founded the african food security urban network; a network of canadian and african universities, ngos and municipal governments. in 2014, he established the hungry cities partnership; a research, policy and capacity-building network with partners in canada, mexico, jamaica, south africa, mozambique, kenya, india and china. he also works with the african centre for cities at the university of cape town, where he holds an honorary professorship. he has authored or edited 14 books, over 150 journal articles and book chapters and numerous published reports for governments, international agencies, and civil society organizations. mailto:jcrush@balsillieschool.ca xii acknowledgements the contributors to this special issue wish to thank the following for their support: the international migration research centre, the international development research centre, the european union and the unhcr geneva. references africa check (2017). “how many foreigners really live in south africa?” business tech, 14 january 2017. arcarazo, d. a., & wiesbrock, a. (eds.). (2015). global migration: old assumptions, new dynamics [3 volumes]. abc-clio. basardien, f., parker, h., bayat, m., friedrich, c. and sulaiman, a. (2014). entrepreneurial orientation of spaza shop entrepreneurs: evidence from a study of south african and somali-owned spaza shop entrepreneurs in khayelitsha. singaporean journal of business economics and management studies, 2: 45-61. blinder, s. 2015. imagined immigration: the impact of different meanings of ‘immigrants’ in public opinion and policy debates in britain. political studies, 63(1): 80–100. cape times (2016). gigaba looking to lighten asylum burden cape times 22 june 2016. crush, j. and ramachandran, s. (2015). “migration myths and extreme xenophobia in south africa” in d. acosta and a. wiesbrock (eds.), global migration: myths and realities vol. 3 (santa barbara: praeger, 2015), pp. 7196. crush, j., chikanda, a. and skinner, c. (eds.). 2015. mean streets: migration, xenophobia and informality in south africa. ottawa: idrc. crush, j., ramachandran, s. and pendleton, w. 2013. soft targets: xenophobia, public violence and changing attitudes to migrants in south africa after may 2008. samp migration policy series no. 64, cape town. xiii de haas, h. 2008. the myth of invasion: the inconvenient realities of african migration to europe. third world quarterly, 29: 1305-1322. fairlie, r. and lofstrom, m. 2015. immigration and entrepreneurship. cesifo working paper series no. 5298. available at http://bit.ly/2wx3y27. gigaba, m. 2017. media statement by minister gigaba on tensions between citizens and foreign nationals. from at: http://bit.ly/2v8rn4y. gordon, s. 2016. welcoming refugees in the rainbow nation: contemporary attitudes towards refugees in south africa, african geographical review, 35: 1-17. gordon, s. 2017. a desire for isolation? mass public attitudes in south africa toward immigration levels. journal of immigrant & refugee studies, 17: 1835. kloosterman, r. and rath, j. 2003. immigrant entrepreneurs: venturing abroad in the age of globalization. new york: university of new york press. hellwig, t. and sinno, a. 2017. different groups, different threats: public attitudes towards immigrants, journal of ethnic and migration studies, 43(3): 339-358. jinnah, z. 2010. making home in a hostile land: understanding somali identity, integration, livelihood and risks in johannesburg. journal of sociology and social anthropology, 1(1-2): 91-99. misago, j-p. 2016. responding to xenophobic violence in post-apartheid south africa: barking up the wrong tree? african human mobility review, 2(2): 443-467. national assembly (na). 2015. report of the ad hoc joint committee on probing violence against foreign nationals. dated 19 november 2015. cape town: national assembly and national council of provinces. peberdy, s. 2015. informal sector enterprise and employment in gauteng. gcro data brief no. 6, johannesburg. peberdy, s. 2016. international migrants in johannesburg’s informal economy, samp migration policy series no. 71, cape town. xiv peberdy, s. 2017. competition or cooperation? south african and migrant entrepreneurs in johannesburg. samp migration policy series no. 75, cape town. piper, l. and charman, a. 2016. xenophobia, price competition and violence in the spaza sector in south africa. african human mobility review, 2(1): 332361. parliamentary monitoring group (pmg). 2015. inter-ministerial committee briefing. at http://bit.ly/2v7mfmg. rogerson, c. 2016. south africa’s informal economy: reframing debates in national policy. local economy, 31: 172-86. radipere, n. 2012. an analysis of local and immigrant entrepreneurship in the south african small enterprise sector (gauteng province). phd thesis, pretoria: university of south africa. stupart, r. 2016. is south africa home to more than a million asylum seekers? the numbers don’t add up. africa check 15 august 2016. statistics south africa (ssa). 2016. community survey 2016. pretoria: statistics south africa. tawodzera, g., chikanda, a., crush, j. and tengeh, r. 2015. international migrants and refugees in cape town’s informal economy. samp migration policy series no. 70, cape town. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2016. unhcr global trends: forced displacement in 2015. geneva: unhcr. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2017. unhcr global trends: forced displacement in 2016. geneva: unhcr. valentino, n., brader, t. and jardina, a. 2013. “immigration opposition among u.s. whites: general ethnocentrism or media priming of attitudes about latinos? political psychology, 34 (2): 149–166. zwane, t. 2014. spazas: talking shop is good for business. mail & guardian, 6 november 2014. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 751 benign neglect or active destruction? a critical analysis of refugee and informal sector policy and practice in south africa jonathan crush*, caroline skinner** and manal stulgaitis*** abstract to fully comprehend the disabling policy environment in which refugees in south africa attempt to carve out a livelihood, it is important to analyse two largely independent but overlapping streams of policy-making. this paper first examines the post-apartheid refugee protection regime and traces how and why a generous right-based approach has been progressively comprised by growing restrictionism, exclusion and bureaucratic ineptitude. the 2017 refugees amendment act and white paper on international migration represent the culmination of this process. while both are probably unimplementable and will be the subject of numerous court challenges, they can be seen as a major retreat and an increasing failure to protect. the second part of the paper traces the history of national and municipal informal sector governance since the early 1990s. since so many refugees are forced or choose to work informally, the uncertainty and confusion this history has produced is of particular relevance. refugee entrepreneurs have regularly been the victims of general and targeted informal sector eradication campaigns. therefore, there is a fundamental contradiction between a refugee protection policy that demands self-reliance from refugees and informal sector policies that undermine self-reliance at every turn. keywords refugee protection, refugees act, detention centres, informal sector, home affairs. * international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l 6c2 email: jcrush@balsillieschool.ca ** african centre for cities, university of cape town, cape town, south africa *** independent consultant, cape town ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 752 introduction the past decade has seen south africa’s apparently generous asylum and refugee system flounder, characterised by ever-growing wait times for status decisions, increased barriers for application and renewal of permits, and growing disregard for refugee law and court orders (amit, 2011, 2012, 2015; johnson, 2015; polzer ngwato, 2013). the south african government has increasingly taken the position that the country’s post-apartheid refugee protection legislation is far too generous and needs to be revised in the direction of more restrictions and fewer rights. this has resulted in major changes to the seminal 1998 refugees act in the form of the 2017 refugees amendment act, and the promise of a new approach to migration and refugee protection in the green paper and white papers on international migration in south africa. these developments seek to align south africa with the more exclusionary and restrictive treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees in many other countries (fiddian-qasmiyeh et al., 2014). in the absence of material support from the government or the united nations high commission for refugees (unhcr), one of the primary livelihood strategies of asylum-seekers and refugees has been to create work for themselves in the informal sector. the policy environment in which refugee entrepreneurs run informal businesses on the streets and in residential areas is framed by policy and legislation at national, provincial and local levels. those working in the informal sector face an ambiguous policy environment that has occasionally supported but largely ignored – and at times actively destroyed – informal sector livelihoods and those of migrant and refugee businesses in particular. to fully understand the disabling policy environment within which migrants and refugees establish and operate their enterprises in the south african informal sector, we need to bring together these two streams of analysis. therefore, this paper begins with a discussion of south africa’s changing refugee policies and practices and traces the erosion of the protective and progressive refugee policy approach that characterised the immediate postapartheid period (handmaker et al., 2011). in the context of the refugee livelihoods which are central to the country’s local integration approach, it is ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 753 vital to have effective and efficient recognition of refugee status and an accompanying basket of rights to support survival through employment or entrepreneurship (jacobsen, 2005). the paper then reviews post-apartheid informal sector policy and practice. while the informal sector largely fell through policy gaps in the first ten years of democracy, the analysis suggests that increasing attention has been paid to this issue in recent years. while there have been longstanding tensions between foreign and south african informal sector operators, from 2012 an overtly anti-foreign migrant sentiment has been expressed in official policy and practice. the paper underlines the need for both a rights-based asylum system and more progressive policy towards the informal sector. refugee entrepreneurs and service providers agree that obtaining refugee status is key to enabling refugee entrepreneurship and sustainable livelihoods. despite the obstacles put in their way, refugee business owners appear to be succeeding, at least on par with their south african counterparts. this suggests that secure status and the associated basket of rights are serving refugee entrepreneurs in the context of sustainable livelihoods. while these arguments should mark a road map to successful local integration, the south african government continues to pile on administrative and logistical barriers to the asylum process and prospective refugees. these measures add to the ambiguity around migration management in the country and complicate the prospects for refugees to provide for themselves in a safe and sustainable manner. the paper is based on a review of media and official government sources, published and grey literature, and extended interviews with key informants in cape town, limpopo and gauteng during 2015. a total of 30 in-depth interviews were conducted including with sector researchers, refugee and diaspora associations, refugee rights ngos, law enforcement, the city of cape town and western cape governments and international organisations (such as the iom and unhcr). interviews were also conducted with national government departments including home affairs, labour and small business development. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 754 refugee policy and practice south africa is a signatory to the 1951 united nations convention on the status of refugees and the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa. since the end of apartheid, it has built a reputation as a protective and progressive refugee receiving country. south africa’s 1998 refugees act integrated international refugee protections into domestic law and exceeded international standards in important respects. the act made generous allowances for freedom of movement, access to health and education services, some social protection and the right to work. most notably, the act embraced local integration over encampment, which was a progressive choice in africa at the time (handmaker, 2001). underpinning the act was a political and ideological approach which posited that refugees were permitted and fully expected to temporarily integrate into the host country and benefit from all attendant protections and rights granted to citizens by the constitution. refugees who had been in the country for five years and were still unable to return were entitled to apply for permanent residence. in return for these progressive policies, both government and the unhcr incurred minimal costs in providing material support for asylum-seekers and refugees in the country. in the years since these somewhat idealistic beginnings, south africa has seen a distinct deterioration in the rights-based approach to refugee protection (amit, 2011, 2015; handmaker et al., 2011; igglesden & schreier, 2011; landau, 2006). international praise for south africa’s liberal approach has been eroded by chronic processing delays, poor and ill-informed adjudication and the corruption and mismanagement which has become endemic to the asylum process. south africa has one of the longest asylum adjudication periods in the world, in some cases it lasts many years. after 2007, economic free fall in zimbabwe imposed significant pressure on the asylum system as migrants from zimbabwe moved in significant numbers to south africa (crush & tevera, 2010; crush et al., 2015). arguably, south africa’s failure to anticipate and account for the entry of zimbabweans en masse created a situation whereby the asylum system became contorted into something of a ‘catch all’ for generalised migration into south africa. it is worth noting, ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 755 however, that part of the reason for the dramatic increase in asylum-seeking from zimbabwe was the establishment of a refugee reception office in musina, close to zimbabwe, specifically to speed up the issue of asylum-seeker permits. those close to the process argue that the demand for a place in south africa’s asylum queue, with its attendant right to work, rendered the system ineffectual at conducting legitimate asylum adjudication. in government discourse, this has translated into a strident denunciation of “bogus” claimants and “abuse of the system” by economic migrants (mabuza, 2016). the official position is that 90% of asylum-seekers are economic migrants, a figure apparently based on the rate of acceptance of refugee claims (dha, 2016: 29). however, this conclusion is a non-sequitur, given the well-documented delays in adjudication, the arbitrariness of many decisions, and the practice of adjudicating claims by country or origin and not the personal experiences of the individual claimant (amit, 2012). the reasons for this shift from rights and protections towards exclusion and control are seen by some as the inevitable consequence of life in a country where the majority still struggle to meet basic needs and there is competition for scarce public resources such as education, health care and shelter, as well as employment and other livelihood opportunities (hassim et al., 2008). in this zero sum game, every advantage that a refugee or asylum-seeker enjoys necessarily disadvantages a south african. however, gordon (2016) shows that south africans do not oppose refugee protection for reasons of economic self-interest. rather, their opposition, and that of many policy-makers, is further evidence of the deeply xenophobic character of south african society, with its attendant failure to acknowledge the positive economic, social and cultural contribution that refugees and asylum-seekers make to the country (crush et al., 2015). as gordon (2016: 1) argues, “public animosity towards refugees in south africa has motivated anti-immigrant riots, violence, and prejudice which has negatively impacted on refugee protection.” landau and duponchel (2011: 19) further suggest that “a protection strategy dedicated to maximizing refugees’ freedom and integration may prove politically untenable in an era of pronounced anti-immigrant hostilities.” ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 756 government argues that the breakdown of the asylum system in south africa, and the need for a new approach, is because it has been overwhelmed by economic migrants. for a while, it argued that there were a million unprocessed asylum-seekers in the country, a figure that was uncritically reproduced by the unhcr and the media. the fact that the system itself was badly under-resourced, staffed by small numbers of poorly-trained officers and riddled with corruption was less-often acknowledged. the green paper now admits that this figure was erroneous and that in mid-2015, south africa had only 78,339 active asylum-seekers (section 22 permit holders) and had issued 119,600 refugee (section 24) permits since 2002 of which only 96,971 were still active. having previously claimed that the country was one of the largest refugee destinations in the world, this admission represented a considerable climb-down by the department of home affairs (dha) (stupart, 2016). therefore, rather than being motivated by a need to address an overrun system, the recent developments are better interpreted as a response to the desire of south africans to make the country an undesirable destination for asylum-seekers by narrowing refugee rights and imposing additional limitations on the ability of refugees to find safety and security in south africa. within government, four inter-connected strategies have been developed to achieve these ends. all are embodied in recent administrative decisions including the 2016 refugees amendment act (which passed parliament in march 2017 and currently awaits cabinet approval before becoming law) and the green paper and white papers on international migration in south africa (dha, 2017). the first strategy has been to move away from an integration towards an encampment model of protection. the dha has now publicly declared its intention of establishing what it calls asylum-seeker processing centres away from the country’s urban areas (which is widely and correctly seen by critics as a euphemism for encampment) (dha, 2016). plans have apparently been drawn up for the location and physical infrastructure of detention centres close to the zimbabwe and mozambique borders (mah & rivers, 2016) and, according to one source, construction has begun on a detention centre at lebombo. the white paper notes that these detention centres will accommodate all asylum-seekers during their status determination process (dha, 2016: 65). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 757 following from the proposal that asylum-seekers should be kept in secure facilities while their claims are adjudicated, freedom of movement and integration into local communities (as at present) would be halted. so-called “low risk” asylum-seekers might be released into the care of national or international organisations and family or community members. however, asylum-seekers would not have the automatic right to work or study “since their basic needs will be catered for in the processing centres” (dha, 2016: 68). to try and pre-empt the inevitable, and justifiable, criticism towards south africa’s introduction of a policy of encampment, the green paper awkwardly asserts that “these centres should not be considered as contrary to the policy of non-encampment but as centres for mitigating security risks posed by irregular migration. only refugees and not asylum seekers will be allowed to integrate into communities” (dha, 2016: 66). the protestation that this somehow represents a continuation of the country’s non-encampment policy is disingenuous in the extreme. under this policy, asylum-seekers will be sequestered in detention centres for the duration of the adjudication process, which is unrealistically envisioned to be a 60 to 90 day process. whether that process takes place within the proposed period or not, during that time asylum-seekers will be fully dependent on government or the unhcr for food, shelter, health care, education and other basic needs. refugee service providers overwhelmingly agree that this is a no-win situation: if services to refugees are better than services available to south africans, south africans will cry foul and poor south africans may even present as refugees in order to access direly needed services. on the other hand, if services in the detention centres are worse, south africa will suffer the criticism of the international community for failing in its duty to respect the rights of refugees within its borders. the cost of constructing and maintaining camps for large numbers of asylum-seekers will be massive and the unhcr has indicated that it will not underwrite detention costs despite appeals from the south african government (which has previously constrained the unhcr from offering material assistance to asylum-seekers.) if south africa faced an influx of asylum-seekers in the future akin to the over 200,000 zimbabweans between 2006 and 2009, it is hard to see how these centres would even begin to cope. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 758 the second major strategy is to steadily put in place procedural, administrative and logistical hurdles that complicate refugees’ already tenuous status and sustainability in the belief that this will act as a disincentive to asylum-seekers coming to the country and make life extremely difficult for them if they do come. the most obvious example is the dha cutting the number of refugee reception offices in the country in half, closing busy offices at crown mines (johannesburg), cape town and port elizabeth refugee reception offices (rro). only three rro’s remained open: in musina, durban and pretoria. the closure was “not merely a technical, operational decision, but one which impacts on the basic principles of the asylum system, namely access (for initial applications, renewals, status determination interviews and appeals) and administrative efficiency and fairness” (polzer ngwato, 2013). legal challenges have produced contradictory outcomes. the supreme court of appeal (sca) ordered the re-opening of the port elizabeth rro, a judgment which the department has been very slow to implement. in contrast, the cape town high court decided that the cape town rro could remain closed. the 2016 refugees amendment act gives the director general of home affairs the power to “dis-establish” any rro and to force a whole category of asylumseeker (defined in terms of country of origin or “a particular gender, religion, nationality, political opinion or social group”) to report at a designated rro. second, and partly as a result, the administrative requirement that asylumseekers should renew their permits every one to six months at one of the rros (rather than an ordinary home affairs office) imposes considerable financial and other hardship. the period granted on renewal appears to be entirely arbitrary and, according to some refugees, depends on how much they are willing to pay under the table. individuals and families who have found safety, shelter, kin, communities, work or school in other parts of the country are forced to travel to one of the rros to ensure that they remain in status. furthermore, wait-times for receiving or renewing a permit can be considerable. the scene outside the marabastad (pretoria) rro was described by one organisation as follows: they go to home affairs to marabastad to get their asylum permit. so they come to pretoria, there are queues and queues, never-ending queues. and ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 759 then each country has a day. so now you have come to the home affairs office and it’s not your turn, your turn only comes after 4 days. and then you are told that if you have zar 2,000, these officials walk around and if you have money, you give them the money and go to the front of the queue. if you don’t have money, then you are right at the back. and then you have to come back the following week on the day of your country. in a situation where asylum-seekers are almost exclusively self-supporting, without the assistance of government or the international community, they sacrifice valuable time and money, risk jeopardising employment, and travel with or leave small children behind when they do so. under the 2016 act, failure to renew an asylum-seeker permit within one month of expiry now leads to automatic revocation of status, forfeiture of the right to renewal and treatment as an “illegal foreigner” under the immigration act (that is, arrest and deportation). asylum-seekers whose claims are refused are also to be treated as “illegal foreigners.” an asylum-seeker with an expired permit is also guilty of an offence and liable to a fine and imprisonment of up to five years or both. any individual or group of asylum-seekers or refugees can now be arrested and deported on the vaguely-worded grounds of “national interest, national interest or public order.” these provisions would seem draconian even if the system was efficient and transparent, a description that certainly does not apply here. the third strategy is to undercut court judgements that have affirmed the right of asylum-seekers and refugees to employment and self-employment, the essence of the post-apartheid model of refugee integration. the 2016 act explicitly seeks to overturn a judgment that permitted asylum-seekers to work in south africa while awaiting adjudication of their claim. prior to the future holding of asylum-seekers in detention centres (as envisaged by the green paper), the onus will now be on “family and friends” to support the asylumseeker for their first four months in the country. if such support is not available, the unhcr and ngos are permitted to provide “shelter and basic necessities.” in both situations, the asylum-seeker is prohibited from working, while government assumes no responsibility for their care and protection. the standing committee on refugee affairs is also now empowered to unilaterally ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 760 decide under what conditions asylum-seekers may work or study. if they are permitted to do so, they are required to provide a letter from the employer or institution within fourteen days from the date of employment or enrolment. the employer or institution can be fined zar 20,000 if they fail to provide the documentation in the prescribed period. the right to work can also be revoked by the director general. the act says nothing about the right to access informal work or self-employment, a key component of earlier court judgments. the fourth strategy which will directly affect those with refugee status is to try and ensure that protection is ever only temporary by making it extremely difficult for refugees to progress to permanent residence and eventual citizenship. the 1998 act stated that refugees were entitled to apply for permanent residence after five years of continuous residence in south africa and refugees “of good and sound character” could be issued with permanent residence permits irrespective of the length of sojourn in the country. this is clearly one reason why the maximum length of a refugee permit was set at four years. it is unclear how many long-term refugees have tried to access or been granted permanent residence. dha (2016: 29) notes that there were 1,175 applications between mid-2014 and early 2016, but does not say how many were successful. in 2013, the dha stripped all refugees from angola of their refugee status irrespective of length of residence and then issued them with two-year nonrenewable temporary residence permits (called angolan cessation permits or acps) (carciotto, 2016). in 2016, after extensive negotiations with the dha, it was agreed that former angolan refugees could apply for permanent residence. the western cape high court then issued an order by which all former angolan refugees with expired acps could apply for permanent residence. in february 2017, the scalabrini centre of cape town submitted 1,757 applications on behalf of angolan refugees to the dha. the successful court action not only prevents the summary deportation of former angolan refugees but potentially provides an important precedent for future cases of cessation. however, the 2016 act gives the minister of home affairs new powers to issue an order which ceases recognition of an individual refugee or ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 761 group of refugees or to revoke refugee status, without the obligation to provide any justification for such an action. the right of a refugee to apply for permanent residence has also been extended from five to ten years. a final policy issue of relevance to this paper is asylum-seeker and refugee access to financial services. as other papers in this special issue show, refugee entrepreneurs have very limited access to start-up capital and other loans from formal banking institutions. prior to 2010, the financial intelligence centre act (fica) also prohibited refugees and asylum-seekers from opening bank accounts in south africa. that policy was later eased but among fica’s anti-money laundering provisions is a requirement for banks to verify the identity of persons wishing to open a bank account. banks are given wide discretion as to how they implement the requirements, with the result that many refuse to open bank accounts for refugees and asylum-seekers based on the fear that they will not be able to correctly validate refugee identity documents. in response to legal action, the dha and fica reached an agreement for the former to provide banks with means to verify the authenticity of refugee and asylum permits issued by the dha. in practice, opening a bank account remains a challenge for refugees and asylum-seekers, with banks remaining distrustful of the various types of documentation issued by home affairs, viewing it as less formal or secure than a south african national identity card. at those institutions where it is possible for a refugee to open a bank account, there have been instances of refugees and asylum-seekers having their assets frozen when identity documents have not been renewed on time, when identity documents change, or when the dha has failed to respond to verification enquiries in a timely manner. service providers report that ongoing challenges around the banking sector present a very real risk to families struggling to meet basic survival needs. a frozen bank account raises grave protection concerns, threatening the ability to pay rent, buy food, care for children and even cover costs for long distance travel for the purposes of renewing status documentation (washinyira, 2012). the end result, noted by several interviewees, is that in the townships and informal settlements where many refugees own and operate their businesses, shops and homes offer a ready target for criminals who are well aware that cash is ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 762 likely stored on the premises. this dynamic puts refugee families and livelihoods at risk not only of loss of profits and other assets, but also of violence and trauma when break-ins and robberies occur. informal sector policy and practice as noted in the introduction to the paper, due to the lack of formal job opportunities, international migrants have little choice but to work in the informal sector, suggesting that informal sector policy and practice shapes livelihood opportunities. this section critically analyses this policy arena in the post-apartheid period at national and provincial level and in the three largest metropoles. the apartheid state was particularly averse to informal sector activities. lund (1998: 6) reminds us that apartheid policies controlled where black south africans could live, what they could own and, through job reservation policies, what work they could do. black south africans were forbidden by law from engaging in manufacturing businesses and access to business premises was strictly regulated to prevent them from operating businesses in ‘white’ areas (manning & mashigo, 1994). in the mid-1980s, influx control laws became increasingly unenforceable and were abolished in 1986. in 1987, the national white paper on privatisation and deregulation introduced a more tolerant approach to black small business as part of a broader new economic philosophy informed by the reagan-thatcher era of deregulation. the change of attitude culminated in the businesses act 71 of 1991 (which repealed numerous restrictive laws and secured a more liberal approach to business licensing, premises and hours for both formal and informal businesses). this legislation was a key measure for removing barriers to the operation of informal activities and was, in effect, a complete reversal of the apartheid approach. this piece of legislation is still in place today. subsequent to the passing of the act, informal-sector activities increased in all cities and towns. local authorities, however, complained that they were unable to cope, particularly with trading in public spaces. this led in 1993 to the businesses amendment act 186 of 1993 (rsa, 1993). the act gave provinces the discretion to develop their own legislation and allowed local authorities to formulate street-trading bylaws, outline what was allowed and ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 763 declare restricted and prohibited trade zones. since then, local authorities across the country have promulgated such bylaws, evidently near mirrorimages of each other. in all of the major metropoles, for example, the sanction in the case of violation was inappropriately criminalised – either a fine or imprisonment, suggesting a punitive approach to street-trader management. at a national level, the 1995 white paper on the development and promotion of small businesses was one of the first economic policy initiatives of the postapartheid government. the white paper and the legislation that stemmed from it – the national small business act of 1996 – both acknowledge survivalist and micro-enterprises as components of small business, thus making them, on paper, beneficiaries of government support. however, both documents are silent on the specific needs of these smaller players, suggesting the role played by this group in the small business/informal sector was not seen as a critical issue. neither refer to foreign migrants or refugees. to implement this new approach the department of trade and industry (dti) set up the ntsika enterprise promotion agency as a facilitation and promotion body for small businesses and khula finance to secure small-business access to financial services. they supported the establishment of a country-wide network of local business development centres (lbdcs) to provide nonfinancial support to smmes. in 2004, a comprehensive review of the impact of the post-apartheid government’s small, medium and micro enterprise (smme) programmes concluded that “existing government smme programmes largely have been biased towards the groups of small and medium-sized enterprises and to a large extent have by-passed micro-enterprises and the informal economy” (rogerson 2004: 765). devey et al. (2003; 2008) evaluated the national-government skills-development system, concluding similarly that those working in the informal-sector had “fallen into the gap” between small businesses and the unemployed. these findings were echoed in budlender et al.’s (2004) informal sector budget analysis and confirmed by survey data conducted with informal sector operators in johannesburg and durban (chandra & rajaratnam, 2001; skinner, 2005). in 2003, president mbeki publicly advocated for the idea of the ‘second economy’ in an address to the national council of provinces. mbeki’s (2003) ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 764 second economy was characterised by “underdevelopment, contributes little to gdp, contains a large percentage of our population, incorporates the poorest of our rural and urban poor, is structurally disconnected from both the first and the global economy, and is incapable of self-generated growth and development.” according to mbeki (2003), cabinet had resolved that the development of the second economy required “the infusion of capital and other resources by the democratic state to ensure the integration of this economy within the developed sector.” this would be achieved in a number of ways, including the development of smmes and cooperatives, the expansion of micro-credit and skills development. although the concept was not new, its application to south africa was a watershed moment for national informal sector policy. for the first time since the end of apartheid, the informal sector was given a policy profile. the whole idea of the second economy elicited a flurry of criticism (devey et al., 2006; du toit and neves, 2007). according to devey et al. (2006: 242), second economy arguments were based on the premise that “the mainstream of the economy is working rather well, and government action is needed to enhance the linkages between the first and second economy and where appropriate to provide relief, such as public works programmes, to those locked into the informal economy.” while the critics pointed to the conceptual flaw of seeing the formal and informal as structurally disconnected, subsequent policy pronouncements suggested that the informal sector should be eradicated altogether. for example, the next major statement on economic policy imperatives, the accelerated shared growth initiative of south africa (or asgisa), called for the “elimination” of the second economy (rsa, 2006: 11). in 2008, the presidency initiated the second economy strategy project which proposed the progressive incorporation of the second into the first economy (philip, 2009; philip & hassen, 2008). the final strategic framework and headline strategies were approved by cabinet in january 2009 (after mbeki’s recall as president by the anc). while the community works programme (cwp) was implemented, the rest of these headline strategies were not translated into the activities at national, provincial and local government levels. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 765 since 2012, increasing attention has been paid to the informal sector at national level – although in somewhat haphazard and uncoordinated fashion. different initiatives represent simultaneous neglect, support and suppression. the national development plan (ndp), for example, assigns a large role to small businesses in its employment scenarios and plans. the ndp’s ideal scenario projects that 11 million jobs will be created by 2030, suggesting that 90% of these new jobs will be created by small and growing enterprises. depending on the scenario, the plan projects that the informal sector (and domestic work) will create 1.2 million to 2.1 million jobs (npc, 2012: 121). however, the ndp chapter on the economy says nothing about strategies for the informal sector as such, or how existing operators in the informal sector will be supported, or how barriers to entry will be addressed to help generate new jobs. meanwhile, also in 2012, the dti established a new directorate for informal business and chamber support. rogerson (2016a: 175) notes that this was an initial recognition by the department of the role of the informal sector in broadening economic participation. by november 2012, the directorate had established a reference group charged with developing a national informal business development strategic framework. under the guidance of the reference group, the dti staff conducted consultations with stakeholders in the informal sector, formal business and local government officials over a few months, reporting back to the reference group in february 2013. this would lead to the launch of the national informal business upliftment strategy (nibus) in 2014. in the same period, unbeknown to the reference group, another section of the dti was working on new legislation to replace the businesses amendment act of 1993. in march 2013, the dti released the draft business licensing bill (dti, 2013). the draft bill’s stated aim was “to provide for a simple and enabling framework for procedures for application of business licences by setting norms and standards [providing] a framework for co-operative governance” (dti, 2013: 5). the dti minister, rob davies, publicly claimed that the bill was put in place to deal with illegal traders and semi-illegal practices in south africa, citing illegal imports, sub-standard goods, counterfeit goods and drug ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 766 and illegal liquor trading. in fact, such issues are already adequately dealt with through other laws like the customs and excise act of 1964, the foodstuffs, cosmetics, and disinfectants act of 1972, the counterfeit goods act of 1997, the drug and drug trafficking act of 1992 and a draft of provincial level legislation aimed at regulating (through the issuing of licences) informal liquor outlets or shebeens. the draft bill specified that anyone involved in business activities – no matter how small – would need a licence. foreign migrants would only be licensed if they had business permits (which, according to the 2002 immigration act, have to be applied for in the country of origin and are only granted if the applicant can demonstrate having zar 2.5 million to invest in south africa). the bill suggested wide ranging discretionary powers be given to both the licensing authority and inspectors, far greater than those granted by the 1993 business amendment act. section 5.1a of that act mandates an upper limit on fines of zar 1,000 or imprisonment not exceeding three months. the draft bill proposed no upper limits on the fines charged; those found guilty of contravening the act could be imprisoned for up to ten years. the draft bill elicited a flurry of criticism, with many organisations pointing out that the proposals were largely punitive and would result in large-scale criminalising of the informal sector. a submission from streetnet international, on behalf of street trader organisations from all nine provinces, was particularly vociferous: what the [1991] businesses act added to the new south africa was a developmental approach […] instead of the old abolitionist approach which characterised the apartheid era. we believe that the repeal of the businesses act and replacement with this bill […] would take us back to the era of forced removals (horn, 2013: 2). tensions between foreign and south african informal sector operators have characterised the informal sector since the mid-1990s (peberdy & rogerson, 2002). in trying to understand the motivation behind the draft bill, analysts pointed to an upsurge of anti-foreign sentiment not only in the informal sector itself but now from within government. crush and ramachandran (2015: 49) cite the following examples: ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 767 a senior official in the department of home affairs […] is reported to have informed south african mps that “if you go to alexandra, you go to sunnyside, you go everywhere, spaza shops, hair salons, everything has been taken over by foreign nationals […] they displace south africans by making them not competitive.” at an official meeting, then national police commissioner bheki cele characterized immigrants and refugees as “people who jump borders,” were flooding into the country and destroying the livelihoods of south african informal traders. he continued: “our people have been economically displaced. all these spaza shops [in the townships] are not run by locals […] one day our people will revolt, and we’ve appealed to the department of trade and industry to do something about it. the onerous conditions imposed on foreign migrants for accessing a licence contained in the bill would mean that few migrant informal operators would qualify and would therefore be criminalised. indeed, it has been argued that the bill was introduced to regulate foreign migrants in the interests of their south african counterparts (crush et al., 2015: 15-17). according to rogerson (personal communication), by may 2013, dti officials conceded the bill was ‘too blunt’ and in need of re-drafting. at the time of writing (april 2017), no revised draft has been gazetted. in part stemming from the work of the informal-business reference group, the dti released the national informal business upliftment strategy (nibus) in early 2014 (rogerson, 2016a). this is the first post-apartheid and nationallycoordinated policy approach to the informal sector. nibus has two key delivery arms – the shared economic infrastructure facility (seif) and the informal business upliftment facility (ibuf) – tackling infrastructure and skills deficits respectively. seif provides funding for new infrastructure and upgrading or maintaining existing infrastructure shared by informal businesses. up to zar 2-million financing is available to municipalities on a 50:50 cost-sharing grant basis. ibuf focuses on skills development, promotional material, product improvement, technology support, equipment and help with registration. part of the ibuf pilot involved training 1,000 informal traders in a partnership with the wholesale and retail sector education and training authority. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 768 this was the first time that the dti had explicitly focused on the informal sector through a strategy to tackle two critical needs, infrastructure and skills development. the policy approach was also characterised by implicit and explicit anti-migrant sentiment. it identifies a supposed “foreign trader challenge” in the informal sector, noting that “there is evidence of violence and unhappiness of local communities with regard to the takeover of local business by foreign nationals” [our emphasis] (dti, 2014: 10, 22). there are numerous suggestions to strengthen specifically south african informal sector businesses. the proposed solution to reduce the “xenophobia associated with foreign national traders” is to “influence the type of businesses that foreign nationals should run and the demarcated areas where these businesses should be active” (dti, 2014: 57). nibus cites the precedent of the ghana investment promotion centre act, which has reserved the sale of any goods in a market, petty trading and hawking, and the operation of metered taxis, car hire services, beauty salons and barber shops to nationals only, as well as india and malaysia’s restrictions on foreign economic participation (dti, 2014: 22-3). much critical reference is made to the policies of the dha with the dti noting incorrectly there are “no regulatory restrictions in controlling the influx of foreigners” (dti, 2014: 22). rogerson (2016a: 184) concludes that “nibus is a pro-development approach for south african informal entrepreneurs which is allied to an anti-developmental agenda towards migrant entrepreneurs.” anti-foreign sentiment reinforces a generally punitive approach to the informal sector that focuses on regulation and control. the november 2015 report of the ad hoc parliamentary committee investigating the 2015 xenophobic attacks on migrants and refugees working in the informal sector, recommended the regulation of their township businesses. the report states, for example, that municipal governments should improve systems for providing and monitoring business permits, noting a “tendency of issuing too many licenses” to businesses operating out of residential dwellings, many of which do not comply with municipal by-laws (parliament of south africa, 2015: 38-39). there are also reports that disarray around licensing creates a situation where refugee business owners are applying for licences they do not need and paying fines for violating licences they are not required to have. this punitive approach runs counter to good practice in management and support ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 769 of the informal economy both in south africa and globally (chen, 2012). ironically, increased regulation of township business would be destructive for south african and migrant informal operators alike. the focus on curtailing migrant entrepreneurship diverts attention from what crush and ramachandran (2015: 53) identify as “the real, urgent need to support and enhance opportunities for all small entrepreneurs.” provinces are also mandated to play a role in regulating and supporting the informal sector, but have been slow in addressing the issue. while the 1993 amendment to the businesses act empowered provinces to develop dedicated provincial business acts, to date no provinces have done that. for example, in kwazulu-natal (kzn) an informal economy policy process was initiated in 2003. this resulted, after an eight-year process – in the kzn informal economy policy of 2011 – but it still has not been developed into a white paper, the precursor to new legislation. such foot dragging suggests that it is not a priority. in other provinces, reference is made to the informal sector in local economic development strategies (as in limpopo) as well as township development strategies. the western cape promulgated its first dedicated informal sector framework (western cape province, 2014) and gauteng recently released the gauteng informal business development strategy (gauteng province, 2015). both focus on aligning the relevant departments’ work with nibus. all of the documents echo the need for financial and nonfinancial support to informal businesses (especially through small-business development centres), supporting informal trading in townships, improved access to business-related infrastructure facilities and reviewing regulations and bylaws to support the informal business sector (gauteng province, 2015: 47-59). on paper, all of these recommendations seem to be uncontroversial and important steps forward. however, a clear anti-foreign sentiment is also reflected at provincial level. the gauteng strategy, for example, states: the existing competition for trading permits among local and foreign nationals is evident. unfortunately, there are no regulatory restrictions in controlling the influx of foreign nationals. the departments of trade and industry and home affairs should assist the province in devising strategies ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 770 and policies to control foreign business activities (gauteng province, 2015: 45). similar sentiments are expressed in the western cape document (western cape province, 2014: 46). in kzn, the provincial government’s thrust has been to form and fund the kzn provincial association of traders, and fund traders’ training academies in various districts. the purpose of this initiative, as outlined at its launch, is to “bring back our general dealer stores that used to be seen in our townships and villages” adding that these “stores […] have been sold to foreign nationals” (news 24, 2015). statements like this suggest that the provincial government aims to ‘level the playing field,’ favouring south africans over migrant and refugee operators. the provincial government in limpopo province has perhaps the most overtly hostile approach to migrants and refugees working in the informal sector. in 2012, it launched operation hardstick, an aggressive military-style campaign that targeted small informal businesses run by migrants and refugees. the somali association of south africa supported by lawyers for human rights contested the action in the courts. court documents show that despite being labelled a crime-fighting initiative, operation hardstick was selectively enforced, affecting only migrant entrepreneurs and not south african businesses in the same locations. police shuttered over 600 businesses, detained owners, confiscated stock, imposed fines for trading without permits and verbally abused the owners. affected business owners were informed that “foreigners” were not allowed to operate in south africa, that their asylumseeker and refugee permits did not entitle them to run a business and that they should leave the area. thirty displaced migrants from ethiopia were forced to flee when the house they had taken refuge in was fire-bombed (supreme court, 2014). the court noted that police actions “tell a story of the most naked form of xenophobic discrimination and of the utter desperation experienced by the victims of that discrimination” (supreme court, 2014:6-7). the judgment observed that “one is left with the uneasy feeling that the stance adopted by the authorities in relation to the licensing of spaza shops and tuck-shops was in order to induce foreign nationals who were destitute to leave our shores” ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 771 (supreme court, 2014:25). the court ruled in favour the somali association and effectively established the right to self-employment for all asylum-seekers and refugees. opposing the appeal were all three tiers of government – national, provincial and municipal – including the limpopo member of the executive council (mec) for safety, security and liaison; the provincial commissioner of police; the national police commissioner; the standing committee on refugee affairs; the ministers of police, labour and home affairs; and two municipalities. at local government level, there is a preoccupation with the most visible element of the informal sector – street vendors – who operate in public spaces over which there are often competing interests. however, a scan of policy statements on street trading or the informal sector shows that, on paper, the positive contribution of the informal sector is often recognised. for example, in its street trading policy, the city of johannesburg (2009: 3) states that “informal trading is a positive development in the micro business sector as it contributes to the creation of jobs and alleviation of poverty and has the potential to expand further the city’s economic base.” the city of cape town’s (2013: 8) policy advocates a “thriving informal trading sector that is valued and integrated into the economic life, urban landscape and social activities within the city of cape town.” the ethekwini informal economy policy (2001:1) states that the “informal economy makes an important contribution to the economic and social life of durban.” despite the positive rhetoric, city-level actions reveal an ambivalent, if not actively hostile, approach to street traders. wafer (2011) provides details of the aggressive approach to street trading in johannesburg over the postapartheid period. in late 2013, this culminated in a draconian action when the johannesburg city council violently removed and confiscated the inventory of about 6,000 inner-city street traders, many of them migrants (zack, 2015; rogerson, 2016a; rogerson 2016b). a group of traders took the city to court and the constitutional court ruled in their favour. acting chief justice moseneke stated that operation clean sweep was an act of “humiliation and degradation” and that the city’s attitude “may well border on the cynical” (constitutional court, 2014). street traders have returned to the streets but in ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 772 more limited numbers with the city declaring large innercity areas to be restricted and prohibited trade zones. an analysis of cape town’s approach to street traders indicates systematic exclusion in the inner-city, exemplified by the allocation of only 410 streettrading bays in the whole inner city (bukasa, 2014). township trading is characterised by long-term neglect. zulu (2016) shows that in khayelitsha, the city council had invested very little in infrastructure for street traders and had devolved the management of street trading to a small group of traders, with negative consequences for many. crush et al. (2015: 15) argue that, although the policy environment in cape town varies across parts of the city and between segments of the informal economy, “the modernist vision of a ‘worldclass city’ with its associated antipathy to informality dominates, and informal space and activity is pathologized.” foreign migrants face an additional set of challenges. in an interview for this study, the cape town department of economic development claimed that “the city, in terms of its policy around trading, doesn’t differentiate and we don’t discriminate. there’s set criteria in terms of who qualifies (for a trading bay and permit) and how that person qualifies. we don’t look at what nationality the person is.” but, as the interviewed official admitted, the city is forced to discriminate in practice because refugees have to produce documentation that south africans do not. in particular, the renewal of asylum and refugee permits is extremely unpredictable (in terms of wait times and length granted) and became much more difficult once the dha declared that renewal had to be effected at the office of application, which could be thousands of kilometres away in johannesburg or even musina. one common way around this challenge is for south africans to obtain the permit and then rent the space to refugees at a profit. gastrow and amit (2015) detail the regulation of somali-owned spaza shops in cape town townships and show how mediation efforts led by the police and non-governmental organisations have culminated in agreements prohibiting the opening of new somali shops in certain areas. they outline various formal regulatory attempts to control and curtail the operations of somali businesses including fines, drafting new by-laws, issuing policy statements about foreign ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 773 shops and proposing laws tightening the regulation of the spaza market (gastrow & amit 2015). they also note that both formal and informal measures skirt the law, are applied in a discriminatory manner and stifle free competition. the city thus appears to be protecting the interests of south african spaza shop owners over their foreign counterparts. with respect to the informal sector more generally, the modernist vision of the ‘world-class city’ with its associated antipathy towards informality and the pathologising of informal space and activity, predominates. durban was once hailed for its relatively liberal stance on the informal sector (lund & skinner, 2004; dobson & skinner, 2009). a progressive informal sector policy was unanimously accepted by the city council in 2001 and remains official policy today. the council’s actions reflect a more ambivalent approach, however. for example, a council-approved shopping mall development at the inner-city warwick junction transport node threatened 6,000 traders operating there, and was only halted by a legal challenge (skinner, 2010). in 2013, traders in both the inner city and outlying areas identified harassment by the police as their key business challenge (dube et al., 2013). in 2015, traders won a legal case challenging the constitutionality of confiscating their goods, forcing the city to redraft the street trader by-laws. again, court action proved to be the only way to secure relief. conclusion distinct from many other refugee receiving countries, south africa’s rightsbased refugee legislation has historically allowed for refugees and asylumseekers to access a broad array of rights from health services to education and employment. south africa has never hosted a dedicated refugee camp or detention centre. in this environment, refugees and asylum-seekers have independently found their way into south africa’s social and economic fabric, sending their children to south african schools, finding employment in south african businesses and households and establishing their own formal and informal businesses. the 2017 amendment act and white paper are clear evidence of a new and less generous policy direction which is intended to shrink asylum space and further constrain the rights and protections afforded to refugees and asylum-seekers. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 774 cumulatively, the changes documented in this paper illustrate a significant shift in south africa’s long held policy for the local integration of refugee populations. by removing the right to work and confining asylum-seekers to detention centres, it is assumed that the practice of asylum-seeking by economic migrants will cease. this, of course, completely ignores evidence of the positive economic contribution of refugees and asylum-seekers who, under existing law, are permitted to pursue economic livelihoods. the ongoing move away from a rights-based approach to refugee protection is seen most clearly in the 2017 refugees amendment act and the proposals in the 2017 white paper on international migration. international trends which increasingly stress the positive development impacts of refugee populations are being completed ignored (unhcr, 2014; world bank, 2016). rather, the emphasis is on the ‘exceptionalism’ of forced migrants and the need to craft a coercive, non-developmental approach to dealing with refugees. this represents a profound shift in the country’s approach to refugee rights, protections and associated international obligations, moving away from an integration approach towards a containment approach. while the new approach may appear to be a local response to intemperate local demands, it is part of a more global trend which seeks to inhibit access to the physical territory and refugee protection systems of those countries by erecting physical, economic and social barriers (mountz, 2013; mountz et al., 2013). if the proposed south african refugee policy is ever operationalised in the face of the inevitable court and constitutional challenges, it may deter non-refugee migrants from further afield, but it is unlikely to act as a deterrent to economic migrants from neighbouring countries. they will simply find other ways to come, live and work in south africa, a fact which seems to be acknowledged in the white paper’s proposals to make sadc-specific work, traders’ and micro-enterprise permits available to migrants. while there may be a belief that detention centres will reduce the flow of genuine asylum-seekers to south africa, there remains a whole set of unanswered questions about whether there will be new policies that directly affect those who have refugee status. here the white paper is almost silent, ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 775 although it does assert that under the existing system refugees are allowed to apply for permanent residence “even though their status is inherently temporary.” the amendment act extends the period of qualification to 10 years while the white paper recommends abolishing this right altogether. there is no indication of whether those with refugee status will be denied the right to work, to self-employment, to freedom of movement and to access health and educational services. on the other hand, they will not be given any additional resources and will be expected to pursue their own livelihoods, as at present. to understand the challenges and obstacles that refugees face in securing these livelihoods, it is important to examine the policy and regulatory environment within which those in the informal sector try to survive. refugees and asylum-seekers confront a formidable set of challenges in operating their informal enterprises in south african cities (crush et al., 2015). at best tolerated, and at worst hounded out of communities by xenophobic mobs and violent entrepreneurship, south africa is certainly not a safe haven for those fleeing violence and persecution at home. however, as this paper argues, xenophobic violence and police inaction are certainly not the only difficulties they face. south african city managers oscillate between benign neglect and active destruction of the vibrant and economically-productive informal sector. migrants and refugees who operate informal enterprises have been the main targets in a series of national, provincial and local-level “operations” designed to inhibit or eradicate their businesses from urban space. thus, there is a fundamental contradiction between a refugee protection policy that demands self-reliance from refugees and informal sector policies that undermine selfreliance at every turn. a comparison of the 2015 draft refugees amendment bill and the final 2016 act suggests that the petitions and representations of human rights groups and refugee and migrant associations had little or no impact in softening the legislation, so litigation in the courts is the most likely way to roll back these draconian provisions. the courts have clearly played an increasingly important role in securing the livelihoods of informal sector operators in general, and migrant entrepreneurs in particular, in post-apartheid south ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 776 africa. litigation has been one of the key sources of support to migrant entrepreneurs, highlighting the core contradiction between the rights enshrined in the south african constitution and south africa’s relatively progressive refugee protection regime, on the one hand, and the policies and actions of key government departments and officials, on the other. protecting unalienable rights relies on a cohort of legal human rights non-governmental organisations prioritising migrant livelihood rights and being willing and able to pursue time-consuming and costly litigation on their behalf. acknowledgements we wish to thank the unhcr geneva for funding the refugee economic impacts samp research project. our thanks also go to vanya gastrow and sujata ramachandran for their assistance. references amit, r. 2011. no refuge: flawed status determination and the failures of south africa’s refugee system to provide 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(eds.). transnationalism and new african immigration to south africa. toronto: caas, pp. 20-40. philip, k. 2009. second economy strategy: addressing inequality and economic marginalisation. a strategic framework. second economy strategy project report. johannesburg: tips. philip, k. and hassen, e. 2008. the review of second economy programmes, an overview for the presidency’s fifteen-year review. from <http://bit.ly/2wggq1r > polzer ngwato, t. 2013. policy shifts in the south african asylum system. pretoria and johannesburg: lhr and acms. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 781 rsa (republic of south africa). 1991. businesses act 71 of 1991. government gazette, 311(13266). rsa. 1993. businesses amendment act no. 186 of 1993. government gazette, 342(15374). rsa. 1995. white paper on national strategy for the development and promotion of small business in south africa. cape town: south african parliament. rsa. 2006. accelerated shared growth initiative of south africa. from <http://www.daff.gov.za/docs/genpub/asgisa.pdf> rogerson, c. 2004. the impact of the south african government’s smme programmes: a ten year review. development southern africa, 21: 765-784. rogerson, c. 2016a. south africa’s informal economy: reframing debates in national policy. local economy, 31(1-2): 172-186. rogerson, c. 2016b. progressive rhetoric, ambiguous policy pathways: street trading in inner-city johannesburg, south africa. local economy, 31: 204-218. skinner, c. 2005. constraints to growth and employment: evidence from the informal economy. school of development studies research report no. 65, durban: university of kwazulu-natal. skinner, c. 2010. challenging city imaginaries: street traders’ struggles in warwick junction. agenda, 23: 101-109. stupart, r. 2016. is south africa home to more than a million asylum seekers? the numbers don’t add up. africa check, 15 august 2016. supreme court of appeal. 2014. somali association of south africa and others v limpopo department of economic development environment and tourism and others (48/2014) [2014] zasca 143; 2015 (1) sa 151 (sca); [2014] 4 all sa 600 (sca) (26 september). unhcr. 2014. global strategy for livelihoods. geneva: unhcr. unicity, e., 2001. durban's informal economy policy. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 782 wafer, a. 2011. informality, infrastructure and the state in post-apartheid johannesburg. phd thesis, open university. washinyira, t. 2012. asylum seekers struggle as fnb freezes their accounts. groundup, 5 december 2012. world bank. 2016. forcibly displaced: toward a development approach supporting refugees, the internally displaced, and their hosts. washington dc: world bank. western cape province (department of economic development and tourism). 2014. draft informal sector framework, cape town, policy memo. zack, t. 2015. making an area hot: interrupting trade in an ethnic enclave in johannesburg’s inner city. in crush, j., chikanda, a., skinner, c. (eds.). mean streets: migration, xenophobia and informality in south africa. ottawa: idrc. zulu, t. 2015. interchange for the informal market? an investigation of the nature of the nolungile station upgrades in khayelitsha, cape town and their implications for informal traders. ma thesis, university of cape town. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 783 refugee entrepreneurial economies in urban south africa jonathan crush*, godfrey tawodzera**, cameron mccordic***, sujata ramachandran**** and robertson tengeh***** abstract the case-study literature on refugees and asylum-seekers in south africa is dominated by an overwhelming focus on the problems they face and their marginalised existence, reinforcing an image of victimhood, exploitation and vulnerability. in this paper, we seek to broaden the image of refugees and their economic impacts beyond a narrow focus on their marginal status and vulnerable position. they are viewed here as dynamic agents with skills and capabilities who can play an integral role in transforming local settings and contributing to economic development. this paper presents and discusses the results of a survey of over 1,000 refugee informal business-owners in cape town and small-town limpopo. as well as providing new insights into the nature, achievements and challenges of refugee entrepreneurship, the paper addresses the question of whether geographical location makes a difference to the nature of refugee entrepreneurial economies by contrasting the two groups of entrepreneurs. refugee entrepreneurs are more vulnerable to xenophobic violence in cape town and to police misconduct in limpopo. otherwise, there are remarkable similarities in the manner in which refugee entrepreneurs establish and grow their businesses in large cities and small provincial towns. keywords refugees, informal sector, entrepreneurial economies, xenophobia, cape town, limpopo. * international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb street w, waterloo, on, n2l 6c2. email: jcrush@balsillieschool.ca ** department of geography and environmental studies, university of limpopo, p. bag x1106, sovenga. *** balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb street w, waterloo, on, n2l 6c2. **** southern african migration programme, international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb st west, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l6c2. ***** faculty of informatics and design, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 784 introduction more than 60% of the world’s refugees now live in urban areas, according to the unhcr. therefore, the social and economic impacts of refugee movements are increasingly being felt in the towns and cities of host nations. in general, the presence of refugees among urban populations is more likely to be assessed in terms of perceived burdens rather than benefits (omata & weaver, 2015). only recently has interest emerged in what has been characterised by jacobsen (2005) as the positive “economic lives of refugees.” some researchers have adopted the notion of “refugee economies” to highlight the strong involvement of refugees in the many overlapping processes of production, consumption, exchange, entrepreneurship and development of financial and capital markets in host countries and beyond (betts et al., 2014). however, it would be a mistake to imagine that there are discrete spatially and economically isolated “refugee economies” in the urban environment. refugees may dominate particular economic and geographical niches in the urban economy but they continuously interact with and contribute to that economy in ways that are poorly understood. as refugees increasingly become the norm in the urbanising global south, more research on the specifically urban economic impacts of protracted refugee situations is therefore urgently needed (koizumi & hoffstaedter, 2015). this paper aims to contribute to recent literature that takes “refugee livelihoods” as its point of departure (buscher, 2011; jacobsen, 2006; omata & kaplan, 2013; de vriese, 2006). a livelihoods perspective underscores the need to adopt a rights-based approach to the economic activities of forced migrants; to identify their resources, assets and skills; and to understand how they respond to their situations and secure their livelihood needs. this perspective represents a move away from welfare-centred models of engagement focused on meeting basic needs, towards a capability approach which emphasises refugees’ agency, right to choose and ability to control their own environments (landau, 2008). identifying the economic advantages and benefits associated with the presence of refugees is a key precondition for making governments and local elites more responsive to refugee needs and removing the barriers they face (lyytinen & kullenberg, 2013). this objective ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 785 coheres with the unhcr’s (2014) global strategy for livelihoods, which underscores the need to enhance the economic capabilities of refugee populations and build on their own resilience. the sizable case-study literature on refugees and asylum-seekers in south africa is dominated by an overwhelming focus on the problems they face and their marginalised existence, reinforcing an image of victimhood, exploitation and vulnerability (crush & chikanda, 2014). in recent years, a more troubling image has emerged of refugees as unfair and underhand competitors who disadvantage poor south africans (desai, 2008; gordon, 2016). both characterisations suffer from obvious problems. the former treats them in a restricted manner as undifferentiated, homogeneous populations defined by their marginalised status as recipients of protection in the host country. the latter views them in a prejudicial manner through a warped understanding of the nature of economic competition and refugee rights. undue emphasis on their legal standing as ‘refugees’ tends to minimise their education, credentials and work experience in various fields. furthermore, it underestimates their creative energies, determination and ability to overcome some of these challenges and re-build their lives in south africa. post-apartheid south africa has relied on a “self-settlement” approach to refugees (handmaker et al., 2011). the country imposes no restrictions on freedom of movement and the geographical locations where refugees can reside. they are not confined to refugee camps or physically separated from citizens, which means they have direct interaction with south africans with the potential for both conflict and integration into local communities. however, the south african self-settlement model does emphasise selfsufficiency on the part of refugees in the process of resettlement, with little assistance from state authorities (polzer ngwato, 2013). existing studies suggest that many urban refugees are unable, for various reasons, to access formal employment in the cities and turn to the informal economy for their livelihoods (achiume, 2014; jacobsen, 2006; kavuro, 2015). employment or self-employment in the informal economy becomes a desirable option, if not a necessity. because urban informality is generally invisible to policy-makers, scorned by politicians and seen as a site of desperation rather than ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 786 opportunity, its economic significance is often overlooked (pavanello et al., 2015; williams, 2013). the primary aim of this paper is to examine what we call “refugee entrepreneurial economies” in urban south africa. the paper builds on casestudy evidence on the activities of refugees in the south african informal economy (greyling, 2015; jinnah, 2010; owen, 2015; smit & rugunanan, 2014; thompson, 2016; zack, 2015). within the informal sector, refugee economies have often been viewed as stagnant pools of desperation, providing narrow opportunities and limited scope for advancement. but this is a misleading characterisation. it is important to recognise the dynamism and growing complexity of south african refugee economies and to re-shape our ideas about the economic impacts of the informal sector (roever & skinner, 2016). the important question is whether all forms of refugee activity in the informal sector are associated with economic precariousness and social marginality, or whether possibilities for real economic advancement exist (crush et al., 2015a). in this paper, we seek to broaden the image of refugees and their economic impacts beyond a narrow focus on their marginal status and vulnerability. we view them as dynamic agents with skills and capabilities who can play an integral role in transforming local settings and contributing to economic development. this is not to undervalue the divergent ways through which refugees earn a living in south africa, nor to gloss over their struggles and the pervasive discrimination, hostility and xenophobic violence they regularly encounter, nor to exaggerate the significance of refugee entrepreneurship. however, there is a need to re-calibrate the narrow, partial and negative lens through which their economic potential is evaluated by politicians and policymakers. here, we also address the question of whether geographical location makes a difference to the nature of refugee entrepreneurial economies by contrasting refugee enterprise in a major south african city (cape town) with that in several smaller towns in a different part of the country (limpopo province). our aim is to ascertain whether geography matters in framing the activities, challenges and impacts of refugee entrepreneurial economies. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 787 methodology most refugees are initially drawn to the major south african cities of johannesburg, durban, port elizabeth and cape town. in this study of refugee entrepreneurship, the city of cape town was chosen as one of two study sites because there is a significant concentration of refugees and a contextual literature on refugee entrepreneurship in the city (basardien et al., 2014; gastrow & amit, 2013, 2015; owen, 2015; tawodzera et al., 2015). in recent years, refugee entrepreneurs have also been establishing businesses in smaller urban areas around the country. in 2012, a police campaign called operation hardstick in limpopo province forcibly closed as many as 600 small businesses run by migrants and refugees, suggesting that this province had become a significant operating location for small-town entrepreneurs. in contrast to cape town, however, very little research exists on refugee livelihoods and entrepreneurship in limpopo, which was chosen as the second site for this study (idemudia et al., 2013; mothibi et al., 2015; ramathetje & mtapuri, 2014). the study focused only on informal sector business owners who hold refugee (section 24) permits under the refugees act. holders of asylum-seeker (section 22) permits were not included as many of these migrants are unlikely to be refugees, as conventionally defined. the south african government claims that 90% of asylum-seeker permit holders are “economic migrants” and not genuine refugees as defined by the refugee conventions. while this figure has been disputed by researchers, it is not possible to predict whether any particular asylum-seeker permit holder will make the transition to full refugee status. indeed, there is every likelihood that the majority will not (amit, 2011; amit & kriger, 2014). the number and geographical location of refugee enterprises in south africa is unknown, which means that there is no comprehensive database from which to draw a sample. therefore, this paper relied on “maximum variation sampling” (mvs) using the methodology suggested by williams and gurtoo (2010) in their study of the informal economy in bangalore, india. in cape town, the areas of the city in which the informal economy is known to operate were first identified from the existing literature, personal knowledge and a ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 788 scoping of the city. this allowed for the exclusion of significant areas of the city from the study, particularly high-income residential areas. second, five different types of area were identified – commercial, formal residential, informal residential, mixed formal and informal residential and industrial – and within each of these types contrasting and geographically separated areas were chosen. there were two commercial areas (the cbd and bellville), two industrial areas (maitland and parow), three formal residential areas (observatory, delft and nyanga), three informal settlements (khayelitsha, imizamo yethu and masiphumelele) and two mixed formal and informal residential areas (philippi and dunoon). in limpopo, the majority of migrant entrepreneurs live in urban centres. since many of these centres are relatively small, the primary criterion for the application of mvs in limpopo was variable urban size. the selected towns are scattered around the province and include polokwane (population of 130,000), thohoyandou (70,000), musina (43,000), louis trichardt (25,000), tzaneen (14,500) and burgersfort (6,000). sampling was conducted in each site using the mapped grid-pattern exhibited by streets. streets were sampled one after another in successive fashion moving from west to east. after identifying the first five enterprises on a street, and randomly selecting the first of the five for the sample, every third refugeeowned enterprise was selected for interview. where business owners were not available, field workers made three call backs to the enterprise, after which a substitution was made. in each of the two study areas, a total of 504 refugee entrepreneurs were interviewed. the survey instrument was administered using tablet technology and collected information on a wide variety of issues pertaining to business set-up, activities, operation, profitability, challenges and economic impacts. the enterprise survey was complemented with fifty indepth interviews with business-owners in each research location and three focus groups with refugees from the same country in each location. this paper presents some of the results of the survey supplemented with a selection of observations from the entrepreneurs about their experiences running businesses in south africa. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 789 refugee profile this section of the paper compares refugee business owners in cape town with those in small town limpopo to ascertain if there are any significant differences in their respective socio-demographic and migration profiles. first, male refugee entrepreneurs clearly dominate in both areas, with only 20-25% of business owners being women (table 1). this is generally consistent with the predominantly male character of refugee migration to south africa. the entrepreneurs in both locations tend to be relatively young, with 80% in cape town and 77% in limpopo being under the age of 40. very few entrepreneurs in either location were over the age of 50. accepting the international labour organisation definition of “young people” in africa as anyone under the age of 35, this would mean that 54% of those in cape town and 57% of those in limpopo are young entrepreneurs (kew, 2015). there are no significant differences between the two groups of refugee entrepreneurs in terms of age profile. however, the difficulties and challenges facing youth entrepreneurs in south africa, and how these are addressed by refugee youth, warrant further investigation (fatoki & chindoga, 2011; gwija et al., 2014). despite the similarities in sex and age breakdown between the two samples, there are marked differences in the countries of origin of refugee entrepreneurs. in the cape town sample, the most numerous group was from somalia, which is consistent with other studies showing a significant somali presence in the informal economy of the city (basardien et al., 2014; gastrow & amit, 2013, 2015; tawodzera et al., 2015). while there are some somaliowned businesses in limpopo and ethiopian-owned businesses in cape town, the largest group in this sample of refugee entrepreneurs in limpopo towns was from ethiopia (28%). some national groups are well-represented in both places, including refugees from the democratic republic of the congo (drc) (17% in cape town and 11% in limpopo) and zimbabwe (7% in cape town and 11% in limpopo). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 790 table 1: demographic profile of refugee entrepreneurs cape town % limpopo % sex male 75.2 80.0 female 24.8 20.0 age <21 0.0 0.2 21-25 8.5 10.8 26-30 20.1 23.4 31-35 25.2 22.2 36-40 26.6 21.0 41-45 12.2 11.4 46-50 4.3 6.8 >50 3.0 4.4 country of origin somalia 26.9 7.4 drc 16.9 11.0 cameroon 11.6 0.8 ethiopia 9.2 28.1 zimbabwe 7.2 11.1 congo brazzaville 3.0 0.6 burundi 1.4 0.6 angola 1.0 0.6 rwanda 0.8 0.2 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 791 in both the cape town and limpopo samples, there are small numbers of refugees from the same countries, notably burundi, cameroon, congo brazzaville, eritrea, rwanda and sudan. in sum, both areas are dominated by refugees from one or two (albeit different) countries, but beyond that there is considerable diversity in the makeup of the refugee entrepreneurial population. the vast majority of sampled refugee business owners (over 90% in both research locations) arrived in south africa after 2000 (figure 1). limpopo has a slightly greater proportion of recent arrivals than cape town. for example, 71% of the refugees in limpopo migrated to south africa after 2005, compared to 61% of those in cape town. or again, 26% of those in limpopo arrived in south africa after 2010, compared to only 16% in cape town. this raises the possibility that more recent forced migrants may be avoiding the large cities and going straight to smaller urban centres. however, in limpopo there is a clear lag between year of migration to south africa and year of arrival in the province (figure 2). as many as 64% of the sampled refugee entrepreneurs in limpopo had first lived in another south african town or city (compared to only 27% in cape town) (table 2). in other words, cape town was the first destination for nearly three-quarters of the refugee entrepreneurs in that sample, while limpopo was the first destination for only 13% of the entrepreneurs sampled there. sudan 0.2 1.0 eritrea 0.2 4.6 other 21.6 34.4 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 792 figure 1: year of arrival in south africa figure 2: migration of limpopo entrepreneurs 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 1991 1995 1996 2000 2001 2005 2006 2010 2011 2016 % year cape town refugees (n=501) limpopo refugees (n=502) 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 1991 1995 1996 2000 2001 2005 2006 2010 2011 2016 % year arrival in south africa (n=502) arrival in this city (n=502) ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 793 table 2: previous places of residence in south africa cape town refugees % limpopo refugees % major cities johannesburg 15.7 29.0 pretoria 4.2 12.9 durban 3.2 5.0 cape town n/a 4.6 port elizabeth 1.6 2.4 other urban centres other western cape 0.2 1.2 other limpopo 1.2 16.9 other gauteng 0.0 1.6 other kwazulu-natal 0.2 1.2 other eastern cape 0.2 0.2 free state 0.4 1.6 north west 0.2 1.6 northern cape 0.6 1.4 mpumalanga 0.4 6.7 note: multiple response question in the limpopo sample, previous places of residence were dominated by the large cities, particularly johannesburg (29%) and pretoria (13%), but also durban (5%) and even cape town, which is nearly 2,000km away (5%). the movement of refugees from limpopo to cape town was much more limited. as many as 17% of the limpopo refugees had lived in another town in the province, suggesting the existence of some intra-provincial mobility. this kind of movement was virtually absent in the case of cape town and the western cape province. in the cape town sample, the majority of the 28% who had lived in another urban area came from johannesburg, with much smaller numbers from cities such as pretoria and durban. the major reason for relocation from large cities to small-town limpopo concerns the pattern of violence against non-south african informal ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 794 businesses (crush et al., 2015b). nationwide xenophobic attacks on migrants and refugees in 2008 led to considerable loss of life, damage to property and internal displacement (hassim et al., 2008; landau, 2012). in 2015, widespread xenophobic violence again wracked the country. unlike the indiscriminate violence of 2008, these attacks mainly targeted small informal businesses run by migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees. drawing on an extensive database of media coverage of xenophobic incidents, crush and ramachandran (2015a) chronicle an escalating pattern of xenophobic violence directed at migrants and refugees between 2008 and 2015. refugeeowned businesses are regular targets of attacks and certain locations have witnessed collective violence in repeated cycles, including loss of store contents through looting and arson, damage to shop structure, forcible store closures, temporary or permanent displacement and loss of life (crush & ramachandran, 2015b). the impact of xenophobic violence is exacerbated by poor police response and follow-up. refugees have little faith in police protection or judicial reparation, and even see the police as perpetrators or instigators of violence (haile, 2012; okpechi, 2011). steinberg (2012) argues that it is the perceived failure of the authorities to control migration that has exacerbated retaliatory xenophobic mob violence. some studies have suggested that attacks on refugee-owned businesses are instigated or orchestrated by south african competitors, including various shadowy informal business associations (crush & ramachandran, 2015a). this phenomenon – dubbed “violent entrepreneurship” by charman and piper (2012) – involves the use of intimidatory violence as a business strategy to drive non-south african competitors out of an area. the most frequent and intense xenophobic attacks and instances of violent entrepreneurship have occurred in low-income neighbourhoods in large cities. the in-depth interviews with limpopo refugee entrepreneurs for this study confirmed that xenophobic violence was a major factor in relocation from cities of first refuge. one somali refugee recounted how he had arrived in johannesburg after a long and difficult journey through several countries; experiences consistent with those of other somali refugees (jinnah, 2010; sadouni, 2009). in johannesburg, he lived with his brother and neighbours from the same village in somalia. his brother operated a business buying goods in the cbd and selling them at his ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 795 shop in soweto. he worked for his brother for a while but found the experience unnerving: “i did not want to operate in soweto. the people there were nice but there were others who were just rough. i had seen two people being killed in broad daylight and they were all foreigners and their shops were robbed. so i wanted to go somewhere else.” with his brother’s assistance he bought a small spaza (informal shop) in orange farm south of johannesburg and ran it for a year: orange farm was a good area for business but it was not safe. as a foreigner you are always conscious of your security and you can feel that this place is not good. it is far from the johannesburg cbd and there are few police there. so even when there are robberies, the police come very late and sometimes they do not come at all. i was robbed seven times in the period that i stayed in orange farm. most of the time the robbers would come when it is at night and you are still operating. they pounce on you with sticks, spanners or iron bars and they hit you hard. so i was almost killed twice and i thought this is enough. let me leave this place. then i left and came here (interview with somali refugee, polokwane, 12 march 2016). experience of violent crime and fears over personal safety were recurrent motives for moving to limpopo. interviewees moved to escape being injured or murdered rather than specifically to set up a new business. one eritrean refugee, for example, had his spaza looted and burnt to the ground: “i came here because i was running for my life. i was not thinking of doing business, but of surviving. i was almost killed that night” (interview with eritrean refugee, 21 march 2016). piper and charman (2016) have argued that south african business owners are just as vulnerable to violent attacks and crime as their refugee counterparts and suggest that xenophobia is, therefore, not a factor. however, the interviewees in limpopo clearly saw the violence in johannesburg and other centres as motivated by xenophobia. as the former orange farm business owner noted: “there were many spaza shops around me, but they kept stealing from me. is that not xenophobia? why not steal from the locals? the customers sometimes harass you because you are a foreigner. they take ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 796 your goods and are a problem in paying. so, yes, i have been affected a lot by xenophobia.” the province of limpopo appears to be a safer haven and less inhospitable business environment than south africa’s large cities. as many as 45% of sampled cape town refugees said that xenophobia had affected their business operations to some extent (20%) or a great deal (25%). the equivalent figures in limpopo were 31% in total (19% to some extent and 12% not at all). refugees in cape town, for example, appear to be more vulnerable to theft and physical attack from south african citizens. for example, in the sample, 57% of refugees in cape town reported often or sometimes having their goods and stock stolen, compared to 39% of those in limpopo. similarly, 54% of refugees in cape town often or sometimes had money stolen, compared to 32% in limpopo. the incidents of prejudice and verbal and physical assault by citizens were similar in both places. but while relocation to limpopo may lessen the chance of victimisation, it certainly does not eliminate it. many of the refugees interviewed in limpopo told stories of being robbed and having their business premises destroyed. however, police misconduct also emerged as a greater problem for refugees in limpopo. alfaro-velcamp and shaw (2016) show that police disregard for the rights of refugees and migrants is a significant problem in cape town and other large cities. this survey found that police harassment, demands for bribes, confiscation of goods and physical violence were all more common in limpopo than in cape town (table 3). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 797 table 3: challenges faced by refugee entrepreneurs in south africa cape town refugees (% often/ sometimes) limpopo refugees (% often/ sometimes) theft of goods/stock 56.7 38.7 theft of money/income 44.2 31.8 physical violence by south africans 23.5 19.2 confiscation of goods by police 10.2 19.1 harassment/demands for bribes by police 10.7 26.5 physical violence by police 6.8 8.8 verbal insults 32.6 35.7 prejudice against my nationality 48.0 47.9 business characteristics and strategies despite being located in very different parts of south africa, and nearly 2,000 km apart, the sampled cape town and limpopo refugee entrepreneurs engaged in a similarly wide range of economic activities. the vast majority in both locations is in the retail sector (75-79%), followed by services (25-28%) and manufacturing (4.4%-7.5%) (table 4). the kinds of goods being sold and services offered are very similar as well. among the sampled limpopo refugee entrepreneurs, the most common items sold are clothing/footwear, confectionary, soft drinks and toiletries/cosmetics. in cape town, the most common items sold are cigarettes, clothing/footwear, personal accessories and confectionary and beverages (table 5). comparing the two, the main difference lies in the greater numbers of refugees selling confectionary, household products, and toiletries and cosmetics in limpopo. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 798 table 4: economic sector of refugee enterprises cape town refugees limpopo refugees no. % no. % retail, trade and wholesale 400 79.4 378 75.0 manufacturing 38 7.5 22 4.4 services 128 25.4 143 28.4 other 1 0.2 1 0.2 table 5: goods and services offered by refugee entrepreneurs cape town refugees % limpopo refugees % retail soft drinks (e.g. coke, fanta) 23.0 21.6 cigarettes 21.4 18.5 clothing and footwear 18.8 20.2 personal accessories (e.g. bags, sunglasses) 14.5 18.5 confectionary (sweets/candies and cakes) 13.7 20.2 fresh produce (fruits and vegetables) 11.3 15.5 toiletries and cosmetics 9.5 20.0 cooked food ready to eat 7.5 6.0 electronics 6.3 8.7 arts and crafts 5.0 0.2 books/newspapers 3.8 2.0 household products 3.6 15.1 hardware/tools 1.6 2.8 music/film cds/dvds 1.0 4.2 car parts 0.8 0.2 livestock (e.g. chickens) 0.2 0.2 alcohol 0.4 0.4 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 799 other 9.9 18.5 services haircutting and braiding 10.9 19.2 it/internet 4.4 1.0 telephone 1.6 1.6 shoe repairs 1.2 0.2 traditional doctor 0.4 0.0 accommodation 0.2 0.2 car repairs 0.2 0.8 medicine (pharmacy) 0.2 0.0 transportation (taxi/passengers) 0.2 0.2 car wash 0.0 0.8 financial 0.0 0.2 rentals 0.0 0.2 transportation (goods) 0.0 0.2 construction 0.0 0.0 car parking/guarding 0.0 0.0 other 5.4 5.8 note: multiple response question the primary sources of business start-up capital in both areas were very similar, suggesting that being in a large city does not provide additional financing opportunities (table 6). approximately 85% of the sampled refugees in both cape town and limpopo used their personal savings to start their businesses. around 20% of both groups used loans from relatives, 1214% used loans from non-relatives and 12% used gifts from relatives. a small number in both areas used remittances from outside the country to establish their businesses. only a handful of refugees in both areas were able to access funding from banks, ngos or the unhcr. the only difference worth noting was that more entrepreneurs in limpopo were able to access goods on credit with which to start their businesses. despite the similarities in sources of start-up capital, the amounts needed to establish a business did differ. in limpopo, the sampled refugee entrepreneurs ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 800 seemed to be able to start businesses with less capital (figure 3). 34% percent had less than zar 5,000 compared to 21% of the cape town refugee entrepreneurs, and 63% had less than zar 10,000 compared to 52% of the cape town entrepreneurs. at the other end of the scale, 27% of the sampled cape town refugees had more than zar 50,000 in start-up capital compared to only 15% of those in limpopo. table 6: primary sources of start-up capital cape town refugees % limpopo refugees % personal savings 85.9 84.3 loan from relatives 19.8 20.2 gift from relatives 13.7 11.7 loan from non-relatives 12.1 14.3 loan from church 2.4 0.2 money from relatives in another country 2.4 2.4 loan from mosque 1.4 0.2 loan from informal financial institutions 1.2 1.4 bank loan 0.8 1.2 loan from government agency 0.2 0.0 goods on credit 0.0 9.1 loan or grant from ngo 0.0 1.4 loan or grant from unhcr 0.0 0.4 usurers/mashonisa (money lenders) 0.0 0.2 other source 2.2 6.9 note: multiple response question ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 801 figure 3: amount of start-up capital used by refugee entrepreneurs despite their lack of prior business experience, refugees in south africa have developed a range of strategies to maximise their returns. table 7 lists a variety of business strategies and shows how many sampled refugees employ them in the conduct of their business. the most common strategies include bulk purchasing, extended hours of operation, keeping business records, negotiating prices with suppliers, allowing customers to buy goods on credit and competitive prices. refugees consult other entrepreneurs, suppliers and the media for information about the price of goods. these are all commonsense business strategies and certainly do not fall into the category of 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 less than r5,000 r5,000 – r9,999 r10,000 – r19,999 r20,000 – r29,999 r30,000 – r49,999 r50,000 – r99,999 r100,000 – r199,999 r200,000 – r499,999 r500,000 – r999,999 r1,000,000 and above % s ta rt -u p a m o u n t (i n r a n d s) limpopo refugees (n=468) cape town refugees (n=462) ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 802 underhand or secret tactics that the south african minister of small business development accused them of employing. there was very little difference in the frequency of use of business strategies by the two groups of refugees. however, living in a large city seems to provide more opportunity for buying in bulk, negotiating with suppliers and getting information on prices from other entrepreneurs. almost one-third of the limpopo refugees travel to johannesburg to purchase supplies, while most cape town refugees obtain their goods in the city. this probably affords the latter greater opportunity for bulk buying, negotiation with suppliers and information-sharing. table 7: business strategies of refugee entrepreneurs cape town refugees % limpopo refugees % obtain price information from other entrepreneurs 75.6 57.9 purchase stock in bulk 69.7 56.3 extended hours of operation 69.5 65.5 negotiate prices with suppliers 67.7 59.8 keep business records 59.4 55.7 obtain price information by calling suppliers 57.2 61.2 negotiate prices with customers 47.8 60.5 offer credit to customers 42.0 44.8 sell goods more cheaply than competitors 42.0 38.6 charge different prices for different customers 37.1 30.3 give discounts to regular customers 34.9 39.1 obtain price information from media 31.9 28.1 partner with other businesses to distribute risk 28.1 34.2 engage in shareholding 10.3 25.9 purchase insurance 3.2 7.0 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 803 entrepreneurial economies in this study, we used two measures of business success: (a) net monthly profit and (b) the difference between the current value of the enterprise and the initial capital outlay. with regards to the first indicator, net profit, it is clear that although refugees in limpopo are able to start a business with a smaller capital outlay than those in cape town, their enterprises are not as profitable. the sampled limpopo refugees earned less on average than their cape town counterparts: zar 7,246 per month compared to zar 11,315 in cape town (table 8). only one-third of the sampled cape town entrepreneurs made less than zar 5,000 per month compared to 58% of those in limpopo. or again, 70% of the limpopo entrepreneurs make less than zar 7,500 per month compared to only 49% of those in cape town. with regards to the second indicator of business success the difference between the amount of start-up capital and the current value of the enterprise in both cape town and limpopo there are clear indications of increased value. for example, 21% of the sampled entrepreneurs in cape town started with less than zar 5,000 but only 3% of the businesses were currently valued at less than zar 5,000 (table 9). in limpopo, the equivalent figures were 34% (start-up) and 14% (current value). in both locations, therefore, there was significant upward movement out of the lowest value category. a similar pattern can be observed with businesses that started with less than zar 20,000. in cape town, 51% fell into this start-up category but only 26% of businesses fell into this value category. the proportion of sampled businesses in the zar 50,000-plus category increased from 27% to 47% and in limpopo from 15% to 42%. this suggests that higher value businesses may actually be performing better in limpopo than they are in cape town. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 804 table 8: net monthly profit of refugee entrepreneurs cape town refugees limpopo refugees % cumulative % % cumulative % <= zar2500 14.7 14.7 18.1 18.1 zar2,501-zar5,000 18.6 33.3 40.0 58.1 zar5,001-zar7,500 15.5 48.8 10.9 70.0 zar7,501-zar10,000 15.3 73.1 12.7 82.7 zar10,001-zar12,500 6.2 79.3 3.0 85.7 zar12,501-zar15,000 8.8 88.1 5.1 90.8 zar15,001-zar17,500 1.4 89.5 2.3 93.1 zar17,501-zar20,000 6.5 96.0 3.9 95.0 >zar20,000 4.0 100.0 5.0 100.0 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 805 the establishment and growth of sampled refugee businesses has economic spin-offs for a variety of south african stakeholders. the first beneficiaries are formal sector suppliers including wholesalers, supermarkets, fresh produce markets, retailers and manufacturers. around two-thirds of the sampled refugees in both cape town and limpopo purchase supplies from wholesalers, who are easily the largest beneficiaries of their patronage (table 10). other beneficiaries vary in relative importance, reflecting the difference between operating in a large city and a small town. for example, refugees in cape town are more likely to patronise supermarkets and factories while those in limpopo are more likely to patronise small shops. the fact that more cape town refugees purchase directly from farms is primarily a reflection of the existence of a market gardening area (the philippi horticultural area) within the city limits (battersby-lennard & haysom, 2012). the average monthly spend at wholesalers was very similar in both cape town and limpopo. otherwise, the amounts spent varied considerably but, in general, the more important the source, the greater the amount is spent. table 9: increase in value of refugee enterprises cape town refugees limpopo refugees start up % current value % start up % current value % <zar5,000 21.4 3.4 33.6 13.6 zar5,000-zar9,999 14.1 9.2 12.2 9.5 zar10,000-zar19,999 16.2 13.0 17.1 11.8 zar20,000-zar29,999 7.1 13.2 10.9 11.6 zar30,000-zar49,999 14.1 14.1 10.9 11.8 zar50,000-zar99,999 12.6 20.2 8.8 13.2 zar100,000-zar199,999 10.4 15.2 4.7 15.2 zar200,000-zar499,999 3.9 10.3 1.5 10.7 zar500,000-zar999,999 0.2 0.9 0.2 1.8 >zar1,000,000 0.0 0.4 0.2 0.7 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 806 table 10: main suppliers used by refugee entrepreneurs cape town refugees % limpopo refugees %. cape town ave spend (zar/ month) limpopo ave spend (zar/ month) wholesaler 64.1 57.9 34,565 34,908 direct from factory 12.7 3.6 9,575 20,278 supermarkets 9.7 4.2 12,253 3,979 fresh produce markets 5.6 4.2 28,021 2,000 non-south african informal producers/retailers 4.8 8.5 9,121 15,549 small shops/retailers 4.2 17.9 3,738 6,876 south african informal sector producers/retailers 2.6 3.8 7,631 3,859 direct from farms 1.6 0.8 19,625 4,875 other sources 5.6 3.6 14,855 4,586 note: multiple response question the second major beneficiary of the activities of refugee entrepreneurs is the south african treasury. while most businesses operate in the informal sector and are too small to pay income tax, they do pay value-added tax (vat) on most goods purchased from formal sector suppliers. one ethiopian refugee in a limpopo focus group observed that they not only paid vat on goods but also were unable to claim rebates: there are many things we do to help the economy. we operate our businesses and we buy our stock from the wholesalers. we pay vat there so our money is going into the economy. we pay a lot of money that way. some of our people go to buy goods that are worth zar 200,000 or even more. some buy every week and some buy every day. so imagine if you are paying zar 200,000 for goods and vat is 14% so that is more than ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 807 zar 25,000 i am paying to the government. even after paying this large amount of vat we suffer because we cannot claim some of it because we do not have the documents. we are not registered. if we were registered at the end of the year we would claim some of the vat like south africans do. we are actually paying more and contributing more through vat than most south african small businesses (focus group participant, burgersfort, 1 april 2016). another participant claimed that business registration was impossible because “government does not want to register us.”1 third, as these refugees noted, they pay heavy rents to south african property owners: south africans are surviving on us because we pay them money to rent their shops. i pay zar 4,000 per month to my landlord to use the shop. that is a lot of money. how many local people can afford to pay that money? locals do not pay that kind of money when they rent. they will pay zar 1,000 or zar 1,500 only, not zar 4,000. we pay because we have no choice, we want to do business and survive.2 while over half of both groups of refugees paid rent to a private south african owner, this was more common in limpopo (almost 66%) (table 11). however, the average monthly rentals paid to landlords were very similar: zar 4,838 in cape town and zar 4,555 in limpopo. renting also provides refugees with a modicum of protection. as one noted, “if your landlord is respected or feared, then you are okay because the thugs will not come and break in.”3 the cape town refugee entrepreneurs were more likely to own their business premises although the numbers were small (7% compared to 2% in limpopo). fourth, the municipal government has a direct financial interest in its dealings with refugees. particularly in cape town, refugees pay into municipal coffers through rent for business sites. this amounted to 22% of the refugee entrepreneurs in cape town compared to only 4% in limpopo. these rents 1 focus group participant, burgersfort, 1 april 2016. 2 ibid. 3 ibid. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 808 were higher in cape town, an average of zar 879 per month compared to only zar 311 per month in limpopo. additionally, as many as 28% of limpopobased refugees (and 21% of those in cape town) pay an annual license fee to the municipality. the cost of a business license is much higher in cape town at zar 1,959 per year compared to only zar 752 per year in limpopo. table 11: occupancy status of business premises cape town refugees % limpopo refugees % cape town rent (r/month) limpopo rent (r/month) pay rent to private owner who is a south african (company or individual) 53.6 65.9 7,541 4,838 pay rent to council/municipality 21.5 3.8 860 879 pay rent to private owner who is not a south african (company or individual) 9.4 8.8 2,800 3,180 owner or part-owner 7.4 2.2 rent-free, with permission 5.2 6.4 rent-free, without permission 1.2 10.6 share space/premises with others 0.0 0.4 other 1.6 1.8 fifth, there is a growing consensus in the research literature that migrant businesses in the informal economy create jobs for south africans, and that this needs to be acknowledged by government. as one refugee observed: “the government does not want to accept that we are contributing. when they talk ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 809 about us they make it look like we are only taking, taking and taking from the south africans.”4 another pointed out the mutual benefits of employing south africans: we employ a lot of south africans. if your business starts to grow, you employ, not only our people from ethiopia, but also locals. they help with customers and other things. they speak the language and understand quickly what the customer wants. even though i understand the language, there are words that i do not know and so it is better when you employ a south african, they will talk and agree and i will communicate with my employee. the locals need work and we also need workers, so it is a mutual benefit.5 some refugees also find that employing south africans is a form of security against theft, although it can be a double-edged sword: it is good security because they will know the local thugs and thieves and so they may tell them to leave you alone. if you have a bad employee, they may connive with the thieves and steal from you, so it is both ways. sometimes we employ locals that we know, when we know their parents and we talk to them so that they do not steal and run away. it is better to employ someone from around the area, someone in the community.6 around half (52%) of the cape town refugee entrepreneurs and just under half (45%) of the limpopo entrepreneurs employ people in their businesses (table 12). in terms of the pro file of employees, the cape town and limpopo entrepreneurs were equally likely to employ south africans (around 50% of the total number of jobs created). while the limpopo entrepreneurs favoured female employees (51% versus 45% of total employees), both groups preferred to hire south african women over men (with 65-70% of south african employees in both sites being female). what this suggests is that, in both large cities and small urban areas, refugee entrepreneurs may be 4 ibid. 5 ibid. 6 ibid. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 810 providing jobs for more south african women than men and thereby contributing to lowering the female unemployment rate. table 12: employment generation by refugee enterprises cape town refugees limpopo refugees no. of employees % no. of employees % south african males 66 17.7 37 11.8 south african females 120 32.2 82 26.1 home country males 101 27.2 81 25.8 home country females 28 7.5 26 8.3 other country males 35 9.4 37 11.8 other country females 22 5.6 51 16.2 finally, it is clear from the accounts of refugees in both cape town and limpopo that one of the primary beneficiaries of their activities in the informal economy is the south african consumer who can access goods and services much more cheaply than from formal sector suppliers. these include necessities such as cheaper food for the food insecure, luxuries such as household and personal products and services such as panel-beating. for example, one group of five zimbabwean refugees in cape town (including a former teacher), operate a panel-beating and spray-painting business in an industrial area of the city. in a focus group, they discussed at length how and why they established the business, their business challenges and the nature of the service they offer to south africans: we are very good at this business. there are many people who come here because they cannot afford to repair their cars in these expensive garages, so we are offering them services otherwise they would not be driving their cars. that is a good service we are offering. some of the customers actually go to the garages first and the charges there will make them come to us (focus group discussion, cape town, 22 february 2016). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 811 these refugees also argued, in a prescient manner, that their activities saved the south african government and the unhcr from having to support them. as one commented: “in europe the governments look after the refugees and every month they get paid like they are working. but here we are working for ourselves and are saving the government a lot of money.”7 conclusion this paper aims to contribute to the literature on urban refugee livelihoods in the global south and, in particular, to a small but growing body of work on urban refugee entrepreneurship in cities of refuge (campbell, 2005, 2006; gastrow & amit, 2013; omata, 2012; pavanello et al., 2015; thompson, 2016). the concept of ‘refugee economies’ is a valuable starting point for restoring agency, self-reliance and innovation to populations all too often represented as passive victims. one of the defining characteristics of many large cities in the rapidly urbanising south is the high degree of informality of shelter, services and economic livelihoods. as simone (2004) argues, this involves “highly mobile and provisional possibilities for how people live and make things, how they use the urban environment and collaborate with one another.” furthermore, these urban spaces provide for “upscaling a variety of entrepreneurial activities through the dense intersections of actors from different countries and situations.” it is these dynamic, shifting and dangerous informal urban spaces in which refugees often arrive, with few resources other than a will to survive, a few social contacts and a drive to support themselves in the absence of financial support from the host government and international agencies. south africa is sometimes hailed as having an extremely progressive refugee protection regime by the standards of the rest of africa. refugees enjoy freedoms denied in other countries, including the right to move and live anywhere and the right to work and be self-employed. many opt for employment and self-employment in the informal economy because they find it extremely difficult to access the formal labour market or to establish and operate a business in the formal economy. newly-arrived refugees, including 7 focus group discussion, cape town, 22 february 2016. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 812 those with advanced skills and professional qualifications, initially find themselves accepting menial work on construction sites or as dish-washers in restaurants. those with relatives or friends already in the country often work in their informal businesses until they have saved enough money to launch their own. they start small and, with extremely hard work, self-sacrifice and hardship, their businesses take off. thus, south africa provides an important example of refugee self-reliance, motivation and agency through informal entrepreneurship. at the same time, south africa is one of the most xenophobic countries in the world and migrants of any kind are extremely unwelcome. large-scale violence directed at migrants and refugees wracked the country in 2008 and again in 2015. in this span of time, extreme xenophobia, in the form of violent attacks on migrant and refugee-owned shops and small businesses, has escalated. the state refuses to acknowledge that xenophobia exists, much less that something should be done about it. attacks on foreign businesses are dismissed as general criminality, which might be an acceptable rhetorical position if there was evidence that the police provide adequate protection and justice for the victims. the evidence of human rights observers and previous studies, and confirmed here, is that policing is lackadaisical at best and certainly does very little to protect refugees from re-victimisation in their chosen country of refuge. the fact that informal businesses started and run by refugees have become a particular target means that the south african city has become a hazardous place for refugee entrepreneurs. refugee economic opportunity and entrepreneurial activity is likely to vary significantly between camp and urban environments. this paper has addressed the question of variability between urban environments within the same destination country by comparing refugee entrepreneurship in the large city of cape town with a population of over 3 million and several small towns in the predominantly rural province of limpopo, none with a population larger than 150,000. the research shows that refugee entrepreneurial activity in limpopo is a more recent phenomenon and is largely a function of refugees moving away from large cities such as johannesburg where their businesses and lives are in greater danger. while somali refugees predominate in cape ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 813 town and ethiopian refugees in limpopo, the refugee populations in both areas are equally diverse and tend to be engaged in the same wide range of activities. less start-up capital is needed in limpopo but the refugees in both areas pursue similar business strategies and make similar contributions to the local economies. they face many of the same business challenges, including problems with documentation and the refusal of banks to offer credit, although small town policing appears to be harsher and more corrupt. while south african consumers clearly benefit from and appreciate their presence, migrant entrepreneurs are more vulnerable to xenophobic violence in cape town than limpopo. in short, different urban geographies do shape the local nature of refugee entrepreneurial economies, but there are also remarkable similarities in the manner in which unconnected refugee entrepreneurs establish and grow their businesses in large cities and small provincial towns. acknowledgements we wish to thank the unhcr geneva for funding 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(eds.). 2008. go home or die here: violence, xenophobia and the reinvention of difference in south africa. johannesburg: wits university press. idemudia, e., williams, j. and wyatt, g. 2013. migration challenges among zimbabwean refugees before, during and post arrival in south africa. journal of injury and violence research, 5: 17-27. jacobsen, k. 2005. the economic lives of refugees. bloomfield, ct: kumarian press. jacobsen, k. 2006. refugees and asylum seekers in urban areas: a livelihoods perspective. journal of refugee studies, 19: 273-286. jinnah, z. 2010. making home in a hostile land: understanding somali identity, integration, livelihood and risks in johannesburg. journal of sociology and social anthropology, 1: 91-99. kavuro, c. 2015. refugees and asylum seekers: barriers to accessing south africa's labour market. law, democracy and development, 19: 232-260. kew, j. 2015. africa’s young entrepreneurs: unlocking the potential for a brighter future. ottawa: idrc. koizumi, k. and hoffsteadter, g. 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(ed.). 2012. exorcising the demons within: xenophobia, violence and statecraft in contemporary south africa. johannesburg: wits university press. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=idemudia%20es%5bauthor%5d&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=22095004 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=williams%20jk%5bauthor%5d&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=22095004 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc3591728/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc3591728/ http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_serial&pid=2077-4907&lng=en&nrm=iso ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 817 lyytinen, e. and kullenberg, j. 2013. urban refugee research: an analytical report. new york: international rescue committee and women’s refugee commission. mothibi, k., roelofse, c. and tshivhase, t. 2015. xenophobic attacks on foreign shop owners and street vendors in louis trichardt central business district, limpopo province. journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11: 151-162. okpechi, a. 2011. access to justice by refugees and asylum seekers in south africa. ph.d. thesis, cape town: university of cape town. omata, n. 2012. refugee livelihoods and the private sector: ugandan case study. refugee studies centre working paper series no. 86, oxford: university of oxford. omata, n. and kaplan, j. 2013. refugee livelihoods in kampala, nakivale and kyangwali refugee settlements: patterns of engagement with the private sector. refugee studies centre working paper series no. 95, oxford: university of oxford. omata, n. and weaver, n. 2015. assessing economic impacts of hosting refugees: conceptual, methodological and ethical gaps. refugee studies centre working paper series no. 11, oxford: university of oxford. owen, j. 2015. congolese social networks: living on the margins in muizenberg, cape town. lanham, md: rowman and littlefield. pavanello, s. elhawary, s. and pantuliano, s. 2015. hidden and exposed: urban refugees. in: koizumi, k. and hoffstaedter, g. (eds.). urban refugees: challenges in protection, services and policy. london: routledge. piper, l. and charman, a. 2016. xenophobia, price competition and violence in the spaza sector in south africa. african human mobility review, 2: 332-361. polzer ngwato, t. 2013. policy shifts in the south african asylum system: evidence and implications. pretoria: lhr and acms. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 818 ramatheje, g. and mtapuri, o. 2014. a dialogue on migration: residents and foreign nationals in limpopo, south africa. mediterranean journal of social sciences, 5: 573-585. roever, s. and skinner, c. 2016. street vendors and cities. environment and urbanization, 28: 359-374. sadouni, s. (2009). god is not unemployed: journeys of somali refugees in johannesburg. african studies, 68: 235-249. simone, a. 2004. people as infrastructure: intersecting fragments in johannesburg. public culture, 16: 407-442. smit, r. and rugunanan, p. 2014. from precarious lives to precarious work: the dilemma facing refugees in gauteng, south africa. south african journal of sociology, 45: 4-26. steinberg, j. 2012. security and disappointment: policing, freedom and xenophobia in south africa. british journal of criminology, 52: 345-360. tawodzera, g., chikanda, a., crush, j. and tengeh, r. 2015. international migrants and refugees in cape town’s informal economy. samp migration policy series no. 70, cape town: samp. thompson, d. 2016. risky business and geographies of refugee capitalism in the somali migrant economy of gauteng, south africa. journal of ethnic and migration studies, 42: 120-135. unhcr (united nations high commissioner for refugees). 2014. global strategy for livelihoods, a 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between the informal business operations of south africans and international migrants are increasingly common. the conventional wisdom is that survivalist south africans are being displaced by entrepreneurial migrants with a long tradition of informal enterprise. this paper is the first attempt to explicitly compare the informal enterprises established by refugees and south african migrants in urban areas. the paper is based on a comparative analysis of over 2,000 refugee and south african informal enterprises. the stereotyping of refugees in public discourse as undermining and destroying south african competitors is far-removed from the reality. the idea that refugees have a competitive advantage as experienced entrepreneurs is also clearly fallacious. refugees are extremely motivated, hard-working and dedicated, and employ a number of legitimate business strategies to achieve success. to suggest, on the other hand, that south african migrants are poor business people is equally fallacious. while refugees seem able to access greater amounts of start-up capital (although neither they nor south africans can access formal bank loans), both groups are seemingly able to grow their businesses. thus, there is a need for much greater nuance in policy and academic discussions about the impact of refugee migration on the south african informal economy. keywords informal sector, business strategies, xenophobia, refugee entrepreneurs, south african migrant entrepreneurs. * international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb st west, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l6c2. email address: jcrush@balsillieschool.ca ** balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb st west, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l6c2. email address: cmccordic@balsillieschool.ca mailto:cmccordic@balsillieschool.ca ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 821 introduction in 2014, south africa’s minister of small business development, lindiwe zulu, publicly compared south african and migrant informal entrepreneurs. she suggested that south africans were largely inept business owners who should learn from the business practices of their foreign counterparts who were “better at running shops than the local owners” (zwane, 2014). at the same time, south africans were said to be at a natural disadvantage because they had no history of entrepreneurship. the reason for refugee success, she continued, is that business “is in their blood […] from the moment they are born, they are introduced to trade. their mothers, uncles, everyone trades.” as a result, they “operate in the same communities in which we fail” (zwane, 2014). such stereotypical comparisons of refugee and south african informal business are echoed in the research literature. there is a common idea in the business literature, for example, that poor black south africans lack entrepreneurial ambition and this, in turn, helps explain the relatively small size of the south african informal economy and the high rate of local informal business failure (hutchinson & de beer, 2013; iwu et al., 2016; ligthelm, 2011; preisendörfer et al., 2012a, 2012b, 2014a, 2014b). this paper sets out to examine and contest the contrasting stereotypes that surround both south african and refugee entrepreneurs. comparisons between the informal business operations of south africans and international migrants are increasingly common. the conventional wisdom is that “survivalist” south africans in the informal economy are being displaced by “entrepreneurial” migrants (charman et al., 2012). south africans supposedly display a “survivalist mentality and one dimensional [business] strategy,” leading to poorer performance than migrants (basardien et al., 2014: 57). comparing south african and somali spaza shop owners in cape town, basardien et al. (2014) found that the latter scored better on various indicators of entrepreneurial orientation, including achievement, innovation, personal initiative and autonomy. in addition, migrant businesses grew faster and created more jobs than south african businesses. by contrast, some have suggested that business failure is not inevitable and that south african survivalists can grow their enterprises and create jobs (choto et al., 2014; iwu ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 822 et al., 2016). other studies have suggested that the gap between south african and migrant entrepreneurs is not as great as is commonly supposed. one study of 500 retail enterprises in gauteng, for example, found that motivations to start a business did not differ significantly between south africans and immigrants (radipere, 2012; radipere & dhliwayo, 2014). callaghan and venter’s (2011) study of street traders in inner-city johannesburg concluded that south africans were actually more innovative than migrants, although they did not display the same levels of proactiveness and competitive aggression. while migrant traders had earned more than their south african counterparts in 2008 and 2010, in 2009 the south africans were the higher earners (callaghan, 2013). what is often overlooked in the public discourse and research literature about informal business competition between south africans and non-south africans is the fact that many south africans in the informal economy are themselves migrants. by consistently representing business and other competition as a conflict between ‘south africans’ and ‘foreigners,’ the fact that much of the supposed competition is between two groups of migrants is lost. therefore, this paper aims to systematically compare a group of south african and non-south african migrant entrepreneurs and to assess the similarities and differences between them. the two groups are (i) refugees (holders of section 24 permits) in cape town and limpopo and (ii) south african migrants operating businesses in the same localities. the survey drew a sample of 1,068 south african migrant entrepreneurs and 1,008 refugee entrepreneurs (split approximately equally across the two locations of cape town and urban limpopo). the maximum variation sampling methodology used to select the refugees for interview is explained in crush et al. (2015). exactly the same procedure was used to select the comparator group of south african informal business; that is, random selection of respondents within each area identified. for the purposes of this comparative analysis, we have combined the two sub-groups of refugees (in cape town and limpopo) into one group and have done the same with the south africans. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 823 motivating entrepreneurship south africans and refugees appear to face very different livelihood prospects in the country’s urban areas. although south africa does not have refugee encampment policy and refugees are permitted by law to pursue employment, there is much evidence to suggest that they face considerable barriers in accessing the formal labour market (crea et al., 2016; jinnah, 2010; kavuro, 2015; rugunanan & smit, 2011). they have been shut out of the security industry (where many were initially employed) and they face considerable hurdles in getting employers to accept their documentation. south africans, on the other hand, should theoretically have none of these problems but they face other hurdles including limited skills and training, job competition, and high rates of unemployment (currently around 30% nationally and as high as 45% amongst urban youth) (graham & de lannoy, 2016; klasen & woolard, 2009). south african migrants to the cities often end up living in informal settlements far from formal job opportunities, and also have to compete in the job market with long-time residents of the city who have a significant geographical and networking advantage. for both sets of migrants, then, the informal economy can often be the only livelihood niche they can find. the general literature on informal entrepreneurship conventionally divides participants into survival (or necessity) entrepreneurs and opportunity entrepreneurs (williams, 2007, 2015; williams & gurtoo, 2012; williams & youseff, 2014). the former are driven to participate purely by the need to survive and because they have no other choice. the latter choose to work in the informal sector because they see greater opportunities for economic advancement, they prefer to work for themselves rather than for others or they feel that they have the right aptitude. distinguishing between these two types of entrepreneur and their likely differences in entrepreneurial motivation and orientation has generated a large body of empirical and methodological literature. in the south african context, studies of entrepreneurial motivation have sought to go beyond the idea of survivalism and demonstrate that many participants in the informal economy are not driven there out of desperation but are highly motivated entrepreneurs ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 824 (callaghan & venter, 2011; fatoki & patswawairi, 2012; khosa & kalitanyi, 2015; venter, 2012). one of the most common ways of deciding what lies behind personal decisions to establish an informal enterprise is to measure what is known as entrepreneurial motivation. this involves the development of possible reasons why the informal enterprise was started and then asking respondents to rank them on a likert scale from 1 (no importance) to 5 (extremely important). in this study, both refugees and south african migrants were presented with 24 different possibilities to rate. a mean score was calculated for each group on each statement (table 1). for ease of interpretation, we have grouped the 24 statements under 4 main themes (a) economic survival; (b) provision of employment or a service to others; (c) business experience and appeal and (d) entrepreneurial orientation. two things immediately stand out from a descriptive comparison of means. first, both refugees and migrants tend to assign the same relative importance to each of the 24 factors, which might suggest that they have a similar motivational profile, rating the same factors as relatively important and unimportant. the second notable finding is that almost across the board, even on statements that had a low mean score, refugees scored more highly than south african migrants. this could indicate a greater general degree of commitment to participation in the informal economy amongst refugees. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 825 table 1: entrepreneurial motivation of refugees and south africans south africans (mean score) refugees (mean score) economic survival/financial support of dependants i needed more money just to survive 4.10 4.31 i wanted to give my family greater financial security 3.69 3.97 i was unemployed and unable to find a job 3.43 2.89 i wanted to make more money to send to my family in my home area/country 3.00 3.57 i had a job but it did not pay enough 2.29 2.24 i had a job but it did not suit my qualifications and experience 1.44 1.62 providing employment/product/service i wanted to provide a product/service to south africans 2.74 3.41 i wanted to contribute to the development of south africa 2.69 3.35 i wanted to provide a service/product to non-south africans/migrants and refugees 2.46 3.00 i wanted to provide employment for people from my home area/country 1.93 2.25 i wanted to provide employment for members of my family 2.19 2.27 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 826 i wanted to provide employment for other south africans 2.10 2.29 business experience/appeal i wanted more control over my own time/to be my own boss 3.08 3.72 i have always wanted to run my own business 3.06 3.75 support and help in starting my business was available from other south africans/refugees 2.05 3.03 i decided to go into business in partnership with others 1.62 2.37 my family has always been involved in business 1.81 2.34 entrepreneurial orientation i have the right personality to run my own business 3.01 3.45 i wanted to do something new and challenging 2.83 3.34 i like to learn new skills 2.83 3.41 i enjoy taking risks 2.73 3.24 i like to challenge myself 2.84 3.37 i wanted to increase my status in the community 2.48 2.99 i wanted to compete with others and be the best 2.48 3.07 significantly, the only two reasons for entrepreneurship on which south africans scored higher than refugees were “i was unemployed and unable to find a job” and “i had a job but it did not pay enough.” this suggests that for south african migrants, informal sector participation is more closely tied to the absence of formal employment than it is for refugees. of the four groups of factors, economic survival motivations scored most highly for both groups, and providing an employment or service was the least important. the highest ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 827 single factor for both groups was the need for more money to survive (both with means over 4.0). also very important for both was the desire to provide family with greater financial security and the desire to make more money to remit to family at home. in other words, financial support of dependants is a strong motivating factor for informal sector entrepreneurship. neither group was highly motivated by a desire to provide employment for others, but refugees were ironically much more likely to be motivated by a desire to provide a service or product to south africans (3.41 versus 2.74) and to contribute to the development of south africa (3.35 versus 2.69). although both groups said that wanting to run their own business and be their own boss was important to them, the refugees scored significantly higher on both factors. one of the major differences between the two was the amount of help and support they could count on from others, with refugees scoring much higher than south africans (3.03 versus 2.05). refugees were also consistently more positive about their personal aptitude for running a business. this is clear in the grouping of entrepreneurial orientation factors where refugees scored above 3.0 on 6 of the 7 factors, compared to south africans who scored above 3.0 on only 1 of the 7 factors. while these frequency distributions tell an interesting story about the differences and similarities between south african migrant and refugee entrepreneurs, it is difficult to gauge their statistical significance. the main challenge is that the dependent variable for the comparison (the importance ranking for each variable) is at an ordinal level of measurement with varying distributions across each sampled group. this means that we need to use nonparametric tests of difference and bin the motivation factors into binary level indicators. each indicator was therefore assigned two values: not important (1 in the original scale) and important (2-5 in the original scale). a combination of odds ratio calculations and pearson’s chi-square test of independence were used to test for significance. the odds ratio calculations show how migrant status is associated with a change in the odds of ranking each motivation factor (where a value greater than 1 indicates increased odds and less than 1 indicates decreased odds). these calculations are supported by 95% confidence intervals and the p-values taken from a chi-square analysis (where ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 828 an alpha of 0.05 is used as a threshold for a statistically significant difference in the distribution of scores across the two groups) (table 2). table 2: odds ratio calculations of motivational factors entrepreneurial motivation factor odds ratio 95% confidence interval pearson chisquare df pvalue (2sided) lower upper i was unemployed and unable to find a job** 0.496 0.411 0.599 54.036 1 <.001 i had a job but it did not pay enough 1.012 0.851 1.204 .019 1 0.895 i had a job but it did not suit my qualifications and experience** 1.631 1.322 2.012 21.088 1 <.001 i wanted to provide employment for members of my family** 1.344 1.128 1.600 10.970 1 0.001 i wanted to provide employment for people from my home area/country** 1.840 1.540 2.198 45.499 1 <.001 i wanted to provide employment for 1.597 1.341 1.902 27.682 1 <.001 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 829 other south africans** i needed more money just to survive** 1.770 1.275 2.457 11.880 1 0.001 i wanted to give my family greater financial security** 1.651 1.294 2.105 16.483 1 <.001 i wanted to make more money to send to my family in my home area/country** 2.942 2.393 3.618 109.114 1 <.001 i decided to go into business in partnership with others** 2.931 2.423 3.545 126.855 1 <.001 support and help in starting my business was available from other south africans/refugees ** 3.155 2.635 3.778 160.774 1 <.001 my family has always been involved in business** 2.149 1.793 2.575 69.422 1 <.001 i wanted to provide a service/product 2.085 1.741 2.496 64.788 1 <.001 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 830 to non-south africans/migrant s and refugees** i wanted to provide a product/service to south africans** 2.550 2.103 3.093 92.934 1 <.001 i have always wanted to run my own business** 2.806 2.268 3.471 94.245 1 <.001 i have the right personality to run my own business** 2.176 1.787 2.650 61.018 1 <.001 i wanted to do something new and challenging** 2.289 1.890 2.772 73.209 1 <.001 i like to learn new skills** 2.590 2.128 3.153 92.620 1 <.001 i enjoy taking risks** 2.299 1.901 2.781 75.044 1 <.001 i like to challenge myself** 2.466 2.028 2.998 83.975 1 <.001 i wanted more control over my own time/to be my own boss** 2.887 2.331 3.574 98.785 1 <.001 i wanted to increase my 2.193 1.832 2.626 74.095 1 <.001 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 831 status in the community** i wanted to compete with others and be the best** 2.581 2.151 3.096 106.434 1 <.001 i wanted to contribute to the development of south africa** 3.677 3.001 4.505 166.788 1 <.001 * p<.05 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test ** p<.01 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test note: odds ratios measure change in odds from refugee to south african entrepreneurs the major conclusions from the analysis are as follows: first, refugee entrepreneurs have about 50% lower odds of starting their business because of being unable to find a job. second, refugees had four times the odds of desiring to contribute to the development of south africa and three times the odds of stressing the importance of obtaining help from others in starting their business and going into partnership with others. third, refugees had nearly three times the odds of starting a business with the intention of remitting money to family at home. finally, refugees had two to three times the odds of assigning importance to the range of personal entrepreneurial orientation factors. contrasting business profiles the survey highlighted a number of similarities and differences in the informal business activities of refugee and south african migrant enterprises. firstly, more south africans had been in business for a longer period of time (table 3 and figure 1). for example, 19% of the south african businesses were established before 2000, compared to only 2% of the refugee businesses. however, the majority of all businesses were started in the last decade, with 61% of refugee businesses and 44% of south african businesses established ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 832 after 2010. this finding is certainly consistent with the general perception that refugees have been entering the informal economy in growing numbers. table 3: year of business establishment year south africans refugees no. % no. % <= 1990 46 4.4 1 0.1 1991-1995 49 4.7 1 0.1 1996-2000 115 11.0 18 1.8 2001-2005 124 11.9 70 7.1 2006-2010 246 23.6 293 29.6 2011-2016 462 44.3 608 61.4 total 1,042 100.0 991 100.0 figure 1: year of business establishment 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 <= 1990 1991 – 1995 1996 – 2000 2001 – 2005 2006 – 2010 2011 – 2016 % year of business establishment south africans refugees ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 833 second, since both groups are migrants to the city, it is important to see if they go into business as soon as they arrive or if business start-up comes at a later time. only 32% of refugees and 21% of south africans started a business within the first year of arrival (table 4). this general pattern of a greater time lapse on the part of the south africans is further demonstrated by the fact that 41% of them started their business within two years of arrival, compared to 61% of the refugees. both groups have similar numbers who waited 3 to 10 years, but starting a business after 10 years or more was definitely a south african preserve (at 24% compared to 3% of refugees). the general time lapse in both groups indicates that immediate start-up is not an option for most. rather, both tend to work first in the formal or informal economy, often to raise the start-up capital to branch out on their own. table 4: time lapse between year of migration and business start-up south africans refugees years no. % no. % 0 213 21.4 304 32.0 1-2 196 19.7 277 29.2 3-5 173 17.4 201 21.2 6-10 172 17.3 140 14.7 >10 242 24.3 28 2.9 third, it is theoretically possible that the shorter time-lag between migration and start-up amongst refugees is also because they have prior business experience. this would certainly be consistent with the views of minister zulu summarised at the beginning of this paper (zwane, 2014). the respondents were all asked what their main occupation was prior to leaving their home country or area. only 9% of the south africans said they were operating their own informal sector business. the figure for refugees was higher, at 18%, but ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 834 this does not suggest a massive competitive advantage conferred by prior experience. in other words, over 80% of the refugee entrepreneurs were not operating an informal sector business prior to migrating to south africa. the stereotypical idea that refugees somehow have business “in their blood” is, therefore, not supported by the evidence of this survey. fourth, the survey found that the majority of enterprises of both refugees and south african migrants are located in the retail sector (table 5). a small number of businesses (9% of refugees and 6% of south africans) are involved in more than one sector; for example, a business that manufactured and sold arts and crafts would count as both a retail and manufacturing enterprise. or a business offering a service, such as a hair salon, may also be involved in retailing products. at this sectoral level of analysis, it appears that there is potential for significant intra-sectoral competition between the two groups. however, if the activity profile is disaggregated, the picture is more nuanced (table 6). table 5: sectors of informal business operation south africans refugees sector no. % no. % retail, trade and wholesale 828 77.5 778 77.2 services 262 24.5 271 26.9 manufacturing 41 3.8 60 6.0 other 4 0.4 2 0.2 note: multiple response question ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 835 table 6: main goods and services provided % of total enterprises owned by south africans % of total enterprises owned by refugees % of south africans selling product or service % of refugee s selling product or service retail food and beverages fruit and vegetables 27.1 13.4 68.2 31.8 cooked food (ready to eat) 18.4 6.7 74.3 25.7 confectionary 17.5 17.0 52.2 47.8 canned drinks 13.1 22.3 38.4 61.6 livestock (e.g. chickens) 1.7 0.2 90.0 10.0 alcohol 0.9 0.4 71.4 28.6 personal and household goods cigarettes 13.3 19.9 40.8 59.2 clothing and footwear 7.7 19.5 29.4 70.6 accessories (bags, sunglasses) 6.1 16.5 28.1 71.9 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 836 toiletries and cosmetics 3.9 14.8 22.0 78.0 household products 3.4 9.3 27.7 72.3 electronics 1.8 7.5 20.0 80.0 cds/dvds 1.1 2.6 31.6 68.4 books/newspapers 0.7 2.9 19.4 80.6 other goods arts and crafts 1.1 2.6 31.6 68.4 hardware/tools 1.1 2.2 35.3 64.7 car parts 0.5 0.5 50.0 50.0 other 15.3 14.2 53.2 46.8 services haircutting and braiding 6.4 15.1 30.9 69.1 car washing 3.4 0.4 90.0 10.0 car parking/guarding 2.3 0.0 100.0 0.0 shoe repairs 2.0 0.7 75.0 25.0 car repairs 1.2 0.5 27.8 72.2 telephone 1.2 1.6 44.8 55.2 it/internet 0.9 2.7 27.0 73.0 transportation (taxi/passengers) 0.5 0.2 71.4 0.2 rentals 0.4 0.1 80.0 20.0 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 837 financial (loans) 0.3 0.1 75.0 25.0 accommodation 0.2 0.2 50.0 50.0 construction (building) 0.2 0.0 100.0 0.0 traditional doctor 0.2 0.2 50.0 50.0 transportation (goods) 0.2 0.1 66.6 33.4 medicine (pharmacy) 0.1 0.1 50.0 50.0 other 5.3 5.6 50.4 49.6 manufacturing sewing/tailoring 1.7 2.0 47.4 52.6 arts and crafts 0.7 0.4 66.6 33.4 shoe repair 0.5 0.5 50.0 50.0 furniture making 0.4 0.6 40.0 60.0 security (gates and burglar bars) 0.1 0.4 20.0 80.0 waste recycling 0.0 0.1 0.0 100.0 other 0.6 1.9 24.0 76.0 table 6 shows that at least some south africans and refugees are involved in every activity. however, they also tend to occupy and dominate different niches. south africans are more strongly represented in food retail (the main exception being confectionary and the sale of canned drinks with roughly equal participation). around 70% of the entrepreneurs who were selling fresh produce and cooked food were south africans. on the other hand, over 70% of those selling most types of personal and household products were refugees. in ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 838 the service sector, refugees dominate hair cutting and braiding, as well as car repairs and it. south africans tend to dominate shoe repairs, transportation and car washing and guarding. in the manufacturing sector, there is less differentiation, although the overall numbers of participants are small compared with retail and services. fourth, there was a significant difference in the amount of start-capital used by the two groups (figure 2). almost 80% of the south africans started their businesses with less than zar 5,000, while the equivalent figure was only 27% for refugees. at the other end of the spectrum, only 6% of the south africans had start-up capital of more than zar 20,000, compared to 43% of the refugees. this certainly suggests that refugees have access to greater amounts of start-up capital but it may also be that the barriers to entry are much lower in the food sector (which is dominated by south africans) as the initial spend on stock is likely much lower than for businesses selling personal and household goods. it is significant that of the 28% of refugees who started with less than zar 5,000, most were food retailers. figure 2: amount of start-up capital 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 % startup capital amount south africans refugees ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 839 fifth, both groups had added value to their businesses since start-up (table 7). for example, while 78% of south africans started with less than zar 5,000, only 40% valued their enterprise as still less than zar 5,000 (a fall of 28%). similarly, with refugees the equivalent figures were 28% and 9% (a fall of 19%). the proportion of south african businesses with a current value of over zar 20,000 was 25% (compared to only 6% at start-up). in the case of refugees, the equivalent figures were 70% and 43%). in other words, 19% of south africans and 27% of refugees had moved up into the highest value bracket. table 7: current business value south africans refugees no. % no. % less than zar5,000 349 40.1 75 8.5 zar5,000-9,999 177 20.3 83 9.4 zar10,000-19,999 128 14.7 110 12.4 zar20,000-29,999 57 6.6 110 12.4 zar30,000-49,999 59 6.8 115 13.0 zar50,000-99,999 46 5.3 148 16.7 zar100,000-199,999 28 3.2 135 15.2 zar200,000-499,999 18 2.1 93 10.5 zar500,000-999,999 3 0.3 12 1.4 <=zar1,000,000 5 0.6 5 0.6 total 870 100.0 886 100.0 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 840 to assess the statistical significance of these differences, key variable comparisons were drawn out from the frequency distributions and binned into binary-level variables. these included (a) year of establishment (<=2010 and > 2010); (b) start-up capital (<zar 5,000 and >zar 5,000); and (c) current business value (<zar 5,000 and >zar 5,000). the odds ratio calculations performed in table 8 provide convergent validity for the observed frequency distributions. independent of the influence of any other variables, the south african entrepreneurs had almost twice the odds of running a business established before 2011, almost ten times the odds of starting a business with less than zar 5,000 and almost seven times the odds of currently running a business valued at less than zar 5,000. all of these comparisons yielded pvalues less than the alpha of 0.01 on both the pearson’s chi-square test and the fisher’s exact test. table 8: odds ratio calculations of business characteristics 95% c.i. p-values variables odds ratio lower upper chisquare fisher's exact test established business before 2011** 1.993 1.67 2.379 <.001 <.001 less than r5,000 in startup amount** 9.579 7.772 11.807 <.001 <.001 less than r5,000 in current value ** 7.243 5.515 9.514 <.001 <.001 * p<.05 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test ** p<.01 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test note: odds ratios measure change in odds from refugee to south african entrepreneurs ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 841 business strategies given the official and business literature perception that non-south africans are much better at running businesses than their south african counterparts, it is important to see if the two groups pursue different business strategies and activities. the first point of comparison concerns where the two groups choose to locate their business operations. in the case of cape town, there are areas of the city where each group tends to dominate: refugee businesses are more common in the cbd and bellville, for instance, while south africans are more commonly located along transport routes in and out of the city (such as on streets and at taxi ranks and bus terminals). this difference is clear from table 9. half of the south africans operate stalls on roadsides and 21% operate at taxi ranks. this compares with only 31% and 2% of refugees, respectively. the other major difference is that half of the refugees operate from a fixed shop or workshop, compared to only 8% of the south africans. table 9: usual location of business activities south africans refugees business location no. % no. % temporary stall on the street/roadside 290 27.2 166 16.5 permanent stall on the street/roadside 246 23.0 147 14.6 taxi rank 221 20.7 22 2.2 in my home 102 9.6 34 3.4 no fixed location, mobile 87 8.1 26 2.6 workshop or shop 86 8.1 525 52.1 permanent stall in a market 87 8.1 106 10.5 bus terminal 52 4.9 9 0.9 railway station 21 2.0 1 0.1 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 842 vehicle (car, truck, motor bike, bike) 19 1.8 3 0.3 in customer’s home 16 1.5 16 1.6 craft market 6 0.6 7 0.7 restaurant or hotel 2 0.2 8 0.8 other 37 3.5 38 3.8 note: multiple choice question in addition to the observed variations in business location, the reasons for locational decisions also varied between the two groups (table 10). when compared with the refugee entrepreneurs, the south african migrant entrepreneurs had greater odds of choosing a business location based on it having the greatest number of customers, the tradition of doing business in a location, the cheapness of land and a limited number of police in the area. the refugees had higher odds of choosing their business location based on the other locational factors, especially access to services, property rentals, safety concerns and distance from other competitors. table 10: odds ratio calculations of reasons for business location 95% c.i. for o.r. p-values reasons odds ratio lower upper chisquare fisher's exact test place with greatest number of customers** 2.231 1.707 2.915 <.001 <.001 access to services such as water/electricity** 0.341 0.284 0.409 <.001 <.001 have a permit to operate there** 0.746 0.624 0.893 .001 .001 rents are cheaper 0.969 0.807 1.163 0.732 0.744 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 843 safer than other locations** 0.673 0.564 0.803 <.001 <.001 due to passing traffic 0.949 0.775 1.163 0.615 0.641 close to home 0.869 0.73 1.036 0.117 0.118 own/rent the land** 0.458 0.381 0.55 <.001 <.001 close to other enterprises* 0.825 0.692 0.984 0.032 0.035 distant from other competitors** 0.647 0.534 0.784 <.001 <.001 always done business there** 1.262 1.061 1.501 0.009 0.009 close to public transport 0.987 0.811 1.2 0.893 0.92 cheap land** 1.739 1.424 2.123 <.001 <.001 few or no police* 1.251 1.017 1.54 0.034 0.035 * p<.05 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test ** p<.01 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test note: odds ratios measure change in odds from refugee to south african entrepreneurs refugee entrepreneurs were much more likely than south africans to rent their business premises (table 11). almost 60% of them paid rent to a south african landlord. another 13% paid rent to the municipality (as did 10% of the south africans). nearly 50% of south africans operated their businesses rentfree (compared to only 5% of refugees). what this means, in effect, is that around three-quarters of south africans do not pay any rent for their premises, while over 80% of refugees do. the refugee entrepreneurs also pay a higher monthly rent, on average, than those south africans who do pay rent (zar 4,000 per month versus zar 2,820 per month). in effect, many south africans are able to augment their household income through renting business premises to refugees and therefore benefit from their presence. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 844 table 11: occupancy/tenure status of business premises south africans refugees tenure status no. % no. % rent-free, with permission 276 26.1 58 5.8 i own it/am part owner 256 24.2 48 4.8 rent-free, without permission (squatting) 214 20.3 59 5.9 pay rent to private owner who is a south african (company or individual) 145 13.7 595 59.7 pay rent to council/municipality 104 9.8 126 12.7 share space/premises with others 28 2.7 2 0.2 pay rent to private owner who is not a south african (company or individual) 17 1.6 91 9.1 other 16 1.5 17 1.7 another area of business strategy comparison concerns where the two groups source their goods and whether they tend to patronise the same outlets (table 12). most of the respondent refugees buy their supplies at wholesalers while south africans patronise wholesalers and supermarkets in almost equal numbers. south african respondents also obtain goods from fresh produce markets and direct from farms in greater numbers. with the exception of factory purchase, refugees tend to spend more on average at all outlets. for example, while fewer refugees patronise supermarkets, their average monthly spend is zar 8,693 compared with only zar 3,219 by the south africans. in total, the south african respondents spend more than the refugees at supermarkets, fresh produce markets and buying direct from farms. refugees spend five times as much on average at wholesalers and a great deal more in total (zar 21 million compared to less than zar 2 million). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 845 table 12: patronage of different suppliers south africans refugees source % of total using source mean monthly spend (zar) total annual spend (zar) % using source mean monthly spend (zar) total annual spend (zar) wholesaler 27.8 6,248 1,855,724 61.0 34,728 21,357,827 supermarkets 27.3 3,219 936,642 8.5 8,693 747,640 small shops/retailers 11.4 1,798 219,407 11.0 6,282 697,350 fresh produce markets 9.6 4,751 489,364 4.9 16,869 826,600 direct from farms 9.6 8,875 905,270 1.2 14,708 176,500 direct from factory 7.4 32,216 2,545,050 8.2 11,924 977,800 sa informal sector enterprises 5.5 1,956 115,391 3.2 5,391 172,520 non-sa informal sector enterprises 3.2 1,607 54,650 6.7 13,246 887,500 other sources 5.1 3,486 188,250 4.6 10,838 498,525 there is a common assumption that other strategies adopted by refugees give them a strong competitive advantage over south africans. in addition to greater business acumen and skills, they have been viewed, inter alia, as securing discounts through group purchasing, offering credit to consumers, operating for longer hours and selling goods more cheaply. statistical ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 846 comparison of these, and other, business strategies indicates their relative importance to each group (table 13). the refugees had lower odds of adjusting their operating hours to times of the day when there were most customers and purchasing insurance. south african migrant entrepreneurs had lower odds of operating for extended hours (0.743) and individual bulk purchasing (0.67). however, they were two to five times as likely to keep business records (0.475), sell goods more cheaply than competitors (0.395), purchase in bulk with others (0.244) and negotiate with suppliers (0.340). table 13: odds ratio calculations of business strategies 95% c.i. for o.r. p-values odds ratio lower upper chisquare fisher's exact test i open my business only during the periods of the day when i have the most customers* 1.213 1.020 1.443 0.029 0.030 i purchase insurance 1.078 0.732 1.587 0.703 0.768 i offer credit for customers 0.918 0.770 1.093 0.336 0.348 i extend my hours of operation** 0.743 0.620 0.890 .001 0.001 i purchase stock in bulk myself** 0.670 0.562 0.800 <.001 <.001 i change different prices for different customers** 0.660 0.545 0.799 <.001 <.001 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 847 i look for the cheapest prices for goods by consulting the media** 0.656 0.538 0.800 <.001 <.001 i engage in shareholding** 0.562 0.437 0.722 <.001 <.001 i keep records of my business accounts** 0.475 0.398 0.566 <.001 <.001 i look for the cheapest prices for goods by asking other entrepreneurs** 0.439 0.367 0.525 <.001 <.001 i sell goods more cheaply than my competitors** 0.395 0.325 0.481 <.001 <.001 i purchase stock in bulk together with others** 0.344 0.278 0.424 <.001 <.001 i negotiate prices with my suppliers** 0.340 0.284 0.407 <.001 <.001 i look for cheapest prices for goods by calling suppliers** 0.230 0.191 0.278 <.001 <.001 * p<.05 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test ** p<.01 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test note: odds ratios measure change in odds from refugee to south african entrepreneurs the final point of business strategy comparison concerns the hiring practices of the two groups of entrepreneurs. almost half of the refugee entrepreneurs have paid employees compared to only 21% of the south africans. the refugees in this sample provided three times as many jobs as the south ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 848 africans. table 14 provides statistical confirmation of the greater employment-generating potential of refugees using odds ratio, chi-square and fisher’s exact test calculations. a breakdown of employees by sex and national origin shows some differences in the hiring patterns of the two groups. in total, 9% of refugees hire south african men full-time and 1% part-time. the equivalent figures for south african enterprises are 8% and 4%. refugees show a preference for hiring south african women over men, with 16% employing women full-time and 4% part-time (compared to 9% and 1% for men). in the sample as a whole, 30% are south africans employed by refugees and 28% are south africans employed by other south africans. table 14: odds ratio calculations for employment-generation 95% c.i. p-values variables odds ratio lower upper chisquare fisher's exact test currently have employees** 0.273 0.225 0.332 <.001 <.001 * p<.05 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test ** p<.01 on both pearson’s chi-square and fisher’s exact test this suggests that both refugee and south african enterprises create jobs for south africans in roughly equal numbers. the major difference is in the employment of non-south africans. less than 5% of the total number of employees are non-south africans employed by south africans, whereas 39% are non-south africans employed by refugees. conclusion this paper is the first attempt to explicitly compare the informal enterprises established by different categories of migrant in south african urban areas. this comparative analysis of refugees and internal migrants suggests that ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 849 there is a need for much greater nuance in policy and academic discussions about the impact of refugee migration on the south african informal economy. the stereotyping of refugees in public discourse as undermining and destroying south african competitors is clearly far-removed from the reality. while refugees seem able to access greater amounts of start-up capital (although neither they nor south africans can access formal bank loans), both groups are seemingly able to grow their businesses. this is partly because they tend to occupy different niches in the informal economy, with south africans focused more on the food sector and refugees focused more on services and retailing household goods. this may help explain another difference between the two, with refugees tending to patronise wholesalers for their supplies and south africans purchasing from supermarkets and fresh produce markets. the idea promulgated by the south african minister of small business development, that refugees have a competitive advantage as experienced or “in their blood” entrepreneurs, is clearly fallacious. south africa’s refugee legislation and restrictive employment policies mean that working for, and then establishing, an informal enterprise is virtually the only available livelihood option. but to argue that refugees come to south africa with a preexisting skill and business experience is misplaced. instead, refugees (like small business owners everywhere) are extremely motivated, hard-working and dedicated. they employ a number of business strategies to achieve monetary success, although business expansion is hampered by the fact that only a portion of business profits can be reinvested in the business as the rest go to support dependants in south africa and the home country. these strategies are not illegal or even underhand but are quite transparent and could be emulated. to suggest, on the other hand, that south african migrants are poor business people, as the minister also suggested, is just as fallacious. it is true that the odds of refugees pursuing a particular strategy (such as giving goods on credit) are generally higher than a south african doing so, but this does not mean that no south africans pursue the strategy, as many clearly do. instead of constantly pitting refugees against south africans as the official mind likes to do, it would be more productive to treat them in policy terms as a single group attempting, often against considerable odds, to establish and ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 850 grow a small business in a hostile or indifferent economic and political environment. acknowledgements we wish to thank the unhcr in geneva for funding the refugee economic impacts samp research project on which this paper is based. references basardien, f., parker, h., bayat, m., friedrich, c. and sulaiman, a. 2014. entrepreneurial orientation of spaza shop entrepreneurs: evidence from a study of south african and somali-owned spaza shop entrepreneurs in khayelitsha. singaporean journal of business economics and management studies, 2: 45-61. callaghan, c. 2013. individual values and economic performance of inner-city street traders. journal of economics, 4: 145-156. callaghan, c. and venter, r. 2011. an 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streets: migration, xenophobia and informality in south africa. southern african migration programme. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 851 fatoki, o. and patswawairi, t. 2012. the motivations and obstacles to immigrant entrepreneurship in south africa. journal of social science, 32: 133142. graham, l. and de lannoy, a. 2016. youth unemployment: what can we do in the short run? from <http://bit.ly/2hhmtd9>. hutchinson, m. and de beer, m. 2013. an exploration of factors that limit the long-term survival and development of micro and survivalist enterprises: empirical evidence from the informal economy in south africa. mediterranean journal of social sciences, 4: 237-245. iwu, c., gwija, s., tengeh, r., cupido, c. and mason, r. 2016. the unique role of the survivalist retail entrepreneur in job creation and poverty reduction: implications for active stakeholder participation. acta universitatis danubius (economica), 12: 16-37. jinnah, z. 2010. making home in a hostile land: 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south africa’s sme sector. mediterranean journal of social sciences, 5: 189-198. rugunanan p. and smit, r. 2011. seeking refuge in south africa: challenges facing a group of congolese and burundian refugees. development southern africa, 28: 705-718. venter, r. 2012. entrepreneurial values, hybridity and entrepreneurial capital: insights from johannesburg's informal sector. development southern africa, 29: 225-239. williams, c. 2007. entrepreneurs operating in the informal economy: necessity or opportunity driven? journal of small business and entrepreneurship, 20: 309-320. williams, c. 2015. explaining the informal economy: an exploratory evaluation of competing perspectives. industrial relations, 70: 741-765. williams, c. and gurtoo, a. 2012. evaluating competing theories of street entrepreneurship: some lessons from a study of street vendors in bangalore, india. international entrepreneurship and management journal, 8: 391-409. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 853 williams, c. and youssef, y. 2014. is informal sector entrepreneurship necessityor opportunity-driven? some lessons from urban brazil. business and management research, 3: 41-53. zwane, t. 2014. spazas: talking shop is good for business. mail & guardian, november 6, 2014. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 854 security risk and xenophobia in the urban informal sector sujata ramachandran*, jonathan crush** and godfrey tawodzera*** abstract whenever there are violent attacks on refugee and migrant businesses in south africa’s informal sector, politicians, officials and commissions of enquiry deny that xenophobia is a driving force or indeed exists at all in the county. a new strain of nativist research in south africa does not deny the existence of xenophobia but argues that it is an insignificant factor in the violence. it is argued that because south african and non-south african enterprises are equally at risk, the reasons for the violence are internal to the sector itself. this paper critiques this position on the basis of the results of a survey of over 2,000 enterprises in the contrasting geographical sites of cape town and small town limpopo. the survey results reported in this paper focus on security risks and the experience of victimisation and the experience of the two groups of enterprise operator are systematically compared. the findings show that while both cohorts experience many of the same security risks, refugee operators are significantly more exposed to most threats including verbal abuse, theft, unprovoked attacks and harassment by law enforcement agencies. far from being irrelevant, xenophobia is an important additional risk for refugee entrepreneurs, as they themselves clearly recognise. keywords security risks, informal sector, xenophobia, refugee entrepreneurs, south african entrepreneurs. * southern african migration programme, international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb st west, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l6c2. ** international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb st west, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l6c2. email address: jcrush@balsillieschool.ca *** department of geography and environmental studies, university of limpopo, p. bag x1106, sovenga. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 855 introduction in early 2015, south africa experienced a new wave of violent attacks on migrants, the culmination of several years of more localised but escalating collective violence targeting migrant-owned businesses in the country (crush & ramachandran, 2015a). after may 2008, when south africa had witnessed a previous round of large-scale violence against migrants, a decisive shift had occurred in state discourses and management of xenophobia. the government’s stance towards xenophobia had moved from a lack of acknowledgement of its presence and policy neglect to public rejection and denial of its very existence in the country (crush & ramachandran, 2014). this shift framed the way in which government interpreted and responded to renewed violence in 2015. this response had three key elements: first, denial of the existence of xenophobia and as an explanation for the violence; second, blaming migrants for their own victimisation; and third, attributing ongoing violence against migrant-owned businesses as the work of criminal elements (bekker, 2015; crush & ramachandran, 2015a; misago, 2016). the major formal government response to the international and broader african outrage over the violence was the establishment of an inter-ministerial committee on migration (imc) housed in the presidency. as many as fifteen government ministers sat on the imc, which was expanded in march 2017 to include all provincial premiers and the south african local government association (salga). the stated brief of the imc was to address “all the underlying causes of the tensions between communities and the foreign nationals” (williams, 2015), which appeared to indicate that the problem of xenophobia was finally being taken seriously at the highest levels of government. the reality proved to be very different. in april 2015, the imc launched operation fiela (“sweep” in sesotho), which was officially described as “a multidisciplinary interdepartmental operation aimed at eliminating criminality and general lawlessness from our communities […] so that the people of south africa can be and feel safe” (gov.za, 2015). as a response to xenophobic violence, the actions of the imc seemed grossly inappropriate and were roundly condemned by international and local human rights organisations. lawyers for human rights, for example, characterised ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 856 operation fiela as “state-sponsored xenophobia” and “institutional xenophobia” that blurred stark differences between “criminals” and migrants, while deepening the divide between citizens and foreigners by bolstering negative perceptions, instead of correcting them” (jordaan, 2015; lhr, 2015). a central component of operation fiela was a massive police and army drive to harass migrants and migrant-owned businesses (nicolson, 2015a). the imc made its conclusions about the 2015 anti-migrant violence known in parliament. according to the chair, minister jeff radebe, the primary cause was uncontrolled migration and “increased competition arising from the socio-economic circumstances in south africa.” foreign nationals were placing a strain on government services and “dominating trade in certain sectors such as consumable goods in informal settlements which has had a negative impact on unemployed and low skilled south africans.” these unsubstantiated findings – essentially blaming the violence on migrants and the poor enforcement of migration controls – were compounded by the chair’s observation at a press conference that “as the inter-ministerial committee, we’ve concluded that south africans are not xenophobic” (davis, 2015). the parliamentary ad hoc committee constituted to investigate the 2015 violence reached the same conclusions. in the course of deliberations to finalise their report, members of the committee made highly pejorative statements about migrants (pmg, 2015). they indicated that the competitive advantage enjoyed by foreign-owned businesses was achieved through the use of “unfair, competitive trading practices.” they emphasised that the violence and looting directed at migrant businesses and properties was the direct result of “competition for trading spaces” and “overcrowded trading spaces” and said there was no “credible evidence” that migrant-run businesses created employment. at public consultations, the committee chair chastised the media for using the term ‘xenophobia’ to describe episodes of violence targeting migrant-operated businesses (masinga, 2015). she reportedly characterised the violence as “criminals […] targeting shops to get food and had nothing to do with foreign nationals.” the committee’s final report reached the conclusion that xenophobia did not exist, explaining the violence as the actions of criminals “who are often drug addicts” (pjc, 2015: 35; nicolson, 2015b). http://ewn.co.za/searchresultspage?search=xenophobia ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 857 xenophobia denialism was also evident in the report of the kwazulu-natal special reference group (srg), an independent commission of enquiry appointed by the provincial government and headed by judge navi pillay (formerly the un high commissioner for human rights) (srg, 2015). the spg argued that the immediate cause of the outbreak of violence was “deliberate efforts of select individuals, some of whom had interests in the informal trading sector, to drive away competition by foreign national-owned businesses […] these deliberate efforts sparked the outbreak of widespread incidents of criminality, violence and looting of properties owned by foreign nationals” (srg, 2015: 9-10). furthermore, “many of the perceptions of foreign national traders, although largely unfounded, contributed to heightened tensions” (srg, 2015: x). the srg studiously avoided labelling the violence as xenophobic or seeing xenophobia as a contributing or even motivating factor. at most, it conceded that “the violent attacks against foreign nationals were, in some measure, fuelled by dominant and negative perceptions that exist amongst locals and foreign nationals about one another” (srg, 2015). however, it is hard to see how the attitudes of foreign nationals could be responsible for their own violent victimisation and none of the mob violence was perpetrated by migrants on south africans. this entrenched and contradictory tendency – denying the existence of xenophobia while simultaneously blaming migrants in ways that border on the xenophobic – has been a defining characteristic of official responses to the escalating attacks nationwide on migrant and refugee-owned informal businesses (crush & ramachandran, 2015a). if mere criminality is the source of the plague of chronic violence against non-south african entrepreneurs, we might expect south africans operating in the same areas to be equally affected. some researchers have claimed that this is, in fact, the case (charman & piper, 2012; charman et al., 2012; piper & charman, 2016). they argue that the attacks on informal businesses in south africa are structural in nature, shaped by competition and other localised factors other than nationality or xenophobia. in a study of delft in cape town, charman and piper (2012: 81) maintain that “despite a recent history of intense economic competition in the spaza market in which foreign shopkeepers have come to dominate, levels of violent crime against foreign shopkeepers […] are not significantly higher than ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 858 against south african shopkeepers.” they conclude, as a consequence, that there is no need to invoke xenophobia to explain violence against non-south african informal enterprises, a conclusion that ironically echoes that of government officials and the commissions of enquiry. rather, “some combination of criminality and economic competition seems to explain the violence” (charman & piper, 2012: 89). in a larger study, piper and charman (2016: 332) examine patterns of violence in three cities and conclude that “it simply is not true that […] south african shopkeepers experience less violent crime than foreign shopkeepers” and therefore that “the chance of being violently targeted is less about nationality, and more about whether you keep prices low and (presumably) profits high.” in this paper, we provide alternate evidence that contradicts the conclusion about the unimportance of nationality in explaining citizen and police violence in the informal sector. the paper draws on a study of over 2,000 informal sector businesses in cape town and limpopo province, half owned by refugees and half owned by south africans. the methodology is described in crush et al (2015). security risks and vulnerabilities the sustainability of informal enterprises is shaped by the challenges they encounter and the manner in which they are able to effectively manage business risks. a sizeable body of research has shown that small enterprises in the south african informal economy face significant business obstacles, preventing them from maximising their potential (abor & quartey, 2010; crush et al., 2015; grant, 2013; thompson, 2016; willemse, 2011). these business risks include limited trading spaces; lack of access to loans from formal financial institutions; few technical, financial and business-related skills; excessive licensing or regulatory restrictions on business operations; lack of a well-defined policy framework for such operators; intense competition with other similar businesses; and lack of infrastructure such as adequate storage facilities (callaghan & venter, 2011; gastrow & amit, 2015; ligthelm, 2011; rogerson, 2016a, 2016b; venter, 2012). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 859 in south africa, business risks are compounded by security risks because of the extremely unpredictable and often dangerous operating environment. these security risks are of several main types. in many cities, the informal economy is regarded with suspicion and even outright hostility by municipalities, and is seen as a reservoir of crime and illegality (rogerson, 2016a). the resulting oppressive regulatory environment is enforced by the south african police services (saps) and by municipal police who make regular raids, issue fines and confiscate goods (rogerson, 2016b; skinner, 2008). harassment by police and enforcement officials is compounded by police conduct including demand for bribes and illegal confiscation of business inventory/stock. informal businesses are regular targets of national (operation fiela), provincial (operation hardstick in limpopo) and city-wide (operation clean sweep in johannesburg) police purges of the streets and large-scale seizure of stock. the courts have generally concluded that these operations are largely targeted at the foreign-owned businesses. a 2014 supreme court (2014: 25) judgment striking down operation hardstick in limpopo, for example, left the court with “the uneasy feeling that the stance adopted by the authorities in relation to the licensing of spaza shops and tuckshops was in order to induce foreign nationals who were destitute to leave our shores.” the obverse of police misconduct is a failure to provide consistent protection when businesses are under threat or are victims of crime and other violence. many informal businesses service the basic needs of low-income, crime-ridden communities. this means that, by definition, they are vulnerable to opportunistic and often violent crime in the form of theft, robbery and assault. there is also a clear pattern of escalating group or mob violence in many parts of the country that is increasingly directed at informal businesses (crush & ramachandran, 2015a). nationwide mob violence and looting in may 2008 and early 2015 were the most high-profile examples but in the years in between and since there have been numerous more localised attacks. these assaults generally involve widespread looting, destruction and burning of property and physical assault and murder. there is considerable evidence that this form of violence is targeted almost exclusively at foreign-owned businesses and, therefore, cannot be as easily dismissed as non-xenophobic. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 860 the question to be addressed is whether these security risks – government purges, police misconduct, opportunistic crime and mob violence – affect south african and non-south african informal businesses with equal intensity. if we accept the argument of charman and piper (2012) that xenophobia is not a factor, then we would expect there to be no difference between the frequency and severity with which the two groups are affected by these risks. if, however, there is systematic evidence that these risks are felt or experienced more severely by non-south african migrant informal business owners, then xenophobia needs to be reintroduced as an explanatory factor. as part of the 2016 survey of 2,000 informal businesses in cape town and limpopo, respondents were asked a series of questions about the frequency with which they had experienced various security-related risks. we rely here on self-reporting since police crime statistics are unavailable and unreliable (particularly since many incidents go unreported or unprosecuted when they are reported). in addition, we accept the argument of charman and piper (2012) that risk may be under-reported since many informal businesses are comparatively new and may not yet have been exposed to these risks. at the same time, it is important to note that under-reporting is less likely amongst south africans since they have a longer history of business operations in cape town and limpopo. table 1 presents the aggregated results of the security risks question for the two groups of entrepreneurs. first, it is clear from the table that not every south african and refugee respondent has been affected by the stated risks. indeed, the majority of both groups have not been affected to date. this is an important initial finding because it does suggest that most informal entrepreneurs are able to run their businesses without any significant threat or interference. this may be because of where they are located or the measures and precautions they take to protect themselves. second, it is clear that south africans are not completely immune from any of these risks. nearly one-third had been affected by robbery of their stock and nearly 20% had had income stolen. the degree of vulnerability to other security risks was much lower but not non-existent. to this extent, therefore, piper and charman (2016) are correct that south africans in the informal sector are also victims ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 861 of crime. but there is no support for their contention that south africans and non-south africans are equally at risk or victimised. table 1: security risks facing refugee and south african entrepreneurs refugees % affected south africans % affected prejudice against my nationality 48.0 2.2 crime/theft of goods/stock 47.8 30.9 crime/theft of money/income 38.1 18.5 verbal insults against my business 34.2 7.9 conflict with south african entrepreneurs 32.7 21.1 conflict with refugee entrepreneurs 27.1 19.0 physical attacks/assaults by south africans 21.4 3.5 harassment/demand of bribes by police 18.7 5.5 confiscation of goods by police 14.7 6.4 arrest/detention of entrepreneur/employees 8.5 1.4 physical attacks/assaults by police 7.9 1.1 prejudice against my gender 6.5 5.0 on every single count, the proportion of refugees who had been affected was higher, sometimes significantly so. for example, 47% of refugees cited prejudice against their nationality as a risk to their business (compared to only 2% of south africans). or again, 34% of refugees were affected by related verbal insults against their business, compared to only 8% of south africans. 48% of refugees, compared with 31% of south africans, had been affected by theft of their goods and stock. similarly, 38% of refugees, compared with 19% ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 862 of south africans, had been affected by theft of their income. refugees reported higher levels of conflict with south african competitors (33%) than south africans did with refugees (19%) and with other south africans (21%). interestingly, refugees also reported higher levels of conflict with other refugee businesses (27%). the precise details and outcomes of such conflicts need further research, but suggest that we cannot assume that refugees are a homogenous group with identical interests. table 2 statistically validates the descriptive comparisons that suggest that refugees are more likely than south africans to be affected by the various security risks. the difference in the frequency distributions is statistically significant at an alpha of 0.01 according the pearson’s chi-square (x2(2048)=490.678, df=3, p<.001) and the fisher’s exact test (531.104, p<.001). south african entrepreneurs had lower odds of experiencing every potential risk on the list. refugees were nearly three times as likely to be victims of theft of income and five times as likely to be subject to demands for bribes by police. the odds of a refugee entrepreneur being physically assaulted, experiencing prejudice and being arrested and detained were over five times higher than for south africans. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 863 table 2: odds ratio calculations for business problems 95% confidence interval odds ratio lower upper pearso n chisquare df p-value (2sided) n prejudice against my gender 0.782 0.539 1.136 1.671 1 0.196 2051 conflict with refugee entrepreneurs** 0.644 0.524 0.792 17.489 1 <.001 2056 conflict with south african entrepreneurs** 0.552 0.453 0.673 34.938 1 <.001 2054 crime/theft of goods/stock** 0.492 0.411 0.589 60.363 1 <.001 2052 crime/theft of money/income* * 0.373 0.305 0.456 95.509 1 <.001 2050 harassment/de mands for bribes by police** 0.241 0.176 0.330 88.722 1 <.001 2046 confiscation of goods by police** 0.403 0.298 0.545 36.629 1 <.001 2047 arrest/detention of 0.179 0.105 0.303 50.513 1 <.001 2045 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 864 yourself/employ ees** verbal insults against your business** 0.167 0.129 0.216 214.406 1 <.001 2050 physical attacks/assaults by police** 0.158 0.089 0.282 50.517 1 <.001 2052 physical attacks/assaults by other south africans** 0.137 0.096 0.196 150.979 1 <.001 2047 prejudice against my nationality** 0.025 0.017 0.039 577.723 1 <.001 2049 *p<.05 **p<.01 in theory, we might expect to see higher degrees of informal business security risks for both groups in large cities such as cape town compared to the much smaller towns of limpopo (table 3). in the case of refugees, and with the exception of prejudice and verbal insults and treatment by police, limpopo was indeed safer than cape town. for south africans, cape town was also a more dangerous place to run a business. for example, 56% of refugees and 31% of south africans had experienced theft of goods in cape town. in limpopo, the equivalent figures were 38% and 30%, a much lower spread than in cape town. in both locations, however, the risks are significantly higher for refugees than south africans. indeed, refugees in limpopo were less secure than south africans in both limpopo and cape town. theft of goods had affected 38% of refugees in limpopo, compared with around 30% of south africans in both limpopo and cape town. or again, 31% of refugees in limpopo had experienced theft of money, compared with 12% of south africans in limpopo and 26% in cape town. some 19% of limpopo refugees ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 865 had experienced physical assault or attack, compared with 2% of south africans in limpopo and 7% in cape town. table 3: security risks facing refugee and south african entrepreneurs by location cape town limpopo refugees % affected south africans % affected refugees % affected south africans % affected prejudice against my nationality 47.2 3.6 47.6 1.1 crime/theft of goods/stock 56.2 30.9 38.3 30.4 crime/theft of money/income 43.8 25.7 31.3 11.8 verbal insults against my business 32.1 9.0 35.3 6.9 conflict with south african entrepreneurs 34.5 20.3 30.2 21.4 conflict with refugee entrepreneurs 27.9 15.7 25.6 22.1 physical attacks/assaults by south africans 23.0 5.8 19.0 1.6 harassment/demand of bribes by police 10.5 6.6 26.2 3.9 confiscation of goods by police 10.1 8.0 18.8 4.9 arrest/detention of entrepreneur/employees 7.5 2.0 9.1 1.2 physical attacks/assaults by police 6.7 1.6 8.7 1.1 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 866 prejudice against my gender 5.8 6.8 6.9 3.5 another common belief is that security risks are higher in informal settlements than in other parts of the city, particularly as many of the reports of violence against informal businesses come from the latter areas and general crime levels are also much higher. to test this hypothesis, we focused only on cape town and divided refugees and south africans into two groups according to their operation in either an informal or formal part of the city (table 4). in the case of both refugees and south africans, the risks are higher in informal settlements across almost all indicators. however, the difference in the degree of risk between refugees and south africans is significantly greater in informal settlements than it is in formal areas of the city. the only indicator where formal areas are riskier for both is the chance of having goods confiscated by the police. since the police barely venture into large swathes of informal settlements, this is not surprising. refugees are slightly more likely to experience theft of goods in the formal versus informal areas (57% versus 54%), but the difference is small and indicates that this is a major risk for the majority of businesses irrespective of location. unsurprisingly, refugees were far more likely than south africans to say that their business operations had been negatively affected by xenophobia: 38% versus 5% (table 5). there are two possible reasons for south africans being affected: first, when collective violence occurs at a particular localised settlement, it is possible that in the general chaos and mayhem, south africanowned businesses may also be caught up in the looting and vandalism. as one south african owner noted “when these attacks start, it becomes difficult for us to move and every business becomes a target. xenophobia does not only affect foreigners, it affects everyone” (interview, 3 march 2016). a second explanation is that there are cascading, spill-over effects on those south african small businesses with cooperative, dependent relationships and linkages with affected migrant-operated businesses (peberdy, 2017). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 867 table 4: security risks facing refugee and south african entrepreneurs in cape town formal areas informal areas refugees % affected south africans % affected refugees % affected south africans % affected prejudice against my nationality 44.9 1.7 53.8 6.2 crime/theft of goods/stock 57.0 26.7 53.8 36.7 crime/theft of money/income 41.4 19.5 50.8 34.3 verbal insults against my business 30.1 6.8 37.9 11.9 conflict with south african entrepreneurs 29.6 20.9 48.5 19.5 conflict with refugee entrepreneurs 25.5 18.5 34.8 11.9 physical attacks/assaults by south africans 21.2 3.8 28.0 8.6 harassment/demand of bribes by police 8.9 8.6 15.2 3.8 confiscation of goods by police 10.2 8.9 9.8 6.7 arrest/detention of entrepreneur/employees 5.1 1.7 14.4 2.4 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 868 physical attacks/assaults by police 4.8 0.7 12.1 2.9 prejudice against my gender 5.6 4.1 6.1 10.5 table 5: impact of xenophobia on business operations refugees % south africans % a great deal 18.3 1.4 to some extent 19.3 3.5 not very much 18.4 5.7 not at all 43.9 89.4 strategies of self-protection the dangerous and unpredictable environment in which informal entrepreneurs ply their trade in south african cities presents serious security challenges. it is clear from the previous section that while both groups are affected, refugees are much more vulnerable than south africans to a range of risks. there is no a priori reason why this might be the case, other than the fact that refugees are targeted because their presence, which is viewed by citizens and officials as unwelcome and even illegitimate. this was certainly the view of most of the refugees interviewed for this study who consistently identified the manifestations of xenophobia as the major security problem they faced: some [customers] swear at me, my customers sometimes steal from me and when you catch them, they tell [you] harshly that you are a foreigner. and that you need to go back to your country. you are always faced with difficulties when you are a foreigner and as such you need to be patient and know how to deal with different kinds of people. there is too much disrespect here from south africans because even someone who is way ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 869 younger than you, they can swear and say nasty things to you if you are a foreigner. and they tell straight that south africa is their country (interview with somali refugee, 12 march 2016). if you are a foreigner, you are always affected by xenophobia. there is no way that you can live here and not be affected. xenophobia starts from your customer. some customers are very rude and if you respond, they will talk to you in their own language and scold you and then tell you to go back [to your country]. they have bad words for foreigners. many times, my business was robbed when i was in johannesburg. it was because i was a foreigner because they rarely stole from locals. sometimes criminals would come to you and ask you to give them money and they would just ask you the foreigner. why not the local people? that is xenophobia (interview with ethiopian refugee, 19 march 2016). xenophobia affect[s] us all. we know who we are. we are foreigners and that doesn’t change. nothing changes the reality. we live under alert anytime no matter the set up in which we are operating in. we always know that the same people we are dealing with can anytime become a danger to us. it is difficult to trust any person in south africa. the person who is with you here today, when there is a protest and foreigners are being attacked, he will be the first to attack you. there is no safety. i have not been attacked but i have seen other people being attacked and it is serious. it kills your business and it can also kill you (interview with congolese refugee, 25 february 2016). xenophobia is the most critical problem. i have been directly affected and have been caught up in the troubles. people have harassed me a lot, just talking like they want to kill you or to burn you or other such things. but that was when i was in durban. here [cape town] i have not been harassed. but there are many people who have been victims. they have been harassed and their goods destroyed, especially when there are strikes. the people just target anything that they can get. they are very cruel and they do not care what the owner will do to survive (interview with congolese refugee, 19 february 2016). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 870 xenophobia affects everyone who is a foreigner. when people loot your shop is that not xenophobia? when they chase you away from operating in an area because you are a foreigner that is xenophobia. there is xenophobia here, everywhere in this country. i have friends in other parts of the country, it is xenophobia where they live. i think south africa is the only country with such xenophobia. i have been affected many times. when i was in gugulethu, we were robbed. that was xenophobia because they were robbing foreign-owned shops. here i have been affected once during a strike and they took some things from the shop. so, xenophobia is everywhere here. the community leaders do not protect us during the strikes. some of the leaders are at the forefront of looting when strikes occur, so how can they help? the government must protect us from xenophobia and crime. the police need to do their work better because right now they are not (interview with somali refugee, 7 march 2016). inadequate police protection and failure to respond when refugee businesses are under attack deepens exposure to security risks. a congolese refugee said that the only recourse available was to “run away” as the “police here in such instances, they don’t protect us, but instead abuse us” (interview with congolese refugee, cape town, 5 march 2016). others displayed similar distrust of the police because of perceptions of bias: the police are not very helpful. if you have a case against a south african, they will always side with the south african. so, it’s a waste of time to report a case against a south african (interview with congolese refugee, 24 february 2016). how accurate are these perceptions of south african hostility towards refugee businesses and business-owners? a 2010 samp national survey of south african citizens found that only 20% were in favour of making it easier for migrants to establish small businesses and for migrant traders to buy and sell. only 25% felt that refugees should be allowed to work in south africa. a similar proportion said they would take part in actions to prevent migrants from operating a business in their neighbourhood, 15% said they would combine with others to force migrants to leave and 11% said they were prepared to use violence against them. over 55% agreed with the proposition ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 871 that the reason why migrants were victims of violence was because they did not belong in south africa. only 36% said that refugees should always enjoy police protection and 25% that they should never enjoy protection (crush et al., 2013: 32-38). a number of studies have suggested that to lower the risks of victimisation, migrants adopt various measures to protect themselves and their employees (gastrow, 2013; hikam, 2011; gastrow & amit, 2015; smit & rugunanan, 2014). this survey sought to establish how common some of these strategies actually are and whether they are also adopted by south africans (table 6). one of the most common strategies is risk-sharing by partnering with other businesses. nearly one-third of refugees and 17% of south africans adopt risksharing through partnership. sleeping on business premises (often a modified container) is a strategy pursued by both groups but, again, by more refugees (19% versus 9% of south africans). there have been several high-profile shootings of robbers by refugees under attack but this survey found that only 6% keep weapons for self-protection. other strategies (pursued by less than 10% of refugees and 5% of south africans) include paying security guards and paying protection money to the police or community leaders. around 5% of both groups purchase insurance. table 7 analyses if the differences between the refugees and south africans are statistically significant. with the exception of paying for insurance, refugees were far more likely than south africans to adopt strategies of self-protection. refugees were five times as likely to pay for protection and twice as likely to sleep on their business premises and to partner with others to distribute risk. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 872 table 6: protection strategies used by informal sector entrepreneurs refugees % south africans % i partner with other businesses to distribute risks 31.0 17.4 i sleep on my business premises 18.8 8.7 i pay for security guards 7.3 1.9 i keep weapons for self-protection 5.8 4.0 i pay the police for protection 5.5 1.0 i purchase insurance 5.1 5.5 i pay community leaders for protection 2.5 0.6 various other strategies emerged in the course of the in-depth interviews although it is not known how common these are. for example, some refugees said that they like to hire south africans to assist in communication with customers and also because it reduces their vulnerability to violence. in addition to paying protection money to police and community leaders, refugees in one part of cape town pay regular protection money to the local taxi association. the taxi association then uses this reality to extort money from south africans in the area as well. others make sure that they do not keep all their stock on the business premises out of fear that they will be cleaned out during looting or confiscation of goods by the police. still others are only open for business when they know that the police are no longer patrolling. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 873 table 7: odds ratio calculations of business strategies 95% c.i. for o.r. p-values odds ratio lower upper chisquare fisher's exact test i purchase insurance 1.078 0.732 1.587 0.703 0.768 i keep weapons for selfprotection* 0.648 0.430 0.976 0.037 0.039 i partner with other businesses to distribute risks** 0.470 0.382 0.579 <.001 <.001 i sleep on my business premises** 0.411 0.315 0.537 <.001 <.001 i pay for security guards** 0.245 0.148 0.405 <.001 <.001 i pay community leaders for protection** 0.222 0.091 0.543 <.001 <.001 i pay the police for protection** 0.180 0.094 0.347 <.001 <.001 conclusion in this paper, we have undertaken a comparative risks assessment and vulnerabilities analysis for refugee and south african entrepreneurs operating small business ventures in the informal economies of cape town city and various towns of limpopo province. our results show that while both groups are exposed to several risks concurrently, refugee enterprises are far more vulnerable and overexposed. the social and structural insecurity experienced by refugee entrepreneurs is unambiguous from several key findings. despite ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 874 operating in the same localised environment and under similar conditions, this group encounters a more challenging set of hurdles and on a more frequent basis. the general act of operating small businesses in the informal economic sector does make business owners of all kinds vulnerable, but this alone cannot explain the greater vulnerabilities of the refugee cohort. instead, xenophobia and refugee business owners’ status as ‘outsiders’ adds another layer of risk for these operators. limited access to police protection and mistreatment by them only exacerbates this insecurity. what is also evident from our research and other recent studies is that the majority of refugee operators have not, to date, been affected by a range of potential risks. in part, this may be because of the mitigation strategies they adopt. as refugee and migrant communities grow in south africa, the emergence of some individuals who are successfully able to mitigate common risks and build their enterprises is to be expected. however, rather than treating these achievements with suspicion and negativity, as the official mind tends to do, greater attempts need to be made to harness these productive capacities for the growth of local informal, entrepreneurial economies. these abilities are not an abnormal development nor are they driven largely or entirely by unfair advantages or the use of illicit practices. ultimately, comprehensive national and localised strategies are required to develop and support informal entrepreneurship and small business growth in south africa. in this process, both citizen-operated and refugee enterprises must be crucial stakeholders, and not written-off as insignificant, unequal or illegal. acknowledgements we wish to thank the unhcr geneva for funding the refugee economic impacts samp research project on which this paper is based. references abor, j. and quartey, p. 2010. issues in sme development in ghana and south africa. international research journal of finance and economics, 39: 218-228. bekker, s. 2015. violent xenophobic episodes in south africa, 2008 and 2015. african human mobility review, 1: 229-252. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 875 callaghan, c. and venter, r. 2011. an investigation of the entrepreneurial orientation, context and entrepreneurial performance of inner-city johannesburg street traders. southern african business review, 15: 28-48. charman, a. and piper, l. 2012. xenophobia, criminality and violent 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(eds.). mean streets: migration, xenophobia and informality in south africa. cape town and ottawa: samp and idrc, pp. 25-59. crush, j., chikanda, a. and skinner, c. (eds.). 2015. mean streets: migration, xenophobia and informality in south africa. cape town and ottawa: samp and idrc. crush, j., ramachandran, s. and pendleton, w. 2013. soft targets: xenophobia, public violence and changing attitudes to migrants in south africa after may 2008. samp migration policy series no. 64, cape town: southern african migration programme. davis, g. 2015. attacks on migrants due to their socio-economic impact. eyewitness news. november 10, 2015. gastrow, v. 2013. business robbery, the foreign trader and the small shop: how business robberies affect somali traders in the western cape. sa crime quarterly, 43: 5-15. gastrow, v. and amit, r. 2015. the role of migrant traders in local economies: a case study of somali spaza shops in cape town. in: crush, j., chikanda, a. and ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 876 skinner, c. 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to xenophobic violence in post-apartheid south africa: barking up the wrong tree. african human mobility review, 2: 443-467. nicolson, g. 2015a. operation fiela: thousands of arrests, doubtful impact. daily maverick, september 8, 2015. nicolson, g. 2015b. parliamentary report on xenophobic violence talks a lot, says very little. daily maverick, november 24, 2015. peberdy, s. 2017. competition or cooperation? south african and migrant entrepreneurs in johannesburg. samp migration policy series no. 75, waterloo and cape town: southern african migration programme. pmg (parliamentary monitoring group). 2015. meeting to adopt ad hoc joint committee on probing violence against foreign nationals report. cape town: south african parliament. http://www.gov.za/operation-fiela ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 877 piper, l. and charman, a. 2016. xenophobia, price competition and violence in the spaza sector in south africa. african human mobility review, 2: 332-361. pjc (parliamentary joint committee). 2015. report of the ad hoc joint committee on probing violence against foreign nationals. cape town: south african parliament. rogerson, c. 2016a. progressive rhetoric, ambiguous policy pathways: street trading in inner-city johannesburg, south africa. local economy, 31: 204-218. rogerson, c. 2016b. south africa’s informal economy: reframing debates in national policy. local economy, 31: 172-86. skinner, c. 2008. the struggle for the streets: processes of exclusion and inclusion of street traders in durban, south africa. development southern africa, 25: 227-242. smit, r. and rugunanan, p. 2014. from precarious lives to precarious work: the dilemma facing refugees in gauteng, south africa. south african review of sociology, 45: 4-26. srg (special reference group). 2015. report of the special reference group on migration and community integration in kwazulu-natal. pietermaritzburg: provincial government of kwazulu-natal. from <http://bit.ly/2uvtl7g>. supreme court. 2014. somali association of south africa v limpopo department of economic development, environment and tourism (48/2014). zasca 143 (september 26, 2014). thompson, d. 2016. risky business and geography of refugee capitalism in the somali migrant economy of gauteng, south africa. journal of ethnic and migration studies, 42: 120-35. willemse, l. 2011. opportunities and constraints facing informal traders: evidence from four south african cities. town and regional planning, 59: 8-16. williams, p. 2015. ‘minister jeff radebe: inter-ministerial committee on migration. from http://bit.ly/2ux1vbb. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0269094215621724 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0269094215621724 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 878 venter, r. 2012. entrepreneurial values, hybridity and entrepreneurial capital: insights from johannesburg's informal sector. development southern africa, 29: 225-239. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 879 the owners of xenophobia: zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence in south africa jonathan crush*, godfrey tawodzera**, abel chikanda*** and daniel tevera**** abstract this paper is a contribution to our understanding of the intertwined economic and political crises in zimbabwe and the crisis of xenophobia in south africa. there have been few studies to date specifically examining the impact of xenophobic violence on zimbabweans trying to make a living in the south african informal economy. the paper first provides a picture of zimbabwean migrant entrepreneurship using survey data from a 2015 study of migrants in the informal economy. all of the zimbabwean entrepreneurs interviewed in depth for the study in 2016 had either witnessed or been the victims of xenophobic violence or both. the interviews focused on the experience and impact of xenophobic violence on personal safety and business operations. the migrant accounts clearly demonstrate that they see xenophobia as a key driver of the hostility, looting and violence that they experience. the paper argues that the deep-rooted crisis in zimbabwe, which has driven many to south africa in the first place, makes return home in the face of xenophobia a non-viable option. zimbabweans are forced to adopt a number of self-protection strategies, none of which ultimately provide insurance against future attack. keywords zimbabwean informal enterprise and xenophobic violence. * international migration research centre, balsillie school of international affairs, 67 erb st west, waterloo, ontario, canada n2l6c2. email address: jcrush@balsillieschool.ca ** department of geography and environmental studies, university of limpopo, p. bag x1106, sovenga. email address: godfreyltawodzera@yahoo.com *** department of geography & atmospheric science, and african & african-american studies, university of kansas, lawrence, kansas state, usa 66045. email address: achikanda@ku.edu **** department of geography & environmental studies, university of western cape, robert sobukwe road, bellville 7535. email: dtevera@uwc.ac.za mailto:jcrush@balsillieschool.ca mailto:godfreyltawodzera@yahoo.com mailto:achikanda@ku.edu mailto:dtevera@uwc.ac.za ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 880 “south africans are very xenophobic – they are the owners of xenophobia” (zimbabwean migrant, cape town, 2016). introduction the above arresting image of south africans as the “owners of xenophobia” is confirmed by numerous surveys suggesting that levels of xenophobia in south africa are unprecedented globally (crush et al., 2013). south africa’s crisis of xenophobia is defined by the discrimination and intolerance to which migrants are exposed on a daily basis. according to misago et al. (2015: 17), xenophobia manifests in “a broad spectrum of behaviours including discriminatory, stereotyping and dehumanizing remarks; discriminatory policies and practices by government and private officials such as exclusion from public services to which target groups are entitled; selective enforcement of by-laws by local authorities; assault and harassment by state agents particularly the police and immigration officials; as well as public threats and violence […]that often results in massive loss of lives and livelihoods.” the nub of the crisis of xenophobia in south africa is when feelings of hostility and intolerance manifest as extreme xenophobia, which crush and ramachandran (2015a) define as “a heightened form of xenophobia in which hostility and opposition to those perceived as outsiders and foreigners is strongly embedded and expressed through aggressive acts directed at migrants and refugees [and] recurrent episodes of violence.” xenophobic violence represents ‘tipping points’ or intense moments in the general ongoing crisis of xenophobia. southern african migration project’s (samp) national surveys have consistently found that a significant minority of south african citizens are willing to resort to violence to rid their communities of migrants (crush, 2008; crush et al., 2013). the deadliest examples of extreme xenophobia in south africa to date were high-profile and widespread violence against migrants and refugees in may 2008 and march 2015. the nature and impacts of the 2008 crisis are now well-documented, although there remain differences of opinion about its causes (bekker, 2015; cabane, 2015; desai, 2015; everatt, 2011; hassim et al., 2008; hayem, 2013; landau, 2012; steinberg, 2012). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 881 for all its strengths, the literature on may 2008 tends to treat the victims of xenophobic violence in an undifferentiated fashion, leading to the assumption that all migrants – irrespective of national origin, legal status, length of time in the country and livelihood activity – were equally at risk. yet, attitudinal surveys clearly show that south africans differentiate between migrants of different national origin and that zimbabweans are amongst the most disliked (crush et al., 2013). discussions of may 2008 also do not differentiate sufficiently between the types of targets that were attacked. for example, many african migrants and refugees operated small businesses in the informal economy of affected urban areas and these enterprises came under sustained attack during the pogrom. in 2015, one of the explicit targets of the xenophobic attacks was informal businesses run by migrants and refugees. violent attacks on migrant and refugee entrepreneurs and their businesses have not been confined to acute episodes of extreme xenophobia such as those in may 2008 and march 2015 (charman & piper, 2012; crush et al., 2015; crush & ramachandran, 2015a, 2015b; tevera, 2013). ongoing acts of extreme xenophobia have increasingly manifested in the form of collective violence targeted at migrant and refugee-owned businesses. the frequency and ferocity of such attacks have increased over time and cannot simply be written off, as the state seeks to do, as ‘mere criminality.’ chronic extreme xenophobia has prompted various responses and remedial actions by migrants and refugees including paying protection money, beefing up business security, arming in self-defence, avoiding neighbourhoods known to be particularly dangerous and moving away from the major cities to smaller urban centres (crush et al., 2015a). zimbabweans are not the only small business owners who have become victims of extreme xenophobia in south africa; attacks on migrants and refugees from other countries are also well documented (gastrow, 2013; gastrow & amit, 2015; piper & charman, 2016). however, there have been few studies to date specifically examining the impact of xenophobic violence on zimbabweans trying to make a living in the south african informal economy (duri, 2016; hungwe, 2014; sibanda & sibanda, 2014). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 882 this paper is based on two sources of data. first, samp’s growing informal cities project surveyed over 1,000 randomly selected migrant-owned informal sector enterprises in cape town and johannesburg in 2015 (peberdy, 2016; tawodzera et al., 2016). the survey sample included 304 zimbabwean-owned enterprises. for the purposes of this paper, we extracted this data from the larger database. second, 50 in-depth interviews were conducted in 2016 with zimbabwean informal business-owners in cape town, johannesburg and polokwane as part of samp participation in the migrants in countries in crisis (micic) project. this paper is a contribution to our understanding of the intertwined economic and political crises in zimbabwe and the crisis of xenophobia in south africa. it also aims to contribute to the more general literature on migrants in countries in crisis in a situation of intersectionality where migrants are forced to navigate a state of crisis in both the country of origin and the country of destination. the term “migration in countries in crisis” is usually taken to refer to the plight of migrants caught up in an unexpected crisis situation in a “host country” (koser, 2014; martin et al., 2014; weerasinghe & taylor, 2015). although emergencies affecting migrants are becoming increasingly complex and multifaceted, the intersection of crisis situations in countries of origin and destination have been given insufficient attention (iom, 2012; mcadam, 2014). a dual or multiple crisis situation spanning origin and destination presents new, and not easily resolved, challenges for the management of crisis and the safety of migrants (hendow et al., 2016; perching, 2016). crisis-driven migration betts and kaytaz (2009: 2) label the exodus from zimbabwe an example of “survival migration,” which they define as refugees and “people who are forced to cross an international border to flee state failure, severe environmental distress, or widespread livelihood collapse.” under conditions of survival migration, the traditional distinction between refugees and economic migrants breaks down (betts, 2013). the argument that all zimbabwean migrants should be defined as “survival migrants” requires closer scrutiny. for example, it is based in part on the view that conditions in zimbabwe are so dire that out-migration for survival is the only option. however, this does not ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 883 explain why the majority of zimbabweans have not left nor the role of migration in reducing pressures for further out-migration through remittances (crush & tevera, 2010). the argument that all zimbabweans are “survival migrants” also runs the risk of homogenising migrant flows and downplaying the heterogeneity of migration movement out of the country. the idea that all migrants from zimbabwe are “survival migrants” also seems to rest on the admittedly desperate situation of migrants in squalid transit shelters in the border town of musina and at overcrowded safe havens such as churches (betts & kaytaz, 2009; kuljian, 2013). the idea of “survival migration” fits this sub-set of zimbabwean migrants but certainly does not encompass them all. far from being the desperate and destitute people conveyed by images of “survival migration,” many zimbabwean migrants to south africa exhibit considerable ingenuity, industry and energy. a recent survey of zimbabwean migrants in cape town and johannesburg found that over 60% of migrants who had come to south africa in the previous decade were formally employed and only 18% were unemployed (crush et al., 2015b). at the same time, increasing numbers were doing more menial jobs including 25% in manual work, 13% in the service industry and 8% in domestic work. a longitudinal study of day labourers in tshwane demonstrates the increase in zimbabweans seeking casual work, which rose from 7% in 2004 to 33% in 2007 to 45% of workseekers in 2015 (blaauw et al., 2016). the extent of participation by zimbabwean migrants in the south african informal sector is unknown. samp’s 2005 national survey of migrant-sending households in zimbabwe found that 21% of working migrants outside the country were in the informal economy (crush & tevera, 2010: 12). a 2007 survey of migrants in johannesburg found that 19% were working as hawkers or artisans (makina, 2010). samp’s 2010 survey of recent zimbabwean migrants in johannesburg and cape town found that 27% were working or deriving income from the informal economy (crush et al., 2015a). crush and tawodzera’s (2017) survey of poorer zimbabwean households in south africa found that 36% of household members in employment were working in the ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 884 informal economy. while indicative, these studies suggest that somewhere between 20-30% of zimbabwean migrants in major south african cities could be involved in the informal economy. they also suggest that the importance of informal sector employment to zimbabweans has increased over time. the 2015 samp survey of migrant enterprises found a distinct gender bias in both cities with 60% of zimbabwe entrepreneurs in cape town and 65% in johannesburg being male. this was a marked contrast to the business of informal cross-border trading between zimbabwe and south africa which is dominated by female zimbabweans (chikanda & tawodzera, 2017). the number of migrant entrepreneurs who arrived in south africa peaked in the years between 2005 and 2010, at the height of the economic crisis in zimbabwe, and appears to have fallen since (figure 1). less than 2% had migrated to south africa before 1994. nearly 18% of the johannesburg migrant entrepreneurs had moved there before 2000 compared to only 2% of those in cape town. over time, cape town has become an increasingly attractive destination. as many as 88% of the migrants in cape town arrived in the city after 2005 (compared to 52% of those who moved to johannesburg). figure 1: comparison of year of migration and year of establishing informal business. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 885 only 5% of the survey respondents had experience working in the zimbabwean informal economy prior to migrating to south africa. those with prior experience had generally been involved in informal cross-border trading and were therefore familiar with south africa. one male migrant described the transition as follows: i used to come here as a trader from the early 2000s. i stopped in 2005 and came here to south africa to live. my business is about making and selling electric jugs and brooms. i used to come here and sell them and go back home. there are some reasons why i came to stay. one is that the economic situation was getting bad. [zimbabwe] was no longer the same. i was selling things and not making much money. i wanted to build a house in zimbabwe and i was failing to do so. the cost of living was high. i had just married and things were tough. then there was the issue of politics. my wife was harassed when i was in johannesburg buying goods. they came and searched our house and they found nothing. they wanted evidence that i was a sell-out, but they did not find anything. my wife was pregnant so i saw that they could injure her if they came back next time. that is when i moved to south africa (johannesburg interview no. 4). in this case, economic hardship and political harassment were additional factors in the decision to move to south africa. the overall reasons for migration to south africa were clearly related to the ongoing economic crisis in zimbabwe. over 80% agreed with the proposition that they had come to south africa in order to provide for family back home. as many as 73% said they had come to south africa to look for employment (figure 2). there was a marked difference here between the johannesburg and cape town respondents (with 82% and 59% in agreement, respectively) which may reflect differences in the perception (and reality) of labour market access in the two cities. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 886 figure 2: reasons for migrating to south africa the reverse was true with regard to starting a business as a reason for migration, with 56% in cape town and 35% in johannesburg in agreement. in general, this suggests that johannesburg is seen as a place where it is easier to obtain formal sector employment and cape town is a more amenable location for starting an informal business. unemployment was a significant driver of migration, with 39% of the sample reporting that they were unemployed prior to leaving zimbabwe. again, there was a marked difference between the entrepreneurs in the two cities: only 20% of the cape town respondents were unemployed prior to leaving compared with 51% of the johannesburg respondents. the high proportion who said that they had migrated as refugees or asylum-seekers is a reflection of the fact that over 300,000 zimbabweans applied for asylum-seeker permits between 2004 and 2010 in order to legalise their stay in south africa (amit & kriger, 2014). at the same time, a proportion of this number left because of political persecution. exactly how many is difficult to say given that south africa has approved less than 3,000 of all zimbabwean refugee claimants. the survey found that relatively few of the zimbabwean entrepreneurs did not have papers permitting them to be in and/or legally work in the country (table 1). just over one-third of the migrants had asylum-seeker (section 22) permits ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 887 but only 5% had recognised refugee status (section 24 permits). both asylumseekers and refugees have a legal right to work and earn. around one-quarter had work permits, which the majority would have acquired under the zimbabwe dispensation programme (zdp) in 2010 and 2014 (thebe, 2017). around 10% of the migrants had visitor’s permits which are usually issued for 90 days at a time. only 15% were undocumented and did not have permits to reside and/or work in south africa. table 1: legal status of zimbabwean entrepreneurs total (%) cape town (%) johannesburg (%) asylum-seeker permit 35.9 43.2 31.2 work permit 24.7 17.8 29.0 visitor’s permit 9.5 8.5 10.2 refugee permit 5.3 8.5 3.2 permanent resident 4.6 3.4 5.4 undocumented 14.5 16.1 13.4 other 2.3 0.8 3.3 no answer 3.1 1.6 4.3 the majority of the surveyed zimbabwean migrant enterprises were in the retail, trade and wholesale sector, followed by services and manufacturing, with slight differences between the two cities (figure 3). as figure 1 shows, most migrants did not immediately start an informal business on arrival but first needed to raise start-up capital. migrants and refugees face severe obstacles in accessing loans from formal sources in south africa as they require collateral (tawodzera et al., 2015). just over three-quarters of the migrant entrepreneurs in this survey relied on their personal savings to start their businesses (table 2). there was slightly greater reliance on personal ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 888 savings by entrepreneurs in johannesburg (87%) than cape town (64%). more zimbabwean migrants in cape town were able to access funds from relatives and non-relatives. figure 3: sectoral breakdown of zimbabwean migrant businesses table 2: primary sources of start-up capital total (%) cape town (%) johannesburg (%) personal savings 78.0 64.4 86.6 loan from relatives 9.2 13.6 6.5 loan from non-relatives 6.6 15.3 1.1 money lenders 2.0 1.7 2.2 loan from informal financial institutions 2.0 1.7 2.2 business credit (goods on terms) 0.7 0.0 1.1 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 889 loan from micro-finance institution 0.3 0.8 0.0 other source of capital 1.3 2.5 0.5 experiencing xenophobia all of the zimbabwean entrepreneurs interviewed in depth had either witnessed or been the victims of xenophobic violence or both. the interviews focused on the experiences and impact of xenophobic violence on personal safety and business operations. many of those interviewed had come to south africa after the nationwide attacks on migrants in may 2008 but none were unaware of the violence or did not know some of the victims. those who had been in the country at the time lost almost everything they had, but they did not return permanently to zimbabwe, a primary objective of their attackers. instead, they took refuge in shelters and churches and re-started their businesses once the worst of the violence was over. three accounts in widely separated parts of the country (alexandra park in johannesburg, imizamo yethu in cape town and mankweng in polokwane) show both the destructive nature of the 2008 xenophobic violence and the responses of the migrants: during the xenophobic attacks of 2008 i was there. my musika was destroyed. people came marching and asking foreigners to leave […] they came and destroyed the musika. it was made up of cardboard and corrugated iron sheets. they destroyed it. the cardboard was burnt and the corrugated sheets were taken and some of them thrown all over. i lost a lot of money there. maybe zar 3,000. i had a lot of goods and i was also selling beans, groundnuts and even matemba and fish. i lost everything. i was only able to carry a few things and fled. otherwise they would have killed me as well. what could they do? the people that start the violence are the ones that can even kill you. many people died in alex park. they died. i actually saw a person who had been stoned to death and he was lying there for a day without the police getting him (johannesburg interview no. 13). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 890 i had just closed my spaza and had not even reached home when i saw people singing and getting up here. they were coming from the direction of the police station coming uphill. we had already heard of xenophobia and so i knew it was happening here. i wanted to go back and get some things from the spaza but i was too late because they were moving fast. i just had time to change direction and ended up in hout bay. there were other zimbabweans who had also run away and were there. i joined them and we went to wynberg and stayed there at the police station. there were many of us. like me, most people had nothing because they never had time to go home and get clothes or blankets. i called someone in rosebank and they told us that they were staying at a methodist church there so that is where we went. we spent three weeks there. my spaza shop was looted. i never got anything back, not even a single sweet. they took everything so i had to start from scratch (cape town interview no. 20). i was living in mankweng with two other ladies from zimbabwe. we were renting a room in zone 2. we had been living there for some time and we knew most of the people there. but when xenophobia erupted it was as if we had never lived there. we saw some of the people that we knew actually looting things belonging to foreigners. we were confronted by a group of young men – and they demanded money otherwise they would kill us. it was like a dream. we could not believe it. we were robbed there, close to the road, where everyone could see. they just took what they wanted and went away singing. i lost my bag, my wallet and my friend also lost everything. i was scared that we could be killed or raped. even now i cannot believe that i survived. we went to the highway, the n1 and hiked to musina and then home to zimbabwe. i only came back after a month when things had calmed down. i stopped doing business for over a month. i had no money to start over. i had to borrow some money and it took time to recover. some of my customers moved with my money and i never recovered the money. i had to start from scratch and it was difficult (polokwane interview no. 3). most of the respondents recounted incidents of violence that had personally affected them since 2008. these accounts revealed a number of features ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 891 common to all xenophobic attacks on migrant businesses. first, much of the violence seems to the migrants to be spontaneous and occurs without warning. in practice, this is rarely the case as many attacks are preceded by community meetings from which migrants are excluded (landau, 2012). therefore, they have little notice or ability to take evasive action. as one victim of violence in the informal settlement of diepsloot near johannesburg in 2013 observed: they just occur haphazardly. we cannot always tell what happens next so it is difficult to do anything and to think of a way to respond. it just happens when you are least aware of the problems that are about to erupt. sometimes we are caught up with all our wares and they are destroyed and stolen and so it is difficult to do anything (johannesburg interview no. 10). the journalist, anton harber’s (2011) portrait of diepsloot paints a picture of a volatile settlement in which vigilante justice and attacks on foreign-owned businesses are common. in 2008, for example, “they showed no discrimination in targeting men, women and children, and destroyed, looted and burnt down their businesses and houses” (harber, 2011: 123). second, the perpetrators of xenophobic violence are often from the same community and are even personally known to the victims: the people that robbed us are in this community and we know them. they are the community members here. some of the people here do not like us foreigners. they pretend when you deal with them to like us. but they do not like us (johannesburg interview no. 2). the fact that migrant entrepreneurs are able to provide goods, including food, at competitive prices and offer credit to consumers is clearly insufficient to protect them when violence erupts. in one part of khayelitsha, there is reportedly little violence as long as migrant business owners pay protection money to the powerful local taxi association. in many other areas, the respondents reported that community leaders are either ineffective in dealing with the violence or, in some cases, actively foment hostility and instigate attacks. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 892 third, the looting of stock on the premises is a constant feature in the narratives of the migrant business-owners. as one observed: there are hard core thieves who rob people and also jobless people around who are now taking advantage of these xenophobic attacks and robbing people to get money because they have nothing to do with their lives (johannesburg interview no. 1). however, the respondents consistently maintained that robbery per se was not the prime motive for the attacks. as one respondent noted: they target shops, the owners as well as the goods inside. they only target foreign owned shops. there is more to that (than robbery), they want us to leave their country because they hate our businesses here and they say we are finishing their jobs (johannesburg interview no. 3). others pointed out that south african business owners in the same vicinity are left alone during crowd violence, that attacks often involve vicious physical assaults against the person, and that they are usually accompanied by vituperative xenophobic language: people were being beaten up and they were dying. a group of south africans moved around this whole squatter camp terrorising all foreigners and they used to move with someone who knew where all foreigners stayed. these people moved with knobkerries, metal sticks, sjamboks and any sort of weapon you can think of for distraction. if you were a foreigner and did not have a passport they would beat you up (johannesburg interview no. 3). the violence was there for two days or so and i thought it was over. i went to service a car in heideveld. when i was coming back i passed through my friend’s place and he accompanied me half way. when he had gone, and i was in sisulu street down there, they attacked me with a plank and something like a rubber. they hit me all over and even stomped on me. it was xenophobia. they told me that they would kill me and that i was a foreigner and not wanted here. i cried and asked for them to leave me and they continued. no-one intervened. it was past 8pm and there were still people moving about. a few other guys joined in. i ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 893 was saved by a car that passed, when its lights flashed at them they ran away. they told me that next time they would kill me (cape town interview no. 3). i was robbed in broad daylight here in masiphumelele. it was not a real robbery, it was a gang just saying foreigners must leave. i was about to park my car when the group of men descended on me. they asked for my id and when i said let me go and get it, they pounced on me and started pushing me. my neighbours just looked on. i asked what i had done but they were just singing derogatory songs. it was pure xenophobia. most of the locals here joined and wanted to chase me out. even my neighbours were caught up in that chaos and were told to go. you see, when there is a small thing that happens, it ends up being that foreigners must be chased away. is that not xenophobia? many times here i have been insulted only because i am a foreigner. you ferry someone’s goods and they pay you little and the next time you want your balance they start some story that you are a thief or so on and the others join in. is that not xenophobia? why do they not do that to south africans? why only to foreigners? these people have xenophobia in their blood (cape town interview no. 13). fourth, many of the accounts describe how an anti-government service delivery protest or march can quickly disintegrate into mob violence and looting of shops and stores owned by migrants. the connection between the two events is not immediately obvious but, according to the respondents, the looting is never indiscriminate but only targets migrants. the reason, according to some, is that they become scapegoats for the government’s failure to deliver services south africans are not friendly. they say this is their country and they do what they want to us, hurting us. these locals ask services from their government and if they are not given them they demonstrate and if their concerns are not heard they put their frustrations on foreigners. most of them are uneducated so they think we are the cause of their problem and when they see you in business they think you are taking over their business. they target foreigners in business. they start with businesses ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 894 and sometimes when their concerns are not heard they even start attacking those not in business and foreigners in their homes (cape town interview no. 11). fifth, there was some evidence of “violent entrepreneurship” involving attacks orchestrated by south african competitors. one zimbabwean entrepreneur in polokwane, for example, described how he had established a business selling and repairing cell phones. he said that his south african competitors reported him to the police for dealing in stolen phones but his records showed that all his transactions were legitimate. according to him they had tried several times to get him arrested. the reason? “they even tell me to my face that they want me out of this place because i am a foreigner. how can they fail to make business when i as a foreigner is doing well? that is their quarrel. some have even organised thieves to rob me and i have been robbed twice.” sixth, xenophobic violence is gender-indiscriminate in that both male and female migrants recounted equally harrowing stories. lefko-everett (2010) has argued that one of the most common strategies adopted by zimbabwean women migrants travelling to south africa as cross-border traders is to travel and stay in groups as a means of protection. zimbabwean women living in south africa and selling on the streets are generally unable to benefit from group protection. one woman in johannesburg described her experience and helpless situation as follows: they were calling me names and some were telling me to go back to zimbabwe saying i would die that night. some of the foreigners who were there and had been trying to support me saw that the situation was getting serious and just disappeared. i lost most of my goods that day as people just started taking them. the lady who was selling close to me also lost her products as people just took and went. it was terrible. no-one was on our side. they just did not care that we were females. they just harassed us. i even thought of going back home that day. what stopped me is the thought of going back to look at my kids without anything. and there was nothing that i would do in zimbabwe. here we live with xenophobia every day. we see it happening and there is nothing that we can do (johannesburg interview no. 10). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 895 finally, the respondents differed on whether zimbabweans were particular targets. most said that all foreign-owned businesses were targeted, not simply zimbabweans. a number commented that the type of business made a difference, with food and grocery shops being especially vulnerable. however, virtually all agreed on one point: the purpose of the attacks was not simply to steal certain desirable goods but to clean them out and destroy their business premises and operations so that they could not continue to operate. there were numerous examples of entrepreneurs who had lost all of their stock and also had their premises vandalised and wrecked, even when they were operating from containers, which are generally considered to be the best form of protection: they broke and took away everything as if they don’t want one to be in business. if they wanted goods only, they would have just broken in and taken stuff only but they destroyed, breaking windows and even removing them and most people are not yet back on their feet (cape town interview no. 8). in 2011, the business was attacked by local people. the shop was attacked by the mob. they looted everything and left me with almost nothing. i had goods worth over r 15,000 in here. everything except some few bottles of cooking oil and cigarettes remained. it almost destroyed my business. i was left with very little. i had not saved much so it took me some time to be on my feet again. i had to borrow some money from friends because i needed to restock. i cannot afford to stock much as i am not sure what happens tomorrow. these days we no longer put everything here. some of the stock is at home so that if the steal here, i will have some of my stock at home to start again. i just replenish what is in short supply here (cape town interview no. 10). we had just brought stuff from zimbabweans on a sunday. they were worth about r 10,000 and included nyimo, mbambaira, nzungu, matemba and we had also just stocked the local products. we had bought a lot of crates like onions for about zar 15,000. all these products were in the container and the container was destroyed. they upended it and spilled all the products that were inside to the ground. some of the ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 896 products were burnt, taken and we were left with nothing. and because we had just stocked we didn’t have any money at home so we had to start all over from scratch (cape town interview no. 1). responses to xenophobic violence the pervasive view amongst south african politicians that xenophobia does not even exist in the country seems particularly odious given the experiences of zimbabwean and other migrants. the term “xenophobia” itself was used by all the respondents to describe the harassment and physical abuse they experience and some even referred to the widespread violence in 2008 and 2015 as “the xenophobia.” however, they were also asked if they thought south africans were xenophobic and, if so, why. no-one answered the question in the negative. a selection of responses clearly indicate that for zimbabweans, south africans are, indeed, the “owners of xenophobia”: i can say that three-quarters of them show their hatred towards us foreign nationals. they don’t like us. xenophobia is a south african thing. it happens more than anywhere in the world i think. everything they do shows it. they do not like us. they speak to us like we are not like them. they look down upon us. they are like that whether they are christians or not. the children learn it from their parents. they call us makwerekwere. do you know even small kids can call you makwerekwere? is that not xenophobic? (johannesburg interview no. 2). if you want to see how they hate us, just have a disagreement and they will tell you bad things, telling you that you will die. what kind of a person wants to see another person dying? life is sacred, but here in south africa no one seems to care about that. they would rather you die so that they can get what you have. this is the only society where people kill each other over very simple disagreements (johannesburg interview no. 10). you can see it almost every day in the train and other places when you pass they call you derogatory names like makwerekwere. we can see it every day in our daily life and we live with it. it does not only happen to people doing business, but it happens to any foreigner no matter whom. if you ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 897 can’t speak their language, you already are a kwerekwere and you are in trouble (cape town interview no. 4). the way they see us, they see us as if we are lesser than them. they say bad things about us, like we are thieves and we are ugly and we do not bath, such things. but they know most of these things are not true but they like saying them anyway (cape town interview no. 10). is there a country in the world where foreigners are killed and burnt like here? no. south africa is a place like no other place. it is a country with people that do not care about other people. look at the way they kill foreigners. the way they chase foreigners and steal their goods and injure them. that is not done by normal people. south africans are xenophobic. they do not fear evil spirits from the dead. they just kill and the next hour they are busy braaiing and singing and eating amagwinya. they are not normal people (cape town interview no. 12). the language and practices of xenophobia cow the victims into silence and a sense of helplessness, short of returning to zimbabwe, which is not seen as a viable option. as one respondent said: “here we live with xenophobia every day. we see it happening and there is nothing that we can do” (johannesburg interview no. 10). and another: “i remain silent because i am zimbabwean and i can’t go against what they say. but they have to realise that we are the same we have the same skin as black people but we just keep quiet even as they insult us” (johannesburg interview no. 12). the interviews provide important insights into how migrant entrepreneurs themselves respond to the threat and reality of xenophobic violence. from the responses of some of the migrants, it appears that trying to “fit in” and integrate by learning local languages, dress codes and cultural practices is one way to try and pre-empt attacks (hungwe, 2012, 2013). however, these strategies are no guarantee of protection when mob violence breaks out: i was robbed during the day. there was a strike and i was coming from the shops. i was not here the previous day and so i did not know that there was a strike. when they saw me coming the mob ran to me. i was ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 898 beaten and robbed. they knew i was a foreigner. i can speak three local languages and i spoke in isizulu but they knew me, some of them and they said he is a zimbabwean and they attacked me. if i was a local i was not going to be attacked. i had zar 1,800. all was taken. that was my money that i had collected from my customers. they robbed me because i was a zimbabwean, a foreigner (johannesburg interview no. 2). a number of the respondents observed that unlike some migrant groups, such as somalis and ethiopians, zimbabweans are not inclined to band together to form associations or groups to lobby for and secure protection for their members. some did suggest that there was safety in numbers and that by doing business in areas where there were many other migrant businesses, the chances of being attacked were considerably reduced. one respondent explained the attraction of running a business in the johannesburg cbd as follows: “you will find that incidences of xenophobic attacks are very rare in joburg central where they are a lot of foreigners. also, park station is a strategic location which supplies the whole of south africa so our protection as foreigners is better” (johannesburg interview no. 13). the downside of operating in safer spaces is that business competition is extremely fierce. most were aware that a great deal of the xenophobic violence was confined to low-income areas, particularly informal settlements. while it was possible for some to avoid doing business in these areas, and instead operating in areas of the city where attacks were less frequent, this was not a feasible option for all. many zimbabwean migrants to south africa do not have the financial resources to afford accommodation nor the means to run a business anywhere other than informal settlements. a number of the respondents noted that the unpredictability of the attacks made it difficult to plan in advance. some said that they made sure that they did not keep all of their stock at the place of business, storing some of it at home or in rented containers. all tried to minimise the amount of cash they kept on the premises, although not many zimbabwean entrepreneurs have access to formal banking facilities. one noted that as soon as he had made some money, he immediately remitted it to zimbabwe “so that even if i am attacked, there is nothing much that they can take from me. it is better if my ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 899 family can have that money” (polokwane interview no. 6). another said that he was planning to relocate once he had sufficient capital saved up: surely experience is the best teacher but i think you plan when you have money, so i am thinking of saving a lot of money and looking for safer business locations like in town. i am thinking so because in 2008 they also attacked my business. they just broke and took away all my stuff, now they have burnt the structure down. so i re-constructed and started again so i am now thinking how i am to keep myself and my stuff safe (cape town interview no. 15). various reactive strategies were mentioned when their businesses were attacked. these included temporarily ceasing business operations, staying indoors at home and moving to stay with friends or relatives in other parts of the city “until the dust settled,” as one put it. others said that the best strategy was simply to flee the area (or as one graphically put it “you run with your life”), if possible taking some valuable item with them which they could later sell and restart the business with. none of the respondents said that xenophobic attacks would put them permanently out of business. on the contrary, most said they would simply raise the capital and start up again. the logical implication of the determination to stay in business is that xenophobic violence has failed in its two main aims: to drive migrant entrepreneurs out of business and to drive them out of the country and back to zimbabwe. the respondents were asked if they would return to zimbabwe as a result of xenophobic attacks and the general consensus was that they would not. a significant number noted that they had settled in south africa with their families and did not want to return. many more made reference to the fact that the crisis in zimbabwe meant that there was nothing for them to return to, even if they wished to do so: there is nothing in zimbabwe. i am not going back. i am trying to make my life here. my wife is here and my child is here. i am not going back there. zimbabwe is a country i love. it’s just that at the moment things are tough and there is really nothing to do when you return back home (johannesburg interview no. 11). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 900 while the hardships which i face in south africa are many they are still better than the hardships i endured back in zimbabwe. in the event of future attacks, i could try and survive because at least i will be doing something (johannesburg interview no. 13). i could never go back because there are no means of surviving. i could simply have to look for an alternative way to survive while in south africa. even if they attack me i will look for another means to survive as long as i am not dead (johannesburg interview no. 19). i am not going back. there is nothing to do in zimbabwe especially because we left a long time ago. what will we do there? so we stay here because this is where our life is. we are establishing here and so if you leave you have to start again. i am not going back. when xenophobia starts we simply move to areas that are safe and return when it is quiet (cape town interview no. 12). perceptions of government inaction all of the respondents were asked about the response of the south african and zimbabwean governments to xenophobic violence. the responses ranged from the outright cynical to the totally dismissive. not a single respondent said they had been helped by either government and none were prepared to defend their response to xenophobic violence. most were extremely critical of both governments. the general consensus was not that the governments did not do enough but rather that they did nothing at all. in the case of the zimbabwean government, the prevailing sentiment was captured by one johannesburg respondent who said: the zimbabwean government does nothing. i have never heard them comment or say anything about these attacks. they do not help us at all. they do not send anyone to come and see how we are living and even provide us with assistance. there is no government that helps us (johannesburg interview no. 2). explanations for why the government “does nothing” ranged from sheer lack of interest in what happened to zimbabweans outside the country, a lack of ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 901 resources to do anything to help and a desire to see zimbabweans return home instead of staying in south africa. much harsher criticism was reserved for the south african government’s practice of “doing nothing”: the south african government does not do anything. at least nothing that i know of. they are just silent. we just see the police, but they come too late and do not do anything. they do not arrest anyone even though you report. they are just moving about, but really doing nothing. i sometimes think that even the police hate us the foreigners. would they do the same and not help if foreigners attack local people? no, they would arrest us. so the police do not help us and would rather see us gone. even the community leaders do not do anything (johannesburg interview no. 2). some of the people in government are fuelling xenophobia. they are also xenophobic because they say a lot of things that are not true. like we are the ones who are causing problems here. they had problems here before we came. they are very corrupt but they are the ones that tell people that foreigners are the cause of the problems. people listen to the government. they keep saying that foreigners are bad. what do you expect the people to do? the people follow their government (cape town interview no. 5). they are the ones that cause it so they do not care. the one that occurred in durban it was the king who incited people. now he is saying he did not do it but we all saw him on tv. the government does not care for us. they care about their people only. if it were foreigners doing violence against the locals, we would all be in jail (cape town interview no. 6). some felt that xenophobic violence was tolerated by government because it supposedly achieved the desired effect of getting “foreigners” to leave the country. a recurring theme was police inaction during episodes of mass xenophobic violence. some felt that the police were extremely slow to respond. as one respondent noted “the police usually come late when everything has been done and people have been killed or their goods stolen” (cape town interview ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 902 no. 5). others commented on how the police offered no protection even when they were present: both the city of cape town and the police are not protecting us at all. like on the day that the people were demonstrating, the police were there. they were just walking. after they were passing, the people started taking our things. there was no one to protect us and no one to stop those people. so, i don’t know what they are doing. i think they just put on uniform and walk around. when there is trouble they don’t come to protect us (cape town interview no. 4). the police just stand at the robots. or they run away. there is poor enforcement because their response is very slow. containers were being opened and things taken while the police stared. they are either scared of the people or because it’s their own people so they can’t stop them. there were three police vehicles, but they just stood while people’s containers were being opened. only foreign containers were broken and they knew whose container it is. no containers for local xhosas (south africans) were broken into and destroyed (cape town interview no. 12). one respondent felt that the reason for inaction was that “south africans do not fear police” and compared the police behaviour with that in zimbabwe: they throw stones at the police. have you ever seen people throwing stones at the police in zimbabwe? no, they do not do that. here they just do what they want. so they attack foreigners even if the police are there. unless the police are using teargas or throwing water. but they rarely do that. but you can run to a police station if you are close and seek refuge. there are other areas where the local people even attacked police stations – attacked foreigners in police stations (cape town interview no. 7). there was also a pervasive view that there was little point in reporting theft or assault to the police because nothing was ever done, based on past experiences of police inaction. dockets may have been opened but the perpetrators were rarely arrested and brought to book and stolen goods were rarely, if ever, recovered: ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 903 it was the mob that took the things and what would i tell the police? besides there were many people whose goods were destroyed that i never bothered. the police do not help much. it is useless to report to the police. the police here do not care. especially if you are a foreigner. they will just tell you it is a mob. they cannot arrest a mob (johannesburg interview no. 2). the argument that the police were not particularly concerned by what happened to “foreigners” was very common. one respondent claimed that even if a perpetrator was arrested, “as soon as they have gone around the corner they will ask for a bribe and release the person. as soon as the person is released they will either come and shoot you or permanently injure you” (johannesburg interview no. 18). another said that they had reported a robbery to the police and even named the assailants but little was done: they took down my details and the details of the things i lost. i listed all of them and went with them to the police station. i was told that they would call me when they have made progress and that was that. i went back but there was no progress. the officer who was dealing with the issue kept telling me there were no suspects and that there was nothing they could do. i even gave them some names of the suspects because i had seen some of them, but the police officer did not even take them down. he insisted that there needed to be a witness for him to put those people as witnesses. i thought he should have at least questioned them or gone to their homes and searched. neither was done (polokwane interview no. 4). apart from the failure to protect, in a xenophobic environment in which migrants are extremely vulnerable, there is always the possibility that the police themselves might seek to take advantage of the situation for their own personal gain. this was certainly the view of many of the respondents who described persistent police harassment, and even theft, during business hours: they know that we are not south africans. sometimes the metro and police can just come and take your products. during winter they came and took socks and hats. once you just try to confront them, they tell you ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 904 that this is not your country, go back to your country. tomorrow the same thing can happen again. the police officer will just come and say they lost the gloves and take another pair. if that day they are in the mood of arresting people, they will arrest you despite the fact that they took your things before. some are those who arrest you and ask for a certain amount of money like zar 200 even if you don’t have it. maybe that day you only made zar 50 and if you try to explain that you don’t have the money, they threaten to take all your stock. if the stock value is more than zar 200 and i don’t have it, i am forced to ask from other people. if they assist me, i give them and they go and if not, they take all my stock (johannesburg interview no. 1). confiscation of stock appears to be relatively common and the owners are forced to pay large fines to retrieve their goods. in many cases, the fines are so heavy that they simply abandon the goods, borrow money and begin again. simply to be allowed to operate in an area for a day or to avoid impounding of goods may require payment of a bribe of up to zar 200. mobile vendors play a continuous cat and mouse game with the police, ready to pack up their goods and disappear at the first sign of a police car. in sum, police protection cannot be counted on during episodes of mob violence and there is also very little redress when individuals report crimes against their businesses or themselves to the police. fear of reprisals from those they report or identify is also a very real disincentive to getting the police involved. as a result, there is a certain fatalism and resignation to the inevitability of losing goods and property in general or isolated attacks. conclusion crush and ramachandran (2015a) argue that there are three main policy and scholarly responses to violence against migrants in general, and migrant entrepreneurs in particular: xenophobia denialism (the official position of the south african government since 2008 and supported by some researchers who argue that south africans are equally as vulnerable to violence as migrants); xenophobia minimalism (whose proponents suggest that xenophobia may exist but it is an epiphenomenon and that the real causes lie elsewhere) and xenophobia realism (which argues that xenophobia is not only ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 905 widespread and real but can take a violent form in specific places and under certain circumstances). this paper revisits these arguments from the perspective of a group of migrants themselves, that is zimbabweans running businesses in the informal economy. the migrants clearly have no difficulty in naming what happens to them as xenophobic. nor do they hesitate, on the basis of first-hand experience, to name south africans as the “owners of xenophobia.” their accounts clearly demonstrate that they see xenophobia as a key driver of the hostility, looting and violence that they experience. we suggest in this paper that xenophobic violence has several key and common characteristics that constantly put zimbabwean informal enterprise owners at risk of losing their and their property. we also argue that the deep-rooted crisis in zimbabwe, which has driven many to south africa in the first place, makes return home in the face of xenophobia a non-viable option. instead, zimbabweans are forced to adopt a number of self-protection strategies, none of which are ultimately an insurance against attack. acknowledgements we 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https://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/52/2/345.full https://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/52/2/345.full ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 910 linking harare and johannesburg through informal cross-border entrepreneurship godfrey tawodzera* and abel chikanda** abstract zimbabwe has witnessed a rapid expansion of informal cross border trading (icbt) with neighbouring countries over the past two and a half decades. that expansion has largely been due to a persistent decline in the economy since the introduction of the economic structural adjustment programme (esap) in the 1990s, which led to the closure of many industries, increased unemployment and forced many people into the informal sector. this 2014 study sought to provide a current picture of icbt in zimbabwe by interviewing 514 informal entrepreneurs involved in icbt between harare (zimbabwe) and johannesburg (south africa). the sample profile revealed that icbt in zimbabwe is dominated by females and young adults and that traders are fairly educated. the study results demonstrate the important role played by icbt in the survival of households in the country. the traders make important contributions to the zimbabwean economy through business establishment, providing goods that are unavailable in the country, availing goods cheaper than the formal retail sector and benefiting the fiscus through import duties. in south africa, icbt benefits wholesalers from whom traders purchase their goods and supports the south african transport and hospitality industries. the report concludes that icbt in zimbabwe has become more than a survivalist strategy. it is contributing to the economy by generating jobs and reducing unemployment. therefore, there is a need for policies that encourage rather than restrict the operation of informal trade. keywords cross-border traders, informal economy, international trade, harare, johannesburg. * department of geography & environmental studies, university of limpopo, p. bag x1106, sovenga ** department of geography & atmospheric science and african & african-american studies, university of kansas, lawrence, kansas state, usa 66045. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 911 introduction across the southern african development community (sadc) region, informal cross-border trade (icbt) is a well-established entrepreneurial activity accounting for 30-40% of intra-regional trade (makombe, 2011; mijere, 2009; peberdy et al., 2015). for zimbabwe, icbt not only expands the market for zimbabwean goods (such as handicrafts) but also imports a wide variety of perishables and non-perishables for the zimbabwean consumers. icbt is not a new phenomenon in zimbabwe, dating back to the 1990s when the country started experiencing serious economic hardships (gaidzanwa, 1998; kurebwa, 2015). the first decade after zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 was a period of relative growth and stability: the real gdp growth rate averaged 7% per annum, average annual inflation was in the single digits, budget deficit as a percentage of gdp was generally around 5% per annum and export growth averaged around 15% per year (malaba, 2006). however, government expenditure rose dramatically over the same period to over 50% of gdp by 1990, largely due to increased spending on health, social services and infrastructure (brown, 2000). consequently, there was relatively less spending on capital projects to grow the economy. the result was increasing unemployment, which reached 26% by 1990, up from just 8% at independence (robinson, 1991). national government debt reached 71% of gdp in 1989 (munjoma, 1999) and by 1997, per capita incomes were lower than in 1990 (mupedziswa & gumbo, 2001). a decade after the country’s independence, and against this backdrop of a contracting economy, the government of zimbabwe launched a series of economic reforms. the first phase, launched in 1990, was the international monetary fund (imf) and the world bank-funded economic structural adjustment programme (esap) (mupedziswa & gumbo, 2001). this was succeeded by the zimbabwe programme for economic and social transformation (zimprest) in 1997 (government of zimbabwe, 1997). the austerity measures imposed on the economy by these reforms (such as the removal of subsidies on food and agricultural inputs, the removal of controls on prices, labour and wages and the operation of social services at cost recovery levels) led to a host of negative impacts that included the closure of ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 912 many factories, massive retrenchments, declining real wages and skyrocketing consumer prices. the resultant decline in the formal economy led to a growth in the informal sector (kamete, 2017; tibaijuka, 2005). icbt as a household livelihood strategy also began to escalate, as thousands of jobless workers had no choice but to enter the informal economy. despite south africa imposing tough visa restrictions on zimbabweans after 1995, cross-border trading continued to be an important source of livelihood for many zimbabweans. just as south africa removed visa restrictions in 2005, the government of zimbabwe launched an assault on all forms of urban informality through operation murambatsvina (chirisa, 2007; potts, 2006; tibaijuka, 2005). though this operation temporarily interrupted the trade, ictb quickly reestablished itself as informal entrepreneurs had few viable alternatives. in 2007, at the height of zimbabwe’s economic crisis, samp conducted a border monitoring study of informal traders at four major border posts and found that the trade was not only increasing and diversifying, but more men were also becoming involved (tevera & tawodzera, 2007). as zimbabwe’s shops emptied and the purchasing power of the zimbabwean dollar evaporated during the economic meltdown of 2008, icbt traders played a critical role in ensuring that essential supplies, such as foodstuffs, remained accessible to many households. the volume of informal trade at the zimbabwean borders with south africa and botswana reached record proportions during the crisis (ama et al., 2013; campbell & crush, 2014; kachere, 2011). in 2009, the zimbabwean economy stabilised after the inauguration of the government of national unity. stabilisation was short-lived as the country’s economic situation has deteriorated once again. however, the period of economic stability following the crisis of 2007-8 does raise the question of whether and what impact it had on icbt. on the one hand, many goods that were formerly unavailable in the country returned to the shops. on the other, formal sector unemployment remained stubbornly high and many households continued to rely on the informal economy for their livelihoods (tawodzera, 2014). in june 2016, the government of zimbabwe, through statutory instrument 64 of 2016, banned the importation of a wide variety of goods, including various processed and tinned foods, bottled water, dairy products, ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 913 household furniture, fertilizer, cotton fabric and some building materials. according to the minister of industry and commerce, the move was designed “to support our local industry […] buying locally manufactured goods; whether it involves purchasing machinery worth millions or even just a t-shirt; begins a cycle in which you re-invest money into the local economy, instead of spending it on an imported product and sending the money outbound” (pindula news, 2016). the announcement triggered widespread protests by informal cross-border traders in harare and at the beitbridge border post between zimbabwe and south africa. the ostensible reason was that the livelihoods of many in the informal economy, who made a living importing goods from south africa and botswana, were under threat by the state (kalaba, 2016; scoones, 2016). a recent study has estimated that there are as many as 3.5 million micro small and medium (msme) enterprises in zimbabwe (finmark trust, 2014). of these, 2 million (or 71%) are individual entrepreneurs, 800,000 have employees and nearly half reported that the business was their only source of income (finmark trust, 2014). additionally, 85% of these businesses were not registered and therefore operated in the informal economy, hence underscoring the importance of the informal sector to the livelihoods and sustenance of many zimbabweans. against this backdrop, the growing informal cities project set out to examine the nature and role of contemporary icbt between zimbabwe and south africa by interviewing a sample of icbt entrepreneurs in harare in 2014. in this paper, we discuss the findings of this survey and demonstrate that despite many challenges and obstacles, icbt continues to thrive. research methodology the research on which this paper is based employed both qualitative and quantitative techniques to obtain a profile of zimbabwean cross-border traders and insights into their motivation, operations, challenges and opportunities. a questionnaire was administered to a total of 534 icbt traders in harare (table 1). only traders who were trading in the informal sector (not registered for tax purposes); had been in operation for at least a year to allow for a retrospective analysis of the start-up, problems and opportunities; and ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 914 were conducting business primarily between harare and johannesburg were interviewed. because it is impossible to draw a representative sample of crossborder traders, the study adopted a snowball sampling strategy. this involved identifying a small group of cross-border traders in multiple locations across harare. these traders were then used as initial sampling units and were asked to identify other traders to be included in the sample. each interviewed crossborder trader was asked to identify at least three other traders, from which one was randomly selected for interview. the process was repeated until the desired sample size was achieved. table 1: sampled areas of harare no. % harare cbd 263 49.6 mbare and mupedzanhamo 110 20.6 chitungwiza, makoni and st mary’s 36 6.7 highfield and machipisa 33 6.1 avondale 20 3.7 kuwadzana 17 3.2 warren park 1 15 2.8 epworth 12 2.2 glen view 3, 7 and 8 12 2.2 mabvuku – tafara 12 2.2 other 4 0.7 total 534 100.0 in addition to the questionnaire survey, 24 in-depth interviews were conducted with selected cross-border traders in harare using a semistructured interview schedule. the interviews allowed for further probing on ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 915 the origins and contemporary context of icbt as well as other key issues surrounding the trade. two focus group discussions were also held in harare and focused on understanding the nature of the trade, relationships with local authorities and the police and the challenges faced in the traders’ everyday lives. three in-depth interviews were also conducted with traders’ organisations in the city that were able to supply information relevant to cross-border trading, particularly issues relating to space, licensing and how traders organise. because of the complexity of icbt, it is possible that some trading activities were not captured in the survey. those operating homebased businesses, and those selling to middlemen, may be under-represented, for example. these limitations notwithstanding, the size of the sample from across the city is likely to give a generally accurate picture of harare’s crossborder trade. profile of icbt entrepreneurs icbt from zimbabwe has traditionally been dominated by female traders with limited involvement of males (muzvidziwa, 2001, 2015). in southern africa as a whole, women make up an estimated 70-80% of informal cross-border traders (unifem, 2010). the majority of traders interviewed in this study were females (68%) with males constituting only 32%. the sample was also relatively young, with a mean age of 33 years. the dominance of young people in cross-border trading between zimbabwe and south africa is explained by the arduous nature of the trade, which involves a great deal of travelling and spending considerable time waiting at border posts and the places where goods are sourced. cross-border trade in the 1990s was associated with the less educated and unskilled (muzvidziwa, 2015). however, this harare sample was better educated with only 1% of the sample having not completed primary school, while two-thirds had a high school diploma, 17% had some secondary level education, 11% had a college certificate and 3% had at least an undergraduate degree. the entry of better-educated people into icbt is certainly a result of continuing high unemployment levels in zimbabwe. in terms of marital status, 17% of this sample had never been married, 66% were married and 16% were divorced, separated or widowed. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 916 the largest number of traders were living in nuclear households (43%), while 28% were from extended households (table 2). a significant minority (17%) were from female-centred households while only 5% were male-centred. what this suggests is that female icbt traders came from a variety of different household structures, which would have meant different domestic roles and responsibilities and different abilities to trade full-time. in general, the array of people involved in icbt indicates that it is no longer the preserve of a few. an economic activity once completely dominated by low-income households and a relatively uneducated population has become a viable livelihood alternative for others reeling under economic pressure. although still dominated by women, male traders are involved in increasing numbers as icbt has increasingly become a business for all. table 2: household structure of icbt traders no. % female-centred 97 18.3 male-centred 26 4.9 nuclear 228 42.9 extended 145 27.3 single person household 35 6.6 total 531 100.0 only 1% of the icbt businesses surveyed were established before 1990. this is primarily because the economy of the country was still strong and most workers were being absorbed in the formal sector. around 11% were established in the 1990s, the decade of the economic structural adjustment programme (esap), while another 15% started cross-border trading between 2000 and 2005. by far the largest proportion of icbt traders began operations during and after the economic crisis of 2008, with nearly three-quarters starting up between 2006 and 2014. the rate of start-up seems to have fallen slightly after 2010, most probably as a result of the stabilisation of the ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 917 economy after the establishment of the gnu as well as the more stable political environment. because most food became available in the country through formal sector imports, the incentive to continue icbt, especially involving food, was no longer as compelling. because high rates of unemployment are thought to be one of the main reasons pushing people into the informal economy and icbt, the survey sought to find out what occupation the traders were engaged in before starting their enterprises. around one-third were unemployed (table 3). another 22% were already working in the informal economy either running a business that did not involve icbt or being employed by someone else (6%). this suggests that the majority of traders went straight into icbt, rather than expanding into icbt from an existing enterprise. another 36% of the traders were employed in a formal sector job immediately prior to establishing an icbt business. table 3: occupation before starting icbt business no. % unemployed unemployed/job seeker 178 33.4 informal economy operated own informal sector business in zimbabwe only 89 16.7 employed by someone in the informal economy 32 6.0 employed office worker 40 7.5 manual worker (skilled) 35 6.6 manual worker (unskilled) 35 6.6 professional (e.g. lawyer, doctor, academic, engineer) 15 2.8 teacher 10 1.9 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 918 health worker 9 1.7 employer/manager 6 1.1 police/military/security 4 0.8 domestic worker 3 0.6 agricultural worker 2 0.4 other occupation 32 6.0 other businessman/woman formal sector (self-employed) 7 1.3 scholar/student 36 6.8 total 533 100.0 around 30% of the sample indicated that they had additional sources of income while 70% survived solely on the icbt business. the majority of those with alternative income-generating sources indicated that they were involved in non-icbt businesses (55%), while 11% were deriving income from parttime or casual work (table 4). according to one trader, having more than one business was a necessity given the unpredictable nature of the informal trade: i sell clothes and shoes, but i also have another income from selling foodstuffs. clothes do not sell faster than food so when i am in need of faster cash i know that i will always get some from trading food. however, the profit from food is not much so it just takes care of my immediate needs. when i am looking for serious money, i know i will get it from clothes and shoes even if they are bought less frequently (interview no. 4, harare, 27 september 2014). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 919 table 4: other income generating activities no. % another non-icbt business 85 55.9 part-time/casual work 17 11.2 another icbt business 14 9.2 formal employment in the private sector 7 4.6 formal employment in the public sector 3 2.0 rentals 3 2.0 other work 23 15.1 total 152 100.0 entrepreneurial motivation there is a general assumption in the literature on the informal economy in zimbabwe that people participate because they have no choice. this would imply that most participants in icbt are necessity-driven entrepreneurs, pushed to participate by the need to survive. however, icbt is not the easiest or most obvious form of informal activity and may attract those with different, more opportunity-driven entrepreneurial motivations. therefore, the study examined the reasons why traders started an icbt business. respondents were asked to rate 27 factors as motivations for starting their icbt business on a scale from 1 (no importance) to 5 (extremely important). the responses confirm the importance of financial survival in pushing people into crossborder trading (table 5). easily the most important factors were the need to make more money just to survive (a mean score of 4.9) and the need to give their families greater financial security (4.6). this suggests that icbt is largely a necessity-driven survival strategy to generate income. employment-related factors, including unemployment and having an undesirable job, were significantly less important. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 920 table 5: entrepreneurial motivation of icbt entrepreneurs mean score survivalist factors i needed more money just to survive 4.9 i wanted to give my family greater financial security 4.6 i was unemployed and unable to find a job 3.0 i had a job but it did not pay enough 2.6 i wanted to provide employment for members of my family 2.3 i had a job but it did not suit my qualifications and experience 1.2 entrepreneurial orientation i have always wanted to run my own business 4.2 i wanted more control over my own time/to be my own boss 3.9 i like to challenge myself 2.9 i wanted to do something new and challenging 2.7 i have the right personality to be involved in cross-border trade 2.6 i wanted to compete with others and be the best 2.5 i like to learn new skills 2.5 i enjoy taking risks 2.4 market opportunities i wanted to expand my business 3.2 i had a good idea for a product to sell to people in zimbabwe 3.1 i started cross-border trading to grow my business 3.1 there were shortages of certain goods in my home country 3.0 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 921 i had a good idea for a product to sell in south africa 1.2 i had a good idea for a product to sell to people from my home country 1.2 building and utilising social capital i wanted to increase my status in the community 3.2 i wanted to contribute to the development of my home country 2.7 support and help in starting my business was available from family members 2.5 i wanted to provide employment for other people 2.1 my family members have always been involved in cross-border trade 2.1 support and help in starting my business was available from other traders 1.9 i decided to go into business in partnership with others 1.5 the second set of factors relates more to self-assessment of personality traits usually associated with entrepreneurship. a desire to own one’s own business did rate relatively highly (at 4.2), as did the related desire to be one’s own boss (3.9). however, the other personality-related factors had low ratings, which suggest that the traders did not see themselves as natural entrepreneurs. they were generally more alert to the market opportunities provided by participation in icbt, with a number of factors scoring around 3.0 on average including awareness of shortages in zimbabwe, having a good idea for a product to sell, and wanting to expand an existing business. financing icbt the amount of start-up capital required to engage in icbt has been a deterrent for low-income individuals and households in the past (muzvidziwa, 2007). in this survey, almost three-quarters of the sample had minimal start-up capital ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 922 of zar 5,000 or less, which suggests that the entry threshold may have declined (figure 1). only 8% had started their business with a capital outlay of more than zar 10,000. according to some respondents, a basic icbt business can be established with as little as zar 2,000. as one commented: cross-border business does not need a lot of money to start. you only need to be clever and buy things that sell faster and are wanted by the people. then you can increase your stock as time goes on. i started my business with zar 1,500 buying and selling rice when the country was in dire need of food. i would buy rice from musina and sell in harare and do two trips a week. i used trucks which are cheaper and did not sleep in south africa, so i reduced my costs (interview no. 9, harare, 28 september 2014). most of the traders acquired their start-up capital from multiple personal sources. about 58% used their personal savings, 38% borrowed money from relatives, while 2% borrowed from non-relatives and 1% from informal money lenders. very few (1.2%) started their icbt business with money from formal sources such as banks and micro-finance institutions. while start-up capital is important for the business to take off, most businesses require a constant injection of cash during their life-span, especially in the initial stages (abdulsaleh & worthington, 2013). in this survey, almost one-third (27%) of the traders reported borrowing additional money for their business in the year prior to the study (table 6). ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 923 figure 1: capital used to start an icbt business table 6: sources of operating loans no. % loan from relatives 77 53.2 micro-finance institution 21 15.0 bank 17 12.0 informal financial institution 9 6.3 money lenders 9 6.3 loan from other business owners 6 4.2 business credit (goods on terms) 1 0.7 other sources 9 6.3 total 144 100.0 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 924 the majority reported that they had borrowed from relatives. according to the traders, relatives are the best source of loans because they do not place stringent conditions on the borrower and are likely to be understanding should they default on the loan or delay the repayment: of course i have borrowed a number of times to finance my business, but i only borrow from my close relatives. they are very understanding when you can’t pay them back or delay the repayment. if you borrow from other people, they give you all sorts of problems in that they can even come and take your goods as surety, or even sell your goods (interview no. 10, harare, 29 september 2014). a small number of traders had obtained additional loans from micro-finance institutions (15%) and banks (12%). with the introduction of the us dollar (usd) as one of the trading currencies in the country in 2009, a number of micro-finance institutions were established in harare. these organisations lend money on a short-term basis, ranging from days to months, but rarely for periods exceeding a year. their interest rates are generally higher than those offered by the banks but they are less stringent on surety requirements, accepting such assets as cars, fridges, stoves, tvs and washing machines as surety. banks, on the other hand, generally prefer immovable properties such as houses. in the absence of such property, a borrower is expected to show evidence of employment and ability to repay through submitting pay-slips. one trader compared the two in this way: i borrow many times when my stocks are low and i need to boost my business. i usually borrow from micro-finance houses where i can just leave the registration book of my car and get it when i repay them. banks require many documents which i do not have. i also do not own a house for surety. so i prefer the microfinances as they are simple. i can apply in the morning and get the money before the end of the day (interview no. 7, harare, 28 september 2014). other sources of loans include informal financial institutions and money lenders. stokvels (money clubs) lend money to members at reasonable rates ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 925 and the repayment period is usually mutually agreed upon with the borrower who is also a member. money lenders, however, tend to lend at punitive rates and can use brutal coercive methods to enforce repayment in case of a default. as a result, most icbt traders avoid doing business with them. a few traders (4%) said they preferred to borrow from each other before going to banks and money lenders. this is because the terms of repayment from fellow traders are very favourable and there is a mutual understanding of the challenges of the trade. how much do the traders borrow from these various sources? loans from fellow traders were zar 16,667 on average, compared to zar 12,187 from banks, zar 11,214 from micro-finance institutions, zar 7,444 from informal financial institutions, zar 6,335 from relatives and zar 3,527 from moneylenders. a key determinant of where money is borrowed is the interest charged on the loan. the highest interest rates are charged by money lenders (averaging 23%), followed by stokvels (18%), micro-finance institutions (17%) and banks (12%). almost all traders (95%) said they use loans to purchase goods for resale, while others use the funds to meet transportation costs (57%) and for rental of the market stalls (10%). in harare, some traders have no stalls of their own and rent from others on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. most icbt traders use public transport (buses and haulage trucks) to ferry their goods from south africa and incur significant costs. traders who take arts and curio products to south africa to sell use the money to transport their goods as far afield as cape town and port elizabeth. what is clear is that loans are used for basic business expenses and not for other household needs. many traders (51%) indicated that the borrowed money significantly increased the volume of their sales (figure 2). others reported an increase in the profitability and competitiveness of their business (23%), and diversification of the products they traded (8%). however, not all traders had positive experiences. as one recounted: i borrowed zar 20,000 from a micro-finance in march so that i could buy more stock. however, that loan has caused me more problems than any real benefits because from that time everything has been ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 926 going downhill. the interest rate was such that i was expected to pay back the zar 20,000 plus zar 5,000 interest in two months. when i bought more stock from johannesburg, i paid too much duty at the border and when i resold the goods in harare, i failed to raise the initial zar 20,000. the micro-finance then took my car and gave me seven days to pay, which i failed to do and my car was sold (interview no. 3, harare, 27 september 2014). figure 2: impact of loans on icbt business activity less than 20% of the icbt traders had applied for a bank loan to finance their business at start-up or for ongoing operations. when asked about the reasons for low patronage of banks, around one-quarter indicated that they had no interest in getting a bank loan, 14% that banks asked for too much collateral, while 13% were dissuaded by the high interest rates, and 12% said the application process was too complicated for them to understand (table 7). only half of those who did apply for a bank loan were successful. most were rejected because they had insufficient collateral. according to a trader whose application had been rejected, the documentation required by the bank was also especially onerous: ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 927 i have applied for a loan and every time my application is rejected i am given a different reason. the first time i was told that i did not have sufficient collateral even though i had submitted title deeds for a plot. the second time i was told that the amount of money i needed was too much and could not be covered by the plot. i eventually just gave up. but it is frustrating after having wasted so much time and money looking for documents and printing, and travelling to and from the bank (interview no. 5, harare, 28 september 2014). table 7: main reasons for not applying for a bank loan no. % not interested in getting a loan 101 24.5 guarantee/collateral asked for is too much 59 14.3 interest rates are too high 54 13.1 application procedures too complicated 49 11.9 did not think it would be approved 47 11.4 don't have a bank account 46 11.2 no need for a loan – had sufficient capital 33 8.0 other reason 23 5.6 total 412 100.0 buying in johannesburg, selling in harare icbt traders from harare are highly mobile, spending only 1.79 days in south africa on average per visit, although a few stay for several weeks, particularly if they are taking goods to sell. the traders travel relatively frequently to south africa, with 67% making at least one trip per month and 82% travelling more than four times per year. the vast majority do not have their own means of transport to south africa and rely on bus services (99%), trucks (3.9%), their own vehicles (1.1%) and taxis (0.6%). only a few traders (0.2%) travel by ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 928 plane. some icbt traders use their services of informal transporters (omalayisha) as it saves them the trouble of having to transport their own goods through the border. the omalayisha are well-known to the customs officials on both sides of the border, which enables them to carry goods without paying customs duties (thebe, 2015). chinese malls in johannesburg are an important source of goods for traders (laribee, 2008). in johannesburg, the majority of zimbabwean icbt traders purchase their goods at outlets such as china mall (26%), other chinese-run malls (25%) and oriental plaza (5%) (figure 3). some buy from wholesalers (14%) while others patronise independent small shops/retailers (13%) or small shops/retailers in malls (8%). a much smaller number purchase goods from factories, supermarkets, the informal sector and direct from farmers. figure 3: source of goods in johannesburg the kinds of goods purchased in south africa in 2015 for resale in zimbabwe varied widely (table 8). by far the most common items were new clothing and footwear, with 88% of all traders buying these items. other goods included accessories such as bags and suitcases (bought by 27%), bedding materials ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 929 (20%), electronics (12%) and household products (8%). foodstuffs, which were carried by three-quarters of icbt traders in 2008, were not at all popular any longer in 2015 (peberdy et al., 2015). this is a reflection of post-2009 developments in zimbabwe that led to a more abundant supply of food products in the country (tawodzera, 2014). on a typical trip, the traders spend an average of zar 8,328 on a variety of products for resale, with a minimum spend of zar 1,000 and a maximum of zar 150,000. only a small number of the traders take products from zimbabwe to sell in south africa. these include arts and crafts, fabrics, bedding, household products and new clothing and footwear. table 8: goods purchased in south africa no. % new clothing and footwear 467 87.6 accessories (bags, sunglasses, etc.) 141 26.4 bedding 104 19.5 electronics 64 12.0 household products 41 7.7 hardware/tools 31 5.8 toiletries and cosmetics 30 5.6 cell phones/accessories 24 4.5 cds/dvds 15 3.5 cooking oil 11 2.1 pre-owned clothing and footwear 9 1.7 furniture 5 0.9 stationery 5 0.9 rice and pasta 4 0.8 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 930 tea/coffee 4 0.8 sugar 4 0.8 beds and mattresses 4 0.8 milk (fresh/sour) 3 0.6 spare parts and raw materials 2 0.4 eggs 2 0.4 snacks 2 0.4 car parts 2 0.4 confectionary 1 0.2 mealie meal 1 0.2 bread 1 0.2 tinned/canned fruits and vegetables 1 0.2 plastic goods 1 0.2 toys, sports equipment 1 0.2 note: multiple response question although the overwhelming majority of the traders sell their goods in the country’s capital, where the survey was conducted, more than 10% also sell goods in other major cities such as bulawayo and masvingo, and in smaller urban centres such as gokwe and mutoko. as many as 86% sell their products in their own stall in an informal market while 24% sell through friends, family and other personal networks, 16% from their houses, 10% from their own shop in the informal sector, 9% on the street, 7% door-to-door and 2.5% in offices and other workplaces. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 931 economic contributions an important objective of this research was to assess the importance of icbt trade to the economies of both zimbabwe and south africa. this is particularly important in the case of zimbabwe where the informal economy is viewed as a problem by government and a hindrance to the success of formal businesses (ngundu, 2010; rogerson, 2016). first, it is clear from the wide variety of goods imported by the icbt traders that there is a ready market in zimbabwe for their products. this means, in turn, that they are servicing the needs of zimbabwean consumers either by providing goods that are unavailable in the country or at a cheaper rate than supplied by local producers and the formal retail sector. given high rates of unemployment and the fact that many households are cash-strapped, the icbt traders play a critical role in servicing the basic consumer needs of zimbabweans. second, the icbt enterprises contribute to the economy through business establishment, growth and the strategic deployment of their profits. on average, the surveyed traders were recording total sales worth zar 12,000 per month. sales ranged from as low as zar 1,000 per month for the small traders to as high as zar 130,000 per month for those dealing in large quantities of goods, especially those trading in hardware and building materials. the reported profits averaged zar 4,765 per month but were also highly variable, ranging from a minimum of zar 200 per month to a maximum of zar 45,000 per month. traders with high sales turnover generally reported higher monthly profits. the size of these profits indicates that icbt is not just a survivalist enterprise, but rather a viable business operation. more than half (59%) of the icbt operators reported that their income had increased since embarking on icbt while a further 24% reported that their income was variable, sometimes increasing and at other times decreasing. only 15% indicated that their income had decreased since starting an icbt business, buttressing the important role that icbt plays in the livelihoods of many zimbabweans. third, given that the income of the majority of the traders had improved significantly through icbt, it is important to know whether or not they use their profits for the businesses or themselves. over 90% reported spending ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 932 their profits on family needs, including paying rent for accommodation, buying food for the family and other obligatory family expenses (table 9). nearly three-quarters said that they reinvest their profits in the business, presumably to buy more stock. table 9: use of business profits no. % spent on family needs in zimbabwe 489 91.6 re-investment in business 391 73.2 education 230 43.1 spent on self 210 39.3 personal savings 152 28.5 spent on family needs outside zimbabwe 3 0.6 retirement fund 3 0.6 re-investment in business outside zimbabwe 4 0.7 note: multiple response question fourth, as well as stimulating the economy through the reinvestment of profits inside and outside the business, icbt traders contribute to zimbabwe’s economy through job creation. most traders personally procure goods in south africa and hire people to sell them in harare. a total of 37% of the traders employ people in their businesses. of the 308 people employed in the enterprises surveyed, 236 (or 77%) were in paid positions. even when members of the family are involved in the business, they tend to be compensated for their time. of the 128 family members employed, 71% were in paid positions. as many as 61% of the paid jobs went to non-family members. in sum, employment generated by the icbt traders is shared fairly evenly between family and non-family members and there is a general preference for female labour in the business hires. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 933 finally, other beneficiaries include the zimbabwean bus companies and the general zimbabwean fiscus, which benefits from duties levied at the border on returning traders bringing in products whose value is above the duty free limit. on their last trip to south africa, the icbt traders paid zar 431 on average in import customs duties, which amounts to zar 228,529 levied on these traders alone. given that this sample is only a small proportion of the total number of icbt traders and that each trader crosses several times a year, the total duties levied undoubtedly run into zar millions. in terms of contributions to the south african economy, the icbt traders contribute, firstly, through expenditures while in the country. the largest beneficiaries are south african wholesalers and others from whom the traders purchase their goods. the traders also support the south african transport and hospitality industries. overall, traders spent an average of zar 8,039 on their last trip to south africa. the spending on particular items included zar 6,737 on goods (or zar 3.5 million in total), zar 683 on transportation (zar 361,000), zar 42 (zar 22,000) on accommodation and zar 141 on other costs (figure 4). figure 4: amounts spent on last trip to south africa. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 934 second, south africa benefits from the value added tax (vat) paid by the traders. visitors to south africa who buy goods for use in their home country are eligible to apply for a vat refund when they exit the country. visitors are supposed to request a tax invoice when they buy the goods in south africa and present it at the border for vat refund. however, only 22% of the cross-border traders said they claim vat back at the border. over one-third (37%) did not even know that they could do so. another third said that the process of claiming vat at the border wasted too much time. the delays are exacerbated by the fact that ownership levels of motor vehicles is very low and reliance on public transport high, which means that they only have limited time to wait. nearly 10% noted that the receipts which they get from south african retailers are invalid for the purpose of claiming vat. receipts from chinese-owned shops, in particular, generally do not meet the requirements for claiming vat. others do not claim vat simply because they do not want to declare their goods and feel that claiming exposes their goods to customs scrutiny. there is clearly a serious lack of information on the procedures for claiming vat refunds at the border. unclaimed or unreimbursed vat benefits the south african revenue services (sars). business problems and challenges cross-border traders confront numerous challenges in the course of their business activities. these are of two main types: (a) those related to customs and immigration at the border and (b) those related to their daily business operations in both south africa and zimbabwe. by far the most common customs and immigration problems relate to the queues and delays at the border. almost all of the traders indicated that they often experienced delays (table 10). icbt has become a way of life for a significant number of zimbabweans and this has put pressure on immigration officials operating at the beitbridge and musina border posts. another common problem experienced by the traders relates to the high duties levied at the border (86% said they experience this problem). in his mid-term fiscal policy review statement in september 2014, zimbabwean finance minister patrick chinamasa increased duty on various finished ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 935 products including meat and dairy products, beverages, vegetables, soap and furniture. he also removed foodstuffs, beverages and washing preparations from the duty free facility. while the stated rationale for these measures was to ‘protect local industry’ the local companies that once produced these goods closed down at the height of the economic crisis in 2007-8. consequently, imposing higher duties does not deter traders from bringing these goods into the country but simply burdens the general population that relies on these goods. table 10: problems experienced by zimbabwean traders at border yes (%) no (%) long queues/congestion/delays at border post 96.4 3.6 duties paid are too high 85.5 14.5 restrictions on import/export of goods (type & volume) 77.6 22.4 transport problems/poor road networks/transport prices high 72.1 27.9 too much corruption at border post 66.8 33.2 days allowed in south africa are too few 42.0 58.0 unwarranted confiscation/detention of goods 41.6 58.4 verbal harassment by south african police, army, border officials 36.3 63.7 verbal harassment by zimbabwean police, army, border officials 18.9 81.1 physical harassment/assault by south african police, army, border officials 18.0 82.0 physical harassment/assault by other people 16.8 83.2 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 936 physical harassment/assault by zimbabwean police, army, border officials 9.6 90.4 other problems cited by a significant number of traders included restrictions on the import or export of goods (78%) and corruption at the border (67%). the problem of corruption has also been highlighted elsewhere (fitzmaurice, 2009; kwanisai et al., 2014). the delays at the border have created an opportunity for touts who know that the traders want to cross the border quickly and will pay a small fee for officials to speed up the clearing processes for them. some traders have also lost money to bogus agents masquerading as immigration and customs officials. harassment, both verbal and physical, was highlighted as a problem by a small number of traders. for instance, verbal and physical harassment/assault by south african police, army and border officials is experienced by 36% and 18% respectively. in zimbabwe, the incidence of this is lower at 19% and 10%. perhaps the biggest business challenge confronting icbts is competition from other traders (experienced by 84%) (table 11). another significant problem is competition from large retailers or supermarkets (experienced by 60%). these outlets enjoy economies of scale as they buy goods in bulk from suppliers at low prices and are able to price their goods competitively. however, even the large supermarkets cannot outcompete the informal sector traders. for instance, beverages, foodstuffs and detergents are sold on pavements in harare at cheaper prices than those charged by retail supermarkets. given the evidence of pervasive animosity of south african informal entrepreneurs towards foreign-owned enterprises, it is notable that few of the icbt traders from zimbabwe experience serious problems: only 8% experience harassment by south african competitors (crush & ramachandran, 2015). harassment by the south african municipal authorities is marginally more common (13%), however, as many as 39% had experienced harassment in harare. other significant problems experienced by the traders in their daily operations include confiscation of goods and ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 937 difficulty getting merchandise back thereafter, and discrimination based on nationality. table 11: problems related to operating icbt business yes % no % business competition competition from other traders 84.0 16.0 competition from large retailers or supermarkets 60.0 40.0 difficulty negotiating with other traders/conflicts among traders 49.6 50.4 harassment by south african traders 8.4 91.6 operational challenges theft of money or goods 46.9 53.1 no relevant training in accounting, marketing, other business skills 30.5 69.5 problems securing a selling site in zimbabwe 29.3 70.7 policy environment harassment by authorities in zimbabwe 39.4 60.6 confiscation of goods/difficulty getting confiscated goods back 25.1 74.9 harassment by authorities in south africa 22.8 87.2 discrimination prejudice against my nationality 36.6 63.4 prejudice against my gender 16.5 83.5 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 938 a related dimension of discrimination is the potential challenge posed by xenophobia in south africa. as many as 78% said they had not been affected by xenophobia at all in their business operations. this suggests that zimbabwean entrepreneurs on short-term visits are able to avoid the worst excesses of xenophobic violence, unlike their resident compatriots. robbery is a more serious problem with 30% having been robbed in zimbabwe and 28% in south africa. this suggests that icbt traders are at risk of victimisation in both zimbabwe and south africa, primarily because their business is cashbased. in june 2016, for example, a spate of robberies targeting buses carrying cross-border traders from zimbabwe was reported in south africa, bringing to the fore the dangers that traders face in their business (the chronicle, 2016; the herald, 2016). conclusion international cross-border trade has become a widespread, entrenched and crucial component of the zimbabwean economy and livelihoods in generals. its importance has risen significantly amidst a prolonged decline in the formal economy. this paper has provided detailed insights into contemporary icbt activities between harare and johannesburg, showing that zimbabwean traders travel regularly to south africa, with three-quarters of the sample reporting that they visit johannesburg for business at least once per month. they reported making monthly profits of more than zar 4,000 per month, far exceeding the salaries of most people in formal employment in the country. this is despite the small initial capital outlay involved, averaging around zar 5,000. icbt traders have been able to grow their businesses to such an extent that they are able to hire non-family members. icbt has therefore become more than a survivalist strategy and should be seen as an important pillar of the zimbabwean economy. the contribution of the informal economy in generating jobs and reducing unemployment needs to be acknowledged by policies that encourage rather than restrict the operation of informal trade. traders make important contributions through business establishment, providing goods that are unavailable in the country, availing goods cheaper than the formal retail sector and benefiting the fiscus through import duties. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 939 in south africa, icbt benefits wholesalers and other outlets from which traders purchase their goods, south african transport and hospitality industries and the south african treasury through unclaimed vat. official denunciation of the supposed damage done to south africa by the non-south african informal sector enterprises rarely mentions icbt; perhaps this is because the evidence of their benefit 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(eds.). mean streets: migration, xenophobia and informality in south africa. ottawa and cape town: idrc and samp. tibaijuka, a. 2005. scope and impact of ‘operation murambatsvina’ in zimbabwe. report of fact-finding mission, new york: un-habitat special envoy on human settlements. unifem, 2010. women in informal cross border trade in southern africa. johannesburg: unifem. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 943 informal entrepreneurship and cross-border trade between mozambique and south africa abel chikanda* and ines raimundo** abstract informal cross-border trading is an essential part of maputo’s informal economy. this paper presents the results of a 2014 samp survey of informal entrepreneurs involved in cross-border trade between johannesburg and maputo. a questionnaire was administered to a sample of 403 informal traders in 7 markets in maputo. the study showed that most of the entrepreneurs began their business activities as vendors and only later moved into cross-border trading. the overwhelming majority used their personal savings to start their business and they face significant barriers in accessing business loans from formal banking channels. the study demonstrates the importance of cross-border traders to both the mozambican and south african economy. in south africa, the cross-border traders make a significant contribution by buying local goods and utilising the services provided by the country’s travel and hospitality industry. in mozambique, they supply affordable products to the country’s growing informal sector and play an important role in generating employment. keywords cross-border traders, informal economy, informal sector, migration, south africa. introduction over the past decade, the mozambican economy has experienced gdp growth rates above 6% (adb, 2016). this has made mozambique the fastest growing non-oil economy in sub-saharan africa (nucifora & da silva, 2011). however, there has been limited formal employment generation (jones & tarp, 2013). most of the country’s urban working population is still in the informal economy (jenkins, 2013) and nearly two-thirds of the economically active population in maputo city is involved in the informal economy in some way * department of geography & atmospheric science, african & african-american studies, university of kansas, lawrence, kansas state, usa 66045. email address: achikanda@ku.edu. ** faculty of arts and social sciences, university of eduardo mondlane, maputo, mozambique. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 944 (jenkins, 2012). a 2007 survey found that 70% of households were involved in informal economic activities, with a significantly higher participation rate by female-headed (86%) than male-headed (62%) households (paulo et al., 2007). maputo’s informal economy is firmly integrated into the national and local economies of neighbouring states such as mozambique and swaziland and the primary mechanism of integration is informal cross-border trade or icbt. in the late 1990s and early 2000s, female icbt traders became important players in the mozambican economy, particularly in the supply of food as well as non-agricultural products such as electrical goods and building materials (macamo, 1999). a samp border monitoring study in mozambique in 20062007 showed that women made up 71% of the total number of cross-border traders (peberdy et al., 2015). a significant feature of the post-2000 crossborder trade from mozambique was its diversity. a number of mozambican traders (36.5%) said they also traded between swaziland and mozambique, buying goods in swaziland to sell in maputo (peberdy, 2000a). those travelling to south africa to buy goods for resale tended to gravitate towards johannesburg and durban, while the rest travelled to towns in the neighbouring province of mpumalanga (peberdy, 2000b). among mozambicans, the expressions dumba nengue (trust your feet) and dumba kutsutsuma (run if you can) are used to describe the informal economy (war on want, 2006). this terminology clearly reflects the tension that exists between informal traders and law enforcement agents. compared with other cities in the region, however, maputo has traditionally adopted a more tolerant approach to the informal economy (kamete & lindell, 2010; rogerson, 2016). policy interventions aim to discourage informality through registration and formalisation rather than by eradication and punishment (dibben et al., 2015). two main strategies have been pursued by the municipal government. first, formal urban markets have been established, existing informal markets have been upgraded and vendors now pay rent for stands. when xikhelene market was upgraded, for example, all trading on the streets around the old market was eliminated (ulset, 2010). second, a simplified tax system was introduced that requires traders to pay business tax either as a lump sum or as a ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 945 percentage of turnover (dibben et al., 2015). this initiative has been hampered by low uptake and strong resistance from the informal traders. informal trade is a major catalyst for involvement in informal economies globally (desai, 2009). the eca (2010: 143) has noted that “informal trade is as old as the informal economy. it is the main source of job creation in africa, providing between 20 per cent and 75 per cent of total employment in most countries.” informal trade also plays a vital role in linking informal economies in different southern african cities. this requires a perspective on informality that takes into account the impacts of interaction between different urban informal economies across the region (akinboade, 2005). the volume of cross border trade has been monitored at the mozambique and south africa border in the past but this paper provides the opportunity to engage in an in-depth analysis of different types of cross-border trade and how icbt is integrated into maputo’s informal economy (dlela, 2006; peberdy, 2007; peberdy & crush, 1998). there has been a tendency in the past to view informal traders as sole operators rather than micro-enterprises with the potential to grow significantly, to create jobs and to generate the capital to branch out into other sectors of the informal and formal economy. by viewing informal traders as entrepreneurs per se and their activities as a potentially strong promoter of growth and employment, we are in a position to move beyond the idea that icbt traders are “survivalists” struggling to make ends meet, and rather towards an analysis of the potential for growing their businesses, the obstacles they face and the kinds of policy environment they require in order to realise their entrepreneurial ambitions (lesser & moisé-leeman, 2009; peberdy & crush, 2001; söderbaum, 2007). research methodology in the first phase of the research on which this paper is based, a survey questionnaire was administered to a sample of 403 informal traders in 7 maputo markets. the sample was divided into 3 entrepreneurial categories (table 1): ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 946  category a: 243 mozambican traders who travel to and from johannesburg as part of their business, buying goods in south africa and selling them in maputo.  category b: 61 mozambican traders who travel to and from johannesburg, buying goods in south africa and supplying other informal traders in maputo. these traders supply vendors in the markets and small shops.  category c: 99 mozambican informal traders who do not travel, but purchase goods from cross-border traders for resale. in sum, 61% of the sample were cross-border traders who travel to and from south africa as part of their business, 14% were trader intermediaries who travel to south africa to buy goods and sell to other traders on return, and 29% did not cross international borders but obtained their goods from those who did. table 1: market location and types of trader markets category a category b category c total no. of interviews xipamanine 58 11 23 92 malanga and fajardo 48 13 18 79 xiquelene 42 9 16 67 estrela vermelha 37 9 13 59 mandela 23 6 11 40 museu 22 6 10 38 praça de touros 13 7 8 28 total 243 61 99 403 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 947 the sampling procedure tried to capture the range of products sold in different markets as markets are getting more specialised, primarily because of their geographical location and potential customer base. most customers who buy at museu market, for example, come from the relatively wealthy areas of museu, polana and sommerschield, while people who buy at xiquelene mainly come from poor wards. foodstuffs are the primary product at xiquelene, while museu's main products are alcohol and cigarettes. praça de touros market is situated in one of the busiest areas of maputo and mainly caters to vehicle owners who need spare parts and also has a car-repair garage. estrela vermelha market, also known as red star shopping centre, sells a variety of goods including household furniture, alcohol and cigarettes. this market is located between central and alto mae wards, and suburbs such as mafalala, and serves people in both middleand low-income brackets. not all of the goods in the markets come from south africa. in addition to locally sourced agricultural products, goods come from as far afield as europe and south america. for instance, frozen chicken from brazil is a common sight in many of the markets (de oliveira et al., 2015). there is also a major trade in imported second-hand clothes. at the xipamanine market in maputo, for instance, hundreds of traders sell second-hand clothing from australia, europe and north america (brooks, 2012, 2013; ericsson & brooks, 2014). many of the clothes that reach xipamanine are of low quality and, according to one researcher, neither improve the lives of the vendors nor the consumers, an outcome which he terms “clothing poverty” (brooks, 2015). in the second phase of the research, four focus group discussions were conducted with traders from the following markets: xiquelene, zimpeto, malanga and museu. key informant interviews were also conducted with different government, private sector and international organisation stakeholders with an interest in the informal economy. among the issues covered in the interviews were the history of cross-border trade in the country, the role of cross-border trade in economic development, legislation governing the informal economy and the challenges faced by cross-border traders. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 948 profile of icbt traders there is a general perception that cross-border trading in mozambique is predominantly undertaken by women, while men tend to stay at home and sell products brought into the country by women (de vletter & polanda, 2001; peberdy 2000a; peberdy et al., 2015). however, some studies have shown greater participation of men in mozambican informal cross-border trade over time (macamo, 1999). in this study, 56% of those interviewed were men (table 2). it is likely that the profile of the respondents would have weighted more heavily in favour of women if the study had been conducted at the border. women tend to find it easier to be involved in cross-border trade and leave the marketing of the products to either their husbands or sons (raimundo, 2010). the predominance of women in cross-border trade has been attributed to their long experience in crossing borders dating back to the early days of mozambique’s 16-year civil war; their business acumen; their familiarity with managers of wholesale storehouses in johannesburg; and the fact that they find it more difficult than men to access formal employment (raimundo, 2010). male respondents claimed that females are better equipped to deal with customs officials and have strategies for avoiding paying import duties; that they themselves viewed trading as more of a hobby or a way to generate extra income; and that they have greater access to jobs in the formal sector. racially, the overwhelming majority of the respondents (99%) were black, while a minority were of mixed race, indian or asian. the mean age of the sample was 37 years with 42% aged between 30 and 39 and 28% between 40 and 49. around 10% were over the age of 50, and the oldest respondent was 78. participation by young people in the trade was relatively limited with only 20% under the age of 30. across all the categories, individuals aged between 20 and 49 made up more than 90% of the total participants. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 949 table 2: gender, race and age profile of traders crossborder traders (%) cross-border trader intermediaries (%) non-cross border traders (%) total gender (n=402) male 35.1 6.5 14.9 56.5 female 26.3 7.2 10.0 43.5 total 61.4 13.7 24.9 100.0 race (n=391) black 98.3 98.2 100.0 98.7 mixed race 0.4 1.8 0.0 0.5 indian 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.3 other asian 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.3 other race 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.3 age (n=395) below 20 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.3 20-29 18.9 16.7 28.6 21.0 30-39 42.8 44.4 36.7 41.5 40-49 29.6 29.6 23.5 28.1 50-59 6.2 7.4 9.2 7.1 60-69 2.1 1.9 0.0 1.5 70 and above 0.4 0.0 1.0 0.5 ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 950 involvement in the informal economy is usually associated with low levels of educational attainment (amaral & quintin, 2006; wilson et al., 2006). as many as 75% of the respondents had less than high school qualifications, and fewer than 2% had completed an undergraduate degree (figure 1). interestingly, traders who do not travel to johannesburg themselves but obtain goods from cross-border traders, had the highest level of education, with 28% having completed at least high school, compared to 22% of the cross-border traders who travel to johannesburg as part of their business and 16% of the intermediaries who supply goods to non-cross-border traders in maputo. figure 1: highest level of education of traders. in understanding how household structure affects participation in the business of informal trade, marital status needs to be considered. for example, are the traders independent operators looking out for themselves? are they heads of households that depend on them for a livelihood? or are they just contributing to household income? given that this business can require crossborder traders to be away from the household for several days at a time, there was an expectation that it might be dominated by single, widowed and divorced people. however, the survey found that only 29% were single (which 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 n o f o rm al s ch o o li n g so m e p ri m ar y sc h o o li n g p ri m ar y (c o m p le te d ) so m e se co n d ar y se co n d ar y /h ig h sc h o o l/ d ip lo m a u n d er gr ad u at e d eg re e p o st gr ad u at e d eg re e o th er p e rc e n ta g e ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 951 tallies with the more mature age profile of the entrepreneurs) and 6% were divorced or widowed. of the rest, 38% were married or in a common law relationship and a further 26% were co-habiting. more than half of the respondents (52%) came from nuclear households (defined as a family made up of husband/male partner and wife/female partner with or without children). about 16% came from male-centred households, where there is no wife/female partner in the household and 13% were from female-centred households. another 11% were from extended households, while only 7% lived alone. an afsun survey in maputo in 2008/2009 showed that the majority of residents in the poorer areas of the city came from extended households, even though female-centred and nuclear households were also common (raimundo et al., 2014). this seems to suggest variation in patterns of participation by type of household. in total, 66% of households are male-headed nuclear and extended family households. these households constitute 63% of the traders’ households (although the reason why extended families are far less likely to participate than nuclear families is unclear). the major difference is in female-centred household participation where these households constitute 27% of all households but only supply 13% of traders, suggesting that these household heads are inhibited from participation because they cannot leave their children. male-centred households appear not to have a problem, with 8% of the total number of households supplying 16% of the traders. business start-up and ownership there is an assumption in the literature that many informal entrepreneurs are pushed into participation by unemployment (jones & tarp, 2013; sparks & barnett, 2010). however, only 26% of the respondents were unemployed before they started their business. another 19% had been students (table 3). around 30% had been employed, primarily in low-paying jobs such as domestic work (9%), agriculture (5%) and unskilled manual labour (3%). less than 5% had occupied skilled or semi-skilled positions. the rest were already employed (8%) or self-employed (17%) in the informal economy in another enterprise. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 952 table 3: occupation prior to starting the business no. % unemployed/job seeker 105 26.3 pupil/student 76 19.0 operated informal sector business based only in mozambique 68 17.0 domestic worker 37 9.3 employed by someone in the informal economy 30 7.5 agricultural worker 19 4.8 manual worker (unskilled) 12 3.0 businessman/woman formal sector (self-employed) 11 2.8 manual worker (skilled) 7 1.8 office worker 6 1.5 police/military/security 3 0.8 teacher 3 0.8 health worker 2 0.5 professional (e.g. lawyer, doctor, academic, engineer) 1 0.3 other occupation 19 4.8 total 399 100.0 in contrast to icbt traders from countries such as zimbabwe, the majority of the maputo city entrepreneurs had been involved in the informal economy for many years. as many as 43% had established informal businesses before 2000 and another 41% had done so between 2000 and 2010. less than 20% had set up shop in the last five years, which may suggest that entry into a highly competitive business is becoming more difficult. the survey also showed that most of the entrepreneurs began their business activities as vendors and only later moved into cross-border trading. so, while over 40% had started their businesses before 2000, only 21% were engaged in icbt at that time (figure 2). conversely, while 57% established their businesses after 2000, the proportion who started icbt activities during this period was close to 80%. this indicates that most icbt traders are post-2000 entrants to that market, a direct result of various economic factors and market opportunities. factors of relevance include the devastating floods of 2000, which impacted many ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 953 households; the lifting of south african visa restrictions in 2005; and the strengthening of the metical in comparison to the rand (christie & hanlon, 2001). figure 2: year of business start-up and entry into cross-border trade. the overwhelming majority of the respondents started their businesses from a very low base with three-quarters having less than zar 10,000 (approximately usd850) to invest (figure 3). of these, the majority had between zar 2,001 and zar 5,000 (usd170-usd425). just 15% had invested zar 20,000 (usd 1,700) or more. this group was most likely to be crossborder traders (83%) rather than cross-border intermediaries or non-crossborder traders. the non-cross-border traders tended to have the lowest levels of start-up capital with nearly 90% investing zar 10,000 or less in their businesses. the sources of capital used to start the business varied but the majority (82%) had used personal savings. other sources of start-up business capital included loans from relatives (used by 33%), bank loans (9%) and loans from informal financial sources (8%). access to formal sources of business capital was limited, constituting a general reflection of the lack of support given to informal enterprises by formal financial institutions. 0,0 10,0 20,0 30,0 40,0 50,0 60,0 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-2010 2011-2014 p e rc e n ta g e year business started year started icbt activities ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 954 figure 3: amount of money used to start business. one recent study showed that nearly 80% of mozambicans have no access to any sort of banking or microfinance services (finmark trust, 2009). only 12% of the sample had access to banking services; 10% to the informal microfinance sector and 1% to formal microfinance services. however, this study of informal entrepreneurs in maputo found that although most could not get bank loans, as many as 44% had a bank account. lack of access to business financing from formal sources is common among informal entrepreneurs. benjamin and mbaye (2012) have noted that informal entrepreneurs in africa frequently fail to access business finance because of the onerous procedures required for loan applications as well as the collateral requirements. the situation is no different in mozambique: 27% indicated that they cannot apply for bank loans because of the high interest rates and 24% do not have interest at all in applying for bank loans. in an effort to improve financial access to informal entrepreneurs, moza bank became the first private bank of mozambique to give loans to informal traders through the assotsi informal cross-border trade association. the loans are only available to assotsi 0,0 5,0 10,0 15,0 20,0 25,0 30,0 r 5 0 0 o r le ss r 5 0 1 r 1 ,0 0 0 r 1 ,0 0 1 r 2 ,0 0 0 r 2 ,0 0 1 r 5 ,0 0 0 r 5 ,0 0 1 r 1 0 ,0 0 0 r 1 0 ,0 0 1 r 2 0 ,0 0 0 r 2 0 ,0 0 1 r 3 0 ,0 0 0 r 3 0 ,0 0 0 r 4 0 ,0 0 0 r 4 0 ,0 0 1 r 5 0 ,0 0 0 r 5 0 ,0 0 1 a n d a b o v e p e rc e n ta g e cross border traders cross border trader intermediaries non-cross border traders ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 955 members who can present a reference from assotsi and a simplified tax return. the loans may be up to one-third of the annual business turnover shown in the tax return, to a maximum loan of mzn100,000 (baxter & allwright, 2015). the programme officer of the competitiveness and private sector development project noted that several government funding schemes are available to small and medium-scale enterprises, but not to businesses in the informal economy: the government of mozambique through the ministry of commerce and industry has established the enterprise competitiveness and private sector development project, which funds small and middle enterprises for competitiveness. the state does not recognise unlicensed businesses which are run by cross-border traders. to be funded one needs to be licensed. the informal economy is not eligible for funds (interview, 25 november 2015). just over one-third of the respondents were aware of the scheme but only 2% had applied, suggesting that they are aware of the ineligibility of informal enterprises for government assistance. business strategies the research sought to examine the icbt linkages and flows between maputo and johannesburg. johannesburg was the primary place, and beneficiary, of the purchase of goods by mozambican traders. on average, the cross-border traders spend 1.52 days in south africa on each trip. as many as 54% travel to johannesburg at least once a week, which translates to nearly 80 days per year spent in south africa. a further 34% travel there at least once a month, which translates to 18 days per year in south africa (figure 4). as many as 8% of the respondents indicated that they also buy goods in other places in gauteng, such as pretoria and randfontein. more than one-third of the respondents purchased goods from other places in south africa, especially from towns close to the mozambican border such as nelspruit, malelane and komatipoort. the traders are therefore able to conduct their business activities in south africa and return to mozambique within the same day. a small number of respondents (around 12%) also travel to other countries to conduct their ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 956 business, including swaziland, china and dubai. as many as 27% of those who travel to these other countries for business are non-mozambican nationals. figure 4: frequency of trips to johannesburg most of the traders sell the goods from south africa in maputo, the capital, while a small number (less than 5%) also sell their goods in other cities such as xai xai and beira. the goods are sold mainly in their own shops in the informal sector (38%) or in their own stalls in an informal market (24%). however, there is also evidence of informal-formal sector linkages with 9% selling in their own shops in the formal sector, 8% selling to retailers, 3% to wholesalers and 1% to restaurant owners. a total of 424 other people were employed directly in the businesses interviewed (figure 5). around half (51%) provide employment to others, or an average of 2.1 jobs per business. a significant proportion of the traders employ more than one person: 27% of those providing employment had two employees, 10% had three employees and 5% had four or more employees. there was a major difference in the employment practices between those who travel to south africa and those who do not (58% versus 31% providing jobs). this confirms that many cross-border traders prefer to focus on their crossborder activities and employ others to sell the goods on their behalf in maputo. non-family members made up 69% of the paid employees and the rest were 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 at least once every week at least once every month more than 4 times per year 2 4 times per year at least once per year other p e rc e n ta g e ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 957 family members, with a total of eight employees below the age of 18. some 71% of the employees were men, confirming that there is an explicit focus on male employment in the businesses supported by icbt. this seems to support our earlier observation that men prefer not to cross borders but are employed by women in the sale of goods in mozambique. figure 5: employment by traders the involvement of children in the informal economy is a controversial issue (ilo, 2004; thorsen, 2012). some regard their involvement as an essential part of household survival strategy (becker, 2004). others view it as child labour that limits the proper development of children and should therefore be eliminated (burra, 2005). the survey found that 16% of enterprises involve children in their business in different capacities. participation was higher among children of cross-border traders (20%) than non-cross-border traders (7%). among those who involve their children, 53% said their children help them to sell goods, 43% sometimes ask their children to look after the stall and 5% involve them in other ways. participation in cross-border trading is sometimes viewed as a part-time activity to supplement income from other sources. the overwhelming majority of respondents (90%) have no other income-generating activity and rely solely on their icbt-supported business for survival. discussions of informal entrepreneurship have focused on whether the sector can create viable enterprises that can provide decent incomes to the participants (ilo, 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 family members over 18 years family members under 18 years other people from your country people from other countries n u m b e r o f e m p lo y e e s ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 958 2009; sparks & barnett, 2010). in other words, can cross-border traders generate incomes comparable to formal sector jobs? the traders generate an average of zar 21,838 per month (usd 1,850) in total sales and a profit of zar 7,087 per month (usd 600) (table 4). cross-border traders who travel to johannesburg as part of their business activities are likely to generate more monthly sales and profit than non-cross-border traders or cross-border trader intermediaries. table 4: total monthly sales and profit mean monthly sales (zar) mean monthly profit (zar) cross-border traders 25,639.89 8,169.68 cross-border trader intermediaries 11,098.04 6,101.39 non-cross-border traders 16,416.67 5,095.15 total average 21,838.28 7,086.82 note: 1 zar = 0.085 usd at the time of the survey cross-border entrepreneurial activity is certainly financially beneficial to the participants. nearly two-thirds (64%) said that their income status had increased compared to the period before they started their business and only 6% said it had decreased. another 26% said that their income was variable, fluctuating according to market conditions. the greatest improvement was reported by the cross-border traders. the profits generated from informal business play an important role in meeting personal (79%) and family (77%) needs. one-quarter of respondents were investing the proceeds in education of family members, more than the proportion re-investing income in the business itself (only 19%). one-third said that profits were being saved for future use. just under 10% send money outside of mozambique as remittances either to support the needs of their family members or for investment in business. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 959 contributions to the south african economy who benefits most in south africa from the purchasing behaviour of mozambican cross-border entrepreneurs? this section examines the activities of those cross-border traders who travel to south africa and seeks to identify the south african beneficiaries of mozambican icbt (peberdy et al., 2015). first, icbt between south africa and mozambique contributes to south africa’s massive trade surplus by exporting south african goods and importing far less from mozambique. only 5% of the traders sell products from mozambique in south africa (including cigarettes, fabric/capulana, fresh fruit and vegetables and alcohol). most of these products are sold through personal networks, but they are also sold to wholesalers and informal vendors. second, a wide variety of outlets in south africa benefit from patronage by mozambican traders, including wholesalers, supermarkets, small retailers (formal and informal), factories, farms and fresh produce markets. easily the most important beneficiaries of mozambican patronage are south african wholesalers (used by 48%). other important sources of goods for the traders include the johannesburg fresh produce market (21%), supermarkets (16%), manufacturers (16%) and small shops or retailers either in a mall (15%) or outside a mall (9%) (table 5). chinese shops are also popular with the crossborder traders, with 19% buying goods from the china mall and 11% buying goods from other chinese-run malls. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 960 table 5: source of goods in south africa % wholesalers 48.4 city deep/johannesburg fresh produce market 20.7 china mall 18.4 supermarkets 16.4 manufacturer/factories 15.8 small shops/retailers (in a mall) 14.8 other chinese-run mall 10.5 small shops/retailers (not in a mall) 8.9 direct from farmers 5.3 other fresh produce markets 4.9 informal sector producer/retailer 3.6 oriental plaza 1.0 other place 2.3 n=304 note: multiple response question the goods bought in south africa can be grouped into five main categories: food and beverages, household/home goods, personal goods, electrical goods and miscellaneous. in the first category of food and beverages, the most common items were cooking oil (purchased by 22% on their last visit), eggs (20%), alcohol (20%), mealie meal (18%) and fresh fruit and vegetables (18%). the most popular household/home goods were household products (26%) and bedding material such as blankets and duvets (8%). personal goods were dominated by new clothing and footwear (19%), while electronics and cellphones and phone accessories were the most popular electrical goods bought in south africa. a third party benefitting from the presence of the mozambican traders is the south african treasury. most of the prices that the traders pay for their goods include vat, although vat refunds can be claimed as these goods are not ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 961 consumed within south africa. vat refunds ensure that the traders are not double taxed through paying vat in south africa and customs duty at the border. however, on their last trip to south africa, only 55% of traders had claimed the vat to which they were entitled. of the 45% who did not claim vat, nearly half said they did not know the procedure and 36% said that the procedure takes too long. in focus group discussions, it emerged that one of the reasons was that bus drivers did not want to spend time at the border while customs officials searched for goods. this makes it extremely difficult for the traders using public transport to submit vat refund claims. those using taxis or their own vehicles are more likely to claim vat refunds. while it is advantageous for south africa if people do not claim these refunds when they leave the country, it is fundamentally unfair to the traders. the mozambican government and civil society should certainly launch a campaign aimed at educating the cross-border traders on their rights and the procedures to claim vat refunds. in addition, the mozambican government needs to work with its south african counterparts to clear the bureaucratic bottlenecks related to claiming vat refunds. fourth, icbt traders spent money on transportation, accommodation and food when in south africa. about 37% usually stay in paid accommodation, including rented rooms, hotels, guesthouses and b&bs (table 6). those who do not pay for accommodation sleep at the bus or train station, on the street, in an automobile or stay with friends and family. public transport is the most common way for traders to travel to and from johannesburg, including buses (used by 43%), trucks (15%), taxis (11%) and trains (1%). others use private transport including their own vehicles (13%), individually-rented vehicles (11%) and vehicles rented with others (6%), but still pay for petrol and other costs such as parking in south africa. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 962 table 6: accommodation in south africa no. % paid accommodation rent/rent shared room 36 15.2 hotel (shared room) 34 14.3 bed and breakfast/guest house/lodge (own room) 13 5.5 hotel (own room) 3 1.3 bed and breakfast/guest house/lodge (shared room) 2 0.8 non-paying accommodation bus or train station 51 21.5 stay with friends and family 40 16.9 street 35 14.8 in car or truck 14 5.9 stay with partner 9 3.8 total 237 100.0 in terms of the monetary spend in south africa, the cross-border traders reported spending an average of zar 14,287 on goods, zar 1,714 on customs duties, zar 1,441 on transport, zar 218 on accommodation and zar 258 on other expenses on their last trip to south africa. in total, a trader travelling from maputo to johannesburg thus spent approximately zar 17,900 per trip on business-related costs. this translates to nearly zar 5.4 million per trip for the entire sample, most of which directly benefits the south african economy (table 7). the financial contribution of cross-border traders to the south african economy is clearly significant. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 963 table 7: contribution to local and regional economy buying goods (zar) paying duty at the border (zar) transport (zar) accommodatio n (zar) addition al costs (zar) total (zar) amount per individual r14,287.21 r1,714.38 r1,441.21 r218.28 r258.49 r17,920 total amount for sample r4,343,311 r521,171 438,127 r66,357 r78,580 r5,447,549 note: 1 zar = 0.085 usd at the time of the survey business challenges in general, the icbt traders do not have problems with their documentation and immigration status when in south africa. the introduction of the visa exemption for mozambicans certainly played a significant role in reducing undocumented migration from mozambique. most significantly, only 2% travel to south africa with no official documentation. as such, the vast majority of the mozambican icbt traders enter the country using legal channels. the most important border or customs-related problem cited by the crossborder traders was corruption, experienced often or sometimes by 86% of the respondents (table 8). corruption leads to a reduction in government customs revenue collection and may also result in a reduction of the profit margins of the cross-border traders, which ultimately reduces prospects for business expansion. others claimed that the duties that they pay at the border are too high (85% often/sometimes), while long queues, congestion and delays at the border are experienced often/sometimes by 82% of the cross-border traders. clearly, the cross-border traders are dissatisfied with the time it takes them to clear customs at the border and there is evidence to suggest that paying bribes can help speed up the process. some of the study participants noted that they ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 964 use the magaigai or intermediaries with experience in dealing with customs officials in an attempt to avoid paying the high duties. table 8: problems related to customs and immigration yes (%) no (%) too much corruption at border post 86.0 14.0 duties paid are too high 85.3 14.7 long queues/congestion/delays at border post 82.3 17.7 restrictions on import/export of goods (type and volume) 66.7 33.3 unwarranted confiscation/detention of goods 65.3 34.7 verbal harassment by south african police, army, border officials 19.7 80.3 verbal harassment by mozambican police, army, border officials 19.3 80.7 physical harassment/beating/violation of human rights by south african police, army, border officials 12.0 88.0 physical harassment/beating/violation of human rights by mozambican police, army, border officials 11.0 89.0 physical harassment/beating by other people 8.3 91.7 other respondents noted that they experience restrictions on the types and volumes of goods that they can either import or export (experienced often/sometimes by 67% of respondents). during the focus group discussions, one trader noted that “we can import spare vehicles, vegetables, groceries, fruit, meat, furniture, alcohol. the only limitation is related with duties and some do not know the common customs tariff, which is a heavy book to be read.” the common customs tariff is composed of 97 categories of products and sub products. the president of the mukhero association commented on the common customs tariff as follows: mukheristas get advice from the association about their rights and obligations and some were trained. all the time that the government updates duties or other related issues the associations are informed. as a matter of fact, before any increase or changes on common customs tariff, ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 965 the government calls the associations to inform them, otherwise we block the streets. when the government of south africa introduced a new regulation that every crosser should prove they had an amount of zar 3,000, we felt that was a decision that had to be discussed between the two governments. we were concerned about security and not every trader carries that amount of money. south african should understand that we bring money to them and we are no longer poor as it was in the past during civil war.8 others cited the unwarranted confiscation/detention of goods at the border (56% often/sometimes). a focus group participant noted that they are sometimes forced to leave their goods at the border if they fail to reach a reasonable agreement with customs officials. participants noted that it was not worthwhile trying to get goods back because of the high cost of import duty, especially on goods such as cigarettes and alcohol. the customs department is said to auction confiscated goods. even though only a small number of respondents reported cases of harassment and abuse, these are significant enough to warrant attention. verbal harassment by police, army and border officials had been experienced often/sometimes by the cross-border traders on both the south african (16%) and mozambican (16%) sides of the border. physical harassment/beating/violation of human rights by police, army and border officials had also been experienced often/sometimes on both the south african (11%) and mozambican (10%) sides of the border. the president of the mukhero association described the border as a site of struggle between traders and customs officials: it is a titanic fight as both officers and traders are strong. traders have their way of fighting and avoiding customs, while customs use their power as official authority, but we do have our own ways of counteracting them. however, this fight ended by the time the cross-border traders realised that the only way of this fight was to meet with the authorities, as the government did in rome with renamo. conversation is the only way to 8 interview, 3 september 2014. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 966 avoid death of people, because the authorities were using fire weapons as well as some traders also had weapons.9 the challenges faced by the traders in their daily operations can be divided into two categories: those experienced while conducting business operations in mozambique and those encountered when travelling to south africa for business. in mozambique, the most common problems related to competition from other traders (65.5%), competition from large retailers or supermarkets (45%), insecurity or problems securing a selling site (43%), conflicts with other traders (35%) and confiscation of merchandise (34%) (table 9). table 9: challenges in daily operations of business yes (%) no (%) in mozambique (n=400) competition from other traders 65.5 34.5 competition from large retailers or supermarkets 45.0 55.0 insecurity of selling site/problems securing a selling site when needed 42.8 57.3 difficulty negotiating with other traders/conflicts among traders 34.5 65.5 confiscation of goods/difficulty getting confiscated goods back 33.8 66.3 theft of money or goods 31.5 68.5 harassment by authorities in mozambique 18.0 82.0 in south africa (n=300) difficulty finding an affordable and safe place to stay 21.7 78.3 insecurity of selling site/problems securing a selling site 18.0 82.0 harassment by authorities in south africa 12.7 87.3 prejudice against my nationality 12.7 87.3 harassment by south african traders 9.7 90.3 9 ibid. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 967 theft of goods is experienced by the traders on their way home from south africa. this is related to renewed conflict in mozambique where armed opposition party members are said to attack travellers in order to loot their cash and goods. one of the focus group discussion participants noted that: bandits assault the mukheristas taxis. they use mats with nails to punch the tyres. then they steal their money. some of mukheristas do carry a lot of money, sometimes more than r 10, 000 in one trip. last year one of our mates was on her way to johannesburg when the taxi she was travelling in was ambushed near machado. she lost more than r 40,000 cash in the robbery. there were 10 traders in that taxi.10 in south africa, the biggest challenges relate to the difficulty of finding an affordable and safe place to stay in johannesburg (22%), insecure trading sites (18%), prejudice against their nationality (13%), harassment by the police or municipal authorities (13%) and harassment by south african traders (10%). the study also sought to understand the cross-border traders’ experiences of xenophobia in south africa. nearly one in five of the respondents (19%) noted that their business had been affected by xenophobia a great deal or to some extent (figure 6). however, as many as 63% said that xenophobia had not affected their business at all. while these findings are encouraging, given the widespread xenophobic attitudes and attacks on informal entrepreneurs, it is likely that mozambicans are able to avoid the worst forms of victimisation by having a legal right to be in the country, by not remaining long and by not competing directly with south african informal businesses (crush & ramachandran, 2015). 10 focus group participant, zimpeto market, 5 december 2014. ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 968 figure 6: extent to which xenophobia has affected business operations finally, the respondents were asked about their treatment while conducting their business activities in both mozambique and south africa. across all but one of the measures, the traders experienced more problems in mozambique than in south africa. they have had their business goods looted more often in mozambique than in south africa (47% versus 19%). they have been robbed more in mozambique than in south africa (39% versus 15%) and they have also been assaulted more (19% versus 12%). in addition, harassment by local authorities was more frequent in mozambique (11%) than in south africa (5%), as were incidents of unlawful arrest (6% and 1%, respectively). conclusion cross-border trading has become a way of life for many in mozambique, geographically encompassing every part of the country and also involving migrants from other countries residing in mozambique. cross-border trade in mozambique is primarily done by women with men mainly involved in the sale of the products brought back from south africa. the traders are clearly playing a key role in supplying commodities that are in scarce supply in mozambique. 0,0 10,0 20,0 30,0 40,0 50,0 60,0 70,0 a great deal to some extent not very much not at all p e rc e n ta g e ahmr, vol.3 no2, may-august 2017 – special issue 969 even though the sector is an important part of the mozambican economy, little support is granted to the traders by local and municipal authorities or the private sector. access to finance remains a major obstacle to business success as neither the government nor private banks provide loans to the traders. this paper has demonstrated the specific roles played by the cross-border traders in the economies of both mozambique and south africa. it has shown that cross-border traders contribute to the south african economy through buying goods, as well as paying for accommodation and transport costs. the cross-border traders are directly contributing to the retail, hospitality and transport sectors in south africa, thereby creating and sustaining jobs in those sectors. in mozambique, the traders pay import duty for the goods bought in south africa and they play a significant role in reducing poverty and unemployment in the country. therefore, the policy environment should encourage rather than discourage the operation of icbt. a change in the attitude of government towards cross-border traders is required as they do contribute to poverty alleviation, and there is a definite need for a forum that involves government and municipal officials and the traders. therefore, there is scope to include the informal traders in mozambique’s poverty alleviation strategy. although they are regarded as informal, they pay taxes to the local authorities for access to trading sites. they also buy goods in south africa, some of which are sold to formal retailers, thereby blurring the formal-informal boundary. the informal tag becomes a hindrance when considering the functioning of the mozambican economy. the traders need to be seen as an essential component of the mozambican (and south african) economy because, in their absence, both would be poorer than they are today. acknowledgements we would like to acknowledge the international development research centre (idrc) for 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koser, 2016; triandafyllidou, 2018). remittance inflows have emerged as a key link between human mobility and development. there are also diverse theories that have emerged to explain the impact of remittances on economic growth (development) of the countries of origin of migrants. among these are the developmental (neo-classical), the structuralist (dependency), the pluralist, and the ‘big push’ theory.1 the big push theory states that a ‘big push’ or comprehensive investment package could jumpstart economic development in the developing countries (pragyandeepa, 2016). according to this theory, if remittances are managed properly and if smooth inflow is facilitated, remittances can play a ‘big push’ role for many african countries. these four theories are considered reliable guides to ascertain how remittances impact economic growth in this study’s three igad (intergovernmental authority on development)2 member countries. remittances are classified as current private transfers from migrant workers resident in the host country for more than a year, irrespective of their immigration status, to recipients in their country of origin (world bank, 2019). many recent empirical studies suggest that remittances may have the potential to positively affect a country’s economic growth and the development of financial systems in developing or emerging countries (yaseen, 2012; ratha, 2013; fromentin, 2018; adeoye et al., 2020; azizi, 2020; donou-adonsou et al., 2020). furthermore, remittances from international migrants have proven to be a more sustainable source of foreign currency for developing countries than other capital inflows, such as foreign direct investment, public debt or official development assistance. however, the nexus between remittances and development remains complex, especially with regards to the movement of people, which contributes to the spread of global interdependence in social, economic and political spheres. workers’ remittances and compensation of employees comprise current transfers by migrant workers and wages and salaries earned by non-resident workers. 1 for a detailed discussion of the first three theories, see de haas (2007) and for details on the ‘big push’ theory, see rosenstein-rodan (1957). 2 the intergovernmental authority on development (igad), in the horn of africa, comprises member countries like, djibouti, eritrea, ethiopia, kenya, somalia, sudan, south sudan, and uganda. igad is also an au-recognized regional economic community (rec) and building-block of the african economic community (aec) under the aec treaty, implying a commitment to establishing a free trade area (fta) and regional infrastructure, including transport development. remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 8 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 remittances inflow is one of the major sources of capital flows in the world. although developing countries, and especially sub-saharan africa (ssa), do not have a bigger share of this capital flow, remittances are recognized as being very useful in promoting household welfare and health in developing countries. tah (2019) found that remittances have a significantly positive impact on financial access in subsaharan africa. the objective of this study is to analyze and understand the possible effect of international remittances on the economic growth in the three selected economies, namely, ethiopia, kenya and uganda. these countries were chosen because they are among the top recipients of remittance inflows in east africa. furthermore, the study tests the causal relationship between international remittances and economic growth in these countries, in relation to potential policy lessons. this study analyzes the economic dynamism between international remittance flows and economic growth among the three major economies in the east african region. there are studies that assess the importance of remittance inflows in africa as a continent, while there are also specific country-level studies (tah, 2019). the motivation for this study is to research other sub-regions within ssa in relation to their status as dominant migration destinations. sub-regional analysis facilitates better corridor-specific policy interventions towards the realization of policy goals and objectives relating to remittance inflows (eyden et al., 2011). given the significant increase in migration and remittance flows to the continent, the literature on international migration and development in sub-saharan africa has also increased. however, the results from many studies are inconclusive or at best, they are mixed. therefore, there is still room for further investigation of the topic under discussion. the next section provides a context on immigration in the three selected countries. section three presents the literature review; section four discusses data and methodology. section five presents the result of the data analysis. the last two sections present the overall discussion of the findings and conclusion, and policy implications, respectively. context geographically sub-saharan africa is the region of the african continent that falls south of the sahara desert. it is composed of all african countries and regions, situated completely, or partially, south of the sahara. this study comprises a purposefully selected group of three igad countries in ssa. this section highlights the context of migration and remittance flows in ethiopia, kenya, and uganda. ethiopia ethiopia is among the largest remittance receiving countries in sub-saharan africa (ratha and mohapatra, 2011). the history of immigration in ethiopia began with revolution and an unstable political environment during the 1970s. most of the people who migrated at that time formed part of a well-educated urban section of 9 the population, who migrated to western countries in order to seek political asylum (geda and irving, 2011). political migration was followed by more economically oriented migration, initially driven by the aspirations of the urban population. currently, as the middle east has become an important destination region for ethiopian migrants, the migrants are increasingly from rural areas, migrating to find better (employment) opportunities abroad (geda and irving, 2011). remittances are an extremely important source of foreign exchange for ethiopia, perhaps larger than the export earning of the country in its foreign exchange generation capacity. however, the remittance industry in ethiopia is besieged by several problems (reinert, 2007). the size and scale of remittances also create the possibility for harnessing these flows for productive investment, thus contributing to the long-term development of ethiopia. according to studies by isaacs (2017) and adugna (2019), the volume of remittances in ethiopia could be between us$ 2 to 4 billion per year (an average of about us$ 3 billion). this is about the size of ethiopia’s total export and development aid combined. however, a non-conducive policy environment, as well as the lack of the deepening of liberalization of the financial sector, remain key challenges in the sector. however, there are disparities between the report released by the national bank of ethiopia and the world bank reports on the amount of remittance flows to the country (nbe, 2017; world bank, 2018a) remittances play a large role in financial household dynamics in ethiopia, notably as risk-reducing instruments and as insurance against external shocks (aredo, 2005). the diaspora has had an influential voice in ethiopian politics and development over the past decades. the role of the diaspora in the current socio-economic transformation3 led by prime minister abiy ahmed is significant. a few years before the transformation in the country, the ethiopian diasporas, especially those living and working in the united states of america, declined the volume of remittances and avoided the formal channels of sending remittances home as a way of bringing about change. the ethiopian government increasingly recognizes the importance of remittances from its migrants, for the development of the country and has taken several initiatives to optimize the effects of these financial flows. one of their goals was to stimulate its diaspora members to send money through the official channels. however, most financial transfers are still made through informal channels (icmpd, 2008). this situation is directly related to the immigration status of the diasporas in host countries. most ethiopian diasporas in europe and north america have legal documented immigration status that allows them to send remittances through official channels. however, those in countries in the middle east and the rest of africa, especially those in south africa, are in a dire situation because of their unfavorable immigration status in those countries. 3 since taking over as head of the ethiopian government in april 2018, abiy ahmed has increased his openness, by lifting the state of emergency, releasing political prisoners, announcing economic openness, and privatizing national enterprises. regarding foreign policy, abiy ahmed surprisingly initiated an historic rapprochement with eritrea. abiy ahmed is applying his manifest skills to the vital purpose of transforming ethiopia into a prosperous society (collier, 2019; financial times, 2020). remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 10 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 all ethiopian migrants in south africa, with exception of few professionals, are unable to send money through formal channels and remit informally, as they do not have the required official identification and thus lack access to formal financial services. complicated formal banking procedures and their cumbersome requirements make the lives of ethiopian migrants in south africa very difficult (dinbabo, 2020). to ease the flow of remittances, countries like mexico issue official identification to their nationals living abroad, irrespective of their migratory status in the destination country. the ethiopian government may need to explore such options as well. likewise, the european investment bank and mediterranean developing countries have signed an agreement to allow migrants in european union (eu) countries access to simplified banking facilities upon presentation of consular registration cards (unctad, 2013). the south african government should also consider the introduction of simplified banking facilities, in order to facilitate remittance outflows through formal channels and make the process much easier and less costly, for the benefit of both the host nation and the african diaspora. another discouraging factor with respect to remittance flows to ethiopia for the last two-and-a-half decades, was that the former government of ethiopia had introduced indirect (implicit and hidden) remittances tax, requiring recipients to convert remittances to the local currency at uncompetitive officially-fixed exchange rates (adugna, 2019). in addition, the former ethiopian government adopted a more opportunistic approach, damaging the trust of migrants and diasporas, by issuing diaspora bonds, which were embezzled by government officials due to poor governance, lack of economic and political stability, and unfavorable investment regulation. however, in recent years, the current ethiopian government has put in place several positive measures to improve the operations and flow of formal remittances, as well as to reduce the costs of transfers and to increase access to international remittance services (isaacs, 2017). however, the ethiopian government should make continued efforts in ensuring that the ethiopian diaspora community is recognized by host nations, through its diplomatic channels. kenya after kenya gained its independence from britain in 1963, the inflow of remittances to kenya from the diaspora grew substantially and ranks among the top-four leading sources of kenya’s foreign exchange (makori et al., 2015). this has been attributed to the surge in the numbers of kenyans living in the diaspora (ngugi, 2015). from the mid-1980s when kenya began to experience an economic downturn and political instability, a significant number of kenyans left the country to join the diaspora (makori et al., 2015). they moved to countries where political and economic climates were favorable and promising and became the initial remitters of funds to kenya from their destination countries. in fact, as far back as the post-independence period, kenya started experiencing a gradual increase in remittances (ngugi, 2015). kenya has experienced a steady growth in the annual volume of diaspora re11 mittances recorded over the post-independence period. remittances have become a major source of foreign exchange and a key driver of economic growth, as underscored in the “kenya vision 2030”, kenya’s national development policy blueprint (aboulezz, 2015). ratha et al. (2011) found that remittances received in kenya from within africa were used primarily for the construction of houses, while inflows from outside africa were devoted to long-term investments. the volume of emigrants from kenya and the volume of remittances have been increasing over time. the kenyan government has been very keen to encourage the diaspora to participate in national development (world bank, 2012). the importance of the diaspora has also been recognized in the “kenya vision 2030”. although remittances have the potential to contribute to national development, there has been a lack of administrative structures and mechanisms to enable the government to tap directly into these foreign inflows from the diaspora as an asset for investment and national development (government of kenya, 2011). studies comparing poverty levels between kenyan households that have no remittances and those that receive remittances have recorded higher poverty levels in the former than in the latter (makori et al., 2015; ocharo, 2015). it is well understood that remittances do facilitate household incomes and are efficient anti-poverty forces in poor or developing countries such as kenya (kamuleta, 2014; nyamwange and paterson, 2015). indeed, recipients of remittances are able to identify and utilize the remittances to meet their most pressing poverty needs. studies conducted around kenya on the well-being of households receiving remittances and those that do not receive remittances reveal that the households that receive the remittances are better off financially than those that do not receive the funds (kamuleta, 2014; nyamwange and paterson, 2015). the reason for this is that the recipient households can invest the remittances in income-generating activities, which result in the reduction of their poverty standing and improvement of their living standards while the non-remittance receiving households have no funds to invest. furthermore, studies carried out across kenya indicate that remittance-receiving households experience higher income levels and have a higher purchasing power than the non-remittancereceiving households (ngugi, 2015). uganda remittance inflows in uganda have been increasing steadily while outflows have remained relatively stable. mobile money is increasingly successful in uganda and has driven a lot of the growth in remittance volume and value. the regulatory requirements for cross-border remittances are relatively clearly outlined, compared to many other ssa markets (macmillan et al., 2016). there are no caps on outward remittances and no foreign exchange controls exist. according to interviewees, the regulator comes across as mostly open-minded and eager to advance the sector. however, regulation around mobile money is unclear and lags the rapid technological advances in the market, preventing inclusive development (macmillan et al., 2016). remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 12 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 uganda’s remittance market is thriving, yet costs are high (world bank, 2018b). informal inflows and the costs of sending remittances are high, despite the significant developments in the market structure, regulation and access which have taken place in recent decades. remittances to uganda have surpassed traditional foreign currency earners with positive impacts on the economy. the positive role played by remittances include that the aggregate flows into the economy have a direct effect on the national reserves, foreign exchanges and gdp of the economy as well as improvement on savings and credit ratios as a result of improved investment. ugandan migrants are sending remittances to improve conditions in their households and communities. there is evidence that remittances in uganda have the potential to significantly contribute to development compared to the official aid (bank of uganda, 2016). in uganda, remittances tend to be more stable than other sources of foreign exchange, and they are often countercyclical, helping sustain consumption and investment during downturns and performing the role of a shock absorber (ratha et al., 2011; unhcr and uncdf, 2018). remittances play a key role for ugandans and refugees alike, providing vital funds from friends and families abroad. uganda is a net recipient of remittances, given the large flows that the ugandan diaspora remits home as well as the inflows that are supporting the enormous refugee population. uganda’s open border policy towards refugees from crisis-ridden neighboring countries is particularly commendable, given the current global rise in anti-immigration sentiments and policies. the remittance sector in the country is further advanced than in most countries in africa, yet challenges remain. while formal remittance flows into uganda are the sixth highest in africa, it is estimated that both domestically and regionally a large proportion of personal transfers are still made informally (cooper et al., 2018). literature review migrants remit money home from host countries for two main reasons, namely altruism and self-interest motives. altruism refers to the migrant’s assistance to the family back home to meet basic family needs, while self-interest motives refer to returns seeking purposes for remitting back home (docquier and rapoport, 2006). remittance inflows sometimes involve a complex arrangement that incorporate features of both self-interest and altruism, such as risk diversification, consumption smoothing and intergenerational financing of investments (docquier and rapoport, 2006). migrants also remit home, aimed at maintaining good family ties to improve their standing for inheritance purposes or to ensure that their assets back home are properly taken care of. this is referred to as “enlightened self-interest”(lucas and stark, 1985: 906). this section presents empirical studies that have analyzed the relation between remittances and economic growth. there are positive and negative externalities associated with international migration. one of the positive outcomes of migration is 13 remittance inflows, which have emerged as a key link between human mobility and development. a great deal of literature is available on remittances both in developed and developing countries. these include research in the area of development economics (corden and neary, 1982; barajas et al., 2011; koyame-marsh, 2012; siddique et al., 2012; ahmed, 2013; alvarez-tinajero, 2013; marwan et al., 2013; richard and alfredo,2013; kemegue et al., 2014; world bank, 2014; adarkwa, 2015; asongu and nwachukwu, 2016; hien et al., 2019; tchamyou, 2020). the empirical studies show that remittances can stimulate economic activity and motivate entrepreneurial communities (ahmed, 2013; asongu and nwachukwu, 2016; tchamyou, 2020). remittances help households move out of poverty and increase educational and housing spending. siddique et al. (2012) investigated the relationship between remittances and economic growth in bangladesh, india and sri lanka and found that there is no causal relationship between economic growth and remittances in india, that there was a two-way relationship between remittances and economic growth in sri lanka, and that remittances did not lead to economic growth in bangladesh. studies from sub-saharan african countries show mixed results. for example, a study undertaken by koyame-marsh (2012) found that remittances do not lead to economic growth in all ten ecowas (economic community of west african states) countries studied. marwan et al.’s (2013) study on sudan found a long-run positive relationship between growth, export and remittance. richard and alfredo (2013) also found evidence of the strong role of remittances in promoting social welfare in ghana. adarkwa (2015) examined the impact of remittances on economic growth in four selected west african countries and found mixed results. from another angle, barajas et al. (2011) show that the growing consumption of recipients may increase the local market price and appreciate the exchange rate. as a result, the macroeconomic mechanism known as ‘dutch disease’4 may yield the failing of the tradable sector of the domestic economy, the rising of the current account deficit, and inflation with weaker monetary control (hien et al., 2019). meanwhile, the growing pressure on wages may lead to job losses in the tradable sector, while the sudden rise of prices would increase the labor costs in the nontradable sector, thus leading to the loss of national competitiveness. in addition, the assessment of the impact of remittances on national growth suggests a wide range of multifaceted causal links and presents both positive and negative aspects, which may vary depending on the socioeconomic factors pertaining to each country at national and local levels (yaseen, 2012). table 1 presents a summary of positive and negative effects of remittances. in general, sub-saharan africa lags woefully behind other regions in efforts at effectively harnessing the benefits of remittance inflows while minimizing negative externalities associated therewith. this has been attributed to several factors, such as 4 an economic model developed by corden and neary (1983), when a country experiences a resource boom due to a tradable resource discovery and/or to an increase in a resource price. remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 14 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 inadequate awareness of the drivers and constraints to these inflows through formal channels, overregulation, underdeveloped financial systems and markets, lack of the requisite structures and enabling environment (kemegue et al., 2014). in 2013, inflows of remittances to sub-saharan africa increased by 3.5% (world bank, 2014). however, the increase was not distributed evenly across the continent. east african countries experienced significant gains in remittance inflows while those in the west african sub-region experienced only a marginal increase (world bank, 2014). table 1: summary of positive and negative effects of remittances source: adapted from alvarez-tinajero (2013). positive effects negative effects national level • increase national income if remittances are transferred through formal channels. • recipient countries gain creditworthiness in international credit markets. • recipient countries may stabilize national balance of payments accounts. • large remittance flows could lead to currency appreciation, with negative consequences on exports. local/household/ individual level • boost local economies by stimulating consumption, demand for local goods or services, fostering job creation. • potentially increase local capital to be reinvested in businesses. • afford basic needs (food, healthcare, education, housing). • face risks (unemployment, disability, accidents, illness). • afford social/family events (town festivities, weddings, funerals); strengthen social networks; gain prestige, power and resources (social or material advantages); redress relative deprivation (access to what others in the immediate environment have). • partly redress social (class, gender) disadvantages. • generate a demand for imported (rather than locally produced) goods. • increase the price of land, property, construction materials. • exacerbate structural inequalities between recipients and nonrecipients. • foster dependency links between senders and recipients. • put pressure on senders, leading to the deterioration of their living conditions. 15 data and methodology data this study uses data from the world bank for the period from 1995 to 2017 to evaluate the nexus between inflow remittance and economic growth among three igad member countries, namely, ethiopia, kenya, and uganda. the descriptive statistics for the data used in this study are presented in table 2. the variable name gr stands for the real gdp growth rate. most studies use gdp as a proxy variable for economic growth. however, using gdp growth rate better mimics the growth trend in respective countries. gri,t-1 is the lag of the logarithm of gdp growth rate, inf is inflation, measured as the annual percentage change in the consumption price index, inv is investment, lngexp is the logarithm of government expenditure, lnpop is the logarithm of population size as a measure of human capital, lnrem is the logarithm of remittances over time, and opn is openness to international trade, defined as the ratio of the sum of exports plus imports of goods to total output. in the analysis, many variables in this study are transformed to logarithm (log) forms. in time series analysis, logarithmic transformation is often considered to stabilize the variance of a series and mimics normal distribution (luetkepohl and xu, 2009). table 2: descriptive statistics of variables source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). the larger values of skewness and kurtosis show asymmetric distribution around the mean. this fact is also evidenced in the jarque-bera test that rejected the null hypothesis of normality at 1 percent level of significance for most of the variables. methodology since the main objective of the study is to analyze the impact of international g inf inv lngexp lnpop lnrem opn mean 6.339514 8.245000 22.86067 19.88665 17.52654 19.55574 17.22065 median 6.081430 7.114000 21.47600 19.80179 17.41449 19.86758 14.15700 maximum 13.57260 39.24500 39.41700 23.61567 18.34440 21.40123 125.9680 minimum -3.458139 -8.999000 12.35200 15.94040 16.73840 16.03824 -22.65600 std. dev. 3.585341 7.624076 6.616714 2.154349 0.476774 1.307967 22.08911 skewness -0.213900 1.538381 0.760696 -0.141375 0.299412 -0.837405 1.794977 kurtosis 2.883122 7.925549 3.055465 2.052124 1.839402 2.799826 9.949993 jarque-bera 0.565438 96.96656 6.663418 2.812946 4.903541 8.179549 175.9217 probability 0.753732 0.000000 0.035732 0.245006 0.086141 0.016743 0.000000 sum 437.4264 568.9050 1577.386 1372.179 1209.331 1349.346 1188.225 sum sq. dev. 874.1174 3952.604 2977.101 315.6030 15.45734 116.3329 33179.17 observations 69 69 69 69 69 69 69 remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 16 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 remittances on economic growth in the three east african countries, the effect of international remittances on economic growth can be modelled as follows: methodology on panel unit root tests as a common accord in the literature, panel unit root tests are superior to time series unit root tests. therefore, this paper uses panel unit root tests, as outlined in im, pesaran and shin (ips) (2003) and levin lin and chu (llc) (2002). following ips (2003) and llc (2002) we have the following panel unit root regression: δyi,t = αi + βi yi,t-1 + ∑j=1 δi,j δxi,t-j + εi,t , i = 1, …, n, and t = 1 (1) where: using equation (1), llc (2002) test and ips (2003) test are carried out, respectively. the llc test examines: h0: β1=β2=...=βn=0 (no cointegration) against h1: βi<0, for some i (there is cointegration) h0 and h1 are the null and the alternative hypotheses respectively, where the appropriate lag order wij from equation (1) must be determined. the conventional t-statistics for testing βi=0 is: tβi = (2) the ips adjusted t-statistics is expressed as: tβi = (3) note that the ips test also examines similar null and alternative hypotheses as specified in the llc test. dynamic panel model specification following from giuliano and arranz (2009) and barguellil et al. (2013), the dynamic panel model used in this study is specified as follows: gri,t =β0 + β1gri,t-1 + β2 infi,t + β3 lninvi,t + β4 lngexpi,t + β5 lnpopi,t + β6 lnremi,t + β7 opni,t + εi,t (4) where: gr is the real gdp growth rate gri,t-1 is the lag of gdp growth rate inf is inflation, measured as the annual percentage change in the consumption price index inv is investment lngexp is the logarithm of government expenditure lnpop is the logarithm of population size as a measure of human capital wij 17 lnrem is the logarithm of remittances over time opn is openness to international trade, defined as the ratio of the sum of exports plus imports of goods to total output ε is the error term results and discussion the panel co-integration test given the nature of the data used in this study, the unbalanced panel data analysis is employed. for the analysis of the long-run relationship among variables in this study, an array of panel cointegration tests are employed to ensure the veracity of the findings. table 3 presents a summary of the panel unit root test. table 3: panel unit root test: summary source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). note: *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5% and 1% levels, respectively. most of the variables are stationary at level, since the null hypothesis of unit root is rejected. that makes our estimation reliable. table 4 presents a summary of the pooled estimation result from the panel fully modified least squares. null: unit root (assumes common unit root process) null: unit root (assumes individual unit root process) variable levin-lin-chu (llc) im, pesaran and shin (ips) w-stat level first difference level first difference g -3.6445*** -2.71078*** inf -3.1507*** -2.84007 lnrem -1.68116** -0.31627 inv 0.04313 -2.04313** 0.32596 lngexp 2.43817 -1.80750** 4.48814 -2.28552*** opn -4.4806*** -5.18781*** lngdpp -2.96322*** d(lnpop,2) -6.31624*** -6.05418*** remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 18 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 table 4: pooled estimation result from panel fully modified least squares (fmols) source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). the logarithm of remittances impacts the dependent variable, economic growth, positively but is not statistically significant. however, the first lag of economic growth, inflation, and openness has affected economic growth during the study period positively and significantly at five percent and one percent levels of significance respectively. table 5 presents the results from the kao panel residual cointegration. dependent variable: g (growth rate) sample (adjusted): 19962016 periods included: 21 cross-sections included: 3 total panel (balanced) observations: 63 cointegrating equation deterministic: c coefficient covariance computed using default method long-run covariance estimates (bartlett kernel, newey-west fixed bandwidth) variable coefficient std. error t-statistic probability gt_1 0.198874 0.097510 2.039522 0.0464** inf 0.138120 0.039452 3.500981 0.0009 *** inv 0.031040 0.082528 0.376110 0.7083 lngexp 0.060569 1.354254 0.044725 0.9645 lnpop -2.554559 5.488141 -0.465469 0.6435 lnrem 0.635389 0.540616 1.175305 0.2451 opn 0.064385 0.014339 4.490131 0.0000*** r-squared 0.419647 mean dependent var 6.269976 adjusted r-squared 0.321097 s.d. dependent var 3.672979 s.e. of regression 3.026373 sum squared residual 485.4234 long-run variance 3.462648 19 table 5: kao panel residual cointegration test for long-run relation between remittance and economic growth source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). the kao panel residual cointegration shows that the null hypothesis is not sufficiently supported by the data. there is a statistically significant long-run relationship between the variables in the series. this implies that international remittance, our variable interest, has long-run impact on the economic growth in the countries considered in this study. table 6 presents a summary of the granger causality test. table 6: granger causality test source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). there is not enough evidence to accept the null hypothesis. therefore, remittances granger causes economic growth – significantly at 5 percent level of significance in the long run. robustness check to verify the above dynamic panel regression result, fixed-effects and random-effects estimation are used as a robustness check. as shown in tables 7 and 8, both fixedeffects and random-effects estimation results confirm the same findings, as shown in other panel regression results. that is, the logarithm of remittances impacts series: g, gt_1, inf, inv, lngexp, lnpop, lnrem, opn sample: 1995 2017 included observations: 69 null hypothesis: no cointegration trend assumption: no deterministic trend automatic lag length selection based on sic with a max lag of 5 newey-west automatic bandwidth selection and bartlett kernel t-statistic prob. adf -3.447484 0.0003*** residual variance 11.10221 hac variance 1.559893 pairwise granger causality tests sample: 1995 2017 lags: 2 null hypothesis: obs f-statistic prob. lnrem does not granger cause g 63 4.29316 0.0182** g does not granger cause lnrem 0.24848 0.7808 remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 20 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 economic growth in the panel of countries included in this study positively, affects economic growth, but is not statistically significant. however, in the random-effects analysis, the estimation result is negative but not statistically significant. the other variables like inflation and openness have affected economic growth during the study period positive and statistically significant in both models (see tables 7 and 8). these findings are in line with economic theories on growth. table 7: fixed-effects estimation results source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). fixed-effects(within)regression number of obs. = 66 group variable: i number of groups = 3 r-sq: obs. per group: within = 0.3450 min = 22 between = 0.2236 avg. = 22.0 overall = 0.0011 max = 22 f (7,56) = 4.21 corr(u_i,χb) = -0.9435 prob> f = 0.0009 g coef. std.err. t p>|t| [95% conf. interval] gt_1 0.13875 0.1273 1.09 0.280 -0.1161 0.3937 lnrem 0.7595 0.7387 1.03 0.308 -0.7204 2.2394 inv -0.0132 -0.1086 -0.12 0.904 -0.2307 0.2043 lngexp 1.5202 1.6533 0.92 0.362 -1.7917 4.8322 opn 0.0633 0.0184 3.44 0.001*** 0.0264 0.1001 inf 0.1108 0.0529 2.09 0.041** 0.0048 0.2168 lnpop -8.9945 6.5789 -1.37 0.177 -22.1737 4.1846 _cons 116.3416 89.7058 1.30 1.30 -63.3503 296.0334 sigma_u 9.0418 sigma_e 2.9079 rho 0.9063 f_test that u_i=0: f(2,56) = 2.47 prob> f= 0.0942 21 table 8: random-effects estimation results source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). note: ** and *** indicate significance at 5% and 1% levels, respectively. conclusion human migration is one of the topical issues under discussion among policy-makers, politicians, the media, and individual citizens of both developed and developing nations. when supported by appropriate policies, migration can contribute to inclusive and sustainable development in both origin and destination countries, while also benefiting migrants and their families. however, sub-saharan africa lags woefully behind other regions in efforts at effectively harnessing the benefits of remittance inflows while minimizing negative externalities associated therewith. this study investigated the effect of remittances on economic growth in three igad member countries, namely, ethiopia, kenya and uganda, for the period ranging from 1995 to 2017. the pooled estimation result from panel fully modified least squares (fmols) shows that the logarithm of remittances impacts the dependent variable, economic growth, positively but not statistically significant. the kao panel residual cointegration test shows that the null hypothesis is not sufficiently supported by the data. there is a statistically significant long-run relationship between the variables fixed-effects(within)regression number of obs. = 66 group variable: i number of groups = 3 r-sq: obs. per group: within =0.3033 min = 22 between =0.9807 avg. = 22.0 overall = 0.4073 max = 22 wald chi2(7) = 39.85 corr(u_i,χ) = 0 (assume) prob> chi2 = 0.0009 g coef. std.err. t p>|t| [95% conf. interval] gt_1 0.2144 0.1192 1.80 0.072 -0.0192 0.4481 lnrem 0.0291 0.0571 0.06 0.955 -0.0419 1.0426 inv 0.1320 0.0887 1.49 0.137 -0.9376 0.3059 lngexp -0.0268 0.4648 -0.06 0.954 -1.7917 0.8839 opn 0.0564 0.0185 3.04 0.002*** 0.0200 0.0927 inf 0.1198 0.0527 2.27 0.021** 0.0165 0.2230 lnpop -0.0225 1.6846 -0.01 0.989 -3.3243 3.2793 _cons 0.3749 31.7787 0.01 10.991 -61.9103 62.6602 sigma_u 0 sigma_e 2.9079 rho 0 (fraction of variance due to u_i) remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 22 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 in the series. this implies that international remittances, our variable interest, has a long-run impact on the economic growth in the countries considered in this study. in addition, remittances granger cause economic growth – significantly at 5 percent level of significance in the long run. in this study, the impact of human capital is captured using the population size of the respective countries. however, the result comes with a negative effect. such result is not surprising, given that the countries included in this study have relatively higher population growth rates that may hamper capital formation because of high levels of consumption. education and training could better capture the effect of human capital on economic growth. the countries included in this study are known for poor governance, lack of economic and political stability, and unfavorable investment regulation that deters the inflow of remittances. the trust deficit between the diaspora and governments should also be addressed to promote diaspora investment appetite in local financial instruments, like bonds and other financial assets. policymakers in ethiopia, kenya and uganda should formulate policies that can stimulate additional remittances from their diaspora. governments, institutions, and civil society are interested in mobilizing remittances, as illustrated by the growth initiatives targeting the financial and human capital of migrants and diasporas. remittances can serve as a ‘big-push’ towards economic growth in the countries included in this study; countries need to design appropriate policies suitable for money transfer. in addition, there should be strong collaboration with host countries to harness mutual benefit in both ends. the migrant-sending countries should also create a strong collaboration with migrants and diasporas, with respect to their rights, and improve their quality of life in host countries. future studies in this area may focus on the channels through which remittances impact economic growth. 23 references aboulezz, n. 2015. remittances and economic growth nexus: empirical evidence from kenya. international journal of academic research in business and social sciences, 5(12): 285-296. available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v5i12/1958. accessed on 20 september 2020. adarkwa, m. 2015. impact of remittances on economic growth: evidence from selected west african countries (cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal). african human mobility review, 1(2): 177-200. adeoye, b.w., nwokolo, c.i. and 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(b) natives who remain in the country; (c) emigrants to the top destination countries (australia, canada, new zealand, the united kingdom, and the united states). the study derived empirical findings from the perspectives of skills supply and demand. the key findings showed that emigrants were most educated, enjoyed the lowest unemployment probability (10%), and were most likely to be involved in high-paying skilled occupations and tertiary-sector activities. immigrants to south africa experienced worse well-being than emigrants but better than natives. these immigrants were slightly more educated, and enjoyed a higher labor force participation rate (lfpr) (75%) and a lower unemployment likelihood (20%), compared with natives (55% and 30% respectively). furthermore, for both abovementioned two groups, they were distinguished into three sub-groups – long-term, medium-term, and shortterm migrants; and long-term migrants was the sub-group that had the best labormarket outcomes. the study concludes by recommending four policy suggestions: ease up regulations to attract skilled immigrants; promote entrepreneurial activities of immigrants; better develop and retain skills of the natives; and improve migration and vacancy data capture, availability, usage and analysis. keywords: migration, labor market, labor supply, labor demand, south africa 1 department of economics, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa. corresponding author.  dyu@uwc.ac.za 9 introduction historically, south africa has been an immigrant-receiving country; the country was occupied by forebears of the bushman and khoisan tribes before the europeans arrived, whereas a great number of people migrated from central africa to south africa during the seventeenth century (van rooyen, 2000). the discovery of minerals led to an increased demand for mining labor and subsequently immigration of workers from other countries (modi, 2003: 1759). the documented migration data released by statistics south africa (statssa, 2004) found that, between 1940 and 2003, a total of 1.25 million people immigrated to south africa, whereas 0.61 million south africans left the country, resulting in a net gain of 0.64 million people. the more recent 2016 community survey (cs) (statssa, 2016) found that 1.32 million people from other countries moved to south africa. these findings suggest that the movement of people and transfer of skills across national borders is a common phenomenon, and it is no longer possible for countries to manage population movement independent of international norms and global trends (wöcke and klein, 2002: 442). thus, as globalization encourages greater specialization and division of labor as well as international transfer of skills across countries, national-level labor-market policy planning and implementation has become more complicated, because global labor issues need to be considered, including international migration. the high incidence of skilled emigration out of south africa results in a net transfer of human capital and scarce resources to more developed countries in the form of foregone tax revenues and fiscal cost of educating these skilled workers, along with a potential loss of skills in the next generation, because emigrants most likely take their children with them (waller, 2006; leipziger, 2008). the emigration of skilled people may further worsen unemployment in the home country, because skilled and unskilled workers are complementary, especially if skilled labor engage in entrepreneurial activities by hiring unskilled labor. in fact, the international business publications study (2012: 67) estimated that each skilled emigrant who left south africa could lead to the loss of as many as 10 unskilled jobs in the country. within the southern african development community (sadc), south africa is the most popular destination country for migrants from other african countries. the united nations (2019) found that the immigrants’ share represented by people coming from countries such as malawi, namibia, zambia, and zimbabwe gradually increased during 1990–2017, whereas the share represented by mozambique and lesotho remained high. african immigrants replenish local labor supply at both ends of the skills spectrum, stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation, and contribute to fiscal revenue. nonetheless, these immigrants may tighten the labor market by increased competition for local jobs and create social tensions (oecd, 2018). many south african empirical studies investigated inter-provincial migration (see, for example, van der berg et al., 2002; oosthuizen and naidoo, 2004; moses and yu, 2009; kollamparambil, 2017; kleinhans and yu, 2020), but there are relatively the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 10 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 fewer empirical studies on international migration. the latter group of studies mainly investigated the well-being of immigrants in selected regions with the aid of primary data (e.g., sinclair, 1999; wentzel et al., 2004; theodore et al., 2017), examined the emigration intention of natives (e.g., mattes and richmond, 2000; de jong and steinmetz, 2004; mattes and mniki; 2007), or estimated the macroeconomic impact of skilled emigration in terms of gross domestic product (gdp) foregone (e.g., bohlman, 2010). only a handful of studies investigated if the immigrants enjoyed better wellbeing than natives in the labor market (e.g., zuberi and sibanda, 2004; facchini et al., 2013; budlender, 2014; fauvelle-aymar, 2014; vermaak and muller, 2019). however, these studies did not compare all three core groups, namely immigrants, natives and emigrants. these studies also did not comprehensively investigate international migration in south africa from the perspectives of skills supply and demand, and possible imbalances between the two (or skills mismatch). hence, this study analyzes a wide range of local and international data sources to investigate the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa by comparing the demographic, education, and labor market characteristics of the three groups. literature review theoretical framework before someone decides to migrate, they first compare the returns (r) and costs (c), before discounting both terms into present values. if there is net real income gain from migration (i.e., r – c > 0, in present value), the person decides to migrate (mincer, 1978). sjaastad (1962) and stark et al. (1998) assert that returns to migration are mainly influenced by labor-market earnings and probability of securing employment in the destination country. also, both money costs (e.g., foregone earnings in the country of origin and the costs involved in searching for and learning a new job in the country of destination) and non-money costs (‘psychic’ costs of changing environment and leaving family and friends behind) are involved. numerous well-known migration theories and models exist, such as pushpull model, dual labor market theory, world systems theory, network theory, and cumulative causation theory, to name but a few (for detailed discussion of these theories, refer to massey et al., 1993). since this study examines international migration from a labor supply and demand perspective, it discusses the two most relevant models (push-pull and human capital). in the push-pull model, natives leave the country due to economic and non-economic factors. push factors are those aspects in the country of origin that cause emigration, while pull factors are those aspects in the destination country that encourage immigration (oteiza, 1968). the main push factors include slow economic growth, high unemployment, and poor access to facilities and services (e.g., electricity and water). on the contrary, the main pull factors include better 11 quality of life, better personal security, more abundant employment and professional development opportunities, and higher remuneration (van rooyen, 2000; rasool et al., 2012). the human capital model argues that skill-biased emigration prospects increase the expected return to human capital, thereby encouraging more people to pursue further education before deciding if they emigrate or not (di maria and lazarova, 2012; deuster and docquier, 2018). thus, the mere possibility of skilled emigration encourages more people to acquire additional skills, leading to a net increase of human capital. since not all eventually leave the country of origin, the emigration of skilled people does not necessarily lead to brain drain, but could rather result in brain gain, because people who decide not to migrate have higher levels of human capital than they would have had in the absence of emigration possibility (vidal, 1998; stark and dorn, 2013; todaro and smith, 2015). thus, both the countries of origin and destination enjoy an increase of aggregate human capital level. south africa’s migration policy south africa’s existing international migration policy is a regime aimed at attracting high-skilled expatriates. in the initial years since the democratic transition, the african national congress (anc) did not place international migration policy among key issues in the economic development and reform strategies. there was a lack of understanding on various pressing issues in the broad field of migration, such as the presence of more asylum seekers, brain drain and brain gain, and skills needs of the country (segatti, 2011: 31, 39–40). in november 1996, the department of home affairs (dha) appointed a task team to write the 1997 green paper on international migration, followed by the release of the refugees act of 1998 and the immigration act of 2002. these two acts were amended numerous times, before the international migration green paper and the white paper were published in 2016 and 2017, respectively. the south african government introduced new categories of permanent and temporary residence to gain better control over the types of migrants entering the country, and a points-based system was proposed to replace a stringent quota system on skilled immigration. nonetheless, the post-apartheid international migration policy instruments remain restrictive and slow to respond to national demands and regional developments (peberdy, 2001: 17; van lennep, 2019a: 2). the international migration policy instruments are summarized in table 1 and some of them are explained below. the 1999 white paper was implemented mainly through the immigration act of 2002 and partly through the refugees act of 1998. the immigration act of 2002 emphasizes numerous principles, including the following: simplify requirements and procedures; expeditious issue of residence permits; issue visas to foreign individuals with skills (i.e., critical skills) that cannot be obtained in south africa or those with substantial amounts of capital to invest in the country; recruit lowto middle-skilled individuals from sadc countries the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 12 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 only by farmers, mines, and other firms under a temporary corporate work visa; ensure human rights protection in immigration control; and prevent and counter xenophobia (dha, 2017: 4, 12, 45; oecd, 2018: 62; van lennep, 2019a: 5). table 1: south africa’s international migration policy instruments since 1994 source: adapted from mbiyozo (2018: 3) despite these changes being implemented, the 2002 act has been under criticism on some shortcomings, most notably the argument that the new laws were much like the “two-gate policy” during apartheid by placing restrictions on unskilled immigration while promoting high-skilled immigration. this act was amended four times. in the 2004 act, the main refinement was that skilled labor migration was ascertained, by revising the work permit policy to people of a specific class, category or profession, and reducing the number of available quota permits (van lennep, 2019a: 6). in the 2007 act, work permit quotas were once again limited to foreign individuals who fall within a specific category or class as stipulated by the dha for each sector. nonetheless, a more outwardly pro-african stance was taken by relaxing the requirement that african students pay repatriation deposits, and making changes that favor cross-border traders, in particular women (van lennep, 2019a: 7). the key highlights of the 2011 act are as follows: the temporary residence permit was redefined as a visa, whereas the critical skills work visa was introduced; added conditions of capital injection to the country’s economy and employment creation were imposed for the business visa application; duration of intra-company transfer permits of foreign executives was extended to four years (oecd, 2018: 62; van lennep, 2019a: 8-9). one criticism of the 2011 act by the businesses was that the instrument document migration green paper international migration green paper 1997 international migration green paper 2016 migration white paper international migration white paper 1999 international migration white paper 2017 aliens act aliens amendment act 1995 refugees act refugees act 1998 refugees amendment act 2008 refugees amendment act 2017 immigration act immigration act 2002 immigration amendment act 2004 immigration amendment act 2007 immigration amendment act 2011 immigration amendment act 2016 13 list of skills and professions relevant to the quota system for work permit application was “established without any direct consultation with the business sector, and largely out of sync with the reality of skills needs” (oecd, 2018: 62). the immigration amendment act of 2016 was a response to irregular migration, by extending sanctions on foreigners who overstayed their visas, whereas the confidentiality of applications of asylum-seekers was protected (van lennep, 2019a: 9). in february 2022, the department of employment and labour (del), in close collaboration with the dha, released the draft national labour migration policy (nlmp). the report mentioned that the nlmp aims to address numerous policy gaps, including data for evidence-based policy monitoring and evaluation, migration governance and management, as well as labor migration to and from south africa (del, 2022). the nlmp particularly aims to align better with the skilled planning goals of national development plan and national skills development strategy phase iii. the government regularly releases the list of critical skills. the most recently released list in early 2022 included 101 critical skills in total, with 91 belonging to the three high-skilled broad occupation categories. the detailed occupation categories that are most critical to south africa’s labor market are: architects, engineers and related professionals; physicists, chemists and related professionals; computing professionals (rsa, 2022). while not shown in table 1, it is worth mentioning that over the years south africa has issued special dispensation permits to immigrants from countries such as angola, lesotho, and zimbabwe. for example, the zimbabwe exemption permits were granted to zimbabwean nationals who migrated to south africa before 2009. however, marawanyika and ndlovu (2022) recently reported that the cabinet announced in november 2021 that the holders’ permission to stay in south africa would expire on 31 december 2021. however, they were given a 12-month grace period to apply for alternative permits under the existing immigration framework. lastly, to the author’s knowledge, there is currently no explicit south african policy framework on emigration. nonetheless, the south african network of skills abroad (sansa) was founded in 1998, with the primary goal of connecting highly skilled emigrants and encouraging them to contribute their skills to south africa’s economic development, without returning to the country permanently (brown, 2003). to conclude, while this section highlights the south african migration (especially on immigration) instruments since 1994, strictly speaking, these green and white papers are really not migration policies. review of past empirical studies studies using primary data sinclair (1999) interviewed 77 immigrants in cape town and johannesburg; the migrants declared that they responded to hostility with anger and indignation, and formed migrant communities to support one another. mcdonald et al. (2000) the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 14 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 interviewed 2,300 immigrants from lesotho, mozambique, and zimbabwe, to examine their reasons for visiting and leaving south africa. the study found that, seeking work was their primary reason for migrating to south africa (lesotho: 50%, mozambique: 40%, zimbabwe: 35%), and surprisingly the desire to be a permanent south african resident was not too strong. wentzel et al. (2004) interviewed immigrants from six african countries. two-thirds of the respondents declared that “no suitable employment” was the main reason for leaving the previous area of residence, whereas 76% claimed that the “best employment opportunities” was the key reason for moving to south africa. theodore et al. (2017) interviewed 600 zimbabwean day laborers in tshwane; the migrants and their dependants endured poverty along with food and housing insecurity, due to low-wage underemployment in the informal sector. lastly, kalitanyi and visser (2010) interviewed 120 immigrant entrepreneurs in cape town. more than half of them left their countries of origin because of political instability, 55% were engaged in clothing or footwear businesses, and more than 80% hired south africans in their businesses. the next group of studies examined emigration intention and interaction experience with the dha staff. mattes and richmond (2000) interviewed 725 skilled south africans with at least grade 12 (or matric level of education). the study found that 31% of participants had intentions to emigrate, 14% already applied for a work permit, permanent residency, or foreign citizenship in another country. a high share of interviewees was dissatisfied with taxation level (74%), cost of living (71%), upkeep of public amenities (70%), family’s safety (68%), and personal safety (66%). on the contrary, at least two-thirds perceived things to be better overseas in the areas of personal safety (80%), family’s safety (80%), upkeep of public amenities (72%), and customer services (67%). next, de jong and steinmetz (2004) interviewed 3,600 households on their emigration intention. about 25% intended to emigrate in the next five years. also, these households were associated with a significantly higher propensity to leave south africa, spurred by the following factors: those headed by older individuals with post-matric qualifications; pressure imposed by spouse to emigrate; poor quality of electricity services; and low levels of life satisfaction. the findings of the above studies all correspond with the push-pull model. mattes and mniki (2007) analyzed the 2002 data collected by the southern african migration project (samp) on 4,800 postgraduate and final-year undergraduate students. about 40% of survey participants strongly considered relocation to another country. financial resources, family encouragement, prospects of a better life overseas, and previous travel abroad to inform themselves on living abroad were key factors increasing the students’ likelihood of leaving the country, whereas patriotism and strong national identity decreased emigration likelihood. rogerson and rogerson (2000) interviewed 200 companies to examine how they dealt with the actual and potential emigration of skilled personnel, especially regarding recruitment and training. one-third acknowledged that the impact of brain drain 15 was significant; nearly 60% used specialist agencies to recruit skilled personnel, and 62% adopted in-house training methods for skilled personnel. two studies investigated the efficiency of the dha but derived completely opposite results. the earlier reviewed rogerson and rogerson (2000) study also examined the experience of firms in dealing with the dha. the authors found that 60% rated the experience as negative when it comes to recruiting skilled people from overseas. the firms asserted that the following structural problems prevented foreign skilled individuals from entering south africa: time-consuming, obstructive and procedural processes of dha; high costs of contracting lawyers or consultants; lack of transparency in the decision-making process, internal operations, functioning and staffing at the dha; and insufficient understanding on the part of the dha of the demand for skilled workers. davids et al. (2005) interviewed 3,000 people and found that the results were positive. for example, more than 80% were satisfied with the attitude of dha staff by describing them as attentive, considerate, friendly, helpful, honest, and knowledgeable. the mean waiting time at dha offices was only 20 minutes, whereas 49% of respondents said dha’s efficiency improved, compared to the apartheid period. studies using surveys and censuses budlender (2014) analyzed data from the third labor market quarter 2012 qlfs conducted by statssa, to examine the personal characteristics and outcomes of different groups of south africans, with one group being immigrants. they (1.23 million) represented 4% of the working-age population. compared to natives, immigrants enjoyed higher labor force participation (77%) and employment (65%) rates but lower unemployment likelihood (16%). the employed immigrants were more likely to work in construction and trade industries, as well as agriculture and private households compared to their native counterparts. the latter two were lowpaying industries often associated with poor working conditions. foreign-born workers were also more likely to work in the informal sector with fewer benefits (e.g., medical aid and pension scheme), just like the native informal sector workers (essop and yu, 2008). fauvelle-aymar (2014) used the same dataset, but unlike the above budlender study, the author primarily conducted multivariate econometric analysis; the dependent variables of the regressions were employment, time-based underemployment, informal activities and precarious employment likelihoods. the results indicated that employment probability was significantly higher for immigrants; probability of employment in informal and precarious activities (both characterized by low earnings) was significantly higher for immigrants, but this result was only valid for black african immigrants. statssa (2019) used both 2012 and 2017 qlfs migration module data, to examine the socio-economic and demographic profile of the migrant labor force the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 16 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 and investigated the link between employment and immigration. this study not only compared natives with immigrants, but also examined a third group, namely, internal migrants. the study found that one-third of immigrants moved to south africa to seek work or start a business, and immigrants were twice more likely to be employed than non-movers and internal migrants. five studies used the south african census and community survey (cs) data. zuberi and sibanda (2004) examined the relationship between migration status, nativity and labor-market outcomes at the time of the 1996 census, focusing on male individuals aged 20–55 years. what distinguishes this study from the other four studies below is that two groups of immigrants were identified: sadc-born and other foreign-born. both groups were separated into long-term (those who migrated to south africa before 1994) and recent (moved to south africa 1994–1996) immigrants. all four groups of immigrants were more likely to seek work and find employment, compared to natives. sadc-born immigrants enjoyed an additional advantage: most of them faced much lower fixed costs of migrating to south africa. vermaak and muller (2019) used the 2011 census data to investigate whether naturalized immigrants and foreigners enjoyed improved well-being, compared to locals. on average, immigrants were more likely to seek work. interestingly, some immigrants were involved in more hazardous forms of employment associated with lower returns. after controlling for differences in worker characteristics, it was established that both employed naturalized immigrants and foreigners earned less than the locals, but social networks helped them access jobs with higher remuneration. the oecd (2018) conducted a highly similar analysis as vermaak and muller (2019), but analyzed both the 2001 and 2011 census data. it was found that immigrants performed significantly better than native-born individuals in both labor force participation and employment probabilities, but immigrants were more likely to engage in low-paying unskilled occupations. facchini et al. (2013) analyzed the 1996 and 2001 census as well as the 2007 cs data, with specific focus on south-south migration. at district level, increased immigration had a significantly negative effect on natives’ employment rates, especially for skilled white native workers. at national level, increased immigration had a significantly negative impact on natives’ total income, but not on employment rate. while peters and sundaram’s (2015) study also addresses aspects of south-south migration, they only conducted a brief empirical analysis to compare the employment prospects of immigrants from seven countries with the 2001 census data. immigrants from developed countries outperformed the natives, and educational attainment was positively associated with employment probability for immigrants. other studies myburgh (2004) used data from the statistical bureaus of the top emigration destination countries (i.e., usa, australia, uk, and new zealand) to examine trends in emigration out of south africa, and found that these trends could be explained 17 by real wage differentials, political uncertainty, and immigration restrictions in destination countries. the study did not examine personal and labor-market characteristics of emigrants. finally, to the author’s knowledge, bohlman (2010) was the only time-series, macroeconomic study to estimate the macroeconomic effect of skilled emigration during the 2007–2014 period. using the computable general equilibrium model and assuming three simulation scenarios, the author estimated that south africa’s real gdp was 3% lower due to skilled emigration. data and methods data this study used data from census 2001 and 2011 as well cs 2007 and 2016. the primary strength of these four datasets is that they captured comprehensive information on immigration, as a wide range of relevant questions were asked which help distinguish different sub-groups of immigrants, such as country of birth, year of moving to south africa, place of usual residence, whether the person resided at the same place five years ago (the threshold was 10 years in census 2011), year and month of moving, and province of previous residence for those who moved within the last five years (or 10 years in census 2011). these datasets also captured detailed personal information (gender, population group, age, area type, province), education status (highest educational attainment and field of education – if having post-school qualifications) and labor-related information (labor-market status, occupation, industry). as this is the first study in south africa that compares natives and immigrants with emigrants – particularly since the local census and survey data does not contain any information on the emigrants – the study relied on international data sources. it analyzed the most recent census or survey data of the top five emigration destination countries to examine the well-being of south african emigrants in the united kingdom (office for national statistics, 2019), new zealand (statistics new zealand, 2019), the united states of america (united states census bureau, 2019), australia (australian bureau of statistics, 2019) and canada (statistics canada, 2019). however, the researcher encountered challenges in successfully obtaining all the required data, as discussed in the limitations below. method the study used the data obtained from the 2001 and 2011 censuses as well as the 2007 and 2016 community surveys to distinguish the immigrants and natives, and the census data of the top five destination countries to distinguish the emigrants. these three groups are investigated by comparing their personal, educational and labormarket characteristics. the working-age population is divided into six categories, based on their country of birth and migration status, as listed below: (a) long-term international migrants: individuals born outside south africa the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 18 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 but migrated to the country more than five years ago. (b) medium-term international migrants: those born outside south africa but migrated to the country more than one year and up to five years ago. (c) short-term international migrants: people born outside south africa but migrated to the country within the past year. (d) native return migrants: individuals born in south africa but returned to south africa from overseas within the past five years. (e) native permanent residents: people born in south africa who remained in the country within the past five years. (f) other/unspecified: those who did not specify their country of birth. as indicated earlier, the push-pull and human capital models form the empirical framework to specifically examine if the emigrants enjoy better well-being in the labor markets of the destination countries (i.e., brain drain from south africa), compared with natives and immigrants. the study also examines whether natives enjoy an improvement in human capital or educational attainment during the 15year period (i.e., brain gain in south africa). limitations the four censuses and css did not pose the exact same questions on work activities (see table 2). furthermore, it was not possible to obtain the cs 2016 data on labormarket activities. even though the information was captured by statssa, the data was not released. additionally, it was not possible to obtain the full census data for the uk (2011), new zealand (2013), and australia (2016), as either the data is only accessible to natives living in these countries, or exorbitant costs are charged by the statistical bureaus of these countries to access and construct detailed statistical tables. hence, only certain tables could be compiled using the free online table generation tool in the statistical bureau websites. while it is possible to obtain the 2016 canada census data, in the country of birth variable, there are only three broad african categories, namely, “eastern africa”, “northern africa”, and “other africa”. in fact, the online information shows that there were 48,015 south africans (statistics canada, 2019), while the actual data shows that there were 185,925 people in the “other africa” category. it means that south africans account for only a 25.82% share. hence, in some of the tables below, the “other africa” results are “proxy” results for south africans residing in canada. for this reason, the empirical findings on south africans’ well-being in canada need to be interpreted with some caution. 19 table 2: questions on work activities of those employed in each census and community survey #the questions were asked in the survey but the data was not made available by statssa source: statssa, 2001, 2007, 2011 and 2016 empirical findings examining the profile of immigrants and natives table 3 presents the number and share of each of the six groups of international immigrants and natives. the total number of international immigrants (i.e., the sum of groups [1]–[3]) increased from 0.71 million in 2001 to 1.32 million in 2016, and these immigrants as a proportion of the working-age population (wap) increased from 2.74% to 3.78%. native return migrants accounted for a negligible share of the wap. for the remainder of the empirical analysis, they are included as part of total natives, or groups [4] and [5] collapsed into one group called “natives”. census 2001 cs 2007 census 2011 cs 2016 broad occupation category     # detailed occupation category   #   # broad industry category     # detailed industry category   #   # formal/informal sector    # employer/employee   work hours  the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 20 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 table 3: number and percentage of people in each migration status category, 2001-2016 source: author’s own calculations using the 2001 and 2011 census and 2007 and 2016 cs data (statssa, 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016) table 4 shows that the male share was more dominant (about 60%) for immigrants, whereas females were slightly more dominant (51%–52%) for the native wap. as expected, africans were the most dominant racial group. long-term immigrants were relatively older with a mean age of about 38 years, whereas the mediumand short-term immigrants were the youngest (mean age of 30 years). only 38% of the native wap were married or lived with a partner, but this share was much higher at almost two-thirds for immigrants. this result suggests that immigration to south africa was more likely to be a household-level decision by the head and spouse. census 2001 cs 2007 census 2011 cs 2016 number (1,000s) share (%) number (1,000s) share (%) number (1,000s) share (%) number (1,000s) share (%) [1] long-term immigrants 616 2.36 877 2.92 825 2.59 923 2.65 [2] medium-term immigrants 47 0.18 83 0.28 509 1.60 240 0.69 [3] short-term immigrants 51 0.20 79 0.26 440 1.38 153 0.44 [4] native return migrants 21 0.08 37 0.12 28 0.09 13 0.04 [5] native permanent residents 25,403 97.19 28,896 96.19 29,582 92.93 33,475 96.06 [6] other/unspecified 0 0.00 68 0.23 446 1.40 46 0.13 26,138 100.00 30,040 100.00 31,831 100.00 34,849 100.00 [1]–[3]: total – immigrants 714 2.74 1,038 3.46 1,775 5.57 1,316 3.78 [4]–[5]: total – natives 25,424 97.27 28,933 96.31 29,611 93.02 33,488 96.10 [6]: total – other/ unspecified 0 0.00 68 0.23 446 1.40 46 0.13 26,138 100.00 30,040 100.00 31,831 100.00 34,849 100.00 21 the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa ce ns us 2 00 1 cs 2 01 6 [1 ] [2 ] [3 ] [1 ][3 ] [4 ][5 ] [1 ][6 ] [1 ] [2 ] [3 ] [1 ][3 ] [4 ][5 ] [1 ][6 ] ge nd er m al e 57 .6 8 60 .16 56 .5 9 57 .76 46 .6 4 46 .9 4 61 .6 7 57 .11 53 .0 2 59 .8 4 48 .9 0 49 .3 2 fe m al e 42 .3 2 39 .8 4 43 .4 1 42 .2 4 53 .3 6 53 .0 6 38 .3 3 42 .8 9 46 .9 8 40 .16 51 .10 50 .6 8 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 ra ce af ric an 51 .76 73 .3 0 72 .0 1 54 .6 3 77 .6 6 77 .0 3 81 .8 0 90 .5 7 91 .9 9 84 .5 8 79 .3 1 79 .4 8 co lo ur ed 1.4 2 1.4 9 1.4 8 1.4 3 9. 56 9. 34 0. 90 0. 43 0. 34 0. 75 9. 63 9. 31 in di an 3.1 5 7.1 2 5. 79 3. 60 2. 84 2. 86 4. 53 5. 78 3. 01 4. 58 2. 67 2. 74 w hi te 43 .6 7 18 .0 8 20 .72 40 .3 3 9. 93 10 .77 12 .77 3. 23 4. 66 10 .0 9 8. 39 8. 46 o th er 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 ag e co ho rt 15 -2 4 ye ar s 16 .2 1 32 .4 4 38 .5 8 18 .8 9 33 .2 1 32 .8 2 8. 53 31 .0 1 38 .2 2 16 .0 8 29 .5 1 28 .9 9 25 -3 4 ye ar s 27 .3 5 38 .5 6 35 .9 4 28 .71 25 .4 7 25 .5 6 33 .6 7 48 .0 5 38 .6 5 36 .8 7 26 .76 27 .15 35 -4 4 ye ar s 24 .5 4 16 .78 15 .0 7 23 .3 5 20 .0 6 20 .15 31 .9 6 16 .3 9 15 .11 27 .16 19 .5 2 19 .8 1 45 -5 4 ye ar s 18 .2 7 8. 37 7.0 0 16 .8 1 13 .2 0 13 .3 0 16 .12 3. 60 5. 69 12 .6 2 14 .2 8 14 .2 2 55 -6 4 ye ar s 13 .6 3 3. 86 3. 41 12 .2 5 8. 06 8.1 8 9. 72 0. 96 2. 33 7.2 6 9. 93 9. 83 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 m ea n (y ea rs ) 38 .15 30 .8 1 29 .6 0 37 .0 5 32 .9 7 33 .0 8 37 .8 6 28 .9 8 28 .9 9 35 .2 1 34 .12 34 .16 m ar ita l s ta tu s m ar rie d or li vi ng to ge th er 67 .2 4 52 .3 6 48 .10 64 .8 8 41 .4 2 42 .0 6 65 .4 7 53 .0 8 50 .3 1 61 .4 5 34 .10 35 .15 o th er 32 .76 47 .6 4 51 .9 0 35 .12 58 .5 8 57 .9 4 34 .5 3 46 .9 2 49 .6 9 38 .5 5 65 .9 0 64 .8 5 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 ta bl e 4: p er so na l c ha ra ct er is tic s of im m ig ra nt s an d na tiv es (s ha re o f t ot al % ) – 2 00 1 ve rs us 2 01 6 so ur ce : a ut ho r’s o w n ca lc ul at io ns u si ng th e 20 01 c en su s an d 20 16 c s da ta (s ta ts sa , 2 00 1, 20 16 ) 22 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 ta bl e 5: e du ca tio na l, ge og ra ph ic al a nd la bo ur -m ar ke t c ha ra ct er is tic s o f i m m ig ra nt s a nd n at iv es (s ha re o f t ot al % ) – 2 00 1 v er su s 2 01 6 so ur ce : a ut ho r’s o w n ca lc ul at io ns u si ng th e 20 01 c en su s, 20 11 c en su s, an d 20 16 c s da ta (s ta ts sa , 2 00 1, 20 11 , 2 01 6) no te : s in ce th e 20 16 , t he c s di d no t r el ea se la bo ur -m ar ke t d at a; th e la bo ur -m ar ke t s ta tu s r es ul ts o f 2 01 1 a re sh ow n in th e ta bl e in st ea d ce ns us 2 00 1 cs 2 01 6 [1 ] [2 ] [3 ] [1 ][3 ] [4 ][5 ] [1 ][6 ] [1 ] [2 ] [3 ] [1 ][3 ] [4 ][5 ] [1 ][6 ] ed uc at io na l at ta in m en t no ne 13 .6 4 12 .3 3 10 .2 2 13 .3 1 13 .12 13 .12 7.4 1 5. 33 6. 75 6. 95 4. 58 4. 67 in co m pl et e pr im ar y 11 .2 4 12 .2 6 11 .0 9 11 .3 0 15 .8 6 15 .74 9. 98 8. 49 11 .5 0 9. 88 7.4 1 7.5 1 in co m pl et e se co nd ar y 29 .73 36 .12 36 .5 5 30 .6 4 44 .9 1 44 .5 2 39 .74 49 .4 5 51 .0 6 42 .8 2 44 .8 1 44 .73 m at ric 23 .9 9 19 .3 0 20 .4 8 23 .4 3 19 .10 19 .2 2 23 .8 9 23 .6 8 19 .6 1 23 .3 6 32 .0 2 31 .6 9 m at ric + c er tif ic at e/ di pl om a 10 .6 8 7.3 7 7.5 6 10 .2 3 4. 69 4. 84 4. 39 3.1 6 2. 05 3. 89 4. 22 4. 20 de gr ee 10 .73 12 .6 2 14 .10 11 .10 2. 32 2. 56 10 .6 9 6. 97 5. 43 9. 40 5.1 8 5. 34 ot he r/ un sp ec ifi ed 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 3. 91 2. 91 3. 60 3. 69 1.7 7 1.8 6 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 m ea n (y ea rs ) 9. 29 9.1 9 9. 57 9. 30 8. 08 8.1 1 9. 74 9. 75 9.1 7 9. 67 10 .0 3 10 .0 2 ar ea ty pe ur ba n 80 .9 4 79 .3 1 78 .0 3 80 .6 2 61 .0 5 61 .5 9 84 .6 7 81 .19 76 .2 3 83 .0 6 66 .3 7 67 .0 2 ru ra l 19 .0 6 20 .6 9 21 .9 7 19 .3 8 38 .9 5 38 .4 1 15 .3 3 18 .8 1 23 .77 16 .9 4 33 .6 3 32 .9 8 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 pr ov in ce w es te rn c ap e 10 .2 9 10 .3 2 11 .5 6 10 .3 8 10 .9 2 10 .9 1 10 .5 7 12 .15 10 .9 0 10 .9 0 11 .9 6 11 .9 4 ea st er n ca pe 3.1 9 2. 65 3. 44 3.1 7 13 .3 5 13 .0 7 3.1 8 3. 95 4. 34 3. 45 11 .8 9 11 .5 6 no rt he rn c ap e 1.2 9 0. 57 0. 65 1.2 0 1.8 4 1.8 2 1.0 5 1.3 1 1.0 8 1.1 0 2. 22 2.1 7 fr ee s ta te 3. 67 4. 65 5. 21 3. 84 6. 26 6.1 9 3. 56 3. 29 3. 05 3. 45 5. 28 5. 21 kw az ul una ta l 9. 62 7.1 4 6. 89 9. 26 20 .71 20 .4 0 5. 01 4. 90 4. 68 4. 95 19 .13 18 .5 9 no rt h w es t 7.1 5 6. 97 7.9 4 7.2 0 8. 26 8. 23 8. 00 8. 31 8. 75 8.1 4 6. 73 6. 79 ga ut en g 49 .2 7 52 .5 7 48 .5 7 49 .4 4 21 .76 22 .5 1 54 .0 0 48 .19 44 .79 51 .8 7 25 .0 3 26 .0 5 m pu m al an ga 7.7 4 7.7 0 8. 03 7.7 6 6. 58 6. 61 7.2 9 7.5 4 7.3 6 7.3 4 7.7 9 7.7 7 li m po po 7.7 8 7.4 4 7.7 2 7.7 6 10 .3 2 10 .2 5 7.3 4 10 .3 6 15 .0 4 8. 79 9. 97 9. 92 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 la bo ur m ar ke t st at us em pl oy ed 60 .4 8 55 .4 5 46 .6 5 59 .16 32 .5 6 33 .2 9 66 .2 3 65 .3 5 58 .3 5 64 .0 2 38 .2 5 39 .6 9 un em pl oy ed 14 .2 4 17 .3 8 20 .2 7 14 .8 8 24 .8 9 24 .6 2 12 .14 13 .9 7 15 .6 4 13 .5 4 16 .9 5 16 .78 in ac tiv e 25 .2 7 27 .17 33 .0 8 25 .9 6 42 .5 5 42 .10 21 .6 3 20 .6 8 26 .0 1 22 .4 4 44 .8 0 43 .5 3 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 23 table 5 shows that at the time of the 2016 cs, there were still nearly 60% of immigrants without a matric-level educational qualification. that is, the majority of immigrants to south africa were not highly educated, despite being relatively more educated on average than native individuals. both immigrants and natives became more educated over time, as the mean years of educational attainment increased for both groups during the period 2001–2016. the increase in mean educational attainment of natives aligns with the theoretical framework discussion that the possible emigration of skilled people out of south africa could lead to an improvement of human capital of natives (i.e., brain gain). furthermore, while not shown in the table, the shares of immigrants with engineering, health, or computer science qualifications (12.97%, 8.27%, and 6.45% respectively, in 2016) were slightly higher compared to the natives (8.33%, 8.16%, and 4.45% respectively). over 80% of immigrants resided in urban areas but this proportion was lower (two-thirds) for natives. about half of immigrants lived in gauteng, and the western cape was the second most dominant province of residence (11%). however, the gauteng share was only about a quarter for the native wap. that gauteng and the western cape are the two most popular provinces of destination for the international immigrants is as expected, as they are associated with relatively better labor-market outcomes compared with other provinces. the last few rows of table 5 show that immigrants were associated with higher lfpr and lower unemployment likelihood, compared with the native wap. tables 6 shows the broad occupation and industry categories of employed immigrants and natives. in 2011, only 24% of immigrant workers were involved in high-skilled occupations (managers, professionals, or technicians), and the remaining immigrant workers were involved in semi-skilled or low-skilled occupations (particularly in elementary occupations, service and sales workers, craft and related trades). this result is not surprising, as table 5 shows that some immigrants did not have high levels of educational attainment. hence, some high-skilled vacancies might not be successfully filled by both natives and immigrants. the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 24 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 ta bl e 6: w or k ch ar ac te ris tic s of im m ig ra nt s an d na tiv es (i f e m pl oy ed ) ( sh ar e of to ta l % ), 20 01 v er su s 20 11 so ur ce : a ut ho r’s o w n ca lc ul at io ns u si ng th e 20 01 a nd 2 01 1 ce ns us d at a (s ta ts sa , 2 00 1, 20 11 ) ce ns us 2 00 1 cs 2 01 6 [1 ] [2 ] [3 ] [1 ][3 ] [4 ][5 ] [1 ][6 ] [1 ] [2 ] [3 ] [1 ][3 ] [4 ][5 ] [1 ][6 ] br oa d oc cu pa tio n ca te go ry m an ag er 12 .0 1 8.1 8 7.5 3 11 .5 2 5. 26 5. 56 11 .4 0 7.7 5 8. 32 9. 63 8.1 4 8. 28 pr of es si on al 13 .5 6 10 .0 5 12 .6 4 13 .2 9 6. 88 7.1 9 8. 58 6. 23 5. 82 7.2 7 7.3 2 7.3 1 te ch ni ci an 9. 66 5. 35 4. 93 9.1 3 9. 91 9. 87 7.8 4 6. 71 6. 36 7.1 7 9. 98 9. 72 cl er k 9.1 0 5. 54 4. 73 8. 63 11 .5 1 11 .3 7 10 .6 4 9. 25 9. 29 9. 93 12 .4 2 12 .19 se rv ic e an d sa le s wo rk er 11 .12 14 .0 9 13 .4 5 11 .4 4 10 .2 8 10 .3 4 16 .11 17 .9 4 16 .8 5 16 .8 2 16 .2 4 16 .2 9 sk ill ed a gr ic ul tu ra l w or ke r 2. 44 2. 96 4. 20 2. 58 2. 61 2. 60 0. 89 0. 76 0. 99 0. 87 0. 94 0. 93 cr af t a nd re la te d tra de 15 .73 13 .6 7 11 .6 9 15 .3 7 11 .76 11 .9 3 15 .0 2 16 .6 8 15 .0 4 15 .5 1 11 .9 9 12 .3 2 o pe ra to r a nd a ss em bl er 4. 43 4. 63 3. 20 4. 37 8. 73 8. 52 6. 48 5. 96 6. 61 6. 36 6. 77 6. 73 el em en ta ry o cc up at io n 17 .8 1 30 .17 29 .5 4 19 .2 4 20 .0 4 20 .0 0 14 .4 2 17 .5 7 19 .4 6 16 .4 8 16 .6 8 16 .6 7 do m es tic w or ke r 4.1 5 5. 35 8. 09 4. 44 13 .0 3 12 .6 1 8. 62 11 .14 11 .2 6 9. 96 9. 51 9. 56 o th er /u ns pe ci fie d 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 br oa d in du st ry ca te go ry ag ric ul tu re 8. 28 16 .17 17 .9 4 9. 31 9. 26 9. 27 5. 07 6.1 9 8. 35 6.1 4 5.1 1 5. 20 m in in g 7.1 7 4. 81 4. 45 6. 87 2. 67 2. 88 4. 68 2. 36 2. 99 3. 62 2. 92 2. 98 m an uf ac tu rin g 13 .4 0 9. 79 8. 20 12 .8 8 12 .9 0 12 .9 0 9. 50 8. 28 8. 49 8. 91 9. 89 9. 80 ut ili tie s 0. 67 0. 32 0. 35 0. 63 0. 74 0. 74 0. 68 0. 62 0. 55 0. 63 0. 87 0. 85 co ns tr uc tio n 8. 01 7.6 1 6. 70 7.9 1 5. 41 5. 53 10 .5 2 11 .4 3 10 .8 9 10 .8 7 7.8 8 8.1 5 w ho le sa le a nd re ta il tr ad e 18 .6 7 23 .8 6 19 .73 19 .0 5 15 .4 9 15 .6 6 19 .4 7 23 .0 1 22 .11 21 .10 16 .9 3 17 .3 2 tr an sp or t 4. 03 3.1 6 3. 49 3. 95 4. 82 4. 77 5. 34 4. 83 4. 79 5. 07 6.1 8 6. 09 fi na nc e 12 .78 8.1 7 8.1 0 12 .2 3 9. 61 9. 74 16 .73 13 .9 8 13 .2 2 15 .13 15 .16 15 .16 cs p se rv ic es 22 .3 0 18 .9 4 21 .16 22 .0 3 28 .73 28 .4 1 17 .0 9 15 .2 7 14 .5 2 15 .9 8 23 .6 9 22 .9 8 pr iv at e ho us eh ol ds 4. 69 7.1 7 9. 88 5.1 4 10 .3 7 10 .11 10 .8 6 13 .9 5 14 .0 1 12 .4 8 11 .3 4 11 .4 5 o th er /u ns pe ci fie d 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 05 0. 09 0. 07 0. 07 0. 02 0. 03 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 10 0. 00 25 nearly 70% of immigrants employed worked in the tertiary sector (the corresponding proportion was 73% for native employed), especially in the following broad industry categories: wholesale and retail trade (22.11%), csp services (14.52%), private households (14.01%), and finance (13.22%). table 7 complements the results at the bottom of table 5 by confirming that immigrants enjoyed greater lfpr and lower unemployment likelihood compared with natives. table 7: labour force participation rates and unemployment rates of immigrants and natives (%) – 2001–2011 source: author’s own calculations using the 2001 and 2011 census and 2007 cs data (statssa, 2001, 2007, 2011) examining the profile of emigrants table 8 shows that in absolute terms, despite the censuses and surveys not taking place in the same year, the number of south african-born individuals was the highest (above 190,000) in the uk, followed by australia (more than 160,000). however, south africans accounted for the 5th highest number of foreign-born persons in new zealand (7th in australia and 8th in the uk), thereby explaining why these south african-born people represented a very high share of african-born individuals (nearly three-quarters) and slightly above 5% of all foreign-born individuals in new zealand. south african-born people also accounted for a high proportion (48%) of all african-born people living in australia. table 8: south african-born people in the top five emigration destination countries source: australian bureau of statistics (2019); office for national statistics (2019); statistics canada (2019); statistics new zealand (2019); united states census bureau (2019) [1] [2] [3] [1]-[3] [4]-[5] all labour force participation rate census 2001 74.72 72.83 66.92 74.04 57.45 57.91 cs 2007 80.15 76.15 75.07 79.45 61.15 61.81 census 2011 78.37 79.32 73.99 77.56 55.20 56.47 unemployment rate census 2001 19.06 23.86 30.29 20.10 43.32 42.51 cs 2007 14.20 17.06 21.98 14.98 33.77 32.91 census 2011 15.49 17.61 21.14 17.46 30.71 29.71 country number rank as % of african-born people as % of all foreign-born people uk (2011) 191,023 8th 14.55 2.55 new zealand (2015) 54,276 5th 73.54 5.42 usa (2015) 103,180 63rd 4.72 0.21 australia (2016) 162,450 7th 48.04 2.64 canada (2016) 48,015 39th 6.96 0.58 the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 26 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 table 9 shows that approximately half of south africans migrated to the top destination countries more than 10 years ago. this share was the greatest for south africans who migrated to the usa (69%) and lowest for those who left for new zealand (46%). table 9: year of arrival of south africans in top five emigration destination countries (share of total %), 2011–2016 source: australian bureau of statistics (2019); office for national statistics (2019); statistics canada (2019); statistics new zealand (2019); united states census bureau (2019) regarding table 10, females were the slightly more dominant gender group, whereas a very high proportion of south africans lived in urban areas in the uk (84%) and australia (94%). only slightly above 35% of south africans living in the uk were africans, but this share was more than double (77.15%) for south africans residing in canada. moreover, the 25–34 years and 35–44 years cohorts were more dominant in the uk (close to 50% altogether), while the 45–54 years and 65+ years cohorts were most dominant in canada (about 21% each). uk (2011) % new zealand (2015) % within last 1 year 3.99 within last 1 year 6.43 within last 2–4 years 13.11 within last 2–4 years 17.32 within last 5–7 years 15.24 within last 5–9 years 27.88 within last 8–10 years 18.37 within last 10–19 years 36.65 within last 11–20 years 26.08 more than 19 years ago 9.72 more than 20 years ago 23.22 unspecified 1.99 100.00 100.00 usa 2015 % australia 2016 % within last 1 year 5.44 within last 1 year 1.59 within last 2–5 years 13.29 within last 2–10 years 41.17 within last 6–10 years 11.91 within last 11–20 years 29.00 within last 11–20 years 30.26 more than 20 years ago 26.51 more than 20 years ago 39.10 unspecified 1.74 100.00 100.00 canada (2016) % within last 5 years 12.01 within last 6–10 years 11.00 within last 11–15 years 11.63 within last 16–25 years 22.39 more than 25 years ago 35.99 unspecified 6.99 100.00 27 table 10: personal characteristics of south african population aged at least 15 or 16 years in the top five emigration destination countries (share of total %) – 2011–2016 source: australian bureau of statistics (2019); office for national statistics (2019); statistics canada (2019); statistics new zealand (2019); united states census bureau (2019). # “other africa” results. figure 1 shows that the proportion of south african-born people with postschool qualifications ranged between 45.93% (uk) and 81.09% (usa), whereas the corresponding proportions in 2016 were merely 13.29% and 9.40%, to the immigrants to south africa as well as the south african natives, respectively. these findings suggest evidence of a brain drain out of south africa. uk 2011) new zealand (2015) usa (2015) australia (2016) canada (2016) gender male 48.49 48.61 49.13 49.22 49.68 female 51.51 51.39 50.87 50.78 50.32 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 race african 36.24 not available not available not available 77.15 # coloured 4.13 0.36 # asian/indian 26.32 3.20 # white 30.71 18.23 # other 2.60 1.05 # 100.00 100.00 # area type urban 84.07 not available not available 93.84 not available rural 15.93 6.16 100.00 100.00 age cohort 15/16 to 24 years 12.04 not available 14.14 14.43 10.22 25–34 years 32.29 17.16 15.43 14.97 35–44 years 25.22 20.85 21.96 17.23 45–54 years 11.71 19.68 21.62 20.61 55–64 years 9.65 15.88 13.61 16.24 65+ years 9.09 12.29 12.94 20.74 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 28 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 figure 1: proportion of different groups of working-age population with post-school qualifications, 2011–2016 source: australian bureau of statistics (2019); office for national statistics (2019); statistics canada (2019); statistics new zealand (2019); united states census bureau (2019); as well as author’s calculations using the cs 2016 data table 11 shows that the lfpr of south africans was above 70% in all emigration destination countries (similar to the lfpr of immigrants in south africa) but was above the lfpr of natives who remained in south africa (around 55%). south africans enjoyed a lower unemployment rate in the five countries (from 4.45% in the usa to 12.55% in canada), compared to the results in table 7. these findings correspond with the push-pull model that south africans left the country due to better labor-market prospects elsewhere. 29 table 11: labour-market status of south african-born population aged at least 15 or 16 years in the top five emigration destination countries, 2011–2016 source: australian bureau of statistics (2019); office for national statistics (2019); statistics canada (2019); statistics new zealand (2019); united states census bureau (2019) # “other africa” results. to summarize, emigrants to the destination countries enjoyed the best labor-market outcome (high lfpr of approximately 75% and the lowest unemployment rate of around 10%), followed by immigrants to south africa (high lfpr of 75% and unemployment rate of 20%), and south african natives who remained in the country had the worst outcome (lower lfpr of less than 60% and unemployment rate of around 30%). tables 12 and 13 as well as figure 2 show that, while the broad occupation categorization differ across the countries (in particular canada), compared with table 6, a relatively higher proportion of south african emigrants in the destination countries was involved in high-skilled occupations as managers, professionals, and technicians (about 60% employed share), compared with immigrants to south africa (24%) and natives who remained in south africa (25%). while not shown in these two tables, a high proportion of south africans (67%–84%) worked full-time in the tertiary sector in destination countries. these findings once again align with the push-pull model as people moved to the country of destination due to higher remuneration there. uk (2011) new zealand (2015) usa (2015) australia (2016) canada (2016) employed 128,603 53,775 68,380 106,998 119,917# unemployed 11,378 4,785 3,183 7,132 17,205# inactive 36,972 22,044 25,868 35,540 48,803# 176,773 80,604 97,431 149,670 185,925# lfpr (%) 79.19 72.65 73.45 76.25 73.75 unemployment rate (%) 8.13 8.17 4.45 6.25 12.55# national unemployment rate (%) (including natives) 8.03 5.36 6.27 5.71 7.70 the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 30 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 table 12: broad occupation category of south african-born population aged at least 15 or 16 years who worked in the top emigration destination countries, excluding canada (share of all employed, %), 2011–2016 source: australian bureau of statistics (2019); office for national statistics (2019); statistics new zealand (2019); united states census bureau (2019) table 13: broad occupation category of south african-born population aged at least 16 years who worked in canada (share of all employed, %), 2016 source: statistics canada (2019) # “other africa” results. occupation category uk (2011) new zealand (2015) usa (2015) australia (2016) manager 13.25 17.06 20.24 16.88 professional 30.67 31.13 28.90 34.09 technician 17.40 11.57 19.17 11.45 clerk 11.30 11.64 9.90 13.77 service and sales worker 5.03 8.41 11.80 7.26 skilled agricultural worker n/a n/a 0.29 n/a craft and related trade 6.80 n/a 3.78 n/a community and personal service worker n/a 7.95 n/a 8.39 caring, leisure and other service occupation 7.17 n/a n/a n/a operator and assembler 2.80 2.57 3.35 2.41 elementary occupation 5.57 5.39 2.13 4.46 other/unspecified 0.00 4.28 0.44 1.29 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 broad occupation category % manager 7.03# business, finance and administrative occupation 15.74# natural and applied sciences and related occupation 8.27# health occupation 13.02# occupation in social science, education, government service, and religion 13.36# occupation in art, culture, recreation, and sport 1.67# sales and service occupation 18.73# trade, transport and equipment operator and related occupation 8.33# occupation unique to primary industry 0.28# occupation unique to processing, manufacturing and utilities 4.69# not available 8.89# 100.00# 31 figure 2: proportion of different groups of employed south african-born population aged at least 15 or 16 years in high-skilled occupations in the top emigration destination countries, excluding canada (%) source: australian bureau of statistics (2019); office for national statistics (2019); statistics canada (2019); statistics new zealand (2019); united states census bureau (2019); as well as author’s calculations using the cs 2016 data note: it is not possible to clearly and correctly distinguish the people involved in skilled occupations in canada, given the broad occupation categorization (see table 13). summary table 14 summarizes the personal, educational, and labor-market characteristics of immigrants, natives and emigrants. south african emigrants in the top five destination countries were highly educated, enjoyed higher lfpr and very low unemployment probability; if employed, they were highly likely to engage in highskilled and tertiary sector activities with higher remuneration and better working conditions. the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 32 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 table 14: summary of the profile of three groups of people source: author’s own calculations the majority of immigrants originated from other african countries. they were slightly more educated but enjoyed higher lfpr and lower unemployment rates, compared to natives (but their unemployment rate was higher compared to the emigrants – 20% versus 10%). however, employed immigrants were less likely to engage in tertiary sector and formal activities, and less likely to work as employees, compared to natives. emigrants enjoyed the best well-being, as they were associated with a much higher educational attainment, a higher lfpr and the lowest unemployment rate (10%). immigrants to south africa also experienced better outcomes than natives, as they were slightly more educated, enjoyed a higher lfpr and lower unemployment probability, despite them being relatively less likely to work in the formal sector and tertiary sector, compared with the native employed. lastly, natives endured the lowest lfpr (55%) but highest unemployment rate (30%) out of the three groups. as structural change has been taking place in the south african labor market, resulting in an increase in the demand for high-skilled workers, the empirical findings do not suggest that immigrants possess particularly high levels of skills and immigrants to south africa native south africans remaining in the country south african emigrants home country lesotho malawi mozambique swaziland zimbabwe south africa south africa host country south africa n/a (remained in south africa) australia canada new zealand uk usa personal characteristics gender: male (60%) race: african age: 40 years (mean) gender: female (51%) race: african age: 35 years (mean) gender: female (51%) race: african age: 35 years (mean) education (% with above matric) above 15%) above 10% above 50% geographical characteristics area type: urban province: gauteng (50%) and western cape (10%) area type: urban province: kwazulunatal (20%); gauteng (20%); western cape (10%) area type: urban province: n/a labour-market status lfpr: 75% unemployment rate: 20% lfpr: 55% unemployment rate: 30% lfpr: 75% unemployment rate: 10% work activities high-skilled occupations: 25% tertiary sector: 60% high-skilled occupations: 24% tertiary sector: 70% high-skilled occupations: 60% tertiary sector: 80% 33 education. in fact, only about 24% of immigrant workers engaged in high-skilled occupations. thus, it is possible that immigration of foreign nationals helps meet the demand for semi-skilled labor to the greatest extent. as occupations of great demand in south africa require high skills levels – but most of the immigrants (just like natives) did not possess these attributes – skills mismatch has likely taken place in south africa. conclusion this study analyzed the labor-market profiles of three groups. the results enhance the understanding of the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa, and identify skills needs of the country. the study benefits stakeholders and policy-makers by better identifying priority critical skills needs of the country, critical skills that are lost, and skills in great demand but in short supply so that these skills needs can be prioritized when issuing work and residence permits for immigrants. consequently, there will be improvement in national skills planning and skills match, which have direct bearing on the achievement of macroeconomic and social objectives, and effectiveness of government spending on education and training. to conclude, the study suggests four policy recommendations, as outlined below. ease up the regulations to attract skilled immigrants attraction of foreign skills remains one of the quickest ways to fill the skills gap, to increase capacity and demand for higher levels of skills (wöcke and klein, 2002: 451). a strengthened inter-departmental capacity on eligibility and a points-based system for eligibility which can be combined with critical skills are needed, to ensure a thorough implementation and administration of the critical skills visa (van lennep 2019b: 2). the dha should regularly publish a list of scarce skills upon consultation with government departments so that immigrants with the appropriate skills to address south africa’s skills shortage are correctly identified (dha, 2017: 45–46), whereas eligibility criteria for scarce skills visas should be transparent, clear, and flexible, and facilitate economic growth (rogerson and rogerson, 2000: 58). the government should shift its discourse from the “undesirable african immigration” designation to focus more on the skills that the country can gain from sadc immigrants (van lennep, 2019b: 2). south africa should have a more enabling environment to attract foreign nationals from their home countries; from the most recent global competitiveness report (world economic forum, 2019), south africa was ranked 60th in the global competitiveness index, out of 140 countries. while the country stands out in its financial systems (ranked 19th) and market size (35th), its ranking is dismal in information and communications technology adoptions (89th), skills (90th) and health (118th). the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 34 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 promote entrepreneurial activities of immigrants given the high unemployment rate (35%) and slow pace of job creation in the country, promotion of small and medium businesses by foreign immigrants to help create jobs more rapidly (in both formal and informal sectors) should be encouraged. wöcke and klein (2002: 453) suggest that tax and other incentives can be extended by including businesses launched by skilled immigrants that show skills transfer to the native population. van lennep (2019b: 2) asserts that in the immigration amendment act of 2011, one eligibility criterion for a business visa requires the applicants to invest at least zar5 million in south africa, originating from the home country. it is five times greater than what is required in singapore, for example. there is a need to revisit and revise this criterion, or immigration of foreign entrepreneurs is discouraged. south africa may not have a lucrative environment to attract foreigners to migrate to conduct business, as the country was ranked a mediocre 84th in the doing business index, out of 190 countries (world bank, 2020). the country was ranked low in these sub-indices: enforcing contracts (102nd), registering property (108th), getting electricity (114th), starting a business (139th), and trading across borders (145th). the south african government should address the shortcomings identified in these areas. develop and retain skilled natives to retain skilled south africans, push factors that most likely drive them out of the country need to be addressed. crucially, a strong investment climate, adequate opportunities for employees’ further education, training and career development, competitive salaries, political certainty, and a low crime rate are required to develop and retain professional skills in the formal sector. skills development structures can be improved further by ensuring better cooperation between the government departments, skills education training authorities (setas), further education and training (fet) colleges, and institutions of higher education (lepheana, 2012), to improve and retain the skills of native workers. for example, the department of science technology (dst) prioritized the engineering, mathematics, science, and technology fields as key drivers of economic growth; therefore, skilled labor in these fields is expected to be in great demand. increased financial support from the government and even the private sector for higher education at student, staff and institutional levels, would also be welcomed. there needs to be ongoing review of the relevance of curricula at fet colleges and universities to the needs of the economy to better align the skills offered by tertiary institutions and skills needs of employers, given technological advancement and digital trends. for example, the department of higher education and training (dhet) convened a multi-sectoral task team to investigate what teaching, research, and applications of emerging technologies are required to develop capabilities of 35 the higher education sector to produce graduates with skills demanded in the labor market (chetty, 2018). improve migration and vacancy data capture, availability and usage there is a need for more regular data on migration flows and better utilization of this information, to strengthen migration information systems. the dha should release up-to-date and publicly available data on the number of visas issued per year, and personal, educational, and labor-market profiles of immigrants. it is important for such data to be available to the public, to better understand immigrants’ contributions to the country’s economy (particularly on filling skills shortage gaps and promoting entrepreneurial activities), and more correctly revise the visa eligibility criteria of the earlier mentioned points-based system, as well as update the list of critical skills (van lennep, 2019b: 2-4). lastly, while there is no official vacancy data in south africa, it is important to utilize this data to better identify the skills shortage areas as well as occupations that are in great demand in south africa, to assist with better formulation of skills attraction and retention strategies. acknowledgment the author acknowledges the funding support from the south african department of higher education and training. the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 36 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 references australian bureau of statistics. 2019. census table builder. available at: 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https://hsf.org.za/publications/hsf-briefs/policy-recommendations-for-the-south-african-migration-regime https://hsf.org.za/publications/hsf-briefs/policy-recommendations-for-the-south-african-migration-regime https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835x.2019.1584549 https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835x.2019.1584549 https://doi.org/10.1007/s001480050086 https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835022000019464 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1747-7379.2004.tb00244.x african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 the value of human dignity in the refugee protection callixte kavuro abstract this article seeks to illuminate the significance and importance of human dignity in the evolution of the legal protection of refugees and asylum-seekers at international, continental and national level. human dignity – as a value and a right – plays an important role in the interpretation of the rights as outlined in the south african bill of rights and the various laws and policies that give effect to them. the article demonstrates how human dignity contributed (and still contributes) to the advancement of south africa’s refugee regime, whose main objective is to ensure that refugees and asylum-seekers are afforded access to their constitutional rights. a further objective is ensuring that refugees and asylum-seekers are afforded the kind of treatment that is consistent with global and constitutional standards of dignity, which inform the ethics of refugee reception and treatment. keywords refugees, asylum-seekers, human dignity, fundamental rights, interpretation, realistic, idealistic. introduction in south africa, respect for and protection of dignity is a cornerstone of the country’s constitution. the principle of dignity is at the heart of the bill of the rights, which is an integral part of the constitution, and a human rights charter that protects the civil, political and socio-economic rights of all who live in south africa (rsa, 1996). dignity is placed at the centre of the jurisprudence of the bill of rights. its value is reflected in the prominence it enjoys at the constitutional court, where it is regarded as one of the most fundamental moral norms, from which all rights derive (currie and de waal, 2005: 272-3). it therefore functions as an interpretive tool to give meaning, substance, content and scope to those rights contained in the bill of rights or to those fundamental rights which are not contained in the bill of rights, such as refugee rights. it is further serves to provide principled guidance to resolve constitutional value conflicts (botha, 2009: 171). in this way, the highest court  lecturer in law, department of public law and jurisprudence, university of the western cape. e-mail: callixtekav@gmail.com calliste kavuro 1511 links dignity to socio-economic rights and benefits for all purposes of protection of vulnerable and poor people, including refugees and asylumseekers. in other words, dignity has served as a vital part of the mediation of disputes related to refugees’ and asylum-seekers’ eligibility for the benefits of socio-economic programmes designed to respond to the material deprivation of their essential needs. dignity is also an integral component of the economic development of the poor and vulnerable. emphasizing dignity, the courts have insisted that south africa should uphold its international, constitutional and legislative obligations to treat human beings with the appropriate respect, dignity, care, and concern (kavuro, 2018: 27-28). this article demonstrates that this position is drawn from the idealistic approach to the ethics of international migration. against this background, this article explores the role and value of dignity in the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers. the primary focus is on the exploration of the links between human dignity, socio-economic rights and the rights of refugees, at international, continental and national levels. the centrality of dignity in the protection of the poor, marginalised and vulnerable is illuminated with a view to shedding light on the need to offer fair, decent and favourable treatment to recognised refugees and asylum-seekers. accordingly, the article considers the importance of dignity in guiding the interpretation of specific socio-economic rights underpinning the protection of vulnerable groups. in this context, the article discusses the impact of dignity on the evolution of international refugee protection. it argues that after the reaffirmation of human dignity as a core tenet on which the international legal order should be grounded, international refugee law was revisited and reengineered to meet the standards of dignified protection as contemplated in the 1945 charter of the united nations (un) and the 1948 universal declaration of human rights (udhr). it further argues that gaps in international refugee law can be closed by human rights texts, adopted to give effect to those rights contained in the udhr (1948). the article then examines the treatment of refugees in south africa during all the political eras of this country – prior to the formation of the union; pre-apartheid; apartheid; and post-apartheid. the article shows that there was no refugee legislation until the inception of democracy in 1994. this would afford refugees and asylumseekers the dignity, which they were denied by previous regimes. this article takes into account the fact that this dignity – as a constitutional value – is given precedence by the constitutional court over the values of equality and freedom, as ensconced in the bill of rights. related rights include socioafrican human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 economic rights, which are granted to refugees and asylum-seekers in terms of the constitution (rsa, 1996) and the refugees act 130 of 1998 (rsa, 1998), which affords them humane and dignified treatment. the article further examines the question of favourable treatment, as enshrined in international refugee treaty, through realistic and idealistic approaches to the ethics of the treatment of non-citizens, in general and refugees, in particular. the concluding section stresses the value of human dignity and emphasises the centrality of its role in the recognition of the rights of refugees and asylumseekers, by having rights extended to them, not only to this country’s citizens. the impact of dignity on international refugee protection dignified treatment under the united nations (un) refugee convention (1951) the need for the protection of human dignity led the international community to revisit international refugee treaty, which was revised in 1951, to ensure that refugees and asylum-seekers are afforded fair, decent and favourable treatment. this radical move to create a universal standard of treatment of refugees cannot be separated from the recognition of human dignity as reaffirmed by the charter of the un (1945). the importance of human dignity is principally reflected in and underpins the udhr (1948) as well as subsequent human rights treaties. these important human rights decisions, which inform the current international legal order, elevated the protection of the moral worth of human beings to the centre of the protection of humanity as a whole. this approach is anchored in the moral philosophy of immanuel kant, who observed that the protection of dignity of the person implies that the person should be given liberties that will allow such person to live his or her life in accordance with ends that he or she freely chose. by enjoying all liberties, an individual can be an autonomous agent with the ability to define his or her own destiny independently. to get here, an individual must enjoy all fundamental rights and freedoms, which the state must desist from threatening or violating. any human being – citizens and non-citizens alike – should not be treated as mere objects or as means to an end. despite the territorial boundaries or sovereignty of any nation, all individuals must be treated as ends in themselves who act for their own sake and are capable of autonomous choice (kant, 1785: 8-31). universal fundamental rights and freedoms as well as fundamental refugee rights were developed with a view of furthering the kantian philosophy. the idealistic approach to the ethics of the treatment of persons would dictate that calliste kavuro 1513 all people should be entitled to all universal rights, regardless of their nationality (ugur, 2007: 7). within this view, jacques maritain, one of the drafters of the udhr, asserts that human beings are bearers of fundamental human rights and freedoms because of the very fact that they are persons and masters of themselves and of their acts. consequently, the state cannot treat human beings merely as means to an end. a person is “an end, which must be treated as such” (maritain and anson, 1949: 65). what this view tells us, is that the dignity of a person cannot be respected and protected if there is no recognition of fundamental rights and freedoms that equally apply to all people, irrespective of their gender, economic status or nationality. this is the rationale behind the recognition of universal human rights and universal refugee rights. it is therefore clear why dignity, as a vital and vibrant precept, led heads of state and governments to consider the place of refugees within international legal systems with a particular focus on how the plight of refugees and asylum-seekers can humanely, favourably and effectively be protected. it is crucial to point out that international refugee treaty was adopted in the 1920s. however, in 1951 international refugee treaty was reformed in a manner that incorporated most liberal elements in terms of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. as a result, the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees (the un refugee convention) was adopted and thus grounded the protection of refugees in the theories of equality in rights and dignity. in fact, the un refugee convention (1951) introduced a number of strategies intended to provide for favourable standards of treatment with respect to access to socio-economic rights and benefits that were exclusively enjoyed by citizens. prior to the adoption of the un refugee convention (1951), legal obligations to respond to socio-economic needs of refugees and asylum-seekers were non-existent. issues related to socio-economic problems were largely addressed by charity organisations or non-state agents. the grounding of international refugee protection in equality, rights and dignity has the potential of creating a positive legal obligation on the state, which requires the national government to act positively. this would subsequently create and secure humane conditions under which refugees’ essential needs will be responded to in accordance with the resources available, and through international cooperation. securing humane conditions can be achieved through the entitlement of socio-economic rights and benefits and through being included as beneficiaries of socio-economic schemes as well as other public goods and services. inadequate national resources do not absolve the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 host state from extending social welfare to refugees. hence, the host state may seek financial assistance from other nations on the basis of international cooperation and burden sharing. it follows that the positive legal obligations – imposed on the host state – to protect refugees and asylum-seekers’ dignity and moral worth should require the establishment of social justice, which allows them to regain self-respect and self-esteem through access to socioeconomic programmes and labour opportunities. such access must be facilitated in a fair, dignified and favourable manner. the analysis of fair and unbiased protection may not overlook the fact that political realism can provide an ethical basis for exclusion of refugees from certain entitlements. as a sovereign state, a host country is obliged to take into consideration the relevant internationally recognised standards. however, nothing stops the host country from adopting immigration or refugee measures which it morally views as not posing a threat to the ways of life of its citizens, but whose outcome may generate restrictive immigration policies. proponents of fair and dignified treatment will, in this regard, advocate for the right to work for all refugees as such entitlement will contribute to the increase of the state’s resources. the promotion of self-reliance is the threshold requirement, as entrenched in the un refugee convention (1951), whose aim is to ensure the restoration of hope and dignity in the lives of people who live in exile. the restoration of the self-esteem and self-reliance of refugees and asylum-seekers is not only grounded in the accessibility of social welfare, but also in the active participation in the economy of the host country. the 1951 revision of international refugee treaty set out certain strategies towards, if implemented, the protection of the dignity, health and well-being of refugees and asylum-seekers. worth citing are the following strategies: (i) both refugees and asylum-seekers must be recognised as human beings endowed with certain inalienable rights. by recognising the necessity to protect them as humans, a host state must observe the demands made under the charter of the un (1945), the udhr (1948), the refugee convention and human rights treaties (preamble to the un refugee convention, 1951). (ii) all nations or states that are party to the un refugee convention (1951) have to extend fundamental rights and benefits traditionally associated with citizenship, to refugees and asylum-seekers in a manner that promotes, at national level, the widest possible exercise of refugees’ rights and benefits contained in the un calliste kavuro 1515 refugee convention (preamble to the un refugee convention, 1951). (iii) owing to the special vulnerabilities of refugees, their fundamental rights and freedoms (and their entitlements thereof) must be conceived and understood in social and humanitarian terms. entitlements and accessibility of rights and benefits must be accorded to refugees and asylum-seekers on a favourable basis (preamble to the un refugee convention, 1951). (iv) offering the differentiated treatment to refugees (or asylumseekers) with respect to socio-economic rights must be prioritised. the prioritisation of access to the existing social welfare system at national level can be drawn from the mandate given to the unhcr to promote the admission of asylum-seekers regardless of their socio-economic status (article 8(d) of the statute of the unhcr (un, 1950)). in light of the above strategies, the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers in a humane and equitable manner is of fundamental importance. at the heart of the un refugee convention lays moral and legal obligations to protect refugees and asylum-seekers from humiliation, degradation, deprivation and poverty. within this view, a host state must, in practice, play a major role in ensuring that refugees retain feelings of self-worth and self-esteem and move toward self-reliance. at national level, it is imperative for the host state – as a sovereign nation – to adopt its own refugee regime in light of the principles of international refugee law and in light of the principles underpinning its constitution. in situations where the national refugee regime falls short of the international refugee protection, refugees should have a legal recourse to approach the court for resolution of disputes. the court has the mandate to determine whether the state conforms to refugee norms, principles and standards and to interpret the rights of refugees in a way that promotes freedom from human suffering caused by war, political persecution or caused by other reasons such as physical deprivation or discrimination. although human dignity is at the centre of the protection of the plight of refugees and asylum-seekers, there is no right to human dignity expressly protected under the un refugee convention (1951). rather, the idea of protection of human dignity is implicitly reflected in the positive and negative nature of refugee rights. whilst the negative nature of certain rights imposes a african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 duty on the state and others not to interfere with refugees’ or asylum-seekers’ rights and liberties, the positive nature of certain rights requires that refugees or asylum-seekers should live in conditions in which the basic necessities of life will be provided. in emergency situations, they must be provided with public relief and assistance. for the purpose of restoration of normalcy to their lives, they must have favourable access to public goods and services that seek to improve the quality of life of citizens. in other words, where refugees or asylum-seekers lack the material means to do so, the state must avail the resources required to enhance their ability to arrange their lives in accordance with their choices. it is evident that the underlying purpose of the provision of dignified and favourable treatment is to create spaces in which refugees can favourably enjoy access to the state’s social welfare system. this would facilitate and promote the effective local integration into socio-economic development programmes. dignified treatment under the african union (au) refugee convention in 1969, the organisation of african unity (oau), and currently the african union (au) adopted the convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa (au refugee convention, 1969). the oau committed african states and governments to the alleviation of refugees’ and asylumseekers’ misery and suffering by means of offering them socio-economic opportunities to achieve a better life and future. like the un refugee convention (1951), the au refugee convention (1969) does not expressly protect the right to human dignity. unlike the un refugee convention (1951), the au refugee convention (1969) does not expressly guarantee socioeconomic rights and benefits of refugees. nonetheless, the convention imposes a positive obligation on african states to create and secure humane conditions under which refugees’ essential socio-economic problems will be responded to on a humanitarian basis and on the basis of the spirit of african solidarity or in the african context (articles 2(2), 2(4) and para 8 of the preamble, au refugee convention, 1969). it is within the african humanitarian context that the principle of favourable treatment should apply to refugees and asylumseekers. it follows that the au refugee convention (1969) closes gaps in the un refugee convention (1951) in such a way that those rights which are not contained in the latter convention should be interpreted in terms of the furtherance of the spirit of african solidarity (article 2(4), au refugee convention, 1969). the au refugee convention (1969) stresses that the admission, reception and treatment of asylum-seekers (or refugees) should be viewed as a peaceful and humanitarian act (article 2(2), au refugee calliste kavuro 1517 convention, 1969). poor african countries cannot object to admitting and receiving asylum-seekers on the ground of poverty as such objection will be inconsistent with the african spirit of protecting all humanity or the notion of african compassion towards other human beings. african compassion towards the protection of all humans, is imbedded in the collective or communitarian efforts to alleviate the suffering of others. it is not morally right to sit idly and watch when another human being is suffering or in danger. one must act. this is what the spirit of african solidarity implies at individual level. at national level, the state must morally adhere to and apply those moral norms, ethics and rules established by its political community for the humane treatment of another human being. such african approach to the treatment of human beings must, in principle, be reinforced by the principle of nonrefoulement, which prohibits the return of refugees or asylum-seekers to a place where their lives would be exposed to danger (article 2(3), au refugee convention, 1969). in light of these views, african countries are therefore obliged to make the best efforts to adopt their own asylum regimes that are in line with the spirit, purports and objectives of the au refugee convention. once a national asylum law has been developed and adopted, each and every african government is required to make its best efforts consistent with its own asylum law and societal norms to receive refugees and to secure their full local integration, or in terms of sharing burdens, to secure their resettlement in the third countries (article 2(1), au refugee convention, 1969). in other words, in the event that the protection of refugees becomes a burden, an african country enjoys the discretion to appeal to other african countries through the au to take appropriate measures to lighten such burden in the spirit of african solidarity and international cooperation (article 2, au refugee convention, 1969). the humanitarian approach, however, places an emphasis on the need to create conditions in which a better life and future can be achieved by refugees (paragraph 1 of the preamble, au refugee convention, 1969). a better standard of life – comparable to that of citizens – cannot be achieved without access to socio-economic rights and benefits as well as other public service delivery programmes. accessibility must be informed by african morals, norms and values that are ingrained in the most recognised african ethics of african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 ubuntu1. the ethics of the treatment of persons is grounded in the notion of equal treatment, equality in dignity, mutual respect, mutual concern, and in the idea that a person enjoys humanity through others (kavuro, 2015: 188189). the african ethics should permeate and inform any measure taken for the protection of refugees. that measure should aim at the restoration of the dignity that refugees or asylum-seekers had lost, as this will rebuild their confidence, hope and vision. hope for a better future can be restored through social and economic empowerment. the protection of human dignity is linked to access to resources, to enable refugees and asylum-seekers to pursue their happiness or dreams. this approach to the ethics of the protection of refugees defeats the argument that national resources should be reserved and preserved for the benefit of citizens only. this article demonstrates that the said approach does not sit well with the realistic approach to the ethics of the protection of non-citizens. dignified treatment under human rights treaties the emphasis on the protection of humanity engenders the morality for host states to adopt refugee management measures that are not only consistent with international refugee treaties, but also consistent with human rights law. a human rights-based approach to the treatment of human beings is conceptually grounded in equality in rights and dignity. a human rights-based approach has to supplement the international refugee protection. rights contained in the human rights texts can be invoked by refugees or asylumseekers to claim dignified treatment in the situations where the un refugee convention (1951) does not provide a favourable approach to certain rights. from a realistic view, the host state cannot fall short of some supposed moral 1 ubuntu is described by mokgoro j in s v makwanyane 1995 (3) sa 391 (cc) para 308 as follows: generally, ubuntu translates as ‘humaneness’. in its most fundamental sense it translates as personhood and ‘morality’. metaphorically, it expresses itself in umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, describing the significance of group solidarity on survival issues so central to the survival of communities. while it envelops the key values of group solidarity, compassion, respect, human dignity, conformity to basic norms and collective unity, in its fundamental sense it denotes humanity and morality. its spirit emphasises a respect for human dignity, marking a shift from confrontation to conciliation. in south africa ubuntu has become a notion with particular resonance in the building of a democracy. it is part of our rainbow heritage, though it might have operated and still operates differently in diverse community settings. in the western cultural heritage, respect and the value for life, manifested in the all-embracing concepts of ‘humanity’ and ‘menswaardigheid’, are also highly priced. it is values like these that [section 39(1)(a) of the south african constitution] requires to be promoted. they give meaning and texture to the principles of a society based on freedom and equality. calliste kavuro 1519 duties entrenched in international human rights. this article recognises the shortcomings of the un refugee convention (1951). firstly, it does not require a favourable approach to entitlement to rights and benefits which do not find expression in it. secondly, it does not recognise the special vulnerabilities of refugees. furthermore, the au refugee convention (1969) is of no help with regard to the manner in which a particular right should be accorded to a particular individual. it applies an ambiguous approach when it seeks to afford all rights to refugees and asylum-seekers on the basis of an african spirit and philosophy. accordingly, the main concern is that both international refugee conventions do not clearly specify the treatment that could be afforded vulnerable groups of refugees, such as women, children, disabled people, elderly people or persons with serious illnesses. these lacunae in international refugee law could possibly be filled by relying on dignified standards of treatment as set forth under, for example, the udhr, the 1966 international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (icescr), the 1966 international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr), the 1965 international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (icerd), the 1980 convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw), the 1981 african charter on human and peoples’ rights (achpr), the 1989 convention on the rights of the child (crc), the 1990 african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc) and the 2006 convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (crpd). the list of human rights texts is non-exhaustive, as there are a number of other human rights texts designed to protect certain specific interests of certain categories of people. generally, the basic human rights standards play a significant role, not only in the fight against discrimination against vulnerable groups, including refugees and asylum-seekers, but also in the struggles of the needy and vulnerable, to demand positive state measures that would allow them to live a life of dignity (veneklasen et al., 2004: 4). observance and promotion of human rights norms and standards is regarded as bases of the alleviation of social vulnerabilities and other types of marginalisation. hence, human rights principles require individuals’ active participation in economic development and democratic processes. the human rights-based protection is a principled and viable tool that can be invoked by refugees and asylum-seekers to claim basic human rights and to promote active participation in human, social, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 political and economic development of the host country. integral to effective human rights protection is the understanding that poor, vulnerable, marginalised individuals’ desire for the enjoyment of a sense of dignity and for the satisfaction of their basic needs would be realised only if they have access to human rights entitlements (chapman, 2005: 4). according to beracochea et al. (2011: 5), the human rights-based approach provides an alternative response to challenges to receive an effective human rights protection, because: deep within [its] essence is the knowledge that ordinary people have the capacity to manage their own lives and society quite well using knowledge and resources that [the international community] have developed that must be shared freely. for refugees and asylum-seekers to manage their own lives, they must be allowed to have access to those rights that the domestic distributive justice system provides. in fact, the domestic distributive justice system makes national resources to be shared freely among its own citizens. the human rights-based approach challenges this approach based on the principle of citizenship, as this approach deprives certain individuals of national protection. in refugee protection domains, a human rights-based approach can support and strengthen asylum laws in restoring a sense of normality to the lives of victims of persecutions and reviving their participation in social and economic activities. it can be invoked with respect to defining special treatment that should be accorded to certain individuals, such as women, pregnant women, young girls, infants, children (separated or unaccompanied), elderly people, disabled people and victims of rape or human trafficking. in understanding these differences in treatment, the rights of refugees must be incorporated into national laws, policies and strategies, in a manner which gives effect to special treatment accorded to different categories of refugees. this approach to the treatment of refugees should be what the favourable treatment of refugees entails or what the modern human rights protection entails. the protection of dignity varies and this is dependent on the situation of the person. the need for human rights protection to reinforce or supplement the refugee rights protection is very important because, as eide (1996: 25) posits, human rights law inter-relates the promotion of human rights norms and standards with the advancement of socio-economic development. socio-economic development is seen as a vehicle to the progressive realisation of sociocalliste kavuro 1521 economic rights or better standards of life. the observance of human rights norms plays a crucial role in the alleviation of deprivation and poverty and is seen as a primary goal of social protection and social progress, thereby contributing to positive national economic growth (eide, 1996: 25). of concern is that, by its very nature, refugee rights are not viewed as tenets of socioeconomic development but as tenets of the humanitarian protection in the host community. more often, refugee rights are understood in the context of humanitarian terms and not in the context of development terms. given the fact that the refugees’ situation is not a matter that is likely to be resolved in the foreseeable future, it is widely argued that refugees should therefore be integrated into the host society, including integration into economic and ultimately political participation. the inclusion of refugees in the democratic processes would allow them to voice their views on how the economy could be sustained and grown at individual, community and national levels. this article argues that refugee scholars have not given adequate attention to the issue of political participation by refugees and asylum-seekers. the protection of human rights has not been linked to economic development until very recently. human rights principles and economic development were, prior to 1990, viewed as separate disciplines that were aimed at increasing human freedom and individual autonomy. this article argues that not enough has been done in the analysis of the role of human rights norms in the protection of refugees, following the recent merger of these two disciplines that gave birth to the human rights-based approach. this approach is regarded as a tool that provides solutions to poverty or deprivation “through the establishment and enforcement of the rights that entitle the poor and marginalised people to a fair share of society’s resources” (chapman 2005: 16). this suggests that refugees’ socio-economic rights should be recognised in terms of their right to development and empowerment, in order to conceptualise those rights in a concrete way that responds to the position of refugees in a globalised economy. in a globalised economy, refugees and asylum-seekers should be given opportunities to restore their freedom to use their talents and skills or to develop their abilities with a view of achieving better and dignified standards of life. in this context, the idea of social empowerment and economic development should, according to chapman (2005: 4), be understood as: african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 […] increasing people’s possibility and capacity to make the most of their potential to live as full creative human beings and to come together to build caring, supporting, and accountable society [and]… responding to people’s basic needs for survival and aspirations for human dignity and respect. this denotes that the capabilities of different categories of refugees (i.e. men, women, children and people with disabilities) should be developed logically and rationally. although there is a tendency to associate the concept of development with citizenship and analyse it in that context, human fulfilment, active participation and development should not be denied to refugees or asylum-seekers on the ground of nationality. because socio-economic development is integral to the advancement of better standards of dignified treatment, the right to socio-economic development is an inalienable right, as explicitly stated by the 1986 declaration on the right to development. the preamble of the declaration (un, 1986) defines the concept of development as: […] a comprehensive economic, social, cultural and political process, which aims at the constant improvement of the well-being of the entire population and of all individuals on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in the distribution of benefits resulting therefrom. in this light, all humans are afforded the right to participate in, contribute to and enjoy socio-economic development, including cultural and political progress. it is within this context that refugee rights should be construed at the national level. this argument is supported by the fact that the right to human dignity would imply favourable treatment in labour, social, cultural, economic and political domains. together with the right to life, the right to human dignity or dignified treatment is viewed as a pillar of social empowerment, social transformation and economic development. as demonstrated, dignified treatment requires the state to make social programmes available to the poor and to ensure that they enjoy unlimited access to those programmes. there is consensus among human rights scholars that a constant improvement of the well-being of individuals will not be possible in circumstances in which people are stuck in poverty, entirely deprived of basic rights or are not accorded special treatment tailored to meet their special needs (liebenberg, 2008: 154; pieterse, 2007: 796-822; sen, 1999: 38; nussbaum, 2000: 34). the same applies in situations where nothing calliste kavuro 1523 is done by the state to improve the conditions of the poor. poverty or deprivation makes it harder for vulnerable people such as refugees, asylumseekers and needy citizens to benefit from a range of rights. access to socioeconomic rights is central to the full realisation of human and refugee rights, as well as fundamental freedoms. integral to human and societal development is the accessibility of socio-economic rights and benefits. upholding refugee rights should involve more than the protection of physical safety. it needs to include a comprehensive process by which refugees should be integrated into the basic socio-economic strata of society and certain levels of socio-economic development. sen, who views rights and freedoms as development, maintains that equitable social transformation will be achieved if every human being has access to those basic rights that increase or enhance human freedom which, in turn, enables a person to achieve his or her life goals (sen, 1999:38). in the view of nussbaum (2000: 34), the pain, suffering, humiliation or degradation associated with social inequality or physical deprivation can be eradicated through the accessibility of socio-economic rights, which she views as a principled and nuanced mechanism to empower vulnerable, poor individuals to realise their potential. the main question is whether socio-economic rights are refugee rights or human rights or both, prior to analysing their role in the protection of the right to the economic development of refugees. the human rights-based approach presumes that human rights are universal and inalienable. they inhere in everyone. they cannot be given by a state or taken away by it. secondly, all human rights are indivisible. whether of a positive or negative nature, human rights are derived from the concept of human dignity and seek to protect the intrinsic worth of the human being. thirdly, human rights are interdependent and interrelated. the realisation of socio-economic rights presupposes the observance of core civil and political rights such as the right to equality, human dignity and freedom from arbitrary treatment. these rights are a cornerstone of social transformation and economic empowerment in south africa, hence their foundational constitutional value. fourthly, all individuals are equal in dignity and rights. all human beings are entitled to fundamental human rights and freedoms without discrimination of any kind. this cosmopolitan approach informs south africa’s bill of rights which, in turn, underpins the provisions of the refugees act (rsa, 1998), relating to the rights of refugees and asylumseekers (s 27(b) of the refugees act). in this respect, the government of south african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 africa has to adhere to the norms and standards of the treatment, as expressed in regional and international texts relating to the treatment of refugees and enshrining refugee and human rights. in sum, the connection between refugee rights and socio-economic development/empowerment is expressed in terms of the norms of equality and dignity which engender the favourable treatment of refugees at the national level through the requirement that certain human rights, norms and standards be observed when admitting and protecting refugees in the country. the following sections illustrate that the significance of human dignity has shaped south africa’s legal protection and has engendered the dignity-based jurisprudence invoked by the court to ensure the effective protection of refugees and asylum-seekers in terms of law and policy. development of refugee law in south africa historical background the post-apartheid immigration and refugee law seeks to distance itself from the apartheid practices which denied black south africans and their fellow black africans dignified treatment. the current law also distances itself from the previous practices conducted prior to the installation of the apartheid government in 1948. prior to 1900, the movement of refugees from europe was understood as white people migrating to and settling in south africa, whereas other races were forced to migrate as slaves or to work as cheap labourers (lazerson, 1994: 82-99). after 1900, immigration became an issue of legal concern. there was a need to control and manage immigration on a legal basis. the first immigration law was adopted in 1913 under the immigrants regulations act 22 of 1913, and was aimed at excluding indian immigrants (klotz, 2014: 10-11). in 1930, the immigration law was revised under the immigration quota act 8 of 1930 with a view to excluding those migrants classified as ‘undesirable’. based on this exclusionary approach, more restrictive immigration measures were imposed under the aliens act 1 of 1937 and the aliens registration act 26 of 1939, with a view of restricting “an influx of european refugees prior to world war ii” (comaroff and comaroff, 2001: 249). later, discriminatory immigration measures were directed at the exclusion of african black people and this approach remained operational until the 1990s (comaroff and comaroff, 2001). exclusion, which gives rise to unfair discrimination, lies at the heart of denying people their respect and dignity. unfair discrimination always sends a message to victims that they are individuals of lesser moral worth, as compared to others. for that calliste kavuro 1525 reason, unfair discrimination is not compatible with equality in rights and dignity. klotz (2014: 10) illustrates how the immigration laws and policies adopted by the apartheid regime were firmly underpinned by segregation, whereby a sharp ontological line between white and non-white was developed. the roots of the contemporary exclusionary approach and xenophobic sentiments (or violence) can be traced to the past immigration laws. for instance, between 1913 and 1986, african black people, whether refugees or not, were, in principle, not allowed to enter south africa and could only stay in south africa as ‘illegal migrants’ and, if employed, as ‘illegal migrant workers’ (adepoju, 2003: 4). consequently, refugees and asylum-seekers resided in south africa illegally and had to do their best to support themselves (polzer, 2008: 480; handmaker, 2001: 92). they could not claim the dignified standards of treatment, contemplated either in the international refugee law or human rights law. the tension between this long history of an exclusionary approach and the post-apartheid commitment to the protection of dignity of every human person can still be seen in contemporary political approaches to the question of whether refugees and asylum-seekers should, on either an equal basis or a favourable basis, enjoy socio-economic protection. the question of the favourable protection of refugees can be understood better if two approaches to the ethics of international migration are explored. these two approaches are realistic and idealistic. the morality of the realistic approach is based on the moral standards of protection offered to members of a political community (i.e. citizens) as opposed to non-members or outsiders (i.e. non-citizens), who are viewed as a threat to the political community (ugur, 2007: 5-6). the realistic theory posits immigration as posing a threat to national interests and the ways of life of citizens and their association as well as their economic development or empowerment. within this understanding, politicians and policymakers support and adopt socio-economic laws that confine the distribution of national resources to citizens to the exclusion of non-citizens. put plainly, citizenship becomes the moral ground on which national resources and opportunities can primarily be distributed. in this way, immigration laws, policies and procedures are reformed with a view of decreasing the overall levels of immigration (ugur, 2007: 5-6). new criteria for admission into the country or for accessing the labour market are introduced, including changes in refugee determination procedures. the shortcomings of the realistic approach are based on the state placing greater weight on the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 protection of the interests of citizens than on the interests of outsiders seeking to join its political community. in doing so, little attention is given to meeting the moral standards of protection that take root in equality in rights and dignity, espoused under human rights law (carens, 1996: 164). the disregard of international moral standards is ethically justified on the basis of the sovereignty of the nation and its moral primary obligation to protect its citizens. however, carens (1996) asserts that every human being belongs to a particular political community, who enjoys the protection of the government of that community, even if he or she is in another country. the reality is that refugees are the only human beings who do not enjoy the protection of the governments of their own political communities, from which they fled. in contrast to the realistic approach, the idealistic approach justifies the protection of all human beings (citizens and non-citizens alike) on the basis of humanity and thus applies an egalitarian principle to the protection of international migration. the egalitarian principle derives from and is constructed on the natural law theories on which the ethics of human rights standards are based. the idealistic approach assumes that human rights apply to all human beings irrespective of their nationalities. it purports that people should move freely around the globe and that people should seek asylum in another country. it advocates for a just and fair distribution of wealth among all people within given territorial boundaries. politicians view this approach as a danger to the preservation of their state’s national resources. hence, the idealistic approach overlooks the sovereignty of the nation and its territorial power to choose who to admit into the country and to decide on the protection to be afforded to that person (ugur, 2007: 6-7; carens, 1996: 167). in light of the above, this article analyses the question of the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers in the post-apartheid constitutional order, in the context of the realistic and the idealistic approaches. the primary point of departure is that the south african constitution is informed by the natural law theories and thus guarantees certain fundamental rights in the bill of rights to all, without distinction of any kind. these rights include socio-economic rights, which are seen as a vehicle to the protection of the human dignity of the poor and vulnerable. the idealistic approach adopted by the constitution makes the question of protection of the dignity of refugees and asylum-seekers very interesting. why? because the post-apartheid government has constitutionally committed itself to upholding the principle of equality in rights and dignity of all people living in the country. does the idealistic approach apply to immigration law and distributive law? this calliste kavuro 1527 question will be responded to through the analysis of the current immigration law. in principle, the application of the idealistic approach is partially underscored in the 1997 green paper on international migration. this green paper (rsa, 1997) pointed to the need to extend special protection to refugees and asylum-seekers in a sensible and humane manner. the shift from the discriminatory practices to the dignified protection practices resulted in the adoption of the refugees act, 1998. the act firstly domesticates the un refugee convention (1951) and the au refugee convention (1969). secondly, it recognises the human rights law as an interpretative tool to be employed when defining the treatment of refugees and asylum-seekers with respect to a disputed or impugned right. thirdly, the act gives effect to basic fundamental rights and freedoms contained in the bill of rights that apply to everyone. in a nutshell, the act recognises the equal dignity and moral worth of refugees and asylum-seekers. it thus rests on a rejection of south africa’s racist history, in which black people – citizens and non-citizens alike – were subjected to humiliation and degradation. holistically, the refugees act (1998) is conceived in cosmopolitan and positive terms. it underscores the idealistic theories. the cosmopolitan terms imply that refugees and asylum-seekers are entitled to all fundamental rights and freedoms, save for those rights the constitution ascribes to citizens. the positive terms imply that south africa should act positively to ensure that (a) their needs are met; (b) they have adequate resources; and (c) they are afforded opportunities to advance themselves. people cannot have their dignity respected by the state if they are not afforded socio-economic rights and benefits, whose access is a key to the development of a society in which every individual can pursue his or her dream for the fulfilment of his or her potential. it is within this context that the refugees act (1998) is designed to alleviate the desperation and destitution suffered by refugees and asylumseekers prior to and after arriving in south africa through the facilitation of equal access to subsidised public service delivery. despite these promises, the implementation of the refugee law highlights the tension between the protection of human rights and inherited inclinations to treat non-citizens, in particular african black people, as a threat to national security and economic growth (klotz, 2014: 171). human dignity as an interpretive tool as a foundational value, human dignity is employed to interpret the rights contained in the bill of rights. owing to the idealistic approach to the ethics of african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers, most of the constitutional rights in the bill of rights accrue to refugees and asylum-seekers. firstly, they accrue to them on account of their cosmopolitan or universal nature. secondly, the cosmopolitan rights accrue to them by virtue of the refugees act (1998). these cosmopolitan rights include the socio-economic rights. the cosmopolitan nature of socio-economic rights is not of concern to this article. the article is more concerned about the fact that it has become a norm that socio-economic rights (and other rights in the bill of rights) must be interpreted to promote the values that underlie an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom. it is understood that the equal respect of human dignity has the potential of promoting the individual autonomy and liberty. in this respect, the founding value of human dignity must essentially inform the interpretation of both the constitutional rights of refugees and of distributive law (i.e. socio-economic legislation) that recognises, circumscribes or limits their rights. the human dignity-based jurisprudence is given precedence in the interpretation of the rights guaranteed by the refugees act. the reason is that human dignity – as a value – has been used to develop socio-economic laws in a manner that gives more protection to poor and vulnerable individuals. in refugee realms, it has, so far, been relied on to extend the right to study, work and engage in economic activities to asylum-seekers. unlike the refugee law, distributive or socio-economic laws are framed within the realistic context. the realism about the exclusion of refugees and asylumseekers starts with the recognition that the primary obligation of the state is to protect and advance its citizens, in particular the previously disadvantaged people. in the pursuit of an egalitarian society, the moral worth of refugees and asylum-seekers are usually recognised when the court is ceased with scrutinising a distributive law, conferring socio-economic benefits to ascertain whether such distributive law is in compliance with the constitutional aim, value and standard of dignity. in scrutinising the distributive law, certain factors are taken into consideration. consideration is given to: (i) the impact of socio-economic measures on the conditions of individuals, groups or communities, when determining whether such measures facilitate, promote, and expedite the eradication of deep-seated or inherited inequality (cf. abahlali basemjondolo movement sa v premier of the province of kwazulu-natal 2010 2 bclr 99 (cc) para 18). calliste kavuro 1529 (ii) the reasonableness of positive measures to protect the interests of marginalised groups effectively (cf. government of the republic of south africa v grootboom 2000 11 bclr 1169 (cc) paras 31, 36). (iii) the need to redress historical, structural and systemic forms of marginalisation, discrimination, indignity or humiliation experienced by millions of black people (cf. bato star fishing (pty) ltd v minister of environmental affairs 2004 4 sa 490 (cc) para 91). these considerations are meant to ground the interpretation and adjudication of socio-economic rights in contextual, historical, comparative and purposive methods (de ville, 2000: 144). as noted, the dignity-based jurisprudence has been elevated to the number one position when it comes to giving meaning, content and substance to socio-economic rights of citizens on the one hand and of refugees on the other in practical situations or in resolving constitutional disputes. in this way, human dignity was central to the reasoning of the supreme court of appeal (sca) in minister of home affairs v watchenuka 2004 1 sa 21 (sca). in this case, the minister of home affairs prohibited asylum-seekers from taking up employment and from studying within the first six months. although the state as sovereign body has the power to describe the conditions for noncitizens as it deems desirable, the sca stated that the absolute deprivation of access to education and livelihood opportunities during the first six months violated the human dignity of asylum-seekers (para 24). viewing work as an important component of living in dignity, the sca explained that the freedom to engage in productive work ensured, at least, the minimum conditions for asylum-seekers’ dignified life (para 27). in justifying its reasoning, the sca went on to state that human dignity inheres in all people regardless of their nationality and that “self-esteem and a sense of self-worth – the fulfilment of what it is to be human – is most often bound up with being accepted as socially useful” (para 27). the sca’s remarks were primarily based on the idealistic approach to the protection of the intrinsic worth of a human being. because human dignity must be protected in every situation, the right to human dignity outweighed distributive laws which fundamentally impair the human dignity of refugees. in the context of asylum-seeking, the protection of dignity requires mechanisms that would enable asylum-seekers to survive and live a better life. access to the labour market and education is among those mechanisms. the sca, in somali association of south africa v limpopo, department of economic development, environment and tourism, 2015 1 sa 151 (sca), also invoked the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 value of human dignity to determine the scope and ambit of the right to seek employment contained in the refugees act. the court noted that the right to seek employment was wide enough to include the right to self-employment guaranteed by article 18 of the un refugee convention. the supreme court of appeal (para 43) stated that: […] if, because of circumstances, a refugee or asylum-seeker is unable to obtain wage-earning employment and is on the brink of starvation, which brings with it humiliation and degradation, and that person can only sustain himor herself by engaging in trade, that such a person ought to be able to rely on the constitutional right to dignity in order to advance a case for the granting of a licence to trade. the sca stated that since certain constitutional rights, such as the right to freely choose a trade, occupation or profession, are reserved for citizens, it cannot be invoked by the state to condemn refugees or asylum-seekers to a life of humiliation and degradation (para 43). this illustrates that certain rights constitutionally afforded to citizens, can be extended to refugees or asylumseekers. proceeding from this analysis, new restrictive changes to the refugees act, which came into force in terms of the refugees amendment act 11 of 2017 (rsa, 2017), and which were aimed at limiting asylum-seekers’ right to work, fall short of the dignified standards of treatment. under the current revised regime, asylum-seekers must be allowed to work by the standing committee for refugee affairs and on the basis of conditions determined by the standing committee. accordingly, asylum-seekers are subjected to assessment to determine their abilities to sustain themselves and their dependants – with or without the assistance of family or friends. those who are unable to sustain themselves must be assisted by humanitarian organisations or be allowed to work. this new dimension of protection of asylum-seekers is inconsistent with the judgements of the sca handed down in the two aforementioned cases and is in conflict with obligations imposed on south africa by international refugee law to offer them humanitarian assistance or protection. conclusion the idea of human dignity has shifted from a moral value to a legal norm on which the current international legal order is based. as a legal norm, the idea has gradually shaped the international refugee protection at global, continental and national level to the extent that restores the moral worth of refugees and asylum-seekers. it challenges the realistic approach which is calliste kavuro 1531 grounded in essential elements of sovereignty. in the south african context, the idea has greatly contributed to a more liberal constitutional, statutory, or judicial protection of refugees and asylum-seekers. normatively, human dignity has engendered the dignity-based jurisprudence, which is a powerful tool that is used, not only to give effect to refugees’ rights, but also to extend some of the rights traditionally attached to citizenship to refugees or asylumseekers for the protection of their welfare. it holistically connects and brings all refugee, human and constitutional rights together for all purposes of social progress. it problematises the traditional distinctions between the rights of citizens and the rights of non-citizens and between needy citizens and needy refugees. the dignity-based jurisprudence employed by the courts is significant for the interpretation and protection of refugee rights for several reasons. firstly, the value of dignity demands that no-one should be reduced to a mere object of state power, or be left without the resources needed to live a dignified life or be deprived of autonomous choice and abilities to meet their own ends. secondly, dignity has no boundaries and for that reason, it cannot be confined to citizens only. thirdly, dignity, read together with the value of ubuntu, requires all persons to be treated humanely and demands equal treatment consistent with and infused by values of group solidarity, compassion, respect, human dignity, conformity to basic norms and collective unity. fourthly, measures based on the immigration law principle of self-sufficiency, in cases involving destitute refugees, would not be constitutionally justified in circumstances where they have the effect of degrading refugees by compelling them to resort to crime, prostitution, stealing, or begging. fifthly, discrimination against this vulnerable group would amount to unfair discrimination if it has a stigmatising effect by sending out a message that this group of people is in some ways inferior to citizens or less worthy as human persons. the value of human dignity has played an important role in the recognition of the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers and the extension of rights to them. it is still applied to mediate a number of legal disputes, including administrative disputes or criminal matters involving refugees and asylum-seekers. references adepoju, a. 2003. continuity and changing configuration of migration to and from the republic of south africa. international migration, 41(1): 3-28. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 african union (au). 1969. african union convention governing specific aspects of refugee problems in africa, african union (au), addis ababa, ethiopia. beracochea, e., weinstein, c. and evans, d. 2011. rights-based approaches to public health. new york: springer publishing company. botha, h. 2009. human dignity in comparative perspective. stellenbosch law review, 20(2): 171-220. carens, j.h. 1996. realistic and idealistic approaches to the ethics of immigration. international migration review, 30(2): 156-170. chapman, j. 2005. rights-based development: the challenge of change and power. paper presented at the gprg sponsored conference on “the winners and losers from rights-based approaches to development”, institute for development policy and management, university of manchester, 21-22 february. global poverty research group (gprg), 1-41. comaroff, j. and comaroff, j.l. 2001. naturing the nation: aliens, apocalypse, and the postcolonial state. social identities, 7(2): 233-265. currie, i. and de waal, j. 2005. the bill of rights handbook (5th ed.). cape town: juta & company ltd. de ville, j.r. 2000. constitutional and statutory interpretation. cape town: interdoc. eide, a. 1996. human rights requirements to social and economic development. food policy, 21(1): 23-39. handmaker, j. 2001. no easy walk: advancing refugee protection in south africa. africa today, 48(3): 91-113. kant, i. 1785. groundwork for the metaphysics of morals. new haven and london: yale university press. kavuro, c. 2015. refugees and asylum-seekers: barriers to accessing south africa’s labour market. law, democracy and development, 19: 232-260. kavuro, c. 2018. exploring the full legal protection of refugees and its limitations with reference to natural and positive law. obiter, 39(1): 17-44. klotz, a. 2014. migration and national identity in south africa, 1860-2010. new york: cambridge university. calliste kavuro 1533 lazerson, j.a. 1994. against the tide: whites in the struggle against apartheid. boulder: westview press. liebenberg, s. 2008. the value of freedom in interpreting socio-economic rights. acta juridica (special edition), 149-176. maritain, j. and anson, d.c. 1949. the right of man and natural law. tacoma: charles scribner’s sons. nussbaum, m.c. 2000. women and human development: the capabilities approach. cambridge: cambridge university press. pieterse, m. 2007. eating socio-economic rights: the usefulness of rights talk in alleviating social hardship revisited. human rights quarterly, 29(3): 796822. polzer, t. 2008. invisible integration: how bureaucratic, academic and social categories obscure integrated refugees. journal of refugee studies, 21(4): 476– 498. republic of south africa (rsa). 1996. constitution of the republic of south africa, government of the republic of south africa, pretoria. republic of south africa (rsa). 1997. green paper on international migration, 1997. government of the republic of south africa, pretoria. republic of south africa (rsa). 1998. refugees act 130 of 1998, government of the republic of south africa, pretoria. republic of south africa (rsa). 2017. refugees amendment act 11 of 2017, government of the republic of south africa, pretoria. sen, a. 1999. development as freedom. oxford: oxford university press. ugur, m. 2007. the ethics, economics and governance of free movement. mpra paper no 26007, posted 21 october 2010, 1-27. united nations (un). 1948. universal declaration of human rights (udhr), united nations. united nations (un). 1950. statute of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). from <https://bit.ly/2vlqkt3> (retrieved 16 june 2018). united nations (un). 1951. convention relating to the status of refugees, united nations. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 1, april 2019 united nations (un).1986. declaration on the right to development (drd), united nations. veneklasen, l., miller, v., clark, c. and reilly, m. 2004. rights-based approaches and beyond – linking rights and participation: challenges of current thinking and action. unpublished paper drafted for a joint initiative of the participation group – ids and just associates. from < https://bit.ly/2isbq79> (retrieved 13 may 2018). editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za this issue consists of five articles. the first article by aklilu asha and matlou nkwana is entitled “complexities in the case management of unaccompanied minors: perceptions of social workers practicing in the polokwane child and youth care centres”. using a rightsbased approach as a theoretical framework, this empirical research probes the underlying factors that make the administration of unaccompanied children challenging. the participants of the study constituted primarily social workers practicing within the two centres, including the supervisors and coordinators. these groups were selected purposively because of their extensive knowledge of and involvement in the activities of the centres. the findings of this research highlight that most of the unaccompanied minors were in dire need and lacked proper documentation. the research argues that a number of perilous child protection challenges existed in the management of the cases of unaccompanied minors. these include the limited capacity of social workers, lack of intersectoral integration and collaboration, and insufficient allocation of resources to tackle the multiple dilemmas that affect unaccompanied minors in the centres. the research concludes that despite the solid international legal framework and south africa having a relatively well-developed legal and policy framework governing child protection, there are several critical child protection gaps that exist in terms of the implementation of these frameworks for unaccompanied or separated foreign children, by government officials. the second article by terry-ann jones and tamara last is entitled “european immigrants in johannesburg: perceptions, privileges and their implications for migration experiences”. the research examines the experiences of privileged migration and strategies adopted by european immigrants to navigate south africa’s immigration regime. drawing on qualitative data from two independent studies on south african attitudes towards immigrants and european immigration to south africa, the study also critically explores the interplay of social recognition and legal authorization in relation to privileged migrants. the study discovered that european privileges, such as international mobility and access to resources acquired in and by european governments, are reflected in the opinions of european immigrants in south africa, which are contextualized in experiences and legacies of the apartheid regime. furthermore, european immigrants' beliefs define their privileged experience and enable their social mobility in a deeply segregated country by exempting them from migration politics and xenophobia and facilitating their economic integration. the third article by joseph inyama is entitled “economic and risk perceptions motivating illegal migration abroad: port harcourt city youths, nigeria”. the study adopted a qualitative research methodology to collect data from port harcourt city youths on the lived experiences of irregular migrants in selected countries abroad. using the theory of reasoned action and the cultural theory of risk perception, this study investigates the economic and risk perceptions related to the livelihood of male and female youths of port harcourt city about migration to europe through the sahara desert and across the mediterranean sea. the outcomes of this study reveal that the prospect of a better life and a steady income motivates people to undertake dangerous migratory journeys abroad, regardless of the hazards. besides, the survey found that the majority of teenagers who go on perilous excursions lack a thorough understanding of the perils of traveling through the desert and across the sea, including the difficulties of living abroad as undocumented migrants. this empirical study suggests that government agencies and international community partners work together to undertake long-term interventions that will strengthen youngsters' resilience to illegal migration. the fourth article by fatima khan and mikhail kolabhai is entitled “bureaucratic barriers to social protection for refugees and asylum seekers during the covid-19 disaster in south africa”. the covid-19 pandemic represents a major public health challenge with serious economic and social impacts. this research considers the situation of refugees and asylum seekers during the pandemic, as well as their social protection status. the findings of this study reveal that decades of asylum mismanagement have left asylum seekers and refugees without protection at a time when they need it most. the research suggests the reframing of asylum administration as a critical disaster readiness infrastructure and vital service that could help to catalyze the significant reforms needed to protect these vulnerable groups and guarantee that their safety is prioritized. the fifth article by paul asquith and richard neetzow, julia von freeden and paul schütze is entitled “the link between documentation status, occupation status, and healthcare access for african migrants: evidence from kenya, nigeria, and south africa”. with the objective to examine the link between registration status, employment or occupation status, gender, and (perceptions of) access to healthcare, empirical data was collected from three selected countries in east, west and southern african regions. to look into the effects of these various traits, a variety of statistical tests and models were used. the findings of this research show that throughout the three sample countries, access for people without any documentation is lower than other groups, not only by means but also within the linear models. as a result, the researchers strongly propose that, even if only temporarily, extending regularization paths in african states would be an effective policy lever for improving migrants' access to healthcare and, by extension, migrants' health. they further note that the effects of employment status and gender on access to healthcare were more ambiguous, and further research in african contexts is required to clarify their impact. with effective presentations, good organization, and critical argumentation, the writers have created analytical and scientific research outcomes. i believe that the african human mobility review, volume 7, number 2, 2021, will be a useful resource for researchers, practitioners, and students. professor mulugeta f. dinbabo email: editor@sihma.org.za editor-inchief, african human mobility review (ahmr) scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) university of the western cape (uwc) cape town south africa mailto:editor@sihma.org.za african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1583 migrants in countries in crisis: the experiences of ghanaian and nigerien migrants during the libyan crisis of 2011 leander kandilige and manou nabara hamidou abstract using the experiences of ghanaian and nigerian migrants who were implicated in the 2011 libyan crisis as a case study, this paper highlights the importance of examining micro-level factors in explaining migration decision-making processes. it therefore challenges the uncritical use of macro-level factors as exogenous ‘root causes’ of migration especially in developing country contexts. adopting mainly qualitative approaches among seventy-five key informants from six distinct categories, the study finds that migration culture, household livelihood aspirations, geographical propinquity, the existence of social networks and migrant smuggling rings motivate migrations to libya. the paper also challenges scholarship on the 2011 libyan crisis that treats the experiences of sub-saharan african (ssa) migrants in the country as an undifferentiated group. the paper concludes that within a developing country context, the political economy of the origin country contributes to the establishment, over time, of a migration culture especially among youth who feel trapped in ‘waithood’ and are unable to realize basic socio-cultural and economic markers in life. the paper recommends the regionalization of evacuation and repatriation programmes to facilitate the timely extraction of trapped migrants from countries in crisis. keywords libya, motivations for migration, ghanaian migrants, nigerian migrants, crisis situation. introduction this paper provides a nuanced perspective on how individuals’ migration decision-making processes are informed by the broader social, economic, cultural and political environments in both their country of origin and the country of destination. the paper also argues that the experience of ‘trappedness’ in crisis-ridden destination countries is shaped by the political economy in both origin and destination countries. ghana and niger are used  centre for migration studies, university of ghana. email: leanderkandilige@gmail.com groupe d'etudes et de recherches migration environment sociétés (germes)/abdou moumouni university and lasdel, niger. kandilige, l. and hamidou, m., n. as case studies to test whether sameness or difference in religious and cultural affiliation and geographical propinquity necessarily serve as proximate factors in migration journeys and coping mechanisms by migrants during an outbreak of conflict in destination countries. the paper is situated within the 2011 libyan crisis context. existing literature on migration in ghana has examined different aspects of the effects of the libyan crisis of 2011. kandilige and adiku (2019) analyzed the institutional challenges faced in the return and reintegration of ghanaian returnees from libya. mensah (2016) examined the major difficulties that returnees faced in reintegrating into their societies of origin after their forcedreturn and assessed the factors that influence reintegration and possible reemigration. bob-milliar (2012) discussed the deportation and repatriation of ghanaian nationals from libya and the challenges they faced in reintegrating into their home communities. manuh (2011) assessed the reintegration needs of returnees from libya to the brong ahafo region of ghana. in niger, the limited number of academic writings tended to focus on the return and reintegration challenges. nabara (2014) for instance, examined the return migration of nigeriens from libya, the reintegration strategies adopted and incidents of social change in the urban commune of tchintabaraden as a result of their return. mounkaïla (2015) discussed the management of nigerien nationals who were repatriated from libya to the municipality of tchintabaraden and examined the challenges to their sustainable reintegration. some studies have also examined cases of racism, discrimination, name-calling, robberies and casual attacks by libyan youths, arbitrary arrests and detentions, lack of access to rental accommodation, inability to access the formal banking system and lack of protection by libyan security services (hamood, 2006; kleist, 2017). however, a limited number of the extant studies have interrogated, from the perspective of the key actors themselves – migrants and their family members – the motivations behind the migration of mostly young, unskilled and illiterate/semi-literate migrants to libya. also, the first-hand accounts of experiences of the crisis situation by migrants have not been sufficiently examined (see kleist, 2017) while generalizations about the experiences of sub-saharan africans in libya are made as though they are an undifferentiated group (see hamood, 2006). this paper argues that even though experiences of sub-saharan african migrants of the libyan crisis were similar in some circumstances, they were significantly unique in others. moreover, using ghana and niger as a case study, this paper extends the migration discourse beyond the predominant use african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1585 of macro-level factors to predict or explain individuals’ migration decisionmaking by focusing on the micro-level motivations for migration. the comparative approach adopted in this paper allows for contrasts between a muslim-majority sending country (niger) and a christian-majority sending country (ghana). one country shares contiguous borders with libya (niger) and the other is far-removed from libya (ghana). niger is one of the poorest countries in africa and ghana is one of the fastest growing economies in africa. this paper complements the existing works by asking new questions about the main motivations for migration from ghana and niger to libya. it also discusses migrants’ experiences and responses to the 2011 conflict situation in libya. key questions addressed in this paper include: (a) what are the individual as well as household-level motivations for migration to libya? (b) what are migrants’ experiences of crises in which they become implicated? (c) how are migrants’ experiences of ‘trappedness’ defined by policy gaps in both countries of origin and destination? data for this paper are from two case studies completed in ghana and niger as part of the research component of a european union-funded project1. to better contextualize the two case studies, this paper provides a brief account of sub-saharan african migrants in libya in general and nigerien and ghanaian migrants in libya in particular. the paper discusses key theories and concepts that are relevant for analyzing the drivers of migration, before outlining the methodology used for the data collection and analysis. the paper then presents the key findings, conclusions and policy implications. sub-saharan african (ssa) migrants in libya: an overview in contemporary times, libya has increasingly come to serve as a strategic staging post for broader migrations, particularly for sub-saharan africans (ssas) heading to europe (see baldwin-edwards, 2006). however, libya also provides intervening opportunities for sub-saharan african migrants who end up staying in the country as a destination, albeit with the desire to ultimately 1 “migrants in countries in crisis: supporting an evidence-based approach for effective and cooperative state action”. this larger project aimed at providing accessible, methodologically-robust and policy-relevant data on the migration implications of crisis situations in host countries. in addition, the project sought to investigate the availability of relevant mechanisms ensuring the protection of migrants before, during and after crises in countries of origin, transit and destination. kandilige, l. and hamidou, m., n. proceed to europe on an uncertain future date. these migrants have historically not been afforded adequate protection due to unclear and very fluid policies regulating their stay in libya (hamood, 2006). the country’s immigration policy has vacillated like a pendulum from pan-arabism in the 1970s and 1980s to pro-sub-saharan african migration in the 1990s. several factors influenced this fluid policy: disagreements between former libyan leader colonel gaddafi and arab countries; the imposition of united nations sanctions; the normalization of relations with european countries in the early 2000s and the attendant clamping down on sub-saharan african migrations to and through libya to europe. this policy u-turn led to the deportation of over 12 200 ghanaian migrants between 2000 and 2012, making libya one of the leading countries deporting ghanaian migrants (bob-milliar, 2012; kleist, 2017). the experiences of ssa migrants have been characterized by a lack of state protection, regardless of their legal status in libya. migrants risk detention and, once detained, suffer ill-treatment. sub-saharan africans face the additional difficulty of racism from both state officials and the wider libyan society (hamood, 2006; kleist, 2017; lucht, 2012). furthermore, kleist (2017) and hamood (2006) report that ssa migrants are also vulnerable to theft by libyan youths and exploitation (including non-payment of wages) by some employers. detention of ssa migrants, for variable periods of time, continues to be commonplace, mostly without any formal explanation of alleged crimes committed. anecdotal evidence from police officers and prison wardens suggests that migrants are held for tahrib2 . according to hamood (2006) migrants understand that this means trying to leave libya illegally using the services of migrant smugglers. however, as many ssa migrants in libya regard the country as a transit destination, they endure these hardships in the hope of fulfilling their dreams of reaching europe. the circumstances of ssa migrants significantly worsened during the 2011 libyan revolution. following the outbreak of the war, there were unproven allegations that a large number of mercenaries from subsaharan africa were fighting for gaddafi. these migrants were portrayed as a security threat and massacres and mass violence against them ensued. life during the 2011 revolution became torturous. human rights watch (2017) reported that during the 2011 conflict in libya, armed groups and guards of the government and militia groups detained ssa migrants at various facilities 2 tahrib means ‘smuggling’ in arabic. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1587 and subjected many to forced labour, torture, sexual abuse and extortion. nigerien and ghanaian emigration to libya: a brief background niger is a vast territory in west africa that occupies a pivotal position between north and west africa. historically, the country has been the crossroads and transit space connecting west africa to north africa through the transsaharan trade (ecowas/csao-oecd, 2006; karine et al., 2007). nigerien migration remained essentially intra-west african, but during the 1950s and 1960s there was an increase in migration to the maghreb motivated by positive developments in libyan and algerian oil production and the tightening of migration policies of schengen countries (adepoju, 2006; de wenden, 2009). this contributed to a reorientation of flows towards the maghreb with the aim of irregularly continuing the journey towards europe. migration flows of nigeriens to libya and algeria further accelerated in the 1970s and 1980s because of droughts in sahel countries (gregory, 2010; pliez, 2000). niger is still characterized by intense movement of people. indeed, in contemporary times, niger remains the centre of exchange between black africa and the maghreb (gregory, 1998). niger continues to be a country of emigration and of transit to north africa specifically libya and algeria, with which it shares a long and porous border (mounkaïla, 2016). with libya, niger shares a border of 354 km (iom, 2009). predominant communities that migrate to libya include the tuareg, arab, toubou and the niger hausa. many nigeriens migrate to libya, mostly irregularly, due to difficulties in obtaining travel documents, stringent immigration controls in libya and the existence of structured networks of migrant smuggling (nabara, 2014). libyan official statistics classify niger as the third largest sub-saharan source country of immigration to libya, after sudan and chad (iom, 2009; pliez, 2004). this is why the libyan crisis in 2011 generated massive returns of nigeriens. niger simultaneously served as a transit country for west african migrants fleeing the libyan crisis, especially nationals of nigeria, burkina faso, liberia, senegal, ghana and the gambia (republic of niger, 2012). this situation posed a huge humanitarian and social challenge to the country. according to the international organization for migration (iom, 2012a), in june 2012 nearly 100 500 nigerien nationals returned from libya since the outbreak of the crisis in 2011. kandilige, l. and hamidou, m., n. historically, ghanaians have participated in both voluntary and involuntary migration at internal, regional and international levels since the 1970s due to economic and political crises (akyeampong, 2000). emigration from ghana has been predominantly to other sub-saharan african countries, especially nigeria and cote d’ivoire (awumbila et al., 2013). however, a faltering economic situation in nigeria resulted in the expulsion of almost two million ghanaian immigrants in 1983 and 1985 (akyeampong, 2000). these mass forced returns necessitated a change in the pattern of ghanaian migration to other destination countries including to libya (bob-milliar, 2012; akyeampong, 2000). drought, hunger and widespread bushfires that decimated farmlands and cocoa plantations in the early 1980s also served as push factors for ghanaians to mostly african countries, including libya. cordial relations between the then president of ghana (flight lieutenant jerry j. rawlings) and the then libyan leader (colonel gaddafi) on account of their shared interests in pan-africanism and the non-aligned movement, bolstered a bilateral agreement between both countries (bob-milliar and bob-milliar, 2013). this agreement included opportunities for ghanaian teachers to teach english in libya. subsequently, less-skilled ghanaians also migrated to libya to work in mainly the construction sector (predominantly as plasterers). theoretical and conceptual considerations international migration from labour-surplus but capital-scarce origin countries to labour-scarce but capital-surplus destination countries has been explained largely from an economic perspective in the migration literature (see borjas, 1989; lucas, 2005; stark, 1992; taylor, 1999). it is, however, almost impossible to adduce one single theory that comprehensively explains the drivers of migration and the decision-making processes involved in international migration. as a result, while acknowledging the value of economic theories, this paper equally relies on the social network theory and the concept of ‘migration culture’ to guide the analysis. this is because the study finds that economic factors are intrinsically intertwined with sociocultural and geographic factors. proponents of the network theory (see bourdieu, 1985; putnam, 1995) explain that once emigration is initiated, it becomes self-sustaining and develops its own autonomy as a result of migrants’ networks. networks in this context are defined as “sets of interpersonal ties that connect migrants, former migrants, and non-migrants in origin and destination areas through bonds of kinship, friendship, and shared community of origin” (massey et al., 1993: 448). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1589 migrants from the same origin community based at the destination are perceived to serve as what böcker (1994) refers to as ‘bridgeheads’ with the capacity to reduce risks and the material and psychological costs of subsequent migration. much as this might be true in most circumstances, some settled migrants could rather serve as ‘gatekeepers’, thus inhibiting opportunities for newly arrived migrants. pieke et al.’s (2004) work draws attention to the need for a critical analysis of the role of networks so as not to take them for granted. they therefore examine how new networks are created and how old ones are reproduced, sustained and turned to serve the needs of different groups (old and new migrants, local officials and those left behind). they also demonstrate how migrants’ networks are trans-nationalized, with time, due to either deliberate or accidental actions on their part (pieke et al., 2004). there is, however, the need to further contextualize the importance of networks in explaining migration decision-making processes and patterns by interrogating the concept of ‘migration culture’ or ‘culture of migration’. heering et al. (2004) define the ‘culture of migration’ as a culture where migration is considered to be the only way to improve one’s standard of living; that is, those who stay are believed to be losers, and those who leave are winners (see black et al., 2006). pieke et al. (2004: 48 quoted in black et al., 2006) concur that cultural explanations that take into consideration the historical context, in addition to an appreciation of structural opportunities and constraints, is critical in understanding the drivers of migration. a central plank of this culture is a discourse on how migration serves as a dominant strategy that initiates social mobility. this discourse prescribes what constitutes success, as well as ignoring other local strategies that are not considered an option (pieke et al., 2004: 194). they also argue that this culture of migration “renders current emigration patterns unintelligible in terms of a narrow cost-benefit analysis”. the netherlands interdisciplinary demographic institute (nidi) carried out a large survey in five labour-sending countries (egypt, ghana, morocco, senegal and turkey) and found a fairly significant group of young people in morocco who were neither working nor looking for work, but reported that they spent their time and energy in looking for ways to migrate, as they were convinced there were no alternatives for them (schoorl, 2002 quoted in black et al., 2006). the concept of ‘migration culture’ therefore alters the formula of the potential migrants’ decision-making process and thus it is critical for a deeper understanding of emigration dynamics (see black et al., 2006: 46). the culture kandilige, l. and hamidou, m., n. of migration, however, has some political economy aspects and it is unrealistic to assume a clear-cut difference between this culture and the political economy of the origin state. socio-economic inequalities in ghana and niger have engendered a process of ‘othering’ and the creation of group boundaries that can be understood as the first step in establishing inequality among social groups in a society. while ‘othering’ entails drawing the lines between who belongs to a society or is excluded, inequality among such groups or dominance of one group requires differential control of the means of production and access to economic rights (barth, 1998: 28). inherent inequalities in the allocation as well as access to economic and political power in the origin country perpetuate migrants’ positive evaluation of migration as the only route out of poverty. research methodology and socio-demographic characteristics of returnees from libya data was collected using mainly qualitative research methods (in-depth interviews and focus group discussions) among seventy-five participants from six categories of actors (return migrants, family members, civil society organizations, community leaders, inter-governmental organizations, government authorities). generally, qualitative methods allow for an in-depth appreciation of perspectives, behaviors and experiences. as bedford and burgess (2001: 123) argued, focus group discussions place the individual research participants in a group context, where “conversations can flourish in what can be considered more commonplace social situations”. focus group discussions tend to help the researchers to understand the lived experiences, complexities, negotiations, perceptions, conflicts and shared meanings of actors’ everyday social worlds and realities (limb and dwyer, 2001). the returnees comprised both male and female migrants even though the overwhelming majority were males. beyond the returnees, family members who were knowledgeable about the migration experience, return process and impact of return on the household were interviewed in-depth. in addition, community leaders and civil society organizations (csos) were selected on the basis of their provision of services to returnees from libya. government agencies that actively participated in the evacuation, repatriation and reintegration of returnees from libya were also sampled in order to gauge the statutory and structural factors in managing situations of forced return. scoping exercises conducted prior to the data collection in both countries and results of previous research (bob-milliar, 2012; nabara, 2014) suggested the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1591 involvement of far fewer csos and government agencies in the case of ghana compared with niger. this informed the bigger sample sizes in niger (see table 1). finally, inter-governmental organizations that provided logistical, technical, financial or advisory support to the evacuation, repatriation and reintegration of returnees from libya were interviewed. participants provided informed consent and pseudonyms have been used throughout this paper in order to protect the identity of participants. the ghana data collection took place in accra (the capital city) and the brong ahafo region (especially nkoranza but also sunyani, domaa maasu, nkwabeng and domaa-ahenkro) between march and september 2016. accra was selected because it hosts the head offices of almost all government agencies as well as those of intergovernmental organizations. the brong ahafo region represents the region with the largest number of ghanaian migrants to libya (see table 2) and also returnees to ghana in 2011 (bob-milliar, 2012). table 1: list of participants, ghana and niger participant ghana niger total 1. return migrants 11 9 20 2. family members of migrants 11 8 19 3. inter-governmental organisation 2 3 5 4. community leaders and private actors 3 3 6 5. civil society organisations (csos) 1 9 10 6. government authorities 4 11 15 total 32 43 75 kandilige, l. and hamidou, m., n. source: iom and nadmo, accra, 2012. in niger, data was collected between april and september 2016 from niamey (the capital city), tahoua and tchintabaraden (central and north-western regions of the country, respectively). the goal of this approach was to see how policies were made at the central level and how they were implemented locally. the tahoua region and the commune of tchintabaraden were selected because they hosted more returnees from libya than any other regions of niger during the crisis (see figure 1). these areas have an ancient tradition of emigration to libya (mounkaïla, 2015). according to a report from the nigerien prime minister’s office, in 2011, of the 212 791 migrants returning from libya, 136 287 were hosted by the tahoua region, representing 64% of the returnees (republic of niger, 2011). table 2: regional distribution of ghanaian return migrants from libya in 2011 region percentage share of national population 2010 (n = 24, 658,823) number of returnees from libya, 2011 percentage share of returnees from libya, 2011 (n =18,445) greater accra 16.3% 665 3.6% central 8.9% 366 2% western 9.6% 852 4.7% ashanti 19.4% 2,375 12.8% eastern 10.7% 562 3.1% brong ahafo 9.4% 9,520 51.6% volta 8.6% 373 2% northern 10.1% 1,834 9.9% upper east 4.2% 1,110 6% upper west 2.8% 784 4.3% african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1593 figure 1: breakdown of returning migrants from libya by host regions and localities: niger ghanaian return migrants sampled included 11 participants – ten males and one female. even though this sample size is too small to draw broad generalizations, the proportions are reflective of findings in existing literature (iom, 2012a:5; mensah, 2016) that indicate that the overwhelming majority of ghanaian migrants to libya are male. this is attributed to the types of work that ghanaian migrants tend to do (masonry and construction work, especially plastering) and the perilous nature of the migration process through the desert (iom, 2012b 4; gh/c/013; gh/a/014). in addition, migration of single females to libya is frowned upon in ghana due to the stigma attached to the jobs that some of them are alleged to engage in (i.e. prostitution) (gh/e/015). this perception might, however, be mistaken as there are other domestic roles 3 representative of a ghanaian civil society organisation. 4 a former ghanaian diplomat to libya. 5 the director of a community radio station in ghana. kandilige, l. and hamidou, m., n. such as housekeeping and even hairdressing that some female ghanaian migrants engage themselves in. the only female return migrant interviewed for this study (gh/m/076), for instance, joined her spouse in libya and worked as a domestic worker (see kandilige and adiku, 2019). her duties included cleaning, taking care of children and general household chores. of the nine nigerien return migrants sampled, eight were males and one was female. again, a small sample size constrains broad generalizations but the male-female ratio in our sample is also consistent with the results of bigger studies such as the national survey on migration (enami) of 2011, which reported that 93.1% of nigerien emigrants are men (national statistics institute, 2013). with particular reference to libya, the niger horizon consultancy (2014) reported that 98% of nigerien migrants are male. it is also commonplace for at least half of the male population in rural areas to embark on seasonal migration during the dry season (mounkaïla, 2016). similar to the ghanaian case study, male dominance in niger’s migration profile is partly attributed to the rugged travelling conditions and activities migrants engage in, in libya, which require great physical effort. in addition, the nigerien society is largely islamic, and it does not tolerate independent female migration. women must either migrate with their husbands or with their husbands’ permission. the only female nigerien migrant in this study’s sample migrated with her husband and she did not work in libya. nine out of the eleven ghanaian returnees interviewed were between the ages of 20 and 30 years (see also mensah, 2016: 311). similarly, nigerien returnees were of the young productive ages of between 20 and 45 years. although small samples are used in this study, the results are borne out by larger studies that conclude that nigerien migration to libya concerns young adults (gregory, 2010). the age of migrants is important in explaining the types of jobs executed in libya. the ghanaian research indicates that the overwhelming majority of ghanaian returnees are without any formal education, with the highest level of qualification being a junior high school certificate (gh/c/017 ; gh/m/09 8 ; gh/a/019). in the case of niger, four out of the nine returnees interviewed were without any formal education and the rest had low educational 6 a female ghanaian return migrant from libya. 7 a representative of a civil society organisation. 8 a male ghanaian return migrant from libya. 9 a former ghanaian diplomat to libya. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1595 qualifications (the highest also being junior high school certificate). low educational qualifications limit such migrants’ chances of obtaining paid employment in their countries of origin upon return. moreover, the low educational qualifications of migrants partly explain why most nigerien migrants hold low-skilled jobs in libya (in agriculture, construction, and also as dock workers, labourers or security guards). findings motivations for nigerien and ghanaian migrations to libya while the macro-level debates about the ‘root causes’ of migration from subsaharan africa to, and through libya to europe are well-rehearsed and complex (de haas, 2007; diatta and mbow, 1999), it is immensely beneficial to carry out a focused and nuanced examination of motivating factors that inform migration decision-making processes at the individual and household levels. this approach extends the structure-agency debates (bakewell, 2008) by arguing that in reality endogenous factors are just as important as exogenous ones in explaining migration decision-making. as de haas (2007) notes, broader macro-level factors such as extreme poverty, high unemployment, civil war, environmental degradation, globalization, population pressure and general development failure are routinely presented, uncritically, as exogenous ‘root causes’ of migration from poor african countries. in such analysis, the individual’s agency is missed. classical attempts at explaining the main drivers of migration (e.g. lee, 1966; ravenstein, 1885) have identified economic factors as being fundamental to most migrations. this study indicates that international migration to libya from niger and ghana has been motivated by an interplay of economic, socio-cultural and geographical factors. the results are thematised under these three categories, even though they overlap in some cases. both case studies demonstrate the centrality of unemployment, perceived poverty, lack of economic opportunities at home and household survival as the main economic factors underlying individuals’ decisions to migrate to libya. even local authority officials of migrant-sending communities attested to these factors: the main reasons pushing nigeriens to emigrate to libya are unemployment and poverty in the country [niger]. libya is a developed country that needs manpower and pays the migrants well. nigeriens earn much more in libya, especially before the crisis (interview with deputy mayor of tchintabaraden, on 25 may 2016 at tchintabaraden). kandilige, l. and hamidou, m., n. return migrants and their household members in this study cite good economic opportunities in libya, poor employment prospects at home, wages in libya considered as ‘good’, the existence of networks of smuggling rings that facilitate irregular entry and a demand for manpower to do unskilled jobs that libyans detest (gregory, 2010) as the main motivating factors for their migration. as ghanaian return migrants asserted, poverty, family survival, unfulfilling jobs and potential reward from international migration are the main motivations for migration: i travelled to libya due to hardship and pressure from my household. my father is dead and my mother is poor and there is no one to care for the poor children. so, i decided to travel to libya with a friend of mine through the desert. so, we passed through burkina [faso] to niger. from niger, we entered libya with the help of smugglers (interview with ernest, 33-year-old ghanaian returnee from libya). ernest’s younger brother, kwadwo, who remained in ghana, confirmed his brother’s stance on migration: my brother went to libya because of hardship like what we are facing now. he was farming and the yield wasn’t enough. even the annoying part is, despite the efforts of the farmers, these kumasi-accra traders will come and buy the food produce for a very cheap price. sadly, these farmers have no option because if you don’t sell it to them, your produce will rot. you see how sad it is? so he was frustrated, as he was not getting any job in ghana to do, apart from farming. here in dormaa, those who have been to libya come back with a lot of money. the libyan returnees own most of the cars you see in this town. some have even built their own houses. this is the motivating factor for most of the young guys in this community (interview with kwadwo, 28-year-old family member of a ghanaian return migrant from libya). kwadwo’s assessment of his brother’s perceived poverty is relative to the apparent wealth that is associated with returnees from libya who are able to acquire cars and even houses. this analysis feeds into the migration culture that has been entrenched in these migrant-sending communities whereby ‘stayers’ are classified as losers, while ‘leavers’ are regarded as winners. within this context, migration to libya serves as an important strategy that initiates social mobility. according to rev. twumasi, chief executive officer (ceo) of a civil society organization (scholars in transit) that operates in nkoranza, the migration culture among the youth is even affecting their african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1597 attitude towards education: we realized that irregular migration was predominant and most students mainly focused their attention on irregular migration. because of that they were not concentrating on their education but rather on the trip that they were going to make...it was like the issue of ‘children-onthe-run’. so our worry was, how do we curb this so that these young ones’ concentration would be on their studies rather than migrating? (interview with rev. twumasi, ceo of scholars in transit). the ceo’s use of the graphic imagery of ‘children-on-the-run’ is indicative of a situation where perceived remuneration abroad overshadows any local opportunities that might exist and defines the livelihood approaches adopted by individuals and families. kandilige and adiku (2019: 10) note that migration of ghanaians to libya is informed mainly by a search for employment opportunities. in the origin communities of migrants, which are mostly agrarian in nature, deprivation and low educational attainment are distinct disadvantages in accessing paid employment in ghana. this reality frustrates any meaningful effort to realize their aspirations in life such as building a house, marrying, sending their children to private schools, acquiring property or starting a business (see mensah, 2016). kandilige and adiku (2019) further note the importance of attaining these aspirational goals, since they are linked with transitioning from ‘childhood’ to ‘adulthood’ in the ghanaian context. honwana’s (2012: 19) conceptualisation of ‘waithood’ is particularly instructive as it examines the “challenges of youth transitions to adulthood in africa as an illustration of global contemporary forms of the struggle for freedom from want and freedom from fear. it explores the lives of young people struggling with unemployment and sustainable livelihoods in the context of widespread social and economic crisis”. the concept of ‘waithood’ is equally applicable in examples of youth being involuntarily immobile due to lack of resources to pay for the cost of their migrations. in such instances, they are stuck both in their immobility and their youth (i.e. stagnated life-cycle). nigerien returnees adduce similar economic and social reasons as motivations for their migration to libya. the nigerien migrants also expressed a desire to accomplish a personal ‘project’ such as getting married, starting a business, building a house or supporting their families. these are measures aimed at escaping the trap of ‘waithood’ (honwana, 2012). one returnee captured these sentiments succinctly: kandilige, l. and hamidou, m., n. the reasons that led me to leave my country are both economic and social. they are economic because i had no economic activities that would bring me money here in niger, so i wanted to go and look for a means to start a business. in addition, we do not own land and we cultivate on a borrowed patch of land. so, i needed money to buy my own land. the reasons are social because i want to get married, buy a house and leave the family home. that is what pushed me to leave my country to go to libya (interview with a nigerien returnee from libya at tahoua, 25 may 2016). a family member underscored this return migrant’s sentiments: the first thing that drove my brother to emigrate was to have enough money to build his own house and to leave the family house. moreover, we cultivate on borrowed land because we do not have our own land. and he wanted to buy one for us. so, we sold a part of our agricultural produce to finance his trip to libya (interview with a family member of a nigerien return migrant from libya, 27 may 2016 at tahoua). another nigerien returnee further corroborated the use of migration as a household livelihood strategy: before going to libya, i was a tailor but i did not earn enough to support my family. that is why i went to libya to earn money to support my family (interview with a nigerien return migrant from libya, 27 may 2016 at tahoua). socio-cultural factors also play a key role in shaping the decisions of young nigerien and ghanaian males migrating to libya. the study’s results indicate that among the youth in especially tahoua and tchintabaraden in niger and nkoranza and domaa-ahenkro in ghana, emigration to libya is perceived as proof of maturity and a demonstration of bravery. some parents even refuse their daughters in marriage to any young man who has not been to libya, at least on one occasion. this is particularly commonplace in the village of amokaye in tchintabaraden in niger and the towns of nkoranza and domaaahenkro in ghana. anecdotal evidence from both countries suggests that some young men who are unable to embark on such migration to libya resort to memorizing names of libyan towns and also experiences of crossing the sahara desert from their interactions with actual returnees and then african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1599 impersonating ‘been-tos10’ in order to lure unsuspecting young women into dating and possibly marrying them. the deputy mayor of tchintabaraden’s views are illustrative of these socio-cultural factors: we must add the influence of environment because migration has become a culture within the tuareg community. it is very difficult to find a home in which there has never been a migrant. for example, in the village called amokaye, emigration to libya has become an act of bravery and one who never emigrated, hardly has a woman to marry (interview with deputy mayor of tchintabaraden, on 25 may 2016 at tchintabaraden). moreover, in the case of niger, the existence of trans-border ethnic networks and the proximity of the libyan border to some nigerien communities such as the tuareg, toubou and arab communities further serve as motivations for migration to libya. the drought situations of the 1970s and 1980s, which caused large-scale loss of livestock in the sahel countries, led several pastoralists of niger (tuareg, arab and fulani) to emigrate to libya, which enabled the creation of a significant diaspora network of communities in southern libya and algeria (gregory, 2010; mounkaïla, 2015). the existence of interpersonal ties between prospective migrants in niger and established social networks based in libya, generates social capital through bonds of kinship, friendship, and shared community of origin. these social networks are not only beneficial to the prospective migrants but are equally important in helping members of the nigerien diaspora in north africa maintain what pieke et al. (2004) refer to as a transnationalized migrants’ network. migrants’ experiences of the crisis in libya the libyan crisis had variable impacts on migrants from sub-saharan africa (ssa). the precarity of the employment status of migrants in libya was manifest during the crisis situation partly because it lacked permanence, job security and the necessary subtle social ties that cushioned native employees. migrants who worked for the more formalized corporate entities in the construction, oil and commercial agricultural sectors were first to be laid off as their, mostly western, employers shut down their operations and advised their migrant staff to vacate the country (nabara, 2014; ne/m/0111). on the other hand, migrants who were employed in informal settings or worked for 10 this concept refers to an enhanced social status acquired through migration. 11 a male nigerien return migrant from libya. kandilige, l. and hamidou, m., n. individuals later abandoned their jobs of their own volition for fear of coming to personal harm, injury or even death. in libya, many ssa migrants occupy mostly very low socio-economic positions relative to the native population. this is partly due to their irregular migration statuses and differences in cultural, religious and linguistic characteristics (naik and laczko, 2012). they are mainly on the periphery of the libyan society and are employed in the lower sectors of the economy. a high percentage of the returnees interviewed in this study held low-skilled jobs in libya, such as labouring, farming and construction. the research equally revealed cases of racism, discrimination, name-calling, robberies and casual attacks by libyan youths, arbitrary arrests and detentions, lack of access to rental accommodation, inability to access the formal banking system and lack of protection from the libyan security services. this characterized the political economy of libya leading up to the crisis in 2011. the 2011 crisis, therefore, exacerbated these pre-existing precarious living conditions. both ghanaian and nigerien migrants experienced such difficulties: while i was in libya, the war broke out and it became very intense dayby-day. everywhere you turned you’d hear the sounds of deadly weapons and bombs flying all over and i knew i could easily lose my precious life. i therefore decided to come back home, because i know that once there’s life, there’s hope (interview with samuel, 30-year-old ghanaian returnee from libya). when the war started i was plastering a storey building. they fired a gunshot and the bullet came through the walls i was working on. with my own eyes, i saw it. meanwhile that was where we were staying, but we thank god nothing happened to us. so when i reflected on what happened i asked myself if this bullet had gotten to where we were sleeping, what would have happened? (interview with kwabena, 34year-old ghanaian returnee from libya). during the crisis, migrants were in an unsafe situation and work opportunities declined. the fighting forced more than 100 000 migrants to return [to their countries of origin]. the migrants were traumatized, some were injured, without travel documents, especially for families (interview with head of iom mission in niger). the loss of employment was compounded by the forfeiture of property and accumulated personal savings during migrants’ flight from the crisis. the irregular migration status of most ghanaian and nigerien migrants in libya african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1601 impacted negatively on their access to the formal banking system in the country. as a result, prior to the crisis most migrants either sent the bulk of their earnings as cash remittances through returning migrants or buried bundles of cash in unmarked secret locations. the outbreak of war denied migrants the opportunity to retrieve their informal savings. in addition, other property acquired by migrants was either confiscated by the warring parties or abandoned for fear of inhibiting their escape from the conflict. a nigerien return migrant reflected, war...when the bomb exploded, we fled into the bush. in the city, libyan soldiers caught and imprisoned people. then they took all our properties. furthermore, it is in our city that gaddafi left to go to sirte, where he was murdered (interview with a nigerien return migrant from libya). the impromptu departure of a migrant such as ernest resulted in him leaving behind us$8,000: i couldn’t bring my stuff. i was in a rush because of the war. i left some of my money there – about us$8,000 and some of my luggage. i remember the amount because we used to wrap every $1,000 we get and i had wrapped about 8 of them by then. not that i forgot to take it. the fighting was becoming intensive and scary. we were even lucky because we were under a kobri [i.e. overhead bridge] but even the overhead bridge was later destroyed by bombs (interview with ernest, 33-year-old ghanaian returnee from libya). ghanaian and nigerien migrants, just as other sub-saharan africans, were implicated in the conflict by virtue of their skin colour. black africans were accused of being mercenaries of gaddafi during the conflict (see bob-milliar, 2012; hamood, 2006). while this study corroborates a limited involvement by some nigerien migrants (especially tuareg and toubou migrants), these claims were exaggerated by libyan rebels and used as a basis for attacking all male migrants with a black skin. there is no evidence of involvement by ghanaian migrants in the conflict but they were equally attacked just because they satisfied the racial profile of the alleged mercenaries. unlike ghanaian migrants, however, nigerien migrants became targets of multiple warring factions during the crisis following the nigerien authorities’ recognition (through an official statement) of the national transitional council of libya as the legitimate representatives of the libyan people (ne/c/06 12 ). this 12 a representative of a nigerien ngo. kandilige, l. and hamidou, m., n. statement drew the anger of gaddafi supporters who scapegoated nigeriens living in the country (nabara, 2014). thus, nigerien migrants were disproportionately persecuted, stripped of their properties, arrested, physically assaulted and some killed by competing parties in the same conflict (ne/c/0513). some trapped ghanaian migrants were assaulted and others killed on racial grounds. the account by this 25-year-old ghanaian return migrant, vividly demonstrates the severity of the racially inspired vulnerability ghanaian migrants faced in libya: they were four, all holding ak47s. they started shooting at us. unfortunately for us, the bullets hit us. as for my friend it hit his waist and he fell. then i was also hit in the leg by a bullet and i also fell down. then i also lay down as if i was dead. so when they saw that we were both lying, then they moved their car and drove off. they thought they had killed us so they went away. so i went to my friend and called him, ‘gabriel, gabriel’, and he raised his head and looked at my face. within a few minutes, his head just went down and he died (interview with prince, 25-year-old ghanaian return migrant from libya). there was a general sense of dissatisfaction by migrants with the role of the national governments of both ghana and niger in dealing with the complexities and vulnerabilities associated with being trapped in a country in crisis. the ghanaian embassy in libya, like other embassies, is charged with providing, among other services, consular protection for ghanaians. however, this study found that there was a profound lack of trust in embassy officials by ghanaian migrants, which predated the 2011 conflict. this mistrust culminated in very few migrants registering with the embassy, thus weakening the embassy’s access to reliable data on the ghanaian migrant stock in libya. this handicap constrained the efficacy of logistical planning during the evacuation phase of the crisis. in addition, the absence of a policy on evacuation and repatriation of nationals from countries in crisis as well as an acute lack of financial resources resulted in delays in extracting trapped migrants and an over-reliance on inter-governmental organizations for evacuation support. as a former senior diplomat at the ghanaian embassy in libya noted: the major evacuation when people were going to the border, unhcr, the red cross and iom were instrumental in getting us the buses. they 13 a representative of a nigerien civil society organisation. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1603 had an office arranged so people could go there [tripoli]; people on the verge of dying, people who had their hands cut could go there and they will pay their hospital bills for them. we always relied on them; they will send people to the border and airlift them to ghana (interview with a former ghanaian senior diplomat in libya). the former senior diplomat also noted the direct impact on the embassy’s daily operations as a result of re-assigning limited funds to meet unbudgeted costs. the absence of contingency funds to meet emergency expenditure in a crisis situation resulted in the ambassador using funds that were earmarked for staff salaries to support the cost of feeding migrants who were trapped at airports and transit centres. the former senior diplomat observed: it denied resources for daily administration expenditure such as servicing of vehicles at the workshop. to a large extent it also affected payment of salaries. for example, for two months we were not paying ourselves. we requested for us$100,000 from government to cater for the trapped ghanaians but nothing came. we finally spent about us$30,000 of our meagre funds on feeding the people because we had created a shelter at the airport (interview with a former ghanaian senior diplomat in libya). ghanaian migrants described their embassy staff in libya as ‘useless’, ‘selfcentred’ and ‘uncaring’. oyibo, for instance, recounted challenges migrants faced with acquiring emergency travel documentation to enable them return to ghana during the crisis: when it [the crisis] happened, like that all the countries were air-lifting their nationals because a lot of people travel to libya to work... so when we realized that every country was rescuing its nationals, we also started calling home, but it was useless. the ghanaian embassy over there [in libya] doesn’t even recognize you, they have an office there but it only benefits them, not us the migrants. they won’t mind you, when you go there, they tell you that they don’t know you, even when you are speaking twi14. at times you may tell them where you come from just to confirm that you are a ghanaian, but they still won’t help you (interview with oyibo, a 32-year-old ghanaian return migrant from libya). 14 twi is the most popular local language spoken in ghana and it is native to the akan ethnic group. kandilige, l. and hamidou, m., n. nigerien migrants who were trapped in libya also shared these concerns. poor consular support during the crisis and the scapegoating of nigeriens by rebel forces compelled migrants to hide their true identity (identifying themselves as malians instead) and being repatriated to mali before returning to niger (ne/m/0115). the weakness in consular protection is compounded by the fact that niger has neither a national migration policy nor official guidelines on the evacuation of nationals from countries in crisis. although the process of adopting such a policy began in 2007, it has stalled because of lack of funding. there is also lack of accurate empirical data on the number of nigeriens in libya and their socio-economic profiles, which are important for contingency planning. according to a nigerien return migrant: i was myself a witness to the conditions of repatriation. while migrants were stuck and they needed papers [laissez-passer], the ambassador refused to make the trip to see the living conditions of nigeriens, as did other ambassadors [example of mali]. for several days the nigeriens were at the border in the rain and cold and homeless. iom transported people to the border, but the nigerien authorities were unable to deliver laissez-passer for repatriation. also, the committee for receiving migrants did not play its role. for example, when migrants transited through tunisia and algeria people welcomed them with water at the airport, which was not the case in niger (interview with 31-yearold nigerien returnee from libya and member of the collective of nigerien returnees). policy implications the libyan crisis of 2011 has broader implications for global migration governance and management especially within the context of south-south migration. this paper demonstrates the importance of examining the multifaceted personal motivations for migration as a basis for better international migration policy formulation. the study also highlights the importance of drafting national migration policies, which expressly outline policy as well as institutional frameworks for the evacuation of nationals from countries in crisis. the international organization for migration (iom) and the international labour organization (ilo) have played leading roles in supporting countries in the global south such as nigeria (in 2015) and ghana (in 2016) to draft and launch national migration policies. the iom and the ilo 15 a nigerien return migrant from libya. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 2 (august 2019) 1605 have also supported countries such as sri lanka (in 2008), ethiopia (in 2013), kenya (in 2014) and jamaica (in 2015) in drafting and launching either national labour migration policies or diaspora engagement policies. these policies are all geare d towards enhancing the potential for migration to contribute to national development. the status of these migration policies vary in the different countries. the ghana national migration policy (2016: 45) calls for the drafting of “guidelines for the evacuation of ghanaian nationals abroad, during situations of political crisis, deportation or natural disaster”. the sri lanka national labour migration policy (2008: 21) acknowledges that “repatriation is the responsibility of the state and the state shall ensure safe repatriation for all workers in need. this will address emergency situations faced by migrant workers, due to sudden and serious health issues, and grave safety and security issues”. however, the migration policies of nigeria, ethiopia, kenya and jamaica are all silent on the evacuation of nationals from crisis situations abroad. this notwithstanding, specific guidelines on the ‘how’ and ‘by who’ are still lacking even in the cases of ghana and sri lanka. there is, therefore, the need for the extension of rights and protections to migrants to be considered as central to the migration-development nexus debate, as migrants should not be perceived only as remittance ‘cash cows’ (saddled with obligations) that are devoid of protection entitlements (rights). unplanned and forcible return of migrants from countries in crisis impoverishes both returnees and their families that depend on them as a source of remittance income. it is, therefore, imperative for origin countries to develop programmes that facilitate a sustainable reintegration of forcibly returned migrants into their home communities. such programmes should seek to capitalize on the skills that such migrants acquire abroad rather than embarking on ‘one size fits all’ types of generic projects that win governments and inter-governmental organizations/ngos political capital without necessarily empowering the targeted beneficiaries. while regional economic groupings across africa are rightly drafting regional migration protocols (e.g. the ecowas migration protocol), aimed at facilitating uninhibited movement of persons and goods, there is the need for the creation of regional evacuation units that are specifically mandated to manage the evacuation and repatriation of migrants in times of political/social crises. this minimizes the onus on impoverished member states (which might not have the logistics and expertise) to extract their nationals at short notice. kandilige, l. and hamidou, m., n. conclusion this paper concludes that micro-level motivations for migration to libya entail an amalgam of economic, social, cultural and political factors. within a developing country context, the political economy of the origin country contributes to the establishment, over time, of a migration culture especially among youth who feel trapped in ‘waithood’ and unable to realize basic sociocultural and economic markers in life. the paper also concludes that whereas sub-saharan african migrants were generally targeted for xenophobic attacks due to exaggerated claims that they were mercenaries for former libyan leader gaddafi, some nationalities were worse affected than others due to political decisions by governments of their countries of origin. overall, the paper confirms the strength of international migration as a livelihood strategy even for people from poor, rural and agrarian communities. the use of social networks and other migration infrastructures (including a network of migrant smugglers) to overcome formal structures highlights migrants’ agency in breaking the shackles of involuntary immobility in africa. references adepoju, a. 2006. the challenges linked to migration for work between west africa and the maghreb, geneva: ilo, international migration papers. akyeampong, e. 2000. africans in the diaspora; the diaspora and africa. african affairs, 99(395): 183-215. awumbila, m., benneh, y., teye, j.k. and atiim, g. 2013. facilitation of intraregional labour migration in the ecowas 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aid and remittances affect international migration. washington, dc: world bank publications. stark, o. 1992. the migration of labor. cambridge: basil blackwell. taylor, j.e. 1999. the new economics of labour migration and the role of remittances in the migration process. international migration, 37(1): 63-85. 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za we are delighted to announce the release of the second issue of 2024 of the african human mobility review (ahmr). this issue features current, high-quality, and original research, including a book review and articles focusing on various aspects of human mobility in africa. ahmr benefits from the expertise of a skilled editorial board, a global network of scholars, and an interdisciplinary approach, ensuring contributions that support evidence-based policymaking. we would like to extend our gratitude to all contributors, authors, the editorial board, the publisher, and anonymous reviewers, who have supported the journal. our goal is to continually enhance the journal’s quality and achieve new milestones, positioning it more prominently within the international scientific community. this issue includes a book review and four articles, all promoting original research and policy discussions, while providing a comprehensive forum for examining contemporary trends, migration patterns, and key migration-related issues in africa. the first section of this issue is a critical and academic appraisal by daniel tevera of a book entitled “lifeworlds in crisis: making refugees in the chad–sudan borderlands,” authored by andrea behrends. the reviewer indicates that the book is divided into three parts. part i, organized around the themes of displacement and emplacement, provides an exposition of how the war had shaken many lives, with some families losing almost everything and recovering very little. part ii focuses on the refugee camps and the everyday realities of people living in and around the camps in the borderlands. part iii provides a close analysis of the chadian government’s intricate categorizations of the borderlands, such as delineating security zones and allocating resources. tevera comments on the author’s discussion of the nuanced strategies that households and communities in the borderlands employ to navigate everyday situations of severe crisis and uncertainty. furthermore, the reviewer notes the author’s detailed examination of the interventions of international, military, and non-governmental organizations that have reshaped the social landscapes of the borderlands. tevera further indicates that the book is a richly textured discussion of refugee precarity and the permeability of borders in the chad–sudan borderlands. the first article by franzisca zanker is entitled “‘when there is no migration, the whole region has a problem’: the political priorities of migration policies in west africa.” the paper is based on over 130 interviews with policymakers, 4 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 politicians, civil society activists, and academic experts in niger, nigeria, senegal, and the gambia in 2019. it adds to the literature on the agency of migration states in the global south. the study’s findings revealed that the lack of prior political attention to migration governance becomes most evident when we consider that in nigeria, niger, the gambia, and senegal a national migration policy (nmp) was only developed and introduced following external funding for these schemes from the european union (eu) and their member states. the juxtaposition of the lack of policy implementation and an everyday lived reality of mobility comes across clearly, considering the economic community of west african states (ecowas) framework. addressing the political priorities of migration policies in west africa is crucial. the second article by gracsious maviza and divane nzima is entitled “dynamics of protection in a shrinking economy: a peak into zimbabwe’s refugee regime.” the methodological approach employed in this research is qualitative research based on 12 in-depth interviews with key informants to explore how the prolonged socio-economic crisis has impacted the state’s ability to provide social protection to refugees in zimbabwe. the author argues that although the refugee regime in zimbabwe mandates the state to provide protection services to refugees, the macroeconomic reality is the major constraining factor. the author further indicates that even though the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) and its partners strive to offer protection, they often become overwhelmed by the extensive demands involved in providing housing, improving livelihoods, ensuring food security, and delivering water, sanitation services, and public health systems. the findings of this research uncover that that socio-economic challenges in a shrinking economy affect the protection outcomes of refugees, regardless of the presence of a robust refugee regime in the country. the third article by aklilu asha and thanyani madzivhandila is entitled “does climate change transfer poverty from rural to urban areas? implications for a regional sub-saharan research agenda.” the research is based on an extensive review of existing literature using qualitative document analysis. the purpose of this article is to examine the role of climate change on rural-urban migration, which ultimately contributes toward the increase in urban poverty. using a thorough literature review, the authors contend that the impacts of climate change are widespread, affecting agriculture, water resources, and biodiversity, and disproportionately burden vulnerable communities. addressing climate change requires urgent action, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, transitioning to renewable energy, and implementing sustainable practices. overall, this paper provides a novel concept on the implications for a research agenda in the context of sub-saharan africa towards sustainable ways to respond to the challenges of climateinduced migration, urbanization, and poverty. the fourth article by learnmore mvundura is entitled “institutionalizing antimigrant discourse in public healthcare: an analysis of medical xenophobia against 5 editorial zimbabwean migrant women in johannesburg.” the research broadly focuses on how zimbabwean migrant women navigate maternal health inequities in south africa. the narratives are from 13 zimbabwean migrant women who have been in the country from as early as 2008. the paper focuses on the utterances and practices that the participants attribute to nurses and frontline staff in their interactions in healthcare facilities, drawing parallels with the anti-migrant discourse that populates certain platforms outside the healthcare facilities, especially in the conventional media, political discourse, and narratives from other anti-migrant platforms in the community and on social media platforms. the result of this study concludes that the practices that constitute medical xenophobia in the public healthcare system are rearticulations and restaging of the anti-migrant discourse that has been popularized by the media, politicians, and certain anti-migrant groupings in the community. finally, i encourage more researchers, academics, and students to join us in exploring new and impactful research areas with significant social and practical applications across various disciplines. i also hope they will bring original and substantial research ideas to this journal. 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za this issue consists of a book review and five articles that promote the practice of original research and policy discussions and provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns, and some of the most important migration-related issues in africa. the review was made by daniel tevera on a book entitled “citizen and pariah”, by vanya gastrow. the reviewer made a critical and scholarly evaluation of the entire book. according to tevera, the author informs the reader about the violent crime affecting somali shopkeepers, their ability to access informal and formal justice mechanisms, and efforts to regulate their economic activities. the reviewer further indicates that, from the different chapters of the book it becomes clear that the author uses the term “pariah” as a social and geographical metaphor. the reviewer concludes that this book is an important contribution that is divided into three parts, consisting of twenty-one essays that delicately address the marginalization and victimization of immigrant entrepreneurs. the book clearly indicates that foreign shopkeepers with business interests in urban spaces have been victims of xenophobic attacks in most parts of south africa. the first article by derek yu is entitled “the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa”. using a quantitative method of research that involved the use and analysis of data from census 2001 and 2011 as well as community surveys 2007 and 2016. this is the first study in south africa that compares natives and immigrants with emigrants. the study analyzed the most recent census and survey data of the top five emigration destination countries and examined the well-being of south african emigrants in the united kingdom, new zealand, the united states of america, australia, and canada. the results of this study enhance the understanding of the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa, and identify the skills needs of the country. the study also provides stakeholders and policymakers with insights to better identify the priority critical skills needs of the country – critical skills that are lost, and skills that are in great demand but in short supply – so that these skills needs can be prioritized when issuing work and residence permits to immigrants. the second article by emmanuel quarshie, imhotep paul alagidede, albert duodu, and edwin teye sosi is entitled “moonlighting behavior among migrants: determinants and implications for well-being in south africa”. the study applied quantitative research methods to measure the key determinants of moonlighting, defined as a “situation where an individual maintains primary employment and engages in additional work for pay”. the study also examined the differences that 4 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 exist between migrants and non-migrants. furthermore, a model of determinants of happiness was estimated to draw synergies or nuances in the estimated selfreported well-being model. the results of this study indicate that there is a significant relationship between moonlighting and self-reported well-being. the third article by sylvester kyei-gyamfi is entitled “fish-for-sex (ffs) and risk of hiv infection among fishers in elmina fishing community in ghana”. methodologically, this paper is based on a cross-sectional study to investigate a relationship between human mobility and hiv risks among 385 fishers in elmina. the theory of gender and power (tgp) was used to address the wider social and environmental issues surrounding women. the article provides an in-depth analysis of the status quo and the distribution of power and authority, affective influences, and gender-specific norms within heterosexual relationships. the results of this study reveal a strong link between human mobility and engagement in ffs and indicate that mobile women engaged in ffs more than those who were non-mobile. furthermore, the research established a correlation between high levels of mobility and hiv infection among fish traders. the article recommends the empowerment of female petty fish traders and calls for the intensification of education by relevant agencies involved in hiv education on safe practices in fishing communities. the fourth article by francis anyanzu and nicole de wet-billings is entitled “destination substitution and social networks among urban refugees in kampala, uganda”. this study is a cross-sectional survey that was conducted in kampala, uganda, with respondents drawn from the somali, congolese (drc), eritrean, burundian, ethiopian, south sudanese, and sudanese refugee communities. the researchers employed non-probability sampling strategies due to the hidden or transient nature of the urban refugees. the outcomes of this study suggest that social network factors facilitate the rechanneling of refugees to kampala. moreover, individuals who had knowledge of someone living in kampala or who had ever lived in kampala were more likely to move to the city after having considered going to alternative destinations. the fifth article by jacqueline owigo is entitled “returnees and the dilemmas of (un)sustainable return and reintegration in somalia”. the research employed a qualitative research design involving semi-structured interviews conducted in mogadishu, somalia and nairobi, kenya. this study was grounded in two strands of literature, namely, the sustainable return and reintegration as well as the theoretical studies on the aspirations/ability model. the findings of this research show that returning migrants to somalia faced a challenging context characterized by insecurity, violence, drought, lack of livelihood opportunities, and widespread humanitarian needs. the study also established that most returnees faced considerable challenges finding employment, decent housing, secure living environment, and educational opportunities for their children. i would like to thank all board members, editors, reviewers, authors, and readers for their continued engagement. finally, i am confident that the african human mobility review, volume 8, number 2, 2022 provides a significant resource for scholars, practitioners, and students. 10 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 gaps and challenges in ghana’s implementation of the mechanisms for cooperation and referral of trafficking in persons (tip) victims geraldine asiwome ampah1and leander kandilige2 received 07 february 2023 / accepted 12 june 2023 / published 14 december 2023 doi: https://doi.org/10.14426/ahmr.v9i3.1332 abstract trafficking in persons (tip) is a global scourge. in africa, however, it is most prevalent in west and central africa. this paper uses ghana as a case study to examine efforts to curb this menace at the national level. drawing on the concept of institutional collaboration, interviews conducted among key stakeholders, and a review of policy documents, we found that the major challenges and gaps faced by institutions working to implement mechanisms for cooperation include disparities in definition of terminologies, financial and logistical constraints, underutilization of online reporting systems, inadequate partner collaborations, a gap in the development of operational guidelines and the drafting of training manuals, operational challenges, and high staff turnover. despite these challenges, we conclude that there has been significant improvement in coordination activities in ghana among the various institutional actors, led by the human trafficking secretariat. the relevance of this study lies in the fact that it allows for a critical mapping and appreciation of the challenges that developing countries face in tackling tip, which then gives meaning to global northern-prescribed international ranking systems (the tier system), which are otherwise meaningless within the global southern context. keywords: trafficking in persons (tip), gaps, challenges, mechanisms, cooperation, ghana 1 department of sociology, university of ghana, ghana. corresponding author  gadiku@ug.edu.gh 2 centre for migration studies, university of ghana, ghana  lkandilige@ug.edu.gh 11 introduction the surreptitious nature of trafficking in persons (tip) makes it not only a dangerous activity but something that should be eschewed at all cost (pati, 2013). tip is a transnational criminal activity since it transcends national borders (kangaspunta et al., 2018). though tip is a widespread practice globally, within the african continent, it is predominant in west and central africa (darko, 2018). the conducive global economy makes it easy for sexual exploitation, forced labor, domestic servitude, and other forms of oppression to thrive (bouché and bailey, 2020). tip flourishes because of the unequal power relations that exist between the perpetrators and the victims. these perpetrators – recruiters, intermediaries, counterfeiters, transporters, employers, brothel operators, and even friends and family members who are trusted – force victims to live perilously (bouchard and konarski, 2014). the majority of tip victims are women and children, with women and young girls constituting 70 percent of tip victims (bouché and bailey, 2020). bouché and bailey (2020) point out that migrants are more likely to be trafficked when they are found in marginalized and underprivileged situations and need financial support. similarly, children from impoverished countries are the majority of the victims of trafficking. south asia, central america, the caribbean, and west africa have a greater percentage of their children living in abject poverty. half of the detected victims of human trafficking in low-income countries are children and the majority of them are employed as forced laborers (bouché and bailey, 2020). while tip is increasing, efforts by national authorities to tackle this menace are also on the rise. there are attempts to detect, prevent, and prosecute wrongdoers when they are caught. nearly every country currently has legislation in place criminalizing human trafficking (kangaspunta et al., 2018; obokata, 2019). states have a principal obligation to combat human trafficking (kangaspunta et al., 2018; obokata, 2019; bouché and bailey, 2020). there are three responsibilities that the african charter on human and people’s rights, formulated in 1981, places on member states in the fight against tip. states devise laws to prevent and indict persons involved in all forms of trafficking in persons. states are under further obligations to implement measures to safeguard the protection of victims of tip, as enshrined in articles 6 and 7 of the charter. finally, governments are mandated to stop all forms of tip. countries of origin and destination of trafficking victims are required to work together to facilitate the implementation of the preventive mechanisms to trafficking in persons (obokata, 2019). there are, however, institutional gaps and challenges that hinder preventive mechanisms to trafficking in persons in ghana. what are these gaps and challenges that make the implementation of national mechanisms for cooperation and referral of tip difficult? the difficulty with implementation of the preventive mechanisms further creates weak security conditions that enable trafficking in persons to thrive. we explore the gaps and challenges in the implementation of the national mechanisms for cooperation and referral of tip victims and proffer gaps and challenges in the ghanaian mechanisms for trafficking in persons victims 12 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 some recommendations to build the institutional framework for a more effective response to the incidence of tip. the next section outlines our theoretical approach. we focus on the concept of institutional collaboration, and we discuss how institutional collaboration can be useful in achieving the aims of organizations that collaborate. we then describe the methodology adopted to collect the data that forms the basis for our analysis and recommendations. we discuss the factors that influence tip. this is followed by a dissection of the challenges in the implementation of the national mechanisms for cooperation regarding tip victims and propose some recommendations to build the organizational framework for a more effective response to the incidence of tip. trafficking in persons: the ghanaian case according to the national plan of action for the elimination of human trafficking in ghana – 2017-2021, the major form of human trafficking in ghana is child trafficking for domestic and labor purposes. these children are forced to work in various sectors of the underground economy including but not limited to street hawking, fishing, artisanal gold mining, agriculture, begging, stone quarrying, domestic service, and pottering (republic of ghana, 2017a). most young girls are also trafficked into sex work. though sex trafficking exists nationally, it is very prevalent in the volta region and it is growing in the western region of ghana (us department of state, 2020). child trafficking victims come from impoverished backgrounds, and they are young children between the ages of 5 and 16 (ecowas, 2018). other forms of trafficking in persons in ghana include trafficking for organ harvest and trafficking for labor exploitation. a smaller but still significant portion of the human trafficking happens for sexual reasons (darko, 2018). sex trafficking victims are mostly women and young girls who are pressured into prostitution and sex tourism. trafficking for organ harvest is the most underreported human trafficking activity (darko, 2018). it involves human trafficking with the aim of removing certain organs. it also includes transplant tourism where patients travel abroad in search of a transplant with a paid donor, which is mostly illegal (darko, 2018). labor exploitation trafficked victims move to a destination area to work, but they are deceived about the actual terms of conditions of the job by their traffickers. the victims are compelled to work in very difficult conditions for little or sometimes no salaries (darko, 2018). women and children who are trafficked for labor exploitation purposes are sometimes sexually exploited as well. according to the us state department’s ghana trafficking in persons report (2022), the ghanaian government reported identifying and referring 727 trafficking victims to services in 2021. this was a significant increase over the previous year where 391 victims were identified and referred. human trafficking victims recorded in 2021 included 657 victims of labor trafficking, 64 victims of sex trafficking, and six victims where the form of exploitation was unknown. most of the identified victims were children (578), and a majority were ghanaian nationals (577). out of 13 the 150 foreign national victims, the majority were nigerians, followed by burkinabe, and ivorians. nongovernmental organizations (ngos) identified an additional 94 trafficking victims, including 87 labor trafficking victims and seven sex trafficking victims, compared with 108 victims in 2020 (us department of state, 2022). ghana is considered both a destination and an origin country for human trafficking victims. according to the us state department’s ghana trafficking in persons report (2020), women and girls migrating from vietnam, china, and several west african countries are subjected to sex trafficking in ghana. citizens from other west african countries are subjected to forced labor exploitation in ghana in the agricultural and domestic services. ghana is also a transit point for west africans subjected to sex trafficking in europe, especially in italy and germany (us department of state, 2020). the ghanaian government has taken steps to advance policies, programs and legislation aimed at curtailing the trafficking in persons menace. one of these initiatives is the enactment of the 2005 human trafficking act (republic of ghana, 2005) that provides a legal framework for preventing human trafficking by seeking to stop and suppress trafficking, penalize persons found to be complicit and start interventions to encourage the protection and well-being of victims. this law makes human trafficking a second-degree crime. the establishment of the anti-human trafficking unit (ahtu) of the ghana police service in 2008 is another important initiative. this unit conducts investigations into allegations of human trafficking and seeks to prosecute offenders. the anti-human smuggling and trafficking in persons (ahstip) unit of the ghanaian immigration service was also set up in 2012 to investigate and arrest human trafficking and smuggling offenders, while also building the capacity of immigration officials to detect cases of trafficking and smuggling. in june 2015, a four-year joint initiative, the child protection compact (cpc) partnership, aimed at addressing child trafficking in ghana was signed between the governments of ghana and the united states of america. this initiative aimed at strengthening the government’s capacity to identify child trafficking cases, care for and reintegrate victims, effectively investigate and prosecute traffickers, and prevent trafficking from occurring (westat, 2016). also, there are a number of ngos and international organizations working in the fight against human trafficking. free the slaves, partners in community development, international needs ghana, sewa foundation, international justice mission, challenging heights, international organization for migration (iom), and international labour organization (ilo) are just a few of the organizations working in this area, particularly in the prevention, rescue, care, shelter, and rehabilitation of victims. given the prevalence of human trafficking activities in ghana and efforts aimed at curbing this scourge, this paper explores in detail the institutional collaborative efforts made by various national agencies to curb this menace. there are, however, institutional gaps and challenges that hinder preventive mechanisms to trafficking gaps and challenges in the ghanaian mechanisms for trafficking in persons victims 14 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 in persons. what are these gaps and challenges that hinder the implementation of national mechanisms for cooperation and referral of tip? conceptualising institutional collaboration this research draws on the conceptualization of institutional collaboration to make sense of the difficulties that ghanaian national anti-trafficking organizations face in their fight against tip. institutional or organizational collaboration, according to bryson et al. (2006: 44) is cross-sectoral and involves “the linking or sharing of information, resources, activities, and capabilities by organizations in two or more sectors to achieve jointly an outcome that could not be achieved by organizations in one sector separately.” the pooling of varied assets, including information, resources, activities, and capabilities is instrumental to achieving the end goal. while explaining what goes into collaborative public management, o’leary and bingham (2007: 7) indicate that institutional cooperation can be regarded as: … a concept that describes the process of facilitating and operating in multiorganizational arrangements to solve problems that cannot be solved or easily solved by single organizations. collaborative means to co-labour, to cooperate to achieve common goals, working across boundaries in multisector relationships. cooperation is based on the value of reciprocity. reciprocity is of paramount importance if institutional relationships are to be successful. no collaborator in the process should feel shortchanged. there should be a sense of fairness, a sense of give and take in the process of collaboration. it should also be noted that the extent of cooperation between institutions can range from lax engagement such as mere exchange of information to comprehensive synergistic collaboration (keast et al., 2009). a distinction can be made across a range of collaborations, from a loose connection for sharing information, expertise and mutual assistance; to coordination, where partners work in closer relationships to alignment of resources and effort toward agreed shared goals and collaboration, characterized by strong and highly interdependent relationships through which partners make systemic changes to the ways they work, developing integrated strategies and sharing a collective purpose (keast et al., 2009). multi-agency collaboration entails people working across organizational precincts, but from this categorization such precincts can vary, from simple knowledge precincts in the case of cooperation to full collaboration across boundaries of mission, resources, capacity, responsibility, accountability, and geographical space (kettl, 2006). cooperation among institutions is considered a significant strategy that can be used to overcome turbulence and complexity regarding certain situations (gray and wood, 1991). institutional collaborations have the potential capacity for solving societal problems (gray and wood, 1991). working collaboratively has become the ideal canon for innovation and value addition when it comes to the delivery of public 15 services (rigg and o’mahony, 2013). nevertheless, this is not always rosy; the reality can be complicated, and value addition may be missing (rigg and o’mahony, 2013). of what importance is institutional collaboration then? huxham (1996) offers some answers. he argues that institutional collaboration becomes important when leaders of organizations realize that it will produce a cooperative advantage that will deliver better results for the clients or citizens, which would not have been met had the institution worked on its own. this has been dubbed by some scholars, such as sullivan and skelcher (2002), as the optimistic view of collaboration. the pessimistic view, on the other hand, recognizes that compulsion may be the most important key to collaboration, as institutions insist that working together is important for their own selfish interests (for example, to attract funding and investment), even if there is little evidence that it will be successful (barringer and harrison, 2000). huxham and vangen (2005: 2) also discuss the disadvantages of inter-organizational cooperation, highlighting what they term “collaborative inertia,” as a space filled with frustrations where instead of success, there is slow progress and that most organizations fizzle out without accomplishing anything. rigg and o’mahony, (2013) refer to this situation as collaborative frustration. collaborative frustration occurs when the institutional cooperation fails to achieve results. in other words, when the multi-agency collaboration is not working, it leads to organizational frustration (rigg and o’mahony, 2013). having applied the concept of institutional collaboration to the public sector in a western country setting (see o’leary and bingham, 2007; rigg and o’mahony, 2013), we expand the literature by applying it to a cross-sectoral scenario in a global south context. we also focus on the menace of human trafficking, which demands institutional collaboration if it is to be curtailed and lives saved. research methods this research is part of a bigger research project conducted to understand the operations of human traffickers in ghana. to answer our research question, we relied on a qualitative research design. we used semi-structured interviews and interviewed representatives of ghanaian government ministries, departments and agencies as well as officials representing civil society organizations (csos), ngos, development partners, and economic community of west african states (ecowas) officials in charge of tip issues. additionally, we reviewed several policy documents. as noted by akcam et al. (2019), the intricacies of qualitative research comprise a mishmash of interconnected methods, such as reviewing literature, conducting semi-structured interviews, organizing focus-group discussions, and engaging in participant observation. we employed a qualitative research design because we wanted to gain in-depth knowledge about the gaps and challenges in the implementation of the national mechanisms for cooperation and referral of tip victims. we engaged key officials at government ministries, departments, and agencies responsible for policy making, oversight and the implementation of policies and gaps and challenges in the ghanaian mechanisms for trafficking in persons victims 16 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 mechanisms for cooperation and referral of tip victims. we also engaged both local and international nongovernmental institutions such as csos and development partners that carry out activities including research, information campaigns, rescue of victims, family tracing, reintegration of victims with families, and prosecution of perpetrators. we adopted the purposive and snowball sampling technique. this sampling approach is important because trafficking is a niche area and only those who are directly engaged with the different aspects of trafficking can meaningfully comment on the mechanisms for cooperation and referral of tip victims. table 1: institutions and interviewees source: ministry of education (2019), ghana. we conducted the fieldwork between march and may 2021 with a focus on accra, ghana’s capital, and the regional offices of csos and government departments, especially in regions that report a large incidence of trafficking cases. we selected accra because it hosts the head offices of all government ministries, departments and agencies. furthermore, we conducted sub-regional interviews virtually and did a desk review of relevant national policy documents. the research team conducted all the interviews in english and then transcribed them. we employed reflexive thematic coding and analysis technique to analyze the qualitative data. as suggested by kandilige et al. (2022) regarding reflexive thematic coding and analysis technique, we closely reviewed all the transcribed material, which enabled us to familiarize ourselves with the texts. we coded the words and phrases to chunks of the textual data; we were therefore able to reduce and distill the content of the data. we coded iteratively by revising, reorganizing and relating the coded interview data to questions that were asked during data collection. we then analyzed the data using thematic analysis. this approach involved identifying and grouping closely related codes, type of institution number interviewed government ministries 3 government departments and agencies 4 united nations institutions/ agencies 2 international organisations/ ngos 4 national ngos and civil society organisations 6 17 expressions, ideas, and patterns that emerged from the qualitative data. this enabled us to derive the key themes for analysis and do the write up. we obtained written consent by following a detailed disclosure of the rationale for the research and sharing of an information sheet containing all the relevant materials on the research objectives. for confidentiality reasons, we kept consent forms and interview transcripts separate, at all times, so as not to link interviewees with their responses. we reiterated to research participants that participation in the research (i.e., interviews) was voluntary and that withdrawal from the interviews would not lead to any sanctions. the research team conducted some interviews virtually via the zoom platform due to residual restrictions from the covid-19 pandemic. virtual interviews present both opportunities and challenges. the virtual approach minimized possible risks of infection, reduced travel time to regional locations, and allowed for flexibility in scheduling interviews outside working hours. potential challenges included the lack of full attention, poor internet connection, and difficulty with gauging body language. to mediate these challenges, we scheduled interviews for off-peak times and conducted these with video cameras of both interviewer and interviewee on. where possible, researchers conducted interviews face-to-face in locations where participants could speak freely without interruptions or the risk of being overheard by others. we observed all covid-19 protocols in order not to endanger the health of participants and researchers. we anonymized the data in order to protect the identity of research participants, except for those who gave us permission to identify their official positions. factors that influence trafficking in persons multiple factors inform the prevalence of trafficking in persons in ghana. the most cited factor is poverty. the inability of families and households to afford the cost of their daily sustenance has compelled some families to become susceptible to labor exploitation and trafficking. however, some practitioners in the field of antitrafficking services reject the poverty discourses as an excuse by parents: i don’t want to say poverty because that is just an excuse. i know poor people who still stay with their children and give them their best. greed or selfishness are the key drivers. (interview, accra, 22 march 2021). there are families who are literally unable to feed their children and therefore adopt the “giving away”, “loaning” or “sale” of some of their children as a coping or family adaptive strategy. these scenarios are more common among communities where large family sizes are celebrated. within the winneba communities in the central region of ghana, for instance, women who give birth to ten children are celebrated as heroines. as one interviewee notes: gaps and challenges in the ghanaian mechanisms for trafficking in persons victims 18 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 they actually have a tradition whereby a woman is celebrated when she gives birth to ten children. they throw a party for the woman and present her with a goat in recognition. so, this culture encourages some women to give birth to lots of kids, but they are not able to take care of the kids. (interview, winneba, 24 march 2021). in line with the themes of poverty and family size, another official corroborates accounts of the sale of children as a desperate coping strategy: we do also have some families who decide to get rid of some of the children because they are too many; they believe that the departure of the child will be one less mouth to feed. (interview, accra, 23 march 2021). factors, including poverty, have resulted in the exploitation of children who find themselves in such situations (sertich and heemskerk, 2011). in addition, ghana is finding it difficult to deal with trafficking in persons, especially child trafficking, because of some benign cultural practices. in ghana, it is common practice for parents to willingly send out some children to live with external kin apparently as a way of strengthening the bonds of kinship and child development. this practice of fostering is being abused with recent transformations in the structure of the ghanaian family. traffickers also hide under the guise of this culturally appreciated practice to ply their nefarious trade (interview with the head of a cso, 30 march 2021). transformations in the ghanaian labor market coupled with poverty have led to migration or relocation of parents and leaving behind children in vulnerable situations but apposite for trafficking (atuguba, 2005; cia, 2011). the cultural practice of child fosterage has resulted in graphic cases of sexual violations of some children. for instance, a state prosecutor noted: there used to be one woman who lived at “chorkor” [accra] and what she did was that very young children were sent to her to foster; but she abused them to the extent that some were too young and could not be penetrated. what she did was to smear oil on a bottle and insert it in the private parts of these girls just so to open them up to be able to engage in sexual acts. (interview, accra, 23 march 2021). ignorance on the part of parents coupled with deceit by traffickers also exacerbate the incidence of trafficking in ghana. some parents “willingly” give their children to extended family members and recruiters who promise to train, educate and socialize these children. lack of awareness of the actual treatment of victims upon arrival portrays such parents as inadvertently acquiescing to the subjugation of their children in trafficking situations. as noted by a key informant: 19 we have some families who will deliberately negotiate the sale of their child. then we also have a category of families that are outrightly deceived and they are not aware of what they are signing up for. (interview, accra, 22 march 2021). our key informant interviews also suggest that closely aligned with ignorance as a factor influencing trafficking in persons are illiteracy, lack of exposure, and poor parenting skills. the low level of education of parents of victims as well as a lack of travel exposure make them gullible to fables on opportunities that are available to their children. in addition, poor or weak parenting skills could also account for the incidence of trafficking. some parents hold on to old-fashioned modes of parenting and tend to transpose their own experiences of childhood on to their children. this mindset reinforces and perpetuates exploitation and trafficking of victims. in addition, modern means of communication have equally facilitated the opportunities for unscrupulous actors to recruit victims anonymously or with the use of several aliases. online recruitment and the use of social media as a platform for trafficking activities have both heightened the vulnerabilities of victims and made attempts by law enforcement agencies to arrest and prosecute perpetrators more difficult (interview with the head of the ahtu, ghana police service, accra, 31 march 2021). accounts, from interviews within ghana, suggest that recruiters and traffickers simply destroy sim cards of fictitiously registered mobile phone accounts once an investigation is launched into their activities by law-enforcement agencies. grooming of victims on whatsapp and facebook is said to be common in ghana and the ability to shield one’s true identity on these platforms drives the further incidence of trafficking. moreover, inadequate political will, poor resourcing of agencies responsible for antitrafficking activities, and weak implementation of existing legislation have all been cited as frustrating the holistic fight against trafficking in ghana. though the arrest, prosecution, and conviction statistics have all improved significantly since 2017/2018, there is the analysis that improvement in performance, for instance, from tier two watchlist status to tier two, is driven by external pressures and resources and not sufficiently by the national political will. international obligations have informed some concerted actions, but these actions need to occur for the national good rather than as a satisfaction of an externally instituted ranking scheme. poor resourcing of agencies has also compromised their ability to function optimally in the detection, arrest, prosecution, and conviction of perpetrators and the protection, rehabilitation, and reintegration of victims. political interference during arrests and the prosecution of suspected perpetrators have undermined the deterrent effect of such actions by anti-trafficking stakeholders. blatant interference by politically exposed individuals as well as other influential persons from religious and traditional authorities fuel impudence among traffickers. as recounted by the head of the human trafficking secretariat: gaps and challenges in the ghanaian mechanisms for trafficking in persons victims 20 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 interference also needs to be reduced from all angles, because we have had instances where when you arrest culprits, pastors will come and beg, chiefs, politicians, other members will come and beg. it hinders progress; people always think that when they do wrong, they can run to their pastors. (interview, ada, 18 march 2021). in addition, uneven appreciation of the elements of trafficking by some members of the judiciary sometimes results in either acquittals or unusually lenient sentences, thus failing to capture the severity of the crime of trafficking. this assertion is strongly supported by two accounts – one of the head of the ahtu of the ghana police service and another of the leader of a prominent ngo: there was a 14-year-old boy who drowned in yeji. he was about to enter senior high school but got drowned after being trafficked. the case was tried in central region’s high court and the judge gave the accused person a one-month conviction. that is very sad because the child died out of trafficking. in one case in tamale, they gave the accused person two weeks. all these convictions are from the high court. for the circuit court, we get the convictions for five years, seven years. in the volta region, we got 34 years for a couple who trafficked some children. (interview with head of the ahtu of the ghana police service, accra, 31 march 2021). but, some of the judges have been selected and trained on prosecuting cases of trafficking but others are not. they are not well informed about the cases of trafficking. sometimes, you go before a judge and s/he will say that “oh, when we were young, we all did those things.” they see this as a normal ghanaian practice, and this is because they are not well-informed. they don’t know the elements we look out for to establish trafficking and they don’t seem to understand the kind of ordeal that the victims go through. also, we normally want a lengthy sentence, which means that you have to go beyond a district court. there are logistics and funding issues associated with this. (interview with the leader of a prominent ngo, accra, 25 march 2021). the issue of inadequate compensation of victims by anti-trafficking agencies compared with inducement by members of the trafficking rings is inimical to the ability of enforcement officers to successfully prosecute cases of trafficking. traffickers are able to offer out-of-court settlements directly to the victim’s family, which sometimes constitutes five to ten times the amount state agencies are able to compensate families with after a successful conviction. this trend leads to victims’ families refusing to cooperate with prosecutors during trials of traffickers. as the head of the ahtu of the ghana police service recounts: 21 the parents of this child did not want to cooperate with us for the prosecution because the accused visited them and was prepared to compensate them. we pleaded with them to support us to prosecute so that we can save and protect other children. we were to give them 2,000 cedis and the accused person was prepared to give them over 10,000 cedis. we were in court for two years and that was the outcome [one-month sentence]. (interview, accra, 31 march 2021). moreover, there was a ten-year time lag between the passing of the human trafficking act (republic of ghana, 2005) and the legislative instrument (in 2015), which is supposed to give directions on prosecutions and the procedures involved. our review of the legal documents revealed that this delay had a negative impact on the ability of prosecutors and judges to secure convictions. this setback is captured succinctly in the comments of the leader of a prominent ngo in the field of anti-trafficking in ghana: ghana has the human trafficking act, 2005 but it was not until 2015 when the legislative instrument was passed. so, we had a law without any guidance on how to prosecute anyone. so, because of that we were not having a lot of convictions of human trafficking. this was because it was a new field, and the judges were not trained and the lawyers were not conversant with it. for every law, it is the legislative instrument that shows the areas one can prosecute under and how to go about it. since we never had that, this affected our data on convictions. you will see that from 2018, ghana started prosecuting a lot more cases of trafficking. this started from 2017. so, when the police come across cases of trafficking, there is the temptation to stick to their comfort zone and they tend to rely on other laws. because the guidance on trafficking was not clear, police automatically relied on the children’s act for cases that involved children. this is because this act has provisions against child abuse. so, if even a child was in a slavery or exploitation situation, because the prosecutor was ill-informed about the trafficking law, he will be convinced that a crime had been committed, but they would want to avoid the risk of going with the trafficking act and failing. so, because they would not want the perpetrator to go scot free, they will rather prosecute under the children’s act. this, however, leads to shorter jail terms compared with if prosecutors had used the trafficking act. the trafficking act attracts a minimum of five years and a maximum of 20 to 25 years jail terms. ghana was blamed for not doing anything to combat trafficking, which is not accurate. we were doing a lot, but we were prosecuting under the wrong law. (interview, accra, 23 march 2021). the factors influencing tip are numerous. it is therefore imperative that the approach to curb it be multi-faceted and involve various organizations and institutions. gaps and challenges in the ghanaian mechanisms for trafficking in persons victims 22 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 gaps, challenges and recommendations in the implementation of the national mechanisms for cooperation and referral of trafficking in persons (tip) victims in ghana though we focus on the gaps and challenges regarding implementing the various mechanisms, we also provide recommendations on how to improve institutional cooperation and coordination to end tip. for trafficking in persons to end, there is a need for cooperation among various institutions and organizations. ghana has also signed documents of cooperation with other countries and institutions responsible for the control and ending of tip. ghana has been successful in the implementation of most aspects of the anti-human trafficking regulations. much progress has been achieved in the development of measures to prevent trafficking in persons and prosecution but protection for victims is still a challenge (sertich and heemskerk, 2011). since the 2018 progress that ghana made from tier 2 watch list to tier 2 of the united states trafficking in persons report, the country has stalled in the 2020 report, due to challenges mainly regarding protection for victims of tip (us department of state, 2020). the tier ranking system is based on verifiable evidence of steps to prevent trafficking, arrest and prosecute perpetrators, and to rehabilitate and protect victims of tip. generally, attempts have been made to eliminate this abhorrent activity but more needs to be done for significant gains to be recorded. there has been a significant improvement in coordination activities among the various actors, led by the human trafficking secretariat at the ministry of gender, children and social protection in accra. these improvements stem from the approaches identified in both the national plan of action for the elimination of human trafficking in ghana – 2017-2021 (republic of ghana, 2017a) and the national plan of action for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour in ghana – 2017-2021 (republic of ghana, 2017b). the key goals of the national plan of action for the elimination of human trafficking in ghana are to “strengthen ghana’s capabilities along the holistic ‘4 ps’ strategy, that is: the prevention of tip; protection of tip victims; prosecution of tip offenders; and partnerships with stakeholders to combat tip” (republic of ghana, 2017a). this is meant to enable the country to respond to human trafficking in a manner that is comprehensive, coordinated, effective, timely, and consistent with international standards. the main objective of the national plan of action for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour is to “reduce the worst forms of child labour to the barest minimum (<10%), by 2021 while laying strong social, policy and institutional foundations for the elimination and prevention of all forms of child labour in the longer term” (republic of ghana, 2017b). however, one of the challenges faced with regards to the implementation of various mechanisms to prevent tip is that the secretariat is based in accra without direct regional representation. there are also human resources and infrastructural needs facing the secretariat that are hindering the optimal discharge of its duties. in order to be more effective, there should be regional offices of the secretariat in all 23 16 regions, especially the vulnerable regions. this will make it easier to protect and prevent tip and also to prosecute perpetrators. another challenge with regards to the implementation of various mechanisms to prevent tip is funding. while the human trafficking secretariat is allocated minimal funding to coordinate all national activities on trafficking, the two other anti-human trafficking units – at the ghana police service and ghana immigration service – do not have specific and earmarked budgets to operate with. as such, the two units tend to rely heavily on financial and logistical support from ngos (especially international ngos). there is an acute lack of appropriate vehicles for rescues and the transportation of victims and perpetrators. these bottlenecks tend to slow down operations and to limit the scope of operations that place, since these two units are essential during rescues of victims. an officer of a development partner noted: for instance, there is some funding that is being managed by the human trafficking secretariat at the ministry of gender but this money is not being given to the police or immigration. so, immigration and the police do not have a specific budget to operate with. they rather tend to get a lot of support from the ngos to do rescues, but it is difficult internally to run their operations because they don’t have the budget. since the ngos cannot do rescues with the police, we pay for their involvement. something needs to change, where each unit runs things from their angle but each of them should have a dedicated operations budget to work with. this takes away the worry of thinking about which cars to use and how they are going to buy fuel to carry out rescues. the immigration and eoco [economic and organised crime office] do not have anti-human trafficking cars. it is only the police that has some cars in some regions. they need cars that are appropriate for transporting victims and perpetrators. (interview, accra, 24 march 2021). in addition, article 20 of the human trafficking act (republic of ghana, 2005) made provision for the establishment of the human trafficking fund. the objectives of the fund are to: meet the basic material support of victims of trafficking; provide skills training for victims of trafficking; trace the families of victims of trafficking; deal with any matter connected with the rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration of victims of trafficking in their best interest and for the training and capacity building to persons connected with the rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration of victims. notwithstanding the crucial role of this fund in the effort to curb the menace of trafficking in persons, the 2020 report on trafficking in persons in ghana bemoaned the poor commitment on the part of the ghanaian government to use the allocation of funds to the human trafficking fund (htf) (us department of state, 2020). this challenge, coupled with resource constraints, culminated in a lack of adequate support to personnel working in the enforcement of the anti-trafficking law and this gaps and challenges in the ghanaian mechanisms for trafficking in persons victims 24 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 continued to hinder investigations, prosecutions, and protection efforts. funding is often provided by ngos and development partners, and it is tied to specific projects and with specific implementation periods. the end of external funding regimes risk undoing progress chalked. ensuring that there is enough funds to run the operations of anti-trafficking organizations should be of topmost priority to reduce the glaring collaborative frustration that rigg and o’mahony (2013) have identified elsewhere. there should be commitment on the part of government to use funds set aside for combating the anti-trafficking menace judiciously. the government did not expend funds allocated to the htf to address the lack of sufficient protection services for adult male and child trafficking victims, and it did not take steps to improve protections for ghanaian migrant workers before departing and while abroad, particularly to the gulf states. this failure is corroborated by sertich and heemskerk (2011) in their assessment of the implementation of the 2005 human trafficking act. the culture of migration is commonplace among the youth, but some embark on irregular migration, which makes them susceptible to being trafficked. the failure of government in addressing some unprofessional attitudes of officials is also a concern, as indicated in successive reports. corruption assumes the form of some anti-trafficking officials rather facilitating trafficking activities. however, there is the need to properly remunerate, support and motivate officials who work in this field because it is a tedious and emotionally demanding job. besides, the government of ghana is yet to amend the 2015 implementing regulations for the 2005 ghana anti-trafficking act to remove the option of a fine in lieu of imprisonment in cases where the trafficker is a parent or guardian of the child victim. this caveat has been abused to commute custodial sentences mostly to fines and this defeats the deterrent effect when wealthy kingpins who fund trafficking activities easily pay off fines on behalf of convicted mid-level traffickers. the amendment of the 2015 implementation regulation for the 2005 ghana anti-trafficking act is very important. there is a need to attach urgency to this amendment so that it is not abused by the system to slap light punishment on the wrists of perpetrators. in addition, there is a lack of reliable and real-time data on the extent of the severity of human trafficking. there is an urgent need for a comprehensive survey data on trafficking that will properly inform policy making. the reliance on small and targeted qualitative studies conducted by ngos is insufficient to generalize on the actual scale of trafficking in persons in ghana. as emphasized by an ngo official, it is difficult to capture the true severity of trafficking without a broader and comprehensive survey data collection: we need a lot of work on that! the whole system needs to be overhauled. as a country, we don’t seem to appreciate the severity of trafficking even though we know the severity of child labor. this is because the ghana living standards survey will always do an assessment of child labor. there is no national survey in terms of child trafficking, so we are all speculating on the prevalence and 25 severity of it based on our level of exposure. for example, free the slaves has conducted a number of studies and these studies are purely qualitative and they are meant to inform programs and they are not academic studies. the general problem with qualitative studies is with inability to generalize. it is only useful for the geographical area or even just the community the study was done on. this is not even representative of the whole region, not to talk of the country. we know that ilo, iom and challenging heights have all done some studies. these nongovernmental agencies do these studies based on their own interest within the communities that they operate in or where they are going to have an intervention. this way, when they are carrying out an end of project evaluation, they can compare the situation to what they found in their initial studies. that is just about how useful these studies are. (interview, accra, 23 march 2021). to truly assess the severity of human trafficking, it is important that steps are taken to facilitate the collection of reliable and real-time data. there should be a national survey to collect data on the practice and to truly assess the extent of the practice so the appropriate remedies can be proffered. furthermore, another major gap that needs to be filled urgently when it comes to the implementation of various mechanisms to prevent tip is the ability to bridge the definitional disparities of the terminologies used by the various actors. as such, a commonly cited gap in the implementation of human trafficking policies in ghana is related to the definition of what constitutes human trafficking, as stipulated in the human trafficking act (republic of ghana, 2005). as suggested by sertich and heemskerk (2011), inadequate clarity on what constitutes trafficking impacts on the campaign against the practice, and investigation and prosecution of perpetrators of human trafficking. also, the interchangeable use of different terms poses a challenge. while some actors use “trafficking in persons”, others use “human trafficking”, yet others use “servitude or slave-like captivities”, while others use “modern-day slavery”, among others. these multiple references have the effect of confusing practitioners in their attempts to make determinations on trafficking cases, collection of data, and prosecution of perpetrators. some prominent law-enforcement officials cannot define the difference between child labor and trafficking. the gaps in knowledge lead to perpetrators being prosecuted under more familiar laws, such as the domestic violence law or the children’s act. these convenient prosecutions yield shorter sentences and also reduce the statistics of the country in terms of reported and prosecuted trafficking cases. for the avoidance of doubt, clear definition of the menace is important in order to properly tackle it. attention needs to be paid to this and appropriately addressed. the non-effective use of an online reporting platform system by officials is another challenge encountered during the implementation of various mechanisms to prevent tip. with support from the iom and other ngo partners, the human gaps and challenges in the ghanaian mechanisms for trafficking in persons victims 26 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 trafficking secretariat developed an online reporting system called trafficking in persons information system (tipis), which is supposed to capture all cases of trafficking across the country and be accessible to anyone online. the data to be collected are on reported cases, rescues, prosecutions, and convictions. however, empirical research shows that officials at the district and regional offices are not utilizing the system regularly, consistently, and correctly. a prime example was given by the head of one of the prominent ngos: unfortunately, the district officers are not doing it [using the system]. we know this because last year we rescued about 80 to 100 children and we did this with the police and social welfare. but during the collation, some of the districts we rescued children from reported zero cases! (interview, accra, 23 march 2021). a way to address this is to provide training for officials to be able to use this platform. some of the funds allocated to fighting tip can be channeled to training personnel to be conversant with the online reporting platform. the way the court systems have been set up also negatively affects the implementation of various mechanisms to prevent tip. the current court systems tend to handicap the police officers who prosecute cases of trafficking. police officers can only prosecute at the circuit courts, but state prosecutors do so at the high courts. any attempt to secure a longer jail sentence against offenders will require prosecuting the case at the high court where officials are, incidentally, not as conversant with the technicalities around trafficking and they do not have a full appreciation for the elements that constitute trafficking. there is also the issue of interference in the prosecution processes by perpetrators offering inducements to victims to dissuade them from cooperating with prosecutors. communication and coordination between the police and the judiciary are important if they are to effectively deal with the perpetrators. technicalities around trafficking should be explained to the court system and the operations of the court system should be explained to the police to foster synergistic operations. while ghana has a detailed standard operating procedure (sop) that was developed under the cpc, but equally applicable to adult victims, practitioners perceive this document as being too voluminous. there is, therefore, the need to possibly segment the document into user-friendly thematic chapters or the production of an abridged version of the sop as a quick reference document while in the field. in addition, regular periodic training is required to be conducted to build the capacities of the major stakeholders from government, civil society, ngos, and international partners. such training should include simulation exercises among actors in the field of trafficking. there has been an appreciable improvement in collaboration among different agencies in ghana, but there also still exists some competition for control, dubbed “turf wars”, among key agencies. this mostly unhealthy competition exposes the 27 entire system to vulnerabilities that are exploited by traffickers and their criminal networks. some officers belonging to sensitive investigative and prosecutorial agencies are compromised, which tends to facilitate the ability of traffickers to operate without being prosecuted. on other occasions, there is external pressure applied from the political class on security agencies to terminate prosecutions. this assertion is corroborated by what one official from an ngo had to say: so, we rescue the children and those who are supposed to deal with the case let perpetrators go unpunished. also, much as we complain about the police, who puts pressure on the police to let the perpetrator go? our lawmakers who discuss the issues are the same people who will quickly intervene and say that, “i am a member of parliament, so please drop the case.” when the pressure comes on us this way, sometimes the ngos that are working to protect the victims rather become the enemies of society. (interview, accra, 24 march 2021). there should be an understanding that the victims are the priority, irrespective of who is involved. with this understanding, agencies and organizations charged with ensuring the safety of the vulnerable in society will focus on the victims and disregard the competition for control. there are also practical operational challenges among stakeholders in antihuman trafficking activities. the police, the department of social welfare, and ngo officials lack the necessary equipment and logistics to carry out rescues in a safe manner, especially on the volta lake. in addition, there is an internal contradiction in the roles of ngos in affected communities. on the one hand, ngos are actively involved in community sensitization programs while on the other hand, they are involved in rescues and providing information leading to prosecutions. this dual role compromises their ability to operate as neutral arbiters and forms a reputation of ngos, among community members, as police informants rather than educators. sensitization is critical to the long-term prevention of trafficking activities and it is more effective than relying solely on the use of punitive measures. moreover, ngos report a high incidence of re-trafficking of children who have been previously rescued by them. they attribute this to an inadequate understanding of the underlying factors that informed the trafficking in the first instance, inadequate monitoring, and the relentless approaches used by traffickers, as relayed by this ngo official: we are not proud to mention the numbers we rescue because most of them end up being re-trafficked due to lack of proper support and monitoring. as a team, we monitor how many children we rescue, and we evaluate our work and how positive the reintegration has been. practically, it is difficult because even if we rescue the victims and then cater for them for six months, go through rehabilitation processes and then reunite them with their families, gaps and challenges in the ghanaian mechanisms for trafficking in persons victims 28 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 with support from government and other ngos, we still fail. this is because i believe there is no proper analysis of why the children were trafficked in the first place. they tend to be re-trafficked after one year or a year and a half. this means that the statistics that you collected come to nothing. the traffickers are very adaptable – when they see that there is a focus on one area, then they move to another. the traffickers are constantly trying to find loopholes in the law to exploit. (interview, accra, 24 march 2021). provision of the necessary equipment and logistics is crucial to carry out rescues in a safe manner and this is an imperative. also, ngos should focus on their specific core mandate to prevent the conflict that ensues because of the duality of functions. the private sector is a key stakeholder in the fight against trafficking, since most trafficking incidents in ghana take the form of economic exploitation. there is, therefore, the need to engage the private sector to rid all supply chains of the use of trafficked victims. in line with this, there is the need for state officials to foster good working relations among all stakeholders, since trafficking activities require real-time interventions both for rescues and victim care. a combination of formal and informal approaches and making time to actually understand the dynamics on the ground will increase the likelihood of success. another dimension of the role of non-state actors is in the provision of shelter facilities. while the law stipulates rescue, shelter, rehabilitate, and reintegrate as key tenets, there is an acute shortage of government shelters, especially for adult victims. this necessitates a closer collaboration between non-state shelter providers and state agencies. another challenge to the management of trafficking in ghana is the high staff turnover from specialized agencies. the human trafficking secretariat collaborates with development partners such as the iom, expertise france, and ngos to carry out training and capacity-building activities among practitioners but there is a high attrition rate, which leads to loss of expertise. this reality requires the introduction of internal mechanisms to foster group learning (e.g., training of trainer sessions) and retention of institutional memory. there is also the need for development partners to take into consideration the local priorities, approaches, and cultural context when they propose an intervention agenda. an imposition of foreign standards and methodologies is likely to be ineffectual, as contextual environments shape the outcomes of well-intentioned interventions. moreover, the lack of language proficiency among staff inhibits their ability to provide adequate support to victims who are from non-english-speaking countries. as the head of the human trafficking secretariat noted: another one is the language barrier. in the recent rescues we did, the children were speaking french; my shelter staff cannot speak french, so the only thing they could do was [use] sign language. we have rescued vietnamese, but we cannot speak their language. (interview, ada, 18 march 2021). 29 this challenge highlights the need to invest in interpretation services that are either provided by language departments at tertiary institutions or by freelance professionals. some of the challenges in relation to development partner collaborations, development of operational guidelines, and drafting of training manuals have been partly addressed. in june 2015, the government of ghana and the government of the united states of america signed the first-ever cpc partnership – a multi-year plan aimed at bolstering current efforts of the government of ghana and ghanaian civil society to address child sex trafficking and forced child labor within ghana and facilitates the award of up to us$5 million in us foreign assistance. the iom ghana also provides comprehensive support to the government of ghana in combating human trafficking. within the cpc framework, the iom ghana is implementing a project in cooperation with the us office to monitor and combat trafficking in persons (j/tip office) to support the government of ghana to establish a more holistic approach to significantly reduce child trafficking. the project also seeks to enhance and render more effective the efforts to prevent child trafficking, prosecute and convict child traffickers, and improve the quality of protection services for child victims. specifically, the iom has developed victim-centered standard operating procedures to combat human trafficking in ghana with an emphasis on child trafficking (iom, 2017) and has built the capacity of the stakeholders (ghana police service, department of social welfare, community development, labour officers, ghana immigration service, attorney general’s office, etc.) to identify, report, and assist in the rescue and investigation of tip cases and to prosecute perpetrators. in 2017 iom developed two training-of-trainers (tot) curricula for the ghana police service on the scourge of trafficking in persons in ghana, with an emphasis on child trafficking. conclusion former secretary-general of the united nations, ban ki-moon (2013) issued a profound statement: “migration is an expression of the human aspiration for dignity, safety and the better future. it is part of the social fabric, part of our very make up as a human family.” anything that is therefore undignified, harms and dims the future of people and should be eschewed. tip is not only abominable, but also unconscionable. therefore, everything must be done to ensure that it ceases. that is why cooperation among the various institutions charged with preventing tip is imperative. though progress has been made in some areas, there are still numerous challenges and gaps in the collaborative efforts. this research has highlighted some of them to include resource constraints, weak capacity of some stakeholders, limited knowledge by judicial services officials about the elements of trafficking, corruption, unhelpful “turf wars” among security agencies, political interference, confusing terminologies, and differences in institutional frameworks across west africa, among others. gaps and challenges in the ghanaian mechanisms for trafficking in persons victims 30 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 we conclude that, using ghana as a case study, developing countries that have similar characteristics as ghana need to adopt more concerted and collaborative efforts on the part of various institutions to dialogue and properly engage to minimize what rigg and o’mahony (2013) refer to as collaborative frustrations. also, we conclude that tip is a complex and messy crime that involves multiple layers of entangled webs of persons, institutions, resources, legal frameworks, and power dynamics. as such, we conceptualize institutional collaborations as the most appropriate lens through which a coherent approach to tackling the menace of tip, especially in developing country contexts, could be achieved. in line with these conclusions, the designated organizations cannot afford to be lackadaisical about their role in curbing the menace that is tip. there must be some intentionality about the way they operate, and they must ensure that they are on the same page with other key stakeholders in this fight. leaders and ordinary people who work in these organizations must be committed to the fight and it must show in their work. their aims should be the same and the strategy to tackle the problem should also be coordinated and they should play to the strengths of the various organizations in the fight against tip. this means that the laws must work, the security forces should be able to arrest perpetrators, and the courts must prosecute and apply long custodial sentences when traffickers are convicted. 31 references akcam, b.k., guney, s. and cresswell, a.m. 2019. research design and major issues in developing dynamic theories by secondary analysis of qualitative data. systems, 7(3): 40. 1-25. 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https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-trafficking-in-persons-report/ghana. united states department of state. 2022. trafficking in persons report 2022. available at: https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-trafficking-in-persons-report/ghana. westat. 2016. baseline assessment of the child protection compact partnership. maryland, usa: westat. 49 economic and risk perceptions motivating illegal migration abroad: port harcourt city youths, nigeria joseph inyama* * van hall larenstein university of applied sciences, the netherlands this study contributes to the understanding of the economic and risk perceptions that motivate illegal migration among youths. using the theory of reasoned action and the cultural theory of risk perception, this study investigates the economic and risk perceptions related to the livelihood of male and female youths of port harcourt city about migration to europe through the sahara desert and across the mediterranean sea. qualitative research techniques were used to source data from port harcourt city youths on the lived experiences of irregular migrants in selected countries abroad. a thematic content analysis of the data revealed that the perception of many of the participants on opportunities for decent work abroad is informed by what they see in western films and read on social media platforms. the anticipation of a better life and the hope of earning a stable income motivate them to undertake unsafe migration journeys abroad, regardless of the risks. the study further established that the majority of the youths who embark on dangerous journeys lack in-depth knowledge of the associated risks of traveling through the desert and across the sea, including the dangers of living abroad as undocumented migrants. based on these findings, the study recommends the need for more awareness-creation and enlightenment of the youths to fully understand the risks and negative aspects of the illegal movement. it also recommends that government agencies and stakeholders in the international community collaborate towards implementing sustainable interventions that will build the resilience capabilities of youths against illegal migration. keywords: trans-saharan migration, nigerian diaspora, african-eu mobility, resilient capabilities. economic and risk perceptions motivating illegal migration abroad 50 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 introduction the platform for international cooperation on undocumented migrants (picum, 2015) notes that the terms “illegal” and “irregular” migration have been indifferently used by both state and non-state organizations depending on the context of the situation. according to morehouse and blomfield (2011), the term “illegal” is considered problematic by many humanitarian organizations because the adjective has a negative connotation and suggests an involvement in a crime. thus, the european union parliamentary assembly (2006) issued resolution 1509 to address issues related to the human rights of irregular migrants. it states that the parliament prefers to use the term “irregular migrant” rather than “illegal migrant” or “migrant without papers” as this term is more neutral and does not carry, for example, the social stigma of the term “illegal”. it is also the term increasingly favored by international organizations working on migration issues. the resolution further states that “illegal” is preferred when referring to status or process, whereas “irregular” is preferred when referring to a person. hence, this study sustains the term illegal migration abroad because it examines the process that irregular migrants choose to make their journey abroad. the objective focuses on investigating and understanding the economic and risk perceptions that motivate port harcourt city (phc) youths to take the illegal route of traveling abroad through the sahara desert and across the mediterranean sea. a study conducted by the international organization for migration (iom, 2017) shows that international migration from countries in sub-saharan africa to europe and the united states has grown dramatically in the past decade. however, the study further notes that the proportion of emigrants relative to africa's total population is one of the lowest in the world, and the numbers of african nationals arriving irregularly by sea to italy in 2016 represented a very small share of the total migrant population in the country. similarly, united nations human development report (2004, cited in edwards, 2005) shows that the middle east region recorded the world's highest share of the irregular migrant population, with qatar, united arab emirates, kuwait, and jordan emerging as the top ten countries. okunade (2018) shows in his work that the movement across the sahara desert endangers the life of migrants, due to the series of attacks and humiliating treatment by smugglers and pirates on these transit routes. the unhcr (2015) and the iom (2017) note that the movement from africa to europe has attracted more global attention since the outbreak of the so-called migrant crisis in 2015. in this sense, it pertains to the period in 2015 where many migrants arrived in europe through italy and spain, across the sahara desert and the mediterranean sea. furthermore, the report shows that migrants of nigerian descent top the list of sub-saharan african countries whose nationals reach italy by sea, from where they move to other parts of europe. missing at the borders (2020) reports that this unsafe journey often puts migrants in dire and unfortunate situations as boat mishaps in the mediterranean sea leaves many dead and injured, thereby creating an additional burden to the 51 families of these migrants who have invested so much, and also hoped that a family member crossing the mediterranean sea to europe will positively influence the economic fortune of the family. in nigeria, several publications have shown that environmental degradation resulting from decades of oil exploration around port harcourt and the niger delta at large has been a major cause of violence, and youth restiveness, resulting in the forced migration of many families. akpan and akpabio (2003), and jike (2004) note that productive lands and rivers that families depend on for their daily livelihoods have been lost due to years of oil exploration activities and spillage in the region, resulting in rising unemployment, and violence. hence, many youths have been forced to leave their primordial homes in search of greener pastures abroad, while some have become environmental refugees. bates (2002) notes that a degrading environment seriously affects the quality of life and has a direct influence on human migration. theoretical and conceptual framework an international migrant is defined by the united nations department of economic and social affairs (undesa, 1998) as a person who stays outside their country of usual residence for at least a year. guided by the theory of reasoned action and the cultural theory of risk perception, this study investigates the economic and risk perceptions that motivate youths to leave their country of origin and move illegally abroad through the sahara desert and across the mediterranean sea. although migration intention is a very debatable concept in migration studies, the theory of reasoned action, according to ajzen and fishbein (1980) and ajzen (1985; 2005) aims to explain the nexus between attitudes and behaviors within human action. the theory suggests that an individual’s intention and decision to engage in a particular behavior is based on the outcome the individual expects will come as a result of engaging in such behavior. thus, in relation to migration across borders, the perception that a particular behavior will lead to the intended outcome is the driving force behind a migrant’s decision to engage in irregular movement abroad through unsafe routes. similarly, in explaining the cultural theory of risk perception, douglas (1978), douglas and wildavsky (1982), and thompson et al. (1990) argue that risk perception is largely determined by how people perceive and act upon the world around them. hence, despite the risks involved, individuals could be motivated to engage in unsafe migration abroad if such a person anticipates better economic opportunities for income maximization in the destination country. regarding nigeria, recent publications and reports have also indicated a growing population, unemployment, followed by rising poverty among port harcourt youths, and nigerian youths in general as the main drivers of illegal migration of youths abroad. the brookings institute (2014) notes that the high population of nigeria has resulted in a state of unemployment, especially for the youths. punch (2019a) highlights that the ijaw youth council (iyc) has described the rate at which port harcourt youths in particular, and nigerian youths, in general, leave the country to economic and risk perceptions motivating illegal migration abroad 52 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 other parts of the world in search of better jobs and increased income, as worrisome. similarly, the cable (2017), punch (2019b), and world population review (2020) all note that rising unemployment, poverty, and the increasing population in port harcourt city, have been major causes of illegal migration among the youths. thus, given the above conditions in port harcourt city, the interaction of these theories combine to facilitate the understanding of the behaviors that inform the decisionmaking processes of male and female youths to embark on these unsafe journeys abroad. literature review illegal migration baldwin (2008), characterizes illegal migration as an undocumented or irregular movement of individuals from one location to live and work in another area. in his work, papademetriou (2005), identifies four common forms of illegal migration, namely, unauthorized entry, fraudulent entry (i.e., with false documents), visa overstays, and violation of the terms and conditions of a visa. papademetriou further describes unauthorized entrants, as citizens of different countries who enter another state illicitly, many of whom cross the land and sea boundaries, very often in a desperate attempt to reach their destination. this characterization of unauthorized entrants closely defines the condition of many migrants who engage in illegal movement through the sahara desert and across the mediterranean sea to europe. it is important to recognize in this research that throughout history people have often engaged in different kinds of movement, both legal and illegal migration, in search of a better life. thus, baada et al. (2019) state that migration has been established as an important avenue for livelihood improvement, as evidenced by its inclusion in the united nations sustainable development goals (un sdgs). sdg 10 identifies migration as one way of reducing inequalities between and within countries. similarly, deotti and estruch (2016) argue that migration is a complex phenomenon, but a key component of livelihood strategies in rural households, which focus on minimizing risks and diversifying household income. as a livelihood strategy, many people globally have increasingly engaged in rapid migration to escape hardship. in this sense, port harcourt city, and nigerian youths at large thus engage in this irregular movement through these unsafe routes to escape the loss of livelihood opportunities resulting from environmental degradation, violence, and unemployment. consequently, the iom (2018), cited in afrobarometer (2018) states that nigerians made up the largest migrant population entering italy and greece. nigerians have also been identified as the largest cohort of migrants trapped in libya in the protracted mediterranean migrant crisis. the iom (2018) reported that between may 2017 and january 2018, more than 6,700 nigerian migrants were returned home from libya through the efforts of nigerian and international agencies. 53 economic perceptions of port harcourt city (phc) youths about migration to europe harris and todaro (1970) argue that the motivation to migrate is heavily influenced by job opportunities available to the migrant at the initial stage and expected income difference in the destination country. highlighting the illusions of achieving economic emancipation abroad, etika et al. (2018) argue that the public perception of economic freedom in europe has increased the quest for migration to countries such as spain and italy, and this feeble perception has resulted in the death of many nigerian youths who embarked on this deadly journey through these unsafe routes; little did they know, they will not get to their destination. in a recent report, the united nations development programme (undp, 2019) revealed that in the context of global inequality, the prospect of being able to transform the economic situation of family members left at home through remittances, is, of course, a huge factor shaping motivations and drivers of migration from africa to europe. reflecting on the circumstances that influence irregular migration abroad among phc youths, bayar and aral (2019) note that some movement of migrants may not have been motivated by the need to pursue better job opportunities abroad but is the result of forced migration due to threats to life and livelihood, natural or man-made causes such as movements of persons displaced by conflicts, as well as people displaced by chemical or environmental disasters. risk perceptions and decision-making processes of youths to embark on illegal migration perceptions of risk play a vital role in the decisions that individuals make to either stay back or undertake the unsafe journey to europe. jaeger et al (2007) note that an individual's attitude towards risk perception has a direct effect on their tendency to engage in cross-border migration. townsend and oomen (2015) assert that understanding how migrants perceive risk and what attitude motivates them to undertake perilous journeys, are incomplete without paying detailed attention to both their preand post-departure decision-making processes. in this regard, kuschminder et al. (2015) reveal that depending on the situation, illegal migrants of african descent take different routes to reach europe with no prior knowledge of the risks involved. in terms of risk exposure along the traveling routes, the unhcr (2019) reports that the journey across the desert to libya involves multiple horrific experiences of violence. the report highlights how both male and female migrants have been severely tortured, raped, and kidnapped for ransom by different networks of smugglers operating along these routes. thus, by the time that migrants step onto a boat en route to europe, many would have died. similarly, the unhcr’s central mediterranean risk mitigation strategy (2017) shows that the increasing influx of migrants from nigeria and other west africans through the desert to libya has resulted in the rapid proliferation of illegal detention, human warehouses, and connection houses run by smugglers and traffickers. thus, had migrants been aware of the grave hazards involved in crossing the desert, many of them would not have economic and risk perceptions motivating illegal migration abroad 54 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 made the dangerous journey to libya. frouws et al. (2016) argue that although the rise in the use of online communication media such as twitter and facebook has improved the way migrants share delicate information on safe routes related to their journey across the desert and the sea, it has also helped smugglers and traffickers to adopt new strategies to lure unsuspecting members of the public into making these dreadful journeys. williams and baláž (2012) shows that migrant movements are usually associated with exposure to risk and uncertainty from the beginning of the journey, along the traveling routes, the destination, and the life abroad. thus, irregular migrants’ predictability about the future involves some level of uncertainty given that the probabilities of a particular outcome cannot be known for certain and in some cases, these uncertainties expose them to dangerous situations. to further highlight the dangers that irregular migrants face abroad, nos nieuws (2020) notes the rising incidence of the disappearance of nigerian irregular migrants and asylum seekers to unknown destinations. the report further notes that the netherland central agency for reception asylum seekers (coa) confirmed that between 2014 and 2019 about 1,231 irregular migrants who received asylum qualification disappeared to an unknown destination. in january 2020, another 128 irregular migrants disappeared. these incidents have been linked to activities of criminal trafficking organizations such as the black ax, and the vikings mafia groups who threaten these irregular migrants and force them into drug peddling and prostitution. minaye and zeleke (2017) note that in order to understand the decision of migrants, it is crucial to comprehend the attitude that informs their choices and decision-making. hence, if the attitude and spiritual belief of migrating youths are such that god has predetermined their fate, they may not bother about the risky or safety implication of the decision they make concerning unsafe migration. also, personal factors such as age, gender, and religion; social factors such as media, and family influence further shape the attitudes, beliefs, and decisions of youths to embark on illegal migration abroad. highlighting the influence of family on a migrant’s decision to move abroad, massey et al. (1993) and stahl (1995), argue that, unlike individuals, households are in a position to control risks to their economic well-being by diversifying the allocation of household resources such as labor. while some family members can be assigned economic activities in the local market, others may be sent to work abroad where wages and employment conditions are relatively better. hence, if the local economic conditions deteriorate and activities fail to bring insufficient income, the household can rely on migrant remittances for support. study area, research strategy and methodology port harcourt city (phc) is in the niger-delta region of nigeria and is the capital of rivers state. it covers an area of 109 square kilometers. port harcourt city has a population of 3,171,076 (world population review, 2021) and it is the largest city in the niger-delta region of nigeria. 55 figure 1: map of port harcourt city source: etsi arcgis online by sihma this is a cross-sectional qualitative study involving different categories of participants, among whom were youths in port harcourt city, policymakers, a diplomat, a banker, regular and irregular migrants abroad who were from port harcourt city, and from other parts of nigeria. to gain a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of migrants trying to cross the desert and the sea, as well as the realities of living abroad as irregular migrants, the study also considered the views of other irregular migrants of african descent who had the same historical experience with nigerian irregular migrants abroad. the snowball sampling technique was used through the referrals from the key informants to recruit other participants from both port harcourt city and abroad, for this study. given that the research took place during the global coronavirus health pandemic, the fieldwork interviews with participants in port harcourt city were conducted through remote methodologies like using social media, whatsapp, google meet, local research moderators, and an online survey. also, considering the sensitivity of the topic, the interviews with irregular migrants in different asylum-seeking centers in europe took place online using whatsapp, while keeping an eye on the sensitivity of the topic and hesitance of respondents to share experiences. given the complex nature of illegal migration through the sahara desert economic and risk perceptions motivating illegal migration abroad 56 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 and across the mediterranean sea, a well-designed semi-structured interview guide was developed. it explored issues like the current conditions of youths in port harcourt city, perceptions of livelihood opportunities in both port harcourt city and abroad, knowledge of risks involved in traveling along the desert and across the sea, lived experiences that irregular migrants encounter while living without proper documents abroad, access to networks, as well as the influence of family members on the decision to embark on this unsafe journey. for a profile of all the participants in this study, see tables 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. the study objectives, possible risks, and exposures were explained to potential participants. hence, participation in this study was voluntary and participants had the right to either consent or decline to participate in the research without suffering any prejudice to their basic human rights. given that the study included tragic and dehumanizing lived experiences of some irregular migrants, pseudonyms were used in the excerpts from the interview transcripts. in doing this, all participants were assigned codes in other to protect their identity in any report or publication from these findings. there were no payments for participation in the research. however, during the focus group discussions (fgds), participants were provided with some refreshments at the end of the meetings. also, interviews were conducted in the preferred language of the respondents (nigerian pidgin, and english). recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim into english and edited for analysis. all transcribed and edited interviews were saved and accessible only to the researcher and were deleted from the laptop device after the research supervisors approved the study. this was done to ensure no identity of the respondents can be traced through their voices. overall, the study had a population size of 95 participants, 31 of whom were in-depth interview respondents drawn from both port harcourt city and abroad. thematic analysis based on the research sub-questions formed the basis of the analysis. this helped the researcher to carefully identify commonalities and differences across the dataset while interpreting the data from the perspective of the respondents in the study. the analysis commenced while the fieldwork was ongoing, starting with listening to electronic recordings at the end of each interview to transcribe and code the responses in line with the themes drawn from the study subquestions. this helped the researcher to gain a comprehensive picture of perceptions, lived experiences, and motivations of male and female youths in port harcourt city on migration abroad. these results were presented using a narrative tool supported by quotes from respondents, to provide some evidence without sounding too poignant and exaggerative. to improve the quality of the study report, the researcher further used in-depth triangulation of the main findings from the key informants, and individual interviews to compare other existing literature works reviewed in this study. 57 profile of all the participants in this study table 1: profile of key informant respondents table 2: profile of individual interview respondents in phc code respondent organization portfolio gender male female ki1 bank banker gtbank credit and loan service 1 ki2 yldphc youth leader abuloma village p.r. o 1 ki3 ylgphc youth leader elelenwo speaker democracy africa parliament 1 ki4 ylcphc youth leader elekahia entrepreneur 1 ki5 ymjphc irregular migrant phc resident irregular migrant in libya 1 ki6 ymegbr irregular migrant nigerian irregular migrant in germany 1 ki7 ymlbe irregular migrant nigerian irregular migrant in belgium 1 ki8 phalgas government official port harcourt local government council council secretary 1 ki9 da-nld policymaker african diaspora policy centre director 1 ki10 amb-on diplomat nigerian embassy, the netherlands head of delegation 1 ki11 dnld-nld regular migrant resident in the netherlands united nigeria platform, the netherlands chairman 1 code respondent status portfolio gender male female ii1 sngr phc resident today fm journalist 1 ii2 alangr phc resident entrepreneur small-scale telecom business 1 ii3 amyngr phc resident university graduate freelance writer 1 ii4 akngr phc resident university graduate unemployed youth 1 ii5 gpngr phc resident university graduate unemployed youth 1 ii6 dspngr phc resident university graduate unemployed youth 1 ii7-evangr phc resident entrepreneur small-scale farmer 1 ii8-vicngr phc resident university graduate freelance content developer 1 ii9-vicngr phc resident university graduate data analyst 1 ii10-lawngr phc resident medical doctor freelancing and volunteering 1 economic and risk perceptions motivating illegal migration abroad 58 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 table 3: profile of individual respondents abroad table 4: profile of fgd 1 participants in okuru-ama village, phc code respondent status portfolio gender male female ii1 sngr nigerian immigrant in the uk accountant working 1 ii2-ezynld nigerian migrant in the netherlands water engineer working 1 ii3-jacnld ugandan migrant the netherlands university graduate working 1 ii4-jamnld congolese refugee in the netherlands resident working 1 ii5-klagbr nigerian migrant in germany university graduate working 1 ii6-mraca nigerian migrant in canada university graduate working 1 ii7-nnagbr nigerian migrant in germany freelance it engineer working 1 ii8-siu.usa nigerian migrant in the united states pr specialist working 1 ii9-soloita ghanaian refugee in italy in the asylum centre, arnhem seeking asylum 1 ii10-patnld nigerian refugee in the netherlands in the asylum centre, arnhem seeking asylum 1 code respondent status portfolio gender male female fgdo1 okuru-ama youth, phc okuru-ama village, phc unemployed undergraduate 1 fgdo2 okuru-ama youth, phc okuru-ama village, phc small-scale fashion designer 1 fgdo3 okuru-ama youth, phc okuru-ama village, phc unskilled unemployed youth 1 fgdo4 okuru-ama youth, phc okuru-ama village, phc small-scale phone technician 1 fgdo5 okuru-ama youth, phc okuru-ama village, phc underemployed graduate 1 fgdo6 okuru-ama youth, phc okuru-ama village, phc unemployed artisan 1 fgdo7 okuru-ama youth, phc okuru-ama village, phc freelancer 1 fgdo8 okuru-ama youth, phc okuru-ama village, phc unemployed graduate 1 59 table 5: profile of fgd 2 participants in diobu village, phc results table 6: gender variation of research participants source: fieldwork, 2020 accessing decent jobs and opportunities to start small-scale businesses in port harcourt city the study gauged participants’ views to better understand opportunities for a decent job and the feasibility of starting a sustainable small-scale business that can provide youths with a stable income to meet their daily essential needs. for many of the respondents, youths find it difficult to access decent jobs due to high practices of nepotism, and lack of social connection to the upper class in the society. this obnoxious norm has affected mostly youths in the lower class who often represent a majority of the youth population, from accessing fairly decent jobs to meet their daily code respondent status portfolio gender male female fgd-d1 diobu youth, phc diobu village, phc small-scale hairstylist 1 fgd-d2 diobu youth, phc diobu village, phc small-scale graphic designer 1 fgd-d3 diobu youth, phc diobu village, phc unskilled unemployed youth 1 fgd-d4 diobu youth, phc diobu village, phc waitress 1 fgd-d5 diobu youth, phc diobu village, phc underemployed graduate 1 fgd-d6 diobu youth, phc diobu village, phc unemployed youth 1 fgd-d7 diobu youth, phc diobu village, phc undergraduate student 1 fgd-d8 diobu youth, phc diobu village, phc skilled unemployed youth 1 fgd-d9 diobu youth, phc diobu village, phc graduate and doing small-scale business 1 fgd-d10 diobu youth, phc diobu village, phc fashion designing apprentice 1 fgd-d11 diobu youth, phc diobu village, phc small-scale hairstylist business 1 gender key informants individual interview in phc individual interview abroad online respondents focus group discussions male 10 8 8 18 8 female 1 2 2 26 12 economic and risk perceptions motivating illegal migration abroad 60 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 essential needs. one of the respondents said: i have graduated from university for over 5 years, but i have not gotten a job. there is a lot of nepotism, and corruption in the system. even farming is a challenge due to harsh agrarian land. as an average youth in nigeria, you must know someone who knows someone for you to get a decent job. some female youths are sexually exploited for them to get a chance at a job. so, you can see why the motivation is high for youths in nigeria to move to europe in search of a better life through these dangerous routes (port harcourt youth resident). similarly, as indicated in the figure below, due to the strict collateral conditions, most of the youths expressed difficulty in accessing credit from banks and other credit houses to start a small-scale business. figure 2: access to credit from the banks for small-scale businesses in phc opportunities for decent jobs for irregular migrants abroad generally, different factors influence the perceptions of youths in many sub-saharan african countries about unlimited work opportunities abroad. in this study, the views of port harcourt city youths were explored to understand what informed their knowledge about living and getting a decent job abroad as irregular migrants. most of the results showed that the perceptions of youths in phc on decent work opportunities abroad was informed mostly by their interpretation of western films and information obtained from various social media platforms. according to one of the respondents: 66 3131 77 yyes, i havees, i have collateral and acollateral and a guarantorguarantor no, i do notno, i do not have a collateralhave a collateral and a guarantorand a guarantor i do not want toi do not want to access creditsaccess credits from banks.from banks. 00 55 1010 1515 2020 2525 3030 3535 nu m be r o f r es po nd en t nu m be r o f r es po nd en tss 61 i read in the news about how government abroad creates job opportunities and supports business start-ups among youths, hence i have this perception that there are more chances to get a job abroad. also, western movies further highlight how people abroad easily find a job. so, i think if i get the chance to move to europe or america, i will find a decent job (female youth, port harcourt city). similarly, interviews revealed that the sending of remittances to their families back home, by peers who moved abroad through irregular means, further strengthened the perceptions of youths in the community that there are enough job opportunities with better income abroad. this perception further motivated male and female youths to decide on accepting the risk of traveling abroad through any available irregular routes in the hope of getting a stable job that supports them to also send money towards improving their family conditions back home. in contrast, irregular migrants living in europe painted a picture of a flashy environment, rosy images, a free-flowing easy life and opportunities for decent jobs with better income perceptions about europe. this motivated their decisions to risk their lives through the desert and across the sea, but circumstances sadly changed a few months after their arrival. also, the language difference in many of the european countries hindered their smooth integration. according to one respondent: i heard europe was a nice and good place to hustle, but when i arrived, i realized that success in europe is dependent on your status. without a residency that offers a work permit, you cannot work or access the opportunities you imagined about europe while you were in africa. the unskilled job i got, did not meet my expectation; i was just working to survive. even at that, things were so rough for me in macedonia, with no money on me, i had to trek to greece where i had to seek asylum. from there i moved again to germany (nigerian irregular migrant, germany). according to a key informant: the views of these youths are borne out of frustration and the hostile environment that exists in the country. for those moving for security reasons, it is justified. but for economic migrants moving through these dangerous routes, their movements are borne out of a desperate mirage. i have seen irregular migrants that have come to seek support to return home because things did not work as they had initially imagined. many of these migrants who were deceitfully lured into making these journeys are so ashamed to return home because of the failure of not making it as they had initially perceived after making a huge sacrifice of crossing the desert and the mediterranean sea (nigerian ambassador to the netherlands). economic and risk perceptions motivating illegal migration abroad 62 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 knowledge of the risk implications of illegal migration to europe through the sahara desert and across the mediterranean sea findings from the in-depth interviews with respondents revealed that male and female youths traveling through the desert and across the mediterranean sea have constantly been exposed to various dangerous encounters ranging from heatwaves to attacks by bandits and traffickers. in many circumstances, these attacks often result in the deaths of hundreds of migrants. also, many youths who make this journey do not have an in-depth knowledge of the nature of the risks involved in the journey. hence their decision to risk their lives on the journey. according to one respondent: [the] majority of the youths have no idea of what crossing the sahara desert and the mediterranean sea looks like in real life, while some just have a shallow knowledge of what the journey entails. for instance, i know someone in the community with an average knowledge of the risks, yet, he made up his mind to accept the risks involved in the journey because of the depressing economic condition of his family. he believed this journey was a stroll to death, but he said to me, “if i die, i die; if i perish, i perish” (male youth, port harcourt city). however, interviews with irregular migrants who undertook these journeys revealed that there was a strong belief in predestination among migrants who made the journey. many of the migrants who survived this dangerous endeavor, were willing to risk it in the belief that god would protect them from the dangers if they were not destined to die in the desert or the sea. according to some respondents: i did not know the risk will be this dangerous; many persons died in the desert, but a few of us survived. my friend did not clearly explain to me the dangers involved; he told me that the journey to libya will be smooth and easy, and not through the desert. so, the information i received was so easy for me to opt into the idea of embarking on the journey. it took me three weeks to travel from port harcourt to libya. while on transit, i was spending money to save myself from being taken into captivity by the desert warriors and rebels each time we were attacked. i spent about $2,000 to make the journey to libya, and now i cannot continue to cross the mediterranean because my money finished in the desert. so, i am now hustling in libya to raise money for a boat [trip] to reach europe (port harcourt irregular migrant in libya). i met some eritreans, somalians, ethiopians, in the asylum-seeking center who shared their horrific experiences with me. they told me they were not aware of any dangers involved in the journey. everything seemed well when they set out for their journey from eritrea; everything changed on the mediterranean sea en route to europe. they said their friends whom they made the journey with, 63 all died at sea, but they were lucky to make it to italy, and then to the refugee camp in the netherlands (congolese migrant in the netherlands). more results revealed that many of the male and female youths who travel along these routes come out mentally and psychologically damaged due to the terrible daily experiences, including torture, abuse and sexual exploitation that takes place on the journey. according to one respondent: for days i journeyed with no water and food. on one of the nights, we got to a well, and we noticed there was some water; we all drank from it only to wake up in the morning to notice there was a dead body inside [the well]. still, we fetched [water] from it to continue the journey because we had no choice. for female migrants whose money finished along the way, they had to pay with their bodies, some were also raped despite paying. when i got to libya, i was arrested, and taken to prison by libyan authorities. while i was there, many of the girls were sexually assaulted on a daily basis; and if you are sick, they would give you abortion pills, because the assumption is that you might be pregnant. it was devastating because my family did not know where i am, or what i am going through. then the journey across the sea was another difficult experience, but at this point, i had made up my mind if i die, so be it. we used a balloon or floater to cross the sea. while on the journey, some of us [fellow migrants] died and were thrown into the sea. after some days, we were in the middle of nowhere. luckily, we got rescued by a ship. when we arrived in italy it was terrible there. then i escaped to france; my asylum was rejected there. again, i left for the netherlands, where i am now in the refugee camp seeking asylum here. now in europe, to survive and get by every day, i have had to be exposed to the risk of meeting very dangerous people, and the police. i live each day watching my back. i have been in this refugee camp for two years hoping that my asylum request will be granted someday, so i can live a normal life (nigerian refugee in the netherlands). further findings indicated that youths who are more open to risk-taking will most likely embark on these dangerous journeys to europe even if they are not certain about their chances of surviving the crossing of the desert and the sea. however, one of the respondents said: my journey was not about the willingness to take a risk because making the cross is like having a close conversation with death. my situation was very terrible, so i had to find a way to help myself. i was an auto mechanic, but the job did not provide enough income to take care of my needs. so, i met a friend who shared the information to travel to europe by road, and together we set out on the journey. it was a terrible experience for me. i saw lots of death; i do economic and risk perceptions motivating illegal migration abroad 64 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 not wish anybody to go through the journey; 150 of us were packed at the back of the truck with each of us carrying about 150 liters of water. your survival is dependent on that water because no one will share theirs with you. on the journey, some fell off and died and they were buried in the desert sand. if you are unlucky to be attacked by rebels and desert warriors, they will torture, rape, and kidnap people, so due to these dangers, the journey took me 3 weeks in the desert. crossing the mediterranean was between life and death. i saw a lot of dead bodies floating in the sea. the 12-meter size fishing boat was carrying 51 of us on board. we struggled a lot with the waves; eventually, it changed our direction. we floated for days before a naval ship passing came to our rescue. but for the rescue, we would not have made it to cross the sea because the boat was already sinking. based on these horrible experiences, i could not have signed up to take such a risk. i will not even make the journey again should the situation arise. looking back, i do not think the opportunities in europe are worth the risk of the journey. i am now considering returning to nigeria because the green pastures are not the way we thought. as an illegal migrant, you have no dignity (nigerian irregular migrant in germany). the influence of peers and family on the decision to accept the risks involved in illegal migration abroad the results revealed that the desire to improve the living conditions of families in the country of origin, underlines the willingness to accept the risks involved in crossing the desert and the sea to europe. similarly, many families with large households will easily decide to support a member who decides to embark on this journey. they contribute money and even sell the family assets or mortgage them for a loan to fund this journey. also, the influence of one's age and marital status influences one’s decision to make this unsafe journey. one of the respondents said: i think from age 18, youths are more audacious to make these journeys, and the idea is that they could still have the strength to withstand the challenges involved in the journey. in terms of marital status, mostly married men are likely to make the decision, because the belief will be, “if i move, i will be able to provide a life for my family.” the women are most likely going to consider the children before deciding to make the move (ugandan migrant in the netherlands). in terms of the influence of peer pressure, the majority of the respondents said that youths living in the same neighborhood are more likely to accept the decision to make this journey if they know an associate from the same environment who traveled abroad through these routes and made it to support his family through remittance. also, on access to information related to making these journeys, one of the respondents said: 65 i know people who arrange this kind of movement, in local name, they are called ''the journeyman''. it is a big network. you don't just wake up to make the journey. so, from what i know, when you want to make the journey, you go to the journeyman, they plan the trip, they know all the transit routes and have their networks there. it takes months of planning before you make the journey. usually, they make the trip during the summer period, when the sea is calm and less turbulent, precisely between may and september (nigerian migrant in the united states). figure 3: access to information related to illegal migration through the desert and across the sea source: fieldwork, 2020. discussion this study aimed to understand the economic and risk perceptions related to the livelihood of youths about port harcourt and europe that motivates their decision to embark on illegal migration through the desert and the sea. in line with the existing theories explored in this research which provided insights into the behaviors that shapes irregular migrant’s intention and risk perception regarding making the unsafe journey, the findings suggest that migrants’ intended outcome in many situations outweighs the thorough analysis of the perceived risk involved in making irregular movement across borders. thus, during decision making, migrants consider the risks as an opportunity as long as it does not limit their freedom to move. the ilo (2020) describes decent jobs to be productive work for women and men in conditions of freedom, equity, security, and human dignity. as indicated by the findings in this study, many of the youths in port harcourt city (phc) are 3 20 21 social media handles such as twitter and facebook peer networks smugglers who pose as travelling agents withn communities n um be r o f r es po nd en ts economic and risk perceptions motivating illegal migration abroad 66 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 currently without decent employment that can provide them stable income to meet their daily essential needs. this is consistent with the national bureau for statistics (2016) report which notes that 34.9% of youths in nigeria are currently without jobs. hence, the rising incidence of illegal migration of male and female port harcourt city youths abroad, through these unsafe routes as an alternative livelihood strategy. the study established that without a strong social connection to elite members in the city, one will hardly get a decent job. this lack of connections to the upper echelon makes many average youths in phc feel that they are treated like the precariat without rights and privileges which other members of the society enjoy. imhonopi and urim (2015, cited in imhonopi et al., 2017), state that the precariat is a class with members who consist of impoverished youths belonging to lower-class families, including frustrated educated youths who do not like existing socio-economic conditions before them. hence, the imagination of a better life outside nigeria becomes the prism through which male and female youths in the city see the world, due to the polluted environmental conditions, and the rising unemployment in nigeria. more so, findings revealed that most of the youth's perceptions of the availability of better working opportunities abroad are informed by what they see in western films and other news media platforms. etika et al. (2018) argue that the public perception of economic freedom in europe has increased the quest for migration to countries such as spain and italy. thus, many nigerian youths embark on this deadly journey through these unsafe routes but, little did they know, that some of them will not get to their destination. however, the study found that the transnational flow of money through remittances from migrants abroad has contributed immensely towards the improvement of the living conditions of many migrants’ families and their communities in countries of origin. as a result, this study established that migrants’ remittances in support of household income is a major motivation for these movements along these dangerous routes. supporting the above findings towards addressing illegal migration and poverty reduction, the british house of commons international development committee's report on migration and development 2004, cited in vertovec (2007), suggests that the uk government should explore the potential development benefits which might be gained from more circular migration, and alongside its developing country partners should examine different ways in which such circular migration might be encouraged. the committee's advice also goes beyond the government to other agencies by suggesting that circular migration schemes could act as an incentive for sending countries to assume more responsibility for countering illegal migration. knowledge of the risk involved along the traveling routes, as well as uncertainty about the realities of living abroad, were found to be major gaps that result in the death of migrants along the desert and at sea. williams and baláž (2012) show that irregular migrants rarely have full knowledge about the current living conditions in the destination countries. hence, their movement is often associated with 67 uncertainties. also, their perception of risk is formed based on partial knowledge of the destination country. similarly, the hope for a better life and the belief in god’s protection when making this dangerous journey to europe in many circumstances beclouds the migrant's perception of the risk involved along the journey route. the perception of god's protection is corroborated by the work of minaye and zeleke (2017) who argue that if the attitude and spiritual belief of migrating youths are such that god has predetermined their fate, they may not bother about the risk or safety implications of their decisions concerning unsafe migration. this, therefore, implies that in order to understand migrants’ decisions and their acceptance of the risks involved in undertaking this dangerous journey, it is crucial to comprehend the attitude that informs their choices and decision-making. given that migration offers an alternative livelihood strategy for vulnerable groups, it was very evident in the study that at the core of the decision to undertake this risky journey across the desert and the sea, lies the motivation to improve their family’s economic situation. as a result, many families in port harcourt city often support the decision of a member to embark on this journey, which they strongly consider a necessary sacrifice to liberate one's family from the shackles of deprivation and poverty. in relation to peer influence and access to information, this study established that activities of covert agents who live within the same community with these youths, provide easier access to information related to undertaking illegal migration abroad through these unsafe routes. klabunde and willekens (2016) conclude that individuals are likely to make a journey if there is an available social network within the prospective migrant's reach, as social networks support the movement of a potential migrant to a destination country. although issues related to harsh climatic conditions and the degradation of the environment did surface during the fieldwork, however, it was beyond the scope of the research to explore these areas and their consequences on cross-border migration. conclusion and recommendation the different accounts of the respondents in this study showed that the human mind is unstoppable when desperate for economic survival. despite the efforts of the european union (eu) through its funding of border externalization projects in niger and libya, as long as youths remain unemployed and have no sustainable means of livelihood, migrants from the western route of the sahara desert will still find a way to maneuver the border checks to make their way into the desert and across the sea to fortress europe. therefore, based on the various findings, the study concludes that addressing the problem of illegal migration of youths abroad through these unsafe routes requires a practical intervention geared towards building the resilience and capabilities of youths for economic self-reliance. in relation to irregular migration, when it rains in africa, it thunders in europe. it is therefore recommended that the economic and risk perceptions motivating illegal migration abroad 68 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 nigerian government facilitate a global multi-stakeholder partnership involving relevant stakeholders in the international community to develop a mechanism that builds the capability of youths against unemployment and poverty. the study further recommends that rivers state and the federal government of nigeria partner with the iom to ensure that returned migrants are encouraged to share the real story on the risks involved in crossing the desert and the mediterranean sea. also, given that many youths have a significant presence on social media, the study recommends the use of mass media and various social media platforms to share and disseminate insights from the experiences of migrants. this will be vital in discouraging other youths from making the journey through these unsafe routes. additionally, it is recommended that rivers state, in collaboration with the nigerian government, partner with relevant international bodies to design an ecopreneur project to train nigerian youths in climate-resilient farming and plastic recycling business enterprises; this is particularly important given the increasing weather variabilities. this will help create more jobs and a stable income source that will build the resilient capabilities of youths against illegal migration. furthermore, future research is needed to explore whether climate variabilities could spur mass migration across borders. 69 references afrobarometer. 2018. one in three nigerians have considered emigration, most to find economic opportunity. available at: http://afrobarometer.org/ publications/ad231-one-three-nigerians-have-considered-emigration-mostfind-economic-opportunity accessed on 15 may 2020. ajzen, i. 1985. from intentions to actions: a theory of planned behavior. in: kuhl, j. and beckmann, j. 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african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 bureaucratic barriers to social protection for refugees and asylum seekers during the covid-19 disaster in south africa fatima khan* and mikhail kolabhai** * university of cape town, south africa the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic could be minimized by social protection instruments such as unemployment insurance and distress relief grants. this paper assesses the ability of refugees and asylum seekers to access these instruments in south africa. in general, the bureaucratic system of asylum documentation acts as a barrier to access social protection, as exemplified by the administration of the unemployment insurance fund and the social relief of distress grants during the pandemic. while this problem has traditionally been articulated in terms of equality and socio-economic rights, this paper proposes that asylum administration should also be prioritized as a disaster preparedness and management infrastructure, as well as an essential service. this is to ensure refugees and asylum seekers’ need for protection is not neglected in a disaster. keywords: disaster management, socio-economic rights, documentation, asylum administration 75 introduction the first diagnosed cases of covid-19 in south africa were reported on 05 march 2020 (national institute for communicable diseases, 2020). ten days later the minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs declared a ‘national state of disaster’ in terms of the disaster management act (dma) (cogta, 2020a). a further ten days later she promulgated regulations under the dma which brought the country into a national lockdown that has persisted at fluctuating levels of stringency (cogta, 2020b). at the time of writing, we are approaching 500 days of continuous lockdown, more than 2.3 million total reported cases, and 70,000 deaths (doh, 2021). in the quarter immediately following the imposition of the lockdown, the number of employed people fell by around 2.2 million; 640,000 of these losses were in the informal sector (statistics south africa, 2020a). in april 2020 alone, 47% of households reported running out of money to buy food, possibly double the alreadyhigh rate reported for the previous year. the full weight of the crisis represented by these numbers is startling and necessitated a relief response by the government. the same regulations that initiated the lockdown also made provisions for government ministers to issue directives, among other objectives, to “alleviate, contain and minimise the effects of the national state of disaster” (cogta, 2020b: reg 10(8)(c)). the directives resulted in a set of relief and assistance programs to the public. the purpose of this paper is to outline the state of refugees and asylum seekers in south africa during the coronavirus pandemic, and their status in relation to these social protection mechanisms during the disaster. according to the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), south africa is host to 266,694 refugees and asylum seekers (unhcr, 2020).1 for reasons explained later in this paper, this number may be under-reported. most refugees and asylum seekers in south africa are from ethiopia, somalia, zimbabwe, and the democratic republic of the congo (parliamentary monitoring group, 2019). their stay in south africa is likely to be protracted due to either inefficiencies in the asylum-seeker process or to ongoing instability in their home countries, or both. south africa’s auditor-general (2020: 7) estimates that the backlog at the initial asylum application stage is seven months, and at the review and appeal stages, one year and sixty-eight years, respectively — all assuming no new asylum applications are received. asylum seekers can wait anywhere between one to ten years to have their claim to asylum finalized, which usually results in final rejection considering the 96% rejection rate (amnesty international, 2019) of asylum applications. south africa’s laws provide for an urban asylum policy as opposed to one of encampment. while an asylum seeker’s claim is being adjudicated, and while a refugee enjoys asylum, they are entitled to live independently. this is evidenced by 1 figures at january 2020. bureaucratic barriers to social protection for refugees and asylum seekers 76 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 their constitutional and statutory rights to freedom of movement2 and to work,3 although for asylum seekers the latter right is no longer automatic and must be ‘endorsed’ on their visas (rsa, 1998 – refugees act, section 22). the effect of the urban policy is that save for appeals to organizations such as the unhcr for aid, refugees and asylum seekers are self-reliant. this is a good thing, but only if selfreliance is possible, which is to say, only if the individual rights afforded to refugees and asylum seekers are realizable. the department of home affairs (dha), which administers the asylum system in south africa, suspended its asylum services at the start of the lockdown. despite its resumption of civic and other immigration services as the lockdown has eased (such as birth registration and visa services for foreign travelers into the country), asylum services remained suspended to 30 september 2021 (dha, 2021). refugee reception offices (rros) are closed: the government cannot field new asylum applications, process and adjudicate pending applications, or properly renew asylum seeker visas.4 under direction of the minister of home affairs, asylum seeker visas and refugee permits which were valid when the national state of disaster was first declared are deemed to remain valid until the dha resumes its asylum services. this is a small comfort as holders of these documents are nonetheless forced to negotiate with incredulous people and institutions (landlords, banks, bosses, etc.) who are unwilling to accept the risk of relying on permits which are, on paper, expired.5 this says nothing of the asylum seekers who had yet to acquire an asylum seeker visa prior to the lockdown, or of the 946,000 asylum seekers (as of january 2017) who may or may not (the dha does not know) still reside in the republic since their permits have expired (auditor-general of south africa, 2020: 6). these latter groups remain undocumented and invisible in the eyes of the state and other institutions (khan and lee, 2018). the situation is untenable in the best of times: in a disaster context it can become literally unlivable (mukumbang et al., 2020). refugee and asylum seeker populations are, on average, more vulnerable to disaster than citizens are. for four out of six covid-19 vulnerability indices identified by statistics south africa, there are proportionally more vulnerable people in migrant populations than in nonmigrant populations. these indices are being 60 years or older, being unemployed, having informal work, and living in informal dwellings (statistics south africa, 2020b). from their already precarious socio-economic positions, it is likely that many refugees and asylum seekers cannot absorb the shock of a health crisis and an economy buckling under a state of disaster. the stakes of social protection are raised during and after a state of disaster. 2 sections 27(b) and 27a(c) of the refugees act 108 of 1998 afford refugees and asylum seekers, respectively, all the rights in the bill of rights which are available to non-citizens. see particularly s21 of the constitution of the republic of south africa (rsa, 1996). 3 for refugees see s27(f) of the refugees act; for asylum seekers see s22 of that act (rsa, 1998). 4 in may 2021 the department of home affairs began extending permits by email request. 5 in 2020 the uct refugee rights clinic assisted approximately 250 refugees and asylum seekers with explanations of the blanket permit extension to employers, banks, and the labour department. 77 inherent in south africa’s legal definition of disaster, is that the disaster event is: … of a magnitude that exceeds the ability of those affected by the disaster to cope with its effects using only their own resources (rsa, 2002a – disaster management act, section 1; emphasis added.) ideally, social protection mechanisms — such as social insurance, social transfers, and legislative protection — would narrow the gap between refugees’ and asylum seekers’ critical needs and their insufficient personal resources. yet this has not been the case during the pandemic. neither social insurance (for example, pay-outs from the unemployment insurance fund) nor social transfers (for example, social relief of distress (srd) cash and food assistance, as well as ordinary social grants) have been entirely forthcoming to refugees and asylum seekers. this is for two reasons. the first is deliberate exclusion by the government of either or both groups from social protection, such as from the srd grant. the second is the crisis of the bureaucratic identification system (including documents, computer systems, and human actors) which hinders access to social protection even when it is legally available. legal access (the extension to refugees and asylum seekers of the right to social protection) and administrative access (the ability to materially exercise that right) are inseparable; the former is useless without the latter. legal access to social protection by refugees and asylum seekers is a tentatively settled issue, mostly so due to the piecemeal victories by civil society challenging regulations in court, both before and during the pandemic.6 for this reason, the larger focus of this paper is on administrative access to social protection. the argument is that the inefficiencies in the asylum documentation and identification system amount to breaches of international, constitutional, and statutory law obligations. although similar arguments could have been made before the pandemic, this paper suggests that the threat and realization of disaster create their own, singular, and immediate obligations, or at least attenuate the existing ones. hence, the conceptual framework is one of disaster preparedness and management over and above the usual framework of socio-economic rights and refugee treaty law. the effect is to raise the legal stakes of the social protection obligation in a manner commensurate with the heightened real-world stakes by reframing asylum bureaucracy as an essential service and critical disaster preparedness and management infrastructure. the intention is to revive attention to the asylum system not simply as mundane, routine government administration but as a crucial, life-saving mechanism. social protection is just one demonstration of the power and necessity of a functioning asylum administration. 6 see khosa and others v minister of social development and others; mahlaule and others v minister of social development and others 2004 (6) sa 505 (cc), and scalabrini centre and another v minister of social development and others 2021 (1) sa 553 (gp) discussed in this paper. bureaucratic barriers to social protection for refugees and asylum seekers 78 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 documentation, identification and the crisis of asylum bureaucracy recruitment processes for domestic workers asylum is a form of international protection afforded to persons whose home states are unwilling or unable to protect them (unga, 1951, art 1(a)). the protection relationship between host state and refugee is primarily determined by the refugee’s need for protection on the one hand, and by the host state’s ability to provide that protection, on the other. however, in practical terms, the controlling, decisive force which actually produces the protection/unprotection is the bureaucratic asylum system. no matter the greatness of the need for protection, nor the magnanimity of the state’s offer to protect, in the contemporary state everything turns ultimately on a piece of paper, a computer system, and a civil servant. in south africa, asylum bureaucracy is hindering the protection of refugees. the focus of this paper is the failed system of asylum documentation and identification. the type of bureaucracy at issue here is generally called ‘identity management’, a term used to describe the systems and protocols for the collection, storage, maintenance, and accessibility of identity registers. in south africa identity management has a history of prejudice and exclusion: in fact, it was apartheid minister hendrik verwoerd’s grand, modern vision of universal and all-encompassing identity registers and passes (the infamous dompas) which allowed the state to exercise control over the native black population by limiting freedom of movement, undermining security of tenure, and exposing black africans to constant surveillance and threat of detention (breckenridge, 2005). today the vision of a universal population register remains, as in the proposed draft official identity management policy (dha, 2020a), but less as a means of control and more as a means of enabling effective governance. in the modern bureaucratic state, identity documents are essential to access education, banking, employment, housing, and to register births of children. as boshoff (2016: 44) puts it, identity documents are “needed for every kind of public transaction imaginable” and legitimates claims to rights. the identity document mediates the personhood of the individual in its interaction with the state (boshoff, 2016: 44). without one, a person is unrecognizable, illegible in the eyes of the state and the consequences are dire. an additional proposition made in this paper is that in the production of civil identity, some documents are marginalizing asylum documents, even if duly possessed, and act as tools of exclusion. the struggle to access asylum documents in south africa can be demonstrated through a series of cases undertaken against the dha, the government department responsible for the issuance of these documents. in kiliko and others v the minister of home affairs and others 2006 (4) sa 114 (c), and tafira and others v ngozwane and others, 12 december 2006, unreported, case no. 12960/06, the high court in the western cape and gauteng, respectively, held that the dha did not adequately capacitate the rros, hence denying access for refugees to asylum, leaving them undocumented and vulnerable to arrest and deportation. in kiliko, one of the first cases dealing with the right to documentation, the court at paragraph 7 explained 79 the significance of the right to documentation appropriately thus stating: until an asylum seeker obtains an asylum-seeker permit in terms of s 22 of the refugees act, he or she remains an illegal foreigner and, as such, subject to the restrictions, limitations and inroads enumerated in the preceding paragraph, which, self-evidently, impact deleteriously upon or threaten to so impact upon, at least, his or her human dignity and the freedom and security of his or her person. another significant policy decision was the decision to close the rros across south africa, which resulted in deterrence from the asylum system. in almost every city where this happened, litigation was launched to challenge this decision. in minister of home affairs and others v somali association of south africa eastern cape and another 2015 (3) sa 545 (sca), and scalabrini centre, cape town and others v minister of home affairs and others 2018 (4) sa 125 (sca) the supreme court of appeal ordered that the decision by the dha to close the port elizabeth rro and the cape town rro in order to reduce the presence of refugees in the major metropolitan areas and move them to the borders, was declared unlawful and ordered to reopen. only in 2019 did the port elizabeth office reopen while the cape town office remains closed to new applications. consequently, refugees can only make new asylum applications in durban, pretoria, musina, and port elizabeth, thus restricting access to the asylum system. with the additional closure of the johannesburg rro, the durban and pretoria rros had indicated that they had been unable to cope with the number of applicants since the closure of the three rros (enca, 2013). after judgment in 2015, only in 2019 did the port elizabeth office reopen, with human rights lawyers reporting backlogs for applications of asylum of up to a year. in 2016 the dha closed the tshwane interim rro, one of only two in pretoria (amnesty international, 2019: 22). the cape town rro remains closed to new applications, while the western cape high court has in 2021 ordered the dha’s compliance with the 2018 scalabrini order under the continual supervision of a judge (scalabrini centre, cape town and others v minister of home affairs and others, 18 may 2021, unreported, case no. 7687/18). after the closure of the three rros, the dha decided to not allow asylum seekers to renew their permits at rros other than at the office of the first application. litigation ensued in the cape town high court in a v director-general of the department of home affairs and others (7705/2013) [2015] zawchc 131 (27 february 2015) and nbaya and others v director general of home affairs, unreported, case no. 6534 /15, which held that the cape town rro must renew all asylum permits regardless of the office of the first application. the applicants had been unable to afford to travel to renew their permits, and remained on expired documents despite making their homes elsewhere in south africa, some for up to 7 years. to date, many still have been unable to renew their permits and face the bureaucratic barriers to social protection for refugees and asylum seekers 80 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 risk of arrest and deportation (washinyira, 2021). this practice compels the affected refugees to live only near the city where they first applied, thereby curbing their freedom of movement. it has also meant that refugees in these categories have only managed to remain documented because of legal intervention. in 2013, the dha introduced a requirement that asylum permits would be extended no more than twelve times. this practice was introduced even though asylum permit extensions are done at the behest of the dha. this arbitrary practice left many asylum seekers with expired documents and formed the basis of bahamboula and others v minister of home affairs and others 2014 (9) bclr 1021 (wcc). after the case was launched by the university of cape town (uct) refugee rights clinic, the 316 applicants were documented, and the practice withdrawn. in mwamba and others v the department of home affairs and others, unreported, case no 14820/15, the practice of the dha to leave refugees undocumented whilst the dha conducted investigations into irregularities picked up on its computer system (regarding fingerprinting, identity photographs, duplication of files or other administrative errors) was challenged. once again, large numbers of refugees were left undocumented and only legal intervention led to the abandonment of the practice. the practice however returned in early 2019.7 these cases demonstrate that despite having the legal right to documentation, refugees are failing to access these documents due in large part to various ad hoc administrative practices at the dha. these restrictive and exclusionary policies and practices have contributed towards the creation of a mass population of hidden and undocumented refugees and asylum seekers, which forces many to remain in the country undocumented and unprotected (khan and lee, 2018). how are we to begin thinking about this state of affairs? it is not enough to identify rights on the one hand and the breach thereof on another: we must understand what lies between the two. strictly legal analyses are insufficient, so we turn to sociology and anthropology to diagnose the problem and offer a new (or revised) solution. one way of analyzing the (in)adequacy of services intended for refugees is with street-level bureaucracy theory. according to this theory, the analytic lens is directed at the organizations tasked with implementing social policies, and specifically at the workers who come into direct contact with clients who are the recipients of service. by examining the day-to-day work of public and private human service agencies, or street-level organizations, street-level theory seeks to explain how social policies take shape at this intersection of worker and client. drawing on the work of lipsky (1980), brodkin and marston (2013), and others, the street-level framework draws attention to both the formal dimension of social policy, which provides the parameters for street-level work, and the informal dimension, in which street-level workers give meaning to the formal policy through their everyday work. street-level theory assumes that workers will respond to the constraints and 7 experience from the uct refugee rights unit. 81 opportunities created by the organizational context in which they are embedded by using their discretion to make practice-choices in their work with clients. these discretionary choices are adaptive responses to a particular organizational context, which is made up of the unique set of resources, incentives, and demands within the street-level organization (darrow, 2015). ultimately, informal policy is (re) created at the street-level when workers use their discretion in both authorized and unauthorized ways in order to adapt to their organizational context, and when these adaptive practices become routine (darrow, 2015). the issue of the documentation of refugees in south africa has been described by amit and kriger in terms of the ‘street-level organizational approach’, which emphasizes how administrative practices, including those relating to documentation, shape politics and create policy (amit and kriger, 2014). the essence of the streetlevel organizational approach is the recognition that administrative practices may determine who gets access to organizational benefits and who is excluded (amit and kriger, 2014). these practices are often hidden from public view, and thus tend to be less transparent than legislative processes that are conducted in the open (brodkin and marston, 2013) indeed, as hoag (2010) suggests, due to poor funding and poor communication practices, there are perceptions of ‘magic’ (inscrutability and unpredictability) between the public and the dha workers, and the dha workers with their superiors. the work of asylum administration is mired in confusion, miscommunication, and suspicion between all parties (hoag, 2010). while our position is critical of asylum administrators, it is not fair to suggest that they work in perfect conditions and should therefore produce perfect outcomes. importantly, the street-level approach does not assume that administrative exclusion, the denial of benefits to those who are eligible, is necessarily the product of intentions (amit and kriger, 2014). instead, it highlights how administrative exclusion often occurs due to the work practices, intentional or not, employed by those who interpret and apply eligibility criteria as they adjudicate claims for benefits. administrators are caught in a volatile “double relationship” (kalir and van schendel, 2017) between their superiors and their clients, in a severely constrained working environment, and through non-uniform decisions become part of the system that results in non-recorded, illegible asylum seekers or refugees. around the time of writing this article, the dha began renewing asylum seeker and refugee permits online via email while its asylum offices remained closed to the public during the lockdown. in theory this could solve the pre-pandemic problems of long queues at rros and costs of having to return to the office of first application. what remains to be seen is whether access to renewal in this manner will be equitable, as the poorest refugees and asylum seekers may not have access to internet data, computers/cell-phones or their own email address, or the technical knowledge of how to use these resources. bureaucratic barriers to social protection for refugees and asylum seekers 82 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 the ‘ordinary’ time and law of access to social protection in this section we introduce the ordinary socio-economic rights and equality paradigm used to argue for access by refugees and asylum seekers to social protection. while no standard definition exists for social protection, its elements are easily identified. it usually comprises contributory schemes (social insurance such as unemployment insurance), non-contributory schemes (social transfers or assistance such as distress relief grants, child maintenance grants, etc.), labor market schemes (such as basic conditions of employment legislation or public works programs) and social care services (such as children’s homes and safe houses) (carter et al., 2019). differing views exist on the exact purpose of social protection, particularly in developing countries, but the main explanations are that it addresses social risks, responds to basic needs, or implements basic human rights (barrientos and hulme, 2009). while these different purposes might explain different structures of social protection schemes across the world, for the purpose of arguing for the expansion of social protection, risks, basic needs, and human rights are confluent considerations. although our analysis proceeds from legal rights, notions of social risk and need are also indispensable, particularly in the disaster context. the legal argument for equal access to social protection mechanisms is typically founded in the constitutional rights to equality (s9), human dignity (s10) and access to social security (s27(1)(c)) (rsa, 1996). these rights apply to ‘everyone’ (rsa 1998 – refugees act section s27a(c)), not only to citizens, and so apply to asylum seekers. dignity, equality, and social security are the recurring legal motifs of social protection cases discussed in this paper. they tend to flow into one another. an argument that a certain group has a right to social security will naturally produce an equality argument if that group is excluded. the unfair discrimination argument itself relies on there being some affront to human dignity before ‘discrimination’ can be proven over mere differentiation (khosa and others v minister of social development and others; mahlaule and others v minister of social development and others 2004 (6) sa 505 (cc)). and finally, the relationship between dignity and protection from abject poverty (and hence access to socio-economic rights) is both obvious and legally recognised in minister of home affairs and others v watchenuka and others 2004 (4) sa 326 (sca). together the trifecta forms what we could call the ordinary legal argument for ensuring that refugees and asylum seekers, and noncitizens more broadly, have access to social protection. the constitutional provisions governing equal access to social security can be read as domestic expressions of south africa’s international law obligations both under the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (icescr) (unga, 1966) and the united nations convention relating to the status of refugees (hereafter the un refugee convention) (unga, 1951). south africa is a state party to both. article 9 of the icescr states that: 83 the states parties to the present covenant recognize the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance. this was also expressed in the universal declaration of human rights (unga, 1948), arts 22 and 25(1), which latter article provides that: everyone has … the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control (emphasis added). as the united nations economic and social council’s general comment (ecosoc, 2008: para 4) on the right to social security confirms, the phrase ‘social security’ should be interpreted widely to include not only social security in the strictest sense of contributory security, but also non-contributory social assistance. in addition, the un refugee convention, in articles 23 and 24(1)(b), obliges state parties to “… accord to refugees lawfully staying in their territory the same treatment with respect to public relief and assistance as is accorded to their nationals” and “in respect of social security” which includes legal provisions in respect of unemployment. these international instruments which oblige south africa to provide access to social security/assistance mechanisms, equally between nationals and refugees, thus find domestic expression in the constitutional rights to equality and social security. together with the right to dignity, these rights ground the ordinary legal argument for equal access to social security and assistance. as case examples we outline two illustrative social protection mechanisms, one contributory (unemployment insurance), and one non-contributory (distress relief grants). these are to demonstrate how the ordinary legal argument operates in the ‘ordinary’ time, so that the argument can be tested against the extreme circumstances of the time of disaster. the proposition is that while ordinary discourses of equality and socio-economic rights are laudable and generative, a disaster-oriented approach to the issue of asylum documentation should be used to complement and ‘speed-up’ the achievement of a sound and just asylum administration. the social protection mechanisms in south africa relevant to this paper have two main sources, namely the unemployment insurance act 63 of 2001 (rsa, 2001) and the social assistance act 13 of 2004 (rsa, 2004) and their respective regulations. the unemployment insurance act the unemployment insurance act (uia) establishes the unemployment insurance fund (uif), as outlined in section 4. its stated purpose is “to alleviate the harmful economic and social effects of unemployment” (section 2) by allowing employees who are contributors to the fund to receive compensation in the event of their unemployment or their inability to work due to illness, maternity leave, parental bureaucratic barriers to social protection for refugees and asylum seekers 84 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 responsibility, or child adoption responsibility. contributions to the fund are mandatory for both employers and employees, as stipulated in the unemployment insurance contributions act, sections 5 and 7 (rsa, 2002b) and all contributors have a right to receive compensation from the fund (rsa, 2001: section 12). compulsory contribution coupled with compulsory entitlements render the uif a strong form of social protection for those in the ambit of its cover. however, when it comes to refugees and asylum seekers, that ambit is not very broad. the uia applies to relations between an ‘employer’ and an ‘employee’ who make registered contributions to the fund. yet due to existing barriers to access the formal employment sector such as untrusted documentation, complete lack of documentation, and xenophobic sentiment, many refugees and asylum seekers find themselves pushed to the margins of employment in precarious and informal work (smit and rugunanan, 2014). these workers do not ordinarily contribute to the fund (such is the nature of informality) and so are not entitled to its benefits. in addition to informal employment, refugees and asylum seekers may turn to independent trading, which in addition to being extremely difficult and even dangerous (crush et al., 2017), also does not afford them unemployment insurance. in sum, the uif may not be able to protect the poorer and more precarious among the refugee and asylum seeker populations; nevertheless, it is a strong form of social protection for those under its cover. the administration of the uif produced an important pre-pandemic case study on access to social protection in the matters of saddiq v department of labour, unreported, case no. eq04/2017 in the equality court at vereeniging, and musanga and others v minister of labour, unreported, case no. 29994/18 in the high court at pretoria – two unreported but consequential cases. both cases dealt with the fact that asylum-seeker employees who had contributed to the fund were unable to claim compensation due to the nature of their documentation. the computer system could not recognize applicants’ asylum seeker permits as valid forms of documentation. neither case produced a court judgment (the department of labour in each case conceded to all material arguments and the applicants’ relief was granted), but the effect of the court orders in each case was to compel the department of labour to recognize asylum-seeker documents for the purpose of compensating uif contributors. although we do not have the benefit of court dicta, the applicants’ and respondents’ arguments as detailed in a recent case note (singo, 2020) on musanga are illustrative of how cases of exclusion from social protection are being formulated and structured in legal argument. in musanga the applicants sought a declaration of constitutional invalidity of uia regulations and department of labour practices which (inadvertently or otherwise) prevented asylum-seeker contributors to the fund from claiming their compensation. they proposed the ordinary legal argument based on the constitutional rights to human dignity, equality and to access to social security (singo, 2020: 410–413). the respondents responded evasively. firstly, they argued 85 that instead of approaching the court, the applicants should have first exhausted internal departmental appeal processes — to which the applicants countered that this was a challenge to regulations and not simply an appeal of a decision (singo, 2020: 413). secondly, respondents argued that the department of labour had already begun corrective amendments and measures to the law and practice — to which applicants countered that such promises had been made for a decade prior with no progress (singo, 2020: 415). finally, respondents argued that the appropriate remedy was for the minister to utilize a “deeming provision” in the uia to deem asylum seekers as “contributors” within the definition of the act — to which applicants countered that asylum seekers already are contributors to the fund, and to “deem” them as such would be logically impossible (singo, 2020: 415–417). merely deeming asylum seekers as contributors would also not itself remedy the technical barrier in the system which did not allow for identity numbers other than the 13-digit south african ones. observe here how, in the face of judicial scrutiny and an argument made on socio-economic rights, the state actors in the matter chose not to engage at all with the ordinary legal argument on its terms. no arguments were made, for example, as to the justifiable limitation of the rights to equality or social security, or as to the reasonableness of the limited access to the fund. instead, the state sought to reframe the issue as one entirely within the state’s domain through the notions of internal appeals, internal policies, and ministerial deeming provisions. ultimately the respondents conceded to the application and an order of constitutional invalidity was granted. in february 2020 the uia regulations were amended to conform to the order and allow all refugees and asylum-seeker claimants to submit claims (dol, 2020). that was before the pandemic. during the pandemic, the situation did not improve. neither the uif nor the government’s coronavirus temporary employment relief scheme (ters), paid from the fund to employees whose wages had been diminished by the lockdown, were wholly accessible to refugees and asylum seekers. though the measures themselves did not specifically exclude asylum seekers or refugees, their administrative systems were indirectly exclusionary. despite musanga, refugees and asylum seekers were unable to make applications for ters or uif due to the failures in the online application system. the department of labour's system excluded refugees (without identity numbers) and all asylum seekers as the online application system only recognised the 13-digit id numbers of south african citizens, permanent residents and those recognised refugees possessing a 13-digit id document. refugees and asylum seekers who could not access or receive the pay-outs were not provided with any information as to how the issue should or would be resolved. bureaucrats and administrators were not equipped with information to explain why the system would reject applications from applicants who did not have a 13-digit id number.8 nor were they able to provide alternative methods for rectifying this. 8 experience from practice in the uct refugee rights unit. bureaucratic barriers to social protection for refugees and asylum seekers 86 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 after the initial hiccup, the dol requested persons who could not make applications online, i.e., those without a 13-digit id, to approach a dol office in person. the uct refugee rights clinic reported long delays and few responses from the department, which created further delays in receiving relief. in addition to this, the clinic reported that refugees and asylum seekers who were able to approach dol offices were turned away for expired permits. this is despite the directives by the department of home affairs to extend the permits by operation of the law (dha, 2020b). officials at the department of labour lacked information and thus excluded asylum seekers and refugees or wanted legal authority to confirm the current state of expired permits. ‘verification’ of asylum documents is a recurring barrier. even when asylum documents are accepted, the dol insists on verifying the veracity and validity of the documents with the dha. yet the dha’s asylum services have been closed for the entirety of the pandemic. the dha’s identity management systems are not integrated, nor are they currently always accessible by other government departments, either directly or through correspondence with the dha. extraordinary waiting periods for verification of documents were observed even before the pandemic (rosenkranz, 2013). during the pandemic, the systems infrastructure was simply not capable of functioning to ensure that refugees and asylum seekers were protected. this is over and above the general system incapacity at the uif, even for south african citizens — by november 2020 it was backlogged by 440,000 emails while its call centre’s staff of 40 managed around 77,000 calls per day (business insider sa, 2020). observe also how an effective social insurance mechanism may be exclusionary at both ends due to documentation: firstly, it hampers access even to the opportunity to qualify for benefits (by channeling insufficiently documented people into informal work); and secondly, it hampers access for those who do have a sure claim on social security. the social assistance act terminologically, social assistance refers to support from the state, which is not contingent upon a person making any contributions or having employment. south africa provides several grants which are governed by the social assistance act (rsa, 2004), including child support, disability, and older person’s grants. the act’s 1992 predecessor was subject to a constitutional challenge in a landmark case on socioeconomic rights — the matter of khosa and others v minister of social development and others 2004 (6) sa 505 (cc). in that case the constitutional court held that a provision in the social assistance act of 1992 that only south african citizens are eligible for certain social grants, was unconstitutional. since section 27(1)(c) of the constitution (rsa, 1996) affords ‘everyone’ the right to social assistance, the act could not in that case exclude permanent residents from eligibility. mokgoro j’s judgment reasoned through the ordinary argument, based explicitly on the rights to social security and equality, and with regular reference to dignity. in the wake of the 87 judgment, the social assistance regulations regularly stated that a person is eligible for a grant who “is a south african citizen, permanent resident or a refugee’ (dsd, 2008 as amended in 2012). at the advent of the pandemic, the government announced the provision of a social relief of distress (srd) grant to those in desperate need because of the pandemic and lockdown (dsd, 2020a). the srd would take the form initially of food parcels, and then a r350 cash payment. the dsd, through its subsidiary social assistance security agency (sassa) were responsible for its provision. both forms of the srd were problematic. the criteria for the food parcels did not limit provision to citizens only but did not specifically include refugees and asylum seekers either. the dsd workers, however, without authority, required persons to produce a 13-digit id book to register for a food parcel. the uct refugee clinic received many reports from undocumented and documented asylum seekers being unable to access food parcels without a 13-digit id document. the exclusionary practice drew the censure of the human rights watch (2020). persons being forced to rely on food parcels are probably some of the most vulnerable persons affected by the lockdown regulations, and yet front-line officials prevented access to such a service merely based on documentation. the srd cash payment, announced toward the end of april 2020, was a temporary provision of assistance intended for persons in such dire material need that they are unable to meet their families' most basic needs. the directions for the payment of this grant limited payment to “south african citizens, permanent residents or refugees registered on the home affairs database” (dsd, 2020). on an urgent basis, the directions were challenged in the high court case of scalabrini centre cape town and another v minister of social development and others 2021 (1) sa 553 (gp). in this case the ordinary argument was presented to the court: the directions infringed the rights to social assistance, equality, and dignity. the court accepted the argument on all accounts. its short and principled judgment makes explicit the interrelatedness of those rights, which “cannot be overemphasised” (paragraph 40) and which the state needs to bear in mind. the order was for the dsd to extend srd eligibility to special permit holders and asylum seekers whose permits were valid at 15 march 2020, the date of the declaration of the state of national disaster. considering the tens of thousands of asylum seekers resident in south africa, this judgment is a significant victory. yet by its nature a court victory is only a partial one. the court must respond to the circumstances before it and not make grand, sweeping orders. as such the court narrowed its reasoning to the pandemic, as the irrationality of the exclusion of asylum seekers to financial assistance only arose in this specific context. in other, non-emergency times, such exclusion may have been a reasonable limitation of the social assistance right. the court also limited eligibility to asylum seekers who had valid documents at the start of the pandemic — but as has been discussed, the bureaucratic barriers to social protection for refugees and asylum seekers 88 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 asylum administration system has failed to adequately document the true extent of the asylum-seeker population. it must be noted that issues arose in accessing grants that refugees already had access to. refugees whose permits expired during the lockdown struggled to have the social grants paid out to them by the dsd due to their expired permits. this was despite the directive extending the permits of refugees. the uct refugee rights unit reported that recipients who queried why they were not receiving their grants were not given a clear answer but rather told to contact the department of home affairs, who is responsible for the issuance of refugee documentation. with the dha closed, refugees were unable to resolve the issue themselves. the refugee rights unit, after consulting with clients who were unable to receive their grants, contacted the dsd and discovered that various state departments were unaware or had no communication with the dha regarding the fact that they were closed and that they had extended the permits by operation of law.9 documents and disaster time at this rate, the provision of social protection to refugees and asylum seekers will remain woefully deficient indefinitely. the availability of generous international law protections and justiciable constitutional rights, while crucial, is not likely ever to be enough to repair the system on all fronts, immediately, and at every level. socioeconomic rights need only be progressively realized (rsa, 1996: section 27(2)) and in any case the courts have neither the authority nor the capacity to affect change to the system as a whole. the practical exercise of the ordinary legal argument for equal access to social protection is generally reactive rather than proactive, and piecemeal rather than complete. by the time disaster strikes, time has already run out: something else is needed. in this final section we begin to recast the asylum administration system as a critical disaster preparedness and management infrastructure, and an essential service. the effect is that, firstly, the national government has an immediate and urgent obligation to remedy the deficiencies in the system, and in a state of national disaster may not cease asylum administration operations. for this proposition we follow bowker et al.’s (2010: 98) definition of infrastructure as “pervasive enabling resources in network form”. this definition expands the understanding of infrastructure from the traditional brick-and-mortar forms to include systems, protocols, and human actors. in this sense the entire asylum administration — including the computer systems, civil servants, rros, and, crucially, the documents — are seen as system infrastructure which enable the protection of refugees and asylum seekers. the reason for recasting asylum administration as an infrastructure is to ensure that the integrity of the system is prioritized, properly funded, maintained and protected both before and during a national disaster, in the same way, for instance, that healthcare infrastructure would be. in the parlance of disaster management, this is ‘emergency preparedness’, which 9 experience from practice in the uct refugee rights unit. 89 is defined in the disaster management act (rsa, 2002a: section 1) as: … a state of readiness which enables organs of state and other institutions involved in disaster management, the private sector, communities and individuals to mobilise, organise and provide relief measures to deal with an impending or current disaster or the effects of a disaster. the national government is responsible for the management of national disasters, whether or not a disaster has been declared (rsa, 2002a: section 26(1)). each organ of state must have a disaster preparedness plan and co-ordinate with other organs of state in its implementation (rsa, 2002a: section 25). the disaster management centre is obligated to do … all that is necessary (section 14) … [to] promote an integrated and coordinated system of disaster management, with special emphasis on prevention and mitigation, by national, provincial and municipal organs of state, statutory functionaries, other role players involved in disaster management and communities (rsa, 2002a: section 9). what we have here is a co-operative system of disaster management actors — beyond simply the dha — which has a better chance of properly equipping the asylum administration for a disaster situation. it is suggested that by reframing asylum management in disaster management terms, a more sophisticated, accountable, and urgent government response to its failures could emerge. a failure of asylum administration is not merely a failure, but a disaster-in-waiting. similarly, we propose that when disaster strikes, the asylum administration should not cease operations. during the lockdown certain ‘essential services’ were still allowed to function (cogta, 2020c: chapter 2). the labour relations act (rsa, 1995) defines an essential service in its section 213 as, … a service the interruption of which endangers the life, personal safety or health of the whole or any part of the population. when the dha suspended its asylum services, thereby rendering asylum seekers unable to lodge applications, or for permits to be properly extended, or for permits to be verified by other state departments, it placed in danger the entire refugee and asylum-seeker population which is reliant on proper documentation to access social protection and other services. for some, this literally meant the difference between having food to eat or not any at all. surely this amounts to an interruption which endangers life? it is inconceivable that an already-failing system could simply suspend operations when that system was most needed to ensure people’s survival. expressing the problem in disaster management terms is not a panacea, nor on bureaucratic barriers to social protection for refugees and asylum seekers 90 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 2, may-aug 2021 the other hand should this paper be read to argue that international and constitutional law rights are wholly inadequate. what is proposed is that the state view asylum management not only in strictly legal, human rights terms (which have not yet been enough to ensure proper administration), but also as a pressing obligation to reduce disaster risks now. this is due to the unique centrality of identity management to relief efforts. even if the argument for inclusion of asylum management in disaster management discourse is not accepted, nevertheless the argument is provocative and should, in any case, act as a shock to revive south africa’s political will to protect refugees. conclusion this paper addressed the state of refugees and asylum seekers during the covid-19 pandemic and their status with respect to social protection during the covid-19 pandemic. the picture is dismaying. decades of asylum maladministration have excluded asylum seekers and refugees from protection when it is most needed. this is exemplified by the case studies of the uif and social relief of distress grant before and/or during the pandemic. south africa is a long way away from fulfilling its international and constitutional law obligations to provide equal access to social protection. as the pandemic has shown, the consequence of maladministration, particularly in identity management, is devastating: the “unspoken inequality” (mukumbang et al., 2020) in bureaucratic treatment of refugees and asylum seekers can deprive them of the basic necessities of life. it is hoped that reframing asylum administration as a critical disaster readiness infrastructure and essential service could galvanize the profound changes required to protect these vulnerable groups and ensure their protection is elevated in priority. 91 references amit, r. and kriger, n. 2014. making migrants ‘il-legible’: the policies and practices of documentation in post-apartheid south africa. available at: http://ref. scielo.org/66wpv6 accessed on 20 may 2021. amnesty international. 2019. living in limbo: rights of asylum seekers denied. available at: 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for refugees and asylum seekers african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1674 living on the fringes of life and death: somali migrants, risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia in cape town pineteh e. angu abstract since the 2008 attacks on african migrants, xenophobic violence has become a form of social agency for responding to increasing unemployment, destitution and crime in south africa. africans living and operating businesses in urban and peri-urban areas are now objects of different forms of social violence, as they are repeatedly blamed for unfulfilled political promises by the anc-led government. one of most victimised african migrant communities is the somali community, whose business activities in cities and townships are perceived as undesirable threats to locals’ sources of livelihood. this article uses qualitative data collected from 30 somali migrants in bellville and khayelitsha, cape town to examine how somalis’ co-existence with south africans and their business tactics in cape town intersect to influence xenophobic violence. it explores the relationship between risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia, and the threats that this relationship poses to somali lives. finally, it analyses south africans’ strategies to force somalis out of townships and how somalis’ existential resistance to these strategies positions them on the fringes of life and death. keywords: african diaspora, displacement, risky entrepreneurship, xenophobia. “everybody just arrives in our townships and rural areas and set up business without licences and permits. we are going to bring this to an end! and those who are operating illegally must now know” (president cyril ramaphosa – election campaign 2019). introduction recent narratives about xenophobia in south africa focus on the porousness of south african borders and “a subtle invasion of south african territory” by illegal aliens from other african countries (vigneswaran, 2007: 144; comaroff and comaroff, 2002). as transnational migrants continue to challenge forms  university of pretoria. email: pineteh.angu@up.ac.za mailto:pineteh.angu@up.ac.za angu, p.e. 1675 of citizenship, belonging and statecraft in south africa, political populism now constructs this imaginary territorial invasion by africans as a potential threat to south africa’s national security and sovereignty. this is because migration, legal or illegal, has been repeatedly blamed for high levels of poverty, joblessness and crime as well as poor service delivery in south africa (nyamnjoh, 2007; pineteh, 2018). in cape town townships and elsewhere, locals have repeatedly attributed these social pathologies to the proliferation of somali businesses and the resultant contestation over business spaces. despite the success of south african businesses in townships, the expansion of somali businesses in these areas has led to unhealthy business rivalry between locals and somalis. here, we see both parties employing different tactics to eliminate competitors and to remain at the centre of business activities. for example, south africans are now resorting to autochthony tropes of citizenship to express their “exclusive entitlements to space, property and state resources”, especially during xenophobic attacks (pineteh, 2018: 5; dassah, 2015). the evocation of autochthonous citizenship disregards the fact that “transnational migration has led to new forms of citizenship and belonging that can no longer be ignored by states and their citizens” (pineteh, 2018: 5). nevertheless, somali migrants continue to live on the fringes of life and death as they do business in townships, especially as calls for non-citizens to be expelled continue to dominate conversations about state transformation in post-apartheid south africa (charman and piper, 2012; nyamnjoh, 2007; pineteh, 2018; thompson, 2016). in 2015, as part of the african humanities program (ahp) of the american council of learned societies (acls), i conducted a narrative study of the xenophobic experiences of somali migrants in cape town. this article emerges out of, and uses empirical evidence gleaned during this broader study. it uses qualitative data to examine how somalis’ co-existence with south africans and their business tactics in cape town intersect to influence xenophobic violence. it explores the relationship between risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia and the threats that this relationship poses to somali lives. the article argues that as south africans continue to deploy different strategies such as violent attacks, burning and looting of shops, and killings to force somalis out of townships, somalis will always devise new ways to resist the attacks and to continue doing business in these townships. in african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1676 finding novel ways to resist and circumvent xenophobic attacks, somalis find themselves living on the fringes of life and death. to tease out the relationship between xenophobia and risky entrepreneurship, this article firstly provides a brief literature overview of transnationalism, african migrants and xenophobia in south africa, and it describes the somali community in cape town. secondly, it explains the data collection methods and discusses how somali business strategies and their responses to xenophobia position them on the fringes of life and death in cape town. transnationalism, somali entrepreneurship and xenophobia in south africa to understand the exilic experiences of african migrants and the complex patterns of xenophobia in post-apartheid south africa, i frame this article around conceptions of transnationalism. here, i position particularly somali experiences as “interactions between agents, transnational networks, structures of opportunity and constraints, and the production and circulation of power as seen through discourses of difference” (smith and bailey, 2004: 358). these conceptions of transnationalism help us to understand the “geographies of migrant life and livelihood”, and how migrants’ sense of belonging transcends territorial boundaries (thompson, 2015: 121). like other african transnational migrants, somalis social existence in south africa is constantly influenced by different agents including state institutions, political figures and local citizens on the one hand, and by their own strong networks on the other. these networks include close-knit relationships in south africa and somalia as well as with other somali communities around the world (jones, 2010; pineteh, 2018; vertovec, 2004). these networks provide different support structures for old and new somali migrants and for business ventures. this has contributed significantly to somali business expansion in cape town, which forges interactions with different agents in south africa resulting in the display and interplay of different power dynamics and forms of resistance. for carling (2008:1453), this display of power and resistance stems from the “multi-faceted nature of the relationship, with migrants and non-migrants experiencing vulnerability and ascendancy at different times and in different contexts”. during xenophobic violence, this multi-faceted angu, p.e. 1677 relationship plays out in the form of reactions and counter-reactions as locals try to reclaim business spaces in townships. here, incendiary narratives, particularly from locals, have been subverted by counter-narratives that recognize somalis’ rights to belong and acknowledge the contributions of somali businesses to south africa’s economic growth (see gastrow and amit, 2013; pineteh, 2018). because locals’ attempts to get rid of perceived noncitizens or outsiders in resource-constrained communities are countered by narratives of inclusivity, “violence becomes a form of agency” in these communities (von holdt and alexander, 2012: 106). therefore, any form of violence or protest action against somali businesses in townships places somali migrants on the fringes of life and death. in this context, i use the concept of transnationalism to mean “the daily lives, activities and social relationships of migrants” and how they intersect with those of non-migrants to influence xenophobic violence (schiller et al., 1992: 5). i frame this article around transnationalism, not only because somalis’ activities and transnational networks or cross-border business transactions have contributed to their business dominance in south africa (carling, 2008; schiller et al., 1992), but also because “transnational activities flourish in highly concentrated communities, especially those that have been subjected to a hostile reception by the host society’s authorities and citizenry” (portes, 2003: 880). here, i try to argue that the growth of somali business clusters in areas such as bellville and khayelitsha in cape town and the ensuing multifaceted transnational activities respond to the alienation of african migrants in south africa. conversely, these business clusters and growing transnational activities drive xenophobia because they are imagined as migrants’ attempts to usurp spaces that naturally belong to autochthons (gastrow and amit, 2013; pineteh, 2018). in this light, as xenophobic violence threatens the lives of somali migrants, their “transnational cultural activities and civic associations offer a source of solace against external hostility, and protect personal dignities…” (portes, 2003: 880). drawing on these tenets of transnationalism, studies on african transnational migrants have focused on their sources of livelihood, imagined threats to the social wellbeing of citizens and xenophobia in post-apartheid south africa (see for example klotz, 2016; landau, 2011; pineteh, 2018). the upsurge in these studies is attributed to the incendiary narratives about illegal migration and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1678 recurrent attacks of particularly african migrants in major south african cities and townships since 2008. the culture of xenophobia in the new south africa is also inflamed by preoccupations with “autochthonous forms of citizenship which often neglect africa’s social formations of mobility and inclusiveness” (boas and dunn, 2013:12; geschiere, 2009). in the context of south africa, many of these studies explain how the notion of ‘origin’ is constantly used by those who claim to be daughters and sons of the soil to reject the judiciary rights of african migrants to belong. here, increasing political rhetoric of autochthonous citizenship engenders the construction of “a state nationalism that is exclusionary and discriminatory”, especially in a south africa with widening inequality gaps and competition over scarce resources (lecours and moreno, 2010: 128). these counter-democratic practices blame the miseries of south africans on porous borders and the influx of african migrants. studies such as those by pineteh (2017), landau (2011) and hassim et al. (2008) have therefore argued that xenophobic tendencies are influenced partly by perceptions that migrants, especially those from the african continent, are illegal parasites, criminals and undeserving beneficiaries. as locals reimagined the post-apartheid state as belonging to autochthons only and continue to lay claims to public spaces and state resources, some of the studies on xenophobia seek to understand and theorize the uneasy relationship between immigrant entrepreneurship and xenophobia (charman and piper, 2012; charman et al., 2012; grant and thompson, 2015). they explore the business rivalry between migrants and locals, highlighting the “complex milieus in which immigrant business practices and xenophobia mutually shape each other” (grant and thompson, 2015: 244). at the centre of this business rivalry between africans and locals are somalis and other migrants from the horn of africa because they have penetrated and set up businesses in some of the most hostile urban and peri-urban areas in south africa. these studies therefore argued that operating businesses in these spaces positions somalis and other migrants as prime targets during xenophobic violence (see charman and piper, 2012; grant and thompson, 2015; pineteh, 2018; thompson, 2016). despite the significantly high numbers of somali murders and equally significant capital losses in the form of goods and cash during violent attacks on foreign businesses, we are yet to angu, p.e. 1679 see a decline in somali businesses in those volatile spaces (jinnah, 2010; piper and yu, 2016; thompson, 2016). somali community in cape town the somali population in cape town has increased exponentially over the years, and this population includes predominantly asylum seekers and refugees. it is, however, difficult to determine the exact number because of inaccurate and often obfuscating south african department of home affairs (sadha) data on asylum seekers and refugees in south africa (landau, 2010; pineteh, 2018). the increase is matched diametrically by an upsurge in somali business activities in different sectors of cape town. this is because earlier somali migrants have grown into “self-employed immigrant entrepreneurs” and have created business opportunities and provided assistance in the form of start-up capital to new arrivals (grant and thompson, 2015: 260). this community has the foresight to spot business opportunities, and they are ready to risk everything including being “willing to run the risk of robbery” (charman and piper, 2012: 96). their rapid expansion in business and appropriation of business spaces in peri-urban and urban areas has been likened to some kind of fetishism or black magic, and locals have tended to associate their “economic misfortunes like poverty, joblessness, and the consequent inability to marry…” to a spiritual spell cast on them by successful foreign business owners (hickel, 2014:108). this street-level discourse hardly explains the success of somali businesses in cape town. this paper further argues that the success of somali entrepreneurism lies in their ability to see business opportunities in every situation they encounter in life. moreover, the xenophobic experiences of somali migrants in cape town cannot be disassociated from the collective tribulations of african migrants in post-apartheid south africa. somalis are part of a community which landau (2011:1) describes as demons, “whose presence came to be seen as an existential threat to south africa’s collective transformation and renaissance”. the collective violence against africans has been justified by locals as restless attempts to “exorcise the demons”, “the enemy”, “an amorphously delimited group of outsiders that is inherently threatening, often indistinguishable from others, and effectively impossible to spatially exclude” (landau, 2011: 2). so, just like other africans in south africa, the image of the foreigner “makes them african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1680 markedly vulnerable to constant victimization, harassment and violence” (crush et al., 2015: 52). unlike many other african migrants, somali migrants in south africa are escapees of the never-ending civil wars and piratic activities in somalia. these wars continue to disperse families and displace millions of somali nationals. as political refugees, they come to south africa with horrific images of a dysfunctional homeland. they are autochthons who have been deprived of citizenship, excluded and alienated in a place called home (crush et al., 2015; geschiere, 2009; landau, 2011). in south africa, what is strikingly unique about somali migrants is their spirit of resilience and resistance to different forms of social violence. to date, they are arguably one of the most affected communities with regard to xenophobia, partly because of their extreme courage to implant themselves and operate businesses in spaces dreaded by other migrants (see crush et al., 2015; harris, 2002; landau 2011; pineteh, 2018). today, when you read about somali migrants, the dominant narrative is that of “violent entrepreneurship” or “the spaza shop violence” (charman and piper, 2012: 83). this narrative sheds light on the “construction of political insiders and outsiders through a long history of claiming autochthony” in volatile south african townships such as alexandra, delft, joe slovo and philippi (charman and piper, 2012: 85). narratives that allude to somalis’ extreme courage and appropriation of business spaces in south africa now reverberate in major cities like johannesburg, durban and cape town. in fact, there is an increasing formation of somali ghettoes in these cities with a rich tapestry of somali culture in the form of community halls, restaurants, mosques with nationalistic symbols such as the somali flag (pineteh, 2018). in cape town, the bellville municipality in the northern suburbs is dominated by somali spaza shops, supermarkets and wholesale businesses, competing favourably with popular south african brands such as pick ’n pay, shoprite, edgars and pep (charman and piper, 2012; pineteh, 2018). this business competition has spread with equal success to key townships/peri-urban areas in cape town such as nyanga, philippi and khayelitsha, putting somalis at loggerheads with local business owners. although the formation of somali ghettoes at urban and periurban intersections of cape town symbolizes a renewed sense of belonging and self-inclusion, it is weakened by their vulnerability to xenophobic attacks angu, p.e. 1681 (crush et al., 2015; landau and freemantle, 2010). this article was therefore motivated by the intersections of somalis’ risky business tactics, the unhealthy rivalry with local businesses and xenophobia in cape town. research methodology and methods of data collection as previously mentioned, this article is based on qualitative data collected between 2015 and 2016 for a broader project funded by the american council of learned societies through its african humanities program. this project sought to understand xenophobic experiences of somalis residing and operating businesses in bellville and khayelitsha in cape town. the data was collected through one-on-one interviews with 30 participants – 20 males and 10 females – between the ages of 25 and 45. the interviewees were selected using a snowballing approach, and the interviews were conducted either at their residences or at their business premises. each interview generally lasted between 30 and 60 minutes, and the questions were framed around somali exilic experiences including the main themes of this article. participants included five retail shop owners in bellville, 15 spaza shop owners in khayelitsha, three shop attendants in bellville and seven roadside traders, also in bellville. during the interviews, shop owners and roadside traders claimed that they had been robbed, beaten and had their businesses looted at least once during the xenophobic attacks. for instance, shop owners in bellville emphasized that they had been victims of random robberies and sporadic lootings because of their location. however, spaza shop owners in the townships pointed out that they had experienced worse forms of xenophobic violence, ranging from looting and burning of shops to stoning and brutal murdering of somalis. of the 15 spaza shop owners, five claimed they had been shot at least once or had witnessed the brutal murder of another somali business owner, and 10 stated that they had been seriously beaten. the participants in this project were not very fluent in english, so conducting 30to 60-minute interviews in english was a major challenge. to address this challenge, i recruited, as a research assistant, a postgraduate somali student at the university of the western cape who had research experience and was very familiar with the somali community. his primary responsibilities included scheduling interview appointments, conducting interviews, interpreting and transcribing data. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1682 through the research assistant’s networks and association with the somali community, i was able to gain access and conduct the interviews. before each interview, we explained the purpose of the research and, through a consent form, we requested permission to audio-record all the sessions. this document clearly explained ethical issues including confidentiality and anonymity. for this reason, participants are cited in this article simply as ‘participant’ and suffix numbers between 1 and 30. the interviews were transcribed and in some cases they were translated from somali/arabic into english by the research assistant. using a thematic content analysis approach, data was categorized into key themes, coded and analyzed accordingly. the analysis revealed intricacies of risky entrepreneurship and social exclusion, and the characteristics of xenophobia in post-apartheid south africa. they also revealed aspects of business rivalry, somali business tactics and constellations of xenophobic violence in south africa. analysis and discussion of key findings as opposition to the anc-led government intensifies, its politicians now resort to populist renditions rather than substantive evidence of social reforms to lure local votes. these renditions desperately blame the social and economic activities of african migrants for the declining quality of south african lives (dassah, 2015; pineteh, 2017; 2018). in this light, the expansion of somali businesses in south african communities is perceived as a process of dislodgement of local competitors. this immediately frames somali entrepreneurship as a serious threat to the livelihoods of local south africans, which must be eliminated (nyamnjoh, 2006; thompson, 2015). somali migrants, risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia in cape town this study revealed that the majority of cape town-based somalis rely on different business ventures as their main source of livelihood. in bellville and khayelitsha, they operate mainly clothing, homeware and grocery shops, as wholesalers, retail traders, spaza shop owners or street-side petit vendors (charman and piper, 2012; pineteh, 2018). like in other major south african cities such as johannesburg, durban and pretoria, the sprawling of somali businesses in cape town is attributed to the application of different tactics, some of which instigate hostile reactions from south africans (gastrow and amit, 2013; thompson, 2016). the study also revealed that through close-knit angu, p.e. 1683 networks and ghettos, somalis are able use their financial power to illegally secure business space, intimidate competitors (especially other migrants) and defend themselves against assailants or robbers. they own their own weapons, which “are intended to hold back a south african ‘below’ that threatens to rise up from the group and throw out somalis” in any business space (thompson, 2016: 93). these tactics have enabled them to displace local businesses in spaces that have been owned and controlled by local shop owners for years. attacks on somali businesses in cape town are therefore construed “as part of a struggle to recapture lost market space or secure market advantage” (charman and piper, 2012: 5). according to one participant, this business place is my own because i have an agreement with the landlord and i pay my rent every month. this rent is also helping the landlord. so, no south african can drive me from this place. they are doing the same spaza shop business like us but we are not disturbing them, so they think they can take my business just because this is their country. what they are doing is not the law and i am not going to allow them to take my shop just like that. let them come, i am waiting for them [sic](participant 11). this interviewee is one of many somalis who now operate successful spaza shops in khayelitsha, disrupting a business culture that has existed in south african townships for decades. in fact, the piecemeal selling of household goods in small kiosks has been the source of livelihood for many south african families for decades, and somalis’ accessing and appropriating this business idea is perceived as a threat to a longstanding business tradition that has influenced the identity of local township dwellers (charman and piper, 2012; pineteh, 2018). the sense of an aggressive takeover in the quotation above is an “overt display of power in local communities” which instigates anger and contempt against somalis in cape town townships (pineteh, 2018: 11; charman and piper, 2012; jinnah, 2010). somalis’ business tactics are driven on one level by a form of business aggression, which enhances their business success and increases the pressure on local business owners to compete. this increasing pressure to compete with somali businesses has translated into hostility and criminality in townships. according to one participant: african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1684 this [sic] people have seen the way we do business and they become angry that we are taking their customers. they say they are tired of us putting shops everywhere in bellville and their townships and they cannot sell their own stuff because all the people now buy from somalians. so, they attack us because they think we are taking their business, and thieves come to steal from us almost every day because they think we have a lot of money in our shops (participant 12). this narrative is a replay of locals’ vocabulary of entitlement and pejorative images of high crime rates stemming from economic stagnation and rising unemployment (pineteh, 2018). this is expressed in phrases such as ‘taking their customers’, ‘their townships’, ‘taking their business’ and ‘criminals rob us every day…’ moreover, although somalis who were interviewed are bona fide residents in south africa, there is an underlying rhetoric of unwanted people or the “convenient metaphor of illegal alien…gaining undeserved advantages” (murray, 2003: 447) during xenophobic violence. this testimony therefore alludes to locals’ attempts to de-legitimize somalis’ judiciary rights to live and work in south africa, rights accorded to them by sadha (crush and pendleton, 2004; landau and freemantle, 2010; pineteh, 2018). despite complaints about somali spatial appropriation, which are assumed to deprive local south africans of business opportunities, somali narratives tended to replay south africans’ obsessive sense of entitlement, which arguably is driven by a culture of dependency imbued in south africans by political promises. for example: they say we are taking all their business and i feel for them. but for me they are jealous of us and the problem is that this [sic] people are very lazy; they can’t do this job. sometimes they come to the shops of somalis and they say they want jobs, but if you give them work they won’t work. instead they will be watching your business, and at night they will come and rob the shop. so no one is giving them jobs in their shop again. you see, they don’t want to work and they want their government to give them houses, jobs, food, and if they don’t get them, they come and attack us. but this shop is not given by the government and i work hard to build my shop – the government did not give me the money (participant 8). angu, p.e. 1685 as somali migrants confront different forms of social violence, they tend to narrate their experience of xenophobia through african migrant images of a perceived lazy and dependent south african. like many other african migrants, somalis feels they are attacked because they are hardworking, and for them their businesses are symbols of this hard work (pineteh, 2017; 2018). the narrative points to the xenophobia denialism and african migrant exceptionalism, which reconstruct the attacks on africans as being in the wrong place at the wrong time (crush and pendleton, 2004; harris, 2002). but as somali migrants continue to operate businesses in cape town, the display of power and control over spaces, as well as somali resistance to xenophobic violence, continue to endanger their lives. for somalis and south africans alike, somali business successes are construed as a life of opulence, a gratuitous opportunity offered to africans by the postapartheid politics of inclusivity, while locals’ conditions of abjection persist (pineteh, 2017; 2018). xenophobic attacks on somalis are scripted implicitly as a narrative of envy and the dystopia of a political agency of better living conditions for all south africans, which over the years has unfolded into imagined permanent conditions of misery (landau and freemantle 2010; nyamnjoh, 2006). however, the risk to somali lives also emanates from a strong survivalist culture expressed through business tactics of close networks, kinship and affordable pricing (jinnah, 2010). these unique business strategies have driven somalis to volatile business spaces previously owned and controlled by local south africans. as argued in previous articles (pineteh, 2017; 2018), operating successful businesses in townships is seen not only as a threat to local livelihoods or as undesirable business competition, but also as illegal access to spaces that belong to indigenes. this participant asserted that, south africans sleep the whole day, targeting to steal, loot and kill foreigners at night while they get support from their government. that is how they want to earn their living. but somalis work hard and help each other to become business partners because they don’t have government [sic] to rely on. so the difference is somalis want to work hard and south africans totally don’t want to work but only to rob people. when they rob you, they say we come into their home and do business in their land, so the things belong to them (participant 13). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1686 again, the metaphor of an unwanted parasite and the culture of entitlement are used to justify criminality and attacks on somalis. although somali businesses contribute to local economic growth, their mere presence in townships is perceived as a threat to locals’ autochthonous right to spaces, and the attacks as a community agency to protect what is rightfully theirs (hassim et al., 2008; neocosmos, 2010; nyamnjoh, 2006). the following quotation points to a narrative shift, which subverts south africans’ claims of an aggressive business takeover by somali migrants. during the interviews, one participant reiterated that south africans cannot claim that somalis have taken their businesses and customers when they do not have any interest in business. he argued that south africans are just jealous of somali success, but do not have the character to run successful businesses. he commented: i don’t think south african people like business. they want the government to give them everything: education, jobs and houses. i come from a country with no government to give you anything, so you must work for yourself. we can’t take their business; we only start our own spaza shops in the township. before we came here they were already doing the business but it wasn’t growing because they have no strategies. they attack our shops because of all the bad things they think that we bring to south africa. they even say we use muti 1 to do business… (participant 14). this participant is disingenuous about south africans’ entrepreneurial skills because there is research evidence which shows the success of south african spaza shops despite the expansion of somali businesses (see gastrow and amit, 2013; pineteh, 2018). here, the victimization of somalis is simply connected to “their keen sense of business acumen” (jinnah, 2010: 98). however, the looting of somali shops and the killing of shop owners is a pretext for a generalized hatred of the other african, constantly imaged “not only as a tramontane intruder who disrupts the status quo, but also a stronger, or one who figuratively pollutes, contaminates and despoils the existing moral order” (murray, 2003: 448). although the generalized perception about africans is a powerful narrative trajectory in somali reconstruction of 1 muti is a zulu word for traditional african medicine. it is commonly used by traditional healers in southern africa. angu, p.e. 1687 xenophobic experiences, somali business tactics remain a trigger of violence, whether or not south africans are business-oriented. for example, the success of somali spaza shops in cape town townships and elsewhere in south africa is attributed to strong networks and kinships, which give them access to startup capital for new businesses. instead of seeking business loans from the banks, they are easily funded by established somalis. because they have access to capital and goods, they are able to negotiate favourable prices or offer credit options to local communities, compared to local shop owners who charge relatively high prices. living on the fringes of life and death: the somali case as political rhetoric and local narratives continue to blame african migrants for the woes of south africans, townships are seen as the hotspots for all forms of social violence, including service delivery protests and xenophobia (landau, 2011; pineteh, 2017; 2018). this is because decades after the demise of apartheid, south african townships are still embodiments of human suffering and they epitomise the extent to which the black-led government has failed to deliver on its political promises of a better life for south africans. instead, the government’s politics of state transformation has created “a politically entitled but materially deprived citizenry [which has taken] on the obligation to alienate and exclude those standing in its way” (landau, 2011: 3). these residential spaces “serve to modify, extend, and entrench various forms of spatial control, political authority and sovereignty”, even at the expense of human lives (landau, 2011: 3; pineteh, 2018). the growing social deprivation, anxieties and gruesome images of social violence show how townships have transformed into risky and volatile spaces, especially to african migrants, whom many local residents perceived as architects of their socio-economic problems. but for somali migrants in cape town, operating businesses in risky spaces is a normal business challenge. one participant asserted: many people ask us whether we are not afraid to live in the township and open businesses in the townships because there is a lot crime in the township and they are killing foreigners every day. i always tell them business is about taking risk, and if you do not take any risk in business, you are never going to make any money. you can die at any place and any time, and if it is not your time to die, allah is not going to allow it to happen (participant 8). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1688 this participant normalizes the violent attacks on africans and the looting of their businesses, internalizing the logic that business, risk and social violence are co-dependent variants in any competitiveness business environment (charman and piper, 2012; gastrow, 2013). although foreigners and their businesses in the townships are the most vulnerable during xenophobic violence, compared to those in urban areas, this participant still perceives access to risky business spaces and resilience to violence as predictors of business success (pineteh, 2018; piper and yu, 2016). this attitude explains why, despite the killing of somali migrants in cape town townships, research studies are yet to show a decline in somali businesses in these areas. for somali business owners, behind the façade of the social violence and threats to the lives of somalis in cape town townships lies a business opportunity. as survivors of years of al-shabaab incursions in somalia and tumultuous journeys to exile, the violence in townships ignites not fear but a sense of déjà vu in many participants interviewed in this study (pineteh, 2017; thompson, 2015; 2016). this sense of déjà vu is captured in the following excerpt: yes, we know that there is crime in the townships the same way that there is crime in the cities. my brothers have shops in bellville but they still attack them. before coming to south africa, i ran away from war in somalia and they were killing people every day and i ran way. i travelled a long distance through different countries to come here, and i passed through places where there was fighting and killing of people, and i was attacked and arrested. so there is nothing in south africa that i am afraid of (participant 11). during the interviews, participants pointed out that living on the fringes of life and death in cape town townships is a normal way of surviving in crimeridden post-apartheid south africa. although townships pose a major threat to the lives of somalis, this participant claims xenophobic violence can no longer be localized because threats to the lives of africans have permeated to all parts of south africa. in addition, somalis’ experiences of statelessness and political violence at home, crossing turbulent borders and hostile reception during their journeys to exile reduce the violence experienced in south african townships to very familiar exilic experiences (gastrow, 2013; pineteh, 2017; angu, p.e. 1689 thompson, 2015). the eruption of violence against somali migrants who have penetrated business spaces in the townships is nothing but “an identifiable locus of ungovernance in which experiences of state presence and absence come together as migrants circulate through the neighbourhood across lines of unofficial segregation, provincial boundaries, and national borders” (thompson, 2016: 92). as subaltern south africans continue to seek answers for their existing material conditions, somali business successes in cape town will remain existential threats to their south african competitors if answers, besides blaming their conditions on the influx of illegal migration are not forthcoming from politicians (grant and thompson, 2015; pineteh, 2018; thompson, 2016). tensions and the imminence of violent attacks will continue to simmer in hotspots around the country, further endangering the lives of somali migrants (buyer, 2009; klotz, 2016). however, over and above these visible threats, this study revealed that somali lives are equally endangered by their reactions to xenophobic violence in the absence of state protection and justice for victims (gastrow, 2013; pineteh, 2017). in the following quote, one participant emphasized the need for self-protection against criminality and xenophobia in the cape town townships: my shop is five years now in khayelitsha [sic], and criminals have broken into my shop many times and taken my stuff. they have attacked me and threatened to kill me. there was a time when they came to steal during the evening, a group of five men, and they attacked me with knives, and i fight [sic], and they took some money and stuff and ran. i called the police and they did not come. so now i sleep in my shop and i have my own weapons; i am waiting for them to come again (participant 17). in this quotation, we see an existential character that is ready to take responsibility to protect his life and livelihood in the midst of crime and antiimmigrant violence because somali victims have been unable to access “justice via formal state institutions” (gastrow, 2013: 10). empirical evidence from studies on the state’s response in providing judiciary protection to somali migrants affected by xenophobic violence shows that the response has been sluggish and tokenistic. in a study on somali businesses in the western cape, gastrow (2013: 10) opines that “there has been very little police and prosecutor success in achieving convictions in respect of the somali business african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1690 robbery victims…” whilst the lack of police protection can be blamed on several challenges within the south african police services (saps) and the south african judiciary system, the quotation shows clearly that somalis can no longer rely on the saps for protection against their assailants. as somali migrants pursue alternative means of justice and defence such as owning their own guns and “paying youth and gangs for protection”, they will continue to live in the margins of life and death (gastrow, 2013: 11; pineteh, 2018). discussion and conclusion the most recent (2019) and previous xenophobic attacks on african migrants demonstrate that there is still a need for more scholarly, evidence-based research in migration and the politics of belonging. this type of research plays a critical role in understanding the multi-faceted and often contentious debates about the thorny issue of migration, as south africa grapples with worsening socio-economic challenges (see dassah, 2015; nyamnjoh, 2006; pineteh, 2018). research on the lived experiences of african migrants therefore provides a practical prism through which we can engage with broader conceptions of transnational migration and the implications for policy formulation (amit and kriger, 2014). this article therefore contributes to existing studies on the role of immigrant entrepreneurship and political populism in shaping south africans’ perceptions about african migrants. in one of my previous publications, i argued that xenophobia has become a new form of political agency driven by a fixation on the dangers of free human mobility, border control and the expulsion of ‘outsiders’ (dassah, 2015; nyamnjoh, 2006; pineteh, 2017; 2018). one of the dominant narratives in south african political discourse today is the porousness of south african borders and clarion calls for the government to control and fix its borders to prevent the entry of african migrants, regardless of the potential economic benefits they may bring. for example, somali migrants bring entrepreneurial skills from which south african small business owners can learn to become more competitive in the spaza shop business (charman and piper, 2012; gastrow, 2013; pineteh, 2018; thompson, 2016). interestingly, south africans’ calls for better securitization of south african borders show that although globalization is about flexible borders, goods and financial capital seem to be enjoying this flexibility more than human beings. this suggests that angu, p.e. 1691 the “open flows of globalization have triggered the construction of new boundaries, the reaffirmation of old ones and the closure of identities” (boas and dunn, 2013: 18). south africa’s recent approach to migration poses critical questions about the right to belong, the politics of inclusion and exclusion as well as citizenship in a post-apartheid south africa that has given foreigners judiciary rights to live and work in the country (pineteh, 2017; 2018). as political parties desperately want to hold on to power or scramble for votes during elections, they now resort to populist forms of ethnic nationalism, which blame ‘illegal migrants’, an amorphous phrase for african migrants, for their worsening social and economic challenges. what we see in south africa today is a politics of denialism and deflection, where politicians find scapegoats to shift the attention of locals from their failures, particularly during service delivery protests (landau, 2010; nyamnjoh, 2007). for them, the government should not be held to account for unfulfilled political promises such as jobs, housing, and better living conditions because of illegal immigration. but what does legal or illegal migration mean to south africans living in poverty? whose responsibility is it to regulate migration in south africa? does this type of populism mean that south africa will become a pure and flawless nation if all african migrants are exorcised? as this narrative finds its way into townships, tensions and violence simmer as african migrants who do business in these spaces are now seen as usurpers. during periods of xenophobic violence, african migrants in townships become the most vulnerable, and since the somali community is one of the african communities that have identified business opportunities in townships, they now live on the margins of life and death, every day. as south africans continue to deploy different strategies such as violent attacks, burning and looting of shops as well as killings to force somalis out of ‘their townships’, somalis will always devise new ways to resist the attacks and continue living in these townships. in finding ways to resist and circumvent xenophobic attacks from locals, somalis are likely to continue living at the mercy of local south africans who are determined to exorcise african migrants from south africa. acknowledgement i would like to thank the american council of learned societies for its generous financial support of this project, through its ahp postdoctoral african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1692 fellowship. my sincere gratitude also goes to all participants for providing very rich empirical data for this study. references amit, r. and kriger, n. 2014. making migrants “il-legal”: the policies and practices of documentation in post-apartheid south africa. kronos, 40(1): 269-290. boas, m. and dunn, k. 2013. politics of origin in africa: autochthony, citizenship and conflict. cape town: hsrc press. buyer, m. 2009. negotiating identity and displacement among the somali refugees of cape town. south african historical journal, 60(2): 226-241. carling, j. 2008. the human dynamics of migrant transnationalism. ethnic and racial studies, 31(8): 1452-1477. charman, a. and piper, l. 2012. xenophobia, criminality and violent entrepreneurship: violence against somali shopkeepers in delft south, cape town, south africa. south african review of sociology, 43(3): 81-105. charman, a., petersen, l. and piper, l. 2012. from local survivalism to foreign entrepreneurship: the transformation of the spaza sector in delft, cape town. transformation, 78(1): 47-73. comaroff, j. and comaroff, j.l. 2002. alien-nation: zombies, immigrants, and millennial capitalism. the south atlantic quarterly, 101(4): 779-805. crush, j. and pendleton, w. 2004. regionalizing xenophobia? citizen attitudes to immigration and refugee policy in southern africa. cape town: southern african migration project (samp). crush, j., chikanda, a. and skinner, c. 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(eds.). migration in postapartheid south africa: challenges and questions to policy-makers. paris: agence française de development. von holdt, k. and alexander, p. 2012. collective violence, community protest and xenophobia. south african review of sociology 98 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 destination substitution and social networks among urban refugees in kampala, uganda francis anyanzu1 and nicole de wet-billings2 received 01 march 2022 / accepted 02 august 2022 / published 31 august 2022 abstract a significant number of refugees and asylum seekers live in kampala as opposed to the rural settlement areas. however, what is less known is the extent of destination substitution among these refugees and factors associated with changes in destination. using a survey of 479 refugees from eight nationalities, this study examined the influences of social networks on destination substitution among refugees in kampala. it found that more than half of the refugees substituted their initially intended destination with kampala. refugees with social network ties in kampala are likely to substitute their preferred destination for kampala compared to those who do not have social network ties in kampala. the study contributes to the literature on destination choices and social networks by showing that the refugees have destination preferences, but these preferences can be constrained by prevailing circumstances. facilitated by social networks with alternative destinations, refugees may substitute their preferred destinations with a proxy destination in cities in neighboring countries. keywords: social networks, change, destination, refugees, kampala 1 university of the witwatersrand, south africa. corresponding author.  1757378@students.wits.ac.za 2 university of the witwatersrand, south africa. 99 introduction over 6% of the refugees and asylum seekers in uganda live in kampala and its metropolitan areas (unhcr, 2020). the majority of the refugees are from the horn of africa, and the democratic republic of the congo (drc). kampala also hosts a significant number of refugees from burundi, south sudan, rwanda, and sudan. moreover, ugandan laws allow free movement of refugees, implying that refugees can relocate from settlement areas, cities, and rural areas in uganda to kampala. however, free movement is possible where one has evidence of self-sufficiency and the prevailing political regime remains favorable to refugees (republic of uganda, 2006; iazzolino and mohamed, 2019). refugees also cross to kampala from their first countries of asylum in the neighboring countries. refugees and asylum seekers are among the main contributors to the urbanization of kampala (ubos, 2019). some of these refugees have lived in a protracted refugee situation in kampala for over five years (gusman, 2018). however, many urban refugees face difficulties in securing stable livelihoods, accessing social services, and building trust across communities (den boer, 2015; lyytinen, 2015; agora, 2018; kasozi et al., 2018). the restrictions on movements during the covid-19 pandemic also aggravated loss of livelihoods among refugees who depend on informal livelihoods (bukuluki et al., 2020). it is important to investigate destination substitution because this phenomenon will likely add to these already existing challenges affecting refugee response (buscher, 2012; monteith and lwasa, 2017; ahimbisibwe, 2019). however, the extent of destination substitution and how social networks of the refugees associated with changes in destination plans are less established in kampala. to some extent, refugees make preferences about certain destinations according to regulations regarding refugee admissions and socio-economic conditions of destination countries (mcauliffe and jayasuriya, 2016). however, studies on urban refugees in africa have shown that refugees’ motivations change as they live their experiences of displacement where refugees imagine settling elsewhere other than the current city (landau, 2006; 2021). whereas socio-political factors may compel migrants and refugees to move to some cities in africa, their mooring in such cities may owe to their inability to move onwards due to changes in management of migration flows (fusari, 2018). some cities may also be chosen as intermediate destinations when the ultimate destination is perceived to be more accessible through such intermediate cities (shaffer et al., 2018). external and internal restrictions regarding refugee movements may result in refugees getting stuck or stranded in certain places (snel et al., 2021). currently, only 1% of the refugees can get resettlement to third countries through official channels (hansen, 2018: 137). because of the limited third-country resettlement opportunities, refugees who initially intended to relocate to more developed countries may end up getting stuck in intermediate cities (jacobsen et al., 2014). the classical approach to migration tends to dichotomize population movement in terms of origin and destination with a neglect of in-between destinations destination substitution and social networks among urban refugees in uganda 100 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 (crawley and hagen-zanker, 2019; crawley and jones, 2021; snel et al., 2021). in destination choices, scholars investigating refugees at the destination look at why refugees choose particular destinations (mcauliffe and jayasuriya, 2016; suzuki, 2020). on the other hand, scholars investigating prospective migrants from their origin inquire about the intentions to migrate to certain destinations (bohra-mishra and massey, 2011; sandu, 2017; ikanda, 2018). others who use macro-level spatial flows of refugees focus on ties and patterns of flows between two points of origin and destination (suleimenova et al., 2017; rüegger and bohnet, 2018). these approaches may overlook the impacts of migration on intermediate destinations, particularly when migrants get stuck in certain places. this aspect is important for kampala and other cities in the global south where refugees conglomerate when attempting to make onward migrations. refugees who, unintentionally, end up living in such cities might find further difficulties in integration since these cities are not chosen out of desire but because of prevailing circumstances. for refugees, their decision to leave their home country is circumscribed by the persecution or armed conflict. however, where the conflict takes a gradual deterioration of conditions or flight occurs in stages, the refugee might have some limited aspirations about better destinations (kunz, 1973). the ability to reach such destinations may depend on a range of factors, including the availability of financial resources, individuals’ knowledge and skills, and availability of social capital (de haas, 2021). without disregarding other factors such as human and financial capital, the focus of this study is on social networks, which also constitute a source of social capital. available family members, friends, or relatives at the destination are important because they can support the movement to the destination not only by providing emotional support but also providing information and financial resources to migrate. migration studies have underlined the importance of social networks in channeling migrants to specific locations and thereby perpetuating migratory flows (massey et al., 1993; munshi, 2003; haug, 2008; zell and skop, 2010). increasingly, the need to extend factors such as social networks in the investigation of forced migration has also been recognized (fitzgerald and arar, 2018: 810). some studies have, for instance, shown that social networks can facilitate internal migration of resettled refugees from one city to another (mossaad et al., 2020). the presence of kinship and friendship ties in cities also encourages and supports the relocation of refugees from camps to urban areas (rhoden, 2019). once in the urban areas, these social networks provide support for newly arrived refugees, particularly given the dearth of humanitarian assistance (wrc, 2011). most of this social capital is linked to the ready availability of co-ethnic or co-nationals in the urban areas (lyytinen and kullenberg, 2013). social ties elsewhere can also be instrumental in identifying alternative routes and transit destinations as the refugees’ journey to their desired destinations (shaffer et al., 2018). in the context of uganda, it is therefore possible that social networks play a role in rerouting refugees to kampala when access to destinations with the best options are constrained by immigration policies and 101 fluctuating security conditions in refugee settlements. this study investigates the effects of social networks in destination substitution among refugees in kampala. the definition of a refugee in this study is based on the african union’s (former organisation of african unity (oau)) convention on specific aspects of refugees in africa, which includes victims of identity-based persecution and generalized violence (au, 1969). “urban refugee” here refers to a refugee whose habitual area of residence is a government-designated urban area, as opposed to a camp or settlement (jacobsen, 2006: 274). de haas et al.’s (2019: 907) concept of “spatial substitution effect” was used to frame the study. spatial substitution occurs when migrants are redirected to some destinations with fewer restrictions about migrants of certain characteristics (czaika and de haas, 2017). the concept is used not so much in examining the relationships between regional and global restrictions and diversion of refugees, but the extent to which the current place of residence is not the initially targeted destination. destination substitution is used here in two ways: the first is when refugees prefer to come to kampala because they could not go to their primary desired destination. the second is when the refugees choose to come through kampala instead of moving directly to their desired destination as a step to their primary destination. literature review migration, refugees, and social networks at global level according to the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr, 2019), by the end of 2018, about 61% of the total refugee population lived in urban areas. most of these urban refugees reside in the global south on a protracted basis (netto et al., 2022). prolonged conflicts lead to refugees not returning to their home countries, resulting in onward migration to urban areas (iom, 2019). refugees sometimes prefer to settle in urban areas because of unstable security in camp areas (unhcr, 2018). cities are also the locus for reunification of families and friends, and for accessing remittances from abroad (verghis and balasundrum, 2019). refugees are thus part of a broader processes of urbanization (hoffstaedter, 2015). refugees sometimes make preferences about a destination prior to moving to a destination (mcauliffe and jayasuriya, 2016). in addition to financial resources and perceptions about places, one crucial factor that facilitates decisions about subsequent destinations are social networks (mallett and hagen-zanker, 2018). this study draws on the field of social networks and migration studies to explore how refugees moved to kampala (massey et al., 1993). social networks refer to interpersonal ties of kinship, friendship, community, or organizational memberships that link migrants between their places of origin and destination (boyd, 1989; massey et al., 1993). actors in the social networks, especially at the destination, act as sources of information and social support impacting on migration to a destination (massey et al., 1993; munshi, 2003). information, knowledge, and social support destination substitution and social networks among urban refugees in uganda 102 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 provided by the actors in the social networks reduce the costs and risks of migration and settlement (boyd, 1989; awumbila et al., 2017). additionally, migrants in the destination areas link non-migrants from places of origin through the “weak ties” to non-migrants and organizations (granovetter, 1973). these latter actors in the social networks assist in matters pertaining to documentation and advocate for migrants in the destination areas (keely, 2000; fitzgerald and arar, 2018). the role of social networks in explaining the patterns of refugee movement has been recognized in migration studies (fitzgerald and arar, 2018). najem and faour (2018) show that refugees tend to disperse to various destinations along patterns of existing ethnic networks. social networks ties of family, kinship, ethnic members, and friends link migrants to home, transit, and destination (i̇çduygu and karadağ, 2018). in addition to financial availability and perceptions about destinations, actors in the social network ties may influence when, where, and how to move (mallett and hager-zanker, 2018; najem and faour, 2018). refugees who migrated to cities and other destinations serve as nodes of social capital and information sources that perpetuate refugee movements to cities (palmgren, 2014). the likelihood of a refugee living in a camp or city may also be influenced by the presence of family members or relatives in the camp or city (rhoden, 2018). social network ties in places of origin, transit and destination are important sources of social support and information about the prevailing policy context in the destination (brekke and brochmann, 2015; fiedler, 2019). further, weak ties in the social networks can be consolidated through social media that further support information transmission (dekker and engbersen, 2014). information obtained from people met at different locations may aid the individual in discovering potential destinations (bakewell and jolivet, 2015). information received from social networks can influence the decisions of refugees because of the trust established within the networks (carlson et al., 2018; dekker et al., 2018). migration, refugees, and social networks in africa in most african countries, the camps or settlements have been used to settle refugees to contain refugees in rural settings (marfleet, 2007). despite the camp system of refugee management, a significant number of refugees resided in urban areas long before the unhcr’s policy on refugee protection in urban areas (jacobsen, 2006). both micro and macro level factors pertaining to migrants in general and specifically to refugees contribute to flows to cities (hopkins, 2015). refugees’ movement to cities has been associated with a search for better health care and other social services that are lacking in camps, employment opportunities, humanitarian assistance, and resettlement opportunities (jacobsen, 2006; muggah and abdenur, 2018). more often, movements to urban areas are linked to the harsh socio-economic conditions and unstable security in the settlement and camp areas (willems, 2005; hopkins, 2015). one critical factor that sustains refugees in urban areas are their social 103 networks (lyytinen and kullenberg, 2013). the importance of social networks for refugees grew concomitantly with the urban socio-economic problems that refugees experience and the limited humanitarian support in urban areas (jacobsen, 2006). several studies show that refugees in urban areas of africa rely on their social networks for their livelihoods (see, for example, landau and duponchel, 2011; betts et al., 2018). in cape town, relatives and non-relatives were identified as major sources of financial support for business start-ups (crush and mccordic, 2017). similarly, in nairobi fellow refugees are the main sources of social support and finance (betts et al., 2018). further, refugee flows in africa are patterned on existing social networks of co-ethnics (rüegger and bohnet, 2018). among the somali refugees in south africa, the narratives shared through migrant networks shaped the refugee’s migration decision to south africa (shaffer et al., 2018). similarly, through interactions with kinship networks in the diaspora, somali refugees in danghaly camp in kenya idealize minnesota (home of somali-born american politician ilhan omar) and the desire to migrate there (ikanda, 2018). migration, refugees, and social networks in uganda the settlement system, where refugees are allocated land to regain their livelihoods, is the de facto model uganda employs for refugee management (schiltz et al., 2019). indeed, a limited period of residence in cities, specifically kampala, is accepted, conditional on proof of self-sufficiency, as determined by uganda’s refugee act (republic of uganda, 2006). in addition, refugees in unhcr caseloads for resettlement or special protection needs are permitted to reside in kampala (mulumba, 2010). yet, for a variety of reasons, including those less related to selfsufficiency and special protection needs, refugees choose to settle in kampala. some studies have pointed to the lack of information on registration at borders, the need to search for gainful employment, and access to basic services that have contributed to refugee flows to urban areas (bernstein and okello, 2007). the lack of security in the settlement areas also account for the migration to kampala (mulumba, 2010). the settlement areas also have limited market opportunities, thus contributing to movement to urban areas where market opportunities are available. over the years, there has been a sustained decline in land size in settlement areas, leading to migration to urban areas (crawford and o’callaghan, 2019). although some of the refugees move to kampala without specific intentions, a few others, especially those who have families, had specific plans to move to kampala (lyytinen, 2015). there are also cases of mixed motives where some individuals from conflict-affected countries move to kampala to pursue career opportunities and to attain refugee status (iazzolino and mohamed, 2019). despite the attraction to kampala, a good number of refugees envision onward migration as the only permanent solution to their future (den boer, 2015). hence, a few others move from elsewhere to kampala with the aim of relocating, usually to developed countries (iazzolino and mohamed, 2019). destination substitution and social networks among urban refugees in uganda 104 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 with the limited humanitarian and state assistance in urban areas, many of these refugees turn to their social networks to sustain themselves (wrc, 2011). existing studies on urban refugees demonstrate how refugees use their social networks to access livelihood opportunities in urban areas – a pattern that is similar elsewhere in africa (clark, 2006; mulumba, 2010; wrc, 2011). mulumba (2010) found that the eritreans, ethiopians, and somalis use their national-based networks as channels for receiving remittances from family members resettled in other countries. in a similar way, members of the somali community – especially men – rely on ethnic networks to access employment opportunities and sell their goods to fellow somalis (wrc, 2011; buscher, 2012). further, a few refugees also use their cross-border networks to run their businesses in selling animal products or to access cross-border employment opportunities (wrc, 2011). although these studies reveal the importance of social networks, the focus on livelihood strategies falls short in explaining the role of social networks in influencing the decisions to move in kampala. a few studies in uganda also explored the role of social networks in destination choices. rwandan refugees in uganda, for instance, were not willing to return due to the need to maintain the social ties established during exile (karooma, 2014). furthermore, one study among the somali refugee community shows that the established ethnic ties in uganda sustained onward movements to kampala (iazzolino and mohamed, 2019). this study also shows that the somalis use their social networks to connect through kampala to other countries (iazzolino and mohamed, 2019). the reviewed literature confirms that the refugees move to kampala for various motives, including movement to a city with an intention of onward movement, and that social networks play a crucial role for movement and settlement in the city. however, none of these studies adequately discuss the relationships between social networks and destination changes. this study fills this gap by showing how having social ties at a destination may enable refugees to move to some alternative destinations. this study differs from a similar study by employing a cross-sectional survey of broader refugee communities (iazzolino and mohamed, 2019). within regional and global discussions, the study contributes to the case of uganda where refugees do not only have trajectories of movement to more developed countries but also to the settlement areas within uganda. methods of the study study population and sampling strategy the study is a cross-sectional survey conducted in kampala, uganda, between november 2020 and march 2021. the sample was drawn from the urban refugees who were 18 years and older. respondents were drawn from the somali, congolese (drc), eritrean, burundian, ethiopian, south sudanese, and sudanese refugee communities. a nationality was included in the study if it had at least 1,000 refugees 105 in kampala as per 2020 refugee statistics. a sample of 500 participants was targeted using cochrane’s method of sample size determination. the study successfully interviewed a total of 479 refugees and asylum seekers. the researchers employed non-probability sampling strategies due to the hidden or transient nature of the urban refugees (singh and clark, 2013; bozdag and twose, 2019). the researchers first inquired from refugee community leaders, local authorities, and organizations about the key locations of the selected refugee communities within the city. the researchers then identified places such as bistros, restaurants, internet cafés, shops, refugee centers, and meeting places where refugees congregate. the researchers then invited those who were willing to participate. from the gatherings, participants were then randomly selected using a ballot draw according to the required number. where there were fewer people than the required number within a gathering, all the participants were interviewed. the participants were then asked where potential participants could be found, and that set up a chain referral process. to cater for some communities such as the burundians and congolese who did not have common meeting places, the snowball method was used, commencing usually with a seed. study variables and data analysis researchers used a pre-coded questionnaire to capture information about the refugees’ demographic characteristics, patterns of migration, and social networks. to assess the extent of destination substitution, refugees were asked in the questionnaire whether the respondent had “planned to move to some other destination before coming to kampala” from their last place of residence, with a “yes” or “no” response. this question was used as an indicator for the dependent variable for the destination of interest, which is kampala. respondents were further asked about the descriptions of the places they had planned to travel to and the reasons why they did not go to the proposed place. they were also asked whether they moved to kampala directly from their home countries or lived in camps, cities, towns, or rural areas elsewhere in uganda or another country between leaving their home country and arrival in kampala. without disregarding the limitations, those who moved to kampala directly from their home countries were included in the study because a few individuals might have moved to kampala directly from their home areas, with the intention of onward migration. hence, focusing only on cases of secondary movements from settlements or other proximate cities would exclude a few refugees in such category. the indicator used here was retrospectively measured by posing these questions to refugees who were already in kampala. while this approach may have some limitations in measuring migration intentions, it was deemed a better approach to measure changes in the intention given the lack of longitudinal data that follow up refugee movements to uganda. social networks are the independent variable of interest. the social network indicator was obtained by asking whether the respondent “knew someone who was destination substitution and social networks among urban refugees in uganda 106 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 either living in, or ever lived in kampala at the time of migration to kampala” (“yes” or “no”). in addition, questions were asked about the number of ties at the destination, nature of relationship, frequency of communication, and support received from the actor. however, these latter variables are not included in the current study because they are outside the domain of the current study. the questionnaire also included questions about the demographic characteristics of the respondents at their previous place of residence. the questionnaire was pre-tested with 10 refugees selected from the different nationalities. the study used descriptive statistics to present the profiles of the respondents from their previous places of origin, their desired destinations, and the reasons for not moving to the desired destinations. researchers used a binary logistic regression to assess the effects of social networking on destination substitution. the results were interpreted in odds ratios; an odd ratio greater than one indicates a greater likelihood in destination substitution given a covariate. an odds ratio of less than one indicates a lesser likelihood in destination substitution given a covariate. an odds ratio of one indicates no significant effect of a covariate on substitution of destination. a p-value of 0.05 (or 0.5%) and 95% confidence interval were used to interpret the level of significance of the variables. the study was conducted under the ethical standards provided by the human subject research ethics committee (non-medical) of the university of the witwatersrand (h20/04/02), and the uganda national council of science and technology (ss519es). results figure 1 and figure 2 show the profiles of the refugees at their last place of residence before kampala, indicating whether they had planned to settle elsewhere other than kampala. for over half of the refugees, kampala is more of a substitute destination than an initially intended final destination. there are also significant differences among these refugees in terms of their nationalities, occupations and the characteristics of the places from which they came to kampala. in terms of demographic representations, slightly more adults (53.62%) had planned for some other destinations compared to children (42.55%) and youths (53.06%), as expected. however, the difference between adults and youths is marginal. there is also a marginal difference between male and female, although slightly more male respondents (54.07%) reported having planned to move to some other destination compared to female respondents (50.21%). most of these refugees who had other destinations in mind apart from kampala were mostly from eritrea (63.38%), somalia (63.25%), and south sudan (61.7%). on the other hand, respondents from the burundian and the congolese refugee communities reported the least changes in destination plans as seen in 23.08% and 37.7% respectively. regarding the socio-economic backgrounds of the refugees, those who changed their destinations for kampala were mainly single (53.76%) by the time they left their 107 previous place of residence. those who already had tertiary education by the time of arrival in kampala also had higher representation among those who changed their previously planned destinations (58.5%). similarly, 57.89% of respondents who came to kampala as students or who were unemployed also changed their initially preferred destinations. this level is higher than all the other categories of occupational status. further, 73.1% of the respondents who substituted the initially intended destinations lived in refugee camps or settlement areas before proceeding to kampala. in contrast, only 44.8% of those who came from urban areas, and 35.94% of those who came from rural areas substituted their intended destinations with kampala. figure 1: distribution of age, sex and nationality by destination substitution source: authors' fieldwork, 2021 destination substitution and social networks among urban refugees in uganda 108 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 figure 2: previous marital status, education, occupation and residential status by destination substitution source: authors' fieldwork, 2021 figure 3 shows the characteristics of the intended destinations and the reasons for failing to move to such destinations. the sample focused only on those who had planned for alternative destinations. the finding indicates that the majority of refugees in the study reside in kampala due to failure to reach cities outside uganda. over 85% of these refugees had planned to settle in cities or urban areas outside uganda. fewer than 10% had planned to settle somewhere else in uganda before changing their decisions to settle in kampala. the least-intended destinations were rural areas and camps outside uganda, represented by 2% each for the two categories. considering the reasons for moving to kampala, as opposed to the desired destination, the lack of opportunities for resettlement to third countries was the leading reason (39.6%), followed by the lack of security in the desired destination (34%). interestingly, only 3.6% of the respondents came to kampala because of lack of socio-economic opportunities at their desired destinations. 109 figure: preferred destinations and reasons for substituting preferred destination source: authors' fieldwork, 2021 in the final analysis, the effects of social networks on destination substitution were modeled using a binary logistic regression, only reporting the results for the adjusted models. all the first categories in the independent variables were fitted as referent categories. the likelihood ratio is significant at pr.< 0.05, indicating that the model is a good fit. however, the mcfadden’s pseudo r2 for the model is 15% indicating that much of the variances in the model were not explained by the predictor variables. the results are shown in table 1 below. destination substitution and social networks among urban refugees in uganda 110 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 table 1: logistic regression results on the effects of social networks on destination substitution among refugees in kampala planned alternative destination odds ratio p-value 95% confidence min. social ties in kampala no (rc) yes 2.14 0.001 1.37959 3.32694 sex male (rc) female 1.31 0.238 0.83448 2.06919 nationality congolese (rc) south sudanese 3.00 0.007 1.35545 6.65295 somali 3.20 0.000 1.82179 5.60632 burundian 0.42 0.111 0.14715 1.21768 eritrean 2.54 0.007 1.28763 5.00494 rwandese 2.01 0.228 0.64532 6.27987 ethiopian 0.72 0.594 0.22006 2.37715 sudanese 0.71 0.609 0.19112 2.6361 age at migration to kampala child (rc) youth 1.42 0.326 0.70427 2.87326 adult 1.72 0.228 0.71172 4.17193 education at migration to kampala no formal (rc) primary 1.08 0.877 0.42546 2.72015 secondary/vocational 1.61 0.229 0.74229 3.47818 tertiary/university 1.82 0.132 0.83513 3.97044 marital status at migration to kampala single (rc) married/living with a partner 0.93 0.801 0.50527 1.69446 divorced/separated/widowed 0.73 0.477 0.31249 1.72265 occupation at migration to kampala student/unemployed (rc) employed formal 1.08 0.878 0.39519 2.96276 self-employed 0.91 0.810 0.42416 1.95443 unpaid worker 0.51 0.100 0.23101 1.13594 casual or subsistence farmer 0.93 0.871 0.40971 2.12961 previous place of residence rural (rc) urban area 1.49 0.217 0.78937 2.83135 settlement/camp 4.52 0.000 2.24813 9.07188 111 the social network variable in the model remained a significant predictor of destination substitution at pr.< 0.05 even after controlling for all the other variables. respondents with social connections in kampala are more likely to substitute their desired destinations for kampala (or 2.14, confidence interval (ci): 1.37959 3.32694). regarding the control variables, some nationalities and places of residence yielded significant results (pr.<0.05), while occupation lost its significance in the adjusted model. two of the nationalities with significant results were horn of africa countries, namely somalia and eritrea. the somalis and eritreans are 3.20 (ci: 1.82179 5.60632) and 2.54 (ci: 1.28763 5.00494) times more likely to substitute their destinations for kampala respectively, when compared to congolese refugees (the referent category). apart from the two horn of africa countries, the south sudanese, also with significant results (pr. < 0.05), have 3.00 times (ci: 1.35545 6.65295) more likelihood of substituting their intended destinations. originating from camp or settlement areas, whether or not the camp or settlement is within uganda, has positive effects on destination changes when compared to those who came from rural areas. refugees who came to kampala from settlement or camp areas are 4.52 times more likely to have substituted their preferred destinations for kampala (ci: 2.24813 9.07188). discussion and conclusions the objective of this study was to investigate the extent to which changes in destination plans have contributed to refugee flows to kampala, and the influences of social networks in diversion of refugees to kampala. this study is important, given that a significant number of refugees live in kampala, yet access to social services, and social integration in the city have, hitherto, remained a challenge (kasozi et al., 2018; bukuluki et al., 2020). for instance, the recent restrictions regarding the covid-19 pandemic resulted in the loss of livelihoods of refugees (bukuluki et al., 2020). refugees often rely on informal livelihood activities for self-sufficiency (monteith and lwasa, 2017). yet, the difficulties that refugees experience in kampala are concomitant with the reduced resettlement options to more developed countries (hansen, 2018). the reduced resettlement options and limited socio-economic opportunities in settlement areas imply that some refugees are likely to substitute kampala for other destinations, adding to the already existing challenges that refugees experience in kampala. the key finding in this study is that social network factors facilitate the rechanneling of refugees to kampala. moreover, individuals who had knowledge of someone living in kampala or who had ever lived in kampala were more likely to move to the city after having considered going to alternative destinations. the finding thus agrees with previous empirical literature on social network-based patterns of refugee flows (bertoli and ruyssen, 2016; i̇çduygu and karadağ, 2018; rüegger and bohnet, 2018). it further confirms that migrants move to specific locations because destination substitution and social networks among urban refugees in uganda 112 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 social capital, as a component of social networks, is location-specific (massey et al., 1993). more importantly, knowledge of families, relatives, friends, or acquaintances residing in kampala contributed to the alteration of the trajectories of the refugees, redirecting them to kampala (mallett and hagen-zanker, 2018). this is possible, given that refugees who had specific considerations about coming to kampala, had some families, relatives, or friends prior to their movement to kampala (lyytinen, 2017). individuals with knowledge of kampala could have advised the refugees to move to kampala either as an alternative to the desired destination, or as a transit route to access the desired destination. in addition, social networks have been important sources of social support for refugees in urban areas (lyytinen and kullenberg, 2013). hence, the social support provided by the networks in the city compensated for the emotional and psychological stress of pursuing destinations with better socio-economic opportunities but were unattainable. in this sense, social networks play a vital role in the flow of refugees to cities in low-income countries that neighbor refugee-sending countries. in addition to social networks, the somali, eritrean, and south sudanese refugees are more likely to alter their destinations. changes in destination among the somali and the eritrean refugee communities are not unique to refugees living in kampala. one study using a threshold approach shows that somali refugees seeking to resettle in the united states divert to south africa, hoping the process of resettlement would be easier (shaffer et al., 2018: 161). similarly, eritrean refugees in milan and rome did not intend to live in italy but their objectives were affected by the regulations regarding migrant movements within the european union (brekke and brochmann, 2015). the findings of this study add to the magnitude of this destination alteration previously explored in qualitative studies. the diversion of refugees toward uganda, and then to kampala is likely to be motivated by the relatively relaxed regulations regarding freedom of movement, livelihood activities, access to resources, and the perceptions that resettlement is easier once in uganda compared to the neighboring countries (crawford and o’callaghan, 2019). however, as in the case of the somalis in south africa, substitution for kampala does not necessarily entail ideal conditions or lasting solutions for the refugees (shaffer et al., 2018). difficulties regarding employment and access to resources persist once refugees live in the city, further driving the desire to be resettled, which often does not occur. the substituted destination once again becomes temporary and undesirable, perpetuating a dream for onward migration (shaffer et al., 2018). furthermore, refugees originating from refugee settlement areas are more likely to engage in destination substitution than those originating from noninstitutionalized refugee hosting areas. this result reflects resettlement to third countries as one of the main reasons why refugees leave camp areas and move to kampala (bernstein and okello, 2007; mulumba, 2010). the result also confirms the fact that refugees leave their countries without any specific destinations in mind (lyytinen, 2017: 505). the idea about destination substitution evolves when 113 refugees cross borders to camps and settlements in uganda or in the neighboring countries due to security and socio-economic problems in these areas (betts et al., 2020; bagonza et al., 2021). the result is as expected, since cases of refugees who applied for resettlement are handled in kampala (bernstein and okello, 2007). the bureaucracies surrounding resettlements, however, result in refugees getting stuck in urban areas, perpetuating a protracted refugee situation. there are some limitations to this study. firstly, this study is limited to urban refugees in kampala. refugee situations in other urban spaces in uganda might be different. kampala’s context may also differ from that of other regional cities traversed by refugees. a comparative study of different cities might yield a more generalizable result. secondly, owing to the nature of urban refugees as a “hidden population”, the study employed non-probability sampling strategies. therefore, the study may not be representative of the characteristics of the entire urban refugee population. moreover, the small sample size implies that there might be some problems with precision of the sample in this study. thirdly, participants were asked about their characteristics in previous places of residence when they were already in kampala. this retrospective approach might result in recall biases and inaccuracy in measuring changes in migration intentions. future studies can employ a longitudinal approach that follows refugees from their previous places of residence to their destination. fourthly, there may be some ambiguities regarding the indicators. a “yes” response to whether a refugee had planned for some alternative destination could imply that the initially preferred destination either is second to kampala, in case of failure, or at the same level with kampala. lastly, the study is a cross-sectional study and therefore causal processes cannot be inferred. future studies can build on those that can trace causal processes. qualitative studies can also be used to better understand the mechanisms through which the social networks operate. regarding the study’s contributions: it addresses a gap in discussions about destination intentions, and destination preferences among refugees in uganda’s context of a settlement system by highlighting the importance of investigating refugee flows to initially unintended destinations. scholarship on refugees in african cities has shown how refugees sometimes reside in cities that were not intended as final destination. these cities are chosen either out of circumstances that circumscribe refugee movement, or as a strategy to reach some other destinations. this study adds to this body of literature by presenting the case of kampala in a context where the focus has been on refugee settlements by showing how social networks may redirect refugees to, or through kampala when refugees find it difficult to access their intended destinations. moreover, the study provides useful data on refugee movements in countries of first asylum that can be utilized in designing programs for planning refugee assistance. in this sense, the concept of substitution effect was extended to the prevalence in destination changes. in conclusion, with the protracted refugee situation and limited third-country resettlement options, refugees may be diverted to cities of low-income countries. destination substitution and social networks among urban refugees in uganda 114 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 connections through social networks would play a central role in this diversion through encouraging migration to the destination and providing alternative support systems. however, since these cities do not necessarily provide lasting solutions, exploration of further substitute destinations is likely to continue. in the meantime, a burden will also be shifted to these cities in low-income countries as well as social ties providing support in the interim time. the implication of destination substitution is that the protection of urban refugees that focuses on assisting refugees on special cases or the acceptance of refugees on the basis of self-reliance is likely to exclude those who reside in urban areas because of their inability to access their desired destinations – whether that desired destination is a settlement area in uganda or abroad – thus perpetuating their vulnerabilities. hence, it is important that the protection of refugees in urban areas should also focus on those who for some reasons cannot reach their intended destinations. since the substitution of destination is associated with social networks, refugee families and communities could be appropriate channels to use to identify and assist refugees who diverted to kampala. in addition, 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https://bit.ly/3s8zioa https://bit.ly/3jddshr https://bit.ly/3byvycm https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.615 african human mobility review volume 4 number 2 may – august 2018 policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers fatima khan and megan lee african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa jonas nzabamwita age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis dick ranga reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions endale s. mekonnen eritrea’s youth migration challenge: the role of aspirations and opportunities dabesaki mac-ikemenjima and helen gebregiorgis ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor prof mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh university of pretoria, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delgado wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof simon bekker university of stellenbosch, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, sao paulo and manila. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). webpage: www.sihma.org.za copyright © 2018 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 461 4741, email: editor@sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ http://www.sihma.org.za/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1205 policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers fatima khan and megan lee 1226 african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa jonas nzabamwita 1255 age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis dick ranga 1285 reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions endale s. mekonnen 1310 eritrea’s youth migration challenge: the role of aspirations and opportunity dabesaki mac-ikemenjima and helen gebregiorgis african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1205 policy shifts in the asylum process in south africa resulting in hidden refugees and asylum seekers fatima khan and megan lee abstract over the past few years, the protection space for asylum seekers in south africa has steadily shrunk. the south african government has shifted its policies and attitude to exclude rather than accept refugees, and there is a clear move towards confining refugees to the borders of the country. these policy shifts have resulted in an expansive population of hidden and undocumented refugees and asylum seekers in south africa. this article will analyse recent south african court cases, concerning access to the asylum process, in order to identify and understand the policy shifts adopted by the department of home affairs, as well as the consequences that these policy shifts have had for the undocumented refugees and asylum seekers themselves. this article posits that the south african government, through its restrictive and exclusionary policies, has contributed to the creation of a mass population of hidden or undocumented refugees and asylum seekers, forcing many with prima facie refugee claims to remain in the country unprotected. through a set of interviews with refugees and asylum seekers in cape town, this article presents a first-hand account of the obstacles faced by refugees and asylum seekers in south africa, including those that force them to remain undocumented in the country. keywords refugee, policy shifts, documentation, irregular migration. introduction in 1991, south africa signed a basic mandate with the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), which permitted the presence of unhcr field officers in the country to assist with the repatriation of south african exiles who wished to return home following the negotiations to dismantle apartheid. however, it was only in 1993 that the south african government and the unhcr reached an agreement allowing unhcr presence for the mozambican refugees, who had been flowing into south africa since the outbreak of the civil war in the 1970s (zieck, 1997). in december 1995, south africa proceeded to ratify the 1969 organisation of african unity  university of cape town, law faculty, refugee rights unit. email: fatima.khan@uct.ac.za  university of cape town, law faculty, refugee rights unit. email: megan.lee@uct.ac.za african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1206 convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa (1969 oau convention), and in january 1996, south africa became a signatory state to the 1951 united nations refugee convention relating to the status of refugees (1951 un convention) and its 1967 protocol. following the ratification of the international conventions, the south african government embarked on a legislative drafting process that culminated in the passing of the refugees act 130 of 1998 (the refugees act), which gave effect to south africa’s international obligations and came into force in april 2000, along with the refugee regulations (forms and procedure) of 2000 (regulations). taking guidance from the international conventions and the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996 (the constitution), the south african refugees act is based fundamentally on human rights principles and has been described by the unhcr (2007) as “one of the most advanced and progressive systems of protection in the world today”. however, over the past decade, noticeable shifts by the south african government, in both attitude and policy, have resulted in a severe restriction of access to the asylum process, giving rise to a large population of hidden and undocumented refugees and asylum seekers who have consequently become increasingly vulnerable. an examination of these policy shifts illuminates that the department of home affairs (the department), as the department charged with controlling and managing migration, vehemently believes that the asylum system is being used in bad faith by economic migrants and therefore appears to be deliberately ensuring that all migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, remain undocumented in an attempt to facilitate their classification as illegal immigrants and subsequent removal from south africa. when examining migration policies in general, it is undeniable that states, in the course of exercising sovereignty over their territory, determine what does and does not constitute regular migration. subsequently, politics and law set the conditions under which people migrate, and it is only once states issue legislation declaring certain categories of people to be illegal immigrants, and introduce technologies, administrations and enforcement procedures to support this legislation, that previously regular migration becomes irregular. thus, irregular migration is not an independent social phenomenon, but exists in relation to state policies and is a social, political and legal construct. as a form of migration, persons seeking asylum in a country are affected by such migration policies and, when refugees and asylum seekers are undocumented, this places them within the framework of irregular migration. there are two approaches to understanding irregular migration or the reasons behind african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1207 migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, remaining undocumented within a country. first, agency is ascribed to the individual migrant and imputes blame on the individual for violating the law and purposefully remaining undocumented. second, is the approach adopted in this article, which views governments as the blameworthy party, despite conceding that migrants have various levels of agency and can decide, within reasonable limits, when and where to move. this article will assess and evaluate the policy shifts in the asylum process introduced by the south african government, and how these shifts have led to an increasingly diminished protection space for refugees and asylum seekers. it will then analyse the case law that has developed as a reaction to these policy shifts, as well as the personal experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in their struggle to access the asylum process in south africa. the article will focus on four major decisions made by the department over the years, which clearly reflect this changing policy, namely 1) the denial of access to refugee reception offices (rros); 2) the closure of certain rros; 3) the refusal to process asylum applications at a different rro from the one at which the application was first made; and 4) the refusal to recognise the right to family unity of refugees and asylum seekers. research methodology this article opted to use a combination of literature and policy analysis, engagement with the south african jurisprudence surrounding refugee law and insight gained through semi-structured interviews with both refugees and asylum seekers, as well as with service providers who assist refugees and asylum seekers within the western cape. the sample of persons selected for the interviews was divided into three different groups, including 1) a group comprised of undocumented refugees and asylum seekers; 2) a group comprised of refugees and asylum seekers who had initially applied for asylum at an rro outside of cape town, and thus whose permits had been issued by an rro other than the cape town rro; and 3) a group comprised of members of service providers assisting refugees and asylum seekers in the western cape. in total, the first two groups had a combined total of forty-four participants and the third group comprised of four different service providers. refugees and asylum seekers were invited to participate in the research by attending either the uct refugee rights clinic (the clinic) or the offices of the service providers participating in the research. the clinic was easily able to identify appropriate participants for the research, african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1208 as they assist and provide legal services to refugees and asylum seekers experiencing these barriers to the asylum system on a daily basis. during the interviews, the asylum seekers and refugees were asked about their experiences and the prejudices that they have suffered as a result of the department’s policy shifts. policy shifts in the south african asylum process upon implementing the international conventions relating to refugee protection, the south african government opted for a non-encampment policy, which allows asylum seekers to search for employment while they await the adjudication of their asylum application. to facilitate this policy, the refugees act made provision for the establishment of as many rros across the country as is deemed necessary by the director-general, in order to give effect to the refugees act. in essence, this guaranteed refugees and asylum seekers the right to freedom of movement which, along with the non-penalisation of illegal entry, succeeded in creating a liberal and progressive refugee protection mechanism. however, throughout the past decade there has been increasing discord between the rights legally granted to refugees and asylum seekers in south africa and the practical implementation and realisation of such rights. according to landau and amit (2014), the asylum process appears to be plagued by a “bureaucratic autonomy in which certain departments are actively working to shape the implementation and understanding of policies in ways that are not formally recorded and may violate both domestic and international legislation”. the 2012 african national congress’s (anc) peace and stability: policy discussion document (anc policy document) alarmingly declares that over 95% of asylum applicants are not genuine asylum seekers but rather, economic migrants that have come to south africa in search of employment and better business opportunities. such a statement provides overwhelming evidence that the attitudes of those involved in policy and legal development have shifted from a place of inclusion and protection to a desire for mass exclusion. the anc policy document specifically proposes that, while maintaining the overall policy of non-encampment, high-risk asylum seekers should be “accommodated” (in other words, detained) in secure facilities and that the department’s suggestion to relocate all rros closer to the borders should be supported. following the establishment of an ad hoc joint committee on probing violence against foreign nationals (joint committee) in 2015, whose findings african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1209 appeared to reflect the rhetoric that most asylum seekers are in south africa for economic reasons, the department undertook to develop the policy on international migration. according to the department this policy required development in order to reflect the changes within south africa, the region and the world. as a result, within the subsequent two years, the department drafted a green paper and a white paper on international migration (the green and white papers), published in 2016 and 2017, respectively. the green and white papers both continue to espouse the belief that the majority of applicants within the asylum system are economic migrants, resulting in over 90 percent of all applications being rejected. this is despite the department’s assurance that the principle of “inclusion over exclusion” is applied to the adjudication of asylum applications. the green and white papers also focused on the advantages of moving the rros, or asylum seeker processing centres (processing centres), closer to the borders, with the first of these being envisaged in lebombo, a town near the border of south africa and mozambique. in the last few years, south africa has also witnessed the proposal and initial drafting of the refugees amendment act 11 of 2017 (the refugees amendment act), which was signed by the president in december 2017, but at the time of writing had not yet come into force. the draft refugees regulations of 2018 (the draft regulations) have been proposed concurrently with the refugees amendment act, but these too have yet to come into force. a reading of both the refugees amendment act and the draft regulations make it clear that the department, together with the south african government, are taking major steps to restrict the protection space for refugees and asylum seekers. litigation surrounding policy shifts in the south african asylum process despite the fact that the law and policy surrounding refugee protection in south africa has undergone many attempts at amendment, the original refugees act and its regulations adopted in 1998 continue to remain in effect. however, the department continues to implement practices that show an increasingly narrow reading of the refugees act, or that indicate an implementation of the amended, more restrictive policies that have yet to be signed into law. in addition, severe maladministration, poor infrastructure, inadequate resource allocation and corruption have caused the south african refugee system to become utterly unequipped to assist the applicants that it was designed to protect, resulting in an increased need to resort to litigation african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1210 to ensure the effective protection of refugees and asylum seekers. while the litigation in this sector has been characterised by a case-by-case, reactive response to the challenges faced by asylum seekers and refugees, there is a clear common denominator between the cases, in that the department deliberately implements practices that limit access to the asylum system. the litigation surrounding access to the asylum process can be categorised as those cases relating first, to the denial of access to rros; secondly, to the closure of rros; thirdly, to the refusal to process asylum applications at a rro that is different from the rro where the application was first made; and lastly, to the refusal to recognise the right to family unity of refugees and asylum seekers. denial of access to the refugee reception offices in terms of the refugees act, all processes required to be performed during an application for asylum, including permit renewal and refugee status determinations (rsd), are carried out at an rro by the various functionaries designed to adjudicate such applications. as such, rros are the primary entry point to the refugee system and are essential to the functioning of the system and for accessing the protection it affords. thus, any restriction of access to the rros ultimately leads to a restriction of access to the entire asylum process. roughly a decade after the south african government ratified both the 1951 un convention and the 1969 oau convention, access to the rros had reached such an untenable position that it became necessary to institute legal proceedings against the department, both to prevent unlawful practices and to mandate the department to take further steps to improve the asylum process. in kiliko and others v the minister of home affairs and others (2739/05) [2008] zawchc 124 (4 march 2008), the applicants chronicled their numerous unsuccessful attempts at gaining access to the cape town rro in order to apply for asylum. their attempts were futile, despite a number of them sleeping outside the rro on multiple occasions or arriving there in the early hours of the morning. the applicants observed that only a limited number of individuals could enter the building of the cape town rro per day. those who were unsuccessful in their efforts to gain access remained undocumented. the applicants asserted that the department, by restricting access to the rro, had unreasonably and unlawfully failed to provide them with the necessary facilities and proper opportunities to submit applications to obtain refugee status in south africa. it was argued that this was a breach of african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1211 the duties imposed by the refugees act and, furthermore, was in conflict with the constitution and the canons of international law. judge dennis van reenen very appropriately stated that: […] until an asylum seeker obtains an asylum-seeker permit in terms of […] the refugees act, he or she remains an illegal foreigner and, as such [this] impact[s] upon […] his or her human dignity and the freedom and security of his or her person. documentation of asylum seekers is a critical element of the refugee system, as the documents are the vehicle by which the individual is able to access all other rights that flow from that status. for this reason, the unhcr has acknowledged that in almost all countries, foreigners are required to prove their lawful presence in the country, failing which, the individual may be subject to detention and sometimes even to summary expulsion. the unhcr notes that this situation is particularly serious for a refugee, who could be at risk of being returned to his or her country of origin. in that context, judge van reenen held that the availability of adequate facilities to receive asylum seekers, expeditiously consider applications and issue asylum seeker permits was mandated by south africa’s international obligations, the refugees act and the constitution. as a result, the department’s failure to introduce adequate and effective measures to address the gradually worsening situation of lack of access to rros, despite the refugees act having been enacted six years prior to the case, resulted in the violation of the fundamental rights of the applicants. the court ordered the department to put measures into place to ensure access to the cape town rro and to report to the court on the progress thereof. furthermore, the case of tafira and others v ngozwane and others (12960/06) [2006] zagphc 136 (12 december 2006) also exposed and criticised policy shifts and new processes implemented by the department. faced with high numbers of applications for asylum, both the rros in pretoria and johannesburg devised two new procedures that they believed would regulate the process and prevent long queues from forming and, ultimately, reduce the number of asylum seekers. the first procedure was an appointment system, whereby an asylum seeker approaching the rro for the first time was not seen by an official, but rather given an appointment slip and allocated a date on which he or she had to return to the office for a consultation. the evidence before the court suggested that such appointments, allocated to asylum seekers, could be anywhere from six months to a year away. the second african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1212 procedure introduced was the so-called “pre-screening process”, in terms of which the department sought to filter applicants before the individual even had an opportunity to apply for asylum. judge rabie found that the appointment slips did not provide sufficient legal protection to asylum seekers and therefore determined this procedure to be unlawful and unconstitutional. in reaching this conclusion, judge rabie was unconvinced by the department’s argument that staff shortages justified the use of the restrictive policies and accordingly agreed with the finding in kiliko, that the south african government has an obligation to provide proper facilities for applications for asylum. turning to the ‘pre-screening’ procedure, judge rabie found that, in principle, pre-screening was not unlawful if the aim was to genuinely assist asylum seekers with making their asylum applications, but that the department could not use it as a means to decide whether it would be better for a person to seek another type of permit. therefore, in light of all the evidence, the ‘pre-screening’ procedure was found to impede the asylum application process and was held to constitute a violation of the constitutional rights of the applicants. the common thread that emerged from these access cases was that any barrier to accessing the rros, which effectively impedes applications for asylum, constitutes an unlawful measure and cannot be justified by the argument that the administrative burden placed on the department in catering for asylum seekers requires restrictive procedures. denying asylum seekers entry into the rros, and consequently barring access to the asylum process, pushes people to enter and remain in the country without documentation, which falls afoul of the duty of the south african government to provide adequate facilities to receive asylum seekers and process their claims for asylum. closure of refugee reception offices after the refugees act came into force in 2000, rros were established in johannesburg, pretoria, cape town, durban and port elizabeth. furthermore, after witnessing an increase in applications, the department opened an additional rro in musina in 2009 and an interim office in tshwane in 2010 (ngwato, 2013). however, between 2011 and 2012, the department implemented decisions to close the rro in johannesburg and re-categorise the rros in cape town and port elizabeth as “wind-down” facilities, meaning that they would continue to process existing cases but would not accept any new applications for asylum. subsequently, the department also made the decision to close the interim rro in tshwane, which left, to date, only three fullyafrican human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1213 functional rros in south africa. this conduct by the department marked the dramatic shift in policy regarding the administration of the asylum regime in south africa. the closure of three rros across the country indicated the wish by the department to reduce the overall asylum population in south africa and to move all refugee services to the borders, an approach which was later confirmed and supported by the 2012 anc policy document. however, it is a point of concern that the “closure of urban rros constitutes the implementation of policy before the completion of policy formulation” (ngwato, 2013). given the centrality of the rros to the asylum process, the decision to close three rros has significant consequences for refugees and asylum seekers, such as increased difficulty in travelling to an open rro and limited access to open rros that become overburdened as a result of the closures. legal challenges were brought against all the department’s decisions to close the rros and, in all three cases, the department lost due to their failure to substantively consult with the standing committee for refugee affairs (standing committee), as required by the refugees act, as well as on the grounds of procedural unfairness. in all three of these cases, the various high courts ordered the department to reopen the rros. while further engagement surrounding the johannesburg rro took place out of court, the closure of the rros in cape town and port elizabeth remained subject to legal challenge for the next few years. in the case of minister of home affairs and others v somali association of south africa eastern cape (sasa ec) and another (831/2013) [2015] zasca 35; 2015 (3) sa 545 (sca); [2015] 2 all sa 294 (sca) (25 march 2015), the supreme court of appeal (sca) ordered that the rro in port elizabeth be restored by 1 july 2015, including the processing of new application for asylum, on the grounds that the department’s failure to consult with the relevant stakeholders on the decision to close the rro was arbitrary and unlawful. despite the order by the sca, the department has only recently made strides in this regard and has, at the time of writing, stated that the rro in port elizabeth shall be reopened on 22 october 2018. in the case of scalabrini centre, cape town and others v minister of home affairs and others (1107/2016) [2017] zasca 126; [2017] 4 all sa 686 (sca); [2018] 4 sa 125 (sca) (29 september 2017), the sca once again ordered the department to reopen the rro in cape town on the grounds that the decision by the department was unreasonable and unlawful. however, at the time of writing, the rro in cape town still had not been reopened for processing of new african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1214 applications for asylum. additionally, the department has indicated that it is unlikely that the office will be opened in 2018 and that progress may only be made by april 2019. ‘other offices’ closely linked to the closure of various rros was the decision taken by the department requiring asylum applicants to complete their entire application process at the rro at which they first applied for asylum. this practice has surfaced on numerous occasions over the years and, in each instance, has attracted legal challenge. in essence, this policy shift results in a refusal to assist asylum applicants at an rro other than the rro of first application. with reference to the cape town rro, where this practice has been particularly prevalent, the department argued that this approach would assist the office in becoming a “wind-down” facility, in that any backlogs could be addressed and the rro would not be burdened by either new or secondary applications. in addition to restricting the right to freedom of movement, this practice also placed an enormous financial, economic and social burden on refugees and asylum seekers who were now expected to travel for thousands of kilometres to continue to access their asylum application, including renewing their permits. over the years, a number of court applications have been launched in the western cape high court to enforce the rights of asylum seekers to freedom of movement as well as the right to an asylum seeker permit in terms of section 22 of the refugees act. colloquially referred to as ‘other offices’ cases, the first of these was aden and others v the minister of home affairs and another (2000), in which the department was ordered to renew all permits at any rro, depending on where the refugees or asylum seekers were living. in 2008, when the practice resurfaced, the matter of hirsi and others v the minister of home affairs and others (2008) was launched to enforce compliance with the aden order. in this matter, an agreement between the applicants and the department was reached and it was declared that the refusal to renew asylum seeker permits granted at other offices was an unlawful practice. as in aden, the department was required to immediately renew all asylum seeker permits, irrespective of the rro by which they were first issued. in 2009, it was once again necessary to approach the court in the matter of thomasso v the minister of home affairs (2009), which also resulted in a settlement agreement to resume services for all asylum seekers in accordance with the hirsi order. when the policy again reared its head in 2012, the matter of african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1215 zihalirwa and others v the minister of home affairs and others (2012) was launched, seeking an order declaring the department to be in contempt of the hirsi order. this time, however, the department amended its practice slightly by renewing the permits of applicants who were initially documented at other offices but with the proviso that the applicant returned to the office of original application. the department argued that this practice was not in contravention of the hirsi, aden or thomasso orders. the court, constrained by the rule to accept the respondent’s version when disputes of fact arise in motion proceedings, as set out by the case of plascon-evans paints ltd. v van riebeeck paints (pty) ltd. 1984 (3) sa 623 (a), dismissed the application. following on very quickly from the zihalirwa case was the launching of abdulaahi and 205 others v the director general of home affairs and others 7705/2013. what started out as 206 applicants grew into 1232 by the time judgement was handed down in february 2015. the relief in this instance was an urgent interim interdict directing the department to extend the permits of the listed applicants and not to deny extending the permits at the cape town rro until such time as the legal dispute challenging the closure of the cape town rro had finally been resolved. the applicants submitted that if the interdict was not granted, they would suffer irreparable harm as they would need to abandon their lives in cape town and relocate to places closer to the operational rros. the department opposed the relief sought by the applicants by focusing on the administrative burden that would result if an applicant did not visit the rro at which their file was kept. the department vigorously argued that, by moving to cape town, the applicants were attempting to abuse the refugee system in that they were trying to evade the processing of their asylum applications, an argument that clearly indicates an attitude and mindset of the department at this point in time. judge steyn noted that it would be more convenient, cost effective and practical for the files to be transferred to the place where the asylum seeker resides rather than for the asylum seeker to travel repeatedly to the original rro where his or her file is kept. the department, however, indicated that the cape town rro would only consider application for the transfer of a file in exceptional circumstances and on a case-by-case basis. the department argued that the court could not competently order the transfer of all files, as this would have an impact on the allocation of public funds, thereby infringing the doctrine of the separation of powers. ultimately, judge steyn found that: african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1216 […] the effect of the closure decision of the cape town refugee reception office is that the applicants/asylum seekers will be compelled to leave the cape town area where they have established their homes. this result impacts on their right to dignity and to property and to just administrative action, in terms of the provisions of the constitution. it is irrational, unjustifiable and inequitable that the department grant [asylum seeker] permits to [cape town] asylum seekers but not to non-[cape town] asylum seekers. it would be inhumane to force them to leave cape town, prior to finality being reached on the closure decision. ultimately, the court held that the applicants must be able to access services at the cape town rro but limited the right of access to services only to the applicants listed in the case. therefore, this necessitated the launching of nbaya and others v director general of home affairs and others 6534/15 in the western cape high court, which dealt with the same legal challenge as the abdulaahi matter but extended the relief to the entire class of persons in this situation. infringement of the right to family unity and reunification south african law recognises the right to family unity and allows those who are married to, or dependent on, refugees to remain in the country by obtaining derivative refugee status in terms of section 3(c) of the refugees act. in the past, the department has given effect to this law by employing a policy referred to as “family joining”. recognised refugees were able to “join” their dependents and/or spouses to their files, and the dependents or spouses would acquire derivative refugee status by virtue of that relationship. the spouse or dependent was required only to prove that he or she was a dependant or spouse of a recognised refugee and once this was established the person would be granted derivative refugee status. however, in 2014, officials in the department indicated informally that a new policy concerning family joining had been adopted and that, as a result, derivative refugee status would only be granted to spouses if they were married to the refugee before either of them arrived in south africa, and provided that the refugee declared the marriage at the first stage of the asylum application. this policy is based on a fundamental misconception of the law, particularly section 3(c) of the refugees act, and its application to refugee families. the department interprets section 3(c) of the refugees act to apply only to families that preexisted the refugee-producing event. this policy represents a narrow interpretation of refugee law and the right to family unity and succeeds in african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1217 excluding undeclared families formed before refuge was sought in south africa, families formed in south africa and families formed remotely, or by ‘proxy’, in terms of customary or traditional law. families formed before seeking refuge in south africa should have the full benefit of the 1983 unhcr guidelines on the reunification of refugee families (the reunification guidelines), which support the reunification of “nuclear” families, including husbands, wives, dependent unmarried children and other dependent family members including parents and/or relatives who were living within the family unit in the country of origin. the reunification guidelines also provide that the absence of documentary evidence, for example marriage and/or birth certificates, “should not per se be considered as an impediment”. furthermore, within its definition of a ‘dependent’, the refugees act does not require that the dependency existed before a refugee sought asylum in south africa and, therefore, there appears to be no proper legal foundation for the department’s interpretation. while in south africa, some refugees prefer to enter into marriages remotely, or ‘by proxy’, in terms of their customary or traditional laws. these marriages take place after the refugee has been granted refugee status in south africa and, negotiations are conducted between the families in the country of origin, after which the ‘proxy spouse’ travels to south africa to join the refugee. the reunification guidelines expressly recognise customary marriages and even polygamous marriages “validly contracted in the country of origin”. south african law emphasises respect for customary and traditional law and, as such, such marriages must accordingly be recognised. if the proxy spouse is dependent on the refugee, they fulfil the section 3(c) refugee definition, and policies refusing to recognise their status as a refugee are in conflict with the clear provisions of the refugees act. even if the refugees act were to be interpreted so as to restrict the definition of ‘dependant’ to persons dependent on the refugee before he or she sought asylum, deporting a failed asylum seeker who is married to a refugee breaks up the family, thus infringing its members’ constitutional right to dignity, which encompass the right to form a family and to cohabit with one’s spouse, as enshrined in the case of dawood and another v minister of home affairs 2000 (3) sa 936 (cc). the department’s new policy on refugee families has resulted in thousands of refugee families remaining undocumented. many family members now live in the country without proper documentation, fearing arrest, detention and possible deportation. these are individuals with a prima facie refugee claim who ought to be documented in terms of the refugees act. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1218 in scalabrini v minister of home affairs and others 2016 (wcd) unreported case no. 5242/16, the court held that families should be joined irrespective of whether the recognised refugee declared their existence when making the application for refugee status and regardless of when they were married. the court further ordered the department to draft a standard operating procedure that can facilitate the ‘family joining’ process. the department adopted a standard operating procedure that includes, amongst others, the requirement that all applicants for family joining must undergo dna-testing, which essentially excludes those who cannot afford this expensive procedure. the standard operating procedure also failed to create a procedure for providing dependants with interim protection while applications for family joining are being processed, thereby making it wholly inadequate. due to the department’s failure to implement a satisfactory standard operating procedure, the applicants have been forced to approach the court for further relief. this matter has been set down for december 2018. research findings and analysis through a set of interviews with refugees and asylum seekers, as well as various human rights service providers, we determined that the south african government’s refugee policy shifts are contributing to the large number of undocumented and unprotected refugees and asylum seekers in south africa. by restricting access to the asylum process and placing undue obstacles before individuals wishing to apply for asylum, or even regularise their existing permits, the department is attempting to deter applicants from the asylum system and often leaves them with no choice but to ‘go underground’ and remain in south africa undocumented and hidden from authorities. the first policy shift detailed how physically inaccessible the asylum process in south africa can be for both new applicants and existing asylum seekers and refugees. despite the fact that human rights lawyers have successfully litigated in this matter, there has been little to no real change in practice. asylum seekers still detail stories about being turned away from the rros without assistance. the participants in this article revealed that these access problems are a nationwide problem. some of the participants stated that they are currently undocumented because, after having tried to extend their expired permits on numerous occasions but being turned away without being assisted, they were left with no choice but to give up and return home without a valid permit. new asylum seekers explained that they had attempted to obtain asylum seeker permits from rros in musina or durban but that they could not african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1219 gain entry to the building; participants stated that they slept outside the office on numerous occasions in order to be the first clients serviced at the rro. they stated that, after sleeping outside the rro and waiting in the queue for hours, the security guard at the entrance of the building refused to allow them to enter the building. some stated that they waited more than a week before finally giving up. new applicants stated that they waited days and sometimes months before receiving their asylum seeker permits. the lack of access to rros for asylum seekers and new applicants means that people are forced to live for protracted periods of time without valid asylum permits. the access cases demonstrate that the department has failed in providing adequate facilities, systems and processes to receive and issue asylum seeker permits. this failure is compounded by poor queue management, corruption and general maladministration. the closure of the cape town rro and the refusal to assist new arrivals or persons who obtained their asylum documents from offices outside of cape town resulted in a number of our participants being undocumented or in possession of expired permits. this is because up until the 2012 closure of the cape town rro, asylum seekers who applied at offices other than the cape town rro were able to extend, process and have their files transferred to cape town. similarly, new applications for asylum were also received in cape town prior to the closure. even after the closure of the cape town rro, there were periods of time when asylum seekers who obtained their permits at offices other than the cape town rro were able to obtain extensions, due to the numerous legal challenges that were brought against the department. this created a legitimate expectation for newcomers applying for asylum and asylum seekers who applied at offices other than the cape town rro that they could obtain and extend their permits in cape town. furthermore, south africa has a non-encampment policy, which allows for the freedom of movement. as such, asylum seekers and newcomers seeking asylum are permitted to reside anywhere in south africa, including in cape town. asylum seekers in south africa are issued with an asylum seeker permit on arrival. the permits can be valid for a period of anywhere between one and six months, depending on what stage of the application the asylum seeker is in. these timeframes were created when the drafters of the legislature envisioned that the application process would finally be adjudicated within 180 days of the application being made. however, in reality, the finalisation of asylum applications often takes more than ten years, during which period the applicant is expected to renew their permit every one to six months. for african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1220 applicants who initially obtained their asylum seeker permits outside of cape town, this means that they are expected to travel at least twice a year to an rro that is over 1400 kilometres away from cape town. applicants often spend over r 1,500 on transportation and, due to corruption and maladministration, are often not assisted or are unable to gain access to the rro on the date of arrival. when access is eventually granted, there is no guarantee that an asylum seeker will be assisted on the same day and they are often informed to return on another day or given an appointment for a date that is weeks after the expiration date of the permit. this results in the need to acquire accommodation and thereby incurs more financial costs. the need to travel also has harsh implications on an asylum seeker’s employment prospects and opportunities. most asylum seekers are either unemployed or precariously employed in the informal sector. thus, they are subjected to various exploitative labour practices and experience a lack of job security. some of our participants indicated that they could not travel to their office of application because the journey is too long and would result in them being absent from work for an extended period of time, which will likely lead to a dismissal. other participants stated that even if they are not dismissed, missing a day of work means that they will not be paid their entire salary and will not be able to fund the trip to the office of application. therefore, some asylum seekers are confronted with the difficult obstacle of having to choose between their livelihoods and regularising their stay in south africa. those who are self-employed as vendors or small-scale entrepreneurs also experience financial difficulties in that they are forced to close their businesses while travelling. other applicants reported that they lost their employment once their permit expired and were unable to travel over 1400 kilometres to their office of application. furthermore, once an asylum seeker’s permit has expired, their bank accounts are closed, preventing them from accessing what little funds they may have had. families face even greater obstacles as all family members have to travel to the office of application in order to renew their permits. children and scholars lose out on schooling time during this period and families who are unable to afford the travel and accommodation costs face the possibility of having their children ejected from school due to lack of documentation. female-headed households experience even greater financial and other burdens, as the single parent has to find financial means to travel with her children to the office of application. female applicants reported having slept outside the rro with their children for days, waiting to be assisted as they could not afford private african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1221 accommodation. furthermore, most of these women work as entrepreneurs, selling fruits and vegetables in stalls or hairdressing near taxi ranks, and they only earn money if they are at work. this means that they lose their income for all of the days that they are not working. female-headed households also voiced concerns about safety and, in particular, xenophobic related attacks. other participants voiced that, even if they finally raise the money to travel to their office of application to renew their permit, often by the time they reach the rro their permit has lapsed. in terms of section 37 of refugees act, allowing your permit to lapse without just cause is a punishable offence and asylum seekers are first referred to a police station where a charge is laid against them. an asylum seeker is then required to appear in the magistrates court to provide evidence and justification for why their asylum seeker permit has expired and often face being found guilty of an offence and being sentenced to a fine of between r500 and r5000, ultimately resulting in a criminal record. participants cited this as an additional issue that prevented them from attempting to regularise their stay even after they had collected the means to travel to their office of application. the requirement to travel over 1400 kilometres to their office of application, often with an already expired permit, compounded the fear that refugees and asylum seekers had of being arrested and, possibly, deported back to a country where they faced potential persecution. this fear results in thousands of asylum seekers remaining in cape town without valid asylum permits. in the abdulaahi case alone, over 1000 applicants came forward indicating that they were unable to extend their permits as they could not travel to their office of application. cases such as this depict a situation in which asylum seekers are seeking to regularise their stay in south africa but are prevented from doing so by government policies that place extraneous socio-economic hurdles on them. by making it difficult for asylum seekers to access the asylum process and by placing so many procedural and bureaucratic hurdles on them, the department creates a situation in which a number of asylum seekers are forced to remain undocumented. new asylum seekers entering south africa travel to cape town for various reasons and do so without knowing that they cannot make new applications at the cape town rro. often these individuals do not have the financial means or knowledge of how to travel to other provinces. one of the service providers interviewed stated that the number of undocumented persons seeking their services grew from 2% in 2012 to 17% in 2013 and 19% in 2014. in may 2015, african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1222 the scalabrini centre, a human rights organisation, conducted an advocacy programme in which it contacted 857 newcomers by short message service (sms) to come to the scalabrini centre for an update on the court case. in total, 223 new asylum seekers reported to the scalabrini centre and were given updates on the court case as well as information on the open rros around the country. during the sessions, 156 individuals completed questionnaires regarding their experiences in cape town as undocumented asylum seekers and future plans regarding their asylum applications. the results indicated that financial problems are the main obstacles to applying for asylum at other rros and that roughly only 29% are planning to apply for asylum at an rro outside of cape town. when asked why they have not applied for asylum at another rro, 84 participants stated financial constraints as the reason for remaining undocumented and 50 individuals, out of the 156, stated that they would rather wait for the cape town rro to be opened. another 2 stated travel issues as the main obstacle and a further 2 stated that health issues hindered them from travelling. when asked if they planned on travelling to other rros in order to apply for asylum, 109 participants stated they did not, while only 44 of the 156 were willing to travel. the service providers interviewed expressed that they are frequently approached by rejected asylum-seekers whose family lives are threatened by their imminent deportation. in such cases they have written to the department, asking that families not be separated, and pointing out that south african and international law recognises the family as “the fundamental unit of society”, that the unhcr policy promotes the reunification of refugee families and that south africa’s refugees act includes the recognition of a dependent of a recognised refugee. the result of this policy shift in ‘family joining’ cases is that large numbers of refugee spouses or dependent children remain undocumented. rather than return to their countries of origin, most of these applicants opt to join the cohort of undocumented migrants, rather than abandon their families. they, therefore, live in south africa as undocumented migrants. the department also refuses to document children born from these parents. many participants stated that their spouses’ asylum applications were rejected despite being married to recognised refugees. after attempting to correct this error, the families simply gave up and continued to live without documentation. additionality, if the undocumented spouses, who are women, give birth to children in south africa, the department refuses to document these children african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1223 because one of the parents is undocumented. this is despite the fact that the child is born in south africa to a refugee parent. therefore, it is clear to see how the department’s policy shifts create the preconditions for refugees and asylum seekers to become undocumented and fall into a state of irregular migration. in all of the cases discussed above, the south african government promulgated policies designed to restrict certain kinds of migration and to confine asylum seekers to the borders of the country. in attempting to achieve these goals it has made access to the asylum process almost impossible for those living in cape town, forcing them to remain undocumented. all of the applicants attempted to regularise their stay in south africa, but it was the policies and practices of the department, making it impossible for both new and existing refugees and asylum seekers to access the rros, which drove them to become undocumented. conclusion south africa has undertaken to receive refugees and to act as a host state, obligations that stem from the 1951 un convention and the 1969 aou convention. however, the narrow reading of the refugees act, which is designed to give effect to refugee protection, and the various policy shifts that we have witnessed over the last few years, shows an aversion to the obligations that the government undertook to honour. the cases outlined above clearly show the successive policy shifts the department has undertaken in relation to the implementation of their international obligations. the department has implemented policies and practices at rros throughout south africa that have been aimed at limiting access to the asylum regime. despite the courts finding, on numerous occasions, that the department has a duty to provide an effective asylum system for the processing of applications, the department has continued to make decisions that refuse to uphold these duties. the cape town rro has been closed for new applications for asylum since 30 june 2012 and, despite successful litigation that continued for over five years, the office remains wilfully closed. simultaneously the drive by the department to force applicants to return to “their office of application” and to re-characterise existing rros as “winddown” temporary facilities, has further decreased the protection space for refugees and asylum seekers in south africa. by restricting access to the asylum process and placing greater obstacles on refugees and asylum seekers, the south african government has driven refugees and asylum seekers to remain undocumented. furthermore, the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1224 restrictive policy shifts have had the consequences of forcing individuals who ought to be documented as refugees to remain undocumented. it is clear, however, that this type of irregular migration could be avoided through the implementation of laws and policies that protect refugees and uphold international human rights. therefore, we call on the south african government to improve its political discourse, laws and the implementation thereof, so that at least the irregularity of asylum seekers and refugees can be avoided by addressing the shortcomings, inefficiencies and irrationalities in the asylum seeker process. references abdulaahi and 205 others v the director-general of the department of home affairs and others, unreported, case no. 7705/2013 (western cape high court). ad hoc joint committee on probing violence against foreign nationals. 2015. report of the ad hoc joint committee on probing violence against foreign nationals. from <https://bit.ly/2nxdg77> aden and others v the minister of home affairs and another, unreported, case no. 9179/00 (western cape high court). african national congress. 2012. peace and stability: policy discussion document. from <https://bit.ly/2sewsrp > (retrieved october 12, 2018). dawood and another v minister of home affairs, 2000 (3) sa 936 (cc). department of home affairs, green paper on international migration (pretoria: 21 june 2016); department of home affairs, white paper on international migration for south africa (pretoria, july 2017). draft refugees regulations, 2018 and draft rules of the standing committee for refugee affairs, government gazette no 644, (29 june 2018), draft regulation 11(4). hirsi and others v the minister of home affairs and others, unreported, case no. 16863/08 (western cape high court). kiliko and others v the minister of home affairs and others, 2006 (4) sa 114 (c). landau, l.b. and amit, r. 2014. wither policy? southern african perspectives on understanding law, ‘refugee’ policy and protection. journal of refugee studies, 27. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1225 minister of home affairs and others v somali association of south africa eastern cape (sasa ec) and another, 2015 (3) sa 545 (sca). nbaya and others v director general of home affairs and others 6534/15. ngwato, t.p. 2013. policy shifts in the south african asylum system: evidence and implications. african centre for migration and society (acms) and lawyers for human rights (lhr). plascon-evans paints ltd. v van riebeeck paints (pty) ltd., 1984 (3) sa 623 (a). scalabrini centre, cape town and others v minister of home affairs and others, 2018 (4) sa 125 (sca). scalabrini v minister of home affairs and others, 2016 (wcd), unreported, case no. 5242/16. tafira and others v ngozwane and others, 12 december 2006, unreported, case no. 12960/06. thomasso and others v the minister of home affairs and others, unreported, case no. 10598/09 (western cape high court). unhcr. 2007. unhcr chief commends pretoria’s refugee policy, pledges cooperation. from <https://bit.ly/2yrt0kt> (retrieved september 28, 2015). zieck, marjoleine. 1997. unhcr and voluntary repatriation of refugees: a legal analysis. martinus nijhoff publishers. zihalirwa and others v the minister of home affairs and others, unreported, case no. 20988/12 (western cape high court). african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1226 african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour: empirical evidence from cape town in south africa jonas nzabamwita * abstract south africa experienced an increase in the number of mixed categories of migrants from the african continent. central to these migrants is the issue of their remittances. using remittance motives in a prospect theoretical framing, this paper presents the findings of a study that explored remittance patterns and behaviour along a range of migrants’ characteristics. the data are premised on questionnaires, interviews and focus groups with migrants from the democratic republic of congo (drc), rwanda, somalia and zimbabwe who live in cape town, south africa. the results show that economic migrants remit cash and goods more frequently, while forced migrants remit more both socially and in terms of the value of cash and goods. in addition, income, education and family size are significantly associated with remittance behaviour in respect to the amount of cash remitted as well as value of goods. furthermore, there is a strong correlation between the type of remittance channels and income, education and immigration status. keywords african migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, migration, remittances, south africa. introduction south africa has witnessed the greatest recorded rate of increase in various categories of migrants from the african continent. the flow of these migrants into south africa has always been intrinsically linked to several distinct periods. for instance, in the pre-colonial period, the discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1886 by the apartheid regime lured low wage and low skilled labour migrants from lesotho, malawi, mozambique, zimbabwe, zambia and tanzania into south africa’s rich mining centres (tsietsi, 1998; adepoju, 2003b; makhema, 2009; dinbabo & nyasulu, 2015). in addition to the use of inexpensive migrant labour in the mining industry, the south african government recruited african migrants for domestic service, work on * phd candidate in development studies, institute for social development, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of the western cape, south africa. email: nzabajonas@gmail.com african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1227 commercial farms and factories and the transportation and construction sectors (crush et al., 2006; kok et al., 2006). towards the colonial period, foreign labour migration became not only keystone for government policies, but also pivotal for upholding south africa’s industrial revolution, which bolstered the economy and development, thereby attracting a massive influx of white migrants escaping political uncertainty and hostility in newlyindependent african countries (breyetenbach, 1979; adepoju, 2000b; peberdy, 2009). for much of the colonial period, the apartheid regime adopted protectionist and nationalistic migration policies with a particular emphasis on tight border control and restrictions on africans who were considered undesirable (segatti & landau, 2011). when apartheid was officially abolished in 1994, south africa re-entered a global economic and political sphere, and the new government led by the african national congress (anc) felt obliged to repay a political debt to other countries for their role in the liberation struggle (anderson, 2006; crush et al., 2006). subsequently, south africa opened up its borders, which sparked a large-scale flow of refugees and asylum seekers running away from the deepening political crisis in countries such as the democratic republic of congo (drc), somalia, rwanda, burundi, angola, nigeria, the central african republic (car), ethiopia and others further afield (adepojo, 2000b; adepojo 2003b; dinbabo & carciotto, 2015). likewise, the fall of apartheid encouraged increased clandestine cross-border movement of economic migrants from as far as egypt, libya, tunisia, cameroon, uganda, ghana, senegal, mali, kenya, algeria, morocco and elsewhere in search of a better life and opportunities in south africa (mukasa, 2012). by the end of the 20th century, restrictive immigration policies were still in place; however, the post-apartheid government slowly dismantled border control policies (kok et al., 2006; segatti & landau, 2011). the number of migrants from sub-saharan africa in south africa dramatically surged as a result of a booming economy coupled with amnesties to political refugees and asylum seekers (crush, 2000; crush et al., 2005). along with the influx of short-term contract miners, long-term white migrants and migrants forced to flee persecution in their home countries, in 2000, south africa recorded other categories of voluntary migrants that included skilled migrants (i.e. professionals, semi-professional, managerial and technical migrants), documented migrants (i.e. temporary residents in possession of tourism, study or medicine or those holding work permits) and undocumented or clandestine migrants (wentzel et al., 2006; wentzel & tlabela, 2006). african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1228 while south africa has a range of migrant categories, determining a precise figure of african migrants has proven to be extremely difficult. in addition, a number of sources have challenged the accuracy of data provided by the south african government (stupart, 2016; africa check, 2017). nonetheless, using the stream of contract and voluntary economic migrants, as well as forced refugees and asylum seekers, the 2011 census placed the total number of international migrants in south africa at 2,173,409. this was approximately 4.2% of the country’s total population at that time, and 73.5% of these migrants originated from african countries (world bank, 2018: 3). this figure is unlikely to include all illegal migrants, however, the projections from the international organization for migration (iom) (2016) and international labour organization (ilo) (2017) show that the stock of migrants, particularly those from african countries, will continue to steadily and considerably rise, largely due to on-going protracted political instability and persistent economic collapse and deprivation. the rising population of african migrants in south africa brings to the fore the issue of remittances. in practice, remittances are a proportion of a migrant’s income in his or her domiciled country that is sent to the country of origin (van doorn, 2002; ratha et al., 2009). in the past, global financial institutions often confined remittances to financial transfers. however, this restriction underestimates and ignores the main essence of remittances, as the world bank (2014) and suliman, et al. (2014) estimate that a substantial share of overall remittance outflows to developing countries is in fact in-kind transfers. in a broader sense, beyond economic transfers of cash, migrants also buy consumable commodities that they send to their dependents in their home countries (tavera & chikanda, 2009; chisasa, 2014). by the same token, international migrants establish social and political networks in their countries of residence through which they acquire a wealth of information, values, technology, intellectual capacity and social capital (knowledge, experience and expertise) as well as other tools that are transmitted to their respective countries in the form of social remittances (levit, 1988; goldring 2002; goldring, 2004; mohamoud & fréchaut, 2006; levitt & lamba-nieves, 2011). from this vantage point, migrants’ remittances can potentially be defined as one part of a system of strong transnational connections that link people across distances and diverse cultural practices (cohen & rodriquez, 2005; paerregaard, 2008). for that reason, cash, goods and social remittances are an essential and enduring linkage between migrant and home country at african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1229 family and community levels, as well as local government and national levels (taylor, 2000; styan, 2007). in relation to migrants’ resource flows, remittances can further be classified either as formal or informal. the transfer of remittances is formal when sent using registered channels. informal remittances, on the other hand, as the name suggests, are remittances sent through informal channels and, by definition, this type of remittance is not registered (buencamino & gurbonov, 2002; world bank, 2012). in remittance markets, the transfers of cash primarily take place formally in the commercial banks, post offices, money transfer operators (such as western union and moneygram), telecommunication companies, retails outlets and authorised dealers with limited authority (orozco, 2006; bester et al., 2010). they may also be transferred informally by the migrants when they visit the home country, or by family, friends, networks of transfer agencies, unregistered travel agencies, taxis, buses, call shops and ethnic stores (truen et al., 2005; truen & chisadza, 2012; world bank, 2014). remittances in the form of money or goods may be sent by migrants using a broad array of informal and formal channels, ranging from hand deliveries by migrants themselves or third parties to less regulated conduits of delivering goods (truen et al., 2005; truen & chisadza, 2012; chisasa, 2014). social remittances, on the other hand, are intangible assets. as such, the potential pathways along which they are transmitted are cross-linking modalities such as letters, telephone calls, emails, online chats, videos, face-to-face conversations and meetings with key political figures from migrants’ homelands (levitt, 1998; levitt & joworsky, 2007). different types of remittances and varieties of channels have made it extremely difficult to establish the total size of the remittance market. similarly, ensuring that all remittance outflows are accurately and consistently reported has always been challenging in south africa. given this complexity, being the largest economy of the region and the only middle-income country in sub-saharan africa, south africa is among the continent’s largest remittance markets (bakewell, 2011: 35). the remittance outflows account for about 0.4% of south africa’s total gross domestic product (gdp), and the approximate size of the total remittance market from south africa to other african countries is $2 billion per annum (technoserve, 2015: 4). while migrant remittances from south africa to other african countries continue to grow, and despite a plethora of literature, there has been a african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1230 knowledge gap as to how and in what respect remittances might differ among migrants. the continued deficiency in the understanding of the fundamental aspects of remittances requires answering questions such as: who remits? what is remitted? how much is remitted? why and how? as a contribution to these academic debates, this paper sets out to explore the link between african migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour. the next section of this paper presents the theoretical literature. section 3 presents the methodology and a summary of the main variables used in the analysis. section 4 presents and discusses empirical findings and the last section presents a conclusion. theoretical and conceptual framework a substantial number of theories have been advanced to analyse what motivates a rational migrant to send remittances (e.g. lucas & stark, 1985; stark & lucas, 1988; poirine, 1997). since the decision to remit funds and other resources is underpinned in the behavioural approach, a combination of remittance motives and prospect theory would provide better insights into remittance behaviours. the original prospect theory was developed by kahnerman and tversky (1979) and was later revised and improved by other authors (i.e., kahnerman & tversky, 1991; tversky & kahnerman, 1992; wakker & tversky, 1993; kahnerman & tversky, 2000; wakker & zank, 2002) to explain the decision-making process. this descriptive theory departs from the normal utility approach to include the psychological and economic principle of decision making under conditions of risk, uncertainty and ambiguity (wakker & zank, 2002). using the utility approach, opong (2012) and barberis (2013) argue that when faced with decisions, the behavioural patterns of all decision makers will seek to maximize their utility, by first weighing each possible outcome with the probability of occurrence and summing this up over all possible outcomes, and then selecting the strategy that guarantees the highest possible returns or payoffs. in a prospect theoretical perspective, individual decisions are anchored around a reference point and a decision maker evaluates the outcomes in terms of loss and gains relative to the selection of choices. what influence a decision maker the most and thereby act as carriers of value or utility are circumstances, rather than the final asset position that includes current wealth (kahnerman & tversky, 1991; carmerer, 2005). in a similar view, opong (2012) reasons that, much like all theoretic prospect decision makers, the frame of reference of most migrants guides their decision making, and their reference points are deep seated in the prevailing conditions in their home african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1231 countries. this reference point is affected by and interlinked with the migrants’ social-economic conditions in the country of destination, which in turn shapes migrants’ perceptions of the current situation in their home countries. according to stark and lucas (1988) and rapoport and docquier (2006), the reality of conditions in migrants’ home countries influence their behavioural patterns and judgment, and in the long run determine how money is sent home, how often, how much is sent and to whom. prospect theory contains many remarkable insights that link with the social and economic milieu of migrants, and in incorporating remittance motives opong (2012) maintains that remittance behaviour depends on both migrants’ abilities (i.e. their income and savings) and their motives to remit. from this perspective, remittance decision making and behaviour is a function of a migrant’s characteristics, willingness and ability to remit (lucas & stark 1985, rapoport & docquier, 2006). based on this notion, the willingness and motivation of the prospective remitter has been hypothesized as related to altruism and self-interest (lucas & stark, 1985; taylor, 1999) as well as tempered or enlightened motives (poirine, 1997; lillard & willis, 1997). the self-enlightened motive of remittances was expanded by hagen-zanker and siegel (2007) to include contractual arrangements, such as co-insurance, loan repayment and exchange between migrant and household members in the country of origin. under an altruistic model, the intuitive motive to remit is the migrants’ concern about relatives left behind in the home country. in a nutshell, a migrant may derive satisfaction from ensuring the welfare of his or her relatives (lucas & stark, 1988; stark, 1991; solimano, 2003). in a behavioural sense, altruism implies a utility function in which the migrant cares about the consumption needs of the family members left behind (banerjee, 1984; lillard & willis, 1997; agarwal & horowitz, 2002). further to altruistic assumptions, migrants with higher earning potential tend to remit more money and goods, and remittances tend to increase if the migrant is married and the spouse and/or children are in the country of origin (frankhouser, 1995; von burgsdorff, 2010; von burgsdorff, 2012; chisasa, 2014). however, in a posthoc strategy that follows migration, when the families join migrants, the ties and links with the home country become weaker and the amount of remittances decrease and are sent less frequently (sana & massey, 2005; kosse & vermeulen, 2014). african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1232 in addition, intentions to return are positively correlated with the tendency to remit more (konica & filer, 2005; lindley, 2007; lindley, 2008), and the amount that a migrant sends to relatives in the home country is negatively correlated with the number of migrants from the same household. furthermore, the time profile of remittances as propounded in the remittance decay hypothesis (that remittances decline as the length of residence increases) depends on the profile of migrants, i.e. migrants who stay longer abroad tend to remit at a decreasing rate (stark, 1978; agunias, 2006; amuedo-dorantes & pozo, 2006; vargas-silva, 2006; makina & massenge, 2014; echazarram, 2011). likewise, remittances are positively correlated with income, while the number of dependents in the host country affects remittances adversely (frankhouser, 1995; holst & schrooten, 2006). in a similar view to the above, migrants who perceive the business environment in their countries of origin to be favorable will remit more money and goods in the form of investments (lucas & stark, 1985), and migrants who regularly visit their home countries are more likely to send remittances (lindley, 2007; lindley, 2009; lindley, 2010). much like the altruistic hypothesis, in the self-interest motive, migrants who maintain links with home countries are more likely to remit, especially when they are willing to return to their countries of origin (hoddinott, 1994; cox et al., 1998; de la briere et al., 2002; agunias, 2006). in a pure self-interest motive, migrants driven by the prospect of inheritance send remittances to maintain family income and financial stability. under this hypothesis, remitters are expected to have a higher chance to inherit assets, whereas the higher the value of assets to be inherited is likely to be associated with the higher remittances. for example, osili (2007 and hoddinott (1994) found that migrants remit more in wealthier areas. likewise, schrieder and knerr (2000), garip (2006) and holst and schrooten (2006) affirmed that with an inheritance seeking motive, male emigrants remit significantly more compared to female emigrants. however, according to cracium (2006), the exceptions are that women remit a substantially larger proportion of their wages than men. in reaction to pure altruism and pure self-interest motives, stark and lucas (1988) used an eclectic model termed “tempered altruism” and “enlightened self-interest” to explain contractual arrangements of co-insurance, exchange motives and loan repayment in driving remittances. a number of sources stress that in the eclectic model, remittances are utilized as a familial strategy african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1233 to maximize an income and to insure against future shocks (stark, 1991; poirine, 1997; brown & ahlburh, 1999; solimano, 2003). the family enters into an implicit pre-determined agreement in which they either invest in the education of the remitter or finance the cost of migration, while the remittances they receive are used to repay the loan that financed the cost of migration and education. under this assumption, scholars report that educated migrants are likely to remit more (hoddinott, 1994; ilahi & jffarey, 1999). from the behaviour and motivation theoretical synthetic models, it is evident that the complex mixture of altruism, self-interest and self-enlightenment best describes the theoretical aspect of remittances. however, when combined with micro-variables representing migrants’ characteristics, remittance behaviours are difficult to predict. therefore, to ascertain whether there is a link between migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour, the researcher developed the function consisting of principal independent variables. these variables have been prominently linked to remittances in the literature. remittance behaviour (rb) = n + a + ge + ms + el + irsa + dtisa + ri + dssa + il + absa + fhv + a variable description: • nationality = n • age = a • gender = ge • marital status = ms • educational level = el • immigration reasons to south africa = irsa • document types in south africa = dtsa • return intentions = ri • duration of stay in south africa = dssa • income level = il • access to banks in south africa = absa • frequency of home visits = fhv african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1234 • associations = a methodology the study used both quantitative and qualitative methods. the information was collected using structured survey questionnaires administered to 83 migrants. additionally, interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with 12 migrants from the drc, rwanda, somalia and zimbabwe who live in cape town, south africa. cape town is of interest as it is a cosmopolitan city that receives migrants from the african continent and has a history of migrant settlement (lefko-everett, 2008). similarly, from the researcher’s observations, cape town’s largest inner-city sections account for a high number of migrants from the case study. the sample was selected by means of non-probabilistic method, where the researcher applied the purposive approach to select the sample of migrants as an entry point based on his knowledge and the nature of the research aims. the sample was then extended by means of snowballing to reach more participants by referral. to mitigate the risks of bias and errors associated with the non-probability sampling method, a considerable effort was made to include migrants of varied demographics in terms of age, gender, occupation, nationality and legal status. in addition, the non-probability sampling approach enabled the researcher to overcome the difficulty of locating undocumented migrants. in a similar view, combining purposive and snowballing sampling methods enabled the researcher to choose the respondents included in the study and increase subjects’ variability, thus minimizing the challenges of finding the representative sample (babbie & mouton, 2001; mertens & gisenberg, 2009). on the one hand, variables representing characteristics of migrants were categorised according to demographic information, such as nationality, age, gender, education, marital status, duration of stay in south africa, income level, migration history, family context (i.e., migration status, reason for immigration and return intention), family size in both south africa and the home country, level of social capital and access to financial institutions and banking facilities. on the other hand, remittance patterns and behaviourspecific variables were disaggregated to include remittance type (i.e., cash, goods and social remittances) propensity to remit, value and amount of remittances, frequency of remittances, as well as channels used to send remittances. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1235 the data analysis was based on a combination of both primary and secondary data, and the goal was to link remittance behaviour with migrants’ characteristics. to do so, a statistical analysis was performed on the data collected from the survey questionnaires using stata software. in order to describe, explain, interpret and summarise the characteristics of the migrants and their remittances, descriptive statistics in the form of mathematical quantities were used, while inferential statistics were employed to ascertain whether remittance behaviour differs depending upon migration characteristics. the qualitative data were analysed using thematic content analysis. this involved breaking data from the interviews into more manageable themes, triangulating them with those from the focus group and comparing the findings with information from the literature review. disaggregating remittances into many types posed a challenge and incorporating and analysing the aspects of social remittances created incoherence in this paper. this was due to the fact that these kinds of remittances are intangible in nature and difficult to measure compared to financial transfers (mohamoud & fréchaut, 2006: 34). similarly, the quantitative approach did not provide detailed or nuanced narratives from migrants’ responses. nonetheless, these methodological shortcomings were offset by the qualitative method employed. a quantitative method provides data that may be effectively used to predict and measure relationships and phenomena (babbie & mouton, 2001; mertens & gisenberg, 2009). as such, the quantitative method was selected for this research as it proved to be more affordable and faster than the qualitative method, especially when testing hypotheses. results and discussions demographic characteristics out of a sample of 83 respondents, 20 participants (24%) are from zimbabwe, 20 (24%) are from rwanda, 20 (24%) are from somalia, and the remaining 23 (28%) are from the drc. there is no considerable difference in terms of educational background across nationalities, apart from the rwandese, of whom half attained university degrees. otherwise, many of the pooled sample (31%) indicated they had completed secondary school, 17% had attained primary school, 23% had achieved a college qualification, 28% had completed tertiary education and 1% had obtained another type of education. the average monthly income of 34% of respondents falls between r4000–8000, african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1236 22% receive r1500–4000, 26% receive r8000–15000 and 18% receive r15000 or more. relating to migration context and family history of migrants, 63% of the respondents belong to an association or diaspora organisation, compared to the remaining 37% who do not. a relatively high number of migrants have access to banking institutions in both south africa and their countries of origin, and 64% of the respondents indicated they have bank accounts in south africa, compared to 36% who do not. 58% of the respondents indicated that their relatives have access to financial and banking institutions in their home countries. with regard to returning home, in this study, 61% of participants reported that they intended to return home permanently at some point in time, while 39% said that they did not have such intentions. out of those who intend to return to and settle permanently in their countries of origin, the majority (65%) are planning to do so in a period of four years or more. concerning a visit to their home countries, more than half of the pooled sample (51%) stated they had not visited their home country, 18% indicated that they have travelled home once, 12% indicated that they visit every few years, 11% visit once a year, 6% twice a year and the remaining 2% visit their home country every three months. in addition, the majority of the respondents (not including zimbabweans) are holders of refugee status (33%) and asylum seeker permits (17%). other types of documents held are as follows: work permit (12%), partnership permits (4%), permanent residence permit (14%), study permit (6%), business permit (2%), other permits (1%). the remaining 11% are undocumented. zimbabweans’ frequency of home visits is high and the intention to return permanently is common, while on average the majority of respondents from rwanda, somalia and the drc do not visit their respective countries very often. the low incidence of return intentions among migrants from these countries could be linked to the fact that their countries experienced insecurity and civil wars in the past. according to united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) (2010), somalia is still characterised by insurgency. similarly, their low frequency of home visits is linked to the type of documents the migrants hold and their motives of migration. according to lawyers for human rights watch (lhrw) (2009) and the unhcr (2010), the south african department of home affairs revokes the residence permits of asylum seekers and refugees who travel to their native countries. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1237 in terms of their motivation for coming to south africa, 51% of the surveyed respondents cited political instability in their respective countries, 7% cited study reasons, 18% cited economic reasons, 13% cited family reunification, 10% cited business opportunity and 1% cited other reasons. when disaggregated across nationality, many respondents from zimbabwe cited perceived economic and business opportunities as the motive for coming to south africa, as opposed to those from the drc, rwanda and somalia, who indicated political instability. to sum up, the majority of the zimbabwean participants’ movement to south africa was voluntary. according to the lhrw (2009) and unhcr (2010), a person who leaves his or her home country for fear of persecution can apply for asylum and, if accepted, will be called a ‘refugee’. using a combination of the reason for migration, type of documentation, frequency of home visits and return intentions, one can conclude that the majority of zimbabweans are economic migrants (voluntary), as opposed to rwandese, congolese and somalis, whose movement to south africa is forced and who thus qualify as ‘refugees’ or ‘forced migrants’. remittance patterns and behaviour of african immigrants all respondents agreed that they send some kind of remittances home. the types of remittances identified were cash, goods or commodities and social remittances. 80% of the respondents transmit social remittances, 53% remit cash and goods simultaneously, 41% remit cash only and 6% remit goods only. when disaggregated according to nationality, the remittance patterns do not vary considerably. however, somalis remit slightly more socially. this finding was reinforced by the information gleaned from qualitative data, as explained by a participant from somalia: south africa is technologically advanced with modernized learning and strong democratic institutions that can help our countries to develop. we have learnt a lot in terms of skills and democratic practices, next time when we go home, we will ensure accountability and transparency in the public sector. the study also revealed that zimbabweans tend to remit more than any other nationality in terms of cash and goods, while goods only predominate among those from the drc and somalia. the high transfers among zimbabweans corresponds with other studies (e.g. makina, 2007; maphosa, 2007; von burgsdorff, 2010), which found that remittances to zimbabwe have increased african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1238 because of its rapidly declining economic conditions that have been accentuated by severe drought. the prominence of social remittances among migrants from somalia is undoubtedly associated with the fact that they belong to the somali association of south africa (sasa), with one of its missions being to facilitate somali migrants’ learning and integration in south africa. nevertheless, for the study cohort as a whole, further investigations divulged that apart from skills, technology and democratic values, some social and cultural practices that are perceived to be negative (participants referred to these aspects as negative social remittances) are also transmitted to the countries of origin, as highlighted by a female rwandan participant from the focus group: south africa is a country where everything is tolerated and accepted. in our countries, homosexuality and lesbianism are taboo, this western like culture has been adopted and promoted by the south african constitution and passed to us and our children and when they go back home, they take it with. in terms of remittances in the form of goods, a relatively high level of transfers of goods among congolese (the majority of whom are refugees) is likely linked to the availability of channels. this is described by a male congolese participant in the excerpt below: […] nowadays, we don’t struggle to send something home; it is just the matter of waiting for the bus to arrive from lubumbashi, and then send something home through the passengers. these findings on the sending of remittances by congolese refugees give testament to other studies (e.g. akuei, 2005; jacobsen, 2005; loschmann & siegel, 2014), which found that temporary forced migrants hoping to return home in non-distant future are likely to remit. this is not surprising, as under an altruistic motive, refugee remittances constitute an important mechanism that provides support to family members through periods of famine, conflict and war (lindley, 2007; lindley, 2008; lindley, 2009). they also provide real and substantial bulwarks to protect family members’ human rights (cockayne & shetret, 2012). this study found that 30% of the respondents remit to support their families. the remaining 20% of the respondents remit to repay their families, 13% remit to save and invest in their countries, 11% remit to inject cash in their businesses, 23% remit to respect their families and the remaining 2% remit for other reasons. these findings again substantiate all aspects of the prospect african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1239 hypotheses that remittances are determined by altruism (lucas & stark, 1988; stark, 1991; solimano, 2003), self-interest (hoddinott, 1994; cox, et al., 1998; de la briere, et al., 2002; agunias, 2006), enlightened self-interests, which include familial arrangements of co-insurance, loan repayment and inheritance motives (lucas & stark, 1985; stark, 1991; hoddinott, 1994; poirine, 1997; brown & ahlburh, 1999; taylor, 1999; osili, 2004). a deeper analysis of table 1 reveals that many zimbabweans remit to invest and save in their home countries, while somalis and rwandese remit for family-related reasons. again, this is not surprising as the study found the majority of zimbabweans to be economic migrants, and rwandese, congolese and somalis to be refugees. according to phyillis and kathrin (2008), refugees mainly remit to help family members left behind escape human rights violations. the implication of this is that economic migrants’ remittances are driven by pure selfinterest, while forced migrants’ remittances are based on altruistic motives. this is in line with cockyane and shetret’s (2012) report that refugees mainly remit to help family members left behind. table 1: remittance motives motive support the family repay the family invest and save run business respect the family other motives total nationality zimbabwe 20% 5% 35% 20% 15% 5% 100% drc 17% 22% 13% 18% 26% 4% 100% rwanda 45% 30% 5% 20% 0% 0% 100% somalia 40% 25% 5% 30% 0% 0% 100% source: nzabamwita (2015) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1240 with regards to the values of remittances, out of 78 respondents who indicated that they send cash, the majority (39%) noted that they send r1000–r2500, and the rest of the remittance transactions vary as follows: 9% remit r500– r1000, 32% remit r2500–r5000, and the remaining 19% remit r5000 and above. as indicated in table 2, the amount of cash remitted does not follow a specific pattern based on nationality, however, zimbabweans tend to remit the highest amounts, followed by congolese. this confirms other studies that found that economic migrants remit more than refugees (phyillis & kathrin, 2008). a possible explanation is that conflict-induced migration happens to save migrants’ lives rather than diversifying income (lindley, 2008; lindley, 2009) and forced migrants are not likely to have enough resources in the initial period of their arrival compared to voluntary migrants, so they only tend to remit long after full integration into the host country (ghosh, 2006). table 2: amount of money remitted each time amount < r500 r500– r1000 r1000– r1500 r1500– r2500 r2500 – r5000 > r5000 total nationality zimbabwe 10% 10% 15% 25% 5% 35% 100% drc 0% 9% 27% 46% 0% 18% 100% rwanda 0% 15% 55% 5% 15% 10% 100% somalia 0% 0% 6% 12% 69% 13% 100% source: nzabamwita (2015) regarding the value of goods, the majority of the respondents (66%) indicated that they send goods worth r500–r3000 each time goods are sent, 12% remit goods to the value of less than r500, 8% remit goods worth r5000–r8000 and the remaining 8% remit goods worth r5000 or more. table 3 indicates that the congolese and zimbabweans remit relatively high values of goods compared to the rest of the group. goods remittances to zimbabwe are perhaps related to production that dwindled after the implementation of land african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1241 reform policies (see kerzner, 2006; kerzner, 2009; polzer, 2010). another potential explanation is the close proximity between south africa and zimbabwe (makina, 2007; makina, 2010; chisasa, 2014) coupled with a shortage of currency as acknowledged by two zimbabwean participants during an interview: let me tell you something, every time i sent money to my son for school fees, he travels from the village to town to get it, he is always told to come back the following day, because the bank does not have money (p1: participant from zimbabwe). with the lack of american dollars in the zimbabwean banks, i prefer to buy stuff in south africa, so that i can get cash when i re-sell them in harare (p2: participant from zimbabwe). table 3: value of goods remitted each time amount <r500 r500– r1500 r1500– r3000 r3000– r5000 r5000– r8000 <r8000 total nationality zimbabwe 15% 31% 23% 0% 15% 16% 100% drc 0% 6% 46% 26% 7% 15% 100% rwanda 34% 9% 33% 16% 8% 0% 100% somalia 0% 12% 55% 33% 0% 0% 100% source: nzabamwita (2015) when asked about the kinds of goods that are most commonly remitted, electronics are the most preferred goods at 43%, cosmetic products at 18%, clothing items at 4%, furniture at 16% and other items such as motor spare parts, medicine and stationery at 18%. this is a true reflection of the assumptions of prospect theory that remittances are anchored in the needs and conditions arising in the migrants’ countries of origin. the rwandese have the highest percentage in sending electronics (67%), while the zimbabweans lead in furniture. this is not a coincidence. the geographical proximity of zimbabwe and south africa facilitates the remittance of non-durable goods (von burgsdorff, 2012; chisasa, 2014; makina & masenge, 2014), while tax african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1242 exemption concessions on information computer technology (ict) items provided by the rwandan revenue services (harrison, 2005) could encourage rwandese migrants to remit electronic goods. furthermore, migrants tend to remit irregularly; 12% do so every three months, 10% twice a year, 8% once a year, 17% every few years, 17% remitted only once, and the remaining 36% remit whenever it is possible. table 4 notes that zimbabweans tend to remit more frequently and somalis less frequently; this is consistent with the view that economic migrants remit more often than forced migrants (briant, 2005). table 4: frequency of remittance frequency after 3 months twice a year yearly only once whenever possible after a few years total nationality zimbabwe 35% 10% 5% 10% 40% 0% 100% drc 8% 16% 4% 17% 38% 17% 100% rwanda 5% 10% 0% 20% 45% 20% 100% somalia 0% 0% 25% 20% 20% 35% 100% source: nzabamwita (2015) relationships between the characteristics of african migrants and remittance patterns/behaviour to ascertain whether a relationship exists between migrants’ characteristics and remittance behaviour, inferential statistics were used along with a nonparametric technique and the pearson’s chi-square test. the non-parametric technique involved cross-tabulation of remittance behaviour and patterns with the characteristics of migrants. in carrying out the test, a significant level of 0.05 (5%) was used for the test of 1 degree of freedom. the decision rule is that the significance level of 0.05 is allowed, and a pearson chi-square value or p-value higher than the significance level indicates that the difference between the groups is not significant (pallant, 2005: 286). african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1243 the chi-square test provided mixed results. this section only reports on the variables representing migrants’ characteristics that are statistically associated with remittance behaviour. the full chi-square test results are indicated in appendix 1. the test revealed that there is a significant relationship between nationality and type of remittances (x2=14.31, p=0.026), amount of cash remitted (x2=46.83, p=0.000), type of goods remitted (x2=23.33, p=0.025), remittance frequency (x2=34.88, p=0.003), goods remittance channels (x2=47.74, p=0.000), and cash remittances channels (x2=62.896, p=0.000). remittance patterns by nationality show that zimbabweans more frequently remit goods of high value using informal channels, compared to immigrants from other countries in this study. this is not surprising as zimbabweans are mainly economic migrants and phyillis and kathrin (2008) note that economic migrants remit more than refugees. with regard to education, the test results show a significant relationship between education and the amount of cash remitted (x2=33.14, p=0.032), channels for cash remittances (x2=36.17, p=0.050) and channels for social remittances (x2=40.73, p=0.004). in this study, the finding indicates that more educated migrants are likely to send more in terms of goods and cash through formal channels. in a similar view, highly educated african migrants are more likely to remit socially upon their return home. this finding on social remittances corresponds with perez-armendariz and crow’s (2009) idea that education influences social remittance. the results on material remittances contradict the original claim of evtimova and koekoek (2010) that educated migrants remit less and invest more in host countries. this, however, substantiates and supports the view of orozco (2006) that educated migrants remit more formally. in addition, the income level is significantly related to social remittances (x2=7.42, p=0.060), amount of cash remitted (x2=76.31, p=0.000) and the value of goods remitted (x2=52.35, p=0.000). the current study revealed that migrants earning a high income remit more in the form of cash and goods and are also more likely to remit socially. these results are not surprising, as they corroborate the findings of other authors who have suggested that there is a positive relationship between income and remittance (de haas & plague, 2006; dma, 2011). for other variables, the reason for coming to south africa is significantly related to the cash remittance channels (x2=58.77, p=0.001), as well as goods remittance channels (x2=48.57, p=0.003). in a similar view to the above, there african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1244 is a significant relationship between immigration status and cash remittance channels (x2=67.95, p=0.030). additionally, the intention to return home is significantly related to the frequency of remittances (x2=32.69, p=0.005), as well as the cash remittance channels (x2=25.13, p=0.048). access to banks or financial institutions in south africa is significantly related to cash remittance channels (x2=17.84, p=0.007). furthermore, the frequency of visits to the home country is significantly related to the value of goods remitted (x2=41.63, p=0.020), cash remittance channels (x2=46.33, p=0.029) and goods remittance channels (x2=38.67, p=0.040). lastly, the level of association in south africa is significantly related to social remittances. for details, please see appendix 1. although, variables of age, gender, marital status and duration of stay in south africa are not factors influencing remittance behaviour among african migrants in south africa, a thorough examination of the chi-square test results in appendix 1 demonstrates that more than half of variables representing migrants’ characteristics (10 variables out of 15) are significantly associated with remittance behaviour. therefore, one can conclude that, overall, the characteristics of migrants are linked to remittance patterns and behaviour. conclusion the aim of the study reported in this paper was to link the characteristics of african migrants with their remittance behaviour. this paper has shown that the decisions to migrate and remit are inherently interlinked. the fact that migrants from somalia, rwanda and the drc hold refugee status and asylum seeker permits and migrated because of political insecurity make them forced migrants. zimbabweans, on the other hand, are voluntary migrants whose motive for immigration to south africa is economic. with regards to remittance behaviour, this study found that african migrants send all types of remittances (i.e., cash, goods and social remittances) to their respective countries, and their nature and characteristics have a significant impact on what types of remittances are sent, how they sent, how often they are sent and to whom. in this regard, economic migrants remit to invest and save in their home countries, while refugees remit to support their family members. regarding migrants’ characteristics, this study further revealed that the nationality of migrants determines type of remittances, the amount of cash remitted, the type of goods remitted, the frequency of remittances, the channels used to remit cash, as well as the channels used to remit goods. education and income determine the value of remittances as well as the channels used to remit. among migrants who remit, zimbabweans tend to african human mobility review, vol. 4, 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(eds.). migration in south africa and southern africa: dynamics and determinants. cape town: human science research council. pp. 71–94. world bank, 2012. migration and remittance data. washington, d.c: international bank for reconstruction and development. world bank, 2014. migration and remittances: recent development and outlooks-special topic of forced migration. migration and development brief 23. october 6, 2014. from <https://bit.ly/zrysya> (retrieved april 9, 2015). world bank, 2018. mixed migration, forced displacement and job outcomes in south africa. washington dc: the world bank group. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1255 age selectivity among labour migrants (majoni joni) from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa during a prolonged crisis dick ranga abstract focusing on unskilled zimbabweans, this paper assesses the influence of the prolonged zimbabwean crisis (2000–2016) on age differences in migration to south africa. it is based on a questionnaire survey conducted among 166 households in 4 south-eastern districts in 2016/2017. three-fifths of the households had migrant members in south africa driven by the lack of jobs, poverty or food shortages at home. labour migration to south africa was maledominated and involved younger people (below 30) than older people. most of the migrants aged 30 or older moved during the peak of the crisis (2006–2010), most likely under the pressure of finding a means of survival for their families left behind. young men who have a pre-crisis history in this migration predominated again after the crisis peak (after 2010). most of this labour migration was clandestine and involved people with low levels of education. hence, most of these migrants worked as ‘general hands’ earning zar 1,500 or less per month in south africa. in this paper, it is argued that the zimbabwean government should control such risky youth migration by creating jobs or income-generating projects in zimbabwe and educating youth about unsafe migration. keywords selectivity, migration, youth, majoni-joni, zimbabwean crisis. introduction recently, there has been a renewed interest in migration selectivity, that is, the tendency among migrants to “self-select according to specific characteristics” (kanbur & rapoport, 2003: 4). this is due to increased international migration resulting from globalisation. some scholars have argued that in africa women are increasingly involved in economic migration rather than merely accompanying their male partners (adepoju, 2005). however, this paper argues that this change may not have dawned everywhere in africa, even in west africa, the region about which the author writes. for instance, the british broadcasting corporation news (bbc) (2015) documented the case of a small town in burkina faso where women formed the majority of the population  faculty of applied social sciences, zimbabwe open university. email: rangadic@yahoo.com african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1256 because most men migrated to italy for waged labour. although the bbc news highlighted some economic benefits associated with this migration, it also noted that these unaware young girls are trapped into celibacy as their newly wedded husbands stay for prolonged periods in the diaspora and only visit home for short periods. this is because with the meagre salaries they earn on italian farms they cannot afford airfares to frequently travel between italy and burkina faso. the plight of these young women is similar to that of their counterparts in southern zimbabwe, where most young men migrate to south africa in search of better wages or employment opportunities, leaving their wives in the ‘custody’ of their parents or other relatives (manamere, 2014). muzondidya (2008: 6) reported that it was in the late 1980s and 1990s that young single men from drought-prone southern zimbabwe (masvingo, midlands and matebeleland provinces) started migrating in search of “better-paying jobs in south africa, botswana and namibia […]”. known as injiva in the matebeleland region and majoni joni in south-eastern zimbabwe, these young men usually visit home during the christmas holidays and are popular among young girls who regard them as better suitors than local men (manamere, 2014). after marrying these girls and leaving them with their parents, these young men return to south africa for prolonged periods. manamere (2014) cited other scholars who observe the tendency among young men from chiredzi district in south-eastern zimbabwe and neighbouring mozambique to migrate in search of jobs in south africa. for these young men, labour migration has become a ‘rite of passage’ into adulthood since it is often meant to raise money for lobola (payment made to one’s in-laws), as best described by manamere (2014: 92): from the late nineteenth century, many young rural men in southern mozambique and zimbabwe came to see their movement across the border as a necessary ‘rite of passage’, and step to marriage and social adulthood (harries 1994; van onselen 1980). as native commissioners observed in relation to chiredzi’s shangaan labour migrants, for a male shangaan youth to become a ‘man’ he must have “rubbed shoulders with workers in south africa”, braving the dangers of the journey and the hardships of migrant life in the township compounds. the study informing this paper assessed whether the prolonged zimbabwean crisis (2000–2016) led to any changes in labour migration from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa, especially in terms of selectivity by age and other african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1257 characteristics such as gender and marital status. politically, the zimbabwean crisis was characterised by corruption involving some members of the ruling party (zanu-pf), unilateral decisions meant to strengthen the ruling party or benefit a few within the party, the use of violence during the ‘fast track’ land reform programme and towards elections and disputed election results. this led to hyperinflation of the local currency, a shortage of basic commodities, closure and relocation of many companies and increasing unemployment and poverty. all this led to a mass exodus of zimbabweans by those from all walks of life in search of employment, particularly in neighbouring countries such as south africa, botswana, mozambique and zambia. south africa was the major host of these migrants with an estimated 3–4 million zimbabweans having relocated there. according to muzondidya (2008), the migration of zimbabweans to south africa that took place during the peak of the crisis in the 2000s was less selective as it involved both the young and old, married and single, southerners and northerners, skilled and unskilled. a combination of both the young and old could be discerned in some of the studies conducted among zimbabwean migrants in south africa during the peak of the crisis in the 2000s. for instance, mosala (2008) found that most of the zimbabwean migrants were between 21 and 40 years of age (mosala, 2008). studies conducted by rutherford (2010) among zimbabweans who worked on south african farms close to the zimbabwe border found that most of them were married men who migrated because they were heads of their households and were responsible for caring for their families in zimbabwe. these studies suggested the increased migration of zimbabwean men who were older, married and motivated by the need to provide for their families affected by the crisis at home. studies conducted in the early 2010s, especially from traditional migrant sending districts in south-eastern zimbabwe, are silent about the potential impact of the crisis in terms of increasing the migration of both the old and young. instead, they continued to emphasize the migration of young men, which was also associated with challenges. for instance, the zimbabwe youth council (zyc) (2014: xi) reported that the migration of young men was associated with illegal migration to south africa “upon completing grade seven (7) [...] in search of jobs in south africa”. this organisation reported that young women were also increasingly involved in illegal migration, with some of them being subjected to rape on transit to south africa (zyc, 2014). these young men and women would do jobs considered unappealing by many south africans, such as domestic and farm work. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1258 elsewhere, kanbur and rapoport (2003) argue that on average immigrants are less skilled than natives of the united states (us). nevertheless, these scholars refer to us statistics, which show that few immigrants migrated with no more than primary education. they found that migrants to the us tended to have better education than average persons in their home countries. this is relevant for zimbabweans who have migrated to south africa, since most of them have secondary education (mosala, 2008). ray, marlar and esipova (2010) argue that everywhere in the world, young people are more likely than older people to express the intention to relocate to another country, irrespective of their current occupation. this suggests that older people are likely to migrate only when the pressure to do so is strong, such as in the case of an economic crisis. even under such circumstances, migrants are unlikely to be older than non-migrants. in the case of zimbabwe, studies have found that most of the zimbabwean immigrants in south africa were below 40 years of age (tevera & chikanda, 2009) or between 21 and 40 years (mosala, 2008: 11), which are the peak years of work and family life. classical micro-economic theory of migration explains why both younger and older people migrate. it propounds that migration is performed by rational actors who, after a cost-benefit analysis, decide to migrate in expectation of a positive net return, which is usually monetary (massey et al., 1993). young men who migrate from zimbabwe to south africa often believe that there are better opportunities for employment or earning higher wages than those paid in zimbabwe. this argument has become more relevant recently given the early deindustrialisation, which increased unemployment in zimbabwe. in keeping with this argument, a village head interviewed by manamere (2014) in rural chiredzi suggested that young majoni-joni were ‘forced’ to migrate to south africa by the economic situation in zimbabwe. in other cases, the migrant does not come up with this decision alone but a larger unit, such as the household, may be involved in making the decision to migrate, as argued in the household decision-making model or new economics of migration by lucas and stark (1985). this is usually meant to minimize risks to the household, such as imperfect markets, crop failures and unemployment. this is also a relevant explanation for the migration of young single men and adult married men from south-eastern zimbabwe, a region that is largely drought prone. furthermore, the lack of jobs due to early deindustrialisation in zimbabwe was likely to make survival increasingly uncertain for households in this region. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1259 the possibility of networking cannot be ruled out in this migration since some migrants were likely to connect with migrants who migrated earlier, including kin, friends and those with shared community origins (massey et al., 1993). having a family member abroad increases the chances that information might flow to those who had stayed behind, lessening the costs of migrating for other family members (fischer et al., 1997). achievements made by those who migrated earlier such as higher incomes, improved quality of life, ability to purchase land or improved agricultural productivity may also lure others into migration, as they may experience feelings deprivation relative to those who migrated. the migration of young men from the sending communities in south-eastern zimbabwe has been associated with several challenges. for instance, some of these young men are undocumented immigrants in south africa, as they migrate clandestinely through informal routes. a headman interviewed by manamere (2014: 96) in rural chiredzi suggested that this was “[…] because they do not have the necessary travel documents so they ‘jump’ the border with the help of their friends”. although the zyc (2014) suggested that young women are increasingly involved in clandestine migration, probably due to the crisis, the risks involved are likely to explain why more young men than women migrate to south africa. in addition, young women risk being raped by their male accomplices along these informal routes to south africa. clandestine migration is also likely to account for age differences in migration to south africa, since some older men are unlikely to take the risks involved or have worked and raised money to obtain the necessary travel documents. perhaps a challenge that is more related to age is that youth migration occurs “upon completing grade seven (7)” (zyc, 2014: xi). manamere (2014) argues that young men prefer crossing the border over completing their schooling. at the same time, their education helps shape “the type of work they have been able to secure in south africa” (manamere, 2014: 93). while young majoni joni drop out of school in search of jobs in south africa, young girls also have high drop-out rates in these communities as they “enter into early marriages with these men whom they believe to be better off than unemployed young men at home” (manamere, 2014: 94). manamere (2014) discusses some of the challenges facing the young girls who get married to majoni joni in detail. as previously mentioned, in many instances, majoni-joni enter into relationships with young girls and leave their new wives under the care of their parents, often returning home at very infrequent intervals. a range of problems african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1260 have ensued from the subsequent misunderstandings and infidelity, including escalating divorce rates, an apparent rise in wife-battering as well as the spread of hiv-aids. rural elders see young male border crossers as violent immoral criminals, people who break marriages, spread hiv/aids (returning having contracted the disease) and abandon their wives and children, creating diaspora orphans. the fact that some young men enter south africa clandestinely may exacerbate these challenges. having ‘jumped’ the border, these young migrants are unlikely to visit home more frequently. south africa has tried to reduce clandestine migration by formalising immigration through the issuing of work permits in the 2011 dispensation for zimbabweans. furthermore, most of these young men migrate at ages during which they are sexually active, which increases their risk of being trapped in the pleasures of the host country. according to muzondidya (2008: 15), young migrants are less likely to remit home due to “the excitement of being away from home and the excitement of the ‘bright lights’ of egoli”. the objectives of this study are to (1) determine the ages at which the labour migrants left south-eastern zimbabwe for south africa during the crisis; (2) analyse age differences in the period during which the labour migrants left for south africa during the crisis; (3) assess for association between age at migration and migrating clandestinely; (4) explore the contribution of other personal characteristics of the migrants to age differences in labour migration to south africa and (5) investigate the role played by household and districtlevel factors in age differences in labour migration to south africa. methodology the study mainly adopted the quantitative research approach, whereby household heads, with assistance from other household members to crosscheck the accuracy of the information, responded to a household questionnaire. the sampling strategy involved the purposive selection of four districts in south-eastern zimbabwe including zaka, bikita, chipinge and chimanimani districts. these districts have a tradition of labour migration to south africa and, therefore, would best show any changes that occurred in age selectivity as a result of the crisis. parts of them are also drought prone such that livelihoods based on rain-fed peasant agriculture cannot be sustained. in each of the four selected districts, two wards were purposively selected. this was meant to reduce travelling costs as those wards in close proximity to african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1261 each other were selected. efforts were also made to include wards in urban and rural areas. this is because the crisis was likely to influence labour migration to south africa from both urban and rural setups. snowball sampling (also known as referral sampling) was used to select both households with labour migrants in south africa and those without, for the sake of comparison. the researcher or assistant first identified an initial household with a migrant who once moved to south africa for labour reasons. he or she was then referred to other households with similar migrant members. although it is a non-probability sampling technique, snowball sampling allows the researcher to reach populations that are difficult to sample when using other sampling methods (creswell, 2011). more so, the process is cheap, simple and cost-efficient. while the desired number of households was 200, 50 from each of the 4 districts, the actual number enumerated was 166 households, indicating a response rate of 83%. this included 49 households from bikita, 48 zaka, 39 chipinge and 30 from chimanimani district. in one of the districts with the lowest response rates (chipinge), some migrant households were reluctant to participate in the study, fearing that their members who were clandestine migrants in south africa would be deported. others mistook the research assistants for donors and were afraid they would not get aid if it was known that they had members in the diaspora. results and findings level of labour migration from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa 100 out of 166 (approximately 60%) of the studied households had at least one migrant member (result not shown). among the migrant households, 87 out of 100 (87%) had international migrants. 85 of the international migrants were in south africa, one was in another african country and yet another was overseas (table 1). the remainder (13%) of the migrant households had internal migrants, most of whom migrated to cities or towns in zimbabwe. most of the labour migrants from south-eastern zimbabwe migrated to south africa. this can be explained by the fact that this region is located close to the south african border and parts of this region are arid such that their rural economies “[…] cannot provide stable livelihoods based on small-scale rain-fed agriculture” (manamere, 2014: 91). the prolonged crisis is likely to have worsened migrants’ prospects of ever finding wage employment at home. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1262 consistently, half (42 out of 84) of the household heads confirmed that their members migrated to south africa because of the lack of jobs in zimbabwe (table 1). other reasons mentioned by relatively large proportions of the heads included poverty or need to escape poverty (15.5%), better wages in south africa (11.9%), perennial food shortages (10.7%) and following other young men (9.5%) (table 1). in other words, most of the members of these households were ‘pushed’ into migrating to south africa by the lack of jobs in zimbabwe and poverty, which was related to perennial food shortages given that some parts of this region are arid and cannot support livelihoods based on rain-fed agriculture. those attracted to south africa by better wages were fewer than those ‘pushed’ by the challenges at home. only one was ‘pushed’ into migrating to south africa by political violence and another by the need to conduct further education, which confirmed the predominance of economic over political reasons for migration. table 1: aspects of labour migration from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa aspect no. % destination of migrant town in zimbabwe 13 13.0 south africa 85 85.0 other country 2 2.0 reasons for migrating to south africa lack of jobs in zimbabwe 42 50.0 poverty/escape poverty 13 15.5 better wages in south africa 10 11.9 perennial food shortages 9 10.7 african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1263 follow other young men 8 9.5 escape political violence 1 1.2 education 1 1.2 occupation on arrival unemployed/student 10 12.0 vendor/run tuckshop/illegal miner 21 25.3 general hand 33 39.8 domestic worker 12 14.5 skilled/professional 7 8.4 wage earned on arrival $1–200 48 60.0 $201–400 20 25.0 more than $400 12 15.0 source: survey results upon arrival in south africa, nearly two-fifths of the migrant members were employed as general hands (table 1). some of these immigrants were employed on a temporary basis to do odd jobs, such as assistant mechanics, farm-workers, etc. other studies have confirmed the presence of many unskilled and semi-skilled zimbabweans who work on south african farms, especially in limpopo province (muzondidya, 2008; manamere, 2014). in most cases, these immigrants are paid wages that are lower than the minimum wage, less than zar885 per month (muzondidya, 2008). this was followed by enterprising immigrants who operated as vendors, owners of spaza shops (or tuckshops) and illegal miners, especially in the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1264 abandoned gold mines of the gauteng province of south africa. although these activities helped them earn quick money, some of them were risky. for instance, south african newspapers have often reported stories of zimbabweans who have lost their lives when the mines collapsed or were mugged by other illegal miners. three-fifths of the migrant members in south africa earned incomes of up to usd200 (zar1,500) per month, which were small amounts. other studies found that zimbabwean migrant households in selected urban areas of south africa earned zar1,433 per month on average (crush & tawodzera, 2016). according to these scholars, about half of them earned up to zar1,000, which was insufficient to meet many urban expenses. nevertheless, this was better than being in zimbabwe where there were no jobs. effects of the crisis on age differences in labour migration to south africa the study assessed for association between the ages of migrants and when they migrated to south africa in order to analyse the effects of the crisis on age differences in labour migration to south africa. regarding the ages of the migrants, most of them (34 out of 84, or 38.1%) were young people in their twenties (20–29), followed by those aged 30–39 (29.8%). this indicated that most of the labour migrants from this region to south africa were aged 20–39, their prime active ages (figure 1). this confirmed other studies conducted in the host country, which found that most of the zimbabwean migrants in south africa were aged 21–40 years old and in the middle of their work and family life (mosala, 2008). the crisis also contributed to the migration of people aged 40 years or over (15.5%) since they were also under pressure to provide for their families. under normal circumstances such people are less likely to migrate than their younger counterparts. the remainder (13.1%) constituted members who migrated in their teens. this indicates a serious problem since most of them had barely completed secondary school at the time of migration. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1265 figure 1: age at migration to south africa source: survey results the age variable was then reclassified in order to separate young migrants (below 30 years of age) from their older counterparts (aged 30 years or over). the proportions of younger and older migrants were almost equal (50.7% and 49.3%, respectively) (table 1). although this suggested that both the young and old were involved in this labour migration, results discussed so far have already indicated that these two age groups predominated in this migration at different stages of the crisis, with older men aged 30 or over more likely to have migrated during the peak of the crisis (2006–2010). out of the forty-three young migrants, 44% were single and 56% were married (results not shown). regarding the period of migration, the study identified three major peaks during which most of the migration occurred (figure 2). the first peak, though small, occurred at the dawn of the new millennium in 2000 and 2002, which was around the same time the crisis started. the second and more significant peak was associated with the peak of the crisis in 2007–2008. like for the rest of the country, labour migration from this region to south africa also reached its highest level during the crisis peak (2007–2008). in other words, most of the migrant members left the country between 2007 and 2008, obviously as a strategy to survive the crisis. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 10-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50/above % age at migration (years) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1266 thereafter, the level of labour migration to south africa started to decline as a result of the stabilisation brought to the economy by the country’s official adoption of multiple currencies dominated by the united states dollar (usd) in 2009. foodstuffs returned to the shelves of zimbabwean supermarkets after having been absent during the peak of the crisis. in the social sector, service delivery improved given the availability of foreign currency to import the necessary equipment and machinery. most workers starting with civil servants were paid their salaries in foreign currencies. this positive change should have discouraged fresh emigrations and encourage return migration. figure 2: date of migration to south africa source: survey results the third peak, which was unexpected and more difficult to explain, occurred between 2013 and 2015. during this period, the companies that had remained operational further retrenched workers in order to remain viable in the shrinking economy (southern eye, 2015). this further shattered whatever hopes citizens still had of finding employment locally. at the same time, the country, especially the south-eastern region, was severely affected by consecutive droughts associated with the el nino effect (world food programme, 2016). when the periods during which migration occurred were categorised according to the decade, the period 2000–2009 and 2010–2016 had the same 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 % african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1267 proportions of migrants who left for south africa (47.5% each). in other words, labour migration from this region to south africa continued unabated from 2010 onwards (table 2). the migration periods were then categorised based on the crisis peak including the period before the crisis peak (before 2006), the crisis peak (2006–2010) and after the peak (after 2010). slightly more members migrated to south africa after 2010 than during the peak of the crisis (41.9% compared with 37.6%) (table 1). in other words, slightly more members of these households migrated to south africa after the crisis peak (2006–2010) than during it, probably due to the factors already cited. table 2: ages of migrants and when migration to south africa occurred age / when migrated to south africa occurred no. % age at migration (years) 10–29 (youth) 43 51.2 30 or older (adults) 41 48.8 when migration occurred (based on the decade) before 2000 4 5.0 2000–2009 38 47.5 2010 and after 38 47.5 when migration occurred (based on the crisis peak) before the crisis peak (before 2006) 17 21.3 during the crisis peak (2006– 2010) 30 37.5 african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1268 after the crisis peak (after 2010) 33 41.3 source: survey results a test of association between the ages of the migrants and the period migrated revealed a significant result [pearson chi-square value 6.124, asymptotic significance (2-sided) 0.047] (figure 3). while the majority (53.7%) of young migrants aged below 30 relocated to south africa after 2010, the largest proportion (47.4%) of older migrants aged 30 years or over migrated during the peak of the crisis (2006–2010). in other words, the crisis peak was more associated with the migration of older migrants aged 30 years or over than younger migrants aged below 30. this suggested that the migration of older married migrants increased during the crisis peak, signifying change from the previous dominance in this migration stream by young single men. this is because they were responsible for taking care of their families whose survival was at stake during the peak of the crisis. after the crisis peak, young men both married and single predominated in labour migration to south africa. muzondidya (2008) missed the point that older men were more likely to migrate to south africa during the crisis peak as it was their responsibility to take care of families left back home. figure 3: period migrated by age of the migrant source: survey results 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 before 2006 2006-2010 after 2010 % below 30 years 30 years or older african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1269 age of the migrant and whether they migrated clandestinely young men have been associated with illegal migration to south africa due to their inability to afford official documents such as zimbabwean passports (manamere, 2014). the study assessed for association between age at migration and migrating clandestinely. this would show which of the two age groups, younger and older people, was more desperate to leave the country during the crisis. more than half (48 out of 83, or 57.8%) of the migrants relocated to south africa without passports (result not shown). although there was no significant association between age at migration and whether migrants migrated without a passport, some patterns could be discerned in the distribution. two-thirds (67.7%) of young migrants aged below 30 and half of those aged 30 years or older (52.5%) migrated to south africa without official documents (table 3). in other words, young migrants were slightly more likely to migrate to south africa clandestinely than their older counterparts. this was probably because they were less positioned to have raised enough money to secure official travelling documents, especially zimbabwean passports. table 3: age of the migrant by whether they migrated with a passport whether migrated with passport age (years) below 30 years 30 years or older chi-square=3,076; asymp. sig. 0.079 yes 33.3 52.5 no 67.7 47.5 source: survey results * significant at 5% level (p<0.05); ** significant at 1% level (p<0.01) this confirmed other studies that found that young men from this region often migrate clandestinely to south africa (zyc, 2014; manamere, 2014). for instance, manamere (2014: 96) interviewed a headman in rural chiredzi who african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1270 said young men migrate from this area to south africa clandestinely “[…] because they do not have the necessary travel documents, so they jump the border with the help of their friends”. results not displayed here revealed that the majority (29 out 48, or 60.4%) used informal routes through the forest, followed by those who were helped to cross the border by middlemen (35.4%) and those who bribed officials (4.2%). crossing the border through forests is risky, which explains why it mainly involved men. furthermore, clandestine migration was associated with the migrants’ level of education; those having tertiary education (certificates, diplomas or degrees) were least likely to have migrated to south africa without an official passport (table 4). although those migrants with primary or no education constituted the second majority among both the illegal and legal migrants, their proportion was higher among the illegal than the legal migrants. this suggested that clandestine migration was associated with low levels of education. this is probably because the educated are more likely to calculate the risks of migrating clandestinely than their uneducated counterparts. besides increasing one’s level of awareness of the dangers of clandestine migration, education also increases one’s chances of being employed or having accessed enough money to secure the necessary travel documents before. this is different from someone who migrates soon after completing grade 7. this also explains why clandestine migration involved children of the household head rather than the spouse or the male head of the household. this implies that the parents of some of the young men who migrated clandestinely could not afford or did not prioritise securing travelling documents for them; hence, the young men would connive with others to migrate clandestinely. migrating clandestinely was also more associated with migrants from bikita and chipinge districts than those from chimanimani and zaka. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1271 table 4: selected factors affecting clandestine migration variable/factor whether migrated with passport yes no highest education level at migration (chisquare=5.081; asym. sig. 0.079) not educated/primary education 17.6 36.2 secondary education 67.6 59.6 tertiary (certificate/diploma/degree) 14.7 4.3 marital status at migration single 15.6 33.3 married 71.9 59.5 disrupted (widowed/separated/divorced) 12.5 7.1 relationship of migrant to household head spouse/head 58.1 43.9 own child 19.4 39.0 other (sibling, parent, grandchild) 22.6 17.1 district of enumeration (chi-square=8,434; asymp. sig. 0.038)* zaka 8.6 16.7 bikita 20.0 37.5 chipinge 34.3 33.3 chimanimani 37.1 22.9 source: survey results * significant at 5% level (p<0.05); ** significant at 1% level (p<0.01) african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1272 further analysis of the issue of illegal migration revealed that the proportion of the migrant members who were legal immigrants in south africa was higher at the time of the survey in 2016/2017 (71.8%) than at the time of migration (42.2%). this was probably due to the efforts made by the south african government to legalise this migration by issuing zimbabweans with work permits during the 2011 zimbabwean dispensation. however, some labour migrants remained in sa, working illegally, despite these efforts. contribution of other personal characteristics to age differences in labour migration an overwhelming majority (78 out of 85, or 91.8%) of the migrant members was male, which indicates that labour migration from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa remains male dominated (table 5). this means that there was no change in the gender composition of labour migrants from these districts in south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa. this was contrary to the study by the zyc (2014) and others, which suggested increased feminisation of labour migration in africa. instead, the current study confirmed the tradition among males to migrate alone, leaving women and children behind. this confirmed the bbc’s (2015) documentary on the ‘city of women’ in burkina faso where most young men migrate to italy. this is likely to be associated with negative consequences for women who, besides being denied of their conjugal rights for prolonged periods, raise families alone. table 5: other personal characteristics of the migrants characteristic no. % sex male 78 91.8 female 7 8.2 marital status at migration single 20 26.3 married 49 64.5 african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1273 disrupted (widowed/separated/divorced) 7 9.2 highest education level at migration not educated / primary education 24 28.9 secondary education 52 62.7 tertiary (certificate/diploma/degree) 7 8.4 source: survey results the majority (49 out of 76, or 64.5%) of the migrants were married at the time of migration. those who were single constituted slightly more than a quarter (26.3%) of the migrants. the rest (9.2%) had disrupted marriages (table 5). this was similar to studies conducted among professionals, such as teachers (ranga, 2015), where an overwhelming majority of the migrants were married men looking for means to help their families left back home to survive the crisis. the proportion (26.3%) of single men was, however, far higher among the current sample of unskilled zimbabweans than that of teachers. this is because professionals go through many years of schooling and are required to have enough working experience before being recruited outside the country, unlike unskilled migrants, some of whom migrated after completing grade 7. the largest proportion (52 out of 83, or 62.7%) of the migrants had some secondary education (table 5). this confirmed other studies that found that zimbabwean immigrants in south africa were more educated relative to nationals of other african countries (mosala, 2008). this is because of zimbabwe’s emphasis on secondary education since independence in 1980. this was followed by those with primary or no education, who constituted more than a quarter (28.9%) of the migrants. lastly, very few (7 out of 83, or 8.4%) had post-secondary or professional qualifications. this confirmed other studies which have argued that labour migrants leave for south africa with low levels of education, such as after completing grade 7 (zyc, 2014). although this involved only a quarter of the migrants, this explained why most of them worked as general hands earning low wages while in south africa. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1274 some of the migrants might not see the importance of completing secondary schooling given the low chances of finding employment at home in zimbabwe. table 6: other personal characteristics by age of the migrant determinant age (years) below 30 years 30 years or older sex of migrant male 88.4 95.1 female 11.6 4.9 marital status at migration (chisquare=13.158; asymp. sig. 0.001)** single 44.7 8.1 married 50.0 78.4 disrupted (widowed/separated/divorced) 5.3 13.1 highest education level at migration not educated/ primary education 30.2 25.6 secondary 62.8 64.1 tertiary (certificate/diploma/degree) 7.0 10.3 source: survey results * significant at 5% level (p<0.05); ** significant at 1% level (p<0.01) age selectivity did not vary together with most of the other personal characteristics except marital status (table 6). there was a highly significant association between age at migration and marital status. the majorities of african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1275 both older migrants aged 30 or over and young migrants below 30 were married. but, the proportion for older migrants was significantly higher than that of their younger counterparts (78.3% and 50.0%, respectively) (table 6). in other words, older migrants, most of whom migrated to south africa during the peak of the crisis (2006–2010), were also married. on the other hand, young migrants aged below 30 included both married and single individuals. the peak of the crisis did not only increase the migration of older men, but also those who were married and sought a means of surviving the crisis for their families left back home. the result for sex of the migrant was insignificant, probably because of the skewed distribution in favour of males. as for the insignificant result for education of the migrant, there was no difference between the ages as both the younger and older migrants were equally likely to migrate with low levels of education. effects of household and district-level characteristics on age differences in migration nearly half (48.6%) of the migrant members, the majority, were husbands of the female heads of households who participated in the study (table 7). in other words, they were absent household heads. this supported the argument by yabiku, agadjanian and sevoyan (2010) that in several southern african countries, including botswana, lesotho, zimbabwe and mozambique, men use labour migration to south africa as a way of coping with droughts and the cash economy since they cannot earn enough income at home given the lack of jobs. in this case, adult men from south-eastern zimbabwe also used labour migration to south africa as a way of coping with the zimbabwean crisis. the second majority (31.1%) of the migrant members were children of the household head. as already found, this included both young men who were married and those who were single. the rest (20.3%) were siblings, parents or grandchildren of the household head. slightly more than half of the migrant members (52.1%) came from large households made up of six or more members. the average household size was six members. this was typical of rural areas in zimbabwe where the total african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1276 fertility rate (tfr) is six children per woman on average. large households were likely to be poor and experience food shortages, making them likely to send one of their members into migration to south africa. as found already, poverty and food shortages were the reasons for migration for the second and fourth largest proportions of the migrants in south africa (table 1). southeastern zimbabwe is vulnerable to droughts since most of it belongs to agroecological regions iv and v, which receive low rainfall of below 500mm per annum. this region was not spared during the drought that hit the country during the 2015/2016 farming season. for instance, the standard (2016) reported that chipinge district in south-eastern zimbabwe was one of the most affected areas. consistent with the effects of this drought, the majority (61.2%) of the households reported that they ate fewer meals than usual in the past year (table 7). this should have contributed to the large proportions of members of these households that migrated to south africa during 2013– 2015. table 7: household and district-level characteristics of the migrants in south africa characteristic no. % relationship of migrant to household head spouse 36 48.6 own child 23 31.1 other (sibling, parent, grandchild) 15 20.3 household size 1–5 members 35 47.9 more than 5 members 38 52.1 mean=6.02, median=6, mode=5 african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1277 whether ate less than the normal number of meals per day in past year (2015/2016) yes 52 61.2 no 33 38.8 materials used to build main house hut: mud/brick wall and thatch roof 23 27.1 modern: brick and iron/asbestos sheets 62 72.9 whether own cattle or plough own cattle, plough or both 45 54.2 neither own cattle nor plough 38 45.8 district of enumeration zaka 49 28.9 bikita 48 29.5 chipinge 39 23.5 chimanimani 30 18.1 source: survey results household socio-economic status was further assessed through the materials used to build the main house and ownership of cattle or a plough. the main houses of the majority (72.9%) of the households with migrants to south africa were ‘modern’ as they were built of brick walls and iron or asbestos sheets (table 7). the remainder (27.1%) of the households had a traditional hut as their main house. in other words, slightly more than a quarter of the households with labour migrants in south africa were poor, as they lived in traditional huts. the proportion living in poverty increased when ownership of cattle or a plough was used as the criterion. 38 out of 83 (45.8%) of the households with labour migrants in south africa neither possessed cattle nor african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1278 a plough. field notes revealed that for some of these households, especially those in chipinge district, this was because they had just lost their cattle during the 2015/2016 drought. a significant result (p<0.05) indicted that the majority (72.1%) of young migrants aged below 30 and about half (51.4%) of older migrants aged 30 or over came from households that ate fewer meals than normal per day in the past year (table 7). in other words, the households of young migrants were more associated with food insecurity during the 2015/2016 drought than their older counterparts. this probably explained why most of the young migrants migrated after 2010, especially during 2013–2015. this further confirmed the arguments made by the standard (2016) that households in south-eastern zimbabwe use the migration of young men to south africa to cope with droughts. table 8: age of the migrant and household and district level characteristics determinants age (years) below 30 years (%) 30 years or older (%) relationship of migrant to household head head 37.8 61.1 child 40.5 22.2 other (sibling, parent, grandchild) 21.6 16.7 household size 1–5 members 40.5 57.1 6 or more 59.5 42.9 whether household had fewer no. of meals than usual in past year (chisquare=3,878; asymp. sig. 0.049)* yes 72.1 51.2 no 27.9 48.8 african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1279 materials used to build main house hut: mud/brick wall and thatch roof 30.2 24.4 modern: brick and iron/asbestos sheets 69.8 75.6 whether own cattle or plough own cattle, plough or both 59.5 50.0 neither own cattle nor plough 40.5 50.0 district of enumeration (chisquare=11,753; asymp. sig. 0.008)** zaka 23.3 2.4 bikita 25.6 39.0 chipinge 37.2 26.8 chimanimani 14.0 31.7 source: survey results * significant at 5% level (p<0.05); ** significant at 1% level (p<0.01) this weekly newspaper reported that in chipinge, one of the areas hardest hit by successive droughts in recent years, many families resorted to having one meal a day while thousands of livestock, particularly cattle, died due to lack of pastures and water (the standard, 2016). it went on to argue that households in this district have coped with successive droughts through the migration of young men to south africa and food relief from non-governmental organisations. a highly significant result (p<0.01) indicated that the majority (37.2%) of young migrants aged below 30 came from chipinge district, while the largest proportion (39.0%) of older migrants aged 30 or over came from bikita district (table 8). this further confirmed the standard (2016), which argued that the migration of young men to south africa, especially in chipinge district, is a strategy used by their households to cope with successive droughts. on the other hand, bikita district does not have a history of young men who migrate to south africa but household heads in this district should have been ‘pushed’ by the crisis peak into looking for means of survival in south africa given the lack of employment at home. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1280 although the result for household size was insignificant, the majority (59.5%) of young migrants aged below 30 came from large households with more than 5 members. in other words, the young migrants did not only come from households that were food insecure during the 2015/2016 drought but also large households, which further increased the risk of food insecurity. on the other hand, the largest proportion (57.1%) of older migrants aged 30 years or over came from smaller households (1–5 members), which suggested that they were the sole breadwinners of their young families. in the other insignificant results for materials used to build the main house and ownership of cattle or a plough, there were no differences among the classes. for instance, both young and older migrants were equally likely to come from households with a modern main house made of brick walls and a roof of iron sheets/asbestos/tiles and households that owned cattle or did not own cattle, a plough or both (table 8). conclusion there was a high level of labour migration from these districts in southeastern zimbabwe to south africa since about three-fifths of the households had at least a migrant in south africa. the main reason for migration was the lack of jobs at home followed by poverty, better wages in south africa, food shortages and the need to follow other men. most of the migrants were men, aged 20–39, married and with some secondary education. however, about a quarter had primary or no education at all. this confirmed that labour migration from this region to south africa remains a men’s affair. this is probably because most of it, especially that involving young men, was clandestine. once in south africa, most of them worked as ‘general hands’ earning wages as low as usd200 (zar1,500) or less per month. this was mainly because most of them were not professionally qualified and some of them had primary or no education at all. although generally low, these incomes were ‘something’ compared to the lack of jobs at home. almost equal proportions of the migrants left for south africa during the crisis peak (2006–2010) and after 2010. most of those who migrated during the crisis peak were older men aged 30 or over. the year 2010 was included in the crisis peak period since it still witnessed high numbers of fresh emigrations although they had declined after having reached a peak in 2007–2008. hence, muzondidya (2008) missed the point when he argued that both the young and old migrated during the crisis in the 2000s. instead, the current study showed that older men who were also married heads of households were more likely african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1281 than younger men to migrate to south africa during the crisis peak, as it was their responsibility to take care of families left back home. as muzondidya (2008) indicates, young men tend to easily forget their responsibility of remitting to the household of origin. in other words, the crisis in zimbabwe ‘pushed’ adult men with family responsibilities into migrating to south africa in search of survival for families left behind. this number was more than young single men, who predominated in migration from south-eastern zimbabwe to south africa before the crisis. on the other hand, most of those who migrated after 2010, especially during 2013–2015 when the country was affected by consecutive droughts related to the el nino effect, were young men below 30 years of age. most of them came from households in the chipinge district that ate fewer than their usual number of meals in the previous year (2015/2016). this suggested that the 2015/2016 drought contributed to their migration to south africa. this further confirmed the arguments made in the standard (2016) that households in chipinge, an area most affected by the 2015/16 drought, use the migration of young men to south africa as a way of coping with droughts. finally, this indicated that labour migration from these districts returned to its pre-crisis trends of predominance by young men (muzondidya, 2008) after 2010, having been dominated by older men during the crisis peak (2006– 2010). based on these findings, the following recommendations are proposed: 1. the government of zimbabwe and its development partners should create jobs or income-generating projects to benefit the youth in south-east zimbabwe in order to control their migration to south africa. 2. the government, non-governmental organisations (ngos), local leaders, school teachers, parents and peers should educate the youth against migrating to south africa before completing secondary or post-secondary education. 3. they should also educate the youth, especially those about to complete grade 7, regarding the dangers of migrating clandestinely to south africa, such as being apprehended and deported or being prey to wild animals when crossing the border through forests. 4. they should find diverse ways to help households in south-eastern zimbabwe to cope with droughts and desist from using the migration of young men to south africa as the main coping strategy. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1282 5. there is need for further research to verify whether clandestine migration to south africa is more associated with young migrants than older migrants and to compare traditional migrant sending districts with other zimbabwean districts on the feminisation of labour migration to south africa. references adepoju, a. 2005. migration in west africa. a paper prepared for the policy analysis and research programme of the global commission on international migration. from < https://bit.ly/2r7imhr > (retrieved october 4, 2018). british broadcasting corporation (bbc) news. 2015. the town of women. bbc news, december 2, 2015. from <https://bbc.in/1mzbsdc> (retrieved january 22, 2016). creswell, j.w. 2011. research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, 2nd edition. thousand oaks, ca: sage. crush, j. and tawodzera, g. 2016. migration and food security: zimbabwean migrants in urban south africa. afsun food security series, 23. fischer, p.a., martin, r. and straubhaar, t. 1997. should i stay or should i go? in: hammer, t (ed.). international migration, immobility and development: multidisciplinary perspectives. london: oxford international publishers ltd, pp. 49–89. kanbur, r. and rapoport, h. 2003. migration selectivity and the evolution of spatial inequality. stanford center for international development (scid), stanford university. from <https://bit.ly/2r8r3bl> (retrieved october 4, 2018). lucas, r. e. b. and stark, o. 1985 motivations to remit: evidence from botswana. journal of political economy, 93 (5): 901-2 manamere, k.t. 2014. majoni joni – wayward criminals or a good catch? labour migrancy, masculinity and marriage in rural south eastern zimbabwe. african diaspora 7: 89–113. massey, d.s., arango, j., hugo, g., kouaouci, a., pellegrino, a. and taylor, j.e. 1993. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1283 theories of international migration: a review and appraisal. population and development review, 19(3): 431–466. mosala, g.s.m. 2008. the work experience of zimbabwean migrants in south africa. issues paper 33. harare: ilo sub-regional office for southern africa. muzondidya, j. 2008. majoni joni: survival strategies among zimbabwean migrants in south africa. paper presented at the international conference on the political economies of displacement in zimbabwe at wits university, 9–11 june 2008. from <https://bit.ly/2eexmib> (retrieved march 7, 2018) ranga, d. 2015. gender differences in the migration of zimbabwean teachers to south africa. east african social science research review, xxx1 (1): 43-61 ray, j., marlar, j. and esipova, n. 2010. employed or not, many young people desire to migrate. from <https://bit.ly/2yxyxiv> (retrieved december 15, 2014). rutherford, b. 2010. zimbabwean farm workers in limpopo province, south africa. in: mcgregor, j. and primorac, r (eds.). zimbabwe’s new diaspora: displacement and cultural politics of survival. new york: berghahn books, pp. 59–76. southern eye. 2015. companies retrench over 200,000 workers. southern eye, 6 may 2015. from < https://bit.ly/2jbr07b> (retrieved march 3, 2018). tevera, d. and chikanda, a. 2009. migrant remittances and household survival in zimbabwe. southern african migration project: migration policy series, cape town: idasa. the standard. 2016. severe drought ravages chipinge villagers’ livestock. the standard, 17 january 2016. from <https://www.thestandard.co.zw/2016/01/17/severe-drought-ravageschipinge-villagers-livestock/> (retrieved july 20, 2017). world food programme. 2016. el nino: faces of the drought in zimbabwe. from <https://bit.ly/2ppgkxc> (retrieved october 4, 2018). african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1284 yabiku, s.t., agadjanian,v. and sevoyan, a. 2010. husbands’ labour migration and wives’ autonomy. population studies 64(3): 293–306. zimbabwe youth council (zyc). 2014. harmful cultural and social practices affecting children: our collective responsibility. from < https://uni.cf/2ao83qb > (retrieved july 25, 2017). african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1285 reciprocity and migration: the interface between religions endale s. mekonnen  abstract much has been said on migration in current scholarly discourses within and multi-disciplinary debates. but no sufficient input has been generated towards the discourse from a religious perspective, albeit extremely needed insofar as people migrate with their religion. this inquiry examines the interplay between reciprocity and migration from a religious perspective using primary and secondary source analysis. it also suggests that cultivating religions’ cultural ideology of positive, responsible and balanced reciprocity in a societal relationship based on mutual benefits mediates a healthy co-existence between the native and the migrants despite their invariably differing and competing religions. such reciprocity could be spawned through the sacred texts of religions that espouse either general or positive balanced reciprocity. in the course of the analysis, the work brings the golden rule into focus as the best candidate for a test case. keywords: migration, reciprocity, ideology, and interface between religions. introduction without demur, international migration is a rapid and a non-stop growing phenomenon in our modern world according to international migration report 2015. the number of migrants reached 244 million in 2015 which was 222 million in 2010 and 173 million in 2000 (united nations 2016). of which 74 million live in europe, 75 million in asia, 54 million in north america, 21 million in africa, 9 million in the caribbean and 8 oceania. the majority of migrants worldwide originate from the middle income group and it has increased from 2000-2015 and reached 150 million in 2015. regarding country of origin, 104 million were born in asia, 62 million in europe, 37 million in caribbean and 34 million in africa (united nations 2016:1). the reason for such influx of migrants is ascribed to the interconnection of the world through diverse modern technology which has made all communication and transportation very easy.  research associate, stellenbosch university. email: esebsebe@yahoo.com mailto:esebsebe@yahoo.com african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1286 migration, however, entails its own pros and cons. countries of destination gain economic and knowledge benefits such as labour, an increase in taxes, entrepreneur and scientific inventions are some among the many contributions of the migrants. likewise, the sending country is receiving its own economic share through remittance. nonetheless, migrants are the most susceptible of the society to violence, abuse and loss of job. similarly, receiving countries might as well suffer from violence and terrorism as recently documented heinous and barbarous terrorist incidents in western countries. migration is a normal human phenomenon, and it is not confined only to economic needs, although most of the migrants were pushed out of their countries due to poverty, desire for a better life, conflict and war. particularly migrants not only come with their interest to sustain a better life, but also with their native values, cultures, religions and worldviews. such make things harder for peaceful co-existence between the native and the migrants. nevertheless, keeping the positive reciprocal benefits or advantages and curbing the disadvantages for both the native and the migrants demands an inclusive approach to the problem. such enterprise to the problem has already been underway for a while. consequently, several research projects on migration have been carried out in different disciplines via theories and methods fitting to address specific queries. it is also the interest of the present work to address “what contributes to building a peaceful co-existence between the natives of destination countries and migrants coming from varied religions and nations?” our method of inquiry would be analysing selected relevant texts from primary and secondary sources. the study, basing its assumption on golden rule, will argue that the ideology of responsible and balanced reciprocity is fundamentally important in constructing migration policy, positive social interaction, and peaceful coexistence at the secular as well as the religious level. accordingly, multidimensional approach to the problem of migration, differing views on the golden rule, the golden rule as a reciprocal ideology, and reciprocity and migration in the interface between religions will be discussed respectively. multidimensional approach migration theories are in the making. no single coherent international migration theory has ever been developed to date. contemporary endeavours african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1287 to address current issues of migration from different disciplines evince that it demands a multidimensional approach and state of research questions. each discipline undertakes a specific question and hypothesis. brettell & hollifield (2015:4) have listed eight disciplines’ questions; namely: anthropologists’ question, “how does migration effect cultural change and affect cultural identity?” demographers investigate, “to what extent do immigrant and native populations become more similar over time? it is an attempt to understand assimilation. economists inquire, “what explains the propensity to migrate and its effect? it is an inquiry into maximizing utility. geographers seek to understand “what explains the sociospatial patterns of migration? it is about incorporation, network and location. historians investigate “how a phenomenon has (e.g. causes, structures, processes, consequences of migration) or a relationship (e.g. gender and migration) changed or persisted over time? it is concerned about period. lawyers attempt to answer the question: “how does the law influence migration?” it is a concern for human right. political scientists ferret out the reasons “why do states have difficulty controlling migration? it is concerned about controlling migration. sociologist attempts to respond to the question “what explains incorporation and exclusion?” it investigates the issue of integration. although anthropologist and sociologist respond to the social and cultural dimension of migration, they do not look at it from a religious perspective. recently, a right-based approach to migration from a moral perspective related to development is espoused (dinbabo & carciotto 2015). such a valuable attempt with a focus on the leadership level and international law and policymaking needs a complementing theoretical base to achieve a full-fledged and comprehensive approach to address issues at the grassroots level not least the peaceful co-existence of migrants with the natives of the receiving country. it can be argued that crafting a religious theoretical and conceptual model is mandatory in order to respond to the question what contributes to the peaceful co-existence of the natives of the receiving country and migrants coming from varied religions and nations. the attempt in the present work is not to craft one, but to test a possible working concept that might contribute to the process, namely: general and balanced reciprocity in the formulation of the golden rule. the golden rule: differing perspectives what is the golden rule? according to the oxford dictionary of philosophy, the golden rule is defined as: african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1288 any form of the dictum: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. in some form this is found in almost all religions and ethical system. [blackburn, simon. "golden rule."] examples of such formulations are “treat others how you wish to be treated” or “do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you"(wattles 1996:56) or “whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them…” (matt 7:12). however, its meaning, application and usefulness are debated. for our present concern, the golden rule, albeit diverse in formulation, is understood as a positive and responsible reciprocal societal relationship. notwithstanding its popularity, the golden rule has been criticised by different fields of scholars. based on jeffrey wattles’ (1996:5–7 and 77–86) discussion of criticism against the golden rule, the objections can be subsumed under five reasons. one of the major objections is that it is too general to be a moral guide in the day-to-day relationship and embarrassing at the philosophical discourse and seriousness. objection exemplified "what if a sadomasochist goes forth to treat others as he wants to be treated?" second, it is based on the assumption that human beings are the same and does not do justice to the difference. in other words, the rule assumes that what we want is what others want. there is no differentiation of desire. third, it implies that what is good for ourselves is also good for everyone. if this is the case, the rule only applies to those who have similar beliefs and similar needs. four, the rule makes ordinary wants and desires as the criterion of morality, therefore it is too low a standard. for instance, a judge would not be in a position to sentence a criminal if the principle of the golden rule is enacted in the court. fifth, the rule also criticised in its artificial and abstractedness. six, it is connected to religion, but moral intuition and moral reason can operate without reference to any religious foundation. despite such serious criticism, the golden rule enjoyed a significant attention among scholars and practitioners to address a universal moral principle. some even claimed that it is sufficient for ethics and all duties may be inferred from it. others insisted that it is a necessary criterion for right action or an evaluative tool that tests actions (wattles 1996:5). for instance, its importance is well stated by marcus g. singer’s comment. it reads: the golden rule has been widely accepted, in word if not in deed, by vast numbers of greatly differing peoples; it is a basic device of moral education; and it can be found at the core of innumerable moral, religious, and social codes… the nearly universal acceptance of the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1289 golden rule and its promulgation by persons of considerable intelligence, though otherwise of divergent outlooks, would …seem to provide some evidence for the claim that it is a fundamental ethical truth.” (marcus sing, 1967:365-367). deciding its meaning is also another baffling issue for scholars to ascribe to it a universal moral principle. wattle, however, argued that albeit meaning involves context, it does not negate commonality insofar as conceptual similarity could be experienced beyond cultural boundaries (wattles 1996:4). for wattle, concepts are cross-cultural and unbounded. yet, since the golden rule requires identification of the agent with the other its exercise needs a thoughtful practitioner. in the context of religious discourse, however, the context of golden rule is paramount before seeking harmony at the conceptual level. in the ensuing discussion, we will focus on three areas where the concept and text of the golden rule as reciprocal relationship have been discussed, namely: greco-roman world, matt 7:12 and hadith 13. studying greco-roman concept of reciprocity would serve as a conceptual and ideological framework for the discussion of mat 7:12 and hadith 13. the golden rule as reciprocity: ideology ideology, in the present work, is concerned with “conscious or unconscious enactment of presuppositions, dispositions, and values held in common with other people” (robbins 1996:98). it is “an integrated system of beliefs, assumptions, and values” reflecting “the needs and interest of a group or a class at a particular time in history” (davis 1975:14). our interest in this section is primarily limited to examining reciprocity as an ideology in grecoroman world with a brief comparison of modern concept of ideology in light of migration and reciprocity. greco-roman world studying greco-roman world’s reciprocal relationship would be an unrealistic ambition in such a brief undertaking; therefore, only selected sources related to the golden rule as reciprocity would be treated. but at the outset a semantic problem precludes us from directly delving into the discussion of the text. for one, none of the single greek or latin words we can use to express the contemporary concept of reciprocity can express univocally the english term “reciprocity.” secondly, the earliest closest words of greek and latin are used to convey economic exchange not ethical sense (berchman 2008:40). however, at the later stage, ethical sense of reciprocity began to appear in the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1290 latin for instance cicero used amicitia (equal return in friendship). thirdly, there is no direct statement of the golden rule in archaic, classic and grecoroman sources. nevertheless, in nicomachean ethics (ne, 1166a1-b29) aristotle introduces the concept of reciprocity in its ethical sense by defining friend as another self (probably “another heracles.” cf. aristotle, eudemian ethics (ee, 1245a30). it should be noted that in ancient greece the golden rule/reciprocal ethics/ could not be found in its salient form instead doing good to friends and harming enemy was prevalent due to frequent war and clashes between cities and among individual. in such environment, doing good to friends and harming enemies was a tool for protecting oneself from danger. particularly, isocrates advocates the notion of helping friends and harming enemies in order to unite and stand against city enemies (wattles 1996:29). although homer, socrates and plato had discussed reciprocity, our discussion would focus on aristotle and others who came after him. but aristotle’s concept of ethics as a reciprocal obligation to the other is inherited from earlier sources such as homer, socrates, and plato who claimed that reciprocity entails moral, social as well as political obligation (berchman 2008:41). bercham adumbrates three natures of reciprocal obligation as an essential feature of the golden rule: (1) aims at the ethical and social, (2) independent in desire, aim, without partiality (preference of individuals), and (3) autonomous desire and feeling of the agent. reciprocity is about specific virtues and rationally taken actions considered to be good and admirable to benefit others not necessarily benefiting the agent. for aristotle, the beloved one or a friend is another self (ne 1166a1-b29; ee 1245a). the connection between aristotle loving another self and the golden rule is that in both an attitude one has for himself is reciprocally given to the other. aristotle argues that a human being is a social being and by nature designed to share his life (ne 9.9.1169b18-19). something is missing in the good of man if all the concern is self-interested (ne 1097a28-b21; aristotle, politics). this social nature of the human being is the basis of justice, which is good in itself (ne 1129b11-1130a5). justice embraces all the virtues, because it is practically towards the other. virtues people value the good of others for the sake of other people, in doing so, they seek virtuous action for their own sake. for aristotle, there are three kinds of relationship: character friendship (based on virtue/ goodness), friendship grounded in pleasure, and friendship grounded in utility (advantage) (ne 8.2.1155b17-8.3.1156b32; ee 7.1.1234b29-7.2.1237a36). the latter two kinds of relationship are based on self-advancement, but the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1291 first one is concerned for the other just because of herself/himself and for her/his own sake. one has to love oneself before loving the self in another (politics 1106b36-1107a2; 1105b25-28). he argues that for the good of oneself requires concern for the good of another. but such relationship does not exist in the absence of reciprocation (ne 8.2.1155b17-1156a5). although aristotle does not speak of returning evil for harm, he argues restoring proper proportion of property wrongly taken or unjust distribution. and punishment should be administered because not one is an enemy, but because of violating proper action (wattles 1996:37). imperial rome’s social and political relationship is also an essentially reciprocal relationship. studying the relevant literatures of the time, saller (1982:37) argued that reciprocal relationship “permeated the roman society and there appears to be little justification for the hypothesis that the language can be dismissed as a “jargon of bureaucrats.” in the roman republic, reciprocity was enforced by the law and religious mores (saller 1982:5). whether such relationship was changed during the imperial rome is debated. scholars such as blok (blok 1969) argued for its discontinuity particularly because the increase of bureaucracy eliminated the exercise of patronage. however, a number of scholars have convincingly argued for its continuity. for example, badian (1958), gelzer (1968), wallace-hadrill (1989), saller (1982) and kalinowski (1996) insisted that patronage /reciprocal relationship was not just a central cultural experience and a vital conscious roman ideology but it continued until the late antiquity of the roman empire (wallace-hadrill 1989:65). granting such relationship in the imperial rome would raise the question of whether it was ideological (in the sense of an integrated system of beliefs, assumptions, and values) or political (in the sense of power, status, system of cohesion). a detailed discussion of the issue is beyond the purview of this work, but for our purpose, suffices it to discuss representative texts focusing on cicero, dionysius and seneca. according to dionysius of halicarnassus (4nt.rom. 1.4.2), rome dominated the world because of its institutions, established by romulus, of which patronage was par excellence. borrowing from stoic’s universal friendship, cicero also contended that the key to maintain civilization is mutual support among humans (cicerode officiis 1.7.22). reciprocity is epitomized by nature as giving to and receiving (skills, labour, and talent) from one another to unite the human society closer. likewise, seneca maintains the same stance, arguing that the benefits are the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1292 chief means of bonding human society (seneca. de beneficiis 1-4.2). such instances adduce the fact that reciprocal social relationship is of ideological in imperial rome, i.e., it is concerned with moral duty, honour and identity than material things. cicero, for instance, views that the goal of generosity is to earn goodwill in return through gifts of service rather than money (cicero. de officiis 1.15.4748). seneca unequivocally expressed the same view writing, “a benefit cannot possibly be touched by the hand; its province is the mind... and so it is neither gold nor silver or any of the gifts which are held to be most valuable that constitutes a benefit, but merely the goodwill of him who bestows it (seneca de beneficiis. 1.5.2). for seneca, therefore, bestowing benefit is not so much about reaping a return as it is public display of virtue. however, he contends that the receiver of the benefit is obligated to return gratitude in the form of publishing the virtue of the benefactor everywhere (senecade beneficiis, 2.22.1). however, reciprocity entails material and political benefits. cicero is unequivocal in stating the relationship of reciprocity on political arena such as providing games, banquet and doles to groups would place an obligation upon the receiver groups to vote for the benefactor to civic office, although he defended that men of true talent like himself did not need to spend money for such purpose (cicero. de officiis 2.16.57-2.17, 58.). material benefit surrenders the receivers’ heart to the benefactor’s service (cicero. de officiis, 2.6.21) such as political loyalty (seneca. de beneficiis. 6.9. 1-2). seneca and dionysius (seneca, de beneficiis, 1.4.3 dionysius of halicarnassus ant. rom. 2.10.4) also attest competition among the patrons for winning client for political purpose. in post-augustinian proses, the terms patrons and client are infrequently used as they connote inferiority and degradation (saller 1982:9). unlike the patron and client, amnesty does not convey the concept of differential social status because amicus is an ambiguous concept that can accommodate a social relationship between equal and unequal. the relationship, particularly amicitia/friendship/ is based on virtues. according to seneca, amicus based on utility is temporal and falls in the time of hardship (ep. ad luc. 9.8 f.; 48.2-4; pliny, ep. 9.30.1). however, such a philosophical idea speaks of an ideal relationship that is based on common interest and selfless services. but in practical terms, amicitia carries a reciprocal relationship, particularly of officium (saller 1982:15). saller understands officium in terms of “favour” but african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1293 it can also be understood in the sense of utility as satisfaction from good and services in its current economic sense. cicero exhorts patrons “to become good calculators of duty, able by adding and subtracting to strike a balance correctly and find out just how much is due to each individual” (de off. 1.59 and also 1.47). such notion of calculating benefits has an economic sense, although one embraces the caveat of saller not to read it in an absolute literal sense. in fact, it is hard to calculate satisfaction, but in order that the reciprocal relationship to be maintained both parties must get satisfaction for the service they rendered. however, such calculation leaves the reciprocal benefits ambiguous in the sense that both parties feel under obligation to satisfy the other despite the imbalance return one gets from the other (saller 1982:17). whether the relationship is a binding moral obligation or not, it is based on benefit or utility from the relationship. reciprocity, therefore, is a foundational element in their societal relationship in the form of obligation or rules, although it was not exercised in a simple one to one exchange (saller 1982:15). the language of exchange permeated in major aspect of the social life to conceptualize the relationship of man to god, family and friendship (pliny, n.h. 12.1; quint., decl. 268; seneca, ep. ad luc. 8.3). particularly, reciprocal ideology was exercised between migrants and the natives. for instance, citizenship can be gained because of reciprocal obligation as in the case of pliny, who requested trajan to grant citizenship to his friend, arpocras, an egyptian migrant, who attended him while he was sick (ep.10.5). arpocras attainment of citizenship is not because of fulfilling some kind of legal requirements, but because of the service, he rendered to pliny. at the time, migrants flowed from different countries and occupations to the city of rome. for example, from asia minor slaves, professional and traders of various kind, from syria war-captives who were players of harp, and flute, actors, jester from the mimes, jugglers, differing law-class performer; and from egypt philosophers, astrologers, experts in divination, soothsayers, physicians, teachers, artists, actors, priest of isis, merchants, occults, mathematician and physicians (piana 1927:193). noy, based on seneca’s categories of motivation of migrants into rome, discusses four motivations: education, government and politics, and provision of good and services, family and religion (noy 2000:90–127). however, rome values morality, food security, peace and political stability. any foreign religious group or individual philosopher must comply with the imperial values for reciprocal benefit and if such values are threatened expulsion would be the ultimate measure. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1294 hence, the attitude towards the migrants differs: positive, neutral, and negative (noy 2000:31–34). cicero and seneca, who were themselves migrants, expressed a neutral position i.e. migration is neither bad nor good. juvenal and lucan (who was also an immigrant from spain) hold a negative attitude to immigrants. the accusation against the migrants was that they brought corruptions, vices and ill practices with them, which lowered the standard of the roman life by infiltrating all activities and offices and classes and in the end the state would be taken over by such people who were one's slaves. in fact, after a few years the next generation of slaves and freedmen began to play a major role in the court of the emperor and in the government being given the right to vote. the despise came because the foreigners did not comply with the traditions of the roman "mores maiorum." their lack of ‘gravitas' as the obvious mark of congenital inferiority and the 'decorum' of the lofty roman race (piana 1927:228–230). however, noy (2000:37–45) argues that despite such negative attitude there were not that many expulsions from imperial rome except the very few that happened due to ideologically suspect group, immorality and scarcity of food. the expulsion related to religion is limited to certain religious categories such as astrologers, jews, worshipers of asian gods sabazus, and christians. expulsion took place because of allegedly immoral relationship with the elite, breach of security and political involvement. therefore, migrants in rome allowed to stay as long as they reciprocate by sharing and holding the values of rome. hence, one can safely conclude that reciprocal relationship in early imperial rome had both ideological and political nature that governs both the native and the migrants. such social and political interaction reciprocates the benefits. while the receiver enjoys favour, protection, and material benefits, the giver benefits increase status, goodwill of the receiver, acknowledge of public gratitude, loyalty, attracting the attention of the emperor, lasting memory in the society (kalinowski 1996:33–35). migrants serve as labour resource, entrepreneur, increase revenue and social capital while they benefit from the roman’s treasure such as education, peace, wealth and status. therefore, such an exchange involves both material and non-material benefit between unequal social status as well as equal status. it is a relationship based on utility/being useful/ within society. but the problem of imprecision of the term “reciprocity” must be sorted out, not least because the ethical sense of the word is associated with friendship, african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1295 at other with neighbourliness, and sometimes with imperial trade relationship. furthermore, geoffrey maccormack (as cited in kirk 2003:674) rightly signalled that generalized application of the term “reciprocity” obscures the differences. as a solution to the conundrum, marshal sahlins (1965:147) in his study of primitive exchange offers three genres of reciprocity: general, balanced and negative. general reciprocity is putatively altruistic and an intimate relationship, open-ended, generous sharing and obligation in the form of gratitude. it is not time bounded. but the material flow is maintained through social relationship. such reciprocity is found within a patron client relationship (unequal relationship). balanced reciprocity is an equivalent exchange (model of market exchange) with a defined obligation with a set of time, hence it is a distance relationship where self-interest and material concern take priority. social relationship is maintained through material flow. negative reciprocity is maximizing one’s benefit at the expense of the other. its most extreme mode is exploitation and retaliation (kirk 2003). such scheme of reciprocity offers theoretical and conceptual framework for understanding the interface between the native’s and migrant’s religion in a given country. but before moving to examining religious texts, it is necessary to examine whether there is connection between ideology and migration not least in our modern world. ideology and migration tuen a. van dijk (2000:93) employs a multidisciplinary approach analysis of ideology and defines ideology as “fairly general and abstract mental representations which govern the shared mental representations (knowledge and attitudes) of social groups.” van dijk lists thirteen criterion of ideology and contends that although ideology is belief systems, it is not any socially shared belief system because it must be found at the basic level. it is formed by the basic proposition of cultural values that represent what is bad and what is good. ideology controls perception (as a mental model), interaction and intragroup actions. it polarizes groups in terms of us and them. it presupposes competition, conflict, struggle, or differences of opinion and knowledge between groups (van dijk 2000:94–95). ideology, therefore, has direct bearings on the interplay between the natives and the migrants as a social group, especially at the leadership level. in our modern world, it plays important roles in creating migration policies. for instance, in 1975, sweden constructed a migration policy based on multicultural ideology. the policy was based on three values: equality, african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1296 freedom of choice and partnership (akesson 2011:218). although practically such policy did produce unsatisfactory result, the same ideology was used to create the 1997 integration policy which involves everyone in sweden for the success of integration. accordingly, multicultural ideology in integrating migrants was promoted among the citizen and therefore it assumed a prominent place at official debate as well as at the grass-root level (akesson 2011:220). van dijk presents two deferring positons in british parliament discourse held on march 5, 1997, as an example of how ideology controls discourses on the crafting of policies of asylum seekers. his analysis of the discourse evinces that those who rejected granting asylum-to-asylum seekers (from outside of europe) is based on a negative mental model that pictures asylum seekers as bogus and criminals therefore they cause problem and difficulties costing lots of money which could be spent on british elderly citizens. on the other hand, an opposing view in the same parliamentary discourse propagated a positive perspective based on humanitarian ideology. in such representation the plights of the migrant and the value of democracy, international law, and solidarity with the oppressed were highlighted (van dijk 2000:101–113). obviously, the conversation did not confine within the parliamentary discourse. it would disseminate through different media shaping the mode of populace at the grass-root level which would influence the manner of coexistence between the natives and the migrants. the above examples might indicate that ideology not only influences how and what kind of decision should be made and policies should be crafted but also its ramification affects the social relationship between migrants of different kinds and the natives within a given country. either it promotes conflict, polarization (us and them), and antagonism or it promotes shared value and peaceful coexistence among the migrants and the natives. religious ideologies are not different in their contribution towards the relationship between the migrants and the natives insofar as they are important aspect of cultural values of a society. religions exist as organized institutions to maintain and disseminate their values (in the form of ideology) with an engraved (either negative or positive attitude) model of the other. therefore, the underlining question with regard to migration (as epitomized by the above examples) would be “what does the receiving country benefit from migrants?” the answer to this question constructs either a negative or a positive ideological stance. but ultimately, since migration is unavoidable african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1297 phenomenon, the favourable underpinning ideology would be negotiation i.e. reciprocity. migrants are both threat and at the same time potential resource of various kind to the receiving country and are objects of exercising democratic values such as international human right. similarly, for the migrants the destination country is uncertainty, bewilderment, loneliness, misunderstanding, cultural shock and fear, but hope for safety, employment, and a better life. an intersection between the needs of the migrants and the natives can only be achieved through an ideology that promotes a responsible reciprocity of benefits that either of the parties offer. if this conceptual frame is granted, in the ensuing sections, i will examine two texts: one from the new testament (nt) and the other from the hadith in light of the ideology of reciprocity with respect to migration in order to examine reciprocity from a religious perspective. the texts represent the two largest world religions which affinity might be demonstrated. nt (matt 7:12) and bukahri book 1-volume 2: hadith 12 mathew 7:12 and hadith 12 are normally taken as the golden rule in the traditions of both religions. therefore, our discussion is limited to the concept of reciprocity and migration. first, matt 7:12 will be analysed within the context migration and then hadith 12. matt 7:12 the gospel was preached and practiced in the world of roman empire and, as it went away from jerusalem, it became a migrant religion. such imperial milieu ought to be taken into consideration while reading the gospels. matthew in particular introduces his gospel with a number of characters who had been migrants, albeit his intention is christological. abraham, isaac, jacob, and ruth were migrants in the genealogy (matt 1:1-6). this connects jesus as a descendent of strangers (campese 2012:22). especially, the story of jesus family and the infant jesus are the salient examples of forced migrants or refugees in egypt to save their lives (matt 2:13-23). god is involved as the initiator as well as guider of the migration. in fact, the story evokes israel’s migration to egypt (matt. 2:15). evoking the story of israel in matthew 2:15 reminds the story of liberation from slavery in a foreign country and the awful life of migration. as a result of their experience in a foreign country, god reminds them to treat strangers or migrants as a neighbour not as an enemy who came to compete resources with african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1298 them (lev. 18:10; deut 26:1, 12-13)(garcia 2007:5). the story of matthew begins with listing the linage of jesus and his migration to egypt with his family and ends with jesus commanding his disciples to go to the whole world (matt 28:16-20). in light of such a broader context, the discussion of matt 7:12, which is normally called the golden rule in the synoptic gospel, is limited to searching the reciprocal nature of the text with a special reference to migration or stranger. therefore, it would neither be a detail exegesis nor source and redaction criticism. the text reads: “so whatever you wish that men would do to you, do to them; for this is the law and the prophet” (matt 7:12) and in luke 6:31 it reads “and as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.” the sayings are placed in a different context: while matthew places it within the larger context of the sermon on the mount and a closer context of prayer, luke inserted it within the context of teaching of love. matthew’s context is intriguing because jesus used human father son relationship in order to describe disciples -god relationship in prayer. the father is a giver, while the son is the receiver, such context of receiving good from the father for matthew is an appropriate place to compose the golden rule. in such context, the golden rule would be the law and the prophet. perfect human relationship, however, is modelled after god’s relationship with human beings loving enemies. love among the same group (5:46) and love among same family (5:47) are not the standard, but god-like love makes one true son of god. father-son relationship is an implicit reciprocal relationship as the son is the receiver and returns with honour and obedience (mat.7:21-23) which could be categorized as a general reciprocity. for jesus, a balanced reciprocal relationship is not the standard: “if you love those who love you” or “if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others?” and he also dismissed negative reciprocal relationship such as retaliation (mat 5:38-39). the concept of general reciprocity immediately follows jesus’ love teaching in mt 6:1-2. but jesus rejects the act of piety intended return in the form of honour from the community of faith. piety is understood in terms of father-son relationship. the father rewards his children because of doing good to someone else. such is the general reciprocal relationship between the disciples and god. although the golden rule is an expression of the law and the prophets, its formulation in the positive, instead of prohibiting from doing evil, demands proactively doing good. the good is assumed from the context because the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1299 context of prayer is to receive good things from the father. but the return is not clearly stated as it does not say “whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them so that you may gain a positive return.” but the absence of a lucid reciprocal goal does not mean that jesus is not teaching a reciprocal relationship. the command “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (mt. 6:44) in itself is a reciprocal language not least because it is a response of the disciples to persecution and hatred coming from other fellow persons. the reciprocal is materially different from what they are receiving from their persecutors i.e. reciprocal of dispensing positive benefit for a negative benefit as an imitation of god’s model. such reciprocity agrees with sahlin’s (1965:147) general reciprocity that states “failure to reciprocate does not cause the giver of the stuff to stop giving: the good move one way… for a long time.” such reciprocity differs from “principle of reciprocity and equivalence” which is important to justice (kirk 2003:669). the golden rule in light of general reciprocity unpacks the reciprocal nature of jesus’s golden rule “whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.” the disciples do not want to be persecuted or treated badly by their fellow persons (the first sentence). therefore, they should not repeat the wrong act of their persecutors instead they should do good to their persecutors (the second sentence) the good things they wish their persecutors could have done to them, however no explicit expectation of return is stated in jesus’s golden rule. whether the principle of reciprocity applies to god’s generosity towards the evil ones is debated because god gives disinterestedly. however, kirk (2003:638) argues that applying the cultural ideology of greco-roman reciprocity for the purpose of initiating gratitude and creating social bond applies to god as a supreme benefactor of human beings. for instance, in seneca the benefactor likens his action of generosity to the benevolence of gods in nature (ben. 1.1.9-13; 4.25.2). using the divine paradigm, ingratitude on the side of the receiver does not deter patrons from being generous. but seneca criticises those who fail to reciprocate to the benefactors (ben. 1.1.313). although god’s generosity is freely bestowed in matthew, the response to his will is desired and encouraged. in fact, disobedience will result in rejecting from entering into his kingdom. “whatever you wish that men would do to you, do to them; for this is the law and the prophet” (matt 7:12) addresses a plural subject “you” referring to the jesus followers as a community who might be expecting persecution from african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1300 unspecified outsiders to proactively and positively reciprocate in the situation. such injunction, although distinct in its formulation, attitude, and context, fairly fits into its cultural ideology of reciprocity in societal relationships of the imperial world of rome. but the reciprocity here is a general reciprocity expecting return from god as a father, if not from the social relations. such reciprocity of doing good without considering either the disposition or action of a person but on the bases of self as a standard for a positive action toward the other demands a mental representation of the other as another “i” (ne 1166a1-b29; ee 1245a). one’s own self is reciprocally given to the other. it is identifying oneself with the other. reciprocity in such sense is vicarious. it is considering the other neither as an enemy nor a threat but as a replica of oneself who has a similar need. even enemies should be treated not with retaliation but with actions that revers the chain of evil. such ideology of reciprocity of self creates a new paradigm of treating strangers in the gospel of matthew. jesus heals the daughter of the strangera canaanite woman and praised her faith (matt 15:22). for example, according to matthew 25:35-46, jesus identifies himself with the other: the poor, the stranger, the sick and the prisoners. the stranger /ξένος/ is a migrant who is a replica of oneself and should be treated as another self. matthew’s vicarious reciprocal ideology perceive migrants as fully human and neighbour who should be welcomed and treated as oneself or equal. the disciples of jesus were sent to take the gospel to the whole nation and make them disciples of jesus (matt 28:18-20) and jesus promised them to be with them. in so doing, jesus created a mental model of humanity as one community to be disciple in his teaching. such assignment requires a life of migrant or going out beyond the boundary of ones own nation and embracing the other as a neighbour and equal. the resurrected jesus also now crosses the boarder of the nation of israel once again to create a community of different nations. in such context, the golden rule as reciprocity functions as means of building social bonding between the migrant with a new religion and the native as a potential disciple. above all, the golden rule communicate an ideological of a responsible vicarious reciprocity with a high valuation of the other which obligates to treat the migrant as another self. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1301 bukhari book 1-volum 2: hadith 121 islam came as religion in the six and seven century c.e in arabia. pre-islamic state, hospitality and generosity was highly regarded as an important value of the community. but the golden rule did not exist because in those days protecting tribe was one of the prominent things to do through retaliation and vengeance (homerin 2008:99). the motto was "in evil is salvation when goodness cannot save you." revenge protected the clan. although after the coming of prophet mohammed a new ideology of religious worldview was introduced, the lex talioni was still practiced for redressing murder and physical injuries inflicted upon a victim (q. 2.178; 4.92). however, the contexts of these texts show a concern for the believing community and exclude the unbeliever. quran emphasizes on individual responsibility for whatever deeds, bad or good, one does on earth will be judged on the day of judgment (q. 2.261-62; 273-74; q. 83.1-6). on that day, people will come forward separately to be shown their deeds, and, so, whoever did an atom’s weight of good will see it, and he who did anatom’s weight of evil will see it (q. 99.6-7). the concept of positive and negative reciprocity is reflected on divine-man relationship. correct doctrine and correct deeds bring a positive reward or reciprocal benefit from the divine. but the quran does not have an explicit golden rule statement as the gospels have it. some argue that qur’a¯n 83.1-6 is an implicit golden rule but a closer expression is found in hadith, which is second only to the quran. a most often cited hadith for golden rule reads: none of you believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself (bukhari book 1-volume 2: hadith 12) the religion of islam differentiates a muslim (one who submits to allah) from a believer (mu’min). the former refers to someone who profess to be a believer whereas the latter refers to one who believes in god and his revelation deep in the heart (homerin 2008:103). the text quoted above, therefore, might be referring to the latter. however, the text explicitly sets goals for exercising positive reciprocity. it is a way of stepping on the ladder of faith from submission to a believer or growth in the faith of islam. reciprocity is not an 1 all the texts discussed under this submission are taken electronic source : namely, ebookuniversity of california msa site. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1302 expectation of return from a fellow brother, although such reciprocity might be associated with that of general reciprocity. however, as the text interpreted by muslim scholars it does not aim at reciprocity so much as humility. therefore, the text is about becoming or progression in the faith. but a contrasting statement of jesus to the haddith 12 is that it is not just enough loving a fellow brother who has possibly been among the same community, but one will be called sons of god by loving one’s enemy. quran, on the other hand, denies its adherents closer relationship with christians and jews or others who may wish to harm them (quran 2. 120, 5.51, 5.82). nonetheless, the basic general reciprocal concept and ideology cannot be avoided in both statements. the word “brother” is primarily understood not as referring to an outsider or as the whole humanity, albeit the universal intention is claimed by some muslim scholars (homerin 2008:106). in the sufi tradition, elimination of selfish desire by putting the needs of others before one’s own without expecting a return is encouraged (homerin 2008:106). after examining quran, hadith and muslim tradition, homerin (2008:113–114) concluded that this text “may be understood to apply all humanity, not only selected group” but his final conclusion states “muslims have interpreted and applied the golden rule in several contrasting ways.” multiple interpretation traditions of the golden rule based on theological stance evinces that it is understood in diverse manner including the current lex talionis of osama bin laden negative reciprocal ideology (bin laden 2005). with regard to migration, however, quran assumes many religious figures who are also found in the bible as migrants, namely: adam, abraham, noah, jonah, jacob and moses (saritoprak 2008). islamic tradition speaks of different migration due to religious persecutions. but our discussion will be limited to the first hijramigration of approximately 82 muslims converts into abyssinia (current-ethiopia) around 617ce (hussain 2014:173–175). according to the tradition, prophet mohammad commanded his persecuted followers to migrate to the land of a christian king whom he described as just and kind hearted. in accordance with the words of the prophet migrant went to ethiopia and enjoyed peace and security. having heard of a peaceful existence of the migrant in abyssinia, the qurayshites sent their emissaries with present to the negus to instigate him against the migrant for extradition. however, having questioning the migrant about their religion and evaluating the difference between his christian faith on his terms and islam, he found that the difference african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1303 was minor and therefore he vowed to protect the migrant granting them freedom to exercise their religion. as a result, in the hadith (37 battles (kitab al-malahim, hadith no 4288), prophet mohammed reciprocates by banning jihad against abyssinia. it reads “let the abyssinians alone as long as they let you alone…” the positive reciprocation is conditional as it says “as long as they let you alone.” but such a favour towards the abyssinians stemmed out of reciprocal ideology. but for islam reciprocation is not a flat positive one as it could either be positive or negative depending on the reaction and action of the other. however, the model of the abyssinian christian king is taken as a good example of just treatment of migrants which might serve in the muslim tradition as the golden rule in action and the interface between religions. the two traditions matt 7:12 and hadith 12 (plus hadith no 4288) convey that migrants should be treated as oneself with just and kindness. however, while for matthew it is a vicarious reciprocity, for the hadith it is conditional and evaluative, therefore, it could result in either in positive or negative relationship. hence, reciprocity is an ideology that creates responsible boding between the migrant and the natives for a peaceful co-existence despite their differing religious commitment. having said this, however, in the next section we need to analyse how such ideology of reciprocity contributes to a peaceful coexistence of the migrants and the native who have differing religions, values and mental models of each other. reciprocity, migration and the interface between religions religion serves as a point of positive interface between the migrant and the natives of the same religion in the destination countries, although language and race might be a bit of a challenge. the newly arrived migrant would be another ‘i’ of receiving community of the same religion. it serves as a home, especially if the community of the same religion is from country of the same origin. in such milieu, a general reciprocity is a religious normal practice. particularly the golden rule obligates such reciprocal relationship towards a community member despite country of origin. in addition to christianity and islam discussed above, other religions have their own formulation of reciprocal propositions: african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1304 hinduism: mahabaratha ch.5 – “this is the sum of duty; do not do unto others what you would not have them done unto you” judaism: hillel, talmud, shabbat 31a "what is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. this is the whole torah; all the rest is commentary.” buddhism: the buddha-udarra-varga-5:18 'treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." confucianism: confucius analects 15:23 "one word which sums up the basis of all good conduct... loving-kindness. do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself." taoism: lao tzu, t'ai shang kan ying,p'len, 213-218. "regard your neighbour's gain as your own gain and your neighbour’s loss as your own loss." baha'i faith: bahaullah. gleanings "lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon you, and desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself.” but as regards the interface between religions, conjoining seemingly conceptually similar texts of religious literature does not necessarily bring a positive result, particularly in the context of migration due to the complex nature of religion itself and migration. first, religions by nature bear distinctive traits (neusner 2008:55–56). according to neusner, “a proposition that is shared among several religious systems will not play a major role in the construction of any particular religious system.” in other words, common propositions among several different religious tradition does not fit with the particulars of any one of them (neusner 2008:56). second, in reciprocity, invariably, two incommensurable notions of value are at play: strict calculation and elusive moral value (right, fair, play and justice). these are both in tensions. reciprocity is strictly calculative (balanced reciprocity) and as the same time elusive moral values (general reciprocity). therefore, reciprocity involves a continuing struggle. third, the way we measure or perceive the world and the way we experience it in many ways are different. all these variables deter us from being optimistic about proposition as a bridge for the interface between religions in some form of human existence. nonetheless, reciprocal relationship is fundamental to human nature and the basis for social life and language because human nature is fundamentally interpersonal and relational. such notion of reciprocity is well attested by its ubiquity across different religions, albeit application is different. however, the categories of reciprocity must be noted. general reciprocity serves as the bonding within the cultural homogeneous community as it functions without african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1305 expectation of return. the difference between self and the other is blurred. there is a dependency, empathy and physical intimacy. an example would be the relationship between mother and child, a patriot and the motherland, and believer and his/or their religion. such reciprocity is not prevalent among the heterogeneous community. but balanced reciprocity is an interplay between intentions and actions in which a sense of justice as fairness is at work. in such relationship each party deems necessary for its very existence. balanced reciprocity might serve bridging across the social network of culturally distinct and differentiated migrant religion. the repercussion of not exercising either general or balanced reciprocity leads to the negative reciprocity where self and other are asunder, and polarized, i.e. the existence of one is the annihilation of the other where absolute antipathy and violence is a norm. assuming interdisciplinary theoretical endeavour, social exchange theory bases its assumption on economic theory arguing that human behaviour is an exchange of rewards between actors. their social interaction is characterized by reciprocal stimuli and an exchange of activity: tangible and intangible (zafirovski 2005:1–3). the theory also claims that individuals establish and maintain social relationship on the expectation of such relationship is mutually advantageous and benefits. in the course of reciprocal interaction, as an outcome, actors attempt to satisfy their needs by attending to the needs of the other (zafirovski 2005:3, 11).neurologist donald w. paff also perceived that human beings have the capacity for fair play and they are “wired for reciprocity” (as cited in green 2008:171). therefore, reciprocity is not just an ideology but it is the human behaviour. in the context of migration, the natives and migrants’ peaceful interaction and coexistence in the destination country cannot be achieved without it. reciprocity of benefits is fundamentally important for the peaceful co-existence of migrants with the natives of the country of destination for several reasons. among the many, suffice it to mention some here. first, reciprocity creates bond and trust among actors (zafirovski 2005:4). because of shared value and a two directional flow of benefits and advantages, the native and the migrants meet each other’s needs (tangible and intangible needs). second reciprocity creates confidence, belonging, participation and sense of value. in the reciprocity, the natives value migrants because they would be perceived as contributors not as parasites or threats. such valuation also creates confidence in the migrant to see themselves not just as receivers, or strangers, but as african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1306 positive contributors towards the advantage of the receiving country. third, reciprocity allows migrants and the natives to exercise control over each other’s actions and resources (zafirovski 2005:7). reciprocity is not without power but it is not domination. the power would be functional in a sense of one controlling the resource that the other needs. in such interaction, the resources can be reciprocated among themselves creating the power of negotiation. therefore, the migrant whether they are labour migrants or asylum seekers can be perceived as potential resources, of course, without denying they could be potential threat. however, social exchange theory argues that exchange relationship would be positive if they mutually reinforcing, and negative if they preclude one another (zafirovski 2005:9). fourth, reciprocity imposes responsibility based on obligation on the part of migrants and the natives in order to maintain conscience reciprocal relationship that produces a long-term benefit for both actors. likewise, the interface between religions reciprocity plays a major role in creating a peaceful co-existence. however, reciprocity that bridges the interface between religions of migrants and the natives in the country of arrival is the combination of general reciprocity (within the religious community) and balanced reciprocity (an interaction with the other). particularly the latter is mandatory for the peaceful co-existence of different religions at any place because religions, according to their ideology of reciprocity, assume a conscious responsibility for fostering a positive social relationship among human beings in general and between migrants and the native in particular. conclusion greco-roman world informed us that reciprocity is a natural phenomenon as a human being is a social being designed to reciprocate life. social exchange theory and neurologist has confirmed this. such reciprocity is also part of major world religion succinctly formulated in such a way that it can be memorized easily. concern for the good of oneself demands concern for the good of the others. 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2) limited opportunities for transition from education to employment; and 3) limited rights and freedoms. keywords capability, national service, national aspirations, transitions. introduction eritrea is a small sovereign state in the horn of africa comprised of an estimated five million citizens (tessema & ng’oma, 2009). despite its small population, in recent years, eritrea has gained wide global attention for being one of the largest sources of international migrants to countries in europe through mediterranean routes (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). most of these migrants are youth, particularly young men (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). many studies suggest that eritrea’s compulsory national service is the main driver of mass migration from the country (hirt & mohammad, 2018; international crisis group, 2014; kibreab, 2014, 2017). yet, others argue that the absence of a general sense of religious, economic and political freedom, the lack of  ford foundation, dabesaki mac-ikemenjima, ford foundation, banana island, lagos, nigeria. email:d.mac-ikemenjima@uea.ac.uk/ dabesaki@gmail.com  chicago, illinois, united states of america, 60626, gebrhelen@gmail.com african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1311 economic opportunities and a sense of hopelessness are drivers of mass migration (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017; tessema & ng’oma, 2009). some context is relevant here. eritrea became an independent country in 1991 following a protracted three-decade period of conflict with ethiopia (international crisis group, 2010). during its early post-independence years, the country seemed to be moving along an economically strong developmental trajectory, particularly with its post-war reconstruction and development program that partly focused on self-sufficiency (tesfagiorgis, 1993). in the referendum that resulted in the country’s separation from ethiopia, citizens voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence, and the outcome inspired an era of hope (international crisis group, 2010). this hope also defined the citizens’ aspirations for themselves and their country. the hope was expressed by the eritrean diaspora, some of whom returned, while others invested in the country with the intention of contributing to its advancement (hirt, 2014, 2015). this hope, which was translated into solidarity and support, continued even in the years following the suspension of the constitutional process, the renewed war with ethiopia and the post-war era, through the diaspora tax system instituted by the state (hirt, 2014). perhaps due to these factors, eritrea’s economy boomed in the first decade following independence with an average annual economic growth rate of 4.5%. however, the renewed conflict with ethiopia and the state’s response to it, contributed to a period of destabilisation with negative consequences for the economy (lopez & venkataraman, 2006). following the conflict, eritrea’s economy experienced a short period of decline after the mid-2000s, and then improved, with an increase in gdp growth from 2.2% in 2010 to 8.2% in 2011. in the following years, the economy was in decline for a sustained period, with a reported gdp growth of 0.3% in 2015 (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). the most recent gdp growth, in 2017, was 3.4% and is projected to be 3.7% in 2018 (african development bank, 2018). while the government has prioritised investments in infrastructure, such as communication facilities, water supply, energy and agriculture, the impact of these have been severely dwarfed by higher investments in security (afdb group, oecd & undp, 2016). eritrea’s economic prospects have also been negatively affected by un sanctions and an unstable macroeconomic environment. the world bank (2017) speculates that poverty in eritrea may be as high as 65% to 80% in rural areas. a significant portion of employment opportunity in eritrea is in ‘rain-fed’ agriculture, which contributes only a small portion of the gdp (african development bank, 2018). although the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1312 youth unemployment rate is relatively low at 13%, when compared to other african countries, such as south africa (over 50%), this is masked by the large number of people who are working poor, earning less than us$2 a day (research and evidence facility, 2017). youth constitute around 30% of the overall eritrean population and they are relatively well educated, with an overall literacy rate of 90%, which makes them an important group to study. the last two decades have witnessed a mass exodus of eritreans migrating to neighbouring countries, mainly sudan and ethiopia, as well as far-off countries in europe. by some estimates (horwood & hopper, 2017; international crisis group, 2014), at least 5,000 eritreans leave the country monthly, and they constitute the second largest number of migrants from sub-saharan africa in europe. more than 500,000 people were estimated to have left the country as of 2013, and around a 250,000 refugees from eritrea are scattered globally (connell, 2013). there were 48,400 asylum applications from eritreans in europe in 2014, more than doubling the 22,300 recorded in 2013. this made eritrea the fifth largest producer of asylum seekers (un ohchr, 2015). in the uk alone, there were over 3,700 eritrean asylum seekers in 2013. although the eritrean situation has recently gained attention in the context of the current migration crisis in europe, one question that requires more exploration is why young people are emigrating en-masse from the country. the aim of this paper is to explore the factors that drive youth migration from eritrea. different push and pull factors explain migration. some of the factors identified in the literature include: economic migration, migration for family reasons and environmental conditions, including policies and conflict (cummings et al., 2015; european communities, 2000; flahaux & de haas, 2016). much of the literature suggests that young eritreans are migrating due to the country’s national service program (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). in this paper, we analyse the literature on the factors driving eritrean youth migration using a lens of opportunities and aspirations. we review bodies of work related to aspirations, economic opportunity and factors that drive migration, both specifically related to eritrea and beyond. using combinations of search terms – such as ‘youth and migration and eritrea or africa’, ‘youth and migration and eritrea and push factors’ and ‘youth and migration and eritrea and push forced migration’, among others – we searched major databases, such as ebscohost and google scholar, and identified various studies that have analysed the challenge of migration from eritrea. in this paper, we critically review these studies, and discuss their conclusions for why youth migrate. while not a systematic review, we apply the critical angle african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1313 offered by the systematic review methodology by attempting to answer the research question: why do youth migrate or seek to migrate from eritrea? like most studies of eritrean migration, our paper faces limitations of internal validity due to the lack of primary data and a review of studies that are mainly based on data collected from outside of eritrea (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). this paper is divided into five sections. following this brief introduction, we elaborate on a conceptual framework that draws on the concepts of aspirations and opportunity. in this section, we discuss amartya sen’s (1993, 1999) capability approach as an underlying framework to explain the push factors that drive youth migration from eritrea. in the third section, we discuss the distinction between national aspirations and individual aspirations. we opine that national aspirations are often couched in terms of state aspirations, and that these can be inconsistent with the aspirations of citizens. in the fourth section, we discuss the main findings of the review, outlining three key factors that explain youth migration from eritrea: tension between individual and national aspirations, limited opportunities to transition from education to employment and limited rights and freedoms of citizens. in the, fifth section, we discuss these factors and their relationship with the wider literature on migration from sub-saharan african contexts. furthermore, we consider the policy relevance of the main conclusions drawn for eritrea. conceptual framework: capability, aspirations and opportunity push and pull factors that drive african migration are often linked to economic and environmental factors (cummings et al., 2015; european communities, 2000). although the literature has focused more extensively on international migration, the bulk of african migration occurs within the region (adepoju, 2000; flahaux & de haas, 2016). however, whether movement occurs within the region or internationally, economic factors are central drivers of voluntary and involuntary or forced migration (awumbila, 2017). the factors that drive forced migration and increasing rates of displacement in africa have been the subject of several studies (dejesus, 2018; erdal & oeppen, 2018; rwamatwara, 2005). however, an aspect of migration in the region that requires further exploration, and which this paper aims to address, is the intersection of factors that drive forced migration and those that drive voluntary migration. scholars have noted this as an important area of study that does not entirely fit the binaries of forced versus voluntary migration, and the nuances of its dimensions require closer consideration (erdal & oeppen, 2018). by ‘looking deeper’, the contribution of aspirations and opportunity, whether in the african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1314 context of forced or voluntary migration, become clearer (carling & collins, 2018). we attempt to develop a conceptual framework that analyses the factors that drive eritrean youth migration using the capability approach, and the concepts of aspirations and opportunity, to develop a deeper understanding of mass youth migration from post-independence eritrea. the capability approach the capability approach (ca) is a framework for analysis that elucidates understandings of individual potential for achievement, social arrangements and their contributions and effects on people’s lives (robeyns, 2005). this framework is valuable to the design of effective policies that could promote and enhance social change in society (robeyns, 2005). at the core of the ca is the view that analyses of policies and people’s lives should focus on both the possibilities that they have (the things that they have the potential to be and do) and those that they are actually able to achieve (sen, 1993). sen describes the ca in terms of human freedoms, the possibility to be and do the things that contribute to the achievement of a good life (sen, 1999). central to the ca are agency and freedom, both of which advance the notion that a person’s ability to pursue the life that he or she desires unhindered by institutional structures and social arrangements is crucial for human development and the advancement of a society (sen, 1993). scholars have argued that commodities and material possessions are means to a good life (clark, 2005). people’s ability to achieve the ends they desire, and ultimately live a good life, is dependent on the kinds of societies in which they live, their personal situations and the resources that are available to enable them to achieve their desired ends. scholars have long debated the role of social and cultural environments on people’s ability to aspire to certain achievements (appadurai, 2004; bourdieu, 1986). sen’s conception of the ca has given rise to several analyses of both human development and wellbeing, and it has been instrumental to providing a social justice frame when exploring aspects of human rights and justice in several development topics, such as education (tikly, 2013). in taking the approach forward, nussbaum (2005) argues for a set of central capabilities that should form the basis of national constitutions and statutes. nussbaum’s (2005) list of central capabilities is comprised of ten areas of human life, namely: life, health, bodily integrity, sense, imagination and thought, emotions, practical reasons, affiliations, relationship to the world of nature and control over environment. the list african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1315 illustrates many aspects that people consider to constitute a good life, and which are central to their aspirations. in a study using a ca framework in south africa, clark (2003) found issues such as jobs, happiness, a good family, living a christian (religious) life, among others, to be central to how participants defined the good life. sen (1985) also gives examples of capabilities, such as the ability to be well nourished, to appear in public without shame and to live a long and healthy life. underlying the ca is the understanding of human dignity and a life that is free to flourish. the united nations development program has produced a human development report since 1990 as a major indicator of human progress, in which it presents a composite measure comprised of life expectancy, income and literacy, based in part on the capability approach. if capabilities are by any means universal, as nussbaum (2005) seems to suggest, then it could be argued that the failure to achieve the things that matter the most to people, or their inability to achieve these due to structural constraints, could have an impact on their perception of life in that society and affect their decision to migrate. aspirations and opportunity as explained earlier, the potential of eritrean youth, like those in other subsaharan african countries, to achieve their aspirations, and the sense of hope derived from the freedom to both aspire and pursue their aspirations, could be important elements for an understanding of youth migration (mains, 2013). aspirations provide an interesting lens for understanding the link between migration and young people’s sense of the possibilities they have for their lives (kleist, 2017). as mains (2013) suggests in his analysis of ethiopian youth aspirations, when “hope is cut” international migration tends to be one of the options that young men choose, given their perception of the possibilities that they could have abroad, which is largely fed by the media and the version of a better life portrayed by returnees. the possibilities that young people aspire to range from acquiring commodities such as money and other material possessions, to the desire for higher education or long-term personal relationships, such as being happily married (clark, 2003). an aspiration is defined as “the perceived importance or necessity of goals” (copestake & camfield, 2010: 618). it is a set of desired end-states that an individual seeks to achieve (kruglanski & kopetz, 2009). aspirations are cognitive and do not always match a person’s realities. this dissonance often contributes to african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1316 individuals acting in different ways to enhance the potential of achieving their aspirations. the desired states that youth work towards achieving are important determinants of the ways in which they plan and live their lives. in eritrea, studies and project reports have shown that young people aim to attain the good life through quality education, vocational training and entrepreneurship (müller, 2004; riggan, 2016). however, their abilities to achieve these goals are often impeded by the lack of proper institutional arrangements to advance or enable the attainment of these aspirations and limited opportunities for employment. the lack of such institutional arrangements and structures constitute both a disincentive to their aspirations and a major impediment to their capacity to pursue a better life. as such, many youth are compelled to either align with the limited opportunities that exist or seek other opportunities abroad by emigrating (riggan, 2016). as a case in point, the eritrean education system is highly restrictive in terms of the options that youth seeking to enter higher education, particularly universities, are able to pursue, as these are determined by the states’ pre-determined human capacity needs rather than by the interests of the youth themselves (müller, 2004, 2015). an area of interest is the effect that restricted opportunities for eritrean youth to choose what they value could have on their decision to migrate internationally. riggan’s (2016) research based on classroom debates on migration highlights the effects of limited opportunities on aspirations in eritrea. while some students participating in the debate highlight the need to stay to rebuild their country, others note that, given the structural weaknesses, the lack of opportunities to receive good quality education and the desire to have a livelihood, emigration was a more viable option. not all of riggan’s participants were in favour of emigrating. some of the participants highlighted the value of patriotism and national development as important reasons to stay in the country (riggan, 2016). the above is consistent with an analysis by rosberg and tronovoll (2017) in which 88% of the respondents strongly or somewhat agreed that improving their standard of living was an important driver of their decision to migrate. the same study cites the economy of eritrea as one of the external factors that drive migration from the country. cummings et al. (2015) highlight that the absence of economic opportunities in a country and perception of opportunities in other countries are important determinants of the decision to emigrate. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1317 in analysing the mass migration of youth from eritrea, it is crucial to understand what youth have reason to value, the impact of social arrangements on the things that they can aspire to and achieve, how policies affect their potential for achieving the things that they value and what types of changes in eritrean society and political life are necessary (carling & collins, 2018). an important factor that implicitly informs analyses on the quality of people’s lives in eritrea is the extent to which citizens have the freedom to pursue the things that they value (kibreab, 2014). this informs extensive critiques of the national service program, given that it is perceived as an infringement on people’s ability to pursue the kind of life they value (kibreab, 2017). the notions of freedom and agency as advanced by ca are not only useful for understanding what other possibilities or opportunities youth have within eritrea itself, but also how the perception of local opportunities compared to those outside drive mass youth movement. we are interested in potential explanations offered by perceived opportunities or the lack thereof for the mass migration of eritrean youth. an important aspect of this relates to the ways in which the aspirations of eritrean youth interact with those of the state. thus, the question of national versus individual aspirations is briefly discussed in the following section. individual versus national aspirations national aspirations reflect the vision of the state, as represented by its political leadership, for a country’s future. the perception of the future could be in terms of human development (education and health), security, welfare, infrastructure or other such areas that are of interest to a given country as perceived by the leadership. in the case of eritrea, these priorities were set at the post-independence conference (tesfagiorgis, 1993). national aspirations are sometimes driven by the ideological leaning of a country’s political leadership, as well as other factors, such as the culture of a country and the extent to which citizens’ perspectives are integrated into policies. national aspirations are often reflected in national constitutions, legislations, policies, development plans and programmes instituted by the government of a country. for instance, in the case of access to education and courses, the system in eritrea is designed to train manpower for the country’s workforce under its self-reliance programme and based on what the state prioritises (ministry of education, 2008; müller, 2015). national aspirations are useful for countries as they are important determinants of growth, development and prosperity. yet, they could either enhance the attainment of personal aspirations or hinder them. although there are instances in which they are african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1318 aligned, in many cases national aspirations may differ from those of the generality of citizens, which can establish a clear distinction between state aspirations and collective or group aspirations (shapiro, 1999). often national aspirations are cast in the form of acts of patriotism on the part of citizens, or simply developed as requirements for transition from one phase of life to another. for example, following nigeria’s protracted civil war of the 1960s–70, a new national youth service program was established that required all young citizens to undertake a year-long engagement on national duty, in a state other than their own and in a different part of nigeria to that in which they studied (obadare, 2005, 2011). while the service is designed as a reflection of the state to achieve cohesion, and prevent future conflict, this may not reflect the aspirations of young graduates, some of whom may prefer to directly transition into full-time waged work or self-employment. in the context of eritrea, the national aspiration of producing manpower for the state-sanctioned sectors may constitute a similar challenge (kibreab, 2014, 2017). school to work transition in eritrea is an important aspect of the intersection between aspirations and opportunity because for most young people who attain higher education, they will be one of a handful of people who make it to that educational level (müller, 2004). this is because there are limited opportunities for entry into higher education in eritrea, and the system is largely controlled by the state. despite the tight control of the higher education system, at least 13% of the youth remain unemployed. given the weak economy, the prospects of graduates to enter decent waged employment is highly limited, despite this being a stated objective of the government’s higher education policy (ministry of education, 2008). school to work transition studies underscore the need to remove barriers to young people’s access to post-study opportunities for personal development and livelihood (fares et al., 2005). often, young people’s development, aspirations and attainment are affected by false starts and limited opportunities for achievement of their goals (locke & telintelo, 2012). while individual achievement is a critical aspect of development, the role of structural factors in shaping people’s life outcomes cannot be overstated. in analysing eritrea’s higher education system, müller (2015) highlights what was pointed out earlier in this article: that institutional arrangements hinder students’ higher education aspirations. another representation of national aspiration in eritrea is the country’s national service program. the eritrean national service programme was first african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1319 proclaimed by the provisional government of eritrea in 1991 following the eviction of ethiopian forces by the eplf (kibreab, 2017). the program was envisaged as part of efforts to enhance national unity, cohesion and enhancement of eritrea’s self-reliance policy (kibreab, 2017). beyond that, the program could be viewed as a strategy to enhance youth employability and, thus, the productivity of the eritrean economy. under the programme, young eritreans completing high school were required to complete one year of paramilitary training, and were posted to government ministries and businesses to undertake internship-like assignments (kibreab, 2017). although the national service was originally designed to last a period of eighteen months, following which individuals could pursue their preferred life trajectories, it is now claimed by various sources that this has been extended and could last for up to ten years or indefinitely (kibreab, 2014, 2017). national service conscripts are assigned to fulfil a broad set of tasks, going beyond core military functions to include work in the development, construction and maintenance of public infrastructure, agriculture and in the fledgling industrial and mining sectors (un ohchr, 2015). from the perspective of the state, the national service program is designed to help meet certain national aspirations: to protect state sovereignty, facilitate cohesion and prepare youth for future employment. however, given the resistance to the program as seen in the number of deserters and those seeking to emigrate to escape participation (hirt, 2010), it appears that the state’s objective or aspiration and those of the young people, at best, are misaligned and, at worst, are clashing. why are young eritreans migrating? in this section, we discuss our findings on the factors that influence youth migration from eritrea, based on our review of the literature. we opine that youth migration from eritrea is intricately linked to young eritreans’ aspirations and factors that enable or impede them. contrary to the dominant narrative presented in the literature that youth migration is primarily a result of the national service (connell, 2012; kibreab, 2013), we suggest that a complex mix of factors encapsulated by the absence of opportunities contribute to migration. tensions between national (state) and individual aspirations it is sad, but true, to say that eritrea has no economy today, devastated as it is by the thirty years of war and deliberate scorched-earth policy. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1320 in addition to the war, the manpower and economic resources of the country have been depleted by recurrent drought and other natural calamities. as there is virtually nothing, the first priority of the task is to formulate and lay the foundations for an initial economic framework (isaias afewerki quoted in tesfagiorgis, 1993: xxii). immediately after the de facto independence of eritrea, a development conference was held in asmara, the capital city, in june 1991. the aim of the conference was to begin a dialogue to draw out national goals towards the development of the economy (tesfagiorgis, 1993). as mentioned in the quote above by eritrea’s president issaias afewerki, the country’s economy was weak in the aftermath of the war and this made the conference imperative. the conference focused on several themes perceived to hold the potential to galvanise the ailing economy, including agriculture, health, human resource development and gender, and covered seven sectors including economic development, the macroeconomic framework, human resource development, agriculture and environment, finance and banking, trade and industry, natural resource development and construction (tesfagiorgis, 1993). a popular recommendation from the conference, due to its significance during wartime, was the need to utilise a self-reliance strategy in pursuit of national development goals. a self-reliance strategy is one that is introspective, depending on local human and material resources for economic, social and political advancement (tesfagiorgis, 1993). this implied the possibility for eritrea to grow its own food and provide education and healthcare systems without external aid (habtom, 2016). in the context of international aid, and given that much of the developing world was still grappling with the aftermath of the world bank/imf structural adjustment programs at the time, the selfreliance stance was understandable. however, although noble in its objective, this strategy is not without criticism. for example, it has been suggested that the strategy has contributed to the isolation of eritrea from the rest of the world due to the country’s rejection of most international aid (international crisis group, 2014). overall, the economic and social goals that were defined for the young country during the 1991 conference included developing the education system and health infrastructure, building a strong army, humane treatment of prisoners, maintaining an independent self-reliant and planned national economy, ensuring equality among nationalities and establishing a democratic state (tesfagiorgis, 1993). there appeared to be a sense of urgency for development and an interest in empowering citizens. the initial national aspirations and african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1321 strategy stressed the importance of the human capital in eritrea. investing in human capital, particularly in education, would have elevated not only the status of individuals but that of the state. however, these aspirations were truncated by the border war with ethiopia, resulting in a halt in implementation and, in some instances, a discontinuation or regression. as pointed out earlier, the national service program was an important component of eritrea’s post-independence national aspirations. the national service appears to be a key apparatus for the advancement of its self-reliance strategy and is a key piece of its effort towards human development as outlined in the president’s remarks cited earlier. the service is conceived as a way of preserving war-time values, safeguarding the territorial integrity of eritrea, and developing man-power for the state’s prioritised sectors (kibreab, 2013). while the national service is the prerogative of the state, as similar programs have been established in africa and elsewhere, the main critique has been the approach to the program which, as some authors suggest, has now become indefinite (kibreab, 2014). as pointed out earlier, young citizens are said to resist the programs, applying various forms of agency. male and female youth devise various strategies to avoid the program, including deserting, emigrating or, on the part of females, getting pregnant as a means to secure exclusion (amnesty international, 2015; hirt, 2010). we deduce from our review that there exists a tension between eritrea’s national development aspirations and the aspirations of its individual citizens both in relation to its post-war development strategy as it relates to its operationalisation of the self-reliance strategy, and the national service program (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). although eritrea had grand national aspirations, which are hinged on a vision of self-sufficiency, these national aspirations were not always consistent with those of citizens. for example, while eritrea sees its national service program as part of a wider process of achieving self-sufficiency, this appears not to be in sync with young people’s aspirations. this misalignment is also illustrated by the high number of conscripts who desert and has resulted in migration in some instances to escape the service (kibreab, 2017). based on her research on women in university education, müller (2004) suggests that the country’s aspirations in the area of human development appears to have mainly focused on the needs of the state and not the individuals, suggesting that this led to people resisting the country’s national aspirations by leaving the country. we suggest that the inadequate focus on individual aspirations is a major contributor to african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1322 individuals leaving the country, as they do not see their futures reflected in the state’s aspirations and therefore do not align with them. limited opportunities for transition from education to employment as highlighted above, a human capital development strategy was put in place to build human capital and the most fundamental approach to this was education. the human capital strategy did not permit enough room for young people to develop themselves in the ways that they considered important for their lives, as opportunities for study, particularly at higher education level, and work were controlled to a large extent by the state (dorman. 2005; müller, 2004). while access to higher education improved overall over the years, there remained fewer options for study in higher education institutions. education was mentioned as the most important ingredient for economic development in both the initial post-independence development strategy mentioned earlier and subsequent national development policies (ministry of education, 2008; tesfagiorgis, 1993). however, due to constraints, which include a lack of resources, eritrea has been unable to develop an inclusive higher education system (müller, 2004; rena, 2006). moreover, the agency and voices of students have been proscribed through a policy that essentially restricts student activism within campuses, which led to the closure of the university of asmara (hirt, 2017). the goal of eritrea’s national strategies is to provide accessible and free quality education to prepare its youth to contribute to national development, and while overall literacy levels are high, skill levels are substantially lower (ministry of education, 2008; research and evidence facility, 2017). in the immediate post-independence era, there was a sense of satisfaction among the general public about the state’s prioritisation of education (tessema & ng’oma, 2009). however, as the approach to education and human development in general began to be perceived as impeding individual rights and focusing more on the needs the government, this strategy began to receive less and less support. in addition to concerns over the erosion of human rights was a concern that the education provided, despite being positioned as addressing the employment demand in the country, did not adequately prepare youth for these opportunities (research and evidence facility, 2017). in a study on education in eritrea, müller (2004) found that some of the participants felt that their education and training did not match their future goals, because after the year 2000, employment opportunities became fewer and they were expected to work mainly in construction. one participant african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1323 expressed how service to the country could have been “better” utilised instead of doing construction work. the eritrean government expresses the value of the nation’s human resource, more specifically the young people and that it is highly important that all eritrean people are equipped with necessary skills and knowledge to protect and develop the nation (riggan, 2016). despite the focus on developing manpower, the absorptive capacity of the ethiopian economy and labour market remains limited. as mentioned earlier, the eritrean economy has experienced serious ebbs and flows, peaking at 8.2% gdp growth in 2011, a steep decline to 0.3% in 2015, and a projected incline to 3.7% in 2018 (african development bank, 2018; rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). the main economic activities in eritrea are centred around agriculture, construction and mining (african development bank, 2018). however, the market has limited absorptive capacity. hence, the majority of the national service participants serve in government departments and government businesses. in specific reference to women’s employment, scholars have raised concerns regarding access to employment opportunities as well as the relatively low incomes on average (rena, 2007). the lack of a clear pathway to employment, limited incomes and an overall suppressed economy affects the hope that young people have for the future and forces young people to make decisions to migrate, which the perceive as having the potential to provide better opportunities in the future (hirt, 2010). we suggest that a major factor influencing mass migration from eritrea since 2000 is the lack of opportunities for skilled labour to match individual aspirations (horwood & hopper, 2017; rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). in their analysis, horwood and hopper (2017: 4) conclude that “the main drivers [of migration from eritrea] are endemic poverty, lack of livelihoods and limited political freedoms.” eritrea’s national education strategy appears not to prepare youth for the labour market. however, when they are trained, there is often limited opportunity for transition as the market has relatively weak absorptive capacity, leaving many of the youth unemployment. human rights and individual freedom one of the most recurrent challenges highlighted in the studies we reviewed was the issue of human rights, and in this regard, reference is often made to the national service program (amnesty international, 2015; connell, 2012). generally, while the national service, has the intention of infusing national consciousness and preparing youth for employment, the unintended consequence of the program appears to be that it has developed into a major african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1324 impediment to the freedom of young eritreans to choose the life they want, or at least has raised young people’s perception of uncertainty (kibreab, 2017). this is particularly the case as far as conscription is concerned. as much of the analyses suggest, many youth are compelled to participate in the service and when in the service, it is suggested that there are no guarantees as to when they will leave the program (kibreab, 2017). this creates a disincentive for youth who may ordinarily be willing to participate in the program. further to this, there is a general sense of eritrea being a police state (international crisis group, 2014). in part, this was triggered by the 1998 border war, which ended with the famous no war no peace proclamation, and the state of alertness on the part of eritrean authorities. there is also the challenge associated with the suspension of the constitution, which disenfranchises and excludes most eritreans from being a part of decision-making on issues affecting their lives (rosberg & tronvoll, 2017). many of the studies reviewed concluded that the national service program was the main cause of migration from eritrea (research and evidence facility, 2017; rosberg and tronvoll, 2017). as mentioned earlier, the program was instituted in 1991 with the goal of nation building and post-conflict economic development, as well as fostering and transferring eritrea’s national values to the younger generation (kibreab, 2009). the national service was designed as one of the strategies through which the government of eritrea was to pursue its self-reliance approach to development through the participation of youth in state-sanctioned work. however, the approach has proved to be controversial as both local and international scholars have described it as a form of forced labour and, consequently, contested its legitimacy (kibreab, 2009). this has resulted in the depletion of the country’s human capital, comparable in ways to the immediate post-war levels. some scholars suggest that the national service has remained an open-ended program since the renewed eritrean-ethiopian border conflict (kibreab, 2017). while the youth participate in the service, there seems to be a lack of consideration for their aspirations, and most youth who participate in the program do so because they have no choice (kibreab, 2014). according to kibreab (2014), if a young person does not have academic, professional or vocational qualifications, they are expected to serve in the army. if the conscription is open-ended as claimed, this means those young people assigned to the military could become soldiers for the rest of their lives and against their deliberate choice. another issue is that many youth resisted the notion of becoming teachers but, nevertheless, were assigned to teaching african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1325 positions (müller, 2004). müller (2004: 225) summarises the effects of state policies in eritrea on personal freedoms as follows: personal freedom is the main issue in these minority statements and resistance to restrictions of that freedom might become more important in the future, if the eritrean government fails to offer to its people the opportunities they desire. the ultimate resistance for a university student to the government’s plan, and with it, a rejection of showing social solidarity, is exercised in leaving the country and depriving it from the benefits the investment in a student’s education should have brought. we conclude from the literature that a restrictive environment that infringes on people’s rights and freedoms to make important life choices is an important contribution to mass migration of youth from eritrea. the extension of the national service infringes on the rights of young people to choose the lives that they value, as outlined in the capability approach (sen, 1993). as was noted earlier, it is important for people to have the ability to choose the life they value. where this is absent, even well intended national development policies and programs could become major barriers to people’s lives and wellbeing, leading to choices that negatively affect the country. discussions and policy recommendations when we started this article, our interest was to explore the factors that contribute to large scale eritrean youth migration. our analysis suggests that, rather than being attributed solely to the national service, eritrean youth migration can also be attributed to the absence of opportunities for transition from education to employment, the tension between individual and national aspirations and limited freedoms. therefore, we conclude that a complex mix of factors, including the national service, contribute to mass youth migration. our conclusions are supported by the studies, reviews and reports cited throughout the paper. with reference to tensions between eritrea’s national aspirations and those of its citizens, this is supported by many of the analyses on eritrea, particularly those focused on education and the national service program (kibreab, 2017; müller, 2004; rena, 2006). essentially, the authors of these studies suggest that the state’s attempts to control access to courses in higher education and mandate youth to undertake the national service are not aligned with the expectations of the youth for their lives (dorman, 2005). furthermore, eritrea’s economy has faced many challenges over the last three decades. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1326 overall, the economy has been unable to develop the necessary absorptive capacity for new entrants into the market. while overall unemployment and youth unemployment rates are relatively low, compared to other african countries, these may be a function of the unreliable statistics emanating from the country and may be further masked by the high proportion of youth who are underemployed (african development bank, 2018). as pointed out above, the highly controlled state of affairs in eritrea, reflected in many facets of national life, including the institution of the national service, is a major contributor to mass youth migration. drawing on the above, we deduce key policy recommendations that we believe could inform a more nuanced discourse and contribute to changes in eritrea. firstly, we recommend a more robust education strategy that offers young people a wide-range of options. this may require considering both their aspirations and the demands of the labour market and not necessarily the priorities of the state. such a strategy will be effective if it accounts for not only skills that are necessary for work within eritrea itself but also those necessary for opportunities elsewhere in the horn of africa. secondly, we recommend a review of the national service program to include a fixed duration after which all participants could exit (kibreab, 2017). in other countries, such as nigeria, this is an option that has been built into the national youth service (obadare, 2011) and could be a useful model for eritrea. thirdly, to create more economic opportunities, the eritrean government needs to open-up the economy and create a more conducive 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(ed.). revisiting global trends in tvet: reflections on theory and practice. bonn: unesco-unevoc international centre for tvet, 1–39. un ohchr. 2015. un report of the commission of inquiry on human rights in eritrea. african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1331 world bank, eritrea overview. from <https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/eritrea/overview> (retrieved april 2, 2017). african human mobility review, vol. 4, no. 2 (august 2018) 1332 african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1696 african immigrant and refugee families’ perceptions on informational support and health status: a comparison of african immigrants living in south africa and the united states wilson majee, mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, and michael belebema abstract the relationship between migration and health is complex, and its impact varies considerably among individuals, across migrant groups, and from country to country. although african immigration to the united states (u.s.) and south africa has increased rapidly over the past two decades, little is known about the health experiences of this growing population even though conditions surrounding the migration process have been found to increase vulnerability to ill health. the aim of this study is to examine and compare the perceptions of african refugees and immigrants to south africa and the u.s. on informational support and its impact on health status. data was collected from purposively selected 62 african immigrants to the united states and 66 african immigrants to south africa using the promis global health v1.2 and the promis item bank v2.0 (informational support) instruments which assess an individual’s general physical, mental and social health. participants were selected based on their country of origin and immigration status in the country of residence. we developed a health perception index (hpi) and information support index (isi) as a composite of the measures of the response to health questions and how information support contributes to migrants’ overall health status. in addition, we conducted chi square test to assess if there was any difference between the  department of health sciences and public health, university of missouri, usa (corresponding author, dr wilson majee, 536 clark hall, university of missouri, columbia 65211. email: majeew@missouri.edu  institute for social development, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of the western cape, south africa.  school of government, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of the western cape, south africa.  institute for social development, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of the western cape, south africa. mailto:majeew@missouri.edu majee et al. 1697 indicators in terms of association of the two cities. african immigrants to south africa reported that they were very satisfied with the south african health services offered to migrants, contrary to those in the u.s. healthcare. the evidence indicates that migrants in south africa seem to have a better hpi index compared to those in the u.s. in general, there was no difference in the challenges faced by these immigrants in accessing relevant information to enable them to improve their socio-economic conditions in destination countries. access to healthcare services remains a major challenge for most migrants. given that countries rely on formal documentation for access to information and healthcare services, governments could institute special medical and information support structures that cater specifically for refugees and asylum seekers, as well as undocumented immigrants, in the course of waiting for formal recognition in the state. in order to improve african immigrant and refugee families’ access and utilization of healthcare services, policies and programs that seek to address social determinants of health and tap into culturally relevant networking, collaborative approaches are needed. keywords migration, health, refugee, immigrant, social services, south africa, united states. introduction migration has been on the increase across the world and remains the defining issue of this century. the decision to emigrate depends on a combination of various factors, such as lack of social security and justice, the low level of confidence in the state, poverty, urbanization, climate change, youth unemployment, as well as better opportunities for work abroad (dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015). these flows have generated opportunities and challenges that affect the social, political, economic and health conditions of people and raised complex questions for both policy-makers and researchers. at the global level, but in africa in particular, there is a paucity of data and scientific research on the issues, challenges, opportunities, benefits and costs of the experiences of international migrants. to address these concerns, scholars are compelled to move out of traditional paradigms and disciplinary boundaries to analyze the multi-faceted and interlinked nature of migratory processes. in this paper we present findings from a comparative study done in the u.s. and in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1698 exploring the health experiences of african immigrants in their countries of destination. background although migration places individuals in situations that impact their health and well-being, there has been a surge in human migration in recent years. according to the world health organization (who) (2019), there are an estimated 1 billion migrants in the world today, of whom 258 million are international migrants and 763 million are internal migrants. in the u.s., as in many other countries, immigrant and refugee families form a considerable and growing proportion of the population, with african immigrants representing one of the fastest growing groups of immigrants. africans now make up 39% of the overall foreign-born black population, up from 24% in 2000 (anderson and lopez, 2018). much of this growth has been fueled by african migration mainly from nigeria, ghana, kenya, ethiopia, and somalia (capps et al., 2012). south africa, like the u.s. has also witnessed a surge in the number of people migrating from other african countries. according to the international organization for migration (iom), between 2010 and 2017, the number of immigrants living in south africa increased from 2.2 million to 4 million (iom, 2019). the surges in african migration, whether to the u.s. or to south africa, happen as a result of economic, social, political and environmental factors such as fleeing political persecution, war or terror, enhanced education and employment opportunities, reunification with family members, and better quality of life (vaughn and holloway, 2010). despite the increase in number and diversity of africans in the u.s. and south africa, and the diverse reasons for immigration, no comparative studies have examined african immigrants’ and refugees’ experiences in african and u.s. settings. there are four global migration flows. the largest flow, south-south, involves people moving from one developing country to another (e.g. from indonesia to costa rica, from zimbabwe or congo to south africa). in 2013, over 82 million were part of this flow (duncan, and popp 2017). for africa, 79% of sub-saharan african migrants move within the same region and fewer than 22% of migrants from africa emigrate outside of africa (zong and batalova, 2017). the second largest flow, south-north, constitutes people moving from lowand middle-income countries to high-income countries (e.g. from congo to france, from mexico to the u.s., from south africa or zimbabwe majee et al. 1699 to the u.s). in 2013, close to 82 million people migrated under this classification (martin, 2019). according to zong and batalova (2017), of the african immigrants living in the u.s. in 2015, 44.6% were from west africa, 35.7% from eastern africa, 5.8% from southern africa and 7.5% from middle africa. the third flow, north-north, consists of people migrating from one high-income country to another, as from the u.k. to the u.s. human migration from high-income countries to low and middle-income countries constitutes the fourth flow (north-south). our study is founded in the first two largest flows: south-south and south-north. each of these flows presents unique features and experiences that warrant examination. we argue for a global understanding of migration. our argument for this examination lies in the inevitability, volume, and heterogeneity of migration (dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015). although evidence suggests that african immigrants in general have a health advantage over other immigrant groups, this work is limited to comparisons between black immigrants (from all regions) and native-born african americans or between black african immigrants and native-born african americans (mason et al., 2010; read et al., 2005; singh and hiatt, 2006; singh and miller, 2004; hummer et al., 2007; jasso et al., 2004; palloni and arias, 2004). for example, in their analysis of national health interview surveys (nhis) data, read et al. (2005) found that african immigrants report their own health to be better than african americans report. in their study, african immigrants reported the best status, as compared to west-indian and european-born blacks and african americans (read et al., 2005). however, other researchers have questioned the ‘healthy immigrant’ phenomenon (fennelly, 2007). researchers have also noted the gradual deterioration in health among many immigrants (john et al., 2005; kandula et al., 2004). length of residence in the receiving country has been found to impact negatively on health (dinbabo and carciotto, 2015; mcdonald and kennedy, 2004). in u.s. census data, africans are generally lumped together as black or african american thereby overlooking the effect of cultural background and length of stay in the country of destination on their health. relocation from one country to another can result in family and social disruption that impact health (lum and vanderaa, 2009). factors such as being poor, acculturation stress, and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1700 lifestyle changes, have been associated with declining health for some immigrants (fennelly, 2007). it appears there is an information gap because of the understudying of some immigrant groups (cunningham et al., 2008). with the surge in african immigration around the world, there is a need to fill this information gap. health and migration is a multi-dimensional matter. when specific ethnic groups are under-studied or under-represented, culturally competent care is compromised thereby exacerbating health disparities among populations (betancourt and green, 2007; cooper et al., 2002; dinbabo et al., 2017; sithole and dinbabo, 2016; smedley et al., 2003, pavlish et al., 2010). according to the institute of human development and social change, low-income immigrant families disproportionately face barriers in accessing health and human services programs and are at greater risk of living in poverty (perreira et al., 2012; yoshikawa et al., 2019). thus, rapid changes in population movement have important public health implications, including limited access to healthcare services, disrupted family and social networks, and financial barriers. the vast differences between the way of living in africa and in the u.s. make african refugees and immigrants in the u.s. an especially vulnerable group. immigrants have to adjust to nearly all aspects of living – the weather, food, and laws (boise et al., 2013). during this adjustment phase, immigrants may feel sad, lonely, and disappointed about moving from their home country. they may also feel separated from networks of support left behind in africa (boise et al., 2013). immigrants are also likely to experience acculturation stress due to adaptation to the u.s. including such factors as enhancing language skills, fear of deportation, finding employment, housing, schools, and navigating the bureaucracy of immigration and documentation (artiga and ubri, 2017; boise et al., 2013; warheit et al., 1985; aroian et al., 1998). further, depending on the acculturation process, african immigrants tend to have less access to and utilization of healthcare services. factors increasing immigrants’ vulnerability regarding access to healthcare include, knowing where to go for healthcare, a lack of perceived need, the cost of care, language and cultural barriers, a lack of transportation, perceptions of lack of respect, discrimination or racism, and not understanding how the u.s. healthcare system works healthcare (boise et al., 2013; perreira et al., 2012; siegel et al., 2001). these barriers may result in majee et al. 1701 many people turning to hospital emergency departments as their main source of care (boise et al., 2013). along the same vein, derose et al. (2007) found that immigrants have lower rates of health insurance, use less healthcare, and receive lower quality of care than the u.s.-born population. to understand african immigrant health, which is changing as migration transforms the health profile of africa, it is important to explore the health experiences of african immigrants in their countries of destination. the primary objective of this research was to investigate the experiences of health of african immigrants to south africa and the u.s. it was hypothesized that immigrants in advanced economies have better access to healthcare services and greater information support compared to immigrants living in developing economies. this study aims to contribute to the current small body of research on african immigrant health by comparing perceptions on health of african immigrants to south africa and the u.s. in our review of the literature, we have not found any studies that compare perceptions on health between south-south and south-north african immigrants. this type of analysis will shed more light on the inter-connectedness between health and migration from a global perspective. this understanding can nurture opportunities to brainstorm on collective responses to the unmet health needs of immigrants at the global rather than national level. methods instrument: quality of social support refers to interpersonal relationships that serve particular functions. this includes the interactive process by which emotional, instrumental or informational support is obtained from one's social network. it also includes companionship, feeling cared for and valued as a person, communication with others, and feelings of belonging and trust. measures of social support generally seek information about a person’s perception of the availability or adequacy of resources provided by others. for our study, we used the promis instrumental support to collect data. the instrument assesses self-reported perceived availability of assistance with material, cognitive or task performance. the instrumental support shortforms are universal rather than disease-specific. it assesses emotional support (quality of life, physical health, mental health, social satisfaction, social african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1702 activity, physical activity, emotional problems, fatigue levels, and level of pain), and informational support (companionship, feeling cared for and valued as a person, communication with others, and feelings of belonging and trust). data collection: ethical approval was obtained from the university of the western cape and the university of missouri prior to data collection. data for this study was drawn from migrants living in cape town, south africa and columbia, missouri in the u.s. in the u.s. researchers partnered with an immigrant who volunteers at the refugee and immigrants office in order to reach the population of interest. the community partner was trained on how to complete surveys. the training included sessions in which the community partner observed researchers interviewing participants. the community partner then recruited and interviewed immigrants who come for services at the refugee and immigration services. the community partner also identified other participants based on his knowledge of immigrants in columbia, missouri. in south africa, migrants were randomly selected from different neighborhoods for the project. for example, migrants were selected from bellville, parow, maitland, wynberg and the cape town central business district (cbd). this process helped to ensure that migrants from all income classes and status levels had a fair chance of being selected for the survey. in total, 128 respondents were successfully interviewed using a structured survey questionnaire. of the 128, 62 were in columbia and 66 in cape town. all participants were selected based on their migrant status in the country of residence and their country of birth or country of origin. though the data may not be representative of the migrant population in both cities, it at least provides a synoptic overview of the migrants’ perception of their health and health services. for both sites, the requirement was for participants to have lived in their host country for at least one year. data analysis: to achieve the main objective of the study, we first provide a descriptive and comparative overview of the demographic characteristics of the migrant population. we then develop a health perception index (hpi) and information support index (isi) which were used to determine the extent to which immigrants perceive their health status and whether such perception correlates with access to healthcare services as well as their relevant information support within their social space in the destination country. according to babbie (2007), when studying a phenomenon with multiple majee et al. 1703 indicators, it becomes paramount for the researcher to develop a data reduction instrument so that a composite indicator is developed with a single numerical score to measure the extent of the problem. several studies have applied the same principle such as the consumer price index (cpi), developed by bryan and cecchetti (1993), the human development index (noorbakhsh, 1998) and the economic security index designed by hacker et al. (2014). the hpi and isi are composites of the measures of the response to health questions and how information support contributes to migrants’ overall health status. according to babbie (2007), developing an index is an ideal way of data reduction that allows for reducing multiple likert scale variables or multiple response variables into a single numerical score. we computed the indexes by first assigning values from 1 to 5 where 1 represents a low score and 5 represents a high score, thus indicative of excellent health or higher propensity to access of information. this 5-point likert scale procedure was used to allow respondents to easily evaluate their health perception and their information support. results we analyzed some of the demographic characteristics of migrants who participated in the study. migrants from 19 countries were successfully interviewed with the majority coming from sub-saharan african countries. the result shows that men continue to dominate in the flow of migrants. males were at 75% compared to females at 25%. however, the sample showed that male migrants in the u.s. constituted 34% compared to 41% in south africa. the majority of these migrants (76%) were aged 26 to 45 years. in addition, migrants classified as refugees were by far the dominant category of participants interviewed. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1704 table 1: demographic structure analysis of empirical data refugee status was 41% for the u.s. and 38% for south africa. however, on the whole, people with refugee status constituted about 52% of the sample. the proportion of immigrants who classified themselves under ‘other documentation’ in south africa was very high (21%) compared to none for u.s. besides the issues of documentation, the results showed that 60% of the sample have lived in the destination country for between one and five years. in the u.s., the majority of immigrants have lived there for between one and five years. the situation in south africa was rather spread out between one and fifteen years. majee et al. 1705 global health perception and information calibration of immigrants immigrant health has been broadly studied and evidence in the literature suggests that given the current wave in international migration, disproportionality exists in the assessment of migrants’ health. abubakar et al. (2018) acknowledge that it is not possible to cover all the broad topics of migrants’ health. in this analysis, the hpi and isi indexes are used to draw inferences based on the total weight values and the index deviations from the mean. items above the mean are seen to have higher response rates from the population. analysis of empirical data we identified factors that affect immigrants’ health perceptions as well as their ability to access support generally which fall under the information calibration items for the study. the results shown in table 2 above present the responses from the immigrants in relation to their health perceptions using 10 health perception indicators. the average score for the hpi was 2.86. seven of the health perception indicators in the scale had a mean score above the overall mean score of 2.86. a score of 3 rated as good or greater in the scale of 5 indicates a respondent is perceived to be generally healthy. three indicators were =>3 that is, global health, physical health and mental health. a score of less than 3 indicates that a respondent might be experiencing poor health conditions. given that the overall mean score of hpi for both the u.s. and south africa was 2.86, which is less than 3 on the scale, the authors conclude that, immigrants perceive their health status as below average. the mean hpi for the u.s. was 2.71 while the mean hpi for south africa was 3.59. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1706 a t test was executed to test significance of the mean difference. the result showed that t = -7.4396 and p-value-<0.001 at 95%. in addition, a kruskalwallis test was carried out to show the overall difference in means for each of the indicators for the study areas. there was no evidence of a significant difference in the fatigue levels and quality of life of the immigrants. however, 8 of the indicators showed significant results as shown in table 2. these differences are between the u.s. and s.a. as already stated, the overall mean difference shows that s.a. immigrants have a higher health perception index compared to u.s. immigrants and this was significant at p-value<0.05. a similar procedure was carried out for isi scores. in table 3 below, we show the responses of immigrants’ access to information support especially in crisis times. we developed the isi index to measure immigrants’ information access using the design information calibrated items measured on a 5-point likert scale. analysis of empirical data overall the isi index showed that isiµ =3.06. the isiµ for cape town=3.28 while that of s.a. was isiµ= 3.24. nine of the isi indicators had a positive deviation from the mean. three of the isi indicators had a negative deviation from the mean – i have someone who gives me advice in times of crisis; my friends have useful information to help me with my problems; and i have someone to talk with about my money matters. a score of 3 or greater majee et al. 1707 indicates that immigrants on average are able to access information support satisfactorily. given that the mean of isi was greater than 3, we conclude that immigrants from both countries generally have access to information support. though most of the isi indicators had scores above the mean score, just one of the indicators yielded a significant result. we applied a ttest to assess the difference in isi for the u.s. and s.a. and found that t = 0.2381 and p-value> 0.05. this means that there was no overall difference between immigrants in columbia and cape town in their information support. similar results emerged using the kruskal-wallis test for each of the indictors. despite the negative deviation from the overall isiµ, i have someone to talk with about my money matters had a score of 4 and this was significant at p-value=0.0041. thus, cape town immigrants show evidence of possible social interactions and social capital that contribute to their information support compared to immigrants in the u.s. city of columbia. discussion our study observed that the hpi was significantly different between the cities with migrants in south africa having a better hpi despite the fact that the average hpi was less than the scale average of 3. on the other hand, the overall isi was relatively above average which is equivalent to >=3 on the scale. however, we did not find significant evidence to believe that the isi was different between the study areas. in this context, it is safe to state that immigrants’ access to information support is the same for both countries and is higher than the scale average of 3. a better hpi for immigrants in south africa is not surprising because refugees and asylum seekers in south africa, especially pregnant women and children, have access to basic health services. however, this could be even better if the perceptions of xenophobia were eradicated in the body polity. for immigrants to the united states, the current political climate, and debates over issues such as a border wall, become part of the environment that influences access to health and subsequently health outcomes. over the last two decades, u.s. immigrants have witnessed a changing immigration enforcement landscape. for example, following the passing of the illegal immigration reform and immigration responsibility act in 1996, the number of illegal immigrants detained increased (hacker et al., 2014; miller, 2005). following the creation african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1708 of immigration and customs enforcement (ice), there has been a noticeable increase in detention and deportation activities across american communities (capps et al. 2015) the current anti-immigrant rhetoric, which emerged more recently, particularly during and after the 2016 presidential election, is exacerbating the vulnerability of immigrants in the u.s. regarding their participation in healthcare. our research findings, particularly the lower hpi found among african immigrants in the u.s., illustrate that immigrants may experience social inequalities that are a result of the immigration process and related policies that in turn can drive health disparities. unlike african immigrants in south africa who share some cultures and languages with their host country, african immigrants in america have to deal with language barriers, cultural assimilation and discrimination and racism – all of which increase their vulnerability regarding access to healthcare. our findings support research that highlights ‘legal status’ and acculturation as major determinant of immigrants’ access to social services, jobs, and health services (dahlan et al., 2019; parmet, 2018) as immigrant families often forgo needed healthcare and social services because they fear interactions with public agencies. therefore, the level of social support within the host country plays a crucial role in shaping immigrant health. we observed that few immigrants were able to obtain informational support in terms of advice in times of crisis yet this type information and suggestions that help with problem solving, are critical for the well-being of people. in their study, dahlan et al. (2019) show that information and social support such as family, friends and community were positively associated with immigrants’ oral health outcomes. informational barriers present a substantial challenge in that, for this population, information on benefits of public programs is often communicated via word of mouth. thus, immigrants whose networks are mostly bonding (not bridging) in nature often do not receive adequate information about the benefits available to them. this challenge can be more pronounced in small rural communities where there are few immigrantserving community-based organizations. one of the challenges migrants face worldwide is access to documentation that regularize their status in the destination country. for a variety of reasons including language, literacy, cultural barriers, stigmatization, immigration-related fears, and logistical and information barriers (e.g. transportation), many immigrants live as majee et al. 1709 ‘undocumented’ or fail to seek information that can help them participate in the social and economic mainstream. in the u.s., access of benefits by unauthorized immigrants is limited due to fear of being detected by immigration enforcement authorities. community perceptions regarding the effects of immigration on community resources, and increased cooperation between local law enforcement and federal law enforcement can lead to increased fears among immigrants to associate with government officials at any level. in south africa, the term ‘undocumented migrants’ refers to anyone residing in the country without legal documentation. it includes people who entered south africa without inspection and proper permission from the government, and those who entered with a legal visa that is no longer valid (dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015). the researchers observed that undocumented migrants feel stigmatized when addressed as ‘undocumented migrants’, in the context of south africa. for this reason, the use of ‘other document’ for such migrants seem to convey some level of self-dignity of the migrants. the proportion of ‘other documentation’ in south africa was very high (21%) compared to ‘other documentation’ for the u.s. in general, migrants in u.s. find it easy to obtain documents. implications for practice one major implication stemming from our study is that it aligns with the call for greater understanding of how policy processes should address social determinants of health (carey et al., 2014; andermann, 2016). immigrant health determinants can be modified in part through policies that target disadvantaged populations in general (e.g. living wages, access to education, decent housing) and in part through activities and policies targeted specifically at immigrants. we suggest a few promising practices for increasing immigrant access to services and participation in community life.  there is a need for multi-disciplinary collaboration around theoretical and practical migrant health matters. researchers, community development practitioners, health professionals, police, and immigrants themselves should collaborate in stimulating further understanding of immigrant health and the strategies needed to engage the immigrant population. as migration between countries, including the united states, continues to increase, there is a need to include migrants in community-level african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1710 discussions that shape the design of policies and resource allocation decisions that affect their health and well-being. studies have shown that building immigrant-friendly communities can result in greater social cohesion and less societal fragmentation (cheung and phillimore, 2017; mulvey, 2018). as such, integration can have positive effects not only for immigrants but also for members of the host society.  policy-makers in the socio-political arena should ensure that immigrants have access to accurate and adequate information about what to expect in healthcare settings, on the differences between local law enforcement and ice (in the u.s.), and on their rights and responsibilities as immigrant community members. consideration should be given to providing this information through ‘spaces’ which immigrants consider friendly and accessible, such as churches, schools and social media.  cultural respect and competency training, particularly for healthcare providers (including migrant rights) and law enforcement officials in the u.s., are crucial elements in this process. immigrants serving community organizations can be more proactive in conducting linguistically and culturally sensitive outreach. use of trusted mentors to disseminate information to low-income parents has been found to have more impact than when a service provider is used (capps and fortuny, 2006; chaudry and fortuny, 2010; yoshikawa et al., 2011). because families develop trusting relationships with community health workers (chws), a community-health-worker-approach in which chws are trained to hold meetings in immigrants’ gathering places and disseminate immigrationrelated information, holds promise in engaging immigrants. limitations and future research findings should be considered in light of the study’s limitations. first, recruiting african immigrants in the u.s. was difficult. most african immigrants tend to live in clusters, depending on the african country they come from and the language they speak. we used different strategies to address this challenge including recruiting a recruitment coordinator, who was an african immigrant himself; working with service providers to recruit participants when they turn up for services; and snowballing sampling. our study was limited because most of the participants were recruited by the majee et al. 1711 recruitment coordinators and were mostly from eastern africa. furthermore, some participants were from the same family, which limited the breadth of the findings. additionally, 49 of the 62 participants (79%) fell under one legal status (refugees) thereby limiting the generalizability of the findings to a broader immigrant population. future research studies that include a bigger and more diverse sample reflective of the many countries in africa are needed to better understand health disparities among immigrants in different country settings. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to the african immigrant and community partner in the united states (u.s.), mr. abdu ahmed, for his assistance with coordinating the recruitment of participants, and data collection. we also greatly appreciate the support of the office of refugee and immigrant services in columbia, missouri for allowing us to recruit participants from those visiting their premises. in south africa we are indebted to the support of the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) and those who have helped and supported us during the research and writing process. finally, we acknowledge the support from all participants in taking the time to complete the survey. we are also indebted to the university of missouri south africa education program for the financial support that made this study possible. references abubakar, i., aldridge, r.w, devakumar, d., orcutt, m., burns, r., barreto, m.l., dhavan, p., fouad, f.m., groce, n., guo, y., hargreaves, s., knipper, m., miranda, j.j., madise, n., kumar, b., mosca, d., mcgovern, t., rubenstein, l., sammonds, p., sawyer, s.m., sheikh, k., tollman, s., spiegel, p. and zimmerman, c. 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(2017). sub-saharan african immigrants in the united states. washington, dc: migration policy institute. 75 the role of colonialism in creating and perpetuating statelessness in southern africa aimée-noël mbiyozo* received 17 may 2022 / accepted 12 december 2022 / published 27 january 2023 abstract some of the largest stateless populations in the world are in southern africa. statelessness in the region is primarily linked to colonial histories, border changes, migration, gender, ethnic and religious discrimination, and poor civil registry systems. colonial and white minority rulers created and implemented multi-tiered citizenship systems — extending full rights only to settlers. like all other aspects of society, colonisers based citizenship on ethnic exclusion, exploitation, and discrimination. native africans were forced into legal subordination with minimal rights that were superseded by those of white settlers. at independence, most southern african countries adopted nationality laws based on the models of their former colonial rulers while making efforts to reverse the systems of discrimination. efforts to redress the inequalities via nationality laws have had unintended and intended consequences on vulnerable populations and exacerbated statelessness. xenophobia is another consequence of colonial heritage that has perpetuated statelessness. colonial powers relied on political exclusion. they used violence to ‘divide and conquer’, creating and reinforcing racial, ethnic, and tribal clashes. in many parts of southern africa, we see an increase in xenophobia and nationalism as the emerging form of political exclusion, resulting in restrictive and repressive migration responses to prevent migrants from arriving or integrating into societies. there are concerning signs that states are instrumentalising statelessness as a migration management tool. rising nationalism and anti-migrant sentiments threaten to undo gains in the fight against statelessness. keywords: xenophobia, migration, native, settler, madagascar, zimbabwe, south africa, nationalism, exclusion the role of colonialism in creating and perpetuating statelessness in southern africa ____________________ * institute for security studies, south africa.  ambiyozo@issafrica.org 76 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 i. introduction since the beginning of known history, people moved throughout southern africa relatively freely in search of new territories and resources. today, many africans of african descent are not considered citizens by any country. they are stateless. according to the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), the international legal definition of a stateless person is ‘a person who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law’.1 nationality is the legal bond between an individual and a state. this paper uses the terms nationality and citizenship interchangeably. it is the central right that determines how a country treats a person — the right to have rights. stateless people do not have a nationality and are not entitled to other human rights. they struggle to access social services, healthcare, education, free movement, or political participation. they are among the world’s most vulnerable and are at high risk of exploitation, arbitrary detention, and expulsion.2 statelessness has been described as a ‘forgotten’ issue — one of the most neglected areas of the global human rights agenda.3 some people become stateless due to movement, while others are born stateless. most stateless people remain in the country of their birth.4 statelessness across southern africa is primarily linked to colonial histories, border changes, migration, gender, ethnic and religious discrimination, and poor civil registry systems.5 the nature of movement changed significantly under colonialism. european nations sent settlers and established government structures in the race to colonise the continent, farm the best land and extract the best resources. they drew and re-drew arbitrary borders, often through territories that had previously formed one political unit, established laws about who could move, and created tiered citizenship regimes that favoured the rights of settlers over native inhabitants.6 native african inhabitants were told where they could and could not move and live and were used — often forcibly — to provide labour. manby explains that colonialism in southern africa relied on native labour and established complex labour recruitment systems to build and manage colonial infrastructures. under colonial conquest, authorities encouraged — even coerced and forced — labour migration, primarily to work on farms and mines. throughout 1united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) ‘about statelessness’, available at https://www.unhcr.org/ ibelong/about-statelessness/ 2bronwen manby ‘citizenship and statelessness in the member states of the southern african development community’ unhcr (2020). 3see the address by then unhcr high commissioner antonio guterres to intergovernmental meeting at ministerial level to mark the 60th anniversary of the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees and the 50th anniversary of the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness held in geneva, switzerland, 7 december 2011, available at www. unhcr.org/admin/hcspeeches/4ecd0cde9/statement-mr-antonio-guterres-united-nations-high-commissioner-refugees. html 4united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) emergency handbook stateless person definition, available at https://emergency.unhcr.org/entry/52865/stateless-person-definition 5liesl h muller ‘legal identity for all – ending statelessness in sadc’ in southern africa litigation centre goal 16 of the sustainable development goals: perspectives from judges and lawyers in southern africa on promoting rule of law and equal access to justice (2016). 6bronwen manby ‘statelessness in southern africa’ unhcr (2011), available at https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/50c1f9562.pdf 77 most of the colonial period, people could move relatively freely throughout the british colonies of southern rhodesia (zimbabwe), northern rhodesia (zambia), and nyasaland (malawi). labour migrants from non-british or non-colonised countries, including mozambique, eswatini, and lesotho, were also recruited. at its peak in 1956, 300,000 migrant labourers were working away from their homes within the ‘central african federation’ (southern rhodesia, northern rhodesia, and nyasaland). under independent white minority rule, south africa and zimbabwe continued similar recruitment practices. colonists also brought asian indentured servants to provide labour. countries with the most extensive histories of labour migration and land dispossession where large numbers of ‘foreigners’ have remained after independence have encountered the most nationality disputes since the end of colonialism. manby further explains that european colonisers established multi-tiered citizenship structures that provided full citizenship rights only to settlers. like all other aspects of society, the citizenship system was founded on racial and ethnic exclusion, exploitation, and discrimination. some indigenous people were granted full citizenship rights in portuguese and french colonies under exceptional circumstances. settlers were simultaneously offered full citizenship benefits in their european ‘home’ countries. native africans were forced into legal subordination with minimal rights that were superseded by those of white settlers. in the post-colonial period, strong resentment lingered toward colonial powers for their legacies of extreme inequality and dispossession.7 most southern african countries adopted nationality laws based on the models of their former colonial rulers. some, however, made efforts to reverse the system of discrimination and even sought laws to disenfranchise their colonial oppressors. some countries, such as mozambique, established citizenship rules offering preference to people who had participated in the liberation and punishing those who fought against it. in some other parts of the region, nationality laws discriminate according to ethnicity, favouring people belonging to groups whose ancestral origins are within the territories. malawi restricts citizenship to children born to at least one parent who is not only a malawian citizen but also of the ‘african race’; eswatini has similarly included nationality provisions that make it difficult for non-ethnic swazis to obtain citizenship. many of these measures have ended up dispossessing native africans who were also unjustly marginalised by colonialism, even more than they have affected settlers. now, many native africans are denied citizenship in their current territory because their ancestors once lived in a different territory. democratisation has dismantled minority white rule, and new constitutions have enshrined the rights of native people across the region. however, in the wake of colonialism, the practice of political exclusion has remained.8 classifying people 7bronwen manby ‘struggles for citizenship in africa’ open society justice initiative (2009), available at www.justiceinitiative.org/publications/struggles-citizenship-africa 8brian klaas ‘political exclusion in africa’ in oxford research encyclopedia of politics (2019), available at https://doi. org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1326 the role of colonialism in creating and perpetuating statelessness in southern africa 78 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 and creating distinctions between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ has remained using new classifications of protectionism against ‘others’. nationality has become an increasingly important tool for classifying people. people who come from or have links outside of a country are increasingly viewed as ‘others’ or ‘outsiders’. migration has become criminalised, and blurred distinctions between ‘legal’ and illegal migration have become entrenched in political and media narratives. politicians have homed in on these exclusionary practices as an expedient political tool. political exclusion is the ‘easiest’ way to stay in power in the short term, even if it creates long-term instability.9 this paper explores colonialism’s role in modern-day statelessness in southern africa. it examines the cases of south africa, zimbabwe, and madagascar to show how the colonial legacies founded on exclusionary practices and defining ‘outsiders’ and ‘insiders’ are creating and perpetuating statelessness. it explores how, in postcolonialism, each of these countries leverages nationality as a form of ‘othering’ to achieve slightly different ends. in zimbabwe, statelessness is used as a form of political repression; in south africa, to deter irregular migration and even asylum-seeking; and in madagascar, as an enduring form of ethnic and religious discrimination. it warns that these exclusionary practices risk increasing and intensifying statelessness and that the costs, while often invisible to the general public, greatly outweigh any perceived benefits. ii. methodology this paper is based on a literature review of existing publications on statelessness in the southern african region. it extracts and summarises relevant text about the colonial period to describe the role of colonialism in creating and perpetuating statelessness. it examines current national immigration policy frameworks to assess the direction of current and proposed immigration platforms, namely in the republic of south africa. finally, it references papers and media articles from scholars who research xenophobia in southern africa to establish current xenophobia trends and trajectories and link them to colonial practices. iii. statelessness in southern africa the very nature of statelessness — that people are undocumented and unaccounted for — makes it impossible to know how many people in the world, or in any region or country, are affected.10 the african commission on human and peoples’ rights estimates that hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of africans do not have access to a nationality.11 the status of many others is in doubt or in dispute. according to the unhcr, it is not possible to determine the number of stateless 9ibid. 10united nations (un) “‘2 million” stateless people globally, warns unhcr chief in call to states for decisive action’ un news (12 november 2018), available at https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/11/1025561 11special rapporteur on the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons ‘the right to nationality in africa’ african commission on human and peoples’ rights (2014). 79 people in the southern african development community (sadc) states, but they host ‘significant’ populations of people who are stateless or at risk of statelessness.12 as of 2021, 95 countries reported 4.3 million stateless individuals to the unhcr.13 due to the counting difficulties and under-reporting, actual estimates are between 12–15 million.14 not only is it extremely difficult to estimate the actual number of undocumented people, but only a fraction of countries report statelessness statistics. as of 2004, only 30 countries reported statistics on stateless people. by 2021, this had grown to 95 — less than half of all countries. many of the countries (approximately 20) with known stateless populations do not report statistics. the number of stateless people in southern africa is unknown in part because none of the 16 states have procedures to capture data and report statelessness statistics.15 among the nine african countries where the unhcr recognises that there are major populations at risk of statelessness, four are in the sadc region: zimbabwe, south africa, madagascar, and the democratic republic of the congo (drc).16 the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons affirms that the fundamental rights of stateless persons must be protected.17 it establishes a set of minimum standards of treatment for stateless people in respect to a number of rights, including education, employment, and housing. it also guarantees stateless people a right to an identity, travel documents and administrative assistance. only eight of the 16 sadc member states have acceded to the 1954 convention: angola, botswana, eswatini, lesotho, malawi, mozambique, zambia, and zimbabwe. the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness aims to prevent statelessness and reduce it over time.18 the 1961 convention establishes that children should acquire the nationality of the country where they are born if they do not acquire any other nationality and provides safeguards to prevent statelessness in the case of state succession or renunciation of nationality. only four sadc states have acceded to the 1961 convention — angola, eswatini, lesotho, and mozambique. 12manby op cit note 2. 13united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) ‘refugee data finder global trends’ annex table statelessness (2021). 14laura van waas & maria josé recalde ‘nationality and statelessness’ oxford bibliographies (2017). 15manby op cit note 2. 16citizenship rights africa ‘statelessness’, available at https://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/theme/statelessness/, accessed on 28 november 2022. 17convention relating to the status of stateless persons 1954, available at https://treaties.un.org/pages/viewdetailsii. aspx?src=treaty&mtdsg_no=v-3&chapter=5&temp=mtdsg2&clang=_en 18convention on the reduction of statelessness 1960, available at https://treaties.un.org/pages/viewdetails.aspx?src=treaty&mtdsg_no=v-4&chapter=5&clang=_en the role of colonialism in creating and perpetuating statelessness in southern africa 80 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 figure 1: sadc states party to the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons and to the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness:19 in southern africa, the stateless population overlaps with an even larger undocumented population. the world bank estimates that over 137 million people in the region are undocumented.20 many people face severe restrictions in accessing documentation regardless of whether their nationality is contested. historically, it was far less necessary to prove where one lived or belonged. people who were habitually resident in a country were typically considered citizens.21 today, identification and documentation are essential to all forms of social and civic participation, including proving nationality. even residents of the most remote and isolated communities now must establish their identity and nationality. efforts to document people — such as the world bank’s id4d campaign that seeks to ensure every person on the planet has identification by 2030 — are helping. a growing number of people can access identification, particularly digital 19manby op cit note 2. 20world bank ‘identification for development (id4d) global dataset’, available at https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/ dataset/identification-development-global-dataset 21the hague & the wits institute for social and economic research (wiser) ‘the hague colloquium on the future of legal identity’ (2015). 81 and biometric.22 paradoxically, these efforts are exposing more people to risk as most people learn their nationality is questioned while trying to access documents. similarly, the push to document more people runs the risk of leaving undocumented people even further left behind. in some cases, people who were previously treated as citizens are being refused nationality documents.23 one of the most prominent causes of statelessness in southern africa is the lack of birth registration. while birth registration does not confer citizenship, all identity documents rely on proof of birth and nationality. it is impossible to claim nationality without a birth certificate. identity documents are a fundamental feature of life and social and civic participation. in its general comment on article 6 on the rights and welfare of the child, the african committee of experts on the rights and welfare of the child focuses specifically on the issues related to birth registration across africa. it claims: “the right to birth registration is one of the rights that consistently appears not to be fully implemented by states parties.”24 it lists poverty, lack of education, gender discrimination, ethnic discrimination, or membership of a vulnerable group — such as refugees or irregular migrants — as common barriers to registration. a lack of decentralised, properly managed civil registrations also contributes. more than half of the children born in africa are not registered at birth.25 the united nations development programme (undp) has noted that more than half of all children in the sadc region are still unregistered at age five. birth certificates are not issued immediately in some regions and take weeks or months to be issued. in other cases, issuing birth certificates requires administrative processes or costs that are not accessible to all parents. nationality deprivation and denationalising has seen a resurgence in recent years, primarily, ostensibly as a counter-terrorism or security tool.26 the focus on nationality has increased in the globalisation era, including in southern africa. as absolute migration continues to grow, it has become an increasingly important tool for classifying people, and citizenship is increasingly being used as a migration management tool. united nations (un) secretary-general antonio guterres has warned that damaging forms of nationalism and anti-migrant and anti-refugee sentiments are at risk of driving statelessness upwards.27 citizenship deprivation 22world bank ‘identification for development (id4d) 2018 annual report’ world bank group (2018), available at https://id4d.worldbank.org/sites/id4d.worldbank.org/files/2018_id4d_annual_report.pdf 23manby op cit note 6. 24african committee of experts on the rights and welfare of the child (acerwc) ‘general comment on article 6 on the rights and welfare of the child’ (2014), available at https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/62899 25united nations children’s fund (unicef) ‘crisis of invisibility in sub-saharan africa: less than 1 in 2 births registered’ press release (07 december 2017), available at https://www.unicef.org/wca/press-releases/crisis-invisibility-sub-saharanafrica-less-1-2-births-registered 26global citizenship observatory (eui) & the institute on statelessness and inclusion (isi) ‘instrumentalising citizenship in the fight against terrorism’ (march 2022), available at https://files.institutesi.org/instrumentalising_citizenship_ global_trends_report.pdf 27united nations (un) ‘“dangerous nationalism” seriously threatens efforts to tackle statelessness: unhcr chief ’ un news (7 october 2019), available at https://news. un.org/en/story/2019/10/1048722 the role of colonialism in creating and perpetuating statelessness in southern africa 82 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 and denationalising are back in fashion to sanction people deemed ‘undesirable’.28 there has been increased nationalism and restrictive migration responses to prevent perceived ‘others’ from integrating into societies. some governments are intentionally framing foreigners as threats to society. this is putting people at risk of, or creating, or perpetuating statelessness. iv. case studies (a) zimbabwe citizenship rights in africa initiative labels zimbabwe as the ‘main’ citizenship crisis in southern africa.29 when the country gained political freedom in 1980, the citizenship issue was immediately politicised. the colonial government expropriated land from native farmers and gave it to white settlers to profit for decades from commercial farms. it established labour recruitment systems from nyasaland (malawi), northern rhodesia (zambia), and mozambique. labour migration largely ceased when rhodesia declared independence from britain in 1965, but most foreign workers stayed. when the country gained majority rule in 1980, between one-quarter and one-half of farmworkers had foreign origins, although most had been born in zimbabwe.30 more worked in commercial and mining sectors. in the new democracy, citizenship was immediately highly politicised.31 the 1979 constitution allowed for dual nationality. this was negotiated on behalf of the defeated white settlers, almost all of whom retained british nationality, to protect their interests in the country. the ruling zimbabwe african national union (zanu) — now zanu-pf (patriotic front) — opposed this provision, and by 1983, the new majority government had already amended the constitution to prohibit dual citizenship. the spirit of this amendment was directed at white settlers who were able to hold both zimbabwean and british citizenship. in 1984 the government passed a new citizenship law prohibiting dual citizenship and requiring zimbabweans to renounce any other citizenship they were entitled to.32 approximately two-thirds of the one million white residents left zimbabwe, while 20,000 renounced entitlements to foreign citizenship to keep their zimbabwean ones. thousands more held foreign passports but remained residents without full citizenship. a large percentage of the farmworkers, mineworkers, and commercial workers of foreign african origin were impacted by the dual nationality ban even though 28guy goodwin-gill ‘statelessness is back (not that it ever went away...)’ (12 october 2019) ejil: talk! blog of the european journal of international law, available at www.ejiltalk.org/statelessness-is-back-not-that-it-ever-wentaway/ 29citizenship rights in africa initiative ‘southern africa’, available at http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/region/southernafrica/, accessed on 28 november 2022. 30manby op cit note 7. 31bronwen manby ‘report on citizenship law: zimbabwe’ robert schuman centre for advanced studies european university institute (2019). 32bronwen manby ‘dual citizenship, denationalisation and disenfranchisement in zimbabwe’ in bronwen manby citizenship in africa: the law of belonging (2018) 149–163. 83 most had never accessed, or had any desire to access, another citizenship that they hypothetically had rights to. the government was suspicious of farmworkers with foreign origins, based chiefly on their association with white farm owners.1 many of these people were unaware that they had entitlement to other citizenships or were required to renounce them and failed to submit a declaration to the authorities as required. the 1979 constitution also discriminated by gender, limiting the transfer of citizenship by birth to children born to zimbabwean fathers or mothers if out of wedlock. only foreign wives of zimbabwean husbands were able to access citizenship. women could not pass on citizenship to their children by non-zimbabwean fathers or to their non-zimbabwean husbands. like the dual nationality debate, where the target was supposed to be ‘elite’ women with foreign husbands, poor rural women living in border regions were the most affected populations. the rise of the movement for democratic change (mdc) as political opposition to zanu-pf in 1999 led to more restrictions on both citizenship and voting rights. the subsequent decades were marked by state-sponsored violence and repression against political opponents to hold on to power.2 hundreds of thousands of farmworkers of foreign descent were considered anti-government political opponents. denationalisation formed part of a broader effort to disenfranchise people who might support opposition parties and prevent them from political participation. in january 2000, an estimated 30% of the two million farmworkers and their families who lived on commercial farms were of foreign descent.3 the government increased requirements on people with potential claims to foreign nationality, ratcheting up rules requiring people to submit a declaration renouncing potential citizenship. people then had to produce foreign documentation to establish that they were not entitled to citizenship, and the government imposed strict deadlines for submitting these documents. the majority of the people affected by these laws were people born or whose parents were born in neighbouring countries.4 the government wilfully established impossible requirements, even in the best of cases. in 2001, the mozambican high commission in zimbabwe announced it was overwhelmed with applications and was unwilling to supply documentation proving people were not eligible for citizenship. the malawian high commission could not provide documents to people who were unable to provide sufficient detail — meaning they did not have enough documentation to renounce the citizenship to which they supposedly had a claim. many people lost citizenship based on their inability to satisfy extremely difficult — and in some cases non-existent — criteria. it proved impossible for many to renounce what they had never possessed. 1katinka ridderbos ‘stateless former farmworkers in zimbabwe’ in forced migration review (2009) fmr 32. 2dewa mavhinga ‘reversing zimbabwe’s dismal rights record since 1980’ human rights watch 20 april 2020, available at www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/20/reversing-zimbabwes-dismal-rights-record-1980 3manby op cit note 32. 4ibid. the role of colonialism in creating and perpetuating statelessness in southern africa 84 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 according to manby, these efforts impacted zimbabwe’s neighbouring countries. hundreds of individuals moved from zimbabwe to mozambique, where they had ancestry but could not satisfy citizenship requirements for either country. similarly, malawi received an unknown number of returnees who had to undergo expensive and lengthy processes to prove their citizenship. hundreds of thousands — possibly even millions — fled to neighbouring south africa. some received refugee status while others migrated or stayed illegally. in response to pressure from neighbouring countries, in 2003, the government provided some small concessions that allowed people born in zimbabwe who are descendants of farmworkers, mineworkers, domestic employees, or other unskilled labourers to apply for confirmation of their citizenship. very few could access these concessions because they had already lost their citizenship, and the administrative burden was too high.1 when the unity government began in 2009, citizenship laws were among the many battlegrounds between the mdc and zanu-pf. the mdc successfully fought for expanded citizenship provisions in the new 2013 constitution, including allowing dual citizenship for those who acquired more than one at birth. to date, the citizenship act has not been amended to reflect these changes. many people began re-applying for confirmation of citizenship with hopes of voting, crossing borders, and getting a bank account or a job, but their applications were denied. as recently as august 2019, the zimbabwe human rights commission has called for assistance for border communities in obtaining identification documents, noting that the registrar-general is commanding high fees, demanding non-existent documents, and wrongly recording information on documents.2 (b) south africa south africa has an unknown number of stateless people and does not report any statelessness statistics. however, statelessness is believed to be a substantial problem and threatens to grow as the country appears to be on a path to continue weaponising nationality and deepening xenophobia. while promising an afrocentric orientation and policy platform, south africa has become one of the most hostile destinations in the world for african migrants.3 most of the stateless population in south africa are believed to be migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees from neighbouring countries. orphaned or abandoned children and children born to undocumented or irregular migrants are also at risk of increasing statelessness. a 2019 study conducted by the scalabrini centre of cape town found that 40% of foreign children in youth and care centres faced statelessness, 1ibid. 2the herald ‘id nightmare for border communities’ (13 august 2019), available at www.herald.co.zw/id-nightmare-forborder-communities/ 3christopher claassen ‘explaining south african xenophobia’ afrobarometer wp 173 (2017). 85 while an additional 47% were at considerable risk of it.1 the report found that 34% of the foreign youth in care had no documentation. in the limpopo province, near the borders of mozambique, zimbabwe, and botswana, 82% had no documents. a further 23% of children held documentation as dependents under the refugees act, but many were no longer in contact with the principal applicant, whose presence is required to extend and finalise asylum claims. under colonial and apartheid rule, only white people were granted citizenship rights. documentation was used as a means to control populations. native inhabitants were denationalised and allocated to ‘homelands’ under the poorly-veiled guise that these areas were independent. native inhabitants were documented and provided with ‘passes’ to control their movement and reduce their rights. at the same time, labour migration played a fundamental role in the apartheid and colonial eras. south africa’s industrial development was built on labour migrants both from within and from neighbouring countries. south africans from the ‘homelands’ were recruited to cities, mines, farms, and corporations. mines could hire an unlimited number of foreign workers.2 once apartheid was toppled, south africa attempted to create equal access to socio-economic and citizenship rights for all and sought to reopen its borders and economy. it integrated with sadc and joined the african union. all classes of migration expanded.3 many african migrants perceived it as politically and economically stable. most of the legal regimes for immigration and citizenship created in the two decades post-apartheid were drafted with a commitment to afrocentric ideals and encompass relatively progressive measures.4 south africa is the primary regional economic and mixed migration hub. most migrants come from neighbouring countries. according to the 2011 statistics south africa census, 68% of migrants are from sadc countries and 7% from other african countries. many are low-skilled and seek temporary work. currently, they do not have access to legal visa pathways. as such, many enter or stay irregularly. labour migration has shifted substantially from company-sponsored to mixed. according to the international organization for migration5 the proportion of foreign nationals in the mining workforce was estimated at 40% in the 1980s and rose as high as 60% in 2009. increased restrictions and weakening mining and industrial sectors have caused male contract migration to fall substantially to 23% in 1lotte manicom ‘foreign children in care: south africa’ scalabrini centre of cape town 2019, available at https:// www.scalabrini.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/scalabrini_centre_cape_town_foreign_children_in_care_ comparative_report_south_africa_2019.pdf 2jonathan crush & clarence tshitereke ‘contesting migrancy: the foreign labor debate in post–1994 south africa’ (2001) 48 africa today at 49. 3international organization for migration (iom) ‘the well-being of economic migrants in south africa: health, gender and development’ working paper for iom, world migration report (2013), available at www.iom.int/files/ live/sites/ iom/files/what-we-do/wmr2013/en/working-paper_ southafrica.pdf 4aimée-noël mbiyozo ‘aligning south africa’s migration policies with its african vision’ institute for security studies, available at https://issafrica.org/research/policy-brief/aligning-south-africas-migrationpolicies-with-its-african-vision 5iom op cit note 42. the role of colonialism in creating and perpetuating statelessness in southern africa 86 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 2013.6 declining regular options have resulted in increased mixed and clandestine migration. migrants using irregular and unregulated methods have increased, and more women, youth, and families migrate. immigration sentiments and policies have become increasingly restrictive as xenophobia has become more entrenched. the department of home affairs (dha) has been focused on applying a self-styled ‘risk-based’ approach to immigration legislation. policy reforms have focused on implementing restrictive measures to reduce low-skilled immigration from neighbouring countries. while south africa insists upon its commitment to afrocentric ideals, it prioritises restrictive measures that disproportionately and negatively impact african migrants from neighbouring countries.7 there is also a substantial gap between legislative provisions and administrative practice. while legislation is increasingly passed to restrict entry and reduce the rights of foreigners inside south africa, the legal frameworks that protect people and give them rights are not implemented as prescribed. migrants in south africa struggle to access their respective rights and report rampant xenophobia and corruption within the department. the dha has widely been accused of wilfully creating administrative barriers to frustrate and deter irregular migrants.8 the dha has litigated against citizenship cases, typically on the grounds that ‘illegal’ migrants are seeking legal loopholes that would compromise the country’s security. in a 2019 case related to a former orphan of (presumed) eswatini origin whose children have been rendered stateless despite having a south african father, the dha director of travel documents and citizenship, richard sikakane, disputed statelessness itself, claiming, ‘i seriously dispute that any person can be born stateless.’9 in 2018, the dha proposed new regulations for the births and deaths registration act (bdra), calling to replace birth certificates for children of foreign parents with ‘birth confirmations’. human rights advocates have argued against the proposed birth confirmations, claiming that — by home affairs’ own admission — birth confirmations do not amount to birth certificates. they argue that several legal frameworks, including the south african constitution itself, provide every child with the right to be registered immediately after birth regardless of the parents’ immigration status.10 south africa has the highest rate of birth registration in the region. due to a 6jonathan crush belinda dodson vincent williams & daniel tevera ‘harnessing migration for inclusive growth and development in southern africa’ southern african migration programme (2017). 7mbiyozo op cit note 43. 8tove van lennep ‘the state of the south african refugee protection regime: part ii – politics and policy’ helen suzman foundation, available at https://hsf.org.za/publications/hsf-briefs/the-state-of-thesouth-african-refugee-protectionregime-part-i-current-status 9tania broughton ‘mother challenges home affairs’ mail & guardian (16 august 2019), available at https://mg.co.za/ article/2019-08-16-00-motherchallenges-home-affairs 10centre for child law (ccl) & lawyers for human rights (lhr) ‘comments on the draft regulations to the births and deaths registration act’ (november 2018), available at http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/ ccllhr-comments-on-the-draft-regulations-to-the-bdra-16-nov-2018. pdf 87 concerted effort to improve registrations, they rose from less than 25% of children under age 5 in 1998 to 95% in 2012. however, this rate declined to under 90% by 2018, coinciding with increased restrictions targeting children born of non-citizen parents.11 the proposed regulations put children born to foreign parents at risk of statelessness. these regulations inaccurately presume that children can have their births registered at an embassy. children of refugees and asylum seekers cannot approach embassies without jeopardising their status or, in some cases, exposing themselves to actual harm. even in cases where harm is not a real risk, consular services are difficult to access. lack of information about procedures, high costs related to travel and documents, or fear of interacting with authorities are additional barriers. the proposed bdra excludes stateless children from birth certificates altogether as they do not have an embassy to approach. this contradicts the existing citizenship law that claims that stateless children born in south africa can be recognised as citizens, but only if their births are registered. orphaned and abandoned children are unlikely to be able to prove a link to a country. the lack of a birth certificate will prevent them from being adopted. prior to proposing these regulations, south africa’s birth registration practices were already widely criticised for putting children at risk of statelessness. human rights advocates have long observed and commented on the significant legal and administrative barriers to birth registration and nationality that perpetuate childhood statelessness for both south africans and foreigners. these measures form part of a larger immigration policy direction that is prioritising restrictive measures that disproportionately and negatively impact african migrants. the dha has demonstrated a history of sometimes over-reaching to problematise asylum seekers and low-skilled africans despite a lack of evidence.12 they shift blame from a department rife with corruption and mismanagement onto foreign-born people who rely on it. these measures come at high financial and human rights costs that seek to distract from the real problems at hand. these restrictive measures are occurring alongside rising xenophobic violence and antagonism. claassen attributes poverty, relative deprivation, frustration with government, social mobilisation, and resource competition as the root frustrations for community xenophobia and concludes that scapegoating african immigrants leads to aggression.13 (c) madagascar madagascar has a sizeable population of muslims of indo-pakistani origin, often referred to as ‘karana’. many arrived from pre-partition india in the 19th century 11manby op cit note 2. 12mbiyozo op cit note 43. 13claassen op cit note 39. the role of colonialism in creating and perpetuating statelessness in southern africa 88 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 but are stateless despite having been in the country for multiple generations. most are muslim. when madagascar gained independence from france in 1960, the nationality laws distinguished between those who were automatically malagasy at birth and those required to apply. non-french foreigners in the country were not granted citizenship and were left stateless.14 the karana were not considered ethnically malagasy so were generally not given citizenship. most of the estimated 20,000 karana are believed to be stateless despite being born in madagascar and never knowing any other homes.15 the us department of state indicated that up to 5% of the country’s two million muslims are stateless. in 2021, madagascar had a total population of approximately 28.4 million.16 other ethnic and religious minorities are similarly affected, including people of chinese, comorian, and mixed descent.17 many have attempted to gain citizenship but have been denied or have faced discriminatory administrative practices. even those who legally qualify, in practice face many obstacles in accessing nationality and are not considered nationals. reports have emerged that muslim-sounding names have been sufficient to deny a citizen application. people have claimed that officials will arbitrarily request non-existent proof that an individual is malagasy, despite the presentation of all required documents if their names ‘sound’ foreign or if they suspect a person of not being malagasy. statelessness has been passed on through generations among the karana. karana living in madagascar are forced to pay for, obtain, and maintain residency permits that describe their nationality as ‘undetermined’. people have also cited high levels of corruption, a lack of access, a lack of awareness, and limited judicial oversight as barriers to gaining documents, even if they qualify. while a lack of documentation has led to exclusion, hardship, and poverty for some, the karana are still considered wealthy and powerful and contribute substantially to madagascar — close to onethird of gdp.18 preventing them from citizenship stymies economic development for the whole country as it discourages these same people from investing in growth. until 2017, only children born to malagasy fathers were granted citizenship. mothers were unable to confer citizenship to their children. children born in marriage to malagasy mothers and non-malagasy fathers were not granted citizenship and had to apply, unless statelessness could be proven, which was exceptionally difficult to prove. married women were only allowed to pass on nationality in very limited circumstances. as a result, many couples have avoided marriage as a means of 14focus development association ‘global campaign for equal nationality rights and institute on statelessness and inclusion’ joint submission to the human rights council at the 34th session of the universal periodic review (2019), available at https://files.institutesi.org/ upr34_madagascar.pdf 15markku aikomus ‘madagascar’s karana people still awaiting nationality’ unhcr (2017), available at www.unhcr.org/ news/stories/2017/11/5a018ff44/%20madagascars-karana-people-still-awaiting-nationality.html 16world bank ‘madagascar’, available at https://data.worldbank.org/country/madagascar, accessed on 28 november 2022. 17equal rights trust ‘my children’s future: ending discrimination in nationality laws’ (2015), available at www. equalrightstrust.org/resources/my-childrens-future-ending-gender-discrimination-nationality-laws 18caroline mcinerney ‘accessing malagasy citizenship: the nationality code and its impact on the karana’ (2014) tillburg law review. 89 conferring citizenship to their children.19 madagascar fell under international pressure, including being subjected to universal periodic review by the human rights council. the review included recommendations from several countries, including germany, spain, brazil, and the united states, who called on madagascar to ‘reform its nationality law to ensure that all citizens have equal right to confer nationality to their children and the children born to citizen mothers are no longer at risk of statelessness’. madagascar, along with sierra leone, became the first country since the launch of the unhcr #ibelong campaign in 2014 to eliminate gender discrimination in its laws. in 2016, madagascar promulgated a new nationality law that removed gender discrimination regarding the conferral of nationality to children. since 2017, children born to either a malagasy mother or father are to be recognized as citizens. the law also has retroactive application, so that children born before the reform are covered by it. by april 2018, 1,361 families had benefitted from the law. however, the law still prohibits malagasy women from passing their nationality to their spouses while men are able to pass their nationality on to their wives.20 the 2017 amendment to bring gender quality to the nationality law in madagascar is a welcome change. the unhcr has labelled it an ‘encouraging and important step in preventing and reducing statelessness’.21 despite this progress in gender equality, madagascar has not addressed its ongoing karana situation and its continued denial of citizenship rights. there are no signs to date of improvement for the karana people. v. contemporary expressions of exclusion since colonialism, exclusionary politics have been the mainstay of african politics.22 to claim and maintain power and build wealth, colonial powers manufactured political and social boundaries and established the use of designated political ‘insiders’, ‘outsiders’, and ‘foreigners’ to dehumanise and exclude.23 the distinctions of who constitutes each category have evolved and changed since colonialism and white minority rule, but the practice of manufacturing political and social boundaries entrenched under colonialism remains in place. in each of the case studies above, post-colonial powers have continued — and even expanded — these practices of exclusion to achieve different ends. the durban declaration of 2001 recognises that ‘colonialism has led to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance, and that africans and people of african descent … and indigenous peoples were victims of colonialism and continue to be victims of its consequences’. it further notes that colonial theories 19equal rights trust op cit note 56. 20focus development association op cit note 53. 21aikomus op cit note 54. 22klaas op cit note 8. 23paddy o’halloran ‘colonial xenophobia and fear of “foreign” politics in the nineteenth-century cape colony: implications for analyzing borderless politics today in s o abidde & e k matambo (eds) xenophobia, nativism and panafricanism in 21st century africa, available at https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-82056-5_6 the role of colonialism in creating and perpetuating statelessness in southern africa 90 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 and practices of racial and ethnic superiority of certain cultures over others persist today in one form or another.24 in zimbabwe, the ruling zanu-pf party has used systemic repression to cling to power despite severe socio-economic and political failures. the party’s record of harassing, arresting, and even killing critics and opponents extends to but is not limited to, people with supposed foreign ancestry. to prevent them from voting against the ruling party, it has stripped them or blocked them from obtaining citizenship, creating and perpetuating statelessness to achieve political ends. in post-apartheid south africa, indigenous populations have become frustrated that their living standards have not improved under democracy as promised. many locals see foreigners as competing for resources in the context of poverty.25 foreigners have become an easy ‘outsider’ to scapegoat for unemployment, food insecurity, crime, and health and education failures. expressions of xenophobia have increased sharply and have led to riots, looting, destruction, violence, and death. vernacular and accent ‘tests’ have been applied by citizens to determine if someone is local or foreign.26 politicians and communities have endorsed violence and exclusion and leveraged xenophobic rhetoric and scapegoating to distract from their own failings.27 in madagascar, the post-colonial government has leveraged nationality to uphold longstanding discrimination against a targeted group. despite the disenfranchised group’s willingness and ability to contribute socially and economically to society, the madagascar government and some malagasy people officially and unofficially continue to target and prevent the karana from full participation under the pretence of not looking or acting ‘malagasy enough’. these practices reflect a worrying rise in nationalism and nationality deprivation happening globally. in the post-colonial and globalisation era, nationality has emerged as a key determinant of who is designated as ‘insiders’ or ‘outsiders’. in many cases, xenophobia has increased as a misguided expression of patriotism. william mpofu argues that the term xenophobia conceals rather than reveals the structural racism that motivates it. he argues that south africa has not recovered from homeland racist nationalism that placed black natives as targets for hatred, discrimination, and exclusion. instead, they have redirected the racism and exclusion toward black african ‘outsiders’ from other countries.28 nations have not adequately addressed these colonial legacies or accounted 24see ‘world conference against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance declaration and programme of action’ united nations department of public information (2002), available at www.ohchr.org/sites/ default/files/documents/publications/durban_text_en.pdf 25godfrey mulaudzi lizette lancaster & gabriel hertis ‘busting south africa’s xenophobic myths starts at grassroots’ iss today, available at https://issafrica.org/iss-today/busting-south-africas-xenophobic-myths-starts-at-grassroots 26citizen reporter ‘trevor noah applauds malema’s “perfect” views on xenophobic attacks’ the citizen 10 september 2019, https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/news-xenophobia/2177225/watch-trevor-noah-applauds-malemasperfect-views-on-xenophobic-attacks/ 27jean pierre misago & loren b landau ‘truck driver “war” about more than migration’ new frame 28 june 2019, available at www.newframe.com/truck-driver-war-about-more-than-migration/ 28william mpofu ‘xenophobia as racism: the colonial underside of nationalism in south africa’ (2020) 3 international journal of critical diversity studies. 91 for how they contribute to ongoing inequalities and discrimination.29 far more work is required to sensitise societies that many people are perpetuating the very tactics previously used against themselves or their own ancestors and family members. unfortunately, because statelessness is a forgotten issue and stateless people are invisible, they lack advocates to raise awareness of the costs. vi. costs to society nationalism does not resolve social issues. it has proven successful in rallying political support, but increases long-term risks and problems.30 creating and perpetuating statelessness does not resolve any root issues of social discontent; it worsens them. some of the costs include development, health, and security. statelessness deepens inequality and creates challenges to achieving development goals. nationality is a key element to achieve all development goals, including economic growth, peaceful and inclusive societies, equality, and access to education.31 statelessness further threatens the ability to measure progress. low-income countries are under pressure to demonstrate results and promote accountability against development goals.32 it is impossible to assess how well a country or community is achieving development goals locally or regionally without accurate statistics that preclude large numbers of undocumented and unaccountedfor people. adequately informed statistics and measurements are crucial to development. no country or population within the region can develop independently. a country is most stable and prosperous if its surrounding countries are stable and prosperous. regional cooperation is required. subjugating and exposing fellow africans to statelessness and preventing them from reaching their full potential hamper national and regional development. poor living conditions, displacement, and lack of access to services make stateless populations particularly vulnerable to health issues, including communicable diseases. the covid-19 pandemic provided a stark reminder that public health affects all of society. covid-19 disproportionately impacted the most economically disadvantaged communities and stateless people were excluded from or struggled to access vaccines.33 people living outside the scope of state-sponsored health services and in subpar conditions have low immunisation rates and are vulnerable to infectious diseases. it is in the collective interest to ensure everyone has access to healthcare, 29united nations human rights council (hrc) ‘acting high commissioner for human rights nada al-nashif – address to un human rights council interactive dialogue on the rights of indigenous peoples’ (28 september 2022), available at www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/09/acting-high-commissioner-addressing-legacies-colonialism-can-contribute 30ottilia maunganidze ‘the “illegal migrant” red herring’ iss today (24 october 2018), available at https://issafrica.org/ iss-today/the-illegal-migrant-red-herring 31tendayi bloom bronwen manby & khadija badri ‘why citizenship is relevant to sustainable development: considerations for the 2019 high level political forum’ european network on statelessness (may 2019). 32the hague & wiser op cit note 21. 33mkhululi chimoio ‘covid-19: vaccinating stateless people in south africa’ africa renewal (21 january 2022), available at www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/february-2022/covid-19-vaccinating-stateless-people-south-africa the role of colonialism in creating and perpetuating statelessness in southern africa 92 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 regardless of citizenship or immigration status.34 denying healthcare as a means of exclusion is not in the interest of public health. comprehensive information about population statistics, vital events and health information like immunisation status or infection history are in the public interest.35 statelessness can also drive insecurity and displacement. while deprivation of nationality in southern africa has not escalated to state conflict, nationality disputes have escalated to violent conflict in other parts of the continent and the world.36 nationality disputes and xenophobic behaviours have caused diplomatic tensions in the region. these could worsen if countries continue to weaponise nationality against people from neighbouring countries. as evidenced in south africa, where xenophobic violence has led to major destruction and spikes in crime, exclusion and xenophobia pose very real security threats and inspire crime and insecurity. furthermore, evidence has repeatedly proven that there is no correlation between crime and immigration status.37 ‘foreignising’ criminality distracts from real criminal and security issues and inhibits states’ abilities and willingness to address crime. lack of representation in civil and political affairs, lack of pathways for upward mobility, disenfranchisement and economic insecurity are driving forces of unrest and insecurity. statelessness exposes vulnerable people, including children, to harmful practices, including child trafficking, child labour, sexual exploitation, early marriage, illegal adoption, and child military conscription.38 strong civil registration contains inherent security properties. governments benefit substantially from better documenting their populations. a state does not have knowledge of or jurisdiction over people if they are undocumented and unaccounted for. people without names, nationalities or birth dates are difficult to investigate and bring to justice. national security improves when governments document their populations effectively. vii. conclusion exclusionary politics have been the mainstay of african politics since colonialism. colonial powers used violence to ‘divide and conquer,’ creating and reinforcing racial, ethnic, and tribal clashes and subjugating native inhabitants for settlers’ benefit. in its wake, nations promised to embody human rights for all and empower natives. in some cases, there has instead been a rise in xenophobia and nationalism as an emerging form of political exclusion that repeats previous discrimination but with 34institute on statelessness and inclusion (isi) ‘stateless in a global pandemic’ impact report (2020), available at https:// files.institutesi.org/covid19_stateless_impact_report.pdf 35the hague & wiser op cit note 21. 36united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) ‘the state of the world’s refugees: a humanitarian agenda’ (1997), available at www.unhcr.org/3eb7ba7d4.pdf 37loren landau ‘the foreign invasion? how the anti-immigrant backlash makes us all unsafe’ news 24 (18 august 2019), available at www.news24.com/analysis/analysis-the-foreign-invasion-how-the-anti-immigrant-backlash-makes-us-allunsafe-20190818 38acerwc op cit note 24. 93 new categories. it continues the colonial legacy of weaponising a particular status against other human beings. among many other adverse outcomes, these threaten to undo gains in the fight against statelessness and, in fact, create and perpetuate it instead of stopping or slowing it. statelessness comes at extreme costs, not only to individuals but to states. these costs are well established and have been repeated in this paper. the case to reduce and prevent statelessness is clear. yet, some states in southern africa show a concerning propensity to continue to ignore, perpetuate, and even create statelessness to achieve short-term political ends. importantly, nationalism and xenophobia distract from true issues and threats. southern african countries face limited resources. measures to create barriers to citizenship or denationalise cost these countries time, money, and efficiency, all the while doing nothing to address critical security, migration, or crime threats. resources dedicated to denationalising or depriving nationality would be far better used to address real problems and threats. while countries in the region are taking steps to address and reduce statelessness through different legal and policy measures, they must guard against nationalist practices and platforms that increase it. citizenship is a fundamental and essential human right. access to citizenship for all is a necessary step for nations and the region to thrive. countries in the region should prevent efforts to deny, deprive, or restrict nationality, at every turn. the role of colonialism in creating and perpetuating statelessness in southern africa 36 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 framing chinese treatment of africans in guangzhou: a study of nigerian and ghanaian online newspapers abdul-gafar tobi oshodi1 received 13 december 2022 / accepted 25 july 2023 / published 18 august 2023 https://doi.org/10.14426/ahmr.v9i2.1242 abstract the treatment of africans in guangzhou, china in 2020 during the covid-19 pandemic – here referred to as the “guangzhou episode” – generated strong criticisms and made news headlines within and outside africa. this paper analyzes the reportage of the episode in four online african newspapers: two each from nigeria and ghana. specifically, it sheds light on how the episode was framed, comparing coverage between both countries. using a discourse analysis that prioritizes language, source, and focus, the paper demonstrates that while western media were important influences and sources for the newspapers, the african migrants’ experiences in the episode were largely framed within (ahistorical) victimhood. yet the idea of “african” migrants had a noticeable nigerian dimension. keywords: african migrants, guangzhou episode, media, victimhood, covid-19 1 department of political science, lagos state university, nigeria. email  oshoditobi@gmail.com 37 introduction the growing africa-china relationship has intensified migration from both sides. there are about 500,000 africans in china – although some consider this figure to be lower, around 16,000 – and 1–2 million chinese citizens in africa (amoah et al., 2020; bodomo, 2020; yan, 2020; cissé, 2021). the number of african students studying in china has also increased. not only do students form the second largest group of african diaspora in china (li, 2018), but that category in china also surpassed those studying in the united states and britain (makundi, 2020). in 2018, for instance, china was the most popular destination for african students after france (makundi, 2020). in the case of african students in china, there is the “intersection of educational and trading-led migration” (ho, 2018), making a simplistic categorization of students as non-migrants problematic. as africa-china relationships develop, however, the media dimension is increasingly becoming crucial (li, 2017; van staden and wu, 2018). although academic interest in this dimension appears slow-paced (wekesa, 2017a, 2017b) when compared to other aspects, the literature on the former has nonetheless increased in recent times. not only has the media become an arena for highlighting the perceived role(s) of china in africa (umejei, 2017), but it also represents a space for criticism and engagement. thus, just as there have been copious reports on chinese investment (and soft power) in africa, there have been episodes of negative reports on china (mudasiru and oshodi, 2020). even the much-reported chinese-built african union (au) secretariat headquarters, a gift from beijing to african governments in 2012, had its share of negative news in 2018 when reports emerged that the chinese had been spying on africans in the building (dahir, 2018) – an allegation first made by the french newspaper, le monde, but that quickly spread across media outlets. similarly, reports about the treatment of africans in guangzhou, a port city in southern china – hereafter referred to as the “guangzhou episode” (oshodi, 2021) – during the coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic generated even more negative reportage for china. not only did the guangzhou episode force beijing to respond to questions about anti-african racism, but it also challenged officious chinese statements on africa-china relations. this paper focuses on the guangzhou episode, especially on how it was framed by africabased media. guangzhou has a population of 18.7 million (global times, 2023). the official figure of 20,000 africans in 2009 reportedly reduced to an estimated 16,000 in 2016 and 4,553 registered africans by april 2020 (marsh, 2016; kirton, 2020). two reasons can explain the decrease: frequent visa checks on africans by the local government and the registration of traders (jin et al., 2023). nonetheless, the guangzhou episode – a coinage used here to represent the reports on the treatment of africans in the city and how african media, migrants, politicians, civil societies, and china responded – merits attention for four interrelated reasons. first, it represents a blight on a cordial africa-china relationship, one that generated significant coverage in traditional and new media. second, it happened in a unique context of the covid-19 pandemic framing chinese treatment of africans in guangzhou: a study of african online newspapers 38 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 in april 2020, when movement was restricted and work was done online in many places. the impact of and response to the pandemic varied across countries – from the ones that closed their borders for months to the ones that witnessed high fatalities. china, for example, did not relax its covid-19 restrictions until december 2022. by focusing on online reports, this paper offers some insight into how africa-china migration is mediated and framed through the media. third, while it raises the ghost of racism and xenophobia against african migrants in china (see sautman, 1994; cheng, 2011) that generated several media reports, the guangzhou episode offers a useful example of african media’s agency. in this context, the media functioned as “a point of engagement” (oshodi, 2015) when african governments were slow, weak, unable, and reluctant to respond to china. although african governments summoned chinese ambassadors and petitioned beijing during the episode, there were instances when the media criticized both the nigerian and the chinese governments for their handling of the treatment of africans in guangzhou. an example is the guardian’s editorial against the nigerian foreign affairs minister’s explanation that the guangzhou episode was caused by miscommunication (see onochie, 2020). fourth, the guangzhou episode merits attention because of its potential to promote anti-chinese sentiments and reprisal attacks on chinese migrants in africa (see oluwasegun and akowe, 2020; tarlue, 2020a; oshodi, 2021). to shed a deeper light on the guangzhou episode, this paper analyzes reports from nigerian and ghanaian newspapers. specifically, it sets out to achieve two objectives: (i) to understand how the four african newspapers framed the episode, and (ii) to ascertain convergence – or divergence – between both countries. the paper is significant because it sheds light on the complexities and dynamism of the african media in their coverage of africa-china relations. given that it is through the media that many africans gain knowledge of what happened in guangzhou, the paper offers a lens to understand the frames through which the african media present to their audience what was arguably the most challenging period in africa-china relations during the covid-19 period. structurally, the rest of this paper is divided into four parts. section two locates the researcher in the research and discusses the methodology. section three revisits the discourse about the news media as a framer and reviews the literature on the mediascape of africa-china relations. section four discusses the case of the selected newspapers. section five is the conclusion. notes on positionality and methodology although uncommon in the literature on africa-china relations, before discussing my methodology, it is important to situate myself in the research. i do not approach the research as a tabula rasa. aside from being an african who has never been to china but followed the reportage of the guangzhou episode on local and international news platforms, my views on the episode have been publicly expressed in the conversation (oshodi, 2020). yet, my views on the guangzhou episode are not unchangeable. i can respond to new ideas and data. since 2009, i have situated my understanding of “china 39 in africa” within a broader context of events happening within china itself, within africa and beyond. i am also a former journalist, an experience that contributes to my (re)imagination of “china in africa” beyond a dominant thin perspective that focuses on events within – and not outside of – africa. specifically, since working on a postdoctoral project on china in african newspapers, i have been advancing a thick conceptualization of “china in africa.” a thin conceptualization of “china in africa” focuses on a description of chinese activities in africa without attempting to connect it to events beyond africa. conversely, a thick conceptualization situates it within a broader international setting wherein students of the subject aim to situate both china and africa beyond their respective geographies. thus, the fact that an event that happened within china generated protests and actions within and outside africa gives impetus to the need to interrogate africa-china relations beyond the geography of continental africa or china itself. by interrogating the guangzhou episode through the lens of africa-based newspapers, therefore, this paper fits into my thick conceptualization of “china in africa.” although there are significant differences between traditional and new media, some traditional newspapers operate online (having a website and social media presence), straddling between supposed traditional modes and modernity. all the newspapers selected for this study (the guardian and the nation in nigeria and the graphic and the daily guide in ghana) fall into this category. starting as traditional media selling hard copies, they do not only have online versions but have incorporated audio-visuals like the nation’s videos, “guardiantv,” “graphic video gallery,” and “guide radio.” although not all stories in the print copies are available online (and vice versa), online versions have the advantage of being accessible, shareable, and read across national borders in a timely manner. the graphic and the daily guide are based in ghana’s capital city, accra. the nation and the guardian are based in lagos, nigeria’s commercial center and former capital. nonetheless, while there are several other newspapers in ghana and nigeria, the four newspapers are purposively selected for three reasons. first, they have websites and published at least seven online reports on the guangzhou episode during the four months of study (8 april – 8 august 2020). based on a preliminary survey of newspapers in the two countries, seven stories on the guangzhou episode were published. second, two of the newspapers were selected because of their widespread and relatively longstanding existence (i.e., the graphic was established in 1950 and the guardian in 1983). third, the study selected the daily guide and the nation because they are owned by members of ruling parties. the daily guide was established in 1984 and owned by the blay family, with links to the new patriotic party that won presidential elections in 2016 and 2020. the nation was established in 2006 by mr. bola tinubu, a leading member of the ruling all progressive congress that won nigeria’s 2015 and 2019 presidential election. framing chinese treatment of africans in guangzhou: a study of african online newspapers 40 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 table 1: newspapers and their reports on the guangzhou episode source: author i accessed data for this study – reports of the guangzhou episode – from the newspapers’ websites and accessed reports through the search function on websites. using the key location of the episode, the word that was searched is “guangzhou.” i carefully read the reports generated by the search and analyzed their contents manually. i read the headlines to ascertain frequently used words. but beyond the search function, selection of reports for analysis was also guided by two processes. first, i limited the search to reports between 8 april 2020, when the news of the guangzhou episode broke in many news outlets, and 8 august 2020. i based my decision to select 8 august 2020 as the end date on the view that four months was a sufficient time to understand how the selected newspapers framed the guangzhou episode. this decision was guided by the view that the life spans of news stories in media outfits are not necessarily long and often compete with many other news items. second, after generating several search results from “guangzhou,” i then carefully read each report to ensure that they were relevant and connected to the guangzhou episode. as illustrated in table 1, the search identified 52 relevant reports on the guangzhou episode. given the small number, i analyzed all the reports by reading and coding them by hand. i analyzed the reports using discourse analysis that consider “the social, political, historical and intertextual contexts which go beyond analysis of the language within texts” (baker et al., 2008: 273-274). to this end, not only would the key frame – i.e., victimhood – be highlighted and analyzed but would be linked to the source question. africa-china mediascape and framing the media occupies an important position in migration. it mediates the narrative by highlighting, gate-keeping, or sustaining discussions. while there are other factors that shape perceptions of migration and the experiences of migrants, the role of the media in intergroup relations must not be underestimated. in addition to signposting government’s actions such as deportation of migrants (peil, 1974; aremu, 2013; akinyoade, 2015), elsewhere there is more direct evidence of the connection between newspapers reports on/with “guangzhou” graphic 7 daily guide 7 the guardian 18 the nation 20 total 52 41 media reportage and the outbreaks of violent intergroup conflict, as in rwanda (forges, 2007). yet the role of the media remains janus-headed. even in places where they contributed to conflict, as in rwanda, the media also plays a positive role in intergroup relations and building tolerance (paluck, 2007). some reports have highlighted the role of the media in framing migration in europe (berry et al., 2015; ccme and wacc, 2017; ejn, 2017). as one report notes: “media narratives continue to shape public opinion, but it also reveals how in all countries journalism is a distorting lens as much as a magnifying glass” (ejn, 2017: 7). as in migration reportage, newspaper reports on africa-china relations can mediate the dominant narrative of state actors, offering new perspectives. for instance, while former nigerian president, olusegun obasanjo, notes in his autobiography that, “although some marxist socialists in ‘biafra’ appealed to china for help, we have no tangible evidence of any material support or assistance to biafra by the chinese” (obasanjo, 2015: 219), newspaper reports during the war suggested that biafran forces had an “arms deal with china” (daily graphic, 1968: 1). media reports have also emerged as important sources of data for understanding africachina encounters. the media-based data collection (mbdc), for example, offers “a comprehensive database of chinese development finance flows to africa from 2000–2011” (strange et al., 2013: 2). at this juncture, it is important to stress that the africa-china relations mediascape remains a contested arena where “china in africa” can be seen from differing lenses. thus, while africa-china relations have attracted significant academic and media interest in the last 20 years, details of the relations have been marred in several unknowns, creating room for rumors and myths (yan and sautman, 2012). this has perhaps prompted some to view the field as some sort of salad where non-chinese views that “know nothing about either china or africa” on the one hand and “chinese scholarly commentary” that “tends to observe party lines closely” on the other hand (chan, 2013: 7) survive and flourish in their respective spaces. sometimes there is competition in these views. the “real china in africa” may therefore vary across spaces. if chan’s description of the field is correct (in spite of his own troublesome reference to a “dark continent” instead of “africa” in his book’s title), to therefore understand the coverage of africa-china relations is to accommodate the role – and in some instances, goals – of the media in the framing of stories. li’s work, mediatized china-africa relations, captures the media dimension of knowing, positing that the “role of media and mass communication should never be underestimated, especially in our understanding of china in africa” (2017: 5). yet the media is itself not immune from the broader contestations about what the true picture is. one expert offers this picture: “the chinese press painted a consistently rosy picture of friendship and mutual benefit. … journalists in africa and in the west were much more skeptical” (bräutigam, 2009: 3). given this situation, observers must be continuously wary of the media as an objective source and reflection of the state of africa-china relations. in other words, we must be wary of how “news” is framing chinese treatment of africans in guangzhou: a study of african online newspapers 42 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 framed in a context where information does not always emanate from news sources. this study illustrates in the section on the source question that news about africachina relations in african media can be influenced by western media reportage and frames. the aforementioned influence on the “news” in africa is not limited to western media. china understands the importance of the media in its relationship with africa. for instance, li (2017: 9) notes that “chinese media houses in africa … act as a mouthpiece of the chinese party-state and boost china’s image internationally, an objective that has to be implemented through the media organizations’ own decision-making processes.” the chinese media presence in africa predates the official recognition of china by many african countries in the 1970s. xinhua news agency bureaus were present in more than 25 countries in the 1960s and 1970s and china radio international (cri) was the third largest international broadcaster in sub-saharan africa in the mid-1960s (li, 2017). it is against this background that “mediatization” – i.e., “a process in which the mechanisms of media involvement and media evolvement serve to shape, reinforce, refute or challenge public understandings, just as in other mega-processes like modernization, globalization and industrialization” (li, 2017: 12) – becomes useful in understanding the western and chinese influence in africa’s mediascape. this paper, however, adopts framing as a conceptual framework for its analysis. this is because it allows the study to account for the specific choices of the sampled newspapers and how they reported the guangzhou episode. like many concepts in the social sciences, framing does not have a universally accepted definition and has been used inconsistently (de vreese, 2005: 51). as mcquail (2003: 454) puts it, “the idea of framing is an attractive one, but how it works as an effect process is less easy to account for.” nonetheless, “a frame is an emphasis in salience of different aspects of a topic” (de vreese, 2005: 53, original emphasis). thus, framing has been described as the “construction of social reality” (scheufele, 1999: 104) and “a way of giving some interpretation to isolated items of fact” – an action that “is almost unavoidable for journalists” and “in so doing departing from pure ‘objectivity’ and introducing some (albeit unintended) bias” (mcquail, 2003: 343). framing, it must be stressed, goes beyond the journalist or the media outfit. it entails “both presenting and comprehending news” – which means that it also encapsulates the individual level (scheufele, 1999). in any case, communication, as the dynamic process that it is, entails frame-building and frame-setting (de vreese, 2005). frame-building relates to how frames emerge as influenced by factors internal and external to journalism and manifests in the text. frame-setting represents “the interplay between media frames and audience predispositions;” it “refers to the interaction between media frames and individuals’ prior knowledge and predispositions” (de vreese, 2005: 51–52). as already hinted in li’s work, “china in africa” is a mediated space. the mediascape is particularly made more complex by the differing control and ownership regulations that operate in china and africa. 43 western media, with or without their bias and frames, interject this duality. thus, although “the entry of chinese media into africa is an integral part of chinese media spreading tentacles globally” (wekesa, 2017b: 11), the media ecology on the continent remains contested. bräutigam appears to present this contestation in her seminal work, the dragon’s gift: journalists have given us quick sketches, but these impressions are often very partial, and sometimes, even in the best newspapers, surprisingly wrong. chinese journalists do not enjoy freedom of the press. other journalists are more balanced in their presentation, but lack the background to distinguish between foreign aid and the broader range of economic cooperation activities sponsored by china’s developmental state. such a differentiation is important if we are going to understand how china operates as a donor, and how chinese aid and economic cooperation affect development (bräutigam, 2009: 20). the differentiation that bräutigam talks about accentuates “frame-building” and “frame-setting.” this can become more pronounced when there are contestations and real interests in shaping what is real as in the guangzhou episode. on the one hand, chinese media aiming to fight off the negative reports countered the narrative of maltreatment of africans and called out the united states and western media for polluting africa-china relations. on the other hand, african and indeed global media reported otherwise, often adhering to the line that africans were maltreated by their chinese host in guangzhou. but the rigid bifurcation of chinese and nonchinese media, as in the guangzhou episode, must also not be taken as the ultimate divisions in the unfolding context. there are indeed overlapping relationships that could have implications. one writer drew attention to this, noting the influence of china on private media in africa wherein they hold stakes or invite local journalists to “special beijing-sponsored seminars” (essa, 2018). it is in this context that this appraisal of newspapers as an arena of contestation and the guangzhou episode is located. this serves as an opportunity to investigate the investigator: the media. framing the guangzhou episode in this section, i offer a discussion of the framing of the guangzhou episode in the four newspapers. as highlighted in table 1, the selected nigerian newspapers (the guardian and the nation) had more reports – and for a longer period – than the ghanaian ones (the graphic and the daily guide). one reason that might have accounted for this is the “nigerian dimension” as discussed in this section. this dimension provides more incentive to the nigerian newspapers to keep their main audience (i.e., nigerians) informed relative to their ghanaian counterparts. indeed, only a nigerian newspaper published an editorial on the guangzhou episode. nonetheless, there are important similarities and differences across the four newspapers. for instance, while reports generally suggest a geographical definition of “africans” to mean migrants from framing chinese treatment of africans in guangzhou: a study of african online newspapers 44 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 continental africa, one newspaper, the guardian, reports the united states’s advice to its african-american citizens to avoid guangzhou (adekanye, 2020). this section discusses the framing of the guangzhou episode under three main subsections: the source question, victimhood, and the nigerian dimension. the source question media reports have their sources; sources that can determine whose voices are heard, silenced, neglected, or displaced. journalists frame their stories, but the sources available to them can limit or shape these frames. thus, a critical understanding of framing requires a careful interrogation of the news sources. this study acknowledges the influence of western media on reports in the newspapers. for instance, all the african migrants reported on in the graphic and the daily guide were sourced from the british broadcasting corporation (bbc). indeed, five of the seven reports in the daily guide cited the bbc. some reports used pictures of africans on chinese streets similar to those used in western media. the first story by ghana’s graphic entitled “africans ‘evicted from chinese hotels over covid-19 fears’” published on 8 april 2020 is credited to the bbc (2020a). on 11 april 2020, the newspaper credited the cable news network (cnn) with the story, “virus fears spark xenophobia in china” that partly read: cnn interviewed more than two dozen africans living in guangzhou many of whom told of the same experiences: being left without a home, being subject to random testing for covid-19, and being quarantined for 14 days in their homes, despite having no symptoms or contact with known patients (cnn, 2020). the source of the graphic’s first report was the bbc, and the accompanying pictures for the story were also used by the bbc (see bbc, 2020a, 2020c). like the graphic, the guardian’s first report on the guangzhou episode quoted dailymail.co.uk (guardian, 2020b). the newspaper also credited agence france-presse (afp) for a story entitled “nigeria says treatment of nationals in china 'unacceptable' ” (afp, 2020b). interestingly, a similar report was in the nation but was written by local nigerian journalists (ikuomola et al., 2020). that some reports were influenced by the framing of western media is not in doubt and it is noted in chinese media. for instance, one chinese media house describes the situation thus: “western media have a great influence on many media in african countries and their unbalanced china reports also affect local media’s understanding of china” (global times, 2020b). the fact that reports were sourced from western media does not mean that chinese voices were silenced. with the exception of the daily guide, reliance on western media was not static in the graphic and in the two nigerian newspapers. in fact, chinese media (like xinhua, southcn.com, and china daily) and voices (like chinese government officials, ambassadors, investors, and activists) were accommodated in reports. 45 chinese versions of the guangzhou episode, however, often viewed it as a result of miscommunication, fake news, conspiracy, or exaggeration (e.g., cgtn, 2020; global times, 2020a, 2020b; reuters, 2020). some of these views were reflected in the reports of the african newspapers. chinese media like xinhua (adekanye, 2020; guardian, 2020a) and china news service (afp, 2020a) were cited in the guardian. again, the fact that the african newspapers cited western media (as in the preceding paragraph) does not necessarily mean the absence of chinese voices in such reports. the guardian offers an example. a report in the guardian was credited to afp, but the same report offered information from a chinese state-run media source, china news service, that “businesses and residential compounds “must implement non-discriminatory service … treat all chinese and foreigners in guangdong equally, and firmly oppose any racist or discriminatory speech and behaviour” (afp, 2020a). similarly, although sourced from dailymail.co.uk, the first story in the guardian on the guangzhou episode – “five nigerians test positive for coronavirus in china” with a rider, “investigate humiliations of nigerians in china, fg urged” – credited the guangzhou health commission as a source for the announcement of the infected nigerians (guardian, 2020b). although it published a strong editorial that criticized the treatment of africans in guangzhou, the guardian accommodated chinese views by publishing a features report written by chinese ambassador to nigeria, zhou pingjian, entitled “pandemic: solidarity and cooperation most potent weapon” (pingjian, 2020). in his piece, pingjian articulated the official chinese position, for instance, that “what happened in guangdong recently is a similar story like wuhan, in essence. all the measures taken there aim to fight against the covid-19, not against any nigerian, any african, or any foreign national.” similarly, the nation published a story on the chinese ambassador’s responses (ikuomola, 2020b). chinese migrants in nigeria were also given a voice in reports. the voices of a diverse group of african stakeholders were reflected in the reports. these included african migrants in china, many of whose names were omitted in reports. it is understandable that mentioning the names of african migrants in china in reports could have unexpected implications for them. the media control in china means that it is risky for african migrants to be publicly identified to be a source of the reports on the mistreatment of africans in guangzhou. hence, nigerian newspapers that reported the views of migrants sometimes used anonymous labels like “nigerian businessman,” “an insider,” or just first names – e.g., “thiam” or “denny” – that could make tracing difficult (guardian, 2020a; ikuomola et al., 2020). importantly, giving a voice to migrants provides some nuance. for instance, beyond the general reportage of maltreatment in all the newspapers, the nation added: those who had earlier been quarantined were also said to be included in the new isolation arrangement; a situation which did not go down well with the nigerians, who were said to have paid $100 per night in the hotel where they framing chinese treatment of africans in guangzhou: a study of african online newspapers 46 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 were isolated for the 14 days, including that “the new hotel they were moving them to was said to cost $400 per night; an amount they considered to be far too high, especially as they were to pick the bills themselves” (ikuomola et al., 2020). such details about the quarantine were not reported in the other newspapers. the response of the chinese government to the cost of quarantine was also absent in reports. other african voices in reports on the guangzhou episode included those of foreign affairs ministers, ambassadors, parliamentarians, individuals, and nongovernmental organizations (ngos) within and outside africa. it also included african media. for instance, the graphic (on 11 april 2020) quoted nigeria’s vanguard newspapers and kenya’s the nation (yeboah, 2020) and it published an interview conducted with ghana’s ambassador to china on citi fm (arku, 2020). similarly, the nation reported stories from the news agency of nigeria (nan, 2020b). the ghanaian and nigerian newspapers, however, differed in terms of how they gave a voice to migrants. unlike the ghanaian newspapers that relied on african migrants interviewed by the bbc, the nigerian newspapers directly reported the views of the migrants in china. although ghanaian newspapers referred to ghanaians as victims in guangzhou, little mention was made of their views as compared to the nigerian newspapers. after its seventh reports on the guangzhou episode within the study period, it is important to note that the graphic’s next report entitled “china to cancel interestfree loans to african nations” was obtained from a western media source (bbc, 2020b). thus, the graphic started its reportage on the guangzhou episode with a report from the bbc and moved on to another issue on africa-china relations from the same international media source. although this appears to confirm the view about the influence of western media in africa (global times, 2020b) or “the domineering role played by the bbc, from the colonial era until today” (serwornoo, 2019: 1371), the real picture, as highlighted above, is more complex, as news sources on the guangzhou episode are more diverse than limited to western media like the bbc. african and chinese sources and voices were also reflected in reports. victimhood in many instances, african migrants were framed as the victims of the guangzhou episode. five important points are worth highlighting in the language of victimhood. first, all the newspapers framed the treatment of african migrants in guangzhou in negative terms. in the 52 reports, words like “maltreatment,” “inhumane treatment,” “abuse,” “racist attack,” “racism,” or “xenophobia” were used 20 times. other words used in headlines to describe the episode included “discrimination,” “unacceptable,” “victimization,” and “humiliating.” as illustrated in table 2, “maltreatment” was the most frequently used words in headlines. it was used 11 times across newspapers. the 47 second point relates to how they framed the “african” victims. although “africans” were commonly used, this was interjected with the use of specific african nationalities. “nigerians” and “ghanaians” were used in the two ghanaian newspapers, although references were also made to “kenyans” in the graphic, and “sierra leonean,” “togolese,” “nigerians,” “beninois,” and “ethiopian” nationals in the daily guide. sometimes, the use of the nationality is emphatic, such as “maltreatment of africans particularly ghanaians by chinese officials in china” (tarlue, 2020b). “africans,” “nigerians,” “ugandans,” “guineans,” and “south africans” were identified as victims in the nigerian newspapers. as noted above, only one newspaper, the guardian, referred to african-americans in the guangzhou episode (adekanye, 2020). as discussed later, there was more focus on “nigerians” than other african nationals. table 2: top words in headlines on the guangzhou episode source: author third, rather than a static one-sided perspective that blames chinese authorities for the plight of the migrants, the newspapers adopted a fluid approach that tended to adjust to the news source and their priorities at particular points. for instance, on 18 april 2020, about ten days after the news of maltreatment broke, the nation still reported that african envoys “denounced the manner chinese authorities in guangzhou, a city in guangdong province, dehumanized africans who were being unfairly blamed for fresh outbreaks of coronavirus disease in the province” (nan, 2020a). indeed, after initial reports that blamed china for the plight of the african migrants in guangzhou, subsequent reports shifted the blame to fears of covid-19 spreading in china, nigerian government and citizens, and largely miscommunication. reports about the fear of covid-19 spreading among african communities in china were noticeable in a graphic report on 16 april 2020. three days earlier, the daily guide reported concerns by local chinese health officials that there could be a second outbreak after a spike in imported covid-19 cases. the headlines for the next two reports in the graphic, which were the last in the study period, emphasized the safety of ghanaians in china. beyond the guangzhou episode, however, a piece in the nation drew attention to the tendency to “criminalize the disease or stigmatize infected individuals or those presumed to be” – such as africans in china, asians in the united states and covid-19-infected nigerians in nigeria (basikoro, 2020). newspapers “maltreatment” or “inhumane treatment” “abuse” “racist attacks,” “racism” or “xenophobia” graphic 2 1 daily guide 3 2 the guardian 2 1 the nation 6 2 1 total 13 3 4 framing chinese treatment of africans in guangzhou: a study of african online newspapers 48 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 though “miscommunication” was noticeable in views credited to representatives of nigerian and ghanaian government and chinese officials, this was usually absent in african migrants’ voices. however, it is important to stress that a shift to other issues was not a repudiation of the language of victimhood. for instance, the nation and the guardian ended their coverage on the guangzhou episode with a report about a group that petitioned the uk parliament for the “abuse,” “racism,” and “discriminatory treatment” against africans in china. similarly, the last two reports in ghana’s daily guide that related to the guangzhou episode used “maltreatment” and “stigmatization.” interestingly, the voices that highlighted this were those of ghanaians in norway and a member of parliament in ghana respectively. they were not those of the ghanaian or african migrants in ghana. fourth, although victimhood is largely constructed in terms of migrants’ reported experiences in guangzhou, there are instances where the (in)capacity or (in)actions of african leaders were highlighted. such references are noticeable in the nigerian newspapers. this is captured in their blaming of the ruling elites for failing to rise to the challenge confronting african (particularly nigerian) migrants in china. for example, the nation on 21 april 2020 published an article entitled “china mocks africa,” where the author contends that the “muted responses of the governments of african countries show clearly that they are ill-equipped and indisposed to defend their interests, when confronted by the emerging chinese hegemony” (amalu, 2020). yet african leaders and ambassadors – individually and collectively – responded to the maltreatment of africans. nonetheless, the guardian, in its editorial of 5 may 2020 expressed a stronger criticism of government: “nigeria that should be aggrieved was initially apologetic on behalf of the ‘accused’” (guardian, 2020c). fifth, the victimhood is generally framed as ahistorical. reports were not linked to past reports of chinese racism against africans (sautman, 1994; sullivan, 1994; cheng, 2011) or to more recent reports of racism during chinese new year celebration (bbc, 2018; mcdonald, 2021). interestingly, one report that linked the guangzhou episode to an earlier event was a story credited to cnn, a western media outfit, in the graphic that stated: “african residents say local hostility to their presence is nothing new. but when coronavirus cases emerged in the african community this month it served to amplify existing tensions” (cnn, 2020). although not a news report, one exception to the ahistoricity was the guardian editorial of 5 may 2020 that stated: lest we forget, a recent exhibition of visual arts in china was replete with designs that present black africans in comparison with animals of various types. besides that, this was no art as understood by decent values and universal standards of creativity, we should think that exhibition was disrespectful and despicable (guardian, 2020c). 49 aside from the few exceptions, most reports framed the maltreatment of africans within the covid-19 context. this context included reports of covid-19 spreading within african communities and how that could lead to another wave of spread, implying that some nigerians failed to quarantine, miscommunication by chinese authorities, fear of the spread within the chinese population, and an allegation that a nigerian who tested positive for covid-19 attacked a chinese nurse who tried to stop him from leaving an isolation ward at a guangzhou hospital (arku, 2020; cnn, 2020). although the fear element in guangzhou is similar to a report in december 1988 where there was an allegation that “african students began a class boycott to protest against accusations that they were aids carriers” (sautman, 1994: 420), no historical connection was made in many of the reports. but a nigerian dimension was popular in all the newspapers. the nigerian dimension reports in the newspapers about the guangzhou episode focused on the treatment of african migrants in china, but this was framed against a noticeable nigerian backdrop. one of the most detailed reports on the nigerian dimension in the two ghanaian newspapers was a 17 april 2020 report in the graphic entitled “covid-19: ghanaians in china safe amid discrimination against africans” (arku, 2020). the report is based on ghana’s ambassador to china, edward boateng’s interview with an accra-based radio station, citi fm. the report states that the guangzhou episode was escalated by the actions of nigerian migrants (who did not self-quarantine, ate at a popular restaurant, and later tested positive for covid-19) and by the nigerian government (that delayed stopping travels to china unlike ghana that issued an early alert in january). in addition, two days before the graphic’s story, the guardian reported that nigeria’s foreign affairs minister, geoffrey onyeama, and the chinese ambassador to nigeria, zhou pingjian, emphasized “poor communications” (onochie, 2020), a frame that became popular across newspapers. emphasizing poor communication, the nation quoted nigeria’s foreign minister saying, “if the authorities in guangzhou had informed the african consulates in guangzhou that this was the situation and these were the measures they were putting in place, it could have become a joint effort” (ikuomola, 2020a). however, the guardian offered a critique of this argument: the intolerably weak excuse offered by foreign minister geoffrey onyeama was that the mistreatment of nigerians and the attendant strong response to it by a nigerian embassy official as glaringly captured on video was due to “poor communication.” he even advised his fellow nigerians who were appalled to be objective in assessing such incidents – as if nigerians were hasty in their reaction to so obvious an appalling incident. but later, wiser counsel prevailed and this minister felt the need to speak up for his country and his countrymen. “we are extremely disappointed with the treatment meted out to our people framing chinese treatment of africans in guangzhou: a study of african online newspapers 50 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 because we have good relations with the government and people of china” he said, somewhat meekly (guardian, 2020c). given the actions of nigeria(ns), the graphic, based on mr. edward boateng’s interview, reported that the guangzhou authorities panicked, and decided “to test all black africans regardless of nationality” (arku, 2020), thus shifting the language of discrimination to one of moral panic on both sides: where chinese authorities reacted based on the fear of covid-19 spreading while nigeria’s response was about the morality of discriminating against its citizens in guangzhou. the moral panic in both the chinese and the nigerian governments’ voices is also discernible in the nigerian newspapers’ coverage. the graphic’s reportorial shift marked the end of its reports on the maltreatment of africans in china. indeed, its next report on “guangzhou” was published two months later, on 16 june 2020 and entitled “covid-19: over 600 stranded ghanaians due home this week” (annang, 2020). conversely, the nigerian newspapers continued with their reports on the guangzhou episode after their ghanaian counterparts stopped. in fact, while the daily guide’s and the graphic’s reports on the chinese treatment of africans in guangzhou ended on 12 april 2020 and 17 april 2020 respectively, the guardian still reported on the nigerian dimension on 29 april 2020 (akeregba et al., 2020) and published its last report entitled “ngo petitions uk house of lords, others over abuse of africans in china” on 4 july 2020. the nation’s last report was similar to those of the guardian but published earlier on 29 june 2020 with the headline “ngo petitions uk house of lords, others over abuse of africans in china.” two reasons can be adduced for the difference in the life cycles of reports on the guangzhou episode in the ghanaian and nigerian newspapers. first, is the nigerian dimension, as discussed above. it is worth noting that there is a significant population of nigerians in guangzhou; one estimate puts their figure at about 10,000 in 2014 as compared to 264 ghanaians in 2013 (premium times, 2014; sundiata, 2015; obeng, 2018). the relatively high population compared to ghanaians or migrants from many other african countries might have increased nigerians' visibility in guangzhou. nigerians were more involved in the guangzhou episode than ghanaians because nigerians tested negative to covid-19 in china and there was the circulation of a video of a nigerian diplomat in china seen criticizing the chinese authorities for how they treated nigerians. this visibility of nigerians in the episode likely sustained the interests of nigerian newspapers in covering the story. second, the ghanaian newspapers relied more on western news sources for their reports. for instance, the first three stories in the daily guide quoted western media. ghanaian newspapers gave voice to government but hardly interviewed ghanaian or african migrants in china, except when they quoted interviews conducted by western media. when their western sources shifted focus from the guangzhou episode to other issues, they also appeared to have shifted interest. 51 conclusion given its ability to paint an image of the experiences of african migrants in china, the media occupies an important position in africa-china relations. in this paper, i analyzed how four african-based newspapers framed the treatment of african migrants during the guangzhou episode. i discussed their framing under three subheadings: source question, victimhood, and the nigerian dimension. the paper contends that while the newspapers relied on western media coverage for some of their own reports, they nonetheless accommodated chinese and african voices. although the guangzhou episode was generally framed in terms of the victimhood of migrants, the “african” identity was reduced to national, and more importantly, a nigerian dimension in many instances. the focus on the nigerian dimension, while introducing some nuance in the discourse in terms of chinese justification, frames the guangzhou episode as moral panic. beyond the aforementioned, however, accessibility of online reports – as the ones analyzed in this paper – offers more space for interrogating knotty issues like racism, that is both controversial and recurring in africa-china migration discourse. it democratizes access to information about africachina migration exchanges, even in a difficult global moment. unlike in the past, when tensions between african migrants and their chinese host were covered on traditional media (like radio, television, or newspapers), the guangzhou episode demonstrates that online african-based media can publish their independent reports as well as cull reports from other media sources around the world. by generating and sustaining a particular image of africa-china relations, local media can therefore influence how stakeholders within africa respond to chinese migrants on the continent. this is because the main audience of the local newspapers is africa. this could have implications for chinese migrants in africa in particular and africachina relations in general. even if their reports cannot be accessed in china, it could have an impact on the perception of chinese citizens in african countries, as was the case when some members of parliament in nigeria following the spread of reports on the maltreatment of africans in guangzhou initiated moves to deport chinese migrants (core news, 2020). nonetheless, this paper calls for further research into the role of the media in shaping africa-china migration. aside from the need to further interrogate the timing, focus, and sources of reports on african migrants in china (and vice versa) using interviews, it is not yet known whether the media coverage of the guangzhou episode had any impact on african migrants in china. investigating this impact could provide deeper insights into the role of the media on african migrants’ experiences in china. framing chinese treatment of africans in guangzhou: a study of african online newspapers 52 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 acknowledgment i thank the organizers and participants of the webinar on “emerging dimensions of sino-african migrations” hosted by the canadian excellence research chair (cerc) ryerson university’s migration working group, on 30 november 2021 where the paper was first presented. i am particularly grateful to anna triandafyllidou and oreva olakpe for their useful comments on the original paper and for their patience. 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(eds.), china-africa relations: building images through cultural cooperation, media representation and communication. london: routledge, pp. 149-166. wekesa, b. 2017b. new directions in the study of africa–china media and communications engagements. journal of african cultural studies, 29(1): 1124. yan, h. 2020. the truth about chinese migrants in africa and their self-segregation. quartz africa, 5 june. available at: https://qz.com/africa/1865111/chinesemigrant-workers-in-africa-and-myths-of-self-segregation/. accessed on 21 august 2022. yan, h. and sautman, b. 2012. chasing ghosts: rumours and representations of the export of chinese convict labour to developing countries. china quarterly, 210: 398-418. yeboah, i. 2020. nigeria, kenya protest maltreatment of nationals in china. graphic, 11 april. available at: https://www.graphic.com.gh/international/ international-news/nigeria-kenya-protest-maltreatment-of-nationals-inchina.html. accessed on 20 august 2020. framing chinese treatment of africans in guangzhou: a study of african online newspapers ahmr cover online volume 9 number 2 special 02.pdf ahmr volume 9 number 2 may-aug 2023 special.pdf 28 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria adebayo o.m. makanju* and hafiz t.a. khan** * department of economic planning and budget, lagos state government, nigeria email: adebayomakanju@gmail.com ** university of west london, uk email: hafiz.khan@uwl.ac.uk the main objective of this research article, is to assess the effect of socio-economic and environmental determinants on the healthy aging status amongst internally displaced migrants and non-migrants nestled within the environmentally stressed regions of northeastern nigeria. methodologically the study utilized secondary data from the nigerian idp survey 2018 (location-northeastern states; n-1293 adults aged ≥50; male n-63.1%, female n-36.9%) using a multi-stage stratified random sample. varied statistical techniques such as cross-tabulation and binary logistic regression were used to analyze the dataset. the study results show a high mean prevalence of old-age disability within the study area, irrespective of migration status in northeastern nigeria. secondly, socio-economic and environmental determinants were robust predictors of later-life health outcomes. in addition, the regression revealed that concomitant factors such as age, gender and sanitation have a negative effect on older adult wellness and well-being. meanwhile, the migration status of internally displaced persons (idps), although in most cases forced, significantly improves the odds of aging healthily. conclusively, the quality of life of the older adults, irrespective of migration status, is poorly impacted by diminishing familial supports, social exclusion, non-existent social security program and non-existence of healthcare infrastructure. based on the study results, we recommend that the proposed economic community of west african states (ecowas) sahelian “green belt” afforestation project targeted, especially to areas around the chad basin be fully implemented, as this project will help mediate the perennial conflicts between the herdsmen and farming communities. furthermore, there is an urgent need to formulate an integration between migration and geriatrics which would be comprehensive, and evidence-driven. study recommend that budgetary allocation for health should have a flooring capped at 20% of the national budget.. keywords: environmental stress, forced migration, population aging, nigeria, sullivan method 29 introduction the combined impacts of conflicts, environmental and climatic changes on socioeconomic development as witnessed in the 21st century are complex (iom, 2018; idmc, 2019a; idmc-grid, 2020). this trident portends shortand long-term challenges to policy audiences and nations worldwide, in most cases precariously altering the demographic structures while also hindering the sustainable development drive of most countries. increasingly more regions around the globe are experiencing unprecedented levels of habitat loss due to factors such as climate change, change in land use/land cover, desertification, and water pollution. this has devastating effects on the most vulnerable communities, particularly in least developed countries (ldcs), landlocked developing countries (lldcs) and small island developing states (sids) (hartter et al., 2015; ipcc, 2018; strandberg and kjellström, 2019). in order to better comprehend the scale of this phenomenon, according to the idmc-grid (2020), 33.4 million people were recently internally displaced, making 2019 the year with the highest annual increase since 2012. a staggering 8.5 million of the internally displaced persons (idps) were driven by conflict and violence, while 24.9 million idps were triggered by around 1,900 recorded disaster events across 145 countries and territories. the status of 23.9 million of these idps was directly attributable to weather-related disasters (see in figure 1). during 2019, a total of 75.5% of idps, which accounted for an estimated 34.5 million idps, were resident in just 10 countries. of these idps, 18.3 million are children under the age of 15 years, while 3.7 million are persons aged 60 years and above (iom, 2018; idmcgrid, 2020). climate-induced displacement is fluid and widespread, constantly reshaping migration patterns across different regions and most especially in the ldcs, lldcs and sids nations. according to the unhcr (2018) an estimated 79.5 million people are currently displaced worldwide, which constitutes about 1% of the human population derived from 28 million new humanitarian crises across 148 countries and territories. it is evident that the humanitarian crises abound and persist unabated (idmc-grid, 2020). the global migration picture must, therefore, be seen as a sum of many parts and it is important to put recent developments in specific regions into global and historical contexts. determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 30 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 figure 1: annual distribution of internal displacement by causation (2008-2019) source: authors' compilation (2020) sub-saharan africa in africa, inter-tribal conflicts are the leading source of internal displacement1 alongside the effects of environmental change. the continent at present houses over one-third of the global internally displaced population. this is in spite of the unanimous adoption by the different african states of the african union convention for the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons plan in 2012 (au, 2012). the sub-saharan region which comprises 47 nations is still home to an estimated 16.8 million idps. conflicts and violence within the sub-region contributed 4,590,000 new idps and 3,448,000 idps were displaced as a result of environmental stress. this is evidenced in the temporal escalation of violence and an overall deterioration of security, mostly within the sahelian sub-regions, that are still ongoing in nations like nigeria, burkina faso, mali and niger (world bank, 2017a). causes of internal displacement in nigeria (stylized fact) the problem of forced migration and internal displacement in nigeria persisted post-independence, and this has often been triggered by ethno-religious communal 1 in this study the terms internal displacement and forced migration are used interchangeably. 31 disputes, electoral violence, a civil war in 1967 and natural disasters such as flooding and desertification. nigeria is currently ranked as one of the highest idp-dense countries with one of the highest numbers of conflict-induced idps (iom, 2018; gti, 2019). since 2013, the country has experienced an unprecedented spike in internal displacement due to the insurgency in the northern part of the country caused by boko-haram2 (north-east) and fulani herdsmen3 (north-west). together, they account for 78% of terror-related incidents and 86% of deaths from terrorism (mohammed, 2017; gti, 2019). the displacement tracking matrix (dtm) round 13 report estimated 1,770, 444 idps in the northeastern parts alone. displacement in this area is principally caused by conflict (1,770,444) attributed to the boko-haram islamist group, coupled with the intensification of the conflict between pastoralists and the nomadic fulani terrorist-facilitated further displacements leading to a total of 2,706,152 idps across 13 states in nigeria (iom, 2018). environment-induced migration is occurring at an increasing rate in northern nigeria, considering that 613,000 persons were recently displaced as a direct impact of environmental stressors (idmc, 2019b). studies have shown that the sudano-sahelian ecological zone (ssez) suffered from seasonal and inter-annual climatic variability as measured in most parts of the country (see in figure 2). this led to increased droughts and the inevitable onset of the desertification processes, particularly since the 1960s decrease in rainfall in the range of about 3-4% per decade since the beginning of the 19th century (frn, 2003; abaje et al., 2011). the sahelian droughts of the 1970s and the 1980s ravaged this zone and left farmers impoverished (ati et al., 2007). this zone falls within the “arc of tension”, a region burdened by successive disasters in the form of flash flooding, coupled with the slow onset of extreme drought and desertification (abaje et al., 2011; abaje et al., 2012). 2 boko-haram is known as the islamic state in west africa, and was formerly known as jama’at ahl as-sunnah lid-da’wahwa’l-jihad (founded in 2002). 3 fulani extremists are from the fulani tribe in northern nigeria and from other neighboring countries in the sahel, a tribe known for cattle herding. determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 32 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 figure 2: climatic transition in nigeria (1901-2016) source: authors' compilation (2020) northeastern nigeria is being structurally transformed and overburdened by forced migration, triggered by conflicts and disasters resulting in clashes between host communities and the displaced population over scarce socio-economic resources. this humanitarian situation in the northeast is deteriorating, with almost 8 million people heavily dependent on humanitarian aid. an estimated 823,000 people are out of the reach of aid organizations, and little is known about their health needs. according to the un, 5.4 million people are in dire need of healthcare (un ocha, 2018). there is a growing need to view the resultant problems associated with migration and non-migration within this region through new lenses, as they are far too complex to be characterized in just a binary perspective. in compositional terms, most people and households that face climate risks do not migrate, particularly in ldcs, lldcs and sids. on the other hand, forced migration is increasingly recognized as a leading source of global health crises. evidence shows that conflictdriven displacement has profound impacts on both the physical and mental health of those displaced persons, among which consist of older adults (burns et al., 2018). older adults, irrespective of legal status, are more susceptible to social and healthcare exclusion, especially with the decline of the traditional familial support system. despite their increased health risks, a large number of older persons within 33 this conflict-stricken region lack access to adequate levels and quality of health care. older adults within host communities have to compete with older idps for the limited healthcare services and aid provided by often over-stretched local governments. this “double stress” puts additional strain on the scarce resources, further reducing their coping ability and weakening their resilience (le van et al., 2018; unhcr, 2018; un ocha, 2018). figure 3: conceptualizing the research problem source: authors' construct (2020) the adverse impacts of conflict-driven displacement on health outcomes are welldocumented (see for example, julca and paddison, 2010; heudtlass et al., 2016). this paper argues that inasmuch as some people migrate willingly and voluntarily, there are other forms of migration that occur under forced or coerced conditions as far as nigeria is concerned. some scholars refer to the voluntary–forced migration nexus as continuum (oucho, 2009; koppenberg, 2012). this work does not delve into the voluntary and involuntary migration nexus; rather, it focuses on internal displacement as a form of forced migration (mooney, 2005; terminski, 2013). in addition, less is known about the nexus between migration status and determinants of healthy aging in nigeria. the main objective of this article is to assess the effect of socio-economic determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 34 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 and environmental determinants on healthy aging status among displaced migrants and non-migrants nested within the environmentally stressed region of northeastern nigeria. the study also seeks to contribute to the emerging body of literature on global population aging studies as impacted by migration, while also contributing to the discussion on the dynamics of internal displacement in nigeria. literature review in the past few decades, the literature on migration has paid less attention to the subject of forced migration, although this sub-field in migration has its roots in the early writings of contemporary migration studies. ernst georg ravenstein (1834–1913) propounded in the laws of migration that “bad or oppressive laws, heavy taxation and unattractive climate, uncongenial social surroundings, and even compulsion (slave trade, transportation) produce flows of migrants, but none of these flows can be compared in volume with that which arises from the desire inherent in the most men to ‘better’ themselves in material aspects” (ravenstein, 1885:167-227; 1889:224310.). the voluntary form of migration enthused by economic causes propagated by ravenstein has dominated and influenced major migration theories (see: mobility transition by zelinsky, 1971; dual economy model, 1950/1960) throughout the twentieth century up to the present. the reduction of human mobility due to economic pull factors alone overlooks certain important immeasurable social factors in contemporary times such as environmental and climatic stressors (terminski, 2013). healthy aging currently, more than 11.6% of global populations are persons aged 60+ years (about 901 million persons) and this number is projected to rise to about 1.4 billion people by 2050 (un, 2015). similarly, the eastern and south-eastern asian sub-regions are anticipated to experience the largest demographic transition (312 million people), while sub-saharan africa is projected to experience the largest increase in life expectancy gain (11.4 years), rising from 49.1 years (1990-1995) to 60.5 years (2015-2020), and a further gain of 7.6 years is anticipated between 2015-2050 (undp, 2018; undesa, 2020). the global advancement in healthcare and living standard has translated into prolonging life expectancy of people worldwide. thus, a person who turns 60 years old could expect to live an additional 17 years in 2015-2020, and this number could rise to 19 years in 2045-2050. those living in sub-saharan africa are projected to live only an additional 14.2 years in 2045-2050 (higo and khan, 2014; un desa, 2020). however, more emphasis should be placed on the quality of life, rather than longevity alone, optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance the quality of life of older adults in society. the world health organization (who) defines healthy aging as, “the process of developing and maintaining the 35 functional ability that enables well-being in older age” (who, 2015). the nigerian government confronts a major problem, optimizing health opportunities, social inclusion and security for older adult idps in order to promote healthy aging. elder et al. (1994) showed the adverse effects of conflicts and war on the physical health of persons older than 30 years. in addition, kuh et al. (2002), shaw and krause (2002), krause et al. (2004) all revealed that early-life events are adversely related to health outcomes in middleand older age. the who (2015b) report, points out that healthy aging status is significantly influenced by social determinants of health, for instance persons classified as socio-economically disadvantaged, such as in the case of most idps, who experience markedly poorer health in older age. furthermore, the review of some studies revealed problems of inequality in health status and well-being among older people, highlighting different factors, such as socio-economic status (lindström et al., 2017), age (aboderin, 2010; 2011), nationality (axén and lindström, 2002), educational status (ibáñez and moya, 2006), marital status and economic status (kirchhoff and ibáñez, 2002), emotional support (ahs et al., 2006), the transformation of familial support (higo and khan, 2014; khan et al., 2017; khan, 2019), and not having a partner present. these factors are associated with poorer health and well-being, and in general lower quality of life (gómez-olivé et al., 2010; phaswana-mafuya et al., 2013). methods and data the study utilized the nigerian idp survey (frn, 2018), a household survey with a multi-stage stratified random sample. six northeastern states were surveyed namely: adamawa, bauchi, borno, gombe, taraba and yobe (see in figure 4). this region is characterized by harsh climatic conditions, poor infrastructure, poor service delivery and frequent epidemic outbreaks. the sampling frame consisted of a list of wards with idp household counts in the six states, provided by the international organization for migration (iom) displacement tracking matrix (dtm) of 2017. the survey is representative for idps and host communities, defining host communities as the non-displaced population living in the enumeration areas (eas) with displaced populations. all the households in the selected eas were first listed and 12 idp households and 12 (or multiples of it) host community households were randomly selected and surveyed per ea, to reach the designated sample size. determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 36 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 figure 4: nigeria showing its northeastern geo-political zones source: authors' compilation (2020) variable measurement the who (2015b) notes that healthy aging is significantly influenced by the social determinants of health. this implies that people from socio-economically disadvantaged groups experience markedly poorer health in older age and have a shorter life expectancy. social determinants of health (sdoh) encompass the social, economic and environmental factors that can affect an individual’s health and quality of life. for older adults in particular, sdoh-related factors can have significant implications for their ability to live independently in advanced age. we selected physical disability (b_3_3_disal_3) as a proxy of healthy aging status for the outcome. the study justification for this decision of selecting sensory impairment as a health status metric is based on the fact that it is a prevalent cause of unhealthy aging in lowand lower-middle-income countries like nigeria. environmental factors include the household’s type of toilet (c_1_21_toilet), source of household drinking water (c_1_11_water_home), and type of waste disposal (c_2_21_waste_disposal). economic factors consist of consumption quintile (quintile_tc), labor participation status (status), and household density (hh_sleep). social factors include age (age_cat_g), migration status (migr_idp), educational status (edu_level_g_c), and household dependency status (depend_share). for the purpose of this study, we selected persons aged 50 and above, rather 37 than the generally utilized age of 65 years, for two reasons. firstly, the life expectancy age of the average nigerian is marginally greater than 50 years (ex=54.49year; male=53.79/female=55.62). secondly, the northeastern region is considered the poorest in nigeria, with socio-economically disadvantaged groups experiencing markedly poorer health in older age and shorter life expectancy. in nigeria ethnicity and religious identities are often intertwined, forming part of a complex pattern of social exclusion. religious minorities experience social, political and economic exclusion, as a result of these differences (uneca, 1991; world bank, 2017b; idris, 2018; le van et al., 2018). interestingly, the majority of idps in northeastern nigeria relocate to places where they connect with host communities with shared ethnicity and religious beliefs. data analysis we utilized descriptive statistics, alongside the disability-free life expectancy (dfle) calculation, a health concept centered on the health expectancies proposed by sullivan (1971). the sullivan health expectancy reflects the current health of a real population adjusted for mortality levels and independent of age structure (bone et al.,1995). the sullivan health expectancy provides a means of comparing the health states of an entire population at two time-points or of two different populations at the same time-point. this stated merit helps advance scholarship in migrant studies, as in the case of this study, because it affords us the opportunity to determine health disparities between persons in internally displaced communities and persons in their host communities. the binary logistic regression technique was also utilized in order to actualize the aim of the study. this technique is one of the often-used machine-learning algorithms for binary classification that utilizes a performance baseline (hosmer et al., 2013). this technique was used to determine the binary healthy aging outcome between the host and migrant communities, predicted by an assemblage of varied factors. furthermore, this technique has significant importance in the measuring of migrant’s health outcomes. the binary logistic regression model is given below, y=β0+β1 x1+β2x2 + βqxq (1) logit (π) = β0 + β1x1 +β2x2 + ... + βpxp (2) logit(p(π))=log(1-p(x) )=α+βx (3) (then for x=0 (healthy aging), x=1(unhealthy aging)) where; β1→βq=coefficient for q β1→βq are regression parameters; x1, x2…. xq are explanatory variables, and π is the probability of success. β = regression coefficient; α = constant. in[1-p ]= β0+β1x1+β2x2 +βq xq (4) since the study was assessed at an individual level, the probability of an individual p(x) p determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 38 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 aging in a healthy manner is needed, the binary logistic regression: p= (5) overview characteristics of the sample and to identify factors associated with healthy aging status p. the binary logistic regression analysis can be used to determine the relationship between a binary response and continuous or categorical explanatory variables (vittinghoff et al., 2011; long and freese, 2014). in addition, logistic regression gives a discrete outcome, unlike other analytical techniques such as linear regression, that gives a continuous outcome. yi= logit (health status) = β0 + social factor + economic factors + environmental factors+ xn (6) predictor variables utilized: x1-age, x2-migration status (non-migrants =1, migrants =2), x3-educational status, x4-gender (male=1, female=2), x5-labor market participation, x6-household dependency status, x7-consumption quintile, x8=communal participation, x9type of waste disposal, x10-type of toilet, x11-source of drinking water and x12-household density. exp(β0+β1x1+...βqxq) 1+exp(β0+β1x1+β2x2+...βqxq) 0 = do not have sensory impairment outcome variable (healthy aging status) 1 = have sensory impairment 39 result and discussion table 1: basic demographic background of the aging note: mean age= 56±9, standard deviation= 1.737 source: authors' computation (2020) table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of the socio-economic status of the respondents. based on the study age distribution, the majority of the respondents were aged 50-59 (53.2%), followed those aged 60-69 (27.1%), those aged 70-79 (14.3%) and persons aged 80 and above (5.3%) had the lowest representation. the variable host(n=692) idp(n=601) combined(n=1293) age 50-54years 242(18.7%) 214(16.6%) 456(35.3%) 55-59years 120(9.3%) 112(8.7%) 232(17.9%) 60-64years 171(13.2%) 145(11.2%) 316(24.4%) 65-69years 15(1.2%) 20(1.5%) 35(2.7%) 70-74years 72(5.6%) 51(3.9%) 123(9.5%) 75-79years 33(2.6%) 29(2.2%) 62(4.8%) >80years 39(2.6%) 30(2.3%) 69(5.3%) gender male 420(32.5%) 396(30.6%) 816(63.1%) female 272(21.0%) 205(15.9%) 477(36.9%) gender of household head men 449(34.7%) 384(29.7%) 833(64.4%) women 243(18.8%) 217(16.8%) 460(35.6%) religious affiliations christianity 58(6.4%) 23(2.5%) 81(8.9%) islam 414(45.5%) 413(45.4%) 827(91.0%) traditional 1(0.1%) 0(0%) 1(0.1%) literacy yes 358(27.8%) 262(20.3%) 620(48.1%) no 331(25.7%) 337(26.2%) 668(51.9%) highest educational attainment no education 299(23.3%) 306(23.9%) 605(47.2%) primary andintermediate 36(2.8%) 30(2.3%) 66(5.1%) secondary 90(7.0% 47(3.7%) 137(10.7%) university 33(2.6%) 12(0.9%) 45(3.5%) technical and vocational 7(0.5%) 6(0.5%) 13(1.0%) religious 174(13.6%) 170(13.3%) 344(26.8%) others 47(3.7%) 25(2.0%) 72(5.6%) determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 40 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 adult mortality rate is 3.18 deaths per 1,000 of the populations among women and 3.25 deaths per 1,000 of the populations among men (ndhs, 2019). delineation by gender revealed that the population of male (63.1%) respondents was nearly double that of their female (36.9%) counterparts. this gender disparity could be a direct effect of cultural and religious norms, particularly where women are barred by their husbands/guidance to attend to male visitors. similarly, 63.1% of households were headed by men, compared to 36.9% of households headed by women. observers of the islamic faith constituted 91.0% of the respondents, followed by christians (8.9%) and african traditionalists (0.1%). furthermore, based on the ability to read in any language, 48.1% of the respondents were literate compared to 51.9% who were non-literate. additionally, 47.2% of respondents had no form of formal education, 26.8% had islamic education (known as karatu islamiyah) and 26% had some form of western education (see table 2). table 2: disability-free life expectancy (dfle) using an abridged life table source: authors' computation (2020) life expectancy at a specific age is the number of additional years that a person of that age can expect to live, if current mortality levels observed for higher ages continue for the rest of that person’s life. thus, based on the result of the study’s abridged life table (sullivan method), aged persons in the host communities are expected to live 4±9 years more than idps. along cohort delineation, a host person aged 50-59 has a mean life expectancy of 17±9 years compared to idps (mean 16.4± years; a host person aged 60-69 (mean 11±2 years) > idps (mean 10 years); a host person aged 70-79 (mean 6 years)>idps (mean 4±8 years); and host persons aged 80 and above (mean 2±9 years) > idps (mean 2 years) respectively (see table 2). longer lives are an incredibly valuable resource, both for individuals and for society more host n=(692) idp n=(601) north-west (combined) n=(1293) age (x-x+n) life expectancy (ex) deaths (dx) survival (ιx) life expectancy (ex) deaths (dx) survival (ιx) life expectancy (ex) deaths (dx) survival (ιx) proportion disability (nx) 50-54 19.8 242 0.6503 18.1 214 0.6042 20.5 456 0.6473 46.4% 55-59 16.1 120 0.4769 14.6 112 0.4576 17 232 0.4679 56.5% 60-64 12.7 171 0.2298 11.3 145 0.2163 13.7 316 0.2235 69.9% 65-69 9.7 15 0.2081 8.6 20 0.1830 10.7 35 0.1964 80.0% 70-74 7.1 72 0.1040 5.9 51 0.0982 8 123 0.1013 73.7% 75-79 4.9 33 0.0564 3.7 29 0.0499 5.8 62 0.0534 85.3% >80 2.9 39 0.0000 2.0 30 0.0000 4.1 69 0.0000 89.9% 41 broadly. older people participate in, and contribute to society in varied ways. this social engagement may in turn reinforce the health and well-being of older people themselves. figure 5: nigeria's life expectancy (ex) transition (1960-2019) source: adapted from world bank (2020) the results show that nigeria has experienced a progressive trend, growing at an average annual life expectancy growth rate of 0.60%. interestingly, during the onset of the economic recession in the early 1980s, the country experienced a decline (1980(45.3)-1990(45.9)-1998(45.9)) in its life expectancy status, and this remained so until the re-adoption of democratic governance in 1999 (46.1-2010(50.9)2019(54.5)). coincidentally, the 21st century has also ushered in an increase in global life expectancy due to concomitant factors (see figure 5). determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 42 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 figure 6: disability-free life expectancy (dflex) of the study area source: computed by authors from nga-idp data (2018) the sullivan health expectancy was utilized to determine the current health status of persons aged 50 years and above, adjusted for mortality levels and independent of age structure. the study calculated the number of remaining years, at a particular age, that an individual can expect to live in a healthy state, void of sensory disabilities (see figure 6), considering that almost one-third (32.8%) of people aged 60 or older in nigeria are reported to have at least one form of disability (ndhs, 2019). the study’s results showed healthy aging disparities, considering that idps were more susceptible to sensory disabilities. this means that this cohort was projected to have a far less disability-free life compared to their peers in the host communities across the entire age cohort (aged 50-80 and above). 43 table 3: result of the binary logistic regression model (idp and host population) variables model 1 idp population model 2 host population β wald sig. exp(β) β wald sig. exp(β) age 50-59 60-69 70-79 >80 -.604 -.545 -.451 ref 43.691 43.334 41.223 ref <.002 <.010 .052 ref .547 .661 1.232 ref -.792 .439 -671 ref 5.296 5.122 4.992 ref <.001 <.001 <.002 ref .453 .527 .531 ref educational status no education pry education sec education vocation university religious others .017 -0.29 .071 .098 .373 ref .122 .164 2.177 .434 2.115 ref .001 <.002 <.001 .510 .075 ref 1.017 1.040 .575 .767 .918 ref -.168 -.271 -.283 -.099 -.282 ref .738 2.124 1.341 1.291 3.418 ref <.002 <.001 <.001 <.006 <.001 ref .845 .743 .447 .751 .847 ref gender male female -.404 ref 3.177 ref .<.001 ref .668 ref -.980 ref .784 ref <.001 ref .375 ref labour force participation active non-active .488 ref 10.879 ref .001 ref 1.629 ref 1.055 ref 2.988 ref <.001 ref 2.871 ref household dependency status high low .832 ref 1.139 ref <.001 ref .856 ref . .226 ref .362 ref <.004 ref 1.253 ref household consumption quintile poorest q1 secondq2 middle q3 fourthq4 highest q5 .668 .831 .631 .383 ref 2.566 3.288 1.654 .648 ref <.001 .003 <.001 <.001 ref 1.950 2.296 1.880 1.467 ref -.655 -.301 -2.936 -1.741 ref .192 .039 2.889 1.321 ref <.001 <.002 <.004 <.001 ref .520 .740 .053 .009 ref level of communal engagement high low .241 ref 3.651 ref 0.56 ref 1.272 ref .019 ref .003 ref <.003 ref 1.019 ref type of waste disposal discrete indiscrete -0.13 ref .438 ref .508 ref .987 ref .217 ref 4.81 ref <.000 ref 1.242 ref type of household toilet unimproved improved .081 ref .100 ref <.001 ref .922 ref -.905 ref 1.303 ref <.002 ref .404 ref determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 44 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 source: computed by authors from nga-idp data (2018) in model 1, all the explanatory data was found to be statistical predictors of the healthy aging status among older idps. based on demographic predictors, age was negatively correlated to the healthy aging status of idps (p-value.000<0.05). there is a 0.55 odds of unhealthy aging with advanced age; more educated persons were 1.017 times more age-healthy in comparison with their less-educated peers. males were .668 times more likely to age healthily, compared to females with 1.497 greater odds of aging healthily (see table 3). economic variables were all statistically significant and made unique contributions to the prediction of the healthy aging status in the full model. people actively involved in the labor force were 0.614 times more likely to experience unhealthy aging while those outside the labor force were 1.629 times more likely to experience less wellness as they age. consumption patterns appear to be quite skewed among the idp population – persons grouped in the lowest consumption were 1.950 times more likely to experience prolonged health complications, as they age. in addition, environmental predictors were all statistically significant. older adults who were more socially engaged, were 0.78 times less likely to age in poor health, compared to the less-engaged ones who had a 1.272 higher likelihood of aging in poor health. improved waste disposal: host persons were .987 times more likely to experience healthy aging, compared to those residing in households with unimproved waste disposal methods, with 1.085 greater odds to age poorly. unimproved toilets: elderly idps were .922 times more likely to experience unhealthy aging, compared to persons resident in households with improved toilets, who were also 1.085 times more likely to age in good health. likewise, older persons in households with an unimproved source of drinking water, were .857 times more likely to age in poor health (see table 3). in model 2, the p-value for each regression effect is smaller than .05; thus, all the predictors in the model were statistically relevant. the results show that there is a .453 times increase in the odds of aging in poor health among persons in the host community. males were .375 times more likely to age in poor health compared to females (2.667 better odds of healthy aging); older persons in the labor force were variables model 1 idp population model 2 host population β wald sig. exp(β) β wald sig. exp(β) household density high low -.154 ref 1.085 ref .005 ref .857 ref .760 ref 2.114 ref <.001 ref 2.138 ref constant 8.602 48.133 .000 5439.928 10.243 4.258 .000 28073.768 model summary -2 log likelihood 554.219a cox and snell r2 .116 nagelkerke r2 .368 hosmer and lemeshow test .802 2 log likelihood 68.196a cox and snell r2 .237 nagelkerke r2 .368 hosmer and lemeshow test .815 45 2.871 times more likely to age in poor health compared to their peers who are still active (0.348 better odds of healthy aging). older adults resident in households with the lowest consumption profile, were expected to age in poorer health, by .520 times. the environmental factors were also found to be unique predictors of healthy aging status. the findings in table 3 show that persons residing within households with unimproved waste disposal methods (odd ratio=1.242), using unimproved toilet types (odd ratio=.404), drinking water from non-sanitary sources (odd ratio=2.072), and sleeping in densely populated housing (odd ratio=2.138), are highly likely to experience unhealthy aging (see table 3). figure 7: logistic regression graph showing propensity to healthy aging nb: x1-age, x2-education, x3-gender, x4-labor participation, x5-dependency ratio, x6-consumption quintile, x7=communal participation, x8waste disposal, x9-toilet type, x10-drinking water source, x12-household density. source: computed by authors from nga-idp data (2018) figure 7 presents the projected odds ratio of older adults aging in an unhealthy way, in both the host and idp households, by determinants. the demographic determinants appear to be uni-directional across both groups, which might be a result of the normalized distribution of respondents by age. unlike the demographic factors, the effects of the economic factors exhibit more variance. out-of-labor older adults in the host communities, be it due to retirement or unemployment, were projected to be less active while aging, accompanied with predicted higher morbidity in later life. idps without employment or any work would also experience the same fate, but with much lower odds. in terms of consumption rate, more idps were projected to determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 46 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 experience more health crises in later life in comparison to their host community peers. conclusion and recommendations nigeria has benefited immeasurably from the socio-economic and technological evolution of the 20th century, resulting in improved standard of living and life expectancy. this success can be attributed to migratory processes, be it human resource migration, technological transfer and data/information transfer. interestingly, older adults, often referred to as the “invisible population”, have also been development actors. however, recent estimates indicate that the aging population in nigeria now constitutes more than 10% of its national population, with a doubling time of a few decades. interestingly, the failure to ensure that extra years of life gained are enjoyed in the best possible health, is avoidable. however, this mega-demographic change has become a macro-level concern, mainly due to the accompanying economic and social costs, culminating in the absence of a geriatric healthcare policy to cater for the healthy aging needs. contemporary nigeria is being battered by phenomena such as environmental stressors – such as floods and drought – and widespread conflict, notably in its most disadvantaged region, the northeastern part of the country. therefore, households’ decisions on whether to migrate or not, now has later life health implications on the older adult cohort within this region. our study makes a valuable contribution to the literature on population aging in nigeria. in particular, the goal of this study is to better understand the impact of socio-economic and environmental determinants on the healthy aging status among later-life migrants and non-migrants within both idp and host communities in northern nigeria. the study’s findings revealed a much higher prevalence of sensory impairment among idps than for residents in the host communities. in general, the mean prevalence was significantly higher in the northeastern region. secondly, the socio-economic and environmental determinants were significantly associated with the healthy aging status outcomes in northeastern nigeria. in addition, combinations of this factor, or the lack of it, were also associated with healthy aging. inclusion of the decisions on the part of the idps to migrate to neighboring towns and cities in northeastern nigeria, has significantly improved their odds of aging in an active and healthy manner. this is probably due to competing with residents in these communities for limited resources and services, such as healthcare, employment and farming space. alternatively, these residents had slightly greater odds of aging healthily. however, factors such as the increased inflow of more migrants, increased desertification, poor governance, the trade-off for nonmigration, may impact on their healthy aging trajectory in the long run, which may fall lower than that of the idps. based on our findings, we conclude that the older people’s lives are characterized by growing inadequacies in customary family supports, social exclusion and nonexistent social security programs targeted at them, thus rendering them vulnerable to 47 poverty and diseases. we recommend that the proposed ecowas sahelian “green belt” afforestation project, especially areas around the chad basin, be expedited, as this project will help reduce perennial conflicts between herdsmen and farmers. in addition, the government needs to improve security by defeating boko-haram and other islamist militias. furthermore, there is an urgent need to formulate an integrated migration–adult health policy or plan that is both comprehensive and evidence-driven. finally, the budgetary allocation for health should have a flooring capped at 20% of the national budget. determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 48 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 references abaje, i.b., ati, o.f. and iguisi, e.o. 2011. drought in the north-eastern part of nigeria and the risks on human health. in iguisi, e.o., ati, o.a., yusuf, r.o. and ubogu, a.e. 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difficulty in finding well-paying employment, insecurity, corruption, citizenship issues and reintegration uncertainties were seen as obstacles to return. incentives for return included a better economic and political environment, improved security, good governance, employment and investment opportunities. overall, the study revealed that migrants’ intentions to return home had an influence on their participation in remittance transfers, investments and return visits. cross tabulations, odd ratios and chi square logistic regression analyses showed that intentions to return had an influence on migrants’ investments in entrepreneurial ventures and financial instruments, as well as the frequency of return visits to kenya. however, although cross tabulations and odd ratios showed that there was a relationship between intentions to return and remittance transfers, chi square logistic regression analyses showed that intentions to return had no influence on remittance transfers. based on these findings, the study recommends that efforts and policies geared towards maximisation of the benefits of return migration should pay attention to migrants’ intentions to return and the preparation these intentions instigate. keywords transnational activities, remittances, investments, return visits. *centre for migration studies, university of ghana, legon. email: jmwangi@diasporainterlink.com/ diaspora interlink, nairobi, kenya. ** department of geography and resource development, university of ghana, legon. email: abasiedu@ug.edu.gh mailto:abasiedu@ug.edu.gh “i am going home”: how kenyan migrants’ intentions to return home affect their transnational engagements 1046 introduction many migrants cherish the prospects of returning to their countries of origin and are eager to seize available opportunities to return home (dumont & spielvogel, 2008). right from the onset, return may be part of their migration strategies and plans, after achieving set targets like human capital formation through education and/or work experience; or accumulation of savings and/or investments (dumont & spielvogel, 2008; kuschminder, 2013; pennington & balaram, 2013). even migrants who move for purely economic or political reasons, may be willing to return home once those conditions change (makina, 2012). migrants’ aspirations for return play a key role in influencing how they maintain links with their countries of origin. migrants who anticipate returning usually maintain transnational ties with their home countries to ensure smooth reintegration after return (aslam, 2015; carling et al., 2015). in the process, they get involved in transnational activities like remittance transfers, investments, return visits, philanthropy and social and cultural activities at home (aslam, 2015; long & oxfeld, 2004). although migrants’ intentions to return may not necessarily result in actual return, the increased transnational activities in which they engage are deemed beneficial to the economies of their home countries (aslam, 2015; carling & pettersen, 2014; long & oxfeld, 2004). in recent years, there has been an upsurge of policy and scientific interest on return migration due to the strong links between return migration and development (de haas & fokkema, 2011). nonetheless, many studies on return migration focus on the reintegration of return migrants (carling et al., 2015; koser & kuschminder, 2015; kuschminder, 2013; pennington & balaram, 2013; zwania-rößler & ivanova, 2013). there are a few studies that look at migrants’ intentions to return (de haas & fokkema, 2011; fokkema, 2011; koser & kuschminder, 2015). however, these studies have mostly concentrated on factors that shape migrants’ intentions to return, with little attention paid to how these aspirations for return influence their transnational engagements. in this paper, we attempt to reduce this gap in the existing literature by evaluating how kenyan migrants in the uk, usa, canada and ghana engage in remittance transfers, investments and return visits to their homelands in anticipation of return. jane njeri mwangi and alex boakye asiedu 1047 contextualisation return migration refers to “the movement of a person returning to his or her country of origin or habitual residence usually after spending at least one year in another country” (international organization for migration (iom), 2011). in this paper, the terms ‘intentions to return’ and ‘aspirations for return’ are used interchangeably to refer to migrants’ desire to return to their countries of origin. the term ‘return’ is also used as shorthand for ‘return migration’. return migration is a potential consequence of emigration. as ravenstein (1889) observed more than a century ago, for every migration stream, there is a counter stream. nevertheless, reintegration into the country of origin after years of being abroad can be stressful and the return process is usually surrounded by anxiety and uncertainty (carling et al., 2015; ibourk & chamki, 2014). return migration is thus not an event, but a process that requires time to plan, prepare and execute (cassarino, 2008). the preparation process, which is the primary focus of this study, encompasses psychological, cultural and political processes that precede the actual return (carling et al., 2015). this is occasioned by the need for migrants to prepare for different levels of reintegration, which could be socioeconomic, psychological and institutional (ibourk & chamki, 2014). as demonstrated in figure 1, migrants who aspire to return have to prepare for a smooth reintegration by mobilising human, financial and social capital (dumont & spielvogel, 2008). they then transfer this capital to their homelands through transnational activities, like return visits, savings, investments and remittance transfers, as part of their preparation for return (iom, 2010; ratha et al., 2011). figure 1: intentions to return and transnational engagements. source: authors’ construct. “i am going home”: how kenyan migrants’ intentions to return home affect their transnational engagements 1048 according to iom (2015), the most common type of return migration in kenya is spontaneous return, which means that kenyan migrants mostly return home voluntarily without external assistance. from the pre-independence era to the 1970s, kenyan migrants were usually involved in circular migration, which involved travelling abroad in pursuit of higher education and training and then returning on completion to work in kenya (mwangi, 2013; migration policy institute (mpi), 2015). due to problems associated with economic stagnation, political repression, high levels of corruption, election related violence and several other related issues in the post-1980 period, many kenyan emigrants opted to remain in their host countries and refused to return to kenya (mwangi, 2013; mpi, 2015; iom, 2010). with the introduction of political and economic reforms during the kibaki era in 2002, there was a reversal of this tendency, as kenyan migrants started returning home from their stays overseas in response to the administration’s encouragement kenyan migrants to return and contribute to nation building (mwangi, 2013). the flow of return migrants has been steady since 2002 despite the occasional negative occurrences that the country has experienced, such as the 2007 post-election conflict (oucho et al., 2013). theoretical framework existing migration theories generate diverse views on migrants’ intentions to return. according to the neoclassical migration theory, migrants’ intentions to return are borne out of failed migration experiences (cassarino, 2011). the theory hypothesises that people migrate permanently to increase their income due to wage differences between their home and receiving countries (cassarino, 2004; kunuroglu et al., 2016). the theory further perceives return migration as failure of the migration experience, due to miscalculation on the part of the migrant to keep migration benefits (de haas et al., 2015; king, 2012; kunuroglu et al., 2016). another theory, the new economics of labour migration (nelm) theory, sees aspirations for return as the product of migrants’ attachment to their origins and to their pre-migration desire to return once migration goals like capital accumulation are met (cassarino, 2011; king, 2012). nelm theory also views migration as a strategy adopted by households to improve their welfare through diversification of resources (de haas, 2010; mwangi, 2013) and therefore perceives return as the logical consequence of a ‘calculated strategy’ in the migration cycle (cassarino, 2004, 2011; de haas et al., 2015; kunuroglu et al., 2016). jane njeri mwangi and alex boakye asiedu 1049 these theories have, however, been criticised for concentrating on financial and economic factors in migration, while overlooking social and political factors (cassarino, 2004; kunuroglu et al., 2016). theories that incorporate other contexts beyond the financial and economic factors include the structural approach, social network theory and the transnationalism perspective. the structural approach theorises that migration is caused by political and economic inequalities between developed and developing economies (de haas, 2010) and views migrants’ desire to return as an outcome of nostalgia and attachment to their households and homelands (achenbach, 2017; cassarino, 2011). the approach takes into account the social and institutional contexts associated with return and identifies four types of returnees (cassarino, 2004; kunuroglu et al., 2016). the first type is migrants who desire to return because of difficulties relating to prejudice and stereotyping encountered in the host country, which hinder their integration. then, there are migrants who have intentions of returning home from the onset and, once goals like accumulation of savings are achieved, they start contemplating return. the third type is migrants who plan to return after retirement, with the aim of spending their old age at home. lastly, there are migrants who desire to return because they view themselves as innovators and agents of change and want to invest their migration experiences in their home countries (cassarino, 2004; kunuroglu et al., 2016). the social network theory associates migrants’ aspirations for return with the informal social ties that connect current, former and potential migrants and non-migrants in origin and destination countries (king, 2012; mwangi, 2013). migrants maintain ties with their countries of origin using social networks of family, friends and business partners (mwangi, 2013). these networks are key in shaping migrants’ intentions to return, since they provide information and contacts about accommodation, jobs and other services that are helpful in the reintegration process (king, 2012; percival, 2013). migrants’ intentions to return are also influenced by social, economic and institutional opportunities (achenbach, 2017; cassarino, 2004). the final theory, which relates to the transnationalism approach, builds on the social network theory discussed above (king, 2012). the transnationalism perspective does not view migration or return migration as a one-time event, but as a circular system of social, political, religious and economic relationships and exchanges that conveys knowledge and information across national borders (cassarino, 2004; king, 2012; kunuroglu et al., 2016; “i am going home”: how kenyan migrants’ intentions to return home affect their transnational engagements 1050 mwangi, 2013). according to this approach, migrants’ intentions to return are influenced by their attachment to home, household and family ties, as well as perceptions of conditions in the homeland (achenbach, 2017; cassarino, 2004, 2011). migrants who intend to return maintain strong ties with their homeland by investing, performing regular return visits, transferring remittances and other activities (cassarino, 2004). the assumptions of the transnational approach are relevant to this paper since they are able to explain how the aspirations for return affect the transnational engagements of kenyan migrants. methodology this paper is premised on the hypothesis that there is a relationship between migrants’ intentions to return to their countries of origin and their involvement in remittance transfers, investment and return visits. the paper relied on primary data collected using concurrent mixed methods, where both qualitative and quantitative research methods were utilised. data collection was done using a web survey, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions (fgds) and field observations. study participants were identified using purposive and snowball sampling methods. the sample involved kenyan migrants in the uk, usa, canada and ghana, who were at least 18 years old and who had lived in their destination countries for at least one year. the usa, uk and canada were selected for this study because they were the leading sources of diaspora remittance flows to kenya (central bank of kenya (cbk), 2010, 2017; world bank, 2011).ghana was included because it is one of the most important destinations of kenyans in africa, beyond kenya’s traditional trade partners and neighbours in the east african community (eac), the common market for eastern and southern africa (comesa) and the intergovernmental authority on development (igad) (kinuthia, 2013). the web survey was a convenient, fast and effective way of reaching the respondents who were in four different countries. the survey was a hybrid of quantitative and qualitative instruments with both pre-coded response categories and open-ended questions, to allow for a narrative approach. survey participants were recruited through a multifaceted e-recruitment strategy using facebook, twitter, linkedin and emails, and the data were collected using survey monkey online survey tool. it must be emphasised here that participation in the survey was on a voluntary basis and was limited to persons who expressed interest and willingness to participate in it within the four selected countries. a total of 212 completed questionnaires were jane njeri mwangi and alex boakye asiedu 1051 received: 78 from ghana, 89 from the usa, 32 from the uk and 13 from canada. since the study used e-recruitment strategies to recruit web survey participants, the respondents were scattered across the four countries. details of the specific areas from which the respondents came are shown in tables 1 to 4. the respondents were comprised of 105 males and 102 females, while 5 did not indicate their gender. for the quantitative data, descriptive statistics were generated using microsoft excel, while higher statistical analysis was done using statistical package social sciences (spss 16.0 for windows). crosstabulations and chi-square analyses were also conducted to ascertain the relationship between the independent variable (intention to return) and dependent variables (remittance transfers, entrepreneurial investments, investments in financial instruments and return visits). variables that showed significant association were further tested using bivariate logistic regressions to determine the level of influence between the independent variable and dependent variables. finally, multivariate logistic regression analyses were also conducted to find out the impact of intentions to return on remittance transfers, investments and return visits; while controlling for gender, marital and employment status, level of education, having bank account in kenya, annual income and having dependents in the destination country. the selection of these control variables was informed by migration literature, which shows that on a collective scale, they have an effect on migrants’ transnational involvement in activities like remittance transfers, investments and return visits (farrant et al., 2006; ghosh, 2006). table 1: survey respondents from ghana area number of respondents accra 74 tema 1 eastern region 2 not indicated 1 total number of respondents 78 table 2: survey respondents from the usa area number of respondents massachusetts 20 “i am going home”: how kenyan migrants’ intentions to return home affect their transnational engagements 1052 north carolina 17 ohio 10 virginia 8 maryland 4 texas 4 minnesota 3 georgia 3 indiana 2 washington dc 2 alabama 2 pennsylvania 2 new jersey 1 colorado 1 utah 1 new york 1 idaho 1 iowa 1 oklahoma 1 not indicated 5 total number of respondents 89 table 3: survey respondents from the uk area number of respondents london 15 cambridge 4 sunderland 3 birmingham 3 bedford 1 south west england 1 essex 1 not indicated 4 total number of respondents 32 jane njeri mwangi and alex boakye asiedu 1053 table 4: survey respondents from canada area number of respondents ontario 8 british columbia 1 new brunswick 1 yukon 1 niagara region 1 alberta 1 total number of respondents 13 for the quantitative information, in-depth interviews, fgds and observation were carried out to complement and validate the data collected through the web survey. in-depth interviews explored the opinions and attitudes underlying migrants’ intentions to return and their involvement in transnational activities. fgds were used to allow the participants to express, in an informal way, their personal views, knowledge and experiences; while observation was used to capture speculations, feelings, ideas and impressions, as well as problems and prejudices, that may not have emerged during the surveys, in-depth interviews and fgds. interview participants were recruited by means of on-the-ground recruitment through the help of a network of family and friends. the in-depth interviews and the fgds were only conducted in massachusetts, the usa and accra, ghana, due to financial and time constraints. we carried out 21 in-depth interviews: 11 in the usa and 10 in ghana. we also held 5 fgds: 2 in massachusetts, usa, and 3 in accra, ghana. qualitative data were translated, edited, transcribed, coded and synthesised. data collection, note taking, coding and memo-ing were done simultaneously, from the beginning to the end of data collection. sorting of the data was done when all categories were saturated. afterwards, a thorough description of the data was compiled in order to make them more meaningful for the purpose of the study. the entire fieldwork was carried out with the ethical approval of the university of ghana graduate school board. privacy, confidentiality and anonymity were observed at every stage of the study. informed consent was sought from the participants and they were made fully aware of the purpose of the study, as well as of its risks and benefits. pseudonyms were used in all notes and records, including tape recordings, in order to protect the identity of the participants. “i am going home”: how kenyan migrants’ intentions to return home affect their transnational engagements 1054 the use of a web survey came with some limitations. it was difficult to control coverage and the responses were therefore not uniformly distributed across the countries and across different areas within each country. this meant that we received more responses from certain countries and areas than others, making it difficult to do comparative analyses between different countries and different areas within a country. the use of the web survey also meant that only people with internet access could participate in the study. the other challenge was that even though we used several online data collectors – facebook, twitter, linkedin and emails – and extended the duration of data collection, the response rates (particular for the uk and canada) were lower than desired. despite these challenges, much effort was expended to limit the impact of these factors on the study and the results appear to provide credible, valuable and useful insight on the return process. nonetheless, the return process does vary from country to country and, as such, these results are not generalisable. results descriptive results the study revealed that the main reasons for emigration were education (45%) and employment and better opportunities (42%) (see table 5), and, as seen in figure 2, most respondents had achieved their migration objectives. those who had not achieved their migration goals explained that the process of achieving their objectives was in progress. table 5: reasons for migrating reason uk usa canada ghana uk, usa & canada all countries # % # % # % # % # # # % employment & better opportunities 18 42 48 38 7 39 42 51 73 39 115 42 studies (self/ children/spouse) 19 44 67 52 7 39 29 35 93 49 122 45 other 6 14 13 10 4 22 11 14 23 12 34 13 total 43 100 128 100 18 100 82 100 189 100 271 100 source: fieldwork, 2012 – 13, # number of migrants, % percentage of migrants. jane njeri mwangi and alex boakye asiedu 1055 figure 2: achievement of migration objectives. source: fieldwork data, 2012-13. when gideon, a kenyan living in ghana, was asked why he migrated, he said that he moved because of a better employment opportunity: i came here because of a job opportunity. back home in kenya, i was employed as a local employee but here i am employed as an expatriate with all the expatriate benefits, which i would not get if i was working in kenya (gideon, accra). the study revealed that most of the respondents (89%) had the intentions of returning home before retirement (see figure 3). half of the respondents aspired to return after five or more years and only 16% desired to return within one year (see figure 4). “i am going home”: how kenyan migrants’ intentions to return home affect their transnational engagements 1056 figure 3: migrants who wish to return to kenya before retirement. source: fieldwork data, 2012-13. figure 4: reasons for unwillingness to return to kenya. source: fieldwork, 2012-13. the aspirations for return varied from country to country. close to 60% of the respondents in the uk, canada and ghana desired to return home within four years. the respondents in the uk and canada who wanted to return within four years were mostly students who wanted to go back home after their studies, while those in ghana were expatriates who either had to return home at the end of their contracts, or had accumulated investment capital and wanted to invest in kenya. more than half of the respondents in the usa (64%) desired to return after five or more years. this is probably because most of jane njeri mwangi and alex boakye asiedu 1057 them wanted to accumulate savings and investment before returning home, as clearly stated by rosalinda in one of the fgds: the majority of the people here want to go back, their dream is to go back but the thing is, they don’t want to go back empty handed, they want to invest, because they don’t want to go back unemployed, they want to have an investment where they will be having some amount of money […], income every month [...]. (rosalinda, usa). as indicated in figure 3, some respondents (11%) had no intentions of returning to kenya. one of the main reasons for not wanting to return to kenya was the availability of better opportunities in their countries of residence (53%) (see figure 5). ‘better opportunities’ in this case referred to better jobs, better systems of government, a greater sense of security, and better social facilities, infrastructures and other amenities. some respondents were dissuaded from returning by the prospect of ‘insecurity’ in kenya (32%). respondents who had forfeited their kenyan citizenship after acquiring foreign citizenship cited citizenship issues as a hindrance to return. this, despite the fact that kenya’s 2010 constitution allows dual citizenship and permits kenyans to take up other nationalities without losing their citizenship rights. figure 5: desired time of return. source: fieldwork, 2012-13. “i am going home”: how kenyan migrants’ intentions to return home affect their transnational engagements 1058 table 6 presents the incentives that would motivate the respondents to return home. the key incentive for return migration across the four countries was better economic and political environments, followed by the availability of employment opportunities (17%). table 6: incentives that would motivate the migrants to return to kenya motivation for return uk usa canada ghana all countries # % # % # % # % # % altruism 3 10 12 14 2 13 4 7 31 16 better economic & political environment 14 45 39 47 7 44 19 33 79 40 employment opportunities 7 23 9 11 3 19 14 25 33 17 family & friends 3 10 12 14 3 19 11 19 29 15 investments 4 13 11 13 1 6 9 16 25 13 total responses 31 100 83 100 16 100 57 100 197 100 source: fieldwork, 2012 – 13, # number of respondents, % percentage of respondents. during an in-depth interview, lilian, a middle aged woman in canada stated that she would be ready to relocate to kenya if she was able to get a job that would meet her basic needs: i would like to go back to kenya if i get an opportunity […] if i had a job in kenya with an income and my own house, i would be very happy and would stay there (lilian, canada). another important motivation for return was altruism (16%). jim, a kenyan who had lived in the usa for fifteen years, explained that the love for his country and the desire to contribute to nation building would motivate him to return to kenya as soon as he was able to accumulate enough capital to help him reintegrate in kenya. fifteen percent (15%) of the respondents said that having family and friends in kenya was the reason for wanting to return home. lucy, a respondent in the uk expressed her desire to return home when she becomes financially stable: i definitely must go back to kenya when i become financially stable. i miss home very much and would like to go back there as soon as i am able to accumulate some capital (lucy, uk). http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new jane njeri mwangi and alex boakye asiedu 1059 having a favourable environment for investments was also mentioned as a key incentive (13%) for return migration. nathan felt that he would have an edge in business if given a favourable environment in kenya: […] based on my experience outside the country and my knowledge about my country, i would probably have an edge in business given the right business environment. i also believe i have something to offer. i can transfer the skills and the knowledge i have accumulated here (nathan, canada). the most preferred type of work upon return varied from country to country: health was the most preferred in the usa (30%); in canada, community development and public services (36%); and in the uk and ghana, entrepreneurship and business 31% and 27% respectively (see table 7). these work preferences were a reflection of the work the respondents were engaged in overseas. table 7: work preference upon return variables uk usa canada ghana all countries # % # % # % # % # % entrepreneurship & business 8 31 13 18 2 18 18 27 42 24 community development & public services 4 15 4 5 4 36 13 19 25 14 construction & real estate 2 8 12 16 1 9 11 16 26 15 health 6 23 22 30 3 27 2 3 33 19 research, education, science & technology 5 20 16 22 0 0 12 18 33 19 others 1 3 6 9 1 9 11 16 19 11 total responses 26 100 73 100 1 100 67 100 178 100 source: fieldwork, 2012–13, # number of respondents, % percentage of respondents. even though there were many respondents who had intentions to return, these intentions did not necessarily result in actual return. this is well captured in the explanation given by jacob, a participant in one of the fgds in the usa: http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new http://www.surveymonkey.net/analyze/?survey_id=29562562&opt=new “i am going home”: how kenyan migrants’ intentions to return home affect their transnational engagements 1060 a hundred percent of people who come here want to go back but only one percent goes back […] people get stuck here because when you come here, you get used to the american lifestyle. people keep saying they want to go back but there is no time frame. personally i don’t think 99% of the people ever go back. i have been here for fifteen years and i have not met a person who has packed and left […] but people are constantly telling me “you know what, i want to go back home” (jacob, usa). these sentiments are shared by jim, another respondent based in the usa: everyone comes here with the intention of going back home ‘soon’ but how soon? i have been in this country for 15 years and since i came here everyone i talk to says he/she is going back to kenya in a few years’ time but i personally do not know any one person who has actually returned home. when people arrive here they are totally unprepared for life in america. their expectations do not match the reality here and this explains their inability to return as initially planned […] (jim, usa). results of bivariate analysis table 8 reveals that a higher proportion (86%) of migrants who had the intention to return to kenya sent remittances as compared to those (68%) who did not intend to return. however, the chi-square analysis showed no association between a migrant’s intention to return and remittance transfers (χ2 = 3.821, p = 0.087). table 8: test of association between intentions to return to kenya (independent variable) and dependent variables do you send remittances to kenya? do you have any business in kenya? have you invested in financial instruments in kenya? frequency of visits to kenya yes no yes no yes no once every ≥2 years ≤1 year have intention to return yes 86.0 14.0 66.7 33.3 48.5 51.5 45.0 55.0 no 68.4 31.6 23.5 76.5 5.9 94.1 84.5 15.4 total n 130 25 92 57 64 83 61 63 χ2 = 3.821 χ2 = 11.865 χ2 = 11.088 χ2 = 7.290 jane njeri mwangi and alex boakye asiedu 1061 p = 0.087 df = 1 p = 0.001* df = 1 p = 0.001* df = 1 p = 0.007* df = 1 a positive association was, however, observed between a migrant’s frequency of return visits and the intention to return permanently (χ2 = 7.290, p = 0.007). about half (55%) of those who intended to return to kenya visited kenya at least once a year, whereas only 15% of those who did not intend to return visited kenya at least once a year. there was also a significant association between a migrant’s intention to return to kenya permanently and having business ventures in kenya (χ2 = 11.865, p = 0.001). examples of the business ventures mentioned by the respondents included shop ownership, livestock farming and running a restaurant, among others. more than half (67%) of migrants who had the intention of returning to kenya had business ventures in kenya, compared to 24% of those who did not intend to return. a significant association was also observed between a migrant’s intention to return permanently and the decision to invest in financial instruments in kenya (χ2 = 11.088, p = 0.001). almost half (49%) of those who intended to return to kenya permanently had invested in financial instruments in kenya while only 6% of those who did not intend to return permanently invested in these financial instruments. these findings were confirmed by in-depth interviews, where migrants said investing at home was part of their preparations for their eventual return. joyce, a migrant in the usa, remarked that: “most of us want to return home in the future, that is why we want to invest there.” the outcome variables that showed significant association (having business ventures, investing in financial instruments and frequency of return visits) were further tested using logistic regressions in an attempt to determine the level of influence between these variables and migrants’ intentions to return (independent variable). the confidence level for all these analyses was at the 95% level. as can be inferred from table 9, migrants’ intention to return was a significant predictor of whether or not they would have businesses in kenya. the positive regression coefficients showed that migrants’ intentions to return increased the likelihood that they would invest in business ventures in kenya. clearly, migrants who had intentions of returning to kenya, compared to their counterparts who did not intend to return, were five times as likely to invest in business ventures in kenya. intention to return also significantly influenced the decision to invest in financial instruments in kenya. the positive regression coefficients obtained “i am going home”: how kenyan migrants’ intentions to return home affect their transnational engagements 1062 demonstrate that there was a positive relationship between the intention to return and the decision to invest in financial instruments. in other words, the intention to return to kenya increased the likelihood that a kenyan migrant would invest in financial instruments in kenya. the results also showed that migrants who had the intention to return to kenya were ten times as likely to invest in financial instruments in kenya as compared to their counterparts who did not intend to do so. similarly, migrants’ frequency of return visits to kenya was significantly affected by their intention to return home. the odd ratios showed that migrants who had the intention to return were about six times as likely to visit kenya at least once a year as compared to their counterparts who did not have the intention to return to kenya. results of multivariate analysis multivariate logistic regression analyses were also conducted to find out the impact of intention to return on remittance transfers, investments and return visits, while controlling for gender, marital and employment status, level of education, having a bank account in kenya, annual income, and having dependents in the country of destination (see table 10). table 9 presents estimated odds ratios (ors) of independent variables versus remittances. migrants who had the intention of returning to kenya were 2.9 times as likely to send remittances to kenya as compared to those who did not intend to return. among the control variables, marital status (or =16.18; ci = 1.27 206.1; p = 0.03) had a significant association with remittance transfers at p < 0.05 while having a bank account in kenya (or = 6.34; ci = 0.8746.06; p = 0.07) had a significant association with remittance transfers at p < 0.1. the odd ratios show that married people were 16 times as likely to send remittances to kenya compared to their unmarried counterparts. migrants with bank accounts in kenya were six times as likely to send remittances as those who did not have accounts in kenya. table 9: estimated odds ratios (ors) of independent variables versus remittances variables remittances or (95% ci2) gender (female1) 1 male 0.83 (0.12 5.59) marital status (unmarried1) 1 jane njeri mwangi and alex boakye asiedu 1063 married 16.18** (1.27 206.1) employment status (not employed1) 1 employed 1.66 (0.07 38.42) student 0.40 (0.01 31.15) level of education (high/tech/pry sch1) 1 bachelor 1.43 (0.10 19.87) masters & phd 1.07 (0.05 23.13) bank account in kenya (no account1) 1 with account 6.34* (0.87 46.06) annual income (less than $15,0001) 1 $15,000-29,000 0.03 (0.00 2.09) $30,000 and above 0.314 (0.01 12.86) dependants at destination or current place of abode (no dependants1) 1 with dependants 0.41 (0.05 3.17) intention to return (no intention1) 1 intend to return 2.91 (0.38 22.49) constant 2.42 source: computed from fieldwork data, 2013 *** p < 0.01; ** p < 0.05; *p < 0.1 1base category 2ci – confidence interval table 10 shows estimated odds ratios (ors) of independent variables versus investment. intentions to return (or = 4.64; ci =0.79 27.19; p = 0.089) showed a significant association with investing in kenya at p < 0.1. migrants who intended to return to kenya were 4.6 times as likely to invest in kenya as those who did not intend to return. apart from intentions to return, other factors that had significant associations with migrants’ investments are gender (or = 4.28; ci = 1.25 14.71); p = 0.02), having a bank account in kenya (or = 9.73; ci = 2.64 -35.86; p = 0.001), and having dependents in the countries of abode or destination countries (or = 4.67; ci =0.95 -22.89; p = 0.06). men were 4.3 times more likely to invest in kenya than women. similarly, migrants with bank accounts in kenya were almost 110 times as likely to invest in kenya as those who did not have accounts in kenya, while migrants with dependents in the destination country were 4.6 times more likely to invest in kenya than those with no dependents in kenya. “i am going home”: how kenyan migrants’ intentions to return home affect their transnational engagements 1064 table 10: estimated odds ratios (ors) of independent variables versus investment variables investment or (95% ci2) gender (female1) 1 male 4.28** (1.25 14.71) marital status (unmarried1) 1 married 0.54 (0.11 2.71) employment status (not employed1) 1 employed 0.87 (0.09 8.69) student 0.65 (0.02 19.34) level of education (high/tech/pry sch1) 1 bachelor 1.26 (0.25 6.39) masters & phd 1.17(0.19-7.15) bank account in kenya (no account1) 1 with account 9.73*** (2.64 35.86) annual income (less than $15,0001) 1 $15,000-29,000 1.81 (0.08 41.01) $30,000 and above 1.15 (0.11 11.8) dependants at destination (no dependants1) 1 with dependants 4.67* (0.95 22.89) intention to return (no intention1) 1 intend to return 4.64* (0.79 27.19) constant 0.034 source: computed from fieldwork data, 2013 *** p < 0.01; ** p < 0.05; *p < 0.1 1base category, 2ci – confidence interval the estimated odds ratios (ors) of independent variables versus return visits are shown in table 11. both the predictor and the control variables did not have any significant association with migrants’ return visits. however, the odd ratios showed that migrants who had the intention of returning to kenya were 2.6 times more likely to visit kenya than those who did not intend to return. migrants who were employed were 5 times more likely to visit kenya than those with no jobs, while those with postgraduate degrees were 3.4 times more likely to visit kenya than those with no degrees. migrants with dependants in their current country of domicile or destination were 2.6 times more likely to visit kenya than those with no dependants. jane njeri mwangi and alex boakye asiedu 1065 table 11: estimated odds ratios (ors) of independent variables versus return visits variables return visits or (95% ci2) gender (female1) 1 male 0.52 (0.13 2.09) marital status (unmarried1) 1 married 0.62 (0.12 3.34) employment status (not employed1) 1 employed 5.15 (0.62 42.50) student 0.70 (0.03 16.92) level of education (high/tech/pry sch1) 1 bachelor 0.95 (0.16 5.52) masters & phd 3.40 (0.40 28.78) bank account in kenya (no account1) 1 with account 1.67 (0.43 6.55) annual income (less than $15,0001) 1 $15,000-29,000 0.28 (0.01 6.06) $30,000 and above 0.89 (0.06 13.05) dependants at destination (no dependents1) 1 with dependants 2.60 (0.47 14.35) intention to return (no intention1) 1 intend to return 2.57 (0.44 14.92) constant 0.41 source: computed from fieldwork data, 2013 *** p < 0.01; ** p < 0.05; *p < 0.1 1base category, 2ci – confidence interval discussion most of the respondents had met their migration objectives and were now contemplating return. this finding is in line with return migration literature that suggests that most migrations are temporary and many migrants intend to go back home after they achieve their targets for migration (adda et al., 2006; carling et al., 2015). according to nelm theory, migrants’ aspirations for return are a rational consequence of migrants’ pre-migration plan to return once their migration goals are met (cassarino, 2011; king, 2012). in terms of the intended time of return, most respondents hoped to return before retirement. this means that they were likely to return in their productive years and contribute to development in kenya. since most of them had migrated for better employment, livelihood and education opportunities, they “i am going home”: how kenyan migrants’ intentions to return home affect their transnational engagements 1066 were likely to return with useful skills and experiences that could benefit the home economy. according to kuschminder (2013), migrants acquire resources like networks, skills and finances in the course of their stay abroad, which they can transfer to their countries of origin in preparation for return and/or when they finally return. entrepreneurship and health are the most preferred sectors in which the respondents choose to work when they return. these sectors therefore stand to benefit most from the human, financial and social capital investments of the migrants should they return. migrants are seen as a unique human resource that can be harnessed productively for national development (usaid knowledge services center (ksc), 2008). although almost all of the respondents in this study intended to return to kenya before retirement, they were not certain about the actual time of return. this is consistent with the work of aslam (2015), which shows that many migrants with intentions of returning to their origin are usually uncertain about the actual time of return. however, aspects of the findings revealed that the intentions to return did not necessarily result in actual return. carling and pettersen (2014) explain that although voluntary return typically happens among people with the intention to return, it is not all migrants who have the intention to return who actually return. there were some migrants who had no intentions of returning to kenya. they mentioned difficulty in finding well-paying employment, insecurity, corruption, citizenship issues and reintegration uncertainties, as obstacles to their return. the mention of citizenship issues among the obstacles for return was surprising since kenya’s 2010 constitution allows dual citizenship (government of kenya, 2010). kenya’s diaspora policy also re-emphasises the right to dual citizenship for all kenyan citizens living abroad (government of kenya, 2014). nonetheless, many of the respondents in the study did not have sufficient information about the process of applying for dual citizenship. the study revealed that the respondents’ intentions to return had an influence on their involvement in remittance transfers, investments and frequency of return visits to kenya. these findings are in line with the transnational perspective on return migration that theorises that migrants maintain links with their homeland in preparation for a smooth reintegration when they return through regular return visits and frequent remittance transfers (cassarino, 2004). jane njeri mwangi and alex boakye asiedu 1067 apart from supporting families back home, increased remittance transfers by migrants with aspirations for return are seen as a form of savings in preparation for return (merkle & zimmermann, 1992). findings from this study showed a positive association between migrants’ intentions to return and remittance transfers. odd ratios showed that migrants who intended to return were three times more likely to remit than those who had no intentions of returning. these findings confirm thomas-hope’s study on return migration to jamaica, which showed that remittances of goods and money preceded, accompanied and followed actual return of migrants (thomashope, 1999). the findings also corroborate other return migration literature which says that migrants usually send more remittances to their country of origin in preparation for their return (adepoju, 2010; aslam, 2015). at the macro level, remittances have a multiplier effect on the economy, such as improving a country’s balance of payments (merkle & zimmermann, 1992). return migration literature suggests that migrants’ intentions to return act as a motivating factor for accumulation of investments back home and is used as an insurance for future reintegration upon return (aslam, 2015; cassarino, 2004, 2008). as adepoju (2010) explains, migrants who intend to return invest more in their countries of origin to enable them to reintegrate smoothly when they eventually return. migrants’ investments foster economic development by creating new jobs and wealth, and promoting trade and investment in countries of origin (saxenian, 2002). this study reveals a positive relationship between migrants’ intentions to return and their investing in kenya. migrants who had the intentions of returning to kenya were close to five times more likely to invest in kenya as those who did not intend to return. this study shows that migrants with intentions to return were about three times more likely to visit kenya than those who did not intend to return. this confirms other return migration literature, which shows that migrants who intend to return to their countries of origin usually return provisionally before the final return, in order to explore opportunities at home and also to accumulate first-hand information for their return (carling et al., 2015; kuschminder, 2013; long & oxfeld, 2004). a study of ethiopian migrants by kuschminder (2013) shows how ethiopian migrants engaged in temporary return visits in preparation for return as a means of exploring work opportunities at home. the visits help the migrants to overcome fears and hesitations about return, by allowing them the chance to gather information “i am going home”: how kenyan migrants’ intentions to return home affect their transnational engagements 1068 about post-return conditions. it also gives the migrants an opportunity to decide whether or not they are ready for a permanent return (world bank, 2011). conclusion and recommendation migrants’ intention to return to their countries of origin is crucial in shaping how they maintain ties with these countries. migrants who intend to return home usually accumulate and mobilise capital in order to ensure a smooth reintegration into their countries of origin. whether intentions to return result in actual return or not, they lead to increased transnational activities such as investing and making return visits to the countries of origin. migrants typically try to mobilise financial, human and social capital in readiness for their return. the ability of returnees to mobilise tangible and intangible resources before, during and after their return, provides the link between return migration and development in the countries of origin. this means that return migrants’ contribution towards development in their countries of origin starts long before their actual return. the return migration process (including the transfer of resources before, during and after the actual return) is usually instigated by migrants’ intentions to return. efforts and policies geared towards maximisation of the benefits of return migration should therefore pay attention to migrants’ intentions to return and the preparation process. one way of doing this is through the dissemination of viral, regular and vital information about significant livelihood issues such as existing employment avenues and investment opportunities, as well as security 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(ed.). 2013. return migration in later life: international perspectives. great britain: policy press. “i am going home”: how kenyan migrants’ intentions to return home affect their transnational engagements 1072 ratha, d., mohapatra, s., özden, ç., plaza, s. and shaw, w. 2011. leveraging migration for africa: remittances, skills, and investments. washington dc: world bank publications. ravenstein, e.g. 1889. the laws of migration. journal of the royal statistical society, 52(2): 241–305. saxenian, a. 2002. brain circulation. how high-skill immigration makes everyone better off. brookings review, 20(1): 28–31. thomas-hope, e. 1999. return migration to jamaica and its development potential. international migration, 37(1): 183–207. usaid knowledge services center (ksc). 2008. diaspora-development nexus: the role of ict. from < http://bit.ly/2sycmij > [retrieved 25 december 2017]. world bank. 2011. migration and remittances factbook 2011. 2nd edition. washington dc: world bank. zwania-rößler, i. and vanya, i. 2013. welcome home? challenges and chances of return migration. the german marshall fund of the united states, policy paper. 178 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 changing diets, varying food consumption patterns, and food security among recent zimbabwean migrants in windhoek, namibia godfrey tawodzera 1 received 26 november 2024 / accepted 10 december 2024 / published 10 january 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i3.2554 abstract in zimbabwe, decades of economic and political challenges have generated significant out-migration to neighboring countries including namibia, perceived by many zimbabweans as being more politically and economically stable than their home country. while numerous studies have documented these movements, few have interrogated the food security of migrants in host countries, where they are likely to face food security challenges. this study thus sought to investigate the changing dietary and food consumption patterns of recent zimbabwean migrants in namibia and the impact on household food security. the researcher collected data from 35 zimbabwean migrant households in windhoek through in-depth interviews. study results show that deteriorating economic conditions and food insecurity were the major drivers of migration from zimbabwe. the pre-migration diet of most migrants was mixed, consisting of both traditional and westernized foods. the major food security challenges were: non-availability of foods that migrants consumed while still in zimbabwe; poor quality of some substitute foods; increased food expenses through importing foods from the home country; and shortage of time to prepare some foods. while most migrant households reported improved household food security compared to the pre-migration period, numerous food challenges remained. many worried that the changing diet and the consequent increase in the consumption of over-processed foods could have negative health outcomes, hence impacting on their food security as well. keywords: migration, poverty, food security, dietary changes, food consumption patterns 1 institute for development studies, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa.  gtawodzera@uwc.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0367-453x 179 introduction international migration is a global phenomenon. in 2023, approximately 184 million people were living outside their country of nationality globally (world bank, 2023). while migration happens in all parts of the world, much of the international migration literature disproportionately focuses on the movement of people from the global south to the global north (freier and holloway, 2019). however, as leal and harder (2021) point out, close to a third of global international migration occurs between countries in the global south. in africa, people move between countries due to socio-economic disparities, political conflicts, governance issues, and environmental challenges (fofack and akendung, 2024). in zimbabwe, largescale out-migrations have been fueled by deteriorating economic conditions arising out of political disagreements in successive elections post-2000. for a brief period, from 2009 to 2013, the inauguration of a government of national unity (gnu) temporarily stabilized the economy and bought the country a period of relative political stability, slowing down emigration from the country. however, that relative stability did not last, as subsequent elections were heavily disputed. a coup d’état in 2017 also engendered political and economic uncertainty and increased emigration. while many zimbabwean migrants settled in south africa (crush et al., 2012), some moved to other countries within the region and even to europe and north america. many also settled in namibia, being drawn there by the country’s relative political stability and economic viability (kiwanuka and monson, 2009). the migration flows from zimbabwe have been mixed in that they consist of refugees, asylum seekers, as well as migrants of different ages, genders, and other dynamics, such as people emigrating in response to governance and economic issues (crisp and kiragu, 2010; crush et al., 2012). zimbabweans of different socioeconomic backgrounds are forced to migrate in search of better livelihoods. arriving in a foreign country like namibia without jobs and other means of stable livelihoods, most of the migrants are vulnerable to poverty, homelessness, hunger, and food insecurity. questions of food security in the migration discourse thus become important. the centrality of food security in the migration discourse is a result of the fact that international migration and food security are intimately linked (actionaid, 2017). on the one hand, food insecurity can be viewed as a trigger for migration where household members migrate as a coping strategy (crush and caesar, 2017; carney and krause, 2020). on the other hand, food insecurity may be a result of migration (icmpd, 2022) where migrants may be disproportionately affected by food insecurity as the result of their migrant status. there is also a proliferation of literature that deals with the impact of migration on the food security of households in the migrants’ areas of origin (crush and tawodzera, 2023). this literature largely lauds the positive role of remittances in shoring up household food security. what is lacking, however, are studies that interrogate the food security of migrants in their host countries, particularly in the global south, where south-south international migrations receive less attention. the few studies in this regard are only changing diets, food consumption, and food security among zimbabwean migrants in namibia 180 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 of an exploratory nature. in a study carried out in south africa, crush and tawodzera (2016) indicate the vulnerability of zimbabwean migrants to food insecurity due to precarious employment and low incomes. more recently, ramachandran et al. (2024) examined the food security of female zimbabwean migrant households in south africa during the covid-19 pandemic and found the majority of these households living with food security precarity that was worsened by the pandemic. in the same vein, orolunrana and odii (2024) found that migrants’ food security was affected by low earnings, xenophobia, and reduced access to their preferred foods. they note that more studies are needed to capture migrants’ experiences regarding food insecurity. this is particularly important, given the observations by osei-kwasi et al. (2022) that migrants largely live in environments where the foods they were accustomed to consuming back home are not easily accessible or available, forcing them to shift to other less-suitable substitutes. achieving zero hunger, as envisaged in the united nations (un) sustainable development goal (sdg) 2, therefore requires an in-depth understanding of dietary changes of vulnerable migrants. given the above context and the identified knowledge gaps, the study sought to investigate the modifications to dietary and food-consumption patterns of recent zimbabwean migrants in windhoek, namibia and the impacts of these changes on their household food security. the research had three main objectives: (a) to establish the common foods consumed by the migrants prior to leaving their country; (b) to ascertain the current diets and consumption patterns and determine the causes for the changes; and (c) to assess the impact of the changing diets and consumption patterns on the food security status of the urban migrant households. the next section discusses the theoretical framework underpinning the study. theoretical approach unlike south-south migrations, there are many studies on south-north migrations and food security. ahmed et al. (2023), for example, carried out a scoping review on articles on the food security of international migrants during the covid-19 pandemic years (2020–2022). of the 46 papers reviewed, only six where about africa, while the majority were about south-north migrations in the united states of america (usa) and canada, focusing on migrants from asia, africa, and latin america. this highlights the predominant focus of international migration and food security studies on south-north movements. in the global north, many of the studies on international migration and food security have been carried out within the healthy-immigrant framework. this framework can be traced to the work of markides and coreil (1986) who noted that mexican immigrants in the usa exhibited better health outcomes than african americans. they concluded that there was a foreign-born advantage, wherein immigrants arrive with certain advantages that local poor populations may not have. other studies focusing on low-income mexican migrants in the usa have also reported the presence of this healthy immigrant (markides and eschbach, 2005), 181 also indicating better health outcomes among the non-native-born arrivals. these advantages are largely attributed to the selective nature of migration where healthier and better-resourced migrants are motivated to move than less-healthy and poorly resourced ones (taylor et al., 1999; singh and siahpush, 2001). hence, during the initial period of arrival, migrants exhibit better health and food security outcomes than the low-income local population, owing to their background factors. such advantages, however, are predicted to decline with time, such that the health and food security outcomes of the migrants would eventually mirror those of the local population (teitler et al., 2017). but why would the health and food security outcomes of the migrants ultimately decline? first, the decline may occur due to acculturation (vu et al., 2020). as immigrants adapt to their new environment, they often adopt new dietary practices, leading to a nutrition transition from traditional diets to highly processed foods, potentially decreasing their health and food security outcomes (vu et al., 2020). second, dietary changes may also occur due to the inability of migrants to access foods that are culturally appropriate (carney and krause, 2020). third, the food environment in the host country may be fundamentally different to that of the immigrants’ country of origin, affecting the availability of healthy foods (osei-kwasi et al., 2022). this is important, as immigrants may settle in areas considered food deserts or food swamps (berggreen-clausen, 2022). fourth, immigrants may face economic integration challenges, including unemployment and low-income levels and this will limit their access to healthy foods, consequently impacting negatively on their food security (aguilera and massey, 2003). fifth, immigrants may lack social support and networks that are critical to providing information and resources necessary to maintaining food security (karnik and peterson, 2023). migrants will therefore likely face health and food security challenges the longer they stay in their host country. several authors have questioned the validity of the healthy-immigrant paradox hypothesis. john et al. (2012) argue that the empirical testing of hypothesis rarely yields consistent results. hadley et al. (2007) studied the food security of west african refugees in the usa and found that refugees who had been in that country for less than one year were twice more likely to be food insecure than those that had been in the country for at least three years. the conclusion that one can draw from such studies seem to be that a longer duration in the host country tends to protect against food insecurity, in opposition to the premise of the healthy-immigrant paradox hypothesis. in a scoping review of lowand middle-income country immigrants in high-income countries, berggreen-clausen (2022) suggests that newly arriving immigrants are likely to display worse outcomes because of challenges they face in accessing fresh foods, traditional foods, and healthier foods as well as other challenges related to low incomes and lack of social support structures. while there is much discourse on south-north migration and food security, very little is known about south-south migrations and the food security of recent changing diets, food consumption, and food security among zimbabwean migrants in namibia 182 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 migrants in their host countries. not much is known regarding how migrants adapt to the changing food environments, how they access food, the challenges they face, and changes they have to make to adapt to a new environment. the need for a study that explores the changing dietary and food consumption patterns of recent migrants and the impacts of these changes on household food security is therefore self-evident. research methodology this section details the methods used to collect data from zimbabwean migrants in windhoek, namibia to fulfill the study objectives. the researcher collected data for the study over a two-week period in november and december 2022. the study areas: havana, soweto, one-nation, and okuryangava the study was carried out in the greater katutura area, a low-income residential area in the city of windhoek. katutura incorporates some of the largest informal settlements in the city. the fact that katutura is a low-income residential area means that it attracts newly arriving migrants, the majority of whom generally have little financial resources on arrival. the choice of katutura as the study area was therefore strategic, as it made it comparatively easier for researchers to locate study participants there than would have been the case in other parts of the city. sampling zimbabweans are in namibia as a result of economic, social, and political reasons. the majority of zimbabweans in namibia self-settle among the namibian population. identifying these migrants is therefore difficult. to locate zimbabwean migrants in windhoek, the study focused on katutura, a low-income area where the majority of the migrants were residing. we randomly chose okuryangava as a starting point and established contact with two zimbabwean migrants who were engaged in the informal trade business in the area. these became our first starting points for the study. having interviewed these participants, we then asked them to refer us to other zimbabweans in the area. these subsequent respondents were in turn asked to refer the next respondents in a snowball sampling process. this process was repeated until a sufficient sample was identified and interviewed in an area. we then moved to the next area where the process was repeated until the survey was completed in the four selected areas. the snowball sampling process provided both an efficient and cost-effective method of locating participants, allowing participants to use their local knowledge and networks to identify other participants. the drawback, however, is that as a nonprobability sampling strategy, it is impossible to determine the possible sampling error (sharma, 2017). hence, the results of this study may not be taken as being representative of the experiences of all the zimbabwean migrants in windhoek. the 183 results, however, provide an in-depth understanding of the food-related behaviors, needs, and experiences of the migrants, information critical to informing policy. sample size the researcher conducted 35 in-depth interviews with recent zimbabwean migrants in katutura who had arrived in namibia from 2018 onwards. the rationale for focusing largely on recent migrants was because we envisaged that recent migrants would be generally exposed to shock in terms of dietary changes and also face difficulties in accessing employment and other challenges that had a negative impact on food security. because katutura consists of different sub-areas, the study sampled from these areas captured any diversity that may result from them living in these different sub-areas. thus, the participants came from the following areas: okuryangava (10); havana (10); soweto (10); and one-nation (5). the research team interviewed 16 males and 19 female participants as informants from the 35 households. the ages of the participants ranged from 22 to 56 years and their household sizes varied from single-person to four-person households. the occupations of the participants were as follows: traders/vendors (9); unemployed (5); domestic workers/chars (4); taxi drivers (2); agricultural workers (2); shop assistants (2); general construction workers (2); hairdressers (2); bookkeeper (1); self-employed electrician (1); teacher (1); barber (1); self-employed plumber (1); general hand (1); and mechanic (1). the participants were relatively educated, with only two having completed a grade 7 qualification only. the remainder had attained the following educational status: ordinary level (24); advanced level (4); post-highschool diploma (2); and undergraduate degrees (2). data collection the research team collected data from the identified households using an in-depth interview guide. at each household, a respondent, knowledgeable about household food consumption, was selected by the household to be the informant. where households were hesitant to do the selection themselves, the researchers randomly selected a respondent through the aid of a dice. each interview took between 40 to 60 minutes and researchers took notes and recorded the interviews with the consent of the respondents. data analysis the research team analyzed the qualitative data gathered from the respondents thematically. this involved identifying themes and patterns in the data to tell a coherent story. the first step in the data analysis involved listening to the recorded interviews to familiarize themselves with the collected data. the researchers then transcribed the interviews, which was followed by the data coding to generate main themes. continuous engagement with the data resulted in sub-themes being added. changing diets, food consumption, and food security among zimbabwean migrants in namibia 184 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 the write-up process then followed, which entailed a simultaneous engagement with the data, linking the various themes and sub-themes in the analysis. researchers used direct quotes from the participants to allow for the voices of the participants to be heard, as well as lend authenticity to the households’ food security experiences. study results this section presents and discusses the results of the study. while the study specifically focused on the dietary and consumption changes and the impact on household food security, it is deemed prudent to provide brief migration histories of households, as the migration histories lay the groundwork for understanding much of the dietary and food security experiences of the households in their host countries. migration histories at the heart of most of the migrations to namibia were the challenging economic and political situations in zimbabwe that made it difficult for households to construct livelihoods. one participant, a 25-year-old male who migrated in 2019, gave a concise description of the situation in zimbabwe before he left the country: i left the country because of the economy. i graduated from university with a finance degree and never worked in a formal job for even a single day in the country. imagine graduating and celebrating and everyone is looking at you with hope. they are looking forward to you helping in the family. then you start applying and you do not get a response – not even one. you are okay and have hope for a month; then it turns into many months and a year. midway through the second year after university, i decided to leave. so, i came here to try my luck. (participant 12, 27 november 2022, havana, windhoek). while zimbabwe has a good education system (garwe and todhlana, 2023) and churns out thousands of graduates every year, employment opportunities are very limited. many of the graduates find it difficult to penetrate the shrinking job market (jengeta, 2020). the majority either remain unemployed or get engaged in selfemployment (jengeta, 2020). a 32-year-old female participant who left the country in 2018 confirmed this by saying: i never thought i would leave zimbabwe. i always wanted to stay in the country. i tried to make it work in zimbabwe, but i failed. i am an electrician. i really never got stable employment. it was a series of short-term jobs and long periods of unemployment. i had no choice, but to leave. it was either i left, or we would struggle all the time or even starve. you cannot borrow all the time … at times, there is even no-one to borrow from. (participant 16, 29 november 2022, havana, windhoek). 185 other people moved out of the country because of the declining economic conditions, despite having been in employment. according to madebwe and madebwe (2017), the economic conditions of zimbabwe continued to deteriorate after 2000 following the fast-track land reform program. the high inflation rate, sky-rocketing food prices, and other escalating costs pushed even working households into extreme poverty (mlatsheni and zvendiya, 2023). as one participant pointed out, the economic conditions worsened to a point where it ceased to make sense to go to work: in all honesty, i never dreamed that i would be here in a foreign country trying to make a living. i am 53 years old, and i should be at home with my family and grandchildren. but i am here. from 2003 or so, things were getting tough. but the years 2007 and 2008 were very tough. the salary was just a salary in name. it did not buy anything. after the elections of 2008 i left the country. i never resigned but just left and went to botswana. it did not work out well there, so i came here. (participant 34, 06 december 2022, one-nation, windhoek). as the above participant shows, it is difficult to separate economic triggers of migration from the political ones, because in zimbabwe’s case, the two are closely linked. the political climate in the country had a severe impact on the economy, which in turn affected people’s buying power. in other cases, people migrated as a result of political persecution or fear of being persecuted in the future. ranga (2015), for example, documents the migration of teachers from the country because of political persecution and violence. however, the participant who reported running away from political persecution in this study also indicated that the political system may have been manipulated by his enemies to target him: i was not into politics, but things did not work out well for me. i resigned from my work in 2012 and got a retrenchment package. i used the money to build my home in the village. but some people started a rumor that i got the money from opposition people and trouble started. so, before the elections in 2013, i left. i did not want to be a victim because a lot of people were being harassed, and i was targeted. (participant 24, 03 december 2022, soweto, windhoek). while this participant migrated out of fear of political persecution, his experience also raises another angle, that of the intertwining of political and social issues, which result in the migration of those at risk of being persecuted. in a study of the experiences of zimbabwean migrants in limpopo, south africa, mupondi and mupakati (2018) also allude to this phenomenon, where only a few migrants from the country predicated their movement on political persecution, despite the increase in secondary data ascribing much movement from the country due to the rise in political intolerance and violence. they argue that this anomaly may be a result of the fact that periods of extreme political violence in zimbabwe coincided with periods changing diets, food consumption, and food security among zimbabwean migrants in namibia 186 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 of acute economic challenges, to the extent that most participants see their economic challenges as taking precedence over political ones in determining their movement (mupondi and mupakati, 2018). the economic conditions in zimbabwe during the past two decades or so have affected livelihoods negatively, with many households struggling to acquire sufficient food. thus, some participants pinpointed food challenges as central to their migration. a 30-year-old female hairdresser underscored the role of food shortages as a driver for her migration to namibia: as a single mother, i struggled to look after myself and my two children. we could not afford enough food. i was always crying and asking the lord what would happen to us. i could not take it anymore in zimbabwe. a friend who came here a few years ago, invited me to come [to namibia]. i stayed with her when i arrived in 2020, and she treated me well. now i am living on my own and working for my children. (participant 27, 04 december 2022, soweto, windhoek). in their study exploring youth migration and the food security nexus among zimbabwean youths in cape town, sithole and dinbabo (2016) report similar findings, pointing out that some of the youth migration to south africa had been triggered by food insecurity. while the study reveals a variety of motivations for the participants’ movement to namibia, one theme is common: the need to search for better livelihoods and improve the well-being of their households. it is also true that for many of the participants, a number of triggers worked simultaneously, albeit with varied gravity, to compel them to migrate. but food is a central theme that runs through most of the interviews with the study participants. common foods consumed and consumption patterns prior to migration in zimbabwe, the foods that are consumed range from traditional (or cultural) foods to westernized (or modern) diets. rocillo-aquino et al. (2021: 8) define traditional foods as those foods “that have been handed down from one generation to the next in terms of knowledge, techniques or practices used in their preparation or in the choice and use of the raw material, which is generally local, as well as the culture that produces it.” muyonga et al. (2017) opine that the traditional african diet generally comprises small grains, such as millet and sorghum, starchy stems, root tubers, wild fruits, fish, game meat, and other plant-based derivatives. modern or westernized diets, on the other hand, typically consist of highly processed energy-dense foods (baker et al., 2020). in zimbabwe, it is not possible to speak of households consuming a typical traditional diet because of the nutrition transition, which has seen the increase in the consumption of wheat, rice, and other exotic foods (chopera et al., 2022). most of the dishes are thus a blend of traditional and western-influenced dishes. 187 the interviews with participants showed a wide array of foods consumed by the immigrants prior to their movement. the majority pointed out the consumption of the country’s traditional dishes consisting of pap (sadza) with different relish dishes. the following interview extracts are illustrative of the main foods consumed prior to emigration: i grew up eating sadza; and so, our main dish consisted of that meal. we would generally have beef or chicken as relish. pork meat is not my favorite, so we rarely had a dish with pork. i love vegetables a lot, so i would always have covo, rape or rugare with my sadza. but not cabbage, it is not my favorite. (participant 32, 05 december 2022, one-nation, windhoek). breakfast was usually tea with bread or traditionally made bread (chimodho). in the rainy season, we could make bread from green mealies or just substitute green mealies for bread. if it was after the rain season, we could eat a lot of mbambaira (sweet potatoes) during breakfast as well. during the day we could nibble on anything that would be available, even left-overs from yesterday. in the evening, it was mostly sadza. but my dad likes traditional brown rice; and so, we could have rice instead of sadza. sometimes a cup of tea before we went to sleep, but only when things were fine. we also had maputi (popcorn) anytime we wanted, as we had a lot of maize and groundnuts. (participant 22, 02 december 2022, havana, windhoek). the above narratives indicate beyond doubt the fusion of tradition and modern foods. the foods that participants residing in urban areas in zimbabwe reported consuming mirrored more modern diets: more processed foods, rice, bread, and fizzy drinks. in contrast, those participants from rural areas generally reported the consumption of more traditional foods: we ate many things back there. there were pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and yams for breakfast. we grew a lot of these foods in the village. then there is a big avocado tree at home and when [it was] in season, we had these avocadoes. then we had bananas, especially the small, sweet bananas. we would eat these throughout the day whenever we felt like we wanted to. we kept chickens, goats, and turkeys. meat was not a problem, but we also grew many varieties of vegetables. i ate healthily those days, unlike what i am doing now. (participant 26, 03 december 2022, soweto, windhoek). some study participants also indicated that they would consume traditional drinks and foods like samp, mahewu (non-alcoholic beer), rupiza (grounded peas), hohwa (wild mushroom), ishwa (winged termites), and chimodho (traditional bread). these changing diets, food consumption, and food security among zimbabwean migrants in namibia 188 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 foods are popular in different parts of the country and not necessarily universal across the zimbabwean society. a participant had this to say: i ate a lot of samp in zimbabwe. in my home area, we mix the crushed maize with groundnuts or beans. this is the food i liked most that we could eat anytime we wanted. there were no restrictions like with other foods, because there is plenty of it. the groundnuts were big and tasty and not the gmos [genetically modified organisms] that we are eating now. we also ate rupiza, which was made from peas. (participant 26, 03 december 2022, soweto, windhoek). one of the participants indicated that there were foods that they consumed specifically in certain seasons. these included derere (okra), mufushwa (dried vegetables), matemba (dried kapenta), and manyanya (a tuber). the first two are vegetables that are dried during the rainy season and are stored for consumption during times of need in the dry season. the third is a tuber that households dig up to supplement their relish during times of need. when prepared well, this tuber is known for having a flavor or taste that approximates meat. the participants said: we ate mufushwa, especially during the dry season when there was little water for watering the gardens. during the rainy season, we would dry most vegetables, even cabbages, in preparation for the dry season. we could also dry derere and consume it in times when relish would be a challenge. (participant 29, 04 december, one-nation, windhoek). in my home area we eat manyanya. they are very tasty if you prepare them well. i grew up eating them. we also ate hohwa a lot. you know, mushroom grows in the bush; it just grows there, and we would pick it up and cook. if we got plenty, we could dry it and store [the rest] for later. (participant 14, 28 november 2022, havana, windhoek). there were special foods that participants pointed out as foods in their diet that were consumed on special occasions. shipman and durmus (2017) maintain that although food is considered an intake of nourishment to survive, it also embodies a people’s social and cultural meanings. some participants indicated that there are foods that are prepared mostly on occasions such as weddings, holidays, and cultural gatherings or for visitors. one participant indicated that if a visitor came to their place, they would make it a point to slaughter a chicken: it is customary in my culture to slaughter a chicken for a visitor. it does not matter that the visitor is rich and can buy their own chicken. when they visit, 189 we show them our appreciation of their visit by killing a chicken. (participant 31, 05 december 2022, one-nation, windhoek). sometimes a special occasion demands that an abundance food be prepared. on occasions such as weddings, households go out of their way to prepare many of the foods that they rarely prepare on a daily basis. this includes preparing salads and meals with many courses. on graduations and birthdays, food is prepared with extravagance, and this is the same at cultural gatherings. current diets and consumption patterns of migrant households there are many studies that have been carried out in the global north that show that migrants tend to adopt the foods and food habits of the countries that they settle in after immigration (vu et al., 2020). this may be influenced primarily by the fact that migrants may find it challenging to access the food that they were used to consuming before migration. researchers asked zimbabwean migrants in windhoek to indicate the foods that they were consuming after migration. the majority indicated a predominance of highly processed foods, mirroring a diet more westernized than before their migration. they identified the following foods: in the morning, i usually eat cereals. i like cornflakes, though i can also have weetbix. i can eat these for breakfast every morning, unless i run out of milk. i eat my lunch at work – a bunny-chow or a burger. there is a tuck-shop close to my workplace where i buy [the food]. if i have money, i buy a coca cola; otherwise, i bring my own diluted juice from home. for supper, i eat rice or spaghetti, but my husband likes sadza; so, most days i have to cook sadza too. (participant 8, 25 november 2022, okuryangava, windhoek). we have tea in the morning. it is usually bread and butter. if we can afford, we may have eggs as well or sausage. in fact, it’s usually sausage [rather] than eggs, as eggs are very expensive. since the bird flu a few months ago, the eggs are very expensive. i sometimes buy chips at work. there is no time to cook; so, i buy [food] from a fish and chips [shop] close by. when i come back home, it depends on whether i am tired or not. if i am tired, i bring chips and fish, and that will be our dinner. if i am not tired, we can cook something, maybe rice or sadza. (participant 22, 02 december 2022, soweto, windhoek). most of the foods that the above participants indicated consuming are highly processed. a common thread is that they buy their lunch at work, usually due to inadequate time to prepare meals, since they will be at work most of the day. hence, it becomes easier to purchase ready-to-eat food from the various food places in the city. as participant 22 points out, even preparing food for supper depends on whether they are not tired. if they are, then supper will consist of takeaway food. this changing diets, food consumption, and food security among zimbabwean migrants in namibia 190 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 is supported by another participant who indicated that it saves time to purchase food from the several restaurants, fish-and-chips shops, and other street vendors that sell ready-to-eat food: life here is very fast. you wake up in the morning, and there are many things to do. in the construction industry, work is intense, such that you do not find enough time to prepare your own meals. i leave home before 5:30 a.m. every morning and come back around 7 p.m. when i leave, i have no time to prepare, and i am not hungry at that time, anyway. when i come back, i am too tired to cook. so, i purchase most of my food ready to eat. (participant 4, 24 november 2022, okuryangava, windhoek). another participant, a 32-year-old taxi driver, shared a similar sentiment, emphasizing the intensity of his work schedule in determining what he eats and when he eats. for him, a proper diet is only possible on his day off: i am used to eating anything here. i start work very early in the morning. to make my first trip at 5:30 a.m., i have to leave here at 5 a.m., so that i can pick up the taxi from the owner’s house in eros. then i start my trip and only finish work at 9 p.m. so, most of my food, i eat on the road. (participant 1, 23 november 2022, okuryangava, windhoek). for participants who have the time to prepare their meals, their diets are determined by the foods that they purchase. one participant indicated that the diet is monotonous because it does not change – the result of always buying food that is cheaper: the diet is the same every day. it’s tea and bread, sadza or rice and meat every day. there is no variety. although i like noodles, but after two or three days, i do not want them anymore. i don’t know, maybe if i had enough money, i would go to the city and buy something different. (participant 11, 27 november 2022, havana, windhoek). the presence of fast-food outlets has also seen some of the migrants eating out more often than in the pre-migration period. one participant indicated that she often eats out to have access to the variety of foods that restaurants serve: on my days off work, i usually go with my husband and child to restaurants in the city so that we can experience the different foods that the city has to offer. when we were in zimbabwe, we had no money to eat out. now we can afford to go out once in a while. i like seafood, so we usually go to ocean basket at the mall. it’s a bit expensive, buy we enjoy [the food] there. (participant 16, 29 november 2022, havana, windhoek). 191 another participant pointed out that the presence of many street traders selling kapana (braai meat) in her area meant that they could prepare just rice or sadza at home and then buy kapana. thus, although the food consumption patterns of zimbabwean migrants are shaped by choice, they are also determined by time constraints and the need to buy cheaper foods and make savings. foods that migrants have challenges accessing and consuming less when people migrate to a new country, the possibility that they will experience challenges in accessing certain foods is high. study participants indicated that there are foods that they are unable to find or are different from what they usually consumed in zimbabwe. this was the case with most traditional foods. one of these key foods was dovi (peanut butter). participants indicated that peanut butter is integral to many meals that they prepare: consuming it in porridge, spreading it on bread, and on dried vegetables, dried meat and other dishes. many of the participants complained that the peanut butter that they purchase in shops does not taste the same. one participant had this to say: i love porridge made from maize meal and mixed with peanut butter. when i go home, i always bring some, but it does not last. i am then forced to purchase from the supermarkets here. it is not the same taste, as the one from the shops is almost tasteless, like there is no salt in it. i have tried adding salt, but it does not improve it. maybe the peanuts are not well-roasted and so the taste is different. (participant 2, 23 november 2022, okuryangava, windhoek). while these migrants had an option to purchase from traders that sell their home products, the challenge was that they were always in short supply. during the period when covid-19 was at its peak, travel restrictions meant that there was either little supply or no supply at all. the second challenge was that those who sell the zimbabwean peanut butter put a premium on it so that it becomes largely unaffordable to those of a very low-income status. the sellers justify their exorbitant prices claiming that they pay a lot of money to import the peanut butter. this, however, makes it difficult for some migrants to consume foods that they want: peanut butter from zimbabwe is expensive. they [traders] buy it for less than us$1 (n$19) in zimbabwe and then they sell it here for between n$30 and n$40. that is too much for 375 grams. but there is nothing you can do; if you want it, you just have to buy [it]. (participant 8, 25 november 2022, okuryangava, windhoek). thus, for migrants to access the food they require from home, they have to pay more than their counterparts back in zimbabwe. when resources are minimal, this means that the migrants have to do without it, and some may resort to buying the changing diets, food consumption, and food security among zimbabwean migrants in namibia 192 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 local variety that they are not used to; hence, it impacts negatively on their food security. some foods that were difficult to access and acquire were mbambaira (sweet potatoes). most interviewees indicated that sweet potatoes are a part of their diet, serving as a substitute for bread at breakfast and can also be consumed as a snack. while some varieties of sweet potatoes were available on the market, these were not firm and were also less sweet: i have stopped buying sweet potatoes here. it is a waste of money. when they are raw, they look very good and appetizing. you only realize when you start cooking them that they are not good – they start losing shape very quickly and are watery. you end up eating [them] with a spoon like you are eating mashed potatoes. the taste is not okay – there is nothing sweet about them. (participant 35, 06 december 2022, one-nation, windhoek). study participants indicated that some traders bring the sweet potatoes from zimbabwe using the cross-border buses. the supply, however, was irregular and unreliable. the sweet potatoes are therefore a commodity in demand, with few suppliers failing to satisfy the market. like the peanut butter, the mbambaira is also said to be expensive, as traders capitalize on shortages to drive the commodity price upwards. namibia is known for its fish industry where a variety of fish species (e.g., mackerel, tuna, hake) are sold on the market. but most zimbabwean migrants grew up eating fresh-water breams from lake kariba on the zambezi valley. some participants indicated that they missed the kariba bream. while they are adventurous and try other fish varieties, many still look for the fresh-water breams. thus, some traders bring the dried breams from zimbabwe to sell among the zimbabwean community in the country. a participant had this to say: i occasionally buy the bream from the zambezi region. it is better, but not like the kariba bream. once in a while when i find someone selling the dried kariba bream, then that makes my day. (participant 32, 06 december 2022, one-nation, windhoek). among one of the most sought-after foods by zimbabwean migrants in windhoek is mazoe orange crush – a zimbabwean cordial that is made from oranges. while some supermarkets in the city occasionally sell the juice, some argue that it is not original. hence, most of the migrants prefer to purchase from informal traders who bring it straight from zimbabwe. while it is sold for around us$2.50 in zimbabwe (approximately n$47), informal traders sell it for between n$60 and n$80 per 2-liter bottle. one participant revealed why they prefer to purchase from the traders: i buy my mazoe from traders that come with it from zimbabwe. the variety that is sold here is not authentic. it does not taste the same. and some is made 193 in zambia and not zimbabwe. so, they are different. i prefer the original one. (participant 20, 02 december 2022, soweto, windhoek). the majority of zimbabwean migrants grew up in areas where avocadoes are grown by most households, and hence, cheaper and easier to access. interviewees complained that the avocadoes in windhoek are small and very expensive. many of these avocadoes are imported from south africa and resultantly are sold at a premium. many of the migrants thus cannot afford them. some only consume what is occasionally sent from home. some participants pointed out that they missed eating these foods and only indulge in this delicacy when they are back home in zimbabwe. like the kariba bream, one of the difficult foods for zimbabwean migrants to access in windhoek is dried kapenta. in zimbabwe, dried kapenta is a regular relish. however, most participants indicated that in windhoek, kapenta was expensive and also difficult to find: i do not remember the last time that i ate dried kapenta. it is one of my favorite foods, but it is difficult to get here. if you get it, they sell [it] in very small packets. if you are a family of four people, then you will need two or three packets to suffice. for n$10 a packet, if you buy three packets, then that’s n$30 and you may as well buy meat. (participant 26, 03 december 2022, soweto, windhoek). while the increased consumption of rice is often associated with the nutrition transition, it does not necessarily mean that most african households did not consume rice frequently. rather, their consumption was usually centered on the brown rice that many households in the rural areas would produce themselves. a few of the interviewed households reported that they grew up eating brown rice, as opposed to the white rice or the parboiled rice that is now dominating in food shops. the absence of brown rice in windhoek therefore means that they only consume it when they travel back home. in some cases, migrants are duped by informal traders selling substitute products. their desperation to access traditional foods may be exploited by dishonest traders who have no regard for any negative consequences resulting from consuming the wrong foods. one participant said: some two years ago, i was duped by a fellow zimbabwean. i asked him if he knew someone who sells mice, and he indicated that he did. i gave him n$50 and he brought the mice at the bar when we were drinking. i, however, did not eat them but carried them home. in the morning, i realized that these may not be mice, but rats. they were big – very big. when i confronted him, he said he had just bought them from a passer-by, but i suspect he was lying. i just threw them all away, but i never got my money back. (participant 24, 03 december 2022, soweto, windhoek). changing diets, food consumption, and food security among zimbabwean migrants in namibia 194 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 besides the foods discussed above, some migrants indicated that they use different ways to access zimbabwean foods. one of the most common methods is to ask their friends and relatives in zimbabwe to send whatever foods they want through crossborder transporters (omalayitshas) and through regular buses that ply the namibiazimbabwe route. these transporters charge a transportation fee, depending on the contents and weight of the transported package. impact of changing diets and consumption patterns of food security diets and food security are closely linked, as food (in)security is an outcome of what is consumed by the households, both in terms of quality and quantity. the types of foods that one consumes determine whether one can be considered food secure. several health outcomes are also an indicator of food security. ford (2013), for example, opines that there is a relationship between household food insecurity, diet, and a number of health-related diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and heart diseases. migrants, because of their precarious employment, are likely to have low incomes, less access to food, and hence, also likely to have higher levels of food insecurity in comparison to the local population. while the healthy-immigrant paradox argues that newly arriving migrants may exhibit better food security and health outcomes than the local population, there was little evidence in this survey that this was the case. rather, zimbabwean migrants indicated that they were at risk of food insecurity. when asked about their current household food security situation in comparison to their situation prior to emigration from their country, a majority of the participants indicated that their situation had improved. according to one participant: when i left zimbabwe, i was struggling, unable to put food on the table. a whole mechanic failing to buy basic foodstuffs. here i am better because whenever i get a piece job and complete it, i am able to buy enough food for my family. (participant 34, 06 december 2022, one-nation, windhoek). another participant indicated that moving to namibia saved her sanity and gave her options at a time when she was running out of options. had she remained in the country, she believed that she could have gone into depression or even resorted to death by suicide: i am grateful that i was able to come here. even though i still face many challenges with my family, i am certain that we are now better than we were before. our children are going to school, and even though we cannot give them all they want, we are at least trying. in zimbabwe, we had reached a dead-end, and it was pitiful. imagine working and your salary [is] not [sufficient for] buying anything. (participant 16, 29 november 2022, havana, windhoek). 195 there were also other participants who emphasized that migrating gave them hope, even though they have not attained what they left zimbabwe for. they acknowledged that the challenges they currently face are better than what they would be facing, had they remained in zimbabwe. one participant said: i do not regret coming here. i wish i had come here sooner rather than when i did. i wasted my time thinking that things would improve. but they never did. here we can struggle, but it is better because at the end of the day, you can put food on the table. that is what matters. (participant 17, 29 november 2022, havana, windhoek). there were, however, other participants who indicated that they were facing significant challenges related to food security while in namibia. their major issue was that of the high cost of rentals. they indicated that they were spending more on rentals than on food items. the rentals were so high, that it left them with very little money for food. they thus periodically resorted to buying cheap food that they did not like: i came here to work and save so that i can go home and start a business. but for the past four years, that has not been possible. instead, i seem to be working for rentals only. at the end of the month, i cannot even afford to eat out at the restaurants. i end up buying the cheaper foods that are even dangerous for my health. some of the fizzy drinks that we buy are laced with many chemicals, [so] that it is just a health hazard to us. but we have no choice. (participant 30, 05 december 2022, one-nation, windhoek). the fact that some migrants resorted to eating foods that they did not want is an indicator of food insecurity. while the participants preferred mazoe orange, they ended up buying some cheaper alternatives whose health implications they do not know. hence, others argued that the health problems that they currently experience are a result of some of the foods they were consuming. as one participant pointed out, the fact that one gets sick because of inappropriate food, defeats the very purpose of having migrated to namibia in the first place. the little money one makes will also end up paying increasing medical bills resulting from the consumption of poor foods: i was once a strong person, lifting heavy things with ease. as a mechanic, you need to be strong, but now i am weak. i suspect that it is these foods that we are eating that are causing all this. some of the foods we eat are like poison. unfortunately, we will die because of this food, instead of doing better. (participant 32, 06 december 2022, one-nation, windhoek). changing diets, food consumption, and food security among zimbabwean migrants in namibia 196 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 one participant pointed out that she had gained a lot of weight since she came to namibia. she attributed this weight gain to the consumption of junk foods. she argued that this would not have happened were she consuming proper foods. hence, for some migrants, their food security situation has been bad because of the foods they were consuming. ultimately, their health situation will be affected negatively. discussion zimbabwe generates significant migration streams, largely triggered by a persistent, challenging socio-economic and political environment. while many studies underscore the critical role of political persecution in triggering largescale emigration, many of the interviewed migrants highlighted the dire economic situation in the country as a trigger for migration. thus, food insecurity acted as a major migration trigger. these study results validated the arguments made by carney and krause (2020) that in environments of economic distress, food insecurity compels household members to emigrate. the study findings have established that it is difficult to talk of the premigration diets of zimbabwean migrants as being completely traditional or fully westernized. this finding validates the assertion by chopera et al. (2022) that, because of the nutrition transition, most zimbabwean households survive on consuming a blend of traditional and westernized dishes. in moving to namibia, most migrants, however, reported experiencing significant changes to their diets. these changes center primarily on four issues. the first concerns the non-availability of foods that migrants consumed while still in zimbabwe. migrants reported having challenges accessing foods such as traditional mahewu (a non-alcoholic beer), rupiza (grounded peas), hohwa (wild mushroom), ishwa (winged termites), matemba (dried kapenta), and manyanya (a tuber). the second issue centers on the poor quality of some substitute foods acquired in their new environment. this was the case with foods such as dovi (peanut butter), mbambaira (sweet potatoes), kapenta, mazoe orange crush (a cordial) and some types of fish, especially fresh-water breams. most migrants found the taste of locally available substitutes unappealing and hence opted to do without these foods. the third issue is about the increased food expenses for those households that go to great length to acquire food from their home country. study results indicate that some migrants were willing to pay more to acquire food from traders or pay more to omalayitshas to bring traditional foods from zimbabwe. this substantially increased migrant households’ food costs, potentially having negative impacts on household food security. the fourth issue was about limited time to prepare some foods. most migrants indicated spending more time on the job, resulting in most consuming more foods outside their homes, and drastically reducing consumption of foods such as beans, or offal that are critical to maintaining food security. results regarding the food security outcomes were rather mixed, with most households indicating that household food security had significantly improved, while 197 others pointed out the food challenges they were encountering, including possible negative outcomes in terms of their health. coming from a country experiencing serious economic challenges, the majority of interviewees could afford to buy most food as and when required, contrary to the pre-migration situation where shops in zimbabwe could run out of food stocks at any time. food challenges, however, related to accessing foods that were traditional and appropriate, hence, necessitating drastic changes in foods consumed. surviving on some substitute foods reflects unfulfilled food needs, resulting in a degree of food insecurity. for some migrants, failing to access the foods they want also affected them negatively, as they felt that they were getting out of touch with their traditional food regime. they also argued that failure to access some foods means that they were losing on some health benefits, and this could impact negatively on their health as well as on their longevity. conclusion this study highlighted important food security issues, focusing on food availability, food access, food choices, and cultural appropriateness. the theoretical framing underpinning this study argued that migrants generally exhibit a foreign-born advantage, wherein they arrive with certain advantages that the local poor population may not have. the results from this study were, however, different. recent migrants were experiencing numerous economic and social challenges that had negative impacts on their food security. many struggled to get employment and were saddled with high rentals and also took time to understand their new food environment, much to their detriment. ultimately, they were neither better resourced nor healthier than the local population in windhoek. thus, the theoretical supposition that the migrants would be better off than locals did not hold true, as many struggled to afford adequate and culturally appropriate foods. migrants, therefore, remain vulnerable to food insecurity, despite most having migrated to improve their livelihoods. changing diets, 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and native born in the united states. american journal of public health, 91(3): 392–399. sithole, s. and dinbabo, m. 2016. exploring youth migration and the food security nexus: zimbabwean youths in cape town, south africa. african human mobility review, 2(2): 512–537. taylor, r., chey, t., bauman, a. and webster, i. 1999. socio-economic, migrant and geographic differentials in coronary heart disease occurrence in new south wales. australian and new zealand journal of public health, 23(1): 20–26. teitler, j., martinson, m. and reichman, n.e. 2017. does life in the united states take a toll on health? duration of residence and birthweight among six decades of immigrants. international migration review, 51(1): 37–66. vu, m., raskind, i.g., escoffery, c., srivanjarean, y., jang, h.m. and berg, c.j. 2020. food insecurity among immigrants and refugees of diverse origins living in metropolitan atlanta: the roles of acculturation and social connectedness. translational behavioral medicine, 10(6): 1330–1341. available at: https:// 201 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc7796714/ world bank. 2023. world development report 2023: migrants, refugees, and societies. washington, dc: world bank. available at: https://doi.org/10.1596/9781-4648-1941-4 changing diets, food consumption, and food security among zimbabwean migrants in namibia 41 statelessness, trauma and mental well-being: implication for practice, research and advocacy ajwang’ warria* and victor chikadzi** received 12 june 2022 / accepted 03 november 2022 / published 27 january 2023 abstract the issue of statelessness is inextricably linked to psychosocial wellness and is a crucial mental health factor to consider in the holistic care, and protection of stateless persons. there is a dearth of research and limited literature examining the mental health implications for stateless persons and their exposure to multiple and ongoing rights violations. this paper describes the systematic and systemic human rights violations linked to statelessness and how these contribute to individual trauma and stress — subsequently affecting well-being. the paper utilises a basic trauma lens in understanding statelessness and presents a novel contribution to interventions addressing statelessness. findings from the study reveal statelessness-linked stressors. historic systematic human rights violations, traumatic events and situations, and daily stressors be come mental health burdens and challenges for those experiencing statelessness. service providers working with stateless persons should be aware of the impact of statelessness on mental health and should refer cases to mental health and psychosocial practitioners who can provide services that reduce socio-emotional distress while strengthening resilience and coping strategies. the findings emphasise the promotion of stateless people’s psychosocial well-being — looking at both curative and preventative strategies, toward the establishment of just and inclusive societies. keywords: rights violations, stressors, psychosocial wellness ____________________ * university of calgary, canada. corresponding author.  ajwang.warria@ucalgary.ca ** university of namibia, namibia. statelessness, trauma and mental well-being 42 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 i. introduction statelessness is when a person is not recognised by any country as a citizen, and they cannot call any country their own. south africa is reported to have many undocumented migrants, who are either stateless or vulnerable to becoming stateless. this population includes both adults and young people under the age of 18. due to lack of country affiliation and subsequent protection, stateless persons have been referred to as ‘outcasts from the global political system of states’, 1 as ‘legal ghosts’,2 illegal immigrants,3 counted as ‘undifferentiated aliens’,4 as ‘non-individuals’, ‘nowhere people’ and ‘nowhere individuals’ as they do not have a country to call home. stateless adults and children experience challenges when they try to access fundamental rights and services and they are at risk of marginalisation, discrimination, and insecurity.5 both de facto and de jure stateless people are unable to access the privileges, services, protections, and rights that citizens can demand from their governments.6 globally, there is an increasing number of persons who are stateless or at risk of becoming stateless and this is an issue of concern.7 8 numerous studies have been conducted on statelessness from legal and rights-based perspectives, yet there have been very few connections and exploration into the mental health of stateless people, their inability to thrive and the trauma that they experience due to their precarious status.9 10 the interconnected nature of rights violations for stateless persons means that the siloed responses are likely to produce fewer ideal and sustainable outcomes. what is required is a comprehensive, integrated response to issues affecting stateless persons, so that the rights of all stateless adults and children are fulfilled. this includes understanding the role of daily or environmental stressors and systematic marginalisation in mitigating mental health symptoms in people who are stateless. 1 unhcr ‘the problem of statelessness has become a live issue again’ unhcr department of international protection, geneva (1996) para 2, available at www.unhcr.org/protect/protection/3b837ec14.html, accessed on 04 november 2022. 2 unhcr ‘the world’s stateless people. questions and answers’ unhcr media relations and public information service, geneva (2007) 1 at 5, available at https://www.refworld.org/docid/47a707900.html, accessed on 06 november 2022. 3 roshni chakraborty & jacqueline bhabha ‘fault lines of refugee exclusion: statelessness, gender, and covid-19 in south asia’ (2021) 23(1) health and human rights journal 237 at 238, available at https://www.hhrjournal.org/2021/05/ fault-lines-of-refugee-exclusion-statelessness-gender-and-covid-in-south-asia/, accessed on 06 april 2022. 4 bill frelick & maureen lynch ‘statelessness: a forgotten human rights crisis’ (2005) fmr 65 at 66, available at https:// www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/textonlycontent/fmr/24/39.html, accessed on 06 april 2022. 5 laura van waas ‘the children of irregular migrants: a stateless generation?’ (2007) 25(3) netherlands quarterly of human rights 437 at 439. 6 roshni chakraborty & jacqueline bhabha (2021) op cit note 3 237 at 238. 7 jacqueline bhabha ‘arendt’s children: do today’s migrant children have a right to have rights?’ (2009) 31(2) human rights quarterly 410 at 411. 8 maureen lynch ‘lives on hold: the human cost of statelessness’ refugees international (2005) 1 at 2, available at https:// www.refworld.org/docid/47a6eba00.html, accessed on 09 november 2022. 9 andrew riley, andrea varner, peter ventevogel, mm taimur hasan & courtney welton-mitchell ‘daily stressors, trauma exposure, and mental health among stateless rohingya refugees in bangladesh’ (2017) 54(3) transcultural psychiatry 304 at 304. 10 aisha k yousafzai, joan lombardi, erum mariam, tina hyder & zarlasht halaimzai ‘statelessness and young children’ (2022) 4(1) the statelessness & citizenship review 154 at 155, available at https://statelessnessandcitizenshipreview.com/ index.php/journal/article/view/415, accessed on 09 november 2022. 43 this subsequently has important implications for the distribution of scarce resources for mental health and psychosocial support services. this paper clarifies the role of stressors in mediating the relationship between trauma exposure and current mental health and well-being among stateless populations. as such, the discussions contribute to the debates on the evolving nexus on psychosocial and legal discourse on the relative importance of addressing trauma in statelessness as part of an integrated approach. this paper draws on the authors’ experience as a clinical social worker and migrant (author 1) and child protection social worker and social development specialist (author 2). this paper explores the psychosocial characteristics of and rights violations of stateless persons and promotes the psychosocial care and support they would require. ii. understanding statelessness (a) definition and scope in this section, we tease out what definitions and data are applicable in determining who is stateless. according to art. 1 of the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons, a stateless person is an individual ‘who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law’. this seems like an easy identification process based on this clause from the statelessness convention. however, the identification process to determine statelessness is complex because it includes both a factual and legal analysis.11 identifying the statistics related to statelessness is a complex task, that is context specific and ‘one which must also consider that it may take several years of failed applications for documents for a person to find out that they are not, as it turns out, “considered as a national” by any state’.12 when it comes to identification of stateless persons, we concur that: a lower standard of proof should be applied when determining statelessness, for example by using the term ‘substantiating’ one’s statelessness instead of ‘proving’ it (similarly to refugee status determination). in addition, the burden of proof should be shared between the applicant and state authorities. the applicant’s main procedural obligation should be to cooperate with the authority, not to provide all necessary evidence.13 global challenges on accurate statelessness numbers have been reported — leading to a lack of solid, well methodologically grounded statistics related to statelessness. considering this, this paper ‘concentrates on addressing the problems [related to statelessness] than trying to get the “correct” statistics’.14 despite the tension related 11 unhcr handbook on protection of stateless persons (2014) 1 at 12. 12 bronwyn manby ‘statelessness statistics and iross: the un statistical commission grapples with definitions’ global citizenship observatory robert schuman centre (2022) para 7, available at https://globalcit.eu/statelessness-statistics-and-iross-the-un-statistical-commission-grapples-with-definitions/, accessed on 09 november 2022. 13 gabor gyulani ‘remember the forgotten, protect the unprotected’ (2019) 32 fmr 48 at 49. 14 bronwyn manby (2022) op cit note 12 para 3 10. statelessness, trauma and mental well-being 44 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 to the numbers of stateless persons, the authors acknowledge that there are millions of stateless persons globally, which warrants debates and implementation of critical mental health and well-being framework/s that protect them and is centred around them. the adoption of the 1948 universal declaration on human rights, called for the right to a nationality to be recognised for the first time as a fundamental right and a right for everyone to enjoy. in 1954, the convention relating to the status of stateless persons provided the definition of a stateless person. the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness provides safeguards for states to incorporate within their nationality law to avoid statelessness and toward the realisation of everyone’s right to a nationality. (b) causes of statelessness statelessness can be caused by various complex, multi-dimensional and multisystemic factors. the pathways to statelessness may vary from one country to the next, including: ‘(i) political change; (ii) expulsion from territory; (iii) discrimination; (iv) descent-based nationality; (v) withdrawal of nationality; and (vi) laws on birth registration.’15 the three causes of statelessness as adopted, which incorporates the above pathways, are:16 i) state succession-restoration that occurs ‘when an existing state splits into two or more states, when part of a state secedes to form a new state, when territory is transferred from one state to another, or when two or more states unite to form a new state’.17 statelessness can be linked to colonisation, de-colonisation and consequent nation-building whereby new independent states without pre-colonial national identity have had to deal with borders arbitrarily drawn, dividing and pitting ethnic groups against each other while privileging some and marginalising others, as part of the divide and rule policy.18 the newly formed or independent states may set considerable conditions or define their citizens narrowly, such that many people are rendered stateless and excluded due to their questionable attachments. examples of this include decolonisation processes in africa, dissolution of the soviet union and yugoslavia, secession of south sudan and eritrea. persons in these contexts can be at risk or rendered stateless when they fail or are unable to be granted citizenship in the successor states, i.e., political and border changes. ii) discrimination and arbitrary denial or deprivation of nationality: in this 15 ajwang’ warria ‘stateless transnational migrant children in south africa: implications and opportunities for social work intervention’ (2020) 6(2) ahmr 6 at 10. 16 asako ejima ‘ghosts in america: working towards building a legal framework for stateless individuals in the united states’ (2021) 53(1) case w. res. j. int’l l. 357 at 366, available at https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil/vol53/iss1/13, accessed on 06 april 2022. 17 asako ejima (2021) op cit note 16 357 at 365. 18 isi ‘the world’s stateless’ (2014) 1 at 25, available at https://files.institutesi.org/worldsstateless.pdf, accessed on 06 april 2022. 45 instance, statelessness is linked to ethnic, gender or religious discrimination. an example is biological female-identifying mothers’ inability to pass on nationality to their children, i.e., citizenship laws based exclusively on patrilineal descent. gender discrimination can leave children stateless in instances that their father is stateless, unknown, or unable to transmit his nationality. thus, citizenship deficits affect women and men differently and it can also be experienced and claimed in gendered ways.19 iii) technical causes refer to situations where statelessness is caused by gaps in a country’s nationality laws and conflicts between different countries’ citizenship laws. countries most often grant nationalities through either blood relationship (jus sanguinis) or through birth in the country (jus soli). when a child is born to nationals of a country that grants nationality based on jus soli, a country that only confers nationality based on jus sanguinis may not be able to acquire any nationality at birth. other ‘technicalities’ include: denying nationality to abandoned children; automatic loss of nationality of nationals residing out of their country of origin without registering with their national embassy or consulate in country of residence within a specific period; marriage practices of certain countries where the foreigner loses their citizenship when they marry a citizen of that country; and climate and environmentally induced displacement. furthermore, inability to prove nationality for nomadic or internally displaced persons, undocumented migrants who face challenges registering births of their children especially if born at home or based on the unreasonable document and administrative processes.20 although lack of birth registration by minority populations does not equate to statelessness, lack of documentation often leads to people being denied access to citizenship and state services. statelessness can also affect whole communities because of deliberate exclusion of these ethnicities. nationality laws can be drawn up in a discriminatory manner, whereby they deny minority populations access to nationality — such as the case of the rohingya in myanmar, denationalisation of jews by germany, and retroactively revoking nationality from persons of foreign descent, such as persons born in the dominican republic since 1929. these stateless groups suffer from intergenerational marginalisation and exclusion, which subsequently has consequences on the social fabric of entire communities.21 it is crucial to note that a person may become stateless due to a combination of factors mentioned above. a person may also very easily move from having citizenship to losing it and vice versa. these are all factors that need to be taken into consideration when developing a continuum of trauma-informed, trauma-transformed and 19 roshni chakraborty & jacqueline bhabha (2021) op cit note 3 237 at 239. 20 ajwang’ warria (2020) op cit note 15 6 at 12. 21 isi (2014) op cit note 18 1 at 27. statelessness, trauma and mental well-being 46 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 integrated services as a response to statelessness. (c) forced migration and statelessness: the links statelessness differs from forced migration, but they might influence each other, leading to increased levels of vulnerability, traumatisation, marginalisation, and discrimination. the nexus between statelessness and forced migration and displacement exists on several levels: (i) statelessness can lead to forced migration; (ii) the vulnerability of individuals and families to statelessness increases as a result of forced migration; and (iii) when one is stateless, it can increase one’s vulnerability in situations of forced migration. in as much as there are connections between forced migration and displacement and statelessness, it is worth highlighting that many people with refugee status following forced migration, globally, are not stateless but are citizens of their countries of origin. therefore, not all refugees and asylum seekers are stateless and not all stateless persons are refugees or displaced persons. millions of stateless individuals have never been displaced — and they live in their countries of birth. however, many people are both refugees and stateless: many stateless persons do not move (though research suggests that 1 in 3 stateless persons has been forcibly displaced), and if they do move, they may or may not be classed as refugees. [thus,] … while some stateless persons are refugees, and some are migrants, key concerns relating to statelessness will be obscured if we speak only about refugees or migrants.22 one of the consequences of statelessness is forced migration.23 an earlier study reports that most stateless persons are victims of forced displacement. indeed, statelessness has been described as ‘rooted displacement’ or ‘displacement in situ’ because a stateless person is displaced irrespective of wherever they are.24 paragraph 72 of the new york declaration states: ‘we recognize that statelessness can be a root cause of forced displacement and that forced displacement, in turn, can lead to statelessness…’ forced migration can cause vulnerability to statelessness. this is because the individual might lose their documentation and thus cannot prove their citizenship connection to a specific country.25 furthermore, during migratory journeys, the parents of children born in transit often experience registration administrative challenges and they may endure hardships trying to prove their citizenship and the child’s eligibility for citizenship. furthermore, unaccompanied, and separated minors 22 tendayi bloom ‘statelessness and the global compact for migration’ refugee law initiative school of advanced study university of london (2017) para 12, available at https://rli.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2017/09/11/statelessness-and-the-global-compact-for-migration/, accessed on 06 april 2022. 23 mohammad sajedur rahman & nurul huda sakib ‘statelessness, forced migration and the security dilemma along borders: an investigation of the foreign policy stance of bangladesh on the rohingya influx’ (2012) sn soc sci 1, 159 at 161, available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-021-00173-y, accessed on 09 november 2022. 24 aimée-noël mbiyozo ‘statelessness in southern africa: time to end it, not promote it’ institute for security studies (iss) (2019) 1 at 9, available at https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/sar32.pdf, accessed on 06 april 2022. 25 ajwang’ warria (2020) op cit note 15 6 at 19. 47 are often at risk of statelessness.26 when a child’s birth is not registered, especially in the context of forced migration, where citizenship is not automatic, it may put them at risk of statelessness and trafficking.27 28 29 indeed, international conventions may be in place but denial of rights leading to vulnerabilities are evident.30 31 the gendered nature of forced migration cannot be denied. the same can be said of access to citizenship.32 in many countries, including those affected by war (such as syria, somalia, democratic republic of the congo), women cannot confer citizenship to their children as easily as men can do. moreover, mothers might not be allowed to register the birth of their children, or they may struggle to prove the children’s paternity when separated from the children’s fathers. these factors put children at risk of statelessness.33 a remarkable difference between forced migration, refugeeism and statelessness is that although a dim hope, refugees have reasonable hope that they might go back to their home countries, whereas stateless forced migrants rarely have a chance to obtain the citizenship of their former country of residence. iii. consequences of statelessness citizenship or nationality is the essential link between a person and the state. thus, the consequences of statelessness are dire from social, political, and economic perspectives — with studies showing that stateless individuals are among the world’s most vulnerable groups, least known, least heard, and least visible. being stateless not only presents legal and policy challenges for national, regional, and international law, it also creates psychosocial challenges for the individual and their families as their lives are on hold. indeed, statelessness can mean a lifetime of hardship(s) if it remains unchallenged and unresolved. it is crucial to consider the direct and indirect impact of statelessness through a human rights lens because statelessness is associated with discrimination in accessing basic rights and it could render the person at risk of other human rights violations.34 this supports the argument that ‘when human rights are violated, the doors to creating statelessness are opened … and statelessness is at the nexus of human rights and displacement.’35 international human rights instruments accord to stateless persons equal rights to marriage, freedom of belief, expression, movement, religion, and socio-economic and cultural rights. however, huge gaps are evident in terms of guaranteed rights 26 ajwang’ warria (2020) op cit note 15 6 at 12. 27 aimée-noël mbiyozo (2019) op cit note 24 1 at 19. 28 tharani loganathan, zhie chan, fikri hassan, zhen ling ong & hareen abdul majid ‘undocumented: an examination of legal identity and education provision for children in malaysia’ (2022) 17(2) plos one, 1 at 18. 29 ajwang’ warria ‘forced child marriages as a form of human trafficking’ (2017a) 79 children and youth services review 274 at 275. 30 ajwang’ warria ‘international and african regional instruments to protect rights of child victims of transnational trafficking’ (2017b) 12(5) victims & offenders 682 at 695. 31 jacqueline bhabha (2009) op cit note 7 410 at 422. 32 aimée-noël mbiyozo (2019) op cit note 24 1 at 9. gabor gyulani (2019) op cit note 13 48 at 49. 33 gabor gyulani (2019) op cit note 13 48 at 49. 34 ajwang’ warria (2020) op cit note 15 6 at 12. 35 maureen lynch (2005) op cit note 8 1 at 4. statelessness, trauma and mental well-being 48 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 for non-citizens in international rights conventions and the realities faced when the national laws are implemented. indeed, in practice, statelessness is often accompanied by the deprivation of basic rights and discriminatory treatment and these gaps between rights and realities must be tightened and closed. this is because the plight of stateless people is a matter of human security and ‘the deficits of statelessness can, like a genetic disability, be transmitted from one generation to the next’,36 continuing the cycle of degradation, rights violations, and hopelessness. the consequences of statelessness include lack of access to healthcare, social services, and legal protection. stateless individuals and their families generally have poor prospects — they often lack access to education, do not have a national identity, and are subjected to social stigma, forced evictions, discrimination, violence, and harassment.37 statelessness is often transmitted from one generation to the next. this causes many children to start out life without a nationality, on a pathway to childhood statelessness. violation of the right to nationality is (in)directly linked to the violation of other rights such as education, nationality, political participation, arbitrary detention, property ownership, and freedom of movement. without citizenship, one cannot be issued an identity card or move with ease — which can lead to unemployment, labour rights violations, and exploitative, insecure, and unpredictable employment. this then has an impact on accessing basic services such as housing,38 food, and education.39 stateless individuals are excluded from social security, pension entitlements, disability allowances and other social assistance or financial services, thus having inadequate standards of living. family life, functioning and relationships can also be severely impacted by statelessness and the official invisibility. from a family systems perspective, one family member lacking citizenship can be a challenge to the functioning of that family and the preservation of relationships and the family unit. there may be difficulty in contracting marriages, finding a partner, or desiring to marry or start a family. threats of arrest, detention and deportation affect the enjoyment of family life and can lead to physical family separation. the stateless often face insoluble problems on property rights or the custody of children following spousal death or separation. when it comes to healthcare, statelessness not only exacerbates the risk of infections, it further limits options for access to medical care, including maternal and child health.40 covid-19 also exposed further vulnerabilities of stateless persons. the links between statelessness and early or forced marriages and trafficking in persons have often been overlooked.41 individuals and families who are stateless for prolonged periods of time, out of frustration and a sense of agency take it upon themselves to resolve their cases to the best of their abilities and use the limited 36 roshni chakraborty & jacqueline bhabha (2021) op cit note 3 237 at 243. 37 tharani loganathan et al. (2022) op cit note 28 1 at 18. 38 ben gronowski ‘the rights to a nationality and the right to adequate housing: an analysis of the intersection of two largely “invisible” human rights violations’ (2019) statelessness & citizenship review 239 at 240. 39 aisha k yousafzai et al. (2022) op cit note 10 154 at 155. 40 roshni chakraborty & jacqueline bhabha (2021) op cit note 3 237 at 243. 41 ajwang’ warria (2020) op cit note 15 6 at 13. 49 resources that they have. this often means that they may negotiate to be smuggled or their vulnerability leads them to trafficking perpetrators. in addition, women may purposely marry local men and parents are reported to lie about their daughter’s age to marry them off early. statelessness can thus perpetuate child marriages and trafficking in persons and vice versa and attempts to fight one may implicate the other. stateless persons are likely to encounter travel restrictions, social exclusion, violence, discrimination, exploitation, and are at risk of forced displacement and prolonged or indefinite arbitrary detention. there is also worry and anxiety linked to arrests or attempted and repeated deportations and where they will be returned to, as they are not linked to any country. the lack of being given a legal status, leads to a precarious and degraded status of illegal and undocumented immigrant, resulting in a protection deficit and being deprived of critical rights. denial of rights can lead to trauma for a stateless person. citizenship constitutes an unearned form of social capital that is claimed and experienced in distinctively gendered ways. the covid-19 pandemic has shone a bright light on the perils of statelessness, especially for women, who face exacerbated socio-economic inequities, the forced commodification of their sexuality, and exclusion from mechanisms of justice.42 the vulnerabilities of stateless people are generally increased as they are considered and marginalised as ‘other’ or ‘outsiders’, with their survival, rights, and dignity already compromised by social exclusion mechanisms such as legal invisibility, geographic segregation, and social ostracism. citizenship means access to rights and thus, speaking out is a struggle. for many stateless people talking out or acting when wronged or faced with a situation of abuse can also become problematic or increase their vulnerability. the lack of citizenship silences stateless persons and robs them of their voices. stateless parents were overwhelmed by the effect of covid-19 and subsequently had limited or no time and resources to advocate on behalf of their stateless children. the resolution of cases of statelessness through the (re)instatement or conferring of citizenship can have a positive impact on a stateless person’s enjoyment of rights and quality of life. in certain circumstances, it has been reported to end years or even lifetimes of exclusion, marginalisation and abuse. this, however, is not the case for everyone and it begs the question: to what extent does the formal acquisition of citizenship end the psychosocial challenges and traumatic experiences encountered and endured by previously stateless persons? iv. mental health of stateless persons this section presents and addresses mental health challenges that prevail in stateless persons, particular stressors that may elicit these, and how interventions may assist. it is worth noting that the experience of being stateless, in all its forms, levels and periods experienced is highly stressful and traumatising. the damage of mental health 42 roshni chakraborty & jacqueline bhabha (2021) op cit note 3 237 at 237. statelessness, trauma and mental well-being 50 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 and psychosocial status to stateless persons is enduring. given the high likelihood of post-statelessness mental health challenges, it is crucial to gain insight into how best to provide psychosocial care. the evidence on such interventions is limited to non-existent. as a point of departure for the discussion points in this section, we use a case example based on the experience of one of the authors during social work intervention with a stateless adolescent in south africa. the aim of using the one case example is to show the interconnectedness of the trauma (i.e., big ‘t’ versus small ‘t’) and the intersectional lens to statelessness. this is because statelessness intersects with many factors leading to it largely remaining unrepresented in national, regional, or global discourses. case example in 2007, i was working as a social worker at an institution in south africa that accommodated orphaned and vulnerable children. during this time, i was assigned the case of andrew (not his real name). andrew was a seventeen-year-old teenage boy who was born in and had migrated from tanzania as a toddler. his stepfather who took care and custody of him was an umkhonto we sizwe war veteran who was in exile at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle in south africa during the late 1980s and early 1990s. andrew was born in tanzania, and he did not have any legal documentation when his stepfather relocated to south africa, at the dawn of democracy, with him and his tanzanian biological mother. the efforts by andrew’s stepfather to obtain south african citizenship for him, were without success. years passed until andrew’s mother passed away and his stepfather remarried. the new wife of andrew’s stepfather did not want to stay with andrew, claiming that he was not a biological son to her new husband. andrew ended up in institutional care due to neglect and constant problems at home caused by the displeasure from his stepfather’s wife. andrew was a highly intelligent boy and he also excelled as a soccer player. he had dreams to play for bafana bafana — the south african national team. he calls south africa home, and it is the only country he identified with. he had no memory of tanzania and he had never gone back to visit since moving to south africa. he only spoke english and several south african languages. in 2007, andrew was supposed to write his matric exams. unfortunately, he did not have a south african or tanzanian birth certificate or any identity document. the tanzanian embassy could not help his case due to the bureaucratic process involved in family tracing and proving his birthplace. as such, the tanzanian embassy could not prove if andrew was indeed born in tanzania and that his mother was a tanzanian citizen. as the same time, he was denied south african documentation, rendering him stateless. andrew was told that he could not register as a candidate for the final high school exams. he approached the social worker with this concern, and was reassured that every effort possible would be made to help with his case and that the issue will be resolved in time to allow him to register for the exams. despite the reassurances and the possible solutions suggested to him, andrew was growing despondent by the day. not 51 being able to write these exams was weighing down on him. he was showing signs of stress and he would come to see the social worker daily to check on the progress of his case. one weekend, the social worker had a family emergency that necessitated travel away from the residential care facility. upon the social worker’s return, he learned that andrew had passed on after committing suicide. the issue of lack of documentation had taken its toll on him, and he had become hopeless, socially isolated from family, with feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. andrew had confided in his peers that he could not bear to see his dream of featuring for the south african national team and writing his matric exam fail due to a lack of documentation. as far as he was concerned, he was south african and did not see a reason why granting him an identity document was such a big issue. “uncle, why are they rejecting me like this?” he would often ask the social worker. the multi-layered stressors and psychosocial and physical health issues converged to create an experience of loneliness, hopelessness, worthlessness, and despair, leading to suicide. the case of andrew above represents a tip of the iceberg of the suffering that many stateless persons endure on a day-to-day basis due to lack of documentation. statelessness leads to a situation of precarity where people live with uncertainty and perpetual worry every single day of their lives. this impacts the mental health of affected stateless persons and the prolonged day-to-day precarity eventually leads to more severe forms of traumatic mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. for andrew, lack of documentation blocked his advancement in schooling, it crushed his hopes as a budding footballer who saw himself representing the south african national team. sadly, he could not handle the mental toll that was induced by his situation of statelessness. thus, statelessness in combination with other factors eventually led to his untimely and regrettable demise at such a young age. the hopes, dreams and potential of this young teenage boy were crushed. andrew had lived with this situation for many years and it was something that had inconvenienced him time after time, but he was able to navigate the inconveniences that came with statelessness until he encountered the major huddles that eventually cost him his life. such situations come with tremendous mental strain and stress that eventually lead to complex trauma, somatic illnesses and even death, as in the case of andrew. indeed, it is challenging to live with daily uncertainty and inconvenience. for andrew, as is the case for millions of other stateless persons, statelessness represents rejection, and a denial of being. the need for belonging and acceptance is a universal desire in all people and it is needed at all levels of our ecology, from family, school, community, and the country at large. to this end, a denial of citizenship is in essence a denial of one’s existence, identity and right to citizenship. while this is legally a breach of human rights, there are hidden mental health costs to statelessness that haunt affected persons daily. dreams are shattered, hopes dashed and opportunities are limited because the person does not have documentation. the ‘world’ of statelessness shuts out persons from access to economic opportunities, statelessness, trauma and mental well-being 52 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 career advancement, education, and travel, among other necessary life chances. it is a life filled with daily stressors — an existence that is stressful and detrimental to one’s well-being. daily stressors experienced by stateless persons may worsen their mental health adaptations that are experienced by limiting every-day protective factors and reducing their sense of resilience.43 environmental stressors may vary in intensity and can include: lack of access to basic needs, residing in insecure and overcrowded housing, fear of being arrested, lack of academic opportunities, and diminished livelihood prospects. daily stressors associated with poverty and insecure conditions have an adverse impact on mental health — with ongoing chronic stressors interfering with recovery and prolonging symptoms. stories shared by stateless persons illustrate their frustration with a lack of identity or belonging and are indicative of their struggles for survival and recognition. experiences of statelessness can easily be viewed and understood to be traumatic and capable of inducing symptoms of anxiety and depression. stateless persons are frequently exposed to severe psychological trauma, characterised by social stigma, violence, detention, and threats of (or actual) deportation. this could lead to a decrease of the severity of (un)diagnosed disorders even after citizenship is granted. in this regard, trauma-informed psychosocial care and support is aimed at addressing the stateless persons’ psycho-emotional needs and providing opportunities for a better future. the help includes engaging with the person’s internal resources by drawing on their unique lived experiences, creativity, and motivation while acknowledging the long restorative healing journeys to be undertaken. the duration of being stateless may serve as a proxy for statelessness adversity – being associated with prolonged and repeated exposure to violence, marginalisation, restricted movement, and lack of access to services. this mirrors the impact of multiple traumas, which are often more challenging to process, as they are of a longer duration, unpredictable, and entail varying levels and intensity of violence and discrimination. v. implications for practice, research, and advocacy what makes statelessness traumatic are the experiences that are both visible or hidden, and that involve a threat to a person’s functioning, physical or emotional well-being and that of their family members. being in a state of statelessness can also be overwhelming — it can foster helplessness and result in intense feelings of fear, anxiety, and lack of control. the knowledge of being stateless, is bound to change and influence the way that person understands themself, relationships, the world, and others. it is also important to understand culture-specific descriptions and manifestations of trauma or of stressful experiences. these are aspects that any professional who works with stateless individuals and families ought to know and acknowledge. 43 andrew riley et al. (2017) op cit note 9 304 at 306. 53 from an intergenerational perspective, the stress, anxiety, or depression linked to stateless parents or caregivers can increase the internalised symptoms of their child. in addition, the timing and duration of exposure to the contextual stressful incidents can have consequences on children’s developmental outcomes. like andrew’s situation in the case example, cumulative risk or prolonged multiple risks and limited future economic prospects can affect the severity to which a person’s mental health is affected. a study on stateless iraqi kurdish children and adolescents indicates that experiences of risk factors in early childhood rather than later in adolescence have more adverse consequences.44 thus, from a multi-systemic approach, there is a need to work with the whole family, irrespective of the nature of statelessness in that family unit. this also calls for further research on the family’s functioning, as impacted by statelessness. daily stressors associated with the lives of stateless persons can be of more urgent concern than past traumatic events. this is because they play a significant role in mental health outcomes and ought to be considered as potential avenues for intervention, in reducing mental health symptoms and increasing functioning and wellness. this is consistent with the belief that healthy coping and resilience can be fostered by supportive recovery environments. when engaging with stateless persons, it is important to maintain an attitude that empowers the person, acknowledging their worth, rather than seeing them as sources and carriers of pathology. this is based on the belief that the stateless person has agency and is best able to understand their needs45 and challenges. they must, therefore, be included in the development and design of intervention plans to alleviate their problems. the findings emphasise the importance of investigating and researching associations between human rights violations and mental health, with a focus on preventative strategies and integrated interventions. future research can look at how rights violations and the resulting trauma from statelessness become internalised by individuals and communities and from there seek to identify interventions that can be implemented early. addressing mental health symptoms alone in stateless persons or simply assigning them a nationality, is insufficient. this paper emphasises integrated and holistic rather than siloed approaches when intervening on statelessness issues. trauma practitioners such as social workers, psychologists, and counsellors should work in partnerships with legal practitioners and activists to reduce emotional distress while strengthening coping strategies and resilience and addressing systemic rights violations. in addition, the unique situations, rights violations experiences, social exclusion, and ‘vulnerability of stateless persons as compared to many other nonnationals require a greater openness to granting more favourable rights to stateless persons than to other migrants who are not so fundamentally disadvantaged’.46 44 en chi chen ‘stateless iraqi kurdish children and adolescents’ mental health: a scoping review’ (2020) research square at 22, available at https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-113316/v1 45 asako ejima (2021) op cit note 16 357 at 379. 46 katherine perks & amal de chickera ‘the silent stateless and the unhearing world: can equality compel us to listen?’ (2009) 3 equal rights review 42 at 51. statelessness, trauma and mental well-being 54 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 adopting a trauma-informed approach means viewing and engaging with a stateless individual’s behaviours, responses, feelings or emotions and attitudes as a collection of coping skills arising as a response to rights violations and traumatic experiences. for this to be achieved, there is the need for multi-systemic changes and commitments to practices by applying (basic) information of trauma and recovery to design and deliver policies and services. providing trauma-informed care and services reduces situations and circumstances that can lead to additional harm or rights violations through practices that are not supportive of well-being and recovery. traumainformed services by any practitioner can increase a stateless person’s ‘choice and control over the course of their recovery and focus on safety, strengths, spiritual and emotional well-being, and the development of trusting relationships’.47 in providing a positive trauma-informed intervention to stateless persons so that they can lead satisfying and fulfilled lives, trauma practitioners must pay attention to their own personal wellness. providing care and services to wounded persons can result in a variety of psychological reactions that can cause secondary stress disorders and lead to vicarious trauma. therefore, trauma specialists and other practitioners working with stateless persons ought to take care of themselves and set limits on the levels of emotional energy they can safely exert on their work. vi. limitations of the study due to the inadequate linkages with core social, political, and developmental issues, stateless persons remain uncounted and disenfranchised — and their very existence may even be denied. when we observe victims and survivors who have their rights denied and centre their lives or stories based on hierarchies of victimhood, we are perpetuating the unjust belief that there are those who are more deserving [of being heard] through having collective voices. from a quantitative perspective, we acknowledge that multiple cases increase the credibility of the study. however, when using a qualitative approach, a small sample is not generalisable and is a limitation of many studies. the aim of presenting the case example in this paper is to illustrate the wide range of interconnecting yet challenging situations that a stateless person may experience when navigating unjust systems.48 when access to having one’s story recognised is contingent on the stories of many others who travel a similar road but with inaccessible stories, this is in effect a denial of basic truth — that each of us must have interlinking stories to satisfy or ensure acknowledgement of our traumas. trauma experience is individual, that is, it is based on the meaning that one attaches to it and not what others make of it. trauma-informed research within statelessness studies calls for these stories to be platformed and amplified in a genuine way49 — 47 rose clervil, kathleen guarino, carmela j decandia & ca beach ‘trauma-informed care for displaced populations: a guide for community-based service providers’ waltham, ma: the national center on family homelessness, a practice area of american institutes for research health and social development program (2020) 1 at 18. 48 jeanine hourani ‘reclaiming statelessness narratives by resisting “deficit” discourse and amplifying the voices of stateless people’ university of melbourne (2021) at para 4. 49 janine hourani (2021) op cit note 48 at para 7. 55 surfaced and not silenced and forgotten. from a research perspective, we support the view that ‘enabling stateless people’s voices to be heard more strongly and more widely is a fundamental requirement for a better understanding of the problem of statelessness and how to tackle it’.50 we strongly acknowledge that engaging with stateless people's voices and lived experiences can strengthen advocacy and policy because it informs balanced debates and helps in the person-centred identification of needs, gaps, and solutions in the resolution of statelessness. in securing a better future for them, targeted funding, and dedicated support is crucial.51 we should be cautious not to discredit single voices because they can also provide insights to increase our understanding of some complexities around statelessness and enable further opportunities for these to be strengthened, refuted, or clarified. in as much as there is increasing research on traumatic events and interventions being universal phenomena,52 there is a need to investigate culture-specific manifestations of trauma, as exhibited by stateless persons in different contexts as well as cultural transformative ways to identify local idioms of distress and explanatory models of somatic symptoms. this paper is based on a review of literature; hence, empirical studies are recommended to understand statelessness-related traumas based on lived experiences and the systematic rights violations. this would give voice to this silenced yet vulnerable population and to identify what justice means to them. vii. conclusion in this paper, we argue that statelessness, whether de jure or de facto has traumatic effects on the individuals and families. mental health distress for stateless persons may be mitigated by interventions targeting environmental stressors and risk factors (pre-, during and post-statelessness, if applicable) to promote well-being. policymakers and activists should work collaboratively with mental health practitioners to broaden their understanding of effective, holistic interventions that include tackling psychosocial and emotional distresses brought about by statelessness. the authors hope that this study will inspire additional efforts in understanding and incorporating a critical trauma-informed lens influencing mental well-being toward the development of more nuanced and transformative multi-level and multi-systemic interventions. 50 ieksejs ivashuk ‘tackling statelessness: the fundamental importance of stateless people’s voices’ (2022) 70 fmr 13 at 14, available at https://www.fmreview.org/issue70/ivashuk, accessed on 05 november 2022. 51 katie robertson & sarah dale ‘a place to call home’ peter mcmullin centre on statelessness (2021), available at https:// law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/3645547/statelesschildrenreport.pdf, accessed on 05 november 2022. 52 andrew riley et al. (2017) op cit note 9 at para 1. statelessness, trauma and mental well-being 74 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa: evidence from the national income dynamics study hemish govera* and amiena bayat** * university of the western cape, south africa email: hgovera@gmail.com ** university of the western cape, south africa the literature associates migration with poor mental health outcomes. despite extensive empirical research in other countries, there is a paucity of research examining the mental health consequences of migration in south africa, and the factors that compound the relationship between the two variables. the study objective was to evaluate the differences in the mental health status of internal migrants and that of non-migrants in south africa with a special focus on depressive symptoms. the study considered the influence of various vulnerability and sociodemographic factors such as gender, age, educational attainment, race, income group, marital status and province of residence. mental health disorders are already considered the largest contributor to the global disease burden. hence, understanding the nature of the relationship between migration and mental health is critical for public health prevention efforts. to make the determination, the study applied descriptive analysis and logistic modelling based on the south african national income dynamics study (nids) panel datasets of 2008, 2010, 2014/15 and 2017. descriptive statistics were employed to derive the frequency distribution of sociodemographic characteristics and migration factors. logistic regression analysis was used to assess the associations between depression, migration and sociodemographic factors. keywords: migration, acculturation, gender, depression, sociodemographic factors 75 introduction the process of migration is complex and stress-inducing, regardless of whether migration is internal or international (bhugra, 2004; carroll et al., 2020). this is due to the association of migration with stressful experiences of change, inadequacy, perceptions of discrimination and social marginalization (bhugra, 2004; gkiouleka et al., 2018; bauer et al., 2020). the migration process entails social change of cultural settings for the migrants and this change has implications for mental health (ajaero et al., 2017). therefore, migration has the potential to negatively influence mental health and has been identified as one of the social determinants of negative mental health outcomes (satcher, 2000). the association between mental health issues and migration bears a considerable influence on health disparities (ai et al., 2015). empirical evidence has established sociodemographic inequalities in migrants’ health (giannoni et al., 2016). as such, migration and health inequalities continue to be a key concern of public and policy debates (bircan et al., 2020). the concept of migration is not new in south africa. the country is one of the main destinations of immigration in africa (fauvelle-aymar, 2014). within the country, the western cape and gauteng account for most of the inter-provincial migration (kleinhans and yu, 2020). evidence suggests that the population of internal migrants has increased in the post-apartheid era (ajaero et al., 2017). a significant proportion of internal migration within the country is intra-district and economically motivated (rogan et al., 2009). despite extensive empirical research in other countries, there is a paucity of research examining the mental health consequences of internal migration in south africa. in this context, it therefore becomes pertinent to examine if migrants actually have better mental health than non-migrants in south africa. understanding the nature of the relationship between migration and mental health is critical for public health prevention efforts. background and contextualization in south africa, internal migration is historically associated with the social engineering and enforced fragmentation of families that took place under apartheid (hall, 2016). this was part of the apartheid strategy to entrench minority rule through spatial arrangements that strategically divided families and split generations and separated breadwinners from dependants (hall, 2016). such social conditions have been conceptualized as a challenge to the emotional resilience of individuals who may experience psychological distress, personal crisis and could precipitate poor mental health (portes and rumbaut, 2006). in this context, it becomes relevant to examine if internal migrants have worse mental health than non-migrants in south africa. literature review/theoretical/conceptual framework there are various theoretical frameworks in the literature that provide concepts that may be useful in analyzing the association between migration and mental health differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 76 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 outcomes. theories of acculturative stress posit that tensions due to living in a foreign culture contribute to mental disorders (gutierrez-vazquez et al., 2018). bhugra (2004) developed a contingency model which hypothesizes vulnerability (risk factors) or resiliency (protective factors) for psychological disorders based on the person’s situation and migration stage. in physical health literature, the selection hypothesis predicts that more prepared and healthier individuals are more likely to migrate compared to their counterparts in worse conditions (akresh and frank, 2008). migrant selectivity could be evident in both observable and unobservable characteristics such as preparedness to migrate. as a result, migrants could be positively selected on the sociodemographic characteristics that are protective against poor mental health outcomes such as gender and family background. this implies that migrants could be better positioned to handle uncertainty and stress compared to those who select not to migrate. however, given the high prevalence of poor mental health among migrants, it could be that selection can negatively impact on mental health. according to gutierrez-vazquez et al. (2018), if migrants are negatively selected with respect to sociodemographic background, or have underlying traits that make them more prone to dissatisfaction, then selection could be an important contributor to adverse mental health outcomes. the literature provides evidence of the significant prevalence of depressive symptoms within migrant population groups compared to non-migrants. mulcahy and kollamparambil (2016) investigated the impact of rural-urban migration on subjective well-being in south africa between 2008 and 2012. the study adopted the use of instrumental variables to control for endogeneity caused by shock-induced self-selection, and propensity score matching to control for migration self-selection bias. the results indicated that rural-urban migration leads to decreased subjective well-being which could be due to unrealized expectations and changing reference groups used to peg aspirations, as well as the emotional cost of being away from family and a home environment. gkiouleka et al. (2018) researched the prevalence of depressive symptoms among migrant and non-migrant communities in 21 european countries. the research looked into the impact of gender, childhood experiences, sociodemographic factors and social support on depressive symptoms using data from the seventh round of the european social survey and the greek migheal survey. the study found that migrants reported significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms in seven of the examined countries, while in greece and in the uk, they reported significantly lower levels compared with non-immigrant populations. the findings suggest that the impact of migration status on depressive symptoms is subject to additional determinants of mental health as well as on contextual factors. gutierrez-vazquez et al. (2018) sought to explore the link between migration and depressive symptoms among mexicans residing in the united states of america (usa) and those residing in the sending communities in mexico. the study reviewed the standard explanations for the links between migration and depression, such as ac77 culturative stress, lack of social support, and powerlessness and isolation. the study also tested the migration selection hypothesis using propensity matching scores. the study results indicated a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms among migrant communities compared to non-migrant community groups. the study also found little support for selection as an important source of migrant depression. instead, the study found strong evidence that migration itself was primarily responsible for depressive symptoms mainly due to the disruption of social networks that it entails. family separation was found to be the strongest predictor of depressive symptoms and could account for a significant proportion of the poor mental health among migrants. akresh and frank (2008) sought to quantify the extent of health selection among contemporary us immigrant groups. this entails checking the degree to which potential immigrants migrate, or fail to migrate, on the basis of their health status. data for the study came from the new immigrant survey 2003 cohort which included unique series of questions to evaluate the health of immigrants in the united states to that of citizens in their country of origin. the study found that the extent of positive health selection differed significantly across immigrant groups and was related to compositional differences in the sociodemographic profiles of immigrant streams. past studies on migration highlight four key sociodemographic risk factors for depression among the general population: (i) low sociodemographic status; (ii) female gender; (iii) being unmarried; and (iv) undesired life events (alegria et al., 2007). mental health outcomes were found to be worse for immigrants who are unemployed, young, and female (ai et al., 2015). however, in a completely different finding, bauer et al. (2020) found that a high sociodemographic status does not necessarily protect refugees from the negative influences during migration and the first months or years in the new country. there are several theoretical models and perspectives mainly focusing on rural-urban and international migration. however, migration research lacks theoretical advancement with empirical research disconnected from the theories (kureková, 2010; bircan et al., 2020). the existing migration theories do not adequately capture the dynamics of internal migration and depression. in the presence of these theoretical gaps, this study looks at confirming the hypothesis that migrants report greater rates of depressive symptoms than non-migrants after controlling for sociodemographic factors. also, while there is extensive empirical literature on the impact of mental health on international migration, relatively little is known about internal migration and mental health outcomes, especially in the south african context. there is a paucity of research examining the mental health consequences of migration in south africa, and the factors that compound the relationship between the two variables. therefore, the key objective of this empirical research is to examine whether internal migrants are more likely to report poor mental health outcomes compared to non-migrants in south africa, and if they do, to also determine the sociodemodifferences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 78 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 graphic predictors of migrant status and mental health outcomes. methodology data the study used data from the five waves of the national income dynamics study (nids) survey: wave 1 (2008), wave 2 (2010–2011), wave 3 (2012), wave 4 (2014– 2015) and wave 5 (2017) (saldru, 2020). the nids is a face-to-face, longitudinal, nationally representative panel survey of individuals and households focusing primarily on sociodemographics, labor market participation, grants received, education and health in south africa. the nids adopted a stratified, two-stage cluster sample design in sampling the households and individuals identified in the 2008 base wave. in waves 2 to 5, the survey included the original sample members as well as new members who had joined the original households. response rates in the nids survey were high, with over 81% of households being successfully interviewed in wave 5. this study considered only respondents who were 18 years of age or older at the time of the interview. for the data analysis, the dataset was weighted to account for attrition and underor over-sampling errors. measures/instruments depression variable the depression variable was derived from responses to the emotional health questions in the survey questionnaires. across all the waves, respondents were asked 10 questions relating to their mental well-being. the responses were scored on a 4-point likert scale indicating the frequency of experiencing the depressive symptom. to calculate a total score for depressive symptoms, the survey responses were summed up using the 10-item version of the centre for epidemiological studies-depression (ces-d) scale (radloff, 1977). this study used the threshold of 10 and above to define the presence of significant depressive symptoms (sds). the threshold was also recommended by radloff (1977). the same scale was adopted by other studies assessing depression using the nids such as mungai and bayat (2018) and dowdall et al. (2017). the ces-d scale is a common psychiatric measurement tool for assessing depressive symptoms and has good psychometric properties (dowdall et al., 2017; mungai and bayat, 2018). the cronbach’s alpha for this scale in the sample was 0.75. following from schuckit et al. (1993: 5), who asserted that “symptoms are not diagnoses”, and the methodology employed by mungai and bayat (2018), the study did not attempt to diagnose depression but rather assessed the symptomatology that suggests significant vulnerability to being depressed. migration variable this research followed hall’s (2016) methodology in defining migrants as those who 79 moved across municipal boundaries. it is a single variable that captures movements between waves 1 and 5, or any of the intervening waves. for instance, persons who moved between waves 1 and 2, but not between waves 3 and 4 are defined as migrants, on the basis that they had moved place at some time between waves 1 and 5. empirical model the study uses logit models to analyze the likelihood of migration status to impact on mental health status. the adoption of logit models is appropriate, given that the dependent variables can be structured as binary outcomes. logistic regression allows the research to predict the probability of the outcomes falling between the unit intervals. the technique can be used to model a response variable as a function of one or more explanatory variables. the study follows the approach of chear (2015) and formulates the logistic model in the general form below: log 1-p = α + βi xi + ε the regression equation considers depression status as the dependent variable. in the equation, p is the probability that the participant exhibits depressive symptoms and 1-p is the probability that the participant does not exhibit depressive symptoms. p/ (1-p) is the odds that the participant exibits significant depressive symptoms. x is the vector of independent variables hypothesized to impact the probability of demonstrating significant depressive symptoms. the model included several sociodemographic characteristic indicators such as age, race, gender, educational attainment, and marital status. β are the coefficients of the independent variables and ε is the error term. after fitting the logistic regression model to the survey data, the study conducted model diagnostic tests for goodness of fit of the fitted model. the hosmerlemeshow (hl) test was used to check the goodness of fit of the specified models. the independent variables were tested for symptoms of multi-collinearity through the variance inflation factor (vif) test. all the statistical tests were based on a pvalue of a less than 5% level of significance. data analysis the data analysis included the use of descriptive analysis and regression analysis to assess the association between depressive symptoms and migration status. the study applied multivariate logistic regression analysis to assess the likelihood of sample members to experience significant depressive symptoms taking into account their migration status and controlling for sociodemographic characteristics. the study used race, gender, educational attainment, age, marital and occupational status as indicator variables for sociodemographic status based on prior literature such as studies by moussavi et al. (2007), atwoli et al. (2013), and mungai and bayat (2018). p differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 80 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 ethical considerations ethical approval was not needed for the study due to the use of secondary data that was anonymous. result table 1 provides an overview of the sociodemographic characteristics of the study population. the sample consisted of more females compared to males in both the migrant and non-migrant population groups. the sample majority is also predominantly african, with 76% of the study sample being of the african race. over 60% of both the migrant and non-migrant population groups have secondary school education. the unemployed comprised a bigger proportion of the study sample across both migrant statuses. more than half of the sample were aged between 18 and 44 years. within provinces, the majority of the sample members were from kwazulu-natal. 81 table 1: characteristics of the study sample source: authors’ own calculations, based on nids 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014/15 (saldru, 2020) migrants non-migrants overall n proportion % n proportion % n proportion % gender male 743 46% 3,983 39% 4,726 40% female 884 54% 6,146 61% 7,030 60% race african 1395 86% 7500 74% 8895 76% coloured 138 8% 1771 17% 1909 16% asian/indian 24 1% 195 2% 219 2% white 70 4% 663 7% 733 6% educational attainment no schooling 98 7% 1220 14% 1318 13% some primary 171 12% 2198 26% 2369 24% some secondary 555 40% 2813 33% 3368 34% completed secondary 341 25% 1205 14% 1546 16% tertiary or more 211 15% 1107 13% 1318 13% employment status employed 537 39% 4,007 47% 4,544 46% unemployed 839 61% 4,536 53% 5,375 54% age group 18-24 695 43% 1748 17% 2443 21% 25-34 458 28% 2320 23% 2778 24% 35-44 221 14% 2211 22% 2432 21% 45-54 143 9% 1855 18% 1998 17% 55-64 64 4% 1158 11% 1222 10% 65+ 46 3% 837 8% 883 8% province western cape 130 8% 1653 16% 1783 15% eastern cape 186 11% 1134 11% 1320 11% northern cape 72 4% 772 8% 844 7% free state 85 5% 644 6% 729 6% kwazulu-natal 487 30% 2528 25% 3015 26% north west 149 9% 852 8% 1001 9% gauteng 211 13% 1007 10% 1218 10% mpumalanga 90 6% 689 7% 779 7% limpopo 217 13% 850 8% 1067 9% differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 82 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 figure 1 displays the overall distribution of depressive symptoms by migration status and gender. based on the information in the figure, the pattern is similar for females with roughly the same distribution within both the migrant and non-migrant groups. for females, roughly 25% reported depression scores between 10 and 20 across both the migrant and non-migrant categories. it is also evident that there are more female outliers reporting higher depression scores for migrants compared to non-migrants. figure 1: distribution of symptoms in ces-d depression screening by migration status and gender source: authors’ own construction, based on nids 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014/5 and 2017 (saldru, 2020) however, there is a marked difference between the distribution of depressive symptoms in the migrant and non-migrant groups of males. more migrant males displayed higher depressive scores compared to non-migrant males. over 25% of migrant males reported depressive scores greater than 10 compared to about 15% for non-migrant males. in figure 2, we report the distribution of symptoms by migration status and race. the migrant sub-population group reported higher depressive scores across all the races. a total of 25% of migrant asian/indians had depressive scores above the cut-off of 10, followed by african migrants at slightly below 25%. close to 20% of migrant coloureds also reported depressive scores higher than 10. despite a high number of outliers, the proportion of non-migrants reporting depressive scores of 10 or higher was less than that of migrants. 83 figure 2: distribution of symptoms in ces-d depression screening by migration status and race source: authors’ own construction, based on nids 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014/5 and 2017 (saldru, 2020) figure 3 provides an overview of the distribution of symptoms in ces-d depression screening by migration status, race and gender. based on information in the figure, there is no significant variation in the distribution scores of both migrants and non-migrants across both genders within the african racial group. about 25% of female migrants, male migrants and male non-migrants exceeded the threshold of 10 to qualify as displaying significant depressive symptoms. the only exception is the category of african non-migrant females who have more than 25% displaying significant depressive symptoms. the african race constituted the group with the highest depression scores compared to the other racial groups followed by coloureds and lastly, the white racial group. differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 84 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 figure 3: distribution of symptoms in ces-d depression screening by migration status, race and gender source: authors’ own construction, based on nids 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014/5 and 2017 (saldru, 2020) the figure shows that overall, the african population group exhibits the highest intensity and prevalence of depressive symptoms followed by the coloured group and the white group. the female non-migrant african group accounted for the highest depression scores. the same group also constituted the group with the highest proportion of members with depression scores greater than 10. within the coloured racial group, females reported higher depression scores compared to males across both the migrant and non-migrant categories. white non-migrants across both genders reported similar patterns of depression in both intensity and distribution. however, female white migrants reported higher depression scores compared to male white migrants. the study employed logistic regression analysis to ascertain the association between the depression status, migrant status and their sociodemographic characteristics. table 3 displays the results of the logistic regression analysis, using data from the nids waves 1 to 5, pooled into cross-section. model 1 is specified to control for migrant status only. model 2 is a specification that controls for gender as well, while model 3 controls for educational attainment, age, income groups, employment status, marital status and province of domicile. the majority of the predictors were statistically significant. an exception was race and migration status (white non-migrants) across all three models, race and migration status (coloured non-migrant), 85 educational attainment (some primary education) and province (free state and north west) in model 3. table 2: logistic regression on depression status by migration status and sociodemographic characteristics source: authors’ own calculations, based on nids 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014/15 (saldru, 2020) *** denotes significance at 5% level and * denotes significance at 10% level variables (1) model 1: simple specification (2) model 2: some controls (3) model 3: full specification: race and migration status (base: white migrant) african migrant 1.1135*** (0.2149) 1.1177*** (0.2151) 0.9459*** (0.2327) coloured migrant 0.7303*** (0.2423) 0.7401*** (0.2425) 0.5825*** (0.2632) african non-migrant 1.2246*** (0.2132) 1.2054*** (0.2134) 0.8826*** (0.2309) coloured non-migrant 0.586*** (0.215) 0.5737*** (0.2152) 0.2679 (0.233) white non-migrant 0.1736 (0.2243) 0.1702 (0.2245) 0.0631 (0.2418) gender (base: female) male -0.2688*** (0.022) -0.157*** (0.0257) educational attainment (base: no education) some primary education -0.0614 (0.0388) some secondary education -0.2407*** (0.0425) completed secondary education -0.3777*** (0.0529) tertiary or more -0.4269*** (0.0533) income quartiles (base: lowest income group) second quartile -0.1057*** (0.032) third quartile -0.1555*** (0.0342) fourth quartile -0.2864*** (0.0416) age 0.0038*** (0.0011) marital status (base: married) widowed 0.2541*** (0.0414) separated 0.3512*** (0.0679) never married 0.1914*** (0.0288) employment status (base: unemployed) employed -0.1466*** (0.0265) province (base: western cape) eastern cape -0.1835*** (0.0582) northern cape -0.3437*** (0.0608) free state -0.0628 (0.0655) kwazulu-natal -0.164*** (0.055) north west -0.1188* (0.0624) gauteng -0.1502*** (0.0601) mpumalanga -0.627*** (0.0693) limpopo -0.5398*** (0.0636) constant -2.0228*** (0.2128) -1.9128*** (0.2132) -1.3231*** (0.2439) differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 86 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 the regression results in table 2 reveal that all other racial groups in both migrant and non-migrant groups were more likely to be depressed compared to white migrants in models 1 and 2. the results were statistically significant except for white non-migrants across all 3 models. however, there were no statistically significant differences between white migrants and coloured non-migrants, as reflected in model 3. on gender, being male compared to being female, reduces the likelihood of being depressed and this is apparent in both model 2 and model 3 results. using ‘no education’ as the base category, moving into a higher educational attainment category reduces the odds of being depressed. with age, each year-increase in age, increases the chances of being depressed. the same patterns extend to income brackets. taking the lowest income quartile as the base category, being in a higher income category reduces the chances of being depressed. compared to being married, all other marital statuses are associated with higher odds of being depressed. being employed rather than unemployed reduces the chances of being depressed. on province of residence, if we take the western cape province as the reference point, residing in any of the other 8 provinces is associated with lower odds of being depressed. the study then appraises the determinants of mental health status in south africa by gender and sociodemographic variables. table 3 summarizes the logistic regression models to give a clearer picture of how gender influences the risk of depressive symptoms. model 1 evaluates the effects of migrant status and sociodemographic variables on depression status for males. model 2 undertakes a similar analysis for females, with model 3 reporting the combined effect. 87 table 3: logistic regression on depression status by migration status, gender and sociodemographic characteristics sources: authors’ own calculations, based on nids 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014/15 (saldru, 2020) *** denotes significance at 5% level and * denotes significance at 10% level of significance based on the regression output, the overall finding was that compared to white migrants, male africans across both migrant and non-migrant categories had variables (1) model 1: male (2) model 1: female (3) model 1: combined race and migration status (base: white migrant) african migrant 1.767*** (0.52) 0.6128*** (0.2667) 0.9344*** (0.2326) coloured migrant 1.4524*** (0.5522) 0.2241 (0.3128) 0.5762*** (0.2631) african non-migrant 1.6585*** (0.5182) 0.5735*** (0.2639) 0.8791*** (0.2309) coloured non-migrant 1.0548*** (0.5208) -0.046 (0.2669) 0.2717 (0.233) white non-migrant 0.9152* (0.5305) -0.3063 (0.2796) 0.0629 (0.2418) educational attainment (base: no education) some primary education -0.085 (0.0718) -0.059 (0.0463) -0.0616 (0.0388) some secondary education -0.2784*** (0.0755) -0.2274*** (0.0518) -0.2367*** (0.0424) completed secondary education -0.4106*** (0.0893) -0.3667*** (0.0664) -0.3741*** (0.0528) tertiary or more -0.4642*** (0.0905) -0.4146*** (0.0668) -0.4145*** (0.0532) income quartiles (base: lowest income group) second quartile -0.1183*** (0.0601) -0.1055*** (0.0379) -0.1098*** (0.032) third quartile -0.1497*** (0.061) -0.1704*** (0.0418) -0.1686*** (0.0342) fourth quartile -0.2617*** (0.0696) -0.3058*** (0.0533) -0.3097*** (0.0414) age 0.0044*** (0.002) 0.0039*** (0.0013) 0.0039*** (0.0011) marital status (base: married) widowed 0.5763*** (0.1145) 0.2014*** (0.0462) 0.2967*** (0.0408) separated 0.5291*** (0.1238) 0.2539*** (0.0815) 0.371*** (0.0678) never-married 0.2686*** (0.0543) 0.1419*** (0.035) 0.1929*** (0.0289) employment status (base: unemployed) employed -0.2408*** (0.0461) -0.0817*** (0.0327) -0.1658*** (0.0263) province (base: western cape) eastern cape -0.2079*** (0.0994) -0.1764*** (0.0719) -0.1858*** (0.0582) northern cape -0.3788*** (0.1007) -0.3214*** (0.0765) -0.3511*** (0.0608) free state -0.041 (0.1106) -0.0776 (0.0816) -0.0643 (0.0655) kwazulu-natal -0.1021 (0.0943) -0.1952*** (0.0679) -0.1591*** (0.055) north west -0.1269 (0.1038) -0.1172 (0.0785) -0.1258*** (0.0624) gauteng -0.2097*** (0.1003) -0.1063 (0.0755) -0.1502*** (0.0601) mpumalanga -0.6952*** (0.1183) -0.5913*** (0.0859) -0.6271*** (0.0693) limpopo -0.4139*** (0.1093) -0.5976*** (0.0783) -0.5367*** (0.0636) constant -2.2792*** (0.5375) -0.9999*** (0.2807) -1.3709*** (0.2438) differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 88 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 significantly higher chances of being depressed. this finding is evident from the significant results of all the 3 models. the impact is more pronounced for the male group compared to the female group with significant association for coloured and white males and insignificant effect for their female counterparts. poor sociodemographic status was significantly associated with reduced probability of good mental health across all 3 models. the factors include poor educational attainment, lower income, higher age, being widowed, separated or never married (using married as the base category), being unemployed and residing in any province other than the western cape ceteris paribus (except for free state and north west across both genders and gauteng province for females). discussion the aim of this study was to determine whether the prevalence of depressive symptoms is higher among migrants than non-migrants in south africa. the study also sought to examine the association of migration status with a wide set of sociodemographic factors in the same context. the a priori expectation was that migrants would report higher depressive symptoms compared to non-migrants. in supporting findings, the study found that both migrant and non-migrant african groups were more vulnerable to depressive symptoms than coloured and white migrants and nonmigrants. the result had greater effect for males compared to females. the findings were consistent with the existing literature that suggests migration as a risk factor for depressive symptoms in south africa with sociodemographic status having a modifying effect. this finding is consistent with the research by ajaero et al. (2017) who found a similar association between migrant status and depressive symptoms in south africa, using the 2012 nids data (saldru, 2020). these results were also consistent with findings by bhugra (2004), hwang et al. (2010), gkiouleka et al. (2018), gutierrez-vazquez et al. (2018) and carroll et al. (2020), who identified migration as a risk factor for depressive symptoms in various contexts. the study also hypothesized that depressive symptoms would be more prevalent among those with low sociodemographic status after controlling for the migrant status. the research found significant associations between low sociodemographic status and the risk of poor mental health. poor mental health was associated with lower educational status, unemployment and being part of a lower income group, in findings consistent with alegria et al. (2007) and gkiouleka et al. (2018). the current study found significant gender disparities in mental health status with females, especially african migrant women, who displayed poorer mental health status compared to males across both migrant and non-migrant communities. the result is consistent with findings by dalgard and thapa (2007). a possible explanation for this, is that in south africa, women have less economic and social power than males, yet they carry heavy family responsibilities (mungai and bayat, 2018). this factor can have a modifying effect on the risk of depressive symptoms when combined with the challenges of social integration for migrants. 89 furthermore, age appears to be a significantly strong predictor of depressive symptoms with an increase in age being associated with increased risk of depressive symptoms. this finding is consistent with the study by ardington and case (2010), who also found that the likelihood of depression increases with age. this result can be explained in part, by older adults being more troubled by poverty compared to the relatively young members of the society. this study found that marital status was significantly associated with depressive symptoms. it is apparent from the study results that all marital status categories have poorer mental health relative to the married category. this is consistent with the findings of das et al. (2007) who also found that respondents who were separated, divorced or widowed, reported worse mental health compared to those who were married. this could be linked to the lack of social support, which adds to stress and lowers mental health. the place of residence was also identified as a significant determinant of mental health status in the study. compared to the western cape, residing in the rest of the south african provinces was associated with a lower risk of poor mental health after controlling for migration status. limitations notwithstanding the robust findings, the study has some limitations. first, the numbers in some of the racial sub-categories such as whites and indians/asians constitute very few respondents, which makes it difficult to draw inferences from the results for these groups. second, the available data makes it difficult to determine if a move represents a ‘return’ rather than ‘migration’. future research should consider employing more representative data for inferences regarding under-represented racial groups such as whites and indians/asians. conclusion and recommendations the aim of the study was to evaluate whether there are differences in the mental health status of migrants and non-migrants in the south african context, considering sociodemographic factors. the results highlighted significant associations between migrants and non-migrants with the relationship being compounded by sociodemographic characteristics. the study found empirical evidence that african migrants are at heightened risk of depressive symptoms, compared to other races. both migrant and non-migrant african groups were more vulnerable to depressive symptoms than coloured and white migrants and non-migrants. there were also significant differences in the way sociodemographic characteristics were associated with mental health status. migrants with lower sociodemographic status were more susceptible to poor mental health, highlighting the unique challenges and threats that are faced by economically-deprived migrants. the gender analysis revealed significant differences in the mental health status of males and females, with male migrants differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 90 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 being impacted more than females. being married was significantly associated with better mental health status. these findings provide insights into the racial, gender and sociodemographic dimensions of poor mental health in the migrant community in south africa, which policy-makers can incorporate into intervention strategies. a key insight of the results is that strategies that impact on migration, such as local employment, housing and urban planning are likely to have important mental health outcomes at the population level. therefore, there is a need to address neighborhoodlevel material deprivation and unemployment to reduce migration, which ought to impact positively on 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https://doi.org/10.1177/014662167700100306 https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.31.1.5 https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.31.1.5 https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.150.5.786 http://www.nids.uct.ac.za/ 116 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 the dynamics of child trafficking in west africa samuel kehinde okunade* and lukong stella shulika* * university of johannesburg, south africa the phenomenon of human trafficking remains a scourge in africa, and this continent continues to be a source and transit route for this illicit activity. the west african region has perpetually maintained the undignified position as the region with the most prevalent issues of human trafficking, child labor, and modern slavery, despite the efforts by the various national governments and the economic community of west african states (ecowas) to eradicate these atrocities. this study examines the efforts of the west african states towards tackling this menace of trafficking across west african borders. the study employed a documentary research design and retrieved data from both primary and secondary materials. findings from the study showed there is still a lacuna in the domestication of the united nations (un) protocol on human trafficking by west african states as the west african network of central authorities and prosecutors (wacap) against organized crime, saddled with harnessing the resources of ecowas states in combating the menace, lacks the capacity required for achieving the set goal. also, efforts by the various states in the region have been largely reactive and legislative rather than preventive. the study thus recommends that ecowas states take preventive measures, like building the institutional capacities of regional and national law enforcement, as well as implementing measures that will ensure respect for the fundamental human rights of women and children in the sociocultural philosophies of west africans. keywords: human trafficking, child trafficking, west african states, ecowas, child labor 117 introduction human trafficking as a concept and practice is as dated as the literature on it. such literature tends to problematize human trafficking broadly from a human rights lens and assumes a marked critique of stakeholders involved in it and governments with weak policies that feed it (laczko and gramegna, 2003; cullen-dupont, 2009; shelley, 2010; wheaton et al., 2010; farrell and de vries, 2020). however important this phenomenon and problem is, human trafficking is currently a source of conflict intractability and a source through which violent extremist groups recruit vulnerable and helpless mercenaries (hynes et al., 2018). another dimension is the cultural and religious driver of human trafficking (de liévana and montáñez, 2015; ikeora, 2016). this is hinged on the fact that certain cultural and religious practices permit the initiation and utilization of children to advance their ideologies. for instance, the alamajiris of northern nigeria, the mendiants of mali and senegal or the street children of the gambia and niger are organized cults of kids answerable to a master in whose hands and on whom their destiny and survival depends (andrew and lawrance, 2012; gunther, 2021; naptip, 2021). these children, often victims of poor social systems, poverty, and illiteracy join fundamentalist groups with the expectation that such group leaders will educate them out of their plight and grow them into religious, cultural or community leaders (de liévana and montáñez, 2015; gunther, 2021; naptip, 2021). the widely accepted belief that children sent to learn a trade from an influential person is beneficial to their families in the long run, fuels voluntary and cooperative trafficking, which is different from children seized as booties of conflicts, including boko haram, that currently wreaks havoc in chad basin today (hynes et al., 2018; easo, 2021; naptip, 2021). this paper discusses the complexities of human trafficking with a particular emphasis on child trafficking in west africa, its societal acceptance, and the broader impact of the practice on regional peace and security. the paper assesses the efficacy of measures taken by states and the ecowas regional block to deal with the scourge. acknowledging the complexity of the issues, the paper navigates a careful line of recommendations, which suggest that human trafficking is bad for all (including its promoters). literature review: trafficking as a global ill and human security challenge in africa human trafficking has over the years proven to be a global menace not limited to a specific geographical location, region, or continent (iom, 2017; unodc, 2021). traceable to the 1980s, several reasons have been put forward as the root cause of global trafficking, including developments in migration trends, the aids pandemic, the feminist movement, child prostitution, and sex tourism – all of which characterized the 1980s and the dire economic situation of many countries (doezema, 2002; unodc, 2017, 2020, 2021). globalization, which has led to the demand of the dynamics of child trafficking in west africa 118 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 cheap labor in the industrialized climes, has also been identified as a major cause of and contribution to human trafficking (iom, 2017; unodc, 2017). despite the attention and resources that this phenomenon has attracted from international and local state and non-state actors, the number of victims of human trafficking keeps increasing globally (iom, 2017). the united nations office on drugs and crime 2020 report observes that as at 2018, global statistics on victims of human trafficking stood at 49,032 people, while victims by age and gender were at 48,748, and another 39,805 people were reported to be victims of one form of exploitation or another (unodc, 2021). furthermore, while 9,429 persons had been investigated and suspected of trafficking-related crimes, only 7,368 have been prosecuted and only 3,553 have been convicted (unodc, 2021). as identified by global reports and scholars, trafficking is carried out for the purpose of exploitation, which is classified into two forms, namely, for forced labor and for sexual exploitation (iom, 2017; unodc, 2017, 2020, 2021; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). although sexual exploitation has received much attention, since many females are trafficked for that purpose, the incidence of forced labor has equally grown, due to the massive demand for cheap labor across the globe (ilo, 2012a; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). scholars have identified three prevalent types of trafficking in sub-saharan africa: (a) trafficking in children for farm labor and domestic work within and between countries; (b) trafficking in women and young persons for sexual exploitation, majorly outside the region; and (c) trafficking in women from outside the region for the sex industry in south africa (sita, 2003; gould, 2011; kreston, 2014; deane, 2017; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). the need for cheap domestic and agricultural labor in africa explains the rising number of male victims, as raised by reports on human trafficking (ilo, 2017; iom, 2017; statista, 2021). trafficking in persons grossly violates the fundamental rights of women and children who form the majority of trafficked persons among the vulnerable groups (deane, 2017; ilo, 2017; iom, 2017; unodc, 2017, 2020). as scholars have argued, there is a thin line between trafficking, irregular migration, and smuggling in persons, as traffickers engage in irregular travel patterns across countries and continents in an attempt to evade authorities and deliver their cargoes to their destinations undetected (deane, 2017; mlambo and ndebele, 2021; okunade, 2021). there have been extensive debates in the reliability of sources of data on the trends and statistics of trafficking in persons, resulting in figures usually being estimates and approximations. according to recent estimates, approximately 12.4 million people are being trafficked across the globe annually, while 80% are believed to be women, 70% of whom are trafficked for sexual exploitation (gould, 2011; ikeora, 2016; deane, 2017). global statistics indicate that between 2008 and 2019, the estimated number of trafficked victims from sub-saharan africa increased from 30,961 to 105,787 (statista, 2021) while the unodc 2020 report states that child victims amounted to one-third of the global population of trafficked persons – taken from their countries 119 to within and beyond their countries for various forms of exploitation (ilo, 2012b; kreston, 2014; unodc, 2021). reports also indicate that within central and west africa, between 200,000 and 300,000 children are trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labor, with 99% of this number trafficked within the african region (ilo, 2012a; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). alarmingly, more than 50% of human trafficking victims in west africa are children (mlambo and ndebele, 2021). according to studies conducted in 2011 on child labor in central and west africa, more than 1.8 million children were reportedly working on cocoa farms in cameroon, cote d’ivoire, nigeria and ghana (ilo, 2012a). ghana and cote d’ivoire were reported to host the highest number of child laborers working on the farms, with a combined estimation of 1.8 million children, making west africa the region with the highest number of child laborers in the world (ilo, 2012b; mlambo and ndebele, 2021; unodc, 2021). according to the global slavery index, nigeria ranks 32nd out of 167 in nations with the highest number of slaves, with an estimated 1,38 million slaves, most of whom are child laborers (mlambo and ndebele, 2021). during the late 1990s, when global trafficking was rife, the united states took the lead in establishing governance measures to contain this phenomenon (gozdziak and collett, 2005). this led to the establishment and promulgation of protocols aimed to protect trafficked victims. such measures include the trafficking victims protection act (tvpa) of 2000 and the trafficking victims protection re-authorization act of 2003, regarded as the major tools for combating human trafficking globally and locally (gozdziak and collett, 2005). mexico is known as a country of source, transit and destination for trafficked persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced labor (gozdziak and collett, 2005; iom, 2017). however, the country has contributed little to the efforts aimed at combating this scourge locally and within north america. the trafficking in persons (tip) report indicated that the government of mexico defaulted in observing the minimum standards for combating trafficking (thompson, 2003). in south asia, bangladesh, nepal, and sri lanka are major source countries for trafficking while india and pakistan are the major destination countries, while they also serve as transit points for some countries in the middle east (ali, 2005). women and girls are trafficked to countries in the persian gulf (ali, 2005). in bangladesh, women and children are trafficked purposely for forced labor, sexual exploitation, camel jockeying, domestic service, sale of organs, and forced marriage (bangladesh counter trafficking thematic group, 2003). africa – and specifically the west african region – has not escaped this menace, as reports and statistics show that many west african states serve as countries of source, transit and destination for trafficking in persons, thus increasing the rate of the activity within the sub-region (obokata, 2019; mlambo and ndebele, 2021; okunade, 2021). as already noted above, west africa accounts for the highest number of trafficked humans and child laborers in sub-saharan africa, according to reports by the international labour organization (ilo), the united nations (un) the dynamics of child trafficking in west africa 120 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 and the international organization for migration (iom). trafficking takes different forms depending on the countries involved and the demands made (deane, 2017). for instance, in the gambia, guinea bissau, mali, and senegal, child trafficking is carried out for purposes of labor, prostitution, street begging, and child pornography (unodc, 2020; gunther, 2021), while in other west african countries such as benin, ghana, togo, cote d’ivoire, and nigeria, child trafficking takes place majorly for the purpose of child labor (hrw, 2019; unodc, 2020). several factors have been adduced for the phenomenal increase in trafficking in persons across the continent. according to studies on this social menace, poverty and increased unemployment levels are fundamental factors leading to increased tip in africa generally and in west africa specifically (gould, 2011; kreston, 2014; ilo, 2017; mlambo and ndebele, 2021; unodc, 2021). the us department of state also noted that poor economic conditions provide fertile ground for traffickers and smugglers to lure vulnerable people by making false promises of higher salaries and better working conditions in foreign countries (usdos, 2013; okunade, 2021). directly linked to this, is the non-existent welfare support system in most african countries that makes it difficult for parents to adequately meet the economic and welfare needs of their families (gould, 2011; kreston, 2014; deane, 2017). the result of these poor economic conditions in many african countries is that parents are compelled to either offer their children for sale, or to exchange them for debts to traffickers to pay back debts, in their attempts to escape poverty (unodc, 2020, 2021). the lack of education – characteristic of many african countries – that has resulted in the multiplication of out-of-school children with little or no socioeconomic value, has also contributed in no small way to child trafficking (mensah-ankrah and sarpong, 2017; usdos, 2021). major towns and cities across african countries reportedly host large numbers of such out-of-school children who eventually become street beggars, hoodlums, street urchins, etc. with adverse socioeconomic implications for society (mensah-ankrah and sarpong, 2017; usdos, 2021). cultural and religious practices have also been identified a playing an active role in fostering trafficking across the world, especially in african countries (sawadogo, 2012; deane, 2017; usdos, 2021). as noted by researchers, the cultural belief of family solidarity and tribal affiliation practices put many children at risk of being trafficked because this system encourages parents to willingly hand over their children to close and distant relatives and friends with little or no access to the welfare of these children (sawadogo, 2012; deane, 2017). the leeway created by this traditional and cultural interaction, allows for many children to be trafficked with relative ease, especially when children are taken to destinations far from their parents (unodc, 2021; usdos, 2021). scholars acknowledge that this practice is rampant in most west african nations (sawadogo, 2012; deane, 2017; dajahar and walnshak, 2018). studies also revealed that in some african countries like kenya, zimbabwe, and ghana, there are several misplaced 121 cultural beliefs that have gendered implications. for example, the belief that having sex with virgins serves as an antidote to diseases such as hiv/aids, usually leads to young girls becoming victims of trafficking, sex slavery and early marriages (ikeora, 2016; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). the porosity of national borders, coupled with corrupt border security personnel have also been identified as major contributors to the increase in trafficking in persons in africa (mlambo and ndebele, 2021; okunade and oni, 2021). the west african region in particular, and the african continent at large, are notorious for their very porous land and maritime borders, making the influx of transnational criminal networks and related actors rampant in the region (mensah-ankrah and sarpong, 2017; dajahar and walnshak, 2018). traffickers and smugglers have mastered the art of manoevering these porous borders either through the numerous illegal routes or with the assistance of the border guards who are usually technically and professionally ill-equipped for their job roles (ikome, 2012; onogwu, 2018). reports by the united nations office on drugs and crime (unodc, 2021) also observed that security personnel and immigration officers have equally aided the free passage of trafficked victims along major air routes, which explains the european authorities’ awareness of the entry of some trafficked persons into europe, through the airports (easo, 2021). trafficking in persons is one of the biggest sources of revenue of organized crimes, hence the proliferation in the number of traffickers and the consolidation of trafficking and smuggling syndicates and networks around the world (sawadogo, 2012). recent data puts the trafficking industry in africa at a financial value of $13.1 billion per year (okenyodo, 2020; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). furthermore, reports indicate that successfully trafficking a woman to europe from africa for sexwork purposes, may cost about $2,000 which is used for procuring travel documents, bribing key officials, and transportation (unodc, 2021). however, on getting to the intended destination in europe, the trafficker may get up to $12,000 for every trafficked female (sawadogo, 2012; unodc, 2021). reports also show that for children – depending on the source country, destination and purpose – a trafficker may earn between $50 and $1,000 for every child delivered to buyers in europe (sawadogo, 2012; unodc, 2021). sawadogo (2012) further observes that in the united states, a trafficker earns between $10,000 and $20,000 for every african child successfully delivered to buyers. trends, sources and forms of trafficking in west africa the west african sub-region is a major trafficking region in sub-saharan africa with trafficking networks spanning countries within and outside the sub-region (deane, 2017; okunade, 2021). as a result of this, wide links involving transnational criminal syndicates in europe, and trafficking networks within the west african sub-region to europe have become increasingly sophisticated and continue to thrive, with several major cities and towns – such as benin city in southern nigeria – dubbed as notorious trafficking hubs (unicjri, 2003; shelly, 2014; hrw, 2019). victims the dynamics of child trafficking in west africa 122 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 of these sophisticated criminal networks, which reportedly include migration and border officials, are then ferried to europe through the various land, sea, and air corridors in major cities across west african states (unicjri, 2003; deane, 2017; easo, 2021; okunade, 2021). according to gunther (2021), mali serves as a major prostitution hub as well as a transit country for traffickers and illegal migrants from west africa. the same transit routes for illegal migrants and human traffickers have been established in countries like sierra leone, cote d’ivoire, and burkina faso, amongst others (hrw, 2019; unodc, 2020; gunther, 2021). the literature has further established that women and girls are the major victims of trafficking in the west african sub-region, as they are mostly forced into sex slavery and prostitution (unicru, 2004; mlambo and ndebele, 2021; unodc, 2020, 2021). women trafficked from sierra leone and war-ridden liberia are victims of forced prostitution and sex slavery in neighboring mali while women in mali are trafficked to cote d’ivoire, burkina faso and eventually to france for similar purposes (gunther, 2021). these women are trafficked through the land and maritime borders within west africa either to northern africa where they are shipped through the mediterranean sea, or smuggled through airports to europe where they are delivered to brothel owners (sawadogo, 2012; mensah-ankrah and sarpong, 2017; okunade, 2021). the trajectory of these illegal journeys from west africa through the north african cities is fraught with risks for trafficked persons – traffickers could get stranded in the maghreb region for four or more years on their way to europe, especially when they run out of resources or when law enforcement agencies intensify their investigations and tracking of such criminal groups (easo, 2021; mlambo and ndebele, 2021; unodc, 2021; usdos, 2021). similar trafficking in persons has also been reported in ghana where both women and children are victims of trafficking networks (mlambo and ndebele, 2021). trafficking along this region takes place in both external and internal directions; while some victims (women and children) are trafficked within the country and the west african region (anarfi, 1998; mlambo and ndebele, 2021; usdos, 2021), others are trafficked to europe for prostitution and forced labor (ilo, 2017; iom, 2017; unodc, 2021). ghana also serves as a transit route for nigerian women trafficked to germany, italy, and the netherlands for prostitution (hrw, 2019; usdos, 2021). other forms of internal trafficking known to occur within the west african sub-region, are togolese young women trafficked for prostitution to the neighboring countries of cote d’ivoire, ghana, and gabon and externally to lebanon (taylor, 2002; usdos, 2021). in the same vein, reports also indicate that senegal serves as both a source and transit country for trafficked women from other west african countries to south africa, europe, and the gulf states solely for prostitution purposes (gould, 2011; kreston, 2014; deane, 2017). perspectives on the trafficking of children, women and vulnerable groups in west africa along with the trafficking of women and girls, reports show that child trafficking 123 is on the rise in west africa (easo, 2021; mlambo and ndebele, 2021; unodc, 2021). according to recent statistics by the ilo, there were about 1.8 million children trafficked in the last five years from west africa, despite global efforts against this menace (mlambo and ndebele, 2021). trafficked children are mostly sourced from the rural areas where the people are naïve and desperate to escape economic hardship and predicament and strive to provide better living options for their offspring (deane, 2017; okenyodo, 2020). these poor economic conditions put desperate parents in a vulnerable state, especially for those in rural areas where the necessary information on the dangers of trafficking is not available (sawadogo, 2012; mensah-ankrah and sarpong, 2017). it is important to note that, according to the ilo (2017), in collaboration with the walk free foundation, parents do not give their children away with the intention of selling them, even though it eventually turns out to be the case for many who may never see their children again. most parents give their children to recruiters with the belief that they are ensuring a good life for the children and themselves, which explains why some parents accept money from recruiters with the understanding that they will receive a monthly remittance (ilo, 2012a; usdos, 2021). mlambo and ndebele (2021) identified six forms of child trafficking in central and west africa. these include, abduction of children; payment of sums of money to poor parents who give their children away, based on the promise that they would be treated well; bonded placement of children as debt reimbursement; placement for a token sum for specified period; for gift items; and enrolment for a fee by an agent for domestic work at the request of the children’s parents (sawadogo, 2012; ilo, 2012a, 2017; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). mlambo and ndebele (2021) note that in the sixth form, parents of the domestic workers are lured into releasing their children after being assured of their enrolment in schools, and trade or training institutions; meanwhile, they end up as domestic servants and street vendors. another factor recognized by the united states department of state that aids the release of children by their parents and even the victims themselves, is the ‘smooth-talking’ ability of trafficking and smuggling agents that makes it easy to convince potential victims and their parents to take custody of their wards (unodc, 2021; usdos, 2021). according to dottridge (2002), traffickers have mastered the art of getting into the psyche of their victims by painting scenarios of beautiful lives in foreign cities for potential victims. this way, trafficked and smuggled women are sourced, with promises of job opportunities and better lives in europe and in the gulf states (okunade, 2021). another avenue for attracting and adopting children for trafficking from various states in africa and in particular the west african sub-region, is through civil unrests, armed conflicts, and civil wars that are rampant within the sub-region (dajahar and walnshak, 2018; okenyodo, 2020). the displacement and chaos arising from armed conflicts, civil unrests, and other internal and regional security challenges – such as the boko haram insurgency in nigeria, the political unrests in mali, and guinea, amongst others – also serve as opportunities for child traffickers the dynamics of child trafficking in west africa 124 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 who take advantage of the chaos to adopt, lure, and smuggle children (okenyodo, 2020; usdos, 2021). children are trafficked for various reasons, ranging for domestic reasons to child labor, which are rampant in west african states (ilo, 2012a, 2012b, 2017; mlambo and ndebele, 2021; okunade, 2021). although there are international and national legislations in many west african countries guiding the enforcement of measures against child abuse and child labor, the evidence shows that many nations within the sub-region continue to subject minors to child labor (mensah-ankrah and sarpong, 2017; aniche and moyo, 2019). the primary trafficking source countries in the region, such as benin, burkina faso, ghana, mali, nigeria, mauritania, equatorial guinea, gabon, cote d’ivoire, congo, and togo still record considerable numbers of children trafficked within and beyond their countries for domestic work purposes (hrw, 2019; gunther, 2021). specifically, togolese girls are trafficked for both sexual exploitation and forced labor within the country and to the neighboring countries of benin, nigeria, niger, and gabon, while boys are trafficked for labor in plantations across benin, nigeria, and cote d’ivoire (sawadogo, 2012; hrw, 2019). on the external flow of child trafficking from the west african sub-region, the human rights watch (2019) notes that children from nigeria have been trafficked to european nations such as france, the netherlands, spain, and some gulf states. on the continent, senegal has been identified as a destination country for children trafficked from guinea conakry, and mali (gunther, 2021; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). in summary, figure 1 below encapsulates the trajectories on the sources of child trafficking in west africa. figure 1: major sources of child trafficking in west africa children fostering deeply rooted in family ties and cultural beliefs abduction forceful recruitment by traffickers in rural communities and border towns voluntary movement the desire by children to escape poverty in search for better lives 125 child trafficking in africa and in particular in the western sub-region has its attendant effects on trafficked children and the sub-region at large, ranging from exposure to crime, drug abuse, and loss of cultural values – which form the basis of core african belief systems – to exposure to health hazards and diseases, and gross abuse of their fundamental human rights (sawadogo, 2012; mensah-ankrah and sarpong, 2017; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). trafficked children eventually lose family support systems, which puts them in a vulnerable state – a situation which traffickers and their bosses exploit (ilo, 2017; iom, 2017; unodc, 2021; usdos, 2021). this process breeds fear in the victims, eroding their courage to report the traffickers and turn themselves in to the appropriate authorities for help (unodc, 2020, 2021). this is compounded by the fact that traffickers are well connected, as they have informants and support from some government officials (easo, 2021; unodc, 2021). furthermore, child trafficking jeopardizes parental control and the attendant transfer of knowledge and cultural values to children, considered the cornerstone of many african societies (sawadogo, 2012; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). there is also the potential of exposing trafficked children to vices such as crimes, alcoholism, and drug abuse which eventually result in many west african young people (primarily males) becoming drug peddlers, street beggars, and armed robbers (ilo, 2017; unodc, 2021) which add to the social unrests already bedeviling the region. another crucial concern, is the danger of health hazards, emanating from the exposure of trafficked persons and children to harsh working conditions and poor nutrition (ilo, 2012a, 2017). for women and children who are sexually exploited, the exposure to sexually transmitted infections and diseases such as hiv/aids, is an ever-present threat to their health (ilo, 2012a; aniche and moyo, 2019). according to the unodc, some trafficked children experience sexual abuse by their traffickers en-route to their destination cities/countries or by their hosts, making them vulnerable to various health hazards; others are exposed to similar health hazards by being prostitutes and street kids (mensah-ankrah and sarpong, 2017; unodc, 2021). fitzgibbon (2003) maintains that trafficked children and child laborers in africa are prone to suffering sunstroke; abnormal heart rhythms; and poisoning from inhaled chemicals and dust from factories, sawmills, mines, etc., all of which lead to stunted growth that makes them susceptible to malaria and other ailments. the fact remains that these are the kinds of jobs that trafficked children are used for in west africa. while it is unclear why any parent would be comfortable having their child hawking in the street at night, this bears evidence of the desperation experienced by vulnerable families. in essence, child trafficking is a great violation of children’s fundamental rights, especially as they are mostly dependent on their guardians for protection and provisions (ilo, 2017). studies show that some of the instances of harsh working conditions that trafficked children are exposed to in west african countries, include, the harsh working conditions of child laborers in plantations in ghana and cote the dynamics of child trafficking in west africa 126 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 d’ivoire, and in mines in burkina faso, liberia and sierra leone where it is alleged that children are forced to work between 10–20 hours daily without the required nutritious meals (ilo, 2012b; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). this denies them access to education in their formative years – opportunities which may never present themselves again in their lifetime. international conventions against human trafficking human trafficking, especially in women and children, became a priority for the un general assembly and the commission of human rights in the early 1990s and this led to the world conference on human rights in vienna and the world conference on women in beijing in the 1990s (gozdziak and collett, 2005). these conferences, dedicated to addressing trafficking in persons at the global level, resulted in the promulgation of conventions and protocols, such as the united nations convention on the rights of the child 1989 (crc) and its optional protocol on the sale of children; the ilo convention 182 of 1999; and the united nations convention against transnational organized crime (united nations, 2016; usdos, 2021). the un protocol to prevent, suppress, and punish trafficking in persons, especially trafficking in women and children was adopted by the un general assembly in november 2000 (usdos, 2021). these were soon followed by the international labour organization convention concerning the prohibition and immediate action for the elimination of the worst forms of child labor; and the protocol to the convention of the right of the child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (gozdziak and collett, 2005; sawadogo, 2012). the un protocol on trafficking is the most comprehensive instrument globally recognized for addressing human trafficking. deane (2017) however, observes that the un protocol cannot be applied in isolation of the convention against transnational organized crime as they are both complementary in addressing human trafficking issues and transnational criminal syndicates responsible for transnational trafficking in persons globally. according to clark (2003), the un protocol on trafficking is comprehensive in its explanation of trafficking as it addresses three major questions, viz., (a) “what are the acts of trafficking?” which covers issues like the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, and receipt process of trafficking; (b) “what are the means of trafficking?” which addresses methods of adopting victims, such as by threat, use of force, other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power, abuse of a position of vulnerability, and receiving or paying of benefits; and (c) “what are the purposes of trafficking?” which addresses the rationale behind trafficking, such as for exploitation, prostitution of others, other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices like slavery, servitude, and the removal of organs (clark, 2003). in africa, there is no specific protocol that directly addresses human trafficking; hence, there is heavy reliance on protocols that deal with fundamental 127 human rights (mensah-ankrah and sarpong, 2017; aniche and moyo, 2019). the african charter on human and peoples’ rights of 1981 is the document that specifies some basic rights which are in many ways useful within the context of human trafficking (mensah-ankrah and sarpong, 2017). for instance, articles 4, 5 and 18(13) of the african charter on human rights, all point to the right of the individual to personal liberty, dignity, and the abolishment of all forms of exploitation such as torture, slavery, inhumane treatment, and punishment and above all, the elimination of discrimination against women and the protection of their rights and those of children (mensah-ankrah and sarpong, 2017; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). similarly, the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (charter rwc) of 1990 also addresses issues of rights but does not properly define or give meaning to child trafficking (donati, 2010; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). lastly, the maputo protocol, known as protocol to the africa charter on human and peoples’ rights on the rights of women in africa, was adopted in 2003 to consolidate the provisions of the african charter (mlambo and ndebele, 2021). like the other charters, the maputo protocol similarly only provides for the rights of women, as only article 18(3) provides for the protection of the rights of women and children (aniche and moyo, 2019). in west africa, there are numerous national policies in place that define human trafficking. these include: the transportation of minors and the suppression of child trafficking act 4 of 2006 in benin, which criminalizes all forms of child trafficking; the 2005 law related to child smuggling (supplemented by the child code of 2007) in togo; the 2014 law that criminalizes the sales of children, child prostitution, and child pornography in burkina faso; the 2010 law no 2010-272 pertaining to the prohibition of child trafficking and the worst forms of child labor in cote d’ivoire, which is the first to stipulate punishment for trafficking offenses; and the trafficking in persons law enforcement and administration act 2003 in nigeria (deane, 2017). notably, of all the protocols in the west african subregion, only nigeria addresses and condemns all forms of trafficking while the other countries do not fully address this (deane, 2017). the subsequent sections discuss how these policies have been implemented and deployed in addressing the menace of trafficking in west africa. discussion consistent with the phenomenon and trends of human trafficking, as well as the conventions emplaced that (in)directly attempt to address this violation of human rights, this section presents a critical discussion of the efforts by ecowas and the west african states. international law generally provides that states have the onus to prevent and fight against human trafficking (obokata, 2019), as evident in article 35 of the 1989 un crc, which urges state parties to “take all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent the abduction, the sale, or traffic in children for any purpose or in any form” (unicef, 2002). at the international level the dynamics of child trafficking in west africa 128 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 therefore, the unodc has been and continues to promote initiatives that aim at assisting west african states to confront human trafficking at regional and national levels. among its many initiatives, was the vienna 2017 training workshop which aimed at fostering regional cooperation among west african states that are also members of the west african network of central authorities and prosecutors (wacap) against organized crime, to build capacity and work toward combating human trafficking, exploitation, and migrant smuggling within and across west african states (unodc 2017). considering the depth of trafficking in persons across west african and african territories with international criminal syndicates (unodc, 2020; us department of state, 2018), tackling this menace effectively must necessarily involve collaborative efforts between local and international agencies and institutions of government and law enforcement. to this end, sawadogo (2012) appraises that not only have non-governmental organizations (ngos) and inter-governmental organizations been pivotal in helping west african states address human trafficking, but their interventions have contributed significantly to the enactment of national action plans as well as the establishment of a regional security structure. in exploring the efforts and responses engaged so far, note is taken that ecowas’ 2002 to 2003 initial plan of action against trafficking in persons was anchored on criminal justice response strategies with calls on states in the region to implement the criminalization of human trafficking offenses into law (ecowas, 2001). in line with this plan, states at their national levels were obliged to enact laws that aim to protect trafficked victims and establish regulatory frameworks that accord victims opportunity for recompense (ecowas, 2001). undergirding this plan was also the goal to raise awareness, gather, and cooperatively share national information on the processes and methods employed by traffickers, especially traffickers of women and children, as well as on the circumstances, nature, and financial dealings involved in the perpetuation of the trafficking crimes (andrew and lawrance, 2012). reinforcing ecowas’ legal response and focus against the trafficking of persons, is the wacap initiative which promotes and facilitates mutual legal and judicial cooperation in combating organized crimes like human trafficking in the different ecowas member states (wacap, 2013). putting the anti-trafficking laws and policies to action, joint interpol operations in the west african countries of senegal, mali, niger, chad, and mauritania in 2017 resulted in the rescue of almost 500 people, of whom 236 were children (reuters, 2017). this intervention also led to the apprehension of 40 traffickers accused of child abuse and victimization, forced labor, and violation of human rights (reuters, 2017). while these strides are being made, bringing the perpetrators to full justice remains a challenge that cuts across all west african countries where the odious crimes of human trafficking are committed. while most african countries now have proper laws in place, some do not enforce them, reporting no investigations or prosecutions. considering the 129 anti-human trafficking measures at the individual country levels, the table below summarizes a few responses undertaken by governments and organizations of some six randomly selected west african states where the human trafficking rates are noticeable. furthermore, table 1 specifies some of the factors impeding the antitrafficking responses being engaged by these bodies. table 1: anti-trafficking measures and challenges by major west african source countries west african countries anti-human trafficking measures and challenges to response efforts benin in efforts to continually address the issue of human trafficking, especially of children, the government of benin as noted by the united states (us) department of state (2018) have engaged several measures, such as: ☐ liaising with ngos and international bodies to develop a formal inter-ministerial committee and a national action plan to counter trafficking and its ills. ☐ implementing various strategies to tackle trafficking, such as a national action plan for forced child labour for the years 2019-2023 and national policy to combat human trafficking for the years 20192025, along with an action plan. ☐ identifying and referring children who are vulnerable to all sorts of trafficking, of which over a thousand children susceptible to and likely to be trafficked were referred to provisional care services in 2018. ☐ locating child victims, prosecuting, and convicting perpetrators of child trafficking, whereby thirteen child traffickers were prosecuted and convicted by six different courts of first instance in 2017. ☐ strengthening relationship with neighbouring countries to coordinate actions that would deter the trafficking of adults to countries abroad. while the laws of the country criminalised child labour and sex trafficking of children, not so much was done to proscribe the trafficking of adults as per the 2018 report. in most instances, trails relating to adult trafficking cases back then were either suspended or concluded as mistrials due to flaws in the legal system (united states department of state 2018). however, this changed in as benin's new human trafficking law makes labour and sex trafficking in children and adults illegal (unodc 2020). cases of government officials involved in human trafficking are often not investigated, prosecuted, or convicted (us department of state 2018). the dynamics of child trafficking in west africa 130 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 burkina faso the government of burkina faso and its ministry of women’s anti-trafficking efforts have been geared towards addressing trafficking in all its forms. some of the efforts as reported by the us department of state (2018; 2019) and unodc (2020) comprise of: ☐ the identification of trafficked children forced into child labour as street beggars and small-scale mining labourers and employment of inspectors to rescue the trafficked children ☐ referral, transfer, and provision of trafficked victims and survivours, most of whom are children with medical care, legal support, and safe shelter facilities. ☐ the adoption of human trafficking law that encompasses all aspects of human trafficking as described by the un protocol on trafficking in persons. ☐ the ministry of women heading the government’s anti-trafficking ventures, embarked on awareness programmes to remove trafficked children from the streets. ☐ the government joining forces with religious leaders to condemn the trafficking of children as street beggars by their quran instructors ☐ criminalising sex and labour trafficking in the penal code with varying prison terms of five to twenty years and/or fines from one to ten million cfa francs depending on whether the offense for child or adult trafficking. deterring some of the measures being taken is the fact that the government did not emplace a national action plan on human trafficking; corruption in the investigation, prosecution, and conviction of human traffickers especially those involving government officials (united states department of state 2019). similarly, the government's budgetary funding for care programs for trafficked victims and survivors was insufficient, and service providers lacked the resources and expertise to better support wellbeing, recovery, and reintegration of victims. ghana reports by the unodc (2020) and the borgen project (2020) on antitrafficking measure in ghana indicate that: ☐ in 2017, the ministry of gender registered more than one hundred cases of human trafficking, while eighty-two cases were reported in 2018, and ☐ individuals accused of human trafficking had been tried, resulting in the conviction of six men and five women in 2017, then four men and six women in 2018 (unodc 2020). ☐ the international organization for migration (iom) has several projects in different regions of ghana that are aimed at educating and raising awareness in communities about the menaces of trafficking in persons and the laws emplaced; improving community relations and efforts towards the provision of proper care to vulnerable and trafficked victims; denouncing and preventing human trafficking; and ensuring traffickers are in fact prosecuted for their crimes; and ☐ in cooperation with local ngos, the government of ghana have been able to reduce the rate of human trafficking crimes (from 113 through the joint efforts of its trained law enforcement and immigration officials, as well as public (the borgen project 2020). even with the efforts, there is still an increase in human trafficking for sex and labour domestically and internationally (the borgen project 2020) other factors impeding measures to curb human trafficking are: interruptions and deferrals in investigating detected cases faced by law enforcement authorities due to limited financial resources; and shortage of proper recovery facilities which impact on efforts to rescue alleged trafficked victims (us department of state 2019). 131 mali in efforts to address the problem of human trafficking in mali, the government as noted by the us department of state (2019) and gunther (2021) has so far: ☐ signed a number of treaties against slavery and human trafficking and approved a national action plan to combat trafficking in persons for the years 2018-2022. ☐ classified human trafficking in terms of sex and labour exploitation as criminal offenses punishable by jail terms and fines ranging from two years and five hundred thousand cfa francs upward. ☐ with the assistance of its ministry of justice and other international bodies trained a wide range of law enforcement personnel (labour inspectors, judges, gendarmes, magistrates, police, etc.) across several region in mali on how to identify trafficked victims, investigate trafficking cases, and prosecute offenders. ☐ relied on ngos to provide victims of human trafficking with adequate counselling, housing, and food, as well as reintegration and vocational training. although attempts are being made to combat sex trafficking, a lack of resources to support anti-trafficking operations by law enforcement officers, as well as their inadequate training and expertise on how to deal with the crime, and the government's inability to prosecute its officials and militant groups that recruit children for child soldiering, continue to be obstacles to effective responses (us department of state 2019). nigeria the government of nigeria together with local and international ngos have taken steps towards addressing the heinous crime of human trafficking. for example: ☐ more than a thousand cases of human trafficking, including women and children, were registered by naptip in 2018 (semprebon 2020), and their recent interventions culminated in the release of twentyone children who were being trafficked from kaduna state in nigeria to other parts of the country (naptip 2021). ☐ sex and labour trafficking is considered a criminal offense with prison term ranging from two years and 250000 naira for fine upward (us department of state 2020). ☐ with the support of naptip and international sponsors, the government set up a ‘victims of trafficking trust fund’ and established nationwide guidelines for the referral, prevention, and assistance of trafficked victims (human rights watch 2019). through naptip and in collaboration local and international ngo, the government has emplaced measure to ensure shelter facilities, counselling, vocational training, and health care services are provided for trafficked victims alongside reintegration assistance (human rights watch 2019). the fact that government and military officials, and members of the civilian joint task force are seldom investigated or prosecuted for human trafficking, especially of children as child soldiers, poses a challenge to these responses. also, not only does corruption in the law enforcement institutions slow down and impact prosecution and conviction processes, but judges appear to be unversed and inexperienced with the antitrafficking statute provisions (us department of state 2020). insufficient resources in operationalising anti-trafficking measures as well as the gross mismanagement of shelters and aid services, in terms of lack of basic provisions and medical and psychosocial support to victims and survivors, makes them vulnerable to being trafficked again and challenges response efforts (human rights watch 2019). findings from recent data and reports on the trends of the phenomenon of human trafficking and child labor, tend towards the fact that the efforts by the various west african nations and ecowas have not fully yielded the desired results (easo, 2021; mlambo and ndebele, 2021; unodc, 2021; usdos, 2021). for instance, despite the dynamics of child trafficking in west africa 132 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 establishing legislation against trafficking in persons since 2003, nigeria still ranks very low in countries with modern slavery index in the world (mlambo and ndebele, 2021). furthermore, recent reports and media coverage of the plights of young nigerians stranded and subjected to torture in transit countries and destination countries in europe have increased (easo, 2021), thus questioning the ability and efficiency of naptip in handling and eliminating these trafficking cases in the country. aside from nigeria, reports by the unodc have also identified ghana, mali, and other west african countries as major trafficking in person sources and transiting countries (ilo, 2017; iom, 2017; mensah-ankrah and sarpong, 2017; unodc, 2021), regional initiatives notwithstanding. while the adoption of various national strategies for addressing the menace is commendable, active results and roles of the ecowas in harnessing the national resources at its disposal to help reduce the very high numbers of trafficking in the sub-region, are still very much lacking. furthermore, the number of rescued victims of trafficking recorded by the wacap in comparison with the number of trafficked victims, both within and beyond the sub-region, does not reflect efficiency or success in the endeavors. for instance, joint operations by the nations of mali, niger, senegal, chad, and mauritania in 2017 were reported to have rescued a total of 500 victims of human trafficking while an annual report on the number of trafficked persons from the sub-region within the same year amounted to more than 4,799 victims (unodc, 2021). these statistics do not reflect efficiency in tackling or discouraging human trafficking in the region. while national and regional efforts are necessary for tackling the menace of human trafficking in the region, the synergy and utility of the cooperation provided by the wacap cannot be said to have been utilized to its full potential, as child labor and other forms of exploitation are still recorded in the sub-region. sadly still, the west african region not only hosts the highest number of child laborers in sub-saharan africa but the region also records the highest number of trafficking in persons, illegal migrants, and modern slavery, with children, boys, girls, and women accounting for the majority of the victims in these various categories of menaces (ilo, 2012b, 2017; mlambo and ndebele, 2021; unodc, 2021). while it could be argued that certain domestic and regional factors have worked against the successful implementation of the african charter on child and women’s rights in the region, partnerships with the international community and organizations such as the european union (eu) would have at least set the region on the path of success in the area of eradicating child labor. at the present however, issues of law enforcement corruption, border porosity, and the lack of tools and equipment to enforce and prosecute the various legislations on human trafficking are still grappled with across the sub-region (aniche and moyo, 2019; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). furthermore, the regional body and framework for enforcing the measures designed for the elimination of human trafficking and enhancing child rights in the region, wacap, is still largely ill-equipped and unable to keep up with the 133 growing cases of trafficking in persons in the region, especially the victims of sexual exploitation. as obokata (2019) asserts, the regional and national governments in the west african region seem to be more concerned with initiating legal frameworks than implementing and enforcing these frameworks. this is because, as aniche and moyo (2019) recognize, while acts and legislations exist, the institutional capacity for enforcing these legislations is lacking in countries in the region. while it is recognized that the fight against human trafficking takes on many forms, the national and regional strategies tend to be more focused on legal proceedings against perpetrators than actually preventing the menace (sawadogo, 2012). according to britton and dean (2014), international responses and efforts tend toward prioritizing preventive measures and support for trafficked victims and survivors rather than reactive measures. there is no doubt that west african states are sincere in their efforts to address and combat the menace of trafficking in persons especially with the bad press that accompanies it, and this dedication is evident in the national strategies and signatories to national and international human rights and anti-trafficking conventions (mensah-ankrah and sarpong, 2017; aniche and moyo, 2019; mlambo and ndebele, 2021). an assessment of the strategies and efforts of the regional and national strategies however, reveals operational and strategic loopholes. these responses are majorly reactive and not preventive. reactive strategies primarily respond to the activity after trafficking of victims have been done and this is evident in the fact that victims are either discovered in their destination countries and measures are put in place to return them to their homes or are stranded on the journeys after being discovered by international interventions (sawadogo, 2012; shelly, 2014; deane, 2017). the problem with this strategy, however, is that victims may already have been subjected to the different trafficking hazards before they are rescued (ilo, 2012a, 2012b, 2017; iom, 2017; unodc, 2021). on the other hand, preventive measures – which are currently not adequately engaged by the wacap and nations in the west african sub-region – make trafficking impossible and preventable. these include addressing socio-economic and socio-political issues of west africans, addressing insecurity, and focusing on rural orientation strategies aimed at enlightening people on the phenomenon and dangers of human trafficking. current evidence, however, suggests that these preventive strategies are hardly engaged across communities and towns in the sub-region, as is evident in the continual gullibility of rural parents and young persons (unodc, 2021; usdos, 2021). it is important therefore, for states within the west african sub-region to not only focus on the various national strategies that react to human trafficking but ensure the implementation of legislations and strategies that protect the rights of women and children ¬– particularly girls – in the sub-continent (ecowas, 2008; aniche and moyo, 2019). until these fundamental structures are inculcated in the cultural and traditional practices of west africans and africans at large, the approaches to combating the menace of human trafficking in the region would be merely reactive with little success. building institutional capacities for addressing the dynamics of child trafficking in west africa 134 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 these issues is also central to the strategic preventive measures that will put the subregion in the position to adequately address the human trafficking and child labor issues bedeviling it. conclusion and recommendations trafficking in persons disrespects human rights and constitutes a crime against humanity. in west africa, the use of multiple routes for human trafficking, compounded by the involvement of government officials in the different trafficking networks, exacerbates the crime, especially as society looks to them for solutions. in addressing the crisis of human trafficking, therefore, most west african countries have enacted anti-trafficking national action plans and policies, thus raising awareness on how to fight the crime and its impact on society. additionally, anti-trafficking legislations in some of the west african states encompass all forms of trafficking identified in the un trafficking in persons protocol. however, effective implementation remains an issue which is further worsened by the corruption that clouds investigations and prosecutions, as well as the previously described challenges. likewise, the national plans as well as other strategies adopted by governments and organizations, have, in most instances, also fallen short of addressing the different dimensions of human trafficking. noticeably, these challenges persist despite demands for domestic legislation in compliance with the uncrc and the ilo convention (no. 182) and recommendation (no. 190) on ‘the worst forms of child labor’ to ensure adequate prosecution, trial, and punishment of traffickers (andrew and lawrance 2012). this study stresses that long-term solutions to human trafficking are an imperative, hence the recommendations below. to this end, this study recommends that: a) the effective domestication of international treaties as well as coordination in the implementation of national policies, would, among other measures, address the underlying problem of human trafficking in west africa. enacting domestic legislation to prioritize and lend support to the rights of citizens not to be trafficked, the government’s duty to uphold the law, and protect its citizens from all forms of harm and violation of their human rights, will be needed to localize international laws. since these are realized through the creation of national plans, promoting consensus for their effective implementation demands that all relevant stakeholders be consulted to enable them to recognize the value of the policies and their operational frameworks. coordination in the enforcement of these laws and policies will also imply delegating various duties to relevant law enforcement divisions or units, supplemented by adequate training in anti-trafficking operative measures. doing this will provide and enable governments to build capacity and respond to trafficking cases more effectively. b) governments in collaboration with ngos need to develop and implement robust and supportive outreach, early warning, and awareness programs 135 for communities that are susceptible to and at risk of human trafficking. having such community projects may propel communities to create support networks that look out for everyone in the community, as well as provide the platform for empowerment, involvement, and confidence-building to report suspicious activities of human trafficking. c) coordinated and joint efforts by border guards of member states at reinforcing border security and control will also make a difference in 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http://m.state.gov/md90434.htm https://www.wacapnet.com/ https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2009.00592.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2009.00592.x 67 an analysis of medical xenophobia against zimbabwean migrant women in johannesburg institutionalizing anti-migrant discourse in public healthcare: an analysis of medical xenophobia against zimbabwean migrant women in johannesburg learnmore mvundura1 received 07 february 2024 / accepted 30 august 2024 / published 06 september 2024 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i2.2211 abstract the provision of healthcare services to african migrants within the south african public healthcare system has been characterized as marred by medical xenophobia. while the literature on xenophobia in the country draws connections between xenophobic violence and how the migrant is characterized through demeaning metaphors in the media and the political space, medical xenophobia literature somewhat remains with the burden of categorically connecting specific practices that constitute medical xenophobia with the broader anti-migrant discourse. drawing on the narratives of zimbabwean migrant women seeking antenatal care services within the public healthcare system in johannesburg, this paper analyzes the utterances and practices of some healthcare providers to draw connections with the anti-migrant narratives obtaining in the media, the political space, and certain anti-migrant formations (bearers of discourse). like studies before it, this paper observes medical xenophobia and relying on foucault’s disciplinary power as a conceptual tool, it argues that the utterances by some public healthcare professionals are indeed unabridged rearticulations of the normalized antimigrant discourse in various sites bearing anti-migrant discourse. while acknowledging that some bureaucrats’ practices are tangential to the anti-migrant discourse, which decouples their individual actions from the discursive norm, the paper maintains that the standardized anti-migrant discourse for the large part provides frames of reference for some healthcare providers on how to perceive and treat the migrant patient, as their utterances are a restage of this discourse, usually with little to no annotations. keywords: medical xenophobia, discourse, zimbabwean, south africa, migrants, public healthcare 1 african center for migration and society, university of the witwatersrand, south africa.  learnmoremvundura@gmail.com 68 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 introduction the provision of healthcare services to african migrants within the south african public healthcare sector is characterized as marred by “medical xenophobia,” which crush and tawodzera (2014) define as the discrimination of the migrant “others” based on their non-national presence. the challenges that migrants face when seeking care are documented by many. these include verbal and physical abuse, language barriers, and in some cases the demand for documentation and user fees (lefko-everett, 2008; vearey and nunez, 2010; hunter-adams and rother, 2017; makandwa and vearey, 2017). some characterize these as medical xenophobia (crush and tawodzera, 2014; zihindula et al., 2017; chekero and ross, 2018; munyaneza and mhlongo, 2019). the characterization of these challenges as medical xenophobia has not gone unchallenged. crush and tawodzera (2014) caution against a broad application of the term, citing how locals also face challenges within the public healthcare system, a fact that has been observed by many (jewkes et al., 1998; vearey, 2012, 2014; oosthuizen et al., 2017; maphumulo and bhengu, 2019). vanyoro (2019) also critiques the idea of medical xenophobia or the indiscriminate exclusion of migrants, documenting how public healthcare providers, as street-level bureaucrats, draw upon other philosophies like “therapeutic citizenship” and “bureaucratic incorporation” to ensure that migrants get access to medical help. another key consideration in the interrogation of the idea of medical xenophobia is the health system itself that is characterized by significant systemic challenges. thus, while medical xenophobia indeed exists, as some challenges that migrants face are very specific to them and stem from their nationality, some studies argue that the context of service provision should be considered. the south african public health sector faces significant challenges that include brain drain, heavy workloads, understaffing, and the burden of communicable diseases like hiv and aids, which incapacitates the system to satisfactorily meet the needs of all health help-seekers (jewkes et al., 1998; de jager, 2009; kruger and schoombee, 2010; maphumulo and bhengu, 2019; malakoane et al., 2020). however, while the considerations of these factors should be key in understanding the complex terrain of health help-seeking in the public healthcare sector, they should not be the premise for bundling the experiences of migrants with those of citizens. anti-migrant attitudes mediate the experiences of migrants when they seek healthcare. the studies that highlight medical xenophobia observe that healthcare providers harbor anti-migrant sentiments, which are manifested in how they deal with migrant patients (crush and tawodzera, 2014; zihindula et al., 2017; munyaneza and mhlongo, 2019). however, while the literature argues – mostly in a cursory fashion – that these anti-migrant sentiments are reflective of the broader sentiments that permeate sections of the society, it is mostly preoccupied with the excavation of specific practices that constitute medical xenophobia (the “what” aspect of the issue). while we have literature that discuss general xenophobia in 69 the republic (crush, 2001, 2008; crush and pendleton, 2004; landau et al., 2005; neocosmos, 2006; misago, 2016) and literature that draws connections between this xenophobia and how migrants are characterized in the media and other spaces (danso and mcdonald, 2001; mawadza and crush, 2010; mawadza, 2012; banda and mawadza, 2015; tarisayi and manik, 2020), migration and health literature, especially on medical xenophobia, remains saddled with the burden of clearly drawing links between the discursive framing of the migrant (in the media and other spaces) and this medical xenophobia. this paper feeds into medical xenophobia literature, edifying it by attempting to draw clear links between the xenophobic practices in the public healthcare space and the discursive framing of migrants, especially in various forms of the media and the political space. by focusing on specific utterances and practices of some nurses and frontline staff, the paper argues that just as the portrayal of migrants by the media and some politicians largely informs xenophobic practices in sections of the wider society (danso and mcdonald, 2001; mawadza and crush, 2010; banda and mawadza, 2015; tarisayi and manik, 2020), the same discursive framing of the migrant provides a template for certain nurses and frontline staff on how to perceive and interact with migrant patients. the paper argues that discourse informs practice, and certain practices in the public healthcare bureaucracy are indeed almost a mirror image of the discourse obtaining in the media and the political spaces, as this discourse is rearticulated with little to no annotations. migration and health in south africa south africa is a popular destination for migrants in the region, dating from the migrant labor regime under apartheid (crush, 1992; crush et al., 1995) to the present day where migration is now more a result of people seeking better livelihoods and fleeing conflict and environmental hazards (landau and wa kabwe segatti, 2009; crush et al., 2017; stats sa, 2022). the number of foreign-born populations in the country has increased over the years. the 2022 census recorded 2,4 million migrants, which is a considerable increase from 800,000 in 1996 (stats sa, 2022). most of the migrants are young adults between the ages of 20 and 44 years, which partly explains why the establishing of families in the country is becoming a norm (polzer, 2008; crush and tevera, 2010). as migrants establish themselves in the country, the need for healthcare services arises. it must, however, be noted that healthcare is not the primary reason why migrants are in the country. while a handful of migrants are indeed in the country for medical reasons (pophiwa, 2009; crush et al., 2012; vearey et al., 2018), for many, the need for healthcare only arises once they are in the country. south africa has a two-tier health system – the private health system that offers worldclass services to those who afford, and the state-funded public health system relied upon by large sections of the population (crush and tawodzera, 2014). the citizens must therefore share services with migrants within the public system, most of whom an analysis of medical xenophobia against zimbabwean migrant women in johannesburg 70 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 do not afford the private sector. this system that these populations rely on grapples with many systemic challenges that incapacitates it to satisfactorily meet the needs of its own citizens (coovadia et al., 2009; de jager, 2009; crush and tawodzera, 2014; maphumulo and bhengu, 2019; malakoane et al., 2020). the system is therefore met with an additional task of providing services to an increasing migrant population, which is coupled with often unclear and confusing policies regarding migrants’ access to healthcare services in the sector. on the surface, the country’s policy on migrants’ access to health services is progressive. the national health act of 2003 guarantees access to basic health services for all, and it guarantees free access for all pregnant and lactating women, and for children under the age of six (rsa, 2004). section 27 (g) of the 1998 refugees act also guarantees refugees the same access to treatment as citizens. however, subnational policies are vague on these provisions. in gauteng province, where this study was conducted, the hospitals ordinance 14 of 1958 does not mention free services for all pregnant and lactating women and children under six (section27, 2022). the 2020 gauteng department of health’s circular 27, policy implementation guidelines on patient administration and revenue management (gauteng doh, 2020), sections of which were deemed illegal by the johannesburg high court after litigation (khumalo, 2023), classified all non-citizens as full-paying patients, and it has been argued how these gray areas in policy usually lead to the disenfranchisement of migrant patients, as some medical staff manipulate this schism in policy to deny migrant patients services (section27, 2022). this partly explains why some boldly characterize the practices of some nurses and frontline staff as medical xenophobia (crush and tawodzera, 2014; zihindula et al., 2017; munyaneza and mhlongo, 2019). this paper, while acknowledging the systemic challenges within the public healthcare system and the attendant confusing policy, supports the medical xenophobia explanation. however, to fully understand the premise of medical xenophobia, it is critical to locate it within the broader xenophobia literature. metaphorical framing of migrants and xenophobia in south africa intolerance against african immigrants is as old as the democratic dispensation itself. the failure by the democratic government in alleviating poverty and delivering on electoral promises has left many citizens disgruntled (tshitereke, 1999; crush, 2008; adjai and lazaridis, 2013). this disgruntlement is often directed at african migrants with whom they share space and limited resources in the once “forbidden cities” (landau et al., 2005). migrants are perceived as hindering the full enjoyment of the fruits of democracy, and consequently, there have been periodic and sustained violent attacks against migrants in the republic (crush, 2001, 2008; crush and pendleton, 2004; neocosmos, 2006; adjai and lazaridis, 2013; misago, 2016). 71 the media has been seriously implicated in the negative characterization of migrants through demeaning metaphors that are drawn upon by certain sections of the population in their attacks of migrants (mawadza and crush, 2010; polzer and takabvirwa, 2010; mawadza, 2012; adjai and lazaridis, 2013; banda and mawadza, 2015; tarisayi and manik, 2021). for example, aquatic metaphors like “waves,” “tides,” “flowing,” “pouring,” which exaggerate the numbers of migrants in the country are frequently used (mawadza and crush, 2010). these cast migrants as invaders and a burden on the country. indeed, migrants have been blamed for “stealing” jobs, abusing the system by living at the expense of taxpayers, and for overwhelming and swamping the healthcare and other systems (tshitereke, 1999; banda and mawadza, 2015). the global literature has observed how this framing of migrants through this crisis lens constructs individual perceptions of the social order (sides and citrin, 2007; moore et al., 2012; gallagher, 2014; blinder and jeannet, 2018). in south africa, tabloid and other forms of media, which have also been accused of overly focusing on undocumented migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, while ignoring skilled migrants (tarisayi and manik, 2021), have been implicated in being responsible for how the general news consumers perceive and respond to immigration and migrants (wasserman, 2010; kariithi, 2017). as argued by moore et. al (2012), these narratives have a political thrust, as political parties with anti-migrant agenda pursue them. the recent election cycles in south africa have been marked with various political parties drawing on the anti-migrant discourse for political expediency (mashego and malefane, 2017; bornman, 2018, 2019b, 2019a, 2024; madia, 2018; mailovich, 2018; davis, 2019; fogel, 2019; machinya, 2022). for example, in 2018, the then minister of health, dr aaron motsoaledi was on record for accusing migrants of flooding south africa and overburdening the public health system (heleta, 2018; moodley, 2018). in 2017, the then minister of police, fikile mbalula, was also on record for blaming ex-zimbabwean soldiers residing in the country for violent crimes (maromo, 2017). across the opposition political aisle, in 2017, herman mashaba, former mayor of johannesburg and now leader of the action sa party, was recorded blaming illegal immigrants for holding the country to ransom and for causing unemployment (chaskalson, 2017). at the time of writing, he was canvasing people to “investigate” spaza shops run by migrants, which he blames for acting as fronts for criminal activities (kgobotlo, 2024). gayton mackenzie, the leader of the patriotic alliance party, has also become popular on the political scene with his anti-migrant rhetoric. for example, at the launch of his 2024 national elections’ manifesto in orlando stadium in soweto, he was quoted accusing “illegal” foreigners as devils sent to sell drugs to south africans, and he went on to blame migrants for unemployment in the country (moichela, 2023; hrw, 2024). if elected, he threatened, he was going to go to rahima moosa hospital to switch off the oxygen supply for foreigners (mlambo, 2023). while the efficacy of these narratives on substantive electoral gains is yet to be established, politicians still cling to the anti-migrant discourse. an analysis of medical xenophobia against zimbabwean migrant women in johannesburg 72 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 besides the political space, certain formations in society also harness and reinforce these anti-migrant narratives. of note is the put south africans first (psaf) movement, which is a social media formation that became popular around 2019 by mobilizing the citizens around hashtags like “all foreigners must leave,” “we want our country back,” and “clean south africa” (dratwa, 2023), and these messages found articulation on the ground through operation dudula, a militant group that queries the membership and presence of foreign nationals in the country (nhemachena et al., 2022). the media and politicians are thus very central in framing the narratives around immigration, and these draw from and influence the other. these narratives, neocosmos (2006) argues, are coopted into various government departments. for example, the department of home affairs has been accused of being xenophobic in its dealing with asylum-permit applications for refugees and other visas (adjai and lazaridis, 2013; johnson, 2015; khan and lee, 2018; carciotto, 2021). similarly, the south african police services (saps) is also known for abusing and preying on especially undocumented migrants from whom they occasionally demand bribes (harris, 2001; valji, 2004; nduru, 2005; vahed and desai, 2008; polzer and takabvirwa, 2010; adjai and lazaridis, 2013). those who allude to medical xenophobia base their arguments on the institutionalization of anti-migrant narratives in the public health system. the literature on medical xenophobia (crush and tawodzera, 2014; zihindula et al., 2017; munyaneza and mhlongo, 2019), including those who sparingly allude to this term (alfaro-velcamp, 2017; hunter-adams and rother, 2017; makandwa and vearey, 2017; white et al., 2020), argue that the institutionalization of the anti-migrant discourse is in the public healthcare space. however, it still remains to be categorically ascertained how the practices of healthcare providers (nurses and frontline staff) are specifically indicative and reflective of the discursive norm on migrants. this article, while far from being a comprehensive discussion on this topic, feeds into the above literature, arguing that medical xenophobia indeed exists. moreover, the utterances and practices of some healthcare providers seem to prove that the anti-migrant discourse that populate the media and the political and other platforms is co-opted by some public healthcare bureaucrats in its raw form, and it provides a mental roadmap for perceiving and dealing with migrants. conceptual framework: disciplinary power this paper uses the concept disciplinary power, particularly nibbling on the notions of the discursive norm or normalization (foucault, 1977, 1978, 1982), to articulate how the dominant forms of “knowledge” about migration from various forms of the media and the political space assumes the authority of truth. it also shows how this “knowledge” is materially enacted and embodied in the practices of some public healthcare professionals toward migrant patients. in a profound shift in the understanding of how power operates in modern societies, michel foucault (1977, 1982) coined the term disciplinary power to represent more subtle and pervasive 73 mechanisms of control (opposed to spectacular forms found in sovereign power). these control mechanisms are embedded in everyday life, shaping individuals and populations through a complex web of institutions, norms, and practices. shifting focus from the body as the primary site of power, foucault argues that disciplinary power targets the mind, behavior, and identity of individuals. more specifically, it is concerned with the regulation of daily life, the management of time, space, activity, and the creation of a self-regulating subject who internalizes the superior norm and discourse that permeate the society (haugaard, 1997; lilja and vinthagen, 2014). foucault provides the mechanisms for such form of power, one of them being normalization (standardization/universalization), which is a process by which standards of behavior are established, against which individuals are measured, judged, and corrected. this is facilitated by systems of knowledge (institutions) that claim to know the individual, or any communication and representation (verbal or otherwise) that enables activity or limits it (johnston, 1991; nadesan, 2008; lilja and vinthagen, 2014). according to foucault (1977, 1978, 1982), individuals are manufactured and reconstituted (subjectification) through these systems of knowledge that provide fields of comparisons and frames of reference for individuals on how to perceive and respond to the political and social order. thus, to foucault, “analyzing power must then embrace an analysis of how subjects are gradually, progressively, really and materially constituted through a multiplicity of organizations, forces, energies, material desires, thoughts etc.” (kelly, 1994: 35). this paper harnesses these thoughts, arguing that the anti-migrant discourse in platforms like the media, the political space, and other societal formations constitutes systems of knowledge that shape how some healthcare providers perceive and interact with the migrant patient. of course, foucault has been criticized for this focus on the microphysics of power. some, coming from a marxist perspective, critique foucault’s analytics of power for negating economic and material dimensions of life (fraser, 1981; wacquant, 1989). others, coming from a humanist position of a free and rational subject, criticize foucault’s conceptualization of power for limiting the possibility of agency, democratic participation, resistance and social transformation, and the moral dimensions of everyday life (fraser, 1981; honneth and roberts, 1986; shapiro, 1986; butler, 1989; hartsock, 1989; diamond et al., 1990). indeed, a laser focus on microphysics of power does not envision that people, while being subjects of discourse, exercise agency, and they may draw from other philosophies that either inadvertently or overtly stage resistance against dominant narratives. as this paper observes, and as has been observed elsewhere (vanyoro, 2019), some healthcare providers exercise agency and discretion in their encounter with migrant patients, which certainly decouple their practices from the dominant anti-migrant discourse. thus, while acknowledging the above shortfalls of disciplinary power, the paper nevertheless maintains that the concept is useful in the understanding of how individual behavior is not autonomous of dominant and prevailing forms of knowledge. using this concept, the paper draws attention to how the practices and an analysis of medical xenophobia against zimbabwean migrant women in johannesburg 74 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 utterances of some healthcare providers are reflective and indicative of the antimigrant discourse that has been standardized and normalized in the media, the political space, and certain societal formations. this discourse, the paper posits, shapes the perceptions and practices of certain healthcare providers, as their utterances are largely a rearticulation of this discourse in its exact form. methods this paper is part of the author’s phd project, which broadly focuses on how zimbabwean migrant women navigate maternal health inequities in south africa, therefore the narratives are from 13 zimbabwean migrant women (see table 1) who have been in the country from as early as 2008. the paper focuses on the utterances and practices that the participants attribute to nurses and frontline staff in their interactions in healthcare facilities. furthermore, the paper attempts to draw parallels with the anti-migrant discourse that populates certain platforms outside the healthcare facilities, especially in the conventional media, political discourse, and narratives from other anti-migrant platforms in the community and on social media platforms. table 1: study population participant years in south africa stated age residence nyasha 8 35 ebony park samantha 12 undisclosed ivory park faith 7 30 rabie ridge mai brenda 9 32 ivory park seda 11 37 ivory park mberi 12 40 rabie ridge jessica 16 38 ebony park chipo 11 39 ivory park octavia 15 42 ebony park vamasibanda 6 29 ivory park mai precious 5 undisclosed ivory park mary 7 undisclosed rabie ridge gwaumbu 6 26 ivory park source: author's own work the author conducted the study in ivory park, ebony park, and rabie ridge, suburbs located in midrand, which is situated in the north of johannesburg and encompasses suburbs around the n1 highway north of the jukskei river. i should therefore make 75 it clear that the analysis in the paper largely applies to this context, though through extrapolation, the findings may be useful in understanding other contexts as the narratives of the participants here corroborate those in studies outside this context. the suburbs in this study, which are adjacent to each other, fall under the johannesburg metropolitan municipality and are all adjacent to the township of tembisa, which is under the ekurhuleni municipality. therefore, participants in this study use various healthcare facilities in both municipalities, especially tembisa hospital, which is the only referral hospital closer to where the participants live. also, while some participants may reside in ivory park, it is usually convenient for them to use facilities in tembisa, as some of these facilities are much closer to them than the ones situated in ivory park. within these suburbs, black africans constitute almost 99% of the population (stats sa, 2022). while data on the number of migrants within the space is unavailable in census reports, the author, through regular prior visits to a relative in ivory park, observed that the suburbs host a significant number of african migrants, especially zimbabweans, which made the place a convenient site for the author’s phd project. the focus on zimbabwean nationals was justified by the fact that zimbabwe contributes a large portion of migrants in the country as a result of the deteriorating political and economic situation in that country (polzer, 2008; crush and tevera, 2010; chiumbu and musemwa, 2015). the recent south african 2022 census report records zimbabweans in the country as a little over 1 million, which is 45% of the migrant population (stats sa, 2022: 31). however, owing to border porosity and inadequate record keeping by the government, these official statistics may not be an accurate reflection of the actual numbers of immigrants in the country (chekero and ross, 2018; chekero and morreira, 2020). the study used purposive and snowballing sampling to recruit participants, and the author benefited from existing networks in ivory park to recruit more participants. interviews ranged between 30 and 75 minutes; all participants consented to the recording of the interviews and pseudonyms were used throughout the study. the researcher obtained ethics (non-medical) approval from the university of the witwatersrand. obtaining data from women was not an easy task, especially considering that the researcher is a man. for women, especially the married or those living with intimate partners, the author provided a leeway for the partners to be joint participants in the interviews. the interviews, which were semi-structured, were conducted in shona, the native language of most of the participants and the author. the interview audios were transcribed into english and the author repeatedly listened to and read them to generate themes; this was done using thematic content analysis. three main themes were discovered: physical and verbal abuse, the demand for user fees, and the demand for passports. the author observed that the utterances accompanying these practices were in most cases a mirror image of anti-migrant articulations in the media, the political space, and certain anti-migrant formations gaining considerable popularity in the community. an analysis of medical xenophobia against zimbabwean migrant women in johannesburg 76 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 results and discussion verbal and physical abuse: rearticulation of the numbers and burden nomenclature the characterization of migrants as a burden and coming in numbers into the country to swamp the public healthcare system permeates the media and the political space (mawadza and crush, 2010; banda and mawadza, 2015; matlala, 2018; moodley, 2018; tarisayi and manik, 2020). in this study, these same characterizations were rearticulated, with no annotations, by some nurses whose verbal and physical abuse of migrant patients was accompanied by these characterizations. for example, samantha, who delivered her baby in 2022 at esangweni clinic in tembisa, narrated how she was verbally abused by attending nurses who were complaining about how foreign nationals come into the republic to burden them with work. according to her, some of the nurses were shouting at her, saying how they wished for operation dudula to come and take all the foreigners away: that day, i was assisted by a male midwife. another woman came … to assist the man. the man was okay, he was never rough with me, but the woman was rough. i had stitches done on me, and she did it without giving me an injection. she did it live. she said for me not to make any movement, and if i did and smear her with my blood, things were not going to be good for me. the man had the injection to administer, but the woman objected to it. … she actually said that foreigners come all the way here to burden them with work. she asked why i did not go back to zimbabwe to deliver instead of burdening them with work. … they were casually saying, “call you father, mugabe, from the grave to help you,” because i was pushing before eight centimeters (cervix dilation). i was feeling that i should push, but they were objecting. i pushed anyway and the child came out, yet they were saying i shouldn’t. … they will be saying that foreigners are coming to burden them with work. the day i went for three days (postnatal follow-up visit) to the clinic with this child, … they were saying they wish for dudula to come and take us all because we were coming to burden them ... they will be saying, “go back to your country, don’t you have hospitals there?” (samantha, interview, ivory park, 6 april 2024). the casual references to operation dudula, an anti-migrant group known for crude and violent attacks against african migrants (masweneng, 2022; nhemachena et al., 2022) directly locates some of the nurses’ utterances in the discourse of antimigrant formations that popularize anti-migrant discourse. participants in this study continued to narrate their ill-treatment in public healthcare facilities, with the healthcare professionals constantly blaming them for inundating the system. nyasha, who also delivered her baby at esangweni clinic in 2017, narrated how the nurses were shouting at her, citing how zimbabweans are bothering them and how the 77 people with the name “nyasha” were many and becoming a problem, implying that zimbabweans are many and crippling the system: i gave birth there, but it was not easy there. they were always shouting at us saying, “your doctors are doing nothing in zimbabwe, while you are busy bothering us here in south africa. i have just helped another patient by the name nyasha. you nyashas are troublesome. the nyashas are becoming a problem here” (nyasha, interview, ebony park, 24 february 2024). similarly, faith explained how she was ill-treated at tembisa hospital in 2021. she cited verbal abuse from nurses, whom she claimed were blaming zimbabweans for being too many and for coming into the country for their maternal health needs: i was ill-treated at tembisa hospital. they don’t like foreigners, especially those from zimbabwe. they will be shouting at us saying, “you zimbabweans are coming in numbers to deliver here … you are delivering here in numbers,” and many other things they were saying (faith, interview, rabie ridge, 16 march 2024). mai brenda, who delivered through cesarean-section (c-section) at tembisa hospital in 2022, also cited ill-treatment from nurses. she narrated how the nurses were uncouth and shouting, blaming migrants for coming to south africa to deliver and to trouble them: i delivered the same day through c-section. so, after i was operated on, when it comes to them giving you your baby, they throw it at you … they will be shouting at you saying, “foreigners, you are troublesome. your habit is to come and deliver here instead of your country. did you not hear that you should go back home?” (mai brenda, interview, ivory park, 24 february 2024). while migration for health help-seeking is indeed a present phenomenon in south africa (crush et al., 2012; crush and chikanda, 2015), it should not be overstated. i argue that the exaggeration of this phenomenon is directly connected to how migrants are generally characterized with regards to healthcare seeking in various spaces (banda and mawadza, 2015; heleta, 2018; matlala, 2018; moodley, 2018). the utterance against mai brenda, “did you not hear that you should go back home?” is arguably a clear indication that the specific nurse benefits from the narratives of operation dudula and other political figures who are on record calling for the mass deportation of foreign nationals (mashego and malefane, 2017; nhemachena et al., 2022). according to foucault, knowledge systems discipline individuals to think and act in specific ways (foucault, 1977; kelly, 1994; lilja and vinthagen, 2014). in our case, it is quite evident that the anti-migrant discourse as a system of knowledge an analysis of medical xenophobia against zimbabwean migrant women in johannesburg 78 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 in the media, the political space and other societal formations disciplines, train certain individuals, and provide frames of reference for behavior, as this discourse is rearticulated in almost similar ways. demand of user fees: policy implementation with undertones of popular anti-migrant discourse as stated earlier, the policy regarding the payment of user fees is very confusing. while the national health act (nha) no. 61 of 2003 precludes all pregnant and lactating women from paying user fees, the gauteng department of health circular 27 of 2020 categorized all non-citizens as full-paying patients. this has “enabled hospitals to interpret its provisions to deny pregnant women and children access to free services if they are asylum seekers [and] undocumented persons” (section27, 2022: 8). while it is quite a simplistic view that demanding user fees is indicative of medical xenophobia, sometimes the utterances accompanying the process of demand justify this judgment. as this study observed, the statements by some frontline staff closely dovetailed with some narratives to the effect that migrants should pay for services (white et al., 2020; white and rispel, 2021). seda, a participant in this study, narrated how in 2020 when she used thuthukani clinic and tembisa hospital for antenatal care, she had to pay. additionally, the frontline staff said that migrants are too many and should therefore pay – a narrative that has close links with the discourse elsewhere that migrants are abusing the system and “stealing” the birth rights of citizens (crush and tawodzera, 2014; banda and mawadza, 2015; white and rispel, 2021): when i was pregnant with the first one in 2016, it was good, but for the second one (2020) it was different. there were problems now. the difference was that on every checkup they required us to pay money (r395 – approximately 22 usd). so, if you go to tembisa for checkup, they would require money from you as a foreigner. if you don’t have money, they do not tend to you … they record that you have a debt. so, it was now different. in 2016 i did not pay any money, but back in 2020 i paid lots of money, from registering until i delivered. you will not get a card without paying money. so, the difference was huge. it was very tough. … i paid r700 (approximately 38 usd) for the card. without paying that money, you wouldn’t get any help … they were saying we foreigners are too many and we are a burden, so we should pay” (seda, interview, ivory park, 6 april 2024). considering the livelihood strategies of most participants in this study (scrap collection, house help, and small market stalls), these amounts of money are relatively significant. while the demand for payment was implementation of policy, statements related to the volumes of migrants and the burden they impose on the system highlight 79 how some members of staff draw on prevailing anti-migrant discourse, and the schism in policy may sometimes serve as a platform for the articulation of such discourse. mberi, another participant in this study, also narrated how payment is indeed required. she narrated how the frontline workers accompany the demand for payment with the narrative that if migrants do not want to pay, they should trek back home for services, which is a discourse largely situated in utterances by politicians. for example, the then (2022) limpopo health member of the executive council, dr. phophi ramathuba was recorded ranting to a zimbabwean patient that the province did not have a budget for migrants (monama, 2022). this rhetoric has been very popular with politicians in the past years, and it is creeping to the public healthcare sector where these narratives are repeated. mberi narrated: with the current situation, … if i get ill, they will not tend to me if i don’t have money to open a file … it’s either i produce money, and even if i do, they will give a prescription for me to get medication elsewhere … i was told that migrants should get services back home, and if i want services here, i should pay (mberi, interview, rabie ridge, 24 march 2024). this was the case with many participants in this study. jessica and chipo also claimed that it is now impossible to get attended to without payment, and that frontline staff tell migrant patients that its either they pay or go back home for services – utterances that are reflective of the dominant discourse: nowadays, it requires money. to register you need money. on delivery you cannot be discharged until you pay. those days it was good. it’s only becoming a problem these days … these days, people are complaining a lot. they are told that nothing is for free and if they can’t stand it, they should get a bus back home. money. money is now required more (jessica, interview, ebony park, 16 march 2024). it is now getting very tough these days. during the time i first gave birth (2014), it was not as tough as it is now. it is now getting very tough. the person who was registering me clearly told me that there are no free services for those who don’t pay tax ...there is huge change now as compared from the beginning. when we gave birth, there was no money required. the only money that was required was for the card and the stamp. now the monies that are required are a lot. the money can be as high as r621 (chipo, interview, ivory park, 25 february 2024). the reference to paying tax draws from the prevailing narratives, mainly by politicians who argue that migrant patients are overwhelming the system, which has no budget for foreign nationals (banda and mawadza, 2015; heleta, 2018; businesslive, 2019; an analysis of medical xenophobia against zimbabwean migrant women in johannesburg 80 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 monama, 2022). thus, this discourse accompanies the implementation of policies that are, of course, already confusing. yet, as confusing as the policies are, these utterances seem to prove that implementation of policy is accompanied by broader discourse regarding the number of migrants in the country and the supposed burden they impose on the system. other participants, while not specifically noting any phrases from the healthcare staff that mirror the universalized norms on the characterization of migrants, nevertheless narrated an over-emphasis on the demand for payments: on this one (second child delivered in 2021), i paid around r600. they gave me the card, but i had to pay to get a stamp so the baby would go to clinic. the stamp needed, i think, r652 or r632. locals don’t pay. i also delivered through operation (c-section), and when i went for the removal of the stitches, i paid money. it was around r300. it doesn’t exceed r400, it’s almost like at a private hospital … at tembisa, they treat you bad even after paying, because you are a foreigner (faith, interview, rabie ridge,16 march 2024). …at tembisa, on the second child in 2019, i paid. it was foreigners only … i remember when i was getting in labor, i paid r150. when i was due to be discharged, they said the money was not enough. i remember i paid r300. if you haven’t paid, they will not give you the baby’s card, the one you use to go to scale (postnatal checkups) with … [the reason was being] a foreigner. they will say you have no papers … you have no proper documentation. but even if you had a passport, they made you pay (mai octavia, interview, ebony park, 23 march 2024). when mai octavia and chipo delivered in 2019, the gauteng circular 27 of 2020 that categorized migrants as full-paying patients was not yet in effect. it potentially highlights the fact that frontline staff can draw upon the normalized discourse about immigrants and implement it as policy, even in advance of its inclusion in official directives. therefore, while we should definitely consider the confusing policy terrain that healthcare staff work under (white et al., 2020; white and rispel, 2021), we should also consider that the disjuncture in policy is tantamount to manipulation (section27, 2022). moreover, it can serve as a platform for the rearticulation of popular anti-migrant discourse. to some degree, then, anti-migrant discourse creeps into the public health system as it is reflected in some frontline staff ’s utterances. resultantly, the public health bureaucracy becomes somewhat of an echo chamber of this harmful discourse. as foucault argues, discourse is critical in agenda setting (foucault, 1977, 1982), and as seen above, some politicians’ utterances seem to have become the “superior norm” that sets the tone for the policy implementation environment in the public health system. 81 demand for passports: a blatant form of exclusion or clerical requirement? of the documentation required for the registration of patients, especially in gauteng province, the gauteng department of health specifically requires proof of identification, which can be a passport, identity document, refugee permit, among other identifying documents, including proof of residential address (gauteng doh, 2020). while these requirements should be for the purposes of registration and the classification of patients, when migrants are seeking care, they encounter challenges from frontline staff that overemphasize the need for passports (white and rispel, 2021). this potentially indicates that other agendas may be at play, because above a wide array of documents needed for registering patients, utility bills and proof of residence can also serve the same purpose and some migrants indeed use these (crush and tawodzera, 2014). in messina, limpopo province, it has already been documented how frontline staff can simply use the information that the migrants verbally provide (vanyoro, 2019). however, in this study, some participants narrated how the overemphasis on passports has led to them being outrightly sent away from facilities. for example, mberi, like many other participants in the study, noted that it can be difficult to get services if one is not in possession of the “proper papers” – a synonym for an up-to-date passport: during that time (in the past), nothing like that was happening. even when opening a file for treatment or checkups, they didn’t want anything. you would just go for registration using your proof of residence only … (these days), if you have no papers, they will not tend to you. you may be sent back … if i don’t have proper papers, they will not treat me … so, the situation now is different from the beginning (mberi, interview, rabie ridge, 24 march 2024). mberi’s narrative is proof that it is indeed possible for a migrant patient to get services without a passport, as was the case during the period she calls “that time,” which is around 2012 when she delivered her first baby. backing this fact, some participants stated how they were tended to without passports, proving that denial of services based on passports may be more rooted in other intentions, other than the simple registration of patients. in 2012 and 2021, faith stated how she used her zimbabwean drivers’ license for registration: i registered using a zim driving license (faith, interview, rabie ridge,16 march 2024). similarly, vamasibanda managed to register at rabie ridge clinic in 2019 without any documentation, with the staff only relying on what she verbally provided: the nurses treated me very well because the first time i went there, they only asked my residential address and name. they asked me if i had a passport, and an analysis of medical xenophobia against zimbabwean migrant women in johannesburg 82 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 i said i didn’t have. they didn’t say anything (vamasibanda, interview, ivory park, 24 march, 2024). mai precious was also able to register in 2023 without any form of documentation, and she only verbally provided the information that was needed: i have no papers that i use. i do not even have a passport … they served me without it. i was just giving them the details they needed (mai precious, interview, ivory park, 20 april 2024). this is proof that while passports make the registration and classification of patients easy, discretion and improvisation by staff can ensure no one is denied services on account of not producing a passport. to prove that the requirement of passports is not cast in stone and is dependent on attending staff, mary recounted how she was sent away at tembisa hospital in 2019 for failing to produce a passport, and was, however, served the following day at the same facility by a different person under similar circumstances: they wanted an id (identity document) or passport, and i didn’t have any, so i went back home. i went there the following day and encountered a different person, and i registered without a passport (mary, interview, rabie ridge, 25 february 2024). gwaumbu also faced a situation mirroring mary’s. she narrated how she was sent away from thuthukani clinic in 2021 because she did not have “papers,” only to be served at halfway house clinic: i went to thuthukani, and they chased me away because i did not have papers, but at midrand (halfway house clinic) they served me like that (gwaumbu, interview, ivory park, 20 april 2024). from the above, it is clear that the demand for passports is not a standardized practice, and it is dependent on the attending staff, perhaps their mood for the day, and probably a candid expression of medical xenophobia. while the above narratives are insufficient to categorically inform the conclusion that the emphasis on passports is a manifestation of medical xenophobia, they tend to gravitate toward that direction, especially when read in concert with observations elsewhere that an emphasis on passports is a mechanism for denying migrants services based on their nationality (crush and tawodzera, 2014; chekero and ross, 2018; white et al., 2020). a critical lesson from the above narratives, which we also get from vanyoro (2019), is that healthcare providers are always innovative in finding means, sometimes against the grain, to ensure that all patients, including migrants, receive services. this gives 83 credence to foucault’s critiques who aver that his conceptualization of disciplinary power limits the possibility of agency (honneth and roberts, 1986; shapiro, 1986; butler, 1989; hartsock, 1989; diamond et al., 1990). in a context where the wisdom of providing services to migrants is questioned in various platforms, some healthcare providers draw on other forms of reasoning that go against the common narrative. therefore, in acknowledging medical xenophobia and how it is largely indicative of the prevailing discourse, the limits of discourse in orienting practice must be appreciated. conclusion this paper attempted to ascertain how practices termed “medical xenophobia” draw from the broader anti-migrant discourse by drawing parallels between public healthcare providers’ practices with the anti-migrant discourse outside the public healthcare system. the migrant women in this study claimed that they encountered physical and verbal abuse, an emphasis on passports, and the demand for user fees – challenges that have been documented by many (lefko-everett, 2008; vearey and nunez, 2010; hunter-adams and rother, 2017; makandwa and vearey, 2017; chekero and ross, 2018). importantly, through a focus on some statements that the participants attributed to healthcare providers that accompany these practices, it is evident that some of these utterances are reflective and indicative of the anti-migrant discourse that permeate the media, the political, and other platforms. this, the paper argued, is proof that these platforms serve as systems of “knowledge” that provide some templates for some bureaucrats in the public healthcare sector on how to make sense of and interact with migrants. this dovetails with foucault’s argument that discourse in institutions of knowledge (bearers of discourse) discipline individuals by training them how to react to and perceive the subjects of this “knowledge” or discourse (foucault, 1977, 1982; kelly, 1994; haugaard, 1997). however, the paper also found that while anti-migrant discourse certainly provides frames of reference for some bureaucrats, agency and discretion mediate the practices of some nurses and frontline staff. this makes the public healthcare bureaucracy not an entire echo chamber for what obtains in the media and the political and other spaces. thus, as foucault’s critiques argue, disciplinary power is not always overbearing, as agency and the moral dimensions of life can resist the superior norm (fraser, 1981; honneth and roberts, 1986; shapiro, 1986; butler, 1989). as seen in this study, especially regarding the demand for passports, certain individual practices are tangential to the standardized narratives. be that as it may, most of the evidence in this paper points to medical xenophobia, and the discourse about migrants through various demeaning metaphorical representation in the media, in politicians’ utterances, and in anti-migrant groupings find their way into the public healthcare bureaucracy, as certain practices and statements of some bureaucrats are verbatim articulations of the prevailing anti-migrant narrative in those spaces. the paper therefore concludes that the practices that constitute medical xenophobia within the public healthcare system are rearticulations and restaging of the anti-migrant discourse that has been an analysis of medical xenophobia against zimbabwean migrant women in johannesburg 84 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 popularized by the media, politicians, and certain anti-migrant groupings in the community. just as this discourse provides a blueprint for sections of the society in the “othering” of the migrant, sometimes through violent confrontations, the same discourse usually presents itself as a frame of reference regulating the behavior of certain bureaucrats in the public healthcare system. 85 references adjai, c., and lazaridis, g. 2013. migration, xenophobia and new racism in postapartheid south africa. international journal of social science studies, 1. https://doi.org/10.11114/ijsss.v1i1.102. alfaro-velcamp, t. 2017. “don’t send your sick here to 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2017. lived experiences of democratic republic of congo refugees facing medical xenophobia in durban, south africa. journal of asian and african studies, 52(4): 458–470. https://doi. org/10.1177/0021909615595990. 82 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 higher education policy and access for south sudanese refugees from the bidi bidi settlement, uganda christine semambo sempebwao1 received 16 august 2023 / accepted 10 november 2023 / published 14 december 2023 doi: https://doi.org/10.14426/ahmr.v9i3.1665 abstract globally, refugee-hosting states are required to have a higher education (he) policy that incorporates refugees, in order to raise refugees’ he access to 15% by 2030. this paper explores the influence of he policy formulation and implementation on refugee access and resilience among south sudanese from the bidi bidi settlement in uganda. the study adopted a qualitative approach, an exploratory case study design, and an advocacy world view. the researcher collected data from 27 participants – 12 undergraduates from two private ugandan universities, 13 government and non-governmental organization (ngo) officials, two officials from public and private universities – all involved in refugee education. additionally, the researcher obtained data through a literature review, in-depth interviews with key informants and students, and a focus group discussion. the findings reveal that in principle, he policy formulation in uganda is incorporated in the development of the education response plan (erp) for refugees and host communities, through a multi-stakeholder approach. however, neither students nor higher education institutions (heis) were part of the erp formulation process. the he policy formulation process in uganda traverses a value chain with intersecting complexities. these include: supra-state and national policy, refugee demographics, preferences for basic education and emergency interventions, negative perceptions of he returns, hostility and refugee exclusion, and students’ personal challenges. relatedly, support for refugees is largely provided by heis and ngos, using silo, independent guidelines. ultimately, the findings indicate that the he policy formulation and implementation do not address the intersecting complexities adequately, with implications for student access and resilience. this study identifies areas that could inform he policy formulation and implementation, and enhance refugee access and resilience, especially in light of the united nations high commissioner for refugees’ (unhcr) 15by30 roadmap. keywords: refugees, tertiary education, admission, resilience, uganda 1 college of education and external studies, east african school of higher education, makerere university, uganda.  csemambosempebwa@gmail.com 83 introduction globally, states are required to ensure equitable quality education opportunities for both refugees and host communities. as underscored by the 2018 comprehensive refugee response framework (crrf) and agenda 2030 for sustainable development (crawford and o’callaghan, 2019). relatedly, consensus on the importance of higher education (he) for refugees as a human right and the foundation for peace and sustainable development, has been exemplified through several global and regional conventions and efforts (dryden-peterson, 2016; unesco, 2019). furthermore, in its strategy for refugee inclusion, the unhcr (2019a: 15) states: access to inclusive and equitable quality education in national systems creates conditions in which children and youth can learn, thrive and develop their potential, build individual and collective resilience, experience and negotiate peaceful coexistence, and contribute to their societies. thus, by global unanimity, countries of re/settlement are required to incorporate refugee-inclusive and receptive policy for all levels of education, including he, into their education systems (addaney, 2017; carciotto and ferraro, 2020). this is aimed at increasing refugee he enrolment to 15% by 2030, along with the attendant dividends (dryden-peterson, 2016). additionally, along with the state and other key stakeholders, refugees should be involved in the policy-formulation and implementation process (thomas, 2017). however, despite these best efforts, there are big gaps in equitable, quality he between refugees and their non-refugee peers (unhcr, 2019a). including refugees in uganda’s he policy and systems, is accepted as the best option to expand he access and resilience for refugee students (uganda moes, 2017; crawford and o’callaghan, 2019; unhcr, 2021). this is especially critical at a time when uganda is host to the largest refugee population in africa – 1,582,892 as at january 2022, with the majority (962,360, i.e., 61%) from south sudan, with a propensity to a protracted situation (unhcr, 2022a; 2022b). of the 962,360 south sudanese, 246,310 (25.6%) reside in the bidi bidi settlement, where young people aged 18–34, within which the study population falls, as at january 2022 made up 26.4% (65,103) of the total settlement’s refugee population. of these, 54.6% (35,598) were female, while 45.4% (29,505) were male (unhcr, 2022b). as indicated in figure 1, of an estimated 71,968 south sudanese refugees of he-going age (18–24) hosted in uganda, only an estimated 2,159 (3%) have access to he (uganda moes, 2018; global platform for syrian students, 2020). yet the unhcr (2018b) notes that in 2018/2019, refugees from the bidi bidi settlement got only 11 scholarships through the scholarship program managed by the uganda ministry of education and sports (moes) and its partners and these were decreased to seven slots in 2019 (unhcr, 2019c). higher education policy and access for south sudanese refugees in bidi bidi, uganda 84 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 figure 1 south sudanese refugees of he going age (18-24) in uganda as at 2020 note. this figure was generated using information from global platform for syrian students (2020) and uganda ministry of education and sports (2018). source: author’s own compilation background and contextualization state obligations to incorporate refugee he into national education systems and yield equitable benefits for refugees and nationals, became key after world war i, as codified through the convention of 1933. state parties were asked to grant refugees access to universities. in britain, france, and the united states, this university education was largely to build a resilient population to rebuild europe and foster tolerance and unity (metzger, 2017; brewis et al., 2020). currently, under agenda 2030 with the tagline of leaving no one behind, the unhcr’s global education strategy (ges) 2012–2016 calls for equitable, integrated he for refugees as a global priority (global platform for syrian students, 2020). this global call to incorporate he for refugees in national plans and policies aims to increase refugee access to quality he that nurtures resilience and self-reliance and fosters peace and sustainable development (dryden-peterson, 2016; unhcr, 2019a; world bank, 2021). africa continues to grapple with huge numbers of refugees in protracted situations, where at least 25,000 refugees from the same country have been living in exile for more than five consecutive years (unhcr, 2020). relatedly, many refugees in protracted situations are not accessing higher education (baker et al., 2019). with the rollout of the crrf in sub-saharan africa (ssa), chad, djibouti, ethiopia, kenya, rwanda, somalia, tanzania, uganda, and zambia committed to incorporating he for refugees into their national systems, engaging a broad range of stakeholders (thomas, 2017; unhcr, 2018d; crawford and o’callaghan, 2019; world bank, 2021). in uganda, this commitment is exemplified through the education response plan (erp) 2018–2021, whose underlying principle is that all refugees access quality education at all levels (uganda moes, 2017; 2018). while all refugees south sudanese south sudanese in he series1 116 079 71 968 2 159 100% 62% 3% 0 20 000 40 000 60 000 80 000 100 000 120 000 140 000 85 uganda has taken steps toward including refugees into its national systems, there is still more to learn about he policy formulation and implementation, especially in light of the tertiary education 15by30 agenda (unhcr, 2021). uganda moes (2017) and (2018) aver that uganda assented that including refugees into he policy in its national education system, is the best option toward mitigating issues of marginalization and discrimination, ultimately increasing refugee he enrolment and resilience. congruently, uganda’s commitment to incorporating refugees into its he policy is cemented through its assenting to certain international and regional instruments and frameworks (unhcr, 2018b; crawford and o’callaghan, 2019). relatedly, uganda’s refugee act 2006 and the refugee regulations 2010 decree that refugees should have access to the same public services as nationals, including education (uganda moes, 2018). additionally, the core principle of the erp 2018–2021, which is designed within the context of the education sector strategic plan (essp) 2017–2020, is to ensure that all refugees have access to good quality education at all levels (uganda moes, 2017; 2018). however, inclusion of refugees in he policy and uganda’s national education system continues to be understated and peripheral (kimoga et al., 2015; drydenpeterson, 2016; uganda moes, 2017; baker et al., 2019). relatedly, uganda’s essp 2017–2020 and its erp 2018–2021 both relegate he for refugees to the fringes of policy formulation, excluding it from the strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (swot) of the essp and situation analysis of the erp, two key education documents. this suggests that many stakeholders, including higher education institutions (heis) and refugees, who have varied guidelines and experiences regarding refugee he access and resilience, missed out on contributing through the situation analysis, meaning that their views on he were totally disregarded. relatedly, he for refugees does not feature in the uganda moes 2020 education and sports sector review (essr), which could have provided another opportunity to share divergent perceptions and enriching experiences (uganda moes, 2020). overall, this exclusion of heis, refugees, and possibly other non-state actors, in planning for and discussing progress on he for refugees, raises concerns. it alludes to he policy formulation in uganda being exclusionary and shutting out diverse knowledge, when it comes to refugees. this has implications for he policy implementation, in an environment where implementation is already fragmented and effected in silos. even though the essp 2017–2020 does mention in general terms provision of education to refugees under objective one, section xii, it does not single out he for refugees. additionally, while uganda’s erp 2018–2021 in section 2 does mention that the structure of education in uganda is defined by four levels of education – including tertiary and university education – it does not include refugee he under its strategic objectives, outcomes, and activities under sections 5.1 and 5.2. in their assessment of the first two years of the crrf, the unhcr alludes to the gaps in the provision of he for refugees, by only overtly recognizing uganda’s achievements in the area of basic education. the unhcr report further notes that refugee enrolment higher education policy and access for south sudanese refugees in bidi bidi, uganda 86 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 rates still lag behind those of national averages (unhcr, 2018d). therefore, in line with the global call to improve refugee access and resilience, drawing upon the diverse experience and perceptions of 27 participants, this paper reports findings from an exploratory study on he policy and implementation and its influence on refugee access to he and resilience for south sudanese refugees, from the bidi bidi settlement in uganda. it hopes that the findings herein will leverage advocacy, planning, and further research in the area of refugee he access, given that access contributes to resilience and enhances normalcy in the lives of refugee students. in this paper, a refugee is defined as a person who meets definitions and requirements spelled out under the 1951 convention and protocol relating to the status of refugees, the 1969 organisation of african unity (oau) convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa, and specifically those in uganda’s 2006 refugees act. the 2006 act refers to a refugee as, “a person who having qualified to be granted refugee status, has been granted refugee status, or is a member of class of persons declared to be refugees” (republic of uganda, 2006, part i section 2). he in this paper refers to post-secondary or tertiary education, including academic, vocational, or technical streams, delivered at a public or private university (republic of uganda, 2001; unhcr, 2019a). relatedly, access here is admission into post-secondary education institutions through a selective and equal-opportunity admissions process, (including any support and affirmative action) in line with a country’s set minimum entry requirements (unesco, 2019; global platform for syrian students, 2020). part of the rationale for access is resilience, which is defined herein as the individual’s ability to adapt to the refugee situation and resume learning and other life-sustaining activities, with minimal dysfunctional behaviour, within a host state (unesco, 2014). with the unhcr’s call to increase access and foster and enhance resilience, it has become increasingly important for host countries to formulate and operationalize, policy – referred to here as a statement of intent developed by policy actors to guide delivery of equitable, quality he for refugees, through a human-rights oriented, multi-stakeholder approach (unhcr, 2018b; 2019b). literature review and theoretical underpinning studies about policy related to refugee he are predominantly situated in the global north (baker et al., 2019). the few studies from africa are mainly situated in the seven countries that rolled out the crrf (maringe et al., 2017; thomas, 2017; crawford and o’callaghan, 2019; tamrat and habtemariam, 2020). in this regard, maringe et al. (2017) and tamrat and habtemariam (2020) call for future research on refugee he in africa, citing the relative absence of similar studies regarding various aspects of refugee education in general, and he in particular. the literature review was aligned to the overall study purpose to explore how he policy influences he access and resilience for south sudanese from the bidi bidi settlement in uganda. the literature review was further guided by the two specific study objectives: (a) to 87 explore how he policy formulation influences he access and resilience of south sudanese refugees from the bidi bidi settlement in uganda; and (b) to explore how he policy implementation influences he access and resilience of south sudanese refugees from the bidi bidi settlement in uganda. formulation of he policy related to he for refugees policy related to refugee he emanates from the global level, and the united nations (un) set the basic standards for policy practice (formulation, implementation, and evaluation), based on international human rights law (hall, 2015; hathaway, 2018). in europe and africa, regional commitments and initiatives are in place to guide states in developing integration policies. however, the final say on how to integrate refugees into national policy and plans, as well as those pertaining to access to all levels of education, including he, rests with the individual states, and this sometimes comes with challenges (hall, 2015; addaney, 2017; maringe et al., 2017; baker et al., 2019). additionally, global policy is non-binding at state level, and states have their own internal dynamics that influence policy formulation and ultimately implementation (donald, 2014; hathaway, 2018). policy formulation is often topdown, even in countries that strive to achieve a transactional approach (thomas 2017; stoeber, 2019). response plans of all seven countries that rolled out the crrf in africa indicate that their formulation was largely top-down, with mainly nationallevel government stakeholders (thomas, 2017; carciotto and ferraro, 2020; tamrat and habtemariam, 2020). relatedly, the respective response plans have very little on he for refugees (ethiopia federal ministry of education, 2016; uganda moes, 2017; 2018; kenya ministry of education, 2018; rwanda ministry of education, 2018; unhcr, 2018a; 2018b; 2018c; 2019a). implementation of he policy related to he for refugees in europe, he practice is largely centralized through the state, with little to no funding for refugees (stoeber, 2019). however, across countries in europe, some ngos and heis support refugee access and resilience (grüttner et al., 2018). beyond scholarships and waivers that directly support access, access and resilience are supported through language courses, sports and cultural activities, counselling and health support, child care, direct grants and loans, tax breaks, family allowances, as well as in-kind measures, for instance, (reduced rate) accommodation (dereli, 2018; grüttner et al., 2018; stoeber, 2019; jungblut et al., 2020). however, support by non-state actors is usually small in scale, in silos, ad hoc, and with little strategic or leadership support. additionally, in heis, evidence cited is anecdotal; thus, interventions lack appropriate evaluation and sustainability measures (stoeber, 2019). in ssa, the literature on he policy implementation and its influence on access and resilience is scanty, including in the seven countries that rolled out the higher education policy and access for south sudanese refugees in bidi bidi, uganda 88 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 crrf. some of the available literature indicates that in chad, the government requires universities to offer refugees equal terms of access and tuition as nationals (carciotto and ferraro, 2020). however, carciotto and ferraro (2020) do not give further information on refugee access and resilience at universities. while ethiopia’s and zambia’s response plans push for inclusion, admission, and rights of refugees at tertiary level, there is no detail regarding practical implementation of policy in these countries (carciotto and ferraro, 2020). relatedly, in the republic of south africa, refugees are treated like international students and are excluded from accessing state resources, without allocation of any alternative funding (maringe et al., 2017). in some universities, institutional bursaries and scholarships are available but competitive; thus, this insufficient funding affects refugee access and has implications for resilience (maringe et al., 2017). many refugees in south africa are from non-english-speaking countries, but universities generally do not see it as their responsibility to teach students english, the language of teaching and learning. influence of he policy on access and resilience the most practical he policy influence happens at state level, addressing institutional requirements, financial difficulties, socio-cultural and other factors, which may interfere with access and resilience (maringe et al., 2017; grüttner et al., 2018). even then, there is the tendency to stereotype and homogenize refugees, despite their diverse experiences, circumstances, and challenges. thus, refugees, especially the most vulnerable, continue to slip through the cracks, missing out on he access (détourbe and goastellec, 2018; naidoo, 2019; stoeber, 2019. however, the few studies based on ssa, specifically uganda, that were reviewed, do not have an indepth analysis of policy formulation, implementation, and influence on access and resilience, within the period of agenda 2030. this paper therefore seeks to augment the prevailing discourse by exploring the phenomenon of he policy and its influence on access and resilience of refugees, in line with the study purpose and objectives. this paper adopts the intersectionality theory, also at times referred to as intersectionality, which was first introduced by kimberlé crenshaw (1989) to interrogate societal oppressions among black women from ethnic minorities. it has since evolved beyond gender, non-white women, and national level analysis to analyzing various relations of exclusion and privilege in other disciplines, including education and policymaking. as rice et al. (2019: 7) note, “critical scholars across disciplines and theoretical perspectives have embraced intersectionality … as a theory ... for tackling social analysis.” additionally, it explores how exclusion and privilege are shaped by the intersectional and interlocking institutional systems and processes operating within and across national boundaries (gyoh, 2018). gyoh (2018) further notes that intersectionality theory deals with increasingly complex multifarious environments that intersect, shape, and influence human subjectivity and dis/advantage. 89 intersectionality recognizes that marginalized, vulnerable groups, like the south sudanese refugees in uganda, are not homogeneous victims and can actively be part of the process of interrogating dis/advantages during formulation and implementation of policy (ekpiken and ifere, 2015). relatedly, intersectionality underscores the conception that phenomena cannot be analytically understood from a single perspective but from distinctive, multiple understandings of reality (gyoh, 2018). this theory resonates well with the study objectives and methodology and has the potential to unravel the nuances of he policy formulation and implementation for refugees (dereli, 2018; baker et al., 2019). this paper uses intersectionality theory to get a deeper understanding of the intersections of connected systems, structures, factors, processes, and practices that inform he policy formulation and implementation and ultimately access and resilience of south sudanese refugees, from the bidi bidi settlement in uganda. methodology guided by the study purpose and specific objectives, the study adopted a participatory advocacy world view that resonates with the intersectionality theory, and holds that research inquiry needs to be intertwined with politics and a political agenda and should speak to important social issues of the day, in this case equitable quality he access as well as resilience for refugees. relatedly, the study was guided by the belief that reality is subjective and there is no single reality, and all individuals have their own unique interpretations of reality (creswell, 2013). the focus was on interpreting the different subjective accounts given by participants, based on their individual lived experiences (creswell, 2013). i took into consideration my positionality as a black, female ugandan national with an extensive background in the education and sustainable development sectors. as a development worker and policy advocate, i have worked in refugee settlements across uganda, often getting views and inputs from the community members. i have also had the opportunity to work closely with heis and government, mainly around policy advocacy, geared toward reforms in the education sector. in my work, i have read about and applied intersectionality as part of my development planning lens, but did not have the opportunity to see it applied to policy formulation and implementation. as a person who spent several years in kenya after my husband’s family was displaced by the ugandan bush war, i know that refugees can suffer multiple and intersecting disadvantages. this study was therefore deemed important toward exploring the use of intersectionality and refugees’ lived experiences to explore policy processes and outcomes. hopefully, as advanced by creswell (2013), the study will contribute to an agenda of change, to improve refugees’ he access and resilience. in line with creswell (2013) and yin (2014), the study used the exploratory case study design, with the bidi bidi settlement as a single case and the phenomenon of he policy formulation and practice and its influence on access and resilience as a unit of analysis. this design provided the opportunity to gain insight into the higher education policy and access for south sudanese refugees in bidi bidi, uganda 90 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 complex contemporary phenomenon of he policy and its influence on access to he and resilience for refugees. as suggested by njie and asimiran (2014) and rashid et al. (2019), the study was anchored in real-life scenarios, within the context of the bidi bidi settlement that hosts the largest number of refugees from south sudan in uganda. based on yin’s (2014) work, the study was situated within the specific period 2016–2022, where agenda 2030 begins and within which uganda’s erp (2018–2021) is situated. to ensure holistic coverage of the stakeholders, the study enlisted participants at national, district, and settlement levels, under categories of government, heis and students. it used purposive and random sampling techniques in selecting the participants, as outlined in table 1. the sampling units were government ministries, agencies, and departments; ngos and heis that were stakeholders in the he of south sudanese students from the bidi bidi settlement (see table 1). in deciding the sample size, i took into consideration that 12–15 participants are recommended to provide multiple perspectives of the case phenomenon, while using additional data sources to support the findings (creswell, 2013; yin, 2014). table 1: sampling matrix showing unit, reason for inclusion and number of participants sampling unit reason for including unit participants ministry of education and sports ensures the policy environment is conducive. coordinates implementation of the erp. 4 office of the prime minister (opm) leads the government-led application of the crrf which is facilitated by unhcr and involves various state, non-state actors and refugees. 3 education in emergencies (eie) working group brings together stakeholders that deliver education in emergencies. 1 finn church aid (fca) lead education partner in bidi bidi settlement. has extensive experience working with refugees. 1 windle international manages dafi scholarship in uganda. has extensive experience working with refugees. 1 jesuit refugee service provides refugee education including he. has extensive experience working with refugees. 2 caritas provides refugee education in bidi bidi. has extensive experience working with refugees. 1 ndejje university private university with refugee students from bidi bidi. 5 nkumba university private university with refugee students from bidi bidi. 8 makerere university public university with refugee students from bidi bidi. 1 total 27 91 s=student gki=government key informant ngki=non-governmental key informant heiki=hei key informant source: author’s own compilation i collected data through multiple methods, including the review of documents and records relevant to the study, semi-structured interviews with key informants and students, and a focus group discussion with students, in order to enlist diverse perspectives and a nuanced understanding, at the same time enabling triangulation, and enhancing credibility and transferability (korstjens and moser, 2017). i obtained a letter of introduction from the college of education and external studies, east african school of higher education studies and development, makerere university and conducted interviews from june to september 2022. data analysis in keeping with creswell (2013), the study applied priori and emergent thematic coding. initially i identified seven topic codes aligned with the study purpose and questions. by the end of the line-by-line analysis, i had expanded the initial seven codes into 14 codes. in addition to the manual line-by-line analysis and generated codes and memos, i applied nvivo 12 analysis. since nvivo clusters participants and their viewpoints under codes, it became easy to identify similarities and differences within themes. limitations the human factor is both the greatest strength and the fundamental weakness of qualitative inquiry and analysis and can make data subjective. this limitation was offset through extensive within and across category and level analysis. document reviews offered additional information, especially from the global, regional, and national levels. limitations notwithstanding, interviews were important in giving the finer individual experiences not captured in the documents. ethical considerations i obtained clearance from the aids support organization (taso), the research ethics committee (rec) with reference number taso-2021-69, the uganda national council of science and technology (uncst) with reference number ss1186es, and the office of the prime minister (opm). to ensure confidentiality and anonymity, i assigned each participant a category, as shown in table 1. i added a serial number for each participant and added a different letter – n, d, and s, denoting national, district, or settlement – for key informants (kis). i also added fgd or idi for students, to denote focus group discussion or in-depth interview, respectively. before enrolment into the study, i informed the eligible participants about the aims of the study, the potential length of the interview, and their discretion to participate or withdraw at higher education policy and access for south sudanese refugees in bidi bidi, uganda 92 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 any time during the study. i assured participants that all information obtained from them would be kept confidential. finally, i obtained verbal and written informed consent from each participant. findings he policy formulation and associative factors government participants at national level were of the view that national he policy must be aligned with supra-national legal frameworks, since refugee issues transcend national borders, and uganda has no substantive, comprehensive policy that addressed refugee he (gkin3; gkin1; gkin2). they also felt that national legal instruments put in place to protect refugees must be in the best interests of both refugees and nationals (gkin3; gkid2; gkid3). at national level, the opm takes the overall lead on all refugee matters, working with sector line ministries (gkin3). the moes takes the lead regarding the formulation of policy related to education for refugees at all levels, and working with the unhcr, partners, and refugee-led organizations. these stakeholders gave inputs through discussions, for example through the education in emergencies (eie) working group (ngkin1; gkin5). as the eie working group, at national level we align all activities with the education sector strategic plan (essp) and the goal of leave no one behind. we work as moes, implementing partners, and local ngos to develop the theory of change and activities (gkin5). however, other participants (gkid3; gkin5; ngkin2) noted that he is hardly mentioned in all three objectives of the erp. participants gkin1 and ngkin2 respectively noted that there is no special unit at the erp secretariat that handles he and that for most refugee settlements, there is no budget line for he. the views of hei participants regarding participation in he policy were divergent from those of most participants. heikin1 and heikin2 said they were not aware of any national policy regarding he for refugees, and had not been involved in the development of the erp, despite handling refugee students on a day-to-day basis. at district and settlement levels, most government and ngo actors said they were involved in policy formulation for refugee education. gkid1 said that the district political and technical wings were part of the erp formulation process, through a taskforce and steering committee that included representatives from partners and the opm (gkid1; ngkin2; ngkis1). however, owing to most refugees being women and children, at district level, the emphasis was on primary education, along with secondary and accelerated learning. as a result, he is not well funded (gkin1; gkin5; ngkin2). relatedly, there were submissions that donors preferred funding emergency interventions as they had quick returns (gkin1; gkin3). furthermore, gkin2 and gkin3 noted that donor cycles were uneven and they viewed he as a 93 long-term venture with mainly benefits for the individual. all respondents noted that there are communication avenues at settlement level through which refugees can channel their issues, citing refugee welfare council (rwc) meetings, interagency meetings, and the refugee engagement forum (ref) that liaise with the crrf secretariat. participant ngkis2 noted that sometimes people who implement, are not interviewed. however, students also said they were not involved in the erp consultation and formulation process. he policy implementation in the bidi bidi settlement and in the heis with no concrete provisions for refugee he in the erp and the essp, ngos and heis have their own policies that guide he implementation and support access and resilience. ngkis3 noted: in bidi bidi, we support university students with training in peace-building, nation-building, and leadership, without ethnic segregation. we also support them to form clubs to raise awareness on the importance of education. some students are taken on as interns and have worked as role models during schoolawareness seminars. we also offer them career guidance and invite them to relevant local seminars. ngkis 3 further noted that, “during the covid-19 lockdown, we enlisted university students to teach their siblings in their homes.” the awareness-raising and mentoring outreaches were corroborated by students who said they go out and sensitize students and communities across all zones in bidi bidi and in other refugee settlements like rhino camp (sfgd2; sfgd5; sfgd7; sidi1; sidi4). ngkin2 noted that all these activities avail students with platforms to discuss issues, share ideas and build joint resilience and a sense of responsibility. he policy formulation and practice and its influence on access and resilience overall, students said that policy enables access to he because refugees are given the same opportunities as nationals. they also said that, owing to the integration approach, which allows refugees to live in open settlements as opposed to fenced camps; they generally interact with and co-exist peacefully with the host communities. interacting with host communities around the settlement helps students to build resilience by positively adjusting to life as refugees, which they carry to the heis and it helps them to settle down and engage in hei leadership, academic, and extracurricular activities. there are he scholarship calls, for example, those from finn church aid, windle international, and muni university that target only refugees (gkid2; ngkin2). there is also a bridging program by cavendish university in partnership with interaid that enrolls a few refugee students (gkin5). relatedly, sidi1 reported: higher education policy and access for south sudanese refugees in bidi bidi, uganda 94 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 sometimes they will advertise scholarships for those who have finished diplomas. in my case, i completed o-level, then i did a certificate course. after that, i did a diploma course. that is why the university admitted me directly on a degree course without me going through a-level. at the scholarship admission stage, there is some affirmative action through additional points if one has done some community work. “i was a member of the water management committee and this was considered during admission” (siid1). however, although refugee girls and learners with disabilities are eligible for affirmative action, they do not always fill allotted slots (gkin5; heikin1; ngkin2; sfgd4). one ngo participant therefore suggested that, “it would be good to have more affirmative action for all refugees regarding accessing loans and assessing entry points” (ngkin2). gkid2 pointed out that, “students also get information, communication, and technology (ict) training, as well as career guidance and counseling. so that once they are awarded a scholarship, they don’t drop out.” in terms of access, all three heis included in the study, have some structured support, as corroborated by both administrators and students. heikin1 noted that international students pay in dollars and the dropout rate of south sudanese students is high. the university, however, makes special provision for refugees. “once opm writes to us, and we have proof of refugee status and settlement, we waive international fees for refugees and they pay as nationals in local currency” (heikin1). heikin2 said, “when it comes to tuition and accommodation fees, refugees are charged at the same rate as nationals.” other support cited includes partnerships with ngos, like windle international, canadian world university services, and mastercard foundation, as well as embassies that offer comprehensive scholarships, which include intensive pre-university orientation, pocket money, medical cover, and psychosocial and life skills support, and a specific hei staff, as well as an ngo focal point person, to specifically follow up on the scholars (gkid2; gkin2; heikin1; heikin2; ngkis4; sidi1; sidi2; sfgd1). however, scholarships that follow partner preferences may, for example, focus only on girls (ngkin2). additionally, heikin1 noted that within their individual guidelines, heis offer a general orientation program for all students, psychosocial support, cultural exposure, and networking through students’ associations, intraand interuniversity cultural and sports galas, among others. however, heikin1 added that females rarely seek assistance directly: “in fact, if a female student has an issue, it is the male who comes and tells us that my sister has a, b, c, d; she needs help.” overall, respondents reported that during implementation and at graduation and beyond, it is evident that he makes students more resilient and helps them in hei and posthei life (heiki1; ngkin2; sfgd7). ngkin1 said: recently we had a meeting with the students whom we support at university. their discussion with us showed that they are focusing on peace-building. the 95 stories which they were telling us were, “when we are done with education, we wish to change our nation.” we also noted that they now select their student leaders based on merit and do not segregate potential leaders based on ethnicity or clans. enablers and challenges that intersect with he policy formulation and implementation as enablers, many participants mentioned scholarships, hei, and partner support in the settlement. students specifically mentioned peace and security, scholarships, good grades (at senior 4 and 6), good health, and serving in community as key enablers. additionally, they mentioned the desire to break family cycles of no or low education, change mind-sets and inspire others, and dreams of one day returning home and rebuilding south sudan. students also noted that the hei environment enabled them to regain trust and socialize better, owing to the hei ethics, academic group discussions, students’ associations, and sports and cultural galas (sidi1; sidi3). on challenges that intersect with policy formulation and implementation, participants mentioned mainly culture, religious factors, and mind-sets that continue to affect he access, especially for the girl-child (gkin2; gkin4; gkin5). ethnic violence, between refugees or hosts and refugees, sometimes flares up in both settlements and heis (heikin1; sfgd7, sidi1; sidi2; sidi3; sidi4). food, water, sanitation, and hygiene (wash), lighting, health facilities, and family challenges in settlements are areas that affect resilience (gkin3; sfgd7, sidi1; sidi2; sidi3; sidi4). there is no university in the settlement and refugee students cannot commute, yet accommodation and other costs are expensive. on world refugee day 2022, refugees said very few organizations offer scholarships, and publicity of opportunities is low (dkin2; gkid2; ngkis1; ngkis2). relatedly, the process of accrediting and equating papers is expensive and a hindrance to access (gkid3; gkin3; ngkin2). ngkis1 summed it up well when they said there is need to have a national study to properly assess refugee enrolment and all factors affecting it in uganda. students added that they find the scholarship application process challenging, given that they have to work within stipulated deadlines, yet they have limited resources, and there are costs involved. online application and virtual interviews were introduced owing to covid-19 but not all students have smart phones, or can access internet or data. students also compete for scholarships with those from good schools in kampala (gkid2; siid1). many qualify, but there are very few scholarships and no district quotas or general affirmative action, so many drop out (gkin1; sidi4; sfgd2). scholarship calls are not in tandem with the calendar of public universities, which means that admission is mostly to private universities (gkin2). many refugee students are above the age of 30, mature, with children and baby-sitters and they need additional support, which may not always be offered (heikin1; gkin2). additionally, sometimes funds are remitted late (sidi1). while higher education policy and access for south sudanese refugees in bidi bidi, uganda 96 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 students said that they found life at the heis generally good, they cited challenges including lecturers who are not always supportive, and difficulty adjusting to new diets, social life, and dress codes. furthermore, security, especially for girls, is a challenge, since there is the misconception that south sudanese have a lot of money (sidi1; sfgd5). during practical in-community placements, students who interact with communities e.g., those studying agriculture, face challenges with language/ communication. the students further noted that sometimes challenges back home in the settlement interfere with life at the hei. for instance, sometimes family members reach out and ask the students to contribute toward food and basic needs for younger siblings (sidi2; sfgd3). regarding long-term resilience in the form of employment, all students decried discrimination, saying, “we are only employed as volunteers or classroom assistants.” this was corroborated by ngo and government respondents, who said refugees cannot be registered as teachers because registration requires a national identification number. therefore, it is mainly ngos that employ refugees (gkid3; gkin1; ngkin2; ngkin3). discussion how does he policy formulation influence access and resilience for refugees? the current study revealed that uganda recognizes and is committed to refugee rights in education, including he and in this regard is signatory to several international and regional human rights instruments. findings further indicate that in principle, in uganda, he policy formulation for refugees and host communities is part of the erp development process, which is largely top-down and state-driven. it involves multiple stakeholders drawn from government, un agencies, and ngo partners, but with explicit exclusion of heis and refugee students throughout the policyformulation value chain. this is despite findings indicating that heis and students have invaluable views and information that could feed into the situational analysis of the erp, and the opportunities and threats of the essp. this information could be useful in filling the gaps in the respective situational and swot analyses with regard to he, thus enriching these two key education documents. relatedly, the findings indicate that the views of heis and students would be of immense value to the he policy formulation given that it traverses several tiers and interacts with a number of factors. from the study, it is evident that the views and perspectives of heis and students can give deeper insight into some of these factors. these include: insettlement and family challenges; issues of gender and inclusion; cultural and ethnic norms; host community hostility and exclusion; limited scholarship opportunities; preand post-admission challenges; and existing coping mechanisms, support systems, and enablers that influence refugee he access and resilience. given that the refugee students are the rights holders and beneficiaries of the resultant he policy, it is important that their diverse and unique experiences are used to inform this 97 important process that is ultimately aimed at increasing refugee students’ he access and attendant resilience. the need to employ a multi-stakeholder approach that captures diverse views and perspectives, including those of the vulnerable, such as refugees, who are often represented by the “privileged,” resonates with other studies and the intersectionality theory (crenshaw, 1989). similarly, there are studies that maintain that in light of the refugee vulnerabilities, poor social protection, as well refugee contexts, any refugee intervention requires varied stakeholder involvement, including that of refugees, that considers the diverse experiences, concerns, and needs (baker et al., 2019; naidoo, 2019). diverse views and perspectives would also help minimize the overgeneralization or simplification of local realities that may inform policy formulation, as evidenced by its slight mention in the erp, without situation-analysis objectives or activities. the study further revealed that even with the involvement of the government, the unhcr, and development partners in the erp policy formulation process, owing to complex factors, in uganda, he was slowly pushed to the fringes, with no objectives and activities in the erp. the government participants and the ngo partners attributed this to factors such as: large numbers of refugees of ecce and primary school going age; he being expensive and less appealing to donors as opposed to emergency interventions and basic education; no hei institutions; and poor and inconsistent donor support for he. nevertheless, while they acknowledge these factors that are disabling to he policy and ultimately refugee access and resilience, there was no strong indication of making a compelling case for including he more substantively in the erp, or any mitigation measures to step up resources for he for refugees. on the other hand, some of the government respondents maintained that for now, he refugee access can be guided by the supra-national policy documents, which also have guidelines for resilience but do not answer the key question of how he for refugees will get the much-needed resources. perhaps this is not a question for uganda only, given that several studies, for instance, baker et al. (2019) reveal that owing to socio-economic factors, protracted situations, donor preferences, and other complexities, both global and national policy tend to relegate refugee education, specifically he, to the fringes, with ramifications for access and resilience. how he policy implementation influences access and resilience for refugees the current study revealed that in uganda, higher education policy practice is largely fragmented with no generic strategic guidelines or leadership. relatedly, policy practice takes place primarily in the settlement and the heis, largely through individual ngos, heis, and the students, with little or no support from the state. the little support from the government is in the form of waivers, where refugees are charged university dues as nationals. even then, these waivers are only attainable in some public universities and private universities. additionally, ngos and heis have their own guidelines within which they manage pre-admission and post-admission higher education policy and access for south sudanese refugees in bidi bidi, uganda 98 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 processes and support. as part of their support, the ngos provide comprehensive scholarship packages, and like heis, often proactively engage students through participatory student-centered activities, which largely use “one size fits all” approaches, which cannot adequately cater for all personal factors as well as social and economic circumstances mentioned by the students. these factors include inadequate food and other family challenges, parental neglect, timidity, trust issues, dietary constraints, and child support, among others. this study further showed that despite the best intentions of the ngos and heis, this fragmented, often generic support has implications for student access and resilience. this is largely because support is limited to only a few, as is the case with the bridging programs. scholarships offered are also limited, yet scholarships were cited among the main enablers to refugee he access, owing to their comprehensive nature (e.g., stipends, ict and psycho-social support, leadership and exposure, medical cover, and internships). their comprehensive nature was also seen as contributing to enabling students settle in and build the much-needed resilience to continue with he in a host country. while various participants from across groups and levels concurred that the existing scholarship support was inadequate, there were no specific strategies to close this gap within their contexts and the broader national context. this yet again raised concerns especially in light of the tertiary education 15by30 agenda. other factors raised as challenges to access and resilience have root causes that require interventions beyond those offered by the heis and ngos. among these factors are: cases of host community hostility, peaceful co-existence, equating of academic papers, inadequate food rations, wash and health provision, insettlement shelter and living conditions, and exclusion of refugees from the job market. however, from the findings, there is some indication that some of the current hei and ngo interventions can be used as demonstrable models for replicating and scaling good practices like training in peace-building and promoting cultural networking and peaceful co-existence through various student-centered activities. studies from the united kingdom, europe, and australia, including this one, show that heis and ngos are the ones that offer most support toward he access and resilience, again through their autonomous policies and guidelines with limited reach (détourbe and goastellec, 2018; naidoo, 2019; stoeber, 2019). nevertheless, there are, however, some studies that show that states can have strong policies that support refugee he access, as is the case in belgium and turkey (dereli, 2018; jungblut et al., 2020). furthermore, the study revealed that on the whole, he policy practice was supportive, despite being delivered amid challenges, largely arising from situational factors both within the settlements and heis. conclusion and recommendations the study aimed to explore how he policy formulation and implementation influence he access and resilience for south sudanese from the bidi bidi settlement 99 in uganda. the findings of the study confirmed that while uganda committed to including equitable refugee education at all levels into its education policy and plans, there is no substantive, comprehensive policy that incorporates and guides he access and resilience for refugees. furthermore, the findings show that there are several disabling factors along the he policy-formulation value chain. additionally, the study findings indicate that while some of the disabling factors are known to the government and its ngo partners, the views and perspectives of heis and refugee students were not sought regarding these and any other factors, during the development of the erp and essp. as a result, without the input of the rights holders and some of the key duty bearers, he for refugees has no swot and situational analyses in the erp and essp, respectively, and is only fleetingly mentioned in the erp and essp without any objectives or activities. with no set national objectives and activities, most he interventions and support for refugees are delivered within the autonomous hei and ngo policies, strategies, and systems. while the findings indicate that these fragmented interventions have a positive influence on refugee access and resilience, there is no indication of how they are synchronized in order to contribute to the realization of the 15by2030 target. the study has thus shown that the he policy-formulation process and implementation can influence access and resilience with no major disparities for males and females. however, it also shows the need for more research in this area, especially with regard to: (a) the factors within the policy environment; (b) the various stakeholder views and perspectives; and (c) the need to develop comprehensive he guidelines, objectives, and activities for refugees and host communities within the erp or a separate policy document. future research could therefore consider the above three areas with a view to inform the development of a comprehensive he policy that will guide implementation and help to measure progress of both state and non-state actors in the bid to contribute to the unhcr target of 15% refugee he access by 2030. the study adds to the discourse on how refugee access and resilience can be increased through he policy formulation and implementation that intentionally include refugees, as the rights holders and heis as key he duty bearers. the current study can leverage further studies in this area at a time when there is a global call to raise refugee higher education access and to leave no one behind. this is especially important for 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published 07 may 2024 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i1.2022 abstract globally, narratives about the nexus between migration and development have gained prominence among academics, policymakers, development practitioners, as well as social partners. however, the historical and contextual factors that have shaped the patterns of migration flows within and from the african continent have been poorly conceptualized and theorized. the components of migration that have the propensity to lead to self-improvement and development such as the sending of cash, social, and political remittances; skills and knowledge transfers; and diaspora-origin country engagements, need to be examined as a composite in order to fully appreciate the developmental potential of migration within the african context. using thematic and content analysis of relevant extant literature, we examine the contextual factors that characterize the nexus between migration and self-improvement/development in africa. our analyses are situated within an africa-centered conceptualization of development and migration. we argue that the development impacts of migration vary across different regions in africa depending on the contextual factors that shape such migrations. migration spurs self-improvement and development just as selfimprovement and development facilitate migration. keywords: development, labor migration, africa, contextual issues, historical, environments 1 centre for migration studies, university of ghana, ghana. corresponding author  leanderkandilige@gmail.com 2 department of sociology, university of ghana, ghana. 3 department of sociology and social work, university for development studies, ghana. migration and the constant search for self-improvement in africa 98 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 introduction the role of migration in supporting development in africa has been overshadowed by securitized discourses that turn to project migration from africa as a problem that needs to be solved. the volume of migration from africa to other regions has been exaggerated by anti-immigrant sentiments and through narratives that seek to demonize migration from africa (adepoju et al., 2010; zanker, 2019). africa accounts for only 14 percent of the global migrant population, compared to 41 percent from asia and 24 percent from europe (african center for strategic studies, 2023). however, western media and public discourse focus predominantly on migration from africa to europe. africa is seen as a continent of bulk migration to europe often caused by poverty, conflict, and environmental degradation (flahaux and de haas, 2016). however, migration from africa is more complex and layered than this. focusing on an african-centered development approach, which highlights self-improvement, this paper provides a nuanced understanding of the bi-directional relationship between migration and development in africa. there is a sedentary bias in migration discourse, whereby movement is perceived as an anomaly, and the conventional wisdom is to argue that promoting socio-economic development in africa has the potential to reduce the migration of africans to the global north (bakewell, 2013). this sedentary bias is a continuation of colonial policies that were designed to mobilize labor for mines and plantations, while preventing permanent settlement in the cities (castles, 2009). european policymakers and some academics are particularly concerned with flows from africa. consequently, measures are taken by the european union (eu) and its member states, which are often designed to reduce these flows but in the guise of well-meaning development policies (sinatti and horst, 2015). the reality, however, is that the majority of migration of africans occurs within the continent, as migrants seek employment opportunities in neighboring regional economic hubs (african center for strategic studies, 2023). in 2020, around 21 million africans were living in another african country – a significant increase from 2015, when around 18 million africans were estimated to be living within the region (iom, 2023). eighty percent of aspiring african migrants do not have an interest in leaving the continent (iom, 2020). however, discussions about the relationship between migration of africans and development tend to focus on the developmental benefits to africa from migration to the global north. this paper departs from this tendency by broadening the analysis to include migration to stable african economies. the results draw on narratives on ghana, kenya, somalia, libya, egypt, nigeria, morocco, south africa, angola, mozambique, namibia, south sudan, lesotho, the gambia, and cabo verde as case studies on the continent. this is reflective of the heterogeneity that characterizes african countries. we acknowledge that the migration-development nexus debate should encompass both the origin and destination country contexts. this approach allows for a deeper analysis of a critical strand within the african context. the paper 99 is guided by the question, “what are the contextual factors that characterize the nexus between migration and self-improvement/development in africa?” this paper gleaned data from a critical review of extant literature on the migration-development nexus. the authors made deliberate efforts to go beyond the top journals and most referenced authors to include academic material on “migration and development in africa” from a broader scholarship. we then did a content and thematic analysis of themes that are relevant to our study, such as cash remittances, social remittances, political remittances, foreign direct investment, and skills transfer. conceptualizing development and migration since this paper focuses on an african migration context, we adopt an africa-centered conceptualization of development that builds on amartya sen’s “capability approach.” sen (1999: 3) conceptualizes development using the “capability approach” and argues that it is “the process of expanding the real freedom that people enjoy.” development is, therefore, seen as a tool that enables people to reach their highest potential through being free to live the lives they choose to lead. there is an emphasis on development beyond the strictures of a financialized and highly economized world. according to ndlovu-gatsheni (2018: 19), african development can be defined based on marcus garvey’s perspective as perpetual and continual african search for self-improvement. because of persistent legacies of enslavement, colonialism, imperialism, apartheid, neo-colonialism, and under-development, as well as the recent rush for africa’s natural resources, african theorization of development continues to be a tussle for what ngugi wa thiong’o (2009a, 2009b, cited in ndlovu-gatsheni, 2018: 20) calls “re-membering,” that is, “a quest for wholeness after over five hundred years of ‘dismemberment.’” development as understood from a decolonial “re-membering” perspective is basically a revitalizing and recovery project (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2015a, 2015b, cited in ndlovu-gatsheni, 2018: 20). regarding migration, we focus on the totality of african migration, which includes both intraand inter-continental migration. narratives about migration of africans have tended to overemphasize migration of africans to the global north, ignoring other african migration trends. narratives are “selective depictions of reality across at least two points in time that include one or more causal claims” (dennison, 2021: 3). narratives include related social practices and contextual factors used to make sense of experience (de fina and georgakopoulou, 2008). we emphasize that africans also migrate to other global southern destinations such as in asia and in the middle east. china, for example, has become a popular destination for africans, so have some gulf countries such as saudi arabia, kuwait, qatar, and the united arab emirates. migration and the constant search for self-improvement in africa 100 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 migration and development nexus in africa the relationship between migration and development is multifaceted. while most scholars in migration and development in africa often connect these two phenomena to remittance inflows from developed countries, some scholars have also related these concepts to regional integration and affective migration governance (dick and schraven, 2018; spel, 2021), climate change (bilgili and marchand, 2016), and conflict (bussotti and coimbra, 2023). oftentimes, the relationship between migration and development is not one-sided. these concepts have been conceived based on their bidirectional nature. migration can both contribute to and hinder development. this symbiotic linkage between migration and development has been acknowledged in scholarly literature and policy discourse (castles, 2009; bakewell, 2013; de haas, 2019). thus, migration can contribute to and be influenced by development processes, thereby affecting the socio-economic associations of countries of origin and destination. from a constructive perspective, migration has fostered development in countries of origin through avenues such as knowledge transfers and investments facilitated by return migrants and members of the diaspora community. on the other hand, migration can also pose challenges to development, particularly in countries of origin experiencing significant population loss or demographic imbalances. the departure of young and skilled individuals can exacerbate labor shortages and hinder the delivery of essential services, such as healthcare and education, in sending communities. additionally, the social and cultural impact of migration, including the separation of families and the erosion of traditional values, can have profound implications for community cohesion and identity (castles, 2009). african emigrants and the diaspora have been recognized as dual agents, capable of both promoting peace and inciting conflict. according to de haas et al. (2019), while diaspora communities frequently engage in philanthropic activities, invest in peacebuilding projects, and advocate for peace and justice reforms, the same diaspora communities sometimes become embroiled in conflicts abroad, either through direct involvement in political activities or by providing financial and logistical support to warring factions. additionally, return migrants who are noted for knowledge transfer can also return with adverse expertise, which is detrimental to development in countries of origin. thus, the return of migrants who have been exposed to radical ideologies or militarized environments abroad can pose security challenges and potentially escalate conflicts in their home countries (iom, 2020). another perspective of the relationship centers on migration flows and development. a common trend of migration flows is from developing countries to developed ones; however, developing countries do not record the highest emigration figures. this is because migration is resource driven, which requires prior improved levels of development in terms of skills, finances, knowledge, and networks. consequently, an increase in emigration generally in developing countries is a result of the impact of economic growth in poor areas (de haas, 2019). migration is a potential driver of development both in destination and origin countries, because 101 whereas migrants bring their productive contribution to the economy at destination, they also remit money and ideas that are resources for families and communities in countries of origin (mcnicoll, 2020). given this scenario, factors such as migration policies, migration status associated with rights, and access to labor markets, technological transformations impact the relationship between migration and development in both countries of origin and destination. this, therefore, calls for a nuanced understanding of the transforming and dynamic relationship between migration and development in africa. components of migration-development relationships in africa as noted by de haas (2019: 6), higher levels of economic and human development are initially associated with higher levels of emigration, which only decrease less precipitously with growing prosperity and development. typically, over the course of a “mobility transition,” the rate of emigration only begins to fall when countries attain upper middle-income status (clemens, 2014). this inverted-u relationship has been called different names by different scholars – the “mobility transition” (zelinsky, 1971), “migration curve” (ackerman, 1976), “migration transition” (gould, 1979), “migration hump” (martin, 1993), and “emigration lifecycle” (hatton and williamson, 1994). development experienced in african countries (such as libya from oil revenues, côte d’ivoire from cocoa revenues, ghana from cocoa and gold revenues, nigeria from oil revenues, south africa from mining revenues, kenya from tea, ict, and tourism revenues, and morocco from tourism and agriculture revenues) has led to an increase in migration aspirations. this is because the cost of international migration, especially to destinations outside the continent, represents up to two years’ salaries of the average african employee. these can only be afforded when employment rates and standards of living improve with development. in addition, the exponential expansion in access to the internet, social media platforms, and to mobile money transactions have expedited the formulation of migration aspirations through exposure to opportunities elsewhere and easy transfer of remittances from social network members abroad. also, higher education levels across africa and greater opportunities for skills acquisition have been associated with higher migration. higher qualifications and higher skills in economies that are incapable of absorbing the youthful population have triggered labor migration to destinations with higher employment opportunities. for those who find wellpaying jobs, they are better able to fund their migration projects. over the long term, however, higher education, especially of women, is expected to lead to a reduction in the population growth rate on the continent, thereby reducing the demographic pressure. over time, popular destinations for african labor migrants have broadened beyond the traditional countries in europe and north america to include countries in the gulf region (kandilige et al., 2019) and china (obeng, 2019). migration and the constant search for self-improvement in africa 102 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 development conceptualized as self-improvement (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2018) has been associated with migration through a variety of proximate factors. the extant literature on intra-african migration as well as migration from africa to destinations outside the continent has focused predominantly on the receipt of mostly cash remittances. this has served as the litmus test for whether migration has potential developmental implications at diverse spatial levels – micro level on individuals and families left behind, meso level on migrant origin communities, and macro level on national economies (gnimassoun and anyanwu, 2019; mcauliffe and triandafyllidou, 2021). while narratives on the microand meso-level effects might be relatively evident, macro-level claims are more spurious because of the many confounding factors that ultimately determine national development. this is in spite of the world bank’s continuing linkage of remittances to national development. good governance systems, availability of infrastructure, conducive environment for investments, extension of rights to diaspora members, clamping down on corruption, and education on productive uses of remittance receipts, among others are prerequisites for cash remittances to trigger or support development at the macro level. globally, remittances have proven to be less volatile and a reliable source of income to developing countries compared with foreign direct investment (fdi) and official development assistance (oda), as demonstrated in figure 1. this narrative about the viability of remittances as a foreign exchange earner is informed by the collation of inexact data on remittance receipts. while there has been an appreciable hike in the number of remittances-sending agencies as well as the deployment of innovative technologies using virtual platforms, large volumes of remittances are sent through informal channels (teye et al., 2017; world bank, 2021). these channels include “unity-link” operating from london, “sendwave” that facilitates the sending of remittances from the usa, uk, canada, and the eu, “xe” foreign exchange company that is based in canada but facilitates transfers to 200 countries in 100 currencies, “world remit” that operates from the uk, and mobile phone-based money transfer services such as “m-pesa” originating from kenya, among others. despite the use of informal channels, the fact that remittance figures are produced by credible entities such as the world bank and the united nations department of economic and social affairs (undesa) adds to the overall credibility of this narrative. 103 figure 1: receipts from remittances relative to fdi and oda source: barne and pirlea (2019). global knowledge partnership on migration and development (knomad). as noted by ratha (2010), cash remittances can have wide-ranging effects on local economies, such as being used to stabilize local currencies, to reduce the depth and severity of poverty, to stimulate economic activity, to be used as collateral for foreign loans, and to boost the savings portfolio of recipients. remittances can also support foreign currency reserves to cover the importation of goods and services. they also have the propensity to improve the credit rating of countries and their external debt sustainability. figure 2 presents data illustrating that across the continent, the countries that receive the highest amounts of remittances, those that are sources of the highest amounts, and those whose economies rely heavily on remittances differ. whereas egypt, nigeria, morocco, ghana, and kenya top the recipients’ list, south africa, angola, mozambique, morocco, and namibia are the five leading sources of remittances in africa. as a percentage of gross domestic product (gdp), somalia, south sudan, lesotho, the gambia, and cabo verde have the highest dependency on remittance income. migration and the constant search for self-improvement in africa 104 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 figure 2: top african international remittance recipient and source countries, 2019 and 2020 source: world bank (2021, quoted in the world migration report, 2022: 65). while the physical absence of migrants from the country of origin could be argued to amount to a loss of positive externalities (gnimassoun and anyanwu, 2019), there is a narrative on an incentive effect, which occurs ex-ante of emigration itself. this narrative suggests that families are motivated to invest in the education of their children in the hope of future emigration. as a result, this inadvertently boosts the stock of human capital since not all highly educated and highly skilled persons would emigrate eventually (agrawal et al., 2011). in addition, there is the narrative of an ex-post effect through diaspora on-going links with the home country by their financial transfers or their possible return, but especially by their participation in scientific, political, and business networks (gnimassoun and anyanwu, 2019: 3). rapoport (2010) argues that such networks potentially generate trade and capital flows, technology transfers, and can also contribute to the dissemination of social and institutional norms conducive to development. intangible social remittances have increasingly been acknowledged as equally beneficial as cash remittances to the development prospects of countries of origin in africa. as popularized by levitt (1998), there is a narrative that suggests that behaviors, habits, ideas, attitudes, and social capital that are transmitted by migrants from destination countries to origin 105 countries could inform positive behavioral changes. these translate into better work ethic, honesty, holding duty bearers accountable for their actions and decisions, and positively shaping attitudes toward democracy. this rather simplistic refrain has, however, propagated an overly optimistic assumption. it suggests that virtues reside in destination countries and migrants automatically imbibe these developmentenhancing attitudes. these virtues are then transmitted to origin countries, either upon permanent return or during temporary periodic visits. these putative narratives sometimes find meaning in a eurocentric framing of migration from africa whereby “backward” and “uncultured” african migrants are “evangelized,” in enlightened and progressive european destination countries. such migrants are expected to subsequently transmit development values and norms to their origin countries. there is, however, the need for a nuanced examination of the narrative on the alleged nexus between social remittances and development in africa by reflecting on the following questions: what are the value systems in destination countries and are they necessarily superior to those in the origin countries? how many return migrants would it take to change societal attitudes and norms in their country of origin? how susceptible to change are people in the country of origin and do return migrants have the credibility to drive systemic change? what is the likelihood of indoctrination of migrants through locals' bad behaviors, xenophobic tendencies, homophobic sentiments, misogynistic attitudes, and criminality in destination countries? whose standards are used to measure values and norms that are relevant for development? more critical scholarship (mazzucato, 2008) rather provides a more balanced analysis on social remittances being bidirectional rather than a one-way street with values, ideas, and norms coming to “africa” from elsewhere. closely aligned with narratives on social remittances are those on political remittances. governance systems, values of probity and accountability, quality of institutions, and voter participation are presumed to be enhanced by the transmission of democratic values by migrants (see bauböck, 2003; chauvet and mercier, 2014; batista et al., 2019). a further claim is that of crediting return migrants who stand for political office with using their assumed refined political acumen acquired during their migration to improve the political landscape of the origin country (pérez-armendáriz and crow, 2010; kapur, 2014; boccagni et al., 2016). some empirical studies such as the one by docquier et al. (2016) support this narrative by demonstrating empirically that emigration from developing countries to organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) countries helps to improve democracy in the countries of origin. whereas there are examples of prominent return migrants who led their countries of origin to independence or provided visionary leadership (such as dr. kwame nkrumah of ghana), there are equally examples of african governments that have been comprised of a substantial number of returnees, but those governments have been marred in non-democratic activities. these have included corruption and swindling of state resources, incompetent leadership, connivance with foreign agents to loot state resources, and gross abuse of human rights. this notwithstanding, using migration and the constant search for self-improvement in africa 106 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 the gravity-based two-stage least squares (2sls) estimation strategy, gnimassoun and anyanwu (2019) examined the impact of the african diaspora on democracy in africa. they examined variables such as political rights by examining the functioning of institutions through electoral processes, political pluralism and participation, and functioning of government. in addition, they considered civil liberties through freedom of expression and belief, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, personal autonomy, and individual rights. their results demonstrate a very strong linkage between african diaspora in developed oecd countries and democracy in africa, especially for the highly educated diaspora. another component of migration that holds much promise is the narrative about the potential for skills transfer from african migrants to others who are based in origin countries in africa. the departure of newly qualified professionals from ghana, nigeria, and zimbabwe to other countries within the continent or outside it, is associated with opportunities to specialize in areas of qualification (skeldon, 2005). medical doctors, for instance, pursue specialist training and sometimes progress to become consultants in niche areas of specialization. others take advantage of sophisticated equipment in destination countries such as south africa or kenya, which might be lacking in their countries of origin. sports migrants join professional teams in destination countries such as egypt, morocco, or united kingdom that support the honing of their skills. health professionals equally further develop their skills during their migration journeys. african migrants with practical skills or hands-on expertise who migrate to destinations where various types of labor are in demand also acquire skills in construction, hospitality, cleaning, manufacturing, and agriculture, among others. under the “transnational turn,” there is the potential for acquired skills to be transferred either prior to or upon return. temporary return programs such as the transfer of knowledge through expatriate nationals (tokten) by the united nations development programme (undp) in countries such as sudan, in 2006 benefited thousands of sudanese and the return of qualified african nationals (rqan) program facilitated the return of 71 highly skilled ethiopians in the diaspora to support national development. also, the migration for development in africa (mida) initiative by the iom, for instance, enabled 21,000 health workers in ghana to understudy 1,000 ghanaian health professionals from the diaspora between 2005 and 2015. moreover, the returning experts programme by the deutsche gesellschaft für internationale zusammenarbeit (giz) has supported over 15,000 returning experts globally since the 1980s. all these initiatives have been supported by development partners to encourage skills transfers. beyond the formally orchestrated programs, there are skills transfers that take place organically during short visits by individual african migrants as well as upon permanent return. for these processes to unleash their full developmental potential, the domestic environment must be conducive. unfavorable domestic environments are associated with inadvertent loss of human capital in the form of brain waste (mattoo et al., 2005). however, the skills transfer hypothesis assumes that african migrants necessarily acquire superior skills 107 that are worth transferring. while most migrants do obtain new or better skills, this blanket view obfuscates the several instances whereby skills are rather lost during migration. highly skilled or qualified migrants who fail to secure jobs comparable to their experience or qualifications can experience deskilling and possible brain waste. over an extended period, such migrants’ skills become rusty, and this complicates their reinsertion into their previous professions after their return. as a result of these fears, several african governments have instituted reaccreditation schemes that validate the skills of professional return migrants. migration is also said to drive fdi by non-nationals as well as by diaspora members. the presence of migrants can foster good international relations among countries. in such situations, migrants are perceived to be agents for socio-economic development in their origin countries (faist, 2008). they can leverage their existing social networks abroad to invest in niche businesses in africa, such as food processing, scrap-metal reclamation and recycling, dry cleaning, parcel delivery services, taxi-hailing businesses, shuttle services, tourism, fish farming, among others. the cultivation of investment interest is boosted through business expos and roadshows that are organized by labor attachés at african countries’ embassies and high commissions abroad. there is also a push for diaspora-led investments. to maximize receipts from the diaspora, some african governments such as ghana have adopted a very loose definition of their diaspora to include anyone of african descent who is interested in the development of their country. by casting the net wide, people who have never possessed the citizenship of these countries are extended a sense of belonging. well-curated “homecoming” events are used to marshal investment income from returning nationals, diaspora members, as well as business associates of diaspora members who are exposed to investment opportunities during such events. a classic example is the “year of return” celebrations by ghana, which were planned to mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first slaves in the americas. this event culminated in the arrival of famous and influential individuals and groups, especially from the african american community of the usa. other visitors came from across the globe and investment pitches were made to the participants, some of whom subsequently invested in the country. proceeds from hospitality services, transportation, tourism sectors, and others amounted to nearly 2 billion us dollars (atc news, 2019). governments also float diaspora bonds as a means of raising development capital. such attempts have been oversubscribed in most instances. this channel of raising funds for capital projects saves african governments from the international financial markets where interest rates are usually prohibitive. beyond the effects of emigration of africans to destinations both within and beyond the continent on development, there is also a narrative on the nexus between immigration and development. immigrant labor is instrumental in bridging the skills gaps in destination countries. despite the common refrain in destination countries that migrants are taking jobs from nationals, empirical evidence suggests that migrants mostly fill vacancies that are either undesirable by migration and the constant search for self-improvement in africa 108 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 the local labor force or there is an acute shortage of skills. this is particularly true for labor migrants with practical skills or hands-on expertise who do menial jobs, such as picking fruits, collecting recyclable plastic waste, stacking of supermarket shelves, cleaning services, hand car wash, waste collection, and janitorial work. in the realm of skilled labor, there are vacancies that are unfilled because the requisite skills are lacking domestically. examples include petrochemical engineers for the oil and gas sectors of african countries that recently discovered oil and gas (such as ghana, namibia, gabon, côte d’ivoire, angola), mining specialists, civil engineers, medical consultants, information technology specialists, investment bankers, and insurance brokers. as argued by dual/segmented labor-market theorists (piore, 1979), there tend to be two parallel labor markets – the primary labor market, which comprises well-paid, secure, and highly skilled jobs that are popular with the native population, and a secondary labor market, which comprises low-paid, insecure, and unskilled jobs that are filled by migrants. the “unskilled” migrants in africa thus embark on secondary-market jobs, which are largely shunned by the native population because they are labeled as immigrant jobs. however, unlike the dual/ segmented labor-market theorists, empirical evidence indicates that some skilled african labor migrants equally feature prominently in the primary labor market as senior executives, managers, employers, and inventors. in reality, the two segments (primary and secondary) are interdependent. across the two labor markets, access to social protection schemes and portability of social security contributions at the end of migrants’ journeys are critical to the well-being of migrants (both skilled and unskilled) and shape their ability to send remittances home toward consumptive and productive uses. conclusion this perspective paper engages with the dominant sedentary bias that is associated with migration from africa, where migration is perceived as “unusual” and it is expected to be temporary. the paper also challenges the unfounded assumption that the majority of africans are automatically destined for europe, should they have the opportunity to migrate. we acknowledge the critical contribution of scholars such as ndlovu-gatsheni (2018: 19), who notes that african development can be defined from marcus garvey’s perspective as constant and consistent african search for selfimprovement. we, therefore, perceive africa-centered development as building on the arguments of economists such as sen (1999: 3), who conceptualizes development using the “capability approach” and argues that it is “the process of expanding the real freedom that people enjoy.” development is, therefore, regarded as a tool that enables people to reach their highest potential through being free to live the lives they choose to lead. we conclude that cash remittances have the potential to support development in africa, but this depends on the environments within which migration occurs as well as within which cash remittances are introduced. similarly, social remittances are 109 credited with possible improvements in habits, attitudes, and social capital that could support development. however, we question the assumption that superior values and norms preside in european destination countries and african migrants imbibe them and transmit them to a vacuous continent that is devoid of developmental values. we critique this approach as being too deterministic. moreover, we adjudge political remittances to be positively associated with improvements in democracy in africa based on some empirical studies. while acknowledging this finding, we caution against a blanket assumption of a positive nexus by noting that some political remittances equally contribute to chaos, political upheaval, and corruption. akin to arguments around social remittances, skills transfers from migrants are acclaimed as progressive and 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(eds.), intra-africa migrations: reimaging borders and migration management. london: routledge, pp. 178-195. teye, j.k., badasu, m.d., and yeboah, c. 2017. assessment of remittances-related services and practices of financial institutions in ghana. iom, ghana. world bank. 2021. an analysis of trends in the cost of remittance services: remittance prices worldwide quarterly. world bank, washington d.c. http:// remittanceprices.worldbank.org zanker, f. 2019. managing or restricting movement? diverging approaches of african and european migration governance. comparative migration studies, 7(17): 1-18. zelinsky, w. 1971. the hypothesis of the mobility transition. geographical review, 61(2): 219-249. migration and the constant search for self-improvement in africa 32 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 “let them stay there”: covid-19 and zimbabwe’s indignation against return migrants and travelers chipo hungwe1 and zvenyika eckson mugari2 received 15 august 2023 / accepted 05 february 2024 / published 07 may 2024 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i1.1667 abstract this paper explains the indignation against and stigmatization of return migrants and travelers when zimbabwe first recorded cases of covid-19 in 2020. while xenophobic hatred toward foreign migrants enjoyed much media and scholarly attention, the similar risk faced by the return migrants and travelers among “their own” during the pandemic was largely left on the back burner. the paper uses secondary analysis of information from social media, government reports, media briefings, and public utterances of government officials to provide an explanation for the negative attitudes of locals against migrants at the height of covid-19. the findings revealed that in times of change and dealing with uncertainty, there is a tendency to redraw boundary lines between in-groups and out-groups with negative consequences for those labeled as the out-group. for some time, the returnees were stigmatized as harbingers of the covid-19 virus and viewed as troublesome and acting in an unreasonable manner, thus courting the indignation of local zimbabweans. this paper lends support to the view that pandemics create fear, which results in the rejection and exclusion of ordinary members of the in-group. perceived resource competition, resource scarcity, anxiety, and fear heightened the stigmatization of return migrants and travelers. to build back better from the negative effects of the pandemic, there is a need to review covid-19 preventive measures, avoid reckless public pronouncements that stigmatize and stoke hatred for return migrants, and invest in the healthcare system. keywords: covid-19, fear, indignation, return migrants, stigmatization, travelers 1 department of sociology, midlands state university, zimbabwe. corresponding author  hungwec@staff.msu.ac.zw 2 midlands state university, zimbabwe. 33 introduction this paper addresses the plight of returning travelers (locals who had visited other countries) and return migrants (zimbabweans who live and work in other countries) who found themselves in a difficult position at the height of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. zimbabweans returning from other countries were not only blamed for “importing” the disease but branded as irresponsibly spreading the disease among the “innocent” local communities. this paper analyzes the framing of the discourse of these two groups through their depiction in the social media, mainstream media, government reports, and media briefings. using zygmunt bauman’s (2007) views on in-groups and out-groups and the concept of existential fear, this study analyzes how the fear of the pandemic was offloaded on the returning traveler and migrant, because these were regarded as “substitute targets” who could be seen, controlled, ridiculed, and stigmatized, in place of the global virus that could not be seen or controlled and that had no known cure. in the face of change, which the country could not stop and global processes necessitating the return of residents, which the country could not control, the zimbabwean society vented its frustration on return migrants, who could be seen and talked with and whose movements could to some extent, be controlled. the anger of society offloaded onto these members of society may have been displaced anger against the pandemic, which could not be treated. the covid-19 pandemic increased the vulnerability of the zimbabwean society that was already reeling under a deteriorating economy. it revealed the tenuous nature of the claim to citizenship under conditions of national crisis and the shifting boundaries of belongingness to the nation as an imagined community (anderson, 2006). triandafyllidou (2022: 6) reiterates that the pandemic has pushed the boundaries of these different layers, blurring and redrawing their contours. the emergency has raised important clarification questions: where does the boundary between insiders and outsiders effectively lie, and who should be in or out? the pandemic further strained the national health delivery system that had been declining for some time, much to the perturbation of zimbabwe’s political leadership and ordinary members of the public. the resentment of the locals manifested itself through stigmatization of the returning locals and migrants who were taunted for “leaving the country when it needed them most” and only “irresponsibly” returning to “infect the population of zimbabwe.” such an attitude rendered returning migrants and travelers vulnerable to harassment and stigmatization and to some extent, needing protection. there is a growing body of literature on the xenophobic attacks, stigmatization, and harassment of migrants for “importing the virus” into their host countries (see, for example, guadagno, 2020). in venezuela and in central america, returnees “encounter prejudice, profiling and xenophobia when they re-enter their countries of origin” (riggirozzi et al., 2020: 3). “malawi had its first covid-19 case on 02 april 2020, which was imported from india” (nyasulu et al., 2021: 270). zimbabwe’s covid-19 and zimbabwe’s indignation against return migrants and travelers 34 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 first covid-19 fatality was also a returnee (murewanhema et al., 2020; mashe et al., 2021). however, the literature has not revealed how zimbabweans reacted to and viewed the rising influx of returning migrants during the height of the covid-19 pandemic. it is important to determine the safety of return migrants in times of crisis. this study reveals that the facebook, whatsapp, and other social media platforms were awash with stories, illustrations, and images of the reception that some migrants had upon returning to their home countries. much of the evidence indicates the hatred and the cold and unfriendly reception experienced by return migrants and travelers who were mostly viewed as carriers and super-spreaders of the muchdreaded covid-19 virus. method the views attributed to a senior zimbabwean government official that covid-19 was a disease of the white people and god’s punishment of the united states of america (usa) for imposing economic sanctions on zimbabwe (mutsaka, 2020) were not only reckless but revealed reverse racism against whites and a visceral hatred of the west. while the president publicly criticized and distanced himself from those views as not representative of his government’s view on the subject, people shared many conspiracy theories and widely different and often unscientifically verified explanations of the origin of covid-19, how it is spread, and what factors predisposed one to catch the virus. since the discovery of the virus in china’s wuhan province toward the end of 2019 and the subsequent declaration of the health emergency as a pandemic by the secretary general of the united nations (un) in march 2020 (guterres, 2020), the first and almost instinctive recourse by national governments across the globe was to close their borders to international travel to and from risky destinations while imposing travel restrictions internally (flores et al., 2022). “the concern that travelers increase the risk of covid-19 contagion was and still is legitimate” (triandafyllidou, 2022: 4) and remains a widely shared view globally (riggirozzi et al., 2020). the british weekly newspaper, the guardian (mason et al., 2021), carried a story on europe and britain’s near xenophobic reaction to the emergence of omicron, a new variant of the covid-19 virus, reportedly recently discovered in southern africa, announcing travel bans on southern african nationals from entry into their countries while also imposing stringent quarantine measures on all returnees traveling from that region. it is against this background that in zimbabwe, like in many countries across the globe, the return migrants were quickly viewed as the “vectors” of the virus, whose every detail was publicized, much to the satisfaction of the informationhungry public. after the first covid-19 case was reported in zimbabwe, early daily statistical reports released by the ministry of health and child care (mohcc) on the status of the pandemic fed into the already existing conspiracy theories about returnees being blameworthy for importing the virus into the country. in terms of the world health organization (who) protocols on contact tracing, there were 35 demands of every minute detail (including names) of the victims of covid-19, who they had been with and when, all in the name of protection of the public (salus populi suprema lex) (chirisa et al., 2021). this paper contends that much of the interest in the details of these early victims of covid-19 was driven by fear as much as it also led to ambivalence and indignation against returning migrants. the uncertain world we live in globalization and its associated social, economic, political, and technological processes challenge accepted and constitutive notions of national boundaries rendering societies open, insecure, risky, and unable to control situations at both societal and individual levels. bauman (2007) notes how our society has bred risks, uncertainties, and dangers because of a sense of loss of control on most issues affecting individuals. these uncertainties and dangers have created fear and distrust among individuals while at the same time desperately trying to control those things or situations we think are within our control. elaborating on this, bauman (2007: 11) argues: we focus on things we can, or believe we can, or are assured that we can influence; we try to calculate and minimize the risk that we personally, or those nearest and dearest to us at that moment might fall victim to, the uncounted and uncountable dangers which the opaque world and its uncertain future are suspected to hold in store for us. this attempt to focus on things individuals believe they can influence may mean trying to control the actions of those within their reach, such as the travelers and return migrants within the reach of societal public policy frameworks and in that way minimize risks of transmission of diseases such as global pandemics. the attempts to control, calculate, and minimize risks are driven by fear. epidemics and pandemics have always been associated with fear (eichelberger, 2007). this fear causes people to lash out against and seek to blame others (dionne and turkmen, 2020; morenobarreneche, 2020; hardy et al., 2021). the covid-19 pandemic is not different. one way that societies have tried to cope with the fear of the pandemic is to ostracize and blame travelers and immigrants as the social others whose lifestyles have been judged as “dirty” (onoma, 2021; ang and das, 2022). covid-19 and migrants globally there is a clear existing body of knowledge on how migrants are subject to xenophobia, victimization, and racism in the destination country. most societies, including those that pride themselves in being fair and tolerant, display different levels of discriminatory and xenophobic tendencies toward different groups of migrants who are perceived as harbingers of crime, violence, disease, competition, and different covid-19 and zimbabwe’s indignation against return migrants and travelers 36 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 forms of pollution (nyamnjoh, 2006; gorodzeisky and semyonov, 2019; ang and das, 2022). covid-19 increased the racism, stigma, xenophobia, and discrimination that already existed against migrants. in general, within the covid-19 pandemic context, migrants have fared worse than natives of the host country because of the precarious and mostly low-level and informal work that they engage in. migrants have been subjected to victimization and ridicule as importers of the covid-19 virus regardless of whether they have recently traveled to their home countries or not (reny and barreto, 2022; sharma et al., 2022). in some cases, this victimization culminated in vandalism of businesses belonging to migrants, ostracism on public transport and in other public places, and in their places of residence. migrants of asian origin have faced covid-19-induced xenophobia throughout the globe, including in some asian countries (bofulin, 2021; le coz and newland, 2021; ang and das, 2022). africans have also been victims of covid-19-related xenophobia. nsono (2020) explains how african students were discriminated against in china. the international organization for migration (iom, 2020) quotes the un secretary general describing a “tsunami of hate and xenophobia” unleashed on migrants during the covid-19 pandemic resulting in some migrants losing their jobs and means of livelihood, rendering them vulnerable and insecure. of interest to this paper is the xenophobic treatment that more than 200,000 zimbabwean returnees (iom, 2021) suffered on arrival in a country they called “home.” covid-19 and return migration although there is increasing literature on return migration, authors generally bemoan the paucity of data on return and reintegration of migrants during the pandemic. they also highlight the need to clearly theorize return migration (arowolo, 2002; cassarino, 2004; wickeramasekara, 2019; owigo, 2022). there are different terms used to define migrants who return to their country of birth after having worked in another country for some time. terms such as “returnees,” “return emigrants,” “voluntary return migrants,” and “reverse migrants” are used in the literature and seem to describe the complex circumstances of migrants, such as whether the decision to return is voluntary or involuntary, and planned or unplanned (cassarino, 2004; desie et al., 2021; efendi et al., 2021). wickeramasekara (2019) laments that the concept of return migration is a “catch all” term. when an individual’s migration cycle is interrupted by factors beyond their control, such as natural disasters, they may decide to return. in such cases, the level of preparedness for returning is very low and the returning migrant is compelled to return by feelings of vulnerability, insecurity, and fear (wickeramasekara, 2019; desie et al., 2021; martin and bergmann, 2021); the decision to return is not fully voluntary. the simple iom categorization of return as either voluntary or forced does not capture the complicated decisions taken by migrants during the covid-19 pandemic (di martino, 2021). martin and bergmann (2021) suggest that migrants who return to their country of origin during the pandemic ought to be categorized 37 as “migrants in crisis.” this paper considers the zimbabweans who had been outside the country for different reasons and durations of time and were disrupted by covid-19, as return migrants. scholars need to probe how migrants are perceived and received in their home countries when they return, as this affects their level of acceptability, the sustainability of the return (owigo, 2022), and socio-economic integration. while there is literature pointing to perceptions of admiration, envy, and jealousy, there is also a need to realize that migrants may be met with stigma, as well as covert and overt hostility (hungwe, 2012; onoma, 2021; owigo, 2022). during the covid-19 pandemic, return migrants were subjected to discrimination and victimization in their countries of origin (martin and bergmann, 2021). bofulin (2021: 2) observes that in china, migrants were told to “return [to] where they were coming from” and were blamed “for not participating in building the homeland but being the first to rush from far to harm it.” onoma (2021) captures how senegalese returning from europe were stigmatized as disease vectors. martin and bergmann (2021) explain how the international frameworks and guidelines on mobility were ignored, violated, and underutilized during the pandemic, as governments imposed travel restrictions. le coz and newland (2021) summarize the complications of negotiating return and reintegration of migrants during the covid-19 pandemic and suggest the need for more cooperation among countries. according to media reports, southern africa became a target of ostracism by nations of the global north after the discovery of the omicron variant of covid-19 in that region in 2022. western countries imposed travel bans against nationals from the whole region, whether or not there were confirmed cases of omicron in their countries of origin. yet western countries did not adopt similar measures against europeans or citizens from countries in other regions of the world where omicron cases had been confirmed, such as belgium, turkey, egypt, and hong kong (the guardian, 2021). former us president, donald trump infamously tweeted about the “chinese virus” and coined the expression “kung flu,” obviously associating the covid-19 pandemic with the chinese (kurilla, 2021). zimbabwe’s migration trends: causes and effects since before zimbabwe’s political independence in 1980 and thereafter and due to different social, political, and economic challenges, zimbabweans have migrated to other countries. they migrated primarily within the southern african region (mainly south africa, botswana, zambia, malawi, and mozambique – approximately 71 percent of zimbabwean migrants) and globally to europe and more specifically the uk (host to most zimbabwean diasporans outside africa), australia, usa, and asia (about 29 percent). the actual size of the zimbabwean diasporan population remains a matter of conjecture, as different agencies often put forth very different and contradictory figures depending on the census method used or other ulterior motives (nehanda radio, september 6, 2022). however, what remains evident in most reports, is that there was a marked decline in the diasporan population after 2021 in the wake covid-19 and zimbabwe’s indignation against return migrants and travelers 38 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 of covid-19-induced deportations from host countries. zimbabwean migrants are a mix of middle-class skilled and semi-skilled professionals and lower-class poor and unskilled workers (crush and tevera, 2010; crush et al., 2017; undesa, 2020). that zimbabwe acknowledges the positive economic development impact and potential of the zimbabwean diaspora, became evident in the zimbabwean president making “re-engagement meetings” with the zimbabwean diaspora part of his international itinerary, promising investment opportunities back home under his much-vaunted “zimbabwe is open for business” mantra. president emmerson mnangagwa holds this move as a radically different approach to the one by his predecessor, robert mugabe (government of zimbabwe, undated). scholars have, however, revealed certain continuities between the “old” and the “new” governments (helliker and murisa, 2020; nyamunda, 2021). but what is clear, is that the late former president of zimbabwe openly attacked and humiliated the zimbabwean diaspora, whom he not only accused of being sell-outs, but as people who groveled to former white masters by accepting low-status jobs far below their skills level (especially in western countries) working in the care sector (mcgregor, 2007). it must be acknowledged that even during mugabe’s rule, there were efforts to reengage the diaspora through economic initiatives such as home-link, partnerships, and strategies to lure back the zimbabweans. these had varying levels of success but may be judged to have largely been unsuccessful because the economic fundamentals deemed unattractive, had remained the same (chikanda, 2011; iom, 2011; masengwe and machingura, 2012). discussion covid-19 in zimbabwe just like the previous pandemics, covid-19 is both “destroyer and teacher” (tomes, 2010). in responding to covid-19, zimbabwe was guided by the who, which drew on long-standing elements of disease control that were learned from the previous pandemics. these control measures include the banning of gatherings, implementation of social distancing, and the quarantining and isolation of those suspected to be carriers of the virus, such as migrants and travelers. the screening of travelers from covid-19-affected countries started on january 22, 2020 in zimbabwe. the country recorded its first case of covid-19 on march 21, 2020. the individual involved was a returning zimbabwean who had traveled to another country. thus, when covid-19 started in zimbabwe, it was regarded as an imported disease. “the cases of covid-19 were associated with inbound travelers, mainly from the united kingdom, united states of america, dubai and contact cases of people who had travelled” (chirisa et al. 2021: 2). on march 19, 2020, the zimbabwe national preparedness and response plan for covid-19 was launched with an initial eight pillars of coordination, the creation of a national covid-19 response task force, and the formation of the inter-ministerial 39 committee. the permanent secretary for the mohcc led the overall high-level coordination and planning, working with permanent secretaries of other ministries in support of the inter-ministerial covid-19 task force. there were weekly high-level coordination meetings scheduled on tuesdays in the emergency operations centre (unocha, 2020). the covid-19 pandemic was declared a national disaster by the zimbabwean president on march 19, 2020, while the first 21-day national lockdown started on march 30, 2020 as promulgated by the statutory instrument (si) 83 of 2020 (si 83, 2020). through the si 83 of 2020, the government ordered that returning residents and zimbabwean citizens be “detained, isolated or quarantined at any place” for 21 days. this order saw the authorities identify and prepare isolation and quarantine centers throughout the country. as a result, the government upgraded and refurbished some hospitals to function as isolation centers, while it identified some schools, colleges, and hotels as quarantine centers. the authorities also deemed self-quarantine at home a responsible action on the part of those who tested negative upon arrival. while this official stance prevailed, the country witnessed a surge in numbers of returning migrants – mostly from neighboring regional countries. in april 2021, the iom reported that about 200,000 zimbabweans had returned from neighboring countries, mostly from south africa, botswana, and malawi. for border communities, such as those in beitbridge, plumtree, and chipinge, some returning migrants continued to use illegal “bush paths” to return home, while travelers made several trips to and from zimbabwe, for purposes of trade or social ties such as funerals (mangiza and chakawa, 2021). the porous nature of the borders made it difficult to officially regulate cross-border travel of residents in zimbabwe. southern african countries recorded high statistics of covid-19 with south africa, zambia, namibia, mozambique, and botswana in the top 100 affected countries (worldometer, 2021). as of august 15, 2021, a situation report by the mohcc indicated that zimbabwe ranked sixth in southern africa, with 120,088 cumulative cases of covid-19, after south africa (2,595,867), zambia (201,867), mozambique (137,413), botswana (136,758), and namibia (122,097) (hungwe, 2022: 70). the first person to succumb to covid-19 in zimbabwe was a journalist who died on march 23, 2020 after returning from a trip to the usa. what followed was a flood of comments about his travels, some positive and others, mostly negative, describing the late journalist as somehow responsible for his death, with some even blaming him for intentionally spreading the disease (mugabe, 2020). what also became clear from the first fatality and the early patients of covid-19, was that the country had inadequate resources to screen and test those who passed through entry points (makurumidze, 2020). the designated hospitals and quarantine and isolation centers were also inadequately resourced to cater for people with covid-19. indications were that up to the point of the first fatality (and even well after), the country was ill-prepared to deal with covid-19 patients in its hospitals and related institutions. covid-19 and zimbabwe’s indignation against return migrants and travelers 40 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 the very fact that the first victims of covid-19 were zimbabweans who had traveled to other countries for business or other reasons, gave an impression that the disease was related to those who travel beyond the borders of the country. furthermore, the daily reports of statistics by both the who and national institutions, highlighting the number of “imported cases” intensified the stigma of the disease as attributable to those who travel. the zimbabwean authorities disseminated information that discouraged people from traveling, receiving anyone from outside the borders, engaging in social mixing and mingling and instead required people to observe physical distancing, to be safe from the virus. in zimbabwe, the overall response to covid-19, the grasp of its origins, and the interpretation of how the disease was transmitted were heavily skewed toward returning migrants and travelers (murewanhema et al., 2020), leading medical analysts to strongly associate the disease with travelers. the result was a convergence between prejudices and facts, creating “an environment in which returnees were suspected and accused of bringing the disease with them as ‘super-spreaders’” (mencutek, 2022: 197). some ill-conceived and insensitive comments posted on social media platforms by senior government officials tended to reinforce the stigmatization and stereotyping of returnees. permanent secretary for the ministry of information, nick mangwana’s twitter account was very influential in fomenting the antagonism toward returnees, associating them with disease. it became the go-to source for most local news outlets looking for the government’s official position on topical issues of the day. in fact, in 2021 a local newspaper quoted mangwana as saying: and as a caring government, measures have been put in place to ensure that there is no repeat of last year’s grim and grave scenario where the contagion caused hundreds of deaths. the idea is not to punish citizens. we do empathise with those citizens who have a critical need to come into the country at this critical point in time, but we have a duty of care for every other citizen and we have to make sure that our system is not overwhelmed by disease, therefore we have put filters and safeguards to protect the rest of the citizens (bulawayo24 news, 2021, our emphasis). the emphasized words, notably “contagion,” “overwhelmed,” and “disease” with reference to returnees, wittingly or unwittingly encouraged a sense of fear of migrants in members of the public. it is noteworthy that such negative feelings toward returnees as harbingers of covid-19 were comparable to similar attitudes in other countries and regions of the world (guadagno, 2020; riggirozzi et al., 2020; nyasulu et al., 2021; unohc, 2021). in this vein, therefore, migrants were deemed to pose a threat in the spread of covid-19 (chirisa et al., 2021) and thus began the stigmatization of returning migrants and travelers, putting these individuals at risk of public humiliation through social media and discrimination in other spaces. win (2020) compares the stigma attached to covid-19 victims to that of early victims 41 of hiv/aids. in contrast to the dominant narrative, the minister of information cautioned zimbabweans against thinking that covid-19 was a disease of the migrants and travelers, as she ended her national address on june 29, 2020 saying: my fellow zimbabweans, as our positive cases rise, let us not become lax thinking that this virus is limited to returnees. we have to be vigilant and work collectively. protective and preventative measures are there to assist us in combating covid-19 (sly media productions, 2020). this was after she had detailed how quarantine and isolation centers would work to prevent transmission of the disease to locals and also how some non-compliant returnees were putting the communities at risk by violating isolation rules. the tweet below posted by the permanent secretary, mangwana, on november 28, 2020 betrays a siege mentality against returnees who deserve to be treated as common criminals to be “rounded up”: we are opening our land borders on tuesday and naturally many are nervous about it. we need everyone to play by the rules otherwise we will have a catastrophe. let's not be tone deaf. covid19 is real. these pix show illegal crossers to/ex-sa rounded up for quarantining yesterday. such comments from a top government official who was supposed to know better aroused public angst and a very unsympathetic view of returnees as a health threat to the nation. why returning migrants aroused indignation during covid-19 locals also assumed that life (elsewhere) was easy and that the return migrants and travelers enjoyed themselves “there” and wanted to continue enjoying it “here.” a tweet by someone called “mj bitch” on august 17, 2020 demonstrated this kind of thinking when they said: i’m still mad about zororo makamba and how he compromised so many people. apa (shona word for “yet”) he’s been out and about in ny… (i don’t) even feel sad for him coz nigga was a zanu propaganda pusher. god really did her thang. the above assertion is supported by much of the literature on reasons for migration that indicate that potential migrants think that life is better “there.” the hostility is clearly manifest in the way locals caricature returning migrants through jokes about how migrants who visit zimbabwe from south africa engage in conspicuous consumption (hungwe, 2012). jokes about their acquired language and dressing styles indicate how locals resent attempts by returnees to upset the status quo. covid-19 and zimbabwe’s indignation against return migrants and travelers 42 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 return migrants and travelers are assumed to have come back with so much money to afford recklessly enjoying themselves back “home.” comments on social media and newspaper articles on zororo makamba, such as the one by mugabe (2020) that shows the places he visited in zimbabwe soon after his arrival, reveal not only that makamba did not abide by the 21-day requirement to self-isolate, but also the numerous public spaces including nightclubs that makamba accessed because of his privileged networks. that made it difficult for the public to sympathize with his case when he was hospitalized. there were perceptions that he returned expecting to be treated better than the general populace who was “struggling here.” dilapidated state of affairs quarantine centers return migrants were accommodated in teachers’ training colleges (such as belvedere and mkoba teachers’ colleges), schools, and hotels that functioned as quarantine centers. while the country seemed to have many quarantine centers (about 44 by july 2020), returnees raised concerns about the state of dilapidation and inadequate infrastructure (zimfact, 2020). other concerns included the lack of clear standardoperating procedures, proper personal protective equipment (ppe), overcrowding, sharing of amenities, and illicit sexual activities within the quarantine facilities, as murewanhema (2021: 3) points out. unfortunately, these conditions became a turnoff leading to “desertions” by some returnees who could not stomach the inhumane conditions in the centers, thus escaping into communities. arrests and manhunts for some, and public shaming of the “deserters” became alternative routes to try and bring them back to the quarantine facilities. stricter measures were suggested to deal with these “detainees.” the chronicle (2020) expressed great worry that about 225 people had escaped from quarantine centers across the country and “just” 29 had been arrested. there were suggestions for the police and other law-enforcement agencies to work harder and for the government to release more resources for use by these security agencies to enforce security and minimize cases of people escaping. reports of corruption and bribery involving security personnel at these centers did not help either. additionally, there were numerous administrative blunders, including mixing of different cohorts and delayed release of results, which further complicated the situation, as returnees waited beyond 21 days without receiving their covid-19 test results. all these factors combined to reveal a very bad picture of quarantine facilities and may thus have motivated the urge to bypass official routes, especially by poor returnees from neighboring countries. speaking to the standard newspaper about major challenges faced in quarantine facilities, some return migrants said: we had to find our own way to avoid starvation … exposure to covid-19 is high … we shared rooms with strangers whose history we didn’t know … 43 i wish they could give us basic stuff like sanitizers and masks (cassim and muzondo, 2020). government officials deliberately exaggerated returnees’ responses and gave a hyperbolic caricature of returning migrants’ demands. these statements were meant to gain sympathy from the locals by showing how “unreasonable” returning travelers and migrants were. such statements fueled indignation against return migrants. one official said: “we can try to provide for them, but we cannot provide five-star facilities like hotels” (burke and chingono, 2020). another official said: we cannot offer hotel facilities … for those who are able to pay, we put them in hotels and they pay for themselves … this is taxpayers’ money and we have to be accountable, so we are providing basics at the quarantine centres (ibid, 2020). these government officials seemed to have the support of some locals. for example, someone on facebook commented: “i said it b4 that all quarantine centers must be guarded by heavily armed soldiers with machine guns and grenades. other than that, we are finished.” another also vented their anger, stating: “we said it kuti dnt (that don’t) allow them back but were called heartless ... look at us now ... ngavagare ikoko!! (let them stay there!)” this situation was common in other african countries like malawi, mozambique, and kenya (burke and chingono, 2020) where lack of food and water in quarantine centers not only led to the spread of covid-19 but affected return migrants negatively. in some cases, females did not have access to menstrual hygiene products in quarantine centers (unocha, 2020). in extreme cases, returnees committed suicide (hrw, 2020). state of hospitals the general state of dilapidation of the health system in zimbabwe is well documented (gaidzanwa, 1999; crush et al., 2017; murewanhema, 2021). in most cases, it is this state of degeneration that has led to the high labor turnover and skills flight within the health services sector. the covid-19 pandemic could not have come at a worse time for zimbabwe. according to the united nations africa renewal (2020), zimbabwe’s health sector is both fragile and underfunded. it employs about 1.6 physicians and 7.2 nurses for every 10,000 people – ratios that are well below who recommendations. furthermore, this sector is frequently disrupted by strikes and industrial action by healthcare personnel; this is compounded by shortages of equipment, medicines, and sundries, including ppe (murewanhema, 2021: 4). the first hospital to be declared and used as an isolation center for covid-19 patients, wilkins hospital, was not adequately prepared for it. this was laid bare by the much-publicized story of zororo makamba, the young journalist who was the covid-19 and zimbabwe’s indignation against return migrants and travelers 44 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 first zimbabwean to succumb to the disease (his father is a member of the ruling zanu pf party, and the family is believed to enjoy certain privileges because of this connection). when he was taken to wilkins hospital, the story unfolded as follows: tawanda makamba, a family spokesperson, said, “we then brought the ventilator on sunday by 2pm and when we got here, because the portable ventilator had an american plug, they told us to get an adapter because they only had round sockets at the hospital. i then rushed to buy an adapter and came back, and they never used it, and when i asked why they were not using the ventilator, they said they had no sockets in his room. so, they didn’t have medication, ventilators and we brought them a ventilator, and they didn’t have sockets in his room. i told them that i had an extension cord and pleaded with them to use the cord, but they refused (zvomuya, 2020). the doctors’ side of the story buttresses the view that there were inadequate resources set aside to cater for covid-19 patients. the harare city council health director, dr. prosper chonzi, said: all central hospitals refused to take him, even private hospitals refused, arguing that it was an infectious case that should be attended to at an isolation centre. this was despite the fact that wilkins is administered by harare city council and has not received any financial resources from central government to upgrade the facility to an ideal isolation centre. as part of our upgrading, we have reserved seven icu beds with provision for ventilators and we are still mobilizing to get equipment for those beds. out of the us$6.7 million which we requested for covid-19 response, we were only given $100,000, which is yet to reflect in our account. we were given an unfunded mandate. by declaring the outbreak a national emergency, we expected financial assistance to upgrade the facility to an ideal isolation centre. now it’s appearing as if covid-19 is a harare city council responsibility (chipunza, 2020). this reality prevailed despite the fact that the minister of health and child care had earlier on (march 2, 2020) insisted that zimbabwe was 100% prepared to deal with the coronavirus (madziwa, 2020). the story of sakudya (a returning traveler) and his family in ruwa, harare reported by everson mushava (2020) in the standard newspaper, also depicts a situation of a health institution that was not ready to handle covid-19 cases. when sakudya arrived at the hospital, nurses ran away from him and he was referred from one hospital to another until he opted to recover from home. commenting on the nurses’ reaction, he said: “the way they dispersed was as if there were 10 hungry lions released from the ambulance. imagine, yet i am just a human being. i thought i would die.” moreover, the way his family members’ results were handled 45 also showed that the country had not yet developed mechanisms to ensure privacy and confidentiality. besides the results being delayed by several hours, they were first revealed to the social media before the patients had been informed individually. after recovery, sakudya still felt residual stigmatization, saying: some people somehow think i still have residue of the virus. i heard one person referring to my road as “corona road,” and some people now avoid the road altogether. it hurts, but i have to be mature and accept it. the case of the sakudya family revealed the effects of the lack of resources and the inadequate training among health workers, leading to their reluctance to handle covid-19 patients. stigmatization within the community also affected the family of this returning traveler, lending support to makurumidze’s (2020) recommendation to deal with the mental health implications of stigma. conclusions and recommendations return migrants aroused indignation among locals because the returnees had been exposed to better circumstances elsewhere and expected that local standards be raised to match circumstances existing elsewhere. returnees aroused anxiety because they “asked too many questions” about the status quo and “such questions are viewed as offences and subversions” (bauman and may, 2001: 37). when they demanded water, better food, and appropriate treatment in quarantine centers, they pricked the conscience of the local officials who were already aware of the inadequacies of the status quo. pandemics are known for revealing gaps in the health systems and that is how they prompt administrations to improve (tomes, 2010; el-sadr, 2020). the return migrants and travelers “forced” zimbabwe to look at its image in the mirror, and government officials did not like what they saw. the dilapidation had been taking place for some time and the country had accepted it as the status quo. the pandemic caused extreme discomfort, tensions, and suffering in the society. because the virus could not be seen and dealt with, the frustration was offloaded onto returning residents who could be seen, touched, and contained. notwithstanding the pandemic, there have always been ambivalent relations between migrant and non-migrant zimbabweans. history and the literature also indicate that in times of change and dealing with uncertainty, there is a tendency to redraw boundary lines between in-groups and out-groups with negative consequences for those labeled as the out-group. for some time, the returnees were stigmatized as harbingers of the virus and viewed as troublesome and acting in an unreasonable manner, thus courting the indignation of local zimbabweans. return migrants, known for their conspicuous consumption, elicited ambivalent feelings of hatred, envy, and admiration among non-migrants who perceived them variously as role models before the pandemic, and irresponsible covid-19 and zimbabwe’s indignation against return migrants and travelers 46 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 spreaders of covid-19 during the pandemic. the argument sustained throughout this paper is that, to some extent, during the covid-19 pandemic, return migrants were viewed as the out-group and branded as problematic, whereas the nonmigrants were regarded as the in-group who were in danger of being “contaminated” by the returnees. going forward and taking cues from previous pandemics, it is important to involve communities, including the migrants, in designing responses to pandemics (el-sadr, 2020; mencutek, 2022). the united nations office of the high commissioner (unohc, 2020) further encourages that beyond being included in national response, return migrants should have access to social protection and recovery strategies without discrimination; they should also be protected against stigma and exclusion in the private and public spheres. health education is necessary to dispel myths and conspiracy theories. it is also important to pay attention to mental health issues, as pandemics cause fear (eichelberger, 2007; dionne and turkmen, 2020; ornell et al., 2020; hardy et al., 2021). poverty makes it difficult for african countries to protect their citizens against covid-19 (muller-mahn and kioko, 2021). to reduce the competition and in line with the views of taslakian et al. (2022), this study recommends that zimbabwean migrants assist in the improvement and upgrading of the zimbabwean healthcare systems. migrants can use their human, social, and financial capital to assist their country of birth. to encourage the migrants to invest in zimbabwe, communication channels must be opened with frank and transparent conversations about how migrants can be part of the country’s development agenda. zimbabweans need to believe that they can trust their government institutions that are currently perceived to be riddled with corruption, mismanagement, and economic ills (helliker and murisa, 2020; shumba et al., 2020; makombe, 2021; nyamunda 2021). another recommendation is that of circumspect language use as a powerful tool to organize thoughts. the use of words such as “detainees,” “deserters,” and “inmates” (language that criminalizes and reveals the securitization of the nation’s covid-19 response) to refer to return migrants and travelers who were accommodated in quarantine and isolation centers may have conjured up negative images about how these people ought to be treated, leading to indignation against them. lack of adequate resources and facilities combined with fear and perceived competition for scarce resources created a situation where return migrants and travelers became vulnerable to hatred from locals and government officials who would have preferred that the migrants remained where they were, rather than returning to zimbabwe. the fact that the quarantine and isolation centers and hospitals had little to offer, unsettled both the return migrants and travelers and the non-migrant zimbabwean population. dealing with an unknown virus in a situation of poverty pitted the migrant and non-migrant groups against each other, drawing a sharp line between those who belong and those who do not. the travelers and return migrants became easy scapegoats in a country reeling from long-standing 47 economic challenges. in these situations, it was easy to identify the return migrants as “problematic” and unsettling, preferring that they “stay there rather than come here.” declaration of conflicting interests none. funding the authors did not receive any financial support for this research. covid-19 and zimbabwe’s indignation against return migrants and travelers 48 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 references anderson, b. 2006. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london: verso books. ang, c.s. and das s/o a. sudha ann nancy, a.a.e.l.e. 2022. “dirty foreigners” are to blame for covid-19: impacts of covid stress syndrome on quality of life and gratitude among singaporean adults. current psychology, (advance article) https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02560-3. arowolo, o.o. 2002. return migration and the problem of reintegration. international migration, 38(5): 59-82. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2435.00128. bassot, b. 2022. doing qualitative desk-based 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migration research. the study also investigated the factors associated with emigration intention. it utilized secondary data from the afrobarometer survey, including 1,600 nigerian adults aged 18 and above. logistic regression models were fitted to address the study objectives. the study found that the emigration intention rate in nigeria was 35.5%, but it varied from 30.3% in the north to 40.3% in the south. the rate ranged from 26% in the north-east to 46.4% in the south-eastern part of the country. the most preferred destination for northern nigerians was another country in africa (32.4%), but it was north america for southerners (43.2%). at the multivariate level, the study found that living in the south, being educated, using the internet frequently, having tolerance for homosexuals, and participating in politics increased the likelihood of emigration intention. however, being old, employed and having religious tolerance reduced the odds of emigration intention. the regional models revealed notable differences in the influence of age, education, employment, tolerance, and political participation. the study discusses the implications of the findings. keywords: migration intention, afrobarometer survey, regional and cultural differences, “japa” 1 university of lagos, nigeria. corresponding author  taalabi@unilag.edu.ng 2 university of lagos, nigeria. regional variations in emigration intention in nigeria 78 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 introduction migration is one of the important factors in population change. while migration of africans to the west has been on the increase, there is also evidence that many africans migrate within the african continent and to other countries in the global south (see crawley et al., 2022). despite the increase in intra-african migration, many young africans are still yearning to migrate to europe. this is to the extent that some africans risk their lives to cross the mediterranean sea to europe despite regular media reports of loss of lives on such journeys. the united nations’ 2019 world population prospects shows that the net migration rate in africa is negative, indicating that more people are leaving the continent than those coming in (united nations, 2019). eight of the top 15 refugee-sending countries in the world are from africa, including nigeria (milasi, 2020). with the increasing social unrest, youth unemployment, and political corruption, there is a likelihood that more persons will emigrate upon the slightest opportunity, and this has implications for inequality and development of nigeria and the african continent. to be clear, this is not to say that migration is a negative phenomenon. migration has been part of human history (harzig and hoerder, 2013), and it has numerous advantages (such as cultural exchange) for the countries of origin and destination. however, the circumstances under which many nigerians emigrate are concerning. these include the selling of their assets to meet visa costs and other travel expenses (nwosu et al., 2022; aina, 2023) and irregular migration as a means of survival (ikuteyijo, 2020). local jargon used to connote the desperation to emigrate in nigeria is “japa.” although the jargon is yet to be well used in academic literature, it has attracted the attention of local and international media. “japa” is a yoruba term, which literally means to escape or flee from danger or unpleasant situations. according to bernard (2023), the jargon became popular in nigeria after it was used by a hip-hop artist in his musical video to connote fleeing police arrest and running into different cities and countries. in the context of migration, it is used to mean emigrating by all means possible to escape the hopeless situations of insecurity and economic turmoil in nigeria, according to a cnn report (see madowo et al., 2023). despite the exodus of young nigerians, there is lack of reliable and accurate data on the actual number of people who have emigrated, considering that a number of persons emigrate through unconventional routes and are undocumented. the lack of accurate data on actual migration has drawn the attention of researchers to emigration intention because migration intention may help predict actual migration behavior (wanner, 2021). in addition, migration intention, to a considerable extent, may be useful in determining future migration trends (tjaden et al., 2019). investigations of migration intention have taken different forms, from the use of large global data such as the gallup world poll (migali and scipioni, 2019; tjaden et al., 2019; milasi, 2020) to the collection of primary data among college students within and among countries (santric-milicevic et al., 2014; abuosi and abor, 2015; he et al., 2016). the choice of the study population in the latter could have been 79 informed by the emigration of fresh graduates in developing countries to the west. however, there has also been an increase in the emigration of skilled professionals, including those in the health sector. the attraction of nigerian health workers by countries such as the united kingdom (uk) during the peak of the covid-19 pandemic is an example. hence, studies on emigration intention in the country are now focusing on medical doctors and other health workers (oluwatunmise et al., 2020; adebayo and akinyemi, 2022; adeniyi et al., 2022; akinwumi et al., 2022; onah et al., 2022; yakubu et al., 2023). the studies that used the global data show evidence of variations in emigration intention rate across continents (migali and scipioni, 2019; milasi, 2020). evidence of variation also exists across countries within regions. for example, afrobarometer data (2017) shows that in africa, the emigration intention rate ranges from 13.1% in madagascar, to 30.9% in mozambique, to 58.4% in sierra leone. this suggests the importance of understanding emigration intention within the local context of each country. recent studies in nigeria investigated factors associated with emigration intention in nigeria (obi et al., 2020; adebayo and akinyemi, 2022; adeniyi et al., 2022; akinwumi et al., 2022; onah et al., 2022; yakubu et al., 2023). however, there is little emphasis on (1) the regional differences on the rate of emigration intentions between northern and southern nigeria; and (2) the regional variations in the influence of the factors. meanwhile, the northern and southern regions have distinct sociocultural differences that shape their views, behaviors, and reactions toward phenomena. for example, there is empirical evidence that the two regions significantly differ in their political behaviors (alabi, 2023), health behaviors (alabi et al., 2022; adejoh et al., 2023) and social behaviors (alabi and ramsden, 2022). but such differences have not been well established in the area of migration intentions in the country. this study investigates regional variations in emigration intentions in nigeria, with a focus on the northern and southern parts of the country. the study also explores regional differences in the preferred countries of destination. importantly, the study investigates the influence of socio-demographic characteristics (gender, age, education, religion, and employment), perceived level of corruption, internet use, out-group tolerance, and political participation on emigration intention and how the influence varies between the northern and southern parts of the country. literature review in nigeria, there is evidence that emigration intentions vary by geographical location and among social groups (adeniyi et al., 2022; akinwumi et al., 2022; onah et al., 2022; yakubu et al., 2023). although the study by yakubu et al. (2023) did not attempt a detailed investigation of north-south differences in nigeria, the authors found that the south-south geopolitical zone recorded the highest rate of emigration intention (67%), while the south-east recorded the least (43%). however, their study comprised a small sample of fewer than 300 people and focused only on health workers. there is also evidence that the preferred countries of destination for intending migrants regional variations in emigration intention in nigeria 80 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 in nigeria are diverse. in onah et al.’s (2022) study, the most preferred country of destination was the uk (40%), followed by canada (17.6%), united states of america (usa) (15.7%), australia (13.4%), and saudi arabia (13.1%). in the study by adeniyi et al. (2022), canada was the most preferred country of destination (39.9%), followed by the uk (25.2%), usa (20.3%), and south africa (6.6%). earlier studies documented the influence of socio-demographic factors on emigration intention. regarding gender, traditionally, the finding has been that males have a higher tendency than females to intend emigrating (chort, 2014; burrone et al., 2018; dibeh et al., 2018; migali and scipioni, 2019; milasi, 2020). however, there has been an increase in the rate of female migration. hence, the study by adeniyi et al. (2022) in nigeria did not find a significant association between gender and emigration intention. the study by yakubu et al. (2023) found that 61% of women in their study sample have emigration intention compared to 54% of men. similarly, a report by the international organization for migration (iom, 2022) shows that women and girls constitute the majority of migrants in east africa and the horn of africa. a reason for this is the search for economic equality (kenny and o’donnell, 2016; iom, 2022). while global data and large data sources within countries have reported an inverse relationship between age and migration intention (hoti, 2009; migali and scipioni, 2019), a survey of 938 firstand fifth-year medical students with a mean age of 19 and 24 respectively in serbia shows a positive association between age and emigration intention (santric-milicevic et al., 2014). in nigeria, there is evidence that young people have significantly higher migration intention than older people (obi et al., 2020; akinwumi et al., 2022; onah et al., 2022; yakubu et al., 2023). research findings are consistent in that intentions to migrate increase with the level of education (dako-gyeke, 2016; obi et al., 2020; gevrek et al., 2021). educated people are more aware of the differences between the ideal opportunities abroad and the current economic and political situation in their country of origin, which may trigger emigration intention (dako-gyeke, 2016; gevrek et al., 2021). in addition, major receiving countries are becoming increasingly restrictive and are more likely to allow the entry of those who are more educated. studies on the influence of religion on emigration intention are scarce. but earlier studies have shown that religious affiliation may be associated with actual migration. for example, connor (2012) found that christians constitute almost half (49%) of international migrants worldwide, compared to 27% of muslims and 9% of religiously unaffiliated people. in addition, the study by akinwumi et al. (2022) in nigeria reveals that christians reported emigration intention more than muslims. also, a report by pew research center (2012) shows that destinations for international migrants may vary by religion. regarding employment status, there is evidence that unemployment and underemployment may trigger emigration intention (adebayo and akinyemi, 2022; nwosu et al., 2022; yakubu et al., 2023). nwosu et al. (2022) note that unemployment and poverty leave young nigerians with few options but to embark on irregular 81 migration because they are unable to afford the cost of regular migration. in addition, underemployment, poor remuneration, and unfair working conditions are the reasons why some skilled workers want to leave the country (adebayo and akinyemi, 2022; yakubu et al., 2023). the internet and social media may facilitate young people’s knowledge of different places within and outside their country. an empirical study by iwana et al. (2022) found a positive association between internet usage and migration intention. this may be because the internet and social media facilitate communication between young people and migration networks and migration brokers (dekker et al., 2016; obi et al., 2020), thereby increasing intentions to migrate. with access to the internet, young people are able to see some differences between their own living conditions and those of their counterparts in other locations. consequently, intention to migrate may be motivated by an awareness of better opportunities elsewhere observed through the internet, communication with online friends, and access to information about the country of destination (vilhelmson and thulin, 2013; dekker et al., 2016). the literature is in agreement on the influence of corruption on emigration intention. poprawe (2015) notes that there is a growing connection between corruption and emigration. frouws and brenner (2019) report that corruption motivates regular emigration in at least two ways. one, persistent corruption and poor governance fuel emigration by suggesting failure and hopelessness to educated elites who may migrate to escape the negative consequences happening in their home country. two, corruption triggers irregular migration – especially in africa – through bribery of government officials. directly related to emigration intention is an empirical study by crisan et al. (2019) who found a positive association between perceived level of corruption and migration intention. the authors report that “romanian employees who perceive a high level of corruption in the country, have a low level of career satisfaction, and want to find another job are disposed toward migration rather than finding another job in romania” (crisan et al., 2019: 1). political participation may be an important political driver of emigration. studies in this regard have not directly linked political participation to emigration intention but in other interesting ways. for instance, umpierrez de reguero and finn (2023) investigated how international migration affects voter turnouts in both sending and receiving countries. interestingly, they found that the higher the interest in politics, the higher the intention to vote in both sending and receiving countries. from another perspective, hiskey et al. (2014) found that the quality of the democratic system drives emigration desires in young people. this resonates with what happened in nigeria after the national elections held in february and march 2023. many young people alleged that the electoral process was not free and fair and that political thugs openly intimidated perceived opponents and stopped them from voting. this was followed by expressions of hopelessness on social media and the consequent trending of #japa on twitter. regional variations in emigration intention in nigeria 82 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 studies on the link between tolerance and emigration intention are rare. this study views tolerance from three dimensions: tolerance for homosexual persons, people of other religions, and foreign nationals. studies in this regard have focused on migrants’ attitudes toward members of out-groups in the host countries and migrants’ adjustment to tolerance of behaviors that are deemed unacceptable in the country of origin (röder and lubbers, 2016; röder and spierings, 2022). homosexuality is proscribed in nigeria. in addition, nigeria is a religious country. therefore, people who have favorable attitudes toward homosexuality may desire to emigrate to another country where homosexuality is allowed. some lessons and gaps from the literature review, include: (a) most studies conducted in nigeria did not use nationally representative data; hence, it is not easy to generalize their findings to the entire country; (b) recent studies on emigration intention in nigeria tend to focus on health workers, and their explanatory variables are limited to socio-demographic characteristics and push-pull analyses; (c) there is little empirical evidence to establish the roles of perceived corruption, tolerance, and political participation on emigration intention in nigeria; and (d) to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate nigerian north-south differences in emigration intention, preferred places of destination, and associated factors. methods data and population the study utilized the 2017 (i.e., the seventh round of) afrobarometer survey in nigeria. afrobarometer collects survey data across 34 countries in africa, including nigeria.3 afrobarometer survey data are nationally representative, and they have been analyzed in academic papers, including doctoral theses (isbell, 2022) and journal articles (diallo, 2022). afrobarometer collects data on a range of issues, including perception of democracy and governance, political participation, and economic outlook, among others. in nigeria, the latest round of afrobarometer (round 8) survey was conducted in 2021 and released in 2022. however, the latest round did not capture issues around emigration intention in nigeria.4 hence, this study analyzed the 2017 (round 7) afrobarometer survey data. the survey is nationally representative and samples all 36 states in nigeria plus the federal capital territory (fct). the 36 states and the fct are subdivided into 6 geopolitical zones, namely: north east, north central, north west, south east, south south, and south west. this study groups all 36 states and the fct into north or south. figure 1 shows the map of nigeria with all the states in each of the two regions. in all, the northern region houses 19 states and the fct, while the south is comprised of 17 states. 3 see https://www.afrobarometer.org/ 4 https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/afrobarometer_questionnaire_nig_r8_en_2019-11-01. pdf 83 figure 1: map of nigeria showing the states in northern and southern regions operationalization of variables the main dependent variable is emigration intention measured by whether a respondent is considering relocating to another country. respondents were asked, “how much, if at all, have you considered moving to another country to live?” with response options like, “not at all,” “a little bit,” “somewhat,” “a lot,” and “don’t know.” the responses were categorized into two, with “not at all” recoded as “0” and labeled “no emigration intention,” while “a little bit,” “somewhat,” and “a lot” were recoded as “1” referring to respondents with emigration intention. respondents were also asked about the preferred destination countries. the question was: “if you were to move to another country, where would you be most likely to go?” the options included countries within and outside africa. respondents were also asked about the actual plans they made toward migration, reasons for possible emigration, and preferred destination country. there are nine independent variables that comprise five socio-demographic variables: gender, age, education, religion, and employment. the four other variables are: perceived level of corruption, frequency of internet use, tolerance (from three dimensions) and political participation. age, which was captured at ratio level, was categorized according to the world health organization’s standard age groups, into “less than 30,” “30–44,” and “45 and above” (ahmad et al., 2001). education was recoded into four categories in line with the nigerian education system. the regional variations in emigration intention in nigeria 84 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 categories are: “no formal education,” “primary education,” “secondary education,” and “tertiary education.” religion was recoded into the two popular religions in the country – christianity and islam. other smaller categories were not considered for analysis in this study. regarding employment, respondents were asked whether they have a job that pays cash income, with options like, “no (not looking),” “no (looking),” “yes, part-time,” and “yes, full-time.” the first two options were treated as being unemployed, and the other two as being employed. for the perceived level of corruption, respondents were asked: “in your opinion, over the past year, has the level of corruption in this country increased, decreased, or stayed the same?” there were five options: “increased a lot,” “increased somewhat,” “stayed the same,” “decreased somewhat,” and “decreased a lot,” which were recoded into three categories: “increased,” “the same,” and “decreased.” similarly, the options to the question on frequency of internet use were: “never,” “less than a month,” “a few times a month,” “a few times a week,” and “every day.” the first and last options remained the same, while the second to fourth options were treated as “sometimes.” regarding out-group tolerance, there were three variables, namely: tolerance of “people of a different religion,” “homosexuals,” and “immigrants or foreign workers.” respondents were asked, “please tell me whether you would like having people from this group as neighbors, dislike it, or not care.” those who would dislike having them were treated as “intolerant;” those who would not care were regarded as “neutral;” while those who would like to have them were regarded as “tolerant.” regarding political participation, the study adopted the earlier operationalization used by dim and asomah (2019). respondents were asked if they had done any of the following things during the past year: “join others in your community to request action from the government;” “contact the media;” “contact a government official for help;” and “attend a demonstration or a protest march.” the response format was: “no = 0;” “no, but would do if had the chance = 1;” “yes, once or twice = 2;” “yes, several times = 3;” and “yes, often = 4.” the responses were summed and treated as a scale variable at the inferential level of analysis, and recoded accordingly (i.e., 0–1 as “no” and 2–4 as “yes”) where necessary in the analysis. data analysis the analysis began from the descriptive level where we presented the frequency distribution of all the variables by regions (i.e., north and south) as shown in table 1. the study used simple frequencies, percentages, mean, standard deviation, and column and bar charts to present graphical illustrations of results at the univariate level. at the inferential level, we computed a series of logistic regression (lr) models. first, we ran bivariate logistic regression to show how each of the nine predicting factors are associated with emigration intention. in addition, we put all nine independent variables in a single model to observe effects of covariates at the multivariate level. the results of bivariate and multivariate regression are presented in table 2. later, we computed two separate multivariate models (i.e., one for each 85 region); these results are presented in table 3. we ran the correlation matrix to test for multicollinearity but found no evidence of such, as no correlation coefficient was up to 0.7. the lr models were fitted at 95% level of significance. in table 4, we present a summary of all the results to enhance clarity. results findings from descriptive analyses table 1: frequency distribution of all variables (continued) north (779) south (822) gender frequency percent frequency percent male 391 50.2 411 50.0 female 388 49.8 411 50.0 age less than 30 390 50.2 408 49.6 30-44 253 32.6 264 32.2 45 and above 134 17.2 149 18.2 mean age: 33.8; sd: 37.856 mean age: 32.9 sd: 13.025 education no formal education 212 27.4 18 2.2 primary education 119 15.3 96 11.8 secondary education 239 30.8 461 56.2 tertiary education 206 26.5 245 29.8 religion christianity 188 25.1 689 86.6 islam 559 74.9 107 13.4 employment unemployed 454 58.2 358 43.5 employed 325 41.8 464 56.5 perceived level of corruption increased 193 25.0 491 60.0 the same 98 12.6 126 15.4 reduced 483 62.4 202 24.6 frequency of internet use never 489 62.7 336 41.1 sometimes 147 18.8 243 29.7 everyday 144 18.4 239 29.2 religious tolerance no 159 20.7 119 14.6 neutral 145 18.9 165 20.2 yes 464 60.4 536 65.3 regional variations in emigration intention in nigeria 86 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 (continued) * not inclusive of those who have no intention to emigrate source: authors' own calculation from afrobarometer data, 2017. there is evidence of considerable regional differences in the variables. the rate of emigration intention in nigeria was 35.5%. but it varies from 30.3% in the north to 40.3% in the south. as shown in figure 2, the north east (26%) and the north west (29.7%) had the least emigration intention rates. the south east and the south west had the highest rate of intention to migrate (46.4% and 43.1%, respectively). out of the respondents who indicated an intention to emigrate, more than half in both regions (53.2% in the north and 52.2% in the south) were making specific plans. more than one-third (36.7% in the north and 34.8% in the south) were yet to prepare but were planning to move in the next two years. at least one-tenth (10% in the north and 13% in the south) had made sufficient preparations, such as getting a visa. tolerance of homosexuals no 703 91.0 754 92.0 neutral 39 5.0 42 5.2 yes 30 3.9 23 2.8 tolerance of immigrants/foreign workers no 157 20.4 80 9.8 neutral 209 27.2 186 22.7 yes 403 52.4 552 67.5 political participation join others to request for government action 262 33.7 196 23.8 contacted the media 182 23.6 189 23.0 contacted a government official 220 28.3 166 20.3 attended a protest 137 17.7 149 18.2 emigration intention no 540 69.7 489 59.7 yes 235 30.3 330 40.3 planning/preparation for emigration* currently making any specific plans or preparations 124 53.2 172 52.2 planning to move in the next year or two but not yet making preparations 86 36.7 114 34.8 currently making preparations to move, like getting a visa 33 10.0 43 13.0 87 figure 2: emigration intention by geo-political zones source: afrobarometer data, 2017. we found differences in the preferred destination country between the two regions. figure 3 shows that the most preferred destination country for northern respondents is ghana (17.8%), a neighboring country, followed by europe (17.3%), north america (17%), and the middle east (9.4%). in all, 32.4% of northern respondents preferred migrating to another country within africa. in contrast, the preferred destination places for southern respondents were north america (43.2%), europe (23.9%), and central and south america (6.3%). the middle east was the least preferred destination place for southern respondents (1%), while australia emerged as the least preferred destination country for northern respondents (5.3%). regional variations in emigration intention in nigeria 88 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 figure 3: preferred destinations source: afrobarometer data, 2017. factors influencing emigration intention in nigeria table 2 shows that respondents from the south had a higher likelihood of emigration intention than those from the north at both bivariate and multivariate levels (or: 1.549; aor: 1.613, p<0.001). age had a significant influence on emigration intention, and people aged 30 and above had lower odds of emigration intention than respondents younger than 30. in the multivariate model, however, people aged 45 and above did not differ significantly from those who were younger than 30. at both bivariate and multivariate levels, respondents who had secondary or tertiary education were significantly more likely to have an emigration intention than those without formal education. at the multivariate level, for example, those who had secondary education were 1.7 times more likely to have emigration intention than those with no formal education (reference category). the odds were 1.9 for those who had tertiary education (p: 0.009). at the bivariate level, muslims were significantly less likely to intend to emigrate than christians (or: 0.686, p<0.001), but the association was not significant at the multivariate level. 89 table 2: regression model showing the predictors of emigration intention in nigeria reference category; male; less than 30 years; no education; christianity; unemployed; increased; never; intolerant. β: beta coefficient; p: p-value source: created by authors bivariate logistic regression multivariate model 1 model x2 (p): 162.534 (<0.001); h & l test (p): 7.270 (0.508); nagelkerke r2: 0.141 predictors β p or 95% c.i.for exp(b) β p aor 95% c.i.for exp(b) lower upper upper region south .438 <0.001 1.549 1.259 1.906 .478 .002 1.613 1.188 2.189 gender female -.011 .919 .989 .806 1.215 .068 .571 1.070 .846 1.354 age 30-44 -.450 <0.001 .638 .504 .806 -.362 .007 .696 .535 .906 45 and above -.525 <0.001 .592 .441 .793 -.171 .322 .843 .601 1.182 education primary .376 .089 1.457 .944 2.249 .340 .181 1.405 .854 2.312 secondary .747 <0.001 2.112 1.487 2.999 .522 .021 1.685 1.081 2.627 tertiary 1.071 <0.001 2.919 2.024 4.209 .645 .009 1.905 1.174 3.093 religion islam -.377 .001 .686 .554 .849 .228 .140 1.257 .928 1.702 employment employed -.251 .017 .778 .633 .956 -.262 .030 .769 .607 .974 level of corruption the same .062 .694 1.064 .780 1.452 .167 .332 1.182 .843 1.659 reduced -.264 .021 .768 .614 .960 -.025 .859 .975 .742 1.283 frequency of internet use sometimes .415 .002 1.515 1.171 1.959 .090 .563 1.094 .807 1.484 every day 1.040 <0.001 2.829 2.198 3.641 .859 <0.001 2.361 1.695 3.288 religious tolerance neutral -.276 .102 .759 .545 1.056 -.357 .089 .700 .463 1.057 tolerant -.475 .001 .622 .474 .816 -.725 <0.001 .484 .343 .683 sexual orientation tolerance neutral .473 .039 1.605 1.024 2.517 .291 .263 1.338 .804 2.227 tolerant 1.079 <0.001 2.940 1.675 5.161 1.004 .002 2.729 1.435 5.190 tolerance of foreign nationals neutral -.030 .864 .970 .687 1.370 .071 .749 1.073 .696 1.654 tolerant .215 .163 1.240 .917 1.678 .425 .029 1.529 1.044 2.240 political participation .085 <0.001 1.089 1.055 1.124 .070 <0.001 1.073 1.035 1.112 constant ------1.556 <0.001 .211 regional variations in emigration intention in nigeria 90 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 respondents who were employed were significantly less likely to have emigration intention than those who were unemployed (aor: 0.769; p: 0.030). at the bivariate level, perceived level of corruption was associated with emigration intention. respondents who felt that corruption had reduced had lower likelihood of having emigration intention compared to those who thought that the level of corruption had increased (or: 0.768; p: 0.021). but the association was not significant in the multivariate model. we found evidence that the frequent use of the internet had a significant influence on emigration intention at bivariate and multivariate levels. model 1 shows that nigerians who used the internet daily were 2.4 times more likely to have emigration intention compared to those who had no access to the internet. the three types of out-group tolerance were significant predictors of emigration intention but the directions of association differed. at the multivariate level, respondents who exhibited religious tolerance were less likely to have emigration intention compared to those who were intolerant (aor: 0.484; p<0.001). but the reverse was the case for tolerance for homosexuals and tolerance for migrants. respondents who expressed tolerance for homosexuals were 2.7 times more likely to have emigration intention than those who were intolerant (p: 0.002). similarly, respondents who expressed tolerance for migrants were 1.5 times more likely to have emigration intention than those who were not tolerant. the model also shows that intention to migrate increased with political participation at both bivariate and multivariate levels. differences in the factors influencing migration intention table 2 shows that respondents from northern and southern nigeria significantly differed in their emigration intention. we computed separate models for each region and present the results in table 3. 91 table 3: logistic regression models showing regional differences in the predictors of emigration intention in nigeria reference category; male; less than 30 years; no education; christianity; unemployed; increased; never; intolerant. β: beta coefficient; p: p-value source: created by authors model x2 (p) 89.611 (<0.001) model x2 (p) 80.958 (<0.001) h & l test (p) 14.211 (0.076) h & l test (p) 5.657 (0.686) nagelkerke r2: 0.167 nagelkerke r2: 0.133 north (multivariate model 2) south (multivariate model 3) predictors β p or 95% c.i.for exp(b) β p or 95% c.i.for exp(b) lower upper β upper gender p female .289 .139 1.335 .911 1.956 aor .425 .881 .646 1.202 age 30-44 -.212 .301 .809 .541 1.209 -.445 .016 .641 .446 .921 45 and above .017 .950 1.017 .602 1.719 -.342 .143 .710 .450 1.122 education primary .582 .065 1.789 .964 3.319 -.707 .218 .493 .160 1.517 secondary .437 .127 1.548 .884 2.710 -.269 .611 .764 .270 2.159 tertiary .829 .010 2.292 1.224 4.291 -.286 .602 .752 .257 2.200 religion islam .032 .884 1.032 .675 1.577 .441 .056 1.555 .989 2.444 employment employed -.448 .018 .639 .441 .925 -.122 .453 .885 .643 1.218 level of corruption the same .308 .305 1.360 .756 2.449 .058 .790 1.060 .690 1.628 reduced -.056 .800 .946 .616 1.452 .036 .851 1.037 .712 1.509 frequency of internet use sometimes .268 .296 1.308 .791 2.163 -.033 .869 .967 .650 1.439 every day .726 .008 2.066 1.204 3.545 .848 <0.001 2.334 1.509 3.610 religious tolerance neutral -.159 .628 .853 .448 1.623 -.534 .063 .586 .334 1.029 tolerant -.669 .020 .512 .291 .902 -.789 .001 .454 .285 .724 sexual orientation tolerance neutral .606 .134 1.833 .831 4.048 .067 .851 1.069 .533 2.143 tolerant 1.958 <0.001 7.088 2.556 19.656 -.029 .955 .972 .361 2.616 tolerance of foreign nationals neutral .028 .932 1.028 .543 1.948 -.002 .994 .998 .536 1.859 tolerant .633 .030 1.884 1.063 3.339 .150 .587 1.162 .677 1.993 political participation .045 .107 1.046 .990 1.104 .085 .001 1.088 1.035 1.145 constant -1.710 <0.001 .181 .114 .859 1.120 regional variations in emigration intention in nigeria 92 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 we found that gender, which was significantly associated with emigration intention in model 1 (national model) is not a significant predictor at the regional levels. age did not show any significant association with emigration intention in the north. but in the south, respondents aged 30–44 were less likely to have emigration intention compared to those who were younger than 30 (aor: 0.641; p: 0.016). we observed regional differences in the influence of education. in the south, education did not show any significant influence on emigration intention. however, in the north, respondents who had tertiary education were 2.3 times more likely to have emigration intention compared to those who had no formal education (p: 0.010). religion was not a significant predictor of emigration intention at regional levels. the perceived level of corruption did not show any significant association with emigration intention in the two regions. we found similarities in both regions regarding the influence of internet use – those who used the internet every day were more likely to have emigration intention than those who did not use the internet at all (north: aor: 2.066; p: 0.008; south: 2.334; p<0.001). religious tolerance was a significant predictor of emigration intention in both regions. the indication was that those who had religious tolerance were less likely to have emigration intention than those who were intolerant (north: aor: 0.512; p: 0.020; south: aor: 0.454; p: 0.001). however, differences were evident in the influence of tolerance of homosexual persons and foreign nationals, as seen in table 3. in the north, respondents who tolerate homosexuals were 7.1 times more likely to have emigration intention than those who were intolerant (p<0.001), but the association was not significant in the south. similarly, in the north, respondents who had tolerance for foreign nationals were 1.9 times more likely to have emigration intention than those who were intolerant (p: 0.17). but the association was not significant in the south. we found evidence that political participation was significantly associated with emigration intention in the south (aor: 1.088, p<0.001), but not in the north. table 4 below presents a summary of the results. 93 table 4: summary of results ü significant predictor at 95% x not a significant predictor at 95% discussion this study investigated regional variations in emigration intention in nigeria and associated factors. the study found that the rate of emigration intention is higher in the south than in the north. specifically, south west and south east recorded the highest rates of emigration intention. our results contradict the study of yakubu et al. (2023), who report that health workers in the south east geopolitical zone have the lowest emigration intention. there are plausible reasons why the south has higher emigration intention rates than the north. it should be noted that the explanations here are in the context of international migration, because people from the northern and the southern regions move within the country. one, it may be that, in totality, the north is more protective and preserving of its culture than the south. hence, the idea of “japa” is taken more seriously in the south than in the north. two, there is a possibility of perceived cultural differences. northerners may perceive that some of their cultural practices (such as polygyny, adolescent marriage, etc.) may not be allowed in the west, and that may explain why they have lower emigration intention than those in the south. perceived cultural differences and similarities may also explain why the majority (32.4%) of northern respondents preferred ghana or elsewhere in africa as destination countries, as there is the greater possibility of cultural similarity within africa than outside the continent. cultural dis(similarity) emerged as an important factor in migration decisions and patterns (lanati and venturini, 2021). three, many states in nigeria rely on agriculture. however, the northern region (as shown in figure 1) has a larger landmass to engage in agricultural activities than the southern region. since land is immobile, northerners may prefer to stay back. four, international migration requires education. in fact, education is the route through which many young nigerians emigrate (mbah, 2017). since the s/n independent variables bivariate multivariate (nigeria) multivariate (north) multivariate (south) 1 region ü ü 2 gender x x x x 3 age ü ü x ü 4 education ü ü ü x 5 religion ü x x x 6 employment ü ü ü x 7 perceived level of corruption ü x x x 8 frequency of internet use ü ü ü ü 9a religious tolerance ü ü ü ü 9b tolerance of homosexuals ü ü ü x 9c tolerance of migrants x ü ü x 10 political participation ü ü x ü regional variations in emigration intention in nigeria 94 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 level of formal education is higher in the south than in the north, as seen in table 1, it is reasonable to expect that the emigration rate will be higher in the former than in the latter. five, reynolds (2002) established that the igbo people of the south east have been migrating to the usa since the 1970s. they have formed associations such as the organization for ndi igbo (oni) that attract people to the usa from the igbo regions in the south-eastern part of nigeria. it is common to see igbo people who have achieved success in the diaspora return to south east in nigeria every december to celebrate christmas in a plush manner. this practice may entice people at home to also want to emigrate. furthermore, it may explain why the region has the highest emigration intention in the country. van den bersselaar (2005) observes that the igbos, resting on the claims of the colonial masters, believe that migrating to the west will bring progress to their local community of origin. the author (2005: 3) notes that “successful migrants appropriated these claims as part of a strategy to achieve power, influence or at least recognition in the community of origin. by introducing what they perceived as progress and modernity, they intended to change the village materially.” the fact that the south west region has the second-highest emigration intention rate may be explained by the fact that education is prevalent in the region and tenacity to the local culture is not common. this is in line with the position of the cosmopolitan-success and conservative-failure hypothesis (cscfh) (kunnuji et al., 2017; alabi et al., 2022) that people from conservative regions of the north may be more protective of traditional culture and may be less willing to explore foreign lands than those in the cosmopolitan south. our regression models found no significant influence of gender on emigration intention. this supports the finding of adeniyi et al. (2022) and testifies to the fact that women are currently migrating as much as men. this study found that people younger than 30 have higher odds of emigration intention than those aged 30 and above. this is consistent with the earlier studies (migali and scipioni, 2019; akinwumi et al., 2022; onah et al., 2022; yakubu et al., 2023) that report a negative relationship between age and emigration intention. this may be explained by the fact that younger people are usually considered more mobile and have a greater urge to explore than older people. additionally, since they are more likely to be single than older people, there is the ease of intending emigration considering that they have no immediate dependants (such as wives and children) whom they have to consider in their plans. the finding on the influence of education in the overall model and northern nigeria is consistent with previous studies (migali and scipioni, 2019; milasi, 2020; gevrek et al., 2021). higher emigration intention among the highly educated may be due to potential better job opportunities for them than those who are less educated. another possible reason is the language barrier. english is the official language in nigeria but not everyone can speak or write it fluently. chances are that the highly educated will be equipped with these skills, thereby increasing their chances of 95 potential successful integration, more so than for the less educated. the language factor may explain why those who have tertiary education have the highest likelihood of emigration compared to those with no formal education, especially in the overall model and in the north. the finding that unemployed persons were more likely to intend emigrating is supported by milasi’s (2020) study. however, this should be treated with caution, as the association may not hold for the actual migration. being employed is a stepping stone for many young nigerians. chances are that those who have had a few years of work experience may have more opportunities to emigrate than those who are unemployed. the finding that those who use the internet are more likely to want to emigrate is supported by previous studies (vilhelmson and thulin, 2013; dekker et al., 2016; obi et al., 2020). using the internet suggests that the users may be exposed to a foreign culture, networks of nigerian immigrants abroad, and are more aware of better living opportunities overseas. surprisingly, in this study, religious tolerance is a significant predictor of emigration intention. in all our models, those who are religiously tolerant were less likely to have emigration intention than those who are intolerant. this appears counterintuitive as one will expect tolerant respondents to want to emigrate, more than the intolerant ones. further studies are required in this regard. perhaps, what could explain this surprising finding is that, although the intolerant group indicates emigration intention, more so than their tolerant counterparts, the majority of them prefer ghana or another country in west africa (27.2%) compared to 13.2% of tolerant groups. it shows that some religiously intolerant persons prefer another country within africa where they can continue to practice their religion and interact more with in-group members. in contrast to religious tolerance, respondents who tolerate homosexuality are more likely to have emigration intention than those who are intolerant in the overall model and in the north. the finding that the tolerant group expressed emigration intention, more so than the intolerant ones is understandable. in line with the similarity-attraction theory, it is expected that someone who tolerates homosexual persons will want to emigrate, especially to the west, where the laws of those countries accommodate homosexual persons. this study found that political participation increases the likelihood of emigration intention in the overall model and in the south. the finding is consistent with the research conducted by umpierrez de reguero and finn (2023). common sense suggests that those who participate in politics would choose to remain in nigeria, as opposed to those who do not participate in politics. what this indicates is that those who participate in politics are dissatisfied with the democratic process. hence, they want to go elsewhere. regional variations in emigration intention in nigeria 96 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 conclusion this study has contributed to the wave of recent studies exploring north-south differences from different perspectives in nigeria (alabi and ramsden, 2022; alabi et al., 2022; adejoh et al., 2023; alabi, 2023). the study has shown that indeed the northern and southern nigerian regions may have some differences that are noteworthy to policymakers. the study has shown that southerners want to emigrate from the country more than northerners. in addition, the two regions have differences in their preferred migration destinations. the northerners seem to prefer intra-african migration and the middle east, while the southerners prefer europe and north america. it appears that potential migrants from the north favor destination countries that are culturally similar to their own. we believe that this may have implications for return migration intention, that is, whether or not nigerian migrants abroad intend to return to their home country. this may be an interesting area of research for future studies. a major lesson for future studies is the need to reconsider analyzing data on nigeria as a single entity. future studies should not assume that a certain predicting factor applies across regions. this study has shown that some predicting factors in one region may not be significant in another region. hence, future studies may need to disaggregate their data into regions (as we have done in this study) or into six geopolitical zones for more in-depth analysis. in conclusion, this study has shown that the regular use of the internet increases the likelihood of having emigration intention across the two regions. moreover, religious tolerance reduces the chances of emigration intention in the regions. finally, the effects of other factors, such as age, education, political participation, and tolerance of homosexual persons and migrants are not the same in the northern and southern regions. limitations of the study the study has a few limitations. one, the north and the south are broad entities and comprise diverse and multi-ethnic groups. this study does not account for the variations among different groups within each region. two, factors associated with emigration intention are endless and this study does not claim to have captured all of them. emigration intention may not necessarily translate to actual migration, especially in developing countries like nigeria where the currency has a low value against major foreign currencies. the increasing costs of flights 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policy changes and the impact of the covid-19 pandemic. with the support of south sudanese community leaders, our study engaged 58 participants – 42 males and 16 females. participants engaged in semi-structured discussions about food security and other daily challenges related to their urban refugee experience. this study draws on postcolonial feminist theory to contextualize the gender-specific dimensions of food insecurity, centering analysis on discussing historical power structures, migration patterns, urbanism theory, and geopolitical influences contributing to the experiences of south sudanese urban refugee youth in kenya. study participants, irrespective of location, encountered corruption, limiting policies, and conflicting identity formation, with women specifically highlighting self-identity, dignity, and family as critical to supporting their resilience. participants emphasized the impact of covid-19 on community cohesion, particularly in shared meals. however, their agency was hindered by movement restrictions, invisible fences, or barriers exacerbated by unequal support and aid distribution. the research advocates for the formulation of clear african contextualized urban-based policies and migration systems that prioritize the needs of urban refugees, safeguarding their rights and upholding human dignity. collaborative engagement with all stakeholders within local communities, especially refugee youth, is necessary to develop effective urban policies that promote stability, economic advancement, and social integration. keywords: migration, agency, sanctuary cities, gender, african urbanism 1 department of planning, geography, and environmental studies, university of the fraser valley, abbotsford, canada. corresponding author  cherie.enns@ufv.ca https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4348-9817 2 department of geography and environmental studies, nairobi, kenya. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8928-2862 3 university of the fraser valley, abbotsford, canada. 4 university of the fraser valley, abbotsford, canada. 5 pan aweil development agency, juba, south sudan. covid-19’s impact on food security among urban refugee youth in kenya: 106 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 introduction global food insecurity persists significantly above pre-pandemic levels, with over 700 million people worldwide experiencing hunger in 2022 (fao et al., 2023). the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic and subsequent mitigation efforts exacerbated a global crisis of immobility, disproportionately affecting migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, who experienced exasperated inequalities and increased vulnerability (crush et al., 2021; fao, 2021; onyango et al., 2021). given these evolving trends in food insecurity and human mobility, scholars and communities have called for research to understand the full implications of covid-19 on refugees, with a particular emphasis on understanding the unique challenges faced by different genders and ages in urban contexts (wfp, 2020; crush et al., 2021). a substantial portion of the people experiencing food insecurity live in africa, indicating the definitive prevalence of food insecurity in the region (unctad, 2021). considering the relationship between poverty, malnutrition, food insecurity, and gender as critical influencers of migration (fao, 2021), examining these interconnected aspects in kenya is crucial to addressing socio-economic and political factors from a gender perspective. gender intersects with various aspects of migration, including access to resources, decision-making power, and exposure to vulnerabilities, with the covid-19 pandemic intensifying gender disparities regarding economic livelihoods and food security. our focus on kenya is due to the increasing arrival of refugees from neighboring countries, including south sudan (ihd, 2020). the enduring conflict in south sudan has been detrimental to the community; prospects of repatriating to south sudan are unattainable for many due to limited opportunity, extreme famine, and regional political instability and conflict (unhcr, 2023). this paper investigates the impact of covid-19 on food security among urban refugee youth (19–32 years) in kenya by focusing on south sudanese refugees residing in nairobi and nakuru. we draw on postcolonial feminist theory, integrating race, gender, and colonization (musingafi and musingafi, 2023) to contextualize the gender-specific dimensions of food insecurity further and explore how urban policy can counter historical power structures, migration patterns, and geopolitical influences. this paper also builds on african urbanisms by critical african scholars to investigate the needs, challenges, and policy responses concerning urban refugee youth. we conclude by recommending the adaptation of a sanctuary cities framework. contextualization kenya has a rich history of hosting refugees seeking safety from food insecurity, conflict, limited economic opportunities, and extreme climate conditions (wfp, 2020). the country’s appeal is attributed to its centrality, available land, international networks, established migrant communities, and arable land (ihd, 2020). in kenya, africa’s oldest and largest refugee camps are dadaab and kakuma, established in 107 1991 and 1992 respectively, home to refugees from somalia, south sudan, and the democratic republic of the congo (ihd, 2020). thus, much of the literature on refugees in kenya focuses on those living in camps (pavanello et al., 2010; iom, 2018; malik, 2023). in 2006, the government of kenya initiated the refugees act, which set a framework for refugees to register and remain in camps (ihl, 2006). since 1991, kenya has pursued a refugee encampment policy that limited their integration and access to opportunities outside the camps. urban refugees were not spared from such exclusionary challenges, which were exacerbated during the covid-19 pandemic period. however, the government of kenya introduced the refugees act of 2021, intending to address ongoing challenges in securing the rights and protections for refugees and asylum seekers by making more explicit policies that protect their right to participate in various levels of the economy and social development (unhcr, 2021). as these changes were implemented, the government of kenya announced the closure of the refugee camps on several occasions with a plan for local integration and resettlement (unhcr, 2021). the united nations comprehensive refugee response framework (crrf) of 2016 calls for integrating and including refugees into the community. however, there are risks of closing the refugee camps, with significant impacts on the surrounding settings and host communities, likely resulting in increased migration to urban centers. therefore, understanding gaps for urban refugees is timely. research indicates that when refugees settled outside the camps and moved to metropolitan centers, they encountered challenging circumstances and were without the same level of support as in the camps from the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), the government, non-governmental organizations (ngos), and other organizations. approximately 25% (90,918) of kenya’s total refugee population resides in urban areas, with most urban refugee youth living in nairobi (unhcr, 2021). this rate continues to increase annually (onyango et al., 2021). however, these numbers are believed to be much higher, as many refugees still need to register (see figure 1). covid-19’s impact on food security among urban refugee youth in kenya: 108 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 figure 1: kenya, refugees by location, 2022 source: unhcr kenya – dima unit, nairobi (available on kenya infographics and statistics package – 31 july 2023 by unchr) in addition to the impending forced urban migration through proposed refugee camp closures, many refugees choose to live in urban spaces rather than camps. in contrast to the relatively confined environments of refugee camps, cities offer refugees independence and potential access to economic and educational opportunities. the refugees’ decision to reside in urban areas intersects with the concept of sanctuary cities, which promotes flexible and inclusive environments for migrants (kassa, 2018). as much as a process as it is a goal, there is no single definition of what a sanctuary city is; therefore, the concept differs between regions. while cities like nairobi and nakuru serve as de facto sanctuary or refuge cities, they do not have formal policies and support systems akin to those in the united states and canada, where sanctuary 109 cities implement migrant-friendly policies, such as providing municipal services, regardless of immigration status and limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities (kassa, 2018; bauder, 2020). despite the existence of policies and legislative acts in kenya, there has been difficulty translating these into actionable measures regarding the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. consequently, kenyan authorities and refugees alike are unclear about refugees’ rights, resulting in the inaccurate application of regulatory frameworks and misclassifications (ihd, 2020). this leaves urban refugees ambiguous without assistance or legal protection from government officials, the unhcr, or other ngos. therefore, urban refugees find themselves with a different level of support than they experienced in the camps (omata, 2020), and urban realities may need to align with their aspirations. as “non-citizens,” refugees have distinctive legal and administrative constraints that limit their ability to secure formal employment and freedom of movement despite provisions in the 1951 refugee convention (omata, 2020). consequently, urban refugees are vulnerable to exploitation, apprehension, or confinement and may have to compete for opportunities (unhcr, 2021). lack of stable income and food insecurity often compel urban refugees to accept any available food, regardless of personal preferences or religious dietary restrictions, sometimes skipping meals to feed their children (unhcr, 2021). persistent food insecurity in kenya poses substantial obstacles to adequately addressing the population’s nutritional and dietary requirements, affecting more than 60% of urban refugees (onyango et al., 2021; fao et al., 2023). in an environment where communities perceive competing for resources – particularly in a context already strained by unemployment and food insecurity – this dynamic can potentially lead to violence, resulting in the host community retaliating against the refugee group (elfversson et al., 2023). despite the longstanding presence of refugees in kenya, inequality, economic impact, political factors, and sociocultural influences have escalated tensions (betts et al., 2018). theoretical framework as explained by the united nations (un), “gender is a key organizing principle of society and is central to any discussion of the causes and consequences of international migration, including the process of decision-making involved and the mechanisms leading to migration” (iom, 2018: 10). in reality, women and lgbtq+ persons often find themselves in more marginalized, isolated, and vulnerable positions than men. therefore, increasing understanding of international migration and food access through postcolonial feminist and african urbanism theories acknowledges various dynamics, expectations and relations that influence men’s and women’s urban migration experiences. covid-19’s impact on food security among urban refugee youth in kenya: 110 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 postcolonial feminist theory postcolonial feminist theory seeks to understand how (neo)colonialism is embedded within patriarchy and globalization, particularly contemporary realities of white settler colonialism (kerner, 2017; piedalue and rishi, 2017). postcolonial feminism is a “transnational and globally constructed form of critical race feminism” (piedalue and rishi, 2017: 549) that requires relational thinking about power and globality to assess and address north-south power relations and asymmetries (kerner, 2017). the concepts of north-south paradigms are based on the historical legacy of colonialism. they are intrinsically embedded with gendered and racialized features that presume that the conditions prevalent in the global south (i.e., poverty, corruption, and gender inequality) do not apply to the global north (ozkazancpan, 2012; kerner, 2017; piedalue and rishi, 2017). this theoretical framework focuses on gender-related factors and the obstacles they pose to justice, equality, and well-being: postcolonial feminism calls for thinking about agency in more nuanced ways, beyond subversion and change (kerner, 2017). the concept of “empowermentas-information” is criticized in postcolonial feminist studies, wherein people are provided with information and knowledge under the guise of empowerment (kerner, 2017; bessa, 2019). “empowerment” approaches may inadvertently burden people with the expectation to resist change-makers and challenge existing power structures. despite being equipped with information, the structural barriers and entrenched systems surrounding them often remain unchanged, rendering them powerless to enact meaningful change in alignment with the prescribed empowerment model. by examining the historical power imbalances that continue to shape contemporary social and economic structures, this theory helps understand how urban refugees, especially youth, women and gender minorities, experience marginalization within urban environments. african urbanism future global urban expansion is projected to occur mainly in africa and asia, where public institutions and planning systems are least prepared to manage the demands of rapidly urbanizing regions (un-habitat, 2022). africa is experiencing the highest urban growth rates, with projections indicating that by 2035, half its population will be urban dwellers, increasing to six out of ten people by 2050 (un-habitat, 2022). alongside this trajectory, african cities have always been refugee reception cities, deepening socio-economic fragmentation, inequity, and exclusion; high rates of unemployment; increasing levels of urban poverty; and food insecurity. scholars increasingly acknowledge the limited applicability of global north theories in explaining urbanism in the global south, reflected in the ongoing epistemological debates on the nexus between sanctuary cities and urban theory and practice in the region (ernstson et al., 2014; kassa, 2018; tshimba, 2022). moreover, the specificity 111 of african urbanism calls for a place-based innovation of urban planning and governance based on local knowledge production (bellaviti, 2022). african urban theorization is evolving, with emerging scholarship aiming to establish a theory and practice that is more meaningful and functional for african city-making processes (nyiti, 2024). batuman and kilinç (2024) argue that integrating urban refugees requires examining their connection through (1) identity: informality, imagination, and belonging; (2) place: transnational homemaking practices; and (3) site: navigating urban space. within this context of african urbanism, this study aims to integrate an awareness of global diversity and universality to co-produce knowledge for progressive impacts on the urban refugee community, particularly south sudanese youth. methodology engagement with three focus group discussions, the study investigated the effects of the covid-19 pandemic on food security among south sudanese refugee youth aged 19 to 32 living in urban settings of nairobi and nakuru, kenya. while the broader research focuses on food security, participants spoke about the importance of intersecting aspects of their lives that affect their ability to access services and programs; therefore, this article focuses on youth perspectives and stories related to their urban existence during and post-covid-19. we recruited the participants using an exponential discriminative snowball sampling method. with the support of south sudanese community leaders, the research team conducted three focus group discussions with 58 south sudanese urban refugee youth (42 males, 16 females) who had urban refugee status for nairobi or nakuru. the three focus groups comprised 28 men, 13 women, and a mixed group of 3 women and 14 men, respectively. all participants provided written informed consent. we used pseudonyms and altered any identifying information to mitigate potential risks and protect the privacy and confidentiality of participants. the research team held the focus group discussions in december 2022, with each session being 60 to 120 minutes. we held all the sessions in an accessible community location in nairobi, kenya, and they were facilitated by a south sudanese community leader. during the focus group sessions, the research team asked the participants open-ended questions regarding food security, including food availability. we enlisted – with participant approval – a kenyan illustrator to observe and illustrate the key concepts and themes emerging from the sessions. the focus group discussions highlighted what food security meant to the participants, prompting a subsequent discussion about interventions and innovations with stakeholders to address food security challenges among urban refugees. we transcribed the audio-recorded discussions, read the transcripts multiple times, and analyzed them using nvivo software. following all ethics and safeguarding protocols, the researchers conducted community member-checking covid-19’s impact on food security among urban refugee youth in kenya: 112 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 to confirm understanding. the research team developed codes using inductive and deductive methods, drawing from the proposal, research questions, and focus group transcripts. we included south sudanese community leaders and researchers in the design, conceptualization, and facilitation, and they provided insight into the contextual circumstances of urban refugees. results this section examines the impact of covid-19 on food security among south sudanese urban refugees residing in nairobi and nakuru, kenya. we identified three major themes across the sessions, regardless of location or gender – although intersectional factors did influence the impact of these issues – namely, systemic failures with resource allocation; safety and freedom; and identity formation. when organizations provided support, such as money or supplies, participants perceived it to be distributed unequally because of a lack of transparency between refugees and the organization. the participants often attributed these issues to their identity as “urban,” indicating they lacked the support their counterparts in the refugee camps were accorded. participants explained how they strive for agency, often a core principle for moving away from the camp but were challenged by the context of kenya’s policies. as indicated earlier, we use pseudonyms throughout the article based on how participants self-identified: urban refugee men (urm) and urban refugee women (urw). systemic failures with resource allocation the covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the challenges faced by refugees residing in urban areas, bringing to the forefront the difficulties in resource allocation within humanitarian systems. the participants spoke about the significant barriers urban refugees encounter in accessing necessities such as food, shelter, education, and health care. the challenges with resource allocation in urban refugee communities had a profound impact on their ability to meet their fundamental needs. despite the efforts of governmental and non-governmental organizations, many urban refugees still experience food insecurity. by exploring personal experiences and accounts of urban refugees, there is an urgent need for more equitable and efficient resource allocation strategies to address the problematic levels of food insecurity. the participants noted that urban refugees need support from organizations like the unhcr, similar to those living in refugee camps. they spoke about organizations and wealthy individuals providing cooking oil, soap, maize, beans, and personal protective equipment; however, the government, along with local and international organizations still need to address this significant resource gap. organizations such as the unhcr were discussed negatively regarding the support offered to urban refugees. a woman shared that, “being an urban refugee is not easy because we have to do everything for ourselves. the un doesn’t support you.” 113 participants expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of support, particularly regarding food assistance and spoke about the frustration among refugees who rely on these entities and feel neglected. according to one respondent: we don’t have any support here in town. our embassy never saw us. the unhcr … they do the assessment; they collect data that is going to be a benefit to them. but the refugees? there is nothing we can get (urw). participants noted a disconnect between the efforts of the unhcr and the needs of south sudanese refugees. despite repeated requests for assistance and discussions about the challenges faced by the refugee community, they argued that there needs to be more tangible action or response from the unhcr. others felt that the embassy of south sudan in kenya and the government of kenya should have a stronger response to meet refugees’ needs. a participant shifted the responsibility from international agencies to the government, expressing concern about prioritizing citizens over refugees. he suggested that un agencies should administer refugee services directly to ensure fairness and access to assistance: the service that the un provides refugees are handled by the government. and the government’s priority, everywhere in the world, is to assist its own citizens. … and there are few refugees that are involved in the management of the services that they offer. i think the best way for un agencies is to be the one handling that service themselves, because if you give them to the national [government], the national’s priority will come first (urm). for many participants, the lack of systemic support meant they experienced hunger or could not afford to meet their basic needs. an urban refugee woman said, “i may look good, but inside, maybe i spent two to three days without food.” the viewpoint of an urban refugee woman resonated with the experiences of many women responsible for their families’ care, some who implemented meal programs to meet their needs: it reached a time where we did not even have rent, and we had to have the landlord just shut our house, like close with everything inside it. we just went to sleep at one of the relatives. we’re like 13 people in the same house. you can imagine that situation, right? … you just leave the food to the young ones … we normally have a program: if we eat breakfast, we are not going to eat lunch so that we eat supper (urw). as primary caregivers, women shared the disproportionate effect of having to navigate the complexities of urban refugee life while also managing household responsibilities, as one respondent stated: covid-19’s impact on food security among urban refugee youth in kenya: 114 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 the kids go to school, but it is a challenge. i have to struggle up and down and find something for them to go to school. it is a big challenge. covid-19 has challenged us … i’m working to take care of our siblings, who are also being helped by family members. and that is how i struggled to make ends meet in nairobi (urw). the intersecting challenges of women urban refugees in nairobi indicate that the daily pursuit of basic needs is intertwined with the uncertainty of survival: where you will get food or will you be alive tomorrow, you don’t know. but it is god’s grace that is the reason we are here today. some families sleep without food for one or two days … you have a hope, but the hunger is too much. but if you don’t have hope – otherwise, what can you do? (urw). while the participant finds solace in faith, it is essential to recognize that reliance on hope and resilience should not overshadow the urgent need for systemic change: urban refugees’ struggles to meet their basic needs should not be normalized or accepted as a testament to their resilience. instead, it points to systemic failures that perpetuate conditions of extreme poverty and food insecurity among vulnerable populations. the juxtaposition of hope against the backdrop of hunger serves as a reminder of urban refugees’ situation. despite their remarkable strength in enduring these challenges, their resilience should not be romanticized. without systemic support, many agreed that financial support came from cash remittances from family members, the local communities, other south sudanese, and abroad, which was also affected during the covid-19 pandemic. given their reliance on external support to survive, participants shared their concerns that support before the pandemic decreased significantly and had yet to return to its previous level: we suffer in silence here. we only get support from people who are relatives, maybe someone who is abroad or someone who is in south sudan, working. to get even a proper meal is a problem. you don’t die, you eat what you get; you can suffer; you will get diseases – because you’re not helping the malnutrition (urw). in contrast, a participant compared the positive support and services available to refugees in camps to those living in urban areas. registered refugees residing in camps receive essential services, such as food and health care. while assistance disparities still exist, the participant shared that she is often left to support herself in the challenging urban environment: if you’re registered in the camp, there’s food, there’s free hospital, at least there’s something you’re given. but being an urban refugee, the only thing that 115 you’re given is the status. they [the government] don’t support you to support yourself (urw). there is a disparity in support systems between urban refugees and those residing in refugee camps. this is primarily because refugees in camps are entitled to humanitarian aid and other support systems. however, during focus group sessions, participants indicated that the government tends to prioritize support for refugees within camps, possibly due to logistical reasons or a preference for containing refugee populations in designated areas. while registration as a refugee provides legal recognition, it does not guarantee access to essential services or support for self-sufficiency in urban areas. the unhcr (2016) and other agencies have plans to scale up services to urban refugees. still, the study participants were not aware of the proposed initiative (see unhcr, n.d.) and certainly had yet to be consulted about their needs at the time of the study. in light of this reflection, placing the burden of self-sufficiency for refugees in urban areas is unjust and unsustainable. there is an urgent need to address the root causes of food insecurity and poverty, including inadequate access to resources, employment opportunities, and social support systems, which perpetuate cycles of poverty and marginalization among urban refugee populations. safety and freedom while safety entails protection from violence, discrimination, and persecution, freedom extends beyond the mere absence of harm to include the ability to exercise fundamental rights, such as freedom of movement, access to livelihood opportunities, and the autonomy to pursue economic endeavors. from navigating restrictive legal frameworks to overcoming socio-economic barriers, urban refugees deal with complex dynamics shaping their goals for safety and realizing their rights to freedom in urban environments. from the onset of conflict in south sudan to the covid-19 pandemic, refugees have experienced complex obstacles in their pursuit of safety, stability, and autonomy during the asylum-seeking process and resettlement: life has been uneasy in south sudan when the war broke out, up to today. many people are suffering in urban centers. it’s not easy for us people in urban areas, because there are so many murders happening, especially now; poor people have been murdered because kenyans feel [poverty] as well (urm). while there are shared issues among the focus groups, societal and cultural factors affect how each gender experiences challenges. while both men and women mentioned security as a challenge, women were particularly noted as being more vulnerable to kidnappings. however, the participants did not elaborate on who was kidnapping the women. urban refugee women described a pervasive atmosphere of fear and mistrust experienced in their daily lives: “you just need to survive on your covid-19’s impact on food security among urban refugee youth in kenya: 116 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 own; you need to find ways to survive. everybody’s paranoid.” for some urw, this fear was justified, as a participant described a dangerous theft where basic safety and security in urban spaces are far from guaranteed: we had an event in town, and we went home … [thieves] just took my phone. i just gave it to them and so that they walk away. i could have been shot. they’re walking out with knives; they try to come behind you. it’s very risky nowadays (urw). many of the urm spoke about a sense of community, solidarity, and generosity with their kenyan neighbors during the covid-19 pandemic. they talked about coming together to share meals, support each other, and create a sense of home away from home. in contrast, a woman shared that “kenyans are not that friendly. okay, they’re friendly but not helping …” this is a notable difference from the strong community integration men experienced. an urban refugee woman shared that the reluctance of neighbors to interact with her out of fear reflects the lack of trust and social cohesion toward women within the community: it was not easy to get assistance because everybody was scared. a neighbor might think you’re getting to the house to give them [covid-19] because they didn’t know where you’ve been. most people were isolated … it was hard (urw). moreover, social dynamics are further complicated by bureaucratic regulations, which constrain refugees’ freedom of movement and choice of residence. participants spoke about the numerous bureaucratic barriers and challenges they face living in urban spaces and, in some cases, scrutiny and accusations of illegality by authorities. the restrictive nature of these policies limits refugees’ access to alternative support networks, effectively confining them to specific areas and restricting opportunities for socio-economic advancement available in urban centers: it became a real challenge because i am a refugee registered under the un in the kakuma refugee camp. getting assistance here in nairobi, as a refugee, it gets hard because we cannot be assisted unless we are in the camp (urw). urban refugees face limitations in exercising their freedom and pursuing selfsustainability in their host country. despite the fact that the refugee act of 2021 entitles refugees to legal documents that they need to participate in income-generating activities, the participants spoke about challenges when attempting to open a business for economic self-sufficiency. despite their desire to contribute to the local economy and support themselves, refugees often encounter legal and bureaucratic barriers that prevent them from doing so, as narrated by this participant: 117 in kenya, we are refugees. now, for example, if you try to open a shop somewhere to do your own business to sustain yourself, you can’t do it in kenya … if there could be a way that can help south sudanese to do their own business, it could be better for us (urm). a broader pattern of exclusion and discrimination against urban refugees is demonstrated, denying them equal access to basic services and opportunities available to other members of society. similarly, the inability to open a bank account deprives them of financial freedom, limiting their ability to manage their finances, save money, and engage in economic activities independently – reinforcing their dependence on external assistance: there was an agreement of where the un and the kenya government had where refugees can open any bank account so that you can save. but now it got to a point when you’re going there with your alien card. and they tell, they say like, “no, it’s only for the kenyan or foreigners.” refugees are not allowed in (urw). before their asylum-seeking journeys, many refugees held jobs and pursued careers in various fields. however, upon arrival in host countries, they often need help finding employment opportunities matching their qualifications and experience. many refugees possess a wealth of skills and experience underutilized in their host countries. as urban refugees become more economically independent, they are better positioned to support local businesses, contribute to the tax base, and stimulate economic growth. further, these initiatives help bridge social divides and promote social cohesion by facilitating integration and participation in host communities. yet their success is contingent upon comprehensive support and collaboration from governments, ngos, and local communities, who must work to address these barriers. adding to the challenges urban refugees face are bureaucratic barriers and residency requirements severely limiting their freedom to reside and seek assistance. these restrictions impede their access to essential services and support systems, exacerbating their already precarious situation. the denial of equal access to basic services and the imposition of restrictions on economic activities perpetuate a cycle of exclusion and discrimination against urban refugees. these barriers make it exceedingly difficult for them to achieve economic self-sufficiency, reinforcing the cycle of dependency. however, initiatives aimed at supporting refugees in using their skills and experience to support themselves and contribute to their communities have the potential to disrupt these current practices. covid-19’s impact on food security among urban refugee youth in kenya: 118 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 identity formation given the challenges associated with being an urban refugee, the question of why individuals would choose to leave the relative safety and stability of refugee camps remained. while these camps may provide basic safety and access to humanitarian aid, participants from the focus groups shared how refugees living in camps were perceived to have less autonomy than their urban refugee peers. thus, for many refugees, the prospect of seeking a better life in urban areas, despite the accompanying risks and uncertainties, may offer more opportunities for education, employment, and social integration that are not readily available in refugee camps. the participants shared the challenge that they, just as much as everyone else, want to live a life where they can achieve agency rather than being confined in a camp for the rest of their lives: i just wanted to explore, you know? just to be. as a refugee, it doesn’t mean that you have to be in the camp. you also have to meet people, interact and expand your brain because you cannot be born as a refugee and die at 13. you don’t know nairobi, you don’t know nakuru … you want to explore; you want to meet people, but then that status of being a refugee, your alien card – you just have to beg. i have friends who went to [country] … they sent me money to go to university. and that’s how i finished my university [qualification]. if they did not do that, i will be in the camp right now … all my life in the camp (urw). concurrently, the urban refugees wanted to challenge ideas about how others perceive them in the context of receiving systemic support. a participant critiqued the prevailing notion that refugees must conform to a stereotypical image of helplessness to receive assistance from organizations: you don’t have to look like a beggar for somebody to help you. that’s the problem with the un and the rest of the world. they want to see refugees as refugees in the camp … nobody will come and help you because you don’t even look helpless. you have to look helpless. like if somebody sees me dressed up like this, they don’t think i’m a refugee because i don’t want to look like one. and a refugee doesn’t have to be in dirty clothes or out there in the street for unhcr to come (urw). the woman highlighted the conflicting dynamics between asserting her agency and accessing the resources and support she needs. additionally, she exposed the inherent biases embedded within humanitarian aid systems that assess visible markers of vulnerability within preconceived notions of helplessness and dependency over the actual experiences of urban refugees. 119 an urban refugee man alluded to the power dynamics and structural inequalities embedded within the refugee experience. the authorities’ refusal to recognize the presence of refugees in urban areas reflects a colonial mindset that seeks to control and confine displaced populations to designated spaces, perpetuating a hierarchical system that marginalizes certain groups based on their status and identity. he expressed himself thus: the [authorities] told me that “you are a refugee, you are not getting in nairobi, you are for a refugee camp, you are for kakuma.” … i feel that you, if you are in kenya, you are entitled to be assisted (urm). for many, their identity formation and sense of belonging in urban spaces are determined by how kenyans or those in their communities perceive them; they are made to feel like outsiders in their communities. the experience of being questioned about their right to be in a specific location contributes to the stigmatization, systemic barriers, and discrimination refugees experience, as related by this respondent: you show the [alien card], they will tell you, “yes, you’re a refugee, but you should be somewhere else, not here, around here. what gives you the permission to come and stay here as student?” … even though they know who you are, an urban refugee … it really disadvantaged refugees’ progression here (urm). within refugee camps, individuals often find themselves confined to predefined roles and identities, such as being in a constant state of helplessness, primarily defined by their status as displaced persons. beyond the economic opportunities, urban environments offer greater opportunities for self-expression, social interaction, and cultural exchange, allowing urban refugees to explore and redefine their identities beyond the confines of their displacement status. thus, the decision to leave refugee camps and pursue life in urban areas can be understood as a proactive step toward identity reconstruction and self-affirmation in the face of displacement and marginalization. moreover, the narratives highlight the intersectional nature of identity formation, as urban refugees navigate complex layers of identity, including gender, race, nationality, and displacement status, in exploring recognition and agency within the host community. covid-19’s impact on food security among urban refugee youth in kenya: 120 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 figure 2: focus group responses and recommendations source: illustrated by sherald elly, 2022 when discussing solutions to resource allocation, safety, and freedom challenges, many suggested solutions that supported refugees, providing them with greater autonomy. suggestions included having the south sudanese ambassador(s) and political leaders who are connected with or living in kenya more involved with the urban refugee population and supporting refugee-led organizations in nairobi to make it easier for refugees to access basic services (see figure 2). participants also suggested that it would be beneficial to learn how neighboring countries like uganda support refugees in general, rather than just in emergencies. funding small-business start-ups was also a suggestion that would increase the agency of refugees and allow them to afford food rather than rely on support, reinforcing dependency. discussion this study used postcolonial feminist and african urbanism theories to understand the experiences of south sudanese refugees in nairobi and nakuru following the impacts of covid-19 to identify areas for intervention and change. the importance of the intersecting and urban spatial nature of these issues became evident during the engagements with participants: food security has a severe impact on various dimensions of urban refugees’ lives, including human dignity, social equity, and community well-being. the analysis emphasizes the systemic inequalities and policyrelated structural barriers perpetuating food insecurity. participants’ narratives exemplify the complex socio-political dynamics affecting refugee experiences and varying agencies in urban settings. 121 urban refugees are at the intersection of multiple power structures, including those embedded within their host communities, governmental institutions, and humanitarian organizations. while “empowerment” initiatives may aim to provide refugees with knowledge and resources to navigate their circumstances, they sometimes overlook the structural inequalities and systemic barriers that limit refugees’ ability to exercise genuine agency and autonomy. urban refugees receive information or assistance from humanitarian organizations or government agencies that aim to “empower” them by providing knowledge about their rights, available services, or avenues for legal status. this approach may inadvertently reinforce existing power hierarchies and maintain the status quo for urban refugee youth without addressing the underlying power dynamics and structural inequalities that perpetuate their marginalization (kerner, 2017; bessa, 2019). this “empowerment” results in a gap between the information provided and the actual ability to access resources or exercise rights such as access to health care or education. still they may face obstacles such as discrimination, language barriers, or lack of documentation when trying to access these services. similarly, they may receive information about legal pathways for obtaining residency or employment but encounter bureaucratic hurdles or hostile attitudes from authorities that prevent them from exercising these rights effectively. thus, it is critical to consider the broader socio-political and urban spatial context (alawneh and mahbub, 2022) in which urban refugee youth navigate their lives. the following diagram (see figure 3) illustrates critical sanctuary policy areas that emerged from the analysis of the focus group interviews. covid-19’s impact on food security among urban refugee youth in kenya: 122 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 figure 3: emerging sanctuary city policy areas source: conceptualized by abbey lin this now brings the realization of the need to support urban refugees, particularly women, gender minorities, and youth, through using participatory planning that integrates concepts that may be more relevant in the localized african context and in harmony with the philosophy of ubuntu (humanity) (bauder et al., 2023). consequently, there is a need to reevaluate the urban role and inclusion of refugees living in cities. emerging scholars on african urbanism highlight the city’s role as a refuge or sanctuary, referencing the contributions of urban refugee youth as co-producers of city spaces (nyiti, 2024). while “sanctuary cities” are often used to describe policies and practices implemented by cities in the global north to support vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers (mascareñas and eitel, 2019; manfredi-sánchez, 2020), rarely are sanctuary cities discussed or contextualized in the global south, even though 85% of displaced people worldwide are hosted in the global south (irc, 2020), and the majority of displaced people worldwide live in urban spaces (irc, 2022b). urban municipalities can play a fundamental role in supporting asylum seekers and refugees, mitigating exclusionary national policies to solve issues regarding integration, accommodation, work, and education and 123 reshaping the notion of citizenship itself (bauder and gozalex, 2018). within this context of african urbanism, this study aimed at the co-production of knowledge with the aim of progressive impacts on the affected urban community – the south sudanese refugees. figure 4: gender-responsive urban refugee policy framework source: authors' own work the pandemic revealed and exacerbated the fault lines in the refugee support system (enns et al., 2024), highlighting a worsening of urban refugee economic status (oyekale, 2022). it is critical to develop urban policies that reflect the insights of youth to address the risk of redrawing both visible and invisible boundaries around urban refugee populations. an adapted and contextualized sanctuary city framework could facilitate policies that give full effect to equitable socio-economic rights contained in the kenya refugee act of 2021 (see figure 4). in a recent unpublished presentation by irc, a critical comment is that provision in the refugee act 2021 28(4) that states that “refugees shall be enabled to contribute to the economic and social development of kenya” and “a refugee recognized under this act shall have the right to engage individually or in a group, in gainful employment or enterprise, or to practice a profession or trade where he holds qualifications recognized by competent authorities in kenya,” leaves too much room for interpretation (irc, 2022a). furthermore, there are still restrictions on where undocumented refugees can live, with many of the supports, policies, and laws not yet in line with the refugee act 2021. kassa (2018) states that urban refugees use agency to overcome barriers and challenges, and concepts such as sanctuary cities strengthen and recognize the covid-19’s impact on food security among urban refugee youth in kenya: 124 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 agency of youth as co-producers of urban spaces and their insights for addressing challenges with an outcome of greater spatial justice for all residents (enns, 2022). as a form of a post-script, a new participatory phase of the research has been initiated, including urban refugee youth participants’ access to a digital food social enterprise platform and ongoing engagement with political leaders and stakeholders to drive positive urban integration. the authors envision an urban future where refugees are recognized not as a burden but as valuable contributors to developing food-secure host cities, especially during periods of protracted conflict and intersecting crises such as pandemics, conflict, and climate change. william kolong, a co-author, south sudanese peace advocate, and focus group facilitator, shared the research study report (enns et al., 2024) with officials from the south sudanese and kenyan governments, including the president’s office in south sudan. the study findings prompted immediate actions by the south sudanese government to address some of the challenges related to documentation faced by south sudanese urban refugees in kenya (see lin, 2024); a response that has the potential to be applied to other refugee groups and in different national contexts, particularly in a context of interlocking challenges or period of “polycrisis” (janzwood and homer-dixon, 2022). conclusion and recommendations historically, the unhcr and the kenyan government focused resources on refugees living in refugee camps, which leaves those who choose to exit the camps without much support and vulnerable to marginalization by local authorities. before 2021, kenya’s 2006 refugee act required refugees to stay within camps. still, with the proposed closure of the camps, the 2021 refugee act now moves away from encampments to more integrated “urban settlement areas” for refugees, including turning refugee camps into integrative refugee settlements, which poses the question of whether emerging urban structures are any different than restricting refugees within a camp (see halakhe and omondi, 2024). more research is required on emerging forms of containment and the continued limited agency of refugees in movement, support, and choice in urban residential locations (leghtas and kitenge, 2022). the concept of the city or urban communities as a camp is not new, and without a strong urban policy in line with a contextualized “sanctuary city,” the walls or fences, albeit invisible, may pose an even harsher reality for refugees. furthermore, in kenya, challenges such as corruption among local authorities and harsher national policies pose additional obstacles for urban refugees in these sanctuary cities (kassa, 2018). however, integration can be strengthened through policies that help support positive experiences for migrants (kassa, 2018). while urban sanctuary policies do not necessarily eliminate the illegalization of displaced people (bauder, 2017), they can, if contextualized and resourced, enable refugees to cope better with their circumstances through a flexible combination of legal, scalar, and identity-formative aspects. 125 finally, there is a need to listen to the stories and insights of those most affected by emerging policy and planning responses as critical in shaping more just urban structures and informing an urban framework for potentially addressing the complex, intersecting systemic barriers each urban refugee encounters. integration of targeted support to shift the narrative from refugee support to refugee contribution is required in this period of “polycrises.” urban refugee youth are already place-making and city-building, and local governments should look to invest in refugee youth-led organizations that have proven to be successful in similar contexts (see unicef, 2023; enns and kombe, 2023). for example, many women who participated in our research were prepared and equipped to establish a formal business to sustain an income. a simple shift to facilitate business permits more efficiently could make this a reality. our study findings indicate the need and desire for a movement toward social integration within kenyan communities where the benefits of urban refugees to larger society can be widely understood, and mutual respect can be established. understanding the lived experiences of south sudanese urban refugee youth in nairobi and nakuru can work toward building a foundation on which to design and implement policies and programs that protect and uphold refugee rights and promote full participation in an urban society. acknowledgments this paper is funded through a seven-year collaborative mifood project funded by a partnership grant from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada (sshrc). we would like to acknowledge the following members of the research team: natasha knebelow, university of the fraser valley, abbotsford, canada; jacqueline fanta, university of the fraser valley, abbotsford, canada; cobby achieng, university of nairobi, kenya, tim kagiri, university of the fraser valley, abbotsford, canada; sherald elly, factart, kenya; and south sudanese youth who participated in this study. covid-19’s impact on food security among urban refugee youth in kenya: 126 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 references alawneh, s. and mahbub, r. 2022. revisiting urban resilience: a review on resilience of spatial 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270 pages imiscoe research series issn 2364-4087 issn 2364-4095 (electronic) isbn 978-3-030-92113-2 isbn 978-3-030-92114-9 (ebook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92114-9 migration in southern africa is the title of the book edited by pragna rugunanan and nomkhosi xulu-gama, whose stated aim is to facilitate migration studies through an africanist contextual framework that aims to disrupt easy explanations for the migrant and refugee crises experienced in the region. this book is an output from the july 2019 workshop that brought together a diverse range of migration and mobility scholars based mainly in southern africa. it contends that south-south migration will continue to dominate future global migration trends, making it imperative for southern-based scholars to theorize local, regional, and international migration from a south-south perspective. the book identifies two weaknesses of southern africa’s migration and mobility studies. first, is a tendency to perceive african rural-urban migration as benign, intimate, feminine, and local, while cross-border migration is considered risky, masculine, exploratory, and global. second, the plight of migrant children and the complicated situations that women with children find themselves in as internal or international migrants continue to receive insufficient attention. rugunanan and xulu-gama produced a readable six-part book consisting of 18 chapters that draw from narratives emerging primarily from qualitative research methodologies involving in-depth interviews with participants. in the introductory chapter, rugunanan and xulu-gama reiterate that there is a strong and urgent need for migration research from a southern african perspective. the three chapters in part 1 propose ways of theorizing migration in southern africa. in chapter two, kezia batisai discusses how migration and migrant identity issues can be studied and understood. she does this by examining the contextual specificities to provide a southern perspective to analyze african migrant worker experiences. chapter three by pragna rugunanan provides a refreshing case study on south asian and african migration to south africa. in chapter four, samukele hadebe argues that although south africa remains the migrant destination of choice in southern africa, a combination of factors, including restrictive legislation, migration in southern africa 8 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 xenophobic violence, coupled with high unemployment and crime rates, are making the country a less attractive destination for some migrant groups. part 2 focuses on legislation and policy frameworks governing migration and consists of three chapters. in chapter five, steven gordon discusses anti-immigrant behaviors in south africa and provides insight into public attitudes toward migrants. in chapter six, khangelani moyo and christine botha draw on migration policy and governance literature to comprehensively discuss how the south african state handles refugees and asylum seekers. they conclude that refugee governance faces challenges resulting from a palpable discord between the policy intentions of the south african government and implementation on the ground based on an inadequate migration infrastructure for processing refugees and asylum seekers. in chapter seven, nomkhosi xulu-gama, sibongile ruth nhari, musawenkosi malabela, and tebogo mogoru contribute to the debate on south african labor legislation, migration, and the effect of worker education programs on workplace struggles, household challenges, and community struggles. the focus of part 3 is internal labor migration and regional mobility. in chapter eight, anna oksiutycz and caroline azionya explore the experiences of internal and cross-border migrants residing in the zandspruit informal settlement in south africa. in contrast, in chapter nine, nomkhosi xulu-gama uses a feminist epistemology to unpack the often-painful experiences of migrant women whose livelihood struggles remain under-researched across southern africa. part 4 consists of three chapters focusing on children’s and mothers’ migration and mobility experiences. in chapter ten, kearabetswe mokoene and grace khunou discuss the ugly face of migration when mothers in historically migrant families are compelled by circumstances to migrate, leaving their children behind. in chapter eleven, chioma joyce onukogu employs the conceptual lens of resilience theory to unpack the experiences and the challenges facing second-generation nigerian children confronted with identity issues and the burden of being “migrant children” or “refugee children.” in chapter twelve, betty chiyangwa and pragna rugunanan show how interwoven structural and social factors in the rural area of bushbuckridge in mpumalanga (south africa) shape the lived experiences of mozambican migrant children. part 5 discusses the role of identity politics in migration studies, and it consists of three chapters. chapter thirteen by karabo sitto examines how african migrants in south africa are reconstructing their identities in transnational spaces. in chapter fourteen, anthony kaziboni’s discursive analysis of the social problem of xenophobia in south africa explores the connections between apartheid racism and post-apartheid xenophobia. however, some readers might find his argument that xenophobia is rooted in the country’s racist past unconvincing, especially when one considers that most victims of xenophobic violence by black south africans are migrants from other african countries. in chapter fifteen, biniam misgun explores 9 how ethiopian migrants in south africa construct their social identities and livelihoods in urban spaces where xenophobic violence continues to be challenging. part 6, on workers’ rights and new forms of work, consists of the book’s final three chapters, which examine the challenges african foreign migrants experience in their efforts to make a livelihood through formal employment in south african cities. chapters sixteen and seventeen, by johannes machinya and aisha lorgat, respectively, provide nuanced analyses that reveal the dynamics of migrant worker exploitation and exclusion from various forms of worker associations, including trade unions. finally, in chapter eighteen, nomkhosi xulu-gama and pragna rugunanan provide a well-crafted conclusion to the migrant question that calls for new ways of theorizing migration in southern africa and telling women’s and children’s migration stories. migration in southern africa is an informative book that brings a southern conceptual focus to the scholarship on the sociology and geography of migration and mobility in southern africa. the book has gone a long way in providing a unique lens through which the challenges that both internal and international migrants experience are exposed. it is worth reading if one seeks to understand south-south migration beyond the traditional western gaze. prof daniel tevera, university of the western cape, south africa impact of internal migration on school enrollment and completion rates in south africa 94 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region leah ndimurwimo* and michaela jahnig** received 09 june 2022 / accepted 04 november 2022 / published 27 january 2023 there are three ways by which nationality can be acquired: by descent, birth on the territory, or naturalisation. however, the determination of nationality remains ambiguous, and statelessness is becoming a major concern in the southern african region. statelessness often occurs due to the lacunae found in the laws, policies, and practices of states that deny individuals their right to nationality, at birth or later in life. stateless persons become unfairly marginalised and denied their basic human rights and access to services, legal protection, and recognition. statelessness is not only harmful to stateless persons themselves but can destabilise the society in which such persons live. cross-border and permanent displacement due to the impacts of climate change is among the factors that can cause statelessness. persons who are unable to prove their nationality often can be regarded as stateless. this article investigates how statelessness can be associated with cross-border and permanent displacement due to the impacts of climate change. it uses case studies of south africa, mozambique, and tanzania. it evaluates the likelihood that such circumstances may lead to uncertain rights and legal statuses of stateless persons, issues that have the potential to be passed on to subsequent generations. the article concludes that climate change has farreaching stateless implications. it recommends the law and policy review as among the possible solutions for effectively preventing statelessness and protecting and promoting stateless persons' rights in the southern african region. keywords: statelessness, cross-border and permanent displacement, impact of climate change, southern african region ____________________ *nelson mandela university, south africa. corresponding author.  leah.ndimurwimo@mandela.ac.za ** university of cape town, south africa. 95 i. introduction the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons defines a stateless person as a person who is not considered a national by any state under the operation of law.1 international law contains various rights and instruments aimed at preventing and reducing statelessness. a failure by states parties to comply with international obligations to address statelessness and grant nationality often leads to irregular citizenship laws, which in turn contribute to statelessness.2 khan refers to childhood statelessness and rightly points out that statelessness is not something that is caused or deserved by the individuals affected.3 for example, children do not have a choice when it comes to their place of birth, the actions of their parents, the identity of their parents, or the actions of the states.4 in africa, the nationality status of a significant number of africans is questionable because their nationalities are doubtful or in dispute.5 without an official connection between an individual and a state, such an individual has neither protection from, nor responsibilities to, the state in which they live.6 without an official connection of a bond between the state and individuals, individuals are not recognised by any state as their nationals, rendering them stateless. the 1948 universal declaration of human rights (udhr) affirms that all individuals are born equal in dignity and human rights.7 article 15 of the udhr provides that the right to a nationality includes the right not to be arbitrarily deprived of one’s nationality. other international human rights instruments such as the 1966 international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr)8 and the 1966 international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (icescr) refer to the realisation of human rights that includes the right to a nationality.8 a topic receiving increasing attention is the relationship between climate change and statelessness. in the words of mcadam, climate change and its effects on human beings are both legally and conceptually inconsistent.10 this article examines the extent to which stateless persons who are permanently displaced across borders due to the impacts of climate change in southern africa are protected by the current international and national regional frameworks addressing statelessness 1 un general assembly, convention relating to the status of stateless persons 28 september 1954, art 1(1). 2 see maría josé recalde vela how far has the protection of the right to nationality under international human rights law progressed from 1923 until the present day? (unpublished llm thesis, tilburg university, 2014) at 10. 3 fatima khan ‘exploring childhood statelessness in south africa’ (2020) 23 pelj at 5. 4 ibid. 5 aimée-noël mbiyozo ‘statelessness: an old problem with new threats’ institute for security studies (iss), 13 november 2019, available at https://issafrica.org/iss-today/statelessness-an-old-problem-with-new-threats, accessed on 09 february 2022. 6 hugh massey ‘unhcr and de facto statelessness’ unhcr legal and protection policy research series lppr/2010/01 april 2010 at 3. 7 universal declaration of human rights, 1948, art 1. 8 international covenant on civil and political rights, 1966, arts 12(4) and 24. 9 international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, art 1. see also the declaration on the human rights of individuals who are not nationals of the country in which they live, adopted by un general assembly resolution 40/144 of 13 december 1985. 10 jane mcadam ‘climate change displacement and international law: complementary protection standards’ unhcr legal and protection policy research series at 8–9. the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 96 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 and displacement. this article uses a contextual analysis by using case studies of south africa, mozambique, and tanzania. these countries were chosen because they are located along the indian ocean and have been prone to rapid-onset disasters, and slow-onset disasters as explained below. also, these countries form part of the southern african region, which is currently faced with the problems of crossborder migration, displacements, and the impact of climate change, which all lead to statelessness situations in the region.11 this article uses a desktop review of current law and literature in the region to assess the normative frameworks for responding to the needs of those individuals who are forced to move from their original places of habitation on account of environmental or climate change. it examines the extent to which existing laws and policies protect forcibly displaced persons who cross international borders in the southern african region due to climate change. it assesses the degree to which a progressive interpretation of the laws and policies is required to expand the protection of stateless persons whose statelessness is caused by the impact of climate change. lastly, the article concludes with recommendations on how statelessness caused by climate change in the southern african region can be dealt with and ultimately eradicated. before addressing the issue of statelessness as a result of climate change and how this problem presents itself in the various jurisdictions selected for this article, it is necessary to briefly set out the global legal framework on statelessness and attempts to eradicate it. ii. regional, continental and global initiatives to eradicate statelessness there have been multiple regional initiatives to reform nationality laws. some examples of these initiatives are the 2015 abidjan declaration of ministers of member states of the economic community of west african states (ecowas) on the eradication of statelessness,12 and the southern african development community (sadc) resolution on the prevention of statelessness and the protection of stateless persons in the sadc region adopted by the sadc parliamentary forum on 13 november 2016.13 other initiatives include the resolution on legal identity for children, adopted in 2016 in lusaka by the 134th inter-parliamentary union assembly,14 which was in line with the first conclusions on statelessness, as adopted by the council of 11 bronwen manby ‘citizenship and statelessness in the member states of the southern african development community’ (december 2020) at 1. see also aimée-noël mbiyozo ‘statelessness in southern africa: time to end it, not promote it’ (2019) institute for security studies: southern africa report 32 at 2. 12 the declaration was adopted on 25 february 2015 by the member states of the economic community of west african states (ecowas) on the occasion of a ministerial conference organised by the united nations high commissioner and ecowas. it underlines, among other things, the need to end statelessness in the ecowas. 13 sadc parliamentary forum, 40th plenary assembly. 14 see the address by mp godfrey farrugia to the 134th ipu assembly held in lusaka, zambia, between 19 and 23 march 2016, available at chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/http://archive.ipu.org/conf-e/134/sr.pdf, accessed on 19 may 2022. 97 the european union (eu) in 2015. the existence of these initiatives is evidence of the seriousness of the problem and the determination to combat statelessness globally. at a continental level, treaties such as the european convention on human rights (echr) of 1950,15 the american convention on human rights (achr) of 1969,16 the african charter on human and people’s rights (achpr) of 198117 and the arab charter on human rights of 1994 were all adopted to promote and protect human rights. the achr, for example, lists five elements on how the right to a nationality should be recognised: the acknowledgement of a general right to a nationality; a provision that requires the state to grant nationality to a child born on its territory by virtue of jus soli18 who would otherwise be stateless; the prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of nationality; the prohibition of discriminatory practices in nationality matters; and allowing the right to change one’s nationality.19 the provisions under the achr prohibit all forms of discriminatory practices and recognise nationality as an essential right. a combination of the above-stated elements makes article 20 of the achr unique and comprehensive in ensuring the protection of an individual’s right to a nationality. article 1 of the draft protocol to the achpr refers to the right to a nationality and the eradication of statelessness in africa.20 the draft protocol to the achpr on the right to nationality in africa of 2015 and the draft protocol to the achpr of 2017 on the specific aspects of the right to a nationality and the eradication of statelessness in africa, among other things, have expanded the definition of stateless persons to include persons who are unable to establish a nationality. this accounts for the specific situations of statelessness that arise in africa such as the cases of undocumented, unaccompanied, and separated refugee children on the continent. at the international level, the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) #ibelong campaign and the united nations high commissioner for refugees global action plan 2014 to 2024 all aim to end statelessness and the unhcr has the mandate to assist stateless refugees.21 the declaration of the international conference on the great lakes region (icglr) on statelessness,22 which was carried out in line with the unhcr’s #ibelong campaign to end statelessness by 2024 (hereafter, the #ibelong campaign), for example, obliges the member states to end statelessness in the great lakes region of africa. this can be viewed as a collective responsibility that hopes to yield positive results. the member states recalled that the right to nationality is fundamental and highlighted how vast the problem of 15 it was opened for signature in rome on 04 november 1950 and came into force on 03 september 1953. 16 it was adopted at the inter-american specialized conference on human rights, san josé, costa rica, 22 november 1969. 17 referred to as the banjul charter, it was adopted on 27 june 1981, oau doc. cab/leg/67/3 rev. 5, 21 i.l.m. 58 (1982) and entered into force on 21 october 1986. 18 it allows a person to become a national as long as they were born on the territory of a given state. 19 achr op cit note 16 art 20. 20 achpr op cit note 17 draft protocol of september 2015. 21 since the unhcr was established on 1 january 1951. 22 the declaration of the international conference on the great lakes region (icglr) on statelessness 27–28 june 2017. 23 ibid. the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 98 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 statelessness is in the region.23 though global, continental, regional, and national appeals and measures have been put in place to promote the right to nationality and to end statelessness, it remains a persistent issue, especially in africa and in the southern african region. at the end of 2015, the unhcr reported that more than 1,021,418 persons were stateless in africa due to armed conflicts and cross-border migration.24 although the unhcr indicators refer to persons who fall under its statelessness mandate as those who are stateless according to this international definition, some countries include people with undetermined nationality and undocumented children in the statelessness definition.25 the total number is therefore likely significantly higher. we acknowledge in this article that there have been initiatives to end statelessness in africa. through the #ibelong campaign and the abidjan declaration on eradication of statelessness,26 the heads of state of the ecowas have also shown that there is a political will to eradicate statelessness. undeniably, there is an indication of a commitment to end statelessness and promote the right to nationality in africa. the african union (au), for example, adopted a draft protocol on the right to a nationality in the african continent. the seven-point plan of action that resulted from the meeting of parliamentarians held on 26 and 27 november 2015 in cape town, focused on the role of parliaments in preventing and ending statelessness.27 this underscores the importance of regional and international cooperation. yet, statelessness in africa remains critical because a large number of stateless persons are not documented.28 the number of stateless persons tends to overlap with undocumented persons whose nationality statuses are unclear.29 given the gravity and uncertainties that can be associated with statelessness, the protection and promotion of the right to nationality in africa, and in the southern african region, in particular, statelessness-related issues and protection of stateless persons, cannot be ignored. the 1954 convention ensures minimum standards of treatment of stateless persons in respect of several economic, social, and cultural rights. these include the right to education, employment, housing, social security, healthcare services and other rights.30 importantly, the convention also guarantees stateless persons a right to identity and travel documents and to administrative assistance. furthermore, the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness establishes an international framework to ensure the right to nationality of every person is protected by adopting 24 unhcr ‘global trends: forced displacement in 2015’ 2015 available at http://www.worldsstateless.org/continents/ africa/stateless-persons-in-africa, accessed on 25 february 2022. 26 ‘ibid. 27 it was adopted in february 2015 by the ecowas to support the unhcr’s global campaign to end statelessness by 2024. 28 ‘the conference on ensuring everyone’s right to nationality: the role of parliaments in preventing and ending statelessness, 26–27 november 2015’ available at http://archive.ipu.org/splz-e/captown15.htm, accessed on 26 march 2022. 29 institute on statelessness and inclusion ‘stateless persons in africa’ available at http://www.worldsstateless.org/continents/africa/stateless-persons-in-africa, accessed on 31 january 2022. 30 ibid. 99 measures that safeguard and prevent statelessness at birth and later in life. this convention is therefore complementary to standards contained in other international and regional human rights treaties. using the african committee of experts on the rights and welfare of the child (the african children’s committee) decision in the case of institute for human rights and development and open society justice initiative (on behalf of children of nubian descent in kenya v the government of kenya (the nubian children case),31 the case has raised an important issue of the need to protect the right to nationality in africa. in the nubian children case, an application was brought as an actio popularis on behalf of nubians in kenya who, despite having lived in the country for more than a century, were denied kenyan nationality. the applicants argued that such denial of the nubian children their right to nationality amounted to the violation of the provisions of the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child of 1990 (acrwc), specifically the rights of nubian children to non-discrimination, nationality, and protection against statelessness, as well as other socio-economic rights like their rights to healthcare and education.32 the african children’s committee emphasised taking cognisance of nationality and statelessness issues. it pointed out that there are negative effects of denying undocumented children’s rights, and of children being vulnerable to unlawful arrests and deportation from their home country.33 additionally, the african children’s committee noted the impact of the denial of nationality to the nubian children on the realisation of socio-economic rights, such as access to healthcare and education, and ordered the kenyan government to report on the implementation measures taken within a period of six months from the date of notification to comply with the african children’s committee’s decision.34 the nubian children case underscores the need for states’ obligation to promote the right to nationality and prevent statelessness to be honoured. despite constitutional guarantees, the fulfilment of basic human needs and giving effect to the fundamental rights of stateless persons face extreme challenges in the southern african region. this is largely due to the failure to realize even the socio-economic needs of a majority of citizens.35 therefore, stateless persons are not likely to benefit from the realization of their basic rights accorded to them under international and regional human rights laws. however, the supreme court of appeal of south africa (sca), while referring to the fundamental human rights in the case of watchenuka v minister of home affairs,36 has reminded us that human dignity has no nationality because it is inherent in all human beings. this includes all stateless persons, 31 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons, arts 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, and 24. 32 institute for human rights and development and open society justice initiative (on behalf of children of nubian descent in kenya v the government of kenya (the nubian children case) decision no 002/com/002/2009. 33 the 1990 african charter on the rights and welfare of the child, arts 2, 4, and 6. 34 nubian children op cit note 31 para 46. 35 nubian children op cit note 31 para 69. 36 international labour organization (ilo) ‘inequality in southern africa: options for redress’ (2013) ilo policy brief at 2, available at https://www.ilo.org/actrav/wcms_230181/lang--en/index.htm, accessed on 10 october 2022. see also ebenezer durojaye & gladys mirugi-mukundi ‘general introduction to poverty and human rights in africa’ in ebenezer durojaye & gladys mirugi-mukundi (eds) exploring the link between poverty and human rights in africa (2020) at 2. the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 100 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 including those who are displaced due to climate change, which this article will now turn to discuss. iii. statelessness associated with permanent cross-border displacement due to the impacts of climate change for the last three decades, since the 1980s, global pollution, and the need to protect the environment have been raised as significant concerns.37 for that reason, the international community has resolved that concerted efforts are needed to regulate how states may use the resources in their territories. in light of this, there are global calls for environmental protection to mitigate the impacts of climate change.38 climate change can lead to displacement in one of several ways — through the total inundation of low-lying island states; through designation by the relevant government of an area as a high-risk zone, unfit for human habitation; and through rapidor slow-onset disasters or weather events.39 furthermore, while displacement is often thought of as being linked to conflict, there are times when that conflict is itself a result of climate change.40 in each of these scenarios, displacement may be internal or across borders, temporary or permanent, and in the end, can lead to statelessness. strauss et al. state that future carbon emissions will determine which areas we can continue to occupy or may have to abandon.41 even with climate change mitigation and more stable global temperatures, the land area and population exposed to additional sea-level rise are likely to continue increasing for centuries.42 therefore, climate change adaptation is still required, since population mobility is inevitable and is among the factors through which statelessness can be created. for 37 see, for example, the montreal protocol of 1987 that binds the member states of the united nations to act in the interests of human safety even in the face of scientific uncertainty. also, the rio conventions — the convention on biological diversity (cbd) of 1992, the united nations convention to combat desertification (unccd) of 1994 (a legally binding treaty that was adopted to address desertification and the effects of drought, it focuses on the protection and restoration of land to ensure a safer, just and sustainable future), and the united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc) of 1992. the rio conventions were all adopted to address the need for adaptation to climate change. for example, the unfccc has been considered as an important international environmental treaty that aims to combat dangerous human activities or interference with the climate system. this includes the recognition of enhanced action and international cooperation on adaptation that is required. in view of this, states parties to the unfccc established the cancun adaptation framework in 2010 to guide the implementation of, and support for such adaptation. subsequently, at the 2011 durban summit, states parties advanced the implementation of the cancun adaptation framework by operationalising various components and reinforcing a long-term commitment to adaptation action in line with the objectives of the unfccc. the kyoto protocol of 1997 extended the commitment of the states parties to the unfccc to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. 38 in legal terms, there were no limitations placed under customary international law to determine and control the effects of pollution. globally, declarations, conventions and treaties were adopted to combat global warming, as stated under the united nations summit on sustainable development goals of 2015, as well as the 2015 paris agreement to combat climate change. 39 walter kälin ‘conceptualising climate-induced displacement’ in jane mcadam (ed) climate change and displacement (2012) at 85. 40 ibid. at 86. 41 benjamin h strauss, scott kulp & anders levermann ‘carbon choices determine us cities committed to futures below sea level’ (2015) 112 pnas 13508–13. 42 celia mcmichael, shouro dasgupta, sonja ayeb-karlsson & ilan kelman ‘a review of estimating population exposure to sea-level rise and the relevance for migration’ (2020) 15 environmental research letters at 21. 101 that reason, addressing the effects of climate change remains imperative. (a) low-lying island states (the sinking state problem) the sinking state problem has in the past been regarded as the quintessential example of displacement and statelessness due to the impacts of climate change. the rise in global temperatures has resulted in rising sea levels, which are predicted to rise as much as 1.7 to 2 metres by 2100 and 2 to 3 metres by 2300. more pessimistic estimates predict that a rise of over 2 metres may be possible by 2100.43 for certain low-lying island states, this means the entire state territory may be inundated with water, rendering the land uninhabitable and forcing the displacement of the state’s population.44 scholars, such as rouleau-dick and farron, opine that these persons may be rendered stateless as their state of origin will cease to exist.45 this opinion is based on the application of the montevideo criteria, as laid out in the montevideo convention.46 according to these criteria, for a state to exist, it must bear the following characteristics: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and a capacity to enter into relations with other states.47 should a low-lying island state be inundated with water, it will no longer bear all these characteristics, and will therefore cease to be a state. for the previous populations of these island states, once the state itself no longer exists, these persons will be made stateless. however, not all scholars agree that this is the case. it may not be correct to assume that these island states will certainly cease to exist, since they may adopt various adaptation strategies that allow the state to continue. for example, they may construct mechanisms to prevent seawater from overwhelming the island land or may purchase land from an existing state for their population to migrate to, should the island become uninhabitable.48 even if these states do lose their territory, this does not necessarily mean that they will cease to exist or be recognised as states. first, as mcadam points out, while fulfilment of the montevideo criteria is necessary for a state to come into existence, subsequently failing to meet one or more of these criteria does not automatically mean that status is lost.49 in fact, there is a general presumption of continuity that supports the continued existence of these states, even where they lose their physical territory.50 therefore, we argue that even where the physical territory of these island states is lost, the state itself continues to exist, and the population thereof is not stateless. 43 etienne piguet ‘climatic statelessness: risk assessment and policy options’ (2019) 45 population and development review at 869. 44 antonio joseph delgrande ‘statelessness in the context of climate change: the applicability of the montevideo criteria to “sinking states”’ (2021) 53 nyujilp at 153. 45 michel rouleau-dick ‘sea level rise and climate statelessness: from ‘too little, too late’ to context-based relevance’ (2021) 3 statelessness & citizenship review 287-308; sue farron ‘the significance of sea-level rise for the continuation of states and the identity of their people’ (2021) 24 pelj. 46 convention on rights and duties of states (montevideo convention), art. 1, dec. 16, 1934, 165 l.n.t.s. 19. 47 ibid. 48 delgrande op cit note 44 at 159. 49 jane mcadam ‘building international approaches to climate change, disasters and displacement’ (2011) 33 windsor yearbook of access to justice at 8. 50 delgrande op cit note 44 at 155. the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 102 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 another argument against the use of the legal framework of statelessness in the scenario of the sinking state is that it is not well suited to the sinking state scenario. assuming that these states would lose their statehood on inundation, rendering their population stateless, this is unlikely to occur contemporaneously with the actual displacement of these persons. the land is likely to become unhabitable long before the territory is completely inundated. the population will therefore be forced to migrate but will not yet be stateless as the state continues to exist. a good example is bangladesh; although the country is not a sinking island state, it is losing significant land on its shoreline due to its high population density and there is nowhere for displaced persons to move internally. therefore, persons displaced from bangladesh are a large asylum-seeking population in the southern african region. there have been bangladesh nationals who come to south africa and other countries in the southern african region intending to seek asylum and settle permanently.51 this is a problem that may not be ignored. there is thus confusion about whether persons displaced in these scenarios would be stateless or not, and whether or not the international statelessness regime is appropriate to protect them. as southern africa is likely to be affected by this problem in future, states in the region will need to rely on their own legal regimes to provide protections to such persons. (b) high-risk zones the impacts of climate change can result in land being unsafe for human habitation.52 there may, therefore, be instances where the government of a state officially designates a certain area of that state as high-risk and unsuitable for human habitation.53 of course, generally in this scenario, the relevant government would be responsible for relocating the affected population.54 affected persons are, therefore, likely to be displaced internally and to be protected primarily by the state’s legal system. however, the situation is far less certain where members of the affected population are already at risk of statelessness. for example, there may be members of the affected population who migrated from another state but do not have an asylum-seeker permit or refugeestatus documentation. there may also be persons who were given asylum-seeker or refugee status but who have lost their documentation. persons located in high-risk areas who do not have identity or registration documents may be unable to prove their nationality. while this does not render such persons automatically stateless, it does increase their risk of statelessness. should this happen in south africa, for 51 the government of south africa ‘high court dismisses case of bangladeshi illegal immigrants against home affairs’ available at https://www.gov.za/high-court-dismisses-case-bangladeshi-illegal-immigrants-against-home-affairs, accessed on 20 april 2022. 52 walter kälin op cit note 39 at 85 and 91. 53 walter kälin op cit note 39 at 91. 54 see world bank ‘operational policy 4.12: involuntary resettlement’ world bank operational manual (washington dc, world bank, 2001); organization for economic cooperation and development (oecd) ‘guidelines on aid and environment: no 3: guidelines for aid agencies on involuntary displacement and resettlement in development projects (paris, oecd, 1992). 103 example, under section 32 of the immigration act 13 of 2002, such persons could be considered illegal foreigners and will be subject to detention and deportation. these individuals, therefore, may be displaced across borders by the operation of the laws of south africa. for such persons to be deported, their nationality must be determined. the lack of documentation makes this process more difficult. should a person in such a scenario in south africa claim to be a citizen of bangladesh, the bangladesh embassy will be called on to conduct a verification process to confirm the person’s nationality. should the embassy declare such a person to not be their citizen, the person would become stateless. the question then becomes, where these persons would be deported to. (c) rapid-onset disasters a rapid-onset disaster or weather event can take many forms, such as flooding and tropical cyclones. the sixth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) has shown that due to climate change, rapid onset disasters have increased in both frequency and severity and that this trend is likely to continue.55 a recent study prepared for the centre for environmental rights found that southern africa is particularly vulnerable to these disasters.56 for instance, during one weekend in april 2022, some areas of kwazulu-natal in south africa received months’ worth of rainfall in only one day. this severe rainfall caused mudslides and flooding that destroyed homes and infrastructure. this has been dubbed one of the worst weather storms in south africa’s history. over three hundred persons lost their lives and thousands more lost their homes as a result of extreme rainfall and flooding.57 similarly, mozambique has borne the brunt of multiple rapid-onset disasters, such as heavy rainfalls and flooding. in 2019, tropical cyclones idai and kenneth made landfall in mozambique, resulting in hundreds of deaths and displacing over two million people. likewise, the impacts of tropical cyclones idai and kenneth were felt in tanzania while other tropical cyclones of 1872 and 1952, tropical cyclones fantala and jobo of 2016 and 2021 respectively, were recorded in both zanzibar and mainland tanzania.58 due to these tropical cyclones, people became homeless while 55 intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) sixth assessment report ‘regional fact sheet – africa’ 2021, available at https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/factsheets/ipcc_ar6_wgi_regional_fact_sheet_africa. pdf, accessed on 17 may 2022. 56 robert scholes & francois engelbrecht ‘climate impacts in southern africa during the 21st century, report for the centre for environmental rights’ september 2021 at 4, global change institute at the university of witwatersrand, available at https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/climate-impacts-in-south-africa_final_september_2021. final_.pdf, accessed on 27 september 2022. see also lere amusan & oluwole olutola ‘addressing climate change in southern africa’ (2016) 72 indian quarterly at 395. 57 bbc ‘durban floods: south africa floods kill more than 300’ available at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61092334, accessed on 14 april 2022. 58 kombi hamad kai, mohammed khamis ngwali & masoud makame ‘assessment of the impacts of tropical cyclone fantala to tanzania coastal line: case study of zanzibar’ (2021) 11 atmospheric and climate sciences at 245. the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 104 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 others lost their lives.59 in january 2022, tropical cyclone ana hit northern and central mozambique, affecting 180,869 people. less than two months later, tropical cyclone gombe devastated mozambique’s nampula province with heavy flooding, displacing tens of thousands of people.60 generally, this displacement happens internally. however, displacement across borders due to rapid onset disasters does, and will likely continue to occur, especially in scenarios where the government of the state in which the disaster occurs is unable or unwilling to provide humanitarian assistance to those affected by it.61 it is generally believed that this displacement will be temporary, as affected persons will be able to return once the disaster or extreme weather event subsides, but this is not always the case. as stated, the government may not be able or willing to address the damage caused by the disaster, or the nature of the damage may be such that it renders the land permanently unsafe for return. in these scenarios, persons may find themselves permanently displaced across borders. when this displacement is combined with other factors, such as poor birth registration, loss of identity documentation, or protracted periods of displacement, such persons are at serious risk of statelessness. (d) slow-onset disasters like rapid-onset disasters, slow-onset disasters or weather events are scientifically proven to have increased as a result of climate change and will likely continue to increase in both frequency and severity.62 examples include rising sea levels and desertification. like rapid-onset disasters, displacement due to slow-onset disasters is likely to be internal. as stated above, the primary responsibility for providing aid and security for internally displaced persons (idps) falls on the relevant state. idps are often also assisted by humanitarian organisations, such as the unhcr. an unfortunate reality is that governments may be unable or unwilling to help, and the unhcr is limited in what it can do by the funding it receives. external migration 59 hellen e msemo, declan l finney & samwel i mbuya ‘forgotten accounts of tropical cyclones making landfall in tanzania’ (2022) 77 weather at 127; and pedram javaheri ‘a rare tropical cyclone is approaching one of africa's most populated cities’ cnn 22 april 2021, available at https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/22/weather/jobo-forecast-tanzania-tropical-cyclone/index.html, accessed on 21 april 2022. 60 unhcr ‘unhcr and partners rush aid to thousands in mozambique after tropical cyclone gombe’ 22 march 2022, available at https://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2022/3/623992774/unhcr-partners-rush-aid-thousands-mozambique-tropical-cyclone-gombe.html, accessed on 30 march 2022. 62 unhcr ‘climate change and statelessness: an overview’ 15 may 2009, available at https://www.unhcr.org/protection/ environment/4a1e50082/climate-change-statelessness-overview.html, accessed on 15 february 2022. see also cedaw general recommendation no. 37 on gender-related dimensions of disaster risk reduction in the context of climate change pursuant to article 21(1) of the convention dated 7 february 2018. 62 ipcc ‘special report on land desertification’ available at https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-3/, accessed on 10 october 2022; robert scholes & francois engelbrecht ‘climate impacts in southern africa during the 21st century, report for the centre for environmental rights’ september 2021, global change institute at the university of witwatersrand, available at https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/climate-impacts-in-south-africa_final_september_2021.final_.pdf, accessed on 27 september 2022. 105 is therefore the only remaining option. it may also not be possible for affected persons to migrate internally where population density does not allow it, as is the case in bangladesh, or where the entire territory of the country is affected by the same problem. somalia has been plagued by the worst drought the nation has seen in over four decades. over one million persons have been displaced due to the harsh climate and uninhabitable land.63 in such instances, affected person would be forced to migrate across borders. in the case of somalia, persons may even be forced to cross multiple borders, as many of the other states in the region are also drought-stricken.64 unlike rapid-onset disasters, such displacement is more likely to be permanent, as the reason for the displacement is the land becoming uninhabitable.65 such protracted displacement scenarios place persons at an increased risk of statelessness.66 (e) conflict due to the impacts of climate change conflict has historically been thought of as one of the biggest contributors to crossborder displacement.68 while this is true, recent research suggests that much of this conflict may, in fact, be driven by the impacts of climate change.68 for instance, where resources are limited due to drought or increasing water salinisation due to sea-level rise, confl ict over these limited resources may lead to displacement.70 links have been found between repeated internal displacement due to disasters and conflict in states such as mozambique and angola.70 persons who flee this conflict into foreign states are also at risk of becoming stateless. in all the above scenarios, from rapid-onset disasters to climate change-driven 63 unhcr ‘somalis abandon their homes in search of food, water and aid as drought deepens’ 29 september 2022, available at https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2022/9/633419134/somalis-abandon-homes-search-food-water-aiddrought-deepens.html, accessed on 03 october 2022. 64 shazia chaudhry & james ouda ‘perspective on the rights of climate migrants in the horn of africa: a case study of somalia’ (2021) 8 journal of somali studies at 13. 65 walter kälin op cit note 39 at 89 and 90. 66 ajwang warria ‘stateless transnational migrant children in south africa: implications and opportunities for social work intervention’ (2020) 6 ahmr at 6. 67 fatima khan & nandi rayner ‘a historical overview of forcibly displaced persons in southern africa (2011–2020): realising the expectations of the global compact on refugees’ reference paper for the 70th anniversary of the 1951 refugee convention 2020, available at https://www.unhcr.org/people-forced-to-flee-book/wp-content/uploads/ sites/137/2021/10/fatima-khan-and-nandi-rayner-_a-historical-overview-of-forcibly-displaced-persons-in-southern-africa.pdf, accessed on 19 september 2022. see also allison j petrozziello ‘statelessness as a product of slippery statecraft: a global governance view of current causes, actors and debates’ (2019) 1 statelessness & citizenship review at 136. ipcc annual report 5, 2014 at 16, available at https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/syr_ar5_final_full. pdf, accessed on 10 october 2022. see also unfccc executive committee of the warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage associated with climate change impacts ‘technical meeting action area 6: migration, displacement and human mobility’ 2016 at 3, available at https://unfccc.int/files/adaptation/groups_committees/loss_and_damage_executive_committee/application/pdf/excom_iom_technical_meeting_aa6_pillar_2_coordination_and_coherence.pdf, accessed on 10 october 2022. 68 ipcc annual report 5, 2014 at 16, available at https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/syr_ar5_final_ full.pdf, accessed on 10 october 2022. see also unfccc executive committee of the warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage associated with climate change impacts ‘technical meeting action area 6: migration, displacement and human mobility’ 2016 at 3, available at https://unfccc.int/files/adaptation/groups_committees/loss_and_damage_executive_committee/application/pdf/excom_iom_technical_meeting_aa6_pillar_2_coordination_and_coherence. pdf, accessed on 10 october 2022. 69 shazia chaudhry & james ouda op cit note 64 at 24. 70 leah a ndimurwimo & leonard c opara ‘access to justice for internally displaced persons: the global legal order’ (2019) 6 journal of law society and development at 8. the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 106 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 conflict, displacement across borders does not automatically result in statelessness or a lack of protection. depending on where persons are displaced and for how long, they may be protected by existing international and domestic legal instruments and may qualify as asylum seekers or refugees. the following section explores how the scenarios discussed above can result in statelessness and leave displaced persons without protection. iv. circumstances may lead to uncertain rights and legal statuses of stateless persons various legal frameworks exist internationally and regionally aimed at the protection of persons forced or compelled to abandon their homes. the application of these frameworks depends on the nature of forced displacement. there are two types of forced displacement: internal and external.71 internal displacement refers to the situation where persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalised violence, violations of human rights, or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognised state border.72 on the other hand, external displacement refers to situations where persons or groups of persons are forced or compelled to leave their country and seek sanctuary in or protection of another country. depending on the nature of the displacement, the affected persons may fall into the categories of refugees (or asylum seekers), stateless persons, or idps. affected persons may fall into more than one of these categories and have the rights and protections of more than one framework.73 in each of the scenarios discussed in section iii, the persons displaced may be at risk of statelessness, but depending on how they were displaced, and on what state they ultimately find themselves in, they will enjoy different rights, statuses, and protections. (a) statelessness status before dealing with how the status of such persons will be determined, it is necessary to elaborate on how the above scenarios can lead to statelessness specifically. while in the past, the focus has been on statelessness due to loss of statehood in the sinking state scenario, recently it has been acknowledged that statelessness is more likely to result in other discussed scenarios, that is, in the case of rapidor slow-onset disasters, or climate change-induced conflict. this can occur because when persons are forced to migrate, they may lose their identity and registration documentation in the process.74 this is especially true, for example, in the case of a rapid-onset disaster, 71 walter kälin op cit note 39 at 92. 72 internal displacement, available at https://www.internal-displacement.org/internal-displacement. 73 walter kälin op cit note 39 at 92. 74 unhcr ‘statelessness and climate change factsheet’ 29 october 2021, available at https://www.refworld.org/ docid/617c01da4.html, accessed on 7 february 2022. 107 such as flooding, where documentation may be swept away in flood waters. affected persons may then be unable to be re-issued with documentation due to limited or no public services in the affected areas.75 it is also possible that displaced persons were never in possession of identity or registration of birth documents and were therefore always at risk of being undocumented and potentially stateless, which risk is then exacerbated by the displacement, as they may be unable to return to their country of origin as they are unable to prove their nationality. the lack of documentation in itself, does not cause statelessness, as nationality can be proven in other ways. but the absence of documentation can make this process more difficult and for that reason can heighten the risk of a person being unable to prove their nationality and therefore becoming stateless. statelessness is also a possibility where single mothers, displaced across borders as a result of the impacts of climate change, give birth while displaced. should the mother in question originate from a country that follows only the jus soli principle of nationality determination at birth, the child will not have the same nationality as its mother, because it was not born in the mother’s state of origin. the state in which the mother gives birth may have laws that address this issue, but these laws do not always provide effective protection.76 for example, in south africa, section 2 of the south african citizenship act 88 of 1995 states that citizenship by birth may be acquired by children born in south africa who would otherwise be stateless. however, in practice, this law is rarely applied properly. often officials assume the child acquired its mother’s nationality at birth. often births to foreign nationals are not adequately registered or recorded in south africa, making it difficult to prove that the birth did, in fact, occur in south africa and that section 2 applies.77 the protection of these laws is therefore limited and statelessness in childhood can result. irrespective of how persons came to be stateless, should their stateless status not be resolved, another risk is that of generational statelessness. for persons displaced permanently across borders due to the impacts of climate change, they will pass on their stateless status to their children, who will in turn pass it on to their children, unless the laws of southern african nations develop to address this issue. (b) determination of statelessness status another important consideration in assessing the rights and status of stateless persons displaced by the impacts of climate change is how their status as a stateless person is determined, if at all. the majority of states in the southern african region have not ratified either the 1954 or 1961 statelessness conventions. in mozambique, where both have been ratified, a person may be considered de jure stateless if they meet the definition of a stateless person in article 1 of the 1954 convention. they would then be entitled to the protections offered by the 1954 convention. however, 75 ibid. 76 ibid. 77 fatima khan op cit note 3 at 17. the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 108 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 in south africa or tanzania, neither convention has been ratified and there are no procedures for determining statelessness. in either of these countries, therefore, a person may be deemed at risk of statelessness or de facto stateless, but not de jure stateless as there is no mechanism for making this status determination. while the 1954 convention encourages states to treat de facto stateless persons as de jure stateless persons, this is a recommendation rather than a requirement and is therefore not binding, even on those states that have ratified the 1954 convention. in any event, should displaced persons find themselves in south africa or tanzania, they will not be entitled to protection under the statelessness conventions. in mozambique, only de jure stateless persons may receive protection under these conventions. none of these jurisdictions has legislation dealing with statelessness as a result of climate change or climate-induced displacement specifically. the importance of ratifying and domesticating the statelessness conventions, and of legislatively addressing climateinduced displacement, is therefore evident. (c) refugee status there is general agreement that persons displaced by climate change do not qualify as refugees as the refugee situation is defined in a political context.78 the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees defines the term refugee as a person who, owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.79 persons fleeing the impacts of climate change do not satisfy the requirement of persecution.80 they are not persecuted on the grounds of who they are or what they believe in. even if the definition of persecution could be extended, since weather events are non-discriminatory, it would not be possible to show persecution on one of the established grounds (race, religion, etc.). certain persons displaced by climate change may qualify for refugee status and the rights and protections that flow therefrom, where climate change and its impacts have led to conflict. those persons displaced by conflict, where climate change and its impacts were a driver for 78 shazia chaudhry and james ouda op cit note 64 at 16. 79 the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees, art 1a(2). 80 see, for example, ioane teitiota v new zealand ccpr/c/127/d/2728/2016, un human rights committee (hrc), 7 january 2020. the hrc stated that the applicant’s deportation was not unlawful because he did not face an immediate danger to his life on kiribati island. the hrc recognised that climate change represents a serious threat to the right to life, which must be considered when dealing with the deportation of asylum seekers. 109 that conflict, will likely qualify as refugees, even under this restricted definition of a refugee. the 1969 convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa has a slightly more expansive definition of refugee, which includes every person who, owing to … events seriously disturbing public order in either part or the whole of his country of origin or nationality, is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge in another place outside his country of origin or nationality.81 section 3 of south africa’s refugees act 130 of 1998 defines the term refugee in such a way that encompasses the expanded definition. some scholars are of the opinion that persons displaced across borders by rapid-onset disaster will likewise qualify as refugees under the more expansive definition of refugee in both the 1969 convention and south africa’s refugees act.82 however, this is uncertain, and the provision will likely be interpreted as applying to situations involving conflict or violence, and not environmental degradation. to be a refugee is not the same as being stateless, and qualifying for a refugee status does not solve the issue of statelessness of these persons. it does, however, afford them rights and protections that other displaced persons may not have. (d) humanitarian and human rights law for those persons who are permanently displaced across borders due to slow-onset disasters or weather events, the rights and protections available to them may also be under international human rights and humanitarian law. for some, these may be the only rights and protections available to them. unless these persons find themselves in mozambique and are legally determined to be stateless, they will not be afforded the rights and protections of the statelessness conventions. they are also unlikely to qualify as refugees even under the more expansive definition. one of the major reasons for this is that migration due to slow-onset disasters or weather events is often seen as voluntary, or as forced displacement in the economic context and not in the political context. persons will tend to leave before the land becomes completely uninhabitable. whether this is voluntary or apolitical in the truest sense is subject to academic debate,83 but it is sufficient to disqualify such persons from refugee status. it is important to note that humanitarian and human rights law protections are also available to other groups of displaced persons. however, for those who qualify as refugees or de jure stateless, the protection offered is greater than for those who must rely solely on international human rights and humanitarian law. since these rights are limited, it is important for southern african nations to better adapt their laws on statelessness to deal with the problem of statelessness flowing from or due to 81 the 1969 oau convention, art 1(2). 82 grant dawson and rachel laut ‘human mobility and climate change’ (2017) 8 international humanitarian legal studies at 147. 83 ibid. at 132. the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 110 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 climate change, especially since it is widely agreed that the effects of climate change on southern africa are only likely to get worse. v. promoting the rights of stateless persons in the southern african region as discussed, the problem of cross-border displacement leading to statelessness in the southern african region due to the impacts of climate change is challenging. this section discusses the current legal regimes in south africa, mozambique, and tanzania. it assesses the sufficiency and effi cacy of these regimes when it comes to addressing statelessness due to climate change, and makes certain recommendations based on this assessment. (a) south africa (i) current legal framework in the nottebohm case, the international court of justice (icj) defined nationality as a legal bond between an individual and the state, as it is the basis for a social fact of attachment, a genuine connection of existence, interest, and sentiments, together with the existence of reciprocal rights and duties.84 while south africa is not a party to either statelessness convention, it is a party to several international legal instruments governing the right to a nationality. article 15 of the 1948 universal declaration of human rights states that ‘everyone has the right to a nationality’ and that ‘no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor denied the right to change his nationality’.85 the 1989 united nations convention on the rights of the child (crc) states that all children are entitled to a name, the right to acquire a nationality, and immediate birth registration.86 the 1990 acrwc likewise provides that every child has the right to acquire a nationality.87 it also provides for the acquisition of the nationality of the child’s country of birth in cases where the child would otherwise be stateless.88 article 9(1) of the 1979 convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw) obliges states to provide equal rights to men and women with regard to acquiring, changing and passing on nationality.89 by protecting the right to nationality, the above-mentioned instruments serve the purpose of preventing statelessness. as a party to each of these instruments, south africa is obliged to: respect and protect the right to nationality; ensure gender 84 liechtenstein v guatemala icj (1955) icj reports 23. 85 united nations universal declaration of human rights op cit note 7. 86 the 1989 united nations convention on the rights of the child, art 7. 87 acrwc op cit note 32, art 6. 88 acrwc op cit note 32, art 6(4). 89 united nations convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw) (1979). 111 equality in nationality laws; and protect the rights of children to acquire a nationality. in light of this, south africa has attempted to domesticate these instruments in national legislation.90 the importance of nationality is clearly acknowledged in the final constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996 (the constitution). section 20 states that no citizen may be deprived of citizenship.91 section 28(a), pertaining to the rights of the child, states that every child has the right to nationality from birth.92 the south african citizenship act gives effect to south africa’s international law obligations, as well as the rights and spirit of the constitution.93 this right in the constitution does not guarantee a right to south african nationality, but rather to a nationality.94 only children born to a south african parent will acquire south african nationality at birth.95 children born to foreign parents will acquire the nationality of their parents, based on the nationality laws of their parent’s country of citizenship. where the laws of this country do not allow this, for example as discussed above, where the country follows a system of jus soli, then the child can acquire south african nationality, as it would otherwise be rendered stateless.96 it is important to note that the current legal framework discussed hereunder is currently under review, with the minister of home affairs, aaron motsoaledi, suggesting that these various pieces of legislation are likely to be amended and may be consolidated.97 this discussion is based on the law as it currently is and as it should be. the citizenship act (as amended) has the potential to prevent and reduce statelessness as it has various sections that allow for the acquisition of south african citizenship by non-citizens.98 section 2(2) provides for the acquisition of south african citizenship at birth by a child born in south africa if that child would otherwise be stateless. section 4(3) provides for the acquisition of citizenship, upon reaching majority, by children born to non-south african citizens or permanent residents, who have their births registered in terms of the births and deaths registration,99 and who live in south africa until the age of eighteen. both of these sections, if consistently and properly applied, can prevent the statelessness of children born to foreigners on south african soil. the immigration act has the potential to reduce statelessness and provide protection to those persons who are already stateless.100 currently, the act, and the 90 the south african citizenship act no. 88 of 1995. 91 the constitution of the republic of south africa 1996. 92 ibid. 93 citizenship act op cit note 90. 94 raylene keightley ‘the child’s right to a nationality and the acquisition of citizenship in south african law’ (1998) sajhr 411. 95 citizenship act op cit note 90, section 2(1). 96 citizenship act op cit note 90, section 2(2). 97 business day ‘statelessness in the spotlight as home affairs to review three acts’ 27 january 2022, available at https:// www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2022-01-26-statelessness-in-spotlight-as-home-affairs-to-review-three-acts/, accessed on 29 april 2022. 98 citizenship act op cit note 90. 99 the births and deaths registration act no. 51 of 1992. 100 the immigration act no. 13 of 2002. the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 112 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 regulations thereto, make no mention of stateless persons and how to admit or assist such persons. the act requires applications for visas or permits to be made from outside the country. in this context, it does not cater for those persons who are stateless and unable to travel across borders. it nevertheless can be used to reduce statelessness and protect stateless persons through the application of section 31(2) (b). section 31(2)(b) of the immigration act may offer potential relief for stateless persons, as it provides for an application to be made to the minister for an exemption for permanent residence. this offers an alternative route to permanent residence for persons in special circumstances who have not been living in the country for over five years. the application can be made by an individual or category of foreigners and allows the minister to grant a foreigner or category of foreigners the rights of permanent residence when special circumstances exist. it could be argued that persons displaced due to climate change are a category of persons that meets section 31(2)(b) requirements because their displacement due to the impacts of climate change constitutes special circumstances. persons who have been displaced across borders and rendered stateless as a result of climate change find themselves in special circumstances because they cannot be returned to or relocated within their country, as, as stateless persons, they have no determined country. the use of this section will also not be necessary for persons who, while displaced as a result of climate change, qualify for refugee status. it may, therefore, be possible for stateless persons to use this exemption to acquire, if not citizenship, then at the very least permanent residence and the rights accompanying that status. the refugees act, while not directly concerned with the issue of statelessness, can be used to protect stateless persons who also qualify as refugees.101 in terms of section 3 of the refugees act, a person qualifies for refugee status if that person — (a) owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted by reason of his or her race, tribe, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group, is outside the country of his or her nationality and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country, or, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his or her former habitual residence is unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to return to it; or (b) owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing or disrupting public order in either a part or the whole of his or her country of origin or nationality, is compelled to leave his or her place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge elsewhere … this is discussed more fully in section (ii) below. the potential of the above legislative provisions to prevent and reduce statelessness, as well as protect stateless persons, depends on how the legislation is interpreted and applied in practice. when interpreting the sections of the citizenship act, for example, the words 101 the refugees act no. 30 of 1998. 113 of the constitutional court in the case of chisuse and others v director-general, department of home affairs and another 102 must be borne in mind. the court herein states that citizenship goes to the core of a person’s identity, belonging, and security of person, and that the spirit and purport of the citizenship act is to widen pathways to south african citizenship, not to narrow them.103 unfortunately, in practice, officials in the department of home affairs, when applying these sections, do so in a far more restrictive manner. for instance, in the case of minister of home affairs v jose, two brothers applied for south african citizenship under section 4(3) of the citizenship act after turning eighteen. both satisfied all the requirements of section 4(3). the department of home affairs was also ordered by the high court to grant citizenship to the brothers. despite all of this, the matter proceeded to the sca due to undue delays in granting the citizenship application. the sca stated that once all the requirements of section 4(3) are met, citizenship must be granted and there is no room for discretion. the sca shed light on the plight of the applicants who were forced to live as non-citizens in the only country they had ever known.104 this case is one example of the discrepancy between the laws of south africa aimed at preventing and reducing statelessness, versus the practice in south africa which may be exacerbating the problem. when it comes to the refugees act, there is a similar problem, in that the interpretation of the act may be over-restrictive, thereby limiting the potential protections available to stateless persons. the high court held in the case of radjabu v chairperson of the standing committee for refugee affairs and others105 that when deciding an application for refugee status according to section 3(b) of the refugees act, two inquiries are necessary. the first inquiry is into whether any of the circumstances stipulated in section 3(b) exist in the country of origin (the objective inquiry). the second inquiry is more subjective and looks at whether those circumstances were the cause of the individuals being compelled to leave. compulsion rather than volition must have been the predominant reason for leaving. the court also states when deciding a refugee status, section 6 of the act requires a humanitarian approach, which considers human welfare and the alleviation of human suffering.106 this judgement has been cited with approval by the high court in the case of fnm v rab.107 the constitutional court, in the case of ruta v minister of home affairs, seems to have given the section a stricter interpretation, stating that for refugee status under section 3(b), asylum-seekers who flee external disruption must have left their habitual residence under compulsion.108 the constitutional court seems to require that compulsion be the reason for fleeing, rather than the predominant reason for fleeing, as indicated by the high court in the radjabu case. 102 chisuse and others v director-general, department of home affairs and another 2020 (6) sa 14 (cc). 103 ibid. 104 minister of home affairs and others v jose and another 2021 (6) sa 369 (sca). 105 radjabu v chairperson of the standing committee for refugee affairs and others [2015] 1 all sa 100 (wcc). 106 ibid. 107 fnm v rab and others [2018] 4 all sa 8 (gp). 108 ruta v minister of home affairs 2019 (3) bclr 383 (cc). the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 114 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 since the constitutional court is the highest court in the land, it appears that its interpretation in ruta v minister of home affairs must be given to section 3(b). this is an unfortunate interpretation, especially when dealing with persons displaced across borders by slow-onset disasters due to the impacts of climate change. this is discussed in more detail in section (ii) below. (ii) does the current framework offer sufficient protection? clearly, any protection offered by the existing legal framework in south africa is limited by restrictive interpretation and implementation. however, the question to be explored is whether there is still potential for this framework to address statelessness, specifically where it is a result of cross-border displacement arising from the conflict, or violence due to the impacts of climate change. this question is considered in relation to persons displaced in the various scenarios discussed above. to respond to the above question, the underlying questions are, whether the legal framework offers sufficient protection for those persons displaced across borders and thereby rendered stateless; and whether the current legal framework is sufficient to protect those born stateless within south africa’s territory. first, the sufficiency of the current framework differs depending on the nature of the displacement leading to stateless persons being in south africa. for persons displaced due to conflict or violence, which was driven by the impacts of climate change, as discussed above, these persons will be more likely to qualify for refugee status and will therefore be protected under the refugees act. while this does not solve the issue of their statelessness immediately, it does ensure that they enjoy certain rights and protections. in the long run, refugee protection requires the country of asylum to integrate refugees into their society and to naturalise them as citizens as durable solutions to their protracted displacement. for persons displaced by sudden-onset disasters, as discussed above, these persons may qualify as refugees under the more expansive definition of refugees, as suggested in the ioane teitiota v new zealand case(the kiribati case), as they fled their country of origin due to events seriously disturbing the public order and their lives being in danger.109 south africa does not yet have case law on whether this interpretation would be accepted and the provisions of section 3 of the refugees act do not clarify the issue. therefore, while there is potential for protection, the law is still uncertain. the situation for those displaced by slow-onset disasters is even more uncertain, since they likely do not qualify as refugees, even under the expanded definition, since there is arguably, a voluntary element in their displacement. however, if the reasoning of the court in radjabu could be followed, it would allow for a more flexible approach to refugee status applications. for those displaced by slow-onset disasters, even though there may be an element of volition in their movement, compulsion was 109 ioane teitiota v new zealand op cit note 80. 115 the predominant reason for their displacement, and they can therefore potentially qualify as refugees. both those displaced persons due to slowand sudden-onset disasters would benefit from the humanitarian approach to the protection of displaced people. hence, section 3(b) of the refugees act covers non-political events disrupting the public order, thereby causing human suffering and a more humanitarian approach generally, as discussed by the court in radjabu. this approach could be used to support an application for refugee status even where all technical requirements are not met. however, since the constitutional court in ruta seems to have taken a more restrictive approach, it is unlikely that those displaced by slow-onset disasters, and even those displaced by sudden-onset disasters, will qualify as refugees. the exemption application in section 31(2)(b) of the immigration act offers an alternative source of relief for these stateless persons. to repeat the essence of this provision — the minister can grant a category of foreigners the rights of permanent residence, should special circumstances exist.110 the position taken by the authors of this article is that stateless persons, displaced across borders due to the impacts of climate change, could qualify as a category of persons and that the impacts of climate change, such as drought, flooding, and desertification, could qualify as special circumstances if they are permanent and thus a cause of protracted displacement. the risks inherent in relying on this exemption provision are that the application will undoubtedly take time, and these persons may not have rights or protections in the interim, such as asylum-seekers do while awaiting the outcome of refugee status applications. another potential risk is that permanent residence rights and status can be granted for a specified period.111 for those who are able to return to their country of origin, this may not be an issue, but for those who are unable to, this leaves them without protection once this period comes to an end. the minister will also be required to consider these applications without supporting documentation, such as passports and visas, which these persons will not have. there is therefore potential in south africa’s current immigration and refugee legal frameworks to protect stateless persons displaced across borders due to the impacts of climate change, but without development, it is unlikely that this legislation will provide much protection or relief. with regard to the second question, many people who have been displaced due to the impacts of climate change and find themselves across the border in south africa, may give birth while in the territory. these children may be stateless at birth, either due to the problem of generational statelessness, i.e., their parents also being stateless and therefore having no nationality to pass to the child,112 or due to the nature of the nationality laws in the parents’ country of origin, such as where a state uses only the jus soli principle to determine nationality or does not allow single 110 immigration act op cit note 100, section 31(2)(b). 111 section 31(2)(b) states that permanent residence can be granted for a specified period of time, and section 31(2)(b)(ii) states that the right can be withdrawn if good cause is shown. 112 see centre for child law v director general, department of home affairs and others 2020 (6) sa 199 (ecg). the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 116 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 mothers to pass their nationality on to a child.113 in theory, if section 2(2) of the citizenship act were applied perfectly and consistently, there would be no children born stateless in south africa. once it is identified that the child would otherwise be stateless, they should be granted south african citizenship. in other words, if a child is born in south africa with no right to any other nationality, that child must be given south african nationality, otherwise, that child would be stateless. section 4(3) bolsters this protection by providing for the acquisition of citizenship at the age of eighteen, where it was not acquired at birth. the letter of the law is therefore in compliance with south africa’s international obligations and constitutional duty to prevent and reduce statelessness. however, as is evidenced by the jose case discussed above, these sections are not successfully applied in practice. one reason for this, in the case of section 4(3) specifically, is that there are no regulations which have been promulgated that may assist officials from the department of home affairs to implement the provisions of section 4(3), thereby processing these applications. in 2018, the sca in the case of minister of home affairs v ali ordered the minister to make regulations in relation to section 4(3), and that pending promulgation applications for citizenship be accepted in affidavit form, but at the time of writing this article, no regulations have yet been promulgated.114 furthermore, with regards to section 2(2), in the case of children born to refugees, for example, no consideration is given at the time of birth to whether these children could be stateless. they are simply assigned the nationality of their parents. this does not amount to a formal assigning of citizenship or nationality that will be recognised by the child’s supposed home country, as south african officials cannot grant nationality of another country. this practice is also contrary to the provisions of section 2(2) because it prevents these children from acquiring south african citizenship, when under section 2(2) they should be able to do so. in sum, while the legislation in south africa does go some of the way towards preventing and reducing statelessness, it does not go far enough. (iii) recommendations the first and most obvious step south africa could take towards reducing statelessness and protecting stateless persons would be to accede to both statelessness conventions. acceding to the 1954 convention in particular, will oblige south africa to adopt a status determination procedure, which it does not currently have, to legally classify individuals as stateless. it will also provide minimum standards of treatment or rights due to these individuals. for those who are displaced across borders due to climate change, and do not qualify as refugees, this is a vital safeguard of their human rights. south africa has pledged several times over the decades to 113 such as is the case with somalian nationals, although there is a citizenship amendment bill which, if passed, will allow both mothers and fathers with somalian nationality to pass this nationality on to their children. 114 minister of home affairs v ali (1289/17) [2018] zasca 169 (30 november 2018). 117 accede to both statelessness conventions.115 there is therefore at least some political will supporting this step. another step the legislature can take is to clarify the requirements for refugee status under the refugees act. section 3(b) could be amended to explicitly include persons displaced across borders due to the impacts of climate change. alternatively, an entire new sub-section could be included under section 3 dealing with these persons specifically. again, while this will not solve the statelessness problem, it will provide interim protection, and can eventually lead to citizenship through naturalisation.116 in relation to preventing and reducing statelessness, the legislature could promulgate regulations for the various sections of the citizenship act, which are aimed at preventing statelessness and which currently do not have regulations. this would enable the department of home affairs officials to better understand what is required of them and may lead to a reduction in statelessness for those born in south africa to parents who were displaced by the impacts of climate change. unfortunately, both amending the refugees act and promulgating regulations to sections of the citizenship act require political will to welcome and provide a safe haven to foreign nationals in a protracted displacement. such political will would be required at a time when xenophobic sentiment is high within the country and policy seems to be steering towards a stance of rejecting rather than accepting refugees and other people of concern. it may therefore be necessary for ngos or other civil society bodies to conduct strategic litigation in the hopes of achieving these goals. finally, the minister could, in terms of section 31(2)(b) of the immigration act designate stateless persons displaced as a result of climate change as a category of persons who, due to special circumstances, should be granted temporary residence, and if the situations persist, permanent residence. any such decision should be accompanied by a specific application procedure with required evidence and regulations. this process would also remove these persons from the asylum system, which could assist in reducing the backlog in applications for refugee status. (b) mozambique (i) current legal framework unlike south africa, mozambique has acceded to both the 1954 and 1961 statelessness conventions. however, it has yet to domesticate either convention into its national legislation. it is also a party to the 1951 un refugee convention and 1969 au refugee convention, both of which have been domesticated into its national legislation. 115 an example of this are the pledges made by south africa at the ministerial intergovernmental event on refugees and stateless persons that took place in geneva from 7 to 8 december 2011. here south africa pledged to accede to or take steps to accede to both statelessness conventions. 116 by means of s27(c) of the refugees act and s5 of the citizenship act. the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 118 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 these conventions have been domesticated in mozambique’s refugee act.117 like south africa, mozambique’s act uses the same definition of refugee as the 1951 convention, with the extended definition from the 1969 au convention, which includes events seriously disturbing the public order.118 it could therefore be argued that this legislation protects those displaced across borders due to climate change, if they satisfy the extended definition of the term refugee. while not directly dealing with the issues of statelessness, this will provide displaced individuals with protection, and can lead to permanent residency, and citizenship through the naturalisation process. article 12 of the refugee act states that the republic of mozambique may authorise the acquisition of citizenship through naturalisation for persons with refugee status who seek to acquire such nationality, as long as the requirements of legislation concerning nationality have been met. mozambique’s 2004 constitution is the primary law on nationality.119 this is supplemented by the 1975 nationality act and regulations (as amended). the legislation and regulations apply to the extent that they do not contradict the provisions of the constitution. the 2004 constitution provides for gender equality in nationality laws and aims to reduce childhood statelessness by providing for mozambican nationality for all persons born on mozambican territory. this is consistent with mozambique’s obligations under the acrwc to which it is also a party. article 27 of the constitution also provides for the acquisition of citizenship through naturalisation, for persons who have been legally and habitually resident in mozambique for at least ten years. this implies that displaced persons, who have become stateless persons, must wait for at least ten years, to apply for a new nationality. (ii) does the current framework offer sufficient protection? first, does the legal framework protect those displaced across borders and thereby rendered stateless? for those stateless persons who qualify as refugees, such as those fleeing conflict or violence induced by climate change, or those fleeing suddenonset disasters, they are protected by international and national refugee law. they also may potentially become citizens through naturalisation and will no longer be stateless. however, there is a major practical obstacle to refugees who are also stateless making use of the naturalisation laws and regulations. the regulations to the refugee act require certain information and documentation for an application for the acquisition of citizenship by naturalisation, such as a birth registration certificate, identity document or passport.120 clearly, for stateless persons, providing some of 117 mozambique: act no. 21/91 of 31 december 1991 (refugee act), available at https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b4f62c.html, accessed on 05 may 2022. 118 ibid. art 1. 119 the constitution of the republic of mozambique 2004. 120 ibid. art 14.. 119 these items is simply not impossible. therefore, while they may enjoy the protection of refugee law, they are likely to remain stateless. many refugees, too, cannot meet these requirements because they may not have these documents, in particular, the passport. for those persons who were displaced from foreign territories by slow-onset disasters, there is currently no protection in place. domesticating the statelessness conventions would provide some level of protection for those persons rendered stateless due to climate change. this is equally as important for mozambican nationals, as a major issue specific to mozambique is the return of mozambican nationals from foreign countries, who have no means of proving their nationality on return to mozambique. whether due to violent conflict or weather-related disasters, thousands of mozambican nationals have crossed borders to escape these events. this is likely to continue due to mozambique’s vulnerability to disasters and the ongoing violence in the cabo delgado province.121 when these persons return to mozambique after fleeing such events, due to the inconsistent nationality laws and application thereof within mozambique, which is discussed below,122 these persons may find it difficult to realize their rights as citizens and have no protection under refugee law, leaving them particularly vulnerable. secondly, does the legal framework protect those born stateless within mozambique? both the 2004 constitution and 1975 nationality act provide for mozambican citizenship to be acquired at birth when a child is born on mozambican territory to parents who are stateless, of unknown nationality or whose parents are unknown.123 it would seem then that children born to foreign nationals on mozambican territory are therefore protected from being stateless, as they acquire citizenship at birth. there are, however, practical obstacles to this. mozambique’s nationality laws are based on the existence of a comprehensive network of civil registries ensuring universal birth registration and issuance of identity documents.124 despite this, birth registration rates remain low, largely due to the inaccessibility of these civil registers.125 between 2000 and 2009, only 31 percent of children under the age of five years old had their births registered in mozambique.126 as of 2019, birth 121 ocha ‘mozambique key message update: attacks in northern mozambique continue to displace households as the rainy season nears’ (september 2022 ), available at https://reliefweb.int/report/mozambique/mozambique-key-messageupdate-attacks-northern-mozambique-continue-displace-households-rainy-season-nears-september-2022, accessed on 10 october 2022. 122 unhcr ‘fighting statelessness’ available at http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/unhcr-mozambique-statelessness-project.pdf, accessed on 04 may 2022. unhcr ‘fighting statelessness’ available at http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/unhcr-mozambique-statelessness-project.pdf, accessed on 04 may 2022. 123 constitution of mozambique, art 23; and the 1975 nationality act, art 8. 124 patrícia jerónimo ‘report on citizenship law: mozambique’ globalcit may 2019 at 2, available at https://cadmus. eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/62966/rscas_globalcit_cr_2019_06.pdf?sequence=1, accessed on 18 may 2022. 125 unhcr ‘submission by the united nations high commissioner for refugees for the office of the high commissioner for human rights’ compilation report – universal periodic review: mozambique’ 2010 at 10, available at https:// www.refworld.org/pdfid/4c3abd512.pdf, accessed on 18 may 2022. 126 bronwen manby ‘statelessness in southern africa’ unhcr 2011 at 13, available at https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/50c1f9562.pdf, accessed on 18 may 2022. the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 120 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 registration rates were still below 50 percent.127 therefore, these legal protections may not be realized in practice. for children born to mozambican parents in a foreign country, the situation is even less certain. as discussed above, mozambique is no stranger to disasters or extreme weather events. it is therefore likely that mozambican nationals who have fled to a neighbouring country due to the impacts of climate change will give birth in that country, especially during periods of prolonged displacement. according to article 24 of the 2004 constitution, for a child to have mozambican nationality, a declaration must be made by the child’s parents, within a year of birth, that the parents wish the child to have mozambican nationality. if this is not done, the child is able to make the declaration themselves, within a year of attaining majority. it is important to note that in this scenario, nationality is not automatically acquired. a process must be followed. for some children born across the border, whether it be due to lack of access to civil registry offices or lack of knowledge, a declaration may never take place, rendering such children at risk of statelessness. furthermore, when making the declaration, a person, either the child or their parents, depending on the scenario, is required to provide certain information and documentation, such as proof of birth registration.128 for vulnerable persons displaced due to climate change, it may not be possible to obtain these documents, putting these children at further risk of statelessness. (iii) incoherent legal framework the main issue with mozambique’s legal framework on nationality is that it is incoherent and inconsistently applied. the 2004 constitution did not repeal the 1975 legislation and regulations. rather, as stated above, these continue to exist as supplementary to the constitution and will apply in so far as they do not contradict the constitution.129 however, it is not always straightforward to determine whether a provision is contradictory or supplementary. for example, the 2004 constitution provides for a list of grounds for attribution of citizenship, which is shorter than the list contained in the 1975 act. while the wording of the constitution indicates that the intention was for the list to be exhaustive, it could be interpreted in a way that the list in the act supplements the list in the constitution.130 there has been no clear guidance provided on these rules, leaving state officials to decide for themselves what rules apply and when. this leads to inconsistent application of nationality laws at the provincial and national levels.131 127 patrícia jerónimo op cit note 124. 128 constitution of mozambique, art 23(3). 129 patrícia jerónimo op cit note 124. 130 ibid. 131 unhcr op cit note 125. 121 (iv) recommendations first and foremost, mozambique should domesticate the provisions of the statelessness conventions to ensure maximum protection for stateless persons and to reduce further instances of statelessness. like south africa, mozambique should amend the current definition of refugee in its refugee act to explicitly provide for refugee status where persons are displaced across borders due to the impacts of climate change. this will ensure that such persons, when stateless, at least enjoy the rights and protections afforded to refugees. to prevent confusion with regard to nationality laws, mozambique should repeal the 1975 nationality act and regulations and enact new nationality legislation that is in line with the 2004 constitution and should provide detailed guidance on how the rules are to be applied in practice. this is a step that the unhcr has been recommending for several years.132 with regards to children born in foreign territories to mozambican parents, considering that mozambique already has a nationality law framework with a combination of jus soli and jus sanguinis principles, it may be worth including in the new legislation a provision to the effect that children born to mozambican parents abroad are automatically considered mozambican citizens. the provision can include something to the effect that such children must affirm their wish to retain their mozambican nationality within a certain period following the age of majority. finally, for stateless persons looking to naturalise as mozambican citizens, should their application for citizenship be denied, the only option is for them to appeal to the minister of justice.133 this is a limited and potentially time-consuming avenue for stateless persons to be forced to take, and will likely result in an extended period of statelessness. therefore, for a state that has acceded to the 1961 convention, it may be advisable to provide for an alternative form of review, such as a judicial review of naturalisation application decisions. (c) tanzania (i) current legal framework unlike mozambique, tanzania has not acceded to either the 1954 or the 1961 statelessness conventions. yet, tanzania is a state party to a number of international and regional human rights treaties.134 tanzania is also among the states parties to the 1951 un refugee convention and 1969 au refugee convention, both of which 132 patrícia jerónimo op cit note 124. 133 patrícia jerónimo op cit note 124. 134 the 1966 international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr), the 1966 international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (icescr), the 1989 convention of the rights of the child (crc), the 1979 convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw), the 1965 international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (cerd), the 1990 international convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families (icrmw), the 1990 african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc). the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 122 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 have been domesticated into its national legislation. the refugees act no. 9 of 1998 was promulgated to repeal its predecessor refugees (control) act of 1966. although the refugees act is silent on how refugees can be naturalised, however, the country has a comprehensive solution strategy policy commonly known as the tanzania comprehensive solutions strategy (tancoss) of 2017 that granted citizenship to refugees and asylum seekers from burundi in 2020, but also refugees from rwanda, somalia, were granted citizenship before in 1982.135 tanzanian group naturalisation for refugees has been commended as one of the durable solutions to end the refugee situation and, by extension, statelessness. tanzania ratified the acrwc of 1990, and the 2003 protocol to the african charter on human and peoples' rights on the rights of women in africa, which all contain provisions on the right to a nationality. for that reason, tanzania is under the obligation to protect the right to a nationality and the rights of stateless persons, including taking action to prevent statelessness. article 6 of the acrwc confirms that every child has the right to a nationality and the states parties have an obligation to grant nationality to otherwise stateless children born on the territory. in tanzania, the right to nationality is provided for under the citizenship act, 2002 (cap 357 r.e.2002). this act states that there are three ways in which nationality can be acquired in tanzania: by birth, descent, and naturalisation. however, the citizenship act does not guarantee the right to a nationality for stateless persons. since tanzania is not a party to the 1954 and 1961 statelessness conventions, the protection of stateless persons remains uncertain. for example, the african court on human and people's rights in the case of anudo ochieng anudo v united republic of tanzania136 indicated that under tanzanian law, the acquisition of nationality by birth does not have recourse to a judicial remedy where such nationality cannot be recognised.137 the tanzania citizenship (amendments) regulations 2017 brought some changes to grant citizenship to persons who would be otherwise stateless. despite these changes, there is still a significant number of persons who are at high risk of being stateless. these include persons who are displaced due to climate change and cross-border migration, like refugees. furthermore, the legal framework in tanzania provides an example of how unequal or discriminatory nationality laws, when applied in the context of climateinduced displacement, can be particularly unjust and contribute to statelessness. for example, the citizenship act has been viewed as discriminatory in nature because it does not afford equal rights to women and men to pass on citizenship to their spouses. a married woman cannot pass nationality to her foreign/stateless spouse on an equal basis as a married man. section 11(1) states that: 135 amelia kuch ‘naturalization of burundian refugees in tanzania: the debates on local integration and the meaning of citizenship revisited’ (2017) 30 journal of refugee studies 468–87. 136 african court on human and peoples’ rights, app no 012/2015, judgement of 22 march 2018 116, available at http:// www.africancourt.org/en/index.php/56-pending-cases-details/877-app-no-012-2015-anudo-ochieng-anudo-v-unitedrepublicof-tanzania-details, accessed on 19 may 2022. 137 a kuch op cit note 135. 123 a woman who is married to a citizen of tanzania shall at any time during the lifetime of the husband be entitled, upon making an application in the prescribed form, to be naturalised as a citizen of the united republic. this implies that non-citizen women are entitled to naturalisation once they are married, but non-citizen men do not qualify for automatic naturalisation. such discriminatory laws have an increased effect on vulnerable populations, such as those displaced by climate change. for instance, should a stateless male from a foreign country find himself in tanzania as a result of climate-induced displacement, and find himself in a scenario where he is marrying a tanzanian woman, he would not be able to receive his wife’s nationality and would remain stateless. therefore, gender inequalities in the tanzanian nationality laws can lead to and exacerbate statelessness, including that induced by climate change. (ii) does the current framework offer sufficient protection? stateless persons who qualify as refugees, such as those fleeing conflict induced by climate change, or those fleeing sudden-onset disasters, are protected by international and national refugee law. they are likely to become tanzanian citizens through naturalisation. however, gender inequalities and limitations imposed under the citizenship act as mentioned above, are among the obstacles that can prevent stateless refugees and other types of stateless persons from benefitting from the naturalisation laws, regulations, and policies. in essence, there is no legal framework in place to effectively protect the rights of stateless persons or people who are at risk of becoming stateless, like the offspring of refugees in protracted displacement and those who are displaced due to the impact of climate change in tanzania. the law in tanzania allows a woman who renounced her tanzanian nationality due to marriage to a man of a different nationality, to reclaim her citizenship after divorce; however, the same protection is not afforded to men. likewise, gender discrimination exists in the aspect of the acquisition of nationality by descent. although a person can become a citizen by descent if either the father or mother is a citizen of tanzania, this does not apply if the parent’s citizenship was solely descent-based. this discrimination becomes an issue since it may lead to statelessness if nationality was acquired by descent. the citizenship act provides that where a person’s father was a citizen by descent, the child can acquire citizenship through naturalisation. this revokes what would be a gender-neutral aspect of the acquisition of nationality by descent, since a person born outside tanzania to a tanzanian mother who is a citizen by descent, would not be covered under this provision. accordingly, citizenship of tanzania does not transmit to the second generation born outside the country; this can create risks of statelessness if the children are unable to acquire the citizenship of the country in which they were born. moreover, a naturalised citizen can be deprived of citizenship on various grounds, including: obtaining citizenship by fraud; demonstrating disloyalty towards the state; the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 124 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 and residing abroad for more than five years without communicating an intention to retain their tanzanian citizenship. before the deprivation decision is made, the minister must determine that a continuation of citizenship is ‘conducive to the public good’ in the broad sense. however, this provision on deprivation of citizenship does not apply to citizens by birth. this creates a hierarchy of citizenship whereby birth citizenship is less perilous than naturalised citizenship. the immigration act, cap 54 (r.e. 2016), which amended the previous immigration acts of 1995, 1997, 2002, 2004, 2008, and 2015, puts the burden of proof of citizenship on the person alleged to be a non-citizen, instead of the state.138 in the landmark decision in the anudo’s case in 2018 on the revocation of tanzanian nationality, the court held that tanzania had arbitrarily deprived anudo of his nationality, by violating article 15(2) of the universal declaration of human rights and article 13 of the iccpr. what is important to note about tanzania, unlike south africa, the constitution of 1977 as amended, does not clearly state the right to a nationality. instead, it refers to the ‘citizen or citizenship’ in terms of ‘citizenship law’ in several sections, such as sections 5, 47, and 67. this is a lacuna in law that undermines the universal norm of the supremacy of the constitution and favours parliamentary sovereignty. under president jakaya kikwete’s regime, tanzania started the constitutional review processes. the constitutional review act was enacted in 2011. but such an act underwent three amendments to improve and broaden public participation. the first amendment was approved by the parliament on 10 february 2012 and urged the tanzanian mainland and island (zanzibar) to engage and agree on fundamental matters pertaining to the constitutional review process, that included having representatives from both sides of the tanzanian union (tanzania mainland and island or zanzibar). since the promulgation of the constitutional review act in 2011, there has been a call to amend the constitution. the draft constitution sets out provisions that address some of the shortcomings in the national laws, which include citizenship acquisition for foundlings under seven years of age; and providing that any person who marries a tanzanian citizen may apply for citizenship by registration. however, the draft constitution contains no provisions against the deprivation of nationality. although the draft constitution was submitted in december 2013, the referendum to adopt the constitution was postponed, and following the presidential elections of 2015, the draft constitution is still pending a referendum. (iii) does tanzania’s legal framework protect those displaced across borders due to climate change? answering this question requires that recognition be given to the large portion of the tanzanian population that originates from other states. since most african countries gained independence, protracted armed conflicts or violence have encouraged crossborder migrations. conflicts in countries like mozambique, rwanda, burundi, the 138 the immigration act, 2016 s44(b). 125 democratic republic of the congo, congo-brazzaville, uganda, ethiopia, somalia, angola, and south africa during apartheid, led to many people seeking asylum in tanzania. in line with its pan-african spirit and support for liberation struggles, tanzania welcomed refugees to reside and settle in rural refugee settlements.139 some of the refugees eventually left the settlements where they were required to stay and mixed with the local communities.140 while some of these persons may have been able to naturalise and acquire tanzanian citizenship, many are in a situation where they do not have tanzanian nationality, nor can they prove the nationality of their country of origin, especially, of their offspring. some may no longer have the nationality of their country of origin due to the relevant state’s nationality laws pertaining to long absence and passing on nationality to children. this population is therefore already at severe risk of statelessness. (iv) does tanzania’s legal framework protect those born stateless within its territorial boundaries? under municipal law, there are principles that guide nationality acquisition, which means, nationality by birth or jus soli,141 by blood or jus sanguinis, or a combination of two principles.142 the immigration and/or nationality laws in tanzania have created a class of persons who can register as citizens but never did despite continued residence in tanzania. put clearly, there is no political will to implement the nationality laws. therefore, the jus soli provision had been interpreted and applied literally, while some persons can be viewed as tanzanian citizens by birth.143 in this context, the persons who cannot be categorised as tanzanians by birth or blood can be expelled or deported to another country but will be unable to prove their nationality and in some instances, such expulsion may result in stateless status. the authors argue that the basic principle for nationality recognition and acquisition must always be mindful of the genuine and strong link between a given state and individuals. such a link is a fundamental one in determining the claim of nationality since the state in a practical sense is not always ready to grant nationality to all individuals. hence, there are requirements that must be met to prove the linkage between an individual and the state. for example, the common law principle of jus soli requires that nationality must be acquired by virtue of being born on a country’s territory.144 however, some states apply jus soli in a limited form of acquiring nationality and set conditions for individuals who are born on the territory to meet certain conditions to obtain nationality, if tanzania can be cited among other 139 caroline nalule & anna nambooze ‘report on citizenship law: tanzania’ globalcit april 2020 at 22, available at http://hdl.handle.net/1814/66748, accessed on 18 may 2022. 140 peti siyame ‘tanzania: nchemba tells former refugees – behave, else you forfeit citizenship’ tanzania daily news 24 august 2017, available at https://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/tanzania-nchemba-tells-former-refugees-behave-else-you-forfeit-citizenship/?lang=fr, accessed on 25 may 2022. 141 hudson report on nationality, including statelessness, a/cn.4/50 (1952), available at https://digitallibrary.un.org/ record/1299414?ln=en, accessed on 25 may 2022. 142 ibid. 143 caroline nalule & anna nambooze op cit note 139. 144 laura van waas nationality matters: statelessness under international law (2008) at 52. the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 126 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 examples. occasionally states use what vela calls a conditional form of jus soli, which tends to limit the right to nationality and other fundamental human rights.145 some countries apply a limited form of jus soli and set out conditions for individuals born on their territories to obtain nationality or be recognised as their citizens. likewise, the jus sanguinis principle recognises descent or parentage as the indication of a genuine link.146 also, some issues arise due to the application of the jus sanguinis principle, which plays a critical role in the continuation of statelessness.147 (v) incoherent legal framework like mozambique’s legal framework on nationality, the tanzanian legal framework is incoherent and inconsistently applied. in many instances, the limitations imposed under the citizens act, the immigration act, and the refugee act, tend to limit the application of jus soli and violate the basic human rights of stateless persons, especially children of undocumented refugees, cross-border migrants like comorians who have lived in zanzibar for many years, the makonde tribe that migrated from northern mozambique, and burundians, rwandese, congolese, kenyans, and ugandans who migrated to tanzania due to the massive labour recruitment during colonial rule, who came to work in the sugar, tea and coffee plantations. similarly, the children of displaced persons, due to the impacts of climate change, are likely to face statelessness challenges because they may not benefit from jus soli and jus sanguinis or may even not be granted citizenship by naturalisation. (vi) recommendations like mozambique, tanzania should accede to both statelessness conventions and domesticate the provisions of the statelessness conventions to ensure the protection of stateless persons and to reduce further instances of statelessness. we recommend that, like south africa, tanzania should amend the current definition of refugee in its refugee act and extend it to include refugee status when persons are displaced across borders due to the impacts of climate change. this will ensure that such persons can still enjoy the rights and protections afforded to refugees under the refugee conventions and other human rights instruments. such protection can deter them from becoming stateless persons. to prevent confusion with regards to nationality laws, tanzania should amend the constitution and citizenship act and clearly provide for the right to nationality to be in line with the international human rights law by providing practical guidelines in ensuring that stateless persons who are displaced across borders due to the impacts of climate change are fully protected. the tanzanian government should also provide detailed guidance on how the rules are to be applied in practice. 145 maría josé recalde vela op cit note 2 at 17. 146 ibid. 147 laura van waas op cit note 144 at 52. 127 statelessness situations that occur in cross-border migration result in persons losing or being deprived of their nationality without having a habitual residence.148 also, tanzanian nationals can become stateless within tanzania or if they are displaced across borders. furthermore, in tanzania, like south africa and mozambique, stateless persons may remain in their respective countries but still become stateless in the long term due to inadequacies in the national law and policy frameworks or implementation of nationality laws. we recommend that children born in foreign countries to tanzanian parents automatically benefit from the application of jus soli and jus sanguinis principles. the laws should be amended to allow children born to tanzanian parents outside of tanzania to automatically become tanzanian citizens. for example, children born to foreign parents must acquire tanzanian citizenship, and then children of tanzanians born outside tanzania should also acquire citizenship of the country in which they were born to the unfair discrimination in acquiring nationality. if children of tanzanians born outside tanzania must acquire tanzanian citizenship, likewise, the children born to foreign parents in tanzania must acquire citizenship of their foreign parents to avoid the possibility of becoming stateless. this can be among the solutions to reduce statelessness in tanzania. finally, for stateless persons who wish to naturalise as tanzanian citizens, should their application for citizenship be denied — like in the anudo’s case — alternative remedies of review and judicial review of naturalisation applications must be utilised to limit the powers of the minister of home affairs, who is currently empowered to grant nationality while his/her decisions cannot be challenged.149 iv. conclusion there are currently two related crises affecting nations of southern africa: statelessness and climate change. the unhcr has recognised that there are potentially millions of stateless persons in the southern african region, as they are not, or would not be, considered nationals of any state under the operation of law. when the broader definition of statelessness is considered, where all persons who are unable to establish a nationality are considered stateless, this number is likely to be even greater. these numbers are likely to continue to rise while widespread displacement continues to ravage the region. much, if not most of this displacement, is caused by climate change and the impacts thereof. the african continent and the southern african region are particularly vulnerable to these impacts. these impacts, such as slowand rapid-onset disasters are only likely to increase in both frequency and intensity. when these disasters lead to permanent cross-border displacement and are combined with issues such as low birth registration, lack of documentation, protracted situations of displacement, and inconsistent or unequal nationality laws, the result can be a catastrophic worsening of the current statelessness problem in the 148 unhcr handbook on protection of stateless persons under the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons (2014) at 3. 149 the citizenship act, s23. the impact of climate change on statelessness in the southern african region 128 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 region. international and regional legal instruments have highlighted the problem of statelessness and provided a roadmap to prevent it and protect those who are already stateless. unfortunately, at the national level, southern african countries have been slow to implement similar legal developments. states such as south africa and tanzania should immediately take steps to accede to both statelessness conventions. states such as mozambique, which have already acceded to the statelessness conventions, should take steps to domesticate these instruments and implement statelessness determination procedures. all states should ensure that their current nationality laws are implemented effectively and amended where necessary to avoid further situations of statelessness. these and further recommendations discussed in this article will go a long way towards preventing and reducing statelessness in general. to prevent climate change-induced statelessness in particular, more targeted steps are required. these can include humanitarian visas, special permanent residence exemption permits, or refugee status for those displaced by climate change and its impacts. all these options will provide a legal basis for remaining in the host country and must be accompanied by a naturalisation procedure. legislative reforms are required in south africa, mozambique, and tanzania in order to provide these rights and protections. both statelessness and climate change are problems that cannot be confined to any state's borders. fighting both crises requires concerted efforts on a national level as well as regional cooperation. southern african nations must start taking steps to respect and protect their people by ensuring the most basic and fundamental of human rights, the right to a nationality. 16 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 higher education as “strategic power”? an assessment of china–africa higher education partnerships and collaborations obert hodzi1and padmore adusei amoah2 received 07 february 2023 / accepted 06 june 2023 / published 18 august 2023 https://doi.org/10.14426/ahmr.v9i2.1333 abstract china is internationalizing its higher education sector – setting up several bilateral and multilateral partnerships between public and private institutions across the globe. however, as the “west” is disentangling itself from partnerships with chinese institutions of higher education and the confucius institutes (cis), african countries seem to be turning to beijing. as a result, china overtook france to become the most preferred destination for african students. but, is higher education beijing’s new strategy to enhance its global status? what is the effect of the shift toward chinese higher education on africa’s migration trends, and what is the agency of actors in africa? focusing on these questions, and premised on the concepts of student mobility, south–south cooperation (ssc), and people-to-people exchange to explain the novelty and exceptionality of the partnerships, this paper explores the typology, nature, and processes involved in these partnerships and collaborations. keywords: education, internationalization, mobility, students, cooperation 1 university of liverpool, united kingdom. corresponding author. o.hodzi@liverpool.ac.uk 2 lignan university, hong kong. 17 introduction this paper elucidates the evolution and characteristics of the china–africa educational partnership at macro-level. it sets out proposals for advancing debates to the microlevels within the broader discourse on higher education internationalization in the context of south–south cooperation (ssc). kevin gray and barry gills (2016: 557) describe ssc as, … a key organizing concept and a set of practices in pursuit of historical changes through a vision of mutual benefit and solidarity among the disadvantaged of the world system … conveying the hope that development may be achieved by the poor themselves through their mutual assistance to one another, and the whole world order transformed to reflect their mutual interests vis-à-vis the dominant global north. with knowledge production being at the core of north–south inequalities, china– africa cooperation in education, seemingly, seeks to challenge the asymmetries in global education production and consumption. this paper examines the nature and processes of the making of the china– africa partnerships and collaborations. it also addresses critical questions such as: who initiates the collaborations? who pays for them? who benefits? what objectives are they meant to achieve? the discussion then extends current debates from the macroto the micro-level by examining the career and social mobility of the students involved in the china–africa educational partnerships at the backdrop of the rising student numbers and academic collaborations. by exploring these key issues, the paper sheds light on how countries that were traditionally seen as sources of international students are strategically positioning themselves as destination countries in the global higher education landscape and the impact of these efforts on the career prospects and quality of life of the students. this is a significant departure from existing studies that have predominantly focused on the discourse at the macrolevel. the paper therefore makes four critical contributions to the discourse on higher education internationalization – the contributions center on the south–south dynamic between china and africa; the type of both equal and unequal relationships between china and specific african countries; the primacy of the state instead of the universities in this exchange; and how this influences future global leadership in higher education. situating china–africa higher education in global education mobility trends in response to current global transitions in higher education, governments, state, and non-state institutions are intensifying higher education internationalization efforts (altbach and knight, 2007; mihut et al., 2017). this is because the number of an assessment of china–africa higher education partnerships and collaborations 18 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 international students has increased exponentially. according to the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco, 2020), the number of international students grew from a mere 2 million in 2000 to about 5.3 million students in 2017. the majority of these international students are from china, india, france, saudi arabia, nigeria, and south korea. beyond this international mobility of students, other main characteristics of the global transitions in higher education internationalization include: rising flows and exchanges of scholars (for research, teaching, seminars, and conferences), academic materials and resources, joint programs, creation of diverse funding schemes, international campus branches, an intensified collaboration between governments, universities and markets to drive change (altbach and knight, 2007; altbach et al., 2009; chen, 2016; knight and de wit, 2018). several factors have contributed to this growing global interest in internationalization of higher education. first, the cutting of government funding for higher education compelled institutions in western europe, the united kingdom (uk), australia, the united states (us), and nordic countries such as finland to look for alternative sources of financing. international students, mostly from emerging economies such as china and india became sources of income for most western universities. to remain competitive in the global race for external students, internationalization became a marketization strategy that underpins the now entrenched neo-liberal governance approaches at higher education institutions (heis) (mok, 2000; lynch, 2006; knight and de wit, 2018; mccaig et al., 2018; nixon et al., 2018). internationalization is therefore a means for universities to attract international students – thus maximizing their income potentials. second, the growth in information and communications technology (ict) underlies higher education internationalization. using ict, remote teaching and learning enable universities to reach international students without incurring expenses that accompany a physical campus. for students needing to attain a higher education without physically relocating, distance learning has become an alternative. in addition, it has enabled students to circumvent the often-stringent visa requirements in the uk, the us, and other european countries. this has revolutionized how knowledge is produced and communicated globally (altbach et al., 2009; knight and de wit, 2018), and enabled universities to increase their student numbers and revenue beyond what they could have with only physical learning. with the covid-19 pandemic restricting student movement, universities that provided distance learning gained popularity, forcing traditional universities to consider hybrid learning to tap into the distance-learning market. third, states are regarding higher education as a source of “soft power.” joseph nye (1990) defines soft power as the ability of a country to shape preferences of other countries, through the attractiveness of its culture, values, political, social, and economic advancement, so that they desire the outcomes it wants. due to their cosmopolitan nature, universities are a bastion of multiculturalism and a tool for 19 dispensing a country’s culture, values, and norms beyond its citizens. previously, this was limited to the developed west but now, even emerging powers in the global south, including china, consider internationalization of higher education as a diplomacy strategy (yang, 2010; fijałkowski, 2011; bodomo, 2015; knight and de wit, 2018). even for africa, the exploits of african economic and educational migrants have been described as a form of soft power, even though african universities are still finding their footing in the global higher education space (altbach et al., 2009). based on international student mobility, china and chinese universities are becoming key players in the global higher education industry. for the chinese government, the ultimate goal is making the country highly competitive as a destination for international students (mok and chan, 2008). therefore, the country, through its decentralized arms has initiated numerous policies and strategies to restructure the education and governance systems to meet internal needs and be globally competitive (mok and chan, 2008; zha, 2012; chen, 2016). popular among such policies are those relating to quality assurance of academic practices, international benchmarking teaching and research, the transformation of selected universities into world-class institutions, diversifying funding sources, promoting international partnerships, creating opportunities for international branch campuses in china, and aggressively developing english-language programs (mok and lo, 2007; mok and chan, 2008; zha, 2012; chen, 2016). operationalization of these policies has attracted african students to further their education in china. similarly, african institutions, in need of infrastructural development and education development assistance, also are intensifying efforts to build partnerships with their chinese counterparts (king, 2014; li, 2018). as noted by several authors (bodomo, 2011; niu, 2013; king, 2014), china’s educational internationalization has, since the turn of the century, been particularly notable in its partnership with african nations. indeed, “the chinese government attaches high symbolic value to the scholarships offered to africa and it has a long history of using educational aid as a means to reinforce ties with african countries” (haugen, 2013: 315). the result, as noted by li anshan (2018), is that the growth rate of african students in the past decade is highest among all international student arrivals in china. china–africa education partnership: nature and typologies afro-sino relations have a long history dating back to the 1950s when the primary focus was on the anti-colonial and ideological struggles in africa (besada and o’bright, 2017). over the past two decades, relations have significantly expanded to include trade, education, and training. despite educational exchanges being put on hold in 1966 due to the cultural revolution in china, the education sector is now considered a key area of collaboration (niu, 2013; king, 2014; li, 2018). while the policy for educational support and cooperation between china and africa has been generally fragmented, spanning from technical cooperation, education and an assessment of china–africa higher education partnerships and collaborations 20 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 training, and human resource development cooperation (king, 2014), the 2018 forum on china–africa cooperation (focac) action plan offered a more specific theme, education, and human resources (ministry of foreign affairs, 2018). the government of china initiated focac in 2000 as a multi-purpose vehicle for engaging with africa on all development fronts, including [higher] education (niu, 2013; king, 2014; focac, 2020). among others, the areas of higher education cooperation between china and africa includes staff exchange; promoting exchanges and cooperation in culture, art, and media; infrastructure development; support for human and institutional capacity building; supply of academic materials; joint research; recruitment of african students; and other collaborative programs (niu, 2013; ministry of foreign affairs, 2018). a typical example of exchange partnerships is embodied in the renowned 20+20 cooperation plan that was launched in 2009 (king, 2014; ministry of foreign affairs, 2018). the plan encourages intensive oneto-one cooperation between 20 chinese universities and colleges and 20 african institutions at the same level. these policies and the respective programs emerging from them are facilitated through various public and private funding sources, mainly initiated and originating from china. the funding mix comprises provincial scholarships, special scholarships by private corporations (e.g., china national petroleum corporation), chinese central and local government scholarships, as well as opportunities for self-funded studies (he, 2010; haugen, 2013; ministry of foreign affairs, 2018). the chinese government, as announced at the 2018 focac summit in beijing, plans to continue on this path by providing africa with 50,000 government scholarships and 50,000 places for seminars and workshops for professionals of different disciplines (ministry of foreign affairs, 2018). thus, in the spirit of cooperation and mutual development, china’s approach to higher education has become more targeted. for instance, the focac 2019–2021 action plan sought to offer tailor-made training for high-caliber africans (ministry of foreign affairs, 2018). in recent years, programs such as master’s in public administration have been specifically designed and delivered to numerous government officials of african nations (king, 2014). these policies and others alike have since 2000 been operated under the aegis of the focac framework and these are partly why china’s education cooperation has been described as africabased (niu, 2013; focac, 2020). the relationship between china and africa as regards higher education is, therefore, somewhat unique relative to those of africa’s arrangements with other established and emerging powers. china presents itself more as a development partner to african nations and institutions instead of the traditional development aid approach and mechanisms adopted by the uk (dfid), usa (usaid), and south korea (koica) (king, 2014). educational cooperation is, therefore, considered part of china’s broader development assistance to africa. for instance, in nigeria, due to the lack of qualified nigerian railway engineers, as part of its corporate social responsibility, the china civil engineering construction corporation is constructing 21 a university of transportation in nigeria. nigeria’s president, muhammadu buhari described the project as paving the “way for the domestication of railway engineering and general transportation sciences in nigeria, thereby bridging the technology and skill gap in the railway and ultimately transportation sector” (xinhua, 2019). this approach, according to china’s ministry of foreign affairs is inspired by china’s fundamental principles of equality, mutual benefit, win-win economic development, solidarity, mutual trust, mutual support, and support for its partner nations to explore their preferred development paths (ministry of foreign affairs, 2018). this is what has been termed as “overseas aid with its own [chinese] characteristics” (king, 2014: 3). the linking of education cooperation with broader development cooperation means that china–africa educational cooperation centers the state. accordingly, china’s [higher] education engagement with african institutions and nations has taken the form of support for various countries to pursue their priority education programs and projects, as has been witnessed in the construction of science university in malawi, and the building and equipping of the polytechnic college in ethiopia (king, 2014). the implication is that china’s internationalization agenda in the context of its relations with africa departs from the purely market-driven approach adopted by many western nations (lynch, 2006; altbach and knight, 2007; king, 2014). although the ministry of education of china established the china scholarship council as the primary vehicle through which the chinese government awards scholarships, heads of state, through bilateral and multilateral agreements and forums such as focac, still play a role in determining the nature of education and human resource exchange and training, which form part of china’s internationalization process. it appears that the chinese universities follow what the chinese central government decides at the state level – giving an impression of a state-led higher education internationalization process. the result is that the state-driven process is geared toward achieving political and diplomatic objectives as opposed to an economic-led strategy. moreover, china’s involvement is gradually positioning african educational systems as internationalized, contrary to the situation a decade ago (altbach and knight, 2007; haugen, 2013). however, the use of education as a soft power instrument to enhance a country’s external image is not unique to china. the soft power dimensions of china’s educational engagement, such as the language and cultural services offered by its confucius institutes (cis) through various institutional partnerships do not, in theory, differ from those of other high-income nations and emerging powers. for instance, germany and france use the goethe institute and the alliance française respectively, to promote their national languages and cultures. in germany, scholarships awarded to international recipients by the german academic exchange service (daad) often require recipients to undertake mandatory german language courses. arguably, china’s cis are imitating these strategies, in their quest to promote the chinese language and culture. the difference, however, is that in practice, in the case of the cis, unlike the goethe institute and the alliance française, an assessment of china–africa higher education partnerships and collaborations 22 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 the visibility of the communist party of china (cpc) is obvious. in addition, cis are normally established at foreign universities as joint ventures between the host university or school, a university in china, and the chinese international education foundation (cief), which is supposedly a nongovernmental and nonprofit organization, although it “is under the supervision of the chinese ministry of education and is funded by the chinese government” (peterson et al., 2022: 27) – so the chinese government remains with indirect influence over the cis. each ci abroad has two directors – one from the local university or school and another from the chinese partner university. over the past five years, cis in the us and europe have come under criticism due to allegations that they restrict academic freedom by prohibiting topics that are sensitive to the chinese government. resultantly, there are growing perceptions that the cis advance the interests of the cpc more than the chinese language and culture. this perception is, however, not shared by african universities that have cis – none of the african universities have raised complaints about the cis restricting academic freedom or advancing the interests of the cpc on their campuses. african students in china: trends following the background to the china–africa educational partnership above, we now examine the status and trends of african students’ engagement with china’s higher education system. this, as argued by robin helms and laura rumbley (2017), is critical to an inquiry on whether higher education internationalization policies are essential to attaining academic, political, social, and cultural goals. on the surface, based on the increase of students from african countries studying at universities in china, china’s internationalization process seems to be successful (li, 2018). pronouncements made at the 2018 focac summit on increased scholarships, tailored study programs, and human resource capacity building initiatives announced by china indicate that the trend is likely to continue (ministry of foreign affairs, 2018). the total number of students from africa in china is third in relation to those from asia and europe, having surpassed the americas since 2013 (see figure 1) (ministry of education, 2019). as of 2018, 81,562 africans were studying in china, a more than 40-fold increase in 15 years, from just 1,793 in 2003 (li, 2018; lau, 2020). given that the growth rate of african students in china has remained the highest among all other international students since 2008 (see figure 2) (ministry of education, 2019), it is expected that african students will remain the second most populous group of international students in china, second only to students from the asian region. 23 figure 1: number of inward international students 2008-2016 source: ministry of education (2019), china figure 2: growth rate of inward international students, africa and other regions source: ministry of education (2019), china an assessment of china–africa higher education partnerships and collaborations 24 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 moreover, while there is a notion that african students in china are motivated by financial incentives (scholarship incentives mainly) (haugen, 2013), current trends depict a different situation (li, 2018). from 1976 to 1988, all african students in china were on scholarships. this trend changed from 1989 with two students studying in china on a self-financed basis and the number of those without scholarship exceeding scholarship holders for the first time in 1994 (li, 2018). since 2006, the number of self-financed african students in china has always exceeded their counterparts on financial aid, and this was as a result of the 2006 focac summit when new forms of educational exchanges and partnerships, as well as more flexible visa application processes, were introduced (king, 2014; li, 2018). in addition, the demand for alternatives to the expensive western education, coupled with increased awareness of china as a destination for education among africans of middleand upper-middle-class status, and africans doing business in china who are able to fund their education also contributed to this increase in selffinancing african students in china. consequently, there were as many as 41,322 self-financed students compared to 8,470 students on scholarships as at 2015 (li, 2018). in fact, the proportion of overall international students on scholarships in china as at 2016 was approximately 11%, rising from about 5% in 2007, as shown in figure 3 (ministry of education, 2019). therefore, one could argue that china has been able to ground its higher education internationalization agenda in africa in the institutional realities of the most crucial partners, universities, and colleges (helms and rumbley, 2017). this reality notwithstanding, it must be emphasized that the success in drawing educational institutions in the china–africa educational partnership is attributable to the prevailing political and governance structure of china, which has strategically used the heis as instruments to achieve the desired soft power and internationalization outcomes (mok, 2000, 2014; mok and chan, 2008; mok and ong, 2014). 25 figure 3: funding sources of international students in china, including africans source: ministry of education (2019), china while the policy aspect of the engagement is intriguing, the nature, conditions, and prospects of the students involved in the multi-faceted arrangements between china and the african nations require further inquiry. african students in china are far from homogenous, at least from a financial point of view as well as their pre-schooling situation. a previous study by heidi haugen (2013) provided a typology of african students in china, which serves as a significant starting point to understanding the nature of the people involved in the educational engagement and their aspirations. in that study, various kinds of students were identified in terms of: funding arrangements (four kinds), their schooling journey (four kinds), and the places of origin before commencing their studies, as shown in table 1. thus, while various policies are encouraging several africans to seek higher education in china, attention must be given to the varying current and prospective integration and development of the students involved, given their heterogeneity. more importantly, this call is essential to the sustainability of the china–africa education collaboration, as the experiences of the students during and after their studies are critical to others planning on embarking on similar journeys. as haugen (2013) demonstrates, the negative experiences of african students can create a serious dent on the ambition of china to increase its soft power in africa through educational engagements. an assessment of china–africa higher education partnerships and collaborations 26 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 table 1: typologies of african students in china source: adapted from haugen (2013: 324) making sense of china–africa educational partnerships china–africa educational cooperation is framed by the chinese government as part of south–south cooperation (ssc). broadly defined, according to meibo huang (2019: 1) ssc is “cooperation at bilateral, regional, or interregional levels that is initiated, organized, and managed by developing countries themselves, in order to promote political, economic, social, cultural, and scientific development.” in 2015, beijing launched the south–south cooperation fund to support developing countries to implement and achieve their development objectives. at the end of 2017, china had supported more than 200 development cooperation projects, including projects on education and training, in more than 27 countries in latin america, asia, and africa. earlier on, in 2015, president xi had announced the establishment of the institute of south–south cooperation and development (isscad) – a flagship institute that subsequently launched at peking university. according to the institute’s website, it “provides both degree education and non-degree executive training programs for mid-level to senior officials, as well as managers, researchers from government, academia, the media, ngos and other organizations in developing countries.” several government officials from african countries, have been trained at isscad – graduating with degrees up to phd level. for china, funds and institutions like these provide ample evidence of its commitment to knowledge sharing, technical skills transfer and transformative learning in its relations with countries in the global south. importantly, it provides china an opportunity to train middleto senior-level officials from africa on development and governance – thus promoting its development and governance model. therefore, internationalization of higher education is linked to china’s foreign policy objectives while addressing educational and skills gaps in africa. the centrality of the state in china’s internationalization of higher education and educational cooperation with african countries gives credence to jurgen enders’s type of student place of abode before joining a chinese university/college source of funding scholarship students home country chinese government agencies, large corporate employers self-funding students home country, third country personal or family savings traders turned students china profit generated from the students’ businesses family firm trainees home country, third country profit generated from family members’ businesses in china 27 (2004: 367) definition of internationalization, as referring “mainly to processes of greater cooperation between states, and consequently to activities which take place across state borders. located within the ssc framework, internationalization and educational cooperation builds strategic relationships, based on mutual cooperation and mutual observation.” the implication, in the case of china–africa educational cooperation is the absence of the market in china’s higher education internationalization because, for instance, the chinese government announces, after consultation with african governments, training and education scholarships at focac summits, then requests universities to accommodate the students selected by governments in africa to study at chinese universities. between china and africa, internationalization is mostly a government rather than an institutional initiative aimed at the “generation and transmission of ideology, the selection and formation of elites, the social development and educational upgrading of societies, the production and application of knowledge and the training of highly skilled labour force” (enders, 2004: 362). for instance, with regard to most of the scholarships, african governments link areas of study with their national priorities, thus reducing chinese universities to implementers of bilateral agreements between china and african governments. the implication is that internationalization of higher education in china in the context of china– africa educational cooperation is limited to student mobility and human resource training of africans. africans are receivers of training and education from chinese universities and experts. this dynamic mimics the north–south dynamic in which the global north is the producer of knowledge consumed by the global south. in place of the global north, by establishing educational centers such as isscad, providing scholarships and tailor-making professional and technical training to suit the needs of african states, china is establishing itself as a producer of knowledge and expertise relevant to the african continent. while in the past, china was hesitant, increasingly it is asserting itself as a major developing country with development and poverty-reduction experience that other countries in the global south can learn from. therefore, instead of china–africa higher education cooperation challenging the westernand euro-centric perspectives, it exposes the asymmetrical power dynamics between “south–south” countries like china and different african countries – where china is the producer of knowledge and expertise consumed by african countries. to the contrary, internationalization of higher education should go beyond international student mobility. instead, as argued by foskett (2010: 37): internationalization reaches to the heart of the very meaning of “university” and into every facet of its operation, from teaching and education to research and scholarship, to enterprise and innovation and to the culture and ethos of the institution. an assessment of china–africa higher education partnerships and collaborations 28 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 that means internationalization involves transformative changes in what is taught, how it is taught, why it is taught, where and who teaches it. from that perspective, internationalization in china’s higher education in the context of china–africa educational cooperation is still conceptualized as an outcome rather than a process – the outcomes focused on being student mobility, training programs, and educational development assistance. there is, therefore, no meaningful integration of african and chinese institutions, let alone the integration of african students in chinese society and educational system. accordingly, there is a need for china and african countries to regard internationalization as, … the intentional process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions and delivery of post-secondary education, in order to enhance the quality of education and research for all students and staff, and to make a meaningful contribution to society (de wit et al., 2015: 283, italics in original). without integration, china–africa educational cooperation and internationalization of higher education between the two replicates the north–south asymmetries of power in knowledge production and consumption. for instance, as at 2018, there were 81,562 africans studying in china compared to an estimated total of no more than 800 chinese students in africa, according to unesco (2020) statistics. a majority of chinese students study in the us, uk, and australia – together, the three countries make up almost 60 percent of chinese international students. “these uneven flows of students and capital are an indication of the markedly different ways that the global political economy affects heis around the world” (vavrus and pekol, 2015: 6). faculty exchanges in china–africa education cooperation also reflect similar evidence of asymmetry – they challenge china’s notion of people-to-people exchange, upon which its cooperation with africa hinges. the impression is that africans are consumers of china’s knowledge and expertise. kenneth king (2019: 337) argues that such evident asymmetry does not preclude the mutual equality in china–africa relations because the principles of people-to-people exchange and “win-win economic, cultural or educational cooperation do not depend on precisely equal activities within the education sector but rather on a shared appreciation that the other party is equal.” nonetheless, the fact that fewer than 800 out of an estimated 600,000 chinese students studying abroad consider africa a destination for their higher education means that global inequalities in the knowledge production are taking root. with only about 800 chinese students across africa, institutions of higher education on the continent miss the revenue that chinese students bring to universities in the west – thus they remain under-resourced and unable to benefit from the global internationalization drive. internationalization of higher education has in the past decade become a symbol of hierarchies of knowledge, influenced by “asymmetries of power and 29 expertise” (larsen, 2016: 6). the effect is that africa is peripheralized in the global knowledge production hierarchies, leaving its internationalization process in the hands of foreign donors, china included. the reliance on development assistance for development of higher education in africa means that african institutions of higher education are the last resort for universities in china seeking cooperation partners because they lack in global reputation and “struggle to carry out the most basic teaching and research functions” (vavrus and pekol, 2015: 6). consequently, regardless of the south–south cooperation and people-to-people exchanges rhetoric, china–africa educational cooperation replicates the north–south cooperation inequalities that it seeks to redress. as argued by marianne larsen (2016: 6), as redress to the global imbalances in higher education cooperation, internationalization should “reflect an understanding of the globalized world characterized by flows of people, ideas, objects, and capital, that is, the movement of higher education students, academics, programs, and providers.” in other words, internationalization ought to be transformative, seeking to understand and respond to the complexities of knowledge production and higher education cooperation between the “developed” global south and the “developing” global south. conclusions and way forward notwithstanding the asymmetries in china–africa educational cooperation, principles of south–south cooperation and people-to-people exchange provide a framework to reframe internationalization of higher education and mobility in relational terms. as put by larsen (2016: 10), “thinking relationally allows us to see how mobile students, academics, knowledge, programs and providers are enmeshed in networks that both enable and constrain possible individual and institutional actions.” making an argument for mobilities theories, larsen (2016: 2) argues that, [a] theoretical framework based on spatial network, and mobilities theories can provoke us to shift our attention from linear, binary, deterministic, western-centric accounts of internationalization to understand the complex, multi-centered ways in which internationalization processes have played out across higher education landscapes worldwide. thus, enabling us to deconstruct why higher education internationalization perpetuate inequalities and asymmetrical hierarchies in higher education, which relegate africa to consumption of knowledge produced in the west and china. as discussed in this paper, even though internationalization of higher education in china and the west is driven by different objectives – revenue in the west and soft power in china – the effect on the role and position of africa in the global distribution of power is the same. africa is still regarded by both china and the west as a consumer of their knowledge. the effect is that even though china–africa educational cooperation is an assessment of china–africa higher education partnerships and collaborations 30 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 described by both parties as a form of south–south cooperation, symbolizing mutual benefit and equality, the power asymmetries between china and africa are similar to those that existed in africa’s relations with the global north. in essence, china–africa educational cooperation has accelerated internationalization of higher education in china, with a focus on outcomes rather than processes. as discussed above, this is because there has been little integration of institutions of higher education, poor funding of heis in africa, and state-driven higher education cooperation and student mobility that is not based on heis’ needs. with institutions of higher education reduced to implementers of government policy, african students in china are often confronted by university non-responsiveness to their needs, particularly if they are self-financing. it is therefore imperative that institutions of higher learning in china be part of the bilateral china–africa educational cooperation arrangements. such participation will help them understand the purpose and intentions underlying china–africa education cooperation and focus on internationalization as a process of integration rather than an outcome measured by how many african students graduate from their universities. internationalization in china–africa relations is aimed at achieving political and diplomatic goals – the balancing of political objectives with educational objectives, not just of the states but of african students is imperative. this means that instead of internationalization being imposed on least-prepared universities and higher education teachers, universities of higher learning in china will see that african students are equally important. similarly, it will enable more capacity development for african universities to be able competitors in the internationalization competition and provide meaningful partnership to their chinese counterparts. as it stands, there is insignificant consideration for “the active involvement of academics in internationalization, their perceptions of other cultures and people, the value they place on internationalization and their competence in speaking and reading other languages” (harman, 2005: 131). the effect is that the internationalization of chinese universities is to a greater extent linear, binary, and deterministic – focused on channeling out african graduates to meet the demand from africa and advance beijing’s foreign policy objectives. the effect is that the boundaries between the state, universities, and the market are blurred, leading to non-transformative cooperation. overall, a relational approach to internationalization will enable internationalization programs and providers to confront the representations that disadvantage african institutions. broadly, leading universities in china and across the globe only collaborate with equally prestigious universities, unless their intention is to capacitate african universities. most of the existing capacitybuilding programs reinforce representations of african universities as inferior and not worthy of student and faculty exchanges. accordingly, china–africa educational cooperation and internationalization of higher education in both china and africa should be transformational and to a greater extent revolutionary, if principles of people-to-people exchange and south–south cooperation are to 31 be meaningful and usher africa into the ongoing internationalization and global education competition. yet, as discussed in this paper, china–africa educational engagements challenge the dominant notions of south–south cooperation as an alternative to north–south cooperation. instead, it shows that as china becomes more assertive and confident of exporting its development and governance model through institutions such as isscad, the south–south dynamic is largely a replacement of the global north with china; hence, a new “center” and an old periphery. china–africa educational cooperation is therefore a betrayal of the south–south cooperation hope that gray and gills (2016) argued would transform the world order that favored the global north because china is taking the place of the global north in its relations with africa. acknowledgment an earlier and original version of this paper has been published elsewhere as: hodzi, o., & amoah, p. a. (2022). cities and social integration: reimagining china–africa relations in the greater bay area. in k. h. mok (ed.), cities and social governance reforms: greater bay area development experiences (pp. 137-157). springer nature singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-9531-5_9. an assessment of china–africa higher education partnerships and collaborations 32 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 references altbach, p.g., and knight, j. 2007. the internationalization of higher education: motivations and realities. journal of studies in international education, 11(34), 290-305. available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315307303542 altbach, p.g., reisberg, l., and rumbley, l.e. 2009. trends in global higher education: tracking an academic revolution. paper presented at the unesco 2009 world conference on higher education, paris. besada, h., and o’bright, b. 2017. maturing sino–africa relations. third world quarterly, 38(3): 655-677. available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.201 6.1191343 bodomo, a. 2011. african students in china. a case study of newly arrived students on focac funds at chongqing university. paper presented at the comparative education research centre (cerc) seminar, university of hong kong, hong kong. bodomo, a. 2015. african soft power in china. african east-asian affairs: the china monitor (1-2). available at: https://doi.org/10.7552/0-1-2-160 chen, q. 2016. globalization and transnational academic mobility: the experiences of chinese academic returnees. singapore: springer, higher education press. de wit, h., hunter, f., howard, l., and egron-polak, e. 2015. internationalization of higher education study. report for the european parliament’s committee on culture and education. brussels: european union. enders, j. 2004. higher education, internationalization, and the nation-state: recent developments and challenges to governance theory. higher education, 47: 361382. fijałkowski, ł. 2011. china’s “soft power” in africa? journal of contemporary african studies, 29(2): 223-232. available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2011.5 55197 forum on china-africa cooperation (focac). 2020. about forum on chinaafrica cooperation. available at: https://www.focac.org/eng/ltjj_3/ltjz/ foskett, n. 2010. global markets, national challenges, local strategies: the strategic challenge of internationalization. in maringe, f., and foskett, n. 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(eds.), the rise of china and india in africa. challenges, opportunities and critical interventions. london: zed books, pp. 155-166. helms, r., and rumbley, l.e. 2017. national policies for internationalization—do they work? in mihut, g., altbach, p.g., and de wit, h. (eds.), understanding higher education internationalization: insights from key global publications. rotterdam, boston and taipei: sense publishers. huang, m. 2019. introduction: south-south cooperation and chinese foreign aid. in huang, m., xu, x. and mao, x. 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(eds.). 2017. understanding higher education internationalization: insights from key global publications. rotterdam, boston and taipei: sense publishers. an assessment of china–africa higher education partnerships and collaborations 34 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 ministry of education. 2019. statistics for international students in china (20082016). beijing: ministry of education, the people’s republic of china. ministry of foreign affairs. 2018. forum on china-africa cooperation beijing action plan (2019-2021). beijing: ministry of education, the people’s republic of china. mok, k.h. 2000. marketizing higher education in post-mao china. international journal of educational development, 20(2), 109-126. available at: https://doi. org/10.1016/s0738-0593(99)00062-0 mok, k.h. (ed.). 2014. internationalization of higher education in east asia: trends of student mobility and impact on education governance. new york: routledge. mok, k.h., and chan, y. 2008. international benchmarking with the best universities: policy and practice in mainland china and taiwan. higher education policy, 21(4), 469-486. available at: https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2008.21 mok, k.h., and lo, w.y. 2007. the impacts of neo-liberalism on china’s higher education. journal for critical education policy studies, 5(1), 316-348. mok, k.h., and ong, k.c. 2014. transforming from “economic power” to “soft power”: transnationalization and internationalization of higher education in china. in li, q. and gerstl-pepin, c. (eds.), survival of the fittest: the shifting contours of higher education in china and the united states. berlin, heidelberg: springer berlin heidelberg, pp. 133-155. niu, c. 2013. china’s educational cooperation with africa: toward new strategic partnerships. asian education and development studies, 3(1), 31-45. available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/aeds-09-2013-0057 nixon, e., scullion, r., and hearn, r. 2018. her majesty the student: marketised higher education and the narcissistic (dis)satisfactions of the studentconsumer. studies in higher education, 43(6), 927-943. available at: https:// doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2016.1196353 nye, j.s. 1990. soft power. foreign policy (80), 153-171. available at: https://doi. org/10.2307/1148580 peterson, r., yan, f., and oxnevad, i. 2022. after confucius institutes: china’s enduring influence on american higher education. new york: national association of scholars. united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco). 2020. outbound internationally mobile students by host region. available at: http:// data.uis.unesco.org/index.aspx?queryid=172 vavrus, f., and pekol, a. 2015. critical internationalization: moving from theory to practice. fire-forum for international research in education, 2(2), 5-21. 35 xinhua. 2019. chinese firm to support nigeria in building first transportation university. available at: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/201912/03/c_138602801.htm yang, r. 2010. soft power and higher education: an examination of china’s confucius institutes. globalisation, societies and education, 8(2), 235-245. available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14767721003779746 zha, q. 2012. understanding china’s move to mass higher education from a policy perspective. in hayhoe, r., li, j., lin, j., and zha, q. (eds.), portraits of 21st century chinese universities: in the move to mass higher education. dordrecht: springer netherlands, pp. 20-57. an assessment of china–africa higher education partnerships and collaborations ahmr volume 9 number 2 may-aug 2023 special amended.pdf ahmr cover online volume 9 number 2 special 02.pdf 145 statelessness in protracted refugee situations: former angolan and rwandan refugees in zambia mazuba muchindu1 received 15 august 2022 / accepted 17 january 2023 / published 27 january 2023 abstract the risk of statelessness in protracted refugee situations has not received much attention both in academic literature and policy discussions. yet evidence suggests that for refugees in protracted situations, the bond with their country of origin can become weak while pursuing local integration as a durable solution in the host country, leading to an increased risk of becoming stateless. this can occur depending on the requirements that refugees have to meet in order to become locally integrated in a host country especially when their refugee status ceases. these requirements largely revolve around the issue of citizenship and national identity documents. many are unable or unwilling to acquire national identity documents from their country of origin for different reasons, including: fear of persecution by the government of their country of origin; criteria that exclude a large number of them from accessing local integration opportunities; and nationality laws that do not automatically grant citizenship by birth. in this paper, i argue that there is need to extend the definition of stateless persons to include de facto stateless persons since they are in effect stateless. this would enable them to access the necessary assistance, chief among which is the regularisation of their legal status. i base my argument on the case of former refugees from rwanda and angola in zambia. keywords: local integration, de facto statelessness, protracted refugee situations, angolan refugees, rwandan refugees 1 university of zambia, zambia.  mazuba.muchindu@unza.zm statelessness in protracted refugee situations in zambia 146 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 i. introduction in spite of the risk that refugees in protracted situations run to become stateless as they seek to become integrated in the host country, academic literature and policy discussions do not dwell much on statelessness in the context of local integration as a durable solution. yet evidence suggests that once the cessation clause has been effected, former refugees may find themselves at risk of becoming stateless depending on the requirements that they have to meet to become locally integrated in a host country. local integration refers to the granting of full and permanent asylum, membership, and residency status, by the host government. it takes place through a process of legal, economic, social, and cultural incorporation of refugees, culminating in the offer of citizenship.1 fielden2 argues that the process becomes a durable solution only at the point when a refugee becomes a naturalised citizen of their asylum country. however, some scholars point out that it is possible to obtain social and economic integration without ever being offered citizenship. this applies to self-settled refugees — those who become integrated in a host community without official assistance.3 hovil and maple4 refer to this type of integration as de facto local integration. they argue that although it is possible that naturalisation and/or citizenship may be part of the process of local integration, citizenship means little if former refugees are not accepted by the local communities in which they are living. in this paper, i understand local integration as a process that leads to citizenship or at least safeguards the citizenship of refugees trying to regularise their stay by facilitating their access to identity documents. regarding protracted refugee situations, i apply the definition used by milner and loescher,5 as “one in which refugees have been in exile ‘for 5 years or more after their initial displacement, without immediate prospects for implementation of durable solutions”. the process of integration can be seen as largely revolving around the issue of national identity documents. for instance, in zambia refugees whose status has ceased are required to provide a national registration card and passport to be considered for local integration.6 with these documents, refugees, can get residence permits, employment permits, business permits and other permits. ultimately, it allows them to apply for citizenship after ten years of being ordinarily resident in zambia.7 in spite of this, many refugees from rwanda seeking to become locally integrated are unable to acquire national identity documents from their country of origin for various reasons, including fear of persecution by the government of 1 karen jacobsen ‘the forgotten solution: local integration for refugees in developing countries’ (2001) new issues in refugee research working paper no. 45. 2 alexandra fielden ‘local integration: an under-reported solution to protracted refugee situations’ (2008) unhcr. 3 jacobsen op cit note 1. 4 lucy hovil & nicholas maple ‘local integration: a durable solution in need of restoration?’ (2022) 41(2) refugee survey quarterly. 5 james milner & gil loescher ‘responding to protracted refugee situations: lessons from a decade of discussion’ (2011: 15) forced migration policy briefing no. 6 6 government of the republic of zambia (grz) ‘the refugees act of 2017’ available at https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a97c5154.html, accessed on15 august 2022. 7 government of the republic of zambia (grz) ‘the immigration and deportation act no.18 of 2010’. 147 their country of origin, and administrative challenges in issuing the documents. for former angolan refugees, the zambian government had also offered to locally integrate those who arrived between 1966 and 1986. this excludes those who arrived in zambia after 1986, the majority of whom are without any form of identification.8 without any form of national identity document, both groups risked having a weak bond with their country of origin and subsequently risked becoming stateless. they faced several challenges in accessing livelihood opportunities, including employment and social services such as education and healthcare. this risk extended to children born to refugees not only because of their parents’ weak link with their country of origin,9 but also because zambian laws do not automatically grant citizenship to children born to foreign parents on zambian territory. i argue that people in such circumstances are in effect stateless and should be considered and treated as such by providing them the necessary assistance and protection. it is important to examine protracted refugee situations because more than two-thirds of refugees in the world today are trapped in such situations.10 i analyse this from the political theory perspective that argues that, as suggested by authors, examining exclusions arising from migration provides a useful basis for thinking about statelessness.11 i start by examining the issue of statelessness in the context of local integration in the literature. this is followed by an overview of protracted refugee situations in zambia and the government’s attempts to provide local integration as a durable solution with a focus on the case of rwandan and angolan refugees. in the next section i demonstrate how large sections of the two refugee populations are in effect stateless due to their refusal to acquire national identity documents (as in the case of rwandans), and as a result of being excluded from the local integration process (as in the case of post-1986 angolan arrivals). i also show the impact of the laws concerning the assistance and protection of refugees in zambia, especially the zambian constitution12 and the citizenship act13 with regard to children born to refugee parents. moreover, i compare zambia’s experience with other countries in the southern african development community (sadc) region with particular interest in how the latter have resolved protracted refugee situations through naturalisation. thereafter, i consider the policy implications of the protracted refugee situation in zambian in relation to statelessness, including broadening the definition of statelessness to de facto statelessness. ii. statelessness in the context of local integration 8 us state department ‘development and training services’ (2014). 9 united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) ‘statelessness and issues relating to nationality in zambia final report (21 november 2016) unhcr lusaka. 10 milner and loescher (2011) op cit note 5. 11 kristy a belton ‘the neglected non-citizen: statelessness and liberal political theory’ (2011) 7 journal of global ethics at 59-71. 12 government of the republic of zambia (grz) ‘the constitution of zambia (amendment) act of 2016’ lusaka zambia. 13 government of the republic of zambia (grz) ‘citizenship act no. 33 of 2016’ lusaka zambia. statelessness in protracted refugee situations in zambia 148 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 local integration has great potential as a durable solution in protracted refugee situations, especially where repatriation or resettlement are not viable options. it becomes even more critical given that early return is not possible for most refugees.14 protracted refugee situations can lead to loss of connection with the country of origin, which in turn increases the risk of statelessness. it must be noted that being undocumented does not equate to being stateless, but it makes it challenging to prove nationality, thereby increasing the risk of statelessness particularly for children born and raised in asylum. in spite of this, statelessness is rarely perceived in the context of local integration, both in the literature and policy discourse on protracted refugee situations. instead, what has dominated discussions are concerns about security challenges;15 resource burdens on the host country;16 changing approaches in the provision of assistance to refugees in protracted situations in countries of asylum, for instance from long-term ‘care and maintenance’ programmes to approaches focused more on self-reliance.17 notwithstanding the above observation, it must be noted that the link between protracted refugee situations and statelessness is slowly emerging. for instance, from the policy view point, governments in sub-saharan africa (ssa) are beginning to consider the possibility of resolving protracted refugee situations through naturalisation and integration of refugees in countries such as sierra leone, liberia, and tanzania.18 in the academic literature, similar developments can be observed. for example, hovil and lomo19 examine citizenship in the context of local integration, though not from the perspective of statelessness. hovil and maple20 acknowledge that refugees face the risk of statelessness while trying to find ways to become integrated in a policy environment that denies them assistance to integrate. they argue that this is the case particularly when refugee status is withdrawn through a cessation agreement. the case of protracted refugee situations in zambia sheds more light on this issue. it revolves around the issue of citizenship and national identity documents. iii. former refugees at risk of statelessness in zambia zambia has experienced a number of protracted refugee situations in its history of providing asylum. as of february 2022, zambia hosted 105,868 persons of concern (76,093 refugees, 4,874 asylum seekers and 24,901 others of concern, including selfsettled refugees). of these, 19,660 were from angola; 9,194 from burundi; 6,080 from rwanda; 4,152 from somalia; and 758 from other countries. during the same 14 milner and loescher (2011) op cit note 5. 15 gil loescher, j. milner, e. newman & g.g. troeller ‘protracted refugee situations: political, human rights and security implications’ (2014); milner & loescher (2011) op cit note 5. 16 jacobsen op cit note 1. 17 milner and loescher (2011) op cit note 5. 18 ibid. 19 lucy hovil & zachary lomo ‘forced displacement and the crisis of citizenship in africa’s great lakes region: rethinking refugee protection and durable solutions’ (2015) 31 refuge: canada's journal on refugees at 39-50, available at https:// doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.40308. 20 hovil & maple op cit note 4. 149 period, there were 438 new arrivals mostly from the democratic republic of the congo (drc), burundi, somalia, and other countries.21 a large portion of these refugees are self-settled or spontaneously settled, meaning they are settled among the local community without direct official (government or international) assistance22 — 8,253 from angola23 and 914 from rwanda.24 many of these refugees have been in protracted situations, where they have been in exile for five years or more after their initial displacement, without immediate prospects for implementation of durable solutions.25 for instance, the first flow of angolan refugees took place in 1966 as a result of the independence struggle from portuguese rule. this means that this group of refugees has been in zambia for over fifty years. rwandan refugees have been in zambia for a relatively shorter period with the first arrivals happening in 1994 in the wake of the genocide in their home country. others followed in 1997 and 1998 due to armed clashes in the northwest of the country.26 most of these refugees have been repatriated over the years. for instance, between 2004 and 2017, it is estimated that over 132,000 angolan refugees voluntarily repatriated back to their country of origin.27 in spite of this, many remained and became integrated in zambia. for example, out of the more than 5,000 rwandan refugees in zambia targeted for voluntary repatriation in the early 2000s, very few returned to rwanda.28 several attempts have been made to regularise the status of refugees who opted to become integrated within the host communities. these include the zambia initiative development programme (zidp), which was introduced in 2002 in the western province of zambia, home to one of the largest refugee settlements in the country — mayukwayukwa. the programme had a two-pronged approach of facilitating self-sufficiency among refugees while contributing to the development of the host community. in total, the zidp targeted over 450,000 beneficiaries, of whom up to 150,000 were refugees.29 another attempt was the strategic framework for the local integration (sfli) of former refugees in zambia introduced in 2013/2014.30 it 21 united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) ‘zambia: unhcr operational update’ (february 2022), available at: https://reliefweb.int/report/zambia/zambia-unhcr-operational-update-february-2022. 22 jacobsen op cit note 1. 23 us state department op cit note 8. 24 global compact digital platform (15 march 2021), available at: https://globalcompactrefugees.org/article/zambia, accessed on 10 may 2022. 25 milner & loescher (2011) op cit note 5. 26 global compact digital platform op cit note 24. 27 mushiba nyamazana grayson koyi patricia funjika & edward chibwill ‘zambia refugees economies: livelihoods and challenges’ (2017) unhcr lusaka. 28 jesuit refugee service (jrs) ‘is rwanda safe?: an inquiry into the reluctance of the rwandan refugee community to repatriate’ (2004), available at: https://reliefweb.int/report/rwanda/rwanda-safe-inquiry-reluctance-rwandan-refugeecommunity-repatriate#:~:text=one%20such%20tripartite%20agreement%20between,rwandans%20have%20elected%20to%20repatriate.&text=after%20the%20tripartite%20agreement%20was,a%20go%2dand%2dsee, accessed on 16 january 2023 29 commissioner for refugees (cor) ‘the zambia initiative: in pursuit of sustainable solutions for refugees in zambia (2004) cor lusaka; unhcr ‘citizenship and statelessness in the member states of the southern african development community’ (december 2020), available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/6012a0d44.html, accessed on 16 january 2023. 30 government of the republic of zambia ‘strategic framework for the local integration of former refugees in zambia’ (2014) ministry of home affairs & unhcr lusaka. statelessness in protracted refugee situations in zambia 150 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 aimed to regularise the status of 10,000 former angolan refugees who had settled in zambia between 1966 and 1986, as well as 4,000 former rwandan refugees following the cessation of refugee status of the two refugee populations in 2011.31 through this initiative, the zambian government offered to grant permanent residency status to the former refugees from the two countries.32 all former refugees who wished to remain in zambia were invited to apply for an appropriate immigration permit such as spouse permit, employment permit, and study permit at a reduced fee subsidised by the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). under zambia’s immigration and deportation act33 former refugees are subjected to laws that apply to any other foreigner on zambian territory. in line with this legislation, former refugees must acquire relevant permits to continue staying in zambia and have access to livelihood opportunities and social services, including employment and education. a holder of any immigration permit in zambia (such as employment permit, investors’ permit, study permit, or spouse permit), is eligible to apply for a residence permit after a certain number of years (after ten years for a holder of an employment permit; after three years for a holder of an investor’s permit, provided they are operating a viable business; and after five years for a spouse permit).34 these former refugees would then be eligible for citizenship within a period of ten years. to be eligible for any of the above permits, they were required to be in possession of a passport of their country of nationality, like any other foreigner on zambian territory.35 the countries of origin also facilitated the process.36 for instance, the angolan government was going to provide at no cost to the former angolan refugees, national registration cards (nrcs) and angolan passports, which were required as part of the documentation process. it is important to note that the period that someone was a refugee on zambian territory was not considered as part of the period a person is ordinarily resident in the country. but as part of the alternative legal status pillar under the sfli launched in 2014, this requirement was waived. hence, for instance, former rwandan refugees who arrived in zambia between 1994 and 1998 were eligible to apply for a residence permit.37 similarly, former angolan refugees who arrived in zambia between 1966 and 1986 together with their children and had continuously lived in zambia, were 31 kaldor centre for international refugee law ‘what’s behind zambia’s growing welcome to refugees?’ (2018), available at: https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/news/what%e2%80%99s-behind-zambia%e2%80%99s-growing-welcomerefugees, accessed on 10 may 2022. 32 us state department op cit note 8. 33 grz (2010) op cit note 7. 34 nyamazana et al. op cit note 27. 35 government of the republic of zambia ‘the refugees act no 1 of 2017’ (2017) lusaka zambia. 36 znbc ‘rwanda to issue ids to former refugees in zambia’ (22 april 2022), available at https://www.znbc.co.zm/news/ rwanda-to-issue-ids-to-former-refugees-in-zambia/. 37 times of zambia ‘has rwandan refugees integration hit snag?’ (1 march 2016), available at http://www.times. co.zm/?p=80675, accessed on 27 november 2018. 151 eligible to apply for a residence permit.38 on the one hand, the offer of local integration to rwandan and angolan refugees described above was laudable in terms of finding a durable solution to the protracted situation of the two refugee populations. on the other hand, some of the requirements that accompanied the offer created several challenges with regard to the legal status of refugees, potentially exposing them to statelessness. these requirements also posed a huge challenge to their livelihoods. furthermore, refugees were obligated to acquire national identity documents from their country of origin — this was particularly challenging for rwandan refugees. they were reluctant to acquire national identification, due to fear of exposing themselves to possible persecution by the government of their home country. “(i)f going to heaven will mean us passing through rwanda, then we will miss heaven,” lamented one former rwandan refugee.39 yet another expressed her trepidation and anguish to the times of zambia: ‘personally, i am not ready for it. i know that when i get a (rwandan) passport then i become a citizen. but i am not ready to disown my refugee status right now because i know that there are many things involved in the background that not many people know about…’ she … fears that once the registration process is undertaken, the data collected may end up in wrong hands thereby endangering her life as some people may use the information to track her and other former refugees down.40 owing to these fears, only a few rwandan refugees obtained national identity documents. as of march 2016, only 41 out of 4,200 former rwandan refugees obtained national registration cards and passports. the response was so poor that the ministry of home affairs warned that former rwandan refugees in zambia risked being declared illegal immigrants and possibly being deported if they did not apply for integration by 5 february 2016.41 the poor response was also attributed to the cost of obtaining a rwandan passport, which at the time was us$100. in acknowledgement of the above challenges, a presidential decision was issued in december 2017 to lift the national passport requirement for rwandan former refugees to enable them to apply for permits and remain in zambia legally. this permit was temporary in nature with a validity period of three years (renewable). the permits expired in march 2021 leaving the former refugees at risk of arrest, imprisonment, and substantial fines. in 2021 the government of zambia pledged to extend the validity of the temporary 38 la tribune franco-rwandaise ‘zambia: public notice on the criteria and procedures for local integration of former rwandan refugees’ (12 november 2015), available at http://www.france-rwanda.info/2015/11/zambia-public-notice-on-the-criteria-and-procedures-for-local-integration-of-former-rwandan-refugees.htm; nyamazana et al. op cit note 27. 39 the mast ‘if going to heaven means us passing through rwanda, we’ll miss it – ex-refugees in zambia’ (7 april 2017), available at: https://www.themastonline.com/2017/04/07/if-going-to-heaven-means-us-passing-through-rwanda-wellmiss-it-ex-refugees-in-zambia/, accessed on 27 november 2018. 40 times of zambia op cit note 37. 41 ibid. statelessness in protracted refugee situations in zambia 152 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 permits from 3 years to 10 years and issue permits without national passports.42 consideration by the zambian government to waive the requirement for passports must be equally applauded. under international law, states have a duty to promote local integration of refugees where repatriation is not possible within a reasonable time. article 34 of the 1951 united nations convention relating to the status of refugees provides that states parties ‘shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees’43 by such measures as expediting proceedings and reducing the costs of naturalisation. article ii.1 of the 1969 organisation of african unity (oau) convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa44 requires that countries of asylum should use their best endeavours to ‘secure the settlement’ of refugees who are unable to return home, which in the long term would need to include citizenship rights. the problem is that it was temporary. not until refugees obtained a residence permit could they be considered for naturalisation after a period of ten years. at the time of writing this paper, about three years after the pledge, the extension and issuance of the permits (without passports) had not yet been actualised. also, it must be noted that while commendable, the offer of temporary permits provided former rwandan refugees with relief only for the period of validity of the permits. this is because the number of years one is in possession of a temporary permit does not count towards the period of being ordinarily resident in the country, neither does the period one has spent as a refugee in the country. only the period that one has a full residence permit for counts towards being ordinarily resident in the country. the rwandan refugees’ refusal to acquire national identity documents of their home country put their legal status in jeopardy because without national identity documents from their country of origin, they could not access a residence permit, which, according to zambian law, was the entry point for securing one’s legal status with the possibility of naturalisation. section 20 of the immigration and deportation act45 provides that once a foreigner is in possession of a permit, they are eligible to apply for a residence permit, which in turn makes them eligible to apply for citizenship after ten years. refugees married to zambian nationals were eligible to apply for a spouse permit — initially for a two-year period, renewable for a further three years. after five years, the holder of a spouse permit qualifies to apply for a residence permit. ultimately, former rwandan refugees remained at high risk of becoming stateless due to the lack of national identity documents of their home country. this had the potential to weaken their link with their country of origin and expose them to statelessness in the long run. without meeting the requirements to access a residence permit in zambia, their stay in zambia would be illegal. 42 world vision zambia, the international council of voluntary agencies, & unhcr zambia ‘meeting on advancing local integration in zambia (17 june 2021). 43 united nations general assembly ‘1951 convention relating to the status of refugees’ united nations new york. 44 organisation of african unity (oau) ‘the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa’ oau addis ababa. 45 grz op cit note 7. 153 as can be observed from the case of former angolan refugees, even after so many years of residence in a host country, naturalisation could still be unattainable for former refugees. in spite of being in zambia since the 1960s, some former angolan refugees had not become formally integrated.46 as manby47 explains: while the laws of many countries in principle allow for the naturalisation of refugees and stateless persons on the same or similar terms as other foreigners, through the normal procedures, naturalisation can be very difficult to access in practice for refugees, leaving some at risk of statelessness. for angolan refugees, the major challenge was that only those who arrived in zambia between 1966 and 1986 and had continuously lived in zambia were eligible to apply for a residence permit. it excluded those who arrived after 1986 and in a way, compelled them to opt for ‘voluntary’ repatriation. for those who wanted to regularise their stay in zambia, this was going to pose a huge challenge, since cessation of refugee status also applied to them. without giving them an opportunity to get the necessary identity documents, immigration permits, and a residence permit, the legal status of former angolan refugees lay in limbo. it also meant that their pathway to naturalisation was blocked. in the long run, there was a danger that their ties to angola could be weakened, hence, putting them at risk of becoming stateless. as indicated above, a good number did not have identity cards and many were reluctant to acquire ‘alien’ cards, which they deemed inadequate in offering meaningful protection. for both former angolan and rwandan refugees, children born in zambia were also at risk of becoming stateless mainly because zambia operates on the basis of jus sanguinis and therefore does not grant citizenship by birth. article 35 (1) of the constitution of zambia48 provides that a person born in zambia is a citizen by birth if, at the date of that person’s birth, at least one parent of that person is or was a citizen by birth or descent. on the one hand, this provision reduces the risk of statelessness because it requires that only one parent should have been a citizen for the affected person to be recognised as a citizen. but it must be noted that children born in zambia to parents who are both non-zambian citizens are at risk of becoming stateless in the event that they fail to secure the nationality of their parents’ country of origin. this is likely, given that their parents’ link with their country of origin increasingly weakened without national identity documents. such a system for granting citizenship at birth only on the basis of descent from a citizen, is in conflict with basic principles enshrined in the african children’s charter and other human 46 see world vision et al. op cit note 42; and unhcr zambia (2022) op cit note 21. 47 bronwen manby ‘citizenship and statelessness in the member states of the southern african development community’ (2020: 96) unhcr report; see also: bronwen manby ‘statelessness in southern africa’ (2011) briefing paper for unhcr regional conference on statelessness in southern africa; bronwen manby identification in the context of forced displacement: identification for development (id4d) (2016) the world bank. 48 grz op cit note 12. statelessness in protracted refugee situations in zambia 154 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 rights treaties,49 and places substantial numbers of children at risk of statelessness.50 it is important to stress that this provision is not in line with the un convention on the rights of the child (crc), which provides in article 7 for every child to have ‘the right to acquire a nationality’,51 and for states to ensure the implementation of these rights, in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless. it must be noted that article 37 of the 2016 constitution of zambia provides for a person who has been ordinarily resident in zambia for a period of at least five years and was born in zambia to apply to register as a citizen. in spite of the existence of this provision, there is no evidence of any former refugee child having benefitted from this provision.52 as boyden and hart observe: in reality, the effective realisation of such rights is often difficult to achieve whether through neglect, design, incapacity, or legal complexity.53 in the zambian case, the challenge largely has to do with the issue of one being ordinarily resident in zambia to be eligible. just like the issue of permits, the period that one is a refugee is not considered as ordinary residence. for both groups, the risk of statelessness is also high among those who have settled among the local host community without official assistance (self-settled or spontaneously settled refugees) because they are undocumented. their livelihoods are severely restricted because they are in constant danger of detention, imprisonment, or deportation.54 compared to other countries, the zambian local integration process is similar in many respects. in many sadc countries, prospects of refugees acquiring citizenship are limited. citizenship is generally accessible by birth, registration, or naturalization, but in many cases, there are legal obstacles. citizenship by birth is accessible only on the basis of inheritance (jus sanguinis) and not on the basis of birth in the country (jus soli). as a result, citizenship cannot be extended automatically to the children of refugees, even if several generations are born in exile.55 hovil and lomo note that while it is possible to access citizenship through either registration or naturalization, in practice this rarely happens. for instance, in the democratic republic of the congo (drc), naturalisation requires approval by the national assembly, and the applicant must have performed ‘major services’ to the country. these are criteria that hovil and lomo argue that very few, let alone refugees, are likely to meet. in rwanda, applicants for nationality must be free of ‘genocide ideology’, a provision that hovil and lomo regard as vague and argue that it has been used to persecute opponents. other obstacles include requirements for very long periods of residency to apply for 49 see, for example, organization of african unity (oau) african charter on the rights and welfare of the child 11 july 1990 cab/leg/24.9/49 (1990). 50 african union (au) ‘acerwc general comment on article 6 of the charter on the rights and welfare of the child’ — adopted by the committee at its twenty-third ordinary session (07–16 april, 2014), available at http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/acerwc-general-comment-article-6-eng.pdf, accessed on 10 january 2023. 51 united nations general assembly ‘convention on the rights of the child’ (20 november 1989). 52 kelly kapianga ‘report on citizenship law: zambia — rscas/globalcit-cr 2020/ (14 november 2020) global citizenship observatory (globalcit). 53 jo boyden & jason hart ‘the statelessness of the world’s children’ (2007) 21 children & society at 237–248, available at https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2007.00105.x. 54 nyamazana et al. op cit note 27. 55 hovil & lomo op cit note 19. 155 naturalisation and filing fees that place the process out of reach of most refugees, even when they would otherwise qualify.56 among the states that have been generous in hosting refugees in protracted situations and offering naturalisation in sadc, is tanzania.57 the government issued several invitations for the mass naturalisation of refugees, including approximately 25,000 rwandan refugees who were granted tanzanian citizenship in 1981; and approximately 3,000 somali refugees offered permanent settlement in 2003 with the possibility of naturalisation. the government also reduced naturalisation fees from us$800 to us$50. in 2008 the tanzanian authorities began the naturalisation of 171,600 ‘old caseload’ of burundian refugees who had expressed their wish to become naturalised tanzanian citizens.58 around 2008 angola, which has a large population of its people in protracted refugee situations in zambia and other sadc countries, was also host to 13,000 refugees who fled the violence of a secessionist movement from the drc in 1977. the refugees had attained a considerable degree of socio-economic integration, and were largely self-sufficient. in 2006, angolan authorities offered legally secure local integration possibilities in the form of a permanent residence permit under the immigration act or naturalisation under the nationality act to those who choose to remain indefinitely in angola.59 namibia offers a good example of how to address the risk of statelessness among undocumented immigrants, including refugees. in 2010, the government undertook an exercise to register undocumented long-term residents at risk of statelessness, including those in its border regions. under this programme, a total of 3,012 people who could show they were living in the country before 1977 were registered as namibian nationals by the end of 2016. most of those registered were of angolan and south african origin.60 the case of former rwandan and angolan refugees in zambia and the examples of action taken to address the risk of statelessness among migrant populations in southern africa have several implications, which i discuss below. iv. extending the definition of statelessness there is need to consider extending the definition of statelessness to include de facto statelessness. first, de facto stateless persons are in effect stateless. second, as recommended in paragraph 3 of the 1954 un convention’s final act, those affected can then receive the necessary assistance and protection.61 although there is no international instrument or treaty that specifically defines de facto statelessness, the concept is recognised, as evidenced by the reference in the final act of the un’s 1961 56 ibid. 57 fielden op cit note 2. 58 ibid. 59 hovil & lomo op cit note 19. 60 unhcr (2020) op cit note 29. 61 united nations general assembly ‘convention relating to the status of stateless persons’ (28 september 1954) united nations new york. statelessness in protracted refugee situations in zambia 156 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 convention and an implicit reference in the final act of the un’s 1954 convention to ‘de facto’ stateless persons.62 i use the definition of ‘de facto’ statelessness recommended by section ii.a. of the unhcr expert meeting regarding the concept of stateless persons under international law as “persons outside the country of their nationality who are unable or, for valid reasons, are unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country”.63 applying this definition, many former refugees from rwanda and angola could be considered stateless. this is because they had valid reasons that caused them to be unable or unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of their country of origin. for former rwandan refugees, this can be demonstrated by their refusal to acquire passports from their home country. they were also outside the country of their nationality, but in addition to that, i argue that they were unable to acquire citizenship of the host country. therefore, the benefits of the 1954 convention should be extended to them. it must be stressed that although they have not formally or categorically renounced their rwandan nationality, they have to some extent done so by questioning their country’s willingness to protect them. besides, it is on the same basis that they were granted refugee status in the first place. for former angolan refugees (post-1986 arrivals), the primary issue is their inability to avail themselves of the protection of their country of origin given that they have been excluded from the offer to become locally integrated in zambia. those who are in a more precarious situation, are the self-settled former refugees from both countries, given that they were undocumented. this made it very difficult to avail themselves of the protection of their country of origin, nor benefit from the offer of local integration with the possibility of permanent residence or naturalisation. in light of the above, it can be argued that when it can be established that, with valid reasons, a person is unwilling to avail themself of the protection of their country of origin and are unable to acquire citizenship of the host country, they should be considered and treated as stateless persons. from this it is possible to sketch a profile of stateless former refugees in protracted situations. it includes adults who are unwilling, or unable to avail themselves of the protection of their country of origin, and unable to acquire citizenship of the host country. it also includes children born to refugee parents who are unwilling, or unable to avail themselves of the protection of their country of origin, and unable to acquire citizenship of the host country, in a country of asylum that does not automatically grant citizenship by birth. the case of former refugees from rwanda and angola has several policy implications. to start with, their situation calls for the broadening of the definition of statelessness to include de facto statelessness. there are several lessons to be learnt 62 united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) hand book on protection of stateless persons under the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons (1954) unhcr geneva. 63 united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) ‘expert meeting regarding the concept of stateless persons under international law’ (2010) unhcr. 157 with regard to how the original definition of the 1951 un convention definition of a refugee was expanded through the 1967 protocol, the 1984 cartagena declaration on refugees, and the 1969 organisation of african unity convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa. the zambian government should consider granting nationality to children born in zambia who would otherwise be at risk of becoming stateless, as the cases described in this paper illustrate. also, they should waive the requirement for refugees to produce national registration cards from their country of origin and passports for them to access residence permits and other immigration permits. in addition, the zambian government should consider reducing the number of years one is considered to have been ordinarily resident in the country for refugees who have been in protracted situations, for instance, from ten to five years. related to this is the need to reduce the fees attached to a resident permit and other related permits as they are prohibitive for an ordinary refugee. the zambian government should consider registering undocumented refugees in protracted refugee situations, including a possibility of access to naturalisation without imposing procedural requirements that are impossible to fulfil.64 given the difficulty that former refugees in protracted situations face, as outlined in this paper, as well as the precarity of their situation regarding their nationality, there is need for increased attention on statelessness as one of the risks associated with protracted refugee situations, among both academics and practitioners. it must be acknowledged that some efforts have been made to address issues concerning statelessness in zambia since the ministerial meeting held in geneva in 2011, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness. at this meeting, zambia pledged to take all necessary measures to observe and ratify the 1961 convention.65 in 2015, the zambian government, with support from the unhcr commissioned a study to assess the root causes and extent of statelessness in zambia. despite being largely exploratory in nature, the study yielded three cases of potential statelessness. it also established that a large section of the zambian population — both non-migrant and migrant populations — was at high risk of becoming stateless. another important milestone in establishing an institutional framework for dealing with statelessness in zambia was the appointment of the office of commissioner for refugees in the ministry of home affairs and internal security to be the focal point regarding matters pertaining to statelessness in the country in 2017. among its major tasks was to develop a mechanism for the identification of stateless people. these are quite commendable efforts, but more needs to be done, in relation to both the institutional and legal frameworks, for zambia to have a fully functional regime for the protection and assistance of stateless 64 unhcr (2020) op cit note 29. 65 unhcr (2016) op cit note 9; united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) ‘guidelines on statelessness no 4: ensuring every child’s right to acquire a nationality through articles 1-4 of the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness — 21 december 2012 (2014) unhcr; united nations general assembly ‘convention on the reduction of statelessness (30 august 1961) united nations new york. statelessness in protracted refugee situations in zambia 158 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 persons. disappointingly, by the end of 2022 the zambian government had failed to honour its pledge to observe and ratify the 1961 convention. v. conclusion the extant literature does not pay sufficient attention to the threats and risks associated with protracted refugee situations. i acknowledge the efforts to sound the alarm by scholars such as hovil and lomo who emphasize citizenship in the context of local integration; however, they do not examine it from the perspective of the risk of statelessness. additionally, hovil and maple acknowledge that refugees face the risk of statelessness while trying to find ways to become integrated in a policy environment that denies them assistance to integrate particularly when refugee status is withdrawn through a cessation agreement. as can be seen from the two cases of rwandan and angolan refugees seeking to regularise their stay in zambia, a considerable amount of assistance has been provided by the host government, the unhcr, and the country of origin to enable those wishing to stay, to regularize their status. but challenges have arisen because some refugees do not want to acquire national identity documents of their home country — a key requirement for refugees to be eligible for local integration — due to fear of renewed persecution by their government (as in the case of rwandan refugees), while others have been excluded from the integration process (as in the case of angolan refugees who arrived in zambia after 1986). the circumstances under which these former refugees find themselves render them effectively stateless; hence, they should be considered and treated accordingly and afforded the requisite assistance largely aimed at securing their legal status and prevention of loss of nationality. also important is the need for an increased and heightened academic response to the risk of statelessness in protracted refugee situations, among both academics and practitioners. as can be observed from the cases outlined above, protracted refugee situations can lead to loss of connection with the country of origin (where there is lack of national identity documents) which in turn can lead to statelessness. it must be noted that being undocumented does not equate to being stateless, but it makes it challenging to prove one’s nationality and increases the risk of statelessness. this is particularly the case as new generations grow up in asylum, especially where nationality laws in the host country do not automatically grant citizenship by birth. this has several policy implications that national governments should consider, including granting nationality to children born on a country’s territory — children who would otherwise be at risk of becoming stateless, as illustrated in this paper. also, national governments should waive requirements that are difficult for refugees to meet, to become permanent residents and naturalised citizens. these include insistence on legal residence, even for refugees, with evidence of having lived in the host country for many years, before being considered for application for a resident permit. also important is not to have prohibitive fees attached to immigration 159 permits. there is a wealth of best practices that zambia and others in southern africa could learn from (notably tanzania and namibia) pertaining to the resolution of protracted refugee situations, without putting refugees at risk of statelessness, and instead devise and implement progressive polices governing naturalisation and integration of refugees.66 66 milner & loescher (2011) op cit note 5. statelessness in protracted refugee situations in zambia 60 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 faith-based business ethics among african muslim small-scale business owners in guangzhou, china qiuyu jiang2 received 09 january 2023 / accepted 21 july 2023 / published 18 august 2023 https://doi.org/10.14426/ahmr.v9i2.1317 abstract based on 14 months of ethnographic research, this article examines how african muslim migrants build and maintain faith-based business ethics and how they apply these ethical business norms to help navigate their transnational lives in guangzhou, china. most of the african muslim migrants included in the study are small-scale business owners who engage in semi-formal economic activities in both local and home markets. they face racial, cultural, and legal challenges on a daily basis. unable to access formal means of support due to their precarious economic and legal status, many african muslim small-business owners rely on informal business ethics to ensure a safe trading environment and mitigate risk. their business ethics, i argue, are rooted in what i term “religious common ground” – the moral and ethical values shared among migrants from different muslim groups. this article also explores the enforcing mechanisms of african muslim small-scale business owners’ business ethics, such as mosques and coreligion business networks. this article concludes that there is no universal, standard code of conduct among african muslim business owners in guangzhou. individuals among different muslim communities have diverse interpretations of business ethics and practice them differently based on their nationality, ethnicity, religious habits, and socio-cultural backgrounds. this article contributes to a small but important literature that addresses the central role that religion plays in muslim migrants’ business practices in a non-muslim society. keywords: african migrants, muslim migrants, africans in china, islam, religious common ground 2 global studies, aarhus university, denmark.  qiji@cas.au.dk 61 introduction in december 2013, dina, a second-hand clothing trader from zambia, told me a story about how she and her three business partners were cheated. they had met a guinean man and his chinese wife two years earlier. the couple had a big showroom in tianxiu (a trading mall popular among african traders in guangzhou, a large manufacturing city in southern china) where they displayed various samples for bulk orders. the items they showed dina and her partners were of good quality at a fair price, so dina and her partners each placed an order, returned home, and waited patiently for the goods to arrive. however, when the items did arrive at the port in angola to then be transported on land to dina’s business in zambia, they were quickly re-directed to guinea instead, and mysteriously disappeared completely. together, the four zambian traders lost usd 59,000, of which dina lost usd 22,000. last year when dina visited guangzhou for business, she found the guinean man whom she believed had cheated her. she got into a physical fight with him and ended up scratching him. but the confrontation did nothing to help her get her money back. nor did her efforts to enlist the help of law enforcement: i went to [the] police twice for this. ... i see something going on there: the first time i went to the police, they asked me to come back the next day at 12 p.m. the next day i went there, the policeman was not there, but another one was there. the guinea guy did not even show up. and the other policeman said to me, “what do you want us to do? if we deport him, you won’t get your money back; if we send him to court, you still cannot get the money back.” the next time they say if this is a case between chinese and africans, they can take care of it. but if this is between africans, they cannot do anything about it. you see, they are defending him! after that, i do not do business with africans. i see a shop opened [operated] by africans, i go [leave]. (dina, 20 december 2013). dina keeps the business card of the guinean man, hoping that one day she will find a way to get her money returned. during my fieldwork among african traders in guangzhou, i heard stories like dina’s almost every week. with cheating in business so common in afro-chinese trade (mathews et al., 2017), how can smallscale business owners like dina protect themselves and mitigate risks? this article explores that question through focusing on the business ethics of small-scale african muslim business owners in guangzhou, especially on its creation, practice, and implementation. african migrants in guangzhou have drawn considerable scholarly attention as a growing migrant group over the past two decades. within this literature, many studies have focused on afro-chinese business relations and african trading activities and networks (e.g., bertoncello and bredeloup, 2007; haugen, 2011, 2018; lyons et al., 2012; cissé, 2015; marfaing and thiel, 2015; mathews, 2015; marfaing, 2019; röschenthaler, 2022). this research shows that most africans in guangzhou faith-based business ethics among african muslim business owners in guangzhou 62 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 are engaged in low-end globalization, which is defined as “global migrants who only have a small amount of capital and who make a living through semi-legal or illegal activities” (mathews et al., 2017: 2). traders come from virtually every country in africa, purchasing a vast range of goods, including mobile phones, clothing, computers, furniture, and construction materials (castillo, 2014). despite the frequency of cheating among traders involved in afro-chinese trade, business ethics and their implementation in this branch of commerce are insufficiently addressed in academic work. mathews et al. (2017) attribute cheating in business between chinese and african traders to “mistaken cultural assumptions”: africans assume the chinese will always cheat them, so they bargain for a low price believing that the quality of the goods they receive will stay the same. in response to the low price, chinese traders substitute their products for lower quality ones in order to make a profit. mathews (2022) further points out that in response to this widespread distrust, religious beliefs among devout christian and muslim traders from africa and refutation (interpersonal trust) are two major mechanisms to mitigate african traders from cheating customers, while african traders have also developed tactics to avoid being cheated. most prominent among these tactics are to be present in person to supervise the process of acquiring goods (i.e., they physically travel to china to negotiate, purchase, and load goods on transport) or to rely on fellow african brokers and logistics agents in china to facilitate trade for a commission fee. religion provides a suitable angle from which to consider business ethics. previous studies have pointed out that being religious can reinforce ethical decisionmaking and the implementation of a higher number of ethical practices in business (astrachan et al., 2020). other research has shown a correlation between religion and work ethic in muslim communities: some scholars link muslim entrepreneurs’ work ethic with islamic religious values (elfakhani and ahmed, 2013; hidayah et al., 2019) and argue that the development of muslim enterprises is inseparable from an islamic spirit that places emphasis on hard work, honesty, trustworthiness, thrift, and charity (othman, 2016; ahmed et al., 2019; machmud and hidayat, 2020). however, most of these studies focus on the role of religion in formal business contexts, where business is conducted at medium-to-large scale. less studied is how religion shapes business conduct in situations where people with limited capital trade on a small-to-medium scale. this article responds to this gap in knowledge by investigating how african muslim small-scale business owners create business ethic norms in the context of the informal economy between china and africa. research has pointed out that the impact of religion on business ethics is stronger in informal than formal business contexts, where institutional safeguards such as laws and contracts are often irrelevant or inapplicable to small-scale traders (mathews, 2022). this article builds on this insight and argues that business ethics based on religious norms among small-scale african muslim business owners in guangzhou, serve as an essential tool for these business owners to maintain a safe and positive trading environment. by 63 documenting diverse experiences of participating african muslim business owners concerning business ethics, this article contributes to a nuanced understanding of a key aspect of growing international migration and economic connections between africa and china. my research also updates current literature by providing an ethnographic account on the business ethics of african muslims in guangzhou, an important yet largely neglected transnational migrant minority in china. despite guangzhou experiencing growth in its african muslim migrant population in the recent two decades (su, 2017), there is little research specifically on african muslims and their interactions with chinese and other foreign muslims. while li et al. (2009) briefly mention that african muslims in guangzhou have established a tightly-knit and active community, their research lacks detailed documentation. in comparison, mathews et al. (2017) offer a more thorough and comparative study of religious practice among africans, yet they focus primarily on christian nigerians. in a more recent article, jiang (2022) argues that islamic charitable giving enables african muslims to cope with everyday challenges in china, particularly related to their tenuous immigration statuses and social exclusion. by examining the religious and moral comprehension of trade among muslim business owners, my research offers a novel understanding of the intersection of religion and business ethics in the context of afro-chinese migration. in this article, the term “african(s)” refers to black africans from sub-saharan africa; as mathews et al. (2017; 55) state, “this is what ‘african’ typically means when used in guangzhou.” the term was used by many africans i met to self-identify. however, it nonetheless can overgeneralize and ignore the diversity among the individuals with whom i interacted. therefore, i use the term “african(s)” in this article mainly to signal geographic origin rather than identity. in most cases, north africans associate themselves more with – and often are considered by others to be – arabs. in some situations, though, some also consider themselves “africans.” i will point out these nuances as this article unfolds. i use “african migrants,” “african traders,” and “african small-scale business owners” to highlight different facets of africans i met in the field. the term “african (muslim) migrants” emphasizes the temporality of their legal status in residing in china. i use “african traders” and “african small-scale business owners” to emphasize occupation and economic status. the term “african trader” includes both smalland large-scale traders, while the term “african small-scale business owner” includes small-scale traders as well as these africans who engage in semi-legal commerce, like operating unlicensed restaurants and hostels. although many of my interlocutors were small-scale traders, in this article, i address them as “african small-scale business owners” to emphasize their diverse occupations and low-end economic status. this article has three main sections. first, i introduce two key contexts that are essential to understand the african muslim migrants in the study – guangzhou’s multi-ethnic muslim community and the informal economy in which african smallfaith-based business ethics among african muslim business owners in guangzhou 64 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 scale business owners engage. second, i discuss what business ethics are and how they connect to the moral and ethical values shared among the muslim community – what i call “religious common ground.” through two ethnographic cases, i show how different muslim individuals practice business ethics and point out the fluidity of the business ethics. in the third section, i discuss the enforcing mechanisms for ethical norms, such as safety nets (e.g., mosque staff, leaders in the group, etc.) and peer pressure (e.g., co-ethnic and co-religion networks). i conclude that while religion provides a common ground through which individuals can establish some common norms, the informal nature of their business ethics means that they are hard to enforce, and therefore, other factors have an impact on them as well. contextualization guangzhou’s multi-ethnic muslim community previous research has pointed out that guangzhou’s history in the maritime trade, its current economic position as china’s southern manufacturing center, and comparatively lenient policy on religion together have contributed to the formation of a multi-ethnic muslim community in the city (li, 2014; su, 2017; jiang, 2022). there are three principal muslim groups in the city: chinese muslims, african muslims, and arab muslims. muslims tend to live close to the four mosques located in the yuexiu district. the neighborhood of xiaobei, in particular, has become a place where muslims of diverse origins congregate. african muslims do not only interact with each other and chinese residents, but also with other muslim groups. inspired by previous scholars who adopt a holistic view by situating africans alongside either chinese internal migrants (e.g., lan, 2015) or other groups of foreigners (e.g., mathews et al., 2017), and echoing adebayo (2022: 211) who argues that “contemporary afro-chinese interactions cannot be understood without considering how african communities are constituted in chinese cities,” i examine how african muslim small-scale business owners practice business ethics in relation to other groups rather than looking at them as if they were independent. most african muslims in guangzhou come from west african countries, such as guinea, nigeria, and niger, with smaller numbers coming from east african countries, such as uganda, somalia, and tanzania. in the field, i witnessed a range of socioeconomic statuses among the africans i met, with the majority being economically disadvantaged. due to rigid immigration control, it is hard for many small-scale business owners to obtain a long-term visa (lan, 2016). among my interlocutors, a few obtained a 6–12-month business visa (after which some were able to renew it); others remained in china illegally or semi-legally by either being undocumented or conducting business while on a tourist or student visa. there is no consistency in the documentation of the size of the african population, making it hard to estimate accurate numbers due to their high mobility (castillo, 2014). during the time of my fieldwork in 2014, an estimated 16,000 65 africans registered legally in guangzhou (qiu, 2015). between 2,500–3,500 african muslims (they were identified by skin color through the mosque’s staff) attended the morning prayer on eid al-fitr, an important holiday that marks the end of ramadan (the islamic holy month of fasting) in 2014 (guangzhou mosque staff, 30 july 2014). this constituted about 10–15% of the 26,000 muslims who prayed at that mosque on that day (third division within the city administration for religious affairs of guangzhou, 2014). i have not encountered one person among the african muslims i met who did not attend the eid al-fitr prayer. since 2014, several sociopolitical factors have had an impact guangzhou’s african community at large, leading to changes in population numbers. the covid-19 pandemic has resulted in an even smaller african presence in the city. so, too, has the rise of online business, which has limited the necessity of conducting trade through local brokerage businesses (mathews, 2022). according to a recent study, the guangzhou government in april 2020 disclosed that there were approximately 4,500 africans legally residing in the city (castillo and amoah, 2020). despite the time gap between my fieldwork and the publication of this article, the research herein nonetheless provides insight into how business ethics develop and operate within a migrant community, and the particular importance of religion in facilitating the ethical business norms in the context of the informal economy. informal economy and its vulnerability the informal economic activities that african small-scale business owners engage in and the challenges they face provide a crucial context for understanding the development of their business ethics and the significance these ethics hold for them. like other non-muslim africans in the city, african muslims engage in diverse business types in different sectors, but in general can be divided into three main occupational categories based on their business activities: traders (purchase and resale), middlemen (business based on commission), and caterers (provide service, especially catering to african clientele such as restaurants, hostels, and hair and nail salons; see “catering networks,” castillo, 2014). many of my interlocutors had multiple occupational identities both over time and at the same time. for example, gambo, a hausa businessman from niger who owned a men’s fashion shop in xiaobei, later expanded his business into catering by starting two halal restaurants in nearby shopping malls. lansana, a young guinean man who studied chinese full-time at a local university, worked part-time at a barbershop, while occasionally working as a middleman for his relatives back home. the informality is reflected not only on the scale of the businesses that african muslim business owners operate but also on their questionable legal status (e.g., the lack of a formal registration and paying taxes). many of these businesses are conducted without a proper business license. in order to avoid police checks, these businesses are conducted hidden in apartments among many residential buildings in xiaobei. i once visited a secret family inn owned by a senegalese entrepreneur. she rented a faith-based business ethics among african muslim business owners in guangzhou 66 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 big apartment in one high-rise building and turned it into a restaurant, specializing in senegalese food, and a hostel that charged between 30 and 50 rmb (about usd 5-8) per night. she was very discreet: there was no written menu, nor were there any signs. from the outside, the restaurant was no different from an ordinary apartment. one had to call for the daily menu, order in advance, and later either take out the food or eat in the living room of her “apartment.” besides business, she also offered a free praying corner for muslims. informality also presents itself in the lack of a formal format of the contracts that many africans in guangzhou enter into. many times, deals and business agreements are done orally or a handwritten “receipt” is provided rather than a formal invoice. these off-the-record transactions mean that there is no guarantee of the condition of the goods that african purchasers receive. thus, africans are particularly vulnerable to business risk and potential fraud (mathews et al., 2017). for example, sekou, a guinean trader, once purchased a carton of shoes but left the country before he could check the final products being shipped to guinea. he had no idea that the shoes displayed in the pictures sent by a chinese trader were made from cardboard that eventually got destroyed by the humid conditions during shipping by sea. this became apparent only after the goods had reached customs in conakry two months later. since the sale was not formally done, with no quality assurance, sekou lost all his money. after that, sekou bought products only from people he previously worked with or ordered in smaller quantities, even though that meant an increase in his purchasing costs (sekou, 22 march 2014). in addition to fraud like this, african migrants’ precarious legal status has placed them in a further disadvantaged position. many african traders are on short-term tourist visas to china, making them vulnerable to business failure (lan, 2016), as it does not give them sufficient time to stay in china to supervise the process of preparing and shipping an order. this also makes establishing long-term, trusting relationships and networks difficult. in other words, by remaining in china for a short period of time, african traders take greater business risks. even when african traders return to china and find the person who sold them defective items, it is hard to obtain compensation, primarily due to lack of institutional mechanisms to help small traders like them in china (such as in dina’s case at the beginning of this article). additionally, because some undocumented migrants do not want to risk being deported, they must accept their loss in silence. these circumstances underscore the necessity of african business owners establishing a certain standard of ethics when dealing with each other to ensure a safe, trustworthy business environment to mitigate risk. methodology i conducted anthropological field research in guangzhou over a span of 14 months between 2012 and 2014, with additional follow-up interviews conducted remotely via the internet and telephone in 2018. while in the city, i made extensive use of qualitative data collection techniques. my primary research methods were participant 67 faith-based business ethics among african muslim business owners in guangzhou observation and interviews. my actions in the field were very much in line with what clifford geertz (1998) calls “deep hanging out,” a research methodology by which an anthropologist immerses themself in a collective, social, and cultural experience on an informal level. as a female, non-muslim anthropologist, i faced some barriers when conducting research primarily among african muslim migrants, who were predominantly male (see jiang, 2022). to increase opportunities for engagement, i received permission from the imam of a local mosque that is popular among african muslims to conduct research while volunteering there (on mondays, thursdays, and friday jumu’ah prayers, and on religious holidays). my main duties were tidying the prayer room, putting the canvas on the ground, and cleaning up after each prayer session. i also participated in other religious activities centered on the mosque, coming to know a number of african muslims through my time there. furthermore, i volunteered as a chinese language teacher to africans for six months at a family service center run by a local nongovernmental organization (ngo) in a neighborhood where many africans resided. additionally, i met interlocutors regularly at their shops, was invited to their homes, and communicated with them online through chat platforms (e.g., whatsapp and wechat). in total, i interviewed 27 muslims (25 males and 2 females) who came from nigeria, niger, mali, guinea, cameroon, tanzania, uganda, senegal, and liberia, with the majority hailing from west africa. all my interlocutors resided in guangzhou for most of the year. my informants came from diverse backgrounds: they were traders, shop owners, wage laborers (e.g., retail, cargo companies), students, barbers, hairdressers, and housewives. some were associated with multiple of these categories, which were not always stable, but nonetheless they were involved in some kind of business, no matter how small the scale was. they all had different experiences in guangzhou, informed by diverse factors: their nationality, socioeconomic status, gender, and time spent in guangzhou. to ensure anonymity, i allocated pseudonyms to all participants. when analyzing the data, i used an approach that combines anthropological interpretation (geertz, 1973) and the reflexive approach in thematic analysis (braun and clarke, 2019). my analytic procedures consisted of three consecutive processes of reading. first, i conducted a broad mapping of the fieldnotes and interview transcripts. i did this both to familiarize myself with the material and gain an overview of the qualitative data. second, i followed an inductive approach (analytical themes come from the data), i labeled (coded) the material and generalized several themes. i paid special attention to different terms that shared meanings (e.g., good muslim, honest earning, modesty, etc.) and the terms that emerged multiple times but carried diverse interpretations (e.g., honesty). third, i conducted a close reading of the materials within the themes, with my interpretations for the explicit and implicit meanings behind data. however, no matter how 68 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 systematic or scientific the analytical process is, the analysis always remains a matter of a researcher’s personal interpretation. findings and discussion in this section, i discuss what i term religious common ground and how various factors – including nationality, ethnicity, and socio-cultural background – result in different interpretations of the ethical business norms among different muslim communities in the city. religious common ground islam sets moral and ethical boundaries for followers when engaging with the market economy. it also provides a cultural explanation for certain business conducts and outlines guidelines on how followers ought to conduct business (santoso et al., 2020). among many of my interlocutors, islamic values are embedded in their business conduct. for example, moussa, a senegalese trader who came to guangzhou in 2012 and successfully established himself, conveyed his guiding principles in life: “as for me, i am primarily guided by my faith, embodying kindness, providing assistance, and helping those i engage with, with my personal interests taking a secondary place” (moussa, 10 april 2018). sharing a religious common ground means recognizing a “universal morality” that muslims across different cultures acknowledge and follow (osella and osella, 2009). specifically in this research, religious common ground manifests in how one runs a business, the type of business one operates, and how one views business gains and losses. islam has historically placed a strong emphasis on commerce and encourages individuals to sustain their livelihood through trade and business activities. as the quran (2: 275) states, those who consume interest will stand “on judgment day” like those driven to madness by satan’s touch. that is because they say, “trade is no different than interest.” but allah has permitted trading and forbidden interest. whoever refrains – after having received warning from their lord – may keep their previous gains, and their case is left to allah. as for those who persist, it is they who will be the residents of the fire. they will be there forever. this verse emphasizes the distinction between lawful trade and the prohibition of interest in islam. muslims are permitted to seize any opportunity to sustain their livelihood and engage in various buying and selling activities within the parameters of lawful trade. many african muslims use their faith to explain the meaning of profit and to justify making a profit. for them, profiting from business activities is necessary in order to support their family and is a blessing from allah. this means that making a profit is allowed, but only if achieved in the proper way. 69 specifically, muslims need to balance money-earning and religious modesty, as being greedy is frowned upon by islam (see also mathews et al., 2017). many business owners i interviewed emphasized that they charge their customers fair prices and that doing otherwise would make them feel uncomfortable. interestingly, a-ming, a libyan middleman who held that one should get as much profit as possible in a business deal, would attribute business gains to allah’s generous offerings and argued that it was allah’s will; therefore, he accepted such big profits. a-ming attached a background screen sticker to his phone that contained an image that read, “i am a muslim. islam is perfect, but i am not. please do not blame islam for my fault. blame me,” in case fellow muslims blamed him for being too profit-driven. islam also influences how some of my interlocutors view business incidents in their lives. while some attributed business losses to a human flaw (e.g., cheating), some devout muslims see business ups and downs as the will of allah. according to the quran (9: 51): say, “never will we be struck except by what allah has decreed for us; he is our protector.” and upon allah let the believers rely. this means that success and failure are ultimately determined by allah, and as believers, they are encouraged to put their trust in him and rely on his guidance and support. in the previous case, sekou sees the setback as a test from allah, and said this means that he should work hard and try again to succeed, with a full acknowledgment of allah’s ultimate control over all events and outcomes in his life. in addition to skepticism over excessive profits and a framework for interpreting success and failure, islamic belief also limits what types of business muslims can conduct. as bah, a guinean shoe trader, explained to me that as a muslim, you don’t kill. don’t sell beer [alcoholic beverages]. don’t lie. don’t sell drugs. religion tell[s] you what to do [and] how to do it. there are things you don’t do. if you sell these things – when you get the money – it is haram [any act that is forbidden by allah]; you cannot use that money to do anything. you cannot build a mosque [with that money]. you must do things that make god happy. the person does bad things – [even if] you build a house, you have lot of money, but when you die, all these [things] cannot bring with you. you have to be careful, because when you die, god will judge [you]. (bah, 09 april 2018). similarly, kaddy, a hair salon owner, told me that she could not do certain hairstyles (referred to as al-qaza, a popular hairstyle whereby one trims parts of the hair while leaving other parts longer) even though there was a high demand from young people because allah would not allow it. as bah and kaddy’s remarks illustrate, not all money is viewed equally, and religious outlooks can limit certain economic activities. just as islamic regulations dictate how much profit one can make, they also indicate that faith-based business ethics among african muslim business owners in guangzhou 70 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 how one earns a profit is important, perhaps even more important than the amount of the profit. however, despite the shared values and ethics, as my fieldwork revealed, i encountered several cases that demonstrate the diversity and fluidity of the business ethics among african muslim small-scale business owners in guangzhou, which i discuss in the next section. diverse interpretations and practices of ethical codes § case 1: different interpretations of honesty aside from regulations on profit, islam also contains rules about how business should be conducted, and what values should be central to business transactions. honesty in business, for example, is an important value among my interlocutors. many verses in the quran emphasize the importance of honesty and fairness in financial dealings and interactions. for example, “do not consume one another’s wealth unjustly, nor deliberately bribe authorities in order to devour a portion of others’ property, knowing that it is a sin” (quran, 2: 188). an honest business transaction brings a muslim a profit that is blessed (santoso et al., 2020). while all muslims regard cheating and selling religiously-prohibited items as disgraceful behavior forbidden by islam, perspectives on what is considered proper business conduct sometimes vary due to different factors, including socioeconomic backgrounds and different theological and religious doctrine considerations of the muslim business owner(s). guangzhou is notorious for its counterfeit products (mathews, 2015; mathews et al., 2017) where one can buy fake – but convincing – big-brand products, for example, a prada purse for usd 100-200. these counterfeit items are popular in the african market. during my fieldwork, i sought to establish whether the acceptability of the making and selling of these counterfeit products was conceived differently by different muslims from different backgrounds. for some muslims, like ali, a cell phone trader, counterfeit goods are not acceptable and selling them is considered a distinguishing factor between muslims and non-muslims. on the other hand, other muslim traders make and sell counterfeit products. for example, nancy, a chinese national who converted to islam through her marriage to a cantonese muslim, sells counterfeit high-end designer jewelry part-time. she provides her own theory on selling counterfeit goods, which, according to her, is shared by other chinese muslims: i don’t think allah would be mad if i sell fake goods. i think as long as i tell my clients that this is fake, it is ok. i always am honest with my clients. i made this piece of tiffany necklace using the same material as the original one, but i sell it at about 1/4 of the price they would have to pay for the original one. i earn my share but i would not sell a fake one to someone as the original, or tell them it is made of 18-carat gold but actually it was gold plated – that is cheat[ing]. that is not allowed by islam! (nancy, 01 august 2014). 71 in discussing the attitude toward counterfeit goods among african traders in guangzhou, mathews et al. (2017) demonstrate the complicated relationship between the moral and the legal aspects in informal business that african traders engage in. morality is how one conducts one’s life (e.g., being honest with clients and refraining from shipping copied items as if they were authentic goods), and legality pertains to the arbitrary rules that are often neglected (e.g., knowing the counterfeit goods are not legal but still selling and shipping them). nancy’s case is a perfect example of the different understandings of the moral and the legal dimensions. for nancy, the principal moral quality in business required by islam is honesty, which she understands as being honest with clients about the status of her goods. but it does not matter to her whether her action – making and selling counterfeit goods – is legal, or whether her morality is selective, which means that she is dishonest toward the original brand by plagiarizing its design. for other traders who sell counterfeit goods, their reasons are different. as mentioned earlier, bah would not sell items forbidden by his religion, such as cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs but he does sell counterfeit clothes and shoes. when i first came to a shoe market with him, i noticed that the puma sports shoes he ordered cost only 65 yuan (about usd 10) per pair. i warned him about these shoes being fake, concerned that he would be cheated. he laughed and said, of course, i know this is [these are] fake. no one wants to buy fake if they can afford the original. but in my country, many people cannot even afford shoes. so, they don’t care. if i sell them the original puma for over usd 100, no one has the money for it. but some people can pay usd 20 or usd 30 for fake shoes. … of course, the quality is not the same. they know! but at least they can wear good-looking shoes at a cheaper price. (bah, 14 october 2013). bah’s case shows that selling imitation goods is more about the economic status of one’s clients, than moral or legal considerations. in addition, it also shows that chinese counterfeit goods, to some extent, offer economically disadvantaged people an opportunity to enjoy new things at a lower cost. the cases outlined above illustrate the diversity of understandings about what being “honest” entails and the “more acceptable” way of trading counterfeit items. while the legitimacy of making and selling counterfeit products is debated among muslims, with different reasons for selling (or not selling) copied goods, the morality embedded in the religious common ground is the same. there appears to be consensus that a muslim trader should be honest – be it honesty regarding the status of the goods sold to the clients (as seen in nancy’s and bah’s cases) or honesty in legal terms (as seen in ali’s case). faith-based business ethics among african muslim business owners in guangzhou 72 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 § case 2: friendship versus business in 2014, i spent some time with a nigerian entrepreneur, songo, and his chinese wife, fang, a cantonese woman from a small town outside of guangzhou. they fell in love and got married in 2009 and conducted business together, mainly trade and commission-based consulting. songo and fang’s business is slightly larger than those of most small-scale african traders in guangzhou: they rent a proper office and legally registered their business. fang later converted to islam. in many ways, fang is a pious muslim: she dresses modestly, cites the quran, and prayed at lailah al-qadr (night of power) all night. one story i heard about a debate between this couple offers an interesting window into how cultural and personal factors impact on the ethics involved in conducting afro-chinese business. soon after songo married fang, one of his long-term clients visited them in guangzhou and gave fang usd 5,000 in cash as a wedding gift. then the client asked songo to purchase some goods for him, as usual. songo left fang in charge of the purchase. as mentioned before, middlemen usually take a percentage of the total purchase from the actual buyer. the business was done smoothly and fang charged that client a 5% commission fee. however, in this particular case, the client expected something different. when the client found out about the commission, he got angry and terminated his business partnership with songo. in his opinion, the usd 5,000 gift indicated that they were now friends and no longer clients. in his view, the couple should not charge him the commission like they would a stranger. while songo and some of his african friends agreed with this client and sought to repair the relationship, the damage was done, and rumors about songo and fang being greedy started spreading. in her defense, fang stated, what should i do then? i need to think about my own family. there are bills to pay: the rent of the office, the mortgage, the tuition of my kids … songo always says that they are all family, they are our muslim brothers and sisters, and we should not charge them. but i need to think of my small family first before thinking about his “big family” (xiangu xiaojia, zaigu dajia). (fang, 22 june 2014). the question in this dispute is simple but tricky: to what extent should a line be drawn between friendship and business? fang and african muslims hold different opinions on it. both perspectives have some merit, and it is impossible to “win” this debate. fang’s case again proves the fluidity and diversity of business ethics in practice. enforcing mechanisms and trust building as discussed previously, due to the informal and semi-legal nature of african migrants’ business activities, there is a lack of formal mechanisms to enforce ethical business norms. the above section also shows that even though people follow business ethics 73 on a daily basis, their diverse interpretations on business ethics also result in different business practices. therefore, african muslim business owners in guangzhou have developed some informal mechanisms to maintain and enforce their ethical norms: in particular, mosques, co-ethnic (native-place) networks, business associations, and social networks (word of mouth). sharing the same religion adds a mutual trust between the two parties, who shared neither the same nationality nor ethnicity (su, 2017). many muslim business owners i interviewed prefer doing business with other muslims, although not exclusively. for example, edel, a hausa entrepreneur from niger, and ahmed, a young man from yemen, met at a restaurant near one of the mosques and later developed a working relationship. as edel explained: i will buy [stuff from] and sell [stuff to] non-muslims, but i prefer to do business [develop a partnership] with muslims. do you know what is islam? it is about how to conduct life. you see, we have a similar rule on how to conduct life, so there will be less unnecessary conflicts. i trust ahmed. i work with him because he has a belief [in islam], so we both have the same thing to guide us. i found it is interesting how many chinese do not have a religion. … what if someone cheats you in business? you [chinese people] cannot do anything about it. but, for us, at least we have a god to look for. if we did something wrong, we have this guilt in ourselves, and inshallah this bad person will be punished. but i don’t know what you can do with people without beliefs? (edel, 30 april 2014). this statement, as biased as it may sound, should not be interpreted solely as discriminatory toward non-muslim traders from a different background. due to the high risk involved in the informal economy, it is not surprising to hear an african muslim trader express that they only want to trade with others from the same circle (country, mosque, and religion), as in their minds, the co-religion and co-ethnic network (muslim community, the mosque, and religious authorities like imams) exert social pressures that reinforce moral standards in business conduct. in addition, the smaller the circle, the more controllable the situation, and safer and more trustworthy that businessperson is. in this sense, some muslim business owners even explicitly expressed their preference for hiring muslim employees due to the mutual trust based on shared religion rather than shared nationality, ethnicity, or place of origin (su, 2017). they believed that sharing a similar moral code would reduce the rate of dishonesty and that believing in the same religious values would be a good mechanism to prevent cheating, as “there are only a few mosques where you can go” (edel, 30 april 2014). edel’s earlier remarks also indicate another layer of enforcement that goes beyond secular law, that even if in this secular world where one cannot get punished due to lack of formal institutional assistance, there exists the judgment and punishment by god in the world of afterlife. faith-based business ethics among african muslim business owners in guangzhou 74 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 consequences of code-breaking in many cases, cheating or deviating from established ethical norms transpire without any consequences. there are, however, a few instances where people do get justice meted out to them. previous research has shown that the networks that african migrants have help them cope with the difficulties they face in guangzhou, such as by providing social aid and creating a sense of community, which in turn reinforce ethical business codes and business networks (jiang, 2022). therefore, to be excluded from a religious network can be harmful for someone who wants to remain in afrochinese business, especially among african muslim business owners; their religious networks are tightly-knit, making cheating and code-breaking especially dangerous. in the introduction of the article, i shared the story of dina, who was betrayed by a guinean trader and his chinese wife. coincidentally, a few weeks later, i learned that a friend of a hausa businessman from niger, daran, was also cheated by the same guinean trader, but with a different ending: that was two years ago (2012). i brought my friend to tianxiu to this chinese lady who i always buy things from ... next time when he went alone, he found this guinean guy who offered him a cheaper price. so, he paid usd 2,000 as the deposit. the next day i went to tianxiu, the chinese lady told me, “daran, i saw your friend ordered from that guy but he does not have [any] things. he is cheating.” so, i went to ask him for [the] money back. he speaks french. he said, “ne pas avoir d'argent” [“don’t have any money”]. how come [he has] no money? i fight and fight. and i called the police. the chinese woman (his wife) works there, also cheats. she lied to the police. the police knew him! they asked him to give back the money to us. finally, he did. the next time, he saw me, he said, “sorry, bro.” and we made peace. after that incident, i find out that he is even a friend’s friend. now we just say “bonjour” (“hi”) if we meet on [the] street, but he is not my friend. i identify myself as a muslim. [being] muslim is not just about praying, not eat[ting] pork, these kinds of things, but it is about here [he pointed to his heart]. he is not a true muslim. (daran, 21 january 2014). the somewhat different attitudes this guinean man displayed to dina and to daran are interesting. first, he gave back the money to daran, but not to dina, which seemed like a demonstration of a gender bias. second, he apologized to daran – perhaps this came from a sense of morality based on religious merits? scholars have pointed out both the benefits and the limits of co-ethnic and co-religion networks of transnational migrants in conducting business (kim, 1999; yuniarto, 2015). perhaps in this sense, the co-religion network functioned stronger than the co-ethic one, in that the guinean man felt peer pressure from the muslim community? perhaps the conversation with daran was done in french – which both sides are fluent in – so that 75 they avoided any miscommunication, which might have taken place in dina’s case? moreover, the police handled these two cases differently; but why did the alleged connections between the chinese wife and the police work in dina’s case, but not in daran’s? perhaps this was because daran was a tough-looking african man, and dina was a woman? perhaps because daran has a resident visa, and dina is transient (on a tourist visa)? perhaps daran speaks fluent chinese and dina does not? perhaps this happened so many times, that the police finally got tired of this couple and decided to take action? i tried to locate this guinean businessman but he and his wife had moved, so my questions will remain unanswered, although i suspect that sharing the same religious network alarmed him and pushed him to make amends with daran. conclusion the historical presence of islam in guangzhou combined with the city’s extensive trading economy have attracted muslims from diverse origins, making the city home to one of the largest and most diverse communities of foreign muslim migrants in china (su, 2017). the majority of african muslims interviewed in this study are small-scale business owners, engaging in various informal activities in the context of low-end globalization. their marginalized social status and their low-end, informal economic activities make them vulnerable to business risk and potential fraud. as the article shows, without formal means of support, african muslim small-scale business owners largely rely on the business ethics to ensure a safe trading environment and to mitigate unforeseen risk. however, their business ethics are informal, dynamic, and context-shifting. various factors, especially one’s cultural background and socioeconomic status would impact on the interpretation and implementation of such business ethics. the article then explains what faith-based business ethics entail and discusses two cases where people held different interpretations of them. in the last part of the article, i discussed how business ethics were enforced, emphasizing the importance of co-religion business networks. future studies are needed to explore the effectiveness of other enforcing mechanisms, especially the role of communities in enforcing ethics – the role of muslim leaders, mosques, and leadership of african business and ethnic associations. this article highlights the vital role of religion in acting as an alternative source of formality and guide in an inherently precarious environment for smallscale business owners in the context of afro-chinese informal trade. the discussion of morality, and particularly morality among muslim traders, hence provides insights into not only the study on relationship of religion to economy but also studies on religious minorities at large. in addition, this article introduces the term “religious common ground,” referred to as a shared set of values that regulate individuals’ social, economic, and religious conduct. this term helps researchers better understand the religious networks and ethical guides that african and other muslim groups have built and on which many of their interactions are based. ethnographically, this article provides an ethnographic account of a group that is important yet often overlooked, faith-based business ethics among african muslim business owners in guangzhou 76 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 considering the scant research on african muslims and their interactions with chinese and other foreign muslims in guangzhou. by studying how african muslim small-scale business owners practice business ethics in guangzhou, this article adds a nuanced perspective to a growing literature on the african presence in china in the context of emerging international migrations between china and africa. acknowledgment the author owes great gratitude to many people from both african and chinese communities in guangzhou, who generously offered the author hospitality and kindness. the author is also grateful for the valuable comments from the anonymous reviewers, and for the inputs from dr. matthew wyman-mccarthy, rena ekrem, and the special issue editors, dr. anna triandafyllidou and 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protect the food security needs of kampala’s refugee population more effectively. uganda is africa’s largest refugee host, with a policy approach that has been widely lauded for its flexible settlement provisions and commitment to durable solutions. however, growing refugee populations and underfunding have led to serious pressures, severely exacerbated during the covid-19 pandemic. one unique aspect of uganda’s refugee governance approach is the allowance of refugee populations to self-settle outside of designated camps in the capital city, kampala. this research uses a governance lens to explore what is being done to support the food security of this group, by whom, and how this could be improved. the researcher conducted interviews with asylum seekers and refugees living in two of kampala’s large informal settlements (kisenyi ii and namuwongo) and with a range of policy stakeholders during may 2023. multiple levels of government and non-governmental organizations (ngos) offer overlapping formal and informal services and programs accessible to different populations living in settlements. this paper points to gaps and limitations linked to resources, as well as difficulties identifying vulnerable populations, locating political responsibility, coordination, and weak policy implementation, and suggests governance strategies to respond better to refugee and asylum seekers’ food security needs. key recommended responses are to overhaul the refugee registration system, recognize and protect urban food security, and improve policy actor coordination through collaborative strategies that move beyond awareness of the crisis to setting specific targets and timelines to address it. keywords: refugees, urban food security, self-settlement, kampala, uganda introduction uganda is the largest refugee-hosting country in africa with an estimated 1.6 million refugees and asylum seekers (un-habitat, 2023). this number has tripled in the last decade and actual numbers are certainly much higher. the 2006 refugee act and 2010 refugee regulations grant refugees rights to the same social services as ugandans, including health care and free primary education, as well as rights to live 1 department of political science, wilfrid laurier university, waterloo, canada.  abrown@wlu.ca https://orcid.org/0009-0001-5794-4665 refugee protection and food security in kampala, uganda 132 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 and work in designated areas. refugees are not recognized legally if they live in cities other than kampala, which has become the central destination outside of camps. there are an estimated 137,000 refugees living in kampala (unhcr, 2024). like many low-income countries, uganda is experiencing “urbanization without industrialization” (gollin et al., 2016: 38), accompanied by growing inequality. poverty is straining resources and services with few avenues for citizens or migrants to advance economically. in informal settlements migrants are disproportionately exposed to a cycle of risks and vulnerabilities: homelessness, illness, violence, poorquality water, sanitation, and hygiene (wash), and unemployment. all of these contribute to food insecurity, which in turn reinforces the other vulnerabilities (frayne et al., 2010). conditions have worsened as the result of underfunding, rising numbers of urban poor, and pandemic-related factors. uganda’s covid-19 response was among the most restrictive in the world (datzberger et al., 2022; khisa and rwengabo, 2023), and the economic and social burdens of this fell most heavily on the poorest and most vulnerable residents, leading to heightened food insecurity (atamanov et al., 2022). based on interviews with policy stakeholders, refugees and asylum seekers in kampala held in may 2023, this paper reviews existing governance supports, refugees’ experiences accessing them, and proposes how food security could be addressed better through reformed policy, stakeholder coordination, and more focused attention to recognizing and protecting urban food security. after an overview of research methods, followed by a literature review, this analysis turns to a discussion of government and non-governmental organization(ngo) led governance responses, including those linked to local governance and covid-19 responses. it concludes by pointing to challenges and gaps and proposing recommendations. multiple levels of government and ngo-sector actors offer overlapping formal and informal services and programs accessible to different populations living in urban settlements. despite these numerous governance strategies in place, gaps and limitations linked to resources, difficulties in identifying vulnerable populations, coordination, locating political responsibility, and weak policy implementation limit effectiveness. this research study suggests several governance strategies to respond more effectively to refugee and asylum seekers’ food security needs. these responses include an overhaul of the refugee registration system, targeted policy to recognize and protect urban food security, and improved policy actor coordination through collaborative strategies that move beyond awareness of the crisis to setting specific targets and timelines to address it. research methods this study seeks to understand current efforts to recognize and protect the food security needs of kampala’s international forced migrant population and propose ways of improvement. it employed a qualitative research design, which included several tools to gather insights from experienced stakeholders through an intentional 133 strategy of co-productive and community-engaged research. these tools included a stakeholder workshop, qualtrics (an online survey tool) surveys, and in-person interviews. in addition, the researcher undertook a review of the relevant literature, including legislation and policy documents from government and non-governmental governance stakeholders prior to conducting fieldwork in kampala. the literature used in this study is accessible in a document shared with interested stakeholders who participated in this study and who also have the authority to add to this document. a stakeholder research workshop with 11 participants was held at makerere university on 15 may 2023. this brought together three groups: academic researchers, government representatives from national, local, and municipal offices, and ngo leaders. all these individuals are directly engaged with research, policy and advocacy related to asylum-seeker and refugee settlement in kampala. the workshop provided an overview of the research project and its goals, followed by discussions on food security in kampala (drivers, barriers, needs, opportunities, and support for different populations in informal settlements) and on mixed-migrant populations in kampala (identifying and responding to changing needs). participants reviewed the proposed research tools (in particular, the interview questions for migrants), offered inputs, and made suggestions of additional stakeholders to survey or interview. all participants were later provided with a report summarizing the central points, conclusions, and key questions that emerged at this workshop, and were encouraged to add additional information to the document. the researcher shared details of how interested participants could collaborate in research outputs and future projects. this workshop was facilitated and organized with the support of peter kasaija, a phd candidate at makerere university. he also assisted with setting up many of the stakeholder interviews and hiring two additional research assistants (derrick kirabo and irene nantalaga), who translated during migrant interviews. the researcher disseminated a qualtrics survey to individuals in academic, policy, donor, and ngo positions connected with the governance and policies related to food security and migrant populations in kampala and received 20 responses. the survey asked respondents for details, assessments of, and priorities relating to (1) their insights of the programs and support mechanisms available to migrants living in kampala; (2) their views of the main barriers faced by migrants for attaining food security; and (3) their suggestions for improving migrant populations’ food security. the research team held 15 policy stakeholder interviews of approximately one hour each with individuals or small groups from the same office or organization. these participants work in government (local or national) or with ngos in positions related directly to forced migrant populations, food security, and urban settlement governance. interviews expanded on the same topics as the surveys, seeking to understand the existing – as well as the required – strategies, programs and support mechanisms available to food insecure migrant populations in kampala. three interviews were held on zoom rather than in person because of scheduling difficulties. the researcher later shared draft transcripts of interviews with participants, who refugee protection and food security in kampala, uganda 134 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 had the opportunity to edit the content, where necessary. four of the participants in the stakeholder interviews are refugees themselves, employed by ngos supporting refugee populations in kampala. an additional set of interviews took place with migrants living in kampala. the research team conducted these open-ended semi-structured interviews with 11 migrants living in two of the largest informal settlements, kisenyi ii and namuwongo. a social worker from the ngo, slum aid project facilitated five interviews in kisenyi ii, while a social worker from the local ngo, hands for hope uganda facilitated the remaining six in namuwongo; two ugandan research assistants aided in translation during interviews. interview questions focused on when and why migrants came to kampala and their experiences with accessing adequate nutritious and culturally appropriate food, and knowledge of and access to different government and nongovernmental services and support. six of the 11 migrants interviewed were international forced migrants, although only two had registered officially as refugees. the researcher selected this research design to meet specific goals. while there is extensive literature detailing the formal governance – legislation and programs provided by the government, donors, and ngo partners – related to refugee protection in uganda, there is a dearth of studies focused on food security. in this study, discussions, surveys, and interviews with stakeholders involved directly in the research topic – including migrants themselves – provided a deeper understanding of governance priorities and effectiveness, and an opportunity to emphasize the centrality of food security to urban governance actors. migrant interviews were central for learning about the lived experiences and priorities of the group this research seeks to support. the initial workshop, the shared documents (interview transcripts, workshop report, and scoping literature), and the invitations to co-author research outputs were motivated by a desire for inputs from those intimately familiar with the practice of governance in this area of research. additionally, there was keen interest to expand research collaboration opportunities within, between, and outside existing academic, government, and ngo networks. literature review this literature review serves to identify the value of adopting a governance lens for this case study and also to review existing research on and to contextualize the importance of the governance of urban food security and uganda’s refugee protection approach. governance this research poses three governance-related questions: what is being done to support food security for refugees in kampala? who supports this endeavor? how can it be improved? the covid-19 pandemic worsened food security for low-income 135 residents of kampala, but especially for refugees and asylum seekers (atamanov et al., 2022; squarcina, 2023), rendering this research focus even more pressing. this study used a governance approach to identify formal and informal processes by which government and non-governmental entities act. this approach was adopted because “understanding actual urban governance processes, which are essentially about how different actors interact to make and operationalize decisions, is vitally important” (smit, 2018). governance is the practice of governing, whether by the government or other formal and informal institutions and actors (rhodes, 2007). these actors include stakeholders not directly connected to any government institutions, for example, global governance actors (such as the united nations, world bank, and bilateral donors) and ngos (boas, 1998). governance facets include efficiency, authority, accountability, networks, process and outcomes, all of which can be assessed independently. governance operates with coordinated, autonomous, and sometimes competing actors and institutions working in networks characterized by power imbalances and is thus inherently political, rather than simply technical (rakodi, 2001). different levels and networks of governance interact formally and informally, mediated by structural factors such as entrenched norms and behaviors. a focus on how governance actors can partner, cooperate, and share mutual learning opens possibilities for more effective governance, particularly when resources are limited. a governance approach is also attuned to how political barriers can restrict effective governance and inclusive outcomes. the expanded use of a governance approach has led to specific types of governance analyses, for example, health governance (dodgson et al., 2009), environmental governance (lemos and agrawal, 2006), and food governance (candel, 2014). governance decisions and practices have a direct impact on refugees’ access to rights, services, and food in kampala, and this study considers the intersection of urban food governance and refugee protection governance, with particular attention to policy, programming, coordination, and outcomes. urban food security in africa, food insecurity in urban settings is largely an issue of access (maxwell, 1996; frayne et al., 2010; hemerijckx et al., 2022). the most immediate contributor to food insecurity in urban informal settlements is poverty, as food must be purchased regularly and predicably on the open market (smit, 2016). food is the biggest expenditure for the poor (world bank, 2022), and informal food markets are essential for both employment and food access for the city’s most vulnerable (glatzel, 2017). urban food system governance – relating to food retail, food production, and food safety – has a direct impact on food security (smit, 2016). urban food security is further dependent on a range of less direct and overlapping variables. safe food preparation and retail are reliant on access to clean water and sanitary environments (momberg et al., 2021). conditions to enable refugee protection and food security in kampala, uganda 136 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 work, housing, credit, security, skills training, health care, and childcare are all essential for food security to be achieved, especially for women (lokuruka, 2021; dinku et al., 2023). a lack of access to familiar foods further contributes to food insecurity (chikanda et al., 2020). in all these related areas, refugees face greater hurdles than citizens (wfp, 2020). in africa, including in uganda, there is little recognition of urban hunger as a policy problem, and food security is treated primarily as a rural food production issue (crush and riley, 2017). however, during the covid-19 outbreak and subsequent lockdowns, the sharp spike in food insecurity prompted some temporary social protection interventions to respond directly to urban hunger (d’errico et al., 2024). neither uganda in general nor kampala in particular has a clear policy framework to address urban hunger. food security is addressed through a productivist agricultural supply lens focused on availability (brown, 2014). in line with this focus, there are policy provisions for urban agriculture (merino et al., 2021). however, the impacts of urban agriculture for improving urban food security for the poor in african cities have been shown to be limited (crush et al., 2011; white and hamm, 2014; frayne et al., 2016; davies et al., 2020). food systems governance thus primarily occurs indirectly, with many of the government’s policy priorities informed by modernist urban planning biases (lawhon et al., 2022), rather than the need to tackle urban hunger (kamara and renzaho, 2014), or to recognize the important contributions of informal retail (young, 2018) and informal housing (mccordic and frayne, 2017) to food security. ngos play an important role advocating for and supporting kampala’s vulnerable food-insecure populations (richmond et al., 2018; kyohairwe and karyeija, 2024), including asylum seekers (larsson, 2022). this research seeks to integrate some of their contributions and insights into this governance analysis. uganda’s refugee protection approach uganda’s refugee approach has been viewed as a progressive model by many (the economist, 2016; world bank, 2016; undp, 2017), because it seeks to create more inclusive opportunities for durable solutions than found in more widespread refugee responses. its comprehensive refugee response framework (crrf, 2018) has been applauded as an example of participatory governance (zapata, 2023). uganda’s strategy is designed to increase political, economic, and social rights for asylum seekers as well as balance socio-economic opportunities for citizens and refugees (mastrorillo et al., 2024). this progressive approach is a source of both national pride and regional leadership status (betts, 2021). however, it is no longer achieving its goals, due to under-resourcing and the steep rise in numbers of asylum seekers (betts, 2021; grzeskowiak 2023; nrc, 2023). central to uganda’s approach is the promotion of refugee self-reliance, whether refugees are in rural camps or self-settled in kampala. where possible, refugees who are residents in one of uganda’s 28 designated rural settlements (the 137 preferred nomenclature to camps) are given a plot of land to cultivate, and they can also lease land and start businesses. because in practice many refugees do not return to their countries of origin within months or even after a few years but stay for decades or generations (kadigo and maystadt, 2023), economic self-sufficiency benefits refugees, host communities, and funders. ideally, self-reliance not only reduces support costs but contributes to economic growth. goals of cultural assimilation are also part of this strategy (kalu et al., 2021). in practice, this is not straightforward, as land is not available in all locations, and what is available may not be arable (grzeskowiak, 2023; reach, 2023). many encampments are provisional, basic, and without infrastructure (grzeskowiak, 2023). while some refugees resort to farming or engage in small businesses, most are unemployed and dependent on support from the government and the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), ngos, family, and friends (addaney, 2016). as settlement populations have grown, and international funding has been slashed (unhcr, 2022a), life has grown increasingly difficult, and conditions have been steadily worsening for the last decade, as the result of flooding, overcrowding, and severe underfunding (mastrorillo et al., 2024). in 2023 the budget for uganda’s unhcr programs was cut to 39% of its needs (alfani and eggers, 2023). three quarters of designated settlement residents cannot access the minimum requirements to be food secure and thousands of children are severely undernourished (guyson, 2024). self-settlement in kampala is the alternative legal option, but this means waiving camp supports, including food rations. in kampala refugees are free to work, including starting their own business. further, refugees can participate in civic life, with rights to vote and stand for office at the local level. urban selfsettlement works as a pressure valve for under-resourced and overpopulated camps: refugees have the option to leave and try their luck in the capital. one ngo leader interviewed in this study explained, “they can go hungry in the camps, or they can be hungry in kampala, but here [in kampala] they have more agency” (interview on 18 may 2024, kampala). many new arrivals head directly for kampala from the border, without stopping at reception centers (dombio and namara, 2024). refugees from some locations, particularly the horn of africa but also from the democratic republic of the congo (drc), may have the economic assets and connections to thrive in kampala, and there are many successful business enterprises that attest to this (monteith and lwasa, 2017). those who have some combination of economic assets, marketable skills, support networks, and who can speak luganda do significantly better than in camps. for these individuals, selfsettlement is clearly a better option than being restricted to a camp, but even for skilled refugees there is widespread confusion around what kinds of work permits are needed, barring refugees from access to formal-sector employment (tshimba, 2022). this study reviews the challenges international forced migrants experience refugee protection and food security in kampala, uganda 138 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 in kampala, with attention to the impacts of government and ngo governance practices linked to food insecurity. governance responses different levels of government and the ngo sector provide overlapping formal and informal services and programs that are accessible to different populations living in informal settlements. this urban governance has an impact on food security because regular access to safe, nutritious, culturally appropriate food is dependent on entitlements derived from secure access to income, housing, health, education, and credit (frayne et al., 2010). overlapping with government (national, local, and municipal) frameworks and services, ngos operating in kampala support refugee populations through a patchwork of supports linked to rights, information, legal protection, food provisions, vocational training, health care, credit, childcare, and education. many of these ngos target specific demographics that include refugees, such as youth or women, and others support refugees from specific countries of origin. some collaboration exists among government and ngo actors, but despite official commitments to participatory practices, most planning was reported by both government and ngo participants in this study to be top-down. few government or ngo policies, programs, or services specifically address or recognize food insecurity, but many are relevant to how the urban poor can consistently access safe, nutritious, and culturally relevant food in improved ways. a key recommendation of this study is that explicit recognition of urban food security needs would facilitate better coordination and targeting of related interventions. effective urban governance is hampered primarily by a lack of resources. widespread and growing poverty means that there are multiple demands for scarce resources. without exception, every academic-, government-, and ngo-affiliated participant involved in this research cited inadequate resourcing as the biggest barrier to responding effectively to refugee needs. this research study starts from an understanding that resource constraints are unlikely to change soon and that underfunding in refugee camps will continue to push refugees to kampala, which also struggles to adequately provide essential services due to resource constraints. the second most cited obstacle to effective government and ngo responses for refugee populations from research participants was a lack of usable data. because refugees in kampala are not eligible for any government support, they are largely indistinguishable from others in low-income urban settlements. furthermore, many of kampala’s forced migrants and asylum seekers do not have identity documents and are not registered with any government office (dawa, 2020). policy stakeholders interviewed in this study indicated that while there are reasonably robust statistics on how many and what categories of migrants are in kampala, there is scant accurate information on where they are, or how their needs differ from other urban residents. furthermore, when data is available, it is quickly out of date due to the rapid urbanization underway. 139 one ngo, slum dwellers international (sdi), had plans to address this gap, in cooperation with uganda’s national government. in several informal settlements, sdi has coordinated with local communities on neighborhood slum profile mapping withs three sets of profiles in a growing number of kampala’s slums completed in 2003, 2011, and 2014 (sdi, 2022). planned survey updates intend to collect data on country of origin as well as refugee status. at the time of this field research, however, leaders with sdi reported that the funding from the government to conduct this survey had been canceled during the covid-19 pandemic, and there was no certainty if or when it would resume. rather than relying on periodic surveys and enumerations by different organizations and researchers (iom, 2017; agora, 2018; mixed migration centre, 2022), regular surveys as part of a government census or with collaboration with ngo partners experienced with this kind of data collection would ensure accurate data was available to multiple governance stakeholders to determine needs and facilitate support. partnering with ngos would lower costs and offer scope to build on baseline data to both measure policy impact and recognize need. more efficient and widespread registration of refugees would also improve data. in addition to insufficient resources and accurate usable data, respondents in this research identified the additional governance challenges of political responsibility, weak policy implementation, uneven and informal service delivery coverage, and ineffective mechanisms to support coordination among stakeholders. these points are elaborated with examples related to the regulatory environment for refugee settlement and rights and local urban governance, and covid-19 policies. refugee settlement when asylum seekers arrive in uganda, they are required to register. despite a set of procedures in place, there are years-long backlogs (unhcr, 2022a; reliefweb, 2024) and significant irregularities in the processes (titeca, 2022, 2023). registration falls under the jurisdiction of the office of the prime minister (opm), through the department of refugees. refugees coming from some locations, including south sudan, are awarded prima facie refugee status, which should speed up the recognition process. the time frame in the legal framework, both for initial registration and appeal, is short (two weeks), but has rarely if ever been met, and the pre-pandemic wait-times of up to two years are now becoming even longer as numbers of claimants rise, and administrators struggle with the backlog of new registrants and appeals (ahimbisibwe and belloni, 2024). the high numbers of claimants are an important factor in the slow processing, but the procedures in place are also cumbersome. for those wishing to self-settle in kampala, there is a two-step process: asylum registration followed by an application for refugee status. prima facie recognized applicants must register at the border and are not permitted to start the process in kampala. all applicants must start the process within 30 days of arrival in the country. as part of covid-19 restrictions, the opm temporarily closed its offices in kampala and was not processing any new refugee protection and food security in kampala, uganda 140 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 registrations or issuing, renewing, or replacing expired or missing identification documents. the backlog that increased during this period has only grown since. there are numerous reasons to explain the bottlenecks in the system and why many forced migrants never even start the registration process. these include: porous borders; onerous requirements at every stage of application and appeal; the necessity of renewing asylum certification every three months; difficultly accessing necessary interpreters; fear and lack of knowledge; the time and expertise needed to navigate the process over months and years; lack of necessary documentation; changes and uncertainties around which nationalities have prima facie recognition and where they can and cannot register; reliance on unscrupulous brokers taking advantage of refugees; and officials prioritizing and fast tracking applications for those who pay extra (rebuild, 2022; titeca 2022; nrc, 2024). ngo leaders interviewed for this study, who work directly with forced migrants in kampala, claim that most international forced migrants never register. this leaves them vulnerable to arrest, adding to their barriers accessing employment and services and limiting data available to policymakers and ngos that could be used to comprehend and support their needs more effectively. five of the migrants interviewed for this study were unregistered. reasons given were that they could not afford the registration process, they were afraid they would be denied refugee status and forced to leave because they had waited too long, and that they did not understand the process. because so many forced migrants are unregistered, the government, the international community, and ngos do not have accurate data to fully recognize, plan for, or respond to needs. this also creates variability and unpredictability for migrants regarding whether they can access schools, health care, housing, and employment. this absence of documentation gets passed down to children and becomes an intergenerational burden and barrier to economic advancement. a migrant from the drc interviewed for this study has no documentation, having fled the drc as a child out of fear of being recruited as a soldier. his children are similarly undocumented. arrests of undocumented migrants are frequent and fear of this restricts incomegeneration options, and in particular mobility, especially at night. this same migrant told me that “i never leaves my shack after dark, even if i have not yet eaten and am hungry.” (interview with victor juba on 23 may 2023, namuwongo). many of the ngos that operate in kampala’s settlements advocate for refugees’ rights and try to address some of these registration-related challenges. for example, the united south sudanese refugee committee, which operates in 10 different communities in kampala, estimates there are more than 30,000 refugees from south sudan in the city. they keep a roster of those they are in contact with, and when people on this list are detained by police, organization volunteers go to the police station to vouch for them. this organization and others, like the refugee law project, also assist claimants with navigating the registration bureaucracy, including the appeals process. 141 an effective registration system would be one means to address the data gap impeding effective governance mechanisms to support vulnerable populations more effectively. had this been in place during the covid-19 lockdown, more migrants would have had access to food rations. while registration as a self-settled refugee does not entitle refugees to rights or benefits beyond what ugandan nationals can access, it does facilitate greater accessibility to employment, education, health care, legal protection, and housing, all essential to food security. urban governance the central government actors in the greater kampala metropolitan area (gkma) include the ministry of local government, the kampala capital city authority (kcca), the office of the prime minister (opm), and the ministry of lands, housing and urban development (mlhud). representatives from all of these entities participated in this research. the city’s central area is managed by the kcca, a national ministry. within this area, there are five divisions, each with its own elected mayor and council. this research included interviews with forced migrants in kisenyi ii, part of the kampala central division, and namuwongo, in makindye division. some informal settlements in the gkma fall outside of kcca jurisdictions and are administratively governed by elected local councils with oversight and direction from the ministry of local government. elected local councils are responsible for implementing much of the nationally determined policy for all residents of informal settlements in kampala, which increasingly include growing populations of refugees. the kcca is involved in many of the services related directly to living conditions in settlements, including wash and zoning. in areas governed by the ministry of local government, there is a need to cooperate with the kcca for waste removal, electricity, and other services, and these arrangements are not formalized (richmond et al., 2018), resulting in variable and uneven service provision. there are also formal and informal governance coordination practices with ngos and local government. ngo leaders surveyed and interviewed for this study all agreed that they were obligated to report on and seek permission for their community activities and that it was expected that city representatives be invited to public outreach events. some described this relationship as one of government surveillance, with the need to constantly inform them about burdensome activities, whereas others found the relationship more of a partnership, welcoming local government support. the group stakeholder discussion at the research workshop indicated that local government participation styles varied considerably and were dependent on individual office holders rather than formally institutionalized practices. there is also variation in the impact and trust local leaders have in their communities. this was evident in the two districts studied in this research. on the two days spent in kisenyi ii, there was a visible presence of community development outreach workers. the social worker present during migrant interviews there noted that kcca outreach provided wellness checks on children and was well established refugee protection and food security in kampala, uganda 142 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 and effective. in contrast, namuwongo residents interviewed reported they had little to no contact with kcca or local council members and were unaware of any outreach services in place. public hospitals are near both districts and accessed by settlement residents; these were strongly and positively associated with the kcca. migrants interviewed, several with serious medical conditions, all noted that they go to the hospital when necessary and that they are never asked to show documentation; consultations are provided for free to all. treatment is more of a problem because hospitals rarely have drugs, even paracetamol, and filling prescriptions for medication is unaffordable. one unhoused migrant from rwanda, a mother to a 3-month old, said she went to the hospital regularly and her daughter had been delivered there. both she and her daughter were ill with tuberculosis and were hiv positive and when they were very ill, they went to the hospital “hoping for treatment.” (interview with becky on 24 may 2023, namuwongo). some community ngos can provide medical consultations and treatment to a very limited number of vulnerable community members, but most illnesses among poor settlement residents go untreated. this was one strong example of the direct impacts of under-resourced government services. in different districts, there are also variations in how strictly restrictions around informal vending are enforced. as noted, the informal food sector is crucial for food security, providing low-barrier employment opportunities and affordable nutritious food. in most areas where traffic is not obstructed, informal food venders are active, despite official restrictions and goals of formalizing the sector. with 60% of kampala’s residents living in informal settlements, there is widespread understanding that informal retail is necessary for survival. for example, many ngos offer microcredit and skills training to targeted groups, such as women, youth, and refugees, enabling upgrading or entry into informal-sector employment. typically, funding for this comes from international donors. as ngos regularly inform local government on their activities, there is tacit approval for enabling these strategies, even as sporadic enforcement of regulations by police keeps informal retailers vulnerable to harassment, fines, and having wares confiscated. the official urban plans to eliminate this sector, with sporadic and unpredictable restrictions on it, have a negative impact on urban food security for all low-income urban residents. migrants with uncertain legal status are particularly at risk, as the implications of arrest are more severe. respondents in this research commented favorably on the ability of refugees to vote and to run for local office. in areas where there are large populations of south sudanese or somali migrants, refugees from these groups have been elected and are important advocates and support for their communities. employment with the kcca was also cited as highly desirable. one migrant interviewed has worked, without pay, for the kcca for over a year as a street sweeper. despite not being paid, she continued to do her job every morning and believed payments would resume “once the hardships of the pandemic had passed,” despite it being more than a year since the lockdown. 143 uganda’s updated local government development planning guidelines (rou, 2020), refer to the importance of recognizing the needs of refugees and the role of local government in supporting the crrf. this document draws attention to the influx of refugees but notes that local government lacks the resources and technical capacity to initiate appropriate actions. guidelines advocate, instead, for a centrallyled and resourced integrative approach, whereby refugee populations are planned for, in line with planning for other vulnerable people, but to date, there are no resource allocations, nor timeline or targets associated with these goals. the kcca similarly recognizes the urgency of planning for refugees as well as citizen populations, but it is also at a preliminary stage of policy development: there is awareness of the need to plan, take some steps toward consultation, but without concrete proposals of how to do so. in 2018, kcca worked with several ngos to identify refugee needs in kampala, and the most pressing need identified was food (agora, 2018), but there has not been follow up to respond to these findings. a lack of action, and of clarity around where urban planning responsibility, leadership, and resource control should lie, are sources of frustration for many government employees and for ngo actors who interact with them. one key example is the uganda national urban plan (unup), due for renewal but stalled amid disagreement around which ministry should be tasked with taking the lead on updating it (raised in interviews with representatives from kcca, mlhud, and opm). the now-expired 2017 unup had few of its recommendations implemented and did not include funding responsibility or timelines. prior to the covid-19 pandemic, uganda was partnering with sdi to identify priority areas in informal settlements and invest in targeted community-led upgrading efforts. sdi has also helped organize settlement residents, through their affiliate organization actogether and the formation of urban councils, to participate in upgrading projects and to advocate for tenancy rights. many of the homes in both areas leak and are prone to flooding. one forced migrant interviewed had been evicted, and a neighbor allowed her two children to sleep in her house. however, during the day she and her two children stayed in an abandoned structure with a dirt floor and a partial roof, infested with fleas and mosquitoes. she had no furniture, not even a bed, mat, or cooking facilities, and her family was reliant on charity for food. for families such as these, local ngos are essential for survival. after the covid-19 outbreak, mlhud issued a temporary moratorium on evictions. this was poorly enforced, however, and several of those interviewed for this study had been evicted during the pandemic and remained unhoused. refugees are particularly vulnerable to evictions if they are not registered. water, sanitation, and hygiene are crucial for overall health and food security, and deficits here are widespread in kampala’s informal settlements. there have been major investments in water access over the past decade, and in both settlements visited for this study, water was readily available from nearby standpipes and all migrants interviewed stated they had no problems accessing water as needed. settlement refugee protection and food security in kampala, uganda 144 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 residents did not have access to toilets, however, as limited paid units installed were rarely used due to their cost. the health risks in namuwongo are particularly severe. the settlement runs between a railway line and the nakivubo channel; this drainage channel serves as the main disposal area for human and other waste. victor, a migrant from the drc, has his shack next to the channel and reported that he and his family routinely dump their waste there, although he pays for the public toilets about once a week, adding, “if you don’t eat much, that’s as often as you need to go.” (interview with victor juba on 23 may 2023, namuwongo). there is considerable collaborative work already taking place among ngos and with government actors in uganda. success collaborating with government is mixed. for example, one refugee-led organization interviewed has stopped attending participatory workshops they see as purely performative and a waste of donor money, which could instead be spent supporting grassroots initiatives rather than providing lunch for discussions that do not result in meaningful action. as one ngo leader remarked, “why is it necessary to have a meeting at the hilton? why not come to our compound here, with some tents, and save some money … we need to meet, but not to just gather for good food. this money could change someone’s life.” (interview on 19 may 2023 (name withheld)). recurrent themes in interviews and survey data with both government actors and ngo leaders were that effective governance was hampered by unclear political jurisdiction and responsibility, weak policy implementation, uneven and informal service delivery coverage, and ineffective mechanisms for coordination and genuine partnership among stakeholders. covid-19 responses uganda had one of the world’s most restrictive lockdown responses during the pandemic, and this accelerated and deepened poverty and food insecurity for the urban poor, and for refugees in particular (ahmed et al., 2023). uganda’s government response was complicated by the 2020 national election, where opposition was centered in urban settlements. there was a mixed governance response of restrictions, at times enforced with violence, with some new measures to alleviate hardships also introduced. for example, kcca temporarily suspended requirements for trading licenses for informal businesses, and the national government suspended tax collection. steps taken over a two-year period included a 30-day night curfew from 7:00 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., suspension of some public transit (leading to increases in transit fares charged for remaining transit), the longest school closure in the world (22 months), restrictions on movement and public gatherings, and the closure of international borders (for 42 days in 2021). in kampala, food availability and food access were both affected negatively (kasiime et al., 2021). disrupted and blocked supply chains from rural and international production areas increased food shortages and spoilage, resulting in high consumer prices (rauschendorfer and spray, 2020). restrictions on mobility and operating hours of markets were devastating for both income generation and 145 consumer access. the food retail sector was highly impacted by the lockdown, reducing food security for lower-income populations from two directions: income generation and direct food accessibility. the food retail sector has fewer barriers to entry than other employment options for newcomers, particularly for women (metelerkamp, 2023). refugees working with cross-border trade networks, most often connected to food, also lost their livelihoods due to covid-19 border closures (moyo et al., 2021). compared to ugandans, refugees were far more challenged to access food during the pandemic (atamanov et al., 2021; squarcina, 2023). during the 61-day transit ban, which overlapped with the night curfew, fresh food vendors had to sleep in the marketplaces, something that is not an option for women with children. many in the food industry lost employment with the closure of restaurants, cafés, bars, and hotels. while it is impossible to know what the impacts of a less restrictive response for public health would have been, emerging data shows that the aggressive lockdown restrictions had a negative impact on health, particularly for women and children (musoke et al., 2023) as well as refugee populations. the unhcr found that in february 2021, 64% of refugees were food insecure, compared with 9% of ugandans (atamanov et al., 2021). refugees were less able to rely on friends and family, the most frequent coping response during the pandemic (acayo, 2020) and were more reliant on government food packages. residents of urban settlements were especially vulnerable, as not only were risks of illness high, as social distancing and staying at home were not possible in overcrowded neighborhoods where food must be accessed daily, but policing of restrictions was often harsh, with confusion about the rules and fear of the risks. in informal settlements, the impacts of covid-19 were experienced less as a health crisis and more in terms of its “devastating socioeconomic, political, and violent impacts” (sverdlik et al., 2022: 4). numerous media outlets as well as human rights watch (hrw, 2021) reported on the rise of violence, mostly carried out by police but also vigilante groups. gender-based violence also increased during this period (bukuluki et al., 2023). at the same time, during the pandemic lockdowns, when food prices and unemployment soared and many food retail locations were closed or open on very restricted schedules, steps were taken to provide food to vulnerable populations nationwide, including in kampala. food was distributed in informal settlements and in designated areas for registered refugee households. although this food distribution has been widely criticized as politically motivated – especially during a presidential election year (macdonald and owor, 2020; bukenya et al., 2022) – and poorly managed, it was necessary for the survival of many. one interview respondent stated she had better food security during the pandemic when these social protection measures were in place, because her business selling bananas had closed down and she was in too much debt to restart it. other migrants interviewed were unable to access rations because they were unable to line up at the designated times or because they did not have cooking facilities for beans or posho, and thus were reliant on refugee protection and food security in kampala, uganda 146 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 purchasing prepared food. during the second set of covid-19 restrictions, cash transfers were provided rather than food, which addressed some of these concerns, but distribution remained problematic and was widely seen as influenced by political favoritism and being diverted from those most in preference of politically connected households (sverdlik et al., 2022). community-based organizations struggled with covid-19 restrictions as well, because many of their programs were halted. all the ngos that participated in this research had to suspend or severely curtail their activities. those organizations who were able to continue operations during this time were crucial, especially those with capacity to provide some food to members. ngo leaders reported that they continued their activities without government authority, taking steps to conceal their operations. some food delivery from ngos supplemented that from the government, and by many accounts was better organized and more impactful for refugees and other vulnerable groups (nathan and benon, 2024). challenges, gaps, and recommendations the primary barrier to effectively meeting the needs of refugees in uganda is resources. international organizations, donors, and government actors are all struggling to meet commitments and goals, and the numbers of refugees have grown beyond the capacity of available resources. there are important gaps relating to which groups and which areas of need are supported, despite widespread awareness of the growing population of vulnerable and food insecure forced migrants in the city. while these gaps in part result from inadequate funds to support policy development and programming, there are spaces where responses could be improved, involving identifying vulnerable populations, recognition of urban food security as an area in need of urgent policy response, clearer political responsibility for policy implementation, measures to reduce corruption, and stronger stakeholder coordination and collaboration. the current registration system is not effective. the opm has the power to streamline this process, removing steps and bureaucracy and making it easier for asylum seekers to navigate. many forced migrants settle in cities other than kampala. they are already accessing health and education services; allowing them to register and self-settle in more areas would take some pressure off border reception areas and the kampala office. additional registration locations in informal settlements where asylum seekers live and work and have connections with local organizations could help move through the backlog of cases and appeals. the costs of this would be offset by the benefits of having better data on populations, which would help planning for all governance actors, including the global donor community. decentralizing control of this, with fewer and clearer rules, might address some of the irregularities associated with corruption. understanding that urban food security is distinct from rural food production is gaining traction globally (haysom and battersby, 2023). municipal governments are well situated to take the initiative on this policy area, and recognition of the 147 challenges urban populations face in accessing sufficient quantities of safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food would improve a range of policy interventions, including those related to slum upgrading, wash, and regulating the informal sector. an easy and affordable outcome of a clear municipal food policy would be recognition of and support for informal food retail, eliminating the vulnerability food retailers currently experience. in all of uganda’s recent guiding policy documents, there is clear attention to the growing refugee population. similarly, many community-based organizations are creating programs and forms of support to include or target this group. the steps between understanding that there is a problem and setting specific goals and initiatives, with timelines and funding plans, still need to be taken. there must be clear political responsibility associated with targets. stronger stakeholder coordination and collaboration – between ministries, levels of government, and with ngo partners – are needed to do this effectively. while some ngos have rightly expressed frustration at the cost of meetings to allow for participatory input, this is a necessary process and is achievable if the opm and kcca were genuinely open to changing entrenched top-down practices. conclusion uganda’s approach to refugee settlement is a model for extending rights and opportunities to forced migrants in ways that they recognize they may not be able to return to their homes and can contribute to uganda, economically and culturally. uganda’s open borders have been crucial for the survival of thousands of people for decades and are rightly seen as a source of national pride. under-resourcing and growing numbers are threatening this approach, and there are real risks it will be abandoned, borders will be closed, or that xenophobic sentiments will grow, resulting in the kinds of violence seen in some other african nations with large migrant populations. renewed support from the international community for this humanitarian crisis is desperately needed. however, there are governance actions that can be improved immediately. these include overhauling the registration 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___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za we are delighted to present volume 11, number 1, 2025 of the african human mobility review (ahmr). this issue features up-to-date, high-quality, and original contributions, including research papers, reviews, syntheses, and a book review, all focused on various aspects of human mobility in africa. ahmr is supported by a highly skilled editorial board and a global network of scholars from diverse interdisciplinary fields, ensuring that the contributions are of exceptional quality, originality, and relevance. these contributions aim to inform evidence-based policymaking and advance the understanding of human mobility across the continent. we would like to express our sincere gratitude to all contributors (authors, editorial board, publisher) of ahmr, as well as the anonymous referees who reviewed the submitted papers. our mission is to continuously enhance the quality of the journal and achieve new milestones, positioning it more prominently within the international scientific community. this issue features five articles and a book review that foster original research, promote policy discussions, and offer a comprehensive forum dedicated to analyzing current trends, migration patterns, and key migrationrelated issues in africa. the first section of this issue features a book review by daniel tevera on “xenophobia in the media: critical global perspectives.” the reviewer offers a critical evaluation, highlighting how the book compiles research essays that explore the challenges faced by international migrants while also demonstrating their ability to act within limiting structures. he emphasizes the importance of ongoing research to inform policy and practice. according to tevera, the book addresses gaps in the literature by analyzing the role of media in perpetuating xenophobia, examining the sociopolitical and economic consequences, and using fieldwork with refugees to shed light on the media’s influence on public perceptions and policymaking. the reviewer further indicates that the book critically analyzes media-driven xenophobia but lacks justification and deeper exploration of migration implications. in conclusion, he asserts that the book, with its valuable ethnographic research on migrants and refugees, is crucial for researchers in social policy and migration studies. the first article by peter mudungwe is entitled “migration governance in africa: challenges and opportunities.” using secondary data analysis, including published research, policy documents, and evaluations on the subject, the study 4 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 found that migration governance in africa presents significant challenges, affecting the continent’s capacity to manage migration effectively. the findings emphasize the difficulties african countries face in developing coherent policies and institutions to address migration flows. the review also stresses the importance of enhanced regional cooperation, capacity building, and improved coordination among governments to manage migration and mitigate its social, economic, and security impacts. the study concludes that weak migration governance limits africa’s ability to leverage migration’s positive impact and negotiate favorable migration compacts. it recommends that africa increase investments in the migration sector to effectively manage its migration agenda. the second article by dereje feyissa dori, titled “migration as prophecy fulfilled: a case study of hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa,” employs a qualitative methodology, providing an ethnographic perspective on the role of religion in migration. this study not only contributes to the literature on migration but also addresses the often overlooked intangible factors in migration processes, which have traditionally been overshadowed by economic analyses. the research highlights the significant influence of evangelical christianity in shaping the hadiya community’s migration journey. it underscores how spiritual beliefs have guided hadiya migrants through various stages of migration, helping them navigate regional inequalities in ethiopia. by situating the migration within a broader historical context, the article reveals how spiritually motivated migratory agency has influenced their decisions. ultimately, the article calls for migration studies to better account for the importance of intangible factors, especially religion, in understanding migration dynamics. the third article by jean pierre misago, titled “from deprivation to mobilization: towards a multideterminant model of xenophobic violence in south africa,” uses a qualitative research design, drawing insights from in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. the central argument of the paper is that existing explanatory models are deficient due to two main analytical blind spots: (i) many lack empirical support, and (ii) others are overly simplistic in their reductionist approach. in addition to its academic contributions, the article holds practical and policy relevance. by clearly outlining the key elements of the causal chain, the research highlights critical areas where intervention could help halt ongoing xenophobic violence and prevent future occurrences in south africa. ultimately, the paper provides stakeholders with varying mandates and capacities a clear understanding of where their efforts can be most impactful in addressing xenophobia, enabling more targeted and effective interventions. the fourth article, authored by tamuka chekero, johannes bhanye, rufaro hamish mushonga, and owen nyamwanza, titled “navigating passports and borders: the complex realities of zimbabwean migrants in south africa,” employs a qualitative methodology, gathering data through interviews and focus group discussions in four south african cities: bloemfontein, cape town, johannesburg, 5 editorial and pretoria. the study acknowledges the resourcefulness of zimbabwean migrants but argues that admiration alone is insufficient. their adaptive strategies reveal vulnerabilities within the current system. to create policies that reflect migrant realities, it’ is essential to understand their resilience and adaptability. the study recommends several practical measures to improve the migrant experience, including streamlining passport appointment processes, increasing resources at passport offices, and regulating intermediaries to prevent exploitation. it also emphasizes strengthening anti-corruption measures and enhancing transparency in consular services. additionally, lowering passport fees, training officials to treat migrants with respect, and offering legal and social support services would foster a more inclusive society. further research is needed to drive reforms. the fifth article by edmore chingwe, sipelile munhumayenga, sibonokuhle ndlovu, and webster mudzingwa, titled “curate’s egg: effects of parental migration on the well-being of zimbabwean children left behind,” employs a systematic literature review (slr) approach. slr follows a clear research question, identifies relevant studies, assesses their quality, and summarizes the findings using a structured methodology. the study’s results categorize the effects of parental migration into four domains: health, education, economics, and psychology. the review identified significant negative impacts, particularly in psychological, educational, and economic outcomes, while positive effects were minimal, especially in education and economics. consequently, parental migration is described as “a curate’s egg.” the study also classifies research by location, rural-urban divide, and children’s age and gender, providing a useful framework for future studies on the topic. lastly, i encourage more researchers, academics, and students to connect with us and explore new areas of impactful research with growing social and practical relevance across various disciplines. i also look forward to seeing them contribute original and valuable research ideas to this journal. a sincere thank you to our editing team and all the authors who submitted their work to the journal of african human mobility review. 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za this issue consists of six articles. the first article by adebayo makanju and alex uriri, entitled “aging, resilience, and migration in the sudano-sahelian ecological belt in nigeria”, examines the relationship between environmental changes and nonmigration outcomes. statistical data was used to examine the resilience of older nonimmigrant households in geographic areas. the results showed that structural factors such as the environment, economic factors, agricultural practices, etc. affect the resilience of households and cause more immigrants. the study also found that factors such as social and political factors support environmental non-migration between households. the research concludes that any poor treatment experienced accessing health care can easily be associated with ‘medical xenophobia’. as a result, the study suggests that the government develop effective environmental and socioeconomic policies to reduce environmental change and improve aging people's resilience in the future. the second article by jacqueline nakaiza is entitled “surviving human trafficking: a case for strengthening the escape routes adopted by victims of trafficking in uganda”. data was collected from twenty-six survivors of trafficking on the ways through which they escaped and the factors that supported their escape. the findings revealed that victims of human trafficking escaped by: (a) acquiring the (financial) resources they required to free themselves from the bonds of forced labor; or (b) being referred to organizations that provided the assistance they needed to free themselves from the bonds of forced labor. the study also discovered that information on support for victims of human trafficking is often unavailable, and that victims only found out about it after they had been trapped in a trafficking position for some time. the research found that the scarcity of this information is a crucial element in keeping victims of human trafficking enslaved since it prevents victims from seeking and receiving aid, even when it is available. the third article is by ada adoley allotey and leander kandilige and is entitled “the conundrum of birth tourism and american ‘jackpot babies’: attitudes of ghanaian urban dwellers”. the goal of this study was to gain a better understanding of a complicated and diverse phenomenon known as ‘birth tourism’ to the united states. this study gives insight into the desire of urban inhabitants in developing countries to have so-called ‘american jackpot babies’. the study concludes that ensuring each country's citizenship operates as an opportunity-enhancing tool, is a viable strategy to addressing global inequality maintained by hierarchical citizenship, 4 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 which leads to the desire to have an american ‘jackpot kid’. the fourth article by mary muyonga, alfred otieno, and george odipo is titled “impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya”. the goal of this study was to investigate subnational migrant movements and how they affect population redistribution in kenya. the data confirms a change in migration trends in the country during the last 10 years, as well as the impact on population redistribution. migrants are concentrated in counties with large, urbanized areas, yet suburbanization is gaining popularity as secondary cities and metropolitan areas entice migrants. according to the findings of the geographical study, migration intensities are clustered in ways that reflect similar intensities in surrounding locations, two hotspots are visible, i.e., high-high hotspots in nairobi and vihiga, and low-intensity clustering in mombasa and neighboring counties. the study concludes that internal migration efficiently contributes to population redistribution; however, the effect is diminishing as more regions become urbanized. the fifth article by tekalign ayalew is entitled “the state, families and disappeared migrants in ethiopia”. the author has paid special attention to investigating the causes and conditions of missing persons, identifying the challenges and needs of ethiopian families. according to the findings of this study, despite the presence of national laws and resources dedicated to migration management, as well as the adoption of relevant international human and migrant rights conventions, the domestic legal and policy framework does not directly address the phenomenon of missing migrants and the needs and concerns of their families. the study indicates that multi-dimensional, evidence-based, community-based measures are urgently needed to better support families of the missing migrants in ethiopia, despite profound financial precarity and weak social protection mechanisms. the sixth article by samuel okun and stella shulika is entitled “the dynamics of child trafficking in west africa”. the article discusses the efforts of west african states to combat the threat of human trafficking across borders. according to the findings of the study, there is still a gap in the domestication of the united nations protocol on human trafficking by west african states, as the west african network of central authorities and prosecutors against organized crime (wacap), which is tasked with leveraging the resources of ecowas (economic community of west african states) member states to combat the menace, lacks the capacity needed to meet the set goal. furthermore, because the efforts of the various states in the region have been largely reactive and legislative rather than proactive, the study recommends that ecowas states take proactive measures such as strengthening regional and national law enforcement institutional capacities and incorporating respect for fundamental human rights of women and children into west african sociocultural philosophies. in general, the authors have produced sound research outputs that include scientific evidence, empirical work, critical reasoning, policy debates and argumentation as well as competent presentation. i am convinced that the african human mobility review, volume 7, number 3, 2021, will be a significant resource for researchers, practitioners, and students. 5 i’m also pleased to announce the appointment of professor daniel tevera as one of the editorial team members of the african human mobility review. professor tevera is a human geographer with a wide range of teaching and research experience in the area of migration studies. he has also published several edited books and over a hundred scholarly papers on migration, urban food security and environmental security. he has actively participated in the southern african migration programme (samp) and the african food security urban network (afsun), a research, policy and capacity-building network of canadian and african universities, ngos and municipal governance networks. professor tevera is a former editor of the zimbabwe geographical journal. i look forward to the continued contributions of professor tevera to the african human mobility review. african human mobility review ahmr volume 6 number 3 september december 2020 sihma scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa a frican h um an m obility review ahmr editorial board _______________________________________________________ editor-in-chief prof mulugeta f. dinbabo, university of the western cape, south africa managing editor sergio carciotto, university of the western cape, south africa board members prof vivienne lawack, university of the western cape, south africa prof jonathan crush, balsillie school of international affairs, canada prof loren landau, university of witwatersrand, south africa prof simon bekker, university of stellenbosch, south africa prof thomas faist, bielefeld university, germany prof raul delagdo wise, universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico prof laurence piper, university of the western cape, south africa prof shimelis gulema, stony brook university, new york, usa prof wilson majee, university of missouri, usa dr delali margaret badasu, university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman, university of education, winneba, ghana dr razack karriem, university of the western cape, south africa dr eria serwajja, makerere university, uganda dr ernest angu pineteh, university of pretoria, south africa dr joseph yaro, university of ghana, ghana dr linda oucho, african migration and development policy centre, kenya dr lothar smith, radboud university, netherlands 1 ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects of human mobility in africa, including socio-economic, political, legal, developmental, educational and cultural aspects. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence-based research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of current migration trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is jointly owned by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) and the university of the western cape (uwc). the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, sao paulo and manila. ahmr is accredited by the department of higher education and training (dhet) in south africa. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). copyright © 2020 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa and the university of the western cape sihma physical address 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 461 4741 email: ahmr@sihma.org.za webpage: www.sihma.org.za mailto:ahmr%40sihma.org.za?subject= http://www.sihma.org.za 2 ahmr ___________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 contents 3 editorial mulugeta f. dinbabo 6 remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda mulatu f. zerihun 28 determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria adebayo o.m. makanju and hafiz t.a. khan 53 between the imagined and the reality: threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa edmond akwasi agyeman 74 differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa: evidence from the national income dynamics study hemish govera and amiena bayat 94 externalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the european union victor h mlambo 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za this issue consists of five articles. the first article by mulatu zerihun, entitled “remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda”, analyzes the possible effect of international remittances on the economic growth in three selected countries within the intergovernmental authority on development (igad). the result demonstrates that remittances in the countries included in this study serve as a ‘big-push’ towards economic development and have an impact on growth. the findings also suggest the development of close cooperation with host countries to leverage mutual benefit, as well as the establishment of successful collaboration with migrants and diasporas. finally, the research proposes future studies on the impact of remittances on economic growth. the second article by adebayo makanju and hafiz khan is entitled “determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria”. different statistical techniques were used in the analysis, including cross-tabulation and binary logistic regression. the findings of the research indicate a high mean prevalence of old-age disability within the study area, irrespective of migration status in north-eastern nigeria. the research also establishes robust predictors of later-life health outcomes as socio-economic and environmental determinants. regression analysis has also shown that a variety of factors have a negative influence on the wellbeing of older adults. based on the findings of the research, the authors recommend that the proposed sahelian ‘green belt’ afforestation project of the economic community of west african states (ecowas) targeting, in particular areas around the chad basin, be fully implemented. the authors also emphasize the urgent need to formulate a systematic and evidence-driven integration between migration and geriatrics. the third article by edmond akwasi agyeman is entitled “between the imagined and the reality: threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa”. the study examines spain’s migration policy aimed at controlling sub-saharan african immigration. a review of policy papers, migration statistics and secondary literature was used methodologically in the research. the study indicates that current migration trends and statistics do not support the perception that spain is being invaded by sub-saharan african migrants. the study also shows that the restrictive policies of spain neglect the long-standing interdependent trade and other economic networks existing between spain, north africa and west africa prior to the european colonization of africa. the fourth article presented by hemish govera and amiena bayat is entitled 4 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 “differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa: evidence from the national income dynamics study”. the goal of this research was to determine whether the prevalence of depressive symptoms is higher in south africa among migrants than among non-migrants. the study also investigates the association of migration status with a wide set of sociodemographic variables in the same context. the study applied descriptive analysis and logistic modelling to the south african national income dynamics study (nids) panel datasets. the study found a significant association between low sociodemographic status and the risk of poor mental health. the report concludes that compared to the western cape, residing in the rest of the south african provinces was associated with a lower risk of poor mental health after controlling for migration status. the final article, presented by victor mlambo, is entitled “externalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the european union”. the study explores the externalization and securitization of african migration to the european union (eu) and the consequences this has for migration governance and management for both the eu and africa. methodologically, a qualitative research approach was applied. the study concludes that eu-africa migration management needs to be focused on policies that address the main ‘push’ factors driving irregular migration from africa. i believe these articles offer invaluable insights to scholars, practitioners and students with the skills necessary to provide solutions to many of the major migration challenges faced by society. they also provide informative advice for policy-makers to think critically about migration policies, programs and projects by presenting the continent with reliable empirical research evidence. 5 sihma is part of the scalabrini international migration network (simn), and joins an existing network of scalabrini study centres around the globe: cser (centro studi emigrazione roma), established in 1964 in rome (italy) journal: studi emigrazione www.cser.it ciemi (centre d’information et études sur les migrations internationales), established in 1971 in paris (france) journal: migrations société www.ciemi.org cms (center for migration studies of new york,) established in 1969 in new york (usa) journal: international migration review (imr) and journal on migration and human security (jmhs) www.cmsny.org smc (scalabrini migration center,) established in 1987 in manila (philippines) journal: asian and pacific migration journal (apmj) www.smc.org.ph cem (centro de estudios migratorios), established in 1985 in são paulo (brazil) journal: travessia www.missaonspaz.org cemla (buenos centro de estudios migratorios latinoamericanos), established in 1985 in buenos aires (argentina) journal: estudios migratorios latinoamericanos (eml) www.cemla.com among our partners: csem (centro scalabriniano de estudos migratórios) in brasilia (brazil); journal: revista interdisciplinar da mobilidade humana (remhu); www.csem.org.br cemla, buenos aires ciemi, paris smc, manila cser, rome cem, sao paolo cms, new york sihma, cape town scalabrini network _______________________________________________________ 6 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda mulatu f. zerihun* * tshwane university of technology, south africa email: zerihunmf@tut.ac.za the purpose of this study is to analyze the possible effect of international remittances on the economic growth in three selected economies of intergovernmental authority on development (igad) member countries, namely, ethiopia, kenya, and uganda. remittance inflows have emerged as a key link between human mobility and development. however, empirical findings on the nexus between remittances and economic growth are either conflicting or at most mixed. this paper explores the effects of remittances from international migration inflows on the economic growth of three igad member countries. the study uses quantitative analysis that encompasses the above-mentioned countries using the world bank’s annual data from 1990 to 2017. the novelty of this study is that it uses different approaches to solicit the short-run and the long-run nexus between economic growth and remittance flow. the pooled estimation result from fully modified least squares (fmols) shows that the logarithm of remittances impacts the dependent variable, economic growth, positively but not statistically significant. the kao panel residual cointegration test shows that the null hypothesis is not sufficiently supported by the data. there is a statistically significant long-run relationship between the variables in the series. this implies that international remittances have a long-run impact on the economic growth of the countries considered in this study. in addition, remittances granger cause economic growth, significantly at a five percent level of significance in the long run. to verify the results from dynamic panel regression, fixed-effects and random-effects estimation are used as a robustness check. both fixed-effects and random-effects estimation results confirm the same findings as in the panel regression results. the findings from this paper will present important policy inputs for policymakers on how remittances impact the economic growth of the countries included in this study. keywords: economic growth, remittances, migration, ethiopia, kenya, uganda 7 introduction migration has been an integral part of human dynamics since the very existence of humans (faist, 2016). however, in recent years, more than any time in human history, migration has become one of the topical issues under discussion among policymakers, politicians, the media, and citizens of both developed and developing nations. when supported by appropriate policies, migration can contribute to inclusive and sustainable development in both origin and destination countries, while also benefiting migrants and their families. international migration is in large part related to the broader global economic, social, political and technological transformations that are affecting a wide range of high-priority policy issues (kotze and hill, 1997; koser, 2016; triandafyllidou, 2018). remittance inflows have emerged as a key link between human mobility and development. there are also diverse theories that have emerged to explain the impact of remittances on economic growth (development) of the countries of origin of migrants. among these are the developmental (neo-classical), the structuralist (dependency), the pluralist, and the ‘big push’ theory.1 the big push theory states that a ‘big push’ or comprehensive investment package could jumpstart economic development in the developing countries (pragyandeepa, 2016). according to this theory, if remittances are managed properly and if smooth inflow is facilitated, remittances can play a ‘big push’ role for many african countries. these four theories are considered reliable guides to ascertain how remittances impact economic growth in this study’s three igad (intergovernmental authority on development)2 member countries. remittances are classified as current private transfers from migrant workers resident in the host country for more than a year, irrespective of their immigration status, to recipients in their country of origin (world bank, 2019). many recent empirical studies suggest that remittances may have the potential to positively affect a country’s economic growth and the development of financial systems in developing or emerging countries (yaseen, 2012; ratha, 2013; fromentin, 2018; adeoye et al., 2020; azizi, 2020; donou-adonsou et al., 2020). furthermore, remittances from international migrants have proven to be a more sustainable source of foreign currency for developing countries than other capital inflows, such as foreign direct investment, public debt or official development assistance. however, the nexus between remittances and development remains complex, especially with regards to the movement of people, which contributes to the spread of global interdependence in social, economic and political spheres. workers’ remittances and compensation of employees comprise current transfers by migrant workers and wages and salaries earned by non-resident workers. 1 for a detailed discussion of the first three theories, see de haas (2007) and for details on the ‘big push’ theory, see rosenstein-rodan (1957). 2 the intergovernmental authority on development (igad), in the horn of africa, comprises member countries like, djibouti, eritrea, ethiopia, kenya, somalia, sudan, south sudan, and uganda. igad is also an au-recognized regional economic community (rec) and building-block of the african economic community (aec) under the aec treaty, implying a commitment to establishing a free trade area (fta) and regional infrastructure, including transport development. remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 8 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 remittances inflow is one of the major sources of capital flows in the world. although developing countries, and especially sub-saharan africa (ssa), do not have a bigger share of this capital flow, remittances are recognized as being very useful in promoting household welfare and health in developing countries. tah (2019) found that remittances have a significantly positive impact on financial access in subsaharan africa. the objective of this study is to analyze and understand the possible effect of international remittances on the economic growth in the three selected economies, namely, ethiopia, kenya and uganda. these countries were chosen because they are among the top recipients of remittance inflows in east africa. furthermore, the study tests the causal relationship between international remittances and economic growth in these countries, in relation to potential policy lessons. this study analyzes the economic dynamism between international remittance flows and economic growth among the three major economies in the east african region. there are studies that assess the importance of remittance inflows in africa as a continent, while there are also specific country-level studies (tah, 2019). the motivation for this study is to research other sub-regions within ssa in relation to their status as dominant migration destinations. sub-regional analysis facilitates better corridor-specific policy interventions towards the realization of policy goals and objectives relating to remittance inflows (eyden et al., 2011). given the significant increase in migration and remittance flows to the continent, the literature on international migration and development in sub-saharan africa has also increased. however, the results from many studies are inconclusive or at best, they are mixed. therefore, there is still room for further investigation of the topic under discussion. the next section provides a context on immigration in the three selected countries. section three presents the literature review; section four discusses data and methodology. section five presents the result of the data analysis. the last two sections present the overall discussion of the findings and conclusion, and policy implications, respectively. context geographically sub-saharan africa is the region of the african continent that falls south of the sahara desert. it is composed of all african countries and regions, situated completely, or partially, south of the sahara. this study comprises a purposefully selected group of three igad countries in ssa. this section highlights the context of migration and remittance flows in ethiopia, kenya, and uganda. ethiopia ethiopia is among the largest remittance receiving countries in sub-saharan africa (ratha and mohapatra, 2011). the history of immigration in ethiopia began with revolution and an unstable political environment during the 1970s. most of the people who migrated at that time formed part of a well-educated urban section of 9 the population, who migrated to western countries in order to seek political asylum (geda and irving, 2011). political migration was followed by more economically oriented migration, initially driven by the aspirations of the urban population. currently, as the middle east has become an important destination region for ethiopian migrants, the migrants are increasingly from rural areas, migrating to find better (employment) opportunities abroad (geda and irving, 2011). remittances are an extremely important source of foreign exchange for ethiopia, perhaps larger than the export earning of the country in its foreign exchange generation capacity. however, the remittance industry in ethiopia is besieged by several problems (reinert, 2007). the size and scale of remittances also create the possibility for harnessing these flows for productive investment, thus contributing to the long-term development of ethiopia. according to studies by isaacs (2017) and adugna (2019), the volume of remittances in ethiopia could be between us$ 2 to 4 billion per year (an average of about us$ 3 billion). this is about the size of ethiopia’s total export and development aid combined. however, a non-conducive policy environment, as well as the lack of the deepening of liberalization of the financial sector, remain key challenges in the sector. however, there are disparities between the report released by the national bank of ethiopia and the world bank reports on the amount of remittance flows to the country (nbe, 2017; world bank, 2018a) remittances play a large role in financial household dynamics in ethiopia, notably as risk-reducing instruments and as insurance against external shocks (aredo, 2005). the diaspora has had an influential voice in ethiopian politics and development over the past decades. the role of the diaspora in the current socio-economic transformation3 led by prime minister abiy ahmed is significant. a few years before the transformation in the country, the ethiopian diasporas, especially those living and working in the united states of america, declined the volume of remittances and avoided the formal channels of sending remittances home as a way of bringing about change. the ethiopian government increasingly recognizes the importance of remittances from its migrants, for the development of the country and has taken several initiatives to optimize the effects of these financial flows. one of their goals was to stimulate its diaspora members to send money through the official channels. however, most financial transfers are still made through informal channels (icmpd, 2008). this situation is directly related to the immigration status of the diasporas in host countries. most ethiopian diasporas in europe and north america have legal documented immigration status that allows them to send remittances through official channels. however, those in countries in the middle east and the rest of africa, especially those in south africa, are in a dire situation because of their unfavorable immigration status in those countries. 3 since taking over as head of the ethiopian government in april 2018, abiy ahmed has increased his openness, by lifting the state of emergency, releasing political prisoners, announcing economic openness, and privatizing national enterprises. regarding foreign policy, abiy ahmed surprisingly initiated an historic rapprochement with eritrea. abiy ahmed is applying his manifest skills to the vital purpose of transforming ethiopia into a prosperous society (collier, 2019; financial times, 2020). remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 10 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 all ethiopian migrants in south africa, with exception of few professionals, are unable to send money through formal channels and remit informally, as they do not have the required official identification and thus lack access to formal financial services. complicated formal banking procedures and their cumbersome requirements make the lives of ethiopian migrants in south africa very difficult (dinbabo, 2020). to ease the flow of remittances, countries like mexico issue official identification to their nationals living abroad, irrespective of their migratory status in the destination country. the ethiopian government may need to explore such options as well. likewise, the european investment bank and mediterranean developing countries have signed an agreement to allow migrants in european union (eu) countries access to simplified banking facilities upon presentation of consular registration cards (unctad, 2013). the south african government should also consider the introduction of simplified banking facilities, in order to facilitate remittance outflows through formal channels and make the process much easier and less costly, for the benefit of both the host nation and the african diaspora. another discouraging factor with respect to remittance flows to ethiopia for the last two-and-a-half decades, was that the former government of ethiopia had introduced indirect (implicit and hidden) remittances tax, requiring recipients to convert remittances to the local currency at uncompetitive officially-fixed exchange rates (adugna, 2019). in addition, the former ethiopian government adopted a more opportunistic approach, damaging the trust of migrants and diasporas, by issuing diaspora bonds, which were embezzled by government officials due to poor governance, lack of economic and political stability, and unfavorable investment regulation. however, in recent years, the current ethiopian government has put in place several positive measures to improve the operations and flow of formal remittances, as well as to reduce the costs of transfers and to increase access to international remittance services (isaacs, 2017). however, the ethiopian government should make continued efforts in ensuring that the ethiopian diaspora community is recognized by host nations, through its diplomatic channels. kenya after kenya gained its independence from britain in 1963, the inflow of remittances to kenya from the diaspora grew substantially and ranks among the top-four leading sources of kenya’s foreign exchange (makori et al., 2015). this has been attributed to the surge in the numbers of kenyans living in the diaspora (ngugi, 2015). from the mid-1980s when kenya began to experience an economic downturn and political instability, a significant number of kenyans left the country to join the diaspora (makori et al., 2015). they moved to countries where political and economic climates were favorable and promising and became the initial remitters of funds to kenya from their destination countries. in fact, as far back as the post-independence period, kenya started experiencing a gradual increase in remittances (ngugi, 2015). kenya has experienced a steady growth in the annual volume of diaspora re11 mittances recorded over the post-independence period. remittances have become a major source of foreign exchange and a key driver of economic growth, as underscored in the “kenya vision 2030”, kenya’s national development policy blueprint (aboulezz, 2015). ratha et al. (2011) found that remittances received in kenya from within africa were used primarily for the construction of houses, while inflows from outside africa were devoted to long-term investments. the volume of emigrants from kenya and the volume of remittances have been increasing over time. the kenyan government has been very keen to encourage the diaspora to participate in national development (world bank, 2012). the importance of the diaspora has also been recognized in the “kenya vision 2030”. although remittances have the potential to contribute to national development, there has been a lack of administrative structures and mechanisms to enable the government to tap directly into these foreign inflows from the diaspora as an asset for investment and national development (government of kenya, 2011). studies comparing poverty levels between kenyan households that have no remittances and those that receive remittances have recorded higher poverty levels in the former than in the latter (makori et al., 2015; ocharo, 2015). it is well understood that remittances do facilitate household incomes and are efficient anti-poverty forces in poor or developing countries such as kenya (kamuleta, 2014; nyamwange and paterson, 2015). indeed, recipients of remittances are able to identify and utilize the remittances to meet their most pressing poverty needs. studies conducted around kenya on the well-being of households receiving remittances and those that do not receive remittances reveal that the households that receive the remittances are better off financially than those that do not receive the funds (kamuleta, 2014; nyamwange and paterson, 2015). the reason for this is that the recipient households can invest the remittances in income-generating activities, which result in the reduction of their poverty standing and improvement of their living standards while the non-remittance receiving households have no funds to invest. furthermore, studies carried out across kenya indicate that remittance-receiving households experience higher income levels and have a higher purchasing power than the non-remittancereceiving households (ngugi, 2015). uganda remittance inflows in uganda have been increasing steadily while outflows have remained relatively stable. mobile money is increasingly successful in uganda and has driven a lot of the growth in remittance volume and value. the regulatory requirements for cross-border remittances are relatively clearly outlined, compared to many other ssa markets (macmillan et al., 2016). there are no caps on outward remittances and no foreign exchange controls exist. according to interviewees, the regulator comes across as mostly open-minded and eager to advance the sector. however, regulation around mobile money is unclear and lags the rapid technological advances in the market, preventing inclusive development (macmillan et al., 2016). remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 12 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 uganda’s remittance market is thriving, yet costs are high (world bank, 2018b). informal inflows and the costs of sending remittances are high, despite the significant developments in the market structure, regulation and access which have taken place in recent decades. remittances to uganda have surpassed traditional foreign currency earners with positive impacts on the economy. the positive role played by remittances include that the aggregate flows into the economy have a direct effect on the national reserves, foreign exchanges and gdp of the economy as well as improvement on savings and credit ratios as a result of improved investment. ugandan migrants are sending remittances to improve conditions in their households and communities. there is evidence that remittances in uganda have the potential to significantly contribute to development compared to the official aid (bank of uganda, 2016). in uganda, remittances tend to be more stable than other sources of foreign exchange, and they are often countercyclical, helping sustain consumption and investment during downturns and performing the role of a shock absorber (ratha et al., 2011; unhcr and uncdf, 2018). remittances play a key role for ugandans and refugees alike, providing vital funds from friends and families abroad. uganda is a net recipient of remittances, given the large flows that the ugandan diaspora remits home as well as the inflows that are supporting the enormous refugee population. uganda’s open border policy towards refugees from crisis-ridden neighboring countries is particularly commendable, given the current global rise in anti-immigration sentiments and policies. the remittance sector in the country is further advanced than in most countries in africa, yet challenges remain. while formal remittance flows into uganda are the sixth highest in africa, it is estimated that both domestically and regionally a large proportion of personal transfers are still made informally (cooper et al., 2018). literature review migrants remit money home from host countries for two main reasons, namely altruism and self-interest motives. altruism refers to the migrant’s assistance to the family back home to meet basic family needs, while self-interest motives refer to returns seeking purposes for remitting back home (docquier and rapoport, 2006). remittance inflows sometimes involve a complex arrangement that incorporate features of both self-interest and altruism, such as risk diversification, consumption smoothing and intergenerational financing of investments (docquier and rapoport, 2006). migrants also remit home, aimed at maintaining good family ties to improve their standing for inheritance purposes or to ensure that their assets back home are properly taken care of. this is referred to as “enlightened self-interest”(lucas and stark, 1985: 906). this section presents empirical studies that have analyzed the relation between remittances and economic growth. there are positive and negative externalities associated with international migration. one of the positive outcomes of migration is 13 remittance inflows, which have emerged as a key link between human mobility and development. a great deal of literature is available on remittances both in developed and developing countries. these include research in the area of development economics (corden and neary, 1982; barajas et al., 2011; koyame-marsh, 2012; siddique et al., 2012; ahmed, 2013; alvarez-tinajero, 2013; marwan et al., 2013; richard and alfredo,2013; kemegue et al., 2014; world bank, 2014; adarkwa, 2015; asongu and nwachukwu, 2016; hien et al., 2019; tchamyou, 2020). the empirical studies show that remittances can stimulate economic activity and motivate entrepreneurial communities (ahmed, 2013; asongu and nwachukwu, 2016; tchamyou, 2020). remittances help households move out of poverty and increase educational and housing spending. siddique et al. (2012) investigated the relationship between remittances and economic growth in bangladesh, india and sri lanka and found that there is no causal relationship between economic growth and remittances in india, that there was a two-way relationship between remittances and economic growth in sri lanka, and that remittances did not lead to economic growth in bangladesh. studies from sub-saharan african countries show mixed results. for example, a study undertaken by koyame-marsh (2012) found that remittances do not lead to economic growth in all ten ecowas (economic community of west african states) countries studied. marwan et al.’s (2013) study on sudan found a long-run positive relationship between growth, export and remittance. richard and alfredo (2013) also found evidence of the strong role of remittances in promoting social welfare in ghana. adarkwa (2015) examined the impact of remittances on economic growth in four selected west african countries and found mixed results. from another angle, barajas et al. (2011) show that the growing consumption of recipients may increase the local market price and appreciate the exchange rate. as a result, the macroeconomic mechanism known as ‘dutch disease’4 may yield the failing of the tradable sector of the domestic economy, the rising of the current account deficit, and inflation with weaker monetary control (hien et al., 2019). meanwhile, the growing pressure on wages may lead to job losses in the tradable sector, while the sudden rise of prices would increase the labor costs in the nontradable sector, thus leading to the loss of national competitiveness. in addition, the assessment of the impact of remittances on national growth suggests a wide range of multifaceted causal links and presents both positive and negative aspects, which may vary depending on the socioeconomic factors pertaining to each country at national and local levels (yaseen, 2012). table 1 presents a summary of positive and negative effects of remittances. in general, sub-saharan africa lags woefully behind other regions in efforts at effectively harnessing the benefits of remittance inflows while minimizing negative externalities associated therewith. this has been attributed to several factors, such as 4 an economic model developed by corden and neary (1983), when a country experiences a resource boom due to a tradable resource discovery and/or to an increase in a resource price. remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 14 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 inadequate awareness of the drivers and constraints to these inflows through formal channels, overregulation, underdeveloped financial systems and markets, lack of the requisite structures and enabling environment (kemegue et al., 2014). in 2013, inflows of remittances to sub-saharan africa increased by 3.5% (world bank, 2014). however, the increase was not distributed evenly across the continent. east african countries experienced significant gains in remittance inflows while those in the west african sub-region experienced only a marginal increase (world bank, 2014). table 1: summary of positive and negative effects of remittances source: adapted from alvarez-tinajero (2013). positive effects negative effects national level • increase national income if remittances are transferred through formal channels. • recipient countries gain creditworthiness in international credit markets. • recipient countries may stabilize national balance of payments accounts. • large remittance flows could lead to currency appreciation, with negative consequences on exports. local/household/ individual level • boost local economies by stimulating consumption, demand for local goods or services, fostering job creation. • potentially increase local capital to be reinvested in businesses. • afford basic needs (food, healthcare, education, housing). • face risks (unemployment, disability, accidents, illness). • afford social/family events (town festivities, weddings, funerals); strengthen social networks; gain prestige, power and resources (social or material advantages); redress relative deprivation (access to what others in the immediate environment have). • partly redress social (class, gender) disadvantages. • generate a demand for imported (rather than locally produced) goods. • increase the price of land, property, construction materials. • exacerbate structural inequalities between recipients and nonrecipients. • foster dependency links between senders and recipients. • put pressure on senders, leading to the deterioration of their living conditions. 15 data and methodology data this study uses data from the world bank for the period from 1995 to 2017 to evaluate the nexus between inflow remittance and economic growth among three igad member countries, namely, ethiopia, kenya, and uganda. the descriptive statistics for the data used in this study are presented in table 2. the variable name gr stands for the real gdp growth rate. most studies use gdp as a proxy variable for economic growth. however, using gdp growth rate better mimics the growth trend in respective countries. gri,t-1 is the lag of the logarithm of gdp growth rate, inf is inflation, measured as the annual percentage change in the consumption price index, inv is investment, lngexp is the logarithm of government expenditure, lnpop is the logarithm of population size as a measure of human capital, lnrem is the logarithm of remittances over time, and opn is openness to international trade, defined as the ratio of the sum of exports plus imports of goods to total output. in the analysis, many variables in this study are transformed to logarithm (log) forms. in time series analysis, logarithmic transformation is often considered to stabilize the variance of a series and mimics normal distribution (luetkepohl and xu, 2009). table 2: descriptive statistics of variables source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). the larger values of skewness and kurtosis show asymmetric distribution around the mean. this fact is also evidenced in the jarque-bera test that rejected the null hypothesis of normality at 1 percent level of significance for most of the variables. methodology since the main objective of the study is to analyze the impact of international g inf inv lngexp lnpop lnrem opn mean 6.339514 8.245000 22.86067 19.88665 17.52654 19.55574 17.22065 median 6.081430 7.114000 21.47600 19.80179 17.41449 19.86758 14.15700 maximum 13.57260 39.24500 39.41700 23.61567 18.34440 21.40123 125.9680 minimum -3.458139 -8.999000 12.35200 15.94040 16.73840 16.03824 -22.65600 std. dev. 3.585341 7.624076 6.616714 2.154349 0.476774 1.307967 22.08911 skewness -0.213900 1.538381 0.760696 -0.141375 0.299412 -0.837405 1.794977 kurtosis 2.883122 7.925549 3.055465 2.052124 1.839402 2.799826 9.949993 jarque-bera 0.565438 96.96656 6.663418 2.812946 4.903541 8.179549 175.9217 probability 0.753732 0.000000 0.035732 0.245006 0.086141 0.016743 0.000000 sum 437.4264 568.9050 1577.386 1372.179 1209.331 1349.346 1188.225 sum sq. dev. 874.1174 3952.604 2977.101 315.6030 15.45734 116.3329 33179.17 observations 69 69 69 69 69 69 69 remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 16 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 remittances on economic growth in the three east african countries, the effect of international remittances on economic growth can be modelled as follows: methodology on panel unit root tests as a common accord in the literature, panel unit root tests are superior to time series unit root tests. therefore, this paper uses panel unit root tests, as outlined in im, pesaran and shin (ips) (2003) and levin lin and chu (llc) (2002). following ips (2003) and llc (2002) we have the following panel unit root regression: δyi,t = αi + βi yi,t-1 + ∑j=1 δi,j δxi,t-j + εi,t , i = 1, …, n, and t = 1 (1) where: using equation (1), llc (2002) test and ips (2003) test are carried out, respectively. the llc test examines: h0: β1=β2=...=βn=0 (no cointegration) against h1: βi<0, for some i (there is cointegration) h0 and h1 are the null and the alternative hypotheses respectively, where the appropriate lag order wij from equation (1) must be determined. the conventional t-statistics for testing βi=0 is: tβi = (2) the ips adjusted t-statistics is expressed as: tβi = (3) note that the ips test also examines similar null and alternative hypotheses as specified in the llc test. dynamic panel model specification following from giuliano and arranz (2009) and barguellil et al. (2013), the dynamic panel model used in this study is specified as follows: gri,t =β0 + β1gri,t-1 + β2 infi,t + β3 lninvi,t + β4 lngexpi,t + β5 lnpopi,t + β6 lnremi,t + β7 opni,t + εi,t (4) where: gr is the real gdp growth rate gri,t-1 is the lag of gdp growth rate inf is inflation, measured as the annual percentage change in the consumption price index inv is investment lngexp is the logarithm of government expenditure lnpop is the logarithm of population size as a measure of human capital wij 17 lnrem is the logarithm of remittances over time opn is openness to international trade, defined as the ratio of the sum of exports plus imports of goods to total output ε is the error term results and discussion the panel co-integration test given the nature of the data used in this study, the unbalanced panel data analysis is employed. for the analysis of the long-run relationship among variables in this study, an array of panel cointegration tests are employed to ensure the veracity of the findings. table 3 presents a summary of the panel unit root test. table 3: panel unit root test: summary source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). note: *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5% and 1% levels, respectively. most of the variables are stationary at level, since the null hypothesis of unit root is rejected. that makes our estimation reliable. table 4 presents a summary of the pooled estimation result from the panel fully modified least squares. null: unit root (assumes common unit root process) null: unit root (assumes individual unit root process) variable levin-lin-chu (llc) im, pesaran and shin (ips) w-stat level first difference level first difference g -3.6445*** -2.71078*** inf -3.1507*** -2.84007 lnrem -1.68116** -0.31627 inv 0.04313 -2.04313** 0.32596 lngexp 2.43817 -1.80750** 4.48814 -2.28552*** opn -4.4806*** -5.18781*** lngdpp -2.96322*** d(lnpop,2) -6.31624*** -6.05418*** remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 18 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 table 4: pooled estimation result from panel fully modified least squares (fmols) source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). the logarithm of remittances impacts the dependent variable, economic growth, positively but is not statistically significant. however, the first lag of economic growth, inflation, and openness has affected economic growth during the study period positively and significantly at five percent and one percent levels of significance respectively. table 5 presents the results from the kao panel residual cointegration. dependent variable: g (growth rate) sample (adjusted): 19962016 periods included: 21 cross-sections included: 3 total panel (balanced) observations: 63 cointegrating equation deterministic: c coefficient covariance computed using default method long-run covariance estimates (bartlett kernel, newey-west fixed bandwidth) variable coefficient std. error t-statistic probability gt_1 0.198874 0.097510 2.039522 0.0464** inf 0.138120 0.039452 3.500981 0.0009 *** inv 0.031040 0.082528 0.376110 0.7083 lngexp 0.060569 1.354254 0.044725 0.9645 lnpop -2.554559 5.488141 -0.465469 0.6435 lnrem 0.635389 0.540616 1.175305 0.2451 opn 0.064385 0.014339 4.490131 0.0000*** r-squared 0.419647 mean dependent var 6.269976 adjusted r-squared 0.321097 s.d. dependent var 3.672979 s.e. of regression 3.026373 sum squared residual 485.4234 long-run variance 3.462648 19 table 5: kao panel residual cointegration test for long-run relation between remittance and economic growth source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). the kao panel residual cointegration shows that the null hypothesis is not sufficiently supported by the data. there is a statistically significant long-run relationship between the variables in the series. this implies that international remittance, our variable interest, has long-run impact on the economic growth in the countries considered in this study. table 6 presents a summary of the granger causality test. table 6: granger causality test source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). there is not enough evidence to accept the null hypothesis. therefore, remittances granger causes economic growth – significantly at 5 percent level of significance in the long run. robustness check to verify the above dynamic panel regression result, fixed-effects and random-effects estimation are used as a robustness check. as shown in tables 7 and 8, both fixedeffects and random-effects estimation results confirm the same findings, as shown in other panel regression results. that is, the logarithm of remittances impacts series: g, gt_1, inf, inv, lngexp, lnpop, lnrem, opn sample: 1995 2017 included observations: 69 null hypothesis: no cointegration trend assumption: no deterministic trend automatic lag length selection based on sic with a max lag of 5 newey-west automatic bandwidth selection and bartlett kernel t-statistic prob. adf -3.447484 0.0003*** residual variance 11.10221 hac variance 1.559893 pairwise granger causality tests sample: 1995 2017 lags: 2 null hypothesis: obs f-statistic prob. lnrem does not granger cause g 63 4.29316 0.0182** g does not granger cause lnrem 0.24848 0.7808 remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 20 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 economic growth in the panel of countries included in this study positively, affects economic growth, but is not statistically significant. however, in the random-effects analysis, the estimation result is negative but not statistically significant. the other variables like inflation and openness have affected economic growth during the study period positive and statistically significant in both models (see tables 7 and 8). these findings are in line with economic theories on growth. table 7: fixed-effects estimation results source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). fixed-effects(within)regression number of obs. = 66 group variable: i number of groups = 3 r-sq: obs. per group: within = 0.3450 min = 22 between = 0.2236 avg. = 22.0 overall = 0.0011 max = 22 f (7,56) = 4.21 corr(u_i,χb) = -0.9435 prob> f = 0.0009 g coef. std.err. t p>|t| [95% conf. interval] gt_1 0.13875 0.1273 1.09 0.280 -0.1161 0.3937 lnrem 0.7595 0.7387 1.03 0.308 -0.7204 2.2394 inv -0.0132 -0.1086 -0.12 0.904 -0.2307 0.2043 lngexp 1.5202 1.6533 0.92 0.362 -1.7917 4.8322 opn 0.0633 0.0184 3.44 0.001*** 0.0264 0.1001 inf 0.1108 0.0529 2.09 0.041** 0.0048 0.2168 lnpop -8.9945 6.5789 -1.37 0.177 -22.1737 4.1846 _cons 116.3416 89.7058 1.30 1.30 -63.3503 296.0334 sigma_u 9.0418 sigma_e 2.9079 rho 0.9063 f_test that u_i=0: f(2,56) = 2.47 prob> f= 0.0942 21 table 8: random-effects estimation results source: author’s estimation from world bank. 2017. migration and remittances data, annual remittances data (updated as of dec. 2018). note: ** and *** indicate significance at 5% and 1% levels, respectively. conclusion human migration is one of the topical issues under discussion among policy-makers, politicians, the media, and individual citizens of both developed and developing nations. when supported by appropriate policies, migration can contribute to inclusive and sustainable development in both origin and destination countries, while also benefiting migrants and their families. however, sub-saharan africa lags woefully behind other regions in efforts at effectively harnessing the benefits of remittance inflows while minimizing negative externalities associated therewith. this study investigated the effect of remittances on economic growth in three igad member countries, namely, ethiopia, kenya and uganda, for the period ranging from 1995 to 2017. the pooled estimation result from panel fully modified least squares (fmols) shows that the logarithm of remittances impacts the dependent variable, economic growth, positively but not statistically significant. the kao panel residual cointegration test shows that the null hypothesis is not sufficiently supported by the data. there is a statistically significant long-run relationship between the variables fixed-effects(within)regression number of obs. = 66 group variable: i number of groups = 3 r-sq: obs. per group: within =0.3033 min = 22 between =0.9807 avg. = 22.0 overall = 0.4073 max = 22 wald chi2(7) = 39.85 corr(u_i,χ) = 0 (assume) prob> chi2 = 0.0009 g coef. std.err. t p>|t| [95% conf. interval] gt_1 0.2144 0.1192 1.80 0.072 -0.0192 0.4481 lnrem 0.0291 0.0571 0.06 0.955 -0.0419 1.0426 inv 0.1320 0.0887 1.49 0.137 -0.9376 0.3059 lngexp -0.0268 0.4648 -0.06 0.954 -1.7917 0.8839 opn 0.0564 0.0185 3.04 0.002*** 0.0200 0.0927 inf 0.1198 0.0527 2.27 0.021** 0.0165 0.2230 lnpop -0.0225 1.6846 -0.01 0.989 -3.3243 3.2793 _cons 0.3749 31.7787 0.01 10.991 -61.9103 62.6602 sigma_u 0 sigma_e 2.9079 rho 0 (fraction of variance due to u_i) remittances and economic growth: evidence from ethiopia, kenya, and uganda 22 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 in the series. this implies that international remittances, our variable interest, has a long-run impact on the economic growth in the countries considered in this study. in addition, remittances granger cause economic growth – significantly at 5 percent level of significance in the long run. in this study, the impact of human capital is captured using the population size of the respective countries. however, the result comes with a negative effect. such result is not surprising, given that the countries included in this study have relatively higher population growth rates that may hamper capital formation because of high levels of consumption. education and training could better capture the effect of human capital on economic growth. the countries included in this study are known for poor governance, lack of economic and political stability, and unfavorable investment regulation that deters the inflow of remittances. the trust deficit between the diaspora and governments should also be addressed to promote diaspora investment appetite in local financial instruments, like bonds and other financial assets. policymakers in ethiopia, kenya and uganda should formulate policies that can stimulate additional remittances from their diaspora. governments, institutions, and civil society are interested in mobilizing remittances, as illustrated by the growth initiatives targeting the financial and human capital of migrants and diasporas. remittances can serve as a ‘big-push’ towards economic growth in the countries included in this study; countries need to design appropriate policies suitable for money transfer. in addition, there should be strong collaboration with host countries to harness mutual benefit in both ends. the migrant-sending countries should also create a strong collaboration with migrants and diasporas, with respect to their rights, and improve their quality of life in host countries. future studies in this area may focus on the channels through which remittances impact economic growth. 23 references aboulezz, n. 2015. remittances and economic growth nexus: empirical evidence from kenya. international journal of academic research in business and social sciences, 5(12): 285-296. available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v5i12/1958. accessed on 20 september 2020. adarkwa, m. 2015. impact of remittances on economic growth: evidence from selected west african countries (cameroon, cape verde, nigeria and senegal). african human mobility review, 1(2): 177-200. adeoye, b.w., nwokolo, c.i. and 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african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 ngugi, n. 2015. the impact of diaspora remittance on the kenyan economy. available at: https://hapakenya.com/2015/04/02/the-impact-of-diaspora-remittanceon-the-kenyan-economy/. accessed on 27 october 2019. nyamwange, m. and paterson, w. 2015. contributions of remittances to africa’s development: the case study of kenya. middle states geographer, 46(1): 12-18. ocharo, k.n. 2015. remittances and economic growth in kenya (1970-2010) – merit research. journal of accounting, auditing, economics and finance, 3(1): 1-16. pragyandeepa. 2016. big push theory: main features. available at: http://www. economicsdiscussion.net/theories/big-push-theory-main-features/4608. accessed on 25 october 2020. ratha, d. 2013. the impact of remittances on economic growth and poverty reduction. migration policy institute, washington, dc. rapoport, h. and docquier, f. 2006. the economics of migrants' remittances, chapter 17 in handbook of the economics of 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n-1293 adults aged ≥50; male n-63.1%, female n-36.9%) using a multi-stage stratified random sample. varied statistical techniques such as cross-tabulation and binary logistic regression were used to analyze the dataset. the study results show a high mean prevalence of old-age disability within the study area, irrespective of migration status in northeastern nigeria. secondly, socio-economic and environmental determinants were robust predictors of later-life health outcomes. in addition, the regression revealed that concomitant factors such as age, gender and sanitation have a negative effect on older adult wellness and well-being. meanwhile, the migration status of internally displaced persons (idps), although in most cases forced, significantly improves the odds of aging healthily. conclusively, the quality of life of the older adults, irrespective of migration status, is poorly impacted by diminishing familial supports, social exclusion, non-existent social security program and non-existence of healthcare infrastructure. based on the study results, we recommend that the proposed economic community of west african states (ecowas) sahelian “green belt” afforestation project targeted, especially to areas around the chad basin be fully implemented, as this project will help mediate the perennial conflicts between the herdsmen and farming communities. furthermore, there is an urgent need to formulate an integration between migration and geriatrics which would be comprehensive, and evidence-driven. study recommend that budgetary allocation for health should have a flooring capped at 20% of the national budget.. keywords: environmental stress, forced migration, population aging, nigeria, sullivan method 29 introduction the combined impacts of conflicts, environmental and climatic changes on socioeconomic development as witnessed in the 21st century are complex (iom, 2018; idmc, 2019a; idmc-grid, 2020). this trident portends shortand long-term challenges to policy audiences and nations worldwide, in most cases precariously altering the demographic structures while also hindering the sustainable development drive of most countries. increasingly more regions around the globe are experiencing unprecedented levels of habitat loss due to factors such as climate change, change in land use/land cover, desertification, and water pollution. this has devastating effects on the most vulnerable communities, particularly in least developed countries (ldcs), landlocked developing countries (lldcs) and small island developing states (sids) (hartter et al., 2015; ipcc, 2018; strandberg and kjellström, 2019). in order to better comprehend the scale of this phenomenon, according to the idmc-grid (2020), 33.4 million people were recently internally displaced, making 2019 the year with the highest annual increase since 2012. a staggering 8.5 million of the internally displaced persons (idps) were driven by conflict and violence, while 24.9 million idps were triggered by around 1,900 recorded disaster events across 145 countries and territories. the status of 23.9 million of these idps was directly attributable to weather-related disasters (see in figure 1). during 2019, a total of 75.5% of idps, which accounted for an estimated 34.5 million idps, were resident in just 10 countries. of these idps, 18.3 million are children under the age of 15 years, while 3.7 million are persons aged 60 years and above (iom, 2018; idmcgrid, 2020). climate-induced displacement is fluid and widespread, constantly reshaping migration patterns across different regions and most especially in the ldcs, lldcs and sids nations. according to the unhcr (2018) an estimated 79.5 million people are currently displaced worldwide, which constitutes about 1% of the human population derived from 28 million new humanitarian crises across 148 countries and territories. it is evident that the humanitarian crises abound and persist unabated (idmc-grid, 2020). the global migration picture must, therefore, be seen as a sum of many parts and it is important to put recent developments in specific regions into global and historical contexts. determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 30 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 figure 1: annual distribution of internal displacement by causation (2008-2019) source: authors' compilation (2020) sub-saharan africa in africa, inter-tribal conflicts are the leading source of internal displacement1 alongside the effects of environmental change. the continent at present houses over one-third of the global internally displaced population. this is in spite of the unanimous adoption by the different african states of the african union convention for the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons plan in 2012 (au, 2012). the sub-saharan region which comprises 47 nations is still home to an estimated 16.8 million idps. conflicts and violence within the sub-region contributed 4,590,000 new idps and 3,448,000 idps were displaced as a result of environmental stress. this is evidenced in the temporal escalation of violence and an overall deterioration of security, mostly within the sahelian sub-regions, that are still ongoing in nations like nigeria, burkina faso, mali and niger (world bank, 2017a). causes of internal displacement in nigeria (stylized fact) the problem of forced migration and internal displacement in nigeria persisted post-independence, and this has often been triggered by ethno-religious communal 1 in this study the terms internal displacement and forced migration are used interchangeably. 31 disputes, electoral violence, a civil war in 1967 and natural disasters such as flooding and desertification. nigeria is currently ranked as one of the highest idp-dense countries with one of the highest numbers of conflict-induced idps (iom, 2018; gti, 2019). since 2013, the country has experienced an unprecedented spike in internal displacement due to the insurgency in the northern part of the country caused by boko-haram2 (north-east) and fulani herdsmen3 (north-west). together, they account for 78% of terror-related incidents and 86% of deaths from terrorism (mohammed, 2017; gti, 2019). the displacement tracking matrix (dtm) round 13 report estimated 1,770, 444 idps in the northeastern parts alone. displacement in this area is principally caused by conflict (1,770,444) attributed to the boko-haram islamist group, coupled with the intensification of the conflict between pastoralists and the nomadic fulani terrorist-facilitated further displacements leading to a total of 2,706,152 idps across 13 states in nigeria (iom, 2018). environment-induced migration is occurring at an increasing rate in northern nigeria, considering that 613,000 persons were recently displaced as a direct impact of environmental stressors (idmc, 2019b). studies have shown that the sudano-sahelian ecological zone (ssez) suffered from seasonal and inter-annual climatic variability as measured in most parts of the country (see in figure 2). this led to increased droughts and the inevitable onset of the desertification processes, particularly since the 1960s decrease in rainfall in the range of about 3-4% per decade since the beginning of the 19th century (frn, 2003; abaje et al., 2011). the sahelian droughts of the 1970s and the 1980s ravaged this zone and left farmers impoverished (ati et al., 2007). this zone falls within the “arc of tension”, a region burdened by successive disasters in the form of flash flooding, coupled with the slow onset of extreme drought and desertification (abaje et al., 2011; abaje et al., 2012). 2 boko-haram is known as the islamic state in west africa, and was formerly known as jama’at ahl as-sunnah lid-da’wahwa’l-jihad (founded in 2002). 3 fulani extremists are from the fulani tribe in northern nigeria and from other neighboring countries in the sahel, a tribe known for cattle herding. determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 32 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 figure 2: climatic transition in nigeria (1901-2016) source: authors' compilation (2020) northeastern nigeria is being structurally transformed and overburdened by forced migration, triggered by conflicts and disasters resulting in clashes between host communities and the displaced population over scarce socio-economic resources. this humanitarian situation in the northeast is deteriorating, with almost 8 million people heavily dependent on humanitarian aid. an estimated 823,000 people are out of the reach of aid organizations, and little is known about their health needs. according to the un, 5.4 million people are in dire need of healthcare (un ocha, 2018). there is a growing need to view the resultant problems associated with migration and non-migration within this region through new lenses, as they are far too complex to be characterized in just a binary perspective. in compositional terms, most people and households that face climate risks do not migrate, particularly in ldcs, lldcs and sids. on the other hand, forced migration is increasingly recognized as a leading source of global health crises. evidence shows that conflictdriven displacement has profound impacts on both the physical and mental health of those displaced persons, among which consist of older adults (burns et al., 2018). older adults, irrespective of legal status, are more susceptible to social and healthcare exclusion, especially with the decline of the traditional familial support system. despite their increased health risks, a large number of older persons within 33 this conflict-stricken region lack access to adequate levels and quality of health care. older adults within host communities have to compete with older idps for the limited healthcare services and aid provided by often over-stretched local governments. this “double stress” puts additional strain on the scarce resources, further reducing their coping ability and weakening their resilience (le van et al., 2018; unhcr, 2018; un ocha, 2018). figure 3: conceptualizing the research problem source: authors' construct (2020) the adverse impacts of conflict-driven displacement on health outcomes are welldocumented (see for example, julca and paddison, 2010; heudtlass et al., 2016). this paper argues that inasmuch as some people migrate willingly and voluntarily, there are other forms of migration that occur under forced or coerced conditions as far as nigeria is concerned. some scholars refer to the voluntary–forced migration nexus as continuum (oucho, 2009; koppenberg, 2012). this work does not delve into the voluntary and involuntary migration nexus; rather, it focuses on internal displacement as a form of forced migration (mooney, 2005; terminski, 2013). in addition, less is known about the nexus between migration status and determinants of healthy aging in nigeria. the main objective of this article is to assess the effect of socio-economic determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 34 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 and environmental determinants on healthy aging status among displaced migrants and non-migrants nested within the environmentally stressed region of northeastern nigeria. the study also seeks to contribute to the emerging body of literature on global population aging studies as impacted by migration, while also contributing to the discussion on the dynamics of internal displacement in nigeria. literature review in the past few decades, the literature on migration has paid less attention to the subject of forced migration, although this sub-field in migration has its roots in the early writings of contemporary migration studies. ernst georg ravenstein (1834–1913) propounded in the laws of migration that “bad or oppressive laws, heavy taxation and unattractive climate, uncongenial social surroundings, and even compulsion (slave trade, transportation) produce flows of migrants, but none of these flows can be compared in volume with that which arises from the desire inherent in the most men to ‘better’ themselves in material aspects” (ravenstein, 1885:167-227; 1889:224310.). the voluntary form of migration enthused by economic causes propagated by ravenstein has dominated and influenced major migration theories (see: mobility transition by zelinsky, 1971; dual economy model, 1950/1960) throughout the twentieth century up to the present. the reduction of human mobility due to economic pull factors alone overlooks certain important immeasurable social factors in contemporary times such as environmental and climatic stressors (terminski, 2013). healthy aging currently, more than 11.6% of global populations are persons aged 60+ years (about 901 million persons) and this number is projected to rise to about 1.4 billion people by 2050 (un, 2015). similarly, the eastern and south-eastern asian sub-regions are anticipated to experience the largest demographic transition (312 million people), while sub-saharan africa is projected to experience the largest increase in life expectancy gain (11.4 years), rising from 49.1 years (1990-1995) to 60.5 years (2015-2020), and a further gain of 7.6 years is anticipated between 2015-2050 (undp, 2018; undesa, 2020). the global advancement in healthcare and living standard has translated into prolonging life expectancy of people worldwide. thus, a person who turns 60 years old could expect to live an additional 17 years in 2015-2020, and this number could rise to 19 years in 2045-2050. those living in sub-saharan africa are projected to live only an additional 14.2 years in 2045-2050 (higo and khan, 2014; un desa, 2020). however, more emphasis should be placed on the quality of life, rather than longevity alone, optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance the quality of life of older adults in society. the world health organization (who) defines healthy aging as, “the process of developing and maintaining the 35 functional ability that enables well-being in older age” (who, 2015). the nigerian government confronts a major problem, optimizing health opportunities, social inclusion and security for older adult idps in order to promote healthy aging. elder et al. (1994) showed the adverse effects of conflicts and war on the physical health of persons older than 30 years. in addition, kuh et al. (2002), shaw and krause (2002), krause et al. (2004) all revealed that early-life events are adversely related to health outcomes in middleand older age. the who (2015b) report, points out that healthy aging status is significantly influenced by social determinants of health, for instance persons classified as socio-economically disadvantaged, such as in the case of most idps, who experience markedly poorer health in older age. furthermore, the review of some studies revealed problems of inequality in health status and well-being among older people, highlighting different factors, such as socio-economic status (lindström et al., 2017), age (aboderin, 2010; 2011), nationality (axén and lindström, 2002), educational status (ibáñez and moya, 2006), marital status and economic status (kirchhoff and ibáñez, 2002), emotional support (ahs et al., 2006), the transformation of familial support (higo and khan, 2014; khan et al., 2017; khan, 2019), and not having a partner present. these factors are associated with poorer health and well-being, and in general lower quality of life (gómez-olivé et al., 2010; phaswana-mafuya et al., 2013). methods and data the study utilized the nigerian idp survey (frn, 2018), a household survey with a multi-stage stratified random sample. six northeastern states were surveyed namely: adamawa, bauchi, borno, gombe, taraba and yobe (see in figure 4). this region is characterized by harsh climatic conditions, poor infrastructure, poor service delivery and frequent epidemic outbreaks. the sampling frame consisted of a list of wards with idp household counts in the six states, provided by the international organization for migration (iom) displacement tracking matrix (dtm) of 2017. the survey is representative for idps and host communities, defining host communities as the non-displaced population living in the enumeration areas (eas) with displaced populations. all the households in the selected eas were first listed and 12 idp households and 12 (or multiples of it) host community households were randomly selected and surveyed per ea, to reach the designated sample size. determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 36 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 figure 4: nigeria showing its northeastern geo-political zones source: authors' compilation (2020) variable measurement the who (2015b) notes that healthy aging is significantly influenced by the social determinants of health. this implies that people from socio-economically disadvantaged groups experience markedly poorer health in older age and have a shorter life expectancy. social determinants of health (sdoh) encompass the social, economic and environmental factors that can affect an individual’s health and quality of life. for older adults in particular, sdoh-related factors can have significant implications for their ability to live independently in advanced age. we selected physical disability (b_3_3_disal_3) as a proxy of healthy aging status for the outcome. the study justification for this decision of selecting sensory impairment as a health status metric is based on the fact that it is a prevalent cause of unhealthy aging in lowand lower-middle-income countries like nigeria. environmental factors include the household’s type of toilet (c_1_21_toilet), source of household drinking water (c_1_11_water_home), and type of waste disposal (c_2_21_waste_disposal). economic factors consist of consumption quintile (quintile_tc), labor participation status (status), and household density (hh_sleep). social factors include age (age_cat_g), migration status (migr_idp), educational status (edu_level_g_c), and household dependency status (depend_share). for the purpose of this study, we selected persons aged 50 and above, rather 37 than the generally utilized age of 65 years, for two reasons. firstly, the life expectancy age of the average nigerian is marginally greater than 50 years (ex=54.49year; male=53.79/female=55.62). secondly, the northeastern region is considered the poorest in nigeria, with socio-economically disadvantaged groups experiencing markedly poorer health in older age and shorter life expectancy. in nigeria ethnicity and religious identities are often intertwined, forming part of a complex pattern of social exclusion. religious minorities experience social, political and economic exclusion, as a result of these differences (uneca, 1991; world bank, 2017b; idris, 2018; le van et al., 2018). interestingly, the majority of idps in northeastern nigeria relocate to places where they connect with host communities with shared ethnicity and religious beliefs. data analysis we utilized descriptive statistics, alongside the disability-free life expectancy (dfle) calculation, a health concept centered on the health expectancies proposed by sullivan (1971). the sullivan health expectancy reflects the current health of a real population adjusted for mortality levels and independent of age structure (bone et al.,1995). the sullivan health expectancy provides a means of comparing the health states of an entire population at two time-points or of two different populations at the same time-point. this stated merit helps advance scholarship in migrant studies, as in the case of this study, because it affords us the opportunity to determine health disparities between persons in internally displaced communities and persons in their host communities. the binary logistic regression technique was also utilized in order to actualize the aim of the study. this technique is one of the often-used machine-learning algorithms for binary classification that utilizes a performance baseline (hosmer et al., 2013). this technique was used to determine the binary healthy aging outcome between the host and migrant communities, predicted by an assemblage of varied factors. furthermore, this technique has significant importance in the measuring of migrant’s health outcomes. the binary logistic regression model is given below, y=β0+β1 x1+β2x2 + βqxq (1) logit (π) = β0 + β1x1 +β2x2 + ... + βpxp (2) logit(p(π))=log(1-p(x) )=α+βx (3) (then for x=0 (healthy aging), x=1(unhealthy aging)) where; β1→βq=coefficient for q β1→βq are regression parameters; x1, x2…. xq are explanatory variables, and π is the probability of success. β = regression coefficient; α = constant. in[1-p ]= β0+β1x1+β2x2 +βq xq (4) since the study was assessed at an individual level, the probability of an individual p(x) p determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 38 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 aging in a healthy manner is needed, the binary logistic regression: p= (5) overview characteristics of the sample and to identify factors associated with healthy aging status p. the binary logistic regression analysis can be used to determine the relationship between a binary response and continuous or categorical explanatory variables (vittinghoff et al., 2011; long and freese, 2014). in addition, logistic regression gives a discrete outcome, unlike other analytical techniques such as linear regression, that gives a continuous outcome. yi= logit (health status) = β0 + social factor + economic factors + environmental factors+ xn (6) predictor variables utilized: x1-age, x2-migration status (non-migrants =1, migrants =2), x3-educational status, x4-gender (male=1, female=2), x5-labor market participation, x6-household dependency status, x7-consumption quintile, x8=communal participation, x9type of waste disposal, x10-type of toilet, x11-source of drinking water and x12-household density. exp(β0+β1x1+...βqxq) 1+exp(β0+β1x1+β2x2+...βqxq) 0 = do not have sensory impairment outcome variable (healthy aging status) 1 = have sensory impairment 39 result and discussion table 1: basic demographic background of the aging note: mean age= 56±9, standard deviation= 1.737 source: authors' computation (2020) table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of the socio-economic status of the respondents. based on the study age distribution, the majority of the respondents were aged 50-59 (53.2%), followed those aged 60-69 (27.1%), those aged 70-79 (14.3%) and persons aged 80 and above (5.3%) had the lowest representation. the variable host(n=692) idp(n=601) combined(n=1293) age 50-54years 242(18.7%) 214(16.6%) 456(35.3%) 55-59years 120(9.3%) 112(8.7%) 232(17.9%) 60-64years 171(13.2%) 145(11.2%) 316(24.4%) 65-69years 15(1.2%) 20(1.5%) 35(2.7%) 70-74years 72(5.6%) 51(3.9%) 123(9.5%) 75-79years 33(2.6%) 29(2.2%) 62(4.8%) >80years 39(2.6%) 30(2.3%) 69(5.3%) gender male 420(32.5%) 396(30.6%) 816(63.1%) female 272(21.0%) 205(15.9%) 477(36.9%) gender of household head men 449(34.7%) 384(29.7%) 833(64.4%) women 243(18.8%) 217(16.8%) 460(35.6%) religious affiliations christianity 58(6.4%) 23(2.5%) 81(8.9%) islam 414(45.5%) 413(45.4%) 827(91.0%) traditional 1(0.1%) 0(0%) 1(0.1%) literacy yes 358(27.8%) 262(20.3%) 620(48.1%) no 331(25.7%) 337(26.2%) 668(51.9%) highest educational attainment no education 299(23.3%) 306(23.9%) 605(47.2%) primary andintermediate 36(2.8%) 30(2.3%) 66(5.1%) secondary 90(7.0% 47(3.7%) 137(10.7%) university 33(2.6%) 12(0.9%) 45(3.5%) technical and vocational 7(0.5%) 6(0.5%) 13(1.0%) religious 174(13.6%) 170(13.3%) 344(26.8%) others 47(3.7%) 25(2.0%) 72(5.6%) determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 40 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 adult mortality rate is 3.18 deaths per 1,000 of the populations among women and 3.25 deaths per 1,000 of the populations among men (ndhs, 2019). delineation by gender revealed that the population of male (63.1%) respondents was nearly double that of their female (36.9%) counterparts. this gender disparity could be a direct effect of cultural and religious norms, particularly where women are barred by their husbands/guidance to attend to male visitors. similarly, 63.1% of households were headed by men, compared to 36.9% of households headed by women. observers of the islamic faith constituted 91.0% of the respondents, followed by christians (8.9%) and african traditionalists (0.1%). furthermore, based on the ability to read in any language, 48.1% of the respondents were literate compared to 51.9% who were non-literate. additionally, 47.2% of respondents had no form of formal education, 26.8% had islamic education (known as karatu islamiyah) and 26% had some form of western education (see table 2). table 2: disability-free life expectancy (dfle) using an abridged life table source: authors' computation (2020) life expectancy at a specific age is the number of additional years that a person of that age can expect to live, if current mortality levels observed for higher ages continue for the rest of that person’s life. thus, based on the result of the study’s abridged life table (sullivan method), aged persons in the host communities are expected to live 4±9 years more than idps. along cohort delineation, a host person aged 50-59 has a mean life expectancy of 17±9 years compared to idps (mean 16.4± years; a host person aged 60-69 (mean 11±2 years) > idps (mean 10 years); a host person aged 70-79 (mean 6 years)>idps (mean 4±8 years); and host persons aged 80 and above (mean 2±9 years) > idps (mean 2 years) respectively (see table 2). longer lives are an incredibly valuable resource, both for individuals and for society more host n=(692) idp n=(601) north-west (combined) n=(1293) age (x-x+n) life expectancy (ex) deaths (dx) survival (ιx) life expectancy (ex) deaths (dx) survival (ιx) life expectancy (ex) deaths (dx) survival (ιx) proportion disability (nx) 50-54 19.8 242 0.6503 18.1 214 0.6042 20.5 456 0.6473 46.4% 55-59 16.1 120 0.4769 14.6 112 0.4576 17 232 0.4679 56.5% 60-64 12.7 171 0.2298 11.3 145 0.2163 13.7 316 0.2235 69.9% 65-69 9.7 15 0.2081 8.6 20 0.1830 10.7 35 0.1964 80.0% 70-74 7.1 72 0.1040 5.9 51 0.0982 8 123 0.1013 73.7% 75-79 4.9 33 0.0564 3.7 29 0.0499 5.8 62 0.0534 85.3% >80 2.9 39 0.0000 2.0 30 0.0000 4.1 69 0.0000 89.9% 41 broadly. older people participate in, and contribute to society in varied ways. this social engagement may in turn reinforce the health and well-being of older people themselves. figure 5: nigeria's life expectancy (ex) transition (1960-2019) source: adapted from world bank (2020) the results show that nigeria has experienced a progressive trend, growing at an average annual life expectancy growth rate of 0.60%. interestingly, during the onset of the economic recession in the early 1980s, the country experienced a decline (1980(45.3)-1990(45.9)-1998(45.9)) in its life expectancy status, and this remained so until the re-adoption of democratic governance in 1999 (46.1-2010(50.9)2019(54.5)). coincidentally, the 21st century has also ushered in an increase in global life expectancy due to concomitant factors (see figure 5). determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 42 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 figure 6: disability-free life expectancy (dflex) of the study area source: computed by authors from nga-idp data (2018) the sullivan health expectancy was utilized to determine the current health status of persons aged 50 years and above, adjusted for mortality levels and independent of age structure. the study calculated the number of remaining years, at a particular age, that an individual can expect to live in a healthy state, void of sensory disabilities (see figure 6), considering that almost one-third (32.8%) of people aged 60 or older in nigeria are reported to have at least one form of disability (ndhs, 2019). the study’s results showed healthy aging disparities, considering that idps were more susceptible to sensory disabilities. this means that this cohort was projected to have a far less disability-free life compared to their peers in the host communities across the entire age cohort (aged 50-80 and above). 43 table 3: result of the binary logistic regression model (idp and host population) variables model 1 idp population model 2 host population β wald sig. exp(β) β wald sig. exp(β) age 50-59 60-69 70-79 >80 -.604 -.545 -.451 ref 43.691 43.334 41.223 ref <.002 <.010 .052 ref .547 .661 1.232 ref -.792 .439 -671 ref 5.296 5.122 4.992 ref <.001 <.001 <.002 ref .453 .527 .531 ref educational status no education pry education sec education vocation university religious others .017 -0.29 .071 .098 .373 ref .122 .164 2.177 .434 2.115 ref .001 <.002 <.001 .510 .075 ref 1.017 1.040 .575 .767 .918 ref -.168 -.271 -.283 -.099 -.282 ref .738 2.124 1.341 1.291 3.418 ref <.002 <.001 <.001 <.006 <.001 ref .845 .743 .447 .751 .847 ref gender male female -.404 ref 3.177 ref .<.001 ref .668 ref -.980 ref .784 ref <.001 ref .375 ref labour force participation active non-active .488 ref 10.879 ref .001 ref 1.629 ref 1.055 ref 2.988 ref <.001 ref 2.871 ref household dependency status high low .832 ref 1.139 ref <.001 ref .856 ref . .226 ref .362 ref <.004 ref 1.253 ref household consumption quintile poorest q1 secondq2 middle q3 fourthq4 highest q5 .668 .831 .631 .383 ref 2.566 3.288 1.654 .648 ref <.001 .003 <.001 <.001 ref 1.950 2.296 1.880 1.467 ref -.655 -.301 -2.936 -1.741 ref .192 .039 2.889 1.321 ref <.001 <.002 <.004 <.001 ref .520 .740 .053 .009 ref level of communal engagement high low .241 ref 3.651 ref 0.56 ref 1.272 ref .019 ref .003 ref <.003 ref 1.019 ref type of waste disposal discrete indiscrete -0.13 ref .438 ref .508 ref .987 ref .217 ref 4.81 ref <.000 ref 1.242 ref type of household toilet unimproved improved .081 ref .100 ref <.001 ref .922 ref -.905 ref 1.303 ref <.002 ref .404 ref determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 44 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 source: computed by authors from nga-idp data (2018) in model 1, all the explanatory data was found to be statistical predictors of the healthy aging status among older idps. based on demographic predictors, age was negatively correlated to the healthy aging status of idps (p-value.000<0.05). there is a 0.55 odds of unhealthy aging with advanced age; more educated persons were 1.017 times more age-healthy in comparison with their less-educated peers. males were .668 times more likely to age healthily, compared to females with 1.497 greater odds of aging healthily (see table 3). economic variables were all statistically significant and made unique contributions to the prediction of the healthy aging status in the full model. people actively involved in the labor force were 0.614 times more likely to experience unhealthy aging while those outside the labor force were 1.629 times more likely to experience less wellness as they age. consumption patterns appear to be quite skewed among the idp population – persons grouped in the lowest consumption were 1.950 times more likely to experience prolonged health complications, as they age. in addition, environmental predictors were all statistically significant. older adults who were more socially engaged, were 0.78 times less likely to age in poor health, compared to the less-engaged ones who had a 1.272 higher likelihood of aging in poor health. improved waste disposal: host persons were .987 times more likely to experience healthy aging, compared to those residing in households with unimproved waste disposal methods, with 1.085 greater odds to age poorly. unimproved toilets: elderly idps were .922 times more likely to experience unhealthy aging, compared to persons resident in households with improved toilets, who were also 1.085 times more likely to age in good health. likewise, older persons in households with an unimproved source of drinking water, were .857 times more likely to age in poor health (see table 3). in model 2, the p-value for each regression effect is smaller than .05; thus, all the predictors in the model were statistically relevant. the results show that there is a .453 times increase in the odds of aging in poor health among persons in the host community. males were .375 times more likely to age in poor health compared to females (2.667 better odds of healthy aging); older persons in the labor force were variables model 1 idp population model 2 host population β wald sig. exp(β) β wald sig. exp(β) household density high low -.154 ref 1.085 ref .005 ref .857 ref .760 ref 2.114 ref <.001 ref 2.138 ref constant 8.602 48.133 .000 5439.928 10.243 4.258 .000 28073.768 model summary -2 log likelihood 554.219a cox and snell r2 .116 nagelkerke r2 .368 hosmer and lemeshow test .802 2 log likelihood 68.196a cox and snell r2 .237 nagelkerke r2 .368 hosmer and lemeshow test .815 45 2.871 times more likely to age in poor health compared to their peers who are still active (0.348 better odds of healthy aging). older adults resident in households with the lowest consumption profile, were expected to age in poorer health, by .520 times. the environmental factors were also found to be unique predictors of healthy aging status. the findings in table 3 show that persons residing within households with unimproved waste disposal methods (odd ratio=1.242), using unimproved toilet types (odd ratio=.404), drinking water from non-sanitary sources (odd ratio=2.072), and sleeping in densely populated housing (odd ratio=2.138), are highly likely to experience unhealthy aging (see table 3). figure 7: logistic regression graph showing propensity to healthy aging nb: x1-age, x2-education, x3-gender, x4-labor participation, x5-dependency ratio, x6-consumption quintile, x7=communal participation, x8waste disposal, x9-toilet type, x10-drinking water source, x12-household density. source: computed by authors from nga-idp data (2018) figure 7 presents the projected odds ratio of older adults aging in an unhealthy way, in both the host and idp households, by determinants. the demographic determinants appear to be uni-directional across both groups, which might be a result of the normalized distribution of respondents by age. unlike the demographic factors, the effects of the economic factors exhibit more variance. out-of-labor older adults in the host communities, be it due to retirement or unemployment, were projected to be less active while aging, accompanied with predicted higher morbidity in later life. idps without employment or any work would also experience the same fate, but with much lower odds. in terms of consumption rate, more idps were projected to determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 46 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 experience more health crises in later life in comparison to their host community peers. conclusion and recommendations nigeria has benefited immeasurably from the socio-economic and technological evolution of the 20th century, resulting in improved standard of living and life expectancy. this success can be attributed to migratory processes, be it human resource migration, technological transfer and data/information transfer. interestingly, older adults, often referred to as the “invisible population”, have also been development actors. however, recent estimates indicate that the aging population in nigeria now constitutes more than 10% of its national population, with a doubling time of a few decades. interestingly, the failure to ensure that extra years of life gained are enjoyed in the best possible health, is avoidable. however, this mega-demographic change has become a macro-level concern, mainly due to the accompanying economic and social costs, culminating in the absence of a geriatric healthcare policy to cater for the healthy aging needs. contemporary nigeria is being battered by phenomena such as environmental stressors – such as floods and drought – and widespread conflict, notably in its most disadvantaged region, the northeastern part of the country. therefore, households’ decisions on whether to migrate or not, now has later life health implications on the older adult cohort within this region. our study makes a valuable contribution to the literature on population aging in nigeria. in particular, the goal of this study is to better understand the impact of socio-economic and environmental determinants on the healthy aging status among later-life migrants and non-migrants within both idp and host communities in northern nigeria. the study’s findings revealed a much higher prevalence of sensory impairment among idps than for residents in the host communities. in general, the mean prevalence was significantly higher in the northeastern region. secondly, the socio-economic and environmental determinants were significantly associated with the healthy aging status outcomes in northeastern nigeria. in addition, combinations of this factor, or the lack of it, were also associated with healthy aging. inclusion of the decisions on the part of the idps to migrate to neighboring towns and cities in northeastern nigeria, has significantly improved their odds of aging in an active and healthy manner. this is probably due to competing with residents in these communities for limited resources and services, such as healthcare, employment and farming space. alternatively, these residents had slightly greater odds of aging healthily. however, factors such as the increased inflow of more migrants, increased desertification, poor governance, the trade-off for nonmigration, may impact on their healthy aging trajectory in the long run, which may fall lower than that of the idps. based on our findings, we conclude that the older people’s lives are characterized by growing inadequacies in customary family supports, social exclusion and nonexistent social security programs targeted at them, thus rendering them vulnerable to 47 poverty and diseases. we recommend that the proposed ecowas sahelian “green belt” afforestation project, especially areas around the chad basin, be expedited, as this project will help reduce perennial conflicts between herdsmen and farmers. in addition, the government needs to improve security by defeating boko-haram and other islamist militias. furthermore, there is an urgent need to formulate an integrated migration–adult health policy or plan that is both comprehensive and evidence-driven. finally, the budgetary allocation for health should have a flooring capped at 20% of the national budget. determinants of healthy aging in internally displaced communities in nigeria 48 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 references abaje, i.b., ati, o.f. and iguisi, e.o. 2011. drought in the north-eastern part of nigeria and the risks on human health. in iguisi, e.o., ati, o.a., yusuf, r.o. and ubogu, a.e. 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https://ncdc.gov.ng/diseases/sitreps https://ncdc.gov.ng/diseases/sitreps https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25016 https://www.who.int/ageing/publications/world-report-2015/en/ https://www.who.int/ageing/publications/world-report-2015/en/ https://www.who.int/ageing/global-strategy/en/ 53 between the imagined and the reality: threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa edmond akwasi agyeman university of winneba, ghana email: kwasikyei2004@hotmail.com the paper examines spain’s migration policy aimed at controlling sub-saharan african immigration. it is based on analysis of policy documents, migration statistics and secondary literature. the paper shows that current migratory trends and statistics do not support the perception that sub-saharan african migrants are invading spain. the paper shows that spain’s policy of walling itself off the african continent is borne out of an imaginary threat and spain’s role as a gatekeeper for western europe’s southern borders. it further argues that spain’s restrictive policies ignore the long-standing interdependent trade and other economic networks that exist between spain, north africa and west africa, which predate the european colonization of africa. keywords: sub-saharan migration, spain, immigration control, policy threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 54 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 introduction in this paper, i trace the strategies adopted by the spanish government since the 1990s to control ‘unwanted’ migration from sub-saharan africa. i show that, these policies are based on a false premise that african migrants are invading spain and, by extension, europe. in 2019, the government of spain launched its third plan áfrica, a strategic document for the governance of spanish relations in sub-saharan africa. as is the case with the previous plans, immigration from sub-saharan africa proved to be a crucial concern for the spanish government. the first plan áfrica which was launched in 2006 had specified that spain’s geographical proximity to the african continent and the use of some african nations as transit points for drug trafficking or for the establishment of terrorist networks and refuge points in the continent coupled with the issue of immigration constituted a reality that preoccupied public opinion in spain. for that matter, the document spelled out the strategies to intensify spain’s border control mechanisms and to plant and extend spanish influence in africa through aid, trade and cooperation. the ultimate goal of the first plan áfrica and subsequent ones was to keep africans at home and focused pre-eminently on building fortress spain by barricading borders used by sub-saharan african youth to enter spain ‘illegally’ through diplomacy and border controls. i argue that the volume of african migration to spain in the last thirty years represents an insignificant fraction of the total immigrant population in spain and that the policies themselves have rather led to creating unwanted migrants out of the african migrant population in spain. i indicate that spain’s policy of walling itself off the african continent is borne out of an imaginary threat and spain’s role as a gatekeeper for western europe’s southern borders. i further argue that there is a long-standing interdependent trade and other economic networks that exist between spain, north africa and west africa predating the european colonization of africa, which have also contributed to shaping the migration trends. literature and methods spain’s southern border control strategies have received a lot of scholarly attention in the past three decades. broadly, these studies can be grouped into two: (i) those that focus on border control methods and strategies, including border externalization and excessive pressure on morocco and senegal to crack down on sub-saharan migration and the human rights implication of these policies; and (ii) those that focus on spain’s foreign policy in sub-saharan africa. studies that focus on border control mechanisms by spanish authorities against sub-saharan african migration have sustained that the surveillance methods used at spain’s southern sea borders breach international human rights treaties, because by intercepting immigrants at sea before they reach spanish waters, they prevent potential asylum seekers from receiving protection (ceriani et al., 2009; williams, 2018). some other researches, however, try to examine the effectiveness of the 55 control methods used at the spanish southern borders. they include the works of alscher (2005) carling (2007) and carrera (2007) which analyze the impact of the integrated system of exterior surveillance (sistema integral de vigilancia exterior– sive) and the activities of frontex, the european border and coast guard agency. in a recent work, williams (2018: 157) argues that this approach “was not effective at stopping current or future migration”. the literature that examines spain’s foreign policy in sub-saharan africa focuses on the legal, political and economic implications of relying on economic aid and diplomacy as means of controlling unwanted migration from sub-saharan africa to spain. they generally fall into two categories: those that have economic, sociological, political and moral character, and those that have legal character. the first group includes the work of eduardo romero, which questions the moral base of spain’s migration policies in sub-saharan africa (romero, 2006); and the study by arango and martin (2005), which has both economic and political character, and focuses on the migration control methods and bilateral agreements reached between spain and morocco. pérez graciela (2008) examines the possible conflict of interest between migration control and spain’s development aid programs in sub-saharan africa. wolff and schout’s (2013) work focuses on the identity of frontex, the legitimacy of its operations and their implications for interstate relations and human rights. the other group of works that are more juridical in nature include the publications by asunción asín cabrera (2008) and del castillo fajardo (2006) that analyze the bilateral agreements signed between spain and the sub-saharan african countries and their implication for cooperation. much of this literature is very critical of the approach adopted and some of them have questioned their implication in regards to race relations, human rights, state autonomy of african countries and the need to respect the interest of african states and migrants (casas et al., 2011; jones, 2017; adam et al., 2020). the approach of this paper is analytical, focusing on spain’s policy documents and secondary literature relating to sub-saharan african migration control. i also draw on official statistical data sources of spain—instituto nacional de estadística data bank—to obtain figures of sub-saharan african migrant stock in spain, world bank data on migrants’ remittance flows, as well as the 2020 official report by the frontex agency and other official sources on migration flows and interception data. based on this information, i develop tables and figures to enable me to do a comparative analysis of actual migrant flows and stocks, and spain’s migration control policies. the goal is to tease out how the principle of fear of invasion based on the imagined rather than the actual migrant stock and flows, has influenced spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa. theory and concepts the concept of imagined threat of invasion as used in this paper draws on sociological theories of inter-group relations by blumer (1958), blalock (1956, 1957) and quilthreat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 56 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 lian (1995). i also draw on the invasion anxiety concept advanced by burke (2008) to explain the feeling of imminent threat of invasion on the part of states and state actors, which informs their attitudes, actions and policies towards certain migrant groups. i also rely on more recent works by herda (2010, 2013, 2018) and semyonov et al. (2008) to show how in many instances this feeling of threat is borne out of the imagined rather than the actual threat by the migrant population. blumer was one of the key proponents of the chicago sociological school. in his seminal 1958 paper entitled “race prejudice as a sense of group position”, he argues that during inter-group or race relations, each group develops a position relative to the other in hierarchical terms that influences power relations between them. he indicates that group prejudice develops when the dominant group feels that its position is threatened by a subordinate group. blumer (1958: 588) identifies four types of feelings that he believed could lead to this situation: “(1) a feeling of superiority, (2) a feeling that the subordinate race is intrinsically different and alien, (3) a feeling of proprietary claim to certain areas of privilege and advantage, and (4) a fear and suspicion that the subordinate race harbors designs on the prerogatives of the dominant race”. for blumer, group prejudice is a function of perceived rather than actual threat. arguing along the same line, blalock (1956; 1957) shows that perceptions of threat by the dominant group towards the subordinate group are influenced by demographic and economic factors. blalock posits that the size of the subordinate group relative to that of the dominant group as well as precarious economic conditions constitute major sources of threat perceptions by the majority group towards the subordinate group. more recent studies have further showed that the feeling of perceived threat by majority groups with respect to minority groups worsens when the former have to protect their economic interest (quillian,1995) or where there are economic and cultural threats at stake (fietkau and hansen, 2018). in some instances, however, the perceived threat posed by migrant groups hinges on national identity issues. this is the position taken by burke (2008) to explain australian authorities’ attitudes towards migrants and national migration policies. he argues that the idea of white racial supremacy and the fear of a non-white invasion have had great impact on australian migration policy and attitudes toward other asian immigrants over a long period. in several studies based on national surveys, herda (2010; 2013, 2018) and semyonov et al. (2008) have also argued that misconceptions and ignorance about the actual threat posed by immigrants inform a great deal of host nations’ policies and attitudes towards certain migrant groups. they show that migrant exclusion is associated with these misconceptions. in particular, herda (2013, 2018) found that citizens’ misconception about migrants’ legal status (i.e. conceiving migrants to be undocumented or illegal settlers) or having an inflated perception of their actual population size, is associated with citizens’ tendencies and desires to exclude migrants, halt immigration, restrict migrants’ rights, or support anti-im migrant policies. hsia (2007) observes that the imagined threat may be the result of media construction and fram57 ing, which in many instances could be far from reality. other studies have shown that immigrant threat feelings among host populations are sometimes the result of political framing by radical right-wing political parties to improve their popular appeal and electoral fortunes (doerschler and jackson, 2018). in the case of spain, toasije (2009) maintains that african migration is manipulated by the spanish political elite as a strategy to please european union law makers and to europeanize spain with the ulterior agenda of weaning the country from its african and complex multi-ethnic identity. in this paper therefore, i examine how the perceived or imagined rather than the actual threat of invasion is manipulated and used by spain’s political actors to manage the socio-political challenges posed by african migration to spain. sub-saharan african migration to spain spain, unlike france, united kingdom or portugal, had minimal colonial ties with africa. equatorial guinea, which passed into the hands of spain in 1827 after seventeen years of british administration, is the only country in sub-saharan africa that has a direct colonial link with spain. resultantly, migration from sub-saharan africa to spain started relatively late and has remained on a very low key. the early group of sub-saharan labor migrants in spain originated from cape verde. in 1975 a group of cape verdean men from lisbon settled in the mining towns of bembire in the area of el bierzo and villablino in the laciana valley in león after their failed trip to the netherlands (moldes and gonzàlez, 2008). between 1977 and 1978 another community of cape verdeans settled in galizia to work on the construction of the alúmína-alumíno metallurgical plant. after the construction of the plant some of the migrant workers were integrated into the local fishing industry while the rest dispersed in the area to find jobs. the men were later joined by cape verdean women from lisbon and the rate of family reunification increased from the second half of the 1980s. in the early 1980s migrants from gambia, mali, mauritania and senegal settled in the catalonia region following the restriction imposed by france after the 1973 oil crisis (sow, 2006). the first group of senegalese migrants, consisting mainly of people from pulaar and soninké ethnic groups, settled in maresme in barcelona and from there they moved on to zaragoza and valencia. they are currently dispersed all over the country due to their itinerant commercial activity. by the end of 1992 there were only 12,776 sub-saharan immigrants in spain out of which four communities represented three-quarters of the total population. the senegalese (3,190) represented the largest group at the time and they were uniformly distributed across the country. they were followed by the gambians (2,952) concentrated in the catalonian provinces of barcelona and gerona where they were largely employed in the agricultural sector. cape verdean citizens made up the third largest group (1,939). they lived between león and madrid. migrants from equatorial guinea (1,569), found mainly in madrid, were the fourth largest group (pumares, 1997). threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 58 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 from the late 1990s, the sub-saharan african population in spain began to experience a sharp increase. however, despite negative media reportage and criminalization of these movements the rate of growth remained very slow and was much contained over the years. sub-saharan africans in spain originate principally from west africa and account for close to 80% of the total sub-saharan migrants. stemming african migration to spain in the past two decades, spain and the european union have spent millions of euros to prevent africans and other nationals entering their territory. williams (2018) shows that between 2006 and 2015, close to €127 million was budgeted for joint migrant interdiction operations in the central mediterranean sea. these operations include: nautilus, hermes, aenas and triton. spain’s immigration control policy in relation to sub-saharan immigration is influenced strongly by domestic politics (negative public opinion, interest group politics and political party politics) and is strictly linked to national security matters and foreign aid (pinyol-jiménez, 2008; 2012). for that matter, the main political strategy that spain has adopted to control migration flows from sub-saharan africa could be synthesized into two strategies. the first strategy consists of a set of policy measures directed towards intensive border control. these measures are designed and coordinated principally by the spanish interior ministry in collaboration with the eu and the affected african countries. their main objective is to obstruct and dissuade illegal entry or illegal stay of sub-saharan immigrants in spanish territory. the second set of policy measures focuses on development aid, trade and investment to reduce migration pressure in the migrant sending and transit countries. this policy measure is preventative and it is driven mainly by the ministry of foreign affairs and cooperation. its objective is to mitigate the root causes of emigration. the roadmap for this approach is contemplated in the plan africa (romero, 2006; casas et al., 2011). even though the two strategies are different, their ultimate goals, however, are to reduce the propensity to migrate from sub-saharan africa to spain and to the european union, ensure that unwanted african migrants do not arrive in their territory, remove those who enter or stay in spanish territory without authorization, and encourage voluntary return of those who have legally settled in spain (agyeman, 2011; agyeman and fernandez garcia, 2016). maritime border control systems alscher (2005) observed that during the period between 2000 and 2004 when spain’s conservative popular party (pp) won an absolute majority in parliament, the fight against illegal migration became the central issue of immigration policy. however, it was the socialist government, led by felipe gonzález and the socialist workers’ party (psoe) that introduced visa requirements for moroccan immigrants and began the early construction of a border fence around the spanish enclaves ceuta and melilla 59 (alscher, 2005). the accession of spain to the schengen treaty required that spain controlled its southern border, which until the late 1990s was considered the transit route for african migrants heading towards various european destinations. the first set of measures that spain adopted to control migration pressure from sub-saharan africa included intensifying its maritime border control system through dissuasion, obstruction, apprehension and repatriation of migrants found entering spain illegally through its southern borders (carling, 2007). dissuasion and obstruction are strategies involving putting pressure on spain’s immediate southern neighbors, particularly, moroccan, senegalese and mauritanian authorities to introduce stricter border control and visa regulation in order to crack down on illegal smuggling of moroccans and sub-saharans into spain (gonzález-enríquez et al., 2018). other efforts to dissuade ‘unwanted immigration’ included information campaigns and joint police patrols in morocco and sub-saharan countries, particularly senegal and mauritania to dissuade prospective immigrants from departing. these efforts are facilitated by opening migration information centres (mics) in sending countries. for example, as part of the eu-funded ghana integrated migration management approach (gimma) program, spain funded the establishment of mics in tamale and sunyani, considered transit and origin zones of ghanaian youth destined to spain across the sahara. border surveillance is perhaps the area where spain has devoted greater resources to the effort to fight ‘unwanted’ immigration from sub-saharan africa. the first step to a stricter border control started in the early 1990s with the construction of an 8.4km fence around ceuta in 1993 and another around melilla in 1996. these fences were later fortified and equipped with video and infrared cameras, control towers and motion detectors (alscher, 2005). in january 1998, the pp government introduced the plan sur (alscher, 2005) to strengthen the border control system. the project introduced more intensive surveillance systems in spain’s air and sea ports, it tightened the deportation procedures and strengthened cooperation with moroccan and algerian authorities. additionally, a special unit of motorized police force was created to search for undocumented immigrants along spain’s coastal cities. half a year later, the civil guard (guardia civil), introduced another project named frontera sur (southern border/frontier) equipped with new vehicles and helicopters from the spanish army (alscher, 2005). in may 1999, the pp government introduced a more intensive border control system labelled integrated system of exterior surveillance (sistema integral de vigilancia exterior–sive). initial work on the project was financed at a cost of €150 million. it was operated by the civil guard (guardia civil) and its objectives were to detect and intercept small vessels and pateras (boats) and cayucos (kayaks/canoes) arriving at spain’s southern sea border. the system was equipped with fixed and mobile detection devices including radars, infrared and video cameras that are able to detect a small vessel 10km away and estimate the number of people in the vessel when it is 5km away. when a vessel is detected, information about its course and position is transmitted to a central command, from where inthreat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 60 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 terception units including boats, helicopters and cars are dispatched (carling, 2007). the sive was first developed on the coast of gibraltar and in 2002, was extended to the canary islands in the towns of fuerteventura, gran canaria and lanzarote. it was also extended to cover the entire coast of the cádiz province in 2004 and the entire coast of the province of andalucía in 2005. it is noteworthy that the psoe government continued to develop the sive project after it won the 2004 election, although it initially opposed the project when it was in opposition. in addition to sive, in 2005 spain impressed upon the eu, the need for a european border and coast guard agency, hence the creation of frontex. this agency was created in 2006 with a spanish official, gil arias, appointed its executive director (gonzález-enríquez et al., 2018). in addition, the general directorate of international relations and alien affairs and its two sub-directorates were also created in 2006 to enable spanish authorities to reach agreements for institutional cooperation with officials in the migrant origin or transit countries. this enabled spanish police officials to collaborate with officials of the frontex agency and officials of origin or transit countries to organize joint border operations. the european union’s sponsored projects undertaken by frontex at the spanish coasts include, agios (joint operation to identify forged documents in spain’s mediterranean ports); hera i (identification and return of unauthorized immigrants); hera ii (patrol of spanish seas near senegal and mauritania) (commission of the european community, 2006); and hera iii (surveillance mission by frontex deployed on the territorial waters of mauritania and senegal) (ceriani et al., 2009). greater effort has also been made to improve information exchange between spain and the african countries. the spanish police have provided technical and material support and exchanged information with the police and immigration officials in the transit and origin countries to strengthen their internal patrol system (ministerio de interior, 2007). examples include the seahorse and the atlantis projects funded by the european union which formed a network of information exchange among the border police between spain, portugal, mauritania, senegal, cape verde and three other countries which were incorporated in 2009 which also include morocco, gambia and guinea bissau (gonzález-enríquez et al., 2018). the joint border surveillance operations have three objectives: to dissuade the immigrants in the origin or transit country before they set out to reach spanish borders; to intercept and return the immigrants who succeed to depart before they reach spanish coasts; and, to ensure that those who reach spanish borders are repatriated within the terms established by law (ministerio de interior, 2007). while spanish officials and some scholars tout this initiative as contributing to stemming unwanted immigration to spain, williams (2018) argues that the operations of frontex are nothing more than search and rescue. 61 immigration control through ‘migratory diplomacy’ since 2000, spain’s development aid to sub-saharan countries has become a tool to control immigration from these countries to spain. their declared goal is to fight poverty and promote economic development and democracy in africa – factors believed to be the main cause of migration. the main architecture of spain’s foreign diplomacy to control migration pressure from sub-saharan africa is the master plan called plan of action for sub-saharan africa (el plan de acción para áfrica subsahariana) or plan áfrica in short. the first plan was developed in 2006 to cover the period between 2006 and 2008. since then, two other master plans have followed: the 2009-2012 plan and the more recent 2019-2024 plan. plan áfrica i set in motion what pinyoljiménez (2008: 61) described as spain’s “migratory diplomacy”. the document laid greater emphasis on migration management, commercial links and development cooperation (casas et al. 2011). the document placed the sub-saharan countries into three main geographical divisions based on the type of actions that the spanish government intended to perform in the regions. the first group consists of countries that are considered to respond to the majority of the objectives set out by the plan. the second division is made up of countries considered as strategic for the fight against illegal immigration or for spain’s economic and cultural activities in africa. the last group consists of countries considered as strategic in the medium term—due to their political situation of being unstable and in conflict-prone areas. however, a critical look at this geographical division shows that two main principles guided the choice of countries, namely, economic interest and the fight against immigration. the document exposed a clear distinction between african countries that are senders, potential senders or transit points of migrants destined to spain and countries that are strategic for spanish trade relations with africa because they host large quantities of raw materials and natural resources essential for spain’s economy. in anticipation of the master plan, spain’s foreign minister visited ghana, angola, mozambique, nigeria, niger and mali in 2005 (moratinos, 2005). after plan áfrica i was launched, it paved the way for the signing of bilateral and readmission agreements between spain and sub-saharan african countries including gambia (2006), guinea (2006), cape verde (2007), mali (2008) and niger (2008) (cabrera, 2008). spain’s objective for these agreements was to enable it to establish and expand its institutional base and influence in sub-saharan africa through the establishment of diplomatic missions, new embassies and consulates, offices for economic cooperation and trade as well as offices for the technical operations of the spanish interior and defense ministries’ missions in sub-saharan africa so that its fight against unwanted migration from sub-saharan africa could be effective. to this end, spain established a permanent diplomatic mission in cape verde in 2006 and an office for the spanish agency for international cooperation in 2007; in 2006 spain created a permanent diplomatic mission in mali; in 2007 spain created a general consular office in dakar, senegal; and in the same year it established offices for the spanthreat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 62 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 ish agency for international cooperation in both senegal and mauritania (cabrera, 2008: 86). all the bilateral agreements that were signed, with the partial exception of the one signed with mali, have almost identical structure and content (cabrera, 2008). they all have eighteen articles expressed in eight chapters. they begin with an identical preamble and end with an annexure indicating the procedures and guarantees for readmission of persons. six lines of action are also delineated in the agreements, which include: admission of workers; voluntary return; integration of immigrants; migration and development; cooperation in the fight against illegal immigration and trafficking of persons; and readmission of persons. however, the most controversial aspect of the agreement lay in sections dealing with the readmission of persons, or obliging african nations to prevent the emigration of their own nationals. contracting african countries were obliged to readmit their citizens apprehended or found living illegally in spain. this section took inspiration from article 13 of the cotonou accord of 2000, rectified by spain in 2003 in which the african, caribbean and pacific (acp) and eu countries committed themselves to accept their nationals deported from another country party to the contract. another issue which the spanish government pursued was to seek the cooperation of the contracting african countries to fight what spain termed as the illegal migration or trafficking of african nationals to spain. chapter six of the agreement obliged the contracting parties to cooperate in the following areas: (i) exchange of information between the competent authorities on human trafficking; (ii) provision of technical assistance to the sub-saharan african countries affected in the fight against illegal migration to spain; (iii) organization of formation courses for consular and immigration personnel; (iv) cooperation for border control enforcement; (v) mutual support to guarantee the security of national identity cards; (vi) strengthened capacities of the fight against illegal migration and human trafficking; (vii) running of campaign programs on the dangers of illegal migration and human trafficking (cabrera, 2008). in return, spain promised to open a window for the legal recruitment of african migrant workers and put measures in place to promote temporal migration through the admission of seasonal workers and through the quota system as well as facilitating the travel of highly qualified professionals such as professors, scientists, researchers, managers, as well as artists, sportsmen and women (cabrera, 2008). however, a more recent study has revealed that these kinds of schemes have not yielded positive results. for example, gonzález-enríquez et al. (2018), note that a recruitment scheme meant to enable senegalese women to work in the strawberry sector in the province of huelva in andalusia was not successful and had to be discontinued. this was because there were deficiencies in the selection process and many recruits ended up becoming illegal immigrants in spain. in spite of the limited legal channels, remittances from sub-saharan african migrants in spain far outpace spain’s official development aid to these countries and thus contribute immensely to the wellbeing of families left at home, as shown in the table 1. 63 table 1: remittance flow from spain to subsaharan african countries per $ million source: author’s elaboration from world bank data cassarino (2007) observes that the reciprocity of obligations expressed in the agreements does not mean that both parties benefit equally due to the “significant level of development asymmetry” between the contracting parties and that, while the interest of the destination country sounds obvious (“unwanted migrants have to be effectively removed”), the interest of the origin country may be less evident, above all when considering that its economy remains dependent on the revenues of its (legal and illegal) expatriates living abroad, or when migration continues to be viewed as a safety valve to relieve pressure on domestic unemployment (cassarino, 2007: 182). therefore, spain’s migration policy, while seeking partnership of african countries to execute, regrettably, focuses on the likely benefits which will accrue to spain, and not that of the sub-saharan migrants involved or their nations which spain has made its (control) partners. the imagined threat of african invasion vs reality: revisiting the statistics as asserted earlier, semyonov et al. (2008) comment that the inflated perception of the size of the immigrant population in a country is one of the main causes of antiimmigrant feeling, discrimination and support for exclusionary policies towards migrant groups. we have also discussed studies by herda (2013, 2018), who observes that misconceptions about the actual population size and the legal status of migrants are more likely to generate exclusionary sentiments towards immigrants. he notes that in most european countries, citizens perceive immigrant numbers to be more than twice the actual size of the immigrant population in their country. he describes this as immigrant population innumeracy (herda, 2013). the imagined rather than an actual threat of sub-saharan african migrants invading spain is the main motivation behind spain’s anti-african immigration policy. country/year 2015 2016 2017 nigeria 690 706 771 senegal 211 272 302 mali 40 64 71 gambia 50 58 60 ghana 48 51 53 cape verde 5 6 6 threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 64 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 at the end of 2019, there were 235,951 sub-saharan african immigrants from over forty countries, resident in spain. this was fewer than the british immigrants in spain and a little above the italian nationals resident in spain. sub-saharan african migrants represent 4.75% of the total immigrant population in spain and only 21% of africans, as shown in table 2 table 2: sub-saharan africa immigrants in spain source: author’s elaboration from ine data (www.ine.es) senegal has the largest sub-saharan community in spain (71,020), followed by nigeria (39,306), mali (25,011), gambia (20,387), ghana (17,669), equatorial guinea (13,221), guinea (10,811), and mauritania (8,184). it is significant to know that the population of nigerian immigrants in spain has seen a substantial decrease consistently since 2012. several other countries, including spain’s former colony, equatorial guinea, have also seen a marginal decrease in their population. in fact, since the economic crisis and particularly from 2013, the entry of african migrants in spain has seen a substantial decrease, with the exception of 2017, when the number of irregular entries went up sharply (consejo económico y social españa, 2019). figure 1: growth rate of foreign population in spain by continent source: author's elaboration from ine (www.ine.es) region/year 1999 % 2004 % 2009 % 2014 % 2019 % sub-saharan africa 32,302 4.31 115,999 5.14 230,044 4.07 231,373 4.6 235,951 4.68 africa 174,402 23.28 579,372 19.09 1,009,169 17.86 1,076,164 21.42 1,122,409 22.28 spain 748,954 100 3,034,326 100 5,648,671 100 5,023,487 100 5,036,878 100 65 over the past twenty years, the sub-saharan africans have recorded the slowest growth rate in spain compared to europeans, south americans and asians, as shown in figure 1. this supports the argument that there is no threat of invasion, as portrayed by spain’s right-wing political parties and the media (toasije, 2009). this supports hsia’s (2007) findings that the threat of invasion is sometimes the product of media construction and political manipulation. moreover, public opinion toward sub-saharan african migrants in spain is increasingly positive compared to that of other immigrant groups. in a recent survey, only 2% of spanish claimed they felt uncomfortable working with a black person, compared to 3% for asians and jews and 7% for roma and muslims (gonzálezenríquez, 2017). in the same study, gonzález-enríquez (2017: 20) notes that, “there is also a significant increase in responses expressing closeness, especially noticeable towards us citizens and sub-saharan africans”. about 25% of the spanish who participated in the survey said they felt “quite or very close” towards sub-saharan africans whereas only 18% and 15% said they felt the same toward moroccan and chinese migrants respectively. this form of public opinion does not support spain’s aggressive control of sub-saharan immigration. generating illegality through restrictive immigration policy from the time spain became an immigration country, its coastal cities became regular scenes of sub-saharan, north african and asian boat-people entering europe without going through the strict immigration regulations, by using small wooden boats known in spain as pateras. these scenes raised media interest and almost every week there was news of new entrances and reports of deaths on the boats. the excessive media attention and coverage of african migrants entering the european southern border by boat, dominated policy discourse on illegal migration and increasingly conveyed the image that massive numbers of desperate africans are fleeing poverty and war and are attempting to enter europe irregularly. this raised fears of possible invasion and security threats (de haas, 2007). since then, a great deal of literature has fueled the perception that economic and demographic pressure persisting in africa today is driving africans to invade europe and the rest of the oecd (organisation for economic co-operation and development) countries in the same way as the european states migrated to america in the half-century before world war i. this perception has strongly influenced public opinion on immigration matters and electoral politics in spain (hatton and williamson, 2003). for example, in july 2018, the leader of spain’s popular party claimed that there were over fifty million prospective african migrants ready to invade spanish territory, a claim which was discredited by spain’s popular newspaper, el pais (2018). even though such claims lack an empirical base, these forms of perceptions have greatly influenced spain’s relations with its black african neighbors at their southern borders and have threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 66 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 informed the increasing apprehension, detention and repatriation of sub-saharan migrants who are legally or illegally resident in spain. as burke (2008) observes, the emphasis on security threats posed by immigrants, although based on false pretense, gives legitimacy to restrictive immigration control measures by state authorities. however, empirical data does not support the media hype of sub-saharan african invasion of spain through illegal migration. since 2000, the annual number of migrants who arrive in spain or italy by sea, represents a small fraction of the total number of migrants who enter spain illegally. data from the frontex agency shows that out of 141,846 persons intercepted at border crossing points (bcps) attempting to enter europe illegally in 2018, those who originated from the west african route were a meagre 2,718 persons, representing 1.9% of the total. of these, moroccan nationals constituted one-third. in 2017, for example, only 25,251 individuals out of 532,482 immigrants who entered spain that year without following the regular immigration procedures, were africans (el pais, 2018). this reduction in numbers is, however, attributed to the aggressive control measures that have been put in place by spain with european union backing to stem immigration from sub-saharan africa (gonzález-enríquez et al., 2018). the asymmetry between the actual figures of sub-saharan migration flows to spain and the restrictive state control policies can be properly understood within the sphere of race relations where the perceptions of threat rather than the actual threat, govern policy decisions, attitudes and actions. following from studies by blumer (1958), blalock (1956; 1957), quillian (1995) and burke (2008), one can argue that the perceptions of threat to spain’s racial identity and economic position rather than the actual migration flows from sub-saharan africa to spain, have greatly informed spain’s migration control policies in africa. long-standing relations vs spain’s role as european union’s southern border gatekeeper touching on issues pertaining to identity and economic relations, this paper argues that spain, by its actions of excessive migration control of sub-saharan african migration, is ignoring the long-standing relations that have existed between spain, north africa and sub-saharan africa, which span across several centuries (toasije, 2009). these relations have generated several forms of interdependence within the spheres of economics, politics, culture, family ties and social relations, spanning several centuries. toasije (2009: 343) notes that “until the defeat of grenada in 1492, the western end of the european subcontinent had been the core of european and african struggles, and this has created an ethnically-mixed population” in spain. moreover, there is also a long history of migration and trade relations between spain and the rest of the mediterranean and sub-saharan countries. during his visit to timbuktu in 1352, ibn battuta reported that, “in this town is the grave of the illustrious poet abu ishaq al-sahill of granada, known in his own country as al-tuwaijin (‘the little cooking pan’), and also of siraj al-din b. al-kuwaik, one 67 of the great merchants among the people of alexandria” (gibb and beckingham, 1994: 969). these interconnections were the subject of the 2019 special edition of the journal of north african studies, which depicts not only a history of conflict between spain and morocco but also a construction of economic, social and cultural relations and interdependence through “ideas, people, texts, and material goods that have circulated across the sea and continue to do so until today” (stenner, 2019: 8). in his introduction, stenner (2019: 8), notes that this “focus on connections between europe and africa indirectly challenged the notion of the mediterranean as a frontier separating two worlds, and instead highlighted its role as a shared cultural space”. gonzález-enríquez (2017) asserts that the right-wing anti-immigration politics which has a lot of force elsewhere in europe, has struggled to gain influence in spain to push the anti-black immigration agenda. this may be due largely to the long-standing relations that spain has had with africa over the centuries. however, spain bears the brunt of anti-black african sentiments held elsewhere in europe. spain is therefore forced to implement policies which in many situations are not in its interest and to a large extent run counter to the long-standing relations that it has with the african continent. toasije (2009) considers this as part of efforts to europeanize spain and to deny it of its african and complex multi-ethnic identity. many european governments assume that uncontrolled sub-saharan immigration can generate social alarm among the citizenry, challenge the sovereignty of the state and jeopardize the welfare system and the idea of ethnic homogeneity underlying the formation of european states (toasije, 2009; ambrosini, 2013). consequently, there is a subtle criminalization of african migration through the complicity of the european union, spain’s political elite and the media (toasije, 2009). politics, more than actual migration trends, is the main factor underlying the illegalization and aggressive combatting of sub-saharan african migration to spain. this is because, given the trends of african migration to spain over the past three decades, it is very difficult to imagine that african migrants would flock to spain and stay there permanently if the borders were open. in fact, open borders would have generated fluidity of human movements across the borders, as it existed before. this is because, for centuries, movements across the mediterranean sea has been bidirectional, and as therrien (2019) observes, there is a growing trend of spanish migrants moving in the opposite direction to morocco, to settle there. the sendentation of african migrants in spain and elsewhere in europe is borne largely out of restrictive immigration policies and border controls against african migrants (agyeman, 2011). according to cachón (2002), immigrants from southern european nations who migrated to northern europe for reconstruction during the post-world war ii period, sought permanent settlement and family reunification when restrictions were imposed after the oil crisis in the 1970s. the increasing proportion of ‘illegal’ or ‘unwanted’ african migration to spain is borne out of the policies being implemented by the spanish government. threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa 68 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 conclusion in this paper, i have shown that spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa involving intensive border policing, and strategies to dissuade african migrants from entering spain, is borne out of an imaginary threat of possible african invasion of the spanish peninsula and europe. the paper argues that statistics showing the migration trends from sub-saharan african to spain, both through legal and illegal means over the last three decades, does not support this perception of invasion. compared with migration movements originating from other parts of europe, south america and asia to spain, sub-saharan migration trends are the slowest. however, the african migration figures, although low, are magnified and manipulated to give legitimacy to restrictive control policies. based on the above observations, the paper argues that spain’s control of subsaharan african migration is an over-reaction and ignores all forms of historical, economic and social relations that exist between spain and sub-saharan africa. it further maintains that there are long-standing cultural, economic and social relations between the two regions that have generated aspects of interdependence which predate european colonization of africa. however, spain’s role as the european union’s gatekeeper at its southern borders appears 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(eds.), transnational archipelago: perspective on cape verdean threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa https://verne.elpais.com/verne/2018/07/30/articulo/1532946223_844070.html https://verne.elpais.com/verne/2018/07/30/articulo/1532946223_844070.html https://doi.org/10.1177/1465116517734064 https://frontex.europa.eu/publications/frontex-releases-risk-analysis-for-2020-vp0tz7 https://frontex.europa.eu/publications/frontex-releases-risk-analysis-for-2020-vp0tz7 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9442.t01-2-00008 https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfq013 https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfq013 https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/swb/vol12/iss2/5 https://doi.org/10.1080/14649370601119006 https://bit.ly/3gl6dms 72 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 migration and diaspora. amsterdam: amsterdam university press. moratinos, m.a. 2005. an ethical and political commitment to africa – area: sub-saharan africa. real instituto elcano de estudios internacionales y estratégicos (elcano royal institute of international and strategic studies). pinyol-jimenez, g. 2008. la política de inmigración española como nuevo instrumento de acción exterior. in barbe e., españa en europa 20042008. monografía del observatorio de política exterior europea, barcelona: bellaterra. pp. 58-63. 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studies, 24(1): 7-16. https://doi.org/10. 1080/13629387.2018.1459089. therrien, c. 2019. work, love, refuge, and adventure: contemporary spanish https://doi.org/10.2307/2096296 https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2018.1459089 https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2018.1459089 73 migrants in the city of tangier. the journal of north african studies, 24(1): 175-200. https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2018.1459269. toasije, a. 2009. the africanity of spain: identity and problematization. journal of black studies, 39(3): 348-355. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934706297563. williams, k. 2018. arriving somewhere, not here: exploring and mapping the relationship between border enforcement and migration by boat in the central mediterranean sea, 2006 to 2015. phd dissertation, wilfrid laurier university, canada. wolff, s. and schout, a. 2013. frontex as agency: more of the same?, perspectives on european politics and society, 14(3):305–324. threat of african invasion and spain’s migration policy in sub-saharan africa https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2018.1459269 https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934706297563 74 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa: evidence from the national income dynamics study hemish govera* and amiena bayat** * university of the western cape, south africa email: hgovera@gmail.com ** university of the western cape, south africa the literature associates migration with poor mental health outcomes. despite extensive empirical research in other countries, there is a paucity of research examining the mental health consequences of migration in south africa, and the factors that compound the relationship between the two variables. the study objective was to evaluate the differences in the mental health status of internal migrants and that of non-migrants in south africa with a special focus on depressive symptoms. the study considered the influence of various vulnerability and sociodemographic factors such as gender, age, educational attainment, race, income group, marital status and province of residence. mental health disorders are already considered the largest contributor to the global disease burden. hence, understanding the nature of the relationship between migration and mental health is critical for public health prevention efforts. to make the determination, the study applied descriptive analysis and logistic modelling based on the south african national income dynamics study (nids) panel datasets of 2008, 2010, 2014/15 and 2017. descriptive statistics were employed to derive the frequency distribution of sociodemographic characteristics and migration factors. logistic regression analysis was used to assess the associations between depression, migration and sociodemographic factors. keywords: migration, acculturation, gender, depression, sociodemographic factors 75 introduction the process of migration is complex and stress-inducing, regardless of whether migration is internal or international (bhugra, 2004; carroll et al., 2020). this is due to the association of migration with stressful experiences of change, inadequacy, perceptions of discrimination and social marginalization (bhugra, 2004; gkiouleka et al., 2018; bauer et al., 2020). the migration process entails social change of cultural settings for the migrants and this change has implications for mental health (ajaero et al., 2017). therefore, migration has the potential to negatively influence mental health and has been identified as one of the social determinants of negative mental health outcomes (satcher, 2000). the association between mental health issues and migration bears a considerable influence on health disparities (ai et al., 2015). empirical evidence has established sociodemographic inequalities in migrants’ health (giannoni et al., 2016). as such, migration and health inequalities continue to be a key concern of public and policy debates (bircan et al., 2020). the concept of migration is not new in south africa. the country is one of the main destinations of immigration in africa (fauvelle-aymar, 2014). within the country, the western cape and gauteng account for most of the inter-provincial migration (kleinhans and yu, 2020). evidence suggests that the population of internal migrants has increased in the post-apartheid era (ajaero et al., 2017). a significant proportion of internal migration within the country is intra-district and economically motivated (rogan et al., 2009). despite extensive empirical research in other countries, there is a paucity of research examining the mental health consequences of internal migration in south africa. in this context, it therefore becomes pertinent to examine if migrants actually have better mental health than non-migrants in south africa. understanding the nature of the relationship between migration and mental health is critical for public health prevention efforts. background and contextualization in south africa, internal migration is historically associated with the social engineering and enforced fragmentation of families that took place under apartheid (hall, 2016). this was part of the apartheid strategy to entrench minority rule through spatial arrangements that strategically divided families and split generations and separated breadwinners from dependants (hall, 2016). such social conditions have been conceptualized as a challenge to the emotional resilience of individuals who may experience psychological distress, personal crisis and could precipitate poor mental health (portes and rumbaut, 2006). in this context, it becomes relevant to examine if internal migrants have worse mental health than non-migrants in south africa. literature review/theoretical/conceptual framework there are various theoretical frameworks in the literature that provide concepts that may be useful in analyzing the association between migration and mental health differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 76 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 outcomes. theories of acculturative stress posit that tensions due to living in a foreign culture contribute to mental disorders (gutierrez-vazquez et al., 2018). bhugra (2004) developed a contingency model which hypothesizes vulnerability (risk factors) or resiliency (protective factors) for psychological disorders based on the person’s situation and migration stage. in physical health literature, the selection hypothesis predicts that more prepared and healthier individuals are more likely to migrate compared to their counterparts in worse conditions (akresh and frank, 2008). migrant selectivity could be evident in both observable and unobservable characteristics such as preparedness to migrate. as a result, migrants could be positively selected on the sociodemographic characteristics that are protective against poor mental health outcomes such as gender and family background. this implies that migrants could be better positioned to handle uncertainty and stress compared to those who select not to migrate. however, given the high prevalence of poor mental health among migrants, it could be that selection can negatively impact on mental health. according to gutierrez-vazquez et al. (2018), if migrants are negatively selected with respect to sociodemographic background, or have underlying traits that make them more prone to dissatisfaction, then selection could be an important contributor to adverse mental health outcomes. the literature provides evidence of the significant prevalence of depressive symptoms within migrant population groups compared to non-migrants. mulcahy and kollamparambil (2016) investigated the impact of rural-urban migration on subjective well-being in south africa between 2008 and 2012. the study adopted the use of instrumental variables to control for endogeneity caused by shock-induced self-selection, and propensity score matching to control for migration self-selection bias. the results indicated that rural-urban migration leads to decreased subjective well-being which could be due to unrealized expectations and changing reference groups used to peg aspirations, as well as the emotional cost of being away from family and a home environment. gkiouleka et al. (2018) researched the prevalence of depressive symptoms among migrant and non-migrant communities in 21 european countries. the research looked into the impact of gender, childhood experiences, sociodemographic factors and social support on depressive symptoms using data from the seventh round of the european social survey and the greek migheal survey. the study found that migrants reported significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms in seven of the examined countries, while in greece and in the uk, they reported significantly lower levels compared with non-immigrant populations. the findings suggest that the impact of migration status on depressive symptoms is subject to additional determinants of mental health as well as on contextual factors. gutierrez-vazquez et al. (2018) sought to explore the link between migration and depressive symptoms among mexicans residing in the united states of america (usa) and those residing in the sending communities in mexico. the study reviewed the standard explanations for the links between migration and depression, such as ac77 culturative stress, lack of social support, and powerlessness and isolation. the study also tested the migration selection hypothesis using propensity matching scores. the study results indicated a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms among migrant communities compared to non-migrant community groups. the study also found little support for selection as an important source of migrant depression. instead, the study found strong evidence that migration itself was primarily responsible for depressive symptoms mainly due to the disruption of social networks that it entails. family separation was found to be the strongest predictor of depressive symptoms and could account for a significant proportion of the poor mental health among migrants. akresh and frank (2008) sought to quantify the extent of health selection among contemporary us immigrant groups. this entails checking the degree to which potential immigrants migrate, or fail to migrate, on the basis of their health status. data for the study came from the new immigrant survey 2003 cohort which included unique series of questions to evaluate the health of immigrants in the united states to that of citizens in their country of origin. the study found that the extent of positive health selection differed significantly across immigrant groups and was related to compositional differences in the sociodemographic profiles of immigrant streams. past studies on migration highlight four key sociodemographic risk factors for depression among the general population: (i) low sociodemographic status; (ii) female gender; (iii) being unmarried; and (iv) undesired life events (alegria et al., 2007). mental health outcomes were found to be worse for immigrants who are unemployed, young, and female (ai et al., 2015). however, in a completely different finding, bauer et al. (2020) found that a high sociodemographic status does not necessarily protect refugees from the negative influences during migration and the first months or years in the new country. there are several theoretical models and perspectives mainly focusing on rural-urban and international migration. however, migration research lacks theoretical advancement with empirical research disconnected from the theories (kureková, 2010; bircan et al., 2020). the existing migration theories do not adequately capture the dynamics of internal migration and depression. in the presence of these theoretical gaps, this study looks at confirming the hypothesis that migrants report greater rates of depressive symptoms than non-migrants after controlling for sociodemographic factors. also, while there is extensive empirical literature on the impact of mental health on international migration, relatively little is known about internal migration and mental health outcomes, especially in the south african context. there is a paucity of research examining the mental health consequences of migration in south africa, and the factors that compound the relationship between the two variables. therefore, the key objective of this empirical research is to examine whether internal migrants are more likely to report poor mental health outcomes compared to non-migrants in south africa, and if they do, to also determine the sociodemodifferences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 78 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 graphic predictors of migrant status and mental health outcomes. methodology data the study used data from the five waves of the national income dynamics study (nids) survey: wave 1 (2008), wave 2 (2010–2011), wave 3 (2012), wave 4 (2014– 2015) and wave 5 (2017) (saldru, 2020). the nids is a face-to-face, longitudinal, nationally representative panel survey of individuals and households focusing primarily on sociodemographics, labor market participation, grants received, education and health in south africa. the nids adopted a stratified, two-stage cluster sample design in sampling the households and individuals identified in the 2008 base wave. in waves 2 to 5, the survey included the original sample members as well as new members who had joined the original households. response rates in the nids survey were high, with over 81% of households being successfully interviewed in wave 5. this study considered only respondents who were 18 years of age or older at the time of the interview. for the data analysis, the dataset was weighted to account for attrition and underor over-sampling errors. measures/instruments depression variable the depression variable was derived from responses to the emotional health questions in the survey questionnaires. across all the waves, respondents were asked 10 questions relating to their mental well-being. the responses were scored on a 4-point likert scale indicating the frequency of experiencing the depressive symptom. to calculate a total score for depressive symptoms, the survey responses were summed up using the 10-item version of the centre for epidemiological studies-depression (ces-d) scale (radloff, 1977). this study used the threshold of 10 and above to define the presence of significant depressive symptoms (sds). the threshold was also recommended by radloff (1977). the same scale was adopted by other studies assessing depression using the nids such as mungai and bayat (2018) and dowdall et al. (2017). the ces-d scale is a common psychiatric measurement tool for assessing depressive symptoms and has good psychometric properties (dowdall et al., 2017; mungai and bayat, 2018). the cronbach’s alpha for this scale in the sample was 0.75. following from schuckit et al. (1993: 5), who asserted that “symptoms are not diagnoses”, and the methodology employed by mungai and bayat (2018), the study did not attempt to diagnose depression but rather assessed the symptomatology that suggests significant vulnerability to being depressed. migration variable this research followed hall’s (2016) methodology in defining migrants as those who 79 moved across municipal boundaries. it is a single variable that captures movements between waves 1 and 5, or any of the intervening waves. for instance, persons who moved between waves 1 and 2, but not between waves 3 and 4 are defined as migrants, on the basis that they had moved place at some time between waves 1 and 5. empirical model the study uses logit models to analyze the likelihood of migration status to impact on mental health status. the adoption of logit models is appropriate, given that the dependent variables can be structured as binary outcomes. logistic regression allows the research to predict the probability of the outcomes falling between the unit intervals. the technique can be used to model a response variable as a function of one or more explanatory variables. the study follows the approach of chear (2015) and formulates the logistic model in the general form below: log 1-p = α + βi xi + ε the regression equation considers depression status as the dependent variable. in the equation, p is the probability that the participant exhibits depressive symptoms and 1-p is the probability that the participant does not exhibit depressive symptoms. p/ (1-p) is the odds that the participant exibits significant depressive symptoms. x is the vector of independent variables hypothesized to impact the probability of demonstrating significant depressive symptoms. the model included several sociodemographic characteristic indicators such as age, race, gender, educational attainment, and marital status. β are the coefficients of the independent variables and ε is the error term. after fitting the logistic regression model to the survey data, the study conducted model diagnostic tests for goodness of fit of the fitted model. the hosmerlemeshow (hl) test was used to check the goodness of fit of the specified models. the independent variables were tested for symptoms of multi-collinearity through the variance inflation factor (vif) test. all the statistical tests were based on a pvalue of a less than 5% level of significance. data analysis the data analysis included the use of descriptive analysis and regression analysis to assess the association between depressive symptoms and migration status. the study applied multivariate logistic regression analysis to assess the likelihood of sample members to experience significant depressive symptoms taking into account their migration status and controlling for sociodemographic characteristics. the study used race, gender, educational attainment, age, marital and occupational status as indicator variables for sociodemographic status based on prior literature such as studies by moussavi et al. (2007), atwoli et al. (2013), and mungai and bayat (2018). p differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 80 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 ethical considerations ethical approval was not needed for the study due to the use of secondary data that was anonymous. result table 1 provides an overview of the sociodemographic characteristics of the study population. the sample consisted of more females compared to males in both the migrant and non-migrant population groups. the sample majority is also predominantly african, with 76% of the study sample being of the african race. over 60% of both the migrant and non-migrant population groups have secondary school education. the unemployed comprised a bigger proportion of the study sample across both migrant statuses. more than half of the sample were aged between 18 and 44 years. within provinces, the majority of the sample members were from kwazulu-natal. 81 table 1: characteristics of the study sample source: authors’ own calculations, based on nids 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014/15 (saldru, 2020) migrants non-migrants overall n proportion % n proportion % n proportion % gender male 743 46% 3,983 39% 4,726 40% female 884 54% 6,146 61% 7,030 60% race african 1395 86% 7500 74% 8895 76% coloured 138 8% 1771 17% 1909 16% asian/indian 24 1% 195 2% 219 2% white 70 4% 663 7% 733 6% educational attainment no schooling 98 7% 1220 14% 1318 13% some primary 171 12% 2198 26% 2369 24% some secondary 555 40% 2813 33% 3368 34% completed secondary 341 25% 1205 14% 1546 16% tertiary or more 211 15% 1107 13% 1318 13% employment status employed 537 39% 4,007 47% 4,544 46% unemployed 839 61% 4,536 53% 5,375 54% age group 18-24 695 43% 1748 17% 2443 21% 25-34 458 28% 2320 23% 2778 24% 35-44 221 14% 2211 22% 2432 21% 45-54 143 9% 1855 18% 1998 17% 55-64 64 4% 1158 11% 1222 10% 65+ 46 3% 837 8% 883 8% province western cape 130 8% 1653 16% 1783 15% eastern cape 186 11% 1134 11% 1320 11% northern cape 72 4% 772 8% 844 7% free state 85 5% 644 6% 729 6% kwazulu-natal 487 30% 2528 25% 3015 26% north west 149 9% 852 8% 1001 9% gauteng 211 13% 1007 10% 1218 10% mpumalanga 90 6% 689 7% 779 7% limpopo 217 13% 850 8% 1067 9% differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 82 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 figure 1 displays the overall distribution of depressive symptoms by migration status and gender. based on the information in the figure, the pattern is similar for females with roughly the same distribution within both the migrant and non-migrant groups. for females, roughly 25% reported depression scores between 10 and 20 across both the migrant and non-migrant categories. it is also evident that there are more female outliers reporting higher depression scores for migrants compared to non-migrants. figure 1: distribution of symptoms in ces-d depression screening by migration status and gender source: authors’ own construction, based on nids 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014/5 and 2017 (saldru, 2020) however, there is a marked difference between the distribution of depressive symptoms in the migrant and non-migrant groups of males. more migrant males displayed higher depressive scores compared to non-migrant males. over 25% of migrant males reported depressive scores greater than 10 compared to about 15% for non-migrant males. in figure 2, we report the distribution of symptoms by migration status and race. the migrant sub-population group reported higher depressive scores across all the races. a total of 25% of migrant asian/indians had depressive scores above the cut-off of 10, followed by african migrants at slightly below 25%. close to 20% of migrant coloureds also reported depressive scores higher than 10. despite a high number of outliers, the proportion of non-migrants reporting depressive scores of 10 or higher was less than that of migrants. 83 figure 2: distribution of symptoms in ces-d depression screening by migration status and race source: authors’ own construction, based on nids 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014/5 and 2017 (saldru, 2020) figure 3 provides an overview of the distribution of symptoms in ces-d depression screening by migration status, race and gender. based on information in the figure, there is no significant variation in the distribution scores of both migrants and non-migrants across both genders within the african racial group. about 25% of female migrants, male migrants and male non-migrants exceeded the threshold of 10 to qualify as displaying significant depressive symptoms. the only exception is the category of african non-migrant females who have more than 25% displaying significant depressive symptoms. the african race constituted the group with the highest depression scores compared to the other racial groups followed by coloureds and lastly, the white racial group. differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 84 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 figure 3: distribution of symptoms in ces-d depression screening by migration status, race and gender source: authors’ own construction, based on nids 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014/5 and 2017 (saldru, 2020) the figure shows that overall, the african population group exhibits the highest intensity and prevalence of depressive symptoms followed by the coloured group and the white group. the female non-migrant african group accounted for the highest depression scores. the same group also constituted the group with the highest proportion of members with depression scores greater than 10. within the coloured racial group, females reported higher depression scores compared to males across both the migrant and non-migrant categories. white non-migrants across both genders reported similar patterns of depression in both intensity and distribution. however, female white migrants reported higher depression scores compared to male white migrants. the study employed logistic regression analysis to ascertain the association between the depression status, migrant status and their sociodemographic characteristics. table 3 displays the results of the logistic regression analysis, using data from the nids waves 1 to 5, pooled into cross-section. model 1 is specified to control for migrant status only. model 2 is a specification that controls for gender as well, while model 3 controls for educational attainment, age, income groups, employment status, marital status and province of domicile. the majority of the predictors were statistically significant. an exception was race and migration status (white non-migrants) across all three models, race and migration status (coloured non-migrant), 85 educational attainment (some primary education) and province (free state and north west) in model 3. table 2: logistic regression on depression status by migration status and sociodemographic characteristics source: authors’ own calculations, based on nids 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014/15 (saldru, 2020) *** denotes significance at 5% level and * denotes significance at 10% level variables (1) model 1: simple specification (2) model 2: some controls (3) model 3: full specification: race and migration status (base: white migrant) african migrant 1.1135*** (0.2149) 1.1177*** (0.2151) 0.9459*** (0.2327) coloured migrant 0.7303*** (0.2423) 0.7401*** (0.2425) 0.5825*** (0.2632) african non-migrant 1.2246*** (0.2132) 1.2054*** (0.2134) 0.8826*** (0.2309) coloured non-migrant 0.586*** (0.215) 0.5737*** (0.2152) 0.2679 (0.233) white non-migrant 0.1736 (0.2243) 0.1702 (0.2245) 0.0631 (0.2418) gender (base: female) male -0.2688*** (0.022) -0.157*** (0.0257) educational attainment (base: no education) some primary education -0.0614 (0.0388) some secondary education -0.2407*** (0.0425) completed secondary education -0.3777*** (0.0529) tertiary or more -0.4269*** (0.0533) income quartiles (base: lowest income group) second quartile -0.1057*** (0.032) third quartile -0.1555*** (0.0342) fourth quartile -0.2864*** (0.0416) age 0.0038*** (0.0011) marital status (base: married) widowed 0.2541*** (0.0414) separated 0.3512*** (0.0679) never married 0.1914*** (0.0288) employment status (base: unemployed) employed -0.1466*** (0.0265) province (base: western cape) eastern cape -0.1835*** (0.0582) northern cape -0.3437*** (0.0608) free state -0.0628 (0.0655) kwazulu-natal -0.164*** (0.055) north west -0.1188* (0.0624) gauteng -0.1502*** (0.0601) mpumalanga -0.627*** (0.0693) limpopo -0.5398*** (0.0636) constant -2.0228*** (0.2128) -1.9128*** (0.2132) -1.3231*** (0.2439) differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 86 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 the regression results in table 2 reveal that all other racial groups in both migrant and non-migrant groups were more likely to be depressed compared to white migrants in models 1 and 2. the results were statistically significant except for white non-migrants across all 3 models. however, there were no statistically significant differences between white migrants and coloured non-migrants, as reflected in model 3. on gender, being male compared to being female, reduces the likelihood of being depressed and this is apparent in both model 2 and model 3 results. using ‘no education’ as the base category, moving into a higher educational attainment category reduces the odds of being depressed. with age, each year-increase in age, increases the chances of being depressed. the same patterns extend to income brackets. taking the lowest income quartile as the base category, being in a higher income category reduces the chances of being depressed. compared to being married, all other marital statuses are associated with higher odds of being depressed. being employed rather than unemployed reduces the chances of being depressed. on province of residence, if we take the western cape province as the reference point, residing in any of the other 8 provinces is associated with lower odds of being depressed. the study then appraises the determinants of mental health status in south africa by gender and sociodemographic variables. table 3 summarizes the logistic regression models to give a clearer picture of how gender influences the risk of depressive symptoms. model 1 evaluates the effects of migrant status and sociodemographic variables on depression status for males. model 2 undertakes a similar analysis for females, with model 3 reporting the combined effect. 87 table 3: logistic regression on depression status by migration status, gender and sociodemographic characteristics sources: authors’ own calculations, based on nids 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014/15 (saldru, 2020) *** denotes significance at 5% level and * denotes significance at 10% level of significance based on the regression output, the overall finding was that compared to white migrants, male africans across both migrant and non-migrant categories had variables (1) model 1: male (2) model 1: female (3) model 1: combined race and migration status (base: white migrant) african migrant 1.767*** (0.52) 0.6128*** (0.2667) 0.9344*** (0.2326) coloured migrant 1.4524*** (0.5522) 0.2241 (0.3128) 0.5762*** (0.2631) african non-migrant 1.6585*** (0.5182) 0.5735*** (0.2639) 0.8791*** (0.2309) coloured non-migrant 1.0548*** (0.5208) -0.046 (0.2669) 0.2717 (0.233) white non-migrant 0.9152* (0.5305) -0.3063 (0.2796) 0.0629 (0.2418) educational attainment (base: no education) some primary education -0.085 (0.0718) -0.059 (0.0463) -0.0616 (0.0388) some secondary education -0.2784*** (0.0755) -0.2274*** (0.0518) -0.2367*** (0.0424) completed secondary education -0.4106*** (0.0893) -0.3667*** (0.0664) -0.3741*** (0.0528) tertiary or more -0.4642*** (0.0905) -0.4146*** (0.0668) -0.4145*** (0.0532) income quartiles (base: lowest income group) second quartile -0.1183*** (0.0601) -0.1055*** (0.0379) -0.1098*** (0.032) third quartile -0.1497*** (0.061) -0.1704*** (0.0418) -0.1686*** (0.0342) fourth quartile -0.2617*** (0.0696) -0.3058*** (0.0533) -0.3097*** (0.0414) age 0.0044*** (0.002) 0.0039*** (0.0013) 0.0039*** (0.0011) marital status (base: married) widowed 0.5763*** (0.1145) 0.2014*** (0.0462) 0.2967*** (0.0408) separated 0.5291*** (0.1238) 0.2539*** (0.0815) 0.371*** (0.0678) never-married 0.2686*** (0.0543) 0.1419*** (0.035) 0.1929*** (0.0289) employment status (base: unemployed) employed -0.2408*** (0.0461) -0.0817*** (0.0327) -0.1658*** (0.0263) province (base: western cape) eastern cape -0.2079*** (0.0994) -0.1764*** (0.0719) -0.1858*** (0.0582) northern cape -0.3788*** (0.1007) -0.3214*** (0.0765) -0.3511*** (0.0608) free state -0.041 (0.1106) -0.0776 (0.0816) -0.0643 (0.0655) kwazulu-natal -0.1021 (0.0943) -0.1952*** (0.0679) -0.1591*** (0.055) north west -0.1269 (0.1038) -0.1172 (0.0785) -0.1258*** (0.0624) gauteng -0.2097*** (0.1003) -0.1063 (0.0755) -0.1502*** (0.0601) mpumalanga -0.6952*** (0.1183) -0.5913*** (0.0859) -0.6271*** (0.0693) limpopo -0.4139*** (0.1093) -0.5976*** (0.0783) -0.5367*** (0.0636) constant -2.2792*** (0.5375) -0.9999*** (0.2807) -1.3709*** (0.2438) differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 88 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 significantly higher chances of being depressed. this finding is evident from the significant results of all the 3 models. the impact is more pronounced for the male group compared to the female group with significant association for coloured and white males and insignificant effect for their female counterparts. poor sociodemographic status was significantly associated with reduced probability of good mental health across all 3 models. the factors include poor educational attainment, lower income, higher age, being widowed, separated or never married (using married as the base category), being unemployed and residing in any province other than the western cape ceteris paribus (except for free state and north west across both genders and gauteng province for females). discussion the aim of this study was to determine whether the prevalence of depressive symptoms is higher among migrants than non-migrants in south africa. the study also sought to examine the association of migration status with a wide set of sociodemographic factors in the same context. the a priori expectation was that migrants would report higher depressive symptoms compared to non-migrants. in supporting findings, the study found that both migrant and non-migrant african groups were more vulnerable to depressive symptoms than coloured and white migrants and nonmigrants. the result had greater effect for males compared to females. the findings were consistent with the existing literature that suggests migration as a risk factor for depressive symptoms in south africa with sociodemographic status having a modifying effect. this finding is consistent with the research by ajaero et al. (2017) who found a similar association between migrant status and depressive symptoms in south africa, using the 2012 nids data (saldru, 2020). these results were also consistent with findings by bhugra (2004), hwang et al. (2010), gkiouleka et al. (2018), gutierrez-vazquez et al. (2018) and carroll et al. (2020), who identified migration as a risk factor for depressive symptoms in various contexts. the study also hypothesized that depressive symptoms would be more prevalent among those with low sociodemographic status after controlling for the migrant status. the research found significant associations between low sociodemographic status and the risk of poor mental health. poor mental health was associated with lower educational status, unemployment and being part of a lower income group, in findings consistent with alegria et al. (2007) and gkiouleka et al. (2018). the current study found significant gender disparities in mental health status with females, especially african migrant women, who displayed poorer mental health status compared to males across both migrant and non-migrant communities. the result is consistent with findings by dalgard and thapa (2007). a possible explanation for this, is that in south africa, women have less economic and social power than males, yet they carry heavy family responsibilities (mungai and bayat, 2018). this factor can have a modifying effect on the risk of depressive symptoms when combined with the challenges of social integration for migrants. 89 furthermore, age appears to be a significantly strong predictor of depressive symptoms with an increase in age being associated with increased risk of depressive symptoms. this finding is consistent with the study by ardington and case (2010), who also found that the likelihood of depression increases with age. this result can be explained in part, by older adults being more troubled by poverty compared to the relatively young members of the society. this study found that marital status was significantly associated with depressive symptoms. it is apparent from the study results that all marital status categories have poorer mental health relative to the married category. this is consistent with the findings of das et al. (2007) who also found that respondents who were separated, divorced or widowed, reported worse mental health compared to those who were married. this could be linked to the lack of social support, which adds to stress and lowers mental health. the place of residence was also identified as a significant determinant of mental health status in the study. compared to the western cape, residing in the rest of the south african provinces was associated with a lower risk of poor mental health after controlling for migration status. limitations notwithstanding the robust findings, the study has some limitations. first, the numbers in some of the racial sub-categories such as whites and indians/asians constitute very few respondents, which makes it difficult to draw inferences from the results for these groups. second, the available data makes it difficult to determine if a move represents a ‘return’ rather than ‘migration’. future research should consider employing more representative data for inferences regarding under-represented racial groups such as whites and indians/asians. conclusion and recommendations the aim of the study was to evaluate whether there are differences in the mental health status of migrants and non-migrants in the south african context, considering sociodemographic factors. the results highlighted significant associations between migrants and non-migrants with the relationship being compounded by sociodemographic characteristics. the study found empirical evidence that african migrants are at heightened risk of depressive symptoms, compared to other races. both migrant and non-migrant african groups were more vulnerable to depressive symptoms than coloured and white migrants and non-migrants. there were also significant differences in the way sociodemographic characteristics were associated with mental health status. migrants with lower sociodemographic status were more susceptible to poor mental health, highlighting the unique challenges and threats that are faced by economically-deprived migrants. the gender analysis revealed significant differences in the mental health status of males and females, with male migrants differences in mental health among migrants and non-migrants in south africa 90 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 being impacted more than females. being married was significantly associated with better mental health status. these findings provide insights into the racial, gender and sociodemographic dimensions of poor mental health in the migrant community in south africa, which policy-makers can incorporate into intervention strategies. a key insight of the results is that strategies that impact on migration, such as local employment, housing and urban planning are likely to have important mental health outcomes at the population level. therefore, there is a need to address neighborhoodlevel material deprivation and unemployment to reduce migration, which ought to impact positively on 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securitization as policy responses do not stop irregular african migration; rather, they prolong the misery of migrants who are at the mercy of smugglers who prey on their desperation. the paper concludes that migration management between the eu and africa needs to be anchored on policies that address the core ‘push’ factors driving irregular migration from africa, rather than policies which do not stop migration (even though they have slowed it down) but rather indirectly empower smugglers and leave considerable room for the abuse of migrants. keywords: africa, development, management, migrants 95 introduction there have been growing debates not only on african irregular migration to the european union (eu) as a phenomenon but also on how it could be reduced. since the 1970s, more than 2.5 million migrants have crossed the mediterranean sea to enter europe without visas (iom, 2018). however, the attacks in march 2004 in madrid and on 7 july 2005 in london became a defining moment as to how the eu responded to migration. even though the number of africans arriving irregularly at eu shores has been on the decline, this has not coincided with the decline in anti-immigrant attitudes in some eu states. for ivanova (2016), the visegrád group (czech republic, hungary, poland and slovakia) has at times, incorporating the concept of state sovereignty, vehemently disagreed with the european commission’s directive how migration ought to be handled collectively. the eu does not operate in a vacuum, and thus the european commission has to take into consideration the interests of member states. despite a decline in those arriving (over a million in 2015 and 140 000 by june 2019) (mbiyozo, 2019), eu member states have been torn apart by bitter disagreements over how to collectively manage irregular migration without infringing on the territorial sovereignty of member states while also adhering to international human rights practices (farrell, 2015). the eu (through the european commission) has attempted to pressure africa (majority sending countries of migrants) to cooperate on migration management. for example, the eu introduced a new visa code which will continue to regulate the short-stay entry of third-country nationals. the new visa code introduced restrictive processes for countries that fail to cooperate on readmissions. however, the african union (au) and most african states say that returns must be voluntary and people cannot be forced to go to countries against their will (mbiyozo, 2019). the above reflects that the current migration and refugee crisis in europe requires an understanding of the different drivers of migration and how they can be addressed collectively. it is not a question of opening or closing borders, but rather, there is a need to understand the complex and overlapping relationship between forced and economic drivers of migration to europe as this can better shape an appropriate policy response to the phenomenon. this paper discusses the extent to which eu initiatives (securitization and externalization) have been successful in reducing this irregular flow which has been deemed an influx by eu media. the common narrative has been that socio-economic and political factors are drivers of irregular migration; however, such narratives have missed the point by not focusing on the often-ignored factors driving migration. this paper is based on a review of the literature on irregular african migration to the eu. the paper aims to provide a sound basis for a more evidence-based discussion of this highly debated and politicized issue, i.e., what drives african migration to the eu, how has the eu responded and how effective have these responses been. irregular african migration to the eu as a process flows into europe along land and sea routes under the control of human smugglers, and migrants in the process face further externalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the eu 96 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 marginalization and exploitation. the rest of the paper is organized as follows: after this introduction, the paper reviews eu migration management policies such as the eu charter, the eu trust fund and the new pact relating to migration. subsequently, it discusses securitization and externalization as policy reactions to irregular african migration, their effectiveness, shortcomings and finally, how the african union needs to play a more important role in the quest to reduce irregular migration to the eu. this is followed by the policy implications and conclusion of the paper. many african migrants who try to reach europe (using the north african route which cuts through libya) by boat are often intercepted by the libyan coast guard and handed over to criminal gangs that traffic them. nearly 20,000 people have been detained in libya according to amnesty international. therefore, it becomes imperative for this paper to examine whether eu policies with regards to migration management have contributed to the abuse and deaths of migrants. eu charter of fundamental rights the eu charter of fundamental rights is a legally binding treaty for member states which outlines fundamental rights for everyone within the borders of the eu, regardless of their migration status. however, the eu does not exist in a vacuum or operate detachedly from the member states or the people. the european commission is a politically independent institution that proposes legislation, policies and programs of action. it represents the collective interests of member states (laine, 2020). it is also responsible for implementing the decisions of the european parliament, the voice of the people, and the council (of ministers), the voice of the member states. there is also the european council, comprising of the heads of state or government of all the eu member states. it is the highest-level policy-making body in the eu, which defines the overall political direction and priorities of the union, but it does not exercise any legislative functions. while it is the european commission that initiates procedures and proposes new laws, it is the european parliament and council that adopt them. members of the european parliament are directly elected by eu citizens to represent their interests and the council consists of government ministers, i.e., elected officials, from all the eu member states (laine, 2020). however, the issues of irregular migration have divided opinion in the eu, with disagreements blocking agreements on reforms of eu asylum laws and fair distribution of responsibility for processing migrants and asylum seekers entering and already present in eu territory. the focus remains on keeping migrants and asylum seekers away from the eu, including through problematic proposals for offshore processing and migration cooperation with non-eu countries with fewer resources, human rights abuses and less capacity to process asylum claims. while european attempts to ‘secure’ or ‘protect’ its borders have reduced irregular migration from africa, considerable efforts are needed to address the factors facilitating irregular african migration. these revolve around understanding the drivers of migration, enacting policy (jointly by eu and africa) to address these drivers. apart from policy development concerning 97 addressing the drivers of migration, from an african perspective, good governance and economic development are key necessities in the continent’s drive to reduce irregular migration. framing migration as a problem in the eu was a result of the upsurge in antimigrant and right-wing political parties, and thus migration was observed as a border security issue that needed to be addressed (laine, 2020). seeking to debunk the common misconceptions about migration and suggest an alternative narrative that is based on mutual interests, this paper observes that from the onset, the eu and the au acknowledged that cooperation is greatly needed to address the problem. however, contentions have arisen about how this cooperation ought to take place. for the eu, securitization and externalization initiatives have received their share of criticisms, for either not doing enough to help those in need or doing too much in trying to protect its borders. the eu trust fund for africa the european union emergency trust fund (eutf for africa) was established as a mechanism to address the root causes of instability, forced displacement and irregular migration and to contribute to better migration management in africa (castillejo, 2016). the eu trust fund was born out of the implementation of the action plan adopted at the valletta summit. the eu committed 1.8 billion euros from the eu budget and the european development fund (edf), to be complemented by contributions from the eu member states and other donors (hunt, 2015). for the eu, irregular migration from african and the middle east, coupled with the rise in rightwing populism, warranted an intervention to stem the inflow of migrants. the eu trust fund was anchored on soliciting cooperation from third parties through financial support. programs under the eu trust fund are spread across three regions in africa (involving twenty-six partner countries) mainly the sahel and lake chad, the horn of africa and north africa (cangas and knoll, 2016). the eu trust fund undertakes a number of activities related to strengthening the rule of law, creating economic and educational opportunities, building better governance, and ensuring the effective and sustainable return, readmission and reintegration of irregular migrants not qualifying for protection. the support of the eu trust fund in africa requires a firm commitment to supporting capacity-building of third countries in the field of migration and border management, as well as to the stabilization and development of these regions of africa. the eu with its financial support solicits cooperation from african states who are most fragile and those most affected by migration. cangas and knoll (2016) explain that the eu trust fund is anchored on four types of interventions. firstly, economic programs, which are focused on creating employment and also to integrate returnees. secondly, resilience projects, which are meant to improve food security and provide services for local communities and refugees. thirdly, migration management, which is geared towards fighting irregular migration and smuggling, focusing on return, readmission, international protection and legal miexternalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the eu 98 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 gration. fourthly, governance and security, which is premised on the need for good governance, through strengthening the rule of law, security and development, border management and conflict-prevention systems. however, pouring billions of euros into countries which are characterized by political instability, human rights abuses and disregard for civil liberties, raises questions about the eu’s commitment to the respect and support for international human rights. therefore, this means that the lack of clarity over funding could mean that eu aid money is repackaged as border security with no development goals. moreover, tackling ‘the root causes of irregular migration’ is a lengthy, non-linear, unpredictable process, depending on many more contextual factors than support from financial and technical development partners. however, the narrative around the eu trust fund for africa suggests that aid can buy partner countries’ cooperation (in readmission and strict border management), and hence curb migration flows to the eu (cangas and knoll 2016). while the eu trust fund envisions a cooperative framework with regards to migration management, the eu however, with its financial muscle, has the upper hand with regards to policy development and soliciting cooperation through financial means. the eu migration pact on 23 september 2020, the european commission announced it’s new pact on migration and asylum, which is underpinned by strengthening border security (kirisci et al., 2020). the new pact (european commission, 2020) consists of three layers. firstly, the pact advocates for the development of policies to keep people in their countries. however, such policies ignore the positive benefits of migration, in both europe and countries of origin. in addition, the investments in addressing the ‘root causes’ of migration within these partnership agreements have, to date, done little to prevent onward movement (kirisci et al., 2020). from an african perspective, abebe and mbiyozo (2020) explain that the increased emphasis in the new pact on migrant returns is contrary to africa’s position and could affect negotiations around the post-cotonou partnership agreement (acp) and the joint africa-eu strategy. even though the number of those arriving in the eu from africa has decreased, the eu has turned its attention to returning migrants who do not have legal rights to remain. thirteen of the 16 priority countries under the european commission’s 2016 new partnership framework are in africa (abebe and mbiyozo, 2020). the new pact aims to increase returns through strengthening border control, signing returns agreements with third countries and allowing eu member states to choose between resettling refugees and sponsoring returns. however, african states have resisted intensified returns policies, maintaining that returns must be voluntary. the second layer of the new pact involves the investment in increased border security and deterrence. from an african perspective, incorporating the eu’s global approach to migration and mobility, processes such as the africa-eu migration, mobility and employment (mme) partnership, the rabat process, the rome declaration and programme for 2015-2017, the khartoum process, and the sahel regional action plan 2015-2020 99 are all processes that are geared towards strengthening border security (european commission, 2015). the third layer of the pact proposes rules to resolve the longstanding challenge within the eu to achieve a more balanced distribution of responsibilities and promote solidarity among eu members in dealing with asylum seekers and refugees. this has however, been met with considerable rebellion from within the eu (abebe and mbiyozo, 2020). critics of the pact argue that it is so inward-oriented that it fails to recognize the policy implications of the dire state of forced migration globally. secondly, the pact makes little allowance for how the covid-19 pandemic is going to impact the eu’s migration and asylum policies, since the pandemic has profoundly affected the capacity of host countries to manage the presence of refugees and ensure their protection (kirisci et al., 2020). from an african perceptive, the call by the eu’s new pact on migration and asylum for revamping partnerships with third countries is reminiscent of the eu’s long-standing policy of externalizing the cost and responsibility of managing its external borders. critiquing this approach, abebe and mbiyozo (2020) contend that cooperating with third countries with regards to migration by tying policy issues such as development assistance, trade concessions, security, education, and visa facilitation has long been criticized as asymmetrical. the pact takes this relationship to a new coercive level by suggesting the possibility of “apply[ing] restrictive visa measures” to third countries unwilling to be cooperative (european commission, 2020). securitization and externalization of african migration migration control is typically seen as a natural part of legitimate nation-states’ exercise of sovereign power. external border surveillance is, according to the european commission, a necessity because of the relaxed internal borders within the schengen region (palm, 2020: 10-14). contrary to eu media reporting, labeling the arrival of african migrants as an invasion, such reports fail to take into consideration that most african migrants move within the continent – they are not overwhelming europe or the rest of the world. african migration to the eu is complex and characterized by complex factors which present numerous dangers to migrants. a study by the united nations development programme (undp) (2019) explains that irregular migrants who made the fraught journey from africa to europe would do so again despite knowing the dangers of the trip. the report further reveals that getting a job was not the only motivation to move, not all irregular migrants were ‘poor’ in africa, nor had lower education levels. additionally, 58 per cent were either employed or in school at the time of their departure, with the majority of those working earning competitive wages. even though the undp study shows that economic need was not the main driver of migration, other studies (dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015; marie-laurence, 2016; mlambo, 2017; giménez-gómez et al., 2019) argue that key to migration is the need to maximize economic opportunities that do not exist in countries of origin. nevertheless, this paper argues that tackling irregular migration requires a considerexternalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the eu 100 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 able understanding of the other drivers of migration (political factors, family ties, socio-cultural determinations, etc.) beyond economic consideration. irregular immigration from sub-saharan africa has created considerable tensions between the eu, north african countries and sub-saharan states. from general observation, north african governments seem to have undoubtedly bowed to eu pressure and were swift in adopting dominant european public discourses on ‘combating illegal migration’ (dagot, 2020). however, some north african states openly opposed several elements of these policies, partly because they were seen as reinforcing their position as transit countries, e.g., being reluctant to readmit large numbers of irregular migrants from third (sub-saharan) countries and establishing offshore ‘processing centers’ for immigrants and asylum seekers. nevertheless, the paper considers what informs these securitization and externalization initiatives. the question may seem inconsequential, but the migration to europe has not always been a problem. in fact, in the 1950s and 1960s, migration was seen mainly as an extra workforce in most western european countries. however, today, migrants are viewed as the ‘other’ and incompatible with eu culture. sensationalist media reporting gave rise to right-wing populism and sadly, political campaigning in the eu on anti-immigrant slogans have succeeded in sowing more discord across the continent, with many centrist and liberal politicians having difficulty formulating a response (hameleers et al, 2017). the rise and popularity of the far-right in the eu and ways in which they use the securitization of migration and the alleged threat migrants pose to ‘their’ state, economic and ontological security and identity, as a conduit to justify and legitimize their anti-immigration, racist and xenophobic rhetoric and praxis are not based on current migration patterns from africa to the eu (lazaridis and wadia, 2015). reinforcing the notion that africa–eu migration is misunderstood, jobson (2017) reasons that europe’s panic over migration alienated many of its african partners, this driven by media-fueled perceptions of european countries being ‘swarmed’ by africans, arouse deep-rooted insecurity about national identity, mistrust of the ‘other’, racism, and xenophobic attacks, thus giving way to securitization and externalization of african migration. it is imperative to acknowledge that the externalization and securitization policies are not a new phenomenon; rather they are a response to the increasing rates of migration worldwide which have evoked nationalist politics. examples have been observed in the usa/mexico border area, with regards to irregular migration. they have also been observed in the eu’s cooperation with the middle east, failing to stem the outflow of migrants from syria, afghanistan and iraq. in africa, west and north africa have been central to the eu’s securitization and externalization policies and these policies have become entrenched, largely due to the financial support that comes with them. border agencies and police officers in cooperating countries (libya, mali, niger, and chad) have received training in border operation and migration management and hence this has allowed for the consolidation of securitization and externalization policies. although the eu and many of its member states, have 101 committed themselves to protecting the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, such commitment has been overshadowed by the eu’s prioritization of restrictions rather than addressing the drivers of migration. populism reinforced the securitization and externalization as key to curbing migration and even though these approaches have reduced irregular african migration to the eu, they have also contradicted the eu’s commitment to protecting refugees and asylum seekers (laine 2018: 290). this contradiction has been driven by the ever-changing public and political opinions with regards to migrants in the eu. for example, german chancellor angela merkel’s open-door policy, which allowed approximately a million refugees and migrants, faced backlash and forced the german government to backtrack on the policy. this suggests that irregular migration has been seen as being negative within the eu, which has caused a lot of anxieties. sadly, these anxieties have become intertwined with deep insecurities, triggered by originally unrelated societal changes, such as the precarization of the labor market and dissolving social security (laine 2018: 292). consequently, laine (2018) argues that the debate and public opinions concerning immigration have not been discussed in isolation; rather they have been in tandem with the above issues. walls, whether on paper or on the ground, may seem effective, but seldom are. once a wall is erected, people will soon try to cross it and this creates a fencing self-referential – a vicious cycle – which feeds itself, and sadly, enforcement pressures on third countries can increase the difficulty of crossing borders for asylum seekers and refugees as well as the ability to seek or access procedures for determining refugee status (laine, 2018). arguably, the rise of populism has fed into the nationalistic ambitions of rightwing parties. to an extent, this has side-lined the eu’s commitment to freedom, democracy, respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law. this is evident in the humanitarian and moral appeals that have been consumed by debates and outright fear-mongering about economic security and national identity (kupe, 2019). moreover, nations that have been at the forefront of developing rights‐sensitive standards and procedures for assisting and processing asylum seekers within their jurisdictions, have suddenly created barriers that prevent asylum seekers from setting foot on their territories (palm, 2020: 12). as a result, migrants have effectively been prevented from even attempting to undertake the journey to the eu, let alone reaching eu shores, seemingly freeing the eu member states from the human rights obligations that they have accepted. the media reporting on the inflow of irregular african migrants has been overstated, partly because populists, anti-migrant parties and the eu media have been able to frame african migration as a threat to the values and traditions of the eu, discounting the fact that most african migrants migrate continentally. this paper therefore argues that the media can also provoke controversy, for strategic editorial and economic reasons, even without any particular social need for it. controversy which generally forces political parties and those in charge to take a stance on certain issues, notably immigration and the threat of invasion by the ‘other’ in externalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the eu 102 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 europe, has imposed itself into the media and political sphere. laine (2020), palm (2020), moreno‐lax (2018), and mcauliffe and ruhs (2018) observe that there is a strong causal connection between the eu’s exercise of power and the many lives lost in the mediterranean sea. firstly, the eu closed legal avenues of entry, which compelled migrants to undertake risky irregular journeys and rely on human traffickers and smugglers to relocate. secondly, extreme measures were undertaken to block the remaining irregular exit paths and detain those who did not utilize heavily surveilled borders. as a result, both casualties at sea and atrocities in detention camps were foreseeable harms that, with proper measures, could have been avoided. while the eu is within its sovereign right to protect itself from what it deems security-related threats, which are driven by africa’s failure to reduce irregular migration, it is also duty-bound to protect migrants. palm (2020: 9-18, citing altman and wellman, 2011) asserts that sovereign states have, according to them, foremost obligations towards themselves and their citizens and immigration control as a matter of self‐determination, and while the deaths and abuse of migrants in detention centers are condemnable, africa has left the eu no choice but to unilaterally prioritize the protection of its integrity. this paper however, refutes such assertions and contends that while protecting one’s integrity is important, securitization and externalization are not the right way to go about it, as they do not stop migration, and, in many cases, they have a reverse effect. de haas (2008) observes that there are two problems associated with securitization and externalization. firstly, increasing border controls has led to a diversification of trans-saharan migration routes and trans-mediterranean crossing points and in turn, has led to an unintended increase in the area that eu countries have to monitor to ‘combat’ irregular migration. secondly, increasing surveillance has led to the professionalization of smuggling methods. smugglers now use larger and faster custom-made boats and zodiacs. additionally, the huge length of land and maritime borders, coupled with the widespread corruption among border guards and other officials, make it virtually impossible to prevent people from crossing. as more and more restrictions are introduced, this benefits smugglers because it increases the need (and the cost) for their services. every time a fence goes up, access to the european dream gets a little more expensive (abebe, 2019). securitization and externalization have failed to take into cognizance the plethora of drivers of migration and do not address structural inequality, which means that marginalized individuals and communities will continue to migrate (herbert, 2019). furthermore, the eu with its securitization and externalization of african migration has not only failed to dissuade migrants from taking the strenuous journey, but it has also resulted in unintended consequences, with migrants being abused and held in inhumane detention centers libya; centers which are ironically funded by the eu (andersson, 2016; abebe 2019). disputably, externalization and securitization, coupled with populism, have allowed for the migration policy to become an increasingly politicized issue. benedicto 103 and brunet (2018: 17-18) argue that the far-right have manipulated public opinion to create irrational fears of refugees. this xenophobia sets up mental walls in people, who then demand physical walls. this is because externalization is often deceptively framed as either a security imperative or a life-saving humanitarian endeavor (or both) even though such responses to migration pose serious human rights concerns and threaten the integrity of the international refugee protection system (frelick et al., 2016: 193). even though initiatives of externalization and securitization involve investing funds in technology-related equipment and ensuring the training of local law enforcement are welcomed, their association with human right abuses has cast doubt over their effectiveness. however, externalization and securitization do not take into consideration the drivers of migration from africa, hence, the focus should be on addressing the root causes of migration first rather than narrowing the focus on border capabilities. theo francken, belgium’s secretary of state for asylum and migration, revealed that the eu should stimulate economic growth and employment, to boost the buying power of the african population (politico, 2018). michael clemens, codirector of migration at the center for global development, posits that no amount of financial assistance can stop migration. he maintains that the eu should rather invest in creating skills among potential migrants in africa — specific skills that the eu needs. paul collier, an economics professor at the school of government at oxford university, argues that europe should indeed spend €6 billion to bring jobs to africa through investment by the european investment bank which would support european firms in africa, thus helping reduce irregular african migration (politico, 2018). this paper agrees that while european investments would contribute positively towards the development of the continent, they would, however, find it cumbersome to address the drivers of migration (political instability, porous borders, corruption, smuggling and trafficking syndicates), hence irregular migration will likely persist, although in far fewer numbers. furthermore, rather than promoting the externalization of migration controls, the eu and other donors could also increase support to regional and international organizations that provide or promote the protection of migrants’ rights, including the rights of asylum seekers, in third countries and countries of origin, especially considering that borders in africa have many entry and exit points (frelick et al., 2016: 195); hence the question of how to strengthen the capability of one entry point without neglecting the other. the au, and by extension african states, are important role players. the au argues that migration is inevitable, and needs to be better governed in an integrated manner through comprehensive, human-rights based and gender-responsive national migration strategies and policies (au, 2018). however, the deaths of african migrants in the mediterranean sea coupled with their abuse in libyan detention camps (funded by the eu) have become a thorny issue for the continental body, giving rise to the need to address irregular migration through policy cooperation with the eu. externalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the eu 104 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 6 no 3, sep-dec 2020 moreover, criticisms against the au have dwelt on the notion that expecting the au to take the lead in curbing irregular migration is quite unrealistic, since within the au many decisions are made, but very few are implemented. this lack of consensus, therefore, allows the eu to enforce its externalization and securitization policies, even though such initiatives may not be largely welcomed. palm (2020: 20) contends that today privileged nations are, due to their affluence, capable of almost hermetically sealing their external borders using massive investments in sophisticated surveillance systems and financial means to reach agreements with transit countries that secure their interests in keeping ‘aliens’ out. however, rather than keeping ‘aliens’ out and hoping that poor countries can help in stemming irregular migration if rich countries want fewer immigrants, their best shot might be to help poor countries become rich so that fewer people feel the urge to leave. this is not to say, however, that africa has not done anything to reduce irregular migration. the european commission (2015) notes that the continent has cooperated with the eu on a number of policies such as the migration eu expertise (mieux), eu migration and mobility dialogue, the dakar strategy, european-wide african diaspora platform for development, and addressing mixed migration flows in eastern africa. nevertheless, criticism against africa has been premised on the notion that it is the eu which takes the lead on these initiatives. it is the eu which comes up with policies to stem migration (rightly so, because africa does not consider migration to be a threat, but rather as a way to boost continental integration development), often pouring money into the continent to solicit the cooperation of african countries. african countries have little interest in putting in place barriers to stop migration; hence, it makes sense for the eu to intervene as it observes irregular migration as a threat to its sovereignty. this paper also argues that irregular migration to the eu is not an isolated incident. since independence, the role of external actors has, of course, destabilized africa. unwarranted interventions from a socio-political perspective have further complicated the political and economic challenges african governments face today. interventions constantly overlap, with one crisis influencing another, marking the never-ending nature of foreign intervention, especially militarily, which gives way to conflict, forced displacement and migration. while both the eu and au are eager for a practical and jointly-undertaken solution, it is not going to be that simple. as a point of departure, african and european leaders must now lay the foundations for such a relationship by agreeing on a forward-looking strategy that addresses structural imbalances, harnesses the benefits of migration, and delivers tangible benefits to their citizens. the first step to address such structural imbalances is to ensure adequate opportunities for young people who are at the core of migration. altogether, the eu should help africa strengthen democratic and transparent processes and institutions in africa which will improve the socio-economic and political environment. 105 policy implications and concluding remarks this paper was not an empirical study but rather it relied extensively on the available literature to draw its conclusions. the policy implications and concluding remarks are therefore based on literary works that the paper has summarized. externalization and securitization have focused on the need to reduce irregular migration to the eu but have not addressed the issues driving these migratory patterns. this signals that externalization and securitization do not speak to the current realities on the ground in an african context. political instability across the continent has given way to the consolidation of smugglers, who fuel irregular migration. the discourse on irregular african migration to the eu has ignored the observation that most african migrants migrate within the continent. while marie-laurence (2016) asserts that europe remains the main destination for african-born migrants who seek to maximize the economic opportunities that may be available, the european media has failed to take note of vast and increased migration within the continent. the media has instead focused on framing migration from africa as a threat, even though most africans migrate within the continent. these migration patterns are informed and driven by an array of factors which include economics, family, networks and individual choices. in its quest to reduce these irregular inflows, the eu has opted to externalize and securitize migration. this paper maintains that for the eu to reduce migration, there is a need for it to understand the different drivers of migration rather than believing externalization and securitization are a one-size-fits-all solution. the rise of populism linked to migration has changed how liberal parties view migration. under pressure from right-wing populists, they have sought to externalize and securitize migration even in the face of human rights violations. the eu media also contributes to the observations of migrants as thugs and incompatible with eu culture, leading to the consolidation of racism and the ‘othering’ of migrants (wodak and krzyżanowski, 2017). even though african countries have committed to working with the eu to reduce migration, the financial imbalance favors the eu to be the major player, which often side-lines african states. finally, the external intervention in the affairs of africa has also indirectly contributed to population displacement and citizens becoming refugees. migration is an ever-evolving phenomenon and putting a complete stop to it is virtually impossible. while there is no quick fix to this situation, this paper contends that from an eu perspective, there is a need to think beyond the funding of securitization and externalization. the eu needs long-term, sustainable alliances with key partners — and with those in africa in particular. for these to be meaningful, cooperation should go beyond migration, as it is a consequence of much broader shared challenges, including geopolitical instability, demographic developments, climate change, and socioeconomic issues. secondly, while eu developmental aid to africa is needed, another form of action would be to prepare migrants for work in europe. the reality is that there is no amount of financial assistance that can stop migration; hence, the eu externalization and securitization as policy responses to african migration to the 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migration to the eu https://issafrica.org/iss-today/pressure-grows-on-africa-to-take-back-its-migrants https://issafrica.org/iss-today/pressure-grows-on-africa-to-take-back-its-migrants https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/wmr_2018_en.pdf https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/wmr_2018_en.pdf https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12224 https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-can-stop-african-migration-symposium-experts/ https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-can-stop-african-migration-symposium-experts/ https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/news-centre/news/2019/despite-dangers--majority-of-irregul https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/news-centre/news/2019/despite-dangers--majority-of-irregul https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/news-centre/news/2019/despite-dangers--majority-of-irregul the african human mobility review (ahmr) is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects of human mobility in africa, including socio-economic, political, legal, developmental, educational and cultural aspects. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence-based research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of current migration trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. the journal is also accessible on-line at no charge at sihma.org.za. ahmr is jointly owned by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) and university of the western cape (uwc) and accredited by the department of higher education and training (dhet) in south africa. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). ahmr volume 6 number 3 sep-dec 2020 ahmr volume 6 number 3 cover print 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za this issue consists of a book review and five articles that promote the practice of original research and policy discussions. it provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns, and some of the most important migration-related issues in sub-saharan africa. daniel tevera presents a critical and scholarly evaluation of a book entitled migration in west africa, edited by joseph kofi teye. tevera observes that the authors deepen the readers’ knowledge on the socio-economic effects, patterns, and causes of both internal and cross-border migration in west africa. he acknowledges that the book is an important work that academics of african migration should find useful, particularly in comprehending the dynamics, causes, and effects of migration in west africa. through the presentation of micro-empirical case studies from several nations, it offers thorough information on a number of topics pertaining to the migrationdevelopment nexus in west africa, including environmental displacement, return migration, and remittances. the first article by geraldine asiwome ampah and leander kandilige is entitled gaps and challenges in ghana’s implementation of the mechanisms for cooperation and referral of trafficking in persons (tip) victims. this paper uses ghana as a case study to analyze efforts by national authorities to eliminate trafficking in persons. using a qualitative method of research that involved semi-structured interviews with representatives of government ministries, departments, and agencies, as well as civil society organizations (csos) and development partners, this research draws on the conceptualization of institutional collaboration. the results of this study highlight the challenges to an effective criminal justice response to trafficking in persons in ghana, which include inadequate political will, poor resourcing and training of agencies, and lack of information about trafficking in persons. the authors provide policy recommendations based on the findings, including the adoption of coordinated actions among legislators, security forces, and the judicial system to arrest and prosecute traffickers. the second article by cristiano d'orsi is entitled one step forward, half step back: still a long way to go to end statelessness in madagascar. the author discusses the unresolved plight of statelessness in madagascar and sheds light on the problematic situation of the karana people, who still suffer from discrimination in the country. the study also examines gender discrimination in nationality law. in the 4 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 final recommendations, the author urges specific actions to be taken with regard to incorporation policies, including granting malagasy citizenship to karana children to reduce social tensions and improve integration. the third article by meron okbandrias is entitled protection of the rights of ethiopian and drc refugees and asylum seekers: examining the role of south african ngos (2005–2017). this paper investigates the challenges of ngos working in the area of refugee rights, in an environment characterized by anti-immigrant sentiments and restrictive policies curtailing access to the asylum regime. the researcher employed a qualitative approach to scrutinize the role of ngos working with ethiopian and congolese asylum seekers and refugees in three major cities of south africa. the article provides an in-depth analysis of the effectiveness of ngos in advocacy and the protection agenda, including facilitating access to social services, humanitarian assistance, and litigation services. the author concludes that in spite of their remarkable success in advocating for and protecting the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, ngos cannot cover the void created by shortcomings in the implementation of legislation. the fourth article by christine semambo sempebwa is entitled higher education policy and access for south sudanese refugees from the bidi bidi settlement, uganda. this study presents findings from an exploratory study on higher-education policy and implementation and its influence on south sudanese refugees from the bidi bidi settlement in uganda. the outcomes of this study suggest that highereducation policy formulation for refugees and host communities is largely state driven and top-down, leaving limited space for information and feedback provided by students and higher-education institutions. moreover, higher-education policies are not fully integrated in the education response plan (erp) for refugees and host communities, with implications for student access and resilience. the fifth article by mandipa machacha is entitled realizing the right to dignity of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana: a practical approach. this study analyzes the situation and specific challenges faced by zimbabwean migrant women in botswana in accessing healthcare and decent employment opportunities and then presents possible solutions based on the “migration with dignity framework.” the author argues that, to create an environment in which the basic needs of migrant women are met, an effective provision of services and strong policies to address the root causes of discrimination and violence against migrant women are of fundamental importance. i would like to thank all board members, editors, reviewers, authors, and readers for their continued engagement. finally, i am confident that this edition of the african human mobility review provides a significant resource for scholars, practitioners, and students. 41 migration as prophecy fulfilled: a case study of hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa dereje feyissa dori1 received 31 july 2024 / accepted 27 february 2025 / published 25 april 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v11i1.2302 abstract this article examines the role religion has played in the process of hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa—from decision-making to processes of settlement at destination. religion, specifically evangelical christianity, has played a key role in the various phases of the migration process: from imagination of a sacred destination, signification of migration as a gift of god, risk perception and negotiation through to place making and spiritual engagements to overcome specific challenges of the new migration habitus. the article situates migration processes within a broader historical context and explains how spiritually animated migratory agency has helped hadiya migrants negotiate the historically shaped regional inequality within ethiopia. it concludes with an emphasis on how the hadiya migration story ethnographically demonstrates the crucial role religion plays in migration processes, with a call for migration studies to take seriously intangible factors in migration. keywords: religion, migration, ethiopia-south africa corridor, hadiya 1 associate professor, college of social sciences, addis ababa university, addis ababa, ethiopia  derejefdori2011@ gmail.com migration as prophecy fulfilled: hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa 42 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 introduction as one of the richest countries on the african continent, south africa is a major destination country for migrants moving within africa. close to three million migrants resided in south africa in 2020 (un desa, 2021). ethiopians are among the most significant of these migrant populations, with estimates varying between 200,000 and 300,000 (cooper and esser, 2018; estifanos and zack, 2019; iom, 2022). according to a report by the south african department of home affairs (2015), ethiopia was ranked second in the top 15 migrant-sending countries. this is remarkable, given that ethiopian migration to south africa is a recent phenomenon; its history is barely three decades old and is entirely located in post-apartheid south africa, but with a profound impact on places of origin. the journey of ethiopian migrants to south africa is perilous, involving crossing state borders of up to six countries and covering close to 5,000 km. the journey follows different routes and modes of transport: by air, water and land. the few migrants who can afford it take a direct flight from addis ababa to johannesburg or countries that border south africa, but most combine bus, boat and foot travel. typically, the land route from ethiopia to south africa starts in kenya and passes through tanzania, malawi, zambia, mozambique/zimbabwe to south africa (iom, 2022). most ethiopian migrants are engaged in the informal retail trade, running shops predominantly in jeppe, the ethiopian commercial enclave in johannesburg, and in nearby townships, known as “locations” (zack and estifanos, 2016). most ethiopian migrants in south africa come from southern ethiopia, with the highest concentration being from the hadiya-kembata area (feyissa 2022; iom, 2022). this article examines the role religion has played in the process of hadiya migration to south africa—from decision-making to processes of settlement at destination. religion, specifically evangelical christianity, has played a key role in the various phases of the migration process: from imagination of a sacred destination, signification of migration as a gift of god, risk perception and negotiation through to placemaking and spiritual engagements to overcome specific challenges of the new migration habitus. spirituality is also invoked as an overarching scheme of interpretation, even when migration is recast as a “liability” with a diminishing return, evident in the increasing risks of the journey and the spiralling migranton-migrant violence in south africa. migration studies have been dominated by objective economic factors, especially in decision-making processes (kuhnt, 2019). the conceptual framework of the article is informed by the role of intangible factors in migration processes. migration is often analyzed primarily in economic terms, focusing on tangible factors such as livelihood opportunities and maximizing material well-being more broadly. this emphasis on economic explanations stems from the relative ease of measuring factors such as income disparities, access to resources, and employment prospects. economic theories of migration often suggest that people move in response to absolute or relative deprivation, with migration choices determined by an individual’s ability to afford the associated costs. while 43 economic factors undeniably play a central role in shaping migration patterns, the case of hadiya migration to south africa highlights the limitations of solely focusing on material conditions. for the hadiya, increasing pressure on agricultural land is a key economic driver of migration. with one of the highest population densities in ethiopia, the hadiya zone faces severe land constraints, which lead to fragmentation of land tenure and declining productivity. in addition, recurrent droughts, worsened by climate change, make farming a precarious livelihood. however, these economic challenges are not unique to the hadiya; neighboring regions also contend with high population densities and similar land pressures, some even more severe. if migration were driven solely by economic factors, we would also expect to see greater migration from these other regions, which are economically better off due to cash crop cultivation. this is not the case, highlighting that economic conditions alone do not fully explain the scale or direction of migration. policy shifts have also played a crucial role in the onset of hadiya migration to south africa. the more liberal immigration policies in post-apartheid south africa, which allowed for greater freedom of movement and access, coincided with the political and economic changes in ethiopia after the fall of the derg regime in 1991. this period saw the relaxation of restrictions on internal and international migration, offering new opportunities for ethiopians, including the hadiya, to seek better prospects abroad. the convergence of these policy shifts created a more favorable environment for migration, facilitating the movement of people from ethiopia to south africa. while tangible economic factors and policy shifts are clearly important, the focus on them has often overshadowed the role of intangible, non-economic factors in migration. migration is not merely a response to material deprivation or economic opportunity; it is also shaped by social, cultural, spiritual, and emotional influences. factors such as religious beliefs, cultural norms, social networks, emotions, and personal aspirations play a critical role in migration decisions, yet these intangible factors are frequently overlooked in traditional economic and policy analyses. this article seeks to address this gap by placing intangible factors at the core of migration decision-making, alongside the more conventional economic drivers. among the subjective factors in migration processes, beliefs and values remain the least studied (docquier et al., 2020). various studies have demonstrated that religion does impact on migration decision-making. belief could provide spiritual resources for some migrants in their decision to migrate and may have a psychological effect on their commitment to endure the hardship of migration and assist with sense-making in places of destination. this article examines how hadiya migrants draw on the spiritual resources of evangelical christianity in the decision-making process, including in the geographic imaginary, risk perception, and negotiation of the perilous journey to south africa, as well as spiritual guidance and protection during the process of travel to and settlement in south africa. belief also plays an important role in the decision to stay. spiritual resources in decisionmigration as prophecy fulfilled: hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa 44 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 making processes in hadiya migration to south africa include prophecies, prayers with migration content and gospel songs, which all shape aspiration and animate migratory agency. throughout the migration process, there is a strong collective component in the way hadiya migrants use religion as a space of agency from which they build capability. however, the article argues against an opposition between tangible and intangible factors, suggesting instead that they inform and reinforce each other in shaping migration processes. drawing on a growing body of literature on the role of subjective and intangible factors in migration (e.g., zanker et al., 2023), this work explores the spiritual dimensions embedded in the ethiopia‒south africa migration corridor. specifically, it examines how belief systems and spirituality influence various stages of the migration process—from the initial decision to migrate, through the journey itself, to settlement at the destination. the article argues that by recognizing the complex interplay between tangible and intangible factors, we can develop a more nuanced understanding of migration processes. this broader perspective allows for a more comprehensive view of the motivations behind migration, capturing not only the material conditions that drive people to move but also the spiritual, emotional, and cultural forces that shape their decisions. such an approach helps illuminate the full complexity of migration, especially in contexts where intangible factors are as crucial as economic ones. the article draws on findings from a study conducted by the author as part of the migration for development and equality (mideq) project, a ukri/gcrffunded comparative research initiative that spans five years (2019‒2024) and covers 12 countries across six migration corridors. the author coordinated the ethiopia‒ south africa migration corridor within this broader project. initially, the ethiopia‒ south africa corridor was not included in mideq’s focus on migration decisionmaking. instead, it concentrated on resource flows, children left behind, and income inequality. however, as research participants began sharing their migration experiences, questions related to decision-making emerged organically, often beginning with inquiries into the motivations behind migration. it was during these discussions that the theme of spirituality as a significant factor in migration decisions consistently surfaced across the 100 interviews the author conducted, with support from the mideq ethiopian research team. this led the author to explore the role of subjective, non-economic factors in migration in greater depth. the 30 informants featured in this article are all male, as migration patterns in the hadiya community are highly gendered. while hadiya men predominantly migrate to south africa, women tend to migrate to gulf countries. the sample represents a range of age groups: 75% of participants were between the ages of 25 and 35, 20% were between 36 and 50, and 5% were over 50 years of age. the religious demographic of the participants mirrors that of the hadiya community at large, with more than 90% identifying as evangelical christians, in line with the census data that shows that 70% of the hadiya population follows evangelical christianity. 45 at the time of the interviews, over 90% of participants had lived in south africa for 10 years or more, with 7% having been there between 11 and 15 years, and 3% for less than 10 years. to address potential limitations of retrospective narratives and to mitigate what jerolmack and khan (2014) call the “attitudinal fallacy”—the tendency to conflate self-reported oral accounts with actual behavior—the study crossreferenced life history interviews with data from in-depth interviews conducted with those aspiring to migrate and other stakeholders. this triangulation provided a more comprehensive picture of the role of spirituality in migration, a theme consistently affirmed by all participants, including those who expressed skepticism about the foundational prophecy. additional data was also gathered from brief fieldwork in south africa among hadiya migrants in johannesburg and cape town in november 2023. ethnographic observations also contributed to the study, as the author attended hadiya religious events such as sermons, preaching, and gospel songs with migration-related themes. these observations offered further insights into the hadiya community’s selfunderstanding as leaders of evangelical christianity and their receptivity to prophetic messages regarding migration. the majority of the interviews were conducted in amharic, the national language of ethiopia and the author’s native tongue, which most hadiya participants were fluent in. in rural hadiya, some interviews were conducted in hadiyissa by a hadiya-speaking research assistant. all interviews were transcribed and translated into english for analysis. following ethical research protocols, the names of participants were anonymized, and sensitive issues were handled with care to ensure that no harm was done to the participants or the broader hadiya community. the discussion is organized in five sections. following this introductory section one, section two embeds hadiya migration to south africa in a historical context in the longue durée, that is, how hadiya have been transformed from a glorious past under a powerful sultanate into peripheral subjects during the process of state formation, and their mode of incorporation into the ethiopian polity. it situates migration processes within this broader historical context and explains how spiritually animated migratory agency has helped hadiya migrants negotiate the historically shaped regional inequality within ethiopia. section three discusses how religion plays out in hadiya migration decision-making—from a sacred imagination of south africa fuelling aspiration to risk negotiation during a perilous journey. section four discusses spiritual practices of hadiya migrants in south africa that ease the process of settlement and building up their businesses. section five examines the changing contours of the hadiya migration project from a collectivist to individualist orientation, and the implication of this for the viability of the hadiya migration project. it analyzes how the hadiya are recasting migration from being a blessing into a curse, as ever-increasing migrant-on-migrant violence and other criminal practices are believed to have brought the wrath of god. the last section concludes with an emphasis on how the hadiya migration story ethnographically demonstrates migration as prophecy fulfilled: hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa 46 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 the crucial role religion plays in migration processes, with a call for migration studies to take seriously intangible factors in migration. hadiya socio-cultural and historical backgrounds: an islamic past and a christian present located in southern ethiopia with a population of 1.2 million, the hadiya society forms part of the broader southern periphery of the ethiopian state. previously, it was part of the medieval hadiya sultanate dating back to the 13th century (braukamper, 2012), itself part of the wider islamic political communities in the horn of africa in competition with the orthodox christian empire of the ethiopian northern highlands, also called abyssinia, which evolved into the modern ethiopian state at the end of the 19th century (taddesse, 1972). the incorporation of hadiya into the ethiopian state resulted in their political marginalization, social discrimination and economic exploitation. subsequently, they lost autonomy and the local economy became dominated by people from the north, and partly by neighbors such as the gurage, who managed to attain greater socio-economic mobility within the ethiopian empire through internal migration, mainly to addis ababa (lebell, 2011). located 230 kilometers south of addis ababa and established in the early 20th century, hosanna is the capital of hadiya administrative zone. notwithstanding its being one of the oldest towns in ethiopia, hosanna was the center of imperial rule in hadiya. in fact, most inhabitants of hosanna towns were people who came from the north, especially members of the dominant amhara ruling class. the long-term impact of imperial rule in the southern periphery is structural inequality, marked by ethnic stratification. this has undermined the capacity of hadiya citizens to aspire to a better life with the requisite capabilities. as research participants mentioned, this is expressed in the form of self-doubt or lack of self-confidence. the hadiya population, like most of their southern neighbors, were excluded from the politics of the ethiopian empire and were subjected to social discrimination. they were turned from a once proud and great nation into a mistreated ethnic group. the hadiya people were referred to with a pejorative term, gudela, in line with similar debasing names used to disparage other people of the periphery (braukamper, 2012; grenstedt, 2000). although some hadiya members managed to achieve individual socio-economic mobility within the ethiopian polity, most were left behind and, over time, incorporated the external negative definition of who they are. since the 1950s, the only opportunity the ethiopian empire provided for the hadiya people was labor migration to the budding sugar estates in the awash valley, especially to sugar plantations in wenji. although this wage labor contributed to modest household well-being for migrant families, it did not lead to hadiya’s meaningful economic participation at local and national levels. nor has the stigma associated with their ethnic identity changed. if anything, it added a new pejorative layer, as they were referred to as shenkora korach (people who slash sugar canes). imperial rule came to an end in 1974. despite promises made by the 1974 revolution to redress ethnic 47 inequalities and promote greater inclusion of peoples of the periphery into national affairs, hadiya people continued to occupy a marginal status throughout the derg period (1974–1991). in fact, whatever was in the local economy was extracted to fund derg’s endless wars, while military conscription brought a heavy toll on hadiya youth (feyissa, 2022). when the ethiopian people’s revolutionary democratic front (eprdf) came to power (1991–2018) and developed its constitutional structures of ethnic federalism, this kindled yet another hope for social transformation and democratic transition. however, the self-rule that the constitution granted to ethnic groups (nations and nationalities in the ethiopian parlance) has not led to real political and economic empowerment (turton, 2005). true, change is visible in local political leadership. members of the hadiya elite rule the newly created hadiya zone as one of the administrative zones within the southern nations, nationalities and peoples regional state (snnpr), now replaced by the central ethiopia regional state. hadiya are also given the right to use their language as a language of local government. however, eprdf’s self-rule has not translated into the kind of socioeconomic transformation expected. political legitimacy continues to comprise extroverted local elites, operating under the centralizing logic of eprdf whose interest they primarily serve. a hadiya opposition party, the hadiya national democratic organisation (hndo), put up a strong resistance against eprdf rule through peaceful means. in fact, hndo won the seats for the 2001 parliamentary election in hadiya zone, but the result was later declared to be flawed and eprdf became the winner through a repeat election (tronvoll, 2001). meanwhile, the economic situation in hadiya zone worsened with the politicization of internal labor migration. thousands of hadiya labor migrants from wenji (now in oromia regional state) left the area after three decades of residence, as wage laborers went back to hadiya zone when ethnic federalism turned them into “outsiders” overnight. hadiya zone was already suffering from land shortage because it has one of the highest population densities in ethiopia, so it could not absorb returnee internal migrants, which created a social crisis. nor was there a single factory which could have provided a modicum of employment opportunity for the hadiya youth and the returnee migrant population. in 2019, political reform replaced eprdf with the prosperity party (pp). this was an attempt to distance the country’s politics from ethnic federalism. however, six years on, ethiopia has not yet made that transition to democracy. in fact, the country has been plunged into civil war and communal violence, though the south has been relatively calm. the hadiya population found the engine of socio-economic transformation and their aspiration to catch up with members of ethiopia’s dominant population groups in religious salvation, to which the onset of migration to south africa is intimately connected. despite its islamic past, contemporary hadiya are predominantly protestant christians. according to the latest 2007 census, protestants constitute 75.3% and muslims 11.3% of the population of hadiya zone. orthodox christians, migration as prophecy fulfilled: hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa 48 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 most of whom are non-hadiya, constitute 8.45% (csa, 2008). by the turn of the 20th century, western protestant missionaries were active in southern ethiopia, including among the hadiya. this sharply contrasts with peoples of the northern highlands, the core of the ethiopian state, who are predominantly orthodox christians. protestant christianity was brought to southern ethiopia through missionary societies in the early 20th century. there is an aspect of resistance ideology in the manner with which the hadiya, and southern ethiopians more broadly, embraced protestant christianity as a counterpart to the orthodox christianity of the northern highlands (the core of the ethiopian state identified with orthodox christianity). but it seems the high receptivity to protestant christianity was also influenced by the lure of modernity that it promised. as early as the 1930s, the missionaries opened schools and clinics among the hadiya, and in 1949 hosanna hosted a bible conference (grenstedt, 2000). contemporary hadiya society recounts a “rebellious” pre-christian past, with protracted conflicts between the christian empire and its various tribes. this past was fundamentally transformed into a “god-fearing” and “god-loving” people. a pastor thus surmised: “god has a tendency to choose people or individuals who are rebellious and change their identity. as paulos’ rebellious spirit was changed by god, so was the history of hadiya changed with our conversion to christianity.” the first generation of hadiya converts is associated with three names: shigute dada, sebro wasaro and aba gole. they are affectionately referred to as yenwengel aribegnoch (patriots of the gospel) and they played a critical role in spreading the new faith, not just among the hadiya but also among neighboring societies. data gleaned from interviews with research participants suggest that contemporary self-understanding of hadiya society is a vanguard of protestant christianity. they are being rewarded for this, not least by the new opportunity structure that migration to south africa has provided. the hadiya have tapped into evangelical religious resources, such as prophecies and prayers, to build their migratory agency and enhance socio-economic mobility. as discussion in the following sections shows, there is a strong spiritual component in hadiya migration to south africa, evident in the various phases of the migration process: from decisionmaking before the journey to during the journey and settlement at destination. echoing a global trend and spurred on by transnational networks, protestantism among the hadiya has also witnessed a charismatic turn, with a greater emphasis on prophesy and the power of faith. the hadiya have used this brand of protestantism as a space of agency, extracting religious resources and building migratory capabilities. this contrasts with the tenets of ethiopian orthodox christianity (eoc) whose sacred narratives present ethiopia as the promised land (malara, 2022). at the heart of religion and migration among the hadiya, we find a foundational prophecy delivered by a canadian pastor in hosanna in 2001, declaring that god has opened a “southern door” for the hadiya through which prosperity would come. following in the footsteps of the canadian pastor, local prophets have proliferated divining the future of prospective migrants, advising some to migrate and others to 49 stay behind and invest in the local future. in this process of social change, we find the hadiya negotiating a historically shaped regional inequality within ethiopia, through transnational flow of finance, ideas and goods. both the process of migration and its outcome have collective dimensions. in this scheme of things, migration features as a divine script expressed in collective terms: it is south africa, not the ethiopian state, which promises transformation through remittance and investment by migrants. indeed, for hadiya protestants, the promised land is south africa, not ethiopia. but this is a temporary exit, with an end game of going back home to improve the life of themselves and their families, as well as the hadiya collectively. in recent years, as hadiya migration has become less idealist and more materialist, criticism of the changing role of migration is also framed in religious language, that is, the failure to manage god’s blessing is fast turning into a curse. as greed kicks in, collective redemption is replaced by god’s wrath. this is expressed in the form of rising homicide and other forms of crime among hadiya migrants in south africa. this is considered a negative remittance, as some migrants have brought the culture of violence home with them. the following section expands on the role of religion in hadiya’s migration decision-making. religion, migration, and decision-making hadiya migration to south africa—the 2001 foundational prophecy in 2001, peter youngren, a canadian pastor and founder of world impact ministries, came to hosanna and delivered a prophecy that constitutes a critical part of the history of hadiya migration to south africa. pastor youngren and his world impact ministries have outreaches in more than 100 countries. he is considered one of the most influential evangelical pastors. youngren’s international events are called friendship festivals, with attendances ranging from 10,000 to 600,000 in a single service, often in big public spaces.2 hadiya who participated in the hosanna friendship festival mentioned that hundreds of thousands of people attended the event at gofer meda, hadiya’s main public square. although healing the sick and gospel teaching were part of his mission, youngren’s key message (or so the hadiya thought) was a prophecy that promised socio-economic transformation of the hadiya through international migration; god has opened a “southern door” for the hadiya through which prosperity will come. this is an extract of youngren’s prophecy, reconstructed from stories recounted by participants of the hosanna friendship festival: i have a message from god to deliver to you. i saw god opening a new southern door for hosanna [meant to refer to hadiya]. from now onwards you will see a constant flow of people (ye mayiqon ye hizb jiret); that people will migrate (yifelisalu); they work hard and they prosper; that they will bring blessing to 2 editor. “passion for people.” celebrate. 2013. pages 14‒15. migration as prophecy fulfilled: hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa 50 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 hosanna and to ethiopia more broadly. hosanna town will be transformed beyond recognition. the time will come when three-wheeler cars [the indianmade bajaj] will fill the streets of hosanna and a country where people go to without a visa. there will also be rain and abundant crops. god will allow movement of people; one which will bring prosperity. you will soon see signs of the prophecy working.3 youngren did not directly refer to south africa but to a “southern door opened by god,” a door through which god will redeem the hadiya from their deprivation. hadiya believe god used youngren as a conduit to bless them. otherwise, they claim the blessing as a fruit of their collective effort, not least the heroic acts of hadiya “patriots of the gospel” and devout prayers of elders to help their people overcome the social and economic deprivations they were facing at the time of the prophecy. this prophecy was also perceived as an affirmation of god’s favoring the hadiya as “committed” christians, as elaborated by feyissa (2022). while the prophecy never mentioned south africa as a specific destination, the hadiya themselves interpreted the “southern door” as leading to south africa. this destination looked profitable in economic terms, so intangible factors have been entangled with tangible ones right from the beginning. it was also not an entirely unknown destination, as some hadiya had already migrated to south africa via kenya in the late 1990s. after all, south africa is south of ethiopia and moyale, the first kenyan border crossing point en route to south africa, is the nearest “south” to the hadiya. this prophecy has since informed the decision of many hadiya to migrate and was often given as the specific reason in the life stories of research participants. the following account by pastor birhanu, a hadiya migrant from johannesburg who was interviewed in hosanna during a family visit, indicates how the prophecy informed his decision to migrate to south africa: youngren’s prophecy made the journey a lot easier than one would have expected. i migrated to south africa in 2004, three years after peter came to hosanna. i was a student at that time. i talked to my friends about the idea of going to south africa. they all readily agreed. when we decided to travel, it felt as if we were already in south africa. i remember the enthusiasm and confidence we had while deciding to migrate. we never thought of the risks we might encounter during the journey and the language difficulties we might encounter. it felt like we were moving from one house to another within hadiya. (pastor birhanu, interviewed in hosanna, november 12, 2020) 3 interviews with participants of the hosanna friendship festival, january 2020–2022, hosanna and other parts of hadiya zone, southern ethiopia. 51 pastor birhanu’s statement “when we decided to travel, it felt as if we were already in south africa” echoes what cangia and zittoun (2020: 5) call “mental journey” and “imagined mobilities”: “imagination, as a form of symbolic mobility, represents the mental journey people can embark upon to escape the here-and-now of the present, independently from real opportunities and capacity to move.” in pastor birhanu’s words, we also learn how important imagination is in migration decision-making, as a condition for aspiration as well as belief, instilling confidence without caution. religious people find moral strength and perseverance in their beliefs, which makes them arguably better placed to cope with adversities experienced during migration. the hadiya retrospectively view the large numbers of their community migrating to south africa as an indication that the prophecy has been fulfilled. additional signs that the prophecy is working include the relative business success of hadiya migrants in south africa, despite multiple obstacles, and the consequent economic transformation of hadiya through remittances and investments, both in places of origin and in south africa. returnee migrants mentioned that they could not recognize the hosanna they had left behind, because it had changed so much to now include high-rise buildings and several commercial banks. this change has occurred in the last two decades and was contributed to by the transnational flow of finance, goods and ideas/knowledge coming from those who had migrated to south africa. a common saying in hosanna is, “whichever way you turn in hosanna, there is south african money.” other signs of the prophecy working include a bumper harvest. as noted by many research participants: “the same year youngren came to hosanna there was a lot of rain; so much so that 100-birr wheat was sold for 40 birr. unlike the years before the prophecy, everyone had much more than for subsistence.” the prophecy was indeed a message of hope that was well received by the hadiya due to the political and economic context of the time. politically, this was a time of great upheaval in hadiya zone. there was political instability related to the contested 2000 election: hadiya was the only region where an election was won by an opposition party (hndo) throughout the eprdf period. this was followed by a severe government crackdown. the post-election repression ended in “a bloodbath of the hadiya” (tronvoll, 2001). as mentioned earlier, the return of hadiya migrants from wenji further compounded the situation in the early 1990s creating a deepening sense of social crisis, as the returnees put a claim over family land already in scarce supply. this was also a time of increased poverty because of a drought that resulted in crop failure. political insecurity, grinding poverty, and the strong roots laid down by evangelical christianity among the hadiya seem to have created a high receptivity to youngren’s prophecy. the hadiya even went further in embedding the spirituality of their migration to south africa due to the historically shaped regional inequality. migration to south africa is seen as a way of renegotiating the inequality between the “core north” and the “peripheral south.” hadiya attributes a spiritually mediated “inherent link” migration as prophecy fulfilled: hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa 52 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 between peoples of the periphery and their greater representation among migrants in south africa, as the following commentary by a returned migrant suggests: how come amharas, tigres, and oromos [people of the core regions] are not migrating to south africa as much as the hadiya and other southerners [people of the periphery]? their oversight is not accidental. god has blinded them of this opportunity protecting it for us. had they known about the opportunities in south africa, these people would have dominated south africa as much as they have done elsewhere. they are everywhere. many ethiopians in europe, the us, and canada are amharas, tigreans, and oromos. they have money, knowledge, and wider social networks. and yet we [the hadiya and other peoples from southern ethiopia] managed to make it to south africa despite our apparent lack of skills and political networks. this is because god awakened us (aberalin). (interviewed in hosanna, 2021) the word aberalin used here refers to a collective self, explaining that god has been engaging hadiya as a people, not individually, by opening a southern route through which prosperity flows. in this sacred narrative, hadiya migration to south africa features as a quintessential spiritually animated future-making project, which at the same time guarantees tangible socio-economic mobility. prophecy goes local reflecting a global pattern, there has been a charismatic shift in ethiopian protestantism, with a greater emphasis on the power of faith and prayer. there has also been a boom in self-proclaimed prophets, increasingly involved in divining the future for people as they engage with the uncertainties and vagaries of life. among the hadiya, these new prophets are playing a crucial role in migration decision-making. churches contribute to migration facilitation through their prayer programs, and institutionally by arranging exchange programs with churches in southern african countries. for instance, priests/pastors usually pray for potential migrants to succeed in their aspiration to migrate to south africa; they make prophecies on behalf of individual aspirants that their future will be great in south africa. this gives hope and courage to potential migrants, encouraging them to take risks. when potential migrants are about to start their journey, fellow christians gather and pray for their success. a returnee migrant recounted how his decision to migrate to south africa was a direct result of an unexpected “revelation” by a pastor during a sunday service: the idea of migrating to south africa was suggested by my brother who went there earlier. he told me to come to south africa, which i did with the money that he sent me. but why i decided to go to south africa was not because my brother sent me money but rather after i realized it was god’s will. on a 53 sunday service, a pastor came straight to me, put his hands on my head, and prayed. he then mentioned that god wanted me to go to south africa and that unlike other migrants nothing bad would happen to me throughout the journey. i had my doubts when my brother advised me to join him. as you can see, i am not as young as the other migrants, and i feared i might not be able to withstand the challenges. all my doubts disappeared after the revelation by the pastor who said, “your journey has already been made.” god has been with me during my journey and throughout my stay in south africa. while many of the people who went with me were imprisoned either in tanzania or malawi, my journey to south africa was faster and safer. although i was robbed several times in south africa, i was not once physically hurt throughout my ten-year stay, unlike the experience of nearly all ethiopian migrants. (interviewed in jajura, july 5, 2021) spirituality not only plays an important role in mobility, but also in immobility. immobility is involuntary for some but desirable for many others (schewel, 2019). in some instances, hadiya prophets and pastors who de facto act as migration counselors advise prospective migrants to drop their plans to migrate. the following story sheds further light on how decision-making, including the decision to stay and invest in a local future, is shaped by a prophetic tradition: there was a spiritual father called aba gole in anlemmo [one of the patriots of the gospel], where i was born and grew up. he was a well-known religious leader who extensively traveled throughout ethiopia. one day he visited my parents before i was conceived. he prayed and told my mother that she would have a baby boy and that boy would continue his legacy of preaching. so, i am a result of that prayer that shaped my purpose in life, serving god and his people. however, my mother's family who are gurage [least connected to migration to south africa] wanted to send me to south africa and proposed to pay for my flight, so that the life of the family would be changed. but i refused. then in 2009, when i finished high school, i wanted to join university, but my mother told me if i became a civil servant the government would be my master and i couldn't give all my time to serve god. she also said that aba gole’s sweat is in our house, so i have to carry his legacy. i prayed the whole night and got my answer that said “i will join theology college.” it turned out that i scored one point less in the national school leaving examination than the required grade to join a university. thus, i ended up studying theology and i became a pastor, as prophesied by aba gole. (pastor samuel, 2021) in this story, the preference to stay relates to a life project already shaped by belief, even before birth. the church has a vested interest in endorsing migration projects, as successful migrant believers remit money to the churches as a form of thanksgiving. migration as prophecy fulfilled: hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa 54 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 churches publicly recognize money received from migrants, taking credit for migrants’ success enabled by their prayer. some migrants send money to the church as a gift, while others remit in the form of a tithe (asirat). according to protestant tradition (also taught by pastors), one pays a tithe to the original church one belongs to, often in places of origin. from the remittances they get from migrants, most local churches in hadiya have bought a keyboard, sound system, and generator. these are essential goods to enhance public visibility in the increasingly competitive ethiopian religious landscape, adding to hadiya’s already distinctively protestant public space. most churches in hadiya are financed by migrants through their philanthropic efforts. for some migrants, spirituality has quite a functional role. besides pastors and prophets of mainline protestant churches, local spiritual entrepreneurs have proliferated, claiming the power to divine an individual’s future, including whether to migrate, when, and how, functioning as de facto migration counselors. they call themselves miriit agelgayoch (sent by god to convey his messages to specific individuals), although their detractors call them festal agelgayoch (amateur door-to-door spiritual service providers) and liken them to festal hakim (“plastic bag doctors,” village-based amateur health professionals). some of the festal/mirit agelgayoch are seen as predatory, but even those skeptical of their service consider their prophecy and migration counseling largely accurate. people interested in migrating often seek these specific migration services from festal/mirit agelgayoch, although advice is also received spontaneously. they go to the parents of prospective migrants and tell them which specific family member has better prospects of success, convincing them that it is worth investing in sponsoring a particular person whose migration project is ordained by god, thus ensuring “value for money”—a safe return of the money invested in the migration project. in some instances, the mirit agelgayoch advises prospective migrants to drop their plan to migrate. capability and resilience built through blessing, prayer, and gospel songs the previous accounts by migrants, returnee migrants, and stayees evidence how belief plays an important role in decision-making regarding mobility and immobility. the prophecies and prayers of evangelical christianity as spaces of migratory agency draw on the traditional beliefs of hadiya society. in traditional hadiya society, fate is understood as something that is not fixed but amenable to elders’ authority, either in the form of masso (blessing) or duunchcha (cursing). heads of lineages are believed to have greater power over blessing or cursing by their proximity to ancesstors (worku, 2019). some elders have the power of blessing and cursing not just for members of a lineage but also for the whole local community. they are called ayanto. elders/ayanto use kitfa (a mixture of honey and water used as a spiritual ointment) which they sprinkle onto people who seek blessing for good fortune in life. elders have extended this spiritual power to the realm of migration. 55 how the spirituality of evangelical christianity operates in the migration realm is similar to traditional spirituality, with the only caveat being the switch of a register from elders to pastors and prophets, and the replacement of kitfa with anointing oils, also called miracle oil. compared to hadiya’s traditional belief, evangelical christianity puts a higher premium on the transformational agency of prayer. when asked about why they decided to migrate to south africa despite the risks involved in the journey, many prospective and returnee migrants mentioned, “i want(ed) to check my fate. if i die during the journey or in south africa, it is because i am meant to,” and they would add, “who knows when and how i die anyway, even if i do not migrate?” in this risk regime, prayers feature as a badge of confidence that downplays the risks of migration, a belief that simultaneously shapes aspiration and builds migratory agency. prospective migrants often respond atseliyebetalehu when asked what preparations they have made for the journey, meaning “i got my plan prayed upon.” in some prayers, pastors even include specific information about the risky spots in the migration journey, such as the tete bridge over the zambezi river at the border between mozambique and malawi where, in 2021, 60 ethiopian migrants perished in a suffocating container while trying to cross the border (feyissa, 2022). a prayer with migration content is couched in the saying amen yale teteqeme yalale temelese (those who said “amen” benefited [made it to south africa] but those who did not came back [died] or were deported). beside prophecy and prayers, gospel songs are important aspects of belief that shape the decision-making processes of prospective hadiya migrants. one is by yoseph samuel and is called chaltoto, which in hadiya language means “overcoming the challenges of the journey.” the song originally referred to the spiritual sense of the term “journey to heaven” but is increasingly imbued with migration content. lyrics of the song include: “we will go, pass the hurdle, and inherit the kingdom regardless of the storm of the sea.” this is the most favored gospel song played when prospective migrants and their planned journeys are blessed by a pastor, during the farewell parties, and it is the most listened to during the journey. on all these occasions, the meaning decoded is “you will make it to south africa despite all the challenges.” others use specific gospel songs to build their resilience during their repatriation from detention centers in transit countries. watching a joyful video clip posted by a group of returnee hadiya migrants brought by iom en route from the tanzanian detention center to ethiopia gives the impression that this is a celebration, rather than coming to terms with a failed migration project. but the message of their chosen song was loud and clear: it is not if but when they go back because there is nothing impossible for the omnipotent god that they counted on. a follow-up of these returnee migrants discovered that most of them went back to moyale to restart the journey to south africa. after all, god would not fail, it is only that people might get it wrong sometimes if their hearts are not upright. migration as prophecy fulfilled: hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa 56 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 spirituality at destination places not only is spirituality a significant factor in their decision-making and a powerful force during the journey, hadiya migrants continue their religious practices at their destination in south africa. they continue to refer to the youngren prophecy while reflecting on and sense-making their experience, not least from their perspective, in the unprecedented success of their small businesses in south africa’s informal economy, despite entry barriers. they sought spiritual support from youngren, invited high-profile pastors and prophets from ethiopia to bless their finances, and initiated a spiritually imbued de facto vigilante group to overcome the rising violence and criminality among migrants. in what appears to be seeking a spiritual boost, the religious leaders of hadiya migrants in south africa reached out to youngren to come to south africa and bless the land. while expressing his delight at seeing the prophecy fulfilled, youngren nevertheless declined the invitation mentioning that prophecy does not work on demand. so, the largely protestant hadiya congregations reached out to high-profile pastors and prophets in ethiopia to come and bless south africa. subsequently, many ethiopian pastors, mostly from southern ethiopia, went to south africa and blessed its land. they prayed that south africa share its bounty with ethiopian migrant groups, blessed their businesses, and prayed that migrants would overcome the challenges they faced there, including the increasing homicide rate among hadiya migrants in south africa, which is a cause for alarm for hadiya society at large.4 in doing so, the ethiopian pastors and prophets draw on the teaching of the prosperity gospel with a stronger focus on the power of faith, not just salvation for life after death, but more importantly in the here-and-now. prosperity gospel, also called seed faith, is “a religious belief among some protestant christians that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of god for them, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to religious causes will increase one’s health and material wealth. material and, especially, financial success are seen as a sign of divine favour” (hill, 2019). a prosperity gospel-inspired ethiopian pastor who frequently travels to south africa is yonatan aklilu, one of the most trending pastors in ethiopia. the following is a summary of one of his preachings in south africa in 2022 among ethiopian migrants , with a focus on moges (spirit of god’s favor): what you should seek is moges, the spirit of favor. no matter how deep [remote] location or township your businesses might be, the spirit of favor helps you attract customers like a metal is attracted by a magnet. i now call upon you to summon the spirit of favor. if you get the spirit of favor, documentation becomes a lot easier. next year we meet, your business will be ten times bigger than it is now. mark my word! a case which they [south african immigration authorities] have closed in council, i will not only unlock but dismantle it with the power of god. the prosperity spirit is hovering on you! you might feel that 4 focus group discussion with hadiya migrant people in johannesburg, november 15, 2023. 57 you are in another country but i say the whole universe belongs to god. you will walk in and out with the spirit of favor. as aster is favored by god as a wife of the king hage despite her disadvantages among prospective wives, so will you be the asters of south africa! key messages to migrants by pastor yonatan are “belonging” and “agency.” pastor yonatan’s message regarding the path to prosperity contrasts with the previously more work-based transformation project inscribed into pastor youngren’s prophecy. the first generation of hadiya migrants was self-made, though their aspiration and the migration project had been god-sanctioned. they used religion as a space for agency. now prosperity gospel is promising shortcuts to material prosperity. what is interesting about pastor yonatan’s offer is a new sense of belonging to south africa, despite or because of the exclusionist and increasingly xenophobic south africa. this is because ultimately the “whole universe belongs to god.” pastor yonatan offered agency to migrants, couched in the language of “the spirit of favor” that blesses their businesses and finances. recasting hadiya’s migration to south africa from a blessing to a curse hadiya society is going through a reflexive moment regarding the pros and cons of migration being a quintessential part of future-making. the risk during the journey has increased and the homicide rate is increasing in south africa. this is as often committed by migrants on migrants as it is part of south africa’s broader crime and violence that targets migrants.5 even church leaders have become skeptical about the mass migration of hadiya to south africa. many research participants expressed concern that unless hadiya use the gift of migration in a responsible manner, a bereket (blessing) could be turned into a merigemt (curse). in the context of rising criminality, migrants and their families, and hadiya society more broadly, are now reimagining south africa from “a promised land” to “a land of death.” a returnee migrant surmised that “more hadiya are killed in south africa than in the numerous battlefields they participated in ethiopia during the war with somalia and eritrea.” the rise of robbery, abduction, and homicide against migrants in which fellow migrants are implicated has generated a public outrage. in january 2023, ethiopian migrants in johannesburg demonstrated against this rising violence among ethiopian migrants. two of the six suspected criminals were hadiya migrants.6 migration to south africa was initially welcomed because it was understood as god creating a new field of possibility for the hadiya to change their peripheral existence, which reflects the historically shaped regional inequality within ethiopia. yet, migration is messing up life, both in places of origin and destination, leading to a 5 key informant interview with hadiya migrants in cape town, november 4, 2023. 6 interview with a participant of the demonstration, johannesburg, november 17, 2023. migration as prophecy fulfilled: hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa 58 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 new signification of migration. this situation urged a hadiya migrant to write a book entitled metshafe hosanna: egna ena debub africa (the book of hosanna: us and south africa, 2018). the term “hosanna” is used in this book in the biblical sense of “cry for help.” mamushet’s cry for help relates to what he considers the process of spiritual and moral decay generated by the acquisitive drive and the greed connected to that. he considers that this has cut deep into hadiya migrant peoples’ social fabric and that of ethiopian migrants in south africa more broadly (mamushet, 2018: 154). conclusion the ethnography presented in this article amply demonstrates the role religion has played in the process of hadiya's migration to south africa. this is not just a case study but contributes to the literature on the role of intangible factors in migration processes, a subject matter that has had a lack of emphasis in migration studies long dominated by analysis of tangible factors, especially of an economic nature. we have seen how evangelical christianity generated a sacred imagination of a destination in which south africa emerged as the promised land for hadiya migrants. this has fuelled migration aspiration, further boosted by the practice of prayer and gospel songs, to negotiate the risks of the perilous journey to south africa. this sense of belonging has been reinforced by transnational religious practices in which pastors and prophets from ethiopia encourage migrants to claim south africa, despite or because of exclusionary practices and increasing xenophobia in that country. here we find a situation where religion generates aspiration and helps build migratory agency, as well as a sense of belonging to south africa, because ultimate ownership and sovereignty, as it were, belong to god. however, in recent years, hadiya migration has taken an individualist turn. this is expressed in various forms that include the commodification of faith, both in places of origin and in south africa, and the rise of crime and violence among hadiya migrants in south africa. hadiya migrants and hadiya society more broadly call this spiritual and moral decay, related to migrants’ new material conditions of life, that is, a massive increase in migrant numbers and stiff competition over business turf, further compounded by their exposure to and immersion in south africa’s culture of violence. on the face of it, the hadiya migration project is endangered, casting doubt over its viability. contemporary hadiya society is going through a reflexive moment, redefining migration from being an asset to a liability. but they take responsibility for their new predicament. once again, we see an overarching spiritual interpretation at play, including in sense-making. as god cannot be wrong, their trouble must have been related to “the wrath of god,” as fellow hadiya migrants have “abused” the blessing (the migration gift) along the way, harming not only the wrongdoers but also hadiya society at large. in this shift from a collective to an individualist direction, migration is now considered less feasible and desirable. hadiya parents are less happy and cooperative about sending their children to south africa. migration is now reimagined as a 59 problem and danger, rather than as a blessing and resource. the previous societal consensus on migration has unraveled. there is now a feeling that the misuse of the gift of migration has turned a bereket (blessing) into a merigemt (curse). however, reflecting a generational tension and fuelled by a more materialist imagination of migration, an increasing number of hadiya youth are on the move, notwithstanding the growing risks during the journey in transit countries and at destination. migration as prophecy fulfilled: hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa 60 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 references braukamper, u. 2012. a history of the hadiyya in southern ethiopia: translated from german by geraldine krause. wiesbaden, germany: otto harrassowitz. cangià, f. and zittoun, t. 2020. exploring the interplay between (im)mobility and imagination. culture and migration, 26(4): 641-653. central statistical agency of ethiopia (csa). 2008. summary and statistical report of the 2007 population and housing census. central statistical agency of ethiopia, addis ababa. cooper b. and esser a. 2018. exploring barriers to 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2022. migrating in search of the southern dream. the experiences of ethiopian migrants moving along the southern routes. available at: https:// eastandhornofafrica.iom.int/sites/g/files/tmzbdl701/files/documents/iom_ rdh_southern-route-research_migrating-in-search-of-the-southern-dream. pdf. accessed on 23 september 2024. jerolmack, c. and khan, s. 2014. talk is cheap: ethnography and the attitudinal fallacy. sociological methods & research, 43(2): 178-209. kuhnt, j. 2019. literature review: drivers of migration. why do people leave their homes? is there an easy answer? a structured overview of migratory determinants. available at: https://www.idos-research.de/uploads/media/ dp_9.2019.pdf. accessed on 24 september 2024. lebell, p. 2011. social identity and economic well-being among the gurage: some historical comparisons. journal of ethiopian studies, 44: 75-102. malara, d. 2022. ethnographies of ethiopian orthodox christianity: sacred histories, changing identities and the politics of religious pluralism. northeast 61 african studies, 22 (2): 1-36. mamushet, m. 2018. metshafe hosanna – egna ena south africa (‘the book of hosanna – us and south africa’). johannesburg: camera press. schewel, k. 2019. understanding immobility: moving beyond the mobility bias in migration studies. international migration review, 54 (2): 328-355. taddesse, t. 1972. church and state in ethiopia: 1270–1527. new york: oxford university press. tronvoll, k. 2001. voting, violence and violations: peasant voices on the flawed elections in hadiya, southern ethiopia. journal of modern african studies, 39 (4): 697-716. turton, d. 2005. the meaning of place in a world of movement: lessons from longterm field research in southern ethiopia. journal of refugee studies, 18(3): 258-280. un desa, 2021: united nations expert group on migration statistics, task force 2: task force on key concepts and definitions related to international migration. new york. available at https://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographicsocial/migration-expert-group/task-forces/taskforce-2. accessed on 12 october 2024. worku, y. 2019. social structure, kinship and death rituals among hadiya, south ethiopia, ph.d. dissertation, university of muenster, germany. zack, t. and estifanos, y.s. 2016. somewhere else: social connection and dislocation of ethiopian migrants in johannesburg. african and black diaspora: an international journal, 9: 1-17. zanker, j.h., hennessey, g. and mazzilli, c. 2023. subjective and intangible factors in migration decision-making: a review of side-lined literature. migration studies 11(2): 349-359. migration as prophecy fulfilled: hadiya migration from southern ethiopia to south africa 103 a south-south cross-border marriage between chinese men and ethiopian women wei weng1 received 07 december 2022 / accepted 18 july 2023 / published 18 august 2023 https://doi.org/10.14426/ahmr.v9i2.1289 abstract this article develops an ideal type of south-south cross-border marriage. based on an eight-month multi-sited ethnography in ethiopia and china, i identified an unusual conjuncture of global forces, connections, and imaginations that facilitated cross-border marriages between chinese men and local women in ethiopia, which should be considered a novel ideal type. its theoretical novelty is not only defined by the unique dynamics among sino-ethiopian spouses vis-à-vis the “segregated” chinese documented in existing studies but also by these marriages’ distinct formation mechanisms. sino-ethiopian marriage is not formed due to china being an attractive destination but is associated with china’s incompatible hard and soft power as forces, chinese factories and accumulated sino-ethiopian social networks in local communities as connections, and localized imaginations. furthermore, this study calls for a paradigm shift in examining cross-border marriages between a developing south and a rising south in this dramatically changing global capitalist world system. keywords: cross-border marriage, china in africa, global china, south-south 1 university of amsterdam, the netherlands. email  ww8524@gmail.com a south-south cross-border marriage between chinese men and ethiopian women 104 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 introduction the phenomenon of “china in africa” is frequently reported by media and scholars with foci that remain primarily at the macro level with specific interests in the quantified economic facets (siu and mcgovern, 2017). only a few studies have reported afro-chinese intimate relationships (see, for example, french, 2014; driessen, 2019). furthermore, miriam driessen (2019) found that chinese men established intimate relationships with local ethiopian women among chinese road construction sites in the tigray region (northern ethiopia). however, she also found that chinese managers tended to pull their compatriots back on track via a racialdistancing process to preserve the purity of chinese identity. those chinese who “trespassed” the racial boundary were at risk of being transferred to other positions or sent back to china. such afro-chinese dynamics presented in driessen’s work fit the broader literature on chinese in africa. most chinese maintained a working relationship with local africans and no more, which gave little opportunity for afrochinese marriage to emerge (lee, 2017; yan et al., 2019). understandably, afro-chinese marriage in an african country has been underreported and thus understudied. most research on afro-chinese marriages has been conducted in guangzhou, china, where african male traders married chinese women (lan, 2017; mathews et al., 2017; jordan et al., 2021; wang et al., 2023). these african men came to china for their academic or business aspirations and later met their chinese wives. this study focuses on a rare case of afro-chinese cross-border marriage that occurred in addis ababa, the capital city of ethiopia, and its neighboring areas. the spouses formed their families through socially recognized weddings or legal registrations, distinct from the image of isolated chinese who disconnect from the local community. how were these sino-ethiopian marriages formed, and why were their dynamics so different? solely employing a “cultural” (see wang, 2014) or “racial” (see driessen, 2019) lens cannot answer the puzzles above. these marriages should not be regarded as the products of encounters between “chineseness” and “ethiopianness.” instead, i explain these marriages through global china’s expansion in ethiopia, which facilitated and shaped the marriage formation in a specific timespace. besides, i explore how global china’s power was negotiated and challenged by the spouses, constantly regarding the west. to use charles ragin’s (1987) dichotomy, i adopt a case-oriented approach in this study rather than a variable-oriented one, through which “[r]esearchers examine cases as wholes, not as collections of variables” for uncovering “the variety of meaningful patterns of causes and effects” (52). therefore, sino-ethiopian marriage is regarded as a theoretical case or an ideal type (weber, 2012) that was caused by a conjecture of different variables. the relevant variables, including class, racial concepts, and gender, are considered with a changing world system (wallerstein, 1979) disrupted by the emergence of global china. the “wholeness” of this case is achieved through the analytical tool of the “three axes,” namely global forces, 105 connections, and imaginations, as formulated by michael burawoy (2000), which emphasize the interconnections between a microsite and its macro extensions when we contemplate globalization phenomena. this paper therefore follows the “extended case method tradition” (burawoy, 1991). it analyzes china’s presence in ethiopia, not separately as a contextual background but with the specific connections it produced and its symbolic power to the spouses. likewise, the imaginations of the spouses are regarded not merely as the individuals’ agency but as agentive responses toward the macrostructures. through the “three axes,” this analytical tool serves a comparative purpose in conceptualizing and comparing the formation process of cross-border marriages in the existing literature and in this paper. theorizing the uniqueness of sino-ethiopian cross-border marriage most studies of cross-border marriage are variable-oriented, and their scholarship has been dominantly micro-focused with highly descriptive and vaguely defined conceptual tools. for instance, sarah mahler and patricia pessar (2001) argue that cross-border marriage is influenced by the spouses’ “social locations” created through specific “socially stratifying factors” (445-446). nicole constable claims that cross-border marriages were established within various “marriage-scapes” (2005b). these landscapes of cross-border marriages are shaped by specific cultural, social, historical, and political-economic conditions, which determine who marries whom, through what means, and with what incentives. not entirely excluding the structures – such as global capitalism, former colonial connections, and existing migration flow – these concepts fail to provide a causal framework to explain how certain structures affect individuals’ exertions of agency and why agents act in accordance with or against the structures. influenced in one way or another by these concepts, scholars on cross-border marriage often enter specific sites to explore the grounded experiences of the spouses (as exemplified by these two volumes of collected essays: constable, 2005a; yang and lu, 2010). instead of focusing on the interconnections between structures and marital practices, these studies present the agency of spouses and their family members. in doing so, structures often retreat as a background without questioning how these structures are produced and how they reproduce certain marriages and affect motivations. establishing ideal types with the “three axes” in this paper, i consider sino-ethiopian cross-border marriage and the crossborder marriage documented in previous studies as two different ideal types. the former is a south-south type, and the latter is a south-north type, as outlined in immanuel wallerstein’s world-systems theory (1979). this dichotomy does not suggest a unified set of configurations within each ideal type or exclude other a south-south cross-border marriage between chinese men and ethiopian women 106 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 types in the real world. rather, i use existing literature on cross-border marriage as metadata to draw a comparison – as a theoretical type – with the sino-ethiopian marriage discussed in this paper. south-north cross-border marriage global north countries are the major destinations and constitutive of global forces affecting cross-border marriage. scholars have observed a feminized cross-border marriage flow in which women from less-developed asian, latin american, and eastern european countries married men in western europe, north america, australia, and developed east asia (constable, 2005b). besides the push-pull incentives, cross-border marriage formation also depends on local and transnational “marriage-scapes” (constable, 2005b). although marriage migration flows from the global south countries to the global north remind us that the core-periphery world system (wallerstein, 1979) still applies globally, the assumption of cross-border marriage being hypergamous socioeconomically is misleading (hypergamy refers to the migration destination’s socioeconomic and symbolic power). for instance, russian and filipina women marry men from america and japan for both material and nonmaterial desires (faier, 2007; suzuki, 2007; patico, 2009). also, scholars use transnationalism to conceptualize cross-border marriage (williams, 2010). through the three transnational social spaces – kinship groups, transnational circuits, and transnational communities (faist, 2000), women cross borders to marry men with similar cultural roots or ethnicities (constable, 2003; charsley, 2013). but these marriage migration flows are still from the global south to the global north, reminiscent of the global hypergamy of locations. shaped by the world system, two primary connections link prospective spouses. among the population with transnational ties, family networks are naturally their means to marry across borders (thai, 2005; charsley, 2013). where this does not apply, the profit-driven brokerages and the governmental regulations compose an institutionalized marriage market globally (park, 1996). both connections play multiple roles in facilitating marriage migration flows and sustaining the connections themselves. for instance, singaporean marriage agencies profit from the business niche by promoting the country as an attractive option. through various “discursive strategies,” agents present singaporean men and vietnamese migrant women as ideal marriage partners by “reconstituting” these marginalized men and women as “busy working men” and “humble, hardworking, and caring spouses” (yeoh et al., 2017: 237-238). according to previous research, global imaginations among cross-border marriages usually compound pragmatic expectations with immaterial desires that were primarily reproduced by the current global order through promotions and repackaging by global connections. men from the global north seek to marry global south women to fulfill their reproductive needs and cultural obligations (liaw et al., 2010; yang and schoonheim, 2010; statham, 2020). they also fantasize about their 107 potential foreign spouses being “traditional” with family-oriented values (constable, 2005b; thai, 2005; statham, 2020) or as being the exotic “others” (manderson and jolly, 1997). economic betterment is critical for women from the global south, especially when cross-border marriage is a family strategy (williams, 2010). but these women’s agency also goes beyond the material calculations. they may expect to escape from their patriarchal home countries (constable, 2005b; thai, 2005) and wish to attain citizenship connecting them with cosmopolitanism and modernity (faier, 2007). also, these considerations do not necessarily preclude love and other forms of intimacy (freeman, 2005; patico, 2009). south-south cross-border marriage hardly any of the previous studies reflect what i observed in ethiopia. china emerged as a global power less than two decades ago. despite its rising economic power, the attractiveness associated with soft power needs time to accumulate. whether china has attained a similar level of desirability to become a marriage migration destination is in question. besides, there is no transnational family tie between china and ethiopia to serve as global connections. international marriage brokerage is banned in china and generally does not exist in ethiopia, where the thriving agencies are for labor migration (adugna, 2019). i also found that the imaginations of sino-ethiopian spouses were diverse and complicated, as also reflected in the existing studies. however, migration to china was irrelevant to those ethiopian wives. i met no ethiopian during my fieldwork who thought china was an ideal destination to reside in. so, the case of sino-ethiopian marriage is theoretically different from the cross-border marriages documented in previous studies, as the marriage formation mechanisms diverge. therefore, the case of sinoethiopian marriage requires a new theorization. an ethnography of sino-ethiopian cross-border marriage from 2018 to 2020, i conducted an eight-month ethnographic fieldwork stint in both ethiopia and china. the pilot study took place during one month in 2018. with the network i built and the social media apps, i maintained and expanded my connections among sino-ethiopian couples. in 2019, i spent half a year on the subsequent fieldwork in addis ababa and its surrounding areas. during early 2020, i conducted a follow-up study across china, visiting several families after they had moved to china. i collected data through formal and informal interviews and participant observation. i interviewed 14 chinese husbands and 15 ethiopian wives (n=29). besides, i interviewed the ethiopian parents of several of these couples while visiting their natal families. i conducted the interviews with chinese men in chinese, while the interviews with ethiopians were conducted in amharic, except for two ethiopian wives who used mainly english during the interviews. i audiotaped and transcribed a south-south cross-border marriage between chinese men and ethiopian women 108 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 verbatim all 45 in-depth interviews (i interviewed several spouses more than once). i sought informed consent before each interview. furthermore, i conducted the participant observation mainly during home visits, family dinners, parties, and other social gatherings. i wrote extensive field notes and subsequently analyzed the data thematically (braun and clarke, 2006). i sourced the interlocutors through a snowball sampling with an active membership. the sino-ethiopian spouses gradually acknowledged me as a jackof-all-trades in the community. besides being a researcher, i was a translator, a consultant for family on legal and financial issues, a wedding organizer, and the best man at a wedding. i was with the sino-ethiopian couples when they were fighting, negotiating dowry, marrying, and navigating different governmental institutions for travel documents. the reciprocal relationship between me and the sino-ethiopian spouses made it easy for them to open up to me and refer me to further interlocutors. also, given the complex configurations of the research participants, my positionality was carefully balanced throughout the fieldwork. i am an ethnic han chinese man from southwestern china. through shared gender, ethnicity, and language, i naturally picked the quickest and perhaps easiest way to enter the field through chinese husbands. the rapport between us was built through a choreography of working-class masculinity, including but not limited to binge drinking and smoking, and talking loudly. however, i had to control the level of masculine bonding as such scenarios combined what the ethiopians disliked the most. furthermore, i did not want to be fixed with these chinese men, especially being one of them. studying marriages will inevitably reach the most private parts of people’s life experiences, which requires trust and closeness. i gained ethiopian wives’ trust as an understanding outsider who cared about the women’s experiences and opinions without potential conflict of interest. when helping them with their travel documents, i had deep conversations with them and only about the women themselves. i am not sure if i succeeded in winning every wife’s trust. but there were some moments i could feel i made it. one ethiopian wife told me, “you know, you are the only chinese man who cares about us. you ask how we feel.” most interlocutors (27 out of 29) are from marginalized socioeconomic backgrounds, which resembles the general configuration of sino-ethiopian spouses. the chinese husbands are often from rural areas or small townships and received a limited education. many found themselves unvalued in the domestic marriage market. the ethiopian wives are primarily from rural and other underprivileged backgrounds too. compared to their husbands, these women usually received higher education and were much younger than their husbands. they married at a very young age, several of whom were under 18 when their weddings were held. for the samples’ diversity, i interviewed a chinese husband and an ethiopian wife with higher socioeconomic status from two different families, which was used to examine whether china was better known and thus more attractive to spouses of higher class. they, of course, had a courtship and marriage distinct from other sino-ethiopian 109 spouses in this study. however, persuading their wives to move to china was still difficult and under negotiation when the data was collected. how chinese migrant men marry ethiopian women the path of how chinese men marry local women is distinct from what has been reported by previous studies. like the conceptualization of existing literature, i also present marriage formation through the “three axes”: global force, global connection, and global imagination. global force: china is visible in ethiopia, but not loveable “look! you chinese people built that.” a taxi driver pointed at a skyscraper under construction. “you know, chinese are everywhere. they work very fast. if for us to build, god knows how long it takes!” the 206-meter building is the new landmark of addis ababa. it is said to be the tallest building not only in ethiopia but in east africa. if we only look at the economic statistics, china is powerful in ethiopia. china’s investment in ethiopia in the recent 20 years has contributed to ethiopia’s economic takeoff. since 2004, ethiopia has maintained 8% or above gross domestic product (gdp) growth (imf, 2018) until covid-19 and the civil war began in 2020. adopting a developmentalist approach, ethiopia has become the powerhouse of the east african economy (oqubay, 2015). this eastern african country has often been portrayed as “the next china” or “china’s china” with extensive chinese official financial support and foreign direct investment (fdi) (chakrabarty, 2016; nicholas, 2017). china’s state investment and state-owned enterprises (soes) focus on infrastructure, while china’s private fdi concentrates on manufacturing (chakrabarty, 2016). infrastructure building and industrialization have boosted urbanization in ethiopia (fitawok et al., 2020). besides, job vacancies created by the manufacturing and service industry have led to internal rural-urban migration, which involved many of my ethiopian interlocutors. during the same period, numerous chinese employees came with construction projects and replanted factories. many of them are men who found themselves uncompetitive in china’s domestic marriage market due to the marriage squeeze (muhsam, 1974). therefore, china’s expansion in ethiopia has created meeting opportunities for potential sino-ethiopian spouses. however, china’s presence and influences were time-space specific. as i found in ethiopia, china’s visibility was limited to the newly developed urban districts, infrastructure construction sites, industrial zones, and chinese restaurants. leaving bole international airport, numerous billboards of china’s construction companies stood along the road. in the most developed areas of addis ababa, huge logos with chinese characters are hung on unfinished buildings. but when i walked to the old town, such as piazza or kazanchis, china’s symbols almost disappeared. they were a south-south cross-border marriage between chinese men and ethiopian women 110 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 replaced by coca-cola or hbo, which reminded ethiopians of the final season of game of thrones. ethiopians were after the west. kaleman is a local taxi driver hired by lu when we applied for christina’s (lu’s wife) immigration documents. he is a university graduate who can speak four different languages. he was applying to work for the us embassy at the time and said: honestly, the pay is not that tempting. i earn more driving this taxi. but if i get the job, maybe after six or seven years, my whole family will have the chance to move to the us. we will have us nationality. the west was also the source of fights between sino-ethiopian spouses, especially when chinese husbands persuaded their wives to move to china. for instance, zhu’s wife anny always responded with references to america whenever zhu, my chinese gatekeeper, brought up how modern and developed china was. zhu: she always mentions america. like last night, she trashed me, “what is good about your china? i’d rather go to america. even just mopping floors or cleaning toilets. they have a minimum wage of 30 or 40 dollars an hour. i work eight hours a day. i can live a good life!” anny: he told me that china is developed. they have everything. they are modern. he always compares [china] with my country. all the time! and i told him, “don’t compare them. it’s [ethiopia] in africa. china is a big country. why don’t you compare it with a big country?” western countries are the migration destinations when ethiopian women marry foreign men. cross-border marriages in ethiopia are mainly formed through transnational ties between the local and diasporic communities (adugna, 2019). the attraction of these global north countries is usually built on more than its economic development (thai, 2005; faier, 2007; suzuki, 2007; patico, 2009) but connects to countries’ “soft co-optive power” (nye, 1990). china’s leaders, including xi jinping, are fully aware that china is yet to become “loveable” (myers and bradsher, 2021). the government is keen on promoting china’s soft power, which is expected to make china more desired. the establishment of confucius institutes (cis) worldwide started in 2004 and is regarded as one such endeavor (zhou and luk, 2016). however, maria repnikova (2022) found that many students attended cis in addis ababa only for “china’s tangible offerings” and went to learn the chinese language “to secure employment” (54). their efforts were made for future job opportunities offered by chinese enterprises in ethiopia instead of their passion for chinese culture. 111 like these cis’ students, the ethiopian wives did not find china attractive, and it was a predicament for them when they faced the option of going to china. emily: i have lived my whole life so far in ethiopia. china, i don’t know about it. i have a great place here with my family. when i go to china, i’m leaving behind all these, all my current life. i’m not happy at all. like emily, most ethiopian wives knew little about china, which gave them no ground to cultivate their desire for china. nevertheless, china’s economic expansion produced the international migration flow from china and ethiopia’s internal ruralurban migration flow. the convergence of these two flows has made sino-ethiopian cross-border marriage possible. however, bringing chinese to ethiopia does not necessarily produce an environment that facilitates marriages (e.g., driessen’s construction sites). as i demonstrate in the next part, private capital instead of the state capital and the manufacturing industry rather than infrastructure construction, created a more tolerant condition for the intimacies and marriages between chinese and locals. global connection: chinese shop-floors and sustained sino-ethiopian social networks during the fieldwork in ethiopia, i rarely found any chinese private enterprise that upheld stringent and collective management (lee, 2017) or racial distancing policies (driessen, 2019). they were often small factories in the manufacturing industry whose shop-floor served as the primary meeting places for sino-ethiopian couples. these chinese factories are often low-tech and labor-intensive, knocked out by china’s industrial restructure and upgrading since the 2000s. many of these enterprises are from east coastal china that moved to ethiopia to enjoy low labor costs and lenient regulation. factory owners usually brought dozens of low-skilled workers from their chinese branches to replicate their manufacturing models in china. besides, they hired many untrained young ethiopians. many of them were women in their 20s. courtship and flirting occurred on the shop-floors. lillian, an ethiopian wife, met her husband on a rainy day: my shoes were broken. i asked him to repair my shoes. he threw my shoes and gave me 100 birr (etb) … i was surprised, but i also knew that he was a kind person. after that, he started to bring me food and give me money for food. when i opened my lunchbox, he also brought his lunchbox. he sat beside me, and we ate our dinner together. so, the workers saw that we were having dinner together. they started to tell me, “he’s in love with you.” this story is typical of how a chinese man started a relationship with his ethiopian wife. the management of these privately owned factories generally had no interest in interfering with employees’ personal affairs. in fact, a chief manager of a textile a south-south cross-border marriage between chinese men and ethiopian women 112 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 mill had several local mistresses for himself. in another trading company, a deputy manager married one of his ethiopian colleagues. they thus had no legitimacy to keep their chinese subordinates from cohabitating with or marrying locals. also, the employers supported anyone who needed to arrange a wedding in ethiopia. for example, a footwear factory in addis ababa offered salary advances and cars to chinese employees who needed to organize their weddings. the sino-ethiopian social networks served as another critical connection for marriage formation. several chinese husbands i interviewed have lived in ethiopia and worked for the same chinese companies for over ten years. such a bond accumulated through the stable living arrangement further offered other chinese single men opportunities. zhu met anny during another sino-ethiopian couple, zhang and sara’s wedding. the groom was zhu’s colleague, and the bride was anny’s high school classmate. zhu: my wife was their bridesmaid. then zhang introduced her to me. he probably wanted me also to marry a local woman, and then he wouldn’t be the only one here. i felt she was a decent person, not a casual one. i’m not casual too. zhang told me, a woman like this would help me in the future. anny: then the next time he visited them, he asked my friend to invite me. later, he went back to china and called me from china! he told me he wanted to be with me. otherwise, he didn’t need to come back to ethiopia. i told him, “ok. come. we’ll try.” besides connecting the potential spouses, such social networks also played a critical role in convincing the spouses if they hesitated initially. most of the spouses organized their weddings a month or shorter after their first encounter. there was a need for an established credit that these spouses could rely on. for example, when zhu asked anny to move in together, she turned to sara for advice: she [sara] married a chinese man, and she once worked with him [zhu] too. then sara said, “he’s ok. you can try. after you try, then you can decide if you want to marry him.” a while after zhu married anny, sara’s mother convinced her niece to marry one of zhang’s colleagues and later convinced her niece’s sister to marry another chinese worker. when zhang returned to china, zhu assumed the position of marriage negotiator. he then helped several chinese men find ethiopian wives. similarly, in zhao and nancy’s matchmaking, zhao’s boss, dong, was a key figure. dong came to ethiopia several years before zhao and had built up his reputation among the local people. he bought a piece of land from nancy’s uncle to build his carpet factory. furthermore, he hired several members of nancy’s extended family. one of nancy’s cousins, ahmed, talked about his boss with gratefulness, indicating that dong was “xin hao” (goodhearted). he told me that dong not only appointed him as a team leader with a decent salary but also helped him to build a 113 new house. with the vouch from dong, zhao was confident about getting nancy from the beginning. zhao: i kept going. why? i got back up. her uncle and aunt really looked me up. i knew her uncle already. he kept telling her i was a really good guy. then i got support from my boss. i was confident and kept pursuing her. global imagination: localized material and nonmaterial desires the motivations behind these chinese men’s and ethiopian women’s marriage decisions were unsurprisingly complex pertaining to material and nonmaterial desires. sometimes, the courtship could be very romantic. katherine’s husband is an engineer in an italian team that manages a dam in a remote area of ethiopia. when they started dating, the man had to find excuses to return to addis ababa from his remote workplace. katherine: the company policy was very strict. so, he had to make an excuse to come to addis to see me. the excuse was he had a problem with his teeth. the company had a connection with the korean hospital. but they also had an italian doctor there. but he said, “no, no, no. i have to go to addis to the korean hospital.” they sent him to addis. he came here, and he lost one [good] tooth [couldn’t stop laughing] … he had to take one tooth out. for katherine and many other sino-ethiopian spouses, love and intimacy are important in their marriages. but their marriages were also driven by practical concerns. for many chinese husbands, marrying ethiopian women was primarily for social expectations. like zhu always told me, marrying his wife was the last chance for a man like him, a divorcee in his 40s, to be “completed” as a chinese man: a beloved husband, a filial son, and a caring father. the marriage decisions could sometimes be carefully weighed. before liang decided to marry his wife, he had more than ten hours of soul-searching dialogue with zhu. he hesitated to marry a black woman and was afraid his children would be “too black.” zhu finally convinced him to settle down regardless of compromises, as he did for himself. once, he fought with anny during dinner. zhu was too angry to organize his broken amharic. then he turned to me and pointed at anny, “you tell her! tell her straight! if a man has any other option, who would marry a woman here?” anny somehow got the meaning. she replied with contempt, “i know your chinese men. if you guys have good options back home, you wouldn’t have to come all the way here.” like this dispute, the marriage was often a settlement and a plan b. christina was lu’s plan b as well. while he was with christina, lu always thought about getting back with his chinese ex-wife. after hearing about christina’s pregnancy, his first reaction was to fly straight back to china to seek the last chance of reconciliation with his ex-wife. a south-south cross-border marriage between chinese men and ethiopian women 114 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 lu: [after i went back], i couldn’t get along with her (ex-wife) anymore. so, i called christina not to get the abortion. i will come back in 3 or 4 months. then i was here again. my son was born. now, with this son, i was determined to walk down this road. my road back home was blocked. she told me clearly we wouldn’t get back together again. i took the option in ethiopia. a bit choiceless. ethiopian women are reportedly reluctant to establish intimacy without getting financial support in return, as there is less chance for women to be financially self-sufficient in ethiopia (mains, 2013). among the wives from rural areas, their incentives to marry chinese men are driven by the logic of the local marriage market. nancy left her hometown after failing high school exams. she came to work in a textile mill near addis ababa. but she found the working environment unbearable: “the machine was too loud and noisy. i couldn’t stand it. i left in one day.” she chose to marry this chinese man who promised to treat her well. nancy: you know that you don’t always marry the man you love. i just don’t give priority to love. i give priority to the longer good … since i didn’t achieve my goal when i was studying, i switched my goal to being a good housewife and a mother. lillian was a 17-year-old girl when she first met her husband. she was still in high school and worked part-time during the summer holiday. she almost dropped out because the family might be unable to pay her tuition fee. her then-future husband paid for it for her. as lillian told me, i didn’t love him. i feel his kindness, not love, but his kindness. that’s what attracted me. his kindness, his generosity. his generosity attracted me, not his love. the motivations behind marriages differ from one to another. however, neither the material nor the nonmaterial desires are relevant to migrating to china. these wives’ decisions often followed the local marriage market’s logic regardless of whether they looked for a loved one, a caring one, or a capable one. migration to china is not the means to achieve these women’s expectations for marriage. eight years into their marriage, anny and zhu have not settled on whether they would move to china. not only did she have concerns about life in china, but she also had an entrepreneurial vision for herself in ethiopia. she set up a small business twice to sell different products from chinese factories, both of which eventually failed. but she was still confident about the next opportunity. 115 anny: my husband’s vision and mine are very different. he likes to live in a place and raise children with enough income. but not for me! this lifestyle is below the expectation that i envisioned for myself … if there is another opportunity, i have the feeling that i can do more this time. besides anny’s business ambition, lillian had already accepted to be a housewife. in 2019, she gave birth to a boy, and in 2021, her daughter was born. to register their marriage legally in china, lillian visited bao’s hometown. as she remembered, china was developed more than she could imagine, and bao’s family treated her as their daughter. however, lillian still hesitated about bao’s plan to reside in china permanently. lillian: i know i’ll go to china. but i’m not sure i can stay there very long. what about my mother? what about my family? china is not bad at all. the people are so nice. but i’m worried about separating from my family. this kind of motivation is aligned with what paul statham (2020: 3) calls “unintended transnationalism” that he found in thailand: “intercultural living with a foreigner is a byproduct of her aim to secure a better life by initiating a partnership.” his case differs from mine because thai women were actively searching for western men. they expected westerners to be more tolerant of their previous marital experiences or other “disadvantages.” but most ethiopian wives had no such fantasy about their husbands or the country they were from. these men happened to be available due to china’s expansion in ethiopia. discussion: sino-ethiopian cross-border marriage as an ideal type this research is built on the experiences of sino-ethiopian spouses who formed their marital relationships in ethiopia. the mechanism and process of such marriage formations are considered an ideal type or a theoretical case. as john walton (1992: 122) argues, “cases are always hypotheses.” to theorize the sino-ethiopian marriage, i did not directly dive into the complexity and entanglements of these nuanced and private relationships. instead, i reformulated the “natural” case of these marriages into a theoretical case with a specific interest in how cross-border marriage was formed without the commonly seen global forces, connections, and imaginations. when the old model does not fit, this new phenomenon is “either a different kind of case or one that cuts across conventional boundaries” (walton, 1992: 128). global china is powerful in ethiopia. while china’s state capital concentrates on infrastructure, chinese private investors have set up numerous manufacturing plants. yet china’s visibility in ethiopia has been limited. its influence fails to penetrate ordinary ethiopians’ daily lives. furthermore, due to china’s incompatibility between hard and soft power, ordinary ethiopians often find china lacking desirability, a south-south cross-border marriage between chinese men and ethiopian women 116 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 especially compared to the global north. china fails to perform one of the critical roles as the global forces that often shape cross-border marriage formation because china is not the desired migration destination. certain global forces produce connections that embody their creators and spread the influences of macro forces on micro individuals. as an emergent global power, china is new to ethiopia. there has not been enough time for a transnational family network between china and ethiopia, which often takes decades to accumulate, as compared to north america and western europe. moreover, china lacking desirability to be a migration destination provides no incentives for the migration brokerage industry to grow. however, the rapid expansion of china’s hard power in ethiopia has brought around 60,000 chinese to ethiopia (enca, 2016), including many unmarried or divorced chinese men under pressure and social expectations to form a family. as previous studies showed (lee, 2017; driessen, 2019; yan et al., 2019), chinese-ethiopian encounters alone did not automatically produce cross-border marriages. therefore, the sino-ethiopian cross-border marriage i observed should not be simplistically explained as a cultural pattern that the chinese or people from eastern asia are obsessed with the idea of family formation. nor can it be interpreted as merely a supply-demand equilibrium in the marriage market. these unions are an emergence that was induced by a conjuncture of several grounded factors. first, a fair amount of chinese investment entered ethiopia’s manufacturing sector and was lured by the competitive price of labor. unlike the construction sites where employees were often without gender balance, the shop-floors of textile and footwear plants need both male and female workers. chinese factory owners normally brought along a team of experienced chinese male workers who used to work for the same owners in china. although these workers were often lowskilled with limited education and needed their employers to forge the expertise certifications to pass ethiopia’s labor immigration requirements, they were invited to operate machines in the production line for the new plants in ethiopia. also, due to ethiopia’s low level of industrialization and vocational training (oya and schaefer, 2021), there was not enough supply of well-trained local workers for the influx of chinese factories. thus, the chinese male workers were asked to repeatedly renew their short-term contracts despite their salaries usually being 20 times higher than their local colleagues. it provided the time and opportunities for these chinese men to accumulate local social networks and connections. as presented in this study, the local networks, instead of random encounters, played a critical role in convincing ethiopian women to marry their husbands. given china’s unbalanced hard and soft power as global force and chinese shop-floors and sino-ethiopian social networks as global connections, the global imaginations of the spouses were largely localized. the seemingly contradictory term of localized global imaginations means that the spouses were clearly aware of the transnational nature of such marriages, as men and women are of different 117 races, ethnicities, languages, nationalities, etc. however, the marriage incentives for both chinese men and ethiopian women were locally brewed. the chinese men did not anticipate or plan to find a local wife before arriving in ethiopia. their ideas for marriage were either a byproduct of long-term socialization of the local society or developed from sexual partnerships. for the ethiopian women, the localized incentives were even clearer. initially, they had extremely limited knowledge about china except for some vague ideas. through familiarization and interactions, a few chinese men, among others, have become acceptable and even attractive to these ethiopian women. they later dated, cohabitated, and eventually married. but marriageable chinese men did not bring about the kind of desires that we often observed among global south women toward global north men or the global north countries. in this study, migration to china is not the core incentive for sinoethiopian cross-border marriage. rather, these ethiopian women experienced what paul statham (2020) calls “unintended transnationalism.” conclusion: south-south cross-border marriage sino-ethiopian marriage in ethiopia can reveal an understudied side of chinaafrica engagement. unlike studies primarily with macro foci, this study explored the private and intimate interaction between chinese nationals and local africans. also, this study’s findings of vibrant interactions between chinese men and local women are contrary to the puported images of segregated chinese in ethiopia. despite insufficient soft power in ethiopia, the lack of common connections for marriage migrations, and thus the motivation of migrating to china, most of these chinese men eventually secured a local ethiopian wife. while using the theoretical device of ideal type, i distance this research from the studies equipped with several widely applied concepts, such as “social locations” (mahler and pessar, 2001) or “marriage-scapes” (constable, 2005b). instead of describing how different variables influenced the formation of sinoethiopian marriage, i allowed a certain level of abstraction within each category of the “three axes.” the previous studies of cross-border marriages acknowledged individuals with structures. but they often failed to explain how specific structures affected individuals’ exertions of agency and why agents acted accordingly or against the structures. by merely listing various “marriage-scapes” (constable, 2005b) or individuals’ “social locations” created by “socially stratifying factors” (mahler and pessar, 2001), the structures were often treated as backgrounds that only appeared in articles’ introductions and not mentioned thereafter. moreover, the scholars equipped with such conceptual tools would expect structural factors to be scattered and thus reflected respectively in micro-practices or narrations, which risks overlooking the structures that are seemingly absent or that indirectly influence the field. for example, being unfamiliar with china does not mean that ethiopian wives are out of touch with the world. they mostly know about europe and america. when she was in high school, nancy even dreamed of going to the united states for a college a south-south cross-border marriage between chinese men and ethiopian women 118 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 education. two other wives also worked in the gulf region as domestic workers. the existence of the global north was a constant reference even when the couple’s negotiations and bargains were cloaked in a sino-ethiopian context. therefore, emphasizing the “china factor” is not enough to understand the uniqueness of sino-ethiopian marriages in this study. the sino-ethiopian intimacy showed different dynamics in chinese construction sites in northern ethiopia (driessen, 2019). likewise, defining these marriages as an ideal type of south-south cross-border marriage does not only indicate that both husbands and wives are from global south countries. this novel ideal type should always be explained through a conjuncture of macro-micro interconnections of global forces, global connections, and global imaginations. this paper explains the novelty of the specific time-space constituted by china’s incompatible hard and soft power as global forces, factories, and sino-ethiopian social networks as connections, localized imagination without migration incentives. a similar type of marriage formation process can emerge between another rising south (dargin, 2013) and a developing south. after 20 years of “going out,” china has begun to turn itself from a marriagemigrant-sending country to a receiving one. the occurrence of sino-ethiopian marriage calls for a paradigm shift in understanding and researching this novel ideal type of cross-border marriage. china will not be the last rising south. countries with large manufacturing shares in their economy and dense populations will walk on a similar path after they experience the crisis of overaccumulation that china did during the turn of the twentieth century. after rapid development and urbanization, a marriage squeeze would occur in emerging economies like india, vietnam, and thailand. there will be a resembling story when they expand to a preindustrial global south. acknowledgments the author is grateful to eyob girma for his research assistance. the author also thanks the suggestions and comments from anna triandafyllidou, oreva olakpe, lucy porter jordan, karen joe laidler, cheryl mei-ting schmitz, johanna von pezold, and liuliu xu. funding the author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the authorship and/or publication of this article. this work has received funding from the european research council (erc) consolidator grant 2021 research and innovation programme under the project, “china fashion power: fashioning power through south-south interaction: re-thinking creativity, authenticity, cultural mediation and consumer agency along china-africa fashion value chains” (grant agreement no. 101044619). 119 a south-south cross-border marriage between chinese men and ethiopian women references adugna, g. 2019. migration patterns and emigrants’ transnational activities: comparative findings from two migrant origin areas in ethiopia. comparative migration studies, 7(5): 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-018-0107-1. braun, v. and clarke, v. 2006. using thematic analysis in psychology. 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interest in the last 20 years and particularly in europe and north america, as china has been emerging as a new center of power. however, research on sino-african relations and the related migration flows has conceptualized africa as only a site for power struggles between world powers, considering the governments and the people in africa as lacking agency. they have both been considered mostly as passive recipients of policy changes or geopolitical power relations rather than active contributors to shaping those. in fact, sullivan and cheng (2018) point out that attempts to understand sino-african migrations in the media and major publications are often tainted by stereotypes and undifferentiated notions of china and africa. while it is true that these undifferentiated notions shape dominant discussions in the media (and at times also in academic research), it is equally true that asymmetries of power globally and between china and african countries are important in shaping those relations. thus, critical analysis and research that unpack these asymmetries are just as important as acknowledging that people and governments in africa are active agents of their own destinies. this special issue and this introductory paper form part of such an effort of a critical and decentered (triandafyllidou, 2021) approach to sino-african migrations. migration between china and africa has increased significantly during the last 20 years alongside the growth of sino-african trade from the 1990s onwards. such growth in both trade and migration flows was part of a broader chinese economic expansion to the african continent through loans, infrastructure development, and also scholarships (cheru and obi, 2010). the forum on china-africa cooperation (focac) was established in 2000 specifically to cement relations between china and african countries. during the last 20 years, migration flows between china and migrations between africa and china: a decentered approach 6 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 africa both increased and diversified (cissé, 2021). there are estimates ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of africans in china, with nigerians constituting the largest number (castillo, 2014), while there are estimates of one to two million chinese migrants across africa. however, in either case these estimates are generic and partly unreliable, as relevant statistical data do not exist or are outdated (cissé, 2021). this migration has particularly come under the spotlight during and after the pandemic because of the exacerbation of racist incidents registered against migrants from sub-saharan africa, particularly at the port city of guangzhou in southeast china. additionally, the focus on these migrants has sharpened because of the devastating effect of the pandemic on the type of cross-border trade that these traders and entrepreneurs had developed over the last 15 years (mathews, 2022). this special issue is inscribed within a slowly emerging critical area of research that discusses the nature, role, and importance of migration flows between china and sub-saharan africa. such literature has paid particular attention to the business and trading practices of sub-saharan african migrants in guangzhou and hong kong, pointing to their largely informal and networked character, based on personalized trust, despite widespread lack of legal status (mathews and yang, 2012; haugen, 2012; castillo, 2014; mathews, 2015a, 2015b; min et al., 2016; mathews et al., 2017; lan, 2017). these studies have framed african migration to china as an expression of a “low-end” globalization process that happens informally, at the fringes of the world economy and which is to be contrasted to the “high-end” globalization of large corporations, transnational flows of capitals and goods, and formal international trade. the special issue both complements and contradicts the above analytical perspectives. from our perspectives, considering whether the migration flows and related economic activities between africa and china are a “low-end” or “high-end” globalization risks missing the point of how these flows and exchanges are inscribed into a wider ebb of social and economic power asymmetries and struggles. we seek therefore to develop a critical line of research, with a twofold objective. on the one hand, we aim to take a closer look at the diversified experiences of different types of migrants within each flow, including not only labor migrants or entrepreneurs but also marriage migrants and international students, investigating their intersectional and dynamic trajectories (as labor migrants who marry locally, or international students who become entrepreneurs, or petty traders who move transnationally). on the other hand, we seek to theorize the place of africa and china in the remaking of centers (symbolically, politically, economically) in the twenty-first century by considering how migration flows and their representations in political and media discourses reflect power asymmetries and power struggles. we look at the chinaafrica relationship not as a peripheral one (compared to the “western” centers of power) but rather as a multi-polar one, inscribed into a broader framework where china and africa are two poles alongside europe or north america (and also 7 eurasia, south america, or southeast asia). we thus seek to deconstruct notions of “periphery” and “center” and argue for multiple “centers.” eventually our special issue argues for a multiple decentering (triandafyllidou, 2020) and nuanced understanding of emerging international migrations between china and africa. this introductory paper starts by outlining the contours of sino-african migrations in the next section while the subsequent section reviews the existing literature and introduces our novel analytical and empirical perspectives presented in this special issue. sino-african migrations and their evolution scholarly research to understand the dynamics of the growing sino-african migrations is broad, ranging from theoretical analysis to country-specific empirical studies on chinese migrants in specific african countries, or african migrants in china, as well as studies that seek to link the related population flows to broader socioeconomic and geopolitical drivers. considering chinese migration flows to different parts of africa, these were driven by a variety of factors – not just chinese infrastructural investment in african countries but also individual trajectories of traders or other types of workers. earlier studies (kuang, 2008) distinguished among three types of chinese migrations to africa: labor migration by big chinese enterprises, entrepreneurial migration of traders, and what kuang terms as proletarian migrations in transit in africa to other parts of the world. kuang (2008) relates these migratory flows to china’s foreign policy goals in africa while park (2009) points to the evolution of these pathways (and the related integration patterns) in the 2000s. park discusses how chinese migrants to african countries came from mainly coastal provinces like fujian, guangdong, and zhejiang and how over time, this expanded to include migrants from urban areas including shanghai, beijing, and tianjin, as well as overseas. park also highlights how specific workers choose their paths; for example, medical doctors come through government-government agreements, whereas construction workers and miners may rely on government-licensed private employment agencies. what are some of the long-term implications of these pathways and patterns? this volume features a contribution to this area, taking a deep dive into the rise of afro-chinese communities on the continent. african migration to china has emerged also in the early years of the twenty-first century as china became a new destination for workers and traders (bodomo and ma, 2010). two of the largest chinese commodity markets, yiwu and guangzhou, attracted an increasing number of traders and aspiring entrepreneurs (bodomo, 2010; bodomo and ma, 2010; bodomo, 2012) generating a vibrant context of small trade and business activities, particularly in hong kong and guangzhou. this type of socioeconomic activity was labeled as “low-end globalization” (mathews and yang, 2012) as it was characterized by small capital, unregulated markets, and oftentimes irregular migration status for the businesspeople involved. mathews and migrations between africa and china: a decentered approach 8 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 yang (2012: 95) argue that china’s economic role in manufacturing cheap goods “enables africa and other developing-world regions to experience globalization.” while such dynamics are certainly at play, we feel that the “low-end” vs “high-end” globalization framework tends to focus too much on the power of the state in shaping the migration trajectories of migrants, disregarding the role of migrant agency (triandafyllidou, 2019). indeed, mathews and yang (2012) themselves point to the importance of individual initiative, informal networks, trust relations, and flexible arrangements in these business relations. important insights on sino-african migration flows can be given by studies that situate these migrations into the broader context of economic relations between china and specific african countries. cissé (2013), for instance, compares sinoafrican traders in china and senegal with a view to delving deeper into migrations between world regions that have been hitherto considered “emerging” (like china) or “peripheral” (like african countries, for their most part) to global capitalism. however, these new migration flows, outside of dominant streams of south to north pathways, need to be studied within the context of a broader net of economic partnership relations between china and several african countries, as these have developed in the last two decades. chinese economic investments for infrastructural projects in africa carry with them important geopolitical implications too, as they unsettle the monopoly of geopolitical and economic influence of europe and north america over the continent (mohan and tan-mullins, 2009). as the role of china in africa evolves though, chinese policies toward its diaspora in africa as well as toward african migrations to china have been shifting, for example, with the mitigation of personal passport issuance processes and certification processes for labor service companies, as well as giving greater independence to provinces to dispatch labor (ding, 2023). on the other hand, china has embraced the migration of african students for higher education in chinese universities but has not removed structural barriers to their mobility in china (mulvey, 2022). in line with the above observations to better understand sino-african migration, sullivan and cheng's (2018) study of chinese online forums and websites where chinese immigrants discuss life in africa, unpacking their real daily struggles and diverse experiences, has thus focused on disaggregating the notion of “the chinese” in africa with a view to studying the varied experiences of chinese migrants in different parts of africa. these differences are shaped by a wide range of factors including provincial origin, age, occupation, or class. similarly, yuan and pang (2018) argue that research on african migrants in china often overlooks the diversity of these populations, their origins, experiences, and livelihoods. they counter this oversimplification by focusing on the mobility of congolese migrants, specifically through the lens of the chinese concept “guoke,” which means “transient guest.” effectively, both african migrants in china and chinese migrants in africa face significant precarity – in terms of policies and practices that regulate their legal 9 status, working conditions, and overall livelihoods – in their migratory trajectories even if the local contexts differ (cissé, 2021). there has been a distinct line of research that has focused particularly on the experiences of sub-saharan african migrants in guangzhou, a major port city in southeastern china, and hong kong pointing to the role of informal marketplaces like the chungking mansions in hong kong (mathews, 2011) and the overall development of informal trade through african middlemen and traders particularly in those areas (mathews, 2015a, 2015b; mathews et al., 2017). such research points to the socio-cultural dimensions and personalized trust relationships underpinning those economic activities and argues that this should be considered as low-end globalization because it relies mostly on personalized contacts, physical presence, and even physical carrying and shipping of the tradeable goods. it does not dispose of large capital nor formalized infrastructure that usually characterize (high-end) globalization processes (mathews and yang, 2012). looking at how this “low-end” globalization has evolved in the era of covid-19 and omnipresent and powerful smart phones and digital platforms, mathews (2022) points to the adaptation of these “low-end” processes to a new reality where low-value and low-volume trade takes advantage of digital technologies to develop new connections and fight old inefficiencies in supply and demand. but mathews (2022) argues, these technological changes do not take away the importance of the personalized trust nor do they help scale up the activities to convert them into “high-end” globalization. our critique to this line of analysis is twofold. first, we are concerned that such research reproduces the dominant framework on international migration that presumes that “good” migration is regular, safe, and orderly as per the global compact for migration mantra. such a perspective ignores that more often than not migration happens, as in the chungking mansions or in the african quarters of guangzhou, informally, irregularly, and without planning (triandafyllidou, 2021). sino-african migrations are not an exception to the rule but an expression of the multiple forms that international migration and human agency take. we thus need to turn our understanding upside down and recenter our understanding of globalization rather than frame these “peripheral” migrations within the dominant analytical frameworks of “low-end” and “high-end” globalization. second, such research has ignored the formal aspects of these activities, such as the structuring of communities of migrants without status that negotiate with the state (olakpe, 2023); the international educational policies that have characterized sino-african migrations (mulvey and mason, 2022); and the transnational circulation of information flows, which has elevated, for instance, the racist incidents registered in guangzhou in 2020 and 2021 into a global issue (see also oshodi in this special issue) prompting the reporting in both european and african media. migrations between africa and china: a decentered approach 10 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 decentering our framework for understanding sino-african migrations this special issue seeks to build on the findings of earlier research discussed above but also to break away from dominant analytical perspectives predicated on hierarchies of lowand high-end globalization of “north” and “south” power imbalances, and of regular and unregulated migration flows. we seek to disrupt the narrative of the “good” regular migration that has become dominant, if not hegemonic, obscuring alternative perspectives and the realities of migration on the ground. the narrative of safe, orderly, and regular migration tends to unilaterally privilege the wishes and needs of destination country governments (and employers or other stakeholders) disregarding the country of origin, country of transit, and own migrant perspectives (collet and ahad, 2017; mouthaan, 2019), which are particularly important for understanding why and how sino-african migrations emerge, despite a particularly hostile and restrictive policy environment. studying these new migrations involves questioning our west-centric understanding of international migration and its governance focused on states and international organizations. it requires paying more attention to the role of different stakeholders and actors incorporating views from the margins (cuttitta, 2020). decentering at first instance makes us think about geopolitics and hence speaks about countries of origin, transit, and destination; this type of decentering may also be seen as nonsensical, or at least imperfect, as an increasing number of countries are implicated in at least two of these three roles as both origin and transit, like ghana, or both origin and destination like nigeria, or as all three roles together, notably as origin, transit, and destination, like, for instance, turkey or morocco (triandafyllidou, 2021). therefore, it is important to consider multiple perspectives of decentering: decentering toward different world regions and considering the multiple directions that international flows take among different countries and continents rather than mostly toward europe and north america. thus, our study of sino-african migrations requires us to consider that, for instance, nigeria or ghana as countries of origin of african migrations to china are also countries of destination and transit and are involved in geopolitical negotiations within the african union or with the european union. adopting center-periphery logics that simply replace europe or north america as a destination of sub-saharan african workers or traders with china do not do justice to the dynamics and complexity of sino-african migration flows. what we learn from sino-african migrations is the networked and polycentric character of contemporary migration flows and the complexity of migration drivers and migration choice (black et al., 2022; teye et al. 2022). we are thus invited to consider those in their diversity and from multi-focal perspectives. in this special issue, amoah and hodzi do this by studying the ongoing internationalization of china’s higher education sector, with a focus on its impact on african migration trends and the agency of african actors in sino-african 11 educational partnerships and collaborations. their study deviates from the westcentric narrative of internationalization of higher education and instead show that it is multi-centered. they uncover the workings of internationalization shaping higher education and migration choices of young africans on the one hand but also the asymmetries that exist in sino-african educational cooperation as it develops. in the same line, oshodi (in this special issue) analyzes the west african media reporting on the treatment of africans in guangzhou during the pandemic. oshodi investigates what the coverage says about transnational information flows and perceptions of sino-african migrations in africa. to this day, reporting on sino-african flows has been overshadowed by western media and shaped by their representation of china as a threat to western dominance and norms in africa. oshodi’s conceptualization looks at china through the lens of its domestic realities, its actions outside china, and its activities within africa, on the one hand, and the conceptualization of china in nigerian and ghanaian media, on the other hand. decentering our perspective on migration involves also considering not only the role of states and formal policies and actors (such as governments or international organizations) but also the role of informal and personalized networks like those that are documented in the research on sino-african migrations. such networks characterize international migration more broadly and have been increasingly characterized as migration infrastructures (xiang and lindquist, 2014) that play a crucial role in international migration. thus, a closer look into sino-african migrations shows the importance of such networks. for instance, in this volume, jiang uses ethnographic research to study the role of religion-based networks in helping african muslims in guangzhou to navigate challenges of everyday life. in these informal and personalized networks, jiang’s research highlights the business ethics of the african muslim community, which shaped their outlook on life, their business engagements and decisions, and their experiences in china; this deviates from the focus on the impact of undocumented status, crime and illegality in the community and contributes to a more nuanced understanding of sino-african migration and african communities in china. moreover, decentering enables us to elevate, unravel, and discuss aspects of sino-african migrations that may not be evident when we adopt west-centric conceptualizations, hierarchies, and norms in the study of migration. a decentered approach also allows us to see and better understand structures that are created by sino-african migrants and migrant communities to address the issues and challenges they face in their everyday lives. research has shown that irregular and informal migration leads to the emergence of formal-informal community structures in migrant communities that fill the gaps and address the problems that formal laws and policies cannot (olakpe, 2023). in the same vein, adebayo (in this special issue) studies communities of deported nigerian migrants to understand how deportability and deportation experiences in china create “deportsporas” in nigeria. in this study, adebayo migrations between africa and china: a decentered approach 12 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 examines how a volatile immigration law and policy environment in china and living under the constant threat of arrest and deportation shape the experiences and the entire existence of undocumented nigerians in guangzhou – including their family dynamics, masculinity, migratory decisions, and livelihoods. finally, in this special issue, wang’s ethnographic research analyses southsouth cross-border marriages taking place between chinese men and ethiopian women. the study of afro-chinese marriages is relatively underexplored, particularly those occurring in the continent. wang’s research uncovers the networks, factors, and ideation that facilitate sino-ethiopian marriages and the outcomes that materialize as a result. rather than use a racial or cultural lens, wang studies the marriages within the complex context of china’s expansion in ethiopia, the socioeconomic status of chinese and ethiopian women, and how perceptions of china shape the migration outcomes of these cross-border unions. these structures show the contributions that communities, regardless of their status, make to society, demonstrate their agency and their resistance to oppressive migration laws and policies shaped by the current state of the international as well as regional and domestic practices and contexts. these structures are important for several reasons. they shape both short-term and long-term migration outcomes, including individual and collective approaches to law and policy. they also show us how migrants interpret migration policy, law, and norms as they evolve. additionally, communal structures give us deeper insights into how and why migrants organize themselves. lastly, they enable us to destabilize negative perceptions and understandings of these communities that have persisted in how we study sino-african migration and migrants. 13 references black, r., bellagamba, a., botta, e., ceesay, e., cissokho, d., et al. 2022. migration drivers and migration choice: interrogating responses to migration and development interventions in west africa. comparative migration studies, 10(10). bodomo, a. 2010. the african trading community in guangzhou: an emerging bridge for 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paper no. 24, january. saiia. sullivan, j. and cheng, j. 2018. contextualizing chinese migration to africa. journal of asian and african studies, 53(8): 1173-1187. teye, j.k., setrana, m.b., kandilige, l. and yaro, j. 2022. chinese migration to ghana: challenging the orthodoxy on characterizing migrants and reasons for migration. ghana journal of geography, 14(2). triandafyllidou, a. 2019. the migration archipelago: social navigation and migrant agency. international migration, 57(1): 5-19. triandafyllidou, a. 2020. decentering the study of migration governance: a radical view. geopolitics, 27(1): 1-15. 15 triandafyllidou, a. 2021. the global governance of migration: towards a “messy” approach. international migration, 60(6): 19-27. xiang, b. and lindquist, j. 2014. migration infrastructure. international migration review, 48(1): 122-148. yuan, d. and pang, l.c. 2018. south–south migrant trajectories: african traders in china as “guoke.” in hillman, f., spaan, e. and von naerssen, t. (eds.), trajectories and imaginaries in migration: the migrant actor in transnational space. london: routledge. migrations between africa and china: a decentered approach ahmr cover online volume 9 number 2 special 02.pdf ahmr volume 9 number 2 may-aug 2023 special.pdf 6 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 book review laine, jussi p., moyo, inocent and nshimbi, christopher changwe (eds.), 2021. expanding boundaries: borders, mobilities and the future of europe–africa relations london: routledge, 277 pages isbn: 978-0-36753921-4 (hbk) isbn: 978-1-003-08372-6 (ebk) https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003083726 the book is an edited volume consisting of fifteen chapters, excluding the introduction and concluding remarks. it provides interesting perspectives on various policy-making initiatives whose purpose is to manage africa–european union (eu) migration. this volume is organized into three parts – part 1 focuses on critical perspectives on border regimes. in chapter one calvin minfegue argues that policies and actions aimed at the “externalisation of european borders into africa” have failed to achieve the intended goal of controlling african migrant streams to europe and might have resulted in increased migrant flows to europe that have intensified the refugee crisis. in chapter two anna moraczewska contends that the externalization of eu border management is essentially an attempt to broaden the spatial reach of the union beyond its territory in order to manage african migration flows to the eu. okechukwu oji argues in chapter three that migration challenges in west africa are largely caused by weak border security management and poor intelligence gathering. in chapter four rodrigo lacy and henk van houtum show that the “authoritarian turn” in the eu’s bordering policies has resulted in many deaths of african migrants along the mediterranean frontier. in chapter five anna casaglia maintains that the humanitarian corridors on the mediterranean frontier of the euro-african border have created hierarchies of migrant rights that are based on the categorization of migrants based on their “deservingness” to enter the eu. she argues that the categorization is essentially a filtering process that places migrants in various categories, based on whether they are “welcomed” or “unwanted”. casaglia shows how such approaches have exposed the “entangled relationship” between the various humanitarian actions to assist the “welcomed” migrants, on the one hand and the deep security concerns to keep out the “unwanted” migrants at all costs. the five chapters in part 2 explore the eu’s political transnationalism project and its policy impact. in chapter six, tomasz milej asserts that an afro-european integration scheme needs to be in place in order to break the current identity narratives that unfortunately stigmatize african migrants. he cautions that such a scheme would necessitate a policy shift from perceiving the various forms of 7 eu-africa migration through a narrow security–risks prism to a much broader and balanced view that appreciates both the risks and opportunities created by particular migration processes. chapter seven by leon tshimpaka on “solidarite en mouvement” against homeland authoritarianism presents a close analysis of the transnational political activities of europe-based african migrants. tshimpaka concludes by calling for a rethink of “the relations between africa and europe around migration” (p.130). in chapter eight quivine ndomo presents the findings of an empirical study that explored the daily lived experiences of twenty-three african student migrants from gambia, ghana, kenya, nigeria, and zambia who chose to remain in finland on completion of their studies. in this chapter ndomo presents a powerful narrative that highlights the “systematic, extensive and institutionally executed exclusion of the group” from the various spaces of society they occupied (p.139). ndomo argues that despite the “pervasive internal bordering”, the end result for many african migrants in finland has been “longer and even permanent stays” in the country. in chapter nine, which is titled “untying the migration knot through trade: a case study of nigeria”, omotomilola ikotun and juliet ogbodo observe that the promotion of agribusiness and trade-related activities would diminish the emigration push factors that are driving nigerian migration to europe. in chapter ten mika raunio and disney andreas assess whether the governance of eu-africa relations, especially in the areas of migration and development processes, have had beneficial or harmful impacts. based on their case study of finland and namibia, raunio and andreas conclude that “the finland–namibia experiences suggest that the sustainable and mutually beneficial eco-system development” is feasible (p.182). part 3 focuses on alternative framings for europe–africa relations and it consists of five chapters. in chapter eleven lena englund examines how african writers present migration in contemporary texts and shows that migrants are often presented in literary texts as either victims of oppression and injustice or as opportunists hoping to ensure a better life elsewhere. she argues that “rethinking the representation of migration in celebrated novels … is necessary to enable new perspectives on migration itself and the multifaceted experiences that emerge from it” (p.188). in chapter twelve laura sumari cautions that europe’s security measures pertaining to sub-saharan african refugees and migrants produce multiple forms of suffering, fear, and hate. these measures invariably lead to intensified uncertainty and insecurity in the targeted groups, adversely affecting their everyday lives and inevitably shaping how sub-saharan african migrants understand and perceive europe. in chapter thirteen jussi laine draws on the literature on bordering processes, migration, mobility, regional integration, and psychology to make the case for shifting “the discussion of migration as a phenomenon in its own right and with its own dynamics to its broader societal implications”. he further argues that it is the colliding visions over migration rather than the immigrants that present challenges to the eu and european societies. in chapter fourteen felix donkor and kevin mearns argue that the time has come to rethink the widely misrepresented euro–african book review expanding boundaries 8 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 relations. they assert that good governance, communal resilience and robust conflict resolution mechanisms are needed in order to effectively address climate-induced migration. in chapter fifteen olukayode faleye examines migration as an engine of interregional mutual development within the framework of eu–africa relations. in the concluding section, laine, nshimbi and moyo posit that european–african relations cannot be reduced to migration matters alone and suggest that migration should not be isolated from the broader challenges and phenomena to which it is inherently linked. the volume “expanding boundaries” is an important contribution to the literature on borders, mobilities and the future of europe–africa relations, despite the fact that a few chapters – notably chapters 3 and 9, although quite interesting, would have benefitted from more in-depth discussion of the issues at hand. prof daniel tevera, university of the western cape, south africa 122 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 returnees and the dilemmas of (un)sustainable return and reintegration in somalia jacqueline owigo1 received 06 june 2022 / accepted 15 august 2022 / published 31 august 2022 abstract voluntary return is identified as one of the durable solutions for refugee protection under the international refugee regime. there is limited research on returnees’ experiences and aspirations when they return to a home country with a high level of violent conflicts, and with severe lack of safety and stability. this article draws from semistructured interviews held with somali returnees who returned through the voluntary repatriation program from kenya. the article shows the complexity behind their return experience by advancing the discussion on return based on jørgen carling’s aspiration and ability model. the findings show that for the majority of the returnees, return is not sustainable as they do not return to their homes and as a result are displaced in camps where they face considerable challenges finding employment, decent housing, secure living environment, and educational opportunities for their children. however, their transnational networks in kenya boost their return aspirations – the majority of the returnees interviewed possess aspirations to re-migrate, but cannot do so due to financial costs and therefore they remain trapped in immobility. keywords: somalia, return and reintegration, unhcr, voluntary repatriation, capabilities-aspirations, sustainable return 1 united states international university africa, kenya. corresponding author  jowigo2002@gmail.com. 123 introduction the collapse of political and economic institutions in somalia has led to massive forced displacement, leading to somali refugees and migrants seeking refuge or better economic opportunities in other countries (haji-abdi, 2016). the majority of the refugees remain within the region – primarily in kenya and ethiopia – but others have moved to their destinations through resettlement programs, or by navigating their way to other countries in search of asylum or onward migration projects (shaffer et al., 2017). in the recent phase, somalia continues to experience intersecting causes of displacement, due to overlapping episodes of conflict, drought, and erratic weather patterns resulting in the internal displacement of 2.9 million somalis as at january 2021 (unhcr, 2021a). furthermore, there is an increase in return migration of somalis to their home country, both from the east and the horn of africa, as well as from yemen and the arabian peninsula. according to united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), as at august 2021, 133,166 somali returnees have been recorded and assisted with the majority of the returnees coming from kenya through the unhcr-initiated voluntary repatriation program (vrp) (unhcr, 2021b). the vrp is based on the tripartite agreement between the government of kenya, the federal government of somalia, and the unhcr to oversee the phased voluntary repatriation of 435,000 somali refugees during the period 2013–2019 (unhcr, 2015). return is increasingly happening to urban areas that are not returnees’ areas of origin, as returnees choose not to return to rural areas before peace and security are re-established (ref, 2018). the security situation in mogadishu and the southern and central areas of somalia remains unstable. the presence of al shabab, which still controls large areas in rural somalia, has resulted in violent clashes with progovernment forces, the imposition of punitive sharia law, and heavy taxation of citizens (indermuehle, 2017). given the reality that large-scale returns to many parts of somalia may not be possible due to the challenging context as explained above, it follows that the processes of return and reintegration for the returning refugees present significant policy challenges for the government of somalia and the international community. scholars have illustrated that return itself is often not always a straightforward homecoming and neither does it mean the end of the “refugee cycle”; instead, returnees are faced with numerous challenges upon return (black and koser, 1999; hammond, 1999). similarly, the main focus of many governments and international organizations dealing with migrants and refugees has been on the return of refugees and migrants, but much less attention has been given to the situation and lives of refugees after return (arowolo, 2000). whether the return is sustainable and what contributes to the sustainability of return remain contested. also, there are gaps in understanding how various processes of return and reintegration influence returnees’ aspirations. drawing from the literature on aspiration, return, and reintegration, this returnees and the dilemmas of (un)sustainable return and reintegration in somalia 124 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 article aims to advance the theoretical discussions around refugee returns and to contribute to the empirical research on somali refugees. the next section presents the theoretical discussion – including an exposition of key concepts – with a focus on the literature on refugee returns, reintegration, and aspirations. this is followed by a brief overview of the return situation in somalia. the article then outlines the data collection strategy, sampling, and methodology adopted for the analysis. the findings are then presented, following the thematic analysis of the data. the final section presents the discussion and conclusion. theoretical framework return of refugees as the preferred durable solutions traditionally the three main solutions to refugee crises include: voluntary return to the country of origin, local integration in the country of first asylum, and resettlement to a third country. all three are regarded as durable solutions because they promise an end to refugees’ plight and their need for international protection and dependence on humanitarian support (black and koser, 1999). despite its categorization as one of three “durable solutions” by the unhcr, the return of refugees has not always been a high priority internationally and there has been a shift in emphasis depending on the context. initially, between the world war ii period and the 1980s, the main preferred option by the international community was resettlement, which was extended to refugees from communist countries to meet the ideological interests of the west (chimni, 1999). since the end of the cold war, international attention shifted to the emphasis on the return of refugees as the optimal solution. the unhcr pronounced the 1990s as the decade of repatriation as a result of the growing refugee challenges in eastern europe, central america, africa, and asia and therefore reinforced the belief that repatriation was the best option to end refugee situations (crisp and long, 2016). this study is grounded in two strands of literature: first, is the literature on the concepts of “sustainable return” and “reintegration”, and second are the theoretical studies on the aspirations/ability model (carling, 2002). in academic literature, the concepts of “sustainable return” and “reintegration” are employed to conceptualize the successful return of refugees and failed asylum seekers (lietaert and van gorp, 2019). in outlining the sustainable return, black and gent (2006) distinguish between the reintegration of individual returnees into their home societies and the wider impact of return on the community. within a narrow conceptualization focusing on individual returnees, sustainable return refers to returnees’ physical return and stay in their country of origin and thus not re-migrating. in the first seminal study commissioned by the united kingdom (uk) home office on sustainable return, individual sustainability of return is achieved if the “returnees’ socio-economic status and fear of violence or persecution is no worse, relative to the population in the place of origin, one year after their return” (black et al., 2004: 29) the absence of re125 migration is considered by policymakers as removing the international dimension of displacement and thus ending host states’ obligations toward a particular group of refugees (long, 2010). various researchers have questioned the validity of using the duration of return migration as an indicator of sustainable return. based on carling’s aspiration/ability model, which forms the main theoretical framework for this paper, the absence of re-migration could be a result of involuntary immobility where a migrant has the aspiration but not the ability to migrate (carling, 2002). according to carling’s (2002) aspiration/ability model, migration first involves a wish to migrate, and second, the realization of this wish. the model proposed three mobility categories: mobility (when there is both aspiration and ability to migrate), involuntary immobility (when there is the aspiration but not the ability to migrate), and voluntary immobility (having the ability but not the aspiration to migrate). in addition, schewel (2015, 2019) added the concept of “acquiescent immobility” to highlight a category of people who prefer to stay but lack the ability to migrate, signaling an acceptance of one’s inability to realize initial plans to emigrate. in other cases, re-migration can be continued mobility that provides essential livelihood opportunities for families (iaria, 2013; ochan et al., 2019; manji, 2020). in his now seminal paper on reconceptualizing return migration, cassarino (2004) theorizes return migration as a process that requires resource mobilization and preparedness to have a successful return outcome. when forced migration involves protracted situations in refugee camps, refugees’ mobilization and preparedness for their return – a key precondition for a successful return – is often hindered. alternatively, within the broader conceptualization, successful return and reintegration is considered as a long-term and multidimensional process, often complicated by multiple factors such as time, the context of return, and so on (lietaert and kuschminder, 2021). building on the work of black et al. (2004), koser and kuschminder (2015: 8) define sustainable return as occurring when “the individual has reintegrated into the economic, social and cultural processes of the country of origin and feels that they are in an environment of safety and security upon return.” van houte (2016) adopts the concept of multidimensional embeddedness as a holistic approach to the post-return experience of migrants beyond “reintegration” or “going home” and highlights the interplay between social, cultural, economic and institutional dimensions. most importantly, the unhcr definition of reintegration is “equated with the achievement of a sustainable return – in other words, the ability of returning refugees to secure the political, economic, [legal] and social conditions needed to maintain life, livelihood and dignity” (unhcr, 2004: 4). in general, five domains of reintegration are included in various studies on reintegration processes: political, economic, legal, social, and cultural (cassarino, 2008; kuschminder, 2017; mohammadi et al., 2018). for purposes of this study, the emphasis is on the social, economic, and psychosocial domains. returnees and the dilemmas of (un)sustainable return and reintegration in somalia 126 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 context of migration and return in somalia protracted conflict in somalia has pushed over 1.5 million somalis into the diaspora (shandy, 2016). the majority of the refugees are housed in neighboring countries, mainly kenya. the economic survey released in july 2021 notes that somalis accounted for over 54% (272,490) of registered refugees and asylum seekers in kenya – the majority of whom live in the dadaab refugee complex (knbs, 2021). most of the returnees come from kenya through the 2013 tripartite agreement between the unhcr and the governments of kenya and somalia (unhcr, 2021b). the tripartite commission adopted a joint strategy and operational plan, which envisaged a phased voluntary repatriation of “215,000 somali refugees from kenya and their reintegration in somalia over the period july 2015 to december 2019” (unhcr, 2015: 11). refugees who are supported to return through the voluntary repatriation process are provided with core relief items and cash travel grants to cover the travel cost by air or road depending on the area of return. once the refugees arrive in somalia, they are provided with return and reintegration assistance by the unhcr together with international non-governmental organizations (ngos) working in specified areas of return (unhcr, 2015). since 2014, 85,171 somalis have been assisted to return to somalia from kenya through a vrp with women and children representing 80% of returnees (unhcr, 2021b). efforts to address refugee issues in somalia are closely linked to the challenges of responding to internal displacement. armed conflict and violence, drought, floods, and forced evictions have also resulted in the internal displacement of 2.9 million somalis as at january 2021 (unhcr, 2021a). even though the conflict continues in somalia, scholars document an alarming trend advocating for return, even forced or involuntary. garre’s (2017) study highlights the experiences of returning refugees from dadaab camp who reported that even though they were not physically forced to leave, their return to somalia was involuntary due to factors such as reduction of food rations and mistreatment by kenya’s armed forces. on the other hand, the research and evidence facility (ref, 2018) study found that a substantial number of returnees faced displacement upon arrival in somalia, hence transitioning from being returning refugees to internally displaced persons (idps). the high costs of rent and land in mogadishu have led some returnees to settle in idp settlements and around family and clan members who provide support and safety (menkaus, 2017). to support the refugees and returning migrants, the federal government of somalia and the international organizations are supporting return and reintegration activities that assist returning migrants in trying to overcome the challenges they face upon return to somalia. the need for sustainable return and reintegration efforts is articulated in the national development plan (ndp), which is intended to guide the application of the comprehensive refugee response forum (crrf) in somalia (federal government of somalia, 2020b). the implementation of the crrf in somalia is entrenched in the regional process led by the intergovernmental authority on development (igad) and the nairobi declaration on durable solutions adopted 127 in 2017 (federal government of somalia, 2020a). one of the crrf objectives is to support the creation of conditions in countries of origin for safe and dignified return. other goals include easing pressures on host countries, enhancing refugee self-reliance, and expanding access to third-country solutions (unhcr, 2018: 4). methodology the data was collected between 2018 and 2020 as part of the researcher’s doctoral research conducted in mogadishu, somalia and nairobi, kenya. relying on snowball sampling methods through professional and personal networks, the researcher conducted semi-structured, qualitative interviews with 22 returnees. the sensitive subject of return and the security challenges made random sampling difficult to achieve. returnees were therefore contacted through as many entry points as possible. to achieve this, the research team adopted two strategies: first was the “topdown” approach where the researcher obtained a list of names through the local organizations implementing activities in various research sites; second was through the “bottom-up” approach through the use of research assistants’ social networks and with the aid of the camp leaders who also acted as gatekeepers (frisina, 2018: 189). the requirements for eligibility included: first, the participant had to have returned a minimum of six months prior to the interview; and second, the participant had to have returned from kenya through the unhcr’s voluntary repatriation program. the study involved collecting data in the somali language to allow the returnees to express themselves freely in a language that they could understand (flick et al., 2017). to overcome the language barrier and take into consideration the power relations around the lines of gender and ethnicity, the researcher recruited two community researchers – one male and one female, to facilitate trust and access. the research team was trained on the interview guide and did a one-day pre-test of the tool. the age range of participants was between 18 and 53, and 16 participants were women. a third of the participants indicated not having formal education, while others had been educated to a secondary level or underwent religious or vocational training. half of the participants were married while 10 women participants were divorced or widowed. a broad, open-ended interview guide was used to allow individual perspectives to emerge and for key lines of inquiry to be pursued. the university institutional review board (irb) approved the research design for this study. the research team explained the principles of research ethics to the gatekeepers to prevent them from inadvertently making returnees feel coerced into participating. all the participants were verbally informed about the research and were made aware that their answers would be confidential, that their participation in the research was voluntary, and that they had the right to stop the interview at any time. the researchers audio-recorded the discussions where this was agreed, and took detailed notes. the research assistants organized and conducted the interviews with the participants and transcribed the data. given their experience working on returnees and the dilemmas of (un)sustainable return and reintegration in somalia 128 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 migration issues for several ngos in somalia and kenya, the research assistants had the competence required to conduct the transcription in the somali language. to ensure the accuracy of transcription, a translator was recruited, who also randomly verified some of the original interview recordings and transcripts. the research team analyzed the transcripts of interviews with returnees through a combination of inductive and deductive analysis with the aid of maxqda software. a codebook was developed with deductive or “theory-driven” codes (saldaña, 2016). the codebook was further updated with inductive or “data-driven” codes derived from the data. to promote inter-subjectivity, two researchers coded each of the transcripts based on the codebook and compared the codes they assigned to specific segments in the transcripts. in the case of conflicting views, a consensus was reached through discussion and the codes were mutually defined. the qualitative data collection was supplemented with secondary data on the return of refugees to somalia. findings the findings showed that returning migrants to somalia faced a challenging context characterized by insecurity, violence, drought, lack of livelihood opportunities and widespread humanitarian needs, which are elaborated below. social conditions and insecurity few returnees are able to return to the homes they originally left. the majority of those interviewed felt they were abandoned upon return to somalia and ended up being displaced in camps and left to fend for themselves. apart from their poor living situations, the participants’ main concerns at the time of the interviews were the high cost of rent and land-related issues. the accommodation was inadequate, with some of them housed in temporary shelters in idp settlements, as reported by these participants: it has become hard to cope. first, i was in the settlement but now i can’t afford to pay rent; and now i live in a camp [on the] outskirts of mogadishu. i don’t have a house and i live in a plastic sheet house (female returnee_17; 33 years). since i returned, i have been living in a temporary settlement reserved for internally displaced people. my former residence was grabbed by other people and i cannot claim it back. i normally get intimidation from those who grabbed my land (male returnee_3; 53 years). women and girls face a high risk of sexual and gender-based violence, especially in camps when moving around using latrines, fetching water or working outside the home. for the respondents, the risk of rape was always lurking, and this hindered 129 their freedom of movement. the volatile insecure situation in mogadishu had also led to traumatic experiences for many of the returnees. one female participant lamented: i don’t feel safe in somalia; there is always a bomb, gunshots everywhere. i don’t move a lot; most of the time i stay in the house with my husband and children and sometimes when i get the opportunities to go and do some housework, i go get my small salary for the day then i come back to my husband … the security is very bad; there are rape cases every time (female returnee_3; 30 years). kinship and family play an important role in somali society and many returnees view their clans as key to their reintegration. when returnees need financial, social, and psychological support, they rely on their kinship and social networks. some of the participants mentioned leaving some of their family members behind in dadaab as part of their household strategies to allow them access to opportunities offered in the host country, as related by this returnee: i came back with my wife and some of the children. i left my sister behind and some of my children. the reason being is that i wanted them to continue with their schooling as education is more superior in kenya (male returnee_21; 47 years). economic situation the economic and political deterioration in somalia has not provided an enabling environment for the reintegration of the refugees repatriated from kenya. low investment caused by insecurity has led to high unemployment in somalia, particularly among returnees with no clan connections. most returnees cited a lack of job opportunities as a challenge to their reintegration. food insecurity, lack of access to education for their children, and lack of decent housing are all directly related to economic difficulties. one female returnee recounted her experience: my situation is worse. we cannot eat even two meals in a day. i struggle a lot and now i am just a vulnerable mother who cannot afford to send kids to school due to my financial status (female returnee_16; 32 years). many interviewed returnees worked in the informal sector doing menial jobs like cleaning, hairdressing, domestic work, street vending, and working in construction sites. some had applied the skills and training they learned while living in kenya to find opportunities to earn a living. furthermore, some participants pointed out that they had better opportunities for building networks and gaining social capital during their stay in the dadaab returnees and the dilemmas of (un)sustainable return and reintegration in somalia 130 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 camp in kenya than in somalia. they had access to better education, health systems and other social services in kenya. however, returnees without a strong clan protection who possess an education and vocational skills were unable to find work and livelihood opportunities to utilize their acquired skills. access to livelihoods and employment is mediated through connections and clan networks, leaving returnees from the minority groups at a significant disadvantage, as explained by the following respondents: i did not find any job at all. everything is nepotism and connections. i don’t think i can even get any work. if you don’t know anyone in the office, you would not get any opportunity (male returnee_18; 32 years). in kenya, i had more independence than in somalia … some people disrespect you because you have nothing. it makes me feel bad and ashamed. the greatest challenge is not being able to find work. i try my best every day to go outside and look for work and i’m still searching (male returnee_006; 38 years). psychosocial challenges and gendered stigma different returnees mentioned a lack of a supportive social network, which made them feel isolated and uncared for, or insecure because they did not return to their place of origin and therefore did not have social networks to offer them protection. some participants mentioned they had no support from wider society or the state and felt stranded because they were in unfamiliar surroundings. according to one respondent: nobody respects you if you don’t have money. i feel like i’m nothing since i can’t raise money to meet my daily needs. i feel like the world is against me. i want to go back to my hometown in hiraan right now. i don’t have money to leave, but if i get any assistance from anyone, i will migrate to my home town (male returnee_022; 53 years). for the male returnees unable to find work, due to the challenging context, women are forced to take on domestic work to support their families. as a result, men face gendered stigma because they must relinquish the provider role and become dependants, as articulated by this respondent: i didn't have any job; hence, my wife was the breadwinner for the family. in fact, she works for other families as a housemaid to earn a living. and you can understand, the problem is that a mother of six children is working as a maid in people’s houses so that she can put food on the table for us. that makes me feel guilty for not performing my duties as a father and a husband (male returnee_05; 47 years). 131 the findings show that returnees are not a homogenous group. individual characteristics such as gender, age, family migration history, clan, social status, and educational attainment impact on returnees’ reintegration experience. re-migration plans the lack of livelihood opportunities, access to basic services and the inability to access education are some of the factors that have contributed to returnees’ aspirations for a further migration plan. returnees who reported aspirations for re-migration also tended to be jobless with little access to income and lacked clan protection. they often reported feelings of shame and unworthiness within their communities. the interviewees expressed the need to find a longer-term solution to their displacement by seeking opportunities in the previous host country – in kenya or other destinations. for some, re-migration was an aspiration but not a possibility due to financial constraints. other reasons included policy constraints, such as not being recognized as a refugee if they should return to kenya, as they had already relinquished their status upon signing up for the repatriation program. these returnees lamented: the situation is worse [in somalia] in terms of getting access to livelihood. i don’t want to migrate because my ration card was canceled and i wouldn’t get assistance. depending on the current circumstances, if i could see anyone requesting to return to kenya or any other country, i would encourage them to go and find a better life since the situation here remains worse (female returnee_17; 33 years). in case the situation worsens, i might go back to kenya as don’t think i am hoping for the best life in my country … i prefer kenya because of free education for our children and free distribution of food, free medical services; and kenya is a peaceful country (female returnee_03; 35 years). many of the respondents expressed a desire to re-migrate as a fallback plan due to the challenging context. however, due to their financial constraints, they remained unable to realize their migration project: i want to go back to kenya as it is better there, but i currently cannot afford it. i don’t have money to go back to that country. when you have the money, you can travel wherever you want (male returnee_09; 33 years). on the contrary, respondents who were not interested in re-migration had the support of their family and stronger relationships with their communities. a female returnee explained: returnees and the dilemmas of (un)sustainable return and reintegration in somalia 132 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 i am feeling good since i came back. i am now with my people in somalia, and i have everything since i returned home to be with my family (female returnee_03; 37 years). discussion within policy contexts, the end of re-migration is one of the main benchmarks of the effectiveness of repatriation programs; returnees are expected to go back home and re-establish their lives, and this is defined as a sustainable return. this article puts forth the argument that the return to somalia can be understood as a new form of displacement, as returnees have been resettled to areas they have no familiarity with. returnees’ re-migration aspirations are without doubt shaped by an individual’s vulnerabilities faced during reintegration. drawing from carling’s (2002) aspirations and ability model, the study sheds insights into returnees’ experiences of immobility. immobility could result from a preference to stay or an inability to fulfil migration desires. in this case, the desire to re-migrate would constitute a migration aspiration. however, only those with enough resources, or greater migration capabilities, can act upon this aspiration, resulting in either involuntary immobility or re-migration. the study’s findings shed light on the socio-economic outcomes of the returnees who, due to the challenging context, have aspirations to re-migrate but are unable, due to financial constraints. recent research has shown that returnees who are well off adopted circular migration back to kenya to access services such as health services and education, which are considered to be of better quality (ochan et al., 2019). manji (2020) also found that returnees are going back to kenya to escape the insecurity, violence, and lack of basic services in somalia. the case study sheds light on the problem of involuntary immobility in refugee repatriation programs. as hammond (1999) pointed out, return is not always a straightforward homecoming or end of the displacement cycle. returnees who can re-migrate and have the economic means, adopt circular mobility as a key livelihood strategy. in contrast, those who stay behind are rendered involuntary immobile due to financial constraints and other personal circumstances despite having aspirations to leave. secondly, this paper argues that sustainable return should be viewed as part of a wider process encompassing several dimensions, rather than simply an individual’s aspiration to re-migrate or not. sustainable return and reintegration are longerterm multidimensional processes, often complicated by several factors, including the migration experiences abroad and structural conditions in the country of origin (koser and kuschminder, 2015). the findings show that the return context in somalia is characterized by economic and security challenges and the returned refugees faced several challenges re-establishing their lives and consequently increasing their vulnerability. the lack of decent shelter, job opportunities, and education remain big challenges. these findings corroborate majidi’s (2019) research on somali women returnees, whose expectations to be economically active were not realized upon 133 return, and consequently impacted negatively on their psychosocial wellbeing. even though the tripartite agreement between the government of the federal republic of somalia, the government of kenya and the unhcr specifies that all returns should be voluntary and take place in safety and dignity, the interviews illuminate a different picture. the majority of the returnees have, instead, been placed in an involuntary immobile situation whereby, respondents have the aspirations to remigrate due to the challenging context but lack the ability to migrate. therefore, their experience fundamentally challenges the voluntary repatriation option, which is regarded as a durable solution to end displacement crises. as noted by crisp and long (2016), returnees who become internally displaced, who struggle to survive in squatter camps, or who are compelled to move again in another country in pursuit of opportunities, cannot be considered to have found a durable solution to their displacement. lastly, in adopting a transnational approach, the return of refugees cannot be viewed as a single linear movement from the host country back home. the findings from manji’s (2020) work show that when faced with economic and security challenges during their return, returnees adopt continued mobility that provides essential livelihood opportunities for their families. this trend reveals that voluntary repatriation “doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the displacement, even when accompanied by reintegration” support (manji, 2020: 7). in addition, the majority of the returnees are not returning to their areas of origin and instead, end up settling in the urban areas. some of them had previously been living in rural areas, and they do not have land in the urban areas where they now live (garre, 2017; ref, 2018). given the gap between the return policy objectives and returnees’ experiences, both governments of kenya and somalia and the international community should explore pathways to enhance cross-border opportunities for returnees. return is evidently not a final solution for displacements; instead, it is only a part of migration, within a country and across borders. strengths and limitation this study offers insights into the experiences of somali refugees recently returned from kenya through the vrp. it concerns a highly relevant context, as the crisis in somalia continues to be complex and protracted in the world owing to the armed conflict and insecurity, climate change and environmental degradation, and socioeconomic fragility, exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic and an upsurge in desert locusts leaving many at risk of famine (unga, 2021). however, the findings are not representative of all returnees in somalia and it is based on short-term reintegration experiences that may change over time. there is a need for longitudinal studies on returnees to understand more clearly what influences patterns of reintegration and the broader sustainability of the return process. returnees and the dilemmas of (un)sustainable return and reintegration in somalia 134 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 conclusion the literature review in this article identified three core arguments as challenging the return of refugees as a durable solution and contributing to widening the debates on the complexities of sustainable return and reintegration. the article argues that a return to somalia should be understood as a new form of displacement as returnees have been resettled to areas that are not their places of origin, thus increasing their vulnerability and immobility. from a migration management perspective, a possible definition of sustainability of return is that people remain in their country of origin and do not re-migrate. drawing from carling’s (2002) aspirations and ability model, the study found that returnees can be “unsustainably returned” and not successfully reintegrated but lack the ability to re-migrate. therefore, when re-migration aspiration and ability are distinguished, sustainable reintegration cannot be determined by examining whether a returnee re-migrates. secondly, return to the place of origin – which in many cases has been transformed by war and conflict – without considering the conditions that people have returned to, obscures a whole host of challenges facing people upon their return. this underscores the fact that sustainable return should be seen as a wider process, rather than as simply an individual’s aspiration to re-migrate. lastly, for some returnees, re-migration could be part of continued mobility that provides the essential livelihood opportunities for returning refugees faced with economic and security challenges. acknowledgment the author would like to thank the reviewers for their invaluable insights. the author would like to acknowledge the support of mr. omar yusuf for his assistance in organizing the fieldwork logistics in mogadishu and to the returnees for sharing their stories. in addition, the author is grateful for the funding support from mawazo institute and the social science research council next generation social sciences in africa fellowship, with funds provided by carnegie corporation of new york. 135 references arowolo, o.o. 2000. return migration and the problem of reintegration. international migration, 38(5): 59–82. 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cham, switzerland: palgrave macmillan. https://www.unhcr.org/5616280b9.pdf https://www.unhcr.org/5c658aed4 https://www.unhcr.org/5c658aed4 https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/horn https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/horn https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/88562 https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/88562 33 migrant networks, food remittances, and zimbabweans in cape town: a social media perspective sean sithole1 received 01 march 2022 / accepted 17 january 2023 / published 30 april 2023 abstract this study examines the evolving connection between migrant networking on social media and cross-border food remittances in southern africa. emerging research and academic debates have shown that social media platforms transform migration networks. but the role and link between migrant remittances and social media are generally overlooked and neglected. this paper contributes to the ongoing debates by examining the role of social media as a valuable networking tool for food-remitting zimbabwean migrants. the research is founded on a mixed-methods approach, thus utilizing both questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews of zimbabwean migrants in cape town, south africa. the research findings uncover the role of social media in facilitating a regular flow of food remittances back to urban and rural areas of zimbabwe. a related result is how social media enabled information pathways associated with cross-border food remitting when the covid-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions limited face-to-face contact. this research can provide valuable insights for academics, researchers, and development practitioners interested in the evolving migration, remittances, and food security nexus in the global south. keywords: food remittances, food security, social media, migrant networks, zimbabwean migrants 1 postdoctoral research fellow, institute for social development, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of the western cape, south africa  seansithole263@gmail.com migrant networks, food remittances, and zimbabweans in cape town 34 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 introduction and background social media transforms migration networks (dekker and engbersen, 2014), mainly because of the multifaceted ways social media sites such as facebook, whatsapp, twitter, and instagram facilitate inexpensive, accessible, and speedy information pathways for migrants and their networks. research by mcgregor and siegel (2013) highlights that the utilization of social media initiates and promotes migration, diaspora engagement, integration, and undertaking of migration research. the emergence of social media can offer more prospects for diaspora relations, engagement, discussion, and identity creation (crush et al., 2011). dekker and engbersen (2014) underscore that social media enriches the social networking between migrants and their social ties, such as friends, family, and individuals that can assist in the migration and integration processes. studies by pourmehdi and shahrani (2021), vilhelmson and thulin (2013), and thulin and vilhelmson (2016) reveal that social media reinforces social networks, which are crucial in impacting migration decisions. komito (2011) argues that social media also enables social capital among migrants and their networks. tevera (2014) argues that in southern africa, the internet has been pivotal in facilitating transnational urbanism through which the continuity of interrelationships between the country of origin and destination country is maintained. the advancement of social media enables the networking of migrants and their families, relatives, and associates in their home and host countries. social media platforms also minimize the geographical, location, and distance constraints in the communication between migrants and their networks through online interactions. the emerging studies on migration and social media have enriched the comprehension of the role of social media in facilitating migrant networking. however, most of the research and literature that have examined the connection between migration and social media are situated in the global north countries (see komito, 2011; charmarkeh, 2013; dekker et al., 2016; borkert et al., 2018; dekker et al., 2018). there is considerably limited evidence on the utilization of social media and information communication technology (ict) in african migration routes (stremlau and tsalapatanis, 2022). according to akanle et al. (2021), there is a scarcity of research that pays attention to the influential part of ict and social media in the connections between remittances and international migration in subsaharan africa. noteworthy is the emerging attention on the relationship between migration, integration, and social media as a pivotal pathway for communication and information exchange in migration decisions (see dekker and engbersen, 2014; borkert et al., 2018; akakpo and bokpin, 2021). but the relationship between social media and migration outcomes – such as remittances – is understudied. to this end, there is a need for research attention on the link between remittances and social media. the latter has the potential to facilitate information flows in migrant networks that can enable the channeling of remittances, such as food transfers. 35 previous studies by crush and caesar (2018, 2020) have depicted the importance of food remittances, which are commonly overlooked compared to cash transfers. crush and caesar (2016) note that the transmission of in-kind remittances, particularly food remittances, has attracted limited attention, mainly because the transfers happen through informal channels. in africa, there is substantial evidence of vast cross-border and informal transportation of food (crush and caesar, 2016) and, more recently, the emergence of digital and mobile technology-based channels to remit food (sithole et al., 2022). in-kind transfers, such as food remittances are equally important because they reduce food insecurity and enhance access to healthy and adequate food consumption for poor communities. regarding international transfers to zimbabwe and the persistent social, economic, and political crisis in the country, studies have illustrated how remittances have been a vital support unit for the livelihoods and consumption of many households (tevera and chikanda, 2009; crush and tevera, 2010; sithole and dinbabo, 2016; crush and tawodzera, 2017). this study aims to contribute to the research and dialogues on south-south international migration, remittances, and food security. the article examines the emergence and importance of social media and migrant networks in transmitting food remittance by zimbabwean migrants in cape town, south africa. the primary facets of the study include the role of social media in the drivers of food transfers, channels of food remittances, characteristics of food remittances, and food remitting challenges. literature review narratives on the connection between social media and migration facets have underscored the significance of social networks in human mobility (mcgregor and siegel, 2013; dekker and engbersen, 2014). studies have emphasized how online activity and social media utilization influence migration decisions (mcgregor and siegel, 2013; vilhelmson and thulin, 2013; thulin and vilhelmson, 2014, 2016; dekker et al., 2018; merisalo and jauhiainen, 2021). social media enables social networking, group relations, and virtual communities for migrants (bates and komito, 2012). dekker et al. (2018) assert that social media used on smartphones is a vital source of information in migration choices or determinations. social media causes life to be easier for migrants through the benefits of social networking (merisalo and jauhiainen, 2021). thus, social media platforms are valuable in creating or improving migrant networks, communication, and supplying helpful information. similarly, akanle et al. (2021) argue that social media utilization assists international migrants in host locations and their relatives at home to uphold their kinship ties. social media empowers users to interact and preserve strong links via inexpensive calls/texts and interconnections on numerous sites. therefore, ict facilitates international migration, affords access to soughtafter information that stimulates interests, and access to resources, and sustains or reinforces valued kinship networks (akanle et al., 2021). correspondingly, social media or social networking tools are crucial in distributing pictures, text, videos, migrant networks, food remittances, and zimbabweans in cape town 36 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 and voice-supported media – rich for robust social groups of friends and other associations to arise among migrants (komito, 2011). komito’s (2011) research on migrants in ireland highlights that social media enables virtual communities, strong relations, and bonding capital. charmarkeh (2013) indicates that migrants, such as refugees in france, utilize social media, which is vital for navigating migratory routes and settling in locations that accept migrants. a study by dekker et al. (2016) of migrants in western european countries shows that online and social media are vital for interaction in migration networks. alencar (2018) shows that refugees in the netherlands utilize social media to integrate into the host country and communicate with friends and family in their countries of origin to acquire emotional and social support. borkert et al. (2018), in their study of migrants in germany, illuminate that smartphones, online interactive tools, and social media facilitate communication between migrants and their families and associates. social media is also significant for forming and sustaining social networks between migrating people and those who migrated before (borkert et al., 2018). ulla (2021) illustrates how filipino transnational migrants in thailand use social media sites to be updated on occurrences, news, and political events in their country of origin and reconnect with associates, relatives, and families. ennaji and bignami (2019) underscore the importance of social media and smartphones in expanding migration movements in morocco. mobile technologies and smartphones enable the utilization of social media apps such as whatsapp and facebook and global positioning apps and maps, which facilitate access to valuable online information when migrating. the above literature expands the understanding of the link between migration and social media. nevertheless, most studies have mainly centered on migration and social media; limited attention has been given to migration outcomes such as remittances. for example, the connection between remittances and social media has been scarcely investigated. studies by crush and caesar (2016, 2018, 2020) and sithole et al. (2022) on food remittances note the role of reciprocity and social networks in transmitting goods. social networks, ties, and trust between migrants and their networks, such as families and associates, offer helpful information essential for the transfer of remittances. therefore, social media can enable interactions and information exchange in migrant networks to facilitate the transfer of goods, such as food remittances. social capital theory this paper used the social capital theory as the theoretical basis to examine the utilization of social media in food remittances because it affords insights into how social networking is vital in the food remitting process. putnam (1993) refers to social capital as the “features of social organisation, such as networks, norms, and trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.” accordingly, social capital can help people use social ties to access resources (agbaam and dinbabo, 2014; dinbabo et al., 2021). there are three forms of social capital: 37 bonding, bridging, and linking. first, woolcock (2001) posits that bonding social capital occurs in homogeneous social ties with strong links like family, neighbors, or close friends. second, bridging social capital involves weak connections or heterogeneous social links (mahmood et al., 2018). third, linking social capital comprises the relations between the public and those in power or authority (kyne and aldrich, 2020). importantly, social capital, especially bonding and bridging, can be utilized to illuminate the significance of social media use in the setting of food remittances. for example, bonding and bridging social capital between migrants and their close and distant ties, such as household and family members, associates, and other compatriots, help to reveal insights into the role of migrant networks on social media in cross-border food remitting. methodology this study is based on research undertaken in cape town, south africa, on zimbabwean migrants. south africa is one of the leading destinations for these migrants (crush et al., 2015). also, cape town is a popular destination for international migrants (rule, 2018). south africa and cities such as cape town attract international migrants because of employment and economic prospects. the researcher conducted the primary data gathering in 2020 in the northern and southern suburbs of cape town in bellville, wynberg, claremont, kenilworth, and rondebosch. the specific study areas are popular spaces among international (african) migrants because of the residential, entrepreneurial, and educational prospects and being social and economically vibrant spaces. to ensure diverse representation in the research, the researcher included respondents from various categories: backgrounds, locations, professions, education, gender, and age. the study used a questionnaire instrument on 100 participants and indepth interviews with ten respondents in a mixed-methods approach, collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data. the researcher used stata 13.0 statistical software for quantitative data analysis, and adopted a thematic approach for qualitative data analysis. the combination of questionnaire and in-depth interviews was valuable in providing comprehensive data on the connection between food remittances, migrant networks, and social media. the sampling techniques employed in the research were purposive and snowballing for the in-depth interviews and questionnaire surveys – interviewed zimbabwean migrants provided referrals that helped reach more participants. this was decisive in accessing participants, especially in the context of the covid-19 pandemic environment. the limitation of the study was that the covid-19 pandemic, lockdowns, and mobility restrictions made it challenging to locate participants. however, social networks and referrals were crucial in reaching the participants. the researcher observed all ethical practices in the study, including obtaining consent, being granted permission, obtaining ethical clearance, and maintaining confidentiality and anonymity. migrant networks, food remittances, and zimbabweans in cape town 38 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 findings demographic and background data the respondents in the study were from diverse profiles and backgrounds. the age groups comprised economically active persons between 23 and 60 years old (see table 1), with 50 males and 50 females (not predetermined). most respondents (75%) were household breadwinners, with 15% of husbands and 10% of wives as breadwinners. the majority of the participants had one or more dependents, and most of the respondents were married (45%) or single (42%) (see table 1). the respondents were from varying income groups and diverse economic circumstances. table 1: background and demographic information source: author’s field survey, 2020 table 2 portrays that the participants’ occupations ranged from lecturers, teachers, health professionals, and office workers to blue-collar workers such as informal traders and domestic workers. most respondents (77%) completed university education, 17% attained secondary education, and 6% completed primary education. the researcher obtained the qualitative results from the narratives of individuals aged between 27 and 59 – six males and four females. the participants’ occupations variable category frequency percentage age 23 – 26 3 3% 27 – 30 17 17% 31 – 34 26 26% 35 – 38 26 26% 39 – 45 17 17% 46 – 50 9 9% 51+ 2 2% marital status married 45 45% single 42 42% divorced 5 5% widowed 8 8% dependents none 13 13% one 19 19% two 22 22% three 31 31% four 11 11% five+ 4 4% n = 100 39 were lecturers, office workers, postgraduate students, teachers, waiters (servers), gardeners, and bartenders. table 2: background and demographic information source: author’s field survey, 2020 drivers of food transfers and social media table 3 depicts the most important motivations to remit food: 43% of the respondents transferred food because of requests from households or family members back in their home country; 33% because the food items were essential groceries that the recipients might need; and 24% because of food shortages or food insecurity back in the country of origin. table 3: most important motivations to remit food source: author’s field survey, 2020 variable category frequency percentage occupation office worker 18 18% student 22 22% waiter 16 16% bartender 12 12% domestic worker 8 8% health professional 6 6% teacher 6 6% businessman/woman 4 4% lecturer 2 2% informal trader 6 6% n = 100 variable category frequency percentage motivation to remit food requests from family or household members who receive the food 43 43% basic goods that the receivers might need (short supply or too expensive) 33 33% food shortages or insecurity in zimbabwe 24 24% migrant networks, food remittances, and zimbabweans in cape town 40 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 the participants’ narratives explained that the drivers of transmitting food items were socioeconomic constraints in the country of origin, requests from relatives and family members, and high food prices in zimbabwe. one of the respondents (participant 5, 23 august 2020, bellville) stated, “i am influenced by the shortages, you know, they communicate with me sometimes to say, ‘we have run out of basics’.” in addition, a participant (participant 1, 28 april 2020, claremont) remarked: “my reasons for sending back food are mainly based on the requests made by my family.” the part played by social media platforms such as whatsapp, facebook, and twitter as the drivers of the transfer of food was evident in the study. consequently, 66% of the respondents noted that they were inspired to transfer food items to zimbabwe because of the communicationor information-sharing on social media by the household or family members in the country of origin. furthermore, 54% indicated that they are linked to and interact with family or household members, who request them, on social media, to transfer food and groceries. additionally, 44% revealed that they transmit food items to zimbabwe because of the content they see on social media, such as socioeconomic circumstances, food prices, food insecurity, food shortages in zimbabwe, and remitting channels. moreover, 40% of the participants specified that the decision to transfer food items was influenced by their interaction with friends and the content they share or post on social media. similarly, the participants highlighted the influence of the interactions on social media on their reasons for transferring food back home. for example, one participant (participant 2, 10 september 2020, bellville) explained: so, i communicate with a lot of my siblings through whatsapp. so, you know, sometimes they tell you about the situation back home, and in that way, you are aware that, okay, maybe you need to try and make sure you can send something and make sure you know, they get something to eat. the respondents also revealed the importance of news updates on social media that illustrated the challenging conditions back in zimbabwe that prompted them to remit food items. these challenges included food shortages, food insecurity, and starvation. in this regard, a participant (participant 1, 28 april 2020, claremont) explained: i have also connected on social media to news reporting. so, you will find that certain things also come up there. but i mean, when i read some things, and you read, you know, the statistics of the individuals or the numbers of individuals that are starving or the individuals that are struggling with food security. 41 this respondent added that the challenges revealed on social media news updates, such as hunger and food insecurity initiated the decision to find solutions and communicate with family members in zimbabwe: the automatic reaction becomes to engage. i engage with my own family about, you know, the situation that they are in because i have a sibling at home. i also engage about how i can assist. so, the awareness is there. it then triggers me to investigate how much it relates or how the food insecurity in zimbabwe is affecting my family. the zimbabwean migrants explained that the information shared by the digital/ mobile food remittance service providers and the content shared by the companies influence their decisions to remit. for example, the information shared by malaicha and mukuru on their social media pages regarding specials and discounts impacted the food remitting decisions. characteristics, channels of food remittances, and social media table 4 shows that the transferred food items generally comprised cooking oil, rice, sugar, mealie meal, beans, juice or drinks, peanut butter, meat, flour, and salt, among others. the common foodstuffs transferred are diverse, comprising staple foods in zimbabwe, grain-based food, perishable and non-perishable foods. the majority of the respondents indicated that they did not predetermine the regularity of the food transfers to their home country. resultantly, most individuals transferred food remittances whenever possible (59%), whereas only 14% tranferred every month, another 14% once a year, 9% twice a year, and 4% every three months. table 4: remitted food items (continued) food type frequency percentage cooking oil 68 68% rice 62 62% sugar 57 57% mealie meal 50 50% beans 46 46% drinks or juice 45 45% peanut butter 45 45% meat 41 41% flour 40 40% salt 39 39% jam 38 38% milk 31 31% migrant networks, food remittances, and zimbabweans in cape town 42 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 (continued) source: author’s field survey, 2020 noteworthy in the research was an association between the amount used on purchasing food each time they remitted food and the average monthly incomes. for instance, all those who had monthly incomes of r0–r4,000 transmitted food items priced at r1,000 or less, and most of those who transferred food items valued between r3,001–r4,000+ had monthly earnings of r15,001 or more (see table 5). table 5: amounts spent on purchases of food remitted to zimbabwe source: author’s field survey, 2020 the research results specified that 48% of the participants primarily transferred food items to zimbabwe through digital/mobile channels, 33% via transport carriers, 11% via family, relatives, friends, or associates, and 8% personally. to demonstrate the importance of digital/mobile channels, one participant (participant 9, 19 september 2020, wynberg) indicated that, “i was using buses to send my family food type frequency percentage kapenta (dried small fish) 29 29% soups and spices 28 28% tinned tomatoes and onions 27 27% nuts 26 26% cereals 26 26% tinned fish 24 24% bread 22 22% honey 21 21% vegetables 20 20% tea 20 20% eggs 17 17% fruits 15 15% margarine 14 14% monthly income average expenditure on food remittances to zimbabwe 0 – r1,000 r1,001 – r2,000 r2,001 – r3,000 r3,001 – r4,000 r4,001 + total r0 – r4,000 10 0 0 0 0 10 r4,001 – r8,000 29 3 1 0 0 33 r8,001 – r15,000 8 9 5 1 0 23 r15,001 – r20,000 0 6 3 3 2 14 r20,001+ 0 2 6 5 7 20 total 47 20 15 9 9 100 n = 100 43 some groceries. but because the pandemic caused the border to close, i decided to use the malaicha and mukuru services on my phone.” the significance of digital/ mobile channels as reliable, inexpensive, accessible, and speedy channels was also highlighted in the narratives of the zimbabwean migrants. informal channels were also crucial, particularly during the peak of the covid-19 pandemic, restrictions, and lockdowns. these migrants displayed resilience and coping strategies by using uncommon channels of transmitting food remittances to their home country. for example, one respondent (participant 3, 20 may 2020, kenilworth) revealed that, … so, the regular forms of transportation i used could not work because the borders were closed, but because funeral companies were allowed to move around for repatriation purposes, i also had to resort to using that [channel] … the respondents explained that the information sharing and interaction on social media sites such as twitter, facebook, and whatsapp provided helpful information or awareness of the dependable, accessible, and inexpensive channels to use for sending food. for example, one respondent (participant 3, 20 may 2020, kenilworth) explained: on the zimbabweans in cape town’s facebook page, and when we were under level-five lockdown, many people were also asking on social media how people who have urgent requests from zimbabwe are sending through the things … somebody wrote that they were also working with a funeral company that repatriates bodies of deceased zimbabweans. and that’s how they were getting their goods through… the participants used social media sites like twitter, facebook, and whatsapp to communicate and acquire valuable information related to food remittance transfers. social capital and social networking in social media groups proved to be invaluable. for instance, 69 participants were in various social media groups. among the 69 participants in social media groups, several groups were with friends (24.64%), family or household members (53.62%) and fellow zimbabweans (21.74%). interaction and information in social media groups assisted remittance-sending migrants in choosing the channels to remit food (46.38%), the frequency of food transfer (15.94%) and the types of food to transmit (37.68%) (see table 6). migrant networks, food remittances, and zimbabweans in cape town 44 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 table 6: helpful information related to food remittances in social media groups source: author’s field survey, 2020 nearly three-quarters (74%) of the respondents in the study indicated that social media interaction through texts or voice-messaging influenced their choice of mostfrequently used channels to remit food. additionally, 58% of the participants noted that social media content such as news and posts influenced their choice of preferred food transferring channels. furthermore, the study showed the significance of social media communication and content in accessing the channels deemed dependable (19%), reachable (27%), affordable (29%), and the speediest (25%) (see figure 1). figure 1: social media and choice of channels source: author’s field survey, 2020 also, the findings confirmed that social media plays a central role as a pathway to remitting food. for example, one zimbabwean migrant explained that digital/mobile remittance service providers like mukuru allow consumers to complete orders and create transactions on social media platforms like whatsapp. another respondent category frequency percentage how to send food to zimbabwe 32 46.38 types of food to send to zimbabwe 26 37.68 when to send the food items to zimbabwe 11 15.94 total 69 100.00% n = 69 29% 27% 25% 19% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% cheapest channels accessible channels quickest channels reliable channels 45 (participant 3, 20 may 2020, kenilworth) indicated how social media helped channel food to zimbabwe by saying, “when i had to decide who to use and how to send [food], i needed to do some social media research to find out what people are saying about the service that i’m intending on using.” another participant (participant 1, 28 april 2020, claremont) explained how social media facilitates interactions, information flow, and the purchase of proposed food items to remit: social media enables individuals to communicate via whatsapp even, you know, engaging and making purchases. you can find links on social media to shops you might want to buy from. and also, you can share all of this information via whatsapp and social media. the narratives of the zimbabwean migrants emphasized the crucial nature of social networking and social capital in social media groups on platforms such as whatsapp and facebook in transferring food remittances, as expressed by this participant: i mean, on almost all the groups i’m part of, i think we have several family groups with different family members. i mean, we have a group for our nuclear family, we have groups who are extended families from the mother’s side, from the father’s side, we have church groups that i’m part of, i’m in groups with friends. and in all those groups, at some point, we discussed the escalating food prices in zimbabwe (participant 3, 20 may 2020, kenilworth). the discussions in the social media groups included transfer channels, food prices, and the circumstances in the migrants’ home country. for instance, this participant (participant 3, 20 may 2020, kenilworth) added: … as those conversations go, we talk about how we, as migrants in south africa, can send things home, and we also get the opportunity to ask how other people are also sending home, so in all those groups. i can’t think of any group where at some point, we have not had a discussion on sending things to zimbabwe and just sharing ideas and suggestions on which way or method is best to use. social media is also helpful in facilitating the transfer of remittances through interactions between migrants and their networks. for example, because of the long distance between cape town and food delivery locations in zimbabwe, migrants use social media to facilitate the cheaper transfer of remittances from other south african cities closer to zimbabwe, such as johannesburg. a respondent (participant 4, 12 july 2020, claremont) said: migrant networks, food remittances, and zimbabweans in cape town 46 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 you could get information, for example, who’s in joburg, and who’s going back home. and some of the contacts of the people that i used to check stuff in joburg, and people that i’ve met on social media, and i get information from them, or they give you contact details of the cheapest driver, or they are the ones that go and collect the stuff for me or buy stuff for me. so social media has provided the human resources and information. food remittance challenges and social media informal ways of transferring food remittances present problems such as confiscation of goods by border officials, import-duty issues, delivery delays, and broken/ destroyed/stolen/misplaced goods. in this study, the challenges encountered when transferring food remittances comprised: delivery delays (22%), broken/destroyed goods (11%), misplaced/stolen goods (11%), high remittance costs (21%), while 35% of participants experienced no challenges. other challenges were internet problems, erroneous transactions, and bureaucratic registration to use digital/mobile channels. this study’s findings highlighted the importance of social media platforms in addressing the challenges encountered by zimbabwean migrants when transmitting food back to their home country. in this regard, 44% of participants indicated that social media posts, exchange of information, and communication assisted in solving some of the challenges they encountered when sending food to zimbabwe. this was corroborated in the narratives of the zimbabwean migrants. for instance, a respondent (participant 3, 20 may 2020, kenilworth) remarked: sometimes you find a post that somebody would have posted; we encounter a similar problem by the same person or with the same person. and sometimes you’ll find that the person is in the habit of lying to people to say, “i’ve been arrested, and i need you to pay an extra 500.” you get people that will also tell you, maybe five or ten people will come up and say, “no, this guy is a crook; he’s not telling the truth.” the narratives of the zimbabwean migrants also revealed the importance of content sharing, feedback, and reviews on social media regarding the remittance channels. for example, the above participant added: because sometimes their service is not good. and when there is an outcry on social media, people call out the bus company, naming and shaming them. it always invites the top or senior management of those bus services to come up and say, “you know, we apologize.” the respondents demonstrated how social media helps address challenges, such as access to specific channels during the covid-19 pandemic and resultant border 47 closures. this was done by asking questions on social media and using feedback to make decisions. for example, the above participant also said: on facebook, we have done that, asked the question, and people responded to say, “well, use this person or use this company, they can move"… during the lockdown, i asked how i could send groceries since the borders were closed. the use of mobile devices, smartphones, and social media was valuable in online communication and facilitating the information flow in the context of the covid-19 pandemic restrictions and limited physical contact. a participant (participant 1, 28 april 2020, claremont) stated: i think, you know, the biggest challenge with food remitting on the basis of covid is human-to-human contact. so, social media assists in communicating specific information … social media also facilitates virtual communities and online interactions for migrants and their networks that enable the transfer of food remittances. this proved to be useful in overcoming the practicality and challenges of having face-to-face communication. the above respondent added: … social media allows people to remit and send their items without physical contact. by this, what i mean is, be it via courier or even via a family member, you don’t necessarily have to get in physical contact with anyone to get the food you would like to courier across. discussion diasporas utilize social media or social networking sites (snss) for various online networking actions (crush et al., 2011). borkert et al. (2018: 8) note that “migrants are digital agents of change who themselves post and share information in social media and digital social networks.” the zimbabwean migrants demonstrated the vital role social media platforms, such as facebook, whatsapp, and twitter, play in migrant social networking and the transfer of food remittances. the study results are consistent with the studies that have drawn attention to the importance of social media, migrant networks, and migration decisions (mcgregor and siegel, 2013; dekker and engbersen, 2014; akakpo and bokpin, 2021). from the perspectives of the zimbabwean migrants, their decisions to transfer food remittances were influenced by content viewing, information sharing and communications on social media with household or family members, friends, and associates. notably, the information sharing and interactions on social media important to the transfer of food were about food requests, food shortages, food insecurity, food prices, socioeconomic situations in the country of origin, remittance needs, and transfer migrant networks, food remittances, and zimbabweans in cape town 48 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 channels. similar perspectives emerge in previous studies by crush and tevera (2010), tevera and chikanda (2009), ramachandran et al. (2022), and sithole et al. (2022) that underscore the persistent economic crisis (including unemployment, food insecurity, food shortages, and hyper-inflation) in zimbabwe as one of the main drivers of remittances to zimbabwe. migrant remittances support households and family members back in zimbabwe, especially during economic shocks. additionally, the zimbabwean migrants highlighted that news updates, posts, and reviews on social media influenced food-remitting decisions. the interaction and content on social media platforms also consisted of issues related to food remittances, such as food promotions or discounts by remitting businesses. the marketing, promotions, and discounts on social media can attract consumers to use food-remitting services. thus, the advertising and marketing by food-remitting companies can drive migrants to utilize their affordable services and purchase food to remit. social media is resourceful for valuable information flows that impact the decisions to transfer food items, such as sharing information within or between the host and origin locations. the study corroborates dekker and engbersen’s (2014) assertion that social media platforms transform migrant networks and provide a wealthy base for insider information on migration that is distinct and informal. hence, social media sites offer valuable tools that facilitate the flow of information and trigger the decisions to remit food. from the standpoint of the zimbabwean migrants, social media enables the formation of online communities that enhance mutual decision-making. hence, it facilitates a collective sense of obligation to support and transfer food remittances to family members back home. the zimbabwean migrants utilize various channels to transfer food remittances, such as digital/mobile and informal sources (personally, associates, family members, relatives, and transport carriers). this study mirrors the viewpoints in earlier works by nzima (2017), nyamunda (2014), maphosa (2007) and more recently by sithole et al. (2022), that zimbabwean migrants utilize both formal and informal channels to transfer remittances to their family members and households back home. also, in southern africa, new patterns show that mobile and digital technologies are now facilitating the transmission of groceries, including food remittances through companies such as malaicha and mukuru groceries (sithole, 2022; sithole et al., 2022). a study by tevera and chikanda (2009) posits that social ties, social networks, information flows and personal relations between migrants, family members, and associates impact the decisions to use specific channels when transferring remittances to zimbabwe from neighboring countries. strikingly, the zimbabwean migrants illustrated that social networking on social media with family and household members, friends, and companions helped them decide on the most accessible, cheapest, speediest, and most reliable channel to use in transmitting food. social media sites also facilitated the interaction between zimbabwean migrants and transport carriers at various stages before and after the transportation of food items. for instance, the communication between food-sending migrants and transporting 49 carriers comprised the channeling costs, border tariffs, delivery status, and situation in zimbabwe. social media is an essential source of information for migrants (dekker et al., 2018). the zimbabwean migrants narrated that their preferences for specific channels were based on social media reviews, sentiments, and information regarding the dependability of these channels. remarkably, social media was used as a channel to transfer food. accordingly, it was illustrated that digital/mobile remitting companies have alternatives to complete transactions or make orders on social media platforms. social media provides informative information on the most accessible channel, especially during crises like the covid-19 pandemic and resultant limitations such as movement or transport restrictions. for example, information on social media provided insights into border closures and limited transport movement. and decisively, social media information provided details on how funeral firms were permitted to carry on their business. and in turn, the zimbabwean migrants were clandestinely transferring foodstuffs through the funeral companies. social media enables the virtual interaction and flow of information that facilitates the channeling of food remittances. scholars have indicated the connection between migration, remittances, and social capital (akanle et al., 2021). the study highlighted the significance of social capital and social networking on social media sites like whatsapp, facebook, and twitter among the zimbabwean migrants and their associates, which are essential in transferring food remittances. accordingly, the article indicated that personal and group ties were beneficial in deciding on the foodstuffs to remit, the period to remit, and choosing the dependable, inexpensive, and accessible remittance channels. for example, communication and exchange of ideas on social media groups between the zimbabwean migrants and their strong and close relations, like friends, household and family members, were crucial in transmitting food. social networking with strong and close ties, such as among family members and friends, is described as bonding social capital (dressel et al., 2020). social media efficiently enables strong relations and bonding social capital, indicating a new manifestation of virtual migrant communities (komito, 2011). also, social media can assist migrants and their networks in navigating the spaces and places they occupy by enabling communication and exchanging helpful information. social media networking and content exchanges are not restricted by location and distance because contact occurs online. social networking on social media groups between the zimbabwean migrants and distant ties, like other zimbabweans and associated church members, was crucial in providing helpful information on low-cost and accessible food remittance channels. the distant or weak links in social capital are known as bridging social capital (woolcock, 2001). thus, bonding and bridging social capital on social media were essential in providing valuable information on food remittance and facilitating the channeling of food items. correspondingly, a study by merisalo and jauhiainen (2021) demonstrates that social media usage is associated with social ties and social migrant networks, food remittances, and zimbabweans in cape town 50 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 capital among migrant networks. social media promotes networking and social capital that assist in channeling food remittances. zimbabwean migrants operate in transnational spaces and engage in virtual communities on the internet that enable them to maintain ties between origin and destination spaces (tevera, 2014). social media groups facilitate the creation of online networks for migrants and their family members, relatives, and associates, which generate a rich source of helpful information on migration and remittance issues. when remitting food through informal channels, the challenges included delivery delays, and broken, lost, or stolen goods. the study’s findings support previous studies by tevera and chikanda (2009), maphosa (2007), and nzima (2017). they note that migrants who transferred remittances to their households and families in zimbabwe through informal channels regularly encountered challenges, such as theft, delivery delays, and undependable remittance carriers. however, undocumented and unbanked migrants without regular jobs continued to depend mainly on informal channels because the passages were cheap and more accessible. digital/mobile or formal channels presented challenges, such as poor internet access, transaction problems, and costly charges. social media plays a crucial role in addressing some of the difficulties encountered when remitting food because of being accessible, affordable, and speedy. pourmehdi and shahrani (2021) concur on the importance of social media sites by indicating that they are essential to migrant networks because they offer smooth, accessible communication resources. the capability of social media as a resource that facilitates information flow was vital for the zimbabwean migrants. social media reviews and posts also addressed the challenges of poor service delivery and unreliable transfer channels. for example, reviews on social media uncovered undependable remittance carriers and provided valuable information on reliable remittance carriers. the posts, reviews, and communication on social media can provide information on untrustworthy transport carriers and afford suggestions on the cheapest, dependable, and accessible transport carriers to use when transmitting food. therefore, social media can link virtual communities and offline activities, such as arranging and transferring food remittances. scholars have indicated how the covid-19 pandemic disrupted the food systems and the movement of people and goods (crush and si, 2020; paganini et al., 2020; crush et al., 2021). dinbabo (2020) asserts that the covid-19 pandemic threatens the stability of people’s economic and social well-being, as well as their overall health care. some of the challenges encountered because of the covid-19 pandemic, such as movement restrictions, were lessened by social media. for example, social media enabled virtual communication between zimbabwean migrants, associates, and transport carriers. in the context of the covid‐19 pandemic, social media can offer valuable and speedy distribution channels for vital information (chan et al., 2020). social media can lessen the hindrance of the distance between migrants and their networks by providing online communication opportunities. also, social media facilitated the online purchase of food items and enabled the remitting of the food 51 items. social media sites can assist in the buying and transferring of food remittances through their capacity to facilitate transactions, content sharing and information flow in text, image, video, and audio forms. social media has valuable tools that offer inexpensive, instant, and reachable channels for unlimited information pathways, which migrants and their networks can utilize to facilitate undertakings such as remittances. however, as highlighted in the study, access to social media sometimes has constraints such as limited access to smartphones, mobile devices, mobile data, power, or internet connectivity. conclusion this study has contributed to the discussions and research on south-south migration, remittance flows, and food security. at the center of the study is the influence of social media on how zimbabwean migrants in cape town are transferring food remittances to their families left behind in their home country. social media enables online interactions and virtual communities for migrants and their networks, which are valuable for migration and remittance choices. the study illustrated how the drivers, channels, and nature of transferring foodstuffs back home are influenced by the content sharing, information flow, and communication between the migrants and friends, associates, family members, and carriers. a noteworthy finding of the research was that social media offered reachable, convenient, and inexpensive communication channels during the covid‐19 pandemic when movement restrictions and lockdowns disrupted face-to-face interactions. social media can provide rapid, affordable, reliable, and accessible communication passages that are useful for migrant communities and the transfer of remittances. this article provided insights into how social media facilitates information pathways for migrants and their networks when transferring food remittances. accordingly, researchers and development 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1994, a ‘new’ south africa was born out of electoral democracy. while democratization dismantled minority authoritarian rule as well as legalized racial intolerance, prejudicial and discriminatory practices remained, this time directed against foreigners. this is at variance with south africa’s commitment to principles of liberal democracy, human rights, and regional integration. what then explains this paradox? this paper underscores that what feeds and bestows social legitimacy to xenophobia is the foregrounding of an anti-immigrant populist discourse in the mainstream political discourse with the participation of political leaders from across the political spectrum. but how has a morally repugnant anti-immigrant populist discourse been made a sensible and justifiable political narrative? the paper analyzes the mediated populist performances of selected political leaders like press statements, public speeches, interviews, or other statements posted on social media platforms like twitter, and how these leaders scapegoat foreigners for the challenges the country is facing. keywords: xenophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, south africa, migration, populism 1 university of the witwatersrand, south africa  joemachinya@gmail.com © the author 2022 migration and politics in south africa: mainstreaming anti-immigrant populist discourse 60 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 introduction in 1994, a ‘new’ non-racial south africa was born out of electoral democracy and was solidly anchored on principles of liberal democracy and human rights. nelson mandela’s vision of a ‘rainbow nation’ and thabo mbeki’s ‘african renaissance’ sought to facilitate south africa’s re-integration into, and strengthen its ties with, the rest of the continent and further reinforce this democratic dispensation. the idea and vision of this ‘new’ south africa differed strikingly from the apartheid socio-political (dis)order that preceded it. after the end of apartheid, there was an influx of migrants, particularly from other african countries as south africa was considered to have a relatively stable political and economic climate. however, while democratization dismantled minority authoritarian rule as well as legalized racial intolerance, prejudicial and discriminatory practices remained entrenched, this time directed against ‘outsiders’, especially those from elsewhere in africa and in particular those perceived as ‘illegal’ foreigners or ‘outsiders’ (neocosmos, 2006). several scholars have characterized south africa’s immigration policy in the first decade of the twenty-first century as restrictive and exclusionary (peberdy, 2009; klotz, 2013). through this restrictive stance, the south african state sought to distinguish between legal immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and ‘illegal’ immigrants in order to exclude the latter from entering the country and deport them if they entered, even though this was done with little success. as south africa continued to receive an increasing number of migrants, most of them undocumented, tensions between local south africans and foreign migrants were also rising. to this end, discursive and physical attacks on foreigners, especially those perceived to be in the country ‘illegally’, surged, and the most violent and widespread attacks occurred in may 2008 (hassim et al., 2008), which crush (2008) christened “a perfect storm”. the violence was a historically significant moment to which landau (2010) opined that if fortune were to smile, south africa would never again witness the same kind of violence. this presupposed that the authorities may have derived some lessons on, and sought lasting solutions to, the problem of xenophobia. unfortunately – but unsurprisingly so – since this ‘perfect storm’, violent episodes against foreigners continue in south africa as witnessed in 2015, 2019, and recently in 2022 when numerous communities mobilized against undocumented foreigners under the banner ‘operation dudula’. the persistence of violence against foreigners in recent years is at variance with south africa’s commitment to democratic principles, human rights, and the assumption that the country may have derived some lessons from the 2008 violence in dealing with the problem of xenophobia once and for all. how, then, has this ‘new’ political order built on a solid foundation of human rights and democratic principles, and a commitment to african sisterhood/brotherhood – ubuntu, a common african humanity – continued to witness the very thing that is opposed to these values? vexed by a question of the same nature and commenting on a southern african migration project (samp) survey that showed the prevalence of anti-immigrant attitudes in 61 south africa, botswana and namibia (see crush and pendleton, 2004) – which are the three shining examples of liberal democracy in southern africa – neocosmos (2006) notes that it is not impossible to have some connection between liberal democracy and xenophobia, and that xenophobia is not unique to authoritarian regimes. writing in the aftermath of the 2008 xenophobic attacks, pillay (2008) stressed the need to take a step back and ask the question: ‘why?’ why is south africa constantly experiencing different forms of violence targeted at foreign nationals? this current paper offers some explanation to the question why and shows how xenophobic sentiment is becoming more entrenched in south africa. the paper underscores that what is feeding and somehow bestowing social legitimacy to xenophobia, is the strategic and often opportunistic foregrounding of a crude anti-immigrant populist discourse in the mainstream political discourse with the participation and collusion of many political and other leaders at both national and community levels. the paper further argues that this normalizes anti-immigrant sentiments and practices as acceptable patterns of the mainstream political agenda on immigration. political parties and politicians from across the political spectrum have been blatantly mobilizing anti-immigrant populist discourse, and this became a strong rallying point, especially in the run-up to the may 2019 national elections (bornman, 2018; davis, 2019; heleta, 2019; new frame, 2019). this paper pursues the following question: why and how is anti-immigrant populist discourse, despite being morally repugnant and at odds with south africa’s democratic principles and vision of regional integration, becoming a sensible and justifiable way of speaking and thinking about immigration in the mainstream political discourse? while some scholars note that the political terrain in south africa is plagued by xenophobic sentiment with government officials and parliamentarians being instrumental to this (neocosmos, 2006), there has been no analysis of how these political actors entrench and propagate an anti-immigrant populist discourse in the mainstream political discourse. to pursue this analysis, i follow jagers and walgrave’s (2007) understanding of populism as a political communication style. in the following sections, i conceptualize populism, identify some of its major signifiers, and highlight the connections between populism and xenophobia. before examining the mainstreaming of anti-immigrant populist discourse and how this is performed by political leaders, i provide a note on methodology as well as some explanations to the persistence of xenophobia in post-apartheid south africa. populism as a communication style political scientists are increasingly branding as populism certain political phenomena, or a certain breed of politicians, or some ways of doing politics. in the late 1960s, ionescu and gellner (1969) wrote about the vagueness of the concept; and almost 50 years later, the term populism maintains its conceptual slipperiness (taggart, 2000; mudde, 2004; jagers and walgrave, 2007). the term is applied to different political parties and actors on the political spectrum because it does not embody a distinctive migration and politics in south africa: mainstreaming anti-immigrant populist discourse 62 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 type of political regime, neither does it define a particular ideological content. it is often used as a pejorative category with menacing connotations without really subjecting it to critical analysis. to rescue the concept and its conceptual and analytical substance, taguieff (1995) maintains that the term must be conceptualized as a type of social and political mobilization, which means that it designates a dimension of political action or discourse. there is some scholarly agreement with this definition of populism as a political strategy (betz, 2002; barr, 2019) or political style (jagers and walgrave, 2007) whose political rhetoric is less/not grounded in ideology but gives reference to ‘the people’, evokes latent grievances and appeals to emotions provoked by these grievances. the question that some scholars grapple with is why has the same term (populism/populists) been used to describe entirely different political parties or actors? these scholars thus emphasize the need to find the existence of “a lowest common denominator” (rooduijn, 2014) or “core signifiers” (stavrakakis et al., 2017) that characterize populism. three elements are thus considered core signifiers of the different historical and theoretical shapes of populism. first, is the idea of ‘the people’ – populism always refers to, seeks to appeal to, and identifies with ‘the people’. second, populism is rooted in anti-elitism, but substantial populist energy today, especially in europe and north america (as is the case in south africa), is being directed against a demonized foreign ‘other’ (wodak, 2015), particularly the ‘illegal’ migrant. third, populism simplifies the political terrain and proposes simple solutions to complex problems. scholars refer to populism as a political strategy or style (betz, 2002; jagers and walgrave, 2007; barr, 2019), a “thin” ideology according to mudde (2004), that creates a social imaginary of society as separated into two camps – the perfect ‘people’ at the core of its articulation and the evil elite or a certain constructed ‘other’. with the rise of right-wing populism across the world, there has been an increasing dichotomization of the society between ‘the people’ and the enemy camp, with the enemy being increasingly defined in terms of their foreignness. thus, populists claim to put ‘the people’ (our people) first, while creating a chasm between and turning ‘the people’ against the enemy ‘other’ that is perceived as obstructing ‘the people’ from realizing their collective interests (rooduijn, 2014). the ‘other’ is not just a people who happens to be constructed as different from ‘the people’, they are evil and dangerous (mudde, 2004). therefore, when investigating the existence of a populist discourse, it is imperative to examine whether ‘the people’ or ‘our people’ or ‘us/we’ are the central reference point of a given discourse, and whether the reference to ‘the people’ is used to create a chasm between ‘the people’ and a perceived enemy to the exclusion of the latter. generally, the conceptualization of ‘the people’ can mean different things to different populists (canovan, 1981; mudde, 2004); it can refer to the electorate, the nation, or to no fixed group at all. however, this does not mean that ‘the people’ 63 is devoid of meaning. instead, the meaning of the term depends on the context in which it is being mobilized. ‘the people’ are often constructed as a monolithic group with no internal differences; oftentimes, as is the case in the mobilization of anti-immigrant populist rhetoric in south africa, important fissures such as class, race, and ethnicity are neglected, and focus is concentrated on the enemy ‘other’, the (‘illegal’) foreigner. populist rhetoric sees ‘the people’ as a virtuous community that can be linked to taggart’s (2000: 95) populist heartland in which a “virtuous and unified community resides”. albertazzi and mcdonnell (2008) argue that this heartland is not a utopia; it is a harmonious place which is held to have existed in the past but has been lost because of the invasion of the enemy. however, for south africa, the populist heartland is more utopian than real. it only exists in people’s imaginations of the past promises of post-apartheid prosperity, which have not yet been realized. the end of apartheid signaled the beginning of the journey towards this virtuous place – the heartland – where people were promised welfare, jobs, free education, free health, and housing. this heartland is imagined as less attainable as long as ‘outsiders’ remain present in south africa. populism is able to achieve its people-centrism and anti-‘other’ politics by strategically enacting a “moral panic” (see cohen, 2011) where a particular group is defined as a threat, thus creating a relationship of antagonism between ‘the people’ and the ‘other’. it is essential in constituting distinct socio-political identities that enhance the identification and exclusion of the ‘other’. this is the basis for populism’s exclusionary approach in which populists claim to be protecting the integrity and well-being of those who belong from the threat posed by a dangerous and morally corrupt ‘other’. in the context of migration and politics, the more ethno-nationalistic the conception of the ‘people’ is, the more xenophobic the positioning against the ‘other’. this antagonistic relationship is intensified with promises for better life once the ‘other’ is vanquished from among ‘the people’. populism is known for its penchant for simple solutions to complex problems; its seductive appeal rests on simple narratives that barely explain or interrogate complex socio-political circumstances (waisbord, 2018). populist actors refer to ‘the people’ to show that they care about and are ready to defend people’s interests, or that they are not alienated from the public but know what the people really want (jagers and walgrave, 2007). to put their message forward, populist actors proclaim a serious crisis that threatens to annihilate ‘the people’ if it is not resolved. whether the crisis is real or imagined does not matter, what matters is that a sense of crisis is created, and the culprit is pinpointed (taggart, 2000; betz, 2002). this “politics of fear” (wodak, 2015), which is a form of over-emotionalized “anxious politics” (albertson and gadarian, 2015), is designed to stimulate feelings of resentment and exploit them for political gain. inglehart and norris (2016) express the widely held view regarding the rise of populism that it is spurred by increased economic inequality and growing migration and politics in south africa: mainstreaming anti-immigrant populist discourse 64 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 social exclusion. from this perspective and in the context of migration and politics, immigrants and refugees are blamed for the increasing economic insecurity experienced in many countries, which often foments popular resentment against them. in the midst of the proclaimed crisis, the populists proffer simple solutions that are tailored to the language and understanding of the general public and rely on polarizing mechanisms such as scapegoating, witch-hunting and conspiracy theories that appear true but have no basis in fact (comaroff, 2011). methodology this paper is based on an analysis of selected political actors’ mediated performances like press statements, public speeches, interviews, or other statements posted on social media platforms like twitter and youtube, and how these politicians presented their messages with a conspicuous anti-immigrant populist appeal. i examined the political messages of several political actors, who included bongani mkongi, the former deputy minister of police (eyewitness news, 2017); aaron motsoaledi, the former minister of health (mbhele, 2018); david makhura, the african national congress (anc) gauteng premier (enca, 2019); solly msimanga, democratic alliance (da) tshwane mayor (sabc news, 2018); herman mashaba, former da johannesburg mayor (davis, 2019); ace magashule, anc secretary general (modjadji, 2019); fikile mbalula, former minister of police (enca, 2017); bheki cele, the minister of police (ndlazi, 2018); faith mazibuko, anc gauteng member of the executive council (mec) for community safety (bornman, 2019a). my analysis follows a critical discourse analysis in terms of anti-immigrant rhetoric, uncovering key patterns of the political actors’ mediated discursive articulations of immigration issues. the analysis examines the ways the political actors communicate their messages presenting a distorted, non-factual and negative account of immigration in south africa. the analysis aims to show how these messages are strategically disseminated to create a ‘moral panic’ around immigration. the political actors mobilize an anti-immigrant populist rhetoric by relaying their messages through a spectacularized performance of crisis (moffit, 2015) in which they identify a failure (i.e., the failing immigration control system), elevate it to the level of a crisis and establish an equivalential relation (laclau, 2005) with the other challenges the country is facing. they always identify the culprit (i.e., ‘illegal’ foreign nationals) and propose simple solutions to an otherwise complex set of challenges. while doing this, the political actors often hide behind the veil of xenophobia denialism common in statements like, “i am not being xenophobic” or “this is not xenophobia”, implying that their anti-immigrant messages are truthful and factual. i argue that this communication style and xenophobia denialism legitimizes, normalizes, and entrenches xenophobic populist discourse in the mainstream political discourse. this populist discourse comes in a nationalist garb (norbert, 2009) and is framed around a “politics of fear” (wodak, 2015) that constructs foreigners as an ethno-cultural ‘other’ who threatens the socio-economic wellbeing of ‘the people’. by 65 contrast, ‘the people’ are portrayed as pure and whose existence is threatened by the presence of outsiders. for their own convenience, the political leaders always ditch the principles of pan-africanism and ubuntu that were integral in the conception of the ‘new’ south africa and call for the expulsion of foreigners. this bolsters an already long-standing culture of anti-foreigner attitude and stirs the “demons of xenophobia” in south africa (see landau, 2011). some explanations to xenophobia in south africa following democratization, south africa became an attractive destination for migrants from other parts of africa and beyond because of its relatively stable political and economic environment. despite a new democratic dispensation being birthed in south africa, klotz (2013) considers as vestiges from the apartheid past the country’s exclusionary definition of nationality in the wake of an influx of migrants, which is the basis for the contemporary expressions of xenophobic populist discourse today. in this regard, chipkin (2007) notes that the removal of race as a core determinant of citizenship in post-apartheid south africa opened a complex question of “who are the people” that should be served by the democratic dispensation. with the new diffuse and inclusive national identity conceptualized with no primary reference to ‘black’ for making social and political demands, ‘south africans’ as an identity became unclear with no obvious content. colonially imposed national territorial boundaries then became the basis for asserting the meaning of democratic citizenship, of being south african (geschiere, 2009), and of constructing and excluding the alien ‘other’. scholars locate anti-immigrant sentiment within the context of social transition and change and explain violence against foreigners as driven by relative deprivation and frustrations resulting from the failure of the post-apartheid government to deliver on its promises in housing, education, healthcare, and job creation (morris, 1999; tshitereke, 1999). in this context, tshitereke notes, “people often create a ‘frustration-scapegoat’” (1999: 4) – a target to blame for their deprivation. when the majority group faces a perilous economic situation, they are more likely to feel threatened by minorities, who in this case are often ‘illegal’ foreigners. advancing the above position, pillay (2008) dismisses the simple attribution of xenophobia to issues of identity (i.e., that south africans hate foreigners) and takes a sociological approach that gives more nuance to the idea of identity politics and xenophobia. he analyzes how factors such as socio-economic class, power and access to resources interlink to produce xenophobia. for pillay, at the root of the may 2008 xenophobic violence, where poor people attacked other poor people, was “class inequality as a systemic problem of uneven development” (2008: 94). pillay argues that the post-apartheid government, by adopting neoliberal policies, instead of pursuing a redistributive course, unleashed a socio-economic system of market violence against the majority of poor south africans. since the perpetrators or beneficiaries of this violence remained increasingly out of touch, the victims (poor south africans) then turned to the ‘soft targets’ closest to them who were conveniently migration and politics in south africa: mainstreaming anti-immigrant populist discourse 66 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 scapegoated for taking up resources and opportunities. however, this understanding of relative deprivation and frustration as causal factors of xenophobia fail to account for the pervasiveness of xenophobia among south africans of different classes, races, and genders (see crush and pendelton, 2004). again, statistical analysis of incidents of violence during the 2008 attacks illustrates that the poorest areas were not those on the rampage, suggesting poverty and disadvantage cannot alone explain the violence (landau, 2010). adding to the argument that xenophobia in south africa is fueled by poor people’s frustrations at the government’s failure to deliver on its post-apartheid promises, glaser (2008) points out that the violence was not coming from the elites – either the major political parties or major organized civil society actors. instead, for glaser, the attacks emerged from below and were “profoundly democratic” (2008: 53). this argument exonerates the leaders from any direct responsibility in the attacks. however, acquitting the leaders of any wrongdoing misses the point. while there were no leaders publicly making anti-immigrant statements, there were also no anti-xenophobic leaders condemning xenophobia. instead, the leaders were in denial that the attacks were xenophobic even as foreigners were being killed and their properties looted. the argument that the xenophobic attacks were democratic is important in as far as highlighting the social legitimacy behind the attacks, but it ignores politicians’ manipulation of the crisis and also other preceding factors that informed and animated the violence. crush and pendleton (2004) show that anti-foreigner attitudes are pervasive and widespread across the south african society. foreigners are scapegoated as the primary cause of unemployment, and a threat to societal values (murray, 2003; landau, 2010). crush and pendleton’s observation does not absolve any specific group of harboring negative attitudes against foreigners, which contradicts the general belief that certain groups in the population are more xenophobic than others. research has shown that south africans generally display high levels of intolerance and hostility against foreigners; they feel threatened by the presence of foreigners and prefer draconian policies such as electrifying borders, denying foreigners basic rights, and having refugees live in border camps (crush et al., 2013). with these pervasive negative attitudes, it is therefore easier for anti-immigrant populist discourse to find space in the country’s mainstream political discourse. mainstreaming anti-immigrant populist discourse in south africa there has been a significant rise in right-wing xenophobic populist political parties around the world. these are an “amalgam of differing groups united primarily by their shared hostility to migrants, their provocative, exclusionary, scape-goating brand of ethnic nationalism” (deangelis, 2003: 84). in trying to account for this global trend, scholars speak of a “populist zeitgeist” (mudde, 2004: 542), or populist times. some scholars believe that this tidal wave of populism across the globe has been spurred by 67 the different crises the world is facing (see moffit, 2015). it is believed that crisis sets the stage for populism as a strategy for politicians to appeal to the people (knight, 1998). in south africa, a state of crisis is on the horizon; the country’s social and economic fortunes are in serious decline: unemployment, pegged at 32.5% in 2021, is escalating, wages are declining, the public health sector is crumbling, crime rates are soaring, and municipalities are dismally failing on service delivery. amid the prevalence of these challenges, south africa is witnessing a steady rise to prominence in anti-immigrant populist rhetoric in the mainstream political discourse with numerous leaders proclaiming a direct causal relationship between the socio-economic challenges and the presence of migrants (bekker, 2015; fogel, 2019). blatantly anti-immigrant language is becoming a part of mainstream political discourse. the question for this paper is about how these political leaders manage to make anti-foreigner rhetoric a sensible and justifiable part of the political discourse on the challenges the country is facing. below i demonstrate how they have managed to do this through the populist performance of crisis (moffit, 2015). claiming to be a voice for the people while scapegoating immigrants for the challenges south africa is facing is convenient for many populist actors, doing so often raises the ire of rights activists and groups. in such circumstances, the populist actors’ strategy is to claim being the courageous voice of the unarticulated sentiments of ordinary people (betz, 2002). raising such a controversial subject publicly positions the populist actor as attuned to the issues affecting the people. a good example is herman mashaba, the former da mayor for johannesburg who, in a media briefing during his first 100-days-in-office address, expressed his commitment to fight ‘illegal’ immigration. he said, “they [illegal foreigners] are holding our country to ransom and i am going to be the last south african to allow it” (mashego and malefane, 2017). in another media statement that was posted on the city of johannesburg’s website in january 2019, mashaba indulged in self-praise saying that by publicly speaking against the state of ‘illegal’ immigration, he “went where angels feared to tread” (mashaba, 2019). he even expressed dismay about why “it took so long for someone to speak about an issue of such importance to our citizens” (mashaba, 2019). predictably enough, mashaba’s boldness to speak publicly against ‘illegal’ immigration made him an instant celebrity to many south africans who urged him to remain resolute in “cleaning” the city of ‘illegal’ foreigners. in the same media statement, mashaba writes about how “ordinary people” appreciate him for his efforts to speak about the issue of ‘illegal’ immigration: something strange began to happen. everywhere i went i was being stopped in the street by ordinary people who were so grateful that someone had said something about it (mashaba, 2019). migration and politics in south africa: mainstreaming anti-immigrant populist discourse 68 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 this way, mashaba positions himself as a political leader who cares about and is ready to fight for “ordinary people”, who he refers to as, “our poor, forgotten people” (mashaba, 2019), and that he is not out of touch with the everyday realities affecting them. speaking about how ‘illegal’ immigration makes the people of south africa suffer, gives mashaba and other populist leaders ground for xenophobic denialism. rather, they claim to be speaking about ‘real’ issues affecting the people, and this gives moral legitimacy to their anti-immigrant political message. a quite effective strategy for anti-immigrant populists when advocating against foreign nationals, is to play the perpetrator-victim reversal. given south africa’s robust legal rights framework, the xenophobic utterances of these leaders inevitably generate moral outrage and condemnation from civil society groups, democratic politicians, and public intellectuals. the populist leaders in return bemoan that such strong condemnation is a way by the liberal democratic forces to silence them from articulating issues that affect ‘the people’, which conveniently amounts to perpetratorvictim reversal (cammaerts, 2018). mashaba turned himself into a victim after his xenophobic stance received widespread condemnation and in the media statement he laments, “for merely lamenting the state of illegal immigration i was labelled ‘xenophobic’, ‘afriphobic’ and ‘illiberal’” (mashaba, 2019). he also took to social media to express rage at the way he had been castigated for speaking against ‘illegal’ immigration. he wrote on his twitter handle, “calling against illegal immigration is now labeled xenophobic & populist in south africa... illegal immigration debate must be elevated” (herman mashaba, @hermanmashaba, january 14, 2019). the perpetrator-victim reversal enabled mashaba to portray himself to his constituents as a selfless leader who practices self-abnegation by continuing to fight for the interests of “ordinary people” despite the backlash he faces. mashaba, despite receiving a lot of criticism for his discernible anti-foreigner attitude, has managed to establish a huge followership of people who see him as their mouthpiece, and he has since formed a political party called actionsa. identifying and elevating failure to the level of crisis another tactic used by the populist actors in south africa to make their antiimmigrant political message appealing to their constituents, is the spectacularized performance of crisis (moffit, 2015) whereby they identify a failure, elevate it to the level of a crisis and bring it to attention as a matter of urgency (betz, 2002; rooduijn, 2014). whether this crisis is real or not does not matter; what matters is that a sense of crisis and an urgent call for action to solve the crisis have been made. building a sense of crisis is vital for mainstreaming populist discourse because it necessitates the demand to act immediately and decisively. populists use crisis by linking it to failure – in the case of this study, the failure of the immigration control system – and the impetus to act or make vital decisions emanates from the need to remedy the failure and stem the crisis. this spectacularization of failure makes crisis 69 migration and politics in south africa: mainstreaming anti-immigrant populist discourse a key part of, rather than something external to, populism (moffit, 2015). elevating a failure to the level of crisis requires the identified failure to be of huge political concern; ‘illegal’ immigration is one such issue in south africa. over the past few years, several political leaders have raised concern over the failure of the country’s immigration control system to stop ‘illegal’ immigrants from coming into south africa. in 2018, leader of the congress of the people (cope), mosiuoa lekota, was quoted in the media alleging that, “government, at national [level], is allowing people to flood south africa” (madia, 2018). another example is the anc government’s deputy minister of police, bongani mkongi, who in july 2017 during a press-briefing after visiting hillbrow police station to discuss issues of crime and illegal trading, perfectly adopted a typical populist choreography. his statement had all the ingredients of xenophobic toxicity and the video was re-circulated on social media platforms during the xenophobic attacks in early september 2019. he lamented: how can a city in south africa be 80% foreign nationals? that is dangerous; that in hillbrow … south africans have surrendered their own city to the foreign nationals. the nation should be debating that issue … if we do not debate that, that necessarily means the whole of south africa could be 80% dominated by foreign nationals and the future president of south africa could be a foreign national. we are surrendering our land, and it is not xenophobia to talk truth (eyewitness news, 2017). what makes lekota’s and mkongi’s claims populist, is that they are not based on fact. the most recent data refute that south africa is being flooded with immigrants or that it will in future be 80% dominated by foreign nationals. the 2011 census from statistics south africa (statssa, 2015) showed there were about 2.2 million immigrants in 2011, which equates to 4.2% of the total population (statssa, 2015). in addition, a 2016 community survey by statssa puts the number of foreign-born people at 1.6 million out of a national population of 55 million at the time (statssa, 2016). while there may be possibilities of methodological issues of undercounting in the statssa data (gumbo, 2016), heleta (2019) maintains that it would not be surprising if this figure is correct, especially as the department of home affairs (dha) has deported close to 400,000 foreign nationals since 2012 (dha, 2017). judging by these deportation figures, if the country was indeed swamped by ‘illegal’ immigrants and given that the country has been known as a prolific deporter of immigrants (vigneswaran, 2008), one would expect the figure of deportations since 2012 to be in the millions. these politicians’ use of aquatic imageries to describe migrants entering south africa as “pouring” or “flooding” as well as using exaggerated guesstimates, help in manufacturing an atmosphere of crisis so that the issue is elevated in political debate. to disseminate high-impact messages in populist fashion, the political leaders 70 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 link the migration crisis to the socio-economic challenges the country is facing. in doing so, the populist actors attempt to show how the migration crisis spreads to and impacts the different aspects of life for the people of south africa. in his press-briefing, the deputy minister of police was able to link the presence of ‘illegal’ foreign nationals, or in his own words, “lunatics that we don’t know”, to a host of other problems being faced in hillbrow – gun violence, hijacking of buildings, illegal trading, lack of housing, etc. mkongi successfully magnified the impact of the alleged immigration crisis by establishing “an equivalential relation” (laclau, 2005: 73) to other problems affecting the people of south africa. the anc government’s then minister of health, who is now the minister of home affairs, aaron motsoaledi, was also recorded on sabc news making a similar equivalential relationship between the immigration “crisis” and the country’s failing health system. he told a nursing summit that was convened by the national education, health and allied workers’ union (nehawu) that when migrants “get admitted in large numbers, they cause overcrowding, [and] infection control starts failing” (mbhele, 2018). the crisis and the challenges the country is facing do not automatically knit themselves together into an equivalential chain; it is the job of a populist leader to do that, and that is what the populist actors in south africa are doing to normalize and entrench anti-immigrant populist discourse in the country’s mainstream political discourse. this populist performance of crisis is also framed by the populist actors in a temporal dimension within which failure to take decisive action will aggravate the crisis. we note this in deputy minister of police, bongani mkongi’s address, referred to earlier, when he lamented that if the issue of immigration goes undebated, this may result in south africa’s population being 80% dominated by foreign nationals and the future president of the country being a foreign national. for mkongi, this was an invasion and a sign that foreigners were taking over power from south africans. and if this is not dealt with now, south africa would end up being occupied and ruled by foreigners. mkongi is not the only one preaching about the threat of foreign invasion and a possible take-over of the country by immigrants. in early august 2019, after violent clashes in johannesburg central business district between the police and shopkeepers and street traders – the majority being immigrants – the anc’s gauteng mec for community safety, faith mazibuko, was recorded in the news declaring that, “we can’t co-govern [our country] with criminals, especially foreign nationals who want to turn our country into a lawless banana republic” (daniel, 2019). the mec’s statement also demonstrates the urgency with which the issue of crime by foreign nationals should be dealt with. she implied that if they allowed co-governing with these “criminals”, the country will be turned into a lawless country. setting the enemy against ‘the people’ as the populists spectacularize systemic failure to crisis levels, they also simplify 71 complex developments by looking for a culprit who is not only blamed for the crisis, but also construed as quintessentially evil and a threat to ‘the people’, ‘our people’. most of the populist actors in south africa impute bad character on immigrants, particularly ‘illegal’ immigrants, and blame them for the problems the country is facing. in 2017, the minister of police, fikile mbalula, told news reporters that former zimbabwean soldiers enter the country illegally to rob and kill. he said: there are zimbabwean ex-soldiers who are in this country, robbing banks, promoting criminality … they enter illegally and they just come here and do not promote goodwill (enca, 2017). the ruling anc’s gauteng premier, david makhura, was also in the news in march 2019, accusing foreign nationals of committing crime, saying, “in some specific crimes, specific nationalities are involved” (enca, 2019). in these statements, the political leaders single out foreigners as the lawbreakers responsible for the country’s spiraling crime rates. conspicuously absent in this populist narrative on crime are south africans themselves. herman mashaba posted a series of tweets about crimes allegedly committed exclusively by african immigrants in johannesburg under the hackneyed hashtag #worldcupofcrime. south african citizens did not feature in the charts. the absence of statistical data on crimes committed by south africans in mashaba’s #worldcupofcrime tweets suggests that crime in south africa is a world cup match that the hosts do not partake in. even when african ambassadors met with ministers lindiwe sisulu of international relations and co-operation, bheki cele of police and siyabonga cwele of home affairs to discuss the xenophobic attacks that had erupted in durban against malawian nationals in april 2019, several ambassadors were dismayed by the meeting as, “it was all about crimes committed by foreign nationals [against south africans] and nothing about crimes committed by south africans against foreign nationals” (fabricius, 2019). however, the crime statistics posted by mashaba on his twitter page were again rebutted as simply driven by his xenophobic character, particularly given that of the 1.5 million arrests that were recorded in south africa, over 95% were committed by south africans (bornman, 2019b). while it is undeniable that crime rates are staggeringly high in south africa, and that some of that crime is perpetuated by some immigrants, but to selectively blame non-citizens as responsible for the souring crime rates, implicitly suggests that people are criminal because they are foreign and betrays the populist simplicity behind such a social diagnosis, which works to construct manichean divisions between the morally upright and virtuous south africans and evil and dangerous foreigners. this scapegoating of a particular group as responsible for the crisis not only exposes who the enemy is, but is also crucial in constituting the identity of ‘our people’ as noted by taggart (2000: 94), that “populists are often more sure of who they are not, than of who they are”, and in this case, south migration and politics in south africa: mainstreaming anti-immigrant populist discourse 72 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 africans are not involved in crime. through this approach, threat scenarios are created in which ‘we’ (our people) are threatened by or deprived because of ‘them’ (foreign nationals). immigrants are blamed for the suffering of south africans, as bongani mkongi stated in his pressbriefing: we are facing here service delivery protests that we don’t know where they are coming from. some of the issues is because of we can’t give shelter to our people because these buildings are being occupied and hijacked by people and lunatics that we don’t know [sic] (eyewitness news, 2017). for mkongi, the government was failing to provide shelter to ‘our people’ (south africans) because the buildings were being occupied and hijacked by foreigners. so, immigrants are the enemy who the people of south africa consider to be the “demon from outside” that inherently threatens the post-apartheid renaissance (landau, 2010). this demonization and ‘othering’ of the foreigners was also clear when herman mashaba executed his first citizen’s arrest of a man who was pushing a trolley full of cow heads in central johannesburg. mashaba engaged in a twitter row and responded thus to someone who had accused him of killing small businesses in johannesburg: we are [not] going to sit back and allow people like you to bring us ebolas in the name of small business. health of our people first. our health facilities are already stretched to the limit [sic] (herman mashaba, @hermanmashaba, november 13, 2018). mashaba clearly presented immigrants as posing an existential threat to the people of south africa. he equated foreignness to bringing ebola, which equates being foreign with disease, thus insinuating that foreigners are dangerous carriers of disease. he then talked about the health of “our people” which is a priority as the country is infested with the diseased foreigners who cause a strain to the health delivery system. proposing simple solutions to complex problems following their simple diagnosis of the crisis that, through the “politics of fear”, create manichean divisions between “good” and “evil” people, the populist actors propose simple solutions to complex problems, which hardly address the structural causes of the crisis. since they allege that south africa’s problems are caused by foreign nationals “flooding” the country, the populist actors propose tight, exclusionist and restrictive immigration control. the da made immigration one of its key campaign pillars for the 2019 national elections, calling for stricter immigration controls and had banners inscribed “secure our borders”. the da was not the only political party 73 advocating “to close our borders” (mailovich, 2018); almost all the other parties, except for the economic freedom fighters (eff), have been calling for tightening immigration enforcement as a way of dealing with the country’s challenges. however, research has shown that such anti-immigrant populist solutions do not address the deep-lying structural issues affecting south africa. an example is crime. the institute for security studies (iss) argues that the call by politicians for the targeting and deportation of undocumented immigrants as a way of dealing with high crime levels in south africa has little, if any, impact on public safety. the iss notes that in gauteng province, despite the police ramping up their efforts to arrest ‘illegal’ immigrants, there has been no decrease in violent crimes, which the immigrants are alleged to commit. instead, the police reported that between 2012 and 2017 crime levels increased by 36% (iss, 2017), which exposes the inadequacy of simplistic populist rhetoric. nonetheless, proposing tight immigration control measures allows the populist leaders to be seen as doing something to solve south africa’s problems, which are largely attributed to the presence of ‘illegal’ foreign nationals. conclusion the aim of this paper was to examine the ways in which anti-immigrant populist political discourse is being entrenched and normalized in the mainstream political discourse and i have done so by demonstrating how several political leaders in south africa communicate their messages, enacting a moral panic through a spectacularized performance of crisis in the way they speak about immigrants or immigration. i have stressed that anti-immigrant violence runs against south africa’s commitment to democratic principles, human rights, and regional integration. my submission is that for us to find answers to the pressing questions on the persistence of xenophobia in a liberal democratic context like south africa, we need to look at how political leaders mobilize an anti-immigrant populist discourse so that anti-immigrant messages become more appealing and justifiable in articulating the problems south africa is facing. through a spectacularized populist performance of crisis, the populist actors present themselves as a voice of the people, as leaders who care about and can articulate the issues affecting the people. they also identify a systemic failure, which in this case is the failing immigration control system, and elevate it to the level of crisis by establishing an equivalential relation with the other challenges that the county is facing. in this spectacularized performance of crisis, the populist leaders will name the culprit behind the country’s challenges, which therefore creates a division between ‘morally’ upright people and ‘dangerous’ outsiders. given the culprit is pinpointed in this populist practice, the politicians finally propose a simple solution to the challenges the country is facing – tight immigration enforcement and expulsion of the culprits. migration and politics in south africa: mainstreaming anti-immigrant populist discourse 74 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 1, jan-apr 2022 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https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/msimanga-defends-views-on-illegal-immigrants/ https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/report-03-01-79/report-03-01-792011.pdf https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/report-03-01-79/report-03-01-792011.pdf http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/03-01-06/03-01-062016.pdf http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/03-01-06/03-01-062016.pdf 56 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 south africa’s counterinsurgency in cabo delgado: examining the role of mozambican migrants to establish a people-centric approach joseph makanda2 received 02 january 2023 / accepted 03 february 2023 / published 30 april 2023 abstract most scholarship on terrorism in cabo delgado (mozambique) has focused on the nature and causes of the insurgency, who the insurgents are, where the insurgents come from, their underlying needs, and how the current military operations may be successful from a state-centric perspective. as a result, the role of non-state actors, such as migrants, has been left out. this is a qualitative study that relies on secondary data sources to offer a critical survey of the work done in the context of terrorism in cabo delgado. using the counterinsurgency theory, the paper argues for the inclusion of the voice of mozambican migrants in south africa’s involvement in counterinsurgency in cabo delgado as one of the ways of developing a population-centric non-military approach. this is founded on direct and indirect ways of securing the population’s support, thereby isolating the insurgents in mozambique. an awareness of the views of these migrants can shed light on what perpetuates the insurgency in mozambique. the paper suggests new empirical studies that include the seemingly forgotten role of migrants, in a non-military and people-centered approach in seeking to undermine global terror networks. keywords: al shabaab, insurgents, cabo delgado, counterinsurgency, migrants, mozambicans, south africa 2 institute for advanced study, university of johannesburg, south africa.  makandaphd2015@gmail.com 57 introduction this paper explores south africa’s involvement in the fight against insurgency in cabo delgado, mozambique. this insurgency has created an ongoing conflict in the province, shaped by religion and fought between islamist militants and mozambican security forces with the former aiming to establish an islamic state in the region. although mozambique is a christian-majority country, matsinhe and valoi (2019) point out that the two northern provinces of niassa and cabo delgado have an islamic majority population – the former has 61 percent muslims and the latter has 54 percent muslims.3 northern mozambique’s administrative centers are also predominantly muslim. the main militant group is ansar al sunna (supporters of the tradition), which is also known by its original name ‘ahlu sunnah wa-jamo’ (aswj) translated as “adepts of the prophetic tradition.” locals refer to these muslims as alshabaab even though they are a separate organization from the somali al shabaab (bukarti and munasinghe, 2020). according to sithole (2022), the islamic state (isis) has claimed ties with the al-shabaab in mozambique. the militant group was originally a religious movement when it was formed in 2008 by followers of sheikh aboud rogo, a kenyan muslim cleric who advocated for the formation of an islamic state in kenya in a peaceful manner. there are claims that sheikh rogo assisted in the bombing of the embassies of the united states of america (usa) in nairobi and dar es salaam in 1998 and was later sanctioned by the usa and the united nations (un) for providing support to al-shabaab (neethling, 2021). saalfeld (2021) adds that following the death of sheikh rogo in 2012, many of his followers settled in tanzania before moving to mozambique’s northern district of cabo delgado around 2015. in cabo delgado, members of the group encouraged mosques in mocimboa da praia to adopt sheikh rogo’s interpretation of islam (hanlon, 2022). to date, most members of the al-shabaab group in cabo delgado are mozambicans, although there are some foreign nationals from tanzania and somalia. this paper assesses and offers a critique of the militaristic approaches that have framed the southern african development community (sadc)4 counterinsurgency efforts in cabo delgado. this paper is set against the backdrop of insurgent activities in mozambique’s cabo delgado region and the subsequent involvement of the sadc mission, which south africa commands. south africa contributes over half of southern african mission in mozambique (samim) forces (bussotti and coimbra, 2023). at the same time, it is important to clarify that south africa hosts a high number of mozambican migrants. the sadc heads of state and government in an extraordinary troika summit of botswana of 27 november 2020 observed that terrorist activities in cabo delgado have increased exponentially and sought to deploy a standby force (svicevic, 2022). south africa contributed 1,495 out of 3,000 military troops to this samim to counter the insurgents. this paper 3 http://www.ine.gov.mz/iv-rgph-2017/mocambique/03-religiao/quadro-11-populacao-por-religiao-segundo-area-deresidencia-idade-e-sexo-mocambique-2017.xlsx/view. accessed on 5/3/2023. 4 sadc countries include: angola, botswana, comoros, democratic republic of the congo, eswatini, lesotho, madagascar, malawi, mauritius, mozambique, namibia, seychelles, south africa, tanzania, zambia, and zimbabwe. the role of mozambican migrants in south africa’s counterinsurgency in cabo delgado 58 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 argues that while counterinsurgency in cabo delgado has usually been framed as militaristic and enemy-centric, on 7 september 2022, mozambique’s president filipe jacinto nyusi said that the islamist militant movement in northern mozambique is spreading to new territory despite efforts by local and international military forces to contain it.5 these experiences have revived interest in alternative non-military approaches. there is compelling evidence, mainly from european countries, suggesting that there is a possible link between migrants and terrorism (brouwer, 2002; schmid, 2016; mcalexander, 2020). according to brouwer (2002), schmid (2016), and mcalexander (2020), the european experience is that in many countries, migrants have committed terrorist acts against their host countries. by focusing on migrants as security threats in europe, these scholars reveal how the role of migrants in perpetuating terrorist acts in their home countries has rarely been studied. hence, this is one of the gaps in the literature that this paper aims at filling. this paper is among the first attempts to draw on the counterinsurgency theory to develop a conceptual discourse foregrounding a need for empirical studies that explain the seemingly forgotten role of mozambican migrants, to gain a fuller understanding of the ongoing insurgency in cabo delgado. the paper draws primarily on a desktop review of literature on the nexus between migrants in south africa and terrorism. to be clear, this article is not about the evolution of terrorism in cabo delgado. instead, the objective here is to raise two new questions in the migration literature: what is the nexus between mozambican migrants in south africa and the operations, dynamics, and governance of the isis in cabo delgado? what can mozambican migrants contribute to south africa’s counterinsurgency efforts in cabo delgado? while studies of this nature need empirical data, the arguments of this paper are grounded in a desktop-based review of discourses on the role of migrants in counterinsurgency. as such, this article uses a non-empirical qualitative research approach, relying heavily on literary sources as a primary reservoir for its data. the paper begins by providing a conceptual discourse related to the counterinsurgency theory. the first section presents an overview of the counterinsurgency (ci) theory to assess how the difficulties encountered by the current kinetic military approaches in cabo delgado are reviving interest in alternative non-military approaches. the second section closely scrutinizes the combustible situation of increasing numbers of migrants in south africa and their potential involvement in both global terror activities and terror threats against south africa. the section pays particular attention to claims in south africa’s mainstream media that some migrants had been sanctioned by the us government for their alleged links to islamic state (isis) operations in mozambique and for using south africa as a haven for seeking financial resources and recruiting those who can facilitate or execute global terror activities. the last section suggests an introspection, interrogation, and analysis of 5 https://www.voanews.com/a/mozambique-struggling-to-contain-violence-in-troubled-northern-regions/6735287. html. accessed on 10/10/2022. 59 south africa’s involvement in the current militaristic approach in cabo delgado by suggesting a more encompassing non-military framework that encapsulates the roles of marginalized non-state actors, such as mozambican migrants. counterinsurgency theory the us department of defense dictionary of military and associated terms (2010:12) describes counterinsurgency as a “blend of comprehensive military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat any form of insurgency.” components of counterinsurgency campaigns include political, societal, military, economic, legal, informational, and intelligence aspects (cassidy, 2008). the counterinsurgency theory, therefore, signals a movement away from exclusive reliance on killing the “enemies” towards targeting the people for political support. contemporary counterinsurgency theory emphasizes the role of civilian efforts of re-integration and reconstruction in insurgency-stricken areas. therefore, in this paper counterinsurgency is understood as a blend of all comprehensive civilian and military efforts to contain insurgency and address its root causes simultaneously. it involves a careful balance between constructive dimensions (building compelling and legitimate government) and destructive measures (destroying the insurgent movements). galula (1964) and kilcullen (2007) along with the us government counterinsurgency guide (2009) contend that there are conventionally two principal philosophies of counterinsurgency: (a) the “population-centric” philosophy, which puts an emphasis on the populace as the sea in which the insurgents swim. this dimension of counterinsurgency holds that if the population and its surroundings are adequately controlled, the insurgents will be denied the necessary sustenance and support to survive. it can be summarized as, “first protect the population, and all else will follow” (nagl, 2005); and (b) the “enemy-centric” dimension perceives counterinsurgency as similar to conventional warfare and stresses the military conquest and total defeat of the insurgents. moore (2007:20) argues that the focus of the “enemy-centric” approach is on the physical defeat of the insurgents. the enemy-centric approach has several variations, including “hard vs. soft,” “direct vs. indirect,” “violent vs. non-violent,” and “marginalization vs. decapitation” strategies. this approach can be précised as “first defeat the enemy, and all else will follow.” this paper uses the population-centric approach because it has proven to be most effective at succeeding in the long term, and it endeavors to resolve conflict by incorporating all dimensions. according to nagl (2005), the population-centric dimension of counterinsurgency emphasizes the “direct and indirect” non-military ways of securing the population’s support, thereby isolating the insurgents. the paper is cognizant that although military action against the militants will undoubtedly be on the cards, this approach recognizes that the center of gravity is the population. although the counterinsurgency theory emphasizes minimum force, populationcentric concepts, political and democratic processes, and winning the hearts and the role of mozambican migrants in south africa’s counterinsurgency in cabo delgado 60 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 minds of the population, the practical application of these principles is hardly observed on the ground. although terrorism in cabo delgado has been occurring since 2017, interventions so far have not been informed much by political and democratic processes of winning hearts and minds as espoused by population-centric approaches in the counterinsurgency theory. most interventions in mozambique have been enemy-centric, using military force by those who are interested in the country’s gas reserves or private military contracts (demuynck and weijenberg, 2021). several countries, including the united states, france, and portugal have offered military support to the mozambican government to combat international criminal syndicates. for instance, in may 2021, portugal and mozambique signed a military cooperation accord to help confront a growing jihadist threat, by beefing up training, notably of special forces (news24, 2021). both the united states and france tried to intervene by contributing troops to patrol the coast of cabo delgado (hanlon, 2020). according to hanlon (2020), the us government believed that counter-narcotics efforts were needed to disrupt some of the transnational organized crime at sea. also, the usa believed that terrorists in cabo delgado were thriving because of proceeds from narcotics. the french intervention in mozambique entailed a military maritime cooperation agreement and training of mozambican forces so that they are able to fight the al shabaab. similarly, nhamire (2021) asserts that the european union (eu) subsequently set up an eu military training mission in mozambique (eutm mozambique). the aim of the mission is to train and support the mozambican armed forces in protecting the civilian population and restoring safety and security. the mozambican government also signed agreements with the russian wagner group mercenaries, the dyck advisory group (dag), and the rwandan army to help ameliorate the problem (peters, 2020). regionally, the sadc attention has focused almost exclusively on isolating and fighting the terrorists by military means. for instance, the sadc heads of state and government, in an extraordinary troika summit in botswana on 27 november 2020, acknowledged that terrorist activities in cabo delgado had increased exponentially, and sought to deploy a standby military force (svicevic, 2022). according to sithole (2022), the standby force falls under the framework of the sadc mutual defense pact and is in line with the united nations’ s “responsibility to protect principle” to prevent human catastrophe. cilliers et al. (2021) argue that the decision to deploy troops to cabo delgado also aimed at preventing the risk of non-african solutions in the southern african region where lucrative natural resources are prompting fears of the “iraqification” (militarization and foreign agenda) of mozambique. other arguments that were made in favor of the sadc kinetic military intervention, included the fear of the attacks spilling over into mozambique’s neighboring states, and the need for a coordinated response, including tough cross-border intelligence to manage jihadist infiltration (sithole, 2022). as a result, on 9 august 2021, the national governments in the sadc region launched kinetic military operations 61 known as the sadc mission in mozambique (samim), with troops from lesotho, botswana, south africa, and tanzania (iss, 2021). south africa contributed about half of the troops (about 1,495 out of 3,000 samim troops). hanlon (2020), obaji jr. (2021), and sithole (2022) are doubtful that the deployment of military forces to counter insurgents in cabo delgado is succeeding. these scholars argue that despite all the military counterinsurgency efforts, the insurgents have carried out their acts of terrorism with strength and confidence. for instance, on 7 september 2022, the mozambican president, filipe jacinto nyusi, announced that islamist militants had spread to the country’s northern nampula province, killing six people by beheading, and abducted three others. according to president nyusi, the islamist militant movement in northern mozambique is spreading to new territory despite efforts by government and regional forces to contain it. this prompted the assertion that, like in somalia and nigeria, the enemycentric militaristic approach in mozambique was becoming counterproductive. for this reason, the current samim military operations may not be able to stem the threat of insurgency in mozambique, like other kinetic military operations that failed elsewhere. whittall (2021) argues that there are fears that the samim military focus is on the physical conquest and total defeat of the insurgents while overulooking the social, economic, and democratic political processes of winning the hearts and minds of the people in cabo delgado and elsewhere in mozambique. according to whittall (2021), military counterinsurgency efforts have opted for a militaristic approach that targets the enemy in cabo delgado rather than addressing the root causes of the insurgency, such as poverty, marginalization, expropriation, and lack of jobs. the enemy-centric approaches in cabo delgado are accused of failing to address the fact that cabo delgado province is one of the poorest in the country despite its rich gas reserves. according to demuynck and weijenberg (2021), the region harbors major gas reserves worth more than usd 50 billion, which foreign energy companies have been extracting without any of the profits benefiting local populations. furthermore, the predominantly muslim population in the region feels neglected by the largely christian ruling elite in maputo. at this point, it can be argued that the difficulties encountered by kinetic enemy-centric military approaches as expressed by the above views of president nyusi are reviving interest in alternative approaches to counterinsurgency in the region. alternative counterinsurgency is the main aim of this paper. it is important to note that sadc has introduced a multi-dimensional approach, although the military approach is still the most privileged. additionally, by contributing almost half of the military personnel in the samim, south africa’s involvement in counterinsurgency operations in cabo delgado is raising new fundamental questions. one such question is what else south africa can do to counter insurgents in cabo delgado. according to makonye (2020), mabera and naidu (2020), and sithole (2022), south africa might be contributing the highest number of military personnel within the samim operations because it is the regional power and has most interest in cabo the role of mozambican migrants in south africa’s counterinsurgency in cabo delgado 62 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 delgado, including contracts to south african companies in constructions on the liquefied natural gas (lng) terminal. the lng terminal and park are proposed to be constructed in the afungi peninsula area in cabo delgado, constituting the onshore element of the larger mozambique gas development project. the above scholars also mention that there are several south african banks that have invested in mozambique lng. at the same time, south africa is host to many mozambican migrants. while there is compelling evidence, anchored substantially on case studies from european countries, suggesting that there is a strong link between migrants and terrorism, how then can south africa go beyond the limitations of conventional enemy-centric military interventions and prevent violent jihad groups from finding havens within south africa’s borders where they can reorganize and thrive? hence, this paper asserts that some mozambican migrants in south africa are to some extent aware of the nature and operations of insurgents in cabo delgado and can contribute toward a greater understanding of the factors perpetuating the insurgency and what south africa can do to counter it. in this regard, this study draws on the counterinsurgency framework to explore how south africa may potentially use the views of mozambican migrants as a resource for developing a people-centric nonmilitary approach to undermine terror networks in the sadc region. south africa as a migration destination for mozambicans historically, the first half of the nineteenth century saw forced migrations of people from modern-day south africa to other parts of southern africa during the war period known as the mfecane. migration in the second half of the nineteenth century was spurred by the discovery of diamonds and other minerals in south africa (muanamoha et al., 2010; pasura, 2014; isike, 2017). even though migration has continued unabated, the different phases had different dimensions. some migrants were forced to flee to south africa due to war. others migrated to south africa because of the promise of a better life there (dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015). however, migration has become a fraught issue that threatens to tear the fabric that holds south africans and migrants together (pineteh, 2017; moyo, 2020). economic and political instability in zimbabwe and war in the democratic republic of the congo are contributing to burgeoning numbers in south africa, with a significant number of such immigrants arriving without proper documentation or involving themselves in criminal activities (crush and peberdy, 2018; mlambo, 2019). there is a possibility that terrorism in mozambique is also increasing the number of mozambican migrants to south africa via tanzania. this has brought into sharp relief the potential threat that both legal and illegal immigration could cause in south africa. according to sichone (2020) and chiyangwa and rugunanan (2022), negative attitudes toward immigration have partly been bred by economic difficulties, unemployment, and exaggerated numbers of immigrants. as a consequence, xenophobic violence has become common in south africa. 63 moyo et al. (2021) observe that estimating the total number of migrants currently residing in south africa is a difficult task due to lack of accounting for undocumented migrants by south africa’s department of home affairs (dha). the large number of migrants is attributed to the fact that south africa is the most industrialized and stable economy in the region and a particularly attractive destination for those in search of education and better opportunities in the sadc region. for example, statistics south africa (2021)6 estimates that there were about 3.95 million migrants in south africa in mid-2021. the un desa (2021) and dha (2021) reports estimated a total of about 4.1 million migrants. the migration of mozambicans to south africa date from the colonial period, based in contract between the portuguese and the then government of south africa for workers to south african mining. however, the civil war that took place from the 1970s to the 1990s spurred the highest wave of migration of mozambicans to south africa.7 according to mubai (2015), and mabera and naidu (2020), this was a 16-year conflict that occurred between 30 may 1977 and 4 october 1992 in mozambique. the war occurred two years after mozambique officially gained its independence from portugal. the main belligerents were the mozambique liberation front (frelimo), which controlled the central government under president samora machel, and the mozambican national resistance (renamo) led by andré matsangaissa (mubai 2015; mabera and naidu 2020). an estimated one million people died during the conflict in a country, which in 1990 had a population of 14 million. additionally, 250,000 to 350,000 mozambicans crossed the border from mozambique into south africa fleeing the civil war ravaging their country (moagi et al., 2018; chiyangwa and rugunanan, 2022). according to the iom (2020) report, it is estimated that over 11 million mozambicans are now living abroad, with south africa being one of the top destinations. currently, there are more than 800,000 mozambican migrants in south africa, most of them in the provinces of gauteng, kwazulu-natal, mpumalanga, and limpopo. according to lazzarini (2017), mining and farming jobs are the norm for mozambicans in south africa, especially for those working in the formal sector, with about 24,000 mozambicans working in the mining sector. data for the farming sector is incomplete, but in mpumalanga province alone, the 2020 census estimates over 200,000 mozambicans were working on farms. the report estimates that there were over 150,000 mozambicans working in the informal sector in kwazulu-natal, concentrated mostly in the northern parts of that province. in limpopo, there were over 100,000 mozambicans (machele, 2022). according to isike (2022), the mass migration of mozambicans to south africa is attributed to lack of economic opportunities in mozambique and to demands for cheap labor in south africa. however, the terrorism in cabo delgado has exacerbated a new form of forced migration of mozambicans to south africa. according to neethling (2021), on 5 october 2017, when the cabo delgado province 6 risenga maluleke (2021). statistics south africa. https://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=14569. accessed on 11/10/2022. 7 https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1991/yls.htm. accessed on 5/03/2023. the role of mozambican migrants in south africa’s counterinsurgency in cabo delgado 64 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 of mozambique was battered by bloody jihadist attacks, the insurgents killed over 3,100 and more than 800,000 were displaced. again, when the group resurfaced in march 2021, langa (2021) asserts that the insurgents attacked palma, killing over 2,500 people and displacing over 700,000 people. according to mangena and pherudi (2019), the overwhelming majority of people displaced by war in cabo delgado are internally displaced. few of them migrated to neighboring countries such as malawi and tanzania. there are reports indicating that some mozambicans who migrated to malawi and tanzania due to terrorism in cabo delgado are finding their way to south africa. what can be said here is that currently, it is the economic situation in mozambique that has turned mozambicans into displaced “subalterns” in south africa, to borrow a famously deployed term of spivak (2003). although outside the immediate scope of this paper, the struggle for survival and livelihoods by the mozambican migrants in south africa, bears testimony to this agency. a survey of the cited literature shows that south africa is the leading destination for most economic migrants from other sub-saharan african countries. however, there are emerging claims in current south african media that some of the migrants have been sanctioned by the usa for their alleged links with terror networks. although none of these migrants sanctioned by the usa are mozambican nationals, media reports indicate that they were using south africa to seek resources, finances, and recruits for global isis’s struggle, including that of cabo delgado. for instance, in march 2021, news248 and the mail and guardian9 reported that the usa had sanctioned two south african men, an ethiopian national, and a tanzanian, for helping the isis terror group to secure funding. according to news24 (2021), farhad hoomer, siraaj miller, and abdella hussein abadigga were wanted for playing an increasingly central role in facilitating and promoting terrorist activities. farhad was sanctioned for having established an isis cell in durban. siraaj was sanctioned for being the leader of a group of isis supporters in cape town. abdella hussein, originally from ethiopia, was sanctioned for being responsible for recruiting young men in south africa to send them to an isis weapons-training camp. also, peter charles mbaga, a tanzanian based in south africa, was identified by the usa for being responsible for recruiting, transferring funds, and procuring weapons and equipment from south africa to aid isis activities (news24). furthermore, on 17 september 2022, the sunday times10 reported that south africa could soon be greylisted. at the time of writing this paper, south africa has indeed been grey-listed. while there are many reasons for this grey-listing, the sunday times of 17 september 2022 alleges that there are some foreign-owned spaza shops funding brutal terrorist groups, such as isis and al shabaab. moreover, these spaza shops are allegedly 8 https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/us-sanctions-sa-men-two-others-for-allegedly-supporting-isissecuring-funds-20220302. accessed on 20/9/2022. 9 https://mg.co.za/news/2022-03-02-four-alleged-isis-members-in-south-africa-sanctioned-by-us-treasury/. accessed on 20/9/2022. 10 https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times-daily/news/2022-05-08-sas-is-crisis-how-r6bn-got-from-spaza-shops-toafrican-terrorists/. accessed on 20/9/2022. 65 also responsible for increasing the illicit cigarettes market, whose proceeds end up funding acts of global terrorism. while it may be argued that most mozambicans who have migrated to south africa are seeking economic survival, there is a possibility that in one way or another, they know the dynamics of insurgents in that region. a possible rebuttal to my assertion, might be that there are no mozambicans fleeing cabo delgado to south africa because of the distance. another rebuttal could be that the majority of mozambicans who migrate to south africa come from the southern region of the country, which is not experiencing any terrorism. i am cognizant that while people from southern mozambique are historically linked to south africa (smith, 1973; madalane, 2014) and even speak similar languages (tsitsonga and tsishangane), in northern cabo delgado where the insurgents are attacking, people are closer to tanzania and speak the shared swahili language (bonate, 2018; alden and chichava, 2020). however, it cannot be ruled out that there are mozambicans in south africa with relatives or social ties with those in cabo delgado or those who have migrated from the northern part of mozambique via tanzania. it is not within the realm of this paper to gainsay the apparent tenet of counterinsurgency that all mozambicans (among others) who have come to south africa are linked to terrorism or potentially contribute to counterinsurgency in cabo delgado. however, it can be said that the above unverified media claims bridge that link. moreover, due to the subaltern position of migrants, it is possible that scholars have barely studied the link between migrants in south africa and operations of isis and other terror groups. similarly, scholars are yet to offer a more empirical and constructive analysis of the nexus between mozambican migrants and the operation, dynamics, and governance of isis in cabo delgado. perhaps the lack of literature stems from scholars’ failure to see the links of empirical evidence. using the population-centric component of counterinsurgency, this paper maintains that studying the views of these refugees and migrants can provide an enhanced understanding of the factors perpetuating the insurgency in cabo delgado, and shed light on what else south africa can do. inclusion of mozambican views on south africa’s involvement in counterinsurgency in cabo delgado south africa is the dominant regional power and has significant interests in cabo delgado, including contracts of south african companies in constructions on the liquefied natural gas (lng) terminal. additionally, several south african banks have invested in mozambique lng (makonye, 2020; mabera and naidu, 2020; sithole, 2022). it is therefore plausible to argue that south africa’s involvement in counterinsurgency in cabo delgado is the result of the country’s pursuit of economic interests. contextualized within the realists’ perspective, the success that can be made by samim intervention in cabo delgado asserts, preserves, and improves the prestige and powers of south africa as the regional power with the most interests in the role of mozambican migrants in south africa’s counterinsurgency in cabo delgado 66 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 cabo delgado. at the same time, any failure of samim military operations in cabo delgado weakens and ruins south africa’s status as regional power and its related economic interests in mozambique (schmidt, 2005; gbaya, 2015). the underlying rationale here is the supposition that by contributing more troops to samim military operations in cabo delgado, south africa promotes its own interests and economic prosperity. it can also not be ruled out that it is within the south african government’s desire to avoid an incessant influx of insurgent groups in mozambique and the sadc region that might threaten south africa’s economic interests. what can be said here is that south africa’s involvement in counterinsurgency in cabo delgado takes the form of economic expansion. according to salimo et al. (2020), makonye (2020), mabera and naidu (2020), and sithole (2022), south africa has greater interests in mozambique’s lng terminal construction in cabo delgado’s gas industry through its sasol deals, than any other country in the region. south africa’s interests in mozambique are so vivid that on 18 july 2022, while addressing the media at luthuli house – the african national congress (anc) headquarters in johannesburg – the governing party’s head of international relations, lindiwe zulu, referred to the document dubbed “in pursuit of progressive internationalism.” zulu asked the party branches to discuss solutions to terrorism and cross-border terror networks on the african continent.11 according to zulu, the spike in terror attacks in mozambique is likely to cause political and economic instability in south africa if not stopped. zulu asserted that south africa’s bid for political leadership in the region, and its attempts at economic integration and expansion have consistently implied that it should help resolve african conflicts and play a more active role in peace missions. hence, this paper underscores the idea that south africa’s involvement in counterinsurgency in cabo delgado may rest on an assumption that kinetic military operations constitute a means of protecting its interests in mozambique’s gas industry, as espoused by makonye (2020), mabera and naidu (2020), and sithole (2022). however, the recent assertion by president nyusi of mozambique on 7 september 2022 reveals that kinetic military operations might be failing and that the islamist militant movement in northern mozambique is spreading to new territory despite efforts by the current local and international military operations to contain it. using the population-centric counterinsurgency theory, this paper suggests that the inclusion of the voice of the actual mozambicans may be one of the alternatives of developing a counter-terror approach that emphasizes direct and indirect ways to secure cabo delgado’s populations, thereby helping south africa to isolate the insurgents in that region. the paper acknowledges the difficulty of finding migrants from cabo delgado in south africa due to the region’s distance from south africa. a further constraint is that very few mozambicans might have reliable knowledge about terrorism in the northern part of the region. these constraints notwithstanding, 11 https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/news/anc-warns-spike-in-mozambique-terror-attacks-likely-to-cause-politicalinstability-in-sa-fa2d189f-707a-4f92-a86d-a399165417f9. accessed on 5/3/2023. 67 studies done by sinatti and horst (2015), galipo (2018), and arrey and de la rosa (2021) reveal that migrants can contribute towards both instability, or building sustainable peace in their country of origin through political or economic means. a common thread among the above studies is that through financial remittances to their home countries, migrants, with a particular focus on those in europe, can be viewed as positively or negatively affecting the peace processes. galipo (2018) for instance, says that financial remittances can be used to fund the actions of militant, rebel, or insurgent groups in migrants’ countries of origin. positively, sinatti and horst (2015) opine that migrants may use their financial means to fund development projects in their countries of origin, thereby promoting stability. furthermore, sinatti and horst (2015), galipo (2018), and arrey and de la rosa (2021) comment that sometimes migrants use lobbying and public demonstration to bring awareness of their home countries on the international stage or in their host countries. “the lobbying usually takes place in the country of settlement, but it may be that diaspora manage to network with international agencies, regional organizations and ngos” (galipo, 2018:10). according to rempel (2013), since 1990, the palestinian refugees appealed for a voice in negotiations between the palestinian liberation organization (plo) and israel to secure a lasting solution of the gaza conflict. an equally important case is that of south african exiles during the fight against apartheid. ellis and sechaba (1992), freund and padayachee (1998), gilbert (2007), and thörn (2009) point out that many south africans in exile played an important role in pressuring their host countries in africa, europe, asia, and north america to support their struggle against the apartheid regime. for instance, after going into exile in 1961, oliver tambo, the then president of the anc, established several anti-apartheid missions across europe and africa. it was in some of the established missions that many south africans had their military training, and developed strategies on how to dismantle the apartheid government. freund and padayachee (1998) point out that many south africans solicited funding for arming and training umkhonto we sizwe (the military wing of the anc) in the usa and the uk. the main aim of umkhonto we sizwe was to fight and dismantle the apartheid regime militarily. in relation to terrorism, a study done by menkhaus (2010) shows how somalian migrants, especially in england and the usa, are both assets and liabilities in the fight against terrorism in somalia. as assets, some somalian diaspora members have become civil society activists who fund and advocate for good governance, progressive principles, and ensuring that the states intervening in the somalian conflict put the interests of the locals at center stage. as liabilities, menkhaus (2008) argues that there are groups of somalians in the diaspora who use their resources to finance the escalation of the ongoing terror activities in that country. according to anderson and mcknight (2015), some of the al-shabaab funding emanates from contributions from somalis in the diaspora. hence, this paper foregrounds ways of doing new types of empirically based research on the role of mozambican migrants in south africa in exacerbating terrorism in cabo delgado. although there might be the role of mozambican migrants in south africa’s counterinsurgency in cabo delgado 68 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 very few mozambicans with knowledge of terrorism in cabo delgado, listening to their narratives might play a role in any attempt of finding a lasting solution to the insurgency situation in mozambique. while the above segment has shown that there is compelling evidence, based on case studies from european countries suggesting that there is an increasing link between migrants and terrorism, some studies argue that the link has been decreasing since the defeat of isis in iraq and syria (paasche and gunter, 2016; speckhard et al., 2017). however, with emerging claims in south africa’s media that some migrants are being sanctioned by the usa for their alleged links with terror groups, this paper is cognizant that the enactment of the foregoing claims reveal that there might be a corresponding link between mozambican migrants and the ongoing insurgency in cabo delgado and other parts of africa. in this case, the peoplecentric, non-military component of counterinsurgency theory calls for the inclusion and incorporation of the views of mozambican migrants within the current south african counterinsurgent strategies in mozambique. this paper acknowledges that the issue of insurgency in cabo delgado is a complex one and that it has developed from a range of many factors, including structural and ideational. the paper is also cognizant of studies that have compared the situation in cabo delgado to the rise of the boko haram insurgency in northern nigeria, the tuareg rebellion that has seen the islamists take over northern mali (azumah, 2015; adela, 2021), and the rise of al shabaab in kenya and somalia (githigaro and kabia, 2022; papale, 2022). the foregoing scholars attribute the causes of insurgency in cabo delgado to socioeconomic dynamics and the influence of radical islamic preachers. this paper concurs with the views of the foregoing scholars and contends that structural and ideational factors might be defining the context of insurgency in cabo delgado. for instance, okunade et al. (2021) and mutasa and muchemwa (2022) argue that social and economic factors behind the terrorist attacks in cabo delgado are exclusion, marginalization, youth unemployment, rising inequalities, widespread corruption, and poverty of the local communities, who see no real gains from the gas megaproject. from the foregoing reasons, this paper posits that the current enemycentered military counterinsurgency in cabo delgado is mere band-aid – a quick and impetuous solution to an intractable and convoluted problem. instead, the paper suggests that south africa’s involvement in counterinsurgency in cabo delgado should move away from exclusive reliance on killing the “enemies” towards targeting the people for political support. fundamentally, the paper calls for the need for empirical studies that include the seemingly forgotten role of mozambican migrants as an alternative people-centric non-military approach that is more subtle and patient in seeking to undermine terror networks in the sadc region. implicit here is that some mozambican migrants have some knowledge of the dynamics of terrorism in that region and they may aid south africa’s policymakers in crafting an all-encompassing people-centric and non-military south african counterinsurgency strategy. this paper does not rule out the possibility of empirical studies that 69 the role of mozambican migrants in south africa’s counterinsurgency in cabo delgado pay attention to those left behind in cabo delgado or those who were forced to migrate to tanzania because they are the ones who are in direct contact with the insurgents. however, the paper argues that by taking inventory of some mozambican migrants’ insights, perceptions, and attitudes on insurgency in cabo delgado, south africa might revoke and presuppose the rethinking of the current militaristic counterinsurgency in cabo delgado and other parts of the world that are failing to bear fruits. specifically, this paper asserts that the stultifying effects and the noninclusion of mozambican migrants in south africa’s counterinsurgent interventions in cabo delgado do not sufficiently challenge the culture of structural injustices and violence that characterize the genesis of terrorism in that region. for that reason, this paper suggests that south africa should take cognizance of the roles played by non-state actors, including mozambican migrants, in producing specific outcomes that define the trajectory of terrorism and counterterrorism in cabo delgado and the sadc region. from an empirical point of view, there are several organizations that researchers can work with to generate qualitative research from mozambican migrants themselves. for instance, southern african migration management (samm),12 scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma),13 jesuit refugee service (jrs),14 and the muslim refugee association of south africa (mrasa)15 are some of the organizations that are potentially valuable as research sites for future scholars. samm, sihma, jrs, and mrasa assist all categories of migrants in south africa. while these organizations are broad in their scope and attempt to assist all migrants, there are other organizations that more specifically provide basic information and assistance to mozambicans. many mozambican organizations in south africa are run by mozambican activists and can potentially offer valuable connections to research participants for grounded qualitative studies seeking to consciously include the perceptions and insights of mozambican migrants in south africa. conclusion the main aim of this paper was to explore how the inclusion of the voices of mozambicans in south africa are potential resources for developing a populationcentric approach that emphasizes direct and indirect ways to pacify cabo delgado by isolating the insurgents. it further argued that due to the likely difficulty of finding mozambican migrants from cabo delgado in south africa and also the lack of many mozambican migrants with the required knowledge about terrorism in the northern part of the region, scholars are yet to offer a more constructive analysis on their contribution to the ongoing war against terrorism in cabo delgado. in this regard, this paper sought to potentially pave the way for more (hopefully new) empirical research trends into mozambicans’s role in the fight against insurgency 12 https://www.sammproject.org. accessed on 17/11/2022. 13 https://sihma.org.za. accessed on 17/11/2022. 14 https://jrs.net/en/home. accessed on 17/11/2022. 15 http://www.mrasa.org.za. accessed on 17/11/2022. 70 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 in cabo delgado. to this end, the paper suggests that particular qualitative and ethnographic studies, by drawing on the experiences, insights, and arguments of the mozambican migrants, can substantively contribute to the alternative approaches to the current militaristic counterinsurgency in cabo delgado. this kind of focus, from a qualitative perspective with mozambican migrants’ voices included, allows for the question of whether or not the ongoing participation of south africa in the militaristic counterinsurgency in mozambique rests on the imperative of securing its own benefits rather than the benefits of the mozambicans. this paper strongly recommends that such a focus should seek to ascertain whether or not the involvement of mozambican migrants can offer a grassrootsbased contribution to the fight against terrorism in mozambique. like in the studies done elsewhere suggesting that there is a link between migrants and terrorism, this paper sees the possibility of some mozambican migrants in south africa doing the same in cabo delgado. thus, an argument to include the subaltern voices of mozambican migrants as an alternative approach to the current militaristic counterinsurgency approaches in cabo delgado, cannot but deepen the discourse on how counterinsurgency initiatives are perceived and bolstered. 71 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https://www.msf.org/focus-fighting-terrorists-ignores-humanitarian-needsmozambique. accessed on 24 september 2022. 62 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya: analysis using census data mary muyonga*, alfred otieno*, and george odipo* * university of nairobi, kenya in kenya, internal migration continues to impact population redistribution, although few studies have considered subnational variations of the intensities and their overall impact on this process. this study sought to analyze subnational migration flows and their impact on population redistribution in kenya. the study used 1999 and 2009 census micro data to generate migration intensities for each county and to map these using arcgis software, to show the distributional effects of migration on the population for the period of investigation. the findings confirm a shift in the migration patterns in the country over the ten-year period, and also on the effect on population redistribution in the country. there are wide county variations with net gainers, net losers, and an emergence of inactive migration zones. migrants are concentrated in counties with large, urbanized areas, although suburbanization is emerging, as secondary cities and urban areas attract migrants. results from the spatial analysis show that migration intensities are clustered in ways that reveal similar intensities in neighboring regions. consequently, two hotspots are visible – high-high hotspots in nairobi and vihiga – and clustering of low intensities in mombasa and adjacent counties is evident. the study concludes that while internal migration effectively contributes to population redistribution, the effect is waning, as more regions become urbanized. keywords: impact, intensity, migration, subnational migration, county, kenya 63 introduction migration affects the spatial distribution of the population and changes the age and sex structure of receiving and sending populations. there has been significant research on how international migration affects population distribution in sending and receiving areas, with little focus on the role that internal migration plays. migration leads to suburbanization in national contexts, where migrants move from the metropolitan areas to smaller urban and rural areas. understanding the patterns of flows and counter flows reveals the impact that migration has on the redistribution of the population over time. scholars have used measures such as intensity of migration, in addition to rate and volume of migrants, to understand how the subnational dynamics play out. owing to the paucity of migration data, particularly on the african continent, most countries rely on census data to conduct analyses of migration, focusing on national or regional averages. however, national averages tend to mask subnational variations of migration. studies have outlined the importance of internal migration to population redistribution, including the contribution of migration to urbanization processes. global comparisons have been made with regard to internal migration trends and indicators, acknowledging the challenges of comparability of the data sets (bell et al., 2002). to mitigate these challenges, researchers established a global repository for internal migration generated from census microdata through the image project (bell et al., 2002; bell and muhidin, 2009; bell et al., 2015). several studies have used the image database to study migration intensities and their impacts worldwide (bell et al., 2002; bell et al., 2015; rees et al., 2017). patterns and impacts of migration flows within national boundaries indicate not only where people move to, but also, the impact that such moves have on the overall residential population in receiving and sending areas. in africa, internal migration is more predominant than international migration; therefore, scholarly interest has shifted to understanding the dynamics and impacts of internal migration flows (adepoju, 1995; okyerefo and setrana, 2018). the common trend is that internal migration flows mirror the national development patterns; hence, migrants move to the more developed parts of the country and shun the least developed ones (oucho and gould,1993; oucho, 1998). while this is a global trend, it is particularly common in africa and is responsible for some of the urbanization challenges the continent faces (turok, 2012; mberu et al., 2017). studies on subnational migration patterns in kenya are few, with the majority limited to a regional analysis based on previous provincial data. such studies show wide regional variations in migration patterns and flows within the provinces, which are the old administrative units, resulting in the conclusions that nairobi, rift valley and coast provinces are the main recipients of migrants, while western, nyanza and eastern provinces are the net losers. little is said about the north eastern and central provinces (wakajummah, 1986; odipo, 1994; oucho, 1996, 1998, 2000). successive studies revealed little change in these patterns, prompting the conclusion that the impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya 64 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 factors determining internal migration in the country are not changing (rok, 2010, 2012). to determine if this conclusion is true, this study used recent census data to explore migration trends at the subnational levels. this was prompted by a study showing wide differentials in county migration rates (adieri, 2012), which led to the conclusion that national averages mask these subnational variations. this study had a twofold objective, of (a) mapping out the subnational patterns of internal migration in kenya to determine if any changes happened during the 1999–2009 period; and (b) visualizing the spatial effects of these migration flows in the counties. to do this, the study generated measures of migration intensity and undertook spatial analysis using arcgis software to map out the patterns and impacts of migration on population redistribution in the subnational units. while the 1999–2009 data used districts as the subnational units, this study reconstructed the districts to counties using a matching process, so that the findings were more relevant for the current administrative structure. the study is timely, as county governments are currently fully functional administrative units in kenya, hence migration dynamics within the county level become important for planning and development processes in these counties. while the analysis relied on census data, the availability of geospatial analysis tools helped with the visualization of the spatial effects of migration over time. literature review the net effect of migration on population redistribution has been captured in several studies globally, although the majority of these studies are based on international migration data. in the recent past, there has been a growing interest in understanding internal migration through comparative global studies, although this has been plagued by numerous problems, including data sources, measurement, and definitional concepts, resulting in comparative studies of internal migration being largely absent from the main literature (bell et al., 2002, bell et al., 2015). in response to these challenges, the work of bell et al. (2002) on the comparing internal migration across the globe (image) project resulted in the development of a global repository of internal migration for global research. by 2013, the contributions of 179 of the 193 united nations member states were captured in the repository (bell et al., 2015). the image project has revolutionized the discourse on internal migration, enabling global comparisons of migration intensities across the world (bell et al., 2015). several measures of migration intensity have been used in subnational analysis. bell et al. (2002) propose the use of two measures of the impact of migration, namely the migration effectiveness index (mei) which extends the migration effectiveness ratio; and the aggregate net migration rate (anmr). the mei compares the proportion of total inflow minus outflow into a given geographical area as a proportion of total migrations recorded in the area, as captured by the sum of the total inflows and outflows to the geographical area. the mei values range between 0 and 100, with high values showing that migration is effectively redistributing the population in the 65 given area. the anmr only measures how the net and gross migration flows compare for a given region. another measure is the crude migration intensity, calculated as the number of levels of spatial disaggregation and computed as the total number of internal migrations at any given time as a percentage of the population at risk (rees et al., 2000). a newer index of measuring migration intensity, the index of net migration impact (inmi), which has been proposed by rees et al. (2017), compares the spatial patterns of migration between migration and population density. the use of migration intensities removes the focus from the rural-urban dichotomy, which complicates comparative analysis of migration data. as lucas (2015: 6) observes, comparative studies resort to measuring migration rates by the propensities to cross some internal administrative boundaries such as regions, provinces, or districts. several studies have used the image dataset to document the impacts of internal migration across the globe (bell et al., 2002; bell et al., 2015; rees et al., 2017). while this is progressive, there is still low representation of countries in africa owing to data challenges, as documented by many researchers (see for example, oucho and gould, 1993; oucho, 1998). several efforts have been made to improve the migration statistics for migration analysis in africa, including census data, surveys, as well as the limited use of specialist migration surveys in a number of countries, including egypt and ethiopia (muyonga et al., 2020). using data from the image dataset, rees et al. (2017) observe that there are wide regional variations of intensities in africa – although data is sparse – with low levels of migration impact noted in egypt, mali, and ghana, but more substantial redistribution in guinea, senegal, tunisia, uganda, and cameroon. comparatively, in kenya, there is a high redistribution effect based on recent migration data (rees et al., 2017). elsewhere, several studies identified the impact that migration has on national population distribution, for example, in china (fan, 2005; shi et al., 2020), india (bhagat and keshri, 2020), and latin america (rodríguez-vignoli and rowe, 2018). migration influences not only urbanization but also reflects the temporal effects of historical events, including migration policy outcomes for asian countries (charlesedwards et al., 2019). in britain, a study on the ethnic migration patterns reveals the heavy concentration of immigrants in the metropolitan areas in england, while the white population moved to regions with higher concentration to areas with a high share of the white population (stillwell and duke-williams, 2005). in a review of internal migration impacts in 12 european countries, there is evidence of increased urbanization as well as counter-urbanization, specifically in western european countries such as the uk, the netherlands and france (rees et al., 2017). in africa, subnational analysis of internal migration and the impact on population redistribution have been conducted widely, with the majority of studies focusing on regional population flows. oucho and gould (1993) observe that internal migration contributes to urban growth in africa, although this effect has been declining over time. the regional studies show that internal migration is largely responsible for urbanization and growth of metropolitan cities, with increased impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya 66 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 population numbers in urban settlements due to the influx of migrants, while rural areas report net losses. the fast pace of urban growth in major cities of africa has also been partly attributed to internal migration and the related challenges of the proliferation of slums (mberu et al., 2017). while the majority of studies focus on movements from rural to urban areas, lucas (1997) cautions that the bulk of internal migration flows in least developed countries are mainly between rural areas and not from rural to urban areas. oucho (1998) agrees, observing that increased internal migration flows within countries is resulting in the blurring of the urbanrural dichotomy. in south africa, findings show that metropolitan areas remain the greatest attraction to rural migrants, leading to net gains in the urban areas and losses in rural areas (ginsburg et al., 2016). high internal migration is associated with low development, pushing out rural migrants to urbanized spaces. in delta state, nigeria, onokerhoraye (2013) observes that unequal development, resulting in poor investments in rural infrastructure in the region, is the main push factor for migrants out of the region to the more developed parts of the country. previous studies in kenya studies on internal migration in kenya have largely focused on identifying the typology of flows and determinants of flows, with only a few studies considering the impact of migration on population redistribution. the internal migration flows confirm the colonial legacy of the country, where unequal development resulted in migration flows from poorly-developed areas to the metropolitan areas (soja, 1968; gupta, 1979; oucho, 2007). the seminal works by ominde (1969, as reviewed by morgan, 1970) and oucho (1988) show that migration flows are from rural to urban areas, rural to other rural areas, urban to other urban areas, and urban to rural areas – also known as return migration. however, while such studies focused on the urbanrural dichotomy in the flows of migrants within the country, oucho (1998) observes that this is largely diminishing as urbanization levels rise in the country. wakajummah (1986) offers a different typology of internal migration flows in the country, identifying five major streams: (a) to metropolitan areas, largely representing patterns observed in nairobi and mombasa; (b) to settlement areas, in regions where land is available (laikipia, trans nzoia, uasin gishu, west pokot, kajiado, nakuru, lamu, and tana river districts); (c) to nomadic areas, largely found in the northern part of the country (mandera, wajir, garissa, marsabit, samburu, turkana); (d) to border areas (busia, west pokot, kajiado, narok, garissa, wajir, marsabit); and (e) the patterns in western, nyanza, and eastern regions. he notes that a limitation of such earlier studies is that they did not show the inter-regional flows (wakajummah, 1986: 134). several other studies concentrated on the determinants of internal migration in kenya, although most focused on explaining the patterns of labor migration flows, arguing that the migrants move in search of employment opportunities or better wages (todaro, 1969; rempel, 1971,1974; knowles and anker, 1977; house and rempel, 67 1981). todaro’s study shows that migrants make the decision to move based on the perceived income in urban areas compared to rural areas. in case they do not find the wage differentials beneficial, they are likely to return to their origin areas. soja (1968) notes that migrants may move to areas with better economic development. however, the distance between districts and destination factors determine how far migrants are prepared to move (barber and milne, 1988). oucho (1996) describes the ‘urban bias’ of rural migrants who prefer to move to urbanized parts of the country, adding that internal migrants maintain urban-rural linkages with their origin areas through exchange of goods and services, visitation, and remittances. despite the bias for rural areas, several studies argue that migration patterns mirror the economic disparities between regions (oucho, 1981, 2000, 2007, 2016). a different perspective is offered by wakajummah (1986), who notes that migration is motivated by land inequality in the origin areas, resulting in male out-migration to other parts of the country where there is land. in a related study, ovyat and mwangi wa githinji (2017) add that land inequality causes migrants to move initially to smaller urban areas, before eventually reaching the larger urban cities like nairobi. in addition, the study shows that land inequality affected more males than female migrants. internal migration studies in kenya have relied on regional estimates of migration rates to show the population redistribution in the regions – previously named provinces – concluding that the net gainers are nairobi, rift valley, and coast regions, and net losers include western, nyanza, and eastern provinces. the high numbers of outmigrants from the western region resulted in the region becoming known as kenya’s human capital reservoir (oucho, 2002; oucho et al., 2014). such studies are however, based on a regional analysis of migration patterns based on national averages, which may mask subnational variations, as confirmed in more recent studies (for example, adieri, 2012). in his analysis of intercensal migration during the period 1999 to 2009 using census data, adieri (2012) observes that there are wide variations in the county-level migration rates, which were previously masked using regional aggregate measures of migration. his study, that used intercensal migration rates, shows that movements to nairobi and mombasa exhibit similar age-sex specific patterns. however, the study did not consider the contingency flows between counties. the review of the relevant literature confirms that there are regional variations in migration patterns and rates in the country, although none of the studies compared the impact of migration on the spatial distribution of the population. this study sought to fill this gap in knowledge, showing how migration intensities are spread in the 47 counties, and highlighting the impact on spatial distribution of the population in the receiving counties. this study differs from the previous ones in two key ways. first, it focused on county-level analysis using 1999 and 2009 census data. while studies such as adieri (2012) conducted county-level analysis, the focus was on the migration rates in the intercensal period, showing the age-sex specific rates per county. previous studies relied on regional analysis that focused on provinces, which impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya 68 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 are currently redundant, following the creation of counties in the country’s new constitution (rok, 2010). second, the study employed spatial analysis and spatial mapping techniques that visualize the spatial changes to the population in counties for the two respective census years. the next sections present the study methodology, key findings and a discussion of their implications, followed by the conclusion with some recommendations for policy-makers and future studies. methodology the analysis required county-level data on migration intensities. the county was the study’s unit of analysis, and although data was available for sub-county migration, did not conduct the sub-county migration intensity analysis owing to data limitations and constraints. while the 1999 and 2009 censuses were conducted using the district as the subnational unit, the researchers obtained county-level data by matching the relevant districts to the present-day county. table 1 shows the district data for 1999 and 2009 with the corresponding county as per the new constitution. the matching process was guided by the data processing team of the kenya national bureau of statistics – the custodian of official statistics in kenya. the number of districts had increased from 69 in the 1999 census, to 159 by 2009 (rok, 2001; odhiambo and ndilinge, 2007). the creation of administrative units in the pre-devolution period, was largely political with the head of state deciding on the number and location of districts to be created. the new constitution altered the process of creating administrative units in the country and established 47 counties, which have been gazetted. as a result of these changes, the 2009 census, while originally conducted before the promulgation of the constitution in 2010, had the analytical reports prepared with the county as the unit of analysis (rok, 2010, 2012). table 1: districts to counties matching region (previously province) county (previously district) nairobi nairobi central nyandarua, nyeri, kirinyaga, muranga, kiambu coast mombasa, kwale, kilifi, tana river, lamu, taita taveta eastern marsabit, isiolo, meru, tharaka nithi, embu, kitui, machakos, makueni north eastern garissa, wajir, mandera nyanza siaya, kisumu, homa bay, migori, kisii, nyamira rift valley turkana, west pokot, samburu, trans nzoia, uasin gishu, nandi, baringo, laikipia, nakuru, narok, kajiado, kericho, bomet western kakamega, vihiga, bungoma, busia 69 impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya the map of counties is presented in figure 1. figure 1: map of kenyan counties (knbs, 2019) source: authors' own work researchers derived census micro data from the 1999 and 2009 kenya population and housing census data obtained from the kenya national bureau of statistics (knbs). the 1999 data included information on the district of birth, district of residence a 70 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 year before the census and duration of residence. the 2009 census, by comparison, collected data on place of birth, previous residence, duration of residence and place of enumeration. while the 2019 census had been completed, the data sets were not used in this analysis, as the study commenced before the completion of the census. moreover, the 2019 census is yet to undergo the detailed analysis of population dynamics, but it included questions on reasons for migrating (rok, 2019: 250). the key data for this analysis was lifetime migration data, derived by crosstabulating the place of birth by the place of current residence from the census. residents whose place of birth was different from their place of residence, were categorized as lifetime migrants. depending on whether they had moved into or away from their place of birth, they were labeled as ‘lifetime in-migrants’ or ‘lifetime out-migrants’. lifetime data was used to compute migration intensities, thus giving insights on the extent to which individuals living in kenya had moved away from their place of birth. however, this is limiting, as it does not factor duration of residence and may lead to underor over counts of migration in the long term (undesa, 1970). method to determine the net effect of migration on population redistribution, the study used the revised weighted net migration rate (rnmi) and the revised weighted gross migration rate (rgmi). these two measures showed how the population had been redistributed through migration. the rgmi and rnmi values provided different outputs of the impact of migration on subnational population distribution. the rgmi presented the proportion of migrants in each county, that is, 1 in x number of the population in a given county was ‘in-migrant population’, while rnmi gave an indication of the overall intensity of migrants in the county compared to the rest of the country, hence, the proportion of net migrants in a given county, in relation to the entire migrant population in the country. thus, the rnmi value weights the individual county migration intensities to the overall national intensity. the measures are derived from the net migration and gross migration rates, which consider only the difference between in-migrants and out-migrants as a proportion of the total population. the rnmi considers the proportion of migrants in the total population and the total migrants, therefore taking care of undercounts or overcounts that would otherwise occur due to huge differences in the total population (shi et al., 2020; liu et al., 2011). the rnmi is computed by weighting the net migration rates by the share of migrants in the total population. when the number of in-migrants is larger than the number of out-migrants, the net migration rate gives a positive result, whereas a negative migration rate implies that more people are moving out of an area than coming in. the rnmi is computed as: rnmi = ((ii-0i/pi) *(ii/∑in)) *n where ii is the number of in-migrants in county i, oi is the number of out-migrants in county i, pi is the resident population in county i, and n is the total number 71 of counties – in this study’s case it is 47. to visualize the changes in population redistribution, this study used arcgis 10.5 software to map out the revised weighted migration rates using shapefiles for the 47 counties. revised gross migration rate (rgmi) this is derived from the gross migration rate, which measures the total flows of migrants, adding in-migrants and out-migrants. thus, the rgmi weights the gross migration rate by the share of total migrants in the total population. therefore, the rgmi is derived by multiplying the gross migration rate by the summation of the total migration in the county, weighted by the total number of counties. the rgmi was used in this study to show the overall effect of migration on the total county population. thus, for a given county, the rgmi will show what proportion of the county population is comprised of the migrant population. gmr = (ii+ oi)/pi, where gmr is the gross migration rate, i is the number of in-migrants, while o is the number of out-migrants. therefore, the rgmi is derived as follows: rgmi = ((ii +oi)/pi) *(∑in+∑on)) *n where ii is the number of in-migrants in county i, oi is the number of out-migrants in county i, and pi is the resident population in countyi and n is the total number of counties. spatial analysis the researchers conducted a spatial analysis of the migration intensities executed by spatial statistics tools extension found in the arc toolbox section in the arcgis software. the spatial analysis involved testing if the migration intensities for the counties are randomly distributed or not, and if they are dependent on spatial factors. to do this, the researchers conducted the moran’s i test of spatial autocorrelation of the migration intensities, captured using the rnmis. the moran’s i test of spatial autocorrelation confirms if the values of migration intensity in the country are randomly distributed, or if they have spatial associations. the values of moran’s i test range from -1 to 1, with -1, where the value 1 means there is perfect clustering of similar values, while 0 means there is no autocorrelation, hence, any clusters arising are of dissimilar values. thus, a positive value of moran’s i indicates that the values being analyzed tend to cluster spatially, either as high values clustering together, or low values clustering together. a negative index implies that high values repel each other and tend to be near low values. the results of spatial autocorrelation analysis using moran’s i present five outputs: the moran's index, expected index, variance, z-score, and p-value. the moran’s index value ranges from -1 to 1, confirming if the variables – in the case of this study, migration intensity – are either clustered or impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya 72 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 randomly distributed. a moran’s i value of 1, indicates that the migration intensities are clustered with similar values together, such as high values in the neighborhood of other high values, or low values together with other low values. when the moran’s i value is close to 0, it shows that the values are not clustered. if the moran’s i value is negative, it indicates that high values are located close to low values. the moran’s index also generates a p-value and a z-score that capture the statistical significance of the outputs. the spatial autocorrelation report presents a second output – the expected index. this index shows the distribution of migration intensities in case there is no clustering. the p-values and the z-scores of the expected index are also generated. to determine if the migration intensities are random or clustered, the p-values and the z-scores of the moran’s i and the expected index are compared. the p-values present a probability that the spatial pattern observed is a random process. if p is of low value, then the observed clustering is not a random event, hence, the null hypothesis is rejected. the z-scores present the standard deviations, and these tend to vary, based on the distribution. in a normal distribution, the z-values can be extremely high or extremely low with small p-values. thus, to determine the spatial association and the significance of such association the p-values and the z-scores of the two indexes are compared. once the moran’s index is computed, the expected index is also computed, and the two values are then compared using the p-values and the z-scores to determine if the difference is statistically significant. the output of the spatial autocorrelation analysis generates maps of the residuals which reveal the spatial changes to population distribution. results migration activity: 1999–2009 table 2 shows the trends in migration activity using the revised net migration and revised gross migration rates. t 73 table 2: trends in migration activity 1999-2009 rnmi_1 per 1000 rgmi per 100 county 2009 county 1999 county 2009 county 1999 vihiga 547.46 nairobi 6740.35 nairobi 1298 nairobi 496 nyandarua 54.06 mombasa 1302.35 mombasa 448 nakuru 147 bungoma 34.13 nakuru 1011.54 nakuru 202 kiambu 125 kiambu 18.15 uasin gishu 501.39 kiambu 153 mombasa 125 samburu 0.06 laikipia 397.81 uasin gishu 121 kisumu 103 mandera 0.00 trans nzoia 303.83 kajiado 90 siaya 91 nyamira 0.00 kajiado 235.74 machakos 87 kakamega 83 west pokot 0.00 nyandarua 165.72 kilifi 85 muranga 80 kisii 0.00 narok 78.92 meru 80 nyeri 75 baringo 0.00 kiambu 53.38 busia 77 uasin gishu 72 garissa 0.00 kericho 48.02 nyandarua 70 vihiga 72 laikipia 0.00 migori 21.94 trans nzoia 68 machakos 59 homa bay 0.00 nandi 16.69 laikipia 59 homa bay 57 bomet 0.00 lamu 10.52 kisumu 58 trans nzoia 55 narok 0.00 tana river 8.96 kwale 56 nyandarua 55 kericho 0.00 isiolo 2.30 lamu 53 laikipia 50 siaya -0.01 west pokot -1.84 makueni 50 kericho 38 migori -0.01 mandera -2.20 tharaka nithi 48 nandi 32 kisumu -0.02 wajir -2.43 embu 47 bungoma 31 kajiado -0.03 garissa -6.06 bomet 40 busia 26 nandi -0.04 marsabit -6.94 vihiga 38 migori 24 trans nzoia -0.05 turkana -8.15 nyamira 38 kajiado 23 uasin gishu -0.06 kilifi -8.95 muranga 34 kisii 22 kirinyaga -0.06 samburu -9.08 taita taveta 25 kitui 20 nakuru -0.07 meru -10.19 kakamega 24 makueni 20 nyeri -0.09 tharaka nithi -10.58 narok 23 nyamira 18 kakamega -0.18 kwale -10.81 isiolo 20 bomet 17 turkana -0.40 embu -15.97 tana river 20 taita taveta 17 elgeyomarakwet -0.60 kirinyaga -19.07 homa bay 19 narok 16 nairobi -0.90 baringo -22.04 nandi 19 embu 12 wajir -4.52 elgeyomarakwet -24.82 migori 17 kilifi 11 marsabit -33.75 taita taveta -29.92 nyeri 16 elgeyomarakwet 10 kitui -35.63 bomet -39.87 bungoma 16 kirinyaga 10 tana river -57.82 kitui -40.67 marsabit 15 baringo 10 isiolo -62.14 nyamira -43.58 siaya 14 kwale 9 taita taveta -75.30 makueni -49.30 kitui 14 isiolo 7 tharaka nithi -77.02 kisii -51.70 kericho 12 lamu 7 muranga -77.90 busia -60.72 kirinyaga 5 meru 5 embu -119.86 bungoma -70.41 kisii 3 tharaka nithi 4 makueni -145.13 kisumu -71.52 elgeyomarakwet 2 samburu 4 kwale -145.83 homa bay -104.63 baringo 2 tana river 4 lamu -156.79 vihiga -104.99 wajir 2 turkana 4 meru -173.33 machakos -144.56 garissa 1 marsabit 3 busia -236.25 muranga -157.55 samburu 1 garissa 3 kilifi -236.77 nyeri -182.60 west pokot 0 west pokot 2 machakos -266.78 kakamega -198.03 turkana 0 wajir 1 mombasa -1282.82 siaya -227.30 mandera 0 mandera 1 impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya 74 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 shifts in the net in-migration zones in table 2, panel one has columns 1–4 capturing net in-migration rates. the positive values indicate where in-migration rates were higher than out-migration rates while the negative values represent counties where out-migration was higher than in-migration. the indicators have been weighted by the share of in-migrants (inmigrants in the county divided by total migrants in the county). the key result from the table is the reversal in the pattern of the county net in-migration rate over the 10-year period. in 1999, the top counties with high in-migration rates represent three typologies of counties: (a) the urban counties of nairobi and mombasa, which attract high ruralurban migrants; (b) counties with agricultural potential, including nakuru, naivasha, and uasin gishu counties; and (c) counties that have large settlement areas, such as trans nzoia and laikipia counties. in 2009, there was a huge reversal, with the top three counties of high in-migration rates being largely rural counties. vihiga county, with the highest in-migration rate in 2009 could reflect return migration, as it had a high out-migration in 1999. this may be partly attributed to the 2007/2008 postelection violence in kenya, with return migration – probably from the neighboring nandi and uasin gishu counties – having had a high out-migration rate in 1999. bungoma county also gained high in-migration, possibly due to return migration as well as resettlement. nyandarua, a traditional settlement, could also have gained in migrants from the uasin gishu and nandi counties, which experienced internal displaced of the population following the post-election violence. shifts in the net out-migration zones the negative values of panel one show counties where out-migration was higher than in-migration. data for 1999 shows high out-migration rates in the counties of western kenya including siaya and kakamega counties, and central kenya (nyeri and muranga) that date to the pre-independence period. the patterns seen here arise from the regions with higher education due to early colonial administration and missionary settlement, hence, residents’ decision to move, seeking employment, especially in while collar jobs in businesses in urban areas and plantation establishments. a reversal in the 2009 data is evident, with high out-migration from mombasa, machakos, kilifi and meru counties, although the patterns are mixed. the highest out-migration observed in mombasa may yet again be attributed to the post-election violence of 2007/08, the decline in the tourism sector that created employment in the hotels along the beach, and a decline in formal employment creation. the decline in tourism could also explain the high out-migration from kilifi. however, machakos and meru county scenarios are still difficult to explain. for busia county, the net losses could be attributed to reduced informal cross-border trade as the revamping of the east african community (eac) formalized border control processes for the exchange of trade between kenya and uganda. 75 the results of the migration intensities, measured using rnmi were mapped using arcgis and the results are shown in figure 2 and figure 3. figure 2 presents the outcome of the analysis using 1999 census data. the counties are categorized into five key regions – regions of high in-migration are indicated in red, while those with high in-migration are in green. the counties where migration is inactive are indicated in grey. the results show that net gainers of migrants are counties with metropolitan areas, including nairobi, uasin gishu, mombasa, nakuru, and kajiado counties – all indicated in red. the data shows a pattern of net gainers for counties along the international borders, including turkana county in the north of the country, bordering ethiopia, sudan, and uganda; and kajiado county in the southern part of the country bordering tanzania. the lighter green colour denotes counties that are net out-migration zones. there are two distinct regions manifesting this trend. the first is the block of counties in the western part of the country around the lake victoria basin, in the nyanza and western regions, and parts of the upper rift valley region including uasin gishu and baringo counties. a second block of net out-migration counties is found in the eastern part of the country, especially kitui, machakos, and makueni counties in the eastern region, and nyeri county in the central region. impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya 76 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 figure 2: weighted migration rates for counties, 1999 source: authors' own work figure 3 presents the spatial maps generated from revised weighted migration rates from the 2009 data. the map captures those spatial changes in the migration patterns over the ten-year period between the two censuses. the map captures the different impacts of migration, with red indicating high in-migration areas, grey indicating 77 inactive migration zones and light green indicating counties with high outmigration. at a first glance, the map is predominantly green, implying that there is increased mobility in the country, although there are many counties where migration is inactive, as indicated in the grey zones. it is only in vihiga county where high outmigration was evident, followed by bungoma county and parts of central kenya. figure 3: weighted migration rates for counties, 2009 source: authors' own work impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya 78 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 a comparison of data on the two maps, revealed a higher increase in inactive migration zones from the 2009 data, as captured in figure 3, implying that there was little population redistribution due to migration. there have been shifts in intensities and impacts in some counties. vihiga county in the western part of the country remains the county with high in-migration, according to the 2009 data, with a few other counties recording moderate in-migration, as noted in busia, nyandarua and kiambu counties. the eastern region remained an active net out-migration region in 2009, while mombasa county shifted from being a net out-migration zone to becoming an in-migration zone. nyandarua, kiambu, and kericho counties, which were net out-migration zones in 1999, became net in-migration zones in 2009. using the revised weighted gross migration rate, the findings show a higher proportion of migrant population in each county, with those having urbanized settlements recording a higher intensity of migrants. in 1999, a higher influx and concentration of migrants was noted in nairobi, nakuru, kiambu, mombasa, and kisumu counties. all these counties host major urban areas in kenya. the 2009 data shows that the major concentration of migrants is found in nairobi, mombasa, nakuru, kiambu and uasin gishu counties. the data further shows that internal migrants are mainly concentrated in regions with the large, urbanized counties in kenya, with the major cities, especially nairobi, being the destination of choice of migrants. conversely, there is little effect of migration in the overall populations in the counties in the northern frontier of the country, located in the arid and semi-arid areas, as noted in west pokot, turkana, and mandera counties in the data for 2009. when the data is observed for the proportion of migrants in counties, there is an indication of the importance of secondary urban areas and cities in the absorption of migrants. in 2009, when major urban areas were considered, the next destinations of migrants were kajiado, machakos, kilifi, meru, and busia counties. the first four of these counties are those contiguous to major urban areas; they are thus receiving an outflow of the migrant population. for busia county, the data may contain migrants crossing the national borders from the neighboring countries, as it is located at the border of kenya and uganda. comparing the data for 1999 and 2009 shows a shift in the major destinations for migrants, as the rural-based counties of siaya, kakamega, muranga, and nyeri which attracted migrants, have a lesser concentration of migrants during the 2009 period. the results of the gross weighted migration rate for the two periods show a migration transition in the country. spatial analysis of migration intensities the study applied spatial analysis using moran’s i to determine if the migration intensities were random or if there was clustering. the results included the moran’s index as well as a cold-to-hot rendered map of standardized residuals, as shown in figure 4. the map shows hot and cold spots of migration intensities clustering. 79 figure 4: spatial autocorrelation results source: authors' own work the output of the analysis, in the top left corner of figure 4 presents the moran’s index as 0.105452, the z-score is 3.078, while p-value is 0.002, implying that the data is spatially clustered and not randomly distributed. the positive value of moran’s i indicates that while the values are spatially clustered, positive values are clustered together and negative values are clustered together. this leads to the conclusion that migration intensity is spatially clustered, with neighboring regions recording similar values. the residuals of the analysis of migration intensities by county using arcgis, are presented in figure 5. the results confirm the clustering of migration intensities around the country. nairobi has remarkably high migration intensity and is surrounded by regions with similarly high migration intensities, leading to a clustering of high-high migration. this may be because of the spillover effects of migration to nairobi, hence migrants move to the next contiguous counties, as impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya moran's index: 0.105452 expected index: -0.021739 variance: 0.001707 z-score: 3.078517 p-value: 0.002080 80 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 demonstrated by high intensities in kajiado, kiambu, and nakuru counties. there is a clustering of low migration intensities in makueni, machakos, embu, and meru counties. in the western part of the country, there is a cluster of high migration in vihiga county and evidence of high migration in migori county at the kenyatanzania border. comparatively, the coastal region shows evidence of low migration clustering in mombasa and kilifi counties. figure 5: results of the spatial analysis of migration intensities source: authors' own work 81 discussion this study considered county migration patterns and their impact on spatial distribution in kenya, using data from successive censuses. the study used two measures of migration intensity to consider the impact of migration on population redistribution, namely, the revised weighted net migration rate and the revised weighted gross migration rate. each of the measures helps to clarify the effect of migration on the population redistribution in the country. the revised weighted net migration rates show a shift of migration intensity in 2009 compared to 1999. there was high in-migration into several regions in the country, particularly in busia and kajiado counties, located on the international borders, and in the central region, in such counties as laikipia, nyandarua, and nakuru, in addition to nairobi county. comparatively, the 2009 data shows that there have been higher levels of migration within all the counties, but with a concentration of in-migrants in vihiga county as well as moderate flows into nyandarua, nakuru, and busia counties. the findings suggest that the effect of migration on population redistribution is waning and implies that other factors such as natural increase may be contributing to the spatial redistribution of the population in the country. the data for vihiga county warrants further research as it seems to be the main in-migration hub for the lake victoria basin, which is a shift from kisumu and kericho, identified in earlier studies (see for example, oucho, 1988). the data from the revised weighted gross migration rates shows that most migrants are moving into the more urbanized ones, most of these being part of administrative centers in the colonial period and presently have higher economic potential. this corroborates findings of previous studies, especially those conducted during the colonial and pre-independence period (rempel, 1974; knowles and anker, 1977; oucho and gould, 1993; oucho, 2007). the urbanized areas – though districts at the time – are still the same in the present-day counties. the urbanized counties have well-developed infrastructure including schools, health facilities, and public transport systems. nairobi, the capital city, receives the lion’s share of migrants in each successive census owing to the enormous opportunities available in both the formal and informal sectors. the high influx of migrants could strain the existing infrastructure and the provision of social services in the counties, including the proliferation of slum dwellings in the counties, as migrants seek cheap accommodation. this has already been observed in the recent periods, with problems such as waste disposal, traffic congestion, and the proliferation of slums increasingly evident in counties other than nairobi, kisumu, mombasa, and nakuru, which were the previously urbanized counties. the findings show that the top counties remain the same, save for the dominance as either an in-migration or an out-migration county. the 1999 census data identified nairobi as having the highest population gains, dominated by the influx of in-migrants. this is also happening in nakuru and mombasa counties (high rgmi, high rnmi). kiambu has a moderate rnmi but still ranks higher. meanwhile, impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya 82 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 kisumu and siaya are dominated by out-migrants (low rnmi), with siaya reporting the highest out-migration rate in the country. the pattern for 2009 showed nairobi as having high internal migration activity but with balanced inand out-migration. mombasa recorded a high out-migration rate, while kiambu had a high positive migration rate, while the rest of the counties reported more balanced inand outmigration. the spatial analysis confirms that migration intensities in the country are not randomized as they are clustered. conclusion and recommendations this study sought to establish the impact of internal migration on the population redistribution in the country. using several indicators of measuring migration intensity and spatial analysis, the results show that migration has affected the population redistribution in the country with migrants concentrated in counties with urbanized areas, such as nairobi, nakuru, and uasin gishu. however, much of the concentration of migrants in urban areas, has led to an increase of migrants in the populations in the receiving counties, as confirmed by this study’s data from the gross migration rate. these observations lead the researchers to conclude that while migration initially led to faster urban growth in the country, there is evidence of a declining net effect of migration on the population redistribution in the country. there is evidence of suburbanization, as more migrants move to secondary urban areas in the country. the flows and counterflows of migration in the country are clustered with high-high hotspots emerging in the western and central parts of the country, with low-low clustering in the coastal region. the findings confirm that the migration in the country is concentrated in the more developed regions owing to the colonial legacy, as observed in previous studies. however, shifts in this pattern are emerging, as evidenced from the 2009 census data, with secondary cities gaining importance in attracting migrants. part of the scenario observed from the 2009 data, confirms the effect of the 2007/2008 post-election violence in the country that resulted in internal displacement of some people, but that also led to return migration from the conflict hotspot regions that were mostly in the central and rift valley regions. the findings bear evidence that the regional variations in migration rates in the country were masking subnational intensities. the data has shown that urbanized counties are the main receptors of migrants, while non-urbanized counties remain largely sending areas. in the rift valley region for example, only a handful of counties are responsible for the high mobility that was previously observed in the region. this confirms the importance of analyzing the migration data to the subnational level. the findings from this study form the basis of several policy recommendations for county governments, presented here. the researchers maintain that devolution will result in faster growth of urban areas in the country as new counties set up their administrative infrastructure, and this may affect the nature of internal migration flows. the researchers anticipate increased mobility within and across counties 83 as devolution sets in, and each county is required to set up its administrative infrastructure. migrants need to be factored into the existing social and development agenda of the counties. this means that information on migration intensities need to be factored in the county planning processes. county statistics departments need to collect migration data to inform the planning and service delivery agenda, including the provision of housing and social amenities for the youthful migrants relocating to the urban centers in search of opportunities. there is also an anticipation of an outflow of the return migrants – usually older people who are retirees – to settle back in their rural places of origin. adequate planning for this elderly population will be important. there are several limitations of this study. a discrepancy in census figures was observed in the north eastern region in the 2009 data; therefore, results from the region needed to be interpreted with caution. the study used moran’s i index to determine spatial clustering in the migration intensities, but the index is limited as it only identifies hotpots within their vicinities, and this may have missed other levels of association between counties that are far apart. acknowledgments the authors acknowledge the support of antony okundi, affiliated to the department of urban planning, school of built environment, university of nairobi, kenya, in the generation of spatial maps. the authors also acknowledge the support of bernard obassi of the kenya national bureau of statistics in data extraction and matching of districts to counties. the late professor john oyaro oucho contributed to the conceptualization of this study but did not see it to fruition. impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya 84 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 7 no 3, sep-dec 2021 references adepoju, a. 1995. migration in africa. the migration experience in africa, 202: 87. adieri, m.b. 2012. estimation of intercensal net migration in kenya: a county level analysis. unpublished ma project, university of nairobi, kenya. barber, g.m. and milne, w.j. 1988. modelling internal 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measuring internal migration, population studies. number 47. new york: department of economic and social affairs, united nations. wakajummah, j.o. 1986. intercensal net migration in kenya: district-level analysis. unpublished ma thesis, university of nairobi, kenya. impact of subnational migration flows on population distribution in kenya https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2017.1416155 https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2017.1416155 https://doi.org/10.3390/su12020610 https://doi.org/10.3390/su12020610 56 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 compatible compacts? the “social life” of vulnerability, migration governance, and protection at the zimbabwe– south africa border kudakwashe vanyoro1, nicholas maple2, and jo vearey3 received 09 november 2023 / accepted 27 march 2024 / published 07 may 2024 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i1.1719 abstract the central argument of this paper is that interventions of humanitarian organizations at the zimbabwe–south africa border reveal the importance placed on making very clear distinctions between those needing protection and those who do not. this is the case even in times wherein migrants have other protection needs that fall outside these boundaries or intersect with those of others. these boundaries are retained in the stable definitions of migrant in/vulnerability that have been legitimized by the increased emphasis of two separate frameworks: one, the global compact for safe, orderly, and regular migration (gcm) for managing migration and the other, the global compact on refugees (gcr) that determines a set of stable norms for international refugee protection. these mandates are also connected to other tidy, established identities of vulnerability that pertain to gender, health, legal standing, and persecution. in contexts marked by conflicting and overlapping experiences for persons on the move, and mixed migration flows, these ideas are unstable as a way of governing migration. this is because they can also reproduce and intensify social divisions that may lead to inconsistencies and unethical practices in international protection and migration governance for irregular migrants, as well as failures to respond to “the ‘social life’ of vulnerability.” we propose this novel concept in the paper to capture and reimagine the limits and possibilities for protection. keywords: migration, borders, refugees, vulnerability, global compacts, governance 1 department of anthropology, university of the witwatersrand, south africa. corresponding author  kvanyoro@ gmail.com 2 refugee law initiative, university of london, united kingdom. 3 african centre for migration & society (acms), university of the witwatersrand, south africa. 57 introduction from around 2007, the border town of musina became a base for several nongovernmental organizations (ngos) and international non-governmental organizations (igos) that began to slowly move there to establish their presence by opening local offices and building capacity. this was in response to the crisis in zimbabwe that left many with little choice but to leave in search of livelihoods and protection. this context is well presented and documented by scholars (rutherford, 2008; bourne, 2011; compagnon, 2011; see also bolt, 2012; 2016). migrants who came to, or through musina had access to a range of service providers, including local and international ngos, faith-based organizations, legal service providers, local civil society organizations (csos), humanitarian organizations, health care providers, and governmental and intergovernmental organizations (amit, 2012: 8). the programs of these organizations were framed mostly along the lines of addressing the perceived vulnerabilities of migrants, but other categories of vulnerability such as unaccompanied minors (pregnant unaccompanied minors, physically or intellectually disabled unaccompanied minors) and survivors of sexual and genderbased violence were also incorporated (amit, 2012). with the government not assisting these migrants – at least in the beginning – these non-state and international organizations began to provide immediate humanitarian services (vanyoro, 2024). in recognition of the increased numbers of cross-border migrants arriving in musina, the department of home affairs (dha) opened a refugee reception office (rro) in 2008. zimbabwean cross-border displacement has resulted in many migrants remaining in musina for extended periods of time while waiting for asylum documentation; particularly as the town was – initially – ill-equipped to respond to this increasing migrant population (nel, 2016). recent years have seen increasing numbers of ngos and igos opening local offices. the international organization for migration (iom) opened an office in 2007 and the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) established an office in 2008 (amit, 2012). since 2007, responses to understand and address the legal, humanitarian, social, and medical needs of migrants in musina have developed. these responses have evolved to include coordination and collaboration between governmental and non-governmental actors, such as the development of bilateral responses between south africa and zimbabwe. our analysis is limited to the programming of two local ngos in musina: one providing migrants with legal assistance and the other offering social assistance. both are doing so in their capacity as unhcr implementing partners, which became more necessary after unhcr closed its field office in the area in december 2019 (vanyoro, 2024). the central argument of this paper is that the interventions of these organizations reveal a well-mannered yet problematic humanitarian response that highlights the importance placed on clearly distinguishing between those who require protection and those who do not. this was the case even in times where migrants had other protection needs that fell outside these boundaries or intersected “social life” of vulnerability, migration governance, and protection at the border 58 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 with those of others. these boundaries, this paper argues, are retained through the stable definitions of migrant in/vulnerability that have only been strengthened and legitimized by the two – very separate – global compacts. whereas one, the global compact for safe, orderly, and regular migration (gcm) focuses on managing migration, the other, the global compact on refugees (gcr) aims to strengthen existing norms for international refugee protection. these mandates are also connected to other tidy, established identities of vulnerability that relate to gender, health, legal standing, and persecution. in the south african context, which is marked by conflicting and overlapping experiences for persons on the move (vanyoro, 2023) and mixed migration flows, these ideas of vulnerability are unstable as a way of governing migration because they can also reproduce and intensify social divisions, both among migrants as well as in the communities they live in. this paper demonstrates that this tension can lead to inconsistencies and unethical practices in international protection and migration governance. it can also result in failures to respond to what the paper refers to as “the ‘social life’ of vulnerability,” which we observed as a key characteristic of this border town. this is a concept we use to capture how responses to the disconnect between single points of rights violations, such as lack of documentation, can lead to conditions that permeate society to the extent that it puts migrants in a position of making decisions that can create more forms of risk and vulnerability for themselves or others living in the same space, regardless of their nationality.4 in this context, one form of vulnerability is not removed from another, and more vulnerabilities can emerge from the one form to the extent that suffering and living precariously in conditions of risk and uncertainty begin to appear as a natural characteristic of border life. the social life of vulnerability is a concept that exposes the dangers of emphasizing regular legal status in determining protection in contexts where the majority of those on the move cannot access documentation for different reasons. in these spaces, issues of migration have become so banal because of the kinship and conviviality that are disturbed by the border, crudely known as “the devil’s fence” (mccullum, 1992), so much so that imposed vulnerabilities take a life of their own in the community because people are trying to exist in a way that challenges this historical anomaly. this banality is not too far from the ways in which this social life serves as a mobilizing force for humanitarian activities because it keeps present the same representation of suffering that gave rise to the establishment of humanitarian government in the border in the first place. to develop the core argument, this paper begins by laying out its methodology, followed by an articulation of the social life of vulnerability as a concept and how it can be used to capture the indeterminacy and intersections of different kinds of vulnerability imposed on migrants. this section reveals how focusing on specific kinds of vulnerability assumes invulnerability on the part of “others” who reside in the intermediate space of the migrant/refugee binary categorization, in ways that can 4 we are indebted to a community activist in musina who brought this understanding to our attention during fieldwork. 59 present further vulnerability to everyone else. it also presents both the conceptual and practical difficulties of differentiating between people with agency and those without it, considering how the lines between vulnerability and precariousness are blurred in the context at hand. this paper then locates this discussion in the gcm’s and the gcr’s approaches to this vulnerability. furthermore, it explores the limitations by using a case study of the programming of two local ngos: one providing migrants with legal assistance and the other offering social assistance; both do so in their capacity as unhcr implementing partners.5 this helps the paper to illustrate how this all plays out on the ground in south africa. finally, the paper offers conclusions and insights about rethinking vulnerability as a mode of interpreting humanitarian and border contexts in migration research. methodology this paper is based on research we did as part of a project titled “protect: the right to international protection. a pendulum between globalization and nativization?” because of the covid-19 pandemic, we began our research by conducting remote fieldwork, which took place virtually and telephonically in 2021 and consisted of an initial identification and mapping of relevant organizations based on website and document analysis, and preliminary interviews with key informants. based on the initial mapping, we identified two key actors for more in-depth study: one organization providing basic care services and one focusing on legal assistance. we conducted remote interviews with organizational representatives to gain insight into the role of these actors in identifying and assisting non-nationals whom they considered to be vulnerable or to have special needs. we were also interested in (i) how these representatives interact with other actors and organizations in relation to these populations; and (ii) what understandings of vulnerability – including negotiations on this notion – characterize the assistance provided by and collaborations with other actors. in 2022, with less-restrictive covid-19 regulations, we conducted in-person fieldwork. this took the form of participant observations and interviews with ten migrants – five serviced by the legal ngo and the other five by the socialassistance ngo. we complemented this process with consultative engagements and a community workshop in musina, in collaboration with local organizations, which aimed at upskilling and training community members on issues relating to protection and statelessness. finally, we completed a desk-based review and discourse analysis of the gcr and the gcm. the university of the witwatersrand granted ethical clearance (protocol number h20/07/45). 5 we do not extend our analysis to the impact of cross-border officials on the vulnerability of migrants and other categories of cross-border actors that the paper considered, although we are aware that the unhcr operates within south africa’s immigration framework. yet even with this being the case, both the unhcr and the state adhere to the same principle of separating migrants from refugees. “social life” of vulnerability, migration governance, and protection at the border 60 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 a case for using the social life of vulnerability as a concept to capture migrant experiences in south africa this theoretical exercise aims to illustrate the limitations of dichotomous and linear portrayals and framings of vulnerability, as set out in the gcm and the gcr. we argue that the social life of vulnerability as a concept captures the indeterminacy and intersections of different kinds of vulnerability. it also reveals how focusing on specific kinds of vulnerability assumes invulnerability on the part of others who reside in the intermediate space of the migrant/refugee binary categorization, in ways that can present further risk and vulnerability. for example, undocumented migrant women who have not qualified for international protection in south africa, can suffer uneven power relations in spousal relationships they develop with south african men because they have very little bargaining and economic power. this can put them in a vulnerable position to abuse and separation. in the latter situation, this may leave them alone with children who, in turn, are undocumented and resultantly are often unable to be admitted into schools or to write exams due to the lack of the requisite documents. some vulnerability literature suggests that rigid social hierarchies and fixed identities rooted in legal forms are the results of the frequently gendered vulnerable/ invulnerable binary (cole, 2016). there is, unsurprisingly, a dichotomy between “migrants” and “refugees” settled in public and policy discourse and international legal norms such as the gcm and the gcr; not to mention a bifurcated perception of the experiences of men and women. this distinction is viable for targeted humanitarian interventions, although this does not mean that the work it does should be ignored. this status quo can sometimes mean that migrants who travel erratically and do not fit the strict criteria of the 1951 refugee convention or the rules governing labor migration have limited legal rights (pijnenburg and rijken, 2021). the only remaining alternative for them is “irregular” migration, as they do not fall into the category of officially recognized “deserving refugees” or into the exclusive group of “desirable” or “deserving” migrants (those who serve an economic interest) (pijnenburg and rijken, 2021: 277). political camps in the migration world have tried to target those identified as being susceptible by creating two strict regimes. responses to “displaced populations” largely refer to a kind of vulnerability that denotes “a range of negative conditions, disabling qualities and diminished capacities including underdevelopment, abject poverty, conspiracy, violation, injury, harm, weakness, susceptibility, fragility, deficiency, dependency and helplessness” (cole, 2016: 264). this framing is related to the portrayals of the refugee as a figure of “bare life” in forced migration literature (bauman, 1990; 2002; 2013). these “wasted lives” give vulnerability its figure as “a shortcoming, an impending failure” (cole, 2016: 264). this means that while the condition of refugee vulnerability presents protection needs, it is also conceived “as a condition best avoided,” which also turns it into a problem or a “burden” that must be 61 minimized, such that the best way to contain its fecundity is “through various forms of securitization” (cole, 2016: 264). working with cole (2016), we clearly see the paradoxes of responding to refugee vulnerability because it can slip to a place of trying to protect the host community from succumbing to its own preconceived vulnerabilities. in this way, vulnerability takes on a life of its own, to defend and award limited resources. in an attempt to protect themselves from impending vulnerabilities, host societies can create vulnerability for others by marking them as dangerous to it (i.e., criminals or “illegals”); an act cole interprets as “biopolitical securitization.” this paper shows that this is the political consequence that the framing of the well-intentioned gcm has for groups outside the connoted norm of what it has defined as political “order” in the international system. this analysis can be extended to the migration governance regime of south africa. it appears to rationalize policies that are difficult to navigate amid a slow bureaucratic system that is not helped by strict visa regulations. acting based on the securitization of most forms of cross-border migration and national interest, these systems thrive on the presumptive basis that poor, black, african migrants moving to south africa are a threat. they are regarded as a burden and blamed for the poor service delivery of the social protection system and social services, which should be reserved to address the concerns and interests of the black citizenry. in a context where corruption runs amok, measures like growth, employment and redistribution (gear) (1998), accelerated shared growth initiative for south africa (asgisa) (2006), the new growth path (2010), and, most recently, the economic redistribution and recovery plan (2019) have not reduced poverty and unemployment to the extent that they should have (vanyoro and musyoka, unpublished). immigration has featured prominently in the election manifestos of opposition parties like the democratic alliance (da) and actionsa. guided by this rationality, the south african state has been aggressive in its response to protect its own interests by ensuring that visa application processes are inaccessible to the poor. would-be migrants applying for long-term visas are required to show guarantees that they will be self-sufficient, be it in the form of medical aid, job offers or contracts, security deposits, and proof of sufficient funds. these arrangements are inherently elitist, hence exclusionary to poor migrants. in this gatekeeping process, these groups are marked by proxy as more likely to be economically vulnerable because of their class through a process of suspicion meant to uncover their hidden identities and agendas. this reproduces a further position of vulnerability that emerges from being in the country without legal status. such migrants move below the radar, undetected and evading spot checks, arrest, and deportation. in certain instances, this may entail hiding from social protections or services meant to improve their immediate material circumstances that would not necessarily require documentation to access, often in fear of arrest, deportation or further victimization. victims and potential victims of “social life” of vulnerability, migration governance, and protection at the border 62 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 xenophobic violence may, for example, rely on social networks and local protections, or, if none exist in the nearby vicinity, “suffer” in silence. atak et al. (2018) argue that in this instance, migrants are being rendered vulnerable by state authorities. however, while useful, this understanding requires further engagement with how this vulnerability takes a life of its own by creating a condition of illegality that affects other strands of well-being such as livelihoods, to the extent that those who occupy liminal border spaces in poor, low-income households (like the shacks in campbell in musina) live with it in their daily lives and distribute it in shared border spaces. in such spaces, residences already have a short supply of electricity, running water, and good waste disposal due to the withdrawal of mining capital (chiguvare, 2022). in this context, the lines between vulnerability and precariousness may also become blurred. the term “precariousness” in the literature is used to indicate that a large portion of the migrants’ “vulnerability” is policy-driven, rather than related to their fundamental traits (atak et al., 2018: 4). it suggests that it is critical to distinguish between vulnerability and precariousness, since doing so enables discussion of precariousness’ manufactured nature and the state’s influence in it (atak et al., 2018: 4). this conception also emerges because some scholars stress vulnerability as “potentiality” or “constitutive.” according to cole (2016), however, there is a risk of blurring the (temporal) line between a general susceptibility to damage and the actual harm that particular people and groups are presently experiencing. we argue that there is also a point at which people’s present experiences of vulnerability become a fundamental trait that is most often characteristic of the liminality that comes with being put in a position to reside in limbo. with it comes a certain way of life that relies on the vulnerability that the individual would like to be addressed. this scenario invokes the sheer spectrum of vulnerability, such that it cannot be captured by a single ideal position. it is here that we argue for the need to think of vulnerability less as a fixed social condition but more as relational: a lived experience that involves people experiencing social harm due to structurally determined susceptibility to social harm as a result of limited access to resources (e.g., services, social support, social protection). additionally, this entails acting in harmful ways that are potentially generative of different kinds of undesirable social conditions for other social groups. this also means that the individual is not inherently vulnerable because they arrive in musina as a migrant or asylum seeker, but rather that they begin to experience social harm because of limited access to resources. this interpretation suggests that focusing only on specific categories of vulnerability in humanitarian programming is not the most useful way to respond to social problems faced by groups like migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees living in already poor communities. the gcm and the gcr thus are likely to be problematic in such contexts, as we discuss below. 63 the global compacts and vulnerability how do the global compacts address the question of vulnerability? this question arises from a context where global csos involved in the policy process that gave rise to the compacts expressed optimism about their potential significance in national migration governance. with the dhaka global forum on migration and development (gfmd) focused on making a case for a compact for migration, the one that followed it in berlin (2017) was preoccupied with a focus on designing this social contract on “safe, orderly and regular migration.” the outcome was a comprehensive but non-binding global agreement on a shared pathway for the management of migration called the gcm. after states sat side by side during the intergovernmental negotiations phase that led to the new york declaration to negotiate and come to an agreement on specific wording on international migration, the gcm was ultimately endorsed by the united nations (un) general assembly on december 19, 2018 (schierup et al., 2019). also following the new york declaration and two years of comprehensive consultations with member states, international organizations, refugees, civil society, the private sector, and experts under the direction of the unhcr, the un general assembly also approved the gcr on december 17, 2018. the gcr recognizes that without international cooperation, a durable solution to refugee crises cannot be accomplished, so it provides a framework for more equal and predictable responsibility-sharing (unhcr, 2018). on both fronts, it still remains to be seen whether the compacts will in the long term be engaged by local and national actors, particularly policymakers, with the seriousness the authors feel they deserve. certainly, there was optimism expressed in the preparation of the gcm’s ultimate adoption in marrakech when civil society was tasked with the role of taking the gcm to local and national levels. this air of hope has been countered by concerns about the fitness of these documents for local contexts; that is, how compatible the compacts would be for different geographic and political spaces. while the emergence of the gcr and the gcm has brought to light the crucial role that global governance can play in national-level international protection and migration governance, as explored below, it has also strengthened and given legitimacy to the efforts opposing the claimed difference between “migrants” and “refugees” in the “vulnerability chain.” this linear and dichotomous approach does not engage adequately the complex social life of vulnerability described above. the gcm represents a “remarkable advancement” in international collaboration since it is the first agreement encompassing a broad range of migration issues to be negotiated at the intergovernmental level on a global scale. the discussions that preceded these negotiations included several topic consultations and a stock-taking exercise. the gcm is clear from the outset about the fact that migrants and refugees are two different populations that are governed by two different legal systems. it recognizes that the unique international protection that is outlined in international refugee law is only available to refugees, so it uses the term “migrants.” “social life” of vulnerability, migration governance, and protection at the border 64 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 the extent to which migrants and refugees are distinct groups governed by separate legal frameworks is, however, questionable as argued previously. the gcr is a response to “an urgent need for more equitable sharing of the burden and responsibility for hosting and supporting the world’s refugees” (unhcr, 2018: l). with the help of other pertinent stakeholders and all un member states, it aims to provide a foundation for predictable and equitable burdenand responsibilitysharing. the very obvious connotation at the core of the gcr’s guiding principle is the notion of “burden-sharing,” which rightly captures the stated observation that without international cooperation, it will be impossible to adequately address refugee issues because granting asylum could cost some nations excessively (unhcr, 2018). the gcm also sets out, among others, “shared responsibilities” and unity of purpose regarding migration, making it work for all. this terminology, particularly in the gcr, nevertheless and perhaps unintentionally, implies that host states and their economies are vulnerable to refugees. this in turn runs the risk of turning the refugees’ vulnerability against them while at the same time trying to strengthen “solidarity with refugees and affected host countries” (unhcr, 2018: 2). it is also more likely that this framing will influence how the local community view refugees, especially if they are not willing to extend the benevolent act of “a generous approach to hosting refugees.” the gcr “is entirely non-political in nature, including in its implementation, and is in line with the purposes and principles of the charter of the united nations” (unhcr, 2018: 2). this political aloofness is also a questionable approach to a document that is trying to address issues related to vulnerabilities that are political in nature, particularly the precariousness that immigration policies help produce. in the context of south africa and covid-19, state-wide lockdowns and the resulting loss of jobs and income, saw the accountability of the state toward migrants and refugees become even more limited (mukumbang et al., 2020). as a result, civil society has not seen much in the way of real benefits from the gcm or the gcr filter down to the ground level, in terms of ensuring an inclusive response by the government to covid-19. instead, civil society has had to respond to the needs of persons of concern in the country, in many cases, replacing functions of the state to support and protect persons in vulnerable situations. the gcr seems to want to separate questions of vulnerability from politics. yet as butler (2012) contends, in addressing vulnerability, we must presume that if the political infrastructure itself is destroyed, so too are the assemblies that rely on it. in short, this shows that politics is at the heart of any kind of discrimination. the gcr also calls for dedicated efforts to address root causes. according to the gcr, climate change, environmental degradation, and natural disasters increasingly interact with the causes of refugee flows even though they are not causes in themselves. initially and foremost, it is up to the nations where refugee flows first began to address the underlying causes. it also necessitates early measures to address their drivers and triggers, as well as increased coordination among political, 65 humanitarian, development, and peace players, to prevent and resolve massive refugee situations, which are of serious concern to the whole international community. this recognition of structural vulnerability is laudable. it is framed in the language of respecting peace, promoting human rights, and resolving global conflict. however, this does not seem to put in place measures to redress the historical imbalances that continue to structure human mobility, which overemphasizes the situatedness of vulnerability over structural forces. for the gcm, that is rooted in the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, which is framed in the language of development. this is most succinct on gcm objective 2, which aims to minimize the adverse drivers and structural factors that compel people to leave their country of origin. none of these mechanisms are redeemable on the basis of historical injustices or reparations – a growing call in the decolonizing migration literature. vulnerability in both compacts is also framed around specific groups. this, the gcr argues, requires resources and targeted needs that can address specifics needs. persons with specific needs include: children, including those who are unaccompanied or separated; women at risk; survivors of torture, trauma, trafficking in persons, sexual and gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and abuse, or harmful practices; those with medical needs; persons with disabilities; those who are illiterate; adolescents and youth; and older persons. in the setting of massive refugee situations, the gcr specifically recognizes that women and girls may encounter specific gender-related challenges that necessitate a change in approach “while also taking into account the particular needs and situation of men and boys” (unhcr, 2018: 28–29). gcm is also a gender-responsive framework that ensures that the human rights of women, men, girls, and boys are protected throughout the migration process, that their unique needs are adequately recognized and met, and that they are given the tools necessary to act as change agents. in all these instances, there is reticence regarding the distinctions between vulnerability and precariousness, which is problematic, as it is important to be aware of instances in which responses to the victimization of women and girls, often taken as inherent, can create conditions of precariousness for men. lgbtqi+ groups are also not considered. legal status is another important consideration in delivering protection. to provide basic support and protection, including for those with special needs, registration and identification of refugees are essential for the persons affected, as well as for states to know who has arrived. for these reasons, the gcr highlights the importance of the unhcr, working in conjunction with states and relevant stakeholders, to “contribute resources and expertise to strengthen national capacity for individual registration and documentation, including for women and girls, regardless of marital status, upon request” (unhcr, 2018: 22). in a clinical way, the gcm complements this narrative by emphasizing that, “we must ensure that current and potential migrants are fully informed about their rights, obligations and options for safe, orderly and regular migration, and are aware of the risks of irregular migration” (un, 2018: 3). this can be discursively read as a warning of moving “social life” of vulnerability, migration governance, and protection at the border 66 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 illegally if the wrath of the hosts pushes migrants back into dangerous situations. this becomes a way of excluding irregular migrants and legitimizing forms of violence against them such that it reveals how “concern to address one category through the gcm might even eclipse concern to protect another” (de vries and weatherhead, 2021: 300). this framework of safe, orderly, and regular migration for the benefit of all is framed as a benchmark for solidarity and “unity of purpose” “in a spirit of winwin cooperation” (un, 2018: 3). in sum, it is clear that there are several blind spots in the compacts regarding vulnerability because they strengthen and give legitimacy to the claimed dichotomy between “migrants” and “refugees” in the “vulnerability chain,” as well as other binaries of men/women, legal/illegal, etc. as examined next, this linear and dichotomous approach does not engage adequately with the complex social life of vulnerability evident in border areas in south africa. instead, the compacts continue to separate questions of vulnerability from politics; show limited awareness of instances in which responses to the victimization of women and girls, often taken as inherent, can create conditions of precariousness for men; and ignore the intersections of different experiences in between the migrant/refugee binary. understandings of vulnerability in field-level governance so far, this paper conceptually explored a framework of vulnerability and in doing so, introduced the concept of the social life of vulnerability. it also critiqued the two global compacts and their approaches to vulnerability. now we turn to the case study to show how these ideas manifest in practice. to this end, we consider the interaction between the types of vulnerability described in the gcm and the gcr with the experiences of irregular migrants in south africa, particularly in how they are articulated in the programming of local ngos providing legal and social assistance on behalf of the unhcr in musina. it is worth noting that south africa’s two international migration systems provide fertile ground for the incompatible compacts to thrive. indeed, the unhcr contributed to the creation of a system that separates migrants from refugees. in 1995, the unhcr provided the dha with a suggested draft refugee bill based on the zimbabwe refugees act of 1983, which the agency had a hand in drafting (klaaren et al., 2008). in 1997, south africa produced a green paper on migration that contained a draft refugee policy. the new refugee policy, which had received a great deal of input from international scholars, had a focus on temporary protection and burden-sharing across the southern african region (crush and williams, 2002; klaaren et al., 2008). it also recommended separate policy processes for migrants and refugees (crush and williams, 2002). while some hailed the final 1998 refugees act as a beacon of progressive african-centric legal frameworks (smith, 2003), others regard the last-minute changes to the act by the dha as severely weakening the law. the act’s focus on protecting refugees with official status creates legal and normative gaps for the protection of asylum seekers and other forced migrants (amit, 2015). 67 “social life” of vulnerability, migration governance, and protection at the border klaaren et al. (2008) suggest that the primary purpose of the 1998 refugees act was to gain control over groups of people who were not covered by the 1951 refugee convention’s refugee definition. thus, a tense relationship emerges between the national refugee system and the immigration system. in turn, the immigration act (no. 11) of 2002 and its accompanying regulations (the “2002 immigration act”) has created a highly restrictive immigration regime that assists highly skilled immigrants but closes immigration to most low-skilled workers (johnson, 2015). legal status: vulnerable “persons of concern” there are tensions relating to how different actors approach refugee protection in musina. this includes differing opinions on how to help those most in need. most noteworthy is how the unhcr operates and how its funding drives the operations of implementing partners’ under-funded and under-resourced local organizations and more independent, more financially viable international organizations. while the kind of vulnerability the unhcr responds to in its operations is associated with those seeking asylum, it does not really reflect the needs of irregular migrants in musina. here, most migrants tend to be undocumented and occupy a space where they do not fit the refugee definition as set out in the 1951 refugee convention. the intersections of different kinds of vulnerability with human mobility make it difficult for a unhcr social assistance implementing partner to respond to the needs of the community they serve, particularly given their broader mandate as a welfare ngo. we selected a social-assistance ngo for this study because it runs the refugees and asylum seekers social assistance project, which it implements on behalf of the unhcr. under this project, it provides social assistance (food vouchers and transport subsidies) to newly arrived asylum seekers and refugees, who are largely from the democratic republic of the congo (drc), cameroon, burundi, somalia, and ethiopia. it is also responsible for assessing cases to categorize the vulnerability of individuals, and based on these assessments, it allocates services through material support, psychosocial support, and referrals for refugees and asylum seekers across the limpopo province. a requirement from the unhcr is that the organization only assists migrants who are legally in the country. this creates some conflict, with members of the organization questioning the material difference between congolese asylum seekers and zimbabwean migrants. for example, julie was a 49-year-old woman from cameroon who arrived in musina in 2013. she had married in a catholic union before separating when her husband converted to islam. her circumstances forced her to abandon her tertiary studies after spending two years at university. she noted that she left because of the fighting in the family: “i was not having peace – every time fighting, fighting. a relative said, ‘if you stay, we are going to lose you and your children.’ so, i just decided if i can make things straight here” (julie, musina, september 14, 2022). julie left immediately and traveled to south africa with the assistance of truck drivers who smuggled her into the country without a passport. 68 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 she was able to obtain an asylum permit on arrival, but when it expired, she was unable to renew it during the covid-19 pandemic. she said, “i applied 2-3 times; they didn’t reply, so i don’t know what to do. even that document they gave me, it’s not for me. how can i say you apply for cameroon, and they give you drc?” thus, at that stage, it becomes very difficult for a unhcr implementing partner to assist a person like julie. nevertheless, “… with the help of this social-assistance ngo, i start[ed] [to make] samosas, but with the grace of god, i leave samosas. i cook from home and deliver [to] senegal, nigeria” (julie, musina, september 14, 2022). the social workers observed that “people who face the most challenges are the migrant population, not asylum seekers.” as “asylum seekers they have an option … they can approach home affairs and apply for their documentation. but what about the majority of zimbabweans, what about the majority of mozambicans, malawian[s] and the like?” (social worker, social-assistance ngo, november 2, 2021). in such instances, the organization would write motivation letters citing their reasons for defaulting assistance to the unhcr “non-persons of concern” who are largely undocumented. this was only acceptable to the unhcr in instances when “non-persons of concern” had critical health-related needs and challenges related to chronic illness or serious injuries. this was the case when there was “a guy who was mauled, who was eaten [bitten] by some dogs; he’s from drc and he is not documented. and because he is not documented, i cannot say, ‘i cannot provide you with a service’” (social worker, social-assistance ngo, november 2, 2021). these layers illustrate that only those in extreme circumstances are eligible for help, implying that only those facing extreme danger or death qualify for assistance. yet even then, assistance cannot be guaranteed. it explains why a zimbabwean woman at the local roman catholic church shelter for women relied on her own “piece jobs” by waiting for cars that came by the shelter looking for women to do laundry for r100, as well as the goodwill of church patrons to afford her sick child’s medical care in pretoria. this was sandy, a 39-year-old woman from mwenezi, and a married mother of three, whose husband was in zimbabwe. she studied up to grade 7 and came to south africa regularly to seek treatment in pretoria for her child who had “a problem with his bones” (sandy, musina, september 15, 2022). sandy had managed to secure shelter at the roman catholic church shelter for women. despite the social-assistance ngo’s acknowledgment that all people on the move are potentially vulnerable and while the organization had a large presence, it was inaccessible to the zimbabwean migrants residing in the transit shelters as well as those in the campbell shacks because they were largely undocumented. for example, sandy said, “i just travel through the border by asking the officials to let me in because i don’t have a passport and i just want to take my child to the hospital. they also can see the situation. i just have to show them his hospital card, even when i’m coming with him for a review” (sandy, musina, september 15, 2022). those in the campbell shacks lived in congested and unsanitary conditions, which created other vulnerabilities related to health and education. chiedza, a 69 40-year-old woman, arrived in the border town in 2004 from marange with her grandfather who had cared for her because her parents had died and life became difficult. she arrived at the border without a passport and just walked through, much like sandy. she went to venda and worked there until she got married in musina. she later brought shamiso (a 20-year-old woman) who had grown up in musina after arriving there as a child. shamiso had fallen pregnant as a teenager after dropping out of school because she did not have the required documentation to register for her grade 12 exams. reflecting on this experience, albeit appearing unperturbed, chiedza said that their children could attend school “under the understanding that their papers should be sorted. and it’s not all schools that allow this. there are only two schools that allow this. this also means they must walk far to school when there are schools nearby, for example this one is 2 km [away]. they must walk to town. they do not have birth certificates because my child has [a] baby clinic card from zimbabwe.” this also means that they are forced to drop out of school because ultimately, they cannot register for their grade 12 exams (chiedza, musina, september 15, 2022). similar experiences threatened the lives of undocumented children who are born to south african fathers. the only time that legal status did not really matter was when the socialassistance ngo provided psychosocial support or gave families with large numbers of children preference. these families would also undergo best interest case assessments to determine if the family was at risk or the children were subjected to child labor or exploitation. the zimbabwean families with undocumented children residing in campbell also had large families but expressed no knowledge of these services. shalimba was from bukavu in the drc. she had married in durban but subsequently divorced. she studied up to grade 3. she arrived in south africa in 2009, fleeing the war and applied for asylum. however, having children gave her access to shelter where her children were fed twice a day and one of her children who was four years old attended the shelter preschool run by one of the nuns. “here i am helpless because of the kids, but in durban i was a car guard. if they give me money, i can go to durban” (shalimba, musina, september 14, 2022). she was waiting for a travel subsidy, with the social-assistance ngo being the most likely people to help when they came by to assess the shelter residents. it was a common thread, as julie, whose son had been born prematurely and was currently nine, noted how the catholic church give her rice and cooking oil in times of need. “but this is only because i have [a] child. but if you don’t have children, you take care of yourself,” said julie. hence, she identified having a child as “a special need” (julie, musina, september 14, 2022). legal status also played a key role in the work done at the legal assistance organization chosen for this study. at the time of the zimbabwean crisis in 2008, the unhcr gave the office a project on case management, general management, and queue management. the office would facilitate the zimbabwean migrants’ access to shelter, and then advised them to find ways of regularizing their lives. this approach “social life” of vulnerability, migration governance, and protection at the border 70 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 reveals that the office’s understanding of vulnerability is also centered on legal status. the office quickly determined that the main reason these migrants were vulnerable was that there was no reception office in musina to process their asylum claims, which led them to take riskier routes. their direct engagement with the dha saw the opening of an rro in 2009. undoubtedly, legal status is an important focus in ensuring that people are documented and protected. however, as discussed above, it is also a gateway to the exclusion of migrants from accessing services provided by the unhcr implementing partners like the social-assistance organization. for example, memory, a 42-year-old mother, came to south africa in 2004 because jobs were hard to find in zimbabwe. she was recruited at gate 4 by a white farmer from beitbridge. he got her a work permit to work on the farm, which would be renewed every six months. from 2005, farmers needed to apply for corporate permits, which allowed them to recruit a fixed number of foreign workers in line with immigration law (rutherford, 2008). when the farmer’s lease with government expired, memory came to musina. at this juncture, she resorted to using the asylum system as the only means of accessing documentation (memory, musina, september 15, 2022). the situation presented by memory raises all sorts of vulnerabilities that included reducing their lives to living off waste: “we go to the dirt, the dumping site where we look for things that people say have expired and we carry it and come eat it here with our children because we can tell that there is no other way” (memory, musina, september 15, 2022). gender gender was also an important consideration on the social-assistance organization’s work, with a slant toward an overarching understanding that “women are important.” in fact, the ngo appeared to view their vulnerability as greater than that of men, which was then compounded by age and legal status. a social worker found that “women are more vulnerable” because of the circumstances they find themselves in either as primary caregivers, or having other dependents. however, this binary notion of vulnerability is challenged by the narratives and experiences of male asylum seekers in musina. raheem was a 36-year-old asylum seeker from burundi, married with three children and educated up to grade 12. he came to south africa in 2018, fleeing political persecution, narrowly escaping an assassination attempt as a member of an opposition political party who refused to join the main one. he considered himself vulnerable, stating that he had five people under his “shoulders” staying with him at the salon and some “zimbabwean ladies” who occasionally came to ask for bread. “i have a very big responsibility, so i need organizations to come and assist me” (raheem, musina, september 14, 2022). similarly, manqonqo, a congolese asylum seeker lived with his wife and son in musina. he had been waiting for his refugee status determination for nine years, which he only received in november 2022. during our conversation, prior to receiving his status notification, he said: “according to my understanding, all 71 of us, we are vulnerable … since we don’t know anything and since you are in need of anything, meaning you are vulnerable.” he defined his vulnerability in relation to his mental health and the anxiety he experienced while waiting for his refugee status, which was ultimately granted in february 2023 (manqonqo, musina, september 14, 2022). the conception of vulnerability skewed toward women is also challenged in relation to lgbtqi+ people. when doing their assessments, the social-assistance organization also considered lgbtqi+ people as a risk category. however, when asked if sexual orientation is something that stands out as well in this context in terms of layers of vulnerability from his experience, the social worker indicated that these groups often chose to remain invisible rather than seek protection on that basis. they would either change their claim at dha or remain in these communities without documentation, oblivious to the fact that this constitutes grounds to claim international protection. this is consistent with a recent report on lgbtqi+ asylum seekers in south africa (mudarikwa et al., 2021) that found that when engaging with lgbtqi+ refugees’ and asylum seekers’ claims, many dha officials regarded them as duplicitous claims and frequently disregarded them based on the assumption they were fabricated. one client was told that they could not be gay and “had to find a way of proving it.” this bias feeds into a broader context of abuse of queer people. the question of gender as a key aspect of vulnerability has often meant that the protection of lgbtqi+ people and men becomes more precarious. defining vulnerability in this way was informed by the imperative to address the protection needs of migrant women in the border area, as they encounter several risks, especially when they move with children. however, it does not respond to the relationality of vulnerability, which this paper argues entails that effective programming on protection issues has to also consider the needs of other groups because, if ignored, could be generative of different risks imposed on others, including migrant women and children. perception of the compacts migrant interviewees and attendees at our validation workshop confirmed our findings that knowledge about the global compacts at this level is very limited, if nonexistent. this is related to the rather limited knowledge regarding applicable laws in general during the workshop. this shows the limited efficacy of these documents for experiences on the ground, which we argue is particularly grounded in the disparity between a context marked by conflicting and overlapping experiences for persons on the move and mixed migration flows and ideas of vulnerability that are unstable as a way of governing migration. in our interview with a legal advocate from the legal assistance office, he made no reference to the compacts and even evaded the question, almost dismissively. he maintained that these “beautiful documents” were useful in ensuring that practice was aligned but that they were inaccessible, which makes one wonder who they “social life” of vulnerability, migration governance, and protection at the border 72 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 are intended for. the gcm’s insistence on safe, orderly, regular migration means they can only work effectively in contexts where migrants are documented. on the contrary, they have been accompanied by border securitization, militarization, and greater enforcement. this has in turn worsened the vulnerabilities of migrants by producing more undocumented migrants who are unable to access either labor migration permits or refugee papers. the unhcr’s insistence on legal status has meant that their partner responsible for implementing social-assistance programs feel “defeated” when it comes to accessing other services that require people to have documentation. during our webinar for the 2nd expert forum (september 22, 2021), a participant from the legal assistance partner of the unhcr observed that many migrants do not use the official border crossing when entering or leaving south africa. almost daily, the social-assistance ngo, in collaboration with the red cross, writes letters to hospitals or clinics for at least ten undocumented people, typically saying: “please allow this person to access healthcare, they are undocumented, these are their names, these are their issues” (social worker, social-assistance ngo, november 2, 2021). despite these limitations, the social-assistance ngo has used the compacts in one project and in developing an office manual. the social worker also indicated that when it comes to vulnerability, the gcm stresses the importance of providing information to those in need, every step of the migration journey – but this does not happen. these imperatives are difficult to implement because the protection space is shrinking due to a lack of funding, and “people are exhausted, or they are fatigued with these migration issues or issues of migrants because the dynamics change every day” (social worker, social-assistance ngo, november 2, 2021). this limits the mechanisms of ensuring that migration is legal because migrants do not know the “protection avenues” available to them, such as the means for unaccompanied and separated minors to access documentation. there was almost an expectation from the informant that the gcm could help answer all these questions. however, evidence presented at the previously cited expert forum suggests otherwise. in terms of the gcr, there remains several concerns for african countries related to financial and technical capacity, political will, xenophobia, and data gaps. in sum, a disconnect is evident between the apparent and perceived influence of the compacts within international organizations, and at the ground level within ngos and the unhcr’s implementing partners. local ngos are unclear about or unconvinced of the influence of these global initiatives. yet in terms of how the unhcr operates and informs its implementing partners in south africa on how to act, these global initiatives appear to be having an impact (directly or indirectly). as noted above, there are numerous praiseworthy elements in the compacts; for example, the gcr in many ways is simply reaffirming norms that exist within the current global refuge regime, such as global responsibility-sharing. yet the binary distinction between refugees and migrants and the framing of vulnerability outlined 73 in both compacts remains problematic in a context like musina. these underlying elements appear to be slowly filtered down to ground-level implementers, even if they are perhaps unaware of how these practices are reinforcing existing problematic approaches that are generated at the international level. this also raises some difficult yet tentative questions around the notion that refugees, migrants, and civil society, particularly from the “global south,” are sufficiently the main actors in these global initiatives. conclusion: towards a protection regime that engages “social life of vulnerability” the global compacts present vulnerability as distinctive and hence capable of being addressed by separating the regimes of migration governance from refugee protection. however, this paper has shown that the two categories are not stable or separable in the zimbabwe–south africa border scenario that is characterized by mixed migration. in these contexts, the language of the compacts seems more likely to reinforce and even worsen social hierarchies and the vulnerability of irregular migrants by simply legitimizing state securitization. the compacts’ unclear distinctions between vulnerability and precariousness also make for a concerning situation that allows vulnerability to be removed from the role of strict borders and hostile policies. responsibility is shifting from the state and un agencies to the individual as someone who should know better than jump the border, or they should be prepared for the violence that follows. this explains why the uptake of the compacts has been slow and expedient at best for local ngos who simply would like to secure funding in a difficult operating environment. realizing the limitations of the compacts and other dichotomous arrangements, these organizations venture into partnering with organizations with more elaborate mandates that can fill the void. working in collaboration across the limpopo also allows them to address the needs and vulnerabilities of everyone on the move. moreover, it is an indictment on the limits of exceptionalizing vulnerability, as it creates programming that is narrowed to silos while inhibiting them from addressing the ways that vulnerability assumes a social life of its own. this is why we have outlined as a concept and heuristic the social life of vulnerability. it will be interesting to see how the global compacts are rolled out further in the coming years. in particular, it will be important to see whether their “influence” will fully reach border areas such as musina. however, it appears that many within civil society still remain skeptical about how the compacts will be able to advocate for positive responses and improved protection on the ground for all refugees and migrants in south africa (acms, 2021). instead, they view them as reinforcements of prevailing migration norms. they appear to find more efficacy in working in collaboration, as they are aware that they are dealing with a cross-cutting and intersectoral issue that has far-reaching implications for the wider border context. “social life” of vulnerability, migration governance, and protection at the border 74 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 acknowledgments the authors were part of the protect project, “the right to international protection: a pendulum between globalization and nativization?” at the african centre for migration & society (acms), university of the witwatersrand. protect is a research and innovation project that was funded by the european union’s horizon 2020 framework programme and coordinated by the university of bergen (grant agreement no 870761). the european union’s horizon 2020 framework programme accepts publication of project results in peer-reviewed open access journals. this article is a revised version of a working paper published by the protect consortium (https://zenodo.org/records/7526323#.y77-mnbmi2w). 75 references african centre for migration & society (acms). 2021. expert forum on the 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(unpublished). migration and xenophobia in the southern africa region: focus on social protection, social cohesion and integration. pretoria: iom. “social life” of vulnerability, migration governance, and protection at the border 7 book review behrends, andrea, 2024 lifeworlds in crisis: making refugees in the chad– sudan borderlands london: c. hurst & company, 307 pages isbn: 9781911723226 https://doi.org/ lifeworlds in crisis: making refugees in the chad–sudan borderlands is an engaging book that addresses the gap in the literature on refugee precarity in the chad–sudan borderlands. the book pursues an intersectional approach to examine crises and gendered forms of migration and unpack the complex web of cross-border activities and the multifaceted experiences of refugees in the chad–sudan borderlands. andrea behrends engages with critical questions about borderland migration regimes and civil society responses to crises and precarious livelihoods. she provides a compelling account of the contexts and conditions of lifeworlds in crisis that illustrates how crises profoundly reshape refugees’ social and spatial worlds. behrends discusses the nuanced strategies that households and communities in the borderlands employ to navigate everyday situations of severe crisis and uncertainty. also, she examines the interventions of international, military, and non-governmental organizations that have reshaped the social landscapes of the borderlands. she assesses livelihoods before, during, and after the darfur war and discusses how communities struggled to sustain their livelihoods when social and institutional arrangements were disrupted. the book is divided into three parts. part i, organized around the themes of displacement and emplacement, provides an exposition of how the war had shaken many lives, with some families losing almost everything and recovering very little. behrends highlights the resilience of the communities who reacted to violence, displacement, and everyday insecurity in the borderlands following the outbreak of war. drawing on ethnographic data collected from participants in the study, behrends expounds on the increased mobility brought about by the 2003 darfur war, its negative impact on the established modes of subsistence in the borderlands, and the different responses of various communities. part ii focuses on the refugee camps and the everyday realities of people living in and around the camps in the borderlands. it discusses the tensions and dynamics in the borderlands, which had become an arena that embodied the struggles of displaced refugees engaged in precarious work. behrends examines the sociobook review lifeworlds in crisis: making refugees in the chad–sudan borderlands 8 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 spatial processes in the chad–sudan borderlands by exploring the dynamics that are influenced by the area’s socio-spatial features (space-dependent dynamics) and the dynamics that shaped the area’s physical-spatial structure (space-forming dynamics). this exploration sheds light on factors that determined whether refugee households returned to their former homes or remained in chad. behrends argues that despite the urgency and trauma of war in the chad–sudan borderlands, the fabric of daily life, in the form of routines, practices, and social interactions, survived in the face of forced mobility and displacement. part iii provides a close analysis of the chadian government’s intricate categorizations of the borderlands, such as delineating security zones and allocating resources. behrends shows how, because of the trauma of war in the chad–sudan borderlands, refugee livelihoods became difficult for all displaced people who did not have the capacity to access land, housing, food, work, and healthcare. the crisis described in the book highlights the highly dynamic ways of living in or near war zones. a compelling feature of the book is the richly textured discussion of refugee precarity and the permeability of borders in the chad–sudan borderlands. the book also provides nuanced insights into crises, migration, and migrant legal-status complexities. behrends frames the chad–sudan borderlands as dynamic sociospatial phenomena that require a critical and socially embedded understanding of the crisis and migration nexus. the author’s disentanglement of the socio-spatial processes in the borderlands not only highlights the materiality and permeability of borders but also helps to unpack the crisis and migration nexus. while the book has a shortcoming of limited data on official policies on refugees in the chad–sudan borderlands, it nevertheless addresses an important niche on borderlands. prof daniel tevera, university of the western cape, south africa 110 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 curate’s egg: effects of parental migration on well-being of zimbabwean children left behind edmore chingwe1, sipelile munhumayenga2, sibonokuhle ndlovu3, webster mudzingwa4 received 13 january 2025 / accepted 7 march 2025 / published 25 april 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v11i1.2647 abstract zimbabwe has a long history of labor migration to global north nations such as britain and the united states of america, as well as to several global south countries like south africa and botswana. this migration has seen a surge in remittances, spurring the crafting of policies and strategies to tap into this economic window for national development. while parental migration may be bringing economic relief to the nation and households left behind, it has often been associated with numerous challenges, particularly in the well-being of children left behind. in exploring challenges faced by children whose parents live and work abroad, a growing body of literature has emerged. this study reviews studies carried out in zimbabwe on the effects of parental migration on the well-being of children left behind. it used a systematic literature review (slr) methodology for primary studies deposited in three electronic libraries and downloaded by 31 december 2023. the purpose of the slr is to develop a basis for empirical research, since this is a new study area in the country. it is anticipated that the study will contribute to the discourse on parental migration and its effects on development and nurturance practices of children left behind. overall, the study asserts that there are both positive and negative effects of parental migration on children left behind; hence, the phenomenon is regarded as a curate’s egg. keywords: children left behind, parental migration, well-being, positive effects, negative effects 1 rwanda basic education board, rwanda. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1141-3970 corresponding author.  chingweedmore@gmail.com 2 department of special needs education, heart for africa-project canaan academy, eswatini. 3 rwanda basic education board, muramba teacher training college. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0917-6956 4 rwanda basic education board, rubengera teacher training college. https://orcid.org/0009-0006-3979-2975 111 introduction one of the largest global sources of migrants, philippines, is estimated to have nearly nine million children growing up without at least one of their parents due to migration (dominguez and hall, 2022). similarly, indonesia, a significant contributor to the international migrant workforce, is estimated to have more than four million migrants employed in more than 25 countries globally (bps indonesia, 2022). this figure is anticipated to rise steadily, given the clear increase in the annual migration of indonesians rising from 72,624 in 2020 to 200,761 in 2022 and 274,964 in 2023 (bp2mi, 2023). studies carried out in latin america and the caribbean show that about 21% of children are living without one or both parents because of migration to america, europe, and other countries within the region (marcus et al., 2023). a study carried out in venezuela, reveals that 15% of adults migrating in 2020 reported leaving a child behind (marcus et al., 2023). studies in venezuela have also shown that when one or both parents move, they leave their children either with grandparents (51%) or with their mothers (41%), while fewer children remain under the care of uncles and aunts (10%) or older siblings (2%) (marcus et al., 2023). these figures imply that thousands of children are left behind to be cared for by either one parent or other caregivers. while it is accepted that migration is a global phenomenon contributing to poverty reduction and economic development (chamie, 2020), there has been serious concern over its effects on children left behind (vilar-compte et al., 2021; chingwe, 2022; chingwe and chakanyuka, 2023a, 2023b; marcus et al., 2023). such a worry is reasonable seeing that these migrations usually imply family disintegration, whose effects may be detrimental to the well-being of those left behind. studies conducted across the globe to ascertain the effects of parental migration on children left behind have produced mixed results with some revealing either negative or positive effects, while others note both negative and positive effects, or in other cases very little or no effects altogether (cebotari and bilisuma, 2021; tesfaw and minaye, 2022; marcus et al., 2023; crawley and teye, 2024). zimbabwe has a long history of migration dating as far back as the 1850s (crush and tawodzera, 2016). political and economic developments such as the nguni incursions, discovery of diamonds and gold in south africa in the latenineteenth century saw a great trek of zimbabweans into south africa to work on the newly found mines (mlambo, 2010). the nature of labor contracts and accommodation given to migrant mine workers in south africa during this time, restricted them to migrate without families, thus promoting the mushrooming of left-behind households. furthermore, at the turn of the millennium, zimbabwe experienced economic deterioration, which sent millions of citizens across the globe (madebwe and madebwe, 2017), creating a heightened population of children left behind. unfortunately, it has been difficult for scholars to establish the exact figures of citizens who have migrated and children who have been left behind, due to lack of effects of parental migration on well-being of zimbabwean children left behind 112 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 sufficient and credible data; studies on migration have often focused more on adults than on children (asis and feranil, 2020). although zimbabwe has had a long history of migration, until recently, little research has been done to uncover its effects on children left behind. lack of research on this matter implies that few – if any – policies have been developed to manage possible consequences of such movements on children left behind. it is not until recently that interest in this study area has gained momentum. as observed by auer and felderer (2018), as a research area matures, it requires researchers to analyze and synthesize findings to draw deeper and more meaningful conclusions. one way of doing this is through systematic literature reviews. it is the purpose of this paper to analyze and synthesize studies conducted so far in zimbabwe on the effects of parental migration on children left behind with the aim of informing policy-making processes and improving childcare practices. to help comprehend the effects of parental migration on children left behind, the study adopted the child-rights conceptual framework. the current research embraces a child-rights oriented conceptual framework. the child-rights framework is hinged on the premise that an inclusive analysis of children’s well-being focuses on four variables namely, health, education, economic activity, and psycho-social variables (unicef, 1989). furthermore, it avows that the well-being of children left behind are influenced by several factors, such as individual uniqueness (for example, age of the child, their sex, and competencies), the nature of migration (for example, who migrates, predictability, and level of remittances), household and societal attributes (for example, societal values, social protection, and legal provisions) (chingwe and chakanyuka, 2023a, 2023b). study question what effects does parental migration have on the well-being of children left behind in zimbabwe? study objectives • to examine the effects of parental migration on the well-being of children left behind in zimbabwe. • to recommend ways of improving care practices for children left behind in zimbabwe. research methodology the researchers adopted a systematic literature review (slr) approach to carry out this study effectively. a review gains the adjective “systematic” if it is based on a clearly formulated question, identifies relevant studies, assesses the quality of the studies, and summarizes the evidence gathered using an explicit methodology. while scholars propose several different steps in carrying out slrs, this study considered 113 three steps namely, planning the review, the review itself and reporting (khan et al., 2003, siddaway et al., 2019). planning the review whereas siddaway et al. (2019) recommend the search of at least two electronic databases for primary sources, khan et al. (2003) add that this search should be as extensive as possible. furthermore, khan et al. (2003) opine that an extensive search for studies should include both computerized and printed sources with no restrictions on language. informed by these and many other scholars, researchers in the current study selected three electronic libraries from which the search for potential studies was made. these libraries are: academia – https://www.academia. edu/, google scholar – https://scholar.google.com, and taylor and francis – https:// www.tandfonline.com/. in addition to the electronic search and in attempting to reduce publication bias, researchers with one or more publications on the topic were contacted for any forthcoming data or unpublished work that could be of interest to this study (ferguson and brannick, 2012). google scholar was also used to search for relevant unpublished dissertations. having identified the digital libraries, researchers developed search strings, which helped to facilitate the searches. taking into consideration tips from shafiq et al. (2020) and parveen et al. (2022), the researchers used “and” and “or” boolean search operators to formulate search strings as follows: (effects or impact, experiences, or challenges) and (children left behind or adolescents left behind, or boy children left behind or girl children left behind) and (labor migration or parental migration, migrant parents, or absent parents). in addition, to clearly defining boundaries of the review, researchers formulated criteria to include and exclude selected primary studies before the search commenced (siddaway et al., 2019). the inclusion and exclusion criteria were adapted and blended from those of akbar et al. (2019) and siddaway et al. (2019). the criteria for inclusion in this slr were: first, studies must be a conference paper, journal article, or book chapter. second, studies must describe the effects of parental migration on children left behind, provide empirical investigations (for instance, interview [ir], questionnaire survey [qs], case study [cs], grounded theory [gt], content analysis [ca], action research [ar], and mixed methods research [mmrs]). third, studies must have been carried out in zimbabwe between 2010 and 2023 with children as part of their samples. lastly, unpublished studies must be dissertations or articles written by authors who have one or more published articles on the same topic. where two or more studies have similar findings, the most updated published version was adopted. the final step in the planning phase involved carrying out quality assessment (qa). although a wide range of tools are proposed for assessing study quality, this study considered the recommendations by kitchenham and charters (2007). qa criteria guided the evaluation of the significance of each primary study when the effects of parental migration on well-being of zimbabwean children left behind 114 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 results were integrated (akbar et al., 2019). moreover, qa enabled the clarification of findings leading to the drawing of recommendations for future inquiries. for this purpose, researchers generated a checklist to evaluate selected primary studies. the checklist had four questions (qa1 to qa4). correspondingly, the score 1 was assigned to a study that provided an acceptable answer for the listed categories, while 0.5 was allocated to a study that partially met the requirements of a category on the checklist. lastly, where a study’s answer to the category on the checklist failed to meet the requirements, it was given a score of 0. for each question, the assessment was made, as shown in table 1. table 1: quality assessment checklist qa questions checklist questions qa1 does the adopted research method(s) link with research questions? qa2 does the study explore effects of parental migration on children left behind? qa3 do the empirical data inform childcare practices? qa4 are the findings related to a justification of the research questions? source: author's own work the review carrying out the review involved three steps, namely, running the final selection of primary studies, extracting data, and synthesizing the data. to enhance the quality and enable data extraction, studies went through a final selection process using the tollgate approach. results of the final selection were presented using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses method (prisma), as shown in figure 1. the preliminary search done on the four selected digital libraries, using search strings, inclusion and exclusion criteria generated 61 studies. of these, the research team chose 17 primary studies – equivalent to 27.9% of the total collected studies – to answer the study’s research question through the tollgate approach. in this process, the first author extracted 17 final primary studies, the second and third authors diligently reviewed studies that made it to the final list, while the fourth author allocated quality scores guided by the qa criteria. the 17 chosen studies were sufficient for a literature review process, as affirmed by astadi et al. (2022). the list of selected studies is provided in appendix a. 115 figure 1: source: author's own work after carrying out the final selection of primary sources, researchers proceeded with data extraction, which was followed by an interrater reliability analysis (parveen et al., 2022). an external reviewer was invited to carry out the interrater reliability analysis using a non-parametric kendall coefficient test of concordance (w) to check interrater agreement between the authors and an external reviewer. the latter randomly picked 10 studies from the first phase of the tollgate approach and performed all steps involved, as shown in figure 1. to show total disagreement, the value of w=0 was used, whereas to show total agreement, the value of w=1 was used. results of the interrater reliability test for 10 randomly selected studies was w=.860, indicating substantial agreement between the authors and the external reviewer. the last step involved data synthesis. this involved extracting the effects of parental migration on the well-being of children left behind from the selected 17 studies in line with the research question formulated at the beginning of the study. the research team combined and interpreted the collected data to allow for the presentation of findings in the section below. reporting the review the review report focuses on key areas like quality attributes, temporal distribution, research methods used, distribution by location, children’s ages, and gender of the children sampled. to determine the quality attributes of the studies, the research team used four qa questions shown in table 1 and analyzed qa scores for each primary study. interestingly, the bulk of the selected studies attained qa scores ≥75%. these scores imply that studies in the final selection can significantly answer this study’s research question, especially since a qa score of 40% was adopted as a threshold for selecting primary studies (inayat et al., 2015). figure 2 displays the publication dates of the selected primary studies, ranging from 2011 to 2024. of these, 24% were published in 2014, 18% in 2022, 12% in 2023, with the remaining years having 6% each. this time frame is based on the results of effects of parental migration on well-being of zimbabwean children left behind 116 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the slr approach. it is evident that there are still very few studies on the effects of parental migration over the years. this implies that the subject has not received much attention in the country under study, despite a surge in parental migration in zimbabwe over the years. figure 2: source: author's own work the research methods used in the selected studies are presented in figure 2. the chronological breakdown of these research methods is as follows: • year 2011: interviews (ir) – 1 or 6% • year 2012: mixed methods research (mmr) – 1 or 6% • year 2014: mmr – 1 or 6%; ir – 3 or 18% • year 2016: ir – 1 or 6% • year 2017: ir – 1 or 6% • year 2018: mmr – 1 or 6% • year 2019: ir – 1 or 6% • year 2021: case study (cs) – 1 or 6% • year 2022: mmr – 2 or 12; ir – 1 or 6% • year 2023: mmr – 1 or 6%; cs – 1 or 6% • year 2024: mmr – 1 or 6%. these findings show a widespread use of ir and mmr. these two methods are compatible with the collection of participant views and experiences. 117 figure 3: source: author's own work the distribution of studies by location displayed in figure 3 shows that studies were carried out in half of zimbabwe’s provinces, with most of them done in matabeleland south, which has a long history of parental migration to south africa (dube, 2014). figure 4: source: author's own work figure 4 shows that most of the studies were conducted in rural settings, followed by those carried out in urban settings, and lastly, those which combined both rural and urban settings. effects of parental migration on well-being of zimbabwean children left behind 118 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 figure 5: source: author's own work figure 5 shows the distribution of studies by the ages of children sampled. most studies included adolescent children left behind as key participants, with a few having both adolescents and younger children, while only one study involved younger children only. the three remaining studies not reflected in figure 5 did not include children at all but only caregivers and other adult stakeholders. involving children in studies about them is progressive, pragmatic, and more child-centered, allowing them to narrate their day-to-day experiences as active participants in research (semerci and erdogan, 2014). figure 6: source: author's own work 119 figure 6 shows that 12 studies included both boys and girls in their samples, while two included either boys only or girls only. the sex of children sampled is important, as it may provide insights into the effects of being left behind. for instance, makondo (2022) found that girls left behind are more exposed to depression because of stigmatization, child labor, sexual exploitation, heading households left behind, and missing their migrant parents. similar findings were also uncovered in china by gao et al. (2010), where migrant girls were found to be more exposed to unhealthy behaviors like smoking and drinking than those from non-migrant households. results and discussion the key objective of this study is to uncover the effects of parental migration on children left behind in zimbabwe to recommend ways of improving care practices for them. in addressing this objective, the effects of parental migration are divided into four outcomes areas of children’s well-being, namely, educational, economic, physical health, and psychological variables. this is a child-rights-centered approach, according more value to the condition of children’s lives with the objective of improving the quality of life in these four domains (semerci and erdogan, 2014). these four variables convey obligations that nations have toward each child within their territory. all these responsibilities must be afforded to each child without discrimination of any kind, as outlined by the united nations (catrinescu et al., 2011). this study adopted slr to place these effects and interventions in order of frequency. the research team observed that negative effects far outweighed positive effects in all four outcome areas, with psychological, educational, and economic areas having a frequency of over 50%. the effects and proposed interventions with a frequency of at least 50% were regarded as important and are discussed below, in congruence with other slr studies (akbar et al., 2019, parveen et al., 2022). the effects and proposed interventions identified, along with their frequency and percentage are shown in table 2 and figure 7. table 2: list of effects identified s.# effects identified frq. n=17 % ids of selected primary studies (sps) oa1 psychological effects 13 76 p1, p6, p7, p8, p9, p10, p11, p12, p13, p14, p15, p16, p17 oa2 educational effects 12 71 p2, p5, p8, p9, p10, p11, p12, p13, p14, p15, p16, p17 oa3 economic effects 12 71 p4, p7, p8, p9, p10, p11, p12, p13, p14, p15, p16, p17 oa4 physical health effects 5 29 p3, p10, p11, p16, p17 source: author's own work effects of parental migration on well-being of zimbabwean children left behind 120 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 figure 7 here source: author's own work the psychological effects (oa1), at 76%, appear in most selected primary sources as prominent effects of parental migration experienced by children left behind. in their study, chingwe and chakanyuka (2023) report that the most noticeable psychological effects of migration are more negative than positive and are characterized by heightened levels of hopelessness, misery, suicidal thoughts, rage, and apprehension. similarly, some left-behind children interviewed by filippa (2011) felt excluded and rejected and displayed signs of depression – more than just mere sadness. while separation anxiety primarily accounts for negative psychological effects of parental migration, matters are in some cases worsened by strained parental relations. pasura (2008) observes that most zimbabwean migrant marriages are failing and breaking up. strained relationships between parents create situations in which left-behind parents vent their anger, frustrations, and stress on children left behind, whom they expect to fully assist in shouldering extended household responsibilities. studies reveal that usually women who are left behind carry a huge emotional burden, with the potential to affect their behavior patterns negatively, directly affecting their children’s psychological well-being (karumazondo et al., 2022). furthermore, children left behind are said to be judged negatively, stigmatized, bullied, and abused, aggravating their already fragile psychological well-being. makondo (2022) notes that adolescent girl children left behind are often regarded as children without guidance and direction and are frequently the subject of community and peer gossip. such occurrences are worsened when children left behind make mistakes – like any other children do – providing sufficient evidence to community members to offensively label them as children “without manners.” this labeling and stigma serve to worsen the psychological well-being of children left behind. interestingly, several studies confirm that children left behind are prone to all sorts of abuse, such as emotional, sexual, and physical by primary caregivers, 121 who may be relatives or neighbors. tawodzera and themane (2019) observe that children left behind are vulnerable and prone to abuse and often lack viable social support networks. abuse of all sorts directly affects the psychological well-being of these children, who often have nobody to protect them. the psychological turmoil caused by parental migration often degenerates into undesirable behaviors, such as smoking, drinking, violence, and petty crime (chingwe and chakanyuka, 2023b). surprisingly, despite the confirmed negative effects of parental migration, other children left behind appear to thrive under the prevailing adverse conditions. such children often find solace in extra-mural activities, participating in religious and other social youth activities, and hanging out with friends (makondo, 2022). in spite of experiencing separation anxiety and related stressors, some left-behind children develop conscious ways of adapting to stress and anxiety in a positive and constructive way by using thoughts and behaviors inclined toward searching for information, problem-solving, seeking help from others, recognizing and accepting their true feelings, establishing goals, and striving to achieve them (filippa, 2011). the educational effects (oa2) are presented as crucial effects of parental migration on children left behind. these children’s educational outcomes are usually affected adversely by parental migration. the inescapable increase in household and external workloads that children are obligated to take up – usually responsibilities shouldered by migrant parents – have an adverse impact on their concentration in school and reduce their time to do school-related work. the situation is worse in newly created child-headed households, where older children care for their siblings, while also needing to care for their own educational needs. unsurprisingly, these effects are gendered – girls evidently carry heavier household workloads in assuming nurturing and caring roles in the left-behind households. furthermore, studies reveal that migration does not always guarantee a steady flow of remittances. in fact, several migrant parents either failed to consistently pay school fees or delayed its payment, thus causing disruptions in children’s education (kufakurinani et al., 2014). the strained mental health of children left behind, as explained above, is yet another factor compromising the educational performance of children left behind, as it reduces their attention span and impairs their concentration. the lack of parental guidance, motivation, and direct involvement in children’s school activities cumulatively influence the educational outcomes of children left behind in extremely negative ways. children who are left in the care of elderly members of their extended families are bereft of people who can assist them with education-related tasks and activities and consequently perform below expected standards and their own potential (rupande, 2014). sadly, within the very educational environment mandated to develop and nurture children’s potential, some teachers, often through no fault of their own, fail to provide the educational, social, and mental needs of these children (tawodzera and themane, 2019; makondo, 2022). in worst cases, some teachers exacerbate the vulnerabilities and insecurities of left-behind effects of parental migration on well-being of zimbabwean children left behind 122 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 children by perpetuating stereotypes and stigmatization. conversely, where leftbehind children have access to a regular supply of remittances and material goods, some of them may be easily swayed off educational pursuits, thereby compromising their academic outcomes (dube, 2014). although most studies portray a negative outlook of these children’s educational outcomes, there are some positive effects. in negligible instances, parental migration has been found to help boost children’s educational outcomes through consistent and timely remittances for payment of school fees and the provision of learning materials and school uniforms (weda and siziba, 2016; ndlovu and tigere, 2018). regarding the economic effects (oa3) – these appear to share similar weightage as effects on educational outcomes. while global studies have widely confirmed the economic benefits of parental migration on children left behind, studies carried out in zimbabwe suggest that these benefits are quite minimal and are overshadowed by the negative effects of the phenomenon in the country. some studies show that zimbabwean parental migration to global south countries are generally characterized by low economic benefits, especially since most of the migrants do casual, menial jobs. makina (2010) observes that most zimbabweans in johannesburg earn very little to sustain themselves and children left behind. illegal entry into these neighboring countries and the lack of documentation restrict migrants to contract work and low-paying jobs, thus severely limiting their capacity to remit meaningfully (chingwe, 2022). bolt (2016) and fisayo-bambi (2020) aver that migration of zimbabweans to neighboring countries such as south africa are usually through illicit entries, unlike migrations to countries further afield, such as the united kingdom, australia, canada, and the united states of america in the global north. tevera and chikanda (2009) note that while remittances in zimbabwe come from a wide range of countries, migrants in overseas countries remit more than those within southern africa. mabharani’s (2014) study on children left behind in dzivarasekwa, a suburb of western harare, highlights the risk of child labor due to parental absence. while some studies foreground the difficulty of differentiating between child labor and child work, (see, for example, catrinescu et al., 2011), mabharani (2014) concludes that incidences of child labor are exacerbated by the increase in parental migration in zimbabwe. parental absence evidently drives many adolescent children left behind to search for paid labor on farms and plantations to fend for their younger siblings and at times including the elderly, sick and incapacitated relatives (makondo, 2022). zirima (2017) confirms this phenomenon in a study conducted in mwenezi, in which teachers acknowledged that children left behind are susceptible to child labor. studies further report that some left-behind children take up so much extra household duties previously done by migrant parents, that they often miss school (tawodzera and themane, 2019). in the same vein, findings by makondo’s (2022) study in chiredzi show that adolescent girls left behind experience overwhelming household chores, effectively compromising their educational outcomes. 123 on the contrary, a limited number of children left behind receive substantial remittances almost consistently, helping them to pay for essential services and school fees and to enhance their lifestyle (dube, 2014; kufakurinani et al., 2014; mabharani, 2014). however, some scholars observe that some of these children end up being wasteful, spending money on fancy clothes, drugs, and alcohol. it is unfortunate that such children become wayward to the extent of engaging in wild parties, commonly known as vuzu, where the abuse of drugs, alcohol, sex, and other socially unacceptable activities take place (chingwe and chakanyuka, 2023a, 2023b). while remittances may help to improve educational outcomes, there are cases where left-behind have evidently become too wayward, to the extent of disrespecting teachers and eventually dropping out of school, because they supposedly have better lifestyles than their teachers or other personalities who, under different circumstances, would be their mentors or role models (kufakurinani et al., 2014). improved economic prospects and lifestyles due to parental migration have also reportedly attracted unscrupulous relatives and neighbors, who take advantage of the vulnerability of children left behind to loot the children’s material or financial assets and, in worst cases, abuse them in multiple ways (mabharani, 2014). conclusion the increasing number of zimbabweans migrating to other countries motivated us to explore the effects of parental migration on children left behind. using the slr procedure, these effects were categorized into four domains, namely, health, educational, economic, and psychological outcomes. numerous negative effects were identified, notably in the psychological, educational, and economic domains and are deemed critical. negligible positive effects were noted in educational and economic domains; hence, it can be concluded that parental migration is “a curate’s egg.” the categorization of these four domains can help different organizations and stakeholders in taking measures to improve social protection and care practices for children left behind. addressing effects of left-behind children requires support from the government and all stakeholders. before any measures or policies can be fully initiated or implemented, it is vital to gather comprehensive data on the magnitude, profile, and needs of children left behind. the findings in this study imply that there is need for promoting research on children left behind to inform policy decisions. furthermore, there is a need to update and strengthen child protection systems in line with the needs of children left behind. finally, it is imperative for relevant governmental arms and agencies to be capacitated to ensure that policies can adapt and expressly provide for the protection of children left behind. regarding areas of concern pertaining to this study: first, the bulk of the data was collected by the corresponding author of this article, who has four articles included in the review. this method may be considered a threat to the validity of the study findings, since the researcher could have collected biased data. for that reason, to attend to this possible threat, co-authors randomly inspected and validated effects of parental migration on well-being of zimbabwean children left behind 124 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 the collected data. second, it was also observed that a few of the selected studies did not fully describe the principal effects of migration on children but generalized them to the left-behind household, inclusive of adults, which could be a potential threat to the internal validity of the results of this study. it appears that some scholars may not necessarily be concerned about children per se, but the entire family left behind. however, it may still be possible to isolate effects inclined to children only, while in other cases, some effects related to adults left behind may have a ripple effect on the children. third, we noted that three of the studies selected excluded children from their samples, which may limit the authenticity of their findings. this approach has, however, been the norm, which has recently shifted from focusing on the future welfare of children to the current well-being of children, a more childcentered approach promoting children’s involvement in narrating their own stories (semerci and erdogan, 2014). this slr delineated studies carried out in terms of location based on provinces, rural-urban divide, and the age range and sex of children sampled. it is anticipated that this categorization can be helpful in addressing gaps and providing direction for future studies. we are confident that 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psychosocial effects of parental migration on rural children in mwenezi, zimbabwe. zimbabwe journal of multidisciplinary research, 1(1): 129–141. 129 challenging the practice of administrative detention for stateless persons in south africa fatima khan* received 22 july 2022 / accepted 03 november 2022 / published 27 january 2023 abstract in south africa, section 41 of the immigration act requires any person approached on reasonable grounds by a police officer or immigration officer to identify themselves either as a citizen or as a person lawfully present in the republic. anyone unable to identify themselves as persons lawfully in south africa will be deemed to be illegally present and hence subject to an arrest, detention, and possible deportation. this detention can go on for a period of 120 days. this ‘unlawful’ status automatically entitles immigration officials to arrest and detain such persons, but with the caveat that if such persons express an intention to apply for refugee status their asylum application must be permitted and facilitated. stateless persons are, by definition, unable to demonstrate their legal presence or provide a valid identity document. they would therefore be deemed to be unlawfully present and therefore detained. this section of the immigration act is especially prejudicial to stateless persons since south africa has no status determination procedure for stateless persons. this paper intends to demonstrate the unlawfulness of the laws regarding the immigration detention of stateless persons and seek an alternative approach or a remedy that could be implemented for stateless persons arrested without the means to identify themselves as legally present in south africa. keywords: statelessness, arbitrary arrest, non-refoulement, status determination, southern africa ____________________ * university of cape town, south africa.  fatima.khan@uct.ac.za challenging the practice of administrative detention for stateless persons in south africa 130 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 i. introduction south africa has long viewed cross-border movements through the lens of national security, social instability and criminality.1 the department of home affairs’ (dha) 2017 white paper on international migration2 ( hereafter, the 2017 white paper) underscores that south arica is a ‘destination for irregular migrants (undocumented migrants, border jumpers, over-stayers, smuggled and trafficked persons) who pose a security threat to the economic stability and sovereignty of the country.’3 this position was reinforced in the border management authority act, adopted in july 2020.4 although the dha’s 2017 white paper recognises the role of migration in development such as the need to provide protection for refugees and the benefits of visa-free travel, these seemingly progressive plans are framed within the context of threats to national security posed by migration and refugee movements. it emphasises the adoption of policies that can improve enforcement and as a result, detention, and deportation, feature prominently in the 2017 white paper. the inherently punitive nature of detention is reinforced by the language used by the 2017 white paper which is steeped in notions of criminality. the use of terms such as ‘repeat offenders’ and ‘illegal migrants’ rather than undocumented persons in the 2017 white paper contributes to the unnecessary criminalisation of migrants because the arrests and detention envisaged by the immigration act are administrative rather than criminal.5 as a result of the evident punitive nature of the detention of migrants in practice, south africa’s migration-related detention policies have drawn criticism for many years. in particular, the operations and conditions at the only long-standing dedicated immigration detention centre — the privately-operated lindela repatriation centre — have been criticised, along with its use of police stations (not listed as legitimate places of detention) and prisons to hold people for immigration purposes, the endemic corruption in the police and immigration bureaucracies that operate detention sites as well as administer the asylum process.6 ‘numerous reports over the years have highlighted allegations of abuses at detention facilities, prolonged detention periods and repeated accusations of arbitrary detention, as well as overcrowding and poor sanitation, among other problems.’7 clearly, south africa has disregarded a protection-based approach to managing vulnerable non-citizens in favour of a risk-based approach, as seen in its latest 2017 white paper and border 1global detention project country report immigration detention in south africa: stricter control of administrative detention, increasing criminal enforcement of migration, 28 june 2021, available at https://www.globaldetentionproject. org/immigration-detention-in-south-africa-stricter-control-of-administrative-detention-increasing-criminal-enforcement-of-migration, accessed on 18 june 2022. 2the white paper on international migration (gn 750 in gg 41009 of 28 july 2017). 3ibid at 35. 4the border management authority act 2 of 2020. 5op cit note 2. 6lawyers for human rights ‘monitoring immigration detention in south africa’ september 2010, available at http://www. lhr.org.za/sites/lhr.org.za/files/lhr_2010_deten tion_report.pdf, accessed on june 2022. 7see south african human rights commission investigative reports volume 4 médecins sans frontières and others — the department of home affairs and others complaint number gp/2012/0134 (2012); solidarity peace trust and passop perils and pitfalls – migrants and deportation in south africa 5 june 2012. 131 management authority act.8 south africa’s securitisation and punitive approach are particularly worrisome in the cases where individuals are unable to identify themselves as stateless persons. in the simplest form, it can be said that a stateless person is a person without a nationality. it is trite that with a nationality most nationals enjoy the protection of their governments. by means of their nationalities, they will have the right to documentation, access to courts and various civil and social rights. stateless persons who are not nationals of any country will therefore clearly lack legal protection9 and may never be able to identify themselves and satisfy the dha that they are legally in south africa. the question thus arises whether the administrative detention for the purposes of deportation of a stateless person is lawful. this paper argues that it is necessary to establish a protection mechanism for stateless persons who are arbitrarily arrested in south africa, and that such a proposed protection mechanism must be tethered to the international protection framework. this paper furthermore draws attention to the injustices of applying immigration law indiscriminately to all persons who are not south african. it lays plain the inefficiencies of a system that promotes arrest and detention for the purposes of deportation against persons who cannot practically be removed and illustrates the human suffering that often results when they are kept in immigration detention. this paper also explains how south africa’s immigration law is ill-suited to provide the necessary protection for stateless persons and emphasises a call for complementary protection. it proposes first and foremost a way to identify persons as stateless as expeditiously as possible and thereafter a remedy for the administrative detention of stateless persons. ii. insufficient protection for stateless persons in south africa notwithstanding a human rights approach a recent united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) report indicates that statelessness in southern africa is driven primarily by colonial history, border changes, migration, poor civil registry systems and discrimination based on gender, ethnicity and religion.10 gaps in nationality laws, low birth registrations and forced displacement are some of the causes of statelessness.11 even where the legal provisions are in place to protect against statelessness, there are often practical impediments.12 while many legal gaps remain in southern africa, effective civil registration is almost as important as the laws themselves. the practicalities of 8op cit note 2; op cit note 4. 9see laura van waas nationality matters: statelessness under international law (2008); katia bianchini ‘the “stateless person” definition in selected eu member states: variations of interpretation and application’ (2017) 36(3) refugee survey quarterly 81; paul weis nationality and statelessness in international law 2 ed (1979). 10bronwen manby ‘statelessness in southern africa’ (2012) briefing paper for the unhcr, available at https://www. refworld.org/pdfid/50c1f9562.pdf, accessed on june 2022. 11aimée-noël mbiyozo ‘statelessness in southern africa: time to end it, not promote it’ (2019) institute for security studies: southern africa report 32, available at https://issafrica.org/research/southern-africa-report/statelessness-insouthern-africa-time-to-end-it-not-promote-it, accessed on july 2022. 12ibid. challenging the practice of administrative detention for stateless persons in south africa 132 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 obtaining documents are more common barriers than a legal denial of nationality.13 according to bronwen manby, statelessness can have a terrible impact on the lives of individuals.14 she states, ‘possession of a nationality, and official recognition of that nationality, is essential for full participation in society and the enjoyment of the full range of human rights’. she highlights further in her recent analysis of the impact of target 16.9 of the united nations sustainable development goals (sdgs) on the issue of a legal identity for all, the importance of the possession of nationality.15 even though the grant of nationality is not an international law issue and that there is recognition that it is the prerogative of individual states to decide how to regulate nationality, it is also evident that states cannot disregard international conventions. the 1930 hague convention on certain questions relating to the conflict of nationality laws (1930 hague convention) did not create an individual right to nationality; states alone grant and withdraw nationality. article 1 provides that it is ‘for each state to determine under its own law who are its nationals’. however, article 1 also provides that ‘[t]his law shall be recognised by other states in so far as it is consistent with international conventions, international custom, and the principles of law generally recognised with regard to nationality.’16 since south africa has ratified various international human rights treaties, the south african constitution17 allows for only some rights to be limited to nationals, including the right to vote and stand for public office, but most human rights are to be enjoyed by ‘everyone’.18 in practice, however, many rights of stateless people are violated; they may be detained because they are stateless, they can be denied reentry to or expelled from the country where they live, they can be denied access to education and health services, or blocked from obtaining employment.19 the above treatment of stateless persons in south africa is best summed up in david owen’s paper when he states that [t]he momentous development of the international system for protection of human rights since world war ii, the citizenship of a person determines how she is treated by this system; the rights people effectively have are still generally 13ibid. 14manby op cit note 10. 15bronwen manby ‘“legal identity for all”’ and statelessness: opportunity and threat at the junction of public and private international law (2020) 2(2) statelessness and citizenship review 248–271, available at http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ ssrn.3783310 16michelle foster and timnah rachel baker ‘racial discrimination in nationality laws: a doctrinal blind spot of international law? (2021) 11(1) columbia journal of race and law. 17the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996. 18note all the rights in the bill of rights that refer to everyone. rights in the constitution that refer to ‘everyone’ include the rights to: equality at section 9; human dignity at section 10; life at section 11; freedom and security of the person at section 12; privacy at section 14; freedom of religion, belief and opinion at section 15; freedom of expression at section 16; assembly, demonstration, picket and petition at section 17; freedom of association at section 18; freedom of movement and residence at section 21; labour relations at section 23; environment at section 24; housing at section 26; health care, food, water and social security at section 27; education at section 29; language and culture at section 30; access to information at section 32; just administrative action at section 33; access to courts at section 34; and arrested, detained and accused persons at section 35 19manby op cit note 10. 133 determined with a reference to the country they belong to.20 the two international conventions dealing with statelessness are the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons (1954 convention)21 and the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness (1961 convention).22 the 1954 convention was adopted pursuant to the events of the second world war when many persons lost their right to live as citizens in the territories that they had once considered home. the purpose of the 1954 convention was to increase international awareness of the plight of stateless people who were not refugees and to provide for their rights in the absence of formal state affiliation.23 such rights include the freedom to practice religion, freedom of association, free access to courts and freedom of movement, to name just a few. the obligations of the stateless persons toward their state of residence and the standards of treatment that are due to the stateless are also delineated in the 1954 convention. in addition, the 1954 convention provides a definition of statelessness. it states at article 1 that a stateless person is ‘a person who is not recognised as a national by any state under the operation of its laws’.24 the 1961 convention arose to provide solutions to statelessness, which the 1954 convention did not provide. it does this by outlining measures to diminish the incidence of statelessness at birth and by demarcating the boundaries within which statelessness could occur.25 goodwin-gill, a leading scholar on statelessness, points out that the 1961 convention places an obligation on states to grant nationality in certain instances, even though it does not recognise an outright right to a nationality.26 both treaties, however, are silent on whether and what kind of procedures should be adopted to recognise a person as stateless. considering the implementation problems that this creates at the national level, the unhcr, which is the un agency mandated to protect stateless persons, has provided guidance in its handbook on the protection of stateless persons regarding the adoption of specific stateless determination procedures (sdps) and their essential elements.27 in south africa, stateless persons do not have the protection of the 1954 or the 1961 statelessness conventions as south africa has not ratified either. in the absence 20david owen ‘on the right to have nationality rights: statelessness, citizenship and human rights (2018) 65 neth int law rev 299–317, available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s40802-018-0116-7. 21un general assembly, convention relating to the status of stateless persons 28 september 1954 united nations treaty series 360 at 117, available at https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3840.html, accessed on 21 july 2022. 22un general assembly, convention on the reduction of statelessness, 30 august 1961 united nations treaty series 989 at 175, available at https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b39620.html, accessed on 21 july 2022. 231954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons. 24ibid. 251961 convention on the reduction of statelessness. 26guy s. goodwin-gill ‘the rights of refugees and stateless persons’ in kp saksena (ed) human rights: perspective and challenges (in 1990 and beyond) (1994) 378–401; fatima khan ‘exploring childhood statelessness in southern africa’ (2020) 23 potchefstroom electronic journal 2 at 7. 27unhcr handbook on protection of stateless persons under the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons (2014). the handbook, for instance, provides the following guidelines: sharing the burden of proof between the applicant and the decision-maker (para 89); the standard of proof shall be that of establishing the case to a ‘reasonable degree’ (para 91); a decision shall be taken within a reasonable time, normally six months (para 75); access to legal counsel shall be ensured and legal aid shall be offered to applicants, if available (para 28); and a right of appeal to an independent body shall be provided (para 76). challenging the practice of administrative detention for stateless persons in south africa 134 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 of any international recognition of statelessness, this paper intends to answer the important question of how stateless persons can be protected in south africa in the case of arbitrary arrest and detention of persons when they are unable to identify themselves as legally present in south africa. iii. the lawfulness of administrative detention for stateless persons in south africa a great number of countries resort to administrative detention of irregular migrants in connection with violations of immigration laws and regulations, including staying after the permit has expired, non-possession of identification documents, using somebody else’s travel documents, not leaving the country after the prescribed period has expired, etc. in such cases, including in south africa, the purpose of administrative detention is clear. it is to guarantee that another measure, such as deportation or expulsion, can be implemented.28 sometimes administrative detention is also admitted on grounds of public security and public order, among others.29 administrative detention is also allowed by the immigration act.30 however, detentions for the purpose of deportation are discretionary administrative detentions authorised by the immigration act31 and subject to the bill of rights32 and the promotion of administrative justice act.33 however, it is the practice of the dha immigration officials and police to enforce a general policy of detaining all suspected illegal foreigners pending deportation,34 rather than employing a discretionary, caseby-case approach. according to the lawyers for human rights (lhr) monitoring report, there is widespread disregard for the rules and regulations of the immigration act and the refugees act,35 resulting in unlawful and prolonged arrests and detentions of foreigners, many of whom have, in fact, lodged applications for asylum or other statuses.36 because the majority of stateless persons are undocumented, they could get caught up in this detention frenzy due to their inability to prove legal presence in the country, their inability to qualify for most immigration permits and their lack of awareness of any pathway to attain lawful immigration status. in south africa, section 41 of the immigration act requires any person approached on reasonable grounds by a police or immigration officer to identify themselves either as a citizen or as a person lawfully present in the republic.37 anyone 28daniel wilsher ‘the administrative detention of non-nationals pursuant to immigration control: international and constitutional law perspectives’ the international and comparative law quarterly (2004) 53(4) 897–934. 29relief web ‘immigration detention in south africa: stricter control of administrative detention, increasing criminal enforcement of migration’ june 2021, available at https://reliefweb.int/report/south-africa/immigration-detention-southafrica-stricter-control-administrative-detention, accessed on july 2022. 30the immigration act 13 of 2002. 31ulde v minister of home affairs and another 2009 (4) sa 522 (sca) para 7. 32op cit note 17 section 35. 33the promotion of administrative justice act 3 of 2000. 34op cit note 31. 35the refugees act 130 of 1998. 36op cit note 6. 37op cit note 30. 135 unable to identify themselves as persons lawfully in south africa will be deemed to be illegally present and hence subject to arrest, detention, and possible deportation. this unlawful status automatically entitles immigration officials to arrest and detain such persons for the purposes of deportation, but with the caveat that if such persons express an intention to apply for refugee status, their asylum application must be permitted and facilitated.38 stateless persons are, by definition, unable to demonstrate legal presence or provide a valid identity document. they would therefore be deemed to be unlawfully present and vulnerable to detention. section 41 of the immigration act states: when so requested by an immigration officer or police officer, any person shall identify himself or herself as a citizen, permanent resident or foreigner, and if on reasonable grounds such immigration officer or police officer is not satisfied that such person is entitled to be in the republic, such person may be interviewed by an immigration officer or a police officer about his or her identity or status, and such immigration officer or police officer may take such person into custody without a warrant and shall take reasonable steps, as may be prescribed, to assist the person in verifying his or her identity or status, and thereafter, if necessary detain him or her in terms of section 34.’39 at first glance, the inclusion of a section on the arrest and detention of a person for the purposes of deportation who cannot identify as being lawfully in a country in the immigration act of any country can be seen as rational because a state is reasonably entitled to control the presence of foreigners in a country. however, south africa’s identification clause has various limitations. first, it provides for a closed list of legal statuses that the arrested person can be identified as — either as a citizen, permanent resident, or foreigner.40 it does not make provision for a stateless person. this section has either not considered the position of a stateless person or it makes the incorrect assumption that all stateless persons are foreigners (or all stateless persons are non-citizens) and therefore deportable if unlawfully present. secondly, it assumes that everyone should be able to identify themselves. for most stateless persons, that will be an impossibility. this paper acknowledges that it is possible to encounter stateless persons who have some form of identity document or who gained legal residence or immigration status in another country. thirdly, this section has not considered the fact that someone may not be able to verify their legal identity or legal status. the act requires the immigration officer or police officer to assist with verification.41 once again, to verify presupposes the existence of a legal identity. the steps that an immigration official or police officer can take to assist in verifying their status are prescribed and they include: accessing 38ruta v minister of home affairs 2019 (2) sa 329 (cc); nibigira v minister of home affairs and others (41265/2011) [2011] zagpjhc 178 (28 november 2011). 39op cit note 30. 40ibid. 41ibid. challenging the practice of administrative detention for stateless persons in south africa 136 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 relevant documents that may be readily available; contacting relatives or other persons who could prove such identity and status; accessing departmental records in this regard or providing the necessary means for the person to obtain documents that may confirm their identity and status.42 it should be noted that these steps are written in peremptory language, thereby creating a positive obligation on an immigration officer or a police officer to assist an individual in satisfying the official regarding the individual’s immigration status.43 when these steps do not produce a legal identity — which they are not likely to in the case of a stateless person — the question is whether it is by default then that the person is considered stateless. what is lacking and what is therefore a further limitation in this section and in the immigration act generally, is that it has not considered how a person who is unable to identify themselves as a national of any state should be protected or dealt with in terms of south africa’s immigration laws. it is evident that the plight of stateless persons has not been considered by the immigration act and by this section because it has not made provision for a status determination procedure that the person is in fact stateless and not a citizen or national of any country. this is ultimately the gap in the legislation; there is no provision that addresses the scenario where a person may not be able to identify themselves. this section is especially prejudicial to stateless persons since south africa has no laws to protect stateless persons and no status determination procedure for stateless persons. in my opinion, this section creates an opening for a remedy for stateless persons arrested arbitrarily and, hence, an opening for a remedy for stateless persons arrested for their so-called illegal presence if a stateless determination procedure could be read in for stateless persons. as harsh as the above section is for stateless persons, this category of persons who are unable to identify themselves as citizens, permanent residents, or foreigners will in the very least have access to justice as guaranteed by the constitution.44 but this requires a legal intervention,45 which should in the first instance declare the arrest of a stateless person as arbitrary and therefore unlawful. iv. challenging the arbitrariness of administrative detention when considering whether the administrative detention of a stateless person is unlawful, the arbitrariness of the detention must be considered. the unhcr, in its analysis of arbitrary detention, states that ‘[i]n accordance with international 42the immigration act regulations in gn 413 gg 37679 of 22 may 2014 regulation 37. 43zimbabwe exiles forum and others v minister of home affairs and others (27294/2008) [2011] zagpphc 29 (17 february 2011) para 30. 44op cit note 17 sections 33 and 34. 45ashley terlouw ‘access to justice for asylum seekers: is the right to seek and enjoy asylum only black letter law?’ in carolus grütters, sandra mantu, and paul minderhoud (eds), migration on the move: essays on the dynamics of migration (2017). 137 standards, arbitrariness is to be interpreted to include not only unlawfulness, but also elements of inappropriateness, injustice and lack of predictability.’46 it thus provides for a broad interpretation of arbitrary detention in line with its protection-based approach of vulnerable persons. in addition, detention will be arbitrary when it is not lawful, when it is resorted to without a legitimate purpose, when it exceeds a reasonable time limit or when no less coercive or intrusive measures are available or appropriate in the individual case being considered.47 the following additional criteria can be used in evaluating the arbitrariness of detention such as conditions of detention and the availability of access to an effective remedy while in detention.48 statelessness, by its very nature, severely restricts access to basic identity and travel documents that nationals normally possess. thus, being undocumented or lacking the necessary immigration permits cannot be used as a general justification for the detention of such persons. furthermore, for detention not to be arbitrary, it must be necessary in each individual case, reasonable in all the circumstances, proportionate and non-discriminatory.49 indefinite as well as mandatory forms of detention are intrinsically arbitrary. detention should be used as a measure of last resort and can only be justified where other less invasive or coercive measures have been considered and found insufficient to safeguard the lawful governmental objective. once it has been established that a person is stateless and cannot be removed from the territory, their continued detention automatically becomes arbitrary. to hold otherwise would be to condone the potential of indefinite detention which would certainly be unconstitutional if the person has committed no crime. the unlawfulness of arbitrary detention and arrest is also considered in various international human rights documents. it is considered unlawful, for example, by the universal declaration of human rights (udhr),50 the international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr),51 the international convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families (icprmw)52 and the convention on the rights of the child (crc).53 arbitrariness, for the purposes of these provisions, is best summed up by alice edwards when she states that the lawfulness of the arrest and detention requires a consideration of the (insufficiency of) reasonableness, necessity, proportionality, and non-discrimination of the detention.54 46unhcr guidelines on the applicable criteria and standards relating to the detention of asylum-seekers and alternatives to detention (2012) at 15, available at https://www.refworld.org/docid/503489533b8.html, accessed on 19 july 2022. 47the equal rights trust guidelines to protect stateless persons from arbitrary detention (2012), available at https://www. equalrightstrust.org/ertdocumentbank/guidelines%20complete.pdf, accessed on 17 july 2022. 48unhcr compilation of international human rights law and standards on immigration detention, february 2018, available at https://www.refworld.org/docid/5afc25c24.html, accessed on 22 july 2022. 49alice edwards ‘back to basics: the right to liberty and security of person and ‘alternatives to detention’ of refugees, asylum-seekers, stateless persons and other migrants’ unhcr legal and protection policy research series ppla/2011/01. rev.1 of april 2011, at 20. 50universal declaration of human rights, 1948, articles 3 and 9. 51international covenant on civil and political rights, 1966, articles 9 and 12. 52international convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families 1990 article 16. 53convention on the rights of the child 1989 article 37. 54edwards op cit note 49. challenging the practice of administrative detention for stateless persons in south africa 138 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 in south africa, the immigration detention of stateless individuals is therefore inherently arbitrary due to the impossibility of their deportation. in terms of the immigration act, in cases where immigration detention lasts over 48 hours, it must be intended for purposes of deportation.55 therefore, where it is determined that a person is stateless and no country will accept them for deportation, their detention becomes a violation of their rights, in terms of the bill of rights, to freedom and security of person and to human dignity.56 problematically, no dedicated provision exists in south africa’s immigration act for the release of undocumented persons from detention. there are no reported judgments and hence, no reasons given by the judiciary in south africa clarifying the question of whether a stateless person can lawfully be detained for deportation after it has been determined that they cannot be deported. there are, however, two instances where the judiciary declared the continued detention of stateless persons unlawful. the first is in the case of herbert baluku v minister of dha (case number 35164/2013) in the north gauteng high court where the detention of the stateless person was declared unlawful because he had a pending application for permanent residence, and he was released. unfortunately, there was no judgment and therefore no reasons provided by the judiciary. the second is in the case of mntambo v minister of home affairs, (case number 20485/2015) in the gauteng local division high court, where, as a stateless person, he was detained and deported before the case was heard. his deportation was subsequently declared unlawful. hence, the law as it stands makes very little provision for the protection from arbitrary detention of persons who cannot be deported, but who also do not qualify as legally present in the territory. this is an impasse, and it appears in the nibigira case, where the judiciary does not appear to find the detention arbitrary, even when the judiciary recognised that deportation is not possible.57 the judiciary in this case was focused on the time limits provided by the immigration act. in south africa, the 120 days provided by the immigration act were not seen as being punitive and judges appear reluctant to release anyone before the expiration of the 120 days unless a ministerial exemption is granted, as in baluku and mntambo.58 the judgment admitted that ‘there is no country that is prepared to acknowledge [the applicant] as a citizen.’59 yet, it argues:60 [76] where would the applicant go if there was a need that he be released from detention? would that court sanctioned release have meant that he should be 55op cit note 30 section 34(2). 56op cit note 17 sections 12 and 10, respectively. 57nibigira v minister of home affairs and others (41265/2011) [2011] zagpjhc 178 (28 november 2011). 58ibid. to be noted — the initial period of detention is a maximum of 30 days, at which point one must be brought before a magistrate who may then extend the detention for no longer than 90 days. to be further noted — the court in lawyers for human rights v minister of home affairs and others (cct38/16) [2017] zacc 22 declared s34(1)(b) and (d) inconsistent with sections 12(1), 35(1)(d) and 35(2)(d) of the constitution because it did not provide for automatic judicial oversight before the expiry of 30 calendar days; sections 34(1)(b) and (d) were. the challenge against section 34(1)(d) was based on the contention that it did not permit a detainee to appear in person before a court and impugn the lawfulness of their detention. 59 ibid. 60ibid paras 76–77. 139 allowed to roam south africa despite the fact that he came in illegally and he has no right or papers to allow him to be here? must the police or immigration officials not arrest and detain him for deportation again? [77] surely the above scenario is not what the legislature intended when this immigration law [sic] passed.61 the issue of time periods for administrative detention is deemed to be controversial in the united kingdom (uk) law as well because of the absence of a statutory maximum time limit on administrative detention. some general limitations on and guidance about the length of immigration detention can be found in home office policy and case law. according to the policy, immigration detention must be used ‘sparingly’ and for ‘the shortest period necessary’.62 in the hardial singh case,63 the uk supreme court established the principle that the power to detain is limited to a reasonable duration and by circumstances consistent with its statutory purpose and reasonableness. the supreme court confirmed this principle in r (lumba) v secretary of state for the home department,64 and it further established that migrants may be detained only for the purpose of removal for a reasonable period to achieve that purpose, and if the home office is acting with due diligence and expedition to remove them. v. challenging the immigration detention of stateless persons in south africa determining whether there are grounds for release for stateless persons in immigration detention is indeed a difficult task in the absence of their recognition as such in terms of south african law. typically, release from immigration detention requires the detained individual to have a legal basis to remain in south africa through a valid immigration status, or a pending application for citizenship status or permanent residence as a dependent child, parent or spouse of a resident or citizen65 that can be pursued under the immigration act. the other basis is an asylum claim that can be pursued under the refugees act. 66as stated above, this paper proposes a protection mechanism for stateless persons arbitrarily arrested in south africa, and such a proposed protection mechanism must be tethered to a protection framework. the international protection framework recommends the reduction of statelessness where possible.67 the international protection system also recommends preventing deportation to a place where stateless persons will not be granted citizenship.68 south africa has not ratified the statelessness conventions, but as a result 61ibid. 62uk home office ‘policy, detention: general instructions’, version 2.0 of 14 january 2022 at 7. 63r v governor of durham prison, ex parte hardial singh [1984] 1 wlr 704. 64r (walumba lumba and another) v secretary of state for the home department [2011] uksc 12, [2012] 1 ac 245. 65op cit note 30 section 26. 66op cit note 35 section 22. 671961 convention on the reduction of statelessness. 68ibid article 10. challenging the practice of administrative detention for stateless persons in south africa 140 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 of its own protection framework (its constitution), it has already demonstrated its willingness to reduce the statelessness of children born in south africa who would otherwise be stateless.69 south africa has also demonstrated that within its immigration laws a remedy can be found to regularise the status of a stateless person in terms of a ministerial exemption.70 this section demonstrates that south africa needs to incorporate the international protection mechanism available for stateless persons because the ad hoc measures such as a ministerial exemption have proven difficult without the protection of the statelessness conventions and the introduction of a statelessness determination process. it is evident that before any of the abovementioned remedies can be accessed, it is imperative that such persons have access to justice. (a) access to justice both the national and international frameworks operational in south africa allow for access to justice for ‘everyone’ present in south africa.71 as a first step, stateless persons, whether documented or not, or recognised as such or not, must have access to justice. they should have the right to a fair solution. in this paper, access to justice is understood to mean ‘the ability to vindicate rights in an accessible way through a process that ensures an effective remedy’.72 this requires the detained person to have at the very least, access to a lawyer, a remedy, an independent adjudicator and all the elements of a fair trial as embodied in section 34 of the constitution.73 katia bianchini, in her paper on identifying the stateless in immigration detention, adopted an access to justice lens to explore aspects and legal challenges of the statelessness determination–immigration detention nexus in the united kingdom.74 in her study, she found that despite the adoption of a national statelessness determination procedure, stateless persons in immigration detention still experience a plethora of problems.75 this is especially so, she states, where those in immigration detention who are stateless are generally not acknowledged as such due to gaps in the legal framework.76 this situation sits uneasily with access to justice principles, which require the guarantee of an effective remedy and a fair solution to the legal problems of every individual. her paper ultimately shows that access to justice requires a holistic approach, whereby the special problems and needs of the users must always be taken into consideration.77 69the citizenship act 88 of 1995, section 2(2); the births and deaths registration act 51 of 1992. see also fatima khan ‘exploring childhood statelessness in southern africa’ (2020) 23 potchefstroom electronic journal 2. 70op cit note 65 section 31 (2) b. 71op cit note 17 section 34. 72katia bianchini ‘identifying the stateless in statelessness determination procedures and immigration detention in the united kingdom’ (2020) 32(3) international journal of refugee law 440 at 452. 73s 34 everyone has a right to have any dispute that can be resolved by the application of the law decided in a fair public hearing before a court or where appropriate another independent and impartial tribunal or forum. 74op cit note 72. 75ibid. 76ibid. 77ibid. 141 if we apply this holistic approach to access to justice in south africa where, even though theoretically such persons will have access to courts, it does not necessarily mean access to justice because, unlike the united kingdom, south africa has no statelessness legislation in place and no status determination procedure for stateless persons. also, immigration detention is an administrative detention and not a criminal detention, which means that legal representation from the state is not a requirement.78 in addition, the lack of status determination is especially prejudicial in south africa because if the stateless are not acknowledged as stateless persons, the access to justice right in the constitution is a hollow right. with such a lack of laws and procedures to determine whether the person is in fact stateless and with insufficient access to justice, it cannot be deemed to be fair to deport a stateless person, even if another country is willing to receive such a person. (b) preventing deportation to a place where they will not be granted citizenship article 1079 of the 1961 statelessness convention states that states shall use their best endeavours to ensure that a person transferred to another territory shall confer its nationality if, because of the transfer, the person is likely to become stateless. on the face of it, it may appear that south africa is not bound by this article because south africa has not ratified this treaty. however, a broad interpretation of this article could be interpreted as a violation of the principle of non-refoulement.80 even though the above article does not directly address the principle of non-refoulement this paper argues that the principle of non-refoulement81 is embedded in this section, which means that south africa must ensure that no one is deported to a country where they will likely become or remain stateless. this paper further proposes that article 10 should be read as a safeguard of the principle of non-refoulement, especially since the un treaties on statelessness do not have any provisions for non-refoulement — that is to say, stateless persons, are not protected in terms of the treaties from deportation to a country where they will not be able to access citizenship. however, non-refoulement applies to all migrants regardless of their status. the un human rights committee (hrc) has clarified that the iccpr applies to all migrants regardless of their status: 78un office of the high commissioner for human rights (ohchr) the right of anyone deprived of his or her liberty to bring proceedings before court, in order that the court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his or her detention background paper on state practice on implementation of the right 2 september 2014, available at https://www.refworld. org/docid/553e2e944.html, accessed on 22 july 2022. 79article 10 states: ‘1. every treaty between contracting states providing for the transfer of territory shall include provisions designed to secure that no person shall become stateless because of the transfer. a contracting state shall use its best endeavors to secure that any such treaty made by it with a state which is not a party to this convention includes such provisions. 2. in the absence of such provisions a contracting state to which territory is transferred or which otherwise acquires territory shall confer its nationality on such persons as would otherwise become stateless as a result of the transfer or acquisition.’ 80op cit note 35 section 2. see also the 1951 un convention relating to the status of refugees, article 33 and the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa, articles 2(3) and 5. 81south africa is bound by the principle of non-refoulement because it is found in the refugees act as well as the 1984 convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, article 3. the principle has also reached the status of customary international law. see gs goodwin-gill the refugee in international law 2 ed (1996) at 167–171. challenging the practice of administrative detention for stateless persons in south africa 142 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 [t]he enjoyment of covenant rights is not limited to citizens of states parties but must also be available to all individuals, regardless of nationality or statelessness, such as asylum seekers, refugees, migrant workers, and other persons, who may find themselves in the territory or subject to the jurisdiction of the state party.82 the principle of non-refoulment, which represents a safeguard against the most flagrant violations of human rights, also applies to every person subject to the state’s jurisdiction, including all migrants, irrespective of their status and regardless of whether the person has entered the state regularly or not. most important in the south african context is for the state to recognise that the application of nonrefoulement protection to migrants does not only depend on the migrants’ ability to gain or maintain status as a refugee. the european court of human rights (ecthr) has on several occasions held the position that the principle of non-refoulement applies to all migrants.83 in south africa, the lhr has been advocating for diplomatic authorities to provide written assurance upon deportation that the individual qualifies as a national and will be recognised by the competent nationality authority upon arriving in the country in question. it has argued that deporting or accepting for deportation a person who would not be able to meet the administrative burden of proof for citizenship in the country is tantamount to refoulement for stateless persons.84 it is a violation of their right to acquire citizenship and a violation of their fundamental right to human dignity. they could face prolonged and sometimes indefinite detention if deported to a country where they cannot obtain citizenship. and if the stateless person cannot be deported, what then are the legal tools that can be used to argue for the release of the stateless from detention and for the regulation of their stay in south africa? (c) reducing statelessness even though south africa has not ratified the statelessness conventions, it has demonstrated a willingness to reduce statelessness. this has been done in the case of children born in south africa who would otherwise be stateless. south africa maintains that its laws are sufficient to protect children born in its territory from statelessness. in accordance with its constitution, south africa must consider 82un human rights committee (hrc), general comment no. 31, [80], the nature of the general legal obligation imposed on states parties to the covenant (26 may 2004), ccpr/c/21/rev.1/add.13 at para 10, available at https://www. unhcr.org/4963237716.pdf, accessed on july 2022. 83ecthr, ahmed v. austria, application no. 25964/94, judgment 17 december 1996, at 42 and 47, stating that the applicant lost refugee status because of a criminal conviction, but was granted non-refoulement. see also iacthr, caso familia pacheco tineo vs. estado plurinacional de bolivia, 25 november 2013, series c no. 272, at 135, stating that the inter-american system recognises the right of every foreign person regardless of legal or migratory status, and not only of asylum seekers and refugees, not to be returned to a place where their life, integrity and/or liberty risk being violated. see also convention against torture (cat), mutombo v. switzerland, communication no. 13/1993, 27 april 1994, u.n. doc. a/49/44, at 2.5, 9.7; ccpr, hamida v. canada, communication no. 1544/2007, 11 may 2010,5 u.n. doc. ccpr/c/98/d/1544/2007, at 8.7, 9. 84op cit note 6. 143 international law,85 which demands respect for the human rights of all present in south africa. there are multiple laws applicable to the protection of the stateless child in south africa. section 28 of the constitution guarantees every child a right to a name and nationality,86 and the citizenship act at section 2(2) promises citizenship to every child born in south africa if they do not have the nationality of any other country.87 while this may be the case, citizenship does not happen for such children by operation of law in south africa; it requires an application, and the practice has revealed that the implementation of these generous laws has been met with great difficulty. this paper proposes that such a safeguard be built into the immigration act, whereby those detained under the immigration act who are unable to identify themselves and who therefore face the risk of statelessness are allowed to regularise their stay in south africa. such a scenario requires that a stateless determination becomes a necessity. thus far, lawyers have made use of the ministerial exemption founded in section 31(2)(b) of the immigration act.88 however, even with this application, a significant challenge in securing the release and protection from the further arrest of stateless persons is the lack of dedicated interim documentation available to section 31(2)(b) applicants. the regulation, which corresponds to section 31(2)(b) of the immigration act, makes no mention of the status of applicants pending the outcome of their application.89 the form 20 — authorisation for illegal foreigners to remain in the republic pending an application for status — does not refer specifically to section 31(2)(b) but can be used to provide a document to exemption applicants pending a decision from the minister.90 the dha has been reluctant to issue this form 20 without which the stateless person may be vulnerable to re-arrest. (d) status determination according to the lhr, even though the above remedy of a ministerial exemption is available, courts have largely disallowed its use before the expiration of the 120 days in immigration detention and without the form 20 re-arrests have been made.91 in the rare cases of baluku and mntambo ministerial exemptions were considered prior to the expiration of the 120 days. it is therefore imperative that a status determination is made as soon as possible. should the person be found to be stateless, their continued arrest will be arbitrary and therefore unlawful, as stated above. although it is important that a status determination procedure is put in place, it is also important to consider who should be in charge of status determination. the primary institutional question is which authority (immigration, nationality, asylum 8539(1)(b) 86op cit note 17 section 28. 87the citizenship act 88 of 1995. 88op cit note 30. 89ibid. 90op cit note 6. 91ibid. challenging the practice of administrative detention for stateless persons in south africa 144 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 or other) ought to be in charge of identifying and determining the status of stateless persons. it is apparent that the answer can only be context specific. in the situation described in this paper where immigration detention is dealt with, there is the expectation that immigration officials should conduct this determination. however, where the applicant claims never to have lived anywhere else but in south africa, then authorities in charge of nationality issues and citizenship appear to be the most appropriate bodies for statelessness determination (given the fact that the likely solution for statelessness will be reduction, instead of protection, by implementing the country’s own nationality legislation). because asylum and statelessness share the same characteristic of being based on international protection obligations, asylum authorities specialised in this field may prove to be better able to accept and effectively deal with the specific procedural features resulting from the protection-oriented character of the procedure, such as a lower standard of proof, the scarcity of documentary evidence and the prevention of the violation of the principle of non-refoulement. irrespective of who conducts the status determination, it is important that a status determination is conducted as soon as possible. currently, stateless persons will have to remain in detention for 120 days before the courts will even consider the release of such a person, as found in the nibigira case. hence, the sooner the person is confirmed as stateless, the sooner the detention will be recognised as arbitrary because the person is not deportable, and their continued arrest will be deemed to be arbitrary. vi. conclusion even though south africa has not ratified any of the international treaties that deal with statelessness, there is still a strong constitutional obligation to ensure that everyone is granted the opportunity to enjoy the rights that come from belonging to a state. this constitutional obligation means that south africa must be diligent in ensuring that it is working on protecting the rights of vulnerable immigrants. the ministerial exemption is not an effective solution to the issue of statelessness because there are other issues that need to be addressed first, such as access to justice, which immigrants are often not granted equal access to. the immigration law in south africa needs to be developed so that it can be better suited to provide the necessary protection for stateless persons. to protect the rights of those in this vulnerable position, it is imperative that a solution is created to identify persons as stateless as expeditiously as possible and to then create a remedy for the administrative detention of stateless persons. 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za with immense pleasure we present the first 2024 issue of the african human mobility review (ahmr). it provides up-to-date, high-quality, and original contributions – research papers, syntheses, and a book review – dealing with various aspects of human mobility in africa. ahmr is served by a very competent editorial board along with a network of scholars from around the world with an interdisciplinary field of study helping to secure high-quality and original contributions toward evidence-based policymaking. we would like to thank all contributors (authors, editorial board, publisher) to ahmr, including those who have served as anonymous referees for the submitted papers. it is our mission to continue improving the quality and standard of the journal and we seek to reach new milestones to position it more favorably in the scientific community from an international standpoint. this issue consists of five articles and a book review that promote the practice of original research and policy discussions and provide a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns, and some of the most important migration-related issues in africa. the first article by sathiya susuman and knowledge sithole is entitled “influence of socio-economic factors on crime among international migrants in south africa.” the study used a quantitative research method that involved the analysis of data for migrants between the ages of 15 and 64. this study also obtained data from secondary sources, notably from the 2019 statistics south africa report on labour market outcomes of migrant populations in south africa, as well as the 2017 south african police annual crime report. through chi-square tests and multinomial regression, the study investigated whether these socio-economic factors drove criminal behavior among the international migrant population. the study's findings revealed that unemployment has an impact on migrants and crime rates in south africa. within the context of south africa, immigrants' educational attainment did not significantly influence their criminal behavior. other elements, like social networks, cultural assimilation, and personal traits, may have a greater impact on criminal activity among migrants. however, addressing unemployment issues among international migrants in south africa to mitigate the risk of criminal involvement is crucial. the authors suggest that stakeholders and policymakers should concentrate 4 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 on creating practical plans that encourage migrant populations' social integration, skills development, and employment prospects. it might be possible to lower crime rates and build a more welcoming society in south africa for both immigrants and locals by tackling these socio-economic issues. the second article by chipo hungwe and zvenyika eckson mugari is entitled “‘let them stay there’: covid-19 and zimbabwe’s indignation against return migrants and travelers.” the methodological approach employed in this research is a qualitative desk-based study of primary source data (gray literature) accessed online using search words. the findings of this research uncovered that in times of change and dealing with uncertainty, there is a tendency to redraw boundary lines between in-groups and out-groups with negative consequences for those labeled as the outgroup. this study supports the theory that anxiety engendered by pandemics leads to the marginalization and rejection of regular in-group members. perceived resource competition, resource scarcity, anxiety, and fear heightened the stigmatization of return migrants and travelers. the authors assert that to recover from the negative effects of the pandemic, it is necessary to review the preventive measures against covid-19, avoid reckless public statements that stigmatize and incite hostility against returnees, and invest in the health system. the third article by kudakwashe vanyoro, nicholas maple, and jo vearey is entitled “compatible compacts? the ‘social life’ of vulnerability, migration governance, and protection at the zimbabwe–south africa border.” the research employed qualitative research design to gain insight into identifying and assisting non-nationals whom they considered to be vulnerable or to have special needs. the central argument of this paper is that interventions of humanitarian organizations at the zimbabwe–south africa border reveal the importance placed on making very clear distinctions between those needing protection and those who do not. these boundaries are retained in the stable definitions of migrant in/vulnerability that have been legitimized by the increased emphasis on two separate frameworks: one, the global compact for safe, orderly, and regular migration (gcm) for managing migration and the other, the global compact on refugees (gcr) that determines a set of stable norms for international refugee protection. overall, this paper provides a novel concept to capture and reimagine the limits of and possibilities for protection. the fourth article by tackson makandwa is entitled “spaces, places, and migration: understanding and strengthening public health-care provision in south africa.” this study argues that engaging with a place-based approach is required to understand the local context in which diverse groups are situated. there is, however, a lacuna in studies situating south(ern) african public health-care challenges within such a place-based approach. this paper presents findings from a mixed-methods study that was designed to fill this gap. the research team conducted fieldwork in six health-care facilities across two provinces in south africa – four in gauteng and two in the vhembe district of limpopo province – representing urban, peri-urban, and rural settings. the findings show how diverse spaces shape and are shaped by 5 editorial different migrant profiles, producing diverse places, which in turn present particular demands to the public-health system. accordingly, the study discovered that it is crucial to understand the pathways, behaviors, and meanings associated with such mobility if we are to strengthen the provision of health-care services in south africa. the fifth article by leander kandilige, geraldine asiwome ampah, and theophilus kwabena abutima is entitled “migration and the constant search for selfimprovement in africa.” the researchers employed thematic and content analysis of relevant extant literature and examined the contextual factors that characterize the nexus between migration and self-improvement/development in africa. the results of this study show that remittances have the potential to support development in africa, but this depends on the environment in which migration takes place and where remittances are brought. similarly, social remittances are credited with possible improvements in habits, attitudes, and social capital that could support development. the study also indicates that some empirical studies found that political remittances are positively related to the improvement of democracy in africa. this research study further indicates that the development effects of migration vary in different regions and countries of africa depending on the environments in which migration takes place and that migration promotes self-development, just as self-development promotes migration. the last section of this issue is a critical and academic appraisal undertaken by daniel tevera of a book entitled “the palgrave handbook of south–south migration and inequality.” he points out that the book is divided into four parts that highlight often-overlooked mobility patterns within and between regions of the global south and the intersectional inequalities that migrants face. according to the reviewer, the introduction by the editors highlights the critical issues discussed in well-structured chapters that provide fresh insights. the chapters grapple conceptually with the relationship between migration and inequality in diverse global south locations. they also question the relevance of econometric migration theories that downplay context-specific economic and socio-political processes. the reviewer further indicates that the different book chapters focus on a critical and socially embedded understanding of south–south migration, including the climate change-mobility nexus. finally, i wish to see more researchers, academicians, and students engaging with us and continuing to explore new areas of meaningful research with increasing social and practical use in diverse disciplines. i also hope that they will contribute their original and weighty research ideas to this journal. thank you to our editing team and to all authors who submitted their work to the african human mobility review. 51 does climate change transfer poverty from rural to urban areas? implications for regional sub-saharan research agenda thanyani madzivhandila1 and aklilu asha2 received 23 july 2024 / accepted 20 august 2024 / published 06 september 2024 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i2.2305 abstract there is growing recognition that climate change is a worldwide phenomenon with farreaching effects and that it is linked to an increase in the frequency of extreme weather occurrences. in rural areas of most of the sub-saharan countries and other developing countries in the world, the frequent occurrences of extreme weather events such as flooding, heat waves, and drought have significantly destroyed livelihood activities of poor communities. unfavorable geographic characteristics, a lack of resources, and a higher reliance on climate-sensitive sources of income among many community members in poor nations all contribute to the impact. these include livelihood activities associated with land use and agricultural practices. sadly, the population’s capacity and incentive to stay in rural areas have been altered because of climate change and its detrimental impacts on agricultural output, income, and subsistence living; as a result, many rural dwellers are migrating to urban areas. rural populations migrate to urban areas in search of economic opportunities to earn a living. it is evident that the expected opportunities in urban areas are not always available; thus, most of the rural migrants are stuck in informal settlements, shanty towns, and slums without access to services. consequently, it is evident that climate change is somehow transferring poverty from rural to urban areas. this study adopted the push/pull theory as a theoretical framework to guide the discussion and analysis. based on an extensive review of the existing literature using qualitative document analysis, the purpose of this article is to examine the role of climate change on rural–urban migration, which ultimately contributes to the increase in urban poverty. the article concludes by reviewing the current (limited) research on climate change and poverty and argues for a research agenda in the context of sub-saharan africa toward sustainable ways to respond to the challenges of climate-induced migration, urbanization, and poverty. keywords: climate change, rural–urban migration, urbanization, poverty, sub-saharan africa 1 turfloop graduate school of leadership, university of limpopo, south africa. 2 department of development planning and management, university of limpopo, south africa. corresponding author  aklilu.asha@ul.ac.za does climate change transfer poverty from rural to urban areas? 52 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 introduction sub-saharan africa, the region located below the sahara desert, comprises 90% of the african nations. despite its diverse cultural, historical, and socio-political contexts, the region commonly confronts formidable challenges and complexities, such as pervasive poverty and malnutrition, rapid and uncontrolled urbanization (related to rural-urban migration), political volatility, and environmental degradation (szirmai, 2015). the region, much like other developing nations worldwide, is also characterized by fast urbanization (blekking et al., 2022), and it is expected to be predominantly urban; by 2043, half of sub-saharan africa’s population will live in urban areas (jobarteh, 2024). rural–urban migration is particularly significant in large developing countries undergoing urbanization, such as those in sub-saharan africa and south asia, where rural populations remain disproportionately large (brueckner and lall, 2015; selod and shilpi, 2021). the rapid increase in the urban population size is attributable to the natural population growth of existing urban settlements, the reclassification of rural settlements to urban settlements, and rural– urban migration (jobarteh, 2024). the primary drivers include higher urban incomes, better amenities, climate change, conflicts, and the need for insurance against risks (selod and shilpi, 2021). this migration pattern is also significantly influenced by economic factors, population size, housing availability, and environmental conditions (chaplitskaya et al., 2024). the impacts of climate change, therefore, are pivotal in exacerbating conditions that drive rural–urban migration. this is particularly evident in how climate change adversely affects rural livelihoods, which are predominantly dependent on agricultural practices. kumar (2018) notes that this region, particularly the drought-prone areas, suffers from one of the lowest levels of agricultural productivity, primarily as a result of water stress during crop growth. the author further indicates that the region is plagued by conflicts, political instability, poor governance, corruption, politics of exclusion, high rural poverty, and weak human resource capacities (kumar, 2018). unlike other regions, the main drivers of rural–urban migration in sub-saharan africa include dissatisfaction with public services in rural areas, changing weather patterns, land pressures, natural disasters, and conflict (jobarteh, 2024). thus, this pattern of migration poses an imminent burden on urban governance (bawakyillenuo et al., 2018). the most pressing issue is the readiness of urban governance to address the ever-escalating urban poverty associated with climate-induced rural–urban migration. sub-saharan africa has encountered frequent climate crises, including extreme weather events and natural disasters. ayanlade et al. (2022) argue that the impacts of climate change are growing more intense and frequent, with the observed effects of climate extremes on sub-saharan africa on the rise. climate change shocks are increasingly common in sub-saharan africa (blekking et al., 2022), for example, the southern african drought (2015–2016), the east african drought (2016–2017), the cape town water crisis (2017–2018), the ethiopian drought (2019), and the ongoing drought in the sahel region. to effectively address the climate crisis, sub-saharan 53 african nations need to act responsibly, sensibly, and sustainably, despite the absence of specific climate change legislation in most of these countries. these nations continue to combat climate change by deploying and using various measures aimed at mitigating and adapting to its effects. they are also advancing the united nations sustainable development goals (sdgs) for 2030. there are several studies investigating the relationship between climate change, migration, and urbanization, particularly how extreme weather and climatic changes promote urbanization (barrios et al., 2006; henderson et al., 2017; dia and beaudelaire, 2021). however, there are limited studies regarding how climate change exacerbates urbanization and poverty (henderson et al., 2017). thus, drawing upon an extensive review of the existing literature, this article aims to examine whether climate-induced rural–urban migration exacerbates the already severe poverty conditions in urban areas of sub-saharan africa. this region, already grappling with extreme poverty, provides a critical context for examining the intersection of climate change, urbanization, and poverty. theoretical background migration, in general, is a complex phenomenon influenced by a variety of driving factors. the motivations behind migration are often context-dependent, including a range of socio-economic, environmental, and political drivers. to explain this complex process of migration, different theoretical perspectives have been applied to explore the rationale behind individuals’ or groups’ decisions to migrate from one geographic area to another, particularly to urban centers. for example, the dual sector theory (lewis model) on urban–rural migration argues that labor migrates from the rural areas considered underemployed, traditional, agricultural, and subsistence sectors to the urban areas perceived as high-productivity, modern industrial sectors (knight, 2021). another example is the harris–todaro model, which assumes that expected differences between rural income and urban income or a higher urban wage lead to rural–urban migration (busso et al., 2021; bhattacharya, 2024). however, these theories of migration focus mainly on economic dimensions of human migration and development. this study adopted the push/pull theory, which suggests that people migrate as a result of several push/pull drivers (al-khudairy, 2024). different researchers adopted the push/pull theory to investigate migration, particularly rural–urban migration (eshetu and beshir, 2017; mlambo, 2018; hoffmann et al., 2019; nguyen, 2019; khalid and urbański, 2021). applied from a socio-economic perspective, this theory emphasizes that people migrate because of push factors (e.g., unemployment, lack of service, and poverty) in rural areas and pull factors (e.g., better employment opportunities, services, and relatively good living conditions) in urban areas. on the other hand, from an environmental change perspective, the push/pull theory stresses that people migrate because of climate change-related push factors from rural areas to urban areas where they perceive better living and economic conditions. in the context of sub-saharan africa, many people migrate from rural underdeveloped areas to urban does climate change transfer poverty from rural to urban areas? 54 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 areas for various reasons, including climate change impacts. this study, therefore, employed the push/pull theory, as it is relevant for exploring how climate-induced migration can transfer poverty, as migrants may not find sufficient opportunities in urban areas as expected, leading to increased urban poverty challenges. methodology this study employed a qualitative research approach, which is acclaimed for its significance in providing deep insights into complex issues and fostering the generation of novel research ideas (maree, 2020). the study used a document review method that involved the systematic analysis of existing documents. this technique is vital in this research to capture rich contextual data in a cost-effective manner (lim, 2024). it relied on secondary data collection to examine the dynamics of climate change and its impact on transferring poverty from rural to urban areas. according to maree (2020), secondary sources are materials that synthesize previously published works, which are integral to conducting a thorough literature review. in line with this, the secondary data was drawn from a wide range of existing literature, including peerreviewed journals, books, and other reputable sources, ensuring a comprehensive analysis of climate change, rural-urban migration, and urban poverty (lim, 2024). data collection involved using databases such as google scholar and science direct, focusing on recent and relevant publications. the study followed qualitative research and document review to explore the complex relationship between climate change and poverty transfer from rural to urban areas. the study provides a comprehensive analysis that contributes to a broader understanding of the impact of climate change on migration by using secondary data from a wide array of credible sources. thus, the application of the approach underscores the importance of secondary qualitative methods in unraveling the climate-induced rural-urban migration factors that influence urbanization and urban poverty challenges. impact of climate change on rural areas global abnormal natural disasters have significantly increased in recent decades. ali and erenstein (2017) explain that between 1980 and 2008 erratic natural hazards moved from an average of 125 per year to more than 500 events. the most common disastrous hazards of global magnitude that impact large numbers of populations, include flooding, drought, heat waves, sea-level rising, and desertification (araos et al., 2016; dumenu and obeng, 2016; alam et al., 2017; ali and erenstein, 2017; sekkat, 2017; lucci et al., 2018; delazeri et al., 2022). unfortunately, episodes of unprecedented hazards are not slowing down and are impacting different spheres of life, including how communities secure food and other sustenance. in other words, climate-related disasters are continuing to be disruptive to poor households in rural areas whose livelihoods are determined by environmental factors. activities such as subsistence and small-scale farming are mostly affected. the observable effects of 55 climate change are becoming more pronounced in terms of variations in temperature, precipitation, and wind. ali and erenstein (2017: 184) note that “approximately 2.5 billion people who derive their livelihood in part or in full from agricultural production systems” are impacted by climate change-related stressors. ironically, the most affected communities, who are in developing countries, contribute less than 10% of the world’s yearly emissions of carbon dioxide, which is blamed for the fast-paced manifestation of climate change (ali and erenstein, 2017). even though these people contribute an insignificant portion of the emissions, their over-reliance on the climate and environmentally inclined activities expose them to the risks associated with climate change. maskrey et al. (2007) anticipate that the poor who reside in agricultural communities in developing nations will be the most impacted by these climate changes. in fact, because of their unfavorable geographic location, scarcity of resources, and increased reliance on climate-sensitive sources of income, most impoverished rural and agricultural populations suffer the most from climate change (world bank, 2009). because of the large number of impoverished people and the large populations that continue to rely mostly on rural economies based on agriculture, most african and south asian countries are especially affected. agriculture is a climate-sensitive sector; thus, rural livelihoods dependent on this sector are more susceptible to the damages of climate change-related hazards (dube and phiri, 2013; husain, 2015; nawrotzki et al., 2015; tacoli et al., 2015; araos et al., 2016; dumenu and obeng, 2016). for example, in the sub-saharan region, temperatures are increasing, precipitation has dropped on average, and rainfall patterns have become less predictable, making rural livelihoods in nations like south africa, malawi, zimbabwe, and zambia more susceptible. in the tropical countries, such as those in south america and the caribbean, livelihoods have been exposed to hazards associated with increases in sea levels, storm activity, and flooding. the issue of infrastructure is the other underlying component contributing to the effects of climate change. because of inadequate infrastructure, such as sea walls, and a lack of funding for the development of technological protection, poor and less-developed nations are disproportionately affected by climate change (tacoli et al., 2015; araos et al., 2016; dumenu and obeng, 2016; alam et al., 2017). for instance, pakistan has experienced significant financial losses resulting from infrastructure and property damage, decreased agricultural productivity, and the high cost of restoring and reconstructing areas devastated by natural disasters (husain, 2015). there is evidence that the detrimental consequences of climate change are threatening to undo the development gains made with transformation since sub-saharan africa’s independence in other regions of the continent. frequent unpredictable weather events, such as floods, droughts, cyclonic storm surges, riverbank erosion, saline intrusion, and water logging, have a negative impact on food, water, health, and energy security, as well as many people’s lives and livelihoods, especially the impoverished (alam et al., 2017). according to ali and erenstein (2017), recent extreme weather occurrences in the region – such as flash floods – does climate change transfer poverty from rural to urban areas? 56 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 are thought to be directly related to climate change and are trapping impoverished communities in nations like pakistan and india. the disappearance of the flora and wildlife, which the majority of the impoverished rely on for the development and sustainability of their livelihoods, threatens their access to food. although many adaptation tactics are used by rural communities, such as crop diversification, taking on non-farm secondary occupations, and expanding farm sizes, not everyone can afford these options because they need significant financial resources. the only way out of rural poverty caused by these difficulties has been to migrate from rural to urban areas. the movement of poor people from rural to urban areas has always been there and is influenced by many factors. however, the most common cause has been the lack of income-earning opportunities in rural areas. dumenu and obeng (2016) argue that the absence of employment prospects for economically active family members is the main reason why most rural households encourage their young energetic members to migrate to urban areas in search of employment to support the households. with agriculture being the most relied on form of employment and livelihoods in rural areas, it makes sense that the volume of those migrating to urban areas has increased (nawrotzki et al., 2015; tacoli et al., 2015). in many developing countries, rural smallscale farming and agricultural livelihoods have been struggling because of climate change. as a result, what remains in agricultural production systems is increasingly centered around large-scale and mechanized farming. these large-scale activities can cope with and adapt to climate change, as they have financial support. the ability of small-scale farmers to respond to climate variability and droughts is hampered by their limited access to technology and credit. in the end, this forces people living in rural areas to migrate to cities in pursuit of employment. with so many people living in urban areas worldwide, it is critical to analyze how climate variability and change will affect urban migration trends. this is a critical area of policy concern. the relationship between climate change, rural–urban migration and the transfer of poverty is at the center of the complex manifestation of climate change and perpetuation of poverty in many developing countries. the link between climate change, rural-urban migration, and poverty transfer in the last ten years or so, the scientific community has been increasingly interested in the connection between population mobility and climate change. the interest has also extended to how these movements manifest into poverty transfer from rural to urban areas. this is undoubtedly not an easy process to understand. delazeri et al. (2022: 2159) state that the “interactions between climate-induced environmental changes and migration are complex and highly context-specific, mediated not only by the type and severity of climate drivers but also by the heterogeneity and vulnerability of affected societies.” currently, poverty and urban concentration are two of the main issues facing many emerging nations. how much climate change contributes to this 57 process, is the question that needs to be asked. according to estimates by the united nations human settlements programme (un-habitat), 881 million people, or 30% of the urban population in developing nations, reside in slums (lucci et al., 2018). this urban concentration, which is constantly expanding in many emerging nations, poses significant hurdles to the process of development. bearing in mind that climate change-related hazards are not slowing down, more people will continue to leave rural areas to search for survival opportunities in urban areas. as a result, although most people in the developing world currently reside in rural areas, the percentage of those in urban areas will soon climb and surpass that of people living in rural areas. delazeri et al. (2022) highlight that the reason the numbers of migrants from rural to urban areas are drastically increasing, is that whereas climate change is a contributor, it is adding to other more common pull and push factors. migration is significantly influenced by several variables, including social, financial, and human capital. these include amenities such as better services. however, in countries like sudan and guinea, “socio-economic factors such as high illiteracy level, heavy dependence on climate-sensitive livelihoods, less diversification of income sources and limited access to climate change information contributed to the high vulnerability of the rural population,” fueling their desire to move to urban areas (dumenu and obeng, 2016: 208). households therefore use migration as a tactic to diversify their sources of income and to insure themselves against the risks associated with climate catastrophes. unfortunately, there have been many challenges associated with the movement of people from rural to urban areas. for instance, high levels of urban concentration have received unwelcome attitudes by officials and other well-off urban residents (dube and phiri, 2013; husain, 2015; nawrotzki et al., 2015; tacoli et al., 2015; araos et al., 2016). different groups “point to claimed negative externalities of geographically concentrated poverty and irreversibility resulting from the costs of migration, which can mean that migrants to urban areas cannot easily return to their former standard of living in rural areas” (ravallion et al., 2007: 667). sekkat (2017) also notes that the concentration in cities leads to traffic jams and environmental deterioration, which lower productivity and raise poverty. although not all immigrants live in poverty, they are frequently held responsible for the rise in urban poverty. other challenges include the inability of the migrants, particularly the poor ones, to find adequate housing and to access services. because most low-income and informal settlements lack basic infrastructure, most of these individuals who live in informal settlements work long hours in low-paying, unstable, and dangerous employment, and are exposed to a variety of environmental risks. lucci et al. (2018: 297) highlight that “whereas urban poverty may be underestimated, it has implications for targeting interventions and allocating resources in the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.” the other dilemma is that poor urban populations, such as those living in informal settlements, are often undercounted, and the indicators used to measure basic deprivations do not provide policymakers with the information they need to formulate and implement policies does climate change transfer poverty from rural to urban areas? 58 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 to tackle urban scarcities (lucci and bhatkal, 2014). to develop suitable policies to address the actual problems encountered by the impoverished urban population, it is crucial to increase awareness and comprehension of deprivation in urban situations. mitigation and adaptation strategies while it is known globally that rural vulnerabilities and poverty are more severe than urban ones, there is evidence of growing levels of helplessness and despair in urban areas. put differently, the notion that most of the extreme poverty in the developing countries occurs in rural areas is an assumption of development policymaking, although this has significantly changed in the last several years (ravallion et al., 2007). in fact, some experts think that urban poverty is becoming a bigger issue than rural poverty. with climate change as one of the reinforcers of these changes, emphasizing the need for assessing the susceptibility of local communities to climate change and highlighting the necessity of area-specific measures and policies to mitigate vulnerability and improve adaptation in both urban and rural regions are crucial (alam et al., 2017; ali and erenstein, 2017; sekkat, 2017; lucci et al., 2018; delazeri et al., 2022). however, what is more important for the climate response strategies to work is to ensure that those affected are involved from the beginning of any intervention. the effectiveness of climate change plans hinges on comprehending the perspectives of all stakeholders, including those in rural and urban areas. these include the policymakers, community members, farmers, and nongovernmental civil society organizations, to mention a few. since climate change adaptation tactics vary over time, from place to place, and even within cultures, a variety of players must be included for any program to be successful (tacoli et al., 2015; araos et al., 2016; dumenu and obeng, 2016; alam et al., 2017). it is not surprising that any development-related interventions, including those targeting the impact of climate change, are likely to be met with challenges. high levels of vulnerability to factors beyond climate change make it difficult to have a specific climate-related response without first addressing other social ills. for instance, in urban areas it is difficult to address climate change without considering urban poverty, particularly in slums or informal settlements, where the majority of the poorest people are found in cities of the developing world. when we conceptualize the poor as being vulnerable, we imply that they are either unable to adapt to the negative impacts of poverty, inequality, and other social problems such as extremes and variability in the climate, or that they are susceptible to them. thus, the intervention to assist such people requires a thorough consideration of “the complex combinations of socio-economic, political and environmental factors that act and interact to influence vulnerability to climate change, the magnitude of the resultant impact and the set of coping or adaptation strategies that are developed in response to the impacts” (dumenu and obeng, 2016: 209). it is evident that these vulnerable populations do not have the necessary adaptive capacity to deal with the effects of climate change (tacoli et al., 2015). however, what is important is to assist 59 them to sufficiently respond to the challenges they are facing. some of the main issues that need urgent attention to succeed, include the approaches to addressing social vulnerability. equivalent to the system’s capacity, social vulnerability is primarily influenced by socio-economic variables such as income distribution, asset ownership, gender, ethnicity, poverty, and source of income. overcoming the challenges associated with social vulnerability is crucial in alleviating the added pressure from climate-related stressors to both urban and rural poor communities. initiatives and programs that acknowledge the many needs of diverse households and individuals, including migrants, and that are inclusive of all low-income groups have a greater chance of successfully eliminating poverty in both urban and rural areas, when considering various locations and circumstances. in urban areas, “policies to address issues related to climate-induced migration must focus on both facilitating migration and assisting vulnerable segments of the population who remain in place, as the less-educated rural population whose livelihoods depend on the agricultural activity” (delazeri et al., 2022: 2159). access to information to facilitate a participatory approach toward these initiatives should be encouraged. strategic communication and an aggressive dissemination effort aimed at addressing both urban and rural populations should be employed to improve access to climate change knowledge. such data should be packaged and disseminated using context-specific methods and technologies. for example, targeted radio broadcasts, local-language pamphlets, and door-to-door awareness visits could be used to maximum effect in rural areas. in urban areas, targeted television broadcasts, social media, and billboards could be used. the creation of information hubs and the use of mobile communications services could potentially enable communities in both urban and rural areas to better meet their needs to access climate change information. this indicates that more financial resources need to be invested in educating communities about climate change and how it affects both rural and urban livelihoods. all these efforts play a major part in enhancing urban and rural climate change adaptation. in contrast to mitigation, which allows for the measurement of greenhouse gas emissions to assess the efficacy of policy measures, adaptation lacks comparable “off-the-shelf ” measurements (araos et al., 2016). it is challenging to determine the impact of these efforts when the targeted communities continue to experience unaddressed poverty. also, the fast-paced impact of climate change on small-scale agriculture and food production that ultimately leads to food insecurity, makes it even more difficult to measure the success of adaptation. whereas commercial and moreestablished farmers are adapting to climate change, their small-scale counterparts are facing lower food production security levels, resulting in higher levels of poverty. the small-scale farmers have low adaptive capacity compared to the commercial and large-scale farmers. the latter can promote local adaptation efforts and so increase the resilience of farming practices by having access to financing and information about suitable strategies. according to alam et al. (2017), for small-scale farmers to does climate change transfer poverty from rural to urban areas? 60 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 succeed, it is critical that they have local-level knowledge of adaptation to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable households against risks and to deal with climate change and variability. the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc, 2007) has centered discussions on developing adaptation solutions based on local knowledge about adaptation. this underscores the importance of developing and integrating adaptation strategies alongside local knowledge and systems that communities have been using for years. government policy responses to the impact of climate change the nexus between climate change and rural–urban migration features a broader socioeconomic dimension of climate impacts. for example, in sub-saharan africa, climate change poses a severe threat to rainfed agricultural systems, which are essential for the livelihoods of a significant portion of the rural population (serdeczny et al., 2017). the disruption caused by climate variability is not only jeopardizing food security but also triggering a notable increase in rural–urban migration. this migration exacerbates urbanization pressures and contributes to rising poverty levels in cities (2017). according to the world bank (2015), in 2015 the sub-saharan african region had the highest proportion of people living below the poverty line in relation to all world regions. this means that as climate-induced pressures drive people from rural areas to urban spaces, cities face increased demands on infrastructure and services. in recognition of the impacts of climate change, governments are adopting a range of climate laws aimed at reducing emissions, promoting renewable energy, and enhancing adaptation measures (akpuokwe et al., 2024). within africa, regions such as north and southern africa, including countries like morocco, cape verde, and ghana, have demonstrated commendable performance in climate policy implementation (epule et al., 2021). the authors argue that these regions’ showcasing of effective integration of climate change considerations suggests that the potential for success is great when strong policy frameworks and governance structures are in place. the postparis agreement era has also seen a wave of legislative reforms across african nations aimed at enhancing climate governance. in this regard, kenya’s climate change act of 2016 and the new south african climate change act 22 of 2024 exemplify efforts to integrate both mitigation and adaptation strategies into national frameworks (rumble, 2019). these legislative measures are designed to establish comprehensive mechanisms for addressing climate impacts, from greenhouse gas reduction to resilience building. effective governance structures and coordinated climate actions are pivotal in translating these legislative efforts into tangible outcomes. regionally, efforts in east africa to develop gender-responsive climate policies illustrate a commitment to inclusive and equitable climate action. however, these policies face significant implementation hurdles, primarily because of inadequate resource allocation and insufficient attention to the root causes of climate challenges. for instance, uganda’s focus on clean energy and kenya’s climate change act, which 61 promote renewable energy, reflect positive steps (namanya, 2016). nonetheless, without robust support and effective execution, these initiatives may fall short of achieving their intended impact. this underscores a critical need for enhancing resource mobilization and addressing systemic issues in policy implementation. likewise, most west african countries have also developed climate policies that comprehensively address various sectors, including agriculture, energy, water resource management, and health (sorgho et al., 2020). these authors further argued that given agriculture’s high vulnerability to climate change, it receives particular emphasis. this sectoral approach reflects a broader recognition of the need for diverse and targeted strategies to mitigate climate impacts and enhance resilience across different facets of society. the integration of climate considerations into multiple sectors is crucial for building a robust and adaptive response to climate challenges. climate change research agenda the climate change condition is paradoxical in africa because the continent contributes minimally to global anthropogenic emissions but faces severe and multifaceted impacts from climate change, including changes in hydroclimate, biodiversity, and wildfire dynamics that are already prevalent across africa (alzu’bi et al., 2022; overland et al., 2022). this discrepancy highlights a significant injustice in the global climate narrative and the impacts are exacerbated by the continent’s limited capacity to respond effectively because of economic constraints and underdeveloped infrastructure (ogega et al., 2022). one of the primary challenges in africa is the limited capacity for climate change research, with less than 0.5% of the mean gross domestic product (gdp) invested in research and development (ogega et al., 2022). strengthening this capacity is crucial, especially in sub-saharan africa, which is particularly vulnerable to climate impacts. adequate resourcing and investment in research infrastructure are essential to build a robust knowledge base and develop effective adaptation and mitigation strategies. other challenges include insufficient use of modern technologies, models, climate change scenarios, and earth observation products (kapuka et al., 2022). funding trends show that there was no significant increase in climate-related research funding for africa from developed countries after 2015, which is concerning, given the growing need for mitigation research to support a low-carbon, climate-resilient future (overland et al., 2022). however, as africa’s population, economy, and energy consumption grow, there is an urgent need for research that focuses on mitigation strategies alongside adaptation, particularly to investigate the nexus between climate crisis, migration, and urbanization in the context of sub-saharan africa. nonetheless, the lack of funding undermines the continent’s ability to contribute to and benefit from global climate solutions. a wide range of climate change research has been conducted in different parts of africa in key thematic areas, including equitable urban transitions, the resilience of smallholder farmers, and the management of hydroclimate extremes (al-zu’bi et does climate change transfer poverty from rural to urban areas? 62 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 al., 2022). there is also a focus on just energy transitions, the intersection of climate with diversity and ecosystem services, and health impacts of aerosol mitigation (overland et al., 2022). this diversity in research topics reflects the multifaceted nature of climate impacts in africa, necessitating an inclusive approach to climate research that encompasses environmental, social, and economic dimensions. further research is needed in terms of the extent to which climate change policies and strategies integrate gender issues, including promoting gender mainstreaming and budgeting in the context of rural–urban migration (ampaire et al., 2020). namanya (2016) also points out that detailed analysis is needed to provide deeper insight on the relevance and effectiveness of climate change policy and legal frameworks in energy, agriculture, infrastructure, and water resource management. furthermore, sorgho et al. (2020) stress that evaluating the implementation of climate change action in individual countries is paramount. conclusion this article demonstrates that climate impacts livelihoods in rural areas, prompting rural–urban migration. climate change hurts agricultural outputs, rural jobs and income, and subsistence living, compelling people to move to towns and cities. the primary drivers and patterns of migration from rural to urban areas because of climate change are diverse, and contextual. broadly, the main reasons why people move from rural areas include: lack of income-earning opportunities; less diversification of income and livelihoods; resource scarcity; higher urban incomes; and access to basic services in urban areas. however, the influx of rural migrants as a result of climate change affects poverty levels and socio-economic conditions in urban areas. the expected opportunities are not always available in urban areas, and such migration contributes to rapid urbanization, causing challenges and pressure on housing, service delivery, and the mushrooming of informal illegal settlements. to address the problem of climate change, governments are adopting different climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, including laws and fiscal measures, to reduce emissions. furthermore, in view of supporting government responses, research in climate change mitigation should be enhanced in sub-saharan africa through strengthening capacity and resource allocations. 63 references akpuokwe, c.u., adeniyi, a.o., bakare, s.s. and eneh, n.e. 2024. legislative responses to climate change: a global review of policies and their effectiveness. international journal of applied research in social sciences, 6(3): 225-239. alam, g.m.m., alam, k. and mushtaq, s. 2017. climate change perceptions and local adaptation strategies of hazard-prone rural households in bangladesh. climate risk management, 7: 52-63. ali, a. and erenstein, o. 2017. assessing farmer use of climate change adaptation practices and impacts on food security and poverty in pakistan. climate risk management, 16: 183-194. al-khudairy, s.i. 2024. theories of migration: sociological and conceptual dilemmas. european journal of sustainable development, 13(1): 31-31. al-zu’bi, m., dejene, s.w., hounkpè, j., kupika, o.l., lwasa, s., mbenge, m., mwongera, c., ouedraogo, n.s. and touré, n.e. 2022. african perspectives on climate change research. nature climate change, 12(12): 1078-1084. ampaire, e.l., acosta, m., huyer, s., kigonya, r., muchunguzi, p., muna, r. and jassogne, l. 2020. gender in climate change, agriculture, and natural resource policies: insights from east africa. climatic change, 158(1): 43-60. araos, m., berrang-ford, l., ford, j.d., austin, s.e., biesbroek, b. and lesnikowski, a. 2016. climate change adaptation planning in large cities: a systematic global assessment. environmental science and policy, 66: 375-382. ayanlade, a., oluwaranti, a., ayanlade, o.s., borderon, m., sterly, h., sakdapolrak, p., jegede, m.o, weldemariam, l.f. and ayinde, a.f.o. 2022. extreme climate events in sub-saharan africa: a call for improving agricultural technology transfer to enhance adaptive capacity. climate services, 27: 100311. barrios, s., bertinelli, l. and strobl, e. 2006. climatic change and rural–urban migration: the case of sub-saharan africa. journal of urban economics, 60(3): 357-371. bawakyillenuo, s., olweny, m., anderson, m. and borchers, m. 2018. sustainable energy transitions in sub-saharan african cities: the role of local government. in droege, p. 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press. tacoli, c., mcgranahan, g. and satterthwaite, d. 2015. urbanisation, rural–urban migration and urban poverty. london: international institute for environment and development. world bank. 2009. south asia: shared views on development and climate change. washington, dc: world bank, south asia region, sustainable development department. world bank. 2015. regional dashboard: poverty and equity – sub-saharan africa. available at: http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/region/ssa. accessed on 18 july 2024. 110 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 strengthened or sidelined? an evaluation of pledges to eradicate statelessness in the southern african development community sky kruger1 and shazia sader2 received 20 march 2025 / accepted 18 july 2025 / published 27 august 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v11i2.2765 abstract since 2018, there has been a significant mobilization of developmental funding mechanisms and efforts to facilitate greater burden-sharing among refugee-hosting states and address protracted displacement. the global compact on refugees (gcr) of 2018, seeks to harness this developmental approach – in particular, multi-stakeholder participation and a system of pledge-making – for the benefit of refugees and the communities that host them. multi-stakeholder participation and pledge-making are common tools of a developmental approach to forced displacement more broadly, as well as statelessness, with the pledging system aiming to galvanize cross-sectoral collaboration, facilitate more predictable funding and provide a mechanism for the tracking of progress. yet this system is still nascent and it remains unclear whether the long-term progress its enabling framework envisions is currently unfolding. this paper assesses whether the pledging system, as an operationalizing mechanism of the gcr and its framework, has contributed toward the efforts to eradicate statelessness in the southern african development community (sadc). statelessness in the sadc – as is the case globally – remains a significant issue and an obstacle to accessing basic services and rights. the true scale of statelessness has consistently been difficult to gauge due to the lack of data collection on statelessness by most countries. while states in the region have taken steps to eradicate statelessness, the role that the pledging system plays in this endeavor has received little attention. the pledging system may be able to facilitate multi-stakeholder participation where there is already an impetus, but it is unclear whether it can address the systemic issues, such as discrimination, that underpin statelessness. further, the pledging system is still in the early stages of configuring measures for transparency and accountability. keywords: statelessness, global compact on refugees, burden-sharing, southern africa 1 research assistant, refugee rights unit, university of cape town, cape town, south africa. corresponding author.  sky.kruger@uct.ac.za 2 supervising attorney, refugee rights unit, university of cape town, cape town, south africa. 111 introduction the 2018 global compact on refugees (hereafter “gcr”) (unhcr, 2018) is a voluntarist and non-binding commitment by various stakeholders – state and nonstate – to establish and operationalize a collective framework for burden-sharing. appearing in no substantive provision of the 1951 united nations convention relating to the status of refugees (hereafter “un refugee convention”), burdensharing has remained a lacuna in the international refugee protection framework. states in the global south host the vast majority of refugees with middleto lowincome countries bearing most of the load while the global north has persistently engaged in efforts to deter those seeking asylum and circumvent their obligations. the gcr is an attempt to address these imbalances by providing a platform for, among other things, various stakeholders to pledge assistance to affected populations. questions exist as to whether this nascent project can make substantial progress toward burden-sharing. while the gcr is focused on refugees, other displaced communities and stateless persons are and can be included within its mandate. a person is stateless if they are not considered a national by any state under the operation of its laws, as per article 1(1) of the 1954 convention. without the vital link between an individual and their state, a person cannot access basic rights and services that they need to live a normal life. stateless persons are largely left unprotected and unnoticed. in the southern african development community (hereafter “sadc”) – consistent with a more global pattern – there is insufficient data on the number of stateless persons. this makes it difficult for states to adequately design policy and improve infrastructure to include stateless persons. there have been several encouraging improvements in the region to eradicate statelessness; however, these rely on participation across spheres of government and significant resources. this paper explores to what degree the gcr and its pledging system have been able to contribute to the adoption of measures to eradicate statelessness in the sadc region. central to the gcr and the pledging system is a developmental approach – long-term funding directed at expanding national and local infrastructure to include non-nationals and to offer greater opportunities for self-reliance. to that end, the gcr has facilitated or accompanied several stateless-specific events that used the pledging system and functions against the backdrop of a larger, global effort to eradicate statelessness. the focal point of this effort is the global alliance to end statelessness launched in 2024 as the successor of the decade-long ibelong campaign. by embracing a multi-stakeholder approach, the pledging system may be able to strengthen state adherence to human rights norms through normative standards (arnold-fernández, 2023: 8). however, the pledging system must still navigate its voluntarist and non-binding nature among rising levels of protracted displacement and statelessness. the discussion is divided into three parts. part i reflects on the global compact by outlining its structure, aims and objectives, the approach it has taken, and the role of the pledges. eradicating statelessness, while not a major feature of the gcr, has an evaluation of pledges to eradicate statelessness in the sadc 112 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 nonetheless been accompanied by the system of pledge-making and monitoring that the gcr’s framework uses. part ii provides an overview and analysis of the situation of statelessness in the sadc region, providing a discussion of the regional frameworks that aim to address statelessness. there are several systemic issues that cause and exacerbate statelessness, such as gender discrimination, that the pledging system has to contend with. the focus of part iii is on examining the steps taken toward addressing statelessness in the sadc region. part iii shows that the pledging system has contributed to several measures taken to end statelessness, although there are still issues with low implementation and a lack of multi-stakeholder effort. it is also argued that, while the pledges play a role in sustaining momentum and providing an opportunity for review, they are often hamstrung by the slow processes of legislative reform, accession to binding instruments, and nationwide documentation drives. methodology this paper is based on a literature review of the existing publications on the gcr and the development turn in forced displacement responses. it engages with existing literature on statelessness in the sadc region. the paper contributes to an understanding of the interactions between the global compact and developmental funding, on the one hand and statelessness in the southern african region, on the other. central to this is an analysis of the pledging system, which is currently not well traversed in the literature. this paper engages with reports and articles that describe the early steps taken to address statelessness to understand what role, if any, the pledging system plays in the region. measuring the material impacts of developmental funding and the pledges requires long-term systemic analysis, which is not undertaken by this paper. part i the global compact on refugees, development, and statelessness the global distribution of refugees displays significant imbalances among host nations, as 69% of refugees originate from just five countries – venezuela, syria, afghanistan, ukraine, south sudan – four of which are in the global south (unhcr global trends, 2025). while imbalances may, to some extent, be inevitable in the short term, given that most refugees flee to neighboring countries, the global south has consistently hosted the vast majority of refugees, estimated at 85% (schewel and debray, 2023). mitigating these distributional imbalances is the aim of burden-sharing, which describes international cooperation to lessen the immediate burdens on host nations of large refugee flows. along with this geographical element of burden-sharing, there is also a temporal element, as refugee situations are increasingly protracted. humanitarian funding has been stretched thin in this context, as it provides mostly short-term crisis-oriented responses. the international refugee framework has long 113 recognized this and has sought to leverage developmental funding mechanisms and programs that allow more long-term and cross-sector funding (miller, 2019). given that forced displacement more generally has reached unprecedented levels and is also increasingly protracted, international institutions have embraced and encouraged a humanitarian-developmental nexus in responding to the challenges of forced displacement. developmental approaches emphasize expanding local and national infrastructure and creating more socio-economic opportunities for those living in protracted displacement (kelley, 2022). in response to these major challenges, both equitable burden-sharing and more predictable funding are central principles of the gcr. adopted in 2018 by 193 states, the gcr is a non-binding commitment to establish and operationalize a collective framework for burden-sharing. the absence of such a framework has been described as the “perennial gap” in international refugee protection, existing since the adoption of the un refugee convention (türk, 2018; triggs and wall, 2020). the gcr’s main goals are fourfold: to ease the pressures on host countries; to enhance refugee self-reliance; to expand access to third-country solutions; and to support conditions in countries of origin for return in safety and dignity (unhcr, 2018). the gcr also envisages the development of resettlement places and complementary pathways for admission to third countries and other actions that states can take at the national level in support of the objectives of the gcr. in addition to states, the gcr engages with a wide range of actors, such as international and regional organizations, multilateral development banks, as well as those that have traditionally been marginalized in global multilateral processes, such as civil society organizations (csos), municipalities, the private sector, and refugees themselves. to operationalize this participation, stakeholders make pledges – a description of an issue that a pledge maker has identified, a statement of intent to address this issue, and a commitment of resources thereto. pledge-making and multi-stakeholder participation are not in and of themselves new initiatives, yet the gcr is combining and consolidating them in ways that may hold promise. additionally, the displacement–development framework has mobilized vast amounts of funding through international institutions. this includes $2 billion in loans and grants to low-income refugee-hosting states through the world bank group’s international development association refugee sub-window, hundreds of millions of dollars committed to development projects through regional development banks and an uptake in initiatives and financing from the private sector (miller, 2019; kelley, 2022). these amounts are undoubtedly significant, as is their potential to expand local infrastructure and foster more opportunities for forcibly displaced persons and their host nations, yet this may allow states in the global north to fund projects in the global south without dismantling their policies built on deterrence and restriction (chimni, 2018). further, hathaway (2018) argues that the gcr’s non-binding nature and lack of enforcement leave it overly procedural and aspirational and may keep intact the significant imbalances that it supposedly an evaluation of pledges to eradicate statelessness in the sadc 114 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 seeks to address. while the gcr is non-binding, it exists within an institutional framework of international cooperation and political commitments that align with developmental goals (gilbert, 2019). the gcr is one component of a larger, multilateral and coordinated effort toward addressing protracted and large-scale refugee situations and forced displacement. several large-scale movements of refugees and migrants in 2014 and 2015 highlighted the inadequacies of the international protection framework as receiving states, mostly in the global north, responded with deterrence and restriction. forced displacement was growing in scope and severity in many regions and the majority of receiving states were in the developing south, as mentioned above, yet it was the influx of syrian refugees into europe – labeled as a “refugee crisis” by european states – that precipitated several convocations by the united nations (un) general assembly (ferris and donato, 2020). the mandate of these convocations was to develop a framework for equitable and predictable funding as well as greater burden-sharing. this led to the 2016 new york declaration for refugees and migrants, the main substantive outcome of which was the codification of the comprehensive refugee response framework (crrf). the crrf is designed to realize the goals of equitable and predictable funding, self-reliance, and multi-stakeholder participation that are elements of a developmental approach toward forced displacement. beginning in 2017, the crrf and its humanitarian–developmental approach was used in various pilot projects in 15 states and the lessons learned therein would inform the gcr. this larger effort therefore represents a network of compacts, initiatives, funding mechanisms, and other innovations across various sectors geared toward bolstering a developmental response to forced displacement as well as statelessness. in addition to the gcr, out of the new york declaration came the global compact on safe, orderly and regular migration (hereafter “gcsorm”) with its own mandate. measures to reduce statelessness feature in the gcsorm, for example, the harmonization of travel documents, ensuring gender equality in the conferral of nationality to children, increasing birth registration, and providing nationality to children born in another state’s territory, especially where a child would otherwise be stateless (un, 2018). the crrf commits to working toward immediate birth registration of refugee children upon reception and assisting in ensuring access to marriage, death, and birth certificates and other documentation. it also calls for the collection of data on both displaced populations and the implementation of the framework itself to allow not only for a more accurate picture of statelessness but to inform and refine policy. there is currently no compact dedicated to statelessness, although the existing framework does contain provisions on the eradication thereof. the gcr encourages the establishment of a global network of universities, academic alliances, and research institutions on “refugees, other forced displacement and statelessness issues” working toward “research, training and scholarship opportunities” in line with the goals of the gcr (unhcr, 2018). the gcr also calls for the establishment 115 of and referral to statelessness status determination procedures as well as the capacity building of national civil registries to prevent the risks of statelessness “including through digital technology and the provision of mobile services, subject to full respect for data protection and privacy principles” (unhcr, 2018). the gcr and crrf acknowledge that statelessness is both a cause and consequence of refugee movements and encourage states to accede to the 1954 un convention relating to the status of stateless persons (hereafter “1954 stateless convention”) and the 1961 un convention on the reduction of statelessness (hereafter “1961 stateless convention”). further, it encourages states, the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), and other stakeholders to contribute resources and expertise to support the sharing of “good, gender-sensitive practices for the prevention and reduction of statelessness” and the development of national, regional, and international action plans to end statelessness (unhcr, 2018). the pledging system the developmental approach, as sketched above, contains certain common tools – multi-stakeholder participation, local and national infrastructural expansion and an emphasis on self-reliance – that are increasingly unfolding in the institutional response to forced displacement. included in this set of tools, is the system of pledgemaking. pledges can take the form of financial, material, or technical assistance. additionally, pledges may provide for resettlement places, complementary pathways for admission to third countries, and “other actions that states have elected to take at the national level in support of the objectives of the global compact” (unhcr, 2018). various stakeholders, individually and in cooperation, such as states, regional intergovernmental organizations, multilateral development banks, education institutions, csos, faith-based actors, the private sector, and others make pledges of assistance to refugees and hosting communities. to monitor the progress of these pledges and the gcr as a whole, the compact established a global refugee forum that takes place in geneva every four years for un member states and relevant stakeholders to announce pledges made, take stock of past pledges and consider opportunities and challenges for burden-sharing. the first and second of these took place in 2019 and 2023, respectively. additionally, the gcr provides for a biennial meeting of high-level officials in between the forums as a means of “mid-term review.” these make it possible for the pledging system to be used as an indicator for the success of the gcr (gilbert, 2019). several forums have been convened for the purpose of announcing and stocktaking pledges made toward statelessness. this includes the unhcr’s ministerial intergovernmental event on refugees and stateless persons in 2011 and the highlevel segment on statelessness in 2019, which were held at the midpoint of the ibelong campaign. the 2019 high-level segment was announced in tandem with the gcr to address statelessness and is thus more explicitly part of the gcr’s framework than the 2011 event. the eradication of statelessness thus follows suit an evaluation of pledges to eradicate statelessness in the sadc 116 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 with the gcr by adopting pledging as a core mechanism for the operationalization of multi-stakeholder participation and burden-sharing. the stateless-specific events appear to be ad hoc events rather than quadrennial like the forums, raising concerns as to whether momentum will be maintained. while the gcr initially contributed to greater awareness and global mobilization toward the eradication of statelessness, alexander (2024) argues that this has since waned. she notes, for example, that the burden of global advocacy since the 2019 high-level segment has fallen on civil society who have considerably less resources and reach than the unhcr (alexander, 2024: 139). a further mechanism for stock-taking is the publicly available online dashboard that collects and displays data on the implementation of pledges. as of february 2025, 15.71% of pledges are listed as fulfilled – 522 pledges out of 3,322 – 2.35% are in the planning stage and 30.46% are in progress. the vast majority of pledges – 51.48% – are listed as “n/a,” reflecting pledges where implementation data is not available or has not been reported. the pledging system is still nascent and there remain questions on its efficacy as a whole. pledges often contain broad commitments to improvement but do not specify or quantify the financial or material contributions. some states made pledges that contained funding commitments that had already been made under other initiatives (interaction, 2021: 11). pledges have been made without specifying timeframes, rendering it unclear whether the pledge was describing previous efforts, ongoing efforts, or commitments to future efforts. assessed against the gcr’s main criteria – greater funding and multi-stakeholder participation – pledging has thus far fallen short. of the pledges made at the 2019 forum, only one sixth were financial commitments and 70% were made by the main refugee-hosting countries surrounding venezuela and the democratic republic of the congo (drc). najmah ali notes that “donor countries, like the us and those in the eu, comprised solely 13% of all top crisis-related pledges, failing to show meaningful solidarity with those states hosting the vast majority of the world’s refugees” (ali, 2022). this raises concerns as to whether the pledging system can contribute to measures taken toward eradicating statelessness. the following discussion contextualizes this within the sadc region. part ii statelessness in the southern african development community a stateless person is defined in article 1(1) of the 1954 convention as someone who is not considered a national by any state under the operation of its law. the legal recognition of nationality is a vital link between individual persons and the state to which they belong (mbiyozo, 2019). nevertheless, belonging to a particular state is not always available to all persons on the african continent. the consequences of statelessness are far-reaching, as stateless persons are unable to access socio-economic rights, such as housing, education, employment, and health care. without valid and 117 legal documentation, stateless persons’ freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention is compromised. further, stateless persons face severe psychological impacts, as they are unable to live a normal life (warria and chikadzi, 2022). the very nature of statelessness makes it difficult to assess its scope accurately. on the one hand, the unhcr reported in 2023 that there were 4.4 million stateless persons globally (unhcr global trends, 2023). this figure is heavily caveated, as it is based on data from 95 countries that report data on statelessness, with the unhcr stating that half of all countries do not report any data on statelessness. in 2020, the institute on statelessness and inclusion (hereafter “isi”) published that there were around 15 million persons globally who were stateless (isi, 2020). thus, it is not possible to put an exact number on the stateless population, and any official estimate is likely far less than the true number. data collection is a key concern for the gcr and its larger framework, as discussed earlier, yet this goal is complicated by many of the systemic challenges that cause and exacerbate statelessness. stateless persons within the african continent form part of a vulnerable group of persons who are faced with several forms of human rights abuses. some of the largest estimated stateless populations in the world are found in southern africa with conflict exacerbating already high numbers of forcibly displaced and stateless persons in the drc and mozambique (unhcr global trends, 2023). statelessness in the southern african region is primarily attributed to colonial histories, long-term forced displacement and migration, discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity, religion, and discriminatory gender laws that do not allow women to pass their nationality to their children on the same grounds as men (manby, 2009). further contributing to the issue is the lack of provisions for nomadic and cross-border populations, deficient dual nationality laws, the denial of access to naturalization, provisions with regards to state succession, a lack of access to nationality documentation, abusive withdrawal of citizenship, and poor civil registry systems (manby, 2009). structural discrimination in society is a leading cause of statelessness globally, particularly discriminatory gender laws (manby, 2009; beninger and manjoo, 2023). in several african countries, as is the case in many other countries, direct discrimination is found in patriarchal nationality laws that fail to ensure that women have equal rights in conferring nationality to their children as men. furthermore, an unregistered marriage is likely to result in an unregistered birth. in countries upholding discriminatory nationality laws against women and where women are barred from conferring their nationality to the child, the lack of a marriage certificate will mean that the child may become stateless. numerous scholars have brought attention to the lack of literature regarding gender and statelessness, which is troubling, as gender discrimination is the main cause of statelessness (beninger and manjoo, 2023). there have, nonetheless, been judicial challenges to discriminatory nationality laws. in botswana, the court of appeal presided over a milestone judgment in attorney-general v. dow (1992) where it approved a woman’s right to pass on her citizenship to her children and spouse. an evaluation of pledges to eradicate statelessness in the sadc 118 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 statelessness also results from the arbitrary deprivation and denial of nationality, as is the case when a person who has been deprived of their nationality is not eligible to acquire another nationality or does not possess another nationality (manby, 2009). in the case of modise v. botswana (1997), the african commission on human and peoples’ rights (hereafter “achpr”) held that article 5 of the african charter – which guarantees the right to dignity and recognition of legal status – finds application in matters where the government deprived persons of their nationality, which results in them being stateless. the achpr reinforced this decision in the case of amnesty international v. zambia (2000). additionally, statelessness can result from processes of political restructuring, particularly those that involve racist or xenophobic campaigns by states. in côte d’ivoire, persons eligible for ivorian citizenship who had migrated to côte d’ivoire had their right to citizenship revoked as a part of the government’s campaign to achieve ethnic purity (au, 2015). decolonization has also strongly influenced many people's nationality and is responsible for statelessness or leaving persons with a disputed claim to citizenship in various parts of the world. many new nations were created when states gained independence from colonial empires. during the process of enacting new legal frameworks, governments had the liberty of determining who they considered as citizens. in the process, certain groups were privileged more than others depending on religious, ethnic, or historical considerations. a lack of provisions for nomadic and cross-border populations whose identities did not fall squarely within the new borders has also led to statelessness (mbiyozo, 2022). statelessness can occur through legal gaps in citizenship laws. for example, where no provision is made for foundlings or poor civil registry systems that lead to a lack of birth registration (manby, 2009). in 2011, the african committee of experts on the rights and welfare of the child (hereafter “acerwc”) made a groundbreaking decision when the kenyan government’s refusal to grant citizenship to children of nubian descent was challenged. in obo children of nubian descent in kenya v. kenya (2011), it was argued that this denial resulted in the gross violation of their human rights and a violation of article 6 of the african children’s charter. since independence, nubian communities had become stateless and nubian children were deprived of the right to nationality and the documentation that enabled access to education and health care. the acerwc found that this discrimination was in violation of “african human rights standards” and it used a human rights approach to address the discrimination caused by statelessness. addressing the major root causes of statelessness entails states and regional bodies playing a central role in legislative, policy, and other reforms. regional framework on nationality in africa the current african framework on the right to nationality is quite limiting. the 1986 african charter on human and peoples’ rights (hereafter “african charter”) is silent on the right to a nationality, but it makes provision for procedural rights in 119 circumstances where critical rights are violated. however, article 5 of the african charter makes provision for the right to the recognition of one’s legal status. article 6 of the 1999 african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (hereafter “african children’s charter”) provides for the right to be registered immediately after birth, asserts that every child has the right to a nationality, and underscore that states have the responsibility to ensure that children born within their territory, who are not granted the nationality of another state, acquire nationality. the african children’s charter, however, does not make provision for the right to a nationality of origin. the 2005 protocol to the african charter on the rights of women in africa (hereafter “protocol on the rights of women”), in article 6(g)-(h), guarantees both men’s and women’s rights to acquire the nationality of their partner and transmit it to their children. therefore, the protocol on the rights of women reinforces that african women have the right to gain a nationality and to acquire the nationality of their husbands and supplements the degree of protection. in 2013, the achpr adopted a resolution on the right to a nationality, which delegated the special rapporteur on the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons to undertake a study on nationality laws in africa. the “right to nationality in africa” was published in 2014 (au, 2014). the findings of the study reiterated the urgent need to develop a further protocol to the african charter to address the various issues of nationality and statelessness in africa. on 17 february 2024, almost 10 years later, the protocol to the african charter on human and peoples’ rights relating to the specific aspects of the right to a nationality and the eradication of statelessness in africa (hereafter “nationality and statelessness protocol”) was adopted by the achpr in addis ababa, ethiopia. the adoption of this protocol was truly revolutionary for the african continent and a step in the right direction to end statelessness in africa. this protocol is now a binding document, and the objectives of the protocol are laid out in article 2: promote, protect and ensure respect for the right to a nationality in africa; ensure that statelessness in africa is prevented and eradicated; determine the general principles for the prevention, the elimination of the risk of statelessness and eradication of statelessness in africa; and promote the aspirations of the african people for an african citizenship. state parties to the african charter are encouraged to sign and ratify the nationality and statelessness protocol to facilitate its entry into force. beyond regional efforts, the eradication of statelessness receives institutional support through global initiatives. international efforts to eradicate statelessness in the last 10 years, there have been great efforts to eradicate statelessness. the unhcr’s global action campaign to eradicate statelessness, known as the ibelong campaign and that ran from 2014 to 2024, brought to light the issue of statelessness. many of the sadc countries have taken steps to amend the gaps in their legislation an evaluation of pledges to eradicate statelessness in the sadc 120 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 and grant stateless persons a nationality. since the end of the campaign, the global alliance to end statelessness was launched on 14 october 2024 at the high-level segment on statelessness in geneva, building on the foundational successes of the ibelong campaign. the 2024 high-level segment on statelessness was held to launch the global alliance to end statelessness and was not used to make or monitor pledges. it is thus not included in the analysis of pledges made toward statelessness in this paper. the global alliance to end statelessness is the latest initiative, with the goal of finding solutions to end statelessness through a multi-stakeholder approach. the global alliance, with the unhcr as its secretariat, brings together a range of actors, such as governments, regional bodies, un agencies, and other essential stakeholders to collaborate, share expertise and good practices, and ensure that the rights of stateless persons are upheld. the global alliance thus shares certain mechanisms with the gcr, such as a multi-stakeholder approach, which is discussed alongside the pledging system in the next section. part iii pledge-making in the sadc: early analysis the gcr, as discussed above, does not deal extensively with statelessness. it has been supplemented by ad hoc stateless-specific events that used the pledging system. nonetheless, pledges toward ending statelessness have been made at the previous two global refugee forums as well as the high-level segment on statelessness. long-term and systemic analysis of these pledges is required to fully appreciate the extent to which there has been a material impact on ending statelessness in the region. the following section offers a step toward this by evaluating the role that the gcr and the pledging system played in the measures adopted thus far. it will be shown that states are currently playing the most significant role in offering pledges to address statelessness. while this is encouraging, as part ii showed, statelessness often hinges on discriminatory laws; this also reveals a potential lack of multi-stakeholder collaboration. part ii also discussed some of the major developments toward the goal of eradicating statelessness in the sadc region that are not explicitly connected to pledging. part iii adds to this discussion to effectively analyze the role of the gcr’s framework in addressing statelessness. in 2011, the unhcr held a ministerial intergovernmental event on refugees and stateless persons that used pledge-making. a total of 62 states and the african union (au) made stateless-related pledges. south africa and tanzania pledged to become state parties to both statelessness conventions, while madagascar and zambia pledged to become parties to the 1961 statelessness convention (unhcr, 2011). mozambique noted that it was in the advanced stages of acceding to both conventions. mozambique, zambia, namibia, and the drc pledged to conduct studies and awareness campaigns on statelessness, and the latter two countries pledged to undertake civil registration projects (unhcr, 2011). before the 2019 121 high-level segment, 10 of the 16 sadc countries3 held a preparatory meeting where they reflected on achievements thus far. mozambique noted that it had become a state party to both conventions and namibia reported that it had improved birth registration and increased the number of registration points – its birth registration rate went from 67% in 2011 to 88% in 2019 (unhcr, 2019). states also outlined pledges that would eventually be made at the 2019 high-level segment, some with amendments or alterations. at the 2019 high-level segment, held at the midpoint of the ibelong campaign, 11 southern african states made a total of 46 pledges toward eradicating statelessness. this included the non-sadc republic of congo. a treaty-signing event was held where angola acceded to both statelessness conventions. most pledges were aimed at ensuring that no child is born stateless, granting protection status to stateless migrants and facilitating their naturalization, birth registration, acceding to statelessness conventions, and the improvement of qualitative and quantitative data on stateless populations. these reflect actions 2, 6, 7, 9, and 10, respectively, of the global action plan to end statelessness. five of the 21 csos that made pledges were based in southern africa (unhcr, 2020: 18). these kinds of regular forums can serve an important accountability function, as they provide intervals for which states can use as timelines. they can, in addition, catalyze legal commitments and policy changes. between the global refugee forums, the 2011 event and the 2019 high-level segment, 15 of the 16 sadc countries had submitted pledges related to statelessness. seychelles has not made statelessness-related pledges. mauritius made pledges at the preparatory meeting only and reported on progress made thereto. the highest number of state pledges dealt with accession to the statelessness conventions, data collection, and strengthening birth registration. in addition, states committed to: engaging in law reform; raising awareness and sensitization; establishing statelessness determination procedures; facilitating access to naturalization; and developing a national action plan to end statelessness. the gcr’s online dashboard shows that 51 pledges dealing with statelessness have been made by the southern african region, 30 of which were by states. this does not include pledges made to the southern african region from outside the region. the 2019 high-level segment pledges are not included on the dashboard; as a result, the total number of pledges made is closer to 100. pledge implementation thus far in the region has shown some progress toward the eradication of statelessness through legislative reform and documentation drives. in botswana, legislative reform has been introduced to amend the refugee (recognition and control) act to allow for the issuance of identity cards to refugees and members of their families, in pursuance of its pledge made at the 2019 forum. in 2021, botswana drafted a national action plan and has been in discussion with the unhcr to sign a memorandum of understanding on statelessness. mozambique 3 botswana, comoros, drc, madagascar, seychelles, and tanzania did not participate. an evaluation of pledges to eradicate statelessness in the sadc 122 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 has undertaken various exercises to provide documentation, birth registration, and national ids in collaboration with the unhcr and the catholic university of mozambique – an example of effective multi-stakeholder collaboration. since 2021, more than 45,000 identity documents and birth certificates have been issued to both those displaced by ongoing conflict and host communities. additionally, several projects have been launched in mozambique, with funding and infrastructure from the vodafone foundation and the instant network school, to expand access to digital education services for refugees. the following section thematizes the pledges made by sadc states toward addressing statelessness at the forums and the 2019 high-level segment and highlights examples of pledge implementation. there is still a lack of reliable implementation data on the pledges made at the 2023 forum and on the long-term impacts of the 2019 pledges; thus, more research is required. emphasis in this section is placed on pledges that have been fully or partially implemented, unless mentioned otherwise, as this reflects this paper’s aim. as mentioned below, most pledges have not been implemented; therefore, this is not a comprehensive report of all of the pledges made. thematic priorities of pledges develop and strengthen systems for the identification and protection of stateless migrants most stateless persons remain in the country of their birth; however, some move and become migrants or refugees. the majority of persons are not recognized as stateless; resultantly, they are faced with serious human rights violations due to their lack of legal status. in terms of the 1954 statelessness convention, states should establish procedures to determine who is stateless. in this way, stateless migrants will be able to acquire legal status in the country in which they find themselves and be able to enjoy basic human rights. statelessness determination procedures are recommended for stateless persons in migratory situations. it is not a suitable procedure for situations with large-scale in situ stateless populations. in terms of a long-term solution, states are encouraged to facilitate the naturalization of recognized stateless persons. zambia, one of the crrf pilot countries, in implementing its pledge at the 2019 high-level segment toward greater access to birth registration and certification for persons born in the territory, has undertaken exercises to register births and issue birth certificates and refugee documents at the mohebi, mantapala and mayukwayukwa refugee settlements. this involved the introduction of a new system to register and issue birth certificates on the spot (unhcr, 2022). in service of its pledge at the 2019 high-level segment, the drc registered 1,278 children, including 609 girls and 669 boys, of whom 512 were internally displaced children, 457 were repatriated children, and 309 were children from host communities (unhcr, 2024). eswatini committed to preventing and eradicating statelessness by conducting a 123 nationwide “mop-up” exercise to register and issue nationality documentation to those entitled to it to ensure legal identity and facilitate inclusion by 2022. further, this would assist in identifying stateless people and those at risk of statelessness and consider legal, policy, and administrative reforms that will address and end the statelessness situation by 2024. eswatini launched its national “mopping-up” exercise as well as regional exercises in shiselweni and lubombo. these exercises are ongoing and over a thousand people have been issued with documents. introduce provisions in the nationality law to prevent statelessness and ensure effective implementation of these safeguards the majority of stateless persons have not held a nationality since birth; this often occurs due to the gaps in states’ nationality laws. each country has its own laws that make provisions for the acquisition or withdrawal of a nationality. however, if the laws are deficient regarding the right to a nationality, persons can be barred and left stateless. the 1961 statelessness convention stipulates three crucial protections that states are required to introduce in their nationality laws to prevent childhood statelessness. these are, to grant nationality to children: born on the territory if they would otherwise be stateless; born abroad to nationals if they would otherwise be stateless; and found on the territory to unknown parentage, known as “foundlings.” a number of states are not signatories to the 1961 convention and those states that have ratified the 1961 convention have not yet included these safeguards in their nationality laws. lesotho pledged to enact by 2020 the bill on nationality that grants nationality to children of unknown origin found in its territory and provides for a safeguard to grant nationality to children born on the territory who would otherwise be stateless, although this has not yet occurred. however, in 2018, lesotho enacted constitutional amendments that allow for equality in the conferral of nationality on spouses (eighth amendment to the constitution act, 2018: section 40). improve quantitative data on stateless populations only a handful of countries report on quantitative data on stateless populations, while some of the countries globally with a large suspected stateless population do not report on statelessness at all. there are several ways how statistics and information on the situation of stateless populations can be gathered, using a range of methods, including analyses of civil registration data, population censuses, and targeted surveys and studies. the expert group on refugee, idp and statelessness statistics developed the international recommendations on statelessness statistics (hereafter “iross”), which was submitted to and unanimously endorsed by the un statistical commission in march 2023. iross seeks to improve the quality of data on statelessness by providing guidance on the production, coordination, and dissemination of stateless-related statistics. in late 2022, commissioned and assisted by the unhcr, malawi validated and published a national study on statelessness an evaluation of pledges to eradicate statelessness in the sadc 124 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 and the risks of statelessness, which it pledged to do in 2019. although angola made no explicit pledge to do so, released its study on statelessness and risks of statelessness in 2022 (lungu, 2022). national surveys of this sort are crucial to a state’s response and action plan toward statelessness to first establish the scope of the problem. several countries in the sadc region still require complete and comprehensive national surveys of this sort; south africa’s survey is set to be completed in 2027, while zimbabwe’s survey still requires field research. eswatini’s national study, which had been earmarked for completion in 2021, required interviews with focus groups, which were hampered by covid-19 restrictions and internal unrest. while the preliminary report was discussed at a validation workshop, it was decided that more interviews were to be conducted. these national studies are often reliant on unhcr funding for completion. where national surveys have not yet been completed, any potential plans to address statelessness are thwarted, as states do not have accurate data upon which to build their policies. strengthen institutional coordination on statelessness states are encouraged to develop a national action plan to end statelessness, which includes the identification and protection of stateless persons, as well as the prevention and reduction of statelessness. a national action plan would highlight the key objectives, activities, and actors responsible for implementation. to this end, national inter-ministerial taskforces or working groups on statelessness are established to facilitate coordination across ministries and levels of government. namibia pledged to adopt a national action plan to end statelessness by june 2020. a national committee on statelessness (ncs) comprising stakeholders; offices, ministries and agencies (omas); un agencies; and non-governmental organizations (ngos) was established to spearhead the implementation of the proposed plan. malawi adopted a national action plan on the eradication of statelessness in 2023, supported by the unhcr, to implement various actions of the global action plan to end statelessness. in the same year, zambia updated and adopted its national action plan to end statelessness, which, among other things, recommends amendments to the citizenship act no. 33 of 2016 and the national registration act chapter 126, to establish a statelessness determination procedure and raise the maximum age by which foundlings would be presumed to have zambian nationality. progress beyond pledging while one of the gcr’s main forms of operationalization is the pledging system, it exists within a larger framework of events, campaigns, multi-stakeholder participation, and funding mobilization. global and sustained campaigns to eradicate statelessness, such as the global alliance, function with their own mandate and institutional structure that have significant overlaps with other initiatives like the 125 gcr. efforts made toward the eradication of statelessness are often manifestations of pre-existing national, regional, or international projects that may or may not be expressed through a pledge. mauritius, for example, reported at the preparatory meeting in 2019 that 99.7% of children were registered at birth, and that all cases of late birth registration were referred to and solved by the civil status office and the ministry of gender equality, child development and family welfare. many of the forum pledges made in the region were by the un country team (unct), who committed to support or continue supporting governments. their work is facilitatory, and progress often reflects ongoing efforts and not necessarily novel initiatives made through the pledging system. this facilitatory relationship shows that there is collaboration between states and development actors – a key aim of the gcr. yet in the case of statelessness, states must maintain a central role in addressing systemic exclusion. the unct in angola helped launch a registration and documentation exercise in 2023 to pave the way for greater access to services as well as social and economic integration. in luanda, 1,041 refugees with expired documentation had been re-registered (unct, 2023: 25). further, authorities announced that all asylum seekers processed before 2015 would be automatically recognized. beginning in 2020, legislative reform was introduced to allow the civil registration and issuance of id cards to about 4 million unregistered individuals who hold a voter’s card and appear in the electoral roll (offerman, 2022: 9). states engage in regular legislative reform to address gaps in their nationality laws that have the effect of reducing statelessness. while reform such as this is situated within the larger global and regional efforts to eradicate statelessness and institutionalize multi-stakeholder participation, the pledging system is not necessarily a sine qua non for this reform. a major cause of statelessness is discriminatory nationality laws that result in direct or indirect exclusion. while not in line with any specific pledge, madagascar in 2019 removed gender discrimination from its nationality law and allowed women to confer nationality on their children on an equal basis with men. gender discrimination in the conferral of nationality is one of the leading causes of statelessness and takes concerted legislative effort to alleviate. however, as the pledging system and the gcr are voluntarist, the system’s ability to galvanize legislative and policy reform that is not already in progress may be muted. the pledging system is designed for the making and monitoring of pledges and other progress. as pledging and the gcr are voluntary, there is no institutional form of accountability or enforcement. pledges can thus be made and remade at succeeding events, without making any progress. in 2011, zambia pledged to accede to the 1961 statelessness convention, then again in 2019 at the high-level segment and has still not become a state party. the implementation of pledges is often hamstrung by the slow incrementality of bureaucracy and the mercuriality of changing administrations. the vast majority of pledges made toward statelessness in the southern african region are listed as in the planning stage or in progress. arguably, as the gcr is built atop a developmental approach, progress should be measured in the long term. however, an evaluation of pledges to eradicate statelessness in the sadc 126 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 the pledging system is a means to make incremental progress through smaller, achievable deliverables, but the low implementation rate reveals early concerns of unsustainability. the gcr’s dashboard shows that pledge-making spikes in the years of the forums, yet the rate of implementation has remained below 30%. conclusion the degree to which the gcr and the pledging system can make progress in eradicating statelessness is largely a function of how receptive a state is to addressing the issue. states with a pre-existing commitment to enact more inclusive nationality legislation, expand their civil registration systems, and take other steps toward eradicating statelessness may reap great benefits from the pledging system and the momentum of the gcr. however, the pledging system will play a minor role in states that do not have the same commitment or political will. further, the pledging system has no monitoring or accountability authority. moreover, there is no obligation to report on the implementation of pledges, let alone to make pledges. it is evident that the pledging system may be largely facilitatory and unable to galvanize large-scale burden-sharing. the voluntarist nature of pledging also means that the implementation rate of pledges has remained low; yet it is important to note that a developmental approach requires long-term analysis. there remains an urgent need to eradicate statelessness. states in the sadc region are encouraged to adopt stateless-determination legislation and undertake national surveys on statelessness and associated risks to better outline the scope of the problem. these steps require political will but also financial and other resources. addressing statelessness also requires active participation and collaboration from multiple components of government at every level, as well as non-state actors that can contribute the necessary resources. early evidence shows that the pledging system is not adequately securing resources and multi-stakeholder participation for eradicating statelessness in all cases, but there are, nonetheless, some important measures being taken toward this goal. 127 references african committee of experts on the rights and welfare of the child (acerwc), institute for human rights and development in africa and the open society justice initiative (obo children of nubian descent in kenya v. kenya, communication number 002/com/002/2009 of 22 march 2011). 2011. african union (au). 2014. the right to nationality in africa. report by the special rapporteur on the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons. african commission on human and people’s rights, au. https:// achpr.au.int/en/node/892 african union (au). 2015. the right to nationality in africa. african commission on human and peoples’ rights, au. https://achpr.au.int/en/news/ statements/2015-02-22/right-nationality-africa alexander, h. 2024. keeping statelessness on the agenda at the global refugee forum and beyond. statelessness and citizenship review, 6(1): 137-142. ali, n. 2022. pledging and the global compact on refugees: an inclusive process for better implementation? asile, forum on the partnership principle in the un global compact on refugees. arnold-fernández, e.a. 2023. the global compact on refugees: inadequate substitute or useful complement? frontiers in human dynamics, 5: 1-11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fhumd.2023.1238186 beninger, c. and manjoo, r. 2023. the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness: causes, consequences and legal responses. african human mobility review, 8(3): 17-40. chimni, b.s. 2018. the global compact on refugees: one step forward, two steps back. international journal of refugees, 30(4): 630-634. ferris, e.g. and donato, k.m. 2020. refugees, migration and global governance: negotiating the global compacts. london: routledge. https://doi. org/10.4324/9781351172806. gilbert, g. 2019. not bound but committed: operationalising the global compact on refugees. international migration, 57(6): 27-42. hathaway, j. 2018. the global cop-out on refugees. international journal of refugee law, 30(4): 591-604. institute on statelessness and inclusion (isi). 2020. statelessness in numbers: an overview and analysis of global statistics. https://files.institutesi.org/isi_ statistics_analysis_2020.pdf interaction. 2021. towards equitable and predictable responsibility sharing: an analysis of state pledges at the global refugee forum. https://alnap.org/helplibrary/resources/toward-equitable-and-predictable-responsibility-sharingan-analysis-of-state-pledges-at/ kelley, n. 2022. people forced to flee: history, change and challenge. oxford: oxford university press. lungu, s. 2022. a study on statelessness and risks of statelessness in malawi. department of refugees, government of malawi and unhcr. an evaluation of pledges to eradicate statelessness in the sadc 128 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 manby, b. 2009. struggles for citizenship in africa. london: zed books. mbiyozo, a.n. 2019. statelessness in southern africa: time to end it, not promote it. southern africa report no. 32, institute for security studies (iss). https:// journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/ejc-1ff4d63d7a mbiyozo, a.n. 2022. the role of colonialism in creating and perpetuating statelessness in southern africa. african human mobility review, 8(3): 75-93. miller, s.d. 2019. the gcr and the role of development actors with refugees: a game-changer, or more of the same? international migration, 57(6): 173-187. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imig.12633 offerman, m. 2022. statelessness and its risks in angola and for angolans living abroad. ministry of justice and human rights, government of angola and unhcr. schewel, k. and debray, a. 2023. global trends in south-south migration. in crawley, h. and teye, j.t. (eds.), the palgrave handbook of south-south migration and inequality. cham: palgrave macmillan, pp. 153-181. triggs, g.d. and wall, p.c.j. 2020. “the makings of a success”: the global compact on refugees and the inaugural global refugee forum. international journal of refugees, 32(2): 283-339. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijrl/eeaa024 türk, v. 2018. the promise and potential of the global compact on refugees. international journal of refugee law, 30(4): 575-583. https://doi.org/10.1093/ ijrl/eey068 united nations (un). 2018. global compact on safe, orderly and regular migration (gcsorm). united nations. https://refugeesmigrants.un.org/sites/default/ files/180711_final_draft_0.pdf united nations country team (unct). 2023. results report: angola. united nations angola. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2011. pledges 2011: ministerial intergovernmental event on refugees and stateless persons. https:// www.refworld.org/reference/confdoc/unhcr/2012/en/89599 united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2018. the global compact on refugees (gcr). unhcr. https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/ overview/global-compact-refugees united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2019. high-level segment on statelessness preparatory meeting: southern africa. https:// citizenshiprightsafrica.org/southern-africa-achievements-and-pledges-highlevel-segment-on-statelessness-preparatory-meeting/ united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2020. high-level segment on statelessness: results and highlights. https://www.unhcr.org/ ibelong/high-level-segment-on-statelessness-results-and-highlights/ united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2022. the campaign to end statelessness, april–june 2022 update. https://www.refworld.org/ reference/news/unhcr/2022/en/124137 united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2023. global 129 trends: forced displacement. https://www.unhcr.org/media/global-trendsreport-2023 united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2024. the campaign to end statelessness, january–march 2024 update. https://www.unhcr.org/ ibelong/publications/ united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2025. global trends: forced displacement. https://www.unhcr.org/global-trends warria, a. and chikadzi, v. 2022. statelessness, trauma and mental well-being: implication for practice, research and advocacy. african human mobility review, 8(3): 41-55. cases amnesty international v. zambia. communication no. 212/98. 2000. attorney-general v. dow 1992 blr 119 (ca). 1992. children of nubian descent in kenya v. kenya. communication no. 002/ com/002/2009 of 22 march 2011. 2011. modise v. botswana, decision. communication no. 97/93. achpr, april 24, 1997. 1997. an evaluation of pledges to eradicate statelessness in the sadc 130 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 corrigendum ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 corrigendum: author’s name and affiliation correction navigating passports and borders: the complex realities of zimbabwean migrants in south africa tamuka chekero1, johannes bhanye2, rufaro hamish mushonga3, and owen nyamwanza4 received 13 june 2024 / accepted 08 september 2024 / published 25 april 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v11i1.2240 ___________ 1 postdoctoral fellow, centre for the advancement of scholarship, university of pretoria, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4700-6026 corresponding author . tamuka.chekero@up.ac.za 2 postdoctoral researcher, department of urban planning, university of free state, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9658-7755 3 postdoctoral researcher, centre for applied sciences, university of zimbabwe, zimbabwe. 4 postdoctoral fellow, department of community development, university of zimbabwe, zimbabwe. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0577-4702 one of the authors’ names was missing and one of the affiliations was not updated. authors’ names and affiliations list should be corrected as follows: navigating passports and borders: the complex realities of zimbabwean migrants in south africa tamuka chekero1, johannes bhanye2, rufaro hamish mushonga3, owen nyamwanza4, and abraham matamanda5 received 13 june 2024 / accepted 08 september 2024 / published 25 april 2025 ___________ 1 postdoctoral fellow, centre for the advancement of scholarship, university of pretoria, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4700-6026 corresponding author . tamuka.chekero@up.ac.za 2 african climate and development initiative (acdi), university of cape town,cape town, south africa https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9658-7755 3 postdoctoral researcher, centre for applied sciences, university of zimbabwe, zimbabwe. 4 postdoctoral fellow, department of community development, university of zimbabwe, zimbabwe. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0577-4702 5 department of urban and regional planning, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5260-5560 we apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused. ahmr is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution noncommercial license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 6 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 book review teye, joseph kofi (ed.), 2022 migration in west africa cham, switzerland: springer, 265 pages imiscoe research series issn: 2364-4087 issn 2364-4095 (electronic) isbn: 978-3-030-99238-5 isbn 978-3-030-97322-3 (ebook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97322-3 a recent book edited by joseph kofi teye titled migration in west africa discusses cross-border movements by regular and irregular migrants in search of economic opportunities and to maintain social relationships. this four-part volume consisting of 13 chapters discusses migration patterns, drivers, and socio-economic impacts of internal and cross-border migration in west africa. while the authors are at pains to show that migration, in particular and mobility, in general, are part of the fabric of life in west africa, they dismiss the media discourses that convey images of millions of west africans migrating to the european “el dorado” and other destinations such as the maghreb and southern africa. the authors argue that contrary to the narratives suggesting an exodus of africans to the global north, intra-regional migration is the dominant process in west africa. part i consists of four chapters that discuss the changing patterns and governance of migration within and from the region. the chapters combine empirical findings with theoretical reflections to develop compelling migration-development narratives that make the book relevant to readers outside west africa. for instance, while migration from labor-surplus areas to labor-scarce destinations is often explained from an economic perspective, several authors challenge such orthodox conceptualizations of drivers of migration by arguing how non-economic drivers (e.g., culture, social networks, and religion) also influence migration decisions. chapter 1 by joseph kofi teye covers migration trends, patterns, and drivers within and from west africa and reveals how state formation processes and political administration shaped current mobility patterns and social transformation during the pre-colonial and colonial periods. teye refers to west africa as a “sub-region” that experiences mixed migration flows and high levels of intra-regional migration, including labor and forced displacement. in chapter 2, faisal garba and thomas yeboah explore several critical challenges in implementing the economic community of west african states (ecowas) protocol, whose aims are to promote the free movement of persons and 7 regional integration. these aims have been hampered by the rampant extortion and harassment of migrants at border crossings and a general lack of coherence on crossborder mobility between the member states' national legislation and the ecowas protocols. chapter 3 by priya deshingkar and doudou dièye gueye provides a gendered analysis of human smuggling from senegal to the global north. using the impoverished kolda region of senegal as a case study, the chapter provides valuable insights into gender-religious belief systems and their intersection with irregular migration and human smuggling processes. in chapter 4, mary boatemaa setrana and nauja kleist argue that family relations are central to the gendered dynamics of migration and remittance flows in west africa. the chapter posits that the feminization of migration is linked to the broader social changes occurring in the sub-region. the three chapters presented in part ii focus on environmental and forced migration. in chapter 5, joseph kofi teye and ebenezer g.a. nikoi discuss migration as a response strategy to extreme weather events. they present interesting case studies on how floods, drought, and rainfall variability have been migration and displacement triggers in several parts of west africa. the authors argue that most displaced survivors of extreme weather events relocate to nearby regions to continue their lives without undergoing major livelihood adjustments. in chapter 6, heaven crawley and veronica fynn bruey discuss the struggles of liberian refugees living in protracted displacement and poverty in ghana to secure national and international protection. chapter 7 presents an examination by leander kandilige and geraldine asiwome ampah of the peculiar protection vulnerabilities experienced by voluntary migrants in times of crisis because of a lack of access to national protection mechanisms during crises. the authors conclude that existing generic national disaster management agencies are inadequate in providing specific support for voluntary migrants during disasters, and they call for a mechanism dedicated to protecting the rights of voluntary migrants during crises. the three chapters in part iii focus on labor migration, diaspora, and development. in chapter 8, olayinka akanle and olayinka damilola ola-lawson contribute to the debates on the link between labor migration and socio-economic development in nigeria. in chapter 9, tebkieta alexandra tapsoba and dabiré bonayi hubert examine the trends in the flow and development impacts of remittances in burkina faso. they argue that although households that receive regular remittances are economically better-off than those that do not, most of the cash remittances are spent on consumer goods and are not invested in productive sectors. in chapter 10, nohoua traoré and gertrude dzifa torvikey contribute to the knowledge of the historical migration trajectories by situating the development of the cash-crop economy within the history of labor migrations into côte d’ivoire and the crises that ensued as a result, by highlighting the different waves of migration into côte d’ivoire. book review migration in west africa 8 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 part iv focuses on return migration. in chapter 11, amanda bisong outlines how the return process contributes to vulnerability and continued precarity in returnees in benin city, edo state, nigeria. she argues that poorly implemented return programs have worsened the vulnerabilities of migrants instead of promoting migrant integration. a significant contribution of this chapter is its exposition of the role of local institutions in the reintegration of returnees by helping them cope with the vulnerabilities they are exposed to in their places of origin. chapter 12, authored by joseph mensah, joseph kofi teye, and mary boatemaa setrana, elucidates the interconnections between immigrant integration, transnationalism, and return intentions, focusing primarily on ghanaian and senegalese migrants in the global north. from this analysis, it is evident that although many migrants settle and integrate into their destination countries, they remain connected to their homelands through various transnational engagements. the authors argue that migrants often sustain simultaneous connectivity to both ends of the migration cycle, not because they are unable or unwilling to integrate, but because they use this connectivity to facilitate their livelihoods in the origin and destination countries. in chapter 13, joseph kofi teye presents the main conclusions. first, that diaspora remittances and investments in west african countries have the potential to contribute significantly to socio-economic development in west african countries. second, although several policies and programs have been implemented to strengthen mechanisms for protecting current and returned migrants, the existing state-led frameworks for protecting vulnerable refugees and labor migrants remain ineffective and are not comprehensive. third, despite a general lack of programs to enhance the developmental impacts of financial remittances, west african countries have the potential to contribute significantly to socio-economic development in these countries. migration in west africa is a valuable volume that african migration scholars should find helpful, especially from the point of view of understanding the causes, dynamics, and implications of migration in west africa. the edited volume draws out several policy lessons based on the experiences of west african states. importantly, its nuanced reflections on both national and regional migration policy and programming, provide a refreshing contribution to the ongoing debate on african migration. hopefully, there will be a second edition, and this would give the authors an opportunity to elaborate on some of the interesting but insufficiently addressed debates around transit migration within west africa, human trafficking, and crossborder migration corridors. also, the general lack of recent country-specific data on immigration would need more attention. this book is written in a very accessible way, and it provides comprehensive information on several issues related to the migration-development nexus (e.g., environmental displacement, return migration, and remittances) in west africa by presenting micro-empirical case studies from several countries. scholars interested 9 in historical analyses of migration flows and the legal instruments governing the ecowas protocol on the free movement of persons will find this book particularly helpful. this edited volume is a welcome addition to the literature on african migration. prof daniel tevera, university of the western cape, south africa book review migration in west africa 78 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 retracted: spaces, places, and migration: understanding and strengthening public healthcare provision in south africa tackson makandwa1 received 29 november 2023 / accepted 18 april 2024 / published 07 may 2024 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i1.1737 abstract given south africa’s historical and contemporary realities of both internal mobility and migration from other countries, this paper argues that engaging with space, place, and migration is pivotal to understanding and strengthening public health-care provision in south africa. this paper views place as emerging from and relating to space. a mutually reinforcing and reciprocal relationship between people and place over time shapes health-care delivery and health outcomes in south africa. therefore, this paper argues that engaging with a place-based approach is required to understand the local context in which diverse groups are situated. there is, however, a lacuna in studies situating south(ern) african public health-care challenges within such a place-based approach. this paper presents findings from a mixed-methods study that was designed to fill this gap. the research team conducted fieldwork in six health-care facilities across two provinces in south africa – four in gauteng and two in the vhembe district of limpopo province – representing urban, peri-urban, and rural settings. the study included exploratory in-depth interviews with 77 health-care providers (including nursing and administrative staff), a survey conducted with 229 health-care users, and site visits. the findings show how diverse spaces shape and are shaped by different migrant profiles, producing diverse places, which in turn present particular demands to the public-health system. it is crucial to understand the pathways, behaviors, and meanings associated with such mobility if we are to strengthen the provision of healthcare services in south africa. keywords: migration, place, space, public health-care, gauteng, limpopo, south(ern) africa 1 african centre for migration & society (acms), university of the witwatersrand, south africa  tacksonmak@gmail.com retracted 79 introduction one of the main migration routes for african migrants who undertake an array of migration journeys is in the southern african region (makandwa and vearey, 2017; iom, 2023). the region has a long history of population movement and this has been a central and defining feature of the region’s politics, economy, and culture (crush and williams, 2005; crush and tawodzera, 2014; lurie and williams, 2014). migration and mobility in southern africa represent a key livelihood-seeking strategy. however, such movement raises concerns about the health of both those who move and of the local (non-migrant) population (vearey, 2018). walls et al. (2016) and the international organization for migration (iom, 2023) note that south africa is the greatest recipient of migrants from the southern african region. these higher levels of mobility, both from across south africa’s borders and within the country, have placed demands on social services including public health care (landau et al., 2011). due to its relative wealth and perceived economic and political stability, south africa plays a key role in migration on the continent and experiences high levels of mixed (regular and irregular) migration (makandwa and vearey, 2017; misago, 2019), mostly from neighboring countries, the horn of africa, and west africa (frouws and horwood, 2017). according to the united nations department of economic and social affairs (un desa, 2019), there were 4.2 million migrants in south africa in 2019. this constitutes about 7.2% of the entire population. with gauteng province estimated to experience the largest inflow and outflow of migrants between 2016 and 2021, inflows are estimated above 1,6 million (stats sa, 2018). cross-border and internal migrants are concentrated in gauteng province’s urban and peri-urban spaces (most international migrants settle in gauteng – 47,5%). a high concentration of migrants is also found in the border areas of the limpopo province (vearey, 2014; stats sa, 2018; patrick et al., 2023). limpopo province is home to many mozambican and zimbabwean migrants due to geographical proximity to the two countries (landau and segatti, 2009). vearey et al. (2018) note that although both internal and crossborder migrants are unevenly distributed across the country, the majority of crossborder migrants are located in johannesburg, cape town, durban, and the vhembe district (a district in limpopo province that borders zimbabwe). despite increased regional migration and mobility, as well as a growing politicization and securitization of migration, its impact on health systems is little understood (walls et al., 2016). the discourse of migration within the southern african development community (sadc) is dominated by cross-border migration, leading to discussions of immigration management and border securitization (vanyoro, 2023). in south africa, securitization with regard to migration is not limited to border control but also extends to the (increasing) securitization of health-care and communicable diseases surveillance (hunter-adams et al., 2018). however, there is substantial diversity in arrival routes and patterns of mobility and migration (including internal mobility) in the region, which results in heterogeneous understanding and strengthening public health-care provision in south africa retracted 80 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 groups, and is often neglected in migration discourse (vearey, 2014). the biased focus on cross-border migrants, neglecting those who move within the south african borders means that the real root faced by the health-care system remains far from being addressed. migrants can face distinct health needs depending on their legal status and migration journeys (au, 2021). migration within the sadc region has a long history that includes forced migrants fleeing conflict, individuals moving in search of improved livelihood opportunities, asylum seekers and refugees, traders, and seasonal workers displaced within their own countries or moving across borders (schockaert et al., 2020; mbeve and ngwenya, 2022). such diversity creates a unique context in which distinct, locally-relevant health responses are needed (iom, 2011; vearey, 2014). the extent to which migrants’ health care is addressed in policy frameworks varies greatly across countries in africa (au, 2021; who, 2022). the world health assembly (wha) resolution a70/24 (who, 2017) highlights the need to adequately address the health-related requirements of migrants in line with the aim of the 2030 sustainable development goals (sdgs) agenda of leaving no one behind. more importantly, it calls for nation states to address the needs of migrants and refugees in an inclusive, comprehensive manner and to respond to the health needs of the overall population in any given setting (who, 2017). it states that health systems should be migrant and people centered with the aim of delivering cultural, linguistic, gender, and age-responsive services – migrant-aware and mobility competent (who, 2017). furthermore, vearey et al. (2018) note that health governance has a significant part to play in tackling the challenges encountered by nations dealing with both internal and international migration. in line with the wha resolution, access to health care in south africa is constitutionally mandated for all, including migrants, regardless of their documentation status (sprague, 2010; walls et al., 2015). the 1996 south african constitution, as interpreted within the national health act (2003), guarantees rights to access health care for everyone in south africa and also provides for the right to dispute resolution (makandwa and vearey, 2017). however, there is a clear gap between policy and practice, and regional, local, and facility variations in how the legislation is interpreted (walls et al., 2016). given the potential for discrimination and gatekeeping within the public-health sector, this places healthcare practitioners and those at the frontline in public health-care facilities as critical mediators of policy implementation (walls et al., 2016). in the gauteng province, for example, the provincial department of health (doh) developed guidelines on how to treat non-south african patients that arguably confuses rather than clarifies the situation by erroneously defining foreign patients – who should be charged full fees for hospital-level services – as including refugees and asylum seekers. the law is clear: documented refugees and asylum seekers should be means-tested in the same way as south african citizens. however, maintaining free access to services at primary level is often regarded by practitioners as being the cause of increasing retracted 81 workloads, undermining working conditions, and allowing some patients to abuse services available to them (walker and gilson, 2004). this may lead to the erosion of health-care provider morale and induce negative attitudes toward patients, because free access is viewed as increasing workload. the relevance of space and place for migrant health care in this paper, i focus on the process and interaction between people and place – how place influences people, how such places are also reshaped by people over time, and the bearing of this on health and health-care delivery in south africa. i locate the concepts of space and place within migration, to explore and understand healthcare provision in south africa. these two concepts aim to illuminate and complicate how the health-care provision can be understood. they help conceptualize the study sites as both physical and social spaces and ascertain their impact on health-care delivery. the concepts of space and place have long histories with a multiplicity of meanings and interpretations (de certeau, 1984; jones and moon, 1993; kearns and joseph, 1993; massey, 2004). in this paper, place is viewed as emerging from and relating to space and used as a lens to understand south africa’s health-care challenges. where space is regarded as a site that is unfixed, contested, and multiple (massey, 1994), place is viewed as having more structure and fixed meanings, and it implies an indication of stability (de certeau, 1984; also see jones and moon, 1993). it is in places that people become who they are – growing older, working, learning, and maintaining their health or becoming unhealthy (kearns and joseph, 1993). whether in rural or urban areas, the unique qualities of places contribute to the contours of people’s health status and health-care service delivery (kearns, 1991). the relevance of place for health variations is that it constitutes and contains social relations and physical resources (jones and moon, 1993; cummins et al., 2007). thus, places are sites where people can interact with multiple determinants of health, including with health-care systems. engaging with a place-based approach is required to understand the local context in which diverse groups are situated. moreover, identifying possible places of vulnerability arising from migratory flows allows us to shape appropriate healthcare responses in south africa. this includes understanding the diverse health risks, benefits, and vulnerabilities that face heterogeneous migrant groups (vearey and nunez, 2010). in viewing places as symbols of the heterogenization of the world, bruslé and varrel (2012) argue that migration and migrants change space and create places that reflect origins, migration routes, and the relation of migrants to their host community. in this study, this is reflected in how migrants interact with the public health-care system. a number of authors assert that research on health and place should not separate context from composition, because there is a mutually reinforcing and reciprocal relationship between place and people (see, for example, kearns, 1991; jones and moon, 1993; kearns and joseph, 1993; cummins et al., 2007). context and composition are important explanations for health inequality understanding and strengthening public health-care provision in south africa retracted 82 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 and why the association of place with health outcomes has been found to remain relatively weak, as individuals influence and are influenced by conditions in multiple places on a daily basis, and over their lifetime (cummins et al., 2007). using data collected in six primary health-care facilities, this paper is based on the premise that understanding the local context(s) in which diverse groups live, work, and transit through can assist in strengthening public health-care system responses to meet the needs of all users – both local and foreign – in south africa. more importantly, in the wake of migration and mobility, xenophobia, increased difficulties in accessing basic social services, and an already compromised public health-care system in south africa, i argue that places are symbols of understanding and strengthening public health-care provision where individuals (migrants and nonmigrants) interact with the health system. the interplay between places and people’s movements leads to places (including regions, localities, and particular facility settings) affecting people’s health, and, in turn, individuals themselves shaping places (including services and their provision). a range of health-care actors – migrants, non-migrants, health-care workers, and managers are influenced by and shape services (walker and gilson, 2004). thus, i argue that place is an important lens through which to understand migrant health-care dilemmas in south(ern) africa, including responding to migration, access to health care, treatment continuity, service delivery, and the population’s health status. methodology this paper is based on qualitative data drawn from in-depth interviews conducted with health-care providers, exploratory surveys conducted with health-care users, and visits to six primary health-care facilities in gauteng and limpopo provinces in south africa. the researcher selected the facilities to represent urban, peri-urban, rural, and cross-border settings. for each of the two provinces, a team of researchers conducted in-depth interviews with health-care providers and surveys with healthcare users. the team interviewed 77 health-care workers, which included a mix of clinical and administrative staff, ranging between 10 and 14 participants per facility. these in-depth interviews were conducted in private settings within each clinic. there were 229 survey responses (30–40 health-care users per clinic), which included 127 south africans and 102 non-national patients. a random sample of patients, who were queuing at each clinic, were invited to participate in a short, administered survey. their place was saved in the queue and the survey was administered in a private setting, most frequently an empty consultation room. after every facility visit, the research team wrote detailed field notes. the survey responses allowed participants the opportunity to provide detailed narratives of their encounters within the particular clinic or any other south african clinics and hospitals. the research team conducted observations of clinical settings, which formed part of the detailed field notes. furthermore, the team recorded and transcribed the interviews. data analysis consisted of thematic content analysis, which began with the research retracted 83 team identifying major themes and sub-themes at a three-day workshop. this allowed transcripts to be reduced into relevant themes and quotations arranged in table form to allow for cross-interviewees and cross-site comparisons. narratives from the surveys and quotes from the in-depth interviews and field notes provided relevant themes and quotations for this paper. to support these findings, the team identified representative quotations. the research was approved by the university of the witwatersrand research ethics committee (non-medical), the london school of hygiene and tropical medicine research ethics committee, and the relevant provincial and district health departments. results and discussion within the fieldwork context of those seeking health-care services, diverse labor and personal profiles emerged: these included (but were not limited to) migrant and mobile workers (e.g., truck drivers and contract workers), local resident women, and those who were crossing borders, including in some cases for health-care reasons. these groups present health-care demands ranging from maternal healthcare services, to hiv/aids services, and treatment for other chronic conditions, including tuberculosis (tb) and high blood pressure. from the analysis of health-care user surveys and health-care provider interviews five main themes were identified: migrant health-care users and service delivery; increased workload; health-care system displacement; crime and safety; and the challenge of return migrants. migrant health-care users and service delivery first, i discuss the range of health-care users that we identified and their impact on service delivery in the fieldwork sites. this theme highlights the realities of migrants and mobile populations whose lives are embedded in multiple places, the realities of host communities, and the interactions between the two populations (acevedogarcia and almeida, 2012). people move for a variety of push-pull reasons. this has a differential impact on health profiles and service delivery, including medication shortages (caused by return migrants at the end of the year, as well as cross-border migrants coming for seasonal work and upsetting stock planning), communication challenges, patients having multiple consultations for the same medical condition across various health-care facilities, difficulties with continuity of care, and challenges ensuring that patients complete courses of medications. shortage of medication is a challenge facing most public health-care facilities, as they struggle to treat large numbers of patients within their catchment area. the majority of health-care providers reported that such medication shortages are worsened by increasing numbers of non-nationals. for example, a doctor from vhembe district, responding to the question of whether inward migration contributes to shortages of medication said: understanding and strengthening public health-care provision in south africa retracted 84 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 yes, it does, because we find that, for example, mozambican people come and consult, consult in a large number. so, when the local patients, when they come – remember the clinic is for local people – when they come to consult, they find there is no treatment [i.e., medication], the treatment is finished (doctor, rural clinic). such a response is underpinned by deep-seated stereotypes about cross-border migrants in south africa as abusing resources and overburdening state systems to the detriment of the local population (also see vearey, 2014; maphumulo and bhengu, 2019). by appealing to us to “remember the clinic is for local people,” the doctor points to both perceived resourcing implications about migrant populations and also exhibits a lack of understanding of policy guidelines relating to their care, given that “local people” are perceived by this particular doctor to exclude migrants. such negative perceptions regarding cross-border migrants were widely held. another example was provided by a nursing sister from another facility in the vhembe district: the people from outside, they abuse medication sometimes … because you can see if the patient comes, last we were using booklet, you can see a patient comes today, tomorrow is coming here at the clinic, another day she goes to [name of place] that clinic near here ... for a week, the patients circle all around clinics around [this area]. they want to collect medication. i don’t know what they do, but they used to … ya, others say rumors, say they collect medication and they go that side with it, maybe to give [to] their relatives” (nurse, border area). such presumed “shopping around” for medication, combined with other forms of perceived misuse by cross-border migrants, is said to result in a shortage of medication in public health-care facilities. these behaviors were also reported (though no evidence was provided) to be taking place outside of the public-health system, whereby cross-border patients who had financial resources were reported by some health-care providers as consulting with private doctors and buying medication. again, this emphasizes the strongly-held perceptions of public healthcare providers that position non-nationals as abusers of the public health-care system. one explanation for this behavior is that patients have a distinct lack of trust in the nurses and the health-care system more generally and resultantly seek out various treatments in the hope that one facility will help them. while this behavior is not confined to migrant populations, health-care providers clearly consider it to be particularly problematic when it is undertaken by migrants. similarly, a service provider at a peri-urban facility in gauteng revealed how cross-border migrants and mobility generate further visitors (e.g., relatives), obligations, and demands for services in public health-care facilities: retracted 85 because this is an industrial area, so there are many traveling firms. yeah, so they travel with trucks and stuff so we get some people who come in here and collect their medication. the truckers, yeah, and then they leave. and most of the women, because they come in here maybe to visit their husbands because they live in zimbabwe or mozambique and stuff, and then they get free access to health [care] and then they leave to another country (nurse, peri-urban facility 1). these scenarios generate situations whereby health-care users are accused by healthcare providers of abusing the free access to health services available. however, data on whether such abuses are actually taking place is limited. our survey results (reported elsewhere) do not support these suggestions of “shopping around” or abusing the public health-care system. migration and mobility give rise to interactions of ethnic groups, diverse languages and cultures within public health-care facilities. language and communication become a challenge and, in such instances, immigrants’ experiences are those of discrimination and denial of services otherwise granted to nationals (acevedo-garcia and almeida, 2012). in this study, health-care users faced the challenge of language ability and effective communication and this could give rise to denial of services, restricted access, and poor-quality treatment. moreover, language and communication abilities impacted on cross-border patients’ access to healthcare services and affected the quality of services within that setting, including privacy and confidentiality. a nursing sister in one of the gauteng peri-urban facilities talked about the biggest challenges facing the clinic and clinicians: ... language, it is a struggle. because you cannot obtain what is wrong from the patient because you know mos [it’s like], they have to tell us what is wrong. and again, the confidentiality of them but, and in such cases i have to go out there in the crowd and [ask]: “please, who is from malawi here, and do you know english?” “yes.” “are you sure you understand english?” “yes.” “then please can you come and translate?” (nurse, peri-urban facility 2). in some cases, migration and mobility present challenges for treatment continuity for hiv and other chronic conditions and follow-up consultation across facilities. for example, at the rural facility in vhembe, there was concern that contract workers residing in the area temporarily and those using a facility in the border town, were either visiting for medication and then returning home to zimbabwe or visiting en route to further destinations. the concerns raised relate to the ability of users to continue to access treatment once they had finished their contract and moved to another location. understanding and strengthening public health-care provision in south africa retracted 86 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 increased workload respondents in the fieldwork localities regarded migration and mobility as generating significant additional workload. problems arising from presumed increased patient numbers and what were considered transient populations were compounded by insufficient staff ratios, high staff turnover, and delays in replacing them. such pressures have a huge impact on workforce morale. one respondent at a vhembe facility said: … shortage of staff, yes, because we are seeing more patients, especially from outside, only here at [border town] the border. all people from africa, they start here, to get here at the border. so, we’re seeing many patients, the ratio is too big. ya, it affects health services ... too much overload and staff shortage are the biggest challenge here … we have not received training on migrants. it has had an effect on antenatal care services, because they move from that side [zimbabwe] to deliver here. they come for antenatal care and to deliver here; they bring their babies for vaccination … ya, because it’s free (health-care provider, border area). workload considerations are interrelated and may generate a vicious circle; in fact, staff shortages in facilities gave rise to resignations of overworked staff. park station, the primary railway station in inner-city johannesburg, provides travel connections to the whole of africa. a health-care provider in this locality offered his opinion (which he could not verify but which reflected the views of other staff members) on the impact of the migration on the clinic: yes, i think they’re overworked, some of them. because the location of the clinic, it’s in a transit point. there’s rea vaya [bus service], there’s [transport terminus]. yes, there’s a bus terminus for buses for all over africa. and then the clients are too much, so sometimes they [the staff] get burned out. i think that’s why they resign (health-care provider, urban facility). respondents observed that the combination of a greater number of patients and under-staffed facilities, as well as the nature of the workload generated by migrant populations, brought their own particular difficulties. this includes additional demands on maternal health-care services (antenatal care, delivery, and immunization services). however, again this was expressed in interviews as a perception of the impact of migration on the facilities rather than being evidence-based. south africa provides free health care to women during pregnancy and children under six years (silal et al., 2012; makandwa and vearey, 2017). a health-care provider in gauteng province’s peri-urban informal settlement facility said: retracted 87 i am just thinking, maybe in their country, maybe they do pay when they’re pregnant for deliveries and all those things. so, they decide to come this side because it’s free (health-care provider, peri-urban facility). health-care system displacement aside from availability and cost, when selecting facilities, migrants were motivated by perceptions of treatment quality. a decision to use a particular facility was frequently linked with poor service being previously experienced at another facility. these experiences included verbal abuse from professionals and fellow patients, being denied service, and what users perceived as poor-quality services. for example, we were told that most health-care users using one of the peri-urban clinics did so as a way of avoiding perceived poor-quality treatment from nearby facilities (field notes, november 21, 2015). verbal abuse and denial of services were widespread, but not necessarily limited to the experiences of non-nationals. it occurred to patients traveling from outside the facility catchment area and where staffing was stretched. one patient at an inner-city johannesburg clinic spoke about her experience of being denied services: i was verbally abused. i came with my child [who] was sick and i was from work. but they said i was not supposed to come to the facility and they told me i am not the only patient here. … waiting long is always a problem; besides having many people, the staff is slow. i was told that my stitches were not to be removed here; i have to go to this other clinic in the city (local patient, urban facility). this patient’s narrative illuminates a number of service-access and quality dimensions, including that users have to report to facilities early, endure long waiting times, face overcrowded environments, and that staff are perceived as slow and overworked. poor communication between health-care providers and patients was further detrimental to service experience. one service provider recounted a patient’s experience from one of the provinces: nurses at the border clinic four times took blood samples from him but always failed to give him the results – his results were always “pending” – he ended up going to a hospital in the border town because he was not getting any help at this clinic (health-care provider, border area 2). similarly, another service provider, referring to the same clinic, said: she gets her arv pills at the border clinic because she started at this clinic; but if she wants to be treated for other illnesses, she doesn’t come to the border understanding and strengthening public health-care provision in south africa retracted 88 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 clinic, she goes to other clinics. every time she experiences a problem at the border clinic. she calls it “satan clinic” (health-care provider, border area 3). a further contributor to patients moving between clinics was a wish for privacy. for example, providers identified that some teenagers seeking family planning assistance at a peri-urban clinic from a nearby informal settlement in gauteng, avoided a mobile clinic in the informal settlement. some patients were willing to travel significant distances to be treated at a facility that could safeguard their privacy and ensure confidentiality and thus avoid potential stigmatization, particularly for those being treated for hiv/aids. this exchange between an interviewer and a nursing sister highlights this problem: nurse, peri-urban facility: no, even the locals you know [residential location] is 30 minutes. they are driving; they travel by train, a taxi to come here. so, they’ve got … they get lots of transport to come this side. they prefer to come to [peri-urban clinic]. interviewer: so, why do they prefer this clinic [peri-urban clinic] over a clinic in [residential area]? nurse, peri-urban facility: when we ask them, they start, [peri-urban clinic] is far, you know, no one will know their [hiv/ aids] status … such privacy and confidentiality concerns raise questions about the continued stigmatization of hiv (gilbert and walker, 2010). users’ reasons – in this case even the citizens’ reasons – for changing facilities and their treatment preferences could be an indication of financial and staffing shortfalls within the public health-care system. as coovadia et al. (2009) observe, south africa’s health-care system and healthservice delivery continue to be shaped by the country’s controversial past, including racial and gender discrimination, violence, and severe income inequalities. crime and safety reciprocal relationships between people and place that shape health delivery and outcomes are influenced by perceptions and experiences of crime and safety. a necessary condition for clinical safety and service quality is that health-care facilities are secure sites. south african experiences of migration and mobility largely focus on urban areas, and these are overrepresented in the crime statistics, thus allowing a connection between migration and criminality to be made despite the lack of evidence to support such claims. however, concerns of crime and safety were issues that were often raised during the research and respondents indicated that these were not confined to urban areas. within the study context, some patients expressed concerns around safety and a fear of being robbed when they walked between retracted 89 their residences and the health-care facility. this fear was amplified by staff delays – one health-care user at a rural facility in vhembe district suggested that delivery bottlenecks and waiting times could increase the risk of becoming a victim of crime in localities surrounding the clinic: … they neglect patients and ignore patients at the clinic. [staff are] very slow in assisting and treating patients; patients stay very far, so will walk late to their house. often thieves will steal their handbags because it is very late (healthcare user, rural facility). clinicians and health-facility employees also expressed fears for safety in the work location, and this sometimes led to them undertaking lengthy daily commutes from their rural homes rather than residing near the facility. such commuting patterns have the potential to contribute to staff burnout. fears expressed by health-care providers from different locations, suggest a widespread impact on health-care delivery. one nurse from vhembe district rural facility pointed out: we cannot offer a 24-hour service because the nurses’ home is not completely secure. there is not enough light outside, because nowadays there is a lot of crime. you cannot move from the nurses’ home to the clinic where there is not enough light. somebody can come and tell the security, “i have got someone who is ill,” whereas can you see our fence, it is near the main road. somebody can start there and shoot through whereas we are staying and moving here … (nurse, rural facility). similarly, a nursing sister from an informal facility in the gauteng peri-urban setting revealed how safety and the location of the facility can impact on service coverage and staff retention: no. i think the only time the staff that goes [resigns from post], is the dental, one because this place, you know, is a colored area, so they swear at you, they will tell you, “i’ll wait for you, i will stab you.” so, there’s a white lady who was working that side, a dentist, so they said to her, “we’ll shoot you and we’re going to take your car. you won’t get out of the gate.” so, she got so scared; then she just decided, “i’m no longer coming” (nurse, peri-urban 4). fear of crime and feelings of insecurity may thus contribute to high staff turnover, long commuting distances, and, in some cases, the closure of particular departments. challenge of return migrants alongside cross-border migration, there is widespread internal migration where people move locally between provinces. this has received scant attention in the understanding and strengthening public health-care provision in south africa retracted 90 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 literature and yet internal migration occurs far more frequently in south africa than does cross-border migration (vearey, 2014). health-care providers within a rural study site in limpopo province perceived that return migrants, mostly traveling back from gauteng province, contributed to the spread of diseases and unwanted pregnancies: health-care provider, rural facility: ja. when they come back home during [the] festive season, there are a lot of people, and if people are many, there are a lot of activities and even the diseases. it’s increasing. interviewer: so, what kinds of diseases? so, you mean the increase in the community? health-care provider, rural facility: about the stis [sexually transmitted infections] and other problems. the teenage pregnancy, it’s a challenge also, and of course, now the hiv and aids. when people are in gauteng, they met a large number of people. gauteng is very busy. so, about the cross-infection, [it] is very easy there. interviewer: so, people then come back here over holidays and then you see the numbers of stis and pregnancy? health-care provider, rural facility: because i know when they come back, they left their wives around here. and when they are in gauteng, there are other families there, so you see there is a lot of cross-infection. and some are working in mines or where they acquire tb, and so on. and when they came back, they met with those around here and they become infected. some interviewees made assumptions of certain places being morally corrupt and contributing to the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including hiv/aids, which fit with prevailing place stereotypes. gauteng, for example, in this study is viewed as a focal point of all social ills. more so, migration is often perceived as a catalyst for extramarital affairs and polygamous marriages, contributing to sexually transmitted diseases (gilbert and walker, 2010). such scapegoating may place blame on return migrants as sources of infection and disease, while downplaying the role of the local non-migrant population. return migrants were also blamed for affecting the operations of health-care facilities in rural areas. rurality complicates the ways in which return migrants are able to access supplies of medication and to attend follow-up consultations at facilities. health-care providers in vhembe district highlighted struggles to provide medication, especially antiretrovirals (arvs) and other chronic treatment during festive holidays, as relayed by this respondent: retracted 91 yes, it does, because when they come, you find out that some of them have finished their arv treatment, their chronic treatment. when they come here, they expect chronic treatment from you, and you find that the clinic has ordered a certain amount of treatment for people around. so, when they come here, they have to, you can’t deny to give someone treatment and they don’t even bring anything for them, they just bring the treatment (health-care provider, rural 2). this demonstrates how health-care policy, organization, delivery, and frontline practices are challenged by the presence of migrant and mobile populations. in response, facilities were creative in how they improvised in order to treat the greater number of patients, while attempting to maintain access and quality. return migrants have an impact on stock planning, health and risk behavior, size and nature of rural caseloads, and treatment follow up – illustrating the diverse forms of migration that exert demands and shape health delivery and place. conclusion the findings of this study support previous research that highlights the importance of engaging with place and migration in south africa for understanding and strengthening health-care provision in the country (vearey and nunez, 2010). the findings of this study show that diverse places present heterogeneous migrant profiles, including internal and cross-border migrants, truck drivers, pregnant women, and contract workers, each presenting various and differing demands on the public-health system. such heterogeneity includes internal migrants who return to their rural homes during the year – highlighting the importance of internal mobility. the study points to the importance of understanding both the places in which migrants interact, the corresponding patterns of demand on the health-care system, and the health-care system’s responses. various places are sites where things get done, demands are placed, plans are made, exposure to health threats is a daily reality, and there is improvisation and negotiation from both health-care users and providers. in south africa, a greater awareness of migration and mobility – both internal and cross-border – must be central to public-health care and local municipality planning and service delivery (vearey, 2010). as argued by cummins et al. (2007), macintyre et al. (1993), and jones and moon (1993), research on health and place should not separate context and composition – there is a reciprocal relationship between place and people (including migrants and mobile populations) in south africa and the wider southern african region. the findings reveal a holistic picture of challenges facing the health-care system in south africa and support existing research that highlights the importance of engaging with a place-based approach (todes and turok, 2018). the findings from the health-care providers interviewed in this study are in line with the views of the international organization for migration (iom, 2013), that levels of insecurity in south africa are high in general, and particularly understanding and strengthening public health-care provision in south africa retracted 92 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 in poorly resourced areas where migrants are concentrated. moreover, the recurring complaint expressed by health-care providers around the abuse of free treatment and medication (in spite of a lack of evidence) might be the cause of blocked access and providers’ attitudes toward cross-border migrants. this was also echoed by walker and gilson (2004) as they argue that there are some signs that policy unexpectedly contributes to a decline in health-care providers’ moral attitudes toward patients, with the free health-care policy identified as a cause of concern rather than affirming notions of solidarity, social rights, and health-care entitlement. if this is a correct interpretation, then policy framing must adopt a bottom-up approach, including equipping providers with communication and interpersonal skills and strategies to assist their work with migrant and mobile populations, and ensuring that facilities’ planning and stocktaking processes take account of the realities of heterogeneous migrant flows, including return migrants. here there is support for kearns and joseph’s (1993) and kearns’ (1991) arguments that whether it is in rural areas or an urban space, the unique qualities of places and residents will contribute to the contours of health status and health-care service delivery. acknowledgment the study was funded by a grant from the joint health systems research initiative (mr/m002160/1), jointly supported by the uk mrc/ department of international development, the economic and social research council, and wellcome trust. it was also supported by a wellcome trust doctoral fellowship. i warmly thank all participants who generously shared their experiences with us. thanks go to all clinic staff, district managers and the gauteng and limpopo departments of health. becky walker, stanford mahati, duduzile ndlovu, dostin lakika, and thea de gruchy are thanked for their involvement in the fieldwork. neil lunt, jo vearey, johanna hanefeld, and hellen l. walls are thanked for data analysis and providing guidance during the writing of the draft manuscript. lenore 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health and migration programme, who, geneva. https://www.who.int/publications-detail-redirect/9789240054486. x retracted 4. spaces, places, and migrationunderstanding and strengthening public health-care provision in south africa retracted.pdf 130 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 corrigendum ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 corrigendum: author’s name and affiliation correction navigating passports and borders: the complex realities of zimbabwean migrants in south africa tamuka chekero1, johannes bhanye2, rufaro hamish mushonga3, and owen nyamwanza4 received 13 june 2024 / accepted 08 september 2024 / published 25 april 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v11i1.2240 ___________ 1 postdoctoral fellow, centre for the advancement of scholarship, university of pretoria, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4700-6026 corresponding author . tamuka.chekero@up.ac.za 2 postdoctoral researcher, department of urban planning, university of free state, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9658-7755 3 postdoctoral researcher, centre for applied sciences, university of zimbabwe, zimbabwe. 4 postdoctoral fellow, department of community development, university of zimbabwe, zimbabwe. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0577-4702 one of the authors’ names was missing and one of the affiliations was not updated. authors’ names and affiliations list should be corrected as follows: navigating passports and borders: the complex realities of zimbabwean migrants in south africa tamuka chekero1, johannes bhanye2, rufaro hamish mushonga3, owen nyamwanza4, and abraham matamanda5 received 13 june 2024 / accepted 08 september 2024 / published 25 april 2025 ___________ 1 postdoctoral fellow, centre for the advancement of scholarship, university of pretoria, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4700-6026 corresponding author . tamuka.chekero@up.ac.za 2 african climate and development initiative (acdi), university of cape town,cape town, south africa https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9658-7755 3 postdoctoral researcher, centre for applied sciences, university of zimbabwe, zimbabwe. 4 postdoctoral fellow, department of community development, university of zimbabwe, zimbabwe. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0577-4702 5 department of urban and regional planning, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5260-5560 we apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused. ahmr is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution noncommercial license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 41 moonlighting behavior among migrants: determinants and implications for wellbeing in south africa emmanuel quarshie1, imhotep paul alagidede2, albert duodu3, and edwin teye sosi4 received: 03 march 2022 / accepted: 11 may 2022 / published: 31 august 2022 abstract notwithstanding the wealth of research on migration and subjective wellbeing, the issue of moonlighting and its welfare implication among migrants has not been thoroughly explored in empirical literature. using rich individual-level panel data from the university of cape town’s national income dynamics study (nids), this study established a number of interesting findings: (a) there is moonlighting among international migrants; (b) hours spent on the primary job and financial motive, among other socio-demographic factors are key predictors of moonlighting; (c) international migrants are more likely to have more than one job, very often to meet contingencies, but mostly to help smoothen consumption over the life cycle; and (d) individuals who spend more hours on their primary job are less likely to moonlight. regarding wellbeing and happiness, it is evident that moonlighting and hours spent on primary jobs negatively influence self-reported wellbeing and happiness. given the ravaging effects of the covid-19 pandemic, and the potential change in the dynamics of the post-pandemic migration trajectory, job search strategies and economic activities, gaining a deeper appreciation of moonlighting and its implication on the wellbeing of migrants is essential to national and international policy rethinking in order to achieve a triple win for the migrant, the host and origin countries. keywords: migration, happiness, labor supply, covid-19 1 international organization for migration (iom), south africa. corresponding author  equarshie@iom.int 2 university of witwatersrand, south africa. 3 lund university, sweden. 4 africa review of economics and finance consult, ghana. the impact of international migration on skills supply and demand in south africa 42 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 introduction within the scope of migration research, empirical evidence shows positive selfselection among migrants (orrenius and zavodny, 2005; bertoli, 2010; ibarraran and lubotsky, 2011; andersson, 2012; aguilar esteva, 2013; kollamparambil, 2017; nontenja and kollamparambil, 2018). undoubtedly, this partly explains why productivity levels are higher among migrants than their non-migrant counterparts. migrants are motivated to work more in order to increase their returns on migration as a human capital investment. to realize this goal of higher human capital returns, some migrants engage in moonlighting. moonlighting, as defined by labor economists, refers to a situation where an individual maintains primary employment and engages in additional work for pay (shishko and rostker, 1976; sussman, 1998; kimmel and powell, 1999; averett, 2001; dickey et al., 2011; baah-boateng et al., 2013). despite the extra earnings that migrant workers may have accrued through their economic engagements abroad, a study by mulcahy and kollamparambil (2016) unveiled a decline in their subjective wellbeing, compared to their households left behind. given this, it is justifiable to conclude that a positive correlation between earnings and subjective wellbeing is not always guaranteed. a key consideration for such conclusion could be traced to low social capital (ryan et al., 2008), and the lack of frequent engagement with migrants’ families left behind (asis, 2006). leisure has also been identified as a determining factor for the wellbeing of employees, irrespective of their migration status. macchia and whillans (2021) also show a clear link between leisure and subjective wellbeing of individuals from 79 countries worldwide. it is therefore inconclusive to ascertain the inextricable link and the ripple effect of intrinsic rewards, job satisfaction and improved welfare, without highlighting leisure. given the growing role of migrants within labor market spaces, this paper explores the moonlighting experiences of migrants by capitalizing on the richness of a panel dataset to address the challenge of self-selection bias that may be prevalent in existing studies. interviewing the same households across waves may have addressed the challenge of upward biases to some extent, thereby inspiring confidence that the information from respondents reflects their prevailing economic conditions over time. despite the nuances in existing migration theories in terms of conceptualization, there is consensus that migration is a human capital investment (massey et al., 1993; constant and massey, 2002; kurekova, 2011; kumpikaite and zickutě, 2012). further, theories that are grounded in the neoclassical thought on migration view the phenomenon as a permanent human capital investment. thus, an indifferent individual is more likely to migrate, if the expected earnings in the host region are higher than the existing earnings in their place of origin (massey et al., 1993; constant and massey, 2002; kumpikaite and zickutě, 2012). holding other factors of migration constant, the contemporary migrant still sees migration as a cost. hence, it is not surprising that previous studies that explored wage differentials between origin and destination regions revealed that migrants have a higher propensity to move 43 from regions of lower retribution rates to regions of higher retribution rates (gaston and nelson, 2013; porumbescu, 2018; libanova, 2019; duru, 2021). similarly, the proponents of the new economics of labor migration view the phenomenon as a temporal household decision to diversify risk, and insure households against the possibility of market failure. in essence, the decision to migrate is a form of risk-diversifying strategy for the entire household, to alleviate any form of economic, socio-political, and environmental risks (taylor, 1999; de haas, 2010). thus, such a decision must be carefully assessed in terms of its cost and expected benefits to the entire household. also, it is evident that migration is influenced by some confounding factors in both the host and origin countries (shrestha, 2017; simpson, 2017), and lee (1966) presents this as push-pull factors of migration in a simple framework. while the core decision by prospective labor migrants is deep-rooted in economic motives, understanding the welfare of these migrants in their host nation is very essential. first, it informs the choices made by migrant households left behind in terms of their economic status through consumption, investment and welfare. also, the motive to migrate serves as a signaling tool to aspiring migrants by providing them with adequate information on their choice of destination when making migration decisions. while some existing studies observe a positive relationship between migration and subjective wellbeing (kettlewell, 2010), others find a negative link (knight and gunatilaka, 2012; mulcahy and kollamparambil, 2016), with yet others presenting a neutral scenario (ackah and medvedev, 2012). in south africa, despite the rise in earnings among internal migrants, there is a decline in subjective wellbeing, compared to their non-migrant counterparts (see mulcahy and kollamparambil, 2016). in their work, mulcahy and kollamparambil suspected that false expectations as well as the emotional cost of staying away from one’s family may have caused the decline. we therefore seek to utilize data that captures information on international migrants to broaden the argument and specifically examine if moonlighting impacts the subjective wellbeing of migrants. even though moonlighting is common in both developing and developed countries (sussman, 1998; kimmel and powell, 1999; averett, 2001; dickey et al., 2011; baah-boateng et al., 2013; timothy and nkwama, 2017), the phenomenon is diverse, with little room for a eurocentric outlook in developing countries. in the context of developing countries, moonlighting is more profound in the informal economy and it is usually manifested through business setups among individual migrants. it is noteworthy that irrespective of the wealth of literature that focuses on moonlighting within the african jurisdiction (rispel, blaauw, et al., 2014; rispel, chirwa, et al., 2014; rispel, 2015; rispel and blaauw, 2015; mabweazara, 2018; asravor, 2021) studies that focus on migrants, especially international migrants have not been found. within the south african context, rispel and blaauw (2015) assess how agencies and moonlighting affect the health of nurses. while they argue that moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa 44 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 moonlighting adversely affects the health of nurses and increases the probability of requesting sick leave, their reliance on cross-sectional data and a smaller sample leaves a room for researchers to further explore the phenomenon in light of varied determinants across time. extant literature emphasizes economic reasons as a major predictor of migration; hence, it is imperative to examine the dynamics of labor supply among immigrants in order to provide both theoretically robust and empirically relevant explanations. in their study on moonlighting, conway and kimmel (1992) provide empirical insight into existing labor supply theories, focusing much attention on how the labor supply is responsive to changes in the wage rate. this offers an understanding of how existing budget and labor supply constraints alter the behavior of individuals in labor supply decision-making. labor supply theories also link work-leisure hours and earning (killingsworth and heckman, 1986; pencavel, 1986). this was manifested in both the static and dynamic labor supply models that demonstrate how an individual’s time is traded between leisure and work. the leisure component has been found to be strongly correlated to people’s wellbeing and improvements in welfare (moore, 1971; macchia and whillans, 2021). however, some works on moonlighting ignore the welfare implications, but provide substantial evidence on the main determinants (baah-boateng et al., 2013; timothy and nkwama, 2017). a few also examine how motives are influenced by both financial motivation and time spent on the primary job, as well as how moonlighting affects productivity on primary jobs; while some consider the legal aspects of holding multiple jobs (averett, 2001; dickey et al., 2011). this study considers the welfare dimension of moonlighting among migrants who are more susceptible to vulnerabilities in the labor market. specifically, it examines the key determinants of moonlighting, as well as the differences that exist between migrants and non-migrants. theoretical perspectives on moonlighting relevant theoretical works underpinning moonlighting behavior can be traced to the seminal work of shishko and rostker (1976). they employ microeconomic theories and the demographic profiles of individuals to explain the supply curves of moonlighters. generally, moonlighting in labor supply is a build-up on already existing static and dynamic labor supply theories (killingsworth and heckman, 1986). the static model posits that an individual’s wellbeing (utility) is dependent on their taste, the price of consumer goods, and the hours of leisure consumed at a given period. in other words, an individual is constrained between spending time (24 hours) on leisure or work. a quest to increase the consumption of composite market goods therefore necessitates the reduction of hours allotted for leisure since extra income is usually gained through extra work. this perfectly resonates with the assertion of arrow and hahn (1971) that economic agents may arrive at a decision upon considering what they want and what they actually get. 45 stated differently, individuals maximize their utility subject to a constraint, which illustrates the fundamental problem in economics – scarcity. an individual who particularly values leisure reduces their hours of work and increases hours of leisure. this also means that fewer market goods are consumed, since a reduction in hours of work means less income is earned. participation in the labor force is therefore dependent on the available reservation wage, and how the rational individual views work and leisure (normal, inferior, or superior good). this trade-off in labor choice decision-making is grouped into both income and substitution effects, which leads to the derivation of a backward bending labor supply curve. the model therefore concludes that, even though the existing relationship between the labor supply of an individual and the predictors which include wages and property income may be statistically significant, there are other unobserved factors that help to explain an individual’s decision to work or have more leisure. even though the simple static labor supply model has played a significant role in providing theoretical backings on the individual’s behavior in choice-making between leisure and consumption of market goods, the model also poses empirical complications. these have been summarized as both discouraged-worker-effect and added-worker-effect, given the existing business cycles and rates of unemployment (wachter, 1972; mcfadyen and hobart, 1978; lundberg, 1985). critics highlight loopholes in some of the key pointers of the simple static model, which assumes the consumption of single commodity and the fixed nature of time. there is no doubt that these assumptions do not hold in the real world, hence, the issue of discouraged-worker-effect and added-worker-effect. the former posits that the proportion of job seekers generally falls during periods of higher unemployment. added-worker-effect, on the other hand, indicates that the labor force participation rate among married women whose husbands are unemployed generally increases compared to those whose husbands are employed. this finding is in line with both the family-labor choice and the male-chauvinist models, which assert that men are income-generating assets for their wives. hence, during periods of unemployment, there is a fall in the non-labor income received by women, thereby increasing the likelihood of women working (saget, 1999; vlasblom et al., 2001; steiner, 2004). the static model of labor supply does not account for long-term effect making labor market decisions. following the theoretical and empirical limitations of the simple static labor supply model, there has been a drift to dynamic labor supply models, which are extensions of the fundamental theory. key among them is the moonlighting model, which is the focus of this paper. the phenomenon has become important in examining what forms part of the decision to hold multiple jobs, and how this affects (in the present study) the wellbeing of the individual migrant. becker (1965) clearly states that an individual’s utility does not necessarily depend on market goods, time allocated for work or leisure, but rather, on commodities or activities. an individual therefore accepts an offer for a second job if the wage of the job is greater than the moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa 46 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 marginal rate of substitution of income for leisure for the first job (shishko and rostker, 1976). other moonlighting-related works that took an expansive dimension beyond the static model also attested that though time constraints force individuals to allot their time between multiple work and leisure, the hour constraint motive can be modified into earnings constraint motive (hirsch et al., 2016). hence, the reservation wage that is assigned to a secondary job can induce one to take up multiple jobs at the expense of leisure (averett, 2001; partridge, 2002; reilly and krstić, 2003; casacuberta and gandelman, 2012; klinger and weber, 2020). this resonates with the dynamics of moonlighting in developing economies, for which baah-boateng et al. (2013) provide empirical justification on how individuals who moonlight eventually become self-employed. however, the decision to moonlight is dependent on the relative wage rates of the primary and secondary jobs, the nature of contractual agreement on the primary job, the reservation wage and how the individual perceives leisure (inferior, normal, or superior good). this is depicted in the equations below. wellbeing=w(cit lit ) (1) equation 1 indicates that an individual’s utility is a function of the amount of composite market goods (c) and leisure (l) consumed, at a given time. this implies that, in any given period of time, the individual either works, consumes leisure or market goods, depending on their total income from both labor and non-labor sources. in simple terms, an increase in leisure implies a decrease in hours of work, which leads to a fall in income from labor and, thus, a fall in total income. given the fall in income, an individual would have to reduce their demand for market goods, assuming goods are considered to be normal goods, “all other things being equal”. equation 2 demonstrates that an individual’s consumption is dependent on their non-labor income (v) and wages (w) from all hours of work (h). this concept supports the optimization approach and follows the underlying assumption of insatiable human wants as opposed to limited resources. in effect, at any given point in time, an individual’s desire for both market goods and leisure – or either of them – is subject to a budget line that comprises both labor and non-labor income. cit= c( w1 h1+w2 h2 +...+ wn hn + v) (2) this wellbeing function in equation 2 is maximized subject to the constraint in equation 3. n pcit≤ vit+ ∑ .wit hit (3) i=1 thus, we maximize equation 4, which represents the time for leisure and work, subject 47 to the constraint in equation 3, which reads as an individual’s total expenditure. pcit is the sum of their earnings from all jobs (∑i=1 wit) and their non-labor income, at a defined time. given the panel nature of the data, the subscript i represents each individual and t is the time period of the survey. t= l + h1 + h2 +...+ hn (4) it is important to indicate that, as an extension of the simple static labor choice model, the assumption is that an individual’s total time available (t) is shared between work and leisure. therefore, equation 4 states that an individual moonlighter shares their time between leisure (l) and work (h). while rational economic behavior suggests that individuals only moonlight for non-financial motives, shishko and rostker (1976) established that an individual will moonlight if they are constrained in the number of hours to offer on the primary job. this signifies that an individual cannot exceed a certain number of assigned hours (h) and is therefore restricted in earnings (wh). another motive to moonlight is caused by the presence of heterogeneous jobs. this occurs when the primary and secondary jobs possess different non-pecuniary benefits and costs. data and descriptive statistics the study draws on the five waves of the national income dynamics study (nids) dataset compiled in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016. despite the high attrition recorded in some of the survey years, all five waves have been used, due to the unique nature of the moonlighting variable. this survey, the first national panel study that captures migrant labor market engagements in south africa, was carried out by the southern africa labour and development research unit (saldru) at the university of cape town. the first survey began in 2008 with a nationally representative sample of over 28,000 individuals in 7,300 households. given the repeated nature of the survey (every two years with the same units of households interviewed), the dataset is reliable, valid and representative to achieve rigor in the present panel analysis. as captured in table 1, migrant status, where migrants were broadly classified into internal, international, and non-migrants offered a layer of opportunity for this study to thoroughly investigate the tendency to moonlight and its impact on individuals along the constituencies of these three broad players in the south african labor market space.5 we focused on the entire sample who were engaged in at least one job engagement, across all the waves. we were determined not to restrict our analysis to only internal and international migrants, hence, non-migrants who were actively engaged in the labor force were included to serve as a reference sample. our allinclusive sampling approach made it possible for us to present findings that capture 5 international migration involves moving from one country to the other; hence, an international migrant is an individual who changes their country of usual residence. internal migrants are individuals who migrate within the borders of a country. moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa 48 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 the experiences of both internal and international migrants. as seen in the summary statistics below, the education level of participants was categorized into 3: non-educated, secondary, and tertiary. it was observed that the majority of individuals held at least secondary education, irrespective of their migration status across the five waves of the nids dataset. among the groups, 84.75% of south africans held secondary education and there is less variation across all five waves, whereas 82.49% and 74.53% are internal and international migrants respectively. a cursory look at the gendered dimension indicates that the majority (59.65%) of internal migrants are females while the majority of the men (54.66%) are international migrants. this resonates with existing theories of migration that highlight that men migrate for relatively longer distances than women. it also indicates that migration among females is mostly temporal, at short distances, and circular in nature, despite the recent wave of feminization of migration. the significant role of social networks among both migrants and non-migrants in terms of job search strategies has been well documented in the nids dataset, as the majority of individuals made use of existing social networks in job searching. among native south africans and internal migrants, more than 50% made use of social networks in job searching, while among international migrants, about 48%, representing the highest, made use of social networks; with 42.52% employing a manual approach to job searching – which means physically searching for jobs. it is reasonable to surmise that natives and internal migrants are more likely to have high social capital in terms of relatives and friends across all parts of south africa, which provides a favorable foundation and useful point of reference in job searching. beyond the job-search strategy, social networks play a significant role in redefining existing migration patterns, flows and dynamics in both sending and receiving countries. table 1: summary statistics source: authors' own compilation variables observation mean standard deviation min. max. moonlighting 25 890 0.01 0.099 0 1 hours of work 25 890 0.496 0.5 0 1 children per household 10 739 2.557 1.552 1 14 male 25 886 0.5 0.5 0 1 age group 25 890 2.554 0.509 1 4 migrant type 24 539 1.403 0.508 1 3 education 24 539 2.221 0.415 1 3 job search 7423 2.022 0.737 1 3 wellbeing 15 007 2.917 0.708 1 4 happiness 25 530 2.988. 1.081 1 4 household monthly income 4 091 3320.582 7033.178 0 230 000 marital status 25 852 3.221 1.824 1 5 n 49 subjective wellbeing and happiness, which happen to be key outcome variables that measure labour welfare were captured as categorical variables (see table 1). a significant number of individuals reported improved subjective wellbeing. a comparative assessment across the various groups based on migration status showed that 77.04% of international migrants reported improved wellbeing, compared to 66.95% and 59.91% for internal migrants and non-migrant south africans respectively (see figure 1). while this provides a useful point of departure to further assess what accounts for the improved wellbeing, earlier research reported low wellbeing among migrants (mulcahy and kollamparambil, 2016). this notwithstanding, it is important to highlight that this finding does not reflect causal relation, instead, a relationship which only provides a spectrum of distribution among both migrant and non-migrant groups. with reference to moonlighting, we captured it as a dummy variable which takes on a value of 1 if an individual holds more than one job and 0 otherwise (see table 1). the data clearly shows that moonlighting is prevalent among individuals with only secondary education, 71.76% of whom moonlight, compared with 28.24% with post-secondary education. females are more likely to have more than one job than males. key reasons for this could be that the majority of females are engaged in household work and informal sector engagements. the majority of moonlighters and single-job-holders reported the use of social networks as a job search strategy, and both categories reported improved wellbeing. the average monthly household income was calculated as zar 3,320.582. each household had an average of three children, which reflects the modern drift towards nuclear household systems in urban south africa, compared to elsewhere in africa where households are larger. figure 1 : measurement of subjective wellbeing source: authors' own compilation moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa 50 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 empirical strategy and variables of interest this study does not only provide empirical insight and theoretical underpinning to the pressing social and policy needs among migrants and the labor market, but it also contributes to rigorous methodological inputs in understanding labor moonlighting and wellbeing. this research contributes to the methodology in three major ways. firstly, it established the claim of labor moonlighting among migrants and nonmigrants in their country of residence. secondly, it ascertained the implication of moonlighting on wellbeing. thirdly, this is the first study to employ panel data including five repeated waves to establish the above findings. these observations make the study seminal and also offer a good background for further inquiry that will be subject-focused. despite the theoretical intuitiveness of labor moonlighting, the empirical investigation of its determinant is faced with challenges. the main source of concern is the problem of self-selection. there is positive selection among workers who take up more than one job. in effect, it becomes difficult to delineate the effect of migration status on moonlighting decisions, as indicated in the theoretical literature. another problem relates to whether the observed determinants correlate significantly with unobserved factors that influence moonlighting. to overcome these challenges, this study employed a nationally representative panel dataset, which offered an opportunity to investigate the dynamic effect of migrants’ behavior on moonlighting. the panel dataset enriched this study, given that it offered the opportunity to undertake the analysis of the same units over a repeated period of time (five waves in this case). in addition, the methodology used accounts for both observed and unobserved heterogeneity. another strength of the dataset is its richness and detailed information provision on both immigrants and non-immigrants who reported both their labor and non-labor income, as well as jobspecific information for up to two jobs. information was also available on whether an individual was self-employed or personally engaged in agricultural activities, with corresponding earnings from all respective jobs, which allows for rich specification. this study achieved two main objectives. the first part estimated the determinants of moonlighting among individuals (both immigrants and nonimmigrants) in south africa, using a logit regression model. the second part of the paper addresses the implication of moonlighting on the subjective wellbeing of migrants. in the former case, we assume dichotomous dependent variable “moonlight” coded as 0/1 to reflect the probability to moonlight or not given migration status and other covariates. the reduced-form model is estimated as in equation 5. 51 a more formal estimate is given in equation 6: pr (yit≠0|xit)=p(xit β+ vit+ ϵit) (6) the equation represents the probability of moonlighting or not, given the covariates xit – which consist of vector of predictor values such as socio-demographic and economic indicators for individual i at survey year t. these socio-demographic factors include age, sex, marital status, family size, household expenditure, and education levels of prospective moonlighters. the job strategy adopted by individuals and the number of hours spent on their primary job were also considered. thus, b captures the intensive margin estimates of the extent to which the above-mentioned factors explain the likelihood to moonlight. that is, the logistic regression model basically estimates the likelihood that a migrant moonlights, given the independent variables. the composite error term uit = ni + eit captures other unobserved characteristics that are both time-fixed and time-changing. the estimate is analytically done via a maximum likelihood estimation technique. if we assume a normal distribution n(0,sn), for the random effects, the likelihood is given in equation 7. where the maximum likelihood (ml) estimator of equation 7 is a consistent asymptotically normal estimator of the coefficient vector b (woodridge, 2010, 473–481). however, by assuming random effect, we invoke strong assumptions about the error term uit. a unit homogeneity of individuals is assumed. that is, there is no unobserved heterogeneity that affects migration status and other covariates. in simple terms, the within-variation among migrants is null. it is also assumed that errors that change over time are statistically orthogonal to the regressors. these assumptions are likely to fail when there is self-selection and errors are not completely random. though the assumptions seem untenable, we argue that the random effect is still efficient and consistent for our model and context. the nature of our data is suitable for random effect and simple pooled ordinary least square (pols) analysis. we find that covariates do not show enough moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa 52 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 within variation to apply fixed effect model (see figure 2 and table 13 in appendix). sex, marital status and job-search strategy are near-time-constant regressors. as the within-variation among migrants for these regressors is null, the fixed effect drops all observation without within-effect on moonlighting. as the number of observations in the panel setting is large compared to the time dimension, we are likely to run into incidental parameter problems when considering interactions of variables. that is, directly estimating the individual fixed effect ni will generate a large number of parameters, which leads to inconsistent estimators. however, with additional assumptions6 it is possible to consistently estimate the coefficient vector b.7 we therefore employ the random effect due to its greater flexibility and generalizability, and its ability to model the context, including timeconstant variables. to confirm the suitability of random effect, we run the hausman test. the second part of the paper addresses the implication of moonlighting on the subjective wellbeing of migrants. since subjective wellbeing is a categorical variable, the appropriate identification strategy is a multinomial logistic regression model. the model helps predict the likelihood of being happy, given a migrant’s moonlighting status while controlling for other confounding factors. unlike discriminant function analysis, this model does not assume normality, linearity, or homoscedasticity. it is seen as an attractive approach (kwak and clayton-matthews, 2002; hedeker, 2003). the relationship between the propensities of subjective wellbeing, moonlighting status, and other covariates is expressed in equation 9: yit =p(∝it+ xitβj + ϵitj) (9) where yit is the latent propensity for each individual i at time t to experience subjective wellbeing category j. in equation 9, bj denotes the coefficient vector, with xit being independent variables including but not limited to moonlighting dummy. similarly, the error term eitj is assumed to be independent and identically distributed across all outcomes j, and aij is a random variable. with these assumptions, the probabilities of each outcome are estimated, given our determinants of subjective wellbeing. results and discussion this section discusses the results of multivariate regressions presented below. there are two main estimations: to comprehend the key determinants of moonlighting, and to assess how moonlighting behavior affects the wellbeing of individuals in the labor market, with a focus on migrants in south africa. 6 the observed covariates are strictly exogenous, conditional on the unobserved heterogeneity, and the error terms are independent across time. 7 beck and katz (2007) show that, with respect to time-series-cross-section (tscs) data, random effect models perform well, even when the normality assumptions are violated. 53 main results the main empirical results are shown in table 2, showing the pols, fixed effect and random effect estimates. we find that the fixed effects are not suitable, as some of the observations are dropped due to many time-constant regressors and too little within-variation among migrants. the credibility of the results crucially relies on the assumption that the observed covariates are strictly exogenous, conditional on the unobserved heterogeneity, and the error terms are independent across time. this was confirmed by the hausman test. we find that random effect is appropriate for the context and nature of variables. specifically, the hausman test failed to reject the null that the difference in coefficients is not systematic, implying that the issue of unobserved heterogeneity is unproblematic. table 2: determinants of moonlighting s variables (1) random effect (2) ols (3) fixed effect hours of work -0.005** -0.575** -0.743* (0.002) (0.232) (0.439) children 0.0004 0.035 -0.162 (0.001) (0.072) (0.226) level of education 0.005* 0.498** 0.810 (0.003) (0.248) (1.205) household expenditure 0.0001*** 0.0001*** 0.0002 (0.000) (0.000) (0.0003) migration status internal migrant -0.001 -0.072 0.491 (0.002) (0.221) (0.397) international migrant 0.039*** 1.646** 15.987 (0.015) (0.755) (1,651) marital status living together 0.005 0.475 1.309 (0.004) (0.406) (1.067) widow/widower 0.005 0.432 -14.468 (0.004) (0.385) (963.178) divorced/separated 0.012*** 0.953** -1.253 (0.005) (0.383) (1.333) never married 0.003 0.309 0.491 (0.002) (0.283) (0.860) job search strategy social network 0.005* 0.518* 0.186 (0.003) (0.298) (0.566) manual 0.004 0.392 0.121 (0.003) (0.334) (0.564) constant -0.001 -5.636*** (0.004) (0.438) observations 25,890 25,890 1186 moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa * 54 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 note: *,**,**,*denotes significant at the 10%, 5% and 1% level respectively. robust standard errors are presented in parenthesis. the general results align with both the “hours constraint” and financial motive models of moonlighting. specifically, after controlling for other covariates, individuals working beyond the stipulated 40-hours per week in south africa are less likely to moonlight and this is statistically significant at a 5% level of significance in columns 1 and 2 respectively. more specifically, people working above the normal working hours are estimated to have a lower likelihood of moonlighting. in terms of the likelihood to moonlight based on migration status, the researchers realized that international migrants have a higher propensity to moonlight than internal migrants or south african non-migrants. it is important to note that this is significant at a 99% and 95% confidence interval in columns 1 and 2 respectively. this may be attributed to the positive selection nature of individual migrants with the edge for higher returns on migration as a human capital investment. though this finding has no confirmation from any existing literature, due to the newness of the field, it is logically consistent, empirically verifiable and policy relevant, given the needs of migrants and the overarching motive for their migration trajectory. the results further highlighted another interesting finding among individuals within different marital groups. the evidence indicates that people who are divorced or separated have a higher likelihood of holding multiple jobs compared to those with another marital status, controlling for other co-variates. while this has no direct theoretical underpinning, it deepens our understanding of how marriage plays a significant role in the livelihoods of people through resource mobilization and sharing of responsibilities. it is important to mention that the case of single and widowed individuals is not similar. divorce appears in the form of a shock that disrupts an individual’s income stream and other socioeconomic responsibilities. the above-mentioned finding has varied theoretical and policy implications, but this paper focuses on two extremes by providing explanations that may attract further scientific inquiry, especially in a post-covid-19 political economy in south africa and beyond. there is heterogeneity in response to divorce by individuals and this is likely to have a positive impact and lead to less or more moonlighting depending on one’s position. the paper outlines two main positions that are dependent on the psychological states and income scales of individuals. the same result can be given two major considerations (negative and positive) following the conventional concept of elasticity of demand for income and psychological needs. in effect, a person’s degree of responsiveness to divorce based on their income levels at the period of the divorce as well as their psychological fit and degree of responsiveness to divorce as a shock will influence their propensity to hold multiple jobs. divorce can be a negative shock, especially for couples who might have suffered asset loss, income, wealth and economic securities of survival, among others. this is important in economic, theoretical and policy research designs to avoid any form of (un)foreseen disequilibrium that succeeds divorce. the theoretical concern by the male chauvinist 55 model8 presents a significant evidential undertone, as divorcees are more likely to lose their non-labor income during periods of unemployment and divorce, which has a direct relationship with their total income. this, therefore, signifies and partly explains why divorcees are more likely to moonlight compared to those who are not divorced, given other co-variates. another important determinant of moonlighting that is highlighted in both empirical and theoretical literature is income level. household expenditure is used as a proxy to determine an individual’s likelihood to hold multiple jobs in south africa. individuals with higher household monthly expenditure have a higher propensity to hold multiple jobs. this is statistically significant at a 99% confidence interval. having a higher household monthly income implies a higher financial burden, which means hours of work must be increased in order to increase income to meet the rising expenditure. therefore, instead of including the household income variable, we made use of the household expenditure to better explain its influence on the likelihood to moonlight. there is also a relationship between mode of job search and the likelihood of moonlighting. individuals reported to have used social networks, advertisements, or a mechanical approach in searching for jobs. the multivariate approach indicates that people who use social networks in job search have a higher propensity to hold multiple jobs than their counterparts who used advertisements or a manual approach. this evidence is statistically significant at a 10% level of significance with a 57-percentage point higher likelihood. it is also imperative to underscore that social networks have played a significant role in the migration trajectory, pre-departure preparation as well as recruitment processes of both internal and international migrants (awumbila et al., 2017; vermaak and muller, 2019). this finding accords with both social network and human capital theories (see curran and saguy, 2001) in migration that conclude that migrants are more likely to migrate to locations dominated by their ethnic groups. in summary, the random effect model predicts that hours spent on a primary job, migration status, marital status, income levels, and mode of job search have statistically significant explanatory powers in moonlighting behavior. while it is surprising that the number of children does have a significant explanatory role in the propensity of holding multiple jobs, there is a positive relationship which explains that individuals with many children are likely to moonlight, all other things being equal. this is in line with previous findings that revealed that having more children increases one’s likelihood of moonlighting (abdukadir 1992; kimmel and conway, 2001). this is consistent with the notion that having more children means more responsibilities, which increases household expenditure. in effect, an individual 8 according to this, the wife views her husband’s earnings as a kind of property income when she makes labor supply decisions, whereas the husband decides on his labor supply without reference to his wife’s labor supply decisions, solely on the basis of his own wage and the family’s actual property income. the model predicts that in an advent of any rising unemployment rate or a suspicion of divorce by married people, there is a higher likelihood of devoting additional time to the labor market. moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa 56 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 constrained by income will be motivated financially to moonlight. our results indicate that international migrant women have a higher propensity to hold multiple jobs than their male cohorts. this is statistically significant at a 95% confidence interval. similarly, divorced women are more likely to moonlight than divorced men. this is a strong affirmation of the main thesis of the male chauvinist model, which predicts that in a situation of rising unemployment or a suspicion of divorce, there is a higher likelihood that women will devote additional time to the labor market. another reason to prioritize this thought is deeply rooted in the current pandemic time, which heightens the vulnerability levels of women in terms of gender-based violence, sexual reproductive health, and exploitation at workplaces in south africa, since women are the majority and front-liners in the most affected sectors. women therefore play a significant role in the labor market, yet their remuneration does not always match their level of productivity. while this is not one of the objectives of this paper, it is important to highlight that moonlighting is likely to persist in the labor market and more likely to be common among women, given the current structure of the labor market and the gendered nature of treatment. a key pointer within the policy landscape should be geared towards leveraging the existing platform to achieve a common ground for both men and women within the labor market through a more tailored gender-sensitive policy framework, with workable action plans in order to achieve equality. predictors of subjective wellbeing this section assesses the main predictors of individuals’ wellbeing, with a focus on moonlighting. the study made use of the self-reported wellbeing and happiness variables by respondents during the survey years for all the five panels. there are five numbered categorizations for both wellbeing and happiness, with 1 representing very poor wellbeing or very unhappy and 5 representing highly improved wellbeing or extremely happy respectively. while the wellbeing and happiness variables may seemingly explain almost similar concepts, wellbeing basically reports respondents’ overall welfare while happiness reports respondents’ mood during the survey period. it is important to clarify that these are self-reported and widely accepted in welfare economics and the economics of happiness. it is important to also point out that the subjective indicator for wellbeing has the tendency to be biased as it does not apply any objective indicators. two separate models have therefore been estimated, with wellbeing and happiness as the dependent variables to assess one’s likelihood to have improved wellbeing or to be happy, given that one moonlights or not while controlling for other relevant covariates. table 3 (see appendix) demonstrates an interesting relationship between wellbeing and moonlighting. this is the overarching hypothesis in this paper. it affirms previous studies that revealed that the returns of migrants do not necessarily translate into improved wellbeing. our quest to understand why this is the case has 57 remained the main motivation for this research, aside from other important issues. in this paper, the finding indicates that individuals who moonlight reported very poor wellbeing, which is statistically significant at a 5% level of significance. specifically, multiple job holders are 22.3 percentage points more likely to report very poor wellbeing than their non-moonlighting counterparts. while explaining this in isolation from other covariates could attribute the outcome to reduction in leisure hours, as underscored by the labor moonlighting theories, this perfectly confirms our earlier findings that hours spent on primary jobs impact on moonlighting. there is evidence that individuals who spent hours above the normal 40 hours per week on the job also reported very poor wellbeing, with a 99% confidence interval (see table 3, random effect model). the drudgery and daily toil, with little breathing space to relax and indulge in other activities will definitely impact the wellbeing of migrants negatively. it is therefore correct to deduce that the time spent on the job and the number of job holdings among individuals explain an individual’s wellbeing. in addition to the above, individuals paying medical aid reported having poorly improved wellbeing, at a 99% confidence interval. this is also the case for the number of children that individuals have. a higher number of children corresponds to very low wellbeing, also statistically significant at a 1% level of significance. another interesting finding here is the relationship between marital status and subjective wellbeing. divorcees expressed a higher propensity to improved wellbeing, while those who were married, single, widowed, or living with partners reported higher propensities of very poor wellbeing, with a 99% confidence interval. one can argue that a divorcee from a toxic relationship is likely to report higher subjective wellbeing, as it is “freedom from bondage”. this assertion does not necessarily mean married individuals are with the wrong partners, given the several unobserved factors the study must take into account before concluding on this. however, it relates to the current situation of gender-based violence, leading to divorce, in south africa. the finding from the current study contradicts several findings that observe a positive relationship between marriage and subjective wellbeing (larson, 1978; mastekaasa, 1994; kim and moen, 2001; de la rochefoucauld et al., 2006). this has a significant policy implication. people with higher levels of education also reported very poor wellbeing, at a 90% confidence interval. this is a policy concern that can be explored further for a different perspective, because it contradicts the findings of mainstream literature from economic, sociological and wellbeing perspectives (zepke, 2013). income plays a significant role in determining people’s wellbeing. however, due to issues of multicollinearity, other variables like payment of medical bills, and the number of children represent responsibilities to some extent. while anecdotal evidence points to a positive relationship between education and subjective wellbeing, it is imperative to note that the contribution of education to subjective wellbeing is unclear, limited, inexplicit, and fragmented, according to various accounts in the empirical literature. moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa 58 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 for instance, a systematic literature study found no significant relationship between education and subjective wellbeing (kahneman et al., 2004) while others noted a positive relationship (white, 2007; michalos, 2013). in order to concretize the above results, the model 2 in table 3 provides the results of a multivariate regression model with happiness as the dependent variable, given the remaining covariates. moonlighting has no significant explanatory power in explaining an individual’s likelihood to be happy or not. however, there is a negative relationship between moonlighting and staying happy, which suggests that holding multiple jobs has a higher tendency to make an individual unhappy, given other covariates. supporting this claim, are the hours spent by individuals on primary jobs. the result shows that spending above the normal weekly 40 hours is more likely to make one very unhappy. this is statistically significant, at a 99% confidence interval. this corresponds with the wellbeing results, which also highlight the fact that having more than one job or spending more hours above the usual weekly 40 hours on a primary job negatively affects an individual’s wellbeing. a key element to underpin this claim is the role of leisure in defining wellbeing and happiness, which is logically consistent, empirically robust and policy driven (shishko and rostker, 1976; conway and kimmel, 1992; averett, 2001). the more children one has, the lower the probability of being happy. this is statistically significant at a 1% level of significance, and is in line with the findings on the wellbeing of individuals presented above. people who pay their own medical aid also reported being very unhappy, at a 95% confidence interval. a variable that did not show any significance, and even with a negative relationship turned out to be positive and even statistically significant at a 5% level of significance, is government housing. people residing in government houses under the state housing programme reported being very unhappy. presenting this result in isolation may have policy implications, so it is important to disentangle the combined features that may help explain this particular covariate. this is because the likelihood of being poor when residing in government housing is high. this scheme is meant for the poor black population, as a social protection policy to provide a safety net due to the high poverty and inequality rates in south africa. unlike the wellbeing indicator, marital status showed different dynamics in explaining the likelihood of being happy or not. although it is not statistically significant, people who are living with their partners and those separated or divorced did not report being unhappy, instead, they are more likely to be happy compared to their counterparts. the wave effects for these results have been controlled for all five waves. robustness check in this section, we report the results of a number of further robustness exercises and extensions. robustness along the line of education (see table 10), confirms a negative relationship between spending many hours on the primary job and the likelihood of 59 one to moonlight. further, we found a significant relationship for individuals with post-secondary education. a plausible reason for this is that such individuals are more likely to qualify for job opportunities that fully engage them, unlike unskilled laborers, who may be underemployed, hence, desire to engage in more moonlighting activities. also, we found a statistically significant relationship for post-secondary international migrants and divorcees. the results for our primary variable of interest which happens to be hours spent on primary work seem to be significant across our regressions which were estimated along the lines of wave and interaction of variables. conclusion moonlighting and migration have been hypothesized independently in both theoretical and empirical literature. however, the relationship between migrants’ likelihood to moonlight, and how this affects their wellbeing, and its implication for policy rethinking have not received the needed attention in both research and policy design. the present work employed an individual level panel dataset from south africa to estimate the key determinants of moonlighting and its implication on wellbeing. the key variables of interest are moonlighting and self-reported wellbeing among individuals, with moonlighting as the main covariate. a model of determinants of happiness was also estimated, to draw synergies or nuances in the estimated self-reported wellbeing model. evidence was found that international migrants are more likely to moonlight. individuals who spent more hours above the normal (40 hours per week) on their primary job have a lower tendency to moonlight. the paper established a strong incidence of moonlighting among divorcees, individuals with higher monthly household expenditure, and people who made use of social networks in their job searches. divorced or separated people are solely responsible for their daily upkeep, payment of bills, among other expenses, and therefore their lack of financial support increases their propensity to hold multiple jobs in order to earn more. higher household expenditure translates into a need for greater household income, which therefore means reduction in leisure hours and a rise in working hours in order to achieve this. individuals who use social networks in job-seeking are more likely to operate in the informal and private household sectors. this means that returns will be lower than for individuals in formal work. it is therefore reasonable that such individuals hold more than one job to increase their earnings. in effect, it can be concluded that moonlighting among individuals is a rational decision based on sociodemographic and economic factors. the analysis suggests that there is a significant relationship between moonlighting and self-reported wellbeing. specifically, moonlighting tends to negatively affect an individual’s wellbeing. this conclusion is also deep-seated in the theoretical perspectives of moonlighting, which posit two main constraints – hours and income. trading off leisure hours will lead to a corresponding rise in labor income. however, the individual is subjected to a constraint from low or no leisure moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa 60 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 hours, which affects wellbeing. this partly explains the conclusion drawn in the work of mulcahy and kollamparambil 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wellbeing and education: issues of culture and authority. journal moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa https://doi.org/10.3402/gha.v7.25754 https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0351.00026 http://search.ebscohost. com/login.aspx?direct=trueanddb=bthandan=4500436andsite=ehost-liveandscope=site http://search.ebscohost. com/login.aspx?direct=trueanddb=bthandan=4500436andsite=ehost-liveandscope=site http://search.ebscohost. com/login.aspx?direct=trueanddb=bthandan=4500436andsite=ehost-liveandscope=site http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26024 https://doi.org/ 10.15185/izawol.373 https://doi.org/10.1093/cesifo/50.3.541 https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2017.1334434 https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835x.2019.1584549 https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835x.2019.1584549 https://doi.org/10.1080/00036840121832 https://doi.org/10.1080/00036840121832 https://doi.org/10.2307/1926274 66 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 of philosophy of education, 41(1): 17-28. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14679752.2007.00540.x. woodridge, j.m. 2010. econometric analysis of cross section and panel data. 2nd ed. cambridge, ma: mit press. zepke, n. 2013. lifelong education for subjective well-being: how do engagement and active citizenship contribute? international journal of lifelong education, 32(5): 639-651. https://doi.org/10.1080/02601370.2012.753125. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.2007.00540.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.2007.00540.x https://doi.org/10.1080/02601370.2012.753125 67 appendix table 3: moonlighting and self-reported wellbeing and happiness note: *,**,***denotes significant at the 10%, 5% and 1% levels respectively. robust standard errors are presented in parenthesis. all tables and figures in the appendix are based on data calculated by the authors variables (1) subjective wellbeing (2) happiness moonlighting 0.223** 0.075 (0.113) (0.130) hours of primary work 0.076*** 0.093*** (0.023) (0.025) number of children 0.048*** 0.052*** (0.008) (0.009) post-secondary education 0.050* 0.037 ((0.029) (0.033) self-paid medical aid 0.142*** 0.073** (0.032) (0.036) government housing -0.003 0.068** (0.030) (0.032) migration status internal migrant -1.517*** -0.565 (0.583) (0.387) international migrant -13.634 -0.686 (616.276)) ((1.270) marital status living together 0.127*** -0.072 (0.046) (0.048) widow/widower 0.136*** 0.169*** (0.046) (0.049) divorced/separated -0.104** -0.070 (0.052) (0.059) never married 0.221*** 0.184*** (0.028) (0.031) constant 2.711*** 2.872*** (0.078) (0.087) observations 4,382 7,548 moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa 68 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 table 4: migrant type table 5: job search strategy table 6: highest education table 7: moonlighter table 8: age group freq. percent cum. non-migrant 62244 69.08 69.08 internal migrant 27372 30.38 99.46 international migrant 483 0.54 100.00 freq. percent cum. adverts 5732 22.27 22.27 social network 13259 51.51 73.77 manual search 6708 26.06 99.83 freq. percent cum. secondary education 148180 78.20 78.20 post-secondary education 41302 21.80 100.00 freq. percent cum. no 25635 99.02 99.02 yes 255 0.98 100.00 freq. percent cum. children (below 15) 62410 20.92 20.92 youth (15-34) 66829 22.40 43.31 adults (35-65) 49653 16.64 59.95 elderly (above 65) 119493 40.05 100.00 69 moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa table 9: robustness check using individual waves for random effect model standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 variables (1) all wave (2) wave>1 (3) wave>2 (4) wave>3 (5) wave>4 hours on primary work -0.003 -0.005*** -0.006*** -0.006*** -0.006*** (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) number of children -0.001 0.001 0.001 0.002** 0.002** (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) internal migrant -0.001 -0.001 -0.001 0.000 0.000 (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) international migrant 0.056*** -0.010 -0.010 -0.007 -0.007 (0.018) (0.020) (0.024) (0.023) (0.023) living together 0.009** 0.005 0.006 0.002 0.002 (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) widow/widower 0.008* 0.006* 0.007* 0.003 0.003 (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) divorced/separated 0.018*** 0.011** 0.012** 0.003 0.003 (0.005) (0.005) (0.005) (0.005) (0.005) never married 0.004 0.004* 0.004 0.003 0.003 (0.003) (0.002) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003) highest level of education 0.003 0.004* 0.006** 0.006* 0.006* (0.003) (0.002) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003) household expenditure 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) social network 0.007** 0.004* 0.004 0.005* 0.005* (0.003) (0.002) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003) manual 0.003 0.003 0.003 0.004 0.004 (0.003) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003) wave -0.003*** (0.001) constant 0.010* -0.002 -0.003 -0.007 -0.007 (0.005) (0.004) (0.004) (0.005) (0.005) observations 7,264 9,673 8,129 6,040 6,040 r-squared 0.008 0.004 0.006 0.006 0.006 70 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 table 10: robustness check using education for random effect model standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 variables (1) secondary education (2) post-secondary education hours on primary work -0.001 -0.011** (0.002) (0.006) number of children -0.001 -0.001 (0.001) (0.002) internal migrant -0.002 0.001 (0.003) (0.006) international migrant 0.032 0.125*** (0.020) (0.041) living together 0.008* 0.019 (0.005) (0.012) widow/widower 0.012** -0.005 (0.005) (0.010) divorced/separated 0.003 0.046*** (0.006) (0.010) never married 0.004 0.004 (0.003) (0.007) household expenditure 0.000** 0.000 (0.000) (0.000) social network 0.008** 0.006 (0.003) (0.006) advert 0.005 -0.004 (0.004) (0.007) manual -0.012 -0.003 (0.064) (0.063) wave -0.003*** -0.001 (0.001) (0.002) constant 0.010* 0.007 (0.006) (0.012) observations 5,656 1,608 r-squared 0.006 0.026 71 table 11: interactions of variables for robustness check variables (1) re (2) re (3) re (4) re hours on primary work -0.626** -0.636** -0.642** -0.379 (0.260) (0.262) (0.260) (0.315) internal migrant -0.253 0.076 -0.302 0.152 (0.486) (0.459) (0.303) (0.290) international migrant 4.905** 2.586* 1.474 1.843 (2.416) (1.434) (1.238) (1.288) living together 0.411 0.765 0.507 0.456 (0.471) (0.583) (0.467) (0.467) widow/widower 0.488 0.970* 0.508 0.497 (0.448) (0.517) (0.447) (0.449) divorced/separated 0.950** 1.100* 0.916* 0.927* (0.474) (0.608) (0.472) (0.474) never married 0.294 0.218 0.308 0.295 (0.327) (0.413) (0.327) (0.327) married internal migrant -1.054 (1.015) widowed internal migrant -1.945 (1.218) divorced internal migrant -0.246 (0.889) never married internal migrant 0.281 (0.593) married international migrant 0.000 (0.000) widowed international migrant 0.335 (2.068) divorced international migrant 0.000 (0.000) never married international migrant 0.000 highest education 0.483 0.475 0.149 0.487 (0.301) (0.303) (0.384) (0.301) number of children 0.020 0.033 0.036 0.029 (0.102) (0.087) (0.086) (0.086) household expenditure 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000** (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) social network 0.555 0.565 0.553 0.578* (0.341) (0.344) (0.339) (0.341) manual 0.409 0.425 0.397 0.430 (0.376) (0.378) (0.375) (0.376) non-migrant and number of children 0.000 (0.000) internal migrant and number of children 0.065 (0.152) international migrant and number of children -1.453 (1.356) non-migrant and secondary education 0.000 (0.000) non-migrant and post-secondary education 0.000 (0.000) internal migrant and secondary education 0.000 (0.000) internal migrant and post-secondary education 0.733 (0.535) international migrant and secondary education 0.000 (0.000) international migrant and post-secondary education 2.279 (2.061) constant -7.372*** -7.525*** -7.305*** -7.498*** (0.711) (0.724) (0.691) (0.709) observations 10,081 10,068 10,081 10,081 moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa 72 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 table 12: summary statistics variables mean std.dev. min. max. observation moonlighting overall 0.009 0.099 0 1 n= 25890 between 0.0811 0 1 n= 13583 within 0.0674 -0.740 0.810 t-bar = 1.906 hours of work overall 0.496 0.500 0 1 n= 25890 between 0.435 0 1 n= 13583 within 0.313 -0.304 1.296 t-bar = 1.906 kids overall 2.557 1.552 1 14 n= 10739 between 1.527 1 14 n= 5802 within 0.446 -4.643 6.057 t-bar = 1.851 male overall 0.500 0.500 0 1 n = 25886 between 0.500 0 1 n = 13579 within 0 0.500 0.500 t-bar = 1.906 age group overall 2.554 0.509 1 4 n = 25890 between 0.498 1 4 n = 13583 within 0.171 1.754 3.354 t-bar = 1.906 migrant type overall 1.403 0.508 1 3 n = 24539 between 0.454 1 3 n = 13212 within 0.310 -0.097 3.003 t-bar = 1.857 education overall 2.194 0.395 2 3 n = 25887 between 0.372 2 3 n = 13582 within 0.119 1.394 2.993 t-bar = 1.906 job search overall 4.075 2.124 1 11 n = 25710 between 1.827 1 11 n = 13526 within 1.331 -2.175 11.275 t-bar = 1.901 wellbeing overall 2.917 0.708 1 4 n = 15007 between 0.650 1 4 n = 9713 within 0.389 0.917 4.917 t-bar = 1.545 happiness overall 2.988 1.081 1 4 n = 25530 between 0.914 1 4 n = 13510 within 0.725 0.588 5.388 t-bar = 1.889 hh monthly inc overall 3320.582 7033.178 0 230000 n= 4091 between 7112.908 0 230000 n = 3771 within 1402.208 0 230000 t-bar = 1.085 marital status overall 3.221 1.824 1 5 n = 25852 between 1.739 1 5 n = 13571 within 0.616 0.0208 6.421 t-bar = 1.905 73 figure 2: descriptive statistics figure 3a: change in moonlighting over time per migrant type moonlight% per migrant type moonlighting behaviour among migrants and wellbeing in south africa 74 ahmr african human mobility review volume 8 no 2, may-aug 2022 figure 3b: change in moonlighting over time per migrant type. subjective wellbeing% per migrant type 80 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 deportability, deportation, and nigerian “deportspora” in china kudus oluwatoyin adebayo1 received 27 january 2023 / accepted 07 july 2023 / published 18 august 2023 https://doi.org/10.14426/ahmr.v9i2.1326 abstract how do the manifestations of deportability in everyday life and deportation experiences constitute african migrants into a “deportspora” in china? despite the scholarly attention paid to the migration of africans to china, questions of deportability and the simultaneous, reverse flows through their deportation are under-explored. in this article, i examine this critical gap by exploring the lifeworlds of nigerian migrants and deportees from china, using data from two separate studies conducted in 2017 and 2020–2021. nigerians are exposed to “illegalization,” experience deportability threats, and become vulnerable to arrest and re-dispersal as deportees. the realities of being undocumented and overstaying, the social act of running, and the host society’s instrumentalization of deportation to regulate or order the migrant community all point to the existence of nigerian deportspora in china. the import of this form of social formation makes deportability and deportation an essential part of social life in the african migrant community in the chinese city of guangzhou. the article advances critical debates in deportation studies, especially in the under-researched context of sino-african migrations. keywords: africa-china, deportation, guangzhou, illegality, migrant deportability 1 institute of african studies, university of ibadan, ibadan, nigeria. institute for the future of knowledge, university of johannesburg, south africa.  oluwatoyinkudus@gmail.com 81 introduction the “influx” of migrants from african countries to china has attracted significant research attention. while some debate the presence of african resident populations in chinese cities (bodomo, 2010; castillo, 2014), others describe the emergence of the african community (bertoncello and bredeloup, 2007; gordon et al., 2017; adebayo, 2022a), the precarious homing experience of africans (castillo, 2015), issues of racialization, regulation, and control (lan, 2017a; liang and le billon, 2018; huang, 2019), and the extent of the temporariness of african presence, as marked by the realities of circulation, transiency, stuckedness, and immobility (haugen, 2012; niu, 2018; adebayo, 2022b). however, the issue of deportability and deportation as they affect african migrants in china has received less attention. despite the deportation of africans as state practice in china (wilczak, 2018), we know little about how deportees experience it nor understand how deportability threats and the reality of deportation influenced the evolution of the african community in china. this article seeks to fill this gap by exploring deportability and deportation in the everyday lives of nigerians and how they shape social relations and associational life in the nigerian migrant community in china. as immigration regimes of the global north toward africans tightened over two decades ago, china became a choice destination for some african migrants (lan, 2017b), thus emerging as a frontier for the formation of the new african diaspora in asia (bodomo, 2010, 2016; anshan, 2015). since the 2000s, the narrative of china as the “new promised land” (lan, 2017b) for africans has crept into discussions. moreover, the phrase “china dream” also emerged (marfaing, 2019), framing a chinese version of the popular “american dream,” which is suggestive of the ideal that citizens and immigrants alike should have access to equal opportunity to prosper and be successful in the united states of america. different figures exist on the population of africans in china, from hundreds of thousands (bodomo, 2016) to 22,000 in guangzhou city alone (haugen, 2019). thus, a formidable african community has emerged in china, and afro-chinese families are no longer uncommon (zhou, 2017; adebayo and omololu, 2020). in guangzhou, where most africans reside, the majority are undocumented nigerian men (haugen, 2012; bodomo, 2016). therefore, many africans fall into the category of deportable diasporas or a group of undocumented migrants vulnerable to “illegalization” (haugen, 2019) and removal. because of their “illegalization,” these migrants experience what de genova (2002) framed elsewhere as deportability threats. under massive state surveillance and anti-black policing practices, undocumented africans are routinely arrested and redispersed as deportees (lan, 2017a; haugen, 2019; huang, 2019). this environment makes chinese cities qualify as critical nodes to explore experiences of deportability and deportation among african migrants. exploring the experiences of deportability and deportation of africans in china calls attention to a chronically under-researched aspect of african-chinese exchanges. more than filling a critical gap in african deportation research, the context deportability, deportation, and nigerian “deportspora” in china 82 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 of study provides significant insights into the contradictions in the host country’s disposition toward the undocumented foreign population, which is simultaneously tolerated and persecuted. in guangzhou particularly, i show this contradiction by documenting how the nigerian migrant community structure is recognized and, at the same time, the members of the same community are targeted, routinely arrested, and hauled to the airport empty-handed for deportation. further, the experiences of nigerians, as a sub-population of africans in china, offer a compelling case for unraveling how africans experience deportability and deportation as part of their presence and community making in an emergent migration destination. this attempt can unveil hidden processes in the constitution and diasporization of africans in east asia. moreover, i contend that deportation is a fundamental process to understanding the making and unmaking of the african diaspora in east asia. finally, i use this contribution to advance critical debates in deportation studies, especially connecting deportation to migrant community structures and processes in the context of sino-african migrations. this article starts with introducing the socio-political context of the study – with a focus on the chinese immigration policy and particularly its enforcement and evolution during the last 15 years. i present my analytical framework proposing deportability as a governmentality while deploying deportspora as a concept that reflects the lived experience of african – specifically nigerian – migrants in guangzhou. the third section of the article presents the methodology, while section four focuses on analyzing the empirical materials to describe the role of deportation in the nigerian community’s emergence, structuring and unmaking, the materiality of deportability as evidenced by migrants’ interpretation of running objects, and how the community responds to the deportation reality through relations of information sharing and mitigation of impact of deportation. the final sections discuss and conclude the article by underscoring the critical role of deportability and deportation in the social life of an african migrant community in china. chinese immigration enforcement and the notion of deportspora for a long time, china did not have a coherent immigration policy in place. immigration matters were managed through a number of laws and regulations, such as “the law on control of the entry and exit of aliens (1985), detailed rules on the implementation of the law on the entry and exit of aliens (1994), regulations on the examination and approval of permanent residence of aliens in china (2004)” (lan, 2014: 5). lan (2014) asserts that, prior to 2012, authorities at multiple levels of the chinese state – up to 17 of them and sometimes working in an uncoordinated manner – participate in the administration and enforcement of the regulations. however, as immigration became increasingly prominent in china, it also became apparent that a relatively unified immigration policy was necessary (pieke, 2012). the growth of a resident african population in provinces such as guangdong already in the 2000s made the need for such a policy more urgent. the 83 media presented this population in a negative light, interpreting their socio-political engagement and occasional protests as disorderly behavior perpetrated by mafan, that is, troublemaking foreigners. during the 2010s, african communities in the guangdong province were increasingly targeted by police through random checks in public areas (adebayo, 2022a). early experimentation with an expansive immigration policy, the interim provisions of guangdong province on administration of and services to aliens (2011) in guangzhou created the so-called sanfei population, a special label applying to migrants who enter, stay, and work in china illegally (lan, 2014; haugen, 2019). the policy introduced several radical changes compared to previous laws and practices: it rewarded citizens who report sanfei aliens, tasked institutions and organizations that africans normally engage with to verify passports and visas and reporting irregularities to authorities, imposed heavy penalties on those who failed to report sanfei, and prevented foreigners from residing near areas the state deems to have implications for national security and public order. expectedly, the national exit–entry administration law passed on june 30, 2012 and that went into effect on july 1, 2013, took inspiration from and retained the harsh provisions of the interim law of 2011. despite the introduction of such a law, practices associated with the regulation of the migrant population have changed frequently and for the worse. for instance, the registration certificate of temporary residence (rctr), which foreigners are required to obtain from the police within 24 hours of their arrival, and which used to be valid throughout the duration of foreigners’ stay, has been curtailed to a 7-day validity period (huang, 2019). this means that foreigners need to go through the same procedure practically every week, with significant costs in time and money to fulfill the procedure. huang (2019: 4) recently drew attention to how such “volatile regulations” and harsh enforcement have been used as a means of regulating and “disciplining” africans in guangzhou through indiscriminate stop and search, random and spontaneous visa checks at public places, and frequent drug raids. the imposition of heavy fines became a “lucrative business” for police officers. also, a negative media campaign represents africans as unruly and dangerous, while pressures from the top echelon of the chinese police and monetary incentives interweave with the racialized targeting of black people (huang, 2019). african migrants in guangzhou have learned to live under the constant threat of deportation. the threat to expel and deport irregular migrants is not unique to china. galvin (2015: 1) states that migrant expulsion is an increasingly common feature of immigration systems worldwide, with significant changes occurring in “the nature, scope and use of deportation or forced repatriation as a state practice.” nyers (2003) argues that states’ obsession with managing and controlling migration with stricter border policies has created an “abject diaspora” or “deportspora.” those falling in the category of deportspora are vulnerable to forced removal owing to the state’s framing deportability, deportation, and nigerian “deportspora” in china 84 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 of their presence as dangerous and threatening of the host nation’s values and public order. previous studies on deportability – or the possibility of being removed – and deportation of africans mainly examine their experiences in europe and north america (de genova, 2002; carling, 2004; willen, 2007; kleist, 2018), especially the case of sex workers deported from european countries (plambech, 2018). while a few studies exist on deportation in africa and central asia (galvin, 2015; schuster and majidi, 2015), there is a need to understand how african migrants in east asia experience and navigate the risk of removal and actual deportation. exploring these issues within east asia as they affect african migrants is essential, primarily because of how the flows of africans have intensified in a country like china in the past two decades. i examine the gap in sino-african migration scholarship by exploring the lifeworlds of nigerian migrants concerning their experiences of deportability and deportation in china. i show how the state and everyday practices of control against sanfei or “triple illegals” shape the everyday life of nigerians. i argue that nigerians in china fall into the category of deportable diasporas, a condition shaped in significant ways not only by their insecure or irregular status but by the social reality of constant threat to be deported that characterizes their whole existence. in advancing this position, i present deportability and deportation as a social reality where undocumented status, overstaying, and running (in the literal sense) collide with the nation-state’s governmentality over undocumented migrants. methodology the article combines data generated from two of my previous studies: i conducted the first among nigerians residing in guangzhou (2017), while the second involved nigerians deported from china (2020–2021). as part of my doctoral research, i interviewed 69 participants during two separate visits to guangzhou in 2017, including 52 nigerians. the research relied on an ethnographic method whereby i interacted with nigerians in markets, shops, homes, bars, and places of worship to understand how they settle in guangzhou city. the length of the interviews varied, depending on the time and openness of each participant to speak, with a minimum duration of 12 minutes, a maximum of 370 minutes, and an average of 67 minutes. the participants included mainly nigerian men – some had newly arrived while others had lived in the chinese city for a long time – from community leaders to businesspeople. their backgrounds were diverse in terms of age group, ethnicity, travel experience, and duration of stay. they fell mostly in the middle-age category (31–50 years), were predominantly men (58% of whom were married), were involved in a wide range of occupations, and occupied different positions in the community. i could recruit only a few women, which is partly due to the male-dominated character of the nigerian community. the men were mostly engaged in businesses related to 85 the thriving commodity economy. also, there were more igbo participants from south-eastern nigeria. the majority had secondary education, and prior to departing from china, many of them engaged in trade-related activities. in terms of travel experience, most of the participants were first-time travelers. those with previous travel experience had traveled within the african continent. only a few of them had spent under one year in guangzhou: about 40% had been in china for one to five years, 29% had spent six to 10 years in china, and 18% had been there for over 15 years in 2017. a dominant theme that recurred throughout the data was the issue of undocumentedness and how it shapes the everyday life of nigerian migrants, notably as it exposed them to deportability threats and deportation. my positionality as a nigerian researcher working with nigerian migrants in guangzhou has been discussed in-depth elsewhere (adebayo and njoku, 2022). the second research involved a “multi-local fieldwork” in which i interviewed 27 nigerians between september 2020 and march 2021. multi-local fieldwork involves linking several local spaces as a connected field over a period (wulff, 2002). thus, this study comprised face-to-face interviews in nigerian cities (lagos, ibadan, and nnewi) and two virtual interviews with nigerian community leaders in guangzhou. a total of 22 participants were men deported from china. the larger context of the study was to examine how the deportation shaped the transnational livelihood, masculinity, and family dynamics of nigerians who used to reside in china. following the approach of miller (2012) to conducting life stories, participants freely discussed their experiences and how they navigated undocumentedness, the circumstances of their arrest, experiences while in detention, and eventual deportation from china. i relied on networks of nigerians in guangzhou to locate some nigerian deportees in lagos and applied the snowballing technique to connect with others. i also recruited a nigerian deportee whom i met in guangzhou in 2017 as a research assistant in ibadan between 2020 and 2021. his involvement facilitated access to other nigerian deportees in ibadan and lagos, mostly people he knew when he resided in guangzhou as an undocumented migrant for about eight years. of the 22 deportee men interviewed, 14 identified as igbo while the rest were yoruba. in terms of age, 10 fell in the middle-age group, three were elderly (50+), and the rest were young (30 years and under). around 16 were married and close to half had traveled abroad prior to going to china. the earliest year of arrival in china they reported was 2005 but up to two of them came as late as 2016. the minimum duration of stay prior to deportation was a year, but one participant had lived in china for 13 years before he was deported. all the participants were involved in trade or business-related activities, except a few who reported carpentry, travel agency, driving, or betting shop operator as their jobs. two reported that they were unemployed. among the rest of the participants, two were wives of deportee men living in nigeria; two were community leaders who had lived in china for over 14 years, while the last person was a visa agent who help prospective migrants to process deportability, deportation, and nigerian “deportspora” in china 86 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 visas and assist those trying to return there after deportation to prepare the necessary documents. i conducted all the interviews in english and pidgin english, both of which are commonly used in nigeria. i transcribed the english-language interviews verbatim and translated the pidgin ones directly to standardized english for analysis purposes. i also took extensive field notes, which were processed along with the interviews during analysis. unlike the first study, interview guides in the second study contained questions designed to elicit data on the participants’ experiences of deportability and deportation. participants shared stories of how they navigated various situations and escaped being deported while living in china, and described the circumstances and their actual experiences of deportation. the two data points based on ethnographic processes enabled me to elicit information from nigerians facing deportability threats in china and those who had experienced deportation and were residing in nigeria. the data provided a more holistic picture than would have been possible with data based on the experiences of those in china or nigeria alone. in the next sections, where i turn to the social reality of deportation in the nigerian migrant community in guangzhou, i created pseudonyms for participants. social reality of deportation and nigerian “deportspora” in guangzhou deportation has played an essential role in the nigerian community’s emergence, structuring, and unmaking in china, although this role is rarely acknowledged. haugen (2019) and adebayo (2022a) are the few exceptions in this regard. both researchers, working specifically in the nigerian community and exploring the historical process of its formation, allude to how some of the early nigerian arrivals in mainland china had been deported, initially to hong kong from countries like japan, taiwan, and south korea before turning to mainland china. nigerians went to these east asian countries to offer their labor in factories and were later deported to hong kong, where they lived until the news of opportunities in mainland china led to their departure for shenzhen and guangzhou (haugen, 2019; adebayo, 2022a). one could say that the journey to mainland china partly began with a deportationinspired congregation of nigerians from elsewhere – hong kong. nonetheless, while recognizing the connection between deportation and the arrival of nigerians in china, deportation has, more generally, revealed itself as a reality to reckon with in structuring the nigerian community in guangzhou. before i analyze the details of this assertion, i discuss how experiences of deportability are linked to the regulation and illegalization of migrants, and the context of undocumentedness. this is then followed by a discussion of the materiality through which nigerian migrants experience it. 87 regulate and manage: illegalization and ordering of migrant community as the population of nigerians swelled in guangzhou, they became targets of blame and stereotype (pang et al., 2013; adebayo, 2022a). there is also a widely-shared view that the local authorities are against public gathering or assembly – the exact model of sociation common with nigerians in the city. whether in the market areas along guangyuan xi lu, places of worship, or in nanhai, where a growing number had taken up residence, nigerians gather in groups to chat, catch up, or share drinks with music, sometimes blasting from loudspeakers. additionally, africans, mainly nigerians, are accused of drug peddling, fraud, and corruption of chinese girls (lan, 2017b; adebayo, 2022a). deportation emerged as an instrument of control and depopulation to address these social vices. during the beijing summer olympics (2008) and the asian games (2010), the chinese authorities deployed deportation to regulate the presence of african migrants. they used it to manage who could be seen in public and who could not. apart from the undocumented, deportability threats were ever-present to help invisibilize the unwanted. during that period, “if someone has paper and you do not know where/how to walk, the person’s paper will be destroyed or terminated” (bolaji/male/lg/2020). to address the drug trade problem, in which foreigners and chinese locals actively participated, a significant issue that peaked with the dragon hotel incident of 2013, the authorities intensified raids on black african foreigners, with nigerians being the primary target. with the entry and exit law of 2013 in place, a nigerian community leader named ben (gz/2017), viewed the law “… as a punitive measure to depopulate nigerians, to ask them just to go.” as an instrument in the host society’s performance of governmentality, the intensification of raids aimed at deporting black foreigners helped the guangzhou authority to spatially re-order the city (wilczak, 2018). it also contributed to the trans-local dispersals that led to the concentration of nigerians in ghettoized communities in nanhai. apart from its use in regulating foreigners’ presence, the authorities used deportation to moderate the relationship between the state and migrant community leadership. for example, in the early 2000s, a head of the nigerian community in guangzhou, was deported for immigration offences. before that deportation, he was previously deported for overstaying his visa but had managed to return to china before the statutorily permitted duration to be with his family – including his chinese wife. however, the subtext of his forced removal was that he had advocated for the removal of overstay fines. the erstwhile community leader criticized the fine as exploitative and deliberately targeting nigerians because the police have come to depend on the income (also see huang, 2019). his hard-line position led to the revisitation of his history and eventual deportation (ben/male/community leader/ gz/2017). still, on the use of deportation to manage illegalized migrants, the state practice of removing unwanted foreigners was humanized to establish a regime deportability, deportation, and nigerian “deportspora” in china 88 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 of “voluntary” exit called “amnesty.” the amnesty was brokered by the nigerian community leadership with the backing of the chinese local authority and supported by the nigerian embassy in china. it essentially provides an opportunity for the easy exit for overstayers by canceling imprisonment time and imposing a reduced fine. community heads talked about the amnesty program as a significant achievement that legitimized their continuing existence. however, as an initiative aimed at reducing the population of undocumented nigerians in the city, amnesty ensures that “these people are deported without necessarily paying that huge amount of fine … and provided they can give details of their stay in china” (falusi/male/nigerian consulate/gz/2017). moreover, some community members perceived amnesty as an opportunity for the chinese authorities to apprehend “persons of interest” – individuals who have records of criminality or have been under watch. consequently, the amnesty arrangement could be interpreted as part of china’s governmentality aimed at reducing the population of “unwanted” immigrants while also supporting a system of entrapment and surveillance of foreigners. undocumentedness, overstaying, and deportability de genova (2002: 438) has famously observed that “it is deportability, and not deportation per se, that has historically rendered undocumented migrant labor a distinctly disposable commodity.” in the simplest stipulation, deportability refers to “the possibility of deportation, the possibility of being removed from the space of the nation-state” (de genova, 2002: 439). undocumented migrants face deportability the most, owing to their permanent condition of instability by not being in possession of valid documents in a host country and the vulnerabilities this condition exposes them to. it is important to note, however, that, for some nigerians traveling between china and nigeria, the deportability experience starts at the point of departure, continues while in transit, and worsens at the destination upon the expiration of visas. chad (male/lg/2017) faced deportability threats before his journey began. at the international airport in lagos, he faced questions about why his chinese visa was issued in zambia. as a first-time traveler, a status that airport officials in lagos could “smell,” he was interrogated and pressured to explain how he acquired a zambia-issued chinese visa. eventually, he paid us$300 in bribes before boarding the plane. when he arrived in hong kong, from where he planned to enter mainland china, he faced the same problem. in hong kong, he could not defend the document he carried. thus, an airport official escorted him to a flight that would return him to nigeria. on the way to the plane, he confessed to the airport staff that he had obtained the document through an agent and was on his way to start a professional football career in china. the staff later freed him and helped him purchase a boat ticket to mainland china. chad was metaphorically “deported” at departure and during transit but managed to reach guangzhou. however, not everyone manages to reach their destination. harry (male/lg/2021) reported that he was deported en 89 route after the immigration staff in hong kong told him that the system had flagged his passport. upon arriving in china, nigerian migrants face deportability when they become undocumented and illegalized due to visa expiry. those with expired visas expressed their situation with the analogy of “death.” the igbo nigerians typically say, “it died,” but the yoruba nigerians say, “pali ti ku,” that is, “paper (has) died.” most nigerians in guangzhou, where almost all my research participants resided, entered china on a 30-day business visa (see also haugen, 2012). once this document expires, some migrants attempt to renew it, but they can only do so for a brief period. others abandon their documents without trying at all. regardless, the two categories of migrants are unified in their eventual desire to stay put and overstay. to overstay, participants engage in sense-making by processing and trying to understand their situation in the city, enabling them to ease into their imminent status as undocumented migrants. some may compare the cost of maintaining a stay against the cost of not doing so. upon arrival, having a “legal” stay is desired, but some quickly learn about the cost implications, which forced them to reassess their options. overstaying becomes a rational decision, not just a coping strategy (see also lan, 2017b). “i allowed my visa [to expire] because coming back then [to nigeria] was too difficult for me because my business was not much that flourishing” (smith/ male/lg/2021). a deportee who resides in ibadan, nigeria, said: i decided from the outset [to overstay] because the money i would use to extend my visa was too much; it was too much to do a student visa. then, i thought that if it [the visa] would collapse, let it collapse. and that god will protect us. (abayo/male/ib/ 2020). moreover, some decided to overstay in consultation with family members in nigeria. when china adopted tougher measures, bunmi (male/lg/2020) contacted those at home and shared his plan to return but was discouraged from doing it. his girlfriend at the time, now his wife and mother of three, admonished, “that the people still in the place did not have two heads.” she encouraged him to stay put instead and avoid going to unsafe and unnecessary places. similarly, bunmi’s uncle told him to stay put although he had shared his plan to travel to another country when he returns to nigeria. his uncle said he could return, if: … [i] had a place, that i would be staying [upon returning] … and don’t i know that it will be like a shame to me that i went to china and did not come with anything tangible … all the people that knew i traveled in the church. (bunmi/male/lg/2020). upon becoming overstayers, they experience deportability fears, often rendering them immobile (haugen, 2012; adebayo, 2022b). migrants intending to participate deportability, deportation, and nigerian “deportspora” in china 90 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 in the economy that africans in guangzhou created must be relatively free to travel in the city and to other trading nodes in guangdong and beyond. however, “without your visa, there are some places you can go, and there are places you can’t go” (benard/ male/gz/2017). also, “if you don’t have documents, you have to hide from the police” (sulei/male/gz/2017). the immobility resulting from these situations can be temporary or prolonged. temporary types can occur because of the usual or routine evasion of the police or immigration officers. prolonged immobility can result from intense policing that makes the public space unsafe for the undocumented. a case of prolonged immobility was reported to have occurred in 2013, during a high-profile drug-related raid at the lihua hotel in yuexiu district (also called the dragon hotel) that led to the arrest of 168 suspects, the majority being from nigeria (see adebayo, 2022a). at the time, many undocumented nigerians hid from the police for a long time. those going out acquired information about when and how to move and learned the routine of police patrols. while outside the comfort of apartments, they must freeze in place temporarily when they learn of police patrols in their vicinity, freezing long enough until it is safe to move about again. sometimes, however, immigration officers operate outside the known routine by setting up raids when migrants were not expecting it. nelson (male/gz/2017) narrated an encounter of this nature while waiting and hiding from the police at an apartment in nanhai: i was there, and my friend told me that today is a working day for the chinese [police] that i should wait till 1:30 pm … so, i was in the house with them. small-time, we heard a noise, people were running around the corner, so the guy now opened his window and looked down. he saw that many police surrounded the environment. so, those policemen were busy, breaking [in], checking, checking one house. after 30 minutes, we thought they had left because we opened the window again and checked if they were still around … within a little time, they entered that compound again – the one they were checking before, the one i was in. so, they started breaking the doors. the building was five stories. whereas the quote above exposed the tensions and fears linked to deportability, a more critical issue is that the lives of undocumented nigerians become uniquely unpredictable. faced with deportability, they effectively substitute order and predictability for disorder and unpredictability. they risk sudden arrest and deportation where all of one’s savings and possessions could be lost without any possibility of recovering them. “everything is unaware; it is sudden; it just happens” (chisom/male/lg/2021). a female migrant (alice/female/gz/2017) captured the reality of this suddenness and the possible consequences in the following quote: visa issue can give somebody a high bp ... no matter how much you make, no matter how much you have, that visa issue is a problem because you can pack 91 the money in a house and just for one day, they will come and carry you and go, and all the money is lost. it is gone. at least, if you have your visa, even if they take you to the station, you have a hope of coming back and also claim your things, you understand? but when you don’t have a visa, they will take you to nigeria, and everything you have in the house is gone. because of this unpredictability, some carry all their cash wherever they go. as many undocumented nigerians are unbanked, they live on the move. living life on the move could mean carrying one’s money everywhere or living as though one may be arrested anytime and deported. as one deportee nigerian (eke/male/lg/2021) told me: because of those paper issues, you don’t really keep money at home. so you’ll always have your money with you so that even if it happens at your residence, you still have your money with you. another nigerian deportee (chisom/male/lg/2021) whom i met and interviewed at his lagos apartment corroborated the above: there’s one thing we do in china when you are going from your house in the morning: you will assume that you may not come back to that again … so, every day is a blessing, it is grace because as you’re coming out of that house on the staircase, you could be rounded up, when you’re in the bus you could be arrested, when you’re in the market you could be apprehended, so you’re prepared for the worst every day. furthermore, there are nigerians who, despite lacking documentation, manage to create a semblance of stability by renting shops. however, their lives remain firmly held back because of their deportability. this category of nigerian migrants rents shops through informal arrangements with local chinese intermediaries. still, their presence in the market is fragile and unstable (see adebayo, 2022b). according to smith (male/gz/2017), “anything can happen, anytime!” smith sells clothes and other fashion accessories in the shop he owned with a partner. however, smith does not feel safe, being always on the lookout for the police. on one occasion, he directed me to look at a shop under lock. that shop, he said, belongs to a friend who was arrested and deported about five months ago because of “illegal” residency. the friend had lived in china for about seven years before being deported. curiously, deportability is not the sole preserve of undocumented nigerians. nigerians residing “legally” in china under seemingly “legitimate” visa arrangements also experience deportability fears. consider, for instance, the case of olu (male/ gz/2017), who holds a student visa. olu has been a student in china perpetually because he could not secure a long-term visa. to maintain a stay, he moves between deportability, deportation, and nigerian “deportspora” in china 92 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 universities all over china to enroll as a student. while spending most of his time in guangzhou and visiting his school occasionally, he is never sure if his visa will be renewed. olu told me: you might be denied … [there is] the fear that probably they won’t grant you another one. other than that, life continues. when you get it done, you say, “thank god! i am renewed,” and you continue with your life. finally, living through the possibility of deportation exposes some to vulnerability. for instance, among those working in precarious informal jobs, as restaurant attendants or goods packaging, the threat of deportation is subtly deployed to keep undocumented nigerian workers in line. ahmed (male/gz/2017) worked as a help in a restaurant owned jointly by a nigerian man and his chinese wife. once when the husband was away in nigeria, his wife refused to pay his salary. when he demanded payment, she told him, “this is china.” ahmed regarded the assertion as a subtle threat. in interpreting “this is china” as a deportability threat, one should not miss the parallel of the assertion with the brutally crude and unfriendly condition of city life in africa. “this is china” likely parallels “this is lagos” where brute unforgivingness of city life can consume the most vulnerable (agbiboa, 2016). the materiality of deportability: running and the social life of “canvas” deportability mediates the everyday life of nigerian migrants through how it is reckoned as a phenomenon to be feared. in this section, i develop a portrait of deportability using the act of running with “canvas” as an aspect of the materiality of navigating deportation in guangzhou city. having a status that puts one in the position of always being alert to run involves paying attention to one’s environment and sorting faces in the crowd, in the market, on the streets, and on public transport. immigration officers could be anywhere, and one must always be ready to run. “if they come now, as i am talking to you now … i will fly and not run because i don’t want to go back to hell fire in nigeria without money” (buchi/male/gz/2017). that is, “being a nigerian, one will understand what i mean; running faster than my shadow, running faster than ben johnson, as we may say it in nigeria” (chisom/ male/lg/2021). for many of those whose lives are conditioned by deportability, running is about bailing oneself with one’s legs. undocumented nigerian men and women, young and old, pegged their survival against their ability to run and evade arrest. in the words of alice (female/gz/2017), who had an 11-year-old son in 2017 and sold food around markets along guangyuan xi lu, running is a social constant: when our “customers come,” our brothers [laughs], we call them our customers or our brothers, that is immigration, when they come, everybody will be running helter-skelter. that is how we have been living. 93 describing her experience with a son in hand, she explained thus: i’m not the only one with a baby; others too have babies; sometimes they have caught them, and it is a must that they must go [be deported]. it is just that sometimes when they come around, i leave my business and start running up and down to look for him [her son]. so, if i get him, i will carry him, look for somewhere, and hide. similarly, one participant in their 50s who had traveled to china as an older person, met with me in a lagos market, narrates that: when you are in china, you need to put age by one side. china is like a war front. you need to package yourself very well; you leave age by the side because you know the reasons you are there: for you to survive. (enny/male/lg/2021). thus, running is framed as a response to navigating the war-like environment of guangzhou city life. to survive this war environment, one must be conscious of one’s deportability and always be prepared to act. to run and survive deportability, however, some participants rely on the materiality and functionality of “canvas.” canvas refers to any running shoes that are soft on the feet and flexible enough to allow the wearer to move swiftly and take flight or run comfortably. being able to run and having the right shoe to do it is essential, as some nigerians perceive that the chinese immigration authorities have professional runners working for them (chisom/male/lg/2021). john (male/lg/2021), who told me that “i am with my canvas even till the day i returned to nigeria,” perceived that canvas is crucial to escaping, even though one can be apprehended. he explained: if you see them first ahead of you, you will move, not that you will now be running like a person running 1,000 miles, no. it will be in a coded way [swiftly] … so, you will see many of our people; they’ll normally put on canvas, when they come to china, you will see many of them wearing canvas, except those that have genuine papers, resident visas or those that marry the chinese, or those that come to buy goods … i was with my canvas weathering those things because sometimes, we used to meet them at the markets where we buy clothes. similarly acknowledging canvas, chisom (male/lg/2021) added: wherever we see they are working or operating, you are already moving with your canvas … ready to run because they will pursue you … if it’s not your deportability, deportation, and nigerian “deportspora” in china 94 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 day, they will catch you unaware, and when they catch you, your fate is going to the detention center. to push deportation forward through running and escaping is considered a victory. in the view of some participants, the canvas or running shoes emerge as a symbolic object having a capacity to determine one’s prospect of remaining in china. in one of the stories shared by participants, one narrative stands apart in this respect precisely because the participant attributed both his escapes and eventual deportation to his canvas. before his arrest, he described two of his former successes due to using canvas to succeed: on two occasions, one-on-one, i dodged them; they were pursuing me. god just gave me the space to turn back … and ran away with speed … so, the second one, … i came to buy material, i bought it, they packed it inside my bag, i paid them. coming out with the goods into the street … [and] as i was walking, i saw the policeman at the opposite sides, one-on-one. he asked me for my passport. so, what i did was that i dropped the goods immediately and turned back with speed. i always go with canvas … the day they arrested me … i was with a shoe [regular shoes]. i was not putting [on] canvas, so that was why i could not run very well that day. (enny/male/lg/2021). from the preceding, the “death” of visas is a precursor to deportability. while the fear remains a constant, and the possibility of eventual deportation was accepted as a certainty, they nonetheless embrace running as a social act in which canvas plays a vital part. in addition, the persistence of deportability and deportation as a social reality shapes migrants’ social relations and associational life. i analyze this dimension next. living within the bounds of deportability and deportation deportation is a social reality among nigerians. as such, they live within the bounds of its challenges, including everyday deportability threats. one of the ways to appreciate this observation is to zoom in on how migrants interface with deportation-related information and mitigate the impact of deportation through specific community practices. nigerian migrants form a complex web of interdependences around information sharing. undocumented nigerians rely on community intelligence gathering and information circulation. this community intelligence draws heavily on joint monitoring and information sharing. before leaving home, an undocumented migrant can call people he knew were already on the street to know how to move. “we also have general communication, and if you move out, you can call a brother you have there and ask, ‘how far?’” (stanley/male/gz/2017). when the state introduces new measures that could lead to deportation, those who encounter them inform others through community channels. for example, nnamdi (male/gz/2017) “works” in the 95 airport as a hustler without valid documents. because of his situation, he learned to pay attention to his surroundings and developed skills to identify immigration officers in the crowd. most importantly, when he learns new information that could impact deportation, he shares such information with co-nationals. moreover, migrants and their community associations participate in fundraising on behalf of those arrested and awaiting deportation. individual members and community heads with strong networks dedicate time to this activity. also, community association executives function as intermediaries and negotiate with the police regarding arrested co-nationals. they usually are the first responders who visit the police station or detention center to assess the situation on the ground and determine the basis of detention and the needs of the detained. local authorities typically recognize these intermediaries who may visit police stations to negotiate releases. relatedly, the migrant community mobilizes to raise funds to alleviate the economic, social, and mental burdens of deportation. describing his fundraising activities for those imprisoned and awaiting deportation, a community leader said, “most times, what i did was to go around, carrying offering plate for them among the community people to contribute to send them home” (ben/male/community leader/gz/2017). funds can go into purchasing tickets and paying mandatory overstay fines. however, such community support lightens not only the economic burdens of unprepared and forced removal; it lightens the weight of the social burden, especially in alleviating the fear of returning home as people, whom carling (2004) called “empty-handed returnees.” they lift this burden by using part of the community-donated funds to buy gifts for the members awaiting deportation. furthermore, in living within the bounds of existence produced by the reality of deportation, nigerian migrants participate in a “farewell ritual.” this involves meeting up with home-bound co-nationals at the departure terminal of the guangzhou baiyun international airport to send them home. documented and undocumented migrants participate in this ritual, even though the danger of deportability remains high for those with expired documents. the meet-up is where community members present community-sourced gifts to prospective deportees. because those arrested and processed for deportation rarely get the opportunity to pack their belongings, the meet-up also serves as a handover point of personal belongings that friends packaged on behalf of the migrant facing deportation. those who have goods stored away with plans to sell in nigeria as part of routine transnational trade but are prevented from doing so because of their arrest also benefit from the “farewell ritual.” conversely, a person considered a “bad friend” can have his belongings sold off and not paid. discussion this article has so far attempted to fill a critical space in sino-african migration literature by exploring the experiences of deportability and deportation in the everyday lives of nigerians and their roles in community social relations and deportability, deportation, and nigerian “deportspora” in china 96 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 associational life in china. more precisely, it established deportation as a social reality connected to the emergence of the nigerian community in mainland china, as well as how fears related to possible removal intensify at the destination following visa expiration. inside guangzhou, undocumentedness contributes to the decision to overstay, sometimes in consultation with family members in nigeria. the presence of deportability fears renders their lives unpredictable, exposes them to vulnerability, and makes their presence fragile. despite their fragile and unstable state, running and using canvas, as subjectively interpreted, become a means of resisting and suspending deportation. this shows evidence of the interwoven nature of “canvas” (shoes) in use and the subjective meaning attached to it by their migrant wearers. while evocative of appadurai’s (1988) “social life of things” on the move, the reliance on “canvas” as an object of both mobility and evasion in nigerian migrants’ imaginary and social practice of navigation accentuates a linkage between deportation research and “object biography.” popularized in museum and heritage studies (schamberger et al., 2008) but gaining traction in the aftermath of recurrent fatal boat mishaps and dangerous journeying among african irregular migrants heading to europe (horsti, 2019; şanlı, 2022), “object biography” in the context of sino-nigerian/african migration calls attention to the theoretical promises of things and objects around which migrants live with and build their lifeworlds. moreover, deportation as a state practice functioned as a tool of controlling, managing, and depopulating unwanted african foreigners, with a community leader clashing with and losing to the governmentality. having embraced and evolved different means to interface with these situations, deportation and deportability emerge as an elemental form of social life in the nigerian community in guangzhou. this view further supports the idea that a nigerian “deportspora” community exists in china. a trend of thought in deportation studies is the perspective that deportation is a process that begins before forced removal and endures after the removal (drotbohm and hasselberg, 2015; galvin, 2015; khosravi, 2018). however, the extent to which deportability may be similarly imagined is unclear. examining the experiences of nigerians along the sino-african migration corridor provides an opportunity to view deportability in this exact manner. concretely, the explored situation revealed the possibility of deportability as being unbounded from the nation-state where migrants reside at a specific time, pointing out that it could begin at departure and continue while in transit. this finding is significant because it shows how deportation studies themselves may potentially navigate the problem of methodological nationalism, which has plagued migration research as an academic field and social sciences in general (wimmer and schiller, 2003). moreover, the study shows that deportation, viewed as part of the “state’s arsenal of control” (bloch and schuster, 2005: 508) and used to expel foreigners considered unwanted (drotbohm and hasselberg, 2015), is an important phenomenon to 97 consider in understanding the making and unmaking of african communities in china. deportation is revealed as critical in the governmentality linked to the regulation and management of the african population, further confirming the views of other scholars who have studied african presence and their clearing from guangzhou (lan, 2017a, 2017b; wilczak, 2018; huang, 2019). the seeming normalcy of deportability and deportation among nigerians also reveals significant similarities in other global south migration corridors where these realities are experienced as being “simultaneously disruptive and mundane” (galvin, 2015: 2). beyond the normalcy of deportability and deportation that individual migrants experience, the normalization of this experience and practice should be woven into understanding the established migrant community structure and its ordering within a host society. more than its use in ordering individual migrants, deportation has been deployed in china to alter the functioning and stability of a migrant community through its instrumentalization in targeting “troublesome” community leaders, including heads of the well-organized migrant community. however, by living within the bounds of life set by deportability and deportation and responding to them, including through quotidian acts of resistance, nigerians in china experience and respond to these realities as a contested realm (sutton and vigneswaran, 2011). for instance, where unpredictability and suddenness of deportation lead to loss of belonging, as documented among deportees in diverse settings (ratia and notermans, 2012; khosravi, 2018), the nigerian community evolved to mitigate losses to individual deportees. fundraising and farewell rituals turn individual and often lonely removal into a community experience. they also use gift-giving during airport meet-ups to counter empty-handed return. understanding the nigerian “deportspora” in china has contributed to contemporary deportation literature on two fronts, at least. the first pushes the concept of deportability and unbound it from the confines of a destination’s nation-state. the second advances the perspective that deportability and deportation in the sinoafrican context are a community experience, not just that of individuals. deportation scholarship will benefit significantly from understanding the community context. for instance, we may explore how the observed embeddedness of deportation in the community process can be explained by variations in community social relations and patterns of associational life in different migration contexts. further research into this question and other related ones will likely generate productive answers. deportability, deportation, and nigerian “deportspora” in china 98 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 2, may-aug 2023 conclusion deportability and deportation shape community life in the nigerian community in guangzhou. the realities of undocumentedness and overstaying, the social act of running, and the host society’s instrumentalization of deportation to regulate, manage, or order the migrant community reveal the existence of a nigerian “deportspora” in china. the import of this form of social formation makes deportability and deportation a fundamental part of social life in the african migrant community in the chinese city. the article has opened a new space of inquiry in afrochinese migrations where the reverse flows from china through deportation have not received as much attention as the inflow of africans into chinese cities. future studies incorporating the views of african and chinese government authorities and officials would provide a more comprehensive understanding of how africans experience deportation from china. acknowledgment the data for this article derived from a 2017 research project supported by the consortium for advanced research training in africa (carta), the african humanities program (dissertation completion fellowship), the small grants for thesis writing awarded by the council for the development of social science research in africa (codesria), and the postgraduate school college, university of ibadan, nigeria. the 2020-2021 data came from research conducted as part of the 2020 african humanities program postdoctoral fellowship from the african humanities program (ahp) of the american council of learned societies (acls) titled transnational livelihood, masculinity and family dynamics of nigerian deportees from china. i also thank the canada excellence research chair in migration and integration of toronto metropolitan university for organizing the webinar where i read the first draft of this paper on november 30, 2021. the special issue editors, anna triandafyllidou and oreva olakpe, and the editor of ahmr, were patient with me and provided critical feedback that improved the paper. i thank them all. 99 references adebayo, k.o. 2022a. mafan: community formation and dynamics of nigerianchinese interracial interaction in guangzhou city. in ziltener, p. and suter, c. 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an essay in historical epistemology. the international migration review, 37(3): 576-610. wulff, h. 2002. yo-yo fieldwork: mobility and time in a multi-local study of dance in ireland. anthropological journal on european cultures, 11: 117-136. zhou, y. 2017. intercultural marriage, legal status and social belonging in china: chinese-african couples and families in guangzhou. phd thesis, universität zu köln. ahmr cover online volume 9 number 2 special 02.pdf ahmr volume 9 number 2 may-aug 2023 special.pdf 7 book review selvarajah, senthan, kenar, nesrin, seaga shaw, ibrahim, and dhakal, pradeep (eds.), 2024 xenophobia in the media: critical global perspectives london: routledge, 266 pages isbn: 978-1-032-55703-8 (hbk) isbn: 978-1-032-55704-5 (pbk) isbn: 978-1-003-43185-5 (ebk) ebook isbn: 9781003431855 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003431855 xenophobia represents a pervasive attitudinal orientation characterized by negative perceptions and discriminatory practices against non-citizen groups, rooted primarily in their foreignness. this form of discrimination encompasses cultural, racial, ethnic, and class-based aspects, often resulting in hostile attitudes toward migrant populations. in extreme cases, skewed perceptions can escalate into violence and aggression, revealing the dangerous implications of xenophobia. the complexities surrounding immigration, alongside its mixed outcomes for host populations, render xenophobia a particularly sensitive and challenging subject. as migration increasingly intersects with development, it exposes the vulnerabilities faced by migrant populations, especially regarding exploitation and violations of rights. despite the evident tensions xenophobia generates, it has not been subjected to the rigorous scrutiny it deserves, especially in developing countries that host significant migrant populations. empirical studies and anecdotal evidence indicate high levels of discrimination and hostility directed toward these groups, who are often unjustly scapegoated for broader societal issues. integrating the issue of xenophobia into migration discourse is essential for policymakers seeking to harness the positive impacts of international migration on human development. xenophobic attitudes exacerbate the exploitation of migrants and perpetuate long-term inequalities between migrant and non-migrant communities, fundamentally undermining principles of human equality, social justice, and societal cohesion. moreover, research illustrates that negative media coverage significantly shapes societal attitudes toward migrants, often heightening xenophobic sentiments and anti-immigrant feelings, particularly concerning nationals from specific countries. as a primary source of information, the media profoundly influences public perception. however, its portrayal of migrants can often be biased, perpetuating xenophobic attitudes. studies consistently reveal a correlation between exposure to anti-immigrant media representations and increased prejudice toward immigrant book review xenophobia in the media: critical global perspectives 8 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 populations. this context is vital for exploring the themes presented in this book, which delves into the complex landscape of xenophobia and its implications for migration and societal dynamics. while an increasing body of literature addresses the media’s impact on xenophobic attitudes in migrant-receiving countries, significant gaps remain in understanding these impacts on anti-immigrant sentiments. this gap underscores the relevance of the newly edited book by senthan selvarajah, nesrin kenar, ibrahim seaga shaw, and pradeep dhakal. xenophobia in the media provides fresh insights into the lives of international migrants across various countries. employing an interdisciplinary approach, this book situates research within an international context, offering theoretical, policy, and empirical analyses. the authors argue that the greater threat stems not from immigration itself but from immigration control – defined not merely as restricting movement across borders but as regulating what migrants can do within society, including their ability to work, reside, study, establish businesses, and engage socially. the book presents a collection of research essays that articulate the myriad challenges faced by international migrants across various countries while simultaneously illustrating how these individuals can exert agency within prevailing status constraints. this perspective underscores the necessity for continual research and the potential for informing policy and practice effectively. a crucial aspect of the volume is its comprehensive examination of xenophobia as portrayed in media narratives, integrating global insights with critical theoretical frameworks to provide readers with valuable perspectives and practical tools. using qualitative data sourced from personal interviews with local south africans, political speeches, and print media articles, the authors investigate the influence of public discourse on the perception of foreigners and the recurring violence against african migrants. they conceptualize xenophobia as a sociopolitical struggle predicated on the notion that foreigners pose a threat to the rights of native citizens, highlighting how discourse perpetuates this ideology. the authors critically analyze the role of public rhetoric in stigmatizing and vilifying migrant groups, framing them as scapegoats for societal issues. this investigation acknowledges the interconnectedness of media representation, political discourse, activist initiatives, and academic research, all of which contribute to the reinforcement of xenophobic attitudes. the volume advocates for a critical engagement with these narratives to cultivate positive societal change. notably, while much existing research focuses on the media’s function in disseminating xenophobic portrayals of immigrants and refugees, this collection uniquely examines the media’s own representation of xenophobia. the analysis spans various manifestations of xenophobia across diverse socioeconomic and political contexts, reflecting on its implications for both immigrant and host communities. in the introductory chapter, senthan selvarajah et al. address the portrayal of immigrants and refugees within the framework of threat narratives. by adopting a 9 global perspective, the authors propose innovative strategies grounded in the concept of “journalism of tolerance.” they explore multiple forms of xenophobia, including islamophobia, afrophobia, and anti-semitism, offering a nuanced understanding of their specific impacts on immigrant and refugee populations. employing systematic methodologies, the authors anchor their analysis within theoretical frameworks and empirical research, thereby enriching the reader’s comprehension of the complex factors that contribute to xenophobic attitudes and practices in countries such as south africa, syria, and india. as xenophobic rhetoric has proliferated in global media – particularly during the covid-19 pandemic – the book critically evaluates how mainstream media often perpetuates negative stereotypes that frame immigrants as threats to national economic stability, thereby influencing societal attitudes and intergroup relations across various contexts. the presence of foreign migrants is frequently depicted as an invasion, leading to their demonization for a range of societal ailments. part 1 of the book comprises three chapters that focus on journalism principles and practices that prioritize tolerance. this section specifically examines the interplay between misinformation, disinformation, and widespread misconceptions regarding syrian refugees in turkey. these misconceptions frequently paint refugees as criminals and exploiters of resources. in chapter 2, authors ibrahim seaga shaw and nesrin kenar contrast prevailing myths with the realities that shape media representations of syrian refugees. they contend that human rights journalism (hrj) plays a vital role in contesting xenophobic narratives and fostering an environment of tolerance and acceptance among diverse national groups. hrj is presented as both a journalistic methodology and an ethical framework aimed at mitigating the harmful effects of xenophobia in media portrayals. in chapter 3, senthan selvarajah and tabeenah anjum explore the ethical considerations and best practices that journalists must adopt to ensure responsible reporting, thereby upholding the dignity of marginalized groups, including migrants. they assert that ethical journalism is essential not merely as a professional obligation but also as a societal necessity for fostering inclusive narratives that recognize the inherent humanity of all individuals. chapter 4, authored by maheen farhat raza and muhammad ali raza, applies neoclassical realist theory to assess turkish media discourse regarding syrian refugees. this chapter demonstrates how media framing often unjustly portrays afghan and ukrainian refugees as criminal elements, thereby exacerbating societal tensions and xenophobic attitudes. this analysis enhances our understanding of the structural dynamics that shape these discriminatory narratives in relation to broader sociopolitical and economic contexts. part 2 of the book shifts its focus to the intricate media stereotyping of marginalized communities, particularly minorities and women. it comprises four chapters that critically examine the interconnections between media representation, gender dynamics, and xenophobia across diverse cultural and regional contexts. collectively, these chapters underscore the media’s significant, yet frequently book review xenophobia in the media: critical global perspectives 10 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 underestimated role in shaping societal perceptions and identities of marginalized groups. in chapter 5, rahime özgün kehya conducts a nuanced analysis of the discourses surrounding migration and misogyny in turkish media. this examination illuminates the historical and geographical intersections that inform these narratives, revealing how xenophobia often intersects with misogynistic attitudes directed toward migrant women. by providing a critical lens on prevailing societal narratives, kehya’s work underscores the need for a more comprehensive understanding of these intertwined discourses. fidan cheikosman, in chapter 6, critiques the media’s role in perpetuating xenophobia through its representations of syrian female refugees in turkey. using content analysis, cheikosman identifies the linguistic choices that contribute to negative public perceptions and further entrench xenophobic attitudes. her findings advocate for enhanced media literacy and ethical journalism practices as essential measures to combat these pervasive challenges. chapter 7, authored by devanjan khuntia, explores the experiences of the paroja ethnic group in assam, india, emphasizing their social exclusion and the influence of media narratives on the discourse surrounding citizenship. through qualitative research with displaced individuals, khuntia illustrates the media’s significant role in shaping identity, marginalization, and the complex realities of belonging within varied sociopolitical landscapes. in chapter 8, venencia paidamoyo nyambuya examines the lived experiences of african migrant women in durban, south africa, highlighting the interconnectedness of xenophobia and gender-based violence (gbv). nyambuya’s analysis critiques the mainstream media’s portrayal of gbv and migration, advocating for more extensive research into the sociocultural factors that perpetuate these intertwined phenomena. together, these chapters contribute to a deeper understanding of how media representations perpetuate stereotypes and shape societal attitudes toward marginalized groups. they emphasize the urgent need for ethical and responsible journalism that can counteract these harmful narratives and promote social equity. the three chapters in part 3 of this work provide a critical examination of the complex relationship between media narratives and the emergence of xenophobia. in chapter 9, sergio luiz cruz aguilar conducts a thorough analysis of media representations of venezuelan migrants in neighboring south american countries, specifically brazil, colombia, ecuador, and peru. through methodical content and discourse analysis, aguilar identifies significant variations in how immigrants are framed in these nations, revealing a troubling trend of negative portrayals that significantly influence public perceptions of venezuelan migrants. chapter 10 features bhekinkosi jakobe ncube’s exploration of the impact of media headlines on societal attitudes toward migrants in south africa. ncube’s discourse analysis of selected headlines from the years 2008 and 2015 demonstrates that these headlines act as dual instruments – they function as emotional triggers while simultaneously shaping and reinforcing prevailing societal attitudes regarding migration. this examination 11 underscores the media’s crucial role in molding public sentiment and highlights the dynamics through which media narratives contribute to societal perceptions of migrants. in chapter 11, dele ogunmola investigates the prevalence of hate media in côte d’ivoire and south africa, elucidating its significant role in exacerbating xenophobia and promoting hate speech. using qualitative methodologies, ogunmola critically unpacks the intricate relationship between media representations and xenophobic sentiments while also addressing pertinent legal frameworks that seek to mitigate the effects of hate speech. these three chapters collectively underscore the substantial influence of media narratives in shaping xenophobic attitudes and the portrayal of marginalized groups, illustrating the media’s critical role in the social construction of migration and the subsequent impact on societal attitudes. part 4 examines the intricate relationship between social media and xenophobia across four chapters. chapter 12 by hasan ali yilmaz focuses on the perceptions faced by syrian migrants in turkey, emphasizing the underexplored influence of religious identity on social exclusion. yilmaz’s research reveals that religious affiliations significantly intensify negative sentiments against this demographic, highlighting critical gaps in the existing migration discourse. in chapter 13, kingsley l. ngange, brain binebunwi, and stephen n. ndode analyze the role of facebook activists in propelling hate speech in cameroon. through qualitative content analysis and survey methodologies, the authors demonstrate how these activists exploit the platform to circulate prejudicial narratives, resulting in societal rifts. they advocate for collaborative measures between governmental entities and internet service providers to develop monitoring systems to curtail online hate speech. lungisani moyo and oluyinka osunkunle, in chapter 14, contextualize the rise of xenophobic violence in south africa, particularly during operations dudula and fiela, through the lens of social media’s influence. their thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews reveals key factors exacerbating xenophobia, including unemployment, exploitation, and political motivations. they urge regional leadership to promote collaborative initiatives to prevent violence and scapegoating. finally, chapter 15 by arta xhelili and nita beluli luma extends the discussion to migration narratives in the digital age, analyzing how social media influences public perceptions of migrants. their analytical framework unpacks the complexities within digital discourse, illustrating its significant impact on societal attitudes toward migration. these chapters highlight the necessity for a nuanced understanding of social media’s role in fostering xenophobia and the potential pathways to fostering societal solidarity. to conclude, this book addresses significant gaps in the existing literature by examining the dynamics of xenophobia within media discourse and its socioeconomic and political implications. it draws on empirical evidence gathered through fieldwork involving refugees and asylum seekers to provide perspectives on how media narratives perpetuate negative stereotypes of migrants and refugees, shape public perceptions, and influence xenophobic policymaking. by adopting an interdisciplinary approach, it situates its research findings within an international book review xenophobia in the media: critical global perspectives 12 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 context while at the same time providing valuable theoretical, policy, and empirical insights. also, by weaving together personal narratives, governmental reports, statistics, and academic literature, the authors carefully depict the experiences of migrants navigating precarity in the study countries. while the book critically evaluates the media’s role in fueling xenophobic sentiments, it, however, has some shortcomings. for example, the lack of justification for selecting study countries may leave readers wondering about their significance as case study sites. additionally, the book could have further explored the implications of xenophobia on transnational migration and the integration of immigrants in those countries. however, despite these limitations, the book fills a critical research gap. it provides valuable empirical insights beneficial for various stakeholders, including policymakers, journalists, and activists involved in discussions about human rights, immigration, and refugee issues. also, with its valuable ethnographic studies of migrants and refugees, the book is essential for researchers interested in social policy and migration studies. prof. daniel tevera extraordinary professor in the department of geography, environmental studies and tourism at the university of the western cape, south africa. 9 “when there is no migration, the whole region has a problem”: the political priorities of migration policies in west africa franzisca zanker1 received 18 december 2023 / accepted 19 july 2024 / published august 2024 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i2.2012 abstract this paper considers the implications of migration to europe for west african governments in relation to other forms of politically relevant mobilities. this helps to understand what governments in west africa prioritize when it comes to migration policy. no doubt, there is an increasing european influence on the migration agenda. however, despite this influence, there are still other west african interests when it comes to migration governance. these are diverse, covering development and humanitarian concerns, and include pro-active diaspora policies, restrictive immigration regimes due to economic protectionism and security concerns, as well as protecting migrants and displaced people. thus, different countries in the region have varying sets of political priorities, though underlined by a broader unpolitical nature of migration of the everyday. the paper is based on over 130 interviews with policymakers, politicians, civil society activists, and academic experts in niger, nigeria, senegal, and the gambia in 2019. it adds to the literature on the agency of migration states in the global south. keywords: diaspora relations, ecowas, internally displaced people, irregular migration, migration states, nigeria, niger, refugees, senegal, the gambia. 1 senior researcher at the arnold-bergstraesser-institute (abi) in freiburg, germany.  franzisca.zanker@abi.unifreiburg.de. the political priorities of migration policies in west africa 10 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 introduction there has been growing research and policy focus on migration in west africa. what has traditionally been deliberated on in terms of the predominant circular labor migration and the benefits and pitfalls for development (e.g., adepoju, 2003, 2011; awumbila et al., 2017) has increasingly become a discussion on the implications of irregular african migration toward europe (e.g., adam et al., 2020; deridder et al., 2020; gaibazzi et al., 2017; mouthaan, 2019). this change in perspective is tied to an increasing focus in european policymaking on migration in their external policies, notably in west africa. the first common framework on migration cooperation with so-called “third countries” – outside the european union (eu) – is from 2005, adapted in 2011 to the global approach to migration and mobility (gamm). one of the major outcomes of the gamm was the possibility of mobility partnerships, which aim to improve direct coordination on migration, including legal pathways but also returns. the eu signed three out of nine such partnerships with african countries, namely cape verde (2008), morocco (2013), and tunisia (2014). another format, with less commitment, but to signal a wish to advance cooperation on migration in the long run, was added through the common agenda for migration and mobility. to date, only two such agreements exist, both in africa, namely in nigeria and ethiopia (both signed in 2015). from the onset of the so-called "migration crisis" in europe, the cooperation attempts gathered even more speed. by the summer of 2015, an unexpectedly high number of refugees and other migrants arriving in the eu led to newfound urgency in migration cooperation partnerships with third countries, especially in africa. according to figures from the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), 1,032,408 refugees and other migrants arrived via the mediterranean in 2015, with 3,771 reported as dead or missing (unhcr, 2021b). by the end of the same year, the very first summit between african and european heads of state dedicated to migration took place in valetta, malta. at the summit, an eu emergency trust fund for stability and addressing root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in africa (eutf for africa) was launched. by 2021, when it formally ended, though projects are still running, it was worth nearly €5 billion, funded mostly from eu development funds (88%), in addition to contributions from eu member states (eu, 2020). the eutf was not renewed after 2020 and has been replaced by the eu neighbourhood, development and international cooperation instrument (ndici) (for a critical discussion, see pope and weisner, 2023). not long after the launch of the eutf, in 2016, the new partnership framework on migration with third countries (npf) was launched, in which all priority countries, chosen as a starting point for partnerships were in africa (namely ethiopia, mali, niger, nigeria, and senegal). the npf aimed to create more tailored approaches through migration compacts, including migration policies addressing areas like aid, trade, energy, and security. throughout all these policy initiatives, european interest in migration governance centers on regulating migration flows 11 in the region generally and stopping irregular migration to europe in particular. this interest is pursued through institutional and legal capacity building on issues such as “smuggling” persons, human trafficking, border control, and (forced) return cooperation. all these interests were supported by the eutf projects that seek to address the “root causes” of migration, including lack of employment and conflict. in west africa, migration has both historically and post-independently been of vital importance to the region for regional development – for example, both nigeria and senegal have enshrined the right to migrate in their constitutions. yet, the topic has also previously received little political attention, perhaps with the exception of periods of mass expulsions of immigrants from the region up to the 1980s, for example, in nigeria and ghana (okyerefo and setrana, 2018). this is because there is an everyday lived reality of migration that does not necessitate further policy development on migration governance (arhin-sam et al., 2022). yet, as will be further explored below, the region has not been left untouched by the heightened attention and funds for migration policy development. in recent years, much has been written about the effects of european externalization policies in west africa (cham and adam, 2021; frowd, 2020; jegen, 2023; mouthaan, 2019; opi, 2021; strange and oliveira martins, 2019; vives, 2017). yet, what about other forms of migration and mobility in the region? what happens to west african policy interests in migration despite external influence from a very powerful actor? a small but growing body of research has started pointing to the agentic role of global south states in migration governance (fiddian-qasmiyeh, 2020; gazzotti et al., 2023; zanker, 2023). the literature argues that despite the constraints and external influence from more powerful actors, like the eu, states are still managing to carve out their own responses – be it creatively or otherwise (el qadim, 2014; kandilige et al., 2023; zanker and altrogge, 2022). more than mere “passive recipients” of external policies, west african states show their domestic interests in pursuing certain migration policies – including the importance of remittances (e.g., mouthaan, 2019), domestic legitimacy (altrogge and zanker, 2019), and how domestic interests interact with external interests (adam et al., 2020; frowd, 2020). others have focused more on the micro-level adaptation to externalization responses (deridder et al., 2020). what these critical works have in common is that they largely focus on the type of migration that is relevant for european stakeholders: irregular migration to europe. while the amount of time, effort, and money that has gone into this objective no doubt has a political effect for countries in west africa, there are also other forms of migration that play a role in the region. this includes involving diaspora abroad, which plays a significant role for the development of the countries in question, not least through their financial remittances (addressed by some; see, adam et al., 2020; mouthaan, 2019). notwithstanding such diaspora interest, the current body of work does not engage with other forms of migration, such as the political dynamics of regional mobility (okyerefo and setrana, 2018) or the significant populations of displaced people. as of april 2024, there are 13.7 the political priorities of migration policies in west africa 12 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 million forcibly displaced and stateless persons in west and central africa, including 8 million internally displaced persons (idps) (unhcr, 2024). this paper seeks to consider the place of migration to europe for west african governments in relation to other forms of politically relevant mobilities. taking 2019 as a snapshot year for migration governance in the region (when the eu interest was at a peak and a first wave of eutf projects were being implemented), the paper highlights how other forms of migration policymaking were also important for gaining political capital for countries in the region. in particular, this includes diaspora relations (top priority in nigeria and senegal) as well as humanitarian protection of displaced persons, which was second and third political priority in niger and nigeria, respectively. by showing the political capital related to migration policies varied, even in this year of massive eu interest in irregular migration, showcases the agency of global south states in prioritizing their own interests when it comes to migration policymaking and that mobility speaks to a whole range of interests that go far beyond those making their way to europe. in the first part, the paper introduces the influence of the european agenda on migration, to explain the high prioritization of irregular migration for many countries. the second part demonstrates that despite this influence, there are still west african interests when it comes to migration governance, including those related to development interests as well as protecting displaced people. the interests are not straightforward and go in different directions but highlight the importance of other forms of migration. the third section summarizes the different migration policy priorities for 2019 in niger, nigeria, the gambia, and senegal, highlighting that states consider various interests when looking at migration, which go far beyond irregular migration. a concluding section sums up the overall priorities, as well as notes the overall non-political nature of migration governance in the region. methodology the paper draws on a research project on the political economy of migration governance in nigeria, niger, the gambia, and senegal, carried out in 2019. these four countries are all important source and transit countries of migration toward europe, as well as playing a prominent role in regional migration. moreover, the fact that the study includes both angloand francophone contexts as well as countries with varying sizes in population, is an indication of different types of political interests and stakes. they thus provide an interesting snapshot for balancing political priorities. the project was conducted in 2019 and this is also the time frame for the migration policy priorities under review. at the time, the european interest in trying to influence west african migration policies was at a peak, with many eutf projects unfolding and intense political activities taking place to develop migration policies in senegal, the gambia, and to a lesser degree, in niger. for the research project, the research team conducted fieldwork in different localities in all four countries: 13 niamey, abuja, lagos, benin city, banjul, dakar, and tambacounda (and a small number of interviews in different european cities) and included interviews with 133 policymakers, politicians, civil society activists, and academic experts. the interviews generally asked about migration policies in the country, to understand how european-influenced agenda-setting compares to own interests in migration governance. the research design was participatory and resulted in open-access country case-study reports that were peer reviewed, mostly by experts from the countries themselves. the project team also presented the findings at dissemination events for further feedback and revisions in abuja, banjul, niamey, and dakar. furthermore, we discussed our findings with academics and civil society activists from the four participating countries at a workshop in accra during 2019. the paper draws on insights from these interviews, the reports from the project (altrogge and zanker, 2019; arhin-sam, 2019; jegen, 2020a, 2020b), as well as an analysis of policies, reports, and newspaper analysis from the period under review.2 regarding migration policies, this paper acknowledges that a clear delineation between various definitions of movement at best obscures overlapping motivations and consequences and at worst speaks to certain political interests (see, e.g., erdal and oeppen, 2017; mourad and norman, 2020). however, states label a certain type of movement (and act on it) for a variety of reasons. even if this does not speak to a clear-cut motivation, legal status, or journey of people on the move, it speaks to a policy agenda. thus, the paper considers five types of migration policies. first, “irregular migration,” depicting policymaking around migration from west africa to europe affected by european policy interests. second, “diaspora relations,” which include interests around remittances, “brain drain” and “brain gain” as well as migration-for-development discussions. third, what i term “ecowas immigration,” includes interests related to regional labor migration, as well as tensions between migrant communities and political scapegoating in times of economic downturn within the region. fourth, “displacement” concerns policymaking around internally displaced persons (idps). fifth, “refugee hosting” considers policies related to refugees in the country. european influence on migration governance in west africa: “who pays, commands” no doubt, the increased interest by the eu and its member states has had a growing influence on migration governance in west africa (adam et al., 2020; arhin-sam et al., 2022; jegen, 2023; kandilige et al., 2023). the paper shows the prioritization of irregular migration policies for african states due to the influence and pressure from the eu. 2 i have included fieldwork data from judith altrogge (gambia 2017, 2019), kwaku arhin-sam (nigeria, 2019) and leonie jegen (niger, senegal in 2019) in this paper, carried out in the framework of two projects under my supervision. these are a pilot study on the political stakes of migration governance in the gambia (in 2017) and the project “the political economy of west african migration governance” (wamig), which was conducted as part of the mercator dialogue on asylum and migration (medam) in 2019, funded by the ministry for science, research and the arts of baden-württemberg and the mercator foundation, respectively. my thanks to my project team for their hard work and collegiality. thanks also to the reviewers for comments on earlier versions. all errors remain my own. the political priorities of migration policies in west africa 14 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 the increased european interest and influence on african migration governance have affected the agenda setting in the region, dictating the priorities of migration policies. increasing development aid for migration-related purposes makes it lucrative for governments to cooperate with the eu and its european interests. taking the case of senegal, our interviews showed wide agreement among respondents on competing for leadership in the field of migration governance on the political, institutional and civil society levels. more generally, there is a fragmented institutional landscape in which actors operate with partially overlapping and unclear mandates. this itself may make the determination of the best project partner for external partnerships difficult and has in part contributed to particular initiatives failing in their full implementation (vives, 2017). it also leads to inter-institutional competition, which includes, for example, the development of the national migration policy (nmp) in senegal. this competition is likely to be partly linked to the funding such development projects bring. one implementing actor commented in an interview: “everyone wants to lead the projects, but why? because of resources, it’s very simple, it’s nothing but a question of resources” (interview, dakar, july 2019).3 in the case of the nmp, a civil servant further noted: “the problem is that when the donor arrives, a competition is created” (interview, dakar, july 2019).4 the funds also affect the agenda of certain policy developments. while diaspora migration is a key interest of senegalese policymakers, european donors have made irregular migration an increasingly important issue in the senegalese context. as a result, dealing with irregular migration becomes the priority, to which one interlocutor, a civil society activist, noted, “who pays, commands,” highlighting the continuing asymmetric dependencies between european and african states (interview, dakar, july 2019; jegen and zanker, 2019; mouthaan, 2019; vives, 2017).5 the influence of external actors on agenda-setting can further be exemplified by the nmp in senegal. according to our interviewees, the initiative to elaborate the policy did not come from a high political level but from civil servants. this was done without the initial permission from a higher level, which was only granted once the funding was secured. the formulation of the document took place in the framework of an interministerial committee that was coordinated by the ministry of economy, planning and cooperation and financed by the international organization for migration (iom). this raises questions about the exact (political) ownership of policies elaborated, given that the initiative to draft the policy may not have derived from a political priority but rather a funding possibility (see also, camara, 2022). this may also explain why political adoption of the policy dragged on, even making eu budgetary support conditional upon the adoption of the policy, has so far proved unsuccessful (a national strategy to combat irregular migration was passed in 2023). a civil society actor stated that donors also have an impact on the policy 3 original : « chacun veut piloter; mais pourquoi? a cause des ressources [financières], c’est très simple! ce n’est rien d’autre qu’une question de ressources. » translation by author. 4 original : « mais le problème est que quand les bailleurs arrivent, une compétition se créée. » translation by author. 5 original : « qui paie command. » translation by author. 15 content, for example, making border control a key issue. it is also notable that once the nmp was technically validated, a “lobbying” process followed to push for the adoption of the policy at the political level. while the political approval of the nmp only passed in late 2023, with no official declarations, the eu commenced funding the implementation of some of the policy’s proposals and exerted pressure for its implementation much earlier. another illustration of undue influence on the migration agenda comes from niger, a major country of interest due to its “transit” position to countries like algeria and libya, the final places for refugees and other migrants on their way toward europe. the interest and focus on niger have resulted in much funding for the country – by 2021, the end-period of the eutf, there were 15 projects under the eutf for africa, amounting to over €272 million in development funds. the focus of many of these projects, as well as related ones on “anti-smuggling,” including the 2015 anti-smuggling law, has been widely discussed by a number of scholars (e.g. frowd, 2020; jegen, 2020a). less known is the influence at a broader, more general level of migration policymaking. the eu quickly focused on funding the development of the national strategy to counter irregular migration, tied to the anti-smuggling law. in a record time of under a year, the international centre for migration policy development (icmpd) drafted the strategy. this stands in strong contrast to the nmp. niger launched its interministerial commission on migration (comité interministériel chargé de l’élaboration du document de politique nationale de migration – cim) to develop an nmp already in 2007. for numerous reasons, mainly financial, but also due to a lack of strong leadership, this process was put on hold in 2014. the nmp process was only re-launched in 2017 with financial and technical support from the german development agency giz (deutsche gesellschaft für internationale zusammenarbeit). besides the emphasis placed on specific interests (e.g., anti-smuggling in niger, to stop persons moving beyond the nigerien borders), the frameworks also limit the involvement of a wider section of the nigerien community. two civil society actors were closely involved in the cim process, in addition to the national human rights council. the giz notes that this civil society involvement resulted in the founding of a migration, development, human rights network (réseau migration–développement–droits humains – remiddh) in niger (giz, 2017). a new national policy on migration 2020–2035 was adopted in september 2020. yet, some interlocutors decried the political nature of inclusion in the consultation framework. accordingly, only those civil society actors that reinforced a security-focused approach to migration governance were given a space to discuss and contribute to the new migration policy (see also, jegen, 2023). in sum, the european agenda influences african policy development, excluding more critical voices that follow different interests. yet, this europeanized agenda pushing the interests with regard to irregular migrants to the forefront tells only part of the story. the political priorities of migration policies in west africa 16 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 west african political interests in migration governance despite the european influence on west african migration governance, there are also national or regional political interests that come into play when considering migration governance (see also, adam et al., 2020; mouthaan, 2019; zanker, 2023). unsurprisingly, these are not straightforward interests and often stand in contradiction to each other but highlight that these countries also follow their own interests when it comes to migration policymaking. these interests include, broadly speaking, development interests – that play a role in diaspora and immigration governance – and humanitarian concerns, which primarily affect the protection measures toward refugees and internally displaced people. these are discussed in turn. development interests: diaspora and immigrants an important interest for african states in relation to migration is linked to remittances. these come from both within the region, where most migration occurs, as well as beyond. remittances, especially those from abroad, make up a substantial part of local economies. for example, personal remittances made up 15.5% of the gambia’s gross domestic product (gdp), 21.5% of lesotho’s, and 34.4% of south sudan’s in 2019 (world bank, 2020). due to this, the african union (au) has recognized the diaspora as the sixth “area” of africa. the significance of remittances is reflected in the efforts at prioritizing diaspora relations in migration governance. for example, remittances to nigeria continue to exceed official development assistance and foreign direct investment. nigeria is the largest remittance recipient country in sub-saharan africa. by 2018, the country received more than us$ 24.3 billion in official remittances (an increase of $2 billion from 2017), representing 6.1% of nigeria’s gdp (world bank, 2019). considering the huge impact of remittances, it is unsurprising that the nigerian government’s priority clearly lies with diaspora migration policies (arhin-sam, 2019). overall, nigeria has been active in its migration policy development at least since 2014, including an nmp from 2015, strategies on labor migration and diaspora matters, and a coordinating framework to further reform migration governance. the most pro active policies by far are the diaspora policies, which are far-reaching and include an office assisting the president on diaspora affairs, a senate committee on diaspora matters, a diaspora commission, and strong support for the nigerians in diaspora organization. there are ongoing plans to set up a government-owned money transfer system for nigerians abroad. as a diaspora representative noted, “diasporas have a political stake in the affairs of nigeria” (interview, hamburg, february 2019). this focus on diaspora is clearly prioritized over european interests in migration cooperation with the country. a substantial portion of funding for governing irregular migration in nigeria comes from development partners and particularly the eu. migration-related projects funded by the eu and member states in nigeria have focused for the most part on irregular migration, trafficking, return, 17 and reintegration. the low interest of the nigerian government to work on this issue is mirrored by the funds provided. for example, the government reduced the annual funding of the primary agency for combating human trafficking and smuggling (naptip) between 2015 and 2016 (see also, arhin-sam, 2019). in a similar manner, immigration is relevant as a political priority. regional migration makes up around 80% of emigration from west africa (okyerefo and setrana, 2018). this openness is also linked to a general culture of hospitality in the region. one localized version, summed up under the wolof term, is teranga (spoken in senegal and the gambia), which means a welcoming nature and hospitality (gasparetti, 2011). as a senegalese government official noted, “we are a country of teranga, it’s natural, it’s really this policy of openness that we’ve had since our ancestors” (interview, dakar, august 2019).6 to a degree, the regional mobility is something that just happens and is not politically prioritized, “immigrant communities in lagos are very active … but they have no political stakes” (interview with government official, lagos, april 2019). however, it is also something that can be celebrated, like a “senegambia free movement day” that was implemented in the gambia as “a kind of a celebration on ecowas protocol,” according to a government official in the gambia (interview, banjul, may 2019). a senegalese counterpart noted, “we have no negative fixation on one aspect or another of the migration issue. this project [the planned npm] is a policy that promotes both emigration and immigration, because the vision is positive by nature” (interview, dakar, july 2019).7 despite this – and notwithstanding that regional mobility also adds to the remittances and therefore development potential in the region – immigration is also a topic that provides political capital through exclusion. economic downturns have historically been met by exclusionary rhetoric toward immigrants as a threat to the local labor market. migrants are scapegoated for economic and social challenges rather than the government addressing corruption, mismanagement, or other causes for such issues (akinola, 2018). one of the first supplementary protocols to the free movement protocols from 1979 contained additional stipulations for “illegal immigrants,” that is, “any immigrant citizen of the community who does not fulfill the conditions stipulated in the different protocols.” this protocol came at a time when several countries throughout the region were expelling citizens from other economic community of west african states (ecowas) countries in response to economic downturns. for example, in the infamous “ghana must go” campaign in nigeria in 1983, over two million ghanaians in nigeria were affected by mass expulsions (ikuteyijo and olayiwola, 2018). this was no unique incident, but expulsions also took place from ghana (1954 and 1969) and côte d’ivoire in 1958 (tonah et al., 2017). even today, this exception for “inadmissible immigrants” is applied as a matter 6 original « nous sommes un pays dit de la teranga… c’est naturel, c’est vraiment cette politique d’ouverture que nous avons depuis nos ancêtres. » translation by author. 7 original « c’est pour vous dire qu’on n’a pas un point de fixation négative sur un aspect ou autre sur la question migratoire. ce projet est une politique qui donne de l’intérêt aussi bien à l’émigration qu’à l’immigration parce que la vision étant par nature positive. » translation by author. the political priorities of migration policies in west africa 18 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 of routine across the region (hamadou, 2020). one of our interviewees working for an international organization in the gambia told us, “i think there is a previous misunderstanding of ecowas free movement protocol. just because they have them in place, does not mean that you don’t need to check the entry and exit records of people who are moving across borders” (interview, serrekunda, april 2019). this highlights that at least for some, the free circulation of movement in the region is also subject to securitization and checks. the security situation, in particular in the sahel, has also led to an increasing salience of controlling immigration to be able to control terrorist organizations that are active across borders. similarly, aly ngouille ndiaye, the senegalese minister of the interior, noted in 2019 that security questions necessitate having better information of who is in the country: “by putting this system in place, we will know, as all countries do, who is in our country. because we don’t know right now” (mine, 2019).8 political capital can be drawn from excluding immigrants and controlling immigration for economic and security reasons. in this regard, immigration in the region, while important for regional development (okyerefo and setrana, 2018), is increasingly receiving (negative) political attention. this can be linked to economic protectionism and to securitization; thus, reduced mobility in the region cannot merely be explained by european influence in trying to reduce irregular migration. beyond remittances and development (as well as a degree of political curtailment of immigration), the protection of migrants and displaced persons is also of political interest in the region. protection interests: humanitarian narratives and hosting displaced persons there is a widespread humanitarian concern for migrants on the move, and this is often repeated in political statements and speeches. hosting displaced persons – both idps and refugees – does, however, also have political implications. in 2014, yahya jammeh, former president and dictator who brutally ruled the gambia for over two decades, gave a speech at the united nations (un) general assembly in which he argued that westerners were racist and inhumane and that they were “deliberately causing boats carrying black africans to sink, only to select a few lucky ones to be rescued and sent to concentration camps, called asylum seekers’ camps [sic]” (hultin and zanker, 2019). though his own human rights records and protection of gambian citizens were disastrous, the resonance of his provocative statement continues to this day. the danger of traversing various routes toward europe has, if anything, worsened (unhcr, 2021a). in response to an incident off the coast of mauritania in 2019, current president barrow said: “to lose sixty young lives at sea is a national tragedy and a matter of grave concern to my government” (shaban, 2019). similar sentiments were also expressed by a government representative in the gambia, who noted in relation to migrants who are returned to the gambia, 8 original : « en mettant en place ce système, nous saurons, comme tous les pays le font, qui est chez nous. » translation by author. 19 “[while i accept the] need for deportation, the question is how… some of them … are inhumane. you cannot treat humans like that. it has to follow a process. give them the dignity to the human being” (interview, banjul, may 2019). the release of news channel cnn’s footage of african migrants and refugees being auctioned off in slave markets in libya in november 2017 marked a major turning point, as outrage unfolded across the continent (cascais, 2017). coinciding with the eu–africa summit in abidjan, also in november 2017, the footage revealed the plight of african migrants to many governments. the revelations led burkina faso to recall its ambassador to libya, and niger to summon the libyan ambassador for talks. in senegal, the chargé d’affaires of the libyan embassy in senegal was summoned by the foreign minister, “to notify him of the ‘profound indignation’ of president sall over the sale of sub-saharan african migrants on libyan soil” (bodian, 2018: 168). furthermore, the international organization for migration (iom) began to airlift migrants out of libya, and countries like nigeria also repatriated its citizens (arhin-sam, 2019; see also, mouthaan, 2019). another example of humanitarian interest is the nigerien anti-smuggling law of 2015, which tries smuggling of migrants to libya by further criminalizing the popular transportation business. by many accounts, the law was introduced in response to european pressure and funding (frowd, 2020; jegen, 2020a; molenaar, 2017). but the very same law has also been shrouded in a humanitarian discourse by the nigerien government, as a measure to protect migrants, referring to a tragedy in 2013, when a group of over 90 abandoned migrants died in the desert (jegen and zanker, 2019; see also, lambert, 2020). thus, although humanitarian concerns are by no means the sole priority, it is a political narrative that was relevant to leaders across the region. a nigerien government official stated in an interview with us that niger is “always a country of welcome, where we give hospitality to the people” (interview, niamey, march 2019).9 hosting idps and refugees is also increasingly relevant in the region. while in 2009 there were 149,000 refugees and 500,000 idps, a decade later, the number of refugees had nearly quadrupled to 394,796 and the idp figures were more than six times higher at 3,155,465 (unhcr, 2010, 2021c). refugee rights in the region are strong – they are protected mostly with prima facie recognition due to the 1969 organisation of african unity (oau) refugee convention. nonetheless, refugees and idps are not always fully protected. niger faces a huge humanitarian situation with many idps due to the conditions in the sahel (drought and excessive rain), terrorist conflicts, and thus, according to a nigerien government official, “we are facing all possible risks; we have opened our borders to displaced populations and all the west african migrants” (interview, niamey, march 2019).10 given the structural problems the country has to deal with, displacement and stark humanitarian situations have made the problem of displacement a priority for the country (jegen, 2020a). 9 original « toujours un pays d’accueil où nous donnons l’hospitalité aux gens. » translation by author. 10 original « nous faisons face à tous les risques possibles ; nous avons ouvert nos frontières aux populations déplacées et à tous les migrants d’afrique de l’ouest. » translation by author. the political priorities of migration policies in west africa 20 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 this scenario notwithstanding, states also politically contest protection measures, which are still considered a political priority, albeit in a different way. in niger, the recent arrival of more sudanese refugees has sparked strong contestation. the government and regional authorities view the arrival of sudanese with suspicion, characterizing them as “criminals,” “fighters,” and “possible members of armed groups in libya” (lambert, 2020; tubiana et al., 2018). as noted in one of our interviews, “in regard to the sudanese, the people that come from other countries, maybe their practices are not well seen in the country,” which “poses problems of social cohesion” (interview, international organization, niamey, march 2019). the nigerien government certainly displayed reluctance to protect sudanese refugees. in 2018, they deported 135 sudanese asylum seekers back to libya, which amounted to a breach of the non-refoulement principle (lambert, 2020). the unhcr had to lobby the nigerien government to allow for the registration of sudanese asylum seekers in the first place and to accept the opening of the humanitarian center outside the city of agadez, which could host them (ibid). the nigerien government has demanded the resettlement of sudanese refugees and more aid to deal with the situation. some respondents highlighted that a few resettlements took place. living conditions in the humanitarian center are dire, with a lack of education, healthcare facilities, and security (reidy, 2019). the unacceptable behavior toward sudanese refugees and asylum seekers is evident in scapegoating them for potential job losses and causing other immigration-related tensions. they have become a target for exclusion, mainly because they do not come from the region (jegen, 2020a; lambert, 2020). an inverse political interest is seeking to repatriate refugees from another context in order to highlight the strength of the country. for example, the repatriation of nigerian refugees in cameroon back home by the nigerian government is a sign of improved security in nigeria, even if this comes at the cost of refugee protection. to highlight their own stability, the government has tried several times to repatriate nigerian refugees within the lake chad basin. it was politically preferable to repatriate nigerian refugees, bring them into idp camps, and label them as idps to avoid the embarrassment of having refugees abroad. as argued by whitaker (2017), it is often in the interest of states to label migrants as “migrants” rather than “refugees,” since the producing states can avoid political embarrassment and receiving states can avoid providing them with the refuge they seek. however, even in the migrants’ home countries, the governance of idps can signal certain political interests. in nigeria, for example, the idp situation is of importance due to the personal connection the (now former) president has to the region of displacement. according to one interlocutor working for a research organization, “they [northerners] are his [then president buhari] people. he understands that context better than the irregular migration in the south, which is in the interest of the eu to stop it” (interview, abuja, april 2019). for a policy consultant, this means: “they [the government] are more interested in the idp issue than in the rising scale of irregular migration” (interview, abuja, april 2019). this implies that the president is “spending a lot of political capital 21 in the north on the plight of the idps” (interview, researcher, abuja, april 2019). notably, former president buhari also politically instrumentalized idps to show military strength, especially in the ongoing military operation against the terrorist group boko haram (arhin-sam, 2019), not least to fulfill his political promises. during the 2015 election, after goodluck jonathan’s administration had exhausted all means of defeating boko haram, the then-presidential candidate muhammadu buhari, who is also a former military man, campaigned heavily on having what it takes to defeat boko haram and stabilize the region. however, after four years and the rising number of idps, the situation continues to put political pressure on the government (carsten and kingimi, 2018). considering the rising numbers of idps, dealing with idps has become a major feat to show military strength. thus, buhari declared the northeast region to be in a “post-conflict stabilization phase” in june 2018 (arhin-sam, 2019). in the same month, the army asked 2,000 idps to return to their home district of guzamala, adding to the 1,200 idps who were also asked to return to the city of bama in borno state in april 2018 (orji, 2018; urowayini, 2018). many international actors, including the un, criticized these desperate political moves, noting the volatile situation of the region in the face of intensified bombings by boko haram. this shows that protection interests are diverse and contested, but all the same are a significant political priority often overlooked. migration policy priorities the paper shows what effects external interests from the eu and their member states can have on agenda setting. however, using 2019 as a snapshot, it shows that interests in migration policies are numerous and states have their own interests, and even different priorities. the external push to adopt and implement measures targeting irregular migration toward europe resulted in “irregular migration” becoming a top priority in niger and the gambia in comparison to other mobility-related policy issues; “irregular migration” emerged as the second priority in nigeria and senegal (see figure 1). the political priorities of migration policies in west africa 22 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 figure migration policy priorities in nigeria, senegal, niger and the gambia source: author's own elaboration as shown, however, other interests like development and humanitarian concerns also play a role. diaspora relations are top political priorities in nigeria and senegal – at least during the research phase in 2019 – and the second priority in the gambia.11 regional mobility, in what i termed “ecowas immigration,” was the third priority in niger and senegal in 2019, fourth in the gambia, and last in nigeria. this highlights that at least in 2019 not much capital was made out of it and shows the non-political nature of mobility. for niger, displacement was a second priority in the country, unsurprisingly, given the high number of displaced people at the time, and third in nigeria, for similar reasons and as explained above. on the whole, “refugee hosting” was a relatively low priority for the countries in question. the order of priorities – based on our research and interviews – shows a rough estimation of how different countries in the region politically prioritize migration governance. it is perhaps no surprise that the smaller countries are seemingly more influenced by external agendas (the gambia and niger) and 11 since there are very few nigeriens abroad and the diaspora community is rather small, this was a very low priority for the nigerien government. nigeria diaspora relations irregular migration idps refugee hosting (ecowas) immigration senegal diaspora relations irregular migration (ecowas) immigration idps refugee hosting niger irregular migration idps (ecowas) immigration refugee hosting diaspora relations the gambia irregular migration diaspora relations refugee hosting (ecowas) immigration idps 23 the larger countries prioritize diaspora relations (senegal and nigeria). perhaps it is also telling that regional migration is politically more prominent in the two francophone countries. regional migration is safeguarded not only through the ecowas free movement protocols but the west african economic and monetary union (waemu), comprising the eight states that share the franc cfa currency to have their own rules on free movement. this may have strengthened the political importance of regional free movement. conclusion: migration as a way of life the influence on migration priorities has been problematic in many different ways, widely documented in a growing literature (see, e.g., barry, 2023; camara, 2022; deridder et al., 2020; jegen, 2023; opi, 2021). one of the most significant examples of this was the nigerien 2015 anti-smuggling law. one of our interviewees noted: “in the moment when there is no migration, the whole region has a problem” (interview, civil society activist, niamey, march 2019).12 fast forward to 2024, and there has been a series of coups across the region, and niger, among other countries, has withdrawn from ecowas and abrogated the controversial 2015 law. how migration priorities will develop in the future, is yet to be seen. it is relevant to note that for governments in the region, migration and mobility are traditionally not a significant political topic. in other words, it is so central to governments and their citizens that it is not politically questioned. in other words, despite more recent framing, migration and mobility are generally not considered a threat or problem in the west african context, but rather are considered a common part of everyday life. cross-border mobility is very established, with regional variations on the freedom of movement, and includes non-formalized border crossings (see okyerefo and setrana, 2018). indeed, it is in part remarkably normalized due to high informal border crossing that transforms determined territorial borders into artificial borders, dividing communities who maintain close social, economic, and cultural cross-border ties (arhin-sam et al., 2022). the lack of prior political attention to migration governance becomes most evident when we consider that in nigeria, niger, the gambia, and senegal an nmp was only developed and introduced following external funding for these schemes from the eu and their member states. the juxtaposition of lack of policy implementation and an everyday lived reality of mobility comes across clearly, considering the ecowas framework. as one nigerien interlocutor told us, “migration is a tradition; it is a way of life”13 (interview, niamey, march 2019). this way of life is a fundamental aspect to understanding where political priorities in migration governance may lie. 12 original : « au moment où il n’y a pas de migration, toute la région a un problème. » translation by author. 13 original : « la migration, c’est une tradition; c’est une mode de vie. » 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haram: 2000 idps return to guzamala lga to celebrate eid-el-fitr 6 years after – army. the vanguard, 17 june. the political priorities of migration policies in west africa 28 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 vives, l. 2017. the european union–west african sea border: anti-immigration strategies and territoriality. european urban and regional studies, 24(2): 209– 224. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969776416631790. whitaker, b.e. 2017. migration within africa and beyond. african studies review, 60(2): 209–220. https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2017.49. world bank. 2019. world development indicators – databank. https://databank. worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=2&series=bx.trf.pwkr.dt.gd. zs&country=#. world bank. 2020. annual remittances data. september. https://www.worldbank. org/en/topic/labormarkets/brief/migration-and-remittances. zanker, f. and altrogge, j. 2022. protective exclusion as a postcolonial strategy: rethinking deportations and sovereignty in the gambia. security dialogue, 53(5): 475–493. zanker, f. 2023. a typology of resistance: the “hot potato” of european return in west africa. territory, politics, governance, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/216 22671.2023.2198579. 14 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 informal cross-border traders and food trade during the global pandemic in zimbabwe abel chikanda1 received 23 september 2024 / accepted 23 november 2024 / published 10 january 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i3.2434 abstract the collapse of zimbabwe’s economy in the 2000s resulted in the country relying largely on food imports from other countries, especially from south africa. informal crossborder traders (icbts) have become crucial players in the country’s food economy, playing an important role in the importation of food as well as its retail across the country. cross-border trading also provides employment opportunities to a large number of people in the country, especially women, in an environment of depressed economic opportunities. the paper relies on data from a variety of sources, including surveys by the southern african migration programme (samp) as well as document analysis to demonstrate the role played by icbts in the country’s food economy. it also assesses how icbts were affected by the covid-19 pandemic and examines their strategies employed to continue their business activities during the time of mobility restrictions. more importantly, it demonstrates how the lack of understanding of the contribution of icbts to employment generation and urban food security has led to the adoption of policies and practices that do not accommodate informal food trading in the country’s urban landscape. the paper also discusses how informal cross-border trading (icbt) and informal food trading in zimbabwe have changed in the postcovid-19 period and sets a research agenda on understanding the role of icbt in the economies of countries in the global south. keywords: food trade, informal economy, cross-border traders, covid-19, digital marketing, zimbabwe 1 school of earth, environment and society, mcmaster university, hamilton, ontario, canada.  abel_chikanda@mcmaster.ca https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7146-7976 15 introduction informal cross-border trade (icbt) has become a critical component in the economies of countries in the global south. the united nations economic commission for africa (uneca) (2021) estimates that icbt accounts for nearly us$ 25 billion (or 16%) of intra-african trade, while the international organization for migration (iom) (2021) estimates that icbt accounts for between 30–40% of the trade in the southern african development community (sadc) region. icbt is defined as “a form of trade that is unrecorded on official statistics and is carried out by small businesses” across international borders (njiwa, 2013: 9). in some cases, it might involve “bypassing border posts, concealment of goods, under-reporting, false classification, under-invoicing and other similar tricks” (njiwa, 2013: 9). however, iom (2021) also notes that a large part of intra-african trade usually goes unrecorded because of inadequate human resources at the customs offices and the lack of incentives to record the flow of goods that are not subject to import duties. in their border monitoring survey of seven countries in southern africa in 2008, peberdy et al. (2015) show that 37% of informal cross-border traders (icbts) paid customs duties on their goods. virtually all icbts returning to malawi (99%) were charged customs duties, as were 78% of those returning to botswana and 75% of those returning to zambia. on the contrary, only 7% of those returning to mozambique and 3% of those returning to zimbabwe paid customs duties. according to un women (2010), nearly 84% of icbts interviewed reportedly paid duties for the goods they imported into the country. therefore, icbt benefits both the country in which the goods are bought, as they stimulate demand for goods produced in the formal sector, and the country in which the goods are sold through the customs duties paid, provided the relevant infrastructure is available (iom, 2021). icbt has been lauded as a means for poverty alleviation and employment generation among the poor in africa (jamela, 2013; tawodzera and chikanda, 2017; nyanga et al., 2020). because of the relative ease of entry into the sector, icbt can be a potential vehicle for women’s empowerment in the region, most of whom lack access to formal employment opportunities (muzvidziwa, 2015; dzingirai et al., 2021). in the sadc region, it is estimated that approximately 70% of the icbts are women (iom, 2021). icbt, as an integral component of the informal economy, has become critical for the survival of most people in zimbabwe. a study by medina and schneider (2018) shows that zimbabwe has the third largest informal economy in the world, with the sector contributing 60.6% to the country’s gross domestic product (gdp) after bolivia (62.3%) and georgia (64.9%). icbt emerged as a critical component of zimbabwe’s economy since the start of the economic crisis in the country more than two decades ago (peberdy et al., 2016; tawodzera and chikanda, 2017; dzawanda et al., 2022). icbts have provided important contributions in making food and other essential goods available on the zimbabwean market after the industrial collapse that the country witnessed since the start of the twenty-first century. icbts have become informal cross-border traders and food trade during the global pandemic in zimbabwe 16 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 a “major lifeline for the zimbabwean economy,” which has “experienced shortages of basic commodities” (sardc, 2008: 73). zimbabwe’s former minister of small and medium enterprise development, dr sithembiso nyoni, noted that icbts prevented the country’s economy from total collapse at the peak of the country’s economic crisis in 2008 (the herald, 2011). this paper documents the role played by icbts in the country’s food economy. it investigates how icbts were affected by, and responded to, the challenges posed by the covid-19 pandemic. it first uses data from surveys conducted by the southern african migration programme (samp) in 1997, 2007, and 2014 to document the role of informal food traders in not only improving the availability of food on the market but also in creating employment opportunities in the country. it then uses document analysis to investigate how icbt and food trading were affected by the covid-19 pandemic-induced lockdowns and assesses its current role in zimbabwe’s economy. document analysis involved a comprehensive search of literature on icbts in zimbabwe during the pandemic. databases such as science direct and google scholar were used to identify peer reviewed literature published on this subject. the paper shows that even though icbts were able to adopt creative strategies to continue conducting their business activities during the pandemic, their efforts were severely hampered by a policy environment that is hostile toward informal trading activities. icbt and the informal economy in zimbabwe tevera and zinyama (2002) regard icbt as one of the major coping strategies adopted by the poor population in zimbabwe after the implementation of the international monetary fund (imf)/world bank-prescribed economic structural adjustment programme (esap) between 1991 and 1995. esap led to growing hardships, especially among the country’s urban population, who resorted to a wide range of informal employment activities such as petty commodity trading and manufacturing, while a large number started traveling to neighboring countries such as botswana, mozambique, south africa, and zambia to buy goods for resale in the country. a significant proportion of the traders were women seeking to supplement the incomes earned by their spouses in the formal sector (ndlela, 2006). a recent study by uneca (2021) demonstrates the value of icbt relative to formal trade in zimbabwe’s economy. it estimates that icbt imports from south africa are worth nearly us$ 900 million, almost half of the value of formal trade imports from that country (see table 1). clearly, icbt constitutes an important element of regional trade integration in the southern african region. 17 table 1: estimate of the value of icbt relative to formal trade in zimbabwe (in us$) trade partner value of formal trade estimate of informal trade (low) estimate of informal trade (high) south africa $1,852,444,363 $486,829,304 $888,893,788 mozambique $90,039,978 $3,730,228 $3,730,228 botswana $34,267,949 $9,005,745 $16,443,445 namibia $10,630,985 $2,793,863 $5,101,269 angola $40,210 $10,567 $19,295 source: uneca (2021) three samp surveys illustrate the changing role of icbt in zimbabwe’s economy. the first survey conducted in 1997 involved 947 respondents selected from 32 survey areas that were randomly drawn from the country’s population census enumeration areas (tevera and zinyama, 2002). the survey showed that 210 people (or 22%) of the participants had been to south africa over the past five years. among the women participants who had been to south africa, two-thirds (65%) had traveled for trading purposes, either taking goods such as art and curios for sale there or buying goods for sale upon their return to zimbabwe. in contrast, zimbabwean men traveled to south africa mostly to work or look for a job (41%) while only a third (32%) went there for the purpose of trading. the icbt traders in the 1990s traded goods such as clothes, electronics, and car parts. food items and groceries were readily available on the domestic market and were not an attractive option for the traders. in 2007, samp conducted a border-monitoring study to understand the contribution of icbt in eight partner countries (peberdy et al., 2015). in zimbabwe, the survey was conducted at three major border posts, namely beitbridge (zimbabwe– south africa), forbes (zimbabwe–mozambique), chirundu (zimbabwe–zambia) and nyamapanda (zimbabwe–mozambique, also a gateway to trade with malawi and tanzania). border monitors were stationed with customs officials and recorded the type of goods brought in by the traders and their estimated value. this border monitoring survey counted 20,677 people either entering or leaving the country over a 10-day period, 9,412 (or 45.5%) of whom were identified as cross-border traders. in addition, the origin and destination survey was administered to a sub-sample of 1,170 randomly selected icbts to understand their trading practices. the survey, which was conducted at the height of the country’s economic crisis, showed that food and groceries (69.5%), new clothes (9.8%), and electrical goods (7.7%) were the main goods imported by the traders into the country (see table 2). this reflects the collapse of the country’s agricultural sector and manufacturing base, which created demand for food and other consumer products (peberdy et al., 2015). informal cross-border traders and food trade during the global pandemic in zimbabwe 18 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 table 2: types of goods imported into zimbabwe by icbts type of product percentage groceries 69.5 new clothes/shoes 9.8 electrical goods 7.7 household goods 2.9 old clothes/shoes 1.9 fresh fruit and vegetables 1.6 meat/fish/eggs 1.5 furniture 0.6 crafts/curios 0.1 other 3.1 note: percentages may not add up to 100%. multiple answers were allowed as many icbts carried mixed loads. source: peberdy et al. (2015) finally, the 2014 samp survey showed the continued importance of icbt in the zimbabwean economy (tawodzera and chikanda, 2017). the study used snowball sampling strategy to identify a sample of 514 informal entrepreneurs in harare who are involved in cross-border trade with neighboring countries. the study demonstrated that females (68%) dominate in icbt activities and roughly threequarters had started icbt activities after 2006 at the peak of the zimbabwean crisis. despite the shortage of basic goods such as maize meal, cooking oil, and agricultural products such as milk and potatoes, the zimbabwean government has periodically banned the importation of basic goods in a bid to protect local manufacturers. the 2014 survey was conducted after one such ban, which drove icbts to focus on trading clothes and footwear (87.6%) and household products (7.7%). although icbt plays a critical role in the country’s food economy, the zimbabwean government has not supported this important sector. it must be noted that icbts depend on the country’s informal economy for marketing their products. zimbabwe’s informal economy operates in a hostile environment that largely criminalizes informality and even attempts to eradicate it. urban planning laws, which were inherited from the colonial era, such as the town and planning act (1946), the vagrants act (1960), and the vendors and hawkers bylaws (1973) require enterprises to be registered with a government authority (ndlela, 2006). the city of harare, for example, has on many occasions demolished vending sites used by informal traders, charging that they had been established illegally, thereby contributing to the loss of livelihoods (bandauko et al., 2021). the zimbabwean 19 government, on its part, introduced a national clean-up program called operation murambatsvina in 2005, which led to the destruction of the stalls used by informal traders (potts, 2006; chirisa, 2007). furthermore, the zimbabwean government has also intervened periodically by introducing measures that directly affect the operations of icbts. this includes imposing controls on certain imports as well as increasing tariffs on selected products in a bid to protect the local industry from cheap imports (ndlela, 2006). however, as a resilient sector, icbt has always rebounded despite these setbacks. in fact, as shown by crush and tawodzera (2023), icbt has become a critical source of food for the urban poor of the country, surpassing even supermarkets and offering competitive prices for their goods due to their lower overhead costs. icbts imported food items such as rice and mealie meal from neighboring countries, notably mozambique and south africa. icbts earned on average us$ 639 in monthly sales, which is a decent income in zimbabwe’s economy (tawodzera and chikanda, 2017). in addition to operating in a harsh policy environment, icbts frequently experience harassment and abuse at the hands of both zimbabwean and south african customs and immigration officials (the herald, 2011). furthermore, they were subjected to xenophobia when traveling for business abroad, especially in south africa where hostility toward immigrants was on the rise (jamela, 2013). icbt has, over time, proven to be highly adaptable and capable of thriving in a difficult socio-economic and political environment. given the important role that it plays in enhancing food security across the country, it is important to investigate how the global covid-19 pandemic affected icbt and how the traders responded to these challenges. icbt and food traders during the pandemic the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic resulted in national governments worldwide adopting a wide range of measures to reduce the spread of the virus among their population. on 11 march 2020, the world health organization declared covid-19 as a global pandemic (kudejira, 2020). soon afterwards, the zimbabwean government, through the statutory instrument (si) 76 of 2020 on civil protection (declaration of state of disaster: rural and urban areas of zimbabwe) declared the pandemic a national disaster (maulani et al., 2020). a national lockdown was ordered on 30 march 2020 through si 83 of 2020 on public health (covid-19 prevention, containment and treatment) (national lockdown). the lockdown was initially meant to last for 21 days but was extended until may 2020 when some of the restrictions were eased (dzawanda et al., 2021). the country’s land borders were closed for travel deemed as non-essential until may 2021, while air travel continued, even though travelers were required to adhere to strict masking and testing requirements. most icbts could not afford air travel, which meant that they were cut off from their international trading activities (chenzi and ndamba, 2023). even when land borders reopened after easing of the lockdown in may 2020, the measures only supported informal cross-border traders and food trade during the global pandemic in zimbabwe 20 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 formal trade and icbts continued to be sidelined. thus, while attempts were made to ensure that goods sold on the formal market were brought into the country by air or via land, icbts were excluded from these exemptions (mccartan-demie and macleod, 2023). a large number of the icbts were therefore forced to suspend their business operations, as the lockdown and border shutdown made it difficult for them to procure goods from outside the country (mathe and ndlovu, 2021). consequently, the covid-19-induced mobility restrictions translated to loss of employment and income for the traders. for the icbt-dependent households, the border shutdown and lockdown meant being “‘locked out’ of their means of survival” (kudejira, 2020: 6–7). in addition, si 83 2020 ordered the closure of all businesses, except those that offered essential services, thereby excluding those in the informal economy whose business relied, to a large extent, on icbt activities. as noted by the president of the zimbabwe cross border traders association, killer zivhu, most icbts live a hand-to-mouth existence, and the closure of the border left them vulnerable and without money to buy food for their families and to pay rent and school fees for their children (masiyiwa, 2020). zivhu likened their condition to those affected by a natural disaster: “it’s like they have been affected by floods and left in an open space” (masiyiwa, 2020). a senior african analyst at the economist intelligence unit observed that icbts often support a large number of dependents, which meant that the drastic reduction in their earnings led to a sudden inability to feed their families (phiri, 2021). many icbts operate informal businesses where they market the goods that they buy abroad (tawodzera and chikanda, 2017). some traders who sold food products with a longer shelf life, such as cooking oil and tinned food, resorted to the strategy of holding on to their stock, which they would sell when things normalized and providing the capital to restart their icbt business operations (nyabeze and chikoko, 2021). to compound their problems even further, traders who conducted their business from stalls run by local municipal authorities were required to continue paying rent during the lockdown or risk having their stalls reallocated to other traders (dzawanda et al., 2021). lack of support for the icbts during the lockdown resulted in rising levels of food insecurity among the traders themselves and the zimbabwean population. the international labour organization (ilo, 2020) estimated that poverty among people working in the informal economy increased by 56% in the first month of the covid-19 pandemic. a survey by the world bank/zimbabwe national statistics agency (zimstat) (2020a) showed rising levels of food insecurity among the zimbabwean population at the height of the covid-19 pandemic. the survey collected information on a wide range of food security indicators among households for the period july 2019 (before the start of the covid-19 pandemic) to july 2020 (four months after the country’s declaration of the pandemic as a national disaster). the data shows that the proportion of households in the country experiencing 21 moderate and severe food insecurity rose from 42% in july 2019 to 72% in july 2020 (world bank/zimstat, 2020a). the disruption of the informal economy reduced household incomes and affected food flows into the country, leading to rising food insecurity among urban families. data from world bank/zimstat (2020b) shows that while 5% of the sample had adopted coping strategies such as going for the whole day without eating food in july 2019, 16% had adopted this measure in july 2020 (see table 3). furthermore, the proportion of households that were unable to eat healthy and nutritious meals because of a lack of resources increased from 36% in 2019 to 71% in 2020. table 3: food security indicators after the onset of the covid-19 pandemic indicator july 2019 (%) july 2020 (%) went whole day without eating food because of lack of resources 5 16 proportion of households unable to eat healthy or nutritious food because of lack of resources 36 71 source: data from world bank/zimstat (2020b) in a bid to cushion the people from the hardships induced by the pandemic, the government of zimbabwe (2020), through the ministry of finance and economic development, announced a stimulus package worth zwl$ 18 billion (equivalent to us$ 720 million using the prevailing exchange rate) (zhanda et al., 2022). the stimulus package was aimed at providing financial support to important sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture, mining, tourism, and small and medium enterprises (smes). it offered income support of zw$ 200 (or us$ 5) per month to vulnerable people whose incomes had been affected by the pandemic (zhanda et al., 2022). the amount, besides being grossly inadequate to provide families with stable income and heavily politicized, benefited only 202,000 out of the targeted one million households (chenzi and ndamba, 2023). about us$ 20 million of the stimulus package was reserved for smes that are formally registered by the government, which excluded nearly all icbts (kudejira, 2020). a study by dzawanda et al. (2021) shows that none of the 33 informal traders they interviewed received any social assistance from the government, despite registering for assistance and paying taxes through a 10% presumptive tax on their rental fee of us$ 60 per month on their stalls. thus, the traders were left to fend for themselves during a difficult time in the absence of government assistance. the landscape in which the traders operated shifted significantly during the pandemic. the zimbabwean government, which has a long history of antipathy toward the informal economy, decided to use the lockdown as cover for eradicating the stalls used by informal traders. the zimbabwean government introduced si 77 of 2020 – public health covid-19 prevention and containment regulations, which gave the health minister the right to informal cross-border traders and food trade during the global pandemic in zimbabwe 22 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 … authorise in any local authority the evacuation, closing, alteration or, if deemed necessary, the demolition or destruction of any premises the occupation or use of which is considered likely to favour the spread or render more difficult the eradication of such disease, and define the circumstances under which compensation may be paid in respect of any premises so demolished or destroyed and the manner of fixing such compensation (goz, 2020: 396). effectively, the urban local authorities used the pandemic as an excuse to reorganize and reshape the informal sector (mwonzora, 2022). many of the stalls from where the informal traders operated were destroyed across the major urban areas of the country, which suggests that these actions were centrally coordinated by the national government. the destruction of these stalls eliminated a stable and reliable source of food for the local urban population and destabilized the market chains linking icbts, urban informal traders, and the urban poor in the country. to ensure compliance with the lockdown restrictions, the police conducted spot checks at the trading sites of the informal traders and arrested those found to be flouting the lockdown regulations (chenzi and ndamba, 2023). the zimbabwe chamber of informal economy associations (zciea), which represents informal economy workers across the country, released a statement in april 2020 when the stall demolitions began just after the start of the lockdown. first, they indicated that they were being blamed unjustly as a site for covid-19 transmission, noting that the war against the virus should not be a war against the livelihoods of people in the informal economy: whenever there is an outbreak, either cholera or typhoid, informal economy workers and traders are blamed as the causes of such outbreaks; now we have covid-19, they are victims again, their stalls are being destroyed. why is the public-health war on covid-19 pandemic becoming a war on the livelihoods of the vulnerable urban poor [who are] dependent on informal trading for their livelihoods? (zciea, 2020). second, they complained that the destruction of the stalls occurred without warning or consultation and risked leaving most of the informal traders in poverty: the action just takes place as a sudden attack, with no consultation. these self-employed people rely on vending to fend for their families. destruction of their stalls translates to the destruction of their livelihoods and a sure way of sinking them into abject poverty (zciea, 2020). 23 icbts agency and survival during lockdown this section investigates some of the strategies used by icbts to continue their business operations amid the covid-19 lockdowns. icbts were forced to adopt unorthodox means to survive during the lockdown. they saw their means of survival, cross-border trading, rendered untenable by the pandemic. at the same time, the zimbabwean government was not responsive to their needs, excluding them from the stimulus package. the trading stalls that they used to market their commodities were destroyed by the local authorities during the lockdown. like most zimbabweans, they fell deeper into poverty and food insecurity. as zhanda et al. (2022: 43) note, the dilemma that they faced during the pandemic was “either to die of hunger or the virus.” one cross-border trader interviewed by moyo (2022) referenced two pandemics, one of which was the coronavirus and the other was the closure of borders to icbt, leading to food shortages and the death of people. innovative ideas were needed to evade the border closure and the lockdown measures. food shortages caused by the pandemic-induced lockdown created opportunities for traders who were able to procure goods from outside the country to make huge profits by hiking the prices of their goods. as reported by nyabeze and chikoko (2021), some icbts and businesses that managed to continue operating were able to increase their market share by as much as 20%. in an environment of scarcity, they were able to increase the prices of food items that were in short supply and high demand. icbts were unable to conduct their normal cross-border trading activities during the period march 2020 to may 2021 when the land borders were closed. some icbts adopted strategies that were against the law, including smuggling goods through undesignated cross points, such as the limpopo river between zimbabwe and south africa (kudejira, 2020). informal transport operators, known as the omalayitsha, were critical in the movement of goods and people across the border during the pandemic. the omalayitsha gained prominence in the early 2000s as informal cross-border transport operators who moved people, goods, and cash remittances across the zimbabwe–south africa border (thebe, 2011). they maintain strong connections with customs and border officials and are frequently able to evade the payment of customs duties on the goods that they carry. as they were not able to cross the border during the hard lockdown, they provided transport to icbts to undesignated crossing points at the zimbabwe-south africa border. once the icbts crossed into south africa, they would use local informal operators to transport them to musina where they would buy goods for resale in zimbabwe. however, when they got back to the border, they needed assistance to move the goods to the pick-up point on the zimbabwean side. this created opportunities for people known as zalawis, who would carry the goods on their heads across the border to the pick-up point. these informal good couriers earned their name from the truck company (zalawi) that transports heavy goods across the southern african region (moyo, 2022). the presence of zalawis helped icbts to transport large quantities of goods that were in demand in zimbabwe, such as cooking oil, flour, and tinned food. this opened informal cross-border traders and food trade during the global pandemic in zimbabwe 24 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 up new opportunities for the icbts. a respondent interviewed by moyo (2022) after the border reopening said they were contemplating the continued use of the undesignated crossing point to avoid abuse and paying bribes to customs officials; besides, they could transport as many goods as they could afford using the zalawis. future research could explore the extent to which icbts bypass the formal border and use undesignated crossing points in a bid to avoid the complexities associated with border crossings. a study by dzawanda et al. (2022) of 33 icbts in gweru shows that more than one-third (39%) were able to continue importing goods from south africa by crossing the border through undesignated crossing points. therefore, icbts who were able to continue with their regular cross-border operations were those able to cross the border illegally against the lockdown regulations, either through using undesignated crossing points or bribing immigration officials at the border. evading customs and immigration officials added to the cost of conducting business, which made this an unattractive option for some traders. hence, the lockdown and other mobility restrictions gave rise to new forms of icbt as the traders sought alternative ways to maintain their business operations. it must be noted that even though the land borders were closed to icbts and other people traveling for “non-essential” activities, vehicles registered for transporting commercial freight (mainly trucks) were allowed to cross the land borders during the lockdown. some icbts were, therefore, able to use these trucks to transport their goods across the border (mathe and ndlovu, 2021). the use of trucks for moving goods across the border took several forms. the simplest form involved traders liaising with the truck drivers who crossed the border to bring goods for them on their return trip to zimbabwe. a cross-border trader interviewed by dzawanda et al. (2021: 5) used this method because it presented … an opportunity to make money at home during the lockdown period as it was difficult for people to get into town to buy groceries. i only sold essential foodstuffs like rice, macaroni, flour, and mealie meal from musina because it was cheaper to buy from there; and also, these foodstuffs were in demand in residential areas. in some cases, a complex web developed, which was mediated by social media platforms such as whatsapp involving icbts, the businesses outside zimbabwe (mainly south africa), truck drivers, and agents based in south africa (known as “runners”) (dzawanda et al., 2022). the border town of musina in south africa has developed into an important trading site for icbts, who take advantage of its proximity to zimbabwe to buy goods there (iom, 2021). during the covid-19 lockdown, the shop owners who depend on icbt activities were forced to develop innovative ways of maintaining contact with their icbt customers in zimbabwe. they formed whatsapp groups where they advertised the goods that they had in stock (dzawanda et al., 2022). the zimbabwean-based traders then got in touch with 25 their contacts (or runners) in musina and provided them with a list of goods they wanted. they also sent the cash for purchasing the goods either through western union or truck drivers. the runners then bought the goods, gave them to the truck drivers who transported them to zimbabwe for a fee and sent the contact details of the truck drivers for communication purposes. dzawanda et al. (2022) note that the runners received a fee of about 10–15% of the value of the goods ordered. these costs were offset by the savings made by the icbts on transport and lodging costs as well as the higher price fetched by the goods in zimbabwe in an environment of food scarcity and high inflationary pressures. an added dimension to the cross-border trading dynamic was the emergence of “groupage,” which involves the organized purchase, transport, and delivery of goods in small trucks or vans. groupages reduce the operational costs of traders, which are borne by the collective group instead of the individual trader. group buying is nothing new among icbts, but it was the formalization of this process that distinguished it from other informal group-buying arrangements. according to the iom (2021), the groupage system was introduced by the zimbabwe revenue authority (zimra) as a way of aggregating the icbts’ imported goods instead of clearing them individually. icbts were encouraged to form buying groups (usually 10 people) and send one person with a small truck to musina to buy goods on their behalf. for the border authorities, groupage allowed them to monitor small-scale cross-border trade more effectively, which usually goes unrecorded, because it frequently falls below the customs exemption limit. the combined consignment of goods brought in by the trucker on behalf of the traders is treated as a commercial consignment and, therefore, is recorded as part of the cross-border trade between the two countries. this also means that the goods are subject to payment of import duties, since they are viewed as one consignment, instead of the aggregated sum of smaller consignments (mccartan-demie and macleod, 2023). this added to the cost of importing goods for the traders and reduced their profit margins. it can be argued that by forcing traders to operate in this way, the zimbabwean authorities effectively formalized cross-border trading and enabled them to collect levies that they would otherwise not have collected if the traders were operating individually. mccartan-demie and macleod (2023) caution researchers who wish to use data from the pandemic period in the analysis of external trade, as it includes data from groupage trade by icbts. changing patterns of informal food retail the pandemic had huge impacts not only on the practice of icbt but also on the retail sales of the products they sourced from outside the country. before the pandemic, some icbts marketed their goods directly to consumers or sold them to middlemen. the pandemic resulted in some icbts being caught up in a state of immobility, as they could not cross the borders because of the lockdown restrictions. some icbts used various means (as discussed above) to bring goods into zimbabwe, and this informal cross-border traders and food trade during the global pandemic in zimbabwe 26 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 meant they had to develop alternative means of marketing their products. as shown above, the zimbabwean authorities used the guise of the pandemic to destroy the infrastructure supporting the informal economy. this meant that icbts had to come up with innovative ways to market their products during the lockdown. during the first days of the lockdown, mobility was severely curtailed, and traders could not conduct their business operations even from the legal vending sites. digital trade was one of the ways they managed to market their goods during the pandemic and emerged as a “key enabler” of trade (oecd, 2020). mccartandemie and macleod (2023) observe that digital trade grew rapidly in africa before the pandemic, and its formal adoption expanded during the pandemic. the traders moved from conventional trading to digital trading, using platforms such as whatsapp and facebook groups (nyanga et al., 2020). informally, traders would communicate with their clients through online platforms and arrange for payment and delivery of goods. in this way, the traders were able to conduct their business operations without breaking the lockdown regulations. mathe and ndlovu (2021) note that some traders were even able to expand their business operations, as the digital marketing strategies allowed them to reach new customers. future research could explore the extent to which traders in the post-pandemic era use digital marketing tools in their business operations. this includes the current use of digital technology in providing connections with their suppliers outside the country, the agents who purchase the goods on their behalf, and truck drivers who transport goods to the country. although online marketing strategies provided opportunities for traders to sell their goods to consumers, customers who were not part of their marketing group were excluded from the sales and had to be reached in other ways. immobility also resulted in a new form of food retail that emerged – mobile vendors, dubbed “vendors on wheels” by toriro and chirisa (2021). these traders conducted business from their vehicles that ranged from small passenger vehicles to large trucks, which they could use as a quick escape from the authorities who enforced the lockdown restrictions. an added advantage was that the vehicles offered traders a means to test the market in different spaces and quickly move away from places with limited demand for their products. the end of the pandemic restrictions presents research opportunities to investigate the long-term sustainability of “vending on wheels,” as informal traders return to their traditional vending spaces. gendering icbt food trade during the pandemic icbt in zimbabwe is a highly gendered activity. data from zimstat (2023) shows that there are more women (87.1%) than men (84.5%) employed in informal employment. the 2008 border monitoring survey by peberdy et al. (2016) show that women icbts outnumbered men at all border posts monitored, including at the zimbabwe–south africa border at beitbridge (54%) and at the zimbabwe–zambia border at chirundu (67%). therefore, it is not surprising that female icbts were more affected by the 27 lockdown and other pandemic restrictions than their male counterparts. ironically, women icbts had been forced into trading activities because of lack of opportunities in the zimbabwean economy. women often face serious obstacles to getting decent jobs, leaving most of them stuck in low-wage and insecure jobs (maunganidze, 2020). for these reasons, the lockdowns affected women’s incomes and widened the existing inequalities between men and women (chikazhe et al., 2020; iom, 2021). schools in zimbabwe were closed from 24 march 2020 to 8 september 2021 during the lockdown period. women generally bear most of the caregiving responsibilities among families in zimbabwe and the pandemic meant that they bore most of the burden of childcare after the closure of schools (dzingirai et al., 2021). this limited their ability to participate in the coping strategies adopted by their male counterparts to beat the pandemic restrictions on trading. not surprisingly, the southern africa trust (2021: 20) underscores that the “pandemic has placed women in the informal economy between a rock and a hard place, the need to earn an income on the one hand and ensuring minimal risk of exposure to the virus on the other.” the border closure during the lockdown drove some icbts to engage in illegal border crossings, and this had important gender implications. moyo (2022) and the iom (2021) highlight reports of women being sexually harassed and abused by criminal elements during illegal border crossings. in addition, gender-based violence against women also increased during this time, as couples were spending most of their time together in an environment marked by declining access to income-generating activities (magezi and manzanga, 2020; mashapure et al., 2021). phiri (2021) interviewed a mother of three, whose icbt business provided the bulk of the household income and whose husband worked as a commuter omnibus driver. when the pandemic restrictions led to the border shutdown and suspension of public transport operation, tensions increased in the household, which caused her to apply for a restraining order because of the emotional and physical abuse caused by her husband. although the pandemic provided opportunities for the adoption of digital marketing strategies, there were significant gender differences in the adoption of these technologies. zhanda et al. (2022) have shown that the “gender digital gap” or the lack of computer knowledge among female icbts, resulted in a large number of them not taking advantage of digital marketing tools to market their products during lockdown. although widespread adoption of cellphones has improved access to the internet in the country, the lack of knowledge of the use of digital marketing tools has limited the ability of women to take advantage of this opportunity. conclusion: the future of icbt this paper demonstrated the important role of icbts in the importation as well as the retail of food in zimbabwe. a large number of icbts either sell these commodities directly to consumers via their own informal stalls or sell them to informal traders in informal cross-border traders and food trade during the global pandemic in zimbabwe 28 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 the country. moreover, these traders are able to sell their goods at lower prices than those charged at supermarkets as a result of their limited overhead costs (tawodzera and chikanda, 2017). icbt can arguably serve as an agent for women’s empowerment, as it offers them an opportunity to earn stable incomes in an environment of limited formal employment opportunities. this paper illustrated that the border closures caused by the covid-19 pandemic severely disrupted the functioning of the icbts in zimbabwe, particularly their incomes. however, the icbts displayed their agency and resilience to the challenges that the pandemic presented. they were able to use alternative means to procure goods from other countries, using both personal and digital networks. this paper demonstrated that the adoption of these coping strategies was not applied uniformly across the spectrum of icbt, and that male icbts adopted digital marketing strategies at a faster rate than their female counterparts. moreover, crossing the border at undesignated crossing points to beat the border shutdown exposed female icbts to added risks such as theft, harassment and sexual abuse. consequently, female icbts faced severe challenges in responding to the border shutdown and the lockdown caused by the pandemic. future studies could seek to investigate whether some of the adaptations caused by the pandemic, such as the use of digital technologies in both the purchase of goods from outside the country and their sale to customers in zimbabwe, have become an established practice. despite the positive contribution of icbts toward making food available on the market during a time of scarcity, the urban local authorities demonstrated their unwillingness to accommodate food trading in the city’s urban landscape. in fact, they used the pandemic restrictions as cover to destroy the stalls and other infrastructure used by informal traders to market their commodities. this raises questions on the right of poor people’s access to the city (lefebvre, 1974); they were barred from pursuing their livelihood strategies, while formal retail activities were permitted. clearly, the contribution of icbts to employment generation and food security is not widely recognized by the policymakers as well as its linkage to the country’s informal economy. rather than viewing icbts as a residual sector of the economy, policymakers should recognize their overall contributions to both the country’s economy and to society. acknowledgments the surveys reported in this paper were funded by canada’s international development research centre (idrc) and the fieldwork was conducted by the southern african migration programme (samp), under the growing informal cities project. 29 references bandauko, e., mutambisi, t., toriro, p. and chirisa, i. 2021. urban governance and the political economy of livelihoods and poverty in harare, zimbabwe. in matamanda, a.r., nel, v. and chirisa, i. 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internal migrants provide positive peer effects that contribute to raising non-migrant school enrollment and completion. internal migrants also provide job-market competition, which can influence non-migrants' decisions to complete secondary schooling. while prior research has tended to focus on the relationship between immigration and education outcomes in the developed world, there is scant empirical evidence on the impact of internal migration on education outcomes in african countries. our paper provides evidence from a country with a history of persistent internal migration. we recommend that improvement of the quality of basic education – in both rural and urban areas – be a high priority of the south african government, as well as increased financial access to tertiary institutions. keywords: migration, education, completion rates, enrollment, south africa 1 economics academic at mancosa, south africa. corresponding author.  farai.nyika@mancosa.co.za 2 department of economics, stellenbosch university, south africa 11 introduction south african secondary-school completion rates are very low, as evidenced by the fact that half of all pupils born during the period 1992–1994 had not completed grade 12 by 2018 (businesstech, 2020). in comparison, countries in the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) had an 80.3% average rate of upper-secondary-school completion (oecd, 2019), while in southern africa, botswana and mauritius have completion rates above 90% (mwale et al., 2022). additionally, black, and bi-racial south african learners are more likely to drop out of school than are white pupils, indicating the enduring legacy of apartheid in accounting for educational inequality, particularly with regards to access to quality schooling (moses et al., 2017; de clercq, 2020; amin and mahabeer, 2021). school quality generally remains poor despite relatively high levels of public spending on education since democratization in 1994 (moses et al., 2017; mlachila and moeletsi, 2019). if the household head achieves some higher education in south africa, the risk of poverty declines substantially compared to households where the head has no schooling (world bank, 2019). with the nation’s racially oppressive history, access to inclusive and affordable education is a key pathway out of poverty for black south africans (borgen project, 2022; walker et al., 2022). the low completion rates mentioned above contribute to the wastage of large portions of the education department’s budget. for example, the government allocated r249 billion in 2018/19 to the department of education budget alone; r20 billion of that budget was spent funding over one million repeating students in primary and secondary schools (van der berg et al., 2019: 1). this additional expenditure could have been used to target other south african developmental goals (e.g., improving access to basic sanitation, healthcare, and building infrastructure in poorer provinces) (maphumulo and bhengu, 2019; mazele and amoah, 2022). despite relatively high levels of public spending on education since democratization in 1994, education quality remains poor (moses et al., 2017; mlachila and moeletsi, 2019). in south africa, slow grade-progression and poor completion rates can be attributed to supply-side factors related to the quality of basic education, which include class size, school quality, teacher availability, and infrastructure (unicef, 2020). pupils also drop out because of demand-side factors, such as financial constraints, pregnancy, death of parents or guardians, and conflicting perceptions of the benefits of completing school (spaull, 2015; moses et al., 2017). migration is another possible explanation for low completion rates as it has consequences for both origin and destination areas (brunello, 2021; akyol and erikci, 2022). much of the economics literature that links migration to education outcomes has focused on immigration, which has been shown to have ambiguous effects on the educational outcomes of non-migrant residents (see, e.g., hunt, 2017; brandén et al., 2018). this ambiguity likely stems from the fact that there are both increasing costs, such as school resource constraints and negative peer effects, and impact of internal migration on school enrollment and completion rates in south africa 12 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 benefits, such as greater returns to relatively scarce higher levels of schooling, to a changing school-age population. research in internal migration and child schooling has been largely restricted to high-income and global north countries, although increasing evidence on the effects of mobility on educational progression and achievement in lowand middle-income countries (lmics) is emerging. for example, studies on the impact of the hukou household registration system in china have consistently indicated significantly worse educational outcomes of rural-urban migrant children compared to their urban counterparts (see, for example, goodburn, 2020; kim et al., 2021). this outcome has been attributed to institutional barriers of poor access to quality schooling and the lack of social capital – the latter taking time to build up (hung, 2022; xu and wu, 2022). in this paper, we study the impact of south african internal migration on nonmigrant secondary enrollment rates and school completion of 19-21 year-olds over the period 1996 to 2011, at the local municipality and district levels using census data for the years 1996, 2001, and 2011.3 we specifically focus on migrants from the eastern cape (ec) province given a strong historical connection between the spaceeconomies of the former homelands and south africa, beginning with the annexation of these territories to the cape colony in the late nineteenth century.4 these policies contributed to turn particular areas of the ec into what would effectively become a labor reserve for various industries. the colonial and apartheid legacy of separate development, labor migration, bantu education, and social displacement (hartnack, 2017: 3), combined with lasting spatial and structural inequalities have meant that predominately black individuals who live in former homelands and townships remain the poorest and most marginalized (moses et al., 2017). in this setting, access to quality education becomes very difficult and community-related factors that impact dropout and non-completion carry weight. however, the lifting of migration control in south africa beginning in the late 1980s (collinson and wittenberg, 2001; kok and collinson, 2006) led to increased permanent household migration and urbanization, both internal and external to the transkei and the ec (kalule-sabiti and kahimbaara, 1995; reed, 2013). to the best of our knowledge, only two studies to date have analyzed the impact of internal migration on child educational outcomes in south africa. firstly, ginsburg et al. (2011) provide evidence that mobility in south africa may enable children to access improved educational opportunities, school choice, and living circumstances. secondly, zoch (2016) shows that black pupils’ outcomes improved substantially after moving from poorer neighborhoods to much wealthier ones. both studies focus on intra-district migration while our study centers on inter-district migration. 3 these are the three censuses that have been completed to date in south africa. the 2021 census is underway as of june 2022. 4 we define a space-economy as comprising adjoining spatial regions that share related flows and markets for labor and land as well as infrastructure platforms. 13 the empirical analysis closely follows the approaches taken by berker (2009), hunt (2017), and kollamparambil (2017). specifically, we calculate municipality and district-level schooling outcomes adjusted for individual characteristics and conduct the main analyses on a panel of local and district municipalities using national census data for 1996, 2001, and 2011. we employ first difference (fd) and system generalised method of moments (gmmsys) estimators to deal with issues of dynamic panel bias (ullah et al., 2018) and endogeneity. in the empirical analysis, we find a positive relationship between internal migration and non-migrant secondary-school enrollment that varies depending on the education levels of the internal migrant and the non-migrant household heads. a single percentage point increase in the share of internal migrants in the population aged 16–64 from a household whose head has less than 12 years of education, increases the non-migrant probability of enrollment by 0.352 percentage points. larger effects are seen as follows: a single percentage point increase in the share of internal migrants in the population aged 16–64, from a home with more than 12 years of education, increases the non-migrant probability of secondary school enrollment by 0.909 percentage points. we closely follow the approaches taken by berker (2009), hunt (2017), and kollamparambil (2017). specifically, we calculate municipalityand district-level schooling outcomes adjusted for individual characteristics and conduct the main analyses on a panel of local and district municipalities using national census data for 1996, 2001, and 2011. we employ first difference (fd) and system generalised method of moments (gmm-sys) estimators to deal with issues of dynamic panel bias (ullah et al., 2018) and endogeneity. we also find a positive effect of the share of 19–21-year-old internal migrants on non-migrant secondary-school completion. specifically, a one percent increase in the lagged share of the population aged 16–54 – that is, internal migrants with less than 12 years of education – increases the probability of non-migrant secondaryschool completion by 1.474 percentage points. this relates to the labor market, as young internal migrants compete with non-migrants for jobs and the latter upgrade their education in response by completing grade 12. additionally, a higher share of young working-age migrants is likely to change the wage structure and wage inequality, adding to our understanding of income and educational inequality in south africa. this study complements the work by kollamparambil (2017), who used the 2008, 2012, and 2014 waves of the national income dynamics survey (nids) data to analyze the effects of internal south african migration on inequality, finding that internal migrants are more likely to be unemployed than non-internal migrants before and after migration. kollamparambil also reports that migration increases income inequality in urban centers, because internal migrant unemployment adds to existing unemployment. our decision to use south african census data, was made as impact of internal migration on school enrollment and completion rates in south africa 14 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 it is more representative of the population at disaggregated district and municipality levels, but also covers a longer period of post-1994 migration than the nids data. in the following section we contextualize south african education in both pre and post-apartheid. thereafter, we situate migration in its historical context. theoretical framework education is a leading indicator of social mobility and has a positive correlation with increasing income; higher levels of education and income induce migration among the lower-income earners in developing countries (handler, 2018). above a certain point, however, rising salaries slow migration down, resulting in an inverted u-shaped association between education and migration (handler, 2018). internal migration of children of school-going age modifies the spatial distribution of the school-age population, and changes the educational opportunities and net benefits for both non-internal-migrant children in destination and origin areas, depending on the relative densities and inflows of internal migrants (berker, 2009), as well as the internal-migrant children themselves (swanson and schneider, 1999; haveman et al., 2004). for example, a strain on the local school system may be due to an inflow of internal-migrant children and an increase in the average number of learners per input (e.g., strain on teachers), but also to a higher density of lesseducated parents among internal migrants (hunt, 2017). an alternative argument is made by huang (2022), that internal-migrant children have negligible to no negative peer effects on destination schools because of parental presence. this means that internal-migrant children’s behavior would be better compared to children left behind by their parents. benefits to non-migrant residents may arise from a shift in relative skills that will allow for higher labor market returns to those with higher levels of education and therefore incentivize investment in education (betts, 1998). wages and job availability for non-migrants may decline as a result of migration if the skills of internal migrants and non-migrants are interchangeable; alternatively, migration can increase wages and job opportunities for non-migrants if the skill sets of internal migrants and non-migrants are complementary (viseth, 2020). increased low-skilled migration may increase competition for low-skilled jobs, driving wages down. thus, non-migrant school completion may increase in response, preventing wages from falling (hunt, 2017). empirical literature with reference to the united states, mchenry (2015) focused on the eighth grade and found that an increase in low-skilled immigrants leads non-migrant children to increase their secondary school attendance and pass rates, and stay longer in school (obtaining more grades). mchenry identifies the channels of these effects by analyzing non-migrant student responses to questions about their school experiences, 15 expectations, and attitudes. hunt (2017) studied the effects of immigration on non-migrant secondary school and her results differed, depending on gender and race. hunt’s study found that immigration increases the likelihood of completing secondary school for both non-migrant black and white americans while no statistically significant effect was found for hispanics. hunt also reports that nonmigrant enrollment (particularly for children with low-educated parents) rises in response to immigration (similar to mchenry’s findings). according to hermansen and birkelund (2015), increased immigrant concentration in norwegian schools is linked to better prospects of non-migrants completing secondary education; the authors adopted a similar approach to mchenry, as they followed cohorts (from grade 10), observing their outcomes at age 21. hermansen and birkelund, (2015) used data that allowed them to monitor longer-term effects, rather than short-term education outcomes at one point in time. in a cross-country study analyzing the programme for international student assessment (pisa) results for 41 oecd countries, silveira et al. (2019) similarly found a positive effect of increased migration on non-migrant children’s mathematics scores at age 15. other scholars report heterogeneity in school performance of immigrants and non-migrant children that can be attributed to variations in socioeconomic status. for example, dustmann and glitz (2011) report that immigrant children to oecd countries generally fare much more poorly academically, than do local children in mathematics and english once they arrive in their destination countries. they also report that australia, canada, and the united kingdom are exceptions, as immigrant children perform just as well or better than non-migrant children. this is likely due to these countries’ migration policies that are geared toward attracting migrants with better education and language skills. d’agostino et al. (2021) show that first-year science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) university students who migrated from southern to northern/central universities have lower levels of academic performance than students from the upper parts of italy and study at institutions in the same region. this is an important contribution, as the authors highlight the challenges posed by migrating over larger distances and the effects on education outcomes. the literature abounds with studies on negative migration effects. for instance, brunello and rocco (2013) conducted a survey of 19 oecd countries and report that increased immigration is associated with the negative impact on non-migrant students’ academic performance. hu (2018) provides evidence for developing countries, by reporting large, negative, spillover effects of chinese internal-migrant children operating through peers and teacher effects, while ballatore et al. (2018) report negative effects of immigration on non-migrant children aged 7–10 in italian schools. other studies found minor to null effects of immigration on non-migrant education outcomes (see, e.g., brandén et al., 2018; huang, 2022). huang’s (2022) spatial equilibrium model and regression results show that chinese internal-migrant impact of internal migration on school enrollment and completion rates in south africa 16 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 children’s peer effects contribute to marginally reducing non-migrant school test scores by 0.038 standard deviations – effects that dissipate within one year. china’s discriminatory hukou system has meant that rural-urban internal migrants face barriers that frustrate access to better paying jobs and promotions, keeping parents in a low-skilled and low-wage cycle (song and zhou, 2019; goodburn, 2020; china labour bulletin, 2021). goodburn (2020) in particular, finds that rural-urban migration children have lower education outcomes and end up in lower-quality schools after leaving junior high school, leading to their low-level labor market skills. these disagreements in the literature highlight the need for further scholarship on understanding the channels through which purported effects are said to be occurring. they also highlight the limited evidence on this topic for sub-saharan africa, something this paper aims to address. migration in historical context perennial labor-shortage problems of farmers in both the cape colony and natal were solved by contracting migrant labor from the transkei and ciskei. from the 1880s onwards, the colonial government introduced several measures to increase the labor supply to white-owned farms. bergh (2010) narrates how cape colony legislation was used to create “reserves” that provided creating cheap labor for whiteowned farms. these included a hut tax on black people in the cape colony, as well as a labor tax on those living in the reserves (van der horst, 1942). despite the relative success of these measures, the amount of labor supplied to the agricultural sector remained insufficient. white farmers and anglo-controlled mining companies advocated for the creation of black reserves through the 1913 natives land act and early pass laws (schierup, 2016: 1053). the result was the establishment of “influx control,” which not only increased labor supply, but also reduced the cost of unskilled laborers, who otherwise would have sought higherwage employment in urban areas (mncube and harber, 2013). it was, however, under the apartheid regime that labor regulation took prominence as an “extreme extraeconomic coercion of the majority of the workforce” (legassick, 1974: 255). building upon existing legislation such as the development trust and land act of 1936, the migrant labor system and spatial allocation of labor became permanently institutionalized following the 1945 black urban areas consolidation act, the 1967 physical planning act, and the 1968 promotion of the economic development of the homelands act. former non-migrants were resultantly reclassified as foreigners which, along with the establishment of centralized labor bureaus set up to monitor the movement of this newly “alienized” foreign non-migrant labor force, set in motion a “permanent condition of rural-urban migrancy” (schierup, 2016: 1053). without much productive rural land to farm there was little choice for workers but to seek work as temporary/contract migrant laborers in urban areas. muller (1983, citing nattrass (1976) and benso (1982)), notes that the number of migrants from rural homeland areas increased threefold between 1938 and 1980. as argued 17 by nattrass (1983: 17) such a migrant labor system becomes self-perpetuating, since economic participation outside the homelands, particularly by the youth (young people tend to be innovators of change) undermines economic development inside the homeland. as a result, oscillating migration tripled in scope from around 500,000 in 1936 to just over 1.3 million workers by 1980 (nattrass, 1976; benso, 1982). in a study of lifetime migration in the former transkei, kalule-sabiti and kahimbaara (1993) found that prior to 1970, the transkei experienced net-outmigration to the mines. however, migration dynamics were reversed in the 1970s following internal self-rule and political independence. between 1980 and 1990 inmigration occurred at a faster pace. two-thirds of all migrants were aged 15–44, whereas 68 percent of non-migrants were younger than 15. most internal transkei migration was from rural to urban centers, with the largest share of these migration inflows coming from south africa and comprised people aged 55 years and older (kalule-sabiti and kahimbaara, 1993). posel and casale (2006) show that circular labor migration and the reliance of households on remittances from migrant workers remained significant during the first decade of democracy. at the onset of democracy, the eastern cape (ec) and its former homelands continued to be one of the largest senders of migrants to other provinces. between 1992 and 1996, close to 250,000 people left the ec, 80 percent of whom moved to kwazulu-natal, western cape (wc), and gauteng. using the 1996 census, kok (1999: 42) shows the clear “dominance of the former homeland areas as a reservoir of migrant workers.” kok (1999) found that in several districts of the transkei, the size of the ex-migrant population is almost equivalent to that of the population who did not migrate. as argued by posel and zeller (2010), the continued prevalence of temporary migrant labor post-apartheid might be indicative of deeply entrenched migration patterns that could over time be supplanted by the permanent settlement of individuals and households. studies by bekker (2002) and van der berg et al. (2019) found lower return migration from the wc to the ec. similar trends are identified using the 2008 nids data, which indicates significantly lower estimates of labor migration and remittances compared with the labour force survey (lfs) for the period 2002–2005. data description observations in this study are based on three post-apartheid south african population censuses for 1996, 2001, and 2011, which capture information on the change of residence between census years; this is important for distinguishing migrant from non-migrant individuals and households. the combination of these data sets allowed us to capture all the information needed in the study. the nine south african provinces are divided into a panel of metropolitan and district municipalities, which are then subdivided into local municipalities. the non-migrant and migrant status of individuals older than five years is determined using information about mobility across municipalities within five years prior to the census. non-migrant residents are impact of internal migration on school enrollment and completion rates in south africa 18 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 defined as individuals reporting to reside in the same municipality five years prior to, and at the time of the census. recent migrants from this point on are referred to simply as migrants and are defined as individuals residing in different municipalities five years prior to, and at the time of the census. for example, a migrant in the 2001 census would be defined as an individual whose district or municipality changed sometime between 1996 and 2001. the study also distinguishes between those migrants who moved at least three years prior to the census, that is, between 1996– 1998 or 2006–2008, in the case of the 2001 and 2011 censuses respectively. in south africa, education is compulsory up to and including grade 9. the primary-school-age population usually consists of children aged 6–13 years, while the secondary-school-age population usually consists of children aged 14-18 years. we focus on two educational outcomes at the municipal and district levels (secondaryschool enrollment and completion) and closely follow the approach taken by berker (2009) and hunt (2017). none of the data sets under consideration provides information on where individuals lived when they received education. to increase the chances of matching information on the place of residence and education of children, secondary-school completion rates are computed for 19–21-year-olds – who would have been 14–16 years old five years prior to the census data being collected. methods following the empirical approaches of berker (2009) and hunt (2017), we estimate, as an initial first step, regression models at the individual level to calculate district and municipality education outcomes adjusted for the characteristics of non-migrants and migrants. these baseline models are common in the literature (see, e.g., wang, 2019; d’agostino et al., 2021). specifically, the study estimates the following linear probability regressions: (4.1) (4.2) where eijt and enrollijt are the educational attainment and enrollment status of individual i in municipality/district j at time t, respectively, f is a gender dummy, r are race dummies, aa are age dummy variables, δj are municipality/district dummies and νt are time dummies. the vector x contains household-level covariates, including 19 the educational attainment of the household head, the household composition (number of children, working-age adults, and retired persons) and per capita income. regressions (4.1-2) are weighted using census person weights. in a second step, the study uses the coefficients and as the dependent variable in a municipality/district panel analysis: (4.3) (4.4) ia1-a2 and ie represent the primary variables of interest, with the former representing the share of the population aged a1-a2 in municipality/district j that are migrants, and the latter the share of the working-age population who were migrants with educational attainment e (e<12,e=12 and e>12). to capture non-migrants’ exposure to migrant classmates (peer effects), equation (4.3) makes use of migrants who changed their municipality/district at least three years prior to the time of the census, while (4.4) makes use of migrants who changed their municipality/district at any time during the five years prior to the time of the census. although a positive correlation between ia1-a2 and ie is expected (most migrant children move with their parents), it should be possible to identify their effects separately, as not all working-age migrants have children. xjt is a vector of municipality/district-level characteristics that might be related to educational outcomes, including the unemployment rate, average per capita income, proportion of the population living in overcrowded households, proportion of the population that is male and the proportion of the population living in rural areas. all these controls are entered in log form to allow for non-linearity. regressions (4.3-4) are estimated using weights, wjt, computed as the inverse of the squared standard errors on and from equations (4.1-2). the regressions above are likely to suffer from endogeneity problems. for example, there are likely to be municipality/district factors that influence both migrant choice and educational outcomes, as well as a bidirectional relationship migration inflows and educational attainment. we follow empirical techniques in the migration literature (see, e.g., jacobs et al., 2022; mara and landesmann, 2022) that include a lagged dependent variable as a control to address issues of persistence and autocorrelation, yielding dynamic models: (4.5) (4.6) impact of internal migration on school enrollment and completion rates in south africa 20 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 an immediate problem with applying ordinary least squares (ols) estimation to equations (4.5-6) is dynamic panel bias (hausman and pinkovskiy, 2017); that is, the lagged dependent variable is correlated with time-invariant municipality/district factors. this can be corrected by purging the fixed effects using a first difference (fd) estimator: (4.7) (4.8) the fd specifications use as weights. however, even though fixed effects have been eliminated, the lagged dependent variable continues to be potentially endogenous through its correlation with ∆εjt. further endogeneity bias may also arise due to simultaneity between educational outcomes and migrant inflows, as well as the predetermined nature of several variables included in x (that is, correlated with past and potentially current realizations of εjt). these issues could be addressed using an anderson and hsiao (1982) levels estimator, which takes first differences (fd) and then instruments potentially endogenous variables using lags of their own levels. however, lagged levels are often shown to be poor instruments if variables are close to a random walk (roodman, 2020). to improve efficiency, the arellano-bover/blundell-bond (arellano and bover, 1995; blundell and bond, 1998, 2000) system generalised method of moments (gmmsys) estimator introduces more instruments through combining a system in the difference estimator (equations 4.10-12) with levels as instruments, with the estimator in levels (equations 4.7-9) with first differences as instruments. empirical results and discussion in table 1, we show the effects of migrant age and education on non-migrant probability of secondary-school enrollment, by education of the household head. we report the results in four separate panels (a) to (d). in the first rows of panels (a) to (d), when considering the migrant share of the population is aged 15–17, we found an initial positive effect on non-migrant enrollment in ols specification, regardless of parental education on non-migrants. this effect dissipates by the time the gmmsys is adopted. this suggests that there are no significant positive or negative peer effects of migrants on enrollment. we analyze this further by studying how migrants from households with varying parental education levels interact with non-migrants from households with varying parental education. in panel (a), where the enrollment rates of all non-migrants aged 15–17 are considered, a higher share of migrants from a home 21 where the head has less than 12 years of school, is related to significantly higher educational enrollment in the gmm specifications (coefficient = 0.391 at 10 percent significance). migrants from homes with higher-educated parents have a larger positive effect on non-migrant enrollment (coefficient = 0.879). these findings are nearly identical to what we find in panel (b) when considering the enrollment rates of non-migrants aged 15–17 residing with a household head who has less than 12 years of education, are the dependent variable. migrants with less than 12 years of education have a positive effect on non-migrants’ secondary-school enrollment (coefficient = 0.352), while migrants with more than 12 years of education have a much stronger positive effect on non-migrants’ enrollment (coefficient = 0.909). the latter finding is similar to that reported by hunt (2017) and shows that there is a positive effect on non-migrants from loweducation households, from migrants coming from high-education homes. in panels (c) and (d) that consider the enrollment of non-migrants aged 15–17 residing with household heads with at least 12 years of education or higher, the migration effects are mostly insignificant. what may be happening here is that non-migrant parents from households with a low education could be encouraging their children to enroll, as they feel that migrants are their competition for future opportunities. our result is also related to jackson’s (2015) study, that reports that increased migration of unskilled labor drives wages and prompts an increase in enrollment, as students register in anticipation of greater earning potential. impact of internal migration on school enrollment and completion rates in south africa 22 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 table 1: effect of migrants by age and education on non-migrant probability of secondary-school enrollment (15–17 years) by household-head education ols (1) (2) dynamic ols (3) first difference (4) gmm-sys (5) (a) all non-migrants aged 15-17 dependent variable share population aged 15 to 17 that is migrant 0.413*** (0.069) -0.190 (0.348) -0.193 (0.280) -0.123 (0.445) 0.512 (0.311) lagged share population aged 16 to 54 that is migrant with… … <12 years of education 0.438*** (0.143) -0.108 0.385*** (0.127) 0.240** (0.100) 0.228 (0.176) 0.391* (0.201) …12 years of education (0.102) 1.960*** -0.678 (0.490) -0.685* (0.354) -0.130 (0.646) -1.324 (0.837) …>12 years of education 1.960*** (0.561) -0.020 (0.305) 0.271 (0.208) 0.413 (0.287) 0.879*** (0.243) (b) non-migrants aged 15-17 residing with household head who has <12 years of education share population aged 15 to 17 that is migrant -0.449** (0.213) -0.385 (0.389) -0.311 (0.333) -0.191 (0.471) 0.455 (0.309) lagged share population aged 16 to 54 that is migrant with… … <12 years of education 0.284*** (0.106) 0.393*** (0.138) 0.274** (0.110) 0.225 (0.195) 0.352* (0.190) …12 years of education -0.226 (0.416) -0.847 (0.539) -0.867** (0.417) -0.218 (0.717) -1.045 (0.929) …>12 years of education -0.050 (0.379) -0.024 (0.341) 0.255 (0.247) 0.446 (0.310) 0.909*** (0.293) (c) non-migrants aged 15-17 residing with household head with 12 years of education share population aged 15 to 17 that is migrant 0.653** (0.274) 1.042*** (0.345) 0.919*** (0.337) 0.786 (0.644) -0.356 (0.590) lagged share population aged 16 to 54 that is migrant with… … <12 years of education 0.082 (0.141) 0.225 (0.156) 0.180 (0.161) 0.373 (0.278) 0.281 (0.273) …12 years of education 0.363 (0.515) 0.010 (0.592) -0.080 (0.596) 0.165 (0.185) -1.398 (1.129) …>12 years of education -0.340( 0.385) -0.712*** (0.256) -0.769*** (0.254) -0.880** (0.359) -0.465 (0.623) (d) non-migrants aged 15-17 residing with household head who has >12 years of education share population aged 15 to 17 that is migrant 0.414** (0.181) 0.604** (0.254) 0.606** (0.260) 0.410 (0.436) -0.374 (0.967) lagged share population aged 16 to 54 that is migrant with… … <12 years of education 0.289** (0.129) 0.312** (0.139) 0.335** (0.152) 0.250 (0.369) -0.349 (0.309) …12 years of education -1.317*** (0.475) -1.171** (0.493) -1.206** (0.523) 0.112 (0.152) 1.745* (1.032) …>12 years of education 0.655 (0.436) 0.250 (0.371) 0.234 (0.381) 0.475 (0.493) 0.458 (0.697) unemployment rates yes yes yes yes yes share of non-migrant population aged 15–17 yes yes yes yes yes area dummies yes yes yes yes yes year dummies yes yes yes yes yes economic/sociodemographic indicators no yes yes yes yes lagged dependent variables yes yes yes yes yes 23 notes: the dependent variable is the share of non-migrants aged 15 to 17 who are enrolled in secondary schooling, adjusted at the individual level for age, gender, race and household characteristics. estimation is by weighted least squares with weights w the inverse of the squared standard errors on the district/ municipality-year interaction coefficients in the individual regression for columns 1-3 and 5, and 1/(1/ wt +1/wt-1) for column 4. all specifications include census-year dummies. robust standard errors are indicated in parentheses. ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1. source: authors' own work in table 2 below, we split the migrant share of the population ages into four categories. the top row shows that there is no ols effect (equation 4.3) of 19–21-year-old migrants (recent migrants who likely moved for work) on non-migrant secondaryschool completion. however, the gmm-iv estimates show that migration benefits secondary-school completion of non-migrant children as wealthier, more capable students are more likely to migrate. these migrant students could also have received better-quality education prior to migrating, and be harder working than non-migrant students, resulting in positive peer effects that improve secondary-school completion rates (resonating with the findings of mchenry, 2015; hunt, 2017; and brunello et al., 2020). brunello et al. (2020) further interrogate the professions that these students pursue after school completion. they show how immigration increases the shares of non-migrant italian students who continue to college and those who complete high school and do not study further. what is significant about our positive result is that it provides nuance to discussions about low south african school completion rates mentioned in the introduction. the mixed results of migration on school completion reveal something that is missing in this literature – that is, controlling for attitudes and perceptions of the populations being studied toward migrants and immigrants. in the outline of the theoretical framework we mentioned how migrants may be viewed as complementary or competition, but models are not capturing this phenomenon. the second row of table 2 shows that the overall effect of migrants aged 6–17 (with a high probability of having studied with non-migrants) on non-migrants completing 12 years of schooling is negative and statistically significant in the gmm regression. that is, the greater the lagged share of young migrants present in school, the less likely non-migrants are to have completed secondary school (in consonance with ballatore et al., 2018). this could be due to an increased strain on school resources, holding all else constant. what could also be happening here is that many migrant pupils are increasingly registering in areas with poorer quality schools – migrants tend to move to areas where other migrants already reside – crowding out resources. teachers can also spend more time working with weaker migrant pupils, affording less time to non-migrant students. this has implications for educational inequality and, subsequently, labor-income differences that account for the dominant portion of income inequality in south africa (hundenborn et al., 2018; branson et al., 2012). impact of internal migration on school enrollment and completion rates in south africa 24 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 table 2: effect of migrants by age and education on non-migrant probability of secondary-school completion 19–21-year-olds notes: the dependent variable is the share of non-migrants aged 19 to 21 who have completed secondary schooling (12 years of education), adjusted at the individual level for age, gender, and race. estimation is by weighted least squares with weights w the inverse of the squared standard errors on the district/ municipality–year interaction coefficients in the individual regression for columns 1-3 and 5, and 1/(1/ wt +1/wt-1) for column 4. all specifications include census-year dummies. the instruments in column 5 include: the levels and first differences of: lagged dependent variable, the share population ages 19 to 21 that is migrant, and share of population ages 16 to 54 with varying levels of educational attainment; levels of: unemployment rate ages 15–24; unemployment rate ages 25–54; share of non-migrant population of age cohort; log per capita income; log overcrowding; log male; log rural; and year dummies. columns 6 and 7 additionally allow for the unemployment rate, ages 15–24 to be potentially endogenous. robust standard errors are reported in parentheses. ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1. source: authors' own work ols (1) (2) dynamic ols (3) first difference (4) gmm-sys (5) (6) (7) share of population aged 19 to 21, that is migrant lagged share of population aged 6 to 17, that is migrant -0.013 (0.522) -0.138 (0.468) 0.139 (0.337) 0.310 (0.536) 2.587*** (0.736) 1.906** (0.838) 1.563** (0.724) lagged share population aged 16 to 54 that is migrant with… -1.464*** (0.565) … <12 years of education -0.646*** (0.131) -0.249** (0.107) -0.097 (0.099) -0.304** (0.133) -0.165 (0.169) -0.162 (0.204) 1.474** (0.679) …12 years of education 1.794*** (0.516) -0.213 (0.457) -0.755* (0.386) -0.373 (0.537) 0.091 (0.645) -0.009 (0.761) 0.767 (0.889) …>12 years of education -0.847 (0.526) -0.513* (0.284) -0.403 (0.263) -0.330 (0.274) 0.375 (0.347) 0.167 (0.466) -0.353 (0.464) unemployment rates yes yes yes yes yes yes yes share of non-migrant population aged 19–21 yes yes yes yes yes yes yes area dummies yes yes yes yes yes yes yes year dummies yes yes yes yes yes yes yes economic/ sociodemographic indicators no yes yes yes yes yes yes lagged dependent variables yes yes yes yes yes yes yes r2 0.870 0.921 0.947 0.608 observations 112 112 112 56 112 112 112 # of instruments 20 22 23 p-value hansen test 0.233 0.102 0.341 p-value diff hansen 0.161 0.149 0.242 25 conclusion and recommendations this study investigated the relationship between internal migration and secondaryschool completion rates in several south african provinces. following accepted practice, we used the instrumental variables approach to address endogeneity concerns of local internal migration and to control for possible environmental influences related to family socioeconomic backgrounds. this study found that internal south african migration has different effects on non-migrant education outcomes, although the overall effects are indistinct, as indicated in the relevant literature (see, e.g., schneeweis, 2015; hunt, 2017; ballatore et al., 2018). the empirical results suggest that the impact of migration on non-migration school enrollment is sensitive to education levels of the household heads (migrant and non-migrant). if migrants come from households where the head was educated at least up to the end of secondary school, then these migrants have a positive impact on school enrollment of non-migrants aged 15–17 who reside in households where the head is also educated up to at least grade 12. this positive migration effect is more pronounced if the migrants come from homes where the head has tertiarylevel education. these results have implications for south african higher education policy. over the past decade, south african higher education has experienced a surge in numbers of students registering to study at the various types of institutions. this has in part been driven by the #feesmustfall movement and the increased funding of previously disadvantaged groups by the national student financial aid scheme (nsfas). the south african government is encouraged to increase funding support for parents who cannot afford to and who wish to study further than their secondary education, as this will benefit their children. the funding focus for tertiary education is currently on young students. while increasing secondary-school enrollment is desirable, it means little if students do not complete their studies. this point highlights the importance of the result that internal migration of those aged 6–64 also has an overall large positive effect on secondary-school completion of non-migrants aged 19–21 years. further investigation of this positive impact of migrants on secondary-school completion (see table 1), reveals that working-age migrants aged 19–21 positively affect secondary-school completion of non-migrants aged 19–21 years. these migrant students may have higher work ethics and capabilities than non-migrant students; this provides evidence for the labor market channel. non-migrants upgrade their schooling in response to an increase in similar-aged migrants who are likely to be job seekers, especially when these migrants have a lower level of education (hunt, 2017). increased school completion raises students’ human capital and labor market potential but will not benefit the economy if there are not enough jobs generated in migrants’ origin and destination areas. national and local government authorities are encouraged to develop rural communities and cities to create employment to absorb youth into the economy after they complete their studies. there is a risk of impact of internal migration on school enrollment and completion rates in south africa 26 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 south africa emulating its neighbor, zimbabwe, where thousands complete school and become economic migrants in other countries. we also reported a negative relationship between the lagged share of young migrants aged 6–17 on the secondary-school completion of those aged 19–21 years. this could be evidence of pressure on school resources (e.g., strain on teachers) due to greater classroom sizes, since migrants of that age group would have been at school with non-migrants for much of their schooling lives. these negative results are important for budgeting and planning in south african education, which is characterized by regional divergences in wealth and inequality (spaull, 2015; moses et al., 2017; weybright et al., 2017). south african public schools are generally oversubscribed, with classrooms that have many more students than policy permits or are feasible for the teacher to manage before factoring in the effects of migration. while the government has been sued by non-profit organizations to increase the number of schools, teachers, and available resources, the situation does not seem to be improving (du plessis and mestry, 2019; van niekerk, 2020). the government is also encouraged to improve the quality of teaching colleges and the programs offered to produce more competent teaching staff. this work can be extended in the future by researchers in two ways. firstly, researchers can investigate the effects of south african internal migration on those left behind in communities and focus on other outcomes besides education. secondly, our results do not demarcate the specific regions where the various migration effects are occurring. neither do they study differences between private and public schools, nor by race, mother tongue language, nor gender. scholarship that analyzes migration effects on a micro level can support policymakers in making more targeted interventions. 27 references akyol, p. and erikci, s. 2022. effects of forced migration on women’s educational attainment: evidence 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kenya kevin oduor1, edwin abuya,2 and martin ouma3 received 12 march 2025 / accepted 09 june 2025 / published 27 august 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v11i2.2730 abstract this article investigates three distinct elements of faith-based organizations (fbos) in refugee protection: their challenges, the appropriate solutions, and the opportunities available for fbos to leverage. knowledge about the three elements is critical in helping fbos function effectively and efficiently. unlike the relevant existing literature, the article focuses on issues that relate specifically to fbos, not those that extend to almost all refugee-protection actors. the focus is on fbos because they are usually the first responders to conflict-related crises, maintain their presence throughout all stages of a conflict, and are identified by the global compact on refugees as key players in protecting refugees. the research collected data from the kakuma refugee camp in kenya using focus group discussions (fgds), key informant interviews, and general observations of the refugee environment. it analyzed the data using qualitative content analysis. the results indicate that specific challenges exist for fbos in refugee protection. nevertheless, these challenges are not beyond resolution; they merely necessitate a shift in strategy or perspective. despite the various challenges outlined, the contributions made by fbos remain substantial and are valued highly by refugees, host communities, and other humanitarian entities. furthermore, there is considerable potential for enhancing the operational effectiveness of fbos. keywords: faith-based institutions, refugee protection, challenges, opportunities, kakuma refugee camp 1 doctoral candidate, university of kenya, nairobi, kenya. corresponding author.  koduor@students.uonbi.ac.ke 2 professor, faculty of law, university of nairobi, nairobi, kenya. 3 senior lecturer, department of diplomacy and international studies, university of nairobi, nairobi, kenya. constraints and prospects of faith-based refugee protection in kakuma refugee camp, kenya 62 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 “altering the defining characteristics of the fbos to address particular challenges would also entail relinquishing certain advantages associated with those attributes.” (field interview with unhcr officer, 23 june 2022). introduction since the end of world war ii, there has been a continual rise in the number of refugees globally (adesina et al., 2022). in particular, the number of african refugees is increasing at an unsustainable rate. at the same time, durable solutions and humanitarian aid continue to dwindle (mbiyozo, 2024). many african states now follow global trends in adopting increasingly securitized approaches to refugee protection (klein, 2021). as a result, many refugees face various forms of marginalization and are compelled to live precariously in informal enclaves of towns and cities or refugee camps and settlements. indeed, the vast number of refugees involved poses a substantial problem that hinders the state’s ability to accept and protect them (christophersen, 2023). this article contends that there is a need for robust and efficient refugee-protection assistance from non-state organizations that understand the complexities of refugee protection. faith-based organizations (fbos) are one such category of these institutions. fbos are distinguished by their profound religious convictions and objectives, which guide their approach to service provision and community engagement (jahani and parayandeh, 2024). similarly, their dedication to promoting human dignity and the sanctity of life serves as their primary driving force (goldsmith et al., 2006). as a result, they are uniquely positioned to promote refugee protection significantly and distinctively. the central question, therefore, concerns how to enhance their effectiveness. this article contributes to the existing literature on this topic by analyzing fbos’ challenges, proposing solutions to these issues, and identifying potential areas for them to capitalize on. the study provides a foundation for developing in-depth and comprehensive research on the work of fbos in refugee protection. this paper is organized into six sections. following this introduction is the theoretical framework. it guides the study’s thematic analysis and situates the findings within broader scholarly debates. this section is followed by the literature review, which first explores refugee protection in kenya and subsequently assesses the literature regarding the roles of fbos in refugee protection. the fourth section outlines the study’s methodology, detailing how fieldwork research was conducted in kakuma refugee camp, kenya. the fifth section presents and discusses the research findings. finally, the conclusion summarizes the study, offers recommendations, and identifies areas for future research. 63 theoretical framework contingency theory the research employs contingency theory as a framework to enhance understanding of the challenges faced by fbos, the most suitable solutions for these challenges, and the opportunities that fbos can exploit. contingency theory posits that the most effective method for managing an organization depends on the specific circumstances or context in which the organization operates. it asserts that a universal management approach does not exist and that various management strategies are suitable for different scenarios (vaszkun and koczkas, 2024). this theory’s central premise is that an organization’s effectiveness is attained by ensuring an appropriate alignment between its subsystems (such as strategy, structure, and behavior) and the surrounding contextual elements (ganescu, 2012). as such, the theory is suitable for determining how to improve fbos’ effectiveness in refugee protection, considering the context in which the organizations operate. the contingency approach in management originated in the 1950s. it was developed by scholars such as tom burns, joan woodward, paul lawrence, and jay lorsch. these researchers examined the connections between organizational structure and environmental conditions, highlighting the necessity of aligning management practices with particular situational factors (vaszkun and koczkas, 2024). these pioneering theorists questioned conventional management methods, such as scientific management and bureaucracy, which aimed at determining the best way of managing organizations without considering contextual circumstances (bryman et al., 2011). nonetheless, contingency theory presents certain limitations. one such limitation is its lack of a definitive framework for determining the optimal management practices suitable for specific circumstances. another drawback is that the theory is heavily influenced by context, making it difficult to generalize its findings to different scenarios (luthans, 1973). literature review refugee protection in kenya kenya ranks as the fifth-largest refugee-hosting state in africa and the thirteenthlargest globally (world bank, 2024). as of january 2025, the country hosted 829,211 registered refugees and asylum seekers (unhcr kenya, 2025). most of the refugees in kenya live in refugee camps, with a minority living in urban areas (drs, 2025). for this reason, the study focuses on fbos working in refugee camps. the dadaab and kakuma refugee camps, established in 1991 and 1992, respectively, are recognized as two of the five largest refugee camps worldwide (halakhe et al., 2024). since achieving independence in 1963, kenya has established numerous policies designed to safeguard the rights of refugees. the legal framework for refugee protection in kenya is anchored in its constitution and related statutes. the country constraints and prospects of faith-based refugee protection in kakuma refugee camp, kenya 64 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 officially ratified the 1951 united nations refugee convention on may 16, 1966, followed by the 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees on november 13, 1981. furthermore, kenya ratified the 1969 organisation of african unity (oau) convention on refugees on june 23, 1992 (amatsimbi, 2024). the latest and most comprehensive domestic legislation is the kenyan refugees act of 2021. along with many other rights, the act grants refugees the freedom of movement, the right to work, and access to financial services if fully implemented (halakhe et al., 2024). consequently, the country has made considerable progress in enhancing its refugeeprotection framework. fbos in kenya’s refugee camps are actively involved with both refugees and host communities. they participate in various initiatives, including health care, livelihood support, water and sanitation, education, psychosocial services, food aid, shelter provision, responses to sexual and gender-based violence, spiritual guidance, child protection, and resettlement assistance (stoddard and marshall, 2015). fbos account for almost 30% of the united nations high commissioner for refugees’ (unhcr) official implementing and operational partners in kenya, playing a crucial role in the camp management system. they are undoubtedly key players in the protection of refugees in kenya’s refugee camps. nevertheless, their involvement as faith-based entities presents a fair share of challenges (stoddard and marshall, 2015). although numerous studies address refugee protection in kenya (see, for example, iverson, 2016), a limited number discuss the involvement of nongovernmental organizations (ngos) in this context. even fewer studies have examined fbos’ specific contributions, challenges and opportunities in this area. this article addresses this gap. the literature closely related to this study’s subject matter includes the contributions of scholars such as stoddard, marshall, and parsitau. stoddard and marshall’s (2015) report outlines the contributions of various faith-based actors involved in refugee protection. it also examines the place of religious beliefs in refugee protection. the report does not focus on fbos in refugee camp environments but on those operating in urban settings, particularly in nairobi, kenya’s capital city. it also does not address the difficulties faced by fbos but rather the challenges encountered by refugees. parsitau’s (2011) article investigates how fbos assist in integrating displaced individuals into their new environments. it also explores the place of religious faith in coping with displacement. while it outlines the roles and challenges of fbos, its primary focus is on internally displaced persons, rather than refugees. role of fbos in refugee protection this study adopts the united nations development programme’s (undp) definition of fbos as “organizations that derive inspiration and guidance for their activities from the teachings and principles of religious faith or from a particular interpretation or school of thought within that faith” (unhcr, 2023). further, it defines refugee protection as “all actions aimed at ensuring the equal access to and enjoyment of 65 the rights of individuals of concern to unhcr, in accordance with humanitarian, human rights and refugee law” (unhcr, 2005). this article focuses on fbos for several reasons. first, it is because of their distinctive motivation as refugee-protection agencies. unlike other refugee-protection actors, they are driven not solely by humanitarian principles but also by a conviction that their religious beliefs compel them to assist those in need (ferris, 2011). secondly, they are usually the first responders to conflict-related crises, providing immediate protection in the form of physical space before the unhcr and other refugeeprotection agencies intervene (act alliance et al., 2018). additionally, fbos typically maintain their presence throughout all stages of conflict and are frequently among the final entities that vacate the area. they continue their efforts even after the media has departed and financial resources have dwindled (unhcr, 2014). another key reason for focusing on fbos is because the unhcr and the global compact on refugees (gcr) identify them as key players in protecting refugees. the unhcr’s (2023) “guidance note” highlights fbos’ unique and important role in delivering protection, advocacy, humanitarian assistance, and solutions to refugee-related matters. the gcr, a refugee-protection framework for more predictable and equitable responsibility-sharing (sulewski, 2020), recognizes fbos as key contributors to peaceful coexistence between refugees and host communities (unhcr, 2022). previous research on fbos has concentrated primarily on their contributions to development (olarinmoye, 2012; haynes, 2013; occhipinti, 2015; islam, 2018) and their involvement in the provision of social services (tarpeh and hustedde, 2020; glatzer et al., 2024). studies focusing on the challenges and prospects of fbos in refugee protection are scarcely existent. however, the research conducted by scholars like nagel, orji, and mencütek is closely connected to the topic addressed in this article. nagel’s (2023) study examines a range of refugee-support initiatives provided by religious groups. it does not focus on fbos’ challenges or the opportunities they could harness. similar to this study, nagel’s research is analyzed through qualitative content analysis of interviews with refugees and immigration officials. however, the fieldwork was not conducted in a refugee camp or within an african context. instead, it was done in germany, where the circumstances surrounding refugees may differ significantly from those in developing countries. nkwachukwu orji’s (2011) article investigates the contributions of christian and muslim fbos in safeguarding the displaced population in jos, a city situated in north-central nigeria (orji, 2011). in contrast to this study, which centers on refugees, the article focuses on internally displaced persons. additionally, it primarily explores the framework of relief operations, funding sources, criteria for selecting aid recipients, and the types of services fbos provide. it does not address these organizations’ challenges or strategies to enhance their effectiveness. constraints and prospects of faith-based refugee protection in kakuma refugee camp, kenya 66 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 mencütek’s (2020) study investigates the capabilities and limitations of fbos created by refugees. the research is based on the case of şanlıurfa, a turkish border province accommodating half a million syrian refugees. its primary emphasis is on the function of fbos in alleviating tensions and conflicts between the refugee populations and the local communities. a comprehensive examination of the literature has revealed the dearth of studies that focus on either the challenges fbos encounter or the opportunities they can leverage. the existing literature predominantly highlights fbos’ role in protecting refugees’ rights. when this literature references the challenges faced by fbos, it does not explicitly address the challenges unique to fbos. instead, it discusses issues that affect nearly all refugee-protection actors (olarinmoye, 2012; islam, 2018; zhang, 2024). this article stands out by specifically investigating the challenges, potential solutions, and opportunities for refugee protection unique to fbos. for instance, the issue of limited resources is a concern that impacts nearly all refugee-protection stakeholders, including the unhcr. it therefore falls outside the scope of this analysis. this research is also unique in that it gives weight to the voices of the refugees. in other studies (nawyn, 2017; mencütek, 2020), the research has mainly focused on capturing the voices of refugee-protection and immigration officers. methodology study area this article bases its analysis on primary data from the kakuma refugee camp and the kalobeyei integrated settlement (see figure 1). the researchers identified this camp as a suitable study area primarily due to its notable success in fostering peaceful coexistence among individuals from 13 different nations within a 12-squarekilometer area (reliefweb, 2012). the camp is kenya’s most diverse refugee camp and one of the largest multi-ethnic refugee sites globally (lutheran world federation, 2015). this diversity enriched the research process and findings (almouzni, 2024), providing a suitable context to examine the adaptive capacity of fbos, in line with the contingency theory. this is particularly because the theory emphasizes contextdependent organizational effectiveness. 67 constraints and prospects of faith-based refugee protection in kakuma refugee camp, kenya figure 1: map showing the location of kakuma refugee camp source: luseno, tracy and oluwaseun, kolade. 2021. displaced, excluded, and making do: a study of refugee entrepreneurship in kenya. journal of entrepreneurship in emerging economies. https://images.app.goo.gl/mjxveotfskh75cmn9 to address the challenge of overcrowding in the kakuma refugee camp, the turkana county government, the kenyan state government, the unhcr, and the local community decided to establish the kalobeyei integrated settlement in 2015 (un-habitat, 2018). this settlement adopted a different approach from the camp: integrating the refugees and the host community to foster self-reliance. nevertheless, the experiences of refugees and the refugee-protection programs in the kalobeyei integrated settlement are similar to those in the kakuma refugee camp. for this reason, the camp and the kalobeyei integrated settlement are collectively referred to in this article as the kakuma refugee camp. data collection the researchers collected data directly from the refugee community through six focus group discussions (fgds). each group consisted of eight participants. the six categories of fgds comprised refugees of south sudanese origin, refugees of somali origin (these two nationalities are the predominant groups in the camp), refugees of various other nationalities, refugees living in the kalobeyei integrated settlement, female refugees, and refugees with disabilities. the study also gathered data from 34 key informants using key informant interviews. to enrich the study with a wide range of perspectives, the informants 68 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 comprised officers working with fbos, secular non-governmental organizations (sngos), kenya’s department of refugee services (drs), the unhcr, as well as community and religious leaders (see table 1). the study selected participants likely to offer valuable insights regarding the research question. the third data collection method involved the general observation of the refugee and host communities. secondary data played a vital role in validating and enriching the primary data (ajayi, 2023), thus enhancing the depth and breadth of analysis. this multi-method approach was well-aligned with the contingency theory’s emphasis on responsiveness to contextual complexity. table 1: details of research respondents respondents’ description data collection technique number of respondents sampled fbo officials key informant interviews 15 unhcr officials key informant interviews 3 secular ngo officials key informant interviews 5 department of refugee services officials key informant interviews 4 religious and community leaders key informant interviews 7 refugees focus group discussions 48 total number of respondents 82 source: authors’ own work the researchers gathered insights from officers associated with each of the eight fbos operating in the kakuma refugee camp (see table 2), as these organizations were the primary focus of the study. as much as the study focuses on fbos, the researchers sought the insights of officers working with sngos to obtain balanced, comprehensive, and reliable data. they engaged with respondents from four sngos in kakuma: humanity and inclusion (previously known as handicap international), waldorf, cohere, and peace winds japan. 69 table 2: fbos in kakuma refugee camp and their leading roles no. fbo main roles and services provided 1. world vision international water, health, and sanitation services (wash) livelihood programs 2. african inland churchhealth ministries health, nutrition water, health, and sanitation services (wash) 3. lutheran world federation primary and preschool education sustainable livelihoods 4. finn church aid early childhood development and primary school education 5. danchurchaid livelihoods and climate resilience programs life skills development peacebuilding and protection 6. salesians of don bosco vocational education livelihood programs 7. jesuit refugee services education and vocational training pastoral services 8. national council of churches of kenya shelter and infrastructure reproductive health and hiv/aids services source: authors' own work data analysis the researchers used qualitative content analysis to examine the data. this data analysis method involves the subjective interpretation of data content through a systematic process of coding and the identification of themes or patterns. this analytical approach facilitates the comprehension of social realities through the perspectives of the research participants (shava et al., 2021). the researchers employed microsoft word, a word processing program, to identify recurring themes and to conduct open coding, that is, coding the material without relying on a pre-established code list. this approach consisted of several stages: engaging in close reading to gain familiarity with the content, generating preliminary codes, identifying themes, refining and reviewing the initial themes, and conducting the final analysis. the analysis process was not linear but involved revisiting certain steps and refining themes. the codes emerged organically from the text rather than being artificially imposed on the text, thereby maintaining the authenticity of the participants’ perspectives and expressions. this inductive coding process also aligned with the contingency theory, constraints and prospects of faith-based refugee protection in kakuma refugee camp, kenya 70 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 which discourages rigid frameworks and instead supports adaptive and contextsensitive interpretation. ethical considerations to ensure adherence to ethical standards in research, the researchers obtained approval from kenya’s national commission for science, technology and innovation and the university of nairobi. they also made every effort to conduct research that upheld essential principles such as confidentiality, privacy, and, where appropriate, anonymity. the research participants provided verbal and written informed consent to participate. furthermore, the research process, findings, conclusions, and recommendations aimed to promote public welfare. findings and discussion challenges encountered by fbos in refugee protection the findings of this research illustrate the intricate and context-dependent challenges fbos encounter in refugee protection. therefore, the results support the fundamental assertion of the contingency theory: that an organization’s effectiveness does not depend on a one-size-fits-all approach but is contingent upon its alignment with the surrounding environmental factors. kakuma’s distinct religious, cultural, and institutional environment offers advantages and limitations influencing fbo operations. perception of islamic refugees on christian-based fbos rather than immediately pointing out the problems faced by fbos, some respondents felt obliged to point out that most of the muslims in the camp were not reluctant to accept assistance from christian fbos. for example, a muslim respondent of somali descent remarked: first, we must commend the christian fbos here in kakuma. regardless of their christian affiliation, they provide services to everyone with genuine commitment and without hesitation (fgd, 16 june 2022). a female refugee of ethiopian origin expressed her admiration, stating: we are in awe of the way the christian fbos in the camp dedicate themselves to serving the community; they neither show discrimination towards nonchristians nor pressure anyone to convert to christianity (fgd, 13 june 2022). this finding contrasts with previous literature that identified proselytism as one of the significant setbacks of fbos (bickley, 2015). the literature suggests that fbos tend to prioritize individuals who shared their religious beliefs (kraft, 2016). this finding indicates that fbos may have finally chosen to confront the issue of discrimination that has been historically linked to them. 71 nonetheless, some refugee respondents expressed concern about the lack of islamic fbos, despite the presence of numerous muslim refugees in the camp. they believed that the identity of christian fbos imposed specific constraints on their ability to effectively engage with and address the needs of the muslim community. as a result, they felt that islamic fbos would meet the unique needs of the muslim refugee population more effectively. a muslim refugee posited: we know that they genuinely strive to be impartial, but since they are christian, they predominantly perceive issues through a christian lens and interpret them from a christian viewpoint. christianity is a core aspect of their identity, which imposes certain limitations, regardless of how trivial they might appear (fgd, 16 june 2022). muslim refugees in kakuma viewed themselves as excluded from development initiatives aimed at religious institutions. they believed that their cultural and religious values were not adequately acknowledged in the fbos’ decision-making processes. for instance, while some christian fbos had taken the initiative to establish christian worship centers, there was a noticeable lack of support for establishing mosques. a muslim refugee respondent affirmed: while we sincerely appreciate the efforts of christian fbos to be as impartial as possible, we still desire to have islamic fbos. these will comprehensively address our spiritual and cultural needs (fgd, 16 june 2022). additionally, the muslim refugees expressed their dissatisfaction with the limited employment opportunities for muslim humanitarian workers in these organizations, particularly in light of the substantial number of muslim refugees present. they perceived this situation as a form of discrimination, albeit not overt: how we wish that the fbos would develop a method for effectively balancing professionalism with considerations of religious diversity in their recruitment processes! (fgd, 16 june 2022). perceptions of discrimination extended to the selection of venues for meetings, training sessions, and aid distribution. according to refugee respondents, hosting these events in church environments, although practical for christian fbos, inadvertently discouraged some muslim refugees from engaging fully in the activities. one respondent suggested: fbos should choose socially suitable venues, such as community centers or communal spaces … that reflect an understanding of the diverse backgrounds of their service beneficiaries (fgd, 20 june 2022). the feedback indicates that, although christian fbos are generally praised for their impartial service to all refugees, their nature as religious entities inevitably shapes public perception. the contingency theory provides insight into these perceptions constraints and prospects of faith-based refugee protection in kakuma refugee camp, kenya 72 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 by demonstrating how the religious identity of fbos, which is fundamental to their mission, may restrict their adaptability in multi-faith settings. personnel challenges one of the key challenges that the unhcr and the drs officers identified, is the need for fbos to maintain a careful balance between employing individuals committed to the religious tenets of the fbos and ensuring that the workforce is competent and devoted. in the words of a unhcr officer: fbos struggle to balance, ensuring that their human personnel are competent to deliver high-quality services while remaining aligned with the organizations’ core values and principles (field interview, 29 june 2022). this finding aligns with couldrey and herson’s (2014) assertion that fbos frequently prioritize hiring based on a person’s religious affiliation to the church. this approach raises questions about the capacity of fbos to adequately meet the varied needs of refugees, particularly those that surpass specific religious contexts. the contingency theory’s emphasis on internal alignment with external conditions helps illuminate this tension. fbos must balance preserving their religious ethos and adapting staffing strategies to meet complex operational demands. according to unhcr and drs officials, fbos face a significant challenge with high staff turnover. due to their altruistic goals and heavy reliance on donations and volunteers, many fbos struggle to offer competitive salaries. their relatively low compensation packages often affect employee motivation, prompting staff to seek more lucrative job opportunities elsewhere. this high staff turnover ultimately disrupts continuity and hinders the capacity of fbos to be effective. high staff turnover, linked to limited remuneration, further illustrates the difficulty of sustaining effective teams in resource-constrained settings — a common contingency that shapes organizational behavior. a drs officer affirmed: while volunteers’ involvement and dedication are essential, recruiting a more reliable and seasoned team is equally important to guarantee the effective administration of key programs (field interview, 27 june 2022). collaboration gaps a notable concern of the research participants pertained to collaboration gaps stemming from interdenominational disparities. they argued that the various denominations (such as lutheran, methodist, anglican and catholic), with their different operating philosophies, structures, and resource mobilization strategies, contributed to an environment of competition for resources and influence. an sngo officer made the following comment: 73 given their shared religious principles, we expected the various fbos present to function cooperatively. however, denominational differences appear to be a divergent element (field interview, 25 june 2022). this unhealthy competition hinders knowledge sharing among the refugeeprotection entities. indeed, previous literature has noted that a significant challenge for fbos involved in development and humanitarian assistance is deriving strength from common spiritual values while ensuring that their approach remains consistent (urban institute, 2001). apart from collaboration challenges within the different fbos, another challenge noted was the existence of collaboration gaps between fbos and sngos. the explanations for these gaps were related to identity differences and a general fear of the unknown. an sngo officer reported: i cannot definitively identify the reasons behind our challenges in engaging with fbos. there appears to be a pervasive sense of mistrust that indicates a potential incompatibility (field interview, 25 june 2022). these collaboration gaps underscore the necessity for proactive initiatives to bridge the divide between secular and faith-based sectors (ferris, 2005). establishing trust and fostering open lines of communication can address these issues and facilitate collaborative partnerships that use the strengths of both fbos and sngos in supporting the refugee community. bureaucracy one recurring theme was the pervasive bureaucracy in fbos. the respondents noted that bureaucracy was most prominent in well-established church institutions, particularly those affiliated with the catholic, anglican, methodist, and lutheran churches. a refugee living with a disability lamented: delays in decision-making processes and a lack of responsiveness make it difficult for refugees to receive essential services on time (fgd, 28 june 2022). as a result, numerous refugees felt frustrated. this highlights the punitive cost of cumbersome processes and the need for a more agile approach to refugee protection. moreover, it prompts questions about whether the well-intentioned organizational structures of fbos impede their goal of providing exceptional assistance to the impoverished. the contingency theory contends that hierarchical and rigid structures are less effective in dynamic or uncertain environments, such as refugee camps. here, flexibility and rapid responsiveness are essential. constraints and prospects of faith-based refugee protection in kakuma refugee camp, kenya 74 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 managing unreasonably high expectations fbo officers mentioned the challenge of meeting the exceptionally high expectations of refugees. the religious nature of fbos leads to the presumption that these institutions can address all the needs of the refugees. an officer working with the drs observed: some refugees set themselves up for disappointment, since they hold unreasonably high expectations of the fbos (field interview, 27 june 2022). these “over-expectant” refugees fail to comprehend that fbos face numerous constraints and that their activities are restricted to specific mandates. in agreement with this finding, moyer et al. (2011) present a scenario where individuals anticipated receiving free handouts from certain fbos solely due to the latter’s classification as religious entities. these individuals were ultimately disheartened upon realizing that these fbos were concerned primarily with promoting education and empowering farmers. refugees with disabilities also articulated their expectations. they regarded their needs as urgent and specific, necessitating prompt action from fbos. they contended that fbos are well-positioned to advocate for the rights of individuals with disabilities, as they are grounded in essential values such as compassion, tolerance, and empathy. a refugee with a disability commented: i can assure you that our circumstances would have been markedly different had there been two or three fbos dedicated to addressing the needs of refugees with disabilities. the population of refugees with disabilities is significant, making it astonishing that we are left to navigate these challenges on our own. if fbos are unable to assist us, then who will? (fgd, 28 june 2022). inability to pursue income-generating ventures a notable challenge that existing literature scarcely addresses is that the mission and values upheld by certain fbos limit their ability to pursue and capitalize on emerging income-generating opportunities. these fbos are committed to preserving their status as not-for-profit organizations. a notable instance was when the unhcr indicated its willingness to have all its vehicles serviced and repaired by the automotive school of the salesians of don bosco. however, the salesians of don bosco rejected this opportunity, as it would have represented a commercial involvement. a unhcr officer opined: for many, this situation represented a missed opportunity. it could have offered don bosco’s automotive engineering students valuable internships and job placements, while also enhancing don bosco’s capacity to support a greater number of refugees (field interview, 23 june 2022). 75 conflict of interest one unique challenge not mentioned in the field but addressed in the literature is the reconciliation of scriptural doctrines with the realities of everyday life. issues related to ethics have proven complex in their implementation. the positions of certain fbos and religious institutions on issues such as reproductive health; the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer plus (lgbtq+) movement; abortion; and women’s leadership are often controversial (couldrey and herson, 2014). another significant challenge identified in the literature, although not encountered during the field research, is the conflict of interest between certain fbos and their affiliated churches. conflicts arise when fbos, as agencies of a parent church, formulate priorities or approaches that diverge from those of their parent church (ferris, 2011). challenges associated with doctrinal stances and the misalignment between fbos and their parent churches further illustrate how internal dynamics obstruct responsiveness to external requirements. from a contingency viewpoint, effectiveness relies on addressing these tensions through contextually suitable methods, maintaining core values while adjusting implementation to fit local circumstances. proposed solutions to the challenges facing fbos in refugee protection address the perception of muslim refugees concerning the issue of perceived discrimination by christian fbos toward muslim refugees, the refugee participants stressed the importance of islamic fbos establishing a presence within the camp. this necessity arises from the absence of muslim fbos, in light of the significant population of muslim refugees residing there. furthermore, the refugee participants advocated for consistent outreach efforts toward the muslim community in the camp. one respondent explained: the muslim population constitutes a vital segment of the camp’s overall refugee demographic and, as such, warrants considerable attention and support (fgd, 20 june 2022). the respondents emphasized that the outreach programs should sensitize the refugees about the fbos’ desire to serve people of all faiths and cultures. socially appropriate outreach programs would resonate strongly with refugees from diverse cultures and succeed in encouraging those hesitant to seek assistance from fbos. according to a drs officer: christian fbos may even reach out to muslim refugees by using mosques and community radio stations (field interview, 27 june 2022). constraints and prospects of faith-based refugee protection in kakuma refugee camp, kenya 76 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 furthermore, the respondents stated that fbos must demonstrate unequivocally that they have no hidden agenda. they should emphasize that their mission is centered on supporting those in need. a refugee participant of congolese origin remarked: fbos must manifestly demonstrate that they have no interest in proselytization (fgd, 18 june 2022). related literature illustrates the case of the lutheran world federation, a christian fbo, which initially faced resistance from the dadaab refugee community in kenya. eventually, upon showing genuine respect for the muslim faith, the fbo was welcomed warmly and granted extensive access to the muslim community in the dadaab refugee camp (stoddard and marshall, 2015). another pivotal recommendation relates to the physical spaces used by fbos as aid distribution centers and training facilities. the respondents suggested that fbos refrain from using religious institutions for these purposes. this practice had fostered feelings of discrimination among refugees of varying faiths. a unhcr respondent explained: adopting more neutral facilities, such as community centers, for such engagements would denote fbos’ commitment to serving all refugees, irrespective of their religious or cultural backgrounds (field interview, 23 june 2022). enhance the diversity of fbo personnel fbo officers opined that fbos should tackle the perceptions of discrimination effectively. in their view, fbos should enhance the diversity of their staff to reflect the religious and cultural demographics present in the camp. the revelation that jesuit refugee services (jrs) had employed a muslim human resources manager in the camp illustrated that fbos had already begun hiring staff from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds. the respondents believed that this approach would convey their commitment to promoting inclusivity effectively. they also recommended that the recruitment policies and procedures of the fbos be transparent and fair, aiming to attract qualified personnel from various backgrounds. manage bureaucratic processes proficiently the respondents indicated overwhelmingly that addressing the challenge of bureaucracy would transform rigidly structured entities into agile stewards of refugee protection. they further suggested that bureaucracy could be managed effectively by prioritizing human connection over paperwork, simplifying organizational processes, and enhancing the fbos’ responsiveness to the needs of refugees. a refugee respondent suggested: fbos must consistently and creatively regenerate themselves to respond swiftly and effectively to refugees’ needs (fgd, 20 june 2022). 77 the recommendation aligns with existing literature that underscores the importance of managing bureaucratic processes proficiently for the success of any organization (bonsu, 2024). manage the elevated expectations of refugees on the need to carefully manage elevated expectations of the refugee population, the respondents felt that fbos should open communication channels with the refugees. the fbos’ perceived generosity and abundance of resources contributed to the refugees’ unrealistic expectations and demands. a drs officer posited: to bridge the gap between societal expectations and fbos’ actual capabilities, these organizations need to be transparent about their strengths and limitations (field interview, 27 june 2022). certain refugees’ unrealistic expectations illustrate the perceived capabilities and moral standing of fbos. the contingency theory agrees that these expectations should be addressed through clear communication strategies that align stakeholders’ perceptions with the actual capacities available. refugees must comprehend the limitations of resources and mandates within which fbos function. promote collaboration between fbos and other refugee-protection stakeholders in addressing the challenge of interdenominational disparities that hinder cooperation among different fbos, the participants recommended fostering a collaborative spirit. this approach involves the collaboration of fbos linked to diverse religious beliefs to achieve shared objectives. they asserted that such a strategy would enhance cooperation and reduce harmful competition. furthermore, consolidating resources and expertise would ensure efficient delivery of services to the refugee community. furthermore, they expressed that fbos should organize and conduct joint developmental projects with muslim communities. they contended that collaborative efforts would greatly aid in addressing urgent issues such as sanitation, education, and health. in addition, such joint endeavors would cultivate a sense of shared purpose and achievement. an fbo officer commented: interfaith cooperation, particularly between christian fbos and muslim institutions, would significantly contribute to establishing trust and credibility (field interview, 14 june 2022). participants specifically suggested partnerships between christian fbos and islamic financial institutions to enhance access to financial services that comply with sharia law. the respondents identified a gap in this area and expressed that such collaboration would encourage muslim refugees to engage with fbos without hesitation or skepticism. consequently, this would support the economic empowerment of muslim refugees, thus promoting their self-sufficiency. constraints and prospects of faith-based refugee protection in kakuma refugee camp, kenya 78 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 ensure competitive remuneration concerning the issue of high staff turnover, the respondents underscored the importance of competitive remuneration. they emphasized that offering a competitive compensation package is essential for attracting and retaining a skilled and motivated workforce capable of addressing the needs of refugees effectively. fundamentally, this recommendation indicates that the motivation of staff and volunteers in fbos is shaped not only by their religious beliefs but also by other factors, such as remuneration. preserve the positive inherent traits of fbos a significant viewpoint that emerged was that some challenges faced by fbos could not be addressed effectively, as these issues stemmed from the inherent characteristics of the institutions. consequently, tackling such challenges could be counterproductive. for instance, the reluctance to pursue income-generating ventures was due to the fbos’ commitment to maintaining their altruistic mission and focus on service provision. a unhcr officer explained: … altering the defining characteristics of the fbos to address particular challenges would also entail relinquishing certain advantages associated with those attributes (field interview, 23 june 2022). refugee-protection opportunities for fbos globally, fbos have made substantial contributions to refugee protection (abboud, 2017). their unwavering commitment to assisting individuals in need, along with the strong relationships they have cultivated with refugees over time, has enabled them to make a significant impact on the protection of refugees (mencütek, 2020). moreover, fbos have the potential to explore specific areas of their expertise further (borja et al., 2021). in addition, fbos have, on certain occasions, missed opportune chances to leverage their unique strengths (pinckney et al., 2020). this section, therefore, examines the opportunities for fbos to leverage their strengths to address the unmet needs of refugees living in the camps. specialize in addressing the psychosocial, moral, and spiritual challenges the necessity of addressing the emotional and mental health needs of refugees is a significant theme that repeatedly surfaced in the field. as stated by one community leader: … the refugees’ experiences, more often than not, included suffering, violence, displacement and loss of property, livelihoods, identity, family and friends (field interview, 30 june 2022). these unfortunate experiences left them with profound emotional and psychological scars (renner et al., 2024). as such, most refugees need to find healing from traumatic 79 experiences to enable them to progress and make meaningful contributions to their well-being and that of their communities (fegert et al., 2018). a considerable segment of the refugee population said that fbos are particularly well-equipped to offer vital psychosocial support. the respondents acknowledged that the fbos dedicated to mental and emotional health care for refugees were performing admirably. nevertheless, they also voiced concerns about the scarcity of available service providers. in this regard, a burundian refugee respondent remarked: a greater number of fbos should allocate resources and focus on providing psychosocial support to the displaced. by doing so, fbos can create a pathway towards a safer, more stable, and improved future for refugees in search of safety and hope (fgd, 18 june 2022). a female refugee respondent also suggested: fbos should collaborate closely with mental health-care experts to enhance the development of culturally and religiously sensitive programs that adequately address the psychosocial needs of refugees (fgd, 13 june 2022). the existing literature endorses this recommendation. it demonstrates that mere material assistance is insufficient for the impoverished to advance and attain selfreliance. the literature acknowledges that individuals benefit significantly from emotional support and reassurance from their faith and the associated communities. however, most humanitarian assistance institutions have overlooked the crucial psychosocial role of spirituality in bolstering the refugees’ coping mechanisms (couldrey and herson, 2014). additionally, the respondents noted that fbos have the potential to use their societal influence to tackle various family-related challenges, including parenting, financial responsibilities, domestic violence, early marriages, child abuse, and reproductive health. this capability stems from their long-standing respect for the family unit and commitment to promoting essential family and societal values. a community leader attested: there is a general feeling that fbos are best suited to address moral societal issues, especially those affecting our youth … the issues consist of challenges such as pre-marital sex, addiction, peer pressure, drug and substance abuse, and gender-based violence (field interview, 30 june 2022). similarly, fbos were considered best-placed in ensuring that the refugee population had access to spiritual guidance and moral support. a female refugee confirmed: for myself and numerous others in similar circumstances, religious faith is a vital source of comfort, strength, hope, and resilience (fgd, 13 june 2022). constraints and prospects of faith-based refugee protection in kakuma refugee camp, kenya 80 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 in this regard, clarke and ware (2015) agree with the assertions that religious practices and rituals, including meditation, spiritual reflection, and the observance of liturgy, are therapeutic tools that help refugees manage their challenging circumstances. specialize in fostering cohesion another significant theme that emerged was advocacy for peace and social cohesion. there are occasional moments of tension and the destabilization of social structures within the camp environment. due to their moral standing and strong connections with local communities, fbos were identified as the most appropriate entities for facilitating peacemaking and conflict-resolution efforts. a refugee living with disability submitted: fbos are uniquely suited to initiate and facilitate discussions among competing refugee groups, enhance awareness of the various cultures represented within the camp, and nurture a sense of community among the inhabitants (fgd, 28 june 2022). apart from tensions and conflicts between different refugee groups, the refugees and host communities competed for scarce resources like water and firewood. on multiple occasions, this competition resulted in violent conflicts. the respondents recognized fbos as having significant potential to foster social cohesion between refugees and host communities. according to an sngo officer: the capacity of fbos to simultaneously interact with refugee and host communities is a valuable asset for addressing and managing conflicts (field interview, 25 june 2022). specialize in the creation of child-friendly spaces the respondents noted that fbos were best suited for creating child-friendly spaces in the refugee camps. they confirmed that fbos (such as jesuit refugee services, lutheran world federation, and world vision international) created child-friendly spaces for children to play, learn, and socialize. the fbos did this excellently, but the demand for the service exceeded capacity. as such, the respondents suggested that more fbos should strive to create child-friendly spaces, as this service provides refugee children with a sense of normality and stability. at the same time, these facilities opened up time (a critical resource) for the parents to fend for their families. strive to preserve the authenticity of fbos’ identity finally, the participants emphasized that the efficacy of fbos is fundamentally anchored in their core principle of honoring each individual’s intrinsic dignity and worth. this principle shaped their identity and drew partners and volunteers to endorse their efforts. rather than completely adhering to the expectations of various individuals, fbos ought to maintain their unique identity while seeking alternative 81 approaches to earn the trust of those who do not align with their beliefs. a drs officer pointed out: fbos should remain authentic to their identity, as this sets them apart from all other organizations involved in refugee protection (field interview, 27 june 2022). conclusion and recommendations the findings reveal that fbos face unique obstacles in refugee protection. however, these obstacles are not insurmountable; they require a change in approach or viewpoint. additionally, these challenges offer fbos the chance to improve their operations and achieve considerably better outcomes than their present situation. notwithstanding the numerous challenges outlined, fbos’ contributions to refugee protection remain substantial and highly valued by refugees, host communities, and other refugee-protection entities. even so, there exists great potential for enhancing fbos’ operational effectiveness. the article recommends that fbos take advantage of the opportunities highlighted in the article. it further urges states and the unhcr to collaborate and support fbos in their efforts toward refugee protection. lastly, it encourages fbo donors and partners to reaffirm their commitment to supporting fbos, given their substantial capacity to enhance the refugee-protection framework. specifically, the article calls on the unhcr and donors to provide the necessary resources for islamic fbos’ entry into kakuma refugee camp by 2026. one limitation of the adopted theory is that it is heavily influenced by context, making it difficult to generalize its findings across different scenarios. consequently, as the scope of this study was limited to fbos operating within refugee camps, a potential avenue for future research is fbos involved in refugee protection in urban areas. furthermore, a significant challenge identified was the perception of discrimination stemming from the absence of islamic fbos in a camp populated by numerous muslim refugees. future studies could examine refugee camps that include islamic fbos. constraints and prospects of faith-based refugee protection in kakuma refugee camp, kenya 82 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 references abboud, a. 2017. faith-based organisations in lebanon: objectives and practices. dba thesis, robert gordon university. http://hdl.handle.net/10059/2466 act alliance, islamic relief, and world vision. 2018. joint faith-based organizations statement for the 2018 asian ministerial conference for disaster risk reduction. reliefweb. 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perfect mazani1 received 18 june 2025 / accepted 16 july 2025 / published 27 august 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v11i2.2870 abstract in the midst of closure and securitization of border regimes, climate-change displacement, and entrenched inequalities, migrant communities are not just surviving but creating new sites of resistance, creativity, and adaptation to their worlds in crisis. this paper explores how migrant-solidarity organizations function as epistemic spaces of invention and resistance in south africa among zimbabwean, pakistani, and cameroonian migrant communities in parow valley, summer greens, and kensington (cape town). based on 250 household surveys and 12 qualitative in-depth interviews, the paper explores how migrant-led social movements become sites of agency, social resilience, and resistance to marginalization habitually employed by state policy and academic scholarship. these forms of solidarity networks, which are essentially national in scope, maintain food security at a household level, access to livelihood, and socioemotional well-being. group savings, mutual support, and rotating credit associations enable these networks to build adaptive capacities to deal with uncertain migration status and socio-economic risk. they constitute resilient, informal social safety nets for food, income, and affective resources that go beyond what formal mechanisms can provide. by situating migrant practice and epistemologies, the paper challenges hegemonic discourses that position migrants as passive. instead, it positions everyday solidarities at the site of politicized invention and resistance. it situates where these practices intersect with sustainable development goal (sdg) 2 (zero hunger), sdg 8 (decent work), and sdg 10 (reduced inequalities). it establishes a decolonial, plural migration knowledge positioning migrants as co-producers, policy entrepreneurs, and change agents. keywords: migration research, solidarity economies, food safety, epistemic justice, migrant agency, decolonial praxis, south africa, sdgs 1 doctoral candidate, institute for social development, the university of the western cape, cape town, south africa. corresponding author. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4700-6026  3934785@myuwc.ac.za migrant-led associations as spaces of epistemic resistance and food security innovation 88 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 introduction migration is increasingly grasped less as the movement of individuals from one point to another but as a complex, sociopolitical phenomenon determined by power relations, borders, and global inequalities. as the increase in restrictive border regimes persists, global climate change effects become more pronounced, and socio-economic disparities grow larger, the dominant debate on migrants continues in large part to focus on their vulnerability and dependency (crush, 2001; moyo, 2024). this structure, however, ignores the agency, resilience, and creativity of migrant populations, especially in south africa – one of the major destination countries for migrants in the african continent (hlatshwayo and vally, 2014; ncube and bahta, 2022). migrant populations, typically marginalized in receiving countries and in global narratives as a whole, are mobilizing in solidarity groups as critical spaces of collective care-making, knowledge production, and social resistance (awumbila et al., 2023). these solidarity masses, which are highly organized along national lines, are key to addressing the full range of migration challenges, notably food security, marginalization from formal livelihoods, and marginalization from state welfare regimes (pande, 2020). anything but minimalist survival tactics, these masses are sites of epistemic resistance that actively challenge prevailing hegemonic discourses of migration and development. they are sites at which migrant-led knowledge systems flourish, yielding practical answers to the universal dilemma of migrants and, in the process, constructing transnational solidarities beyond the expectations of the state and the academy (pande, 2012). this paper discusses how such migrant-led solidarity organizations function as spaces of agency, resistance, and innovation. it draws on empirical evidence from kensington, summer greens, and parow valley (cape town), where zimbabwean, pakistani, and cameroonian migrant groups pursue different forms of collective action in response to food insecurity and promote socio-economic activities. this research resists the prevalent imagining of migrants as passive recipients of provision or victims of migration policy. rather, it highlights their role as strategic agents of knowledge production and innovators in the establishment of food security. this paper contends that while contemporary migration is driven by world inequalities, climatic factors, and increasingly militarized borders, hegemonic accounts frame migrants as weak, helpless, and in need of humanitarian intervention. however, these negative images are shrinking and one-dimensional. this research counters the dominant narratives by foregrounding migrants’ agency and collective resilience. it argues that migrant-organized solidarity groups are not merely survival strategies but sites of successful resistance, invention, and knowledge production. the paper re-maps migration as a deeply political and epistemic practice, rooted in the generally mundane practices of resilience, mutuality, and world-making. drawing on the relevant literature, this paper contributes to the critical scholarship on migrants in south africa by examining how migrants use resilience 89 practices of solidarity, collective agency, and social innovation to challenge the hegemonic accounts of passivity and dependency. in a mixed-methods investigation of migrant associations in cape town, this paper tracks how migrants counter structural exclusion and reshape their socio-economic realities, staking their claim to belonging. in so doing, the paper contributes to the body of knowledge by making visible the interface of food security interventions, collective agency, and epistemic resistance in south african migrant-led solidarity spaces. research approach the research used a mixed-method design, incorporating qualitative and quantitative methods in analyzing migrant-organized solidarity group practices, networks, and systems of knowledge. this is consonant with the study conceptualization with regard to the possibility of the simultaneous exploration of both the material realities (e.g., the outcomes of food security) and the epistemic dimension of migrant lives – how migrants create, share, and act on their own knowledge sets to make themselves heard and confront marginality (fricker, 2007; awumbila et al., 2023). quantitative surveys mapped wider trends in food security and membership belongings, while qualitative interviews documented lived experience, cultural practice, and social innovation behind migrant solidarity. the mixed-methods design is thus not simply methodological, but epistemological – it turns mainstream knowledge production processes around by centering migrants’ voices and practices as valid sources of knowledge and resilience. the research was conducted in three cape town suburbs – kensington, summer greens, and parow valley, which were chosen purposively, as they are home to high numbers of migrant communities, notably zimbabweans, pakistanis, and cameroonians. the suburbs are therefore optimal to examine the intersection between migration, solidarity, and food security. migrant communities in the suburbs are organized along either national or ethnic lines. the national or ethnic affiliations are spontaneous systems of governance and sites of living together, where everyday sharing of information, co-sponsorship, and survival mechanisms are enacted. these coping mechanisms are displays of epistemic agency, whereby the migrants counter the exclusion by creating alternative systems of knowledge and belonging. fieldwork and data collection the research employed a mixed-methods design for the 6-month study period. while the quantitative data constituted a 250-household-survey of migrant livelihood access, food security, and membership in the association, the qualitative data involved 12 in-depth interviews with leaders and members of the association. the research team also carried out participant observation during association meetings, savings meetings, and food-sharing activities. migrant-led associations as spaces of epistemic resistance and food security innovation 90 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 the sample consists of 250 migrant families, purposively selected to give a representative sample of diverse migrant experiences and socio-economic statuses. the sample was heterogeneous by age, gender, and migration history, with a firstpriority selection of current affiliated solidarity association members. the research team conducted in-depth interviews with 12 important informants that included solidarity association leaders, community organizers, and key members of the association to determine their roles and perspectives. semi-structured interviews allowed the participants to provide their experiences and opinions on their own terms while also leading the interview into some areas like food security, mutual care, sharing knowledge, and community governance. furthermore, participant observation of group meetings, savings meetings, and community events enhanced the researcher’s insights into how solidarity groups interacted. as an ethnographic procedure, the researcher could see firsthand how resources and knowledge were mobilized within these networks and how power, trust, and solidarity were negotiated. data analysis quantitative analysis the study used descriptive and inferential statistical methods to examine the household survey data gathered from 250 migrant households. it used a statistical package (spss): (a) to calculate frequencies and percentages of significant variables such as food insecurity, income levels, family size, and association membership; (b) to create cross-tabulations to determine whether there were relationships between variables (for example, food security and association membership); (c) to use chisquare testing and logistic regression to determine whether migrant-led solidarity association membership had correlations with such outcomes as dietary diversity, meal frequency, and household coping that were statistically significant. additionally, the researcher gender-disaggregated the data to determine whether male-headed and female-headed households engaged differently with solidarity organizations. qualitative analysis the researcher used thematic coding to analyze and code data from the 12 in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldnotes using thematic coding. to code repeated themes throughout the data set, the researcher employed nvivo (or manual coding). thematic categories included: • food security practices: community cooking, food-sharing practices, community gardens. • mutual aid and care: emotional support, emergency lending, shared childcare. • epistemic practices: knowledge sharing, traditional farming practices, language bridging. 91 • resistance and agency: advocacy work, storytelling as resistance, symbolic actions of cultural preservation. the research team then analyzed these topics alongside the broader literature on epistemic justice, solidarity, and migration. furthermore, the study used epistemic justice-informed interpretative theories to observe how everyday practices are resistance performances and knowledge construction. the researcher also reflected on how closely such bottom-up practice aligns to international development paradigms and specifically the united nations (un) sustainable development goals (sdgs). ethical issues ethical concerns were a top priority at every point in the research process. the researcher informed the subjects adequately with regard to the purpose, procedure, and potential risks of the research and reassured them of their anonymity and confidentiality. the research team endeavored to ensure all participants’ awareness of the study’s aims and objectives and made efforts to hear the silenced groups, particularly women and poor migrant people. since the research deals with sensitive issues related to migration, vulnerability, and legal status, it was imperative to create a non-judgmental and empathetic research environment. the university of the western cape’s ethics committee approved the ethical requirements of the study. the research team obtained informed consent from all the participants and maintained the protection of confidentiality, anonymity, and voluntariness during the study. migration and solidarity in south africa south africa is a centuries-old host of migrants from across the african continent and beyond (owen et al., 2024). its comparative prosperity, job openings in the urban towns, and historic connections with the surrounding countries have rendered it a welcoming host to immigrants in search of enhanced livelihood. however, south africa’s xenophobic, restrictive immigration policies involving control of its borders and exclusion of foreigners have contributed significantly to the production of precariousness for migrants (mazani, 2022). exclusionary space and heightened levels of record unemployment, poverty, and inequality have compelled migrants to survive on their own networks and resources. in this context of hardship, solidarity associations of migrant communities have served as lifelines. these networks, often operating along national or ethnic lines, form the basis for a range of solidarity activities, such as informal savings schemes (e.g., rotating credit associations), mutual assistance in food and healthcare dispensation. they are particularly important in the case of food insecurity, itself commonplace among migrants, since they have limited access to formal employment, social welfare, and housing. along with material support, they are also migrant-led associations as spaces of epistemic resistance and food security innovation 92 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 a space of social solidarity and emotional warmth that allows the migrants to belong and feel integrated into the host society. migrant epistemologies and resistance epistemic resistance is courageous and deliberate in opposing unjust, oppressive social and epistemic norms, particularly when few others have similar intentions or with whom one is in resistance (beeby, 2012). it is resisting powerful systems of knowledge that disempower or misrepresent particular groups and claim other ways of knowing and being. this type of resistance is a matter of resisting the structures and practices on which epistemic injustice relies like silencing, disentitlement to knowledge-making processes, and being on the periphery and undervalued (medina, 2013). migrant epistemologies’ creation, dissemination, and use of knowledge by the migrants in their everyday lives are at the core of migrant-solidarity associations. these epistemologies are fashioned by migrants’ everyday lives and the imperative to navigate more than one, and sometimes contradictory, sociopolitical space (safouane et al., 2020; ríos-rojas et al., 2022). migrants generate practical knowledges of survival, resource management, and making community into their everyday lives (hlatshwayo and wotela, 2018; mazani, 2022). this is disseminated informally along lines of kinship, social networks, and shared practice and is a counter-hegemonic knowledge that challenges the dominant discourses about migration as a linear and one-way process of loss and exposure. migrant-solidarity groups thus are spaces of epistemic resistance, where systems of counter-knowledge and practice are not only preserved but actively fostered (awumbila et al., 2023). in organizing by shared needs and resources, migrants push against structural inequalities that deny them access to state provision and also against academic discourses that seek to represent migrants as passive victims (pande, 2020). through such organizations, the ability of migrant communities to innovate, adapt, and survive in the face of adversity is instead brought into view. migration, food security, and development the role of migrant-solidarity organizations in reducing food insecurity is therefore pertinent to global development agendas as well. food insecurity, so vital to migrants, since they are excluded from the formal economy and welfare states, is one of the most pressing problems in the global south, according to rugunanan (2022), but also among migrant enclaves in the global north. by providing mutual support systems, group savings schemes, and food-sharing programs, such organizations provide realistic solutions to the challenges that hinder their members from accessing food at times of economic uncertainty. for supporting the sdgs, notably sdg 2 (zero hunger), sdg 8 (decent work and economic growth), and sdg 10 (reduced inequalities), migrant-led programs 93 are a sustainable, equitable, and community-driven model of development. besides ensuring basic survival, they are the building blocks of long-term resilience that allow migrant populations to deal with the hazards of migration and build adaptive capacities in the face of socio-economic and environmental uncertainties. literature review/theoretical models literature across food security, solidarity networks, and migration studies has increased exponentially in recent years, offering novel insights regarding how migrants can make sense of complex socio-economic situations (rugunanan, 2022; triandafyllidou, 2022). while much of the written academic literature has traditionally viewed migrants as victims, new research has focused on migrant agency, resilience, and creativity under difficult circumstances. this review integrates a range of theoretical frameworks and empirical research, no less focusing on migrant-led solidarity organizations, epistemic resistance, and food security in south africa. the criticism further reveals how these networks function not merely as survival tactics but as sites of transformation that reorganize power dynamics, construct collective identity, and enable sustainable development. by connecting the micro-politics of migrant everyday life to broader structural injustices, the literature deconstructs the multifaceted nature of global migrant resilience and collective struggle. migration and solidarity networks migrant-solidarity networks are the focus of attention in migration studies because the networks expose this social and economic coping strategy used by migrants in host countries. migration is not only an individual process but a social process in which the migrants use the social network for information, financial, and emotional support (blumenstock et al., 2025). these networks are particularly significant for forced migration scenarios, in which migrants may be marginalized or discriminated against by state-provided services and may be marginalized from society. solidarity networks are, in exclusion contexts, parallel social networks through which migrants may be autonomous and agentive. they arise out of historical migratory streams, kinship, and communing cultural practices that cut across borders. the exercise of “solidarity” among migrant groups is a form of non-formal expression of solidarity, ranging from rotating credit clubs and savings associations to other forms of collective action. they are vital to their survival, according to mazani (2022), as they enable access to resources that otherwise would be unavailable to the migrants due to their irregular status or due to not having access to the formal labor markets (keles et al., 2022). in addition, solidarity networks can make migration shift from the forced to the collective agency form, which gives a sense of belonging and shared ownership (awumbila et al., 2023). these networks yield social capital more than immediate economic returns, as arenas for the practice of citizenship, skills transfer, and the reproduction of culture. this is what makes solidarity a survival migrant-led associations as spaces of epistemic resistance and food security innovation 94 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 politics and political praxis that resonates in the context of dignity of migrants against xenophobia in host countries. in south africa, in particular, a report by mazzola and de backer (2021) outlines how solidarity organizations provide vital services such as the supply of food, health treatment access, and legal aid to migrants. these organizations are most vital among marginalized communities where government help is unavailable or inaccessible. in the same vein, moyo and zanker (2020) chronicle how migrant-based movements upset the state’s hegemonic form of discourse on migration and make an argument about migrants being less reliant but rather stakeholders in their own right in their communities. these types of contributions continue to be unaddressed in hegemonic policy discourses that threaten to pathologize migration. however, in the logic extended by solidarity networks, migrants are assumed to be co-producers of local economies and social ecologies. moreover, the adaptive capacity of these types of networks is better mobilized and culturally sensitive than that of state-led interventions and therefore critical to urban resilience strategy. food security and migrant economies food security is the greatest problem that confronts migrant communities, particularly in instances of economic marginalization. food insecurity punishes migrant communities who may not have easy access to formal employment and social welfare systems. in south africa, where poverty and unemployment are pervasive, migrants participate in the informal economy – in the majority of cases, as low-skilled and vulnerable labor (dunn and maharaj, 2023). this at-risk group has been behind the development of intricate food-sharing networks, most often headed by migrant women, who are primarily responsible for the care of much of the household’s food and feeding. the women’s activities form the backbone of most solidarity associations, in turn solidifying the feminization of food security and collective resilience. through his research, olawuyi (2019) demonstrates that informal networks improve food security, particularly in times of economic crisis among southern african communities. migrants will typically pool resources using solidarity associations to ensure the members are provided for during times of hunger. importantly, locally based food-sharing businesses and communal saving schemes can be accessed by migrants to purchase food in bulk; hence, the accessibility to everyone. these social networks do not only respond to emergency food needs; on the contrary, they are also expressions of participatory economies as an alternative to neoliberal market culture. by organizing cooperation rather than competition, solidarity associations become platforms for alternative development paradigms anchored on equity and care. the food security contribution of migrant-solidarity networks is also founded on the food sovereignty concept, which underscores people’s rights to make choices about their own food systems. byaruhanga and isgren (2023) depict how food sovereignty 95 challenges neoliberalism in food security by promoting local and community-based modalities. the south african migrant-solidarity groups, by their congregation foodsharing practice, are setting the example of such values, which serve as a strong and lasting counter-hegemony to state-led food security interventions. this framing also situates migrant communities as not merely reactive but active actors constructing new geographies of food. these are based on cultural capital, seasonal repetition, and obligations to one another, thereby making localization and democratization of food possible. migrant food economies are thus material and symbolic subversions, claiming presence, purpose, and permanence in otherwise hostile city spaces. epistemic resistance and knowledge production epistemic resistance is the act of resisting hegemonic ways of knowing and systems of power that marginalize specific groups (frega, 2013). in the case of migration, epistemic resistance smashes the stereotypical role of migrants as recipients of assistance and instead situates them as knowing subjects that generate their knowledge. migrant-organized solidarity networks are central epistemic sites of resistance, for they construct knowledge from the migrants’ experiences and distinct ways of coping with displacement, marginalization, and economic insecurity (awumbila et al., 2023). they are transmitted through narrative, ritual, body practice, and through everyday survival practice. these knowledges, though often ignored, still hold boundless explanatory and transformative power. epistemic justice is a term coined by miranda fricker (2007), who states that members of oppressed groups need their knowledge to be legitimated and authenticated; this theory is supported and underscored by catala (2015). in the context of migration studies, it is important that the epistemologies, experiences, and survival strategies of migrant communities should be accepted as legitimate knowledge (iosifides, 2016). this is a departure from hegemonic discourses on migration that rarely recognize migrants’ existing knowledge, which they already possess or gain through their material objective conditions. solidarity groups, in organizing spaces of collective learning and knowledge sharing, are such arenas where this epistemic resistance is invoked. these are unofficial sites of academies, where migrants negotiate structural imbalances, improvise new ways of earning a living, and challenge prevailing policy orthodoxy. oral reservoirs and lived pedagogies that take place there form a counter-hegemonic epistemology – an imperative need of academic and policy universes. scholars such as amelina (2022) and celikates (2022) assert that the knowledge production of marginalized groups is not simply a survival strategy but a counter that repositions the locus of power. in ethnographic studies of the everyday lives of south african migrant communities, this research shows how such solidarity groups not only counter state and academic hegemonies but also construct new forms of knowing and being that shape wider political and social change. migrant-led associations as spaces of epistemic resistance and food security innovation 96 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 this reshaping of migrants as epistemic agents puts at the forefront the politics of recognition and shifts the spotlight from deficiency to contribution. it also requires rethinking development praxis so that migrant priorities, knowledge, and understanding become the very core of policymaking and social transformation. theoretical models: resilience and epistemic justice this paper addresses two core theoretical models: resilience theory and epistemic justice. resilience theory, used by holling (2001) and others, is a foray into explaining how any system – ecological, social, or economic – operates resiliently toward stress and shocks. in the context of migration, resilience theory provides a tool for examining how migrant communities react with adaptive responses in conditions of exclusion, marginalization, and environmental pressure. migrant-led solidarity organizations exemplify the resilience model because they enable migrants to act in concert against the pressures of migration by sharing resources and supporting one another (barglowski and bonfert, 2023). they construct useful anticipatory forms of resilience whereby communities do not merely react to crises but actually prepare to engage positively with latent uncertainty. this temporal aspect of resilience is pertinent where structural exclusion is ever-long-term and cyclical instead of episodic. epistemic justice enables subordinated groups to participate in the creation of knowledge (fricker, 2007). via a case study of migrant-led solidarity associations, this study demonstrates how these groups create new, productive knowledge that can be harnessed to shape broader social, political, and development practice. by integrating the two lines of thought, this paper considers how resilience and epistemic justice are conversely balanced in the context of migrant-solidarity organizations in south africa. resilience is not only material or social adjustment, but the act of regaining the ability to voice one’s definition of experiences and responses to adversity (folke et al., 2010; ungar, 2011). migrant associations practice anticipatory resilience through the creation of their own knowledge systems, strategies, and narratives – through epistemic resistance and advocacy for epistemic justice (fricker, 2007; dotson, 2011). resilience is practiced both as a survival and knowledge-production process. it is here that various discourses of belonging, community, and development are created collectively among migrants outside of state or humanitarian dominant discourse (medina, 2013; barglowski and bonfert, 2023). these two theories were chosen over other perspectives because they capture both the structural and the epistemological dimensions of solidarity among migrants. resilience theory captures how migrant societies adapt and endure in the face of system shocks (holling, 2001; berkes and ross, 2013), while epistemic justice captures the importance of voice, recognition, and knowledge de-hierarchization (fricker, 2007). combined, they provide a general idea of how migrant organizations manage to survive but, in fact, recreate their social worlds and redefine marginalization on both a practical and a theoretical basis (maldonado-torres, 2016; awumbila et al., 2023). 97 research findings and interpretation field research among 250 migrant families and 12 in-depth interviews conducted in parow valley, summer greens, and kensington (cape town) produced a number of important findings concerning the role of solidarity associations in solving food insecurity, community resilience, and knowledge production. qualitative findings indicate the importance of bottom-up movements within the migration process to change migrants from being passive victims to showing their capacity and agency to take control of their situation to organize themselves. the way in which migrantled initiatives are not only reactive but also highly adaptive and initiative-taking in becoming systems-based on cultural origins and visionary planning is a testament to their work as transformative agents in the development of alternative economies and community resilience. the quantitative aspect of the study revealed that 68% of the interviewed households were food insecure and ranged from being moderately to severely food insecure. within the households, those with membership in solidarity associations were three times more likely than those without membership to report having access to stable meals and diversified diets. female-headed households indicated greater use of shared food systems and savings groups. the intersecting and multiple data from the three research sites provided a rich perspective on how migrants react to exclusionary systems and rebuild social infrastructures with collective power. the study brings to the fore how such migrant communities operate at the nexus of innovation, solidarity, and survival and build resilience microcosms in the face of marginalization. food security and solidarity associations the strongest finding of this research is the pivotal role played by solidarity associations in alleviating food insecurity among migrants. the research revealed that about 80% of the families interviewed relied on some form of collective foodsharing mechanism, either institutionalized group savings associations or group savings associations. these mechanisms allowed the migrants to pool resources and get food at a reduced cost, and even the most vulnerable members of society were able to fulfill their food needs. quantitative evaluation of 250 migrant families, as shown in figure 1 reported 68% of the households to be experiencing chronic food insecurity, and members of the association were significantly likely to have regular access to meals. membership in the association was strongly associated with more varied diets and frequency of meals by chi-square analysis (p < 0.05). logistic regression made association membership to be three times as probable to have regular access to food. femaleheaded households, according to gender-disaggregated figures, had a greater level of participation in solidarity associations. cross-tabulations further revealed the direction of the fact that low incomes were linked with greater dependency upon migrant-led associations as spaces of epistemic resistance and food security innovation 98 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 such networks. overall, the evidence confirms the statistically significant impact of migrant-led associations for better food security outcomes. figure 1: relationship between solidarity-association membership and household food security source: author’s compilation (2025) the prevalence of the practice is a signal of a larger community culture where the well-being of the many takes precedence over survival at the individual level. foodsharing arrangements were not charitable acts but institutionalized social agreements grounded in reciprocity, trust, and responsibility. the migrants outlined how the networks facilitated security, dignity, and belongingness as crucial psychosocial cushions in the face of an oppositional sociopolitical environment. for others, the relationship provided a surrogate welfare system providing some security and relief unavailable in official state structures. migrant-solidarity associations are created as a form of social protection and security in host countries by migrants as safety nets due to the exclusion of these migrants from the host country’s mainstream economy and social services (barglowski and bonfert, 2023). apart from food-sharing programs, the majority of solidarity associations also undertook group purchases of staple foods that were handed out to members within routine periods. this was particularly common among zimbabwean migrants, who reported being more exposed as regards food, since they lacked official employment and state welfare. 99 within the migrant-solidarity associations in this study there were bulkbuying programs. such buying programs were typically funded through capital raised collectively by revolving savings associations; hence, members had reduced costs at the market and paid less for transport. occasionally, associations would hire local wholesalers on direct contract, both signing terms that were favorable to their respective interests. quite often, choices about bringing the food to members would be collaborative, involving committees or elected delegates organizing planning and making access available, thus helping to extend principles of transparency and participatory democracy. the roles played by solidarity associations extend beyond social belonging; these are instrumental support networks that enable members to navigate exploitative market relations and buffer themselves from the volatility of food prices. through resource pooling, information exchange, and mutual support, the associations create shock-absorbing buffers that insulate migrant households from both immediate economic shocks and food insecurity. figure 2 shows percentage disparities between solidarity association members and non-members for three indicators: food security, representation of femaleheaded households, and high dietary diversity. the results are that membership in the solidarity association is associated with increased food availability, increased representation of female-headed households, and increased dietary diversity. figure 2: comparative impact of migrant-solidarity association membership on household food security, gender representation, and dietary diversity source: author’s compilation (2025) migrant-led associations as spaces of epistemic resistance and food security innovation 100 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 knowledge production and epistemic resistance the second profoundly important finding is that the solidarity associations organized by migrants are spaces of epistemic resistance. from the interviews conducted, the associations were not only spaces of material assistance but also spaces of knowledge exchange and innovation. the migrants revealed that they would usually share tips on work opportunities in the region, accommodation, and legal rights, among others, with coping mechanisms for managing climate stressors such as flooding and drought. these knowledge exchanges were consistently facilitated by meetings, whatsapp groups, casual mentoring, and skills-sharing workshops. this assisted these organizations in facilitating codification and sharing of experiential, actionable, and experience-based place-specific community-based knowledge that they had earned. these migrants did not have to rely on outside agents for information; rather, they created their own epistemic infrastructure that was more adaptive and efficient in meeting their needs. these solidarity networks also facilitated the passing on of survival and cultural wisdom, whereby several generations passed on food-preserving methods, knowledge of agriculture, and savings practices. this sharing of knowledge processes, too often overlooked in mainstream texts on migration, highlights the migrant as a knowledgeable producer of knowledge who reconstructs their future through learning and reciprocal aid. in these solidarity associations, older women in particular became central to intergenerational learning as seed-saving experts and trainers in herbal medicine, but more significantly, as the depository for cooperative food-cooking practices. they were not merely caregivers but epistemic and cultural anchors whose labor supported the reproduction and innovation of food habits in new environments. highlighting their lives, this study discloses gendered aspects of epistemic resistance, which were typically hidden from view within male-stream accounts of migration. moreover, these networks were also informal campaigning spheres, where migrants could document their past and share complaints. this in itself was political narrative, establishing individual sufferance, collective memory, and mobilization. as they gained traction, these narratives started subverting institutional imaginings of migrants as voiceless and inarticulate. instead, they were a diverse and changing population with the capacity to think strategically, mobilize support, and develop political awareness. table 1 summarizes the dominant qualitative themes of 12 in-depth interviews and participant observation of zimbabwean, pakistani, and cameroonian migrants involved in grassroots solidarity initiatives in cape town. the themes are located within the practical, epistemic, and political functions of the organizations, covering food security programs and intergenerational knowledge sharing to modes of resistance and counter-education networks. all the themes are supplemented with direct quotes from the participants and analyzed to illustrate the contribution of the associations in the development of resilience, self-organization, and daily activism. 101 the table shows that migrant-led organizations are not only sites of support but also sites of epistemic resistance and political engagement. table 1: themes and illustrative quotes from migrantsolidarity association members in cape town theme quotations interpretation/implication food security strategies “we buy in bulk and share -save us all money.” (zimbabwean participant) group strategies are a shield against price shocks and unemployment. knowledge exchange & learning “the older traders teach us how to handle various customers and merchandise.” (pakistani participant) intergenerational mentoring as experiential learning. epistemic resistance “we teach our own children since schools do not take them.” (zimbabwean leader) immigrants set up parallel education systems in inhospitable environments. political agency & advocacy “we wrote a letter to the ward councillor requesting clean water.” (cameroonian leader) migrants self-organize local government in order to achieve rights and recognition. source: author’s compilation (2025) agency and resistance according to this study, migrant-led solidarity groups were established as powerful voices of resistance against state policy and hegemonic migration discourses. in their collective action, these groups counter the migrant story of passive victimhood or being mere recipients of assistance. instead, they create affirmation of the agency of migrant groups in fashioning and shaping their own survival strategies, along with resisting for greater social inclusion and recognition. their collective effect includes collective mobilization of resources in rotating savings associations, labor exchange in hidden food economies – like communal cooking and street vending, and mutual sharing of communal knowledge – like seed-saving, herbal medicine, and cooperative childcare. beyond allowing room for survival, these groups create solidarity economies and reproduce social networks at the core of resilience. this is a three-dimensional resistance – economic, social, and epistemic. migrants resist not only by protest but by everyday practice of survival, redefinition of community, and assertion of their right to belong. different associations formed alliances with local civic society organizations, religious institutions, and sympathetic policymakers to struggle for changes in housing, documentation procedures, and access to health care. they acted as proto-political institutions, training their members migrant-led associations as spaces of epistemic resistance and food security innovation 102 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 to become citizens and social activists. according to mottiar (2019), in south africa, durban protests were accompanied by more concealed, ordinary resistances. the migrants and dispossessed populations sometimes express themselves through visible protests, primarily in opposition to extreme grievances such as xenophobic attacks or harassment from the police. shack dwellers, for example, practice protest as a routine and culturalized form of resistance. however, most migrants and undocumented workers such as street vendors employ predominantly “everyday resistance” – less audible, less explicit acts challenging power relations through everyday survival strategies without challenging the authorities. this is three-dimensional resistance – economic survival strategy, social redefinition of community, and epistemic claims to membership – with protest as important but not the sole mode of resistance. in interviews, some migrant leaders described a desire to connect their networks with other networks and to campaign for policy change that would bring benefit to the overall health of all migrants, not just those directly around them. these findings bring to the fore the political significance of action led by migrants and how it can potentially be an input in broader discussions surrounding the management of migration, food security, and social justice. these hopes are solidarity-based aspirational politics rather than the struggle for mere survival. the migrant leaders articulated visions of just city planning, democratic policymaking, and the acceptance of their organizations as legitimate actors in development. their struggle for food justice, access to land, and decisionmaking at the local level highlight the intersectionality of their struggle as bridging migration with discussions of democracy, equity, and human rights. these groups’ material and symbolic practices intersect to produce what scholars such as piacentini (2014) refer to as “everyday resistance” practices that are mundane but with the potential for transformation. through the establishment of community gardens, rotating credit associations, or schools, these practices refuse exclusionary models and posit a model for more just urban potentialities. migrants introduce intergenerational knowledge and skills that challenge exclusionary regimes as well as hegemonic discourses. pakistani businesspeople, for instance, are prepared to transfer entrepreneurial as well as survival skills to secondgeneration migrants to hand over to the third generation. zimbabwean diaspora in south africa, once more, since they are not documented and hence cannot offer access to public education to children of the migrants, have devised their own education system. some of the schools offer the zimbabwe school examinations council (zimsec) curriculum and provide students with a chance to sit for final examinations in zimbabwe, while others run cambridge programs. these “solidarity schools,” as they are otherwise known, provide unofficial learning such as language, budgeting, and work-skills training. these are examples of epistemic resistance: migrants making and disseminating knowledge outside formal state-directed systems themselves. migrant associations are therefore not only survival networks, but knowledge-generating fields and political struggle sites. they build other knowledges 103 from experience on how to get around, how to survive on savings in exclusionary economies, and how to access education in the midst of structural exclusion. in this way, migrants position themselves as epistemic actors in themselves – knowledgemaking intentionally relevant to development, food security, and justice. these everyday acts of caretaking, narrative, networking, and advocacy are small acts of resistance against the dominant discourse that attempts to portray migrants as needy and powerless. as this study illustrates, resistance of this kind is not oppositional but rather reconstructive; migrants are constructing alternative care and support systems that compensate for systemic failure. this has significant practice and policy implications, contending that migrant communities need not only to be consulted but need to be actively included in urban government and food-policy spaces. integration of data (mixed-methods triangulation) this study brought together in triangulation these quantitative and qualitative strands to build validity and to gain a better understanding based on evidence from these. for instance: quantitative analysis indicated that association members were less food insecure. qualitative interviews explained how and why: through bulk purchasing, savings groups, and emotional support. these qualitative results were compared with appropriate literature and explicated applying resilience theory that focuses on social networks and collective agency in helping migrants cope with adversity, and epistemic justice theory focusing on migrants’ knowledges and daily practices of resistance that reverse exclusion and reclaim their right to belong. this synthesis allowed the study not just to recognize what is happening statistically, but to understand the lived experiences and underlying meanings behind the patterns. conclusion this research has demonstrated that migrant-solidarity associations in south africa are important for addressing social resilience provision, food insecurity, and socialspaces provision for migrant epistemic resistance and knowledge production. the solidarity associations are an attempt to be not only a survival strategy but also a type of collective agency that resists mainstream migration discourses and offers innovative solutions for migrants’ socio-economic challenges. the qualitative data gathered throughout parow valley, summer greens, and kensington demonstrates that migrant networks are embedded in the everyday lives of migrants, creating long-term reactions to exclusion, precarity, and invisibility. rather than depending on external assistance, these networks use internal resources, trust, information, and reciprocity to create new forms of governance, care, and economic survival. the research has brought to the fore migrant epistemologies and everyday practices of solidarity, making visible grassroots movements’ political stakes and migrant-led associations as spaces of epistemic resistance and food security innovation 104 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 providing migrant communities with an opportunity to bring about changes in social, political, and economic realms. the conclusions that this research indicates relate to the necessity to view migrants not so much as recipients of aid but rather as agents and the necessity for migration and food security policies to be more inclusive, decolonial, and epistemology-led by migrants. the theorization of solidarity, thus, not just as a political project but as social practice, is a gesture of critical juncture in the scholarship of migrant agency. solidarity organizations are sites of invention and resistance, inventing new social belonging while resisting structural violence. this paper is the result of a scholarship that has called for an epistemic turn in migration and development policy. it resists dominant hierarchies that downgrade migrants to objects to be controlled rather than co-performers of policy and practicemaking. in a moment of climate crisis hegemony, heightened xenophobia, and food systems breakdown, exclusionary policy works to enhance inequality and forestall pragmatic solutions. at the heart of this work is a recognition that migrant-led movements are not just survivalist. they are incubators of alternative futures, where imaginations of care, dignity, and reciprocity in direct opposition to existing regimes of extraction and domination are cultivated. our empirical findings illustrate how migrant-solidarity networks embody resilience by building flexible networks that cushion the shocks of the system while practicing epistemic justice through the production of knowledge that challenges exclusion and marginalization (holling, 2001; fricker, 2007). these mobilizations hold valuable lessons for the redesign of urban development, humanitarian intervention, and postcolonial governance toward justice, autonomy, and collective flourishing. foregrounding agency and migrant knowledge, this paper illustrates how transformation can be seen at the borders on the grounds of agency, reframing dominant political and social narratives. recommendations policy integration international institutions and governments need to include migrant-led solidarity action within regional and national migration policy, foregrounding food security. it reflects the migrant communities’ ability for agency and innovation that implies more efficient policy interventions at the root causes of food insecurity and marginalization. this entails charting existing solidarity networks, bringing migrant associations into policymaking, and institutionalizing cooperation with community-based organizations. migration policy regimes must move beyond containment and surveillance to enable social protection systems to acknowledge and complement migrant-led initiatives. integration needs to entail legal reforms reducing bureaucratic barriers to association, mobility, and access to food systems for undocumented migrants. 105 grassroots network support grassroots solidarity networks must be supported, for instance, through resources, capacity building, and technical assistance. grassroots solidarity networks are essential to the resilience of migrant communities and are able to contribute to disaster response, climate adaptation, and social cohesion. investment in local infrastructure, such as communal storage, gardens, and kitchens, can extend the reach of such networks. donors and agencies must also shift from top-down models of development aid to long-term accompaniment models that build local agency. organizing such aid to be gender sensitive as well as inclusive of marginalized migrant groups (e.g., migrants, refugees, youth) will enhance the transformative potential of such networks. epistemic justice in migration studies migration studies must practice epistemic justice in recognizing that migrants are knowledge producers just like researchers instead of being mere research subjects. research methodologies must be more participative and co-produced so that migrant voices are heard and knowledge systems of migrants are given serious consideration. this entails developing research that works actively with migrants at every phase, from problem-definition and data-gathering to analysis and dissemination. researchers are also required to interrogate critically their positionality and power within the research process and try to redistribute such power using collaborative designs. academic departments and journals need to increase epistemic horizons by making space for the knowledges produced by migrant scholars, activists, and community practitioners. decolonizing migration discourse migration scholarship needs to move toward more decolonial trajectories that disengage from the dominant discourses of migration and recognize diversity of migrant experience. this requires reforming migration policy, border control regimes, and representation of migrants in policy and academic discourse. decolonization, therefore, involves not only a recasting of the analytic imaginary but also an institutional change of heart. decolonization involves the deconstruction of epistemic hierarchies that favor global north knowledge and place migrant voices from the global south at center stage as explanatory and leading migratory systems. moreover, media, education, and development planning must avoid representing migrants only in terms of risk, crisis, or burden and promote instead their contributions, innovations, and rights. apart from these initial recommendations, this study suggests the following additional policy issues in the future: • intersectional policy solutions: the migration policies cannot be decoupled from other issues such as housing, health care, gender justice, and climate migrant-led associations as spaces of epistemic resistance and food security innovation 106 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 change. policymakers need to adopt intersectional solutions that appreciate how different vulnerabilities intersect in shaping the migrant-community experience. • cross-border cooperation: in as much as most existing solidarity organizations are transnational, regional institutions like the african union (au) and the southern african development community (sadc) should facilitate forums for cross-border cooperation, information sharing, and harmonized protection strategies for migrants. cooperation can enhance best practices and develop advocacy for migrants’ rights. • urban inclusion strategies: migrants’ perspectives need to be incorporated into urban planning, especially in the slums and food systems. local food councils, participatory budgeting, and land-use policy design can operationalize migrant agency at the urban level. • monitoring and accountability: establishing independent monitoring mechanisms for assessing migrant-inclusive policies is critical. these need to incorporate migrant voices in their design and oversight to bring responsiveness and accountability. overall, this work outlines the transformatory capacity of migrant-led solidarity associations as system-level change agents. they are less about coping mechanisms. instead, they are more blueprints for a more equitable, participatory, and resilient world. in a world under threat from cross-cutting crises – economic, ecological, and political – there is much to learn from these: care, autonomy, and co-living by communities. supporting and strengthening such migrant-led movements is not only a moral imperative but also a strategic imperative for building more equitable futures. 107 references amelina, a. 2022. knowledge production for whom? doing migrations, colonialities and standpoints in non-hegemonic migration research. ethnic and racial studies, 45(13): 2393-2415. awumbila, m., garba, f., darkwah, a.k. 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(ed.), migration and pandemics: spaces of solidarity and spaces of exception. cham: springer international publishing, pp. 3-21. ungar, m. 2011. the social ecology of resilience: addressing contextual and cultural ambiguity of a nascent construct. american journal of orthopsychiatry, 81(1): 1-17. migrant-led associations as spaces of epistemic resistance and food security innovation 84 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 navigating passports and borders: the complex realities of zimbabwean migrants in south africa tamuka chekero1, johannes bhanye2, rufaro hamish mushonga3, and owen nyamwanza4 received 13 june 2024 / accepted 08 september 2024 / published 25 april 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v11i1.2240 abstract the acquisition and maintenance of valid passports present complex challenges for many migrants. the complexity arises from many factors including political, economic, and administrative. employing a multi-sited ethnographic approach, this study scrutinizes the hurdles encountered by zimbabwean migrants in south africa when obtaining and renewing passports, visas, and permits. moreover, the study investigates the far-reaching repercussions of passport-related complexities on the daily existence and welfare of these migrants. the socio-political dynamics shaping the passport experiences of zimbabwean migrants offer valuable insights into fostering more inclusive migration policies and procedures. consequently, these challenges significantly impact migrants’ daily lives and overall well-being, impeding their pursuit of a better life in south africa. in response, migrants resort to “nimblefooted strategies,” such as using ephemeral stamps, to navigate their circumstances. however, these strategies also leave migrants vulnerable to exploitation and a lack of state protection. in essence, this study contributes to understanding the contemporary challenges faced by migrants amid evolving global crises, particularly in the postcovid-19 era marked by increased regulation and restriction of migrants. this study traverses diverse geographical and political contexts, by shedding light on the ongoing militarization and contraction of borders and the rights of migrants. keywords: passports, borders, migrants, conviviality, zimbabwe, south africa 1 postdoctoral fellow, centre for the advancement of scholarship, university of pretoria, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4700-6026 corresponding author  tamuka.chekero@up.ac.za 2 postdoctoral researcher, department of urban planning, university of free state, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9658-7755 3 postdoctoral researcher, centre for applied sciences, university of zimbabwe, zimbabwe. 4 postdoctoral fellow, department of community development, university of zimbabwe, zimbabwe. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0577-4702 85 introduction a passport is a vital document that allows people to traverse international boundaries, find work, and access essential social services in foreign territories (lloyd, 2003). the international migration process has traditionally been fraught with challenges, particularly concerning acquiring, maintaining, and renewing passports, as well as obtaining temporary residence permits, asylum-seeker permits, and student visas (thebe, 2017). the passport carries symbolic significance, as it establishes identification and citizenship, granting travelers legal permission to reside and work in their destination countries (dehm, 2017). however, acquiring, maintaining, and renewing passports and other legitimating documents can be difficult and contentious, prompting some to resort to unorthodox strategies to access such vital documentation (bauböck, 2019). for example, earlier in 2024, the government of malawi halted the processing of passports claiming a cyberattack on the country’s immigration service’s computer system. however, the government has also been grappling with a backlog of passport applications since 2021, leading to delays in the issuance of passports (jengwa and rukanga, 2024). likewise, in 2019 the guardian reported that the zimbabwean government had been experiencing challenges in processing passports, resulting in massive backlogs and applicants having to wait for months to get their passports (chingono, 2019). more recently, pindula (2024), an online news platform, reported that zimbabwean residents in south africa will be required to pay a premium fee of us$270 for passport issuance, as their applications will be processed as “express” or “emergency” cases. unlike in zimbabwe, where an ordinary passport takes seven days to process and costs us$150 plus a us$20 application fee, the zimbabwean consulate in johannesburg will not offer this option to residents in south africa. instead, they will need to pay us$250 (approximately r4,550) and a us$20 (r364) application fee, equivalent to the cost of an emergency passport in zimbabwe. subsequently, these systems frustrate citizens who either become impatient to wait for their passports or fail to afford the application fees, prompting them to acquire counterfeits or to resort to other irregular ways to cross borders (macheka et al., 2015). for south africa, as with other countries globally, a thriving illicit market for immigrant documentation exists. irregular migrants rely on it to obtain passports and other documents that legitimize their stay and open doors to opportunities and services (alfaro-velcamp et al., 2017; chekero, 2023). resultantly, as migrants seek to regularize their stay or evade the prying gaze of border control and other international migration regulators, different methods are devised. working through a web of street-level state bureaucrats and enterprising fake-paper merchants, irregular migrants try to obtain (il)legal documents. they also pay heftily to “service” the documents to secure their residence in a foreign territory. arguably, these “papers” carry “power and efficiency” in as far as they secure passage or enhance opportunities for undocumented migrants (alpes, 2017); hence, their omnipotence in migrant lives. navigating passports and borders: zimbabwean migrants in south africa 86 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 zimbabwean migrants in south africa find themselves deeply entrenched in the bureaucratic hurdles and paperwork challenges they must navigate and negotiate. according to the 2022 south african census, over one million zimbabweans reside in south africa, comprising approximately 45% of the immigrant population (statssa, 2022: 31). however, obtaining accurate data on the population of zimbabwean migrants in south africa is challenging because of various factors. these include the government’s inadequate record-keeping practices, border porosity, and the fluctuations in migration patterns as socio-economic conditions change in both zimbabwe and south africa (chekero and ross, 2018; chekero and morreira, 2020). zimbabwean migration has been motivated by diverse political, economic, and social factors, resulting in various experiences and challenges (crush et al., 2015; zanker and moyo, 2020). this study addresses a crucial gap in the literature by focusing on the complex and often underexplored challenges faced by zimbabwean migrants in south africa in acquiring and maintaining valid passports and other essential documents. while existing research has extensively covered the broad issues of irregular migration and bureaucratic obstacles, this paper specifically examines the intersection of passportrelated difficulties with daily life and well-being, a niche that remains insufficiently addressed. by employing a multi-sited ethnographic approach, the study not only highlights the empirical realities of passport acquisition but also integrates concepts such as nimble-footedness, conviviality, and hushamwari (friendship) to offer a nuanced understanding of how migrants navigate these challenges. this comprehensive exploration is distinct from previous studies, as it focuses on the socio-political dynamics affecting migrants’ interactions with the passport system, the impact of evolving global crises like the covid-19 pandemic, and the resultant adaptive strategies employed by migrants. in doing so, the paper contributes new insights into the lived experiences of migrants, emphasizing the role of informal networks and adaptive strategies in their survival amid increased border control measures and bureaucratic hurdles. to understand the complexities faced by zimbabwean migrants in south africa, this article adopts a multi-layered approach. first, we present a brief overview of zimbabwean migration patterns to establish the contextual background. we then examine the challenges migrants face in obtaining passports, detailing the bureaucratic obstacles they encounter. finally, we analyze the coping and adaptive strategies employed by migrants, particularly focusing on how they mobilize conviviality, hushamwari, and nimble-footedness to navigate these difficulties. conceptual framework: nimble-footed negotiation, convivial networks, and hushamwari this paper delves into the intricate realities of irregular migration among zimbabwean migrants in south africa, employing three interconnected conceptual frameworks: nimble-footedness, conviviality, and hushamwari. by integrating nyamnjoh’s (2013, 87 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020a, 2020b) concepts of nimble-footedness and conviviality with chekero and morreira’s (2020) concept of hushamwari, we seek to provide a nuanced understanding of how migrants navigate and negotiate their precarious existence within a complex socio-political landscape. nimble-footedness, as articulated by nyamnjoh (2013), captures the agility and adaptability required of migrants to maneuver through the convoluted postcolonial border politics. this framework reflects the migrants’ capacity to swiftly and effectively traverse various obstacles, such as bureaucratic barriers and police roadblocks, which shape their daily lives in south africa. drawing on erving goffman’s exploration of social performances, as exemplified in chekero’s (2023) study of refugees in cape town, we recognize that migrants strategically employ tactics of visibility and invisibility. these strategies are essential, as they adapt to their shifting environment, allowing them to contest, evade, or circumvent barriers imposed by the state and its representatives. nimble-footedness underscores the importance of temporal and spatial awareness in the migrants’ navigation strategies, illustrating their ability to adapt to the ever-changing dynamics of border control. conviviality, as developed by scholars such as illich (1973), nyamnjoh (2017), and nowicka and heil (2015), refers to the everyday interactions and coexistence that define social life. in the context of zimbabwean migrants, conviviality encompasses the relationships they forge with fellow migrants, local bus drivers, and even immigration officials. these relationships, built on reciprocity and shared experiences, provide essential support and resources. conviviality highlights the significance of these networks in offering information, assistance, and opportunities amid the challenges of irregular migration (bhanye, 2024; mushonga, 2024). however, conviviality’s focus on positive interactions and harmonious co-existence may obscure the underlying tensions and conflicts within these relationships. while conviviality emphasizes cooperation and mutual support, it may overlook the power imbalances, systemic inequalities, and discrimination that have an impact on social interactions. this limitation calls for a more comprehensive understanding that incorporates hushamwari and nimble-footedness. hushamwari, a shona concept of “friendship” elaborated by chekero and morreira (2020), extends beyond conventional notions of kinship. it embodies a deeper form of mutual aid and belonging, offering a critical extension to the framework of conviviality. the shona saying “hushamwari hunokunda hukama” (friendship surpasses kinship) underscores the profound significance of these relationships in providing social support and stability. for zimbabwean migrants, hushamwari represents the solidarity and mutual assistance that transcends national and ethnic boundaries, fostering a sense of community and safety. in this study, we investigate the disconnect between zimbabwean migrants’ interactions with a bureaucratic state apparatus – characterized by police roadblocks and restrictive visa regulations – and their adaptive strategies based on social relationships, particularly through the lens of hushamwari. this endogenous idea, which is profoundly rooted navigating passports and borders: zimbabwean migrants in south africa 88 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 in the wider framework of ubuntu, offers a critical viewpoint on how migrants overcome structural constraints. chimuka (2001) defines ubuntu as a belief in community solidarity and humanity’s interdependence. it claims that personhood is not an independent trait, but is inextricably tied to the humanity of others, going beyond close communal links. this communal ethos serves as the basis for hushamwari, a fundamental idea in our study. hushamwari denotes more than just social connection; it represents a kind of relational solidarity that crosses traditional bounds (chimuka, 2006). examining the interaction of hushamwari with conviviality and nimble-footedness reveals a framework that goes beyond basic interpretations of ubuntu. while ubuntu and conviviality stress peaceful co-existence and social integration, hushamwari provides a more nuanced and practical perspective for understanding how migrants navigate the daily hurdles presented by bureaucratic processes. despite historical and modern efforts to maintain boundaries along “tribal” and national lines in southern africa, a common metaphysical substrate remains across these divides. this similarity offers fertile ground for understanding how hushamwari functions as a practical strategy for overcoming systemic barriers. it allows migrants to create and use social networks to get access to resources and paperwork, therefore minimizing the consequences of a restricted bureaucratic environment. our argument contends that hushamwari goes beyond the basic ideals of ubuntu and conviviality. it offers a tangible framework for examining how migrants negotiate their difficult conditions using a defined system of connections based on mutual help rather than difference. by focusing on hushamwari, we emphasize an important aspect of migrant agency and resilience, providing fresh insights into how social interactions may be used to confront and overcome bureaucratic obstacles. the intersection of nimble-footedness, conviviality, and hushamwari offers a holistic view of how zimbabwean migrants navigate their challenges in south africa. nimble-footedness allows migrants to strategically maneuver through bureaucratic and physical barriers, while conviviality facilitates the creation of supportive social networks. hushamwari further enriches this framework by emphasizing the depth of mutual aid and solidarity that can exist within and beyond these networks. this integrated approach reveals that while conviviality provides a foundation for social cohesion and support, it is insufficient on its own to address the full spectrum of migrants’ experiences. nimble-footedness highlights the need for adaptability in navigating obstacles, and hushamwari underscores the importance of deeper, reciprocal relationships that enhance social resilience. together, these frameworks illustrate the dynamic interplay between adaptability, social support, and mutual aid in the lives of zimbabwean migrants. by employing this comprehensive conceptual lens, our analysis not only illuminates the lived experiences of zimbabwean migrants but also provides insights into the broader socio-economic and political dynamics shaping their lives. this 89 framework challenges conventional views of migration by emphasizing the agency, resilience, and strategic adaptation of migrants amid systemic constraints. methodology and study approach this study emerged from four phd and postdoctoral research projects by the authors, all centered on migration issues. while our academic journey and research were not exclusively focused on zimbabwe, the challenges surrounding passport acquisition and maintenance consistently arose during our various fieldwork experiences. these recurring issues provided the foundation for this study, drawing insights from our diverse migration research efforts. to unearth the nuanced realities of zimbabwean migrants’ passport experiences in south africa, we embarked on a multi-sited ethnographic journey, guided by the methodological insights of marcus (1995). as marcus (1995: 105) argues, multi-sited ethnography is designed around paths, chains, conjunctions, threads, and juxtapositions of locations in which the ethnographer establishes some kind of literal, physical presence, with an explicit, posit logic of association or connection among sites that define the argument of ethnography. with the conviction that the interplay between territorial, social, and affective realms shapes migrants’ quotidian encounters, we traversed diverse locations to establish a physical presence and forge convivial connections with participants. navigating the difficult dynamics of access and trust, we grappled with the challenge of engaging study participants amid their suspicion and apprehension. operating within the nebulous terrain of unresolved citizenship status, we unraveled the lived experiences of young zimbabwean men and women in their 20s and 30s, emblematic of the gender and age dynamics prevalent in irregular migration to south africa. recognizing the inherent mobility and multi-situatedness of the participants, we actively tracked and engaged with them across diverse locations, forging convivial connections to gain deep insights into their lived experiences. to select study participants, we leveraged key contacts to snowball out to the zimbabwean migrant population in south africa. even though we were operating on “home turf,” it was difficult to access participants, because of their suspicion that we were linked to the police or the south african department of home affairs (dha), their reluctance to be interviewed, and their ambiguous status in south africa in what bhanye and dzingirai (2019) term “unresolved citizenship status.” four cities (bloemfontein, cape town, johannesburg, and pretoria) were used for this study, each offering a unique perspective on the complexities of passport usage and mobility. we conducted the research over 12 months. we immersed ourselves in the everyday lives of migrants by engaging with them in informal settings such as salons, uber or taxis, and long-haul cross-border buses. this approach allowed us to attune to the nuances of their interactions and negotiations. the flexibility of navigating passports and borders: zimbabwean migrants in south africa 90 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 informal interviews proved invaluable in eliciting detailed insights without disrupting the daily livelihoods of migrants, many of whom work in the informal sector. originally, we planned to conduct 20 interviews, but due to the mobile nature of migrants and changing circumstances, we ended up with more. these informal interviews often led to impromptu focus group discussions (fgds), as formal fgds were challenging to organize given the migrants’ mobility and busy schedules. conversations frequently emerged spontaneously in crowded places like restaurants, barbershops, and salons, where participants were more at ease. with their consent, we recorded some of these discussions and transcribed the audio recordings verbatim. we then used an inductive approach to identify emerging themes and patterns in the data. throughout the research process, ethical considerations were paramount. we navigated the ethical terrain with care and sensitivity, ensuring that informed consent and confidentiality were upheld. each author obtained ethical clearance from our respective universities, and our supervisors were aware of our pursuit of this study. we prioritized the autonomy and dignity of participants, safeguarding their identities and personal information. as a result, the names of respondents cited in this paper are pseudonyms, used to protect their privacy. the beitbridge border post emerged as a focal point of inquiry, where through shared stories, we accompanied migrants on their journeys to and from zimbabwe, scrutinizing the ephemeral stamps adorning the owner’s or proxy-held passports. through immersive interviews and meticulous observations conducted “on the move,” we unraveled the clandestine economies and strategies underpinning border crossings, from the exchange of illicit funds to the covert acquisition of counterfeit stamps. using semi-structured interviews, we engaged participants in fluid conversations that traversed socio-demographic landscapes, probing into the intricacies of their occupational pursuits, living arrangements, and familial ties. we applied thematic analysis to discern emergent patterns and themes. demographic profile of study participants the profile of study participants included a diverse range of zimbabwean migrants in south africa in terms of gender and age distribution, reflecting the gender and age dynamics of irregular migration from zimbabwe. the duration of stay in south africa also varied among participants, encompassing both recent arrivals and migrants with longer-term residency. the duration of stay of participants in south africa ranged from several months to several years, enabling a comprehensive analysis of the experiences and challenges faced by zimbabwean migrants at different stages of their migration journeys. the duration participants lived in south africa revealed varying experiences and perspectives between those who had recently arrived compared to those who had been residing in south africa for longer. another key aspect of the profile of study participants was their occupational pursuits in south africa. the study uncovered a diverse range of occupations and work arrangements engaged in by the migrants. this encompassed formal and 91 informal sectors, including employment in construction, hospitality, domestic work, agriculture, and informal trading. understanding the occupational pursuits of the participants provided insights into the economic circumstances and opportunities available to them, as well as the potential impact of passport-related challenges on their employment prospects. the study also explored the living arrangements and familial dynamics of the participants. this aspect revealed whether participants resided in solitary domiciles or cohabited with family members or other individuals. these demographic aspects of study participants (summarized in table 1) provided a comprehensive foundation for analyzing the passport experiences of zimbabwean migrants in south africa. table 1: demographic profile of study participants participant name gender age occupation location in sa duration of stay in sa brian male 37 construction bloemfontein 5 years locadia female 34 domestic worker johannesburg 3 years ranga male 27 farm worker johannesburg 1 year ruth female 33 domestic worker pretoria 4 years tafadzwa male 40 vendor johannesburg 10 years chipo female 36 vendor pretoria 4 years tinotenda male 28 taxi driver cape town 1 year vuyisile male 36 construction bloemfontein 5 years mary female 29 hairdresser bloemfontein 2 years tamia female 32 hairdresser bloemfontein 4 years obey male 35 cross-border bus owner and passport broker cape town 7 years abby female 34 domestic worker cape town 5 years fred male 28 self-employed cape town 3 years given male 36 dealer cape town 8 years source: authors' own work findings and discussion participants’ experiences in acquiring passports from the zimbabwean authorities migrants in south africa face significant challenges related to passport acquisition and the role of intermediaries, which impact their daily lives and well-being. key issues include administrative delays, inefficiencies, and corruption within the zimbabwean embassy system. many migrants struggle with the online appointment navigating passports and borders: zimbabwean migrants in south africa 92 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 booking system, which is often inaccessible, and endure long wait times at passport offices, causing frustration. corruption and exploitation by intermediaries, who promise expedited services for a fee, further complicate the process. while intermediaries can sometimes facilitate faster passport acquisition, they also risk fraud and exploitation, highlighting a dependence on informal networks as a result of bureaucratic inefficiencies. high passport fees add to the financial burden, making it difficult for many migrants to afford the necessary documentation. this economic strain is compounded by the complex and expensive visa application processes in south africa, which involve extensive paperwork and high costs, often leading to delays and difficulties in securing work or residence permits. the mistreatment of migrants by south african officials exacerbates their struggles, with reports of hostile and discriminatory behavior from officials, contributing to a hostile environment. the reliance on intermediaries reflects a broader trend where migrants navigate bureaucratic hurdles through informal channels, sometimes facing both benefits and risks. this system’s inefficiencies and the high costs associated with documentation affect migrants’ mobility, access to services, and overall quality of life. the constant uncertainty and fear of deportation further strain their mental and emotional wellbeing. to address these issues, there is a need for a more streamlined, transparent, and equitable system for passport and visa processing, alongside efforts to mitigate the reliance on intermediaries and improve treatment by officials. administrative delays and the role of brokers/intermediaries migrants in this study shared varied experiences when acquiring passports from the zimbabwean embassies in pretoria and cape town. some used brokers, while others followed the formal procedure. participants lamented that they struggled to access the online application portal. this system, run by the zimbabwean consulate in south africa, allows applicants to book appointment slots to collect passport forms, before submission at the registrar general offices in zimbabwe. bookings are available only on wednesdays at 4 pm, but many found the system “always” fully booked. participants highlighted numerous challenges in the application process. these included long waiting times at passport offices, leading to frustration and delays in obtaining the necessary documentation. ranga, a 27-year-old man working at a farm in johannesburg, shared his frustration: ugh, getting a passport in zimbabwe was a total nightmare! imagine standing in line for long, only to get to the front and they tell you to come back another day? it repeatedly happened, like some bad dream. it felt like i was stuck going in circles and never getting anywhere. apart from administrative issues and delays, participants also highlighted significant inefficiencies and instances of corruption in the passport issuance system. 93 participants shared experiences of seeking assistance from individuals who claimed to have connections or knowledge of expedited processes. the role of intermediaries and brokers in facilitating passport acquisition was reiterated by the participants. while some found success through these intermediaries, others reported negative experiences, including cases of fraud or exploitation. this highlighted the existence of an informal network surrounding passport acquisition, which could both assist and exploit vulnerable individuals seeking passports. tinotenda, a 28-year-old taxi driver in pretoria, highlighted his experience: so, i was like, “forget this line” and decided to try this marunners (intermediaries) thing everyone was talking about to get my passport faster. indeed, i got my passport quicker. but man, they charged a lot of money, and the whole time i could not help but worry they might be ripping me off or giving me some fake passport. accounts of intermediaries or brokers assisting migrants in obtaining new passports through embassies were frequently shared by participants. this phenomenon is not unique to our research. scholars such as jones et al. (2023) and infantino (2023) note that intermediaries in migration can take various forms, including smugglers, brokers, employment/placement agencies, coyotes, village heads, teachers, and travel agencies. these intermediaries may be companies or individuals, legally registered entities paying taxes (e.g., employment agencies facilitating international recruitment), or they may have no legal standing, being considered “undocumented” under existing legal frameworks (e.g., brokers, smugglers). migrants in our study often used different terms for these intermediaries depending on the context, such as madealer (dealers), marunner, making it challenging to develop a clear operational definition of intermediaries. it is also crucial to consider who is using the term and in what context. in this context, nimble-footedness plays a crucial role, enabling obey – a prominent zimbabwean runner residing in cape town, to forge social networks with embassy officials, thereby fostering conviviality. subsequently, hushamwari enhances these networks by cultivating trust and support essential for migrants to navigate the complexities of acquiring a passport. fred, a self-employed resident of kraaifontein in cape town, shared his experiences working with obey. obey, operates various businesses, including cross-border buses and food trucks, and serves as a runner and dealer. as a dealer, obey assists individuals in cape town to obtain passports without needing to return to zimbabwe. he has established connections in the zimbabwean embassy in cape town, leveraging these connections to help people bypass the lengthy waiting period typically associated with embassy appointment bookings. booking an appointment online to apply for a passport at the zimbabwean embassy in cape town can entail a waiting period of three months or even longer. obey’s expertise lies in facilitating appointment bookings for individuals, allowing them to avoid this prolonged waiting period. during our research, one of the authors navigating passports and borders: zimbabwean migrants in south africa 94 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 had the opportunity to speak with fred, who shared his personal experience of being assisted by obey. fred narrated: i met obey through my cousin, who knew him through her friend. obey charged me zar800 (approximately us$50) for assistance in getting a passport quickly. he promised to speed up the process and avoid the long wait. after i paid him, he arranged for me to go to the embassy the next day. upon arrival, i called obey who told me to meet someone in a bmw car parked a few meters from the consulate. this person asked for my birth certificate and zimbabwean id, made copies, and gave them back to me along with a note in shona saying, “ndatumwa na obey” (obey sent me). then, i showed the note to the security guard at the embassy gate, and he let me in. inside, one employee at the embassy helped me to skip the line and complete my passport application. after the officials signed and stamped my forms, they told me to send them to zimbabwe for processing. i gave the forms to obey’s contact in the bmw. two weeks later, obey told me my documents were on their way, and soon after, i got my new passport. to corroborate fred’s story, one of our authors went further to ask fred’s cousin whom he said connected him to obey. his cousin, abby, echoed the same sentiments about obey – she went through the same process, as outlined by fred. participants sought obey’s assistance because of the recent changes in south african immigration policy, notably the stricter requirements imposed by the border management authority (bma) act (engel, 2024). enacted in 2020, the bma centralized all border functions under the dha, establishing a single authority to manage the entire border environment. this policy shift has heightened the risk of deportation for many zimbabwean residents, especially since early 2024. as a result, most participants have expressed doubt about the zimbabwean authorities’ ability to meet the year-end deadline for processing passport applications necessary for south african residency permits. consequently, they turned to obey as a trusted intermediary to expedite the passport application process. this aligns with fernandez’s (2013) observations on the growing importance of intermediaries in facilitating transnational migration, reflecting their increasing global influence. a recurring theme emerged in digging deeper: the critical importance of valid zimbabwean passports. as vanyoro (2023) observes, obtaining new passports presents a significant hurdle for undocumented zimbabweans, regardless of their migratory status (labor or asylum seeker). the process is often fraught with delays, creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and precarity that significantly impacts their aspirations and life trajectories (vanyoro, 2023). alongside the numerous accounts shared by participants who have benefited from obey’s assistance and other intermediaries, one of the authors interviewed obey directly. when asked about his passport-related business, he responded: 95 i help a lot of people. what abby and fred have told you is true: abby also refers many clients to me. i work with people inside the embassy and also, i have people outside. you will never find me near the embassy. i work with a team; it is a company, if i may put it that way. i also have a cross-border bus. it also carries both documented and undocumented passengers. i help them acquire passports and the bus also helps in transporting not only immigrant passengers but also passport application documents and processed passports from zimbabwe. several participants in this study confirmed receiving help from obey and other similar intermediaries. this growing reliance on intermediaries can be attributed to the increasingly complex issue of immigration regulations and persistent delays in the zimbabwean passport and south african visa issuing systems. these bureaucratic hurdles make it exceptionally difficult for migrants to navigate the process and acquire essential documents efficiently. in this context, jones et al. (2023) argue that in many societies, migration without the assistance of intermediaries – including friends, family, recruiters, travel agents, and “smugglers” – is virtually impossible. here, we observe the nimble-footed strategies of migrants, paralleling the concept elucidated by nyamnjoh (2013) in his discussion of the mbororo fulani. nyamnjoh (2013) introduces the concept of “nimble-footedness” through his study of the mbororo fulani in the western grassfields of cameroon. these communities navigate complex postcolonial politics involving borders and boundaries, where juridicopolitical citizenship is often contested by local and regional claims of autochthony. in our study, we adapt this concept to describe how migrants develop the ability and agility to navigate and negotiate the challenges and opportunities involved in acquiring and maintaining passports. just as the mbororo fulani adeptly maneuver through political dynamics and citizenship issues, migrants learn to engage with intermediaries effectively. they skillfully leverage relationships and negotiations to overcome bureaucratic hurdles, ensuring their ability to obtain passports or visas and secure their ongoing survival. brokerage is thus viewed as a normalized and entirely legitimate practice for navigating many aspects of everyday life. although the involvement of intermediaries in migration is not new, the nature of their roles has dramatically transformed over the past 50 years (fernandez, 2013; jones et al., 2023). currently, intermediaries are significant actors, influencing how migration occurs, shaping migrants’ experiences, and affecting developmental outcomes. from migrants’ perspectives, intermediaries make mobility possible in a world where immobility is often the norm. fernandez’s (2013) analysis – employing a decentered approach to regulation – elucidates the role of intermediaries in the migration process. this perspective challenges the notion of exclusive governmental control over regulation, highlighting the interconnectedness of various social actors in shaping regulatory realities. navigating passports and borders: zimbabwean migrants in south africa 96 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 while many participants recounted positive experiences with intermediaries at embassies, a contrasting perspective emerged from locadia, a 34-year-old domestic worker in johannesburg. she traveled to the beitbridge border post solely for a passport stamp renewal. she recounted using connections, or intermediaries, to expedite the process. she expressed frustration with the inherent inequality in the system, where access to such assistance appears contingent on personal connections. as locadia stated, “it bothered me that not everyone had equal access to such assistance. it should be a fair and transparent process for everyone.” locadia’s experience reveals the potential for exploitation within the system, highlighting the ethical considerations surrounding the reliance on intermediaries. further research is needed to explore the broader dynamics of this phenomenon, including the potential impact on vulnerable populations in the migrant community. within the framework of zimbabwean migration, as exemplified by the narratives and experiences shared by the participating migrants in this study, intermediaries can be categorized into two main groups: unlicensed brokers and individuals in the social networks of potential migrants, such as relatives or friends. the various strategies and approaches employed by these intermediaries, as demonstrated earlier, highlight the crucial interconnections among the participants in these networks (jones and sha, 2020). additionally, these observations emphasize the inherent challenges in regulating these intermediaries, given that a significant portion of their activities often bypasses or directly challenges the established zimbabwean regulatory framework, rather than adhering to it. in addition to the challenges and delays associated with booking appointments for visa applications at embassies, there was also significant concern among most study participants regarding the steep fees for obtaining a zimbabwean passport. they expressed deep dissatisfaction with the high costs associated with passport applications. the government of zimbabwe implemented a passport fee increase, resulting in the standard passport fee rising from us$60 for a three-day passport to us$150 plus $20 application fee, while an emergency 24-hour passport remained priced at us$250 plus $20 application fee. many participants voiced their desire for the zimbabwean government to reconsider these passport prices. they lamented that the amount is a financial burden not easily manageable for many zimbabweans who aspire to cross the border, as many were struggling to raise the required us$170. mary, a 29-year-old hairdresser from bloemfontein, shared her experience: as someone with limited financial resources, it was an enormous challenge to afford such a high amount. i had to make significant sacrifices and save money for months just to be able to pay for the passport. adding to the formidable challenges associated with obtaining passports, participants in the study highlighted significant difficulties in securing work or resident permits (officially known as visas). they outlined a comprehensive array of obstacles 97 encountered in fulfilling the stringent criteria established by the south african dha. these authorities encompass the visa facilitation services (vfs) – a private entity appointed by the south african embassy to process visa applications through the dha. notably, participants emphasized the onerous paperwork requirements, expressing dismay over the convoluted process of submitting the necessary documents. furthermore, the exorbitant fees levied by the visa authorities emerged as a substantial financial burden. these costs compelled participants to prioritize visa application expenses over other essential expenditures. vuyisile, a 36-yearold construction worker residing in bloemfontein, exemplifies this challenge. he described the process of obtaining a visa as a “long, winding, and arduous” experience. the sheer volume of paperwork required for the application was overwhelming. he elaborated on the various prerequisites, including birth certificates, proof of residency, and letters of recommendation, highlighting the impossibility of securing a visa without all these documents. collecting all necessary documents took vuyisile several weeks. additionally, processing delays compounded the frustration, as the vfs office reportedly handled many applications. his case exemplifies the months-long wait often endured by applicants. this arduous process showcases the “horrendous journey” migrants traverse to legitimize their stay in south africa. such bureaucratic complexities often drive individuals toward irregular migration strategies, potentially resorting to illegitimate methods to secure residency. the research suggests a need for a more streamlined and accessible visa application process in south africa, addressing the financial burdens and bureaucratic hurdles faced by zimbabwean migrants. getting to grips with officialdom beyond the stringent eligibility requirements and financial burdens of visa applications, participants highlighted the harsh treatment by south african officials at the dha and vfs offices. chabal (2009) describes this as “calculated violence,” where government and state officials deliberately neglect their duties. tawodzera (2014) likens these officials to “frontier guards” whose mission is to keep migrants out, violating constitutional rights and professional ethics. ruth, a 33-year-old domestic worker in pretoria, shared her upsetting experience with rude and dismissive visa officials during her passport renewal in zimbabwe. she recalled, “the visa officials were disrespectful and made derogatory remarks toward applicants, adding to the distress of an already difficult process.” similarly, tamia, a 32-year-old hairdresser in bloemfontein, faced significant bureaucratic obstacles in gathering the necessary documentation for her visa application. she noted, “each submission was met with more requirements, causing frustration and exhaustion. the repeated bureaucratic hurdles were both vexing and draining.” moreover, many participants expressed frustration over repeated failures to obtain passports, severely limiting their mobility and opportunities for advancement. navigating passports and borders: zimbabwean migrants in south africa 98 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 in response to the challenges and predicaments faced by migrants when trying to obtain work and residence permits, many have resorted to using ephemeral stamps to remain in south africa. this approach aligns with what mutendi and chekero (2023) describe as the “nimble-footed migrant” in their study on migrant mobility during the covid-19 lockdown. another participant, brian, exemplifies this concept, relying on ephemeral stamps to extend his stay in south africa after being unable to secure a work visa. he recounted: i’ve been able to survive because of these temporary stamps. every time my stay is about to expire, i get another stamp that lets me stay a bit longer. i know it’s not a permanent solution, but it’s what keeps me going for now. without these stamps, i wouldn’t be able to stay here or take care of my family. they’re the only thing that’s allowing me to keep everything together. the process of obtaining passports and visas for zimbabwean migrants is complex and multifaceted. challenges such as lengthy waiting periods, extensive paperwork, and high fees create significant barriers that impede migrants’ mobility and access to essential services. scalabrini (2024) echoes these challenges, highlighting societal tensions surrounding migration. the report suggests unsupported claims, such as migrants harming the south african economy and taking jobs from citizens. these sentiments reflect the perceived insufficiency of resources in south africa to accommodate non-citizens. see also, kariithi (2017), banda and mawadza (2015), mawadza (2012), danso and mcdonald (2001) for a detailed characterization of migrants by the state and other actors in south africa) migrants in our study corroborated these claims, noting that such societal tensions and economic fears often result in prolonged delays in the visa application process. this has led many to turn to intermediaries and brokers for assistance. the involvement of these intermediaries yields two distinct outcomes. first, intermediaries can effectively assist individuals in obtaining passports, leading to success stories. second, their involvement can complicate the process, resulting in mixed outcomes reported by participants. the disparities in success rates among participants in securing passports and visas highlight the unequal impact of administrative procedures on migration experiences. intermediaries, often organized through informal social networks, play a crucial role in facilitating the acquisition of passports for many zimbabwean migrants in south africa. as jones et al. (2023) note, contemporary international migration patterns would not occur without migration intermediaries. as noted by spener (2009), in mexico, migrants seek help from coyotes to start the migration process; in eritrea, from delaloch (ayalew, 2018); in west africa, would-be migrants speak of lines, connections, and dokimen (alpes 2017); in asia, syrians may refer to muharrib and hajj (achilli, 2018); in bangladesh and nepal, to dalals (rahman, 2012). in all these places, engaging with one or more intermediaries to assist with migration projects is a highly normalized and entirely legitimate practice (jones et 99 al., 2023). the dependence of migrants on intermediaries is not new. friends and kinship networks have long been recognized as pivotal in helping migrants organize their journeys, find jobs and homes, and establish friendships and civic structures (jones et al., 2023). as exemplified by several migrants interviewed, expediting the passport acquisition process often relies on intermediaries with established connections to family members and friends who have prior experience navigating this complex process. zimbabwean migrants navigating precarious mobility through nimble-footedness and conviviality our ethnographic exploration reveals the complex interplay between migrants’ passport experiences, border dynamics, and regulatory frameworks, providing nuanced insights into the complexities of mobility and legal status at the beitbridge border post. in understanding such a multifaceted interplay, we embraced the concepts of nimble-footedness and conviviality. as we have shown, nimblefootedness encompasses migrants’ ability to interpret and respond to the actions and expectations of border officials and intermediaries as well as to adjust their strategies based on the prevailing legal framework. migrants must possess an understanding of when, where, and how to move, or conversely, when not to move (mbembe, 2017; mutendi and chekero, 2023). they employ intermediaries and engage in bribes to ensure their continued crossings into south africa. as the study has demonstrated, they also establish networks with fellow migrants, immigration officials, border patrol agents, and residents (nyamnjoh, 2013) to facilitate these crossings. however, it is not a matter of indiscriminately forming connections or networks; migrants must exhibit a sharp sense of discernment in these interactions (morreira, 2020) lest they get arrested. to evade the risks of arrest, detention, or deportation, they must make informed decisions about whom to form relationships with – they must display nimble-footedness. in this context, cultivating appropriate social networks becomes imperative for facilitating successful border crossings. the findings also revealed that regardless of the challenging passport experiences faced by zimbabwean migrants in south africa, they engage in various nimble-footed ways to secure their way in south africa. one notable example is that a migrant can have their passport stamped at the exit when departing. for example, an enterprising woman, abby, learned strategies that enabled her to avoid having to cross the border monthly to renew her status as a visitor to south africa. in conversations with other women at the border gate who were also traveling to south africa, she learned that she should first have her passport stamped at the exit as departing the country, only to sneak back in before actually crossing south africa’s borders, thus without any visa. the bustling activity and restlessness at the border post would assist her in doing this. migrants used different ways and means of entering south africa: some used work and residence visas, others bribed immigration officers, navigating passports and borders: zimbabwean migrants in south africa 100 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 and yet others entered unnoticed, “cloaked” in the same way as abby. once abby’s passport was stamped with “departure,” the south african system recorded that she had returned to zimbabwe, while she was in fact in south africa. in this manner, she became an undocumented migrant with a passport but an invalid presence in south africa according to the 2004 immigration act of south africa. the recent amendments to the immigration act, 2002 (parliament of the republic of south africa, 2024), reflect a judicial response to procedural shortcomings in the detention and deportation of illegal foreigners, as previously critiqued by the constitutional court. these revisions mandate that detainees be presented before a court within 48 hours of arrest, where the court must evaluate whether continued detention aligns with the principles of justice, and ensures that detainees are informed of their rights and afforded the chance to make representations. however, a recent pronouncement by the newly appointed minister of home affairs, dr leon schreiber mp, which imposes a six-month sentence and subsequent deportation for those found without proper documentation, introduces a new layer of complexity to migrants’ experiences. this pronouncement, regardless of its constitutional validity, significantly impacts how migrants perceive and navigate their legal status and daily lives, particularly concerning the acquisition of passports and visas. the case of abby, who is documented but deemed unlawfully present due to procedural constraints, exemplifies the broader vulnerabilities faced by zimbabwean migrants. our study explores the adaptive strategies employed by migrants like abby, who, under increasing pressure to obtain valid documentation, engage in various forms of improvisation to avoid harsh penalties and exclusion from the immigration system. the amendments thus exacerbate the urgency for migrants to secure passports to avoid punitive measures, highlighting the intersection of legal reforms and everyday survival strategies in migration contexts. migrants without work or residence visas often rely on temporary visitor visas, usually valid for 90 days. however, these rights to cross borders and enter host countries, as highlighted by mbembe (2017), are increasingly regulated, subject to suspension or revocation at the whim of authorities, contributing to a tightening of immigration control measures. despite the increasing movement of migrants, south africa’s migration policies have persistently excluded zimbabwean migrants, leaving them with limited livelihood opportunities (northcote, 2015). this trend toward stricter policies is evident in south africa, despite its history of facilitating immigration. for instance, migrants often receive entry visas for shorter durations than the entitlement of 90 days, posing challenges in securing employment and supporting families back home. in response, migrants demonstrate nimbleness, adapting to these restrictive regulations. drawing on nyamnjoh’s (2013, 2015, 2019) insights into nimble-footedness, migrants quickly learn to navigate bureaucratic hurdles by engaging with brokers, immigration officials, police, and bus operators. for example, when seeking to extend their stay, migrants may strategically choose border posts like beitbridge, known 101 for granting longer durations compared to others. brian, residing in bloemfontein, recounted his journey to beitbridge after receiving only a seven-day extension at the lesotho–maseru border. mary similarly relied on informal convivial networks to obtain passport stamps, highlighting the necessity of intermediaries in ensuring safety in south africa. ranga’s experience revealed the dependence on informal arrangements, such as paying bus drivers for visa extensions, a practice observed by chekero (2023) as part of the “vaya vaya” culture—moving swiftly and adaptively amid legal constraints. despite the risks, migrants prioritize livelihood sustenance over legal documentation because of the disruptive impact of enforcement measures, as observed by moyo (2022). our findings demonstrate the imperative for migrants to cultivate convivial networks, as articulated by chekero (2023), which enable survival amid passport-related challenges. this resilience reflects a broader phenomenon of adaptability, where individuals maneuver within abnormal environments to normalize their circumstances. the beitbridge border post, cushioned between zimbabwe and south africa, emerges as a pivotal junction for zimbabwean migrants embarking on journeys to and from south africa. our ethnographic engagement with migrants during their border crossings provided rich insights into passport-related practices and interactions with border officials. through keen observation and in-depth interviews, we uncovered intriguing dynamics surrounding passport usage, the issuance of ephemeral stamps, and attempts to circumvent border regulations. a notable observation at the border was the announcement by bus conductors, delineating different categories of passport holders: those needing stamps, overstayers, holders of phased-out passports, and those without passports. this categorization reflected the diverse passport-related scenarios encountered by migrants navigating the border crossing. this study sheds light on the significance of ephemeral stamps, and temporary endorsements granted to individuals for limited stays – typically three months – in the host country. these stamps serve as a provisional measure for migrants lacking valid passports or facing renewal challenges. while offering temporary relief, they also amplify the precariousness of migrants’ legal status, necessitating prompt departure before expiration to avoid legal complications. brian’s account exemplified this, as he received a three-month ephemeral stamp but had to plan his exit before expiry to maintain legal compliance. ephemeral stamps entail specific requirements for temporary stays, obliging migrants to adhere to stipulated durations and depart within the allotted timeframe. chipo’s narrative revealed the consequences of exceeding the three-month limit, which could entail penalties such as passport damage, bribery, or deportation orders. tinotenda’s testimony highlighted the complexities and risks associated with navigating the passport system through informal channels, emphasizing the punitive measures imposed on non-compliant migrants. the stories of migrants shared above showcase the ingenuity, resourcefulness, and nimble-footedness of individuals in navigating the complex system. they also navigating passports and borders: zimbabwean migrants in south africa 102 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 highlight the vulnerabilities and risks associated with such practices. nevertheless, it is crucial to acknowledge that borders are experienced differently by migrants seeking to enter and exit south africa. convivial social networks play a pivotal role in shaping how individuals encounter these borders, and hushamwari in deepening our understanding of migrants’ strategic navigation of life in south africa through their responses, practices, and social encounters. they give rise to disparities in the enjoyment of rights and access to basic services, often excluding migrants from full participation in society, complete with responsibilities and proportionate liabilities in the event of any wrongdoing (landau, 2014; landau and wanjiku, 2018; landau, 2020; misago and landau, 2022). even something as basic as using public spaces or simply moving about can be a challenging experience for migrants, particularly when they lack work or residence visas and have limited days on their entry visa. in response to these constraints, migrants devise strategies to challenge borders, hence the concept of nimble-footedness. according to erving goffman (1959), migrants’ actions result in practices where visibility and invisibility become strategic choices they must adopt to adapt to the south african reality. these strategies may also enable them to exploit the state’s ambivalence toward migration. drawing on the insights of french philosopher michel de certeau (1984), in such situations, migrants develop tactics that are contingent on time, necessitating constant vigilance for opportunities that must be seized. consequently, these tactics and methods for challenging borders assume a fundamental role in the lives of migrants. by integrating the concepts of nimble-footedness, conviviality, and hushamwari, we provide a comprehensive analysis of zimbabwean migrants’ experiences in obtaining passports in south africa. through their adept strategies and convivial practices, these migrants exhibit resilience and agency in the face of precarious conditions and irregular migration. conclusion this ethnographic foray into the liminal space of the south african border post exposes a complex social choreography. here, passport experiences, imbued with frustration and precarity, intertwine with the dynamics of the border itself, heavily influenced by restrictive immigration policies. we move beyond documentation of these experiences to analyze the interplay between passports and the embodied realities of zimbabwean migrants in south africa. formal application processes for passports transform into complex obstacles, particularly for those lacking digital literacy or internet access. this paves the way for a shadow economy, with intermediaries and brokers acting as both facilitators and potential exploiters. this highlights the urgent need for streamlined accessible passport issuance systems alongside robust anti-corruption measures. at the heart of migrants’ negotiation of this sophisticated landscape lie two pivotal strategies: nimble-footedness and conviviality. nimble-footedness extends beyond mere physical agility, emerging as a defining characteristic for these migrants. they adeptly navigate the bureaucratic terrain, decoding the actions and 103 expectations of border officials. this array of strategies encompasses a spectrum of actions, from forging social networks with diverse actors within the border space (nyamnjoh, 2013) to resorting to “illegal” pathways and bribery (mutendi and chekero, 2023). this continual negotiation with the boundaries of legality highlights the precariousness of their existence. the concept of precarity equates to what nyamnjoh (2022) terms incompleteness, becomes salient in this context. according to nyamnjoh (2015), the human condition is characterized by “incompleteness.” he argues that conviviality serves as a more effective strategy for “frontier africans” to enhance themselves and foster better relationships and sociality (nyamnjoh, 2015: 1) than emphasizing differences. nyamnjoh’s core argument posits that everything in the world and life possesses a degree of incompleteness: nature, the supernatural, humans, and human action and achievement. recognizing and embracing this inherent incompleteness constitutes a crucial aspect of conviviality. as advocated by nyamnjoh (2017), nowicka and heil (2015), and nowicka and vertovec (2014), conviviality – the cultivation of supportive social networks – emerges as a survival strategy. abby’s narrative exemplifies this concept, as her manipulation of passport stamps demonstrates the resourcefulness and vulnerability intrinsic to such tactics. these informal networks serve as a lifeline within a system structured to exclude. our research lays bare the exclusionary nature of south african immigration policies (lefko-everett, 2007). limited access to work visas forces dependence on temporary visas, with authorities tightening control measures (mbembe, 2017). this translates to shorter visa durations, hindering employment opportunities. migrants then navigate this landscape by strategically choosing border posts known for leniency, using informal networks for acquiring passport stamps, and relying on practices like “vaya vaya” extensions (chekero, 2023) – all testaments to their “swift and adaptive” responses to legal constraints. despite the inherent risks, securing a livelihood often takes precedence over legal documentation. this prioritization demonstrates the migrants’ agency and their constant challenge of the borders that seek to constrain them (landau, 2014). however, these experiences are far from uniform. social networks significantly shape encounters with the border, leading to disparities in access to basic rights and services (misago and landau, 2022). those lacking visas face constant hurdles in navigating public spaces and basic movement. while this study hails the ingenuity and resourcefulness of zimbabwean migrants, it is crucial to move beyond mere admiration. their strategies expose the vulnerabilities inherent in the current system. understanding nimble-footedness and conviviality is a critical step toward crafting policies that acknowledge the realities of migrant experiences. only then can we move toward a more just and inclusive society at the border and beyond. recommendations to improve the experiences of zimbabwean migrants, it is crucial to streamline administrative processes by enhancing the efficiency of online passport appointment navigating passports and borders: zimbabwean migrants in south africa 104 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 systems and increasing staff and resources at passport offices to ensure timely application processing. additionally, implementing regulations to oversee intermediaries and brokers can prevent exploitation and fraud, while educating migrants about legitimate application channels will help reduce reliance on these intermediaries. strengthening anti-corruption measures within embassy and consular services, and ensuring transparency in passport and visa processes, are essential for addressing inefficiencies and unethical practices. advocating for reduced passport fees will alleviate financial burdens, and training officials to handle migrants respectfully, alongside establishing robust complaint mechanisms, will improve treatment. developing support services to assist with bureaucratic challenges and fostering community networks for guidance will aid in migrants’ legal and social integration. further research on intermediary use and policy advocacy will inform necessary reforms, moving us toward a more just and inclusive society at the border and beyond. 105 references achilli, l. 2018. the “good” smuggler: the ethics and morals of human smuggling among syrians. the annals of the american academy of political and social science, 676(1): 77–96. alfaro-velcamp, t., mclaughlin, r., brogneri, g., skade, m. and shaw, m. 2017. getting angry with honest people: the illicit market for immigrant “papers” in cape town, south africa. migration studies, 5(2): 216–236. alpes, m.j. 2017. papers that work: migration brokers, state/market boundaries and the place of law. political and legal 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(eds.), international law’s objects. london: oxford university press, 2018 (forthcoming). engel, k. 2024. “its anti-migrant overtones are clear” – critics wade into sa’s beefed-up border management. daily maverick, 9 january. available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-01-09-sas-beefed-up-bordermanagement-slammed/. fernandez, b. 2013. traffickers, brokers, employment agents, and social networks: the regulation of intermediaries in the migration of ethiopian domestic workers to the middle east. international migration review, 47(4): 814–843. goffman, e. 1959. the moral career of the mental patient. psychiatry, 22(2): 123– 142. illich, i. 1973. tools for conviviality. new york: harper and row. infantino, f. 2023. the interdependency of border bureaucracies and mobility intermediaries: a street-level view of migration infrastructuring. comparative migration studies, 11(1): 1. jengwa, p. and rukanga, b. 2024. cyber-attack hits malawi’s immigration service. bbc, 22 february. available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/worldafrica-68366749 accessed on 7 june 2024. jones, k. and sha, h. 2020. mediated migration: a literature review of migration intermediaries, mideq working paper. london: coventry university. jones, k., sha, h. and bhuiyan, m.r.a. 2023. overcoming and reproducing inequalities: mediated migration in the “global south.” in the palgrave handbook of south–south migration and inequality. cham: springer, pp. 477–497. kariithi, n.k. 2017. media portrayal of immigration in the south african media, 2011-2015. working paper. the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma). 107 landau, l.b. 2014. urban refugees and idps. in fiddian-qasmiyeh, e., loescher, g., long, k. and sigona, n. (eds.), the oxford handbook of refugee and forced migration studies. oxford: oxford university press, pp.139–150. landau, l.b. 2020. laying sa’s woes at the feet of foreign nationals. news24, 09 october 2020. landau, l.b. and kihato, c.w. 2018. the future of mobility and migration within and from sub-saharan africa. espas foresight reflection paper series. lefko-everett, k. 2007. voices from the margins: migrant women’s experiences in southern africa. migration policy series no. 46. south african migration project (samp), cape town. available at: http://imrc.ca/wp-content/ uploads/2015/05/ps-46-voicesfrom-the-margins-migrant-womensexperiences-in-southern-africa.pdf. lloyd, m. 2003. the passport: the history of man’s most travelled document. stroud: sutton. macheka, s., lunga, w. and musarurwa, c. 2015. illegal migration by zimbabweans into south africa: is lack of documentation becoming a new humanitarian challenge?  journal of emerging trends in educational research and policy studies, 6(3): 250–256. marcus, g.e. 1995. ethnography in/of the world system: the emergence of multisited ethnography. annual review of anthropology, 24: 95–117. mawadza, a. 2012. the zimbabwean threat: media representations of immigrants in the south african media. unpublished phd thesis, university of the western cape. mawadza, a. and crush, j. 2010. metaphors of migration: zimbabwean migrants in the south african media. in crush, j. and tevera, d. (eds.), zimbabwe’s exodus: crisis, migration, survival. cape town and ottawa: southern african migration project (samp), international development research centre. mbembe, a. 2017. scrap the borders that divide africans. mail and guardian, march 17. available at: https://mg.co.za/article/2017-03-17-00-scrap-theborders-that-divide-africans. misago, j.p. and landau, l.b. 2022. “running them out of time”: xenophobia, violence, and co-authoring spatio-temporal exclusion in south africa. geopolitics, 28(4): 1–21. doi:10.1080/14650045.2022.2078707. morreira, s. 2020.  rights after wrongs: local knowledge and human rights in zimbabwe. california: stanford university press. moyo, h. 2022. zimbabwe at forty, usukhulile/wakura: interrogating the ihlazo and religio-cultural violations endured by zimbabwean female “illegal” migrants in south africa. in chitando, e., chirongoma, s. and  manyonganise, m. (eds.),  gendered spaces, religion and migration in zimbabwe. london: routledge, pp. 180–201. navigating passports and borders: zimbabwean migrants in south africa 108 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 moyo, i. 2020. on borders and the liminality of undocumented zimbabwean migrants in south africa. journal of immigrant and refugee studies, 18(1): 60–74. mushonga, r.h. 2024. performing conviviality in diverse and precarious urban spaces: everyday experiences of nigerian migrant entrepreneurs in downtown harare. urban geography, 45(2): 161–178. mutendi, m. and chekero, t. 2023. nimble-footed zimbabwean migrants: (im) mobility and the porousness of borders between south africa and zimbabwe during the covid-19 national lockdown. anthropology southern africa, 46(1): 21–33. northcote, m.a. 2015.  enterprising outsiders: livelihood strategies of cape town’s forced migrants. unpublished master’s thesis, university of western ontario. nowicka, m. and heil, t. 2015. on the analytical and normative dimensions of conviviality and cosmopolitanism. paper presented at humboldt university, 25 june 2015. nowicka, m. and vertovec, s. 2014. comparing convivialities: dreams and realities of living withdifference. european journal of cultural studies, 17(4): 341– 356. nyamnjoh, f.b. 2013. the nimbleness of being fulani. africa today, 59(3): 105– 134. nyamnjoh, f.b. 2015. amos tutuola and the elusiveness of completeness. stichproben. wiener zeitschrift für kritische afrikastudien, 15(29): 1–47. nyamnjoh, f.b. 2017. incompleteness: frontier africa and the currency of conviviality. journal of asian and african studies, 52(3): 253–270. nyamnjoh, f.b. 2019. icts as juju: african inspiration for understanding the compositeness of being human through digital technologies.  journal of african media studies, 11(3): 279–291. nyamnjoh, f.b. 2020a. decolonising the academy. oxford: african books collective. nyamnjoh, f.b. 2020b. a post-covid-19 fantasy on incompleteness and conviviality. in besteman, c., cabot, h. and kalir, b. (eds.), post-covid fantasies. available at: https://americanethnologist.org/features/pandemicdiaries/post-covidfantasies/a-post-covid-19-fantasy-on-incompletenessand-conviviality accessed on 27 july 2020. nyamnjoh, f.b. 2022. incompleteness: donald trump, populism and citizenship. oxford: african books collective. parliament of the republic of south africa. 2024. immigration amendment bill (b8-2024). available at: https://www.parliament.gov.za/bill/2318271. pendula. 2024. zimbabweans in south africa to pay premium fees for passports. 109 28 july. available at: https://www.pindula.co.zw/2024/07/28/zimbabweansin-south-africa-to-pay-premium-fees-for-passports/ rahman, m.m. 2012. bangladeshi labour migration to the gulf states: patterns of recruitment and processes. canadian journal of development studies, 33(2): 214–230. scalabrini centre of cape town. 2024. white paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection: towards a complete overhaul of the migration system in south africa. available at: https://www.scalabrini.org.za/wpcontent/uploads/2024/02/white_paper_submission_2024.pdf accessed on 13 june 2024. spener, d. 2009. clandestine crossings: migrants and coyote on the texas-mexico border. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. statistics south africa (stats sa). 2022. 60,6 million people in south africa. pretoria: statistics south africa. available at: https://www.statssa.gov. za/?p=15601 accessed on 21 august 2022. tawodzera, g. 2014. household food insecurity and survival in harare: 2008 and beyond. urban forum, 25(2): 207–216. thebe, v. 2017. “two steps forward, one step back”: zimbabwean migration and south africa’s regularising programme (zdp).  journal of international migration and integration, 18(2): 613–622. vanyoro, k. 2023. the political work of migration governance binaries: responses to zimbabwean “survival migration” at the zimbabwe–south africa border. refugee survey quarterly, hdad006. zanker, f.l. and moyo, k. 2020. the corona virus and migration governance in south africa: business as usual? africa spectrum, 55(1): 100–112. navigating passports and borders: zimbabwean migrants in south africa 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za the african human mobility review (ahmr) regularly provides up-to-date, highquality, and original contributions – research papers, reviews, and syntheses as well as book and conference reviews – dealing with all aspects (socioeconomic, political, legislative, and developmental) of human mobility in africa. ahmr is served by a very competent editorial board along with a network of scholars from all around the world and with an interdisciplinary field of study helping to secure high quality, originality, and utility of the contributions toward evidence-based policymaking. this issue consists of a book review and five articles that promote the practice of original research and policy discussions and provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns, and some of the most important migration-related issues in africa. daniel tevera made an insightful review of a book entitled migration in southern africa edited by pragna rugunanan and nomkhosi xulu-gama. the reviewer gave the entire work a critical and academic appraisal. he claims that the book addresses two flaws in migration and mobility studies in southern africa and it tries to facilitate migration studies through an africanist contextual framework. first, it critiques the tendency to perceive african rural-urban migration as benign, intimate, feminine, and local, while cross-border migration is considered risky, masculine, exploratory, and global. second, it foregrounds the plight of migrant children and the complicated situations that women with children find themselves in as both internal and international migrants, and highlights that these crucial areas remain neglected and under-researched. the reviewer further indicates that the different chapters of the book focus on the scholarship on the sociology and geography of migration and mobility in southern africa. the reviewer concludes that this book makes a significant contribution to migration and mobility studies and is well worth reading if one wants to comprehend south-south migration outside of the conventional western lens. the first article by farai nyika and debra shepherd is entitled impact of internal migration on school enrollment and completion rates in south africa. using a quantitative method of research, which involved the analysis of south african census data for 1996, 2001, and 2011, the researchers applied the probability regression models that include the first difference and system generalized method of moments with instrumental variables. accordingly, the study found that internal migrants have a positive effect on both school enrollment and completion rates of non-migrants. besides, the results of this study further indicate that internal migrants also provide job market competition, 4 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 which influences non-migrants to complete secondary schooling. the researchers argue that this study provides evidence from a country with a history of persistent internal migration. according to them, most prior research has focused on the relationship between immigration and education outcomes in the developed world. this study also suggests that the south african government should improve the quality of secondaryschool education in both rural and urban areas and increase study loans for students at tertiary institutions. the second article by sean sithole is entitled migrant networks, food remittances, and zimbabweans in cape town: a social media perspective. sithole applied quantitative and qualitative methods of research throughout the study and effectively identified the key evolving connections between migrant networking on social media and crossborder food remittances in southern africa. this study used a social capital theory to examine the utilization of social media in food remittances. the findings of this research uncovered the role of social media in facilitating a regular flow of food remittances back to urban and rural areas of zimbabwe. the study provides valuable insights for academics, researchers, and development practitioners interested in the evolving migration, remittances, and food security nexus in the global south. the third article by joseph makanda is entitled south africa’s counterinsurgency in cabo delgado: examining the role of mozambican migrants to establish a peoplecentric approach. methodologically, this paper is based on a qualitative study that relies on secondary data sources to offer a critical survey of the work done in the context of terrorism in cabo delgado. using the counterinsurgency theory, the research provides an in-depth analysis and argues for the inclusion of the voice of mozambican migrants in south africa. the result of this study indicates direct and indirect ways of securing the population’s support, thereby isolating the insurgents in mozambique. an awareness of the views of these migrants can shed light on what perpetuates the insurgency in mozambique. the study recommends new empirical studies that include the seemingly forgotten role of migrants, in a non-military and people-centered approach in seeking to undermine global terror networks. the fourth article by tunde alabi and bamidele olajide is entitled who wants to go where? regional variations in emigration intention in nigeria. this study investigated the factors associated with emigration intention and used a logistic regression model to describe data and to explain the relationship between variables. the analysis allowed the researchers to quantify the amount and direction of one or more independent variables on a continuous dependent variable. accordingly, the study discovered that having political involvement, residing in the south, having a college degree, often using the internet, and tolerating homosexual persons were all factors that enhanced the chances of having an emigration intention. however, being old, employed, and having religious tolerance reduced the odds of emigration intention. moreover, the study indicates that the regional models revealed notable differences in the influence of age, education, employment, tolerance, and political participation. the fifth article by gracsious maviza and lorena núñez carrasco is entitled mobility, gender, and experiences of familyhood among migrant families in tsholotsho, 5 zimbabwe. the research employed a qualitative research design to explore the views, experiences, beliefs, and motivations of individuals on how ongoing contextual transformations due to migration actively shape narratives about families. the qualitative research design helped to understand how families and familial relationships have been constructed through the everyday interactions and roles within the family. the findings of this research show that the meaning of family for left-behind women has remained confined to the normative parameters of kinship, biological, and marital ties. furthermore, the findings reveal that in the past, while away, migrant men’s familylinking practices were very minimal, and limited by distance. these assumptions notwithstanding, migrant men still thrived on maintaining links with their families to retain their dignity and legitimacy. best wishes and thank you in advance for your contribution to the journal of african human mobility review. 202 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 solving the cape town puzzle: class, politics, and migration in the informal food economy graeme young1 received 23 september 2024 / accepted 23 november 2024 / published 10 january 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i3.2440 abstract political empowerment possesses significant potential to facilitate the realization of economic inclusion by allowing marginalized groups to make claims on the state in the pursuit of justice and equality. this is particularly promising for individuals engaged in informal economic activity. cape town, south africa, is in many ways a model for this idea: following its post-apartheid democratization process, governments at the local, provincial, and national levels officially recognize the value of informality and have adopted policies to support it. yet persistent forms of exclusion for those who engage in informal economic activity remain. this article examines why this is the case. in doing so, it explores the forms of marginalization experienced by migrant and non-migrant workers in the cape town’s informal food economy and highlights the importance of three factors in explaining why democratization has not translated into greater inclusion: (1) the contours of inequality in the city; (2) the nature of local and national party politics; and (3) the specific dynamics that surround migration and informality. when seeking to translate institutional change into more inclusive forms of development, it emphasizes the importance of paying attention to both open democratic structures and processes and the forms of politics that fill them. keywords: informal economy, political rights, economic and social rights, development, south africa 1 school of social and political sciences,glasgow university, glasgow, united kingdom.  graeme.young.2@glasgow.ac.uk 203 introduction informal economic activity is inherently characterized by exclusion. given that it takes place at least in part outside of official legal and regulatory structures, those who engage in it cannot access the formal benefits of economic, social, and political life and the protections that it entails. a potentially promising source of empowerment is political rights, as they would not only guarantee basic forms of democratic participation for informal workers, but also, more specifically, facilitate their agency by ensuring that politicians are responsive to popular opinion and, under the right conditions, providing an incentive to pursue pro-poor policies. cape town provides an ideal setting in which to explore this relationship between political rights and economic and social rights. south africa has undergone a profound transformation since the end of apartheid. in the wake of high levels of direct state violence, political exclusion, exploitation, and impoverishment to maintain a hierarchical, racialized system dominated by, and for the benefit of, white south africans, the coming of democracy in 1994 saw a significant transformation of the south african state through the redesign and de-racialization of its core institutions and the introduction of a new social contract in which an extensive set of rights are notionally guaranteed. yet economic and social rights, despite existing in principle, are elusive in practice, as the country still struggles to overcome the legacies of its apartheid history. this is particularly true in cape town’s informal economy, where political rights have not translated into economic and social rights, creating what this article refers to “the cape town puzzle.” much work needs to be done if the promise of democratization is to be realized and fully benefit some of the most marginalized members of society. the informal economy is central to the livelihoods of migrants. according to a 2019 report by statistics south africa (stats sa), in 2017, 29.3% of migrants in south africa worked in the informal economy (stats sa, 2019: 46). while this represented a decline from 33.9% in 2012, it was still notably higher than comparable rates for nonmovers and internal migrants at 17.4% and 13.7%, respectively (stats sa, 2019).2 the consequences of this are profound. although, at 29.6%, a higher share of migrants aged 15–24 were classified as not in employment, education, or training (neet) in 2017, migrants had a significantly lower unemployment rather than both nonmovers and internal migrants, at 18.4%, 29.1%, and 25.8%, respectively, suggesting that the informal economy offers a crucial source of livelihood support (stats sa, 2019). as will be explored in this paper, the informal economy can provide certain forms of support that are uniquely valuable to migrants; it can also present challenges that migrants are uniquely vulnerable to. 2 this article uses the term “migrant” interchangeably with “immigrant,” the latter defined in the stats sa report referenced here (2019: 6) as “[a]n individual who was enumerated in a province in south africa (sa), but who indicated that they were not born in sa.” an internal migrant (referred to in the report as an “internal-migrant”), in contrast, is “[a]n individual who was born in a particular province, and was enumerated in a different province,” whereas a non-mover is “[a]n individual who was born in a particular province and was enumerated in the same province.” (stats sa, 2019: 6). solving the cape town puzzle: class, politics, and migration in the informal food economy 204 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 this article examines the failure to ensure economic and social rights for both non-migrants and, in particular, migrants in cape town’s informal economy, arguing that this can be attributed to the intersection of inequality, party politics and the realities of migration. stressing the importance of pairing a focus on protections for informal workers with a broader emphasis on formal employment and anti-poverty measures, it illustrates how the link between political inclusion and economic and social inclusion rests on core assumptions about how political systems operate and how voters and politicians behave within them, many of which do not hold in cape town, especially for migrants. economic and social rights, it maintains, must complement political rights if societies are truly to become more just and inclusive, and if those who have been most marginalized are to be meaningfully incorporated into forms of political, economic, and social life from which they have previously been excluded. the remainder of this article proceeds as follows: the next section presents a brief outline of the methodology employed in this study and defines its scope and significance. the following section explores south africa’s transition from an apartheid to a post-apartheid state, offering a brief overview of how both political rights and economic and social rights have been recognized in the country and discussing the extent to which they have been realized in practice. the following section examines how economic and social rights in cape town’s informal economy are defined by a failure to address issues surrounding poverty and unemployment that define informality and are particularly acute for migrants. attention is then turned to the question of why the realization of political rights has not facilitated a similar realization of economic and social rights in cape town’s informal economy. an explanation that is rooted in the intersection of inequality, the local and national political landscape in which governance occurs, and migration is offered, with a focus on the south africa general election of 2019. the article concludes by stressing the importance of pairing a focus on economic and social rights with political rights in the informal economy if, for the benefit of both non-migrants and migrants, the cape town puzzle is to be solved. methodology this article relies on several data sources to offer an analysis of the structural challenges to inclusion that migrants face in cape town’s informal food economy. most notably, it discusses the results of a survey of 450 migrant entrepreneurs in the informal food sector undertaken by the hungry cities partnership (hcp) in 2021–2022.3 this survey captures the considerable diversity that defines the informal food economy in cape town, detailing the responses of 262 male and 188 female respondents in 11 different areas throughout the city. reflecting the significance of cape town, and south africa more generally, as a hub for global south migration, particularly in 3 while the author was not involved in designing or carrying out this survey, he had previously worked with, and has subsequently rejoined, the hungry cities partnership. 205 sub-saharan africa, respondents came from at least 23 different countries: angola, bangladesh, burundi, cameroon, congo (brazzaville), the democratic republic of the congo, egypt, eswatini, ethiopia, ghana, india, kenya, lesotho, malawi, mozambique, nigeria, pakistan, rwanda, somalia, tanzania, uganda, zambia, and zimbabwe.4 respondents also conducted their businesses in a variety of locations: permanent stalls in markets; permanent stalls on the street; temporary stalls on the street; in vehicles; in containers; in spaza shops; in their homes; in customers’ homes; in a shop in a house, yard, or garage; in workshops or shops; in restaurants; in taxi ranks on the side of the road; in permanent structures in taxi or public transport stations; or elsewhere. some were mobile vendors with no fixed location. others used multiple locations. questions covered a broad range of issues concerning respondents’ backgrounds, experiences, and business activities, many of which are discussed in detail below. as this article places a significant emphasis on the nature of south african politics and involves an analysis of the 2019 south africa general election, it is worth briefly touching upon the 2024 general election and the potential significance of the drop in support for the ruling african national congress (anc) and the formation of a government of national unity. it is, at the time of writing, too early to know what these changes will mean for the political economy of informality in the country, and therefore in cape town, and how this will impact migrants in particular. the extent to which it points to a potential end of anc national hegemony in the country is uncertain, particularly as the decline in its vote share corresponded with the rise of umkhonto wesizwe, a party founded by disgraced former president and leader of the anc, jacob zuma, at the end of 2023. should this reflect a fundamental shift in voting behavior, and should it ultimately lead to more accountability, responsiveness, and effectiveness in governance through greater political competition, the trends discussed in this article may become a matter of historical rather than contemporary significance. observers of south african politics will surely look forward to seeing whether this transpires. in examining the experiences of migrants in cape town’s informal food economy, this article seeks to draw broader conclusions about the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in informal economies more generally. while this article refers to the cape town puzzle, the puzzle that it seeks to address – why greater political rights have not led to the realization of adequate economic and social rights in the informal economy, particularly for migrants – is relevant to cities across south africa and, in various ways, across the global south, given the extent to which it can shed light on obstacles to greater inclusion for a particularly marginalized segment of the urban population and potential pathways around these. the specific problems that it discusses are unique to cape town; inequality, party politics, informality, and migration, however, are not, and demand more attention in efforts to understand the circumstances in which democratization can ultimately lead to greater inclusion. 4 two respondents listed “other”. solving the cape town puzzle: class, politics, and migration in the informal food economy 206 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 the end of apartheid and democratization in south africa south africa’s post-apartheid constitution (rsa, 1996), as von holdt (2013: 592– 593) notes, emerged from an environment of heightened levels of state violence and struck an uneasy balance between the pressures of protecting property owners and the desire to address obvious forms of injustice. yet, adopted on 8 may 1996, it offers far-reaching rights protections. affirming the country as a “democratic state” (section 1), it contains a bill of rights that includes, among other provisions, the right to equality (section 9), human dignity (section 10) and the “freedom and the security of the person” (section 12; quoted from section 12(1)). the bill of rights explicitly outlines a list of political rights that are held by all south africans, including the right to form, participate in, and recruit members for a political party and campaign for a political party or cause; the right “to free, fair and regular elections for any legislative body established in terms of the constitution”; and the right to vote in any election for such a body through a secret ballot, to stand for public office, and to assume such an office if elected (section 19; quoted from section 19(2)). it also declares that south africans have the right “to choose their trade, occupation or profession freely” although this “may be regulated by law” and the provision notably refers to citizens rather than individuals more generally (section 22; also see young (2020, 9–10)). all south africans are “equally entitled to the rights, privileges and benefits of citizenship” and “equally subject to the duties and responsibilities of citizenship” (section 3(2)), a notable break from the apartheid era. these rights, however, are based on a foundation of citizenship, therefore placing non-citizen migrants outside of their protection. this is, in itself, unremarkable; indeed, a defining feature of citizenship is that it confers rights on those who hold it that others are excluded from. it also, however, places migrants in a position where they possess fewer rights than non-migrants, and from which they are therefore less able to make claims to the state for the basic protections they might otherwise expect. political rights in south africa have largely been realized. regular elections with universal franchise are held in the country at all levels of government, and, since the introduction of democracy in 1994, have been consistently won at the national level by the anc, the party that led the struggle against apartheid, with a majority of the vote, a notable achievement in a multiparty democracy.5 this record of upholding political rights compares favorably to much of sub-saharan africa (see, for example, freedom house, n.d.). the realization of economic and social rights, however, has seen less progress. the south african state has made efforts to address the racialized socio-economic disparities that have persisted since the end of apartheid, most notably through the program of black economic empowerment that encompasses efforts to promote employment equity and black ownership in the economy (southall, 2007). it also offers forms of direct livelihood support that can aid the most marginalized; of the over 18 million south africans receiving social 5 national vote totals from 1994 to 2019 are presented in schulz-herzenberg (2019: 464). 207 grants, relief assistance, or social relief in 2019, more than 16 million were black (based on statista, 2021). yet socio-economic inequality remains high and, although many black south africans have indeed seen significant, and sometimes dramatic, improvements in their socio-economic status, highly racialized. as seekings (2008: 7) notes, while a diverse economic elite and middle class now exists, the country’s working class is made up of mostly africans and the poor are almost universally african. the lived experience of poverty in the country remains high and has recently worsened, with an afrobarometer survey finding that the number of people who have gone without food, water, medicines or medical treatment, cooking fuel and cash income at least once in the past year increased between 2015 and 2018 (chingwete, 2019: 5) despite the fact that the constitution guarantees the right to “healthcare services” and “sufficient food and water” (sections 27(1)(a) and 27(1)(b)). south africa’s official unemployment rate in the third quarter of 2023 was 31.9%, up from 25.5% in the third quarter of 2015 (stats sa, 2023: 12); other estimates suggest that it surpassed the level it was at in 1994 in 2010 and now far exceeds what it was around the end of apartheid (world bank open data, n.d.-c). world bank data suggests that south africa is the most unequal country in the world (world bank open data, n.d.a),6 and that inequality levels, despite an uneven decline since peaking in 2005, were higher in 2014 than they were in 1993 (world bank open data, n.d.-b). the country’s cities remain deeply unequal and highly segregated, with the latter, seekings declared in 2008, providing “[p]erhaps the most striking evidence of the resilience of race” in the country (2008, 11; also see 11–14). using an alternative measure to the world bank, euromonitor international named johannesburg, the country’s largest city, as the most unequal in the world in 2017, with cape town fifth (razvadauskas, 2017).7 south africa’s democracy itself faces significant challenges. despite the country’s recent history of undemocratic rule, there are signs that its people are losing faith in its democratic institutions and processes. an afrobarometer poll found that only 54% of respondents in south africa in 2018 believed that democracy is preferable to any alternative form of government, down from 70% in 2011 and the fifth lowest figure for 34 african countries surveyed from 2016 to 2018 (dryding, 2020: 2–4). only 61% agreed that leaders should be chosen in “regular, open, and honest elections,” down from 83% in 2006 (dryding, 2020: 5), while 62% claimed to be willing to “give up regular elections and live” under a “non-elected government or leader” who “could impose law and order, and deliver houses and jobs” (dryding, 2020: 11). concerns about poor governance, corruption, and state capture compound the limited progress that governments at all levels have made in addressing the country’s ingrained socio-economic problems, making the apparent success of the country’s post-apartheid system appear increasingly less assured. south africa’s record of promoting and protecting a broad spectrum of human rights since the end of apartheid is therefore mixed. although extensive political 6 country figures vary by most recent year available. 7 this source uses the palma ratio to measure income inequality. the world bank data discussed above relies on the gini index. solving the cape town puzzle: class, politics, and migration in the informal food economy 208 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 rights and economic and social rights exist in principle, the latter often remain unrealized in practice. cape town’s informal economy provides useful insights into why this is the case and what its consequences might be. economic and social rights in cape town’s informal economy cape town’s informal economy illustrates many of the problems that have come to characterize the realization of rights in post-apartheid south africa for both migrants and non-migrants alike. the legacies of apartheid are again obvious. under apartheid, major restrictions were imposed on the ability of black south africans to engage in business activities, and those taking place in public places were heavily policed (skinner, 2019: 417–418). more broadly, black south africans were made to acquire permits to live and work in cities and could only do so if they had formal employment, while the state sought to control the growth of cities through forced relocations and, later, permitting the growth of peripheral urban areas to facilitate labor exploitation while maintaining separation (abrahams et al., 2018: 4–7). such overt and coercive efforts by the state to enforce socio-economic exclusion came to an end with the end of apartheid. their impact, however, remains. the policy landscape for governing informal economic activity has shifted considerably since the end of apartheid.8 the city of cape town (coct) has adopted an informal trading by-law and an informal trading policy, both of which are apparently centered on a “developmental approach” that seeks to integrate informal trading into urban development (coct, 2009, section 1.3; 2013, section 4.1.2.1 and section 5).9 stressing the “role that informal trading plays in poverty alleviation, income generation and entrepreneurial development” and acknowledging the “positive impact” that it “has on historically disadvantaged individuals and communities” (section 1.2), the informal trading by-law declares a “[f]reedom to engage in informal trading” throughout the city in accordance with relevant regulatory and legal provisions (section 4). despite these developments, however, problems remain that demonstrate the shortcomings of south africa’s transition. of crucial importance here is the fact that poverty and unemployment remain defining features of cape town’s informal economy. a survey of informal food vendors conducted by the hcp in 2017 found that the two most common reasons given by traders for entering the informal economy are the need for money for survival and the desire for greater family financial security, while the fifth most common reason is 8 for a detailed overview of these changes, see skinner (2019) and rogerson (2016a, 2016b). for an analysis of the various forms of governance that exist in cape town’s informal economy, with a focus on its informal food economy, see young (2020). 9 informal trading, as defined in the city’s informal trading policy and informal trading by-law, encompasses many, but not all, of the categories of informal trade engaged in by respondents to the hcp migrant informal food entrepreneur survey this paper discusses (as outlined in the methodology section). see coct (2009, section 3.1; and 2013, section 4.2). the informal trading policy employs a definition of the informal sector from the quarterly labour force survey encompassing both employers and employees and includes all relevant activity “which takes place on public space, or private land where it is included in a trading plan” (coct, 2013, section 2.1.1 and quoted from section 4.2.1). 209 unemployment and the inability to find a job.10 interestingly, while 57.7% of migrant food vendors in the later survey highlighted the need to find a job, more highlighted the desire to run their own business, the belief they had the right personality, the desire to do something new and challenging, the desire to learn new skills, the risk to challenge themselves, their desire to increase their status in the community, and the desire to have more control over their own time and be their own boss. still, needing money to survive and wanting to give family greater financial security were the two most popular choices, with the desire to make money to send to their home country coming in fourth behind control over time and being their own boss. the primary challenges that informal food vendors identified in the 2017 survey surround similar concerns, with over half of respondents citing a lack of customers (75.3%), too many competitors (69.4%), high prices charged by suppliers (66%) and poor sales (59.6%).11 these four are again the most significant obstacles highlighted by migrants, but at significantly higher rates: 89.2% for too few customers, 87.8% for too much competition, 89.8% for suppliers charging too much, and 88.7% for insufficient sales. poverty is central to explaining the trends that can be observed in these survey responses: individuals are driven into the informal economy due to livelihood needs, but the limited purchasing power of their potential customers and the oversupply of labor represent major problems once they are there (also see young, 2020: 20–22). despite the apparent goal of facilitating development, and although important protections are provided by the legislative and constitutional environment, the governance of informality in cape town can be heavily regulatory and, at times, coercive. the 2017 hcp survey of informal food vendors also found 11.5% reported often or sometimes having their goods confiscated by the police, 7.8% experienced harassment or demands for bribes from the police, 5.5% had been physically attacked or assaulted by the police and 4.1% had either experienced or had their employees experience arrest or detention (tawodzera and crush, 2019: 38). the later survey of migrant entrepreneurs suggests that these figures are notably higher for migrants and refugees, with 38.2% reporting confiscations, 17.7% reporting harassment or demands for bribes, 10.4% reporting physical attacks or assault, and 10.4% again reporting arrest or detention (also see tawodzera et al., 2015: 41). the city’s informal trading by-law requires all informal traders to hold a valid permit, provides an extensive list of the conditions under which informal trading can take place, and empowers officers to confiscate goods when these conditions are repeatedly violated.12 of 450 migrant entrepreneurs in cape town’s informal food economy surveyed, 10 tawodzera and crush (2019: 10). these results are also presented, along with a similar analysis to what is presented here, in young (2020: 20–21). this survey used a different definition of informality than the one that is presented in the informal trading by-law, as it includes traders in workshops or shops, homes and restaurants, none of which are mentioned in – although neither are they explicitly excluded from – the definition included in the by-law. these, however, remain a minority of respondents (see tawodzera and crush, 2019: 3–4; and coct, 2009, section 3). 11 the original table is presented in tawodzera and crush (2019: 38). it is reproduced with a slight disparity in figures in young (2020: 22). figures cited here are from the original. 12 coct, 2009. confiscations can take place following two written warnings. see section 18.2. also see young, 2020: 17 and 19. solving the cape town puzzle: class, politics, and migration in the informal food economy 210 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 only 11 had ever applied for a bank loan, and none were successful. none had ever accessed any support from the small enterprise development agency, the sector education and training authority, the department of trade and industry’s skills support programme, the south african micro-finance apex fund, khula enterprise finance limited, the national empowerment fund, or the industrial development corporation. only two had accessed covid-19 relief funds in the previous two years. the country’s lockdown during the covid-19 pandemic has complicated the permit process across south africa and, in some cases, led to punitive measures against traders who are deemed to be non-compliant (wegerif, 2020). the realities of cape town’s informal economy reveal significant legacies of apartheid that remain unaddressed. a considerable share of the country’s population, particularly migrants, still faces exclusion from the labor market. this has important spatial dimensions in cape town, as wealthier areas of the city have a lower population density and higher employment density, while the poorer cape flats have a higher population density and lower employment density.13 informality may be the only employment option where formal employment is absent. indeed, the informal economy may be the largest source of employment in the city (petersen and charman, 2018: 4). for those who enter the informal economy, spatial differences may make policies and regulations less suitable in townships than they are elsewhere, limiting the formalization of economic activities (scheba and turok, 2020). but a focus on informality as a source of entrepreneurialism,14 both in hcp work and elsewhere (also see tawodzera, 2019), raises a pertinent question: why is entrepreneurialism seen as a solution to poverty and unemployment for those who live in poorer parts of the city, while those in wealthier parts of the city can rely on formal employment? the enforcement of the laws and regulations that govern informal economic activity is also uneven across the city, with the city itself reporting in 2015 that 100% of informal traders were permitted in the central business district (cbd) and the wealthy southern suburbs compared to a range of 14% to 20% across the poorer cape flats.15 this suggests that informality is tolerated more in poorer areas of the city and more strictly regulated in wealthier business and residential areas. this can be understood in two ways. first, it suggests that the state is less interested in policing livelihood activities in poorer communities, a trend that, following holland, could be understood as an alternative form of welfare provision where official forms of social assistance are inadequate (holland, 2016; also see holland, 2017). alternatively, it suggests that the state is primarily interested in policing the activities of the poor when they take place in parts of the city where they are viewed as less desirable or essential. opposition to street vending, a major form of informal trading, as a global phenomenon is often driven by business interests and concerns about aesthetics and 13 see the image presented in city of cape town & the city of cape town’s transport and urban development authority (2018: 17). 14 the most influential neoliberal treatment of informality can be found in de soto (1989). skinner (2019: 417) suggests that it is possible that de soto’s book may have influenced a change in policy direction in south africa. 15 see the image presented in coct (2015: 49). divisions between parts of the city inferred by the author. for an exploration of this phenomenon in another context, see holland (2016: 240–242). 211 urban functionality, tying it inextricably to questions of class.16 these class concerns are highlighted further, as the geographical patterns of enforcement in cape town closely match the geographical patterns of employment and, again, the significant socio-economic divisions that exist in the city.17 a disconnect therefore exists between the realities of cape town’s informal economy and the official policies that exist to govern it. while current policies are apparently designed to offer support, the deep inequalities that exist within the city limit the extent to which the rights of those who engage in informal economic activity can be realized. more fundamentally, a rights-based approach must avoid the danger of conflating two related but separate problems. the first is how to guarantee economic and social rights for those who engage in informal economic activity. for informal traders, this entails providing the same rights protections that all are entitled to and, more specifically, allowing them to enjoy the right to engage in their activities under reasonable conditions that truly facilitate inclusive development. while the freedom to engage in informal trading may be recognized in cape town, the regulations that govern it must be designed and enforced in ways that facilitate, rather than constrain, the livelihoods of the poor and allow for the realization of the broad range of economic and social rights provided in the constitution (rsa, 1996). the second issue surrounds the question of whether informality itself is the result of a lack of economic and social rights for the urban poor, as a combination of poverty and unemployment drive them into precarious livelihood activities with an, at best, ambiguous status before the law that leaves them vulnerable and marginalized. if this is in fact the case, then a rights-based approach requires not only protections and forms of livelihood support for those who freely choose to engage in informal economic activity, but also concerted efforts to address the fundamental rights issues that compel individuals to enter the informal economy in the first place (young, 2020: 20–22). this appears to be more in line with the “right to work” outlined in article 6 the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (icescr) and the obligation that it contains for states to take proactive measures to pursue full employment. it is also in line with the three tasks outlined in the international labour organization’s (ilo) recommendation 204, adopted in 2015: to promote formalization while respecting the rights and opportunities of those who engage in informal economic activity, to similarly promote the creation and protection of formal sector jobs through coordinated policy measures and to prevent the informalization of employment in the formal economy (ilc, n.d., paragraph 1). yet, despite an apparent commitment to economic and social rights that is embedded in the foundations of the post-apartheid south african state, formal employment opportunities for the urban poor are patently inadequate. 16 arguments commonly employed against (and for) street vending are presented in bromley (2000). for competition with formal businesses, see setšabi and leduka (2008). also see young (2017: 724–727). 17 see, for example, the socio-economic index illustrated in city of cape town & the city of cape town’s transport and urban development authority (2018: 28). details of the index are supplied on page 27. solving the cape town puzzle: class, politics, and migration in the informal food economy 212 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 solving the cape town puzzle an explanation for why the realization of political rights has not led to a full realization of economic and social rights for non-migrants and, particularly, migrants in cape town’s informal economy is therefore necessary. if the urban poor can exercise influence over policy by participating in democratic processes, then one might expect the outcomes of these processes to be more closely aligned with their interests. political inclusion, one might expect, should promote economic and social inclusion. there is indeed an increasing realization that democratic institutions and processes can play a crucial role in improving the governance of informality. there are, broadly conceived, three stages at which democratic processes can influence policy outcomes: 1. elections: eligible citizens can vote for representatives who articulate policy positions that are in line with their interests (see, for example, agarwala, 2013). 2. policymaking: individuals or groups united by common interests can lobby governments in the pursuit of desired policy outcomes. 3. policy implementation: official policies can be blocked or negotiated when they are put into practice.18 a coherent argument that links more inclusive political institutions and processes with the realization of economic and social rights in the informal economy entails important assumptions about how political inclusion can translate into economic and social inclusion. these can be defined as follows: a. political systems: 1. a majority supporting inclusion or a minority supporting inclusion forms a key voting group 2. institutions translate support for inclusion into representation 3. institutions translate representation into policy 4. policies are implemented b. voters: 1. vote based on policy 2. make informed policy decisions 3. prioritize informality 4. can meaningfully back alternative candidates (i.e., political competition exists) 18 the significance of the disconnect between the existence and enforcement of laws and regulations that govern informality is often highlighted. see, for example, cross (1998) and holland (2016). 213 c. politicians: 1. prioritize re-election 2. believe actions will have electoral consequences many of these assumptions do not hold in cape town; and the reasons they do not lie in the intersection of inequality, politics, and migration. first, and most notably here, migrants often lack the ability to vote, meaning that the basic ability that those in the informal economy to exert political influence through electoral pressure simply does not hold.19 the migrants surveyed by hcp in 2021–2022 had a combination of permits for visitors, refugees, asylum seekers, and permanent residents, while some had no official status.20 the south african constitution (rsa, 1996) grants the right to vote to all adult citizens; non-citizens lack such a right (section 19(3)). if migrants are to exercise political influence through voting, they have to become south african citizens first. as highlighted above, cape town remains defined by socio-economic divisions that, due to apartheid, have major and remarkably entrenched geographic dimensions, and these geographic dimensions are particularly important for the poverty and unemployment trends that underpin the city’s informal economy and the enforcement patterns that characterize its governance. these deep socioeconomic divisions have significant political implications. political rights do not exist in a vacuum. instead, they are exercised in both institutional environments made up of the various government structures that exist in a particular place and the political landscape that emerges within that environment. to understand how they are realized or constrained in practice, therefore, it is necessary to understand politics. in south africa, at the national level, that requires understanding the political hegemony of the anc. even without interrogating the nature of the anc’s power or the forms of governance it adopts, it is unlikely that such single-party dominance is conducive to democratic accountability.21 the assumptions about political inclusion translating into economic and social inclusion outlined above are premised on the existence of electoral competition that will result in incumbents losing power if they are not responsive to public opinion and fail to achieve desired policy outcomes. this has manifestly not occurred in south africa, despite declining levels of satisfaction with democracy and service delivery and falling levels of political trust.22 the fact that the anc is able to maintain its national political dominance despite poor performance deserves further scrutiny. the anc has been criticized for becoming unaccountable, abusing its power and abandoning its liberationist 19 holland (2017) recognizes this issue in her theory of forbearance. 20 many also declined to answer. 21 see schulz-herzenberg (2019: 463–464). for an examination, and ultimately a critique, of the “dominant party” approach to the anc, see southall (2014: 332–333). for a further critique of the anc’s dominance, see friedman (2015). 22 the significance of these three trends on voting intentions is analyzed in roberts et al. (2019: 490–492). the authors find these “regime evaluations” less significant than “psychological engagement” and certain “socio-demographic factors”; see pp. 493–495. solving the cape town puzzle: class, politics, and migration in the informal food economy 214 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 roots during its time in office,23 while the neopatrimonial nature of its politics are deeply ingrained (lodge, 2014). two salient points of critique are adopted here in relation to the possibility that it will address the economic and social rights of those who engage in informal economic activity: that its electoral dominance has indeed limited the extent to which it responds to popular input; and that it lacks a strong record of protecting workers (di paola and pons-vignon, 2013). the party’s 2019 election manifesto contains a pledge to finalize a new social security plan that will include formal traders (anc, 2019: 30), but, while this may prove to be beneficial, other policy proposals for the country’s informal economy are absent while the plan to create an additional 275,000 jobs a year appear unconvincing, given the party’s longstanding failures to address unemployment (anc, 2019: 11). its manifesto also pledges to “[t]ake tough measures against undocumented immigrants involved in crime, including illegal trading in townships” (anc, 2019: 35) and to “[w]ork with other countries to create incentives for immigrants to stay within their own borders” (anc, 2019: 43), illustrating the political environment that migrants operate in. yet despite its obvious failings and failures, the anc remains a remarkably successful electoral force. while it is not possible to reduce electoral politics in south africa to simplistic understandings of the country’s racial divisions,24 particularly as the growing black middle class demonstrates less commitment to the anc,25 a poll conducted by the pew research centre ahead of the 2019 elections found that 73% of black south africans still hold favorable views of the anc, in contrast to only 27% of white and 30% of coloured voters (tamir and budiman, 2019). racial divisions are still the defining feature of inequality in south africa, and it is this intersection of race and inequality, a legacy of a long history of discrimination culminating in apartheid, that has significant electoral resonance and serves as a major obstacle to equal rights protections in the country. the 2024 general election may ultimately prove to have shaken this dynamic, but it has likely failed to fundamentally transform it. local politics in cape town and provincial politics in the western cape, where the coct is located, are, in contrast, dominated by the democratic alliance (da). the da is also a more explicitly neoliberal party than the anc. in its manifesto for the 2019 elections (2019: 26), it included providing “targeted support for microentrepreneurs in the informal economy” as the fifth of its six-point small business development plan. however, it again adopts a neoliberal framing of informality as entrepreneurship, focusing on, beyond promises for a comprehensive survey and the development of a code of good practice for engagement, legal and regulatory reforms, “including property rights and the ability to enforce contracts”; providing trading spaces as the party has done where it is in power, including, implicitly, cape town; and easing the registration process. it claims that informality represents “economic activity happening organically in a country where economic activity 23 for different treatments of the anc, see southall (2014). 24 for a critical overview of research on south african elections, see everatt (2016: 51–53). 25 this also has spatial dimensions, although rule (2018: 152–154) finds these are less prominent in cape town than they are in johannesburg. 215 is relatively scarce,” but a framing that focuses on poverty and unemployment is conspicuously absent. the problems of unemployment, “stagnant growth, grinding poverty and worsening inequality” are highlighted in the party’s plan – the cornerstone of the manifesto – to create jobs, but employment again seems to be secondary to entrepreneurialism (2019: 10). describing the party’s “approach to broad-based empowerment” (2019: 19) as part of its plan for “[e]conomic justice for all” (2019: 18), it proposes to reward companies that create employment as “ultimately, if you can’t be an entrepreneur, the best form of real empowerment is to get your foot on the ladder of opportunity through a job” (2019: 20). the da criticizes the anc government for its apparent failures on migration policy, stressing that “south africa desperately needs skills and is, and should continue to be, a cosmopolitan country with residents from across the globe and the african continent. but this migration must happen in a legal manner” (2019: 72). it claims that “[s]killed immigrants, traders and business people will be welcome in our country” and that “traders who enter the country to do business and receive supplies [will be] regularized and/or receive specialised trading permits” (2019: 73). if the da’s ideological commitments incline it to view informality through a neoliberal lens, it is important to note that cape town’s electoral geography provides it with few incentives to change course. as rule (2018: 154–155) found in an analysis of the 2016 local elections, the ward demographics in cape town that correlate most strongly with support for the da are speaking english or afrikaans, a larger white population, a larger coloured population, satellite television ownership, higher median age and higher median income earners. support for the anc, in contrast, correlates most strongly with speaking isixhosa, a larger black african population, residents in informal dwellings and the multiple poverty index, while support for the economic freedom fighters (eff), an avowedly “radical and militant economic emancipation movement” is correlated most strongly with a larger black african population and speaking isixhosa.26 the da is less reliant on voters from poorer parts of the city than voters from wealthier areas.27 if informality can be understood in class terms and its governance can be seen to represent particular class interests over others, then a party in government that prioritizes re-election might be expected to pursue the interests of its electoral base that will fundamentally be tied to class. if doing so can be framed in accordance with pre-existing ideological principles, then the likelihood of deviation should be expected to be reduced further. this, it seems, is the reality facing the da in cape town. south african politics displays a considerable degree of what is referred to here as “electoral stickiness,” or the slow or limited response of voting behavior in line with policy preferences to changing political conditions. there are signs that this is perhaps changing, but these provide few reasons for optimism. while partisan loyalties are declining, abstentions from voting are rising (schulz-herzenberg, 2019: 26 economic freedom fighters (eff) (n.d.: 6). as above, the page number used here is based on the document pages when viewed online. 27 see the spatial patterns of voting in the city discussed in rule (2018: 150–152). solving the cape town puzzle: class, politics, and migration in the informal food economy 216 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 471–472). this could indicate that voters increasingly feel that their votes will be inconsequential. as roberts et al. (2019: 488–490) illustrate, faith in the political efficacy of voting has experienced a long-term decline, and, along with levels of political interest and a sense of duty to vote in principle, is lower among those who abstain from voting. they also found that that young people are more likely to abstain from voting (roberts et al., 2019: 487–488, 492–495). of equal concern, everatt (2016: 61-63) found that the poor may be becoming less likely to register or to vote; while this, given their tendency to vote for the anc in large numbers coupled with the expansion of a black middle class that may be less inclined to support the ruling party, could lead to greater political competition, it is not a welcome trend. it is also particularly consequential for the prospects of the poor to translate their political rights into the realization of economic and social rights. in relation to the assumptions about how political inclusion is translated into economic and social inclusion outlined above, therefore, one can observe several ways in which politics in post-apartheid south africa falls short. those who might desire greater protections for the rights of those who engage in informal economic activity, either through support for informal trading or through greater efforts to promote formal employment, would face significant obstacles in any effort to influence policy. at the national level, the ruling party has become unresponsive and increasingly unable to improve the lives of the poor, but it nevertheless continues to be successful in elections, even if its fortunes are diminishing. the pathway from popular opinion – if indeed greater inclusion for those in the informal economy commands popular support or would allow for the formation of an important interest group – to policy is frayed, but politicians in the anc, on the whole, have not suffered major consequences. at the local level, the da’s ideological commitments cause it to view informality in a way that is disconnected from concerns about poverty and unemployment, and it, too, has few electoral reasons to change its position. this political landscape interacts with, and is shaped by, a socio-economic context in which extreme levels of inequality are both racialized and spatialized. these inequalities have proven intractable since the end of apartheid. the failure to address economic and social rights has been followed by a politics that has so far been unable to address economic and social rights. profound structural inequalities remain at the heart of south african democracy and the biggest obstacle to the realization of the ambitions of equality that accompanied the country’s transition. conclusions south africa’s post-apartheid politics has failed workers in the country’s informal economy. despite the significant benefits that democratization has brought, a combination of inequality, party politics, and migration have limited possibilities for greater inclusion. in a content defined by marginalization, migrants face more challenges than most: an inability, in most cases, to vote leaves them without traditional means of formal political influence and makes them easy targets for the 217 type of xenophobic politics that south africa has long struggled with. the cape town puzzle may be solvable in theory, but it persists in practice. the extent to which the 2024 general election may offer meaningful change, or at least serve as an early sign of meaningful change to come at some point in the future, remains to be seen. the government of national unity quickly put “the achievement of rapid, inclusive and sustainable economic growth to create jobs” “[a]t the top of the list of priorities” that it has (rsa, 2024). much the same has been promised in the past, however, and little has been delivered. it is unlikely that the assumptions that link political inclusion to economic and social rights in the informal economy have been brought about by a single, albeit significant, election result. more change is likely needed for the promise of south africa’s democratization to be realized. for migrants in cape town’s informal food economy – indeed for all south africans – that change cannot come soon enough. solving the cape town puzzle: class, politics, and migration in the informal food economy 218 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 references abrahams, c., everatt d., van den heever, a., mushongera, d., nwosu, c., pilay, p., scheba, a. and turok, i. 2018. south africa: national urban policies and city profiles for johannesburg and cape town. centre for sustainable, healthy and learning cities and neighbourhoods. available at: http://www.centreforsustainablecities.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/research-report-southafrica-national-urban-policies-and-city-profiles-for-johannesburg-andcape-town.pdf. african national congress (anc). 2019. let’s grow south africa together: anc election manifesto: people’s plan for a 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estimate) – south africa. available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sl.uem.totl.zs?locations=za. young, g. 2017. from protection to repression: the politics of street vending in kampala. journal of eastern african studies, 11(4): 714–733. available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2017.1378448. young, g. 2020. reconceptualizing informal economic governance: implications from cape town, south africa. hcp discussion paper no. 38. hungry cities partnership. available at: https://hungrycities.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/dp38.pdf. solving the cape town puzzle: class, politics, and migration in the informal food economy 3 editorial ___________________________________________________________________________________ professor mulugeta f. dinbabo editor-in-chief, african human mobility review (ahmr) university of the western cape email: editor@sihma.org.za on behalf of the editorial team, we are pleased to present volume 11, number 2, 2025, of the african human mobility review (ahmr). this issue features original, high-quality research papers, exploring diverse aspects of human mobility across africa. with the support of the editorial board and a global network of interdisciplinary scholars, ahmr continues to offer timely and relevant scholarship that informs evidence-based policymaking and deepens the understanding of migration on the continent. we extend our sincere thanks to all contributors, authors, our publisher, and the anonymous reviewers whose rigorous efforts uphold the journal’s academic integrity. this issue includes five peer-reviewed articles that foster original research, stimulate policy dialogue, and provide a platform for examining current trends, migration dynamics, and critical issues shaping mobility in africa. our commitment remains to elevate ahmr’s global presence and scholarly impact with each publication. the first article by tigist solomon, darge wole, and abebaw minaye is entitled “knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in wolaita sodo, southern ethiopia: insights from the origin community.” using a mixed-method research approach, this study explores knowledge and attitudes toward child trafficking among residents of wolaita sodo town, southern ethiopia. the findings reveal that the majority of participants lacked adequate knowledge about child trafficking, with the qualitative results supporting this finding. residents showed empathy and a willingness to prevent trafficking but often viewed migration as an opportunity, thus complicating awareness. the study recommends targeted education, community campaigns, school programs, and local engagement to improve understanding. future research should examine broader prevention strategies, policy frameworks, and cultural factors, while incorporating victims’ lived experiences to deepen insight into child trafficking and enhance community-driven solutions. the second article by inês raimundo and victor agadjanian is entitled “rowing against climate adversity and lack of family support: the everyday lives of migrants’ wives in rural mozambique.” using a mixed-methods approach, this study examines rural women’s experiences in the face of climate adversity and declining family support. for decades, these women relied on income from their husbands’ migrant labor in south africa to sustain farming and household needs. however, 4 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 reduced labor migration and increasing climate shocks had severe impacts on their livelihoods. traditional support from family, neighbors, and churches diminished, leaving many isolated and without alternative income. the study indicates that rural women regularly suffer various types of stress and physical illnesses. the study also reveals that the worsening situation has serious psychosocial effects, deepening rural women’s vulnerability and limiting their children’s educational opportunities. the third article by kevin oduor, edwin abuya, and martin ouma is entitled “constraints and prospects of faith-based refugee protection in kakuma refugee camp, kenya.” using a qualitative research design, this article explores the challenges, solutions, and opportunities specific to faith-based organizations (fbos) engaged in refugee protection. drawing from in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and field observations conducted at kakuma refugee camp in kenya, the study highlights fbos’ unique role as consistent, early responders to conflict and displacement. unlike broader studies on refugee protection, this article focuses solely on fbos, emphasizing their recognized importance in the global compact on refugees (gcr). the findings reveal that while fbos face unique obstacles, these can be addressed through strategic and operational adjustments. their contributions remain highly valued by refugees, host communities, and humanitarian actors. the study calls for stronger collaboration between fbos, the unhcr, and states, including increased support for islamic fbos in kakuma. it also recommends expanding research into fbos’ roles in urban refugee settings and addressing issues of inclusion and perceived discrimination in camp environments. the fourth article, authored by perfect mazani is entitled “cross-border solidarity: migrant-led associations as spaces of epistemic resistance and food security innovation in south africa.” using household surveys and qualitative indepth interviews, this paper examines how migrant-led social movements serve as sites of agency, resilience, and resistance against marginalization imposed by state policies and academic narratives. these nationally connected solidarity networks support food security, livelihoods, and socio-emotional well-being through group savings, mutual aid, and rotating credit schemes. focusing on south african communities, the research shows these associations as both survival strategies and collective acts of resistance that challenge dominant migration discourses. embedded in migrants’ daily lives, these networks create new governance and care practices rooted in trust and reciprocity, fostering social belonging and epistemic justice. finally, the study calls for the developers of migration and food security policies to recognize migrants as active agents and for a decolonial, inclusive approach led by migrant knowledge and solidarity practices. the fifth article by sky kruger and shazia sader is entitled “strengthened or sidelined? an evaluation of pledges to eradicate statelessness in the southern african development community.” based on a review of literature on the global compact on refugees and the development turn in forced displacement, this paper examines statelessness in the southern african development community (sadc) 5 editorial region. it focuses on the underexplored pledging system and its role in addressing statelessness. the paper finds that the pledging system’s impact depends largely on states’ political will to enact inclusive laws and improve civil registration. however, the system lacks enforcement, monitoring, and mandatory reporting, thus limiting its effectiveness. despite some progress, the pledging system has yet to secure sufficient resources or broad multi-stakeholder engagement. the study calls for urgent state commitment and collaboration to eradicate statelessness in the region. finally, i invite researchers, academics, and students to connect with us and explore new, impactful research areas that hold increasing social and practical significance across diverse disciplines. we look forward to receiving original and valuable contributions that advance knowledge in this journal. a heartfelt thank you goes to our dedicated editorial team, anonymous reviewers, and all authors who have submitted their work to our journal. your efforts and commitment are greatly appreciated and essential to the continued success and growth of our publication. 56 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 protection of the rights of ethiopian and drc refugees and asylum seekers: examining the role of south african ngos (2005–2017) meron okbandrias1 received 22 september 2022 / accepted 04 august 2023 / published december 2023 doi: https://doi.org/10.14426/ahmr.v9i3.1168 abstract the south african asylum system has gone through a dynamic change over the last twenty years and ngos have been a permanent feature of the system starting from the crafting of the refugees act. over the last decade, the flow of asylum seekers has slowed, but the country still hosts a significant number of african and asian asylum seekers and refugees. as a result of the many factors, asylum seekers and refugees face a multitude of challenges. some of the challenges include inefficient public service, a corrupt system, xenophobia, and other challenges. ngos have championed the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. this paper looks at the work that has been done by ngos working in the protection of the rights of asylum seekers and refugees from 2005 to 2017, utilizing the case study of the 40 ethiopian and 37 democratic republic of the congo nationals residing in johannesburg and durban through interviews. the researcher collected additional primary data from selected ngos and analyzed both data sets through descriptive statistics. the findings indicate that ngos have their areas of speciality, and their roles has changed over the course of the 12 years from being cooperative with state actors to mostly a combative role to ensure and protect the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. their effectiveness has also been impacted as a result, and litigation has not always been effective. asylum seekers and refugees find ngos effective to a certain extent, but a significant number of them are not aware of ngos or the work they do. keywords: ethiopia, democratic republic of the congo, refugees, asylum seekers, ngos, south africa, rights 1 school of government, university of the western cape, south africa.  mokbandrias@uwc.ac.za 57 introduction there is no doubt that the issues surrounding asylum seekers and refugees in a twenty-first-century context (more especially within south africa) are extremely relevant considering the dynamic nature of this area in international relations and the steady flow of migrants into the country. in the last 25 years, and in particular after the country’s democratic transition, this field has seen major legislative changes and faced many challenges. of particular concern are the continuous incidences of xenophobia in their covert and overt forms, especially the 2008 and 2015 xenophobic attacks. the department of home affairs (dha), plagued by chronic corruption, is mismanaging the process of implementing the country’s refugees act (no. 130 of 1998), with some asylum seekers stuck in the process for over 10 years. despite the constitutional and legislative protection guaranteeing the rights of asylum seekers and refugees, government assurance, a robust judicial system, and civil society activism, it remains a hugely challenging environment. for instance, the south african government's coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) control efforts, which included a national lockdown, exacerbated the country's systemic discrimination against asylum seekers and refugees. it is well-demonstrated in the south african government's failure to include this disadvantaged group in economic-, poverty-, and hunger-reduction programs, which caused these individuals to develop poor coping mechanisms, resulting in mental health disorders and secondary-health problems (mukumbang et al., 2020). these challenges can be explained and articulated on many levels. on the one hand, there is the continuing challenge to the universally guaranteed rights of refugees and asylum seekers, especially in south africa (united nations, 2011; kavuro, 2016). on the other hand, there are structural socio-economic factors that become real or perceived reasons for begrudging migrants, especially those from the rest of africa (ngwenya et al., 2018; unctad, 2018; bjarnesen and turner, 2020). the question of why one should focus on the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in a study, when there are many other marginalized sectors of south african society, is a critical one. after all, south africans suffer with similar problems like accessing social services and other problems. however, it becomes necessary to engage in a study around this community given that the ability of refugees and asylum seekers to claim substantive rights while residing in south africa is limited, despite the national legislative framework granting them certain rights (kavuro, 2016; nicholson and kumin, 2017; mukumbang et al., 2020; moyo and botha, 2022; rugunanan and xulu-gama, 2022). this state of affairs poses a unique challenge for non-governmental organizations (ngos) advocating for their rights and monitoring the implementation of policies and processes that are meant to benefit them. this research explores whether ngos in the refugee sector assist refugees and asylum seekers in south africa to claim their rights in a substantive manner. furthermore, it examines how effective the ngos are in accessing their rights according to south african and international law. protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers: the role of south african ngos 58 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 role of ngos in protecting the rights of refugees and asylum seekers according to cameron (2000), ngos as civil-society institutions negotiate with market and state agents to ensure their sustainability and in so doing, increase the certainty of livelihoods for the most vulnerable. in this instance, the most vulnerable are refugees and asylum seekers. ngos undertake three roles: as implementers, catalysts, and partners (lewis, 2006). in south africa, the civic-state engagement can be categorized in three ways (handmaker, 2009): • participatory engagement: civic societies, such as lawyers for human rights (lhr), participated in the government-driven process of drafting refugee policy. this (sometimes confrontational) cooperation occurred from 1996 to 1998 and culminated in the drafting of the 1998 refugees act. it was a two-track process in which civil society discussions fed into the government-led process. the lhr brought its legal and civic expertise in human rights protection to the discussion and the drafting of the legislation. • cooperative interaction: there are instances when international and local civil society engage with the south african government; for example, in efforts to regularize the residential status of mozambican refugees. south africa hosted hundreds of thousands of mozambican refugees, some of whom were repatriated with the help of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), while others were deported or remained in the country without legal documentation. during 1999 and 2000, civil society made a significant contribution to legalizing their stay. • confrontational engagement: civic advocacy holds the state accountable by taking legal action to challenge the state’s decisions and to ensure that the government complies with constitutional and administrative law. the state has previously been challenged by many ngos on refugees and asylum seekers’ access to social services, fair procedure in status determination, and unfair detention and deportation. confrontational civic advocacy has also been directed at non-state actors. a case in point was the confrontational advocacy against financial institutions regarding refugees and asylum seekers’ access to banking. since the establishment of the unhcr in 1950, there has been an acute awareness and focus on the rights of refugees as a specific category of vulnerable people. however, there is no historical evidence of the presence of ngos specifically dealing with refugees, before the existence of the unhcr and its predecessor, the international refugee organization (iro). the international protection of the majority of the world’s refugees has traditionally been in the domain of the unhcr. since the 1980s, ngos with a refugee protection and assistance mandate started to emerge. that was partly because of their dissatisfaction with the role of the unhcr, 59 which was magnified in the mid-1990s during the genocide in zaire, tanzania, and rwanda. according to van mierop (2004): humanitarian ngos publicly questioned how unhcr could execute its mandate in such a situation. several of them published reports or made public statements in which they denounced violations of the rights of rwandan refugees, and there were even a few ngos that left the camps in tanzania and zaire. since the end of the 1990s, the role of ngos in south africa has increased from participation in the drafting of the refugees act of 1998 to litigation on behalf of asylum seekers and refugees (nicholson and kumin, 2017). the role of ngos has never been more magnified than during the xenophobic attacks of 2008 and 2015 (maharaj, 2009; robins, 2009; mantzaris and ngcamu, 2021). to understand the dynamics of xenophobia in south africa, we need to consider the economic and social processes that result in uneven capital accumulation patterns within and between the local black populations and african immigrants, as outlined in amisi et al. (2011). xenophobia arises under conditions of economic stresses (amisi et al., 2011). south africa has been experiencing some of the world’s worst economic disorders and inequality since the end of apartheid and is currently ranked as the world’s most unequal country (chutel and kopf, 2018; beaubien, 2019;). this was brought about by rising inequality, measured by the country’s increasing gini coefficients (from .66 in 1994 to .70 in 2008), resulting in far higher unemployment (from 16% in 1994 to 20% in 2010) and worsening urban poverty (frye et al., 2011). during those severe economic periods, the locals struggled to sell their products within a strong competitive environment; thus, they jealously protected production processes. in 2008 and in 2015, the world watched in horror as south africans turned against immigrants from other parts of the continent, killing, raping, and leaving tens of thousands homeless (everatt, 2011; nwakunor and nwanne, 2018; mantzaris and ngcamu, 2021). in response to the xenophobic violence, civil society organizations (csos) played a critical role in organizing resources and influencing public opinion, while state agencies seemed unable to respond to this crisis, either at scale or at appropriate speed. according to everatt (2011), civil society appeared with flexible, innovative, and creative structures to reinforce social justice networks for immigrants. the immediate response from various ngos when the violence began in may 2008 was their call for more civic “education,” usually about human rights, the plight of refugees, and the role that neighboring societies played in hosting south african exiles during the apartheid era (amit, 2011). there is an absence of more considerable government and political enthusiasm in relation to the protection of refugees’ rights in the south african landscape. nevertheless, there has been a high degree of civil society empathy for the conditions refugees find themselves in, within the context of social rights in south africa (misago et al., 2015). the south african government has chosen to deny reality to avoid dealing with an uncomfortable truth. according to crush (2008), the south african constitution protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers: the role of south african ngos 60 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 has been extensively praised as being among the most progressive and inclusive in the world in protecting citizens’ rights. however, it is clear that these rights do not extend to everyone living in the boundaries of the nation-state. two sets of rights are deliberately reserved for south african citizens: (a) the right to vote; (b) the right to engage in freedom of trade, occupation, and profession (crush, 2001); the latter has been successfully challenged in court. one thus assumes that all other rights should be extended to “all persons” in the country. for that reason, the role of civil society organizations in relation to refugee rights has been substantial. noteworthy are the unhcr and other donors who sponsored national ngos that acted as a lobby groups for refugees, supported each individual case, and attempted to oppose xenophobia through various channels (amisi et al., 2011). civil society also supported a variety of ngos and service providers with temporary accommodation and basic food supplies for refugees, to protect their right to dignity. the constitution also states that all persons in the country have the right to shelter and access to food. however, there were challenges in attempts to bring together service providers and refugee communities, especially as this related to the power of south african-dominated ngos, which did not serve the interests of refugees’ rights. the refugees act of 1998 states that refugees are allowed to seek employment and to have access to education. however, in this piece of legislation, nothing is explicitly said about refugees’ rights to access other basic services such as housing, water, sanitation, and safety (palmary, 2002; solomon and haigh, 2009). this resulted in many of these rights being met through service delivery by civil society. the role of civil society in protecting refugees’ rights is not adequately acknowledged either by the refugees act or in any policy documents. nevertheless, civil society continues to play a major role in protecting, lobbying and advocating for refugees’ rights (milner and klassen, 2020). the refugee regime in south africa has undergone significant changes in the last six years, notably its transition in terms of the different legislation that govern the regime, and the public and political elites’ focus on this regime. as a result, the extent and nature of ngos that work actively in this area, have also changed. the focus and urgency that gripped this sector after the 2008 and 2015 xenophobic attacks have subsided but were replaced by a degree of apathy, despite the occasional flare-ups of xenophobic attacks. recently, the activities of the vigilante group, operation dudula and the provocative utterances by politicians exacerbated xenophobic feelings (myeni, 2022). in the prevailing environment, the unhcr continues to be a funder and agenda setter, working in conjunction with those ngos that assist asylum seekers and refugees (nicholson and kumin, 2017). methodology the researcher employed a qualitative research method to gather data from the two principal sources – refugees and asylum seekers, and ngos. in the case of the former, 61 this study focused on ethiopians and congolese in three cities in south africa – johannesburg, durban, and cape town. the researcher conducted structured indepth interviews with 40 asylum seekers and refugees from ethiopia and 37 from the democratic republic of the congo (drc) to gain a holistic view of their challenges and their interactions with refugee-related ngos. the study used the snowball sampling technique for all participants. the researcher derived the second set of data from the interviews conducted with three managers of the ngos identified for this study – lawyers for human rights (lhr), refugee social services (rss), and scalabrini centre (sc). the researcher identified the three ngos because of their focus on specific aspects of refugee protection. lhr focuses on advocacy and engagement and serves as a last-resort litigation to protect refugee rights; it has a track record in establishing jurisprudence in refugee law in south africa. the rss works on social assistance in the form of material assistance, specifically in access to shelter, education, health, and skills development. the sc plays a similar role in cape town and has provided interpretation services for the dha for about three years; it has also provided refugees with paralegal experience in helping their respective communities in different cities. the researcher used a case study approach. zainal (2007) points out that case studies help researchers to access a population where it is difficult to get an adequate sample and analyze data at a micro level in examining social issues. however, a case study can lend itself to generalizing on the basis of concluding from a small sample. this concern might apply to both data sources – refugees and asylum seekers, and ngos. the two nationalities identified, despite the small sample size, constitute two of the nationalities with the highest number of refugees and asylum seekers in south africa. the three ngos are comparatively well known for operating in the refugee sector. the researcher deemed it fitting that the experiences of asylum seekers, refugees and refugee-related ngos and their perceptions of the relevant human rights issues can best be recorded and understood, by using a qualitative research methodology. the researcher used the triangulation method by gathering data from different stakeholders from the refugee human rights regime. regarding asylum seekers and refugees, the data analysis considers to what extent they interact with refugee-related ngos in their respective cities. results the researcher strove to access respondents with different vocational backgrounds and endeavored to attain a balanced gender (see table 1) and age mix. almost 50% of respondents from both countries were asylum seekers, and 50% were refugees. most of the ethiopians were self-employed traders; their main livelihood was selling bedding and clothing to township inhabitants. some were street hawkers, while others owned small business establishments like clothing and spaza shops. a few ethiopian participants were students. on the other hand, the data indicates that protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers: the role of south african ngos 62 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 congolese participants worked primarily in car guarding, while some worked in security services. there were also participants who were studying and working in other areas. table 1: gender distribution of respondents source: author’s own compilation as table 1 indicates, females constituted 40%–45% of respondents, and there is almost equal distribution of respondents across the three cities. table 2: educational qualifications of respondents source: author’s own compilation table 2 indicates that about 21% of respondents attained a school qualification up to grade 7, about 64% attained a high school qualification, and nearly 16% had tertiary educational qualifications. the drc respondents had higher academic qualifications compared to the ethiopians. as depicted in table 3, most ethiopians (over 50%) were traders, while only 27% of the drc respondents were traders. interestingly, the drc respondents’ vocations were almost evenly spread in all categories. nearly 30% of respondents indicated that they had a second income source. male female ethiopia drc ethiopia drc durban 9 8 5 5 jhb 8 7 5 5 cape town 8 7 5 5 total 25 22 15 15 educational qualification ethiopia drc grades 0–7 12 4 grades 8–12 23 26 tertiary education 5 7 total 40 37 63 table 3: vocation of respondents source: author’s own compilation the structured interview for the refugees and asylum contained 25 questions. apart from the demographic information, only three questions were relevant to the topic of this study. these questions were: • did you have any difficulty accessing documents like permits, social and financial services (health, social welfare, education, and banking services)? • to what extent are you familiar with ngos that assist refugees and their services? • what services have you received from ngos (if any)? discussion asylum seekers and refugees in international law the last 400 years saw a greater awareness of human rights in western countries and the world. in the previous 100 years, there was an effort to internalize international liberal rights instruments within the nation-state, as it is the building block of the global system and law. in addition, there was a move to ensure the rights of other nationalities within the nation-state. ultimately, the liberal rights theories gave rise to the recognition of their rights outside their nation-states. however, this discourse needs to consider the ideas regarding sovereignty and citizenship in nation-states, the subjective interpretation of rights, administrative justice, and political and social forces that determine the implementation of refugee systems. even ngos' work in protecting refugees and asylum seekers is located in this context. rights cannot be considered outside the context of their implementation. “a state is a legal and political organization with the power to require obedience and loyalty from its citizens” (seton-watson, 1977: 36) whereas a nation is a “named vocation ethiopia drc male female male female professionals 4 2 4 2 traders 16 5 3 2 hired work in the informal economy 2 4 7 5 students (most students do some kind of work to support themselves) 3 2 5 3 stay-at-home parent 2 3 total 25 15 19 15 protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers: the role of south african ngos 64 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 human population sharing a historic territory, common myths and historical memories, public culture, a common economy and legal rights and duties for all members” (smith, 1991: 41). the idea of sovereignty is based on international law. by virtue of sovereignty and their obligations to their subjects, nation-states abide by local and international laws. nation-states negotiate and sign treaties based on the legitimacy of their sovereignty. refugees and asylum seekers, therefore, present a problematic reality that the nation-state cannot ignore. sovereignty presupposes a solid concept of self-determination with a clear distinction between those who belong and those who do not. it has, however, both a civic foundation, originating from people’s self-rule as citizens, and a universal foundation – the universal recognition of people’s right to sovereignty. in respect of refugees, however, these two concepts collide because stateless people reveal, qua their existence, the fiction of the right to sovereignty. for a state, this means, on the one hand, that it has an obligation to recognize the refugees’ universal right to sovereignty, because the state itself is based on this recognition; but on the other, it can do so only under its sovereign powers, which by definition are limited to citizens. with regard to refugees, a state has to be both a sovereign and a non-sovereign power at the same time, thereby undermining its legitimacy. the somewhat unique situation of refugees, and especially asylum seekers, creates a problem for the law, since laws are an expression of a nation’s will through its elected officials. what is politically unacceptable, despite liberal human right principles, becomes a problem to execute judicially. the current flood of asylum seekers in europe, and the perception that it has increased incidents of terrorism, creates a unique situation in which politics cannot be reconciled with european laws. ngos have to operate in such an environment. in the case of south africa, the lack of political and public support for large populations of asylum seekers and refugees manifested in xenophobic violence, challenges in accessing social services, and the ruling party's move toward restricting asylum-seeker rights by closing refugee reception offices (rros) and changing regulations to restrict access to documentation. what used to be a cooperative state where ngos had a say, became a move toward restricting refugees and asylum seekers. this raises the issue of the obligation of the state to refugees, and its practical application of obligations. though the refugee mourns the destruction of the family home, the disintegration of cultural practices, and the loss of communal ties, there is one loss that, according to hannah arendt (1973), remains unrecognized: that, as a political being, in a practical sense the refugee ultimately loses the right to have rights. the right to have rights is not so much concerned with substantive rights, such as the abovementioned basic needs, but rather the assumption “that no law exists for [the refugee] … that nobody wants to ever oppress them” (arendt, 1973). the refugee becomes existentially transparent. as a political being, the refugee ultimately loses the right to have rights. 65 there are two reasons why migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers lose the right to have rights. firstly, by virtue of being the “other,” they will not be considered “fit” to have rights. this is reflected not only in laws but also in attitudes, behavior, and practice of people in general. arendt (1973) points out how jews, by being a separate unit that formed the “other,” became targets. secondly, arendt explains that migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are seen as present without function. in fact, they are seen as parasitic. this perception is partially true in scandinavian countries, because of their welfare systems. some citizens are also dependent on social power but unlike the refugees, they have political rights. arendt (1973) argues that the jews in western europe at the beginning of the twentieth century lost the power they had,2 and wealth without political power was seen as useless and contemptible. ultimately, presence without function is perceived as useless and parasitic. the reality reveals itself in the case of migrants and refugees whose contribution in economic terms to host countries is tremendous. however, the contribution of the “other” is perceived as not so significant in the political arena, in comparison with that of citizens. defenders of refugees and asylum seekers against exclusionary policies mostly invoke liberal universalist arguments to defend refugee rights. liberal universalist theories are those that give equal moral weight to the welfare of all individuals, regardless of nationality (boswell, 2017). liberal universalism provides an accessible and cogent grounding for theories of duties to non-nationals. liberal universalism’s assumptions about the moral equality of human beings pervade moral and political discourse in liberal democratic societies. it is, therefore, not surprising that theories of liberal universalism hold a virtual monopoly in arguments for admitting greater numbers of refugees, and more generally, for the recognition of moral duties beyond borders (boswell, 2017). however, as social and economic challenges grow, liberal ideas are tested. in addition, as asylum seekers and refugees consistently interact cheek by jowl with locals in poverty-stricken areas, tensions grow. refugees’ and asylum seekers’ experience with ngos the data shows that almost 85% of the respondents had heard of ngos assisting refugees, either during a particular crisis – such as xenophobia – or in accessing services. of all respondents, 60% identified the ngos clearly and only 40% had interacted with the three ngos that participated in this study. one of the congolese respondents asserted: i know a lot about rss. because of my work, we send a lot of refugees to rss to get assistance in housing, education, and skills. they are very helpful. i also know of lhr. they help refugees who have a problem with their papers. they 2 for centuries, jews were moneylenders as well as advisors later on, to kings and governments. the rise of the nationstate and the subsequent dependence on tax and credit from the nobility without political clout rendered most jews powerless. in addition, their lack of strong nationality to any sovereignty contributed to their lack of political clout. few jewish families, like the rothschilds, managed to acquire political power. protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers: the role of south african ngos 66 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 used to be active. sometimes they help but most times they don’t. i don’t know of other ngos. there are also churches that help refugees. there is a significant difference in the extent to which the drc and ethiopian refugees and asylum seekers interacted with ngos. only 30% of ethiopian participants interacted with the ngos in any meaningful way. they were more likely to depend on familial and community resources. this trend is supported by the data extracted from the ngos, which indicated that ethiopian refugees constituted a minority of the communities they serve. conversely, almost 70% of the drc refugees and asylum seekers reported receiving some kind of assistance, including humanitarian assistance, access to documentation, and access to social services like education, health, and banking. the humanitarian services are limited in scope: support in times of crisis; three months’ financial support to newcomers; and limited language and skills training. however, during the study period, ngos frequently provided help in accessing documentation. in addition, access to social services is a fairly common service provided by the three ngos under study. among the drc respondents, 38% reported that they received ngo assistance when they had challenges in enrolling their children in school or were refused services in banks and health facilities. however, 15% of drc respondents were frustrated because they could not get help from ngos. on the other hand, only 20% of ethiopian respondents reported receiving assistance from ngos. these services were restricted to seeking assistance to access documentation. this service notwithstanding, they expressed their negative perceptions of ngos’ ability to solve their problems. one ethiopian asylum seeker lamented: i don’t seek help from ngos often. i went to lhr because i was told they help people with documentation problems. i have been told i can’t renew my asylum-seeker permit because it has been renewed 10 times. it is not my fault that they have not finalized my case in the appeal board. lhr wrote me a letter. the officer in dha saw it and just put it away. it is really frustrating that the ngos don’t have influence. figure 1 indicates the kind of services refugees and asylum seekers accessed. it is important to some respondents to access multiple services. 67 protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers: the role of south african ngos figure 1: services accessed by respondents – by percentage percentage source: author’s own compilation it is evident that ngos in the study (and others) are visible and refugees and asylum seekers know they are accessible. according to the respondents, the ngos’ effectiveness is limited in helping them access services and documentation at an individual level, despite their efforts. assessment of the effectiveness of ngos in the advocacy and protection agenda the contribution of ngos in advocating for and protecting refugees and asylum seekers has had a varied history in south africa. ngos such as the lhr contributed to the formulation of the refugees act (masuku and rama, 2020). considering their comprehensive protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, their contribution to the process has been stellar. however, since circumstances have changed significantly, it warrants a comprehensive analysis of this contribution. the past 15 years have witnessed several developments: • a significant increase in the numbers of asylum seekers in south africa (moyo et al., 2021 et. al); • the increasingly combative relationship between the dha and ngos; • the closure of three refugee reception offices (rros) (majola, 2022); and • the occurrence of major xenophobic attacks (dahir, 2019; hrw, 2020). what makes the ngos’ work of advocacy and protection more important is the absence of the unhcr. in other countries, in the absence of a policy for the integration of refugees into the local population, the unhcr steps in to provide advocacy and protection. in south africa, the role of the unhcr is that of an enabler 18% 29% 34% 19% humanitarian access to documentation access to social services training 68 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 – it lobbies for better legislation and implementation of the country’s refugees act. the unhcr collaborates with south african ngos to engage with asylum seekers and refugees, as protection is more productive when one works at the grassroots level and in close liaison with those who need it. the data and the literature have shown that ngos have been effective in some respects. they have made it possible for refugees to access social grants (fajth et al., 2019). the rss director indicated that her organization was instrumental in enabling refugees to access social grants: we didn't take that one up to court. we were the ones that were instrumental in taking up the case, why refugee pensioners, those in pensionable age, are not allowed to get a pension. when the case was about to go to court, then the regulation changed. a combination of litigation and consultation with different stakeholders has brought about certain results. asylum seekers’ right to access employment is an example of this achievement. the three ngos cited the case studies that they used to negotiate the access of refugees and asylum seekers to education, health services, and other social services. besides, they constantly work in realizing access to documentation; because a document is a key to other services. despite these gains, refugeeand asylum-seeker protection is on the back foot. their rights and ease of access to services are generally worsening, especially when it comes to the dha, as is the case worldwide (who, 2022). in addition to the dha’s closure of rros, it has drafted a bill to complicate asylum seekers' entry into and stay in south africa (polzer ngwato, 2010; 2013). refugees and asylum seekers are also restricted to accessing financial services at only one bank (first national bank) despite a court decision to the contrary and the existence of an online verification system (bureau of democracy, human rights and labor, 2020). moreover, the access is erratic and depends on the validity of their asylum permit (sometimes granted for a month) or refugee permit. ultimately, advocacy and protection have become confrontational. in reality, ngos are in a peripheral niche that gives them a place to make an input but they have relatively little power to push through the protection agenda. ngos are much more effective when they deal with cooperative actors. the three participating ngos explained that their relationship is largely cooperative and it only works if there is cooperation. however, the relationship is not always cooperative. the lhr’s head of refugee and migrant rights programme explained: the relationship with the department of home affairs is both good and bad. there is a part of home affairs that is willing to cooperate. it is a body which is made up of a number of people. there are certain people within home affairs that we have a very, very productive working relationship with. we can 69 refer cases for easy dispute resolution and that sort of thing. at other times, we are forced to litigate against home affairs because they would be sort of unwavering on a point, which we thought was not negotiable. the relationship with home affairs is complicated. it is generally … one where we prefer to be engaging, mediating, and negotiating with them. and that is the first port of call. but our second port of call would be to litigate if it becomes necessary. in fact, the three ngos have the same kind of relationship with the dha. however, in general terms, the south african government’s approach to refugees and asylum seekers has been rather negative. handmaker (2009: 156) states that the ability of civil society to hold the government accountable is “structurally conditioned” and “actively informed by specific historical events.” this indicates the potential of legal and other forms of civic advocacy to hold states accountable through cooperatives or confrontational interactions within the framework of both national and international institutions. they are especially effective when they have wide public support or when their particular agenda has strong public support. to put this in perspective, one has to revisit the civic and state environment just after the democratic transition in 1994. with the drafting of the constitution and the dispensation of rights during the mid-1990s, there was an explosion of human rights awareness. in the post-apartheid south african era of identity-based and individual rights, the issue of refugee rights found great sympathy. in such an environment, where civil society was acknowledged as a partner in the anti-apartheid struggle, the civic-state relationship was very good (gumede, 2018; levy et al., 2021; freedomhouse, 2022). as a result, civil society was instrumental in translating the international human rights instruments to local ones in the form of legislation – not only in south africa, but across the globe (viljoen, 2009). increasingly, however, in the sphere of policymaking, csos that could be coopted, participated, while others were sidelined. as schneider (2002) and jansen (2002) critically outline, in the hollow cooperative policymaking processes in the spheres of macroeconomics, aids and education, the anc-led government has increasingly become hawkish at the expense of public and civil-society participation. therefore, the transition from a cooperative to a combative relationship between government and civil society was inevitable. although there was cooperation among civic and state actors in some areas, we have seen a multitude of court challenges on the grounds of individual and group rights and administrative-justice issues. according to the university of cape town (uct) refugee case law reader, 96 cases were brought against the dha from 1996 to 2013 with some cases featuring in the three upper courts (uct, 2013). this number could come down to almost 75 cases in the high court. as a result, the legal expenditure of the dha mushroomed to r46.3 million in the 2011/12 financial year, double the previous year’s expenditure. to put this into perspective: protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers: the role of south african ngos 70 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 of the r1.34 billion in pending legal claims against it [dha] (as of march 2013), claims against immigration affairs amounted to r503.3 million, which is 37.5 per cent of the total. the majority of the claims arose from “unlawful” arrests and detention of illegal foreigners as well as damages (mthembu-salter et al., 2014). with the increase in litigation, the defiance of the dha has increased. there is no goodwill on the part of the dha to abide by the decisions of the courts, as was seen in the rro closure cases. therefore, litigation as an advocacy and protection tool has to be questioned. effectiveness of litigation there is no doubt that litigation and other advocacy and protection tools have served ngos well, as judgments in 90% of the cases mentioned above were in favor of ngos and those they represented. as mentioned above, civil society gets frustrated trying to effect change either through consultation or other forms of advocacy. society therefore turns to public-interest lawyers to hold government accountable. however, since rights are contested in most cases and are situated in a complex set of social and political environments, they need to be realized in cooperation with all stakeholders. it is clear from the interviews conducted with the three participating ngos that they do not relish the partly adversarial relationship with the dha. however, they feel that, in some cases, it is effective, as indicated in the quote above. the head of advocacy of scalabrini centre, elaborates their experience of litigation and its results: you know, in our refugee office closure case, the supreme court of appeal found it unlawful, based on consultation. so, they didn't consult with us people who are directly affected. home affairs said, “well, we can't consult with asylum seekers because they are not in the country,” and the supreme court said, “well, obviously the ngos and you consulted with them on certain things before anyway.” so, it is an odd reason … we tried to bring everybody in. scms or wits university was there. uct, ourselves [sc], lrc, and a multitude of other smaller organizations and everybody who was there was against the closure of the office … in the judgment you can easily see the dha’s approach to kind of duck and weave through the whole consultation process. these closure cases are based a lot on technical grounds. the above quote is an indication of the difficult relationship that ngos have with the dha. as a result, ngos need to assess if litigation, in the long run, is productive. in light of weak public support and lack of political will, litigation is rather counterproductive. this particular issue predates the adversarial nature of the relationship between the dha and civil society. amit (2011: 17) argues: 71 many of the legislative and constitutional protections for asylum seekers and refugees have not been implemented because they are embedded in an environment of weak political and public support, combined with bureaucratic mismanagement and inefficiency. this mindset of many south africans and their representatives in government means that international and national migrant rights, obligations, and the values associated with them, are not even on the list of priorities. ngos operate in an environment that, even if it is not hateful, is characterized by a sense of disinterest or frustration on the part of government and the wider public. though the courts have proven their independence and mettle, they cannot effectively force government to comply with its constitutional mandate. ngos therefore need to seek socio-political networks that support their advocacy and protection agenda (abanyam and mnorom, 2020; abiddin et al., 2022). this is problematic, as the rights of asylum seekers increasingly come under attack (masuku, 2020; mukumbang et al., 2020). effectiveness of facilitating access to social services and humanitarian assistance the ngos, the rss and the sc provide numerous social services: the rss provides counseling, language lessons, and other potential income-generating skills training. it provides limited humanitarian assistance in cases of people who could not afford to pay rent or their children’s school fees for a few months. the sc engages in similar activities but reaches more people and has a wider application. the sc cooperates with the department of education (doe) and the department of health (doh) to find employment for refugee teachers and nurses, respectively. however, the lhr offers limited social welfare assistance. as previously discussed, ngos addressed this problem by approaching these departments, or in extreme cases, by litigating in terms of access to services. ngos have made significant gains but with one exception: they have been unable to make significant progress with regard to asylum seekers, and sometimes refugees, being unable to open bank accounts at most major banks (international development association, 2021). lhr has attempted to address this issue through litigation, with limited success. in the sphere of humanitarian assistance, faith-based organizations and churches have shouldered these responsibilities, with only limited help from the government in times of crisis. the central methodist church in johannesburg opened its doors to zimbabweans and other asylum seekers and refugees during the 2008 and subsequent violent xenophobic attacks (andrews, 2009; bompani, 2013; joseph, 2015; makunike, 2021). the church was a place of refuge and humanitarian assistance (pausigere, 2013). the unhcr (2014) underlines this role in its 2014 report. even though the sc and the rss have faith-based origins, they have not contributed much. the ngos’ personnel repeatedly stress that they are resource constrained as far as being able to provide humanitarian relief is concerned (unhcr, 2014). protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers: the role of south african ngos 72 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 as discussed above, the effectiveness of the three participating ngos differs when measured across different criteria. for instance, advocacy was much more successful in the past. changes in effectiveness reflect the changing role of these ngos. despite playing a role in drafting refugee policy in the 1990s and 2000s, ngos have become confrontational, since they have lost their voice in influencing policy. ngos have been effective in monitoring implementation and access to documentation. however, as a result of increasingly restrictive government policy, they are now not as effective in this regard. ngos have been largely successful in facilitating access to social services, as discussed above. in summary, their effectiveness is declining overall, and their role is changing. this is partly a result of the context they are operating in. this study reiterates that the south african refugees act and the constitution are not based on a normative belief in the fundamental human rights of the wider society. race and ethnicity-based politics, together with political mobilization, are clear indications of this. therefore, rights are based on membership of a national group. within the national group, there is further apportioning of rights based on race and ethnicity. for instance, black south africans claim more rights based on historical injustice. affirmative action is an example of this. this is not to say it is wrong, but it reflects the national psyche. civil society does not have enough traction to effectively advocate for and protect the rights of asylum seekers and refugees because there is no widespread public support. as a result, the government, taking its cue from the sentiments of the wider public, has increasingly tightened the asylum system. this reflects a wider international trend regarding asylum seekers and refugees. south africa is hardly an exception in this regard. the analysis of both data sources and the literature indicates that access to rros has been severely curtailed by the dha’s closure of three rros. in many court submissions, the dha claimed that asylum seekers do not have rights. this is contrary to the word and the spirit of the refugees act. in a court case that challenged the dha’s argument of the absence of rights for asylum seekers, judge dennis davis expressed his concern when a state advocate said: “these people have no rights,” and the judge said the closure of rros violated the rights of a particularly vulnerable group of people.3 furthermore, the socio-economic conditions that gave rise to the huge wealth gap in south africa make it difficult for asylum seekers and refugees to claim socioeconomic rights. as data sources indicate, asylum seekers and refugees encounter xenophobic attitudes when they live and work closer to where there is competition for resources (maharaj, 2009; desai, 2010; white and rispel, 2021). their spaza shops were targeted during xenophobic attacks and service delivery protests, partly as a result of migrant workers being perceived as having taken over the spaza shop trade in informal settlements and in peri-urban areas where the poor live (iom, 2013; 3 scalabrini centre cape town v minister of home affairs and others (11681/2012) [2012] zawchc 147; (25 july 2012). 73 monson, 2015). the perception of the local poor that migrants are doing better than the locals translates into a loss of public support for asylum seekers and migrants. besides the many stereotypes, there are, however, criticisms of the asylum system that should be taken seriously. there is a belief that most asylum seekers are economic migrants (crawley and skleparis, 2017; castelli, 2018; d’albis et al., 2018; maxmen, 2018). in addition, there are fraudulent asylum applications like the cases of the consortium for refugees and migrants in south africa (cormsa) v the president of the republic;4 of (known criminal) radovan krejcir; and of lukombo v minister of home affairs and others.5 however, it is the implementation of the refugees act and related immigration policies of the country that is responsible for creating the gaps that allow for the system to be abused. both data sources confirm that corruption has severely affected the effectiveness of the institution of the dha and compromises the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. conclusion all in all, civil societies and ngos play a significant role in advocating for and protecting the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. in other countries – in the absence of a local refugee policy – the unhcr steps in to advocate for and protect refugees and asylum seekers. in fact, most african countries do not consider this their responsibility, despite ratifying the 1951 refugee convention. they leave it to the unhcr to administer the asylum system in their countries. in south africa, there is a very liberal refugee policy and legislation. therefore, the unhcr is effectively on the periphery and has only diplomatic status. despite the ngos advocating for and protecting refugees and asylum seekers, they cannot fill the vacuum that is left by shortfalls in the implementation of the refugees act. that is the primary responsibility of the government. thus, the limited capacity of ngos should be recognized. despite their limited capacity, either through cooperation, consultation, or litigation, ngos have made important gains. some of their achievements are: the liberal elements within the refugees act; the right of asylum seekers to work and study; access to social grants; access to health; access to education and banking; and access to documentation. these achievements were made despite the government's continuing unwillingness to improve access to documentation, xenophobia, corruption, an inefficient public service, and a lack of political will. these challenges persist. the tactics and strategies employed by ngos have been fruitful to some existent. however, the continued use of litigation as a tool is proving to be problematic. 4 cormsa v the president of the republic of south africa and others, case no. 30123/11. cormsa argued that the rwandan general, faustin kayumba nyamwasa does not deserve refugee status. however, cormsa lost this case; subsequent attempts to overturn the decision to give him a refugee status by the dha were unsuccessful. mr. nyamwasa is wanted for war crimes in spain and france. he also survived an assassination attempt, allegedly by the rwandan government while he was in south africa. 5 lukombo v minister of home affairs and others (2013/13552) [2013] zagpjhc 142 (13 june 2013). mr. lukombo applied for asylum three times, under different names. protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers: the role of south african ngos 74 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 in addition, there seems to be a disconnection between what refugees and asylum seekers perceive and the actual work that ngos do. ngos lack visibility on the ground and some refugeeand asylum-seeker communities do not know about them. what refugees know about the ngos is acquired through their networks. it is unfair to expect ngos to advertise their services, as this adds to their operating costs. however, they can work with migrant community-based organizations to better inform communities of their work. 75 references abanyam, n.l. and mnorom, k. 2020. non-governmental organizations and 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2016. refugees and asylum seekers: barriers to accessing south africa’s labour market. law, democracy and development, 19(1): 232. https://doi. org/10.4314/ldd.v19i1.12. lewis, d. 2006. the management of non-governmental development organizations. london: routledge. maharaj, b. 2009. migrants and urban rights: politics of xenophobia in south african cities. l’espace politique. revue en ligne de géographie politique et de géopolitique, (8). available at: https://journals.openedition.org/espacepolitique/1402. accessed on 1 november 2023. majola, n. 2022. immigrants question continued closure of reception offices while all other home affairs facilities are open for service. daily maverick. available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-02-15-immigrants-questioncontinued-closure-of-reception-offices-while-all-other-home-affairsfacilities-are-open-for-service/. accessed on 26 july 2022. protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers: the role of south african ngos 78 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 makunike, a.t. 2021. church takes on xenophobia in south africa. united methodist news service. available at: https://www.umnews.org/en/news/church-takeson-xenophobia-in-south-africa. accessed on 26 july 2022. mantzaris, e. and ngcamu, b.s. 2021. dissecting shelter for the displaced immigrants’ operations and challenges in the 2015 xenophobic violence in durban. cogent social sciences, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2021.1875579. masuku, s. 2020. how south africa is denying refugees their rights: what needs to change. the conversation. available at: https://theconversation.com/howsouth-africa-is-denying-refugees-their-rights-what-needs-to-change-135692. accessed on 26 july 2022. masuku, s. and rama, s. 2020. a case study of government and civil societies’ collaboration and challenges in securing the rights of congolese refugees living in pietermaritzburg, kwazulu-natal, south africa. south african journal 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at: https://www.unhcr.org/55cb153f9.pdf. accessed on 26 july 2022. monson, t. 2015. citizenship, “xenophobia” and collective mobilization in a south african settlement: the politics of exclusion at the threshold of the state. unpublished phd thesis, london school of economics and political science. available at: https://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3404/1/monson_citizenship_ xenophobia.pdf. accessed on 26 july 2022. moyo, k. and botha, c. 2022. refugee policy as infrastructure: the gulf between policy intent and implementation for refugees and asylum seekers in south africa. in: rugunanan, p. and xulu-gama, n. (eds.), migration in southern africa. imiscoe research series. cham: springer: pp. 77–89. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-92114-9_6. 79 moyo, k., sebba, k. r., and zanker, f. 2021. who is watching? refugee protection during a pandemic-responses from uganda and south africa. comparative migration studies, 9(1): 1-19. available at: https:// comparativemigrationstudies.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40878021-00243-3. accessed on 1 november 2023. mthembu-salter, g., amit, r., gould, c. and landau, l. 2014. counting the cost of securitising south africa’s immigration regime. working paper 20. institute for security studies and the african centre for migration and society, university of the witwatersrand. available at: http://www.migratingoutofpoverty.org/ files/file.php?name=wp20-mthembu-salter-et-al-2014-counting-the-cost. pdf&site=354. accessed on 26 july 2022. mukumbang, f.c., ambe, a.n. and adebiyi, b.o. 2020. unspoken inequality: how covid-19 has exacerbated existing vulnerabilities of asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented migrants in south africa. international journal for equity in health, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-01259-4. myeni, t. 2022. what is operation dudula, south africa’s anti-migration vigilante? www.aljazeera.com. available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/ features/2022/4/8/what-is-operation-dudula-s-africas-anti-immigrationvigilante. accessed on 26 july 2022. ngwenya, n., gumede, d., shahmanesh, m., mcgrath, n., grant, a. and seeley, j. 2018. community perceptions of the socio-economic structural context influencing hiv and tb risk, prevention and treatment in a high-prevalence area in the era of antiretroviral therapy. african journal of aids research, 17(1): 72–81. https://doi.org/10.2989/16085906.2017.1415214. nicholson, f. and kumin, j. 2017. a guide to international refugee protection and building state asylum systems: handbook for parliamentarians no 27. inter-parliamentary union and the united nations high commissioner for refugees. available at: https://www.unhcr.org/3d4aba564.pdf. nwakunor, g.a. and nwanne, c. 2018. why south africans attack nigerians. the guardian nigeria news – nigeria and world news. available at: https:// guardian.ng/features/why-south-africans-attack-nigerians/ accessed on 26 july 2022. levy, b., hirsch, a., naidoo, v. and nxele, m. 2021.. south africa: when strong institutions and massive inequalities collide. carnegie endowment for international peace. available at: https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/03/18/ south-africa-when-strong-institutions-and-massive-inequalities-collidepub-84063. accessed on 26 july 2022. palmary, i. 2002. refugees, safety and xenophobia in south african cities: the role of local government. johannesburg: centre for the study of violence and reconciliation. available at: https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/104945/ refugeessafteyand.pdf accessed 02 november 2023. protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers: the role of south african ngos 80 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 pausigere, p. 2013. education and training initiatives at the central methodist church refugee house in johannesburg. perspectives in education, 31(2): 42– 53. available at: https://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/pie/article/view/1804. polzer ngwato, t. 2010. population movements in and to south africa. migration fact sheet # 1, profile — south africa. available at: https://www.academia. edu/296416/migration_fact_sheet_1_population_movements_in_and_to_ south_africa. accessed on 05 march 2015. polzer ngwato, t. 2013. policy shifts in the south african asylum system: evidence and implications. african centre for migration studies and lawyers for human rights report. rugunanan, p. and xulu-gama, n. (eds.) 2022. migration in southern africa. imiscoe regional readers, imiscoe research series. scalabrini centre cape town v minister of home affairs and others (11681/2012) [2012] zawchc 147; (25 july 2012). schneider, h. 2002. on the fault-line: the politics of aids policy in contemporary south africa. african studies, 61(1): 145–167. https://doi. org/10.1080/00020180220140118. seton-watson, h. 1977. nations and states: an enquiry into the origins of nations and the politics of nationalism. london: routledge. smith, a.d. 1991. national identity. north virginia: university of nevada press. solomon, h. and haigh, l. 2009. xenophobia in south africa: origins, trajectory and recommendations. africa review, 1(2): 111–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 09744053.2009.10597284. united nations (un). 2011. are human rights universal? united nations. available at: https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/are-human-rights-universal. accessed on 26 july 2022. united nations conference on trade and development (unctad). 2018. annual report. available at: https://unctad.org/annualreport/2018/pages/index.html. accessed on 31 october 2023. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2014. on faith-based organizations, local faith communities and faith leaders. switzerland: unhcr. available at: https://www.unhcr.org/539ef28b9.pdf. accessed on 26 july 2022. university of cape town. (2013). refugee case law reader. uct. available at: https:// law.uct.ac.za/refugee-rights/clinics/case-law-reader. van mierop, e.s. 2004. unhcr and ngos: competitors or companions in refugee protection? available at: http://www.migrationinformation.org/feature/ display.cfm?id=200. accessed on 10 may 2023. 81 viljoen, f. 2009. international human rights law: a short history. united nations. available at: https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/international-humanrights-law-short-history. accessed on 26 july 2022. white, j.a. and rispel, l.c. 2021. policy exclusion or confusion? perspectives on universal health coverage for migrants and refugees in south africa. health policy and planning, 36(8): 1292–1306. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/ czab038. world health organization (who). 2022. refugee and migrant health. available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/refugee-and-migranthealth accessed on 26 july 2022. zainal, z. 2007. case study as a research method. jurnal kemanusiaan, 5(1). available at https://jurnalkemanusiaan.utm.my/index.php/kemanusiaan/ article/view/165 accessed on 25 july 2022. protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers: the role of south african ngos 56 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 statelessness, development, and protection of ‘disadvantaged groups’: bridging the post-2030 sustainable development gaps adeyemi saheed badewa* received 07 september 2022 / accepted 05 december 2022 / published 27 january 2023 abstract statelessness constricts development opportunities, human capital, and the potential of affected communities and persons over successive generations. the marginalisation of stateless persons, deprivation of their basic rights, legal recognition, and access to essential services further induce their vulnerability and the risk of intergenerational statelessness. unfortunately, the nexus between statelessness and development remains poorly investigated amid the lack of coherent measures to address it. hence, the need to understand how global, regional, or national development policies, programmes, and processes often constrict stateless persons and communities. the paper argues that mismatches in the implementation of multilateral development programmes and national policies increase deprivation by statelessness and its conditions of vulnerability, suspicion, and exclusion of affected persons and communities. although not explicitly encapsulated to address statelessness, the sustainable development goals (sdgs) unlock significant opportunities, with relevance and applicability of some of the goals. therefore, incorporating statelessness into the post–2030 development agenda is critical for addressing its challenges, and improving the human security and conditions of stateless persons. keywords: statelessness, development, vulnerability, sdgs, human rights, inclusion ____________________ * university of pittsburgh, united states.  asb232@pitt.edu 57 i. introduction a stateless person, in a precise legal phrase or as defined in international law, denotes a person not considered a citizen by any state, under the operation of its law.1 statelessness is prohibited under international law; it is often induced by the refusal of a person’s right to nationality, birth registration, and denationalisation or renunciation of nationality by several factors, including socio-political circumstances.2 regrettably, statelessness remains a highly contested subject matter in many aspects, including data, statistics, definitions, and terminologies, and politically, it is facing resistance. for instance, the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) statistical reporting estimated 4.2 million stateless people across 94 countries (including those of undetermined nationality in 76 countries).3 given the unhcr’s assumption that the number of stateless persons is substantially higher, and the inability of most countries to collect adequate data on statelessness, the institute on statelessness and inclusion (isi) projected the existence of at least 15 million stateless people globally.4 the restriction of their basic rights — such as access to birth registration and identity documentation, and socio-economic opportunities — healthcare, education, property ownership, legal employment, freedom of movement and political participation, undermine their individual potentials. also, their ‘difficulties in accessing opportunities, owning or registering businesses; limited access to bank accounts or loan(s); and, in some cases, the threat of extortion, detention or expulsion’ often trap them in poverty and extreme circumstances across the world. 5 consequently, marginalisation and refusal of their basic rights generate social mobility tensions, including socio-economic crises,6 and thus, constitute a major development problem over successive generations. development is a multi-dimensional concept that encompasses the reorganisation and reorientation of a socio-economic and political system toward improving the quality of human lives. this implies the process of bringing about a social change that enables people to attain their human potential, capabilities, and aspirations.7 according to michael todaro and stephen smith, development highlights three important objectives. the first entails raising human living standards, i.e., incomes and consumption, and general well-being, including health and education, through relevant growth processes. the second aspect emphasises 1 united nations convention relating to the status of stateless persons 1954, article 1(1). 2 brad blitz 'statelessness: advocacy campaigns and policy development' (2009) 32 nationality for all at 25. 3 united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) 'unhcr urges governments to accelerate progress and resolve plight of world’s stateless' (2021), available at https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/press/2021/11/618387874/ unhcr-urges-governments-accelerate-progress-resolve-plight-worlds-stateless.html 4 institute on statelessness and inclusion (isi) 'statelessness in numbers: 2020 – an overview and analysis of global statistics’ (2020), available at https://files.institutesi.org/isi_statistics_analysis_2020.pdf 5 isi ‘statelessness, human rights and the sustainable development agenda’ (2017), available at http://children.worldsstateless.org/3/childhood-statelessness-and-the-sustainable-development-agenda/statelessness-human-rights-and-the-sustainable-development-agenda.html 6 united nations development group (undg) 'statelessness: undg guidance note on human rights for resident coordinators and un country teams' (2017). 7 organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) 'development' (2020) development matters, available at https://www.oecd.org/development/ statelessness, development, and protection of ‘disadvantaged groups’ 58 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 the creation of conditions conducive to the growth of human self-esteem through social, political, and economic systems and institutions that promote human dignity and respect. the third aspect presupposes increasing people’s freedom by enlarging their range of choice variables, such as goods and services.8 the reality that stateless persons co-exist on the margins of society globally, and remain unheard, unnoticed, and neglected, challenges the fundamental principles of the global development agenda and human rights, as advanced by the universal declaration of human rights (udhr)9 over the past seventy years. statelessness has been attributed to several causes, ranging from discrimination in nationality laws (based on racial, ethnic, religious, gender, or linguistic minority status), to challenges of birth registration and documentary proof of identity. other factors include state succession, conflicts between nationality laws, wars and displacement, and lack of safeguards to avert statelessness in nationality laws. displacement may serve as a cause and consequence of statelessness. when induced by human rights abuses and abysmal development outcomes against vulnerable and deprived populations, statelessness may propel voluntary movement or forced displacement of people across international borders. likewise, protracted displacement prompted by irregular migration may also result in statelessness.10 moreover, occurring at different times, and in different contexts, all regions of the world are confronted by problems inducing statelessness. for example, members of europe’s roma community were rendered stateless when the post-world war i (1914–1918) new state system could not accommodate them. furthermore, the palestinians, the tamils of sri lanka, and the kurds across the middle east have become stateless due to empire collapse, occupation, or decolonisation.11 in africa, groups at risk of statelessness fall into five categories. these include: (a) orphans, abandoned infants, and other vulnerable children, including those trafficked for various purposes; (b) people of mixed parentage; (c) border populations, including nomadic and pastoralist ethnic groups who regularly cross borders, as well as those affected by border disputes or transfers of territory; (d) migrants — historical or contemporary — without (valid) documentation of nationality, especially their descendants, refugees, and internally displaced persons (idps); and (e) those deported or returned to a country ‘of origin’ where they have limited, or no current ties.12 this study reveals that states’ unwillingness or inability to provide accurate data, inadequate mechanisms for registering stateless persons, and the lack of 8 michael p todaro & stephen c smith economic development 6 ed (2014) 12. 9 united nations (un) 'universal declaration of human rights' (1948) 4, available at https://www.un.org/sites/un2. un.org/files/2021/03/udhr.pdf 10 undg op cit note 6 at 5. 11 unhcr 'citizenship and statelessness in the member states of the southern african development community' (2020) 7 ssrn electronic journal, available at https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3783295 12 african commission on human and peoples’ rights (achpr) 'the right to nationality in africa' african union (au) (2015). 59 obligation to report or index the numbers of stateless persons in their territories have worsened the phenomenon.13 the consequences of being without nationality, denial of citizenship, and inability to register to vote, marry, and apply for a travel document in a country of abode, exacerbate the deprivation of stateless persons. the long-term detention of stateless persons outside their country of origin or previous country of residence when refused re-entry to their territories of origin often threatened their well-being and community. thus, denial of their basic rights — rights to education, employment, and medical care — for being unable to prove any legal connection to a country,14 not only exacerbates their vulnerability and marginalisation but induces development challenges. unfortunately, the neglect of stateless persons and communities by development actors and processes has often lagged them in national or regional development. against this backdrop, scholars and activists have increasingly advocated for incorporating statelessness into development programming and research. the isi’s world statelessness report (2014) advances the human security and prospects of stateless persons.15 remarkably, the sustainable development goals (sdgs), articulated in 2015, unlock significant opportunities in this regard, by setting an ambitious agenda to be achieved by 2030.15 although statelessness is not explicitly encapsulated in the sdgs, the relevance and applicability of the goals to statelessness are apparent at first glance. given the above dichotomy, this study advances the need to understand the nexus between the fundamental causes of statelessness and the challenges of noninclusive development. it takes into cognisance, (a) how the growing vulnerability of marginalised groups, including the stateless, enhances the risk and trend of statelessness; (b) the implication of intergenerational statelessness on human security and development; and (c) bridging the implementation gaps between national policies and multilateral mechanisms to address the vulnerability of stateless persons and other excluded groups. furthermore, an inductive review of public documents — secondary and primary — including official reports, online sources, and scholarly publications on statelessness and development is conceived along several themes. these include: (a) critical debates on statelessness, frameworks, and campaign for the rights to a nationality, toward socio-economic inclusion; (b) the sdgs and statelessness; (c) socio-economic rights — risks of exclusion, discrimination, and intergenerational statelessness; and (d) challenges and prospects. 13 unhcr & inter-parliamentary union (ipu) nationality and statelessness: a handbook for parliamentarians (2005) 6. 14 ibid. 15 isi op cit note 5 at 3. 16 unhcr 'the sustainable development goals and addressing statelessness' briefing notes (2017) 2, available at http:// www.refworld.org/docid/58b6e3364.html statelessness, development, and protection of ‘disadvantaged groups’ 60 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 ii. critical debates on statelessness: frameworks and campaign for the rights to a nationality, and socioeconomic inclusion statelessness as a concern for human rights and development is a truism that is poorly understood. this is due to inadequate publication, teaching, and research on its causes and ramifying effects. critical debates on statelessness and development reflect on the sdgs; however, the purpose to relieve or alleviate the vulnerabilities of stateless persons predates the sdgs. institutional reports reflect on the impact of relevant international standards, treaties, and conventions concluded through international and regional human rights obligations. the udhr, a milestone international document adopted by the united nations (un) general assembly on 10 december 1948, enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. its article 15 explicitly provides the foremost guarantee to all: ‘everyone has the right to a nationality. no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality’.17 recognising the udhr’s guarantee on the right to a nationality, legal provision among state parties concerning the prevention of statelessness was further elaborated in two important international conventions — the 1954 convention on the status of stateless persons and the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness. these conventions represent a landmark in the historical development of international law for the protection of stateless persons.18 promoting the dignity and human security of the stateless and vulnerable groups brings statelessness into the human rights regime. the 1966 international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr), the 1979 convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw), and the 1990 convention on the rights of the child (crc), among others, reflect states’ obligations relating to acquisition and loss of nationality and the protection of vulnerable groups.19 however, these conventions’ emphasis on the prevention and reduction of statelessness is undermined by the lack of procedures for the determination of statelessness, amid persistent gaps and discrimination in nationality laws. to bridge this gap, the 1986 declaration on the right to development, recognises the universal freedom to ‘participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights can be fully realised’.20 statelessness has taken a centre stage in official policy discourse at the united nations (un); this is explicitly connected to the campaigns to regularise migration, identity and nationality, and policies on non-discrimination.21 international campaigns, particularly by international non-governmental organisations (ngos) and monitoring bodies, vigorously influence the profile of de jure and de facto 17 udhr op cit note 9. 18 alice edwards & laura van waas 'statelessness' in elena fiddian-qasmiyeh gil loescher katy long and nando sigona (eds) the oxford handbook of refugee and forced migration studies (2014) 290–301. 19 undg op cit note 6 at 2. 20 blitz op cit note 2. 21 unhcr op cit note 11. 61 stateless populations, although both remained unsettled. in most instances, they are supported by un agencies such as the unhcr and the office of the united nations high commissioner for human rights (ohchr), and un committees, including the committee on the elimination of racial discrimination, a joinedup action by the un to boost the protection of human rights through social and economic factors for development, safety, and security. its 2003 draft report, by the un special rapporteur on the rights of non-citizens, revealed the huge gap between the guarantees of international human rights law to non-citizens and the realities of the challenges confronting them. it also provided the agenda setting for activists and human rights monitoring organisations working with the unhcr, e.g., refugees international and the open society institute’s (osi) justice initiative.22 the united nations children’s fund (unicef) and plan international’s joint ten-year campaign on universal birth registration was instrumental in addressing the challenges of both de jure and de facto stateless persons. this includes the challenge of proving one’s nationality before accessing basic services, travelling, marrying, giving birth, and protecting children from the dangers of legal anonymity, or trafficking. plan international’s 2005 campaign featured in the recommendations of the un secretary-general’s 2006 study on violence against children, and the human rights monitors’ reports and legal cases brought before international tribunals improve the profile of statelessness. the significance of this reflects on increased western governmental agencies’ direct involvement in coordinating the cause of preventing statelessness since 2006.23 the joint african union (au)–unicef ‘no name campaign: for every child, a legal identity, for every child access to justice’, launched in february 2019, identifies birth registration as fundamental for access to child-friendly justice. it has rallied actions and rapid implementation by au member states toward a commitment to universal registration of a child’s birth and repositioning civil registration and crucial statistics in africa, to address the indignity of invisibility.24 nevertheless, the persistent idea of proving one’s nationality before accessing basic services is discriminatory and requires urgent attention. moreover, the agenda on statelessness was also popularised by mass protests across the global north in the mid–2000s. this was geared toward transforming the (westphalian) state into more inclusive models of political organisation and supporting the growing transborder migration and the recognition of multi-ethnic and multi-national populations. the protests were often linked to the treatment of minorities and the right to non-discrimination. the opinion found support among grassroots campaigners, non-professional associations, local ngos, migrant community organisations, and collective pushing to regularise the status of irregular workers, unsuccessful asylum seekers, and ‘over-stayers’. this includes the may 2006 protest by over one million persons across american cities on the plights of 22 brad blitz 'statelessness, protection and equality’ (2009) forced migration policy briefing no 3 at 1. 23 isi op cit note 5. 24 african union 'no name campaign' (2021), available at https://au.int/en/newsevents/20200617/no-name-campaign statelessness, development, and protection of ‘disadvantaged groups’ 62 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 some 12 million undocumented migrants left with no route to citizenship and being criminalised.25 this resonated across europe, through various protests, such as the may 2007 rally ‘from strangers into citizens’ in the united kingdom, and the revival of debate in france over the ‘sans papiers’ — undocumented former migrants from north africa. likewise, the 2007 pan-european ‘caravan of the erased’ convoy of activists from ljubljana (slovenia) to brussels protested the cancellation of residency rights and mistreatment of over 18,000 persons who lost their social, economic, and political rights in the aftermath of slovenia’s independence.26 regional human rights mechanisms across africa, asia, europe, and the americas complement the international conventions, institutional processes, and campaigns. the au’s 2006 migration policy framework for africa (mpfa), for instance, incorporates guidelines from the 1954 and 1961 statelessness conventions. the 2018 revised mpfa and plan of action (2018–2030) provide improved strategic guidelines to au member states and regional economic communities (recs) in the management of migration. this includes the states’ capacities to ‘develop national policy frameworks to counter statelessness, through long-term residency, reform citizenship legislation, and grant more rights to foreigners in member countries. other measures include boundary demarcations, protection of the rights of those at risk of loss of nationality, and forced displacement.27 in addition, the african commission adopted the african commission on human and peoples’ rights (achpr) resolution on refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons in africa. the april 2013 draft study on the right to nationality in africa, adopted a multifaceted thought process on the right to nationality in the continent.28 the african committee of experts on the rights and welfare of the child (acerwc) — drawing its mandate from articles 32–46 of the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc) — together with the african court on human and people’s rights were instrumental in the formulation of the 2015 draft protocol to the african charter on human and peoples’ rights on the specific aspects of the right to a nationality and the eradication of statelessness in africa, adopted by the achpr.29 significant essays and institutional reports have distinguished two contexts in which statelessness emanates — the migratory and in situ contexts of statelessness.30 statelessness in the migratory context illustrates the migrant stateless persons or those with a migratory background. the in-situ statelessness encompasses the populations in their own country who have stable and significant ties, i.e., through 25 blitz op cit note 2. 26 blitz op cit note 22. 27 african union commission (auc) 'migration policy framework for africa and plan of action (2018–2030) (2018), available at https://au.int/en/documents/20181206/migration-policy-framework-africa-mpfa 28 achpr op cit note 12 at 10. 29 african committee of experts on the rights and welfare of the child (acerwc) 'draft protocol to the african charter on human and peoples’ rights on the specific aspects of the right to a nationality and the eradication of statelessness in africa’ (2015). 30 caia vlieks 'the concepts "statelessness in situ" and "statelessness in the migratory context" in t bloom k tonkiss & p cole (eds) understanding statelessness (2017) 35–52 63 birth or long-term residence, with a state. these two contexts have also determined the different forms of legal responses, in different countries, to address the challenges of statelessness.31 these encompass: (a) the determination of statelessness and protection status (including facilitation of access to naturalisation, as required under article 32 of the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons — for stateless persons in the migratory context; and (b) recognition of nationality — for the stateless in situ persons.32 similar contemporary thoughts on statelessness characterised three significant milestones — the post-second world war (1939–1945) drafting of the udhr; the inception of the twenty-first century (protests in the global north); and the recent unhcr #ibelong campaign (2014), which coincides with the pioneer global forum on statelessness.33 the unhcr’s #ibelong campaign enhances states’ and other stakeholders’ commitment to the global action plan to end statelessness by 2024.34 the above milestones significantly put statelessness on the front burner of multilateral discourses, human rights policies, awareness, and development agendas. with enhanced identification of aliens, birth registration, naturalisation, and permanent residency worldwide (particularly in the global north), the campaign’s influence is not uniform, as commitments and outcomes vary across countries and regions.35 nonetheless, thailand’s development of nationality laws, and evaluation of historical situations of stateless persons, aliens, and minorities, are noteworthy across the global south. since 2005, the thai government’s efforts in reducing statelessness include measures on education, quality of life and integration of stateless and vulnerable persons, amid collaborations with civil societies and international organisations.36 the intricacy of a parastate caught between statehood and frozen conflict elicits yet another development concern for statelessness. the entrapment of the azawad — a remote parastate situated in northern mali — in a protracted conflict involving non-state armed groups, national security forces, and external interveners, is a critical example.37 the above reality illustrates a temporary and volatile circumstance linking parastate, patronage politics, hybrid governance and statelessness, amid deprivation and marginalisation. the typical nature of the sahara desert’s spatial porosity highlights how ethnic and religious drivers intertwine and overlap with the 31 gábor gyulai 'statelessness in the eu framework for international protection' european journal of migration and law (2012) 279. 32 c vlieks op cit note 30. 33 tendayi bloom katherine tonkiss & phillip cole understanding statelessness (2017). 34 undg op cit note 6. 35 achpr op cit note 12; bronwen manby 'the sustainable development goals and "legal identity for all": "first, do no harm"' (2021) 14 world development at 279 ; unhcr op cit note 11; punthip k saisoonthorn 'development of concepts on nationality and the efforts to reduce statelessness in thailand' (2006) 25 refugee survey quarterly (nationality and reduction of statelessness: international, regional and national perspectives) at 40; christoph sperfeldt 'legal identity in the sustainable development agenda: actors, perspectives and trends in an emerging field of research' (2022) 26 ijhr at 217, available at https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2021.1913409 36 saisoonthorn ibid. 37 edoardo baldaro & luca raineri 'azawad: a parastate between nomads and mujahidins?' (2020) 48 nationalities papers 48 at 100. statelessness, development, and protection of ‘disadvantaged groups’ 64 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 struggle for identification, recognition, and borderline impositions. the inclusion of stateless and vulnerable persons in global development discourse, a previously neglected concern, as implied, occupies a primacy in the sdg aim to ‘provide legal identity for all’ by 2030, including birth registration.38 while this is praiseworthy, it is subject to criticism due to a lack of clear definition and link with the ‘right to a nationality’. while the sdgs take birth registration as attaining legal identity, this may not be the case, as many stateless persons and communities exist even with their births registered. advocacies for independent oversight of executive decisions on legal identity may be reinforced by regulation of enrolment processes and reforms of nationality laws. these can enhance effective public-driven identity schemes.39 the challenges associated with the trends of birth registrations, technological solutions to legal identity problems, and the risks of identification systems, particularly in the global south, where a significant population at risk of statelessness exists, can be further evaluated. thus, the sdgs’ legal identity target can be refocused with priority on the ‘right to a nationality’ and practical measures for addressing the vulnerability of stateless persons. unfortunately, the mismatch in citizenship laws, state collapse or changes in nationality laws, including denationalisation, i.e., the removal of a person’s citizenship, have potentially rendered many people stateless.41 yet, complex and multi-faceted, contentions about appropriate responses to address the rising trend of statelessness have amplified concerns for the victims’ rights eligibility and legal personhood. understanding statelessness and developments requires the need to link the increasing deprivations, conditions of vulnerability, suspicion, and exclusion of stateless persons across the world, including people at risk of statelessness. digging deeper into the sdgs unearths not only its provisions for stateless persons’ access to essential services, but its potential for preventing or addressing statelessness. however, some causes for concern regarding statelessness that need to be renegotiated, also become apparent upon its critical assessment. iii. the sdgs and statelessness the purpose of development is to improve human well-being, address human security problems including poverty, and inclusively enhance opportunity. in september 2015, the united nations general assembly adopted the 2030 global agenda for sustainable development, replacing the millennium development goals (mdgs) (2000–2015). it comprised 17 goals across a broad range of areas and challenges to be addressed — including poverty, education, health, gender and inequality, climate change and justice. the 17 goals further encompassed a total of 169 targets, with 38 manby op cit note 35; sperfeldt op cit note 35. 39 manby ibid. 40 sperfeldt op cit note 35. 41 matthew j gibney 'should citizenship be conditional? the ethics of denationalisation' (2013) 75 the journal of politics at 646. 65 statelessness, development, and protection of ‘disadvantaged groups’ specific objectives to be attained, and indeed a total of 232 agreed indicators against which achievable progress is monitored. the sdgs differ from its precursor — the mdgs — in diverse and critical ways. they are broad — addressing a complex and diverse range of interconnected issues — intersecting different development challenges and opportunities, and universal issues — achievable by all un member states and regions rather than mere low and middle-income countries. the sdgs also provide an exceptional opportunity to entrench human rights principles within the development agenda, hence ensuring that the most vulnerable and excluded persons, including the stateless, enjoy equal access to development. this view was captured by former un high commissioner for human rights, navi pillay, in the run-up to the drafting of the sdgs: the post-2015 agenda must be built on a human rights-based approach, in both process and substance. this means taking seriously the right of those affected to free, active and meaningful participation. ... ensuring the accountability of duty bearers to rights-holders, especially the most vulnerable, marginalized and excluded. it means a focus on non-discrimination, equality, and equity in the distribution of costs and benefits. it means embracing approaches that empower people, both politically and economically. and it means explicitly aligning the new development framework with the international human rights framework — including civil, cultural, economic, political, and social rights, as well as the right to development. in essence, it means deliberately directing development efforts to the realization of human rights.42 the sdg as a plan of action attempts to leave no one behind. it pays utmost attention to the most deprived groups, combatting systems and structures that stimulate exclusion and impoverishment of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, including stateless persons. statelessness is detrimental to human development, trapping affected people and communities in vicious poverty and deprivation. accordingly, the september 2015 un summit’s outcome document envisaged: “(a) world of universal respect for human rights and human dignity; of justice and equality; of respect for race and ethnicity; and of equal opportunity permitting the full realization of human potential while promoting shared prosperity”.43 the intergenerational nature of statelessness, where affected parents are inherited by their children and grandchildren, exacerbates exclusion, poverty, disadvantage, and marginalisation of stateless persons. such a factor perpetuates statelessness across the most affected communities in the world (see figure 1). thus, the persistence of statelessness may undermine the progress of attaining the sdgs. 42 isi op cit note 5 at 3. 43 ibid. 66 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 figure1: development challengs and intergenerational cycle of statelessness source: isi (2018) at 18 the sdgs emphasise how development benefits the stateless persons through inclusion in the implementation of development priorities, and sustained effort to eliminate structural discrimination and disadvantage. by far, all 17 goals (see figure 2) are relevant to stateless persons and communities. invariably, some of the sdgs have a stronger link with statelessness than others. sdg 5 (gender equality), sdg 10 (reducing inequality) and sdg 16 (peace, justice, and strong institutions) oblige member states and other states to combat structural inequality and discrimination, intrinsic to the root causes of statelessness. other goals address critical areas where stateless persons seem disadvantaged, toward bringing development programming to stateless persons. these include sdg 1 (combatting poverty), sdg 2 (zero hunger), sdg 3 (health and well-being), sdg 4 (quality and affordable education), sdg 6 (water and sanitation), and sdg 8 (decent work and economic growth), and sdg 11 (sustainable cities and communities).44 44 isi 'all about the sdgs: what statelessness actors need to know' (2018). statelessness caused / perpetuated by discrimination and disadvantage denial of human rights, services and benefits of development inability to legally enforce right to nationality or documentation lack of nationality entrenches discrimination and exdusion 67 figure 2: sustainable development goals (2015–2030) source: united nations – sdgs (2020) significantly, the campaign to end statelessness, championed by the unhcr-led #ibelong and its 10-point global action plan have focused on the right to nationality, identity, and birth registration, as protected under international human rights treaties. these now find support in the sdgs, just as the international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr), convention on the rights of the child (crc), convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw), international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (icescr), and other relevant regional instruments such as the 1990 african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc), and the 1997 european convention on nationality are relevant to statelessness. hence, several goals can contribute to preventing and reducing statelessness, including enhancing the wellbeing of stateless persons and groups.45 how applicable are the sdgs to statelessness? given the fact that most of the world’s stateless persons and communities remained consigned to the bottom of society in terms of economic opportunity, social inclusion and political participation, the principal objective of the 2030 agenda ‘to reach the furthest behind first’ and ‘leave no one behind’ distinctly applies to the stateless. specific sdgs and targets (see figure 3), if properly implemented, will help prevent and reduce statelessness. these notably inlude sdg 5, target 5.1 — relating to the elimination of gender discrimination, and sdg 16, target 16.9 — urging states to provide legal identity for all, and birth registration.46 moreover, the sdgs and related targets also illustrate their relevance to improving the stateless persons' living conditions. for instance, sdg 4, target 4.1 obliges states’ commitment to ensuring by 2030, ‘that all girls and boys complete 45 blitz op cit note 2. 46 unhcr op cit note 16. statelessness, development, and protection of ‘disadvantaged groups’ 68 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes’. achieving this target will alleviate stateless children’s challenges in accessing education and obtaining certificates of school completion. again, sdg 4 is significant for protecting stateless persons and ensuring their access to basic rights.47 by improving their basic rights and living conditions, these sdgs may enhance the integration and inclusion of stateless (and former stateless) populations in development at all levels. this may empower large in situ groups, with longer-term initiatives toward resolving their statelessness and averting new incidents.48 figure 3: unhcr global actions and key sdgs/targets relating to statelessness source: unhcr (2017) at 4. tore, the unhcr’s mandate of resolving (current) and averting (future) incidents of statelessness encompasses 4 key elements: identify, prevent, reduce, and protect.49 this obliges the following: to work with governments to identify stateless persons and populations with undetermined nationality; to prevent the occurrence of statelessness; to reduce statelessness, particularly in protracted situations; and to work with states and stakeholders to protect and assist stateless groups/persons. 47 ibid. 48 manby op cit note 35; sperfeldt op cit note 35. 49 unhcr op cit note 16. actions to end statelessness statelessness mandate key sdgs and targets action 1: resolve existing major situations of statelessness. 1 reduction sdg 10, target 10.3 .and sdg 16, target 16.b action 2: ensure that no child is born stateless. 2 prevention/reduction action 3: remove gender discrimination from nationality laws. 3 prevention/ reduction sdg 5, target 5.1; sdg 10, target 10.c and sdg 16, target 16.b action 4: prevent denial, loss or deprivation of nationality on discriminatory grounds. 4 prevention sdg 10, target 10.3 and sdg 16, target 16.b action 5: prevent statelessness in cases of state succession. 5 prevention action 6: grant protection status to stateless migrants and facilitate their naturalization. 6 protection/ldentication sdg10, target 10.c and sdg16, targets 16.9 and 16.b action 7: ensure birth registration for the prevention of statelessness. 7 prevention sdg 10, target 10.c and sdg 16, targets 16.9 and16.b action 8: issue nationality documentation to those with entitlement to it. 8 prevention sdg 10, target 10.c and sdg 16, targets 16.9 and16.b action 9: accede to the un statelessness conventions. 9 protection/prevention/reduction action 10: improve quantitative and qualitative data on stateless populations. 10 identification sdg 17, target 17.18 69 concerning this mandate, sdgs 5, 10, 16, and 17, in addition to certain related targets appeared most applicable. § sdg 5: target 5.1, ‘end all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere’, is directly relevant to addressing the issue of gender discrimination in nationality laws. this is relevant because where nationality laws make women’s nationality status contingent on their husbands’, or prevent (stateless) men from acquiring their wives’ nationality, can be a major cause of statelessness.5051 § sdg 10: target 10.3, ‘ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, ... eliminating discriminatory laws, policies, and practices, and promoting appropriate legislation, policies, and action’. this confronts discrimination based on ethnicity, race, religion, language, or gender. instances of denial, loss, and deprivation of nationality on discriminatory grounds may induce statelessness. targets 10.3 and 16.b ensure that stateless persons enjoy their human rights without discrimination due to lack of citizenship. § sdg 16 seeks to ‘promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels’. its target 16.9 aims to, ‘by 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration’ toward leaving no one behind, including the stateless. accordingly, a lack of nationality should not constitute a barrier to human rights protection or equal access to development. target 16.b implores states to ‘promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws and policies for sustainable development’, particularly in terms of education, health, equality, work, and addressing poverty. § sdg 17 requires states to ‘strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development’. this illustrates key action enablers across the whole sdg framework. it focuses on implementing the sdgs through partnerships, and stakeholder engagement, including civil society, the private sector, and donor states and organisations. its target 17.18 centres on data, monitoring, and accountability: “by 2020, enhance capacity-building support to developing countries, including for least-developed countries and small island-developing states, to increase significantly the availability of highquality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts.’ this provides an opportunity for the improvement of statistical data on stateless populations — 50 unhcr ibid; isi op cit note 44. statelessness, development, and protection of ‘disadvantaged groups’ 70 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 particularly in developing countries — who are frequently ignored by authorities and are sometimes uncounted in national population censuses, databases, and administrative registries. likewise, target 17.18 could be used to improve civil registration and vital statistics (crvs) systems to integrate stateless persons and people of undetermined nationality in national development planning. the above targets can only be applied for the benefit of stateless persons, provided that the assumption behind them is inclusive, given the risk of neglect and vulnerability of the stateless. nonetheless, the universal goals set out by the sustainable development agenda recognise the roles all regions and states must play to achieve the goals rather than imposing an idea inflexibly on states. hence, all un member states exercise the free will to mainstream the sdgs into national planning, develop their national implementation strategies, and regularly review progress. this embraces engagements among stakeholders — civil society, private sector, local governments, and interest groups — and offers crucial opportunities for agenda setting and review, advocacy, and monitoring at all levels — global, regional, national, and local. importantly, the sdgs provide development actors and stakeholders with the tools to break the cycle of exclusion, rights deprivation, and intergenerational statelessness, through development programming. addressing statelessness requires constructive collaboration between actors in the development, human rights, and statelessness areas. this implies understanding the intersection and divergence between sustainable policies, development agenda, and (legal) frameworks. iv. challenging the arbitrariness of administrative detention statelessness and discrimination or inequality are mutually reinforcing; this underscores the need to take human rights and development into cognisance. hence, the rights to equality and non-discrimination are entrenched in several international, regional, and national policies. the icescr, adopted by the united nations in 1966, and entered into force on 3 january 1976, is the principal human rights treaty on socio-economic rights. other treaties, such as the crc, cedaw, and the convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families, advocate for socio-economic rights.51 article 6 of the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc) guarantees every child’s right to registration at birth and to a nationality. the au commission’s draft ‘protocol on the right to a nationality and the eradication of statelessness’ in africa was included in the african charter on human and people’s rights.52 despite these frameworks, the risk of intergenerational statelessness inhibits human rights-based development. 51 undg op cit note 6. 52 acerwc op cit note 29 at 3. 71 development overlaps with socio-economic rights, setting the core and minimum standards and services required by states for everyone in its territory. in every new generation of statelessness, malnourished and uneducated children grow into unemployed adults, with less to offer their children, compared to what their parents offered them, including regressions in generational higher education rate from parent to children. the historical impediments exacerbated by the lack of documentation and ‘legal status’ are constant in the global south. historically disadvantaged persons or communities, whose heritage has been disrupted, are often discriminated against and marginalised. this includes their vulnerability to rights violations, illegal detentions, and denial of access to basic services — healthcare, social protection, housing, and education. the sama dilaut (a.k.a., bajau laut) is a classic example of intergenerational and protracted statelessness, exacerbated by displacement and ethno-religious discrimination. this migratory semi-nomadic group inhabits the south east asian seas of the territories of eastern borneo (indonesia and malaysia), the west coast of sulawesi (indonesia) and the southern philippines.53 in the horn of africa, vulnerable children in somalia, eritrea, djibouti, and ethiopia, whose parents are displaced, including those of mixed parentage or members of cross-border communities remain at risk of intergenerational statelessness.54 statelessness in southern africa is predominantly induced by colonial history, migration, border changes, abysmal civil registry systems, and discrimination based on gender and ethnicity. four of africa’s nine biggest countries with stateless populations are in southern africa: south africa, the democratic republic of the congo, madagascar, and zimbabwe. no state in the region has a system for the identification and protection of stateless persons, and only a few have adopted national laws and action plans for the protection of civil, political, and socioeconomic rights.55 a critical example is the bill of rights enunciated in chapter 2 of south africa’s 1996 constitution, which guarantees the rights to human dignity, equality, nonracialism, and non-sexism.56 unfortunately, weaponised nationalism, xenophobia, and increasing restrictive migration measures inhibit the implementation of south africa’s national development plan (ndp), aimed to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality by 2030. these further put irregular and undocumented migrants, their children, refugees and asylum seekers, and other excluded minorities at risk of statelessness.57 west africa is also replete with a poor birth registry, undocumented 53 helen brunt 'world stateless children: stateless at sea' (2017) institute on statelessness and inclusion at 3, available at http://children.worldsstateless.org/3/childhood-statelessness-and-the-sustainable-development-agenda/stateless-at-sea. html 54 unhcr 'children, long-term refugees among population at risk of statelessness in horn of africa' (2022), available at https://www.unhcr.org/afr/news/press/2022/2/61fba07159/children-long-term-refugees-among-population-at-riskof-statelessness-in.html 55 unhcr op cit note 11 at 4. 56 antonia porter 'the rights of vulnerable and marginalised groups in south africa' (2018) 2 centre for conflict resolution, available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep05159.5 57 aimée-noël mbiyozo 'statelessness: an old problem with new threats' (2019) 5 isi, available at https://issafrica.org/ iss-today/statelessness-an-old-problem-with-new-threats statelessness, development, and protection of ‘disadvantaged groups’ 72 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 nomads, and forced displacements, particularly by conflicts and environmental change. côte d’ivoire hosts one of the world’s largest stateless populations, with an estimated 1.6 million affected persons. the gaps in nationality laws induce the denial of legal identity and nationality, to the affected populations.58 the sdgs’ ‘leaving no one behind’ does not reference the right to a nationality. how does the concept of ‘legal identity’ without the ‘right to a nationality’ solve the predicaments of stateless persons? these questions agitate the minds of stateless rights activists. given the risk of neglect, vulnerability, and discrimination of stateless persons, on the grounds of race, national origin, or religion and their exclusion from the national socio-political and economic arrangements, it is regrettable that many states do not even acknowledge their existence or statistics on stateless populations. subjecting access to socio-economic services to citizenship undermines the goal of a human rights-based approach to statelessness. this truism remains worrisome amid states’ exclusive sovereignty in nationality matters and the limits of international law. hence, the mismatch in the sdg goals and the implementation of national development plans. the minimal political incentive (or huge strong disincentive) for states’ support of stateless persons might impede the sdgs’ aspiration to ‘leave no one behind’. the sdgs’ development agenda’s mantra of ‘leaving no one behind’, can only be successful if complemented with rights-based approaches to development that eradicate stereotypes and ‘othering’ of the marginalised and excluded groups. the report of the expert group on refugee, idps and statelessness statistics (established in 2016) and the un economic and social council (ecosoc) decision (2021/224) in november 2021, was submitted for deliberation at the 54th session of the statistical commission in march 2023. while acknowledging the many causes of statelessness relating to challenges or gaps in nationality laws, policies, and manners of their application or practice, it seeks to provide feedback and valuable information and recommendations to improve official statistics on stateless populations nationally, regionally, and globally.59 the ohchr collaborates with the unhcr to promote awareness on statelessness, and its human rights implications and proffers solutions to it. the unhcr-ohchr joint virtual roundtable on ‘equality and non-discrimination in nationality matters to end statelessness’ (21 october 2021), highlighted the imperative of removing all forms of discrimination from nationality laws, policies, procedures, and practices.60 nevertheless, the post-sdgs 2030 goals and targets should explicitly reference statelessness toward enhancing their socioeconomic rights and protection in national development processes. additionally, development actors need to incentivise states to acknowledge the stateless persons’ 58 raymond a atuguba francis x d tuokuu & vitus gbang 'statelessness in west africa: an assessment of stateless populations and legal, policy, and administrative frameworks in ghana' (2020) 8 journal on migration and human security at 14, available at https://doi.org/10.1177/2331502419900771 59 united nations economic and social council (un-ecosoc) 'statistical commission fifty-third session: report of the expert group on refugee, internally displaced persons and statelessness statistics' (2022) vol (e/cn.3/20 new york, available at https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199560103.003.0007 60 office of the united nations high commissioner for human rights 'outcome document prepared following the ohchr/unhcr virtual roundtable on equality and non-discrimination in nationality matters to end statelessness' (2021) 1, available at https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2022-01/ohchr-unhcr-event-outcome.pdf 73 existence in their territories to enhance their rights to nationality and development. therefore, expanding the linkages between development priorities and human rights obligations is a crucial strategy. v. conclusion: challenges and prospects deprivation, marginalisation, and exclusion of stateless persons undermine their human security and dignity, even though their rights are protected under international law. for development actors, statelessness presents a fundamental power dynamic — one that is most challenging for the outline and delivery of inclusive development opportunities, premised on distributive justice. the lack of complementarity between development frameworks and human rights raises critical questions about global development policy implementation. there are different groups of stateless persons with different vulnerabilities and interests; hence, stateless persons are not homogenous. in situations where some are intentionally excluded from acquiring the nationality of a given state, for political and socio-economic reasons, such intonational exclusions could be addressed through inclusive development endeavours. ensuring development for stateless persons requires a comprehensive response, ranging from reviewing nationality laws along the unhcr global actions and redesigning national development strategies along the sdg goals and targets toward addressing the layers of vulnerabilities in stateless populations. similarly, the right to a nationality is universal, and no matter the national policies’ encumbrances, access to health and education should not in principle be constrained by citizenship. the legal identity target in the sdgs provides guarantees for social inclusion and more equitable distribution of development opportunities. however, strengthening identification may heighten unintended consequences, and, in some cases, undermine development and human rights outcomes, particularly within the context of complex political economies and weak institutions. the experience with identification systems underlines three interconnected risks of exclusion.61 the first risk stems from identification and registration systems that are premised on policies of mandatory proof of legal identity for accessing basic rights, essential services, and protections. the second risk of exclusion can be linked to discriminatory regulations and practices. these regulations may be exclusionary or produce results based on their implementation, thus leading to negative ends for the disadvantaged. the third related risk emanates from the reality that digital identification systems at national levels are connected to citizenship or permanent residence status. hence, determining legal status — ‘national’ or ‘non-national’ — is often problematic, particularly in countries with an abysmal enrolment process, where most people also lack proof of legal identity.62 equally, the revolutionary nature of sdgs transcends its benchmark for the delivery of development objectives. it further requires the evaluation and reform 61 sperfeldt op cit note 35. 62 sperfeldt ibid; undg op cit note 6. statelessness, development, and protection of ‘disadvantaged groups’ 74 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 of discriminatory and exclusive legal and societal structures. for example, sdgs 3 and 4 respectively aspire to a world where everyone has access to quality healthcare and education. if ‘everyone’ includes the stateless, as the intention of the drafters of the sdgs implied, why are they often denied these fundamental services? many of the goals and targets demand structural change, thus aligned with human rights obligations. sdgs 5, 10, and 16 stand out in addressing some of the root causes of statelessness (discrimination in all its manifestations) including factors that disadvantage the stateless. the sdgs’ approach enhances the integration of human rights frameworks and development processes to address human vulnerability and exclusion. its significant window of opportunity can be expanded in the post-2030 global development agenda setting. explicit provisions to integrate statelessness and other vulnerable groups need to be formulated and mainstreamed into the postsdgs (2030) global development agenda. this should encompass a full-fledged goal, with targets that encourage inclusion and prioritise issues and indicators connected to statelessness in national and regional development plans. furthermore, it is crucial to develop a collaborative strategy on statelessness, that is tailored to local (national) and regional contexts and political realities. statelessness actors, including human rights, migration, and development experts, should be directly involved in the conversation, programming, and implementation strategies. a strategy, incorporating joint and complementary advocacy, communication, and stakeholders’ engagement among development and human rights actors, the private sectors, local government and traditional institutions, civil society, and the diplomatic community can periodically monitor and evaluate the ‘state of statelessness’ at all levels of governance (including transnational). finally, international finance entities and development institutions have crucial roles to play by supporting applied research in mapping the nexus between statelessness, poverty, deprivation, and vulnerability. the outcome should be evidence based and provide a better understanding of the root causes and consequences of statelessness, including mechanisms for effective reforms. african human mobility review volume 5 number 3, september-december 2019 living on the fringes of life and death: somali migrants, risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia in cape town african immigrant and refugee families’ perceptions on informational support and health status: a comparison of african immigrants living in south africa and the united states internal migration, socio-economic status and remittances: experiences of migrant adolescent girls’ head-porters in ghana social inequality and social mobility: the construed diversity of ethiopian female labour migrants in djibouti the human security implications of migration on zimbabwean migrant women in south africa ii ahmr _________________________________________________________________________________ chief editor prof mulugeta f. dinbabo university of the western cape, south africa board members dr beneberu assefa wondimagegnhu bahir dar university, ethiopia dr delali margaret badasu university of ghana, ghana dr edmond agyeman university of education, winneba, ghana dr ernest angu pineteh university of pretoria, south africa dr joseph yaro university of ghana, ghana prof laurence piper university of the western cape, south africa dr linda oucho african migration and development policy centre, kenya prof loren landau university of witwatersrand, south africa dr lothar smith radboud university, netherlands dr meselu alamnie mulugeta bahir dar university, ethiopia prof raul delgado wise universidad autónoma de zacatecas, mexico dr razack karriem university of the western cape, south africa dr sharon penderis university of the western cape, south africa prof simon bekker university of stellenbosch, south africa prof shimelis gulema stony brook university, new york prof thomas faist bielefeld university, germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ ahmr is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in africa. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is published by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, sao paulo and manila. ahmr is accredited by the department of higher education and training (dhet) in south africa. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). webpage: www.sihma.org.za copyright © 2019 by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. 0027 021 461 4741, email: editor@sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ http://www.sihma.org.za/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) iii african human mobility review ___________________________________________________________________________ african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) contents 1674 living on the fringes of life and death: somali migrants, risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia in cape town pineteh e. angu 1696 african immigrant and refugee families’ perceptions on informational support and health status: a comparison of african immigrants living in south africa and the united states wilson majee, mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile and michael belebema 1717 internal migration, socio-economic status and remittances: experiences of migrant adolescent girls’ head-porters in ghana kennedy a. alatinga 1749 social inequality and social mobility: the construed diversity of ethiopian female labour migrants in djibouti meron zeleke 1774 the human security implications of migration on zimbabwean migrant women in south africa mutambara marcia victoria mutambara and naidu maheshvari african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1674 living on the fringes of life and death: somali migrants, risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia in cape town pineteh e. angu abstract since the 2008 attacks on african migrants, xenophobic violence has become a form of social agency for responding to increasing unemployment, destitution and crime in south africa. africans living and operating businesses in urban and peri-urban areas are now objects of different forms of social violence, as they are repeatedly blamed for unfulfilled political promises by the anc-led government. one of most victimised african migrant communities is the somali community, whose business activities in cities and townships are perceived as undesirable threats to locals’ sources of livelihood. this article uses qualitative data collected from 30 somali migrants in bellville and khayelitsha, cape town to examine how somalis’ co-existence with south africans and their business tactics in cape town intersect to influence xenophobic violence. it explores the relationship between risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia, and the threats that this relationship poses to somali lives. finally, it analyses south africans’ strategies to force somalis out of townships and how somalis’ existential resistance to these strategies positions them on the fringes of life and death. keywords: african diaspora, displacement, risky entrepreneurship, xenophobia. “everybody just arrives in our townships and rural areas and set up business without licences and permits. we are going to bring this to an end! and those who are operating illegally must now know” (president cyril ramaphosa – election campaign 2019). introduction recent narratives about xenophobia in south africa focus on the porousness of south african borders and “a subtle invasion of south african territory” by illegal aliens from other african countries (vigneswaran, 2007: 144; comaroff and comaroff, 2002). as transnational migrants continue to challenge forms of citizenship, belonging and statecraft in south africa, political populism now  university of pretoria. email: pineteh.angu@up.ac.za mailto:pineteh.angu@up.ac.za african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1675 constructs this imaginary territorial invasion by africans as a potential threat to south africa’s national security and sovereignty. this is because migration, legal or illegal, has been repeatedly blamed for high levels of poverty, joblessness and crime as well as poor service delivery in south africa (nyamnjoh, 2007; pineteh, 2018). in cape town townships and elsewhere, locals have repeatedly attributed these social pathologies to the proliferation of somali businesses and the resultant contestation over business spaces. despite the success of south african businesses in townships, the expansion of somali businesses in these areas has led to unhealthy business rivalry between locals and somalis. here, we see both parties employing different tactics to eliminate competitors and to remain at the centre of business activities. for example, south africans are now resorting to autochthony tropes of citizenship to express their “exclusive entitlements to space, property and state resources”, especially during xenophobic attacks (pineteh, 2018: 5; dassah, 2015). the evocation of autochthonous citizenship disregards the fact that “transnational migration has led to new forms of citizenship and belonging that can no longer be ignored by states and their citizens” (pineteh, 2018: 5). nevertheless, somali migrants continue to live on the fringes of life and death as they do business in townships, especially as calls for non-citizens to be expelled continue to dominate conversations about state transformation in post-apartheid south africa (charman and piper, 2012; nyamnjoh, 2007; pineteh, 2018; thompson, 2016). in 2015, as part of the african humanities program (ahp) of the american council of learned societies (acls), i conducted a narrative study of the xenophobic experiences of somali migrants in cape town. this article emerges out of, and uses empirical evidence gleaned during this broader study. it uses qualitative data to examine how somalis’ co-existence with south africans and their business tactics in cape town intersect to influence xenophobic violence. it explores the relationship between risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia and the threats that this relationship poses to somali lives. the article argues that as south africans continue to deploy different strategies such as violent attacks, burning and looting of shops, and killings to force somalis out of townships, somalis will always devise new ways to resist the attacks and to continue doing business in these townships. in african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1676 finding novel ways to resist and circumvent xenophobic attacks, somalis find themselves living on the fringes of life and death. to tease out the relationship between xenophobia and risky entrepreneurship, this article firstly provides a brief literature overview of transnationalism, african migrants and xenophobia in south africa, and it describes the somali community in cape town. secondly, it explains the data collection methods and discusses how somali business strategies and their responses to xenophobia position them on the fringes of life and death in cape town. transnationalism, somali entrepreneurship and xenophobia in south africa to understand the exilic experiences of african migrants and the complex patterns of xenophobia in post-apartheid south africa, i frame this article around conceptions of transnationalism. here, i position particularly somali experiences as “interactions between agents, transnational networks, structures of opportunity and constraints, and the production and circulation of power as seen through discourses of difference” (smith and bailey, 2004: 358). these conceptions of transnationalism help us to understand the “geographies of migrant life and livelihood”, and how migrants’ sense of belonging transcends territorial boundaries (thompson, 2015: 121). like other african transnational migrants, somalis social existence in south africa is constantly influenced by different agents including state institutions, political figures and local citizens on the one hand, and by their own strong networks on the other. these networks include close-knit relationships in south africa and somalia as well as with other somali communities around the world (jones, 2010; pineteh, 2018; vertovec, 2004). these networks provide different support structures for old and new somali migrants and for business ventures. this has contributed significantly to somali business expansion in cape town, which forges interactions with different agents in south africa resulting in the display and interplay of different power dynamics and forms of resistance. for carling (2008:1453), this display of power and resistance stems from the “multi-faceted nature of the relationship, with migrants and non-migrants experiencing vulnerability and ascendancy at different times and in different contexts”. during xenophobic violence, this multi-faceted relationship plays out in the form of reactions and counter-reactions as locals african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1677 try to reclaim business spaces in townships. here, incendiary narratives, particularly from locals, have been subverted by counter-narratives that recognize somalis’ rights to belong and acknowledge the contributions of somali businesses to south africa’s economic growth (see gastrow and amit, 2013; pineteh, 2018). because locals’ attempts to get rid of perceived noncitizens or outsiders in resource-constrained communities are countered by narratives of inclusivity, “violence becomes a form of agency” in these communities (von holdt and alexander, 2012: 106). therefore, any form of violence or protest action against somali businesses in townships places somali migrants on the fringes of life and death. in this context, i use the concept of transnationalism to mean “the daily lives, activities and social relationships of migrants” and how they intersect with those of non-migrants to influence xenophobic violence (schiller et al., 1992: 5). i frame this article around transnationalism, not only because somalis’ activities and transnational networks or cross-border business transactions have contributed to their business dominance in south africa (carling, 2008; schiller et al., 1992), but also because “transnational activities flourish in highly concentrated communities, especially those that have been subjected to a hostile reception by the host society’s authorities and citizenry” (portes, 2003: 880). here, i try to argue that the growth of somali business clusters in areas such as bellville and khayelitsha in cape town and the ensuing multifaceted transnational activities respond to the alienation of african migrants in south africa. conversely, these business clusters and growing transnational activities drive xenophobia because they are imagined as migrants’ attempts to usurp spaces that naturally belong to autochthons (gastrow and amit, 2013; pineteh, 2018). in this light, as xenophobic violence threatens the lives of somali migrants, their “transnational cultural activities and civic associations offer a source of solace against external hostility, and protect personal dignities…” (portes, 2003: 880). drawing on these tenets of transnationalism, studies on african transnational migrants have focused on their sources of livelihood, imagined threats to the social wellbeing of citizens and xenophobia in post-apartheid south africa (see for example klotz, 2016; landau, 2011; pineteh, 2018). the upsurge in these studies is attributed to the incendiary narratives about illegal migration and recurrent attacks of particularly african migrants in major south african cities african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1678 and townships since 2008. the culture of xenophobia in the new south africa is also inflamed by preoccupations with “autochthonous forms of citizenship which often neglect africa’s social formations of mobility and inclusiveness” (boas and dunn, 2013:12; geschiere, 2009). in the context of south africa, many of these studies explain how the notion of ‘origin’ is constantly used by those who claim to be daughters and sons of the soil to reject the judiciary rights of african migrants to belong. here, increasing political rhetoric of autochthonous citizenship engenders the construction of “a state nationalism that is exclusionary and discriminatory”, especially in a south africa with widening inequality gaps and competition over scarce resources (lecours and moreno, 2010: 128). these counter-democratic practices blame the miseries of south africans on porous borders and the influx of african migrants. studies such as those by pineteh (2017), landau (2011) and hassim et al. (2008) have therefore argued that xenophobic tendencies are influenced partly by perceptions that migrants, especially those from the african continent, are illegal parasites, criminals and undeserving beneficiaries. as locals reimagined the post-apartheid state as belonging to autochthons only and continue to lay claims to public spaces and state resources, some of the studies on xenophobia seek to understand and theorize the uneasy relationship between immigrant entrepreneurship and xenophobia (charman and piper, 2012; charman et al., 2012; grant and thompson, 2015). they explore the business rivalry between migrants and locals, highlighting the “complex milieus in which immigrant business practices and xenophobia mutually shape each other” (grant and thompson, 2015: 244). at the centre of this business rivalry between africans and locals are somalis and other migrants from the horn of africa because they have penetrated and set up businesses in some of the most hostile urban and peri-urban areas in south africa. these studies therefore argued that operating businesses in these spaces positions somalis and other migrants as prime targets during xenophobic violence (see charman and piper, 2012; grant and thompson, 2015; pineteh, 2018; thompson, 2016). despite the significantly high numbers of somali murders and equally significant capital losses in the form of goods and cash during violent attacks on foreign businesses, we are yet to see a decline in somali businesses in those volatile spaces (jinnah, 2010; piper and yu, 2016; thompson, 2016). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1679 somali community in cape town the somali population in cape town has increased exponentially over the years, and this population includes predominantly asylum seekers and refugees. it is, however, difficult to determine the exact number because of inaccurate and often obfuscating south african department of home affairs (sadha) data on asylum seekers and refugees in south africa (landau, 2010; pineteh, 2018). the increase is matched diametrically by an upsurge in somali business activities in different sectors of cape town. this is because earlier somali migrants have grown into “self-employed immigrant entrepreneurs” and have created business opportunities and provided assistance in the form of start-up capital to new arrivals (grant and thompson, 2015: 260). this community has the foresight to spot business opportunities, and they are ready to risk everything including being “willing to run the risk of robbery” (charman and piper, 2012: 96). their rapid expansion in business and appropriation of business spaces in peri-urban and urban areas has been likened to some kind of fetishism or black magic, and locals have tended to associate their “economic misfortunes like poverty, joblessness, and the consequent inability to marry…” to a spiritual spell cast on them by successful foreign business owners (hickel, 2014:108). this street-level discourse hardly explains the success of somali businesses in cape town. this paper further argues that the success of somali entrepreneurism lies in their ability to see business opportunities in every situation they encounter in life. moreover, the xenophobic experiences of somali migrants in cape town cannot be disassociated from the collective tribulations of african migrants in post-apartheid south africa. somalis are part of a community which landau (2011:1) describes as demons, “whose presence came to be seen as an existential threat to south africa’s collective transformation and renaissance”. the collective violence against africans has been justified by locals as restless attempts to “exorcise the demons”, “the enemy”, “an amorphously delimited group of outsiders that is inherently threatening, often indistinguishable from others, and effectively impossible to spatially exclude” (landau, 2011: 2). so, just like other africans in south africa, the image of the foreigner “makes them markedly vulnerable to constant victimization, harassment and violence” (crush et al., 2015: 52). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1680 unlike many other african migrants, somali migrants in south africa are escapees of the never-ending civil wars and piratic activities in somalia. these wars continue to disperse families and displace millions of somali nationals. as political refugees, they come to south africa with horrific images of a dysfunctional homeland. they are autochthons who have been deprived of citizenship, excluded and alienated in a place called home (crush et al., 2015; geschiere, 2009; landau, 2011). in south africa, what is strikingly unique about somali migrants is their spirit of resilience and resistance to different forms of social violence. to date, they are arguably one of the most affected communities with regard to xenophobia, partly because of their extreme courage to implant themselves and operate businesses in spaces dreaded by other migrants (see crush et al., 2015; harris, 2002; landau 2011; pineteh, 2018). today, when you read about somali migrants, the dominant narrative is that of “violent entrepreneurship” or “the spaza shop violence” (charman and piper, 2012: 83). this narrative sheds light on the “construction of political insiders and outsiders through a long history of claiming autochthony” in volatile south african townships such as alexandra, delft, joe slovo and philippi (charman and piper, 2012: 85). narratives that allude to somalis’ extreme courage and appropriation of business spaces in south africa now reverberate in major cities like johannesburg, durban and cape town. in fact, there is an increasing formation of somali ghettoes in these cities with a rich tapestry of somali culture in the form of community halls, restaurants, mosques with nationalistic symbols such as the somali flag (pineteh, 2018). in cape town, the bellville municipality in the northern suburbs is dominated by somali spaza shops, supermarkets and wholesale businesses, competing favourably with popular south african brands such as pick ’n pay, shoprite, edgars and pep (charman and piper, 2012; pineteh, 2018). this business competition has spread with equal success to key townships/peri-urban areas in cape town such as nyanga, philippi and khayelitsha, putting somalis at loggerheads with local business owners. although the formation of somali ghettoes at urban and periurban intersections of cape town symbolizes a renewed sense of belonging and self-inclusion, it is weakened by their vulnerability to xenophobic attacks (crush et al., 2015; landau and freemantle, 2010). this article was therefore african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1681 motivated by the intersections of somalis’ risky business tactics, the unhealthy rivalry with local businesses and xenophobia in cape town. research methodology and methods of data collection as previously mentioned, this article is based on qualitative data collected between 2015 and 2016 for a broader project funded by the american council of learned societies through its african humanities program. this project sought to understand xenophobic experiences of somalis residing and operating businesses in bellville and khayelitsha in cape town. the data was collected through one-on-one interviews with 30 participants – 20 males and 10 females – between the ages of 25 and 45. the interviewees were selected using a snowballing approach, and the interviews were conducted either at their residences or at their business premises. each interview generally lasted between 30 and 60 minutes, and the questions were framed around somali exilic experiences including the main themes of this article. participants included five retail shop owners in bellville, 15 spaza shop owners in khayelitsha, three shop attendants in bellville and seven roadside traders, also in bellville. during the interviews, shop owners and roadside traders claimed that they had been robbed, beaten and had their businesses looted at least once during the xenophobic attacks. for instance, shop owners in bellville emphasized that they had been victims of random robberies and sporadic lootings because of their location. however, spaza shop owners in the townships pointed out that they had experienced worse forms of xenophobic violence, ranging from looting and burning of shops to stoning and brutal murdering of somalis. of the 15 spaza shop owners, five claimed they had been shot at least once or had witnessed the brutal murder of another somali business owner, and 10 stated that they had been seriously beaten. the participants in this project were not very fluent in english, so conducting 30to 60-minute interviews in english was a major challenge. to address this challenge, i recruited, as a research assistant, a postgraduate somali student at the university of the western cape who had research experience and was very familiar with the somali community. his primary responsibilities included scheduling interview appointments, conducting interviews, interpreting and transcribing data. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1682 through the research assistant’s networks and association with the somali community, i was able to gain access and conduct the interviews. before each interview, we explained the purpose of the research and, through a consent form, we requested permission to audio-record all the sessions. this document clearly explained ethical issues including confidentiality and anonymity. for this reason, participants are cited in this article simply as ‘participant’ and suffix numbers between 1 and 30. the interviews were transcribed and in some cases they were translated from somali/arabic into english by the research assistant. using a thematic content analysis approach, data was categorized into key themes, coded and analyzed accordingly. the analysis revealed intricacies of risky entrepreneurship and social exclusion, and the characteristics of xenophobia in post-apartheid south africa. they also revealed aspects of business rivalry, somali business tactics and constellations of xenophobic violence in south africa. analysis and discussion of key findings as opposition to the anc-led government intensifies, its politicians now resort to populist renditions rather than substantive evidence of social reforms to lure local votes. these renditions desperately blame the social and economic activities of african migrants for the declining quality of south african lives (dassah, 2015; pineteh, 2017; 2018). in this light, the expansion of somali businesses in south african communities is perceived as a process of dislodgement of local competitors. this immediately frames somali entrepreneurship as a serious threat to the livelihoods of local south africans, which must be eliminated (nyamnjoh, 2006; thompson, 2015). somali migrants, risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia in cape town this study revealed that the majority of cape town-based somalis rely on different business ventures as their main source of livelihood. in bellville and khayelitsha, they operate mainly clothing, homeware and grocery shops, as wholesalers, retail traders, spaza shop owners or street-side petit vendors (charman and piper, 2012; pineteh, 2018). like in other major south african cities such as johannesburg, durban and pretoria, the sprawling of somali businesses in cape town is attributed to the application of different tactics, some of which instigate hostile reactions from south africans (gastrow and amit, 2013; thompson, 2016). the study also revealed that through close-knit african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1683 networks and ghettos, somalis are able use their financial power to illegally secure business space, intimidate competitors (especially other migrants) and defend themselves against assailants or robbers. they own their own weapons, which “are intended to hold back a south african ‘below’ that threatens to rise up from the group and throw out somalis” in any business space (thompson, 2016: 93). these tactics have enabled them to displace local businesses in spaces that have been owned and controlled by local shop owners for years. attacks on somali businesses in cape town are therefore construed “as part of a struggle to recapture lost market space or secure market advantage” (charman and piper, 2012: 5). according to one participant, this business place is my own because i have an agreement with the landlord and i pay my rent every month. this rent is also helping the landlord. so, no south african can drive me from this place. they are doing the same spaza shop business like us but we are not disturbing them, so they think they can take my business just because this is their country. what they are doing is not the law and i am not going to allow them to take my shop just like that. let them come, i am waiting for them [sic](participant 11). this interviewee is one of many somalis who now operate successful spaza shops in khayelitsha, disrupting a business culture that has existed in south african townships for decades. in fact, the piecemeal selling of household goods in small kiosks has been the source of livelihood for many south african families for decades, and somalis’ accessing and appropriating this business idea is perceived as a threat to a longstanding business tradition that has influenced the identity of local township dwellers (charman and piper, 2012; pineteh, 2018). the sense of an aggressive takeover in the quotation above is an “overt display of power in local communities” which instigates anger and contempt against somalis in cape town townships (pineteh, 2018: 11; charman and piper, 2012; jinnah, 2010). somalis’ business tactics are driven on one level by a form of business aggression, which enhances their business success and increases the pressure on local business owners to compete. this increasing pressure to compete with somali businesses has translated into hostility and criminality in townships. according to one participant: african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1684 this [sic] people have seen the way we do business and they become angry that we are taking their customers. they say they are tired of us putting shops everywhere in bellville and their townships and they cannot sell their own stuff because all the people now buy from somalians. so, they attack us because they think we are taking their business, and thieves come to steal from us almost every day because they think we have a lot of money in our shops (participant 12). this narrative is a replay of locals’ vocabulary of entitlement and pejorative images of high crime rates stemming from economic stagnation and rising unemployment (pineteh, 2018). this is expressed in phrases such as ‘taking their customers’, ‘their townships’, ‘taking their business’ and ‘criminals rob us every day…’ moreover, although somalis who were interviewed are bona fide residents in south africa, there is an underlying rhetoric of unwanted people or the “convenient metaphor of illegal alien…gaining undeserved advantages” (murray, 2003: 447) during xenophobic violence. this testimony therefore alludes to locals’ attempts to de-legitimize somalis’ judiciary rights to live and work in south africa, rights accorded to them by sadha (crush and pendleton, 2004; landau and freemantle, 2010; pineteh, 2018). despite complaints about somali spatial appropriation, which are assumed to deprive local south africans of business opportunities, somali narratives tended to replay south africans’ obsessive sense of entitlement, which arguably is driven by a culture of dependency imbued in south africans by political promises. for example: they say we are taking all their business and i feel for them. but for me they are jealous of us and the problem is that this [sic] people are very lazy; they can’t do this job. sometimes they come to the shops of somalis and they say they want jobs, but if you give them work they won’t work. instead they will be watching your business, and at night they will come and rob the shop. so no one is giving them jobs in their shop again. you see, they don’t want to work and they want their government to give them houses, jobs, food, and if they don’t get them, they come and attack us. but this shop is not given by the government and i work hard to build my shop – the government did not give me the money (participant 8). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1685 as somali migrants confront different forms of social violence, they tend to narrate their experience of xenophobia through african migrant images of a perceived lazy and dependent south african. like many other african migrants, somalis feels they are attacked because they are hardworking, and for them their businesses are symbols of this hard work (pineteh, 2017; 2018). the narrative points to the xenophobia denialism and african migrant exceptionalism, which reconstruct the attacks on africans as being in the wrong place at the wrong time (crush and pendleton, 2004; harris, 2002). but as somali migrants continue to operate businesses in cape town, the display of power and control over spaces, as well as somali resistance to xenophobic violence, continue to endanger their lives. for somalis and south africans alike, somali business successes are construed as a life of opulence, a gratuitous opportunity offered to africans by the postapartheid politics of inclusivity, while locals’ conditions of abjection persist (pineteh, 2017; 2018). xenophobic attacks on somalis are scripted implicitly as a narrative of envy and the dystopia of a political agency of better living conditions for all south africans, which over the years has unfolded into imagined permanent conditions of misery (landau and freemantle 2010; nyamnjoh, 2006). however, the risk to somali lives also emanates from a strong survivalist culture expressed through business tactics of close networks, kinship and affordable pricing (jinnah, 2010). these unique business strategies have driven somalis to volatile business spaces previously owned and controlled by local south africans. as argued in previous articles (pineteh, 2017; 2018), operating successful businesses in townships is seen not only as a threat to local livelihoods or as undesirable business competition, but also as illegal access to spaces that belong to indigenes. this participant asserted that, south africans sleep the whole day, targeting to steal, loot and kill foreigners at night while they get support from their government. that is how they want to earn their living. but somalis work hard and help each other to become business partners because they don’t have government [sic] to rely on. so the difference is somalis want to work hard and south africans totally don’t want to work but only to rob people. when they rob you, they say we come into their home and do business in their land, so the things belong to them (participant 13). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1686 again, the metaphor of an unwanted parasite and the culture of entitlement are used to justify criminality and attacks on somalis. although somali businesses contribute to local economic growth, their mere presence in townships is perceived as a threat to locals’ autochthonous right to spaces, and the attacks as a community agency to protect what is rightfully theirs (hassim et al., 2008; neocosmos, 2010; nyamnjoh, 2006). the following quotation points to a narrative shift, which subverts south africans’ claims of an aggressive business takeover by somali migrants. during the interviews, one participant reiterated that south africans cannot claim that somalis have taken their businesses and customers when they do not have any interest in business. he argued that south africans are just jealous of somali success, but do not have the character to run successful businesses. he commented: i don’t think south african people like business. they want the government to give them everything: education, jobs and houses. i come from a country with no government to give you anything, so you must work for yourself. we can’t take their business; we only start our own spaza shops in the township. before we came here they were already doing the business but it wasn’t growing because they have no strategies. they attack our shops because of all the bad things they think that we bring to south africa. they even say we use muti 1 to do business… (participant 14). this participant is disingenuous about south africans’ entrepreneurial skills because there is research evidence which shows the success of south african spaza shops despite the expansion of somali businesses (see gastrow and amit, 2013; pineteh, 2018). here, the victimization of somalis is simply connected to “their keen sense of business acumen” (jinnah, 2010: 98). however, the looting of somali shops and the killing of shop owners is a pretext for a generalized hatred of the other african, constantly imaged “not only as a tramontane intruder who disrupts the status quo, but also a stronger, or one who figuratively pollutes, contaminates and despoils the existing moral order” (murray, 2003: 448). although the generalized perception about africans is a powerful narrative trajectory in somali reconstruction of 1 muti is a zulu word for traditional african medicine. it is commonly used by traditional healers in southern africa. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1687 xenophobic experiences, somali business tactics remain a trigger of violence, whether or not south africans are business-oriented. for example, the success of somali spaza shops in cape town townships and elsewhere in south africa is attributed to strong networks and kinships, which give them access to startup capital for new businesses. instead of seeking business loans from the banks, they are easily funded by established somalis. because they have access to capital and goods, they are able to negotiate favourable prices or offer credit options to local communities, compared to local shop owners who charge relatively high prices. living on the fringes of life and death: the somali case as political rhetoric and local narratives continue to blame african migrants for the woes of south africans, townships are seen as the hotspots for all forms of social violence, including service delivery protests and xenophobia (landau, 2011; pineteh, 2017; 2018). this is because decades after the demise of apartheid, south african townships are still embodiments of human suffering and they epitomise the extent to which the black-led government has failed to deliver on its political promises of a better life for south africans. instead, the government’s politics of state transformation has created “a politically entitled but materially deprived citizenry [which has taken] on the obligation to alienate and exclude those standing in its way” (landau, 2011: 3). these residential spaces “serve to modify, extend, and entrench various forms of spatial control, political authority and sovereignty”, even at the expense of human lives (landau, 2011: 3; pineteh, 2018). the growing social deprivation, anxieties and gruesome images of social violence show how townships have transformed into risky and volatile spaces, especially to african migrants, whom many local residents perceived as architects of their socio-economic problems. but for somali migrants in cape town, operating businesses in risky spaces is a normal business challenge. one participant asserted: many people ask us whether we are not afraid to live in the township and open businesses in the townships because there is a lot crime in the township and they are killing foreigners every day. i always tell them business is about taking risk, and if you do not take any risk in business, you are never going to make any money. you can die at any place and any time, and if it is not your time to die, allah is not going to allow it to happen (participant 8). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1688 this participant normalizes the violent attacks on africans and the looting of their businesses, internalizing the logic that business, risk and social violence are co-dependent variants in any competitiveness business environment (charman and piper, 2012; gastrow, 2013). although foreigners and their businesses in the townships are the most vulnerable during xenophobic violence, compared to those in urban areas, this participant still perceives access to risky business spaces and resilience to violence as predictors of business success (pineteh, 2018; piper and yu, 2016). this attitude explains why, despite the killing of somali migrants in cape town townships, research studies are yet to show a decline in somali businesses in these areas. for somali business owners, behind the façade of the social violence and threats to the lives of somalis in cape town townships lies a business opportunity. as survivors of years of al-shabaab incursions in somalia and tumultuous journeys to exile, the violence in townships ignites not fear but a sense of déjà vu in many participants interviewed in this study (pineteh, 2017; thompson, 2015; 2016). this sense of déjà vu is captured in the following excerpt: yes, we know that there is crime in the townships the same way that there is crime in the cities. my brothers have shops in bellville but they still attack them. before coming to south africa, i ran away from war in somalia and they were killing people every day and i ran way. i travelled a long distance through different countries to come here, and i passed through places where there was fighting and killing of people, and i was attacked and arrested. so there is nothing in south africa that i am afraid of (participant 11). during the interviews, participants pointed out that living on the fringes of life and death in cape town townships is a normal way of surviving in crimeridden post-apartheid south africa. although townships pose a major threat to the lives of somalis, this participant claims xenophobic violence can no longer be localized because threats to the lives of africans have permeated to all parts of south africa. in addition, somalis’ experiences of statelessness and political violence at home, crossing turbulent borders and hostile reception during their journeys to exile reduce the violence experienced in south african townships to very familiar exilic experiences (gastrow, 2013; pineteh, 2017; thompson, 2015). the eruption of violence against somali migrants who have african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1689 penetrated business spaces in the townships is nothing but “an identifiable locus of ungovernance in which experiences of state presence and absence come together as migrants circulate through the neighbourhood across lines of unofficial segregation, provincial boundaries, and national borders” (thompson, 2016: 92). as subaltern south africans continue to seek answers for their existing material conditions, somali business successes in cape town will remain existential threats to their south african competitors if answers, besides blaming their conditions on the influx of illegal migration are not forthcoming from politicians (grant and thompson, 2015; pineteh, 2018; thompson, 2016). tensions and the imminence of violent attacks will continue to simmer in hotspots around the country, further endangering the lives of somali migrants (buyer, 2009; klotz, 2016). however, over and above these visible threats, this study revealed that somali lives are equally endangered by their reactions to xenophobic violence in the absence of state protection and justice for victims (gastrow, 2013; pineteh, 2017). in the following quote, one participant emphasized the need for self-protection against criminality and xenophobia in the cape town townships: my shop is five years now in khayelitsha [sic], and criminals have broken into my shop many times and taken my stuff. they have attacked me and threatened to kill me. there was a time when they came to steal during the evening, a group of five men, and they attacked me with knives, and i fight [sic], and they took some money and stuff and ran. i called the police and they did not come. so now i sleep in my shop and i have my own weapons; i am waiting for them to come again (participant 17). in this quotation, we see an existential character that is ready to take responsibility to protect his life and livelihood in the midst of crime and antiimmigrant violence because somali victims have been unable to access “justice via formal state institutions” (gastrow, 2013: 10). empirical evidence from studies on the state’s response in providing judiciary protection to somali migrants affected by xenophobic violence shows that the response has been sluggish and tokenistic. in a study on somali businesses in the western cape, gastrow (2013: 10) opines that “there has been very little police and prosecutor success in achieving convictions in respect of the somali business robbery victims…” whilst the lack of police protection can be blamed on african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1690 several challenges within the south african police services (saps) and the south african judiciary system, the quotation shows clearly that somalis can no longer rely on the saps for protection against their assailants. as somali migrants pursue alternative means of justice and defence such as owning their own guns and “paying youth and gangs for protection”, they will continue to live in the margins of life and death (gastrow, 2013: 11; pineteh, 2018). discussion and conclusion the most recent (2019) and previous xenophobic attacks on african migrants demonstrate that there is still a need for more scholarly, evidence-based research in migration and the politics of belonging. this type of research plays a critical role in understanding the multi-faceted and often contentious debates about the thorny issue of migration, as south africa grapples with worsening socio-economic challenges (see dassah, 2015; nyamnjoh, 2006; pineteh, 2018). research on the lived experiences of african migrants therefore provides a practical prism through which we can engage with broader conceptions of transnational migration and the implications for policy formulation (amit and kriger, 2014). this article therefore contributes to existing studies on the role of immigrant entrepreneurship and political populism in shaping south africans’ perceptions about african migrants. in one of my previous publications, i argued that xenophobia has become a new form of political agency driven by a fixation on the dangers of free human mobility, border control and the expulsion of ‘outsiders’ (dassah, 2015; nyamnjoh, 2006; pineteh, 2017; 2018). one of the dominant narratives in south african political discourse today is the porousness of south african borders and clarion calls for the government to control and fix its borders to prevent the entry of african migrants, regardless of the potential economic benefits they may bring. for example, somali migrants bring entrepreneurial skills from which south african small business owners can learn to become more competitive in the spaza shop business (charman and piper, 2012; gastrow, 2013; pineteh, 2018; thompson, 2016). interestingly, south africans’ calls for better securitization of south african borders show that although globalization is about flexible borders, goods and financial capital seem to be enjoying this flexibility more than human beings. this suggests that the “open flows of globalization have triggered the construction of new boundaries, the reaffirmation of old ones and the closure of identities” (boas african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1691 and dunn, 2013: 18). south africa’s recent approach to migration poses critical questions about the right to belong, the politics of inclusion and exclusion as well as citizenship in a post-apartheid south africa that has given foreigners judiciary rights to live and work in the country (pineteh, 2017; 2018). as political parties desperately want to hold on to power or scramble for votes during elections, they now resort to populist forms of ethnic nationalism, which blame ‘illegal migrants’, an amorphous phrase for african migrants, for their worsening social and economic challenges. what we see in south africa today is a politics of denialism and deflection, where politicians find scapegoats to shift the attention of locals from their failures, particularly during service delivery protests (landau, 2010; nyamnjoh, 2007). for them, the government should not be held to account for unfulfilled political promises such as jobs, housing, and better living conditions because of illegal immigration. but what does legal or illegal migration mean to south africans living in poverty? whose responsibility is it to regulate migration in south africa? does this type of populism mean that south africa will become a pure and flawless nation if all african migrants are exorcised? as this narrative finds its way into townships, tensions and violence simmer as african migrants who do business in these spaces are now seen as usurpers. during periods of xenophobic violence, african migrants in townships become the most vulnerable, and since the somali community is one of the african communities that have identified business opportunities in townships, they now live on the margins of life and death, every day. as south africans continue to deploy different strategies such as violent attacks, burning and looting of shops as well as killings to force somalis out of ‘their townships’, somalis will always devise new ways to resist the attacks and continue living in these townships. in finding ways to resist and circumvent xenophobic attacks from locals, somalis are likely to continue living at the mercy of local south africans who are determined to exorcise african migrants from south africa. acknowledgement i would like to thank the american council of learned societies for its generous financial support of this project, through its ahp postdoctoral fellowship. my sincere gratitude also goes to all participants for providing very rich empirical data for this study. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1692 references amit, r. and kriger, n. 2014. making migrants “il-legal”: the policies and practices of documentation in post-apartheid south africa. kronos, 40(1): 269-290. boas, m. and dunn, k. 2013. politics of origin in africa: autochthony, citizenship and conflict. cape town: hsrc press. buyer, m. 2009. negotiating identity and displacement among the somali refugees of cape town. south african historical journal, 60(2): 226-241. carling, j. 2008. the human dynamics of migrant transnationalism. ethnic and racial studies, 31(8): 1452-1477. charman, a. and piper, l. 2012. xenophobia, criminality and violent entrepreneurship: violence against somali shopkeepers in delft south, cape town, south africa. south african review of sociology, 43(3): 81-105. charman, a., petersen, l. and piper, l. 2012. from local survivalism to foreign entrepreneurship: the transformation of the spaza sector in delft, cape town. transformation, 78(1): 47-73. comaroff, j. and comaroff, j.l. 2002. alien-nation: zombies, immigrants, and millennial capitalism. the south atlantic quarterly, 101(4): 779-805. crush, j. and pendleton, w. 2004. regionalizing xenophobia? citizen attitudes to immigration and refugee policy in southern africa. cape town: southern african migration project (samp). crush, j., chikanda, a. and skinner, c. 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(eds.). migration in postapartheid south africa: challenges and questions to policy-makers. paris: agence française de development. von holdt, k. and alexander, p. 2012. collective violence, community protest and xenophobia. south african review of sociology african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1696 african immigrant and refugee families’ perceptions on informational support and health status: a comparison of african immigrants living in south africa and the united states wilson majee, mulugeta f. dinbabo, isioma ile, and michael belebema abstract the relationship between migration and health is complex, and its impact varies considerably among individuals, across migrant groups, and from country to country. although african immigration to the united states (u.s.) and south africa has increased rapidly over the past two decades, little is known about the health experiences of this growing population even though conditions surrounding the migration process have been found to increase vulnerability to ill health. the aim of this study is to examine and compare the perceptions of african refugees and immigrants to south africa and the u.s. on informational support and its impact on health status. data was collected from purposively selected 62 african immigrants to the united states and 66 african immigrants to south africa using the promis global health v1.2 and the promis item bank v2.0 (informational support) instruments which assess an individual’s general physical, mental and social health. participants were selected based on their country of origin and immigration status in the country of residence. we developed a health perception index (hpi) and information support index (isi) as a composite of the measures of the response to health questions and how information support contributes to migrants’ overall health status. in addition, we conducted chi square test to assess if there was any difference between the  department of health sciences and public health, university of missouri, usa (corresponding author, dr wilson majee, 536 clark hall, university of missouri, columbia 65211. email: majeew@missouri.edu  institute for social development, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of the western cape, south africa.  school of government, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of the western cape, south africa.  institute for social development, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of the western cape, south africa. mailto:majeew@missouri.edu african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1697 indicators in terms of association of the two cities. african immigrants to south africa reported that they were very satisfied with the south african health services offered to migrants, contrary to those in the u.s. healthcare. the evidence indicates that migrants in south africa seem to have a better hpi index compared to those in the u.s. in general, there was no difference in the challenges faced by these immigrants in accessing relevant information to enable them to improve their socio-economic conditions in destination countries. access to healthcare services remains a major challenge for most migrants. given that countries rely on formal documentation for access to information and healthcare services, governments could institute special medical and information support structures that cater specifically for refugees and asylum seekers, as well as undocumented immigrants, in the course of waiting for formal recognition in the state. in order to improve african immigrant and refugee families’ access and utilization of healthcare services, policies and programs that seek to address social determinants of health and tap into culturally relevant networking, collaborative approaches are needed. keywords migration, health, refugee, immigrant, social services, south africa, united states. introduction migration has been on the increase across the world and remains the defining issue of this century. the decision to emigrate depends on a combination of various factors, such as lack of social security and justice, the low level of confidence in the state, poverty, urbanization, climate change, youth unemployment, as well as better opportunities for work abroad (dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015). these flows have generated opportunities and challenges that affect the social, political, economic and health conditions of people and raised complex questions for both policy-makers and researchers. at the global level, but in africa in particular, there is a paucity of data and scientific research on the issues, challenges, opportunities, benefits and costs of the experiences of international migrants. to address these concerns, scholars are compelled to move out of traditional paradigms and disciplinary boundaries to analyze the multi-faceted and interlinked nature of migratory processes. in this paper we present findings from a comparative study done in the u.s. and in south africa african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1698 exploring the health experiences of african immigrants in their countries of destination. background although migration places individuals in situations that impact their health and well-being, there has been a surge in human migration in recent years. according to the world health organization (who) (2019), there are an estimated 1 billion migrants in the world today, of whom 258 million are international migrants and 763 million are internal migrants. in the u.s., as in many other countries, immigrant and refugee families form a considerable and growing proportion of the population, with african immigrants representing one of the fastest growing groups of immigrants. africans now make up 39% of the overall foreign-born black population, up from 24% in 2000 (anderson and lopez, 2018). much of this growth has been fueled by african migration mainly from nigeria, ghana, kenya, ethiopia, and somalia (capps et al., 2012). south africa, like the u.s. has also witnessed a surge in the number of people migrating from other african countries. according to the international organization for migration (iom), between 2010 and 2017, the number of immigrants living in south africa increased from 2.2 million to 4 million (iom, 2019). the surges in african migration, whether to the u.s. or to south africa, happen as a result of economic, social, political and environmental factors such as fleeing political persecution, war or terror, enhanced education and employment opportunities, reunification with family members, and better quality of life (vaughn and holloway, 2010). despite the increase in number and diversity of africans in the u.s. and south africa, and the diverse reasons for immigration, no comparative studies have examined african immigrants’ and refugees’ experiences in african and u.s. settings. there are four global migration flows. the largest flow, south-south, involves people moving from one developing country to another (e.g. from indonesia to costa rica, from zimbabwe or congo to south africa). in 2013, over 82 million were part of this flow (duncan, and popp 2017). for africa, 79% of sub-saharan african migrants move within the same region and fewer than 22% of migrants from africa emigrate outside of africa (zong and batalova, 2017). the second largest flow, south-north, constitutes people moving from lowand middle-income countries to high-income countries (e.g. from congo to france, from mexico to the u.s., from south africa or zimbabwe african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1699 to the u.s). in 2013, close to 82 million people migrated under this classification (martin, 2019). according to zong and batalova (2017), of the african immigrants living in the u.s. in 2015, 44.6% were from west africa, 35.7% from eastern africa, 5.8% from southern africa and 7.5% from middle africa. the third flow, north-north, consists of people migrating from one high-income country to another, as from the u.k. to the u.s. human migration from high-income countries to low and middle-income countries constitutes the fourth flow (north-south). our study is founded in the first two largest flows: south-south and south-north. each of these flows presents unique features and experiences that warrant examination. we argue for a global understanding of migration. our argument for this examination lies in the inevitability, volume, and heterogeneity of migration (dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015). although evidence suggests that african immigrants in general have a health advantage over other immigrant groups, this work is limited to comparisons between black immigrants (from all regions) and native-born african americans or between black african immigrants and native-born african americans (mason et al., 2010; read et al., 2005; singh and hiatt, 2006; singh and miller, 2004; hummer et al., 2007; jasso et al., 2004; palloni and arias, 2004). for example, in their analysis of national health interview surveys (nhis) data, read et al. (2005) found that african immigrants report their own health to be better than african americans report. in their study, african immigrants reported the best status, as compared to west-indian and european-born blacks and african americans (read et al., 2005). however, other researchers have questioned the ‘healthy immigrant’ phenomenon (fennelly, 2007). researchers have also noted the gradual deterioration in health among many immigrants (john et al., 2005; kandula et al., 2004). length of residence in the receiving country has been found to impact negatively on health (dinbabo and carciotto, 2015; mcdonald and kennedy, 2004). in u.s. census data, africans are generally lumped together as black or african american thereby overlooking the effect of cultural background and length of stay in the country of destination on their health. relocation from one country to another can result in family and social disruption that impact health (lum and vanderaa, 2009). factors such as being poor, acculturation stress, and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1700 lifestyle changes, have been associated with declining health for some immigrants (fennelly, 2007). it appears there is an information gap because of the understudying of some immigrant groups (cunningham et al., 2008). with the surge in african immigration around the world, there is a need to fill this information gap. health and migration is a multi-dimensional matter. when specific ethnic groups are under-studied or under-represented, culturally competent care is compromised thereby exacerbating health disparities among populations (betancourt and green, 2007; cooper et al., 2002; dinbabo et al., 2017; sithole and dinbabo, 2016; smedley et al., 2003, pavlish et al., 2010). according to the institute of human development and social change, low-income immigrant families disproportionately face barriers in accessing health and human services programs and are at greater risk of living in poverty (perreira et al., 2012; yoshikawa et al., 2019). thus, rapid changes in population movement have important public health implications, including limited access to healthcare services, disrupted family and social networks, and financial barriers. the vast differences between the way of living in africa and in the u.s. make african refugees and immigrants in the u.s. an especially vulnerable group. immigrants have to adjust to nearly all aspects of living – the weather, food, and laws (boise et al., 2013). during this adjustment phase, immigrants may feel sad, lonely, and disappointed about moving from their home country. they may also feel separated from networks of support left behind in africa (boise et al., 2013). immigrants are also likely to experience acculturation stress due to adaptation to the u.s. including such factors as enhancing language skills, fear of deportation, finding employment, housing, schools, and navigating the bureaucracy of immigration and documentation (artiga and ubri, 2017; boise et al., 2013; warheit et al., 1985; aroian et al., 1998). further, depending on the acculturation process, african immigrants tend to have less access to and utilization of healthcare services. factors increasing immigrants’ vulnerability regarding access to healthcare include, knowing where to go for healthcare, a lack of perceived need, the cost of care, language and cultural barriers, a lack of transportation, perceptions of lack of respect, discrimination or racism, and not understanding how the u.s. healthcare system works healthcare (boise et al., 2013; perreira et al., 2012; siegel et al., 2001). these barriers may result in african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1701 many people turning to hospital emergency departments as their main source of care (boise et al., 2013). along the same vein, derose et al. (2007) found that immigrants have lower rates of health insurance, use less healthcare, and receive lower quality of care than the u.s.-born population. to understand african immigrant health, which is changing as migration transforms the health profile of africa, it is important to explore the health experiences of african immigrants in their countries of destination. the primary objective of this research was to investigate the experiences of health of african immigrants to south africa and the u.s. it was hypothesized that immigrants in advanced economies have better access to healthcare services and greater information support compared to immigrants living in developing economies. this study aims to contribute to the current small body of research on african immigrant health by comparing perceptions on health of african immigrants to south africa and the u.s. in our review of the literature, we have not found any studies that compare perceptions on health between south-south and south-north african immigrants. this type of analysis will shed more light on the inter-connectedness between health and migration from a global perspective. this understanding can nurture opportunities to brainstorm on collective responses to the unmet health needs of immigrants at the global rather than national level. methods instrument: quality of social support refers to interpersonal relationships that serve particular functions. this includes the interactive process by which emotional, instrumental or informational support is obtained from one's social network. it also includes companionship, feeling cared for and valued as a person, communication with others, and feelings of belonging and trust. measures of social support generally seek information about a person’s perception of the availability or adequacy of resources provided by others. for our study, we used the promis instrumental support to collect data. the instrument assesses self-reported perceived availability of assistance with material, cognitive or task performance. the instrumental support shortforms are universal rather than disease-specific. it assesses emotional support (quality of life, physical health, mental health, social satisfaction, social african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1702 activity, physical activity, emotional problems, fatigue levels, and level of pain), and informational support (companionship, feeling cared for and valued as a person, communication with others, and feelings of belonging and trust). data collection: ethical approval was obtained from the university of the western cape and the university of missouri prior to data collection. data for this study was drawn from migrants living in cape town, south africa and columbia, missouri in the u.s. in the u.s. researchers partnered with an immigrant who volunteers at the refugee and immigrants office in order to reach the population of interest. the community partner was trained on how to complete surveys. the training included sessions in which the community partner observed researchers interviewing participants. the community partner then recruited and interviewed immigrants who come for services at the refugee and immigration services. the community partner also identified other participants based on his knowledge of immigrants in columbia, missouri. in south africa, migrants were randomly selected from different neighborhoods for the project. for example, migrants were selected from bellville, parow, maitland, wynberg and the cape town central business district (cbd). this process helped to ensure that migrants from all income classes and status levels had a fair chance of being selected for the survey. in total, 128 respondents were successfully interviewed using a structured survey questionnaire. of the 128, 62 were in columbia and 66 in cape town. all participants were selected based on their migrant status in the country of residence and their country of birth or country of origin. though the data may not be representative of the migrant population in both cities, it at least provides a synoptic overview of the migrants’ perception of their health and health services. for both sites, the requirement was for participants to have lived in their host country for at least one year. data analysis: to achieve the main objective of the study, we first provide a descriptive and comparative overview of the demographic characteristics of the migrant population. we then develop a health perception index (hpi) and information support index (isi) which were used to determine the extent to which immigrants perceive their health status and whether such perception correlates with access to healthcare services as well as their relevant information support within their social space in the destination country. according to babbie (2007), when studying a phenomenon with multiple african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1703 indicators, it becomes paramount for the researcher to develop a data reduction instrument so that a composite indicator is developed with a single numerical score to measure the extent of the problem. several studies have applied the same principle such as the consumer price index (cpi), developed by bryan and cecchetti (1993), the human development index (noorbakhsh, 1998) and the economic security index designed by hacker et al. (2014). the hpi and isi are composites of the measures of the response to health questions and how information support contributes to migrants’ overall health status. according to babbie (2007), developing an index is an ideal way of data reduction that allows for reducing multiple likert scale variables or multiple response variables into a single numerical score. we computed the indexes by first assigning values from 1 to 5 where 1 represents a low score and 5 represents a high score, thus indicative of excellent health or higher propensity to access of information. this 5-point likert scale procedure was used to allow respondents to easily evaluate their health perception and their information support. results we analyzed some of the demographic characteristics of migrants who participated in the study. migrants from 19 countries were successfully interviewed with the majority coming from sub-saharan african countries. the result shows that men continue to dominate in the flow of migrants. males were at 75% compared to females at 25%. however, the sample showed that male migrants in the u.s. constituted 34% compared to 41% in south africa. the majority of these migrants (76%) were aged 26 to 45 years. in addition, migrants classified as refugees were by far the dominant category of participants interviewed. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1704 table 1: demographic structure analysis of empirical data refugee status was 41% for the u.s. and 38% for south africa. however, on the whole, people with refugee status constituted about 52% of the sample. the proportion of immigrants who classified themselves under ‘other documentation’ in south africa was very high (21%) compared to none for u.s. besides the issues of documentation, the results showed that 60% of the sample have lived in the destination country for between one and five years. in the u.s., the majority of immigrants have lived there for between one and five years. the situation in south africa was rather spread out between one and fifteen years. global health perception and information calibration of immigrants immigrant health has been broadly studied and evidence in the literature suggests that given the current wave in international migration, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1705 disproportionality exists in the assessment of migrants’ health. abubakar et al. (2018) acknowledge that it is not possible to cover all the broad topics of migrants’ health. in this analysis, the hpi and isi indexes are used to draw inferences based on the total weight values and the index deviations from the mean. items above the mean are seen to have higher response rates from the population. analysis of empirical data we identified factors that affect immigrants’ health perceptions as well as their ability to access support generally which fall under the information calibration items for the study. the results shown in table 2 above present the responses from the immigrants in relation to their health perceptions using 10 health perception indicators. the average score for the hpi was 2.86. seven of the health perception indicators in the scale had a mean score above the overall mean score of 2.86. a score of 3 rated as good or greater in the scale of 5 indicates a respondent is perceived to be generally healthy. three indicators were =>3 that is, global health, physical health and mental health. a score of less than 3 indicates that a respondent might be experiencing poor health conditions. given that the overall mean score of hpi for both the u.s. and south africa was 2.86, which is less than 3 on the scale, the authors conclude that, immigrants perceive their health status as below average. the mean hpi for the u.s. was 2.71 while the mean hpi for south africa was 3.59. a t test was executed to test significance of the mean difference. the result showed that t = -7.4396 and p-value-<0.001 at 95%. in addition, a kruskalwallis test was carried out to show the overall difference in means for each of the indicators for the study areas. there was no evidence of a significant african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1706 difference in the fatigue levels and quality of life of the immigrants. however, 8 of the indicators showed significant results as shown in table 2. these differences are between the u.s. and s.a. as already stated, the overall mean difference shows that s.a. immigrants have a higher health perception index compared to u.s. immigrants and this was significant at p-value<0.05. a similar procedure was carried out for isi scores. in table 3 below, we show the responses of immigrants’ access to information support especially in crisis times. we developed the isi index to measure immigrants’ information access using the design information calibrated items measured on a 5-point likert scale. analysis of empirical data overall the isi index showed that isiµ =3.06. the isiµ for cape town=3.28 while that of s.a. was isiµ= 3.24. nine of the isi indicators had a positive deviation from the mean. three of the isi indicators had a negative deviation from the mean – i have someone who gives me advice in times of crisis; my friends have useful information to help me with my problems; and i have someone to talk with about my money matters. a score of 3 or greater indicates that immigrants on average are able to access information support satisfactorily. given that the mean of isi was greater than 3, we conclude that immigrants from both countries generally have access to information support. though most of the isi indicators had scores above the mean score, just one of african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1707 the indicators yielded a significant result. we applied a ttest to assess the difference in isi for the u.s. and s.a. and found that t = 0.2381 and p-value> 0.05. this means that there was no overall difference between immigrants in columbia and cape town in their information support. similar results emerged using the kruskal-wallis test for each of the indictors. despite the negative deviation from the overall isiµ, i have someone to talk with about my money matters had a score of 4 and this was significant at p-value=0.0041. thus, cape town immigrants show evidence of possible social interactions and social capital that contribute to their information support compared to immigrants in the u.s. city of columbia. discussion our study observed that the hpi was significantly different between the cities with migrants in south africa having a better hpi despite the fact that the average hpi was less than the scale average of 3. on the other hand, the overall isi was relatively above average which is equivalent to >=3 on the scale. however, we did not find significant evidence to believe that the isi was different between the study areas. in this context, it is safe to state that immigrants’ access to information support is the same for both countries and is higher than the scale average of 3. a better hpi for immigrants in south africa is not surprising because refugees and asylum seekers in south africa, especially pregnant women and children, have access to basic health services. however, this could be even better if the perceptions of xenophobia were eradicated in the body polity. for immigrants to the united states, the current political climate, and debates over issues such as a border wall, become part of the environment that influences access to health and subsequently health outcomes. over the last two decades, u.s. immigrants have witnessed a changing immigration enforcement landscape. for example, following the passing of the illegal immigration reform and immigration responsibility act in 1996, the number of illegal immigrants detained increased (hacker et al., 2014; miller, 2005). following the creation of immigration and customs enforcement (ice), there has been a noticeable increase in detention and deportation activities across american communities (capps et al. 2015) the current anti-immigrant rhetoric, which emerged more recently, particularly during and after the 2016 presidential election, is exacerbating the vulnerability of immigrants in the u.s. regarding their african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1708 participation in healthcare. our research findings, particularly the lower hpi found among african immigrants in the u.s., illustrate that immigrants may experience social inequalities that are a result of the immigration process and related policies that in turn can drive health disparities. unlike african immigrants in south africa who share some cultures and languages with their host country, african immigrants in america have to deal with language barriers, cultural assimilation and discrimination and racism – all of which increase their vulnerability regarding access to healthcare. our findings support research that highlights ‘legal status’ and acculturation as major determinant of immigrants’ access to social services, jobs, and health services (dahlan et al., 2019; parmet, 2018) as immigrant families often forgo needed healthcare and social services because they fear interactions with public agencies. therefore, the level of social support within the host country plays a crucial role in shaping immigrant health. we observed that few immigrants were able to obtain informational support in terms of advice in times of crisis yet this type information and suggestions that help with problem solving, are critical for the well-being of people. in their study, dahlan et al. (2019) show that information and social support such as family, friends and community were positively associated with immigrants’ oral health outcomes. informational barriers present a substantial challenge in that, for this population, information on benefits of public programs is often communicated via word of mouth. thus, immigrants whose networks are mostly bonding (not bridging) in nature often do not receive adequate information about the benefits available to them. this challenge can be more pronounced in small rural communities where there are few immigrantserving community-based organizations. one of the challenges migrants face worldwide is access to documentation that regularize their status in the destination country. for a variety of reasons including language, literacy, cultural barriers, stigmatization, immigration-related fears, and logistical and information barriers (e.g. transportation), many immigrants live as ‘undocumented’ or fail to seek information that can help them participate in the social and economic mainstream. in the u.s., access of benefits by unauthorized immigrants is limited due to fear of being detected by immigration enforcement authorities. community perceptions regarding the effects of immigration on community resources, and increased cooperation african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1709 between local law enforcement and federal law enforcement can lead to increased fears among immigrants to associate with government officials at any level. in south africa, the term ‘undocumented migrants’ refers to anyone residing in the country without legal documentation. it includes people who entered south africa without inspection and proper permission from the government, and those who entered with a legal visa that is no longer valid (dinbabo and nyasulu, 2015). the researchers observed that undocumented migrants feel stigmatized when addressed as ‘undocumented migrants’, in the context of south africa. for this reason, the use of ‘other document’ for such migrants seem to convey some level of self-dignity of the migrants. the proportion of ‘other documentation’ in south africa was very high (21%) compared to ‘other documentation’ for the u.s. in general, migrants in u.s. find it easy to obtain documents. implications for practice one major implication stemming from our study is that it aligns with the call for greater understanding of how policy processes should address social determinants of health (carey et al., 2014; andermann, 2016). immigrant health determinants can be modified in part through policies that target disadvantaged populations in general (e.g. living wages, access to education, decent housing) and in part through activities and policies targeted specifically at immigrants. we suggest a few promising practices for increasing immigrant access to services and participation in community life.  there is a need for multi-disciplinary collaboration around theoretical and practical migrant health matters. researchers, community development practitioners, health professionals, police, and immigrants themselves should collaborate in stimulating further understanding of immigrant health and the strategies needed to engage the immigrant population. as migration between countries, including the united states, continues to increase, there is a need to include migrants in community-level discussions that shape the design of policies and resource allocation decisions that affect their health and well-being. studies have shown that building immigrant-friendly communities can result in greater social cohesion and less societal fragmentation (cheung and phillimore, 2017; mulvey, 2018). as such, integration can have positive effects not only for immigrants but also for members of the host society. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1710  policy-makers in the socio-political arena should ensure that immigrants have access to accurate and adequate information about what to expect in healthcare settings, on the differences between local law enforcement and ice (in the u.s.), and on their rights and responsibilities as immigrant community members. consideration should be given to providing this information through ‘spaces’ which immigrants consider friendly and accessible, such as churches, schools and social media.  cultural respect and competency training, particularly for healthcare providers (including migrant rights) and law enforcement officials in the u.s., are crucial elements in this process. immigrants serving community organizations can be more proactive in conducting linguistically and culturally sensitive outreach. use of trusted mentors to disseminate information to low-income parents has been found to have more impact than when a service provider is used (capps and fortuny, 2006; chaudry and fortuny, 2010; yoshikawa et al., 2011). because families develop trusting relationships with community health workers (chws), a community-health-worker-approach in which chws are trained to hold meetings in immigrants’ gathering places and disseminate immigrationrelated information, holds promise in engaging immigrants. limitations and future research findings should be considered in light of the study’s limitations. first, recruiting african immigrants in the u.s. was difficult. most african immigrants tend to live in clusters, depending on the african country they come from and the language they speak. we used different strategies to address this challenge including recruiting a recruitment coordinator, who was an african immigrant himself; working with service providers to recruit participants when they turn up for services; and snowballing sampling. our study was limited because most of the participants were recruited by the recruitment coordinators and were mostly from eastern africa. furthermore, some participants were from the same family, which limited the breadth of the findings. additionally, 49 of the 62 participants (79%) fell under one legal status (refugees) thereby limiting the generalizability of the findings to a broader immigrant population. future research studies that include a bigger and more diverse sample reflective of the many countries in africa are needed african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1711 to better understand health disparities among immigrants in different country settings. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to the african immigrant and community partner in the united states (u.s.), mr. abdu ahmed, for his assistance with coordinating the recruitment of participants, and data collection. we also greatly appreciate the support of the office of refugee and immigrant services in columbia, missouri for allowing us to recruit participants from those visiting their premises. in south africa we are indebted to the support of the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) and those who have helped and supported us during the research and writing process. finally, we acknowledge the support from all participants in taking the time to complete the survey. we are also indebted to the university of missouri south africa education program for the financial support that made this study possible. references abubakar, i., aldridge, r.w, devakumar, d., orcutt, m., burns, r., barreto, m.l., dhavan, p., fouad, f.m., groce, n., guo, y., hargreaves, s., knipper, m., miranda, j.j., madise, n., kumar, b., mosca, d., mcgovern, t., rubenstein, l., sammonds, p., sawyer, s.m., sheikh, k., tollman, s., spiegel, p. and zimmerman, c. 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(2017). sub-saharan african immigrants in the united states. washington, dc: migration policy institute. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1717 internal migration, socio-economic status and remittances: experiences of migrant adolescent girl head porters in ghana kennedy a. alatinga abstract this paper examines the relationship between internal migration, socioeconomic status and remittances, drawing on the experiences of migrant adolescent girl head porters in the cities of accra and kumasi in ghana. through an explanatory sequential mixed methods research design involving 503 individual surveys and 24 in-depth interviews, the paper established that 61% of adolescents studied migrated from the north to the south to escape poverty while 29% migrated to work and raise money for school fees. the kayayoo business does not seem to capacitate the adolescent girls to live the kind of lives they have reason to value because only 36% of them remitted to their families. a logistic regression model showed that older adolescents, 1519 years, (aor=7.32, p<0.05, ci= [1.999-26.802] number of years spent working as head porter, 3-years, (aor=3.97, p<0.05, ci= [1.633-9.677] and socio-economic status – not poor (aor=8.63, p<0.001, ci=[4.761-8.435]) significantly influenced remittances. remittances capacitated recipient families to invest in human capital development and also improved household food security. this study recommends that, in the short-term, adolescents working as head porters to raise money for school fees must be identified and enrolled in schools, based on the ghanaian free senior high school policy, while the establishment of factories and industries in northern ghana to create employment opportunities could be a long-term measure. keywords: capabilities-aspirations, human transport, kayayoo, females, remittances, adolescents, ghana.  department of community development faculty of planning and land management university for development studies, ghana. email: kalatinga@gmail.com african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1718 introduction migration remains a critical part of human existence. migration, whether internal or international, is a public policy concern and is perhaps the most visible sign of globalization in the 21st century (goldin and reinert, 2012; iom, 2018). in developing countries, internal migration is largely a rural-urban phenomenon. this trend is justified on the hypothesis that urban residents have access to better infrastructure and services, including employment opportunities, health care, education and are generally more prosperous than rural dwellers (rice, 2008; white, 2016). urbanization is often equated with modernization, and socio-economic development (cyril et al., 2013). contemporary migration trends in developing countries, including ghana, reveal that the migration process is dominated by youth aged 18-24 years (white, 2016), especially adolescent girls (temin et al., 2013). migration may offer adolescent girls who migrate voluntarily the social space for socioeconomic advancement through access to education, access to quality health services, and remittances to reduce household poverty (mac-ikemenjima and gebregiorgis, 2018; nyasulu, 2017). migration trends in ghana in recent times reveal the movement of predominantly adolescent girls aged 10-19 years largely from the poorer northern regions of ghana to the richer urban markets of accra and kumasi with the aim of improving their socio-economic status (awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf, 2008; tufeiru, 2014). opare (2003) claims that most families and households mobilize financial resources, and some even borrow money to finance the adolescent girls’ travel to kumasi and accra. in the cities of accra and kumasi, most of these adolescent girls engage in the head-load carrying (kayayoo) business. the kayayoo ‘business’ is the situation in which adolescent girls literally use themselves as human transport by carrying loads of goods on their heads for unregulated fees to save money for later investment and remitting to their families back home (agarwal et al., 1997; tufeiru, 2014). it appears thus, that the kayayoo business in the urban market centers is a household survival strategy in response to poverty (awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf, 2008). thus migration becomes a conduit for the adolescent girls to aspire to change the poor socio-economic status of their families for the better. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1719 however, there is currently little evidence on whether these adolescent girls’ aspirations of migration are met. for example, the adolescent girls’ ability to remit, the extent to which the kayayoo business improves the adolescents girls’ socio-economic status, financial situation, and their overall poverty situation and that of their families appear not to have received adequate scholarly attention. from a capabilities perspective, the extent to which the kayayoo business increases the capacity of the adolescent girls to be more secure and live the kind of lives they have reason to value, is also not known. in terms of income potential, head porters are reported to have low levels of earnings. for example, awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf (2008, p.177) and oberhauser and yeboah (2011: 22) found that female head porters are among the poorest of urban dwellers in accra, with an estimated average daily earnings ranging from us$ 1.20 to us$ 2.20 and us$ 3.20 to us$ 5.20 on a good day. the female head porters live and work under deplorable and harsh conditions including poor accommodation, which have implications for their health (nyarko and tahiru, 2018; opare, 2003). it is in these trying circumstances that the adolescent girls aspire to make money to finance their living costs, save and remit to their families in order to make a positive difference. examining whether or not the kayayoo business capacitates these female youngsters to achieve their aspirations is of crucial public social policy relevance because they are of school-going age and should normally have been in school. the sustainable development goal four (sdg 4) is loud and clear as it calls for inclusive and equitable quality education for all (unga, 2015: 17). the purpose of this paper is two-fold. first, it interrogates the adolescent girls’ ability to remit, their socio-economic status, financial situation, and their overall poverty situation and that of their families in the context of the kayayoo business. secondly, it makes a novel methodological contribution by deploying a mixed methods research design, drawing on the centers of aggregation sampling technique and purposive sampling, which are suitable for hard-toreach populations such as the female head porters (reichel and morales, 2017). earlier studies on the subject matter have been qualitative in nature, relying largely on intuition and convenience to draw their samples (baahennumh et al., 2012; nyarko and tahiru, 2018). section two presents a clear picture of the kayayoo business in ghana, followed by the theoretical and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1720 conceptual literature in section three. the research setting and methodology are presented in section four. section five exemplifies the study results and discusses them. section six concludes the paper and makes recommendations. adolescents girls on the move: the case of ghana’s head porters ghana’s population is increasingly becoming urbanized. with an urban growth rate of 4.25%, ghana’s current urban population is estimated to be about 56%, making ghana the third most urbanized country in west africa (un, 2018). the proportion of the urban population is further projected to increase to about 63% by the year 2025 (awumbila et al., 2014: 6). scholars have pointed to several reasons that explain ghana’s adolescent girls’ movement from the north to the south to engage in head-load business – including high levels of poverty in the three northern regions, conceptions of female occupational career structure, and ghana’s urban light goods transportation structure. high levels of poverty compel people to migrate from the three northern regions of ghana (upper west, upper east and northern regions) to the two largest urban cities: accra – the national capital, and also the capital of the greater accra region, and kumasi – the capital of the ashanti region, in search of jobs and other economic opportunities (osei-boateng, 2012). these three northern regions also have the highest incidence of poverty in ghana. the latest ghana living standards survey (glss7) reports that poverty in the three northern regions worsened, from 70.7% in 2012/13 to 70.9% in 2016/17, in the upper west region, from 44.4% in 2012/13 to 54.8% in 2016/17 in the upper east region, and from 50.4% in 2012/13 to 61.1% in 2016/17 in the northern region respectively (gss, 2018). during the same period, the poverty situation improved in the ashanti and greater accra regions: poverty declined from 14.8% in 2012/2013 to 11.6% in 2016/17 in the ashanti region, and from 5.6% in 2012/13 to 2.5% in the greater accra region, compared to the national average of 23.4%. the conceptions of female occupational career structures, particularly in northern ghana, appear to fuel the migration practice of adolescent girls. for example, in ghana, kayayoo is considered a petty form of trading which is culturally understood as being women’s work, and so head-load carriers are self-employed, informal sector workers (agarwal et al., 1997). the authors indicate that the engagement of female children in kayayoo is considered as african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1721 part of the female occupational career structure. agarwal et al. (1997) argue that adolescent girls and women engage in kayayoo in order to build up capital to invest later in assets such as sewing machines and more rewarding occupations. besides, it is less expensive to invest in kayayoo than other informal sector businesses. the use of human transport in the form of adolescent girl head porters can also be understoond as part of the light goods transport structure in ghana’s urban markets. commerical traders and some shoppers in ghana’s urban markets engage the services of adolescent girl head porters to transport their goods from one point to another (agarwal et al., 1997). inappropraite urban physical planning and design resulting in overcrowding and congestion make the use of human transport within markets more convenient as compared to motor vehicles (agarwal et al.,1997; ardayfio-schandorf et al., 2012). the theory of migration: towards a conceptual and theoretical framework of aspirations and capabilities historically, colonial development policy was essentially urban-biased and northern ghana has long served as a labour reserve for the south (thomas, 1973). investments in modern health care and educational facilities were undertaken in southern ghana to the detriment of the north. after independence, dr kwame nkrumah, the first president of ghana, embarked on a rapid industrialization drive to usher in egalitarian development and eliminate the north-south development gap created by the colonialists (adarkwa, 2012). however, nkrumah’s industrialization policy concentrated particularly in the south, in the ‘golden triangle’ – accra-tema, kumasi and sekondi-tarkoradi – resulting in an unsuccessful policy (adarkwa, 2012). the migration of adolescent girls to ghana’s urban cities can be understood within the context of the north-south development gap. existing research such as ravenstein’s laws of migration (ravenstein, 1885), lee’s push and pull factor theory (lee, 1966), todaro and smith’s rational choice theory (todaro and smith, 2012), and stark’s migration decision-making model (stark, 1984), amongst others draw largely on development and economic theories or models to explain migration. the gist of these theories is that economic reasons fuel migration. for example, ravenstein (1885) argues that migrants drift from areas of low economic advantage to more endowed areas. lee’s african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1722 (1966) ‘push and pull’ theory suggests that ‘push’ factors such as poverty, the lack of job opportunities, poor social services and inadequate infrastructure in rural areas, and ‘pull’ factors such as better job opportunities and improved infrastructure in the urban areas are responsible for rural-urban migration. explaining the economic motives for migration further, todaro and smith (2012) suggest that the decision to migrate is calculated rationally based on expected urban-rural real wage differentials. migrants expect higher wages in urban areas than in rural areas, which are usually agriculturally dominated. according to stark (1984), rural-urban migration is a survival strategy where migrants under favorable conditions accumulate wealth and send remittances to their families. remittance is a key concept in the migration literature because available evidence suggests that migration and remittances reduce poverty, improve living conditions, improve household welfare and contribute to human development in origin communities (abdulai et al., 2017). other researchers (see for example, de haas, 2014; kleist and thorsen, 2017,)) also argue that poverty and economic factors alone cannot explain migration since migrants need a certain minimum of financial, human and social resources in order to migrate. the need for resources to migrate speaks to two important issues. first, it speaks to the fact that migration is selective because migrants have different abilities and respond differently to sets of circumstances triggering their movement (lee, 1966). carling (2002) argues that migration is restricted by poverty, illiteracy and lack of planning in the lives of the poor and disadvantaged. secondly, if poverty alone were the trigger for the movement of the adolescent girls, one would expect that the volume of movement would be reduced because of the resources and the initial financial costs needed to migrate. on the contrary, opare (2003) reports that the number of adolescent girl head porters keep rising every day in the urban markets. this scenario foregrounds other issues, such as aspirations and opportunities, in addition to poverty, that may occasion the movement of the adolescent girls (mac-ikemenjima and gebregiorgis, 2018). the different views espoused by researchers and the multifaceted nature of migration suggest that migration cannot be explained by a single theory. this paper therefore, draws on the capabilities-aspirations theoretical model to complement the main economic theories with a capabilities-aspirations theoretical conceptualization to explain the migration of the adolescent girls. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1723 this conceptualization aims to advance a comprehensive understanding of the north-south migration of the adolescent girls in ghana. drawing on sen’s capability approach, human capabilities are regarded as the substantive freedoms people have or enjoy to live the kind of lives they have reason to value (sen, 1999). the range of human capabilities is diverse and varies from elementary freedoms encompassing being free from hunger to complex abilities such as achieving self-respect, irrespective of one’s socio-economic status and gender (sen, 1989). from this perspective, migration entails people’s capability or freedom to choose where to live or to stay (de haas, 2014). the concept of capabilities used in this context demonstrates the ability of individuals to achieve meaningful outcomes for themselves and their families through migration (preibisc et al., 2016). aspirations are more attitudinal or psychological in nature, including migration desires, needs and intentions (carling and schewel, 2018). aspirations depend on people’s life preferences and perceptions about opportunities and life elsewhere, shaped by culture, personal disposition and information (de haas, 2014). according to kleist (2017), aspirations present an excellent starting point for appreciating the link between migration and young people’s sense of the possibilities they have for their lives. this capabilities-aspirations framework is justified because migration first involves the wish to migrate, and second, the realization of that wish (carling, 2002: 6). in this sense, some people may aspire to migrate but may never realize their dreams because they lack the ability do so, thus becoming involuntarily immobile (carling, 2002; carling and schewel, 2018). furthermore, some scholars conceptualize migration as a function of aspirations and capabilities within a given set of opportunity structures (de haas, 2014). this means that structural conditions in society may shape and offer opportunity structures that enable individuals and groups to pursue and achieve their personal or communal aspirations and capabilities (merton, 1968; preibisc et al., 2016). in societies where people are constrained by the lack of, or inadequate opportunity structures, adventurous individuals or groups may migrate to perceived opportunity-abundant locations in order to achieve their ambitions and aspirations (opare, 2003). put differently, where local opportunities do not allow people to live the kind of lives they have reason to value, they may migrate once they have the capability to do so. thus, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1724 the lack of these opportunity structures constitutes impediments to individuals’ aspirations and their capacity to live the kind of lives they have reason to value. mac-ikemenjima and gebregiorgis (2018) report that the migration of eritrean youth is largely due to lack of appropriate institutional arrangements to achieve their aspirations and limited opportunities for employment. deploying the aspirations-capabilities framework, de haas (2014) observed that despite significant increases in income and the improvement in general living conditions between 1998 and 2000, rural-urban migration in morocco had continued unabated. based on this observation, de haas (2014: 16) argues that neo-classical push-pull economic models failed to explain migration adequately because it is an integral part of social change, and “to understand society is to understand migration, and to understand migration is to better understand society”. thus, relying on economic push-pull factors alone reduces migrants to objects that lack capabilities, perception and are deprived of social relations (de haas, 2014). theoretically, the aspirations-capabilities framework explores the fact that migration may be valued, and yearned for in its own right. adventure, curiosity or experience and the need to be independent from parental control may drive teenagers to migrate (carling and schewel, 2018). viewing migration beyond economic factors also allows one to distinguish clearly between the instrumental (where migration is a means to achieve an end, such as earning higher incomes, higher social status, better education) and the intrinsic (value attached to the migration experience, the joy and pleasure derived from exploring new societies) nature of migration (de haas, 2014). people may migrate not just to achieve material and social resources and lifestyles but because of wanderlust and a desire to discover new horizons (de haas, 2014). consistent with carling and schewel (2018), de haas (2014) suggests that the youth demonstrates an innate desire to migrate for varied reasons, including the psychological need to separate from their parents, to prove their independence and satisfy their curiosity. adolescents and youth may also aspire to migrate to meet future partners and acquire basic assets in preparation for marriage. for these reasons, migration may be considered a fundamental capabilities-enhancing freedom in its own right (de haas and rodríguez, 2010). opare (2003) argues that the current phenomenal rise in african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1725 the rate at which teenage girls and young women migrate southwards from the north is in fulfillment of their aspirations. research setting and methodology this research was conducted in the accra and kumasi metropolitan areas. accra and kumasi are the biggest and most urbanized cities in ghana where the adolescent girls usually go to engage in the kayayoo business. while accra is located along the coast, kumasi is centrally located and serves as a traversing point from all parts of the country. major financial institutions and government ministries also operate in these cities. accra contributes about 2030% of the national gross domestic product (gdp) and has the highest average per capita income in ghana while kumasi has the second highest average per capita income (oberhauser, 2011). these two cities are also endowed with modern health care and educational facilities. prior to data collection, the author visited the research sites and met with the leadership of the kayayoo association in accra and some key informants in both accra and kumasi who have been working with the head porters as part of a formative study. thereafter, research instruments – a questionnaire for a cross-sectional survey and an in-depth interview – guide were developed. an explanatory mixed methods research design was deployed in collating and analyzing data. because hard-to-reach populations and migrant populations are characterized by the difficulty in sampling from them using standard probability methods (gile and handcock, 2010), quantitatively, time-location sampling was considered appropriate for generating random estimates for the migrant adolescent girl head porters (reichel and morales, 2017). additionally, there are no accurate statistics on female head porters in ghana, hence no sampling frame is available (lattof, 2018). time-location sampling assumes that it is possible to adequately reach and cover the target population at predefined locations through random sampling of those locations, using the ‘centers of aggregation sampling technique’ (reichel and morales, 2017). the centers of aggregation sampling technique produces a list of non-residential locations where the target population concentrates (reichel and morales, 2017). the rationale behind this strategy is that the random selection from this list provides interviewers with the locations where they also randomly select the final respondents (reichel and morales, 2017). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1726 in accra, the following locations (markets) were listed: agbogboloshie, tema station, mataheko, rawlings park, nima, madina, mamobi and tudu market. subsequently, agbogboloshie, tema station, and madina were randomly selected. in kumasi, the following locations were listed: aboabo station, central market, adum, kejetia, roman hill, asawase, alabaa, and dr mensa. of these, aboabo station, kejetia, and roman hill were randomly selected. in each of these selected locations, centers of aggregation, where the head porters frequently met or visited, were created (salentin, 2014). the centers of aggregation sampling technique was then used to select the study respondents from these locations. adolescent girls between the ages of 10-19 years, and who had been in the kayayoo business for six months or longer were included in the study. this time frame was considered long enough to determine the adolescent girls’ remittance ability, their socio-economic status, financial situation, and the overall poverty situation of the girls and their families. these processes resulted in the administration of 503 questionnaires – 253 in accra, and 250 in kumasi. the questionnaire was 9 pages long and comprised 87 questions including: the socio-demographics of the respondents, income and savings levels, remittance history, their socio-economic status, and their financial and poverty situations. for purposes of international comparisons, the socio-economic status of the adolescent girls was determined using the world bank’s poverty line of us$ 1.90 a day. adolescents whose daily incomes fell below us$ 1.90 were categorized as poor and those whose daily incomes were above the us$ 1.90 poverty line were considered not poor. data collection was done mostly on sundays when the head porters conglomerated, resting or washing their clothes. the survey data was entered into a data base using epidata, and then exported into stata version 14.0 for analysis. double entry was done to minimize errors. cross-tabulations, chi-square test and logistic regression models were used to analyze the data. qualitatively, purposive sampling was used to select some of the girls for in-depth interviews on specific issues, in order to assess the validity of the quantitative findings. twelve in-depth interviews were conducted in both accra and kumasi. all the interviews were conducted in the local dialect (twi), taperecorded and later transcribed verbatim into english. thematic content analysis was employed to analyze the qualitative data manually. after listening to the audio recordings several times and comparing them with the visual transcripts to ensure that the recordings and the visual transcripts were african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1727 consistent, the data was then categorized and summarized into themes based on the research objectives. the themes were then compared across the various respondents to establish any similarities and differences in their responses (leech and onwuegbuzie, 2008), with the aid of the verbatim quotes. results and discussion table: 1 background characteristics of respondents background characteristics frequency (n) percent (%) age group 10-14 37 7.4 15-19 466 92.6 level of education none 183 36.4 primary 121 24.1 jss/jhs 158 31.4 secondary/technical 41 8.2 marital status married 79 15.8 never married 415 82.8 divorced/widow 2 0.4 cohabitation 5 1.0 ethnic group dagomba 215 42.7 mamprusi 210 41.7 walla 14 2.8 gonja 33 6.6 others 31 6.2 religion islam 459 91.3 christian 33 6.6 traditional/other 11 2.2 city of migration accra 253 50.3 kumasi 250 49.7 number of years working as a head potter african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1728 source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 age, educational status and length of stay as head porters as illustrated in table 1, nearly 93% of the adolescent girls (92.6%) fall in the age categories of 15-19 years. this age bracket is the prime time for the adolescents to be at senior high schools or at tertiary schools. it was thus not surprising that one-third of the girls had no formal education while 31% of them attained junior high school status, with only 8.2% of them attaining secondary/technical education status. regarding the duration of their stay in the kayayoo business, more than half (59%) of adolescent girls had worked as head porters for 1-2 years, 28% of them had worked for less than a year, while 13% of them had worked for 3-4 years or longer. these variables – age, length of stay in the kayayoo business, and the educational satus of the adolescent girls – relate to their aspirations for migrating, their earnings potential, their socio-economic status and their ability to remit. for this reason, these issues are discussed in detail in light of the existing literature and the theoretical framework in the ensuing sections. as previously stated, all the migrant adolescent girls in this study came from northern ghana. their reasons for migration are presented next. <1year 141 28.0 1year 151 30.0 2years 145 29.0 3years 36 7.0 4years or more 30 6.0 ses( wealth index) poor 176 35 not poor 327 65 ability to send remittance to family yes no 181 36 322 64 job category frequency mean daily income std. deviation kayayoo business only 471 ghs 13 23.00 other jobs in addition to kayayoo 32 ghs 42.5 18.87 african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1729 figure 1 summarizes the adolescents’ aspirations for migrating source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 figure 1 clearly demonstrates that over 60% of the adolescent girls migrated to escape poverty. for this reason, poverty remains the core reason for migrating. poverty has reduced nominally in ghana from 56.5% in 1992 to 23.4% in 2017 (gss, 2018: 10-18). the reduction in poverty appears uneven – the gss report estimated that the number of poor persons living in poverty in ghana increased by close to 400,000 people. even so, these aggregate figures mask the reality because huge regional disparities abound – the reduction in poverty has largely not benefitted the northern savannah ecological zone. the incidence of poverty has been an endemic rural phenomenon. the highest poverty head-count in 2016/17 was found in the rural savannah zone at 67.7% (gss, 2018: 11). for example, the gss (2018: 14) illustrated that more ghanaians were living in extreme poverty in 2017 than they did in 2013: the 1 61 29 3 3 3 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 to escape forced marriage to escape poverty to raise money for school fees because my peers moved to be exposed to city life to escape fgm p er ce n ta ge o f a d o le sc en t g ir ls fig 1: aspirations for migrating aspirations for migrating african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1730 number of people living in extreme poverty increased from 2.2 million in 2013 to 2.4 million in 2017. the implication of this situation is that about 2.4 million people do not have access to the minimum daily requirement of 2,900 calories per adult equivalent of food per day, even if they were to spend all their income on food. at this rate of progress, and without any radical policy direction, achieving the first sustainable development goal (sdg) of ending extreme poverty by 2030, is questionable in ghana. the results support earlier research that reported that poor households living below the poverty line and who have high unemployment rates are most likely to send out members of their families as migrants to supplement family income (redehegn, et al., 2019). the results resonate perfectly with mainstream development and economic theories, especially lee’s (1966) push and pull factor theory, because in the context of the adolescents, poverty is the push factor propelling them to migrate. these results also point to the economic and social values of migration where the majority of adolescents see it as an opportune platform to improve their lives. consistent with the theoretical framework, 6% of the adolescent girls migrated because of peer influence and the need to be exposed to city life. in consonance with de haas (2014), these results are also aligned to the instrinsic value of migration, where young people aspire to migrate not merely to accummulate material and financial resources but also, importantly, for the joy and pleasure of doing so. as de haas (2014) explains, the social prestige attached to moving to the city to see the ‘bright lights’ coupled with the freedom to migrate increases people’s life satisfaction particularly in the context of rural-urban migration. four percent of the adolescents migrated in an effort to escape from outmoded socio-cultural practices such as forced marriage and female genital mutilation (fgm). these practices affect adolescent girls’ school attendance and performance as well as their psychological well-being. for instance, studies in tanzania showed that girls who underwent fgm missed school for several weeks to allow for a recuperation period to recover from their wounds, and the pain associated with fgm created a phobia for some girls who became so psychologically disoriented, that they could not concentrate on classroom learning (pesambili and mkumbo, 2018). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1731 importantly, 29% of the girls migrated to raise money from the kayayoo business in order to pay school fees. this finding dovetails into the findings in table 1 because about 31% of the girls attained junior high school status and would probably seek to raise money to at least, attain senior high school status. one respondent corroborated this finding during an in-depth interview as follows: my aspirations for coming here have not been met. i came here to work and get money to pay my school fees because my parents can’t afford it. i am sorry for coming here, since up to now, i am left with 14 days for us to go back to school, and today my money is not even up to ghs 50 [us$ 9.31] (18-year-old adolescent girl, in agbogbloshie market, accra). another respondent remarked: the main reason why i migrated to kumasi is that my sister has gained admission into senior high school but there is no money to finance her education and there is no help coming from anywhere. if i do not do something about it, my sister will not further her education, so for this reason i have migrated to kumasi to work to support her education (19year-old adolescent, roman hill market, kumasi). the aspiration of the adolescent girls to migrate and work as head porters in an effort to raise money to pay their school fees is a function of poverty because if their parents could afford to pay the fees, the girls could be in school. at the 2019 women deliver conference in canada, the president of ghana, during a panel discussion suggested that ghanaian women were not equitably represented in the political landscape because women lacked activism and dynamism (ghanaweb, 2019). but the adolescent girls – future women leaders – have abandoned the classroom to transport heavy loads of goods in the urban markets to support their families, and in some cases, to support their brothers’ education. adolescent girls missing out on formal schooling opens up spaces for social and political inequalities between women and men and produces entrenched disadvantages, including poverty for women (kabeer, 2015). this study acknowledges the empowering potential of education and asserts that these adolescent girls must return to the classroom if the activism and dynamism that the president demands of women to propel them into the political african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1732 limelight is to be achieved. foucault (1977) postulated that knowledge is power because knowledge in the form of education acts as a catalyst for both individual civic participation and for higher levels of household well-being. education leverages knowledge to individuals in the form of acquired skills and innovative ideas to make them more employable in better paid jobs (alatinga and williams, 2015; 2019). kabeer (2008) suggests that women’s paid work has a transformative potential, leading to empowerment and agency; it also engenders social change. however, to ignite the desired social change, women’s paid work must be fulfilling – work that offers a sense of selfactualization – rather than being alienating – work taken up under extreme forms of economic compulsion, distress, sale of labor entailing hard physical labor under unfavorable conditions (kabeer, 2008). the kayayoo business fits the description of alienating work because it undermines the self-esteem and dignity of the adolescents as females, yet they take up this work because they have no choice of getting a fulfilling one. this study believes that repositioning the adolescent girls to take advantage of education is possible through the ghanaian free senior high school policy (fshsp). for example, if the 29% of adolescent girls in this study who were determined to raise money for their school fees were identified and supported to return to school through the fshsp, the multiplier effects of their contribution to community development would be enormous. earning potential, socio-economic status and remittances the estimated average daily income of the adolescent girls was (ghs 13 or us$ 2.41) for those adolescents who worked only as head porters and (ghs 42.5 or us$ 7.89) for those who did additional jobs. regarding their socio-economic status, figure 4 below illustrates that 35% of the sampled population was categorized as poor and 65% was categorized as not poor based on the world bank’s us$ 1.90/day poverty line. of the 35% poor population, only 10% managed to remit. it is likely that this category of adolescents engaged in other activities deemed as illicit in ghana, such as prostitution in their quest to earn income to remit to their families. the following quote supports this claim: some people practice prostitution. from midnight around 12am-1am most people in my room go out and do that. they do it [prostitution] themselves without force (18-year-old adolescent, in agbogbloshie market, accra). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1733 another respondent also claimed: those who are into prostitution only do that to support themselves financially, and this is because we do not get the money we need from the kayayoo business. they are easily influenced by men to meet their needs (19-year-old adolescent, kejetia market, kumasi). interestingly, only half of those who were not poor were able to remit while the other half were unable to remit as shown in figure 2. figure 2: average monthly expenditure source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 based on the results in figure 2 above, a chi-square test was performed to determine the association between socio-economic status and the amount of money remitted annually, as shown in table 2 below. 120 16 117 12 19 35 7 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 a m o u n t ih g h s expenditure type average monthly expenditure african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1734 table 2: chi-square test of association between ses and remittance amount remitted annually (ghs) poor not poor total <100 0 (0.00) 28 (100.00) 28 (100.00) 100-300 17 (15.45) 93 (84.55) 110 (100.00) >300 1 (2.50) 39 (97.50) 40 (100.00) total 18 (10.11) 160 (89.89) 178 (100.00) source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 the chi-square test produced a chi-square value of 9 and a p-value of 0.010 at 95% level of confidence. the p-value of 0.010 shows a significant level of association between socio-economic status and the amount of money remitted annually. in other words, those who were not poor were better able to remit even higher amounts compared to the poor. nearly 98% of those who were not poor were able to remit ghs 300 (us $55.58) or more annually to their families. from the disaggregated data, the highest annual remittance amount was ghs 500 (us$ 92.63). one girl remarked: i have been able to support my mother and siblings back at home with the little money that i get in their feeding (sic) even though i wish i had the ability to do more or better especially with their education (19-yearold adolescent, kejetia market, kumasi). based on these findings, a logistic regression model was run to determine the predictors of remittances among the adolescents as presented in table 3 below. table 3: logistic regression analysis of remittances by adolescent girls head-porters in ghana variables unadjusted adjusted or (95% ci) or (95% ci) age group 10-14 (reference) 15-19 6.870(2.07622.733)** 7.319(1.999-26.802)* marital status married (reference) african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1735 never married 0.980(0.592-1.623) 2.150(1.097-4.211)* divorced 1.785(0.107-29.665) 2.473(0.077-79.501) ethnic group dagomba (reference) mamprusis 1.262(0.846-1.881) 1.664(0.991-2.794) walla 2.028(0.685-6.005) 1.400(0.403-4.857) gonja 1.014(0.466-2.207) 1.057(0.419-2.666) others 1.465(0.6803.157) 1.598(0.625-4.089) education none (reference) primary 0.795(0.499-1.268) 0.8201(0.471-1.430) jss/jhs 0.384(0.242-0.611)*** 0.425(0.240-0.752)** secondary/technical 0.288(0.126-0.659)** 0.230(0.088-0.599)** religion islam (reference) christian 1.014(0 .486 2.114) 0.765(0.310-1.884) traditional/other 1.479( 0.444 4.920) 2.126(0.492-9.185) city of migration accra (reference) kumasi 0.733(0.509-1.057) 1.028(0.634-1.666) number years working as a head porter <1year (reference) 1year 1.369(0.829-2.260) 0.996(0.550-1.804) 2years 2.879(1.592-5.207)*** 2.289(1.132-4.626)* 3years 3.102(1.532-6.279)** 3.976(1.633-9.677)* 4years & above 3.246(1.509-6.980)** 3.202(1.216-8.435)* socio-economic status (ses) poor(reference) not poor 9.41(5.456-16.231)*** 8.627(4.761-15.632)*** *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 the regression results show that the variables – age, marital status, education, number of years spent working as a head porter and socio-economic status – significantly influence the adolescents’ ability to remit at p<0.05, p<0.01, p<0.001 significance levels respectively. based on the adjusted odds ratio african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1736 (aor), adolescents aged 15-19 years were about 7 times more likely at p<0.05 significance level to remit compared to those aged 10-14 years. similarly, at p<0.05 significance level, the aor of 2, indicated that adolescents who were never married were twice as likely to remit relative to their married counterparts. the number of years spent working as head porter is significantly associated with the adolescents’ ability to remit. for example, adolescents who worked for three years as head porters are nearly 4 times more likely to remit compared to those who had worked for less than a year at p<0.05 significance level. at p<0.01, adolescents who attained junior high school and secondary/technical school levels were 0.43 times and 0.23 times respectively less likely to remit with reference to those who never attended school. this scenario reflects the findings in figure 1 because as many as 29% of the adolescents migrated to work as head porters to enable them to raise money for school fees. this category of adolescents may thus simply accumulate funds for the purpose of paying school fees; hence, they may not be in the position to remit. finally, at p<0.001, adolescents who were not poor were nearly 9 times more likely to remit relative those who were poor. this finding is also very consistent with the chi-square test results in table 3 as nearly 90% of the non-poor adolescents were able to remit various sums of money to their families. in this study, the kayayoo business had capacitated only 36% of the adolescent girls to remit various sums of money ranging from less than ghs 100 to over ghs 300 (us$ 18.5-55.58 annually. despite these amounts being lower than expected, the results amply demonstrated that receiving families used these remittances to increase household food consumption and also to pay school fees of children. atuoye et al. (2017) found that remittance-receiving households reported a high incidence of food security in both rural and urban settings in the upper west region of ghana. mabrouk and mekni's (2018) research in ethiopia reported identical results. remittances positively and significantly impacted upon the access, stability and utilization dimensions of food security. it does appear that the migration of the adolescent girls has an instrumental value. these favourable stories may make it difficult, if not impossible, to address the north-south migration of adolescent girls without a deliberate and coherent policy agenda that seeks to structurally transform the economy of northern ghana through the establishment of factories and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1737 industries to create job opportunities to address the yawning development gap between the north and the south. these positives, however, appear to cancel each other out because the majority (64%) of the adolescents are unable to remit. because age and the length of time spent working as a head porter are positively and significantly correlated with remittances, adolescent girls would have to spend longer periods out of school or they may never return to school in order to work and raise money for themselves and their families. expenditure patterns of adolescent girl head porters fig 3: ses and remittances source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 as indicated in figure 3 above, the estimated average daily income of the adolescent girls was (ghs 13 or us$ 2.35). this amount was then multiplied by 30 – that is 30 days in a month to obtain the average monthly income – ghs 13*30 (ghs 390 or us$ 70.46). as shown in figure 3, the total monthly expenditure on the various items amounted to ghs 326. the average monthly income over expenditure was then computed as ghs 390-ghs 326=64 or us$ 11.56. the average daily expenditure on food was estimated at ghs 120/30 =ghs 4 or us$ 0.74. food, health, and water constituted the largest total sample 503 poor 176 (35%) remittance 17 (10%) no remittance 159 (90%) not poor 327 (65%) remittance 164 (50%) no remittance 163 (50%) african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1738 expenditure, amounting to 31%, 30% and 9% of income respectively. the health care expenditure related to only those respondents who sought and paid for health care in the past month preceding the survey (i.e. 63% of respondents). electricity constituted the lowest expenditure item, amounting to about 7% of the monthly income. the low expenditure on electricity is understandable because most of the adolescent girls lived in make-shift structures such as shacks, kiosks and containers, which may not be connected to the national grid. notably, the colossal health expenditure of the adolescents is an issue of relevance to the country’s social and health policy because such a huge health expenditure is potentially catastrophic to poor families – health expenditure that exceeds or equals 30%-40% of household incomes – and could further push both the adolescents and their families into extreme poverty (xu et al., 2003). the huge health expenditure is not surprising, given the physical and tedious nature of the adolescents’ work. the implication of the huge health expenditure is that the adolescent girls may adopt other coping strategies, such as cutting down on other necessities such as food and clothing. this appears to be the case with the adolescents because their average monthly food expenditure was ghs 120 (us$ 22.14). this figure translates to an average daily food expenditure of ghs 4 (us$ 0.74), but some even spend as low as ghs 1.50 (us$ 0.28). this amount of ghs 4 is too paltry to access any reasonable balanced meal in the urban setting to meet the daily calorie requirements of the adolescent girls in light of the brutal nature of their work. the qualitiave narratives (in this study) reported that feeding was sometimes difficult for some of the head porters. as highlighted earlier, some of these adolescents even indulged in activities such as prostitution, with its associated health risks such as contracting hiv/aids, and teenage pregnancy, just to make a living. prevailing financial situation and overall poverty situation in order to appreciate the prevailing financial and overall poverty situations of the migrant adolescent girls, the following two questions were asked: (1) based on the kayayoo work, how would you assess your current financial situation? (2) since you started the kayayoo work, how would you assess the overall poverty situation of yourself and your family back home? these african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1739 questions attracted mixed responses detailed in the results presented in tables 4 and 5 and the qualitative narratives below. table 4: current financial situation based on kayayoo business current financial situation based on kayayoo business frequency percentage more than adequate 5 0.99 adequate 113 22.47 just adequate 125 24.85 inadequate 260 51.69 total 503 100 source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 table 5: overall poverty situation based on kayayoo business overall poverty situation based on kayayoo business frequency percentage improved a lot 18 3.58 somewhat improved 175 34.79 remained the same 250 49.70 somewhat deteriorated 28 5.57 deteriorated 32 6.36 total 503 100 source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 the results from table 4 illustrate that over half (52%) of the adolescents saw their current financial situation as inadequate and fewer than 1% of them saw their current financial situation as being more than adequate based on the kayayoo business. these results are not surprising because as shown earlier, the average daily income of the adolescent girls ranged from ghs 13 (or us$ 2.41) to ghs 42.5 (or us$ 7.89). nearly half of the adolescents did not experience any changes in their poverty status. in fact, as shown in table 5, remarkably, nearly 12% of the adolescents reported that their poverty situation had worsened. the following qualitative narrative bolstered these quantitative results: african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1740 i and my family (sic) are now poorer than before. my father borrowed money (ghs 300) [us$ 55.58]) for me to come to accra because we thought i could raise enough money to pay that money. but for the past two years i have been here, i have been struggling to raise that money. the little money i get, sometimes ghs 8 in a day, i have to spend ghs 1.50 [us$ 0.28] on food, ghs 1 [us$ 0.18] to bath, ghs .50 [ us$ 0.090] for toilet use, pay for accommodation and light bill. and the person who gave the money to my father is putting pressure on him (14-year-old adolescent, madina market, accra). these findings are consistent with previous work. for instance, awumbila and ardayfio-schandorf (2008) and oberhauser (2011) reported that female head porters are among the poorest of urban dwellers in ghana. even so, as shown in table 5, 38% of adolescents indicated that their poverty situation had seen some improvement. the quote below lends credence to this finding: to speak the truth, my finances are okay now. i have been able to send money to my parents when they demanded some. i also buy things for myself. i have been able to gather money to send back home to cater for my younger brother’s fees since for the past three years my dad said he didn’t have (the money). just three days ago, i sent money home in preparation towards my brother’s school (fees) (18-year-old adolescent, agbogbloshie market, accra). these mixed results and narratives paint a worrying picture about the ability of the majority of the adolescents to improve their well-being through the incomes generated from the kayayoo business. disturbingly, from the earlier narrative above, migration had worsened the poverty situation of some of the adolescents and their families because some families borrowed money to finance the trips of their daughters. these findings are consistent with the existing literature; opare (2003) suggests that some families go to the extent of borrowing money to finance the travel expenses of the adolescent girls. the findings are also consistent with the aspirations-capability theoretical framework deployed in this work. the results aptly imply that the kayayoo business does not necessarily capacitate the majority of the adolescents to meet their aspirations in order to live the kind of lives they have reason to african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1741 value (sen, 1999). awumbila et al. (2014) and hagen-zanker et al. (2017) assert that migration does not always achieve its poverty reduction potential because of poor living conditions, exposing migrants to floods and diseases such as typhoid fever and cholera. involuntary immobility in order to appreciate the adolescents’ own subjective evaluation of their wellbeing relative to achieving their migration aspirations, the adolescent girls were asked whether they would like to return home. overwhelmingly, 93% of adolescents responded in the affirmative, as illustrated in table 6. table 6: return home or stay would you like to return home? frequency percentage yes 466 93 no 37 7 total 503 100 source: author’s fieldwork, 2019 however, the question to ask is: what prevents the adolescents from returning home if their aspirations for migrating are not being met? here is why: what am i going back home to do? the situation at home has not changed, there are no jobs for my parents to do and get money for my school fees. there is no food, there is just nothing, and so i can’t return home now because the family expects me to work and get money to help them (17-year-old adolescent, kejetia market, kumasi). the above scenario highlights carling’s (2002) concept of involuntary immobility initially used to describe the number of people willing to migrate but not being able to do so. instead of migration being considered a fundamental capabilities-enhancing freedom in its own right (de haas and rodríguez, 2010), it rather constrains the freedom of choice of the adolescent girls to return home. contextually, the concept of involuntary immobility may also be used here to describe the situation of the migrant adolescent girls who want to return home but are not able to do so because of lack of resources thus becoming involuntarily immobile. this finding fits in neatly with the aspirations-capabilities theoretical framework because from the narrative african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1742 above, the necessary structural conditions in the adolescents’ places of origin to shape and offer opportunity structures that would enable them to pursue and achieve their personal or communal aspirations and capabilities are inadequate or non-existent (merton, 1968). in summary, based on the evidence adduced here, the potential of the kayayoo business to improve the socio-economic status of the adolescents and their families does not seem bright. on the contrary, it looks bleak because 64% of them are worse-off in the kayayoo business. in this process, most of the adolescents become involuntarily immobile, and socially dislocated from their families. based on the capabilities-aspirations framework therefore, the kayayoo business does not seem to capacitate the adolescent girls to live the kind of lives they have reason to value. conclusion and recommendations this paper examined the relationship between internal migration, socioeconomic status and remittances, drawing on the experiences of migrant adolescent girl head porters in the cities of accra and kumasi in ghana. the evidence presented in the paper suggests that poverty is the chief driver of the girls’ migration. for this reason, the migration of adolescents largely appears to have an instrumental value, a kind of social protection mechanism to manage household poverty. yet, only 36% of the adolescents remit to their families for various purposes, including the payment of school fees and improving household consumption. factors such as age and the length of time spent working as a head porter positively and significantly influenced remittances. while remittances improved the lives of impoverished families, they carried a high cost for the adolescents, who stayed out of formal schooling, either temporarily or permanently. this study shows that the practice of adolescents forgoing formal schooling to engage in the kayayoo business, jeopardizes the future manpower development needs of ghana because women constitute 52% of the population, of which adolescents are an integral part. the process of migration also caused some adolescents and their families to be poorer because some families borrowed money to finance their trips. thirty percent of the adolescents’ earnings were spent on healthcare. some of these adolescents were unable to return home against their wishes, thus becoming socially dislocated. based on the evidence, two strands of policy recommendations are african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1743 proffered – short-term and long-term. in the short-term, the ministry of gender, children and social protection must collaborate with the kayayoo association to identify adolescent girls who work as head porters, to raise money to pay their school fees in line with the free senior high school policy. this strategy will ensure that such girls are not deprived of education because of poverty. in the long-term, the state must deliberately roll out plans to close or narrow the development gap between the north and the south through the establishment of relevant industries and factories to provide employment opportunities. northern ghana is a largely agricultural economy and so the construction of dams for irrigation to ensure all-year farming may help boost the local economy of the area. it is in this context that the government’s ‘one village, one dam’ and ‘one village, one factory’ policy, if successfully implemented, could provide a fertile ground for the structural transformation of northern ghana. acknowledgment the council for the development of social science research in africa (codesria) supported the research for this paper under the african diaspora support to african universities program. references abdulai, a.m., boakye-yiadom, l. and quartey, p. 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(2003). household catastrophic health expenditure: a multicountry analysis. lancet, 362 (9378): 111-7. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1749 social inequality and social mobility: the construed diversity of ethiopian female labor migrants in djibouti meron zeleke eresso  abstract discussions about female labor migrants from the horn of africa are often loaded with accounts describing them as a homogenized group of destitute people on the move. such trends of homogenization often hide the diverse social classes within these groups and the differential access co-nationals have across such social classes. moreover, such discourses conceal the differences in migrants’ migration trajectories and related variances in their overall integration processes. this paper accentuates the heterogeneity of the social classes of ethiopian female migrants and argues that the term ethiopian female migrant is a parasol that often obscures the diverse and highly stratified migrant group. by going beyond this dominant trend of homogenization, this study addresses how differential access to economic resources, different social characteristics of migrants, and migrants’ settlement patterns impact migrants’ networks and their status within the larger ethiopian female migrant group. by building on lived experiences of ethiopian female migrants, the project assesses how ethiopian female migrants in djibouti describe their social class trajectories reflecting on how non/belonging to a specific class shaped the scale and nature of their social exclusion and inclusion by the djiboutian host community, and their entire integration process. as an anthropological piece based on an ethnographic study, the paper shows how class and social inequality is subjectively construed. keywords: djibouti, ethiopia, female migrants, social class, social inequality. introduction: setting the scene ethiopia is one of the countries in the horn of africa region with a large track record of outmigration. a study by the regional mixed migration secretariat (rmms) in 2014 noted that about 1 500 ethiopian migrants legally depart  associate professor of social anthropology and editor in chief of the ethiopian journal of human rights, addis ababa university, center for human rights. email: eressokiyya@gmail.com african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1750 from ethiopia every day, of which the majority is recorded to be female. studies conducted over the last decade indicate a rise in the number of migrants leaving the country. woldemichael (2013) mentions that about 154 660 migrants left the country in the period between 2012 and 2013. another study by the regional mixed migration secretariat (rmms, 2014) indicates the rise in migration stating that out of 107 532 horn of africa migrants crossing the arabian sea and the red sea to yemen, 78% (84 446) were ethiopians. the us state department annual trafficking in person (tip) report of 2015 indicates that about 1 500 ethiopian migrants legally depart from ethiopia every day. political instability, coupled with economic push factors, have been the leading drivers of migration for hundreds of thousands of ethiopians leaving the country (rmms, 2014). the majority of labor migrants destined to the middle east are young ethiopian girls and women. the growing level of landlessness in the context of a massive agrarian economy, coupled with growing youth unemployment, are considered to be the leading factors significantly contributing to the mass exodus from ethiopia (carter and rohwerder, 2016). furthermore, gendered dynamics and sociocultural factors are among the contributing factors for the growing trend in the feminization of migration in ethiopia (meron, 2018a). following the mass deportation of ethiopian migrants, ethiopia officially banned the legal migration to the gulf states in 2013/2014, a phenomenon that led thousands of migrants to resort to irregular means of migration. unlike legal migration routes, this involves several transit points and stopovers. for labor migrants destined to the middle east, djibouti is one of the key transit countries. prior research has documented the plight of the female labor migrants by drawing on the different socio-economic rights violations the migrants face in different contexts (felegebirhan, 2013; waganesh etal 2015; zewdu and suleyman, 2018). the conventional discussion on ethiopian female labor migrants has portrayed women and young girls as a homogeneous group of passive agents whose migration trajectories are often narrated in reference to the diverse socio-economic violations of rights they face (selamawit, 2017). most of these prior studies on ethiopian female labor migrants failed to provide a detailed gendered analysis (for more on this see meron, 2018b). these studies have the tendency to homogenize the socio-economic profile of african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1751 ethiopian female migrants and essentialize the group of female migrants without discussing the diverse social class differences existing among the respective migrants, and the different factors accounting for such differences (rmms, 2014). furthermore, prior studies, which pay more attention to the victimhood narrative, tend to undermine the agency of the migrants. this paper argues against this point by emphasizing the agency of female migrants by drawing on aspects of social mobility. this paper addresses these two sets of gaps, i.e. the gap in understanding the heterogeneity of female labor migrants and the gap of research in addressing the agency of migrants by paying attention to aspects of social mobility. the paper is structured in five sections. the following section, i.e., section ii, presents a note on the research method. section iii provides a brief review of the literature on social inequality, class, and international migration as a way of giving a brief summary of the relevant literature and introducing the general analytical framework. section iv presents the heterogeneous class of ethiopian female migrants in djibouti. section v explores the factors affecting the social mobility of migrants and section vi presents the concluding remarks. brief note on methodology this paper addresses the perceived gap in research addressing the class positioning of migrants and the agency of female emigrants by drawing on the findings of an extended qualitative research conducted on ethiopian female migrants residing in djibouti. the empirical data presented in this article is based on a senior postdoctoral research project of the author, conducted for a period of three years on ethiopian female migrants in djibouti. djibouti’s geographical proximity to ethiopia gives it the significance of a preferred transit and destination country for many ethiopian migrants. it draws on accounts of key ethiopian female informants interviewed in djibouti consisting of a purposively selected group of informants. the informants interviewed during the course of the study are from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. their socio-economic status, as discussing in section iv of this paper, is quite diverse. the study implemented various data collection tools such as in-depth interviews with key informants, collection of migrants’ biographies and narratives (self-descriptions and definition of the situation), and focus group discussions. the study was conducted in both djibouti city and in the border town of obock neighboring yemen. unstructured, openafrican human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1752 ended questions were posed to key informants with the purpose of giving them more room to shape the flow of conversation. furthermore, two focus group discussions (fgds) were held with a group of 10 informants over the course of the study. the study pays attention to the subjective understanding of social class and class positioning and thus draws on individual stories as a tool in order to get the nuances of the dynamics of class positioning, and the factors that account for social mobility. the methodological departure point of the study is that the subject-centered approach in migration research helps to avoid biases by letting the subjects of the study speak for themselves (triulzi and mckenzie, 2013). by going beyond the dominant trend that often treats migrants in general, and female migrants in particular, as a homogeneous entity, the paper shows the heterogeneity of ethiopian female migrants revealing a complex social class positioning. as a way of protecting informants, pseudonyms are used in this paper. by going beyond presenting trends of the feminization of labor migration in ethiopia, this paper presents the heterogeneity of ethiopian female migrants and their differences in their socio-economic status. furthermore, it reviews how migrants make sense of such diversities and the factors contributing to it, and their subjective understandings of class and social mobility in such heterogeneous environments. social class is conceptualized in this paper as a fluid, dynamic and flexible entity referring to the hierarchical distinctions between migrant individuals, where the factors that determine class varies widely, as illustrated below. this paper shows that ethiopian female migrants have different ideas about what makes one ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ in the hierarchy with different defining characteristics. social stratification among the migrant community under discussion represents the structured inequality between individuals and social groups, whereby the migrants find themselves in asymmetrical relations and possess statuses in a hierarchical structure that is prone to change rather than being a fixed entity. class, social mobility and migration class is a theme that has attracted less scholarly attention in migration research than others. van hear (2014: 100) explains that, “while once a mainstay of social science, class has lately been eclipsed in much of migration studies by consideration of other forms of social difference, affinity, and allegiance such as ethnicity, gender, generation, and lately religion”. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1753 latest discussions of class and migration involve various sub-topics. some studies focus on discussing class in relation to the socio-economic inequality happening after migration (oliver and o’reilly, 2010). other studies discuss how class affects mobility/immobility either by providing or limiting access to migration and the way class shapes the migration trajectories of migrants’ decision-making, the routes they take, and their respective destinations (van hear, 2004). van hear (2014) argues that the resources that would-be migrants could gather often shapes the form and outcome of migration. furthermore, the discussion about class and mobility also relates to studies that address how migration policies are influenced by the educational and professional profile of prospective migrants (kofman and raghuram, 2015). how migration is perceived, as a means to realize some goals by groups belonging to a certain class of the society is another theme addressed within the overarching topic of the relationship between class and migration (mapril, 2014). a recent study by cederberg (2017) accents the importance of understanding class from the individual subjects themselves. accordingly, cederberg (2017: 149) argues, “exploring subjective accounts of class provides useful insights into the complexity of how class is experienced in the context of international migration.” cederberg (2017) shows the different aspects in which migrants evaluate their class trajectories. instead of looking at and defining their status quo at a given specific time, migrants tend to describe their long-term prospective class positioning. others discuss their class trajectories in reference to the context of the family unit, by emphasizing different quality-oflife aspects existing across generations. the other central theme in the discussion on class and migration involved discussions on social mobility attending to migration outcomes in host, destination or home countries. likewise, studies by parrenas (2015) and kelly et al. (2012) present the intricacy of social class in migration by referring to points of social mobility. parrenas (2000, 2015) highlights how such social mobility is defined in different ways in different contexts. accordingly, she uses the term ‘contradictory class mobility’ to signify the trajectories of filipina female migrants who managed to secure higher income through domestic work in western countries, but who at the same time are experiencing ‘downward social mobility’ by being involved in work that is african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1754 believed to be a domain of those with low social status. kelly’s study emphasizes the need to pay attention to a subjective understanding of social mobility and discusses how, in a context that apparently seems to be ‘deprofessionalisation and deskilling’ (2012: 166) migrants might on the other hand tend to describe their situation of class positioning in more complex ways. thus, the main discourse in the studies of social mobility in the context of migration research accents the need to adopt a transnational perspective in an attempt to understand and study social class and social mobility within the framework of migrant communities. likewise, kelly (2014: 18) notes that, “class position that must be understood in a comparative or transnational frame concerns the extension of class identity from the individual to a wider familial network”. accordingly, these academic works argue that in discussions of class and social mobility, studies need to address the themes across national boundaries because migrants are often differently positioned in different contexts (nowicka, 2013; parrenas, 2015). furthermore, kelly et al. (2012: 17) state that, “discussions of social mobility in a transnational frame tend to go beyond the aspect of presenting one’s position in one hierarchy and comparing it with a position in another, it is rather discussing the prospect for mobility within that hierarchy, either across a career or across generations, that is a major factor.” the other point in the discussion on social mobility in migration relates to the value of different forms of capital in shaping the social mobility process. as van hear (2014: 101) argues, “patterns and outcomes of migration are shaped by the resources migrants can mobilize.” economic capital is described as affecting the pattern of social mobility of migrants. while arguing along the same line, sheller and urry (2006) used the allegory of mobility in “fast and slow lanes” to discuss how the social mobility of migrants is shaped by access to resources and power (sheller and urry, 2006: 219) apart from economic capital, the gathering of non-economic resources is discussed as another factor impacting the longer-term class prospects and social mobility (nowicka, 2013). the value of social capital in shaping the social mobility of migrants is quite significant. as bourdieu (1986: 248-249) mentions, the amount of social capital at the disposal of a given agent is shaped by the size of the network and connections that could be mobilized, and by the african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1755 amount of capital held by the different networked agents. however, there are two competing accounts discussing the value of social networks. some like massey et al. (1994) accent the value of social networks arguing that social capital decreases the costs and the risks of migration by increasing the expected net returns. on the other hand, mahuteau and junankar (2008) highlight the negative effect of migrant networks, which they argue limit the integration of migrants to the local community and market and often restrict them to lower positions in the labor market. other studies have discussed the importance of taking a family-wide and intergenerational perspective on social mobility (kelly et al., 2012; nowicka, 2013). studies on social mobility have accented the importance of time in the mobility process (eade et al., 2007). ryan (2015) shows that migrants who might have experienced deskilling earlier in their migration trajectories have experiences followed by upward mobility based on the friendship and social ties they form, emphasizing the value of time in the social mobility process. as arthur (2014) argues, contemporary migration dynamics in africa exhibit class dynamics and inform the ever-widening inequality structures on the continent. attending to the complexity of the interplay between factors accounting for migration, van hear (2014) notes that the nexus between social development and migration dynamics in contemporary africa is quite a complex and multifaceted entity. flahaux and de haas (2016) argue that development and social transformation in contemporary africa raised the capabilities and aspirations to migrate. prior research conducted on ethiopian female labor migrants destined to the middle east has discussed groups of migrants often facing different forms of rights violations and precarious working conditions in their respective destinations (busza et al., 2017). furthermore, the studies drew attention to the discourse about the homogeneous socio-economic profile of ethiopian female labor migrants who in most circumstances are uneducated, young girls from an economically deprived family making the decision to migrate in search of a better future (rmms, 2014; woldemichael 2017). by drawing on the findings of the study on ethiopian female migrants in djibouti, this article shows the diverse socio-economic profile of migrants and the highly stratified migrant community residing in the republic and transiting through it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=busza%20j%5bauthor%5d&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=28893298 african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1756 in the following section, this paper argues against the dominant trend in the literature paying much attention to discussing class in reference to economic factors and rather argues for the subjective understanding of class and social mobility. by going beyond the homogenization trend dominant in studies on ethiopian female migrants, this paper analyzes how the migrants speak about class in class-terms, and reviews the different features of their accounts that refer more broadly to their socio-economic positions. it further addresses the implications of migrants’ social class positioning in defining their migration trajectories. this is an essential methodological and analytical shift from the dominant trend of migration studies on ethiopia, which fail to address the account of migrants defining their social status and where migrants’ subjective understanding of class is often muted. furthermore, this paper argues that while addressing the factors contributing to the social mobility of migrants, studies need to pay attention to exploring the subjective accounts of social mobility in a specific context rather than pinpointing to specific factors, as such an approach helps to provide useful insights into the complexity of the social mobility process and factors accounting for it. the setting and heterogeneity of ethiopian female migrants djibouti has a coastline stretching from the red sea to the indian ocean, passing through the bab el mandeb strait, granting it a strategic location enticing thousands of migrants from this troubled region of the horn of africa. accordingly, thousands of ethiopians, somalis and eritreans destined to the gulf area and beyond transit through djibouti. ethiopians are the majority of foreign communities in djibouti followed by somalis and eritreans (hawa, 2015). following the deportation of about 160 000 undocumented ethiopian migrants from the kingdom of saudi arabia, the ethiopian government announced a temporary ban on migration to the middle east (meron, 2018a). this ban on official labor migration led a number of migrants to resort to irregular ways of migrating. djibouti appealed as one of the major transit pathways for thousands of ethiopian migrants. in order to better comprehend the discussion on social class and status of migrants, this paper focuses on stationed ethiopian female migrants who are residing in djibouti ville excluding thousands of transit migrants. the analysis of the empirical data collected during the course of the study shows the heterogeneous social class of the group. the subjective definition of class by african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1757 the migrant groups shows the insights into the complexity of experiencing and defining class. the three major variables said to mark the social class of the female migrants are the nature of job/income status of migrants, the migration status of the respective migrants, and their settlement patterns. income/nature of job and social class ethiopian female migrants in djibouti are highly stratified in terms of their economic status. even though it is difficult to draw a clear line marking the hierarchy, the class difference among this migrant community can be inferred from the different nature of the jobs they engage in and the related economic capital they generate and have at their disposal. as an ethnographic study that paid much attention to the subject-centered approach, the hierarchies of the different types of jobs and the sub-categories and hierarchies of different businesswomen are drawn from accounts of the key informants of the study. as most informants allude, negade setoch (businesswomen) are the ones regarded as being economically well-to-do and at the upper scale of the economic ladder. even though the number of ethiopian female business owners in djibouti city is insignificant compared to their male counterparts, there are few women who run businesses in djibouti ville and on the outskirts of djibouti town. there is no special immigration scheme in djibouti that aims at facilitating the entry of highly skilled, well-educated and wealthy immigrants at the national and provincial levels. hence, most ethiopian business owners in djibouti are those who entered the country either as undocumented migrants and have stayed in the country for a while and changed their status or those who have entered on a work permit. negade setoch are heralded as providing economic benefits to the locals and as being better integrated into the local market. the negade setoch is a generic term used to describe those owning hotels, restaurants, bars and nightclubs. owners of sagur bet (beauty salon) are the second in the social class of negade setoch following hotel owners. the third in the social class of migrant businesswomen are those selling vegetables, fruits and spices imported from eastern ethiopia. the justifications given for placing businesswomen on top mainly relates to their higher income and earning capacity. the other factor raised by informants also relates to the immigration status of businesswomen who in most circumstances have a legal permanent/temporary resident status, which qualifies them to run businesses in djibouti. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1758 while describing the economic status of the migrants, informants tend to describe professional women as the ones who hold secondary status next to businesswomen. the number of professional ethiopian women in djibouti participating in the workforce requiring some type of specialization and higher education training is very insignificant. there are very few ethiopian women working as sales agents in transit and freight companies, transnational corporations and in the financial services in djibouti. there were about six young girls working for transit companies during the time of the fieldwork. the strict immigration policy, language requirement (proficiency in the official working language, french), the low pay scale and the harsh weather conditions are described by this group of skilled migrants as non-conducive factors restraining the number of skilled ethiopian female migrants from joining different private firms in djibouti. the other set of professional female immigrants consists of the few ethiopian nationals working at different international and regional development organizations in djibouti. their number is also quite insignificant compared to the thousands of labor migrants residing in the capital and in the republic. the groups holding the third status among ethiopian female migrants are the ethiopian sex workers involved in the lucrative sex work business. sex work is a well-paid business in djibouti due to the significant number of international military personnel, numerous port operators, and long-distance truck drivers. as an economic hub, djibouti city is a place where there is a high injection of global finance. the sex workers are a highly stratified group ranging from the sex workers working as kimit (mistresses), strippers/dancers, those working at private residences, massage parlors, and those working at hotels and nightclubs. during the course of the fieldwork, the author interviewed a number of ethiopian women who are serving as kimit of expatriates, mainly foreign military men, working as contractors and soldiers for the foreign military bases, mainly the americans, french, spanish, and chinese. the majority of the informants involved in the sex work business mentioned their aspirations to be in such a relationship which is commonly referred to as kimit, as the account of elisabeth shows: the dream of every sex worker is to change her status from being a bar girl to a kimit. this dream further entails the ultimate aim of every kimit which is to change her status from being a kimit to being a wife. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1759 even though there are rare cases of young ethiopian sex workers marrying expats, such precedents give the kimits the hope that most of them cling to, to becoming a wife. among the general categories of sex workers, those who are considered to be on the lowest strata are the ones working at small brothels in the neighborhood of quartier 2, a neighborhood with numerous small bars with large numbers of ethiopian sex workers. while sex work is officially outlawed, such ‘complexes’ like quartier 2 are located at the heart of the old city. they usually consist of 30-50 brothels run by separate owners and each housing between 3-5 sex workers. even though informants mentioned sex work as a better paying job than domestic work in djibouti, most of the key informants, including the sex workers, mentioned the stereotype and stigma attached to it. this relates to the account by sanders and campbell (2007: 3) which relates to the historical and cultural endurance of intolerance and hostility towards sex workers. the social class of specific migrants defined by the ethiopian community in relation to the type of job places ethiopian women working in the care sector on the lowest strata of the economic ladder. the care sector refers to transnational labor and care arrangements in domestic work migration. this group consists of the majority of the migrants who are over-represented in low-paid jobs. they are generally described as shaqala or serataganas (maids). the shaqala group, like the three general groups mentioned above, consists of further stratified migrant workers. the difference between classes among this group relates to the pay scale, the nature of jobs they engage in and the immigration status of the workers. the jobs these groups of female migrants often engage in are tsidat (cleaning), migib sira (cooking), and lij tibeka (babysitting). key informants and focus group discussion participants emphasized the better pay that maids in djiboutian households earn than the average payment a maid working in ethiopian upper-class households earn. in ethiopian upper-middle class households the maximum amount maids earn on average is about 2 000 ethiopian birr (circa 65 usd) per month. this amount is by far less than the minimum wage. a maid working in a djiboutian lower-middle class household usually earns about 17 000 djf (circa 3 150 ethiopian birr, or 112 usd). the pay is by far higher in djiboutian upper-class households where maids earn on average up to 25 000-30 000 djf (circa 143african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1760 170 usd). despite djibouti’s high cost of living, the expenses for the migrants in djibouti are quite low due the fact that food and accommodation are provided by employers. the construction of social hierarchies of class in the context of the female migrants shows a strong inclination towards defining class in relation to earning capacity. this needs to be situated and analyzed with reference to the key push factor accounting for the migration project of the migrants under discussion. as most migrants are labor migrants who left their country in search of green pastures, the relative success of a migration project in such circumstances tend to be framed and defined in reference to one’s economic income. the analysis of such a reference to the pay scale in their home country, while discussing their income in djibouti, shows the value of transnational understanding and the spatiality of class. this relates to kelly’s (2009) discussion on the point that class is constructed in important ways either in the context of comparisons between the host country and home, or in relation to transnational linkages between the two places. migration status and social class although there are no official statistics available on the overall number of ethiopian migrants in djibouti, data collected by the ethiopian community association shows that there are more than 60 000 ethiopians residing in the republic. as shown in this section, the migration status is labeled by key informants as a crucial element shaping and defining the social hierarchy of respective migrants. migration status is closely intertwined with the nature of the work the migrants engage in. drawing on her lived experience, lydia mentions that employers place more value on legal status than they do on the skills of migrant workers: i have friends who have less cooking and cleaning skills than myself and who didn't have any skills training back home, but who are earning double the amount of what i earn here. i have a cooking skills certificate, which i obtained from a public technical and vocational training school (tvet) back home. i am relatively better educated as i have completed high school and i have better command of english. the skills and the assets i have did not make any significant change on the nature of the job i am doing as a african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1761 maid and the terms of my employment. all that counts is having the werket (the legal immigration documents) (lydia, djibouti). lydia’s story gives us an insight into how much the possession of a legal migration status shapes their everyday lived experience, defining the prospects for integration into the local job market and better living and working conditions. the majority of ethiopian female migrants in djibouti are undocumented. these are groups who entered the country without authorization from djiboutian immigration authorities or without an entry visa. quite insignificant numbers of the undocumented migrants initially traveled with a valid visa and overstayed the period of time allowed to be in the country as a visitor. undocumented immigrants are the precarious group holding uncertain migration status and are not eligible to get work permits that would allow them to engage in the djiboutian labor market. hence, undocumented ethiopian female immigrants in most circumstances are employed in local djiboutian households where they live and work as live-in maids with restricted mobility and lower wages. the official working days in djibouti are from sunday through thursday and accordingly fridays (juma’a) and saturdays are the main weekly off-days in the country. the other groups of ethiopian female migrants are documented migrants having the legal documents allowing them to reside in djibouti. such legal immigration status often entitles them to obtain work permits. the carte de séjour temporaire, the temporary residents’ card, valid for a year, allows the migrants to live and work in djibouti. owning such a legal residence permit offers the female migrants better working opportunities than undocumented ones. furthermore, it offers them a better negotiating ground about the terms and the nature of their employment. even though the nature of jobs that ethiopian female migrants in djibouti engage in tends to be in the domestic care business, the documented immigrants get relatively better pay and decent working conditions as in some circumstances they are employed at households of expatriates working for international organizations, and highranking diplomats. unlike the undocumented workers, they often work as weraj or temelalash, an arrangement whereby the workers commute between the places of their work and their residences. the average working hours for documented migrants working as maids is often 8 hours a day, while the livein migrant workers work on average between 12-14 hours a day. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1762 settlement pattern and social status the subjective accounts of social class as presented by ethiopian female migrants in djibouti point to the third key element, which pertains to the social class of migrants. the settlement pattern of the migrants in djibouti is described as a variable indicating the class of migrants, showing their status in the migrants’ social class hierarchy. pk 12 is a highway where hundreds of trucks pass through every day while travelling on the ethio-djiboutian corridor. after offloading the items imported from ethiopia, truckers wait at pk 12 for their papers to be processed to enter djibouti city before resuming the journey back to ethiopia. pk 12 is home to some 35 000 people. this is a neighborhood where young female migrants crossing from eastern ethiopia to djibouti pass through. when walking on the streets of pk 12 it is quite common to come across a number of newly arriving migrants and accordingly pk 12 is a transit and resting place for these groups of migrants as much as it is for the truckers. the small restaurants and bars in the neighborhood have sheds built to host the drivers during their days in djibouti. these resting places, referred to as marafiya bets, are usually owned and run by ethiopian businesswomen. amharic is the main lingua franca in the neighborhood and people use both the birr (the ethiopian currency) and djiboutian franc for their everyday transactions. the marafiya bets are mini dining houses where drivers can get ethiopian meals, ethiopian coffee and where they can chew qat (catha edulis, a stimulant growing in the horn of africa and the middle east). the ethiopian madams running the small restaurants often employ young newcomers who have crossed the border recently and those who do not have the resources (both financial resources and social networks) in djibouti city, or to travel further. hence, pk 12 serves as a transit point for a group of young newly arriving labor migrants and as a place where they get employed for a very small fee, an income that they use to pay for their further migration. the madams owning the small restaurants are in most cases wives or partners of truck drivers. some of them are elderly women who have lived in djibouti for decades and have secured work permits that allow them to run businesses. during a focus group discussion held with the girls employed in those restaurants, the most accented point about the transit nature of pk 12 relates to the fact that this is a place associated with transiting to djibouti and further, african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1763 and a place that serves the purpose of obtaining the necessary resources and information needed. the city is like an ocean and we don’t dare to take the risk of going to a place where we do not know anyone. if one has the money to buy the service of a local broker to find job in djibouti city or to proceed further then it is less likely to find that person here in pk 12. this is the place for the destitute who lack the resources and information. (nesra nuri; djibouti 12.01.2019). arhiba is a major slum area in djibouti city located at the center of the city. this is a neighborhood with tiny shacks made of cardboard, wood and metal junk. arhiba is a part of djibouti city where mainly members of the afar-ethnic group, one of the two major ethnic groups of djibouti, live. it is an old neighborhood, established in 1970, for afar dockers working at the port. it is a densely populated slum area hosting numerous ethiopian migrants. these migrants include a group of transit migrants, migrant workers, and smugglers/brokers who facilitate the employment of migrants in djibouti city and further migration. given djibouti city’s high rental cost, arhiba provides relatively low-budget housing in small rooms of 4m2 x 5m2. ethiopian female migrants working in djiboutian households come to their small rented shacks during their monthly days off. furthermore, it is also a home for transit migrants who are transiting through djibouti and waiting for the brokers and smugglers facilitating their travels. so, the two groups of ethiopian female migrants residing in arhiba are the transit migrants and undocumented migrants working in djibouti city as domestic workers. in most circumstances, ethiopian bale bet, or akeray (landlords) married to local djiboutian afar men own the small shacks. nafisa recounted: like hundreds of other ethiopian girls, i rented a small room with 5 of my friends and i am usually coming to this place for my monthly days off. arhiba is a sanctuary to higawet sidetegena (illegal migrants). a documented person wouldn't reside in this neighborhood unless he/she is the owner of the place i.e. the akeray (nafisa, arhiba). nafisa’s statement frames arhiba as the place for the destitute and undocumented migrants and best shows the consensus among the ethiopian migrants emphasizing the relationship between social class and residential areas. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1764 likewise, quartier 2 is a neighborhood in djibouti city with a large number of ethiopian migrants. it is a neighborhood with small bars and a large numbers of ethiopian sex workers (see section iii above). the two neighborhoods (arhiba and quartier 2) are considered neighborhoods where undocumented ethiopian female migrants reside in large numbers. the reputation of quartier 2 is as a complex where young migrant girls, mostly sex workers from ethiopia, rent places in houses owned by older ethiopian women who have lived in djibouti for a long time and have mostly passed through the same life experience of working at brothels. this is a neighborhood in the city where police raids, locally referred to as ‘roughs’, take place frequently, undermining the safety of sex workers and forcing them often to work underground. informants from this neighborhood emphasize the point that the criminalization of sex work puts migrant sex workers at the risk of abuse and exploitation by local customers. neighborhoods like djibouti foq, eron and place menelik are parts of the city where in most circumstances documented female migrants working in bigger bars, professional women and those running businesses, are residing. these are neighborhoods with high rentals and ethiopian female migrants living in such neighborhoods are the ones who can afford to pay the high rental costs. unlike the other neighborhoods the places are often apartments and relatively modern-style common residential flats. the settlement pattern of ethiopian female migrants in djibouti is hence described as something exhibiting the high levels of income inequality at best. thus, the differences are described as entities duplicated between occupation-defined classes within the neighborhoods. factors affecting social mobility of migrants gold (2001) argues that individual migrants and sub-groups experience social and economic mobility in host settings. social mobility is “the movement or opportunities for movement between different social classes or occupational groups” (aldridge, 2003: 189). such mobilities can either be upward or downward. cederberg (2017) likewise accents the point that international migration may involve upward or downward social mobility. furthermore, she mentions different factors affecting the positioning of migrants in social strata such points as education, linguistic competence, and social capital. the lived experiences of ethiopian female migrants in djibouti show how a african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1765 multitude of factors contribute to the upward social mobility of migrants and change of social status, as discussed in this section. one of the key findings of the study is that the social positioning of ethiopian female migrants in a specific class is a complex entity. this is mainly because migrants, who are believed to experience some downward social mobility in the djiboutian context, maintain property or businesses back in ethiopia, which are financed through remittances sent from djibouti. this at best exhibits what parrenas (2001:15) calls “contradictory class mobility” whereby while their economic situation back home improves, their social status in the receiving country decreases. thus, while the female migrants are engaged in one set of class relationships in djibouti, their experiences show that they are engaged in quite different ones in ethiopia. muna’s narrative about her lived experience explains this: i am working in a hair salon here in djibouti earning six to seven times more than what a person with the same skill and expertise makes back home. of course, being employed at someone else’s hair salon is not such a dignified job in ethiopia even though it is considered as being better than to be employed as a maid. so, the fact that i am working as a hairdresser here might sound as if i am doing the low paying job in ethiopia. but now i have bought and shipped back all the hair salon stuffs i need to start up my own business in desse, my birth town. i have already built the house i will be running my business in and also managed to buy all the materials i need. so, inshallah in few months’ time i will be a business owner in my own country which is going to be a real lewit (transformation). one of the key factors that informants mentioned during both in-depth interviews and focus group discussions was the value of social networks in shaping the social mobility of migrants. a social network is described as something that can deliver valuable resources such as access to information, and a support base that often helps migrants to advance in their careers. the networks established by the migrants and the friends they make often become major sources of information and support. hence, as coleman (1988) argues, social capital is not embodied in the social agents themselves, or in the physical implements of production, like economic capital, but it is mainly embodied in the relations among persons (coleman, 1988:98). african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1766 the co-residential arrangement, or the local debal living arrangement mentioned under section iii above, is one of the key ways in which the female migrants build their social networks. the co-residence in the small shared rooms in djibouti city is one of the ways in which the migrants get the opportunity to access information. in most circumstances, well-established migrants provide different social protections and support to migrants such as hosting migrants, providing financial support, and facilitating their employment. there is a strong sense of ‘filial’ responsibility from the bale bêtes (the landlords renting their places) emphasizing the point that those with legal migration status are expected to support the desperate ones seeking help. the above discussion shows how social capital is often converted to a source of economic capital, a point that prior research highlights (drever and hoffmeister, 2008; van meeteren et al., 2009). as van hear (2014) asserts, migrants’ endowments of economic and social capital, or the amount of economic, social and other capital, would affect their migration trajectories, as ethiopian migrants in djibouti emphasize their upward social mobility. the second main factor mentioned by most informants as a key factor contributing to the upward social mobility of the female migrants is the change in immigration status. there are three main ways that immigrants use to obtain the carte de séjour temporaire – the temporary residents’ legal residence permit. the first way is through the afar traditional indigenization practice of the fiqmatagle, which is an afar customary institution of assimilating non-afars born outside of djibouti. according to this assimilation mechanism, the non-afar person approaches and requests an afar family to adopt him/her to their family for lifelong fostering. the adopting afar family helps him/her to fully integrate into afar culture. this traditional assimilation system also helps the non-afar to be identified as a member of the afar ethnic group allowing the person to obtain a local residence card and ultimately become a djiboutian citizen. the second mechanism mentioned by informants as a way of securing the legal residence permit is through marrying a local djiboutian and having a marriage certificate proving the marriage of an ethiopian woman to a djiboutian citizen. the third mechanism is through paying for a one-year residency card, which costs 30 000 djf (circa 169 usd). for the third mechanism a migrant worker is expected to be in possession of a legal travel document, i.e. a passport, which she or he has used when entering african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1767 djibouti. furthermore, he/she is expected to provide evidence of employment showing he/she will be employed or starting his/her own business. informants mentioned how much social networks and economic capital shape gaining access to the aforementioned mechanisms that would allow a person to get a legal residency status in djibouti, which ultimately is believed to contribute to the upward social mobility of the migrants. the third crucial factor informants raised as a factor affecting the social mobility of the migrants, is time. most informants, especially the businesswomen, emphasize the value of time in defining and shaping their achievements and gaining a better financial stance. this resonates with wright’s (2005) argument that class has a temporal dimension and current class positioning must be seen in this context. while describing the value of time, informants state that upon arrival most immigrants tend not to have basic information about the place, ways of finding jobs and they might not have networks with other co-nationals or the local community. ‘ya gize guday new’ (it is a matter of time) is a phrase that featured often in most of the discussions pertaining to social mobility. time is described as an entity that affects the migration trajectories mainly affecting the integration process into the labor market and occupational mobility that in turn affects the social mobility of the female migrants. the value of time in the social mobility of the migrants can be inferred from the analysis of the data collected during the fieldwork. it shows that most of the female migrants, upon their arrival, experience occupational downgrading whereby high school graduates and migrants with some skills training certificates and diplomas work in domestic services in their first jobs. through time, movement out of domestic services is possible, in situations where the migrants develop the necessary linguistic competence and networks. the fourth factor the study found out, as an element impacting the social mobility of female migrants, is family. informants explained this in three different ways. for the first set of informants, getting married to a local djiboutian citizen and gaining a certain legal residence status uplifts their status from a certain social class group and entitles them to climb the social class ladder by integrating into the djiboutian labor market. the second line of thought is for those groups of female migrants who emphasize the emotional satisfaction of becoming a mother. this second account, which african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1768 offers great importance to establishing a family life relates to the point that van den berg (2011) makes when discussing how social mobility is described in multiple ways. he includes the way in which migrants seek alternative forms of success by having good friends and family, being healthy and striving for a better future for their children (van den berg, 2011). the third line of thought has a transnational frame whereby social mobility is addressed in reference to a wider familial network. accordingly, many informants mentioned that despite the dissatisfaction they have with their living and working conditions in djibouti, their success stories in relation to the support they extend to their families back home is what they duly consider as an aspect of their upward social mobility. this paper accentuates the need to adopt a broader framework in analyzing the factors accounting for social mobility than a monocausal analysis, which often focuses on economic factors. the conceptual contribution to the discourse of migration research also relates to the argument for adopting a ‘broader conceptualization of migration’, as a phenomenon taking place within social fields extended beyond the actual migrants themselves to include those whom they have left behind and to whom they are connected through networks of social relations. this is a point that can be inferred from the fact that social class positioning and social mobility among the group of migrants under discussion is also framed with transnational reference. the discussion on social mobility highlights the agency of the migrants. the discussions presented here challenged pre-existing discourses stressing the passive nature of female migrants often inscribed in the victimhood narrative. instead, it has shown that migrants are indeed active agents with their own lived experiences, exhibiting aspects of change and dynamic class positioning. this paper contributes to the wider discussion of social class and mobility by highlighting that, among migrants, a) social class systems tend to be quite fluid; b) class positions in the context of mobility are often achieved; and c) social class goes beyond being an economically-based category. conclusion migrants’ class trajectories reveal a complex social class positioning of migrants. despite the common social class they have, this paper revealed that ethiopian female migrants in djibouti are highly stratified groups with various african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1769 social classes. as the data presented in the above sections clearly shows, social class is experienced and interpreted by female migrants in different ways, strengthening the argument for considering subjective understandings of class processes. one of the complexities of migrants’ class trajectories relates to the experiences they have whereby they concurrently experience better economic positions and a decline in social status. this dual positioning of social class is a point that key informants reference while discussing their social class position in relation to the positions they hold in the host country while at the same time referring to their probable social positioning back home. this key argument of the paper therefore goes beyond a phenomenon called “methodological nationalism” (glick schiller, 2009: 4), an orientation that approaches the study of social and historical processes as if they were contained within the borders of individual nation-states and rather pays attention to the multiple, shifting nature of migration class positioning. this accentuates the importance of transnational linkages and comparisons in the subjective interpretation of class among migrants in general, and the female migrants in particular. based on the analysis of the data presented in the preceding sections, this paper emphasizes the importance of developing both a subjective framework and a transnational framework of understanding class processes in order to get a comprehensive understanding about the phenomenon of social class and social mobility of migrants. the comparison of their economic status with the community back home impacts on the way female migrants evaluate their social class trajectories, emphasizing the sense of positive distinction from those left behind. transnational frames of reference vividly show the way migrants evaluate their migration trajectories, their class positioning and their prospects for social mobility as presented in the empirical data from djibouti. the subjective understanding of class among the ethiopian female migrants shows how the variables setting classes apart might not necessarily or exclusively relate to the economic status or economic capital. such variables as immigration status and settlement patterns are used as part of the criteria to measure a migrant’s position in the socio-economic hierarchy. while outlining the elements defining the class of respective migrants, the three elements believed to set the migrants’ social class apart were: differential access to economic resources, the migration status of respective migrants and african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1770 their settlement patterns. this paper asserts that the positioning of migrants in a certain class, limits their full immersion into the receiving culture. even though immigrants themselves might have experienced a downward social mobility in positional class terms, their outlook towards upward social mobility is framed in reference 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(2018). depression and coping mechanisms among migrant returnees from middle east countries in amhara region, ethiopia. health science journal, 12(2): 560. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1774 the human security implications of migration on zimbabwean migrant women in south africa victoria mutambara and naidu maheshvari abstract a large number of people enter the south african borders legally and illegally from zimbabwe in pursuit of secure, better living conditions. amongst those people are women. this paper argues that most of the women who migrate to south africa escape from insecurity in zimbabwe, only to be confronted with other human security challenges in south africa. the paper presents an overview of the theoretical framework of the human security paradigm, which helps to unpack how the experiences of zimbabwean migrant women can be labelled as forms of insecurity. using qualitative data, the paper discusses the possible human insecurity aspects that force the women to leave their home country and the challenges that they encounter in the host country. the findings of the paper indicate that economic insecurity and poverty highly influence the decisions and choices for migration for most of the women. however, the women’s expectations of better lives and human security appear to contradict their social experiences. the migrant women face multiple forms of discrimination and violence that are constructed around their identities as women, non-citizens and black africans. cumulatively, most of the women experience gender-based violence and discrimination from south african citizens, foregrounded in xenophobic sentiments. therefore, this paper reaches the conclusion that migrant women are victims of the compounded trauma of insecurities, as many of them would have encountered human insecurity consequences in their home country. keywords: economic insecurity, poverty, identity, livelihood, xenophobia, gender-based violence. introduction the movement of people to other countries has become a way of life in africa that affects day-to-day activities (gouws, 2010: 2). soon after the dawn of corresponding author. university of kwazulu-natal, south africa. email: vmutambara@gmail.com  university of kwazulu-natal, south africa. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1775 democracy in south africa in 1994, there was an increase in the number of people moving to south africa from other african countries, increasing the trend of south-south migration (sigsworth et al., 2008: 4; isike and isike, 2012: 93). one of the countries is zimbabwe, which over the past decade has seen a large number of its citizens moving across borders to neighboring states or overseas as a way of escaping protracted political and economic challenges (bloch 2010; dzingirai et al., 2015, crush et al., 2017 b). the twentieth century migration patterns from zimbabwe to south africa reflect that young unmarried and married men who were in search of jobs dominated movement, looking for greener pastures in south african farms and mines (gouws, 2010: 1; mlambo, 2010; makina, 2013: 149; crush et al., 2015: 366). however, the number of women leaving zimbabwe to south africa in search of better standards of living also increased rapidly. statistics produced from the study conducted by crush et al. (2015: 367-368) highlighted that by the late 1990s migration from zimbabwe to south africa was noticeably more varied than anything seen in the past. women were migrating in significantly higher numbers and they were the breadwinners for their families. most women in urban zimbabwe view migration to south africa as a panacea to the economicrelated problems in their family households (muzvidziwa, 2015: 218; mutopo, 2010: 466; jamela, 2013). therefore, many zimbabwean women relocate to south africa in search of better economic opportunities and better standards of living. however, in their journey for economic emancipation and sustainable livelihoods, the women become vulnerable to hostile conditions that are constructed at the intersection of their different identities, particularly, gender identity, race, and their migration status (sigsworth, 2010; von kitzing, 2017; achiume, 2014; mutopo, 2010). in south africa, they are usually seen as an unwanted burden, taking what are often characterized as limited or scarce resources (crush et al 2017: 2b). their gender identity as female often exposes them to precarious conditions. this article attempts to contextualize the migration of zimbabwean women to south africa, document their experiences prior to and after moving, and establish the human security implications for the women. it presents the view that women migrate to south africa as an escape from the economic insecurities they face in zimbabwe, only to be confronted by other human security challenges that include genderbased violence and the recurrent episodes of xenophobic harassment and violence. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1776 literature review: contextualization the current dispensation of the migrant crises in europe has been portrayed by the media as one of the worst humanitarian crises since the second world war. it has enhanced visibility on some structurally embedded issues in the discourse on international migration (forced migration). salient amongst these issues are “the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, the responsibilities of transit and destination countries, and even more pertinent the rights of migrant women” (mabera, 2015:15). the term ‘migrant women’ is regarded as an umbrella term that encapsulates a range of circumstances that speak to the experiences of women on the move. these include different ages, legality (legal resident, undocumented migrants or refugees) or migrating for a number of reasons that can be categorized as either forced or voluntary (bloch, 2010; pophiwa, 2014; o’neil et al., 2016; muzenda, 2017; van heerden, 2017). the latter strengthens the views from dodson (2002) which note that for some women, migration is viewed as a strategic response to their challenging social, economic, environmental, political or personal circumstances. the movement of most zimbabweans to other countries can be labelled as an example of survival migration, which can be defined as people who are forced to cross an international border to escape state failure, severe environmental distress, or widespread livelihood collapse. several scholars posit that a number of zimbabwean women make the decision to move to a foreign land as a way of responding to household poverty or hardships, linked to the absence of family breadwinners (crush et al., 2017a: 6; betts and kaytaz, 2009). zimbabwean migrant women in south africa are forced to navigate not only a singular crisis at a particular location but also two ongoing crises occurring at the same time. the first crisis involves the political turmoil and the collapse of the economy in zimbabwe after 2000, which has driven hundreds and thousands of citizens to seek better standards of living and a sustainable livelihood for themselves and their families by migrating to other countries (crush and tevera, 2010: 41; crush et al., 2017b: 6). this crisis has driven people to move to south africa as it appears to be politically stable, economically strong, and requires lower transaction costs for immigration. however, paradoxically it is far from a safe space for the migrants (particularly women) as most south africans have over the years responded with prejudice and discrimination towards african migrants and refugees (bloch, 2010; african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1777 akinola, 2014; crush and tawodzera 2017a; von kitzing, 2017). therefore, the other ongoing crisis is xenophobic intolerance and violence against african migrants in which zimbabwean migrants have become entangled. zimbabwean migrants who fled the political and desperate economic challenges face the intimidating challenge of looking for jobs to secure a livelihood while they continue to face discrimination, social exclusion, xenophobic harassment, violence and being labelled as the ‘other’ (sigsworth et al., 2008; akinola, 2014; chinomona and maziriri, 2015). misago et al. (2015: 17) propound that, xenophobia in south africa translates into a broad spectrum of behaviors including discriminatory, stereotyping and dehumanizing remarks; discriminatory policies and practices by government and private officials such as exclusion from public services to which target groups are entitled; selective enforcement of by-laws by local authorities; assault and harassment by state agents particularly the police and immigration officials; as well as public threats and violence commonly known as xenophobic violence that often results in massive loss of lives and livelihoods. there is no doubt that vulnerability is heightened for zimbabwean migrant women as they face human insecurity challenges in the form of xenophobia and gender-based violence. the increasing number of women migrating independently means that the vulnerability of women migrants to exploitation, abuse and discrimination also increases (kawar, 2004: 74). despite the possible chances of improving their lives and those of their families left behind in zimbabwe, migration exposes the women to precarious situations and has considerable disadvantages, compared to challenges faced by men (kawar, 2004: 75; sigsworth, 2010: 1). while there is no limit to who is affected by the prevalent intolerances and dislike of foreigners in south africa, scholars like sigsworth et al. (2008: 1) are of the view that there is a gendered perspective to xenophobia, which is easily overlooked. in the wake of the recurring episodes of violence, “female migrants are unjustifiably affected, not only because the violence is played out on the site of their bodies (through beatings and rape), but also because the violence is directed towards their homes (through burning and looting), which in many cases is symbolic of a woman’s family and is perceived as a place of safety and security” african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1778 (sigsworth, 2010: 2). besides violence, xenophobia also manifests itself in a non-violent manner. as such, research conducted by the centre for the study of violence and reconciliation (csvr) before and after the may 2008 violent attacks in south africa revealed that foreign women endured xenophobic attitudes from south african nationals in their day-to-day lives (akinola, 2014). most women encounter this phenomenon in the public spaces they make use of daily, for instance at work or in public transport (sigsworth et al., 2008: 26). women are in double jeopardy and their vulnerability lies at the intersection of the different identities they embody. being a migrant is not the only condition for their vulnerability, but the fact that they are women exacerbates it. migrant women are also victims of sexual and gender-based violence.2 this illuminates the vulnerability of migrant women. while there are significant reports of women being raped emanating from anti-foreign sentiments, in a country where sexual gender-based violence is pervasive, it proves challenging to know whether rapes were instigated by xenophobic attitudes or simply by violent lawlessness (fuller, 2008: 9; sigsworth, 2010: 2; conry, 2015). theoretical framing of the women’s insecurities within the human security paradigm the debate about the challenges and insecurities that zimbabwean migrant women face can be situated within the framework of the human security paradigm. human security can be defined as safety from chronic threats such as hunger, disease and repression as well as protection from sudden and harmful disruptions in the patterns of daily life (undp, 1994). the aftermath of world war 2 in 1945 saw the development of groundbreaking concepts that still guide states in the international system. according to scheinin (2016: 441), under the principle of universality, the united nations adopted the un charter in 1945. the universal declaration of human rights was adopted as a resolution by the un general assembly in 1948. these monumental decisions reiterated the principle that every human being is entitled to inalienable rights and as such addressed the questions of how territorial states should treat their 2 according to the office of the united nations high commissioner for human rights (ohchr) report of 2014, gender-based violence refers to any harmful act incited on individuals or persons based on their gender. it may include sexual violence, domestic violence, trafficking, forced/early marriage and harmful traditional practices. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1779 own nationals as well as the nationals from other countries (bloch, 2010: 234; scheinin, 2016: 441). in global discourse, the term ‘human security’ gained prominence in the 1990s at the end of the cold war between russia and the united states of america (usa). the term was officially coined in the 1994 united nations development report and it proffered the definition, which envisaged the protection of all human beings from both physical and non-physical threats (undp, 1994). a number of scholars have broadened the definition of human security to encapsulate securing of people, their physical safety, their economic wellbeing, respect for their dignity and worth as human beings, and the protection of their human rights and fundamental freedoms (evans and sahnoun, 2001; chandler, 2004; tibaijuka, 2005; dzimiri and runhare, 2012: 3). the hypothetical perspective of the human security framework thus informs this study, highlighting the importance of prioritizing individual security which focuses on the different sources of insecurity that affect zimbabwean migrant women in south africa. scholars like thakur (2003: 5) put forward the view that the threats many people worldwide experience emanate from internal conflicts, disease, hunger, environmental degradation, street crime and domestic violence. these factors underpin the important beliefs of the human security approach. the 1994 undp report listed seven dimensions of human security, which included economic security, personal security, food security, health security, political security, community security and environmental security. isike and owusu-ampomah (2017: 3181) posited that, “the human security framework accommodates a wider range of issues that not only constitute threats to human existence, but also breed insecurity and societal anarchy. it views security from the perspective of human wellbeing and includes broad issues of human concern such as security from poverty, disease, famine, illiteracy, environmental plundering and unemployment, which singly or jointly, contribute to the impairments of human existence”. looking at the migration of zimbabwean women to south africa using the lens of the human security framework requires an analysis of the political and socio-economic factors that are seen as ‘push’ factors from zimbabwe, as well as an analysis of the conditions in which the women are living in south africa. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1780 methodology the article is based on the results of a qualitative study with zimbabwean women migrants in durban, south africa. the city of durban has seen an increase in the number of african migrants and refugees moving there, hence it seemed to be a suitable research site for the study. for the purposes of the study, 22 in-depth interviews with zimbabwean female migrants working as informal traders in durban central were undertaken. the ages of the participants ranged from 18-45 years; the women were employed as hairdressers, street vendors, informal tailors and seamstresses and child minders. purposive sampling was used in selecting some of the participants with prior knowledge of the target group. snowballing was also used as a sampling technique and it enabled the researcher to locate other possible participants for the study through referrals. a key informant who was part of the target group assisted in some of the referrals. open-ended interviews and participant observation were used as methods of collecting data. the women determined the places where the interviews were conducted but, in most cases,, they were regularly conducted at their work places. the women were informed of the purposes of the study and they all gave informed consent for the interviews to be used for the research study. they were assured of their confidentiality hence this paper uses pseudonyms. while all the women had a good command of english, the interviews were conducted in their home language, shona. it enabled them to speak freely and better explain some of their experiences. the major constraint experienced during the study was the personal and emotional sensitivity of some of the issues that were discussed. some of the women would openly discuss and trivialize issues that bordered on gender-based violence and xenophobia in their own lives. however, in oneon-one interviews, they would not share much about their experiences. this was possibly influenced by the idea that they were aware that they were being audio recorded and the identity of the researcher being zimbabwean. hence, some of the women refrained from sharing ‘too much’ personal information, possibly due to the fear of being judged, so they would give general responses they felt did not reveal too much of their own personal experiences. to analyze the data, all the interviews were transcribed and they were coded by selecting words and sentences that were related to the experiences of the women prior to leaving zimbabwe and their experiences in south africa. the codes were african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1781 then sorted into themes that sought to answer the research questions relating to the human security conditions of the women before leaving zimbabwe and in south africa. research findings while the narratives included many issues, there were issues that appeared reiterative and were centered on two dominant themes presented below. they include the reason why the women decided to move from zimbabwe to south africa, and the experiences of the migrant women trying to integrate into the south african society. migration an escape from economic insecurity and poverty one of the first questions asked was, what influenced the women to leave zimbabwe to come to south africa. most of the participants indicated that they left zimbabwe because of the worsening economic situation. this was a salient theme as most of the participants revealed that they decided to migrate from zimbabwe to emancipate themselves from economic insecurities. loveness, a 39-year-old woman, working as an informal tailor, spoke about her own reason for leaving zimbabwe: i came here because of three things, mari, nzara, nhamo chaiyo (money, hunger and poverty, i mean extreme poverty). that kind of poverty that leaves you with nothing to cook for meals made me to leave. when i decided to leave, i left my kids without enough food to sustain them for a long period. this narrative corroborates the views of dzingirai et al (2015) who posit that the main trigger of migration in zimbabwe appears to be linked with poverty. following the closure of a number of industries, many people are no longer employed and have been living on less than one us dollar a day (bracking and sachikonye, 2006; raftopoulos, 2001). this pushes them to migrate to neighboring south africa with the hope of escaping poverty. in the same vein, lefko-everett (2010: 269), whose study examined the reasons that drove women to leave zimbabwe, articulate that economic challenges and insecurity in the form of poverty and unemployment are the main push factors for female zimbabwean migrants. human security is intertwined with food security and it is underpinned by the idea that the realization of human rights to adequate african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1782 food is essential. the right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has the physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement (un, article 25). however, participants like loveness revealed that the decision to migrate was influenced by the food insecurities she encountered. joyce and mercy, both young women in their late twenties working as hairdresser and manicurist in one of the salons in inner-city durban, also shared some of their reasons for moving to south africa: i came here to south africa in 2008, when things got difficult. when i left, things were not okay, there were no jobs, most of the companies had shut down and there was a cash crisis. before i came here, i was involved in buying and selling of different products. however, it was difficult to sustain the business as many did not pay in time because of the cash crisis. i started to plait hair when i came here to south africa; as it is right now with the little that i can manage to get from my job, i am able to take care of my family back home, as well as take care of my well-being (joyce). i am 28 years old and i came to south africa in 2013 in search of a job because in zimbabwe i cannot say there was anything tangible that i could do. even though i was a hairdresser, it was not easy to find clients and people would not pay you after doing your job. you could go for a week, up to three weeks without receiving any money for the job that you would have done already. my sister eunice was already here, and she encouraged me to move. i had also seen when i had previously visited her, how she would get her money instantly as soon as she finished working with a client. it motivated me that is why i came here to south africa (mercy). the above narratives demystify the assumption that all women leave zimbabwe for south africa out of extreme desperation and poverty. instead, some of the women had jobs but they viewed south africa as having better employment prospects. some women make the decision to migrate from zimbabwe to south africa as a response to the protracted prevalence of the economic insecurities in their country. the participants revealed that life in african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1783 zimbabwe was becoming unbearable and it was becoming difficult to maintain a sustainable livelihood and well-being. the shrinking economy, soaring inflation, widespread shortages of food and basic amenities, and unemployment proved to be a powerful force driving most participants to leave zimbabwe (crush and tevera, 2010: 1). many of the women also revealed that their main goal was to secure employment as the economic insecurities in zimbabwe influenced the existence of high job shortages. the likelihood of at least having an employment opportunity in south africa and earning an income influenced the women to migrate. because of south africa’s fairly stable political and economic situation, the women perceived that life would be better in south africa, with the abundance of jobs and better living conditions (crush et al., 2017b: 3). one of the women, tendai, a 30-year-old hairdresser, said: kumba kwaiva kusina chekuita (back home, there was nothing that i could do to sustain myself), with no jobs. and you will be thinking that maybe if i go there, things will be better, and i can find a job. eunice, a 37-year-old woman, said: the reason i came from zimbabwe in 2008 was because of the political situation that the country was facing. our government was not in an amicable state, everything was not okay. and when i decided to come here, my main intention was to come and work so that i could support my family. back home i used to be a hairdresser, but because of the economic situation which affected the cash flow, we were no longer getting customers. it is undeniable that the need to construct a secure and sustainable livelihood through gainful employment in other countries is an important driver of migration for most of the participants. based on the drivers of migration from zimbabwe, a number of scholarly work labels zimbabwean migrants as ‘economic migrants’ who leave in search for better economic opportunities for their well-being and that of their families left behind (bloch, 2010; makina, 2012; crush et al., 2015; dzingirai et al., 2015; hlatshwayo, 2019). the challenges that the women encounter intricately link to different ranges of human security consequences, which border on political, food and economic security. the ongoing changes in the zimbabwean political economy are an economic limitation that hinders most of the women from reaching their full african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1784 potential as they find it difficult, if not impossible, to make a living. the memories the women have about the economic crisis in zimbabwe are constructed around their everyday experiences of the scarcity of basic commodities like flour, maize meal, sugar and cooking oil (crush and tevera 2010; dzingirai et al., 2015:16; mcduff, 2015). as the women spoke of their experiences, one could sense their confusion about the degree of poverty affecting their country, which used to be regarded as the bread-basket of africa. some of the women have vivid memories of how it became difficult to find employment. these experiences reveal how the women’s lives shifted to not having any options to sustain their livelihoods, leading them to migrate to south africa. the move to south africa seems to have been influenced by the idea that one would be able to secure a sustainable job as soon as one reached one’s destination. for most of the women, they left for south africa from zimbabwe with the perception that south africa had many sustainable job opportunities. while the women aim to ensure economic security for their families through the provision of basic needs and food, one of those basic needs is quality education. veronica and hildah said: i came here to south africa in 2009, and my main intention was kuzotsvaga mari ye vana vechikoro (to raise school fees money for my kids) (veronica). i came from zimbabwe in 2007. the economic crisis was too bad for us, mabasa kwainge kusina (there were no jobs), everything was so difficult, especially for me, i had children, the educational system became very weak, teachers were no longer coming to class. the conditions were just deteriorating, and i decided to come to south africa (hildah). the political and economic challenges aggravated some human security concerns, which included the provision of sustainable quality education for the citizens. it influenced the inability to pay school fees by guardians, which contributed to poor educational systems. some women like veronica left zimbabwe for south africa with the hopes of securing enough money to send home to ensure a sustainable well-being and a good education. prior to migrating, most of the women anticipated to find better opportunities that could enable them to send remittances and take care of their families back in african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1785 zimbabwe (bloch, 2005; makina, 2012)3. under economic security, the human security concept notes that every child has the right to social safety, education and vocational training (isike and owusuampomah, 2017: 3181). however, the women’s narratives reveal that this privilege is compromised by the political situation in zimbabwe, increasing the human security consequences for the women and their children. experiences of zimbabwean migrant women in south africa the women’s expectations of better lives and human security appear to be in contrast with their social experiences. zimbabwean migrant women face multiple forms of discrimination and violence that are constructed around structures like their identity as women, non-citizens, black africans and poverty-stricken (hlatshwayo, 2019: 168). cumulatively, most of the women revealed that they experienced gender-based violence and discrimination from south african citizens foregrounded in xenophobic sentiments. one of the negative experiences that the women revealed was the prevalence of gender-based violence in the form of intimate partner violence. this was reflected in joyce’s narrative. she explained that she was a victim of intimate partner violence from a local south african man with whom she was in a relationship. she was a victim of gender-based violence and her vulnerability was constructed around the idea that her partner felt entitled to her, as he was the one who had a bigger role to play in ensuring a sustainable livelihood and security in south africa. she stated: taidanana, but the problem was that aigara achingondirova (we were so much in love, but the problem was that he would frequently beat me). he was so possessive, and he would not even want to see me speaking with other males. he somehow had the belief that he had made me the person that i was at that time. we did all the formal introductions, what was only left for us was to travel to zimbabwe so that he could pay the bride price. after much thought, i called off the negotiations because i really thought hard of how my future would be with someone who always degraded and abused me. the previous weekend before 3 in a study carried out by bloch (2005), the sample indicated that 85% of zimbabwean migrants sent remittances to their relatives and families in zimbabwe. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1786 the breakup he had beat me up so badly because i had decided to go out with my friends and not him. after that night, i told myself that (hwaisava hupenyu) i was not going to live like this for the rest of my life and i would not put myself in prison (joyce). although the experiences of migrant and non-migrant women regarding intimate partner violence appear to be similar, what increases the vulnerability of migrant women is their immigrant status. this status is shaped by different factors, which include immigration policies that exclude and limit their access to some basic services. the other factor is staying in south africa illegally which intensifies the women’s dependency on the perpetrators and in most cases restrains the women’s options to respond to their insecurity in the form of gender-based violence (kiwanuka, 2010). as joyce continued to narrate her story she shared that, at that time she was not legally documented in south africa and at some point she envisioned herself with a south african identity book and citizenship which she hoped would bring more security for her livelihood. this reveals that some zimbabwean migrant women have relationships with local south african men with the anticipation of marriage, which could eventually lead to attaining south african citizenship. their compromised agency, worsened by financial insecurities and in most cases, structural factors like legality, position migrant women as victims of xenophobic gender-based attacks. this, in turn, compromises their personal well-being and security. the misconception of migrants as the ‘other’, criminal and undeserving of protection, affects various migrants differently, but migrant women are mostly affected and more vulnerable (von kitzing, 2017:8). the excitement and anticipation for better jobs, opportunities, and economic and social security is easily shadowed by their lived realities as they are viewed as the ‘other’ and are exposed to a range of insecurities in south africa. the women who were interviewed for this study revealed that it was difficult to experience the security and the life-changing opportunities they imagined they would encounter in south africa (kihato, 2009; dodson, 2010; chinomona and maziriri, 2015; crush et al., 2015; dzingirai et al., 2015). living conditions are often difficult and with most of the participants being involved in informal trading, they struggle to make ends meet. a visit to one of the women’s homes revealed that some of the migrant women reside in dilapidated, overcrowded and poorly maintained blocks of flats where the rooms are usually divided with african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1787 cardboard boxes and there is poor sanitation. these conditions, coupled with a significant percentage of the women being undocumented, heighten their vulnerabilities. the study revealed that women are not only susceptible outside, but also within their homes. women remain in abusive relationships as a way of ensuring that they have access to basic goods, such as shelter, clothing and food. their relationships, with both foreign and local men, are influenced by their need to depend on someone who they feel can provide for and take care of them. however, this leads to the women normalizing intimate partner violence and viewing it as tolerable. vivian, a 37-year-old zimbabwean woman who lives in inner-city durban and operates an informal children’s daycare center, revealed that she is accustomed to her partner abusing her, but she is dependent on him. it is important to note that they are both foreign (the partner is nigerian) which sheds more light on the fact that local men are not the only ones who perpetuate gender-based violence and abuse. my nigerian boyfriend is not always nice to me, especially when he is frustrated, he can even beat me up… i just tell myself that it is part of life, no relationship has got no issues…. he gives me good money’ (vivian). the continued presence of economic insecurity in the lives of the women (not being able to buy basic foodstuffs to support their livelihoods) is also linked to their own personal well-being and security being compromised. it influences migrant women to normalize human insecurity red flags like the existence of gender-based violence and domestic violence (von kitzing, 2017; hlatshwayo, 2019). the proponents of the human security concept assert that security also involves personal security, which includes safety from violent crime, all forms of physical abuse, rape, and gender-based violence on sexual orientation (isike and awusu-ampomah, 2017; dzimiri and runhare, 2012). therefore, one is inclined to argue that zimbabwean migrant women turn a blind eye to their personal security hoping to attain economic security and sustain their livelihoods in a foreign land. trivializing sexual violence towards migrant women gender-based violence can also be expressed in the form of sexual violence and harassment. some of the participants felt that both local and migrant men african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1788 sometimes behave like sexual predators, who feel entitled to expressing sexual innuendos and, in most cases, belittle the existence of sexual harassment. it appears that some men do not see any harm in sexually violating women as they are socially conditioned to believe that it is normal and acceptable for a man to touch women inappropriately without their consent. they see nothing wrong in their actions, operating from a position of entitlement and believe that it is normal for men to extend and impose such behavior on women. this is strengthened by what eunice said: the one thing i understand about males when it concerns women is that if they are attracted to you, they can even do the unthinkable, anokwanisa kungosvika, okubata kana maprivate parts, (they can even just touch your private parts). it does not matter whether you are foreign or what, because i once encountered it. the above narrative shows that both migrant women and local south african women can fall victim to sexual violence and harassment. therefore, this paper purports that the sexual harassment of migrant women by local south african men can be considered xenophobic, premised on the assumption and perception that migrant women would not expect these kinds of sexual advances from random unknown men in the streets. the fact that most migrant women have less protection than south african women who can easily seek recourse from the relevant authorities, increases their vulnerability to xenophobia (csvr, 2016). according to von kitzing (2017: 12), most migrant women do not report cases of sexual harassment and abuse to the relevant authorities. this positions migrant women as vulnerable, and any sexual harassment towards them can be labelled as xenophobic and acknowledged as a form of insecurity. this connotes that for the migrant women, human insecurity concerns are exacerbated by their inability to seek recourse influenced by their identity. one key guiding principle of the human security paradigm outlines how important the security of an individual is. however, the latter narrative reveals that human security concerns are easily influenced and compromised by structures such as identity. the fact that the women are ‘migrants’ plays a huge part in downplaying their access to basic human rights like reporting gender-based violence cases to the relevant authorities. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1789 the concepts of identity and security sigsworth et al. (2008) posited that traditionally, women are the bearers of culture. however, the concept of identity and belonging is one issue that has become a distinctly gendered problem for foreign women. some of the women who were interviewed expressed the concern that clinging to the aspects of one’s identity renders them more vulnerable to xenophobic violence. it is worsened by the other identity of being a woman. this is reflected in the narrative given by charity: it becomes worse when you cannot speak isizulu. at times when you become resilient shouting back using the local language the perpetrators become apologetic. however, once you speak english and they pick up that you are not a local, they will take away everything from you, especially us, women, it’s like they will be preying on us more. while charity is aware of stories of men being mugged, she believes women are easy targets and that perpetrators take advantage when they notice that one is not local. while most tragedies appear to be general crimes, foreignness makes many women more vulnerable. zimbabwean migrant women are often noticeable through several characteristics that distinguish them from the local south african population, hence, they are more prone to being exploited and being affected by xenophobia. sigsworth et al. (2008: 17) referred to these different characteristics as ‘markers of difference’. these visible aspects include the language that zimbabwean migrant women speak, their accents when they speak english or when they attempt to speak the local language, as well as their clothing. this is consistent with the study by lefko-everett (2010: 280) which established that some zimbabwean women changed their style of dressing to avoid being noticed. the women who were interviewed revealed that they migrated to south africa in search of an ‘economic haven’ away from the political and economic crisis in zimbabwe. however, their experiences of south africa portray feelings of powerlessness and insecurity. they live in constant fear of what they might come across daily. because of their differences, they are often labelled with the derogatory term kwere kwere, which is usually used by locals when referring to foreign nationals. while the idea of xenophobia is generally associated with african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1790 bodily harm and physical violence against migrant women, xenophobia can be exhibited in a subtle manner through verbal abuse. participants revealed that during their stay in south africa they had encountered at least one incident of verbal abuse in the public transport they use daily. the relentless name-calling appears to be a source of hurt, humiliation and insecurity for many zimbabwean migrant women. it increases their feelings of being socially excluded and insecurity in a country where they believed social integration and security would be easy to attain (lefko-everett, 2010: 208). although there are several scholars (chireka, 2015; dodson 2010; crush and tawodzerwa, 2017b) who have published work pertaining to the challenges that zimbabwean migrant women encounter in south africa, very few addresses how the concept of human security can be included in the discourse of female migration, xenophobia and gender-based violence. while violence against women and the rights of women are integral to the millennium development goals (mdgs), the sad reality is that during xenophobic conflict, women are always caught in the middle. as established by fuller (2008: 8), migrant women are inevitably placed in a position of double jeopardy because of their identity as women and as migrants or outsiders. however, the antimigrant hostility and the incidents of gender-based violence they encounter, go unreported because of the women’s fear to face hostility from police or possibly the general feeling of not wanting to cause unnecessary trouble premised on their social position as outsiders in another person’s territory (fuller, 2008; sigsworth et al., 2008; charman et al., 2012). scholars like waiganjo (2017: 39) have proposed that the xenophobic sentiments in south africa have affected several migrant women through violence that is incited on their bodies through sexual assault, emotional abuse and beatings. waiganjo (2017) further noted that the violence that migrant women encounter, whether emotional or physical, is embedded in patriarchal structures that exist within cultures that strengthen gender inequality, revealed in ideas, attitudes and practices that are expressed during war and conflict. hence, african scholars like mama and okazawa-rey (2012) have noted that during war and conflict, atrocious acts of human insecurity against women are often used as a weapon of violence. the prevalence of the moral ills of society such as gender-based violence and xenophobic conflicts in the spaces they live and work make it difficult for most african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1791 of the women to feel safe and be easily integrated into society. the violent cycle of gender-based violence, coupled with the protracted existence of xenophobia, renders migrant females insecure and vulnerable. in fact, scholars like von kitzing (2017: 1) maintained that “the intersectionality4 of their ‘illegality’ and womanhood highlight their particular vulnerability and showcase the fluidity of xenophobic and gender-based violence”. this alternatively jeopardizes their security, and in many ways speaks to the fact that civil society has not yet reached a position where they can fully consolidate the human security of migrant women in south africa. conclusion going beyond the discussed themes, the women’s daily experiences are premised on their multiple identities. although the experiences of the women are specifically tied to their identity as migrants, it cannot be denied that some of their experiences, such as intimate partner violence, are like those of the local south african women. the changing aspects of their class, gender and nationality certainly construct their experiences, but they share many experiences with other women. therefore, the experiences of the zimbabwean migrant women inform us of the broader experience of being women (a vulnerable and marginalized group) in south africa. kihato (2009: 187) noted that, “migrant women certainly share class, gendered and ‘outsider’ characteristics with others, including categories of women of south african origin”. for instance, most of the challenges and questions about safety, domestic violence and the insensitive reaction of the police to gender-based violence, reverberate with many of the experiences of local south african women. however, these experiences are more likely to be intensified when it comes to migrant women who are even more susceptible due to their migrant status. to combat the experiences of human insecurity that migrant women encounter, it is essential to start from the grassroots, tackling issues that affect local women in south africa as well. 4 the concept of intersectionality was coined by the scholar kimberlé crenshaw (1989). the concept puts forward the idea that various social identities like race, gender, class and sexuality usually interlock with each other to influence the different world-views and experiences that individuals have. african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1792 references achiume, e.t. 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(2017). gender complexities in the context of xenophobiaafrophobia in the transnational space: the experiences of somali women in mayfair and pretoria west in gauteng province, south africa. phd thesis (unpublished) durban: university of kwazulunatal. http://www.osisa.org/publications/buwa-page=1.html http://www.osisa.org/publications/buwa-page=1.html african human mobility review, vol. 5, no. 3 (december 2019) 1797 29 dynamics of protection in a shrinking economy: a peak into zimbabwe’s refugee regime gracsious maviza1 and divane nzima2 received 09 february 2024 / accepted 09 july 2024 / published august 2024 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i2.2056 abstract zimbabwe has consistently experienced an influx of refugees despite its shrinking economy. this places a heavy burden on the state to provide social protection to refugees. there are limited studies that focus on the dynamics of refugee protection in resource-constrained countries like zimbabwe, often characterized as being only immigrant-sending countries. we use data from 12 in-depth interviews with key informants to explore how the prolonged socio-economic crisis has impacted the state’s ability to provide social protection to refugees in zimbabwe. the study also explores the relationship between the state and other stakeholders in hosting refugees in zimbabwe. the findings suggest that socio-economic challenges in a shrinking economy affect the protection outcomes of refugees regardless of the presence of a robust refugee regime in the country. keywords: migration, refugees, shrinking economies, social protection, covid-19, zimbabwe 1 alliance of bioversity international and ciat and department of sociology, university of the free state, south africa. 2 department of sociology, university of the free state, south africa. corresponding author  nzimad@ufs.ac.za . dynamics of protection in a shrinking economy: a peak into zimbabwe’s refugee regime 30 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 introduction the number of refugees continues to increase globally. much of the increase is attributed to pervasive persecution, conflicts, violence, human rights violations, and similar events that significantly disturb national and global peace and public order (unhcr, 2021). according to the unhcr (2023), these disturbances have seen the global statistics of refugees reaching 43.3 million by the end of 2023, registering a notable increase compared to numbers at the end of 2022. this increasing global challenge has become a significant strain on host countries, especially in light of the social protection mandate levied on host countries by the international protocols on refugees (andrade et al., 2021; kool and nimeh, 2021). in international law, refugees have a legal right to flee from hostile and dangerous conditions and seek safety in any country where their rights will be upheld (kool and nimeh, 2021; unhcr, 2021). in line with conventions and protocols on refugee governance, the host countries are responsible for protecting the refugees while they remain in their jurisdiction (klaaren and rutinwa, 2004). however, although refugees are a priority on the global agenda (micinski, 2020), the issue of protection has become complicated (kool and nimeh, 2021; seyfert and quarterman, 2021). much of the complication stems from the fact that many host governments that are supposed to receive these populations have reached elevated levels of fatigue. for example, in the global south, countries such as south africa, uganda, and zimbabwe continue to welcome refugees and asylum seekers while the opposite holds for countries in the global north (spiegel and mhlanga, 2022). in the global south, much of the influx is spurred by proximity to the countries with ongoing and increasing protracted conflicts, growing economic challenges, and the evertightening mobility restrictions to the global north (spiegel and mhlanga, 2022). host countries that would ordinarily welcome and host refugees gradually reach fatigue (uia, 2020) due to the increased influx of people, a phenomenon that has been termed compassion fatigue (raney, 2019). the willingness and capacity of global north countries to assist, especially considering the current economic stagnation and the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic, have been intensely tested by the continued influx of refugees. notably, the ever-increasing number of displaced persons seeking refuge in other countries has led governments in the west to devise policies that contain xenophobic connotations (coen, 2021; crawley, 2021). some countries impose strict border controls that constrain the flow of refugees into their countries, most of which are contrary to the inclusionary fundamentals espoused in the global compact for refugees (gcr) (spiegel and mhlanga, 2022). for countries in the global south, such as south africa, the fatigue and resentment have increased, as they are overwhelmed by the double burden of having to offer protection to their citizens and to the refugee populations (spiegel and mhlanga, 2022; wamara et al., 2022). given the economic crises typical of most economies in the global south, the influx of refugees often triggers conflicts between host communities and refugee populations, as they compete for scarce resources. hence, most countries have 31 resorted to the encampment policy to reduce conflicts (spiegel and mhlanga, 2022). in refugee protection, the encampment policy refers to a system where host countries accommodate refugees in refugee camps where there is little to no integration with host communities. conversely, some countries, like south africa, have devised immigration policies that allow refugees to reside within local communities and thus integrate with the local population. the fatigue in the global north is epitomized by the now overturned multimillion-dollar deal recently signed between the united kingdom (uk) and rwanda (kampmark, 2022; limb, 2022; oxford analytica, 2022). the deal was a culmination of the uk’s plan to tackle the challenge of illegal migration by transferring irregular immigrants (arriving on small boats or smuggled in lorries) to rwanda to process their asylum and refugee claims (limb, 2022). according to officials from both countries, the deal was seen as a migration and economic development partnership (soy, 2022). the former conservative uk government had anticipated that it would be a move to eliminate the irregular migration syndicates involved in criminal smuggling. that policy sparked controversy because the refugees and asylum seekers whose claims were accepted would be resettled in rwanda with the support of the uk government. although other countries have made similar arrangements, for example, australia and its offshore detention centers in 2001, as well as israel and denmark, accusations have been leveled against the uk. for instance, limb (2022: 1) proffers that “the uk stands widely accused of trading refugees as commodities to a repressive state, trashing legal obligations, and undermining international protections of refugees.” rights groups also criticized the proposed plans as irresponsible and inhumane because similar approaches implemented elsewhere have failed, leading to humanitarian catastrophes and loss of lives (kampmark, 2022; limb, 2022). moreover, the unhcr had also condemned the deal, noting that it “evades international obligations, and is contrary to the letter and spirit of the refugee convention” (unhcr, 2022a). deals such as the proposed uk–rwanda scheme emanate from the challenges experienced by the host countries in offering protection to refugees. besides the costs incurred, refugee protection is problematic, as it causes conflicts and resentment in communities (neis et al., 2018). the increased competition for employment and services and the ever-increasing rent and food prices are significant drivers of increased tensions within host communities (kool and nimeh, 2021). therefore, in most instances, the conflicts result from disgruntled citizens who view refugees as competitors who receive services and goods that locals do not receive. thus, if the influx of refugees causes many challenges in these already established economies, the situation can only be worse in resource-constrained countries. given the anti-refugee sentiments in the global north, many non-european refugees and asylum seekers end up in neighboring countries that are resource constrained (kool and nimeh, 2021; unhcr, 2021). this means that if refugees make their way to the nearest possible place, they will most likely end up in these dynamics of protection in a shrinking economy: a peak into zimbabwe’s refugee regime 32 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 shrinking economies. this paper explores why refugees end up in these resourceconstrained countries and addresses the critical question of protection dynamics in some of these countries with shrinking economies. its main aim is to gain a theoretical grounding on refugee protection in countries with ailing economies. undeniably, taking care of refugees’ basic needs such as food, education, shelter, and health is very costly. this paper addresses the question of who bears the refugee protection costs, since the encamped refugees do not contribute to the economy but benefit from the host country’s resources. clearly, there are inherent tensions in what would be considered the ideal situations for refugee protection. using the case of zimbabwe, this paper addresses the most critical question of the dynamics of protection when the conditions are far from ideal. the paper aims to assess the impact of the prolonged socio-economic and political crises on the country’s ability to provide the required protection and welfare services to the refugees it hosts. furthermore, the paper seeks to understand the relationship between the state and other stakeholders in hosting refugees in zimbabwe. this country presents a unique case because it is characterized by protracted macroeconomic challenges that have persisted for over two decades. its economy is characterized by hyperinflation and limited economic productivity. in essence, the economy has shrunk over the years due to deindustrialization. despite this scenario, the country continues to host refugees from different countries and there continues to be a steady increase in the number of refugees. zimbabwe’s experience with refugees migration scholarship has long portrayed zimbabwe as a major emigrant and refugee sender due to the protracted economic meltdown and political challenges stretching over the past three decades (crush and tevera, 2010; crush et al., 2015; mcgregor and pasura, 2010; mcgregor and primorac, 2010; mlambo, 2010). it is well documented that due to the economic and political challenges, the country transitioned from being a major receiver of migrants to being one of the biggest senders in the region (crush and tevera, 2010; ncube, 2010). however, what has received less attention is the scholarship focusing on the refugee movements into zimbabwe and the country’s experiences in hosting refugees and asylum seekers (chikanda and crush, 2016; takaindisa, 2021). undeniably, zimbabwe has hosted refugees since the 1980s (chikanda and crush, 2016; matseketsa and mhlanga, 2020; sidzumo-mazibuko, 1998). however, while the subject of refugees has gained considerable attention from migration scholarship in sub-saharan africa, there are knowledge gaps about zimbabwe’s ability to meet its refugee population’s protection and welfare needs, considering the ongoing economic challenges. the first refugees in zimbabwe were from war-torn mozambique in the early 1980s. they fled the protracted war between the liberation front of mozambique (frelimo) and the mozambican national resistance (renamo), which pitted opposition ideologies and regions against each other (chikanda and crush, 2016; emerson, 2014). throughout the 1980s, the country also received trickles of refugees 33 from south africa comprising of political activists fleeing the repressive rule of the apartheid government (chikanda and crush, 2016). although there was a notable flow from south africa, mozambique remained the major source. between 1983 and 1994 zimbabwe hosted over 200,000 mozambican refugees (emerson, 2014; matseketsa and mhlanga, 2020). this increased flow of refugees in the 1980s can be linked to the political disturbances in its neighboring countries (chikanda and crush, 2016). notably, much of zimbabwe’s generosity was driven by the spirit of comradeship spurred by the need to protect fellow neighbors who had sheltered zimbabwe’s freedom fighters and its refugees during the war for independence (munguambe, 2020). responding to the growing influx of refugees, the government of zimbabwe adopted an encampment policy by establishing four rural refugee camps in 1984, namely tongogara, chambuta, nyan’ombe, and nyamatiki (matseketsa and mhlanga, 2020; mutsvara, 2015) and the fifth in 1990 known as the mazowe river bridge (chikanda and crush, 2016; sidzumo-mazibuko, 1998). the encampment policy restricted refugees’ mobility and their ultimate integration into local communities (spiegel and mhlanga, 2022; wamara et al., 2022). to date, the zimbabwean government restricts all refugees to camps, with limited freedom to explore economic options (matseketsa and mhlanga, 2020; wamara et al., 2022). given the high inflow of mozambicans fleeing the war in their country, these camps were often overcrowded (chikanda and crush, 2016). for example, the state established the tongogara refugee camp (trc) in 1984, with a carrying capacity of 10,000 refugees, but in 1993 it had a population of 52,000 refugees (chikanda and crush, 2016). similarly, the mazowe river bridge camp’s maximum capacity was 5,000, but in 1993 it housed over 34,000 refugees, almost six times its capacity (chikanda and crush, 2016; sidzumo-mazibuko, 1998; unhcr, 1994). during this period, the camps were almost exclusively occupied by mozambican refugees (chikanda and crush, 2016). in 1994, frelimo and renamo signed a peace treaty known as the rome agreement (see emerson, 2014). this resulted in a huge reduction in the number of refugees in the country and the closure of some refugee camps in 1994, leaving the trc as the only operational camp in the country (chikanda and crush, 2016; matseketsa and mhlanga, 2020). to date, the trc remains the only functional camp and is home to approximately 14,413 refugees and asylum seekers (matseketsa and mhlanga, 2020; mhlanga, 2020). although the end of the war in mozambique led to a significant decline in the number of refugees in zimbabwe, the growing incidence of wars and internal conflicts on the african continent saw a gradual increase in the numbers and sources of refugees in zimbabwe (matseketsa and mhlanga, 2020; mutsvara, 2015). in the 1990s, there was a notable diversification in the origins of refugee flows in the country, with the source patterns showing a global character (chikanda and crush, 2016). notably, most of the source countries both in and outside africa were characterized by internal strife and political disturbances (sidzumo-mazibuko, 1998). for example, dynamics of protection in a shrinking economy: a peak into zimbabwe’s refugee regime 34 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 rwanda was experiencing genocide while the democratic republic of the congo (drc) was engaged in war (matseketsa and mhlanga, 2020; mhlanga, 2020; mutsvara, 2015). by the end of the 1990s, the drc, burundi, and rwanda were the major origin countries for refugees in zimbabwe (chikanda and crush, 2016; sidzumomazibuko, 1998). part of the increase in the influx of refugees from the great lakes region, mostly rwandans, during this time was caused by the fact that they had been debarred from tanzania’s ngara refugee camp (mutsvara, 2015). according to jakachira (2003), these refugees did not want to return to their country because they feared retribution from their government. moreover, the en masse influx of refugees into zimbabwe was also spurred by the emergence of terrorists in nigeria, central african republic, and mali, growing ethnic conflicts in ethiopia, and the perpetual insecurities in somalia and the drc (chikanda and crush, 2016; matseketsa and mhlanga, 2020). with the return of stability in some regions, for example, the great lakes, peace in countries like burundi and rwanda led to a significant decrease in the number of refugees in zimbabwe. this was further exacerbated by the economic demise that the country experienced in the early 2000s, climaxing in 2008, making zimbabwe an unattractive destination for refugees. notwithstanding this scenario, episodes of instability in some countries like the drc led to a continued presence of refugees in the country (chikanda and crush, 2016). zimbabwe’s economic outlook continues to be characterized by high uncertainty. however, amidst all these socio-economic challenges characteristic of the country, zimbabwe has remained host to refugees and asylum seekers from the great lakes region since 1998 (wfp and unhcr, 2019). this influx of refugees presents population pressures that strain the already distressed government resources, compromising its effective service provision to the country’s population. research methods the research site for this study was the trc in zimbabwe. the refugee camp is located in the chipinge district, 600 km southeast of the harare metropolitan province (mhlanga and zengeya, 2016). this is the only refugee camp that is currently operational in zimbabwe. therefore, any study that seeks to understand refugee dynamics in zimbabwe is likely to gain rich insights by using this refugee camp as a case study. this paper followed a qualitative research methodological approach. this approach was the most appropriate to employ, given the need to gain an in-depth understanding of refugee protection dynamics in a refugee center with multiple actors. to gain an insider perspective, there was a need for a more explorative approach that enabled the researchers to gather diverse narratives on the different roles played by different actors and how they collectively worked toward providing protection in a shrinking economy. the research team gathered qualitative data through in-depth semi-structured interviews with key informants who represented different stakeholders at the trc in zimbabwe. the researchers purposively drew a 35 sample of 12 key informants from different organizations operating at the trc. these included officials from the ministry of public service, labour, and social welfare (mopslsw), united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), world vision zimbabwe, doctors without borders (msf), and other non-governmental organizations (ngos) operating in the camp. to achieve representative diversity, it was crucial for the researchers to use purposive sampling to select representatives of key actors who played a role in the continued functioning of the refugee camp. the research team conducted all the interviews in this study in english; hence, there was no need for translations, as all participants understood and spoke the language fluently. in conducting this study, researchers applied due ethical consideration for dealing with human subjects in research and followed the ethical standards and principles as detailed in the helsinki declaration. in addition, the institutional review board (irb) of the alliance of biodiversity international and the international centre for tropical agriculture (ciat) evaluated the ethical considerations of the study, and it was approved under clearance number 2023‐irb72. prior to the interviews, the research team developed an informed consent sheet that advised participants about different aspects of the study, including envisaged risks and benefits, voluntary participation, the right to withdraw from the study at any given moment, and participants’ consent for audio recording the interviews. all those who participated in the study signed the consent form as an indication that they voluntarily agreed to participate in this study. in the process of data analysis, the research team coded all the interview transcripts for ease of identification and assigned the codes according to the order of the interviews. for example, the first interview was coded as informant 1 up to the last interview that was coded as informant 12. after this first coding round, researchers coded the transcripts according to emerging themes and then analyzed them thematically. maxwell and chmiel (2013) define coding as a strategy used to organize qualitative data. the process entails the identification of distinct concepts and themes in the data, which then form master headings that become the basic units of analysis (flick, 2013; gibbs, 2007). in this study, researchers applied coding inductively based on the emerging themes from the data. furthermore, they derived first-order codes from the emerging key themes that directed analysis of the refugee regime in zimbabwe and the social protection initiatives at the trc. the themes developed formed subheadings under which the research team presented and discussed findings supported by direct excerpts from the interviews. findings and discussion the state and its obligations of refugee protection there are three main elements of social protection that vulnerable people such as refugees need: social assistance in the form of access to basic needs; livelihoods support and capacity development; and labor market interventions (andrade et al., 2021; barrientos and santibáñez 2009). the participants of this study agreed that dynamics of protection in a shrinking economy: a peak into zimbabwe’s refugee regime 36 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 the state has the responsibility to provide comprehensive protection services to the refugees they host. commenting on the general obligations of the state at law, some key informants reported as follows: the refugee act mandates the government to ensure non-discrimination, non-penalization, and adherence to the non-return policy for refugees (informant 1, september 2022). the government should ensure that every recognized refugee is entitled to rights and [is] subject to duties contained in the 1951 convention and the 1969 oau convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa (informant 5, september 2022). according to the unhcr (undated), the first obligation to ensure basic human rights and physical security of citizens lies with governments. however, when people are displaced and driven out of their countries for whatever reason and become refugees or asylum seekers, this safety net ceases to exist. considering this, global treaties, conventions, and compacts mandate host countries to uphold and protect the basic human rights of these displaced persons (barnett, 2002; chikanda and crush, 2016). it is from this point of departure that the participants of this study correctly identified the government of zimbabwe as responsible for providing protection to all refugees and displaced persons who make their way to zimbabwe. the findings of this study show that while the zimbabwean state provides protection to refugees, it faces resource constraints that limit its capacity. as a result, the state becomes overly dependent on the support of partner organizations. in zimbabwe, this study found that the office of the commissioner for refugees in the department of social development (mopwlsw) is largely funded by the unhcr, including staff salaries, vehicles, and expenses for the programmes implemented in the camp. therefore, regarding social assistance and access to basic needs, submissions from key informants suggest that although the state has a bigger mandate, it mainly provides services that cannot be delegated to other partners. these include registration, status determination, and provision of security. some key informants explained: trc is wholly established and owned by the government of zimbabwe and the government of zimbabwe has the obligation to provide peace and security, shelter, food, education, health, and all other basic needs and social amenities for refugees (informant 9, september 2022). the settlement has a zimbabwe republic police base manned by five police officers to provide security and protection services (informant 7, september 2022). 37 in line with the zimbabwe refugee act, the government takes the lead in the refugee status determination, issuance of refugee identity cards, birth, marriage and death certificates, and travel documents through the registrar general’s office. it also issues temporary passes for refugees through the immigration department (informant 3, september 2022). the above excerpts suggest that resource-intense protection services have been delegated to the partners, with the unhcr as the main partner. however, while this can be confused with the state negating its obligations, consideration must be given to the state’s resource constraints. zimbabwe has a documented history of economic turmoil that has persisted for over two decades (kanyenze et al., 2017; mhlanga and ndhlovu, 2021; raftopoulos, 2006). according to mhlanga and ndhlovu (2021), while southern african countries experienced broad-based economic expansion in the past 20 years, zimbabwe remained an exception, largely owing to its poor economic policies and haphazard land reform program. kanyenze et al. (2017) point out that between 1999 and 2008, zimbabwe experienced a 52% decline in its gross domestic product (gdp). to date, there is still skepticism around the official economic indicators due to years of hyperinflation and currency failures that decimated the formal sectors. therefore, the country is a classic case of a shrinking economy that still hosts refugees, despite its limitations. what stands out from the findings of this study is that while the country is poorly resourced, this has not stopped the state from facilitating processes that result in those in need of protection accessing it, even if this means allowing capacitated partners such as the unhcr to contribute significant resources to keep the program running. in addition, documentation is a widespread problem in refugee management globally, yet this does not seem to be the case in zimbabwe, where processes are well coordinated to ensure that refugees’ needs in this regard are met. in a shrinking economy, strategic partnerships appear to be the sustaining factor in ensuring that vulnerable groups such as refugees access some relief. refugee protection services through strategic partnerships the findings of this study show that at the trc in zimbabwe, the unhcr is the leading strategic partner that works with several partner organizations to complement government efforts in the provision of different protection services to refugees. table 1 shows the different partners who work together in ensuring that refugees receive the protection they need. while several of these strategic partners are non-state actors, there are some state actors, such as the mopwlsw. each partner provides unique support while at times consolidating their efforts to meet the most urgent needs. dynamics of protection in a shrinking economy: a peak into zimbabwe’s refugee regime 38 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 table 1: partners at trc and the protection services offered partner protection services offered department of social development (mopwlsw) registration, camp coordination and management, shelter, refugee status determination unhcr registration, durable solutions, shelter, water and sanitation, livelihoods, food security, refugee status determination wfp cash transfers terres des hommes (italy) education, health, child protection, food security, gbv prevention, mitigation and response, life-skills training world vision zimbabwe wash and livelihoods jesuit refugee service education, vocational training, pastoral services childline child protection msf (doctors without borders) community mental health services (nonclinical) zimbabwe council of churches peace, justice, and conflict resolution zimbabwe red cross society ict, tracing and restoring family links, livelihoods source: authors' work as observed in table 1, the services provided through the strategic partnerships include social assistance, access to basic services, livelihoods support, and capacity development. commenting on social assistance and access to basic services, some of the key informants offered the following narrations: we provide psychosocial support services to the refugees at the trc. our needs assessment indicated a gap in terms of mental healthcare needs for the camp population and we believe our mental health program will build resilience and community coping skills, which will ultimately improve the well-being of the camp population (informant 12, september 2022). the host community [at the ward, district, and provincial levels] is essential in ensuring the peaceful co-existence of refugees and communities (informant 4, september 2022). the above excerpts demonstrate that refugee protection and assistance is a priority that the collective efforts of strategic partners and surrounding communities strive 39 for, despite the shrinking economy of zimbabwe. however, the findings of this study suggest that assistance to refugees must go beyond protection and aim toward finding durable solutions that will allow refugees to rebuild their lives. as a result, providing livelihood support and promoting economic inclusion for refugees have been highlighted as notable contributions from strategic partners. in this regard, some refugees were offered opportunities to embark on self-reliance and economicempowerment programs to enhance their livelihoods. despite the scarcity of resources and an ailing zimbabwean economy, these strategic partnerships demonstrate the concerted efforts to provide refugees with better life experiences at the trc. the following interview excerpts acknowledge these efforts: some partners at the trc offer self-reliance and livelihoods programs to help refugees in rebuilding their lives. different actors offer different services that are an attempt to provide durable solutions to refugees at the camp (informant 1, september 2022). the unhcr and other partners work with the government to provide community empowerment, self-reliance, and livelihoods assistance to refugees in line with the state, regional, and international obligations (informant 3, september 2022). moreover, these interview excerpts corroborate a report by the unhcr (2022b) that states that this multilateral institution and its partners have managed to support a number of livelihoods programs at the trc. examples cited include a hydroponics agricultural project where refugees managed to produce vegetables for consumption and income generation. in addition, there is an income-generating poultry project where refugees have close to 500 hens that produce eggs (unhcr, 2022b). some partners offered capacity development programs, albeit limited in their scope, aimed at equipping refugees with skills suitable for the labor market. an informant confirmed the efforts aimed at skills development: partners have been trying to build refugee capacity through vocational skills training. the goal has been to improve the skills base of the refugees so that they may be fit to join the labor market (informant 2, september 2022). notwithstanding the partners’ efforts, the macroeconomic environment in the country has been detrimental to the protection efforts of the different stakeholders at trc. scholars have documented zimbabwe’s currency crisis and hyperinflation that made it difficult to earn and secure livelihoods (kudzai, 2023; lieto, 2023). this has also affected social-protection efforts, as it made it very difficult to plan and budget in the local currency, leading to an over-reliance on foreign currency that is difficult to come by (lieto, 2023). dynamics of protection in a shrinking economy: a peak into zimbabwe’s refugee regime 40 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 the shrinking economy and its implications for refugee protection the zimbabwean economy has been experiencing prolonged challenges that have persisted from the early 1990s to date (kanyenze et al., 2017; mhlanga and ndhlovu, 2021). these were worsened by the fast-track land reform program that led to economic sanctions, which isolated zimbabwe from the global economic system for decades (nzima and gumindega, 2023). during the period between 2019 and 2020, zimbabwe experienced severe external shocks, namely cyclone idai, protracted drought, and the covid-19 pandemic (spiegel and mhlanga, 2022). these shocks, compounded by flawed policies during the same period, culminated in a significant recession and peak inflation of 837% (undp, 2020). the trends have continued to date, with significant implications for the ability of the trc stakeholders to provide effective protection services to refugees. kudzai (2023) maintains that the macroeconomic conditions continue to erode the state’s revenue base, compromising its ability to provide meaningful social protection to its citizenry, such as providing social safety nets. if the state struggles to provide social protection to citizens, the situation can only be worse for refugees and asylum seekers. a key informant reported the following: the government does not have resources, and the pervasive macroeconomic challenges continue to cripple the government and further diminish its ability to provide protection to refugees (informant 1, september 2022). resource scarcity resulting from the diminishing economic conditions in the country has negatively affected the state’s ability to provide effective protection to refugees (spiegel and mhlanga, 2022). this is exacerbated by the continued arrival of new refugees putting an additional strain on the government’s ability to provide adequate protection. nearly all key informants expressed these sentiments. an informant from one of the partner organizations said the following: the continued influx of refugees and asylum seekers results in increased annual resource needs for shelter and classrooms as well as increased teacherpupil ratios (informant 9, september 2022). the findings of this study suggest that the prevailing macroeconomic conditions at both the national and global levels have led to a scarcity of donor funding (undp, 2020). donor funding has been dwindling and in the recent past, the covid-19 pandemic and the war in ukraine resulted in the diversion of funds to focus on these issues, significantly reducing funding for refugee protection, as seen in the following excerpt: 41 the government does not have resources, and the pervasive socio-economic challenges continue to cripple the government and further diminish its ability to provide protection to refugees (informant 1, september 2022). the economic reality in zimbabwe has created significant challenges for the state and its strategic partners due to resource constraints and an ever-increasing demand for services (spiegel and mhlanga, 2022; undp, 2020). as a result, partners face the dilemma of having to do more with less, as the refugee population at the camp continues to increase. the following interview excerpts provide further insight: it has been difficult for partners to provide sustainable and durable livelihood projects to refugees and asylum seekers. also, markets for the produce have been difficult to find and sustain (informant 9, september 2022). the hyperinflationary environment in the country complicates partner interventions as it erodes the value of the assistance they give (informant 11, september 2022). the unhcr operation has low budgets due to its small caseload and has had to prioritize lifesaving interventions. again, the high cost of goods locally has pushed the organization to consider international procurement for value for money and accountability, but global supply-chain breaks mean delays, more so in the context of the covid-19 pandemic … the covid-19 pandemic and the war in ukraine have resulted in a diversion of funds to focus on these issues, significantly reducing funding for refugee protection (informant 3, september 2022). the findings of this study suggest that the ongoing shrinking of the zimbabwean economy does not only constrain the state’s ability to fulfill its mandate, but strategic partners are also affected, and this limits their capacity to provide adequate protection to refugees. the difficult economic environment has led to the erosion of safety nets for improved livelihoods as donor funding continues to dry up. this means that refugees are left in a state of perpetual dependency on aid and handouts, a situation that renders them perpetually vulnerable. notably, the covid-19 pandemic and other shocks have had significant impacts on the effective provision of protection services to refugees. covid-19 and the provision of protection services at the trc the covid-19 pandemic caused a disruption in the provision of basic services globally. a fuller understanding of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on refugees in zimbabwe requires a holistic appreciation of the shocks that have rocked their realities in the recent past. according to alio et al. (2020), refugees across the dynamics of protection in a shrinking economy: a peak into zimbabwe’s refugee regime 42 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 globe are heterogeneously affected by various shocks, including pandemics, conflicts, climate-induced disasters, and poverty. before the pandemic, refugees already existed in precarious and cramped conditions with adverse public health conditions that could easily facilitate the rapid spread of diseases (alio et al., 2020; spiegel and mhlanga, 2022). although the effects of the pandemic were almost universal and similar, not all populations were affected equally. crawley (2021) asserts that the pandemic amplified and deepened existing inequalities, with refugees and other stateless persons being the most adversely affected, because they are often the poorest with precarious livelihoods and are most deprived in terms of protection. as such, the pandemic affected them on many levels. the findings of this study show that at the trc, the pandemic crippled basic service delivery. it impacted both the availability of resources and the actual service provision. the pandemic forced partners to divert resources to ensure compliance with the sanitary regulations to curb the spread of the virus. this meant resources initially earmarked for the provision of protection services to refugees were channeled towards addressing the covid-19 pandemic. informants from partner organizations confirmed this unfortunate reality: the covid-19 pandemic meant diversion of resources by governments and partners to ensure compliance with the sanitary guidelines and procure medication. moreover, the donor countries experienced shocks leading to reduced donations (informant 3, september 2022). lockdown restrictions meant reduced earning capacity for many, including refugees (informant 11, september 2022). in addition, the findings of this study show that the resultant lockdowns and mobility restrictions had an adverse effect on the livelihoods and economic empowerment initiatives implemented at the camp. refugees could not move around to sell their products, and this crippled their ability to earn. this occurred against a backdrop that refugees are generally in a marginalized socio-economic position (crawley, 2021), and restrictions on their economic activities plunged them into deeper precarity. moreover, the restrictions affected the repatriation and resettlement of refugees. the suspension of the asylum procedures due to covid-19 left refugees in conditions of protracted uncertainty while exacerbating their already dire living conditions (crawley, 2021; ghezelbash and feith tan, 2020). the restrictions further affected children’s access to education and the camp population’s ability to access healthcare services beyond the camp. other studies note similar findings, detailing the effects of the pandemic on education and health services (matsilele, 2021; mbunge et al., 2020; murewanhema and makurumidze, 2020). some key informants reported the following: 43 covid-19 negatively affected access to education for children in trc because they were out of school for prolonged periods without access to e-learning facilities. this has resulted in low pass rates among the refugee population (informant 10, september 2022). refugees rely on the national healthcare system and during hard lockdown, services at some major referral centers were suspended due to the pandemic and this negatively affected refugees in need of health services (informant 12, september 2022). this study also found that officials from partner organizations could not move freely to implement some of the programs at the camp, which left refugees with limited assistance and increased vulnerability. moreover, the inability of the zimbabwe refugee committee to meet and process status determination meant that during the covid-19 pandemic, many refugees remained entirely undocumented. the findings confirm crawley’s (2021) assertion that one of the biggest consequences of the pandemic has been the stalling of status determination, which in some instances compromised refugees’ access to rights, work opportunities, healthcare, and education. to augment this, some of the key informants indicated the following: service delivery in many government departments that serve refugees and asylum seekers was disrupted at the height of the pandemic (informant 9, september 2022). the zimbabwe refugee committee used to meet monthly for refugee status determination, that is, conducting interviews for asylum seekers to determine whether their cases warrant a refugee status. due to covid-19, the committee has not been meeting and there is now a backlog in cases (informant 3, september 2022). although there were challenges, some positive innovations emerged that improved service delivery. partners devised strategies to circumvent the effects of restrictions around covid-19. key informants further narrated that covid-19 led to innovations in service provision such as online lessons, whatsapp surveillance and reporting for child protection and gender-based violence. partners will continue the implementation of these strategies in the post-covid-19 era. therefore, the pandemic significantly affected the provision of protection services to refugees, further exacerbating inequality and precarity in their living conditions. dynamics of protection in a shrinking economy: a peak into zimbabwe’s refugee regime 44 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 2, may-august 2024 conclusions and recommendations this paper concludes that socio-economic challenges in fragile economies significantly affect the welfare and protection outcomes of refugees, regardless of the presence of a robust refugee regime in the country. in addition, accepting refugees remains a political statement of sovereignty, and the macroeconomic instability in shrinking economies may easily mar regional solidarity and the success of the ambitions. in zimbabwe, the protracted socio-economic crisis has rendered refugee protection a challenge for the state and its partner organizations (spiegel and mhlanga, 2022). shocks such as cyclone idai, the covid-19 pandemic, and the war between russia and ukraine have worsened this precarious situation. additionally, these shocks have worsened the country’s macroeconomic environment, significantly shrinking the economy (spiegel and mhlanga, 2022; undp, 2020). macroeconomic instability activates subtle inequalities between different population groups in a country (crawley, 2021; spiegel and mhlanga, 2022). given that zimbabwe’s deep economic crisis has been protracted, it has gradually eroded the state’s ability to provide social protection to its citizens by crippling economic production and growth and decreased public budgets, plunging the country into a deep quandary characterized by high unemployment rates (chikanda and crush, 2016; spiegel and mhlanga, 2022). in the process, refugees and other persons of concern are relegated to the margins of protection (crawley, 2021), usually left to depend on the benevolence of donors and humanitarian partners to provide services. this demonstrates the struggles around mobility justice in the state’s responses to shocks and the influx of refugees and asylum seekers. macroeconomic instability and the resultant shrinking of economies complicate the dynamics of protection by compromising the ability to provide the requisite services to the populations in question. the state and its partners thus fail to provide comprehensive protection in the form of social assistance and access to basic services, livelihoods support, as well as building refugees’ capacity for labor-market readiness. although the refugee regime in zimbabwe mandates the state to provide protection services to refugees, the macroeconomic reality is the major constraining factor. in essence, shrinking economies adversely affect the provision of protection to refugees, as partners do not have adequate resources to provide durable solutions for the refugees. the economic realities leave effective protection elusive with limited to no solutions in sight (spiegel and mhlanga, 2022). although the unhcr and its partners may make efforts to provide protection, they become overwhelmed by the needs load that entails provision of housing, enhancing livelihoods, ensuring food security, provision of water and sanitation services as well as public health systems. these are resource-intensive needs that may not be fully sustained through donor funding. thus, the inability of the state to contribute resources toward the protection of refugees complicates the dynamics of protection, leaving refugees in perpetual vulnerability and partners operating in emergency mode. thus, even though zimbabwe’s refugee regime accords the protection mandate to the state, the protracted 45 economic crisis in the country has crippled the state’s ability to do so. therefore, this study recommends that the government increases its efforts in seeking humanitarian international assistance with favorable conditions. in addition, the government and its strategic partners must explore innovative financing mechanisms to ensure the sustainability of protection efforts. lastly, the government and its strategic partners must increase their efforts toward programs and bilateral agreements that promote regional cooperation to ensure better protection outcomes for refugees in the region. disclosure statement the authors report that there are no competing interests to declare. acknowledgments this work was conducted with support from the consultative group on international agricultural research (cgiar) initiative on climate resilience (climber), and the cgiar initiative on fragility, conflict, and migration. we would like to thank all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the cgiar trust fund. dynamics of protection in a 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(eds.), the routledge handbook on the un and development. london: routledge, pp. 135–148. mlambo, a.s. 2010. a history of zimbabwean migration to 1990. in crush, j. and tevera, d.s. (eds.), zimbabwe’s exodus: crisis, migration, survival (article 52). african books collective. munguambe, c.v.l. 2020. nationalism and exile in an age of solidarity: frelimo– zanu relations in mozambique (1975–1980). in alexander, j., mcgregor, j., and tendi, b.m. (eds.), transnational histories of southern africa’s liberation movements. london: routledge, pp. 157–174. https://doi. org/10.4324/9780367854935. murewanhema, g. and makurumidze, r. 2020. essential health services delivery in zimbabwe during the covid-19 pandemic: perspectives and recommendations. the pan african medical journal, 35(suppl. 2): 143. https:// doi.org/10.11604%2fpamj.supp.2020.35.143.25367. mutsvara, s. 2015. to what extent does zimbabwe comply with its international obligations for the protection of unaccompanied and separated refugee children? unpublished doctoral dissertation, university of the western cape. ncube, g. 2010. migrant remittances, household livelihood strategies and local development: a case study of village 2 in ward 19 of tsholotsho district in zimbabwe. unpublished ma thesis, institute of social studies of erasmus university, the netherlands. neis, h.j., meier, b., and furukawazono, t. 2018. welcome city: refugees in three german cities. urban planning, 3(4): 101–115. https://doi.org/10.17645/ up.v3i4.1668. nzima, d. and gumindega, g.c. 2023. exploring the politics of jecharism in zimbabwe’s second republic. in moyo, g. and helliker, k. (eds.), making politics in zimbabwe’s second republic: the formative project by emmerson mnangagwa. cham, switzerland: springer nature, pp. 107–123. 49 oxford analytica. 2022. politics may underpin uk–rwanda asylum deal. expert briefings. https://doi.org/10.1108/oxan-db270150. raftopoulos, b. 2006. the zimbabwean crisis and the challenges for the left. journal of southern african studies, 32(2): 203–219. https://doi. org/10.1080/03057070600655988. raney, r. 2019. compassion fatigue: a side effect of the immigration crisis. american psychological association (apa). https://www.apa.org/members/content/ compassion-fatigue. seyfert, k. and quarterman, l. 2021. social protection for migrants and refugees. social protection approaches to covid-19: expert advice service (space), dai global, uk. https://socialprotection.org/sites/default/files/ publications_files/space_social%20protection%20for%20migrants%20 and%20refugees.pdf. sidzumo-mazibuko, d.t.d. 1998. the impact of refugee assistance on the elderly: a socio-economic and demographic study of elderly women and men at tongogara, mazowe river bridge and chambuta camps in zimbabwe, 1983– 1992. unpublished doctoral thesis, university of manitoba. http://hdl.handle. net/1993/2013. soy, a. 2022. uk–rwanda asylum seekers’ deal: good news for kigali hotels. bbc. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61496397. spiegel, s.j. and mhlanga, j. 2022. refugee policy amidst global shocks: encampment, resettlement barriers and the search for “durable solutions.” global policy, 13(4): 427–441. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13084. takaindisa, j. 2021. the political stakes of displacement and migration in/from zimbabwe. arnold bergstraesser institut. https://www.arnold-bergstraesser. de/sites/default/files/displacement_zimbabwe_takaindisa.pdf. union of international associations (uia). 2020. the encyclopedia of world problems & human potential: refugee fatigue. http://encyclopedia.uia.org/ en/problem/136690. united nations development 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united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2023. five takeaways from the 2023 unhcr global trends report. https://www. unrefugees.org/news/five-takeaways-from-the-2023-unhcr-globaltrends-report/#:~:text=five%20takeaways%20from%20the%202023%20 unhcr%20global%20trends,high-to-extreme%20exposure%20to%20 climate-related%20hazards.%20...%20more%20items. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). undated. africa – protection. https://www.unhcr.org/afr/protection.html. wamara, c.k., muchacha, m., ogwok, b. and dudzai, c. 2022. refugee integration and globalization: ugandan and zimbabwean perspectives. journal of human rights and social work, 7(2): 168–177. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41134-02100189-7. world food programme (wfp) and united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2019. tongogara refugee camp, zimbabwe – joint assessment mission report. wfp and unhcr. 7 book review crawley, heaven and teye, joseph kofi (editors), 2024 the palgrave handbook of south–south migration and inequality cham, switzerland: palgrave macmillan, 749 pages isbn 978-3-031-39813-1 isbn 978-3-031-39814-8 (ebook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39814-8 introduction the palgrave handbook of south–south migration and inequality unpacks the multidimensional nexus between migration and socio-spatial inequality in the global south. it draws on global south perspectives and migration scholarship to correct what the editors, heaven crawley and joseph teye, refer to as misunderstandings and misinterpretations of south–south mobility patterns that have been incorrectly based on north–south migration experiences. the authors argue that contrary to narratives suggesting an exodus of migrants to the global north, south–south migration is the most prevalent type of human mobility in the global south. the authors unpack the “global south” as a geographical region and a “relational, structural and political construct within global networks of power.” the authors also remind us that the capacity to migrate and the conditions under which migration occurs reflect and reinforce prevailing spatial, structural, and social inequalities related to gender, nationality, race, and age. these conditions determine who migrates, where they move to, and the range of resources they can access. significantly, migration can increase and reduce inequality depending on the circumstances. for example, income inequalities in countries of origin often increase with international migration, particularly for the marginalized groups in society. the book is divided into four parts that highlight often-overlooked mobility patterns within and between regions of the global south and the intersectional inequalities that migrants face. the introduction by the editors highlights the critical issues discussed in the collection of 33 well-structured but uneven chapters that provide fresh insights into south-south migration triggers and patterns. the chapters grapple conceptually with the relationship between migration and inequality in diverse global south locations. they also question the relevance of econometric migration theories that downplay context-specific economic and socio-political processes. book review the palgrave handbook of south–south migration and inequality 8 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 part 1: conceptualising south–south migration part 1, consisting of chapters 1–7, provides a historical perspective on south–south migration and a conceptual framing of the global south based on decolonial theory that critiques eurocentrism in migration research. in chapter 2, veronica fynn bruey and heaven crawley provide a historical perspective on south–south migration that aims to address several global south knowledge “blind spots.” chapter 3, by elena fiddian-qasmiyeh, argues that there is a need for nuanced studies of migration that focus on re-centering the south by conducting more research in and about particular geographies associated with the global south. in chapter 4, yousif m. qasmiyeh and elena fiddian-qasmiyeh engage critically with the geopolitics of knowledge production by discussing how migration knowledge production and dissemination are connected to structural inequalities in the global south. in chapter 5, karl landström and heaven crawley draw on feminist social epistemology to challenge migration scholars researching south–south migration to foreground structural inequalities in knowledge production. in chapter 6, kudakwashe vanyoro challenges global south migration researchers to frame their studies in ways that value and appropriately recognize their lived experiences. in chapter 7, hyab teklehaimanot yohannes and alison phipps discuss how climate-induced internal displacement has created new patterns of semi-nomadic life within the borders of the horn of africa region and how the global north has created epistemic barriers whose overarching intention has been to immobilize, contain, and detain displaced people. part 2: unpacking “the south” in south–south migration part 2 unpacks south–south migration patterns and explores the interplay between social conditions and policy instruments. in chapter 8, kerilyn schewel and alix debray argue that strengthening regional cooperation on migration governance is vital to managing the negative effect of international migration on inequality and poverty. joseph awetori yaro and mary boatemaa setrana (chapter 9) highlight the adverse effects of south–south migration in africa. in chapter 10, dereje feyissa, meron zeleke, and fana gebresenbet focus on the ethiopia–south africa spatial corridor in their discussion of the changing contours of “hadiya migration” to south africa. in chapter 11, bonayi hubert dabiré and kando amédée soumahoro examine the contradictory impacts of migration on inequalities in the burkina faso–côte d’ivoire corridor. they argue that while migration helps poor households in burkina faso by transferring resources, it creates multiple inequalities between children whose parents have migrated and those whose parents have not and between remittances-receiving households and households that do not receive any. chapter 12, by victoria prieto rosas and gisela p. zapata, outlines trends and characteristics of migrant social and economic inclusion in several immigration and transit countries, especially argentina, colombia, chile, ecuador, peru, and uruguay, which have experienced rising levels of intra-regional migration. 9 in chapter 13, louis herns marcelin and toni cela argue that while migration has the potential to contribute to human development and reduce social inequality, migrants are often subjected to entrenched vulnerabilities emerging from social exclusion, marginalization, climate change-related disasters, armed conflicts, and human rights abuses. chapter 14, by seng-guan yeoh and anita ghimire, examines migrant labor and inequalities in the nepal–malaysia corridor. malaysia relies heavily on foreign migrant labor in the manufacturing, construction, plantation, and service sectors. however, in the host countries, foreign migrant workers (together with refugees) are categorized and surveilled. nepal and malaysia’s closely intertwined migration infrastructures have efficiently facilitated the transnational flow of labor and remittances. in chapter 15, joseph teye, jixia lu, and gordon crawford discuss the drivers and impact of recent chinese migration to ghana on equality. they argue that despite the income benefits received by the local population, there have been increased income inequalities along gender and social-class lines. this chapter focuses mainly on the trading and small-scale mining sectors. chapter 16, by luisa feline freier, leon lucar oba, and maría a.f. bautista, is based on an interesting methodological approach that uses data on asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants detained in mexico to map trends in african migration to latin america. part 3: inequalities and south–south migration part 3 focuses on the inequalities-migration nexus in the global south. several chapters examine the role played by porous borders in the south, the dynamics of weak border control, and state capacity in monitoring and registering movements. in chapter 17, giulia casentini, laura hammond, and oliver bakewell unpack the relationship between migration, poverty, and income inequality by focusing on migration dynamics in the burkina faso–côte d’ivoire, ethiopia–south africa, and ghana–china migration corridors. in chapter 18, tanja bastia and nicola piper focus on the feminization of migration, temporary migration, and transnationally split families to provide a deeper understanding of the dynamics of gendered patterns of migrant employment in the domestic work and agricultural sectors in several global south countries. they argue that the rate of return migration is considerably high because of a combination of factors, such as the temporary nature of migration, the employer-tied contracts, and the high occurrences of undocumented migration resulting from absconding or overstaying. chapter 19, by jailson de souza e silva, fernando lannes fernandes, and jorge luiz barbosa, on haitian migration and structural racism in brazil explores the inequalities that influence migration decisions and the role of migration drivers, such as climate change, household food insecurity, and migration intermediaries. in chapter 20, ingrid boas, animesh gautam, and ademola olayiwola interrogate the nexus between mobility and climate change. they argue that climate change-mobility patterns are embedded within uneven socio-political dynamics, social networks and kinship ties, mobility experiences, the availability of support book review the palgrave handbook of south–south migration and inequality 10 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 systems, as well as the type and intensity of environmental triggers. together, these factors determine whether an extreme weather event, such as floods, will create environmental refugees. in chapter 21, caterina mazzilli, jessica hagen-zanker, and carmen leon-himmelstine explore how migration decision-making intersects with perceptions of inequality that are multidimensional, intersectional, and overlapping and that studies that focus on these perceptions increase our understanding of migration decision-making processes. in chapter 22, katharine jones, haila sha, and mohammad r.a. bhuiyan discuss the critical role intermediaries play in shaping processes and outcomes in south–south migration. in chapter 23, g. harindranath, tim unwin, and maria rosa lorini show how the use and design of digital technologies play a vital role in south–south migration, from migrant decision-making to increasing migrants’ access to opportunities and rights in the host countries. in chapter 24, edward asiedu, tebkieta alexandra tapsoba, and stephen gelb examine the impact of remittances in the countries of origin, including financial flows and diaspora investment, trade flows of goods and services, and knowledge flows, in reconstructing local economies. chapter 25, by henrietta nyamnjoh, mackenzie seaman, and meron zeleke, drawing on research conducted in ethiopia and south africa, argue that migration produces, mitigates, and transforms educational inequalities across generations and geographies thereby making it vital to conduct studies that focus on the links between children, migration, and inequalities. chapter 26, by jonathan crush and sujata ramachandran, draws attention to the linkages between food security, inequality, migration, and development concerning south–south migration. the authors critique the positive framing of the migration– development nexus that has largely overlooked the critical theme of food security in contemporary migration studies. the chapter concludes that migration research should pay increased attention to the intersections between migration, inequality, and food security. part 4: responses to south–south migration chapters 27–33 in part 4 focus on various migrant attempts to access justice and rights in their efforts to construct new forms of transnational solidarity that bridge both geographical and sectoral boundaries at various levels. in chapter 27, francesco carella argues that it is essential for both researchers and policymakers to frame migration as a human rights issue rather than a security problem, to encourage host communities to be more welcoming and tolerant of migrants. chapter 28, by joseph teye and linda oucho, argues that despite the measures taken by the african union commission and member states to promote the free movement of persons, there has been a slow and uneven implementation process, due to a variety of factors that include the lack of political will and resource constraints. the chapter also shows that while many african governments have signed regional and sub-regional free movement protocols, their migration policies focus primarily on restricting an influx 11 of low-skilled immigrants. in chapter 29, marcia vera espinoza argues that because migration governance in south america has been framed and justified through the “lens of crisis,” the challenge is how move from a conceptual lens of crisis, as has been the main feature of governance, to one that encourages human security and social cohesion. in chapter 30, jacqueline mazza and nicolás forero villarreal argue that peru’s restrictive policies have been both ineffective in reducing forced migration flows and counterproductive by further marginalizing venezuelan migrants fleeing the economic-political-social “implosion” of venezuela that has created a migration crisis in the region. in chapter 31, rey p. asis and carlos l. maningat explore how the migrant labor brokerage model, involving national governments, civil society organizations, migrant workers, and private recruitment agencies in the archipelagic association of southeast asian nations (asean) and the mekong sub-regional corridors, has resulted in the treatment of migrants as a “commodity” for export-import. in chapter 32, pia oberoi and kate sheill argue that while temporary labor migration programs are a comprehensive option for regular migration available to low-wage migrant workers from asia and the pacific, these programs bring risks to the migrants and their families. in chapter 33, mariama awumbila, faisal garba, akosua k. darkwah, and mariama zaami discuss how migrants in the global south organize to defend and access their rights and the solidarity that they build with other civil society actors. final comments/recommendation the palgrave handbook of south–south migration and inequality represents an essential contribution to south–south migration and its relationship to inequalities. the book underscores the need for a critical and socially embedded understanding of south–south migration, including the climate change-mobility nexus. the corridor and regional approach used to empirically examine the migration patterns and trends within or between multiple regions in the global south facilitates the comparison of findings from multiple and contiguous geographical regions. what emerges from this handbook is an understanding that whether migration increases or decreases, inequality is shaped by a pool of contextual and political factors and historical contexts. this open-access handbook is a good source for academics, researchers, and students seeking to deepen theoretical and policy insights into south-south migration and inequality. development practitioners engaged in migration policies and programs in the global south will find it a helpful source when developing international migration policy responses. prof daniel tevera, university of the western cape, south africa book review the palgrave handbook of south–south migration and inequality 155 migrant remittances, food security, and translocal households in the ghana-qatar migration corridor bernard owusu1 and jonathan crush2 received 23 september 2024 / accepted 06 november 2024 / published 10 january 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i3.2439 abstract this paper examines the impact of migrant remittances on household food security in the ghana-qatar migration corridor. drawing on a 2023 survey of migrant-sending households in ghana and in-depth qualitative interviews with migrants in qatar, the study explores the characteristics, determinants, and patterns of remitting. the findings reveal that cash remittances play a crucial role in enhancing food security and the overall welfare of households in ghana. however, the pressure to remit affects the food security of migrants in qatar significantly, and they often adopt various coping strategies to manage their limited resources. the paper highlights the translocal nature of ghanaian households, where remittances contribute to the cultural and economic sustenance of families. the study underscores the dual role of remittances in supporting household food security while imposing financial constraints on migrants and calls for policies that address the needs of both remitters and recipients. keywords: migrant workers, remittances, food security, translocality, qatar, ghana 1 wilfrid laurier university, waterloo, canada. corresponding author  owus1530@mylaurier.ca 2 balsillie school of international affairs, waterloo, canada and university of the western cape, cape town south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3342-3192 remittances, food security, and translocal households in the ghana-qatar migration corridor 156 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 introduction the growing volume of international global remittances has led to a significant body of research examining their impact in the global south (adams, 2011; connell and brown, 2015; azizi, 2021; benhamou and cassin, 2021; feld, 2021). the literature generally emphasizes the positive impact of remittances on economic growth, education, housing, and healthcare. remittances are also widely credited with improved livelihood opportunities and poverty reduction (fonta et al., 2022). however, only recently has attention turned to the impact of international remittances on food security in lowand middle-income countries (ebadi et al., 2018; sulemana et al., 2018; smith and floro, 2021; seydou, 2023). the emerging case study suggests that there are several ways in which remittances potentially enhance the food and nutritional security of recipient households. as a major source of income for recipient households, remittances can increase their ability to pay for basic needs such as education, medical care, and food. recent studies in asia (moniruzzaman, 2022), central america (mora-rivera and van gameren, 2021), and africa (abadi et al., 2018) show that food purchase is an important use of remittances, and recipient households are relatively more food secure than non-recipient households. in ghana, work on international and internal remittance impacts has consistently reported positive effects on household income, welfare, and food security (quartey, 2006; sam et al., 2013; atuoye et al., 2017; akpa, 2018; sulemana et al., 2018; adjei-mantey et al., 2023). however, as thow et al. (2016) observe, remittances can also be spent on unhealthy foods and contribute to the epidemic of overnutrition. remittances are a potential source of funds for investment in boosting agricultural production and productivity, enhancing the ability of rural households to grow more of their own food, and mitigating food insecurity (regmi and paudel, 2017; xing, 2018; dedewanou and tossou, 2021; szabo et al., 2022; cau and agadjanian, 2023). the international fund for agricultural development (ifad, 2023) estimates that recipients either save or invest 25% of the money they receive, and that one-quarter of these savings (us$ 25 billion annually) go into agriculturerelated investments. in the case of ghana, adams and cuecuecha (2013) show that the bulk of remittances are spent on food, housing, and education. however, there is some case study evidence of agriculture-related investments. for example, eghan and adjasi (2023) show that the varied effects of remittances on agriculture depend on crop type and other economic activities of farming households. remittances also play an important food security-related role in mitigating sudden-onset and longer-duration economic, political, and environmental shocks (couharde and generoso, 2015; bragg et al., 2017; ajide and alimi, 2019). migrant remittances also tend to increase in volume in response to sudden shocks and in conflict settings (le de et al., 2013; bettin and zazzaro, 2018; rodima-taylor, 2022). during the covid-19 pandemic, remittances were initially expected to decline precipitously, but many migrants “defied the odds” and increased their remitting 157 (kpodar et al., 2023). the shock-absorbing mechanism (ajide and alimi, 2019) of increased remittances can play an important role in building resilience to food insecurity during recurrent or episodic crises and shocks (obi et al., 2020; gianelli and canessa, 2021; zingwe et al., 2023). while there is a growing body of research on the impact of remittances on household food security, only a few have examined the impact of remitting on the food and nutritional security of remitters at their place of destination (headley et al., 2008; zezza et al., 2011; choitani, 2017; crush and tawodzera, 2017; osei-kwasi et al., 2019). this paper expands on the existing literature that explores the complex relationship between migration and food security in africa by presenting findings on the remitting practices of ghanaian migrants working in the gulf country of qatar. it explores the links between migration, remittances, and food security by addressing the following questions: (a) what are the characteristics and motivations for remitting by ghanaian migrants in qatar? (b) how do recipient households use remittances, and do they improve the food security of those households? (c) does the pressure or obligation to remit have negative food security consequences for migrants in qatar? to answer these questions, the paper draws on data from two main sources: a 2023 survey of migrant-sending households in ghana by the authors and in-depth interviews with ghanaian migrants in qatar. in the next section, we provide an overview of the emergence of qatar as a destination for ghanaian migrants, review the existing literature on this phenomenon, and discuss the conceptual framework for this study. the paper then presents the survey results on the receipt and use of remittances by migrant-sending households in ghana, as well as their food security status. the final section discusses various themes relating to remitting and food security that emerged from the interviews in qatar. literature review ghana’s long history of post-independence international migration has unfolded over several overlapping phases. immediately after independence – in particular during the 1960s and 1970s – a small number of professionals, primarily students, went abroad for educational purposes; they were joined by others who trained as civil servants (peil, 1995; anarfi et al., 2003). the late 1970s and early 1980s saw the migration of trained professionals, such as teachers, to other countries in africa where their expertise and skills were highly valued. within the west african subregion, nigeria became a popular destination for ghanaians, especially during the oil boom. however, in 1983, nigerian president shagari signed an executive order deporting all west african migrants from the country. over two million migrants were deported, including one million ghanaians (daly, 2023). in the late 1980s and the 1990s, skilled and semi-skilled ghanaians began to emigrate in larger numbers to destinations outside the continent, including north america and western europe (asiedu, 2010; gonzález-ferrer et al., 2013; arthur, 2016; schans et al., 2018). most migrated in response to the economic crises and remittances, food security, and translocal households in the ghana-qatar migration corridor 158 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 dislocation in ghana that accompanied structural adjustment programs. these were implemented by the military government seeking to reverse economic decline and a massive balance of payments deficit (konadu-agyeman, 2000). the 1990s also saw the outmigration of migrants to new destinations such as australia, north africa, eastern europe, and asia (obeng, 2019; andall, 2021; kandilige et al., 2024). across all of these phases, the decline in economic opportunities, depressed living standards, and the quest for improved livelihoods triggered the emigration of migrants. in the last two decades, the gulf emerged as an important destination for lower-skilled male and female ghanaians who took advantage of the voracious demand of the gulf states for the importation of temporary migrant workers. on the supply side, the movement was driven by the high rate of unemployment, low remuneration, and heightened poverty that many ghanaian households faced within the country (atong et al., 2018). the movement of migrants to the gulf was facilitated by a proliferation of brokers, recruiters, and work placement agencies who hire lowskilled and unskilled migrants as domestic workers, security guards, construction workers, and drivers for employers (awumbila et al., 2019a; deshingkar et al., 2019). while data on migrant ghanaians in the gulf is scant, the united arab emirates (uae), saudi arabia, kuwait, and qatar have become popular destinations for semi-skilled and unskilled male and female ghanaian migrant workers (atong et al., 2018; awumbila et al., 2019; rahman and salisu, 2023). recent studies show that about 75,000 ghanaians are working in the gulf, with an estimated 27,000 in saudi arabia, 24,000 in the uae, 8,000 in qatar, 4,500 in bahrain, and 3,500 in oman (rahman and salisu, 2023). however, these may be underestimates, given that not all migrants move through registered channels. several studies have revealed the poor working conditions and exploitative nature of the employment of temporary ghanaian migrant workers in qatar and elsewhere in the gulf (atong et al., 2018; awumbila et al., 2019a; kandilige et al., 2023). others have documented the misrepresentation, abuse, harassment, and other difficulties that migrants face during their journey to and from workplaces in countries like qatar (apekey et al., 2018; awumbila et al., 2019; deshingkar et al., 2019). additional studies have focused on the migration industry, the role of brokers and recruiters, and the reintegration experiences of returning migrants (awumbila et al., 2019b; rahman and salisu, 2023). however, insufficient research attention has been paid to remitting practices in the qatar–ghana migration corridor and the impacts of remittances on the food security of translocal households in ghana and qatar. interactions between migrants and households in their countries or regions of origin have been variously conceptualized as “multi-spatial” (foeken and owuor, 2001), “stretched” (porter et al., 2018), “multi-locational” (schmidt-kallert and franke, 2012; andersson djurfeldt, 2015; ramisch, 2016), and “translocal” (greiner, 2011). following porter et al. (2018), steinbrink and niedenführ (2020), and andersson-djurfeldt (2021), we suggest that the concept of translocality is a useful starting point for framing the material and other connections between ghanaian 159 migrants in qatar and households in ghana. steinbrink and niedenführ (2020) see translocal households as collective social and economic units whose members do not live in one place but effectively coordinate their reproduction, consumption, and resource usage activities. greiner (2011: 610) describes translocalism as “the emergence of multidirectional and overlapping networks created by migration that facilitate the circulation of resources, practices and ideas and thereby transforming the particular localities they connect.” migration of household members results in household networks, multiple sources of family income, and increased exchange of goods, information, and ideas between the origin and destination localities (andersson djurfeldt, 2015). connectivity within translocal households is a fundamental survival strategy that contributes to sustainable livelihoods and food security for families at home. there is a mutual benefit through remittances and food transfers in a bi-directional relationship. while this concept of translocality in africa has largely been applied to internal migration and livelihood strategies, international migration has similar dynamics when it comes to the food security of translocal households tied together by remittances (crush and caesar, 2018). the food and agriculture organization (fao, 2006) defines food security as when “all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” food security has six basic pillars: availability, accessibility, utilization, stability, agency, and sustainability (see figure 1) (hlpe, 2020). this study focuses primarily on the accessibility and utilization dimensions of food security in ghana and qatar. the in-depth interviews in qatar also provide insights into the agency exercised by migrants in making choices about remittances and food consumption, and the constraints on that agency. figure 1: conceptualizing food security source: sihma elaboration from hlpe (2020: 10) 6 identifying six dimensions of food security in its current definition “food security (is) a situation that exists when: six dimension of food security all people, agency at all times, have stability (short term) physical, social and economic access to sustainability (long term) sufficient, access safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and availability food preferences for an active and healthy life.” remittances, food security, and translocal households in the ghana-qatar migration corridor 160 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 methodology the research team collected data for this study in ghana and qatar from march to june 2023 using a mixed methodology. in the first phase of the research, we administered a household survey to a sample of households with migrants currently living and working in qatar. there is limited information about the location of these households and no sampling frame from which to derive a probabilistic sample. migrants in qatar come from all over ghana, but for logistical and cost reasons, sampling was concentrated in accra and kasoa, where, anecdotally, there were believed to be sizable numbers of migrant-sending households. the research team recruited participants through migrant networks, contacts at recruitment agencies, and the ghana immigration service. in the time available, this non-probabilistic sampling method yielded 200 completed interviews. the survey collected data on the socio-economic characteristics of the household, factors influencing the decision to send migrants to qatar, incomes and expenditure, remittance receipt and use, and household food security. the team collected the survey data on tablets using odk collect – an android app for managing and filling out forms – and stored it in the kobo toolbox online. these data were downloaded for analysis after the surveys were concluded. the study used the household food insecurity access scale (hfias) to assess the access dimension of food security in relation to the quality and quantity of food in the household and the dimension of worry and anxiety about food access and supply (coates et al., 2007). the researchers generated a score for each household on a scale from 0 (most secure) to 27 (most insecure). based on the hfias scores, they used the household food insecurity access prevalence (hfiap) to assign each household to one of four categories: food secure, mildly food insecure, moderately food insecure, and severely food insecure. to capture food utilization, the researchers used the household dietary diversity scale (hdds), which measures how many food groups were consumed in the household in the previous 24 hours and generates a score between 0 and 12 for each. households were then categorized as having high (from 6 to12), medium (from 4 to 5) or low (from 0 to 3) dietary diversity (baliwati et al., 2015). in addition to calculating the different food security metrics for households in ghana, the research team compiled aggregated statistical tables with a focus on household characteristics, income sources, and use of remittances. given the non-probabilistic sample, we focused on building a descriptive statistical profile of the sample of 200 migrantsending and remittance-receiving households. in the second phase of the research, the team conducted in-depth face-to-face interviews with ghanaian migrants working in doha and surrounding communities in qatar. we identified 58 participants, using the purposive snowball sampling method with the assistance of a local gatekeeper. the initial participants were recruited through community networks such as the ghanaian association in qatar and churches. the team arranged interviews at workforce camps, other accommodation facilities, and ghanaian restaurants. these semi-structured interviews focused 161 on a range of issues, including migration histories, employment and the nature of work, remittance motivations and practices, as well as food availability, access, and utilization experiences. for the analysis of the interviews, the researchers used thematic analysis to identify common patterns and describe and interpret the study data collected (braun and clarke, 2006). to identify common themes, we analyzed and coded transcripts of interviews, using nvivo 12 software. the study limitations include, first, that the findings in ghana and qatar are not directly comparable given the different methodologies used in each site. as a result, the ghana survey provides more accurate statistical indicators of remittance usage and food security status, while the qatar survey provides rich personal insights into the subjective food security experiences and remitting of migrants. second, the migrants interviewed in qatar were not necessarily from the same households as those surveyed in ghana. tracing those migrants would have been a breach of confidentiality and anonymity and would have been extremely challenging in the short time available for research in qatar. hence, only broad conclusions, rather than direct causal connections, can be drawn about translocality. third, these were hard-to-reach populations in both sites, and random sampling was impossible. both phases relied on non-probabilistic snowball sampling to identify respondents. as a result, the findings are indicative rather than representative and generalizable. survey results as many as 80% of the respondent households in ghana had received cash remittances from their migrant members in qatar in the previous year. remittances were the most important source of household income overall, exceeding wage and casual work, as well as income from running a business (see figure 2). the amounts sent to the household in ghana varied considerably, with 34% receiving an average of ghc 1,500 (usd 91) per month and 44% receiving more than ghc 2,500 (usd 153) per month. however, only 11% of the households received remittances more than once a month and another one-third monthly. the rest received remittances only a few times in the year. remittances, food security, and translocal households in the ghana-qatar migration corridor 162 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 figure 2: sources of household income source: authors' own work remittances had a marked impact on these migrant-sending households in ghana. as many as 73% of the respondents indicated that remittances were “very important” to their household, and another 18% said that they were “important.” these findings are consistent with studies that have examined the role of remittances in improving household food security in the northern and upper-east regions of ghana (karamba et al., 2011; kuuire et al., 2013; sulemana et al., 2018; akobeng, 2022; apatinga et al., 2022; baako-amponsah et al., 2024). remittances are used for a wide variety of household expenses, mostly basic needs. the most common use was food purchase (see figure 3), with almost 90% of remittance-receiving households using the funds to buy food. other important uses included investment in children’s education (at 58%), and financial transactions in the form of savings (25%) and repaying loans (19%). yet other uses included buying clothing (18%), funeral expenses (13%), and paying for a variety of construction materials such as cement, wood, bricks, and paint. none of the respondents invested remittances in improving rural agriculture, although a handful did purchase cattle with remittances. the findings about the priority given to remittance expenditure on food purchases are consistent with those of studies in other parts of africa (see, for example, pendleton et al., 2014; crush and caesar, 2017, 2018). 163 figure 3: use of remittances source: authors' own work on the hfiap indicator, only 1% of the households were classified as severely food insecure. on the other hand, just 17% of the households were completely food secure (see table 1). over half (54%) were only mildly food insecure. these results suggest that food insecurity is still a challenge among this group of remittance-receiving ghanaian households but would be much more severe without the transfer of remittances from qatar. the hdds analysis shows that household dietary diversity remittances, food security, and translocal households in the ghana-qatar migration corridor 164 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 was relatively high, with a mean of 8 out of a possible 12, indicating that, on average, the household consumed food from approximately eight different groups in the previous 24 hours. approximately 47% had a dietary diversity score of 7 or less, and 53% had an hdds above 7 (see figure 4). table 1: prevalence of household food insecurity food security category frequency percentage food secure 32 16.5% mildly food insecure 105 54.1% moderately food insecure 55 28.4% severely food insecure 2 1.0% total 194 100.0% source: authors' own work figure 4: dietary diversity of households source: authors' own work interview results this section focuses on the results of the nvivo thematic analysis of in-depth interviews, concentrating on four key themes: translocality, remitting capacity, rationale for remitting, and remittances and food security. on the first theme, many of the ghanaian migrants interviewed were clearly embedded in translocal households with nodes in ghana and qatar. for example, one migrant described the principle of reciprocity within their translocal household in this way: i believe it’s necessary to share my success with my family, no matter how small it may be. back in ghana, when i needed help, they supported me, so it’s only 0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18% 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ho us eh ol ds (p er ce nt ag es ) number of food groups 165 fair to reciprocate and support them now. i don’t get worried when i send them money because i always budget for things i need here and the rest for my family back home, which they can share among themselves. (interview no. 29, qatar, 4 june 2023). another mentioned his obligation for the family’s survival in ghana, seeing himself as the family ‘breadwinner’ and provider: i send money every month to my wife and child. monthly, i send 800 ghs and support my siblings when they are needed. i am the man, the breadwinner, and the father. they cannot survive without me. besides, it is my responsibility to provide for them as the man and father of the house. the money is used for household food purchases. (interview no. 8, qatar, 31 may 2023). a third described how he coordinates his remitting to ghana with family members in italy, suggesting that some migrants in qatar are members of more complex multilocal households with nodes in ghana, qatar, and elsewhere: my other siblings in italy help the family when one of us is lacking, especially during festive seasons; since we are muslims, we send them money. my siblings also support the family when one of us is facing difficulties. currently, i don’t have any job, so any money i sent home will push me into a food crisis. i didn’t have this problem previously when i was working. (interview no. 28, qatar, 4 june 2023). on the second thematic issue of remitting capacity, the interviews provided insights into the remitting priorities of migrants in qatar. a number addressed the question of why they were not always able to send large amounts home or were unable to remit on a consistent and regular basis. the frequency of remitting was clearly affected by their precarious economic status in qatar, including the availability of jobs and the constant reality of job loss: i try to remit [to] the family regularly, even though there are times when i cannot do so due to financial constraints, just like last month’s ending. i pleaded with them that they will hear from me when things go well. (interview no. 29, qatar, 4 june 2023). in the lead-up to the 2022 fifa world cup in qatar, there were numerous job opportunities in the construction industry. many migrant workers left the companies who had recruited them in ghana to become what they call “freelancers” who work in construction or other higher-earning sectors. however, after the world cup, employment layoffs left many ghanaian “freelancers” stranded and unemployed, remittances, food security, and translocal households in the ghana-qatar migration corridor 166 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 with their savings spent on food and accommodation. they had very little money with which to support the household in ghana. for example: it has been seven months since i sent money to my family, but i explained to them that things have been difficult, and they understood my situation. the first 14 months in this country was peaceful and different. there was a lot of construction jobs available due to the 2022 world cup. i survived, i had something to depend on and could consistently send [money] every month to the family, but this whole mess started when i moved from the company to freelance before the world cup. life has been complicated after the world cup. a lot of jobs have shut down. (interview no. 17, qatar, 4 june 2023). my earnings in qatar have been minimal after the world cup. i haven’t been able to send enough money home to benefit the family for some time now. i could not even repay all the loans i took to come to qatar. the land i used as collateral was seized and sold. i feel so disappointed in myself. i focused on getting my id, so i didn’t spend much on food. i hope they will pay me for the two weeks of work arrears, which should be 1,400 riyals or half of it so that i can use that to survive. (interview no. 34, qatar, 9 june 2023). i am unemployed; i don’t send money home and manage what i have for my stay. but previously, i used to remit every month whenever i was paid my basic salary. why should i send money to someone when i am unemployed and unsettled? they know how generous i am, but they would have to pardon me for now. (interview no. 27, qatar, 4 june 2023). the interviews with the migrants in qatar also provided insights into the reasons for sending remittances back to ghana. remitting to pay school fees and educational support was a major theme in many interviews and is consistent with gyimahbrempong and asiedu’s (2015) study on remittances and education in ghana, which found a strong link between remittances and the formation of human capital. they note that international remittances significantly increase the probability that families will invest in the primary and high school education of children in ghana. as one migrant confirmed: i send money every month to my family, about 1,500 cedis, to support their education. if it means sending the last amount of money on me, i will do whatever it takes to give them a better education and dreams. my kids and wife are why i am working, and i must take good care of them. i even have this education i am talking about well-planned out as well. i have learned that ghana’s educational system doesn’t meet the desired standards, especially at the university level. i plan to enroll my children in vocational training after 167 they complete junior high school, like being a mechanic, mason, fixing air conditioners, etc., which would make them better than their mates. (interview no. 30, qatar, 8 june 2023). another respondent noted that the school fees of his younger sibling are nonnegotiable, regardless of his situation: i send money to my mom for upkeep and to care for my little brother, who is still in senior high school. i am not financially stable; i sometimes struggle to eat, especially when sending money. i still have to think about my family’s well-being, especially that of my little brother, who is still in school. it would go a long way to prevent him from indulging in certain practices to get money when he is not getting enough at home. (interview no. 26, qatar, june 6, 2023). additionally, most migrants in qatar confirmed that food security features largely in their reasons for remitting to translocal household members in ghana. for example: i send money to the family in ghana every month. i send 900 cedis purposely for their food. they use the money to buy foodstuffs, including rice, beans, yam, chicken, etc. rice is the most essential food in my household because of my kids. they like rice a lot. i want to give them a good life; it is my responsibility, and i fully embrace it. (interview no. 5, qatar, 31 may 2023). i ask my mother what they need at home at the end of every month. i tell my aunt, who owns a “provision shop” (mini grocery shop), to make the list of items such as milo, soups, cereals, soaps, rice, oil, cowbell coffee, and tomato pastes and package them and give them to my mother. so, she might package groceries of about ghc 300; then i will send her 800 ghc, and she takes her money and gives the rest to my parents. i give them about 500 ghc to my mother for their monthly upkeep and my son’s feeding fee. my child’s feeding fee is about 15 ghc a day plus her lunch of about 5 ghc. (interview no. 1, qatar, 31 may 2023). in some cases, remittances for food purchase supplement household income from other sources: my mother is not working, but my dad is a commercial driver, so sometimes he supports the family every month, too. he adds to the money and uses it to buy foodstuffs such as plantain, cassava, rice, vegetables, including garden eggs and other items on his way home after work. (interview no. 3, qatar, 31 may 2023). remittances, food security, and translocal households in the ghana-qatar migration corridor 168 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 a single mother noted that the food security of her family in ghana had improved since she migrated to qatar: life has been difficult, but things have improved since i came to qatar. i am able to send some little money to my family, which has, to some extent, paid their rent and supported household food purchases and consumptions and the family in general, though the salary is not much … all the money goes to essential household expenditures, such as sending money to feed my kids and paying the rent for them whenever it is due. (interview no. 1, qatar, 31 may 2023). another respondent noted a similar improvement in his ability to provide food for the family in ghana since migrating to qatar: at least, i have been earning some money to support and provide food for my wife and kids and even started a project, something i wasn’t able to do while in ghana. (interview no. 5, qatar, 31 may 2023). the capacity of migrants to remit on a regular basis is clearly key to sustainable household food security over time. if there are any delays or irregularities, the household must adjust its food consumption accordingly: i am able to send money back home to ghana once a month, but it sometimes delays when i am not paid. in that case, they have to adjust and find alternate ways to feed [people] at home until i am able to remit to them when i am paid. (interview no. 54, qatar, 17 june 2023). an additional use of remittances with longer-term food security implications is the investment of remittance income in small income-generating businesses in ghana. respondents stressed that these small businesses generate income for the household to manage the food situation at times when they have not been able to remit: i regularly send money to my mom and girlfriend in ghana at the end of every month for her food. also, i helped my mom reopen her collapsed bar to provide her with a source of income and food. you know, the job here is erratic, especially when you are on a free visa. besides, you can be sacked at any time. i carefully manage how i send money to ensure that i save and support my family without leaving myself stranded here. (interview no. 49, qatar, 15 june 2023). some respondents noted that helping the household set up a small business relieved them of the pressure of caring for their children and extended family members. as one noted: 169 i don’t send money to my family often. this is because my sister has her own business, which i helped to set up. she benefits and gets her income for food from the returns, so i don’t have to work to support household food consumption – helping her monthly as well as my son would put a huge burden on me. instead, i send my son 300 riyals (ghc 900) monthly. sometimes, when i don’t remit, my sister supports my son too, because she has the business. she takes money from me for food purchases and other household needs until i can remit to them. (interview no. 22, qatar, 4 june 2023). finally, there is the question of whether remitting to ghana impinges in any way on the food security of remitters in qatar. other studies have suggested that remitting can affect their own food security negatively, forcing them to adopt various coping strategies (crush and tawodzera, 2017). some respondents said they were able to remit by adjusting their own consumption, eating simply and cheaply in cafeterias and ghanaian restaurants. for example: sending them money doesn’t affect me here because i plan to keep some 100 riyals on me for a month, which i use for basic expenses here. still, even with that, i don’t use all the 100 riyals. i sometimes spend only 50 riyals in a month. after all, i don’t spend much here because i don’t buy any clothing, and with food, i rarely make orders. i just go to the restaurant and eat at the work cafeteria, even though i don’t like it at times (interview no. 48, qatar, 14 june 2023). more common were descriptions by migrants of depriving themselves of food to save money to remit: when i send the money home to my son and siblings, it also impacts me here, but i can’t complain; if i don’t do it, who will? i have to manage. it’s not like they are using the money to do anything for me, but for their consumption. if i want to eat what i want, i might need 500 riyals every month; but with my responsibilities, it is impossible. i must eat smaller and the same meals all the time. (interview no. 4, qatar, 31 may 2023). my family is always appreciative of the little financial support. i send them regularly every month when i am paid, which makes me happy. sometimes, sending money home puts me in a difficult situation here, especially when we are not paid early. i sometimes take foodstuffs such as rice from my friends and pay for or replace it when i am paid. (interview no. 51, qatar, 15 june 2023). remittances, food security, and translocal households in the ghana-qatar migration corridor 170 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 a single mother with three younger siblings explained that she had an enormous responsibility to her family in ghana, so she kept only 10% of her basic monthly salary for her own monotonous diet: remitting money to my family in ghana sometimes impacts what i eat. i don’t send all the money: sometimes, i leave about 150 qa (from my basic salary of 1,500) on me for upkeep and food, which is not enough, but i “manage” it all the time. i am eating the same kind of food all the time. for instance, i eat one way: rice with no variety all the time because i want to manage the money. (interview no. 1, qatar, 31 may 2023). a male respondent in his late twenties said that he ate beans all the time to cope with the financial pressure and burden that comes with assisting members of the translocal family: sending money impacted what i ate. honestly, it was beans and gari that i usually like to eat because, per my calculation, it would have been difficult and lost for me to eat other foods. someone owed me, so i relied on that to purchase food. (interview no. 16, qatar, 4 june 2023). to cut down on living costs in qatar and free up funds in order to remit, many migrants share the same rented housing space and kitchen with a degree of community living and solidarity. shared cooking also cuts down the cost of food. although some ghanaian migrants work for companies where food is provided, they prefer to join their colleagues to cook and eat as a group: in difficult times here in qatar, my brothers in this room often help me. even when we were all in the company and were provided food, we didn’t like it because it was difficult to eat and hence, though not allowed in the company building, we still prepared food as a group and eat. every member in the room contributed money that we used to buy foodstuff to prepare the meals. (interview no. 28, qatar, 7 june 2023). conclusion most studies of the relationship between migration and remittances focus on migrants who remit or households that receive. this study breaks with tradition by focusing on both ends of the ghana–qatar remittance corridor. in this paper, we juxtapose the results of a sample survey of remittance recipient households in ghana with the observations of ghanaian migrants working in qatar about their remitting motivations, practices, and challenges. the combination of quantitative and qualitative data in the two sites provides new insights into the importance of 171 remittance receipts for migrant-sending households in ghana and complementarity insights into the remitting patterns of ghanaian migrants in qatar. peth (2018, blog) argues that “translocality is a variety of enduring, open, and non-linear processes, which produce close interrelations between different places and people. these interrelations and various forms of exchange are created through migration flows and networks that are constantly questioned and reworked.” the priorities of remittance senders and the perspectives of remittance recipients indicate that this definition of translocality provides an appropriate conceptual framing for understanding the intimate material and emotive connections between migrants in qatar and households in ghana enabled by migrant remittances. at this stage, given the non-probabilistic nature of the sample in the two locations and the fact that the migrants interviewed are not necessarily from the same households as those surveyed, direct translocal linkages are indicative rather than definitive for future research on this migration and remittance corridor. in the introduction, we posed several questions about this relationship: first, how do recipient households use remittances, and do they improve the food security of those households? second, does the pressure or obligation to remit have negative food security consequences for migrants? based on the data collected, these questions can be answered in the affirmative. food purchase is a major use of remittances by the surveyed households in ghana, and this infusion of income from outside the country significantly enhances levels of food security and dietary diversity. however, migrant cash remittances not only alleviate household food insecurity but improve household welfare through food purchases, payment of children’s school fees, and enabling startup business opportunities. in qatar, if migrants are employed and earning income, they can balance the obligation to remit with their own food consumption needs. however, unemployment and income loss affect their ability to remit and their own food security situation negatively. as one translocal migrant observed: “i could have enjoyed much better food and lived comfortably, if it was all about me.” (interview no. 1, qatar, 31 may 2023). acknowledgments this study was funded by the social sciences and humanities research council of canada (sshrc) grant no. 895-2021-1004 to the migration and food security in the global south (mifood) network. remittances, food security, and translocal households in the ghana-qatar migration corridorv 172 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 references abadi, n., techane, a., tesfay, g., maxwell, d., and vaitla, b. 2018. the impact of remittances on household food security: a micro perspective from tigray, ethiopia. wider working paper no. 2018/40, united nations university. adams, j. 2011. evaluating the economic impact of international remittances on developing countries using household surveys: a literature review. journal of development studies, 47(6): 809–828. adjei-mantey, k., awuku, m. and kodom, r. 2023. revisiting the determinants of food security: does regular remittance inflow play a role in ghanaian households? 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the family histories method, we generated novel data that shows how family accounts transcend normative boundaries of familyhood and how they change in time and across place, which, we argue, are required to understand migrant families. we adopt a multi-sited and gendered approach to gather data from left-behind women in tsholotsho and migrant men in johannesburg. the findings show that the meaning of family for left-behind women has remained confined to the normative parameters of kinship, biological, and marital ties. in the past, with husbands and fathers who migrated, families invoked substitute authority in decision-making, where power was conferred onto other men, perpetuating patriarchal dominance and gender inequality. furthermore, the findings reveal that in the past, while away, migrant men’s familylinking practices were very minimal, limited by distance. for migrant men, migration invoked a reconceptualization of family that differs from the normative assumptions of family composition. these assumptions notwithstanding, migrant men still thrived on maintaining links with their families to retain their dignity and legitimacy. keywords: families, migration, gender, tsholotsho, johannesburg 1 university of the witwatersrand, south africa. corresponding author.  gracsious.ncube@nust.ac.zw 2 university of the witwatersrand, south africa. 103 introduction in southern africa, human mobility within and between countries has a long history (yabiku et al., 2010; posel and marx, 2013). this mobility has been crucial in shaping the socioeconomic order of the region (musoni, 2020). while governments in the region have attempted to control migration between countries, it continues to be a vicious cycle driven by deteriorating economic conditions in some countries leading to the search for better livelihoods by new generations of migrant families in relatively better-off countries in the region (potts and mutambirwa, 1990; ncube et al., 2014; zack et al., 2019). through family histories, this paper explores how mobility actively shapes familyhood in zimbabwean migrant families as they construct familyhood between johannesburg and tsholotsho. we use gender, space, and time as parameters of analysis. by appealing to respondents' memory, this paper explores what evolving relationships have shaped their familyhood in three generations of migrants and whether new forms of familyhood emerge as members move. if so, we inquire whether new practices conflict with or replace forms of familyhood. are these new “families” hidden from the more normative ones? do they supplement or enrich the earlier structures? this paper shows how time, space, and gender in the context of mobility shape the experiences of familyhood for both left-behind women and migrant men. through the current lens of transnationalism, this paper explores the different ways that migration has shaped families over time, revealing different nuances of relatedness and familyhood. the time approach through generations of migrants reveals the realities of the disconnect between families in the past and the connections in the current transnational social space of family life. the next section presents background literature on experiences of familyhood and the conceptualization of familyhood in southern africa. the subsequent sections explain the methods used, provide a brief description of the respondents, and present and discuss the study's key results; this is followed by the conclusions. literature review experiences of mobility and familyhood in southern africa throughout the history of migration in southern africa, mobility has actively shaped the experiences of familyhood. during the colonial era, men moved from their rural homes to urban areas searching for wage employment (potts and mutambirwa, 1990). for example, in rhodesia (now zimbabwe), the colonial regime favored the contractual employment of single (male) migrants in cities, yet it prevented them from permanent settlement (potts and mutambirwa, 1990). the colonial government promoted institutionalized division of families by restricting the mobility of other population groups, especially women and children, to protect settler minority interests (mlambo, 2010). this labor system forcibly divided families through influx control (potts and mutambirwa, 1990), leading to social strain on familial relationships. mobility, gender, and experiences of familyhood among migrant families in zimbabwe 104 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 the system of migrant labor in southern africa took many forms. these included the institutionalized and regulated contract labor system servicing the mines in the 1800s and the informal, clandestine – often undocumented – irregular migration between countries (mlambo, 2010). as people moved within the region, the most popular destinations were south africa and zimbabwe. on the one hand, south africa received migrants from neighboring countries like malawi, mozambique, and lesotho, under the administrative arrangements between the then rhodesian government and the witwatersrand native labour association (wnla) of 1974. in this arrangement, younger men were preferred for contracts in the mining industry, while no contracts were available for women (murray, 1981). on the other hand, rhodesia’s booming manufacturing and mining industry made the country a net importer of labor. the labor recruitment agency known as the rhodesia native labour bureau (rnlb) supplied approximately 13,000 workers a year to the different industries in the country (wilson, 1976; mlambo, 2010). the workers were recruited from nyasaland (now malawi), northern rhodesia (now zambia), and mozambique (scott, 1954). just like in the case of the mining industry in south africa, the labor system in rhodesia also preferred men while women remained in the communal lands (potts and mutambirwa, 1990). during the post-independence era, most governments in the southern african development community (sadc) inherited functional and booming economies within which migration continued. despite the independence, the colonial migration systems in the region left indelible marks that continued to shape the form of mobility in the sadc (delius, 2017), for example, uneven spatial development in rural and urban areas (takyi, 2011). resultantly, after independence, this spatial differentiation of development initiatives fueled rural-urban migration in most countries in the region (munzwa and wellington, 2010). in post-independence zimbabwe, when mobility restrictions were lifted and the black majority gained the “right to the city,” rural-urban migration increased due to the shift toward family migration and independent migration of women in search of employment in the urban centers where economic activities were concentrated (potts and mutambirwa, 1990; potts, 2010). although the internal migrant labor system became family-friendly, some women had to return to the communal areas during farming to till the family land. in this way, migrant families maximized economic security by protecting their rights to land while maintaining wage employment in the city (potts and mutambirwa, 1990). although there was a sense of family unification, families remained significantly divided as some men did not have enough accommodation for their families in the cities (potts and mutambirwa, 1990). although countries like zimbabwe, zambia, and lesotho inherited prosperous economies after independence, a few years later, they experienced a long spiral of economic decline (murray, 1981; platteau, 2009; mlambo, 2010; kwenda and ntuli, 2014; adekoye and kondlo, 2020). the deteriorating economic performance and the reduction in agricultural productivity in most countries perpetuated internal and 105 external mobility (maviza, 2020). this resulted in changes in household livelihood strategies as families shifted from primary familial subsistence systems to capitalist production systems that reinforced a growing dependence on wage employment (crush and frayne, 2010). from murray’s (1981) work on the impacts of labor migration on families in lesotho (and, by inference, on other marginal areas within southern africa) and other similar works in the region, for example, zimbabwe (crush and tevera, 2010), namibia (hishongwa, 1992), and mozambique (yabiku et al., 2010), it is evident that migration typically divided families (murray, 1981; potts and mutambirwa, 1990), yet is not clear how these movements have shaped familyhood in migrant families. in the contemporary landscape, mobility continues to divide families. however, the effects are not as pronounced as in historical times due to improved technologies of connection that traverse geographic boundaries (collyer and king, 2012). technological developments have led to transnational migration, defined as “a process of movement and settlement across international borders in which individuals maintain or build multiple networks of connection to their country of origin while at the same time settling in a new country” (fouron and schiller, 2001: 60). this is unlike in the past, where migrants’ contact with their families was very irregular and nominal because migrants were uprooted from their families and integrated into the host countries with limited means to facilitate links with families back home (maviza, 2020). although there was some form of bidirectional mobility then, it cannot compare to the contemporary simultaneous embeddedness of migrant members enabled by the modern-day structuring of the world economy and the technological advancements in transport and communication. these have allowed migrants to remain virtually present in their families despite physical absence (helmsing, 2003). the transnational approach that focuses on the fluidity of social life and relationships facilitated by technology, has various strands of theorization. first used in the 1990s and pioneered by schiller et al. (1992) and basch et al. (1994), the latter define transnational migration as: the processes by which immigrants build social fields that link together their country of origin and their country of settlement. immigrants who build such social fields are designated [“transnational migrants”] … [who] develop and maintain multiple relations—familial, economic, social, organizational, religious, and political that span borders. [transnational migrants] take actions, make decisions, feel concerns, and develop identities within social networks that connect them to two or more societies simultaneously (basch et al., 1994: 1–2). vertovec (1999: 447) defines transnational migration as the “multiple ties and interactions linking people or institutions across the borders of nation-states.” thus, transnationalism creates notable degrees of interconnectedness between people, mobility, gender, and experiences of familyhood among migrant families in zimbabwe 106 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 communities, and societies straddling across borders and fostering changes in the socio-cultural, economic, and political landscapes of both migrant-sending and receiving societies (iom, 2010). within these linkages, transnational migrants can maintain, build, and reinforce relations with their families in their countries of origin (schiller et al., 1992; dunn, 2005). the simultaneous embeddedness of migrants allows them and their descendants to participate in familial, socioeconomic, religious, political, and cultural processes that transcend borders (schiller et al., 1992; basch et al., 1994; portes et al., 1999; levitt and jaworsky, 2007). this simultaneous embeddedness affords transnational migrants novel ways of being and belonging to their families (levitt and schiller, 2004). family dimensions emerge as a critical component of the resultant relationships and practices of migrants as they maintain multiple attachments across nationstates. within these transnational social spaces, families have transformed, and migrants have adapted to new forms of being family that include care arrangements (mcgregor, 2010; kufakurinani et al., 2014) that in migration scholarship are referred to as transnational parenting (carling et al., 2012; kufakurinani et al., 2014). thus, transnational social spaces facilitate their virtual presence, allowing them to continue to participate in family activities and their parenting role (bryceson and vuorela, 2002). transnational family life emerges as a form of transnational social space with continued participation in family life by family members who are situated remotely. this leads to new family formations known as transnational families (bryceson and vuorela, 2002: 3), ones that render geographical distance less of a barrier to movement and involvement (faist, 2006; pries, 2006). during both the historical migration and currently, the transnational migration era, family structures and experiences of familyhood changed due to mobility and social change processes, not only in terms of the way in which family life is sustained by its members but also in terms of its structure. in lesotho and other countries of the region, murray (1980) highlights a notable move toward the nucleation of families. although family organization and structure were fundamentally altered by mobility and by the fact that males played minor social roles, the extended family remained a valued safety net, and familial reference remained patrilineal (atmore, 1982). in south africa, for example, studies sought to establish whether left-behind families viewed migrants as members of their families or not (posel and marx, 2013). for most of these, results show that absent members expressed their membership and belonging through continued contribution to the maintenance and well-being of the left-behind family (murray, 1980). this is a common thread in most of the studies done in the region. adding to the existing knowledge on migration and families in the region, this paper focuses on practices of familyhood across three generations of migrants. it adopts a generational perspective within historical migrant families, and applies a gender perspective that combines the viewpoints of men as those who move and of women as those left behind. in most instances, women initially move when they leave 107 their natal families to join their marital families. they have recently become active players in cross-border migration (thebe and maviza, 2019). on the other hand, men have always been the ones moving across borders, making them more prominent as migrants. the following section offers a conceptualization of familyhood in africa. a conceptualization of family and familyhood in africa in africa, a family normatively refers to a social organization where people are related by blood, marriage, or adoption (haralambos and holborn, 1995; nyoni and dodo, 2016). conceptions of african families are expansive, flexible, and accommodative of the extended members (nyoni and dodo, 2016). notwithstanding these conceptions, belonging to a family is affirmed by public endorsements through ritualistic practices such as marriage (nyathi, 2005). within families, familyhood is depicted, practiced, and experienced through cooperative unions, resource sharing and reciprocal exchanges of care and support. familyhood is further denoted by unity, closeness, oneness, and morality among members, demonstrated by the closely knit relations where everyone is a sister, brother, father, or mother, among others (nyoni and dodo, 2016). through care, new members begin to be integrated as part of families. within these systems of organization, descent follows the patrilineal line, which emphasizes tracing relationships from the senior male’s side (gwakwa, 2014; strassmann and kurapati, 2016). as such, when a woman marries, she is subsumed into her husband’s kin group (lowes, 2020). there is also an emphasis on patrilocality, where women move to their husband's kin after marriage (scelza, 2011; ji et al., 2014; hirschman, 2017). familyhood is also shaped by polygyny, where a man is allowed to marry more than one wife (gwirayi, 2017; muchabaiwa, 2017). in zimbabwe, although polygyny is common, it is prohibited under civil law and only allowed under customary law (gwirayi, 2017). among the ndebele, although a man is customarily allowed to have multiple wives, he cannot do so without the permission of the first wife (ndlovu et al., 1995; nyathi, 2005). furthermore, familyhood in the region is shaped by kinship organization that emphasizes the ideals of reciprocity and collective effort among members. these can be through caregiving arrangements that bind family members in a web of reciprocal obligations, love, and trust, as well as tensions and relations of unequal power (baldassar and merla, 2014; vanotti, 2014). these caregiving and kin-keeping practices demonstrate the diverse factors that shape familyhood – reciprocal, multidirectional, and asymmetrical care exchanges. this blurs the boundaries between nuclear and extended families, as the essence of who counts as family is shaped by various socioeconomic factors. for example, murray (1980), writing on migrant labor in lesotho, proffers that there is no point in emphasizing the nuclear delineation of the family as the basis of familial conceptualization in southern africa. he argues that many husbands and wives live apart due to mobility, and grandparents raise many children because their parents are migrants. mobility, gender, and experiences of familyhood among migrant families in zimbabwe 108 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 reflections on family history as a method understanding the experiences of familyhood in the context of mobility needs suitable methodological approaches that address the spatial, time, generational, and gender dimensions, including those who have moved and those left behind. the family history method – a biographical research approach based on individuals’ narratives – seems suitable to assess the changes and historical continuities in family structures, lives, and organizations due to migration and transnationalism. therefore, what the respondents give in family histories is neither history nor biography but an account of many histories emanating from intersections of different families and experiences interlinked to form one family through the eyes of the history teller (nelson and fivush, 2020). family histories reveal that family life is not a linear account of systematic lived realities but rather a complex web of social relations punctuated by transitions in time and space (lazar, 2011). the approach emphasizes the individual as a conduit and source of information in a complex network of familial associations that change over time (miller, 1999). this approach reconstructs situational realities based on narratives whose standpoints or points of view are fluid and actively shaped by continuing contextual transformations and developments (miller, 1999). although this perspective has been criticized and questions raised on the adequacy, authenticity, and epistemological validity of the reality presented (roberts, 2002), its usefulness has not been discredited. as such, memories are constructed in hindsight and manifested as narrative accounts – a critical form of human consciousness – of both the current and past individual and collective family experiences and identities (phoenix and brannen, 2014; nelson and fivush, 2020). family history addresses the paucity of methods that trace intergenerational processes within migrant families and simultaneously allows for the open concept of family. it enables researchers to explore the role of memory and narrative in understanding familyhood among migrant communities and how members appeal to their memories to create coherent narratives of self and their families (lazar, 2011; nelson and fivush, 2020). methods this is a qualitative study3 that comprised multi-sited fieldwork to gain insights into transnational families’ lived realities and to avoid methodological nationalism (wimmer and schiller, 2003). this methodological design responds to the reality of the simultaneous embeddedness of family members in transnational settings. it adapts, in methodological terms, to the dynamics of migration and transnationalism. in the next subsection we present the study area, population, sampling, and data collection methods. 3 this paper is based on the first author’s phd study on transnational migration and families, that sought to understand the changes and continuities associated with transnational migration as experienced by families in tsholotsho, zimbabwe. 109 study area the researchers conducted fieldwork in tsholotsho (zimbabwe) and johannesburg (south africa) over six months. tsholotsho is a rural district in the matabeleland north province of zimbabwe, characterized by poor rainfall patterns and adverse economic conditions (maphosa, 2012; maviza, 2020). in response to these challenges, the district has significant outbound migration, especially to south africa, as a coping strategy to secure family livelihoods. although current migration trends depict that women are now active players in migration, in tsholotsho, most of the women aged 50 and above constitute a significant percentage of those left behind. at the same time, men have been migrants for years (thebe and maviza, 2019; maviza, 2020). johannesburg has become known as a gateway to south africa and a transitional city (moyo, 2017). this is mainly attributed to the fact that most migrants transit through johannesburg to other south african provinces (kihato, 2013). it has been the destination of choice for zimbabwean migrants for a long time. study population and sampling in tsholotsho district, the researchers conducted the study in villages 2 and 5 of ward 19. it targeted families with migrant members in johannesburg who communicated and visited regularly. in johannesburg, the study did not focus on any specific locations and it targeted only migrants who fulfilled the characteristics of transnational migrants. in tsholotsho, the researcher selected migrant families using purposive snowball sampling. the village head made the initial referrals to some of the families who had emigrant members residing in south africa. from the referrals, the researchers selected respondents through filter questions that defined the parameters of a transnational family, i.e., whether the emigrant members were in constant communication and visited them regularly. in the qualifying families, the researchers targeted household heads. in the absence of the head, the research team targeted members over 18 years of age who were willing to participate. those interviewed referred the researchers to other migrant families. all the respondents in tsholotsho were women. the process was repeated until thematic saturation was reached at respondent number 10. in johannesburg, the researchers similarly used purposive snowball sampling to identify migrants originally from tsholotsho. the initial referrals were from burial society leaders who referred the researchers to some transnational migrants from tsholotsho. the migrants also had to meet the qualifying criteria, viz., having families in tsholotsho, zimbabwe, residing in johannesburg, and being in constant communication with and regularly visiting their families in tsholotsho. only those who satisfied these criteria were selected to be part of the sample as they met the defining characteristics of a transnational migrant. those interviewed referred the researchers to other migrants from tsholotsho living in johannesburg. the transnational migrants in johannesburg were both men and women who grew up in mobility, gender, and experiences of familyhood among migrant families in zimbabwe 110 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 tsholotsho in families with migrant fathers. later, as adults, they became migrants and were in regular contact with their families back home. the process was repeated until respondent number 10. thus, the research team reached 20 respondents – 10 each in tsholotsho and in johannesburg. from the 20 families interviewed, the researchers selected 10 for further inquiry on the history of migration in their families (five from each site). in johannesburg, family history respondents were men only, as they were available and ready to participate further in the research. while women were also part of the transnational migrants’ group, those invited to continue into family histories excused themselves from sharing their family histories due to domestic and childcare-related chores they had to perform at home. on the contrary, men had wives or partners taking care of their homes and had more free time to participate in this study. therefore, we could not gain insight into women’s experiences as migrants. this aspect is worthy of further exploration. the study did not aim for a representative sample or seek to generalize the findings to the rest of matabeleland and zimbabwean migrants in johannesburg. rather, it aimed for an in-depth understanding of the changes and continuities that had occurred within families in the context of long-standing migration. data collection methods the research team conducted in-depth interviews with the 20 participating families, and further engaged 10 of the 20 families in gathering their family histories through in-depth interviews. the respondents did not belong to the same families. the researchers made this decision based on the need to maintain confidentiality within families. it aligns with the approach taken in this study, where family histories are gathered through the perspective of those who account for them. although this affected what we could gather about the families and that we could not know the extent to which members’ views in origin and destination countries differed, it did not interfere with gathering family histories based on individual accounts. instead, our approach allowed for free discussion of sensitive issues that respondents may not have wished to expose to their families. researcher positionality the first author comes from tsholotsho and spent a significant part of her life living there and had also done some observations during fieldwork. she was able to deal with some idealized scenarios where respondents may have misrepresented the reality on the ground. among transnational migrants in johannesburg, the first author enjoyed the privilege of an insider, being a person from tsholotsho and also a zimbabwean immigrant researching other zimbabwean immigrants in south africa. however, the migrant community did not regard her as one of their own, as belonging and sharing in their struggles as migrants in south africa. rather, her professional position as a 111 researcher put her in the position of an outsider. to deal with this sensitized position, she depended on personal networks and connections to gain access to the migrant community in south africa. findings and discussion family life and familyhood in the context of mobility the family history offers rich insights into the dynamics of family life where migration has been normalized and embraced as the norm. these insights provide a privileged look at the experiences of familyhood within processes of social change. the personal reflections highlight the creative means and ways through which families deal with the negative legacy of the migrant labor system, which drove many african men and women to settle outside their communities and countries of origin. the meaning of family from the findings, it is evident that mobility has, over time, altered the organization, structure, and meaning of families in tsholotsho. when the research team asked respondents what family meant to them, their responses highlighted a farencompassing definition of family that embraced biological and social relations. accounts from the left-behind women had overlaps of their maiden/natal families and the families they were married into. masiwela4 is a grandmother in her mid-50s and wife to a migrant. she is a subsistence farmer living with her grandchildren. she has five grown-up children, all girls. very outspoken and confident, masiwela offered the following narration when responding to the question on what family meant to her, both as a child and in her current circumstances: i remember ngikhula emzini kababamkhulu (growing up in my grandfather’s homestead), a big homestead where all his children lived. our grandmothers, our parents and us, the grandchildren, all lived there. we would always visit my mother’s parents, and impilo yayimnandi (life was good); that was my family then; it was a big, big family. looking at it now, my family has sort of shrunk, although similar to then, the intimacy and closeness of relationships are no longer there. it is more like the immediate family matters most; all our extended family members are there but somehow distant. similarly, mandebele, a 63-year-old grandmother currently living in tsholotsho with her husband and hired helpers, has five highly accomplished children scattered worldwide – to use her own words. for her, her family is: mntanomntanami, kimi imuli nguye wonke umuntu olegazi lami, lawowonke umuntu oyisihlobo sikababa, ngitsho umkami (everyone who shares the 4 the research team assigned pseudonyms to participants. mobility, gender, and experiences of familyhood among migrant families in zimbabwe 112 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 same blood as me and everyone related to my husband). yikho lokhu engakufundiswayo ngikhula, lanxa izinto sezatshintsha, mina ngilokhe ngibona imuli yami kuyibo laba (this is what i was taught growing up; although things have changed a lot […] i still view my family as all these). masiwela’s and mandebele’s accounts were typical of the responses by other participants, who also defined family starting from their natal families and intricately transitioning into the families they married into. although this hybridity could not be directly linked to migration, it adds a critical dimension to how these women actively shape the conceptualization of familyhood. it reveals untold frictions in constructing women’s identity and belonging within complex social relations. women maintain belonging to their natal families while embracing the new families created through marriage. they create familyhood in the face of their mobility based on the principles of patrilineal locality. as with women’s making of familyhood across lineages and space, families are contextual, fluid, subjective, and imbued with symbolic meaning and lived realities of the individual involved (trask, 2009; gwenzi, 2020). as for the migrant men, most gave a wide-reaching and all-encompassing definition. for example, mr nyathi, a 60-year-old migrant whose wife is in tsholotsho, explained: imuli igoqela abazali bami, abafowethu, obafowabo babazali bami labobabamkhulu labogogo kunhlangothi zombili, kubaba lakumama kanye labazali labafowabo bakankosikazi (family includes my biological parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles, grandparents from my father’s and mother’s sides and my wife’s parents and siblings). but again, when you travel too far from home, you meet new people, and they become friends that eventually become family. sometimes we also cohabit with women to keep us company, and that person automatically becomes family. so, my small house and some friends become family because they are the people i live with and interact with daily while away from home. (interview, johannesburg, 2017). the mention of “small houses” demonstrates the regular cohabitation or masihlalisane practices by migrant men who set up new romantic relationships away from home. these are semi-permanent sexual relationships usually formed among migrants or between migrants and locals (maphosa, 2012). this led to “cross-border concurrent multiple sexual partnerships” for married men. for some, these relationships were eventually formalized into marriage through payment of lobola. writing on a similar practice by mozambican immigrant men in south africa, lubkemann (2002) uses the phrase ‘transnationalised polygamy’ to refer to these sexual relationships that the men develop in south africa while their wives are back home. as a result, 113 the family back in tsholotsho may be compromised, as the man’s attention and resources are diverted to the new living arrangement sustained in johannesburg. transnationalism also enables other unsanctioned forms of families to coexist with conventional family formations. newman, a young transmigrant residing with his wife and children in johannesburg while his mother was in tsholotsho, put it this way: i used to think that family was only about blood ties, about my people back home. kodwa ngemva kokubuya egoli ngafunda ukuthi imuli iyahamba idlule kuzihlobo zegazi, abantu engikhonza labo labo bayimuli kimi (but coming to south africa has taught me that over and above my blood relatives, the people i go to church with are also my family). laba yibo abantu engilobudlelwano obuseduze kakhulu labo, kwesinye isikhathi ukwedlula abegazi (these are the people i have close relations with, some of whom are even closer than some of my blood relatives). (interview, johannesburg, 2017). mr ndiweni, a migrant in johannesburg for over 30 years, narrated how he was lonely when he got to johannesburg, which had very few people from zimbabwe at the time. he recounted how he made friends with some migrant men from elsewhere and they became very close. to him, those men became his family because they were the ones who knew whether he slept warmly, had food to eat, or had medical care if he was sick. this demonstrates how, within these relationships, the care element is central to shaping familyhood. mr ndlela, one of the immigrants who had been in south africa for over 40 years, expressed himself thus: ngemva kokusuka kwami etsholotsho ngisiya egoli, ngananzelela ukuthi abakibo kamama bayingxenye eqakathekileyo kakhulu eyempilo yami. lanxa silezibongo ezehlukeneyo, labo bayingxenye yempilo yami (after the experience of moving from tsholotsho to johannesburg, i realized that my maternal relatives were also a significant part of my life; they are my family. although i may not have the same surname, they are also a part of my family). in defining their families, migrants, like the left-behind women, emphasized relations on both their paternal and maternal sides. their narrations depart from the normative conception of families that emphasizes blood and marital ties based on their experiences of the family as children living with their kin. their accounts then transition into their adulthood, where the definition broadens to include people outside of their kinship system, for example, friends and neighbors in the host country. notably, new practices of familyhood emerge as men move away from their homes. for both the migrant men and the left-behind women, their family accounts are influenced by experiences of mobility, being removed from familiar environments and people, and exposure to new places and people. mobility, gender, and experiences of familyhood among migrant families in zimbabwe 114 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 in the past, migrants were entirely removed from their families and could not participate in family life until they returned (maviza, 2020). while away, their belonging to a family was maintained when other male family members became de facto heads. this practice ensured the reproduction and safeguarding of authority for the absent men. although disguised as care for the left-behind women, it perpetuated patriarchal dominance and control over women and children through other men in the family. this is unlike transnationalism, where family life is transacted in transnational social spaces (pries, 2001; maviza, 2020). within these transnational social spaces, care manifests through remittances, visits, and regular communication with the absent husband. although this emancipates the woman from patriarchal dominance as she is now liberated from de facto headship by men other than her husband, the migrant man still has the final say as the woman makes decisions in consultation with the husband. in the past, as migrants moved, their absence greatly affected family life, organization, family structures, and, importantly, their practices of relating to one another. in their narratives, migrants emphasized how they strive to keep in touch with those left behind, unlike their fathers, who could not link with their families due to several restrictions. this may signify a strong effect of their upbringing – their lived experiences with absent fathers, and hence the desire to right the wrongs they lived through while their fathers were migrants. for left-behind women, family histories reveal the family-making processes through marriage. at the same time, the migrant men, on the other hand, demonstrate how mobility pushes those who move to forge new relationships. njwambe et al. (2019) record similar findings, noting that migrants develop social networks made of new links and connections to cope with social isolation. therefore, the care aspect of the new relationships transforms them into familial bonds. the new relationships fill the gap created by separation from their families left behind, while aiding integration into a new community, in the process reconfiguring familyhood and the meaning of family. these findings are in sync with gwenzi’s (2020) study, that proffers that significant scholarship now acknowledges non-biological conceptualizations of a family rooted in connectivity, co-residence, and affective practices, among others. it is noteworthy, in the context of mobility, that space and frequency of contact, interaction, and care exchanges between family members have shaped gender relations and familyhood within the family. for left-behind women, mobility shapes their experiences of familyhood through sanctioned and normative ways of either biological affinities or marital ties legitimated through ritual performances. yet, for migrant men, the notion of familyhood includes the normative forms of who belongs (biological and marital relations) and non-familial relationships that are neither sanctioned nor confirmed back home through blood or marital ties or ritual performances. instead, migrant men created new and sometimes hidden families in south africa. beyond friends who became family, there were other hidden relationships where married migrant men cohabited with women in south africa 115 and created families that conflicted with the normative and legitimized families back home. this is conflicted, in that there was no consent from the first wife back home as per customary expectations (ndlovu et al., 1995; nyathi, 2005). the new relationships, however, did not replace older familial links but supplemented them because migrant men still maintained relations with their family members back home. i. gender and decision-making power gender and space emerge as part of the major dimensions that shape familyhood in the context of mobility. from the narrations, when the respondents were still children and their fathers migrated, decisions on capital goods directly bearing authority, rights, and power were delegated to other male members of the extended family. manyathi’s account evidences this dynamic. she is a widow and grandmother living with her grandchildren and hired workers. her husband had been a migrant since they married over 50 years ago, and he died as a migrant. with a somber face, she recounted her life as a young married wife who only saw her husband after every three years. her tales of a young life devoid of sexual pleasure and the beauty of companionship provoked sad memories. she had lived with her in-laws all her life. now a widow, she recounted how, in the past, the extended family had so much control over the family’s affairs, with paternal uncles and grandfathers wielding decision-making power over the left-behind wives and children in the absence of migrant husbands and fathers. masibanda’s case is similar. she is a 60-year-old widowed grandmother whose father was a migrant. she was also married to a migrant who visited every three to four years. her husband returned home after retirement, and they lived together for 10 years before he died. she currently lives with her grandchildren, and all her children are now migrants. she recounts: ngathi ngisiyakwenda, ubabazala wami wayevele esesegoli. umama lomamazala babethembele kuboyisezala ekwenziweni kwezinqumo emzini yabo ngoba yibo ababelelungelo lokwenza lokho njengamadoda. omama babelandela lokho okunqunyiweyo kuthi obaba egoli baziswe ngalesosinqumo mhlazana babuyayo ekhaya bezovakatsha (when i got married, my father-in-law was also a migrant. my mother and my mother-in-law depended on their fathersin-law as they had the final say [on making decisions]. they both complied with what was decided, and the emigrants would be informed later when they eventually visited). mr nyathi expressed similar sentiments, highlighting the role of patriarchy in families: mobility, gender, and experiences of familyhood among migrant families in zimbabwe 116 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 our paternal uncles and grandfather helped when there were discipline challenges with the children or assisted in the fields during the plowing season and helped when there were major decisions to be made while our father was away. (interview, johannesburg, 2017). newman’s narration demonstrates the gendered roles within families. it reflects the patriarchal nature of family organization where men make decisions: izinqumo eziphathelane lezomhlabathi lezifuyo zikhangelwa njengngomlandu wabobaba. ngakho nxa ubaba wayengekho, umama wayethemba ubabamkhulu ukuthi amenzele izinqumo lezo (decisions regarding land and livestock are always considered men’s responsibility. so, when our father was away, our mother relied on our grandfather and uncles to make such decisions for her). (interview, tsholotsho, 2017). furthermore, mr ndlela explained: you see, back then, things were different. the extended family had so much control over the affairs of the family. unlike now, when these young wives stay in their homesteads and make decisions with their husbands over the phone. (interview, tsholotsho, 2017). the preceding accounts show that historically, when husbands and fathers migrated, leaving their wives and children behind, a power vacuum was created. when this happened, families devised ways to fill it by activating the inherent provisions of kinship systems. according to yabiku et al. (2010), the indefinite absence of the husband or the father was offset by the reorganization and reconfiguration of familial relations and power and authority, which resulted in the practice of substitute authority. this entailed other men or the mother-in-law exercising authority and decision-making power over the left-behind wife and children. although some studies have indicated that the husband’s migration resulted in autonomy for the leftbehind wives (abadan-unat, 1977), findings from historical migration experiences in tsholotsho indicate otherwise. rather, they portray a reinforcement of patriarchal dominance where gender inequalities within families are deeply entrenched. moreover, historically, patriarchal dominance was compounded by residence patterns. historically, in tsholotsho, families lived in one big homestead; and usually, wives were left living with in-laws. this lack of residential independence meant the left-behind wives were assimilated into the patriarchal system of the bigger family (abadan-unat, 1977; yabiku et al., 2010). it reinforced gender inequalities, as power remained with men and women remained perpetually subordinated. although this was the case, the women then did not have any challenges with the arrangements as this was the norm they were socialized into. 117 ii. migrants’ linking practices for most respondents, in the past, it was difficult for migrants to maintain regular contact with their families due to the challenges presented by distance. the findings show that most migrants made efforts to communicate with their families back in tsholotsho, through letters. the letters took a long time to reach the intended recipients. furthermore, it emerged that typically, migrants only visited their families after a minimum of two years’ absence. these limitations had an impact on the migrants’ ability to remit, visit, and communicate with their families. reflecting on their childhood, most respondents recounted experiences of prolonged separation from their fathers, with minimal to no links during their absence. mandebele narrated it this way: ngesikhathi sikabab wami, kwakunzima ukuba ngumuntu wezizweni. ephenduka okwakuqala, wasilandisela ngokubotshwa kwakhe lokuhlala kwakhe iminyaka emibili ejele. esekhululiwe, wadinga umsebenzi ukuze laye abuye ekhaya ephethe okuncane. wayesitshela ukuthi babehamba ngenyawo lesitimela besuka egoli bezovakatsha ekhaya (during my father’s time, it was challenging to be a migrant. when he returned, he narrated how he was arrested and spent two years in prison. after his release, he had to get a job to go home with something. he told us that they traveled on foot and by train when visiting). (interview, tsholotsho, 2017). for mankiwane, she only got to know her father when she was five. she reminisced on how life was before, when she was a child and her father was a migrant: when i was a child, my father left us with our mother and the extended family, and he used to communicate occasionally through letters sent via postal services. these took time to reach us. (interview, tsholotsho, 2017). similarly, mr ndiweni reflected on his childhood experiences when his father was a migrant and recalled his father’s stories of his migration venture: our fathers sacrificed their families in trying to fend for their families. my father traveled on foot to south africa, and when he got there, he would stay for a minimum of two years without visiting. if ever he communicated, it would be through a letter that would take more than two months to get to my mother. (interview, johannesburg, 2017). although left-behind members battled daily with anxiety that their family member could be dead, the hope for reunification someday kept the families going: mobility, gender, and experiences of familyhood among migrant families in zimbabwe 118 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 engakabuyi ekhaya ukuzovakatsha, sasisizwa ngaboyise babanye ababevakatsha ukuthi uyaphila […] sasihlalela ethembeni ukuthi ngelinye ilanga laye uzabuya njengaboyise babanye (before he came back, we would only hear from other people’s fathers who visited that he was fine […] we just kept waiting in anticipation that one day, like others’ fathers, he would also come [home]. (interview, masiwela, tsholotsho, 2017). from the preceding accounts, it is evident that when fathers and husbands migrated in the past, they were totally uprooted from their families and only managed to link up occasionally through letters and when they eventually visited or returned. the linking mechanisms available to them were very slow and ineffective. this demonstrates the difficulties migrant men endured in trying to be part of the transactions that make up family life. njwambe et al. (2019), writing on mozambican migrant men and the autonomy of left-behind women, indicate that, in such scenarios, the drive to maintain links with home and attempts to maintain social relations with those left behind was a reflection of the desire to belong. some scholars also indicate that keeping links with families was the only way a migrant man could evade social death (kankonde, 2010), thereby retaining and asserting his dignity and authority (njwambe et al., 2019). moreover, enduring the challenges was evidence of the breadwinning burden that migrant men carried while away. they could not risk returning home empty-handed, as this would have been a sign of failure (abadanunat, 1977; donaldson and howson, 2009). this emanates from the gendered divisions of labor within families where the masculine roles placed the burden of material provision on men, which motivated them to migrate (abadan-unat, 1977). finally, their linking practices went beyond framing who is family to demonstrate how families are made by the everyday relationships that characterize a family. importantly, this is in direct contrast to the current transnational landscape where migrants’ lives are characterized by embeddedness and simultaneity – migrants’ acts of actively living their lives “here and there” in both the sending and host countries (vertovec, 1999). they maintain strong socio-cultural, political, and economic ties or relationships with their homeland while physically away (khagram and levitt, 2008; faist et al., 2013). technological developments have allowed migrants to engage in transnational family life, maintain contact with their families through regular communication, visits, and remittances. through simultaneity, migrants can also participate in family rituals, whether in person or virtually, as one of the ways to enact familyhood and affirm belonging. thus, in transnational migration, familyhood is negotiated in transnational social spaces through several socio-cultural and economic activities facilitated by space-shrinking technologies, regardless of the separation of members by distance, dispersal, and translocality (yeoh et al., 2005; vanotti, 2014). 119 conclusion this paper concludes that, during historical migration, gender, space, and time actively shaped familyhood in migrant families, which is our contribution to the study domain of families in the context of mobility. through the current lens of transnationalism, this paper explored the different ways that migration has shaped families over time, revealing different nuances of relatedness and familyhood. the time approach through generations of migrants reveals the realities of the disconnect between families during the pre-transnationalism epoch. historically, the migration of men, with minimal to no linking practices, dramatically changed the traditional family structures and organization leading to other men taking responsibility in place of those who migrated and migrant men setting up new relationships in the host country. this profoundly influenced the normative views on who and what is family, leading to the acceptance of new ways of doing and being family. it is evident that migration pushed male members’ horizons and exposed them to new dimensions that provoked them to rethink the conceptualization of families outside the normative assumptions of what is already known and to enact these new formations through bonding and relating in familial terms outside of the traditional family formation. for the left-behind women, the definition of family remained confined to the normative boundaries framing families, which emphasize kinship, biological and marital relations. regarding gender and power dynamics within families, we conclude that although migration removed men from their families, gendered relations did not evolve toward gender equality. instead, migration perpetuated patriarchal dominance by invoking substitute authority through the extended family system. although faced with challenges, the desire to fulfill familial obligations and avoid being labeled a failure urged migrant men to endure hardships and excel in their breadwinning roles and the practice of familyhood. in the present time, transnationalism has helped migrant families deal with the disconnect that characterized historical migration. in the process, there has been a realization of gender equality, to some extent, as women have also found space to influence family decisions within the transnational social spaces. acknowledgment the authors acknowledge the school of social sciences, faculty of humanities at the university of the witwatersrand, for the awaiting examiners’ research grant it availed for the writing of this article. mobility, gender, and experiences of familyhood among migrant families in zimbabwe 120 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 1, jan-apr 2023 references abadan-unat, n. 1977. implications of migration on emancipation and pseudoemancipation of turkish women. the international migration review, 11(1): 31–57. available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/2545006. adekoye, r.a. and kondlo, k. 2020. political power perpetuity and economic development nexus in zimbabwe. journal of nation-building and policy studies, 4(1): 55–73. available at: https://journals.co.za/doi/10.31920/25163132/2020/v4n1a3. atmore, a. 1982. review of families divided: the impact of migrant labour in lesotho, by c. murray. african affairs, 81(324): 449–451. available at: http:// www.jstor.org/stable/721596. baldassar, l. and merla, l. 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convention on the rights of the child (uncrc). research on this issue in ethiopia is limited, with few studies assessing public awareness and attitudes. this study aims to examine the knowledge and attitudes of residents in wolaita sodo town regarding in-country child trafficking using a mixed-methods approach with 448 participants. the research team collected data through structured questionnaires, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews. for data analysis, the researchers used spss 26.0 software, applied descriptive and inferential statistical analysis wherever applicable, and analyzed qualitative data thematically. the findings revealed that the majority of participants (55%) lacked adequate knowledge about child trafficking, with the qualitative results supporting this finding. in contrast, 55.9% of participants exhibited positive attitudes toward child trafficking. a significant correlation was found between knowledge levels and attitudes, with education and personal experiences playing a critical role. multivariate analysis revealed that individuals with a first-degree education or higher were 3.25 times (1.21-8.81, p<0.05) more likely to possess a good knowledge of child trafficking compared to those who were less educated. additionally, individuals with trafficked family members had 3.36 times (1.59-6.81) greater knowledge of child trafficking. in a similar vein, participants who had a first degree or higher educational qualification were 2.31 times (1.29-4.34, p<0.05) less likely to harbor negative attitudes toward victims of child trafficking and anti-trafficking initiatives compared to their less-educated counterparts. furthermore, individuals with family members who had been trafficked were 0.44 times (0.47-0.27, p<0.05) less likely to display negative attitudes than those without such experiences. despite their positive attitudes, most participants lacked comprehensive knowledge of child trafficking, highlighting the gap between awareness and actionable understanding. this suggests that positive attitudes may not translate into informed action without adequate knowledge. the study recommends targeted educational initiatives to bridge this gap and improve public understanding and engagement. keywords: child, in-country trafficking, awareness, attitude, multivariate analysis, ethiopia 1 doctoral candidate, addis ababa university, addis ababa, ethiopia. corresponding author.  tgsol1999@yahoo.com 2 college of education and behavioral studies, addis ababa university, addis ababa, ethiopia. 3 college of education and behavioral studies, addis ababa university, addis ababa, ethiopia. knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in southern ethiopia 8 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 introduction child trafficking is a grave injustice that strips children of their rights, safety, and future. “child trafficking refers to the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of a child for exploitation, regardless of the use of illicit means, either within or outside a country” (un, 2000). traffickers prey on children’s vulnerability, driven by profit and an industry that thrives in secrecy. the true scale of the problem is difficult to measure, as many cases go unnoticed, leaving many children trapped in cycles of exploitation. it violates fundamental human rights, which are guaranteed to children under international law, most notably the united nations convention on the rights of the child (crc) (faulkner, 2023). the united nations office on drugs and crime (unodc, 2020) estimates in its 2020 global report on trafficking in persons that a substantial proportion of identified trafficking victims are children, constituting almost one-third (28%) of identified cases. it remains a pervasive issue across africa, particularly in east africa, where poverty, conflict, and weak institutional responses exacerbate the problem. it constitutes a complex transnational challenge, wherein countries function as origin, transit, and destination points for victims. intra-regional and international migration patterns are exploited, leading to the movement of vulnerable individuals across borders. according to the global report on trafficking in persons (unodc, 2024), in east africa, children make up 69% of detected victims. studies have systematically attributed the pervasive issue of child trafficking in africa — and east africa in particular — to a constellation of socio-economic factors. for instance, research by terre des hommes netherlands (2024) and munialo (2018) found that economic hardship, limited educational opportunities, and displacement due to conflict contribute collectively to a situation in which children are rendered particularly vulnerable to exploitation. such vulnerabilities facilitate their recruitment into forced labor, domestic servitude, and sexual abuse, all of which result in severe physical and psychological trauma, the loss of childhood, and prolonged social exclusion. over the past decade, both national and international communities have done a lot in the fight against this crime, with transnational trafficking emerging as a notably critical aspect of the problem (mapp, 2020). on the contrary, incountry trafficking has not received much attention, despite remaining attractive to perpetrators due to the ease with which children can be relocated without the need for legal documentation. the absence of stringent border controls allows traffickers to operate their businesses at minimal costs (rahel, 2016; mengstie, 2018). this issue is especially significant in ethiopia, where child out-migration is a common practice. for example, in regions such as the wolaita zone, child trafficking is intricately linked with migration dynamics in which marginalized children, particularly those affected by poverty, displacement, or migration, are disproportionately targeted. several studies (e.g., gecho and worku, 2018; kastro and dullea, 2018; tadesse and mengistu, 2021) indicate that southern ethiopia, particularly the wolaita zone, has become a major source of child migrants, many of whom face risks of exploitation 9 and trafficking. while economic hardship, notably limited agricultural resources, small landholdings, and food insecurity, is a key driver (zergaw and asale, 2019; kassa, 2021; tsegay, 2021), migration is also deeply embedded in the region’s cultural and social practices in which families often view migration as a path to economic success, sometimes overlooking the risks involved (candido et al., 2016). children’s migration in southern ethiopia cannot be fully explained through the traditional “push-pull” framework, as it is shaped by complex social and cultural dynamics beyond economic hardship. their migration decisions are influenced by aspirations, family expectations, peer pressure, institutional structures, and prevailing sociocultural narratives. research highlights children’s agency in migration, showing that they participate actively in decision-making rather than being passive actors. numerous studies (e.g., kerilyn and fransen, 2018; zeleke, 2020; genovese et al., 2021; van der gaag et al., 2021; deng et al., 2022; hitzer et al., 2025) underline children’s agency in making decisions related to their migration. studies indicate that a significant number of ethiopian youths express a desire to migrate, with urban centers being the most preferred destinations, reflecting broader socio-economic trends. in this regard, schewel and fransen's (2018) analysis of data from the boyden et al. (2016) longitudinal study in ethiopia, found that two-thirds of the participating youth expressed a desire to migrate. among these young individuals, nearly 60% identified specific preferred destinations, favoring predominantly urban areas in ethiopia. the findings illustrate a clear gradient in migration aspirations, with larger urban centers emerging as the most appealing destinations for young people. this trend reflects broader socio-economic and structural influences on patterns of internal migration. while some children migrate without parental knowledge (zeleke, 2020), others are encouraged by their families, often due to financial pressures or the promise of remittances (gecho and worku, 2018). social influences, including peer encouragement and brokers, further drive migration, often without full awareness of the associated risks. a lack of knowledge about trafficking and exploitation increases children’s vulnerability to forced labor, abuse, and homelessness (abraha and woru, 2021). generally, much attention has been given to this issue over the past decade by both national and international communities, as documented by extensive research and literature. while the international trafficking of children to destinations such as the middle east, south africa, and europe is well recognized, in-country child trafficking continues to pose a significant problem. despite being a lucrative opportunity for traffickers, this form of trafficking remains underexplored and insufficiently addressed by scholars, governmental bodies, and non-governmental organizations dedicated to combating this problem. moreover, despite extensive research on child trafficking, most studies focus on its scale, causes, victims’ experiences, and government responses, leaving a gap in understanding the knowledge and attitudes of origin communities. this perspective knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in southern ethiopia 10 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 is crucial in combating child trafficking in wolaita sodo, as societal perceptions can either enable or resist trafficking. without insight into the community’s awareness, misconceptions, and attitudes, interventions may prove ineffective. given the urgency of the issue and the lack of data, this study aims to explore this community’s perspectives, assessing the knowledge, prevailing attitudes, and associated factors. literature review knowledge of and attitudes toward trafficking child trafficking represents a severe violation of human rights, involving the exploitation of children for purposes of forced labor, sexual exploitation, or illegal activities (skeels and bashir, 2024). it robs children of their safety, education, and future, often ensnaring them in cycles of abuse and poverty. despite national and international efforts to combat this crime, child trafficking and migration persist. this is a widespread problem in ethiopia, driven by factors such as poverty, lack of awareness, and inadequate law enforcement (mengstie, 2018; terre des hommes netherlands, 2023). gaining insight into the knowledge and attitudes of communities regarding child trafficking is essential for effective prevention and intervention strategies (hynes, 2013). studies (e.g., kastro and dullea, 2018) highlight that communities play a crucial role in identifying victims, reporting cases, and providing support to survivors. thus, by examining their knowledge and attitudes, policymakers and organizations can tailor educational campaigns, strengthen legal frameworks, and enhance protective measures. numerous studies (e.g., gezie et al., 2021; tekalign, 2021) have shown that gaps in knowledge and misconceptions about trafficking, attitudes, beliefs, norms, values, and societal structures contribute to the prevalence of child trafficking in ethiopia. cultural practices, including traditional child fostering, early marriage, and migration play a critical role in shaping children’s behaviors and decisions. many are influenced by peer pressure and societal expectations to seek employment in urban areas, which renders them particularly vulnerable to traffickers who promise them lucrative job opportunities. this dynamic significantly contributes to child trafficking in wolaita and intensifies the overall susceptibility of children (gebu and ararso, 2016; gecho and worku, 2018; kastro and dullea, 2018). moreover, poverty and limited economic opportunities elevate the risk of trafficking, while broader issues of discrimination and societal inequalities exacerbate the problem. social challenges, such as family conflicts, exposure to violence, low levels of awareness, and limited education play critical roles in facilitating child trafficking (tefera, 2019; tekalign, 2022). the movement of children, whether through migration or trafficking, is driven by a complex interplay of economic imperatives and sociocultural norms, particularly those related to gender roles and child labor, which can inadvertently normalize and facilitate trafficking. for instance, candido 11 et al. (2016) highlight that migration within the wolaita community is deeply rooted in cultural and social practices. complementing this perspective, research by zewdie et al. (2024) shows that migration is widely perceived as a pathway to achieving economic success and social mobility. in many rural areas, child-labor migration is considered essential for household survival. however, these cultural norms mask the significant risks that migrant children face. studies, including those by van der gaag et al. (2021), reveal that migrant children are frequently subjected to various psychosocial challenges, such as exploitation and harassment. moreover, many child migrants endure harsh working conditions characterized by employer mistreatment, underpayment, and frequent breaches of contractual agreements, leading to wages that are often lower than promised or not provided at all (balcha, 2018; zewdie et al., 2024). research indicates that traffickers play a significant role in placing migrants in exploitative labor conditions, including low wages. the relationship between traffickers and suppressed wages is typically intertwined within a broader network of intermediaries that facilitate labor migration and employment. traffickers, along with brokers, recruiters, and employers, are often complicit in systems that exploit workers and perpetuate conditions of forced labor. in many instances, traffickers prey on vulnerable individuals, including children, by promising them well-paying jobs. once these individuals are recruited, they may find themselves trapped in exploitative circumstances where their wages are withheld, reduced, or manipulated to ensure their ongoing dependency. this practice can be part of a larger framework of exploitative labor, in which intermediaries benefit from the vulnerabilities of these workers (fernandez, 2013; paraskevopoulou et al., 2016). furthermore, a lack of knowledge, education, and community tolerance further intensifies the issue. thus, understanding attitudes and knowledge about this problem is crucial for identifying misconceptions and empowering communities to recognize and report suspicious activities. the literature suggests that inadequate knowledge plays a significant role in the continued prevalence of child trafficking within vulnerable populations. for instance, martinho et al. (2021) found that knowledge gaps regarding trafficking processes, including recruitment strategies and victim mobility, were prevalent among the portuguese community. similarly, exeni mcamis et al. (2022) conducted a study examining healthcare professionals’ awareness and preparedness in identifying victims of human trafficking. their findings revealed that respondents generally assessed their knowledge of trafficking as ranging from average to below average. numerous studies (e.g., azage et al., 2014; botchkovar et al., 2016; sabita et al., 2021) have shown that vulnerable populations, especially those at an increased risk of trafficking, often have limited awareness regarding the issue. sabita et al. (2021) found significant gaps in knowledge among participants, with nearly 40% demonstrating an inadequate knowledge of trafficking. similarly, davy and metanji (2022) conducted a survey aimed at assessing the knowledge, attitudes, and engagement of knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in southern ethiopia 12 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 youth in anti-trafficking initiatives across four regions in albania. they discovered that 40% of respondents believed that trafficking occurs within the country, while 51% acknowledged its prevalence in foreign nations. this study further highlighted that, although participants had a solid awareness of the risks associated with human trafficking, notable gaps still existed, particularly regarding recruitment strategies and less-commonly recognized forms of exploitation. research consistently demonstrates that various factors significantly influence individuals’ knowledge of and attitudes toward societal issues. studies conducted by davy and metanji (2022), cunha et al. (2019), sharapov (2019), exeni mcamis et al. (2022), and wangsnes (2014) highlight the impact of key variables such as gender, place of residence, educational attainment, and socio-economic status on people’s understanding and perspectives. these factors not only determine individuals’ level of knowledge but also shape their attitudes, responses, and engagement with pressing social concerns. for example, davy and metanji (2022), alongside findings from cunha et al. (2019), indicate that women generally possess a greater knowledge of human trafficking and exhibit more favorable attitudes toward combating the problem, compared to men. in contrast, sharapov (2019) and mobasher et al. (2022) found that men exhibited significantly higher levels of knowledge regarding trafficking than women. furthermore, research by mazumdar and mukherjee (2022) suggests that girls possess limited knowledge about child trafficking. however, other studies have found no significant differences between genders regarding knowledge of trafficking (see wangsnes, 2014; exeni mcamis et al., 2022). research indicates a positive correlation between educational attainment and knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking. in essence, individuals with higher education levels are generally better informed about the complexities of child trafficking and are more likely to adopt critical perspectives regarding its underlying issues. findings from various studies (e.g., azage et al., 2014; cunha et al., 2019; sharapov, 2019) revealed that those with higher educational qualifications possess a more comprehensive understanding of trafficking in persons, including its root causes, prevalence, and ramifications. building on prior research, adhikari et al. (2023) further highlight the significant role that sociodemographic factors play in shaping individuals’ knowledge of human trafficking. their findings reveal that aspects such as education level, economic status, and place of residence are linked positively to possessing sufficient knowledge of the issue. this suggests that individuals with greater access to education and financial stability, as well as those residing in more resourceful environments, are more likely to develop a deeper awareness of human trafficking, its causes, and its consequences. theoretical framework this research employed the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (kap) model as a theoretical framework. the kap model is a well-established tool for understanding 13 and predicting human behavior in various contexts, including public health (poddar et al., 2022), environmental conservation (wang et al., 2013), education (wagithunu, 2014; moti et al., 2016), gender equality (jahan, 2021), and risk communication (mushi et al., 2021). in this study, the model is applied to the domain of child trafficking to examine the knowledge of and attitudes toward victims of child trafficking and antichild trafficking activities. the concept of child trafficking knowledge encompasses the information, awareness, and understanding that individuals possess regarding issues related to child trafficking. for example, research indicates that the prevalence of child trafficking in wolaita zone is linked significantly to a lack of comprehensive knowledge on the problem (gecho and worku, 2018). although there is general awareness of human trafficking among the population, existing evidence does not demonstrate a profound understanding of the severity of its impact on victims’ livelihoods and overall quality of life. lack of knowledge can lead to misinformation and increased vulnerability among at-risk groups (wangsnes, 2014). attitude is an important psychological and social construct in the fight against child trafficking. a community’s attitude toward a particular issue encompasses its emotional responses, behavioral tendencies, and underlying beliefs, which may be either positive or negative. in the context of child trafficking, the collective attitude of a community plays a fundamental role in shaping its perceptions about the problem and the victims, responses, and level of engagement with efforts to combat the phenomenon. the disposition of individuals within a community toward child trafficking significantly influences their willingness to acknowledge its severity, support preventive measures, and contribute to interventions aimed at mitigating its adverse effects. for instance, in some communities, exploitative migration practices may be normalized, causing the severity of the issue to go unnoticed due to cultural beliefs (dirienzo and das, 2017). additionally, munialo (2018) highlights that cultural acceptance of migration can unintentionally raise trafficking risks, as families might overlook potential dangers. the practice aspect explores the behaviors and actions that arise from knowledge and attitudes, such as prevention strategies, reporting mechanisms, and support systems for victims. the current research focuses specifically on knowledge and attitudes, recognizing that a community’s knowledge of and attitudes toward trafficking are vital to addressing the issue effectively. without sufficient knowledge, awareness, and shifts in attitude, changes in behavior are likely to be limited. the practice component, which explores how residents’ level of engagement in preventive practices is the focus of a separate article currently under review in another journal, enables a more comprehensive examination of community responses to trafficking. knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in southern ethiopia 14 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 methodology study design and population a mixed-methods study was conducted in wolaita sodo town, the capital of the wolaita zone, located approximately 380 kilometers southwest of addis ababa, from january to april 2022. based on the 2007 population census by the central statistics agency (csa), the town’s population was estimated at 132,000. this area was purposefully selected, since the town has been characterized as a source of child trafficking to urban centers and, to a lesser extent, rural areas. the study population comprised residents who had lived in the town or had been residents for a minimum period of six months. this population is deemed relevant due to their direct exposure to local issues, with their awareness shaped by community interactions and influenced by sociocultural norms. their familiarity with trafficking patterns and the contributing factors enables them to offer reliable insights into the ongoing persistence of this problem in the town. furthermore, they have access to pertinent information sources, which ensures that their responses reflect a wellinformed understanding of trafficking. sample size and sampling technique the quantitative study employed a multi-stage sampling technique to select participants from wolaita sodo town. this involved the random selection of one kebele (the smallest administrative unit in ethiopia) from each of the town’s three sub-towns, resulting in three kebeles. the researchers then used systematic random sampling to select every 35th individual from the resident lists of these three kebeles, which collectively had 15,476 residents. the sample size for the study was calculated using yamane’s (1967) formula, considering the population size and desired level of precision. assuming a 95% confidence level and p =0.5, we get the sample size as 390 individuals. in addition to these 390 individuals, the researchers added 15% to the sample size to ensure an adequate sample in case some participants dropped out or provided incomplete information; the final sample size was 448. the selection of 448 households was carried out using a systematic random sampling method to ensure representation from the broader community, rather than targeting only households that have experienced child trafficking directly. the aim of the study is not limited to examining trafficked children or households with first-hand experiences; instead, it seeks to assess the knowledge and attitudes surrounding child trafficking within origin communities. given wolaita sodo’s role as both a source and transit hub 15 for trafficked children, residents, regardless of their direct involvement, were likely to have encountered or developed perceptions of trafficking through community interactions, media exposure, or indirect experiences. in the study, 448 individuals completed a questionnaire, which was complemented by interviews with two adult and five child key informants, and discussions with eight participants in focus groups. the researchers employed a purposive sampling method to select participants for both the interviews and the focus group discussions (fgds). measures this study used qualitative and quantitative data collection tools to complement the results from different sources. the internal child trafficking knowledge tool was adopted for this study from items used in the trafficking awareness survey (2003) and sharapov’s study (2019). the researchers took careful steps to ensure its reliability, accuracy, and relevance within the study’s specific context. to ensure the study’s effectiveness and cultural relevance, the research team translated questions into the local language while preserving their original meaning. the content was modified to fit local customs and beliefs, promoting honest responses. response scales were adapted to align with culturally appropriate ways of expressing attitudes, enhancing accuracy. the researchers conducted a pilot test with a sample of the target population to identify and resolve comprehension challenges and refine the survey for clarity and relevance. the instrument has two sections: the first evaluates sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, socio-economic status, years of residence, and education), while the second assesses knowledge of internal child trafficking. following the initial compilation of items, the structure and validity of the instrument were evaluated using exploratory factor analysis (efa). a promax rotation was applied, yielding five distinct factors, which collectively accounted for 66.05% of the variance. the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) measure of sampling adequacy was 0.82, indicating a strong basis for factor analysis, while the bartlett’s test of sphericity was statistically significant (p < .001), confirming the suitability of the dataset for factor extraction. additionally, the scale demonstrated good internal consistency, as evidenced by a cronbach’s alpha of 0.78, ensuring reliability in measurement. the principal component method provided initial communality estimates, with five factors having eigenvalues greater than 1 retained in the final solution. the five extracted factors were: knowledge of the definition of child trafficking (24.87% variance; eigenvalue = 3.48), knowledge about the victim’s profile (16.92% variance; eigenvalue = 2.37), knowledge about the psychosocial plight trafficked children experienced (8.83% variance; eigenvalue = 1.47), knowledge about the vulnerability to child trafficking (8.50% variance; eigenvalue = 1.23), knowledge about the traffickers (6.91% variance; eigenvalue = 1.15). knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in southern ethiopia 16 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 similarly, the child trafficking attitude scale was developed for this study. after initial item compilation, an exploratory analysis with promax rotation extracted three factors, explaining 64.35% of the variance. kmo was 0.82 and the bartlett test was significant (p < .001), indicating factorability. the items were face valid and verified by a panel of experts. cronbach’s alpha for the scale is .83, which indicates satisfactory internal consistency. moreover, the study used 11 semi-structured interview guides for key informants, 10 for child interviews, and 10 semi-structured fgd guides for fgds to facilitate effective discussions and encourage sharing of personal experiences. moreover, the knowledge items were face valid and verified by a panel of experts. data analysis the study employed concurrent triangulation to embed the quantitative findings with qualitative findings. the qualitative data analysis was done side by side and followed creswell’s (2014) spiral model. the research team initially transcribed and organized data from interviews and fgds and subsequently conducted a thorough reading of all transcripts to gain an overarching understanding of the data. concurrently, memos were written to capture initial insights and emerging themes. finally, the researchers analyzed the patterns and relationships between these themes to draw meaningful interpretations. the research team analyzed the quantitative data using spss software, focusing on descriptive statistics and logistic regression to assess the association between variables while calculating odds ratios at α 95% confidence interval (ci). ethical considerations before the study, participants or their guardians provided informed verbal consent after the researchers briefed them on the objectives. the research team interviewed only those who consented and collected data anonymously to ensure confidentiality. the study obtained ethics approval from the ethics committee of the department of psychology at addis ababa university to protect participants from potential harm. result sociodemographic characteristics of study participants out of 448 study samples, 444 participants completed the questionnaire, resulting in a response rate of 99.10%. as shown in table 1, among the respondents, 269 (60.2%) were male, 103 (23.0%) had completed high school, 18.8% had postsecondary training, and 7.2% had first degrees or higher. the demographic analysis reveals significant insights into the socio-economic characteristics of the study participants. the majority (53.2%, or 238 participants) reported a monthly income ranging from 2,600 to 6,500 etb, indicating a concentration within this income bracket. additionally, the majority (92.9%) had resided in the town for over four 17 years, suggesting strong community ties and potential familiarity with local socioeconomic dynamics. in terms of self-perceived socio-economic status, a notable distribution emerged: 15.4% considered their status better than most people, 45.6% viewed it as comparable to the majority, and 29.3% perceived their socio-economic status to be in a lower position. these findings underscore the varied economic experiences within the community and highlight the importance of socio-economic factors in shaping individual and collective perspectives. table 1: sociodemographic characteristics of the study participants variable label frequency percentage (%) sex male female 269 175 60.2 39.1 education level illiterate read and write only grades 1–8 grades 9–12 post-secondary training of less than 3 years first degree and above 70 86 69 103 84 32 15.7 19.2 15.4 23.0 18.8 7.2 socio-economic status better than most people same as most people worse than most people 69 244 131 15.4 45.6 29.3 income per month <1,000 1,001–2,500 2,501–6,500 >6,500 36 150 238 20 8.1 34.3 53.2 4.4 residential period .5–4 >4 29 315 6.5 92.9 source: authors' own work knowledge of in-country child trafficking as depicted in figure 1, the majority of participants (243 or 55%) scored below the mean for adequate knowledge of internal child trafficking, indicating a knowledge gap in this area. knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in southern ethiopia 18 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 figure 1: level of knowledge of internal child trafficking source: authors' own work participants scored an average of 8.57 (sd = 3.53, min = 3, max = 14) out of a possible 14 points on their knowledge of internal child trafficking. the highest scores were in knowledge of victims (m = 2.15, sd = 1.41), followed by knowledge of vulnerabilities (m = 2.07, sd = 0.89), and traffickers and their methods (m = 1.63, sd = 0.62). in contrast, lower scores were noted in defining internal child trafficking (m = 1.45, sd = 1.32) and understanding the psychosocial struggles faced by children (m = 1.06, sd = 0.80). the findings highlight a significant gap in knowledge in defining the features of in-country child trafficking among participants. when presented with its definition encompassing the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of children within national borders for exploitative purposes, 314 (70.2%) of participants failed to recognize it as accurate. similarly, when presented with the statement, “in-country child trafficking involves the exploitation of a child,” 255 (57.4%) of the participants incorrectly rated it as false, despite its factual accuracy. when asked to assess the statement, “in-country child trafficking may involve abuse of power or a position of vulnerability,” 252 (56.4%) participants incorrectly rated it as false. participants demonstrated a reasonably solid knowledge of several key indicators of child trafficking. specifically, 231 (51.7%) correctly recognized that abused child domestic workers are victims, 263 (55.5%) identified that children forced to work excessive hours fall under trafficking, and 277 (62.6%) acknowledged that wage withholding constitutes exploitation. these figures indicate a generally 55% 45% inadequate adequate 19 high awareness, particularly regarding forms of financial exploitation. however, it is noteworthy that 259 participants (57.1%) did not recognize that children working to repay a loan can also be considered victims of in-country child trafficking. participants’ knowledge of the abuse encountered by trafficked children was assessed using separate items on physical and psychological abuse. results revealed that 177 (62.0%) of participants correctly identified that victims frequently experience physical abuse, while 181 (62.8%) acknowledged that psychological abuse is likewise prevalent. the study also assessed participants’ knowledge regarding vulnerability factors for in-country child trafficking using three items rated as correct or incorrect. the item stating that children from urban areas are vulnerable was rated as correct by 63.8% (n = 285) of participants, while 68.7% (n = 307) agreed that children from poor families are most at risk. the highest recognition was observed for the statement that children from poor families are more vulnerable, with 74.0% (n = 331) rating it as correct. finally, the study assessed participants’ knowledge regarding traffickers and recruitment techniques using two distinct items. one item addressed the identification of potential recruiters, stating that acquaintances, strangers, friends, neighbors/family friends, relatives, and private companies could be involved, while the other examined the tactic of recruiting children through false promises. the results indicated that 352 participants (78.7%) correctly identified the potential traffickers and 374 participants (84.2%) accurately recognized false promises as a recruitment strategy (see table 2). table 2: knowledge of internal child trafficking no categories correct n % incorrect n % a. knowledge about the definition of child trafficking 1. in-country child trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of children within a country for exploitation 130 29.3 314 70.7 2. in-country child trafficking involves the exploitation of a child 189 42.6 255 57.4 3. in-country child trafficking may involve abuse of power or a position of vulnerability 192 43.0 252 56.4 b. knowledge about the victims' profiles 4. victims of in-country child trafficking are children forced to work to repay a loan 185 41.4 259 57.9 5. victims of in-country child trafficking can be child domestic workers who are abused by their employers 231 51.7 213 47.7 6. children who are forced to work longer hours than was promised can be victims of in-country child trafficking 263 58.8 181 40.5 knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in southern ethiopia 20 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 7. working children who do not receive wages or have their wages withheld by their employers are victims of in-country child trafficking 277 62 167 37.4 c. knowledge about the psychosocial plight experienced by trafficked children 8. in most cases, victims of in-country child trafficking experience physical abuse 277 62 167 37.4 9. in most cases, victims of in-country child trafficking experience psychological abuse 281 62.9 163 36.5 d. knowledge about the vulnerability to child trafficking 10. children from urban areas are vulnerable to incountry child trafficking 285 63.8 159 35.5 11. children from rural areas are most often vulnerable to in-country child trafficking 307 68.7 137 30.6 12. children from poor families are more vulnerable to in-country child trafficking than other children 331 74.0 113 25.3 e. knowledge about the traffickers and techniques 13. acquaintances, strangers, friends, neighbors, family friends, relatives, and private companies could be among recruiters 352 78.7 92 20.6 14. children are recruited into trafficking through false promises 374 84.2 70 15.7 source: authors' own work similarly, the findings from the fgds indicate a significant knowledge gap regarding child trafficking. the data from fgds indicate that the participants tended to conflate child trafficking with child exploitation, labor, and forced begging. for example, (fgdp1) said, “child trafficking is when children migrate from their town/village and work for others for free or very little.” equating child trafficking with migration and related concepts was evident among most of the participants. in a similar vein, the child participants were asked questions concerning what child trafficking is, whether they have — or anyone they know — ever experienced or witnessed child trafficking, who the recruiters are, and the tactics used by the traffickers. of the five participants asked, two reported that they had heard about child trafficking. a 16-year-old male participant who migrated from boditi village to sodo when he was just 12 years old, shared his understanding of child trafficking in the following way: “child trafficking is the exploitation of migrant children. it is when employers make children earn money but pay them a little while keeping the rest of the money for themselves.” regarding the gender of trafficked children, participants were asked in the semi-structured questionnaire which gender is more trafficked in their locality. as 21 depicted in figure 2, the majority (66.8%) indicated that both boys and girls were perceived as vulnerable to child trafficking, 24.3% of participants identified girls as being more frequently trafficked in their local communities, whereas 9% reported boys as the most frequently trafficked gender. figure 2: vulnerability to child trafficking based on gender source: authors' own work key informants indicated that children from impoverished rural families, school dropouts, or orphans are at high risk of trafficking. they further added that street children, those from dysfunctional or abusive households, and children with disabilities are also among those at high risk of trafficking. for instance, one of the key informants, a police officer from a child protection unit, narrated the following: children of poor rural families are always at risk. many disadvantaged rural families are willing to send their children away, hoping that their children will get an opportunity for education and new skills. some send [them] away with the hope of getting economic support from the remittance (ki1). the fgd findings confirm the above findings, emphasizing similar characteristics of children. seven out of eight fgd participants noted that being an orphan increases children’s vulnerability to trafficking due to the lack of parental care, making them more susceptible to exploitation. both boys and girls are at significant risk of trafficking; however, the nature of exploitation differs by gender. boys are more frequently trafficked to fulfill specialized roles that demand particular skills or boys 9% girls 24% both 67% boys girls both knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in southern ethiopia 22 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 physical attributes, while girls are exploited predominantly for domestic labor and related services. the interviewed children reported experiencing a range of exploitative practices, including wage theft, long working hours, physical and psychological abuse, and denial of medical care. in this regard, a 15-year-old child participant shared his experience of trafficking and reintegration: i was taken to hawassa by a maternal relative who assured my parents that he would provide me with an education in exchange for my assistance. he pledged to enroll me in school and meet all my basic needs. however, these promises were entirely false. instead, he transferred me to another individual who subjected me to extensive labor as a weaver, requiring me to work from early morning until late at night. after several months, i was eventually rescued by labor inspection officers from the ministry of labour and social affairs (ci5). the results of the study also showed that traffickers often use family, friends, close and distant relatives, neighbors, and brokers to recruit children by exploiting children’s dreams of a better life elsewhere. according to one of the child participants, there are some individuals (facilitators) who are considered “big brothers.” these individuals come back to the village during the “gifata” with children who previously migrated from different areas (ci3). moreover, the findings of the fgds and key informant interviews indicate that traffickers employ deceptive tactics to attract children and convince parents with promises of better opportunities in urban areas. however, reality often contradicts these promises, leading to exploitation and profound disappointment. the understanding of child trafficking among participants varied, with some providing detailed explanations and others focusing on specific aspects. sources of information the data collected from participants showed that multiple media platforms serve as channels for information regarding internal child trafficking. as shown in table 3, more than one-third (35.6%) of the participants cited radio programs as primary sources, followed by social networks (30.6%) and television programs (17.4%). the internet (6.7%), documentaries (5.4%), and movies (3.1%) also served as sources of information and played a role in raising awareness among participants. the findings highlight the significant role of various media platforms in disseminating information about internal child trafficking. 23 table 3: sources of information no frequency percent 1. i personally know someone who was trafficked 137 30.6 2. someone i know told me about it 2 0.4 3. i watched a news program on tv 78 17.4 4. i watched a documentary on tv 24 5.4 5. i watched a film on tv 14 3.1 6. i listened to a program on the radio 159 35.6 7. i read about it on the internet 30 6.7 source: authors' own work participants’ attitudes toward internal child trafficking for 10 items to assess attitudes toward child trafficking, the scores ranged from 22 to 46 (mean = 3.08, sd = +.50). the majority of the participants, n = 248 (55.9%), tend to score above the mean in attitudes measure scores. the overall attitudes of the residents of wolaita sodo town concerning internal child trafficking are illustrated in table 4. more than half of the respondents (233 or 52.4%) expressed their concern about in-country child trafficking, and 225 (50.6%) believed that the indicators of child trafficking in wolaita sodo town are easily identifiable. the majority of participants exhibited a positive attitude toward taking action, showing an interest in attending workshops focused on identifying and preventing child trafficking, as well as a willingness to report suspected cases to the authorities. however, nearly half of the participants expressed a negative attitude toward the victims of child trafficking. knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in southern ethiopia 24 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 table 4: attitudes of participants toward in-country child trafficking no items sa a dk sda da mean s. d f (%) f (%) f (%) f (%) f (%) 1. in-country child trafficking is a serious problem in wolaita sodo town 50 11.3 184 41.4 104 23.4 76 7.1 30 6.75 3.47 0.91 2. if i suspected a child was being trafficked, i would be hesitant to report it to the authorities for fear of being wrong 38 8.6 176 39.6 135 30.4 88 19.8 7 1.6 3.33 0.94 3. it is not difficult to identify a childtrafficking situation in wolaita sodo 97 21.8 168 37.8 133 30 46 10.4 0 0 3.71 0.93 4. children who end up being trafficked do so by their own choice 30 6.8 138 31.1 97 29.7 132 41.4 47 10.6 3.15 0.93 5. if those trafficked children were poor to start with, at least now they have a job 25 5.6 101 22.7 117 26.4 191 43 10 2.3 2.86 0.98 6. people i know say children who are trafficked deserve what they get 40 9 109 24.5 91 20.5 180 40.5 23 5.2 2.49 1.13 7. i would be willing to report suspected cases of child trafficking to the authorities 60 13.5 176 39.6 139 31.3 68 15.3 1 0.2 3.51 0.92 8. i would be willing to display informational materials about child trafficking in my home or business 38 8.6 101 22.7 114 25.7 186 41.9 5 1.1 2.96 1.02 25 9. i would be interested in attending a workshop on how to identify and prevent child-trafficking 83 18.7 154 34.7 142 32.0 65 14.6 0 3.57 0.96 10. i would feel comfortable talking to my neighbors about child trafficking prevention 107 24.1 141 31.8 161 36.3 34 7.7 1 0.2 3.72 0.92 note n= 444, sa= strongly agree, a= agree, dk= don’t know, da= disagree, sda= strongly disagree. the decision was based on a weighted average of 33.38/10= 3.34 source: authors' own work while some participants viewed child trafficking as voluntary migration driven by opportunities, others recognized it as trafficking. despite their concerns, some participants justified it as beneficial migration. for example, fgd participant 3 reported: migration benefits children differently. in addition to earning money of their own and developing their social network, it also helps them to be self-reliant, since they have to do a lot of things by themselves. i believe that it helps children to be strong and self-reliant and helps them build other qualities that would help them in their adult life. the movement of children, often perceived as a pathway to better opportunities, can sometimes result in their exploitation. societal perceptions, shaped by misleading narratives and idealized expectations, may obscure the challenges children face. however, these experiences can be significantly more difficult than initially anticipated. participants in fgds expressed concerns about the severity of the issue, whereas the interviewed children framed their experiences as migration journeys, emphasizing their resilience, despite facing abuse and exploitation. child interviewee 3, a 16-year-old female, said the following: when a child leaves home, the burden on the family is somehow eased, since you entirely depend on your parents for every need, whether they are capable of providing it for you or not. on the other hand, some children are brave enough to make savings in all the hardship and exploitative conditions they have been through, and they make some contributions at critical times. some of them saved for a couple of years to buy their family cattle, which can help them produce better on their farm. knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in southern ethiopia 26 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 the interviewed children value independence and self-reliance, even if it comes at the cost of their well-being. despite the hardships, they view their experiences as educational and beneficial, believing it has helped them understand urban life and the value of their labor in generating income. this underscores the necessity for a nuanced understanding of child mobility and the challenges faced by vulnerable individuals. factors associated with knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking multivariate logistic regression analysis shows that education level, having trafficked family members, and information sources are significantly associated with knowledge of child trafficking. participants with a first degree and above are 3.25 times (1.218.81) more likely to have good knowledge of child trafficking than those with lower levels of education. those with trafficked family members are 3.36 times (1.59-6.81) more likely to be knowledgeable. additionally, those who reported knowing someone who had been trafficked are 1.41 times (1.44-1.85) more likely to be knowledgeable than those who relied solely on the internet as a source of information. those who followed television news are 1.58 times (1.38-1.76), more likely to be knowledgeable than those who relied solely on the internet as a source of information, while those who reported movies as a source of information are 1.75 times (1.44-1.85) more likely to be knowledgeable than those who relied solely on the internet as a source of information. those who identified the radio as their primary source of information are 1.34 times (1.35-1.79) more likely to have higher levels of knowledge of child trafficking than those who relied solely on the internet (see table 5). moreover, having adequate knowledge of child trafficking, education level, family history of trafficking, and information sources were associated with positive attitudes toward child trafficking and anti-trafficking activities. participants with a first-degree education or higher were 2.31 times (1.29-4.34) less likely to hold negative attitudes toward victims of child trafficking and anti-child trafficking practices compared to those with lower education levels. those with trafficked family members were 0.44 times (0.47-0.27) less likely to exhibit negative attitudes toward victims of child trafficking and anti-child trafficking practices than those without trafficked family members. similarly, participants with an adequate level of knowledge were 1.26 times (0.86-1.85) less likely to have negative attitudes toward victims of child trafficking and anti-child trafficking practices compared to those with inadequate knowledge. furthermore, participants who reported knowing someone who had been trafficked are 4.87 times (3.86-6.85) less likely to hold negative attitudes than those who learned about child trafficking from the internet, while those who reported learning about child trafficking through watching television news are 3.27 times (2.88-3.75) less likely to hold negative attitudes. moreover, those informed by a wide range of media sources are less likely to have negative attitudes toward victims of child trafficking and anti-child trafficking practices than participants who identified the internet as their sole source of information. those who reported learning about 27 child trafficking from television documentaries are 3.78 times (2.42–4.63) less likely to have negative attitudes toward victims of child trafficking and anti-child trafficking practices than participants who identified the internet as their source of information, whereas those who reported learning about trafficking from movies are 2.59 times (1.43-3.85) less likely, and those relying on radio programs are 1.82 times (1.65-1.97) less likely to hold negative attitudes compared to those who reported learning about child trafficking from the internet. table 5: factors associated with knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking variables knowledge or 95% ci upper lower attitude or 95% ci upper lower better than most people (ref.) 1 1 1 1 same as most people 0.87 0.37–20 0.39 0.51–3.01 worse than most people 0.77 0.32–1.84 1.94 0.88–7.68 level of education * illiterate (ref.) 1 1 1 1 read and write only 0.90 0.354–2.29 0.31 0.49–2.87 primary education 0.99 0.49–1.98 0.41 0.61–3.30 secondary education 1.08 0.50–2.32 0.29 0.08–3.81 college diploma 0.88 0.40–1.94 1.16 0.66–2.43 first degree and above 3.25 1.21–8.81 2.31 1.29–4.34 knowledge** inadequate (ref.) 1 1 adequate 1.26 0.86–1.85 have trafficked family members** no (ref.) yes 1 3.36 1 1.59–6.81 1 0.44 1 0.456– 0.271 sources of information* internet (ref.) 1 1 1 1 knew someone trafficked 1.41 1.27–1.89 4.87 3.86–6.85 television news 1.58 1.38–1.76 3.27 2.88–3.75 television documentary 1.45 1.57–1.89 3.78 2.42–4.63 television movies 1.75 1.44–1.85 2.59 1.43–3.85 radio 1.34 1.35–1.79 1.82 1.65–1.97 **=p<.01, *=p<0.05, ref. = reference category source: authors' own work knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in southern ethiopia 28 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 discussion regarding child trafficking knowledge, residents presented an inadequate level of knowledge, with a lower score in knowledge about the defining features of in-country child trafficking. in contrast to previous studies (e.g., gonçalves et al., 2019; davy and metanji, 2022; adhikari et al., 2023) where participants displayed a good knowledge of the issue, the participants of the current study obtained a lower score on overall knowledge of child trafficking, in accord with other studies (see gezie et al., 2021; gonçalves et al., 2021; exeni mcamis et al., 2022; mazumdar and mukherjee, 2022). significant gaps in understanding persist, as many study participants did not recognize the defining features of in-country child trafficking. the qualitative findings, except for the key informant interview results, all lend support to this finding, which shows the common misconception that trafficking is synonymous with migration, child labor, and forced labor, with some individuals even equating child labor with child trafficking. however, it is important to note that not all instances of child labor equate to child trafficking. this finding aligns with numerous previous findings (e.g., winrock international cambodia, 2012; gecho and worku, 2018). consistent with the earlier findings of sharapov (2019), participants displayed a good knowledge of the victims’ characteristics. in line with previous studies, the current finding shows that a significant majority (79%) of participants recognized the fact that traffickers can come from diverse sources, including acquaintances, strangers, friends, neighbors, family friends, relatives, and private companies. the current finding also aligns with previous research by gecho and worku (2018) that revealed that individuals within a child’s immediate social environment such as friends, peers, brokers, relatives, family members, and neighbors often serve as key agents in the trafficking process in the wolaita zone as well as with findings of sabita et al. (2021) and manju et al. (2024). however, these findings contrast with those of davy and metanji (2022), where only 48% of participants recognized that family members might also act as traffickers. regarding information sources, numerous channels provide information, including mass media and social networks. the findings reflect the unique information ecosystem and media consumption habits of the study population. primary sources, including trusted local institutions and community organizations, appear to be the principal channels for information on child trafficking. this likely stems from these sources’ ability to offer reliable, context-specific insights, which resonate deeply within the community. additionally, the significant role of social networks (30.6%) highlights the importance of interpersonal communication, where word-of-mouth and personal connections play a vital role in shaping understanding. in contrast, the relatively lower influence of television, the internet, documentaries, and movies may indicate both regional media preferences and variations in access or trust in these formats, further emphasizing that information dissemination is context-dependent. 29 the study also explored factors influencing knowledge about child trafficking, specifically focusing on gender and socio-economic status. it found no significant differences linked to these variables, which aligns with the findings of exeni mcamis et al. (2022) and wangsnes (2014). this outcome contrasts with earlier research by davy and metanji (2022), cunha et al. (2019), and gonçalves and matos (2021), all of which indicate higher trafficking knowledge among females, and mazumdar and mukherjee’s (2022) finding, which reported a lower level of knowledge among female participants. in contrast to previous findings of azage et al. (2014) and adhikari et al. (2023), which reported a positive association between socio-economic status and knowledge, the current study did not reveal any significant differences based on the socio-economic status of the participants. this discrepancy may be attributed to the larger sample sizes used in the earlier studies, compared to the smaller sample size observed in the current study for each group. furthermore, individuals with higher education levels had significantly more knowledge about internal child trafficking compared to those with lower educational status. this supports previous findings (botchkovar et al., 2016; gonçalves et al., 2021; sabita et al., 2021; exeni mcamis et al., 2022; mazumdar and mukherjee, 2022) but contradicts wangsnes (2014), which found no significant differences based on education level. knowledge of internal trafficking is also associated with factors such as having family members who have been trafficked and sources of information, in which those who have trafficked family members seem more knowledgeable than those who do not. participants who reported knowing someone who had been trafficked, coupled with their reliance on television news and movies seem to have more knowledge than those who used the internet as their primary source of information. this finding is in line with the findings of thainiyom (2011), shrestha et al. (2015), and sharapov (2019). regarding attitudes toward child trafficking victims and anti-child trafficking practices, the residents expressed a higher level of concern about child trafficking in their locality and showed empathy toward victims. it challenged harmful beliefs, such as children’s complicity and victim-blaming, while highlighting a willingness to engage in preventive measures. however, the perception of migration as a normal practice complicated the understanding of child movement. this finding is analogous to earlier work on attitudes toward human trafficking (e.g., botchkovar et al., 2016; sharapov, 2019; davy and metanji, 2022). nevertheless, the qualitative findings highlight participants’ disagreeing attitudes toward child trafficking, where it is often confused with migration and seen as a way to escape poverty and an opportunity to gain skills and knowledge. this finding aligns with previous studies (walakira et al., 2015; zewdie et al., 2024) that indicate that sending children to towns and cities to improve household income is common. consistent with previous findings, significant associations were found between demographic factors and attitudes toward child trafficking, revealing that education level, knowledge of trafficking, perceived socio-economic status, having family members who had been trafficked, and information sources were associated knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in southern ethiopia 30 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 positively with attitudes toward the issue (oyeleke et al., 2018; sharapov, 2019; davy and metanji, 2022). conversely, this study’s findings contradict several others (see, for example, winrock international cambodia, 2012; cunningham and cromer, 2014; rajji, 2015; botchkovar et al., 2016; mazumdar and mukherjee, 2022). the finding of the study indicates that there is a statistically significant association between knowledge and attitude. participants who possessed adequate knowledge about child trafficking tended to have a desirable attitude toward victims of trafficking and a willingness to engage in preventive practices. this finding is supported by previous findings (e.g., winrock international cambodia, 2012; cunningham and cromer 2014; sharapov, 2019; omoregbe and aghahowa, 2023) that indicate that good knowledge about human trafficking is associated positively with a desirable attitude toward phenomena, and individuals with adequate levels of knowledge about trafficking were less likely to blame the victim for their situation. on the other hand, the current findings do not support some previous findings. for instance, research by rajji (2015) revealed that despite awareness of the negative consequences of human trafficking, positive attitudes toward the practice persisted. similarly, mazumdar and mukherjee (2022) found that individuals demonstrated a higher level of knowledge about child trafficking but failed to exhibit the corresponding attitudes and behaviors. conclusion and recommendations the study examined knowledge and attitudes among the residents of wolaita sodo town, southern ethiopia. it found that many residents had inadequate knowledge about child trafficking. misconceptions remained prevalent, as many participants conflated trafficking with migration, child labor, and forced labor. nevertheless, respondents exhibited a solid grasp of the issue’s dynamics, including the vulnerabilities that lead to the phenomenon, the profiles of traffickers, and their methods. education level played a crucial role in shaping knowledge, with a direct correlation between higher education and better knowledge. however, factors such as gender and socio-economic status did not appear to significantly affect knowledge levels. information sources proved to be vital, with trusted local institutions and interpersonal networks being the most relied-upon resources. in contrast, media formats such as television and the internet had a less significant impact. the study underscores a significant concern and empathy among residents regarding child trafficking, highlighting their willingness to engage in preventive measures while challenging harmful beliefs such as victim-blaming and the notion of children’s complicity. however, misconceptions persisted, particularly surrounding migration, which was frequently perceived as an opportunity rather than a potential trafficking risk. divergent attitudes further complicated understanding, as some participants equated child mobility with economic escape, reflecting cultural norms that support sending children to urban areas for better financial prospects. 31 moreover, demographic factors such as education level, knowledge of trafficking, perceived socio-economic status, and personal experiences with trafficked individuals were positively correlated with attitudes toward the issue. individuals with good knowledge displayed more supportive attitudes toward victims and were less inclined to blame them, reinforcing the connection between education and awareness. to address the knowledge gaps surrounding child trafficking, awareness campaigns must clarify misconceptions and educate the public about this phenomenon’s defining characteristics. incorporating trafficking education into formal curricula can enhance understanding, while community-based information channels and social networks can improve outreach efforts. using various media platforms, such as television and film, can further boost awareness. providing educational resources to support victims and their families can empower communities in the fight against trafficking. to enhance residents’ understanding of child trafficking and foster positive attitudes toward victims, targeted educational programs should be developed to dispel misconceptions, particularly regarding the distinctions between migration and trafficking. community awareness campaigns should focus on dismantling harmful beliefs, such as victim-blaming and should promote protective behaviors. as knowledge is closely linked to attitudes, integrating trafficking education into schools and public forums will help bridge these awareness gaps. additionally, leveraging trusted local institutions and social networks can make information more accessible. recognizing that personal exposure significantly influences attitudes, support programs for victims should include structured education for affected families to strengthen community advocacy. finally, collaborations between law enforcement, policymakers, and social organizations can enhance anti-trafficking initiatives and foster broader engagement within the community. future research should broaden the scope of this study by including prevention components, such as legislation and policy, capacity building, victim support and rehabilitation, and collaboration and coordination. additionally, it should include other contextual factors, such as cultural 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the case of sodo town, wolaita zone. international journal of publication and social studies, 4(2): 56-66. zewdie, b.m., berlie, a.b. and mersha, l.a. 2024. causes of child labor and working conditions in ethiopia: evidence from temporary inter-rural child labor migrants from sekela district. comparative migration studies, 12(28). https:// doi.org/10.1186/s40878-024-00384-1 knowledge of and attitudes toward child trafficking in southern ethiopia 62 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 from deprivation to mobilization: towards a multideterminant model of xenophobic violence in south africa jean pierre misago1 received 27 august 2024 / accepted 06 december 2024 / published 25 april 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v11i1.2363 abstract drawing on extensive and comparative qualitative data from a nearly two-decade long and ongoing research, this article responds to inadequacies and limitations of current causal explanations for xenophobic violence in south africa. the article argues that existing explanations are inadequate as many lack empirical backing and others are incomplete due to their reductionist approach. to address these shortcomings, this article proposes an empirically based and theoretically informed multideterminant (explanatory) model, which identifies and analyses the roles of—and interconnections between—six key determinants, namely: i) socio-economic and political deprivation, ii) xenophobic beliefs, iii) collective discontent, iv) political economy, v) mobilization, and vi) governance. i argue that i) these determinants and their interconnections in a valueadded process constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of xenophobic violence, and ii) this multideterminant model consequently provides an adequate and comprehensive explanation of the xenophobic violence in south africa. in addition to its scholarly contribution, this article has potential policy implications. by clearly identifying the key elements in the causal chain, the study implicitly points to critical areas where intervention efforts could be targeted to effectively address the ongoing xenophobic violence in south africa. keywords: xenophobia, collective violence, migrants, foreign nationals, governance 1 senior researcher and assistant director, african centre for migration & society, witwatersrand university, johannesburg, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6964-3926  jean.misago@wits.ac.za 63 introduction xenophobic violence generally refers to any acts of violence targeted at foreign nationals or “outsiders” because of their being foreign or strangers. it is an explicit targeting of foreign nationals for violent attacks despite other material, political, cultural or social forces that might be at play (dodson, 2010). as gordon (2024:1) notes, “xenophobic violence has become an increasingly commonplace occurrence in democratic south africa” (see also misago and landau, 2022). indeed, “foreign nationals are routinely attacked in their residences, workplaces, business premises, private and public transport, or just walking on the streets” (misago et al., 2021). as misago et al. (2021: 4) observe, xenophobic violence in south africa is generally a collective violent act or “a type of collective violence carried out by groups (large or small) of ordinary members of the public, often mobilised by local leaders (formal or informal) and influential groups or individuals to further their own political and economic interests.” target groups and individuals are regularly killed, assaulted, injured, displaced and their property and livelihood assets looted, destroyed, or appropriated (misago et al., 2021; gordon, 2024). since 2008, this ongoing violence has attracted considerable and increasing scholarly attention, as academics, researchers and other analysts attempt to explain its causal factors and recommend preventive measures. scholarly analysis continues to provide different and competing empirical and theoretical explanations. as misago (2019a) notes, most explanations emphasize broad and structural socio-economic, historical and psychosocial factors, as well as micro-level, local socio-economic and political dynamics. these explanations are valuable in analysing the conditions under which xenophobic violence takes place. however, by implicitly claiming that the causal factors they put forward are necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of xenophobic violence, they “falter when faced with empirical or logical interrogation” (landau, 2011: 3). this article argues that existing explanations are inadequate, and their shortcomings lie in a twofold repertoire of analytical blind spots. first, they lack empirical backing as they do not (even attempt to) establish a direct empirical link between common and longstanding conditions and the occurrence of violence in specific communities, at specific times. second, they are incomplete as most offer reductionist, one-factor explanations for such a complex social phenomenon and, as such, can be at best partial or incomplete. to address these shortcomings, this article proposes an empirically based and theoretically informed multideterminant (explanatory) model, which identifies and analyses the roles of—and interconnections between—six key causal factors (hereafter “determinants”). the six key determinants include i) socio-economic and political deprivation, ii) xenophobic beliefs, iii) collective discontent, iv) political economy, v) mobilization, and vi) governance. i argue that i) these determinants and their interconnections in a value-added process constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of xenophobic towards a multideterminant model of xenophobic violence in south africa 64 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 violence, and ii) this multideterminant model consequently provides an adequate and comprehensive explanation of the xenophobic violence in south africa. after briefly introducing its data sources and methodological approach, the article provides an overview and shortcomings of existing theoretical and empirical explanations of xenophobic violence in south africa. it then proceeds to present the multideterminant model it proposes. the final section or conclusion summarises the article’s key argument and briefly reflects on scholarly and policy implications. methodology this article draws on extensive and comparative qualitative data from ongoing research (hereafter “the study”) on xenophobic violence in south africa beginning from 2006. conducted by the african centre for migration & society at the university of the witwatersrand, the study involves a systematic investigation into the nature, causal factors, and implications of xenophobic violence in the country. to achieve this goal, the study adopted the “most similar systems” approach by selecting research sites affected by the violence and sites that did not experience violence despite having similar socio-economic dynamics as the neighbouring violence-affected communities. the approach was informed by the understanding that “no enquiry into riots [in this case xenophobic violence] should fail to account for their absence” (horowitz, 2001: xiv). this “most similar systems” approach allows the study to identify the most significant distinguishing factors that account for the presence of the violence in certain places, and its absence in others. the study consisted primarily of in-depth qualitative interviews and focus group discussions with local citizens, foreign nationals, perpetrators and victims of the violence, relevant government officials, the police and other local law enforcement bodies such as community policing forums (cpfs), formal and informal community leaders, and other key informants including representatives of different civil society, faith-based, community-based organizations and self-help groups operating in those areas. the study comprised 47 case studies (conducted mainly in the provinces most affected by xenophobic violence, namely gauteng, western cape, kwazulunatal, eastern cape and limpopo) and more than 1130 participants. the study was approved by the university of the witwatersrand’s human research ethics committee (hrec non-medical). ethics clearance certificate number: h22/08/18. overview and appraisal of current theoretical and empirical explanations theoretical approaches to xenophobic violence despite its global and growing dimensions, xenophobic violence does not seem to have attracted as much “targeted” theoretical attention as have other types of collective violence. attempts at theoretical explanations for xenophobic violence in south africa often borrow from “generic” mainstream theories of collective violence 65 particularly because, as indicated earlier, xenophobic violence in south africa is often collective. while there appears to be as many theoretical approaches to collective violence as there are academic disciplines (see dekeseredy and barbara, 2006), two lines of theorizing—deprivation and mobilization models—have received much more attention than most (horowitz, 2001) and currently dominate the literature on collective violence causal factors (snyder, 1978). however, i argue that despite their popularity and contribution these models and their imbedded theories are still not adequate explanations for the occurrence of collective violence and, by extension, xenophobic violence. their limitations lie in their reductionist or isolationist approach, that is, their claims that one factor can fully explain collective violence in isolation of other societal conditions and processes. i argue that, when applied as sufficient explanations, these approaches are ultimately inadequate and in need of supplementation. as sen (2008) rightly notes, the causal mechanisms of collective violence are more complex than reductionist approaches are capable of accounting for. the following section outlines the key tenets of these models and assesses their explanatory value. the deprivation model the central argument of theories in the deprivation model, also known as the “discontent model” (snyder, 1978), is that generalised real or perceived deprivation in political, social or economic welfare leads to collective discontent or mass anger that eventually erupts in collective violence. there are many different theories in this model, but the two most commonly used include realistic group conflict theory and relative deprivation theory. the realistic group conflict theory focusses on social-structural sources of group difference and stipulates that violent conflict between groups is rooted in a clash of competing group interests, be they economic or claims to social status and privileges (brief et al., 2005). the theory suggests that group competition over resources and opportunities can lead to group tensions and ultimately violent group conflict or collective violence (sniderman et al., 2004). the relative deprivation theory stipulates that perceptions of deprivation, and concomitant feelings of frustration and alienation, arise when there is a discrepancy between value expectations and value capabilities, as reflected in the social and physical environment (gurr, 1970). where deprivation is widespread and extreme, the possibility for violence is greater (conteh-morgan, 2004). the scope and intensity of the relative deprivation produces variations in collective discontent which, according to the theory, leads to collective violence (snyder, 1978; aya, 1979). in gurr’s (1970: 13) own terms: “discontent arising from the perception of relative deprivation is the basic, instigating condition for participants in collective violence.” as aya (1979) notes, despite its popular use, the deprivation model has been heavily criticized on methodological and empirical grounds, particularly for failing to i) address important substantive questions relating to how discontented towards a multideterminant model of xenophobic violence in south africa 66 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 individuals come to undertake collective action, and ii) specify the conditions under which expectations may be frustrated without producing violence. “[...] they simply assume a direct connection between frustration and revolt, and thus beg the question they profess to have answered” (aya, 1979: 57). as discussed further on, despite its obvious limitations, the deprivation model is commonly used to explain xenophobic violence in south africa. the mobilization model for present purposes, mobilization refers broadly to all strategies and activities aimed at recruiting and persuading individuals to participate in collective action/violence. theories in this model were developed partly as a response to the above-outlined conceptual and empirical limitations of the deprivation theories (snyder, 1978). the core argument of this approach is that it is the organization or mobilization of discontent that triggers collective violence rather than just discontent or grievances themselves (snyder, 1978). the most prominent theories in this model include resource mobilization, rationale choice, and elite manipulation theories. the resource mobilization theory posits that collective action flows from groups vying for political positions and advantages. it “is simply politics by other means” (useem, 1998: 216). according to this theory, collective violence is not, or at least not only, a response to deprivation, particularly because that deprivation and the resulting discontent are a “constant” that cannot adequately explain the occurrence of collective violence only in certain places and at certain times (piven and cloward, 1991). this is not to say that grievances or discontent are not important or invoked but “they want political mobilization via association, formal or informal, to be galvanised into action” (aya, 1979: 49, see also zald and mccarthy, 1979). the rational choice theory conceives of collective violence as an act of collective and rational decision makers that mobilize their followers and promote their causes with the best available strategies informed by cognitive material and socio-political resources at their disposal (kitschelt, 1986). it stipulates that “an individual will join collective violent action only when he expects the benefits of his participation to exceed the costs; when the net value of doing so is positive, that is when benefits of such activity outweigh costs” (hechter et al., 1982: 442). the benefits ought not only to be material or economic rewards. social, political, “identitive” or emotive incentives are equally important (muller and opp, 1986). the central tenet of the elite manipulation theory is that collective violence results from the manipulation of masses by the elites for their economic and political interests. understanding that “groups rarely organize themselves without some sort of political leader that is able to harness and bring critical issues to the forefront of individual consciousness” (gerring, 2009: 12), elites often strategically mobilize existing—or purposely created—popular discontent into collective action to maximum political gain (gerring, 2009). elites can be elected or self-appointed leaders, political party leaders or representatives of interest groups. 67 towards a multideterminant model of xenophobic violence in south africa in general, the mobilization model posits that the organization or mobilization of discontent is a central explanatory variable, particularly insofar as it helps to account for how individuals come to participate collectively (at the same place, time, and often for the same purpose) in violent acts (gerring, 2009). despite its merits, however, the model is not without its weaknesses. i argue that the model’s inability to determine the specific societal conditions upon which successful mobilization depends renders it an equally inadequate explanation for the occurrence of collective violence. for example, while specifically stipulating that it is the mobilization of discontent that triggers collective violence, the model fails to acknowledge collective discontent as a key element in the collective violence causal chain. in conclusion, the discussion above clearly shows that while dominant theoretical models contribute to the understanding of collective violence, they fall short when applied as sufficient explanations. their main weakness lies in their reductionist approach that attempts to explain collective violence solely in terms of deprivation or mobilization. the causal factors they put forward are important but neither works on its own, nor can these models provide a complete and adequate explanation for the occurrence of collective violence. i agree with sen (2008) who opines that approaches to explaining violence should avoid isolationist models because individual factors, no matter how important they are, cannot provide an adequate understanding of the causation of such a complex phenomenon in isolation of other societal conditions and processes. “a solitarist approach is, in general, a very efficient way of misunderstanding nearly everyone [or everything] in the world” (sen, 2008: 7). this article shows that both deprivation and mobilization are important determinants of xenophobic violence but are not sufficient explanations when applied individually or even in combination. they need supplementation, that is, they require the effect of other indispensable determinants to produce incidents of xenophobic violence. empirical explanations for xenophobic violence in south africa existing causal explanations for xenophobic violence in south africa can be grouped into three main categories: i) economic and material, ii) historical, political and institutional, and iii) psychosocial. indeed, as lau et al. (2010: 1) note, dominant explanations for collective and xenophobic violence in south africa characterize it “(i) as a manifestation of social inequality and poverty; (ii) as a manifestation of a ‘culture of violence’ entrenched by a history of militarism; and (iii) as ‘symptomatic’ of historical trauma cultivated by the legacy of apartheid.” economic and material explanations informed by poor socio-economic conditions and deprivation prevailing in most of affected communities, economic and material explanations for xenophobic violence in south africa emphasize competition between citizens and immigrants 68 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 over scarce resources and opportunities as the main cause of the violence (see for example dodson, 2010; sempijja and tewold, 2020; misago et al, 2021; mongale, 2022; olofinbiyi, 2022). more specific accounts often draw attention to inequality, poverty, unemployment and other particular aspects of material deprivation caused by discriminatory policies and practices of the apartheid regime but also by the new government’s service delivery failures (see for example crush et al., 2008 and claassen, 2017). similarly, sempijja and mongale (2022: 1) argue that “xenophobic attacks in south africa were triggered by drivers such as income inequality, inter-group hatred, racism, poverty, unemployment and competition for resources, the quest for social justice emanating from historical socio-economic grievances.” further, tewold (2020) explains xenophobic violence using the realistic conflict theory and argues that the violence is a result of intergroup competition over scarce resources. in line with tilly’s observation that “analysts often refer to large-scale causes (poverty, widespread frustration, extremism, resource competition and so on) proposing them as necessary or sufficient conditions for whole episodes of collective violence” (tilly, 2003: 20), these explanations are evidently informed by the deprivation theoretical model outlined earlier. echoing the limitations of the model, i agree with crush et al (2008: 16) that “[w]hile there is an understandable reductionist tendency to view anti-foreign violence as a direct product of the material deprivation and competition amongst poor south africans, this does not explain why all poor communities did not explode in may 2008”; and with tshitereke (1999: 4) that “violence is not an inevitable outcome of relative deprivation.” however, despite the lack of definitive empirical backing, economic and material explanations for collective and xenophobic violence persist because the connection between poverty and group violence seems obvious, particularly when violence occurs in poor and unequal societies as it often does. as sen (2008: 8) puts it: […] the connection has appeared to be so obviously credible that the paucity of definitive empirical evidence has not discouraged the frequent invoking of this way of understanding the recurrence of violence in countries with much poverty and inequality.[…] the claim that poverty is responsible for group violence draws on an oversimplification of empirical connections that are far from universal. i further agree with sen that “it would be a huge mistake to see economic inequality and poverty as being automatically responsible for violence—indeed, it would be just as serious a mistake as the assumption that inequality and poverty have nothing to do with the possibility of violence” (sen, 2008: 14). economic and material deprivation can therefore only be one element among many in the collective violence (or in this case xenophobic violence) causal chain. 69 historical, political and institutional explanations for many analysts, the causes of the xenophobic violence in south africa lie in factors related to the country’s past and current political and institutional configurations, which shaped and continue to shape “the coding of unregulated (and even regulated) human mobility as a threat to insiders’ economic and physical well-being and national (or even sub-national) achievement” (landau, 2011: 5; see also misago and landau, 2022). the factors often cited include the legacy of apartheid, the impact of postapartheid nation-building efforts and “the failure of national rebirth” (landau, 2011). citizen rights in africa initiative (crai) (2009), for instance, argues that the legacy of apartheid and isolation created a fertile ground for xenophobic violence in several ways: i) it created radicalized notions of identity, ii) enforced separation among different populations including isolating south africans from the rest of the continent, and iii) institutionalized violence as a means of communicating grievances and achieving political ends (see also jaynes, 2008). further, arguing that african immigrants in south africa live in “post-apartheid apartheid,” kaziboni (2022: 209) explains the ongoing xenophobic violence in contemporary south africa as a result of the use and normalisation of violence originating from apartheid’s racist past. analysts who link xenophobic violence to the post-apartheid nation-building efforts argue, for example, that post-apartheid immigration policies and practices have reinforced “a deep suspicion of those who move” (landau, 2011: 5) and have constructed the foreigner as the “violable alien” (misago et al 2009; see also dodson, 2010: 6) in trying to build a new national identity and protect the new citizenry (peberdy, 2009; misago and landau, 2022). regarding the failure of national rebirth, analysts argue that the violence against foreign nationals is caused by the government’s failure to realise citizens’ social and economic rights since 1994, that is, the failure of the government to meet post-apartheid expectations regarding economic conditions and service delivery (cormsa, 2008; crai, 2009). in sum, it is only logical to note that, while valuable in providing a relevant context, historical, political and institutional factors alone cannot account for the variations in occurrence and intensity of xenophobic violence. like economic and material conditions, these factors are longstanding and common in many south african communities or areas that have not experienced a single incident of xenophobic violence to date. psychosocial explanations analysts also put forward psychosocial factors as explanations for the ongoing xenophobic violence in south africa. one of these factors is “cultural stereotyping” that results from south africans’ new direct contact with foreign africans (dodson, 2010). according to harris (2002), mutual stereotyping between south africans and foreigners essentializes and exaggerates cultural differences and thus gives rise to prejudice and conflict. another factor put forward is the “culture of violence.” some analysts see collective and xenophobic violence in south africa as a manifestation towards a multideterminant model of xenophobic violence in south africa 70 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 of a “culture of violence” entrenched by a history of militarism (lau et al., 2010). another related explanation is “historical trauma” cultivated by the apartheid legacy (seedat, 2010). according to lau et al. (2010: 7), “xenophobic violence, a peculiar form of ‘black-on-black’ violence, represents the spill over of repressed trauma, as manifest in the transfer of anger and hatred of the former ‘colonial masters’ onto an equally or more vulnerable ‘other’ through physical acts of denigration.” in a similar vein, using freudian political psychology to explain xenophobic violence in south africa, olofinbiyi (2022: 198) argues that “ […] a battered psychological mind frame resulting from apartheid dehumanisation is an intriguing causal factor for the violent behaviour of south african xenophobes towards foreign nationals” and that “[…] the painful memory of apartheid is a trigger factor for recurrent xenophobic violence against immigrants in south africa” (olofinbiyi, 2022: 199). once again, these factors provide a valuable understanding of underlying conditions but are not sufficient explanations because of empirical evidence that shows that the presence of foreign nationals in areas renowned for public violence and violent crime does not necessarily lead to the foreigners’ violent exclusion and that xenophobic violence in south africa is not exclusively a “black-on-black” affair (tewold, 2020). as the discussion above clearly indicates, the proposed economic, political and psychosocial explanations are valuable in analysing the conditions under which xenophobic violence takes place. however, by implicitly claiming that the causal factors they put forward are necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of xenophobic violence, they “falter when faced with empirical or logical interrogation” (landau, 2011: 3). in other words, they are not adequate explanations for the occurrence of xenophobic violence. the reason for this is twofold. first, these explanations maintain only a tenuous relationship with empirical reality. they lack empirical backing as they do not (even attempt to) establish a direct empirical link between common and longstanding conditions and the occurrence of violence in specific communities, at specific times. in other words, they fail to identify and clarify processes through which conditions and motives translate into collective violent attacks. second, they offer reductionist, one-factor causes to explain such a complex social phenomenon and, as such, can be at best partial or incomplete (sen, 2008). these explanations ultimately point to general elements of socio-economic and political deprivation that are necessary but not sufficient conditions for the occurrence of xenophobic violence. i attempt to address these shortcomings by proposing the following multideterminant model. a multideterminant model: six determinants and their interconnectedness this study finds that incidents of xenophobic violence are a result of complex interconnections between six key determinants grouped into three layers of causality, 71 namely underlying conditions, proximate causes and triggers. underlying conditions include i) socio-economic and political deprivation (hereafter deprivation), ii) xenophobia and negative attitudes towards foreign nationals (hereafter xenophobia), and iii) collective discontent. proximate causes consist of iv) political economy or politico-economic violence entrepreneurship (hereafter political economy), and v) favourable governance (hereafter governance). mobilization (vi) acts as a trigger. i argue that i) these determinants and their interconnections in a value-added process constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of xenophobic violence, and ii) this multideterminant model consequently provides an adequate and comprehensive explanation of the xenophobic violence in south africa. the following provides a brief explanation of these determinants and their interconnectedness. readers will be referred to earlier work for detailed discussions on individual determinants. socio-economic deprivation as indicated earlier, xenophobic violence occurs mostly (albeit not exclusively) in poor and economically marginalized informal settlements and townships where citizens (many of whom are themselves internal migrants) and immigrants meet amid poor living conditions and severe socio-economic deprivation. to varying degrees, residents in areas covered in this research face longstanding, severe and worsening severe socioeconomic hardships and ills, including high rates of unemployment, poor service delivery, poverty, overcrowding, high crime rates, violence, gangsterism, drug and alcohol abuse, and general lack of livelihood opportunities (misago et al., 2021). perhaps not surprisingly, socio-economic hardships lead to fierce competition for scarce public services, livelihood resources and opportunities that often lead to tensions and conflicts among individuals and groups, particularly between citizens and foreign residents (misago, 2016a). as this study finds, residents of violenceaffected areas perceive this competition as unfair and illegitimate and accuse foreign residents of stealing what is legitimately theirs. a mamelodi respondent, for example, stated: the issue of economy, our people are now saying these people are taking our jobs, our spaza shops are now owned by people from outside the country. then there is this issue of services because; we are too many, they are using our clinics and hospitals; we don’t have access to our facilities like we used to previously. there is also this issue of crime, most of the time i see them on the tv they are pastors and scamming our people and all those things that also contributes to the tension.2 as dodson (2010: 5) suggests, this resented competition produces an “ethnicised political economy in which microeconomic friction is displaced into hate-filled 2 interview with a mamelodi resident, april 7, 2022. towards a multideterminant model of xenophobic violence in south africa 72 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 nationalism.” as discussed below, when blamed on the presence of outsiders (as often is), widespread socio-economic deprivation provides fertile ground for xenophobic violence as it, together with other factors, leads to collective discontent that often gets mobilized for xenophobic violence. xenophobia and negative attitudes towards foreign nationals in all studies areas, community members and their leaders generally hold strong negative perceptions and attitudes towards foreign nationals whom they blame for most of the socio-economic hardships outlined above. residents perceive the presence of foreign nationals as a threat to their lives and livelihoods. these sentiments are common not only among residents of our study areas but also among south africans in general. indeed, research consistently shows that these sentiments are widespread and cut across race, class, gender, age, ethnic and religious divides (nyamnjoh, 2006). as an example, a 2020 hsrc survey reveals that 57% of the country’s population hold negative attitudes towards immigrants, particularly those of african and asian origin (hsrc, 2020). a dunoon respondent confirmed these native attitudes: “yes, we live with them, but i'm not going to lie, we are pretending [to like] each other. we believe that the crimes that exist here would not exist if they were not here. we have the belief that they are taking our jobs. they are cheap labour. this is the belief we have.”3 these attitudes and strong resentment result from—and are in turn reinforced by—constant scapegoating by the public, government officials and political leaders who blame foreign nationals for service delivery failures, and for most of the country’s socio-economic ills and hardships described above (unhcr, 2015). scapegoating is a well-documented source of negative attitudes and resentment towards foreign nationals in south africa. indeed, human rights watch (hrw) indicates that many african and asian foreigners have been targets of xenophobia because they are “often scapegoated for economic insecurity and government failures in delivering basic services to its citizens …” (hrw, 2020: 16; see also crush et al., 2008). this is a typical case predicted by the scapegoating theory that stipulates that “if a majority group encounters difficult economic conditions, they often feel threatened by minorities, especially if they are foreign” (muswede and mpofu, 2020: 276). a 2018 survey revealed that “more than 1 in 10 adults living in south africa had not taken part in violent action against foreign nationals—but would be prepared to do so […]. the results of this study show that millions of ordinary south africans are prepared to engage in anti-immigrant behaviour” (gordon, 2019: 2). similarly, a 2023 south african reconciliation barometer report (ijr, 2023: 32) indicates that, in 2023, more than a quarter of south africans indicated that they were “likely or very likely to take action to prevent african migrants from moving into their neighbourhood, operating a business in their area, or accessing jobs or government services.” this clearly indicates that the pervasive xenophobic climate in the country constitutes a “collective mental state” and builds on a psychological “raw material” 3 interview with a dunoon resident, march 14, 2022. 73 mobilization for xenophobic violence (bostock, 2010). by definition, xenophobia is inevitably one of the determinants of xenophobic violence. collective discontent against foreign nationals as mentioned above, a combination of severe socio-economic deprivation and xenophobia are used to blame this deprivation on foreign nationals, which leads to collective anger and discontent towards foreign nationals living in affected communities. for purposes of this article, collective discontent refers to a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction, anger shared by a group of people about certain aspects of their lives and, particularly, about similar, longstanding and unresolved societal issues. in this case, the unresolved concern and the object of the collective discontent is the presence of foreign nationals perceived as a real and increasing threat to their lives and livelihoods. the framing of foreign nationals as a threat to national security and the wellbeing of the citizenry mainly takes roots in the past and present socio-political imaginaries and actions. indeed, misago and landau (2022: 5) note that, drawing on a rhetorical archive from the country’s colonial and apartheid past, the postapartheid government’s words and actions characterize the migrant as a demonised category responsible for lack of national progress, and “an obstacle to addressing the historical inequities and creating true freedom for a deserving citizenry.” as indicated earlier, the study finds that these feelings are firmly entrenched in the minds of many members of local communities who believe that foreign nationals undermine their socio-economic development and prosperity by stealing jobs and businesses opportunities, overburdening or depleting public services, and committing most of the crime in their areas. one khayelitsha respondent, for example, expressed feelings shared my many: […] most of our people are unemployed; people who work are foreign nationals. like the people of zimbabwe or lesotho. i would say that the people in charge of the jobs are foreigners. i don’t want to hide that fact. that is the problem. that is why we were saying let’s minimize these people […] so, they live a comfortable life. these are painful things for people. that can make a mess at any time. as discussed above, research evidence indicates that collective discontent against foreign nationals is pervasive in many communities in south africa. many of these discontented communities have not experienced xenophobic violence. in other words, xenophobic violence occurs in some communities and not in others despite, the shared collective discontent. this is evidence that collective discontent does not always lead to collective violence (see also postmes, 2019). the question then is, under what conditions does collective discontent lead to collective violence or, more specifically, under what conditions does collective discontent against foreign towards a multideterminant model of xenophobic violence in south africa 74 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 nationals translate into xenophobic violence in south africa? the following section answers this question by discussing how proximate causes and triggers build on this collective discontent to produce incidents of xenophobic violence. political economy and micropolitics since 2008, this study has consistently shown that micropolitics and localised political economy are a significant element or determinant in the xenophobic violence causal chain. as i argue elsewhere, “xenophobic violence in post-apartheid south africa is primarily ‘politics by other means’ as its instrumental motives are located in the localised political economy and micro-political processes at play in affected communities” (misago, 2017: 42). indeed, this study finds that xenophobic violence is in most cases organized/instigated by well-known local interest groups, such as formal and informal leadership structures, civic associations, concerned resident associations, local business and development forums, local political movements, gangs and other interest groups, to further their own political and economic interests (misago, 2017; misago and landau, 2022). these groups, often referred to as “violence entrepreneurs” (guichaoua, 2013) exploit or use the existing and well-known collective discontent against foreign nationals to mobilize residents for xenophobic attacks for their own political and economic interests. the finding is in line with the “elite manipulation theory” which stipulates that elites often strategically mobilize existing—or purposely created— popular discontent into collective action for maximum political and economic gain. as an example, the case of the dudula movement in alexandra township in johannesburg illustrates this point. in march and may 2022, the dudula movement organized and led xenophobic attacks that drove foreign nationals out of their houses and trading stalls in alexandra. several people were injured, and foreign-owned trading stalls were destroyed (simelane, 2022). despite the movement’s claims that the attacks to remove foreignness were meant to help local south africans, there was evidence that this was effectively a strategy of self-economic empowerment by its members. respondents indicated, for example, that dudula movement members forcefully evicted foreign nationals from houses only to sell the houses back to the same people later or rent them to other people. they evicted foreign nationals from trading stalls to give the stalls to south africans for a fee. while a former leader dismissed the idea that the dudula movement received financial support from political parties, he confirmed that it benefited economically by collecting money from residents. in his own words: “no, we never received any money. the last time we got money from the traders was when we removed all the illegal foreigners. after we removed them, we put south africans. i think for the period of six months those south africans were giving us r30 to trade”4 (see misago, 2017; misago and landau, 2022 for a detailed discussion on the political economy as a driver of xenophobic violence in south africa). 4 interview with a former dudula movement leader, december 2022. 75 mobilization as a trigger of xenophobic violence as indicated above, “violence entrepreneurs” build on collective discontent to mobilize community members for xenophobic attacks. indeed, the study identifies mobilization as an immediate trigger of xenophobic violence. for purposes of this article, mobilization broadly refers to all activities, interactions and processes aimed at recruiting and persuading individuals and groups to participate in collective action. it refers to a process of bringing potential participants into action. it focuses on instigators of the violence or “violence entrepreneurs” and their ability to assemble individuals and get them to participate in collective action for a seemingly common/ collective goal (details in misago, 2019a). mobilization refers to “the process through which violence entrepreneurs and followers seal temporary loyalties around a violent enterprise” (guichaoua 2013: 70). in line with the mobilization theoretical model discussed earlier, this study finds that, while various forms of social, economic and/or political grievances are important elements in heightening tensions and creating collective discontent, anger and resentment towards foreign nationals, it is the mobilization of this discontent—and not the discontent itself—that triggers collective violent attacks on south africa’s foreign residents. mobilization is the vital connective tissue between discontent and collective violence. as a trigger, mobilization helps explain the pathways from collective discontent and/or instrumental motives to collective violent action. collective discontent needs mobilization to trigger collective violence action the same way dry grass needs a spark to ignite fire (gleason, 2011). instigators of xenophobic violence in south africa use various mobilization techniques and processes that include “haranguing” and inciting crowds during mass community meetings, mainstream and social media messages, spreading purposely engineered rumours, appeals to community’s sense of solidarity and right to self-defence, setting examples and asking community members to join, and hiring unemployed youths to carry out the attacks. for example, in alexandra (a township in johannesburg), mobilizing for the may 2008 violence against foreign nationals was the work of the local community leaders who called a mass community meeting where the decision to attack and remove foreign nationals from the area was taken, and after which attacks immediately started. one respondent stated: the decision to remove foreigners was taken at a meeting held at the police station. there was also a community leader who issued a statement that people must decide on how they deal with someone who has entered his kraal and taken his cattle. this statement for me started the violence. people agreed with community leaders that foreigners must leave. people said “from this very moment we are going to remove foreigners. we no longer want them here.” then attacks immediately started.5 5 interview with an alexandra resident, june 2, 2009. towards a multideterminant model of xenophobic violence in south africa 76 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 for a detailed empirical and theoretical analysis of mobilization as a trigger of xenophobic violence in south africa, see misago (2019a). governance as a political opportunity structure for xenophobic violence using the most similar systems methodological approach, this study identified local governance as the most significant distinguishing factor to explain the occurrence or absence of xenophobic violence in communities or locations with similar socioeconomic conditions and similar collective discontent against foreign nationals. here, “local governance” refers “to all formal and informal systems of order in a given locality or polity, i.e. the integration of—or interaction between—all localised systems of controls (social, economic, normative, legal, and political) and leadership, authority and power regimes” (misago, 2019b: 59). the study indeed provides evidence that xenophobic violence occurs in places where local governance provides a favourable “micro-political opportunity structure” that facilitates the occurrence of the violence in two ways: i) in many cases, official local authority facilitates and is directly involved in the violence, and ii) in areas where official authority is weak or absent, other violence entrepreneurs are provided with an opportunity to act. the study also finds that, despite the presence of other determinants, particularly collective discontent and mobilization efforts, xenophobic violence does not occur in places where local governance does not provide the needed favourable political opportunity structure (misago, 2016a; misago, 2019b; monson, 2011). as monson (2011: 189) confirms: […] the spread of [xenophobic] violence appeared to depend on the strength of leadership institutions in the surrounding areas. arguably, more strongly democratic forms of leadership created firebreaks against the conflagration, while adjacent areas of weakly institutionalised leadership or leadership autonomous from the state presented softer boundaries, more easily penetrated both by political instigators and by the depoliticised spread of recidivism. in these areas, local governance constrains rather than facilitates the occurrence of xenophobic violence. these cases are evidence that mobilization for xenophobic violence does not succeed without a favourable political opportunity structure provided by local governance. governance is therefore a significant determinant of xenophobic violence in south africa, as it is a defining intervening variable between mobilization and the occurrence of the violence (see misago, 2019b for a detailed discussion on this determinant). to sum up, this section discusses six key determinants (deprivation, xenophobia, collective discontent, political economy, mobilization and governance) that need to be present—and interconnections that need to take place—for xenophobic violence to occur. it is these determinants and their interconnections that i term “the multideterminant model” of xenophobic violence in south africa. 77 figure 1 below presents a graphic display of this model. the display is followed by a brief explanation. figure 1 "multideterminant model” of xenophobic violence in south africa source: author's own work widespread deprivation and pervasive xenophobia lead to collective discontent and strong resentment towards foreign nationals. regarding political economy, local violence entrepreneurs exploit existing and well-known collective discontent against foreign nationals to mobilize residents for xenophobic attacks for their own political and economic interests. localised political economy—or instrumental motives of violence entrepreneurs—acts as an intervening variable between collective discontent and mobilization. for mobilization, violence entrepreneurs use different mobilization techniques to trigger attacks on foreign nationals. they bring aggrieved community members together and stir them into a collective violent act to remove what they perceive to be the source of their discontent. it is the mobilization of discontent that triggers xenophobic violence. in terms of governance, favourable local governance provides mobilization with the micro-political opportunity structure it needs to take place, and eventually succeeds in triggering xenophobic violence. governance acts as a defining intervening variable between mobilization and the occurrence of xenophobic violence as it alters the nature of their relationship depending on whether it acts as a facilitating or a thwarting agent. the value-added process, as shown in figure 1, reflects the determinants outlined above and how they interact in a value-added process to lead to the occurrence of xenophobic violence. each determinant plays an indispensable role and adds its contribution to the contributions of other determinants. each must be present for the next to assume the status of a determinant (see also smelser, 1963). i argue that an incident of xenophobic violence would normally not happen if any of these determinants were absent. this means that none of these determinants can explain xenophobic violence on their own, but together, interacting in a value-added towards a multideterminant model of xenophobic violence in south africa 78 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 process, they constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions for a xenophobic violence incident to occur. i agree with sen (2008: 15) that “none of these individual influences, important as they very often are in a fuller picture, can provide an adequate understanding of the causation of widespread violence. […] the interconnections are as important as the elements that have to be connected.” i therefore argue that this multideterminant model provides a comprehensive, theoretically informed and empirically based explanation for xenophobic violence in south africa. by doing so, the model makes its own case by i) highlighting the need for an integrated empirical and theoretical model for xenophobic violence, and ii) making even more evident the poverty or incompleteness of existing, mono-causal empirical explanations and reductionist theoretical models. conclusion drawing on extensive and comparative qualitative data from a nearly two-decade long and ongoing research, this article responds to inadequacies and limitations of current causal explanations for xenophobic violence in south africa. it argues that the poverty of existing explanatory models lies in a twofold repertoire of analytical blind spots: i) many lack empirical backing; ii) others are incomplete due to their reductionist approach. to address these shortcomings, this article proposes an empirically based and theoretically informed multideterminant (explanatory) model, which identifies and analyses the roles of—and interconnections between—six key determinants, namely: i) socio-economic and political deprivation, ii) xenophobic beliefs, iii) collective discontent, iv) political economy, v) mobilization, and vi) governance. i argue that i) these determinants and their interconnections in a valueadded process constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of xenophobic violence, and ii) this multideterminant model consequently provides an adequate and comprehensive explanation of the xenophobic violence in south africa. in addition to its scholarly contributions, this article has potential policy/ practical relevance and implications. by clearly identifying the main and critical elements of the causal chain, the study implicitly identifies critical areas where intervention efforts could be targeted in order to stop ongoing, and prevent future, xenophobic violence in south africa. empirical evidence from this study indicates that responses and intervention strategies to address xenophobic violence in south africa have largely been ineffective because they are not evidence-based, that is, they are not informed by a clear understanding of key causal factors or determinants (misago, 2016b). a clear understanding of the elements of the violence causal chain and their modes of interaction could help relevant stakeholders to design more effective intervention strategies. stakeholders with different mandates and capacities could easily identify intervention areas where their efforts are most needed and are likely to have an impact. 79 references aya, r. 1979. theories of revolution reconsidered: contrasting models of collective violence. theory and society, 8(1): 39-99. bostock, w.w. 2010. the psychological preconditions for collective violence: several case studies. journal of alternative perspectives in the social sciences. available at: https://hdl.handle.net/102.100.100/585478. brief, a.p., umphress, e.e., dietz, j., burrows, j.w., butz, r.m. and scholten, l. 2005. community matters: realistic group conflict theory and the impact of diversity. academy of management journal, 48(5): 830‒844. citizenship rights in africa initiative (crai). 2009. tolerating intolerance: xenophobic violence in south africa. available at: http://www. citizenshiprightsinafrica.org/publications/2009/craisareport.july2009.pdf. accessed on 11 march 2024. claassen, c. 2017. explaining south african xenophobia. afrobarometer working paper no. 173, june 2017. available at: https://www.afrobarometer.org/wpcontent/uploads/2022/02/afropaperno173_xenophobia_in_south_africa.pdf. accessed on 07 april 2024. consortium for refugees and migrants in south africa (cormsa). 2009. protecting refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants in south africa. johannesburg: cormsa. conteh-morgan, e. 2004. collective political violence: an introduction to the theories and cases of violent conflicts. routledge: new york and london. crush, j., mcdonald, d., williams, lefko-everett, k., dorey, d.,taylor, d. and sablonnière, r. 2008. the perfect storm: the realities of xenophobia in contemporary south africa. cape town: southern african migration project, migration policy series, idasa. barak, g. 2006. a critical perspective on violence. in dekeseredy, w.s. and barbara, p. 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zald, m.n. and mccarthy, j.d. 1979. the dynamics of social movements. cambridge: winthrop publications. towards a multideterminant model of xenophobic violence in south africa 17 the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness: causes, consequences and legal responses christina beninger* and rashida manjoo** received 13 may 2022 / accepted 23 november 2022 / published 27 january 2023 abstract gender discrimination, both direct and indirect, is a leading cause of statelessness worldwide. most often, direct discrimination is reflected in patriarchal nationality laws that restrict women’s ability to acquire, retain, and pass on their nationality to their children and their spouses. there are also many indirect forms of discrimination owing to women’s often subordinate status that can impact women’s (and their children’s) vulnerability to statelessness. overall, women are subject to a range of elevated and compounded risks of statelessness linked to patriarchal norms and deeply rooted gender inequalities. despite the substantial impact of gender discrimination on statelessness, this issue is an understudied topic in the literature. this article discusses how gender discrimination impacts statelessness broadly and analyses how relevant international and selected southern african and domestic law and policy frameworks have responded to this issue. first, the article briefly discusses some of the leading causes of statelessness arising from direct and indirect gender discrimination, and some of the key consequences of statelessness for women. secondly, the article provides a critical gender analysis of the international legal framework on statelessness. it discusses how relevant international human rights legal and policy frameworks offer a robust protection of women’s nationality rights and gender equality. thirdly, the article analyses selected regional and national law and policy developments related to gender and statelessness in southern africa. overall, while the analysis indicates progress in some areas, there remain ongoing challenges in bridging the statelessness gender discrimination gap and a need for furth er research in this area. keywords: statelessness, women, discrimination, international law, southern africa ____________________ * university of cape town, south africa. corresponding author.  bnnchr007@myuct.ac.za ** university of cape town, south africa. the authors wish to thank sheryl kunaka for her research assistance with section iv of this article. the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness 18 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 i. introduction statelessness is a significant issue impacting human rights globally and in southern africa. the latter region hosts some of the largest stateless populations on the african continent, including in south africa and zimbabwe.1 while there is a lack of clear data on the exact numbers of stateless or potentially stateless people in the region,2 the world bank estimates indicate that more than 130 million people in southern africa lack identity and nationality identification.3 for many, this can render them at high risk of statelessness, since many southern african governments require identification documents to confirm nationality. denied the right to a nationality, stateless people often face a range of barriers in accessing their fundamental human rights. as arendt famously observed, nationality is ‘the right to have rights’.4 when nationality rights are denied, the impacts often include a lack of legal status and protection, and the denial in practice of a wide range of human rights, including the right to work, to health and to education.5 while statelessness has profound consequences for the human rights of both men and women, there is growing evidence that women are both more vulnerable to becoming stateless, and more vulnerable when stateless.6 worldwide, women in general face deep-rooted structural discrimination in public, in the home, and in the workplace, owing to gender inequality and patriarchal norms.7 pervasive gender inequalities are further compounded for women who face discrimination on multiple and intersecting grounds, including race or ethnicity, and those who are displaced, refugees, or stateless.8 however, as various scholars who have brought attention to the links between gender and statelessness have noted, there is a gap in the literature regarding the many gender dimensions of statelessness.9 in fact, as brennan contends, gender perspectives, and particularly feminist analysis, have been 1 aimée-noël mbiyozo ‘statelessness in southern africa: time to end it, not promote it’ (2019) institute for security studies, available at https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/sar32.pdf, accessed on 12 may 2022. 2 emmanuelle mitte ‘“foreigners everywhere, nationals nowhere”: southern africa’s changing response to un campaign on statelessness’ (2021), available at https://africanlii.org/article/20211103/%e2%80%98foreigners-everywherenationals-nowhere%e2%80%99-southern-africa%e2%80%99s-changing-response-un, accessed on 12 may 2022. 3 world bank ‘identification for development (id4d) global dataset’ (2021), available at https://datacatalog.worldbank. org/search/dataset/0040787, accessed on 12 may 2022. 4 hannah arendt the origins of totalitarianism (1951). 5 david weissbrodt & clay collins ‘the human rights of stateless persons’ (2006) 28 human rights quarterly 245 at 265 6 committee on the elimination of discrimination against women (cedaw committee) ‘general recommendation no. 32 on the gender-related dimensions of refugee status, asylum, nationality and statelessness of women’ (5 november 2014) cedaw/c/gc/32 at para 51 (cedaw gr 32). 7 un women ‘progress of the world’s women: in pursuit of justice’ (2011) at 8, available at www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2011/7/progress-of-the-world-s-women-in-pursuit-of-justice, accessed on 12 may 2022. references to ‘women’ in this article are inclusive of both women and girls of all ages. 8 un human rights council (hrc) ‘report of the special rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, rashida manjoo’ (6 june 2011) a/hrc/17/26. 9 see, for example: deirdre brennan ‘statelessness and the feminist toolbox: another man-made problem with a feminist solution?’ (2019) 24(2) tilburg law review 170; elizabeth hooker here, we are walking on a clothesline: statelessness and human (in)security among burmese women political exiles living in thailand (msc thesis, university of portland, 2013) at 118; melissa george ‘comment: the effects of statelessness on gender rights’ (2014) 4 righting wrongs: a journal of human rights 1; tl lee statelessness, human rights and gender: irregular migrant workers from burma in thailand (2005). 10 ibid brennan at 179. 19 ‘strikingly absent’ in statelessness literature and research.10 this gender gap in the literature is concerning given that gender discrimination is a leading cause of statelessness worldwide and includes both direct and indirect manifestations. most often, direct discrimination is reflected in nationality laws that discriminate against women, and includes limitations on their ability to acquire, retain, and pass on their nationality to their children and their spouses. this is a major contributor to statelessness experienced by women and children.11 such laws reflect an entrenched patriarchal view, reinforced through colonial practices, that women’s nationality should be dependent on the male line. while less often discussed in existing literature, there are also many indirect forms of discrimination, occurring even where laws and practice are in theory gender neutral, owing to women’s often subordinate status in society that can impact women’s (and their children’s) vulnerability to statelessness, or render them effectively stateless, unable to prove their identities and nationalities.12 recognising this understudied area in the literature, this article discusses how gender discrimination impacts statelessness, globally and with specific focus on southern africa, and analyses how relevant international and selected regional and domestic law and policy frameworks have responded to this issue. the article seeks to contribute to the literature in this area in two ways: first, by analysing the current literature and highlighting the need for further research on issues of gender discrimination, both direct and indirect, related to statelessness; and, secondly, by adding to the existing literature through analysis of current law and policy developments in a specific context where statelessness is a growing issue of concern, viz. southern africa. the region of southern africa, understood broadly for the purposes of this article as comprising the sixteen southern african development community (sadc) members,13 is selected as the geographic focus of this article for the following reasons. as noted above, statelessness, and the risk of statelessness, is identified as a major human rights issue in this region. further, while there is limited but growing literature on statelessness generally in this region, there are several relevant law and policy developments of interest in this area. finally, there is limited attention to gender issues in existing statelessness literature in the region, a gap to which this article seeks to contribute. the next section discusses some of the leading causes of statelessness, arising 11 see, for example, laura van waas zahra al-barazi & deirdre brennan ‘gender discrimination in nationality laws: human rights pathways to gender neutrality’ in niamh reilly (ed) international human rights of women (2019); unhcr ‘background note on gender equality, nationality laws and statelessness’ (2022), available at https://www.refworld.org/ docid/6221ec1a4.html, accessed on 14 november 2022. 12 see allison j. petrozziello ‘(re)producing statelessness via indirect gender discrimination: descendants of haitian migrants in the dominican republic’ (2019) 57(1) international migration 213 at 214; betsy l. fisher ‘gender discrimination and statelessness in the gulf cooperation council states’ (2016) 23 michigan journal of gender and law 269. 13 while there is some debate over how the region of southern africa is defined, the sadc member states comprise angola, botswana, comoros, democratic republic of the congo, eswatini, lesotho, madagascar, malawi, mauritius, mozambique, namibia, seychelles, south africa, tanzania, zambia, and zimbabwe. sadc ‘member states’, available at https://www.sadc.int/member-states#:~:text=the%20southern%20african%20development%20community,republic%20tanzania%2c%20zambia%20and%20zimbabwe, accessed on 11 november 2022. the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness 20 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 both from direct and indirect gender discrimination, as well as some of the key consequences of statelessness for women. the third section provides a critical gender analysis of the relevant international legal frameworks on statelessness, highlighting concerns about inadequate gender responsiveness in the existing instruments. however, analysis of the relevant international human rights legal and policy frameworks — binding in the southern african region — demonstrates a comprehensive foundation for women’s nationality rights and gender equality. the fourth section addresses relevant regional and sub-regional laws, policy developments, and jurisprudence. while not exhaustive, the analysis in this section indicates that there is growing attention to gender discrimination in statelessness law and policy in southern africa, and notable progress in some areas, such as the reform of gender discriminatory nationality laws. however, there remain ongoing challenges in bridging the statelessness gender gap that results in compounded vulnerabilities and consequences for women. ii. gendered causes and consequences of statelessness (a) conceptualising statelessness to clarify and frame the key concepts used in this article, the section begins with a brief discussion on conceptualising statelessness. under international law, as per the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons (1954 convention), a stateless person is defined as someone ‘who is not considered as a national by any state under operation of its law’.14 this definition has historically been understood as limited to cases of statelessness de jure (in law), which occurs due to various reasons, including by operation of the nationality laws of a country, or due to state succession and changes to national borders.15 however, critiques in the literature have pointed to the shortcomings of this legally formalistic definition, proposing that the real test should be one of ‘effective nationality’, that is, whether there is effective national protection of an individual’s nationality rights.16 thus, the term ‘de facto (in practice) statelessness’ developed, pointing to the many ways in which people are not able to exercise their nationality rights in practice, for example, due to displacement from conflict or instability or migration, lack of birth registration, bureaucratic and administrative difficulties in obtaining identification documents, or as a consequence of human trafficking.17 as discussed below, women are often more likely to face particular vulnerabilities to de facto statelessness owing to indirect gender discrimination. however, as van waas and de chickera note, absent a binding definition under international law, the meaning of the concept of de facto statelessness has long 14 convention relating to the status of stateless persons 1954, 360 unts 117 art 1(1). 15 weissbrodt & collins op cit note 5 at 251. 16 carol a. batchelor ‘stateless persons: some gaps in international protection’ (1996) 7(2) international journal of refugee law 232 at 233. 17 ibid. 21 been debated in the literature.18 according to discussions facilitated by the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) in 2010 known as the prato conclusions, ‘de facto stateless persons are persons outside the country of their nationality who are unable or, for valid reasons, are unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country’.19 ultimately, van waas and de chickera contend, this distinction around what de facto statelessness entails is less relevant now, given that the unhcr has endorsed a broader understanding of what statelessness entails, and in light of modern human rights legal protections.20 the 2014 unhcr handbook on the protection of stateless persons provides very detailed guidance clarifying how the 1954 convention definition of a stateless person should be interpreted, considering not only the relevant law of a state, but how it is implemented in practice, recognising that states may not follow, or even ignore, laws in practice.21 this broader interpretation of the definition of a stateless person recognises that regardless of a state’s nationality laws, persons can be rendered stateless in practice and in fact, even if not in law. this approach arguably reflects a more substantive interpretation of what nationality is and what it entails in practice, especially from a gendered perspective, given the many compounded risks of statelessness (direct and indirect) that women tend to face, as is discussed in the following sections. (b) direct gender discrimination in nationality laws gender discriminatory nationality laws are a leading cause of statelessness globally.22 much of the advocacy work and literature around gender and statelessness has focused on gender-discriminatory nationality laws and the significant impacts they have on risks of de jure statelessness.23 for example, the unhcr global action plan to end statelessness includes a goal (action 3) to remove gender discrimination from nationality laws by 2024, and there has been notable progress on this at the global level.24 such laws are based on the concept of ‘dependent nationality’, which is strongly rooted in patriarchal ideas about the dominance of the male as ‘head of the family’ through which familial nationality should flow.25 during the colonial era, nationality laws of colonial powers, including the united kingdom and france, enshrined dependent nationality along the male line, causing it to be replicated in domestic laws 18 laura van waas & amal de chickera, ‘unpacking statelessness’ in tendayi bloom katherine tonkiss & phillip cole (eds) understanding statelessness (2017). 19 unhcr ‘expert meeting – the concept of stateless persons under international law (prato conclusions)’ section ii (2010), available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/4ca1ae002.html, accessed on 12 november 2022. 20 van waas & de chickera op cit note 18. 21 unhcr ‘expert meeting – the concept of stateless persons under international law (prato conclusions)’ section ii (2010), available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/4ca1ae002.html, accessed on 12 november 2022. 22 unhcr ‘global action plan to end statelessness: 2014-2024’ at 12, available at www.unhcr.org/protection/statelessness/54621bf49/global-action-plan-end-statelessness-2014-2024.html, accessed on 12 may 2022. 23 see for example, the global campaign for equal nationality rights, available at https://equalnationalityrights.org/, accessed on 12 may 2022; zahra albarazi & laura van waas, ‘towards the abolition of gender discrimination in nationality laws’ (2014) 46 forced migration review 49. 24 unhcr global action plan op cit note 22 at 12. 25 international law association ‘committee on feminism and international law: final report on women’s equality and nationality in international law’ (london conference, 2000) at 17, 25. the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness 22 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 of colonised countries around the world, as occurred in many countries throughout africa.26 consequently, this discriminatory approach was prevalent in nationality laws around the world until recent decades, although it is less common now. there are two main legal consequences arising from the dependent nationality approach that result in gender discrimination. first, women can be required to automatically give up their own nationality upon marriage to a foreign national and acquire their husband’s.27 conversely, some laws also restrict women from passing their nationality to their foreign husbands upon marriage on an equal basis with men’s right to pass nationality to their wives. this restriction is a concern where the male spouse is stateless or at risk of statelessness. as recognised by the un human rights committee (hrc) in a case concerning mauritius in 1981, this restriction impedes the right to family and is discriminatory on the basis of sex.28 secondly, due to the preference for following the male lineage, nationality of children passes through the man, barring women from passing their nationality to their children.29 as such, many countries enacted laws that require women to lose their nationality upon marriage and restrict women from passing nationality to their children. no such restrictions apply to men who married foreign nationals or became a parent. the consequences can be severe. for example, children who cannot acquire nationality from their father can become stateless if their father dies, abandons the family, becomes stateless, or cannot prove his nationality.30 women married to foreign nationals risk losing their acquired nationality and becoming stateless if their status changes, such as through divorce or death or abandonment by the husband.31 as of 2022, more than 50 countries worldwide have laws restricting women’s equal rights to acquire, retain, or change their own nationality.32 a total of 25 countries still have laws that restrict women from passing their nationality to their children.33 for example, in eswatini, the constitution states that children can only acquire nationality from their fathers.34 there is an exception if the child is born out of wedlock and not legally or customarily recognised by the father, which is the only circumstance where a swazi mother can pass her nationality to her child. there are still many countries worldwide, including malawi and lesotho, that restrict a woman from passing her nationality to her non-citizen spouse, although no such restriction applies to men.35 overall, there has been significant progress in the southern african region to reform gender discriminatory nationality laws. as one of the last remaining countries in the region to include gender discrimination in 26 ibid. 27 ibid at 16. 28 aumeeruddy-cziffra v mauritius (35/1978), views, ccpr/c/12/d/35/1978. 29 international law association op cit note 25 at 18. 30 cedaw gr 32 op cit note 6 para 61. 31 ibid para 60. 32 unhcr ‘background note’ op cit note 11 at 2. 33 ibid at 2. 34 constitution of the kingdom of eswatini, 2005, article 43. this provision applies to children born after 2005. according to the 1992 citizenship act the same provisions apply to children born after 1992. 35 bronwen manby ‘statelessness in southern africa’ (2012) briefing paper for the unhcr at 9. 23 its nationality laws, eswatini has pledged to reform its nationality laws to eliminate gender discrimination by 2024.36 in addition, nationality laws that discriminate against a group of people, on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion, can directly cause statelessness through the mass denial of nationality rights. women from these groups are likely to face compounded discrimination on intersecting grounds owing to their gender, and thus, greater vulnerabilities. for example, in madagascar, the karana community, a predominantly muslim minority group of indo-pakistani descent, faces entrenched discrimination and deprivation of nationality rights, despite living in the country for generations, perpetuating a multi-generational cycle of statelessness.37 (c) indirect gender discrimination indirect gender discrimination also plays a significant role as a cause of statelessness. indirect discrimination refers to the gender discriminatory impact of laws, policies, and practices that may appear gender neutral, but in practice have a disproportionate and negative impact on women.38 as petrozziello discusses, the impact of indirect discrimination against women in statelessness is an understudied area in the literature.39 there are a number of ways in which indirect gender discrimination contributes to statelessness of women, and children. the un committee for the elimination of discrimination against women (cedaw committee) discusses the impacts of indirect discrimination as a cause of statelessness in detail in its general recommendation no. 32.40 the consequences of indirect discrimination resulting in increased risks of statelessness include indirect discrimination arising from genderneutral laws and practices, challenges in attaining birth registration, and difficulties in accessing and retaining identity documents, often due to displacement, conflict, or human trafficking. as the cedaw committee outlines, even nationality laws that appear gender neutral can be discriminatory in practice and lead to greater risks of statelessness. generally, women are more likely than men to change their nationality to that of their foreign spouse and are therefore more vulnerable to statelessness if there is a gap between renouncing one nationality and acquiring another.41 for women who marry a foreign husband and relocate to his country, indirect discrimination may also result because women face more barriers and challenges in acquiring new nationality. for example, women are generally less likely to acquire adequate language skills in a new country, due to reduced access to education and the public sphere.42 they may also 36 unhcr ‘background note’ op cit note 11 at 6. 37 mbiyozo op cit note 1 at 15-16. 38 cedaw gr 32 op cit note 6 para 54. 39 petrozziello op cit note 12 at 214. 40 cedaw gr 32 op cit note 6 para 51. 41 ibid para 54. 42 ibid para 55. 43 ibid. the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness 24 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 have difficulty in proving property ownership or economic self-sufficiency.43 some countries require the spouse to sponsor nationality acquisition. this practice can leave women vulnerable to control by their spouse, which could have serious consequences in situations involving domestic violence.44 if there is a gap in nationality status, women, and potentially their children, may be left in a situation where no state considers them to be nationals and therefore become temporarily stateless, resulting in restrictions on movement, as well as barriers in accessing services and legal protection.45 moreover, ‘situations of statelessness following marriage to a foreigner and naturalization requirements … can lead to women being dependent on men economically, socially, culturally and linguistically and, in turn, expose women to an increased risk of exploitation’.46 thus, it appears likely that women who are caught in-between nationalities due to marriage and relocation are increasingly vulnerable to abuse and intimate partner violence.47 a major barrier to proving nationality, for both women and their children, is the global challenge in ensuring birth certificate registration. both the convention on the rights of the child (crc) and the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc) recognise a child’s right to have their birth registered as a basic human right.48 the un’s sustainable development goals (sdgs), under target 16.9, recognise the importance of ensuring legal identity for everyone, including birth registration.49 without birth certificates, individuals cannot prove their identity and their nationality, leaving them vulnerable to statelessness.50 this is a major cause of vulnerability to statelessness in southern africa, where less than 50% of births are registered.51 in some countries, it is much lower; such as in zambia, where only 10% of births are registered.52 to varying degrees in different countries, there are many barriers to accessing birth registration and obtaining a birth certificate. barriers include bureaucratic and procedural obstacles, lack of knowledge about or access to services, high costs, and discrimination against certain groups, including women. some countries do not permit women to register the births of their children. for example, in eswatini, the relevant law requires the father to register the birth of a child.53 only if he is dead, absent, or unable to register the birth is another person, such as the mother, permitted to register the birth. in other countries, such as zambia, gender discrimination in administrative and customary procedures can 44 alice edwards ‘displacement, statelessness, and questions of gender equality and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women’ legal and protection policy research series no. 14 unhcr (2009) at 61. 45 cedaw gr 32 op cit note 6 para 57. 46 ibid. 47 edwards op cit note 44 at 61. 48 convention on the rights of the child (crc), 1989 1577 unts 3, article 7; african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc), oau doc. cab/leg/24.9/49 (1990), article 6(2). 49 un ‘transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development’ (2015), available at www.sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld, accessed on 12 may 2022. 50 laura van waas nationality matters: statelessness in international law 2 ed (2008) at 155. 51 unhcr ‘statelessness update: southern africa’ (september, 2020) at 5. 52 ibid. 53 eswatini births, deaths and marriages act 18 of 1983. 54 mitte op cit note 2. 25 mean that women are limited from registering children’s births in practice.54 some women face compounded challenges in accessing birth registration on the basis of both gender and racial discrimination, as petrozziello’s research in the dominican republic demonstrates, contributing to risks of statelessness for women and their children.55 practical challenges in obtaining identity documentation are also a major barrier to proving nationality in the southern african region.56 genderdiscriminatory norms and practices contribute to barriers to women obtaining documentation, as women tend to face greater challenges than men in securing and retaining their own identity documents.57 additionally, some women experience compounded discrimination in obtaining identity and citizenship documentation, such as due to their socio-economic status, and additional barriers due to lack of access to information, resources, and legal assistance.58 thus, while women in these circumstances may have nationality rights in law, they can be denied their effective protection in practice. violence against women (vaw) can also have consequences for women’s ability to access documentation and prove their identity and nationality. in cases of violence, abuse, or trafficking, women’s identity documentation may be seized or destroyed as a means of control.59 for example, women and girls comprise more than 70 per cent of all victims of trafficking,60 many of whom have their identity documents, such as passports, seized by traffickers or pimps.61 they are thus left without any way to prove their identity and nationality.62 as such, the unhcr notes ‘… victims of trafficking, many of whom, especially women and children, are rendered effectively stateless due to an inability to establish such status’.62 owing to the widespread epidemic of vaw around the world, women are also more likely than men to face situations of gender-based violence, abuse, and exploitation. in south africa, there is evidence to suggest that women who lack identification documents to prove their nationality, and are consequently at risk of statelessness in practice, are at greater risk of vaw. in such cases, women who do not have identity documents are often reluctant to seek help from authorities, or face barriers in seeking assistance and services.64 the above discussion seeks to highlight some of the leading direct and indirect 55 petrozziello op cit note 12. 56 bronwen manby citizenship in africa: the law of belonging (2018). 57 cedaw gr 32 op cit note 6 para 57. 58 trisha sabhapandit & padmini baruah ‘untrustworthy and unbelievable: women and the quest for citizenship in assam’ 2021 3(1) statelessness & citizenship review at 236. 59 un human rights council (hrc) ‘report on discrimination against women on nationality related matters, including the impact on children’ (2013) un doc. a/hrc/23/23 at para 24. 60 un office on drugs and crime (unodc) ‘global report on trafficking in persons 2018’ (december 2018) at 25, 28, available at www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/glotip/2018/glotip_2018_book_web_small.pdf, accessed on 12 may 2022. 61. unhcr ‘activities in the field of statelessness: progress report’ (2002) ec/51/sc/crp.13 at para 18. 62 edwards op cit note 44 at 61 the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness 26 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 causes of statelessness for women and their children, that are rooted in or exacerbated by gender discrimination. while not an exhaustive analysis, and certainly there is further research required on this issue, it demonstrates that women are vulnerable to a range of elevated and compounded risks of statelessness linked to patriarchal norms and deeply rooted gender inequalities. these risks are not only limited to the discrimination de jure of gender discriminatory nationality laws, but also arise from indirect gender discrimination, especially as reflected in bureaucratic and administrative practices. for women who may also suffer discrimination on other grounds, such as race, ethnicity, religion, or socio-economic status, these effects are further compounded. (d) key consequences of statelessness for women despite the many serious consequences of being stateless, there is limited existing research into the gender-specific impacts of statelessness on women and their lived experiences. this is a significant gap, as manjoo’s discussion of a feminist approach to citizenship highlights. she argues that there is a need for ‘a situated understanding of citizenship for women’ informed by women’s lived experiences.65 also, as george notes, ‘limited existing research largely ignores the impacts that statelessness specifically has on women, including the extent to which statelessness creates vulnerabilities for abuse’.66 as a starting point, it is very difficult to quantify how many women actually experience statelessness, given that the limited global data that does exist is not gender-disaggregated.67 while there is a dearth of research in this area, some key overarching concerns often affecting stateless women are identifiable. as rijken et al observe, ‘in a number of areas, stateless women are more affected by the consequences of statelessness and find themselves in a more vulnerable position than men’.68 the covid-19 pandemic, and accompanying lockdowns and reduced access to services, as well as its severe socio-economic impacts, have heightened this vulnerability for stateless women even further.69 emerging research suggests that women who are stateless are especially vulnerable to vaw, including trafficking and sexual exploitation, as well as domestic violence and intimate partner violence.70 63 unhcr ‘statelessness: prevention and reduction of statelessness and protection of stateless persons’ (14 february 2006) ec/57/sc/crp.6 at para 7(d). 64 pumla rulashe ‘without documents, women at high risk of gender-based violence’ unhcr (15 december 2021), available at https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2021/12/61b9c3104/documents-women-high-risk-gender-based-violence.html, accessed on 12 may 2022. 65 rashida manjoo ‘special guest contribution: violence against women as a barrier to the realisation of human rights and the effective exercise of citizenship’ (2016) 112 feminist review 11 at 14. 66 george op cit note 9 at 1. 67 unhcr ‘global trends: forced displacement in 2018’ (2019) at 51. the report notes that fewer than half of countries have official statistics on stateless people, and it does not include any gender-disaggregated data on statelessness. 68 conny rijken laura van waas martin gramatikov & deirdre brennan the nexus between statelessness and human trafficking in thailand (2015) 106. 69 unhcr ‘displaced and stateless women and girls at heightened risk of gender-based violence in the coronavirus pandemic’ (20 april 2020), available at https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2020/4/5e998aca4/displaced-stateless-women-girls-heightened-risk-gender-based-violence-coronavirus.html, accessed on 12 may 2022. 70 unhrc op cit note 59 para 53. 27 the cedaw committee further observes that ‘stateless women and girls are often marginalised’ and deprived of a host of rights, including the right to political participation, access to social benefits, and access to justice, as well as their human rights to education, health care, property, and employment.71 in addition, many stateless people face barriers in mobility, right to travel, and right to legally form a family through marriage. while all stateless people are likely to face challenges in accessing key services and rights, there is evidence to suggest that women face compounded challenges in accessing such services owing to gender inequalities, discrimination, and patriarchal norms.72 the consequences are significant, as empirical research shows that stateless people tend to have lower income levels, lower education levels, and poorer health outcomes.73 as women are usually paid less than men, and have less access to education than men, while shouldering greater home and childcare responsibilities, the gendered impacts are compounded.74 in general, restrictions on access to health services can arise because stateless people are formally excluded, or because of differential fees for non-nationals, or the lack of identity documentation, or immigration status.75 restrictions on access to health care ‘… disproportionately affect women who may be unable to receive proper sexual and reproductive health care, including maternal and neonatal care’.76 lack of access to services can be life threatening, when women cannot obtain health care or seek legal assistance, such as in cases of vaw. statelessness also severely impacts mobility and the ability to travel, a situation often heightened for women, who tend to face greater barriers to moving around and travelling.77 there is also some evidence that statelessness negatively impacts the right to form a family, to marry and to have children, as the legal process of marriage typically requires identity documents.78 while there is a clear need for further research into the gendered impacts of statelessness as experienced by women themselves, the foregoing outlines keys areas of concern and demonstrates that gender discrimination certainly impacts the harms, restrictions, and vulnerabilities commonly experienced by women who are stateless. iii. relevant international legal frameworks (a) international human rights law: protecting the right to a nationality, gender equality, and non-discrimination 71 cedaw gr 32 op cit note 6 para 53. 72 women’s refugee commission ‘our motherland, our country: gender discrimination and statelessness in the middle east and north africa’ (2013) at 3, available at www.womensrefugeecommission.org/research-resources/our-motherland-our-country-gender-discrimination-and-statelessness-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa/, accessed on 12 may 2022. 73 d blitz s balaton-chrimes r lakshman & m lynch ‘the cost of statelessness: a livelihoods analysis’ bureau of population, refugees and migration, united states department of state (2011). 74 rijken et al op cit note 68 at 19, 60. 75 un hrc op cit note 59 para 50. 76 ibid at 70. 77 rijken et al op cit note 68 at 58. 78 ibid at 70. the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness 28 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 international human rights law provides a robust, and widely subscribed, framework for the protection of a right to nationality, gender equality, and non-discrimination. the right to a nationality is recognised and protected in a number of international human rights law instruments that are widely ratified in the southern african region. the universal declaration of human rights (udhr) provides under article 15 that ‘everyone has the right to a nationality’, and that ‘no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality’.79 the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (icerd) also recognises the general right to a nationality.80 the international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr)81 and the un convention on the rights of the child (crc),82 specifically protect the rights of children to nationality. as all sadc member states have acceded to the core international human rights treaties, including the iccpr, icerd, the crc, and the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (the (icescr),83 these international legal protections are binding in each country in the region.84 as noted above, stateless persons who cannot prove their nationality are typically barred from exercising a range of internationally protected civil, political, social, and economic rights. for example, a stateless person is not allowed to vote or stand for public office — rights protected under the iccpr.85 they are denied freedom of movement, including travel outside national borders.86 the icescr protects a range of rights, including the right to work, to education, to health, and to housing. in practice, a stateless person would typically be barred from all of these ‘official’ areas of life.87 yet, as weissbrodt & collins discuss, human rights apply simply because we are human, thus nationality should be irrelevant.88 for example, under article 2, the iccpr applies ‘to all individuals within [a state’s] territory and subject to its jurisdiction’.89 the un human rights committee has confirmed that the rights in the iccpr apply to everyone, ‘irrespective of his or her nationality or statelessness’.90 international human rights law also recognises some gendered dimensions of statelessness. this tends to focus on recognition that statelessness is often caused 79 universal declaration of human rights (udhr) 1948, article 15(1), (2). 80 international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (icerd) 1965, 660 unts 195, article 5(c)(iii). 81 international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr)1966, 999 unts 171 (iccpr), article 24(3). 82 crc op cit note 48, article 7. 83 international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (icescr) 1966, 993 unts 3. 84 all sixteen sadc member states have ratified each of the noted treaties: united nations treaty database, available at https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/treaty.aspx?treaty=ccpr&lang=en, accessed on 11 november 2022. 85 iccpr op cit note 81, article 25. 86 freedom of movement is protected under ibid iccpr, article 12. 87 cedaw gr 32 op cit note 6 para 52. 88 weissbrodt & collins op cit note 5 at 249. 89 iccpr op cit note 81, article 2. 90 human rights committee ‘general comment no. 15: the position of aliens under the covenant’ (11 april 1986) hri/ gen/1/rev.9 (vol. i) at para 1. 29 by gender discriminatory nationality laws. first, equality and non-discrimination are fundamental overarching principles enshrined in all international human rights treaties. for example, the udhr and the iccpr prohibit discrimination on numerous grounds, including sex.91 the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw) specifically prohibits all forms of discrimination against women and seeks to ensure gender equality.92 cedaw further requires states to reform laws and processes and abolish practices that discriminate against women (whether directly or indirectly).93 the cedaw committee, the expert treaty body charged with overseeing implementation of the treaty, confirms that formal equality between men and women in law is not sufficient, rather states must ensure ‘substantive equality’.94 substantive equality recognises the impacts of gendered power imbalances and underrepresentation of women, and seeks to ensure ‘equality of results’.95 with regard to nationality issues, cedaw expressly protects women’s ‘equal rights with men to acquire, change or retain their nationality’.96 cedaw recognises the prevalent state practices of restricting women’s rights to retain their nationality upon marriage and to pass their nationality to their children. as such, cedaw article 9(1) states that ‘… neither marriage to an alien nor change of nationality by the husband during marriage shall automatically change the nationality of the wife, render her stateless or force upon her the nationality of the husband’. article 9(2) affirms that women have equal rights with men regarding the nationality of their children. cedaw’s express recognition of women’s equal nationality rights, both in respect to marriage and children, is significant given that the treaty is widely ratified globally, including by all states in the sadc region.97 the cedaw committee has also drawn attention to gender and nationality issues in the region, notably pointing both to direct and indirect forms of discrimination impacting nationality rights and risks of statelessness. for example, in its 2022 concluding observations on namibia, the committee noted various nationality concerns, calling on the state to ratify the statelessness conventions, and warning that birth registration remains low, especially impacting undocumented women.98 in its concluding observations on eswatini, referring to discriminatory nationality laws, the committee stated that ‘the committee is concerned that both the constitution and the citizenship act 91 iccpr op cit note 81, article 26. 92 convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw) 1979, 1249 unts 13, article 2. 93 ibid. 94 cedaw ‘general recommendation no. 25. article 4, paragraph 1, of the convention (temporary special measures)’ (2004) at para 8. 95 ibid para 9. 96 cedaw op cit note 93, article 9(1). the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness 30 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 contain provisions depriving children born to swazi women and foreign husbands of nationality, hence increasing their risk of statelessness’.99 these examples indicate that there are ongoing concerns with gendered dimensions of statelessness in the region. several ‘soft law’ normative developments in international human rights law also reflect greater attention to the unique gender implications of statelessness, again with focus on discriminatory nationality laws. this shift is reflected in international jurisprudence that has ruled against gender-discriminatory nationality laws.100 likewise, highlighting the impact of gender-discriminatory nationality laws, the un human rights council issued a resolution on the right to a nationality for women and children in 2012.101 the resolution calls for states to refrain from enacting gender discriminatory nationality legislation. it also calls on states to reform any discriminatory legislation to ensure women’s equal rights to confer nationality on their children and to retain their own nationality status in marriage.102 with a similar focus, the unhcr’s global action plan to end statelessness, launched in 2014, includes a specific goal to remove gender-discriminatory nationality laws (action 3).103 however, the action plan does not refer to any other aspects of gender related to statelessness. in contrast, the cedaw committee has focused more broadly on this issue in its jurisprudence. significantly, the cedaw committee’s approach includes a more comprehensive focus on indirect discrimination and gendered impacts on stateless women, specifically in its general recommendation 32.104 in conclusion, there is a robust body of international human rights law, binding in the southern african region, with direct application to statelessness issues, enshrining the right to nationality, gender equality and non-discrimination. further, the gendered implications of gender-discriminatory nationality laws are recognised by cedaw and various normative developments. attention to other aspects of gender-based discrimination, especially the impacts of indirect discrimination, have received limited attention, although the cedaw committee points to the impacts of this issue. however, as discussed in the preceding section, there continues to be a significant gap between these legal protections and practice. (b) locating the gender gaps in international laws on statelessness 97 all sixteen sadc member states have ratified cedaw: united nations treaty collection ‘ratification status for cedaw’ available at https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/treaty.aspx?treaty=cedaw&lang=en, accessed on 11 november 2022. 98 cedaw committee ‘concluding observations on the sixth periodic report of namibia’ (2022) un doc cedaw/c/ nam/co/6 at para 36. 99 cedaw committee ‘concluding observations on the combined initial and second periodic reports of swaziland’ (2014) un doc cedaw/c/swz/co/1-2 at para 28. 100 see, for example, oc-4/84 advisory opinion on proposed amendments to the naturalization provision of the constitution of costa rica iacthr series a 4 (1984); genovese v malta application no 53124/09 judgment 11 october 2011. 101 human rights council ‘resolution 20/4, the right to a nationality: women and children’ (16 july 2012) a/hrc/20/l.8. 102 ibid paras 3–6. 103 unhcr global action plan op cit note 22 at 12. 104 cedaw gr 32 op cit note 6. 105 1954 convention op cit note 14. 31 there are two international un treaties specifically focused on statelessness, namely the 1954 convention105 and the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness106 (1961 convention) (collectively, the statelessness conventions). while the 1954 convention obligates states parties to take steps to facilitate stateless persons to acquire nationality, the 1961 convention focuses primarily on prevention and reduction of statelessness occurring in various scenarios, through reform of national legislation. the 1954 convention focuses on protection and obligates states parties to ensure stateless people have basic rights. these treaties recognise the general principle that while states have the right to determine their own nationality laws,107 they must do so in line with international norms.108 under international law, nationality (used interchangeably here with citizenship) refers to the legal bond between an individual and the state.109 nationality is typically obtained at birth either through the nationality of one’s parents (jus sanguinis) or based on the country in which one is born (jus soli), and can also be obtained, or lost, subsequently through various changes to personal status, including residency changes or marriage. overall, the conventions are relatively undersubscribed, with limited international reach. although most southern african states are party to the 1954 convention, including angola, botswana, eswatini, lesotho, madagascar, malawi, mozambique, zambia, and zimbabwe, several are not, specifically south africa and namibia.110 south africa, for example, has so far resisted calls to accede to the conventions, despite stating it would do so in 2011, claiming that its existing laws are adequate to protect against statelessness.111 only four countries in the region, angola, eswatini, lesotho, and mozambique, have acceded to the 1961 convention.112 while states’ reasons for declining to accede to the conventions may vary, bloom notes that statelessness is contentious and often viewed as politically problematic, especially given states’ interests with preserving their sovereignty over citizenship issues as compared to the ‘strong positive requirements’ of the conventions.113 while the statelessness conventions offer a targeted and technical focus on addressing the legal causes and consequences of statelessness, they have obvious normative gender gaps. the language of the 1961 convention uses only the male pronoun (‘he’, ‘his’, ‘himself ’), signalling the invisibility of women during the convention’s drafting, perhaps unsurprising given the era. the 1954 convention does not recognise gender or sex as a ground of discrimination.114 in fact, most 106 convention on the reduction of statelessness 1961, 989 unts 175. 107 nottebohm case (liechtenstein v guatemala) second phase, icj reports 1955, 4. 108 hague convention on certain questions relating to the conflict of nationality law 1930, 179 lnts 89. 109 nottebohm op cit note 107. 110 united nations treaty collection, available at https://treaties.un.org/pages/viewdetailsii.aspx?src=treaty&mtdsg_ no=v-3&chapter=5&temp=mtdsg2&clang=_en, accessed on 12 may 2022. 111 fatima khan ‘exploring childhood statelessness in south africa’ per / pelj 2020 (23) at 19. 112 united nations treaty collection, available at https://treaties.un.org/pages/viewdetails.aspx?src=ind&mtdsg_ no=v-4&chapter=5&clang=_en, accessed on 12 may 2022 113 tendayi bloom ‘united nations university–gcm policy report 02/01: problematizing the conventions on statelessness’ (2013) at 14. 114 for example, article 3 of the 1954 convention provides: ‘the contracting states shall apply the provisions of this convention to stateless persons without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin’. the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness 32 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 countries had discriminatory nationality laws in effect during this time that denied women equal rights to retain their nationality upon marriage (to a foreign national), or to pass their nationality to their children.115 while the 1961 convention recognises these situations, it gives states wide latitude to retain gender discriminatory laws. for example, in cases where nationality is lost due to marriage (or related change to personal status) the 1961 convention does not prohibit such outcomes. instead, article 5 of the 1961 convention states that ‘such loss shall be conditional upon possession or acquisition of another nationality’. in cases where the mother is barred from passing her nationality to her children, the 1961 convention provides nationality must be granted to the child. however, under article 3 this protection only applies if the child would otherwise be stateless, and it further stipulates this applies in cases of wedlock only. thus, the statelessness conventions do not challenge the direct gender discrimination rooted in nationality laws that subsume women’s nationality rights under their husbands’. notably, the 1957 convention on the nationality of married women (1957 convention) did directly address the issue of nationality loss due to marriage. the 1957 convention, articles 1 and 2, states that a woman's nationality should not be automatically affected by marriage to a foreign national, and acquisition or renunciation of a nationality by a husband must not prevent the wife's retention of her nationality.116 as noted above, these protections were further expanded and strengthened in article 9 of the widely ratified cedaw treaty, expressly protecting women’s equal nationality rights both in marriage and in relation to any children.117 the consequences of a gender-blind international legal framework on refugees and statelessness are significant. as edwards contends with reference to the 1951 refugee convention, failing to include sex and gender in the treaty ‘… established the masculine experience as the norm … and relegated women and women’s experiences to second-class status’.118 it is suggested here that the same assessment can be applied to the statelessness conventions. undoubtedly, international human rights law, and the principle of gender equality, have advanced significantly since the statelessness conventions were enacted. the unhcr confirms that the treaties ‘must be read and interpreted in light of developments in international law, in particular international human rights law’.119 further, the principle of gender equality, as reflected in widely ratified international human rights treaties, must be taken into account.120 however, the fact remains that the statelessness conventions are, on their face, inadequate from a gender perspective. as brennan cautions while noting the exclusion of gender in the statelessness conventions, ‘to uncritically celebrate the existence of these treaties 115 international law association op cit note 25 at 17, 25. 116 convention of the nationality of married women 1957, 309 unts 65, articles 1–2. 117 see cedaw, section iii(a) at 15. 118 alice edwards ‘transitioning gender: feminist engagement with international refugee law and policy 1950–2010’ (2010) 29(2) refugee survey quarterly 21 at 23. 119 unhcr ‘guidelines on statelessness no. 4: ensuring every child's right to acquire a nationality through articles 1–4 of the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness’ (21 december 2012) hcr/gs/12/04 at para 8. 120 ibid para 13. 33 is to celebrate a continued compartmentalization [of] gender issues that instead ought to be treated as structural and all-pervasive’.121 from a feminist perspective, it is important that these gender-based normative shortcomings are recognised and their impact on ongoing statelessness advocacy, policy, and research considered. iv. current developments on gender and statelessness in southern africa (a) selected african regional human rights law and policy developments there are no laws that are binding on all member states of the african union (au) that expressly address statelessness or statelessness through the lens of gender. core instruments in the regional human rights system in africa do include protections for nationality rights, gender equality, and non-discrimination on the basis of sex. while it guarantees non-discrimination on the basis of sex, the african charter on human and peoples’ rights (achpr)122 does not specifically refer to the right to a nationality. however, in practice, in its jurisprudence the african commission has linked the right to a nationality to other rights protected under the charter, including the prohibition of discrimination (article 2) and equality before the law (article 3).123 the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc), article 6(3), affirms the right of all children to acquire a nationality, as well as non-discrimination on the basis of sex.124 also importantly, the protocol to the african charter on human and peoples' rights on the rights of women in africa (maputo protocol), aims to ensure the protection and realisation of the rights of women ‘in order to enable them to enjoy fully all their human rights’.125 article 2(1), states that ‘states parties shall combat all forms of discrimination against women through appropriate legislative, institutional and other measures’. article 6 of the maputo protocol highlights the issue of equality between men and women in the context of marriage, and addresses the issue of nationality, and this consequently raises the issue of statelessness. article 6(g) expressly states that women have the right to retain their nationality or acquire that of their husband. the maputo protocol also affirms that women and men have equal rights with respect to nationality of their children, although this protection is limited in cases ‘where this is contrary to a provision in national legislation or is contrary to national security interests’ (article 6(h)). unfortunately, this caveat essentially allows 121 brennan op cit note 9 at 175. 122 african charter on human and peoples’ rights (achpr) ‘oau doc. cab/leg/67/3 rev. 5, 21 i.l.m. 58’ (1982). 123 lh muller ‘legal identity for all – ending statelessness’ in goal 16 of the sustainable development goals, perspectives from judges and lawyers in southern africa on promoting rule of law and equal access to justice, (1 december 2016) at 141, available at www.southernafricalitigationcentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/goal-16-book-muller.pdf, accessed on 12 may 2022. 124 acrwc op cit note 48. 125 achpr ‘protocol to the charter on the rights of women in africa 2003, assembly/au/dec 14(ii) (maputo protocol)’, article 6(g). the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness 34 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 states parties to maintain laws that limit women’s rights to pass their nationality to their children. in terms of future legal developments, discussion continues on a draft protocol to the african charter on human and peoples’ rights on the specific aspects of the right to a nationality and the eradication of statelessness in africa (au draft protocol on nationality).126 it was prepared by the african commission on human and peoples’ rights (achpr) following the adoption of two resolutions — resolution 234 on the right to nationality127 and resolution 277 on the drafting of a protocol on the right to nationality in africa.128 the preamble to resolution 234 provides that the african commission notes, among other things, the provisions of articles 2 and 6(h) and 6(g) of the maputo protocol that establish the equal right of men and women to acquire their partner’s nationality, and article 15 of the universal declaration of human rights (udhr) which provides that everyone has the right to a nationality. concern is expressed at ‘the arbitrary denial or deprivation of the nationality of persons or groups of persons by african states’, especially as a result of discrimination on various grounds, including sex.129 states are encouraged to adopt constitutional and other legislative provisions to prevent and reduce statelessness, in line with fundamental principles of international law. the preamble to resolution 277 stresses ‘the need to take new decisive steps towards identifying, preventing and reducing statelessness and protecting the right to nationality’, including through the preparation of a protocol to the african charter on human and peoples’ rights on the right to nationality in africa.130 this latter task was assigned to the special rapporteur on refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons and migrants in africa,131 and the mandate holder has continued to raise the issue of statelessness in different meetings and conferences. (b) the au draft protocol on nationality this growing focus on statelessness issues in africa culminated in the au draft protocol on nationality, formally submitted to the commission for the african union in may 2017. it aims to ‘facilitate the inclusion of individuals within african states, by providing legal solutions for the resolution of the practical problems linked to the recognition and exercise of the right to a nationality, to eradicate statelessness …’132 among other provisions, in its preamble, the au draft protocol on nationality 126 achpr ‘draft protocol to the african charter on human and peoples’ rights on the specific aspects on the right to a nationality and the eradication of statelessness in africa’ (2015), available at https://www.achpr.org/public/document/ file/english/draft_citizenship_protocol_en_sept2015_achpr.pdf, accessed on 12 may 2022. 127 achpr ‘resolution 234 on the right to nationality’ achpr/res.234 (liii) 2013. 128 achpr ‘resolution 277 on the drafting of a protocol to the african charter on human and peoples’ rights on the right to nationality in africa’ achpr/res.277 (lv) 2014. 129 achpr ‘resolution 234’ op cit note 127 at 130. 130 achpr ‘resolution 277’ op cit note 128 at 131. 131 ibid. 132 african union (au) ‘draft protocol, explanatory memorandum’ (2018) at para 1, available at https://au.int/sites/ default/files/newsevents/workingdocuments/35139-wd-pa22527_e_originalexplanatory_memorandum.pdf, accessed on 12 may 2022. 133 achpr ‘draft protocol’ op cit note 126 at preamble. 35 recognises that ‘the right to a nationality is a fundamental condition for the protection and effective exercise of the full range of other human rights’; affirms that statelessness violates ‘the right to human dignity and to legal status enshrined in article 5 of the african charter on human and peoples’ rights’; and articulates the political will to eradicate statelessness in africa through ensuring that all residents of african states have a nationality, through the harmonisation of nationality laws and the prohibition of arbitrary deprivation or denial of nationality.133 article 3 of the au draft protocol on nationality affirms general principles including that ‘every person has the right to a nationality’; that ‘no one shall be arbitrarily deprived or denied recognition of his or her nationality nor denied the right to change his or her nationality’; and that ‘states have the obligation to act, both alone and in cooperation with each other, to eradicate statelessness’. article 4(1) of the au draft protocol on nationality regarding non-discrimination provides for a prohibition on the inclusion of distinctions, exclusions, restrictions, or provisions promoting differential treatment, which are based on a number of grounds including race, ethnic group, colour, and sex. article 4(2) provides that states parties ‘shall grant women and men equal rights to acquire, change or retain their nationality and with respect to the nationality of their children’. however, there is an exception to the nondiscrimination prohibition in article 4(3) that allows for a state party to reserve the right to make distinctions among its nationals, if at the time of signature, ratification or accession it reserves its retention of such right. article 6 provides for the possibility of the acquisition of a nationality, including the acquisition of nationality by the spouse of a national, consequently making it possible for women to acquire the nationality of their husbands, or vice versa. article 9 on marriage provides further protection to spouses regarding their right to nationality in the context of marriage or upon the dissolution of such marriage. it states that a state party shall provide in law that ‘a marriage or the dissolution of a marriage between a national and a non-national shall not automatically change the nationality of either spouse nor affect the capacity of the national to transmit his or her nationality to his or her children’, and also, that ‘the change of nationality of one spouse during marriage shall not automatically affect the nationality of the other spouse or of the children’. importantly, from an equality and non-discrimination perspective, article 13 of the au draft protocol on nationality provides for every person’s right to documentation that proves their nationality, with women and men having equal rights to obtain such documents and having the right to have them issued in their own names. overall, the au draft protocol on nationality addresses some of the key gender discrimination issues impacting women’s nationality rights. as recognised in international human rights instruments discussed above, it prohibits direct discrimination by affirming women’s and men’s equal rights to nationality and to that of their children, and equal rights to retain or pass nationality to a spouse upon marriage. importantly, given the impact of statelessness concerns arising from the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness 134 see also discussion by muller op cit note 123 at 143–144. 36 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 documentation challenges, it affirms women’s equal rights to identity documents. (c) developments in the southern african development community (sadc) there are no laws that are binding on all member states of the sadc that expressly address statelessness, or statelessness through the lens of gender. however, various legal and policy developments in the region have considered this issue.134 for example, the sadc legal framework does, however, include a legal instrument that addresses a cause of statelessness. the southern african development community protocol on gender and development (sadc protocol) was adopted in 2008, and aims to provide for the empowerment of women, and to eliminate discrimination and achieve gender equality.135 while the sadc protocol does not directly address the issue of statelessness, article 8(5) addresses a common cause of statelessness, namely, the absence of gender equality in the laws that govern the acquisition and transfer of nationality within the context of marriage. it obligates states parties to ensure that men and women have equal rights to either retain or change nationality upon marriage. from a policy perspective, the sadc parliamentary forum plenary assembly held its 40th plenary assembly session in 2016 in zimbabwe, on the theme of ‘statelessness in the sadc region’. this forum adopted a resolution on the prevention of statelessness and the protection of stateless persons in the sadc region (sadcpf resolution on statelessness).136 paragraphs (iii) and (iv) of the sadcpf resolution on statelessness address the link between gender discrimination and the occurrence of statelessness. it calls upon states to ‘initiate legislative reforms that address any identified gaps or challenges, including any discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, or gender, thereby helping to prevent statelessness’; and ‘to ensure gender equality as regards the equal right of men and women to pass on their nationality to their children and spouses, and to change or retain their nationality’.137 in another policy level statement issued in 2016, the migration dialogue for southern africa, comprising representatives from governments in the region, adopted recommendation 2.3 in respect of the issue of statelessness.138 this statement addresses, albeit briefly, the issue of gender inequality in the laws that govern nationality within the sadc member states, affirming the need to ensure equality between men and women to pass on their nationality to their spouse and children. thus, at both the legal and policy level in the sadc region there is recognition of the need to affirm and protect the equal nationality rights of 135 southern african development community (sadc) ‘protocol on gender and development’ (2008), available at https://www.sadc.int/files/8713/5292/8364/protocol_on_gender_and_development_2008.pdf, accessed on 12 may 2022. 136 sadc ‘resolution on the prevention of statelessness and the protection of stateless persons in the sadc region’ (2016). 137 ibid paras iii and iv. 138 migration dialogue for southern africa ‘addressing mixed migration in southern africa: linking protection, immigration, border management and labour migration’ (2016). 37 men and women. (d) national level developments over recent decades, many countries, including in the southern africa region, have moved away from the dependent nationality approach and recognised that denying women their nationality simply due to marriage, or from sharing their nationality with their children, was clear gender discrimination in nationality laws. groundbreaking litigation and advocacy initiatives have sometimes driven law reform at the domestic level, although progress has been slow. for example, the landmark botswana case dow v. attorney-general139 demonstrates both the consequences of gender discriminatory laws and the impact of advocacy in forcing law reform. unity dow, a female human rights lawyer and judge, married an american foreign national and they had three children.140 botswana’s citizenship act 1984 provided that children born in botswana are citizens of botswana only if (1) the father is a citizen, or (2) if the child is born out of wedlock, the mother is a citizen.141 thus the law prohibited women, like dow, who are married to foreign nationals, from passing their botswana nationality to their children. consequently, her children could not share her nationality and would require residence permits to remain in the country, and they would also be denied access to social, health, and educational benefits.142 dow claimed that this provision of the citizenship act was a violation of the constitution’s equality protections because it discriminated against women on the basis of sex.143 botswana’s high court and court of appeal agreed, and ruled that this provision of the nationality law was unconstitutional due to discrimination on the basis of sex.144 the botswana citizenship act was subsequently amended to confirm that any person born in botswana is a national of botswana, if either the mother or father is a national.145 other countries in the region, such as zambia and zimbabwe, have taken steps to reform their nationality laws through their constitutions to ensure compliance with gender equality rights.146 more recently, in 2017, madagascar amended its nationality laws to give women equal rights to transmit nationality to their children.147 in addition, there has been progress towards reforming administrative laws and procedures that discriminate against women. for example, in 2004 mozambique reformed its civil registration code to allow either parent to register the birth of a 139 dow v attorney-general 991 blr 233 (high court of botswana), affirmed on appeal attorney-general v dow 1992 blr 119 (botswana court of appeal). 140 ibid at 235–236. 141 ibid at 236–237. 142 ibid at 242–243. 143 ibid at 243 144 ibid at 247. 145 botswana citizenship act (cap 01-01) (act no 8 of 1998), article 4(1). 146 constitution of zambia act no1 of 1991; constitution of zimbabwe amendment act no 14 of 1996. 147 madagascar law no 2016-038 of 25 january 2017, article 9. 148 mozambique law no 12 on the civil registration code 2004 (as amended by law 12/2018), article 149; and mozambique family law, 2004 (amended by law 22/2019), article 238(1). the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness 38 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 child and request a birth certificate, while single mothers can register their children directly.148 (e) the gap between law and practice the developments discussed in this section focus primarily on legal reforms and developments at the regional level and national levels to address gender discriminatory nationality laws. however, as the african commission on human and peoples’ rights concludes, in reference to nationality-related protections in relevant regional human rights treaties, … these new provisions have only had a very limited impact on the continent, notably due to the fact that the treaties are not systematically transposed into the national legal systems of the states parties and are not often invoked in national or regional courts by individuals whose rights to nationality are contested or denied.149 in short, the gap between law and practice remains significant. further, while the law reform examples cited here reflect important progress, there appears to be far less attention to the indirect forms of gender discrimination that can function as drivers increasing the risks of statelessness for women. for example, as a leading cause of statelessness in the region, the lack of birth registration and access to identity documentation — essential to proving nationality — poses significant problems. as manby notes, ‘civil registration and identification systems are key to recognition of nationality’, although these systems remain weak in the region owing largely to colonial legacies.150 this issue has strong gender dimensions, as women often face greater challenges in accessing identity documentation, birth registration, and accessing and navigating bureaucratic processes.151 for example, in its recent concluding observations on south africa, the cedaw committee noted its concern that many women, especially in rural areas and informal settlements, ‘face challenges in accessing birth registration and identity documents, depriving them of access to basic services’.152 the committee also pointed to the lack of safeguards in the birth registration laws to prevent children of undocumented women from becoming stateless.153 in both mozambique and madagascar, there is a noticeable gap between the higher proportion of men who have identity documentation, as compared to the lower rates involving women.154 in the context of zambia, where only 10% of births are registered, the unhcr points to the impact of gender discrimination even 149 achpr ‘the right to a nationality in africa’ (2015) at 7. 150 bronwen manby ‘citizenship and statelessness in the member states of the southern african development community’ unhcr (2020) at 1. 151 see mbiyozo op cit note 1 at 7. 152 cedaw committee ‘concluding observations on the fifth periodic report of south africa’ (2021) un doc cedaw/c/zaf/co/5 at para 41. 153 ibid. 154 manby op cit note 150 at 72. 155 mitte op cit note 2. 39 where laws are gender neutral, noting that traditional practices of birth registration managed by traditional chiefs often give precedence to men.155 thus, it appears that even where there has been progress on reforming overtly gender discriminatory laws, the reality for women tends to be impacted by gender discriminatory norms in practice. v. conclusion according to coomaraswamy, ‘statelessness is a status of profound marginalization’.156as the foregoing discussion shows, this profound marginalisation is particularly acute for stateless women, or those who are at risk of being stateless, who often must navigate multiple and compounded levels of discrimination and risks on the basis of their gender. this article has sought to highlight some of the key direct and indirect forms of gender discrimination that contribute to statelessness, as well as some of the key consequences of statelessness particularly impacting women. the denial of nationality rights comes with a much greater risk of the denial of a wide range of human rights and elevates risks of gender-based violence and exploitation for women. with the exception of the focus on gender-discriminatory nationality laws, this gender gap has received relatively limited attention in statelessness scholarship and practice. this deficit is perhaps not surprising in light of the normative gender gaps persisting in the international legal framework on refugees and statelessness, where the foundational treaties omit reference to sex or gender discrimination. it seems that attention to gender issues in statelessness has long been side-lined. yet, as the foregoing discussion has sought to demonstrate, gender discrimination significantly impacts statelessness and the risk of statelessness, including in the southern african region. despite the gender gaps in the statelessness conventions, analysis of relevant international human rights laws and policies, binding in southern african countries, demonstrates that there are strong legal protections of the rights to nationality, equality and non-discrimination on the basis of gender. selected regional and domestic developments in the african human rights system indicate that there is also growing awareness of and responses to this issue in the regional context. for example, the affirmation of key protections related to gender discrimination in the au draft protocol on nationality is significant. however, even the maputo protocol provides an exception allowing states to retain gender discriminatory laws with respect to passing nationality to children, indicating that robust protection of equality rights in nationality and statelessness issues still face challenges. nonetheless, there are encouraging developments in domestic law reform efforts to address these issues in countries throughout southern africa. the unity dow case from botswana remains an important example of how gender-discriminatory 156 radhika coomaraswamy ‘beyond borders: statelessness and the people in between’ international conference on statelessness keynote speech (26 june 2019), available at https://files.institutesi.org/keynote_radhika_coomaraswamy.pdf, accessed on 12 may 2022. the impact of gender discrimination on statelessness 40 ahmr african human mobilty review volume 8 no 3, sep-dec 2022 nationality laws have been successfully challenged and reformed on the basis of their violation of equality and non-discrimination rights, setting a precedent for law reform in many other jurisdictions. however, as we have seen in the above discussion, law reform is only part of the response. as the african commission on human and peoples’ rights notes, significant gaps remain between these guarantees on paper and implementation in practice at the national level. moreover, there is evidence of indirect forms of gender discrimination impacting the application of gender-neutral laws, undermining women’s nationality rights, including with access to identity documentation and birth registration. this preliminary analysis suggests that gender discrimination is so widespread in nature that it requires closer attention to how indirect, systemic gender discrimination plays out in the implementation of even gender-neutral laws and administrative and bureaucratic processes related to nationality, with consequences for elevated risks of statelessness. the promising progress in recognising how gender discrimination against women impacts statelessness is welcome. there is a clear trend towards reform of gender-discriminatory nationality laws and affirmation of equal nationality rights at international, regional, and national levels. but, as many people, especially women, around southern africa struggle to obtain or retain identity documents, register the births of their children, and face gender-discriminatory laws and policies, it is apparent that more work and further research is needed. international human rights law, and especially the substantive view of equality enshrined in cedaw, calls for much more attention to the many ways in which varied forms of discrimination against women contribute to statelessness and compound the effects of being stateless. intersectional feminist analysis highlights the need to explore underlying structural inequalities and discriminatory norms that play out in women’s vulnerability to statelessness, and the compounded and intersecting grounds of discrimination that are often involved. while this article has sought to draw attention to some of these issues, and provide insights into current developments on gender and statelessness in the southern african region, further attention in research and literature is needed. deepening understanding of the unique gendered dimensions that are both a cause and consequence of statelessness is important to ensure a rights-based and comprehensive response in prevention and protection efforts. 13 migration governance in africa: challenges and opportunities peter mudungwe1 received 24 january 2025 / accepted 06 march 2025 / published 25 april 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v11i1.2654 abstract this article postulates that, despite its magnitude and positive impact in africa, the attention accorded to migration, especially migration governance, which is fundamental to the management of migration, is not commensurate with its relative importance. to this end, the study uses qualitative methods to gather and analyze data from published research, policy documents, and evaluations conducted on the subject matter. based on a literature review on the state of migration governance in africa and its implications on african countries’ capacity to manage migration, the analysis observes that migration governance is relatively weak. the study attributes this mainly to inadequate resource allocation toward migration management. it unravels the reasons for this modest investment within the framework of public budgeting theories to explain how governments determine resource allocation across different needs. furthermore, the article documents the substantial contribution of migration toward development in africa against the relatively meager investments toward migration management. it also documents the substantial donor investments in the migration sector and decries this state of affairs with regard to the continent’s ability to set its migration agenda. the study concludes that the manifestations of weak migration governance are the reduced capacity of africa to nurture and capitalize on the positive impact of migration, as well as the limitations on its ability to negotiate migration compacts. it recommends that africa increases its investment in the migration sector as a prerequisite for taking charge of its migration agenda. keywords: africa, migration governance, challenges, opportunities 1 senior technical adviser, migration governance & liaison, department of health, humanitarian affairs and social development, african union commission, addis ababa, ethiopia.  mudungwep@africa-union.org migration governance in africa: challenges and opportunities 14 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 introduction migration is defined in terms of time and space, that is, the movement of people that involves a change in their usual place of residence to another administrative boundary within a country or the movement of people from one political boundary to another over a period of time (tsegay, 2023). the former phenomenon is internal migration, while the latter is international migration. the subjects in question are called migrants. in this regard, international migration is a situation whereby migrants move to, and live outside of their country of birth or usual residence for at least one year (tsegay, 2023). the international organization for migration (iom) defines a migrant as: a person who moves away from his or her place of usual residence, whether within a country or across an international border, temporarily or permanently, and for a variety of reasons. the term includes a number of well-defined legal categories of people, such as migrant workers; persons whose particular types of movements are legally defined, such as smuggled migrants; as well as those whose status or means of movement are not specifically defined under international law, such as international students (iom, 2019). the iom definition is arguably more comprehensive, as it includes the diffent types of migration and migrants, that is, internal or international; regular or irregular; voluntarily or involuntarily, and temporary or permanent. therefore, for the purposes of this paper, the author adopts the iom definition of migration. the magnitude of migration in africa historically, africans have migrated. before european colonization in the late nineteenth century, africa was the scene of great movements (amin, 1995), including the movement of homo sapiens from africa spreading throughout the rest of the world some 80,000 years ago (gugliotta, 2008); the forced migration of africans during the slave trade between 1500 and the 1860s when at least 12 million africans were shipped to the americas (gates jr., 2013); the guruuswa – the movement of the pastoralist shona people from the great lakes region to present-day zimbabwe (shoko, 2007); and the mfecane – the violent wars over land and resources that tore apart several ethnic groups between 1820 and 1835 and led to forced migrations in the southern and central african regions (mensah, 2016). after colonization by europeans in the late nineteenth century, the continent has experienced vast movements of labor, both within and from the continent (amin, 1995). recent trends point to a continuation of migration in africa, characterized by cross-border, mixed-migratory movements, including refugees, asylum seekers, economic migrants, unaccompanied minors, environmental migrants, smuggled persons, victims of trafficking, and stranded migrants (mixed migration hub, n.d.). international migration within and from africa has experienced steady growth in 15 recent times, increasing from approximately 31 million in 2010 to 42.5 million in 2020, and to an estimated 47.5 million in 2025 (undesa, 2016). figure 1: migration within and from africa source: undesa (2016) further, a sizable proportion of african migration is intra-continental. those who migrate from the continent move mainly to europe, the gulf states, asia, and north america. it is also noteworthy that a characteristic of african migration is that it is mainly intra-regional and inter-regional, a phenomenon that has a long history (unctad, 2018). as table 1 depicts, west, east, southern and central africa exhibit the strongest examples of intra-regional migration flows on the continent (shimeles, 2010). table 1: inter-regional and intra-regional migration in africa (percentages) origin destination east africa central africa north africa southern africa west africa east africa 60.51 5.30 16.73 17.38 0.08 central africa 37.90 47.59 4.38 5.68 4.44 north africa 46.00 26.70 23.02 0.80 4.12 southern africa 15.12 1.66 0.27 82.47 0.48 west africa 0.24 7.32 0.61 0.74 91.10 source: auc (2021) migration governance in africa: challenges and opportunities 16 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 inter-regional migration is prevalent mainly from west africa to southern africa, from east/horn of africa to southern africa and from central africa to southern and west africa (undesa, 2016). the bulk of the migrants from north africa move to europe (predominantly to france, spain and italy) and to the gulf states (mainly to saudi arabia and the united arab emirates) (unctad, 2018). intra-regional movements within the eight regional economic communities (recs) of the african union (au)2 are also pronounced (see table 2). this trend has been on the increase, notably between 2000 and 2010, and is mainly attributable to proximity and the easing of barriers to travel for citizens of the recs within their respective regions. table 2: shares of international migrant stock within and between recs, 2017 (percentages) origin destination amu cen-sad comesa eac eccas ecowas igad sadc amu 16.8 45.2 5.8 0.0 1.4 29.2 0.5 0.9 cen-sad 1.6 33.4 14.3 3.5 7.3 25.8 11.9 2.2 comesa 0.4 8.8 30.5 16.7 8.1 0.1 22.8 12.7 eac 0.0 7.7 29.4 23.4 9.3 0.1 15.9 14.3 eccas 0.1 5.7 22.4 16.0 26.0 2.1 7.8 20.0 ecowas 1.2 46.7 0.3 0.0 3.6 47.1 0.2 1.0 igad 1.0 15.0 33.7 15.0 2.7 0.0 31.7 1.0 sadc 0.0 1.0 22.0 13.0 12.3 0.0 6.2 45.5 source: unctad (2018) evidence suggests that despite a substantial increase in emigration from africa to europe over the past decades, the number of africans migrating irregularly to europe represents a small percentage as compared to regular arrivals (iom, 2017). this is despite the rather disproportionate emphasis by researchers and the media on irregular migration from africa to europe in recent years. impact of migration in africa migration has both positive and negative effects in africa. the advantages of migration in africa include the money that migrants send home (remittances), the reduced pressure on jobs and resources in migrant-sending countries, and the diasporic investments and new skills that migrants can return with to their home 2 the eight recs of the african union include the following: the arab maghreb union (amu); the community of sahel-saharan states (cen-sad); the common market for eastern and southern africa (comesa); the east african community (eac); the economic community of central african states (eccas); the economic community of west african states (ecowas); the intergovernmental authority on development (igad); and the southern african development community (sadc). 17 countries. the disadvantages include the brain and brawn drain (a depletion in people of working age who migrate from the continent), which reduces the size of the potential workforce; de-skilling; and the potential for remittance-induced inflation in migrant-sending countries. positive impacts of migration remittances remittances constitute a vital source of income for developing countries. they help families to access food, education, health care, and other basic needs (world bank, 2020b). according to the world bank, remittance flows to africa amounted to us$17 billion in 2004, and this figure rose to us$61 billion in 2013, which constituted 19% of africa’s gdp in that year (world bank, 2017). in 2022, remittances to sub-saharan africa amounted to us$53 billion, which was a 6.1% increase from the previous year. further, remittances to the region were projected to rise by 1.3% and 3.7% in 2023 and 2024, respectively. it is noteworthy that remittance flows to sub-saharan africa in 2022 were nearly twice the size of foreign direct investment (fdi), were relatively more stable, and supported the current accounts of several african countries dealing with food insecurity, severe droughts and floods, and had debt-servicing difficulties (world bank, 2023). figure 2: remittances as a percentage of gdp in selected african countries, 2018 and 2019 source: world bank (2019; 2020a; 2020b) the example of lesotho brings into sharp focus the import of remittances in some african countries. in 2018, basotho migrants sent home us$438 million, a figure that migration governance in africa: challenges and opportunities 18 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 surpassed official development assistance (oda), which stood at us$146,7 million, and fdi, which amounted to us$39,5 million (iom, n.d.) (lesotho). after fdi, remittances are africa’s largest source of foreign inflows (ratha et al., 2011).3 in 2024, remittance flows to lowand middle-income countries are expected to reach $685 billion, larger than fdi and oda combined (ratha et al., 2024). further, large and stable remittance flows can improve a country’s creditworthiness and, on the basis of future inflows, can be used by both governments and commercial banks in recipient countries as collateral for raising bond financing from international markets (mudungwe, 2017). however, while remittances to africa have been substantial and more stable and countercyclical than other financial inflows (and thus sustaining consumption and investment during recessions), remittance flows to sub-saharan africa had been expected to decline by 23.1% to $37 billion in 2020 mainly due to the covid-19 pandemic, while a recovery of 4% was expected post-covid-19 (ratha et al., 2024). diaspora participation in development there is abundant evidence of the impact of diasporas in the development of their countries of origin. apart from remittances, diaspora contributions also include philanthropic activities, knowledge exchange and skills/technology transfers, enhanced trade links between host and recipient countries, and better access to foreign capital markets through diaspora bonds (ratha et al., 2024). through the iom’s migration and development in africa (mida) and the united nations development programme’s (undp) transfer of knowledge through expatriate nationals (tokten), some countries on the continent have benefited from temporary return programs of their professionals abroad to alleviate skill shortages at home (mudungwe, 2017). enhanced labor market efficiencies wage differentials notwithstanding, the laws of supply and demand dictate that labor will move from areas where it is abundant, to areas of labor shortage. in some cases, such movements have been regimented, as in the case of south africa where, from the latter half of the nineteenth century, labor was sourced from other southern african countries, mainly mozambique, zimbabwe, lesotho, swaziland, botswana, and namibia, to work in gold and diamond mines (kok et al., 2006). in recent times, and through bilateral agreements, some african countries have effected the movement of skills from countries with abundance, to countries with shortage. in 2021, the governments of rwanda and zimbabwe signed a memorandum of understanding (mou), which paved the way for the former to recruit teachers from the latter. the mou also paved the way for rwanda to recruit zimbabwean lecturers to teach 3 these figures account for only officially recorded remittances and do not include data from about half of the continent’s countries that do not report remittance data regularly. when one adds the inflows to these countries and the unrecorded flows to the rest of africa through informal channels, the size of remittance flows will be substantially higher. 19 medicine and health sciences at its universities (nyathi, 2021). zimbabwe is expected to have exported 477 teachers to rwanda by september 2024 (chigoche, 2022). besides the rwanda/zimbabwe case, there are also examples of bilateral labor agreements in two specific southern african development community (sadc) corridors: between lesotho and south africa, and between zimbabwe and south africa (iom, 2021). through bilateral labor agreements, as chronicled above, africa has the potential to rationalize its labor. this would not only promote safe pathways for labor migration, but also regional integration, social cohesion, and cultural exchange. economic and social integration migration has the potential to play an integral role in the integration (and overall development) of the african continent with regard to economic, social, cultural and knowledge transfer aspects. economically, migrant networks and diaspora communities play a crucial role in facilitating trade and investment between origin and destination countries on the continent, fostering economic integration and cross-border collaboration (gumede et al., 2020). in 2018, the au adopted two ground-breaking protocols that have the potential to integrate the african continent: the agreement establishing the african continental free trade area (afcfta), and the protocol to the treaty establishing the african economic community relating to the free movement of persons, right of residence and right of establishment (the free movement protocol). the afcfta seeks to increase intra-african trade and investment, while the free movement protocol seeks to progressively facilitate the free movement of persons, right of residence, and right of establishment. the successful implementation of these protocols would not only enhance economic growth, job creation, and poverty reduction across the continent, but would also provide opportunities for intracontinental labor migration and remittance flows, thereby bringing the economies and people of the african continent into a single integrated regional block (brunow et al., 2015). over the years, migration has facilitated the exchange of ideas, traditions, language, and cultural practices among different african communities, enriching the continent’s cultural fabric and promoting a sense of shared identity. the united nations conference on trade and development (unctad) provides key insights into the substance of cultural exchange, highlighting the pivotal role of cultural kinships and mutual languages cementing relations of cross-border communities within the context of trade and human relations. further, cross-border trading has promoted social cohesion and economic inclusion across the economic community of west african states (ecowas), east african community (eac), and sadc regions, as languages and cultures are learned and shared during the interaction between buyers and sellers, resulting in lasting people-to-people integration and socioeconomic and cultural relationships across borders. migrant populations often maintain strong ties migration governance in africa: challenges and opportunities 20 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 with their home countries while integrating into their host communities, creating networks, and fostering social cohesion across national borders (auc, 2024). knowledge transfer through migration, the continent stands to benefit immensely as migrants move between countries transferring knowledge, best practices, and technology, promoting the exchange of ideas, and fostering regional collaboration in various sectors. this exchange of human capital can promote economic growth, entrepreneurship, and innovation. various african and regional blocks have collaborated to ease restrictions on human mobility in order to facilitate movement of highly skilled professionals for purposes of skills transfer and filling critical skills gaps. for example, the kenyarwanda relationship, in which rwanda offers residence permits to skilled workers and work permits to semi-skilled workers from kenya, is a good example of collaboration (auc, 2024). as noted above, another example is the rwanda-zimbabwe bilateral agreement that has seen rwanda importing almost 500 teachers from zimbabwe. negative impacts of migration brain drain perhaps the most significant externality of migration on the african continent is the loss of skills to other regions. an estimated 70,000 skilled professionals emigrate from africa each year, resulting in a huge skills gap on the continent (sima, 2024). consequent to this brain drain, the continent spends approximately us$4 billion annually to employ about 100,000 expatriates. this amount translated to 35% of oda to africa, and is considered to be a significant contributor to the further weakening of already fragile health systems in low-income migrant-sending countries (afdb, 2011). the real cost of the loss of skilled human resources from the continent is brought into sharp focus when superimposed upon the cost borne by migrant-sending countries in educating and training the professionals. for example, a 2005 report by the iom (quoted in landau and vigneswaran, 2007) revealed that south africa spends us$1 billion in training health-care workers who migrated. it is debatable if the remittances that the departed health workers send back home can surpass the direct and indirect public resources invested in training them (landau and vigneswaran, 2007). in his paper on the brain drain of medical professionals from zimbabwe, chibango (2013) highlights that africa might have lost approximately us$1.2 billion from the 60,000 professionals that the continent lost between 1985 and 1990. more specifically, the international migration of health-care workers contributes to a crisis in human resources for health in many african countries. the movement of health professionals from low-income to high-income countries has received much attention over the past few decades, and researchers consider migration to be a significant contributor to the further weakening of already fragile health systems in the sending countries. the 2006 world health report estimated 21 a global shortfall of almost 4.3 million health personnel, with 57 countries (most in africa and asia) facing severe shortages. currently, nearly all african countries show increasing outflows of health-care workers (who, 2006). it is anticipated that the international migration of health workers from africa is expected to continue rising post the covid-19 pandemic period (auc, 2020). concomitant with the brain drain is the cost borne by migrant-sending countries in educating and training the human resources, to the benefit of receiving countries. another aspect of the brain drain is brain waste, or the de-skilling of qualified professionals. this phenomenon refers to occupational change among highly skilled migrants to low-skilled jobs that are unrelated to their educational and occupational backgrounds. this may be due to barriers to participating in the labor market related to work permits, lack of recognition of qualifications obtained abroad, low value given to professional experience acquired in the sending country prior to migration, lack of demand for their specific skills, or discrimination based on gender and ethnicity (iom, 2012). such is the prevalence of this phenomenon, that a study published in 2016 estimated that nearly two million immigrants from all nations and with college degrees in the united states are unemployed or are employed in low-skilled jobs (soto et al., 2016). de-skilling has implications for the sending country when the affected migrants return home, as they may require re-training. remittance-induced inflation, impact on exchange rates, and dependency evidence suggests that remittances can induce inflation in developing countries. the conversion of large inflows of remittances into domestic currency raises the money supply. if these inflows are not absorbed into productive sectors or capital investment, they go into consumption expenditure, which fuels inflation. the rising level of remittances can have a spending effect that can trigger a rise in the price level of nontradable goods (sachs and larrain, 1993). these are goods that can only be consumed in the economy in which they are produced and cannot be exported or imported. since the goods cannot be imported, an increase in demand for those goods will result in price increases. examples of non-tradables include water supply, all public services, hotel accommodation, real estate, construction, and local transportation. further, an increase in remittances can cause an appreciation in the real exchange rate through rising domestic prices. there is also evidence that the overvaluation of the real exchange rate, as a result of an increase in remittances, causes an underestimation of long-term economic growth and, as a result, the production of tradable goods suffers from weak institutions and market failures, which can lead to an increase in inflation (narayan et al., 2011). while for many developing countries remittances constitute a lifeline for development and help alleviate poverty among recipients, it has been argued that if remittances are substantial, the real exchange rate in the recipient country could appreciate, thereby making its goods less competitive on the international market. migration governance in africa: challenges and opportunities 22 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 studies also show that remittances can create dependency, thus weakening the recipients’ incentive to work and slowing economic growth (ratha, n.d.). social consequences of migration while there has been notable focus on the positive economic impact of migration on development, there is a need to similarly investigate its negative social implications, which include its impact on the family unit and xenophobia. migration may have significant undesirable by-products due to family separation. a study by kufakurinani et al. (2014) chronicles a range of psycho-social problems encountered by children and youths – “diaspora orphans” – in zimbabwe, who have one or both parents living abroad, and the resultant delinquency and dysfunctional teenage behavior. while africa envisions regional integration as one of it goals under agenda 2063, such integration should, of necessity, be both economic and social. critical to social integration is the social cohesion of africans across the continent, the shared values, sense of belonging, inter-connectedness, and solidarity among communites from different nationalities. yet the competition over limited resources and the perception by communities in migrant receiving countries that foreigners take advantage of the labor market and welfare services without contributing to the country, can influence policies and public attitudes towards them and stoke the flames of xenophobia (mudungwe, 2014). therefore, it can be argued that, to a certain extent, xenophobia stands in the way of the african dream of an integrated continent. migration governance in africa and its implications for managing migration given the magnitude of migration in africa and the opportunities and challenges that migration presents, it is pertinent that the continent engages in the migration and development debate. migration and development is defined as “a conscious effort to harness the positive aspects of migration for the benefit of development while simultaneously mitigating its negative impact” (mudungwe, 2014). going by this definition, for the continent to harness the full potential of migration and mitigate its negative impact on development outcomes presupposes the presence of robust migration governance regimes in african countries. the iom (2022) defines migration governance as, the combined frameworks of legal norms, laws and regulations, policies and traditions as well as organizational structures (sub-national, national, regional and international) and the relevant processes that shape and regulate states’ approaches with regard to migration in all its forms, addressing rights and responsibilities and promoting international cooperation. therefore, efforts to manage migration in a coherent manner and reap the positive impact of migration on development outcomes require the presence of harmonized 23 migration policies and legal frameworks that are integrated in a country’s national development strategies, and well-coordinated and inclusive institutional structures for managing migration. integrating or mainstreaming migration is the assessment of how migration will impact planned actions and instituting strategies to mitigate the expected negative consequences and enhancing the positive impacts on the outcomes of the planned actions at all stages of national development planning, including design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. stand-alone migration policies have limited impact on development outcomes and are not sustainable; they should therefore be integrated in the broader national development frameworks for sustainability and far-reaching impact. in this regard, migration policies should be an integral part of the national development planning discourse and process, thereby having a direct impact on national development and benefiting from the national fiscus. however, the presence of migration policies, legal frameworks, and institutional mechanisms is premised on the availability of up-to-date data on the magnitude, nature, and impact of migratory patterns. further, it is imperative that the migration policies and legal frameworks are implemented consistently and are subjected to regular monitoring and evaluation. while the foregoing is the ideal, the evidence suggests that the majority of african countries lack robust migration governance regimes. landau and vigneswaran (2007) point to the scarcity of migration data on which african countries can make informed predictions (and, therefore, evidence-based policies) for managing migration and capitalizing on its potential benefits. a recent african union commission (auc) study corroborates this observation, and revealed that except for data on immigration/emigration and labor migration, there are gaps in the collection of data on other critical aspects of migration, including data on remittances, the diaspora, human trafficking, and migrant smuggling. the report also revealed that while most countries collect data on refugees and asylum seekers regularly, it is debatable as to whether the countries could achieve this regularity without the support of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), which has an obvious interest in up-to-date data on refugees and asylum seekers (auc, 2018a). the auc study also revealed that except for border governance strategies and policies, most countries lack national policies on migration, labor migration, and diaspora matters. further, of those countries that have national policies governing migration, labor migration, and diaspora matters, a significant number of these frameworks do not have implementation plans, nor do they have monitoring and evaluation mechanisms with progress and impact indicators. the policy frameworks of most countries are also not integrated into their national development plans (auc, 2018a). with regard to institutional mechanisms for managing migration, the auc study further revealed that very few countries have ministries, units, or agencies dedicated to managing migration, and equally few countries have national coordinating mechanisms, that is, national forums for coordinating migration. migration governance in africa: challenges and opportunities 24 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 a national coordinating mechanism is typically a government-led inter-agency platform in charge of facilitating cooperation and coordination of migration issues among stakeholders with migration-related functions and responsibilities. it is an integral part of a country’s migration governance system and brings together all relevant government institutions, civil society organizations, and international partners involved in managing migration. of those countries that have national coordinating mechanisms, just over half of the mechanisms are established by statute, and can, therefore, enjoy budgetary support from the national fiscus (auc, 2018a). with weak migration governance regimes in africa, indications are that the continent is not harnessing the full potential that migration can potentially bestow toward development outcomes. as a corollary, the continent is also not poised to minimize the negative impact of migration on development to the extent possible. much as they are aware of the migration issues facing them, there is a gap between african countries’ commitment and actual technical capacity to handle migration (auc, 2017). given the foregoing, it is imperative to explore the reasons that could explain why few african countries have invested in their migration governance systems. a theoretical framework for analyzing the status of migration governance and budgetary practices in africa mogues (2012) reviews theories and empirical inquiries into the governance conditions that determine how governments prioritize the allocation of public resources across different needs. this section discusses these theories to ascertain how these factors determine the status of migration governance in africa. it is also possible to use the frameworks to unravel how migration governance issues in africa affect investments in the migration sector. the garbage can budgeting model this model postulates that budget processes are independent from systematic influences; hence, budget decisions are the random outcomes of a large set of independent events. thus, most often solutions arise before problems, and many unnecessary solutions may exist before a problem is realized (denomme, 2023). the garbage can model symbolizes a meeting where ideas are discussed and decided on, as a “garbage can” that participants are chaotically dumping problems and solutions into as they are being generated. the term “garbage can” portrays the manner in which items in a trash can are organized – a messy, chaotic mix. it portrays problems, solutions, and participants/decision-makers as three independent “streams” that are each generated separately and are disconnected from each other. these three streams only meet when the fourth stream of choice opportunity arises, as a garbage can, for the streams to flow into (mogues, 2012). thus, budgets are the result of an organized anarchy that has four streams: (i) the actors; (ii) the problems as perceived by the actors; (iii) the solutions proffered 25 by the actors; and (iv) the actions they take in the form of initiatives. the framework suggests that the allocation of public resources is basically a simple random walk process in which public spending in one year is equal to the previous year’s spending plus a random amount that could be negative or positive. the inference is that given a problem, policymakers with limited time and resources, and a choice among competing needs, there is an equal chance that any of the alternative expenditures will be chosen. as a result, the policymakers’ decision is not influenced in a systematic way by actors (mogues, 2012). the incremental budget model this model suggests that in making budgets, policymakers tend to consider historical expenditure patterns, and that changes in budget allocation are incremental, increasing or decreasing by the same proportion each year. the basic assumption of “incrementalism” is growth in expenditure, and budgeting is characterized by limited budgetary review and non-rational forms of analysis. therefore, since the current budget allocation is tied to the previous year’s budget, there is little room for actors to influence the budget through lobbying (mogues, 2012; greenwood et al., 2022). the status quo bias this is a phenomenon whereby policies or budget items are continued, even though they may have outlived their usefulness. those who stand to benefit from the current state are usually the ones with the power to have lobbied policy enactment or budget allocation in the first place, and likely to be more influential to have the policy or budget allocation maintained, than the constituency that prefers an alternative. the beneficiaries’ lobbying power increases after the policy or budget allocation is instituted, and the process becomes self-perpetuating (mogues, 2012). thus, under the status quo bias, decision-makers avoid changes and maintain the current situation. however, in a dynamic world with rapid technological advances, change is constant and the status quo bias can hinder progress (godefroid et al., 2023). the veto-players theory veto-players are influential actors and institutions that can effectively block budgets. these include groups like political parties in government and presidents. thus, budget composition is, to a large extent, a function of changes in ideology within government and between governments over time. the greater the ideological distance between alternating governments, the greater the change in budget composition reflecting the political outlook of the alternating governments (mogues, 2012). budgetary trade-offs as they prepare budgets, policymakers are faced with an array of competing demands, while at the same time restricted by national income. therefore, in the absence of a migration governance in africa: challenges and opportunities 26 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 budget expansion, an increase in one budget item is accompanied by a decrease in another, or other budget items (a budgetary trade-off). in this context, ministries or departments that have relatively limited clout may fare badly in budget trade-offs (mogues, 2012). for example, an increase in the defense budget may be accompanied by a corresponding decrease in the expenditure for the ministry of cultural affairs. interest groups and collective action interest groups, or groups of people who seek to influence public policy on the basis of a shared interest or concern, have the ability to lobby for public policies, expenditures, or investments that are favorable to them. interest groups include farmers’ organizations, diaspora associations, women’s groups, youth associations, etc. because of the power they wield, interest groups can exert pressure on political agents whose objective is the retention of political office. however, the extent to which interest groups can influence political agents is determined by: (i) physical proximity of group members and access to transportation and communication infrastructure, which facilitate coordination and mutual monitoring of actions and intragroup coordination and organization. (ii) group size: controlling for spatial concentration and access to transport and communication infrastructure, larger groups are more difficult to coordinate than smaller ones. however, larger groups can wield more political clout through their greater aggregate income resources and greater combined voting power. (iii) education and information: the role of the level of education of group members and access to information can play a critical role in lobbying. a group that is well educated and has greater access to information is in a better position to accurately assess the consequences and merits of different policies and investments, and discern their outcomes, and is therefore in a better position to provide knowledge to policymakers and argue its case (mogues, 2012). providers of international development aid government partners that provide development aid can exert a strong influence on a country’s policy and public expenditure. partners include multilateral agencies and governments from the developed world and natural-resource-rich countries. for small economies or countries in or emerging from conflict, donor aid can be overwhelming, and so can the influence of the donor on the recipient country’s policies and spending. historically, the evolution of development paradigms influences the sectors where donor funds go. in recent years, the advent of budget support and structural adjustment loans has seen the emergence of underwriting plans on overall budget allocation, usually a negotiation process between governments and donors. in some cases, donors may use their financial or political leverage on the governments to ensure that a government does not deviate from using both aid and domestic public resources as per plan. implicit in these mechanisms is that donors can sway policies and resource allocation in developing countries (mogues, 2012). 27 there are long-standing concerns in the development community over donor preferences and conditionalities and the limited impact that donor aid has in recipient countries. there are also growing concerns that in aid-dependent countries, aid can lead to divergence and inconsistencies between recipient governments’ priorities and resource allocation (mogues, 2012). for example, there has been a proliferation of national migration policies in africa at the behest of donors. however, the ownership, and consequently implementation of the policies is weak, or non-existent. in this regard, a historical analysis of donor involvement in the migration space in africa is instructive. prior to 2006, when the au adopted its first comprehensive migration policy and adopted a common position on migration, migration was a low priority for most african governments (auc, 2018b). however, the issue has since gained traction as a strategic policy area on the continent, partly stemming from a growing realization that managed migration can be a driver of development if managed in a comprehensive manner. le coz and pietropolli (2020) argue that this shift could, in part, be due to the increase in european union (eu) migration-related investments on the continent, especially since 2015. consequently a number of african countries have formulated migration policies, although their implementation has been patchy (auc, 2018a). this raises the question whether this could be as a result of donor-driven imperatives – in this case the eu – that focus more on curbing migration flows from africa (le coz and pietropolli, 2020), particularly from certain regions of the continent than the more broader developmental aspects of migration. additionally, it begs the question whether the budgetary allocations of african countries toward migration would be more considerable if programming in the area of migration were organic. this argument is developed further in the next section. the african context to a large extent, the descriptions and theories of public spending presented above explain the weak migration governance systems in africa. this section, therefore, analyses the migration governance situation in africa within the context of the descriptions and theories of public spending, as outlined above. first, the migration and development debate is a relatively new concept and generated considerable interest among development policymakers and academics at the turn of the millennium, giving rise to what is known as the migration– development nexus (bastia, 2013). second, there is a lack of migration data in africa, as the 2018 auc (2018a) study revealed. therefore, while policymakers may acknowledge migration as an important parameter for consideration in development plans, without adequate data, policymakers do not know what aspects of migration to include in development plans and can therefore not make informed predictions on the potential benefits of migration. migration governance in africa: challenges and opportunities 28 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 third, very few countries in africa have government ministries or departments dedicated to migration. additionally, few countries have institutional mechanisms for coordinating migration. of those countries that do have them, the institutional mechanisms are not statutory bodies (auc, 2018a). the african development bank (afdb) also notes that some african countries established specialized units or departments to manage support from their diaspora; however, it makes the observation that these units are weak and unable to significantly tap the benefit of their diaspora (afdb, 2010). fourth, the diaspora constitutes a major interest group in the migration sector in africa, but they are seldom consulted in policy dialogues in their countries of origin. this is mainly because they do not hold official recognition as a constituency in their countries of origin, nor is there evidence of the diaspora’s high organization and coordination efforts. in some cases, citizens in the diaspora left their home countries due to political differences with their governments and have some involvement in conflicts that are raging in their home countries. therefore, governments in their home countries view them with suspicion (féron and lefort, 2019). in view of the foregoing, it would seem that a combination of the theories discussed earlier are at play in explaining the weak migration governance regimes in africa. the “garbage can,” incremental budget, and status quo bias models have a common thread that runs through them – conservatism. since the migration and development debate is a relatively new phenomenon, spending on migration would be a departure from the norm. this, coupled with the lack of migration data (that could demonstrate the potential benefits of migration and could therefore persuade policymakers to prioritize migration in national development planning) is detrimental to the case for including the migration sector in public spending. the budgetary trade-offs model presupposes the existence of ministries or institutions that would haggle in favor of their sector. however, as noted above, very few countries on the continent have dedicated ministries or departments responsible for migration. further, institutional mechanisms for coordinating migration are either weak or non-existent, thereby weakening the ability of migration interest groups to lobby effectively for their sector. similarly, the diaspora, as an important constituency that could play a significant role in lobbying for the migration sector, receives no formal recognition, has yet to organize itself well and, in some cases, labor under suspicion of the home governments. donor funding for migration activities, primarily from the eu and european countries, increased tremendously in africa in the past two decades. the paradox, however, is why migration governance is weak amid the increased donor funding for migration activities. assessments of eu funding of migration in africa make the observation that the funding focuses heavily on tightening border controls and preventing migration into europe (deutsche welle, 2016) and combating human trafficking and migrant smuggling (landau and vigneswaran, 2007) instead of addressing the root causes of flight in the countries of origin. the past 29 decade witnessed a proliferation of donor-funded migration policies in africa. a significant proportion of these policies have no action plans, no monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, and are not integrated into the national development plans of the recipient countries. further, as landau and vigneswaran (2007) observe, even countries that have good migration policies lack trained personnel and the requisite systems and technology to implement them effectively and consistently (landau and vigneswaran, 2007). despite the fact that the bulk of migration in africa is intra-continental, eu funding for migration activities and research skews in favor of countries and regions on the continent from which migrants moving to europe originate. hence, the eu established the rabat process and the khartoum process, through which eu-funded initiatives seek to address irregular migration on the northern migratory route from africa to europe. it is noteworthy that there are no similar initiatives in southern and parts of east africa, presumably because countries in these parts of the continent are not major source countries of irregular migrants to europe. established in july 2006 in rabat, morocco, the rabat process (also known as the euro-african dialogue on migration and development) is a platform that brings together 58 african and european countries to discuss migration issues. in africa, the rabat process covers west and parts of central and north africa (see figure 3). figure 3: map of the rabat process countries source: iom (n.d.) (rabat process) another eu-led initiative is the khartoum process, also known as the eu-horn of africa migration route initiative. established through the rome declaration in 2014, migration governance in africa: challenges and opportunities 30 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 the initiative focuses on addressing human trafficking and migrant smuggling from and through the horn of africa and east and north africa to europe (see figure 4). figure 4: map of the khartoum process countries source: iom (n.d.) (khartoum process) the skewed nature of eu support to africa in the area of migration is also evident in the eu emergency trust fund for africa (eutf), which was established in 2016 after the 2015 valetta summit on migration to address the root causes of irregular migration and displacement of persons in africa. the eutf is a €4.7 billion initiative that is operational in 26 of the 55 african countries across three regions, including the sahel and lake chad, the horn of africa, and north africa. another example is the regional operational centre in khartoum, sudan, that is funded by the eutf in the amount of €5 million. the center is a platform for sharing information on irregular migration and associated criminal networks among countries of the khartoum process, and is managed by civipol, the technical cooperation operator of the french ministry of the interior. with weak migration governance regimes on the continent, one can argue that the aid that goes into the migration sector could have more impact if african countries had robust migration governance systems with the capacity to utilize the aid effectively. that a big portion of the eutf is implemented by european organizations, the better migration management programme and civipol is instructive in this regard. 31 conclusions this article shows that there has been an increase in migration in africa in recent years, and that the bulk of migration is intra-continental, intra-regional, and interregional within and between the eight au regional economic communities. despite the alarmist media reports about the migration “crisis” from africa to europe, evidence suggests that the number of africans migrating irregularly to europe in recent years represents a small percentage as compared to regular arrivals. the article also shows that migration has both positive and negative effects in africa. the positive impacts include remittances, reduced pressure on jobs and resources, and the diasporic contributions to development and philanthropic activities in their home countries. the negative impacts include the brain and brawn drain and de-skilling, while overreliance on remittances has the potential to induce inflation in remittance-receiving countries and exert upward pressure on the exchange rate. further, it argues that remittances can create dependency among recipents, thus weakening their incentive to work and slowing economic growth. on the social front, migration may result in family separation, which could have adverse consequences on the psycho-social development and behavior of children and youths. however, despite the magnitude of migration in africa, and the fact that the bulk of migration is intra-continental, in general, migration governance regimes and the capacity of african governments to manage migration are weak. weak migration governance systems could be the result of several factors, namely: (i) the limited or lack of resources allocated toward the migration sector by african governments; (ii) the paucity of migration data that demonstrates the potential benefits of migration and could therefore persuade policymakers to prioritize migration in national development planning; (iii) migration interest groups and institutional mechanisms for managing or coordinating migration that are either weak or nonexistent, thereby weakening their ability to articulate and lobby effectively for their sector; and (iv) a “fire-fighting” approach by major donors that are supporting the migration sector in africa. donor funding for migration is skewed in favor of managing certain aspects of migration (specifically irregular migration on the northern migratory route) at the expense of a holistic approach that recognizes that the bulk of migration is intra-continental. to a certain extent, this approach also largely ignores capacitating african governments to manage migration, preferring organizations from donor countries to implement migration projects in africa. the manifestations of weak migration governance systems are the reduced capacity of african governments to (i) nurture and fully capitalize on the positives that migration can bestow to national development; (ii) mitigate the negative impact of migration on development outcomes; and (iii) effectively negotiate migration compacts with other regions that are destinations of african migrants. migration governance in africa: challenges and opportunities 32 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 policy recommendations from the foregoing presentation and analysis, four recommendations emerge: (i) defining an african migration agenda; (ii) mainstreaming migration into development strategies;4 (iii) establishing robust institutional mechanisms for managing migration; and (iv) strengthening migration data systems. defining an african migration agenda that donor funding for migration in africa is to a large extent skewed toward the priorities of the donors, could partly be symptomatic of the absence of an evidencebased, well-defined continental vision and agenda on migration that all member states, recs, and stakeholders subscribe to. however, in the au migration policy framework for africa, the common african position on migration, and the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration, africa has the basic frameworks on which to synthesize a continental agenda on migration. the point of departure for the frameworks is that that well-managed migration can benefit both migrantsending and migrant-receiving countries. further, the frameworks identify good migration governance as a prerequisite for the coherent management of migration. in this regard, the auc, in conjunction with its recs, member states, and civil society are urged to formulate an evidence-based continental vision (and agenda) on migration. the vision and agenda would form the basis for migration programs on the continent, and donor partners would be urged to support activities within the context of the programs thus identified. the research on migration would be conducted periodically, and would inform the continued relevance (or otherwise) of the vision, agenda, and programs. political ownership of the continental vision and agenda at the highest level is a critical success factor for achieving the programs. it is imperative, therefore, that parliamentarians and senior policymakers at national, regional, and continental levels be sensitized and buy into the vision and agenda. mainstreaming migration into development strategies besides ownership and limited information on migration and its potential impact on development outcomes, perhaps one of the reasons why the migration sector is inadequately funded is because in general, migration policies are formulated and implemented outside the broader national development strategies, and do not, therefore, enjoy funding from the national fiscus. migration policies that are conceived and implemented outside the ambit of the national development strategies 4 mainstreaming migration is the assessment of how migration will affect planned actions, and instituting strategies to mitigate the expected negative consequences and enhancing the positive impacts on the outcomes of the planned actions at all stages of national development planning, including design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. stand-alone migration policies have a limited impact on development outcomes, and are not sustainable, and should be integrated in the broader national development frameworks for sustainability and far-reaching impact. in this regard, migration policies should be an integral part of the national development planning discourse and process, thereby having a direct impact on national development, and benefiting from the national fiscus. 33 tend to be funded by donors, and when donor funding dries up, implementation is discontinued or jeopardized. further, it is difficult to discern the impact of policies implemented in this manner on national development outcomes. pursuant to this observation, au member states and recs are urged to mainstream migration into national and regional development strategies respectively as a matter of course. this not only ensures funding for migration programs, and therefore sustainability, but also ensures that the impact of migration is monitored and evaluated at national and regional levels. perhaps the most critical aspect of mainstreaming migration into national and regional development strategies, is that it enables a country or region to factor in the negative impact of migration on development outcomes. for example, to counter-balance the loss of skills through brain drain, a country may want to consider a forward-looking policy mix that encourages the export of labor in some professions, while at the same time retaining skills in essential or shortage areas, or produce more of the skills that are in demand abroad while satisfying the needs at home. such a policy mix would ensure a balance between satisfying labor needs at home while addressing unemployment through the export of “excess” labor requirements. this could be achieved through deliberate policies in the education sector and the introduction of appropriate remuneration regimes for skills that are deemed essential. a policy of this nature could also include strategies to maximize benefits from migrant labor, that is, deliberate, pro-active policies that court and facilitate diaspora participation in the national discourse on national development (mudungwe, 2009). establishing robust institutional mechanisms for managing migration one would assume that a sector that contributes significantly to the gross domestic product (gdp) and reduces unemployment at home, among other positive impacts, would deserve to be nurtured. hypothetically, a country for which remittances constitute a significant proportion of gdp can establish a fully-fledged ministry or department dedicated to the migration sector and fund that ministry or department from remittance income – nurturing the goose that lays the golden eggs. establishing a ministry, department, or at least a national or regional mechanism that has the sole responsibility of managing or coordinating migration activities ensures that migration issues are brought to the fore on the national and regional agenda. ideally, a coordinating mechanism should be established by statute. this ensures that its mandate is anchored in law, and can therefore enjoy funding from the national fiscus, thereby enhancing sustainability of tenure. in order for their investment in the migration sector to be sustainable and have meaningful impact, donor partners are urged to invest in building the capacities of migration governance systems of african countries. strengthening migration data systems migration governance in africa: challenges and opportunities 34 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 1, january-april 2025 as noted above, the paucity of data on migration, and most importantly, up-to-date data on how migration impacts development in africa, are perhaps the achilles heel of migration governance on the continent. the need to establish and invest in more systematic migration data collection and analysis mechanisms is central to achieving the other pre-conditions for establishing an effective migration governance system, as discussed above. by its cross-border nature, international migration requires cooperation between and among countries. in this regard, if it is to be managed successfully, there should be consistency between not only the migration policies and legislation of various countries and regions, but also reliable migration data that is comparable. this calls for efforts to harmonize definitions of migration data variables and collection systems across the continent and beyond so that data are comparable across jurisdictions and regions (mudungwe, 2014). the 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study of all aspects of human mobility in africa, including socioeconomic, political, legal, developmental, educational and cultural aspects. through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence-based research papers, ahmr provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of current migration trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. ahmr is jointly owned by the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) and the university of the western cape (uwc). the scalabrini institute for human mobility in africa (sihma) is a member of the network of the scalabrinian centers for migration studies, with institutions in new york, paris, rome, buenos aires, sao paulo, and manila. ahmr is accredited by the department of higher education and training (dhet) in south africa. articles and reviews in ahmr reflect the opinions of the contributors. ahmr allows the author/s to retain full copyright in their articles. issn 2410-7972 (online) issn 2411-6955 (print). editing services provided by on point language solutions ahmr © 2024 creative commons license cc-by-4.0 sihma physical address 47, commercial st, 8001 cape town – south africa tel. +27 82 555 2066 email: ahmr@sihma.org.za webpage: www.sihma.org.za 85 pandemic mobilities, livelihood disruptions, and food insecurities among eastern cape migrants in cape town and johannesburg during covid-19 jonathan crush,1 godfrey tawodzera,2 maria salamone,3 and zack ahmed4 received 23 september 2024 / accepted 22 november 2024 / published 10 january 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i3.2437 abstract this paper examines the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on internal migrants from the eastern cape in the cities of cape town and johannesburg, south africa, with a focus on mobility restrictions, livelihood disruptions, and food insecurity. methodologically, the paper draws on a survey of 1,733 migrant households in the two cities conducted in 2023 and identifies significant economic hardships and increased food insecurity among internal migrants during the pandemic. findings reveal that the pandemic exacerbated vulnerabilities, with many migrants experiencing job losses, reduced remittances, and heightened food insecurity. the paper underscores the need to differentiate between internal and international migrants in policy responses in times of crisis to ensure targeted support for the most affected populations. keywords: covid-19 pandemic, internal migration, food insecurity, south africa, migrant households 1 balsillie school of international affairs, waterloo, canada and university of the western cape, cape town south africa. corresponding author  jcrush@balsillieschool.ca https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3342-3192 2 institute for social development, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0367-453x 3 balsillie school of international affairs, waterloo, canada. 4 school of international policy and governance, wilfrid laurier university, waterloo, canada. pandemic mobilities, livelihood disruptions, and food insecurities among eastern cape migrants 86 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 introduction the covid-19 pandemic has been described as a crisis of (im)mobility, since public health restrictions on personal movement disrupted long-standing patterns and periodicities of migration (rajan et al., 2020; martin and bergmann, 2021). at the country level, the (im)mobility crisis has been most extensively documented in india, where there was a mass exodus of internal migrants from the cities during the early weeks of covid-19 to escape pandemic lockdowns. studies of this reverse human tide have focused on the desperation and misery of around 10 million migrants who headed for their rural homes (rajan et al., 2020; jesline et al., 2021; carswell et al., 2022; rajan and bhagat, 2022). however, many more migrants were stranded in the cities where they struggled to survive as their income streams dried up (rahaman et al., 2021; kumar et al., 2022). as sengupta and jha (2020: 152) note, “migrant informal workers were mired in a survival crisis, through income loss, hunger, destitution and persecution from authorities policing containment.” in south africa, there have been several studies on the implications of pandemic restrictions for international migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees (mukumbang et al., 2020; odunitan-wayas et al., 2021; angu et al., 2022; ramachandran et al., 2024). unlike in india, less attention has been focused on the impact of the pandemic on internal migrants. the south african government’s own 700-page self-evaluation of its covid-19 policy response applies the term “migrant” to non-south africans only (presidency of south africa, 2021). statistics south africa (stats sa, 2020c) also defines a migrant as “someone who is born outside south africa, while anyone born in south africa is classified as a ‘non-migrant.’” therefore, it is perhaps unsurprising that the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on the lives and livelihoods of internal migrants have received only limited attention (ginsburg et al., 2022). internal migrants also remain largely invisible in the literature on the impact of covid-19 on vulnerable populations in the country. some studies have shown that pandemic vulnerability and impacts differed between urban and rural areas, but they do not address the consequences for rural–urban migrants themselves directly (visagie and turok, 2021; shifa et al., 2022). recent surveys of the negative economic impacts of covid-19 in south africa also do not identify the specific experiences and challenges of internal migrants during successive waves of the pandemic (espi et al., 2021; ranchhod and daniels, 2021; köhler et al., 2023). therefore, there remains a significant knowledge gap surrounding the impacts of covid-19 on the livelihoods of the large internal migrant population of the country. where indian and south african pandemic studies are similar is that neither pays attention to the impact of the pandemic on the food security of internal migrants. in india, there have been several assessments of the impact of the pandemic on household food security in general (mishra and rampal, 2020; ravula et al., 2020; kumar et al., 2022). however, the food security experience of returning and immobilized migrants is limited to a small number of case studies (jolad and shah, 2022; luthra et al., 2024). similarly, in south africa, there is a growing literature 87 on the general implications of the pandemic for household food security (arndt et al., 2020; van der berg et al., 2021; hart et al., 2022; ngavara, 2022). however, few studies explicitly examine the relationship between internal migration, livelihood disruption, and food insecurity during the pandemic. there is thus a significant knowledge gap surrounding the impacts of covid-19 on the large internal migrant population of the country. this paper examines the effects of the pandemic on interprovincial migrants from the eastern cape who resided in cape town and johannesburg in 2020 and 2021. it addresses three questions: first, did migrants respond to pandemic restrictions on mobility by returning to the eastern cape, and, if so, what reasons did they give for return and how long did they remain there? second, what was the extent of the disruption of livelihoods caused by the government’s response to covid-19? third, what impact did the pandemic have on the food security of urban-based migrant households? in this paper we examine how the literature treats each of these questions and then focus on the implications of findings from our household survey of migrants in the two cities. literature review this section focuses on the impact of the national pandemic lockdown on internal mobility in south africa. in late march 2020, the south african president, cyril ramaphosa, declared a national state of disaster under the disaster management act of 2002, which remained in effect for the next two years (fourie and lamb, 2023). on 26 march, a sweeping national lockdown and stay-at-home order came into effect and remained in force for over a month. subsequently, it gradually relaxed, although many of the prohibitions on individual and group activity remained or were reimposed during successive waves of the pandemic from late 2020 to 2021. in addition to the stay-at-home order, there was a complete mobility ban on all nonessential international, cross-border, and interprovincial travel during the initial lockdown. more than 24,000 members of the south african police services were mobilized to enforce the lockdown, supplemented by municipal police and the army. roadblocks were set up on all major routes into and out of both cities, and within the cities on the main roads. the effectiveness of the enforcement of the nation-wide lockdown and mobility restrictions is illustrated by cellphone mobility big data. carlitz and makhura (2021) draw on google’s covid-19 community mobility reports and mobility trends reports published by apple maps to chart the impact of the lockdown on population mobility, which they regard as a proxy for compliance. they show that there was a dramatic decline in inter-provincial and intra-city mobility in the first three months of the pandemic in response to the government’s lockdown orders. the western cape registered the greatest decline in mobility to work (down by 71%), to retail and recreation (by 78%), to transit stations (by 84%) and to grocery/pharmacy outlets (by 50%). pandemic mobilities, livelihood disruptions, and food insecurities among eastern cape migrants 88 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 stats sa conducted two online surveys between april and july in 2020 that suggest that there was limited mobility during the pandemic lockdown (stats sa, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c). in april, only 3% of respondents had changed their province of residence and 3% had moved within the province. more than 90% had not moved at all. by july, the proportion who had changed their provincial place of residence had increased from 3% to 6%. furthermore, 13% had engaged in interprovincial travel since the start of the lockdown, of whom 26% had traveled to attend funerals and 15% to provide essential services, both deemed legitimate reasons for travel. this data therefore suggests that most respondents did not move out of or within their province during the first half of 2020. in contrast, posel and casale (2021) argue that widespread internal population movement was to be expected for three main reasons. first, they suggest that 3.3 million households had members who were migrants working in other parts of the country and that workplace closures and layoffs meant that they would return home for livelihood support (as millions did in india). second, because kin networks play an important role in providing support to family members during times of crisis and insecurity, migrants who lost their jobs would be forced to move to stay with family or friends. third, the closure of all educational institutions would force many students to return to their parents’ homes. the authors analyze nids-cram survey data from the university of cape town and conclude that there was substantial movement during the first phases of south africa’s lockdown (posel and casale, 2021). the proportion of respondents who moved to a different household in march 2020 was 8% while 16% moved in march and/or may 2020. of these moves, half were interprovincial (see table 1). the other relevant finding is that 27% of all adult movers reported being part of a household that had experienced hunger during the previous week (compared to 21% of non-movers) (ibid.). the authors conclude that, in general, moving was associated with economic shock and hardship. table 1: extent of mobility in south africa – march and may 2020 timing of move % of adult population moved in march only 7.8 moved in may only 4.9 moved in both march and may 2.9 all moves 15.5 did not move 84.5 share of march moves that were interprovincial 51.3 source: posel and casale (2021) ginsburg et al. (2022) argue that the pandemic increased vulnerability among south africa’s internal migrants and their households of origin as the result of 89 their potentially less stable employment arrangements. their data on impact of the pandemic on migration to and from one rural migrant-sending community comes from agincourt district in mpumalanga province, collected between september 2020 and march 2021. their main finding was that the pandemic affected migration patterns in several ways. first, the proportion of rural residents initiating a migration move decreased by 11% between 2019 and 2020. second, the share of temporary migrants returning to the community increased from 8% in 2019 to 13% in 2020. third, three-quarters of these return migrants who were employed in 2019 were no longer employed in 2020. of the return migrants, 49% had lost their jobs, 25% were on unpaid leave, and 18% experienced reduced pay. in sum, all three studies indicate that there was an increase in return migration during the pandemic, but that most internal migrants (over 85%) remained in situ and did not return home from the towns and cities where they worked. this raises several additional questions that are not addressed in the literature and still need to be researched to obtain a fuller picture of pandemic livelihood disruption. first, how did migrants in the cities survive in the face of unemployment, income loss, and mobility restrictions? second, did this situation of pandemic precarity have an impact their ability to send remittances to family members in other parts of the country? third, were the minority who did return to their rural homes able to engage in activities that boosted their livelihoods and compensated for pandemic economic disruptions? finally, and most relevant to this study, what were the consequences of the pandemic for the food security of internal migrants in the city? in the remainder of this paper, we address these questions drawing on data from our survey of migrants from the eastern cape in cape town and johannesburg. survey methodology although migrants from all ethnic and language groups in the country are found in both cape town and johannesburg, the survey focused on migrants from the eastern cape province, which is a major migration source for both cities. the survey breakdown of households by sample area in each city is shown in table 2. the research team loaded surveys onto tablets supplied by the mifood project at the university of the western cape. they then administered the surveys to a migrant head of household or their representative (usually a spouse or adult child). the final sample comprised 1,733 households (johannesburg n = 898; cape town n = 818). pandemic mobilities, livelihood disruptions, and food insecurities among eastern cape migrants 90 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 table 2: spatial distribution of sample in cape town and johannesburg n % cape town langa 143 8.3 dunoon 122 7.0 nyanga 96 5.5 joe slovo 96 5.5 gugulethu 88 5.1 imizamo yethu 81 4.7 khayelitsha 75 4.3 delft 60 3.5 philippi 55 3.2 other 2 0.1 818 100.0 johannesburg thembisa 191 11.0 alexandra park 151 8.7 orange farm 121 7.0 tshepisong 93 5.4 soweto 84 4.8 cosmo city 82 4.7 randburg 65 3.7 benoni 56 3.2 edenvale 48 2.8 other 24 1.5 898 100.0 source: authors’ own work the survey captured data on household characteristics, income and expenditure, migration actions, remittances, pandemic impacts, and food security. following the food and agriculture organization (fao) of the united nations, we define food security as existing when “all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (fao, 2006) this definition includes four essential dimensions of food security: (a) availability: sufficient quantities of food must be consistently available to individuals or households, either through production, trade, or assistance. (b) access: people must have the means and resources to obtain appropriate food for a nutritious diet, which can be impacted by income levels, food prices, and distribution systems. (c) utilization: food must be properly utilized to meet dietary needs, which requires adequate sanitation, clean water, healthcare, and knowledge about nutrition and food safety. (d) stability: there 91 must be a stable supply of and access to food over time, not threatened by sudden shocks (e.g., economic crises or natural disasters) or cyclical events (e.g., seasonal food shortages). in this paper, we focus on the impact of the pandemic on food access and use among internal migrants. the research captured these dimensions of food insecurity using the following international cross-cultural scales: (a) the lived poverty index (lpi), which includes a five-point likert scale question on the frequency of going without several basic necessities, including food and fuel to cook food; (b) the household food insecurity access prevalence indicator (hfiap) that categorizes households on the basis of their responses to nine frequency of occurrence questions and uses an algorithm to assign them to one of four groups: food secure, mild food insecurity, moderate food insecurity, and severe food insecurity (coates et al., 2007); and (c) the household dietary diversity score (hdds), which is a proxy for the nutritional quality of the diet by capturing how many food groups (from 0 to 12) were consumed within the household in the previous 24 hours (swindale and bilinsky, 2006). results the survey respondents from the eastern cape in cape town and johannesburg were equally split between men and women, indicating that migration flows from the region are now significantly feminized compared to the apartheid period (hall and posel, 2019) (see table 3). the sample was dominated by people of working age between 30 and 50 years of age (62% of the total). another 28% were youth under the age of 30 years. despite the relatively mature age profile of the sample, two-thirds were unmarried, with only 17% married and another 8% cohabiting. only 17% of the migrant households comprised nuclear families with a wife/female partner and a husband/male partner living in the same household. another 10% were extended family households with other relatives and non-relatives present. almost 40% of the households were female centered (a household headed by a woman without male spouse or partner present), which is consistent with the general increase in female headship in south africa (rogan, 2016; posel et al. 2023). another 35% were male centered (with a male head without a female spouse or partner present). one-third were single-person households, which was more common among females than among males. according to posel and hunter (2022: 1), “solo dwelling remains associated with persistent rural–urban spatial divisions, increased migration and urbanization, continued declining marriage rates and the nature of employment.” just over 60% of the households had 2–6 members, and a smaller number (8%) was larger. almost all the migrants had some level of schooling: 70% had attended and 41% had completed high school. post-secondary education was rarer, although 8% had some tertiary education. the relatively low levels of educational achievement were reflected in the occupational profile of the sample. nearly a third (30%) were manual workers before migrating, while another 18% were domestic workers and 10% were employed in the pandemic mobilities, livelihood disruptions, and food insecurities among eastern cape migrants 92 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 hospitality industry. another 19% were unemployed immediately prior to migrating from the eastern cape. table 3: characteristics of individual migrants and migrant households n % sex of respondents male 866 50.0 female 865 50.0 age <20 2 0.1 20–29 424 38.7 30–39 574 38.9 40–49 308 20.9 50–59 137 9.3 60+ 30 2.0 marital status unmarried 1,107 63.9 married 323 18.6 living together/cohabiting 150 8.7 divorced/widowed/separated 145 8.3 highest level of education no formal schooling 23 1.3 primary school 121 7.0 some high school 410 23.7 high school completed 762 44.0 post-secondary qualification 205 11.8 some/completed university 130 7.5 postgraduate 6 0.3 household structure female centered 663 38.3 male centered 600 34.6 nuclear 299 17.3 extended 168 9.7 household size (number of adults) 1 person 551 32.0 93 2–3 persons 605 35.1 4–5 persons 344 20.0 6+ persons 221 12.8 source: authors’ own work just over one in four migrants lost their jobs in 2020 (see table 4). the reasons included that their employers retrenched workers (39%) or closed their businesses altogether (36%). another 17% were banned from running their informal businesses. the length of time before finding another job was significant, with one-third remaining unemployed for more than six months, another third for four to six months, and the rest for between one and three months. table 4: migrant unemployment during 2020 unemployment experience n % loss of employment in 2020 yes 468 27.0 no 1,265 73.0 main reason for losing job employer retrenched employees 182 38.9 employer closed their business 170 36.3 not permitted to operate their informal business 77 16.5 became ill with covid-19 16 3.4 household members became ill with covid-19 7 1.5 because they returned home 4 0.9 other 12 2.6 length of unemployment more than 6 months 158 34.3 4–6 months 150 32.5 1–3 months 153 33.2 source: authors’ own work the disruptive impact of the pandemic on migrant life and livelihoods is clear from the responses to a series of impact statements in the survey (see table 5). as many as 94% of respondents said that the lockdown had caused great hardship for the city’s residents and 91% indicated that the pandemic had caused significant economic hardship for them and their families. approximately 80% said that the economic conditions of their pandemic mobilities, livelihood disruptions, and food insecurities among eastern cape migrants 94 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 household were worse than before the pandemic. this change of fortune meant that almost 70% remitted less to the eastern cape than before covid-19. table 5: perceptions of impact of covid-19 on migrants in cape town and johannesburg agree % disagree % neither % the lockdown and stay-at-home order caused great hardship to people 94.1 3.9 2.0 the pandemic caused great economic hardship for me and my family 90.7 5.2 4.1 covid-19 has had a very negative effect on my life 85.9 8.3 5.9 the economic conditions of my household are worse now than before covid-19 80.8 12.6 6.5 i sent less money home to the eastern cape because of the pandemic 69.5 11.0 19.5 covid-19 has had a very negative effect on my life 85.9 8.3 5.9 the economic conditions of my household are worse now than before covid-19 80.8 12.6 6.5 i sent less money home to the eastern cape because of the pandemic 69.5 11.0 19.5 source: authors’ own work one potential response to pandemic restrictions and livelihood disruptions might have been a mass exodus from the cities to the countryside, as in india. however, only 14% of the respondents had returned to the eastern cape, a finding consistent with earlier surveys about the level of return migration (posel and casale, 2021; ginsburg et al., 2022). being with family was easily the most important reason (mentioned by 69%) for return, followed by fear of contracting covid-19 (20%) (see table 6). one exception to pandemic travel restrictions was to attend a funeral, although only 6% cited this as the reason for returning. just 16% of returnees were driven by economic necessity (loss of employment and income). a small number of returnees (7%) engaged in income-generating activity while at home, but most either did not engage in gainful economic activity (72%) or helped on the family farm (20%). around 70% stayed at home for a month or less, which suggests that they returned as soon as the initial lockdown was relaxed or, in the case of 20%, even sooner. 95 table 6: return migration to the eastern cape n % returned to eastern cape yes 233 14.3 no 1396 85.7 reasons for return to be with family 163 69.4 scared of catching covid 47 20.0 look after sick relatives 27 11.5 unemployment/lost their job 18 7.7 no income 18 7.7 attend funeral 15 6.4 attend traditional ceremony 6 2.6 no food to eat 3 1.3 no housing/shelter 2 0.9 mode of transportation bus 112 42.9 taxi 93 35.6 car 43 16.5 other 13 5.0 length of time away 3–4 weeks 108 46.0 1–2 weeks 60 25.5 1–6 months 50 21.3 >6 months 16 6.8 economic activities while home none 169 71.9 farming 47 20.0 looked for work 22 9.4 employed full-time 8 3.4 bought and sold goods 7 3.0 employed part-time 2 0.9 source: authors’ own work pandemic mobilities, livelihood disruptions, and food insecurities among eastern cape migrants 96 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 most migrants therefore opted to remain in the cities, and pandemic economic shocks did not prompt a significant return to the eastern cape. further evidence of pandemic hardships for those who stayed in cape town and johannesburg is reflected in the results of the lpi, which show the frequency of the household going without six basic needs in the year prior to the survey (see figure 1). electricity was the most important item of deprivation experienced by almost 60% of households, likely reflecting the impact of load shedding. a cash income was forfeited by 55% of households, with 5% stating that this had always been the case and 30% reported that it happened several times. more than 45% of households had experienced the two food-related deficits. as many as 46% had gone without enough food to eat, with 3% stating that this had always been the case and 19% said that it was a frequent occurrence. similarly, 51% of households had gone without enough fuel to cook their food, 3% always experienced it, and for 28% it was a frequent occurrence. figure 1: frequency of going without basic necessities source: authors’ own work the lpi results confirm that one of the main livelihood impacts felt by migrants was related to high levels of food insecurity. this was confirmed by responses to the impact statements with 88% agreeing that food had become more expensive and 86% indicated that it was more difficult to access food during the pandemic (see table 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 electricity in your home a cash income enough fuel to cook your food enough food to eat medicines or medical treatment enough clean water for home use pe rc en ta ge (% ) always many times several times once or twice 97 7). over one-third reported that they had been forced to disobey the government lockdown to obtain food to eat. table 7: food-related impacts of covid-19 on migrants in cape town and johannesburg agree (%) disagree (%) neither (%) food became much more expensive during the pandemic 88.4 8.8 2.8 it was more difficult for my household to access food during the pandemic 85.9 8.7 5.4 my family and i were forced to disobey the lockdown to get food to eat 35.4 54.8 9.8 source: authors’ own work the hfiap calculations indicate that many migrant households were still experiencing high levels of food insecurity at the time of the survey. for example, 44% of the households were food insecure and of these, more than half were severely food insecure (see table 8). the hdds scores of migrant households show that most were consuming a limited variety of foods (see figure 2). more than half had a low hdds of five or less, which generally represents a significant lack of nutritional diversity and nutritional adequacy with a heavy dependence on cereals (such as maize) and processed foods (leroy et al., 2015). a combination of low dietary diversity and food insecurity was characteristic of more than 35% of migrant households. table 8: levels of food insecurity among migrant households level n % food secure 963 55.6 food insecure 761 44.4 moderately food insecure 178 10.3 severely food insecure 456 26.8 source: authors’ own work pandemic mobilities, livelihood disruptions, and food insecurities among eastern cape migrants 98 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 figure 2: distribution of hdds scores source: authors’ own work covid-19 relief measures for south african households had the potential to mitigate pandemic hardship and food insecurity for migrant households. however, according to moses and woolard (2023: 170), these programs were poorly targeted and were “beleaguered by both errors of inclusion and errors of exclusion.” skinner et al. (2021: 12) conclude that “the vast majority of informal wage workers who lost their jobs in 2020 have been left without any income or only the minimal support offered through the covid-19 [social relief of distress grant] srd grant.” more than half (55%) of the migrant respondents reported that they had received no assistance from the government or civil society (see table 9). only 14% received an srd grant. government food packages reached fewer than 4% and only 7% saw an increase in their child support grant (csg) in 2020. the proportion of migrant households receiving cash and food assistance from nongovernmental sources was also small. 0.00 2.50 5.00 7.50 10.00 12.50 15.00 17.50 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 pe rc en ta ge (% ) hdds 99 table 9: access to pandemic relief measures* n % no assistance 964 55.6 covid-19 srd grant 248 14.3 increase in csg 119 6.9 cash from a savings club 67 3.9 government food package 61 3.5 cash or food from a church 21 1.2 cash or food from an ngo or charity 14 0.8 cash or food from a political party 4 0.2 *multiple responses source: authors’ own work conclusion previous work by migration researchers on the food security impact of the pandemic has focused almost exclusively on the experiences of international migrants in south africa. work on the impact of the pandemic on south africans tends to lump migrants and non-migrants together. there are several possible reasons for these oversights. first, there is a mantra that south african urbanization is driven by permanent migration to the cities. this misleading refrain is enhanced by the argument that the perpetuation of internal migration was an apartheid-era phenomenon that would phase out with the lifting of internal controls on mobility. however, posel (2004: 277) found that, … in post-apartheid south africa, it may have been expected that circular or temporary internal labour migration would have been replaced by the permanent settlement of africans at places of employment. however, the evidence suggests that temporary internal labour migration in the country has not declined; rather it appears to have increased, particularly because of the rise in female labour migration. more recently, the essays in bank et al. (2020) show that a large proportion of south africa’s population remain “double rooted” – living in urban areas, but with access to a rural homestead to which they periodically return. second, researchers and policymakers in south africa typically reserve the term “migration” to describe the cross-border movement of individuals and families from other countries, a practice that minimizes and marginalizes the reality of internal migration where movements are less restricted and subject to government monitoring and regulation. the covid-19 pandemic has shed new light on the plight of internal migrants in other countries, as governments imposed new restrictions on pandemic mobilities, livelihood disruptions, and food insecurities among eastern cape migrants 100 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 internal mobility. in south africa, the pandemic lockdown had a dramatic impact on internal migrants, although the extent of pandemic-related return to the eastern cape from cape town and johannesburg was relatively limited. finally, studies of the impact of the pandemic on the food security of vulnerable south africans also fail to distinguish between non-migrants and migrants. as a result, migration status is not considered an explanatory variable that deserves collecting data or considered in analyses of pandemic impacts. this is one of the first studies to examine the livelihood disruptions and food insecurity experience of internal migrants in south african cities during the first two years of the covid-19 pandemic. the analysis in this article shows that the pandemic had a measurable negative impact on the livelihoods and food security of internal migrant households in the cities of cape town and johannesburg. this finding can now be tested in other contexts, particularly with migrants from source regions outside the eastern cape and in smaller secondary city destinations. further analysis of the data from this survey is also in progress. it is important to assess and model the relationship between dependent variables such as the hfiap, hdds, and lpi, and the various individual and household characteristics that emerged in the profile of the migrant population. the article shows that there was considerable variation in both the migrant profile and the outcomes of food security. by modeling the relationship between the two, we will be able to identify which types of households were most vulnerable to food insecurity. this will assist in advance planning for the next pandemic and avoid yet another food security catastrophe (onyango et al., 2021). 101 references angu, p., masiya, t., gustafsson, k. and mulu, n. 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statistics south africa, pretoria. swindale, a. and bilinsky, p. 2006. household dietary diversity score (hdds) for measurement of household food access: indicator guide (v.2). washington, dc. van der berg, s., patel, l. and bridgman, g. 2021. food insecurity in south africa: evidence from nids-cram wave 5. development southern africa, 39: 722–737. visagie, j. and turok, i. 2021. rural-urban inequalities amplified by covid-19: evidence from south africa. area development and policy, 6: 50–62. 104 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 realizing the right to dignity of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana: a practical approach mandipa goitsemang machacha1 received 04 july 2023 / accepted 30 november 2023 / published 14 december 2023 doi: https://doi.org/10.14426/ahmr.v9i3.1583 abstract this article delves into the multifaceted human rights challenges confronting migrant women in botswana, with a particular focus on women from zimbabwe. the exploration reveals pervasive gender-specific barriers hampering these women’s access to essential healthcare and decent employment opportunities. additionally, it sheds light on their heightened susceptibility to gender-based violence, exploitation, and discriminatory practices in the workplace, all of which collectively infringe upon their fundamental right to dignity. central to the argument is the imperative to safeguard and uphold the right to dignity for zimbabwean migrant women. this necessitates the establishment of an environment that not only guarantees access to basic human needs but also fosters a space free from fear and abuse. the article advocates for the implementation of a “migration with dignity framework” in botswana. this proposed framework emphasizes the critical importance of gender-sensitive policies, robust access to justice mechanisms, non-discrimination initiatives, and the assurance of healthcare, secure working conditions, and adequate housing. keywords: migration, gender, human rights violations, discrimination 1 centre for human rights, university of pretoria, south africa. email  mandipa.machacha@gmail.com 105 introduction “migration is an exercise of dignity-seeking” —crépeau and samaddar (2011) zimbabwe, once known as the breadbasket of southern africa (ohchr, 2019), has faced significant political and economic difficulties in recent times, forcing many women to relocate in search of better prospects. these challenges stem from the country’s long history of political turmoil, including the 2017 military coup that ousted former president robert mugabe. an atmosphere of fear and insecurity has therefore been created for women who are susceptible to violence and abuse in crisis situations. in addition, the country’s hyperinflation and high rate of unemployment have led to widespread poverty and suffering. this situation particularly affects women who are often at the forefront of economic hardship (un, 2021). statistics from 2018 indicate that an estimated 3 to 4 million zimbabweans, regardless of race, ethnicity, political affiliation, and gender, have undergone phases of both voluntary and forced migration from their country of birth (chikanda and crush, 2018). after south africa, botswana hosts the largest number of zimbabwean migrants, due largely to its close proximity and the country’s reputation as a stable, prosperous, and peaceful country. in 2017 alone, 807,332 zimbabweans entered botswana, with circular migration patterns contributing to multiple entries throughout the year (government of botswana, 2017). despite the desperate conditions under which migrant women flee from zimbabwe, they face a range of challenges in botswana. this includes discrimination in the form of xenophobia from both state and non-state actors (campbell and crush, 2015) and limited access to basic services and decent employment opportunities (mutenheri, 2019). the literature also confirms that they experience gender-based violence (matose et al., 2022), as well as a lack of legal protection and difficulties in accessing healthcare (moroka and tshimanga, 2009). in addition, their status as migrants often renders them vulnerable to immigration-related mistreatment, such as arbitrary deportation and detention (galvin, 2018). they may also face social isolation and a lack of support networks (campbell and crush, 2012). in cases such as these, it is crucial for states to uphold the rights of women as part of their obligation to respect, protect and fulfill the human rights of all who reside within their borders. the right to dignity is a fundamental human right that applies to all individuals, regardless of their race, gender, religion, or migration status. despite this, migrant women in particular often face unique challenges and forms of discrimination that threaten their dignity and undermine their basic human rights. it is therefore important to examine the intersection of migration and dignity and the ways in which the right to dignity can be safeguarded for migrant women. in this way, the migration with dignity framework (daly et al., 2021) offers practical solutions to the challenges faced by migrants and provides guidance for governments, policymakers, and non-governmental organizations on how to ease realizing the right to dignity of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana: a practical approach 106 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 the transition of migrants into new surroundings, enhance their well-being, and protect their rights. this article critically assesses the circumstances of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana concerning their right to dignity and advocates for the urgent implementation of the migration with dignity framework to address their challenges effectively. methodology the study adopts a qualitative and desk-based methodology, employing an extensive literature review to investigate the human rights challenges confronting migrant women in botswana, with a specific focus on individuals from zimbabwe. the qualitative approach facilitates an in-depth analysis, while the desk-based research involves a comprehensive review of relevant literature, including academic articles, reports, and legal frameworks. it prioritizes four interconnected themes – healthcare access, employment conditions, gender-based violence, and discrimination. the synthesis of findings contributes to a holistic understanding of the fundamental right to dignity for migrant women in botswana. the methodology employs an iterative analysis approach, refining themes and identifying patterns throughout the review process, aiming to provide a coherent exploration of the identified human rights challenges and their implications for the preservation and violation of human dignity in the context of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana. migration is a gendered experience migration is a complex and multi-layered process that affects individuals and communities in various ways. it is therefore important to acknowledge from the outset that migration is not a gender-neutral experience, and that women and men often face different challenges, risks, and opportunities in the context of migration. in this sense, migration can be considered a gendered experience (un women, n.d.). firstly, migrant women are often more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse during the migration process. in many situations, migrant women are commonly subjected to human trafficking, forced labor, and sexual violence, especially if they are not adequately protected by the laws of the destination country (iom, 2009). moreover, migrant women often work in low-skilled, low-paid, and insecure jobs such as domestic work, care work, and sex work, which renders them more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse in the workplace (flynn, 2016). secondly, migration can have a significant impact on the family and on women’s gender roles. women who migrate are often the primary caretakers of their families and migration can disrupt these roles. this leads to a lack of care for children, elderly family members, and other dependents (gamburd, 2000). it can also result in an increased burden of care work for women who stay behind, as well as increased stress and hardship for women who migrate and are unable to fulfill their care-related responsibilities (de jong, 2000). 107 thirdly, migration can have a significant impact on the health and well-being of women (adanu and johnson, 2009). women who migrate are often exposed to new and potentially harmful environments, such as poor housing conditions, inadequate nutrition, and limited access to healthcare services (rizwan et al., 2022). moreover, migrant women are often unable to access health services due to a lack of medical insurance or legal status. this can result in a range of health problems, including sexually transmitted infections (careaga, 2009), reproductive health issues (chawhanda et al., 2022), and mental health problems (delara, 2016). it must, however, be noted that there is a great deal of research that confirms that migration can be a potentially beneficial experience for women (kenny and o’donnell, 2016). this relocation can at times offer economic advancement and financial stability, improved access to education and job opportunities, personal growth through exposure to new cultures and people, and a decrease in genderbased violence, as they escape harmful situations (bachan, 2018). however, migrant women still often face numerous obstacles and discrimination due to the intersections of their multiple identities and social dynamics, such as race, ethnicity, language, class, religion, and gender. this intersectionality means that it is challenging for these women to receive support, protection, and opportunities in host countries. this further complicates their already difficult experiences (domaas, 2021). gendered drivers of migration from zimbabwe: leaving “undignifying” conditions behind it is in the context of the gendered nature of migration that leading literature suggests that the challenges causing people to leave zimbabwe have affected women more than men, particularly in terms of poverty, health, education, and economic opportunities. for instance, whereas poverty remains a significant challenge for all in zimbabwe, a longitudinal study on poverty in the country found that womenheaded households are more likely to experience multi-dimensional poverty than male-headed ones (benhura and mhariwa, 2021). in this regard, researchers found that 16.8% of male-headed households in zimbabwe were multi-dimensionally poor, whereas 17.3% of female-headed households experienced multi-dimensional poverty in the same year. in later years, this situation worsened for women, as in 2017 the results were 13.3% and 19% respectively, with female-headed households facing greater multi-dimensional poverty than male ones. in zimbabwe, women also face a disproportionate burden of poor health. for instance, according to the united nations population fund (unfpa, n.d.), the maternal mortality rate is high, with 363 deaths per 100,000 live births (unfpa, n.d.). in addition, in 2020, whereas the rate of hiv infection among adults was found to be 12.9% – equivalent to about 1.23 million adults in zimbabwe who are living with the virus – the study showed that women had a higher rate of hiv infection realizing the right to dignity of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana: a practical approach 108 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 when compared to men, with 15.3% of women being infected compared to 10.2% of men (us embassy, 2020). in terms of literacy, in 2016, zimbabwe reported the highest adult literacy rate (96%) in the southern african development community (sadc) region. however, when examining the data by gender, it revealed a significant gender gap, with women constituting 60% of the illiterate adult population (mewc, n.d.). a study by nyagadza et al. (2022) found that zimbabwean women face difficulties in getting formal jobs. in 1999, the labor participation rate (lpr) in zimbabwe was 69.8% for both men and women. however, women made up only 90% of the men's participation rate. the study showed that women tended to work more in informal jobs, making up only 22.3% of those in paid employment in 1999. this percentage increased only slightly to 23.9% in 2002. the study also highlighted that women had limited representation in higher-level job sectors like legislators, senior officials, and managers, holding only 18% of these positions. given the gender-specific difficulties faced in zimbabwe, it is not surprising that zimbabwean women are frequently on the move. in contrast to the overall female migration rate of 15% in the sadc region, women constitute a significant 44% of the migrant population departing from zimbabwe (dodson et al., 2008). dignity and migration the concept of dignity holds a central position in human rights discussions, serving not only as a fundamental right but also as the bedrock for other rights (steinmann, 2016). as noted by the international court of justice (icj), “human dignity hovers over our laws like a guardian angel; it underlies every norm of a just legal system and provides an ultimate justification for every legal rule” (zareef v. state, 2021). the significance of dignity is underscored in key human rights documents, including the universal declaration of human rights (udhr) (un, 1948), emphasizing that all individuals are born free and equal in dignity and rights. the banjul charter (oau, 1981), a pivotal african human rights document, similarly stresses the right to respect and recognition of dignity. numerous human rights instruments, such as the international convention against racial discrimination (icerd) (un, 1965) and the convention against all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw) (un, 1979), also highlight dignity in their preambles, emphasizing its foundational role for other rights. scholars interpret dignity in two key dimensions: as the intrinsic value of every human being, as articulated in the udhr, and as the conditions necessary for a dignified life, encompassing access to education, freedom of movement, food, and equality. dignity, as emphasized by steinmann (2016), legalizes the recognition and respect of humanity, closely aligning with the african concept of botho/ubuntu, signifying humanness or personhood in bantu languages (rapatsa and makgato, 2016). 109 in the context of migration, the un special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, françois crépeau aptly assert that “dignity has no nationality” (un, 2011). this highlights that dignity is not contingent on citizenship and remains an intrinsic part of an individual's being regardless of their location or the actions of authorities. as a symbol of equality, dignity demands that migrants receive equal treatment and regard, irrespective of their citizenship status, emphasizing equal rights to quality of life, access to services, and security. crépeau and samaddar (2011) further argue that migration is often a “dignityseeking exercise” prompted by undignified conditions in migrants’ home countries, such as poverty, violence, limited opportunities, and discrimination. understanding migrants’ rights necessitates recognizing that all individuals, regardless of circumstances, are entitled to dignity. however, migration can have a profound impact on an individual’s sense of self-worth and their ability to lead a dignified life. it can either empower individuals with new opportunities and freedoms or strip them of their dignity through discrimination, exploitation, and a lack of basic human rights. migrants may face dangers, vulnerability to trafficking, and violation of their basic human rights during their journey, leading to feelings of powerlessness and loss of dignity. in their new host countries, migrants may encounter challenges such as discrimination, xenophobia, difficulties in finding employment and housing, and limited access to basic services. the inability to provide for themselves and their families can contribute to stress and further undermine their sense of dignity. yet migration can also be a pathway to empowerment and the restoration of dignity. by escaping oppressive situations and poverty, migrants can access new opportunities, improving their quality of life. this can result in increased self-esteem and a greater sense of control over their lives, contributing to a restoration of dignity. migrant women’s right to dignity under international law migrant women’s inherent right to dignity is recognized by various international legal standards and conventions. article 1 of the udhr (un, 1948) states that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” this principle is further reinforced by article 3 of the udhr that declares that “everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.” these provisions establish the foundation for the protection of the dignity of all individuals, including migrant women. the international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr) also affirms the right to dignity for all individuals, including migrant women. article 7 of the iccpr prohibits “torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” (un, 1996). this includes acts of sexual violence, exploitation, and abuse which are often experienced by migrant women, affronting their dignity. in addition, cedaw provides specific protections for women’s rights and dignity. in recognizing the specific vulnerabilities faced by migrant women, the cedaw committee – the body that oversees the implementation of the convention – realizing the right to dignity of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana: a practical approach 110 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 has drafted two general recommendations delineating the rights of migrant women in particular. the committee in both general recommendation 26 on migrant women workers and general recommendation 38 on trafficking in women and girls in the context of global migration underscores the importance of the dignity as essential to recognizing the human rights of migrant women. these recommendations require states to take all appropriate measures to curb the exploitation of women, including in the context of migration. this involves introducing measures to prevent trafficking, forced labor, and sexual exploitation (un, 2008, 2020). furthermore, the banjul charter and its women’s protocol (the maputo protocol) both recognize the importance of protecting the rights and dignity of african migrant women. article 5 of the charter requires states to guarantee the protection of the fundamental rights of all individuals, including the right to dignity and freedom from exploitation. article 3 of the maputo protocol additionally states: every woman shall have the right to dignity inherent in a human being and to the recognition and protection of her human and legal rights … [and obliges african states to] … adopt and implement appropriate measures to prohibit any exploitation or degradation of women (au, 2003). migrant women’s right to dignity under the botswana domestic legal system botho and dignity botho is a setswana and african cultural concept2 that refers to a set of values, behaviors and attitudes that promote respect for oneself and others. it is a concept that is deeply rooted in african culture and is seen as central to the development of healthy relationships and social harmony (samkange and samkange, 1980; dolamo, 2013; gareegope, n.d.). this cultural concept emphasizes the importance of balancing individual rights with collective responsibilities and seeks to promote the well-being of the individual and the community as a whole. botho encompasses a wide range of values, including honesty, responsibility, compassion, and generosity. in botswana, botho is present not only in unwritten customs and practices but is also codified in the country’s development plans, such as vison 2016 (government of botswana, 1996) and vision 2036 (government of botswana, 2016). dignity and botho are closely related concepts that are complementary to each other. botho is considered a key component of human dignity, as it promotes values and behaviors that enhance the self-worth and respect of individuals. at the same time, dignity, which recognizes the inherent worth and value of an individual, regardless of their circumstances or background – can be regarded as a cornerstone of botho, as it incorporates the values of community, respect for others, and provides 2 known as ubuntu in south africa, ujamaa in tanzania, uhuru in kenya, consciencism in ghana, humanism in zambia, negritude in senegal, and hunhu in zimbabwe. 111 a foundation for the development of strong relationships and social unity. in this way, botho recognizes that human dignity is a keystone of personal and social well-being and seeks to promote this value in all aspects of life. botho, as a principle, can serve as a guide to the treatment of migrants. sebola (2019) states that the ubuntu (botho) philosophy places emphasis on a human being as a being who should be treated with humanity and dignity in all matters. furthermore, sebola (2019) argues that: the manner in which african countries seem to have neglected the african life view (ubuntu) makes them fail to treat their african fellows with the dignity they deserve (my emphasis). the application of the dignity approach in the context of gendered migration, specifically for zimbabwean migrants in botswana, holds significant implications. by considering how the human dignity approach aligns with the botho principle, botswana gains a nuanced understanding of how migrants should be treated with humanity and dignity within its cultural context. the constitution of botswana and dignity the constitution of botswana (government of botswana, 1966) was enacted in 1966 and has since been amended several times to reflect the changing needs of the country. while the botswana constitution does not explicitly mention the right to dignity, its inherent protection can be deduced through section 3(c) of the constitution. this section emphasizes that every person in botswana is entitled to fundamental rights and freedoms, which include the right to life, liberty, security of the person, and protection of the law; freedom of conscience, expression, assembly, and association; as well as protection for privacy, home, property, and safeguarding against property deprivation without compensation. the inclusivity of this provision implies the recognition and safeguarding of an individual’s dignity. by ensuring an individual’s right to privacy, security, and protection from arbitrary deprivation, section 3(c) implicitly upholds the inherent dignity of all in the country’s borders, and implies that even though the term “dignity” is not explicitly mentioned, the constitution inherently preserves and respects the fundamental value of human dignity through its broad framework of rights and protections. the courts in botswana and dignity recently, courts in botswana have started relying on arguments based on human dignity in cases concerning basic human rights, such as equal protection. the courts in botswana have used the right to dignity to interpret, among other things, the rights of indigenous peoples of access to water and rights to privacy of lgbtqia+ persons. realizing the right to dignity of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana: a practical approach 112 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 mosetlhanyane v attorney-general of botswana this 2011 case involved a group of basarwa (indigenous san peoples) who were challenging the government’s decision to refuse to allow them to recommission – at their own expense – a borehole in their community, thereby thwarting their right to clean, safe, drinking water. as part of their submission, the applicants argued that their fundamental right to have access to water was linked to their right to human dignity. this was important because access to a reliable source of water was bound to significantly improve both their physical and mental state of health, particularly of the young, the elderly, and the infirm, all of whom are citizens of botswana whose well-being should have been of concern to the government. they pointed out that people in the reserve were suffering from multiple health issues, including constipation, headaches, and dizziness, due to their lack of energy and sleep. without adequate food and water, mothers were unable to feed their children and they could not even clean themselves. that was further exacerbated by the fact that the government was actively providing water for animals in the reserve, but not for the applicants. that made them feel lowly and degraded as their need for water was not respected and their human dignity was disregarded (applicants’ submissions, para. 80; applicants’ submissions, paras. 83–84). letsweletse motshidiemang v. the attorney-general (legabibo as amicus curiae) this 2019 case was brought by a gay man who challenged the provisions of the botswana penal code, which criminalized same-sex sexual intercourse (botswana penal code, sec. 164, 167), on the grounds that they infringed his right to dignity and liberty and to be free from discrimination. the high court in this case upheld the views expressed in the previous rammoge (2016) and nd (2017) cases that all individuals, including those in the lgbtqia+ community are entitled to have their dignity respected. the court stated that protection of dignity is the foundation of all other rights, and the state has a duty to promote human rights, tolerance, acceptance, and diversity. the court recognized that the individual’s gender identity and sexual orientation are central to their right to dignity, and that denying them the right to express themself in a way they feel comfortable, violates their dignity and self-worth. the laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual acts have a negative impact on an individual’s right to dignity, as they affect their self-respect and well-being (esterhuizen, 2019). reiterating that, the court of appeal in rammoge stated that dignity is the cornerstone of all other rights in the constitution and that denying someone their humanity is a denial of their dignity and the protection of their dignity. the courts in botswana, through cases like mosetlhanyane and letsweletse motshidiemang, have recognized the centrality of dignity. these rulings established that denial of access to essential resources, like water, and the criminalization of 113 consensual same-sex relationships violate individuals’ dignity, forming the bedrock for other rights. the legal discourse on dignity sets the stage for understanding the challenges faced by zimbabwean migrant women in botswana. the connection lies in recognizing that the denial of essential resources, legal rights, and equal treatment, as established by the courts, directly impacts the lived experiences of migrant women, providing a framework to explore their specific struggles and vulnerabilities. zimbabwean migrant women in botswana and their right to dignity this section examines the literature on the lived experiences of zimbabwean migrants that threaten to afront their right to dignity. it examines the situation of migrant women in relation to their security of persons, their access to healthcare and decent economic opportunities, and how this has an impact on their right to dignity. this section cites only a few poignant examples and is not inclusive of all the issues facing migrant women in botswana. zimbabwean migrant women in botswana are at risk of sexual exploitation, genderbased violence and trafficking in transit international law recognizes the right to security of persons as a fundamental human right (un, 1966). which is protected by various international treaties and conventions.3 this right to security of persons is defined as the right of every individual to be free from fear and to live in safety. this includes protection from physical harm, as well as from psychological and emotional abuse, acts of violence such as murder, assault, and rape, and other forms of abuse such as domestic violence and human trafficking (un, 2014). the right to security of persons is closely tied to the right to dignity, as it encompasses the idea that every person should be protected from physical harm, threat, and intimidation and should be able to live their lives without fear of violence or abuse. in this way, the right to security of persons is essential for the preservation of human dignity, as it ensures that individuals can exercise their other rights and freedoms without fear of harm or retaliation. according to the human rights committee, the right to security of persons extends to various vulnerable groups, including migrant women who are particularly vulnerable during their irregular migration journeys. despite this, research has shown that migrant women in irregular situations commonly encounter violations of their right to security of persons, such as sexual assault, psychological abuse, and physical violence. 3 universal declaration of human rights (udhr), art. 3; international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr), art. 9; american convention on human rights, art. 5; african charter on human and peoples' rights, art. 5; european convention on human rights, art. 5; inter-american convention to prevent and punish torture, art. 5; convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (cat), art. 2; international convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance, art. 9; rome statute of the international criminal court, art. 7(1)(d). realizing the right to dignity of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana: a practical approach 114 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 a study by matose et al. (2022) on the vulnerabilities of irregular female migrants at plumtree border post in zimbabwe found that migrant women were at a disproportionate risk of robbery and violence, including sexual assault and rape by armed robbers and men. the study also documented instances of psychological and emotional abuse, such as being called derogatory names and being subjected to gender-based violence. these findings indicate that migrant women in botswana face grave human rights violations due to their intersecting vulnerabilities related to their gender and irregular status. zimbabwean women face challenges in legally entering botswana due to strict immigration policies, leaving them susceptible to human trafficking (borgen project, 2021). enablers, such as malaichas and gumagumas, who assist with illegal border crossings, have been identified as both smugglers and traffickers. zimbabwean women are often promised job opportunities but end up falling victim to trafficking. there have also been cases of girl children being trafficked with the cooperation of their families to become domestic workers in botswana (chakamba, n.d.). the united states trafficking in persons report for 2021 states that the government of botswana initiated three trafficking investigations, all involving zimbabwean traffickers exploiting zimbabweans in labor and sex trafficking (us department of state, 2021). the 2022 us report highlighted that the authorities in botswana have inadequate procedures for identifying and addressing trafficking cases involving migrants, especially women who are at a greater risk of trafficking (us department of state, 2022). in this regard, this report considers trafficking in persons to be a “gender-based phenomenon” with an estimated 79% of all detected victims of trafficking being women and children, whereas the human traffickers themselves are “overwhelmingly male.” this glaring insufficiency underscores the urgent need for comprehensive measures to safeguard the dignity and rights of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana, ensuring their protection from such egregious violations. zimbabwean migrant women of a reproductive age with specific health needs the constitution of botswana (government of botswana, 1966) and the public health act (government of botswana, 2013) do not explicitly mention the right to health. however, the right to health for migrants can be inferred from provisions in the constitution’s bill of rights on the right to life, the right to dignity, protection from cruel and degrading treatment, and protection from discrimination, as the bill of rights applies to everyone residing in the country, regardless of citizenship. the right to health is a fundamental aspect of human dignity, as it provides individuals with the necessary resources and conditions to lead fulfilling and productive lives. this right is not only about access to basic medical care, but also encompasses the broader aspects of physical and mental well-being, such as clean water, nutritious food, safe working conditions, and a healthy environment. therefore, when people are unable to access the resources and services needed to 115 maintain good health, it undermines not only their individual dignity but also their adequate standard of living. thus, the right to health helps to protect and promote the inherent dignity of every person. it recognizes that good health is a fundamental aspect of human life necessary for a person to lead a dignified existence. despite this, a study by moroka and tshimanga (2009) showed that zimbabwean cross-border migrants in botswana – mainly women – face barriers in accessing healthcare services. the study concluded that many undocumented migrants do not have access to health services, which can lead to increased health risks and vulnerabilities. it is in this context that the national strategic plan to reduce human rights-related barriers to hiv and tb services: botswana 2020– 2025 found that only 27% of non-citizens living with hiv in botswana are receiving antiretroviral (arv) therapy, which represents one-third of the average national coverage rate. barriers to accessing hiv services include legal and policy barriers, immigration detention conditions, stigma, and discrimination. a study of six southern african countries also indicated that inequalities exist in the use of sexual and reproductive health services between migrants and nonmigrants. migrants face barriers such as the fear of deportation, financial constraints, a lack of health information, language barriers, and discrimination by service providers. a study by keitshokile et al. (2014) confirmed that migrants in botswana have limited access to maternal healthcare services, putting them at higher risk of maternal morbidity and mortality, which violates their right to health and life. this underscores the imperative to address these barriers comprehensively, ensuring that the right to health is effectively upheld for all individuals, regardless of their migration status. zimbabwean migrant women in botswana in precarious low-wage labor in the informal economy the right to decent work is a basic human right recognized by various international organizations, including the international labor organization (ilo)4 and the banjul charter. decent work refers to the opportunity for all individuals to work in conditions that are safe and secure and provide fair remuneration for their efforts – a fundamental human right essential for realizing their right to dignity. this right is also enshrined in the udhr (un, 1948), which recognizes that everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work, and to protection against unemployment. the realization of the right to decent work is critical for the realization of the right to dignity. decent work provides individuals with the opportunity to participate 4 international law prescribes that the following eight fundamental conventions, all of which have been ratified by botswana, apply to migrants, regardless of migration status: worst forms of child labour convention, 1999 (no. 182); minimum age convention, 1973 (no. 138); discrimination (employment and occupation) convention, 1958 (no. 111); equal remuneration convention, 1951 (no. 100); right to organise and collective bargaining convention, 1949 (no. 98); freedom of association and protection of the right to organise convention, 1948 (no. 87); abolition of forced labour convention, 1957 (no. 105); forced labour convention, 1930 (no. 29). realizing the right to dignity of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana: a practical approach 116 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 in the economy, which is essential for their social and economic well-being. it enables individuals to earn a living and support themselves and their families – fundamental to human dignity. decent work also contributes to the development of human capabilities and promotes self-esteem and self-worth. it empowers individuals to use their skills and talents, and to contribute to the growth and development of their communities. it also provides a sense of purpose and meaning to individuals’ lives, which is crucial for their psychological and emotional well-being. furthermore, decent work helps to reduce inequalities and discrimination in the workplace. it ensures that everyone has access to the same opportunities and is treated fairly and equally, regardless of their race, gender, or other personal characteristics. this promotes social cohesion and a sense of community, which is critical for the realization of human dignity. however, for migrants this right is limited in many countries, including botswana. in botswana, foreign workers are required to obtain an employment visa to work in any sector; however, many zimbabwean migrant women face difficulties in obtaining the proper documentation. this is due to a combination of factors, such as the high demand for zimbabwean migrant workers, who are often regarded as “undemanding and docile,” (mutenheri, 2019) and the bureaucratic processes involved in obtaining proper documentation. as a result of these difficulties, many migrant workers are forced to sign “quasi-legal” contracts that often impinge on both their labor rights and their rights as residents in the country. this reduces their bargaining power with employers and leaves them vulnerable to exploitative work conditions. zimbabwean migrant workers have reported being forced to work long hours without a wage increase, which is contrary international labor laws. in addition, they fear being reported to authorities or losing their jobs, which puts them in a vulnerable position relative to their employer (mutenheri, 2019). the issue of zimbabwean migrant workers in botswana is particularly relevant in the context of domestic work. zimbabwean women are conspicuous as domestic workers in botswana, especially as more and more batswana women in the country are entering the formal sector and require domestic workers to take care of their households. some skilled zimbabwean women may take up domestic work as a means of survival, and this often leads to them being underemployed. regulations contained in the botswana employment act (government of botswana, 1982) restrict domestic work to citizens of the country, which means that non-batswana individuals, including zimbabwean women, are irregularly employed. given that domestic work is traditionally very feminized, this provision ultimately has a disproportionate impact on migrant women in particular. this irregular situation has been found to open up the possibility of exploitation by some families who abuse their domestic workers and subject them to servitude – a severe form of labor exploitation. this is well documented in botswana by various organizations, despite the fact that article 8 of the iccpr (un, 1996) prohibits slavery or servitude. 117 a 2022 treaty body report by the committee on the elimination of racism noted that some zimbabwean women who migrated to botswana voluntarily were subjected to involuntary domestic servitude by their employers (ohchr, 2022). families sometimes employed domestic workers without proper work permits, failed to pay adequate wages, and restricted or controlled the movement of their employees. another study detailed that zimbabwean women cannot report sexual abuse they suffer at the hands of their employers because they fear detention and deportation for violating immigration and labor laws (baputaki, 2007). this underscores the urgent need to address the rights and working conditions of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana to safeguard their right to decent work and, consequently, their right to dignity. migration with dignity framework: botho in migration international law establishes a framework for safeguarding the human rights of migrants, offering guidelines through treaties and standards. however, the effective implementation of these standards can be challenging without precise clarification from treaty bodies. addressing this gap, the dignity and migration framework (undp, 2021) provides a comprehensive solution by offering explicit guidance on the practical application of these human rights provisions. developed by daly et al. (2021), the migration with dignity framework represents an innovative and human-centric approach to migration. it places a significant emphasis on the paramount importance of dignity throughout the migration process, aiming to ensure that migrants are treated with respect and provided the necessary support to maintain their human dignity. the migration with dignity framework was developed to benefit migrants, addressing the unique challenges and vulnerabilities encountered during their migration experiences. this framework places a particular focus on the dignity of migrant women, acknowledging the distinct challenges they face and providing targeted support. in contrast to broad international legislation, the migration with dignity framework stands out as a practical and nuanced guide for the implementation of human rights provisions. while international laws set overarching standards, the framework provides clear, context-specific guidance, ensuring a more effective and tailored approach to the protection of migrants’ rights. an added advantage is that compared to domestic laws, which may vary significantly across countries, the migration with dignity framework offers a unified and universal approach rooted in the values of botho. by prioritizing critical needs, ensuring safety, and facilitating access to essential services, the framework seeks to promote a compassionate and just migration policy and practice. the framework therefore serves as a bridge between international standards and practical application, tailored specifically for the well-being and dignity of migrants, and especially women, while aligning with the cultural values of botho. realizing the right to dignity of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana: a practical approach 118 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 the framework is based on a set of core principles that focus on the rights and well-being of migrants. these principles include the right to freedom of movement, right to security of persons, right to equality and non-discrimination, and right to basic quality of life, among other rights. in summary, the key components of this framework include: • the right to equal worth, including access to benefits, services, and legal protections; • the right to a reasonable quality of life, including rights related to employment, housing, and food; • the right to access legal services; and • civil and political rights, including freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and political participation. by integrating these principles into migration policies and practices, the framework aims to create a more just and humane migration system that upholds the dignity of all migrants, including women. the first principle of the framework is movement, which recognizes the right of all individuals to choose when to leave and when to return. this principle consists of four parts: the freedom to leave one’s country of origin, the freedom to return, admission to a foreign country, and freedom of movement within the country of origin or destination. for migrant women, this means being able to migrate safely and make informed decisions about their migration without fear of exploitation or violence. the authors emphasize that freedom of movement is crucial to human dignity and that immigration policies should be designed and implemented with respect for each person’s inherent and equal worth. the second principle is security, which aims to protect migrants, including women, from sexual violence, trafficking, slavery, forced labor, and abusive detention. zimbabwean migrant women in botswana are particularly vulnerable to these forms of exploitation, which can have long-lasting physical, emotional, and psychological effects. the framework seeks to prevent and respond to gender-based violence and exploitation, emphasizing that a person’s security is linked to their dignity. the third principle is equality, which recognizes the right of all individuals to be treated without discrimination based on gender, nationality, or legal status. zimbabwean migrant women face discrimination and marginalization in botswana, which limits their access to services and employment opportunities. the framework proposes that such discrimination is a violation of dignity, as equality is intrinsic to the idea of human dignity. the fourth principle is the right to a reasonable quality of life, which recognizes the right of all individuals to access decent employment, housing, and food. while housing and food were not discussed in the case study, it can be inferred that migrants face challenges in accessing these rights. the framework emphasizes that states must 119 realizing the right to dignity of zimbabwean migrant women in botswana: a practical approach provide migrants with access to basic needs, including employment and housing protections, as they are necessary conditions for a dignified life. the fifth principle is access to services, which recognizes the right of all individuals to have access to legal services and justice. the authors stress the importance of access to legal services, particularly for migrants who do not have the right to vote and must rely on the judiciary to claim and protect their rights. states must ensure that migrants have access to legal services so they can protect themselves. the sixth principle is civil and political rights, which recognizes the right of all individuals to freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and political participation. migrant women often face restrictions on these rights, limiting their ability to advocate for themselves and their communities. the framework highlights the need for migrants, including women, to access these rights so they can speak for themselves in their countries of destination. practical approaches botswana can use the framework to protect migrant women’s rights by implementing the following practical measures: • developing gender-sensitive policies and laws: botswana should ensure that its migration policies and laws are gender-sensitive, considering the specific challenges and vulnerabilities faced by migrant women. • providing access to justice: botswana should provide migrant women with access to fair and impartial legal processes, including access to legal representation and the ability to report abuse and exploitation. • protecting against discrimination: botswana should take steps to prevent and address discrimination against migrant women, including education and training programs for law-enforcement officials, employers, and service providers. • ensuring access to healthcare: botswana should provide migrant women with access to affordable and quality healthcare services, including reproductive-health services in order to address their specific health needs. • supporting safe and dignified working conditions: botswana should work to ensure that migrant women have access to safe and dignified working conditions, including protection from exploitation and abuse, and access to fair wages and benefits. • providing safe and accessible housing: botswana should ensure that migrant women have access to safe and accessible housing, including emergency shelters for victims of violence and exploitation. 120 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 conclusion the migration experience in botswana can be a difficult and challenging one for all migrants; however, for migrant women, these difficulties are often exacerbated because migration is a gendered experience. the unique challenges faced by women, in comparison to their male counterparts, highlight the need for a nuanced and gendersensitive approach when addressing the needs and rights of migrants in botswana. whether it is access to healthcare or employment opportunities, migrant women often face additional obstacles that can further complicate their already challenging experiences. the reality is that migration is a complex and multifaceted issue, and it is essential to understand how gender influences and shapes the experiences of migrants in order to develop effective and equitable policies and programs. migrant women from zimbabwe are particularly vulnerable and they often face a range of challenges related to their migration status. for example, they may be subjected to gender-based violence, exploitation, and discrimination in the workplace. they may also experience difficulties in accessing basic services such as healthcare, due to their status as migrants. in light of these challenges, it is crucial that the right to dignity of zimbabwean migrant women be upheld and protected. this means ensuring that they have access to basic human needs, such as food, shelter, and healthcare. it also means creating an environment in which they can live free from fear and exploitation and where they are treated with respect and dignity. this can be achieved through a range of measures, including the 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https://zw.usembassy.gov/national-hiv-survey-zimphia-2020-resultsindicate-zimbabwe-is-on-track-to-achieve-hiv-epidemic-control-by-2030/. 5 introduction cities of contagion: pandemic precarity, migration, and food security in urban africa guest editors: prof. jonathan crush1 and mr. zack ahmed2 the covid-19 pandemic has left an indelible mark on the global economy, highlighting deep structural vulnerabilities across regions, countries, and economic sectors (baber, 2020; anyanwu and salami, 2021; clemente-suárez et al., 2021; delardas et al., 2022). among the most profound disruptions were those in food supply chains, which experienced bottlenecks and severe price volatility (aday and aday, 2020; deconinck et al., 2020; vyas et al., 2021; khan et al., 2022). transportation restrictions compounded the challenges, leading to critical food shortages and prompting governments to implement regulatory policies to mitigate supply chain disruption (walters et al., 2020). demand-side shocks such as panic buying further strained food systems, exacerbating labor shortages and supply chain fragility (hobbs, 2020). labor shortages and movement restrictions limited farming activities and delayed the transportation of goods, depressing agricultural production, increasing food dumping by farmers, and driving up food prices (ellison and kalaitzandonakes, 2020; fao, 2020; siminiuc and turcanu, 2020; chari, 2022). with many countries imposing export restrictions to try and protect domestic consumers, food prices soared, and global food insecurity deteriorated (crush and si, 2020; espitia et al., 2020; glauber et al., 2020; béné et al., 2021; falkendal et al., 2021). there is now an abundance of evidence that the pandemic affected the livelihoods of marginalized and vulnerable groups in the food system disproportionately, including small-scale farmers, farmworkers, food processing workers, and informal food marketers (mubangizi, 2021; kesar et al., 2022; ahmed et al., 2024; crush and tawodzera, 2024). job loss and unemployment particularly affected groups already vulnerable to economic shocks, exacerbating health crises and psychological distress. pre-pandemic vulnerability to inequality, poverty, and economic insecurity was exacerbated, weakening resilience and reinforcing disadvantage. pandemic precarity was characterized by falling incomes, 1 professor in the department of political science at wilfrid laurier university, waterloo, canada, and extraordinary professor at the university of the western cape, cape town, south africa. 2 sshrc doctoral fellow in the global governance program at the balsillie school of international affairs, waterloo, canada. 6 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 multidimensional poverty, and debilitating food insecurity (sumner et al., 2020; alkire et al., 2021; bambra et al., 2021; onyango et al., 2023). urban areas were at the geographical epicenter of pandemic precarity in africa and elsewhere (lai et al., 2020; martínez and short, 2021). stringent lockdown measures, supply chain disruption, and restrictions on movement diminished food availability and accessibility in cities. in vulnerable urban communities, food shortages led to reduced consumption, heightened hunger, and growing malnutrition, particularly in cities of the global south (moseley and battersby, 2020; bukari et al., 2022; chirisa et al., 2022). the closure of informal markets and restrictions on venues serving food further disrupted food availability, access, and stability (crush and si, 2020; narayanan and saha, 2020). these food system challenges compounded preexisting inequalities, particularly affecting those reliant on the informal economy (tawodzera and crush, 2022). despite the wealth of literature addressing the broader socio-economic impacts of covid-19 pandemic precarity, there remains a notable gap in understanding the differential impacts on migrants and refugees in africa. most studies to date have focused on consequences for the general population, neglecting the compounded vulnerabilities of these marginalized groups. that said, migrants and refugees were affected disproportionately by pandemic precarity, as they were more likely to be in unstable employment, to live in overcrowded conditions with high rates of transmission, and to be excluded from government relief measures (dempster et al., 2020; anderson et al., 2021; deshingkar, 2022; ramachandran et al., 2024). migrants, due to their legal status, lack of access to formal employment, and limited mobility, faced greater exposure to the virus and its economic consequences (mengesha et al., 2022). barriers to access to healthcare and discrimination against non-citizens amplified their mental health challenges and further marginalized these populations (saifee et al., 2021). furthermore, covid-19 fueled nationalist sentiments, resulting in xenophobic policies that targeted migrant communities (hennebry and kc, 2020; mukumbang, 2021). many governments excluded migrants from pandemic relief efforts, exacerbating economic hardships (freier et al., 2020; mukumbang et al., 2020). informal markets, essential for both livelihood and food access, were severely affected by lockdowns and health regulations, leading to a cascade of negative outcomes for both traders and consumers (crush and si, 2020). the economic fallout was particularly devastating for low-skilled and informal-sector migrant workers. losses in employment and income, coupled with the disruption of remittance flows, had severe consequences for migrant families, both in their host cities and home communities. while the pandemic exposed migrant vulnerabilities, it also highlighted the critical, though often invisible, roles that migrants and refugees play in the sustainability of urban food systems. despite this situation, policy frameworks often overlook the contributions of migrants, leaving them unsupported during times of crisis. 7 this special issue seeks to enhance our understanding of the nexus between migration and food security in urban africa in at least three ways: first, it examines how covid-19 impacted migrant populations in african cities by bringing together a selection of the latest research that centers the experiences of migrants before, during, and after the pandemic. second, given that more and more refugees in africa are city-based, it looks at how urban refugees pursue a living outside refugee encampments and with what consequences for building food security. and third, it focuses on the links between food security and the participation of migrants in the informal food sector. as a grouping, the papers seek to transcend the simplistic depiction of migrants as passive victims of the pandemic and instead emphasizes their role as active participants in urban food systems, whether as traders, remittance senders, or informal workers. at the same time, the papers draw attention to the structural barriers that continue to limit migrants’ agency. the first group of papers provide a deeper understanding of how covid-19 has reshaped urban food security in africa. the first paper by abel chikanda, shows the long pre-pandemic history of informal cross-border trading (icbt) between south africa and zimbabwe and its role in stabilizing food security in zimbabwe. official hostility toward the informal sector and cross-border trade has an even longer history. the pandemic brought a renewed assault on the livelihoods of informal traders who were seen as a public health danger and had their stalls systematically destroyed across the country. as the author points out, this action eliminated a stable and reliable source of food for the urban population and destabilized the market chains linking cross-border traders and the urban poor in the country. the second paper by sean sithole, daniel tevera, and mulugeta dinbabo explores how the pandemic transformed the nature of migrant food remitting between south africa and zimbabwe. the digitalization of remittances was a prepandemic trend that was greatly accelerated by border closures and the resultant shut down of informal cash and food remitting channels. as the authors of this paper show, the covid-19 pandemic disrupted these channels and fast-tracked the adoption of advancements in financial technology and migrant use of digital and mobile technologies. in addition to a major shift to digital cash remitting, digital/ mobile technology-based channels were increasingly used for food remittances too. food transfers provided a cushion during the pandemic for households experiencing lowered food access, food shortages, high food prices, and hyper-inflation. the convenience and cost-effectiveness of digital food remitting mean that it is likely here to stay in hybrid form with the reopening of more traditional informal channels. the next paper by zack ahmed, jonathan crush, and samuel owuor draws on survey research and in-depth interviews with somali refugees in nairobi, kenya, conducted during the latter stages of the pandemic. they point out that most refugees live and work in an area of nairobi that was designated as a national covid-19 “hotspot.” as well as sealing off the area, most businesses (many of them informal) were closed down, depriving the population of the area of easy access to food. cities of contagion: pandemic precarity, migration, and food security in urban africa 8 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 additionally, job loss and a fall in income lowered their ability to purchase food, particularly as food prices soared. over three-quarters of those surveyed said that household economic conditions were worse than before the pandemic and nearly 40% of refugee households were classified as severely food insecure. the fourth paper by jonathan crush, godfrey tawodzera, maria salamone, and zack ahmed turns inward to examine how migrants from the eastern cape fared in cape town during the pandemic lockdowns. they argue that researchers and policymakers in south africa reserve the term “migrant” for other countries, which marginalizes the lived experience and struggle for food security of internal migrants. most migrants remained in cape town during the pandemic despite catastrophic levels of job loss and income decline. their ability to remit funds to family in the eastern cape was also badly compromised. nearly 30% of households were severely food insecure and less than 15% had access to the government covid-19 social grants. they conclude that migration status needs to be seen as an explanatory variable in assessing pandemic precarity and associated food insecurity. the second group of papers in this special issue are a reminder that even as the worst of the pandemic disappears in the rear-view mirror, precarity and food insecurity have certainly not. the first paper in this grouping by cherie enns and colleagues focuses on the precarious lives of young south sudanese refugees in nairobi and nakuru, kenya. they argue that the covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the challenges faced by these urban refugees and that the efforts of governmental and non-governmental organizations notwithstanding, they still experience food insecurity. financial support comes from remittances from family members, local communities, and other south sudanese, as well as from abroad, although covid-19 suppressed this cash flow. despite the challenges they face, the paper argues that urban refugee youth are actively involved in positive city-building, and that refugee youth-led organizations need recognition, investment, and support from local government. the second paper in this group by andrea brown examines the food security situation and needs of kampala’s sizable refugee population living in the city’s informal settlements. uganda is the largest refugee-hosting country in africa and nearly 140,000 refugees reside in kampala where their access to employment, housing, and social services is a challenge. brown argues that they also experience very high levels of food insecurity exacerbated by pandemic-related factors. as she points out, uganda’s covid-19 response was extremely restrictive and the economic and social burden was felt most intensely by the poorest and most vulnerable residents of the city, especially the refugee population. covid-19 was experienced more as an economic than a health crisis, only partly mitigated by food distribution programs. like the previous contribution, this paper concludes with a call to local government and other stakeholders to act proactively, in this case to address post-pandemic refugee vulnerability and food insecurity. 9 the third paper by bernard owusu and jonathan crush addresses the postpandemic food security-remittances nexus through an analysis of the interlinked food security status of migrant-sending households in accra, ghana, and ghanaian labor migrants in doha, qatar. the paper juxtaposes the findings from a household survey in accra and in-depth interviews in qatar and assesses the impact of remittances on the food security of these translocal households. food purchase is the most ubiquitous use of remittances by recipients that mitigates, but does not altogether eliminate, food insecurity. if migrants are employed and earning sufficient income in qatar, they can balance the obligation to remit with their own food needs. however, unemployment and income loss have a negative impact on their ability to remit and their food security situation. these migrants sacrifice their own dietary preferences and food needs to ensure that they have sufficient cash to remit as much and as regularly as they can. the fourth paper in this group by godfrey tawodzera examines the diets and food consumption patterns of zimbabwean migrants living in windhoek, namibia. the paper provides a narrative overview of the recent history of migration to namibia and the self-settlement of migrants in the low-income area of katutura. the author then paints a picture from the voices of migrants themselves of the traditional rural and modern urban diets consumed in zimbabwe before migration. after migration, most migrants relied on a westernized and more unhealthy diet of highly processed foods. some culturally appropriate foods from zimbabwe are impossible to access while others are imported, but the purchase price is at a premium. during covid-19 the supply of imported zimbabwean foodstuffs slowed to a trickle. food insecurity manifests in the consumption of undesirable foods and poor health outcomes which, as one of his respondents pointed out, rather defeats the purpose of having migrated to namibia in the first place. the final paper in this group by graeme young revisits the theme of informal food system governance in the city of cape town. the paper examines the types of marginalization experienced by migrant and non-migrant workers cape town’s informal food economy and addresses the question of why the post-apartheid sector is characterized by exclusion rather than inclusion. inclusive development is obstructed by massive inequality, the nature of local and national party politics, and the dynamics around migration and informality. the paper concludes that the migrant participants in the informal economy face significant operational challenges, which were magnified during the covid-19 pandemic. cities of contagion: pandemic precarity, migration, and food security in urban africa 10 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 acknowledgments the papers in this special issue were first presented at the international symposium on migration and mobilities at the university of the western cape in october 2023, organized by the migration and mobilities interdisciplinary collective in africa (mmica); the migration and food security in the global south (mifood) network; the urban sanctuary, migrant solidarity and hospitality in global perspective (soli*city); and the african union. the guest editors wish to thank vivienne lawack, maria salamone, zhenzhong si, and sujata ramachandran for their assistance and the following agencies for their financial support: the social sciences and humanities research council of canada (sshrc), the new frontiers in research fund (nfrf), the canadian institutes of health research (cihr), and the international development research centre (idrc). references aday, s. and aday, m. 2020. impact of covid-19 on the food supply chain. food quality and safety, 4(4): 167–180. ahmed, z., crush, j., owuor, s. and onyango, e. 2024. disparities and determinants of somali refugee food security in nairobi, kenya. global food security, 43: 100808. alkire, s., nogales, r., quinn, n. and suppa, n. 2021. global multidimensional poverty and covid-19: a decade of progress at risk? social science & medicine, 291: 114457. anderson, b., poeschel, f. and ruhs, m. 2021. 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(eds.), research handbook on migration, gender and covid-19. cheltenham: edward elgar, pp. 180–195. saifee, j., franco-paredes, c. and lowenstein, s. 2021. refugee health during covid-19 and future pandemics. current tropical medicine reports, 8: 1–4. siminiuc, r. and turcanu, d. 2020. the impact of the pandemic on the agri-food system. journal of social sciences, 3(3): 85–94. sumner, a., ortiz-juarez, e. and hoy, c. 2020. precarity and the pandemic: covid-19 and poverty incidence, intensity, and severity in developing countries. working paper no. 2020/77. unu-wider, helsinki. tawodzera, g. and crush, j. 2022. pandemic precarity, food insecurity and zimbabwean migrants in south africa. mifood paper no. 4, waterloo, canada. vyas, s., chanana, n., chanana, m. and aggarwal, p. 2021. from farm to fork: early impacts of covid-19 on food supply chain. frontiers in sustainable food systems, 5: 658290. walters, l., wade, t. and suttles, s. 2020. food and agricultural transportation challenges amid the covid-19 pandemic. choices, 35(3): 1–8. cities of contagion: pandemic precarity, migration, and food security in urban africa 68 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 “an endless cycle of worry and hardship”: the impact of covid-19 on the food security of somali migrants and refugees in nairobi, kenya zack ahmed,1 jonathan crush,2 and samuel owuor3 received 23 september 2024 / accepted 23 november 2024 / published 10 january 2025 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i3.2435 abstract covid-19 has produced unprecedented effects on the global economy and society by exposing multiple weaknesses and faultlines. the pandemic has disrupted global and local agricultural production processes and food supply chains with negative consequences for food security. containment measures to limit the spread of covid-19, including strict restrictions on the movement of people, goods, and services have affected urban food systems adversely in multiple ways. urban migrants and refugees in many parts of the global south have been disproportionately hit by these measures, increasing the precarity of their living conditions and exacerbating the food insecurity of the migrants’ households. based on the results of a household survey and in-depth interviews with somali migrants in nairobi, kenya in august 2022, this study documents the pandemic-related experience of these migrants in food access and consumption and assesses the overall impacts of covid-19 on their food security. this study seeks to contribute to the emerging body of case study evidence that assesses the food security outcomes of the pandemic in vulnerable populations. keywords: covid-19, food security, urban refugees, migration 1 school of international policy and governance, wilfrid laurier university, waterloo, canada. corresponding author  zahmed@balsillieschool.ca 2 balsillie school of international affairs, waterloo, canada and university of the western cape, cape town south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3342-3192 3 department of geography and environmental studies, nairobi, kenya. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8928-2862 69 introduction cities have been labeled “ground zero” of the covid-19 pandemic by the secretarygeneral of the united nations (guterres, 2023). urban areas, especially large cities, were hotspots of the coronavirus spread and impact because of their high population concentration, overcrowding, and poor health and living conditions (florida et al., 2021). in major african cities such as nairobi, the covid-19 pandemic exacerbated preexisting challenges for urban migrants and refugees, especially those with limited mobility due to their lack of legal documents (luiu et al., 2022). migrant and refugee vulnerability was compounded by existing inequities, exclusionary government responses, and residential segregation (hitch et al., 2022). the situation was particularly dire in informal settlements and low-income neighborhoods, where overcrowding and lack of basic services made adherence to containment measures difficult (kibe et al., 2020). the kenyan government imposed a nationwide dusk-to-dawn curfew in march 2020 restricting movement between and within urban areas (wangari et al., 2021). these control measures led to economic slowdown, unemployment, loss of income, and reduced mobility, further worsening pre-pandemic poverty and socioeconomic vulnerability (luiu et al., 2022; kunyanga et al., 2023). somali migrants and refugees in nairobi were particularly affected by government pandemic control measures. most somalis live in the eastleigh section of nairobi, known locally as “little mogadishu” (carrier, 2017; ahmed et al., 2024). eastleigh was officially designated by the government as one of two major covid-19 hotspots within the country and experienced a harsher response than other parts of nairobi (lusambili et al., 2020). in may 2020, after a surge in cases in nairobi concentrated in eastleigh, the kenyan government imposed a lockdown that involved a cessation of mobility into and out of the area for one month (hiiraan online, 2020; lusambili et al., 2021). markets and food stores, including restaurants and eateries were also shut down during this period. by documenting the pandemic-related food security experiences of somali migrants in nairobi during the pandemic, this paper aims to contribute to the emerging body of case study evidence assessing the negative outcomes of the pandemic on vulnerable populations in african cities (kassa and grace, 2020; durizzo et al., 2021; chirisa et al., 2022; nuwematsiko et al., 2022; turok and visagie, 2022; bhanye et al., 2023; dupas et al., 2023; onyango et al., 2023). assembling data from a household survey and in-depth interviews with somali migrants in eastleigh, the paper assesses the overall impact of covid-19 on their food security. it particularly focuses on the challenges faced by somali migrants in accessing and consuming sufficient and nutritious food during the pandemic. thus, the paper adds a crucial layer to our understanding of the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable populations in cities of the global south. the impact of covid-19 on the food security of somali migrants and refugees in nairobi 70 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 literature review the covid-19 pandemic has profoundly disrupted food security worldwide, with pronounced consequences in the global south where economic vulnerabilities and structural inequalities predated the crisis. pandemic-response containment measures – including lockdowns, curfews, and trade restrictions – led to severe disruptions of agricultural production and supply chains, undermining food access and affordability across lowand middle-income countries (laborde et al., 2020; béné et al., 2021; balistreri et al., 2022). in urban areas, food systems were particularly affected, as restrictions limited the movement of goods and people, stalling both formal and informal food supply networks. low-income households and vulnerable groups, such as migrants and refugees, were disproportionately affected by these disruptions because of their dependence on informal food markets and lack of access to food reserves or alternative income sources (béné et al., 2021; swinnen and vos, 2021; bitzer et al., 2024). in urban areas of the global south, where daily sustenance depends on accessible and resilient food systems, the socio-economic effects of the pandemic exacerbated preexisting inequalities. numerous studies have documented how food insecurity surged in cities where containment measures and lockdowns restricted informal trade, a critical source of food and income for low-income urban populations (crush and si, 2020; resnick, 2020; rwafa-ponela et al., 2022; crush and tawodzera, 2024). these disruptions highlighted the fragility of urban food systems in these contexts, as well as the limited capacity of local governments to provide adequate food support to marginalized communities. urban refugees in african cities encountered compounding food security challenges during the covid-19 pandemic, as mobility restrictions, lockdowns, economic shutdowns, and exclusion from social services intensified their vulnerability (bukuluki et al., 2020; odunitan-wayas et al., 2020; moyo et al., 2021; nyamnjoh et al., 2022; tenerowicz and wellman, 2024). in most cities, migrant-dense localities experienced heightened food insecurity due to the strict lockdowns that limited both physical and economic access to food sources (resnick, 2020; mulu and mbanza, 2021; luiu et al., 2022). additionally, lack of legal documentation barred many migrants from accessing government food aid, deepening their dependence on informal networks for survival (ahmed et al., 2023). social and economic inequities have long shaped food access among migrant populations in african cities, and the covid-19 pandemic further exacerbated these inequalities. urban migrants and refugees often reside in densely populated informal settlements with limited infrastructure, where access to essential services like water, sanitation, and healthcare is minimal (kibe et al., 2020). the pandemic worsened these conditions, as lockdowns restricted mobility, limiting migrants’ ability to access food and social services. while many african governments implemented food assistance programs, migrants – especially those lacking legal documentation – were largely excluded from these initiatives (hitch et al., 2022). in cities like harare, kampala, lilongwe, and nairobi, official pandemic responses exposed and often 71 deepened existing inequalities, prompting grassroots strategies within communities to mitigate food and resource shortages (sverdlik et al., 2024). the pandemic triggered a surge in food prices across african cities, further constraining food access for financially insecure urban migrant populations. previous studies indicate that food prices rose sharply due to supply chain disruptions and lockdown measures, with maize prices increasing by 26% to 44% in various regions (adewopo et al., 2021; agyei et al., 2021). in nairobi, food prices rose by an average of 13.8%, exacerbating food insecurity among low-income households (kunyanga et al., 2023). in addition, food price inflation affected both formal and informal markets, with staple foods subject to significant price hikes (fao et al., 2020). this spike in prices meant that even when food was available, affordability became a significant barrier for migrants in urban african settings. in nairobi, the growing literature on covid-19 has focused on the vulnerability of households to pandemic shocks (onyango et al., 2021), the impact of travel restrictions on mobility patterns (pinchoff et al., 2021b; kasuku et al., 2022), the income hit for small informal food enterprises (chege et al., 2021; moochi and mutswenje, 2022; mwangi and mwaura 2023), food supply chain disruptions (alonso et al., 2023; kunyanga et al., 2023), and economic hardships in the city’s informal settlements (nyadera and onditi, 2020; quaife et al., 2020; pinchoff et al., 2021a; joshi et al., 2022; solymári et al., 2022). some attention has also been paid to the impact of the pandemic on food security in the informal settlements and other low-income areas of the city (mbijiwe et al., 2021; merchant et al., 2022). one survey of over 2,000 nairobi households found that 90% of households were in a dire food insecurity situation, including being unable to eat preferred kinds of food, eating a limited variety of foods, consuming smaller portions than they felt they needed, and eating fewer meals in a day (chege et al., 2022). onyango et al. (2024) note that only 38% of informal settlement households had consistently acceptable diets, while another two-thirds (61%) fluctuated between acceptable and unacceptable diets. shupler et al. (2021) report that there was an almost universal (95%) income decline in an informal settlement during the lockdown, leading to 88% of households reporting food insecurity. household response strategies included changing consumption activities, reorganizing household finances, reducing urban household size, prioritizing children’s access to food, depending on social networks, and relying on household food production. the small cluster of studies on the pandemic experiences of migrants and refugees in nairobi have focused on disruption to their transnational networks and the strengthening of local social relations of mutuality and support (müller, 2022, 2023; shizha, 2023). other studies suggest that the pandemic widened gaps in social services and healthcare and depressed social support within nairobi’s refugee community (tenerowicz and wellman, 2024). to date, the impact of the pandemic on migrant and refugee food security is a notable gap in the literature. previous research has indicated that the economic effects of the lockdown were felt acutely the impact of covid-19 on the food security of somali migrants and refugees in nairobi 72 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 by somali migrants in nairobi, many of whom also work as informal vendors (doll and golole, 2023). with lockdown measures in place, both food availability and income sources diminished, leaving the community in a precarious state (lusambili et al., 2021). however, this is the first study we know of to systematically examine the impact of the pandemic on the food security of urban migrants and refugees from somalia living in eastleigh, nairobi. methodology this study was conducted in nairobi’s eastleigh section, with its predominantly somali population and cultural identity. eastleigh itself is a densely populated area that serves as a residential, commercial, and social hub for somali migrants and refugees, making it a critical site for examining the food security challenges faced by this population. the study employed a mixed-methods approach to capture the complexity of food security dynamics among somali households during the covid-19 pandemic. the research team selected households through random sampling to ensure a fair representation of migrant households in eastleigh. random sampling ensured that a variety of household structures, economic status, and food security experiences were captured. as the area houses migrants from somalia and somali kenyans, the research team employed a screening question to identify households with a somalia-born head. the search yielded 268 households from an overall sample of 318. this paper therefore reports on the findings from the survey of these 268 households. first, the research team administered a structured quantitative household survey to the sampled households, collecting data on demographics, food security levels, economic conditions, and pandemic-related experiences. the team analyzed quantitative data using descriptive statistical methods to summarize household characteristics, food security levels, and the economic impacts of the pandemic. researchers assessed food security using a combination of indicators, including the household dietary diversity score (hdds), the household food insecurity access scale (hfias), and the household food insecurity access prevalence (hfiap) indicator. the hdds captures dietary diversity as a proxy for the nutritional value of the diet, while the hfias and hfiap assess the prevalence and severity of food insecurity (swindale and bilinsky, 2006; coates et al., 2007). second, the research team conducted 30 qualitative in-depth interviews with somali migrant household heads to capture detailed personal narratives of food access challenges, coping strategies, and broader socio-economic impacts of the pandemic. these interviews were conducted in somali, swahili, or english by trained local research assistants with contextual and linguistic expertise. finally, the team conducted 15 key informant interviews with community leaders, business representatives, and organizers to provide broader insights into the economic and social dynamics influencing food security in eastleigh. the researchers analyzed the qualitative data from the in-depth and key informant interviews thematically 73 to identify recurring patterns and narratives related to food insecurity, economic disruptions, and coping strategies. findings and discussion table 1 provides a profile of the respondents and households surveyed. of the respondents, 59% were male and 41% female, with just over half married and a quarter single. somali households in eastleigh live predominantly in flats or apartments, reflecting the dense urban environment of the area. nuclear (39%) and male-centered (29%) households predominated, with only 10% being female-centered (defined as a household with a female head without a spouse or partner in the household). table 1: somali household profile sex of household respondents no. % male 157 58.6 female 111 41.4 marital status of household respondents married 144 53.7 single 63 23.5 divorced 41 15.3 widowed 11 4.1 separated 8 3,0 abandoned 1 0.4 housing type flat/apartment 246 91.8 house (bungalow) 19 7.1 semi-permanent informal dwelling 2 0.7 house (maisonette) 1 0.4 household structure nuclear 104 38.8 male-centred 78 29.1 female-centred 27 10.1 extended 59 22.0 source: authors' own work three-quarters of the survey respondents said their households were economically worse off than before the pandemic. only 22% said their conditions had improved. the reasons for this pandemic shock are evident from table 2. almost half of the the impact of covid-19 on the food security of somali migrants and refugees in nairobi 74 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 households had household members losing their jobs and unable to find work (see table 3). as many as 80% of the participants reported that their households experienced a loss of income. the high level of job loss is reflected in the closure of businesses and the halt in economic activities because of the lockdown and other restrictions. however, this was not the only reason for reduced income, as many households in eastleigh derive income from running an informal business, and the shutdown of these enterprises affected their sales and income directly. table 2: perception of changes in household economic conditions % much worse 46.6 worse 28.1 much better 13.8 better 7.8 remained the same 3.7 source: authors' own work table 3: household impacts of the covid-19 pandemic strongly agree (%) agree (%) neither (%) disagree (%) strongly disagree (%) members of the household became unemployed & could not find a job 27.0 21.7 33.7 1.1 14.6 members of the household experienced income losses 27.6 52.3 1.1 14.9 4.1 members of the household had increased food expenses 65.0 2.0 1.9 28.8 0.4 members of the household found it difficult to access food from informal food vendors 54.4 30.8 9.0 1.1 4.1 members of the household had less food to eat 30.7 18.0 38.2 9.0 4.1 source: authors' own work 75 two-thirds of the somali households experienced an increase in food expenses during the pandemic (see table 3). the increase can be attributed to disrupted food supply chains, which particularly affected communities relying on informal food sources. informal food networks play a central role in the urban food security of migrant communities such as this, and disruptions can severely limit access to necessary food supplies. the difficulty in accessing food from informal vendors was pronounced, with 85% of households funding it harder to obtain food this way during the pandemic. the survey findings provide a lens through which to interpret the subjective experiences relayed by respondents during the in-depth interviews. for example, one somali refugee lost his job as a shopkeeper and was forced to lay low during the pandemic for fear of being assaulted or arrested: covid-19 really affected our household, especially in 2020 and 2021. i lost my job working as a shopkeeper in eastleigh, nairobi, due to covid-19. i could not also move freely to look for a job due to covid-19 containment measures. police used to arrest and beat people who are found walking outside. for someone like me with refugee documents, i could not move freely, as i could easily get arrested. therefore, i had to stay at home for most of the pandemic period. in addition, the living condition is now harder than before the pandemic. everything is expensive, and the price of foodstuffs has gone up. the tough economic conditions have had negative effects on my household’s food security situation (interview no. 16). in this case, the suffering was clearly compounded by his being unable to look for other employment and by the increase in the cost of food. another respondent faced a similar situation when the shop in which they worked shut down and they lost their job. efforts to find another job proved fruitless: before covid-19, i worked in a wholesale food shop to support my wife and our four kids. i was the sole breadwinner of my family, and my income was essential for us to survive. when the pandemic hit, the shop was closed due to lockdown measures, and i lost my job. with no income, we really struggled to put food on the table. every day was a battle to find enough to eat and make ends meet. the situation was dire, and i often felt helpless. our savings quickly ran out, and there was no work to be found. the impact on our lives was devastating, and it felt like we were trapped in an endless cycle of worry and hardship (interview no. 19). this recollection of the negative impact of the pandemic is indicative of a significant deterioration in food security and general well-being among the somali migrants. the closure of informal markets not only restricted food access, but also further the impact of covid-19 on the food security of somali migrants and refugees in nairobi 76 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 marginalized already vulnerable populations, amplifying the food security crisis among urban migrants. one respondent recalled how the closure of shops made food access a challenge: we rely heavily on informal food vendors for our daily sustenance, buying cheap groceries and fresh produce to feed our families. however, during the pandemic, eastleigh was considered a hotspot, and the government closed all food-vending shops. this made it incredibly difficult for us to access food. the closure of these vendors, who are our primary source for affordable and fresh food, left us struggling. we couldn’t buy the groceries and produce we needed, and the alternatives were either too expensive or inaccessible. it was a challenging time for all of us, and at times [we] went hungry because we simply couldn’t afford the higher prices in the formal supermarkets (interview no. 23). as table 3 shows, nearly half of the surveyed households reported having less food to eat during the pandemic. the restrictions on informal vending also had negative implications for households that relied on income from street vending: before the pandemic, i worked as an informal food vendor, selling meat and groceries in eastleigh’s jam street. this job was our main source of income and helped me support my family. when covid-19 hit, everything changed. the market was shut down, and movement was heavily restricted. i couldn’t sell produce anymore, and our income disappeared overnight. to make things worse, the cost of food went up significantly. as a vendor, i saw firsthand how the disrupted supply chains and increased market prices affected everyone. people who used to buy from me struggled to afford basic groceries. my family was no different; we had to pay more for the food we needed, but we had no income to cover these expenses. it was a constant struggle to make ends meet, and every day felt like a battle for survival (interview no. 30). food price inflation in kenya exacerbated the challenges faced by somali migrants, who typically have limited financial reserves and rely heavily on the informal sector for their food (ahmed et al., 2023). however, loss of income and food inflation were far from being the only livelihood challenges. in addition to food insecurity, many faced challenges paying for services such as water and electricity: in eastleigh, we usually live in a densely populated neighborhood that is both commercial and residential. we purchase everything, including food, water, and electricity. during covid-19, there was a heavy crackdown with strict restrictions on movement in and out of the neighborhood. this made life extremely difficult for us, as we were deprived of most essentials. 77 we frequently went without sufficient food, and getting clean water became a struggle. the prices of everything went up, and there were times when we had no electricity because we couldn’t afford to pay for it. the restrictions isolated us from our usual sources of support and supply, leaving many families in a state of constant need and anxiety (interview no. 25). in many cases, households experienced multiple deprivations, as evidenced by the testimony of this respondent. to understand the broader impact of the pandemic restrictions, the research team used the lived poverty index (lpi), which provides data on the frequency with which households were deprived of a range of necessities. table 4 shows that significant sections of the somali migrant community faced critical shortages. for example, 44% of households reported always or frequently going without sufficient food and almost half struggled with inconsistent access to clean water and medical treatment. access to electricity and cooking fuel was also significantly disrupted, and most households faced these challenges during the pandemic period. table 4. household deprivation frequency during covid-19 pandemic during the pandemic period: always (%) many times (%) several times (%) just once or twice (%) never (%) how often did this household go without cooking fuel (kerosene or gas) in your home. 20.0 47.4 6.4 11.2 15.0 how often did this household go without enough food to eat? 15.0 29.2 6.4 1.1 40.8 how often did this household go without electricity in your home? 13.6 44.2 23.6 8.6 10.0 how often did this household go without cash income 2.0 33.5 12.0 29.7 24.1 how often did this household go without medicine or medical treatment? 0.8 48.9 10.2 26.3 13.9 how often did this household go without clean water for home use? 0.4 48.3 21.1 14.0 16.2 source: authors' own work the impact of covid-19 on the food security of somali migrants and refugees in nairobi 78 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 table 5: levels of food insecurity and dietary diversity % food secure 42.5 mildly food insecure 7.9 moderately food insecure 11.2 severely food insecure 38.4 mean hdds 7.4 source: authors' own work table 5 illustrates the stark reality of food insecurity among somali migrant households in nairobi. almost 60% of the households experienced some level of food insecurity during the covid-19 pandemic, with severe food insecurity affecting 38% of households. this finding underscores the compounded effects of economic disruptions, inflation in food prices, and the collapse of informal food networks during the pandemic. the high prevalence of severe food insecurity not only highlights the precarious living conditions of somali migrants but also points to systemic inequities in urban food systems that disproportionately impact marginalized groups during crises. conclusion the findings reported in this paper illuminate the significant and multi-dimensional challenges brought about by the covid-19 pandemic for somali migrants in nairobi. the research uncovered a complex tapestry of economic, health, and social challenges intricately woven into the lives of these individuals, reflecting a microcosm of the broader systemic issues faced by vulnerable urban communities across the global south. moreover, the individual narratives of hardship recounted in the indepth interviews, emphasize the human dimension of the pandemic’s toll and reflect the urgency for compassionate and comprehensive policy measures. as researchers continue to navigate the pandemic’s impacts and aftermath, the experiences detailed by somali migrants in this paper serve as a poignant illustration of the extensive challenges that lie ahead for similar communities. they underscore the need for policies that address not only immediate food distribution and health concerns but also the underlying structural inequities, exacerbated by the pandemic. the evidence presented in this paper highlights the acute need for targeted interventions designed to bolster food security and foster economic resilience within urban refugee populations. these interventions must address the multi-layered impact of the pandemic, acknowledging the vulnerability of migrants to the shutdown of informal economies and the subsequent tightening of food environments. future research is imperative and should aim to build on these findings, enhancing our strategies to ensure the well-being of migrants. such work should not only offer 79 relief during global crises but also pave the way for long-term resilience and stability, providing a roadmap for the recovery of migrant communities in the global south. acknowledgments the authors wish to acknowledge sshrc partnership grant no. 895-2021-1004 for funding the research on which this paper is based. the impact of covid-19 on the food security of somali migrants and refugees in nairobi 80 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 references adewopo, j., solano-hermosilla, g., colen, l. and micale, f. 2021. using crowdsourced data for 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(eds.), the impact of covid-19 on the food security of somali migrants and refugees in nairobi 84 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 immigrant lives: intersectionality, transnationality, and global perspectives. oxford: oxford university press, pp. 436–459. shupler, m., mwitari, j., gohole, a., anderson de cuevas, r., puzzolo, e., čukić, i., nix, e., … et al. 2021. covid-19 impacts on household energy and food security in a kenyan informal settlement: the need for integrated approaches to the sdgs. renewable and sustainable energy reviews, 144: 111018. solymári, d., kairu, e., czirják, r. and tarrósy, i. 2022. the impact of covid-19 on the livelihoods of kenyan slum dwellers and the need for an integrated policy approach. plos one, 17(8): e0271196. sverdlik, a., dzimadzi, s., ernstson, h., kimani, j., koyaro, m., lines, k., luka, z., … et al. 2024. african cities in the wake of covid-19: tracing multiple inequalities, official responses and grassroots strategies in harare, kampala, lilongwe and nairobi. acrc working paper 2024-10. university of manchester, manchester, uk. swindale, a. and bilinsky, p. 2006. household dietary diversity score (hdds) for measurement of household food access: indicator guide (version 2). washington, dc, food and nutrition technical assistance project, academy for educational development. swinnen, j. and vos, r. 2021. covid‐19 and impacts on global food systems and household welfare. agricultural economics, 52(3): 365–374. tenerowicz, g. and wellman, e. 2024. the social impact of covid-19 on migrants in urban africa. urban forum, 35: 433–449. turok, i. and visagie, j. (2022). the divergent pathways of the pandemic within south african cities. development southern africa, 39(5): 738–761. wangari, e., gichuki, p., abuor, a., wambui, j., okeyo, s., oyatsi, h., odikara, s., … et al. 2021. kenya’s response to the covid-19 pandemic: a balance between minimizing morbidity and adverse economic impact. aas open research, 4: 3. 38 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 rowing against climate adversity and lack of family support: the everyday lives of migrants’ wives in rural mozambique inês raimundo1 and victor agadjanian2 received 24 january 2025 / accepted 24 june 2025 / published 27 august 2025 doi:10.14426/ahmr.v11i2.2653 abstract there are numerous studies on the participation in migratory work by men from the gaza province, whether to the mines in south africa or mozambican cities, in particular the city of maputo. however, studies that analyze the psychosocial conditions of migrants’ wives about their relationships with their family, friends, neighbors, and their teenage children are still incipient. for this reason, we assert that this study is typical of sub-saharan africa and reveals the vulnerability of middle-age and aging women. in all these studies, there are common aspects that characterize the vulnerability of married women, widows, or single women with or without children. they live within a patriarchal context that determines who brings the bread, whom they marry, how many children they should have, their role as caretakers of the family, and the roles of the ones who take care of the farm and the elderly. the dominant patriarchal system in southern mozambique determines a man’s masculinity based on his ability to perform work that generates income for his family. the literature shows that the generational masculine ideology among men in traditional communities begins from childhood and is perpetuated from generation to generation, with the man marrying as many women as he can afford. the female harem is necessary to guarantee the perpetuation of the name or nickname of that lineage. what we endeavor to demonstrate in this article is that all the women’s statements, whether in the focus group discussions (fgds) or individually, reflect the burden of patriarchal relations still dominant in rural gazan society. we also show that the organization of labor during crisis situations results in a cascade of events that include: women lacking food and other necessities; women forced to sever their relationships with their in-laws, grown and undergrown children, peers, and relatives. this results in stress and other health-related issues, as well as diminished confidence in planning for the future. the paper aims to respond to these questions: (1) what help do women receive from their children, family, and friends when they have a migrant husband? what kind of help does a migrant wife or ex-migrant wife provide to others? (2)what help do women receive from their children, family, and friends when they have a non-migrant husband? (3) to what extent does this contribute to women’s well-being? (4) what help do mothers give their children? keywords: migrants’ wives, climate adversity, family support, rural mozambique 1 eduardo mondlane university, maputo, mozambique. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0535-1163 corresponding author  ines.raimundo@uem.mz 2 university of california, los angeles, united states. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0854-7727 39 introduction there are several studies on men migrating from the province of gaza, whether to the mines in south africa or to mozambican cities, in particular the capital city, maputo (de vletter, 2000; matusse, 2009; raimundo, 2010; saíde and pitrosse, 2012). however, research that analyzes the psychosocial condition of migrants’ wives about their relationships with their children, family, friends and neighbors is still incipient. for this reason, we believe that this study is relevant to much of sub-saharan africa and reveals the vulnerability of middle-aged and aging women. in all these studies, there are common aspects that characterize the vulnerability of married women, widows, or single women with or without children. they live within a patriarchal context that determines who provides the food, whom they marry, how many children they should have, their role as caretakers of the family, and the role of those who take care of the farm and the elderly. the dominant patriarchal system in southern mozambique determines a man’s masculinity based on his ability to perform work that can generate income for his family. as wlsa (1997; 2014), uchendu (2008), raimundo (2008) and raimundo et al. (2023) point out, the masculine ideology among men begins from childhood and is perpetuated from generation to generation, with the man marrying as many women as he can afford. the female harem is necessary to guarantee the perpetuation of the name or nickname of that lineage. this article aims to respond to the following questions: (1) what support do women married to migrants receive from their children, family, and friends? (2) what kind of support do migrants’ wives or ex-migrants’ wives provide to others? (3) how is this support different from support provided and received by non-migrants’ wives? (4) to what extent does this support contribute to women’s well-being? study background this article is based on several years of meticulous data collection on the reproductive situation and coping strategies of women of reproductive age since 2006. the findings presented here are part of the project, “women’s social ties and psychosocial wellbeing in a resource-limited patriarchal setting: a longitudinal perspective,” which is a continuation of our studies on women married to migrants and those married to non-migrants. these sequential studies, focusing on the same women since 2006, hold significant implications for our understanding of women’s reproductive health and coping strategies during crises. we have studied these women in rural communities in four districts of gaza province since they were between 18 and 40 years old (agadjanian et al., 2012; raimundo, 2013; martins-fonteyn et al., 2016, 2017). the new wave of the project was designed from the perspective of studying the critical importance of the relationship between women and their children, family members, neighbors, and climate adversity and lack of family support of migrants’ wives in rural mozambique 40 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 church members in contexts of change in the rural economy, increasingly affected by the reduction in the migratory work of spouses to south africa. rural southern mozambique has depended on migratory labor for the mines of south africa for three centuries (de vletter, 2000; gaspar, 2011) and is undergoing transformation for several reasons, including the reduction in labor recruitment in south africa. on the other hand, although studies show that parental migration delays girls’ marriage (chae et al., 2017; agadjanian et al., 2021), it is a fact that when the young women get married, they pay less attention to their mothers, who have cared for them for long periods. for this reason, the study intended to evaluate how this abandonment of mothers by their children has a psychosocial impact on the lives of rural women who suffer the burden of caring for young children and the absence of their husbands. we also collected information about women whose husbands no longer migrate. we evaluate the support that husbands provide their wives when they are at home and absent and how this affects their psychosocial well-being. as the province is affected by extreme weather events, we also wanted to assess the support that these women receive from and give to their children, families, church members, and the community. feminist theory in the analysis of social relations of rural women, wives of migrants, and their families in dialogue with mason’s (2021) thinking about the meaning of sociological theory, we posit that it is an ongoing effort applied to understanding the organizational structure of a society and its institutions. however, it can be transformative and difficult to access and understand. this is what we see in the rural family structure in mozambique as a consequence of the social and economic transformations of recent years that have transformed mozambique from a centralized economy to neoliberalism (hansine et al., 2024). crossman (2024) argues in his functionalist theory that the family institution exists because it plays a vital role in the functioning of society. in line with this theory, we examine the relationships between family members, between spouses, and the roles of each person in society and in the family. this foregrounds the study of social relations between men and women within the context of work, the family, and in society in general. this structure represents the social organization of work based on the sexual division of labor, where males are positioned in the productive sphere while females are relegated to the reproductive sphere (andrade et al., 1998; curado, 2008; crossman, 2024; salzinger and gonsalves, 2024). this constitutes the complementary division of tasks. here, according to curado (2008), this social division of labor has two organizing principles: the principle of separation, that is, there is men’s work and women’s work. the second principle is that of hierarchy, where men’s work is accorded higher value than women’s work. however, salzinger and gonsalves (2024) state that feminist postcolonial theory emerges as a theory of how gender operates in south asia, africa, and the middle east, problematizing 41 binary gender and relations of domination, an assumption defended by jose (2012), whose work highlights women’s empowerment in a context in which women are forced to accept their role of subordination to men. this study, which focuses on women whose husbands are labor migrants or former migrants, highlights the complexity of the situation of these women in both circumstances. in the absence of their husbands, they must guarantee their families’ livelihoods (yabiku et al., 2011), and in this process, their lives become intertwined with their in-laws, children, neighbors, and community church members. furthermore, women are required to adapt to the changing realities around the drastic reduction of the workforce in south africa. moreover, they must find ways of coping with the harmful effects of climatic events as well as the transformation of the mozambican economy. they increasingly find that what was common and manageable during the last three decades is no longer in place. most notably, the practice of women supporting one another, as well as their own children, has been eroded, as revealed by the women during the focus group discussions (fgds) and interviews. our understanding of the dynamics of relationships between women and their husbands, children, other family members, neighbors, and church members was enhanced by the application of feminist interview research, in which the co-author participated in fgds with some women from the chibuto district. reinharz (1998) considers this a methodological technique used by feminists. notwithstanding the importance of recognizing the importance of knowing the other side of the psychosocial history of women, this study did not include any men in the interviews. social ties and psychosocial well-being among rural women: a study context according to the research project, the main objective is to contribute to understanding midlife women’s vulnerabilities and corresponding coping strategies in low-income patriarchal rural settings, specifically in southern mozambique, where society is patriarchal par excellence (wlsa, 1997; bagnol, 2008; tvedten, 2011, 2014). the main argument in this type of society is that because of migratory work, women and their children are forced to adopt various strategies to reduce their vulnerability due to the prolonged absence of their husband, partner, or father because of migratory work. funke et al. (2020) point out that these communities live in challenging climatic environments due to drought, cyclones, and floods that regularly affect those districts. some coping strategies include xitique3 and xicoropa.4 much of the information we bring into analysis refers to this particular study and is data from several years of data collection since we started in 2006. this data helped us understand the scenario of households in rural areas and, consequently, the pressure women endure in the face of an almost hostile climate and children who need assistance. many of their children are already over 18 years old, and some are 3 informal credit system (personal communication). 4 harvest assistance system (personal communication). climate adversity and lack of family support of migrants’ wives in rural mozambique 42 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 married. the data used in this study was collected through a survey of 1884 women, fgds (initially in two communities of chibuto) and interviews of 74 women who were selected from the survey sample. southern mozambique, a society deeply rooted in patrilineal norms, sustains its economy through agriculture, cattle-rearing, and fishing (raimundo, 2008; tvedten, 2011). in this societal structure, men hold more authority than women, and households led by men tend to be in better condition than those led by women (wlsa, 1997, 2014; tvedten, 2012; raimundo et al., 2023). this societal context forms the backdrop of our study, where we delve into the vulnerabilities and coping strategies of midlife women in this patriarchal rural setting. in the patriarchal systems of southern mozambique, the man is the breadwinner and, therefore, as castel-branco (2020), bagnol (2008), covane (2001), vletter (2000), wlsa (1997, 2014) observe, the man is the one who migrates in search of work and money to feed his family and help their family members. meanwhile, some studies acknowledge women as breadwinners in cross-border trade (raimundo, 2010; chikanda and raimundo, 2017). first (1977) noted that initially, migratory work to south africa was limited to the provinces of gaza, inhambane, and maputo. however, in recent times, workers have been recruited from other parts of mozambique (saíde and pitrosse, 2012), bringing about transformations in these societies. that said, in communities where women still do not go out to look for monetary alternatives when their partners are absent for long periods, they expect to receive help from their older children or other family members. when this does not happen, the psychological pressure is enormous and has adverse effects on the individual’s well-being and the satisfaction of their needs. research methodology the research process was conducted sequentially. it began with two fgds in the chibuto district, followed by in-depth interviews administered to 74 women in the four districts of gaza province (chibuto, chókwè, guijá, and manjacaze). the first author conducted the fgds, and the in-depth interviews were conducted by a team of trained interviewers. the primary purpose of the fgds was to refine the research instruments, particularly about the type of questions to be asked. the indepth interviews, conducted in two parts, focused on various aspects of a woman’s life, including her relationship with her husband, physical and mental health, and psychosocial well-being. surveys, semi-structured interviews, and fgds were used with women whose main characteristics included the following: aged between 35 and 60; being married, previously married, separated, divorced, or widowed; with children; and living in the study community. during the interviews and fgds, we sought to preserve respect for the rights of each interviewee or study participant. issues such as the importance of the participation of each woman selected for the study as well as how the interviewers behaved toward the interviewee (for example, body language) and during the interview, command of the changana (the language 43 spoken in the gaza province) language, trust, confidentiality, and not questioning opinions ensured the success of data collection. respondents were assured that every opinion was valid and that there was no right or wrong answer. through the signed consent form, we guaranteed them the freedom to be part of the study and assured them of confidentiality and anonymity. the article is based on qualitative information that resulted from the fgd discussions and individual interviews. the fgds took place before the interviews to adapt the interview script prepared by the researchers. the interviews were carried out in two different sessions. the fgds consisted of the following questions: • the first session consisted of questions on social relationships and the exchange of support, and the second session consisted of questions about physical and mental health and psychosocial well-being, which were always connected with their relationship with their children, and whether this relationship changed as their children grew up and formed their own homes. • the second group of questions focused on the social support mothers should offer their adult children by indicating differences in contexts, for example, a married daughter or a daughter living in their community, or their home, or outside the community. this complex exploration aimed to uncover the type of obligations and duties that mothers still had in relation to their married children. • the third group of questions concerned the social support exchanges with other community members, in-laws, their children, family members, neighbors, friends, and church members. from the experience of one of the authors of this article, who grew up knowing that their family is not just their family but their neighbor, and with their neighbor, they can ask for salt, fire, or in the absence of money, they can pay for products or wait until it was time for harvesting cashew nuts to sell and repay the money borrowed. • we wanted to know how relationships had changed between mothers and their grown children over the years in widowed, separated, or abandoned instances, or eventually in cases where their children got married or moved to other communities. regarding the individual interviews, we tried to find out the following: • relationship with husband/permanent partner. • characteristics of and relationships with biological adolescent and adult children (i.e., children born before 2010). • we explored the interviewees’ characteristics and relationships with “almostchildren”, that is, individuals born before 2010 whom they considered as their own children, despite not being their biological mothers. • relationship with their adult family members. • relationship with husband’s family. • relationship with other wives of the husband/partner (in a polygamous union). climate adversity and lack of family support of migrants’ wives in rural mozambique 44 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 • relationships with non-family members, such as friends and neighbors, people with whom they work or conduct business. • relationship with church members. in reference to the second part of the interview, we sought to know the following: • mental health status and problems. • feelings and emotions. • the impact of extreme weather events and agricultural pests on their lives. • access to and use of information and communication technologies. • perceptions and expectations about life in general and the future. in our study, we had to follow some women who had changed residences and settled in the city of maputo (face-to-face interviews) and others in south africa (through telephonic interviews). therefore, we anticipated that there may be a bias in reality, as these women no longer experienced rural reality. since both fgds and interviews were undertaken in changana, we translated verbatim into portuguese. after reading the translations, we grasped the real meaning. the interviews were recorded using codes and transcription to guarantee confidentiality and prevent women from being tracked. for the analysis, we did content analysis, where we tried to find the meaning of what they said, considering the context of the study. results the lived experience of being a migrant’s wife in rural southern mozambique in southern mozambique, the fact that women are married through bridewealth (lobolo5 in changana) often leads men to seek employment through labor migration to south africa or in urban areas such as maputo (raimundo, 2008; pinho, 2011; penvenne, 2019). penvenne (2019) states that a woman is paid lobolo, which means that the man can have that woman as his wife, and her children would live and work in his home. that practice is known to be virilocal. some of these women, whose husbands or fathers died in migration, were marginalized and vulnerable to sexual abuse. a lonely woman who does not have a husband or a male protector is considered a vulnerable woman. this situation continues to affect most of the women we interviewed, with a more significant psychosocial impact on them. interviewed women said that the current situation is aggravated for women because it is complex, due to poverty. the suffering is widespread, with people having nothing to wear or to 5 in southern mozambique, marriage is an exchange of services and goods between families in which the tools – the compensation obtained by the woman’s family – establish the union between the two families. lobolo serves both the woman’s brother and the father, who “acquires” the wife. it, therefore, has a double material meaning: material and symbolic. by transferring power from the woman’s family to the husband’s family, transferring to the husband’s relatives the responsibility for the maintenance of the woman and making the woman the collective “property” of the new family, lobolo legitimizes inequality (andrade et al., 1998: 49). 45 eat, highlighting the lack of basic necessities and invoking a sense of empathy in the audience: “we have no one to take care of us.” however, a married woman also has the duty of taking care of her husband, according to this statement: yes, i can talk about it – the journey of my life with him, of loving and caring for each other. as i sit in my backyard at home with madala [elder], these marriage things make me obligated to my husband. i tried to go out to do other things, but i couldn’t, so i returned and sat with my madala. however, madala does not see; his eyes are dead [blind], poor thing [mbuia nguana]. (interview, 16 november 2023). support networks for women with migrant husbands: receiving help from children, family, friends, and the church unlike in urban areas, rural women are still very dependent on a man and his employment status, as the breadwinner. our extensive research on the wives of migrants has uncovered a significant differentiation between being a wife of a migrant laborer and being a wife of a man who is not a migrant laborer. paradoxically, it is the woman whose husband is a migrant laborer who seems to have more support than the woman whose husband is not; as the popular saying in gaza goes: “the water of the river goes to the ocean where there is already water and not to the desert.” studies also demonstrate that it is this woman who has a high social-status migrant husband who is “sitting well,” as respondents say, and then the rest because they have someone who “wears pants” as he can provide for his family. even the occasional work that men do in south africa transforms them into providers, as one interviewee shared: where he can do odd jobs, he can give us money, but the money is not much; it gives us food and soap. however, when these men are at home without paid work, they demonstrate their adaptability by seeking local alternative sources of income. as one interviewee shared: i also support him by going to the farm. i get things from the farm; at that time, when we get things [from] the farm, he goes to work on other things at home. to ascertain the well-being of these wives of migrant workers, we asked them from whom they got support and whether they paid lobolo or not. we found a range of different situations regarding who supported them. their husbands should be the ones to take care of them, as per customary law. however, in many cases, these women have to rely on friends or neighbors, as this woman said: i am fortunate to have a strong relationship with my neighbors. they are the ones who usually support me even when i am not at home. when i am out, i am confident about leaving my children as even now, they are there, looking climate adversity and lack of family support of migrants’ wives in rural mozambique 46 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 out for them. this sense of community support is comforting and reassuring in our lives. even though this general trend of lacking support persists in some communities, it is important to hear the personal experiences of those affected. as one woman shared, i am saying that i have support from my neighbors. the reason for this statement is that even if i do not have anything to put on the fire, while they do, they can give it to me. so, i believe we live well. yes, because they know our friend has nothing to eat. occasionally, in-laws play an essential role in the absence or presence of their son. a married woman’s family is formed by her in-laws, as by lobolo, she belongs to that family. however, with the change in the economy in rural areas and the increase in poverty, these relatives disappeared and no longer paid attention to that woman, especially the widow, which contradicts the tradition that a widow still belongs to that family until she gets married again. the widows declared themselves as not having a family because of their widowed status. this happens in the case where the relatives passed away, as one participant said: my family all died. i have no family. my family members are my children. i have no family here with my body if they all died. some rely on their children: when it comes to advice, they support me. for example, i told you that we advise children when there is something they are not doing right, and they tell me i will support them; we support each other, educate children, you see. they also trust in the church: so, i also, when there are things that are pressing on my neck [things that i can’t find a solution for], for them, and i see that this isn’t right, when i can’t do it as i’m alone, i go to church, as i pray. i present it at church, so they can support me to counsel these children. tragically, the most prevalent situation is where women lack support from their children and husbands. as one woman lamented, nothing! they haven’t given me anything yet. the relationships between sons and daughters and their mothers change over time. according to those interviewed in the fgds, the main issues are as follows: in our times, children listened to their parents more than they do today. young people skip stages these days and get married prematurely. on the young 47 women’s side, they establish multiple relationships, get pregnant very early, and are not able to identify who the child’s father is. mutual aid in rural communities in mozambique is common. this social support is offered during weeding or harvesting on the farm or through monetary loans, advice, and in situations of need. the support often occurs between family members, church members, and neighbors. however, it is expected that this support exists between sons and daughters, especially in cases of children who already have some financial income. nonetheless, that support is more significant among women who have secure income, for example, from remittances sent by their migrant husbands, than those who do not have a secure source of income. in these types of situations, the woman who asks her children for support is not necessarily asking for money but to resolve domestic problems. for example, a woman, when asked about her sources of support for health issues, shared this: my children who live with me assist. i have a child who resides with me, and my daughter-in-law creates conditions to take care of me, including work in the machamba [farm], as i was incapacitated and unable to do anything at the time. the woman can also ask her neighbors or community residents for support during harvesting. under these circumstances, she can pay them, or she will repay someone in need on the next occasion. in mucotwene, aid can come from the community, or as the inhabitants believe, that the greatest help of all can only come from god, as illustrated by this testimony: even though there is someone to support, the most significant thing is to deliver to god. when you seek human support, you may receive conflicting ideas that only add to your confusion. however, when you align with god, you will find that things improve and pass. instead of listening to the opinions of people that can fill your head, focus on the improvement that comes from god’s guidance. meanwhile, about the friends, she said: the friends i live with, in most cases we support ourselves during ceremonies and, in some cases, in the machamba, especially when i have a big bush. i say friends, and we will clean it. i have money, and i give them back, too. it happens to me, too. i support when someone has a bush or needs support with family issues or from the household. she expects to receive support from her family in the event of illness or death. one of the women said this about the family’s support: when we have problems, we bring the family together. we sat down, talked, and agreed. when i talk about the family, i refer to the family members who are my husband’s parents. if necessary, my parents, too, usually participate. climate adversity and lack of family support of migrants’ wives in rural mozambique 48 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 sometimes, there is still a traditional relationship structure in which the mother advises her married daughters regarding relationships with children. this is the case with one interviewee, who spoke of the support she receives from her children and the support she provides to them: i support them. supporting them means praying for them because nothing is easy in their lives. all things require patience. this mutual respect is a testament to the depth of their bond. in general, women in the category of traditional mother-daughter relationships are socially and economically stable. however, only a small percentage of women were found in this category during the study, indicating its rarity in contemporary society. the interviewees expressed their tiredness with their children in this scenario. under these circumstances, it is difficult for their children to give them any support. on the contrary, they are the ones who support their children even though they have nothing to offer, as they said. this selflessness is a clear demonstration of the love and sacrifice in the relationship. the contribution of socio-economic support structures to women’s well-being well-being can mean many things, but in changana, the word well-being means kutsamissekile or “well seated” (verbatim translation). when someone is well seated, it means they cannot fall (personal comment). however, the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd, 2011) considers well-being as a concept of subjectivity. in this article, based on current data, we considered social connections, and some look at environmental quality conditioned by the climate conditions. the main concern of the united nations (un), as outlined in sustainable development goal (sdg) 3, is that countries must ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages (un, 2015). moreover, the un indicates factors that can impair good health, which include the environment, access to healthcare services, access to good quality services, water of good quality, financial hardship, and the limitations of countries, particularly those in development. understanding health in the context of our study means going beyond physical health and considering the social aspects, which means understanding women’s emotions as migrants’ wives and understanding the nature of their marriage – whether formal (civil registration) or traditional (lobolo). that is to say, if that man followed the formalities or the rules. in this regard, the interviewees cited instances where the male partners did not follow the rules, which in changana means cupola, or that the woman was regarded as an intruder in that family because he did not pay lobolo. as an “intruder,” she was not deserving of aid. in any circumstance of a woman needing support, whether she has a migrant husband or not, support is essential and contributes to social and psychological well-being. although there are differences in social status between women with migrant husbands and women whose husbands either were migrants or are no longer 49 migrants, it was possible to demonstrate through several interviews that regardless of their position, there are always moments when they need social support. the fact that the husband is a migrant does not necessarily mean that he provides appropriate assistance. on the other hand, a migrant husband does not always earn enough to send money to his family. there are also cases where the man is in south africa, but, “he is sitting. he does not work or does occasional work. so, there is no way for him to [provide] support.” however, the money that is sent is sometimes administered by the mother-inlaw or the husband’s family, as we saw in earlier stages of the study. in this instance, the contribution is regarded as social support in general. these statements suggest a certain conformity on the part of the woman, a situation that significantly deteriorates the living conditions of her and her immediate family, such as her children or almost-children. nonetheless, our research uncovered instances where husbands provided support to their wives. this was observed mainly in cases where the couple lived together, and the husband’s job had ended or been interrupted by illness. for instance, one wife shared, my husband supports me with many things, especially when we take the hoe and go to the farm with me. we cultivate the lowland [bilene] and the uplands [ntlavene]. because when we get corn there, we get it. in the forests, we grow corn, cassava, and sweet potatoes; it supports us here in the backyard. he cut reeds, put bundles [ti nhandza] of reeds. when people come to buy, they buy, and we can take that money to support us with what is needed here in the backyard. the relationship between mothers and children when asked if her husband is a migrant worker, one of chihaquelane’s interviewees said, my husband works. it is in cape town. he works when he can in the construction area. i relate very well with him. there is communication between us and the brothers; we also speak well with them. when we make a mistake, we resolve the problem among ourselves. meanwhile, a woman from chalucuane, whose husband is not a migrant, said the following about resolving health problems and other problems: i didn’t do anything; he wasn’t in south africa; he was here at home, then he went to south africa when the situation worsened. therefore, going to south africa is a mechanism to minimize marital problems, whether in the economic or social areas. working itself brings about positive changes in the marriage situation, as a woman from chalucuane said. climate adversity and lack of family support of migrants’ wives in rural mozambique 50 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 continuing with our findings, we postulate that one of the significant transformations recorded in rural areas is that daughters, who in the past provided support to their mothers, no longer do so. this scenario upsets the mothers, who no longer know what to do. there are several reasons for this new way of life for daughters and their relationship with their mothers. the reasons are as follows: life is more difficult for them from my point of view. nowadays, some young women have to have implants, which later cause health problems and prevent them from getting married later. nowadays, young women make life decisions on their own. as mothers, it is difficult for us to see the life they lead. young women today respond to the government’s call to prevent early pregnancy and forget to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. meanwhile, their sons behave as follows: young people leave because they are tired of their mother and do not want to support her; young people are often pressured by their wives to leave their mother’s house. sometimes, they leave because the family is enormous and the space is too [small]. when they become adults, children raised only by their mothers are induced by their parents to accuse their mothers of being witches and abandon them. on the other way, our sons drink a lot, do not have a job, and most are on antiretroviral treatment, and all of these are violent towards their families. a good relationship between children and their mothers can only exist when the mother is mature, as per the following statement: what makes the difference, is the mother’s maturity and maintaining a productive dialogue with her children. it is essential that mothers do not interfere in the lives of married adult children and that mothers establish an understanding between the mother, the sons, and the daughter-in-law. social support received from children by women with migrant and non-migrant husbands migrant work is dominant in rural families in southern mozambique. several generations of families have always lived off migrant work, whereas the women who remained behind played a crucial role in farm work, a role that is often underappreciated. so, it is not surprising that women with migrant husbands are seen by society as being the ones who are doing well. migratory work gains more importance in arid and semi-arid areas of the gaza province, such as the districts under study, where drought does not guarantee sustainable agriculture capable of feeding the family throughout the year. the various testimonies clearly show that women with migrant husbands are in better conditions than the others, especially when this man sends money to, for example, hire someone to help clean the forest, deforest, or even, in some cases, harvest. the tangle of relationships developed in these communities, whether with children, relatives, non-relatives, or church members, should not be neglected. what 51 stands out is that in the four districts, women are in a situation of extreme vulnerability due to their high dependence on their husbands’ work and expect to have support from children and other relatives. one respondent explained: when i, the mother, have things that require their advice, i encourage them to support me because the big person supports the little one, and the little one supports the big one. until now, the teaching is that children, even when they are 6 or 12, have a say among you in the backyard when you live together. it is necessary to give them a speech; to speak, they can. because you can leave, this child won’t support me at all, while there will be a word to support you big ones here in the yard. support provided by women with migrant and non-migrant husbands to their children the support that women give to their children, whether their husbands are migrants or non-migrants, varies significantly. however, there is a saying that, “where you eat, two can eat, regardless of whether you have income or not.” also, anyone can give support, as the women themselves said. support may not necessarily be financial; it can be through life advice: we advise our daughters to know how to behave at home. there are also cases where they support build[ing] a home (kuyahkela a munti) or make an excellent farm to prevent plagues or cure some diseases. it is a considerable burden when a woman raises her children without their father or support from other family members, including in-laws. this situation creates anxiety and stress because they feel helpless in caring for or providing assistance to their children, as one said: my daughter has already left school, as she studied for [the] seventh [grade], and so, the money for me to pay for her further studies couldn’t do it. i didn’t have money. so, i told my daughter to learn to cultivate, like me, her mother who lives off managing a hoe. (nalaze, 20 november 2023). furthermore, they get stressed when they lose their houses due to wind or rain, according to the same interviewee: what kills me hard, is suffering with the house, my friend. you see, our homes here in our community are not good. when there is rain, there is this: it collapses. you can find something to do. but where capacities are low, you can’t do it. the heart hurts, yes. even more serious is that there is no support in this nature. scholars of psychoanalysis such as santos and de souza minayo (2020) and de macedo bezerra (2018), quoting sigmund freud, demonstrate that mothers are more attached to their children than fathers. this relationship continues into adulthood, marriage, or outside the parental home. a mother always bears her child’s pain. climate adversity and lack of family support of migrants’ wives in rural mozambique 52 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 regardless of the support she may or may not receive from her child, she will always do her best to support them. one participant explained: we advise them to go to church and to pray. my children are mine. it doesn’t matter the age. when they are sick or lack the money to go to the hospital, i must support them. i give them money to go to the hospital because there is a hospital nearby, but there is another one where you have to take a bus and go to chibuto. so, when i have money, i have to give it. (mucotuene, 11 november 2023). critical shifts in post-independence mozambique: shortage of assistance and interpersonal connections after independence, many mutual aid, support, and assistance practices changed. these changes were exacerbated by the neoliberal economy that mozambique began to adopt from the 1990s onward (hansine et al., 2024). even more so, poverty and the effects of extreme weather events appear to be factors in these transformations in rural areas. that situation hinders any possible aid, as related by a woman of nalazi: [it] happens nowadays when i have concerns here at my house, they don’t even approach me, they don’t come. there are many explanations for the relationship between mothers and their children and vice versa; each is valid, depending on the context. the interviews reflect the entire post-independence mozambique journey, which includes the 16-year war, forced displacement, and integration between people of different origins. this complex situation, as one of the women highlighted, underscores the importance of reciprocity in community support: why don’t they support me? i’m at a loss. they don’t assist me because of their lack of work habits. they’re idle. so, without a job, i also realize what can you do? can you aid others when you have nothing to sustain yourself? you go, the person until you support him is because you also take it, take it, then, you can support your other brother to be well. intersection of women’s health, climate shocks, and spousal absence in rural mozambique following the interview guide, we discuss three kinds of health problems: physical, spiritual, and mental, which are shown to be the most critical for rural women. regarding their physical health, our interviewees indicated that headaches, uterine pain, and fever constitute the primary diseases. 53 rural women’s narratives on the impact of extreme weather events on physical health living amid significant economic challenges, the absence of a breadwinner and a rural environment devastated by extreme weather events render rural women’s situation even more complicated. that situation worsens when they do not have systematic support and cannot support their families. common illnesses reported are malaria and body aches, as stated by this interviewee from nalaze: i sometimes have pain, but then it gets better. i go to the hospital, and it gets better. asked about whom she goes to when she is sick, she replied: in a situation of illness, i go alone. no one accompanies me to the hospital. i haven’t gotten sick of not being able to handle anything yet. i get sick, finding that my head hurts. i go to the hospital; i have metical (mozambican currency) to pay. i hand it in, and they give me pills, and i take them. and it ends up getting better. (nalaze, 20 november 2023). another reported physical illness is pain in the uterus and feet, according to an interviewee from matola-rio, maputo. this woman is from the guijá district but changed her residence to maputo. she said the following: this year was challenging because my husband was at home and did not work. so, now i had to do something. now i see it does not seem very easy when you don’t work. i’ve been experiencing persistent pain in my uterus and feet. it’s a sharp, stabbing pain that makes it difficult to move. i went to the hospital; i went everywhere; they gave me pills. i always take tablets; i apply balm when the temperature changes. the one who supports me is my husband, who accompanies me to the hospital. but my uterus has been hurting; i went for a test, and those tests thought that maybe it was cancer, but the results showed that it was not cancer; it just hurt the uterus. yes. it hurts. i only got the balm part. (matola-rio, 22 december 2023). impact of spiritual issues on rural women’s health many interviewees believe in spirits and feel mistreated by them. the leading cause of these spirits is a woman who has yet to go through the lobolo ritual, which still needs to be completed. bagnol (2008) points out that although lobolo is no longer a compulsory practice among some families, it is a moral duty to compensate the bride’s family for the creation and for the fact that her family is losing someone who helped them. when the lobolo does not occur, evil spirits can torment this woman and generate social disagreements. as one interviewee said: attacks from spirits occur frequently. it has happened to me, but i quickly throw them away. i don’t keep them in my heart. otherwise, it could give me illnesses that i no longer get. (nalaze, 20 november 2023). climate adversity and lack of family support of migrants’ wives in rural mozambique 54 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 rural women’s narratives on mental health the world health organization (who, 2022) reports that mental health disorders and anxiety are increasingly prevalent among adults of working age, often stemming from social issues like inequalities. it also highlights a significant barrier to addressing these issues – societal taboos. this was evident in our interviews, where many participants viewed mental health through the lens of a “madness disease.” yet these women are keenly aware of the daily challenges that contribute to their anxiety and stress. one interviewee from matola-rio poignantly expressed this, stating: i can say that it doesn’t exist, but when you think about it too much, it causes illnesses. just thank god when i wake up. i had mental health problems when i lost my father and mother, but then it passed in my heart because people helped me to comfort me in those problems. (matola-rio, 22 december 2023). women’s coping strategies in response to extreme weather events: importance and implications climate change, with its diverse and unique impacts on different regions, presents an opportunity for positive change through effective disaster risk reduction (ingc et al., 2003). the atlas for disaster preparedness and the response in the limpopo basin (2003), the master plan for disaster risk reduction 2017–2030 (república de moçambique, 2017), and pereira et al. (2018) all point to the limpopo valley, particularly the gaza province, as a disaster risk zone. this region is characterized by cyclical floods and prolonged periods of drought, with a very high risk due to the influence of subtropical high pressures, leading to erratic and unreliable rainfall (ingc et al., 2003). currently, climate change has a greater impact on communities than before. in the recent past, people helped one another in different ways, such as offering a cup of flour or maize or even doing some work at a neighbor’s or friend’s machamba; however, these days those relations have been broken. one participant’s statements illustrate these changes: our machamba, dependent on the rain, struggles under the intense heat. in the absence of external aid, our community’s support is crucial. when we come together as a family, we can navigate the complexities and support each other. in the absence of such unity, and with no other work to be found, we must rely on our own resourcefulness from the break of dawn. the migratory work of men, often viewed through the lens of masculinity or family economy, has changed as a response to the adverse impacts of climatic events and economic change. this work becomes a crucial alternative when agriculture is rainfed, and women lack food reserves. the phrase “every man for himself and god for all” takes on a practical meaning in extreme crises. 55 psychosocial stress escalates hopelessness and frustration among those who have been hit by climate extremes and the economic crisis. the situation is compounded as spouses either stop working or engage in occasional work, leaving men without the support they need in these dire circumstances. when asked how they cope with climatic events, some women in different communities responded, “sit down.” others rely on the resources they manage to store or the goodwill of family members. however, it is clear that even in extreme crises, the solidarity networks that once provided support within the community are diminishing. xivunga or matsoni, a type of traditional support in rural areas, is a beautiful example of mutual benefit. low-income households tackle complex jobs such as kurimela (doing farming for someone), providing agricultural services in exchange for food or money (wlsa, 1997, 2014). even when a woman is without money, she can still survive by offering kurimela in exchange for it. in such a situation, both she and the farm owner can benefit. however, the current crisis has limited these opportunities, making their situation even more challenging. these transformations have significantly altered kinship relationships, particularly in the context of extended and explicit families. in the past, it was common for children to visit their mothers and assist with fieldwork. however, currently, even their own husbands find it challenging to provide the same level of support. under extreme climatic events, solidarity among women and support from others in rural areas are more crucial than ever. as these events become more frequent, women may witness more and more broken relationships, as their children no longer take care of them. additionally, their husbands, who work in precarious conditions, can no longer support them. extreme climatic events disturb their livelihoods, and in the immediate future, they will no longer be able to handle the situation. as a consequence, they will be in extreme psychosocial straits. the new labor migration standard caused by extreme climatic events: impacts on migrants’ wives the recurrent extreme climatic events, namely droughts, floods, and cyclones in the limpopo basin, have led to increased migration, as the studied districts are in the socalled risk zone to climatic events that induce forced migration (ingc et al., 2003). therefore, despite the reduction in migratory work, men from these districts, with or without a work contract, seek means of crossing the border in search of ways to support their families. the study shows that those who suffer the most are the women who are affected by extreme drought or those found in the riverside areas of the basin. it is these districts, particularly guijá, chókwè, and chibuto, that are most adversely affected by the floods (ingc et al., 2003; funke et al., 2020). south africa is the country that continues to receive mozambican migrants, either as cross-border migrants or as irregular or undocumented individuals who once fled the 16-year war and in the process escaped the effects of floods and droughts (funke et al., 2020). however, while climatic events are sharpening and climate adversity and lack of family support of migrants’ wives in rural mozambique 56 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 men opt for migration, it is evident that this is no solution. once these men are in south africa, they are not readily integrated into formal work due to their irregular migration status, resulting in their inability to remit adequate money or food home. conclusions this work is based on data collected as part of the “women’s ties and psychosocial well-being” project in all four rural districts, highlighting that women struggle daily because of the break of their relationships with their relatives and children. the interviews unveiled the importance of a male presence in rural areas, as women often rely on them, primarily for financial support. however, we also witnessed a shifting landscape, where some women were actively seeking employment to secure their income while others contemplated a departure from their communities. • throughout the interviews, it was evident that rural women regularly suffer various types of stress and physical illnesses; their primary coping mechanism is the occasional support they receive. • the significant reduction in the type of aid was justified by the scarcity of a means of livelihood. despite their best efforts, women can only provide limited support to their children, often in the form of advice. few women receive support from their children. • having a husband who is a migrant who remits money makes a big difference in the rural communities of the gaza province, as it provides a crucial financial lifeline that supports these families in coping with the challenges of rural life. • the situation worsens due to climatic factors – lack of rain, inundations, and floods – and a shortage of jobs for their children, who hardly feed their families. • poverty is widespread, and inequalities are increasing among women dwellers, including their children, regardless of whether they are married or not, or living with them or not. • as wives of migrants, these women were doing well, as they could provide material support not only to their children (even as grown-ups) but also to other family members and neighbors. they had the means to offer psychological or associated support. however, with their husbands losing their jobs in south africa and other cities, they were limited in providing support to others. • support from their children has also diminished because of the transformations in rural areas where children regard their mothers as burdens with multiple needs. • whatever prevailing support between mothers and their children should continue. this mutual support is not just a necessity but a shared responsibility that both parties should strive to uphold. it is evident that rural areas have been affected by the reduction in labor recruitment to south africa over the last few decades. these women have always depended on the migrant work of their husbands. the income from this work was used to improve 57 agricultural activities through the purchase of work instruments and the payment of people who support them by cultivating or harvesting. these women received support from family, neighbors, and church members during this period. the reduction in migratory work and the harmful effects of extreme weather events are indicators that their aid has been reduced. neither the children nor the closest relatives support them any longer. isolation, the lack of alternative income, and the lack of support from others have powerful psychosocial impacts on these rural women. relationships deteriorate because mutual support has become nonexistent. this situation affects women and their children, who have limited opportunities to study. when their children get married because they do not have work, it eliminates any potential support that mothers were hoping for, rendering their lives even more precarious. acknowledgments through the project “women’s social ties and psychosocial well-being in a resourcelimited patriarchal setting: a longitudinal perspective,” funded by the national institute of aging of the u.s.a (grant #r01ag075526, agadjanian and hayford, multiple pis), we were able to carry out interviews with 74 women and two fgds during 2022 and 2023 in the districts of chibuto, chókwè, guijá, and manjacaze. we want to express our deep gratitude to the women who made this study possible. their participation was not just a contribution but an integral part of our research. we extend our heartfelt thanks to the interviewers who conducted the interviews with patience and professionalism, and to those who diligently translated them from changana into portuguese. their dedication and hard work were critical to the success of our project. we are deeply grateful to the funder, the national institute on aging. we also extend our thanks to all the co-investigators, particularly dr sarah hayford and colleagues from the center for research in population and health (cepsa) in mozambique, who provided invaluable insights and comments on the study. their support and collaboration were crucial to the success of our research. climate adversity and lack of family support of migrants’ wives in rural mozambique 58 ahmr african human mobility review volume 11 no 2, may-august 2025 references agadjanian, v., arnaldo, 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statelessness in madagascar cristiano d’orsi1 received 27 may 2022 / accepted 20 july 2023 / published 14 december 2023 doi: https://doi.org/10.14426/ahmr.v9i3.1131 abstract this work sheds light on the still unresolved plight of statelessness in madagascar, a country that has a long history of stateless communities, above all among the karana people, of indian origin and muslim religion. in spite of several important steps undertaken to eradicate statelessness in the country (see, for example, the adoption of the 2016 law on nationality that partially amended the 1960 code on nationality), the path for the complete eradication of statelessness in the country still seems quite long. this is because of the lack of will by local authorities who seem to ignore the conditions of thousands of people, born and bred in madagascar who, apparently for no specific reason, still do not hold malagasy citizenship, causing them to be deprived of several basic rights that citizens are normally entitled to. in this respect, the fact that madagascar is still not a party to several important international legal instruments adopted to eradicate statelessness, does not facilitate the situation of the thousands of stateless people in madagascar. keywords: statelessness, madagascar, karana people, women, children 1 south african research chair in international law (sarcil), university of johannesburg, south africa.  cd6jx@ virginia.edu one step forward, half step back: still a long way to go to end statelessness in madagascar 34 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 introduction according to article 1(1) of the convention relating to the status of stateless persons (cssp), a stateless person is “a person who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law” (unga, 1954). ewumbue monono (2021: 43) suggests that “statelessness” is [t]he condition in which an individual has no formal, legal or protective relationship with any recognised state, no matter their emotional national identification. in other words, statelessness is a condition where an individual has no nationality. it can also describe the situation where an individual claims the nationality of a “state,” but that “state” is not internationally recognised. statelessness can also be a situation where a person has lost their nationality for security reasons or other grounds associated with fraud. finally, it can be a situation involving deprivation of nationality through the discriminatory laws of a state, resulting in lack of “effective nationality” due to structural and administrative causes. statelessness happens for a number of reasons. these reasons include gaps in citizenship laws, including the application of rules for children born outside the country of nationality of their parents (manby, 2017: 14-19). in this regard, manby explains: “the continuing discretion given to states in national laws – as well as the reality of global migration, conflict, and changing borders – means that it is increasingly possible for people to fall between the gaps and end up stateless” (2017: 17). in addition, these reasons also include gender-based discrimination in transmission of nationality to children and spouses; discrimination based on race or ethnicity; the attribution of nationality when sovereignty over a territory changes (the rules on state succession); and the arbitrary denial or deprivation of nationality (unhcr, undated). statelessness can also be the result of policies that aim to exclude people deemed to be outsiders (because of ethnicity or religion), in spite of their ties to a particular country. in africa, this has often been tied to succession of states, as in relation to people of eritrean descent in ethiopia (open society justice initiative, undated: 2), or in côte d’ivoire, where the status of pre-independence migrants of burkinabé and other descent remains contested (adjami, 2016: 3-4). in this article, i analyze the causes of statelessness in the case of madagascar, with a particular focus on discrimination based both on gender and on ethnicity, especially as applied in the context of the attribution of nationality when madagascar gained independence from france. the exact number of stateless people in madagascar is unknown, although the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) suggests a figure of 100,000 in a country with 24 million inhabitants (petrova, 2015). this article is structured as follows: after analyzing the recent legal and policy developments in madagascar to remove gender-based discrimination, i investigate 35 the problematic situation of the karana people, who still suffer from discrimination in the country. i also consider the efforts to address statelessness. finally, i consider what is required to eradicate statelessness in madagascar and the likelihood of its success. history of citizenship law in madagascar madagascar’s original nationality laws, like many others in africa, were a product of its colonial history (manby, 2018: 39-41). the island was a french colony from 1896 to 1960 (history world, undated). in 1960, madagascar became independent and the new state adopted a law by which citizenship was transmitted on the basis of descent, with no rights to citizenship based on birth in the territory, except in the case of abandoned children who were presumed to be malagasy, with some restrictions, as noted below – ordonnance no 60-064, 1960 that instituted the nationality code (republic of madagascar, 1960). the new laws were discriminatory along both gender and ethnic lines. before the adoption of the last modifications in 2017, the malagasy nationality code had been changed several times in the past, always highlighting two main aspects of the country – its cultural diversity and its national identity (razafiarison et al., 2022: 6). for example, law no. 61-052 of 1961 (article 24(1)) introduced several modifications to the 1960 ordonnance. modifications were about the acquisition of nationality, extending to two years the term by which the government can oppose the acquisition of malagasy nationality by marriage, introducing reasons of indignity and physical or mental incapacity (republic of madagascar, 1961). additionally, by modifying article 50(4) and (5) of the 1960 ordonnance, the 1973 ordonnance no. 73-049 determines that a malagasy citizen will lose their nationality if condemned, in madagascar or abroad, for any crime considered as such by malagasy law and by which they had been condemned to at least five years of detention. moreover, once the nationality has been withdrawn, the former malagasy citizen may appeal this decision. article 28(2) states that if the first application for reinstatement of citizenship is rejected, a new application can only be submitted two years after the rejection (republic of madagascar, 1973). furthermore, law no. 95-021 of 1995 added a fourth paragraph to article 38 of the nationality code that introduced a variable term (from five to ten years) that the naturalized person is required to wait before fully benefiting from the civil and political rights as a malagasy citizen (republic of madagascar, 1995). paragraph 38(4) was abrogated by law no. 2003027 of 2003 to permit the participation of naturalized persons in the economic development of madagascar (republic of madagascar, 2003). the code on nationality, as amended, distinguishes between those who are considered malagasy at birth – called attribution of malagasy citizenship – versus those who have to follow an administrative process, referred to as acquisition of malagasy citizenship. title i of the code on nationality defines those who are one step forward, half step back: still a long way to go to end statelessness in madagascar 36 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 attributed malagasy citizenship at birth. title ii sets out the rules for acquisition of citizenship, by declaration, by marriage, or by naturalization. gender-based discrimination one of the most common causes of statelessness in africa, and particularly in madagascar, is gender-based discrimination. in this regard, manby (2011: 8) states: gender discrimination is one of the commonest causes of statelessness, especially in the case of children who cannot obtain their mother’s nationality because of gender discrimination and who cannot otherwise acquire the nationality of the state of birth or of their father (for example, because the child was born out of wedlock, the inadequacy of civil registration procedures or other challenges). nonetheless, gender discrimination was until recently the norm in citizenship laws across the world; some of the older international treaties on nationality law in fact assumed that gender discrimination would be applied, while trying to minimise statelessness that could result. in africa at independence and until recently, most countries discriminated because of gender in granting citizenship. female citizens were not able to pass on their citizenship to their children, if the child’s father was not also a citizen, nor to their foreign spouses. in africa, this comes in various forms, for example, when women cannot pass on their nationality to their spouses (this is the case in 25 countries on the continent, as a study commissioned by the african commission on human and peoples’ rights (achpr) has shown) or when children are denied their mother’s (and father’s) nationality. this last circumstance often happens when a child is born out of wedlock. in this regard, the achpr (2015: 27) has affirmed: sometimes, the administration has discretionary powers in that area. for example, in many countries, foreign wives are entitled to their husband’s nationality, but only on condition that the public authorities are not opposed to the decision. in certain countries, such as botswana, egypt, liberia and zambia, non-national husbands of wives who are nationals must meet the general conditions stipulated by the law on naturalisation to acquire the nationality; in others, the acquisition of nationality is on easier terms than other foreigners but still discretionary, such as in malawi and nigeria. there are generally five circumstances where inequality in nationality law may lead to statelessness: (a) when the father is stateless; (b) when the father is unknown; (c) when the father is not married to the mother of the child at the time of birth; (d) when the nationality law of the father does not allow him to confer his citizenship to the child; for example, this happens when the child is born abroad; and (e) when 37 the father is unable to take administrative steps to confer his nationality to the child; for example, when the father is dead or unwilling to take any administrative action to confer his nationality to the child in the case where the father has abandoned the family (ujvari, 2017: 107). this article now considers whether the 2017 reforms have removed these potential causes of statelessness in madagascar. on 25 january 2017, malagasy authorities promulgated law no. 2016-38, amending several articles of the nationality code and guaranteeing the equal right of citizens, regardless of their gender, to confer their nationality on their children (republic of madagascar, 2017). later, in july 2020, the malagasy senate unanimously adopted draft law no. 001/2019 that aimed to tackle the persistent forms of discrimination and to provide for concrete solutions to eliminate statelessness in madagascar by 2024 (republic of madagascar, 2020). finally, in 2021, the national assembly introduced a new draft law, no. 001/2021 pl with the objective of reformulating the code on nationality (republic of madagascar, 2021). yet, through a disparaging campaign, a group of opposition parliamentarians reported the debate on this draft law sine die (razafiarison et al., 2022: 14-15). through all these initiatives, madagascar became the first country in africa, since the 2014 unhcr global action plan to end statelessness’s conception (unhcr, 2014), to afford women the same right as men to pass on their nationality to their children, irrespective of marital status. in the words of the unhcr (2017a): “the nationality reform is an encouraging and important step in preventing and reducing statelessness. unhcr will continue our support to the government of madagascar, its parliament and civil society actors to implement the law.” yet madagascar is, in fact, one of the slowest to have adopted these reforms, with most of the other african countries having done so before 2014. the fight to reform the nationality law has been a protracted effort first promoted by women’s rights activists, including the madagascar-based organization, focus development. this fight has been led by individuals, who collectively made an intensive effort to heighten awareness of the significant harm caused by discriminatory nationality laws and the need for reform. mobilization in madagascar had also been reinforced by calls for reform by international human rights bodies, including the committee on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw) (women’s refugee commission, 2017). according to article 9, a combination of articles 17(1) and 18(1) of the french code on nationality (razafiarison et al., 2022: 5, footnote 32) and amending the correspondent article 9 of the original 1960 code on nationality, a child is malagasy if both parents are malagasy. it is noteworthy that, according to the recommendations by institutional organs, this article is considered retroactive, allowing malagasy women to transfer their nationality to their children born before the enforcement of the 2017 reform (razafiarison et al., 2022: 7-8). regarding this law, however, manby (2018: 14) concludes: one step forward, half step back: still a long way to go to end statelessness in madagascar 38 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 the nationality code adopted in madagascar included explicitly discriminatory transitional provisions … the law did not include a provision for the automatic attribution of nationality to the second generation born in the country, whether before or after independence, a departure from the norm for the territories of french west and central africa … however, retaining the validity of article 22 and article 47 of the nationality code, the amended nationality law (republic of madagascar, 2017) still does not permit malagasy women to confer their nationality to their non-national spouses (as malagasy men can). in this regard, article 20 of the nationality code continues to provide that a child born out of wedlock who is legitimized during their minority, acquires nationality only if the father is a national. this provision, based on descent for those born after independence, continues to discriminate based on birth in or out of wedlock. in addition, the general provision of the law on adoption provides for the right of an adoptive child to acquire nationality by declaration, if resident in madagascar for five years, without discrimination based on the gender of the adopting parent (article 17). yet the procedure can be the object of government opposition based on a number of grounds, including lack of integration and mental or physical incapacity (article 18). however, the nationality code additionally still provides for automatic acquisition of nationality through a “légitimation adoptive” if the adopting father is a national (article 21). yet, there is no definition of “légitimation adoptive” and the interpretation of this article is not entirely clear, given the overlap with article 17 (on adoption generally) (manby, 2018: 32, footnote 115). conversely, madagascar provides for the withdrawal of nationality of a child if one parent acquires another nationality and the other does not remain a national, with gender discrimination within the provision (article 48). it is also worth noting that in madagascar – sole among the states belonging to the southern african development community (sadc) – a person has the right to obtain from a court a certificate of nationality that is proof of that status unless overturned by another court (article 87). madagascar also incorporates the civil law concept of “apparent status” – a person’s nationality can be treated as established, and a nationality certificate issued by a court, if they have always been treated as a national, in the absence of proof to the contrary (article 81). moreover, all declarations of nationality must be registered with the ministry of justice; otherwise, they will not be considered valid (article 58). however, all declarations of nationality can be contested by all interested parties (article 61(2)). finally, another provision showing the attempt by malagasy authorities to eliminate gender discrimination concerns the deprivation of nationality, now considered as a personal act, and it does not concern the wife and children of the man whose nationality has been revoked, as it applied before the 2017 reform of the national code (article 52) (republic of madagascar, 2017). 39 discrimination against the karana people historically, madagascar is a country of immigration (rabary-rakotondravony and rakotonanahary, 2015). the most significant wave of migration from india to madagascar took place during the latter half of the nineteenth century, when seafaring trade on the indian ocean became more competitive and many people from india settled in madagascar, especially on the western coast (unhcr, 2017b). although the laws adopted for the attribution of citizenship at independence did not explicitly discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity in the acquisition of citizenship by descent, they were applied in such a way that individuals were often denied citizenship documents by authorities who claimed that their names did not “sound” malagasy. in this regard, harrington (2017: 498) explains: many of the arguments used by those opposed to enacting reforms are quite similar to arguments used in debates regarding immigration policy and expanding access to citizenship more generally. for example, many opposed to reforms express fears regarding the loss of jobs, especially to foreign men, as well as anxiety over potential loss of political power. this was especially the case for the karana people or those with comorian origins (d’orsi, 2017). the karana people, a minority of about 20,000 persons of indopakistani origin, have lived in madagascar for over a century (aikomus, 2017). on the basis of geographic-ethnic discrimination, the karana people were generally not given citizenship when madagascar won independence from france in 1960 because they were not considered to be ethnically malagasy (unhcr, 2017b: 14). racial and ethnic discrimination was, however, present in the provision of the law on foundlings, and remains so within the 2017 reforms. moreover, new article 11 explains that: “1) it is malagasy if the infant born in madagascar from unknown parents presuming that at least one of the two parents is from madagascar […] 4) the infant found in madagascar is presumed having born there until otherwise proven.” in this regard, manby notes, “the law retains the previous restriction of protection to those children where, according to new article 11(2), “one can presume that at least one parent is malagasy,” based on the name, physical characteristics, and other aspects of the child’s environment, opening the door to arbitrary discrimination” (manby, 2018: 22). the majority of the karana people were born in madagascar and they have spent their entire lives on the island. according to mahajan (2020), madagascar also has pockets of minorities, of whom the most visible and successful are the indians, who came across the indian ocean as traders and settled here 150 years ago. yet the indians today are defined by a problem: despite their deep ties to madagascar, most of them are not – and cannot become – citizens. one step forward, half step back: still a long way to go to end statelessness in madagascar 40 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 most karana people live in urban areas, including the capital, antananarivo, and the city of mahajanga on the northwest coast. the fact that the karana people are predominantly muslim, in a country where more than 70% of the population is christian (us department of state, 2022: 1) has contributed to a perception of them as outsiders. the karana people for generations have been very successful in business and many have become wealthy compared to the rest of the malagasy population (razafiarison et al., 2022: 4, 16). this success has further perpetuated the cultural isolation of the karana people in madagascar and in some instances has resulted in targeted attacks against karana communities (razafiarison et al., 2022: 16). preventing the karana people from accessing citizenship disincentivizes some of the wealthiest in the country from investing in its growth (mcinerney, 2014: 183). moreover, the karana people are less likely to seek citizenship in the country through marital paths than in the broader muslim community. the karana people have traditionally married within their own communities, and the children of these marriages thus inherit statelessness. as more people who are stateless have children, the population of individuals in the country who do not have access to malagasy citizenship grows. in this circumstance, the only mechanism for escaping from this cycle is to join in matrimony with a malagasy person. in this way, the children of the marriage can be provided a path to citizenship through the malagasy spouse (mcinerney, 2014: 187). however, within the karana communities there are diverse marriage rules based on socio-religious groups. the most liberal rules are those of the sunni muslims, who can get married within their own community and also within other muslim malagasy communities. some sunni muslim men have married non-muslim women and have produced mixed indo-malagasy children, who are not identified as either indian or karana, and are recognized as malagasy citizens (mcinerney, 2014: 188). one question that arises in relation to the status of the karana people as stateless people, is their possible claim to indian citizenship. the majority of the karana people had their origins in gujarat, on the borders between india and pakistan, but largely fall in what became india at the partition of the territory between india and pakistan at independence in august 1947. they are of mixed hindu and islamic religions – the majority are muslims from the gujarat district of pakistan, while in the indian gujarat, the majority of the population are hindus (republic of india, 2011). within a year of madagascar’s independence in 1960, india established an embassy in antananarivo, which started taking care of the people of indian origin. however, india afforded indian citizenship only to those hindus who desired it. as for the muslims, only a small number of them were recognized as indian citizens; the majority of them were denied indian citizenship. consequently, many people of indian origin in madagascar were left stateless (pirbay, 2007: 282-283). france, the former colonial power, also did not acknowledge those people who had originated from a british territory. according to existing french laws, all inhabitants who were born in madagascar under french rule were recognized as 41 french citizens. indeed, the 1946 constitution of the french fourth republic made madagascar a territoire d’outre-mer (overseas territory) within the french union (republic of france, 1946). the constitution accorded full citizenship to all malagasy parallel with that enjoyed by citizens in france (republic of france, 1946: article 80). moreover, french authorities disregarded the karana people when transferring sovereignty to the malagasy people. it is reasonable to believe that french “advisers” helped with the drafting of the text of the new malagasy law on citizenship given that malagasy legislators referred to the ordonnance no. 45-2447 of the french nationality code (republic of france, 1945), “borrowing” several articles from it. examples are the articles concerning the acquisition of nationality by adoption or the loss of nationality (razafiarison et al., 2022: 5). however, in madagascar, apart from the karana people, there is an unknown number of people belonging to other ethnic groups who are stateless (aikomus, 2017). the fact that some other minority communities are still labeled as “karana sinoa” (the sinoa are descendants of chinese immigrants) reinforces their stigmatization. while not deliberate, individual actions toward the minority communities exacerbate the challenges of statelessness (rakotonindrina, 2012). international law and the role of human rights treaty bodies it is unfortunate that the 1999 protocol to the african charter on human and peoples’ rights on the rights of women in africa (maputo protocol) itself does not challenge these issues. in article 6 (h) (“marriage”), it stipulates that, “a woman and a man shall have equal rights, with respect to the nationality of their children except where this is contrary to a provision in national legislation …” (au, 1999). the specification provided by the last part of the article shows that, in this domain, african countries appropriate the right to have the last word to decide which child is entitled to acquire nationality and which child is not (davis, 2009: 964-965). madagascar has not yet signed the maputo protocol. however, madagascar ratified the 1979 convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw) on 17 march 1989. article 9 of this convention provides for equal rights for men and women in nationality, and stipulates as follows: 1) states parties shall grant women equal rights with men to acquire, change or retain their nationality. they shall ensure in particular that neither marriage to an alien nor change of nationality by the husband during marriage shall automatically change the nationality of the wife, render her stateless or force upon her the nationality of the husband. 2) states parties shall grant women equal rights with men with respect to the nationality of their children (unga, 1979). one step forward, half step back: still a long way to go to end statelessness in madagascar 42 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 legislation is thus required to eliminate gender and marital status from the determination of citizenship (southard, 1996: 36-37). cedaw’s substantive equality provisions provide theoretical and normative tools to challenge traditionalist, cultural, and religious patriarchy and exploitation of women that still occur in many african countries, madagascar included (raday, 2012: 530). in this regard, it is interesting to note that in the first report madagascar submitted to cedaw (1979), the representative of this country who, incidentally, was also a woman (ms rajaonson) affirmed that, in respect of article 9, there were no inequalities in matters of nationality in the country (cedaw, 1994: para 7). in response, the chairperson of the committee (ms tallawy) noted that the malagasy national code provided that children born of a foreign father could claim the nationality of their malagasy mother exclusively once reaching the age of majority. it therefore seemed to her that if the parents of such a child were divorced before the latter attained the age of majority, the child would be denied the right to malagasy citizenship (cedaw, 1994: para 30). additionally, in 2008 the cedaw committee urged madagascar to amend the nationality code, consistent with cedaw’s article 9 (cedaw, 2008: para 25). precedent paragraph 24 reads as follows: while noting that the state party has adopted law no. 2008-017, which authorizes the ratification of the convention on the nationality of married women and is aimed at rectifying the inequality of rights between women and men with respect to nationality, the committee notes with concern that the nationality code does not comply with article 9 of the convention in that it does not allow a malagasy woman married to a foreigner to transmit her nationality to her husband or children on the same basis as a malagasy man married to a foreigner. this recommendation was reiterated in 2014, when the cedaw committee also provided suggestions on the changes in the “draft” of the nationality code – changes that were officially adopted two years later (cedaw, 2014: paras 4-8). the committee was also concerned that 20% of births in the country remained unregistered, increasing the risk of statelessness, and about the difficulties faced by women in ensuring the registration of their children (cedaw, 2015: para 26). that is why the cedaw committee recommended expediting birth registration of all children by simplifying the birth registration procedure. additionally, the committee recommended ensuring the retroactive application of the law in discussion so that all persons in madagascar who were stateless due to the discriminatory law were granted nationality (cedaw, 2015: para 27(b)). furthermore, madagascar adopted both the 1989 united nations convention on the rights of the child (crc) (unga, 1989) – ratified on 19 march 1991, and the 1990 african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc) (au, 1990) – ratified on 30 march 2005. these two legal instruments agree on every child’s 43 right to a nationality. article 7(1) of the crc states, “the child … shall have … the right to acquire a nationality,” and article 6(3) of the acrwc stipulates, “every child has the right to acquire a nationality.” along these lines, article 6 (4) of the acrwc further stipulates: states parties to the present charter shall undertake to ensure that their constitutional legislation recognize the principles according to which a child shall acquire the nationality of the state in the territory of which he has been born if, at the time of the child’s birth, he is not granted nationality by any other state in accordance with its laws. the crc, in the wake of similar guidelines provided by the cedaw, urged madagascar to amend its law on nationality to provide legal protections against statelessness at birth and to allow children adopted by a mother from madagascar and a foreign father to gain the malagasy nationality (crc, 2020: para 20(b)). madagascar is yet to ratify both the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons (cssp) and the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness (crs) (unga, 1961). in this regard, ujvari (2017: 111) explains: according to article 1 of the 1961 convention on reduction of statelessness, a contracting state shall grant its nationality to a person born on its territory who would otherwise be stateless, and according to article 4, a contracting state shall grant nationality to a person, not born in the territory of a contracting state, who would otherwise be stateless, if the nationality of one of his parents at the time of the person’s birth was that of that state. the ratification of the two above legal instruments has also been recommended to madagascar by other governments, as documented by the human rights council (hrc, 2019a: paras 122(3) and 122(9));2 this would tie madagascar to internationally recognized standards of protection. these conventions also provide guidelines for states, with respect to policies that ought to be adopted to minimize statelessness (kohn, 2011). madagascar’s nationality law also has not taken all the steps to remove discrimination against women. for example, malagasy women are still denied the right to confer nationality on spouses, a right that is reserved for malagasy men. in this regard, in the concluding observations on the fourth periodic report of madagascar, the un human rights committee (2017: para 19) appreciated the 2016 reform of the malagasy nationality code but remained concerned that women were 2 para 122(3) reads: “namibia urges madagascar to ratify the united nations statelessness conventions”; para 122(4) reads: “ukraine urges madagascar to accede to the convention on the reduction of statelessness”; para 122(9) reads: “cote d’ivoire urges madagascar to consider ratifying the protocol relating to the status of refugees and acceding to the convention on the reduction of statelessness” (unga, 1961). one step forward, half step back: still a long way to go to end statelessness in madagascar 44 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 still not able to transmit their nationality to a foreign or stateless spouse or to their adoptive children. furthermore, the human rights committee (2017: para 19) advised the malagasy government to implement measures to expedite the revision of all relevant legislation to ensure equality between men and women, including in the areas of nationality. on the other hand, the human rights committee (2017: para 43) found regrettable that madagascar has yet to take any steps to establish an office for stateless persons. finally, the human rights committee was concerned that, owing to the still restrictive effect of the rules on nationality, several persons, like the karana people, and children born in madagascar remain stateless. as such, the human rights committee (2017: para 47) urged the relevant malagasy authorities to ensure that the country’s laws and regulations on nationality address all problems of statelessness. against this backdrop, madagascar has not yet set up procedures for identifying stateless persons (hrc, 2019b: para 113). ironically, article 6(2) of the malagasy constitution plainly stipulates: all individuals are equal before the law and enjoy the same fundamental freedoms protected by the law without discrimination founded on gender, the level of instruction, wealth, origin, religious belief or opinion (republic of madagascar, 2010). an analysis of the national report submitted by madagascar to the hrc in 2019 clearly shows the four priority areas of the general state policy: combating trafficking in persons, irregular migration and forced labor; combating gender-based violence; national statistics; and older persons. it is evident that the elimination of statelessness in the country is not a priority of the malagasy authorities (hrc, 2019a: paras 163169). impacts of statelessness apart from a sense of identity, belonging to a state is crucial to a person’s ability to access education and healthcare and fully participate in political processes. without a nationality, individuals do not have the right to vote or the unrestricted right to enter and live in a country under international law. stateless people, therefore, end up without any residence status or, worse, in prolonged detention. like stateless people worldwide, stateless karana people in madagascar are often unable to access formal education and opportunities for employment, leaving them with little hope of escaping a situation of extreme poverty (unhcr, 2017b: 14). frustration with temporary residency permits, changing documentation requirements, and exorbitant fees are consistently expressed in conversations with the karana people. although they are issued with genuine malagasy passports for a fee to travel abroad for medical treatment, these documents are confiscated 45 upon return. however, most stateless karana people are unable to afford such travel documents (unhcr, 2017b: 17). although stateless people globally face challenges in accessing key rights and services, there is abundant evidence indicating that women in africa face major challenges in accessing those rights and services because of gender discrimination and inequalities. consequently, stateless people’s lived reality is worse than that of citizens, particularly in terms of income levels and access to healthcare. in this scenario, the gendered impact is significant, given that women have less access to education than men and are generally paid less than men, while bearing greater home and childcare responsibilities (beninger and manjoo, 2022: 27). moreover, research indicates that stateless women are particularly vulnerable to violence – both domestic violence and sexual exploitation and trafficking (hrc, 2013: para. 53). prospects for further reform an urgent issue directly linked to the gender and ethnic discrimination remains the conditions of stateless children in madagascar. against this backdrop, in 2016 and 2017, the ministry of justice, in partnership with the unhcr, held public consultations at the provincial level and carried out awareness-raising activities. the report highlights that the malagasy government is aware that any child born to stateless parents will not have a nationality, with the exception if the child’s parents were born in madagascar. unfortunately, it is not clear if the public consultations have had a positive outcome or not (crc, 2022: para 62). since 2019, the country conceived, but not implemented yet, a plan national d’action pour la réduction et l’elimination de l’apatridie à madagascar (pnarea: a national plan of action to reduce and eliminate statelessness in the country). that is why the plan has not been published, yet (razafiarison et al., 2022: 16). in june 2020 the malagasy senate approved an amendment to the code on nationality introducing a new definition of “malagasy nationals” encompassing everyone who was born or arrived in madagascar before 1960 and to their descendants (madagasikara, 2019; citizen rights in africa initiative, 2020; randriamanga, 2020). nevertheless, to date (june 2023), there is no news that this amendment has been concretely incorporated in the code on nationality. one other way to address the situation of stateless persons in madagascar would be to facilitate naturalization, as provided for by article 32 of the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons. article 27 of the nationality code stipulates that naturalization may be granted to aliens fulfilling certain conditions, including discretionary factors such as being in good physical condition, being of good moral character, and assimilated into malagasy society. unfortunately, over the years, the naturalization process proved to be ineffective, presenting a serious problem for those who are stateless and for non-malagasy foreigners hoping to access citizenship (mcinerney, 2014: 187). since its independence (june 1960), only 1,599 foreigners have been naturalized in madagascar and between 1989 and 2020 out of 194 assessed one step forward, half step back: still a long way to go to end statelessness in madagascar 46 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 applications only six naturalizations have been granted (rakotoarivonjy, 2022). in practice, therefore, these groups are unable to access naturalization and even those who are hypothetically eligible for nationality face complications in acquiring documentation and proof of citizenship because of discriminatory administrative practices (mbiyozo, 2019: 16). this inaction is mostly due to electoral reasons: given the bad reputation of karana people among malagasy, political parties do not want to lose consensus being too “generous” toward the karana people, granting them malagasy nationality (razafiarison et al., 2022: 18). conclusion as the unhcr (2015: 23) affirmed, “[s]tateless children … are not asking for special treatment. they are only asking for equal treatment, the chance to have the same opportunities as other children. it is our responsibility to give them this chance.” incidentally, i agree with worster (2019) who argues that there is sufficient state practice with opinio juris to establish an obligation on states to secure nationality, by granting their own nationality if necessary, to otherwise stateless children born in their territory. in this regard, the author explains: [w]e can find that states must grant nationality to stateless children born in their territory, though two exceptions might still be permissible under the law. the first is when a state requires some kind of non-burdensome, nondiscretionary nationality application, as this practice is evidenced in many cases. the second is a situation where the state of birth can definitively secure de jure nationality for the child from another state, as this option has been affirmed as compliance with the human right to a nationality (worster, 2019: 237-238) the reform of the nationality law in africa generally serves to create – in most states – some basic rights to nationality deriving from birth and residence as a child in that country (manby, 2020: 8). there are still many improvements to be made in order to extirpate statelessness in madagascar. this country is still not a party to legal pillars for the abolition of statelessness. most recommendations from the international community place full responsibility for ending statelessness on the government. yet, civil society has the temerity to sometimes reinforce barriers faced by stateless persons, including through community actions tending to marginalize, and often completely exclude, minorities from society. that is why civil society should strive to remove those barriers. among the proposed solutions to end the stateless conditions of the karana people, pirbay (2007: 284) proposes that if malagasy authorities hesitate to confer malagasy nationality to karana children, india should then intervene, having the “moral obligation” to protect its stateless children in madagascar, as a simple gesture of “basic humanity.” however, the best alternative remains giving malagasy 47 citizenship to the karana people. giving the karana people a viable path to citizenship would help to ease some of the social tensions and foster integration. granting them citizenship would also align these business leaders with the growth of madagascar and encourage them to invest in the nation and its future. as madagascar develops, access to citizenship will come to the forefront of the political agenda (mcinerney, 2014: 183). in this regard, there are attempts by the competent authorities in madagascar to still improve the code of nationality. this does not mean that the legislator wants to grant malagasy nationality to foreigners more easily but to solve the most urgent problems linked to statelessness in the country. interestingly, it is believed in the collective imagination that the karana people (and the chinese) without malagasy nationality are rich enough and does not need to be granted another nationality (rakotoarivonjy, 2022). importantly, human rights apply to all persons notwithstanding nationality or immigration status, including stateless persons. additionally, the principle of equality and non-discrimination prohibits any discrimination based on the lack of nationality status (unhcr, 2012: para 21). the unhcr also reminds that the fact that karana people are in their “own country,” in line with what is envisaged by article 12(4) of the international covenant on civil and political rights (unga, 1966),3 imposes a political and moral imperative on the state to facilitate their full integration into the society of madagascar (unhcr, 2012: para 45). madagascar is a party to iccpr since 21 june 1971. the light at the end of the tunnel is still far and treacherous. yet, given the slow but constant progresses that malagasy authorities are making in this domain, i am confident that through the continuous good will of the concerned authorities, madagascar could end the plight of stateless persons in a relatively brief period, giving dignity to all the human beings living on that island. nevertheless, while national authorities and the malagasy population seem to be sensitive and empathetic to end the statelessness derived from gender discrimination, the same cannot be said about the people from indo-pakistani and chinese origin. in madagascar, women’s empowerment in the last decades has become a priority for the authorities (ramamonjisoa, 1993; fencl, 2005; gaye 2020) while non-citizens still suffer various forms of discrimination (us department of state, 2022: 21-22). from all the considerations in this work, it is evident that malagasy women are considered in the country as “100% malagasy” and as such, openings to implement their rights in transmitting malagasy nationality are clear. conversely, communities of foreign origin living in madagascar are still commonly believed, for several reasons (cultural, religious) to be “alien” to the country and, as such, i think that the situation of stateless karana people will take longer to be solved compared to the situation of gender discrimination. 3 article 12(4) of the iccpr stipulates as follows: “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country” (unga, 1966). one step forward, half step back: still a long way to go to end statelessness in madagascar 48 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 acknowledgment i would like to thank the anonymous reviewers who provided very useful comments to previous versions of this article. in addition, i would like to thank professor fatima khan at the university of cape town, professor benyam dawit mezmur, eleanor roosevelt fellow at the harvard law school, human rights program and professor of law at the university of the western cape, and dr charissa fawole, lecturer in the department of public law, university of johannesburg for the opportunity to participate in the webinar “statelessness in africa” where this article derives from. i would also like to express my deepest appreciation to professor hendrik a. strydom at the university of johannesburg who allowed me to work in the best conditions possible to finalize this article. this article is dedicated to ms ambrocia metse seshoka. finally, all opinions expressed and errors made in this article are solely mine i am also grateful to the reviewers for their critical but useful comments on an earlier version of the paper. 49 references adjami, m. 2016. statelessness and nationality in côte d’ivoire – a study for unhcr, december. available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58594d114.html. accessed on 15 june 2023. african commission on human and peoples’ rights (achpr). 2015. the right to nationality in africa. available at: https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/54cb3c8f4. pdf. accessed on 15 june 2023. african union (au). 1990. african charter on the rights and welfare of the child. available at: 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long way to go to end statelessness in madagascar 54 ahmr african human mobility review volume 9 no 3, september-december 2023 2016-038-vs-prop-loi-refonte-code-nat_a4-1-1.pdf. accessed on 15 june 2023. southard, j.l. 1996. protection of women’s human rights under the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. pace international law review, 81(1): 1-90. ujvari, b. 2017. the causes of statelessness. in hungarian yearbook of international law and european law, 1: 105-113. united nations (un). 2020. combined fifth and sixth periodic reports submitted by madagascar under article 44 of the convention, due in 2018. committee on the rights of the child (crc), crc/c/mdg/5-6. united nations (un). 2022. concluding observations on the combined fifth and sixth periodic reports of madagascar, committee on the rights of the child (crc), crc/c/mdg/co/5-6. united nations general assembly (unga). 1954. convention relating to the status of stateless persons (cssp). 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https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/ instruments/convention-rights-child. accessed on 15 june 2023. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2012. guidelines on statelessness no. 3: the status of stateless persons at the national level. hcr/ gs/12/03. available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5005520f2.html. accessed on 15 june 2023. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2014. global action plan to end statelessness: 2014–2024. available at: https://www. unhcr.org/protection/statelessness/54621bf49/global-action-plan-endstatelessness-2014-2024.html. accessed on 15 june 2023. 55 united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2015. i am here, i belong: the urgent need to end childhood statelessness. available at: https:// www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wp-content/uploads/2015-10-statelessreport_ eng16.pdf. accessed on 15 june 2023. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2017a. madagascar: unhcr welcomes new law giving men and women equal rights to transfer nationality to children. available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/ briefing/2017/2/589453e67/madagascar-unhcr-welcomes-new-law-givingmen-women-equal-rights-transfer.html. accessed on 15 june 2023. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). 2017b. “this is our home”: stateless minorities and their search for citizenship. available at: https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wp-content/uploads/unhcr_ en2_2017ibelong_report_epub.pdf. accessed on 15 june 2023. united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr). undated. ending statelessness. available at: https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-weprotect/stateless-people/ending-statelessness. accessed on 15 june 2023. united states (us) department of state. 2022. madagascar 2021 international religious freedom report. available at: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/ uploads/2022/04/madagascar-2021-international-religiousfreedom-report.pdf. accessed on 15 june 2023. united states (us) department of state. 2023. madagascar 2022 human rights reports. available at: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/415610_ madagascar-2022-human-rights-report.pdf. accessed on 15 june 2023. women’s refugee commission. 2017. madagascar reforms its nationality law, guaranteeing mothers’ independent right to confer nationality on children. available at: https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/press-releases/ madagascar-reforms-its-nationality-law-guaranteeing-mothers-independentright-to-confer-nationality-on-children/. accessed 15 june 2023. worster, w.t. 2019. the obligation to grant nationality to stateless children under customary international law. michigan state international law review, 27(3): 441-538. one step forward, half step back: still a long way to go to end statelessness in madagascar 12 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 influence of socio-economic factors on crime among international migrants in south africa a sathiya susuman1and knowledge sithole2 received 04 july 2023 / accepted 22 november 2023 / published 07 may 2024 doi: 10.14426/ahmr.v10i1.1593 abstract the presence of immigrants in south africa has led citizens to believe that migrants are responsible for increased crime rates in the country. this belief is a harmful stereotype that has no basis in reality, as most of the crimes are not committed by the migrants. this study explores the impact of socio-economic factors on crime rates by international migrants in south africa from 2012 to 2017. specifically, it focuses on examining the likelihood and association between two key variables: migrants with no formal education and crime, and unemployed migrants and crime. through chisquare tests and multinomial regression, the study investigated whether these socioeconomic factors drove criminal behavior among the international migrant population. this study obtained data from secondary sources. the study’s findings revealed that unemployment has an impact on migrants and crime rates in south africa. the relationship showed a weak association, attributed to insufficient supporting evidence due to the low statistical power of educational status. the relationship proved to not have a strong association, lacking supporting evidence due to low statistical power on educational status. the level of education among migrants did not play a substantial role in influencing criminal behavior within the south african context. other factors, such as social networks, cultural integration, and individual characteristics, might have a more prominent influence on criminal activities among migrants. however, addressing unemployment issues among international migrants in south africa to mitigate the risk of criminal involvement is crucial. policymakers and stakeholders should focus on developing effective strategies to promote employment opportunities, skills development, and social integration among migrant communities. by addressing these socio-economic factors, it may be possible to reduce crime rates and create a more inclusive society for both migrants and the host population in south africa. keywords: immigration, no education, unemployment, social factors, crime 1 department of statistics and population studies, university of the western cape, south africa. corresponding author  sappunni@uwc.ac.za 2 university of the western cape, south africa. 13 introduction the relationship between crime and immigration is the subject of ongoing academic research, public discourse, and debates. the increasing levels of migration necessitate the investigation of the potential implications of migration on crime rates in host countries. in many parts of south africa, particularly in poorer areas, the presence of migrants has led to xenophobia, resulting in migrants experiencing violent crimes at the hands of locals (niworu, 2018). south africa’s increasing rate of immigration since the country’s transition to democracy in 1994 has evoked concerns from analysts, especially since immigrants have been scapegoated for the unemployment and wider economic crisis in south africa (machinya, 2022). lower-class african immigrants in south africa have faced the worst experiences, becoming victims of xenophobia and violence (kollamparambil, 2019). in such an environment, the safety of international migrants is not guaranteed, as xenophobic attacks can emerge at any moment, posing a danger to their lives. several studies have focused on the impact of immigration on crime in the destination country. adelman et al. (2017) examine the association between immigration, property crimes, and violent crimes over a 40-year period. they observed a population of young immigrants in the low-service sector to ascertain if poverty is linked to an increase in crime committed by international migrants. kubrin et al. (2018) investigated the correlation between immigration and crime rates in southern california, using three approaches – they categorized international migrants according to their ethnicity or race, residential area, and place of origin. the study contrasts these methods with the traditional approach of aggregating all immigrants under a single foreign-born percentage measure. the study emphasizes the significance of disaggregating immigrant groups when analyzing their impact on crime rates. tufail et al.’s (2023) study investigated the possible connection between increased immigration and crime in 30 organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) countries. kollamparambil (2019) investigated immigration, internal migration, and their connection to crime, using a multilevel regression analysis. they observed several factors, include the sex ratio, income inequality, poverty, and youth proportion. international migrants, especially those from african nations, migrate to south africa for better opportunities. however, the country faces significant income inequality, with a stark difference between the wealthy and the poor, exacerbating employment challenges (orthofer, 2016). many migrants are highly motivated to succeed, leaving their places of origin to improve their living standards. unemployment is a major contributor to crime in south africa; it is widely recognized as a factor leading to poverty, and in turn, poverty is associated with increased crime rates. due to high unemployment rates, those lacking the means of survival, may resort to engaging in criminal activities as an alternative source of income (ndlela, 2020). influence of socio-economic factors on crime among international migrants in south africa 14 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 tambo et al. (2016) highlight the challenges that immigrants in south africa face in the employment sector due to unreasonable delays in obtaining work permits from the department of home affairs (dha). these delays often result in qualified candidates losing job opportunities offered by local firms, as migrants cannot provide the necessary documentation. even when their permit application process is completed, migrants may not receive timely notifications on the status of their permits. consequently, some migrants turn to self-employment and the informal sector, which offer little job security and legal protection, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and low-income opportunities. mehmood et al. (2016) and westbrook (2012) argue that migrant exploitation, including low wages, increase crime rates. many immigrants are underpaid, and when they fail to achieve financial success through legitimate means, some may turn to illegal activities to attain it. this population group is often susceptible to various factors, including extreme poverty, unlike citizens who may receive basic income support from the government through programs like the south african social security agency (sassa) grants. in contrast, immigrants may need access to such assistance and are more likely to face economic obstacles. education has always been regarded as a pathway for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds to improve their circumstances and escape poverty. however, studies by duncan and samy (2021), mehmood et al. (2016), and westbrook (2012) highlight that migrants without formal education are more likely to face economic disadvantages in their destination country. limited education can hinder their ability to participate in the labor force, forcing them to engage in illicit activities to survive. furthermore, language proficiency plays a significant role in accessing employment opportunities. when migrants are proficient in the language spoken in their host country, they can effectively communicate and connect with relevant individuals who may help uplift them based on their soft and hard skills. language barriers can limit opportunities for social interaction, access to healthcare, and education. research on the relationship between crime and immigration has yielded complex results, with some studies finding a negative correlation between migrants and crime, while others have found positive associations. for instance, a study by bianchi et al. (2012) in italy found a significant positive relationship between migrants and robbery crimes. similarly, westbrook (2012) conducted a study in spain, which revealed a positive correlation between migrants from certain countries, such as herzegovina, bosnia, georgia, and angola and their involvement in crime. the study also found that male migrants aged 35 to 54 were more likely to be involved in arrest events than spanish citizens. on the other hand, light et al. (2020) found a relatively small proportion of migrant involvement in crimes compared to american citizens, with assault crimes being higher among migrants but lower than those committed by native-born individuals. 15 contrastingly, ozden et al. (2018) found negative results regarding migrant involvement in crime. their study in malaysia showed that migrants were less likely to be involved in various types of crime, including violent and property crimes. similarly, tufail et al. (2023), in an investigation from 1988 to 2018, found no positive correlation between migrants and crime rates. they suggested that changes in crime policies and government administration might explain why migrants are less likely to engage in criminal activities in the investigated oecd countries. papadopoulos (2014) explored the connection between migrants in wales and england and property crimes, by ensuring that neither migrants nor citizens were underreported in crime records. using self-report data from the crime and justice system survey, the study revealed that migrants’ crimes were underreported, albeit to a lesser extent than crimes committed by citizens. the study also notes that the relationship between property crimes and migrants varied across different ethnic groups and regions in the united kingdom (uk). furthermore, adelman et al. (2017) found a connection between an increase in the migrant population and a decrease in violent and property crimes. their study suggests that immigrants generally do not engage in illegal activities. however, their presence alters the structure of opportunities for native-born individuals, leading to a decrease in migrant crimes and an increase in crimes committed by citizens. in summary, this study suggests that the relationship between socio-economic factors, such as education and employment, and crime rates among international migrants in south africa warrants more thorough investigation. understanding these dynamics can inform targeted policies and interventions to address the challenges faced by migrants and promote social cohesion and safety in the host country. additionally, research on the relationship between crime and immigration has yielded mixed results, highlighting the need for nuanced analysis that considers various factors, such as country-specific contexts and changes in government policies. data and methodology this study accounts for migrants between the ages of 15 and 64. several other studies indicate that people of working age are more prone to engaging in crimes, which made this population group worthy of investigation. due to the availability of data from the study’s primary sources, the researchers selected the following five provinces for inclusion in the study: kwazulu-natal, limpopo, mpumalanga, western cape, and eastern cape. based on the study’s aim, it investigated the socio-economic factors impacting international immigrants to determine whether these factors influence members of the population group to engage in illegal activities or not. the study measures three social factors as variables – two independent variables and one dependent variable; crime is a dependent variable, while no education and unemployment of migrants are independent variables. the researchers compiled data for migrants’ labor-force status and education to compare rates of connections of immigrants with no formal education and unemployed immigrants to crime influence of socio-economic factors on crime among international migrants in south africa 16 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 rates. study variables are coded as follows: employment status (0: not employed, 1: employed), education status (0: not educated, 1: educated), and crime type (0: no crime, 1: contact crime, 2: property crime, and 3: other serious crime). the study’s total sample size is 40 for the educational status variable and 30 for the employment status. the study sample was determined by the available secondary sources from which data was captured, which was presented in the form of infographics and reports. furthermore, these sources do not present the data on crime statistics, migrants’ employment status, and educational status at the individual level, but as aggregated data. this study obtained quantitative data from statistics south africa (stats sa, 2019) and the south african police report (saps, 2017). data analysis chi-square test for independence mchugh (2013) states that a chi-square is a non-parametric statistical analysis that tests the association between categorical variables. in this study, the chi-square aims to test the association between the employment status of migrants and educational status force on crime. the study consists of two hypothesis tests: the first hypothesis is educational status and crime h0: there is no significant association between migrants with no formal education, educated to engage in crime. the alternative hypothesis is h1: there is a significant association between migrants with no formal education, educated to engage in crime. the second hypothesis for employment status and crime, h0: there is no significant association between unemployed migrants and crime. h1: there is a significant association between unemployed and employed migrants to engage in crime. the test is performed under the significant level of α ≤ 0,05. df = (c-1) × (r-1) in order to calculate the degree of freedom, the number of columns excluding the total cells are subtracted by one, similar to the number of rows subtracted by one, excluding the row total cell; then multiply the number of columns by the number of rows. to test the association between educational status and crime, employment status and crime, critical value is observed at x2 calculated value; therefore ≤ x2 2; α:0,05 is the acceptance region. x2 calculated value > x2 2; α:0,05 is a rejection region. critical values 2 α;0,05 = 5,991 3 α;0,05 = 7,815 6 α;0,05 = 12,592 the expected frequency ei = (ri × ci)/ ∑o 17 whereas: ri is the sum in row section ci is the sum in column section ∑o is the sum of observations in a contingency table chi-square statistics x2 = ∑(oi-ei)2/ei to determine the chi-square statistics, observed frequency (oi) will be subtracted by the expected value (ei) and then divided by expected value (ei). the x2 statistics and x2 critical value determine the decision rule; if x2 statistic > x2 critical value, the h0 for migrants’ engagement in crime is driven by social factors is rejected; and if x2 statistic is ≤ x2 then we accept the h0. multinomial logistic regression multinomial logistic regression (mlr) is the statistical analysis that handles data consisting of categorical dependent variables that carry two or more of the dummy variables. referring to the study, the crime type variable consists of three dummy variables, as portrayed from variable description. statistical analysis can accommodate both continuous, nominal variable and have interaction to predict the outcome of dependent variable. p (y = k | x) = exp (β 0k + xβ k) / ∑ j=1^m exp (β 0j + xβ j) application of the multinomial logistic regression p (crime type = k |education status, employment status) = exp (β 0k + education status β1 + employment status β2)/ 1 + exp (b0 k + education status + employment status) where: p (y = k|x) = is the probability of crime type variable equal to categorical k, given education status and employment status b 0k = intercept of the categorical k xβ k = linear of the coefficients for education status and employment status m is number of dummy variables of crime type (contact crime (0), property crime (1) or other serious crime (2)) influence of socio-economic factors on crime among international migrants in south africa 18 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 conceptual framework source: bianchi et al. (2012). after reviewing several studies on crime and immigration, bianchi et al.’s (2012) framework proved suitable for application to the study. this conceptual framework (2012: 4) demonstrates how the relationship between crime and immigration influences the increase in criminal offenses. their conceptual framework indicates some of the factors leading immigrants to engage in criminal offenses, including low income. bianchi et al. (2012: 4) maintain that low-income earners are likely to partake in illegitimate business activities to earn surplus income to maintain their needs. they also aver that migrants with low educational backgrounds are likely to be associated with committing crimes, since the opportunity to participate in the labor force is low. furthermore, migrants’ demographic characteristics such as age and gender, as well as their cultural characteristics, are considered to have an impact on crime. moreover, young migrant males are likely to be suspected of involvement in criminal activities in destination countries. main findings since the international literature is conflicted on this topic, there is no clear evidence that immigrants are the major contributors to crime in south africa. however, if politicians in south africa genuinely wish to address the perceived crime problem immigration low income/ salary crime demographic characteristics labor market competition 19 (among politicians and many citizens), then they should address several factors referred to in international literature that contribute to immigrant criminality in other countries. results international migrant profile the data presented in table 1 provides valuable insights into immigration rates, employment status, and the level of education among the working-age population group in south africa. the table compares the data from the labour market outcomes report (stats sa, 2019) conducted in 2012 and 2017, allowing us to observe any changes and trends over this period. regarding immigration rates, south africa experienced an increase from 3.9% in 2012 to 5.3% in 2017. this indicates a rise in the number of immigrants entering the country during this period. when considering gender, the majority of immigrants were male, accounting for 58.3% in 2012 and 55.8% in 2017. however, the proportion of female immigrants also increased from 41.7% in 2012 to 44.2% in 2017. overall, the total number of immigrants rose significantly from 1,333,107 in 2012 to 1,984,392 in 2017, highlighting the growing diversity of the working-age population in south africa. examining employment status, the table reveals important insights. the percentage of employed migrants decreased slightly from 84% in 2012 to 81.4% in 2017. this suggests that employment opportunities may have become slightly scarcer for migrants during this period. the rate of underemployment, indicating individuals working in jobs below their skill level or not using their full potential, increased from 3% to 4.8%. this trend is concerning, as it implies that a greater proportion of migrants may be experiencing job dissatisfaction or economic challenges. furthermore, the table highlights the prevalence of informal employment among migrants. in 2012, 33.9% of employed migrants were engaged in informal work, which decreased slightly to 29.3% in 2017. informal employment typically needs more legal protection and regulation, often leading to low wages and job insecurity. therefore, the high proportion of migrants involved in informal employment suggests challenges in accessing formal employment opportunities or decent work conditions (see table 1). influence of socio-economic factors on crime among international migrants in south africa 20 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 table 1: immigration rate, employment rate, and education levels of the working-age population in south africa source: adapted from stats sa (2019). the unemployment rate among migrants also increased from 15.6% in 2012 to 18.4% in 2017. this indicates a rise in joblessness among this population group, which can have severe implications for their well-being and economic stability. high unemployment rates can lead to social and economic disparities, potentially exacerbating social factors that may push individuals toward engaging in criminal activities. analyzing the level of education among migrants, the data highlights both positive and concerning trends. the percentage of migrants with no formal education decreased from 6.6% in 2012 to 4.5% in 2017, indicating progress in educational attainment. however, the proportion of individuals with less than primary completed education increased from 8.3% to 10.5% during the same period. this suggests that while some migrants are advancing in education, a significant proportion still faces barriers to accessing higher levels of education. regarding both completed and incomplete secondary education, the data shows a slight increase in the proportion of migrants with incomplete secondary education, from 38.1% in migration at national level 2012 2017 unadjusted % unadjusted % males 777,202 58.3 1,150,948 55.8 females 555,906 41.7 827,492 44.2 total 1,333,107 100 1,984,392 100 employed 1,125,142 84.4 1,615,295 81.4 underemployed 43,993 3.3 95,251 4.8 informal employment rate 451,924 33.9 581,427 29.3 unemployed 207,865 15.6 365,128 18.4 no education 87,985 6.6 89,298 4.5 less than primary completed 110,648 8.3 208,361 10.5 primary completed 81,320 6.1 123,032 6.2 secondary not completed 507,914 38.1 775,897 39.1 secondary completed 349,274 26.2 480,223 24.2 tertiary 195,967 14.7 305,595 15.4 21 2012 to 39.1% in 2017. on the other hand, the proportion of migrants who completed secondary education decreased from 26.2% to 24.2%. this indicates a potential gap in educational opportunities and challenges in completing secondary education among migrants. in contrast, there was a positive trend in tertiary education, with an increase from 14.7% in 2012 to 15.4% in 2017. this suggests improving access to higher education among migrants, which is crucial for enhancing employment prospects and socio-economic mobility. overall, the data from table 1 highlights various challenges and opportunities faced by migrants in south africa. it underscores the importance of addressing employment-related issues such as underemployment, informal employment, and unemployment. to promote inclusive laborforce participation, policymakers should focus on creating more employment opportunities, removing barriers to employment, and supporting entrepreneurship among all population groups, irrespective of citizenship status. additionally, the data emphasizes the significance of education as a pathway to socio-economic advancement. efforts should be made to address educational disparities, promote access to quality education, and support individuals in completing higher levels of education. this can be achieved through targeted interventions, such as educational programs and initiatives that specifically cater to the needs of migrant communities. moreover, addressing extreme poverty and providing social support, including affordable housing, can play a crucial role in reducing desperation that may increase the possibility of migrants engaging in criminal activities. level of education among migrants education plays a crucial role in an individual’s development and opportunities. the level of education and skills acquired can determine one’s access to employment. table 1 presents the migration rates by the level of education obtained in south africa. the data shows that the rate of individuals who had never engaged in formal education or did not complete primary education, stood at 14.6% in 2012 and increased slightly to 15% in 2017, indicating a gradual increase of 0.4%. in 2012, the population of those who completed primary school education had the lowest rate at 6.1%, which increased marginally to 6.2% in 2017. migrants without secondary education accounted for a significant proportion compared to other educational levels. most migrants had dropped out of school, resulting in a rate of 38.1% in 2012 and 39.1% in 2017. similarly, those who had completed secondary education also constituted a significant proportion, ranking second highest behind those with no secondary education, with rates of 26.2% in 2012 and 24.2% in 2017. these statistics indicate that migrants faced barriers to secondary education, leading to high dropout rates. furthermore, the data showed that 14.7% of migrants held tertiary education qualifications (diploma, degree, honors, master’s, and phd) in 2012. this rate increased by 0.7% in 2017, the second-lowest increase compared to those who influence of socio-economic factors on crime among international migrants in south africa 22 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 completed primary school education. the lower educational-attainment rates among migrants can be attributed to financial constraints, such as a lack of funding opportunities, as well as social factors, such as difficulties in the transferability of credentials and the validation of legal particulars, such as permits. unemployment is a significant social factor that can push citizens and migrants to engage in illegal activities. table 1 provides information on the employment status of migrants in south africa. in 2012, 84% of working-age migrants were employed, but this employment rate decreased by 2.6% in 2017. out of the overall rate in 2012, 3% of the population was classified as underemployed, and this rate increased by 1.8% in 2017. the population group employed in the informal sector dominated with a rate of 33.9% in 2012, but by 2017, this rate had dropped by 4.6%. a possible factor is the decrease in demand for informal-sector work and an increase in international migrants with higher levels of education during 2012 and 2017. the informal sector needs more legal regulation, resulting in unstructured working hours and income not determined by the number of hours worked (ilo, 2015). both the population groups employed in the informal sector and those underemployed are more likely to face challenges related to low incomes. as shown in table 1, unemployment among migrants in south africa has increased from 15.6% to 18.4% over the last five years, indicating a rise of 2.8%. this is a concerning trend that suggests a potential threat to the well-being of migrants. the overall employment statistics highlight migrants as a group that experiences employment-related challenges, including low income and underemployment, as these rates gradually increase. migrants’ occupation by level of education figure 1 provides an overview of the different types of occupations based on the level of education among migrants. in 2012, 3% of migrants with primary education were employed in professional occupations, but this rate decreased by 1% in 2017. professional work in this category included roles such as child care, delivery drivers, and security guards. the rate of migrants employed as clerks was 15% in 2012, gradually decreasing to 12% in 2017, indicating a 3% decrease. elementary occupations, which require minimal qualifications, were the most common among migrants with primary education, with rates of 73% in 2012 and 70% in 2017. these occupations often included street vendors. overall, the rates for almost all occupations gradually decreased from 2012 to 2017. however, the statistics for domestic occupations showed an increase from 9% to 16%, with a growth rate of 7% over the last five years (see figure 1). 23 figure 1: immigrants' occupation by level of education source: adapted from stats sa; labour market outcomes of migrant populations in south africa, http://www,statssa,gov,za/publications/02-11-04/02-11-042017,pdf for migrants with secondary education, all occupations experienced a gradual increase from 2012 to 2017. the rates of professional and clerical occupations increased by 3%, with professional occupations increasing from 11% to 14% and clerical occupations increasing from 24% to 27%. elementary occupations remained dominant, with a rate of 54% in 2012 and 58% in 2017. domestic occupations had the lowest rate among migrants with secondary education, with a rate of 10% in 2012 and 11% in 2017. these rates highlight the disparity in opportunities between those with lower educational levels and those with at least secondary education. migrants with primary education were more likely to face social factors such as low salaries due to their prevalence in elementary occupations. 3 15 73 9 11 24 54 10 73 14 12 12 12 70 16 14 27 58 11 75 18 7 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 pr of es si on al c le rk s el em en ta ry o cc up at io n d om es tic w or k pr of es si on al c le rk s el em en ta ry o cc up at io n d om es tic w or k pr of es si on al c le rk s el em en ta ry o cc up at io n d om es tic w or k primary secondary tertiary 2012 2017 influence of socio-economic factors on crime among international migrants in south africa 24 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 figure 2: crime by migrant education and employment status in south africa source: adapted from statssa, 2017, labour market outcomes of migrant populations in south africa, and saps 2017. migrants with higher levels of education had a higher probability of being employed in professional occupations compared to those with secondary and primary education. for migrants with tertiary education, 73% were in professional occupations in 2012, and this rate increased to 75% in 2017, with a growth difference of 2%. in contrast, elementary occupations were less common among migrants with tertiary education, accounting for 12% in 2012 and decreasing to 7% in 2017. only 1% of migrants with tertiary education experienced employment challenges in 2012, and this rate declined to 0% in 2017. the chi-square test examined the relationships between immigration rate, employment status, education levels, sex, and age group among the working-age population in south africa. notably, the educational status displayed a significant association (p=0.05) with crime, particularly among the non-educated segment. employment status also significantly correlated (p=0.01) with crime, particularly among the unemployed. however, the study found no substantial associations between sex or age groups with crime (p>0.05). these results suggest that education and employment status influence crime rates within the working-age population in south africa. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 limpopo eatern cape kwazulu-natal mpumalanga western cape limpopo eastern cape kwazulu-natal mpumalanga western cape 2012 2017 formally educated not formally educated employed unemployed other serious crime contact crime property crime 25 table 2: chi-square test results: relationships between immigration rate, employment rate, and education levels among the working-age population in south africa source: adapted from stats sa (2019). the multiple logistic regression analysis investigated the influence of immigration rate, employment status, and education levels on contact crime and property crime among south africa’s working-age population. the findings show that employment status exhibits a statistically significant association (p=0.04) with contact crime. specifically, the odds ratio suggests that being employed slightly increases the likelihood of contact crime by 1.273 times compared to unemployment. however, education levels did not significantly correlate with contact crime (p>0.05). for property crime, none of the variables reached statistical significance. it implies that employment status may play a role in contact crime within this population, but further investigation might be needed to understand its nuanced impact. no crime contact crime property crime total value df p-value variables n n educational status not educated 14 5 1 20 7,758 3 0,05 educated 18 1 1 20 total 32 6 2 40 employment status unemployed 5 3 2 10 8,813 2 0,01 employed 19 1 0 20 total 24 4 2 30 sex females 18 1 1 20 2,273 2 0,52 males 14 4 2 20 total 32 5 3 40 age group 15 to 29 10 2 0 12 6,13 6 0,41 30 to 49 13 1 2 16 50 to 64 9 2 1 12 total 32 5 3 40 influence of socio-economic factors on crime among international migrants in south africa 26 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 table 3: multiple logistic regression analysis of immigration rate, employment rate, and education levels among the working-age population group in south africa the reference category is other serious crime source: adapted from stats sa (2019). discussion in order to draw meaningful results, the researchers used a chi-square test analysis to test association and independence between variables. the study observed two hypotheses h0: there is no significant association between migrants with no formal education, educated to engage in crime. the alternative hypothesis h1: there is significant association between migrants with no formal education, educated to engage in crime. the second hypothesis for employment status and crime, h0: there is no significant association between unemployed migrants and crime. h1: there is no significant association between unemployed and employed migrants to engage in crime. the education variable reveals that the likelihood of migrants with no formal education and those with formal education to take part in illegal activities is not determined by the status of education one possesses. the calculated value (7,758) variable estimates of coefficient se coefficient wald p-value odds ratio contact crime -1,967 2,25 0,764 0,38 age -0,328 0,291 1,272 0,26 0,72 educational status 0,284 0,263 1,167 0,28 1,328 no education 0,002 0,053 0,002 0,97 1,002 educated -0,238 0,3 0,631 0,43 0,788 employment status 0,242 0,119 4,114 0,04 1,273 unemployed 0,032 0,391 0,594 0,44 0,74 employed -0,0154 0,199 0,597 0,44 0,857 property crime -3,378 2,337 2,089 0,15 age -0,024 0,266 0,008 0,93 0,977 educational status 0,0272 0,27 1,009 0,32 0,315 not educated -2,329 1,67 0,968 1 0,097 educated -0,067 0,083 0,427 0,99 4,3 employment status -0,284 0,12 2,433 0,12 0,119 unemployed 0,02 1,212 0,008 0,93 4,08 employed -0,465 0,032 0,173 0,68 6,19 27 appeared to be smaller than chi-square critical value (7,815); this implies that the study failed to reject the null hypothesis. however, the results on employment status and crime seem to be associated – migrant involvement in crimes is determined by their employment status; chi-square critical value (7,815) is smaller compared to calculated value (8,812). this implies that migrants who are employed are not likely to take part in crime-related activities. the sex and age group variables appeared to be not statistically significant. most of the results illustrated by the multinomial regression appeared to be not statistically significant. when observing the age variable under contact crime, it reveals that an increase by one year among the observed population, the likelihood of engaging in contact crime decreased by 0,328. when observing the educational variable, there is no difference in crime engagement. as the number of migrants with or without education increases or decreases, crime would remain constant, indicating that education clearly has no impact on their likelihood to engage in contact crime. the employment variable appeared to be statistically significant (p-value= 0,043) and the variable has a negative coefficient (-0,242). this signifies that as migrants become employed, their likelihood of engaging in contact crimes decreases. when observing variables from the property crime model, all the variables are not statistically significant. property crime seems to not be impacted by the educational status, similar to the results of contact crime. the study conducted by papadopoulos (2014) in the united states of america unveiled negative results on migrant involvement in property crimes. the study uncovered negative results regarding migrant involvement in violent crimes in the uk. it found that reports of migrant involvement were more accurate and less frequent than those of native citizens. this study had certain limitations that should be considered. firstly, due to data limitations, the study did not include undocumented migrants in the investigation. this omission may affect the overall understanding of the impact of social factors on this particular group. additionally, the study relied on a small sample size, which presented challenges in analyzing the variables and testing the association and likelihood between migrants’ educational status and crime. the statistical power needed to be higher, resulting in non-significant results in the analysis of immigrants’ educational status, employment status, and some of the demographic characteristics (age and sex). future research endeavors should explore these associations in more depth to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing crime patterns. conclusion the study aimed to examine the impact of social factors on migrants’ involvement in crime. the findings from table 1 and figure 2 revealed high rates of individuals with no secondary school education among migrants, as well as a significant level of unemployment. the relationship between social factors and crime among migrants influence of socio-economic factors on crime among international migrants in south africa 28 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 varied across different provinces. access to secondary education emerged as a significant social factor affecting migrants. however, the correlation table indicated that immigrants facing barriers in education did not contribute significantly to the increase in crime rates. on the other hand, the study observed a significant association between unemployment and involvement in crime among migrants. recommendations based on the findings discussed above, this study offers the following recommendations: • address the issue of limited access to education among migrants: efforts should be made to provide educational opportunities and support systems, particularly at the secondary level, to ensure that migrants have the necessary skills and qualifications to secure employment. • promote an inclusive labor force: efforts should be made to create more employment opportunities and remove unnecessary delays in work permit processing by the department of home affairs that hinder migrants’ access to employment. by ensuring equal opportunities for all population groups, regardless of their citizenship status, policymakers can reduce barriers to employment and foster a more inclusive society. • support entrepreneurship and sponsorship: the relevant authorities and bodies should implement programs and initiatives that support and sponsor individuals, including migrants who are interested in starting their own businesses. by encouraging entrepreneurship, the relevant stakeholders can empower migrants to contribute to the economy and create opportunities for success. • establish social support systems: it is crucial to establish robust social support systems that assist families experiencing extreme poverty, including migrants. access to affordable housing, financial aid, and other forms of support can alleviate the desperation that may lead some individuals engaging in criminal activities. these recommendations aim to promote inclusivity, support entrepreneurship, and provide social assistance. by implementing these measures, the state can create a more supportive environment for migrants, reduce the factors that may drive them to engage in crime, and maximize their potential contributions to society. funding the authors declare that there is no conflict of interest to disclose. author contributions the study’s conception and design were a collaborative effort involving both authors. knowledge sithole was responsible for data preparation and performed the analysis. knowledge sithole and sathiya susuman appunni jointly wrote the 29 initial draft of the manuscript. both authors participated in reviewing and approving the final version of the manuscript. conflict of interest the authors have no conflict of interest to report. ethical approval the authors disclose that all the accepted ethical guidelines and requirements were adhered to, and there is nothing to report regarding live subjects. influence of socio-economic factors on crime among international migrants in south africa 30 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 1, january-april 2024 references adelman, r., reid, l.w., markle, g., weiss, s. and jaret, c. 2017. urban crime rates and the changing face of immigration: evidence across four decades. journal of ethnicity in criminal justice, 15(1): 52-77. https://doi.org/10.1080/1537793 8.2016.1261057. bianchi, m., buonanno, p. and pinotti, p. 2012. do immigrants cause crime? journal of the european economic association, 10(6): 1318-1347. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1542-4774.2012.01085.x. duncan, h. and samy, y. 2021. conclusion: will canada’s immigration policy take an international turn? in samy, y. and duncan, h. 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inequality, and economic growth. remittances are crucial in achieving these goals, especially in developing countries. by directly supporting households, remittances help reduce poverty and food insecurity, improve access to healthcare and education and bolster financial stability. strengthening policies to facilitate safe, affordable remittances aligns with sdg targets and empowers families to break the poverty cycle, contributing to sustainable development at the community level. recent migration studies reveal that food remittances are essential to achieving the sdg goals, mainly poverty reduction at the household level and the nutrition security of poor households in southern africa. the covid-19 pandemic profoundly disrupted the mechanisms and pathways through which international migrants transfer food remittances to their home countries. in the global south, recent studies have highlighted the expansion of digital-mobile technology. however, in southern africa, digital food remittances are still under-researched. this paper is based on a mixed-methods study whose aim is to contribute to the academic and policy discussion on food remittances by examining the impact of the covid-19 pandemic lockdowns introduced by the south african and zimbabwean governments on the nature and volume of cross-border food remittance flows between the two countries. the article begins by assessing the characteristics of food remittance transfers during the pandemic. it then highlights key lessons learned regarding the role of various transfer channels amid significant disruptions. finally, the discussion pivots to the implications of mobile and digital technology-based channels for the food remittance market, which primarily operates within informal financial ecosystems. this examination underscores the transformative potential of technological advancements in reshaping 1 institute for social development, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa. corresponding author  stsithole@uwc.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1384-9567 2 institute for social development, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5556-9681 3 department of geography, environmental studies and tourism, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7435-005x 35 the dynamics of remittance flows during times of crisis. a key finding is that digitalmobile technologies in cross-border food remittances promote financial and digital inclusion and offer swift, accessible (particularly during the pandemic-induced disruptions of informal channels), reliable, and convenient ways to remit food, which is crucial for food and nutrition security. the insights gained from this paper underscore the need for policymakers to support and enhance the integration of digital-mobile technologies within the food remittance framework. by doing so, stakeholders can ensure improved food and nutrition security for families reliant on these vital transfers, thus contributing to broader socio-economic stability in the region. keywords: food remittances, digital technology, mobile transfers, food security, covid-19, sustainable development goals, zimbabwean diaspora support introduction the sustainable development goals (sdgs) represent a universal call to action to tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges, including poverty reduction, inequality, and sustainable economic growth (allen et al., 2018). launched by the united nations (un) in 2015, the 17 sdgs provide a roadmap for countries to achieve a fairer, more sustainable future by 2030. goal 1 focuses on eradicating poverty in all forms, recognizing that lifting individuals out of poverty improves overall well-being and economic stability. goal 10 aims to reduce inequalities within and among countries, promoting social inclusion and justice (esiri et al., 2024). additionally, goal 8 emphasizes sustainable economic growth by fostering decent work opportunities, entrepreneurship, and innovation (zakari et al., 2022). together, these targets aim to create resilient, inclusive societies where prosperity and development are accessible to all. for the most vulnerable segments of society, remittances serve as a catalyst for change and are essential to achieving the sdgs (malecki, 2021; burger, 2023; barkat et al., 2024; mabrouk, 2024). according to the 2021 international fund for agricultural development (ifad) report, remittances help achieve sdgs 1–8, 12, and 13. since a 10% increase in per capita remittances could reduce the percentage of a nation’s population living in poverty by 3.5%, this impact includes the eradication of poverty (burger, 2023:1). additional effects include eliminating hunger, promoting health and well-being, ensuring clean water and sanitation, promoting gender equality, and providing affordable and clean energy. remittances also support climate action, promote responsible production and consumption, guarantee decent work, and boost the economy (barkat et al., 2024). remittances can also provide financial resources during economic shocks, crises, and pandemics. on 11 march 2020, the world health organization (who, 2020) officially declared the covid-19 crisis as a “pandemic” following a sharp surge in cases and deaths globally. in response, countries across the global north and south implemented public health lockdowns and restrictions to mitigate the virus’ sustainable development goals and food remittances 36 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 spread and minimize its devastating impact (ataguba, 2020; benítez et al., 2020; primc and slabe-erker, 2020; fauzi and paiman, 2021; onyeaka et al., 2021). south africa and zimbabwe were no exceptions. in march 2020, the disaster management act and the covid-19 prevention, containment, and treatment order were enacted, respectively, to contain and mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. the measures disrupted both domestic and international mobility. the lockdowns, mobility restrictions and disruptions drastically affected migrants and the transfer of remittances, especially the use of informal channels (crush et al., 2021; sithole et al., 2022, 2024a; crush and tawodzera, 2023). the covid-19 pandemic disrupted the channeling of remittances, a crucial source of cash, food, and other goods for many poor households in the global south. migrants were compelled to rely on formal and digital-mobile remittance channels due to mobility restrictions, lockdowns, travel bans, border closures, and limited access to informal channels, commonly based on in-person transactions. these disruptions arose from public health measures implemented to contain the spread of the virus, including social distancing, curfews, mobility restrictions, travel bans and border closures. with informal channels constrained, many migrants adopted digital platforms and mobile technologies for remittances, allowing them to evade physical barriers and continue supporting families despite the pandemic and lockdown limitations. the disruptions caused by the covid-19 pandemic were initially expected to significantly reduce the flow of remittances globally. however, contrary to these predictions, remittance flows demonstrated remarkable resilience in 2020, the first year of the covid-19 pandemic, with both formal (including digital) and informal channels playing a considerable role. according to the world bank (2021) data, in 2020, remittance flows to lowand middle-income countries recorded a modest 1.7% decrease to $549 billion. in some regions in the global south, by “defying the odds” in asia and africa, countries such as bangladesh, bhutan, comoros, the gambia, kenya, and pakistan in 2020 all recorded an upsurge in remittance flows of more than 10% compared to the previous year (kpodar et al., 2023). similarly, mbiba and mupfumira (2022) note that migrants from zimbabwe were “rising to the occasion” by sending remittances consistently during the pandemic. for example, they show that zimbabwean migrants in the united kingdom (uk) transferred more remittances than in previous years, changed their consumption behaviors, worked extended hours, and even took out loans to support families and relatives back home. in addition to cash remittances, studies highlight the significance of in-kind transfers – such as food – that played a crucial role during the pandemic. for instance, zimbabwean migrants in south africa transfer food remittances to support migrantsending households, emphasizing the importance of non-cash remittances (sithole et al., 2022, 2024a; sithole, 2023). the covid-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital technologies, enhancing automation and digitization in daily life, from remote work and virtual communication to contact tracing and tracking covid-19 37 infections (datta and guermond, 2020). these shifts demonstrate how the pandemic disrupted informal remittance pathways and enhanced digital innovation in financial transactions and virtual interactions. the covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns significantly disrupted food systems, supply chains and consumers’ conventional purchasing habits globally. mobility restrictions, curfews, and restricted access to familiar food sources, such as supermarkets, food outlets, vendors, and informal markets, increased the adoption of contactless online food purchasing. consumers increasingly depended on digital platforms, mobile apps, and online services to purchase essential goods. businesses, in turn, adopted e-procurement systems to connect with farmers and processors and expanded e-commerce operations to meet changing consumer demands (reardon et al., 2021a, 2021b). in asian countries such as china and thailand, the lockdowns and the closure of wet markets drove the rapid growth of digital commerce, with increased use of smartphones and mobile apps facilitating online food purchases through the use of food delivery apps (chotigo and kadono, 2021; liang et al., 2022). similarly, in latin america and africa, public health regulations and amplified distress about safety and hygiene accelerated the adoption of online food buying and delivery apps (zanetta et al., 2021; bannor and amponsah, 2024). in south africa, consumers embraced the online services of retail supermarkets and engaged more frequently in online shopping to cope with the pandemic and restricted access to physical stores (naicker et al., 2021). the covid-19 pandemic considerably disrupted informal remittance channels, accelerating the adoption of financial technology (fintech) and increasing the use of digital remittance channels. ratha et al. (2021), using world bank data, show that international remittances transmitted via mobile devices rose to us$ 12.7 billion in 2020, indicating a 65% increase compared to 2019. dinarte-diaz et al. (2022) indicate that remittances were strikingly transferred during the pandemic “neither by land nor by sea” but via banks, digital wallets, mobile money, e-money accounts, and other formal financial channels. digital remittance platforms, including online services, mobile apps, and smartphone technologies have transformed how remittances are transferred. digital and mobile technologies have secure, speedy, dependable, and affordable services to send remittances compared to banking systems, enabling real-time transactions that are accessible and efficient. proponents of fintech innovations and telecommunication companies highlight that digital transactions are not only faster and more efficient but also cheaper, ensuring that more funds reach recipients conveniently (datta and guermond, 2020). the expanding prominence of digital remittances was underscored on the un’s international day of family remittances (idfr), observed annually on 16 june. in 2023, the theme emphasized the role of digital and financial inclusion in enhancing the impact of remittances and helping migrant families achieve their sdgs (un, 2023). the idfr celebrates the critical contributions of sustainable development goals and food remittances 38 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 migrants toward improving the livelihoods of their families and acknowledges how digital remittance pathways support households by making financial services more inclusive and accessible, especially in rural, remote, and underserved areas. research highlights the crucial role of mobile and digital technologies in remittance services, particularly in promoting financial inclusion among vulnerable groups, such as the unbanked, undocumented migrants, and communities in rural or remote african regions (mutsonziwa and maposa, 2016; nyanhete, 2017; kitimbo, 2021; tembo and okoro, 2021). remittance transfers, in the context of this study, have become increasingly significant, particularly in the context of the rising migration from zimbabwe to south africa in the last two decades. the increased migration has been caused by a mix of socio-economic predicaments in zimbabwe, including high unemployment, currency instability, hyperinflation, declining agricultural outputs, food insecurity, and political instability. recent data have indicated that south africa hosts an estimated 2.4 million international migrants, with over one million zimbabwean migrants, making zimbabwe the largest migrant-sending country in south africa (stats sa, 2023). against the backdrop of zimbabwe’s economic crisis, remittances from south africa have become essential for households, enabling access to basic needs, such as food, healthcare, education, housing, and clothing (tevera and maphosa, 2007; chikanda, 2009a; mukwedeya, 2011; mbiba and mupfumira, 2022). remittances improve well-being and livelihoods and act as a cushion for families facing severe financial poverty. while cash remittances have received considerable research and policy attention, food remittances have been relatively under-researched and neglected (crush and caesar, 2018, 2020). crush and caesar (2018, 2020) emphasize the pressing need to better understand food remittances in africa and examine them, focusing on the drivers, characteristics, and impacts. this article seeks to contribute to the debates on the sdgs, migrant remittances, and food by examining the impact of covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and the digitalization of food remittance transfers. it examines three key areas: the characteristics of food remittances during the pandemic, lessons learned from the pandemic and emerging transfer channels, and the implications of evolving digital technology on the predominantly informal food remittance market. the article concludes with a call for further research and policy focus on the synergies between migration, food remittances, and digital-mobile technologies. covid-19 lockdowns: policy responses by the south african and zimbabwean governments the covid-19 pandemic declaration in march 2020 was followed by a series of lockdowns, travel bans, mobility restrictions, and border closures imposed by south african and zimbabwean governments, which disrupted the movement of people and goods between the two countries (crush et al., 2021b; sithole et al., 2023; 2024a). the disruptions notably limited access to informal remittance channels, 39 prompting many migrants to up-take digital-mobile and formal channels to transmit remittances home. crush and si (2020) and paganini et al. (2020) argue that pandemic containment measures significantly affected national and transnational food supply chains and local and regional food systems in the global south, further straining informal food markets. the first confirmed covid-19 case in south africa was reported on 5 march 2020, when a south african returned from italy (rsa, 2020a). by 15 march, the case count had risen to 61, and with the cases predicted to rise, the president declared a national state of disaster under the disaster management act. in the same month, the national coronavirus command council was established to spearhead containment and mitigation measures, including travel bans, border and seaport closures, visa denials and cancellations, school/educational institutions shutdowns, and restrictions on large gatherings (rsa, 2020b). as cases continued to rise, reaching 402 by 23 march 2020, a 21-day nationwide lockdown was implemented from midnight on 26 march 2020, to limit the spread of the virus and mitigate its impact. the lockdown measures in south africa included strict prohibitions on inter-provincial travel, curfews, quarantines for travelers from high-risk countries, and suspension of international flights. entry restrictions were imposed on nonsouth africans from high-risk regions. additional restrictions included canceling mass celebrations and public events, limitations on alcohol sales, and the closure of non-essential businesses, shops, bars, restaurants, and recreational spaces. by 27 march 2020, covid-19 cases had reached 1,170, and the first virus-related death was reported (rsa, 2020c). only essential workers and services such as healthcare, emergency, security, municipal services, food production, supply, distribution, or allocation were allowed to continue operations (dirco, 2020). on 21 april 2020, the south african government announced a r500 billion social and economic relief package to support vulnerable communities during the lockdown. however, this aid primarily targeted south african citizens and permanent residents, leaving undocumented migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers without significant support (mukumbang et al., 2020; crush and sithole, 2024a; 2024b). from april 2020 to june 2022, south africa fluctuated between alert levels 1 and 5 to manage covid-19 risk, with level 1 indicating low virus spread and high health system readiness and level 2 indicating moderate spread with sustained health system readiness (rsa, 2020d). alert level 3 indicated a moderate covid-19 spread with moderate health system readiness. alert level 4 suggested a moderate to high spread and a low to moderate readiness of the health system, while alert level 5 represented a high covid-19 spread with low health system capacity. the south african government (rsa, 2020d) outlined the objectives of each alert level as follows: alert level 1 allowed most activities to resume, with safety measures in place, while health guidelines were to be adhered to at all times and prepared the public for potential escalation. alert level 2 focused on physical distancing and limited social and leisure activities to prevent case resurgence. alert sustainable development goals and food remittances 40 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 level 3 restricted various activities, such as in social and workplaces, to prevent high transmission risks. alert level 4 was intended to lessen community outbreaks through strict safety measures, permitting limited economic activities. the last category, alert level 5, enforced strict measures to save lives and control virus spread. as of 3 october 2023, south africa had recorded over 102,500 covid-19 deaths, more than 4 million confirmed cases, conducted over 21 million tests, and administered 38 million vaccine doses (johns hopkins university, 2023a), reflecting the impact and the extensive response to the pandemic. in zimbabwe, the first confirmed covid-19 case was reported on 20 march 2020, when a resident of victoria falls returned from the uk. the first covid-19related death was recorded soon after, involving a local journalist who had traveled from the united states and was the country’s second confirmed case. with a rise in cases, the government implemented the covid-19 prevention, containment, and treatment order and initiated a 21-day lockdown (30 march to 19 april 2020). the government also established a national covid-19 response taskforce to monitor pandemic developments, coordinate responses, and mobilize resources to mitigate the crisis’ impact (maulani et al., 2020). the lockdown-imposed restrictions on non-essential activities and gatherings, limited public movement (except for personnel providing essential services), school closures, and closed borders and airports mandated mask-wearing and the establishment of isolation centers (maulani et al., 2020). essential services, including emergency and hospital services, sanitation, state security, electricity and water services, food and retail outlets, agricultural suppliers, communication, money-transfer and exchange services and aid/humanitarian personnel, were exempted from lockdown restrictions (maulani et al., 2020; murendo et al., 2021). zimbabweans returning from abroad were allowed entry but required to undergo a 14-day quarantine upon arrival. as of 3 october 2023, zimbabwe had recorded over 5,600 deaths and more than 264,000 confirmed cases, with 12.6 million vaccine doses administered (johns hopkins university, 2023b), highlighting the efforts undertaken to manage the pandemic’s impact. digital-mobile technologies, food remittances, and sustainable development goals digital, mobile, and financial technologies have transformed financial transactions, changing user experiences and services. the covid-19 pandemic caused disruptions in established informal channels and hastened evolutions in financial technology (fintech) and the adoption of digital and mobile services. according to agur et al. (2020), digital financial services are comprised of financial tools such as remittances, payments, and credit, accessible through digital and mobile pathways. these services include traditional instruments like credit and debit cards (primarily offered through banks) and new innovations built on digital platforms, cloud computing, and distributed ledger technologies, such as mobile transactions, peer-to-peer (p2p) 41 applications, and crypto-assets. emara and zhang (2021) argue that fintech is a crucial driver of financial inclusion, with evolving technologies like mobile money (enabling transactions without a bank account) and mobile banking (facilitating swift digital transactions on mobile devices). advancements and expansions of digital-mobile payment systems, internet-based technologies and online moneytransfer services have significantly enhanced financial inclusion and access (abdul mannan and farhana, 2023). emara and zhang (2021) argue that advancements in a country’s digital ecosystem can facilitate remittances by providing a convenient digital pathway for people, businesses, and governments to process or receive funds. critical steps to strengthening the digital ecosystem include investing in human capital, expanding internet access in educational institutions, increasing investments in digital media, mobile data, and internet services and encouraging the use of electronic banking across consumers, businesses, and governments (emara and zhang, 2021). according to the world bank (2021), digital remittances are transmitted through self-assisted or online payment systems. they can be received in transaction accounts provided by banks or non-bank entities, such as mobile money and e-money accounts available at post offices. similarly, agur et al. (2020) describe digital remittances as cross-border transfers facilitated through the internet by migrants, providing a streamlined alternative to traditional channels. the rise of digital and mobile technologies has revolutionized how international migrants send cross-border remittances and how beneficiaries receive them. research highlights that digital and mobile remittances are user-friendly, fast, secure, convenient, and low-cost (merritt, 2011; siegel and fransen, 2013; ahmad, green and jiang, 2020). the world bank notes that digital remittance channels are generally more cost-effective than conventional bank transfers (ratha et al., 2021). remitscope (2022) notes that digital remittances, electronic transactions and mobile money are expanding in the global south, for example, across africa, enhancing financial access and digital inclusion for migrants and their families. governments in several african countries, including ghana, kenya, and liberia, have encouraged banks to reduce or waive transaction fees and increase daily transaction limits to support mobile money and digital financial services (machasio, 2020). a core objective of fintech is the financial inclusion of vulnerable communities. ardic et al. (2022) observe that digitalizing remittance services offers innovative ways to enhance financial inclusion, particularly for undocumented migrants and persons with limited digital literacy. the evolution of cell phone banking and digital-mobile technologies in remittance sending is transformational in the global south; it enhances financial and digital access and supports economic resilience in marginalized communities (such as unbanked communities and low-income populations). across regions, including africa, asia, the pacific, the middle east, latin america, and the caribbean, investments in digital ecosystems, electronic payments, and mobile sustainable development goals and food remittances 42 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 money have increased financial inclusion and made remittances faster, safer, and more convenient for both senders and recipients (emara and zhang, 2021; hahm et al., 2021; tembo and okoro, 2021). in africa, for instance, digital financial services have enabled previously excluded groups, such as those in the informal sector, lowincome earners, the unemployed, and youth, to access financial services, thereby boosting digital financial inclusion (mpofu and mhlanga, 2022). in africa, the growth of digital-mobile financial services has pioneered advanced pathways for remitting and is accessible to informal traders and undocumented migrants who are typically excluded (tembo and okoro, 2021). one prominent example of this shift is m-pesa, kenya’s mobile wallet system, which has set a high standard in africa and catalyzed the development of similar mobile money services across the continent (agur et al., 2020; emara and zhang, 2021). launched in 2007 by the safaricom-vodafone group, m-pesa, meaning “mobile cash” in swahili, has rapidly gained popularity, supporting both micro-financing and mobile-based money transfers (hughes and lonie, 2007; kingiri and fu, 2019). in southern africa, the world bank (2018) notes that undocumented migrants can access digital and mobile remittance services for low-value transactions without formal identification, such as south africa’s policy allowing transfers under a daily limit of r3,000 and a monthly limit of r10,000. in zimbabwe, mobile banking platforms such as ecocash, ecocash diaspora, and mukuru have provided rural and urban populations with affordable, reliable, and secure financial services (mutsonziwa and maposa, 2016; gukurume and mahiya, 2020; cirolia et al., 2022), making these services not just accessible but also affordable for individuals lacking access to conventional banking systems. this underscores the impact of digital financial solutions on financial inclusion in the region. groceries and food remittances are generally transferred through informal channels (non-market pathways). however, recent studies by sithole (2022, 2023) and sithole et al. (2022, 2023, 2024a) highlight the emerging flows of cross-border food remittances using mobile and digital technology channels, illustrating a noteworthy shift in the remittance services in sub-saharan africa. fintech companies such as mukuru groceries, malaicha, ahoyi africa, senditoo, tinokunda, and shumba africa now offer services that facilitate the transfer of food, groceries, and other goods through digital services. the services are accessible via smartphones and mobile devices. this digital approach is particularly beneficial for undocumented migrants and informal traders who may lack formal identification (such as id, passports, and visas) but still wish to engage in remittance transactions. new fintech entrants like mukuru and malaicha have increasingly focused on the south africa–zimbabwe remittance corridor, a vibrant and growing market. the name “malaicha” itself reflects the long-standing term “omalayishas” or “malayishas,” which is commonly used to describe informal couriers or transporters of cash, goods, and people, often using buses and vans, along the south africa–zimbabwe route. the sindebele term “malayitsha” translates to those who carry a heavy load 43 or who load and carry goods, underscoring the importance of these couriers within migrant communities (nyamunda, 2014; nzima, 2017). many zimbabwean migrants regularly rely on malayishas to send cash and goods back home to their families and relatives (nyoni, 2012; thebe, 2015). the malaicha company has further emphasized the value of digital platforms for sending food, groceries, and other essentials, highlighting these channels as more secure, reliable, and convenient alternatives for zimbabwean migrants supporting families back home: for zimbabweans who are far from home, ensuring that their family is fed and looked after is one of their most fundamental goals. this is often easier said than done when faced with costly solutions, the potential for damaged goods and uncertainty of whether groceries may even reach their destination. malaicha.com has revolutionized the way zim¬babweans based in south africa are able to send goods and groceries to their loved ones (santosdiaz, 2020). the digital transformation offers secure remittance alternatives and provides solutions that align with improving service efficiency and security. cross-border remittances and digital-mobile technology solutions have enormous potential to address several sdg targets. the sdgs focus on sustainability, economic development, social inclusion, environmental issues, and global partnership (de jong and vijge, 2021). rooted in the united nations’s 2030 agenda for sustainable development, the 17 sdgs encompass goals such as no poverty (sdg 1), zero hunger (sdg 2), good health and well-being (sdg 3), quality education (sdg 4), gender equality (sdg 5), clean water and sanitation (sdg 6), affordable and clean energy (sdg 7), decent work and economic growth (sdg 8) and industry, innovation and infrastructure (sdg 9). the sdgs are greatly aided by remittances, especially in developing nations. families directly benefit from remittances, which increase access to necessities like food, healthcare, and education, thereby reducing poverty. in general, remittances contribute to sdgs as follows: goal 1, no poverty; goal 2, zero hunger; goal 3, good health and well-being; goal 4, quality education; goal 5, gender equality; goal 6, clean water and sanitation; goal 7, affordable and clean energy; goal 8, decent work and economic growth; goal 12, responsible consumption and production; and goal 13, climate action. the importance of effective, reasonably priced channels for remittances cannot be overstated, as they are potent for promoting several sdgs and sustainable development when effective, reasonably priced channels are made available. figure 1 shows the contribution of remittances to 10 key sdgs. sustainable development goals and food remittances 44 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 figure 1: contribution of remittances to 10 key sdgs source: burger (2023: 2) from https://www.un.org/en/desa/sdg-blog in the global south, remittances often serve as a lifeline for vulnerable migrantsending households, particularly in countries facing economic challenges, including poverty, inequality, and food insecurity. the cash and food transfers are crucial for accessing essential needs such as food, healthcare, housing, education, and clothing. adopting and using digital-mobile technologies for food remittances ensure rapid, accessible, and reliable response to hunger, especially during pandemics such as covid-19, economic shocks, and emergencies (sithole et al., 2022, 2023). therefore, digital-mobile technology-based channels for food remittances, with their convenient and rapid response to hunger, food shortages, and food insecurity, can contribute to attaining zero hunger (sdg 2), eradicating poverty (sdg 1), improving health and well-being (sdg 3), reducing inequality (sdg 10) and other related sdgs. these technologies assist remittance senders and beneficiaries in shrinking inequalities, improving food and nutrition security and presenting sustainable strategies. methodology the research is based on data collected in 2020 in cape town, south africa. south african cities, such as cape town, are major destinations for international migrants because of economic and job opportunities. the research team undertook primary data collection in the southern and northern suburbs of cape town. these suburbs include bellville, claremont, kenilworth, rondebosch, and wynberg. the selected neighborhoods are strategic localities for international migrants because they have 45 facilities such as economic and employment prospects, as well as social, residential, educational, and entrepreneurial opportunities and services. to ensure diversity in the study, the participants were from diverse backgrounds: experience, education, occupation, age, gender, and location. the research is based on a mixed-methods approach. thus, the researchers conducted a questionnaire survey of 100 participants for the quantitative part and 10 in-depth interviews for the qualitative section. the research team adopted stata statistical software to analyze the quantitative data and used a thematic technique for qualitative data analysis. in the study, the researchers adhered to all ethical protocols, such as acquiring ethical clearance, being granted permission, informed consent, and ensuring anonymity and confidentiality. cross-border food remittances from south africa to zimbabwe during covid-19 pandemic background and demographic information of food-remitting migrants the demographic profile of the 100 food-remitting zimbabwean migrants who participated in this research is summarized in table 1. the profile of the participants demonstrated widespread diversity in terms of age (ranging from 23 to 60 years), gender, marital status, dependents (the majority had at least two), education (77% had university qualifications), and occupation (office workers, teachers, lecturers, health professionals, and blue-collar workers – including informal traders and domestic workers). table 1 shows that a majority of the participants (75%) were de facto household heads and primary earning members of their households. the in-depth interviews were based on accounts from 10 zimbabwean migrants (six males and four females), and their ages ranged between 27 and 59. the participants’ occupations included office workers, teachers, lecturers, postgraduate students, gardeners, waiters (servers), and bartenders. table 1: demographic profile of respondents key categories share (%) gender female 50 male 50 age 30 years and under 20 31–45 years 69 46 years and above 11 marital status married 45 single 42 divorced/widowed 13 sustainable development goals and food remittances 46 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 main household earning member self 75 husband 15 wife 10 dependents none 13 1–2 41 3–4 42 more than 4 4 educational background primary 6 secondary 17 university 77 occupation/profession office worker 18 student 22 waiter/server 16 bartender 12 domestic worker 8 health professional 6 teacher 6 informal trader 6 business owner/entrepreneur 4 lecturer 2 source: authors’ own compilation (2024) migration drivers and motivations to remit food the research conducted by sithole et al. (2022, 2023, 2024a), alongside the studies by crush and tawodzera (2017), sithole and dinbabo (2016), crush et al. (2015), and crush and tevera (2010), underscores the multifaceted nature of the drivers of mass emigration from zimbabwe over the past two decades. these investigations identify socio-economic and political factors as pivotal influences precipitating this phenomenon. the reasons are consistent with the findings in this study, where the deteriorating economic conditions, socio-economic crises and political instability were the drivers of the mass departure from zimbabwe (see figure 2). the majority (85%) of the participants left zimbabwe to search for employment in south africa. in contrast, several other participants (72%) emigrated to flee the economic and social predicament experienced by zimbabwe since the 1990s (hyperinflation rates, high food prices, currency instability, unemployment, and periodic droughts). two-thirds (64%) stated they emigrated because of the food challenges in zimbabwe, including prevalent circumstances of food insecurity and food shortages. 47 more than half of the survey participants indicated that they departed zimbabwe to seek economic and income-generating opportunities that would enable them to send back remittances (52%) and meet the food needs of the migrantsending families and households (56%). other migration drivers included school or educational reasons (47%) and evading political hostility (30%). figure 2 shows the reasons why migrants left zimbabwe. figure 2: reasons why migrants left zimbabwe source: authors’ own compilation (2024) survey participants were asked to indicate their primary determinants for transferring food to zimbabwe (see table 2). a significant proportion, comprising 43% of respondents, reported that their primary reason was to satisfy requests for food from households and family members residing in zimbabwe. additionally, one-third (33%) of the participants indicated that their motivations stemmed from the scarcity of essential commodities and the elevated prices of food items in local markets in zimbabwe. almost a quarter (24%) of participants sent food to alleviate the food insecurity of their families and households in zimbabwe. table 2: reasons for remitting food principal reason for remitting food frequency (%) requests from family or household members 43 food items are in short supply and expensive 33 household or family food insecurity 24 source: authors’ own compilation (2024) in the in-depth interviews, the participants emphasized the crucial motivations for food remitting. as one zimbabwean migrant explained, “i am influenced by 85% 72% 64% 56% 52% 47% 30% find employment in sa economic and social crisis in zim food shortages or food insecurity in zim to meet the food needs of the household or family members in zim to send remittances back to zim school or educational reasons political reasons figure 2: reasons why migrants left zimbabwe sustainable development goals and food remittances 48 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 the shortages [in zimbabwe], you know, they [relatives] communicate with me sometimes to say, ‘we have run out of basics’ … .” another zimbabwean migrant stated, “my reasons for sending back food are mainly based on the requests that my family makes.” from these accounts, it is apparent that the adverse economic situations in zimbabwe and personal obligations to family members and migrantsending households were the primary motivations for transferring food remittances. food items and frequency of remitting the prolonged economic challenges (including the food crisis) in zimbabwe are characterized by widespread food insecurity, food shortages, hyperinflation or skyrocketing food prices, non-compliance with price control measures, considerable and recurrent disruptions in regular food distribution and circulation processes and ravaged national and local food systems (ramachandran et al., 2022; moyo 2024). the covid-19 pandemic, lockdowns, travel bans, and prohibition of public gatherings in zimbabwe limited the regular operation of agricultural extension services, food supply (transportation of agricultural produce to markets) and disrupted agricultural and food markets (muvhuringi et al., 2021; mapfumo et al., 2022). the covid-19 pandemic and lockdown phases in zimbabwe were related to surges in food prices, disrupted diet and consumption patterns, and reduction in dietary diversity (matsungo and chopera, 2020; murendo et al., 2021). thus, cross-border food transfers provide an essential source of food and groceries to cushion households back in zimbabwe with limited access to food or during periods of economic shocks and food shortages. chikanda and tawodzera (2017) also show that for many cross-border traders and migrants, it is substantially cheaper to purchase goods and groceries in south africa and transport them to zimbabwe. this study illustrates that zimbabwean migrants transfer a wide range of food and grocery items, including staple foods in zimbabwe, grain-based foodstuffs, starchy foods, protein and fat-based foods, fruit and vegetables, dairy products, sugar-based products, beverages, and perishable and non-perishable foods (see table 3). table 3: remitted food items and frequency food type frequency (%) cooking oil 68 rice 62 sugar 57 mealie meal 50 beans 46 drinks or juice 45 peanut butter 45 meat 41 flour 40 49 salt 39 jam 38 milk 31 kapenta (dried small fish) 29 soups and spices 28 tinned tomatoes and onions 27 nuts 26 cereals 26 tinned fish 24 bread 22 honey 21 vegetables 20 tea 20 eggs 17 fruits 15 margarine 14 source: authors’ own compilation (2024) strikingly, the use of digital-mobile food transfer passages facilitated the transmission of perishable food commodities. the transfer of these food items is enabled by advanced digital-mobile services, which have amenities for beneficiaries of the transferred items to collect their food commodities in zimbabwe instantaneously when the transactions in cape town are completed. participants were asked about the frequency of food items being remitted to zimbabwe. considering the economic and covid-19 pandemic challenges, such as retrenchments, joblessness and job losses, and loss or absence of reliable income sources (tawodzera and crush, 2022), most zimbabwean migrants specified reduction in transfers and did not have predetermined periods to transfer food commodities to households in zimbabwe. thus, 59% remitted food whenever possible, 14% monthly, 14% once annually, 9% twice annually, and 4% were able to transfer food remittances to zimbabwe every three months (see figure 3). sustainable development goals and food remittances 50 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 figure 3: food-remitting frequency source: authors’ own compilation (2024) table 4 shows that the amount spent on food transfers correlated with the average monthly earnings of this study’s participants. participants with monthly incomes below r4,000 transmitted food items valued at r1,000 or below. a considerable majority of participants with earnings between r4,001 and r8,000 also transferred food valued less than r1,000. participants who transmitted food items valued more than r2,000 had higher earnings exceeding r8,000. almost half (47%) of the study’s participants spent an average amount of r1,000 or below, and another 20% spent between r1,000 and r2,000. participants with incomes around r4,000 spent a quarter of their monthly earnings to transfer food to zimbabwe. table 4: rand amount spent on food remitted monthly to zimbabwe monthly income average expenditure on food remittances to zimbabwe 1,000 or below 1,001– 2,000 2,001– 3,000 3,001– 4,000 4,001 + total 4,000 and below 10 0 0 0 0 10 4,001–8,000 29 3 1 0 0 33 8,001–15,000 8 9 5 1 0 23 15,001–20,000 0 6 3 3 2 14 20,001 and above 0 2 6 5 7 20 total 47 20 15 9 9 100 source: authors’ own compilation (2024) 59% 14% 14% 9% 4% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% whenever it is possible once every month once a year twice a year every 3 months 51 digital-mobile and informal channels the covid-19 pandemic resulted in an inevitable rise in the use of digital technologies because of nationwide lockdowns and social distancing protocols (agur et al., 2020; pandey and pal, 2020). along similar lines, machasio (2020) posits that government representatives and health practitioners also advocated for the use of contactless and cashless methods of payment to lessen the risk of transmitting the virus through the handling of cash and person-to-person contact. this current study shows that 48% of the participants primarily transfer food remittances from south africa to zimbabwe through recently introduced digital-mobile technology-based channels (see figure 4). figure 4: main food-remitting channels source: authors’ own compilation (2024) the regular informal methods of transferring remittances through the south africa–zimbabwe remittance corridor were disrupted in early 2020 due to the pandemic lockdowns, travel bans, strict mobility restrictions, and border closures that the governments imposed. during the early lockdowns, the general mobility of people outside their residences was restricted, except for essential activities such as purchasing food and medicines. sithole et al. (2022, 2023, 2024a) postulate that the lockdown restrictions disrupted the migrants’ ability to transfer food remittances via informal passages. thus, with pandemic disruptions that led to a notable shift from informal channels to digital and mobile-based passages, one zimbabwean migrant remarked: “i was using buses to send my family some groceries. but because the pandemic caused the border to close, i decided to use the malaicha and mukuru services on my 48% 33% 11% 8% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% mobile/digital channels transport carriers friends/relatives/associates personally sustainable development goals and food remittances 52 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 phone.” some participants in this study who used the new digital-mobile pathways expressed that they were accessible, rapid, secure, reasonably priced, and reliable. hello paisa launched the malaicha app that adds a convenient channel to send food groceries. a hello paisa representative stated, “we are constantly looking at ways to improve our customers’ lives, and malaicha.com is just another way of doing that. shopping in sa and getting your goods in zimbabwe the very same day is a game-changer for any zimbabwean” (mzekandaba, 2019). similarly, the new fintech businesses that provide cross-border grocery services emphasized the simplicity and convenience of remitting food during the pandemic through digital platforms. in an interview, a representative of one of the remittance service providers indicated the benefits of services offered by his company to zimbabwean migrants in south africa in the backdrop of the pandemic: taking recent events into account, with the nationwide lockdown resulting in borders being closed across multiple countries in africa, a large majority of zimbabweans found themselves in dire straits when they could not send necessities home to their loved ones in zimbabwe. not to mention reduced income, hyperinflated costs, scarcity of essential goods, and widespread food shortages meant that survival necessities were more inaccessible than ever before for many in zimbabwe. many zimbabweans based in south africa looked no further than malaicha.com for help, as it bridged the e-commerce gap between zimbabweans and the goods [that] they needed … (santosdiaz, 2020). other channels included transport carriers (malayishas, buses, and vans) (33%), friends, acquaintances or kin (11%), and personally (8%) (see figure 4). to address the pandemic disruptions in the transfer of remittances, the participants’ coping strategies included unusual pathways for transmitting cross-border food transfers. for instance, a zimbabwean migrant stated: the regular forms of transportation i used could not work because the borders were closed. because funeral companies were allowed to repatriate bodies across borders, i had to resort to using these companies to send food to zimbabwe. during the early stages of the pandemic, funeral firms that repatriate migrant corpses for burial in zimbabwe were considered essential services and exempted from the pandemic-related cross-border travel prohibitions enforced by the governments of south africa and zimbabwe. the use of funeral businesses to remit goods to zimbabwe was carried out clandestinely and informally to prevent detection by law enforcement officials. similar sentiments were shared in a study by moyo (2022), which demonstrates that during the early stages of the pandemic, any and all 53 accessible channels were used to transmit food, including via repatriation vans and smuggling through border sites outside formal border posts. notably, digital-mobile passages were primarily used by documented zimbabwean migrants such as health professionals, office workers, teachers, and students. documented migrants are generally not hesitant to use the formal remittance pathways, as they have access to the banking system, including credit cards and debit cards, which can be used for completing electronic transactions digitally. the south african government has significantly eased the requirements for transferring low-value remittances. digital and mobile technology-based services for sending food transfers mainly require identification documents for low-value transmissions. however, irregular/undocumented migrants are cautious about using formal pathways due to registration and transactional requirements such as identity documents (passport, id, and photographs) and phone numbers. undocumented migrants fear that law enforcement officials may use their personal information to track, harass, detain, or deport them. similarly, undertaking the transaction via the banking system requires other documents, such as proof of bank account, income source, immigration status, and proof of address. nevertheless, other ways are accessible for making low-value transactions, such as direct payment in participating retailers and supermarkets, which undocumented migrants can use. migrant networks, social media, and food remitting a recent study by sithole (2023) highlighted the significance of migrant networking on social media in cross-border food remitting. comparable perspectives emerge in this study. social media apps such as facebook, whatsapp, and x (formerly twitter) enabled the networking of zimbabwean migrants, which was also crucial for sharing valuable information associated with the transfer of food remittances to zimbabwe. nearly 70% of the participants in this research who actively used diverse social media platforms indicated that social media groups were crucial in assisting them in making informed decisions related to the transfer of food groceries. as one of the zimbabwean migrants stated: as those conversations go on, we talk about how we migrants in south africa can send things home, and we also get to ask how other people are also sending [food items] home. so, in all of those groups, i can’t think of any group where at some point, we have not had a discussion on sending things to zimbabwe and just sharing ideas and suggestions on which way is best to use. another zimbabwean migrant explained: “social media lets us share via whatsapp even, you know, engaging and making purchases. you can find links on social media to shops you might want to buy from. and also, you can share all of this information via whatsapp and social media.” for almost half of the participants (46%), it assisted them in selecting the ideal channels to use when transferring food sustainable development goals and food remittances 54 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 remittances to zimbabwe. it also assisted participants in making pivotal decisions associated with the types of food to transfer (38%) and the optimal periods to remit food (16%). social media interactions and content were also central in finding the cheapest channels (29%), accessible channels (27%), quickest channels (25%) and dependable channels (19%). almost three-quarters (74%) of the survey participants acknowledged that interactions via text and voice on whatsapp and other social media sites guided their decisions to use the food transfer channels primarily used by them. social media platforms became even more crucial for migrants in reaching such decisions during the first few months of the pandemic when informal transfer passages such as the malayishas were disrupted and challenging to access. one of the zimbabwean migrants expressed that he used the “zimbabweans in cape town” page (group on facebook) to discover how to continue to remit food to his family/household members back home: “when we were under level five lockdown, many people were asking on social media how people who have urgent requests from zimbabwe are sending through the things.” another zimbabwean migrant revealed: “somebody wrote that they were working with a funeral company that repatriates bodies of deceased zimbabweans. and that’s how they were getting their goods through.” these insights concur with unwin et al. (2022), who emphasize the value of digital technology in networking among zimbabwean migrants in south africa. similarly, past studies by crush et al. (2011), dekker and engbersen (2014), and borkert et al. (2018) show how social media reshapes migrant networks by facilitating information-sharing on migration, integration, and strengthening social bonds. social media, therefore, proved invaluable to migrants in accessing essential resources, adapting to restrictions, and maintaining support networks during the pandemic. food-remitting challenges the research findings revealed that the general challenges associated with transferring food remittances from south africa to zimbabwe included delivery delays (22%), broken/destroyed food items (11%), missing/stolen/lost items (11%), expensive transmission costs (21%), while 35% did not encounter any challenges. the particular shortcomings of the new digital-mobile technology-based channels for transferring food remittances include registration and documentation requirements, specifically when completing large transactions (there are some exemptions for lowvalue transfers). irregular and undocumented migrants operating in the informal economy may not possess the required documents (e.g., immigration papers, proof of residence, proof of income sources, and bank accounts). during the indepth interviews, zimbabwean migrants explained the drawbacks experienced in transferring food items through digital-mobile pathways. one of the zimbabwean migrants stated: “sometimes the online system is down, and as a result, transactions are often incomplete.” another zimbabwean migrant expressed another frustration: 55 “sometimes i buy groceries online, but when my family wants to collect the goods, they are told that those items are out of stock and that they have got a refund or have to wait until the goods are available.” another participant specified substitution and delivery delays as prevailing problems: “quite often the food doesn’t arrive on time; occasionally there are substitutes on the order list and one at times ends up getting inferior food items – in terms of brands and nutritional content.” the other challenges were high transaction charges, access-related obstacles such as power or internet connectivity, and limited access to mobile devices and smartphones. the use of informal passages to transmit food items from cape town to zimbabwe has several drawbacks. transferring goods (including groceries) from cape town to zimbabwe through informal pathways such as malayishas is relatively high-priced because of the long distances involved. the distance between cape town and beitbridge (zimbabwean border post) is around 2,000 km and roughly 2,600 km to harare, zimbabwe’s capital and largest city. a notable challenge in the study was the confiscation of goods by border officers for not complying with import protocols. thus, transferring food remittances by road can be risky because of the existing likelihood of such goods being impounded by the zimbabwe revenue authority (zimra) officers at the beitbridge border. this is notably the case when the quantities authorized for duty-free personal use are exceeded or a range of importation regulations are breached (tevera, 2020). transferring food remittances through cross-border transport carriers such as malaichas/malayishas or associates can be risky because it is centered on trust. in the instance of mishaps (e.g., theft or seizure of goods at the border by zimra officials), the sender is not compensated. a participant said, “… because there is no warranty on the food items, there are no refunds if the food is lost on the way.” the findings of this study concur with previous studies by tevera and chikanda (2009a, 2009b) and nzima (2017) that highlight how informal passages to transfer cash or goods to zimbabwe generally include hindrances such as delivery delays, undependability of transfer carriers, and thefts. these prevailing obstacles are why some zimbabwean migrants in cape town have opted to switch to digital and mobile food transmissions, regardless of the relatively pricey costs involved. the findings also corroborate recent studies by the united nations economic commission for africa (uneca, 2020) and chari et al. (2022) that demonstrate that the covid-19 pandemic, border disruptions and mobility restrictions caused delays in supply chains and blockages that could have negative effects on imports and the food security of impoverished households. however, despite these drawbacks, some migrants articulated that they use mainly informal transfer channels when transferring food to zimbabwe because of being undocumented and lacking access to the banking system. sustainable development goals and food remittances 56 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 key takeaways and reflection on policies in the past decade, crush and caesar (2016, 2018, 2020) have noted that remittance research has focused primarily on cash transfers, while in-kind remittances, such as food transfers, remain overlooked and understudied. additionally, the growing synergies between cross-border food remittances and digital-mobile technologies in southern africa have seen limited examination (sithole et al., 2022, 2023, 2024a). despite this gap, food remittances are vital to the food and nutrition security of households in the global south. this study highlights that cross-border food remittances are critical for migrant-sending households in economic crisis-ridden countries such as zimbabwe, where a protracted economic crisis has aggravated food and nutrition insecurity. in precarious contexts, food remittances are vital as a safety net, assisting households to survive episodes of economic shocks, limited food access, food shortages, hyperinflation, high prices, climate change-induced droughts, and reduced agricultural outputs. beyond supplementing cash remittances, food transfers provide essential nourishment for consumption and assist in lessening food insecurity among impoverished households. therefore, food remittances are crucial for enhancing the sdgs related to eradicating hunger, food insecurity, poverty, and inequalities and improving health and well-being. before the covid-19 pandemic, in-kind transfers, such as food remittances and groceries, were predominantly remitted through informal channels, including transport carriers such as vans, trucks, and buses. at the same time, some fintech companies had begun to develop services to facilitate the transfer of goods, including food, through these digital-mobile technology-based pathways. however, pandemic-related disruptions, such as travel bans, mobility restrictions, border closures, and restrictions in economic activities, accelerated the adoption of digital-mobile technology-based channels by migrants for crossborder remittances, marking a shift toward technologically advanced methods of transferring essential goods. contactless channels like digital and mobile platforms offered greater accessibility and convenience during the pandemic, as in-person transactions posed health risks and were deemed unsafe due to the potential for virus transmission. supporting these findings, agur et al. (2020) assert that digital and mobile transaction methods are essential for processing remittances during crises. additionally, social media emerged as a critical tool for communication and information-sharing and facilitating remittance transfers during the pandemic. sithole (2023) notes that platforms such as facebook, whatsapp, and x (formerly twitter) facilitate virtual communication, strategies and decision-making, enabling the transfer of food remittances even under lockdowns. social networking apps like whatsapp show how digital-mobile apps can be used directly to complete remittance transactions and offer affordable, accessible, and convenient services to maintain remittance flows. pandemic disruptions resulted in restrictions on transferring food remittances through informal remittance channels. however, migrants exhibited resilience by 57 using alternative informal pathways. for example, smuggling through border spots outside official posts and using transport operators and repatriation vehicles that were permitted to operate as essential services. in the post-covid-19 landscape, it is expected that many migrants will revert to these informal, cost-effective channels, although the use of digital-mobile platforms is anticipated to grow gradually. thus, a hybrid model incorporating informal and digital channels will likely emerge. digitalmobile technology-based remittance channels offer benefits such as services that are speedy, convenient, affordable, secure, and easy to use, but they also have limitations. related studies by sithole et al. (2022, 2023, 2024a) highlight bureaucratic regulations and processes, high transaction fees, electronic transaction errors, and connectivity issues as a result of power outages or limited internet access, lack of access to cell phones or smart devices to complete the transactions, poor infrastructure, and slow adoption of artificial intelligence (ai). other challenges include cyber security, data privacy issues, and misinformation, especially on social media. furthermore, there are accessibility disparities (digital divide) (rodima-taylor, 2021), including some communities or individuals experiencing impediments such as low digital literacy, limited education, income constraints, and gender-based restrictions on technology access. the above obstacles can hinder the agenda to promote accessibility and inclusiveness aspects of marginalized communities’ digital-mobile remittance service options. regarding policy reflections, fintech and digital-mobile technology-based remittance companies have significantly contributed to the financial inclusion of unbanked persons, undocumented migrants, informal traders, low-income persons, and rural communities in the global south, including southern africa. in south africa, policy settings around remittance transfers are relatively relaxed, but some restrictions continue to hinder progress in inclusivity, especially for irregular migrants. for example, undocumented migrants are allowed to remit only lowvalue transfers. to support inclusivity in financial and digital access (especially for marginalized groups such as impoverished persons and undocumented migrants), policymakers should consider revising the remittance policy framework to raise the maximum permissible transfer amount for irregular migrants, enabling them to remit adequate food and groceries to their families. also, infrastructure development is essential to maximize the potential of digital and mobile remittance channels and to support the adoption of ai solutions, such as automated, real-time customer support chatbots available 24/7 (sithole et al., 2024a, 2024b). advanced digital and mobile technology amenities have the vast potential to boost efficiency and enhance customer service and user experience, making digital-mobile remittance options more accessible and resourceful. the covid-19 lockdowns and pandemic-induced restrictions, such as mobility limitations, travel bans, curfews, visa suspensions, and border closures, disrupted remittance flows and generally disproportionately impacted foreign nationals (who lacked government support and struggled to take care of themselves sustainable development goals and food remittances 58 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 or to transfer remittances regularly). balancing public health policies, responses, and economic activities is crucial to mitigate such effects in future pandemics and crises. there is also a need to include foreign nationals and the undocumented in government support and ensure that public health measures do not overly hinder all economic activities, mobility, and remittance flows (including food transfers critical to food and nutrition security for migrant-sending households). although digital-mobile technology-based remittance services are generally reasonably priced, regulatory adjustments are needed to lower transaction fees further. reducing these costs would promote the adoption of digital-mobile remittance channels and make them more accessible to low-income migrants who regularly sacrifice their limited resources to support dependents and family members back home. sithole et al. (2024a) recommend promoting and expanding digital-mobile technology-based remittance services by highlighting the significance of supporting partnerships between digital-mobile technology-based remittance services and local retailers in zimbabwe to ensure the timely flow of food and groceries from senders to beneficiaries. therefore, expanding partnerships (including between remittance systems and local businesses) can enhance the reach of digital-mobile technologybased remittance systems and service delivery, particularly in remote and rural areas where access to digital-mobile devices or technologies and food markets may be limited. additionally, to reinforce food system resilience, governments must support digital-mobile technologies. this includes developing digital-mobile infrastructure, promoting digital innovations, incorporating food distribution and retailing, enhancing agricultural supply chains, and improving market access for small businesses, smallholder farmers, and consumers. there is a need for the integration of digital-mobile tools into comprehensive food security strategies and for government support of vulnerable populations to stay linked to crucial resources during future crises, pandemics, economic shocks, or climate-related disruptions (sithole et al., 2024a, 2024b). conclusion in sub-saharan africa, cross-border food remittances are critical to dietary diversity and food and nutrition security. however, they remain significantly under-researched compared to cash remittances in discussions on digital-mobile remittance transfers and broader remittance debates. this paper addresses this gap by examining the intersection of covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and the digitalization of cross-border food transfers in the south africa–zimbabwe remittance corridor. a striking result uncovers that cross-border food remittances are crucial for tackling food insecurity and hunger in zimbabwe, a country experiencing prolonged economic predicaments, including high unemployment, poverty, diminishing agricultural yields, inadequate access to food, high food prices, and food shortages. the digital-mobile technologybased channels and other channels to transfer cross-border remittance align with 59 the sdgs by contributing to regular food flows, food security, hunger eradication, reduced poverty and inequalities, and improved health and well-being. the pandemic and public health measures to mitigate and contain the spread of the coronavirus, including lockdowns, mobility restrictions, travel bans, and border closures, disrupted conventional informal remittance channels, inducing a notable shift toward digital and mobile technology-based strategies. digital-mobile technology-based channels were resourceful during the pandemic. they enabled virtual, contactless transactions via smartphones and mobile devices in cross-border food remitting, eliminating the need for physical (in-person) interaction. the benefits of digital-mobile technology for remittances are massive. they offer services and channels that enhance a convenient and regular flow of food remittances and are speedy, accessible, reliable, convenient, secure, and affordable. they promote financial inclusion for vulnerable groups, including undocumented migrants, the unbanked, informal traders, low-income earners, and residents of rural or remote areas. digital solutions are poised to grow and provide service alongside popular informal channels in the post-pandemic era. there is potential for these digital solutions to integrate into hybrid systems that combine conventional methods, such as transport carriers (malayishas), with digital-mobile pathways, creating a more robust and resilient remittance ecosystem. additionally, social media has played a crucial role in facilitating interactions and information exchange among migrants, their networks, transport carriers, and service providers for digital-mobile technology-based remittance services. this role of social media has not only aided access to suitable, reliable, and accessible food transfer pathways but also fostered a sense of connection among the stakeholders. policymakers are urged to explore options to increase maximum transfer limits (especially for undocumented migrants), reduce transaction costs, and balance public health issues with economic activities during pandemics and crises. in conclusion, there is a pressing need for increased policy and research focus on the nature, impact, and digital-mobile technology transformation of cross-border food remittances, particularly regarding their fusion with informal channels, migrants’ economic activities, emerging technologies, and ai to enhance resilient food systems and food and nutrition security. sustainable development goals and food remittances 60 ahmr african human mobility review volume 10 no 3, september-december 2024 references abdul mannan, k. and farhana, k.m. 2023. digital financial inclusion and remittances: 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